Chapter XLIV: Part 44

Having thus decided, she wrote in a subsequent letter, "It may be that God himself has written upon both my heart and brain a commission to use time, talent and energy in the cause of freedom." In this abiding faith she came to Philadelphia, hoping that the way would open for usefulness, and to publish her little book (above referred to). She visited the Anti-Slavery Office and read Anti-Slavery documents with great avidity; in the mean time making her home at the station of the Underground Rail Road, where she frequently saw passengers and heard their melting tales of suffering and wrong, which intensely increased her sympathy in their behalf. Although anxious to enter the Anti-Slavery field as a worker, her modesty prevented her from pressing her claims; consequently as she was but little known, being a young and homeless maiden (an exile by law), no especial encouragement was tendered her by Anti-Slavery friends in Philadelphia.

During her stay in Philadelphia she published some verses entitled, "Eliza Harris crossing the River on the Ice." It was deemed best to delay the issuing of the book.

After spending some weeks in Philadelphia, she concluded to visit Boston. Here she was treated with the kindness characteristic of the friends in the Anti-Slavery Office whom she visited, but only made a brief stay, after which she proceeded to New Bedford, the "hot-bed of the fugitives" in Massachusetts, where by invitation she addressed a public meeting on the subject of Education and the Elevation of the Colored Race.

The occasion and result of the commencement of her public career was thus given by her own pen in a letter dated August, 1854:

"Well, I am out lecturing. I have lectured every night this
week; besides addressed a Sunday-school, and I shall speak, if
nothing prevent, to-night. My lectures have met with success.
Last night I lectured in a white church in Providence. Mr.
Gardener was present, and made the estimate of about six hundred
persons. Never, perhaps, was a speaker, old or young, favored
with a more attentive audience.... My voice is not wanting in
strength, as I am aware of, to reach pretty well over the house.
The church was the Roger Williams; the pastor, a Mr. Furnell,
who appeared to be a kind and Christian man.... My maiden
lecture was Monday night in New Bedford on the Elevation and
Education of our People. Perhaps as intellectual a place as any
I was ever at of its size."

Having thus won her way to a favorable position as a lecturer, the following month she was engaged by the State Anti-Slavery Society of Maine, with what success appears from one of her letters bearing date--Buckstown Centre, Sept. 28, 1854:

"The agent of the State Anti-Slavery Society of Maine travels
with me, and she is a pleasant, dear, sweet lady. I do like her
so. We travel together, eat together, and sleep together. (She
is a white woman.) In fact I have not been in one colored
person's house since I left Massachusetts; but I have a pleasant
time. My life reminds me of a beautiful dream. What a difference
between this and York!... I have met with some of the kindest
treatment up here that I have ever received.... I have lectured
three times this week. After I went from Limerick, I went to
Springvale; there I spoke on Sunday night at an Anti-Slavery
meeting. Some of the people are Anti-Slavery, Anti-rum and
Anti-Catholic; and if you could see our Maine ladies,--some of
them among the noblest types of womanhood you have ever seen!
They are for putting men of Anti-Slavery principles in office,
... to cleanse the corrupt fountains of our government by
sending men to Congress who will plead for our down-trodden and
oppressed brethren, our crushed and helpless sisters, whose
tears and blood bedew our soil, whose chains are clanking 'neath
our proudest banners, whose cries and groans amid our loudest
paeans rise."

Everywhere in this latitude doors opened before her, and her gifts were universally recognized as a valuable acquisition to the cause. In the letter above referred to she said: "I spoke in Boston on Monday night.... Well, I am but one, but can do something, and, God helping me, I will try. Mr. Brister from Lowell addressed the meeting; also Rev. ---- Howe. We had a good demonstration."

Having read the narrative of Solomon Northrup (12 years a slave), she was led to embrace the Free Labor doctrine most thoroughly; and in a letter dated at Temple, Maine, Oct. 20, 1854, after expressing the interest she took in the annual meeting of the Anti-Slavery Society of that state, she remarked:

"I spoke on Free Produce, and now by the way I believe in that
kind of Abolition. Oh, it does seem to strike at one of the
principal roots of the matter. I have commenced since I read
Solomon Northrup. Oh, if Mrs. Stowe has clothed American slavery
in the graceful garb of fiction, Solomon Northrup comes up from
the dark habitation of Southern cruelty where slavery fattens
and feasts on human blood with such mournful revelations that
one might almost wish for the sake of humanity that the tales of
horror which he reveals were not so. Oh, how can we pamper our
appetites upon luxuries drawn from reluctant fingers? Oh, could
slavery exist long if it did not sit on a commercial throne? I
have read somewhere, if I remember aright, of a Hindoo being
loth to cut a tree because being a believer in the
transmigration of souls, he thought the soul of his father had
passed into it ... Oh, friend, beneath the most delicate
preparations of the cane can you not see the stinging lash and
clotted whip? I have reason to be thankful that I am able to
give a little more for a Free Labor dress, if it is coarser. I
can thank God that upon its warp and woof I see no stain of
blood and tears; that to procure a little finer muslin for my
limbs no crushed and broken heart went out in sighs, and that
from the field where it was raised went up no wild and startling
cry unto the throne of God to witness there in language deep and
strong, that in demanding that cotton I was nerving oppression's
hand for deeds of guilt and crime. If the liberation of the
slave demanded it, I could consent to part with a portion of the
blood from my own veins if that would do him any good."

