North, as a set-off against this
detested legislation, gave themselves with much zest to aid the runaway
slave. If a slave could escape to the swamps or the forest and elude
the bloodhounds on his track, he knew that at certain points he would
find those who were prepared to house him, and, passing him on secretly
from station to station, ensure his arrival at a terminus where he
would be safe for life. That was Canada, the country where the Union
Jack waves--the flag of 'Britons' who 'never shall be slaves' and are
prepared to grant to all the priceless boon they claim themselves.
This escape was called 'shaking the paw of the lion.' May that British
lion never be transformed into a sleek tiger; may his paw ever be
outreached to a runaway slave, and his roar be a terror to all who
would market in human flesh and blood!

This chain of well-known houses and locations was called the
underground railway; and, spite of penalties of imprisonment oft
inflicted, it never lacked porters or guards; and if the trains did not
always run to time it was because they were very cautious against
accident. Some 30,000 passengers were probably conveyed on this line.
You will not be surprised to find John Brown an active 'guard,' and
under the name of 'Shubel Morgan' or 'Hawkins' he did good service
there. See him making his way with twelve fugitive slaves from
Missouri, through Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, and Michigan to
Canada. It is the dead of winter, and the rough wagons travel heavily
and slowly along the drifted roads. There is a price on his head in
these Southern States--3,250 dollars offered conjointly by the Governor
of Missouri and President Pierce--and the stations are sometimes thirty
miles apart. They come to a creek, and there is the State Marshal
awaiting them with eighty armed men--for he thought he had better have
a good force, as he heard it was John Brown he might encounter. John
puts his host of twenty-three men all told into battle array in front
of the wagons, and gives the laconic order, 'Now go straight at 'em,
boys, they are sure to run.' Into the water his men charge--but the
baptism of water is all they are fated to pass through; there is no
baptism of fire to follow, for, scared at the impulsive charge, and
filled with vague terror at that irrepressible John Brown, the Marshal
springs upon his horse and skedaddles. His men scramble to their
horses. Some cannot untie them from the shrubs quic