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SOME RECOLLECTIONS OF OUR ANTISLAVERY CONFLICT.
SOME RECOLLECTIONS OF OUR ANTISLAVERY CONFLICT.
BY SAMUEL J. MAY. BOSTON: FIELDS, OSGOOD, & CO. 1869. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by SAMUEL J. MAY in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. University Press: Welch, Bigelow, & Co., Cambridge....
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PREFACE.
PREFACE.
Many of these Recollections were published at intervals, during the years 1867 and 1868, in The Christian Register . They were written at the special request of the editor of that paper; and without the slightest expectation that they would ever be put to any further use. But so many persons have requested me to republish them in a volume, that I have gathered them here, together with several more recollections of events and transactions, illustrative of the temper of the times as late as the wi
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REV. JOHN RANKIN AND REV. JOHN D. PAXTON.
REV. JOHN RANKIN AND REV. JOHN D. PAXTON.
The former was a Presbyterian minister in Kentucky, where, in 1825, having heard that his brother, Mr. Thomas Rankin, of Virginia, had become a slaveholder, he addressed to him a series of very earnest and impressive letters in remonstrance. They were published first in a periodical called the Castigator , and afterwards went through several editions in pamphlet form. He denounced “slavery as a never-failing fountain of the grossest immoralities, and one of the deepest sources of human misery.”
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BENJAMIN LUNDY.
BENJAMIN LUNDY.
In the month of June, 1828, there came to the town of Brooklyn, Connecticut, where I then resided, and to the house of my friend, the venerable philanthropist, George Benson, a man of small stature, of feeble health, partially deaf, asking for a public hearing upon the subject of American slavery. It was Benjamin Lundy . We gathered for him a large congregation, and his address made a deep impression on many of his hearers. He exhibited the wrong of slavery and the sufferings of its victims in a
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WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON.
WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON.
William Lloyd Garrison commenced his literary and philanthropic labors when a young journeyman printer, in his native place, Newburyport, Mass. In 1825 he removed to Boston, and labored for a while in the office of the Recorder . In 1827 he united with Rev. William Collier in editing and publishing the National Philanthropist , the only paper then devoted to the Temperance cause. And soon after he engaged in conducting The Journal of the Times , at Bennington, Vt. In each of these papers, especi
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MISS PRUDENCE CRANDALL AND THE CANTERBURY SCHOOL.
MISS PRUDENCE CRANDALL AND THE CANTERBURY SCHOOL.
Often, during the last thirty, and more often during the last ten years, you must have seen in the newspapers, or heard from speakers in Antislavery and Republican meetings, high commendations of the County of Windham in Connecticut, as bearing the banner of equal human and political rights far above all the rest of that State. In the great election of the year 1866 the people of that county gave a large majority of votes in favor of negro suffrage . This moral and political elevation of the pub
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THE BLACK LAW OF CONNECTICUT.
THE BLACK LAW OF CONNECTICUT.
Foiled in their attempts to frighten away Miss Crandall’s pupils by their proceedings under the provisions of the obsolete “Pauper and Vagrant Law,” Mr. Judson and his fellow-persecutors urgently pressed upon the Legislature of Connecticut, then in session, a demand for the enactment of a law, by which they should be enabled to effect their purpose. To the lasting shame of the State, be it said, they succeeded. On the 24th of May, 1833, the Black Law was enacted as follows:— “ Section 1. Be it e
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ARTHUR TAPPAN.
ARTHUR TAPPAN.
The words and manner of Mr. Judson in the interview I had with him on the 11th of March, of which I have given a pretty full report, convinced me that he would do all that could be done by legal and political devices, to abolish Miss Crandall’s school. His success in obtaining from the Legislature the enactment of the infamous “Black Law” showed too plainly that the majority of the people of the State were on the side of the oppressor. But I felt sure that God and good men would be our helpers i
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CHARLES C. BURLEIGH.
