The opinion of Chief Justice Hornblower was given at length, and is said to have displayed a soundness and extent of legal knowledge, with a spirit of mildness and humanity, well worthy of the highest judicial tribunal of New Jersey.

By this decision, Alexander Helmsley was declared to be a freeman, and returned with rejoicing into the bosom of his family, and to the enjoyment of the rights and privileges of a free citizen.

Thus terminated this interesting case, which for several months agitated the public mind of Burlington county, to an extent almost unequalled.

Such disinterested devotion to the defence of the rights of the oppressed, had it been displayed only in the instance recited, would be sufficient to enroll the name of Thomas Shipley on the list of the benefactors of his race; but when we consider that, for a period of twenty years, his history abounds in similar incidents, and that he uniformly stood forth as the unflinching advocate of the oppressed, regardless of the sacrifices which he was obliged to make on their behalf, we are disposed to view him as one of that noble band whose lives have been consecrated to deeds of charity and benevolence, and whose names will illumine the moral firmament, so long as virtue and truth shall command the homage of mankind.

Thomas Shipley was one of the founders of the American Anti-Slavery Society, and was an active agent in those stirring movements which soon aroused the nation to a full consideration of the enormities of Slavery. He was a prominent member of the Anti-slavery Convention, which assembled in this city in 1833, and a signer of their declaration of sentiments.

During the last few years of his life, he was more devotedly engaged in his abolition labors than at any previous period. It was his constant desire to diffuse the principles which had been so fearlessly proclaimed by the Convention, and to encourage the formation of Anti-slavery societies throughout the sphere of his influence. He was one of the most prominent members of the Philadelphia Anti-slavery Society, which was formed through much opposition, in 1835, and he steadily adhered to its meetings, notwithstanding the threats which were so loudly made by the enemies of public order.

In the midst of the popular commotions and tumults, which marked the progress of Anti-slavery principles, he stood calm and unmoved. Having been long known as a firm friend of the rights of the colored man, and being amongst the most efficient public advocates of his cause, he was of course subjected to the revilings which were so liberally heaped upon the Abolitionists at that time. His name was associated with that of Tappan, Birney, Green, Jay, Garrison, and other leading Abolitionists, who were singled out by slave-holders and their abettors as fit subjects for the merciless attacks of excited mobs.

In several attempts which were made in this city to stir up the passions of the ignorant against the advocates of human rights, his person and property were openly threatened with assault. Such menaces failed, however, to deter him from the steady performance of what he believed to be a solemn duty. Being fully satisfied of the truth of the principles which he had espoused, he relied with unwavering confidence upon Divine power for their ultimate triumph, and for the protection of those who advocated them. When his friends expressed their anxiety for his safety, he always allayed their apprehensions, and evinced by the firmness and benignity of his manner that he was divested of the fear of man, and acted under the influence of that spirit which is from above.

The active part which Thomas Shipley took in Anti-slavery movements, did not diminish his interest in the prosperity and usefulness of the old Pennsylvania Society. He was a steady attendant on its meetings, and exercised his wonted care on all subjects connected with its interests.

A short time previous to his death, his services were acknowledged by his fellow-members, by his election to the office of president.

The incessant and fatiguing labors in which he was engaged, had sensibly affected the vigor of a constitution naturally delicate, and rendered him peculiarly liable to the inroads of disease. He was seized in the autumn of 1836, with an attack of intermittent fever, which confined him to the house for ten or twelve days, and very much reduced his strength; while recovering from this attack, he experienced an accession of disease which terminated his life in less than twenty-four hours. But a few hours before his death, he inquired of his physicians as to the probable issue of his case; when informed of his critical condition, he received the intelligence with composure, and immediately requested Dr. Atlee, who was by his side, to take down some directions in regard to his affairs, on paper. In a few minutes after this, he quietly lapsed into the sleep of death, in the morning, on the 17th of Ninth month, 1836.

His last words were, "I die at peace with all mankind, and hope that my trespasses may be as freely forgiven, as I forgive those who have trespassed against me."

To all who knew him well, of whatever class in the community, the tidings of this unexpected event brought a personal sorrow. It was felt that a man of rare probity and virtue had gone to his reward. But to the colored people the intelligence of his death was at once startling and confounding. Their whole community was bowed down in public lamentation, for their warmest and most steadfast friend was gone.

They repaired in large numbers to the house of their benefactor to obtain a last glance at his lifeless body. Parents brought their little ones to the house of mourning, and as they gazed upon the features of the departed, now inanimate in death, they taught their infant minds the impressive lesson, that before them were the mortal remains of one who had devoted his energies to the disenthralment of their race, and whose memory they should ever cherish with gratitude and reverence. When the day arrived for committing his remains to the grave the evidence of deep and pervading sorrow among these wronged and outraged people was strikingly apparent.

Thousands, whose serious deportment and dejected countenances evinced that they were fully sensible of their loss, collected in the vicinity of his dwelling, anxious to testify their respect for his memory. Theirs was not the gaze of the indifferent crowd, which clusters around the abodes of fashion and splendor, to witness the pomp and circumstance attendant on the interment of the haughty or the rich. It was a solemn gathering, brought together by the impulse of feeling, to mingle their tears and lamentations at the grave of one whom they had loved and revered as a protector and a friend.

When the hearse arrived at the quiet burial place in Arch street, where the Friends for many generations have buried their dead, six colored men carried the body to its last resting-place, and the silent tear of the son of Africa over the grave of his zealous friend, was more expressive of real affection than all the parade which is sometimes brought so ostentatiously before the public eye. In the expressive words of the leading newspaper of the day, "Aaron Burr was lately buried with the honors of war. Thomas Shipley was buried with the honors of peace. Let the reflecting mind pause in the honorable contrast."

As a public speaker Thomas Shipley was clear, cogent, sometimes eloquent, and always impressive. He never attempted oratorical effect, or studied harangues. He generally spoke extemporaneously, on the spur of the occasion, and what he said came warm from the heart. It was the simple and unadorned expression of his sentiments and feelings. He was, however, argumentative and even logical, when the occasion required it. When intensely interested, his eye was full of deep and piercing expression.

Although his education had been limited, and his pursuits afforded him but little leisure time, yet he indulged his fondness for reading, and exhibited a refined literary taste in his selections. He has left amongst his books and papers eight manuscript volumes of about one hundred and fifty pages each, filled with selections, copied in his own handwriting, and culled from the writings of many of the most gifted authors, both in poetry and prose.

These extracts are generally of a moral and religious caste, and include scraps from Young, Milton, Addison, Burns, Cowper, Watts, Akenside, Pope, Byron, Hemans, and many others.

In the domestic and social circle, his conversation was animated and instructive, and always tempered by that kindness and amenity of manners which endeared him to his family and friends.

He was no bigot in religion. While a firm believer in the doctrines of the Gospel as maintained by the orthodox Society of Friends, he yet held that religion was an operative principle producing the fruits of righteousness and peace, in all of whatever name, who are sincere followers of our Lord Jesus Christ. In conclusion we may add, that more than most men he bore about with him the sentiment of that old Roman, "Nihil humanum alienum a me puto," while he added to it the higher thought of the Christian, that he who loveth God loveth his brother also. We need not dwell upon the life of such a man. To-day, after the lapse of more than a generation, his memory is fresh and green in the hearts of those who knew him, and who still survive to hand down to their children the story of the trials of that eventful period in our history.

To the Memory of

THOMAS SHIPLEY,

President of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society,

Who died on the 17th of Ninth mo., 1836, a devoted Christian and Philanthropist.

BY JOHN G. WHITTIER.

Gone to thy Heavenly Father's rest— The flowers of Eden round thee blowing! And, on thine ear, the murmurs blest Of Shiloah's waters softly flowing! Beneath that tree of life which gives To all the earth its healing leaves— In the white robe of angels clad, And wandering by that sacred river, Whose streams of holiness make glad The city of our God forever!

Gentlest of spirits!—not for thee Our tears are shed, our sighs are given: Why mourn to know thou art a free Partaker of the joys of Heaven? Finished thy work, and kept thy faith In Christian firmness unto death— And beautiful as sky and earth, When Autumn's sun is downward going, The blessed memory of thy worth Around thy place of slumber glowing!

But, wo for us I—who linger still With feebler strength and hearts less lowly, And minds less steadfast to the will Of Him, whose every work is holy! For not like thine, is crucified The spirit of our human pride: And at the bondman's tale of woe, And for the outcast and forsaken, Not warm like thine, but cold and slow, Our weaker sympathies awaken!

Darkly upon our struggling way The storm of human hate is sweeping; Hunted and branded, and a prey, Our watch amidst the darkness keeping! Oh! for that hidden strength which can Nerve unto death the inner man! Oh—for thy spirit tried and true And constant in the hour of trial— Prepared to suffer or to do In meekness and in self-denial.

