JOHN ANTHONY COPELAND WOULD NEVER BE APPREHENDED for his involvement in the Oberlin Rescue, but most of his code-fendants had no interest in eluding the law. Quite the contrary, they saw their indictment as an opportunity to place slavery itself on trial, and thus very nearly a cause for celebration. Such politicized trials – where the defendants take the offensive – have now become commonplace, but the tactic was novel and untested in the late 1850s. As with many other aspects of the anti-slavery movement, Oberlin was destined to play a leading role. Resistance to the Fugitive Slave Act would not be denied, but rather extolled in the name of “higher law.”

The leading defendants therefore did not hesitate to turn themselves in as they had promised Marshal Johnson. On the morning of Wednesday, December 8, ten of the indicted rescuers departed Oberlin by train, amid the cheers of their supporters. By 2:00 that afternoon, they were in the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Hiram Willson, who had earlier castigated their motives in his charge to the grand jury. The prosecutor, U.S. Attorney George Belden, was there to receive the defendants, who were represented by three prominent lawyers, all of whom were devoted abolitionists who had volunteered their services. The chief attorney for the defendants was Rufus Spalding, a former justice of the Ohio Supreme Court, who was assisted that day by Albert Gallatin Riddle, a former state legislator, and Seneca Griswold, a young Oberlin graduate.

The defense strategy quickly became apparent when Spalding called for an immediate trial. The unexpected demand shook the courtroom like a “respectable sized torpedo,” as prosecutor Belden had assumed that the defendants, “like other criminals,” would seek postponement. His main witnesses, Belden sputtered, were in Kentucky, and he would need at least two weeks to bring them to Ohio.