Personal reminiscences of the anti-slavery and other reforms and reformers

Front matter

Shelf. J~l„i O

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

OF

Introduction

" The man is the spirit he works in; not what he did, but what he became." — Carlyle.

I have been asked to write an introduction to this volume of reminiscences by my friend Aaron M. Powell, which was left unfinished at the time of his sudden death; and at the request of many friends is now placed before the public by loving survivors of his love.

If the work could have been completed by himself no introduction by another hand would be in place, but as it is, perhaps one who has had for a few years the privilege of some personal intimacy with him, succeeding a familiarity with his career for more than forty years, may fitly write that which he could not himself have written, but which is not only

Vll

INTRODUCTION.

accurate testimony to a rare and noble life, but part of the history of an eventful epoch and of a generation of historic workers, which with his departure may be said to be almost gone.

Fifty years ago the author of this volume was approaching manhood at a time not understood, not appreciated then, but which proved to be a crucial time in the life of the nation and even an eventful period in hunian history. The career of African slavery under the flag of the American republic was — though it seemed far otherwise — drawing to a close. In the ten years preceding the civil war, it seemed to the world as if the power of slavery had so grown and strengthened that it was established as the ruler of the nation, the dictator not alone of its governmental policy but also of its social life ; and it even assumed to step between man and his Maker in its control of the church. But though to the outward eye its power seemed absolute and the theory of " government of the people by the people and for the people " a hollow sham

viii

INTRODUCTION.

hastening to its end, yet such was not the Divine decree. In the order of Providence great spiritual forces were working — even though unseen — and the deadly calm which prevailed was but the precursor of that which may well be called the tempest of the century. For a quarter of a century preceding the war a small band of heroic men and women had dedicated their lives and all their powers to waofino^ war ao-ainst the pliant evil, at the sacrifice of all that seemed most precious in life ; for such sacrifice was required of all who were active in the heroic and apparently hopeless crusade against human slavery. The share in the great work of stirring the conscience and the brain of the nation, which was performed by the so called Garrisonian abolitionists, is not yet accurately apportioned by the deliberate judgment of mankind. But as the years roll by the perspective greatens, and that which was not clearly discerned by contempory vision, nay ! which was at the time denied by a time-serving, acquiescent

INTRODUCTION.

public opinion, seems great, even sublime — not only in its consecrated service, but in the surpassing grandeur of the results attained. These results followed the labors and the prophecies of the little band referred to with startling rapidity, and as the single fife and drum which accompanied John Brown's body to the grave on that bleak December day of '59 was the advance guard of a million of men in arms, so this company of true hearted men and women were the undoubted pioneers of a movement which convulsed the nation, and in which Slavery went down in fire and blood.

From the present point of view, not yet remote enough to be accounted that of impartial history, there is a growing recognition of the moral greatness and the spiritual elevation and fervor amounting perhaps to Apostleship, which characterized that little band of radical abolitionists who, casting aside all considerations of policy and rejecting all compromises with evil, " cried aloud and spared not." Church, State, Society, were all against them — public opinion not only disallowed but ridi-

INTRODUCTION.

culed their demands, and, judged by human standards, it seemed quixotic for this little company to array its feeble forces against the apparently impregnable stronghold of Slavery, supported as it was by the wealth, respectability and power of the nation. But again, and signally, was it shown that " One with God is a majority."

This is not the place nor the season to attempt to measure the extent and value of their work. But the fact is admitted that some of the noblest men and women of the age, both in spiritual and intellectual endowments, gave up their lives to the cause, sacrificing thereto everything that seemed valuable of life's gfifts.

Garrison, a man of considerable intellectual and of high moral endowments, with a spirit stern for the right as Luther's, was the leader and organizer ; and around him gathered a little band, unexcelled in human history for singleness of purpose and purity of life, each seemingly equipped for some special service in the great crusade.

INTRODUCTION.

