The Underground Railroad by William Still (best fiction books of all time txt) 📖

day, which are intended to commemorate one of the greatest of the great triumphs of freedom, and to do honor to a most eminent instrument in the achievement of that freedom. (Hear, hear.) There may be, perhaps, those who ask what is this triumph of which I speak? To put it briefly, and, indeed, only to put one part of it, I may say that it is a triumph which has had the effect of raising 4,000,000 of human beings from the very lowest depths of social and political degradation to that lofty height which men have attained when they possess equality of rights in the first country on the globe. (Cheers.) More than this, it is a triumph which has pronounced the irreversible doom of slavery in all countries and for all time. (Renewed cheers.) Another question suggests itself—how has this great matter been accomplished? The answer suggests itself in another question. How is it that any great matter is accomplished? By love of justice, by constant devotion to a great cause, and by an unfaltering faith that that which is right will in the end succeed. (Hear, hear.)

When I look at this hall, filled with such an assembly; when I partake of the sympathy which runs from heart to heart at this moment in welcome to our guest of to-day, I cannot but contrast his present position with that which, not so far back but that many of us can remember, he occupied in his own country. It is not forty years ago, I believe about the year 1829, when the guest whom we honor this morning was spending his solitary days in a prison in the slave-owning city of Baltimore. I will not say that he was languishing in prison, for that I do not believe; he was sustained by a hope that did not yield to the persecution of those who thus maltreated him; and to show that the effect of that imprisonment was of no avail to suppress or extinguish his ardor, within two years after that he had the courage, the audacity—I dare say many of his countrymen used even a stronger phrase than that—he had the courage to commence the publication, in the city of Boston, of a newspaper devoted mainly to the question of the abolition of slavery. The first number of that paper, issued on the 1st January, 1831, contained an address to the public, one passage of which I have often read with the greatest interest, and it is a key to the future life of Mr. Garrison. He had been complained of for having used hard language, which is a very common complaint indeed, and he said in his first number: "I am aware that many object to the severity of my language, but is there not cause for such severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. I am in earnest, I will not equivocate, I will not excuse, I will not retract a single inch, and I will be heard". (Cheers.) And that, after all, expresses to a great extent the future course of his life.

But what was at that time the temper of the people amongst whom he lived, of the people who are glorying now, as they well may glory, in the abolition of slavery throughout their country? At that time it was very little better in the North than it was in the South. I think it was in the year 1835 that riots of the most serious character took place in some of the northern cities; during that time Mr. Garrison's life was in the most imminent peril; and he has never ascertained to this day how it was that he was left alive on the earth to carry on his great work. Turning to the South, a State that has lately suffered from the ravages of armies, the State of Georgia, by its legislature of House, Senate, and Governor, if my memory does not deceive me, passed a bill, offering ten thousand dollars reward, (Mr. Garrison here said five thousand) well, they seemed to think there were people who would do it cheap, (laughter) offered five thousand dollars, and zeal, doubtless, would make up the difference, for the capture of Mr. Garrison, or for adequate proof of his death. Now, these were menaces and perils such as we have not in our time been accustomed to in this country in any of our political movements, (hear, hear) and we shall take a very poor measure indeed of the conduct of the leaders of the emancipation party in the United States if we estimate them by any of those who have been concerned in political movements amongst us. But, notwithstanding all drawbacks, the cause was gathering strength, and Mr. Garrison found himself by and by surrounded by a small but increasing band of men and women who were devoted to this cause, as he himself was. We have in this country a very noble woman, who taught the English people much upon this question, about thirty years ago; I allude to Harriet Martineau. (Cheers.) I recollect well the impression with which I read a most powerful and touching paper which she had written, and which was published in the number of the Westminster Review for December, 1838. It was entitled "The Martyr Age of the United States." The paper introduced to the English public the great names which were appearing on the scene in connection with this cause in America. There was, of course I need not mention, our eminent guest of to-day; there was Arthur Tappan, and Lewis Tappan, and James G. Birney of Alabama, a planter and slave-owner, who liberated his slaves and came north, and became, as I think, the first presidential candidate upon abolition principles in the United States. (Hear, hear.) There were besides them, Dr. Channing, John Quincy Adams, a statesman and President of the United States, and father of the eminent man who is now Minister from that people amongst us. (Cheers.) Then there was Wendell Phillips, admitted to be by all who know him perhaps the most powerful orator who speaks the English language. (Hear, hear.) I might refer to others, to Charles Sumner, the well-known statesman, and Horace Greeley, I think the first of journalists in the United States, if not the first of journalists in the world. (Hear, hear.) But besides these, there were of noble women not a few. There was Lydia Maria Child; there were the two sisters, Sarah and Angelina Grimke, ladies who came from South Carolina, who liberated their slaves, and devoted all they had to the service of this just cause; and Maria Weston Chapman, of whom Miss Martineau speaks in terms which, though I do not exactly recollect them, yet I know described her as noble-minded, beautiful and good. It may be that there are some of her family who are now within the sound of my voice. If it be so, all I have to say is, that I hope they will feel, in addition to all they have felt heretofore as to the character of their mother, that we who are here can appreciate her services, and the services of all who were united with her as co-operators in this great and worthy cause. But there was another whose name must not be forgotten, a man whose name must live for ever in history, Elijah P. Lovejoy, who in the free State of Illinois laid down his life for the cause. (Hear, hear.) When I read that article by Harriet Martineau, and the description of those men and women there given, I was led, I know not how, to think of a very striking passage which I am sure must be familiar to most here, because it is to be found in the Epistle to the Hebrews. After the writer of that epistle has described the great men and fathers of the nation, he says: "Time would fail me to tell of Gideon, of Barak, of Samson, of Jephtha, of David, of Samuel, and the Prophets, who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens." I ask if this grand passage of the inspired writer may not be applied to that heroic band who have made America the perpetual home of freedom? (Enthusiastic cheering.)

