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CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY

P©nii|i?iili Sociotj

I !

PROMOTING THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY, ft!

[EF OP FREE NEGROES UNLAWFULLY HELD IN BONDAGE: AND FOR IMPROVING THE CONDITION OF THE AFRICAN RACE.

I

PHILADELPHIA: GRANT, FAIRES & RODGERS, PRINTERS.

1876.

CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY

Piaiijlftaia SoeUty

PROMOTING THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY,

RELIEF OF FREE NEGROES UNLAWFULLY HELD IN BONDAGE : AND FOR IMPROVING THE CONDITION OF THE AFRICAN RACE.

PHILADELPHIA: GRANT, F AIRES & RODGERS, PRINTERS.

1875.

OPFICEBS FOR 1875.

PRESIDENT. DILLWYN PAEEISH.

VICE PRESIDENTS. BENJAMIN COATES, T. ELL WOOD CHAPMAN.

SECRETARIES.

JOSEPH M. TRUMAN, JE., WILLIAM HEACOCK.

TREASURER. CALEB CLOTHIEE.

LIBRARIAN.

JOSEPH M. TRUMAN, JE.

RECORDER OP MANUMISSIONS.

CALEB CLOTHIEE.

COUNSELLORS. EDWAED HOPPEE, Philadelphia. GEOEGE H. EARLE, JOSEPH E. EIIOADS, " D. NEW LIN FELL, JOSEPH J. LEWIS, Chester.

ACTING COMMITTEE.

DILLWYN PARRISH, PASSMORE WILLIAMSON,

WM. J. MULLEN, ALFRED H. LOVE,

HENRY M. LAIN©, O. HOWARD WTILSON,

WILLIAM STILL.

BOARD OF EDUCATION.

BENJAMIN COATES, T. ELLWOOD CHAPMAN,

DILLWYN PARRISH, BENJAMIN P. HUNT,

WM. HEACOCK, JOS. M. TRUMAN, JE.,

WILLIAM STILL, MOEDECAI BUZBY,

HENEY M. LAING, MAECELLUS BALDEESTON,

O. HOWARD \\TLSON, WILLIAM WHIPPEK. LUKENS WEBSTEE.

COMMITTEE ON PROPERTY. CALEB CLOTHIEE, WILLIAM J. MULLEN,

T. ELLWOOD CHAPMAN.

CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY.

The " Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage, and for Impro- ving the Condition of the African Race," celebrated its Centennial Anni- versary at Concert Hall, in Philadelphia, Wednesday, April 14th, 1875. The organization is the oldest and most efficient of all that rallied around the same humane cause, but has received less recognition than others that accomplished no tithe of its work.

The history of the Society touches that of the Western Continent. Spain enslaved and exported Indians here as early as 1495. The difficulty of procuring Indians and the need for labor induced the Spaniards to import negroes to the New World soon after. The Emperor Charles V. licensed a Fleming to ship negroes to the West Indies. Other European nations imitated this conduct, and slavery was naturalized. Before 1776 more than 300,000 negroes arrived. The Continental Congress forbade the importation to the United States in 1776, but Congress was forbidden by the Constitution to stop the trade before 1808, although Washington, Ham- ilton, Jefferson, Jay, Franklin, Madison and many of their great cotem- poraries saw its conflict with the Declaration and opposed its tolerance. They hoped, however, that an institution so foreign to the genius of the land, to Christianity, education, civilization and industry would die from its own baseness, and shrank from awakening sectional feeling and interfering with business interests. They even conceded to the South some advantages for preserving the system, under a conviction that it must die there as it had died at the North. The politicians and merchants were foremost in this compromise between right and wrong, and the mass of the people were not unwilling abettors. The old Abolition Society did not participate in this dangerous and costly blunder. They were saga- cious, principled and humane men. Revolting from an inhumanity so

3

gross, inexcusable and dangerous, they associated to effect by concert what they dared not attempt individually : proclaimed their intent and under- took what none lived to see realized.