After having thus alluded to free labor, she gave a short journal of the different places where she had recently lectured from the 5th of September to the 20th of October, which we mention here simply to show the perseverance which characterized her as an advocate of her enslaved race, and at the same time show how doors everywhere opened to her: Portland, Monmouth Centre, North Berwick, Limerick (two meetings), Springvale, Portsmouth, Elliott, Waterborough (spoke four times), Lyman, Saccarappo, Moderation, Steep Falls (twice), North Buxton, Goram, Gardner, Litchfield, twice, Monmouth Ridge twice, Monmouth Centre three times, Litchfield second time, West Waterville twice, Livermore Temple. Her ability and labors were everywhere appreciated, and her meetings largely attended. In a subsequent letter referring to the manner that she was received, she wrote, "A short while ago when I was down this way I took breakfast with the then Governor of Maine."

For a year and a half she continued in the Eastern States, speaking in most or all of them with marked success; the papers meting out to her full commendation for her efforts. The following extract clipped from the Portland Daily Press, respecting a lecture that she was invited to deliver after the war by the Mayor (Mr. Washburne) and others, is a fair sample of notices from this source:

"She spoke for nearly an hour and a half, her subject being 'The
Mission of the War, and the Demands of the Colored Race in the
Work of Reconstruction;' and we have seldom seen an audience
more attentive, better pleased, or more enthusiastic. Mrs.
Harper has a splendid articulation, uses chaste, pure language,
has a pleasant voice, and allows no one to tire of hearing her.
We shall attempt no abstract of her address; none that we could
make would do her justice. It was one of which any lecturer
might feel proud, and her reception by a Portland audience was
all that could be desired. We have seen no praises of her that
were overdrawn. We have heard Miss Dickinson, and do not
hesitate to award the palm to her darker colored sister."

In 1856, desiring to see the fugitives in Canada, she visited the Upper Province, and in a letter dated at Niagara Falls, Sept. 12th, she unfolded her mind in the following language:

"Well, I have gazed for the first time upon Free Land, and,
would you believe it, tears sprang to my eyes, and I wept. Oh,
it was a glorious sight to gaze for the first time on a land
where a poor slave flying from our glorious land of liberty
would in a moment find his fetters broken, his shackles loosed,
and whatever he was in the land of Washington, beneath the
shadow of Bunker Hill Monument or even Plymouth Rock, here he
becomes a man and a brother. I have gazed on Harper's Ferry, or
rather the rock at the Ferry; I have seen it towering up in
simple grandeur, with the gentle Potomac gliding peacefully at
its feet, and felt that that was God's masonry, and my soul had
expanded in gazing on its sublimity. I have seen the ocean
singing its wild chorus of sounding waves, and ecstacy has
thrilled upon the living chords of my heart. I have since then
seen the rainbow-crowned Niagara chanting the choral hymn of
Omnipotence, girdled with grandeur, and robed with glory; but
none of these things have melted me as the first sight of Free
Land. Towering mountains lifting their hoary summits to catch
the first faint flush of day when the sunbeams kiss the shadows
from morning's drowsy face may expand and exalt your soul. The
first view of the ocean may fill you with strange delight.
Niagara--the great, the glorious Niagara--may hush your spirit
with its ceaseless thunder; it may charm you with its robe of
crested spray and rainbow crown; but the land of Freedom was a
lesson of deeper significance than foaming waves or towering
mounts."

While in Toronto she lectured, and was listened to with great interest; but she made only a brief visit, thence returning to Philadelphia, her adopted home.

With her newly acquired reputation as a lecturer, from 1856 to 1859 she continued her labors in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, &c. In the meantime she often came in contact with Underground Rail Road passengers, especially in Philadelphia. None sympathized with them more sincerely or showed a greater willingness to render them material aid. She contributed apparently with the same liberality as though they were her own near kin. Even when at a distance, so deep was her interest in the success of the Road, she frequently made it her business to forward donations, and carefully inquire into the state of the treasury. The Chairman of the Committee might publish a volume of interesting letters from her pen relating to the Underground Rail Road and kindred topics; but a few extracts must suffice. We here copy from a letter dated at Rushsylvania, Ohio, Dec. 15th: "I send you to-day two dollars for the Underground Rail Road. It is only a part of what I subscribed at your meeting. May God speed the flight of the slave as he speeds through our Republic to gain his liberty in a monarchical land. I am still in the lecturing field, though not very strong physically.... Send me word what I can do for the fugitive."

From Tiffin, Ohio, March 31st, touching the news of a rescue in Philadelphia, she thus wrote:

"I see by the Cincinnati papers that you have had an attempted
rescue and a failure. That is sad! Can you not give me the
particulars? and if there is anything that I can do for them in
money or words, call upon me. This is a common cause; and if
there is any burden to be borne in the
Anti-Slavery-cause--anything to be done to weaken our hateful
chains or assert our manhood and womanhood, I have a right to do
my share of the work. The humblest and feeblest of us can do
something; and though I may be deficient in many of the
conventionalisms of city life, and be considered as a person of
good impulses, but unfinished, yet if there is common rough work
to be done, call on me."

