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[[double horiz line across 6 columns]] 186 THE LIBERATOR. NOVEMBER 23. [[double horiz line across 6 columns]] [[start column 1]] From the Boston Evening Telegraph. BEFORE AND AFTER ELECTION. We begin this morning with the Bee, for we think its leader must be a refreshing one for anti-slavery men. We give a few (only) of its choice sentences: 'Great as was the personal triumph of Mr. Gardner on the 6th of November, the greatest victory of the auspicious day was that of national love over petty provincial treason. The moral of this campaign blazes out from the confusion of the field. It is an emphatic protest by Massachusetts against having her heartfelt anti-slavery sentiments carried out to sedition. It is a thundering declaration that, however her anti-slavery feeling is to be manifested or not, she will not have Wilson & Co. to be her exponents, mouthpieces and Captains in so doing. She means to be anti-slavery, but she is determined to be anti-Wilson. The principles of the veto of the 'Personal Liberty Bill' are gloriously sustained. Gov. Gardner branded his veto on that bill from the hour of its ill-starred birth; Ex-Senator Rockwell did not decline an executive commission under it, and by 20,000 voices Massachusetts declares that she prefers and she wants, not the commissioner, but the Governor, to rule over her. Senator Sumner stood up in our famous old hall, consecrated to freedom by Massachusetts, and with either brazen effrontery or unequalled ignorance, gravely told our people that the only question in this State election was, 'Are you for Liberty, or are you for Slavery?' Why, if he isn't too much absorbed in reading the glorifications of his 'Mutual Admiration Society' in England, hasn't he seen enough of Massachusetts to know that every mother's son of us, north of the blue-jay boundary of Rhode Island, as Choate once called it, is anti-slavery in his feelings? Yes, everybody, from the patriarch old enough to have seen Washington, to the child young enough to know only its mother. We drink in the inspiration of freedom with every breath we draw. (!!) We are everlastingly 'airing our vocabulary' in panegyric upon it, and yet Charles Sumner thinks the only question mooted was, whether we 'love liberty, or love slavery.' While, then, Massachusetts abhors Sectionalism, and will not let her anti-slavery feeling run away with her to sedition; while she is horrified at having Henry Wilson to speak for her in the National Senate, (and has eagerly taken the first chance, since his election, to tell him so,) nevertheless, he would be vastly mistaken, who should suppose that the anti-slavery feeling which inflamed the breasts of 80,000 Americans last year, has this year languished at all. (!) No, it is a dominant feeling still: its motto, 'America must be free,' ranges up side by side with the great ensign which signals to all the political craft, 'Americans shall rule America.' But she wishes her opposition to slavery to be constitutionally pronounced. She does not wish to move to the triumph of her principles over the necks of honest Judges, however mistaken they may be, over the Constitution bequeathed to us warm with the life-blood of the Father of his Country, and under the lead of men from whose countenance that Father of his Country would have turned away with disgust and dismay. (!) The great Whig party whose fragments were gathered up and laid in place, after Munroe's administration, is in ruins. Just here and how it enjoys a brief flicker of existence, buoyed up by the splendid genius and repute of two or three great names; but men are looking about for substantial constitutional timber, to make plank out of, to build up a National homestead big enough for every body who truly hates Slavery and loves Law, and who thinks at least as much of America with her magnificent career, as of his private pocket. Let the American party only stand firm to resistance to Slavery, without such an invasion of vested rights as would shake all securities which Government is meant to protect, vast accessions may be gained, and the triumph will be as permanent as it is complete. Long after the insect race of Burlingames shall have ceased their false-hearted buzzing for Freedom, the great party will be, by the operation of wise measures and natural causes, still steadily pushing on the boundaries of Freedom toward the Gulf of Mexico. (!) Staggered and reeling under the blows given it in the house of its friends, the American party has rushed, almost without leaders, to a noble victory. Her ranks have been purged and decimated from the hypocrites who have deserted or struck her; from the 'Judge who soils the ermine' to the traitor who buys the [[?]] Now let wisdom rule the hour and we shall see how steadily Americans shall rule America.' We think we have quoted enough from this article. We now give the following extracts from an article published in the same paper before the election:─ 'What has the American Party of Massachusetts done for Freedom and Morality? Elected Henry Wilson to the United States Senate. What has the American Party of Massachusetts done for Freedom and Morality? Elected its entire delegation of United States Representatives, who are a unit upon the question of Anti-Slavery. What has the American Party of Massachusetts done for Freedom and Morality? Passed, through its State Legislature, the Personal Liberty Bill. An act which no other State ever has, or dared pass. What has the American Party of Massachusetts done for Freedom and Morality? Resolved─ 1. That the action of the legislative, executive and judicial departments of government ought to be controlled by the principle taught by the framers and purest interpreters of the Constitution─that "freedom is national, and slavery sectional." 2. That repose for the country and stability to the Union must be sought by relieving the general government─so far as its jurisdiction extends─of all connection with and accountability for American slavery. 3. That the independence and sovereignty of the State, in its legislation and judiciary, should be maintained inviolate. 