Page:The Slave Struggle in America.djvu/19

 Scores of men and women did this man quietly and unostentatiously help away from the slave plantations to Canada. Living in Philadelphia—the City of Brotherly Love, as its inhabitants are fond of styling it—in a Free State just bordering on a Slave State, Hopper's activity and ready wit saved many a colored fugitive from the slave-hunter's ferocity. Slaves residing for six months in Philadelphia, with the knowledge and consent of their masters, were then free by law, and Isaac Hopper took care to acquaint any slave brought into the city by visitors with this fact. In his house runaway slaves were always sure of finding food and shelter until they were ready to resume their flight. In consequence of the ever-ready aid he extended towards these persecuted people, he and his family were exposed to insult and even to violence. Southerners thought on his name with that bitter hate born of impotent rage. They could never catch the wary Hopper in flagrante delicto. They tried to revenge themselves upon his son, and nearly succeeded. The young man, then a lawyer in New York, had business in Savannah, and was there pointed out by a slave catcher—for the unhappy condition of affairs had even produced men who made the hunting of their fellow-men a profession—and while quietly supping at his hotel, John Hopper's room was broken into by a gang of violent men, who struck and spat upon him. They violently seized him, and bade him say his last prayers. The proprietor of the hotel urged the mob to carry Hopper downstairs: he was afraid for the safety of his building. At this moment the Mayor arrived, and had Hopper seized and put into a cell, there to await his trial. All night the infuriated Southern gentlemen howled round the prison, and were with difficulty restrained from breaking in. To pass away the time they erected a gallows, and got ready a lot of feathers and tub of tar. A storm came on and the crowd reluctantly dispersed before its fury. The prisoner, by connivance of the Mayor, with much difficulty, escaped to a ship bound for New York.

The "Underground Railroad" boasted of conveying 1,200 slaves every year into Canada. The name is said to have arisen in this way: A slave escaped from Kentucky, and was vainly sought after by his master. At last the master abandoned the search, saying, with some oaths, that the Abolitionists "must have a railroad underground by which they run off niggers." The term "Underground Railroad" was adopted by a set of men who had a certain systematic method of carrying off slaves from the plantations into Canada. The places where there were people willing to receive the runaways were called "stations," and at these stations trustworthy people acted as "conductors." Friendly Abolitionists in the Slave States cautiously made themselves acquainted with slaves desirous of escaping from bondage. They either personally delivered the fugitive to