Re: The Departure Neal Asher Epub Download
Hilke Mcnally
This Dover edition, first published in 2006, is an unabridged republicationof The Underground Railroad from Slavery to Freedom, originally published by TheMacmillan Company, New York and London, in 1898. The original fold-outmap facing page 113 has now been set into the book on three separate pagesin the same location.
Among the many weak spots in the system of slavery nonegave such opportunities to Northern abolitionists as the locomotive[viii]powers of the slaves; a "thing" which could hear itsowner talking about freedom, a "thing" which could steeritself Northward and avoid the "patterollers," was a thing ofimpaired value as a machine, however intelligent as a humanbeing. From earliest colonial times fugitive slaves helped tomake slavery inconvenient and expensive. So long as slaverywas general, every slaveholder in every colony was a memberof an automatic association for stopping and returning fugitives;but, from the Revolution on, the fugitives performedthe important function of keeping continually before thepeople of the states in which slavery had ceased, the factthat it continued in other parts of the Union. Nevertheless,though between 1777 and 1804 all the states north of Marylandthrew off slavery, the free states covenanted in theFederal Constitution of 1787 to interpose no obstacle to therecapture of fugitives who might come across their borders;and thus continued to be partners in the system of slavery.From the first there was reluctance and positive oppositionto this obligation; and every successful capture was anobject lesson to communities out of hearing of the whipping-postand out of sight of the auction-block.
In aiding fugitive slaves the abolitionist was making themost effective protest against the continuance of slavery;but he was also doing something more tangible; he washelping the oppressed, he was eluding the oppressor; and atthe same time he was enjoying the most romantic and excitingamusement open to men who had high moral standards.He was taking risks, defying the laws, and making himselfliable to punishment, and yet could glow with the healthfulpleasure of duty done.
To this element of the personal and romantic side of theslavery contest Professor Siebert has devoted himself in thisbook. The Underground Railroad was simply a form ofcombined defiance of national laws, on the ground that thoselaws were unjust and oppressive. It was the unconstitutionalbut logical refusal of several thousand people to[ix]acknowledge that they owed any regard to slavery or werebound to look on fleeing bondmen as the property of theslaveholders, no matter how the laws read. It was alsoa practical means of bringing anti-slavery principles to theattention of the lukewarm or pro-slavery people in freestates; and of convincing the South that the abolitionistmovement was sincere and effective. Above all, the UndergroundRailroad was the opportunity for the bold andadventurous; it had the excitement of piracy, the secrecyof burglary, the daring of insurrection; to the pleasure ofrelieving the poor negro's sufferings it added the triumphof snapping one's fingers at the slave-catcher; it developedcoolness, indifference to danger, and quickness of resource.
The first task of the historian of the Underground Railroadis to gather his material, and the characteristic of this bookis to consider the whole question on a basis of establishedfacts. The effort is timely; for there are still living, or wereliving when the work began, many hundreds of persons whoknew the intimate history of parts of the former secret systemof transportation; the book is most timely, for these invaluabledetails are now fast disappearing with the death of theactors in the drama. Professor Siebert has rescued and puton record events which in a few years will have ceased to bein the memory of living men. He has done for the historyof slavery what the students of ballad and folk-lore havedone for literature; he has collected perishing materials.
Reminiscence is of course, standing alone, an insufficientbasis for historical generalization. On that point ProfessorSiebert has been careful to explain his principle: he does notattempt to generalize from single memories not otherwisesubstantiated, but to use reminiscences which confirm eachother, to search out telling illustrations, and to discoverwhat the tendencies were from numerous contrasted testimonies.Actual contemporary records are scanty; a few arehere preserved, such as David Putnam's memorandum, andCampbell's letter; and the crispness which they give to the[x]narrative makes us wish for more. The few available biographies,autobiographies, and contemporary memoirs havebeen diligently sought out and used; and no variety ofsources has been ignored which seemed likely to throw lighton the subject. The ground has been carefully traversed;and it is not likely that much will ever be added to the bodyof information collected by Professor Siebert. His list ofsources, described in the introductory chapter and enumeratedin the Appendices, is really a carefully winnowed bibliographyof the contemporary materials on slavery.