CHARLES C. BURLEIGH.
The excitement caused by Mr. Tappan’s unexpected visit, the hearty encouragement he had given me, and the great addition he had made to my means of defence, altogether were so grateful to me that I did not at first fully realize how much I had undertaken to do. But a night’s rest brought me to my senses, and I clearly saw that I must have some other help than even Mr. Tappan’s pecuniary generosity could give me. I was at that time publishing a religious paper,— The Christian Monitor ,—which, tog
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MISS CRANDALL’S TRIAL.
MISS CRANDALL’S TRIAL.
On the 23d of August, 1833, the first trial of Prudence Crandall for the crime of keeping a boarding-school for colored girls in the State of Connecticut, and endeavoring to give them a good education,—the first trial for this crime ,—was had in Brooklyn, the seat of the county of Windham, within a stone’s throw of the house where lived and died General Israel Putnam, who, with his compatriots of 1776, perilled his life in defence of the self-evident truth that “all men were created equal , and
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HOUSE SET ON FIRE.
HOUSE SET ON FIRE.
Soon after their failure to get a decision from the Court of Errors, an attempt was made to set her house on fire. Fortunately the match was applied to combustibles tucked under a corner where the sills were somewhat decayed. They burnt like a slow match. Some time before daylight the inmates perceived the smell of fire, but not until nearly nine o’clock did any blaze appear. It was quickly quenched; and I was sent for to advise whether, if her enemies were so malignant as this attempt showed th
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MR. GARRISON’S MISSION TO ENGLAND.—NEW YORK MOBS.
MR. GARRISON’S MISSION TO ENGLAND.—NEW YORK MOBS.
The subject of this article is very opportune at the present time. A While the roar of the cannon, fired in honor of Mr. Garrison at the moment of his late departure from England, is still reverberating through the land, it will be interesting and instructive to recall the purpose of his mission to that country just thirty-four years ago; and how he was vilified when he went, and denounced, hunted, mobbed, on his return. He went there to undeceive the philanthropists of Great Britain as to a gig
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THE CONVENTION AT PHILADELPHIA.
THE CONVENTION AT PHILADELPHIA.
The publication of Mr. Garrison’s “Thoughts on Colonization” had arrested the attention of philanthropists in all parts of our country. Everywhere, public as well as private discussions were had respecting the professed and the real purpose and tendency of the Colonization plan. Converts to the great doctrine of the young Reformer—“Immediate emancipation without expatriation , the right of the slave and the duty of the master”— were added daily. Tidings came to us that many town and several coun
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THE PHILADELPHIA CONVENTION.
THE PHILADELPHIA CONVENTION.
The committee of ten, appointed at the close of the first day to prepare a declaration of the sentiments and purposes of the American Antislavery Society, felt that the work assigned them ought to be most carefully and thoroughly done, embodying, as far as possible, the best thoughts of the whole Convention. Accordingly, about half of the members were invited to meet, and did meet, the committee early at the house of our chairman, Dr. Edwin P. Atlee. After an hour’s general conversation upon the
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LUCRETIA MOTT.
LUCRETIA MOTT.
A number of excellent women, most of them of the “Society of Friends,” were in constant attendance upon the meetings of the Convention, which continued three days successively, without adjournment for dinner. On the afternoon of the second day, in the midst of a very interesting debate (I think it was on the use of the productions of slave-labor), a sweet female voice was heard. It was Lucretia Mott’s. She had risen and commenced speaking, but was hesitating, because she feared the larger part o
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MRS. L. MARIA CHILD.
MRS. L. MARIA CHILD.
The account I have given above of the valuable services rendered in the Philadelphia Convention by Lucretia Mott, Esther Moore, and Lydia White, doubtless reminded my readers of many other excellent women, whose names stand high among the early antislavery reformers. The memories of them are most precious to me. If I live to write out half of my Recollections, and you do not weary of them, I shall make most grateful mention of our female fellow-laborers in general, of several of them in particul
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ERUPTION OF LANE SEMINARY.
