Far and away the most potential member and leader
of the political Abolitionists was Salmon P. Chase.
Instead of denouncing the Constitution as “a
league with death and hell,” he claimed that
it was an Anti-Slavery document and should be so construed.
As for the Union, by his services in successfully
managing the finances of the country in its great
crisis, he did as much to sustain the Union as any
other man of that time. To accuse him of hostility
and infidelity to the Union, is something that no
one can do with impunity. In fact, so clear and
so clean, as well as so bold and striking, is the record
of Chase and his associates, beginning in 1840 and
continuing down until the last shackle was stricken
from the last bondsman’s limbs, that even the
shadow of the White House cannot obscure it.
Nor is Mr. Roosevelt happy in his illustration, when,
in his concluding arraignment of the Abolitionists,
he seeks to discredit them as an organization of impracticables
by comparing them to the political Prohibitionists
of to-day. When the latter, if that time is ever
to be, shall become strong enough to rout one or both
of the existing main political parties, and, taking
the control of the Government in their hands, shall
not only legally consign the liquor traffic to its
coffin, but nail it down with a constitutional amendment,
then Mr. Roosevelt’s comparison will apply.
CHAPTER II
THE ABOLITIONISTS—WHO AND WHAT THEY WERE
In selecting those who are to receive its remembrance
and its honors, the world has always given its preference
to such as have battled for freedom. It may have
been with the sword; it may have been with the pen;
or it may have been with a tongue that was inflamed
with holy rage against tyranny and wrong; but whatever
the instrumentality employed; in whatever field the
battle has been fought; and by whatsoever race, or
class, or kind of men; the champions of human liberty
have been hailed as the bravest of the brave and the
most worthy to receive the acclaims of their fellows.
Now, if that estimate be not altogether inaccurate,
what place in the scale of renown must be assigned
to those pioneers in the successful movement against
African slavery in this country who have commonly
been known as “Abolitionists”—a
name first given in derision by their enemies?
It should, in the opinion of the writer hereof, be
the very highest. He is not afraid to challenge
the whole record of human achievements by great and
good men (always save and except that which is credited
to the Saviour of mankind) for exhibitions of heroism
superior to theirs. Nay, when it is remembered
that mainly through their efforts and sacrifices was
accomplished a revolution by which four million human
beings (but for the Abolitionists the number to-day
in bondage would be eight millions) were lifted from
the condition in which American slaves existed but
a few years ago, to freedom and political equality
with their former masters; and, at the same time when
it is considered what qualities of heart and brain
were needed for such a task, he does not believe that
history, from its earliest chapters, furnishes examples
of gods or men, except in very rare and isolated cases,
who have shown themselves to be their equals.
