Source: Harry V. Jaffa, New Birth of Freedom, pp. 219-21
One piece of evidence Lincoln did not use in his refutation of Taney's claim that opinion in 1857 was more favorable toward the humanity of Negroes than opinion at the Founding relates to a Maryland trial in 1818 of a Methodist minister named Jacob Gruber. Gruber had spoken at a camp meeting at Hagerstown on "the national sin."
About twenty-six hundred white people were in the audience and over four hundred negroes were on the outskirts of the crowd. The bold evangelist attacked slavery as being inconsistent with the Declaration of Independence and criticized the slave trade as inhuman and cruel. Consequently, he was indicted by the grand jury for attempting to incite slaves to rebellion. So incensed were the people of Hagerstown that the counsel for the defense... secured the removal of the case to Frederick.
The Reverend Mr. Gruber's sermon was precisely the kind of inflammatory speech that President Buchanan (and Jefferson Davis) had denounced as responsible for the sectional crisis. It was the kind of speech that the proslavery South denounced as a betrayal of the constitutional compact and used to justify secession. Here is the successful speech to the jury by Gruber's counsel, calling for his acquittal:
Any man has a right to publish his opinions on that subject [slavery] whenever he pleases. It is a subject of national concern, and may at all times be freely discussed. Mr. Gruber did quote the language of our great act of national independence, and insisted on the principles contained in that venerated instrument. He did rebuke those masters, who, in the exercise of power, are deaf to the calls of humanity; and he warned them of the evils they might bring upon themselves. He did speak with abhorrence of those reptiles, who live by trading in human flesh, and enrich themselves by tearing the husband from the wife -- the infant from the bosom of the mother: and this I am instructed was the head and front of his offending. Shall I content myself with saying he had a right to say this? That there is no law to punish him? So far is he from being the object of punishment in any form of proceeding, that we are prepared to maintain the same principles, and to use, if necessary, the same language here in the temple of justice, and in the presence of those who are the ministers of the law. A hard necessity, indeed, compels us to endure the evil of slavery for a time. It was imposed upon us by another nation, while we were yet in a state of colonial vassalage. It cannot be easily or suddenly removed. Yet while it continues it is a blot on our national character, and every real lover of freedom confidently hopes that it will be effectually, though it must be gradually, wiped away; and earnestly looks for the means, by which this necessary object may best be attained. And until it shall be accomplished: until the time shall come when we can point without a blush, to the language of the Declaration of Independence, every friend of humanity will seek to lighten the galling chain of slavery, and better, to the utmost of his power, the wretched condition of the slave.
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Now the reader will be interested to learn the identity of Gruber's attorney, the author of these noble and just sentiments, these Jeffersonian and Lincolnian sentiments, so eloquently and even beautifully expressed. His name was Roger Taney.
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GMTA!