t> 
 
 t> 
 
 
 IMAGE EVALUATION 
 TEST TARGET (MT-3) 
 
 1.0 
 
 11.25 
 
 110 
 
 m 12.2 
 
 £«.■ 
 
 I.I 1.*^ n^ 
 
 1.4 
 
 - 6" 
 
 ill 
 
 1.6 
 
 V] 
 
 ^ 
 
 7 
 
 > 
 
 % 
 
 
 >> 
 
 7 
 
 /^ 
 
 Photographic 
 
 Sdaices 
 
 Corporation 
 
 23 WIST MAIN STREET 
 
 WEBSTER, N.Y. 14S80 
 
 (716)872-4503 
 
 \ 
 
 \\ 
 
 ^<b 
 
 V 
 
 
 V.^ 
 
 ;\ 
 
 
<5? ..W 
 
 f/i 
 
 CIHM/ICMH 
 
 Microfiche 
 
 Series. 
 
 CIHM/iCMH 
 Collection de 
 microfiches. 
 
 ' 
 
 Is 
 
 V o 
 
 
 H 
 
 Canadian Institute for l-listorical IVIicroreproductions / Institut Canadian de microreproductions historiques 
 
 ©1984 
 
Technical and Bibliographic Notaa/Notos techniquaa at bibliographiquaa 
 
 T 
 
 Ito Instituta has attamptad to obtain the best 
 original copy available for filming. Features of this 
 copy which may be bibliographic*^lly unique, 
 which may alter any of the images in the 
 reproduction, or which may significantly change 
 the usual method of filming, are checked below. 
 
 D 
 
 D 
 D 
 
 n 
 n 
 n 
 
 n 
 n 
 
 n 
 
 Coloured covers/ 
 Couverture de couleur 
 
 Covers damaged/ 
 Couverture endommagie 
 
 Covers restored and/ur laminated/ 
 Couverture restaur^e et/ou pellicul6e 
 
 Cover title missing/ 
 
 Le titre de couverture manque 
 
 Coloured maps/ 
 
 Cartes g^ographiques en couleur 
 
 Coloured init (i.e. other than blue or black)/ 
 Encre de couleur (i.e. autre que bleue ou noire) 
 
 Coloured plates and/or illustrations/ 
 Planches »t/ou illustrations en couleur 
 
 Bound with other material/ 
 Relii avac d'autres documents 
 
 Tight binding may cause shadows or distortion 
 along interior margin/ 
 
 Lareliure serr4e peut causer de I'ombre ou de la 
 distortion le long de la marge intirieure 
 
 Blank leaves added during restoration may 
 appear within the text. Whenover possible, these 
 have been omitted from filming/ 
 II se peut que certaines pages blanches ajouties 
 lors d'une restauration apparaissent dans le texte, 
 mais, lorsque cela itait possible, ces pages n'ont 
 pas iti filmies. 
 
 Additional comments:/ 
 Commentaires suppl6mentaires.- 
 
 L'Institut a microfilm^ le meilleur exemplaire 
 qu'il lui a iti possible de se procurer. Les details 
 de cat exemplaire qui sont peut-Atre uniques du 
 point de vue bibliographique, qui peuvent modifier 
 rme image reproduite, ou qui peuvent exiger une 
 modification dans la mithoda normale de filmage 
 sont indiquAs ci-dessous. 
 
 I I Coloured pages/ 
 
 D 
 
 Pages de couleur 
 
 Pages damaged/ 
 Pages endommagdes 
 
 n Pages restored and/or laminated/ 
 Pages restaurias et/ou pellicul^es 
 
 Tl 
 
 P< 
 
 o 
 
 fi 
 
 Oi 
 
 b( 
 th 
 sii 
 ot 
 fir 
 sii 
 or 
 
 Pages discoloured, stained or foxed/ 
 Pages dicolories, tacheties ou p'qu^es 
 
 □Pages detached/ 
 Pages d6tach6es 
 
 Showthrough/ 
 ^ Transparence 
 
 I I Quality of print varies/ 
 
 Quality inigale de I'impression 
 
 Includes supplementary material/ 
 Comprend du materiel supplimentaire 
 
 Only edition available/ 
 Seule Mition disponible 
 
 Th 
 sh 
 Til 
 wl 
 
 Mi 
 dif 
 em 
 bei 
 rigi 
 rec; 
 mo 
 
 Pages wholly or partially obscured by errata 
 slips, tissues, etc., have been refilmeu to 
 ensure the best possible image/ 
 Les pages totalement ou partiellement 
 obscurcies par un feuillet d'errata, une pelure, 
 etc., ont M film^es A nouveau de fcpon d 
 obtenir la meilleure image possible. 
 
 This item is filmed at the reduction ratio checked below/ 
 
 Ce document est filmi au taux de rMuction indiquA ci-dessous. 
 
