PLYMoUTH, N. H., Nov. 17, 1834.
DEAR GARRIsoN —
We were highly animated Thursday, the 13th, at a stage arrival in our little
village, bearing the “honored freight, Messrs. THoMPsoN, GRosvenoR
and PHELPs, fresh from the field
of Convention at Concord.
To see George Thompson here among us, at some period of his
beneficent sojourn, we had fondly hoped, from the moment you announced to us
his intended embarkation from England. But to greet him so soon after his
landing, and to hear him speak, within our own walls, while his locks were yet
wet with the dews of New York hospitality, was a favor we had not anticipated.
What a delicate and discerning taste, by the way, this despotic New York
tavern-keeper must have, and this mobocracy of ours in general, to vent their
fine courtesies upon a subject like him! I Who that beheld George Thompson
merely, could imagine that there existed a brutality, even in New-York, brutal
enough to do him harm or show him unkindness? Burns tells of a Scottish
lass, that the “very de'il” could not look in the face but he would cry out — “I
canna wrang thee.” Our mobocracy might take lessons of civility and humanity of
the bard’s “de'il, as I fear they have taken, of a spirit having other
existence than in the imagination of profane poetry. I really wondered, as I
gazed on the elegant and interesting stranger, that a tavern-keeper could be
found in all the hog-traversed streets of our republican Babylon, of a civility
so swinish as to turn him from his door, — even were it to humor the
sovereign and awful caprice of a man-jockey from the south? His wife and little
children, too, routed of a poor home that a tavern could yield them in a
strange land, — the first night, I believe, of their respite from the sea!
Shame on you, most magnanimous inn-holder! and shame on the public, that will
countenance the impudent brutality.
But I set out to give you a slight account of our
antislavery occasion, and the addresses of our noble friends to the good people
of Grafton county. It was a capital occasion. A court session had drawn
together the flower of the shire. Our fine, intellectual bar, that will rank in
talent and honorable character with any in New England; — our jury pannels, the
prime of the yeomanry of a temperance community; — these, with a considerable
amount of merit and eminence ex officio, and the other following of a
county assize, making up a pretty full representation of our local public,
afforded grand materials for an anti-slavery auditory. Then we had some
distinguished talent from out the county. Our ample court house, condescendingly
opened to us in the evening, was filled at first ray of candle. A fair
proportion of ladies graced the attendance, — the clergy from this and other surrounding
towns, — and, to add dignity and interest to the meeting, gentlemen advanced
somewhat in life, of high judicial station in better times than these, — now
retired, — came several miles, in the air of a November evening, to countenance
the occasion and hear the advocate of the Negro — gentlemen who, though not
professedly abolitionists, and not altogether ready perhaps to allow the
colored man his right, if it were thought immediately practicable, yet far
above the vulgar prejudice against him that infects our ordinary great, and too
sagacious to trifle with the black man's plea. The auditory was, on the whole,
one of the finest that could be gathered, and numbered several hundreds. The
Hon. S. P. Webster was prevailed on to incur the hazards of the chair...
The meeting was opened by prayer from the Rev. Mr. Grosvenor — our own beloved
minister being called for, but not not [sic]
having reached the meeting. A hymn followed-appropriate words, set to music by
an ingenious abolition neighbor, who led the singing. Bro. Phelps then offered
the following resolution — if I can remember accurately, through the splendid
discussion that followed — That Immediate and Entire Emancipation is the only
righteous, efficient, safe or practicable remedy for American slavery; and that
it was the solemn duty of every American citizen to address himself forthwith
to its consummation, by every christian means. He sustained the resolution in a
series of pertinent and forcible remarks for fifteen or twenty minutes; though
evidently, to us who knew him, with restrained powers. He was succeeded by Mr.
Grosvenor, who spoke about the same time; and though manifestly with intent
mainly to pave the way for what was to come after, he rose to high and
affecting strains of eloquence. He was especially happy in a comparison of the
trifling causes which employed the zeal and talents of counsel in that Seat of
Justice, with the unutterable wrongs of two millions and a half of clients, in
whose behalf he pleaded. But he forebore, he said, to take the time belonging
to his gifted friend, who was to follow him, for whom he hoped the candid
hearing of the auditors, as he was sure he would have their hearts.
