hose who shared in
them. This event proved the great change wrought in the popular
feeling, the result of twenty-five years of earnest effort to
impress upon the heart of this community anti-slavery doctrines
and sentiments. Then for the first time the Abolitionists of
Philadelphia found their right of free speech protected by city
authorities. Alexander Henry was the first Mayor of this city who
ever quelled a pro-slavery mob.

Our last record of a victim sacrificed to this statute, is of the
case of Moses Horner, who was kidnapped near Harrisburg in March,
1860, and doomed to slavery by United States Judge John
Cadwallader, in this city. One more effort was made a few months
later to capture in open day in the heart of this city a man
alleged to be a fugitive slave, but it failed of ultimate
success. The next year South Carolina's guns thundered forth the
doom of the slave power. She aimed them at Fort Sumter and the
United States Government. God guided their fiery death to the
very heart of American slavery.

If the history of this Society were fully written, one of its
most interesting chapters would be a faithful record of its
series of annual fairs. Beginning in the year 1836, the series
continued during twenty-six years, the last fair being held in
December, 1861. The social attraction of these assemblies induced
many young persons to mingle in them, besides those who labored
from love of the cause. Brought thus within the circle of
anti-slavery influence, many were naturally converted to our
principles, and became earnest laborers in the enterprise which
had so greatly enriched their own souls. The week of the fair was
the annual Social Festival of the Abolitionists of the State.
Though held under the immediate direction of this Society, it
soon became a Pennsylvania institution. Hither our tribes came up
to take counsel together, to recount our victories won, to be
refreshed by social communion, and to renew our pledges of
fidelity to the slave. There were years when these were very
solemn festivals, when our skies were dark with gathering storms,
and we knew not what peril the night or the morning might bring.
But they were always seasons from which we derived strength and
encouragement for future toil and endurance, and their