settled portions of Iowa, and at the outbreak of the Civil War a
lively traffic was being developed, extending from Lawrence,
Kansas, to Keokuk, Iowa.

There is respectable authority for a variety of opinions as to
the requirements of the rendition clause in the Constitution and
of the Act of Congress of 1793 to facilitate the return of
fugitives from service or labor; but there is no respectable
authority in support of the view that neither the spirit nor the
letter of the law was violated by the supporters of the
Underground Railroad. This was a source of real weakness to
anti-slavery leaders in politics. It was always true that only a
small minority of their numbers were actual violators of the law,
yet such was their relation to the organized anti-slavery
movement that responsibility attached to all. The platform of the
Liberty party for 1844 declared that the provisions of the
Constitution for reclaiming fugitive slaves were dangerous to
liberty and ought to be abrogated. It further declared that the
members of the party would treat these provisions as void,
because they involved an order to commit an immoral act. The
platform thus explicitly committed the party to the support of
the policy of rendering aid to fugitive slaves. Four years later
the platform of the Free-soil party contained no reference
whatever to fugitive slaves, but that of 1852 denounced the
Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 as repugnant to the Constitution and
the spirit of Christianity and denied its binding force on the
American people. The Republican platform of 1856 made no
reference to the subject.

The Underground Railroad filled an insignificant place in the