The Underground Railroad
Library of Congress
The issue: Prior to the Civil War (1861-65), which ended slavery in the U.S., hundreds
of slaves escaped to the free North every year with the help of the UndergroundRailroad.
Was the creation of the Railroad a justified response to the institution of slavery? Or did
it violate the Constitution and federal law, both of which recognized the right of slave
owners to recover runaway slaves?

Arguments in favor of
the Underground Railroad.: The Underground Railroad is justified because
slavery is an inhumane institution. It violates both the Declaration of
Independence, which declares that all men are created equal, and God's divine will.
Because slavery is immoral, laws requiring the return of runaway slaves are also
immoral, and Northerners are not obligated to obey them.

Arguments against the Underground Railroad: The Underground Railroad is
illegal because it violates federal law, as well as an article in the Constitution
requiring the return of fugitive slaves. It is a long established principle that slaves
are property; therefore, the Underground Railroad unjustly deprives Southerners
of hundreds of thousands of dollars of property every year.
Background
As long as slavery has existed, there have been slaves who, unwilling to resign
themselves to a life of bondage, have tried to escape. During the 18th and 19th centuries
in the U.S., tens of thousands of slaves ran away from their Southern captors annually,
and hundreds reached the Northern U.S. and Canada each year with the help of
the Underground Railroad, a group of Northerners opposed to slavery. Those Northern
efforts to aid fugitive slaves fueled the growing tensions between the free North and the
slaveholding South leading up to the Civil War (1861-65).
The Underground Railroad was a loose network of people who aided escaped slaves
once they reached the North. (Some Northerners also traveled to the South to help the
slaves escape.) They provided runaway slaves with food, clothing and lodging along their
journey, and would help them find their way to the next person who would provide help.
In that way, fugitives could go from house to house—usually between 10 and 30 miles of
each other—until they reached safety.
Many of those who aided the fugitives had been former slaves themselves before finding
freedom in the North. Others who helped included freeborn Northern African
Americans, abolitionists who fought for the end of slavery, Native Americans and
members of religious groups. Members participated at great personal risk to themselves.
According to both a constitutional provision and the Fugitive Slave Act, Northerners
were not allowed to interfere in owners' efforts to recapture their runaway slaves.
Members of the Underground Railroad could be fined or even imprisoned if discovered.
The efforts to assist escaped slaves went back to the late 18th century, when Northern
states first began to abolish slavery. However, the term "Underground Railroad" was not
coined until the early 1830s, when the first trains were built. The railroads captured the
public's imagination, and people began to refer to the people who helped the slaves
escape as the "Underground Railroad"—"underground" because it was supposed to be
kept a secret from the South. Northerners feared that if slave owners learned of the
existence of the railroad and the people involved, it might make it easier for them to
recapture their runaway slaves.
The Underground Railroad also adopted other railroad terminology. Escaped slaves
were referred to as "parcels" or "passengers," and after escaping they arrived at a
"station" or "depot" (the house of a person aiding them, who was known as a
"stationmaster"). A "conductor" helped them get to the next station, or helped them
escape from the South. "Stockholders" contributed money to the cause.
Despite taking its terminology from the railroads, which were highly structured
organizations, the Underground Railroad was very loosely organized. In some places it
was composed simply of individuals who helped the fugitives. Very often people
involved in the Underground Railroad had no idea who else was involved beyond the
next "station." According to one stationmaster in southern Ohio, Isaac Beck, "There was
no regular organization, no constitution, no officers, no laws or agreement or rule except
the 'Golden Rule,' and every man did what seemed right in his own eyes."
Most of the fugitives aided by the Underground Railroad came from the border states,
which neighbored free Northern states. A slave from a border state had a much better
chance of escaping to a nearby free state than one from the "Deep South," who had to
travel through several slave states before reaching the North. Runaway slaves from the
Deep South were more likely to flee to Florida or Mexico, or to try to elude capture by
hiding out in the area in which they lived.
