|
STILL'S
UNDERGROUND RAIL ROAD RECORDS,
REVISED EDITION.
(Previously Published in 1879 with title: The Underground Railroad)
WITH A LIFE OF THE AUTHOR.
NARRATING
THE HARDSHIPS, HAIRBREADTH ESCAPES AND DEATH STRUGGLES
OF THE
SLAVES
IN THEIR EFFORTS FOR FREEDOM.
TOGETHER WITH
SKETCHES OF SOME OF THE EMINENT FRIENDS OF FREEDOM, AND
MOST LIBERAL AIDERS AND ADVISERS OF THE ROAD
BY
WILLIAM STILL,
For many years connected with the Anti-Slavery Office in
Philadelphia, and Chairman of the Acting
Vigilant Committee of the Philadelphia Branch of the Underground
Rail Road.
Illustrated with 70 Fine Engravings
by Bensell, Schell and Others,
and Portraits from Photographs from Life.
Thou shalt not deliver unto his
master the servant that has escaped from his master unto thee. -
Deut. xxiii 16.
SOLD ONLY BY SUBSCRIPTION.
PHILADELPHIA:
WILLIAM STILL, PUBLISHER
244 SOUTH TWELFTH STREET.
1886
pp. 719 - 740
JOHN HUNN
Chief Engineer of the Souther end, see p. 12
SAMUEL RHOADS
Stockholder, see p. 719
WILLIAM WHIPPER
Conductor at Columbia, see p. 735
SAMUEL D. BURRIS,
Conductor, see p. 746
[Page 719]
SAMUEL
RHOADS
Was born in Philadelphia, in 1806, and was
through life a consistent member of the Society of friends.
His parents were persons of great respectability and integrity.
The son early showed an ardent desire for improvement, and was
distinguished among his young companions for warm affections,
amiable disposition, and genial manners, rare purity and refinement
of feeling, and a taste for literary pursuits. Preferring as
his associates those to whom he looked for instruction and example,
and aiming at a high standard, he won a position both mentally and
socially superior to his early surroundings. With a keen sense
of justice and humanity, he could not fail to share in the
traditional opposition of his religious society to slavery, and to
be quickened to more intense feeling as the evils of the system were
more fully revealed in the Anti-slavery agitation when in his early
manhood began to stir the nation.
A visit to England, in 1834, brought him into
connection and friendship with many leading Friends in that country,
who were actively engaged in the Anti-slavery movement, and probably
had much to do with directing his attention specially to the
subject. Once enlisted he never wavered but as long as slavery
existed by law in our country his influence, both publicly and
privately, was exerted against it. He was strengthened in his
course by a warm friendship and frequent intercourse with the late
Abraham L. Pennock, a man whose unbending integrity and firm
allegiance to duty were equaled only by his active benevolence,
broad charity, and rare clearness of judgment. Samuel
Rhoads, like him, while sympathizing with other phases of the
Anti-slavery movement, took especial interest in the subject of
abstaining from the use of articles produced by slave labor.
Believing that the purchase of such articles by furnishing o the
master the only possibility of pecuniary profit from the labor of
his slaves, supplied one motive of holding them in bondage, and that
the purchaser thus became, however unwitt-
[Page 720]
ingly, a partaker in the guilt, he felt conscientiously
bound to withhold his individual support as far as
practicable, and to recommend the same course to others.
His practical action upon these views began about the
year 1841, and was persevered in, at no small expense
and inconvenience, till slavery ceased in this country
to have a legal existence. About this time he
united with the American Free Produce Association, which
had been formed in 1838, and in 1845 took an active part
in the formation of the Free Produce Association of
Friends of Philadelphia, Y. M.; both associations having
the object of promoting the production by free labor of
articles usually grown by slaves, particularly of
cotton. Agents were sent into the cotton States,
to make arrangements with small planters, who were
growing cotton by the labor of themselves and their
families without the help of slaves, to obtain their
crops, which otherwise went into the general market, and
could not be distinguished. A manufactory was
established for working this cotton, and a limited
variety of goods were thus furnished. In all these
operations Samuel Rhoads aided efficiently by
counsel and money.
In 1846, "The Non-slave-holder," a monthly periodical,
devoted mainly to the advocacy of the Free Produce
cause, was established in Philadelphia, edited by A.
L. Pennock, S. Rhoads, and George W. Taylor.
IT was continued five years, for the last two of which
Samuel Rhoads conducted it alone. He wrote
also a pamphlet on the free labor question. From
July, 1856 to January, 1867 he was Editor of the
"Friends' Review," a weekly paper, religious and
literary, conducted in the interest of his own religious
society, and in this position he gave frequent proofs of
interest in the slave, keeping his readers well advised
of events and movements bearing upon the subject.
While thus awake to all forms of anti-slavery effort,
his heart and hand were ever open to the fugitive from
bondage, who appealed to him and none such were ever
sent away empty. Though not a member of the
Vigilance Committee, he rendered it frequent and most
efficient aid, especially during the dark ten years
after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law.
A second visit to England, in 1847, had enlarged his
connection and correspondence with anti-slavery friends
there, and in addition to his own contributions, very
considerable sums of money were transmitted to him,
especially through A. H. Richardson, for the
benefit of the fugitives. Often when the treasury
of the Committee ran low, he came opportunely to their
relief with funds sent by his English friends, while his
sympathy and encouragement never failed. The
extent of his assistance in this direction was known to
but few, but by them its value was gratefully
acknowledged. None rejoiced more than he in the
overthrow of American slavery, though its end came in
convulsion and bloodshed, at which his spirit revolted,
not by the peaceful means through which he with others
had labored to bring it about
[Page 721]
He had some
years before been active in preparing a memorial to Congress, asking
that body to make an effort to put an end to slavery in the States,
by offering from the national treasury, to any State or States which
would emancipate the slaves therein, and engage not to renew the
system, compensation for losses thus sustained. This
proposition was made, not as admitting any right of the
masters to compensation; but on the ground that the whole nation,
having shared in the guilt of maintaining slavery, might justly
share also in whatever pecuniary loss might follow its abandonment.
This memorial was sent to Congress, but elicited no
response; and in the fulness of time, the nation paid even in money
many times any possible price that could have been demanded under
this plan. Samuel Rhoads died in 1868.
GEORGE CORSON
Was born in
Plymouth township, Montgomery county, Pennsylvania,
January 24th, 1803. He was the son of Joseph
and Hannah Corson. He was married January 24th,
1832, to Martha, daughter of Samuel and
Susanna Maulsby.
There were perhaps few more devoted men than George
Corson to the interests of the oppressed
everywhere. The slave, fleeting from his master,
ever found a home with him, and felt while there that no
slave-hunter would get him away until every means of
protection should fail. He was ever ready to send
his horse and carriage to convey them on the road to
Canada, or elsewhere towards freedom. His home was
always open to entertain the anti-slavery advocates, and
being warmly supported in the cause by his excellent
wife, everything which they could do to make their
guests comfort able was done. The Burleighs, J.
