"'Tis the law of God in the human soul, 'Tis the law in the Word Divine; It shall live while the earth in its course shall roll, It shall live in this soul of mine. Let the law of the land forge its bonds of wrong, I shall help when the self-freed crave; For the law in my soul, bright, beaming, and strong, Bids me succor the fleeing slave."
Theodore Parker was but the mouthpiece of many abolitionists throughout the Northern states when he said, at the conclusion of a sermon in 1850: "It is known to you that the Fugitive Slave Bill has become a law.... To law framed of such iniquity I owe no allegiance. Humanity, Christianity, manhood revolts against it.... For myself I say it solemnly, I will shelter, I will help, and I will defend the fugitive with all my humble means and power. I will act with any body of decent and serious men, as the head, or the foot, or the hand, in any mode not involving the use of deadly weapons, to nullify and defeat the operation of this law...."[262]
[260] Fairchild, _The Underground Railroad_, Vol. IV; _Tract No. 87_, Western Reserve Historical Society, p. 97.
[262] Delivered in Melodeon Hall, Boston, Oct. 6, 1850. The _Chronotype_, Oct. 7, 1850. See Vol. II, No. 2, of the _Scrap-book_ relating to Theodore Parker, compiled by Miss C. C. Thayer, Boston Public Library.
Sentiments of this kind were cherished in almost every Northern community by a few persons at least. There were some New England colonies in the West where anti-slavery sentiments predominated. These, like some of the religious communities, as those of the Quakers and Covenanters, became well-known centres of underground activity. In general it is safe to say that the majority of helpers in the North were of Anglo-American stock, descendants of the Puritan and Quaker settlers of the Eastern states, or of Southerners that had moved to the Northern states to be rid of slavery. The many stations in the eastern and northern parts of Ohio and the northern part of Illinois may be safely attributed to the large proportion of New England settlers in those districts. Localities where the work of befriending slaves was largely in the hands of Quakers will be mentioned in another connection. Southern settlers in Brown County and adjoining districts in Ohio are said to have been regularly forwarding escaped slaves to Canada before 1817.[263] The emigration of a number of these settlers to Bond County, Illinois, about 1820, and the removal of a few families from that region to Putnam County in the same state about a decade later, helps to explain the early development of secret routes in the southern and north central parts of Illinois.[264]