Library of Congress
An escaped slave celebrates his freedom.
Not all slaves who escaped were aided by the Underground Railroad. In fact, while
hundreds of slaves—and as many as 2,000 in some years—escaped via
the Underground Railroad, that was just a fraction of the tens of thousands of slaves
who ran away every year. Fugitives aided by the Underground Railroad caused a great
deal of tension between the North and the South, however, despite their relatively small
numbers.
Southerners who learned of the existence of the Underground Railroad decried the role
of Northerners in helping their slaves elude recapture in violation of the Fugitive Slave
Act. However, participants in the Underground Railroad—also referred to as the
"Liberty Line"—responded that slavery was an immoral institution, and that they were
morally obligated to help the runaway slaves. Was the Underground Railroad a justified
response to slavery? Or was it an illegal venture?
Supporters of the Underground Railroad insisted that their work was justified because
slavery was an inhumane institution. People were meant to be free, they insisted,
pointing out that the nation's founders had expressed that principle in the Declaration
of Independence. Slavery also violated God's divine will, they insisted. Because slavery
was immoral, they argued, the Fugitive Slave Act requiring the return of runaway slaves
was also immoral, and Northerners were therefore not obligated to uphold the law.
Critics countered that the Underground Railroad was illegal because it violated the
Fugitive Slave Act and the Constitution, both of which guaranteed slave owners the right
to recover their runaway slaves. It had been long established in the U.S. that slaves were
property, opponents argued; therefore, the Underground Railroad unjustly deprived
Southerners of their belongings. In short, they charged, the UndergroundRailroad was a
Northern conspiracy against the South to deprive it of hundreds of thousands of dollars
worth of property every year.
Slavery and the Return of Runaway Slaves
Slavery was first introduced to America in 1619, when a Dutch ship sailed
into Jamestown, Virginia, and traded some 20 Africans to the colonists. Slavery would
become an important institution in the South, whose economy was based on the
cultivation of such labor-intensive crops as tobacco and, later, cotton. However,
antislavery sentiment gradually gained ground in the North, and many Northerners
expressed the belief that slavery would eventually be abolished.
When delegates met in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1787 to draft a constitution, it was
recognized that compromise on the issue of slavery was necessary in order to bind the
North and the South into a single union. Included in the Constitution in that spirit of
compromise was Article IV, which established the right of slaveholders to recover
runaway slaves. According to Article IV, "No person held to service or labor in one state
under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or
regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on
claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due." [See Constitutional
Convention]
To uphold Article IV of the Constitution, the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 provided for the
return of "fugitives from justice and fugitives from labor." A slave owner or a person
acting on behalf of the owner could seize a runaway slave. The matter would then be
brought to court, where the owner would have to certify ownership of the alleged
runaway. A person who helped a fugitive slave avoid recapture could be fined $500.
[See Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 (primary document)]
Library of Congress
An advertisement offers a reward for a runaway slave.
That same year, Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin, which provided a fast and easy way
to remove seeds from cotton. His invention led to the expansion of cotton plantations in
the South, which was particularly well suited to growing cotton. The great demand for
cotton then led to an expansion of slavery in the South.
While the South was becoming more dependent on slave labor, the Northern states were
beginning to outlaw it. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 had prohibited slavery in all
states carved from that territory (the future states of
Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin), and by 1804, Vermont,
Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York and New
Jersey had all abolished slavery.
That left the nation effectively split between the free North and the slaveholding South,
where slavery grew rapidly. In 1800, there were fewer than 900,000 slaves. That
number increased to 1.2 million in 1810, roughly doubled by 1830, and doubled again to
some four million at the start of the Civil War.
Northerners remained bound by the federal Fugitive Slave Act to return runaway slaves
to the South. However, as abolitionist sentiment grew in the North very few people
abided by the law, and Southerners in Congress tried several times to amend the act to
tighten its enforcement.
