Pro-slavery and anti-slavery were at this time the names of two sets of ideas and two states of mind that no longer admitted of compromise. The words meant immeasurably more in 1850 than they had in 1830. If they had ever been mere academic terms, they were fast becoming fighting terms,—the standards of two hostile camps. In the minds of the people, they stood, respectively, for irreconcilable principles. With every fresh event affecting either one side or the other, new and more intense animosities were engendered, and the two forces were driven farther and farther apart. Those who believed in the institution, became more and more firmly fixed in their determination not only to resist every attack upon it, but to give it the widest possible extension. Those who stood opposed to slavery were equally fixed in their determination that it should be destroyed.
The anti-slavery movement was fast becoming something more than a sentiment or an opinion with which one might try conclusions in the forum. It was fast becoming a revolutionary movement which meant force, more force, and, finally, the utmost force. All the time Frederick Douglass, like William Lloyd Garrison, was in the forward ranks. 158The tone of “no compromise” rang out with increasing insistence.
“Come what will,” said Douglass, “I hold it to be morally certain that sooner or later, by fair means or foul means, in peace or in blood, in judgment or in mercy, slavery is doomed to cease out of this otherwise goodly land, and liberty is destined to become the settled law of the republic.”
“I am in earnest,” said Garrison, “I will not equivocate, I will not excuse, I will not retract a single inch, and I will be heard.”
These declarations by these two conspicuous Abolitionists are aptly expressive of the growing intensity of the anti-slavery feeling. Such words called more loudly for action than for argument. What was known in the United States during the anti-slavery struggle as the “Underground Railway,” best represents all that was aggressive and militant in that contest. This so-called “railway system” was constituted and operated in defiance of law by the Abolitionists. It was Abolition in action.
But if the Underground Railway was conducted in defiance of law, it should be said that the law in its terms, spirit, and effects seemed to them who were engaged in operating the road to be in defiance of those principles of liberty and the rights of man, which they had been taught to think were higher than any positive enactment of a legislature.
The Underground Railway had none of the features of the modern railway, except the carrying of passengers, and these were limited in kind and in the direction of the travel. No one could obtain 159passage on this road, unless he or she were a slave, and wanted to be free. The trains ran in but one direction, and that was Northward. There were no “Jim Crow” cars, no sleepers and no smokers, and all passengers were carried free of charge. It was a railroad without stockholders, but it had innumerable directors. No dividends were paid except to passengers, and such dividends were in the form of certificates of freedom from bondage.
To be more explicit, the Underground Railway was a system of clandestine travel, extending from the borders of “Mason and Dixon’s Line” through the North and West to Canada. The residence of Mr. Douglass was one of the last stations on the line before reaching British soil. Much has been written about this mysterious railway, but the details of its activities have never been told. From September 26, 1850, to the breaking out of the Civil War, the new and rigid Fugitive Slave Law was in active operation, and it was in open violation of this measure that the Underground Railway was conducted. A slave, and sometimes an entire family or body of slaves, would make the dash for liberty, escaping across the borders of Maryland into Pennsylvania. There they found themselves in the hands of friendly Quakers, who piloted them by night to other stations, where they were secreted until a favorable opportunity presented itself to push them along farther north.
Mr. Douglass’s house in Rochester was a large three-story frame structure, situated in the centre of four acres of land on South Avenue, two miles 160from the business portion of the city. It stood out by itself, the nearest residence being fully five hundred feet away to the north. This was the objective point, before reaching Canada, for many slaves fleeing from the South. The tales of privation and suffering told by these men, women, and children who escaped half-clad, encountering in the wintertime snow-drifts and zero weather, made a profound impression on the people of the North through whose towns they passed and in whose homes they constantly sought protection. Thus it was that many a Northern farmer, convinced, it may be, of the right or expediency of slavery, found himself compelled, from motives of common humanity, to open his doors to these refugees, and grant their appeals for food and shelter. Many a cold winter night has a knock come to Mr. Douglass’s door, when a white-faced stranger, covered with frost and snow, would announce in whispered tones that he had a sleigh full of runaway Negroes en route for Canada. Mr. Douglass, or Mrs. Douglass in her husband’s absence, calling the boys, Lewis, Fred and Charles, would have fires started in that part of the house where fugitives were hidden away, and at an opportune time they were taken to Charlotte, seven miles from Rochester, and placed aboard a Lake Ontario steamer for Canada. These friendly white farmers had to hasten on for fear of detection, which meant terrible penalties. Thus it will be seen that the risks which their sympathy for the slave led them to take were very serious.