Oh, for that spirit meek and mild, Derided, spurned, yet uncomplaining— By man deserted and reviled, Yet faithful to its trust remaining. Still prompt and resolute to save From scourge and chain the hunted slave! Unwavering in the truth's defence E'en where the fires of hate are burning, The unquailing eye of innocence Alone upon the oppressor turning!

Oh, loved of thousands! to thy grave, Sorrowing of heart, thy brethren bore thee! The poor man and the rescued slave Wept as the broken earth closed o'er thee— And grateful tears, like summer rain, Quickened its dying grass again!— And there, as to some pilgrim shrine, Shall come the outcast and the lowly, Of gentle deeds and words of thine Recalling memories sweet and holy!

Oh, for the death the righteous die! An end, like Autumn's day declining, On human hearts, as on the sky, With holier, tenderer beauty shining! As to the parting soul were given The radiance of an opening heaven! As if that pure and blessed light From off the eternal altar flowing, Were bathing in its upward flight The spirit to its worship going!



ROBERT PURVIS

Was born in Charleston, S.C. on the 4th day of August, 1810. His father, William Purvis, was a native of Ross county, in Northumberland, England. His mother was a free-born woman, of Charleston. His maternal grandmother was a Moor; and her father was an Israelite, named Baron Judah. Robert Purvis and his two brothers were brought to the North by their parents in 1819. In Pennsylvania and New England he received his scholastic education, finishing it at Amherst College. Since that time his home has been in Philadelphia, or in the vicinity of that city.

His interest in the Anti-slavery cause began in his childhood, inspired by such books as "Sandford and Merton," and Dr. Toney's "Portraiture of Slavery," which his father put into his hands. His father, though resident in a slave state, was never a slaveholder; but was heartily an Abolitionist in principle. It was Robert Purvis' good fortune, before he attained his majority, to make the acquaintance of that earnest and self-sacrificing pioneer of freedom, Benjamin Lundy; and in conjunction with him, was an early laborer in the anti-slavery field. He was a member of the Convention held in Philadelphia in 1833, which formed the American Anti-slavery Society; and among the signatures to its Declaration of Sentiments, the name of Robert Purvis is to be seen; a record of which his posterity to the latest generation may be justly proud. During the whole period of that Society's existence he was a member of it; and was also an active member and officer of The Pennsylvania Anti-slavery Society. To the cause of the slave's freedom he gave with all his heart his money, his time, his talents. Fervent in soul, eloquent in speech, most gracious in manner, he was a favorite on the platform of Anti-slavery meetings. High-toned in moral nature, keenly sensitive in all matters pertaining to justice and integrity, he was a most valuable coadjutor with the leaders of an unpopular reform; and throughout the Anti-slavery conflict, he always received, as he always deserved, the highest confidence and warm personal regard of his fellow-laborers.

His faithful labors in aiding fugitive slaves cannot be recorded within the limits of this sketch. Throughout that long period of peril to all who dared to "remember those in bonds as bound with them," his house was a well-known station on the Underground Rail Road; his horses and carriages, and his personal attendance, were ever at the service of the travelers upon that road. In those perilous duties his family heartily sympathized with him, and cheerfully performed their share.

He has lived to witness the triumph of the great cause to which he devoted his youth and his manhood; to join in the jubilee song of the American slave; and the thanksgiving of the Abolitionists; and to testify that the work of his life has been one "whose reward is in itself."



JOHN HUNN.

Almost within the lions' den, in daily sight of the enemy, in the little slave-holding State of Delaware, lived and labored the freedom-loving, earnest and whole-souled Quaker abolitionist, John Hunn. His headquarters were at Cantwell's Bridge, but, as an engineer of the Underground Rail Road, his duties, like those of his fellow-laborer Thomas Garrett, were not confined to that section, but embraced other places, and were attended with great peril, constant care and expense. He was well-known to the colored people far and near, and was especially sought with regard to business pertaining to the Underground Rail Road, as a friend who would never fail to assist as far as possible in every time of need. Through his agency many found their way to freedom, both by land and water.

The slave-holders regarding him with much suspicion, watched him closely, and were in the habit of "breathing out threatenings and slaughter" very fiercely at times. But Hunn was too plucky to be frightened by their threats and menaces, and as one, commissioned by a higher power to remember those in bonds as bound with them he remained faithful to the slave. Men, women or children seeking to be unloosed from the fetters of Slavery, could not make their grievances known to John Hunn without calling forth his warmest sympathies. His house and heart were always open to all such. The slave-holders evidently concluded that Hunn could not longer be tolerated, consequently devised a plan to capture him, on the charge of aiding off a woman with her children.

[John Hunn and Thomas Garrett were conjointly prosecuted in this case, and in the sketch of the latter, the trial, conviction, etc., are so fully referred to, that it is unnecessary to do more than allude to it here].

These noted Underground Rail Road offenders being duly brought before the United States District Court, in May, 1848, Judge Taney, presiding, backed by a thoroughly pro-slavery sentiment, obviously found it a very easy matter to convict them, and a still easier matter to fine them to the extent of every dollar they possessed in the world. Thousands of dollars were swept from Hunn in an instant, and his family left utterly destitute; but he was by no means conquered, as he deliberately gave the court to understand in a manly speech, delivered while standing to receive his sentence. There and then he avowed his entire sympathy with the slave, and declared that in the future, as in the past, by the help of God, he would never withhold a helping hand from the down-trodden in the hour of distress. That this pledge was faithfully kept by Hunn, there can be no question, as he continued steadfast at his post until the last fetter was broken by the great proclamation of Abraham Lincoln.

He was not without friends, however, for even near by, dwelt a few well-tried Abolitionists. Ezekiel Jenkins, Mifflin Warner, and one or two others, whole-souled workers in the same cause with Hunn; he was therefore not forgotten in the hour of his extremity.

Wishing to produce a sketch worthy of this veteran, we addressed him on the subject, but failed to obtain all the desired material. His reasons, however, for withholding the information which we desired were furnished, and, in connection therewith, a few anecdotes touching Underground Rail Road matters coming under his immediate notice, which we here take great pleasure in transcribing.

BEAUFORT, S.C. 11th mo. 7th, 1871.

WM. STILL, DEAR FRIEND:—In thy first letter thee asked for my photograph as well as for an opinion of the book about to be edited by thyself. I returned a favorable answer and sent likeness, as requested. I incidentally mentioned that, probably some of my papers might be of service to thee. The papers alluded to had no reference to myself; but consisted of anecdotes and short histories of some of the fugitives from the hell of American Slavery, who gave me a call, as engineer of the Underground Rail Road in the State of Delaware, and received the benefit of my advice and assistance.

I was twenty-seven years-old when I engaged in the Underground Rail Road business, and I continued therein diligently until the breaking up of that business by the Great Rebellion. I then came to South Carolina to witness the uprising of a nation of slaves into the dignity and privileges of mankind.

Nothing can possibly have the same interest to me. Therefore, I propose to remain where this great problem is in the process of solution; and to give my best efforts to its successful accomplishment. In this matter the course that I have pursued thus far through life has given me solid satisfaction. I ask no other reward for any efforts made by me in the cause, than to feel that I have been of use to my fellow-men.

No other course would have brought peace to my mind; then why should any credit be awarded to me; or how can I count any circumstance that may have occurred to me, in the light of a sacrifice? If a man pursues the only course that will bring peace to his own mind, is he deserving of any credit therefor? Is not the reward worth striving for at any cost? Indeed it is, as I well know.

Would it be well for me, entertaining such sentiments, to sit down and write an account of my sacrifices? I think not. Therefore please hold me excused. I am anxious to see thy book, and will forward the price of one as soon as I can ascertain what it is.

Please accept my thanks for thy kind remembrance of me. I am now fifty-three years old, but I well remember thy face in the Anti-slavery Office in Fifth street, when I called on business of the Underground Rail Road. Our mutual friend, S.D. Burris, was the cause of much uneasiness to us in those times. It required much trouble, as well as expense to save him from the slave-traders. I stood by him on the auction-block; and when I stepped down, they thought they had him sure. Indeed he thought so himself for a little while. But we outwitted them at last, to their great chagrin. Those were stirring times, and the people of Dover, Delaware, will long remember the time when S.D. Burris was sold at public sale for aiding slaves to escape from their masters, and was bought by the Pennsylvania Anti-slavery Society. I remain very truly thy friend,

JOHN HUNN.



* * * * *



THE CASE OF MOLLY, A SLAVE, BELONGING TO R—— B——, OF SMYRNA, DELAWARE.

BY JOHN HUNN, ENGINEER OF THE UNDERGROUND RAIL ROAD.