The Emergence of the Underground Railroad
After the North abolished slavery in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, slaves began
escaping from the South to the free North. In a letter dated May 12, 1786,
General George Washington referred to a slave who had escaped from Virginia to
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, "whom a society of Quakers in [Philadelphia], (formed for
such purposes,) have attempted to liberate." According to Ohio State University
historian Wilbur Siebert in The Underground Railroad from Slavery to
Freedom (1898), "Secret or 'underground' methods of rescue were already well
understood in and around Philadelphia by 1804." [See General George Washington
Writes about Northern Efforts to Liberate Slaves (primary document)]
While most early runaways headed for the Northern states, a few headed to Canada, a
British dominion. In 1793, Canada's parliament had abolished the importation of slaves
and decreed that children of slaves would be freed upon reaching the age of 25.
However, most slaves had either never heard of Canada or believed that the frozen land
to the north was inhospitable for human beings.
That changed with the War of 1812 between the U.S. and Great Britain. An increasing
number of slaves fled to Canada, believing that they would be welcomed as fugitives
from Britain's enemy. Furthermore, a number of Southerners—particularly from the
Border States—fought in Canada during the war and brought home news of the
antislavery sentiment in Canada and the willingness of Canadians to protect fugitive
slaves. [See War of 1812]
Over time, Northern efforts to help fugitive slaves evolved, and abolitionists formed very
loose networks leading slaves to freedom along a "railroad." Among early leaders in the
efforts were Quakers, who opposed slavery. The Wesleyan Methodists and
some Presbyterian sects were also involved in aiding runaways. However, the majority
of the Underground Railroad workers were freed blacks of the North or slaves who had
previously escaped themselves.
Library of Congress
Harriet Tubman
Some notable participants in the Underground Railroad were: author and
naturalist Henry David Thoreau; Senator Salmon Chase (Free Soil, Ohio); abolitionist
Gerrit Smith; escaped slaves Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman;
suffragists Lucretia Mott and Susan B. Anthony; and Levi Coffin, a Quaker referred to as
the "president" of the railroad for helping an estimated 3,000 fugitive slaves.
[See Reminiscences of Levi Coffin, the Reputed President of
the Underground Railroad (Excerpts) (primary document)]
Because federal law required the return of runaway slaves, workers on
the Underground Railroad could be punished. In one notable case, abolitionist minister
Calvin Fairbank spent a total of more than 17 years in prison because of his work on
the Underground Railroad. Douglass discussed the risks in his 1881 autobiography. "My
agency was all the more exciting and interesting, because not altogether free from
danger. I could take no step in it without exposing myself to fine and imprisonment, for
these were penalties imposed by the fugitive slave law, for feeding, harboring, or
otherwise assisting a slave to escape from his master," he wrote. However, he also
admitted that "in face of this fact, I can say, I never did more congenial, attractive,
fascinating, and satisfactory work."
Some Underground Railroad workers snuck into the South to help slaves escape from
their masters. However, in most cases the role of the Underground Railroad began once
the runaways reached the Northern states. It was up to the slaves to escape on their own
initiative.
Many escapes occurred at Christmas time, when slaves were traditionally given time off
and so were not likely to be missed for a few days. Therefore, slaves often had to travel
on foot in the bitter cold. The journey was too dangerous to undertake with children, so
men usually left their children and wives behind, often intending to return for them
later. The slaves who escaped tended to be more intelligent and skilled in a trade—such
as barbers, mechanics or carpenters—so that once free they would be able to find jobs to
support themselves. [See Levi Coffin Describes Escapes via
the Underground Railroad(Excerpts) (primary document)]
If a slave were lucky, he would meet an Underground Railroad worker in the North to
aid him on the rest of the journey. The "stationmaster" would hide the runaway in his
house during the day and the "conductor" would guide the slave to the next house along
the way at night, when there was less risk of being caught. Sometimes the slave was also
given clothing to change his appearance to aid in the escape, and sometimes
the Underground Railroad worker would give him a train or boat ticket to his
destination. As railroads grew in the 1830s, some of the Northern lines also aided the
runaways. However, most slaves traveled on foot or by wagon.
