This is Bob Myers from the Historical Society of Michigan with a Michigan history moment. During the mid 19th century, a growing number of Americans faced a hard moral choice. What would they do about slavery? Increasingly strict laws forbade assistance to escaping freedom seekers. But a few Americans, mostly Quakers, decided that morality required them to Act. In 1847, that conflict led to what became known as the Kentucky Raid in Cass County. Cass county abolitionists Wright Modelin and William Jones had traveled several times to Bourbon County, Kentucky, and returned to Michigan with escaping men and women. Furious Kentucky slaveholders finally decided to retrieve their human property rumored to be living among the Quakers in Cass County. In August 1847, 13 Kentucky slave catchers arrived in Cass County. They separated into smaller groups and raided a number of Quaker farms. In all, they captured nine fugitives. As word of the kidnapping spread, a crowd of Quakers, free people of color and abolitionist townspeople gathered to stop the Kentuckians. The two groups confronted each other at Odell's Mills in Vandalia. The slave catchers brandished weapons, but the pacifist Quakers intervened before bloodshed occurred. The Kentuckians were outnumbered, but they believed that the law was clearly on their side. They therefore agreed to take their case to court. The slave catchers had documents proving ownership of the freedom seekers. The judge, however, was Ebeneezer McIlvaine of Niles. Judge McIlvaine happened to be an abolitionist and a conductor on the Underground Railroad, and he found in favor of the freedom seekers. The freed fugitives, along with 34 other fugitives, escaped to Canada. Cass county abolitionists had not seen the last of the Kentucky slave catchers. In 1849, they sued 10 local men, including Ebenezer McIlvaine, for the loss of their human property. One of the defendants, David Nicholson, eventually settled the case by paying $2,000 in court costs. The impact of the Kentucky raid in Cass county was felt far beyond Michigan. Furious slave owners pushed for and obtained passage of the Fugitive slave law in 1850 that expanded penalties for helping runaway enslaved people. That, in turn fueled the sectional tensions that erupted into Civil War in 1861. This Michigan history moment was brought to you by MichiganHistoryMagazine.org.