Three Years in Europe: Places I Have Seen and People I Have MetBrown, William Wells
History
Three Years in Europe: Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met
Brown, William Wells
Great Britain -- Description and travel
Whoever the future historian of the Anti-Slavery movement may be, he
will not be able to compile a correct history of this great struggle,
without consulting the writings of Edmund Quincy, a member of one of
the wealthiest, patriotic, and aristocratic families in New England: the
prestige of his name is a passport to all that the heart could wish.
Descended from a family, whose name is connected with all that was
glorious in the great American Revolution, the son of one who has again
and again represented his native State, in the National Congress, he
too, like Wendell Phillips, threw away the pearl of political
preferment, and devoted his distinguished talents to the cause of the
Slave. Mr. Quincy is better known in this country as having filled the
editorial chair of _The Liberator_, during the several visits of its
Editor to Great Britain. As a speaker, he does not rank as high as some
who are less known; as a writer, he has few equals. The "Annual Reports"
of the American and Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Societies for the past
fifteen or twenty years, have emanated from his pen. When posterity, in
digging among the tombs of the friends of mankind, and of universal
freedom, shall fail to find there the name of Edmund Quincy, it will be
because the engraver failed to do his duty.
Were we sent out to find a man who should excel all others in
collecting together new facts and anecdotes, and varnishing up old ones
so that they would appear new, and bringing them into a meeting and
emptying out, good or bad, the whole contents of his sack, to the
delight and admiration of the audience, we would unhesitatingly select
James N. Buffum as the man. If Mr. Buffum is not a great speaker, he has
what many accomplished orators have not--_i.e._, a noble and generous
heart. If the fugitive slave, fresh from the cotton-field, should make
his appearance in the town of Lynn, in Massachusetts, and should need a
night's lodging or refreshments, he need go no farther than the
hospitable door of James N. Buffum.
Most men who inherit large fortunes, do little or nothing to benefit
mankind. A few, however, spend their means in the best possible manner:
one of the latter class is Gerrit Smith. The name of this gentleman
should have been brought forward among those who are first mentioned in
this chapter. Some eight or ten years ago, Mr. Smith was the owner of
large tracts of land, lying in twenty-nine counties in the State of New
York, and came to the strange conclusion to give the most of it away.
Consequently, three thousand lots of land, containing from thirty to one
hundred acres each, were given to coloured men residing in the
State--the writer of this being one of the number.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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