United States. Spread over the largest and most fertile States in the
Union, with decidedly the best climate, and interwoven, as it is, with
the religious, political, commercial, and social institutions of the
country, it is scarcely possible to estimate its influence. This is the
evil which claims the attention of American Reformers, over and above
every other evil in the land, and thanks to a kind providence, the
American slave is not without his advocates. The greatest enemy to the
Anti-Slavery Society, and the most inveterate opposer of the men whose
names stand at the head of the list as officers and agents of that
association, will, we think, assign to William Lloyd Garrison, the first
place in the ranks of the American Abolitionists. The first to proclaim
the doctrine of immediate emancipation to the slaves of America, and on
that account an object of hatred to the slave-holding interest of the
country, and living for years with his life in danger, he is justly
regarded by all, as the leader of the Anti-Slavery movement in the New
World. Mr. Garrison is at the present time but little more than
forty-five years of age, and of the middle size. He has a high and
prominent forehead, well developed, with no hair on the top of the head,
having lost it in early life; with a piercing eye, a pleasant, yet
anxious countenance, and of a most loveable disposition; tender, and
blameless in his family affections, devoted to his friends; simple and
studious, upright, guileless, distinguished, and worthy, like the
distinguished men of antiquity, to be immortalized by another Plutarch.
How many services never to be forgotten, has he not rendered to the
cause of the slave, and the welfare of mankind! As a speaker, he is
forcible, clear, and logical, yet he will not rank with the many who are
less known. As a writer, he is regarded as one of the finest in the
United States, and certainly the most prominent in the Anti-Slavery
cause. Had Mr. Garrison wished to serve himself, he might, with his
great talents, long since, have been at the head of either of the great
political parties. Few men can withstand the allurements of office, and
the prize-money that accompanies them. Many of those who were with him
fifteen years ago, have been swept down with the current of popular
favour, either in Church or State. He has seen a Cox on the one hand,
and a Stanton on the other, swept away like so much floating wood
before the tide. When the sturdiest characters gave way, when the finest
geniuses passed one after another under the yoke of slavery, Garrison
stood firm to his convictions, like a rock that stands stirless amid the
conflicting agitation of the waves. He is not only the friend and
advocate of freedom with his pen and his tongue, but to the oppressed of
every clime he opens his purse, his house, and his heart: yet he is not
a man of money. The fugitive slave, fresh from the whips and chains, who
is turned off by the politician, and experiences the cold shoulder of
the divine, finds a bed and a breakfast under the hospitable roof of Mr.
Lloyd Garrison.
The party of which he is the acknowledged head, is one of no
inconsiderable influence in the United States. No man has more bitter
enemies or stauncher friends than he. There are those among his friends
who would stake their all upon his veracity and integrity; and we are
sure that the coloured people throughout America, bond and free, in
whose cause he has so long laboured, will, with one accord, assign the
highest niche in their affection to the champion of universal
emancipation. Every cause has its writers and its orators. We have drawn
a hasty and imperfect sketch of the greatest writer in the Anti-Slavery
field: we shall now call attention to the most distinguished public
speaker. The name of Wendell Phillips is but another name for eloquence.
