Ohio History Journal


OHIO

OHIO

Archaeological and Historical

PUBLICATIONS

 

JOSHUA REED GIDDINGS

 

A CHAMPION OF POLITICAL FREEDOM.

 

BY BYRON R. LONG.

There never was a time perhaps when there was less need

for furnishing material for readers than just now. The world-

war has been productive of thot and action such as has enlisted

thousands of good writers who are keeping record of incidents

and are setting down impressions which are moving the souls

of men as profoundly as any that human life has experienced.

The excuse for this wrting differs little from that given for

any of similar nature. Namely, that men are apt to forget the

causes which lie beneath the structure of national life and the

circumstances that have led to the struggle waged in defence

of and in perpetuation of that life. Furthermore, there has been

no more fitting time to recall the incidents of seventy-five years

ago that led up to the conflict which resulted in the abolition of

slavery as the chief feature of the achievement of a nation in a

generation.

The recollection of events of that time bring before the

mind's-eye the actors on the stage in those wonderful, decisive

days. The question of human slavery was the burning question

with Americans and it received attention from many angles of

vision. Strong men withstood one another in the arena of debate

for and against this evil that struck at the vitals, both of the en-

slaved and the enslavers.

 

 

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