Anti Slavery Bugle

Friends Yearly Meeting—Michigan.

Ann Arbor, 7th Oct., 1852.

Dear Marius: We are very unfortunate in our visit to Michigan, on the account of the sickness of Charles Griffing. Before the close of our first meeting at Adrian, he was attacked with the Billious Chill Fever, and went to the Lenawee Water Cure for healing. There we left him in good hands, and accompanied several of our friends who belong to "Yearly Meeting," to Battle Creek, to attend the "Michigan Yearly Meeting of Friends." We held meetings on the way, at Prior Foster's School and Settlement for Colored People, at Jackson's Mills, and also at Friends Meetinghouse at Hickory Grove.

The Battle Creek Meeting was numerically small, but every other way it was one of the largest. It commenced on Saturday, the 1st of October, and continued two days. On Friday evening, our excellent friend, Jacob Walton, carried Mrs. Griffing and her sister, Miss White of Connecticut, and myself, to the neighborhood of Hiram Cornwall's Select English School, five miles from Battle Creek, where we had a most interesting meeting as well as delightful visit with the family of Reynolds Cornwall, father of the Preceptor of the School. The instruction at the Institute is intended to be in the spirit of the times—free from all sectarian or party bias, and in harmony with the progressive genius which marks the age.

Our meeting there was well attended, and the remarks made were seconded by the teacher and enforced upon the young people under his charge with peculiar earnestness. Mrs. Griffing and her sister added much to the interest of the evening, by their fine singing, which in a neighborhood so entirely Quaker, was as novel as it was pleasing to the audience.

The "Yearly Meeting" exercises commenced on Saturday. Mrs. Griffing and myself were invited to attend all the sessions, and take any part we saw fit. Indeed, it seemed to me our speaking had the preference, and that with almost all, our most radical doctrines were liked the best. Before night, the meeting outgrew its former name, and at the reading of the capital address of "Ohio Yearly Meeting," recently held in Salem, (penned, I believe by Oliver Johnson), it was adopted with great unity, name and all. So that now, it has matured up into the "Michigan Yearly Meeting of Progressive Friends," by which designation it is hereafter to be addressed and known.

Saturday, Sunday and Monday evenings, we held anti-slavery meetings proper, and they were continued to very late hours, with good attendance. Most of the Yearly Meeting came, and seemed in full agreement with us. Indeed their own meetings were more like Anti-Slavery, Temperance, and Peace Conventions, than anything else, and it was distinctly avowed that the organization should be continued only for such purposes. Nor did I hear the least dissent from that position. No other organization can or should stand.

At the last meeting for business, the subject of the Anti-Slavery Bugle, was at my request introduced, and received due attention. Richard B. Glazier of Ann Arbor, (at whose house I am now writing), Henry Willis, Thomas Chandler, brother of the authoress, Eliza M. Chandler, Isaac C. Mott and others, spoke earnestly in favor of its circulation, the result was the list of subscribers already sent, with the two added whose names I send you to day. On the whole, our visit to Battle Creek was most truly pleasant and gratifying; and we think not without much profit to the cause.

We were welcomed and entertained, as were many others at the pleasant and hospitable home of our worthy friend, Joseph Merritt and his family, whose kindness and attention we shall not soon forget. Other houses were also opened with the genuine Western cordiality, and none who came up to the meeting will ever regret the time or the labor.

I ought to add that almost all the Abolitionists in Michigan are voters, and seem delighted with John P. Hale, who is now making a tour in the State. He is listened to with great eagerness by crowds of the people. Many of them hate Slavery and the Fugitive Slave Law so cordially, and are so gloriously hated by Hunkerism in Church and State, and with all, take such pains to give us a hearing, that we almost regret that there is any difference between us. Still we endeavor to be true to our own principles, and always show "the more excellent way."

It seems worse to find a whig or democrat here, than with us in New England. There is no use for them whatever. They seem a sort of fungus, wholly unwanted. Michigan is a glorious State. It has no need of conservatism at all. It has abolished Hanging to begin with—except that there is a proviso for Hunkerism, which is yet to be hung. The work of the executioner is already well on the way. General Cass, a huge iceberg of aroirdupoise, as well as moral inhumanity, pro-slavery and political profligacy, has floated already too near the tropics for his own safety, and is fast dissolving in the current of the salt river, up which his Southern masters rowed him and Daniel Webster, last June.

I saw a Cass Editor a few days ago, in his sanctum, and such an Editor as he was! Let him beware of Barnum, if he would escape being stuffed and shelved with alligators and anacondas, in the Museum. I never felt such pity for my neighbor and friend, Franklin Pierce, before. I think he would far rather never be president, than to be supported by such auxiliaries as he. Such utter ignorance and stolidity, on the greater question of Slavery, I never before saw in a public man. It even outran his depravity, and that was almost as near Total as John Calvin could have asked, to prove the doctrine. The name of Frank Pierce should not be taken in vain by such polluted lips.

It seems to me this State, with a very little moral culture, might become one of the gardens of the world. Neither politics nor priestcraft as yet, have poisoned it to death, like some of the older States. The population is much more American, than most of the Western country, and education and virtue are beginning to be encouraged and inculcated.

Pardon so long a letter, and believe me ever

Most truly yours,

PARKER PILLSBURY.