Whereas Thomas Garrett, a devout Quaker and noted abolitionist, was born in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, on August 21, 1789, and died on January 25, 1871; Whereas Thomas Garrett became an abolitionist when he rescued a free Black woman who worked for his parents and was kidnapped by slave traders; Whereas Thomas Garrett moved his family to Wilmington, Delaware, in 1822, to start his own business and continue his activism in the struggle against slavery; Whereas Thomas Garrett boycotted goods made by enslaved labor, supported abolitionist petitions, authored opinion pieces in local newspapers, and organized with antislavery societies; Whereas Thomas Garrett established a station of the Underground Railroad at his home and business on 227 Shipley Street, Wilmington, Delaware; Whereas Thomas Garrett helped his friend and noted civil rights heroine, Harriet Tubman, rescue her parents from arrest for helping enslaved people escape to freedom; Whereas Thomas Garrett helped over 2,400 people escape to freedom; Whereas Thomas Garrett, in 1848, was found guilty by United States Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger B. Taney for violating the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 for helping a family escape to freedom; Whereas Chief Justice Taney would later write the opinion for the court in the infamous Dred Scott decision; Whereas Thomas Garrett vowed to continue his abolitionist activism despite the miscarriage of justice and a fine of $5,400 imposed by Chief Justice Taney which nearly bankrupted him, despite its reduction to $1,500; Whereas the Maryland legislature proposed various exorbitant bounties for the arrest of Thomas Garrett due to his antislavery efforts; Whereas Thomas Garrett joined a 10-person delegation of abolitionists to meet with President Abraham Lincoln on June 20, 1862, to urge the President to decree the emancipation of the enslaved; Whereas President Abraham Lincoln started drafting the Emancipation Proclamation in July 1862