Obrázky stránek
PDF
ePub

wrought out in the first stage of the controversy, shall be gathered and given to the public-if right, to triumph, if wrong, to suffer overthrow.

Among the earliest and most persistent of those who enlisted to resist the aggression of the slave power, and to combat the injustice of the slave system, a full history of his labors and coöperation, would reveal the thorny path which these reformers were obliged to tread, and the mode by which the mighty question, from being generally ignored and buried in forgetfulness, has, amid the stormiest opposition and the fiercest threats, now at last, in the space of twenty-seven years, loomed up in its gigantic proportions, before the anxious gaze of the Republic and the world. But as my object here is to let the arguments of Mr. Stewart stand or fall by themselves, I have only space to give, independent of what may be obtained from the writings themselves, a cursory view of a few of the prominent events. of his career, as connected with this topic.

Those who may read these addresses will be surprised, I doubt not, that the author, in the very opening of the discussion, should have so fully surveyed the subject in its length and breadth, with a glance at once so comprehensive and minute, and have preoccupied, so thoroughly, the whole field now filled by the advancing debate; as if, with his fearless associates, bearing the standard of the army of Freedom, he marched, twenty-seven years ago, as "a moral recruiting sergeant" (for so he styled himself) into the wilderness, and firmly planted the ensign upon a summit, around which the

van are now assembling, but not yet reached by the onward hosts.

In anticipation, therefore, of a biography, not yet complete, hereafter to appear, to consist of autobiographical sketches, professional speeches and anecdotes, addresses on Internal Improvements, Tariffs, Education, and other topics of public interest, extracts from journals and correspondence, temperance orations, and the current narrative of his life-I have arranged and now give to Humanity the following thoughts of Alvan Stewart, in its behalf, the promulgation of which, in his day, though restricted by prejudice from an extensive circulation, yet cost him the sacrifice of popularity, and many friends.

This statement is due to those who, yet holding the author in remembrance, are often inquiring for his Life, and who might else suppose this to be the memoir they knew to be in progress, instead of, as it is, a single phase of a character, broad, catholic and interesting.

LUTHER R. MARSH.

NEW YORK, May, 1860.

ALVAN STEWART.

PRELIMINARY CHAPTER,

BY THE EDITOR.

ALVAN STEWART AS AN ANTI-SLAVERY MAN.

IN a great moral contest, the man who, in his life-time, has fought bravely for what he deemed the right, does not cease to battle when he is dead. The thoughts he forged-his moral and intellectual weapons-still lay on the field of action, inviting the grasp of those who may succeed him in the contest. Eleven years have gone their rounds since Alvan Stewart was removed from his warfare in the cause of human rights, but we shall find, I think, that no arms since wrought, have a keener edge, a heartier stroke, or a more ponderous weight, than those his hands let drop, when he could lift them no longer.

Mr. Stewart was, early in life, impressed with the evil of slavery, and, in October, 1816-nearly half a century ago— while detained at Charlottesville, Virginia, by a personal injury, he wrote to his friend, Judge Morse, of Cherry Valley:

The blacks have corrupted the whites beyond conception. Virginia may bid farewell to slavery, in time, if the blacks improve by mixture for a hundred years, as they have for the last century. Curses on the Dutchman who sold the first cargo of slaves at Jamestown, in 1620.

And when the subject began to be agitated at the North, about 1833, and the anti-slavery sentiment to assume an organized form, Mr. Stewart became convinced that slavery was a crime, and that duty demanded the exercise of all legitimate and constitutional efforts to restore the slave to his rights and to himself.

Yielding to the requisition of conscience, he consecrated himself to the cause. He organized societies, delivered addresses, wrote reports and essays, collected and expended money, and travelled far and wide. He was of the most active and efficient of those men of the dawn-light, who enlisted in the morning of the enterprise. He founded an anti-slavery society at Utica, of which he was elected president. But from the beginning, he, and they who acted with him, encountered the most determined and vindictive. opposition. The doctrines they enunciated were covered with odium. Every advance was in the face of ridicule and reproach. Threats of personal violence were lavishly outpoured. Public feeling was so excited that it was scarcely safe for a man to repeat the very words of the fathers of the Republic on the subject. But neither he, nor those with whom he acted-the very heroes of reform-were to be deterred, by any personal considerations, from pursuing what seemed to them the path of duty; and, until the close of his

« PředchozíPokračovat »