Born in the highest possible position in America, Mr. Phillips has all
the advantages that birth can give to one in that country. Educated at
the first University, graduating with all the honours which the College
could bestow on him, and studying the law and becoming a member of the
bar, he has all the accomplishments that these advantages can give to a
man of a great mind. Nature has treated him as a favourite. His stature
is not tall, but handsome; his expressive countenance paints and
reflects every emotion of his soul. His gestures are wonderfully
graceful, like his delivery. There is a fascination in the soft gaze of
his eyes, which none can but admire. Being a great reader, and endowed
by nature with a good memory, he supplies himself with the most
complicated dates and historical events. Nothing can equal the variety
of his matter. I have heard him more than twenty different times on the
same subject, but never heard the same speech. He is personal, but there
is nothing offensive in his personalities. He extracts from a subject
all that it contains, and does it as none but Wendell Phillips can. His
voice is beautifully musical, and it is calculated to attract wherever
it is heard. He is a man of calm intrepidity, of a patriotic and warm
heart, with manners the most affable, temper the most gentle, a
rectitude of principle entirely natural, a freedom from ambition, and a
modesty quite singular. As Napoleon kept the Old Guard in reserve, to
turn the tide in battle, so do the Abolitionists keep Mr. Phillips in
reserve when opposition is expected in their great gatherings. We have
seen the meetings turned into a bedlam, by the mobocratic slave-holding
spirit, and when the speakers had one after another left the platform
without a hearing, and the chairman had lost all control of the
assembly, the appearance of this gentleman upon the platform would turn
the tide of events. He would not beg for a hearing, but on the
contrary, he would lash them as no preceding speaker had done. If, by
their groans and yells, they stifled his voice, he would stand unmoved
with his arms folded, and by the very eloquence of his looks put them to
silence. His speeches against the Fugitive Slave Law, and his withering
rebukes of Daniel Webster and other northern men who supported that
measure, are of the most splendid character, and will compare in point
of composition with anything ever uttered by Chatham or Sheridan in
their palmiest days. As a public speaker, Mr. Phillips is, without
doubt, the first in the United States. Considering his great talent, his
high birth, and the prospects which lay before him, and the fact that he
threw everything aside to plead the slave's cause, we must be convinced
that no man has sacrificed more upon the altar of humanity than Wendell
Phillips.
Within the past ten years, a great impetus has been given to the
anti-slavery movement in America by coloured men who have escaped from
slavery. Coming as they did from the very house of bondage, and being
able to speak from sad experience, they could speak as none others
could.
The gentleman to whom we shall now call attention is one of this class,
and doubtless the first of his race in America. The name of Frederick
Douglass is well known throughout this country as well as America. Born
and brought up as a slave, he was deprived of a mother's care and of
early education. Escaping when he was little more than twenty years of
age, he was thrown upon his own resources in the free states, where
prejudice against colour is but another name for slavery. But during all
this time he was educating himself as well as circumstances would admit.
Mr. Douglass commenced his career as a public speaker some ten years
since, as an agent of the American or Massachusetts Anti-Slavery
Societies. He is tall and well made. His vast and well-developed
forehead announces the power of his intellect. His voice is full and
sonorous. His attitude is dignified, and his gesticulation is full of
noble simplicity. He is a man of lofty reason, natural, and without
pretension, always master of himself, brilliant in the art of exposing
and of abstracting. Few persons can handle a subject with which they are
familiar better than Mr. Douglass. There is a kind of eloquence issuing
from the depth of the soul, as from a spring, rolling along its copious
floods, sweeping all before it, overwhelming by its very force,
carrying, upsetting, engulphing its adversaries, and more dazzling and
more thundering than the bolt which leaps from crag to crag. This is the
eloquence of Frederick Douglass. He is one of the greatest mimics of the
age. No man can put on a sweeter smile or a more sarcastic frown than
he: you cannot put him off his guard. He is always in good humour. Mr.
Douglass possesses great dramatic powers; and had he taken up the sock
and buskin, instead of becoming a lecturer, he would have made as fine a
Coriolanus as ever trod the stage.
However, Mr. Douglass was not the first coloured man that became a
lecturer, and thereby did service to the cause of his countrymen. The
earliest and most effective speaker from among the coloured race in
America, was Charles Lennox Remond. In point of eloquence, this
gentleman is not inferior to either Wendell Phillips or Frederick
Douglass. Mr. Remond is of small stature, and neat figure, with a head
well developed, but a remarkably thin face. As an elocutionist, he is,
without doubt, the first on the anti-slavery platform. He has a good
voice, a pleasing countenance, a prompt intelligence, and when speaking,
is calculated to captivate and carry away an audience by the very force
of his eloquence. Born in the freest state of the Union, and of most
respectable parents, he prides himself not a little on his birth and
descent. One can scarcely find fault with this, for, in the United
States, the coloured man is deprived of the advantages which parentage
gives to the white man. Mr. Remond is a descendant of one of those
coloured men who stood side by side with white men on the plains of
Concord and Lexington, in the battles that achieved the independence of
the colonies from the mother country, in the war of the Revolution. Mr.
Remond has felt deeply, (probably more so than any other coloured man),
the odious prejudice against colour. On this point he is sensitive to a
fault. If any one will sit for an hour and hear a lecture from him on
this subject, if he is not converted, he will at least become convinced,
that the boiling cauldron of anti-slavery discussion has never thrown
upon its surface a more fiery spirit than Charles Lennox Remond.
