Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad (40 page)

31.
NYTrib
, March 5, 9, 1842;
Fifth Annual Report of the New York Committee of Vigilance
(New York, 1842), 37; Jamal Greene, “The Anticanon,”
Harvard Law Review
(December 2011), 428.

32.
Beverly W. Palmer, ed.,
The Selected Letters of Charles Sumner
(2 vols.; Boston, 1990), 1: 175; Finkelman, “
Prigg v. Pennsylvania
,” 14–27; Stephen Kantrowitz,
More than Freedom: Fighting for Black Citizenship in a White Republic, 1829–1889
(New York, 2012) , 70–74.

33.
Paul Finkelman,
An Imperfect Union: Slavery, Federalism, and Comity
(Chapel Hill, 1981), 43, 103–27;
NYTrib
, May 14, 1846.

34.
NYT
, April 7, 1874; Sydney Howard Gay to John Jay II, April 22, 1848, Lewis Tappan to John Jay II, April 22, 1848, JFP; Gay to Maria Weston Chapman, September 2, 1851, John Jay II to Gay, June 2, 1853 [misdated 1833], GP; Johnson,
Liberty Party
, 352; William Jay to J. C. Hornblower, July 17, 1851, JP.

35.
NYT
, January 1, 1880. The Gay Papers, Columbia University, contains three receipts issued in 1856 to the abolitionist Rowland Johnson for money to assist fugitives, each signed with an “X” by Napoleon. (Box 75, Folder “Rowland Johnson.”) The 1860 Manuscript and 1880 Manuscript U.S. Census list Napoleon as being unable to read or write.

36.
NYE
, November 10, 1846;
NYTrib
, October 23, 28, 1846; Sydney Howard Gay to John Jay II, April 22, 1848, JFP;
Supplement to the New-York Legal Observer, Containing the Report of the Case in the Matter of George Kirk . . .
(New York, 1847), 456–69, 16–20 [pagination begins again from page one midway in document]; John Jay II, “Notes of Slave Cases,” typescript, JJH;
Liberator
, January 13, July 14, 1843;
NAS
, October 29, 1846;
NYO
, October 18, 1846.

37.
NYTrib
, October 30, 31, November 3, 1846; Jay, “Notes of Slave Cases”; Wilson,
History of the Rise and Fall
, 2: 53;
NAS
, November 5, 1846;
NYT
, October 12, 1875.

38.
Sydney Howard Gay to Wendell Phillips, November 6, [1846], PP;
NYTrib
, November 3, 1846;
Boston Christian World
in
Liberator
, November 6, 1846;
Richmond Whig
, November 6, 1846.

39.
NAS
, December 28, 1848, January 4, 1849;
NYTrib
, December 25, 28, 1848;
BE
, December 27, 1848, January 18, 1849; Finkelman, “
Prigg v. Pennsylvania
,” 31.

40.
NAS
, April 5, 12, 1849.

41.
Annual Report of the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society
(New York, 1849), 65.

42.
Josephine F. Pacheco,
The Pearl: A Failed Slave Escape on the Potomac
(Chapel Hill, 2005); Alice H. Henderson, “The History of the New York State Anti-Slavery Society” (Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, 1963), 121; Excerpt of letter from George W. Clark, vol. 19, William Henry Siebert Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard University; Kenneth Winkle,
Lincoln’s Citadel: The Civil War
in Washington, D.C.
(New York, 2013), 36–42, 58–59; Frank Decker,
Brooklyn’s Plymouth Church in the Civil War Era: A Ministry of Freedom
(Charleston, 2013), 42, 81–82;
NYTrib
, December 30, 1851; Manuscript Circular, 1849, New York State Vigilance Committee.

43.
David F. Ericson,
Slavery in the American Republic: Developing the Federal Government, 1791–1861
(Lawrence, Kans., 2011), 85; Fehrenbacher,
Slaveholding Republic
, 225; Richard K. Crallé,
The Works of John C. Calhoun
(6 vols.; New York, 1863–64), 6: 291–96; Stanley Harrold,
Border War: Fighting over Slavery before the Civil War
(Chapel Hill, 2010), xiii, 139–40.

5. The Fugitive Slave Law and the Crisis of the Black Community

1.
CG
, 31st Congress, 1st Session, 1604–13, appendix, 115–26;
NAS
, November 11, 1847; Stephen Kantrowitz,
More than Freedom: Fighting for Black Citizenship in a White Republic, 1829–1889
(New York, 2012), 90, 117–18; James F. Hopkins, ed.,
The Papers of Henry Clay
(10 vols.; Lexington, Ky., 1959–91), 10: 614–20. Levi again returned to Clay a few weeks later.

