THE YOUTH OF BENJAMIN LUNDY. Some years later (in 1831-2), on the occurrence of the slave insurrection in Southampton county, known as Nat. Turner's, her people were aroused to a fresh and vivid conception of the perils and evils of Slavery, and her Legislature, for a time, seemed on the point of inaugurating a system of Gradual Emancipation; but the impulse was finally, though with difficulty, overborne. Several who have since cast in their lot with the Slaveholders' Rebellion-among them Jas. C. Faulkner, late Minister to Eng. land-at that time spoke earnestly and forcibly for Emancipation, as an imperative necessity. And this is noteworthy as the last serious effort by the politicians of any Slave State" to rid her of the giant curse, prior to the outbreak of the Slaveholders' Rebellion. BENJAMIN LUNDY deserves the high honor of ranking as the pioneer of direct and distinctive Anti-Slavery slaves are counted. If the latter may stand as a peace-offering to the departing power of the old lights, we would let them have it-in a few years, under a liberal Constitution, the free population of middle and western Virginia will be so increased, that the power in the Senate, derived from slaves, will not be injuriously felt. And then will the tacticians, who have kept Virginia back half a century, compared with New York and Pennsylvania, disappear, and give place to practical men-then will roads and canals be made, domestic manufactures encouraged, and a free and virtuous and laborious people give wealth and power and security to the commonwealth-the 'old families,' as they are called-persons much partaking of the character of the old nobility of France, imbecile and incorrigible-pass away, and a healthful and happy, bold and intelligent middle class rise up to sweeten and invigorate society, by rendering labor honorable; and Richmond will not any longer be ALL Virginia, as a distinguished gentleman used to proclaim, in matters of politics or policy. The moral effects of these things over the slave population of Virginia, and in the adjacent States, are hardly to be calculated. The presence of numerous slaves is incompatible with that of a numerous free population; and it is shown that the labor of the latter, in all the 111 | in America. Many who lived before and cotemporary with him were Abolitionists: but he was the first of our countrymen who devoted his life and all his powers exclusively to the cause of the slave. Born in Sussex county, New Jersey, January 4, 1789, of Quaker parents, whose ancestors for several generations had lived and died in this country, he injured himself, while still a mere boy, by excessive labor on his father's farm, incurring thereby a partial loss of hearing, from which he never recovered. Slight in frame and below the common hight, unassuming in manner and gentle in spirit, he gave to the cause of Emancipation neither wealth, nor eloquence, nor lofty abilities, for he had them not; but his courage, perseverance, and devotion were unsurpassed; and these combined to render him a formidable, though disregarded if not despised, antagonist to our national crime. Leaving his father's farm at nineteen years of age, he wandered important operations of agriculture or the arts, except the cultivation of cotton, sugar, tobacco, and rice (as at present carried on), is the cheapest and the best. And in truth, it would not perhaps be straining the facts too far, to express an opinion, that the greatest question before the Virginia convention is, the perpetual duration of negro slavery, or the increase of a generous and free white population." In 1849, when Kentucky revised her State Constitution, Henry Clay formally renewed the appeal in favor of Gradual Emancipation, which he had made, when a very young man, on the occasion of her organization as a State; but the response from the people was feeble and ineffective. Delaware has repeatedly endeavored to rid herself of Slavery by legislation; but partisan Democracy has uniformly opposed and defeated every movement looking to this end. She, though slaveholding, has for sixty years or more been truly, emphatically, a Border State. Slavery has only been kept so long alive within her limits for the benefit, and by the strenuous efforts, of the Democratic party. It is now evidently near its end. westward to Wheeling, Virginia, where, during the next four years, he learned the trade of a saddler, and gained an insight into the cruelties and villainies of slaveholdingWheeling being at that time a great thoroughfare for negro-traders and their prey on their route from Maryland and Virginia to the lower Mississippi. Before he made Wheeling his home, he had spent some time at Mount Pleasant, Ohio, whither he returned after learning his trade, and remained there two years, during which he married a young woman of like spirit to his own. He then, after a long visit to his father in New Jersey, settled at St. Clairsville, Ohio, near Wheeling, and opened a shop, by which in four years he made about three thousand dollars above his expenses, and, with a loving wife and two children, was as happy and contented with his lot as any man need be. But the impression made on his mind by his experiences of Slavery in Wheeling could not be shaken off nor resisted. In the year 1815, when twenty-six years of age, he organized an anti-Slavery association known as the "Union Humane Society," whereof the first meeting was held at his own house, and consisted of but five or six persons. Within a few months, its numbers were swelled to four or five hundred, and included the best and most prominent citizens of Belmont and the adjacent counties. Lundy wrote an appeal to philanthropists on the subject of Slavery, which was first printed on the 4th of January, 1816, being his twenty-seventh birthday. Short and simple as it was, it contained the germ of the entire anti-Slavery movement. A weekly journal entitled The Philanthropist was soon after started at Mount Pleasant by Charles Osborne; and Lundy, at the editor's invitation, contributed to its columns, mainly by selections. In a few months, he was urged by Osborne to join him in the newspaper enterprise, and finally consented to do so, removing to Mount Pleasant. Meantime, he made a voyage to St. Louis in a flat-boat to dispose of his stock of saddlery. Arriving at that city in the fall of 1819, when the whole region was convulsed by the Missouri Question, he was impelled to write on the side there unpopular in the journals of the day. His speculation proved unfortunate the whole West, and, indeed, the. whole country, being then involved in a commercial convulsion, with trade stagnant and almost every one bankrupt. He returned to his home on foot during the ensuing winter, having been absent nearly two years, and lost all he was worth. Meantime, Osborne, tired of his thankless and profitless vocation, had sold out his establishment, and it had been removed to Jonesborough, Tennessee, where his newspaper took the title of The Emancipator. Lundy removed, as he had purposed, to Mount Pleasant, and there started, in January, 1821, a monthly entitled The Genius of Universal Emancipation. He commenced it with six subscribers; himself ignorant of printing and without materials; having his work done at Steubenville, twenty miles distant; traveling thither frequently on foot, and returning with his edition on his back. Four months later, he had a very considerable subscription list. About this time, Elihu Embree, who had started The Eman |