In a political and sectional sense, the "Impending Crisis," by Helper, exerted a wide influence for good. It was read by merchants and politicians.
Diverse and manifold as were the methods of the friends of universal freedom, and sometimes apparently conflicting, under God no honest effort to rid the Negro and the country of the curse of slavery was lost. All these agencies, running along different lines, converged at a common centre, and aimed at a common end--the ultimate extinction of the foreign and domestic slave-trade.
[12] In the Library of the New York Historical Society there is "An Oration Upon the Moral and Political Evil of Slavery. Delivered at a Public Meeting of the Maryland Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery and the Relief of Free Negroes and Others Unlawfully Held in Bondage, Baltimore, July 4, 1791. By George Buchanan, M.D., Member of the American Philosophical Society. Baltimore: Printed by Phillip Edwards, MDCCXCIII."
[14] Speech delivered at the Annual Meeting of the Cork Anti-Slavery Society, 1829.
[16] At the election that took place on the 9th of November, 1846, the vote stood as follows: Winthrop (Whig), 5,980; Howe (Anti-Slavery), 1,334; Homer (Democrat), 1,688; Whiton (Independent), 331. The number of tickets in the field indicated the state of public feeling.
[18] Church As It Is, etc., Introduction.
[19] Channing's Works, vol. ii. p. 10, sq.
[20] American Conflict, vol. i. pp. 25, 26.
[21] The following were the objects of the Colonization Society:
"1st. To rescue the free colored people of the United States from their political and social disadvantages.
"2d. To place them in a country where they may enjoy the benefits of free government, with all the blessings which it brings in its train.
"3d. To spread civilization, sound morals, and true religion through the continent of Africa.
"4. To arrest and destroy the slave-trade.
"5. To afford slave-owners who wish, or are willing, to liberate their slaves an asylum for their reception."
[23] National Intelligencer, October 23, 1850.
[26] It is to be regretted that William Still, the author of the U. G. R. R., failed to give any account of its origin, organization, workings, or the number of persons helped to freedom. It is an interesting narrative of many cases, but is shorn of that minuteness of detail so indispensable to authentic historical memorials.