Miller McKim, Miss Mary Grew, F. Douglass, and
others will not soon forget that hospitable home.
It is to be regretted that he died before the
emancipation of the slaves, which he had so long labored
for, arrived. In this connection it may not be
improper to state that simultaneously with his labors in
the Anti-slavery cause, he was also laboring with zeal
in the cause of Temperance. Of his efforts in that
direction through nearly thirty years, our space will
not allow us to speak. His life and labors were a
daily protest against the traffic of rum. There is
also another phase of his character which should be
mentioned then ever he saw animals abused, horses
beaten, he instantly interfered, often at great risk of
personal harm from the brutal drivers about the lime
quarries and iron ore diggings. So firm, so
determined was he, that the cruelest ruffian felt that
he must yield or confront the law. Take him all
for all, there will rarely be found in one man more
universal benevolence and justice than was possessed by
the subject of this notice.
Hiram Corson, brother of the subject of this
sketch, and a faithful co-
[Page 722]
laborer in the cause, in response to a request that he
would furnish a reminiscence touching his brother’s
agency in assisting fugitives, wrote as follows:
DEAR ROBERT:
- Wm. Still wishes some account of the case of
the negro slave taken from our neighborhood some years
ago, after an attempt by my brother George to
release him. (About thirty years ago.)
George had been on a visit to our brother Charles,
living at the fork of the Skippack and Perkiomen Creeks,
in this county, and on his return, late in the
afternoon, while coming along an obscure road, not the
main direct road, he came up to a man on horseback, who
was followed at a distance of a few feet by a colored
man with a rope tied around his neck, and the other end
held by the person on horseback.
George had had experience with those
slave-drivers before, as in the case of John
and James Lewis, and withal had become
deeply interested in the Anti-slavery cause. He,
therefore, inquired of the mounted man, what the other
had done that he was to be thus treated. He
quietly remarked that he was his slave and had run away.
He then asked by what authority he held him. He
said by warrant from Esquire Vanderslice.
Indignant at this great outrage, my brother hurried on
to Norristown, and waited his arrival with a process to
arrest him. The slave-master, confident in his
rights, bold in the country of those pretended freemen,
who were ever ready to kiss the rod of Slavery, came
slowly riding into Norristown, just before sunset, with
the rope still fast to the slave’s neck. He was
immediately taken before a Justice of the Peace, whose
name I do not now remember. ‘he people gathering around
; anxious inquiries were made as to the person I who had
the audacity to question the right of this quiet,
peaceable man to do with his slave as he pleased. Great
scorn was expressed for the busy Abolitionists. Much
sympathy given to the abused slave owner. It was soon
decided, by the aid of a volunteer lawyer, whose sons
have since fought the battle for freedom, that the
slave-owner had a right to take his slave where ever,
and in whatever way be pleased, through the country, and
not only that, but at his call for help it was the
bounden duty of every man, called upon, to aid him; and
the person who had the audacity to stop him was
threatened with punishment.
But George’s blood was up, so pained was he at the
sight of a man, a poor man, a helpless man, being
dragged through from Pennsylvania with a halter around
his neck, that, amidst the jeers and insults of the
debased crowd, he denounced Slavery, its aiders and
abettors, in tones of scorn and loathing. But the man
thief was left with his prey. Through the advice of
those who stood by the slave laws and who knelt before
the slave power, as personified by that hunter of
slaves, the rope was taken from the neck,
[Page 723]
and the man guarded while the
master regaled himself. That night he
disappeared with his man.
I can also give a few particulars of the escape of the
Gorsuch murderers, from Norristown on
their way to Canada. There should be a
portrait of Daniel Ross, and a
history of his labors during twenty or more
years. Hundreds were entertained in his
humble home, and it was in his home that the
Gorsuch murderer was secreted. He must
not be left out. I can also get the whole
history, escape, capture, trial, conviction and
redemption of James and John
Lewis, and one other. They were
captured here within sight of our house.
George Corson, Esq., published it all,
about ten years ago.
| |
Respectfully, |
HIRAM CORSON. |
| ROBERT R. CORSON. |
|
|
CHARLES
D. CLEVELAND.
Mr.
Still has asked me to record the part
that my father bore in the Anti slavery
enterprise, as it began and grew in this city.
I comply, because the history of that struggle
would be very incomplete, if from it were
omitted the peculiar work which my father’s
position here shaped for him. Yet I can
only indicate his work, not portray it; tell
some of its elements, and then leave them to the
moral sympathies of the reader to upbuild.
For, first, his labor for the love of man was
evenly distributed through the mould and
movements of his entire life; and from a
perpetual current of nourishing blood, one
cannot name those particular atoms that are
busiest or richest to sustain vitality.
And, further, if I could hear his voice, it
would forbid any detailed account of what be
accomplished and endured. It was all done
unobtrusively in his life; bravely, defiantly,
in regard of the evil to be met and mastered,
but as unconsciously in regard of himself as
every conviction works, when it is as broad as
the entire spiritual life of a man and has his
entire spiritual force to give it expression.
I know, therefore, that while I should be
permitted to mention so much of his service as
the history of the conflict might demand, I
should be forbidden all tale of sacrifice and
labor that mere personal narrative would
include; and I ask now only this: What peculiar
influence did he exert for the furtherance of
the cause which so largely absorbed his labor
and life? Did he contribute anything to it
stamped with the signature of so clear an
individuality that no other man could have
contributed quite the same? To this I
maintain an affirmative answer; and in witness
of its truth, I sketch the general course of his
life, that through it we may find those elements
of his character which intuitively ranged him on
the side of the slave.
When my father came to Philadelphia. in 1834, his
sentiments in regard to Slavery were those held
generally in the North—an easy-going wish to
avoid direct issue with the South on a question
supposed to be peculiarly
[Page 724]
theirs. But the winds of Heaven owned to no
decorous limit in Mason and Dixon’s line; and there were
larger winds blowing than these—winds rising in the vast
laboratories of the general human heart, and destined to
sweep into all the vast spaces of human want and woe.
The South was finding, through her blacks’ perpetual
defiance of torture and death for freedom, that there
was perhaps something, even in a negro, which most
vexatiously refused to be counted in with the figures of
the auctioneer’s bill of sale; and now the North’s
lesson was coming to her—that the soul of a century’s
civilization was still less purchasable than the soul of
a slave. A growing feeling of humanity was
stirring through the northern States. It was not
the work, I think, of any man or body of men; it was
rather itself a creative force, and made men and bodies
of men the results of its awakening influence. To
such a power, my father’s nature was quickly responsive.