Mrs. Harper was not content to make speeches and receive plaudits, but was ever willing to do the rough work and to give material aid wherever needed.

From another letter dated Lewis Centre, Ohio, we copy the following characteristic extract:

"Yesterday I sent you thirty dollars. Take five of it for the
rescuers (who were in prison), and the rest pay away on the
books. My offering is not large; but if you need more, send me
word. Also how comes on the Underground Rail Road? Do you need
anything for that? You have probably heard of the shameful
outrage of a colored man or boy named Wagner, who was kidnapped
in Ohio and carried across the river and sold for a slave....
Ohio has become a kind of a negro hunting ground, a new Congo's
coast and Guinea's shore. A man was kidnapped almost under the
shadow of our capital. Oh, was it not dreadful?... Oh, may the
living God prepare me for an earnest and faithful advocacy of
the cause of justice and right!"

In those days the blows struck by the hero, John Brown, were agitating the nation. Scarcely was it possible for a living soul to be more deeply affected than this female advocate. Nor did her sympathies end in mere words. She tendered material aid as well as heartfelt commiseration.

To John Brown's wife[A] she sent through the writer the following letter:

[Footnote A: Mrs. Harper passed two weeks with Mrs. Brown at the house of the writer while she was awaiting the execution of her husband, and sympathized with her most deeply.]

LETTER TO JOHN BROWN'S WIFE.

FARMER CENTRE, OHIO, Nov. 14th.

MY DEAR MADAM:--In an hour like this the common words of
sympathy may seem like idle words, and yet I want to say
something to you, the noble wife of the hero of the nineteenth
century. Belonging to the race your dear husband reached forth
his hand to assist, I need not tell you that my sympathies are
with you. I thank you for the brave words you have spoken. A
republic that produces such a wife and mother may hope for
better days. Our heart may grow more hopeful for humanity when
it sees the sublime sacrifice it is about to receive from his
hands. Not in vain has your dear husband periled all, if the
martyrdom of one hero is worth more than the life of a million
cowards. From the prison comes forth a shout of triumph over
that power whose ethics are robbery of the feeble and oppression
of the weak, the trophies of whose chivalry are a plundered
cradle and a scourged and bleeding woman. Dear sister, I thank
you for the brave and noble words that you have spoken. Enclosed
I send you a few dollars as a token of my gratitude, reverence
and love.

Yours respectfully,

FRANCES ELLEN WATKINS.

Post Office address: care of William Still, 107 Fifth St.,
Philadelphia, Penn.

May God, our own God, sustain you in the hour of trial. If there
is one thing on earth I can do for you or yours, let me be
apprized. I am at your service.

Not forgetting Brown's comrades, who were then lying in prison under sentence of death, true to the best impulses of her generous heart, she thus wrote relative to these ill-fated prisoners, from Montpelier, Dec. 12th:

"I thank you for complying with my request. (She had previously
ordered a box of things to be forwarded to them.) And also that
you wrote to them. You see Brown towered up so bravely that
these doomed and fated men may have been almost overlooked, and
just think that I am able to send one ray through the night
around them. And as their letters came too late to answer in
time, I am better satisfied that you wrote. I hope the things
will reach them. Poor doomed and fated men! Why did you not send
them more things? Please send me the bill of expense.... Send me
word what I can do for the fugitives. Do you need any money? Do
I not owe you on the old bill (pledge)? Look carefully and see
if I have paid all. Along with this letter I send you one for
Mr. Stephens (one of Brown's men), and would ask you to send him
a box of nice things every week till he dies or is acquitted. I
understand the balls have not been extracted from him. Has not
this suffering been overshadowed by the glory that gathered
around the brave old man?... Spare no expense to make the last
hours of his (Stephens') life as bright as possible with
sympathy.... Now, my friend, fulfil this to the letter. Oh, is
it not a privilege, if you are sisterless and lonely, to be a
sister to the human race, and to place your heart where it may
throb close to down-trodden humanity?"

On another occasion in writing from the lecturing field hundreds of miles away from Philadelphia, the sympathy she felt for the fugitives found expression in the following language:

"How fared the girl who came robed in male attire? Do write me
every time you write how many come to your house; and, my dear
friend, if you have that much in hand of mine from my books,
will you please pay the Vigilance Committee two or three dollars
for me to help carry on the glorious enterprise. Now, please do
not write back that you are not going to do any such thing. Let
me explain a few matters to you. In the first place, I am able
to give something. In the second place, I am willing to do
so.... Oh, life is fading away, and we have but an hour of time!
Should we not, therefore, endeavor to let its history gladden
the earth? The nearer we ally ourselves to the wants and woes of
humanity in the spirit of Christ, the closer we get to the great
heart of God; the nearer we stand by the beating of the pulse of
universal love."

Doubtless it has not often been found necessary for persons desirous of contributing to benevolent causes to first have to remove anticipated objections. Nevertheless in some cases it would seem necessary to admonish her not to be quite so liberal; to husband with a little more care her hard-earned income for a "rainy day," as her health was not strong.