One of the first important steps of the Society was the last important public act of Benjamin Franklin. He as President signed a Memorial addressed by the Society to Congress in 1790, asking that body " to devise means for removing the inconsistency of slavery from the American peo- ple," and " to step to the very verge of its power for discouraging every species of traffic in the persons of our fellow-men." The history of the doings of this old Abolition Society is unwritten ; and they are so involved in all that was attempted and done by either political party to render the land free in fact as in name, and in all the vexed questions of a century, that they can hardly ever be dissociated. But the individuals who adhered to the truth, and defended the common cause of government, of constitu- tional law, of human rights and national well-being in hopeless days, and by this devotion bred the sense that finally won their wishes — these indi- viduals will be loved for their truth and honored for their conduct always. They were crushed, and even hope itself seemed lost when the Fugitive Slave Law enacted more than ever had been conceded, and carried the slave- master under the escort of civil power, with a right to demand military assistance, into every free State. Still they believed that Eight lived " the eternal years of God," and were undismayed by the momentary defeat and stimulated to greater effort. Despite growing obloquy not unattended by personal danger and loss of property, they retained their faith and con- tinued their labors ; they ameliorated the condition of some and succored the wants of others, enslaved or fugitive ; reunited families that had es- caped and placed them in safety ; and when the old members were gath- ered to the majority, full of years and full of honors, confident of their re- ward, their children filled their places as worthily and enlisted others, — among them those who now exult in the fruition of a hope so long delayed — the attainment of a purpose so necessary for the nation and human progress.

The first object of the Society has been realized. On all the continent no slave now draws breath ; and those who remain enslaved on its adjacent islands can foresee the date of their final emancipation. The Society is now remitted to its second purpose — the improvement of the condition of the African race ; a labor as great perhaps as its predecessor, — certainly as important to the nation, the race and the world ; and that is to be pro- secuted steadily, against many discouragements as well as under many en- couragements, until the whole end of the early organization has been ful- filled in every detail and to the spirit as well as to the letter.

5

The following is the Programme of Exercises, as issued by the Committee.

1775. CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY 1875-

OF THE

PENNSYLVANIA SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY,

TO BE HELD AT CONCERT HALL,

CHESTNUT ST., ABOVE TWELFTH,

On Wednesday Afternoon, April 14th, 1875, at 2i o'clock, p. m.

SINGING BY THE HUTCHINSON FAMILY.

PROGRAMME.

CHAIRMAN:

Hon. Henry Wilson, Vice President of United States.

PRAYER, Rev. W. H. Furness, D. D.

HISTORICAL ORATION, . . . Dr. Wm. Elder.

ADDRESSES BY

Frederick Douglass, Lu< ret] \ Mott, Elizuh Wright, jr.,

Robert Purvis, Mrs. F. E. W. Harper, C.C.Burleigh,

Hon. W. S. Peirce, Bishop D. A. Payne, Prof. J. M. Langston,

A. M. Powell, Abby Kelley Forster, and others.

DOXOLOGY.

BENEDICTION, Bisii i» !• Campbell,

The above Speakers will participate in the Evening Exercises, to be held at Bethel Church, Sixth below Pine, at 7J o'clock, P. M.

COMMITTEE OF ARRANGEMENTS.

Wm. Still, Dillwyn Parrish, Joseph M. Truman, Jr.,

Chairman, PASSMORE WILLIAMSON, Henry M. Laing.

700 Arch Street.

At the appointed hour, Wednesday afternoon, April 14th, William Still, Chairman of the Committee of Arrangements, called the meeting to order. The stand was properly decorated with the national ensign, and bouquets of tasteful flowers adorned the desk. Conspicuous on either side of the Chairman, were men eminent in the annals of the Society and in the affairs of the Union. Hon. Henry Wilson, Vice-President of the United States, occupied the central seat in the front row. Frederick Douglass, the eminent and eloquent champion of his race sat near ; supported by the gifted orator, Robert Purvis, and countenanced by Lu- cretia Mott, Abby Kelley Foster, and others scarcely less known. Members of the Society of Friends were conspicuous everywhere, and tempered the brilliant colors of the assembly by the sedate tone of their attire. They who had done so much to make the Centennial pos- sible were very properly prominent in its observance. Ex-Governor Cur- tin, C. C. Burleigh, Prof. Langston, Bishop Campbell, Passmore William- son, Elizur Wright, Henry Armitt Brown, Esq., Dillwyn Parrish, Frances E. W. Harper, Hon. W. S. Peirce, H. M. Laing, Sarah Pugh, Simon Barnard, Cyrus Elder, Rachel W. Townsend, Geo. Alsop, Yardley Warner, Hannah Cox, Dinah Mendenhall,Geo.W. Taylor, Elijah F. Penny- packer, and others whose services won the honor, were grouped on the stage, in the sight of a large audience. The President of the Society then called the assemblage to order, and announced that the Hon. Henry Wilson, Vice-President of the United States, would preside. He, coming forward, acknowledged the reception accorded him and called upon Rev. W. H. Furness, D. D., to invoke the Divine blessing upon the meeting. Dr. Furness did so as follows :

THE INVOCATION.

