! 1 tation, and, after all, leaving more wonder at the fewness than at the greatness of her mis tahes. On the whole, the "Martyr Age" will be read with deep interest by the intellectual portion of the American people, of all classes and in all sections of the Union. And taken in conjunction with the wonderful benefits, pecuniary and social, which are already seen to have followed in the train of Emancipation in the British West India Islands, we cannot but hope that this publication will give a new turn to the public mind in our country, and that ere long, the GREAT AMERICAN QUESTION will be taken up on its merits by those who have the power to settle it, according to the dictates of truth and mercy, and in a way to please God and bless mankind. New York, February, 1839. J. L. THE MARTYR AGE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. FROM THE LONDON AND WESTMINSTER REVIEW FOR DEC. 1838. ART. I.-1. Right and Wrong in Boston in 1835. Boston, U. S.: Isaac Kuapp. 2. Right and Wrong in Boston in 1836. Boston, U. S.: Isaac Knapp. 3. Right and Wrong in Boston in 1837. Boston, U. S.: Isaac Knapp. THERE is a remarkable set of people now living and vigorously acting in the world, with a consonance of will and understand and those limited and remote. Great honour is due to the first movers in the anti-slavery cause in every land: but those of European countries may take rank with the philanthropists of America who may espouse the cause of the aborigines: while the primary abolitionists of the United States have encountered, with steady purpose, such opposition as might here await assailants of the whole set of aristocratic institutions at once, ing which has perhaps never been witnessed from the throne to pauper apprenticeship. among so large a number of individuals of Slavery is as thoroughly interwoven with such diversified powers, habits, opinions, American institutions-ramifies as extentastes and circumstances. The body com- sively through American society, as the aris. prehends men and women of every shade tocratic spirit pervades Great Britain. The of colour, of every degree of education, of fate of Reformers whose lives are devoted every variety of religious opinion, of every to making war upon either the one or the gradation of rank, bound together by no other must be remarkable. We are about vow, no pledge, no stipulation but of each to exhibit a brief sketch of the struggle of preserving his individual liberty; and yet the American abolitionists from the dawn they act as if they were of one heart and of their day to the present hour, avoiding to of one soul. Such union could be secured dwell on the institution with which they are by no principle of worldly interest; nor, for at war, both because the question of slavery a term of years, by the most stringent fana. is doubtless settled in the minds of all our ticism. A well-grounded faith, directed readers, and because our contemplation is towards a noble object, is the only principle of a body of persons who are living by faith, which can account for such a spectacle as the world is now waking up to contemplate in the abolitionists of the United States. and not of a party of Reformers contending against a particular social abuse. Our sketch must be faint, partial, and imperfect. The short life of American abolitionism is so crowded with events and achievements, that the selection of a few is all that can be Before we fix our attention on the history of the body, it may be remarked that it is a totally different thing to be an abolitionist on a soil actually trodden by slaves, attempted. Many names deserving of honour and in a far-off country, where opinion is will be omitted; and many will receive less already on the side of emancipation, or than their due: and in the case of persons ready to be converted; where only a frac who are so devoted to others as to have no tion of society, instead of the whole, has to thoughts to bestow on themselves, no inforbe convicted of guilt; and where no inte- mation to proffer regarding their own lives, rests are put in jeopardy but pecuniary ones, it is scarcely possible for their describers to leap from its pedestal, and to hasten the re- less atmosphere-nothing, subtracted from surrection of the dead. It is pretended that infinite fulness. Should you succeed in de. I am retarding the cause of emancipation stroying them, the mighty difficulty still reby the coarseness of my invective, and the mains." As a noble woman has since said, precipitancy of my measures. The charge in defence of the individuality of action of is not true. On this question my influence, the leaders of the cause, "It is idle to talk humble as it is, is felt at this moment to a of leaders.' In the contest of morals with considerable extent, and shall be felt in abuses, men are but types of principles. coming years-not perniciously, but bene Does any one seriously believe that if Mr. ficially; not as a curse, but as a blessing; Garrison should take an appealing, protestand posterity will bear testimony that I was ing, backward step, abolitionists would fall right. I desire to thank God that he en- back with him?" The "mighty difficulty" ables me to disregard the fear of man, and would still remain,--and remain as surely to speak his truth in its simplicity and doomed as ever, were Garrison to turn repower." creant or die. The time was ripe for Garrison's exerOne more dreadful event was to happen tions. A pamphlet appeared in the autumn before the peace-man" could make his of 1829, at Boston, from the pen of a man reprobation of violence heard over the Union. of colour, named Walker, which alarmed The insurrection of saves in Southampton society not a little. It was an appeal to his county, Virginia, in which eighty persons coloured brethren, to drown their injuries in were slain-parents with their five, seven or the blood of their oppressors. Its language ten children, being massacred in the nightis perfectly appalling. It ran through seve. happened in 1832. The affair is wrapped ral editions, though no bookseller would pub- in mystery, as are most slave insurrections, both from policy on the part of the masters, lish it. Not long after, the author was found murdered near his own door; but whether he had been assassinated for his book, or had been fatally wounded in a fray, is not known. If the slave-owners could but have seen it, Garrison was this man's antagonist, slaughtered, with every refinement of cruelnot his coadjutor. Garrison is as strenuous ty, on the roads, or in their masters' yards, a "peace-man" as any broad-brimmed without appeal to judge, jury, or evidence. Friend in Philadelphia; and this fact, in This kind of management precludes any clear conjunction with his unlimited influence over knowledge of the causes of the insurrection; the Negro population, is the chief reason but it is now supposed near the spot to have why no blood has been shed, why no in- been occasioned by the fanaticism of a madsurrectionary movement has taken place in man, a Negro, who assured the blacks who the United States, from the time when his came to him for religious sympathy that they voice began to be heard over the broad land were to run the course of the ancient Jews till now. Every evil, however, which hap- -slaying and sparing not. We mention pened, every shiver of the master, every this rising because it is the last on the part growl of the slave, was henceforth to be of the people of colour. Free or enslaved, charged upon Garrison. Some of the they have since been peaceable; while all Southern States offered rewards for the ap. succeeding violences have been perpetrated prehension of any person who might be de- by "gentlemen of property and standing." tected circulating the "Liberator," or "Walk- It was natural that those who had suffered er's Appeal;" and one legislature demanded by this slaughter or its consequences, those of the Governor of Massachusetts that Gar- who mourned large families of relations thus rison should be delivered up to them. The cut off, those who for the sake of their crops fate of Walker was before his eyes; and it feared the amendment of the system as a came to his ears, that gentlemen in stage result of this exhibition of its tendencies, coaches said that it was everywhere thought those who for the sake of their children that "he would not be permitted to live long;" nightly trembled in their beds, should cast that he "would be taken away, and no one about for an object on whom to vent their be the wiser for it." His answer, on this painful feelings; and Garrison was that oband many subsequent occasions, was the ject. The imputation of the insurrection to same in spirit. "Will you aim at no higher him was too absurd to be long sustained; victims than Arthur Tappan, Geo. Thomp. but those who could not urge this against him son, and W. L. Garrison? And who and still remonstrated against his "disturbing what are they? Three drops from a bound- the harmony and peace of society." "Dis. less ocean-three rays from a noon day sun turbing the slave-holders!" replied he. -three particles of dust floating in a limit. am sorry to disturb anybody. But the slave "I in Sta |