Thus, in spite of all that persecution could do, opinion grew in the North in favor of freedom; but in the South, alas! in favor of that most devilish delusion that slavery was a Divine institution. The moment that idea took possession of the South war was inevitable. Neither fact nor argument, nor counsel, nor philosophy, nor religion, could by any possibility affect the discussion of the question when once the Church leaders of the South had taught their people that slavery was a Divine institution; for then they took their stand on other and different, and what they in their blindness thought higher grounds, and they said, "Evil! be thou my good;" and so they exchanged light for darkness, and freedom for bondage, and good for evil, and, if you like, heaven for hell.  *  *  *  *

There was a universal feeling in the North that every care should be taken of those who had so recently and marvellously been enfranchised. Immediately we found that the privileges of independent labor were open to them, schools were established in which their sons might obtain an education that would raise them to an intellectual position never reached by their fathers; and at length full political rights were conferred upon those who a few short years, or rather months, before, had been called chattels, and things to be bought and sold in any market. (Hear, hear.) And we may feel assured, that those persons in the Northern States who befriended the negro in his bondage will not now fail to assist his struggles for a higher position.  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

To Mr. Garrison more than any other man this is due; his is the creation of that opinion which has made slavery hateful, and which has made freedom possible in America. (Hear, hear.) His name is venerated in his own country, venerated where not long ago it was a name of obloquy and reproach. His name is venerated in this country and in Europe wheresoever Christianity softens the hearts and lessens the sorrows of men; and I venture to say that in time to come, near or remote I know not, his name will become the herald and the synonym of good to millions of men who will dwell on the now almost unknown continent of Africa. (Loud cheers.)  *  *  *

To Mr. Garrison, as is stated in one of the letters which has just been read, to William Lloyd Garrison it has been given, in a manner not often permitted to those who do great things of this kind, to see the ripe fruit of his vast labors. Over a territory large enough to make many realms, he has seen hopeless toil supplanted by compensated industry; and where the bondman dragged his chain, there freedom is established for ever. (Loud cheers.) We now welcome him amongst us as a friend whom some of us have known long; for I have watched his career with no common interest, even when I was too young to take much part in public affairs; and I have kept within my heart his name, and the names of those who have been associated with him in every step which he has taken; and in public debate in the halls of peace, and even on the blood-soiled fields of war, my heart has always been with those who were the friends of freedom. (Renewed cheering.) We welcome him then with