subs. phr. (American).—An organization for assisting fugitive slaves to the free states and Canada. Many expedients and devices for the purpose were in vogue during the agitation for the abolition of slavery in the United States.

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  1856.  H. B. STOWE, Dred, II. xxxi. 302. It is probable that nothing has awakened more bitterly the animosity of the slaveholding community than the existence in the Northern States of an indefinite yet very energetic institution, known as the UNDERGROUND RAILROAD.

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  1857.  Albany Evening Journal, Dec. And now, if we may believe the promises made by the Democrats for two years past, we are on the eve of a political millennium…. There is to be no more ‘agitation’ of the slavery question. The UNDERGROUND RAILROAD is to suspend running, and rejoicing hosts of Negroes are to return from the bleak wilds of Canada to the luxurious delights of life on the plantation.

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  1858.  New York Tribune, June. He [Connelly] regarded the UNDERGROUND RAILROAD as a peculiarly Southern institution, taking away from the South every year thousands of the most intelligent, restless, and desperate Negroes, who would do infinitely more mischief if kept there.

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