Molly escaped from her master's farm, in Cecil county, Maryland, and found a place of refuge in the house of my cousin, John Alston, near Middletown, Delaware. The man-hunters, headed by a constable with a search warrant, took her thence and lodged her in New Castle Jail. This fact was duly published in the county papers, and her master went after his chattel, and having paid the expenses of her capture took immediate possession thereof.

She was hand-cuffed, and, her feet being tied together, she was placed in the wagon. Before she left the jail, the wife of the sheriff gave her a piece of bread and butter, which her master kicked out of her hand, and swore that bread and butter was too good for her. After this act her master took a drink of brandy and drove off.

He stopped at a tavern about four miles from New Castle and took another drink of brandy. He then proceeded to Odessa, then called Cantwell's Bridge, and got his dinner and more brandy, for the day was a cold one. He had his horse fed, but gave no food to his human chattel, who remained in the wagon cold and hungry. After sufficient rest for himself and horse he started again. He was now twelve miles from home, on a good road, his horse was gentle, and he himself in a genial mood at the recovery of his bond-woman. He yielded to the influence of the liquor he had imbibed and fell into a sound sleep. Molly now determined to make another effort for her freedom. She accordingly worked herself gradually over the tail board of the wagon, and fell heavily upon the frozen ground. The horse and wagon passed on, and she rolled into the bushes, and waited for deliverance from her bonds. This came from a colored man who was passing that way. As he was neither a priest nor a Levite, he took the rope from her feet and guided her to a cabin near at hand, where she was kindly received. Her deliverer could not take the hand-cuffs off, but promised to bring a person, during the evening, who could perform that operation. He fulfilled his promise, and brought her that night to my house, which was in sight of the one whence she had been taken to New Castle Jail.

I had no fear for her safety, as I believed that her master would not think of looking for her so near to the place where she had been arrested. Molly remained with us nearly a month; but, seeing fugitives coming and going continually, she finally concluded to go further North. I wrote to my friend, Thomas Garrett, desiring him to get a good home for Molly. This he succeeded in doing, and a friend from Chester county, Pennsylvania, came to my house and took Molly with him. She remained in his family more than six months.

In the mean time the Fugitive Slave Law was passed by Congress, and several fugitives were arrested in Philadelphia and sent back to their masters. Molly, hearing of these doings, became uneasy, and finally determined to go to Canada. She arrived safely in the Queen's Dominions, and felt at last that she had escaped from the hell of American Slavery.

Molly described her master as an indulgent one when sober, but when he was on a "spree" he seemed to take great delight in tormenting her. He would have her beaten unmercifully without cause, and then have her stripes washed in salt water, then he would have her dragged through the horse pond until she was nearly dead. This last operation seemed to afford him much pleasure. When he became sober he would express regret at having treated her so cruelly. I frequently saw this master of Molly's, and was always treated respectfully by him. He would have his "sprees" after Molly left him.

* * * * *



AN ACCOUNT OF THE ESCAPE FROM SLAVERY OF SAMUEL HAWKINS AND FAMILY, OF QUEEN ANNE'S COUNTY, MARYLAND, ON THE UNDERGROUND RAIL ROAD, IN THE STATE OF DELAWARE.

BY JOHN HUNN.

On the morning of the 27th of 12th month (December), 1845, as I was washing my hands at the yard pump of my residence, near Middletown, New Castle county, Delaware, I looked down the lane, and saw a covered wagon slowly approaching my house. The sun had just risen, and was shining brightly (after a stormy night) on the snow which covered the ground to the depth of six inches. My house was situated three quarters of a mile from the road leading from Middletown to Odessa, (then called Cantwell's Bridge.) On a closer inspection I noticed several men walking beside the wagon. This seemed rather an early hour for visitors, and I could not account for the circumstance. When they reached the yard fence I met them, and a colored man handed me a letter addressed to Daniel Corbit, John Alston or John Hunn; I asked the man if he had presented the letter to either of the others to whom it was addressed; he said, no, that he had not been able to see either of them. The letter was from my cousin, Ezekiel Jenkins, of Camden, Delaware, and stated that the travelers were fugitive slaves, under the direction of Samuel D. Burris (who handed me the note). The party consisted of a man and his wife, with their six children, and four fine-looking colored men, without counting the pilot, S.D. Burris, who was a free man, from Kent county, Delaware.

This was the first time that I ever saw Burris, and also the first time that I had ever been called upon to assist fugitives from the hell of American Slavery. The wanderers were gladly welcomed, and made as comfortable as possible until breakfast was ready for them. One man, in trying to pull his boots off, found they were frozen to his feet; he went to the pump and filled them with water, thus he was able to get them off in a few minutes.

This increase of thirteen in the family was a little embarrassing, but after breakfast they all retired to the barn to sleep on the hay, except the woman and four children, who remained in the house. They were all very weary, as they had traveled from Camden (twenty-seven miles), through a snowstorm; the woman and four children in the wagon with the driver, the others walking all the way. Most of them were badly frost-bitten, before they arrived at my house. In Camden, they were sheltered in the houses of their colored friends. Although this was my first acquaintance with S.D. Burris, it was not my last, as he afterwards piloted them himself, or was instrumental in directing hundreds of fugitives to me for shelter.

About two o'clock of the day on which these fugitives arrived at my house, a neighbor drove up with his daughter in a sleigh, apparently on a friendly visit. I noticed his restlessness and frequent looking out of the window fronting the road; but did not suppose, that he had come "to spy out the land."

The wagon and the persons walking with it, had been observed from his house, and he had reported the fact in Middletown. Accordingly, in half an hour, another sleigh came up, containing a constable of Middletown, William Hardcastle, of Queen Ann's county, Maryland, and William Chesnut, of the same neighborhood. I met them at the gate, and the constable handed me an advertisement, wherein one thousand dollars reward was offered for the recovery of three runaway slaves, therein described.

The constable asked me if they were in my house? I said they were not! He then asked me if he might search the house? I declined to allow him this privilege, unless he had a warrant for that purpose. While we stood thus conversing, the husband of the woman with the six children, came out of a house near the barn, and ran into the woods. The constable and his two companions immediately gave chase, with many halloos! After running more than a mile through the snow, the fugitive came toward the house; I went to meet him, and found him with his back against the barn-yard fence, with a butcher's knife in his hand. The man hunters soon came up, and the constable asked me to get the knife from the fugitive. This I declined, unless the constable should first give me his pistol, with which he was threatening to shoot the man. He complied with my request, and the fugitive handed me the knife. Then he produced a pass, properly authenticated, and signed by a magistrate of Queen Ann's county, Maryland, certifying that this man was free! and that his name was Samuel Hawkins.

William Hardcastle now advanced, and said that he knew the man to be free; but that he was accused of running away with his wife and children who were slaves. He also said, that this man had two boys with him, who belonged to a neighbor of his, named Charles Wesley Glanding, and that the four other children and mother belonged to Catharine Turner, of Queen Ann's county, Maryland. Hardcastle further expressed his belief, that this man knew where his wife and children were at that time, and insisted that he should go before a magistrate in Middletown, and be examined in regard thereto. He also expressed doubts as to the genuineness of this pass, and wished the man to go to Middletown on that account also. As there was no other course to pursue under the circumstances, I had my sleigh brought out, and we all went to Middletown, before my friend, William Streets, who was then in commission as a magistrate. It was now after dark of this short winter's day. Soon after our arrival at the office of William Streets, Hardcastle put his arm very lovingly around the neck of the colored man, Samuel Hawkins, and drew him into another room. In a short time, Samuel came out, and told me that Hardcastle had agreed, that if he, Hawkins, would give up his two older boys, who belonged to Charles Wesley Glanding; then he might pursue his journey with his wife and four children. I asked him if he believed Hardcastle would keep his promise? He replied: "Yes! I do not think master William would cheat me." I assured him that he would cheat him, and that the offer was made for the purpose of not only getting the two older boys (fourteen and sixteen years of age), but his wife and other children to the office, when all of them would be taken together to the jail, in New Castle. Samuel thought differently, and at his request, I wrote to my wife for the delivery of the family of Samuel Hawkins to the constable. They were soon forthcoming, and on their arrival at the office, a commitment was made out for the whole party. Samuel and his two older sons were hand-cuffed, amidst many tears and lamentations, and they all went off under charge of the man-hunters, to New Castle jail, a distance of eighteen miles.

William Streets committed the whole party as fugitives from Slavery, while the husband (Samuel), was a free man. This was done on account of the detestation of the wicked business, as much as on account of his friendship for me.

On their arrival at the jail, about midnight, the sheriff was aroused, and the commitment shown to him; after reading it, he asked Samuel if he was a slave? He said no, and showed his pass (which had been pronounced genuine by the magistrate). The sheriff hereupon told them, that the commitment was not legal, and would not hold them lawfully. It was now first day (Sunday), and the man-hunters were in a quandary.

The constable finally agreed to go back and get another commitment, if the sheriff would take the party into the jail until his return; Hardcastle also urged the sheriff to adopt this plan. Accordingly they were taken into the jail.

