Three Years in Europe by William Wells Brown

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At the close of this address, the Rev. Edward Matthews, last from
Bristol, but who had recently returned from the United States, where he
had been maltreated on account of his fidelity to the cause of freedom,
was introduced, and made a most interesting speech. The next speaker was
George Thompson, Esq., M.P.; and we need only say that his eloquence,
which has seldom or ever been equalled, and never surpassed, exceeded,
on this occasion, the most sanguine expectations of his friends. All who
sat under the thundering anathemas which he hurled against slavery,
seemed instructed, delighted, and animated. No one could scarcely have
remained unmoved by the pensive sympathies that pervaded the entire
assembly. There were many in the meeting who had never seen a fugitive
slave before, and when any of the speakers would refer to those on the
platform, the whole audience seemed moved to tears. No meeting of the
kind held in London for years created a greater sensation than this
gathering of refugees from the "Land of the free, and the home of the
brave." The following appeal, which I had written for the occasion, was
unanimously adopted at the close of the meeting, and thus ended the
great Anti-Slavery demonstration of 1851.

AN APPEAL TO THE PEOPLE OF GREAT BRITAIN AND THE WORLD.

We consider it just, both to the people of the United States and to
ourselves, in making an appeal to the inhabitants of other countries,
against the laws which have exiled us from our native land, to state the
ground upon which we make our appeal, and the causes which impel us to
do so. There are in the United States of America, at the present time,
between three and four millions of persons, who are held in a state of
slavery which has no parallel in any other part of the world; and whose
numbers have, within the last fifty years, increased to a fearful
extent. These people are not only deprived of the rights to which the
laws of Nature and Nature's God entitle them, but every avenue to
knowledge is closed against them. The laws do not recognise the family
relation of a slave, and extend to him protection in the enjoyment of
domestic endearments. Brothers and sisters, parents and children,
husbands and wives, are torn asunder, and permitted to see each other
no more. The shrieks and agonies of the slave are heard in the markets
at the seat of government, and within hearing of the American Congress,
as well as on the cotton, sugar and rice plantations of the far South.

The history of the negroes in America is but a history of repeated
injuries and acts of oppression committed upon them by the whites. It is
not for ourselves that we make this appeal, but for those whom we have
left behind.

In their Declaration of Independence, the Americans declare that "all
men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness." Yet one-sixth of the inhabitants of the great
Republic are slaves. Thus they give the lie to their own professions. No
one forfeits his or her character or standing in society by being
engaged in holding, buying or selling a slave; the details of which, in
all their horror, can scarcely be told.

Although the holding of slaves is confined to fifteen of the thirty-one
States, yet we hold that the non-slave-holding States are equally guilty
with the slave-holding. If any proof is needed on this point, it will be
found in the passage of the inhuman Fugitive Slave Law, by Congress; a
law which could never have been enacted without the votes of a portion
of the representatives from the free States, and which is now being
enforced, in many of the States, with the utmost alacrity. It was the
passing of this law that exiled us from our native land, and it has
driven thousands of our brothers and sisters from the free States, and
compelled them to seek a refuge in the British possessions in North
America. The Fugitive Slave Law has converted the entire country, North
and South, into one vast hunting-ground. We would respectfully ask you
to expostulate with the Americans, and let them know that you regard
their treatment of the coloured people of that country as a violation of
every principle of human brotherhood, of natural right, of justice, of
humanity, of Christianity, of love to God and love to man.

It is needless that we should remind you that the religious sects of
America, with but few exceptions, are connected with the sin of
slavery--the churches North as well as South. We would have you tell the
professed Christians of that land, that if they would be respected by
you, they must separate themselves from the unholy alliance with men who
are daily committing deeds which, if done in England, would cause the
perpetrator to be sent to a felon's doom; that they must refuse the
right hand of Christian fellowship, whether individually or
collectively, to those implicated, in any way, in the guilt of slavery.

