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[48]

Reminiscences of Dr. Channing by Mrs. Child, written after his death and published in his memoirs.

I shall always recollect the first time I ever saw Dr. Canning in private. It was immediately after I published my “Appeal in favor of that class of Americans called Africans,” in 1833. A publication taking broad anti-slavery ground was then a rarity. Indeed, that was the first book in the United States of that character; and it naturally produced a sensation disproportioned to its merits. I sent a copy to Dr. Channing, and a few days after he came to see me at Cottage Place, a mile and a half from his residence on Mt. Vernon Street. It was a very bright sunny day; but he carried his cloak on his arm for fear of changes in temperature, and he seemed fatigued with the long walk. He stayed nearly three hours, during which time we held a most interesting conversation on the general interests of humanity, and on slavery in particular. He told me something of his experience in the West Indies, and said the painful impression made by the sight of slavery had never left his mind. He expressed great joy at the publication of the “Appeal,” and added, “The reading of it has aroused my conscience to the query whether I ought to remain silent on the subject.” He urged me never to desert the cause through evil report or good report. In some respects he thought I went too far. He then entertained the idea, which he afterwards discarded, that slavery existed in a milder form in the United States than elsewhere. I was fresh from the bloody records of our own legislation, and was somewhat vehement in my opposition to this statement, and he sought to moderate my zeal with those calm, wise words which none spoke so well as he.

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