The sheriff's daughter had heard her father's conversation with the constable, accordingly she sent word on First-day morning, to my revered friend, Thomas Garrett, of Wilmington, five miles distant, in regard to the matter, inviting him to see the fugitives. Early on Second day morning (Monday), Thomas went over with John Wales, attorney at law. The latter soon obtained a writ of habeas corpus from Judge Booth of New Castle, which was served upon the sheriff; who, therefore, brought the whole party before Judge Booth, who discharged them at once, as being illegally detained by the sheriff. Thomas Garrett, with the consent of the judge, then hired a carriage to take the woman and four children over to Wilmington, Samuel and the two older boys walked, so they all escaped from the man-hunters. They went from Wilmington to Byberry, and settled near the farm of Robert Purvis. Samuel Hawkins and wife have since died, but their descendants still live in that neighborhood, under the name of Hackett.

Soon after the departure of the fugitives from New Castle jail, the constable arrived with new commitments from William Streets, and presented them in due form to the sheriff; who informed him that they had been liberated by order of Judge Booth! A few hours after, William Hardcastle arrived from Philadelphia, expecting to take Samuel Hawkins and his family to Queen Ann's county, Maryland. Judge of his disappointment at finding they were beyond his control—absolutely gone! They returned to Middletown in great anger, and threatened to prosecute William Streets for his participation in the affair.

After the departure of the Hawkins family from Middletown, I returned home to see what had become of S.D. Burris and his four men. I found them taking some solid refreshment, preparatory to taking a long walk in the snow. They left about nine P.M., for Wilmington. I sent by S.D. Burris a letter to Thomas Garrett, detailing the arrest and commitment of S. Hawkins and family to New Castle jail. They all arrived safely in Wilmington before daylight next morning. Burris waited to hear the result of the expedition to New Castle; and actually had the pleasure of seeing S. Hawkins and family arrive in Wilmington.

Samuel Burris returned to my house early on Third day morning, with a letter from Thomas Garrett, giving me a description of the whole transaction. My joy on this occasion was great! and I returned thanks to God for this wonderful escape of so many human beings from the charnel-house of Slavery.

OFFICERS OF THE ROAD.



Of course this circumstance excited the ire of many pro-slavery editors in Maryland. I had copies of several papers sent me, wherein I was described as a man unfit to live in a civilized community, and calling upon the inhabitants of Middletown to expel such a dangerous person from that neighborhood! They also told exactly where I lived, which enabled many a poor fugitive escaping from the house of bondage, to find a hearty welcome and a resting-place on the road to liberty. Thanks be to God! for His goodness to me in this respect.

The trial which ensued from the above, came off before Chief Justice Taney, at New Castle. My revered friend, Thomas Garrett, and myself, were there convicted of harboring fugitive slaves, and were fined accordingly, to the extent of the law; Judge Taney delivering the sentence. A detailed account of said trial, will fully appear in the memoirs of our deceased friend, Thomas Garrett.

* * * * *



SAMUEL RHOADS

Was born in Philadelphia, in 1806, and was through life a consistent member of the Society of Friends. His parents were persons of great respectability and integrity. The son early showed an ardent desire for improvement, and was distinguished among his young companions for warm affections, amiable disposition, and genial manners, rare purity and refinement of feeling, and a taste for literary pursuits. Preferring as his associates those to whom he looked for instruction and example, and aiming at a high standard, he won a position, both mentally and socially, superior to his early surroundings. With a keen sense of justice and humanity, he could not fail to share in the traditional opposition of his religious society to slavery, and to be quickened to more intense feeling as the evils of the system were more fully revealed in the Anti-slavery agitation which in his early manhood began to stir the nation.

A visit to England, in 1834, brought him into connection and friendship with many leading Friends in that country, who were actively engaged in the Anti-slavery movement, and probably had much to do with directing his attention specially to the subject. Once enlisted, he never wavered, but as long as slavery existed by law in our country his influence, both publicly and privately, was exerted against it. He was strengthened in his course by a warm friendship and frequent intercourse with the late Abraham L. Pennock, a man whose unbending integrity and firm allegiance to duty were equalled only by his active benevolence, broad charity, and rare clearness of judgment. Samuel Rhoads, like him, while sympathizing with other phases of the Anti-slavery movement, took especial interest in the subject of abstaining from the use of articles produced by slave labor. Believing that the purchase of such articles, by furnishing to the master the only possibility of pecuniary profit from the labor of his slaves, supplied one motive for holding them in bondage, and that the purchaser thus became, however unwittingly, a partaker in the guilt, he felt conscientiously bound to withhold his individual support as far as practicable, and to recommend the same course to others.

His practical action upon these views began about the year 1841, and was persevered in, at no small expense and inconvenience, till slavery ceased in this country to have a legal existence. About this time he united with the American Free Produce Association, which had been formed in 1838, and in 1845 took an active part in the formation of the Free Produce Association of Friends of Philadelphia, Y.M.; both associations having the object of promoting the production by free labor of articles usually grown by slaves, particularly of cotton. Agents were sent into the cotton States, to make arrangements with small planters, who were growing cotton by the labor of themselves and their families without the help of slaves, to obtain their crops, which otherwise went into the general market, and could not be distinguished. A manufactory was established for working this cotton, and a limited variety of goods were thus furnished. In all these operations Samuel Rhoads aided efficiently by counsel and money.

In 1846, "The Non-slave-holder," a monthly periodical, devoted mainly to the advocacy of the Free Produce cause, was established in Philadelphia, edited by A.L. Pennock, S. Rhoads, and George W. Taylor. It was continued five years, for the last two of which Samuel Rhoads conducted it alone. He wrote also a pamphlet on the free labor question. From July, 1856 to January, 1867 he was Editor of the "Friends' Review," a weekly paper, religious and literary, conducted in the interest of his own religious society, and in this position he gave frequent proofs of interest in the slave, keeping his readers well advised of events and movements bearing upon the subject.

While thus awake to all forms of anti-slavery effort, his heart and hand were ever open to the fugitive from bondage, who appealed to him, and none such were ever sent away empty. Though not a member of the Vigilance Committee, he rendered it frequent and most efficient aid, especially during the dark ten years after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law.

A second visit to England, in 1847, had enlarged his connection and correspondence with anti-slavery friends there, and in addition to his own contributions, very considerable sums of money were transmitted to him, especially through A.H. Richardson, for the benefit of the fugitives. Often when the treasury of the Committee ran low, he came opportunely to their relief with funds sent by his English friends, while his sympathy and encouragement never failed. The extent of his assistance in this direction was known to but few, but by them its value was gratefully acknowledged. None rejoiced more than he in the overthrow of American slavery, though its end came in convulsion and bloodshed, at which his spirit revolted, not by the peaceful means through which he with others had labored to bring it about. He had some years before been active in preparing a memorial to Congress, asking that body to make an effort to put an end to slavery in the States, by offering from the national treasury, to any State or States which would emancipate the slaves therein, and engage not to renew the system, compensation for losses thus sustained. This proposition was made, not as admitting any right of the masters to compensation; but on the ground that the whole nation, having shared in the guilt of maintaining slavery, might justly share also in whatever pecuniary loss might follow its abandonment.

This memorial was sent to Congress, but elicited no response; and in the fulness of time, the nation paid even in money many times any possible price that could have been demanded under this plan. Samuel Rhoads died in 1868.



GEORGE CORSON

Was born in Plymouth township, Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, January 24th, 1803. He was the son of Joseph and Hannah Corson. He was married January 24th, 1832, to Martha, daughter of Samuel and Susanna Maulsby.

There were perhaps few more devoted men than George Corson to the interests of the oppressed everywhere. The slave, fleeting from his master, ever found a home with him, and felt while there that no slave-hunter would get him away until every means of protection should fail. He was ever ready to send his horse and carriage to convey them on the road to Canada, or elsewhere towards freedom. His home was always open to entertain the anti-slavery advocates, and being warmly supported in the cause by his excellent wife, everything which they could do to make their guests comfortable was done. The Burleighs, J. Miller McKim, Miss Mary Grew, F. Douglass, and others will not soon forget that hospitable home. It is to be regretted that he died before the emancipation of the slaves, which he had so long labored for, arrived. In this connection it may not be improper to state that simultaneously with his labors in the Anti-slavery cause, he was also laboring with zeal in the cause of Temperance. Of his efforts in that direction through nearly thirty years, our space will not allow us to speak. His life and labors were a daily protest against the traffic of rum. There is also another phase of his character which should be mentioned. Whenever he saw animals abused, horses beaten, he instantly interfered, often at great risk of personal harm from the brutal drivers about the lime quarries and iron ore diggings. So firm, so determined was he, that the cruellest ruffian felt that he must yield or confront the law. Take him all for all, there will rarely be found in one man more universal benevolence and justice than was possessed by the subject of this notice.