Both his head and his heart recognized the terrible
wrongs of the enslaved, and the urgency with which they
pressed for remedy; but where was the means? From
the first, he felt that the movement which brought
Freedom and Slavery fairly into the field and squarely
against each other, threw unnecessary obstacles in its
own way by the violence with which it was begun and
prosecuted. If he were to work at all in the
cause, be determined to work within the limits of
recognized law. The Colonization Society held out
a good hope; at least, he could see no other as close to
the true but closer to the feasible; and, after
connecting himself with it, he seems to have been
content for a while on the score of political matters,
and to have devoted himself to what he had adopted as
his chief purpose in life. This was, enlarging the
sphere of female education, and giving it a more
vigorous tone. To this he tasked all his
abilities. His convictions on the subject were
very earnest; his strength of character sufficient to
hear them out; so that, in a short time, he was able to
establish his school so firmly in the respect of this
community, that, for twenty-five years, all the odium
that his activity in the Anti-slavery cause drew
upon him did not for a moment abate the public
confidence accorded to his professional power.
It was in 1836, in one of his vacations, that his mind
was violently turned inwards to re-examine his status
upon the Anti-slavery question. He happened to be
visiting his old college-friend, Salmon P. Chase,
at Cincinnati, and, fortunately for the spiritual life
of both men, it was at the time of the terrible
riots that broke up the press of John G. Birney.
Both being known as already favoring the cause of the
slave, they stood in much peril for several days; but
when the dark time was passed, the clearness that
defined their sentiments was seen to be worth all the
personal danger that had bought it. Self-delusion
on, the subject was no longer possible. The
deductions from the facts were as plain as the facts
themselves. The two friends took counsel together,
and adopted the policy from which thenceforward neither
ever swerved. A great cloud was rolled from their
eyes. In
[Page 725]
all this turmoil of riot, they saw on the one side,
indeed, a love of man great in its devotion; but on the
other, a moral deadness in the North so profound and
determined that it threatened thus brutally any voice
that would disturb it. Their duty, then, was
evident: to fling all the forces of their lives, and by
all social and political means, right against this
inertness, and shatter it if they could. To Mr. Chase,
the course of things gave the larger political work; to
my father, the larger social. His diary records
how amazed he was, when he returned to Philadelphia, at
his former blindness, and how thankful to the spirit of
love that had touched and cleansed his eyes that he
might see God’s image erect. He knew now that his
lot had been cast in the very stronghold of apathy, the
home of a lukewarm spirit, which, not containing
anything positive to keep it close to the right, let its
sullen negativeness gravitate towards the wrong.
It will be difficult to make coming generations
understand, not the flaming antagonism to humanity, but
the more brutal avoidance of it that ruled the political
tone in this latitude, from 1836 to 1861. I have
thought of the word bitterness, as expressing it; but
though that might convey somewhat of its recoil when
disturbed, it pictures nothing of its inhuman solicitude
against all disturbance. Conservatism, it was
called; and certainly it did conserve the devil
admirably. At the South, one race of men were so
basely wielding a greater physical power over another
race of men, as to crush from them the attributes of
self-responsible creatures; Philadelphia, the city of
the North nearest the wrong, made no plea for humanity’s
claims. It went on, this monstrous abrogation of
everything that lends sanctity to man’s relations on
earth, till slaves were beasts, with instincts
annihilated, and masters demons, with instincts
reversed; Philadelphia made no plea for the violated
rhythm of life on either side. Even the Church betrayed
its mission, and practically aided in stamping out from
millions the spirit that related them to the Divine;
still Philadelphia made no plea for God’s love in his
humanity. Utterly insensible to the most piercing
appeals that man can make to man, she loved her
hardness, clung to it; and if, new and then, a voice
from the North blew down, warningly as a trumpet, the
great city turned sluggishly in her bed of spiritual and
political torpor, and cried: Let be, let be! a little
more slumber! a little more folding of the hands to my
moral death-sleep!
This souring of faith, this half-paralysis of the
heart’s beating, this blurring of the intuitions that
make manhood possible, were what my father found here in
that year of our Lord’s grace, 1836. It will be
worth while to watch him move into the fight and bear
his part in its thickest, just to learn how largely
history lays her humanitarian advances on a few willing
souls.
The means which lay readiest to his use for rousing the
dormant spirit of the city was his social position.
And yet how hard, one would think, it must have been to
make this sacrifice. He came accredited by all
[Page 726]
the claims of finished culture, a man consecrated to the
scholar’s life.* Then, with the
sensitiveness that springs from intellectual breeding,
one will look to see him shrink from conflict with the
callous condition of feeling around him. The
glamour of book-lore will spread over it, and hide it
from his sight. He has a noble enough mission, at
all events: to raise the standard of educational culture
in a city that hardly knows the meaning of the term; and
if any glimpse should come to him of the lethargic
inhumanity around him, he can afford to let it pass as a
glimpse—his look being fixed on the sacred heights which
the scholar’s feet must tread.
Ah, how his course, so different, proves to us that the
true scholar is always a scholar of truth. No
matter what element of the public sentiment he met—-the
listlessness of pampered wealth; the brutal prejudice of
some voting savage; the refined sneer of lettered
dilettanteism; the purposed aversion of trade or pulpit
fearing disturbed markets or pews;—he beat lustily and
incessantly at all the parts of the iron image of wrong
sitting stolidly here with close-shut eyes. No
matter when it was, on holiday or working-day or
Sabbath; at home and abroad; in the parlor, the street,
the counting-room; in his school and in the Church;—he
bore down on this apathy and its brood of scorns like a
west wind that sweeps through a city dying under weight
of miasma. And the wind might as well cease
blowing yet not cease to be wind, as my father’s
influence stop and himself live. It scattered the
good seed everywhere. How often have I heard him
say, “I know nothing of what the harvest will be; I am
responsible only for the sowing.” And bravely went
the sowing on, with the broadcast largesse of love.
There was no breeze of talk that did not carry the
seeds;— to the wayside, for from those that even chance
upon the truth the fowls of the air cannot take it all;
to thin soil and among thorns, for no heart so feeble or
choked that will not find in a single day’s growth of
truth germination for eternity; to stony places, for no
cranny in the rocks that can hold a seed but can be a
home for riving roots;—“And other fell on good ground
and did bring forth fruit.”
Thus it was primarily to rouse those of his own class
that he labored, to gall them into seeing (though they
should turn again and rend him) that moral supineness is
moral decay, that the soul shrivels into nothingness
when wrong is acquiesced in, as surely as it is torn and
scattered by the furies let loose within it, when wrong
is done. But just there lay the difficulty and
pain of his mission: that, from his acknowledged
standing in the literary world, and as a leader in the
interests of higher education, his path brought him into
contact mainly with the cultured, and it was among these
---------------
* All that I here write of my father, I write equally
of his co-laborer in the same sphere of work - Rev.
W. H. Furness; and it it is true of others whom I
did not know, then to their memory also I bear this
record of the two whose labors and characters it has
been the deepest privilege of my life to know so well.