We do not ask for a forcible interference on your part, but only that
you will use all lawful and peaceful means to restore to this much
injured race their God-given rights. The moral and religious sentiment
of mankind must be arrayed against slave-holding, to make it infamous,
ere we can hope to see it abolished. We would ask you to set them the
example, by excluding from your pulpits, and from religious communion,
the slave-holding and pro-slavery ministers who may happen to visit this
country. We would even go further, and ask you to shut your doors
against either ministers or laymen, who are at all guilty of upholding
and sustaining this monster sin. By the cries of the slave, which come
from the fields and swamps of the far South, we ask you to do this! By
that spirit of liberty and equality of which you all admire, we would
ask you to do this. And by that still nobler, higher, and holier spirit
of our beloved Saviour, we would ask you to stamp upon the head of the
slaveholder, with a brand deeper than that which marks the victim of his
wrongs, the infamy of theft, adultery, man-stealing, piracy, and murder,
and, by the force of public opinion, compel him to "unloose the heavy
burden, and let the oppressed go free."

LETTER XXI.

_A Chapter on American Slavery._

The word Englishman is but another name for an American, and the word
American is but another name for an Englishman--England is the father,
America the son. They have a common origin and identity of language;
they hold the same religious and political opinions; they study the same
histories, and have the same literature. Steam and mechanical ingenuity
have brought the two countries within nine days sailing of each other.
The Englishman on landing at New-York finds his new neighbours speaking
the same language which he last heard on leaving Liverpool, and he sees
the American in the same dress that he had been accustomed to look upon
at home, and soon forgets that he is three thousand miles from his
native land, and in another country. The American on landing at
Liverpool, and taking a walk through the great commercial city, finding
no difficulty in understanding the people, supposes himself still in
New-York; and if there seems any doubt in his own mind, growing out of
the fact that the people have a more healthy look, seem more polite, and
that the buildings have a more substantial appearance than those he had
formerly looked upon, he has only to imagine, as did Rip Van Winkle,
that he has been asleep these hundred years.

If the Englishman who has seen a Thompson silenced in Boston, or a
Macready mobbed in New-York, upon the ground that they were foreigners,
should sit in Exeter Hall and hear an American orator until he was
hoarse, and wonder why the American is better treated in England than
the Englishman in America, he has only to attribute it to John Bull's
superior knowledge of good manners, and his being a more law-abiding man
than brother Jonathan. England and America has each its reforms and its
reformers, and they have more or less sympathy with each other. It has
been said that one generation commences a reform in England, and that
another generation finishes it. I would that so much could be said with
regard to the great object of reform in America--the system of slavery!

No evil was ever more deeply rooted in a country than is slavery in the
United States. Spread over the largest and most fertile States in the
Union, with decidedly the best climate, and interwoven, as it is, with
the religious, political, commercial, and social institutions of the
country, it is scarcely possible to estimate its influence. This is the
evil which claims the attention of American Reformers, over and above
every other evil in the land, and thanks to a kind providence, the
American slave is not without his advocates. The greatest enemy to the
Anti-Slavery Society, and the most inveterate opposer of the men whose
names stand at the head of the list as officers and agents of that
association, will, we think, assign to William Lloyd Garrison, the first
place in the ranks of the American Abolitionists. The first to proclaim
the doctrine of immediate emancipation to the slaves of America, and on
that account an object of hatred to the slave-holding interest of the
country, and living for years with his life in danger, he is justly
regarded by all, as the leader of the Anti-Slavery movement in the New
World. Mr. Garrison is at the present time but little more than
forty-five years of age, and of the middle size. He has a high and
prominent forehead, well developed, with no hair on the top of the head,
having lost it in early life; with a piercing eye, a pleasant, yet
anxious countenance, and of a most loveable disposition; tender, and
blameless in his family affections, devoted to his friends; simple and
studious, upright, guileless, distinguished, and worthy, like the
distinguished men of antiquity, to be immortalized by another Plutarch.
How many services never to be forgotten, has he not rendered to the
cause of the slave, and the welfare of mankind! As a speaker, he is
forcible, clear, and logical, yet he will not rank with the many who are
less known. As a writer, he is regarded as one of the finest in the
United States, and certainly the most prominent in the Anti-Slavery
cause. Had Mr. Garrison wished to serve himself, he might, with his
great talents, long since, have been at the head of either of the great
political parties. Few men can withstand the allurements of office, and
the prize-money that accompanies them. Many of those who were with him
fifteen years ago, have been swept down with the current of popular
favour, either in Church or State. He has seen a Cox on the one hand,
and a Stanton on the other, swept away like so much floating wood
before the tide. When the sturdiest characters gave way, when the finest
geniuses passed one after another under the yoke of slavery, Garrison
stood firm to his convictions, like a rock that stands stirless amid the
conflicting agitation of the waves. He is not only the friend and
advocate of freedom with his pen and his tongue, but to the oppressed of
every clime he opens his purse, his house, and his heart: yet he is not
a man of money. The fugitive slave, fresh from the whips and chains, who
is turned off by the politician, and experiences the cold shoulder of
the divine, finds a bed and a breakfast under the hospitable roof of Mr.
Lloyd Garrison.