ERUPTION OF LANE SEMINARY.
Lane Seminary was an institution established by our orthodox fellow-Christians, mainly for the preparation of young men for the ministry. It attained so much importance in the estimation of its patrons, that, in 1832, they claimed for it the services and the reputation of Rev. Dr. Beecher, who left Boston at that time and became its president. There he found, or was soon after joined by, Prof. Calvin E. Stowe, another distinguished teacher of Calvinistic theology. This school of the prophets was
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GEORGE THOMPSON, M.P., LL.D.
GEORGE THOMPSON, M.P., LL.D.
I am careful to affix his titles to the name of this distinguished friend of humanity, because they indicate, in some measure, the estimation to which George Thompson has risen both in England and in the United States. The former title was conferred upon him in his own country, the latter in ours. But both nations owe him much more than titles . By each he should be placed high on the list of its public benefactors, and the two should unite to give him every comfort that he may need in his old a
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GEORGE THOMPSON’S FIRST YEAR IN AMERICA.
GEORGE THOMPSON’S FIRST YEAR IN AMERICA.
When, on his return from England in October, 1833, Mr. Garrison informed us that he had obtained from George Thompson—the champion of the triumphant conflict for West India emancipation—the promise to “come over and help us,” if we concurred in the invitation Mr. Garrison had given him, our hearts were encouraged, our hands strengthened, our purpose confirmed. Our own great antislavery orators, male and female, who since then have done so much to convict and convert the nation, had not yet appea
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REIGN OF TERROR.
REIGN OF TERROR.
The nearly simultaneous uprising of the proslavery hosts in 1835, and the almost universal outbreak of violence upon our antislavery heads in all parts of the country, from Louisiana to Maine, showed plainly enough that Mr. Garrison’s demand for the immediate emancipation of the enslaved had entered into the ear of the whole nation. All the people had heard it, or heard of it. It had received a heartfelt response from not a few of the purest and best men and women in the land. This was manifest
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WALKER’S APPEAL.
WALKER’S APPEAL.
It should be stated, however, that the excitement which had become so general and so furious against the Abolitionists throughout the slaveholding States was owing in no small measure to an individual with whom Mr. Garrison and his associates had had no connection. David Walker, a very intelligent colored man of Boston, having travelled pretty extensively over the United States, and informed himself thoroughly of the condition of the colored population, bond and free, had become so exasperated t
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THE CLERGY AND THE QUAKERS.
THE CLERGY AND THE QUAKERS.
The coming of George Thompson to our country in the fall of 1834, and his thrilling eloquence respecting our great national iniquity, awakened general attention to the subject, and caused more excitement about it than before. He came, as it were, a missionary from the philanthropists of Great Britain to show our people their transgression. The politicians tried to get up the public indignation against him as “a foreign emissary interfering with our political affairs.” The religionists resented h
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THE QUAKERS.
THE QUAKERS.
We had always counted upon the aid and co-operation of the Quakers . We considered them “birthright” Abolitionists. And many of Mr. Garrison’s earliest supporters, most untiring co-laborers, and generous contributors were members of “the Society of Friends,” or had been. Besides John G. Whittier and James and Lucretia Mott, Evan Lewis, Thomas Shipley, and others, of whom I have already spoken, in my account of the Philadelphia Convention, there were the venerable Moses Brown, and the indefatigab
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THE REIGN OF TERROR.
THE REIGN OF TERROR.
Rejected as we Abolitionists were generally by the religionists of every denomination, denounced by many of the clergy as dangerous, yes, impious persons, refused a hearing in almost all the churches, it was not strange that the statesmen and politicians had no mercy upon us. The first most serious opposition from any minister I myself directly encountered was in the pleasant town of Taunton. I went thither on the 15th of April, 1835, and had a very successful meeting in the Town Hall, which was
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FRANCIS JACKSON.
