The Conflict with Slavery: Part 1 from The Works of John Greenleaf Whittier, Volume VIIWhittier, John Greenleaf
Philosophy
The Conflict with Slavery: Part 1 from The Works of John Greenleaf Whittier, Volume VII
Whittier, John Greenleaf
Antislavery movements -- United States; Slavery -- United States
Looking over the assembly, I noticed that it was mainly composed of
comparatively young men, some in middle age, and a few beyond that
period. They were nearly all plainly dressed, with a view to comfort
rather than elegance. Many of the faces turned towards me wore a look of
expectancy and suppressed enthusiasm; all had the earnestness which might
be expected of men engaged in an enterprise beset with difficulty and
perhaps with peril. The fine, intellectual head of Garrison, prematurely
bald, was conspicuous; the sunny-faced young man at his side, in whom all
the beatitudes seemed to find expression, was Samuel J. May, mingling in
his veins the best blood of the Sewalls and Quincys,--a man so
exceptionally pure and large-hearted, so genial, tender, and loving, that
he could be faithful to truth and duty without making an enemy.
"The de'il wad look into his face,
And swear he couldna wrang him."
That tall, gaunt, swarthy man, erect, eagle-faced, upon whose somewhat
martial figure the Quaker coat seemed a little out of place, was Lindley
Coates, known in all eastern Pennsylvania as a stern enemy of slavery;
that slight, eager man, intensely alive in every feature and gesture, was
Thomas Shipley, who for thirty years had been the protector of the free
colored people of Philadelphia, and whose name was whispered reverently
in the slave cabins of Maryland as the friend of the black man, one of a
class peculiar to old Quakerism, who in doing what they felt to be duty,
and walking as the Light within guided them, knew no fear and shrank from
no sacrifice. Braver men the world has not known. Beside him, differing
in creed, but united with him in works of love and charity, sat Thomas
Whitson, of the Hicksite school of Friends, fresh from his farm in
Lancaster County, dressed in plainest homespun, his tall form surmounted
by a shock of unkempt hair, the odd obliquity of his vision contrasting
strongly with he clearness and directness of his spiritual insight.
Elizur Wright, the young professor of a Western college, who had lost his
place by his bold advocacy of freedom, with a look of sharp concentration
in keeping with an intellect keen as a Damascus blade, closely watched
the proceedings through his spectacles, opening his mouth only to speak
directly to the purpose. The portly form of Dr. Bartholomew Fussell, the
beloved physician, from that beautiful land of plenty and peace which
Bayard Taylor has described in his Story of Kennett, was not to be
overlooked. Abolitionist in heart and soul, his house was known as the
shelter of runaway slaves, and no sportsman ever entered into the chase
with such zest as he did into the arduous and sometimes dangerous work of
aiding their escape and baffling their pursuers. The youngest man
present was, I believe, James Miller McKim, a Presbyterian minister from
Columbia, afterwards one of our most efficient workers. James Mott, E.
L.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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