The party of which he is the acknowledged head, is one of no
inconsiderable influence in the United States. No man has more bitter
enemies or stauncher friends than he. There are those among his friends
who would stake their all upon his veracity and integrity; and we are
sure that the coloured people throughout America, bond and free, in
whose cause he has so long laboured, will, with one accord, assign the
highest niche in their affection to the champion of universal
emancipation. Every cause has its writers and its orators. We have drawn
a hasty and imperfect sketch of the greatest writer in the Anti-Slavery
field: we shall now call attention to the most distinguished public
speaker. The name of Wendell Phillips is but another name for eloquence.
Born in the highest possible position in America, Mr. Phillips has all
the advantages that birth can give to one in that country. Educated at
the first University, graduating with all the honours which the College
could bestow on him, and studying the law and becoming a member of the
bar, he has all the accomplishments that these advantages can give to a
man of a great mind. Nature has treated him as a favourite. His stature
is not tall, but handsome; his expressive countenance paints and
reflects every emotion of his soul. His gestures are wonderfully
graceful, like his delivery. There is a fascination in the soft gaze of
his eyes, which none can but admire. Being a great reader, and endowed
by nature with a good memory, he supplies himself with the most
complicated dates and historical events. Nothing can equal the variety
of his matter. I have heard him more than twenty different times on the
same subject, but never heard the same speech. He is personal, but there
is nothing offensive in his personalities. He extracts from a subject
all that it contains, and does it as none but Wendell Phillips can. His
voice is beautifully musical, and it is calculated to attract wherever
it is heard. He is a man of calm intrepidity, of a patriotic and warm
heart, with manners the most affable, temper the most gentle, a
rectitude of principle entirely natural, a freedom from ambition, and a
modesty quite singular. As Napoleon kept the Old Guard in reserve, to
turn the tide in battle, so do the Abolitionists keep Mr. Phillips in
reserve when opposition is expected in their great gatherings. We have
seen the meetings turned into a bedlam, by the mobocratic slave-holding
spirit, and when the speakers had one after another left the platform
without a hearing, and the chairman had lost all control of the
assembly, the appearance of this gentleman upon the platform would turn
the tide of events. He would not beg for a hearing, but on the
contrary, he would lash them as no preceding speaker had done. If, by
their groans and yells, they stifled his voice, he would stand unmoved
with his arms folded, and by the very eloquence of his looks put them to
silence. His speeches against the Fugitive Slave Law, and his withering
rebukes of Daniel Webster and other northern men who supported that
measure, are of the most splendid character, and will compare in point
of composition with anything ever uttered by Chatham or Sheridan in
their palmiest days. As a public speaker, Mr. Phillips is, without
doubt, the first in the United States. Considering his great talent, his
high birth, and the prospects which lay before him, and the fact that he
threw everything aside to plead the slave's cause, we must be convinced
that no man has sacrificed more upon the altar of humanity than Wendell
Phillips.

Within the past ten years, a great impetus has been given to the
anti-slavery movement in America by coloured men who have escaped from
slavery. Coming as they did from the very house of bondage, and being
able to speak from sad experience, they could speak as none others
could.

