After a protracted debate in both Houses,
and at the end of a struggle of five months, the bill was passed
and received the Executive approval; but the rejoicing of the slave-
holders and their allies was short-lived. The people of Kansas
were not in the market. They had suffered too much and too long
in the battle for freedom to make merchandise of their convictions
and sacrifice the future of a great commonwealth. They spurned
the bribe, and took the chances of triumph through an indefinitely
prolonged conflict, while recruits to the ranks of freedom were
naturally falling into line throughout the Northern States.

In December of this year I attended another fugitive slave case in
Indianapolis. The claimant was one Vallandingham, of Kentucky,
whose agent caught the alleged fugitive in Illinois, and was passing
through Indianapolis on his way home. The counsel for the negro,
Ellsworth, Coburn, Colley, and myself, brought the case before
Judge Wallace, on _habeas corpus_, and had him discharged. The
claimant immediately had him arrested and taken before Commissioner
Rea, for trial. We asked for the continuance of the case on the
affidavit of the negro that he was free, and could prove it if
allowed three weeks' time in which to procure his witnesses; but
the Commissioner ruled that the proceeding was a summary _ex-parte_
one, and that the defendant had no right to any testimony. Of
course we were forced into trial, and after allowing secondary
proof where the highest was attainable, and permitting hearsay
evidence and mere rumor, the Commissioner granted his certificate
for the removal of the adjudged fugitive. We again brought the
case before Judge Wallace, on _habeas corpus_, when the negro denied
all the material facts of the marshal's return, under oath, and
asked to be allowed to prove his denial; but the Judge refused
this, and he was handed over to the marshal for transportation
South. On the trial he was shown to have been free by the act of
his master in sending him into a free State; but under cover of an
infamous law, and by the help of truculent officials, he was remanded
into slavery. The counsel for the negro, with a dozen or more who
joined them, resolved upon one further effort to save him. The
project was that two or three men selected for the purpose were to
ask of the jailer the privilege of seeing him the next morning and
giving him good-bye; and while one of the party engaged the jaile