Savannah courier. (Savannah, Tenn.) 1885-1979, 1900-04-13
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8 TENNESSEE HISTORY 3
g Valuable Contribution by Hon. &
x j. M. Dickinson. &


bree established the "Emancipator,"
the first newspaper in the United
States whose avowed object was the
abolition of slavery, and in 1921 this
was succeeded by the Genius of Uni
versal Emancipation" published by
Lundy, which then was the only anti
slavery paper in America.
In 1924 at Columbia was formed 1.-THE
Moral Religious Manumission Society
of West Tennessee" which declared il
the preamble to its constitution that
slavery exceeds any other crime in
magnitude"
In 1927, of the $50 anti-slavery So
cieties of America, 106 were located in
siave-holding States, and Tennessee
alone had twenty-five, with 1000 mem
bers, which was more than three times
as many as there were in all New Eng
land and New York combined.
1t was estimated by Abolitionists in
1928, the year that Lundy went tc
Boston and could hear OF no Abolition
list resident there, that in Tennessee
threc-fifths of the people were favorably
disposed toward the principle of eman-
cipation.
In 1888 the Tennessee Manumssion
Society memorialized congress, pray
ing for a prohibition of the internal
slave trade, law that all persons born
thereafter in the United States should
be free, and that slavery should not be
introduced in any State where it did
not then exist, nor be suffered in any
States thereafter admitted into the
| Union.
record these things because they
are facts not generally known, because
they have been more or less ignored,
or suppressed by those who professed
to write history, and because of the
audacity with which some, whose an
cestors were as much responsible for
slavery as were ours, cast slurs upon
the descendants of Shareholders of the
| South.
They go far to confirm the statement
of Garrison made in the first number
OF the Liberator, in 1881, that greater
revolution in public opinion had to be
accomplished in the North than in tho
South, and that he found in the North
contempt more bitter, prejudice more
stubborn and apathy more frozen than
among the slaveowners themselves"
In 1881 John Quincy Adams, in pre-
senting memorials asking for abolition
of slavery in the District of Columbia,
stated that he would not give the pro-
posed measure his support; that what
ever might be his opinion of slavery in
the abstract, in the District of Column
bia, he hoped it would not become a
subject of discussion in that house."
and that "the most healing medicines,
when unduly administered, become the
most deadly poison"
The abatement of emancipation SEN
timents in Tennessee, and the apparent
solidity that followed in favor of up
holding the institution of slavery, was
partially, If not entirely, superinduced
by those healing medicines" so per-
sistently administered in such heroic
doses. Movements for emancipation,
however earnest, were made impossible
in sovereign State in the face OF
threats from without of servile war,
and the torch of the incendiary.
If the people OF Tennessee bad been
left to Il free development, it is my be-
lief that emancipation wonld have come,
as it did in the Northern States, from
the operation of silent forces, and un-
der conditions vastly more benefcent
to both races
Certain it is that the people of Ten
nessec, from 1896 to 1860, would have
been as far from inaugurating slavery
as any people upon the earth, and that
they would have abolished it as
promptly as any State in the Union
did is they had been affected with the
same conditions.
Individual Tennesseans, by voluntary
act, freed more than did any of the
New England States by their acts OF
emancipation The State, however, as
political organism, was confronted
with potentious problems which lay in
the immediate background, problems
far vaster than the annihilation ol
values, problems which did not exist
in New England, problems involving
the social and political adjustment oi
different races, living in great numbers
in daily contact, problems that then
appalled, the statesmen of the South
and which, now that slavery has ended
are demanding the wisdom of the en-
tire nation, and the ultimate solution
of which nc man but a rash one would
undertake to exactly define.
The lesson for us to learn from the
dispassionate way in which the men Of
Tennessee in 1884, Notwithstanding the
fiery invectives then hurled against
them. discussed and dealt with this
momentous question, is to meet these
great issues as they press upon us, TAX
ing counsel of experience and wisdom
not prejudice and passion, and to bring
TO their settlement large patriotism
full sense of justice, to white anc
black, and fidelity to the demands o
an enduring civilization.
That much has been done and wisely
done by both races is attested by thi
, assembly enthusiastically participated
in by all, without regard to previous
condition, by that magnificent struct
ure which will adorn these grounds
reared by iae colored citizens of Ten
nessee, and which is to contain at thu
exposition, Of which this is the inau
gural day, the evidence OF their prog