[Page 727]
that the pro-slavery spirit ruled with its bitterest
stringency. Not cultured: let us unsay the word;
rather, with the gloss and hard polish which reading and
wealth and the finer appointments of living can throw
over spiritual arrest or decay. Culture is a holy
word, and dare he used of intellectual advance only when
the moral sympathies have kept equal step. It
includes something beyond an amateur sentiment in favor
of what we favor. If it does not open the ear to
every cry of humanity, struggling up or slipping back,
it is no culture properly so called, but a sham, a mask
of wax, a varnish with cruel glitter; and what a double
wrath will be poured on him who cracks the wax and the
varnish, not only because of the rude awakening, but
because the crack shows the sham.
It is impossible for us now to realize what revenge
this class dealt to my father for twenty-five years.
Consider their power of revenge. They could not
force a loss of property or of life, it is true; they
made no open assault in the street; their ‘delicacy’
held itself above common vituperation. But they
wielded a greater power than all these over a man whose
every accomplishment made him their equal, and they used
it without stint. They doomed him to the slow
martyrdom of social scorn. They shut their doors
against him. They elbowed him from every position
to which he had a wish or a right, except public
respect, and they could not elbow him from that unless
they pushed his character from its poise. They cut
him off from every friendly regard which would else have
been devotedly his, on that level of educated life, and
limited him to ‘solitary confinement’ within himself.
They compelled him to walk as if under a ban or an
anathema. Had he been a leper in Syrian deserts,
or a disciple of Jesus among Pharisees, he could not
have been more utterly banished from the region of homes
and self-constituted piety. They showered
ineffable contempt upon him in every way consistent with
their littleness and—refinement. Slight,
sneer, insult, all the myriad indignities that only
‘good society’ can devise, these were what my father
received in return for his love and his work in love.
[Page 728]
South either to an amicable or a hostile settlement of
the question. Which, he did not ask or care.
The duty of the present could not be mis-read; it was
written in the vote.
With these views, he gave much time and work to
organizing in this State, “ The National Liberty Party,’
’ in 1840, and to securing from Pennsylvania some of
the seven thousand votes that were cast for John G.
Birney in that year throughout the Union. By the time
another election came, the party had swelled its numbers
to seventy thousand. To contribute his share towards
this success, tract after tract, address after address,
were written and sent broadcast; meetings were convened,
committees formed, resolutions framed, speeches made,
petitions and remonstrances sent, public action
fearlessly sifted and criticised; in short, because he
held a steady faith in men’s humane promptings when
ultimately reached, he ‘cried aloud ’ to them by every
access, and ‘spared not’ to call them from their
timidity and time-serving to manly utterance through the
ballot—box.
Of such appeals, his address of the “ Liberty Party of
Pennsylvania, to the people of the State,” issued in
1844, may stand as a sample. It is a vivid portrayal of
the slave power’s insidious encroachments, and of its
monopolized guidance of the Government. It gathers up
the national statistics into groups, shows how new
meaning is reflected from them thus related, that all
unite to illustrate the single fact of the South’s
steady increase of power, her tightening grasp about the
throat of government, and her buffets of threat to the
North when a weedling palm failed to palsy fast enough. It warns northern voters of the undertow that is drawing
them, and adjures them, by every consideration of
political common sense, not to cast their ballots for
either of the pro-slavery candidates presented. The
conclusion of this address is as follows:
OUR OBJECT.
"And now,
fellow-citizens, you may ask, what is our object in thus
exhibiting to you the alarming influence of the slave
power? Do we wish to excite in your bosoms
feelings of hatred against citizens of a common country?
Do we wish to array the Free states against the Slave
states in hostile strife? No, fellow-citizens.
But we wish to show you that, while the slave states are
inferior to us in free population, having not even one
half of ours; inferior in morals, being the region of
bowie knives and duels of assassinations and lynch law;
inferior in mental attainments, having not one-fourth of
the number that can read and write; inferior in
intelligence, having not one-fifth of the number of
literary and scientific periodicals; inferior in the
products of agriculture and manufactures, of mines, of
fisheries, and of the forest; inferior, in short, in
everything that constitutes the wealth, the honor, the
dignity, the stability, the happiness, the true
greatness of a nation, - it is wrong, it is unjust, it
is absurd, that they should have an influence in all the
departments of government so entirely disproportionate
to our own. We would arouse you to your own true
interests. We would have you, like men, firmly
resolved to maintain your own rights. We would
have you say to the South, - if you choose to hug to
your bosom that system which is continually injuring and
impoverishing you; that system which reduces two
millions and a half of native Americans in your midst to
the most
[Page 729]
abject condition of ignorance and vice, withholding from
them the very key of knowledge; that system which is at
war with every principle of justice, every feeling of
humanity; that system which makes man the property of
man, and perpetuates that relation from one generation
to another; that system which tramples, continually,
upon a majority of
the commandments of the Decalogue; that system which
could not live a day if it did not give one party
supreme control over the persons, the health, the
liberty, the happiness, the marriage relations, the
parental authority and filial obligations of the
other;—if you choose to cling to such a system, cling to
it; but you shall not cross our line; you shall
not bring that foul thing here. We know, and we
here repeat it for the thousandth time to meet, for the
thousandth time, the calumnies of our enemies, that
while we may present to you every consideration of duty,
we have no right, as well as no power, to alter your
State laws. But remember, that slavery is the mere
creature of local or statute law, and cannot exist out
of the region where such law has force. ‘It is so
odious,’ says Lord Mansfield, ‘that
nothing can he suffered to support it but positive law.’
“We would, therefore, say to you again, in the strength
of that Constitution under which we live, and which no
where countenances slavery, you shall not bring that
foul thing here. You shall not force the corrupted
and corrupting blood of that system into every vein and
artery of our body politic. You shall not have the
controlling power in all the departments of our
government at home and abroad. You shall not so
negotiate with foreign powers, as to open markets for
the products of slave labor alone. You shall not
so manage things at home, as every few years to bring
bankruptcy upon our country. You shall not, in the
apportionment of public moneys, have what you call your
‘property’ represented, and thus get that which, by no
right, belongs to you. You shall not have the
power to bring your slaves upon our free soil, and take
them away at pleasure;
nor to reclaim them, when they, panting for liberty,
have been able to escape your grasp; for we would have
it said of us, as the eloquent Curran said of Britain,
the moment the slave touches our soil, ‘The ground on
which he stands is holy, and consecrated to the Genius
of UNIVERSAL EMANCIPATION.’
"Thus, fellow-citizens, we come to the great object
of the Liberty Party: ABSOLUTE AND UNQUALIFIED
DIVORCE OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT FORM ALL CONNECTION
WITH SLAVERY. We would employ every
constitutional means to eradicate it from our entire
country, because it would be for the highest welfare of
our entire country. We would have liberty
established in the District, and in all the Territories.
