a heartiness and zeal only equalled by the martyrs of abolition. The North had not fully waked up to the abolition cause. Many, who hated the Afro-American, published papers attacking the free Afro-American as well as the poor slave. It was on this account, too, that the leading Afro-Americans of New York City met, formulated plans and encouraged, to the best of their ability, the efforts of Mr. Russwurm.
There was a local paper published in New York City in 1827 and 1828 by an Afro-American-hating Jew, which made the vilest attacks upon the Afro-Americans. It encouraged slavery and deplored the thought of freedom for the slave. It seems to have been a power in that direction. Against this The Journal was directed, and it did heavy cannonading against this perpetrator of evil.
Mr. Russwurm had associated with him in the publication of The Journal Rev. Samuel E. Cornish, and possibly others whose names are not editorially mentioned, since the inception of The Journal was the result of a meeting of Messrs. Russwurm, Cornish and others at the house of M. Bostin Crummell (Rev. Dr. Crummell's father,) in New York, called to consider the attacks of the local paper mentioned above.
Rev. Cornish also did editorial work upon The Journal. He was a man of wonderful intellectual parts, having keen perception and a mind full of thought and judgment. He was very probably the most thoughtful and reliable, certainly the most popular and conversant, editor of his time. This is seen in the fact that in all his succeeding journalistic efforts, ranging through a course of twenty years, he was actively connected with some paper as editor or associate editor. A gentleman writing to the author says: "He was a most successful journalist." Another, writing about Rev. Cornish, says: "He was an old and indefatigable journalist." Another says: "Undoubtedly he was the greatest wielder of the pen in a quarter of a century of Afro-American journalism."
