{"id":815,"date":"2019-10-16T12:38:54","date_gmt":"2019-10-16T12:38:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-wingert\/?page_id=815"},"modified":"2020-01-19T19:06:12","modified_gmt":"2020-01-19T19:06:12","slug":"george-w-morton","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-wingert\/uscommissioners\/george-w-morton\/","title":{"rendered":"George W. Morton"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>George W. Morton<\/p>\n<p><strong>OFFICE LOCATION: <\/strong>New York, NY<\/p>\n<p><strong>TENURE:\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0&#8211;<\/p>\n<p><strong>HEARINGS:<\/strong>\u00a05<\/p>\n<p><strong>RENDITIONS: <\/strong>5<\/p>\n<p><strong>CASES:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>James Tasker Case (1852) &#8211; 1 returned<\/p>\n<p>Horace Preston Case (1852) &#8211; 1 returned<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A New York City police officer, James Martin, seized Horace Preston on false charges before bringing him before U.S. Commissioner George W. Morton, and then informed Baltimore slaveholder William Reese of the arrest. Afterwards, attorney Richard Busteed made out an affidavit on behalf of his friend, claimant William Reese, attesting that Horace Preston was a fugitive from labor, and accordingly Commissioner George W. Morton issued a warrant of arrest. Anti-slavery attorneys E.D. Culver and John Jay II attempted to dismiss the proceedings, insisting that Busteed&#8217;s affidavit (on which the hearing had been instigated) was &#8220;defective,&#8221; as it was &#8220;made, as appeared from the testimony of Mr. Busteed, without any personal knowledge of the facts sworn to.&#8221; Moreover, they asserted, the affidavit did not prove &#8220;that Horace was held to bondage by virtue of the laws of the State of Maryland.&#8221; The questionable affidavit also rendered the warrant of arrest &#8220;defective,&#8221; argued Culver, who warned that he &#8220;would hold responsible all that were engaged in it.&#8221; [<a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-wingert\/files\/2019\/10\/1852-04-02-NY-Tribune-Preston-Case-p8-GB.pdf\">1852-04-02<\/a>\u00a0New York <em>Tribune<\/em>; <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-wingert\/files\/2019\/10\/1852-04-05-NY-Tribune-Preston-Case-p5-GB.pdf\">1852-04-05<\/a>\u00a0New York\u00a0<em>Tribune<\/em>]<\/li>\n<li>Commissioner Morton did not allow testimony from the accused, but did admit a statement (over the objection of anti-slavery attorney E.D. Culver) that Preston reportedly made at the Second Ward police station, in which he recognized Reese&#8217;s son, William D. Reese, and admitted to having escaped from Maryland. \u00a0[<a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-wingert\/files\/2019\/10\/1852-04-02-NY-Tribune-Preston-Case-p8-GB.pdf\">1852-04-02<\/a>\u00a0New York\u00a0<em>Tribune<\/em>]<\/li>\n<li>Morton remanded Preston to slavery on Saturday, April 3, 1852. Culver and Jay immediately authored a fiery letter published in the New York\u00a0<em>Evening\u00a0Post<\/em>, condemning &#8220;the conduct of the Commissioner&#8221; for &#8220;admitting all evidence offered of the claimant, of whatever character, including an affidavit made without knowledge, and confessions of the defendant while in duress.&#8221; [<a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-wingert\/files\/2019\/10\/1852-04-05-NY-Tribune-Preston-Case-p5-GB.pdf\">1852-04-05<\/a>\u00a0New York <em>Tribune<\/em>]<\/li>\n<li>Later, Morton responded in the New York\u00a0<em>Herald<\/em>, alleging that his decision &#8220;was based solely on the testimony of Wm. D. Reese,&#8221; the claimant&#8217;s son, and &#8220;the affidavits of the attorney and all confessions of the fugitive were wholly excluded and disregarded.&#8221; Inciting considerable controversy, Morton went on to explain that he hastened the case to a conclusion on April 3, because he was able to &#8220;infer&#8221; from Culver and Jay&#8217;s actions that their objections were &#8220;a mere pretext for vexatious delay.&#8221; The\u00a0<em>Tribune\u00a0<\/em>thundered a reply, demanding &#8220;what right had he to decide upon such an inference, without assessing if they might not have some testimony&#8221; that could prove Preston&#8217;s freedom. [<a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-wingert\/files\/2019\/10\/1852-04-06-NY-Tribune-Preston-Case-p5-GB.pdf\">1852-04-06<\/a> New York<em> Tribune<\/em>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Pembroke Case (1854) &#8211; 3 returned<\/p>\n<p><strong>NOTES:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>George W. Morton OFFICE LOCATION: New York, NY TENURE:\u00a0\u00a0&#8211; HEARINGS:\u00a05 RENDITIONS: 5 CASES:\u00a0 James Tasker Case (1852) &#8211; 1 returned Horace Preston Case (1852) &#8211; 1 returned A New York City police officer, James Martin, seized Horace Preston on false charges before bringing him before U.S. Commissioner George W. Morton, and then informed Baltimore slaveholder [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3689,"featured_media":0,"parent":17,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-815","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-wingert\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-wingert\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-wingert\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-wingert\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3689"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-wingert\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-wingert\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/815\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-wingert\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/17"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-wingert\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}