FREDERICK DOUGLASS.
Joshua R. Giddings, for twenty years in Congress an ardent advocate of the abolition of slavery, kept a particular chamber in his house at Jefferson, Ohio, for the use of refugees.[322] Sometimes when passing through Alliance, Ohio, Mr. Giddings found opportunity to call upon his friend, I. Newton Peirce, to whom he contributed money for the transportation of runaway slaves by rail from that point to Cleveland.[323] What his views were of the irritating law of 1850, he declared on the floor of the House of Representatives, February 11, 1852, in the following words: "... Let me say to Southern men; It is your privilege to catch your own slaves, if any one catches them.... When you ask us to pay the expenses of arresting your slaves, or to give the President authority to appoint officers to do that dirty work, give them power to compel our people to give chase to the panting bondman, you overstep the bounds of the Constitution, and there we meet you, and there we stand and there we shall remain. We shall protest against such indignity; we shall proclaim our abhorrence of such a law. Nor can you seal or silence our voices."[324]
Thaddeus Stevens, a leading lawyer of Pennsylvania, who rendered the cause of abolition distinguished service in Congress, where he gained the title of the "great commoner," entered upon the practice of his profession at Gettysburg in 1816, and soon became known as a friend of escaping slaves. His removal to Lancaster in 1842 did not take him off the line of flight, and he continued to act as a helper. The woman that "kept house for him for more than twenty years, and nursed him at the close of his life, was one of the slaves he helped to freedom."[325]
James M. Ashley, member of Congress from Ohio for over nine years, and his successor in the House, Richard Mott, a Quaker, were confederates in their violation of the Slave Act at Toledo, Ohio. Mr. Ashley began his service in behalf of the blacks early in life. As a youth of seventeen in Kentucky, he helped two companies across the Ohio River, one company of seven persons, and the other of five.[326] Sidney Edgerton, who was elected to Congress from Ohio on the Free Soil ticket in 1858, and four years after was appointed governor of Montana Territory by President Lincoln, assisted his father in the befriending of slaves at Tallmadge, Summit County, Ohio.[327] Jacob M. Howard, afterwards United States senator from Michigan, was one of the principal operators at Detroit.[328] General Samuel Fessenden, of Maine, who received the nomination of the Liberty party for the governorship of his state, and later for Congress, and was during forty years the leading member of the bar in Maine, gave escaped bondmen reaching Portland a hearty welcome to his house on India Street.[329] In Vermont there were a number of men prominent in public affairs that were actively engaged in underground enterprises. Colonel Jonathan P. Miller, of Montpelier, who went to Greece, and assisted that country in its uprising in the twenties, served as a member of the Vermont legislature in 1833, and took part in the World's Anti-Slavery Convention in 1840, was among the early helpers in New England. Lawrence Brainerd, for several years candidate for governor of Vermont, and later chosen to the United States Senate as a Free Soiler, gave shelter to the wanderers at St. Albans, where they were almost within sight of "the Promised Land."[330] Others were the Rev. Alvah Sabin, elected to Congress in 1853, who kept a station at the town of Georgia, the Hon. Joseph Poland of Montpelier, the Hon. William Sowles of Swanton, the Hon. John West of Morristown and the Hon. A. J. Russell of Troy.[331]
Gerrit Smith, the famous philanthropist, kept open house for fugitives in a fine old mansion at Peterboro, New York. He was one of the prime movers in the organization of the Liberty party at Arcade, New York, in 1840, and was its candidate for the presidency in 1848 and in 1852. He was elected to Congress in 1853 and served one term. It is said that during the decade 1850 to 1860 he "aided habitually in the escape of fugitive slaves and paid the legal expenses of persons accused of infractions of the Fugitive Slave Law."[332] The Rev. Owen Lovejoy, brother of the martyr Elijah P. Lovejoy, served four terms in the national House of Representatives. On one occasion he was taunted by some pro-slavery members of the House with being a "nigger-stealer." In a speech made February 21, 1859, Mr. Lovejoy, referring to these accusations, said: "Is it desired to call attention to this fact—of my assisting fugitive slaves?... Owen Lovejoy lives at Princeton, Illinois, three-quarters of a mile east of the village, and he aids every fugitive that comes to his door and asks it. Thou invisible demon of slavery, dost thou think to cross my humble threshold, and forbid me to give bread to the hungry and shelter to the houseless! I bid you defiance in the name of my God!"