4. That the great barrier to slavery ruthlessly broken down by the repeal of the Missouri Prohibition ought to be speedily restored, and that in any event, no State, erected from any part of the territory covered by that compromise, ought to be admitted into the Union as a slave State. 5. That the rights of actual settlers in the territories to the free and undisturbed exercise of their elective franchise, granted to them by the laws under which they are organized, should be promptly protected by the national executive, wherever violated or threatened. What has the American Party of Massachusetts done for Freedom and Morality? Called down upon itself the sneers and denunciations from the ENTIRE opposition press of Massachusetts and elsewhere, North and South, East and West, for what is termed the abolition, fanatical, narrow-minded, illiberal policy of the Know Nothings. Here are the fruits of one year, the last year, in which Mr. Dana says Massachusetts has gone behind other States. What other State, we should like to be informed, has advanced beyond Massachusetts in the cause of Freedom and Morality? There is not one. And if Mr. Dana had reflected for a moment, he would not have allowed himself to have made so unjust an assertion. The American Party of Massachusetts, and we assert it without fear of contradiction, has done more,──in deeds not words,──for the cause of human freedom than any other State, or by any other party, whether Whig, Democratic, Free Soil, Abolition, Liberty or Republican, that ever had an existence in this Commonwealth. The never did anything but pass resolutions and utter big smooth words. The American Party has done everything, and left nothing to be done, at least this season.' The Bee complained, at the time this article appeared, that we did not copy it. We laid it aside, thinking the time would come, and now it has come, and by its publication the gross deception and hypocrisy of the paper in which it appeared is fully exposed. [[horiz line]] From the Richmond (Va.) Whig. THE AMERICAN PARTY. The American Party, which is the most conservative and national of all Northern parties──unless the handful of Hards and Straightout Whigs may constitute an exception──has exhibited a strength and a determination in the late election, of which the most sanguine of its friends had hardly dreamed. It presents a bold, compact front, in opposition to sectionalism, and Sewardism ; and upon [[end column 1]] [[start column 2]] this issue, especially in New York, it waged the contest and won the victory. The Seward organ at Albany──the Evening Journal──only the day before the election, undertook to describe the difference between platforms of the various parties then in the field, and said that the American party was substantially a pro-slavery party──that is, that unlike all other parties in that State, except the Hards, it was in favor of the admission of slave States equally with free. And this, be it remembered, is the only point at issue between the North and South. All other parties and factions at the North, except the Americans and Hards, are opposed now and forever──so run their declarations──to the admission of any more slave States into the Union. The question, we repeat, whether Congress Shall assume the right to exclude a State because it is a slaveholding State, is the only practical question now at issue between the South and North. And the American party being sound on this question, there is no difficulty in the way to a thorough re-organization of the party, North and South, upon this just and simple basis. We therefore confidently anticipate that the National Philadelphia Convention can and will adopt a platform, which will be acceptable to the party in every State in the Union. And why should it not? Where's the difficulty? No one, North or South, now proposes to disturb any existing legislation upon the subject of slavery. Not even the Black Republicans──for their purpose, if successful in the late elections, was to nullify it practically, so far as it applies to the Territorics, be resisting the admission of any more slave States. The idea of repealing the Nebraska Kansas act was abandoned by them entirely. [[horiz line]] From the Savannah Republican, (Know Nothing.) FUTURE POLICY OF THE AMERICAN PARTY SOUTH. The Federal Union, in commenting upon a late article of the Republican upon the above text, propounds a certain question, with which it evidently thinks to puzzle us. We answer then, distinctly, that should the Cincinnati Convention refuse admission to their deliberations free-soilers and anti-Nebraska democrats, and come out fairly, fully and honestly, in support of the principle of non-intervention, its Northern members vote for it, and a candidate be nominated, pledged, if elected, to make it a test of merit in his appointments to office, and the nominee himself be a man whose past history will justify confidence in his fidelity to that principle, and his ability to administer the government──we say, if these conditions be complied with, (and Southern men should make them an ultimatum,) and the American candidate shall not be placed upon a platform in every respect equally favorable, we shall advise our party in Georgia to abandon the latter, and support the former. If neither party should bring out a candidate under such auspices, we shall advocate the running of a third ticket, so constituted that the South, together with sound national men of all sections and parties, may honorably unite in its support. [[horiz line]] LETTER FROM MR. SUMNER. To the Editors of the Boston Post: HANCOCK STREET, Nov. 16, 1855. Sirs──In your paper of yesterday, you are pleased to say, 'When Charles Sumner was at the South, he was silky as possible upon the subject of slavery,' and you then proceed in confirmation of your own words, to quote an article from a Louisville paper, to this effect:─ 'At Lexington he first became acquainted with slavery, and such an effect did its "horrors" have upon him, that he could not resist acknowledging to gentlemen of our acquaintance how egregiously he had heretofore been mistaken. It happened, fortunately, that he passed the Sabbath in Lexington, and attended the African Baptist Church. The sight of so many well-dressed and well-behaved slaves opened his eyes.