There are some men who neither speak nor write, but whose lives place
them in the foremost ranks in the cause which they espouse. One of these
is Francis Jackson. He was one of the earliest to give countenance and
support to the anti-slavery movement. In the year 1835, when a mob of
more than 5000 merchants and others, in Boston, broke up an anti-slavery
meeting of females, at which William Lloyd Garrison and George Thompson
were to deliver addresses, and when the Society had no room in which to
hold its meetings (having been driven from their own room by the mob),
Francis Jackson, with a moral courage scarcely ever equalled, came
forward and offered his private dwelling to the ladies, to hold their
meeting in. The following interesting passage occurs in a letter from
him to the Secretary of the Society a short time after, on receiving a
vote of thanks from its members:--
"If a large majority of this community choose to turn a deaf ear to the
wrongs which are inflicted upon their countrymen in other portions of
the land--if they are content to turn away from the sight of oppression,
and 'pass by on the other side'--so it must be.
"But when they undertake in any way to impair or annul my right to
speak, write, and publish upon any subject, and more especially upon
enormities, which are the common concern of every lover of his country
and his kind--so it must not be--so it shall not be, if I for one can
prevent it. Upon this great right let us hold on at all hazards. And
should we, in its exercise, be driven from public halls to private
dwellings, one house at least shall be consecrated to its preservation.
And if, in defence of this sacred privilege, which man did not give me,
and shall not (if I can help it) take from me, this roof and these walls
shall be levelled to the earth, let them fall if they must; they cannot
crumble in a better cause. They will appear of very little value to me
after their owner shall have been whipt into silence."
There are among the contributors to the Anti-Slavery cause, a few who
give with a liberality which has never been surpassed by the donors to
any benevolent association in the world, according to their means--the
chief of these is Francis Jackson.
In the month of May, 1844, while one evening strolling up Broadway, New
York, I saw a crowd making its way into the Minerva Rooms, and, having
no pressing engagement, I followed, and was soon in a splendid hall,
where some twelve or fifteen hundred persons were seated, and listening
to rather a strange-looking man. The speaker was tall and slim, with
long arms, long legs, and a profusion of auburn or reddish hair hanging
in ringlets down his shoulders; while a huge beard of the same colour
fell upon his breast. His person was not at all improved by his dress.
The legs of his trousers were shorter than those worn by smaller men:
the sleeves of his coat were small and short, the shirt collar turned
down in Byronic style, beard and hair hid his countenance, so that no
redeeming feature could be found there; yet there was one redeeming
quality about the man--that was the stream of fervid eloquence which
escaped from his lips. I inquired his name, and was informed that it was
Charles C. Burleigh. Nature has been profuse in showering her gifts upon
Mr. Burleigh, but all has been bestowed upon his head and heart. There
is a kind of eloquence which weaves its thread around the hearer, and
gradually draws him into its web, fascinating him with its gaze,
entangling him as the spider does the fly, until he is fast: such is the
eloquence of C.C. Burleigh. As a debater he is unquestionably the first
on the Anti-slavery platform. If he did not speak so fast, he would
equal Wendell Phillips; if he did not reason his subject out of
existence, he would surpass him. However, one would have to travel over
many miles, and look in the faces of many men, before he would find one
who has made more personal sacrifices, or done more to bring about the
Emancipation of the American Slaves, than Mr. Charles C. Burleigh.
Whoever the future historian of the Anti-Slavery movement may be, he
will not be able to compile a correct history of this great struggle,
without consulting the writings of Edmund Quincy, a member of one of
the wealthiest, patriotic, and aristocratic families in New England: the
prestige of his name is a passport to all that the heart could wish.
Descended from a family, whose name is connected with all that was
glorious in the great American Revolution, the son of one who has again
and again represented his native State, in the National Congress, he
too, like Wendell Phillips, threw away the pearl of political
preferment, and devoted his distinguished talents to the cause of the
Slave. Mr. Quincy is better known in this country as having filled the
editorial chair of _The Liberator_, during the several visits of its
Editor to Great Britain. As a speaker, he does not rank as high as some
who are less known; as a writer, he has few equals. The "Annual Reports"
of the American and Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Societies for the past
fifteen or twenty years, have emanated from his pen. When posterity, in
digging among the tombs of the friends of mankind, and of universal
freedom, shall fail to find there the name of Edmund Quincy, it will be
because the engraver failed to do his duty.