The Underground Railroad expanded in the 1830s with the growth of the abolitionist
movement and the formation of vigilance committees, which were organized to aid
fugitive slaves. The committees provided them with food and clothing, and helped them
to find lodging and jobs. Several states also passed personal liberty laws to protect
fugitive slaves, such as by guaranteeing accused runaway slaves a trial by jury.
Furthermore, in 1833, Britain abolished slavery at home and in all of its dominions.
That prompted more slaves to flee to Canada, where they would be safe from slave
hunters and fugitive slave laws.
Fugitive Slave Act of 1850
Intensifies Underground Railroad Efforts
Library of Congress
In 1842, Supreme Court Justice Joseph
Story upheld the constitutionality of the
1793 Fugitive Slave Act in Prigg v.
Pennsylvania.
In 1842, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act
in its ruling in Prigg v. Pennsylvania. However, the court also ruled that the federal
government could not force state officials to comply with the Fugitive Slave Act; it was
up to the federal government, not the states, to enforce the act. With regard to the
question of "whether state magistrates are bound to act" under the 1793 law, Justice
Joseph Story wrote for the court in Prigg that state magistrates could choose to comply
with the law "unless prohibited by state legislation." [See Supreme Court
Decision: Prigg v. Pennsylvania (primary document)]
In response, over the next decade, every Northern state except Ohio and Indiana passed
new personal liberty laws forbidding state officials from taking part in the apprehension
of fugitive slaves. As a result, it became increasingly difficult for slave owners to recover
their runaway slaves. "[I]t has become a part of the history of the country, that, when a
slave once escapes and gets within the limits of the free States...you may as well go down
into the sea, and endeavor to recover from his native element a fish which had escaped
from you as to expect to recover a fugitive," Virginia Senator James Mason (D)
complained in 1850.
Southerners insisted that Congress do more to ensure compliance with the Fugitive
Slave Law. Congress did so in 1850, as part of a compromise in which California was
admitted to the Union as a free state. The compromise measures included the Fugitive
Slave Act of 1850, which amended the 1793 act to require Northerners to cooperate in
the return of runaway slaves. [See Compromise of 1850]
The Senate passed the Fugitive Slave Act on August 26 and the House passed it shortly
thereafter. President Millard Fillmore (Whig, 1850-53) signed it into law on September
18. The law made it illegal to " knowingly and willingly obstruct, hinder, or prevent"
slave owners or people acting on behalf of the slave owners from apprehending their
slaves and to "aid, abet, or assist" fugitive slaves. The law also required "all good
citizens...to aid and assist in the prompt and efficient execution of this law." Violators of
the law could be fined up to $1,000 and imprisoned for six months. [See Fugitive Slave
Act of 1850 (primary document)]
Furthermore, under the new law African Americans could not testify in their own
defense, and an alleged master was required only to submit an affidavit as proof of
ownership. Critics of the law argued that it made it much easier for Southerners to
illegally seize free blacks. They also accused the law of permitting unconstitutional
tribunals, presided over by commissioners who held a great deal of judicial power
despite not being judges.
The law sparked significant anger in the North, which complained that it effectively
turned Northerners into slave catchers. Outrage over the law intensified Northern
efforts to aid runaway slaves. The Voice of the Fugitive, a newspaper devoted to the
interests of runaway slaves, reported in its November 5, 1851, issue, "This road is doing
better business this fall than usual. The Fugitive Slave Law has given it more vitality,
more activity, more passengers, and more opposition, which invariably accelerates
business."
