December 22, 1848
Under the title The Truth Plainly, Fearlessly, and Eloquently Spoken, here is an extract of a sermon preached by Higginson, at the Pleasant Street Church, Newburyport, Thanksgiving Day, Nov 30, 1848. After the extracts there is a comment by the editor: “We have no words to express the respect and admiration that we feel for the author of this faithful discourse - a discourse that ought to obtain an insertion in every free paper in the land. Such fidelity to truth and conscience, in the American pulpit, is exceedingly rare. If Mr. Higginson shall be allowed to retain his present position, his congregation must be indeed a model one.”
December 1, 1848
THE BLOOD OF THE SLAVE ON THE SKIRTS OF THE NORTHERN PEOPLE is the title and content of an article by Douglass.
November 10, 1848
Garrison announces his return to the editorship, praises the “ability, industry, and fidelity of Quincy, and then says that the water cure treatment has improved his health greatly: “My aversion to the old allopathic mode of treating diseases has long been very great; and, more than ever, I am ready to exclaim —’Throw physic to the dogs —I’ll none of it!’…. of the water cure: “The practice is simple, yet powerful, and will be the death of all quackery.”
November 10, 1848
A brief article by Rev. Dr. Bushnell begins: “It is remarkable that the moral sense of the country is so dulled, in reference to everything that can be called politics — moral distinctions are so far subordinated to the power of party discipline - that almost no effect is produced by agitation on one side, or the just reprobation it meets on the other. A most melancholy and frightful evidence of the extent to which American politics have become separated from the law of God and the control of moral principle!”
October 27, 1848
Here is an address by Douglass to delegates at the recently reported Convention, originally published in the North Star of Sept 22. A preface to the article advises readers to look at the Refuge of Oppression column of the current edition, to see “how poorly a vulgar mind can appreciate such an address as this.”
October 20, 1848
Here it is announced that there is a third edition of Brown’s narrative of his life, with a new preface, containing a letter from Enoch Price, the man who claimed to be the owner of Brown. In the letter Price says that he had paid for $650 for Brown, and now offers to grant him free papers, if Brown or his friends will pay his agent, in Boston, $325. Brown responds, saying in part: “..I cannot accept of Mr. Price’s offer to become a purchaser of my body and soul. God made me as free as he did Enoch Price, and Mr. Price shall never receive a dollar from me, or my friends, with my consent.”
October 20, 1848
A report of the Convention, held at Cleveland, Sept 6, 7, and 8. A list of resolutions passed is included. A National Central Committee was appointed, including Douglass, and eight other men, each from a different state. Hilton is the appointed Mass. member of the Committee.
October 6, 1848
A brief article, from the Pennsylvania Freeman, tells of Douglass, Delany, and Remond, in Philadelphia, with “the principle object of extending the circulation of the North Star….. We wish our friends, Douglass and Delany, most cheering success in their efforts for the North Star. There ought to be at least 1,000 subscribers to it among the colored people here, and if they would spend less of sensual indulgence and foolish show, they might do more than this to sustain their ablest organ, and thereby improve themselves. We hope every colored church will be freely opened to them, and that minister and people will unite to aid their work.”
September 22, 1848
An article by Quincy strongly condemns this “representative Body of the Congregational Churches of America”, meeting during the past week. That body “has not withdrawn its former endorsement of the Christian character of Slavery; but, on the contrary, it has renewed it. Its action when stripped of the coat of many-colored words in which its spiritual Fathers have decked it, amounts simply to this, — that the Board does not regard the act of holding human beings as property, as essentially sinful, or sufficient cause, in itself, for exclusion from the Christian church. The abuses of the institution, to be sure, it regards with all proper horror, and would have discipline exercised towards them; but the relation of master to slave, is not only not necessarily sinful, it is often innocent, and may be beneficent and virtuous. What more do Slaver and Slaveholders ask?…”
September 22, 1848
From the North Star, here is the full letter which Douglass wrote to his former master, on the anniversary of his emancipation. Douglass closes the letter in a final paragraph: “I will now bring this letter to a close, you shall hear from me again unless you let me hear from you. I intend to make use of you as a weapon with which to assail the system of slavery - as a means of concentrating public attention on the system, and deepening their horror of trafficking in the souls and bodies of men. I shall make use of you a means of exposing the character of the American church and clergy - and as a means of bringing this guilty nation with yourself to repentance. In doing this I entertain no malice toward you personally. There is no roof under which you would be more safe than mine, and there is nothing in my house which you might need for your comfort, which I which I would not readily grant. Indeed, I should esteem it a privilege, to set you an example as to how mankind ought to treat each other. I am your fellow man, but not your slave.”
