11th mo., 30, 1883.
I need not say how gladly I would be with you at the
semi-centennial of the American Anti-slavery Society. I am, I regret to
say, quite unable to gratify this wish, and can only represent myself by
a letter.
Looking back over the long years of half a century, I can scarcely
realize the conditions under which the convention of 1833 assembled.
Slavery was predominant. Like Apollyon in Pilgrim's Progress, it
"straddled over the whole breadth of the way." Church and state, press
and pulpit, business interests, literature, and fashion were prostrate
at its feet. Our convention, with few exceptions, was composed of men
without influence or position, poor and little known, strong only in
their convictions and faith in the justice of their cause. To onlookers
our endeavor to undo the evil work of two centuries and convert a nation
to the "great renunciation" involved in emancipation must have seemed
absurd in the last degree. Our voices in such an atmosphere found no
echo. We could look for no response but laughs of derision or the
missiles of a mob.
But we felt that we had the strength of truth on our side; we were
right, and all the world about us was wrong. We had faith, hope, and
enthusiasm, and did our work, nothing doubting, amidst a generation who
first despised and then feared and hated us. For myself I have never
ceased to be grateful to the Divine Providence for the privilege of
taking a part in that work.
And now for more than twenty years we have had a free country. No
slave treads its soil. The anticipated dangerous consequences of
complete emancipation have not been felt. I he emancipated class, as a
whole, have done wisely and well under circumstances of peculiar
difficulty. The masters have learned that cotton can be raised better by
free than by slave labor, and nobody now wishes a return to
slave-holding. Sectional prejudices are subsiding, the bitterness of the
civil war is slowly passing away. We are beginning to feel that we are
one people, with no really clashing interests, and none more truly
rejoice in the growing prosperity of the South than the old
abolitionists, who hated slavery as a curse to the master as well as to
the slave.
In view of this commemorative semi-centennial occasion, many
thoughts crowd upon me; memory recalls vanished faces and voices long
hushed. Of those who acted with me in the convention fifty years ago
nearly all have passed into another state of being. We who remain must
soon follow; we have seen the fulfilment of our desire; we have outlived
scorn and persecution; the lengthening shadows invite us to rest. If, in
looking back, we feel that we sometimes erred through impatient zeal in
our contest with a great wrong, we have the satisfaction of knowing that
we were influenced by no merely selfish considerations. The low light of
our setting sun shines over a free, united people, and our last prayer
shall be for their peace, prosperity, and happiness.
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