"My health," she wrote at that time, "is not very strong, and I may have to give up before long. I may have to yield on account of my voice, which I think, has become somewhat affected. I might be so glad if it was only so that I could go home among my own kindred and people, but slavery comes up like a dark shadow between me and the home of my childhood. Well, perhaps it is my lot to die from home and be buried among strangers; and yet I do not regret that I have espoused this cause; perhaps I have been of some service to the cause of human rights, and I hope the consciousness that I have not lived in vain, will be a halo of peace around my dying bed; a heavenly sunshine lighting up the dark valley and shadow of death."

Notwithstanding this yearning for home, she was far from desiring at her death, a burial in a Slave State, as the following clearly expressed views show:

"I have lived in the midst of oppression and wrong, and I am
saddened by every captured fugitive in the North; a blow has
been struck at my freedom, in every hunted and down-trodden
slave in the South; North and South have both been guilty, and
they that sin must suffer."

Also, in harmony with the above sentiments, came a number of verses appropriate to her desires in this respect, one of which we here give as a sample:

"Make me a grave where'er you will,
In a lowly plain, or a lofty hill,
Make it among earth's humblest graves,
But not in a land where men are slaves."

In the State of Maine the papers brought to her notice the capture of Margaret Garner, and the tragic and bloody deed connected therewith. And she writes:

"Rome had her altars where the trembling criminal, and the worn
and weary slave might fly for an asylum--Judea her cities of
refuge; but Ohio, with her Bibles and churches, her baptisms and
prayers, had not one temple so dedicated to human rights, one
altar so consecrated to human liberty, that trampled upon and
down-trodden innocence knew that it could find protection for a
night, or shelter for a day."

In the fall of 1860, in the city of Cincinnati, Mrs. Harper was married to Fenton Harper, a widower, and resident of Ohio. It seemed obvious that this change would necessarily take her from the sphere of her former usefulness. The means she had saved from the sale of her books and from her lectures, she invested in a small farm near Columbus, and in a short time after her marriage she entered upon house-keeping.

Notwithstanding her family cares, consequent upon married life, she only ceased from her literary and anti-slavery labors, when compelled to do so by other duties.

On the 23d of May, 1864, death deprived her of her husband.

Whilst she could not give so much attention to writing as she could have desired in her household days, she, nevertheless, did then produce some of her best productions. Take the following for a sample, on the return from Cleveland, Ohio, of a poor, ill-fated slave-girl, (under the Fugitive Slave Law):

TO THE UNION SAVERS OF CLEVELAND.

Men of Cleveland, had a vulture
Sought a timid dove for prey,
Would you not, with human pity,
Drive the gory bird away?

Had you seen a feeble lambkin,
Shrinking from a wolf so bold,
Would ye not to shield the trembler,
In your arms have made its fold?

But when she, a hunted sister,
Stretched her hands that ye might save,
Colder far than Zembla's regions
Was the answer that ye gave.

On the Union's bloody altar,
Was your hapless victim laid;
Mercy, truth and justice shuddered,
But your hands would give no aid.

And ye sent her back to torture,
Robbed of freedom and of right.
Thrust the wretched, captive stranger.
Back to slavery's gloomy night.

Back where brutal men may trample,
On her honor and her fame;
And unto her lips so dusky,
Press the cup of woe and shame.

There is blood upon your city,
Dark and dismal is the stain;
And your hands would fail to cleanse it,
Though Lake Erie ye should drain.

There's a curse upon your Union,
Fearful sounds are in the air;
As if thunderbolts were framing,
Answers to the bondsman's prayer.

Ye may offer human victims,
Like the heathen priests of old;
And may barter manly honor
For the Union and for gold.

But ye can not stay the whirlwind,
When the storm begins to break;
And our God doth rise in judgment,
For the poor and needy's sake.

And, your sin-cursed, guilty Union,
Shall be shaken to its base,
Till ye learn that simple justice,
Is the right of every race.

Mrs. Harper took the deepest interest in the war, and looked with extreme anxiety for the results; and she never lost an opportunity to write, speak, or serve the cause in any way that she thought would best promote the freedom of the slave. On the proclamation of General Fremont, the passages from her pen are worthy to be long remembered:

"Well, what think you of the war? To me one of the most
interesting features is Fremont's Proclamation freeing the
slaves of the rebels. Is there no ray of hope in that? I should
not wonder if Edward M. Davis breathed that into his ear. His
proclamation looks like real earnestness; no mincing the matter
with the rebels. Death to the traitors and confiscation of their
slaves is no child's play. I hope that the boldness of his stand
will inspire others to look the real cause of the war in the
face and inspire the government with uncompromising earnestness
to remove the festering curse. And yet I am not uneasy about the
result of this war. We may look upon it as God's controversy
with the nation; His arising to plead by fire and blood the
cause of His poor and needy people. Some time since
Breckinridge, in writing to Sumner, asks, if I rightly remember,
What is the fate of a few negroes to me or mine? Bound up in one
great bundle of humanity our fates seem linked together, our
destiny entwined with theirs, and our rights are interwoven
together."

