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176 Letterto the editor: “slavery and reform” By Susan B. Anthony April 14, 1854 Baltimore, Maryland In April 1854, Susan B. Anthony wrote a letter to the Liberator, William Lloyd Garrison’s abolitionist newspaper, reporting on her women’s rights tour with Rose through the Border South states. The trip demanded great courage from both women, not only because women’s rights reformers had not traveled south before, but also because Rose was not willing to side-step the issue of slavery when it was raised, as was expected in the slave states in deference to their “pet institution.” In her letter, Anthony describes Rose as “an out and out abolitionist.” Anthony describes one lecture in which Rose built an argument for “disunion.” Radical abolitionists were actually the first secessionists, believing that separating North and South was preferable to accepting the demands and manipulations of the slave-owning states in the interests of preserving the union. A particularly egregious example was the compromise reached on the “Nebraska Question.” The KansasNebraska Bill was introduced by Stephen Douglas, the Democratic senator from Illinois (and future rival of Abraham Lincoln—who himself rose to national prominence by opposing the bill). The bill sought to curry favor with the South and encourage settlement in the territories by permitting each new state to vote slavery up or down. Its passage, later in 1854, superseded the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which had held the spread of slavery in check. At the New England Anti-Slavery Convention in Boston the following year, Rose would describe this event in Washington as a turning point in her thinking on disunion: “[W]hen I went home from that lecture, I said to a friend of mine, ‘If I have not succeeded in convincing anyone else, I have succeeded ,—and I am very happy to know it,—in convincing myself.’” Anthony kept close track of how their tour was received in the local press. At one point, she takes issue with a Washington newspaper for misunderstanding and misstating Rose’s views; she also accuses some of the antislavery press in the area of not covering Rose’s speeches because she was a woman and a non-Christian. Anthony’s report to the Liberator, written in the form of a letter to its editor, Garrison, appeared under the heading “Slavery and Reform” in the issue of April 14, 1854. n Baltimore, April 1854 Dear Mr. Garrison: From the land of slavery I write. There is no mistaking the fact. The saddening, hateful evidences are on every side. Pro-slavery people, both of the North and the South, have often said to me, “Just go South, and see 177 slavery as it really is, and you will cease to speak of it as you now do.” How strangely blind must that person be, who hates slavery less, by coming in closer contact with its degrading influences! How wanting in true nobility of soul must he be, who can hear a human being speak of himself as being the property of another, without evincing the least discontent! How unworthy the boon of freedom is the man who sees himself surrounded, for the first time, with beings wearing the human form, from whose faces slavery has blotted out almost every token of that Divine spark within, that aspires to a higher, a nobler life, that scorns to be a thing,—and, from the very depths of his soul, hates not slavery more than it were possible for him ever to have done before! I hate slavery less? Heaven forbid! I have been traveling in company with Ernestine L. Rose the past three weeks, during which time Mrs. Rose has lectured on Woman’s Rights in Washington, Alexandria and Baltimore. Her meetings have all been but thinly attended, compared with our Northern meetings. Still, the people here call the audiences large, and quite equal to the number who usually attend literary or scientific lectures. But few people here seem to be in the least interested in any subject of reform. The only thing that in any way alarms them is the fear that some word shall be uttered which shall endanger their “pet institution.” In making application for a hall in this city, the proprietor said to me, “You know we are a sensitive people, and don’t like to allow persons to speak in our halls, who will introduce topics foreign to those they announce.” I said, “I suppose you refer to the subject of...

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