Judge Tawney and Rev. Jacob Gruber

The Hon. Roger B. Tawney, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, has, in this year of grace 1857, delivered a judicial decision affirming divers things—and, among them, that slaves are property according to the Constitution of the United States; that the language of the Declaration of Independence, about all men being created free and equal, was not meant to apply to colored people; and that in old times everybody believed these doctrines.

In the year 1819, the Rev. Jacob Gruber, a minister of the Baltimore Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, was tried in the Frederick County Court, Maryland, for “attempting to excite insubordination and insurrection among slaves” by preaching a sermon in which he set forth the evils of slavery and the duties of the musters. Mr. Roger B. Tawney was one of the counsel for the defense; and in a pamphlet account of the trial, published in 1819, at Frederickstown, Md., by David Martin, and now lying before us, we find Mr. Tawney’s views of slavery, of the rights of man, and of the Declaration of Independence, at that time. For the benefit of Mr. Tawney’s good name, and for the purpose of letting every one compare his former opinions with his recent decision we offer a few extracts from his opening speech for the defence.