Dr. Richard Eells Goes to Court

The attempt
by Dr. Richard Eells to liberate a Missouri slave we know only as Charley is
one of the most dramatic and tragic stories in the history of Quincy and Adams
County, very well described by earlier writers in this series. The events on
that summer night in 1842 initiated a legal controversy lawyers, judges and
historians continue to study.

After Charley swam across the
Mississippi river, free Blacks in Quincy took him to Eells’s home at 415
Jersey. Eells, a conductor on the Underground Railroad, worked with Berryman
Barnett and other free Blacks in Quincy, whose expertise was essential to the
success of the Railroad’s Quincy branch. Later in darkness, Eells started to
transport Charley to a second “station” at Quincy’s Mission Institute. Men
searching for the runaway slave intercepted Eells’s wagon, captured Charley and
apparently returned him to Missouri.”

We do not know Charley’s fate. On request from Charley’s owner, Justice
of the Peace Henry Asbury issued a warrant charging Eells with violating
Illinois law by “harboring and secreting” a slave. Supreme Court Justice
Stephen A. Douglas, presiding in Adams County Circuit Court at Quincy, later
tried and convicted Eells, imposing a $400 fine.

These events might have been
forgotten, had Eells’s lawyers not appealed to the Illinois Supreme Court and,
after his death on a steamboat crossing the Ohio river at Cincinnati, to the
Supreme Court of the United States. The

Quincy Whig,

on January
10, 1853, recalling “Dr. Richard Eells, a highly respectable physician of this
city” and his trial court conviction, summarized the proceedings and issues
before the state and national tribunals.

The
Illinois Supreme Court affirmed Eells’s conviction by a divided vote. Writing the
majority opinion was Justice James Shields, a former Illinois state auditor,
who once challenged his fellow Springfield lawyer, Abraham Lincoln, to a duel.
Mary Todd and a friend had published anonymous satirical verses about Shields
and he demanded to know their identities. Lincoln, to protect the women,
claimed authorship, and Shields called for combat with broadswords. Intervention
by friends of both men prevented what might have been a disaster for American
history.

Opposing
Shields, the

Whig

noted, three jurists, including Chief Justice William
Wilson, joined a dissenting opinion by Justice Samuel Lockwood. A central issue
in the case was the constitutionality of the Illinois law under which Eells had
been charged. That statute mirrored the federal Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, which
authorized slave owners, or those working with them, to seize a runaway slave
and bring that person before a judge. Once presented with testimony that the
person seized was a runaway slave, the law required the judge to issue a
certificate permitting return of the person to the state or territory from
which he/she had fled.

Before the
Civil War, many states prohibited slaves—and often free Black witnesses—from
testifying in court, especially if the testimony would contradict that of a
white witness. Consequently, the person
seized and brought before a judge might not be allowed to prove that he/she was
not a runaway. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 ended this discrimination by
providing that Blacks could “give evidence” in court proceedings.

Eells’s
appellate lawyers argued that the Illinois law, under which the state
prosecuted him, was unconstitutional because the federal Fugitive Slave Act had
preempted the right of states to enact similar laws. Justice Shields rejected
that contention and held that the Illinois law was a permissible “police
regulation” which any state could impose. Justice Lockwood replied that earlier
U.S. Supreme Court precedent held that the 1793 law superseded and prohibited separate
state laws on fugitive slaves. He added that under the Illinois constitution of
1818: “… all men, whether black or white, are, in this state, presumed
to be free, and that every person who claims another to be his slave, under any
exception or limitation of the general rule, must clearly show that the person
so claimed comes within such exception.”

The further appeal to the Supreme Court
of the United States saw Ohio Senator Salmon P. Chase, prominent abolitionist
and future Chief Justice, appearing for Eells’s estate against former Justice
Shields (now a Senator from Illinois) arguing to uphold the judgment in which
he had written the majority opinion. Legal and congressional ethics in the
nineteenth century allowed Senators to engage in the outside practice of law
before federal jurists whose salaries and professional responsibilities were
set by those same legislators.

The

Whig

noted a paradox in Chase’s
legal argument to the Court: “It was a
singular feature in this case, that Mr. Chase was obliged to assume a position
antagonistic to his political views. He, and we believe most of the ‘Free
Democracy’ hold that the power to legislate on the subject of fugitives, from
service is not in Congress at all, but exclusively in the State Legislatures.
He alluded to this apparent inconsistency in his argument, but said
that he should claim as a lawyer” the benefit of litigation contrary to
his personal beliefs if it supported his client’s position.

Eight
justices voted to uphold the Illinois law as a permissible police regulation.
Only Justice John McClean, known to be anti-slavery, dissented, arguing that
earlier precedent and the risk that a defendant prosecuted under such state
laws might face duplicative federal prosecution, required invalidation of the
Illinois law.

Readers
today may ask (1) why did Eells’s death not automatically end (moot) the case and
(2) why did such a prominent figure as Chase enter a case he was likely to lose
at such a late stage? Perhaps both legal and political considerations provide
answers. First, despite Eells’s death, his estate technically remained liable
for the $400 fine Justice Douglas had imposed at the Quincy trial. Second,
Chase and the abolitionists may have seen political advantages in the public
outrage elicited by Eells’s case, even if success in court was uncertain. The
honor Quincy has accorded Eells’s modest home as a preserved historic site
suggests that they were right.

SOURCES

Avins, Alfred, “The
Right to Be a Witness and the Fourteenth Amendment”, Missouri Law Review, Fall, 1966, pp. 471-504.

Bangert, Heather, “Black Abolitionist Network Grew
with the City”,

Herald Whig

(Jan. 11, 2015).

Caselaw Access Project,

(last visited Nov. 1, 2020).

“Decision in Dr. Eell’s [

sic

] Case.”

The

Quincy Whig

, Jan. 10, 1853, p. 1

Donald, David, “The Folklore Lincoln,”

Journal of
the Illinois State Historical Society

, (Dec., 1947), pp.
377-396.

Eells v People of the State of Illinois

, 5 Ill. 497
(1843) (decision of Illinois Supreme Court).

Findlaw,

(last visited Nov. 1, 2020).

McGinley, Patrick, “Eells House Connects Town with
Underground Railroad”,

Herald Whig,

(September 11, 2011).

Moore v People of the State of Illinois

, 55 U.S. 13
(1852) (decision of U.S. Supreme Court).

Because of Dr. Eells death, the
case caption substitutes “Moore” as executor of the estate for “Eells”).