The Human Sacrifice: The Trial of Lucy Bagby and the Secession Crisis

The Human SacrificeThe Trial of Lucy Bagby and the Secession Crisis Daniel W. Sunshine (bio) One autumn night, just before the 1860 presidential election, a young enslaved woman named Lucy Bagby slipped out of Wheeling, Virginia, and into freedom. So began the tragic and triumphant saga of one of antebellum America's last "celebrity" fugitive slaves. She would eventually claim lasting freedom, but not before suffering recapture by federal authorities in Cleveland. She was prosecuted under the Fugitive Slave Act and returned to slavery in late January 1861. Bagby's story enriches our understanding of the past in several ways. Most basically, her quest for freedom is a compelling human drama that sheds light on enslavement at the individual level. At the societal level, politicians played a complex game to define slavery's place in American life. Often, this game buffeted enslaved people, who struggled to maintain what little control over their lives they possessed. And yet, the inverse was true as well: enslaved individuals could take action that sent shockwaves through the political system. Bagby made a bold choice in seeking freedom, but she could not anticipate becoming a flashpoint in Ohio politics as this pivotal state braced for an impending civil war. Her trial presents a unique opportunity for historical study, a newsworthy fugitive case set against the backdrop of the secession crisis. As a massive slaveholder's revolt coalesced, members of Cleveland's political class debated whether they should resist a loathsome law that only existed to placate the slave South. Or, as others argued, should they make a show of adhering to the old constitutional order, even as the Confederacy emerged?1 End Page 46 Bagby's trial received national newspaper coverage, but the primary reporting came from the regional press, with some supplementary commentary by abolitionist papers further afield, notably the Liberator. This regional and unionist reporting was circulated in Southern papers, but very few devoted any original thought to the subject.2 This was by and large a public conversation among unionists about secession, slavery, and the Union wrapped up in the person of Lucy Bagby. In all the ink spilled, one theme was repeated more than any other: sacrifice. These commentators split sharply on whether sacrificing Bagby to the slave South was justified. The prevailing opinion in Cleveland, even among many otherwise staunch opponents of slavery, was an apologetic determination to uphold the law, even if they claimed it was an immoral piece of legislation. Many of those unionists calling for her return to enslavement cared little about Bagby's quest for freedom and dignity. She was not making a sacrifice; she was being sacrificed. This article examines how self-professed antislavery Clevelanders positioned Bagby's reenslavement as claiming the moral high ground during the secession crisis. Unraveling their paradoxical stance provides an example of how antislavery forces cautiously navigated this period of uncertainty, a calculated decision as they transitioned from peacetime to wartime politics. Although theirs was the prevailing view, it was not unchallenged. Even Bagby's defenders tended to admit that she was in violation of the Fugitive Slave Act, though some called for her rescue or advocated civil disobedience to the law. Moreover, some of those who publicly advocated for obedience to the law did so for political reasons but probably quietly supported several of the attempted rescues of Bagby. The presiding authorities, Daniel R. Tilden, Cuyahoga County judge, and Bushnell White, federal commissioner, agreed that the law was clear, and she was reenslaved in late January 1861.3 End Page 47 Lucy Bagby was born in 1837 or 1838, likely in central Virginia.4 Her first known appearance in the historical record came on January 16, 1852, when a Richmond slave trader named Robert Alvis sold the fifteen-year-old girl to John Goshorn.5 Alvis later operated a slave auction business on Eighteenth Street, near its intersection with Broad Street in Richmond, but in the early 1850s, he appears to have been an independent, part-time dealer in enslaved people.6 In 1854, two years after he sold Lucy Bagby, an agent working for Robert Alvis advertised in the Richmond Whig that Alvis would be selling seven...