Hiram Corson, brother of the subject of this sketch, and a faithful co-laborer in the cause, in response to a request that he would furnish a reminiscence touching his brother's agency in assisting fugitives, wrote as follows:

November 1st, 1871.

DEAR ROBERT:—Wm. Still wishes some account of the case of the negro slave taken from our neighborhood some years ago, after an attempt by my brother George to release him. (About thirty years ago.) George had been on a visit to our brother Charles, living at the fork of the Skippack and Perkiomen Creeks, in this county, and on his return, late in the afternoon, while coming along an obscure road, not the main direct road, he came up to a man on horseback, who was followed at a distance of a few feet by a colored man with a rope tied around his neck, and the other end held by the person on horseback.

George had had experience with those slave-drivers before, as in the case of John and James Lewis, and withal had become deeply interested in the Anti-slavery cause. He, therefore, inquired of the mounted man, what the other had done that he was to be thus treated. He quietly remarked that he was his slave and had run away. He then asked by what authority he held him. He said by warrant from Esquire Vanderslice. Indignant at this great outrage, my brother hurried on to Norristown, and waited his arrival with a process to arrest him. The slave-master, confident in his rights, bold in the country of those pretended freemen, who were ever ready to kiss the rod of Slavery, came slowly riding into Norristown, just before sunset, with the rope still fast to the slave's neck. He was immediately taken before a Justice of the Peace, whose name I do not now remember. The people gathered around; anxious inquiries were made as to the person who had the audacity to question the right of this quiet, peaceable man to do with his slave as he pleased. Great scorn was expressed for the busy Abolitionists. Much sympathy given to the abused slave owner. It was soon decided, by the aid of a volunteer lawyer, whose sons have since fought the battle for freedom, that the slave-owner had a right to take his slave whereever, and in whatever way he pleased, through the country, and not only that, but at his call for help it was the bounden duty of every man, called upon, to aid him; and the person who had the audacity to stop him was threatened with punishment.

But George's blood was up, so pained was he at the sight of a man, a poor man, a helpless man, being dragged through from Pennsylvania with a halter around his neck, that, amidst the jeers and insults of the debased crowd, he denounced Slavery, its aiders and abettors, in tones of scorn and loathing. But the man thief was left with his prey. Through the advice of those who stood by the slave laws and who knelt before the slave power, as personified by that hunter of slaves, the rope was taken from the neck, and the man guarded while the master regaled himself. That night he disappeared with his man.

I can also give a few particulars of the escape of the Gorsuch murderers, from Norristown on their way to Canada. There should be a portrait of Daniel Ross, and a history of his labors during twenty or more years. Hundreds were entertained in his humble home, and it was in his home that the Gorsuch murderer was secreted. He must not be left out. I can also get the whole history, escape, capture, trial, conviction and redemption of James and John Lewis, and one other. They were captured here within sight of our house. George Corson, Esq., published it all, about ten years ago. Respectfully,

ROBERT R. CORSON.

HIRAM CORSON.



CHARLES D. CLEVELAND.

Mr. Still has asked me to record the part that my father bore in the Anti-slavery enterprise, as it began and grew in this city. I comply, because the history of that struggle would be very incomplete, if from it were omitted the peculiar work which my father's position here shaped for him. Yet I can only indicate his work, not portray it; tell some of its elements, and then leave them to the moral sympathies of the reader to upbuild. For, first, his labor for the love of man was evenly distributed through the mould and movements of his entire life; and from a perpetual current of nourishing blood, one cannot name those particular atoms that are busiest or richest to sustain vitality. And, further, if I could hear his voice, it would forbid any detailed account of what he accomplished and endured. It was all done unobtrusively in his life; bravely, defiantly, in regard of the evil to be met and mastered, but as unconsciously in regard of himself as every conviction works, when it is as broad as the entire spiritual life of a man and has his entire spiritual force to give it expression. I know, therefore, that while I should be permitted to mention so much of his service as the history of the conflict might demand, I should be forbidden all tale of sacrifice and labor that mere personal narrative would include; and I ask now only this: What peculiar influence did he exert for the furtherance of the cause which so largely absorbed his labor and life? Did he contribute anything to it stamped with the signature of so clear an individuality that no other man could have contributed quite the same? To this I maintain an affirmative answer; and in witness of its truth, I sketch the general course of his life, that through it we may find those elements of his character which intuitively ranged him on the side of the slave.

When my father came to Philadelphia in 1834, his sentiments in regard to Slavery were those held generally in the North—an easy-going wish to avoid direct issue with the South on a question supposed to be peculiarly theirs. But the winds of Heaven owned to no decorous limit in Mason and Dixon's line; and there were larger winds blowing than these—winds rising in the vast laboratories of the general human heart, and destined to sweep into all the vast spaces of human want and woe. The South was finding, through her blacks' perpetual defiance of torture and death for freedom, that there was perhaps something, even in a negro, which most vexatiously refused to be counted in with the figures of the auctioneer's bill of sale; and now the North's lesson was coming to her—that the soul of a century's civilization was still less purchasable than the soul of a slave. A growing feeling of humanity was stirring through the northern States. It was not the work, I think, of any man or body of men; it was rather itself a creative force, and made men and bodies of men the results of its awakening influence. To such a power, my father's nature was quickly responsive. Both his head and his heart recognized the terrible wrongs of the enslaved, and the urgency with which they pressed for remedy; but where was the means? From the first, he felt that the movement which brought Freedom and Slavery fairly into the field and squarely against each other, threw unnecessary obstacles in its own way by the violence with which it was begun and prosecuted. If he were to work at all in the cause, he determined to work within the limits of recognized law. The Colonization Society held out a good hope; at least, he could see no other as close to the true but closer to the feasible; and, after connecting himself with it, he seems to have been content for a while on the score of political matters, and to have devoted himself to what he had adopted as his chief purpose in life. This was, enlarging the sphere of female education, and giving it a more vigorous tone. To this he tasked all his abilities. His convictions on the subject were very earnest; his strength of character sufficient to bear them out; so that, in a short time, he was able to establish his school so firmly in the respect of this community, that, for twenty-five years, all the odium that his activity in the Anti-slavery cause drew upon him did not for a moment abate the public confidence accorded to his professional power.

It was in 1836, in one of his vacations, that his mind was violently turned inwards to re-examine his status upon the Anti-slavery question. He happened to be visiting his old college-friend, Salmon P. Chase, at Cincinnati, and, fortunately for the spiritual life of both men, it was at the time of the terrible riots that broke up the press of John G. Birney. Both being known as already favoring the cause of the slave, they stood in much peril for several days; but when the dark time was passed, the clearness that defined their sentiments was seen to be worth all the personal danger that had bought it. Self-delusion on the subject was no longer possible. The deductions from the facts were as plain as the facts themselves. The two friends took counsel together, and adopted the policy from which thenceforward neither ever swerved. A great cloud was rolled from their eyes. In all this turmoil of riot, they saw on the one side, indeed, a love of man great in its devotion; but on the other, a moral deadness in the North so profound and determined that it threatened thus brutally any voice that would disturb it. Their duty, then, was evident: to fling all the forces of their lives, and by all social and political means, right against this inertness, and shatter it if they could. To Mr. Chase, the course of things gave the larger political work; to my father, the larger social. His diary records how amazed he was, when he returned to Philadelphia, at his former blindness, and how thankful to the spirit of love that had touched and cleansed his eyes that he might see God's image erect. He knew now that his lot had been cast in the very stronghold of apathy, the home of a lukewarm spirit, which, not containing anything positive to keep it close to the right, let its sullen negativeness gravitate towards the wrong. It will be difficult to make coming generations understand, not the flaming antagonism to humanity, but the more brutal avoidance of it that ruled the political tone in this latitude, from 1836 to 1861. I have thought of the word bitterness, as expressing it; but though that might convey somewhat of its recoil when disturbed, it pictures nothing of its inhuman solicitude against all disturbance. Conservatism, it was called; and certainly it did conserve the devil admirably. At the South, one race of men were so basely wielding a greater physical power over another race of men, as to crush from them the attributes of self-responsible creatures; Philadelphia, the city of the North nearest the wrong, made no plea for humanity's claims. It went on, this monstrous abrogation of everything that lends sanctity to man's relations on earth, till slaves were beasts, with instincts annihilated, and masters demons, with instincts reversed; Philadelphia made no plea for the violated rhythm of life on either side. Even the Church betrayed its mission, and practically aided in stamping out from millions the spirit that related them to the Divine; still Philadelphia made no plea for God's love in his humanity. Utterly insensible to the most piercing appeals that man can make to man, she loved her hardness, clung to it; and if, now and then, a voice from the North blew down, warningly as a trumpet, the great city turned sluggishly in her bed of spiritual and political torpor, and cried: Let be, let be! a little more slumber! a little more folding of the hands to my moral death-sleep!