──When he saw that they worshipped without molestation or surveillance, he was further astonished, and, when he studied their demeanor and countenances, all indicative of perfect happiness and contentment, he could but confess that his previous belief concerning slavery had been based upon information wholly incorrect. * * * In our city (Louisville) Mr. Sumner received the hospitable attention of several of our citizens. * * * While here, his expressions concerning slavery were in terms of agreeable surprise at the state of [[?]] Now, Sirs, to this detailed statement I desire to make a denial, both general and particular. I deny it as a whole, and I deny it in all its details. Never any where in the slave States, or out of them, in public or in private, have I expressed opinions on slavery inconsistent with those I have uttered from my seat in the Senate or at home in Massachusetts. I did not pass the Sabbath in Lexington ; I never attended the African Baptist church there ; I never saw its 'well-dressed and well-behaved slaves'──I never 'studied their demeanor and countenances, all indicative of perfect happiness and content ;' and I never made any confession that my 'previous belief concerning slavery had been based upon information wholly incorrect.' This whole story is baseless as a dream. It is true that I was at Lexington ; but I saw nothing there calculated to mitigate my previous aversion to slavery ; nor did I every acknowledge to anybody that I had been mistaken 'egregiously,' or otherwise. It is true also that I was at Louisville for a single day, cheered by pleasant hospitality ; but I had no occasion to express any opinions on slavery. If I manifested an 'agreeable surprise' at anything, it was at the thorough-bred cattle, the woodlawn pastures and the blue grass, which are the pride of Kentucky. There was a 'surprise' of a different character which I could not fail to manifest, at another place, when I witnessed the disgusting sale of human beings on the steps of a court-house ; and the honorable Kentuckian who was with me cannot have forgotten the pain and indignation which I was unable to repress. It is not my habit to notice assaults on my opinion or public course, but I am unwilling that gross misstatements of fact, like those you have circulated, should pass without a point-black contradiction. I am, Sirs, your obedient servant, CHARLES SUMNER. [[horiz line]] TRIBUTE TO STEPHEN S. FOSTER. The following well-deserved tribute is from the London Anti-Slavery Advocate for November, where it appears as an introduction to an extract from one of Mr. Foster's late speeches : STEPHEN S. FOSTER.──When the history of the anti-slavery enterprise shall be written at some future day, no man will be more nobly distinguished for the moral courage and devotedness of life and talents to the cause than Stephen S. Foster. Amongst the most prominent laborers in the lecture field, this gentleman and Mr. Pillsbury (now in England) has faced, for many long years, the violence of mobs, the fury of politicians, and the wrath of formal professors, whose enmity they have earned by exposing the gross inconsistency of the practices of American parties and churches with their own standards of opinion. These men are eminently of that class called ultra-Abolitionists.──They know slavery to be altogether evil, and will make no terms with it, on any pretence of political, religious, or social expediency. They will not 'budge a hair' from their high standard of principle. They know that it is the worst of bad policy to make bargains with the devil. They are, of course, called 'rash,' 'mischievous,' and the 'worst friends of the slave,' and they are told that they put back emancipation for fifty years. They know this cannot be true, for slaveholders and the apologists of slavery fear and hate them, as they hate all consistent friends of freedom. In private life, no men are more thoroughly above reproach, as husbands, fathers, friends, and members of society, than Messrs. Foster and Pillsbury. In any circumstances of pecuniary and moral temptation, we should depend upon them to any extent. They are the stuff of which the truly great men and benefactors of mankind in all ages are made. [[horiz line]] [[image-left hand pointing right]] The Governor of Georgia recommends the withdrawal of that State from the Union, in case Kansas is not admitted as a slave State. This is in his annual message, on Monday last. Wonder if any northern Governor will propose to withdraw from the Union, if Kansas is not admitted as a free State? We trow not. A great cackling of Union-savers would to up to heaven in the latter case, but nothing will be said of the former Such is the difference between the South and the North. ─Salem Observer. [[end column 2]] [[start column 3]] THE LIBERATOR. [[horiz line]] BOSTON, NOVEMBER 26, 1855. [[double horiz line]] [[image-left hand pointing right]] The pamphlet──of historical interest and value──containing the Proceedings of the Anti-Slavery Meeting held in Stacy Hall, 46 Washington Street, Boston, on the Twentieth Anniversary of the Mob of 'Gentlemen of Property and Standing,' Oct. 2, 1835, is now ready for delivery at the Anti-Slavery Office, 21 Cornhill, containing the speeches of Messrs. Phillips, Parker, Higginson, Garrison, Wright, &c. Price 20 cents ; or 17 cents by the dozen. From the valuable Appendix, we copy in another column some Reminisences pertaining to that memorable event by MR. WILLIAM C. NELL. Below, we republish an extract from a letter sent to us at that time by GEORGE THOMPSON, Esq. It is one of the finest specimens of rhetorical eloquence and lofty declamation, as well as of graphic delineation and sublime reproof, to be found in the English language. __ THE BOSTON MOB OF OCTOBER 2, 1835. BY GEORGE THOMPSON, ESQ. 'A MOB IN BOSTON!! and such a mob!!! Thirty ladies completely routed, and a board six feet by two utterly demolished, by three thousand or four thousand respectable ruffians, in broad daylight and broadcloth ! Glorious achievement ! and, as it deserved to be, regularly Gazetted ! Indeed, this noble army of gentlemanly savages had all the customary adjuncts of civilized warfare. There were "Posts," and "Centinels," and "Courrier," and "Gazettes," and "HOMER," too, to celebrate their praise ! 