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and movements, the equal Brotherhood of the entire human family, without distinction of color, sex, or clime.
The
British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society had
1 been founded in
London in April, 1839, at the instance of
Joseph Sturge, an eminent member of the Society of Friends.
His first public proposal of it, on reaching
2 America, led the editor of the
Emancipator to suggest that a world's anti-slavery convention be held in
London3 in the following year; and this idea was quickly adopted by the new society.
The official circular invitation reached
Mr. Garrison, as corresponding secretary of the
Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, in October.
It was
4 broadly addressed to ‘friends of the slave of every nation and of every clime,’ and, besides inviting them to a General Conference on June 12, 1840, strongly urged them ‘to associate themselves, and unitedly, as well as individually, to labor for the extinction of slavery.’
Stirred by the call of his co-sectaries,
Whittier echoed it in sounding verse in the little collection of anti-slavery poems called “The North star,” —
5
Yes, let them gather!—Summon forth
The pledged philanthropy of Earth.
‘Amen,’ said his old friend, the editor of the
Liberator,
6 ‘with all our souls!
Presbyterians, Baptists, Quakers —Jews, Gentiles, Ishmaelites—Women, Non-Resistants, Warriors, and all— “let them come” —all but those who refuse to associate for the slave's redemption with others who do not agree with them as to the divinity of human politics, and the scriptural obligation to prevent woman from opening her mouth in an anti-slavery gathering for “the suffering and the dumb” —and
they cannot come,
conscientiously—they are,
par excellence, new organizationists!’
The Convention, he remarked later, had been
7 distinctly placed on a non-resistant basis, in accord with the constitution of the
British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, which pledged its members to the employment
