Make Free: The Story of the Underground Railroad (review)

70Bulletin of Friends Historical Association If it was true, as is said of Lucretia Mott and the John Brown affair (p. 169) that "any type of war was abhorrent to her, but she heartily accepted the principle that had led to the bloodshed," then our generation can admire her for her courage and for her devotion to what she felt to be right, but we must test by our own severest standards the means we choose to achieve good ends. Haverford College LibraryThomas E. Drake Make Free: The Story of the Underground Railroad. By William Breyfogle. Philadelphia and New York: J. B. Lippincott Company. 1958. 287 pages. $4.50. This is a popular book, not a scholarly monograph. A highly readable account of the Underground Railroad and some of its "heroes," it also includes a discussion of the background of the Civil War. Those who are interested in accurate history must ask the question: is this book going to enlighten its readers or simply offer them a number of oversimplified answers to the very complicated questions with which it purports to deal? Like many accounts of the Underground Railroad, this one was written largely from abolition sources, and from only a limited few at that. In his sympathy for the antislavery crusaders the author has given little indication that there may have been more than one side to the arguments. In places the reader finds the description of "typical" incidents, admittedly based upon the use of "informed imagination" (p. 34). This is a device of fiction, not of sound historical writing. In deliberately avoiding the academic approach to his subject the author has also overlooked the findings of numerous scholars. Recent monographs have emphasized the complexities involved in the pre-Civil War situation, yet Make Free pronounces quick and superficial judgments on some of the most controversial issues. Mr. Breyfogle fails to take into account the implications of the race question which complicated the abolition of slavery in the United States. He overemphasizes the importance of plantation slavery and hardly mentions the slaves who did not live on large plantations. He assures his readers that the Civil War was inevitable and that "what caused the Civil War was the issue of Negro slavery" (p. 235). Even some professional historians assume today that objectivity is an undesirable as well as an impossible goal. Yet such highly biased and fallacious accounts as this are the end-products of that attitude. Such popular "histories" are all the more deplorable because they are read by so many who would never glance at a scholarly monograph. Writers of popular books have a special responsibility to be accurate and at least to familiarize themselves with the findings of the academic specialists. Those seeking knowledge about the abolition movement or the Underground Railroad will find neither new light nor new information on the subject in Make Free. Grove City CollegeLarry Gara ...