“Mary has gone to Pennsylvania.
* * * * *
“What we feared was, she would be again imprisoned, and hindered from going to Pa. If her relatives and other friends knew of your intentions, she would have been put under lock and key as sure as there are mean men in Fulton.
* * * * *
“Professor, they were as mad as wild asses here about that ’resolution of Smith’s,’ especially King’s folks.
* * * * *
I want your miniature—must have it. I want to show it to my friends that they may see this man whose idle moments in the bower of love sets half the world crazy.
* * * * *
“In friendship, yours,
“* * ”
The Resolution to which reference has been made, is as follows. It was presented by the Hon. Gerrit Smith, Member of Congress, from New York, at a Convention of “Liberty Party Men,” held in Syracuse, about four weeks after the mob:—
“Resolved, That the recent outrage committed upon that accomplished and worthy man—Professor William G. Allen—and the general rejoicing throughout the country therein, evinces that the heart of the American people, on the subject of slavery is utterly corrupt, and almost past cure.”
Now for something spicy. The following letter was written to Elder King by a Slaveholder of Mississippi, about five weeks after the mob. The Elder re-mailed it to his daughter while she was in Pennsylvania. Having become the property of the daughter, and the daughter and I now being one, I shall take the liberty of giving this specimen of Southern chivalry to the public. The reader shall have it without alteration:—
“Warrenton,
Mississippi,
“March
5th, 1853.
“Rev. Sir:—
“You cannot judge of my surprise and indignation, on reading an Editorial in one of my papers concerning an intending marriage of your lovely and accomplished daughter, with a negro man; which thanks to providence has been prevented by the excited and enraged populace of the enterprising citizens of the good town of Fulton.
“During my sojourn in the state of New York last year, I visited for mere curiosity the Mc. Grawville Institute in Cortland Co., which gave me an opportunity of seeing your daughter, then a pupil of that equality and amalgamated Institute; and I believe in all my travels north, I never saw one more interesting and polite to those of her acquaintances.
“I have thought much about your daughter since my return home, and do yet, notwithstanding the ignominious connection she has lately escaped from. Your daughter—innocent, as I must in charity presume—because deluded and deranged by the false teachings of the abolition Institute at Mc. Grawville.
“My object in writing to you this letter is to obtain your permission to correspond with your daughter if it should be agreeable with herself, for I do assure you that I have no other than an honorable intention in doing so.