2.
David M. Potter,
The Impending Crisis, 1848–1861
(New York, 1976), 100–102;
CG
, 31st Congress, 1st Session, 1111, appendix, 263–65, 274.

3.
Potter,
Impending Crisis
, 108–10; William W. Freehling,
The Road to Disunion
(2 vols.; New York, 1990–2007), 1: 502–3;
CG
, 31st Congress, 1st Session, 1005.

4.
Potter,
Impending Crisis
, 113; Freehling,
Road to Disunion
, 1: 504–5;
CG
, 31st Congress, 1st Session, Appendix, 1588, 1597–98, 1608, 1614.

5.
CG
, 31st Congress, 1st Session, appendix, 1583–84, 1601, 1603; Ralph A. Keller, “Extraterritoriality and the Fugitive Slave Debate,”
Illinois Historical Journal
, 78 (Summer 1985), 117–23.

6.
NYTrib
, July 9, 1850; Stanley Harrold,
Subversives: Antislavery Community in Washington, D.C., 1828–1865
(Baton Rouge, 2003), 146–63; Norman Dann,
Practical Dreamer: Gerrit Smith and the Crusade for Social Reform
(Hamilton, N.Y., 2009), 483–85;
NAS
, September 12, 1850.

7.
NAS
, August 29, 1850; Stanley Harrold,
Border War: Fighting over Slavery before the Civil War
(Chapel Hill, 2010), 150–51; Dann,
Practical Dreamer
, 477–80; Milton C. Sernett,
North Star Country: Upstate New York and the Crusade for African American Freedom
(Syracuse, 2002), 129–32;
Washington Daily National Intelligencer
, August 13, 1850; Philip S. Foner and George E. Walker, eds.,
Proceedings of the Black State Conventions, 1840–1865
(2 vols.; Philadelphia, 1979–80), 1: 44–47.

8.
Sernett,
North Star Country
, 480;
CG
, 31st Congress, 1st Session, appendix, 1622; Carol Faulkner,
Lucretia Mott’s Heresy: Abolition and Women’s Rights in Nineteenth-Century America
(Philadelphia, 2011), 162–63.

9.
Fergus M. Bordewich,
America’s Great Debate: Henry Clay, Stephen A. Douglas, and the Compromise That Preserved the Union
(New York, 2012), 355; H. Robert Baker, “The Fugitive Slave Clause and the Antebellum Constitution,”
Law and History Review
, 30 (November 2012), 1163; Don E. Fehrenbacher,
The Slaveholding Republic: An Account of the United States Government’s Relations to Slavery
(New York, 2001), 231; Robert Kaczorowski, “The Supreme Court and Congress’s Power to Enforce Constitutional Rights: An Overlooked Moral Anomaly,”
Fordham Law Review
, 73 (October 2004), 154–243.

10.
Steven Lubet,
Fugitive Justice: Runaways, Rescuers, and Slavery on Trial
(Cambridge, Mass., 2010), 42–44.

11.
John Ashworth,
Slavery, Capitalism, and Politics in the Antebellum Republic
(2 vols.: New York, 1995–2007), 2: 36–37; Stanley W. Campbell,
The Slave Catchers: Enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law, 1850–1860
(Chapel Hill, 1968), 5; Harrold,
Border War
, 144;
CG
, 31st Congress, 1st Session, 233.

12.
Annual Report of the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society
(New York, 1850), 10.

13.
NAS
, October 3, 1850;
BS
, September 30, 1850; Prithi Kanakamedala, “In Pursuit of Freedom,” manuscript, 2012, Brooklyn Historical Society.

14.
NYTrib
, September 28, 30, 1850;
BS
, September 30, 1850; Lewis Tappan,
The Fugitive Slave Bill: Its History and Unconstitutionality
(3rd ed.: New York, 1850), 3–5; Case of James Hamlet, RG 21.

15.
NYEP
, October 2, 1850;
NAS
, October 10, 1850;
NYTrib
, October 4, 1850;
NS
, October 24, 1850.

16.
NYT
, October 5, 1850;
NS
, October 24, 1850; Kanakamedala, “In Pursuit,” 108–11;
NYTrib
, October 7, 1850;
NAS
, October 10, 1850; Tappan,
Fugitive Slave Bill
, 36; Craig Wilder,
In the Company of Black Men: The African Influence on African American Culture in New York City
(New York, 2001), 171–72.