* * We
would have liberty of speech and of the press, which the
Constitution guarantees to us. We would have the
right of petition most sacredly regarded. We would
secure to every man what the Constitution secures, 'The
right of trial by jury.' We would do what we can
for the encouragement and improvement of the colored
race, and restore to them that inestimable right of
which they have been so meanly, as well as unjustly,
deprived, the RIGHT OF SUFFRAGE. We would look to
the best interests of the contry, and the whole
country, and not legislate for the good of an Oligarchy,
the most arrogant that ever lorded it over an insulted
people. We would have our commercial treaties with
foreign nations regard the interests of the Free states.
We would provide safe, adequate, and permanent markets
for the produce of free labor. And, when
reproached with slavery, we would be able to say to the
world, with an open front and a clear conscience, our
General Government has nothing to do with it, either to
promote, to sustain, to defend, to sanction, or to
approve.
Thus fellow-citizens, you see our objects. You
may now ask, by what means we hope to attain them.
We answer, by POLITICAL ACTION. What is political
action? It is acting in a manner appropriate to
those objects which we wish to secure through the agency
of the different departments of Government
* *
The only way in which we can act constitutionally,
is to go to the ballot box, and there, silently and
unostenta-
[Page 730]
tiously, deposit a vote for such men as will do what
they can to carry out those principles which we have so
much at heart.
"Come, then, men of Pennsylvania, come and join us in
this good work. Join us, to use such moral means
as to connect public sentiment throughout the region
where slavery exists, and to impress upon the people of
the Free states a manly sense of their own rights.
Join us, to place "just men" in all our public offices;
men whose example a whole people may safely imitate.
Join us to free our General Government from the
ignominious reproach of slavery; to restore to our
country those principles which our fathers so labored to
establish; and to hand these principles down afresh to
successive generations. It is the cause of truth,
of humanity, and of God, to which we invite your aid.
It is a cause of which you never need be ashamed.
Living, you may be thankful, and dying, you may be
thankful, for having labored in it. We have, as
co-laborers with us, the noblest allies that man can
wish. Within, we have the deepest convictions of
conscience, the clearest deductions of reason; and, all
over the world wherever man is found, the first, the
most ardent longings of the human soul. Without,
we have the happiness of nearly three millions of the
human race; the honor, as well as the best interests of
our whole country; and the universal consent of all good
men whose moral vision is not obscured by the mist of a
low, misguided selfishness; while we see to hear, as it
were, the voices of the great and the good, the patriot
and the philanthropist, of a great generation, calling
to us and cheering us on. But, above all these,
and beyond all these, we have with us the highest
attributes of God, Justice and Mercy. With such
allies, and in such a cause, who can doubt on which side
the victory will ultimately rest.
"May He who guides the destines of nations, and without
whose aid 'they labor in vain that build,' so incline
your hearts to exert your whole influence to place in
all our public offices just and good men, that our
country may be preserved, her best interests advanced,
and her institutions, free in reality as in name, handed
down to the latest posterity."
Is not the love of God and man ingrained in every line of this
writing? Yet let us see how it was received by the most
Christian (?) body in this city.
I need hardly say that my father's mind had been
largely impressed, from earliest manhood, with the highest subject
human thought can touch. His library records his wide
religious reading; but he could not see an honest path towards the
profession of any definite views till 1836. The change wrought
in him then, can best be gathered from his own simple words (under
date, 1842) written in a fly-leaf of "The Unitarian Miscellany:"
"Though I humbly trust that God made my trials in 1836 the means of
bringing me to true repentance, yet I have kept these books as
monuments of what I once was, and to remind me how grateful I should
be to Him for having snatched me as a 'brand from the burning.' "
Such a faith as this, born of the spiritual travail of years, what a
life it always has for the heart that forms it! It tells not
of a persuasion, but of a conviction; a disproof of skepticism
through the gathered forces of the soul; a struggle, through epochs
of doubt and dismay, into an attitude of positive vital faith.
Its process is the only one that gives real right to ultimate peace.
In comparison with the method and measure of such a conviction, what
matters its specific form? Self-truth is the point, - the fact
for starting, the
[Page 731]
line for guiding; and as for result, this lonely and
solemn rally on the deepest within us, as it is
continuously unfolded, must lead to a glad and solemn
union with the Highest without us. Who can know
unfailing inward energy except through this new birth?
It proved an ever-fresh spring of vigor to my father,
and because of it he was chosen, in 1839, president of
"The Philadelphia Bible Society." What changes
were wrought in the policy of the Society, what numerous
plans were devised and executed for multiplying its
operations, how it was made a cordial alliance of all
denominations, will presently appear. This is now
to be said: that, after filling his office for five
years, he found that his Anti-slavery testimony had
endangered in the managers a bitterness that would seize
the address of 1844 for pretext, and make retaliation in
his sacrifice. Thankful, for the thousandth time,
to be a sacrifice for the cause he loved, he sent in his
resignation in a letter full of Christian kindness and
sorrow. A short extract will show its tone:
"One whose
great heart wishes the best for humanity calls to us from the West:
'When your Society propose to put a Bible into every family, and yet
omit all reference to the slaves; and when, giving an account of the
destitution of th eland, they make no mention of two and a half
millions of people perishing in our midst without the Scriptures can
we help feeling that something is dreadfully wrong?' This,
brethren, is a most solemn question. It is a question which I
verily believe the American Bible Society, so far as they may have
yielded, directly or indirectly, openly or silently, to a corrupt
public sentiment on this subject, will have to answer at the
bar of Him who has declared, that, 'If ye have respect to persons,
ye commit sin;' and that 'Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the
least of these, ye did it not to me.' The spirit of
Christianity is a spirit of universal love and philanthropy.
She looks down with pity, and, if she could, she would look with
scorn upon all the petty distinctions that exist among men.
She casts her benignant eye abroad over the earth, and, wherever she
sees man, she sees him as man, as a being made in the image
of God, whether an Indian, an African, or a Caucasian sun may shine
upon him. She stoops from heaven to raise the fallen, to bind
up the broken-hearted, to release the oppressed, to give
liberty to the captive, and to break the fetters of those that are
bound. She is marching onward with accelerated step, and,
wherever she leaves the true impress of her heavenly influence, the
moral wilderness is changed into the garden of the Lord. May
it never be ours to do what may seem to be even the slightest
obstacle to her universal away. *
*
"But I have already written more than I intended.
