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Page 60
However, Mr. Douglass was not the first coloured man that became a
lecturer, and thereby did service to the cause of his countrymen. The
earliest and most effective speaker from among the coloured race in
America, was Charles Lennox Remond. In point of eloquence, this
gentleman is not inferior to either Wendell Phillips or Frederick
Douglass. Mr. Remond is of small stature, and neat figure, with a head
well developed, but a remarkably thin face. As an elocutionist, he is,
without doubt, the first on the anti-slavery platform. He has a good
voice, a pleasing countenance, a prompt intelligence, and when speaking,
is calculated to captivate and carry away an audience by the very force
of his eloquence. Born in the freest state of the Union, and of most
respectable parents, he prides himself not a little on his birth and
descent. One can scarcely find fault with this, for, in the United
States, the coloured man is deprived of the advantages which parentage
gives to the white man. Mr. Remond is a descendant of one of those
coloured men who stood side by side with white men on the plains of
Concord and Lexington, in the battles that achieved the independence of
the colonies from the mother country, in the war of the Revolution. Mr.
Remond has felt deeply, (probably more so than any other coloured man),
the odious prejudice against colour. On this point he is sensitive to a
fault. If any one will sit for an hour and hear a lecture from him on
this subject, if he is not converted, he will at least become convinced,
that the boiling cauldron of anti-slavery discussion has never thrown
upon its surface a more fiery spirit than Charles Lennox Remond.
There are some men who neither speak nor write, but whose lives place
them in the foremost ranks in the cause which they espouse. One of these
is Francis Jackson. He was one of the earliest to give countenance and
support to the anti-slavery movement. In the year 1835, when a mob of
more than 5000 merchants and others, in Boston, broke up an anti-slavery
meeting of females, at which William Lloyd Garrison and George Thompson
were to deliver addresses, and when the Society had no room in which to
hold its meetings (having been driven from their own room by the mob),
Francis Jackson, with a moral courage scarcely ever equalled, came
forward and offered his private dwelling to the ladies, to hold their
meeting in. The following interesting passage occurs in a letter from
him to the Secretary of the Society a short time after, on receiving a
vote of thanks from its members:--
"If a large majority of this community choose to turn a deaf ear to the
wrongs which are inflicted upon their countrymen in other portions of
the land--if they are content to turn away from the sight of oppression,
and 'pass by on the other side'--so it must be.
"But when they undertake in any way to impair or annul my right to
speak, write, and publish upon any subject, and more especially upon
enormities, which are the common concern of every lover of his country
and his kind--so it must not be--so it shall not be, if I for one can
prevent it. Upon this great right let us hold on at all hazards. And
should we, in its exercise, be driven from public halls to private
dwellings, one house at least shall be consecrated to its preservation.
And if, in defence of this sacred privilege, which man did not give me,
and shall not (if I can help it) take from me, this roof and these walls
shall be levelled to the earth, let them fall if they must; they cannot
crumble in a better cause. They will appear of very little value to me
after their owner shall have been whipt into silence."
There are among the contributors to the Anti-Slavery cause, a few who
give with a liberality which has never been surpassed by the donors to
any benevolent association in the world, according to their means--the
chief of these is Francis Jackson.
In the month of May, 1844, while one evening strolling up Broadway, New
York, I saw a crowd making its way into the Minerva Rooms, and, having
no pressing engagement, I followed, and was soon in a splendid hall,
where some twelve or fifteen hundred persons were seated, and listening
to rather a strange-looking man. The speaker was tall and slim, with
long arms, long legs, and a profusion of auburn or reddish hair hanging
in ringlets down his shoulders; while a huge beard of the same colour
fell upon his breast. His person was not at all improved by his dress.
The legs of his trousers were shorter than those worn by smaller men:
the sleeves of his coat were small and short, the shirt collar turned
down in Byronic style, beard and hair hid his countenance, so that no
redeeming feature could be found there; yet there was one redeeming
quality about the man--that was the stream of fervid eloquence which
escaped from his lips. I inquired his name, and was informed that it was
Charles C. Burleigh. Nature has been profuse in showering her gifts upon
Mr. Burleigh, but all has been bestowed upon his head and heart. There
is a kind of eloquence which weaves its thread around the hearer, and
gradually draws him into its web, fascinating him with its gaze,
entangling him as the spider does the fly, until he is fast: such is the
eloquence of C.C. Burleigh. As a debater he is unquestionably the first
on the Anti-slavery platform. If he did not speak so fast, he would
equal Wendell Phillips; if he did not reason his subject out of
existence, he would surpass him. However, one would have to travel over
many miles, and look in the faces of many men, before he would find one
who has made more personal sacrifices, or done more to bring about the
Emancipation of the American Slaves, than Mr. Charles C. Burleigh.
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