Political Recollections | Page 6

material" of society
and life at that time. The movement of 1840 was necessarily transient
and provisional, while underneath its clatter and nonsense was a real
issue. It was unrecognized by both parties, but it made its advent, and
the men who pointed its way quietly served notice upon the country of
their ulterior purposes.
As long ago as the year 1817, Charles Osborn had established an
anti-slavery newspaper in Ohio, entitled "The Philanthropist," which
was followed in 1821 by the publication of Benjamin Lundy's "Genius
of Universal Emancipation." In 1831 the uprising of slaves in
Southampton County, Virginia, under the lead of Nat. Turner, had
startled the country and invited attention to the question of slavery. In
the same year Garrison had established "The Liberator," and in 1835
was mobbed in Boston, and dragged through its streets with a rope
about his neck. In 1837 Lovejoy had been murdered in Alton, Illinois,
and his assassins compared by the Mayor of Boston to the patriots of

the Revolution. In 1838 a pro-slavery mob had set fire to Pennsylvania
Hall, in Philadelphia, and defied the city authorities in this service of
slavery. President Jackson and Amos Kendall, his Postmaster General,
had openly set the Constitution at defiance by justifying the rifling of
the mails and the suppression of the circulation of anti-slavery
newspapers in the South. The "gag" resolutions had been introduced in
the House of Representatives in 1836, which provoked the splendid
fights of Adams, Giddings and Slade for the right of petition and the
freedom of speech. Dr. Channing had published his prophetic letter to
Henry Clay, on the annexation of Texas, in 1837, and awakened a
profound interest in the slavery question on both sides of the Atlantic.
We had been disgraced by two Florida wars, caused by the
unconstitutional espousal of slavery by the General Government.
President Van Buren had dishonored his administration and defied the
moral sense of the civilized world by his efforts to prostitute our
foreign policy to the service of slavery and the slave trade. In February,
1839, Henry Clay had made his famous speech on "Abolitionism," and
thus recognized the bearing of the slavery question upon the
presidential election of the following year. The Abolitionists had laid
siege to the conscience and humanity of the people, and their moral
appeals were to be a well-spring of life to the nation in its final struggle
for self-preservation; but as yet they had agreed upon no organized plan
of action against the aggressions of an institution which threatened the
overthrow of the Union and the end of Republican government. But
now they were divided into two camps, the larger of which favored
political action, organized as a party, and nominated, as its candidate
for President, James G. Birney, who received nearly seven thousand
votes.
This was a small beginning, but it was the beginning of the end. That
slavery was to be put down without political action in a government
carried on by the ballot was never a tenable proposition, and the
inevitable work was at last inaugurated. It was done opportunely.
Harrison and Van Buren were alike objectionable to anti-slavery men
who understood their record. To choose between them was to betray
the cause. Van Buren had attempted to shelter the slave trade under the
national flag. He had allied himself to the enemies of the right of

petition and the freedom of debate, as the means of conciliating the
South. He had taken sides with Jackson in his lawless interference with
the mails at the bidding of slave-holders. In a word, he had fairly
earned the description of "a Northern man with Southern principles."
General Harrison, on the other hand, was a pro-slavery Virginian.
While Governor of Indiana Territory he had repeatedly sought the
introduction of slavery into that region through the suspension of the
ordnance of 1787, which had forever dedicated it to freedom. He had
taken sides with the South in 1820 on the Missouri question. He had no
sympathy with the struggle of Adams and his associates, against the
gag and in favor of the right of petition, and regarded the discussion of
the slavery question as unconstitutional. The first draft of his inaugural
was so wantonly offensive to the anti-slavery Whigs who had aided in
his election, that even Mr. Clay condemned it, and prevailed on the
General to modify it. He had declared that "the schemes of the
Abolitionists were fraught with horrors, upon which an incarnate devil
only could look with approbation." With such candidates the hour had
fairly struck for anti-slavery men, who believed in the use of the ballot,
to launch the grand movement which was finally to triumph over all
opposition; while to oppose this movement, however honestly, was to
encourage men to choose between