In bringing this communication to a close, allow me to express to
you individually, and as a Board, my most sincere Christian
attachment. Whatever course any members may have taken in
relation to this matter, I must believe that they have acted from
what has seemed to them a sense of duty. Far be it from me to
impeach their motives. Time, the great test of truth, may show
them their course in a very different light from that in which they
now view it. I may, as a Christian, lament that their views of
duty are not more in unison with my own. I may, as a man, feel
heart-sickened at the diseased, the deplorably diseased state of the
public mind, in relation to two and a half millions of my fellow-en
in bondage. I may, as a citizen of a Free state, blush at the
humiliating fact, that not only the tyranny but the ubiquity of the
slave power is everywhere so manifest; that it has insinuated itself
into our free domain to such a degree that there seems to be as much
mental Slavery in the Free states, as there is personal in the Slave
states. I may feel all this, but I must not impeach the
motives by which others have been governed."
[Page 732]
There were
twenty-one managers present at the reading of this letter, and, at
its conclusion, a noble friend of the slave moved that the
resignation be not accepted; the motion was lost by a vote of
fourteen against seven. It was then moved that it be accepted
'with regret:' this was carried by the same vote! But 'with
regret' was not an empty form for easing this action to its
recipient; how much it meant is seen in the resolution that was
added by unanimous acceptance: "Rexolved, - That this Board
are mainly indebted to Professor C. C. Cleveland for the
prominent and influential position it has attained in the regards of
this Christian community, and that they bear an earnest testimony to
the sound judgment and unwearied zeal which have ever characterized
the discharge of his duties in his responsible office." Let
this tribute, coming from the bitterest personal opposition that
ever man encountered, measure thework that extorted it.
Looking at it, it will be difficult for the reader to believe that a
sacrifice was made of the man to whom it refers by a representative
Christian body, and merely to sate for a time the inhuman
slave-greed; yet it is only one fact out of many that might be
adduced, and I have brought it forward because it is, in my father's
words, "a fair exponent of the position of the Christian Church at
that time upon the subject of Slavery." Henceford, be ceased
not to rain blows, not only at his own (the Presbyterian)
denomination, but at all the organized expressions of Christian
purpose, - the Sunday-School Union, the Tract Society, etc.
While working thus by voice and pen, he was incessantly
busy in personal rescue of the slave. Especially was this the
case when it became the duty of every lover of his kind defy the
Fugitive Slave Law. How eagerly he then sprang to aid the
escape of those against whom a law of the land impotently tried to
bar the law of our common humanity! During the years that
followed the passage of this infamous bill, the position he had
attained here was of particular service. Recognized as one,
who, being a sort of standing sacrifice, might as well continue to
battle in the front; trusted implicitly even by his bitterest
foes; with such a broad philanthropy to back his appeals; pushing
straight into every breach where work was needed; blind to
everything but his one light of moral instinct; - he became an organ
for the charities of those whose softer natures longingly whispered
the cry, but could not do the cut and thrust work, of deliverance.
Dr. Furness held the same position, and others who, like him,
refused to be enrolled in the 'Underground Committee,' or in any
definite Anti-Slavery organization. These men knew that they
were of greater service to the cause by being its body-guard, by
standing between it and teh public by making the appeals and taking
the blows, and by affording access, pecuniary and other, of each to
each.
Thus the times moved on - growing hotter, more
difficult and dangerous but always working these two results;
redubling the labors of this noble.
[Page 733]
band, and shaking the city from lethargy into ferment.
Men were compelled to take sides, and but one result
could fellow, (the result which always follows when
human nature is stung and quickened to find its highest
instincts,) the Party of Right steadily moved to
triumph.
_______________
For a lesson
to us in courage, it is worth while to ask, how these Apostles of
Freedom stood the terrible strain put upon them for so many years.
I can answer for the two of whom I write, and do not doubt that the
answer is true of the rest: This self-forgetfulness was made
easy by a love that filled and overfilled all their moral energies -
the simple love of man, as God's highest creation, and of his
natural rights, as God's best gift. Their work was not a mere
result of will, not an outcome of faculty, not an unsupported
impulse of heart. It was character living itself out, an
utterance of its entire unity, something drawn from the solemn
depths of those life-convictions which all the personal and
impersonal powers of a man, aglow and welded, unite in producing.
Hence, their work was not apart from them, even so far as to be
called ahead of them; nor parallel with them; it was one with them
by a necessary spiritual inclusion. Will and Duty ceased to be
separate powers; they were transfused through the whole breadth of
their human sympathies, adding to their warmth a fixity of purpose
that bore them without a falter, through thirty years of such bitter
obloquy, as, in these latter days, only the early Anti-Slavery
disciples have had to endure. These men never said, in
reference to the Anti-slavery cause, I ought or I
will, because they never needed to say them. The sun
shines without them, and life expands without them; and here were
souls as unconsciously beneficent as the one, as spontaneous in
growth and shaping as the other. Theirs was not a force that
moved mechanically in right lines, with limited objects before it.
It did, indeed, sweep with arrowy swiftness of assail on every point
that offered; but when I remember that it more often pleaded than
stormed, that it penetrated into every secret recess that mercy
casually opened, and gently stirred into fuller life those roots of
human feeling that can be numbed by apathy but not killed even by
hate, I know that it was persuasive, diffusive, inbreathing force,
an influence vital in others because an effluence vitalized from
themselves.
So they stood, self-consecrated, enveloped by the love
of God, permeated by the love of man - twin Perfect Loves that cast
out all dream of fear. And so they walked, calm as if a
thousand stabs of personal insult never brought them one of personal
pain, passing through all as if nothing but the serenest skies were
above them. And, as I have said, right there is one
explanation of the anomaly; there were the serenest skies
above them - heaven's love perpetually shining. Why should it
not shine? all the powers of the men were dedicated to
rescuing the image of God on this earth, -
[Page 734]
not man as he suffered physically, but the moral
instinct threatened with annihilation. It was
sacred to them, this soul so sacred to redeeming love,
but too brutalized to find its way to it. Nor
merely the slave. Their love, but too brutalized
to find its way to it. Nor merely the slave.
Their love embraced, with yet more pitying fervor, the
master compelling his spiritual nature into death, and
the northern apologist letting his die; and this
over-mastering love of saving spiritual integrity, was
one power that made them and and heart-east hold
unfailing friends through the obloquy of those days; the
other must be found in the fact mentioned, - that
neither resolve nor impulse was their spur, but personal
character moving from its depths.
From such a motive-power as this can come no parade of
results. The nature that works, proceeds from the
necessary laws and forces of its being, and is as simple
and unconscious as any other natural law or force.
