September 21, 1860
This letter to Garrison, comes from William Wells Brown, who has been in Vermont for four weeks. He comments that the fact that Republicans control the elections, “should not be taken as evidence that the people are right on the great question…. As in every State, the most illiterate and ignorant portion are found in the Democratic party, and amongst them nothing is too bad to be said of the ‘niggers’….” Brown goes on to tell of meetings in Topsham, Peacham, South Ryegate, and Bradford. In one place he says that the minister in charge, “gave the meeting a poor reception, and me a worse name when the lecture was over.” He tells of one town where he could not find a hotel in which he could stay. “Still, there are many warm hearts in the Green Mountain State, who are anxious to have the American Anti-Slavery Society send in an agent or two, to lecture in all the towns. Vermont is certainly a good field for missionary labor.”
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