'A mob in Boston ! The birth-place of the Revolution──the Cradle of Liberty ! A mob in Washington (!) street, Boston, TO PUT DOWN FREE DISCUSSION ! "Hung be the heavens with black!" Shrouded in midnight be the height of the Bunker ! Let the bells of the Old South and Brattle Street be muffled, and let the knell of the country's boasted honor and liberty be rung ! Ye hoary veterans of the Revolution ! clothe yourselves in sackcloth ! strew ashes on your heads, and mourn your country's downfall ! "For what is left the patriot here ? For Greeks a blush──for Greece a tear!" Would that you had died, ere the sad truth was demonstrated, that you fought and bled in vain ! 'A mob in Boston ! O, tell it not in St. Petersburgh ! publish it not in the streets of Constantinople ! But it will be told ; it will be published. The damning fact will ring through all the haunts of despotism, and will be a cordial to the heart of Metternich, sweet music in the ears of the haughty Czar, and a prophetic note of triumph to the sovereign Pontiff. what American lip will henceforth dare to breathe a sentence of condemnation against the bulls of the Pope, or the edicts of the Autocrat ? Should tongue wag in affected sympathy for the denationalized Pole, the outlawed Greek, the wretched Serf, or any of the priest-ridden or king-ridden victims of Europe, will not a voice come thundering over the billows── '"Base hypocrites ! let your charity begin at home ! Look at your own Carolinas ! Go, pour the balm of consolation into the broken hearts of your two millions of enslaved children ! Rebuke the murderers of Vicksburg ! Reckon with the felons of Charleston ! Restore the contents of rifled mail-bags ! Heal the lacerations, still festering, on the ploughed backs of your citizens ! Dissolve the star-chambers of Virginia ! Tell the confederated assassins of Alabama and Mississippi to disband ! Call to judgment the barbarians of Baltimore, and Philadelphia, and New York, and Concord, and Haverhill, and Lynn, and Montpelier, and the well-dressed mobocrats of Utica, and Salem, and Boston ! Go, ye praters about the soul-destroying ignorance of Romanism, gather again the scattered schools of Canterbury and Canaan ! Get the clerical minions of Southern taskmasters to rescind their 'Resolutions' of withholding [[? ?]] Americans ! Rend the veil of legal enactments, by which the beams of light divine are hidden from millions who are left to grope their way through darkness here to everlasting blackness beyond the grave ! Go, shed your 'patriotic' tears over the infamy of your country, amid the ruins of yonder Convent ! Go, proud and sentimental Bostonians, preach clemency to the respectable horde who are dragging forth for immolation one of your own citizens ! Cease your anathemas against the Vatican, and screw your courage up to resist the worse than papal bulls of Georgia, demanding, at the peril of your 'bread and butter,' the 'HEADS' of your citizens, and the passage of GAG-LAWS ! Before you rail at arbitrary power in foreign regions, save your own citizens from the felonious interception of their correspondence; and teach the sworn and paid servants of the Republic the obligations of an oath, and the guaranteed rights of a free people ! Send not your banners to Poland, but tear them into shreds, to be distributed to the mob, as halters for your sons ! When, next July, you rail t mitres, and crosiers, and sceptres, and denounce the bowstring, and the bayonet, and the fagot, let your halls be decorated with plaited scourges, wet with the blood of the sons of the Pilgrims──let the tar cauldron smoke──the gibbet rear aloft its head──and cats, and bloodhounds,* (the brute auxiliaries of Southern Liberty men,) howl and bark in unison with the demoniacal ravings of a 'gentlemanly mob'─ while above the Orator of the day, and beneath the striped and starry banner, stand forth in characters of blood, the distinctive mottoes of the age: DOWN WITH DISCUSSION ! LYNCH LAW TRIUMPHANT ! SLAVERY FOR EVER ! HAIL, COLUMBIA ! Before you weep over the wrongs of Greece, go wash the gore out of your national shambles──appease the frantic mother, robbed of her only child, the centre of her hopes, and joys, and sympathies──restore to yon desolate husband the wife of his bosom──abolish the slave marts of Alexandria, the human flesh auctions of Richmond and New Orleans──'undo the heavy burdens,' 'break every yoke,' and stand forth to the gaze of the world, not steeped in infamy and rank with blood, but in the posture of penitence and prayer, a free and regenerated nation !" 'Such, truly, are the bitter reproaches with which every breeze from a distant land might be justly freighted. How long──in the name of outraged humanity I ask, how long shall they be deserved ? Are the people greedy of a world's execration ? or have they any sense of shame──any blush of patriotism left ? Each day the flagrant inconsistency and gross wickedness of the nation are becoming more widely and correctly known. Already, on foreign shores, the lovers of corruption and despotism are referring with ____ *See the accounts, in Southern newspapers, of a "curious mode of punishment" recently introduced, called "CAT-HAULING."──The victim is stretched upon his face, and a cat, thrown upon his bare shoulders, is dragged to the bottom of the back. This is continued till the body is "lacerated." The Vicksburg (Miss.) Register says that Mr. Earl, one of the victims of mobocracy in Mississippi, was tortured a whole night to elicit confession. The brutal and hellish tormentors laid Mr. Earl upon his face, and drew a cat tail foremost across his body !! He hung himself soon after in jail. See also the accounts of the Mississippi murders given by a correspondent of the Charleston Courier, dating his letter Tyger (how appropriate !) Bayou, Madison County, Miss. The following is an extract:─"Andrew Boyd, a conspirator, was required by the Committee of Safety, and Mr. Dickerson, Hiram Reynolds, and Hiram Perkins (since killed) were ordered to arrest him.