University of Virginia Library

11. Periodicals and Newspapers

In marked contrast with, the legal reports and law periodicals, little can
be gleaned from the popular magazines of fugitive slave days. The
ethics of resistance to the laws for the recovery of runaways is discussed

in the North American Review for July, 1850, and in the Democratic
Review, Vol. V, 1851, and incidents typical of the experience of the
underground operator and his confederates are recited in Once a Week
for June, 1862. Careful and extended search has revealed nothing in
the better known periodicals published during the War and the two
decades following. Recently, however, abolitionists have become retrospective
and reminiscent, and the tales of their midnight adventures in
contravention of those laws of their country which they deemed subversive
of the "higher law" begin to appear in periodicals and newspapers.
For example, the first of a series of stories, which are founded upon facts,
was printed in the Lake Shore and Home Magazine for July, 1887, an article
on the Underground Railroad appeared in the Magazine of Western
History for March, 1887, and a "symposium" of reminiscences was published
in the Firelands Pioneer for July, 1888. Articles of a miscellaneous
nature, in which points of interest are brought out, have been
appearing in some of the monthly magazines within more recent years,
for instance, in the Atlantic Monthly, the Century Magazine, and the New
England Magazine.

Only vague and rare references to the Underground Railroad and
its workings are made in the newspapers of ante-bellum days, and these
are of little value. The Liberator was fierce in its opposition to the Fugitive
Slave Laws, and contains many stories of fugitives, but in this, as in
less radical newspapers, the editor observed a discreet silence concerning
the secret efforts of his colaborers in emancipating the bondman. It is
necessary, therefore, to rely upon the long delayed accounts contributed
by operators now advanced in years to the columns of the press. In
1885, interesting articles were printed in the Western Star, of Indiana,
and the New Lexington (Ohio) Tribune, and since then, especially since
1890, many others have been published. These have been patiently
gathered, and form a part of the author's collections.