The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1888-01-07

compromise 70 act!
ANTLsLAvERY SENTIMENTS.
The first anti.slavery publication ever
issued in this country was tract issued by
Ralph Sandiford in 1929. Afterwards
Benjamin Lay prepared another which DR..
Franklin presented, and then followed 1t
with food of his own brilliant efforts
Then came series of able papers from
the Pennsylvania Tract Society, of which
DR.. Franklin wa. the organizer and Presi-
dent. This was the first organization In
this country whose efforts were exclusively
for the abolition Of slavery. II was suisse
quently incorporated by the Legislature OF
that state, and continued to exist ana labor
in this cause until the final eXtirpation of
the evil which gave II birth. These anti.
slavery tracts went everywhere, even In
and among the very hotbeds Of slavery,
whose Southern heart" was "fred" to the
utmost degree with hatred and malevolence
towards the Northern AboltiOnists. Thus
attacked as they were, in body, and their
peculiar institution" denounced as iniqui-
tous and damnable beyond all description,
the slave. holders and even their neighbors
and friends, who we're not Interested per
sonally as owners of human flesh and
blood, became crystalizcd into united
party against the Notwithstanding eman-
cipationists" These same tracts at the
same time equally, though more slowly,
fired the Northern heart, and two strong
sectional parties were soon arrayed against
each other, growing larger year by year
and more hostile every election until the
result was war, not of tracts and speeches,
but a cruel, awful, bloody and relentless
real war, ending in the permanent down
fall of slavery-a war which proved that
our republic can protect itself, vindicate it
self, and out of the disasters of which war
has been reconstructed giant republic
of over sixty millions of people, and 50
peaceful, so prosperous, 80 full, and SO
ST. ong, that it is the admiration of the
world!
THE WORK OF THE ABOLITIONIsTs.
But we are to describe scenes during
that long period when slavery was fact
and the friends of the negro were active
and even often in peril for his freedom.
While the abolitiOnists as an organization,
Or rather as body of independent philan-
thropists, each doing his own thinking and
In his own way, were increasing
SO, too, were their enemies, the
wicked e.bolders The latter had the
avs and even the Constitution of the
United States, it was said to back them.
Ministers of the gospel, Sunday schools,
aides freedom societies, tracts, songs, edi.
orials, and lecturers, everywhere in the
North, were devoted might and main, in
season and out of season, to the great work
school books were printed In which the
'hild was started in the way he should 90
md the South, having offset this by SINH.
ar work In opposition, the only wonder is
hat the collision did not sooner come.
COMPROMISING MEASURES.
During all this time congress, or the
most conservative portion, was trying to
)ut off the evil day by compromises. In
800, when Missouri was admitted into the
Union, there was an attempt at an under
tanding that slavery should ever after.
wards be confined in all new states, to ter
tory south of mason and Dixons line"
IN imaginary extension of Missouri's south.
'rn boundary. But who could enforce a
based on mere understand.
ny and not lawY The memorable agita.
ion of 1850 to 1852, In congress and out of
I, produced the fugitive slave law, another
a mere time-serving measure,
which exasperated the radical abolitionists
VI the North, and its bitter and open dis
'egard and final defiance by them was only
mother means of fastening the impending
conflict. The anti.slavery agitation. pro
luced many notable men, and few more so
han
BENJAMIN LUNDY,
| citizen of La Sale county, a sketch of
whose life we give from his own biography,
IS previously written by us In former
work:
This distinguished phianthropist and
bolitionist ended his days in Vermilllon-
lille, and, being a Quaker, his remains
we're deposited in the cemetery of the So
lety of Friends, on the bank of Clear
jreek, Putnam Co., near Magnolia He
the reputation of being 1.-THE
ather of the party of freedom" lie was
Iorn Jan. LIST, 1889, at Handwich, Essex
Co., New Jersey. His mother died when
le was only five years, and he was her
My child. He had but very little means
nd opportunities for schooling, but being
Il bright and studious temperament by
lis own exertions he had managed to learn
0 read and write when he was eight years
f age. At eighteen years he was first
ermitted To look into arithmetic His