The Slave Trader Abraham Lincoln Refused to Pardon

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Find a shoe for every you from brands you love at brag-worthy prices at your DSW store or dsw.com. And we return to Our American Stories. A while back on this show, we did the story of the sleeping sentinel, a man who fell asleep at his post during the Civil War and was sentenced to be executed before Abraham Lincoln stepped in and pardoned him. Lincoln was known for his pardons during the Civil War, getting men off the hook for going AWOL, being underage, jumping bounty. The president was empathetic despite the circumstances but there was one man Lincoln refused to pardon. Here to tell the story is Jonathan W. White and we'd like to thank the US National Archives for allowing us to use this audio.

Let's get into the story. To tell the story we actually have to go way back to 1787. The constitution declared that the slave trade could continue for 20 years and so after a 20 year period Congress abolished the transatlantic slave trade. But unfortunately the slave trade continued and Africans were kidnapped on the west coast of Africa and transported to the new world for years and years and years after the slave trade was made illegal. And in August of 1860 Nathaniel Gordon went to the west coast of Africa on a ship called the Erie, kidnapped 897 Africans going for the most vulnerable that he could seize. Most of these people were women and children and as he put them onto his ship he used a knife and he cut off all the clothing off of the adult men and women. They were completely naked and he separated the men and women into different parts of the ship.

It took him 45 minutes to do that. He was clearly an expert at the trade. This was probably at least his fourth voyage. This voyage though he was caught by a US ship sent to New York City, put into prison, and he awaited trial.

He knew there was nothing to fear. Up until this point for the previous 40 years since 1820 to 1860 no one had ever really been punished for slave trading. They knew it was piracy, they knew they could be executed, but federal administrations decided that they just wouldn't prosecute these cases very strongly. And the thing about New York City in the 1850s and 1860s was New York had become the financial hub of the transatlantic slave trade and so Gordon went to jail in New York City but was put in what we would today consider a minimum security prison and he was allowed to go out of the prison and walk around New York City and have fancy dinners and he acted like a gentleman and was not convicted. He had a hung jury and it's probably because members of the jury were bribed.

But then Abraham Lincoln was elected and he put into place a new prosecutor in New York City, a new US marshal. They moved Nathaniel Gordon to what we would today consider a maximum security prison called the tombs or the halls of justice in midtown Manhattan and they decided that they would prosecute him a second time. Then this time Nathaniel Gordon was sentenced to be executed. Now you might think that this is a great moment in the history of morality in this country that a man who has been involved in the slave trade is finally going to get the punishment that he and so many others deserved but believe it or not thousands of northerners wrote to Abraham Lincoln and asked him to pardon Gordon or at least to commute the sentence so that he wouldn't be executed.

You shouldn't execute a guy like this. Gordon was the husband of a young wife. She was devoted to him. She had a young son with him. He had a nice mother. He had some good sisters.

He had a lot of friends. Other people wrote to Lincoln and said you know Nathaniel Gordon never expected to be punished for this crime because no one else has been punished for it before and it wouldn't be right to punish him. In February of 1862 Gordon's wife and mother came to the White House to try to meet with Lincoln and try to persuade him you've gotta please pardon Nathaniel and Lincoln has to decide what to do.

Lincoln refused to meet with them. The truth is in February of 1862 at the time that Gordon's wife and mother came to the White House Lincoln was suffering very badly. His two younger sons Willie and Tad were both very ill. Willie mortally so he would die before the end of the month and so Lincoln just couldn't deal with the thought of meeting with these women and talking to them about pardoning Gordon. Lincoln was dead set on enforcing the law but Lincoln did make a decision that had an impact.

He issued a two-week stay of execution two weeks to prepare for what's coming. Whereas it appears that at a term of the circuit court of the United States of America for the District Court of New York held in the month of November AD 1861 Nathaniel Gordon was indicted and convicted for being engaged in the slave trade and whereas a large number of respectable citizens have earnestly besought me to commute the said sentence of the said Nathaniel Gordon to a term of imprisonment for life which application I have felt it my duty to refuse and whereas it has seemed to me probable that the unsuccessful application made to commute his sentence may have prevented the said Nathaniel Gordon from making the necessary preparation for the awful change which awaits him. Now therefore be it known that I Abraham Lincoln have granted and do hereby grant unto him a respite of the above recited sentence until Friday the 21st day of February AD 1862.

In granting this respite it becomes my painful duty to admonish the prisoner that relinquishing all expectation of pardon by human authority he refer himself alone to the mercy of the common God and father of all men. In testimony whereof I have hitherto signed my name and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed done in the city of Washington this fourth day of February AD 1862 and of the independence of the United States the 86 signed Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln said that Gordon needed to prepare for the awful change which awaits him. This is a pretty incredible statement for Lincoln to say. People like Nathaniel Gordon saw Africans and African Americans as subhuman they were only merchandise to be traded there was no value in them as far as Gordon was concerned as people only as labor and Lincoln in granting this respite this two-week period was saying they are human beings who are part of humanity that have a common God and father and they deserve the dignity and respect that all people deserve. Nathaniel Gordon tried to commit suicide the night before the execution someone snuck some poison into the tombs and he took it and the guards heard him retching and they rushed in and they saw what had happened but they would not allow him to cheat the gallows they got a doctor who pumped his stomach he vomited out the poison and then they walked him to the gallows the next day and made sure that justice was done. And a terrific job on the production editing and storytelling by our own Monty Montgomery and a special thanks to Jonathan W. White author of Shipwrecked a true civil war story of mutinies jail breaks blockade running and the slave trade and what a story we heard this Nathaniel Gordon well he was about to be prosecuted and for a second time and this time was sentenced to execution this was at a time when people simply weren't punished for the crime of breaking the laws regarding slave trade even northerners sympathized and rallied around Nathaniel Gordon and then came that fateful moment where the families tried to meet Lincoln and Lincoln denied them he didn't have it in him he was already dealing with his own grief and I think he knew what the answer was he knew what it was like to lose someone he would soon lose his own son Willie what he wrote that letter he wrote that Gordon needed to prepare for the awful change that awaited him what words to receive from the president not to pardon but quite the opposite a death sentence and a preparation to get himself set with the Lord he tried to cheat his hanging but that did not prevail the story of Nathaniel Gordon here on Our American Stories. 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