This prediction came true. The twenty thousand potential victims
residing in Northern States were thrown into panic. Some rushed
off to Canada; others organized means for protection. A father
and son from Baltimore came to a town in Pennsylvania to recover
a fugitive. An alarm was sounded; men, mostly colored, rushed to
the protection of the one whose liberty was threatened. Two
Quakers appeared on the scene and warned the slavehunters to
desist and upon their refusal one slave-hunter was instantly
killed and the other wounded. The fugitive was conveyed to a
place of safety, and to the murderers no punishment was meted
out, though the general Government made strenuous efforts to
discover and punish them. In New York, though Gerrit Smith and a
local clergyman with a few assistants rescued a fugitive from the
officers of the law and sent him to Canada, openly proclaiming
and justifying the act, no attempt was made to punish the
offenders.

After a dozen years of intense and ever-increasing excitement,
when other causes of friction between North and South had
apparently been removed and good citizens in the two sections
were rejoicing at the prospect of an era of peace and harmony,
public attention was concentrated upon the one problem of conduct
which would not admit of peaceable legal adjustment.
Abolitionists had always been stigmatized as lawbreakers whose
aim was the destruction of slavery in utter disregard of the
rights of the States. This charge was absolutely false; their
settled program involved full recognition of state and municipal
control over slavery. Yet after public attention had become fixed
upon conduct on the part of the abolitionists which was illegal,