Letter from Jarvis Lewis, Waltham, [Mass.], to William Lloyd Garrison, December 25th, 1865
Description:
Jarvis Lewis offers his congratulations to William Lloyd Garrison in praise of the "glorious accomplishment of the object for which [Garrison] have so long labored". Lewis comments that while the preference would have been for the slaveholders to have voluntarily renounced slavery, acting "from their moral convictions of the sinfulness of slavery", they can rejoice nonetheless that emancipation has prevailed, brought about by the "exigencies of civil war, inaugurated by the slaveholders themselves". Lewis states that he will greatly miss the Liberator, though he recognizes that, in the aftermath of abolition, its publication is no longer required. Lewis concurs with Garrison that "new occasions bring new duties", asserting that as the former duty was the liberation of the slave, the present duty will be "the education, & the moral, intellectual, & political elevation of the freedmen". Lewis closes by sending to Garrison the sum of $5.00 to help defray the publication costs of the Liberator.