Ten American Girls from History

by Kate Dickinson Sweetser

"You would get the worst of it," said a positive voice. "There isn't a girl in school who knows what she thinks on any subject as clearly as Betty knows what she believes about slavery."

The speaker tossed her head. "You don't know much about it, if you think that!" she declared. "We Massachusetts colonists are just as sure on our side as she is on hers—and you all ought to be if you are not! Father says it is only in the cotton-raising States that they think the way Betty does, and we Northerners must stand firm against having human beings bought and sold like merchandise. I just hope I will be chosen on that debate against Betty."

She was, but she came off vanquished by the verbal gymnastics of her opponent, to whom the arguments in favor of slavery were as familiar as the principles of arithmetic, for Betty had heard the subject discussed by eloquent and interested men ever since she was able to understand what they were talking about.

Never did two opponents argue with greater fire and determination for a cause than did those two school-girls, pitted against each other in a discussion of a subject far beyond their understanding. So cleverly did the Virginia girl hold up her end of the debate against her New England opponent, and so shrewdly did she repeat all the arguments she had heard fall from Southern lips, that she sat down amid a burst of applause, having won her case, proudly sure that from that moment there would be no more argument against slavery among her schoolmates, for who could know more about it than the daughter of one of Richmond's leading inhabitants? And who could appreciate the great advantages of slavery to the slaves themselves better than one who owned them?

But Betty had not reckoned with the strength of the feeling among those Northerners with whose children she was associated. They had also heard many telling arguments at home on the side against that which Betty had won because she had complied so fully with the rules of debate; and she had by no means won her friends over to her way of thinking. Many a heated argument was carried on later in the Quaker City school over that question which was becoming a matter of serious difference between the North and the South.

Before the war for Independence slavery existed in all the States of the Union. After the war was over some of the States abolished slavery, and others would have followed their example had it not been for the invention of the cotton-gin, which made the owning of slaves much more valuable in the cotton-growing States. East of the Mississippi River slavery was allowed in the new States lying south of the Ohio, but forbidden in the territory north of the Ohio. When Missouri applied for admission into the Union, the question of slavery west of the Mississippi was discussed and finally settled by what was afterward called "The Missouri Compromise of 1820."

In 1818, two years before this Compromise was agreed upon, Elizabeth Van Lew was born in Richmond. As we have already seen, when she was seventeen, she was in the North at school. Doubtless Philadelphia had been chosen not only because of the excellence of the school to which she was sent, but also because the Quaker City was her mother's childhood home, which fact is one to be kept clearly in mind as one follows Betty Van Lew's later life in all its thrilling details.

For many months after her victory as a debater Betty's convictions did not waver—she was still a firm believer that slavery was right and best for all. Then she spent a vacation with a schoolmate who lived in a New England village, in whose home she heard arguments fully as convincing in their appeal to her reason as those to which she had listened at home from earliest childhood. John Van Lew, Betty's father, had ever been one of those Southerners who argued that in slavery lay the great protection for the negro—in Massachusetts Betty heard impassioned appeals for the freedom of the individual, of whatever race, and to those appeals her nature slowly responded as a result partly of her inheritance from her mother's Northern blood, and partly as a result of that keen sense of justice which was always one of her marked traits.

At the end of her school days in the North, Betty's viewpoint had so completely changed that she went back to her Richmond home an unwavering abolitionist, who was to give her all for a cause which became more sacred to her than possessions or life itself.

Soon after her return to Virginia she was visited by the New England friend in whose home she had been a guest, and to the Massachusetts girl, fresh from the rugged hills and more severe life of New England, Richmond was a fascinating spot, and the stately old mansion, which John Van Lew had recently bought, was a revelation of classic beauty which enchanted her.