[witHRow] THE UNDERGROUND RAILWAY 53 
From that time down to the close of the Secession War may be 
considered the period of the secret modes of rescuing the slave, cul- 
minating in the well organized Underground Railway with its many 
routes and branches. The fugitive slave laws were from time to time 
made more severe in their penalties, involving not only heavy fines, 
but severe imprisonment. These laws became more and more obnox- 
ious to the abolitionists as violations of primal human rights, of the 
instincts of liberty, and the principles of the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence. The benign provisions of the ancient '!Hebrew law of divine 
origin, “ Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant which 
is escaped from his master unto thee,” were cited as good reasons for 
violating the man-made law which virtually made all northern citizens 
accomplices in the crime of slave catching. 
A considerable number of slaves in the far south escaped to 
Mexico or to the deep recesses of the Dismal Swamp, and some to 
Great Britain; but to most of them the true land of liberty was 
Canada. The stimulation of the increased scope and value given 
to slave labour by the Louisiana Purchase and the invention of the 
cotton gin and consequent vast extension of cotton culture made the 
task of the slave more bitter and increased his passion for liberty. 
Virginia, the mother of Presidents, became also the mother of slaves, 
as expressed in the pathetic poem of Whittier on the Virginia Slave- 
mother’s Lament for her Daughters. The southern tier of slave states 
became a great mill in which were ground out the lives of bondmen; 
and new grist must be supplied, after the foreign slave trade had been 
abolished, by slave breeding in the northern tier of slave states. This 
stimulated the activity of the slave marts in Baltimore, Washington, 
Charleston, Richmond, New Orleans and St. Augustine. The dread 
of being “sold south,” with the utter and irrevocable severance of 
the dearest and tenderest ties of kinship and love hung like a night- 
mare over the souls of myriads of our fellow-beings. The value of 
slaves became greatly enhanced and led to the systematic pursuit of 
fugitives and sometimes to the kidnapping of free negroes in the north. 
Yet, in many parts of the far south the very existence of such 
a place as Canada and the succour which it proffered for the fugitive 
were unknown. The war of 1812-15, and the return of the southern 
soldiers to their homes, made that place of refuge known and predis- 
posed the negroes to seek liberty among the enemies of their masters. 
It was not long before tidings from the fugitives in Canada found 
their way back to their old homes. Before the Secession War it is 
estimated that five hundred negroes annually travelled between the 
land of freedom and the land of slavery to rescue their kinsmen. 
