Edward Beecher and the Anti-Slavery Movement in Illinois

[...]Beecher saw errors in Garrison's facts from the Bible which led Beecher to the idea that abolition was sanctioned by God, but we should never "distort history" to make our case against slavery. According to Lincoln biographers John G. Nicolay and John Hay, as antislavery agitation increased in the East and "people with uneasy consciences continued to write and talk and petition Congress against slavery,... most of the State legislatures began to pass resolutions denouncing them. [...]it was Edward's wife, Isabella Porter Jones, a distant cousin and girlhood friend of Harriet's, who wrote a letter to Harriet about the 1850 Compromise that strengthened the Fugitive Slave Law, which provided motivation to Harrietto write on slavery's evils. Since 2001, she has taught English fulltime at Waubonsee Community College, Sugar Grove, IL where she was granted sabbatical leave in Spring 2009 to study Illinois abolitionism.