The present was a great time among all classes of the abolition party, the "Underground Railroad," and all that sort of thing. There were the border ruffians in Kansas, where John Brown, that hero of fame, led on the fray, and fugitive slaves escaped over the lines into the free States, whence their owners were unable to get them back. The Fugitive Slave Law was a dead letter, for the great gospel guns over all the North had denounced it as a shame and a disgrace to a Christian nation; and when the South found that fugitive slaves would resist their pursuers unto death, and that their messengers were likely to be shot down, they ceased to send them, at the same time making the slave laws worse than ever before. However, the tighter and more oppressive they made them, in greater numbers did the slaves escape from the house of bondage, for who can stem the spirit of the brave? Slavery is an abomination before the Lord! We had at this time all the anti-slavery leaders coming round the country—the greatest speakers I ever heard. I never had a more wonderful experience than turning out with Tom at night to the halls and churches to listen to such arguments and eloquence as I had never dreamed had any existence in this or any other country. William Lloyd Garrison came to Buffalo, and Fred. Douglass, and all the rest were there. We listened to men and women who had seen slavery in all parts of the South, people who had been in Kansas, and almost everywhere else, and such tales of truth and horror I never heard before in all my life. It is true that even slavery had its backers in the North, and too many of them at that, but the entire Christian portion of the population was determined that slavery should come no further, although the South seemed to demand, with the most unblushing impudence, that they should carry their slaves into every State and territory under the stars and stripes. The South acted like a violent, high-strung woman, whose husband tries to reason with her in vain. She seemed to say, "I shall have my own way, or I will fight with you, Sam! I’ll be no submissive wife! I’ll be master and mistress, too! I’ll fight and have my own way!"