The Abolitionists / Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights, 1830-1864

been with the pen; or it may have been with a tongue that was inflamed with holy rage against tyranny and wrong; but whatever the instrumentality employed; in whatever field the battle has been

an achievements by great and good men (always save and except that which is credited to the Saviour of mankind) for exhibitions of heroism superior to theirs. Nay, when it is remembered that mainly through their efforts and sacrifices was accomplished a revolution by which four million human beings (but for the Abolitionists the number to-day in bondage would be eight millions) were lifted from the condi

uakers and non-resistants, and a good many of them were women, but they never shrank from danger t

y were indomitable. Life to the

pe of financial recompense. They did their work not only without the promise or prospect of material reward of any kind, but with the

y of men who have honorably striven for liberty for themselves. Some there have been who have risen to higher planes. We have an example in La

of "property." So low were they that they could neither appreciate nor return the services rendered in their behalf. For their condition, the Abolitionists were in no sense responsible. They had no necessary fellowship with the unfortunates. They were under no especial o

the expectation of personal reward in another world, if not in this. But such motives barely, if at all, influenced the Abolitionists. No element of professionalism entered into their work. They were not particularly religious. They neither very greatly reverenced nor feared the Church, whose leaders they often accused of a hankering for the "flesh-pots" that induced them to lead their followers into Egypt, rather

Abolitionists against tremendous odds and through a term covering many long years

of almost savage persecution in every part of our country, the Earl of Carlisle, who, in his day was one of the most capable leaders of Br

he credit that is fairly theirs has been mis-applied. Writers of history-so called, although much of it is simple eulogy-have been more and more inclined to attribute the overthrow of slavery to the efforts of a few men, and particularly one man, who, after long opposition to, or neglect of, the freedom movement, came to its help in the closing scenes of a grea

l slaveholding. The relative importance of their work in creating, by means of a persistent agitation, an opposition to human slavery that was powerful enough to com

re none the less gallantly waged and nobly won. It is customary to speak of our Civil War as a four years' conflict. It was really a thirty years' war,

ed to have accurate pictures of scenes and events of which they have heard their seniors speak, that distinguished the most tempestuous period in our national history-the one in which the wildest passions were aroused and in

hooted and pelted. Clowns in the circus made them the subjects of their jokes. Newspaper scribblers lampooned and libelled them. Politicians denounced them. By the Church they were regarded as very black sheep, and sometimes excluded from the fol

; before William Lloyd Garrison founded his Liberator, and before (not the least important circumstance) John Quincy Adams entered Congress. He cannot remember when the slavery question was not discussed. His sympathies at an early day went out to the slave. He informed hims

ar from the Southern border. The population was principally from Virginia and Kentucky. There were a few Abolit

t of a boy, and it had another recommendation. The only room in the village-"town" we called it-for such affairs, except the churches, which were barred against "fanatics," was the district schoolhouse, which, by common consent, was open

hated Abolitionists because they-the Abolitionists-wanted to compel all white people to marry "niggers." Although not naturally unkind, they did not always spare the feelings of "the son of an old Abolitionist." We had our arg

ed in those days was an able man and generally held in high esteem. He made a speech in our village when a candidate for re-election. In discussing the slavery question-everybody discussed it then-he spoke of the negroes as being "on the same footing with o

man in the body-which was intended to prove that slavery was an institution existing by biblical authority. He spent two days in a talk that was mostly made up of scriptural texts and his commentaries upon th

red freedom to all men. Here he paused, "When I spoke of all men enjoying freedom under our flag," he resumed, "I did not, of course, include the Ethiopians whom Providence has brought to our shores for their own good as well as ours. They are slaves by a

t the good Lord would find a way to break the bands of all who were in bondage. That smacked of Abolitionism and at once there was a commotion. The minister was asked to explain. This he declined to do, saying that

he visiting brother called on his local fellow-laborer, and informed him that on the following day, which happened to be Sunday, he would be pleased to attend service at his church. On the morrow he was on hand and occupied a seat directly in front of the pulpit; but, notwithstanding his conspicuousness, t

nificance was in the fact that they all occurred on the soil of a fre