o Sarah A. Speakman, of Chester county. The
chief duties of his office at first, were the publication and management
of the _Pennsylvania Freeman_, including, for an interval after the
retirement of John G. Whittier, the editorial conduct of that paper. In
course of time his functions were enlarged, and under the title of
Corresponding Secretary, he performed the part of a factotum and general
manager, with a share in all the anti-slavery work, local and national.
After the consolidation of the _Freeman_ with the _Standard_, in 1854,
he became the official correspondent of the latter paper, his letters
serving to some extent as a substitute for the discontinued _Freeman_.
The operations of the Underground Rail Road came under his review and
partial control, as has already appeared in these pages, and the slave
cases which came before the courts claimed a large share of his
attention. After the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law, in 1851, his
duties in this respect were arduous and various, as may be inferred from
one of his private letters to an English friend, which found its way
into print abroad, and which will be found in another place. (See p.
581).

During the John Brown excitement Mr. McKim had the privilege of
accompanying Mrs. Brown in her melancholy errand to Harper's Ferry, to
take her last leave of her husband before his execution, and to bring
away the body. His companions on that painful but memorable journey,
were his wife, and Hector Tyndale, Esq., afterwards honorably
distinguished in the war as General Tyndale. Returning with the body of
the hero and martyr, still in company with Mrs. Brown, Mr. McKim
proceeded to North Elba, where he and Wendell Phillips, who had joined
him in New York with a few other friends gathered from the neighborhood,
assisted in the final obsequies.

When the war broke out, Mr. McKim was one of the first to welcome it as
the harbinger of the slave's deliverance, and the country's redemption.
"A righteous war," he said, "is better than a corrupt peace. * * *
When war can only be averted by consenting to crime, then welcome war
with all its calamities." In the winter of 1862, after the capture of
Port Royal, he procured the calling of a public meeting of the citizens
of Philadelphia to consider and provide for the wants of the ten
thousand slaves who had been suddenly liberated. One of the results of
this meeting was the organization of the Philadelphia Port Royal Relief
Com