[333] Josiah B. Grinnell, who represented a central Iowa district in the Thirty-eighth and the Thirty-ninth congresses, had a chamber in his house at Grinnell that came to be called the "liberty room." John Brown, while on his way to Canada with a band of Missouri slaves, in the winter of 1858-1859, stacked his arms in this room, and his company of fugitives slept there.[334] Mr. Grinnell relates of the members of this party, "They came at night, and were the darkest, saddest specimens of humanity I have ever seen, glad to camp on the floor, while the veteran was a night guard, with his dog and a miniature arsenal ready for use on alarm...."[335]
Thurlow Weed, the distinguished journalist and political manager, even in his busiest hours had time to afford relief to the underground applicant. One who knew Mr. Weed intimately relates the following incident: "On one occasion when several eminent gentlemen were waiting [to see the journalist] they were surprised and at first much vexed, by seeing a negro promptly admitted. The negro soon reappeared, and hastily left the house, when it was learned that he was a runaway slave, and had been aided in his flight for liberty by the man who was too busy to attend to Cabinet officers, but had time to say words of encouragement and present means of support to a flying fugitive."[336] Sydney Howard Gay, for several years managing editor of the New York Tribune, and subsequently on the editorial staff of the New York Post and the Chicago Tribune, was an efficient agent of the Underground Railroad while in charge of the Anti-Slavery Standard, which he conducted in New York City from 1844 to 1857.[337]
Among the clergymen that made it a part of their religious duty to minister to the needs of the exiles from the South, were John Rankin, Samuel J. May and Theodore Parker. Mr. Rankin, a native of Tennessee, early developed his anti-slavery views in Kentucky, where from 1817 to 1821 he served as pastor of two Presbyterian churches at the town of Carlisle. During the next forty-four years he resided at Ripley, Ohio, in a neighborhood frequented by runaways.[338] Doubtless he became a patron of these midnight visitors at the time of his location in Ripley. In 1828 he established himself in a house situated upon the crest of a hill just back of the town and overlooking the Ohio River. For many years the lights beaming through the windows of this parsonage were hailed by slaves fleeing from the soil of Kentucky as beacons to guide them to a haven of safety.[339]
Samuel J. May, for many years a prominent minister in the Unitarian Church, writes: "So long ago as 1834, when I was living in the eastern part of Connecticut, I had fugitives addressed to my care.... Even after I came to reside in Syracuse [New York] I had much to do as a station-keeper or conductor on the Underground Railroad, until slavery was abolished by the proclamation of President Lincoln.... Fugitives came to me from Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Louisiana. They came, too, at all hours of day and night, sometimes comfortably, yes, and even handsomely clad, but generally in clothes every way unfit to be worn, and in some instances too unclean and loathsome to be admitted into my house."[340]
Theodore Parker, the learned theologian and iconoclast of Boston, often deserted his study that he might work in the cause of humanity. In his Journal, under the date October 23, 1850, Mr. Parker wrote: "... The first business of the anti-slavery men is to help the fugitives; we, like Christ, are to seek and save that which is lost."[341] In an unsigned note written in 1851 to his friend Dr. Francis, Mr. Parker says:—
... I have got some nice books (old ones) coming across the water. But, alas me! such is the state of the poor fugitive slaves, that I must attend to living men, and not to dead books, and all this winter my time has been occupied with these poor souls. The Vigilance Committee appointed me spiritual counsellor of all fugitive slaves in Massachusetts while in peril.... The Fugitive Slave Law has cost me some months of time already. I have refused about sixty invitations to lecture and delayed the printing of my book—for that! Truly the land of the pilgrims is in great disgrace!
Yours truly.[342]