Finally when the long-looked-for Emancipation Proclamation came, although Mrs. Harper was not at that time very well, she accepted an invitation to address a public meeting in Columbus, Ohio, an allusion to which we find in a letter dated at Grove City, O., which we copy with the feeling that many who may read this volume will sympathize with every word uttered relative to the Proclamation:

"I spoke in Columbus on the President's Proclamation.... But was
not such an event worthy the awakening of every power--the
congratulation of every faculty? What hath God wrought! We may
well exclaim how event after event has paved the way for
freedom. In the crucible of disaster and defeat God has stirred
the nation, and permitted no permanent victory to crown her
banners while she kept her hand upon the trembling slave and
held him back from freedom. And even now the scale may still
seem to oscillate between the contending parties, and some may
say, Why does not God give us full and quick victory? My friend,
do not despair if even deeper shadows gather around the fate of
the nation, that truth will not ultimately triumph, and the
right be established and vindicated; but the deadly gangrene has
taken such deep and almost fatal hold upon the nation that the
very centres of its life seem to be involved in its eradication.
Just look, after all the trials deep and fiery through which the
nation has waded, how mournfully suggestive was the response the
proclamation received from the democratic triumphs which
followed so close upon its footsteps. Well, thank God that the
President did not fail us, that the fierce rumbling of
democratic thunder did not shake from his hand the bolt he
leveled against slavery. Oh, it would have been so sad if, after
all the desolation and carnage that have dyed our plains with
blood and crimsoned our borders with warfare, the pale young
corpses trodden down by the hoofs of war, the dim eyes that have
looked their last upon the loved and lost, had the arm of
Executive power failed us in the nation's fearful crisis! For
how mournful it is when the unrighted wrongs and fearful agonies
of ages reach their culminating point, and events solemn,
terrible and sublime marshal themselves in dread array to mould
the destiny of nations, the hands appointed to hold the helm of
affairs, instead of grasping the mighty occasions and stamping
them with the great seals of duty and right, permit them to
float along the current of circumstances without comprehending
the hour of visitation or the momentous day of opportunity. Yes,
we may thank God that in the hour when the nation's life was
convulsed, and fearful gloom had shed its shadows over the land,
the President reached out his hand through the darkness to break
the chains on which the rust of centuries had gathered. Well,
did you ever expect to see this day? I know that all is not
accomplished; but we may rejoice in what has been already
wrought,--the wondrous change in so short a time. Just a little
while since the American flag to the flying bondman was an
ensign of bondage; now it has become a symbol of protection and
freedom. Once the slave was a despised and trampled on pariah;
now he has become a useful ally to the American government. From
the crimson sods of war springs the white flower of freedom, and
songs of deliverance mingle with the crash and roar of war. The
shadow of the American army becomes a covert for the slave, and
beneath the American Eagle he grasps the key of knowledge and is
lifted to a higher destiny."

This letter we had intended should complete the sketch of Mrs. Harper's Anti-Slavery labors; but in turning to another epistle dated Boston, April 19th, on the Assassination of the President, we feel that a part of it is too interesting to omit:

"Sorrow treads on the footsteps of the nation's joy. A few days
since the telegraph thrilled and throbbed with a nation's joy.
To-day a nation sits down beneath the shadow of its mournful
grief. Oh, what a terrible lesson does this event read to us! A
few years since slavery tortured, burned, hung and outraged us,
and the nation passed by and said, they had nothing to do with
slavery where it was, slavery would have something to do with
them where they were. Oh, how fearfully the judgments of Ichabod
have pressed upon the nation's life! Well, it may be in the
providence of God this blow was needed to intensify the nation's
hatred of slavery, to show the utter fallacy of basing national
reconstruction upon the votes of returned rebels, and rejecting
loyal black men; making (after all the blood poured out like
water, and wealth scattered like chaff) a return to the old idea
that a white rebel is better or of more account in the body
politic than a loyal black man.... Moses, the meekest man on
earth, led the children of Israel over the Red Sea, but was not
permitted to see them settled in Canaan. Mr. Lincoln has led up
through another Red Sea to the table land of triumphant victory,
and God has seen fit to summon for the new era another man. It
is ours then to bow to the Chastener and let our honored and
loved chieftain go. Surely the everlasting arms that have hushed
him so strangely to sleep are able to guide the nation through
its untrod future; but in vain should be this fearful baptism of
blood if from the dark bosom of slavery springs such terrible
crimes. Let the whole nation resolve that the whole virus shall
be eliminated from its body; that in the future slavery shall
only be remembered as a thing of the past that shall never have
the faintest hope of a resurrection."

Up to this point, we have spoken of Mrs. Harper as a laborer, battling for freedom under slavery and the war. She is equally earnest in laboring for Equality before the law--education, and a higher manhood, especially in the South, among the Freedmen.

For the best part of several years, since the war, she has traveled very extensively through the Southern States, going on the plantations and amongst the lowly, as well as to the cities and towns, addressing schools, Churches, meetings in Court Houses, Legislative Halls, &c., and, sometimes, under the most trying and hazardous circumstances; influenced in her labor of love, wholly by the noble impulses of her own heart, working her way along unsustained by any Society. In this mission, she has come in contact with all classes--the original slaveholders and the Freedmen, before and since the Fifteenth Amendment bill was enacted. Excepting two of the Southern States (Texas and Arkansas), she has traveled largely over all the others, and in no instance has she permitted herself, through fear, to disappoint an audience, when engagements had been made for her to speak, although frequently admonished that it would be dangerous to venture in so doing.