Wendell Phillips, styled by Bryce, in his American Commonwealth, one of the first orators of the century, was naturally the orator of the cause, to which in his young manhood he had dedicated a life overflowing with promise ; and Whittier, the poet, and our own Lucretia Mott, were other leaders of that little company, who, to the amazement of their generation in their devotion to a special mission, worked not by the methods of man and eschewed all human policy. A large proportion of these warriors of the spirit were members of the peaceable Society of Friends. Contemporary with them, though in a sense following after — perhaps equalling them in devotion though differing in method — were Sumner, the statesman ; Greeley, the editor ; Beecher, the preacher; Curtis, the accomplished scholar and ideal Christian gendeman — the Sir Philip Sidney of his time — and many others, who formed the vanguard of the movement which led to the formation of the Republican party. This larger company sought the same ends by what would appear

xii

to be more reasonable methods, in and through poHtical action.

It is useless to attempt now to judge between these differinor moral forces. Each no doubt had its place In the Divine economy ; but without assuming to anticipate the verdict of history, it would seem already as if the uncompromising Garrisonian abolitionists, who in the estimation of the prudent, level headed judgment of their day, were impolitic, impracticable, even dangerous members of society, were in reality the apostles and prophets of the new era about to dawn upon human history, when man's wisest methods of policy were set at naught and spiritual forces prevailed in the giant convulsion of the age.

Even at this writing the newspapers chronicle the occasion of the re-burial — August 30th — of the remains of John Brown's associates by the side of their leader at North Elba, N. Y.

A distinguished company gathered, and addresses were made by noted speakers, among them one by the most distinguished

INTRODUCTION.

Bishop of the Episcopal church ; and thirtyfive hundred voices joined in singing

' 'John Brown's body lies a mouldering in the grave, "

and

"Onward, Christian soldiers."

Truly, as Lowell wrote —

" Humanity sweeps onward."

Aaron M. Powell was among the very youngest of the radical anti-slavery workers, havine come to manhood about ten years before the end. The battle for human rights was then being intensely waged, and the young man who had in his youth given up his cherished ambition for a college education in order to devote his life to the cause of the slave, was one of the most faithful and energetic of the younger anti-slavery workers, durine the decade which followed and immediately preceded the bursting of the fire, which had smouldered for a generation, into the flame of civil war, in which human slavery was consumed and a new career opened, not alone for the African race but for the American republic.

xiv

INTRODUCTION.

While we cannot accurately indicate the respective proportions of the work done by God's servants in carrying out the Divine decrees, it may now be said that the Httle band of men and women referred to, who in their devotion to the high ideal of human liberty received only the scorn and obloquy of their generation, have been proven to be worthy of a high place in history among the noted reformers of all time. Most of them lived to witness the fruitage of their life's efforts and to enter the promised land of their desires.

The author of this volume was still a young man when the great work was accomplished to which he had consecrated his life. Indeed it proved that one-half of his life had yet to be lived when human slavery went down in the shock of civil war. The baptismal fire through which he had passed, and the heroic companionship of his young life had qualified him for a service of no common order, and for a third of a century afterward he lived among us, not as other men live, attentive to duty perhaps as

XV

INTRODUCTION.

the call comes to them, yet immersed in the affairs of life and taking not improperly their share of life's good things. From the beginning to the end, his proved to be a consecrated life. With abilities of a high order, equipped for success in almost any field he might select of human effort, he lived a life apart from usual ambitions, regulating his conduct by standards which, though the wisdom of the world might account them foolishness, seem now not far removed from saintly, in their requirements of complete consecration to the service of God, in the service of His downtrodden and erring creatures.

Worldly aims to him possessed no attractions : his sole desire seemed to be to follow in the footsteps of his Master. And so the prime of his manhood and his declining years as well were devoted solely to his Master's work. All good causes appealed to him, but most of all those that being least popular stood most in need. The cause of the colored race, of the Indian, of peace, of temperance, of education — especially higher education in the

xvi

INTRODUCTION.

Society of Friends — and above all the personal purity movement, which, with so many friends, had but few to openly champion it ; all these received his earnest support, and the last named his unquestioned leadership.

Right in the midst of service the call came to him to come up higher. Sudden and saddenning was the shock to his loving friends and to a wider circle, but the sorrow had an inevitable touch even of rejoicing, in the knowledge that he who had worked so long and faithfully for the Master was translated at once to His presence without a pang of suffering.

