WANTED, AN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY
The National Anti-Slavery Society—the society
organized by Garrison and his confreres, and
which longest maintained its organization—made
one great mistake. It disbanded. It assumed
that its work was done when African slavery in this
country was pronounced defunct by law. It took
it for granted that the enslavement of the colored
man—not necessarily the negro—was
no longer possible under the Stars and Stripes.
Then and there it committed a grievous blunder.
Its paramount error was in assuming that a political
party could for all time be depended upon as a party
of freedom. It trusted to the assurances of politicians
that they would protect the colored man in all his
natural and acquired rights, and in that belief voluntarily
gave up the ghost and cast its mantle to the winds.
Now, the fact is that the National Anti-Slavery Society
was never more needed than it is to-day. There
is a mighty work to be done that was directly in the
line of its operations. First and foremost, it
will not be denied that a citizen of our Republic
who is deprived of the elective franchise is robbed
of one of his most valuable privileges—one
of his most essential rights. The ballot, under
a political system like ours, is both the sword and
the shield of liberty. Without it no man is really
a freeman. He does not stand on an equality with
his fellows.
Nor will it be denied that the negro, although our
amended Constitution promises him all the privileges
of citizenship, is in many parts of our country practically
divested of his vote. By a species of legerdemain
in the communities in which he is most numerous and
most needs protection, he is to all intents and purposes
disfranchised. What will follow as the final outcome
we do not know, but that is the beginning of his attempted
re-enslavement. It is beyond any question that
his return to involuntary servitude in some condition
or conditions, the disarming him of the ballot being
the initial step in the proceeding, is seriously contemplated,
if not deliberately planned. Indeed, under the
name of “peonage” the work of re-establishing
a system of slaveholding that is barbarous in the
extreme is already begun. Men and women have been
seized upon by force, and upon the most flimsy pretexts
have been subjected to a bondage that in its inhumanities
may easily equal even the slavery of the olden time.
The number of victims is undoubtedly much larger than
the general public has any idea of.
Nor are there lacking signs of studied preparation
for the extension of the system. The present
time is full of them. Efforts to create a prejudice
against the colored man are visible in all directions.
He is described as a failure in the role of freeman.
The idleness and shiftlessness of certain members
of his race—undoubtedly altogether too
numerous—are dwelt upon as characteristic
