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Chapter 10: wanted, an Anti-slavery society
The National Anti-Slavery Society--the society organized by
Garrison and his confreres, and which longest maintained its organization — made one great mistake.
It disbanded.
It assumed that its work was done when
African slavery in this country was pronounced defunct by law. It took it for granted that the enslavement of the colored man — not necessarily the negro — was no longer possible under the Stars and Stripes.
Then and there it committed a grievous blunder.
Its paramount error was in assuming that a political party could for all time be depended upon as a party of freedom.
It trusted to the assurances of politicians that they would protect the colored man in all his natural and acquired rights, and in that belief voluntarily gave up the ghost and cast its mantle to the winds.
Now, the fact is that the
National Anti-Slavery Society was never more needed than it is to-day.
There is a mighty work to be done that was directly in the line of its operations.
First and foremost, it will not be denied that a citizen of our Republic who is deprived of the elective franchise is robbed of one of his most valuable privileges-one of his most