The Crusade Against Slavery by Louis Filler

Author:Louis Filler [Filler, Louis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Sociology, General, Slavery
ISBN: 9781351484183
Google: mywrDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2017-07-05T03:26:11+00:00

CHAPTER 8

Fugitive Slaves and Politicians

WHAT gave power and consequence to the abolitionists, and forced respect and attention from the most opportunistic politicians, was the persistence of the Negro problem and the dilemmas posed by slaves and slave catchers. As Edward Bates, a conservative Missouri statesman, later Lincoln’s Attorney General, observed in 1859: “Only forbid Cuffie to be a politician, and the Abolitionists will sink out of sight.”1 The Negro’s politics, however, were peculiar. Northern politicians were in conventional situations which limited their course of speech and action. Only proslavery and abolitionist workers could act as conscience demanded. An illiterate Negro fleeing slavery could embarrass a presidential candidate as much as foreign emissaries and congressional majorities. An abolitionist aiding such a Negro took on status which fines, prison sentences, and adverse publicity no more than increased as events gave him added glamor and respectability.2

Negroes were, of course, persons of varied qualities and abilities. Outstanding among them was Frederick Douglass, a Maryland-born mulatto of fine frame and intelligence who, as a slave, had suffered cruelty and wounds to his spirit because of his independent air and sense of worth. He escaped to New York by a desperate ruse in 1838 at about the age of twenty, there to be befriended by Dr. David Ruggles. Douglass married a free Maryland Negress who had come north to join him. He settled down to a quiet life in New Bedford, Massachusetts, always aware that he was a fugitive from slavery and liable to be recognized at any time by white or Negro informers.3

When, in August 1841, he stood up at a Garrison meeting—having long been a reader of the Liberator—and made an awkward speech, a career began which was not to end until more than half a century of labors had been fulfilled. Charles Lenox Remond, a free-born Negro, had preceded Douglass on the antislavery platform and been popular and effective at home and abroad.4 But Douglass grew so fast in strength and expressiveness that he soon had to prove that he had indeed been a slave so recently. His increasing fame, coupled with the fact that he was outside the law, were vivid arguments against slavery. Though he was humiliated and abused, it was difficult for antiabolitionists to distinguish their contempt for Douglass from that accorded white abolitionists.

The Negro thus was, and would continue to be, at the base of the abolitionist crusade. Free Negroes increased in number in conspicuous abolitionist ranks; they entered into and developed along with political abolitionism.5 “Slave narratives” multipled as testimonials against slavery. One by James Williams, edited by Whittier, roused unusual controversy about its authenticity. Another was by William Wells Brown, once, as a slave, hired to Elijah P. Lovejoy in St. Louis. Brown became an early Negro literary figure. The Reverend Jermain W. Loguen was notable for his campaign activities in behalf of the Liberty party.6 Fugitive escapes and slave narratives, Negro propaganda and co-operation, all did their part in the abolitionist and political abolitionist campaigns. They became more significant as they could be identified with the needs of white Northerners.

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