The book is practically divided into four parts: the Railroaditself (Chapters ii, v); the railroad hands (Chaptersiii, iv, vi); the freight (Chapters vii, viii); and politicalrelations and effects (Chapters ix, x, xi). Perhaps one ofthe most interesting contributions to our knowledge of thesubject is the account of the beginnings of the system ofsecret and systematic aid to fugitives. The evidence goesto show that there was organization in Pennsylvania before1800; and in Ohio soon after 1815. The book thus becomesa much-needed guide to information about the obscureanti-slavery movement which preceded William Lloyd Garrison,and to some degree prepared the way for him; and itwill prove a source for the historian of the influence of theWest in national development. As yet we know too littleof the anti-slavery movement which so profoundly stirredthe Western states, including Kentucky and Missouri, andwhich came closely into contact with the actual conditions ofslavery. As Professor Siebert points out, most of the earlyabolitionists in the West were former slaveholders or sonsof slaveholders.
Professor Siebert has applied to the whole subject a graphicform of illustration which is at the same time a test of hisconclusions. How can the scattered reminiscences andrecords of escapes in widely separated states be shown torefer to the results of one organized method? Plainly byapplying them to the actual face of the country, so as to see[xi]whether the alleged centres of activity have a geographicalconnection. The painstaking map of the lines of the UndergroundRailroad "system" is an historical contribution of anovel kind; and it is impossible to gainsay its evidence,which is expounded in detail in one of the chapters of thebook. The result is a gratifying proof of the usefulness ofscientific methods in historical investigation; one who livedin an anti-slavery community before the Civil War is fascinatedby tracing the hitherto unknown stretches north andsouth from the centre which he knew. The map bears testimonynot only to the wide-spread practice of aiding fugitives,but to the devotion of the conductors on the UndergroundRailroad. How useful a section of Mr. Siebert's map wouldhave been to the slave-catcher in the 50's, when so manystrange negroes were appearing and disappearing in the freestates! The facts presented in the brief compass of the mapwould have been of immense value also to the leaders of theSouthern Confederacy in 1861, as a confirmation of theirargument that the North would not perform its constitutionalduty of returning the fugitives; yet there is no record in thisbook of the betraying of the secrets of the U. G. R. R. byany person in the service. The moral bond of opposition tothe whole slave power kept men at work forwarding fugitivesby a road of which they themselves knew but a smallportion. The political philosophers who think that theCivil War might have been averted by timely concessionswould do well to study this picture of the wide distributionof persons who saw no peace in slavery.
The quiet recital of the facts has all the charm ofromance to the passengers on the Underground Railroad:whether travelling by night in a procession of coveredwagons, or boldly by day in disguises; whether boxed upas so much freight, or riding on passes unhesitatingly givenby abolitionist directors of railroads; the fugitives in thesepages rejoice in their prospect of liberty. The road signnear Oberlin, of a tiger chasing a negro, was a white man'sjoke; but it was a negro who said, apropos of his master'sdiscouraging account of Canada: "They put some extractonto it to keep us from comin'"; and neither Whittier inhis poems, nor Harriet Beecher Stowe in her novels,imagined a more picturesque incident than the crossing of[xiii]the Detroit River by Fairfield's "gang" of twenty-eightrescued souls singing, "I'm on my way to Canada, wherecolored men are free," to the joyful accompaniment of theirfirearms.
To the settlements of fugitives in Canada ProfessorSiebert has given more labor than appears in his book;for his own visits supplement the accounts of earlierinvestigators; and we have here the first complete accountof the reception of the negroes in Canada and their progressin civilization.
Upon the general question of the political effects of theUnderground Railroad, the book adds much to our information,by its discussion of the probable numbers of fugitives,and of the alarm caused in the slave states by their departure.The census figures of 1850 and 1860 are shown to bewilfully false; and the escape of thousands of persons seemsestablished beyond cavil. Into the constitutional questionof the right to take fugitives, the book goes with lessminuteness, since it is intended to be a contribution toknowledge, and not an addition to the abundant literatureon the legal side of slavery.
It has been the effort of Professor Siebert to furnish themeans for settling the following questions: the origin of thesystem of aid to the fugitives, popularly called the UndergroundRailroad; the degree of formal organization; methodsof procedure; geographical extent and relations; the leadersand heroes of the movement; the behavior of the fugitiveson their way; the effectiveness of the settlement in Canada;the numbers of fugitives; and the attitude of courts andcommunities. On all these questions he furnishes new light;and he appears to prove his concluding statement that "theUnderground Railroad was one of the greatest forces whichbrought on the Civil War and thus destroyed slavery."
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