The Oberlin Rescue occurred in 1858, when twenty Oberlin citizens, black and white, protected a runaway slave named John Price. The Fugitive Slave Act, passed in 1850, required an escaped slave to be returned to the owner. These twenty Oberlin citizens went to jail for three months because they refused to do that. “The Rescuer,” was published every alternate Monday morning at the Cuyahoga County Jail by the political prisoners. Five thousand copies of the first edition were published and sold for 3 cents a copy. Here is an excerpt on Vol 1, transcribed as written.
“Why call your paper by such a name? We are asked. Because we rather like the idea it conveys. To be rescued is to be saved, often from serious evils, and even death. Many an innocent man would have gone into hopeless slavery, but for the timely and determined aid of some friendly “rescuer.” Indeed, there is much “rescuing” to be done, and we intend to spend our lives at the business.
Here lies Ohio, our own State, “fallen among thieves,” robbed of her sovereignty, and her good citizens despoiled of their liberty without cause, a majority of her own Supreme Court having “passed by on the other side.” Ohio must be rescued.
Our whole country too, is in great peril. An oligarchy of slave breeders, not more, it is true, than the voters of Ohio, but well organized, diligent and desperate, has got the control of government, and emboldened by their past success, have planned the overthrow of freedom.
By means of the public treasure they have corrupted the once real democratic party, so completely, that all who remain members of the organization are obliged to eat their own words, stifle their own convictions and go in for slavery.
This oligarchy has seated itself in the Presidential chair and controls the Senate. It has the command of the U.S. Supreme Court, by means of which it is seeking to pervert the Constitution and annul the Declaration of Independence.
The Constitution must be rescued from the robber hands of the friends of slavery. And be made to subserve the end for which it was designed, viz: to vitalize the Declaration of Independence.
The public treasure must be rescued from the thieves and speculators who now control it for the purpose of carrying elections, so that it may be used for the public good.
The whole power of government must be rescued from being used to extend the curse of human bondage.
The love of freedom, so dearly cherished by our fathers, is fast being crushed down by the ruling despotism of the hour, and must be rescued immediately, or it will die out, never to live again until anarchy and revolutions give it life.
“Otherwise good men need to be rescued from the disgrace of leaving children the inheritance of names dishonored by base submission or timed yielding to the debauching influence of slavery. But enough by the way of apology. Come to the rescue and join the rescuers.”
Editor’s note: President James Buchanan, a Democrat, served from March 4, 1857, to March 4, 1861, and was defeated by Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln won the 1860 presidential election without a single electoral vote and hardly any popular votes in the slave states. Southerners knew they had lost control of the government. The South understood that Lincoln’s election meant that a Northern anti-slavery party, the Republican Party, would dominate the nation’s future. The South seceded from the Union, and the American Civil War began on April 12, 1861.