While in one sense the unfinished state of these reminiscences is to be regretted, in another they appeal even more strongly to us as the interrupted speech of our friend — interrupted only — not ceased, for we shall hear his voice aeain.

Isaac H. Clothier.

xvii

Contents

I. Picture of Slave Mother. Beginning of Acquaintance with American Anti- Slavery Society. Visit from Stephen and Abby Kelley Foster. First Anti-Slavery Convention. Sojourner Truth. George Thompson. ... i II. First Anti-Slavery Service. Visit to Boston. First Meeting with Boston Abolitionists. William Lloyd Garrison 25

III. Francis Jackson, Rev. Samuel J. May.

Mob in Syracuse. Series of Meetings in Western New York. Wendell Phillips 64

Chapter I

My attention was first called to the subject of slavery, in my boyhood, by an illustrated pamphlet, upon the first page of which was shown the picture of a negro slave woman, with her baby in her arms, who was beinor severely whipped by a cruel slave-driver, or plantation overseer, until her bared back was lacerated, and blood was flowing from the wounds. She was in a cotton field at work with a hoe with other slaves, negro men and women, and had ventured at the end of the row to lay down her hoe and take up her babe to nurse it. This interfered with her field work, offended the brutal overseer, and hence her cruel punishment. Though myself but a child at the time, this picture, with the interpretation of it which my mother gave to me, as she read from the anti -slavery pamphlet which had found its way into our rural home, in the valley of the Hudson, made a deep and

PERSONAL REMINISCENCES.

lasting impression upon my memory, which the lapse of more than half a century has not sufficed to efface. It gave me a vivid conception of the cruelty and injustice involved in the odious system of " property in man," ownership of men and women, created in the imaofe of God.

The American Anti-Slavery Society, of which William Lloyd Garrison was the pioneer and founder, was organized at a National Anti-Slavery Convention held in Philadelphia in 1 833, when I was but a little more than one year old. Through the earlier efforts of John Woolman, Elihu Coleman, Anthony Benezet, Benjamin Lundy and others, chiefly members of the Religious Society of Friends, a strong feeling against slavery had been created, and slavery among Friends, as a Religious Society, had been abolished, and the ownership of slaves had been made a disciplinary offense. It was with the enunciation of the doctrine of" immediate and unconditional emancipation, the right of the slave and the duty of the master," as voiced, with great moral emphasis and in

PERSONAL REMINISCENCES.

most uncompromising terms by William Lloyd Garrison and supported by his early coadjutors, that the effective modern anti-slavery movement, which culminated in the final abolition of slavery, may be said to have been inaugurated.

My acquaintance with the American Anti- Slavery Society and its work began in 1850, in connection with a visit fi-om Stephen S. and Abby Kelley Foster, as its representatives, for a series of Anti- Slavery meetings at Ghent, Columbia County, N. Y., the home of my boyhood. They were guests of my father and mother at this time. These were the first meetings of the kind ever held there, and theirs were the first anti-slavery addresses to which I had ever listened. I was at once deeply interested in their very earnest and stirring appeals in behalf of the greatly wronged and outraged slave. I was perhaps even more profoundly impressed by their conversation upon the subject in our home, than by their public addresses, eloquent, powerful, and moving as they were. Just before their coming to us I

PERSONAL REMINISCENCES.

had been reading, with absorbed interest, the Journals of George Fox, the pioneer and founder of the ReHgious Society of Friends. Even so long ago as his early labors in Barbadoes his preaching against slavery was so pronounced as to alarm the slaveholders and cause them to forbid the attendance of his meetings by the negroes. He also strongly opposed war, and maintained a very vigorous controversy with the corrupt priesthood of the time. Stephen S. Foster, beside being a most outspoken, uncompromising opponent of slavery, was also a non-resistant, opposed to all war, and a tremendous critic of compromising, pro-slavery priests and politicians. Fresh from the reading of Fox's Journals, it seemed, as I listened to Stephen's stirring addresses and conversation, as though, verily, Georee Fox had come ao-ain ! He was deemed a great troubler in the pro-slavery Israel, and was often confronted with mob violence. Like Fox, he was sometimes dragged out of meetings and churches at the imminent peril of his life, and more than once imprisoned. He used

Abby Kelley Foster.

