tation, and, after all, leaving more wonder at the fewness than at the greatness of her mis On the whole, the " Martyr Age" will be read with deep interest by the intellectual portion of the American people, of all classes and in all sections of the Union. And taken in conjunction with the wonderful benefits, pecuniary and social, which are already seen to have followed in the train of Emancipation in the British West India Islands, we cannot but hope that this publication will give a new turn to the public mind in our country, and that ere long, the GREAT AMERICAN QUESTION will be taken up on its merits by those who have the power to settle it, according to the dictates of truth and mercy, and in a way to please God and bless mankind. New York, February, 1839. J. L. THE M ARTYR AGE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. FROM THE LONDON AND WESTMINSTER REVIEW FOR DEC. 1838. ART. I.-1. Right and Wrong in Boston in Boston, U. S.: Isaac Knapp. and those limited and remote. Great honour is due to the first movers in the anti-slavery cause in every land: but those of European countries may take rank with the philan thropists of America who may espouse the cause of the aborigines: while the pri mary abolitionists of the United States have encountered, with steady purpose, such opposition as might here await assailants of the whole set of aristocratic institutions at once, THERE is a remarkable set of people now living and vigorously acting in the world, with a consonance of will and understanding which has perhaps never been witnessed from the throne to pauper apprenticeship. among so large a number of individuals of such diversified powers, habits, opinions, tastes and circumstances. The body comprehends men and women of every shade of colour, of every degree of education, of every variety of religious opinion, of every gradation of rank, bound together by no vow, no pledge, no stipulation but of each preserving his individual liberty; and yet they act as if they were of one heart and of one soul. Such union could be secured by no principle of worldly interest; nor, for a term of years, by the most stringent fana. ticism. A well-grounded faith, directed towards a noble object, is the only principle which can account for such a spectacle as the world is now waking up to contemplate in the abolitionists of the United States. Before we fix our attention on the history of the body, it may be remarked that it is a totally different thing to be an abolitionist on a soil actually trodden by slaves, and in a far-off country, where opinion is already on the side of emancipation, or ready to be converted; where only a frac tion of society, instead of the whole, has to be convicted of guilt; and where no interests are put in jeopardy but pecuniary ones, Slavery is as thoroughly interwoven with American institutions-ramifies as extensively through American society, as the aris tocratic spirit pervades Great Britain. The fate of Reformers whose lives are devoted to making war upon either the one or the other must be remarkable. We are about to exhibit a brief sketch of the struggle of the American abolitionists from the dawn of their day to the present hour, avoiding to dwell on the institution with which they are at war, both because the question of slavery is doubtless settled in the minds of all our readers, and because our contemplation is of a body of persons who are living by faith, and not of a party of Reformers contending against a particular social abuse. Our sketch must be faint, partial, and imperfect. The short life of American abolitionism is so crowded with events and achievements, that the selection of a few is all that can be attempted. Many names deserving of honour will be omitted; and many will receive less than their due and in the case of persons who are so devoted to others as to have no thoughts to bestow on themselves, no information to proffer regarding their own lives, it is scarcely possible for their describers to before the “ leap from its pedestal, and to hasten the re- less atmosphere-nothing, subtracted from surrection of the dead. It is pretended that infinite fulness. I am retarding the cause of emancipation stroying them, the mighty difficulty still reShould you succeed in deby the coarseness of my invective, and the mains." precipitancy of my measures. As a noble woman has since said, The charge in defence of the individuality of action of is not true. On this question my influence, the leaders of the cause, humble as it is, is felt at this moment to a of leaders.' In the contest of morals with "It is idle to talk considerable extent, and shall be felt in abuses, men are but types of principles. coming years-not perniciously, but bene- Does any one seriously believe that if Mr. ficially; not as a curse, but as a blessing; Garrison should take an appealing, protestand posterity will bear testimony that I was ing, backward step, abolitionists would fall right. I desire to thank God that he en-back with him?" The "mighty difficulty" ables me to disregard the fear of man, and would still remain,-and remain as surely to speak his truth in its simplicity and doomed as ever, were Garrison to turn repower." The time was ripe for Garrison's exer. creant or die. tions. A pamphlet appeared in the autumn of 1829, at Boston, from the pen of a man of colour, named Walker, which alarmed society not a little. It was an appeal to his coloured brethren, to drown their injuries in the blood of their oppressors. Its language is perfectly appalling. It ran through seve. ral editions, though no bookseller would pub-in mystery, as are most slave insurrections, lish it. Not long after, the author was found both from policy on the part of the masters, murdered near his own door; but whether and from the whites being too impatient to he had been assassinated for his book, or wait the regular course of justice, and sacrihad been fatally wounded in a fray, is not ficing their foes as they could catch them. known. If the slave-owners could but have In the present case many Negroes were seen it, Garrison was this man's antagonist, slaughtered, with every refinement of cruelnot his coadjutor. Garrison is as strenuous ty, on the roads, or in their masters' yards, a "peace-man as any broad-brimmed without appeal to judge, jury, or evidence. Friend in Philadelphia; and this fact, in This kind of management precludes any clear conjunction with his unlimited influence over knowledge of the causes of the insurrection; the Negro population, is the chief reason but it is now supposed near the spot to have why no blood has been shed,-why no in- been occasioned by the fanaticism of a madsurrectionary movement has taken place in man, a Negro, who assured the blacks who the United States, from the time when his came to him for religious sympathy that they voice began to be heard over the broad land were to run the course of the ancient Jews till now. Every evil, however, which hap-slaying and sparing not. pened, every shiver of the master, every this rising because it is the last on the part We mention growl of the slave, was henceforth to be of the people of colour. Free or enslaved, charged upon Garrison. Southern States offered rewards for the ap. succeeding violences have been perpetrated Some of the they have since been peaceable; while all prehension of any person who might be de- by "gentlemen of property and standing." tected circulating the "Liberator," or "Walk-It was natural that those who had suffered er's Appeal;" and one legislature demanded by this slaughter or its consequences, those of the Governor of Massachusetts that Gar- who mourned large families of relations thus rison should be delivered up to them. fate of Walker was before his eyes; and it feared the amendment of the system as a The cut off, those who for the sake of their crops came to his ears, that gentlemen in stage result of this exhibition of its tendencies, coaches said that it was everywhere thought those who for the sake of their children that "he would not be permitted to live long;" nightly trembled in their beds, should cast that he "would be taken away, and no one about for an object on whom to vent their be the wiser for it." His answer, on this painful feelings; and Garrison was that oband many subsequent occasions, was the ject. The imputation of the insurrection to same in spirit. "Will you aim at no higher him was too absurd to be long sustained; victims than Arthur Tappan, Geo. Thomp. but those who could not urge this against him son, and W. L. Garrison? And who and still remonstrated against his what are they? Three drops from a bound- the harmony and peace of society." "Disless ocean-three rays from a noon day sun turbing the slave-holders!" replied he. "I disturbing -three particles of dust floating in a limit. am sorry to disturb anybody. But the slave 66 |