Excerpt from Poems Written During the Progress of the Abolition Question in the United States: Between the Years 1830 and 1838
It is to be regretted, as a loss to American Lit erature, that one so highly gifted as a poet should devote so little time to poetic labors. But he may derive satisfaction from the idea, that his la bors for the honor of our nation, in a far nobler sense, will ultimately give freedom and life} to her literature - now withering beneath the soul-caslav ing censorship of a public, who exact of an author that he shall not unreservedly name the very name of Freedom.
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1807-1892
John Greenleaf Whittier was an influential American Quaker poet and ardent advocate of the abolition of slavery in the United States.
Although he received little formal education, he was an avid reader who studied his father's six books on Quakerism until their teachings became the foundation of his ideology. Whittier was heavily influenced by the doctrines of his religion, particularly its stress on humanitarianism, compassion, and social responsibility.
Whittier produced two collections of antislavery poetry: Poems Written during the Progress of the Abolition Question in the United States, between 1830 and 1838 and Voices of Freedom (1846). He was an elector in the presidential election of 1860 and of 1864, voting for Abraham Lincoln both times.
The passage of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865 ended both slavery and his public cause, so Whittier turned to other forms of poetry for the remainder of his life.
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