Library of Congress
Frederick Douglass
With growing Northern support for the Underground Railroad in the wake of the
passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, participants saw less need for secrecy. Several
members of the railroad advertised their efforts. For instance, Frederick Douglass'
Paper contained entries such as a report by a Detroit, Michigan, underground leader, on
November 5, 1854: "We have had, within the last ten or fifteen days, fifty-three first
class passengers landed at this point, by the Express train from the South. We expect ten
more tonight." In December 1855, Douglass wrote from Syracuse, New York, "three
good bouncing fat Negroes stepped aboard the train on the Underground railroad, and
are now safe in the Queen's dominions [Canada]. It is proposed by the directors of that
road, to lay down a double track, as the business is getting to be very large—more than
can be done on a single one."
However, while the Underground Railroad gained popularity in the North, it further
increased tension with the South. Southerners insisted that the railroad was a Northern
conspiracy to strip the South of an important economic resource. [See Northern and
Southern Accounts of the Underground Railroad (primary document)]
The Case in Favor of the Underground Railroad
Supporters of the Underground Railroad justified their efforts to help slaves escape by
claiming that slavery was immoral. They argued that it violated one of the nation's
founding documents, the Declaration of Independence, which declared: "We hold these
truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their
Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the
pursuit of Happiness." Since the Declaration does not specify race, many reasoned, and
since those enslaved were also "men," or human beings, the slaves should be freed to
enjoy their God-given equality with white people.
William M. Mitchell, an African American minister who wrote in support of
the Underground Railroad in 1860, elaborated on that point: "America, professedly the
freest land in the world, professes to recognise the natural and inalienable rights of all
men," he stated. Yet, he continued, "[t]he term Slave indicates inequality,—4,000,000
are in the prison-house of bondage this day; deprived of their natural rights and
privileges as citizens, as men, as Christians, and as members of social and civil society."
Library of Congress
Slaves sometimes found inventive ways to escape to the North, such as Henry
"Box" Brown, who was shipped from Virginia to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in a
box. Frederick Douglass stands to Brown's left.
Slavery also violated divine law, supporters contended. They quoted Deuteronomy in
the Bible, which declared, "Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant which is
escaped from his master unto thee: he shall dwell with thee, even among you, in that
place which he shall choose, in one of thy gates, where it liketh him best: thou shalt not
oppress him."
Others said it was simply a matter of human charity to help people in need, including
runaway slaves. "The Bible, in bidding us to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, said
nothing about color, and I should try to follow out the teachings of that good book. I was
willing to receive and aid as many fugitives as were disposed to come to my house," the
Quaker Levi Coffin declared. Overall, supporters insisted, people were morally bound to
help people escape from an unjust institution. It was not immoral to be a part of
the Underground Railroad, they insisted; rather, it would be immoral to aid the South in
reacquiring runaway slaves.
Railroad supporters acknowledged that the Constitution contained a provision requiring
the return of runaway slaves. However, they said, people were not bound by that
provision because it violated divine law and the Declaration of Independence. In an
1848 speech, former New York Governor William Seward (Whig) called for a revision of
the Constitution. "Inculcate, then, the law of freedom and the equal rights of man;
reform your own code—extend a cordial welcome to the fugitive who lays his weary
limbs at your door, and defend him as you would your paternal gods; correct your own
error that slavery has any constitutional guaranty which may not be released, and ought
not to be relinquished," he declared.
Just as people were not required to comply with that provision of the Constitution
because slavery was immoral, they were also not morally bound to comply with the
Fugitive Slave Law, Underground Railroad supporters asserted. They argued that the
law requiring the return of runaway slaves was as immoral as the institution of slavery.
In an 1850 sermon, abolitionist Theodore Parker declared that people were not obliged
to abide by an immoral law:
It is known to you that the Fugitive Slave Bill has become a law.... To law framed of such
iniquity I owe no allegiance. Humanity, Christianity, manhood revolts against it.... For
myself I say it solemnly, I will shelter, I will help, and I will defend the fugitive with all my
humble means and power. I will act with any body of decent and serious men, as the head,
or the foot, or the hand, in any mode not involving the use of deadly weapons, to nullify and
defeat the operation of this law.