It required large sums of money to keep this Underground 161Railway system in motion. The runaways must be fed, clothed, and their passage paid across the lake to Canada. Mr. Douglass was in the lecture-field most of the time to raise money to do his part. The Female Anti-Slavery Society, with its branches throughout the North, solicited funds and clothing, and, as these unfortunate fugitives were invariably destitute, means had to be supplied them until they could secure employment under the British flag.
Besides William Still of Philadelphia, among colored people, Mr. Douglass had the active coöperation of Dr. James McCune Smith, of New York; Stephen J. Myers, of Albany; William Rich, of Troy, and Rev. J. W. Loguen, of Syracuse. Many others actively assisted in the work, including Charles Lennox Remond, William Whipper, of Philadelphia; Thomas L. Dorsey, Rev. Henry Highland Garnet, Anthony Barrier, of Brockport, N. Y., and Thomas Downing, of New York. There were not a few clashes with the law in efforts to capture and return escaping slaves, but only two or three such attempts were successful.
Mr. Douglass’s home was always considered an asylum for runaways, and was constantly under the surveillance of the United States marshals; nevertheless, not a single fugitive, after reaching him, was ever apprehended and carried back. The majority of the escapes were made in winter, when the oversight on the plantation was less rigid than in the working-season, and many who were given passes during the Christmas holidays to visit neighboring 162towns or plantations, seized that opportunity for a longer journey.
The western and southwestern branch of the Underground Railway was operated from Cincinnati, O., and through Michigan to Canada. Fugitive slaves from Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana took this latter route. The whole number of slaves who successfully made their escape through the system has never been ascertained.
The thousands of men, women, and children, white and black, who had a hand in conducting this Underground Railway were less concerned about the statistics of their dangerous work than they were with results. That the number of slaves set free by the operation of the system ran up into the thousands, was evident from the vast army of people in all parts of the North engaged in the work, and the constantly increasing colored population in the free-states and Canada. There was scarcely a day or night when some black man or woman did not defy the perils of the journey and elude the vigilance of the law to find free soil. So persistent were these enslaved people in running away from bondage that they excited not merely the sympathy but often the admiration of those not otherwise interested in their cause. The perils and adventures of these sombre fugitives stirred the blood and touched the heart. William Still’s volume of nearly eight hundred pages, contains a carefully kept record of the experiences of those runaways who came under the immediate observation 163and direction of the “Vigilance Committee” of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society. Their resourcefulness, cleverness, and daring revealed to the Northern people an unsuspected quality in the Negro character.
The stories of these fugitives, told in their own simple-hearted way, and attested by the hardships that they had undergone, were, to those who heard them, a revelation of conditions in the South, of which they had hitherto known only at secondhand. They might still doubt the expediency of granting freedom to the slave but they could no longer question the sincerity of his desire for liberty and with that desire they were compelled to sympathize. As Douglass said: “Men were better than their theology, and truer to humanity than their politics or their offices.”
