In 1837 Mr. Whittier edited, and wrote a preface for, the "Letters of John Quincy Adams to his Constituents." These stirring letters of Mr. Adams were called forth by the attacks that had been made on him by members of Congress for defending the right of negroes to petition the Government. Mr. Whittier, in his introductory remarks, speaks of the "Letters" as follows:—
"Their sarcasm is Junius-like, cold, keen, unsparing. In boldness, directness, and eloquent appeal, they will bear comparison with O'Connell's celebrated letters to the Reformers of Great Britain.... It will be seen that, in the great struggle for and against the Right of Petition, an account of which is given in the following pages, their author stood in a great measure alone, and unsupported by his northern colleagues. On 'his gray, discrowned head' the entire fury of slaveholding arrogance and wrath was expended. He stood alone,—beating back, with his aged and single arm, the tide which would have borne down and overwhelmed a less sturdy and determined spirit."
In the same year (1837) Mr. Whittier edited a pamphlet called "Views of Slavery and Emancipation," taken from Harriet Martineau's "Society in America." The whole subject of slavery is canvassed by Miss Martineau in the most searching and judicial manner.
In closing this account of our author's anti-slavery labors, we may bestow a word on the attitude assumed toward the Abolition movement by the Quakers as a sect. Through the labors of John Woolman, Benjamin Lundy, Anthony Benezet, and others, they had early been brought to see the wickedness of slaveholding, and in 1780 had succeeded in entirely ridding their denomination of the wrong. They not only emancipated their slaves, but remunerated them for their past services. Indeed, their record in this respect is unique for its fine ideal devotion to exact justice. They were the first religious body in the world to remove the pollution of slavery from their midst. But the cautious, acquisitive, peace-loving Quakers seemed content to rest here, satisfied with having cleared their own skirts of wrong. They could not see the good side of the Abolition movement. They were scandalized by the violence and fanaticism of many Abolitionists. Mr. Whittier felt aggrieved by this attitude of the Friends, but did not on that account break with the denomination, or abandon the religion of his fathers. In 1868 he wrote as follows to the New Bedford Standard, which had spoken of him in an article on Thomas A. Greene: "My object in referring to the article in the paper was mainly to correct a statement regarding myself, viz.: That in consequence of the opposition of the Society of Friends to the anti-slavery movement, I did not for years attend their meetings. This is not true. From my youth up, whenever my health permitted, I have been a constant attendant of our meetings for religious worship. This is true, however, that after our meeting-houses were denied by the yearly meeting for anti-slavery purposes, I did not feel it in my way, for some years, to attend the annual meeting at Newport. From a feeling of duty I protested against that decision when it was made, but was given to understand pretty distinctly that there was no 'weight' in my words. It was a hard day for reformers; some stifled their convictions; others, not adding patience to their faith, allowed themselves to be worried out of the Society. Abolitionists holding office were very generally 'dropped out,' and the ark of the church staggered on with no profane anti-slavery hands upon it."
CHAPTER VI.
AMESBURY.
After the sacking and burning of the office of the Pennsylvania Freeman, Whittier returned to Haverhill, and soon after (in 1840) he sold the old farm and removed with his mother to Amesbury, a small town some nine miles nearer the sea than Haverhill. It is a rural town of over three thousand inhabitants, and contains nothing of note except the poet Whittier. The business of the place is the manufacture of woollen and cotton goods, and of carriages. The landscape is rugged and picturesque. The town covers a sloping hillside that stretches down to the Merrimack. Across this river rises a high hill, crowned with orchards and meadows. In summer time a sweet and quiet air reigns in the place. There are old vine-covered houses, grassy lawns, cool crofts, and sunken orchards; bees are humming, birds singing, and here and there through the trees slender columns of blue wood-smoke float upward in airy evanescence. Mr. Whittier's residence is on Friend Street, and not far beyond, on the same street, or rather in the delta formed by the meeting of two streets, stands the Friends' Meeting-House, where the poet has been an attendant nearly all his life:—
"For thee, the priestly rite and prayer,
And holy day, and solemn psalm;
For me, the silent reverence where
My brethren gather, slow and calm."