The gentleman to whom we shall now call attention is one of this class,
and doubtless the first of his race in America. The name of Frederick
Douglass is well known throughout this country as well as America. Born
and brought up as a slave, he was deprived of a mother's care and of
early education. Escaping when he was little more than twenty years of
age, he was thrown upon his own resources in the free states, where
prejudice against colour is but another name for slavery. But during all
this time he was educating himself as well as circumstances would admit.
Mr. Douglass commenced his career as a public speaker some ten years
since, as an agent of the American or Massachusetts Anti-Slavery
Societies. He is tall and well made. His vast and well-developed
forehead announces the power of his intellect. His voice is full and
sonorous. His attitude is dignified, and his gesticulation is full of
noble simplicity. He is a man of lofty reason, natural, and without
pretension, always master of himself, brilliant in the art of exposing
and of abstracting. Few persons can handle a subject with which they are
familiar better than Mr. Douglass. There is a kind of eloquence issuing
from the depth of the soul, as from a spring, rolling along its copious
floods, sweeping all before it, overwhelming by its very force,
carrying, upsetting, engulphing its adversaries, and more dazzling and
more thundering than the bolt which leaps from crag to crag. This is the
eloquence of Frederick Douglass. He is one of the greatest mimics of the
age. No man can put on a sweeter smile or a more sarcastic frown than
he: you cannot put him off his guard. He is always in good humour. Mr.
Douglass possesses great dramatic powers; and had he taken up the sock
and buskin, instead of becoming a lecturer, he would have made as fine a
Coriolanus as ever trod the stage.

However, Mr. Douglass was not the first coloured man that became a
lecturer, and thereby did service to the cause of his countrymen. The
earliest and most effective speaker from among the coloured race in
America, was Charles Lennox Remond. In point of eloquence, this
gentleman is not inferior to either Wendell Phillips or Frederick
Douglass. Mr. Remond is of small stature, and neat figure, with a head
well developed, but a remarkably thin face. As an elocutionist, he is,
without doubt, the first on the anti-slavery platform. He has a good
voice, a pleasing countenance, a prompt intelligence, and when speaking,
is calculated to captivate and carry away an audience by the very force
of his eloquence. Born in the freest state of the Union, and of most
respectable parents, he prides himself not a little on his birth and
descent. One can scarcely find fault with this, for, in the United
States, the coloured man is deprived of the advantages which parentage
gives to the white man. Mr. Remond is a descendant of one of those
coloured men who stood side by side with white men on the plains of
Concord and Lexington, in the battles that achieved the independence of
the colonies from the mother country, in the war of the Revolution. Mr.
Remond has felt deeply, (probably more so than any other coloured man),
the odious prejudice against colour. On this point he is sensitive to a
fault. If any one will sit for an hour and hear a lecture from him on
this subject, if he is not converted, he will at least become convinced,
that the boiling cauldron of anti-slavery discussion has never thrown
upon its surface a more fiery spirit than Charles Lennox Remond.

There are some men who neither speak nor write, but whose lives place
them in the foremost ranks in the cause which they espouse. One of these
is Francis Jackson. He was one of the earliest to give countenance and
support to the anti-slavery movement. In the year 1835, when a mob of
more than 5000 merchants and others, in Boston, broke up an anti-slavery
meeting of females, at which William Lloyd Garrison and George Thompson
were to deliver addresses, and when the Society had no room in which to
hold its meetings (having been driven from their own room by the mob),
Francis Jackson, with a moral courage scarcely ever equalled, came
forward and offered his private dwelling to the ladies, to hold their
meeting in. The following interesting passage occurs in a letter from
him to the Secretary of the Society a short time after, on receiving a
vote of thanks from its members:--

"If a large majority of this community choose to turn a deaf ear to the
wrongs which are inflicted upon their countrymen in other portions of
the land--if they are content to turn away from the sight of oppression,
and 'pass by on the other side'--so it must be.

"But when they undertake in any way to impair or annul my right to
speak, write, and publish upon any subject, and more especially upon
enormities, which are the common concern of every lover of his country
and his kind--so it must not be--so it shall not be, if I for one can
prevent it. Upon this great right let us hold on at all hazards. And
should we, in its exercise, be driven from public halls to private
dwellings, one house at least shall be consecrated to its preservation.
And if, in defence of this sacred privilege, which man did not give me,
and shall not (if I can help it) take from me, this roof and these walls
shall be levelled to the earth, let them fall if they must; they cannot
crumble in a better cause. They will appear of very little value to me
after their owner shall have been whipt into silence."

