American Slavery, and Emancipation by the Free States, within Westminster Review, vol. 59, issue 1

American Slavery, and Emancipation by the Free States, within Westminster Review, vol. 59, issue 1

Forster, William Eaton

London: Open Court Publishing Co., 1853. Westminster Review, vol. 59, issue 1, 1853-01-01. pp. 125-67

Internet Archive

1853

George Eliot to Mrs. Peter Alfred Taylor, 1 February 1853. “The article on Slavery, in the last number of the ‘Westminster’ -- which I think the best article of them all -- is by W. E. Forster, a Yorkshire manufacturer, who married Dr Arnold's daughter. He is a very earnest, independent thinker, and worth a gross of literary hacks who have the "trick" of writing. I hope you are interested in the Slavery question, and in America generally -- that cradle of the future. I used resolutely to turn away from American politics, and declare that the United States was the last region of the world I should care to visit. Even now I almost loathe the common American type of character. But I am converted to a profound interest in the history, the laws, the social and religious phases of North America, and long for some knowledge of them. Is it not cheering to think of the youthfulness of this little planet, and the immensely greater youthfulness of our race upon it? -- to think that the higher moral tendencies of human nature are yet only in their germ? I feel this more thoroughly when I think of that great Western Continent, with its infant cities, its huge uncleared forests, and its unamalgamated races.” GEL 2: 85

Forster, William Eaton, American Slavery, and Emancipation by the Free States, within Westminster Review, vol. 59, issue 1, George Eliot's Reading, George Eliot Archive, edited by Beverley Park Rilett. https://GeorgeEliotArchive.org, Accessed September 7, 2026. https://www.georgeeliotarchive.org/items/show/57783

https://georgeeliotarchive.org/files/original/f8d5ce104152cc053ef2e095d5ead313.pdf