PERSONAL REMINISCENCES.

sometimes humorously to claim that he really had very small combativeness, but that what he had was very active ! Educated for the ministry in the Congregational Church of New England, he became a " come-outer," and consecrated himself, fearlessly and most unselfishly, to the slave's redemption. Harsh and formidable as he often appeared on the public platform, he was in private a most genial, gentle and lovable companion, except to evil-doers and their apologists, political and religious, to whom he was everywhere and always a terror.

Abby Kelley Foster was, at the time of this to me very memorable visit, in the prime of life, a woman of marked intellectual ability, a gifted, eloquent speaker, with rare moral courage and the martyr spirit. She was of the New England Quaker stock, and as a young woman, before enlisting in the anti-slavery crusade was a Massachusetts teacher. It was at one of the historic anti-slavery conventions, held in 1839 in Pennsylvania Hall, Philadelphia, confronted with a furious

PERSONAL REMINISCENCES.

mob, and addressed with much difficulty and peril, by Angelina Grimke, Maria Weston Chapman of Boston, Lucretia Mott and others, that Abby Kelley, a delegate from Massachusetts, spoke with such power for the slave, that she was strongly urged to enter the anti-slavery lecturing field, which she did soon after.

It was during the prosecution of their anti-slavery labors, in the midst of much persecution, that the acquaintance between herself and Stephen Foster began, which ripened into a true and beautiful marriage. Theirs was a union of close sympathy and, on the part of each, with a large measure of individuality. Thoroughly familiar with the legal and political aspects of the subject of slavery, logical and argumentative beyond the average, few men could hold their own in discussion with Abby on the anti-slavery platform. At that time a woman's voice, outside of a Friends' meeting, was very rarely heard in public. Sarah and Angelina Grimke, members of the Society of Friends, natives of

PERSONAL REMINISCENCES.

South Carolina and reared in the midst of slavery, had come North to reside in Philadelphia and to advocate emancipation. They were the real pioneers among women on the public anti-slavery platform. The voice of Lucretia Mott had also occasionally been heard pleading for the slave in meetings of the general public. Angelina Grimke, who became the wife of Theodore D. Weld, and Sarah Grimke had retired from active public anti-slavery service before my own connection with the American Anti- Slavery Society. Though I did not know them intimately, I had the pleasure of making their acquaintance in later years, as of Mr. Weld, who was an able and eloquent anti-slavery advocate. I once visited with much interest 'the famous school founded by Mr. Weld at Eagleswood. Perth Amboy, N. J. His lovely relations with the young people about him were a delitrht to behold. The club women, who, in large numbers, are now so easily at the front on public platforms, can scarcely realize in full their debt of obligation to such early

PERSONAL REMINISCENCES.

pioneers as the Grimke sisters, Lucretia Mott and Abby Kelley Foster ; and later, Lucy Stone, Antoinette Brown Blackwell, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, for making possible for them their present comparatively smooth and pleasant public pathway.

As late even as 1850, the rather slow and conservative people of the Hudson River Valley, many of them descendants of the Holland-Dutch settlers, with little conception of equality of rights for women, were not a little shocked and scandalizedby Abby Kelley Foster's able and fearless public discussion and criticism of pro-slavery men and measures. Some of them who knew me, and my parents, and of the very deep interest awakened in me in the anti-slavery cause, expressed solicitude lest I was being led astray and to ruin by a " vile and dangerous woman ! " She was herself quite cognizant of the icy coldness of this region towards their anti-slavery efforts, and writing of it in a letter to the National Anti-Slavery Standard, dated Hudson, N.

PERSONAL REMINISCENCES.

Y., February 7, 1850, she says : "It seemed almost like o-oinor into the arctic circle to sow wheat." In Hudson their meetings were much disturbed, and unmerchantable eo-cs were thrown by the mob, several of which struck my uncle Aaron C. Macy, who was their friend, and whose name I bear.

One legacy of this first visit of Stephen and Abby Foster in our home w^as the weekly visits of the National A nti- Slavery Standard and The Liberator. They were read b}^ me with the greatest interest, and became the basis of my anti-slavery education, commenced with the visit of the Fosters. This was during the Fugitive Slave Law era, an acute period of the anti-slavery agitation.

