: Fugitive Slaves (1619-1865) by McDougall Marion Gleason Hart Albert Bushnell Editor - Fugitive slaves United States; Slavery Law and legislation United States

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No attempt has been made to present a full list of cases, but only such as had especial influence on the public mind, or such as illustrate some special phase of the question.

There are many sources from which material for a study of fugitive slaves may be gathered. Almost any work upon the slavery question touches sooner or later upon this topic, and the difficulties arise rather from the amount of the literature which must be examined than from lack of information. No formal bibliography of the subject, or of any phase of it, has been found; it has therefore been necessary to go through a large body of material, and to sift out references which bear upon the subject.

The labor has been much facilitated by the completeness and convenient arrangement of the literature bearing upon slavery in the libraries of Cambridge and Boston. The Harvard College Library possesses two unique collections of slavery pamphlets, one the bequest of Charles Sumner, the other the gift of Colonel T. W. Higginson; and the Card Catalogue of the Library is a comprehensive guide to a large alcove of other books. The great collections of the Boston Public Library have also been made accessible by the full Card Catalogue of that Library. The Boston Athenaeum has also furnished valuable material; and in the Massachusetts State Library is an excellent set of State Statutes, which has been freely used. I have not been able to consult the antislavery collection of the Cornell Library at Ithaca.

Very early in the preparation of this work it became evident that no writer had systematically examined and compared the legislation of the Colonies and States, or searched the records of Congress, or looked for contemporary accounts of any considerable number of escapes. I was therefore obliged to search for such original material as was within my reach. Doubtless some important books and pamphlets have escaped me, and an examination of other collections would enlarge the bibliography; but the effort has been made to exhaust the literature of the subject, except in newspapers.

Much descriptive detail can often be found in the published reports of trials. A volume is devoted to the Oberlin-Wellington case, and several volumes have been published on the Burns trial. For the Prigg and Hanway cases, and others of importance, the records of the Supreme Court and lower courts have been consulted. Most of the important cases were tried in State courts or before commissioners, and the only reports are fugitive pamphlets, of which many have been consulted and cited.

The reports of the various antislavery societies, especially of those of Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, have also been examined with profit as to the work among the refugees in Canada, etc. For the colonial period the publications of the Massachusetts and New York Historical Societies are exceedingly important, and have been freely drawn upon.

The materials for the study of colonial legislation must be gathered from many sources. The best collection of them in Boston may be found at the State Library. In some colonies there are carefully edited series of volumes chronologically arranged, but in others the records have been but irregularly printed. The laws of New Netherlands and of early New York are easily accessible in well printed volumes of a recent date. For the Southern States, the Hening edition of the Virginia Statutes at Large is clear, and covers a long period. There is also the Cooper collection for South Carolina, Bacon's series for Maryland, Iredell's edition of South Carolina Statutes, and Leaming and Spicer for New Jersey. There are of course many others, but these comprise the most important.

From the beginning of the Constitutional period, the proceedings of Congress may be followed as minutely as desired. An outline of the proceedings is given in the Journals of the Senate and House, while for a fuller account and reports of speeches the Annals of Congress and Congressional Debates to 1837, and the Congressional Globes from 1833 to 1863, furnish ample material. Information in regard to the number and personnel of the House is most readily gathered from Poore's Congressional Directory.

This list includes all the books and articles which have been of service in preparing the monograph, except a few of the general histories.

Lincoln, President, preliminary proclamation, ? 92; final emancipation proclamation, ? 92.

List, counsel in Shadrach case, ? 57.

Loring, Ellis Gray, in Shadrach case, ? 57; Crafts taken to house of, ? 69.

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