ks were and
what they did three thousand years ago, in the period of their
greatness and glory, when they occupied the forefront in the march of
civilization--when they constituted in fact the whole civilized world of
their time. Trace this very civilization, of which we are so proud, to
its origin, and see where you will find it. We received it from our
European ancestors: they had it from the Greeks and Romans, and the
Jews. But, sir, where did the Greeks and the Romans and the Jews get it?
They derived it from Ethiopia and Egypt--in one word, from Africa.[2]
... The ruins of the Egyptian temples laugh to scorn the architectural
monuments of any other part of the world. They will be what they are
now, the delight and admiration of travelers from all quarters, when the
grass is growing on the sites of St. Peter's and St. Paul's, the present
pride of Rome and London.... It seems, therefore, that for this very
civilization of which we are so proud, and which is the only ground of
our present claim of superiority, we are indebted to the ancestors
of these very blacks, whom we are pleased to consider as naturally
incapable of civilization."

[Footnote 1: See "The Anti-Slavery Picknick: a collection of Speeches,
Poems, Dialogues, and Songs, intended for use in schools and
anti-slavery meetings. By John A. Collins, Boston, 1842," 10-12.]

[Footnote 2: It is worthy of note that this argument, which was long
thought to be fallacious, is more and more coming to be substantiated by
the researches of scholars, and that not only as affecting Northern
but also Negro Africa. Note Lady Lugard (Flora L. Shaw): _A Tropical
Dependency_, London, 1906, pp. 16-18.]

In adherence to their convictions the Abolitionists were now to give
a demonstration of faith in humanity such as has never been surpassed
except by Jesus Christ himself. They believed in the Negro even before
the Negro had learned to believe in himself. Acting on their doctrine of
equal rights, they traveled with their Negro friends, "sat upon the same
platforms with them, ate with them, and one enthusiastic abolitionist
white couple adopted a Negro child."[1]

[Footnote 1: Hart: _Slavery and Abolition_, 245-6.]

Garrison appealed to posterity. He has most certainly been justified by
time. Compared with his high stand for the right, the opportunism of
such a man as Clay shrivels into nothingness. Within recent years a
distinguished American scholar,[1] writing of the prin