The manner of Douglass’s flight—riding out of Baltimore and Maryland in daylight and in sight of those who knew that he was a slave—is a good illustration of the boldness and ingenuity of some of the escapes. Among the hundreds of interesting cases cited by Mr. Still is that of William Crafts, who gained his liberty by acting the part of a valet or body-servant of his wife. She was of light brown complexion, and for this adventure wore men’s clothing. Another case is that of a slave-woman who hitched up her master’s horse and carriage and, taking her family of five children and several others, drove off to liberty. Box Brown was the name of a slave, who permitted himself to be nailed up in a box and sent by express to Baltimore. Two 164colored women dressed themselves in deep mourning and rode Northward to freedom in the same coach as their masters, who did not know them. In some cases slaves secreted themselves for several months and, when search for them had ceased, crept off unsuspected. In hundreds of instances, the parts were as cleverly played as if the fugitives had had special training in the drama of running away from their masters. In nearly all cases these black men and women took desperate chances. The conductors of the Underground Railway were everywhere, and at all times on the alert. They knew every path, the byways and highways in which slaves might hide or on which they might travel to reach freedom. The stations were always ready and open to receive them. It was never too late, or too early, or too difficult, or too perilous to be on the lookout to welcome, protect, and pass on fugitives to the next place of safety. Clothing, food, shoes, carriages, wagons, horses, and mules were always at hand. No secret society has ever veiled its proceedings in deeper mystery than this widely separated army of determined conspirators and emancipators. The secret service men of the government tried to locate the stations and the station-agents, but the more they searched, the less they found. It is a curious fact that the United States secret service men seem to have had just as little success in uncovering the systematic plans for aiding slaves to escape to the Northern states as in preventing the smuggling of slaves from Africa into the Southern states. The traffic of the Underground Railroad continued to increase 165in volume and the slave once off United States soil was beyond reach or recall.
Some of the men and women who were carrying on this clandestine work of delivering fugitives were people of much prominence. Among them were members of Congress, distinguished clergymen, editors, prominent merchants, doctors, lawyers, farmers, and tradesmen. From the slave-holders’ standpoint, the situation was not encouraging. They rightly felt that unless something effective were done to stop this increasing loss, slave-labor would cease to be profitable. This condition of things required a remedy, a remedy more far-reaching than any guaranteed the slave-holding system under the law then existing. To meet these attempts of the Abolitionists to undermine the system, the pro-slavery leaders deemed it just and necessary to extend the arm of national power to reclaim and carry back to bondage every slave who reached a free state in quest of liberty. The government that sanctioned slavery as a national institution; that acquired new territory for the extension of slavery; that derived a goodly part of its revenue from it, was bound, they believed, to do what was necessary to make slavery more secure. Until the Underground Railway began to do so large a business, there was thought to be enough law in the Constitution of the United States.[3]
3. As provided in Article IV, Section 2: “No person held to service in one state, under the laws thereof, escaping to another state, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, shall be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on the claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due,” supplemented by the statute giving force to its provisions in 1793.
166The constitutionality of this law had been fully upheld by the Supreme Court in what was known as the “Prigg case,” wherein Justice Story declared that it was self-executing, so that an owner could seize and carry away his runaway slave wherever he found him, providing he could do so without breach of the public peace. Those who desired and demanded more legal provisions for the better protection of slavery were in absolute power North and South. Daniel Webster of Massachusetts was as much in favor of it as Henry Clay of Kentucky and Calhoun of South Carolina; and in response to popular demand, the new Fugitive Slave Law was passed on September 10, 1850, as a part of the great Compromise Measures of that year.
The instrument was most carefully drawn, and covered ten sections. Those who worked out its carefully-worded provisions had evidently studied the Underground System with considerable care, and this law was framed to meet the conditions that the railroad had created. Some of its main features were as follows:—
A United States Commission and a United States court should have concurrent jurisdiction in disposing of cases of fugitive slaves brought before them.
Any postmaster or clerk could be appointed a commissioner to hear cases under the law.
A United States marshal was under penalty of $1,000 for refusing or neglecting to make an arrest when called upon to do so.
167Fugitive slaves could be arrested, with or without warrant and taken before a commissioner or judge, who was empowered to dispose of the case forthwith.
If a fugitive escaped from a United States marshal, the latter could be sued on his bond and the full value of the slave recovered.
There was a penalty of five years in prison or a fine of $5,000 for aiding or abetting a slave’s escape.
The only proof needed was an affidavit by the alleged owner or some one acting in his behalf alleging right of property, escape or service due on escape, and a description of the person arrested, certified to by the magistrate.
