Oberlin, Hotbed of Abolitionism: College, Community, and the Fight for Freedom and Equality in Antebellum America

NINE: This Drama of Genuine Manhood and Courage: Oberlin and the Fight for Freedom

212 c h a p t e r n i n e This Drama of Genuine Manhood and Courage Oberlin and the Fight for Freedom As the sun was setting over Oberlin on September 13, 1858, one of its most prominent residents was returning from a legal engagement in an adjoining county. To his surprise, John Mercer Langston found “neither life nor stir in or about the village.” The whole town seemed to have left en masse.1 He soon solicited a quick account of the events of that day from one of the few residents left in town and headed with all haste toward Wellington, hoping “that he might arrive in time to play some humble part in this drama of genuine manhood and courage.” Midway into his dash south, however, Langston was passed in the opposite direction by Simeon Bushnell’s buggy spiriting John Price back toward Oberlin. Soon he was also overtaken by a host of excited Oberlinites, led by his brother Charles and brother-in-law O. S. B. Wall, returning triumphantly to town. Even without knowing all the facts of the case, the young lawyer easily realized the gravity of the situation . Hundreds of his fellow townsmen had been involved in an open and successful defiance of federal authority and the Fugitive Slave Law. The triumphant reception of the Rescuers as they gathered again in Oberlin was greater than any celebration “as had ever assembled within the limits of that consecrated town,” yet Langston knew that the government’s response would be both forceful and swift in coming.2 oberlin and the fight for freedom 213 How the Oberlin community would handle the aftermath would have enormous consequences. Over the next few months, the town’s diverse and multiracial abolitionist band carefully manipulated the rescue episode into an extraordinary propaganda triumph. In Ohio and across the North, the flagging Republican Party embraced the Oberlin Rescuers, and in the process , the resulting injection of radicalism helped rescue the party from its drift toward conservatism and directed it down the path that would ultimately lead to a national policy of emancipation. ★ ★ ★ as soon as Sim Bushnell, Richard Winsor, and John Price were back in Oberlin, they sought out the few abolitionists who had not made the trip to Wellington. With Professor James Monroe and bookseller James Fitch, they hustled to the home of Professor James Fairchild. Fairchild did not personally know Price, but he already had one former slave living under his roof, and he agreed to hide John in his attic until arrangements could be made for him to leave Oberlin for Canada.3 As these plans were being made, more Rescuers were gathering on Tappan Square to tell those who had stayed behind about the incredible events of that afternoon. When night fell, an impromptu antislavery meeting convened where Rescuers delivered speeches that attacked the Fugitive Slave Law, slaveholders, and all who would offer them sympathy.4 Jacob Shipherd closed the festivities by calling for three groans for U.S. Marshal Dayton and three cheers for the rescue of John Price.5 As they had in the rescue itself, Oberlin’s African American residents figured heavily in the rally as well as in related activities that followed. Before the dust had settled, John and Charles Langston had joined with other black activists in issuing a call for a state convention of the “‘colored citizens’ of Ohio” to reassess their struggle. Noting that “two thirds of every Congress is taken up discussing the question, ‘What shall we do with the nigger,’” black leaders thought it only proper in the wake of the rescue to take their usually active role in debating “the questions in which they were so deeply interested.”6 When the convention met in November, Charles Langston, who had quickly become an abolitionist celebrity for his role in the rescue, was chosen as its president. His remarks were said to have been “very severe on the Democracy, and very gentle toward the Republicans,” as were those of his brother John.7 The Langstons, with Peter Clark, William Howard Day, and a huge crowd of white and black abolitionists in the afternoon session, 214 oberlin and the fight for freedom committed the convention to the formation of a new permanent statewide African American organization, and in doing so resurrected the old Ohio State Anti-Slavery Society. The new society pledged itself “to secure...