In 1793 the Fugitive Slave law was passed, whereby a runaway slave
captured in a free State, must be returned to his owner. As the new
States were admitted into the Union they came in for the most part
alternately free and slave States. This was done to preserve the balance
of power in Congress.

The great aggressive Abolition movement that led eventually to the Civil
War, had its birth in 1831. Fanatics like John Brown, and Mrs. Harriet
Beecher Stowe, fanned into flame the sparks that had so long-smouldered,
till the helpless negro was dragged from his havens of peace and
comfort. If he felt bitterness towards the whites, what was to prevent
his rising in insurrection and slaying them all? There were plantations
where 600 or 700 slaves were governed by two or three white owners. They
occupied little villages and had no care upon earth. They had their
pastimes and religious worships. "The courtly old planter, highbred and
gentle, the plantation "uncle" who copied the master's manners; and the
broad-bosomed black mammy, with vari-colored turban, spotless apron, and
beaming face, the friend and helper of every living thing in cabin or
mansion, formed a trio we love to remember." The black woman cared more
for her white nursling than her own child. This seems unnatural, but it
was true; and many of us recall the times that the mistress of the house
had to interfere to prevent the kitchen mother from cruelly whipping
her naughty offspring. Some relic of ancient African barbarism still
lingered in their untutored minds. We loved our colored playmates, and
their sable mothers and fathers. Many a winning story of "way down upon
de ole plantation" has been truthfully told. Will S. Hays has
immortalized it in song.

A Southern writer has thus portrayed the Xmas time: "For weeks
beforehand everything was full of stir and preparation. Holly and