This souring of faith, this half-paralysis of the heart's beating, this blurring of the intuitions that make manhood possible, were what my father found here in that year of our Lord's grace, 1836. It will be worth while to watch him move into the fight and bear his part in its thickest, just to learn how largely history lays her humanitarian advances on a few willing souls.

The means which lay readiest to his use for rousing the dormant spirit of the city was his social position. And yet how hard, one would think, it must have been to make this sacrifice. He came accredited by all the claims of finished culture, a man consecrated to the scholar's life.[A] Then, with the sensitiveness that springs from intellectual breeding, one will look to see him shrink from conflict with the callous condition of feeling around him. The glamour of book-lore will spread over it, and hide it from his sight. He has a noble enough mission, at all events: to raise the standard of educational culture in a city that hardly knows the meaning of the term; and if any glimpse should come to him of the lethargic inhumanity around him, he can afford to let it pass as a glimpse—his look being fixed on the sacred heights which the scholar's feet must tread.

[Footnote A: All that I here write of my father, I write equally of his co-laborer in the same sphere of work—Rev. W.H. Furness; and if it is true of others whom I did not know, then to their memory also I bear this record of the two whose labors and characters it has been the deepest privilege of my life to know so well.]

Ah, how his course, so different, proves to us that the true scholar is always a scholar of truth. No matter what element of the public sentiment he met—the listlessness of pampered wealth; the brutal prejudice of some voting savage; the refined sneer of lettered dilettanteism; the purposed aversion of trade or pulpit fearing disturbed markets or pews;—he beat lustily and incessantly at all the parts of the iron image of wrong sitting stolidly here with close-shut eyes. No matter when it was, on holiday or working-day or Sabbath; at home and abroad; in the parlor, the street, the counting-room; in his school and in the Church;—he bore down on this apathy and its brood of scorns like a west wind that sweeps through a city dying under weight of miasma. And the wind might as well cease blowing yet not cease to be wind, as my father's influence stop and himself live. It scattered the good seed everywhere. How often have I heard him say, "I know nothing of what the harvest will be; I am responsible only for the sowing." And bravely went the sowing on, with the broadcast largesse of love. There was no breeze of talk that did not carry the seeds;—to the wayside, for from those that even chance upon the truth the fowls of the air cannot take it all; to thin soil and among thorns, for no heart so feeble or choked that will not find in a single day's growth of truth germination for eternity; to stony places, for no cranny in the rocks that can hold a seed but can be a home for riving roots;—"And other fell on good ground and did bring forth fruit."

Thus it was primarily to rouse those of his own class that he labored, to gall them into seeing (though they should turn again and rend him) that moral supineness is moral decay, that the soul shrivels into nothingness when wrong is acquiesced in, as surely as it is torn and scattered by the furies let loose within it, when wrong is done. But just there lay the difficulty and pain of his mission: that, from his acknowledged standing in the literary world, and as a leader in the interests of higher education, his path brought him into contact mainly with the cultured, and it was among these that the pro-slavery spirit ruled with its bitterest stringency. Not cultured: let us unsay the word; rather, with the gloss and hard polish which reading and wealth and the finer appointments of living can throw over spiritual arrest or decay. Culture is a holy word, and dare be used of intellectual advance only when the moral sympathies have kept equal step. It includes something beyond an amateur sentiment; in favor of what we favor. If it does not open the ear to every cry of humanity, struggling up or slipping back, it is no culture properly so called, but a sham, a mask of wax, a varnish with cruel glitter; and what a double wrath will be poured on him who cracks the wax and the varnish, not only because of the rude awakening, but because the crack shows the sham.

It is impossible for us now to realize what revenge this class dealt to my father for twenty-five years. Consider their power of revenge. They could not force a loss of property or of life, it is true; they made no open assault in the street; their 'delicacy' held itself above common vituperation. But they wielded a greater power than all these over a man whose every accomplishment made him their equal, and they used it without stint. They doomed him to the slow martyrdom of social scorn. They shut their doors against him. They elbowed him from every position to which he had a wish or a right, except public respect, and they could not elbow him from that unless they pushed his character from its poise. They cut him off from every friendly regard which would else have been devotedly his, on that level of educated life, and limited him to 'solitary confinement' within himself. They compelled him to walk as if under a ban or an anathema. Had he been a leper in Syrian deserts, or a disciple of Jesus among Pharisees, he could not have been more utterly banished from the region of homes and self-constituted piety. They showered ineffable contempt upon him in every way consistent with their littleness and—refinement. Slight, sneer, insult, all the myriad indignities that only 'good society' can devise, these were what my father received in return for his love and his work in love.

How little personal relation all this obloquy bore to him, let this stand as evidence: that he not only continued his work, but daily gave it more caustic energy and wider scope. As I have hinted, he did not, in political matters, give in his adherence to that class of abolitionists who, as he thought, threw away their best chances of success in refusing to work within constitutional provisions. He was prouder that this single community should call him "abolitionist," though it spat the word at him, than if the whole earth should hail him with the kingliest title; but he loved the name too well not to make it stand for some practical fact, some feasible and organized effort. He believed that our National Constitution did, indeed, hold many compromises with Slavery, but was framed, in the majority of its provisions and certainly in the totality of its spirit, in the interests of freedom; and that it only needed enforcement by the choice of the ballot-box to bring the South either to an amicable or a hostile settlement of the question. Which, he did not ask or care. The duty of the present could not be mis-read; it was written in the vote.

With these views, he gave much time and work to organizing in this State, "The National Liberty Party," in 1840, and to securing from Pennsylvania some of the seven thousand votes that were cast for John G. Birney in that year throughout the Union. By the time another election came, the party had swelled its numbers to seventy thousand. To contribute his share towards this success, tract after tract, address after address, were written and sent broadcast; meetings were convened, committees formed, resolutions framed, speeches made, petitions and remonstrances sent, public action fearlessly sifted and criticised; in short, because he held a steady faith in men's humane promptings when ultimately reached, he 'cried aloud' to them by every access, and 'spared not' to call them from their timidity and time-serving to manly utterance through the ballot-box.

Of such appeals, his address of the "Liberty Party of Pennsylvania, to the people of the State," issued in 1844, may stand as a sample. It is a vivid portrayal of the slave power's insidious encroachments, and of its monopolized guidance of the Government. It gathers up the national statistics into groups, shows how new meaning is reflected from them thus related, that all unite to illustrate the single fact of the South's steady increase of power, her tightening grasp about the throat of government, and her buffets of threat to the North when a weedling palm failed to palsy fast enough. It warns northern voters of the undertow that is drawing them, and adjures them, by every consideration of political common sense, not to cast their ballots for either of the pro-slavery candidates presented. The conclusion of this address is as follows:



OUR OBJECT.



"And now, fellow-citizens, you may ask, what is our object in thus exhibiting to you the alarming influence of the slave power? Do we wish to excite in your bosoms feelings of hatred against citizens of a common country? Do we wish to array the Free states against the Slave states in hostile strife? No, fellow-citizens. But we wish to show you that, while the slave states are inferior to us in free population, having not even one half of ours; inferior in morals, being the region of bowie knives and duels, of assassinations and lynch law; inferior in mental attainments, having not one-fourth of the number that can read and write; inferior in intelligence, having not one-fifth of the number of literary and scientific periodicals; inferior in the products of agriculture and manufactures, of mines, of fisheries, and of the forest; inferior, in short, in everything that constitutes the wealth, the honor, the dignity, the stability, the happiness, the true greatness of a nation,—it is wrong, it is unjust, it is absurd, that they should have an influence in all the departments of government so entirely disproportionate to our own. We would arouse you to your own true interests. We would have you, like men, firmly resolved to maintain your own rights. We would have you say to the South,—if you choose to hug to your bosom that system which is continually injuring and impoverishing you; that system which reduces two millions and a half of native Americans in your midst to the most abject condition of ignorance and vice, withholding from them the very key of knowledge; that system which is at war with every principle of justice, every feeling of humanity; that system which makes man the property of man, and perpetuates that relation from one generation to another; that system which tramples, continually, upon a majority of the commandments of the Decalogue; that system which could not live a day if it did not give one party supreme control over the persons, the health, the liberty, the happiness, the marriage relations, the parental authority and filial obligations of the other;—if you choose to cling to such a system, cling to it; but you shall not cross our line; you shall not bring that foul thing here. We know, and we here repeat it for the thousandth time to meet, for the thousandth time, the calumnies of our enemies, that while we may present to you every consideration of duty, we have no right, as well as no power, to alter your State laws. But remember, that slavery is the mere creature of local or statute law, and cannot exist out of the region where such law has force. 'It is so odious,' says Lord Mansfield, 'that nothing can be suffered to support it but positive law.'

