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Friday, September 18, 2009 9:04 PM CDT
Lessons from 1847 slave case apply today
By the JG/T-C Editorial Board
editorial@jg-tc.com
There were several heroes in the events that culminated in the Matson Slave Trial.
But Abraham Lincoln wasn’t one of them. or was he?
The efforts of a slave family to win their freedom led to a trial in 1847 in Coles County in which Lincoln defended the slave owner. The predicament of the slave family — Anthony and Jane Bryant and their children — is highlighted this weekend in Oakland.
“Trial & Tribulations: The Story of the 1847 Matson Slave Trial” is an opportunity to learn more about Lincoln, about slavery, about Coles County history and some of its inhabitants during the period that preceded the Civil War.
A Kentucky man named Robert Matson owned property near Oakland at that time. The Bryants were his “property” but Illinois was a free state. Because Anthony Bryant stayed at Matson’s Oakland farm year-round, he was a freeman. But Bryant’s wife and children were slaves on Matson’s Kentucky farm. They came north to work on the Oakland farm part of the year.
During one of those summer trips to Oakland, Matson’s housekeeper got into an argument with Mrs. Bryant and threatened to have Matson sell the wife and children and send them deeper into the South.
The Bryants sought help from some Oakland residents who stepped forward to help them win their freedom.
Oakland residents like Gideon Ashmore and Dr. Hiram Rutherford sheltered the Bryants and when Matson obtained a warrant for the Bryants’ arrest, Ashmore took them to the Coles County jail in Charleston for safekeeping.
Matson’s attorney, Usher Linder of Charleston, asked Lincoln to serve as his co-counsel, to which Lincoln agreed.
Rutherford, a friend of Lincoln and knowing Lincoln’s anti-slavery position, asked Lincoln to represent the Bryants. But Lincoln had already agreed to work for Matson and would not switch sides.
Orlando Ficklin and Charles Constable were the lawyers who represented the Bryants. Ficklin and Constable won the case.
One biographer said Lincoln’s heart wasn’t in his pro-slavery courthouse position. “His arguments in behalf of a cause his conscience detested were spiritless, half-hearted and devoid of his usual wit, logic and invective,” it was written.
We will never know for sure if Lincoln gave his all.
But we do know that Anthony Bryant was a hero in trying to keep his family together when threatened by the ugly reality that his wife and children could be sold, not knowing if he would ever see them again.
And we know that Gideon Ashmore and Dr. Rutherford were heroes. They took a position against slavery in an area that was divided over the issue and used their own money to help a Kentucky family with whom they probably had little contact.
“Trial & Tribulations: The Story of the 1847 Matson Slave Trial” is being presented as part of the observance of the 200th anniversary of Lincoln’s birth.
But this is a story about people in a small town doing what is right and taking action to back up their beliefs. The lesson is that each person is capable of standing up for what is right, that you don’t have to be president to be a hero.
That kind of message is worth hearing, no matter the year, no matter whose birthday is being observed.
Some tickets are still available for the “Trial & Tribulations: The Story of the 1847 Matson Slave Trial” program today in Oakland.
The program includes the “Three-Fifths of a Man” original drama, living history interpreters at the Rutherford House and Independence Pioneer Village, a “Lincoln & Slavery” presentation by Ron Keller from Lincoln College, an Oakland area history exhibit and more.
Sessions are 10:30 a.m.-3 p.m. and 4-8:30 p.m. today.
JG/T-C Editorial Board
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