told it as no man could have told it who had not seen it. I would not say that such cruelty is common, but it is too frequent not to be known to any man who has lived among slaves. I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for allowing a stranger to indorse the veracity of the speaker.” Of course, Mr. Loguen’s character was vindicated, for the man was a slaveholder, and even a Democrat could not object to his testimony.
At the close of the meeting the last named gentleman sought an interview with Mr. Loguen, and told him that he was stopping in town over night, and learning that a colored man was going to speak, he had come to hear what he had to say, “and,” he said, “I could do no less than I did, as the people here seem to know nothing of our ways.” After talking awhile about men and things in Tennessee, he asked Mr. Loguen the name of the man he had lived with in Cumberland. Mr. Loguen declined answering the question, when the gentleman said, “You need have no fear of me, I shall not hurt you.” “I presume not,” said Loguen, “but since the fugitive slave law was passed my friends advise me to go to Canada, or to some place where I am not known as a fugitive, but I am going to stay where I choose to stay, and go where I choose to go, and I hope no one will ever try to enforce that law on me, not that I fear anything for myself, but somebody will get hurt.”
Large rewards in cash and political honors awaited the delivery of Loguen in Tennessee, and there were Democrats enough who wanted them, but nobody ever got the rewards, for both Loguen and Providence stood in the way. Loguen was a prophet, a type of our times, and has lived to see the prophecy fulfilled. “The lost cause” offered all the offices and all the treasure of the nation for the delivery of all the people, both white and black, into the hands of the slave power, but Grant
