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jubilee is come,” so that further anti-slavery agitation is uncalled for, we close the operations and the existence of this Society with the present anniversary.
To this,
Mr. Phillips opposed the following motion:
Resolved, That since the Constitutional Amendment abolishing slavery is not yet ratified, and consequently the system of slavery stands in the eye of the law untouched; and whereas, there are still thousands of slaves legally held within the United States; therefore, this Society calls upon its members for fresh and untiring diligence in finishing the work to which they originally pledged themselves, and putting the liberty of the negro beyond peril.
Lib. 35.81.
The debate on these propositions continued through two
1 days, that of
Mr. Phillips being supported by
C. L. Remond,
2 Frederick Douglass,
Robert Purvis,
S. S. Foster, and
Anna E. Dickinson, while
Samuel May, Jr.,
Oliver Johnson, and
William I. Bowditch favored continuing the Society only until the Thirteenth Amendment should have been officially ratified.
The point having been made that the Society was pledged to continue until negro suffrage should be secured, because the elevation of the free people of color was one of the objects set forth in its Declaration and Constitution,
Mr. Garrison rejoined that, as the author of the Declaration, he felt competent to interpret it.
‘This Society,’ he continued,
is “The American Anti-Slavery3 Society.”
That was the object.
The thought never entered my mind then, nor has it at any time since, that when slavery had received its death-wound, there would be any disposition or occasion to continue the Anti-Slavery Society a moment longer.
But, of course, in looking over the country, we saw the free colored people more or less laboring under disabilities and suffering from injustice, and we declared that, incidentally, we did not mean to overlook them, but should vindicate their rights and endeavor to get justice done to them.
The point is here.
We organized expressly for the abolition of slavery; we called our Society an Anti-Slavery Society.
The other work was incidental.
Now, I believe slavery is abolished in this country; abolished constitutionally; abolished by a decree of this nation, never, never to be reversed; and, therefore, that it