Supporters also insisted that it was not the North's obligation to help the South
recover escaped slaves, as mandated in the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act. Senator
James Doolittle (R, Wisconsin) declared in a January 1861 Senate debate:
[G]entlemen say that fugitives sometimes escape, without ever being arrested. That is very
true indeed: so they do; but that is not the fault of the law. That grows out of the fact that
you own a species of property which has a will and legs of its own, and which desires
sometimes to escape to liberty. That is your misfortune, not ours. If you invest your money
in a species of property which has a will and power of its own to escape, we are not
responsible for that. We are not made insurers of your slave property, against its running
away.
Supporters further insisted that the impact of escaped slaves on the South's economy
had been exaggerated. For instance, in response to claims of an annual loss of $100,000
in slave property in Virginia, Doolittle estimated the overall value of slave property in
Virginia to be $400 million (assuming an average cost of $800 per slave and 500,000
slaves in Virginia). "One hundred thousand dollars upon $400,000,000 is but one
fortieth of one per cent.; it is but one fourth of a million a dollar, growing out of the
peculiar risk which men who invest their property in slaves run in the State of Virginia,"
he asserted.
Finally, supporters of the Underground Railroad insisted that they did not entice or
coerce slaves into running away. They only aided slaves after they had run away on their
own initiative, they said. The railroad "helped only those who wanted to escape; those
who were dissatisfied with their condition, and who were willing to encounter the risks
of getting away," James Freeman Clarke, a Unitarian minister, declared in Anti-Slavery
Days (1884).
Impact of Underground Railroad
The Underground Railroad operated for nearly a century, aiding escaped slaves in their
journeys northward and helping them to evade efforts by their owners to recapture
them. The railroad effectively ended with the nationwide abolition of slavery following
the end of the Civil War in 1865. With the end of slavery, efforts turned to protecting the
rights of African Americans during the period of Reconstruction. [See Civil War:
Reconstruction]
During Reconstruction, the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution were
passed, abolishing slavery, granting all people equal protection under the law and
granting African American men the right to vote, respectively. After the 15th
Amendment was approved, Coffin declared that "our underground work was done." He
continued, "[A]s we had no more use for the road, I would suggest that the rails be taken
up and disposed of, and the proceeds appropriated for the education of the freed slaves."
With the end of slavery, members of the Underground Railroad could speak out about
their experiences for the first time without the risk of punishment. Based on the
accounts of people who had been involved in the Underground Railroad, early histories
focused mainly on the role of the railroad in helping the slaves to escape. However,
modern historians have also focused on the role of the slaves in determining their own
fates and escaping from their owners. Some modern historians have also questioned the
folklore surrounding the railroad, such as supposed codes that helped the slaves on their
journeys. [See Folklore of the Underground Railroad Questioned (sidebar)]
How big a role did the Underground Railroad play? Since the railroad was supposed to
be secret, and work on the railroad could be punished, very few written records were
kept. It is therefore difficult to establish exactly how many runaways
the UndergroundRailroad assisted. Some estimates say that the Railroad helped as
many as 2,000 fugitive slaves a year during its peak following the passage of the Fugitive
Slave Act of 1850. Others put that number at 1,000 a year, and yet others place the
annual number in the hundreds. Total estimates of fugitives helped range from 30,000
to 100,000.
Whatever the specific number, it was a very small portion of the slaves who ran away
every year. According to John Hope Franklin and Loren Schweninger in Runaway
Slaves: Rebels on the Plantation (2000), far more Southern slaves ran away each year.
They say that 50,000 runaways each year is an "extremely conservative" estimate. In his
autobiography, Frederick Douglass discussed the small number of slaves helped by
the railroad: "True as a means of destroying slavery, it was like an attempt to bail out the
ocean with a teaspoon, but the thought that there was one less slave, and one more
freeman, brought to my heart unspeakable joy."
