effective in their denunciation of the institution that enslaved their
brethren. In England and in Europe a corps of intelligent Colored
orators was kept busy painting, to interested audiences, the cruelties
and iniquities of American slavery. By association and sympathy these
Colored orators took on the polish of Anglo-Saxon scholarship. Of the
influence of the American Anti-slavery Society upon the Colored man,
Maria Weston Chapman once said, it is "church and university, high
school and common school, to all who need real instruction and true
religion. Of it what a throng of authors, editors, lawyers, orators,
and accomplished gentlemen of color have taken their degree! It has
equally implanted hopes and aspirations, noble thoughts, and sublime
purposes, in the hearts of both races. It has prepared the white man
for the freedom of the black man, and it has made the black man scorn
the thought of enslavement, as does a white man, as far as its
influence has extended. _Strengthen that noble influence!_ Before its
organization, the country only saw here and there in slavery some
'faithful Cudjoe or Dinah,' whose strong natures blossomed even in
bondage, like a fine plant beneath a heavy stone. Now, under the
elevating and cherishing influence of the American Anti-slavery
Society, the colored race, like the white, furnishes Corinthian
capitals for the noblest temples. Aroused by the American Anti-slavery
Society, the very white men who had forgotten and denied the claim of
the black man to the rights of humanity, now thunder that claim at
every gate, from cottage to capitol, from school-house to university,
from the railroad carriage to the house of God. He has a place at
their firesides, a place in their hearts--the man whom they once
cruelly hated for his color. So feeling, they _cannot_ send him to
Coventry with a horn-book in his hand, and call it _instruction_! They
inspire him to climb to their side by a visible, acted gospel of
freedom. Thus, instead of bowing to prejudice, they conquer it."
In January, 1836, Rev. Mr. Follen offered the following resolution in
a meeting of the New England Anti-slavery Society:
"_Resolved_, That we consider the Anti-slavery cause the cause of
philanthropy, with regard to which all human beings, white men
and colored men, citizens and foreigners, men and women, have the
same duties and the same rights."
In support of his resolution, he said:
"We ha
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