Good morning, Whitewater
In Wisconsin history on this date, the Wisconsin Historical Society remembers the birthday of abolitionist Sherman Booth:
1812 – Abolitionist Sherman M. Booth Born
On this date abolitionist and editor of the Milwaukee Free Democrat, Sherman M. Booth, was born in New York. At the age of fifteen, he became a country school teacher and then a student at Yale. After representing the Liberty Party in Connecticut, he moved to Milwaukee in 1848.
When Joshua Glover, a captured fugitive slave, was to stand trial in March 1854, Booth successfully rallied hundreds of people to help Glover escape. There was a rush on the jail, Glover was paraded around town, and then disappeared into the Underground Railroad, with the help of Booth’s supporters.
Booth was arrested for aiding and abetting a fugitive, a crime under the Fugitive Slave Law passed in the Compromise of 1850. The Wisconsin Supreme Court released him, and Justice A.D. Smith declared the Fugitive Slave Law void. The U.S. Federal Courts caught up with Booth, however, and he was sentenced to serve one month in jail and pay a $1000 fine by Justice Roger Taney, the author of the Dred-Scott Decision.
Booth and his supporters refused to comply. Booth jumped bail and fled to Waupun. He was found and taken back to jail, only to be pardoned by President Buchanan two days before Abraham Lincoln’s inauguration. Booth was famous for his work with the Underground Railroad and his support of state’s rights over federal law.
When the Civil War broke out, he publically supported the Union, delivering over 1,000 speeches to secure enlistments to the Union Army. [Source: Badger Saints and Sinners by Fred L. Holmes, p.185-202]
Today is also the anniversary of President Eisenhower’s decision to send federal soldiers to Little Rock, Arkansas to enforce compliance with an earlier-issued cease and desist proclamation that had been disobeyed, in the much larger issue of the integration of Central High, in Little Rock, Arkansas.
Here’s today’s almanac:
| Friday, September 25, 2009 | Sunrise | Sunset |
|---|---|---|
| Official Time | 06:45 AM | 06:47 PM |
| Civil Twilight | 06:17 AM | 07:15 PM |
| Tomorrow | 06:46 AM | 06:45 PM |
| Tomorrow will be: | 3 minutes shorter | |
| Amount of sunlight: | 12h 2 m | |
| Amount of daylight: | 12h 58 m | |
| Moon phase: | Waxing Crescent | |