George Thompson rose before the hushed assembly. They did
not cheer him — it is not their habit — and if it had been, they had no such
welcome for the advocate of the despised Negro. We have wronged the colored man
too long and too deeply to readily forgive him, or to regard with
complacency the man who ventures to take up his cause. Had the orator risen for
the Polander or the Greek, or in behalf of any honorable or classical
suffering, the walls would have rung with enthusiastic acclamation; but it
is otherwise towards the advocate of the poor, the despised, the injured, the
scorned, and “him that had none to help him.” The multitude regarded him in
deep silence. Slowly, solemnly, and with wonderful expression, he summoned them
to the momentous importance of the subject on which he was entering, and
challenged the mention of any that could hold comparison with it, as it bore on
the interests of man or the weal of this nation. After a brief preliminary, he
bore away into a stream of argument and eloquent appeal to which I had
witnessed no parallel, and of which I can attempt no account. For an hour — it
may be two hours — I could form no estimate of the time by its lapse — he held
the surprised and reluctant assembly in breathless attention. I do not
conjecture their emotions or convictions. There were no plaudits — no more than
at the defence before Agrippa, or the reasonings before Felix. To some the
orator may have seemed “beside himself” — “mad” with “much learning. Others may
have “almost been persuaded.” I cannot detail his arguments, or give any — the
faintest idea of his impression. I have a dazzling impression on my memory of a
portraiture of American slavery — terribly graphic — an exposition of the
Levittical Law, in its bearings on ancient servitude and on modern slavery — one
which, I think, will forever deter all who heard it, from venturing thither for
warrant or apology for the infamous system of American slaveholding — of a
glance at Abraham and his household, marching to the slaughter of the kings — a
train little enough resembling a gang of sullen, heavy-footed negroes, goaded
to the rice swarm — and still less a coffle of chained men moving through
Freedom's capital, at the sound of her national music, to a more dismal bondage
in the far south. St. Paul's recapture and remanding of the
fugitive Onesimus, was illustrated by a commentary that will effectually warn
all our scripture-mongers, who go about vindicating this slavery (which they
hate worse than the abolitionists) from the bible, against quoting again from
the epistle to Philemon! The utter impracticability of gradual or partial
emancipation, — the danger of indulging the captive with a lengthened chain,
while you hold him still bound, — the folly of attempting a lingering release
of him from his thraldrom, link by link, — and the dangers of immediate emancipation,
he portrayed. From the two million and a half of butchers who would be “let loose” upon the
defenceless white folks, by immediate, abolition, he begged leave to make some
detachments. First, he begged to detach all the infancy. This would
hardly add to the force of an insurrection. Then all the childhood, below the
years tall enough to reach a throat to cut it; — then the decripit age, whose
vigor had long been exhausted in slavery’s toil, and which even emancipation
could not recall; — the mothers rejoicing in their children — theirs at last
beyond the reach of the auctioneer and the kidnapper; — the countless band of
sable youth and beauty, with modesty sacrificed and affections offered up on
the altar of the white man’s shame; then the sick — a host at all times under
the “tender mercies” of the system; the christians — “resisting not evil” — much
less rising upon benefactors; and last and least too — the favorite slaves — the
“kindly treated.” All
these he would detach, and be thankful for; and against the revengeful
gratitude of the residue, he commended the defenceless master to the strong
arm of the law, to justice and to God. Oh, for the pen of a ready writer, to
have caught his glorious refutation of the impious slander that the black man
was inferior in native capacity to his oppressor! His burning reprehension of
our demanding fruit from the tree to which we denied the fertility of the
earth, the dew, the shower, and the sunshine; consigning it to darkness and
sterility, and then scornfully demanding of it foliage and fruits! I doubt if
the stenographer could have availed himself of his art to arrest his enchanting
exclamations, “they could be felt, but could not be followed.” I cannot speak
of his reading and comments on the fiftieth of Isaiah. Every christian ought to
have come to the field upon it, as at the sound of a trumpet. He cried aloud,
and he did not spare. He spoke of the south and the slaveholder in terms of
christian affection — declared himself a brother to the slave-master — a fellow
sinner — under like condemnation with him, but for the grace of God— of the
country—its history, its great names, its blood-bought privileges, and its
blood-cemented union; he spoke with thrilling and overpowering admiration,
lamenting the stain of slavery upon our otherwise glorious renown. Much as I
was captivated with his oratory and force, it was the sweet spirit of the
christian that won most my admiration and affection, it was the spirit of the “beloved
disciple” — and he comes into this guilty land not “to spy out its nakedness,
or abundance, or to regard our boasted politics;[”] but in obedience to that
solemn command, “Go ye into all nations;” and to the “Lo, I am with you,” we
commit him, for protection against the violence of our multitudes and the
councils of our chief priests and pharisees.
After he had closed, the resolution was put to the meeting
for their adoption. It was read by the chairman with a feeling somewhat below
the fervor of the speaker. Still, a very goodly number of hands were raised
in its support, and only three were seen to go up in answer to the call
for opposition. Three hands! — and these were of gentlemen-scholars — bred
to the generous pursuits of learning ! Before the addresses, scarcely three,
beside the few professed abolitionists, would have risen in favor of the
doctrines of the resolution.
The assembly dispersed quietly and with the utmost decorum,
after prayer by our beloved pastor.
Many abolitionists were confirmed, and many, I have no
doubt, made at the meeting. The addresses were spoken of with universal
admiration, the cause opposed with moderated and respectful tone. The result
will be most happy for the cause. I have only to say that our brethren might
come among us again. Another such hearing would assemble thousands, and
thousands may assemble in Grafton county without danger of mobs. We have enough
of honorable character among the opposition to hold our mobocracy in respectful
check. I hope they will visit us again early. This county is an important
section of the State. The temperance cause received some of its earliest and
most powerful impulses here, and “good temperance ground is good abolition
ground.”
In haste, my dear sir,-too much to retrench my long and
crude letter, — I remain, truly and affectionately, yours,
N. P. ROGER.S.
SOURCE: Isaac Knapp, Publisher, Letters and
Addresses by G. Thompson [on American Negro Slavery] During His Mission in the
United States, From Oct. 1st, 1834, to Nov. 27, 1835, p. 21-6
