The Underground Railroad from Slavery to Freedom: A comprehensive history

The Underground Railroad from Slavery to Freedom: A comprehensive history

This volume is the outgrowth of an investigation begun in 1892-1893, when the writer was giving a portion of his time to the teaching of United States history in the Ohio State University. The search for materials was carried on at intervals during several years until the mass of information, written and printed, was deemed sufficient to be subjected to the processes of analysis and generalization. Patience and care have been required to overcome the difficulties attaching to a subject that was in an extraordinary sense a hidden one; and the author has constantly tried to observe those well-known dicta of the historian; namely, to be content with the materials discovered without making additions of his own, and to let his conclusions be defined by the facts, rather than seek to cast these "in the mould of his hypothesis." Starting without preconceptions, the writer has been constrained to the views set forth in Chapters X and XI in regard to the real meaning and importance of the underground movement. And if it be found by the reader that these views are in any measure novel, it is hoped that the pages of this book contain evidence sufficient for their justification. There is something mysterious and inexplicable about the whole anti-slavery movement in the United States, as its history is generally recounted. According to the accepted view the anti-slavery movement of the thirties and the later decades has been considered as altogether distinct from the earlier abolition period in our history, both in principle and external features, and as separated from it by a[xxiv] considerable interval of time. The earlier movement is supposed to have died a natural death, and the later to have sprung into full life and vigor with the appearance of Garrison and the Liberator. Issue is made with this view in the following pages, where Macaulay's rational account of revolutions in general may, perhaps, be thought to find illustration. Macaulay says in one of his essays: "As the history of states is generally written, the greatest and most momentous revolutions seem to come upon them like supernatural inflictions, without warning or cause. But the fact is, that such revolutions are almost always the consequences of moral changes, which have gradually passed on the mass of the community, and which ordinarily proceed far before their progress is indicated by any public measure. An intimate knowledge of the domestic history of nations is therefore absolutely necessary to the prognosis of political events." Or, the essayist might have added, to a subsequent understanding of them. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 49038
Author: Siebert, Wilbur Henry
Release Date: May 24, 2015
Format: eBook
Language: English