Were we sent out to find a man who should excel all others in
collecting together new facts and anecdotes, and varnishing up old ones
so that they would appear new, and bringing them into a meeting and
emptying out, good or bad, the whole contents of his sack, to the
delight and admiration of the audience, we would unhesitatingly select
James N. Buffum as the man. If Mr. Buffum is not a great speaker, he has
what many accomplished orators have not--_i.e._, a noble and generous
heart. If the fugitive slave, fresh from the cotton-field, should make
his appearance in the town of Lynn, in Massachusetts, and should need a
night's lodging or refreshments, he need go no farther than the
hospitable door of James N. Buffum.
Most men who inherit large fortunes, do little or nothing to benefit
mankind. A few, however, spend their means in the best possible manner:
one of the latter class is Gerrit Smith. The name of this gentleman
should have been brought forward among those who are first mentioned in
this chapter. Some eight or ten years ago, Mr. Smith was the owner of
large tracts of land, lying in twenty-nine counties in the State of New
York, and came to the strange conclusion to give the most of it away.
Consequently, three thousand lots of land, containing from thirty to one
hundred acres each, were given to coloured men residing in the
State--the writer of this being one of the number.
Although universal suffrage is enjoyed by the whites in the State of New
York, a property-qualification is imposed on coloured men; and this act
of Mr. Smith's not only made three thousand men the owners of land, but
created also three thousand voters. The ability to give, and the
willingness to do so, is not by any means the greatest quality of this
gentleman. As a public speaker, Mr. Smith has few equals; and certainly
no man in his State has done more to forward the cause of Negro
Emancipation than he.
We have already swelled the pages of this chapter beyond what we
intended when we commenced, but yet we have called attention to only one
branch of American Reformers. The Temperance Reformers are next to be
considered. This cause has many champions, and yet none who occupy a
very prominent position before the world. The first temperance newspaper
published in the United States, was edited by William Lloyd Garrison.
Gerrit Smith has also done much in promulgating temperance views. But
the most noted man in the movement at the present time, and the one best
known to the British public, is John B. Gough. This gentleman was at one
time an actor on the stage, and subsequently became an inebriate of the
most degraded kind. He was, however, reclaimed through the great
Washingtonian movement that swept over the United States a few years
since. In stature, Mr. Gough is tall and slim, with black hair, which he
usually wears too long. As an orator, he is considered among the first
in the United States. Having once been an actor, he throws all his
dramatic powers into his addresses. He has a facility of telling strange
and marvellous stories which can scarcely be surpassed; and what makes
them still more interesting, he always happens to be an eyewitness.
While speaking, he acts the drunkard, and does it in a style which could
not be equalled on the boards of the Lyceum or Adelphi. No man has
obtained more signatures to the temperance pledge than he. After all, it
is a question whether he has ever been of any permanent service to this
reform or not. Mr. Gough has more than once fallen from his position as
a teetotaler; more than once he has broken his pledge, and when found by
his friends, was in houses of a questionable character. However, some
are of opinion that these defects have been of use to him; for when he
has made his appearance after one of these debaucheries, the people
appear to sympathize more with him, and some thought he spoke better. If
we believe that a person could enjoy good health with water upon the
brain, we would be of opinion that Mr. Gough's cranium contained a
greater quantity than that of any other living man. When speaking before
an audience, he can weep when he pleases; and the tears shed on these
occasions are none of your make-believe kind--none of your small drops
trickling down the cheeks one at a time;--but they come in great
showers, so as even to sprinkle upon the paper which he holds in his
hand. Of course, he is not alone in shedding tears in his meetings,
many of his hearers usually join him; especially the ladies, as these
showers are intended for them. However, no one can sit for an hour and
hear John. B. Gough, without coming to the conclusion that he is nothing
more than a theatrical mountebank.
