A Visit To The United States In 1841 | Page 8

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the slave, and the free people of color; and little, if any, serious
opposition was made to their exertions, which indeed seem to have
been confined to the particular states in which they were located. They
rendered essential service in promoting the gradual abolition of slavery
in New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey.
"In 1819 commenced the discussion of what is now known as the
'Missouri Question.' The Anti-Slavery Societies took ground against the
admission into the Union of the territory of Missouri as a slave state.
They succeeded in arousing the public attention; and for two sessions
the subject was warmly debated in Congress; the slave-holders finally
carrying their point by working upon the fears of a few Northern
members, by means of that old threat of dissolving the Union, which in
the very outset of the Government had extorted from the Convention
which framed the Constitution, a clause legalizing the Foreign Slave
Trade for twenty years. The admission of Missouri as a slave State was
a fatal concession to the South: the abolitionists became disheartened:
their societies lingered on a few years longer, and nearly all were
extinct previous to 1830. The colonization scheme had in the mean
time, in despite of the earnest and almost unanimous rejection of it by
the colored people, obtained a strong hold on the public mind, and had
especially enlisted the favorable regard of some of the leading
influences of the Society of Friends. Here and there over the country,
might be found still a faithful laborer, like Elisha Tyson, of Baltimore,
Thomas Shipley, of Philadelphia, and Moses Brown, of Rhode Island,
holding up the good old testimony against prejudice and oppression in
the midst of a wide spread apostacy. I should mention in this
connection, Benjamin Lundy, a member of the Society of Friends, who
devoted his whole life to the cause of freedom, travelling on foot
thousands of miles, visiting every part of the slave States, Mexico and
the Haytian Republic. About the year 1828, he visited Boston, and
enlisted the sympathies of William Lloyd Garrison, then a very young
man. Not long after, he was joined by the latter as an associate editor of
The Genius of Universal Emancipation, an anti-slavery paper which he
had established at Baltimore. After a residence in Baltimore of about
six months, Garrison was thrown into prison for an alledged libel upon
a northern slave-trader, whence he was liberated on the payment of his

fine by the benevolent Arthur Tappan. Lundy continued his paper some
time longer in Baltimore, where he was subjected to brutal personal
violence from the notorious Woolfolk, the great slave-dealer of that city.
He afterwards removed it to Philadelphia; and in 1834 made a tour
through the South Western States and Texas, in which he encountered
great dangers, and suffered extreme hardships from sickness and
destitution. This journey was deemed by many an unprofitable and
hazardous experiment, but it proved of great importance. He collected
an immense amount of facts, developing beforehand the grand
slave-holding conspiracy for revolutionizing Texas, and annexing it to
the American Union, as a slave territory. These he published to the
world on his return; and it has justly been said of him, by John Quincy
Adams, that his exertions alone, under Providence, prevented the
annexation of Texas to the United States. This bold and single-hearted
pioneer died not long since in the State of Illinois, whither he repaired
to take the place of the lamented Lovejoy, who was murdered by a mob
in that State, in 1837.
"In 1831, Wm. Lloyd Garrison commenced, under great difficulties and
discouragements, the publication of the Liberator, in Boston; and by
the energy and earnestness of his appeals, roused the attention of many
minds to the subject of slavery. Shortly after, a society was formed in
Boston in favor of immediate emancipation. It consisted at first, if I
remember right, of only twelve members. Previous to this, however, a
society, embracing very similar principles, had been formed in
Pennsylvania.
In 1833, upwards of sixty delegates from several of the free States, met
at Philadelphia; among them were Elizur Wright and Beriah Green,
(who had been compelled to give up their Professorships in Western
Reserve [Ohio] College, for their attachment to freedom,) Lewis
Tappan, William Lloyd Garrison, Charles W. Denison, Arnold Buffum,
Amos A. Phelps, and John G. Whittier. This Convention organized the
American Anti-Slavery Society, proposing to make use of the common
instrumentalities afforded by the Government and laws, for the
abolition of slavery; at the same time, disavowing a design to use any
other than peaceful and lawful measures."

In some of the Southern States there are professing Christian churches
who permit slave-holding, but disallow the selling of slaves, except
with their own consent. Dr. Fussell informed me how this