University of Virginia Library

5. Biographies and Memoirs

Biographies and memoirs of anti-slavery men not infrequently contain
references to aid rendered to fugitives, explain the motives of the philanthropists,
and give their versions of the fugitive slave cases that came
within their immediate knowledge; such books are often indices of
the public sentiment of the localities in which their subjects lived,
and when read in conjunction with the biographies of pro-slavery advocates

help us to realize the conflicting interests that expressed themselves
in the slavery controversy. Lydia Maria Child's Life of Isaac T. Hopper
has preserved to us the record of one of the pioneers of the underground
movement, while the biographies of Gerrit Smith and James and Lucretia
Mott, show these persons to have been worthy successors of the benign
and shrewd Hopper. In the biographies of John Brown by Redpath
Hinton and Sanborn, and in the Life of Harriet Beccher Stowe, by her
son, Charles E. Stowe, we have proofs of the deep and enduring impression
made by underground experiences upon strong characters capable
of assimilating and transforming these into forces of historical moment.
Chase, Seward and Sumner were among our public men who acted as
counsel for fugitive slaves; it is not surprising therefore that their
biographers have given considerable space to the consideration of cases
with which these men were connected. The prominence of the statesmen
just named and others of their class as party leaders makes their
biographies indispensable in tracing the political history of the antebellum
period. Claiborne's Life and Correspondence of John A. Quitman
may properly be named as an excellent and valuable example of the
class of biographies of prominent men of the South.

A few obituary pamphlets have been gathered, which have proved to
be of some service: such are A. L. Benedict's Memoir of Richard Dillingham,
and pamphlets relating to Mr. John Hossack, of Ottawa, Illinois,
and Mr. James M. Westwater, of Columbus, Ohio.