─They discovered he was flying, and immediately commenced the pursuit, with a pack of TRAINED HOUNDS. He miraculously effected his deliverance from his pursuers, after swimming Big Black River, and running through cane-brakes and swamps until nightfall, when the party called off THE DOGS. Early next morning they renewed the chase, and started Boyd one mile from whence they had called off the dogs. But he effected his escape on horse, (fortune throwing one in his way,) THE HOUNDS not being accustomed to that training, after he quit the bush. [[end column 3]] [[start column 4]] exultation to the recent bloody dramas in the South, and the pro-slavery meetings and mobs of the country generally, in proof of "the dangerous tendency of Democratic principles." How long shall the deeds of America clog the wheels of the car of Universal Freedom ? Vain is every boast──acts speak louder than words. While "Columbia's sons are bought and sold;' while citizens of America are murdered without trial ; while persons and property are at the mercy of a mob ; while city authorities are obliged to make concessions to a bloody-minded multitude, and finally incarcerate unoffending citizens to save them from a violent death ; while "gentlemen of standing and property" are in unholy league to effect the abduction and destruction of a "foreigner," the head and front of whose offending is, that he is laboring to save the country from its worse foe ; while assemblages of highly respectable citizens, comprising large numbers of the clergy, and some of the judges of the land, are interrupted and broken up, and the houses of God in which they meet attacked in open day by thousands of men, armed with all the implements of demolition ; while the entire South presents one great scene of slavery and slaughter ; and while the North deeply sympathize with their "Southern brethren," sanction their deeds of felony and murder, and obsequiously do their bidding, by hunting down their own fellow-citizens who dare to plead for equal rights ; and, finally, while hundreds of the ministers of Christ, of every denomination, are making common cause with the plunderer of his species ; yea, themselves reduce God's image to the level of the brute, and glory in their shame ; I say, while these things exist, professions and boasts are "sounding brass;" men will learn to loathe the name of Republicanism, and deem it synonymous with mob despotism, and the foulest oppression on the face of the globe ! 'A word to the opposers of the cause of emancipation. You must stop in your career of persecution, or proceed to still darker deeds and wider desolations. At present, you have done nothing but help us. You have, it is true, made a sincere, though impotent attempt to please your masters at the South. The Abolitionists have risen, after every attempt to crush them, with greater energy and in greater numbers. They are still speaking ; they are still writing ; still praying ; still weeping, (not over their sufferings, but your sins)──they are working in public and in private, by day and by night──they are sustained by principles you do not (because you will not) understand, principles drawn pure from the throne of God──they have meat to eat which you know not of, and live, and are nourished, and are strong, while you wonder that they do not wither under your frown, and fall into annihilation before the thunderbolts of your wrath. Some of you have conversed with them. What think you of the Abolitionists ? of their moral courage──their tact in argument──their knowledge of the Scriptures──their interpretation of the Constitution ? Have you found them ignorant ? Have you found them weak ? Have you not often been driven to your wits' end by the probing questions or ready answers of these silly and deluded women and children ? How, then, do you expect to conquer ? If finally by the sword, why delay ? Commence the work of butchery to-day. Every hour you procrastinate, witnesses an increase of your victims, a defection from your ranks, and an augmentation in numbers and influence of those you wish to destroy. You profess to be republicans. Have you ever asked yourselves what you are doing for the principles you profess to revere ? In the name of sacred Liberty, I call upon you to pause. I conjure you, "By every hallowed name, That ever led your sires to fame"─ pause, and see whither your present deeds are tending. Be honest──be just──just to yourselves, just to us, before you condemn us, still more, before you seek to destroy us. "Search us, and know our hearts; try us, and know our thoughts; and see if there be [[any wicked way in us.??]] "Strike, but hear." Remember, too, that your violence will effect nothing while the liberty of the press remains. While the principles and opinions of Abolitionists, as promulgated in their journals, are carried on the wings of the wind over sea and land, you do but give a wider circulation to those principles and opinions by your acts of violence and blood. You awaken the desire, the determination, to know and understand what "these babblers say." Be prepared, therefore, to violate the Constitution by annihilating the Liberty of the Press.' [[horiz line]] REMINISCENCES. EN ROUTE FROM PHILADELPHIA TO BOSTON,} October 21, 1855. } RESPECTED FRIEND: Being unavoidably absent from home during your commemoration of the second decade of the Boston or Garrison Mob, I reconciled myself mainly by the fact, that thereby I had the opportunity afforded me of visiting that victim of judicial despotism and slaveholding arbitration, PASSMORE WILLIAMSON. Twenty years ago this day, WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON, for promulgating the idea of immediate emancipation, was delivered from the murderous hands of a Boston mob, composed of "gentlemen if property and standing," into Leverett Street Jail ; and at this hour, PASSMORE WILLIAMSON endures martyrdom in Moyamensing Prison for his application of immediate emancipation to Jane Johnson and her two boys from her self-styled owner, John H. Wheeler. My reflections upon the two historical events of 1835 and 1855, induced my noting down the following reminiscences, hoping space may be found for them in your published report. I well remember the emphatically cloudy day, October 21, 1835, and the various scenes and incidents which characterised it, shrouding with indelible disgrace and infamy my native city. A friend of mine then boarded at