Sherman Booth facts for kids
Sherman Miller Booth (born September 25, 1812 – died August 10, 1904) was an important leader who fought against slavery. He was also a newspaper editor and a politician in Wisconsin. He played a big role in starting political groups like the Liberty Party, the Free Soil Party, and the Republican Party. He became well-known across the country after he helped a person who had escaped slavery get free, even though it went against a law called the Fugitive Slave Act.
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Sherman Booth's Early Life and Learning
Sherman Booth was born in Davenport, New York. He grew up in a part of New York where many people were involved in religious and social changes. His father was against slavery. Sherman taught at Jefferson Academy for several years, sometimes teaching and sometimes farming.
By 1837, he was a speaker for the New York Temperance Society, which worked to reduce alcohol use. He was known for being a powerful speaker. In 1838, he started studying at Yale University and was a very good student. He chose to support himself by teaching instead of taking money for school.
In 1839, he and other Yale students were hired to teach English to a group of Africans. These people had taken control of a slave ship called the Amistad. Sherman continued to teach them even after they won their freedom in court. Being involved in this case made him join the larger movement to end slavery.
Starting Political Parties and Editing Newspapers
While still in college in 1840, Booth helped create the Liberty Party. This party was formed by people who wanted to end slavery. He wanted to take the fight against slavery from churches into government. He became the main organizer for the Liberty Party in Connecticut. After he graduated from Yale in 1841, he moved to Meriden, Connecticut. There, he became an editor for an anti-slavery newspaper called the Christian Freeman.
Just before Wisconsin became a state in 1848, Booth and another editor, Ichabod Codding, came to Wisconsin. They wanted to start another anti-slavery newspaper called the American Freeman. Booth soon became the only owner of the paper. He moved it from Waukesha to Milwaukee and changed its name to the Wisconsin Freeman.
In 1848, he helped shape the new Free Soil Party at their meeting in Buffalo, New York. This party wanted to stop slavery from spreading to new areas. Booth changed his newspaper's name again to the Wisconsin Free Democrat. In 1850, he spoke out against the Fugitive Slave Act. This law made it easier to capture and return runaway slaves. Booth and other Free Soilers in Wisconsin pushed their state government to protect accused runaway slaves with a jury trial.
In 1851, he convinced Leonard J. Farwell to run for governor. Farwell won, which stopped the Democratic Party from controlling the state for a while.
In 1854, a new law called the Kansas–Nebraska Act was discussed in Congress. This law would let people in new territories decide if they wanted slavery or not. Booth spoke out against this law. On January 30, he suggested a meeting in Madison to oppose the Kansas-Nebraska bill. At a meeting in Milwaukee on February 13, Booth led a group that created statements against the bill. These statements were used by many other groups across the state. One important meeting on March 20 in Ripon led to the start of the Republican Party.
Helping Joshua Glover Escape
On March 10, 1854, Joshua Glover, a man who had escaped slavery from Missouri, was captured in Racine, Wisconsin. Five men, including his former owner and a federal officer, took him to jail in Milwaukee. News of Glover's capture spread quickly. The next morning, Booth received a telegram about it.
Booth learned that a federal judge had issued the order for Glover's arrest. He went to the jail to understand the situation. Then, he rode his horse through the streets, calling for "all freemen who are opposed to being made slaves or slave catchers" to meet at the courthouse square. About 5,000 people gathered, some coming all the way from Racine.
Booth warned the crowd about breaking the law, but he still encouraged them to show their anger. The crowd gathered at the jail. Over a hundred men from Racine, along with their sheriff, tried to arrest the federal officer. The federal judge refused the crowd's demands. After repeated refusals, the crowd broke through the jail door. Glover safely escaped to Waukesha. Later, he traveled to Canada by crossing Lake Michigan. Booth himself did not take part in the rescue. Three days later, he wrote in his newspaper that the Fugitive Slave Law had been stopped in Wisconsin.
Legal Battles and Party Building
Two days after Glover's escape, Booth was arrested. He was accused of helping a runaway slave escape, which went against the Fugitive Slave Act. Instead of denying his role, Booth argued that the law itself was against the U.S. Constitution. He said he would rather see federal officers punished than see people lose their right to a jury trial. Because of his strong words, Booth's bail was set at $2,000. His supporters quickly paid it, allowing him to continue his fight against the slave law. He also wrote in his paper, calling for a statewide meeting against slavery.
