WILLIAM WHIPPER.
The subject of this sketch is one of the deepest thinkers of which the black man can boast in our broad land. In early life, he was engaged in the lumber trade in Columbia, Pennsylvania, in which he secured a competency. Even while battling with the world for filthy lucre, Mr. Whipper gave much of his time to the advocacy of the freedom of the slave, and the elevation of the colored men of the North. In his business relations with the whites he always left a good impression of the negro’s capability, honesty, and gentlemanly deportment.
In 1833, he took charge of the editorial department of the “National Reformer,” a monthly magazine, published by the American Moral Reform Society. Mr. Whipper’s editorials were couched in chaste and plain language, but bold and outspoken in the advocacy of truth. He said:—
“We believe that Education, Temperance, Economy, and Universal Liberty, if properly carried out, will prove a powerful auxiliary in producing this necessary reformation, on which rests the Christian’s hope. They are now producing wonders in our country, under distinct and specific organizations. They are adhesive virtues, and as capable of uniting with each other as a like number of seas are of commingling their waters, and forming one great ocean. If this mighty current of philanthropy could become united in one living stream, it would soon sweep from our country every vestige of misery and oppression. And is it not as necessary that it should be so, as that a single mind should embrace these principles alone? Our country is rich with the means of resuscitating her from moral degeneracy. She possesses all the elements for her redemption; she has but to will it, and she is free.”
Mr. Whipper is a mulatto of fine personal appearance, above the middle size, stoops a little,—that bend of the shoulders that marks the student. He is remarkably well read, able to cite authority from the ancients, and posted in all the current literature of the day. He is social and genial, and very interesting and entertaining in conversation. Mr. Whipper resides in Philadelphia, where he is highly respected by all classes, and loved and looked up to by his own race.