FRANCIS JACKSON.
There is a most interesting sequel to my brief narrative of the great outrage upon liberty in the metropolis of New England, which cannot be so pertinently told in any other connection. After the first attempt of the Female Antislavery Society to hold their annual meeting on the 14th of October, in Congress Hall, was thwarted by the fears of the owner and lessee, Mr. Francis Jackson offered the use of his dwelling-house in Hollis Street for that purpose. But the ladies were unwilling to believe
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RIOT AT UTICA, N. Y.—GERRIT SMITH.
RIOT AT UTICA, N. Y.—GERRIT SMITH.
The resort to mobocratic violence in so many parts of the Middle, Northern, and Eastern States showed how general had become the determination of the “gentlemen of property and standing” (as the leaders everywhere claimed or were reported to be) to put down the Abolitionists by foul means , having found it impossible to do so by fair discussion. This had been peremptorily demanded of them by their Southern masters; and they had evidently come to the conclusion that no other means would be effect
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DR. CHANNING.
DR. CHANNING.
Another and a most auspicious event signalizes in my memory the year 1835. It was the publication of Dr. Channing’s book on Slavery. He had for many years been the most distinguished minister of religion in New England, certainly in the estimation of the Unitarian denomination; and his fame as a Christian moralist, a philosopher, and finished writer had been spread far and wide throughout England, France, and Germany by a large volume of his Discourses, Essays, and Reviews published in 1830. A f
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SLAVERY,—BY WILLIAM E. CHANNING.
SLAVERY,—BY WILLIAM E. CHANNING.
This was the title of Dr. Channing’s book. It rendered the antislavery cause services so important that I am impelled to give a further account of it. It seemed to me at the time, it seems to me now, one of the most inconsistent books I have ever read. It showed how, all unconsciously to himself, the judgment of that wise man had been warped and his prejudices influenced by the deference, which had come to be paid pretty generally throughout our country, to the Southern slaveholding oligarchy; a
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THE GAG-LAW.
THE GAG-LAW.
In the winter of 1835 and 1836 the slaveholding oligarchy made a bolder assault than ever before upon the liberty of our nation, and the most alarming intimations were given of a willingness to yield to their imperious demands. The legislatures of Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia passed resolutions of the same import, only those of Virginia and South Carolina were clothed, as might have been expected, in somewhat more imperative and threatening terms. These resoluti
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THE GAG-LAW.—SECOND INTERVIEW.
THE GAG-LAW.—SECOND INTERVIEW.
We left the committee very much dissatisfied with the treatment we had received from Mr. Lunt and the majority of his associates. Hon. Ebenezer Moseley was an honorable exception. From the first he had treated us in the most fair and gentlemanly manner. And at the last he protested against the procedure of the Chairman. We forthwith drew up, and the next morning presented, a memorial to the Legislature, intimating that we had not been properly treated by the committee, and asking that our right
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HON. JAMES G. BIRNEY.
HON. JAMES G. BIRNEY.
Let me again beg my readers to bear in mind, that I am not attempting to write a complete history of the antislavery conflict. Many individuals rendered essential services to the cause in different parts of our country whose names even may not be mentioned on any of my pages, for the reason that I had little or no personal acquaintance with them. My purpose is merely to give my recollections of the most important incidents in the progress of the great reform, and of the individuals whom I person
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JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.
Although this gentleman—so prominent for more than half a century among our American statesmen and scholars—was not a member of our Antislavery Society, he rendered us and our cause, in one respect, a most important service. And as I have some interesting recollections of him, a few pages devoted to them will be german to my plan. In January, 1835, a petition was committed to Mr. Adams, signed by more than a hundred women of his congressional district, praying for the abolition of slavery in the
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THE ALTON TRAGEDY.
THE ALTON TRAGEDY.
