Speech by J. Sella Martin Delivered at the Queen's Rooms, Glasgow, Scotland 3 October 1865
The British certification system was designed to guarantee the character of a fund raiser, the nature of his request, and the integrity of collection procedures. The individuals or groups providing certification might also provide fund-raising opportunities. But more often, these opportunities depended on a black abolitionist's own initiative. When J. Sella Martin's first months in England proved disappointing, he traveled to Scotland, where he believed that, in one year, $100,000 could be raised by the AMA for freedmen's relief. He was endorsed by the Glasgow Freedmen's Aid Society and worked tirelessly during August 1865, lecturing in Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Dundee, writing letters to the Glasgow Herald, and contacting local clergymen to sponsor lectures. Martin simultaneously fended off pressure by his New York Shiloh Presbyterian congregation to return home by mid-October and the threats of an incursion into Scotland by other agents. By late September, he began a new series of meetings, appearing frequently with Henry M. Storrs. On 3 October, both men spoke at a society-sponsored gathering in Glasgow's Queen's Rooms. The well-attended session was chaired by James Craig of Middleton. After an opening prayer by Rev. A. G. Forbes, Martin was introduced. J. Sella Martin to [Secretary, American Missionary Association], 28 July, [15], [19] August, 16 September 1865, AMA-ARC; CR, 26 August 1865; Minutes of the Glasgow Freedmen's Aid Society, 25 July, 29 August, 22 September 1865, UKGM; Lib, 3 November 1865.
The Rev. SELLA MARTIN next addressed the meeting. He said that before they had any hope of an early and complete solution of the question of slavery there was scarcely any difference of opinion about the desirableness of an early and complete solution of it. Even those who were in favor of the South, as was a section of the country, were compelled to make this general concession to the strongly anti-slavery people of Great Britain, viz., that they hated slavery as badly as anybody else hated it. (Hear.) Whenever they were going to swallow the great whale of the South, they had to grease him with this kind of thing. (Laughter.) But now that they had got that early and complete solution in the fact of the abolition of slavery, very many people stood off and said, "Well, after all, wasn't it done too quickly?" (Hear and a laugh.) "Did you do it in the right way, after all?" "Haven't you involved the negro in more suffering by putting him in the difficulties consequent upon being cast into the
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Questia, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. www.questia.com
Publication information:
Book title: The Black Abolitionist Papers.
Volume: 1.
Contributors: C. Peter Ripley - Editor.
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press.
Place of publication: Chapel Hill, NC.
Publication year: 1985.
Page number: 561.
This material is protected by copyright and, with the exception of fair use, may not be further copied, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means.
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