Book Description

Excerpt from Annual Reports of the American Anti-Slavery Society: By the Executive Committee, for the Years Ending May 1, 1857, and May 1, 1858 In the earlier days of the anti-slavery movement, not a year, sometimes hardly a month passed, that did not bear open its record the report Of mobs, almost always ferocious in spirit, and sometimes cruel and blood-stained in act. It was the first instinctive and brutal response Of a pro-slavery people convicted Of guilt and called to repentance, and it was almost universal. W'herever anti-slavery was preached, honestly and effectually, there the mobocratic Spirit followed it, so that, in those times, he who escaped this ordeal, was, with some justice, held to be either inefficient or unfaithful. Hardly a town or city, from Alton to Portland, where much anti-slavery labor was bestowed, in the first fifteen years of this enterprise, that was not the scene of one of these attempts to crush all free discus sion of the subject of Slavery, by violence or bloodshed. Hardly one Of the earlier public advocates of the cause that was not made to suffer, either in person or in property, or in both, from popular violence - the penalty of Obedience to the dictates of his own con science. Nor was this all Official countenance was often given to the mad proceedings of the mob, or if not given, its protection was withheld from those who were the Objects of popular hatred; and, as if this were not enough, legislation was invoked to the same end. It was sug gested to the Legislature of one of the Southern States, that alarge reward be offered for the head of a citizen of Massachusetts, who was the pioneer in the modern anti-slavery movement. A similar reward was Offered for the head of a citizen of New York. Yet neither excited the popular indignation, nor legislative resentment in either of those States for so foul an insult. On the other hand, Governor everett, of Massachusetts, suggested to its General Court the passage of a law which should make anti-slavery discus sion an indictable offence; and the late harrison gray otis, when Mayor of Boston, at the, requisition of a Southern Governor, made it his special duty to seek out the editor Of the Liberator, and only refrained from abating him as a nuisance, because he could not believe that any mischief was to be apprehended from a man who could sleep in a garrct, live upon crackers, who had no social influ ence, and no visible assistant, except a little negro boy. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.