It is a matter of painful necessity to acknowledge that the proceedings
of all slave-tribunals justify the honest admission of Governor Adams of
South Carolina, in his legislative message of 1855:--"The administration
of our laws, in relation to our colored population, by our courts of
magistrates and freeholders, as these courts are at present constituted,
calls loudly for reform. Their decisions are rarely in conformity
with justice or humanity." This trial, as reported by the justices
themselves, seems to have been no worse than the average,--perhaps
better. In all, thirty-five were sentenced to death, thirty-four to
transportation, twenty-seven acquitted by the Court, and twenty-five
discharged without trial, by the Committee of Vigilance, making in all
one hundred and twenty-one.
The sentences pronounced by Judge Kennedy upon the leading rebels, while
paying a high tribute to their previous character, of course bring all
law and all Scripture to prove the magnitude of their crime. "It is a
melancholy fact," he says, "that those servants in whom we reposed the
most unlimited confidence have been the principal actors in this wicked
scheme.
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