emancipated slave-mother, in the hour of jeopardy to her
newly-found freedom. Protected by the energy and skill of the
presiding Judge, William D. Kelley, and of the State officers,
her safe egress from the court-room was accomplished; and she was
soon placed beyond the reach of her pursuers.

In 1859 we reaped a rich harvest from long years of sowing, in
the result of the trial of the alleged fugitive slave, Daniel
Webster. This trial will never be forgotten by those of us who
witnessed it. The arrest was made in Harrisburg, in the month of
April, and the trial was in this city before United States
Commissioner John C. Longstreth. We do not, at this distance of
time, need the records of that year, to remind us that "it was
with heavy and hopeless hearts that the Abolitionists of this
city gathered around that innocent and outraged man, and attended
him through the solemn hours of his trial." The night which many
of the members of this Society passed in that court, keeping
vigils with the unhappy man whose fate hung tremulous on the
decision of the young commissioner, was dark with despair; and
the dawn of morning brought no hope to our souls. We confidently
expected to witness again, as we had often witnessed before, the
triumph of the kidnapper and his legal allies over law and
justice and human liberty. In the afternoon of that day we
re-assembled to hear the judicial decision which should consign
the wretched man to slavery, and add another page to the record
of Pennsylvania's disgrace. But a far different experience
awaited us. Commissioner Longstreth obeyed the moral sentiment
around him, and doubtless the voice of his conscience, and
pronounced the captive free. "The closing scenes of this trial;
the breathless silence with which the crowded assembly in the
court-room waited to hear the death-knell of the innocent
prisoner; the painfully sudden transition from despair to hope
and thence to certainty of joy; the burst of deep emotion; the
fervent thanksgiving, wherein was revealed that sense of the
brotherhood of man which God has made a part of every human soul;
the exultant shout which went up from the multitude who thronged
the streets waiting for the decision"; these no language can
portray, but they are life-long memories for t