Oh Thou, E^er-Present and All-surrounding Maker and Lord of all things, Thou hast Thy being in us as we have our being in Thee. We invoke now the inspiration and the blessing of Thy felt presence in our hearts. We rejoice that while there are so many occasions of strife and of separation among men, there is yet one cause for which strangers may meet as friends, as brothers and sisters of one household. Thus coming together now, we rejoice in the manifestation of Thy Spirit, in the precious memories which this day brings upon the cause of freedom and humani- ty, ever advancing even from the smallest beginnings to the great triumph which it has been our privilege to witness. Thou hast given us to see what wise and faithful men, martyrs, and prophets longed to see, but never saw save in prophetic vision. Truly is Thy doing marvellous

in our eyes. Not unto us, not unto men be the glory ; for no flesh can glory in Thy most manifest presence.

And now with one heart do we pray that the heart of this great nation may not die and lie buried under the mountain of its worldly prosperity ; but may our just and equal institutions have their due influence, and day by day and hour by hour may they breathe into the hearts of this people that sacred sentiment of human respect which must be the life of our life, and which shall so expand all hearts that the fetters of pride and pre- judice shall fall away, even as the chains have fallen from the limbs of the slave. May Thy kingdom come, O God ! the kingdom of Thy truth and justice, and Thy will be done on earth as it is done by the angels of Thy presence. Give us this day and at this hour what is needful for our souls ; may we forgive as we hope to be forgiven. Lead us not into temp- tation, but deliver us from evil ; for Thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, forever and ever.

ADDRESS BY THE VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED

STATES.

Hon. Henry Wilson, Vice-President of the United States, then delivered a Commemorative oration, with an earnest eloquence attested by his long sympathy for and aid of the Society, that was inspired by patriotic joy and national pride, and riveted the unflagging attention of the great audience, who drowned its conclusion in applause. The Oration was as follows :

Ladies and Gentlemen : The duty of presiding over the proceedings of this day has been assigned me by the Board of Managers. Gratefully I accept this position, and at once enter upon the performance of its duties. To be chosen to preside over this centennial celebration of the anniversary of a society established for purposes such as those for which this society was established, and actuated by motives such as those which actuated this society— enrolling among its members names so illustrious, and accom- plishing a work so grand— is to me one of the happiest and proudest events of my life. [Applause.] The organization of this society a cen- tury ago was indeed a great event, and its history is one of the purest, grandest, and noblest of any organization in the history of the world. Its effect and influence in the early days of the Republic were seen and acknowledged. Its labors at a later period— at the time when the cruel fugitive slave act was being executed in the country— were seen and felt ;

and the evidences of those labors were manifested in this city, in the coun- ties around about you, and in the border counties of Pennsylvania. The country has never known more faithful men — and women, too — than have been connected with the Pennsylvania Abolition Society.

There is to-day, thank God, no slave in the Republic ! [Applause.] The fetters were not melted off by kindly influences, but were stricken off by the rude hand of civil war. The chains fell not from the limbs of the slave by the conversion of the master, but by the interposition of the strong hand of power. And, ladies and gentlemen, remember to-day, on this hundredth anniversary of the organization of this great society, that the work for which this society was organized is not yet accomplished. The slave is free, but the system of slavery left behind it influences, and powers, and scars which only the humanity, the Christianity of the Ameri- can people can work away. Dr. Furness alluded to the falling of the chains from the limbs of the slave, and has prayed to God that the time might come when human passions and prejudices might so fall away. The thought is a beautiful one. Humane Christianity ! It should be the vital, animating spirit of this nation to work away these prejudices, to lift up the poor and the lowly, and make the Republic that which in deed and in truth it ought to be — a Christian land, where every man is fully pro- tected in his rights as a citizen.

I fear, ladies and gentlemen, that there is in the country to-day, a coun- ter-revolution against the colored man. It must be met by the men whose hearts are bathed in the anti-slavery sentiment, and who mean, God bless- ing us, that the spirit of anti-slavery shall pervade the whole land, North and South. [Applause.] Let it be understood, then, henceforth and forever, that no matter what time it takes, no matter what it costs, the sentiment of the Abolition Society of Pennsylvania, with that of kin- dred and more recent organizations, must pervade this land ; that the condition of the colored men must be improved ; that the condition of the poor white men who suffered by slavery must be improved — aye, too, that the condition of that deluded but smitten and stricken section of our country must be improved. Let it be understood then that while we love the black man, and mean to lift him up, to elevate and protect him, and to aid him in the grand work of self-improvement, we also mean to lift up, elevate, and improve the poor-white men whom slavery smote. Aye, and we mean to improve the condition of the erring and sinning masses, and to build up our country and make our country what it ought to be — an example and an inspiration for the nations. [Great applause.] •

The Hutchinson Family sang one of the melodies they made familiar in former years.