We first quote from a letter dated Darlington, S.C., May 13, 1867:

"You will see by this that I am in the sunny South.... I here
read and see human nature under new lights and phases. I meet
with a people eager to hear, ready to listen, as if they felt
that the slumber of the ages had been broken, and that they were
to sleep no more.... I am glad that the colored man gets his
freedom and suffrage together; that he is not forced to go
through the same condition of things here, that has inclined him
so much to apathy, isolation, and indifference, in the North.
You, perhaps, wonder why I have been so slow in writing to you,
but if you knew how busy I am, just working up to or past the
limit of my strength. Traveling, conversing, addressing day and
Sunday-schools (picking up scraps of information, takes up a
large portion of my time), besides what I give to reading. For
my audiences I have both white and colored. On the cars, some
find out that I am a lecturer, and then, again, I am drawn into
conversation. 'What are you lecturing about?' the question comes
up, and if I say, among other topics politics, then I may look
for an onset. There is a sensitiveness on this subject, a dread,
it may be, that some one will 'put the devil in the nigger's
head,' or exert some influence inimical to them; still, I get
along somewhat pleasantly. Last week I had a small congregation
of listeners in the cars, where I sat. I got in conversation
with a former slave dealer, and we had rather an exciting time.
I was traveling alone, but it is not worth while to show any
signs of fear. * * *Last Saturday I spoke in Sumter; a number
of white persons were present, and I had been invited to speak
there by the Mayor and editor of the paper. There had been some
violence in the district, and some of my friends did not wish me
to go, but I had promised, and, of course, I went. * * * *
I am in Darlington, and spoke yesterday, but my congregation was
so large, that I stood near the door of the church, so that I
might be heard both inside and out, for a large portion, perhaps
nearly half my congregation were on the outside; and this, in
Darlington, where, about two years ago, a girl was hung for
making a childish and indiscreet speech. Victory was perched on
our banners. Our army had been through, and this poor, ill-fated
girl, almost a child in years, about seventeen years of age,
rejoiced over the event, and said that she was going to marry a
Yankee and set up housekeeping. She was reported as having made
an incendiary speech and arrested, cruelly scourged, and then
brutally hung. Poor child! she had been a faithful servant--her
master tried to save her, but the tide of fury swept away his
efforts. * * * Oh, friend, perhaps, sometimes your heart
would ache, if you were only here and heard of the wrongs and
abuses to which these people have been subjected. * * *
Things, I believe, are a little more hopeful; at least, I
believe, some of the colored people are getting better
contracts, and, I understand, that there's less murdering. While
I am writing, a colored man stands here, with a tale of
wrong--he has worked a whole year, year before last, and now he
has been put off with fifteen bushels of corn and his food;
yesterday he went to see about getting his money, and the person
to whom he went, threatened to kick him off, and accused him of
stealing. I don't know how the colored man will vote, but
perhaps many of them will be intimidated at the polls."

From a letter dated Cheraw, June 17th, 1867, the following remarks are taken:

"Well, Carolina is an interesting place. There is not a state in
the Union I prefer to Carolina. Kinder, more hospitable,
warmer-hearted people perhaps you will not find anywhere. I have
been to Georgia; but Carolina is my preference. * * The South
is to be a great theatre for the colored man's development and
progress. There is brain-power here. If any doubt it, let him
come into our schools, or even converse with some of our
Freedmen either in their homes or by the way-side."

A few days later she gave an account of a visit she had just made in Florence, where our poor soldiers had been prisoners; saw some of the huts where they were exposed to rain and heat and cold with only the temporary shelter they made for themselves, which was a sad sight. Then she visited the grave-yards of some thousands of Union soldiers. Here in "eastern South Carolina" she was in "one of the worst parts of the State" in the days of Slavery; but under the new order of things, instead of the lash, she saw school books, and over the ruins of slavery, education and free speech springing up, at which she was moved to exclaim, "Thank God for the wonderful change! I have lectured several nights this week, and the weather is quite warm; but I do like South Carolina. No state in the Union as far as colored people are concerned, do I like better--the land of warm welcomes and friendly hearts. God bless her and give her great peace!"

At a later period she visited Charleston and Columbia, and was well received in both places. She spoke a number of times in the different Freedmen schools and the colored churches in Charleston, once in the Legislative Hall, and also in one of the colored churches in Columbia. She received special encouragement and kindness from Hon. H. Cadoza, Secretary of State, and his family, and regarded him as a wise and upright leader of his race in that state.

The following are some stirring lines which she wrote upon the Fifteenth Amendment:

FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT.

Beneath the burden of our joy
Tremble, O wires, from East to West!
Fashion with words your tongues of fire,
To tell the nation's high behest.

Outstrip the winds, and leave behind
The murmur of the restless waves;
Nor tarry with your glorious news,
Amid the ocean's coral caves.

Ring out! ring out! your sweetest chimes,
Ye bells, that call to praise;
Let every heart with gladness thrill,
And songs of joyful triumph raise.

