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
Mr. Garrison had been in England several weeks, laboring successfully
to undeceive the philanthropists and people of Great Britain as to the
real design and tendency of the American Colonization Society. Their
kindred spirits had met and mingled. He had heard Mr. Garrison’s
exposition, and had become, with Clarkson, Wilberforce, Buxton, and
others, fully satisfied that the expatriation of the free colored
people, their removal from this country, if practicable, would only
perpetuate the bondage of the enslaved, and aggravate their wrongs. Mr.
Garrison, on the other hand, had repeatedly witnessed the surpassing
power of Mr. Thompson’s eloquence on the audiences he addressed, had
heard the tributes everywhere paid to the importance of his services,
and was present at the consummation of his unsparing labors,--the
passage by the British Parliament of the bill for the abolition of
West India slavery. It was manifest to him that the man, who had done
so much for the overthrow of British slavery, could help mightily to
accomplish the far greater work needed to be done in this country;
and his heart was set on enlisting Mr. Thompson in the service of the
American Antislavery Society. He pressed his wish, his demand, upon him
just as Mr. Thompson was about to agree to the above-named arrangement
for the study of the law. Mr. Garrison’s invitation was not to be
accepted hastily, nor could he reject it without consideration. He
revolved it anxiously in his mind, as he went from city to city with
his now beloved brother, hearing him portray the peculiarities of the
American system of slavery, the far greater difficulties against which
Abolitionists here had to contend, the need we felt of a living voice,
potent enough to wake up thousands who were _dead_ in this iniquity.
On the eve of Mr. Garrison’s departure from England in the fall of 1833
Mr. Thompson, with deep emotion, said to him: “I have thought much of
the bright professional prospects opened to me here. I have thought
yet more of the dark, dismal, desperate condition of millions of my
fellow-beings in your country. They are no farther from me than are
the eight hundred thousand whom I have been laboring to emancipate,
and their claims upon me for the help God may enable me to give them
are just as strong. I cannot withhold myself from their service. If,
on your return to Boston, you shall still think I can render you much
assistance, and your fellow-laborers concur with you in that opinion,
command me, and I will hasten to you.”
Mr. Thompson, however, remained in England almost a year after Mr.
Garrison left him, that he might reorganize the antislavery hosts who
had triumphed so gloriously in the conflict for British West India
emancipation, and induce them to engage as heartily in the enterprise
for the emancipation of the millions held in the most abject bondage in
these United States, and for the abolition of slavery throughout the
world.
GEORGE THOMPSON’S FIRST YEAR IN AMERICA.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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