Ask the Scholar

Samuel N. Sweet writes to William Lloyd Garrison and Isaac Knapp informing them that he has "obtained much valuable information on the subject of slaver, as it exists in our country, by the perusal of your excellent paper." He says the Liberator has "liberated my mind from every prediliction in favor of the American Colonization Society" and questions how the Society can send all slaves to Liberia, "If more are born in one day, than are sent to Liberia in the course of a year." Referencing Irish politician, Daniel O'Connell, Sweet hopes "that an O'Connell will yet come forth, and plead, on the floor of Congress, with intellectual strength and eloquent lips, for the abolition of slavery, at least, in the District of Columbia." He warns that if no action is taken to end slavery the slaves will "break their chains over the heads of their oppressors! It does not require the spirit of prophecy to predict that". He argues that "the Anti-Slavery Society has proposed the only means by which such a catastrophe can be avoided," specifically immediate emancipation. In the postscript, he directs Garrison and Knapp to his "valedictory in the Franklin V[ermon]t Journal" and requests copies of the Liberator, offering to work as their agent,