It was in 1851, in my nineteenth year, that I attended my first anti-slavery convention. This convention was arranc^ed for, under the auspices of the American Anti-Slavery Society, by Stephen and Abby Foster, and was held in the Congregational Church, at Union Village, Washington County, N. Y. Beside the Fosters, it was attended and addressed

PERSONAL REMINISCENCES.

also by George Thompson of England, then on his second visit to the United States, and by Sojourner Truth, the remarkable negro woman, herself formerly a slave in the State of New York. It thus happened that, before I had met William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips, I was brought into contact with the rarely gifted British anti-slavery champion. He came to this convention direct from Springfield, Mass., where he had been outrageously treated by a furious pro-slavery mob. His face was radiant with good cheer, and his voice melodious and the most eloquent I had ever listened to. It seemed to me then well nigh incomprehensible how any one could come from such mobocratic confusion and uproar, attended with great risk of personal violence, and yet bring to us so much of geniality and spiritual sunshine ! I have since attended many conventions with varying conditions, sometimes turbulent, but probably never one so momentous and influential as affecting my own life. Anxious as I was, with my quickened and growing interest in

George Tho:\ipson.

PERSONAL REMINISCENCES.

the anti-slavery movement, to share this convention, I found the way difficult, and it seemed as thoutrh I would be obliged to forego it. M}- father, who had consented to receive Stephen and Abby Foster in our home, was not at that time, as he afterwards became, in s)'mpathy with the anti-slavery cause. Though not specially active in politics, he was associated with the Democratic, or pro-slavery party, concerning which he and Stephen had prolonged and vigorous discussions, in which, as I listened, I could but feel that my father was at a great disadvantagfe. After the visit and meetings were over and the Fosters had eone, observing how deeply interested I had become in the subject, and moved somewhat also, doubtless, by the counsel and suggestions of some of our prejudiced pro-slavery friends and acquaintances, he souofht to dissuade me from beinof "too much carried away by the Abolitionists." He was opposed to my going to the convention ; but, seeing how much my heart was set upon it, and with the entreaty of my mother in my

PERSONA L REMINISCENCES.

behalf, finally did not forbid it. It was arranged that, going by way of Albany, I should pay a visit to some relatives and friends, members of the Society of Friends, who were also interested in the anti-slavery movement, in Saratoga, and go with them, about twenty miles distant, to the anti-slavery convention. It was during an intermission, between the sessions, seated in earnest conversation with a group of these Saratoga and Washington County friends, that Sojourner Truth, who had been standing alone by the pulpit, came slowly down the aisle to us, about midway in the church, and reaching out her long, bony arm, placed her big black hand on my head, saying as she did so, with prophetic tone, in her peculiar dialect, " I'se been a lookin' into your face, and I sees you, in the futur', pleadin' our cause ! " In later years, as I visited these friends for anti-slavery meetings I was frequently reminded by them of Sojourner's prophecy.

'Sojourner Truth, sometimes called the " Lybian Sibyl," was born in Ulster County,

i6

PERSONAL REMINISCENCES.

New York, in 1787, and was a slave until slavery was legally abolished in the Empire State in 1827. Scars upon her body were in evidence as to the cruelty of the system of which she had been a victim. She was a woman of much native intelligence, of powerful voice, with great originality of expression, which, combined with her peculiar dialect, a quaint humor, and picturesque appearance, made her always a welcome speaker in the anti-slavery meetings. Her stirring originality was well illustrated on one occasion which has been often referred to, when she was in attendance at a convention in which Frederick Douglass was making a speech. He had dwelt at length with a tone of discouragement upon the many difficulties and obstacles with which the anti-slavery movement had to contend, tending to create a feeling of despondency on the part of his hearers, when Sojourner, who was in the back part of the hall, interrupted him, asking in a stentorian tone : " Frederick, is God dead ?" It was like an electric shock, and instantly changed the

PERSONAL REMINISCENCES.

