She spoke for two hours, and then, being asked to
speak again, at the next meeting, she spoke for two
hours more. The impression she produced may be
inferred from the fact that the chairman of the committee
was in tears nearly the whole time she was speaking.
The effect upon all who heard her was admitted to
be very great.
The sincerity of these women was put to an unusual
test. They had a brother who remained in South
Carolina, where he was a prominent citizen and a large
slave-owner. Like many sharing the privileges
of “the institution,” he led a double
life. He was married to a white woman by whom
he had children. He also had a family by a colored
woman who was one of his slaves. In his will
he bequeathed his slave family to a son by his lawful
wife, with the stipulation that they should not be
sold or unkindly treated.
Of these things the Grimke sisters knew nothing until
after the war which had freed their illegitimate relatives.
Then all the facts came to their knowledge. What
should they do about it? was the question that immediately
confronted them. Should they—“Carolina’s
high-souled daughters,” as Whittier describes
them, and not without some part in the pride of the
family to which they belonged—acknowledge
such a disreputable relationship? Not a day nor
an hour did they hesitate. They sent for their
unfortunate kinspeople, accepted them as blood connections,
and took upon themselves the duty of promoting their
interests as far as it was in their power to do so.
Although a quiet and retiring person, and, moreover,
so much of an invalid that the greater part of her
time was necessarily passed in a bed of sickness,
a New England woman had much to do with publishing
the doctrines of Abolitionism, through the lips of
the most eloquent man in the country. She was
the wife of Wendell Phillips, the noted Anti-Slavery
lecturer.
“My wife made me an Abolitionist,” said
Phillips. How the work was done is not without
its romantic interest.
It was several years before he made his meteoric appearance
before the public as a platform talker, and while
yet a law student, that Phillips met the lady in question.
The interview, as described by one of the parties,
certainly had its comical aspect. “I talked
Abolitionism to him all the time we were together,”
said Mrs. Phillips, as she afterwards related the
affair. Phillips listened, and that he was not
surfeited nor disgusted appears from the fact that
he went again and again for that sort of entertainment.
When Phillips asked for her hand, as the story goes,
she asked him if he was fully persuaded to be a friend
of the slave, leaving him to infer that their union
was otherwise impossible.
“My life shall attest the sincerity of my conversion,”
was his gallant reply.
MOBS
In his Recollections, the Rev. Samuel T. May,
who was one of the most faithful and zealous of the
Anti-Slavery pioneers, and belonged to that band of
devoted workers who were known as Abolition lecturers,
tells of his experience in delivering an Anti-Slavery
address in the sober New England city of Haverhill.
