Reuben Crandall

Crandall, a physician linked to abolitionist circles, became the target of one of the most prominent early U.S. free-speech prosecutions connected to anti-slavery literature. In 1835 he was arrested in Washington, D.C. after authorities found abolitionist publications in his possession and accused him of seditious libel and inciting enslaved and free Black people to revolt; the case was prosecuted by Francis Scott Key. Crandall spent months jailed before trial and was ultimately acquitted in 1836, but his imprisonment seriously damaged his health; he died a few years later in Kingston.