In 1857, Chief-Justice Taney of the United States Supreme Court, with a majority of his associates, decided on a test case, known as the "Dred Scott Case," that when the Constitution of the United States was formed and adopted, a negro slave was not a person, but simply a piece of property,—a thing,—and that his master could lawfully take his slaves anywhere he pleased, just as he could his horses and his cattle. The Kansas-Nebraska Bill, the Fugitive Slave Law, and the Dred Scott Decision greatly aroused the North. Some declared that the latter two laws should not be carried out. This increased the hostility of the South. Many persons in the North assisted in what was called the "underground railroad"—secretly assisting slaves on their way to Canada for freedom. When a small boy, just beginning to read, I remember seeing at my Grandfather Todd's, in southern Indiana, copies of the Louisville _Journal_ (now the _Courier-Journal_) with whole columns of short advertisements, offering rewards for runaway slaves. Such advertisements could easily be recognized at a glance, for each one had a small picture of a slave with a carpet-sack on his back making long strides for liberty. The leading opponents of slavery were bitterly hated and persecuted. William Lloyd Garrison was mobbed in the city of Boston, and it was with great difficulty that his life was saved. Elijah P. Lovejoy, who published an anti-slavery paper at Alton, Illinois, was shot down by a mob while defending his property and pleading for free speech. Charles Sumner, because of a speech he made, was brutally assaulted while sitting in his chair in the United States Senate, and was so beaten that he was compelled to give up his seat in Congress for four years. It was well known that neither moral suasion nor the ordinary political methods would ever do away with the curse of slavery. The people of the North debated, prayed, preached, and voted against slavery, while the people of the South were equally zealous in defending slavery, contending it was a divine institution.