Shake off the dust, O rising race!
Crowned as a brother and a man;
Justice to-day asserts her claim,
And from thy brow fades out the ban.

With freedom's chrism upon thy head,
Her precious ensign in thy hand,
Go place thy once despised name
Amid the noblest of the land.

O ransomed race! give God the praise,
Who led thee through a crimson sea,
And 'mid the storm of fire and blood,
Turned out the war-cloud's light to thee.

Mrs. Harper, in writing from Kingstree, S.C., July 11th, 1867, in midsummer (laboring almost without any pecuniary reward), gave an account of a fearful catastrophe which had just occurred there in the burning of the jail with a number of colored prisoners in it. "It was a very sad affair. There was only one white prisoner and he got out. I believe there was some effort made to release some of the prisoners; but the smoke was such that the effort proved ineffectual. Well, for the credit of our common human nature we may hope that it was so. * * * Last night I had some of the 'rebs' to hear me (part of the time some of the white folks come out). Our meetings are just as quiet and as orderly on the whole in Carolina as one might desire. * * I like General Sickles as a Military Governor. 'Massa Daniel, he King of the Carolinas.' I like his Mastership. Under him we ride in the City Cars, and get first-class passage on the railroad." At this place a colored man was in prison under sentence of death for "participating in a riot;" and the next day (after the date of her letter) was fixed for his execution. With some others, Mrs. Harper called at General Sickles' Head Quarters, hoping to elicit his sympathies whereby the poor fellow's life might be saved; but he was not in. Hence they were not able to do anything.

"Next week," continued Mrs. Harper, "I am to speak in a place where one of our teachers was struck and a colored man shot, who, I believe, gave offence by some words spoken at a public meeting. I do not feel any particular fear."

Her Philadelphia correspondent had jestingly suggested to her in one of his letters, that she should be careful not to allow herself to be "bought by the rebels." To which she replied:

"Now, in reference to being bought by rebels and becoming a
Johnsonite I hold that between the white people and the colored
there is a community of interests, and the sooner they find it
out, the better it will be for both parties; but that community
of interests does not consist in increasing the privileges of
one class and curtailing the rights of the other, but in getting
every citizen interested in the welfare, progress and durability
of the state. I do not in lecturing confine myself to the
political side of the question. While I am in favor of Universal
suffrage, yet I know that the colored man needs something more
than a vote in his hand: he needs to know the value of a home
life; to rightly appreciate and value the marriage relation; to
know how and to be incited to leave behind him the old shards
and shells of slavery and to rise in the scale of character,
wealth and influence. Like the Nautilus outgrowing his home to
build for himself more 'stately temples' of social condition. A
man landless, ignorant and poor may use the vote against his
interests; but with intelligence and land he holds in his hand
the basis of power and elements of strength."

While contemplating the great demand for laborers, in a letter from Athens, February 1st, 1870, after referring to some who had been "discouraged from the field," she wisely added that it was "no time to be discouraged."

* * * "If those who can benefit our people will hang around
places where they are not needed, they may expect to be
discouraged. * * * Here is ignorance to be instructed; a
race who needs to be helped up to higher planes of thought and
action; and whether we are hindered or helped, we should try to
be true to the commission God has written upon our souls. As far
as the colored people are concerned, they are beginning to get
homes for themselves and depositing money in Bank. They have
hundreds of homes in Kentucky. There is progress in Tennessee,
and even in this State while a number have been leaving, some
who stay seem to be getting along prosperously. In Augusta
colored persons are in the Revenue Office and Post Office. I
have just been having some good meetings there. Some of my
meetings pay me poorly; but I have a chance to instruct and
visit among the people and talk to their Sunday-schools and
day-schools also. Of course I do not pretend that all are saving
money or getting homes. I rather think from what I hear that the
interest of the grown-up people in getting education has
somewhat subsided, owing, perhaps, in a measure, to the novelty
having worn off and the absorption or rather direction of the
mind to other matters. Still I don't think that I have visited
scarcely a place since last August where there was no desire for
a teacher; and Mr. Fidler, who is a Captain or Colonel, thought
some time since that there were more colored than white who were
learning or had learned to read. There has been quite an amount
of violence and trouble in the State; but we have the military
here, and if they can keep Georgia out of the Union about a year
or two longer, and the colored people continue to live as they
have been doing, from what I hear, perhaps these rebels will
learn a little more sense. I have been in Atlanta for some time,
but did not stay until the Legislature was organized; but I was
there when colored members returned and took their seats. It was
rather a stormy time in the House; but no blood was shed. Since
then there has been some 'sticking;' but I don't think any of
the colored ones were in it."

