Three Years in Europe | Page 5

embraced the principles of "total and
immediate emancipation," and "no union with slaveholders."
In proportion as his mind expanded under the more favourable
circumstances in which he was placed, he became anxious, not merely
for the redemption of his race from personal slavery, but for the moral
elevation of those among them who were free. Finding that habits of
intoxication were too prevalent amongst his coloured brethren, he, in
conjunction with others, commenced a temperance reformation in their
body. Such was the success of their efforts that in three years, in the
city of Buffalo alone, a society of upwards of 500 members was raised
out of a coloured population of 700. Of that society Mr. Brown was

thrice elected President.
The intellectual powers of our author, coupled with his intimate
acquaintance with the workings of the slave system, recommended him
to the Abolitionists as a man eminently qualified to arouse the attention
of the people of the Northern States to the great national sin of America.
In 1843 he was engaged as a lecturer by the Western New-York
Anti-Slavery Society. From 1844 to 1847 he laboured in the
anti-slavery cause in connection with the American Anti-Slavery
Society, and from that period up to the time of his departure for Europe,
in 1849, he was an agent of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society.
The records of those societies furnish abundant evidence of the success
of his labours. From the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society he early
received the following testimony:--
"Since Mr. Brown became an agent of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery
Society, he has lectured in very many of the towns of this
Commonwealth, and won for himself general respect and approbation.
He combines true self-respect with true humility, and rare judiciousness
with great moral courage. Himself a fugitive slave, he can
experimentally describe the situation of those in bonds as bound with
them; and he powerfully illustrates the diabolism of that system which
keeps in chains and darkness a host of minds, which, if free and
enlightened, would shine among men like stars in a firmament."
Another member of that Society speaks thus of him:--"I need not
attempt any description of the ability and efficiency which
characterized his speaking throughout the meetings. To you who know
him so well, it is enough to say that his lectures were worthy of himself.
He has left an impression on the minds of the people, that few could
have done. Cold, indeed, must be the heart that could resist the appeals
of so noble a specimen of humanity, in behalf of a crushed and
despised race."
Notwithstanding the celebrity Mr. Brown had acquired in the north, as
a man of genius and talent, and the general respect his high character
had gained him, the slave spirit of America denied him the rights of a
citizen. By the constitution of the United States, he was every moment
liable to be seized and sent back to slavery. He was in daily peril of a
gradual legalized murder, under a system one of whose established
economical principles is, that it is more profitable to work up a slave on

a plantation in a short time, by excessive labour and cheap food, than to
obtain a lengthened remuneration by moderate work and humane
treatment. His only protection from such a fate was the anomaly of the
ascendancy of the public opinion over the law of the country. So
uncertain, however, was that tenure of liberty, that even before the
passage of the Fugitive Slave Law, it was deemed expedient to secure
the services of Frederick Douglass to the anti-slavery cause by the
purchase of his freedom. The same course might have been taken to
secure the labours of Mr. Brown, had he not entertained an
unconquerable repugnance to its adoption. On the 10th of January,
1848, Enoch Price wrote to Mr. Edmund Quincy offering to sell Mr.
Brown to himself or friends for 325 dollars. To this communication the
fugitive returned the following pithy and noble reply:--
"I cannot accept of Mr. Price's offer to become a purchaser of my body
and soul. God made me as free as he did Enoch Price, and Mr. Price
shall never receive a dollar from me or my friends with my consent."
There were, however, other reasons besides his personal safety which
led to Mr. Brown's visit to Europe. It was thought desirable always to
have in England some talented man of colour who should be a living lie
to the doctrine of the inferiority of the African race: and it was
moreover felt that none could so powerfully advocate the cause of
"those in bonds" as one who had actually been "bound with them." This
had been proved in the extraordinary effect produced in Great Britain
by Frederick Douglass in 1845 and 1846. The