But it is not within the province of this biography to give an exhaustive _résumé_ of the anti-slavery conflict, but only to speak of such of its episodes as were especially participated in by Mr. Whittier. How tailor John Woolman became a life-long itinerant preacher of his mild Quaker gospel of freedom; how honest saddler Lundy left his leather hammering, and walked his ten thousand miles, carrying his types and column-rules with him, and printing his "Genius of Universal Emancipation" as he went; in what way and to what extent the labors and writings of Lucretia Mott, Samuel J. May, Lydia Maria Child, George Thompson, James G. Birney, and Gerrit Smith helped on the noble cause,--to all these things only allusion can be made. For a full account of those perilous times one must go to the pages of Henry Wilson's "History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power," and to the fascinating "Recollections" of Samuel J. May. Let us now return to Whittier and consider his own writings, labors, and adventures in the service of the cause.
It was in the spring of 1833 that he published at his own expense "Justice and Expediency; or, Slavery Considered with a view to its Rightful and Effectual Remedy, Abolition." [Haverhill: C. P. Thayer and Co.] It is a polemical paper, full of exclamation points and italicized and capitalized sentences. The hyperbole speaks well for the author's heart, but betrays his juvenility. He shrieks like a temperance lecturer or a stump politician. The pamphlet, however, shows diligent and systematic study of the entire literature of the subject. Every statement is fortified by quotation or reference. He enumerates six reasons why the African Colonization Society's schemes were unworthy of good men's support, and buttresses up his theses by citations from the official literature of his opponents. A thorough familiarity with slavery in other lands and times is also manifested. As a specimen of the style of the book the following will serve:--
"But, it may be said that the miserable victims of the System have our sympathies.
"Sympathy!--the sympathy of the Priest and the Levite, looking on, and acknowledging, but holding itself aloof from mortal suffering. Can such hollow sympathy reach the broken of heart, and does the blessing of those who are ready to perish answer it? Does it hold back the lash from the slave, or sweeten his bitter bread?