CHAPTER X

WANTED, AN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY


The National Anti-Slavery Society--the society organized by
Garrison and his _confrères_, and which longest maintained its
organization--made one great mistake. It disbanded. It assumed that
its work was done when African slavery in this country was pronounced
defunct by law. It took it for granted that the enslavement of the
colored man--not necessarily the negro--was no longer possible under
the Stars and Stripes. Then and there it committed a grievous blunder.
Its paramount error was in assuming that a political party could for
all time be depended upon as a party of freedom. It trusted to the
assurances of politicians that they would protect the colored man in
all his natural and acquired rights, and in that belief voluntarily
gave up the ghost and cast its mantle to the winds.

Now, the fact is that the National Anti-Slavery Society was never more
needed than it is to-day. There is a mighty work to be done that was
directly in the line of its operations. First and foremost, it will
not be denied that a citizen of our Republic who is deprived of the
elective franchise is robbed of one of his most valuable
privileges--one of his most essential rights. The ballot, under a
political system like ours, is both the sword and the shield of
liberty. Without it no man is really a freeman. He does not stand on
an equality with his fellows.