Hence there are no startling epochs to record in my
father's history, no supreme efforts; in filling the
measure of daily opportunity lay his chief work. I
cannot measure it by our ten fingers' counting. I
can only show a life unfolding, and, by the essential
laws of its growth, embracing the noblest cause of its
time. But if action means vivifying public
sentiment decaying under insidious poison; if it
includes the doing of this amid a storm of odium that
would quickly have shattered any soul irresolute for an
instant; if it means incessant toil quietly performed,
vast sums collected and disbursed, time sacrificed,
strength spent; if it means holding up a great iniquity
to loathing by a powerful pen, and nailing moral
cowardice where-ever it showed; if it be risking
livelihood by introducing the cause of the slave into
every literary work, and by mingling the school-culture
of fifty future mothers, year by year, with hatred of
the sin; if it means one's life in one's hand,
friendships yielded, society defied, and position in it
cheerfully renounced; above all, if action means a
wealth of goodness overliving all scorns, compelling
respect from a community rebuked, fellowship from a
Church charged with ungodliness, and acknowledgement of
unstained repute from a public eager to blacken with
scandal; if to do thus, and bear thus, and live thus, is
action, then my father did act to the full purpose of
life in the struggle that freed the slave.
[Page 735]
WILLIAM WHIPPER.
The locality of Columbia, where Mr. Whipper
resided for many years, was, as is well-known, a place
of much note as a station on the Underground Rail Road.
The firm of Smith and Whipper (lumber
merchants), was likewise well-known throughout a wide
range of country. Who, indeed, amongst those
familiar with the history of public matters connected
with the colored people of this country, has not heard
of William Whipper? For the last
thirty years, as an able business man, it has been very
generally admitted, that he hardly had a superior.
Although an unassuming man, deeply engrossed with
business—Anti-slavery papers, conventions, and public
movements having for their aim the elevation of the
colored man, have always commanded Mr. Whipper’s
interest and patronage. In the more important
conventions which have been held amongst the colored
people for the last thirty years, perhaps no other
colored man has been so often called on to draft
resolutions and pre pare addresses, as the modest and
earnest William W'hipper. He has
worked effectively in a quiet way, although not as a
public speaker. He is self made, and well read on
the subject of the reforms of the day. Having been
highly successful in his business, he is now at the age
of seventy, in possession of a handsome fortune; the
reward of long years of assiduous labor. He is
also cashier of the Freedman’s Bank, in Philadelphia.
For the last few years he has resided at New Brunswick,
New Jersey, although his property and business confine
him mainly to his native State, Pennsylvania.
Owing to a late affliction in his family, compelling him
to devote the most of his time thereto, it has been
impossible to obtain from him the material for
completing such a sketch as was desired. Prior to
this affliction, in answer to our request, he furnished
some reminiscences of his labors as conductor of the
Underground Rail Road, and at the same time, promised
other facts relative to his life, but for the reason
assigned, they were not worked up, which is to be
regretted.
| |
|
NEW BRUNSWICK,
N. J., December 4, 1871. |
MR.
WILLIAM STILL,
DEAR SIR:— I
sincerely regret the absence of statistics that would
enable me to furnish you with many events, that would
assist you in describing the operations of the
Underground Rail Road. I never kept any record of
those persons passing through my hands, nor did I ever
anticipate that the history of that perilous period
would ever be written. I can only refer to the
part I took in it from memory, and if I could delineate
the actual facts as they occurred they would savor so
much of egotism that I should feel ashamed to make them
public. I willingly
[Page 736]
refer to a few incidents which you may select and use as
you may think proper.
You are perfectly cognizant of the fact, that after the
decision in York, Pa., of the celebrated Prigg
case, Pennsylvania was regarded as free territory, which
Canada afterwards proved to be, and that the Susquehanna
river was the recognized northern boundary of the
slave-holding empire. The borough of Columbia,
situated on its eastern bank, in the county of
Lancaster, was the great depot where the fugitives from
Virginia and Maryland first landed. The long
bridge connecting Wrightsville with Columbia, was the
only safe outlet by which they could successfully escape
their pursuers. When they had crossed this bridge
they could look back over its broad silvery stream on
its western shore, and say to the slave power:
"Thus far shalt thou come, and no farther."
Previous to that period, the line of fugitive travel was
from Baltimore, by the way of Havre de Grace to
Philadelphia; but the difficulty of safe passage across
the river, at that place caused the route to be changed
to York, Pa., a distance of fifty-eight miles, the fare
being forty dollars, and thence to Columbia, in the dead
hour of the night. My house was at the end of the
bridge, and as I kept the station, I was frequently
called up in the night to take charge of the passengers.
On their arrival they were generally hungry and
penniless. I have received hundreds in this
condition; fed and sheltered from one to seventeen at a
time in a single night. At this point the road
forked; some I sent west by boats, to Pittsburgh, and
others to you in our cars to Philadelphia, and the
incidents of their trials from a portion of the history
you have compiled. In a period of three years from
1847 to 1850, I passed hundreds to the land of freedom,
while others, induced by high wages, and the feeling
that they were safe in Columbia, worked in the lumber
and coal yards of that place. I always persuaded
them to go to Canada, as I had no faith in their being
able to elude the grasp of the slave-hunters.
Indeed, the merchants had the confidence of their
security and desired them to remain; several of my
friends told me that I was injuring the trade of the
place by persuading the laborers to leave. Indeed,
many of the fugitives themselves looked upon me with
jealousy, and expressed their indignation at my efforts
to have them removed from peace and plenty to a land
that was cold and barren, to starve to death.
It was a period of great prosperity in our borough, and
everything passed on favorably and successfully until
the passage of the fugitive slave bill in 1850. At
first the law was derided and condemned by our
liberty-loving citizens, and the fugitives did not fear
its operations because they asserted that they could
protect themselves. This fatal dream was of short
duration. A prominent man, by the name of baker,
was arrested and taken to Philadelphia, and given up by
the commissioner, and afterwards purchased
[Page 737]
by our citizens; another, by the name of Smith,
was shot dead in one of our lumber yards, because he
refused to surrender, and his pursuer permitted to
escape without arrest or trial. This produced not
only a shock, but a crisis in the affairs of our little
borough. It made the stoutest hearts quail before
the unjust sovereignty of the law. The white
citizens fearing the danger of a successful resistance
to the majesty of the law, began to talk of the
insecurity of these exiles. The fugitives
themselves, whose faith and hope had been buoyed up by
the promises held up to them of protection, began to be
apprehensive of danger, and talked of leaving, while
others, more bold, were ready to set the dangers that
surrounded them at defiance, and if necessary, died in
the defence of their freedom and the homes they had
acquired.
At this juncture private meetings were held by the
colored people, and the discussions and resolves bore a
peculiar resemblance in sentiment and expression to the
patriotic outbursts of the American revolution.
Some were in favor, if again attacked, of killing and
slaying all within their reach; of setting their own
houses on fire, and then going and burning the town.
It was the old spirit which animated the Russians at
Moscow, and the blacks of Hayti. At this point my
self-interest mingled with my sense of humanity, and I
felt that I occupied a more responsible position than I
shall ever attain to again. I, therefore,
determined to make the most of it. I exhorted them
to peace and patience under their present difficulties,
and for their own sakes as well as the innocent
sufferers, besought them to leave as early as they
could. If I had advocated a different course I
could have caused the burning of the town. The
result of our meeting produced a calm that lasted only
for a few days, when it was announced, one evening, that
the claimants of a Methodist preacher, by the name of
Dorsey, were in the borough, and that it was
expected that they would attempt to take him that night.
