KIDNAPPERS ABROAD!
ETERNAL VIGILANCE THE PRICE OF LIBERTY!
GREAT MEETING AT COLUMBUS!
COLUMBUS, Oct. 19th, 1853.
MR. EDITOR:-
Pursuant to public notice, a large and enthusiastic meeting of colored citizens of Columbus, convened at the First Anti-Slavery Baptist Church, to take into consideration and determine the best course to pursue in reference to the kidnapping of one Lewis, who was wickedly and clandestinely decoyed from our county on Saturday, the 15th instant, and dragged before a commissioner in Cincinnati, to be tried as a fugitive slave.
The meeting was organized by D. Jenkins being chosen President, and C. H. Langston appointed Secretary. The meeting was forcibly addressed by Messrs. Jenkins, Taylor, Booker, Furgerson, Langston and others, on the black, fiendish and damnable character of the act we had met to consider.
The following committees were then appointed: L. D. Taylor and J. Booker were appointed to confer with Messrs. Birney and Jolliffe touching evidence that could be furnished in this county to establish the freedom of the alleged fugitive. This conference was immediately carried on by telegraph, and by the advise of counsel, an effort is now being made to get a writ of habeas corpus, and have the man return here for trial.
A Committee consisting of C. H. Langston, J. H. Johnson, Wm. B. Furgerson, John Booker, L. D. Taylor were appointed to draft resolutions expressive of the sense of the community, touching the inhuman and outrageous conduct of the fiends “which” feloniously dragged from our midst “a man and brother,” without even the forms of law.
D. Jenkins, J. Jones and John Booker were also appointed a committee to employ council and have the kidnappers brought to justice if possible.
[We learn from Cincinnati that the man LEWIS has escaped. -ED.]
The meeting then appointed the following gentlemen to represent Franklin County in the Convention, to assemble at Dayton, the 26th inst.
J. T. Ward, L. D. Taylor, J. Booker, James Evans, C. H. Langston, E. Davis, J. H. Johnson, D. Sulavoo, Isaac Johnson, P. Letchford, D. Trent, H. Johnson, J. Caviter, G. Surbotts.
On motion the meeting adjourned to meet on Monday to hear the reports of the several committees.
D. JENKINS, Pres.
C. H. LANGSTON, Sec’y.