766 EDWARD ATKINSON. 



speech for a purpose and to speak some plain words of truth and sober- 

 ness to you. ... I speak then to you here and now as a Repubhcan 

 of Repubhcans, as an Abolitionist of early time, a Free Soiler of later 

 date, and a Republican of to-day." And the record is that he was 

 received with applause. He goes on to say as frankly: " When slavery 

 ended, not only were blacks made free from the bondage imposed by 

 others, but whites as well were redeemed by the bondage they had 

 imposed upon themselves. . . . When you study the past system of 

 slave labor with the present system of free labor, irrespective of all 

 personal considerations, you will be mad down to the soles of your 

 boots to think that you ever tolerated it ; and when you have come to 

 this wholesome condition of mind you will wonder how the devil you 

 could have been so slow in seeing it." [Laughter.] 



Then he suddenly drops down to the solid fact and says : "Are you 

 not asking Northern men to come here, and do you not seek Northern 

 capital ? If you suppose either will come here unless every man can 

 say what he pleases, as I do now, you are mistaken." Then he goes on 

 with his speech, rather long as he was apt to make them, but addressing 

 a community much more leisurely than that which he had left at home ; 

 filling their minds with statistics, directions, and methods, till at last 

 recurring to the question of caste and color he closes fearlessly : "As 

 you convert the darkness and oppression and slavery to liberty and 

 justice, so shall you be judged by men, and by Him who created all 

 the nations of the South." 



After tracing the course and training of an eminent American at 

 home, it is often interesting to follow him into the new experiences of 

 the foreign traveller. In that very amusing book, " Notes from a 

 Diary," by Grant Duff (now Sir Mountstuart Elphinstone Grant Duff), 

 the author writes that he came unexpectedly upon a breakfast (June, 

 1887), the guests being "Atkinson, the New England Free Trader, 

 Colonel Hay, and Frederic Harrison, all of whom were well brought 

 out by our host and talked admirably." I quote some extracts from 

 the talk: 



" Mr. Atkinson said that quite the best after-dinner speech he had 

 ever heard was from Mr. Samuel Longfellow, brother of the poet. 

 An excellent speech had been made by Mr. Longworth, and the pro- 

 ceedings should have closed, when Mr. Longfellow was very tactlessly 

 asked to address the meeting, which he did in the words: 'It is, I 

 think, well known that worth makes the man, but want of it the fel- 

 low,' and sat down." After this mild beginning we have records of 

 good talk. 



"Other subjects," Grant Duff says, "were the hostility of the So- 



