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 graphic, affecting manner. But the
relief which he proposed was to be found in removing them to some of
the unoccupied territory of Texas or Mexico, rather than in recognizing
their rights as men here, in the country where so many of them had been
born; and in making all the amends possible for the injuries so long
inflicted upon them by giving them here the blessings of education,
and every opportunity and assistance to become all that God has made
them capable of being. Nevertheless, Mr. Lundy had done then, and he
continued afterwards, until his death in 1839, to do excellent service
in the cause of the enslaved. Indeed, his labors were so abundant, his
sacrifices so many, and his trials so severe, that no one will stand
before the God of the oppressed with a better record than he.
Benjamin Lundy was born in New Jersey, of Quaker parents, in 1789,
and was educated in the sentiments and under the influence of the
society of Friends. He was, therefore, from his earliest days, taught
to regard slaveholding as a great iniquity. At the age of nineteen he
went to reside in Wheeling, Virginia, and there learnt the saddler’s
trade. This he afterwards carried on, with great success for a number
of years, in the village of St. Clairville, Ohio, about ten miles from
Wheeling. But he could not banish from his memory the sights he had
seen at Wheeling, which was the great thoroughfare of the slave-trade
between Virginia and the Southern and Southwestern States; nor efface
from his heart the impression that he ought “to attempt to do something
for the relief of that most injured portion of the human race.”
As early as 1815, when twenty-six years of age, he formed an
antislavery society, which at first consisted of only six members,
but in a few months increased to nearly five hundred, among whom
were many of the influential ministers, lawyers, and other prominent
citizens of several of the counties in that part of Ohio. Although
unused to composition, he wrote an appeal to the philanthropists of
the United States, which was published and extensively circulated, and
led to the formation, in different parts of the State, of societies
similar in spirit and purpose to the one he had instituted. He then
engaged in the publication of an antislavery paper; and to promote its
circulation, and to gather materials for its columns, he commenced
his travels in the slave States. These were performed for the most
part on foot. Thus he journeyed thousands of miles, through Virginia,
Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and North Carolina. In most places
where he lectured publicly, or privately, he obtained subscribers to
his paper. In some places he succeeded in forming associations similar
to his own. Not unfrequently he met with angry rebuffs and violent
threats of personal injury. But he was a man of the most quiet courage,
as well as indomitable perseverance. He disconcerted his assailants
by letting them see that they could not frighten him; that the threat
of assassination would not deter him from prosecuting his object.
Several slaveholders were so much affected by his exposition of their
iniquity that they manumitted their bondmen, on condition that he would
take them to a place where they would be free. Twice or thrice he
went to Hayti, conducting such freed ones thither, and finding homes
for others whom he hoped to send there. Afterwards he explored large
portions of Mexico and Texas; and made strenuous endeavors to obtain
by grant or purchase sections of lands, upon which he might found
colonies of emancipated people from this country. In this attempt he
was unsuccessful; but while prosecuting it he gathered much valuable
information respecting the state of that country, of which afterwards
important use was made by the Hon. J. Q. Adams, in his strenuous
opposition in 1836 to the audacious plot by which Texas was annexed to
our Republic.
Mr. Lundy was indefatigable in laboring for whatever he undertook to
accomplish. He learnt the printer’s art, that he might communicate
to the public whatever he discovered by his diligent inquiries of
the condition of the enslaved, and enkindle in others that sympathy
for them which glowed in his own bosom. He was not stationary for
a long while in any one place. His paper, _The Genius of Universal
Emancipation_, was published successively in Ohio, Missouri, Tennessee,
and in Philadelphia, Washington, and Baltimore. For a considerable
time his lecturing excursions were so frequent, diverse, and distant,
that it was most convenient to him to get his paper printed, wherever
he happened to be, from month to month. So he earned along with him
the type, “heading,” the “column-rules,” and his “direction-book,”
and issued “the Genius,” &c., from any office that was accessible
to him. He often had to pay for the publication of it by working as
a journeyman printer, and at other times had to support himself by
working at his saddler’s trade. Nothing discouraged, nothing daunted
Benjamin Lundy. He possessed, in an eminent degree, the faith,
patience, self-denial, courage, and endurance necessary to a pioneer.
He was frequently threatened, repeatedly assaulted, and once brutally
beaten. But he could not be deterred from prosecuting the work to which
he was called. He was a rare specimen of perfect fidelity to duty, a
conscientious, meek, but fearless, determined man, a soldier of the
cross, a moral hero.