"We would, therefore, say to you again, in the strength of that Constitution under which we live, and which no where countenances slavery, you shall not bring that foul thing here. You shall not force the corrupted and corrupting blood of that system into every vein and artery of our body politic. You shall not have the controlling power in all the departments of our government at home and abroad. You shall not so negotiate with foreign powers, as to open markets for the products of slave labor alone. You shall not so manage things at home, as every few years to bring bankruptcy upon our country. You shall not, in the apportionment of public moneys, have what you call your 'property' represented, and thus get that which, by no right, belongs to you. You shall not have the power to bring your slaves upon our free soil, and take them away at pleasure; nor to reclaim them, when they, panting for liberty, have been able to escape your grasp; for we would have it said of us, as the eloquent Curran said of Britain, the moment the slave touches our soil, 'The ground on which he stands is holy, and consecrated to the Genius of UNIVERSAL EMANCIPATION.'

"Thus, fellow-citizens, we come to the great object of the Liberty Party: ABSOLUTE AND UNQUALIFIED DIVORCE OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT FROM ALL CONNECTION WITH SLAVERY. We would employ every constitutional means to eradicate it from our entire country, because it would be for the highest welfare of our entire country. We would have liberty established in the District, and in all the Territories. * * We would have liberty of speech and of the press, which the Constitution guarantees to us. We would have the right of petition most sacredly regarded. We would secure to every man what the Constitution secures, 'The right of trial by jury.' We would do what we can for the encouragement and improvement of the colored race, and restore to them that inestimable right of which they have been so meanly, as well as unjustly, deprived, the RIGHT OF SUFFRAGE. We would look to the best interests of the country, and the whole country, and not legislate for the good of an Oligarchy, the most arrogant that ever lorded it over an insulted people. We would have our commercial treaties with foreign nations regard the interests of the Free states. We would provide safe, adequate, and permanent markets for the produce of free labor. And, when reproached with slavery, we would be able to say to the world, with an open front and a clear conscience, our General Government has nothing to do with it, either to promote, to sustain, to defend, to sanction, or to approve.

"Thus, fellow-citizens, you see our objects. You may now ask, by what means we hope to attain them. We answer, by POLITICAL ACTION. What is political action? It is acting in a manner appropriate to those objects which we wish to secure through the agency of the different departments of Government. * * The only way in which we can act constitutionally, is to go to the ballot-box, and there, silently and unostentatiously, deposit a vote for such men as will do what they can to carry out those principles which we have so much at heart.

* * * * *

"Come, then, men of Pennsylvania, come and join us in this good work. Join us, to use such moral means as to correct public sentiment throughout the region where slavery exists, and to impress upon the people of the Free states a manly sense of their own rights. Join us, to place "just men" in all our public offices; men whose example a whole people may safely imitate. Join us to free our General Government from the ignominious reproach of slavery; to restore to our country those principles which our fathers so labored to establish; and to hand these principles down afresh to successive generations. It is the cause of truth, of humanity, and of God, to which we invite your aid. It is a cause of which you never need be ashamed. Living, you may be thankful, and dying, you may be thankful, for having labored in it. We have, as co-laborers with us, the noblest allies that man can wish. Within, we have the deepest convictions of conscience, the clearest deductions of reason; and, all over the world, wherever man is found, the first, the most ardent longings of the human soul. Without, we have the happiness of nearly three millions of the human race; the honor, as well as the best interests of our whole country; and the universal consent of all good men whose moral vision is not obscured by the mist of a low, misguided selfishness: while we seem to hear, as it were, the voices of the great and the good, the patriot and the philanthropist, of a past generation, calling to us and cheering us on. But, above all these, and beyond all these, we have with us the highest attributes of God, Justice and Mercy. With such allies, and in such a cause, who can doubt on which side the victory will ultimately rest.

"May He who guides the destinies of nations, and without whose aid 'they labor in vain that build,' so incline your hearts to exert your whole influence to place in all our public offices just and good men, that our country may be preserved, her best interests advanced, and her institutions, free in reality as in name, handed down to the latest posterity."

Is not the love of God and man ingrained in every line of this writing? Yet let us see how it was received by the most Christian (?) body in this city.

I need hardly say that my father's mind had been largely impressed, from earliest manhood, with the highest subject human thought can touch. His library records his wide religious reading; but he could not see an honest path towards the profession of any definite views till 1836. The change wrought in him then, can best be gathered from his own simple words (under date, 1842) written in a fly-leaf of "The Unitarian Miscellany:" "Though I humbly trust that God made my trials in 1836 the means of bringing me to true repentance, yet I have kept these books as monuments of what I once was, and to remind me how grateful I should be to Him for having snatched me as a 'brand from the burning,'" Such a faith as this, born of the spiritual travail of years, what a life it always has for the heart that forms it! It tells not of a persuasion, but of a conviction; a disproof of skepticism through the gathered forces of the soul; a struggle, through epochs of doubt and dismay, into an attitude of positive vital faith. Its process is the only one that gives real right to ultimate peace. In comparison with the method and measure of such a conviction, what matters its specific form? Self-truth is the point,—the fact for starting, the line for guiding; and as for result, this lonely and solemn rally on the deepest within us, as it is continuously unfolded, must lead to a glad and solemn union with the Highest without us. Who can know unfailing inward energy except through this new birth? It proved an ever-fresh spring of vigor to my father, and because of it he was chosen, in 1839, president of "The Philadelphia Bible Society." What changes were wrought in the policy of the Society, what numerous plans were devised and executed for multiplying its operations, how it was made a cordial alliance of all denominations, will presently appear. This is now to be said: that, after filling his office for five years, he found that his Anti-slavery testimony had engendered in the managers a bitterness that would seize the address of 1844 for pretext, and make retaliation in his sacrifice. Thankful, for the thousandth time, to be a sacrifice for the cause he loved, he sent in his resignation in a letter full of Christian kindness and sorrow. A short extract will show its tone:

"One whose great heart wishes the best for humanity calls to us from the West: 'When your Society propose to put a Bible into every family, and yet omit all reference to the slaves; and when, giving an account of the destitution of the land, they make no mention of two and a half millions of people perishing in our midst without the Scriptures, can we help feeling that something is dreadfully wrong?' This, brethren, is a most solemn question. It is a question which I verily believe the American Bible Society, so far as they may have yielded, directly or indirectly, openly or silently, to a corrupt public sentiment on this subject, will have to answer at the bar of Him who has declared, that, 'If ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin,' and that 'Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.' The spirit of Christianity is a spirit of universal love and philanthropy. She looks down with pity, and, if she could, she would look with scorn upon all the petty distinctions that exist among men. She casts her benignant eye abroad over the earth, and, wherever she sees man, she sees him as man, as a being made in the image of God, whether an Indian, an African, or a Caucasian sun may shine upon him. She stoops from heaven to raise the fallen, to bind up the broken-hearted, to release the oppressed, to give liberty to the captive, and to break the fetters of those that are bound. She is marching onward with accelerated step, and, wherever she leaves the true impress of her heavenly influence, the moral wilderness is changed into the garden of the Lord. May it never be ours to do what may seem to be even the slightest obstacle to her universal sway.

"But I have already written more than I intended. In bringing this communication to a close, allow me to express to you individually, and as a Board, my most sincere Christian attachment. Whatever course any members may have taken in relation to this matter, I must believe that they have acted from what has seemed to them a sense of duty. Far be it from me to impeach their motives. Time, the great test of truth, may show them their course in a very different light from that in which they now view it. I may, as a Christian, lament that their views of duty are not more in unison with my own. I may, as a man, feel heart-sickened at the diseased, the deplorably diseased state of the public mind, in relation to two and a half millions of my fellow-men in bondage. I may, as a citizen of a Free state, blush at the humiliating fact, that not only the tyranny, but the ubiquity of the slave power is everywhere so manifest; that it has insinuated itself into our free domain to such a degree that there seems to be as much mental Slavery in the Free states, as there is personal in the Slave states. I may feel all this, but I must not impeach the motives by which others have been governed."

There were twenty-one managers present at the reading of this letter, and, at its conclusion, a noble friend of the slave moved that the resignation be not accepted; the motion was lost by a vote of fourteen against seven. It was then moved that it be accepted 'with regret:' this was carried by the same vote! But 'with regret' was not an empty form for easing this action to its recipient; how much it meant is seen in the resolution that was added by unanimous acceptance: "Resolved,—That this Board are mainly indebted to Professor C.D. Cleveland for the prominent and influential position it has attained in the regards of this Christian community, and that they bear an earnest testimony to the sound judgment and unwearied zeal which have ever characterized the discharge of his duties in his responsible office." Let this tribute, coming from the bitterest personal opposition that ever man encountered, measure the work that extorted it. Looking at it, it will be difficult for the reader to believe that a sacrifice was made of the man to whom it refers by a representative Christian body, and merely to sate for a time the inhuman slave-greed; yet it is only one fact out of many that might be adduced, and I have brought it forward because it is, in my father's words, "a fair exponent of the position of the Christian Church at that time upon the subject of Slavery." Henceforward, he ceased not to rain blows, not only at his own (the Presbyterian) denomination, but at all the organized expressions of Christian purpose,—the Sunday-School Union, the Tract Society, etc.

