American Eloquence, Volume 2: Studies In American Political History (1896)
History
American Eloquence, Volume 2: Studies In American Political History (1896)
Speeches, addresses, etc., American; United States -- History; United States -- Politics and government
zeal and the roused conscience of the "godless comeouters" made the
trembling South demand the Fugitive Slave Law, and the Fugitive Slave
Law provoked Mrs. Stowe to the good work of "Uncle Tom." That is
something! Let me say, in passing, that you will nowhere find an earlier
or more generous appreciation, or more flowing eulogy, of these men and
their labors, than in the columns of the _Liberator_. No one, however
feeble, has ever peeped or muttered, in any quarter, that the vigilant
eye of the _Pioneer_ has not recognized him. He has stretched out the
right hand of a most cordial welcome the moment any man's face was
turned Zionward.
I do not mention these things to praise Mr. Garrison; I do not stand
here for that purpose. You will not deny--if you do, I can prove
it--that the movement of the Abolitionists converted these men. Their
constituents were converted by it. The assault upon the right of
petition, upon the right to print and speak of slavery, the denial of
the right of Congress over the District, the annexation of Texas,
the Fugitive Slave Law, were measures which the anti-slavery movement
provoked, and the discussion of which has made all the Abolitionists we
have. The antislavery cause, then, converted these men; it gave them a
constituency; it gave them an opportunity to speak, and it gave them a
public to listen. The antislavery cause gave them their votes, got them
their offices, furnished them their facts, gave them their audience.
If you tell me they cherished all these principles in their own breasts
before Mr. Garrison appeared, I can only say, if the anti-slavery
movement did not give them their ideas, it surely gave the courage to
utter them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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