Millwood, Knox Co., Ohio,

Oct. 4, 1852.

Dear Friend:—Will you allow me to say a few words on A. R. Demptster'sDempster, Anderson R.

Anderson R. Dempster (c. 1809–c. 1854) was active in the abolition movement in Carroll County, Ohio, and numerous other social causes of the day. Dempster was the mayor of Leesville/Leesburgh in the early 1850s. He admired Gerrit Smith, even naming one of his sons after that abolitionist. Dempster was a prohibitionist, petitioning the Ohio legislature in 1850 to deny anyone the right to sell alcohol. He also supported relief efforts for the Irish during the Potato Famine of the late 1840s. Dempster was prominent in the local church, once being described as “the leader of the Wesleyans at Leesburgh.” “Irish Relief Meeting,” Carroll (Ohio) Free Press, 19 March 1847; “Notes on the Lecturing Field,” Anti-Slavery Bugle, 3 November 1848; “An Ordinance,” Carroll (Ohio) Free Press, 21 July 1853; J. V. Smith, ed., Report of the Debates and Proceedings of the Convention, (Columbus, Ohio: S. Medary, 1851), 646; Find a Grave (online). account of the Leesville meeting, and of my speeches there? He says his report of my Friday speech is as honest and faithful a report of what I said, as it was possible to give, under the circumstances. What circumstances they were to which he alludes, I do not know; but his report is certainly not a fair representation of the object and drift of my speech. On Thursday evening, I had spoken of the evil and wickedness of slavery and of the obligations we were under to labor for its abolition. The object of this address was to make people feel that it was their duty, and even their interest, to unite for the abolition of slavery. The object of my Friday speech was to show that the friends of freedom had grounds for hope of success in their labors; that they could not fail of success if they were zealous and persevering in their efforts. In proof of this, I spoke first of the power of truth and of love; of their tendency ever to make their way among men; of the impossibility of hedging them in within limits, or hindering their spread through the world. And as the doctrine of freedom was truth, and as the spirit which prompted men to spread it was the spirit of love, it was impossible that it should fail to make its way into the world; impossible that it should fail to change and reform the imperfect or vicious institutions of society. This argument I dwelt upon at considerable length.

I next referred to history, in proof that the friends of freedom had ground to hope for success in their labors of love. I contended that all history, whether natural, civil, or ecclesiastical, shared that progress, advancement, or a tendency to a better and higher state of things, was the law of God's universe; that the history of the globe, the history of the vegetable and animal worlds, and the history of man, when regarded as a physical and intellectual, a social, a moral, or a religious being, was one long string of improvement—an endless and unbroken narrative of happy changes from good to better, and from better to still better. In proof of

this point, I referred to the rendations of geneology, the remnants of ancient literature, to authentic history, to late events, to the signs visible in the present state of things of what is coming in the eternal future.

I referred to the remnants of ancient literature, as rendations of the intellectual, the manual, the social, the political and religious state of the people among whom they originated, and of the ages which gave them birth. Under this head I referred to the Jewish and Christian scriptures, or the collection of books called the Bible. Some of those books were regarded as among the most ancient remains of early literature; others of them as less ancient; and from comparing the sentiments and opinions of their authors with the sentiments and opinions of the more enlightened of modern writers; and by contrasting the pictures of domestic, social, religious, political and moral life given in those ancient Jewish books, with the higher forms of domestic, social, religious, political and moral life presented to the world as it now is, we might, I contended, satisfy ourselves that mankind had ever been advancing, both in knowledge and virtue—had ever been approaching nearer and still nearer to intellectual, moral, religious, and to domestic, social and political perfection. In doing this, I said not a word against the bible. Sure, I treated the bible as I treated other remnants of ancient literature, going on the supposition that it was a collection of human productions, revealing simply the thoughts and feelings of the men who produced them. I could do not other. For though I regard the bible with indescribable interest, and consider it, in some respects, of incalculable worth. I have not the least belief in the prevailing notions of its supernatural origin, or its divine authority. As, therefore, a believer in the supernatural origin and divine authority of the bible will naturally, in his references to the book, let out his belief, and make use of its contents in a way agreeing with his views. So I, in my references to the bible, could do not other than allow my belief with respect to the bible to appear, and make use of its contents in a way agreeing with my belief. But what was there blameable or objectionable in all this? Would A. R. DempsterDempster, Anderson R.