Rev. Elijah P. Lovejoy was a young Presbyterian minister, a native of Maine, who soon after his graduation from college settled in the city of St. Louis, first as a school-teacher, then as a preacher, and lastly as the editor of a religious paper. In all these offices he had commended himself to the respect and affectionate regards of a large circle of friends. He conducted his paper to very general acceptance, until he became an Abolitionist. An awful, a diabolical deed perpetrated in or near S
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WOMAN QUESTION.—MISSES GRIMKÉ.
WOMAN QUESTION.—MISSES GRIMKÉ.
The title of this article announces a great event in the progress of our antislavery conflict, and opens a subject the adequate treatment of which would fill a volume much larger than I intend to impose upon the public. From the beginning of Mr. Garrison’s enterprise excellent women were among his most earnest, devoted, unshrinking fellow-laborers. Their moral instincts made them quicker to discern the right than most men were, and their lack of political discipline left them to the guidance of
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“THE PASTORAL LETTER” AND “THE CLERICAL APPEAL.”
“THE PASTORAL LETTER” AND “THE CLERICAL APPEAL.”
Abolitionists from the first were persons of both sexes and all complexions, of every class in society, of every religious denomination, of each of the three learned professions, of both political parties, and of all the various trades and occupations in which men and women engage. Although it is too true that most ministers, especially in the cities, were slow to espouse the cause of the oppressed, yet it is due to them to say that, taking the country through, there were, in proportion to their
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DR. CHARLES FOLLEN.
DR. CHARLES FOLLEN.
The name of Dr. Follen will send a grateful thrill through the memory of every one who really knew him. He was a dear son of God, and attracted all but such as were repulsed by the spirit of righteousness and freedom. He was a native of that country which gave birth to Luther. The light of civil and religious liberty kindled in Wittenberg shone upon his cradle. He was the son of Protestant parents, and received a religious education with little reference to the dogmas of any sect. He was born in
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JOHN G. WHITTIER AND THE ANTISLAVERY POETS.
JOHN G. WHITTIER AND THE ANTISLAVERY POETS.
All great reformations have had their bards. The Hebrew prophets were poets. They clothed their terrible denunciations of national iniquities and their confident predictions of the ultimate triumph of truth and righteousness in imagery so vivid that it will never fade. Mr. Garrison was bathed in their spirit when a child by his pious mother. He is a poet and an ardent lover of poetry. The columns of The Liberator , from the beginning, were every week enriched by gems in verse, not unfrequently t
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PREJUDICE AGAINST COLOR.
PREJUDICE AGAINST COLOR.
If the enslaved millions of our countrymen had been white, the task of emancipating them would have been a light one. But as only colored persons were to be seen in that condition, and they were ignorant and degraded, and as all of that complexion, with rare exceptions, even in the free States, were poor, uneducated, and held in servile relations, or engaged in only menial employments, it had come to be taken for granted that they were fitted only for such things. It was confidently assumed that
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A NEGRO’S LOVE OF LIBERTY.
A NEGRO’S LOVE OF LIBERTY.
A year or two after my removal to Syracuse a colored man accosted me in the street, and asked for a private interview with me on a matter of great importance. I had repeatedly met him about the city, and supposed from his appearance that he was a smart, enterprising, free negro. At the time appointed he came to my house, and after looking carefully about to be sure we were alone, he informed me that he was a fugitive from slavery; that he had resided in our city several years, but nobody here ex
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DISTINGUISHED COLORED MEN.
DISTINGUISHED COLORED MEN.
I have given above some instances of exalted moral excellence which greatly increased my regard for colored men,—instances of self-sacrificing benevolence, of rigid adherence to a promise under the strongest temptation to break it, and of their inestimable value of liberty. I wish now to tell of several colored men who have given us abundant evidences of their mental power and executive ability. David Ruggles first became known to me as a most active, adventurous, and daring conductor on the und
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THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD.
THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD.
