William Lloyd Garrison eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 394 pages of information about William Lloyd Garrison.

William Lloyd Garrison eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 394 pages of information about William Lloyd Garrison.
was a student of human nature as well as of the human form, made the discovery of a fact which at first surprised and angered him.  In making his groupings of heads he decided to place together the Rev. John Scoble, George Thompson and Charles Lenox Remond.  When Scoble sat to him, Haydon told him of his design in this regard.  But, remarked Haydon, Scoble “sophisticated immediately on the propriety of placing the negro in the distance, as it would have much greater effect.”  The painter now applied his test to Thompson who “saw no objection.”  Thompson did not bear the test to Haydon’s satisfaction, who observed that “A man who wishes to place the negro on a level must no longer regard him as having been a slave, and feel annoyed at sitting by his side.”  But when the artist approached Garrison on the subject it was wholly different.  “I asked him,” Haydon records with obvious pleasure, “and he met me at once directly.”

Thompson was not altogether satisfactory to Garrison either during this visit as the following extract from one of his letters to his wife evinces:  “Dear Thompson has not been strengthened to do battle for us, as I had confidently hoped he would be.  He is placed in a difficult position, and seems disposed to take the ground of non-committal, publicly, respecting the controversy which is going on in the United States.”

Garrison, Rogers, and Remond in the company of Thompson made a delightful trip into Scotland at this time.  Everywhere the American Abolitionists were met with distinguished attentions.  “Though I like England much, on many accounts,” Garrison writes home in high spirits, “I can truly say that I like Scotland better.”  An instance, which may be coupled with that one furnished by Haydon, occurred during this Scottish tour, and illustrates strongly the kind of stuff of which he was made.  On his way to the great public reception tendered the American delegates by the Glasgow Emancipation Society, a placard with the caption, "Have we no white slaves?" was put into his hands.  Upon acquainting himself with its contents he determined to read it to the meeting, and to make it the text of remarks when he was called upon to address the meeting.  He was presently announced and the immense audience greeted him with every manifestation of pleasure and enthusiasm, with loud cheering and waving of handkerchiefs.  Nevertheless he held to his purpose to speak upon the subject of the placard, unwelcome though it should prove to his hearers.  “After reading the interrogation, I said in reply:  ’No—­broad as is the empire, and extensive as are the possessions of Great Britain, not a single white SLAVE can be found in them all;’ and I then went on to show the wide difference that exists between the condition of human beings who are held and treated as chattels personal, and that of those who are only suffering from certain forms of political injustice or governmental oppression....  ‘But,’ I said, ’although it is not true that England

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William Lloyd Garrison from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.