Anderson R. Dempster (c. 1809–c. 1854) was active in the abolition movement in Carroll County, Ohio, and numerous other social causes of the day. Dempster was the mayor of Leesville/Leesburgh in the early 1850s. He admired Gerrit Smith, even naming one of his sons after that abolitionist. Dempster was a prohibitionist, petitioning the Ohio legislature in 1850 to deny anyone the right to sell alcohol. He also supported relief efforts for the Irish during the Potato Famine of the late 1840s. Dempster was prominent in the local church, once being described as “the leader of the Wesleyans at Leesburgh.” “Irish Relief Meeting,” Carroll (Ohio) Free Press, 19 March 1847; “Notes on the Lecturing Field,” Anti-Slavery Bugle, 3 November 1848; “An Ordinance,” Carroll (Ohio) Free Press, 21 July 1853; J. V. Smith, ed., Report of the Debates and Proceedings of the Convention, (Columbus, Ohio: S. Medary, 1851), 646; Find a Grave (online). forbid all those who differ from him with respect to the origin and authority of the bible to speak at an anti-slavery meeting? I suppose not. How, then, would he have them to speak? Would he have them to conceal their views, and speak as if they held opinions which they do not hold? Or would he have them speak as they think, and argue on the subject in the way which to them seems best? I suppose the latter.—Then why find fault with me? This was all I did. He says he will give you a report of my speech, as a specimen of what is made to pass for anti-slavery at Leesville, thus trying to make the impression that my speech was not anti-slavery. I ask, supposing the account I have given of the object and subject of my speech to be correct, what could the speech be else than anti-slavery? Sure, the drift of my argument was not what the dift of A. R. Dempster's argument would have been. Is nothing anti-slavery but what is in keeping with Mr. Dempster's theological views? Suppose a Mahometan had spoken at the meeting, and, among other things, had undertaken to show that slavery was inconsistent with the doctrines of the Koran, going all the while on the supposition that the Koran was the word of God; would A. R. Dempster have thought himself called

upon to complain, and to hold up the Mahometan, and those who encouraged him, as men attempting to pass off something as anti-slavery, which was not anti-slavery?—Suppose we believers in the human origin and human character of the bible should call an anti-slavery meeting, and invite Mr. D. to speak; and suppose Mr. Dempster, in attempting to prove that abolitionists had grounds for encouragement in their labors, should quote certain [prophecies] from the Jewish and Christian scriptures, gained all the while on the supposition that those scriptures were of divine authority, should we have any right to complain? Should we be just if we were to charge Mr. Dempster with attempting to pass off as anti-slavery something that was not anti-slavery. It is impossible that people of different views respecting the origin and meaning of the bible should follow exactly the same line of argument in treating of slavery; but it is foolish to suppose that they may not both be abolitionists, or that their arguments, however widely they may differ in their premises, may not be equally anti-slavery. I am far from acknowledging that my opinions respecting the bible are wrong, and Mr. Dempster's are right; but suppose they were, a speech in harmony with my views might still be as truly anti-slavery as a speech in harmony with his. In concluding these general remarks, I must charge A. R. Dempster with being a false witness against his neighbors, in presenting me and my Leesville friends as attempting to pass off, on the Friday alluded to, a speech as anti-slavery, which in truth was not so. I do not charge A. R. Dempster with wilful falsehood; for prejudice and bigotry may so blind a man as to render it impossible for him to see the real nature and bearing of a speech made by one that seriously differs from him in opinion. I only charge him with falsehood. I leave God to decide whether the falsehood was a helpless blunder, or a wicked lie.

