Personal Sketches and Tributes, Part 2, from Volume VI., - The Works of Whittier: Old Portraits and Modern Sketches by John Greenleaf Whittier
page 16 of 41 (39%)
page 16 of 41 (39%)
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interested in the subject of slavery, through the writings and personal
influence of William Lloyd Garrison. Her husband, a member of the Massachusetts legislature and editor of the _Massachusetts Journal_, had, at an earlier date, denounced the project of the dismemberment of Mexico for the purpose of strengthening and extending American slavery. He was one of the earliest members of the New England Anti-Slavery Society, and his outspoken hostility to the peculiar institution greatly and unfavorably affected his interests as a lawyer. In 1832 he addressed a series of able letters on slavery and the slave-trade to Edward S. Abdy, a prominent English philanthropist. In 1836 he published in Philadelphia ten strongly written articles on the same subject. He visited England and France in 1837, and while in Paris addressed an elaborate memoir to the Societe pour l'Abolition d'Esclavage, and a paper on the same subject to the editor of the _Eclectic Review_, in London. To his facts and arguments John Quincy Adams was much indebted in the speeches which he delivered in Congress on the Texas question. In 1833 the American Anti-Slavery Society was formed by a convention in Philadelphia. Its numbers were small, and it was everywhere spoken against. It was at this time that Lydia Maria Child startled the country by the publication of her noble _Appeal in Behalf of that Class of Americans called Africans_. It is quite impossible for any one of the present generation to imagine the popular surprise and indignation which the book called forth, or how entirely its author cut herself off from the favor and sympathy of a large number of those who had previously delighted to do her honor. Social and literary circles, which had been proud of her presence, closed their doors against her. The sale of her books, the subscriptions to her magazine, fell off to a ruinous extent. She knew all she was hazarding, and made the great sacrifice, prepared for all the consequences which followed. In the preface to her book she |
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