There were provisions for military aid for the United States marshal in case of resistance.
The commissioner received a larger fee in case of extradition than he would obtain in case of discharge.
The slave thus arrested could not testify in his own behalf and was not allowed a jury trial.
The first effect of the law was to create a panic and stampede among the colored people of the free-states. It looked for awhile as if every Negro resident north of the Ohio had lost faith in the tenure of his own title to himself. There was wholesale emigration to Canada of colored people from every part of the United States. In his Life of Frederick Douglass, Mr. Holland gives an account of forty Negroes of Boston, who left home within three days after the Fugitive Slave Law was passed. The pastor of a colored church and his entire membership of 112 persons fled to British soil. A number of talented men who had done service in the anti-slavery 168cause, went to England. Mr. Douglass, who was in close touch with every movement, every fear, and every secret purpose of his people, says:
“I was compelled to witness the terribly distressing effects of this cruel enactment; fugitive slaves, who had lived for many years safely and securely in western New York and elsewhere, some of whom by industry and economy had saved some money and bought little homes for themselves and their children, were suddenly alarmed and compelled to flee to Canada. Even colored people who had been free all their lives felt very insecure in their freedom, for under this law the oaths of any two villains were sufficient to confine a free man to slavery for life.... Although I was now free myself, I was not without apprehension. My pardon was of doubtful validity, having been bought when out of possession of my owner, and when he must take what was given or not at all.... From rumors that reached me, my house was guarded by my friends several nights.”
A much more serious consequence of the Fugitive Slave Law was the altogether unexpected feeling of resentment aroused in the North by its enforcement. There was abundant willingness among the Northern people that the slave-holders should have their slaves and that they should have everything needed to protect and make secure their property rights in them; but when it came to pressing unwilling citizens into the service of men who were hunting slaves, there was a very natural revulsion of sentiment. Just how intense was this feeling may best 169be illustrated in the history of three different cases that created wide-spread interest at the time. These were known respectively as the Burns, Shadrach, and Thomas Sims cases.
Anthony Burns had made his escape from his master in Virginia and in 1854 was living in Boston. In the month of May he was arrested under the provisions of the Fugitive Slave Law. At this particular time, Boston was aroused because of the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, repealing the Missouri Compromise, and thereby permitting the extension of slavery in the western territories. Burns was confined in the Boston court-house under strong guard. The people were in a mood to become profoundly interested in his case, which presented itself to them as an illustration of the cruelties of slavery and of the Fugitive Slave Law. Wendell Phillips, Theodore Parker, Richard A. Davis, Charles M. Ellis, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, and many others equally prominent, gave practical effect to this interest by securing a postponement of the hearing for a few days. In the meantime, a meeting was called in Faneuil Hall in which feeling ran high. While it was in progress, Colonel Higginson led in an attempt to rescue Burns. The door of the jail was battered in, the deputy was killed, and the Colonel and others were wounded. When the case came up for a hearing before Commissioner Loring, Burns had the best counsel that Boston could afford, but like all cases under the Fugitive Slave Law, there was no escape. After the formalities were complied with, he was ordered back to his master. 170When this decision became known, many houses were draped in black and so intense was the public feeling against it, that the government directed that Burns should be returned in a United States revenue cutter. He was escorted to the wharf by a strong guard and the streets were thronged with Boston citizens in a great state of excitement. There seemed to be no possible escape from a bloody riot. When the water-side was reached and an outbreak was imminent, a minister named Foster cried out, “Let us pray,” and with this call for prayer silence fell upon the excited throng; but the law had its way and Burns was sent back.