As to several particular portions of Mr. Dempster's report of my speech, they were as far from correctness, as his insinuations with regard to the object and substance of the speech in general. But it is not worth while referring to them separately. It is enough to say, that Mr. Dempster has not done justice either to my sentiments or my phraseology. The circumstances which rendered it impossible for A. R. Dempster to give a more honest and faithful report of my speech, must have been of a nature of which I can form no idea. If I were placed in such circumstances, I would give no report of a speech at all. A false report of a speech is worse than none.

In conclusion, dear friend, let me thank you for your labors in the cause of the oppressed and plundered, and wish you great success. I know little of your opinions on theological matters; nor am I much concerned about them, so long as you prove yourself a hater of slavery, and a friend of humanity. I shall regard you with respect and reverence, and rejoice in your prosperity. I shall never quarrel with you for taking part in political action against the tyrants. Indeed, I lean to political action myself. Though I have the highest opinion of the non-voting abolitionists, and feel most at home in their company, I still know of nothing that would prevent me, if I had a vote, from giving it in favor of Gerrit SmithSmith, Gerrit

Gerrit Smith (1797– 1874), a New York businessman and land speculator, became best known for his philanthropic work for such reform causes as temperance and abolition. Between 1828 and 1835, he donated large sums of money to the American Colonization Society, but abandoned that movement in 1835 when his sympathies shifted to the immediate abolitionists. In the 1840s, he gave approximately 140,000 acres of land in upstate New York to three thousand black settlers, thus qualifying them to vote. Smith was a founder and frequent candidate of the Liberty party, running for governor of New York on that ticket in 1840 and winning a seat in Congress in 1852. When the Free Soil merger with moderate antislavery Democrats and Whigs lured away many Liberty party supporters, Smith helped bankroll that organization until 1860. Smith befriended Douglass when the latter moved to Rochester, and Smith frequently helped finance Frederick Douglass’ Paper. Like Douglass, Smith supported John Brown, but psychological stress caused by the failure at Harpers Ferry brought on the first of a series of bipolar episodes that greatly reduced his subsequent reform activities. Ralph Volney Harlow, Gerrit Smith: Philanthropist and Reformer (1939; New York, 1972); Gerald Sorin, The New York Abolitionists: A Case Study of Political Radicalism (Westport, Conn., 1971), 269– 87; Lewis Perry, Radical Abolitionism: Anarchy and the Government of God in Antislavery Thought (Ithaca, N.Y., 1973), 170– 80; John R. McKivigan and Madeleine Leveille, “The ‘Black Dream’ of Gerrit Smith, New York Abolitionist,” Syracuse University Library Associates Courier, 20:61– 76 (Fall 1985); NCAB , 2:322– 23; DAB, 17:270– 71. , or John P. Hale. I am not satisfied that the

views you expressed at Salem, respecting the meaning of the constitution, and the political and moral obligations which it imposes on legislators and office holders, are not correct. I see something of the peculiar dangers to which political reformers are exposed in this country. Yet I cannot but believe that men of superior intellect and the purest motives may take part in political action. I can no more doubt the sanity or honesty of Gerrit Smith, than I can doubt the sanity or honesty of W. L. GarrisonGarrison, William Lloyd

