Half a Century
Swisshelm, Jane Grey Cannon, 1815-1884
English
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Below is a summary of Half a Century
HALF A CENTURY.
BY
JANE GREY SWISSHELM.
* * * * *
"God so willed:
Mankind is ignorant! a man am I:
Call ignorance my sorrow, not my sin!"
"O, still as ever friends are they
Who, in the interest of outraged truth
Deprecate such rough handling of a lie!"
ROBERT BROWNING.
1880.
PREFACE.
It has been assumed, and is generally believed, that the Anti-slavery
struggle, which, culminated in the Emancipation Proclamation of 1862,
originated in Infidelity, and was a triumph of Skepticism over
Christianity. In no way can this error be so well corrected as by the
personal history of those who took part in that struggle; and as most of
them have passed from earth without leaving any record of the education
and motives which underlay their action, the duty they neglected becomes
doubly incumbent on the few who remain.
To supply one quota of the inside history of the great Abolition war, is
the primary object of this work; but scarcely secondary to this object
is that of recording incidents characteristic of the Peculiar
Institution overthrown in that struggle.
Another object, and one which struggles for precedence, is to give an
inside history of the hospitals during the war of the Rebellion, that
the American people may not forget the cost of that Government so often
imperiled through their indifference.
A third object, is to give an analysis of the ground which produced the
Woman's Rights agitation, and the causes which limited its influence.
A fourth is, to illustrate the force of education and the mutability of
human character, by a personal narrative of one who, in 1836, would have
broken an engagement rather than permit her name to appear in print,
even in the announcement of marriage; and who, in 1850, had as much
newspaper notoriety as any man of that time, and was singularly
indifferent to the praise or blame of the Press;--of one who, in 1837,
could not break the seal of silence set upon her lips by "Inspiration,"
even so far as to pray with a man dying of intemperance, and who yet, in
1862, addressed the Minnesota Senate in session, and as many others as
could be packed in the hall, with no more embarrassment than though
talking with a friend in a chimney corner.
J.G.S.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. I FIND LIFE
II. PROGRESS IN CALVINISM, HUNT GHOSTS, SEE LA FAYETTE
III. FATHER'S DEATH
IV. GO TO BOARDING SCHOOL
V. LOSE MY BROTHER
VI. JOIN CHURCH, AND MAKE NEW ENDEAVORS TO KEEP SABBATH
VII. DELIVERER OF THE DARK NIGHT
VIII. FITTING MYSELF INTO MY SPHERE
IX. HABITATIONS OF HORRID CRUELTY
X. KENTUCKY CONTEMPT FOR LABOR
XI. REBELLION
XII. THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH
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