abomination. The conscience of these communities abhorred the
institution. Though these people were content to leave slavery
unmolested in the slave states, they were angered at having the horrors
of slave-hunting thrust upon them. In other words, they were unable to
reside in any locality, no matter how stringent the laws were in behalf
of freedom, where they were not liable to be invaded, their very homes
entered, by the institution of slavery in its most cruel forms.

This aroused a bitter antagonism in the North. Societies were formed to
assist fugitive slaves to escape to Canada. Men living at convenient
distances along the route were in communication with one another. The
fugitives were passed secretly and with great skill along this line.
These societies were known as the Underground Railway. The
appropriateness of this name is obvious. The men themselves who
secreted the fugitive slaves were said to keep stations on that
railway.

This organized endeavor to assist the fugitives was met by an increased
imperiousness on the part of the slave power. Slavery is imperious in
its nature. It almost inevitably cultivates that disposition in those
who wield the power. So that the case was rendered more exasperating by
the passage, in 1850, of another fugitive slave law. Nothing could have
been devised more surely adapted to inflame the moral sense of those
communities that were, in feeling or conscience, opposed to slavery,
than this law of 1850. This was a reenactment of the law of 1793, but
with more stringent and cruel regulations. The concealment or assisting
of a fugitive was highly penal. Any home might be invaded and searched.
No hearth was safe from intrusion. The negro could not testify in his
own behalf. It was practically impossible to counteract the oath or
affidavit of the pretended master, and a premium was practically put