ern route through Tennessee and Kentucky. In the latter State they
were at one time overtaken by men who professed to be looking for a pet
dog, but whose real purpose was to recover runaway slaves. They insisted
upon examining the contents of the wagons, for in this way only a short
time previous a fugitive had been captured.

These incidents show the origin of the system. The first case of
assistance rendered a negro was not in itself illegal, but was intended
merely to prevent the crime of kidnapping. The second was illegal in
form, but the aid was given to one who, having been set free by will,
was being reenslaved, it was believed, by an unjust decision of a court.
The third was a case of outrageous abuse on the part of the owner. The
negro Sam had himself gone to a trader begging that he would buy him and
preferring to take his chances on a Mississippi plantation rather than
return to his master. The trader offered the customary price and was
met with the reply that he could have the rascal if he would wait until
after the enraged owner had taken his revenge, otherwise the price
would be twice the amount offered. A large proportion of the fugitives
belonged to this maltreated class. Others were goaded to escape by the
prospect of deportation to the Gulf States. The fugitives generally
followed the beaten line of travel to the North and West.

In 1826 Levi Coffin became a merchant in Newport, Indiana, a town near
the Ohio line not far from Richmond. In the town and in its neighborhood
lived a large number of free negroes who were the descendants of former
slaves whom North Carolina Quakers had set free and had colonized in the
new country. Coffin found that these blacks were accustomed to assist
fugitives on their way to Canada. When he also learnt that some had been
captured and returned to bondage merely through lack of skill on the
part of the negroes, he assumed active operations as a conductor on the
Underground Railroad.

Coffin used the Underground Railroad as a means of making converts to
the cause. One who berated him for negro-stealing was adroitly induced
to meet a newly arrived passenger and listen to his pathetic story. At
the psychological moment the objector was skillfully led to hand the
fugitive a dollar to assist him in reaching a place of safety. Coffin
then explained to this benevolent non-abolitionist the nature of his
act, assuring him that he was liable to heavy damages therefor. The
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