The case of Shadrach was less exciting, but is interesting as presenting another and different view of the sentiment excited by the Fugitive Slave Law. He was a fugitive and a resident of Boston. He had been arrested in February, 1851, and during a postponement of his hearing before the United States Commissioner, the Boston Abolitionists rescued him and got him into Canada, the land of safety. The government officials in Washington took serious notice of this rescue of a United States prisoner and the uproar that followed seemed altogether out of proportion to the incident. Commenting on the excitement at the capital at this apparent determination of Boston to defy the national government, Mr. Garrison wrote:
“The head and front of the offending in this instance—what is it? A sudden rush of a score or two of unarmed friends of equal liberty—an uninjurious deliverance of the oppressed out of the 171hands of the oppressor—the quiet transportation of a slave out of this slavery-ruled land to the free soil of Upper Canada ... a solitary slave in Boston is plucked as a brand from the burning, and forthwith a Cabinet Council is held and behold a menacing proclamation!”
Senator Henry Clay was “horrified” and proposed an inquiry as to the expediency of passing an additional law making it a penal offense in the nature of treason for any one to interfere with the smooth and peaceful exercise of his pet measure in the Compromise Bill. Mr. Webster declared that the rescue of Shadrach was “strictly speaking” treason.
Scarcely had the United States grand jury finished its examination of the Shadrach case when Boston was again in the midst of an excitement over the arrest and extradition of another fugitive slave, Thomas Sims. Profiting by the failure to send Shadrach back to his master, the officials had taken extraordinary precautions to prevent a rescue by mob or otherwise. The court-house where Sims was imprisoned was surrounded by chains and guarded by a large part of the city police force. As a further precaution, the state militia was called out and kept in readiness to quell a possible riot. A part of this soldiery furnished an escort all the way to Savannah, where the prisoner-slave was delivered safely.
The bloody resistance on the part of runaways at Christiana, Pa., did more than anything else, in the opinion of Mr. Douglass, to put a check on the execution 172of the law. At this place three colored men were pursued by officers, and, when hard-pressed, turned about, shot, and killed a Mr. Gorsuch, wounded his son, drove back the officers, and then made their escape to Rochester, where they were rescued and given shelter in Mr. Douglass’s house. The latter, with his assistants, finally smuggled these fugitives to the Canadian shores, but in doing so he imperiled his own safety to a greater extent than ever before, because he was not only harboring fugitives from slavery, but fugitives from justice. After this experience, the law became a dead letter. It not only intended to put an end to the business of the Underground Railroad, but to make every community in some degree responsible for the return of runaway slaves, and it proved to be one of the most unpopular and irritating pieces of legislation enacted by the Federal Government. This act, more than any other one thing, increased opposition to slavery. Thousands of people who were either indifferent or hostile to the anti-slavery cause, flocked to the ranks of the Abolitionists when they saw what it meant and whither it was leading the nation. The language used by the leaders, both in their publications and on the stump, became more bitter and defiant.
Mr. Douglass was always in the storm-centre of every movement to thwart the execution of this measure. He was in Boston, and in continuous conference with Theodore Parker, Higginson, Garrison, and others belonging to the “vigilance” committees. It was in these meetings that Douglass says 173he “got a peep into Parker’s soul.” He characterized him as “a man who shrank from no opportunity to do his full duty when man’s liberty was threatened.” Mr. Douglass’s thorough and comprehensive understanding of each succeeding change in the development of the slavery question was generally recognized by friend and foe. When he was invited by the members of the New York state legislature to address them on the subject, he was selected because no man then living could speak with a fuller knowledge of the great issue.
Belonging to this period of increasing antagonism between pro-slavery and anti-slavery parties was the decision in the Dred Scott case. This, the Fugitive Slave Law, and the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, taken together, represent the sum of the conservative forces in the nation opposed to the Abolitionists and their cause. Douglass’s opinion of the situation, as it concerned himself and his people, is voiced in the following extract from an address delivered at New York in May, 1857:
“I am myself not insensible to the many difficulties that beset us on every hand. They fling their broad and gloomy shadows across the pathway of every thoughtful colored man in this country. For one, I see them clearly and feel them sadly. Standing, as it were, barefoot, and treading upon the sharp and flinty rocks of the present, and looking out upon the boundless sea of the future, I have sought in my humble way to penetrate the intervening mists and clouds, and, perchance, to descry in the dim and shadowy distance the white flag of freedom.”