The price of the rescue: Norris v. Newton, and Norris v. Crocker in the Supreme Court

ROW #649 · BRANCH ITEM 2 · AMOUNTS FROM THE RECORD

The rescue was not free, and the record prices it twice, in two different actions that are not merged here: First, the damages action. Norris sued for harboring and concealing the four — Lucy, Lewis, George and James — in the United States Circuit Court for the District of Indiana: Norris v. Newton et al., May Term 1850. The Tribune's later account names the nine men held to answer — Leander Newton, George Horton, Edwin Crocker, Solomon Palmer, David Jodon, William Wilmington, Lot Day, Amable LaPierre and Wright Modlin — and the verdict stands in the accounts at 2,500 dollars (the Boone County library's account: “an unprecedented $2,500,” the enslavers' argument prevailing in the circuit court) with the Tribune's summary carrying “nearly $3,000 in damages” once the course was complete. Both figures print, attributed, unmerged: 2,500 dollars is the award as the library and case accounts give it; “nearly 3,000” is the Tribune's rounded total. No defendant in the list is a Penn Township man in any source reached — the price, like the case, is the county ring's, not Penn's.

Second, the penalty action that reached the Supreme Court. Norris v. Crocker, 54 U.S. (13 How.) 429 (1851), was an action of debt against Edwin B. Crocker and Elisha Egbert to recover the 500-dollar penalty of the fourth section of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 — 500 dollars for obstructing, rescuing, or harboring, the claimant's separate right to damages expressly reserved beside it. The case came up on a certificate of division from the circuit court at Indianapolis (May 1851 term). The Supreme Court's holding turned on repeal: the Fugitive Slave Act of 18 September 1850 had displaced the 1793 penalty scheme, and where a penalty action under the 1793 act was still pending at the repeal, the repeal barred the action. So the two prices split exactly as the law split: the damages for the lost “services” were recovered in the circuit court; the statutory penalty was killed in the Supreme Court by the newer, harsher fugitive law itself. That is the supreme-court course the checklist asks for, printed from the reports. A Penn-priced suit — a penalty or damages action under a Penn or Osceola party name — was searched in the same reports and accounts and none was found: TESTED NEGATIVE for this ground.

Sources:

1. Norris v. Newton et al., 5 McLean 92 (1850) — declaration, the four named, the charge to the jury.
2. Norris v. Crocker, 54 U.S. 429 (1851) — the 500-dollar penalty, the certificate of division, and the repeal holding, from the opinion's own syllabus and text.
3. South Bend Tribune account of the case (2003), naming the nine defendants and the “nearly $3,000” total; Boone County Public Library account, carrying the $2,500 award.