There are among the contributors to the Anti-Slavery cause, a few who
give with a liberality which has never been surpassed by the donors to
any benevolent association in the world, according to their means--the
chief of these is Francis Jackson.

In the month of May, 1844, while one evening strolling up Broadway, New
York, I saw a crowd making its way into the Minerva Rooms, and, having
no pressing engagement, I followed, and was soon in a splendid hall,
where some twelve or fifteen hundred persons were seated, and listening
to rather a strange-looking man. The speaker was tall and slim, with
long arms, long legs, and a profusion of auburn or reddish hair hanging
in ringlets down his shoulders; while a huge beard of the same colour
fell upon his breast. His person was not at all improved by his dress.
The legs of his trousers were shorter than those worn by smaller men:
the sleeves of his coat were small and short, the shirt collar turned
down in Byronic style, beard and hair hid his countenance, so that no
redeeming feature could be found there; yet there was one redeeming
quality about the man--that was the stream of fervid eloquence which
escaped from his lips. I inquired his name, and was informed that it was
Charles C. Burleigh. Nature has been profuse in showering her gifts upon
Mr. Burleigh, but all has been bestowed upon his head and heart. There
is a kind of eloquence which weaves its thread around the hearer, and
gradually draws him into its web, fascinating him with its gaze,
entangling him as the spider does the fly, until he is fast: such is the
eloquence of C.C. Burleigh. As a debater he is unquestionably the first
on the Anti-slavery platform. If he did not speak so fast, he would
equal Wendell Phillips; if he did not reason his subject out of
existence, he would surpass him. However, one would have to travel over
many miles, and look in the faces of many men, before he would find one
who has made more personal sacrifices, or done more to bring about the
Emancipation of the American Slaves, than Mr. Charles C. Burleigh.

Whoever the future historian of the Anti-Slavery movement may be, he
will not be able to compile a correct history of this great struggle,
without consulting the writings of Edmund Quincy, a member of one of
the wealthiest, patriotic, and aristocratic families in New England: the
prestige of his name is a passport to all that the heart could wish.
Descended from a family, whose name is connected with all that was
glorious in the great American Revolution, the son of one who has again
and again represented his native State, in the National Congress, he
too, like Wendell Phillips, threw away the pearl of political
preferment, and devoted his distinguished talents to the cause of the
Slave. Mr. Quincy is better known in this country as having filled the
editorial chair of _The Liberator_, during the several visits of its
Editor to Great Britain. As a speaker, he does not rank as high as some
who are less known; as a writer, he has few equals. The "Annual Reports"
of the American and Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Societies for the past
fifteen or twenty years, have emanated from his pen. When posterity, in
digging among the tombs of the friends of mankind, and of universal
freedom, shall fail to find there the name of Edmund Quincy, it will be
because the engraver failed to do his duty.

Were we sent out to find a man who should excel all others in
collecting together new facts and anecdotes, and varnishing up old ones
so that they would appear new, and bringing them into a meeting and
emptying out, good or bad, the whole contents of his sack, to the
delight and admiration of the audience, we would unhesitatingly select
James N. Buffum as the man. If Mr. Buffum is not a great speaker, he has
what many accomplished orators have not--_i.e._, a noble and generous
heart. If the fugitive slave, fresh from the cotton-field, should make
his appearance in the town of Lynn, in Massachusetts, and should need a
night's lodging or refreshments, he need go no farther than the
hospitable door of James N. Buffum.

Most men who inherit large fortunes, do little or nothing to benefit
mankind. A few, however, spend their means in the best possible manner:
one of the latter class is Gerrit Smith. The name of this gentleman
should have been brought forward among those who are first mentioned in
this chapter. Some eight or ten years ago, Mr. Smith was the owner of
large tracts of land, lying in twenty-nine counties in the State of New
York, and came to the strange conclusion to give the most of it away.
Consequently, three thousand lots of land, containing from thirty to one
hundred acres each, were given to coloured men residing in the
State--the writer of this being one of the number.

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