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
cause of human rights; but not intending to hurt a hair of the heads
of our opposers, whom we ought to regard in pity more than in anger.
Would that every syllable which he uttered had been engraven upon some
imperishable tablet! Would that the spirit which then inspired him had
been infused into the bosom of every one who has since engaged in the
antislavery cause!
MRS. L. MARIA CHILD.
The account I have given above of the valuable services rendered in
the Philadelphia Convention by Lucretia Mott, Esther Moore, and Lydia
White, doubtless reminded my readers of many other excellent women,
whose names stand high among the early antislavery reformers. The
memories of them are most precious to me. If I live to write out half
of my Recollections, and you do not weary of them, I shall make most
grateful mention of our female fellow-laborers in general, of several
of them in particular, though I cannot do ample justice to any.
There is one of whom I must speak now, because I have already passed
the time, at which her inestimable services commenced. In July, 1833,
when the number, the variety, and the malignity of our opponents had
become manifest, we were not much more delighted than surprised by the
publication of a thoroughgoing antislavery volume, from the pen of
Mrs. Lydia Maria Child. She was at that time, perhaps, the most popular
as well as useful of our female writers. None certainly, excepting
Miss Sedgwick, rivalled her. The _North American Review_, then, if
not now, the highest authority on matters of literary criticism,
said at the time: “We are not sure that any woman in our country
would outrank Mrs. Child. This lady has long been before the public
as an author with much success. And she well deserves it, for in all
her works we think that nothing can be found which does not commend
itself by its tone of healthy morality and good sense. Few female
writers, if any, have done more or better things for our literature,
in its lighter or graver departments.” That such an author--ay, such
an _authority_--should espouse our cause just at that crisis, I do
assure you, was a matter of no small joy, yes, exultation. She was
extensively known in the Southern as well as the Northern States, and
her books commanded a ready sale there not less than here. We had seen
her often at our meetings. We knew that she sympathized with her brave
husband in his abhorrence of our American system of slavery; but we
did not know that she had so carefully studied and thoroughly mastered
the subject. Nor did we suspect that she possessed the power, if she
had the courage, to strike so heavy a blow. Why, the very title-page
was pregnant with the gist of the whole matters under dispute between
us,--“Immediate Abolitionists,” and the slaveholders on the one hand,
and the Colonizationists on the other,--“_An Appeal in Favor of that
Class of Americans_ CALLED _Africans_.” The volume, still prominent
in the literature of our conflict, is replete with facts showing, not
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