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pertains to the form, since he could do no less than prepare it carefully in advance of the ceremony.
In
Glasgow he had to encounter two demonstrations— a public breakfast, initiated by the Smeals and Patons
1 and their anti-slavery associates, and an evening meeting —at each of which a fervid and impressive address, handsomely engrossed, was presented to him.
‘Elsewhere, Sir,’ said the venerable
Dr. William Anderson, in reading that at the breakfast,
you have repeatedly said, in reply to the commendations of friends, that you have only done your duty; but you cannot surely have signified, in saying so, that you protested against their laudations.
Why, Sir, it is precisely because you have done your duty that we hold you in admiration, and tender you our expression of it. And you must not check the flow of our feelings by any expression which might be construed as if you gave us back the proffered cup of our praise, only partially accepted.
We never felt ourselves less in danger of being seduced by courtesy into the use of expressions which savored of flattery.
‘
Mr. Chairman,’ said
Mr. Garrison in reply to this broadside,
2
it is hardly worth while here or anywhere to inquire minutely into the various methods and instrumentalities by which slavery in the United States has been abolished.
Those who labored with me were enabled to do something towards the event.
Those who labored on this side of the Atlantic had a share in the same glorious work, and are entitled to thanks and to gratitude, as well as those in my own country.
It took everything that has transpired since the struggle commenced to bring it about, and every one who gave anything, however small, to the treasury—every one who offered up a heartfelt prayer to God for the deliverance of the oppressed—every one who, in any manner, at any time, and to however small an extent, threw his influence into the scale of justice, had a hand in this blessed work, and it includes at last a mighty host. . . . It has been done by the promulgation of the truth; it has been done by the act