a house in Boylston street, where, at the tea-table that evening, were assembled many Boston merchants. The Abolition Mob was the theme of conversation ; and while a majority evinced their proslavery spirit by approving of what had occurred, two gentlemen warmly dissented,──one of whom, DAVID TILDEN, Esq., immediately became a subscriber to The Liberator, and so continued until his decease, a few years since. A sister of the coachman who so adroitly eluded the mob, and landed Mr. Garrison safely at the jail, often alluded to the impression made by that hour upon her brother. I have obtained the following facts from colored Anti-Slavery friends, whose feelings were deeply moved on the occasion. JOHN T. HILTON accompanied DAVID H. ELA (a printer in Cornhill, since deceased) to the meeting. They found the stairs impassable, in consequence of the crowd, and an altercation ensued. Mr. Ela was struck a severe blow by a man who rebuked him for upholding Abolitionists and 'niggers.' He resisted, until the parties were separated by the crowd rushing to seize Garrison in Wilson's Lane. The women came down the stairs amidst the hootings and insults of the mob. Two prominent men were engaged in tearing down the sign. Mr. Hilton heard a printer inform the mob where Garrison was secreted, in the rear of the building, where he (Mr. H.) went with the rest, to do what he could to rescue him, or, at all events, to be at his side. He saw Mr. Garrison dragged into State street, divested of coat and hat, and did not leave until Sheriff Parkman had him in the City Hall. JOHN BOYER VASHON, of Pittsburg, Pa., was an eye-witness to the terrible scene, which was heart-rending beyond his ability ever afterwards to express, as, of all living men, JOHN B. VASHON loved WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON most ; and this feeling of affection continued, for aught that is known, to the day of [[end column 4]] [[start column 5]] his death. When the mob passed along Washington street, shouting and yelling like madmen, the apprehensions of Mr. Vashon became fearfully aroused. Presently there approached a group which appeared even more infuriated than the rest, and he beheld, in the midst of this furious throng, Garrison himself, led on like a beast to slaughter. He had been on the field of battle, had face the cannon's mouth, seen its lightnings flash and heard its thunders roar, but such a sight as this was more than the old citizen soldier could bear, without giving vent to a flood of tears. The next day, the old soldier, who had helped to preserve his country's liberty on the plighted faith of security to his own, but who had lived to witness freedom of speech and of the press stricken down by mob violence, and life itself in jeopardy, because that liberty was asked for him and hi, with spirits crushed and faltering hopes, called to administer a word of consolation to the bold and courageous young advocate of immediate and universal emancipation. Mr. Garrison subsequently thus referred to this circumstance in his paper:─'On the day of the riot in Boston, he dined at my house, and the next morning called to see me in prison, bringing with him a new hat for me, in the place of one that was cut in pieces by the knives of men of property and standing.' Rev. JAMES E. CRAWFORD, now of Nantucket, landed in Boston at the time of the mob, and, walking up State street, suddenly encountered the riotous multitude. On learning that Mr. Garrison was mobbed for words and deeds in behalf of the enslaved colored man, his heart and soul became fully dedicated to the cause of immediate emancipation. At a meeting of colored citizens, held in Boston, August 27th, 1855, on the subject of Equal School Rights, WILLIAM H. LOGAN alluded to his receiving from Sheriff Parkman, soon after the mob, a pair of pantaloons, (or the remnants thereof,) which had been torn from Mr. Garrison during the struggle. Mr. G. being present at the meeting, remarked, that, until that moment, he had never known what became of them. Imprisonment if a feature of martyrdom with which Abolitionists in the United States have become familiar, especially Mr. Garrison, who, at the bidding of slavery, was, in 1829, incarcerated in Baltimore. But these persecutions are to be accepted as jewels in their crown, as seals of their devotion to the cause of millions now in the prison-house of bondage. For whose speedy emancipation, I remain, Fraternally yours, WM. C. Nell. Rev. SAMUEL MAY, JR., General Agent Mass. A. S. Society. [[horiz line]] ANTI-SLAVERY COLPORTEUR──AN EXPERIENCE. MR. EDITOR :─The very general kindness and courtesy with which I have been received on my Tract mission in the towns of Marlboro', Westboro', Ashland and Hopkinton, make the exceptional cases more striking. It seems to me that there is a marked change in the right direction. In the distribution of some hundreds of tracts in the above named towns, there have been but two rejections of the offered tracts, and only one case of rudeness. This one case, however, was so marked that I am tempted to give it verbatim for the edification of your readers. The colporteur called at a respectable looking farmhouse in ───. Seeing an open door, and hearing voices in that direction, he stepped to the door and called the attention of the family to the business on hand. The democrat that confronted him was one of the unterrified──about six feet two in stockings──lean and muscular, sandy hair, and reddish whiskery bristles extending quite round the face. Colportuer──I am distributing some Anti-Slavery Tracts, and shall be glad to give you one or two, if you will accept of them. Democrat──Waul──gorry ! no──I guess ye'd better carry 'um 'long. Putty bizness, carring about them [[??]] Darn it ! any on ye would grind up a nigger for the sake of the ile. The corporteur passed along, reflecting upon the power of Slavery. It can eat out the heart of the rudest as well as the most polished of the American democracy. D. S. W. [[horiz line]] LETTER FROM KANSAS. HALL OF FREE STATE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION, TOPEKA, (k. T.,) Oct. 29, 1855.