CHAPTER IX.
It often became necessary to obtain, on a sudden emergency, a considerable amount of funds in order to place large parties of fugitives beyond the power of the slave hunters. For that purpose certain individuals called on ladies and gentlemen, and stated the case without ever giving such information as could possibly betray the fugitives into any danger, and at such times men of all parties were solicited for aid. In pursuit of the aforesaid object, in the city of Albany, one of our solicitors called on an old gentleman who had long been, and was still, a leading man in the Democratic party. After hearing the statement, he said, “You want help to send these runaways to Canada, do you? I shall give nothing for any such purpose! Don’t you see that it is against the law? Talk about human rights, human sympathies, self-evident principles, ‘liberty and the pursuit of happiness;’ such talk may have been very well once, but it is different now. Why, here is your Whig President, (Fillmore,) and that party, you know, claims to embody all the decency and all the religion in the nation—he would be down upon me with his fines and imprisonment, his marshals and his army. It is right to hold slaves, and wrong for them to run away. Here are ten dollars to help pay their passage back; give it to them, and advise them to go home and ask pardon for going off without leave, and