The ablest speaker on the subject of Peace, is Charles Sumner. Standing
more than six feet in height, and well proportioned, Mr. Sumner makes a
most splendid and commanding appearance before an assembly. It is not
his looks alone that attract attention--his very countenance indicates a
superior mind. Born in the upper circle, educated in the first College
in the country, and finally becoming a member of the Bar, he is well
qualified to take the highest possible position as a public speaker. As
an orator, Charles Sumner has but one superior in the United States, and
that is Wendell Phillips. Mr. Sumner is an able advocate for the
liberation of the American Slaves as well as of the cause of Peace, and
has rendered great aid to the abolition movement.
The name of Elihu Burritt, for many reasons, should be placed at the
head of the Peace Movement. No man was ever more devoted to one idea
than he is to that of peace. If he is an advocate of Temperance, it is
because it will promote peace. If he opposes Slavery, it is upon the
grounds of peace. Ask him why he wants an "Ocean Penny Postage," he will
tell you to engender the principles of peace. Everything with him hinges
upon the doctrine of peace. As a speaker, Mr. Burritt does not rank
amongst the first. However, his speeches are of a high order, some think
them too high, and complain that he is too much of a cloud-traveller,
and when he descends from these aerial flights and cloudy thrones, they
are unwilling to admit that he can be practical. If Mr. Burritt should
prove as good a statesman as a theorist, he would be an exception to
most who belong to the aerial school. As a writer he stands deservedly
high. In his "Sparks from the Anvil," and "Voice from the Forge," are to
be found as fine pieces as have been produced by any writer of the day.
His "Drunkard's Wife" is the most splendid thing of the kind in the
language. His stature is of the middle size, head well developed, with
eyes deeply set, and a prepossessing countenance, though not handsome;
he wears an exterior of remarkable austerity, and everything about him
is grave, even to his smile. Being well versed in the languages, ancient
and modern, he does not lack variety or imagination, either in his
public addresses or private conversation; yet it would be difficult to
find a man with a better heart, or sweeter spirit, than Elihu Burritt.
LETTER XXII.
_A Narrative of American Slavery._
Although the first slaves, introduced into the American Colonies from
the coast of Africa, were negroes of a very dark complexion with woolly
hair, and it was thought that slavery would be confined to the blacks,
yet the present slave population of America is far from being black.
This change in colour, is attributable, solely to the unlimited power
which the slave owner exercises over his victim. There being no lawful
marriage amongst slaves, and no encouragement to slave women to be
virtuous and chaste, there seems to be no limits to the system of
amalgamation carried on between master and slave. This accounts for the
fact, that most persons who go from Europe, or from the Free States,
into Carolina or Virginia, are struck with the different shades of
colour amongst the slaves. On a plantation employing fifty slaves, it is
not uncommon to see one third of them mulattoes, and some of these
nearly white.
In the year 1831, there resided in the state of Virginia, a slave who
was so white, that no one would suppose for a moment that a drop of
African blood coursed through his veins. His skin was fair, hair soft,
straight, fine and white; his eyes blue, nose prominent, lips thin; his
head well formed, forehead high and prominent; and he was often taken
for a white free person, by those who did not know him. This made his
condition as a slave still more intolerable; for one so white, seldom
ever receives fair treatment at the hands of his fellow slaves; and the
whites usually regard such slaves as persons, who, if not often flogged
and otherwise ill treated, to remind them of their condition, would soon
"forget" that they were slaves, and "think themselves as good as white
folks." During that year, an insurrection broke out amongst the slave
population, known as the Southampton Rebellion, or the "Nat Turner
Insurrection." Five or six hundred slaves, believing in the doctrine
that "all men are created equal," armed with such weapons as they could
get, commenced a war for freedom. Amongst these was George, the white
slave of whom we have spoken. He had been employed as a house servant,
and had heard his master and visiters speak of the down-trodden and
oppressed Poles; he heard them talk of going to Greece to fight for
Grecian liberty, and against the oppressors of that ill-fated people.
George, fired with the love of freedom, and zeal for the cause of his
enslaved countrymen, joined the insurrection. The result of that
struggle for liberty is well known. The slaves were defeated, and those
who were not taken prisoners, took refuge in the dismal swamps. These
were ordered to surrender; but instead of doing so, they challenged
their proud oppressors to take them, and immediately renewed the war. A
ferocious struggle now commenced between the parties; but not until the
United States troops were called in, did they succeed in crushing a
handful of men and women who were fighting for freedom. The negroes were
hunted with dogs, and many who were caught were burnt alive; while some
were hung, and others flogged and banished from the State.