Everybody has heard of the Underground Railroad. Many have read of its operations who have been puzzled to know where it was laid, who were the conductors of it, who kept the stations, and how large were the profits. As the company is dissolved, the rails taken up, the business at an end, I propose now to tell my readers about it. There have always been scattered throughout the slaveholding States individuals who have abhorred slavery, and have pitied the victims of our American despotism. These
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GEORGE LATIMER.
GEORGE LATIMER.
It must be obvious to my readers that I have not been guided in my narrative by the order of time, so much as by the relation of events and actors to one another. My last article had to do in part with occurrences that happened in 1852. I shall now return to 1842. Much to my surprise, in 1842, I was nominated by Hon. Horace Mann, and appointed by the Massachusetts Board of Education, to succeed Rev. Cyrus Peirce as Principal of the Normal School then at Lexington. At once was heard from various
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THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS.
THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS.
He who knew so well what is in man said: “The children of this world are wiser towards their generation than the children of light.” And certainly the slaveholders of our country and their partisans have been incomparably more vigilant in watching for whatever might affect the stability of their “peculiar institution,” and far more adroit in devising measures, and resolute in pressing them to the maintenance and extension of Slavery , than their opponents have been in behalf of Liberty . Slave l
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ABOLITIONISTS IN CENTRAL NEW YORK.—GERRIT SMITH.
ABOLITIONISTS IN CENTRAL NEW YORK.—GERRIT SMITH.
In April, 1845, I came to reside in Syracuse. Having visited the place twice before, I was pretty well acquainted with the characters of the people with whom I should be associated, and the rapidly growing importance of the town, owing to its central position and its staple product. During each of my visits I had delivered antislavery lectures to good audiences, and found quite a number of individuals here who had accepted the doctrines of the Immediate Abolitionists. Mr. Garrison, Gerrit Smith,
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CONDUCT OF THE CLERGY AND CHURCHES.
CONDUCT OF THE CLERGY AND CHURCHES.
The most serious obstacle to the progress of the antislavery cause was the conduct of the clergy and churches in our country. Perhaps it would be more proper to say the churches and the clergy, for it was only too obvious that, in the wrong course which they took, the shepherds were driven by the sheep. The influential members of the churches,—“the gentlemen of property and standing,”—still more the politicians, who “of course understood better than ministers the Constitution of the United State
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UNITARIAN AND UNIVERSALIST MINISTERS AND CHURCHES.
UNITARIAN AND UNIVERSALIST MINISTERS AND CHURCHES.
It must have been observed by my readers that, in speaking above of the sympathy and co-operation of the Northern ministers and churches with their slaveholding brethren in the Southern States, I did not name Universalists and Unitarians among the guilty sects. This was because I reserved them for a separate, and the Unitarians for a more particular notice. Of the course pursued by the Universalists I have known but little. There are very few churches of their denomination in any of the slavehol
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UNITARIANS.
UNITARIANS.
In commencing the discreditable account I must give of the proslavery conduct of the Unitarian denomination, I may as well record the fact, of which the mention of Rev. Theodore Clapp reminds me. Notwithstanding the utterance of such sentiments as I have just now quoted, none of which had been retracted or apologized for, a few years afterwards Mr. Clapp was specially invited by a committee of Boston Unitarians to attend their religious anniversaries; and his letter in reply was read in their pr
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THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW.
THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW.
The awful iniquity of our nation culminated in the enactment of the Fugitive Slave Law , which, as Edmund Quincy said at the time, stood, as it now stands, “a piece of diabolical ingenuity, for the accomplishment of a devilish purpose, without a rival among all the tyrannical enactments or edicts of servile parliaments or despotic monarchs.” It was the essential article of a political conglomerate, prepared by the Arch Compromiser, Henry Clay, which was called the Omnibus Bill; some parts of whi
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DANIEL WEBSTER.
DANIEL WEBSTER.
