Project Scroll Research Note 2026-36: Cass County and Congress, 1850: the citizens' petition for jury trial of fugitives, and Henry Clay's speech that was not made
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Howard S. Rogers's county history of 1875 says that the Kentucky raid of 1847 into Cass County, Michigan, was "cited by him"—Henry Clay—"in detail in Congress, and proved of great service in securing the passage of the bill" of 1850; Wikipedia and local accounts repeat it. The Congressional Globe of 1848 to 1851 records no such speech by Clay; the Michigan cases told in the Senate in 1850 were the Marshall case (William L. Dayton, 22 March) and a Missouri owner's case (Joseph R. Underwood, 3 April). The Globe does record Cass County speaking from the other side. In the House on Thursday, 18 April 1850, the petition of "N. B. Blackman, D. H. Ringer, Luther Humphrey, and 40 other citizens of Cass county, Michigan," was presented, "praying that persons arrested as fugitive slaves may be entitled to trial by jury, before delivered up to the claimant." The law passed that September gave no such trial. Project Scroll Research Note 2026-36, version 1. The note sets out the record quoted, where it is held, what it changes, its limits, and what was searched before calling it new. Web version: projectscroll.com/discoveries/notes/2026-36/.
Author: Urbanski, Michael
Language: English
Subfield: History
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7225311478