Some Recollections of Our Antislavery ConflictMay, Samuel J. (Samuel Joseph)
History
Some Recollections of Our Antislavery Conflict
May, Samuel J. (Samuel Joseph)
Antislavery movements -- United States
I sought, through several of their very respectable members,
permission to attend their “Meeting on Sufferings” and present to their
consideration the principles and plans of the American Antislavery
Society and its auxiliaries. This request was peremptorily denied. I
then besought them to give their “testimony on slavery,” as they had
sometimes done in times past. This they also refused.
An arrangement was then made by the members who were Abolitionists,
many of whom boarded with me at “Whitfield’s,” that I should address as
many as saw fit to meet me in the large reception-room of the hotel, in
the evening of the second day of my visit. So soon as this was known,
it was asked of me if I would consent to let the meeting be conducted
somewhat in the manner of “the Society of Friends” so that any who
should be moved to speak might have the liberty. I acquiesced most
cheerfully, not doubting that I should be moved, and should be expected
to address the meeting first and give the direction to it.
Fifty or sixty persons assembled at the hour appointed. Deeming it
respectful to my Quaker brethren to sit in silence a few minutes after
the meeting came to order, I did so, and in so doing lost my chance
to be heard. A wily brother took advantage of my sense of propriety,
rose before me and delivered a long discourse upon slavery, made up of
the commonplaces and platitudes of the subject, about which all were
agreed. He was followed instantly by another in the same vein, and when
the evening was far spent and the auditors were beginning to withdraw,
I was permitted to speak a few minutes upon the vital points in the
questions between the immediate Abolitionists and the slaveholders on
the one hand, and the Colonizationists on the other hand.
However, the next morning, in the presence of twenty or more, I
had unexpectedly a long and pretty thorough discussion with the
distinguished John Griscom, so that my visit to Newport was not wholly
lost.
I am sorry that truth compels me to add, that afterwards we had too
many proofs that “the Society of Friends,” with all their antislavery
professions, were not, as a religious sect, much more friendly
than others to the immediate emancipation of the enslaved without
expatriation. They were disposed to be Colonizationists rather than
Abolitionists.
THE REIGN OF TERROR.
Rejected as we Abolitionists were generally by the religionists of
every denomination, denounced by many of the clergy as dangerous, yes,
impious persons, refused a hearing in almost all the churches, it was
not strange that the statesmen and politicians had no mercy upon us.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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