Eobert Purvis, Esq., was introduced to read the letters of invited guests who were unable to attend. He said as a preliminary:

Mr. Chairman : Of the letters that are placed in my hands I shall read but a few. The first is from the great Pioneer ; the man who caught the inspiration from the pamphlet of the Quaker girl in England, who, as against gradualism, declared the doctrine of immediatism as alike the right of the slave and the duty of the master. This letter, sir, is from William Lloyd Garrison. [Applause.] It reads as follows :

Boston, April 12, 1875. Dear Mr. Still: Honored with a pressing invitation to participate in the Centennial anniversary of the Pennsylvania Society for the Pro- motion of the Abolition of Slavery, etc., to be celebrated in Philadelphia on the 14th instant, I can only return my thanks for the same, regretting that circumstances oblige me to be absent. This celebration is certainly as suggestive as it is unique. An Anti-slavery Society a century old ! And of that long period only the last ten years have witnessed the aboli- tion of that inhuman slave system, in opposition to which the Society was organized ! Half a million of slaves at the commencement multiplying to four millions before their emancipation ! Ninety years of persistent, active, shameless slave-holding, slave-hunting, slave-trading, by a people claiming to have Christ for their divine examplar, the Bible for their only rule of faith and practice, and genuine democracy as the pole-star of their political form of government ! Ninety years of sinful compromises to per- petuate an oppression, " one hour of which," so testified Thomas Jefferson, " was fraught with more misery than ages of that which our fathers rose in rebellion to oppose !" Ninety years busily occupied in an insane attempt to bring into concord light and darkness, God and Mammon, Christ and Belial, and to make homogeneous ideas, customs, and institutions inhe- rently antagonistical ! And this awful state of thiugs at last ending, not in a general repentance and contrition, but by a bloody retribution long ago predicted, and for many years admonishingly set forth by the true friends of equal rights, if justice were not speedily done. " Thus saith the Lord : Ye have not hearkened unto me, in proclaiming liberty, every one to his brother, and every man to his neighbor: behold, I proclaim a, liberty for you, saith the Lord, to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine." What a record of hypocrisy and double-dealing!

Will it be said that the past, with whatever of shame or guilt attaches

10

to it, ought to be buried in oblivion ; that, as not a slave is left to clank his fetters in all the land, conciliation and good-will are the duties of the hour; that to revive such recollections can only tend to perpetuate feelings of alienation and bitterness? Suggestions like these have a plausible sound, but they are illusory. Our progress in unity, in all that tends to make a people truly great and prosperous, will be exactly in propor- tion to our willingness to contemplate the causes of our fearful visitations, that we may all the more earnestly "study the things that make for peace," by securing to all the inhabitants of the land their God-given rights, so that neither under the National nor any State government shall there be any intolerance toward any class on the American soil. Admitting that we have many reasons for " thanking God and taking courage," I think that there are also many others which should serve to stimulate us to earnest and persistent action in well-doing by remembering that " the price of liberty is eternal vigilance." May your celebration be in all respects worthy of the event !

Yours, for universal freedom, Wm. Lloyd Garrison.

Letters regretting the inability of the writers to be present were also received from Wendell Phillips of Massachusetts, John G. Whittier of Massachusetts, President U. S. Grant, George W. Curtis of New York, John Needles of Maryland, Rev. John Sargeant of Massachusetts, Joseph A. Dugdale of Iowa, Rev. Samuel May of Boston, Rev. R. Collyer of Illinois, James G. Thompson of South Carolina, George W. Julian of Indiana, Edmund Quincy of Massachusetts, Gen. B. F. Butler of Massa- chusetts, Gov. Hartranft, Mayor Stokley and A. B. Bradford of Penn- sylvania, R. F. Walcott of Massachusetts, A. M. Powell of Massachusetts, Samuel M. Janney of Virginia, Rev. C B. Ray of New York, Rev. John F. Sargeant of Massachusetts, Rev. George Whipple of New York, John P. Green of Ohio, and Rev. O. B. Frothingham of New York, and Geo. F. McFarland. Brief extracts from these were read.

