HISTORY
OF
AMERICAN ABOLITIONISM;
Its Four Great Epochs,
EMBRACING NARRATIVES OF THE
| ORDINANCE OF 1787, | ABOLITION RIOTS, |
| COMPROMISE OF 1820, | SLAVE RESCUES, |
| ANNEXATION OF TEXAS, | COMPROMISE OF 1850, |
| MEXICAN WAR, | KANSAS BILL OF 1854, |
| WILMOT PROVISO, | JOHN BROWN INSURRECTION, 1859, |
| NEGRO INSURRECTIONS, | VALUABLE STATISTICS, |
| &c., &c., &c. | |
TOGETHER WITH A
HISTORY OF THE SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY.
(ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE NEW YORK HERALD.)
BY F. G. DE FONTAINE.
NEW YORK:
D. APPLETON & Co.
1861.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one,
By F. G. de FONTAINE,
in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New York.
CHAS. CRASKE,
Stereotyper.
BARTON & SON,
Printers,
111 Fulton Street, N. Y.
INTRODUCTION.
The following pages originally appeared in the New York Herald, ofFebruary 2d, 1861. By request, they have been reproduced in their presentshape, with the view of preserving, in a form more compact than that of anewspaper, the valuable facts embraced.
Without an extensive range of research it is almost impossible to acquirethe information which is thus compiled, and, at the present time,especially, it is believed that the publication of these facts will bedesirable to the reading community.
F. G. de F.
HISTORY OF AMERICAN ABOLITIONISM.
CHAPTER I.
The Spirit of the Age—Two Classes of Abolitionists—Their Objects—TheSources of their Inspiration—Influences upon Church and State—ProposedInvasions upon the Constitution—Effect upon the Slave States, &c., &c.
One of the commanding characteristics of the present age is the spirit ofagitation, collision and discord which has broken forth in everydepartment of social and political life. While it has been an era ofmagnificent enterprises and unrivalled prosperity, it has likewise been anera of convulsion, which has well nigh upturned the foundations of thegovernment. Never was this truth more evident than at the present moment.A single topic occupies the public mind—Union or Disunion—and is one ofpre-eminently absorbing interest to every citizen. Upon this issue theentire nation has been involved in a moral distemper, t