It was about nine-o'clock in the evening when I went to
his house, but was refused admittance, until those
inside ascertained who I was. There were several
men in the house all armed with deadly weapons, awaiting
the approach of the intruders. Had they come the
whole party would have been massacred. I advised
Dorsey to leave, but he very pointedly refused,
saying he had been taken up once before alive, but never
would be again. The men told him to stand his
ground, and they would stand by him and defend him, they
had lived together, and would die together. I told
them that they knew the strength of the pro-slavery
feeling that surrounded them, and that they would be
overpowered, and perhaps many lives lost, which might be
saved by his changing his place of residence. He
said, he had no money, and would rather die with his
family, than be killed on the road. I said, how
much money do you want to start with, and we will send
you more if you need it. Here is one hundred
dollars in gold.
[Page 738]
"That is not enough." "Will two
hundred dollars do?" "Yes." I shall bring it to you
to-morrow. I got the money the next morning, and when I came
with it, he said, he could not leave unless his family was taken
care of. I told him I would furnish his family with provisions
for the next six months. Then he said he had two small houses,
worth four hundred and seventy-five dollars. My reply was that
I will sell them for you, and give the money to your family.
HE then gave me a power of attorney to do so, and attended to all
his affairs. He left the net day being the Sabbath and has
never returned since, although he has lived in the City of Boston
ever since, except about six months in Canada.
I wish to notice this case a little further, as the
only one out of many to which I will refer. About the year
1831 or 1832, Mr. Joseph Purvis, a younger brother of
Robert Purvis, about nineteen or twenty years of age, was
visiting Mr. Stephen Smith of Columbia, and while there the
claimants of Dorsey came and secured him, and had proceeded
about two miles with him on the way to Lancaster. Young
Purvis heard of it, and his natural and instinctive love of
freedom fired up his warm southern blood at the very recital.
He was one of nature's noblemen. Fierce, fiery, and impulsive,
he was as quick to decide as to perform. He demanded an
immediate rescue. Though he was advised of the danger of such
an attempt, his spirit and determination made him invincible.
He proceeded to a place where some colored men were working.
With a firm and determined look, and a herculean shout, he called
out to them, "To arms, to arms! boys, we must rescue this man;
I shall lead if you will follow." "We will," was the immediate
response. And they went and overtook them, and dispersed his
claimants. They brought Dorsey back in triumph to
Columbia.
He then gave Dorsey his pistol,
with the injunction that he should use it and die in defence of his
liberty rather than again be taken into bondage. He promised
he would. I found him with his pistol on his table, the night
I called on him, and I have every reason to believe that the promise
gave to Mr. Purvis was one of the chief causes of his
obstinacy. The lesson he had taught him had not only become
incorporated in his nature, but had become a part of his religion.
The history of this brave and noble effort of young
Purvis, in rescuing a fellow-being from the jaws of Slavery has
been handed down, in Columbia,, to a generation that was born since
that event has transpired. HE always exhibited the same
devotion and manly daring in the cause of the flying bondman that
inspired his youthful ardor in behalf of freedom. The youngest
of a family distinguished for their devotion to freedom, he was
without superiors in the trying hour of battle. Like John
Brown, he often discarded theories, but was eminently practical.
He has passed to another sphere. Peace to his ashes! I
honor his name as a hero, and friend of man. I loved him for
the noble characteristics of his nature, and above all for his
[Page 739]
noble daring in defense of the right. As a friend
I admired him, and owe his memory this tribute to
departed worth.
At this point a conscientious regard for truth dictates
that I should state that my disposition to make a
sacrifice for the removal of Dorsey and some other
leading spirits was aided by my own desire for
self-preservation.
I knew that it had been
asserted, far down in the slave region, that Smith &
Whipper, the negro lumber merchants, were engaged in
secreting fugitive slaves. And on two occasions
attempts had been made to set fire to their yard for the
purpose of punishing them for such illegal acts.
And I felt that if a collision took place, we should not
only be made to suffer the penalty, but the most
valuable property in the village be destroyed, besides a
prodigal waste of human life be the consequence. I
such an event I felt that I should not only lose all I
had ever earned, but peril the hopes and property of
others, so that I would have freely given one thousand
dollars to have been insured against the consequences of
such a riot. I then borrowed fourteen hundred
dollars on my own individual account, and assisted many
others to go to a land where the virgin soil was not
polluted by the foot-prints of a slave.
The colored population of the Borough of Columbia, in
1850, was nine hundred and forty-three, about one-fifth
the whole population, and in five years they were
reduced to four hundred and eighty-seven by emigration
to Canada.
In the summer of 1853, I visited Canada for the purpose
of ascertaining the actual condition of many of those I
had assisted in reaching a land of freedom; and I was
much gratified to find them contented, prosperous, and
happy. I was induced by the prospects of the new
emigrants to purchased lands on the Sydenham River, with
the intention of making it may future home.
In the spring of 1861, when I was preparing to leave,
the war broke out, and with its progress I began to
realize the prospect of a new civilization, and,
therefore, concluded to remain and share the fortunes of
my hitherto ill-fated country.
I will say in conclusion that it would have been
fortunate for us if Columbia, being a port of entry for
flying fugitives, had been also the seat of great
capitalists and freedom loving inhabitants; but such was
not the case. There was but little Anti-slavery
sentiment among the whites, yet there were many strong
and valiant friends among them who contributed freely;
the colored population were too poor to render much aid,
except it feeding and secreting strangers. I was
doing a prosperous business at that time and felt it my
duty to contribute liberally out of my earnings.
Much as I loved Anti-slavery meetings I did not feel
that I could afford to attend them, as my immediate duty
was to the flying fugitive.
Now, my friend, I have extended this letter far beyond
the limits in-
[Page 740]
tended, not with the expectation that it will be
published, but for your own private use to select any
matter that you might desire to use in your history.
I have to regret that I am compelled to refer so often
to my own exertions.
I know that I speak within bounds when I say that
directly and indirectly from 1847 to 1860, I have
contributed from my earnings one thousand dollars
annually, and for the five years during the war a like
amount to put down the rebellion.
Now the slaves are emancipated, and we are all
enfranchised, after struggling for existence, freedom
and manhood—I feel thankful for having had the glorious
privilege of laboring with others for the redemption of
my race from oppression and thraldom; and I would prefer
to-day to be penniless in the streets, rather than to
have withheld a single hour’s labor or a dollar from the
sacred cause of liberty, justice, and humanity.
I remain yours in the sacred cause of liberty and
equality,
<
CLICK
HERE to go BACK to PAGES 680 to 719 >
<
CLICK HERE to GO to PAGES 740 to 755 >.. |
