7. Materials relating to Slavery and Fugitive Slaves in Canada
There is but little material in regard to slavery and fugitive slaves in Canada. The question of slavery in the provinces is clearly presented in a few pages of Vol. XXV of the Magazine of American History, while the life of the colored refugees in Canada during the period of immigration and settlement can only be seen in anything like a sufficient light in Benjamin Drew's North-Side View of Slavery, and Dr. S. G. Howe's Refugees from Slavery in Canada West.
8. State, County and Local Histories
Many contributions on the Underground Railroad appear in the collections of historical, biographical and other materials that make up a large number of our state, county and local histories so-called. Accounts, which when taken by themselves are fragmentary and therefore of little importance, have been brought to light by searching through these histories; and not unnaturally, perhaps, the largest number have been found in the county histories of Ohio. Six or seven of these histories afford articles relating to the Underground Railroad; and characteristic items and incidents have been printed in both state and local histories besides. Illinois comes next in the number of contributions preserved in its local histories. The utmost diligence of the student in the library alcoves devoted to Indiana, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, will result in the finding of from one to three contributions only, as the case may be; while from the shelves given to Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire and New Jersey, he is not likely to secure anything to his purpose.
9. Reports of Societies
The reports of anti-slavery societies, especially those of Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, are rich in comments upon the prosecutions in the South of abductors of slaves, and do not fail to show the effect of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 upon the activity of Underground Railroad lines. They also tell something of the missionary work done among the refugees in Canada. In the last-named respect they are secondary to the Reports of the Anti-Slavery Society of Canada, the Refugees' Home Society, and the Canada Mission.
Within the past ten years various societies of the historical type have been instrumental, directly or indirectly, in the publication of addresses bearing upon the violation of the Fugitive Slave laws. A series of lectures before the Political Science Association of the University of Michigan, several of which involve this theme, were published in 1889 under the general title, Constitutional History of the United States as seen in the Development of American Law. A collection of letters and addresses commemorative of the anti-slavery movement and some of its leaders was printed in 1893 in a book, called Old Anti-Slavery Days, by the Danvers (Mass.) Historical Society. An address on "The Underground Railroad" by ex-President James H. Fairchild, of Oberlin College, forms Tract No. 87 in Vol. IV. of the publications of the Western Reserve Historical Society. The best account of the Glover rescue case will be found in a pamphlet by Mr. Vroman Mason on the Fugitive Slave Law in Wisconsin, with Reference to Nullification Sentiment, issued in 1895 by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin.
10. Records of Trials
The reader who acquaints himself even superficially with John Codman Hurd's two volumes, entitled the Law of Freedom and Bondage in the United States, can not fail to be impressed with the value of legal reports for the study of the great contention over slavery. Hurd's pages are full of descriptions and discussions of cases in their judicial bearing, and his foot-notes are largely made up of references to the published reports of trials.
In the series of these records of trials, one may trace the history of legal opposition to the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave laws, note the decision in the Prigg case, by which the efficiency of the law of 1793 was destroyed, and the Southern demand for a new law made imperative, mark the clash of state and federal jurisdictions, and see the growth of the spirit of nullification in the North. For these purposes, one should consult not only the records of the Supreme Court and the lower courts, such as Federal Cases, Howard's Reports, McLean's Reports, Ohio State Reports, Wisconsin Reports, etc., but also the various law periodicals, for example, the American Law Register, the Legal Intelligencer, and the Western Law Journal. Some important cases have been published in pamphlet form, while two at least are more minutely set forth in books; a volume is devoted to the Oberlin-Wellington rescue case, and several relate to the trial of Anthony Burns.