In the past, scholarship on the Underground Railroad not only tended to focus on the conductors rather than the fugitives, but also overemphasized the contributions of white abolitionists, especially Quakers, in the Railroad's operations. Yet the abolitionist movement as a whole was not representative of the majority of Northern white views toward slavery, particularly prior to the enactment of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Even on the brink of the Civil War many Northerners regarded abolitionists as troublemakers and radicals whose meddling in the Southern institution of slavery only worsened the nation's sectional tensions. Among the reasons President Abraham Lincoln initially resisted declaring that slavery, not secession, was the cause of the war was that he feared most Northerners would refuse to support a conflict being waged over emancipation. Even when the Emancipation Proclamation was issued in 1862, it was extremely unpopular throughout the North...