Amesbuky, 24th Third Month, 1875.

Dillwyn Parrish : — My dear Friend : — I regret more than I can express that I cannot be with thee and other dear old friends and co- workers in the cause of freedom on the occasion of the Centennial Anni- versary of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society.

For, indeed, it is an event of no ordinary significance, this centennial of the first society ever formed for the abolition of slavery.

It commemorates one of the great aggressive movements of Christian civilization against the still surviving barbarism of an age of brute force and selfishness.

11

What a history is connected with it ! What a struggle between all that is best and all that is vilest in human nature has marked its progress !

What faith, what courage, what noble aspirations, what generous self- sacrifice has it known ! How many blessings from souls rescued from the intolerable hell of slavery have made the sleep of its members sweeter and compensated them for their life-long labors !

Looking over its roll of membership, we find the names of men whose memory is precious — the elect and called of God to the noblest service — men every way worthy of a State whose foundations were laid in prayer, and to whose charter of rights and liberties the joint wisdom of Penn and Sydney contributed.

The great Centennial of American Independence of the coming year will show that no State has a prouder record than Pennsylvania: but in all her rich inheritance of renown she has nothing better than her Aboli- tion Society, the first of its kind in the world's history, numbering among its supporters such men as Franklin, Baldwin, Rush, Pemberton, Mifflin, Shipley, Needles, and thy own honored father.

The world slowly emerging from the darkness of the Stone Age, still, doubtless, over-estimates its warrior champions; but the time is not far distant when justice will be done to the heroes of the bloodless victories of Christian civilization and progress.

Their armor rings on a fairer field

Than Greek or Trojan ever trod ; For freedom's sword is the blade they wield,

And the light above is the smile of God.

So far as the abolition of slavery is concerned, the work of the society is done. Mainly upon the colored people themselves now depends the ques- tion whether, by patient industry, sobriety and assiduous self-culture, they shall overcome the unchristian prejudice still existing against them, or by indolence, thriftlessness, and moral and physical degradation, they shall confirm and strengthen it.

But there is on the part of all who have sought their freedom, no lack of occasion for labor in their behalf in accordance with the very spirit and letter of the constitution of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, which is pledged to " the relief of free negroes."

All that can be done consistent with the constitutional right of States, should be done for their protection by the General Government, and there is do philanthropic object at the present time more deserving of encourage- ment than that of the education of the children of freedmen.

12

In this point of view there is still work for the old parent society, and it has a legitimate right to exist and continue its labors of love so long as there is prejudice to overcome or ignorance to be enlightened.

Accept, dear friend, assurances of old-time love and respect from thy friend. John G. Whittier.

THE HISTORICAL ORATION.

Dr. William Elder was then introduced by the chairman with some complimentary remarks, observing that he needed no introduction to a Pennsylvania audience. Dr. Elder spoke extemporaneously, and dis- cussed the progress of Abolition from the first suggestion to its victory, as follows :

Ladies and Gentlemen : In assuming to discharge the duty which has been requested and required of me by the Committee of Arrange- ments, I shall follow the line of thought which has been designated for me by the committee. It is unfortunate that in this instance they should have selected "the wrong man " for "the right place;" inasmuch as the subject of which I am to treat being of an historical character, and there- fore necessarily dependent mainly upon facts and dates, should properly be presented from written notes, whereas my habit has been during all my life to speak extemporaneously. I once tried to read in public a lecture, but it was the only time I ever essayed such a task. Aside from that, there is this consideration : the facts and the dates that go to make up the history of this hundred years whose close you are now here to cele- brate, and the circumstances and influences that hover around that momentous era, cannot now be memorized — nay, it is impossible to read them to you because they have as yet not all been written, and the day has not yet come when they can be fully comprehended. If stated with only comparative accuracy and amplitude, what a compendium of events, what a chronology would not that history comprise — what a host of memories would rise up to confront us here to-day ! Who now can faith- fully trace the current and river of this great anti-slavery influence to the rills and brooks and spring-tops and mountain-heads from which it started ? I repeat, I do not think the time has yet come when even the best of us can fully comprehend this influence. I know not in which direction the most powerful springs of action are to be traced. Sometimes I have thought it was to the leading minds of the times, and that history would so record it. Again, it has occurred to me that in my own experience it

13

was in the common heart of the masses of the people that I had found the strongest resources for the little labor that I may have performed in the cause.