However, the slaves who were aided by the Underground Railroad had an impact on the
abolitionist movement. Some would speak about their experiences as slaves at public
meetings, putting a human face on the evils of slavery and winning converts to the
abolitionist cause. "The stirring sights and affecting stories with which the North
became acquainted through the stealthy migration of slaves were well adapted to make
abolitionists rapidly," Siebert wrote in The Underground Railroad from Slavery to
Freedom.
Perhaps the largest impact of the railroad came from its role in worsening tensions
between the North and South. Slavery had long been a wedge between the two regions,
and in the decades prior to the Civil War, they fought bitterly over the admission of new
states to the Union, trying to keep a balance between free and slave states. As the
balance of power began to tip toward the North, Southerners complained that Northern
efforts to aid escaped slaves represented another attempt to gain an advantage over the
South.
Tensions over slavery and economic differences boiled over in December 1860,
when South Carolina seceded from the Union following the election of
a Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, whose party had declared its opposition to
the expansion of slavery. War between the North and South broke out the following
year. Four years later, the war—and slavery—ended. [See Civil War: Secession of the
Southern States]
The Underground Railroad, with its tales of daring escapes and people serving a higher
cause, has an indelible place in U.S. history. Recognizing the role of the Railroad in the
nation's history, Congress in 1898 passed the National Underground Railroad Network
to Freedom Act, the first federal program commemorating and educating people about
the Underground Railroad. According to the National Park Service (NPS), which
administers the program, it "tells the story of resistance against the institution of slavery
in the United States through escape and flight." Through the program, the NPS
continued, the "NPS is demonstrating the significance of the Underground Railroad not
only in the eradication of slavery, but as a cornerstone of our national civil rights
movement."
References and Further Information
Blight, David, ed. Passages to Freedom: The Underground Railroad in History and
Memory. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Books, 2004.
Bordewich, Fergus. Bound for Canaan: The Underground Railroad and the War for
the Soul of America. New York: HarperCollins, 2005.
Botkin, B. A. A Treasury of Southern Folklore: Stories, Ballads, Traditions, and
Folkways of the People of the South. New York: Crown, 1949.
Breyfogle, William. Make Free: The Story of the Underground Railroad. Philadelphia:
J.B. Lippincott, 1958.
Clarke, James Freeman. Anti-slavery Days: A Sketch of the Struggle which Ended in
the Abolition of Slavery in the United States. New York: R. Worthington, 1884.
Coffin, Levi. Reminiscences of Levi Coffin, the Reputed President of
the UndergroundRailroad. Cincinnati, Ohio: Robert Clarke & Co., 1880.
Hoyt Swift, Hildegard. The Railroad to Freedom. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World,
1932.
Ives, Sarah. "Did Quilts Hold Codes to the Underground Railroad?" National
Geographic, February 5, 2004, accessed October 27, 2008.
http:news.nationalgeographic.comnewspf/70630403.html.
Kelley, James. "Song, Story, or History: Resisting Claims of a Coded Message in the
African American Spiritual 'Follow the Drinking Gourd.'" Journal of Popular Culture,
2008, 262.
McMahon Humez, Jean. Harriet Tubman: The Life and the Life Stories. Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press, 2003.
Mitchell, W. M. The Underground Railroad. London: William Tweedie, 1860.
Nye, Russel. Fettered Freedom: Civil Liberties and the Slavery Controversy, 18301860. East Lansing: Michigan State College Press, 1949.
Siebert, Wilbur. The Underground Railroad from Slavery to Freedom: A
Comprehensive History. New York: Macmillan, 1898.
Sernett, Milton. Harriet Tubman: Myth, Memory, and History. Durham, N.C.: Duke
University Press, 2007.
"The Southern Exodus." New York Times, February 8, 1856, 4.
Stukin, Stacie. "Unraveling the Myth of Quilts and the Underground Railroad." Time,
April 3, 2007, accessed October 27, 2016.
http:www.time.comtimeartsarticle0,8599,1606271,00.html.
"Underground Railroad." New York Times, September 6, 1854, 6