Note 15 — Chapter II

It became so common in New York that there was no safety for a colored person there, and philanthropy and religion demanded some protection for them against such a shocking system.—At last there was a vigilance committee organized for the purpose of ascertaining the names and residences of every colored person in the city; and this committee used regularly to visit all on the roll, and almost every day some one was missing. The result has been that several hundreds of innocent men and women and children have been retaken from their bondage, from the holds of respectable merchantmen in New York, to the parlours of southern gentry in New-Orleans. The facts which have been brought out by this committee are awful beyond description.—It is one of the noblest, and most patriotic and efficient organization on the globe. But their design expands itself beyond the protection and recovery of kidnapped friends;—it also lifts a star of guidance and promise upon the path of the fugitive slave; it helps him on his way to freedom, and not one week passes by without witnessing the glorious results of this humane and benevolent institution, in the protection of the free or the redemption of the enslaved. The Humane Society, whose object is to recover to life those who have been drowned, enlists the patronage and encomiums of the great and good, and yet this Vigilance Committee are insulted and abused by many of the public presses in New York, and most of the city authorities.—Why? Slavery has infused its deadly poison into the heart of the North.