The man who did more than any one, if not more than all of the members of Congress from the free States, to procure the passage of the Bill of Abominations, was Daniel Webster , who had represented Massachusetts in the United States Senate for twenty-five years; who led her in opposition to the Missouri Compromise in 1819, and for nearly twenty years afterwards was regarded as a leader of the advanced guard of liberty and humanity. But when, in 1838, he went into the Southern States to make his
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THE UNITARIANS AND THEIR MINISTERS.
THE UNITARIANS AND THEIR MINISTERS.
When the Fugitive Slave Law was first promulgated, there was, as I have stated, a very general outburst of indignation throughout the North,—a feeling of dreadful shame, a sense of a most bitter insult. The first impulse of the Unitarians, as of others, was to denounce it. At their autumnal convention in Springfield, October, 1850, they did so, though not without strong opposition to any vote or action on the subject. Probably the opposers would have prevailed, and the law have been left unrebuk
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THE RESCUE OF JERRY.
THE RESCUE OF JERRY.
I should love to tell of the generous, daring, self-sacrificing conflicts with the abettors and minions of the slaveholders in different parts of our country. But I must leave those bright pages to be written by the historian of those times, and confine myself to that part of the field where I saw and was engaged in the fight. In the early part of the summer of 1851 Mr. Webster travelled quite extensively about the country, exerting all his personal and official influence, and the remnants of hi
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Appendix II.
Appendix II.
On page 147 I have named, among other members of the Society of Friends who gave us efficient support in the day when we most needed help, Nathaniel Barney, then of Nantucket. He was one of the earliest of the immediate Abolitionists, was most explicit and fearless in the avowal of his sentiments, most consistent and conscientious in acting accordingly with them. He denounced “the prejudice against color as opposed to every precept and principle of the Gospel,” and said, “It betrays a littleness
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Appendix III.
Appendix III.
Speech of Gerrit Smith, referred to on page 169 . I have omitted a few passages for want of room. “On returning home from Utica last night, my mind was so much excited with the horrid scenes of the day, and the frightful encroachments made on the right of free discussion, that I could not sleep, and at three o’clock I left my bed and drafted this resolution:— “‘ Resolved , That the right of free discussion, given to us by God, and asserted and guarded by the laws of our country, is a right so vi
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Appendix IV.
Appendix IV.
Notwithstanding the caution I have given my readers in the Preface and elsewhere, not to expect in this volume anything like a complete history of our antislavery conflict, many may be disappointed in not finding any acknowledgment of the services of some whom they have known as efficient, brave, self-sacrificing laborers in our cause. I was reproached, accused of ingratitude and injustice, because I did not give in my articles in The Christian Register any account of the labors of certain perso
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Appendix V.
Appendix V.
An intimation is given on page 272 that I have known some remarkable colored women. I wish my readers had seen, in her best days, Sojourner Truth . She was a tall, gaunt, very black person, who made her appearance in our meetings at an early period. Though then advanced in life, she was very vigorous in body and mind. She was a slave in New York State, from her birth in 1787 until the abolition of slavery in that State in 1827, and had never been taught to read. But she was deeply religious. She
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Appendix VI.
Appendix VI.
On page 283 I have spoken of Harriet Tubman. She deserves to be placed first on the list of American heroines. Having escaped from slavery twenty-two years ago, she set about devising ways and means to help her kindred and acquaintances out of bondage. She first succeeded in leading off her brother, with his wife and several children. Then she helped her aged parents from slavery in Virginia to a free and comfortable home in Auburn, N. Y. Thus encouraged she continued for several years her semi-
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Appendix VII.
Appendix VII.
The saddest, most astounding evidence of the demoralization of our Northern citizens in respect to slavery, and of Mr. Webster’s depraving influence upon them, is given in the following letter addressed to him soon after the delivery of his speech on the 7th of March,—signed by eight hundred of the prominent citizens of Massachusetts. I have given the names of a few as specimens of the whole. From the Boston Daily Advertiser of April 2, 1850. To the Hon. Daniel Webster : Sir ,—Impressed with the
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