} DEAR SIR──I have travelled in the Territory extensively since Gov. Shannon arrived here. I once stated that I believed the Free State men outnumbered the pro-slavery residents, at least five to four. It is changed now. At the very lowest calculation, we are four to one──many maintain, ten to one. The result of Reeder's election has cast a damp on the spirits of the Missourians. They talk less confidently now. The price of shares at Lecompton has fallen ! After the 'Barons' located the seat of Government there, shares were quoted for several days at the Shannon Mission at $1000. I was offered a share to-day for $400. But I didn't buy it, and don't intend to ! Kansas is given over to Garrison 'hirelings' and the devil. Southrons, who cannot live without having negroes to rule, are leaving the Territory ; ─bon voyage to them !─and doughfaces, who were ultra pro-slavery men a few short months ago, are crawling towards us for admission into our 'fanatical,' and 'nigger-thieving,' and 'pauper and crime-polluted' ranks ! But, like the darkey who once knocked for admission, they 'cant' get in !' Gov. Shannon is trying to deny his Westport pro-slavery speech, and writing elaborate and verbose letters to the Herald of Freedom, on red flannel petticoats and other national subjects. This Convention is composed of men who glory in the name of 'Conservative.' They are 'practical men.' The majority regard Slavery as a question of dollars and cents. The President voted in Congress for the Nebraska Bill. An effort will be made to pass a Constitution, leaving the question of Slavery or Freedom to be decided by a popular vote, after the admission of Kansas as a State. Der. Charles Robinson, of Lawrence, is the leader of the least 'conservative' party here. Several of the opposite party sincerely regard a negro slave as property──just as truly and rightfully as pigs, hardware or office-seekers are the property of their owners. Dr. Robinson is hardly sound on that subject, I suspect. I believe he holds, to use the language of a Shawnee Baron, 'the vile and pestilential heresy, which emanated from the foul and putrid sink of Abolitionism, that man cannot hold property in man.' I guess, though, we will pass a Free State Constitution. Mechanics of all sorts, sizes and──no, not colors──can find work everywhere in the Territory. Can't you try to send a few fanatics out ? Plenty of room for them. Sambo nor 'Sam,' however, are wanted. There is a very strong prejudice against Free Negroes even in the Free State ranks. Yours devotedly, _____ _____. WM. LLOYD GARRISON. [[horiz line]] CHRISTIAN EXAMINER. The following are the articles in the November number of this able and valuable work:─ Art. I. The Present Theological Reaction in Germany, by Edward J. Young, of Halle, Germany. Art. II. Factory Life──its Novels and its Facts, by Rev. A. Woodbury. Art. III. The First Chapter of Genesis, by Rev. Thos. Hill. Art. IV. Life and Correspondence of Rev. Sydney Smith, by C. C. Smith, Esq. V. Bartol's Pictures of Europe, by Rev. F. H. Hedge. Art. VI. The 'Ostenda Loquitur' of Hugo Grotius, by Rev. N. L. Frothingham. Art. VII. Bayne's Christian Life, by Rev. Rufus Ellis. Art. VIII. Notices of Recent Publications IX. Obituary of Rev. Geo. F. Simmons. [[end column 5]] [[start column 6]] MEMORIAL OF THE LATE MR. ESTLIN. No. IV. Mr. Garrison's visit to England, before-mentioned, contributed largely to increase Mr. ESTLIN's acquaintance with the nature and workings of American Slavery, and with those open and subtle influences which sustain it. He watched the course of Mr. Garrison with the closest interest. Careful, moderate and exact as Mr. Estlin was, in all his words, and in every step he took forward, it will surprise no one that he did not at once fully understand Mr. Garrison's thoroughly uncompromising spirit, nor sympathize in his bold denunciations of oppression and its abettors, wherever he found them, regardless of the consequences to himself. But all his previous impressions of Mr. Garrison's devotion to principle, and conscientious faithfulness to the cause of the enslaved, were confirmed and thoroughly established by what he saw and learned of him, during this visit to Great Britain. 'His high moral character,' he writes, ' and his unselfish devotion to the great cause, secure for him respect and consideration.' It was Mr. Estlin's nature, and equally the result of all his habits, to adopt new views and opinions cautiously, and to take new steps slowly and gradually. But to him belongs, by universal consent, the high praise of never flinching from a principle once seen to be true, nor deserting it for any cause. If his advancement in anti-slavery was slow, as compared with some others, it was, on the other hand, SURE. The advance was a real gain, both to himself and others. He never fell back. When he went forward, it was with knowledge of the step he was taking, and that it would bring with it responsibilities and duties, and he was fully prepared to meet them. We dwell on this feature of Mr. Estlin's character with high respect and satisfaction. It gave him a solidity and reliability of character, which inspired entire confidence. It made him one of the firmest and most invaluable of friends. Every one knew where to find him, and none who sought his counsel or aid failed to be impressed with the highest respect for him as a man of the truest principle. Not blown about by every wind of doctrine, he built on the rock of principle and truth, and kept his place faith unshaken. When Mr. Garrison was about to leave England in the autumn of 1846, Mr. Estlin went to Liverpool purposely to bid him farewell, as he had previously gone to London purposely to become acquainted with him, and welcome him to England. In June, 1847, Mr. Estlin addressed a public letter to the Rev. Edward Tagart, Secretary to the British and Foreign Unitarian Association, on 'the Present Position of English Unitarians, in reference to the American Slavery Question.' As a fair specimen of his writings, as well as of his manner of dealing with the particular question before him, I subjoin an extract or two, regretting that necessary limits do not allow of the republication of the entire letter: 'Let it be borne in mind, that in a country of professing Christians, three millions of its inhabitants, speaking the same language with the rest of its