William Lloyd Garrison (1805-79) was the foremost white abolitionist of the nineteenth century and was credited with the discovery of Douglass as a speaker at an antislavery meeting in Nantucket in 1841. He began his career as an apprentice printer on the Newburyport (Mass.) Herald at the age of thirteen. Garrison became editor of the Newburyport Free Press in 1826, but the paper closed within a year. He was then associated with a series of periodicals in Boston that advocated reform before Benjamin Lundy offered the young journalist the opportunity to write for his antislavery newspaper. Garrison joined Lundy in editing the Genius of Universal Emancipation in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1829, during the last year of the paper's 1821-1830 run. In 1830 a libel suit against the editors forced the paper to close and landed Garrison in jail. After his release, he courted the wealthy merchants of New York and Boston in order to start the Liberator (1831-65), a weekly journal based in Boston in which he advocated an immediate end to slavery. Garrison's brand of abolition condemned any institution that would tolerate the existence of slavery, including churches, political parties. and even the United States itself and any scheme aimed at removing black people from the country. Instead, Garrison hoped to raise the public's awareness that slavery was morally wrong and thereby force its end in an almost millennial moment of emancipation. His approach appealed to both white and black antislavery advocates but earned him many enemies among those only moderately opposed to slavery and slaveholders alike. Seeing the need for greater action and organization beyond the pages of the Liberator; Garrison joined with other abolitionists to form the New England Anti-Slavery Society in 1831. Two years later he helped found the larger American Anti-Slavery Society. In 1833 he established ties with English abolitionists after a trip to Great Britain, and he later brought the noted and notorious speaker George Thompson to the United States for a tour. Garrison also dedicated himself to women's rights, encouraging women to enter the public sphere by inviting them, via the Liberator, to form female antislavery societies. In addition to the thirty-three women's antislavery societies that flourished by 1838, Garrison's American Anti-Slavery Society welcomed women as well as blacks into its ranks. However, female delegates were excluded from the World's Anti-Slavery Convention of 1840 in London. The issue of women's participation in the antislavery movement and Garrison's absolute refusal to turn to politics to end slavery caused a division in the American Anti-Slavery Society. Brothers Lewis and Arthur Tappan, who opposed women's acting as speakers and who hoped to use politics toward abolition, broke with Garrison's American Anti-Slavery Society, forming the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, or the "New Organization" in 1841. Garrison's ideas were so closely associated with the "Old Organization" that the American Anti-Slavery Society became known simply as the "Garrisonians." With the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865, Garrison believed that he had accomplished his life's work and that of the antislavery movement. He then resigned from the presidency of the American Anti-Slavery Society and closed the Liberator. Wendell Phillips Garrison and Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879: The Story of His Life Told by His Children, 4 vols. (New York, 188589); Henry Mayer, All on Fire: William Lloyd Garrison and the Abolition of Slavery (New York, 1998); James Brewer Stewart, William Lloyd Garrison and the Challenge of Emancipation (Arlington Heights, Ill., 1992); John L. Thomas, The Liberator: William Lloyd Garrison (Boston, 1963); Dictionary of American Biography, 20 vols. (New York, 1928-36), 7:168-72. . I look at them both as specimens of two of the highest forms of humanity. I feel towards them both the devoutest love; I regard them both with the highest and the heartiest veneration. And I cannot describe the pleasure I feel, when I see those two men, so good and so great, in their several ways, doing justice to each other's motives, while they pursue in such different courses. I wish no higher honor—I covet no diviner pleasure, than to be permitted to co-operate with them both.

You will be glad to hear that anti-slavery principles are making their way in this neighborhood. Knox county, which has often been represented as one of the most backward of all the counties of Ohio, bids fair to become one of the most forward. But I must close.

Yours, very respectfully,

Joseph BarkerBarker, Joseph

Joseph Barker (1806–76), a British clergyman and abolitionist, was the editor of the Newcastle-upon-Tyne Christian, and he published an edition of Douglass’s Narrative during the latter’s first trip to Britain in 1846. A controversial figure, Barker was expelled from the Methodist New Connection in 1841, and he was arrested for advocating Chartism in 1848. From 1851 to 1860, he resided in the United States, where he actively participated in the abolition movement. Douglass Papers, ser. 2, 1:88–89; Joseph Barker, The Life of Joseph Barker, ed. John Thomas Barker (London, 1880); Betty Fladeland, “ ‘Our Cause Being One and the Same’: Abolitionists and Chartism,” in Slavery and British Society, 1776–1846, ed. James Walvin (Baton Rouge, La., 1982), 95; DNB, 1:1124–26. .