Cooper's Clarksburg Register

The Harrisburg Union, a Democratic journal of course, makes the following appropriate remarks upon Gov. Bigler's just pardon of Alberti:

A Most Riotous Act. Last week Governor Bigler granted a pardon to George F. Alberti, of Philadelphia, an old man who was convicted and who has been imprisoned some two years, for what was termed kidnapping. The facts of this case have been referred to on several occasions in our columns, consequently we shall make but a brief statement of them at this time. Alberti was engaged by a gentleman in Maryland to arrest a female runaway slave then in the State of New Jersey. When arrested, she had in her arms an infant that had been born in a free State. When taken before the United States officer, and remanded to her owner, she was told that she could leave the child in Philadelphia, where it would be cared for at a public institution, and would of course be free. This she positively refused to do, and adhered to the determination to take the child with her. Alberti then delivered her and the child over to the parties from Maryland authorized to receive her.

The abolitionists of Philadelphia had Alberti arrested for kidnapping, and he was arraigned for trial before the American Jeffrey, Judge Parsons, whose passions and prejudices in nearly all cases controlled his judgment. Before coming to a trial, it was ascertained that this man could not be convicted without obtaining the evidence of a felon then under sentence in the Philadelphia prison, by the name of Thomas Richardson. The abolitionists repaired to Harrisburg, and obtained a pardon for Richardson, dated on the morning the trial was to commence, and this convicted felon was brought from his cell to the witness stand to give testimony on which to convict Alberti of kidnapping. The charge of the Judge in this case was one of the most extraordinary documents we ever read, and in accordance with this one-sided charge the defendant was convicted and sentenced for a period that would, in all probability, have terminated his life if he had been obliged to serve it out.

These were the means resorted to by the abolitionists and Governor Johnston to convict this old man, Alberti, and it will be a source of gratification to every philanthropic citizen, to learn that Governor Bigler has granted him a pardon. In our view, this old man committed no offence whatever. He did not carry off the child to Maryland, because it was not carried into slavery; and even if he had done so, he committed no offence against the laws of Pennsylvania, as the woman and child were taken from New Jersey.