issue in the United States was rapidly coming to a head was
also recognized in Canada during the fifties and this, too, may have
been an influence with the Canadians in doing what they could to
assist the great number of more or less helpless people who came among
them. Viewed in the light of more than half a century it can be seen
that the influence of Canada in determining the course of the slavery
issue was by no means slight.

FRED LANDON

FOOTNOTES:

[1] "One of the most assailable laws ever passed by the Congress of
the United States ... Under this act ... the Negro had no chance; the
meshes of the law were artfully contrived to aid the master and entrap
the slave." Rhodes, _History of the United States_, I, 185.

[2] "A large proportion of the colored persons who have fled from the
free states have sought refuge in Canada where they have been received
with remarkable kindness and have testified the grateful sense of
their reception by their exemplary conduct." American Anti-slavery
Society, annual report for 1851, p. 31.

[3] _Liberator_, October 18, 1850.

[4] Annual report for 1851, p. 30.

[5] A file of this paper for 1851 and 1852 is in the library of the
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

[6] American Missionary Association, _Sixth Annual Report_, 1852, p.
34.

[7] Mitchell, _Underground Railroad_, p. 113.

[8] _Liberator_, October 4, 1850.

[9] _Ibid._, October 18, 1850.

[10] _Ibid._, October 4, 1850.

[11] _Ibid._, April 25, 1851.

[12] _Ibid._, May 2, 1851.

[13] Siebert, _Underground Railroad_, p. 249.

[14] _Ibid._, p. 249.

[15] Stevens, Anthony Burns, a _History_, p. 208.

[16] American Anti-slavery Society, _Eleventh Annual Report_, 1851, p.
31.

[17] _The Voice of the Fugitive_, April 9, 1851.

[18] _Cong. Herald_, May 13, 1861, quoted in American Missionary
Association, 15th annual report, 1861, p. 28. There is evidence that
the Fugitive Slave Law was used in some cases to strike fear into the
hearts of Negroes in order to cause them to abandon their property.
_The Liberator_ of October 25, 1850, quotes the _Detroit Free Press_
to the effect that land speculators have been scaring the Negroes in
some places in the north in order to get possession of their
properties.

[19] American Anti-slavery Society, _Twenty-seventh Annual Report_,
1861, p. 49.

[20] In _The Liberator_ of July 30, 1852, a letter from Hiram Wilson,