current of thought and feeling- in the convention. The last years of her life were passed mainly in Battle Creek, Michigan, and an interesting volume chronicles many of the events and incidents of her remarkable career. George Thompson paid three visits to the United States. The first was in 1834, a year after the abolition of slavery in the British West India Islands, which Lord Brougham declared, in the House of Lords, that George Thompson had done more than any other man to achieve. The second was in 1850, when the Fugitive Slave Law excitement ran high. The third was in 1 864, the year following President Lincoln's historic Emancipation Proclamation. On the occasion of his first visit so violent was the pro-slavery feeling against him as an abolitionist and an intermedling "foreigner" that he was often in imminent danger, and was finally obliged to leave the country and return to England. Like Mr. Garrison, he was of humble origin, but with a ereat natural oratorical s^ift, which was cultivated in a debating club, and became

PERSONAL REMINISCENCES.

publicly known through his anti-slavery labors in Great Britain. He came to the front rank amon'T the crreat orators of his time and achieved an international reputation as a large hearted, consecrated philanthropist. Despite the pro-slavery hatred with which he was confronted on his first visit to this country, multitudes listened to him with eager interest, and his enemies were often discomfited by his quick repartee. In one of his meetings in Boston, when some riotous Southerners who were present cried out: " We wish we had you at the South. We would cut your ears off, if not your head!" Mr. Thompson prompdy replied : " Would you ? Then I should cry out all the louder, ' He that hath ears to hear let him hear !'" Rev. S. J. May, who mentions this incident in his " Recollectionsof the Anti- Slavery Conflict," says of this reply : " It was irresistible. I believe the Southerners themselves joined in the rapturous applause." One of his memorable addresses at the Union Village Convention, where I first listened to him, in 1 85 1, on his second visit to the United

PERSONAL REMINISCENCES.

States, abounded specially with humorous sallies and anecdote, carrying the convention, his pro-slavery hearers and others, enthusiastically with him. It was during a recess of Parliament, of which Mr. Thompson had been elected a member, to represent the Tower Hamlets Constituency, London, that his second visit to this country was made. Ostensibly for a period of needed rest, it proved to be instead a season of great activity for him, so great was the demand for his services in that critical era of the anti-slavery movement. Except at Springfield, Mass., where, as previously noted, he was confronted with a disgraceful mob, he was everywhere welcomed with enthusiasm and delight.

There was a singular appropriateness in the time chosen for his third and last visit to this country, following the official edict of emancipation, and at the final culmination of the great " irrepressible conflict," with which he had long been so closely linked in sympathy, and so conspicuously and honorably identified. Whereas on his first American visit thirty

PERSONAL REMINISCENCES.

years earlier he had been fiercely mobbed, hunted and driven from the country at the peril of his life, now he was received with distinguished consideration by President Lincoln, by many Senators and Representatives in the halls of Congress, and by many other eminent citizens, official and unofficial. He was, with Mr. Garrison, made the nation's guest by Edwin M. Stanton, the Secretary of War at that time, to visit Charleston, and witness the re-raising of the flag at Fort Sumter. It was my own privilege to be present on that historic occasion, to which I shall again refer. I recall vividly, as I write these lines, the joyous glow of Mr. Thompson's handsome face, as standing by the side of Mr. Garrison, the two anti-slavery pioneers, with Henry Ward Beecher and others, within the walls of the Fort, pulled the rope which restored the original flag to the place from which, at the beginning of the war, four years before, it had been hauled down at the bidding of the leaders of the slaveholders' rebellion !

My last interview with George Thompson,

PERSONAL REMINISCENCES.

most pathetic, was in his own home, at Leeds, in England, in the autumn of 1877. I was returning from Geneva, Switzerland, where I had been attending the first International Congress at which was organized the International Federation for the Abolition of State Regulation of Vice. En route from London, and before sailing from Liverpool for New York, I paid a brief visit to Scotland and the North of England, including Leeds and York. At Edinburo-h I was the oruest of Elizabeth Pease Nichol, in her most hospitable home at Huntly Lodge. She was the very intimate, long-time friend of George Thompson, as also of William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips, and a deeply interested, sympathetic co-worker for many years with the American Anti-Slavery Society. The time at my command was limited, but it was arranged that in journeying from Edinburgh to York, I should stop over at Leeds, for an hour with George Thompson. He was then, as he had been for a considerable period, an almost helpless invalid from paralysis. His vocal organs