While working thus by voice and pen, he was incessantly busy in personal rescue of the slave. Especially was this the case when it became the duty of every lover of his kind to defy the Fugitive Slave Law. How eagerly he then sprang to aid the escape of those against whom a law of the land impotently tried to bar the law of our common humanity! During the years that followed the passage of this infamous bill, the position he had attained here was of particular service. Recognized as one, who, being a sort of standing sacrifice, might as well continue to battle in the front; trusted implicitly even by his bitterest foes; with such a broad philanthropy to back his appeals; pushing straight into every breach where work was needed; blind to everything but his one light of moral instinct;—he became an organ for the charities of those whose softer natures longingly whispered the cry, but could not do the cut and thrust work, of deliverance. Dr. Furness held the same position, and others who, like him, refused to be enrolled in the 'Underground Committee,' or in any definite Anti-Slavery organization. These men knew that they were of greater service to the cause by being its body-guard, by standing between it and the public, by making the appeals and taking the blows, and by affording access, pecuniary and other, of each to each.

Thus the times moved on—growing hotter, more difficult and dangerous, but always working these two results: redoubling the labors of this noble band, and shaking the city from lethargy into ferment. Men were compelled to take sides, and but one result could follow, (the result which always follows when human nature is stung and quickened to find its highest instincts,) the Party of Right steadily moved to triumph.

* * * * *

For a lesson to us in courage, it is worth while to ask, how these Apostles of Freedom stood the terrible strain put upon them for so many years. I can answer for the two of whom I write, and do not doubt that the answer is true of the rest: This self-forgetfulness was made easy by a love that filled and overfilled all their moral energies—the simple love of man, as God's highest creation, and of his natural rights, as God's best gift. Their work was not a mere result of will, not an outcome of faculty, not an unsupported impulse of heart. It was character living itself out, an utterance of its entire unity, something drawn from the solemn depths of those life-convictions which all the personal and impersonal powers of a man, aglow and welded, unite in producing. Hence, their work was not apart from them, even so far as to be called ahead of them; nor parallel with them; it was one with them by a necessary spiritual inclusion. Will and Duty ceased to be separate powers; they were transfused through the whole breadth of their human sympathies, adding to their warmth a fixity of purpose that bore them without a falter, through thirty years of such bitter obloquy, as, in these latter days, only the early Anti-Slavery disciples have had to endure. These men never said, in reference to the Anti-slavery cause, I ought or I will, because they never needed to say them. The sun shines without them, and life expands without them; and here were souls as unconsciously beneficent as the one, as spontaneous in growth and shaping as the other. Theirs was not a force that moved mechanically in right lines, with limited objects before it. It did, indeed, sweep with arrowy swiftness of assail on every point that offered; but when I remember that it more often pleaded than stormed, that it penetrated into every secret recess that mercy casually opened, and gently stirred into fuller life those roots of human feeling that can be numbed by apathy but not killed even by hate, I know that it was persuasive, diffusive, inbreathing force, an influence vital in others because an effluence vitalized from themselves.

So they stood, self-consecrated, enveloped by the love of God, permeated by the love of man,—twin Perfect Loves that cast out all dream of fear. And so they walked, calm as if a thousand stabs of personal insult never brought them one of personal pain, passing through all as if nothing but the serenest skies were above them. And, as I have said, right there is one explanation of the anomaly; there were the serenest skies above them—heaven's love perpetually shining. Why should it not shine? all the powers of the men were dedicated to rescuing the image of God on this earth,—not man as he suffered physically, but the moral instinct threatened with annihilation. It was sacred to them, this soul so sacred to redeeming love, but too brutalized to find its way to it. Nor merely the slave. Their love embraced, with yet more pitying fervor, the master compelling his spiritual nature into death, and the northern apologist letting his die; and this overmastering love of saving spiritual integrity, was one power that made them and heart-ease hold unfailing friends through the obloquy of those days; the other must be found in the fact mentioned,—that neither resolve nor impulse was their spur, but personal character moving from its depths.

From such a motive-power as this can come no parade of results. The nature that works, proceeds from the necessary laws and forces of its being, and is as simple and unconscious as any other natural law or force. Hence there are no startling epochs to record in my father's history, no supreme efforts; in filling the measure of daily opportunity lay his chief work. I cannot measure it by our ten fingers' counting. I can only show a life unfolding, and, by the essential laws of its growth, embracing the noblest cause of its time. But if action means vivifying public sentiment decaying under insidious poison; if it includes the doing of this amid a storm of odium that would quickly have shattered any soul irresolute for an instant; if it means incessant toil quietly performed, vast sums collected and disbursed, time sacrificed, strength spent; if it means holding up a great iniquity to loathing by a powerful pen, and nailing moral cowardice where-ever it showed; if it be risking livelihood by introducing the cause of the slave into every literary work, and by mingling the school-culture of fifty future mothers, year by year, with hatred of the sin; if it means one's life in one's hand, friendships yielded, society defied, and position in it cheerfully renounced; above all, if action means a wealth of goodness overliving all scorns, compelling respect from a community rebuked, fellowship from a Church charged with ungodliness, and acknowledgment of unstained repute from a public eager to blacken with scandal; if to do thus, and bear thus, and live thus, is action, then my father did act to the full purpose of life in the struggle that freed the slave.

S.M.C.



WILLIAM WHIPPER.

The locality of Columbia, where Mr. Whipper resided for many years, was, as is well-known, a place of much note as a station on the Underground Rail Road. The firm of Smith and Whipper (lumber merchants), was likewise well-known throughout a wide range of country. Who, indeed, amongst those familiar with the history of public matters connected with the colored people of this country, has not heard of William Whipper? For the last thirty years, as an able business man, it has been very generally admitted, that he hardly had a superior.

Although an unassuming man, deeply engrossed with business—Anti-slavery papers, conventions, and public movements having for their aim the elevation of the colored man, have always commanded Mr. Whipper's interest and patronage. In the more important conventions which have been held amongst the colored people for the last thirty years, perhaps no other colored man has been so often called on to draft resolutions and prepare addresses, as the modest and earnest William Whipper. He has worked effectively in a quiet way, although not as a public speaker. He is self-made, and well read on the subject of the reforms of the day. Having been highly successful in his business, he is now at the age of seventy, in possession of a handsome fortune; the reward of long years of assiduous labor. He is also cashier of the Freedman's Bank, in Philadelphia. For the last few years he has resided at New Brunswick, New Jersey, although his property and business confine him mainly to his native State, Pennsylvania.

Owing to a late affliction in his family, compelling him to devote the most of his time thereto, it has been impossible to obtain from him the material for completing such a sketch as was desired. Prior to this affliction, in answer to our request, he furnished some reminiscences of his labors as conductor of the Underground Rail Road, and at the same time, promised other facts relative to his life, but for the reason assigned, they were not worked up, which is to be regretted.

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J., December 4, 1871.

MR. WILLIAM STILL, DEAR SIR:—I sincerely regret the absence of statistics that would enable me to furnish you with many events, that would assist you in describing the operations of the Underground Rail Road. I never kept any record of those persons passing through my hands, nor did I ever anticipate that the history of that perilous period would ever be written. I can only refer to the part I took in it from memory, and if I could delineate the actual facts as they occurred they would savor so much of egotism that I should feel ashamed to make them public. I willingly refer to a few incidents which you may select and use as you may think proper.

You are perfectly cognizant of the fact, that after the decision in York, Pa., of the celebrated Prigg case, Pennsylvania was regarded as free territory, which Canada afterwards proved to be, and that the Susquehanna river was the recognized northern boundary of the slave-holding empire. The borough of Columbia, situated on its eastern bank, in the county of Lancaster, was the great depot where the fugitives from Virginia and Maryland first landed. The long bridge connecting Wrightsville with Columbia, was the only safe outlet by which they could successfully escape their pursuers. When they had crossed this bridge they could look back over its broad silvery stream on its western shore, and say to the slave power: "Thus far shalt thou come, and no farther." Previous to that period, the line of fugitive travel was from Baltimore, by the way of Havre de Grace to Philadelphia; but the difficulty of a safe passage across the river, at that place caused the route to be changed to York, Pa., a distance of fifty-eight miles, the fare being forty dollars, and thence to Columbia, in the dead hour of the night. My house was at the end of the bridge, and as I kept the station, I was frequently called up in the night to take charge of the passengers.