In the neighborhood of Eufaula, Ala., in December, 1870, Mrs. Harper did a good work, as may be seen from the following extract taken from a letter, dated December 9th:

"Last evening I visited one of the plantations, and had an
interesting time. Oh, how warm was the welcome! I went out near
dark, and between that time and attending my lecture, I was out
to supper in two homes. The people are living in the old cabins
of slavery; some of them have no windows, at all, that I see; in
fact, I don't remember of having seen a pane of window-glass in
the settlement. But, humble as their homes were, I was kindly
treated, and well received; and what a chance one has for
observation among these people, if one takes with her a manner
that unlocks other hearts. I had quite a little gathering, after
less, perhaps, than a day's notice; the minister did not know
that I was coming, till he met me in the afternoon. There was no
fire in the church, and so they lit fires outside, and we
gathered, or at least a number of us, around the fire. To-night
I am going over to Georgia to lecture. In consequence of the low
price of cotton, the people may not be able to pay much, and I
am giving all my lectures free. You speak of things looking dark
in the South; there is no trouble here that I know of--cotton is
low, but the people do not seem to be particularly depressed
about it; this emigration question has been on the carpet, and I
do not wonder if some of them, with their limited knowledge,
lose hope in seeing full justice done to them, among their
life-long oppressors; Congress has been agitating the St.
Domingo question; a legitimate theme for discussion, and one
that comes nearer home, is how they can give more security and
strength to the government which we have established in the
South--for there has been a miserable weakness in the security
to human life. The man with whom I stopped, had a son who
married a white woman, or girl, and was shot down, and there
was, as I understand, no investigation by the jury; and a number
of cases have occurred of murders, for which the punishment has
been very lax, or not at all, and, it may be, never will be;
however, I rather think things are somewhat quieter. A few days
ago a shameful outrage occurred at this place--some men had been
out fox hunting, and came to the door of a colored woman and
demanded entrance, making out they wanted fire; she replied that
she had none, and refused to open the door; the miserable
cowards broke open the door, and shamefully beat her. I am going
to see her this afternoon. It is remarkable, however, in spite
of circumstances, how some of these people are getting along.
Here is a woman who, with her husband, at the surrender, had a
single dollar; and now they have a home of their own, and
several acres attached--five altogether; but, as that was rather
small, her husband has contracted for two hundred and forty
acres more, and has now gone out and commenced operations."

From Columbiana, February 20th, she wrote concerning her work, and presented the "lights and shades" of affairs as they came under her notice.

"I am almost constantly either traveling or speaking. I do not
think that I have missed more than one Sunday that I have not
addressed some Sunday-school, and I have not missed many
day-schools either. And as I am giving all my lectures free the
proceeds of the collections are not often very large; still as
ignorant as part of the people are perhaps a number of them
would not hear at all, and may be prejudice others if I charged
even ten cents, and so perhaps in the long run, even if my work
is wearing, I may be of some real benefit to my race. * * I
don't know but that you would laugh if you were to hear some of
the remarks which my lectures call forth: 'She is a man,' again
'She is not colored, she is painted.' Both white and colored
come out to hear me, and I have very fine meetings; and then
part of the time I am talking in between times, and how tired I
am some of the time. Still I am standing with my race on the
threshold of a new era, and though some be far past me in the
learning of the schools, yet to-day, with my limited and
fragmentary knowledge, I may help the race forward a little.
Some of our people remind me of sheep without a shepherd."

* * * * *

PRIVATE LECTURES TO FREEDWOMEN.

Desiring to speak to women who have been the objects of so much wrong and abuse under Slavery, and even since Emancipation, in a state of ignorance, not accessible always to those who would or could urge the proper kind of education respecting their morals and general improvement, Mrs. Harper has made it her business not to overlook this all important duty to her poor sisters.

The following extract taken from a letter dated "Greenville, Georgia, March 29th," will show what she was doing in this direction:

"But really my hands are almost constantly full of work;
sometimes I speak twice a day. Part of my lectures are given
privately to women, and for them I never make any charge, or
take up any collection. But this part of the country reminds me
of heathen ground, and though my work may not be recognized as
part of it used to be in the North, yet never perhaps were my
services more needed; and according to their intelligence and
means perhaps never better appreciated than here among these
lowly people. I am now going to have a private meeting with the
women of this place if they will come out. I am going to talk
with them about their daughters, and about things connected with
the welfare of the race. Now is the time for our women to begin
to try to lift up their heads and plant the roots of progress
under the hearthstone. Last night I spoke in a school-house,
where there was not, to my knowledge, a single window glass;
to-day I write to you in a lowly cabin, where the windows in the
room are formed by two apertures in the wall. There is a
wide-spread and almost universal appearance of poverty in this
State where I have been, but thus far I have seen no, or
scarcely any, pauperism. I am not sure that I have seen any. The
climate is so fine, so little cold that poor people can live off
of less than they can in the North. Last night my table was
adorned with roses, although I did not get one cent for my
lecture." * * *

"The political heavens are getting somewhat overcast. Some of
this old rebel element, I think, are in favor of taking away the
colored man's vote, and if he loses it now it may be generations
before he gets it again. Well, after all perhaps the colored man
generally is not really developed enough to value his vote and
equality with other races, so he gets enough to eat and drink,
and be comfortable, perhaps the loss of his vote would not be a
serious grievance to many; but his children differently educated
and trained by circumstances might feel political inferiority
rather a bitter cup."

"After all whether they encourage or discourage me, I belong to
this race, and when it is down I belong to a down race; when it
is up I belong to a risen race."

She writes thus from Montgomery, December 29th, 1870:

"Did you ever read a little poem commencing, I think, with these
words: