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A Visit to the United States in 1841 by Joseph Sturge
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man--the close walls of prisons. His narrative, like his own character,
is calm, clear, simple; its single and manifest aim, _to do good_.

Although this volume is mainly devoted to the subject of emancipation,
and to his intercourse with the religious Society of which he is a
member, yet the friends of peace, of legal reform, and of republican
institutions, will derive gratification from its perusal. The liberal
spirit of Christian philanthropy breathes through it. The author's deep
and settled detestation of our slavery, and of the hypocrisy which
sustains and justifies it, does not render him blind to the beauty of
the republican principle of popular control, nor repress in any degree
his pleasure in recording its beneficent practical fruits in the free
States.

The labors of Mr. Sturge in the cause of emancipation have given him the
appellation of the "Howard of our days." The author of the popular
"History of Slavery," page 600, thus notices his arduous personal
investigations of the state of things in the West India Islands, under
the apprenticeship system. "The idea originated with Joseph Sturge, of
Birmingham, a member of that religious body, the FRIENDS, who have ever
stood pre-eminent in noiseless but indefatigable exertions in the cause
of the negro; and who seem to possess a more thorough practical
understanding than is generally possessed by statesmen and politicians,
of the axiom that the shortest communication between two given points,
is a straight line. While others were speculating, and hoping that the
worst reports from the West Indies might not be true, and that the evils
would work their own cure, this generous and heroic philanthropist,
resolved to go himself and ascertain the facts and the remedy required."
On his return, Mr. Sturge, with his companion, Thomas Harvey, published
a full account of their investigations into the working of the
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