North of a certain line, slavery did not exist. Slaves used sometimes to run away from their masters and escape across this line; but in every Northern State there was a law, that escaped slaves had to be handed back to their master if he claimed them. The masters used to offer a reward to any one who handed back to them the body of their slave, alive or dead. This led to all sorts of difficulties, because in the Northern States a great many free negroes lived. Very often some one who was eager for the reward would capture an innocent free negro and hand him over to the master, declaring that he answered to the description of the missing slave. The question as to whether he was, or not, was decided not in the Northern State where he had been captured, but in the Southern State where the master lived, and no Southern court could be trusted to decide fairly in a case between a white man and a black. Gradually this injustice roused a small party in the North, which openly declared that slavery was an abominable thing, and ought not to exist in America. The Abolitionists, as they called themselves, said that it was a disgrace to a free country that slavery should exist in it; that as long as it did exist, the Declaration of Independence had no meaning. Slavery ought to be abolished. When Abraham Lincoln was about twenty-one, a paper called _The Liberator_ began to appear. It was edited by a great man called William Lloyd Garrison. Its object was to rouse people to see the evils of slavery, and to get it made illegal. The Abolitionists were few in number, and very unpopular. They had to suffer for their beliefs in the North as well as in the South. The offices where _The Liberator_ was printed were attacked by mobs of furious people, who burst in at the doors, broke every pane of glass in the windows, destroyed the printing press, and threw the type into the river. In St. Louis, William Lloyd Garrison was dragged round the town with a rope round his waist, while crowds of angry people hooted and hissed, spat at him, and threw rotten eggs and stones at his head. He only just escaped death. Many of his followers were murdered in the open streets. Even in Illinois, an innocent preacher, who had sympathised with them, was thrown into the river and drowned. The Southern States were roused to fury. In the North, even sensible people who did not like slavery thought it very unwise to say anything against it. Slavery was a fact--it was no good to discuss it. Several Northern States sent petitions to Parliament, declaring their opinion that it was very unwise to discuss Abolition. In Illinois, this was the view taken by nearly all Lincoln’s friends. Lincoln did not agree with them. He thought the Abolitionists very often unwise; nothing, he saw, could be more dangerous than to rouse the feeling of the South: but nothing could make him seem to approve of slavery.