Lydia Maria Child, Letters of Lydia Maria Child
John Greenleaf Whittier, Wendell Phillips, Harriet Winslow Sewall, Ed.

[259] and in response up rose Angelina and her sister Sarah, shrinking from the task imposed upon them by conscience, but upheld by the divine power of truth to deliver this message to the world: “We know whereof we affirm; for we were born and bred in South Carolina; and we know that abolitionists have not told, and could not tell, half the horrors of slavery.”

Then, like a cloud full of thunder and lightning, Frederick Douglass loomed above the horizon. He knew whereof he affirmed, for he had been a slave. Congress seemed in danger of becoming a mere “den of thieves,” when Daniel Webster walked out with Ichabod written on his garments; and, strong in moral majesty, in walked Charles Sumner, a man so honest and pure that he could not see any other line than a straight one. What if the pulpits were silent? Theodore Parker, that Boanerges of the clerical ranks, spoke in tones strong and far-reaching as a thousand voices.

Those were indeed inspiring days. I look back lovingly upon them; and I find it very hard to realize that so much of it has passed into oblivion, and that whatever remains is merely the cold record of history.

Your good and great Angelina and yourself are prominent in these memory pictures of a thrilling and exalting period. How well I remember her pale countenance and trembling limbs, when she rose to address the Legislature of Massachusetts! The feminine shrinking was soon overcome by her sense of the duty before her, and her words flowed forth, free, forcible, and well-arranged. Those who went from that hall unconverted were those who, being “convinced against their will, were of the same opinion still.”