17.
MB, October 8, November 6, 1850, January 21, 1851;
Annual Report of the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society
(New York, 1851), 12–13, 24.

18.
Annie H. Abel and Frank J. Klingberg,
A Side-Light on Anglo-American Relations, 1839–1858
(New York, 1927), 256–57; Philip S. Foner,
Business and Slavery: The New York Merchants and the Irrepressible Conflict
(Chapel Hill, 1941), 35–36, 41–45, 55–61; Sven Beckert,
The Monied Metropolis: New York City and the Consolidation of the American Bourgeoisie, 1850–1896
(New York, 2001), 85–86,
Elevator
(San Francisco), January 11, 1873.

19.
Kathryn Grover,
The Fugitive’s Gibraltar: Escaping Slaves and Abolitionism in New Bedford, Massachusetts
(Amherst, Mass., 2001), 244; Henry C. Wright to Sydney Howard Gay, September 13, 1850, Gay to Richard D. Webb, August 5, 1853, GP;
NS
, May 16, 1850;
FDP
, April 29, 1852; Steven M. Raffo,
A Biography of Oliver Johnson, Abolitionist and Reformer, 1809–1889
(Lewiston, N.Y., 2002), 160–61; Walter M. Merrill and Louis Ruchames, eds.,
The Letters of William Lloyd Garrison
(6 vols.; Cambridge, Mass., 1971–81), 4: 53, 200.

20.
NYTrib
, December 24, 25, 1850;
NAS
, January 9, 1851.

21.
NYTrib
, December 24, 25, 27, 28, 30, 1850, January 1, 7, 1851; Foner,
Business and Slavery
, 60–61;
Raleigh Daily Register
, January 12, 1851;
BS
, December 25, 27, 30, 1850, January 8, 10, 1851;
Life and Adventures of James Williams, a Fugitive Slave, with a Full Description of the Underground Railroad
(San Francisco, 1873), 19.

22.
Foner,
Business and Slavery
, 50–51;
Raleigh Daily Register
, January 12, 1851.

23.
Richmond Enquirer
, January 20, 1851;
NYEP
, January 21, 1851;
NYTrib
, January 21, 1851;
Augusta Chronicle
, February 1, 1851;
BS
, August 5, 1851.

24.
Alexandria Gazette
, January 22, 1851;
Jackson Mississippian and State Gazette
, January 31, 1851;
NAS
, September 4, 1851;
NYTrib
, February 12, 1851;
BS
, February 13, 1851.

25.
NAS
, September 11, 1851;
NYT
, April 2, 1852;
NYTrib
, April 2, 5, 1852.

26.
NYTrib
, April 2, 3, 1852;
NYT
, April 5, 1852;
NYEP
, April 5, 1852;
FDP
, June 3, 1852.

27.
Fergus M. Bordewich,
Bound for Canaan: The Epic Story of the Underground Railroad, America’s First Civil Rights Movement
(New York, 2005), 323–24; Roy E. Finkenbine, “Boston’s Black Churches: Institutional Centers of the Antislavery Movement,” in Donald M. Jacobs, ed.,
Courage and Conscience: Black and White Abolitionists in Boston
(Boston, 1993), 182; Clare Taylor, ed.,
British and American Abolitionists: An Episode in Transatlantic Understanding
(Edinburgh, 1974), 368;
Liberator
, October 25, 1850;
BE
, February 22, 1851; Sernett,
North Star Country
, 147–49.

28.
Campbell,
Slave Catchers
, 199–207;
Liberator
, December 23, 1853.

29.
[Harriet A. Jacobs],
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself
, ed. L. Maria Child (Boston, 1861), 286–301;
NS
, October 24, 1850; William M. Mitchell,
The Underground Railroad
(London, 1860), 74–75.

30.
Liberator
, January 3, 1851;
NAS
, January 9, 1851; Rhoda G. Freeman,
The Free Negro in New York City in the Era before the Civil War
(New York, 1994), xlv, 34–35, 336.

31.
Jane Rhodes,
Mary Ann Shadd Cary: The Black Press and Protest in the Nineteenth Century
(Bloomington, Ind., 1998), 30–36; Robin W. Winks,
The Blacks in Canada
(New Haven, 1971), 178–214; Michael Wayne, “The Black Population of Canada West on the Eve of the American Civil War: A Reassessment Based on the Manuscript Census of 1861,”
Histoire Sociale/Social History
, 56 (November 1995), 465–86;
PF
, May 31, 1856.