on of some of the
leading Abolitionists, and feeling ran very high, every outbreak being
laid at the doors of the men who were preaching the new gospel of equal
rights, regardless of color.

Mobs frequently took a hand in the proceedings, and several men were
attacked and arrested on very flimsy pretexts. In 1836, the Pennsylvania
Hall, in Philadelphia, was burned, because it had been dedicated by an
anti-slavery meeting. So bitter did the feeling become that every
attempt to open schools for colored children was followed by
disturbance, the teachers being driven away and the books destroyed.
Numerous petitions on the subject were sent to Congress, and there was
an uproar in the House when it was proposed to refer a petition for the
abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia to a committee. The
Southern Congressmen withdrew from the House as a formal protest, and
the word "secession," which was subsequently to acquire such a much more
significant meaning, was first applied to this action on their part.

A compromise, however, was effected, and the seceding members took their
seats on the following day. Feeling, however, ran very high. Some people
returned fugitive slaves to their owners, while others established what
was then known as the underground railway. This was a combination
between Abolitionists in various parts, and involved the feeding and
housing of slaves, who were passed on from house to house and helped on
their road to Canada. Much excitement was caused in 1841 by the ship
"Creole," which sailed from Richmond with a cargo of 135 slaves from the
Virginia plantation. Near the Bahama Islands one of the slaves named
Washington, as by the way a good many thousand slaves were named from
time to time, headed a rebellion. The slaves succeeded in overpowering
the crew and in confining the captain and the white passengers. They
forced the captain to take the boat to New Providence, where all except
the actual members of the rebelling crowd were declared free.

Joshua Giddings, of Ohio, offered a resolution in the House of
Representatives claiming that every man who had been a slave in the
United States was free the moment he crossed the boundary of some other
country. The way in which this resolution was received led to the
resignation of Mr. Giddings. He offered himself for re-election, and was
sent back to Congress by an enormous majority. As Ohio had been very
bitter in its anti-negro demonstrations, the