John W. Lewis to Frederick Douglass, July 17, 1854
For Frederick Douglass' Paper.
LETTER FROM JOHN W. LEWIS.
ST. ALBANS, Vt., July 17, 1854.
MY DEAR DOUGLASS:—Some men have a peculiar faculty to wield their pen amidst excitement, and scribble off a good readable communication. In this, I fail; and now for several days I have been trying to get my nerves steadied from the excitement of the last week, to pen a few lines for Frederick Douglass' Paper.
Last week I attended four Conventions—the State Temperance, the State Liberty Party, and the State Mass Convention of the Friends of Freedom, at Montpelier, and our County Convention (Franklin) at Sheldon.—For twenty-five years, I have attended many anti-slavery meetings in different parts of the country and under very important circumstances; but for patriotism, humanity, and real enthusiasm, this last week far exceeds any that I ever before witnessed. The Temperance meeting on Wednesday, the 12th, was the first. It met at 10 o'clock, A. M., and continued through the day until 10 at night. Gen. E. P. Walton, of Montpelier, our liberty candidate for Governor, presided. As a general thing, our liberty men are temperance men in Vermont. Of course they were on the spot, ready to do battle to old king alcohol, and defend the merits of our excellent prohibitory law, from the treachery of professed friends, and opposition of open economics. For everything that politial intrigue and villany could do, has been done to kill the law, or render it inoperative. The devotees of Backus, and all his craftsmen, feel a great loss at the support of so just and humane a measure. Poor fellows, they are not to be pitied in Vermont; for that great Temperance meeting, composed as it was, of the strength and moral excellence of the State, resolved to stand by the Temperance cause even at the ballot box. A preparation to nominate a State Temperance Ticket was laid on the table to await the action of the great Mass Meeting on Thursday, to see the result of their nomination. Judge Royce, of East Burkshire, nominated at Rutland, in the Whig Convention, and Mr. Clark, nominated by the old line Democrats, had defined their position unsatisfactory to the Temperance friends, both in the Democraticic, Whig, and Liberty ranks. This, together with opposition of a portion of each party to the Fugitive Slave Law, the Nebraska-Kansas Bill, and other outrages of the slave power, aroused the people of Vermont to marshal themselves for a might contest.
On Thursday, at 10, A.M., the Liberty Party Convention assembled at the Free Church. That spacious edifice was jammed at an early hour. Hon. G. W. Bailey, presiding. All through the forenoon, special trains on the railroad, from North, South, East and West, brought in the people by hundreds. It seemed like the good old days when Hancock and his noble coadjutors reached the old cradle of liberty, when the tramp of freemen was heard on the plains of Lexington and Bennington, in our own Green Mountain State. We could almost imagine we could hear the voice of old Ethan Allen, as in the days of yore, shouting to despots to surrender.
At 1 o'clock, P.M., at the ringing of the State House bell, that vast multitude began to pour into the Hall of the House of Representatives. A banner was carried in the crowd, with the inscription, "Union and Repeal." It was placed facing the portrait
of Washington, which hung over the platform, back of the chair of the speaker of the House. As immensely large as is that Hall, in a very short time it was out of the question to obtain an advantageous standing position. It was a meeting of the people, and the people were there, prepared to talk to their servants, and require an account of their doings and sayings on the great question of Freedom. Hon. Lawrence Brainard was called to the chair by acclamation. A list of the Vice Presidents and Secretaries, without distinction of party, but who are opposed to the aggression of the slave power, were appointed. The Business Committee reported a platform with a recommend for an organization of a body to be known as the Republican Party. In that great crowd, that report was adopted but with one dissenting voice—that was an office holder under the General Government patronage. The Committee on Nomination presented a ticket made up of men of anti-slavery sentiment, irrespective of party. Gen. E. P. Walton, was nominated for Governor. The ticket was entirely satisfactory, and the nomination was readily ratified in an adjourned meeting of the Liberty and Temperance Conventions. The signs of the times indicate that freedom has a strong foot-hold in the Green Mountain State, as well as in all parts of New England. The mighty uprising of the people clearly indicate that they consider American slavery beyond endurance. That patience now ceases to be a virtue; and that a mighty, moral revolution has taken place in the public sentiment and opinion on this subject is, evidently, the cause of such enthusiasm at this time. Men were once hissed down for advocatimg the anti-slavery cause, especially through the medium of the Liberty Party.
Last Thursday, that poor office-holder was hissed in that crowd for voting against the report of the Business Committee, recommending the abandoning of the old political parties, and forming a republican party in opposition to slavery. So it goes; slavery has had its day; they are numbered. In 1854, it advanced one step too far. It appeared too arrogant. It attempted to grasp too much; and in this it rushed on to its own destruction. Now, Nutrality [sic] or Conservatism, is out of the question. Slavery and freedom is the question now. There is no issue between the two great national political parties; and for a long time there has not been a strict party vote in Congress, when the interest of the great body of the constituency of the American people are concerned. Slaveholders have found ready and willing watch-dogs to their institution in the persons of Northern traitors; yet despotism must retreat; it has taken a position it cannot maintain. The people are now determined to speak and tell them so through the ballot box; for they can and dare execute the freeman's will.
I assure you, the resignation of Hon. Gerrit Smith, has produced a profound sensation among the friends of freedom here. He has done great and good service for freedom.—The gratitude of millions will attend him through life. Our cause has received a new impetus by the firm and true position of Hon. Senator Sumner. His noble victory in flooring the slavery propagandist, show[s] that their fortress is not impregnable. It proves that they can be hurled from their haughty position, when Northern freemen have moral courage to attack them. In fact, my dear sir, everything is truly encouraging in New Hampshire. Old Hunkerism has caved in. Connecticut Blue Laws have vanished. Little Rhoda is getting right side up. The old Bay State is reffirming her liberty principles of '76; and now there is no compromise in the way to hold the sons of freedom in check. With a clear field, for a fair fight, freedom's host is ready to pass the Rubicon, and hazard everything in the hands of justice.
Yours as ever,
JOHN W. LEWIS.