Letter from Henry Clarke Wright, Oak Hill, [Gloucester,] Cape Ann, [Massachusetts], to William Lloyd Garrison, [18]64 May 25

In this letter to William Lloyd Garrison, Henry Clarke Wright tells of his return to his home in Gloucester, Massachusetts, remarking, "What blood & carnage have been witnessed the past two weeks!" Wright argues that "the priests & politicians, the Churches & the Parties of the North" refused to listen to the abolitionists for decades and now the country is paying the price. "Slavery is the War & the War is Slavery," Wright declares. He quotes President Lincoln in justifying his view that the war is divine punishment for slavery and states that "the Negro is the great test, the Arbiter, the God-appointed Savior of the Nation." Before ending the letter, he tells Garrison he will be in Boston the next day and asks him to include a notice in the Liberator.

Courtesy of Boston Public Library

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1864

Boston Public Library

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Public Domain