The epoch in which your Society had its origin is marked by events such as these. In 1776, Friends' Yearly Meeting took the decisive step of subjecting to discipline and disownment members who held slaves over lawful age. Emancipations about this time became very frequent, both within and without the Quaker community. Without following any exact order in point of date, the facts are that in 1778 Jefferson had a bill passed by the Legislature of Virginia abolishing the foreign slave trade — I mean prohibiting the importation of slaves into that State. In 1787 he provided, in the bill for the cession to the old Confederacy of the Northwestern Territory, (embracing within it the territorial limits of the States of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois), that slavery should cease forever in that large domain after the year 1800; this provision, which was intro- duced by the Virginia Legislature, being identical in terms with that of the celebrated Wilmot Proviso offered in 184G in respect to any and all territory that should be acquired from Mexico. In 1772 the famous Somerset case was decided by Lord Mansfield, though Chief Justice Hole- ton's decision was made in much stronger terms at least eighty years before. The Chief Justice decided that no law of England ever made a slave ; that " there were villeins indeed, but no chattel slaves ;" that the absolute right to the body of a man was not English. Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia, printed in Paris in 1784, contained the famous passage, with which you are all familiar : " The Almighty has no attri- bute that could take part with us in a servile war ; I tremble for my coun- try when I feel that God is just."

In 1780 the Legislature of Pennsylvania passed the act for the gradual abolition of slavery in this State. In 1770, Granville Sharpe first appears in the conduct of the Somerset case. Clarkson and Wilberforce must be dated about the year 1785, and "William Pitt, chief of the Ministry, and Charles James Fox, leader of the Opposition, joined in antagonism to the slave trade in 1790. The English House of Commons passed a bill for the suppression of the slave trade in 1793 and again in 1794, which bill failed in the House of Peers, but was finally passed in 1807. In 1777 the State of Vermont passed an act abolishing slavery in that State. At that time Vermont had less than three hundred slaves within her territory. Pennsylvania, when she abolished her system of slavery, held nearly four thousand slaves. According to the interpretation of her constitution sub- sequently rendered by the Supreme Court, Massachusetts abolished slavery

14

in 1780 by her constitution. On the 15th of May, 1791, France, by her National Assembly, virtually granted equal political rights to free men, without regard to color.

To this list I now add the date of the organization of your own Society.

It was organized on the 14th of April, 1775, with John Baldwin as its President, and Thomas Harrison as its Secretary ; with whom were very soon associated, in sentiment and in action, men whose names are leading and inextinguishable in the history of our country. In 1787 Benjamin Franklin was elected President and Dr. Benjamin Rush one of its Secre- taries. The list embraces some two hundred and forty-four names.

These facts and dates define and embrace the time of the National birth- day of the United States of America, and the whole period is marked by an epidemic of abolitionism, both in these States and the whole of Western Europe.

Here I am led to remark that while a history looks up the day-springs of the great events which it narrates, there is not in reality, either in science, morals, or politics, any means of fixing the dates of discoveries so absolutely as to mark with precision the areas of their great revolutions. These dates are in facts as inconclusive as was Topsy's genealogy, who, when asked who made her, replied, " I dunno : I 'spect I growed." The greatest and gravest of the received authorities seems compelled to declare that it was in the beginning that God made the heavens and the earth, and no more definite date can be given to any great event which He has inspired. Exactly where one wave of the ocean begins or ends is not seen ; it is only toward their crests that they become clearly distinct. We must, therefore, content ourselves with stating in general that in this wickedness of personal slavery the whole world lay until some time about the middle of the eighteenth century, when a new world of men and things began to emerge, so fruitful of wonders during its first century of progress that no tongue can tell, no mind can comprehend them. About this epoch the spirit of reform moved abroad on the face of the earth, and the greater and lesser lights gathered into suns, and moons, and stars, and divided the day from the night; moral, religious, and political liberty broke into insurrection and revolution, and their course has ever since run from vic- tory to victory, " leading captivity captive," until now, upon the great centennial of our own national history, the chattel slavery of man in the whole civilized world is dead. Who is sufficient for these things? What colossal intellect can retrace even the topmost stepping-stones that marked the progress of the last half of the eighteenth century in the abolishment of the slaveries of every form which hung upon it at its beginning ? Think

15

of the biographical dictionary that should hold the deeds of the heroes of this great history. Think of the chronological list that would give their dates.

We turn now to a second period of our history. A member of the convention which formed our Federal Constitution, upon returning to his Massachusetts constituency, felicitated them with the announcement that they had given slavery its death-blow. Yet that was twenty years before Congress abolished the foreign slave trade of the United States. Even then the atmosphere of the whole civilized world was bright in the light of anti-slavery sentiment and abolition effort. At this time (the period of the formation of the Federal Constitution), Franklin and Rush pre- sided over the labors of the Pennsylvania Society : John Jay and Alex- ander Hamilton were President and Vice-president of the New York Manumission Society. Other associations were formed in the other Eastern States, and they were vigorous and hopeful in the South ; in Vir- ginia, Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Georgia, and North Carolina. The doctrines of these associations went, I think, no further than gradual abolition. What Franklin and his associates meant by asking Congress, in 1790, to " devise means for removing the inconsistency of slavery from the American people, and to step to the very verge of its power for dis- couraging every species of traffic in the persons of our fellow-men," is easily inferred. This petition, signed by Franklin as the president of your Society, was sent to the first Congress, at not later than its second session.

Now the third epoch of this eventful history opens upon us. After the achievements and triumphs of the times of 1776 and the abolition of the foreign slave trade of the United States, there was a lull in the movement of the people of these two countries until, in 1<619, the Missouri question awakened the slumbering energies of the Northern States. During the period of this comparative inaction the phase in the fortunes of our colored people had been steadily assuming portentous features. In 1793 Whit- ney produced his cotton gin for the separation of the seed from the fibre. Before that a negro woman could not clean more than one pound in a day. Whitney's machine finished three hundred weight per diem, or did three hundred and thirty times the amount of work that a slave could perform. This made the cotton production very profitable, and slavery, employed in the culture of the plant, rose proportionately in value. Somewhere between 1807 and 1820 the invention of machinery and the application of steam in the manufacture into all the forms of use brought into the field of this warfare an auxiliary to the slavery forces that, for a long

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while, was perfectly irresistible. Humanity, morality, political consistency, national honor, and national safety — all were overpowered, and the exten- sion of slavery to new territory and the acquisition of other new territory for its extension became the ruling policy of the South and of their sym- pathizers in the North.

In this state of things the, first square fight between the parties came upon us in 1819-20. The old love of liberty aroused, struggled manfully and bravely, but the axe had not been laid at the root of the tree in the Revolutionary period; only some of its branches had been lopped off, while others grew into great strength under the fostering influence of the golden showers that Trade poured upon them. The contest of that day was lost to the friends of Liberty. In the trial hour, when the result of the battle hung upon a doubt, the Great Compromiser came into the struggle, won his title of Pacificator, and for long years afterwards the compromisers, pacificators, and Union-savers left behind them the strife they had so often settled and compromised, to be finally settled and pacifi- cated by the bayonet.

After the defeat of 1818-20 the losing party began to look to the effi- ciency of the weapons they had used in the battle which they had so sadly lost. They saw that in this Republic Cotton had become King de facto, and that slavery had absolutely reached the sovereignty. They could not submit to defeat, though the glaring fact confronted them that slaves of not more than the average market price of $25 in 1790 had risen to $300 before 1830, while their number had swollen from not quite seven hundred thousand to above three millions. Gradual abolition and assistance to negroes unlawfully held in bondage had utterly failed of their hopes.

These weapons struck wide of the mark. The system of slavery itself was clearly the heart an<? source of all the evils engendered by it, and they now knew that at that vital point every blow must be aimed. Gran- ville Sharpe, as early as 1787, in a society formed in London, for the sup- pression of the slave trade, insisted upon opposing slavery also. In this he was, perhaps, twenty years ahead of his compeers, Wilberforce and Clarkson. The next earliest I have met with was Elizabeth Heyrick, of London, I believe, who, in 1823, published a pamphlet entitled "Imme- diate, Not Gradual, Emancipation." The friends of the great cause, however, did not immediately adopt the doctrine ; they graduated slowly through gradualism, or colonization, until they finally took the vantage ground of Immediateism. And there they stood, without dodging or apology, through terrible trials and sufferings, until the common foe awoke the common wrath of the whole nation, and Abraham Lincoln

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officially gave' the foe the coup de grace which Granville Sharpe and Elizabeth Heyrick meant for it. The armies of the Union empowered him to deal " the stroke of mercy," that at once put the monster out of the field of battle, and out of his pain in dying.

The next Immediateist who stands conspicuously in the story of this struggle is Benjamin Lundy, who, beginning in 1815 in St. Clairsville, Ohio, there organized a society of five hundred members. Soon after- wards he purchased out of his scanty means a newspaper, and devoted it entirely to the promotion of the anti-slavery cause. He removed this paper, which he called The Genius of Universal Emancipation, to Balti- more ; where, in 1829, Wm. Lloyd Garrison joined him in its editorial management. Lundy connected colonization with his scheme, favoring Texas or Hayti, or other suitable localities, as the promised land for the great modern exodus from our Egypt. He has never, perhaps, been ex- ceeded in zeal, labor, and sacrifice by any philanthropist. Mr. Gar- rison himself was a distinguished Colonizationist, and in Baltimore, in 1830, he was imprisoned for alleged libel published upon a slave-trader, and for disturbing the public peace. His trials and labors then began. I cannot detail them if I would. I need not if I could.

About 1840-41, the date of the establishment of The Liberator, the strife began that was destined to introduce the fifth and last act of this grand tragedy. This fourth period, covering the thirty years' war of ar- guments for weapons ; a war under the forms of peace ; a war at once de- fensive and aggressive was a battle to the death, yet a battle that " took from conquest its crime, and from victory its chains." On one side was ar- rayed the slaveow/ier of the South, and the slaveholder of the North ; on the other, the many-headed mass of the friends of Liberty. Slavery now no longer stood the apologist of its attendant evils, but the bold prosecu- tor of the disturbers of the public peace. Everything that malice and fear could suggest, the monster practiced. It bribed and bullied our poli- ticians ; it dominated the press ; it profaned the pulpit ; it put its livery upon religion, and dressed our philosophy in its cap and bells ; it denied the right of petition to our people ; it branded our birthright, liberty of speech, as incendiary ; it proposed to censure one of our representatives for asking whether a petition from slaves might be offered in the Federal House of Representatives, and well-nigh killed one of our senators in his seat because of his steady aud persistent defence of public justice. It re- pealed all that had any good in it of the Missouri Compromise; it inau- gurated a war with Mexico for the extension of its territorial dominion, and " snaked in " Texas, with a territory six times the size of Massachu- 2

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setts, and doomed it to slavery. This move in regard to Texas it accom- plished under the forms of an international treaty, when it could not have accomplished it under any form of law or precedent. And it finally de- cided that the colored people had " no rights which white men were bound to respect."

At the close of the rebellion we had upon our hands, say, four millions of slaves. Immediateism then boldly undertook the risks and performed the duty of emancipating this host — a host greater by far in number than was that which Moses was able to conduct in safety through the desert into the promised land. What are the results ?

England emancipated her slaves mainly because they were worthless as property to their masters, but urged, also doubtless by sentiments of reli- gion and morality; but 70,000 of her emancipated countrymen were hung in the reign of Henry VIII. Now, in relative ratio to population, this number of executions for crime would equal, in the population of Penn- sylvania, five victims per day. These homeless wretches were hung for burglary, larceny, trespass, and vagrancy — for all the offences that poverty and destitution could suggest. This experience strengthened the argument against emancipation in this country. But behold ! Our freedmen have passed into citizenship in the face of prejudice and of every burden that they could be made to bear, without arsons, murders, riots, or such im- poverishment as seemed clearly impending upon them. The purity of the principle and the righteousness of the policy are vindicated now and forever by the fact that these people have passed from bondage into free- dom more safely than have any other people in the world's wide history.

The Hutchinson Family sang Whittier's "Furnace Blast," at the close of Dr. Elder's oration, in such a manner and with such spirit that it eli- cited great applause.

THE FUKNACE BLAST.

We wait beneath the furnace-blast

The pangs of transformation ; Not painlessly doth God recast And mould anew the nation. Hot burns the fire Where wrongs expire ; Nor spares the hand That from the land Uproots the ancient evil.

The hand-breadth cloud the sages feared Its bloody rain is dropping;

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The poison plant the fathers spared All else is overtopping. East, West, South, North, It curses the earth ; All justice dies, And fraud and lies Live only in its shadow.

What gives the wheat-field blades of steel ?

What points the rebel cannon ? What sets the roaring rabble's heel On the old star-sjtangled pennon ? What breaks the oath Of the men o' the South For the Union's life ? — Hark to the answer : Slavery !

Then waste no blows on lesser foes

In strife unworthy freemen. God lifts to-day the vail, and shows The features of the demon ! O North and South, Its victims both, Can ye not cry, " Let slavery die !" And union find in freedom ?

v What though the cast-out spirit tear

The nation in his going ? We who have shared the guilt must share The pang of his o'erthrowing ! Whate'er the loss, Whate'er the cross, Shall they complain Of present pain Who trust in God's hereafter ?

For who that leans on His right arm