her servants, "come," and
they flew into his exchequer.

So thoroughly was Minnesota under the feet of slavery, that in
September, '60--after we thought the State redeemed--the house of
William D. Babbitt, in Minneapolis, was surrounded from midnight until
morning by a howling mob, stoning it, firing guns and pistols,
attempting to force doors and windows, and only prevented gaining
entrance by the solidity of the building and the bravery of its defense.
It was thus besieged because its owner and occupant had dared interfere
to execute the common law in favor of freedom.

Minneapolis and its twin-city St. Anthony each had a large first-class
hotel, to which Southern people resorted in summer, bringing their
slaves, holding them often for months, and taking them back to the
South, no one daring to make objection; until one woman, Eliza Winston,
appealed to Mr. Babbitt, who took her into court, where Judge Vanderbilt
decreed her freedom, on the ground that her claimant had forfeited his
title by bringing her into a free State.

At the rendering of this decree, Rev. Knickerbocker, rector of the only
Protestant Episcopal Church in the city, arose in open court, and
charged the judge with giving an unrighteous judgment. He condemned the
law as at war with Scripture and the rights of the master, and its
enforcement as injurious to the best interests of the community. It was
the old story of Demetrius; and the people, already keenly alive to the
profit of boarding Southern families with their servants, were glad to
have a mantle of piety thrown over their love of gain. The court room
was packed, and under the eloquent appeal of the reverend gentleman, it
soon became evident the populace would make a rush, take the woman out
of the hands of the law, and deliver her to the master.

She and her friends had about lost hope, when an unlooked for diversion
called attention from them. The red head of "Bill King," afterwards
post-master of the U.S. House of Representatives, arose, like the
burning bush at the foot of Mount Horeb, and his stentorian voice poured
forth such a torrent of denunciation on priest-craft, such a flood of
solid swearing against the insolence and tyranny of ecclesiasticism,
that people were surprised into inactivity, until Mr. Babbitt got the
woman in his carriage and drove off with her.

There could no longer be a question of her legal right to her own body
and soul; but her friends knew that the law of f