people, have the Bible sedulously withheld from them ;─that to teach them to read the Bible is a criminal offence, punishable in some places, on a repetition of the crime, by death. Yet great zeal exists in America for the spread of Christianity ; large sums are collected by some of the religious bodies, for the conversion of the heathen. Passing by three millions of their countrymen, as if they feared the gospel would contaminate them, the missionaries, laden with Bibles, go forth to distant lands. The Reports of the Board of Foreign Missions state, that their society converts annually about 1,000 heathens to the religion of Christ ; while, on the other hand, the birth tables of the Slave States show that 70,000 slaves are every year brought into existence. So here are 1,000 annual conversions abroad, and 70,000 human-born, and forced to remain heathens, at home ! Moreover, in the Christian communities of the United States, men, women and children are sold to benefit theological seminaries ;─they are sold to purchase communion-plate ; their bodies are sold to procure Bibles, from which their souls are allowed to receive no benefit ! The Bible too is brought forward to prove the lawfulness and desirableness of this system ' while Ecclesiastical Synods have decided, that, in the case of slaves, some of its sanctions may be dispensed with, and especially that the marriage vow is not binding. With such facts full in their view, it is not to be wondered at, that however much American Abolitionists differ among themselves upon the mode of carrying out their Anti-Slavery purposes, there is one point upon which they are unanimous,──namely, that these evils, and all the others connected with slavery, owe their continuance to the religion of the country,──that it is the respectability and support given by the ecclesiastical bodies of their land, which maintain slavery. Even bishops and ministers are frequently holders of slaves, and all the important lay-offices in the church in the Southern States are often filled by slave-owners. Now the Abolitionists all agree in maintaining, that if, instead of the sanction thus given to this iniquity, ministers of the gospel were to speak out against the national sin as its enormity demands, (instead of being silent upon it, or calling upon the Scriptures to furnish arguments in its defence,) slavery would immediately terminate. Upon those religious bodies in the United States which are most numerous, the greatest responsibility in the matter, of course, rests. These are the Presbyterians, the Congregationalists, the Baptists, the Methodists, and the Episcopalians ; but I regret to believe, that the Unitarians, in proportion to their number, are almost as answerable as other sects, for the encouragement they afford to the continuance of slavery.' * * * * * * 'But occasions will occur, on which there will be no difficulty as to the appropriate line of our conduct. The American Unitarian Association, at the present moment, furnishes a good illustration of the circumstances under which a sister society in Britain has, in my view, a right offer remonstrance upon the slavery question, in any official communication that may be held with it. The first name on its List of Officers, as given in the Boston 'Unitarian Annual Register,' for 1847, is that of the Rev. Dr. Dewey ; and the last named of the fifteen Vice-Presidents is Dr. Whitridge, of South Carolina. When Dr. Dewey was in England, in 1843, he asserted that he had been for many years a member of a secret society for the abolition of slavery, and considered there was much injustice in its being thought (as was inferred from his mode of arguing on the subject) that he was but lukewarm in the cause of the slave. And yet, on his return to the United States, he published an Address on 'American Morals and Manners,' in which he speaks of the colored race as a 'despised minority,' separated from the white inhabitants by 'impassable physical, if not mental, barriers'──an assertion made with the full knowledge of an almost white race of descendants of negroes at the South, the offspring of iniquity. And then, as a remedy for the evil of having a sixth part of his countrymen, with skins differently colored from his own, he recommends their removal from the soil of their birth (of inhabiting which their right is as strong as Dr. Dewey's) to distant teritories ! Such are the sentiments of the President of the American Unitarian Association. And then, with regard to Dr. Whitridge, one of the Vice-Presidents, nothing more need be said of him than the simple statement, that he is himself a holder of slaves. Now, had these facts been fully known and considered, I can hardly suppose that some of the speakers at our meeting would have taken such low views of the slavery question as their observations indicated.' This letter attracted much attention among English Unitarians, as it could not fail to do, coming from one so judicious and so highly esteemed among his religious associates as Mr. Estlin was. At about the same time, he writes that 'the stir among the Unitarians is likely to do good.' One of its objects was to secure such an awakened conscience and feeling in the denomination, 'that American Unitarian ministers visiting this country (England) may not expect to altogether escape inquiry into their previous course on the slavery question.' It was early in this year that a letter was sent by 'The Friends of Unitarian Christianity in Boston, to their Brethren in a Common Faith in England and Scotland,' inviting the latter to join in the celebration of the religious anniversaries usually held in Boston in the month of May. The letter was duly received by the Committee in London, but so strong was the feeling which had been awakened among the English Unitarians on the subject of Slavery, and the connection of American Unitarians with it, that, at the annual meeting of the Unitarians in London, the first of May, no action was had or proposed in relation to the invitation. Several months elapsing, and no official reply to it having been sent, an independent 'Reply' was drawn up in Bristol, extensively circulated through the kingdom, and very numerously signed by ministers and laymen, and [[end column 6]]
