The Abolitionists: Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights, 1830-1864Hume, John F. (John Ferguson)
Philosophy
The Abolitionists: Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights, 1830-1864
Hume, John F. (John Ferguson)
Abolitionists -- United States; Antislavery movements -- United States
Of many cases of the kind that might be cited, perhaps none is more
strikingly illustrative than that of Charles Turner Torrey, a New
England man. He was accused of helping a slave to escape from the city
of Baltimore, and being convicted on what was said to be perjured
testimony, was sent to the penitentiary for a long term of years. The
confinement was fatal, a galloping consumption mercifully putting a
speedy end to his confinement. And then a remarkable incident
occurred. Torrey was a minister in good standing of the Congregational
denomination, and also a member of the Park Avenue Church of Boston.
Arrangements were made for funeral exercises in that church, but its
managers, taking alarm at the threats of certain pro-slavery men,
withdrew their permission and locked the sanctuary's doors. Slavery
punished the dead as well as the living.
The case of Amos Dresser, a young Southerner, may not improperly be
mentioned here. He had gone to a Northern school, and had become a
convert to Abolitionism. He went to Nashville, Tennessee, to canvass
for a book called the _Cottage Bible_ which would not ordinarily be
supposed to be dangerous to well regulated public institutions. While
peaceably attending to his business he was accused of Anti-Slaveryism.
He did not deny the charge and was arrested, his trunk being broken
open and its contents searched and scattered. He was taken before a
vigilance committee and by it was condemned to receive twenty lashes
on his bare back, "well laid on," and then to be driven out of town.
The sentence was carried out, we are told, in the presence of
thousands of people of both sexes.
Of the many somewhat similar instances that might here be referred to
the writer will make room for only one more.
A seafaring man of the name of Jonathan Walker undertook to convey in
a sloop of which he was the owner seven colored fugitives to the
Bahama Islands, where they would be free. Owing to an accident to his
boat, he and his companions were captured. He was sentenced, among
other things, to have his hand branded with the letters S.S.,
signifying "Slave Stealer."
The incident just referred to inspired one of the finest productions
of Whittier's pen. Singing of that "bold plowman of the wave" he
proceeds:
"Why, that hand is highest honor,
Than its traces never yet
Upon old memorial hatchments was
A prouder blazon set;
And the unborn generations, as they
Tread our rocky strand,
Shall tell with pride the story of
Their father's branded hand."
CHAPTER XVI
THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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