At the Coffin table were several guests beside myself. One was a colored man. He had been a slave, I learned, but his freedom had been purchased, largely through the Coffins" efforts.
After I left the Coffin mansion, I remembered my unused letter of introduction, which I had altogether forgotten. It was no longer called for.
CHAPTER XXIII
ROLLS OF HONOR
The first honors of Abolitionism unquestionably belong to the organizers of the first societies formed for its promotion. The first of these in the order of time was the New England Anti-Slavery Society, which came into being on the first day of January, 1832.
William Lloyd Garrison was chief promoter and master spirit. It consisted at the outset of twelve men, and that was not the only evidence of its apostolic mission. It was to be the forerunner in an ever-memorable revolution. The names of the twelve subscribers to its declaration of views and aims will always have a place in American history. They were William Lloyd Garrison, Oliver Johnson, William J.
Snelling, John E. Fuller, Moses Thatcher, Stillman E. Newcomb, Arnold Buffum, John B. Hall, Joshua Coffin, Isaac Knapp, Henry K. Stockton, and Benjamin C. Bacon.
As a suggestion from, if not an offshoot of, the New England organization, came the National Anti-Slavery Society, which was organized in Philadelphia in 1834. It was intended that the meeting of its promoters should be held in New York, but so intense was the feeling against the Abolitionists in that city that no suitable room could there be found, and the "conspirators," as they were called by their enemies, were compelled to seek for accommodation and protection among the Philadelphia Quakers.
In that circ.u.mstance there was considerable significance. Two great declarations of independence have issued from Philadelphia. One was for political freedom; the other was for personal freedom. One was for the benefit of its authors as well as of others. The other one was wholly unselfish. Which had the loftier motive?
Ten States were represented in the Philadelphia meeting, which, considering the difficulties incident to travel at that time, was a very creditable showing. One man rode six hundred miles on horseback to attend it.
The following is the list of those in attendance, who became subscribers to the declaration that was promulgated:
_Maine_
David Thurston, Nathan Winslow, Joseph Southwick, James F. Otis, Isaac Winslow.
_New Hampshire_
David Campbell.
_Ma.s.sachusetts_
Daniel Southmayd, Effingham C. Cap.r.o.n, Amos Phelps, John G. Whittier, Horace P. Wakefield, James Barbadoes, David T. Kimball, Jr., Daniel E.
Jewitt, John R. Campbell, Nathaniel Southard, Arnold Buffum, William Lloyd Garrison.
_Rhode Island_
John Prentice, George W. Benson.
_Connecticut_
Samuel J. May, Alpheus Kingsley, Edwin A. Stillman, Simeon Joselyn, Robert B. Hall.
_New York_
Beriah Green, Lewis Tappan, John Rankin, William Green, Jr., Abram T.
c.o.x, William Goodell, Elizur Wright, Jr., Charles W. Denison, John Frost.
_New Jersey_
Jonathan Parkhurst, Chalkly Gillinghamm, John McCullough, James White.
_Pennsylvania_
Evan Lewis, Edwin A. Altee, Robert Purviss, James McCrummill, Thomas Shipley, Bartholomew Fussell, David Jones, Enoch Mace, John McKim, Anson Vickers, Joseph Loughead, Edward P. Altee, Thomas Whitson, John R. Sleeper, John Sharp, Jr., James Mott.
_Ohio_
Milton Sutliff, Levi Sutliff, John M. Sterling.
The writer finds it quite impossible to carry out the idea with which this chapter was begun, which was to furnish a catalogue embracing all active Anti-Slavery workers who were Abolitionists. s.p.a.ce does not permit. He will therefore condense by giving a portion of the list, the selections being dictated partly by claims of superior merit, and partly by accident.
As representative men and women of the East--chiefly of New England and New York--he gives the following:
David Lee Child, of Boston, for some time editor of the _National Anti-Slavery Advocate_. He was the husband of Lydia Maria Child, who wrote the first bound volume published in this country in condemnation of the enslavement of "those people called Africans"; Samuel E.
Sewell, another Bostonian and a lawyer who volunteered his services in cases of fugitive slaves; Ellis Gray Lowell, another Boston lawyer of eminence; Amos Augustus Phelps, a preacher and lecturer, for whose arrest the slaveholders of New Orleans offered a reward of ten thousand dollars; Parker Pillsbury, another preacher and lecturer, who at twenty years of age was the driver of an express wagon, and with no literary education, but who, in order that he might better plead the cause of the slave, went to school and became a noted orator; Theodore Weld, who married Angelina Grimke, the South Carolina Abolitionist, and who as an Anti-Slavery advocate was excelled, if he was excelled, only by Henry Ward Beecher and Wendell Phillips; Henry Brewster Stanton, a very vigorous Anti-Slavery editor and the husband of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the champion of women"s rights; Theodore Parker, the great Boston divine; O.B. Frothingham, another famous preacher; Thomas Wentworth Higginson, the writer; Samuel Johnson, C.L. Redmond, James Monroe, A.T. Foss, William Wells Brown, Henry C.
Wright, G.D. Hudson, Sallie Holley, Anna E. d.i.c.kinson, Aaron M.
Powell, George Brodburn, Lucy Stone, Edwin Thompson, Nathaniel W.
Whitney, Sumner Lincoln, James Boyle, Giles B. Stebbins, Thomas T.
Stone, George M. Putnam, Joseph A. Howland, Susan B. Anthony, Frances E. Watkins, Loring Moody, Adin Ballou, W.H. Fish, Daniel Foster, A.J.
Conover, James N. Buffum, Charles C. Burleigh, William Goodell, Joshua Leavitt, Charles M. Denison, Isaac Hopper, Abraham L. c.o.x.
To the above should be added the names of Alvin Stewart of New York, who issued the call for the convention that projected the Liberty party, and of John Kendrick, who executed the first will including a bequest in aid of the Abolition cause.
And here must not be omitted the name of John P. Hale, of New Hampshire, who was a candidate for the Presidency on the Liberty party ticket, and also a conspicuous member of the U.S. Senate.
Going westward, we come to Ohio, which became, early in the movement, the dominating center of Abolitionist influence. Salmon P. Chase was there. James G. Birney, after being forced out of Kentucky, was there.
Ex-United States Senator Thomas Morris, a candidate for the Vice-Presidency on the Liberty party ticket, was there. Leicester King and Samuel Lewis, Abolition candidates for the governorship of the State, were there. Joshua R. Giddings and United States Senator Ben.
Wade were there.
One great advantage the Ohio Abolitionists enjoyed was that they were harmonious and united. In the East that was not the case. There was a bitter feud between the Garrisonians, who relied on moral suasion, and the advocates of political action. All Ohio Abolitionists were ready and eager to employ the ballot.
There is another name, in speaking of Ohio, that must not be omitted.
Dr. Townsend was the man who made Salmon P. Chase a United States Senator, and at a time when the Abolition voting strength in Ohio was a meager fraction in comparison with that of the old parties--numbering not over one in twenty. It happened to be a time when the old parties--the Whigs and the Democrats--had so nearly an equal representation in the State Legislature that Townsend, who was a State Senator, and two co-operating members, held a balance of power.
Both parties were exceedingly anxious to control the Legislature, as that body, under the State const.i.tution then in force, had the distribution of a great deal of patronage. The consideration for the deciding vote demanded by Townsend and his a.s.sociates was the election of Chase to the Senate. They and the Democrats made the deal.
Naturally enough, the Whigs expressed great indignation until it was shown that they had offered to enter into very much the same arrangement.