Other newspapers in the state agreed. On June 9, Booth called for a large meeting on July 13 at the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison.
Booth then turned himself in to federal custody so his lawyer, Byron Paine, could ask the Wisconsin Supreme Court to release him. The court, led by Justice Abram D. Smith, freed Booth. They said that the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law was not only against the Constitution but also "a wicked and cruel enactment." Federal courts responded by calling a grand jury in Madison, which led to another order for Booth's arrest.
Despite the risk of arrest, Booth worked behind the scenes to organize the anti-slavery meeting. He helped choose leaders and decide the goals for what would become Wisconsin's Republican Party. He also gave several public speeches. The new party was very successful in elections that November. They won a seat in Congress and control of the state government. This led to the election of Charles Durkee, the country's first Republican senator.
On July 19, 1854, the state supreme court officially agreed with the decision to free Booth. However, two days later, federal officers arrested him again. Booth tried to appeal to the state court once more, but they refused the case because it was now in a U.S. district court. In January 1855, a jury found Booth guilty. They were told to ignore whether the Fugitive Slave Law was right or wrong. Booth was ordered to go back to prison.
However, he kept appealing to the Wisconsin Supreme Court. On February 3, 1855, the court again ruled that the Fugitive Slave Law was unconstitutional, and Booth was released again. Three months later, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the case. But the Wisconsin court refused to send its decision to Washington, which delayed the case for four years. In July 1855, Glover's former owner sued Booth in federal court for the loss of his slave. Booth was fined $1,000.
Ableman v. Booth and Imprisonment
One month before Booth's legal case, the U.S. Supreme Court decided in a case called Ableman v. Booth that Wisconsin could not overrule federal law. This meant Booth's release by the state court was overturned. Booth had to sell his newspaper, the Wisconsin Free Democrat, to pay his growing legal bills. He was arrested again on March 1, 1860. He was put in the federal custom house in Milwaukee, where state officials could not release him.
Even though he was in prison, Booth continued his fight against the slave act. He sent articles to his old newspaper. He still had many supporters. He planned to give a speech to them from his second-story cell window on July 4, 1860, but officials stopped him. People tried to free Booth from jail eight times. On the ninth try, on August 1, ten supporters successfully moved him to Waupun, Wisconsin. There, he was hidden by Hans Christian Heg, an abolitionist who later became a Civil War hero. Ironically, Heg was the warden of the state prison.
Booth did not hide for long. Three days later, he gave a public speech in Ripon, Wisconsin. A friendly crowd stopped a deputy marshal from arresting him again. Other attempts to jail him were stopped until his capture on October 8. He was brought back to prison, with cheering crowds watching. Booth was mainly jailed for not paying his fines from the earlier case. However, the extra security needed to prevent another escape was expensive. As one of his last actions as U.S. president, James Buchanan freed Booth. He did this not by pardoning him, but by canceling his fines, at the request of a federal judge.
During the Civil War, Booth started a newspaper that supported the Union called The Daily Life. He also gave speeches to support the war effort. In 1865, his paper joined with The Evening Wisconsin, where he worked as an editor until 1866. Two years later, he moved to Chicago to manage an office for a newspaper group.
Helping Black Men Vote in Wisconsin
In November 1865, Booth continued to support the rights of African Americans. He went with a freedman named Ezekiel Gillespie two times when Gillespie tried to register and vote. When Gillespie was refused, Booth and Gillespie's lawyer, Byron Paine, challenged the decision. They wanted to test a rule from 1849 that might allow non-white people to vote. Four months later, the state supreme court agreed with Gillespie. This decision gave black men in Wisconsin the right to vote.
Later Years
In 1867, Booth married for the third time to Augusta Smith. They moved to Chicago, where they raised five children. He worked for various newspapers there. In 1876, he moved his family to Philadelphia. There, he represented the Newspaper Union at a big event called the Centennial Exposition. In 1879, the family returned to Chicago. Booth continued his journalism, mostly writing for the Chicago Tribune. He passed away on August 10, 1904, and was buried at Forest Home Cemetery in Milwaukee.
