The Underground Railroad from Slavery to Freedom. Wilbur Henry Siebert
station,[288] receiving passengers from at least five converging lines.[289] So notorious did the place become that a guide-board in the form of a fugitive running in the direction of the town was set up by the authorities on the Middle Ridge road, six miles north of Oberlin, and the sign of a tavern, four miles away, "was ornamented on its Oberlin face with a representation of a fugitive slave pursued by a tiger."[290] On account of the persistent ignoring of the law against harboring slaves by those connected with the institution, the existence of the college was put in jeopardy. Ex-President Fairchild relates that, "A Democratic legislature at different times agitated the question of repealing the college charter. The fourth and last attempt was made in 1843, when the bill for repeal was indefinitely postponed in the House by a vote of thirty-six to twenty-nine."[291] The anti-slavery influence of Oberlin went abroad with its students. Ex-President W. M. Brooks, of Tabor College, Iowa, a graduate of Oberlin, says, "The stations on the Underground Railroad in southwestern Iowa were in the region of Civil Bend, where the colony from Oberlin, Ohio, settled, which afterwards settled Tabor. … From this point (Civil Bend, now Percival) fugitives were brought to Tabor after 1852; here the entire population was in sympathy with the escaped fugitives; … there was scarcely a man in the community who was not ready to do anything that was needed to help fugitives on their way to Canada."[292] The families that founded Tabor were "almost all of them Congregationalists."[293] Professor L. F. Parker of Grinnell, Iowa, names Oberlin students in connection with Quakers as the chief groups in Iowa whose houses were open to fugitives.[294] Grinnell itself was first settled by people that were mainly Congregationalists.[295] From the time of its foundation (1854) it was an anti-slavery centre, "well known and eagerly sought by the few runaways who came from the meagre settlements southwest … in Missouri."[296]
There were, of course, members of other denominations that befriended the slave; thus, it is known that the Unitarian Seminary at Meadville, Pennsylvania, was a centre of underground work,[297] but, in general, the lack of information concerning the church connections of many of the company of persons with whom this chapter deals prevents the drawing of any inference as to whether these individuals acted independently or in conjunction with little bands of persons of their own faith.
There seems to have been no open appeal made to church organizations for help in behalf of fugitives except in Massachusetts. In 1851, and again in 1854, the Vigilance Committee of Boston deemed it wise to send out circulars to the clergymen of the commonwealth, requesting that contributions be taken by them to be applied in mitigation of the misery caused by the enactment of the Fugitive Slave Law. The boldness and originality of such an appeal, and more especially the evident purpose of its framers to create sentiment by this means among the religious societies, entitle it to consideration. The first circular was sent out soon after the enactment of the odious law, and the second soon after the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. The results secured by the two circulars will be seen in the following letter from Francis Jackson, of Boston, to his fellow-townsmen and co-worker, the Rev. Theodore Parker.
Boston, Aug. 27, 1854.
Theodore Parker:
Dear Friend—The contributions of the churches in behalf of the fugitive slaves I think have about all come in. I herewith inclose you a schedule thereof, amounting in all to about $800, being but little more than half as much as they contributed in 1851.
The Mass. Register published in January, 1854, states the number of Religious Societies to be 1,547 (made up of 471 Orthodox, 270 Methodist, and all others 239). We sent circulars to the whole 1,547; only 78 of them have responded—say 1 in 20—from 130 Universalist societies, nothing, from 43 Episcopal $4, and 20 Friends $27—the Baptists—four times as many of these societies have given now as gave in 1851, this may be because Brynes was a Baptist minister.
The average amount contributed by 77 societies (deducting Frothingham of Salem) is $10 each; the 28th Congregationalist Church in this city did not take up a contribution, nevertheless, individual members thereof subscribed upwards of $300; they being infidel have not been reckoned with the churches.
Of the cities and large towns scarce any have contributed. Of the 90 and 9 in Boston all have gone astray but 2—I have not heard of our circular being read in one of them; still it may have been. Those societies who have contributed, I judge were least able to do so.
Francis Jackson.[298]
The political affiliations of underground helpers before 1840 were, necessarily, with one or the other of the old parties—the Whig or the Democratic. As the Whig party was predominantly Northern, and as its sentiments were more distinctly anti-slavery than those of its rival, it is fair to suppose that the small band of early abolitionists were, most of them, allied with that party.[299] The Missouri Compromise in 1820, one may surmise, enabled those that were wavering in their position to ally themselves with the party that was less likely to make demands in the interests of the slave power. In 1840 opportunity was given abolitionists to take independent political action by the nomination of a national Liberty ticket. At that time, and again in 1844, many underground operators voted for the candidates of the Liberty party, and subsequently for the Free Soil nominees.[300]
But it is not to be supposed that all friends of the fugitive joined the political movement against slavery. Many there were that regarded party action with disfavor, preferring the method of moral suasion. These persons belonged to the Quakers, or to the Garrisonian abolitionists. The Friends or Quakers refused as far as possible to countenance slavery, and when the political development of the abolition cause came they regretted it, and their yearly meetings withheld their official sanction, so far as known, from every political organization. Nevertheless, there were some members of the Society of Friends that were swept into the current, and became active supporters of the Liberty party.[301] The most noted and influential of these was the anti-slavery poet, Whittier.[302] When, in 1860, the Republican party nominated Lincoln, "a large majority of the Friends, at least in the North and West, voted for him."[303]
The followers of Garrison that remained steadfast to the teachings and the example of their leader shunned all connection with the political abolitionist movement. Garrison never voted but once,[304] and by 1854 had gone so far in his denunciation of slavery that he burned the Constitution of the United States at an open-air celebration of the abolitionists at Framingham, Massachusetts.[305] To his dying day he seems to have believed "that the cause would have triumphed sooner, in a political sense, if the abolitionists had continued to act as one body, never yielding to the temptation of forming a political party, but pressing forward in the use of the same instrumentalities which were so potent from 1831 to 1840."[306]
The abolitionists were ill-judged by their contemporaries, and were frequently subjected to harsh language and occasionally to violent treatment by persons of supposed respectability. The weight of opprobrium they were called upon to bear tested their great strength of character. If the probity, integrity and moral courage of this abused class had been made the criteria of their standing they would have been held from the outset in high esteem by their neighbors. However, they lived to see the days of their disgrace turned into days of triumph. "The muse of history," says Rhodes, "has done full justice to the abolitionists. Among them were literary men, who have known how to present their cause with power, and the noble spirit of truthfulness pervades the abolition literature. One may search in vain for intentional misrepresentation. Abuse of opponents and criticism of motives are common enough, but the historians of the abolition movement have endeavored to relate a plain, honest tale; and the country has accepted them and their work at their true value. Moreover, a cause and its promoters that have been celebrated in the vigorous lines of Lowell and sung in the impassioned verse of Whittier will always be of perennial memory."[307]
Contempt was not the only hardship that the abolitionist had to face when he admitted the fleeing black man within his door, but he braved also the existing laws, and was sometimes compelled to suffer the consequences for disregarding the slaveholder's claim of ownership. In 1842 the prosecution of John Van Zandt, of Hamilton County, Ohio, was begun for attempting to aid nine slaves to escape. The case was tried first in the Circuit Court of the United States, and then taken by appeal to the Supreme Court. The suits were not concluded when the defendant died in May, 1847. The death of the plaintiff soon after left the case to be settled by administrators, who agreed