 10X 
 
 
 
 
 14X 
 
 
 
 
 18X 
 
 
 
 
 22X 
 
 
 
 
 26X 
 
 
 
 
 30X 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 y 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 12X 
 
 16X 
 
 20X 
 
 24X 
 
 28X 
 
 32X 
 
ire 
 
 JAtails 
 es du 
 modifier 
 er une 
 filmage 
 
 ^es 
 
 errata 
 to 
 
 e peiure, 
 on d 
 
 32X 
 
 The copy filmed here has been reproduced thanks 
 to the generosity of: 
 
 National Library of Canada 
 
 The images appearing here are the best quality 
 possible considering the condition and legibility 
 of the original copy and In keeping with the 
 filming contract specifications. 
 
 Original copies In printed paper covers are filmed 
 beginning with the front cover and ending on 
 the last page with a printed or illustrated Impres- 
 sion, or the back cover when appropriate. All 
 other original copies are filmed beginning on the 
 first page with a printed or Illustrated impres- 
 sion, and ending on the last page with a printed 
 or illustrated Impression. 
 
 The last recorded frame on each microfiche 
 shall contain the symbol -^►(meaning "CON- 
 TINUED"), or the symbol V (meaning "END"), 
 whichever applies. 
 
 Maps, plates, charts, etc., may be filmed at 
 different reduction ratios. Those too large to be 
 entirely included In one exposure are filmed 
 beginning in the upper left hand corner, left to 
 right and top to bottom, as many frames as 
 required. The following diagrams illustrate the 
 method: 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 L'exemplaire filmd fut reproduit grfice d la 
 g6n6ro8it6 de: 
 
 Bibliothdque nationale du Canada 
 
 Les images suivantes ont 6t6 reproduites avec le 
 plus grand sc'n, compte tenu de la condition et 
 de la nettetd de l'exemplaire film6. et en 
 conformity avec les conditions du contrat de 
 filmage. 
 
 Les exemplaires originaux dont la couverture en 
 papier est imprim^e sont filmds en commen9ant 
 par le premier plat et en terminant soit par la 
 dernidre page qui comporte une empreinte 
 d'impresslon ou d'illustration, soit par le second 
 plat, selon le cas. Tous les autres exemplaires 
 originaux sont film6s an commenpant par la 
 premidre page qui comporte une empreinte 
 d'impresslon ou d'illustration et en terminant par 
 la dernidre page qui comporte une telle 
 empreinte. 
 
 Un des symboles suivants apparaitra sur la 
 dernidre image de cheque microfiche, selon le 
 cas: le symbole — ► signifie "A SUIVRE ", le 
 symbole V signifie "FIN". 
 
 Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent dtre 
 fllmto d des taux de reduction diffirents. 
 Lorsque le document est trop grand pour dtre 
 reproduit en un seul clichd, il est filmd d partir 
 de Tangle supdrieur gauche, de gauche d droite, 
 et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre 
 d'images ndcessaire. Les diagrammes suivants 
 illustrent la mithode. 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 
■I '-^^vWia^'H^X^Jii^iih-H ;» "SiS'HliKitfS^i 
 
 WIL 
 
 THE 
 
 ^H umpurt gmtifiy ^tif. HF' W fW'H 
 
■iHKU-tfi^-iSiii*' 
 
 I 
 
 THE MORAL CRUSADER, 
 
 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON 
 
 5i ^ii>(iravUtc«»l <!5«»rt»l 
 
 FOUXDED ON 
 
 (( 
 
 THE STORY OF GARRISON'S LIFE TOLD BY 
 HIS CHILDREN." 
 
 BY 
 
 GOLD WIN SMITH, D.O.L. 
 
 1^1 
 
 ; ' 
 
 TORONTO: WILLIAMSON & CO. 
 1892. 
 
 r ' 
 

 53929 
 
 The 
 
 Kntered according to Act of Pailiainent of Canida, in the year one thousand 
 eight hundred and ninety two, hy WilijIAMSon & Co. at the Department 
 of Asrrlculture 
 
 I'RINTEU BY 
 
 HiiNTRR, Rose & Co., 
 
 TORONTO. 
 
 There if- 
 
 when a i 
 
 conscierK 
 
 supreme 
 
 nor sup 
 
 strengtli 
 
 of consc 
 
 ested, fi 
 
 from va 
 
 seeking 
 
 severinj 
 
 itself h< 
 
 Slave I 
 
 Williar 
 
 in its \ 
 
 tion of 
 
 force ? 
 
 dark i 
 
 force r 
 
 suspec 
 
The Moral Crusader, W. L. Garrison. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 There is sometimes a crisis in the history of a nation 
 when a man is urgently needed to prick the national 
 conscience on a moral question. The man need not be 
 supremely wise after the fashion of earthly wisdom, 
 nor supiimely strong after the fashion of earthly 
 strength. But he must he himself an impersonation 
 of conscience. He must he perfectly pure and disinter- 
 ested free not only from ambition and cupidity, Init 
 from vanity, from mere love of excitement, from self- 
 seeking of every kind, as well as brave, energetic, per- 
 severing and endowed with a voice which can make 
 itself heard. Such a crisis was the ascendency of the 
 Slave Power in the United States, and such a man was 
 William Lloyd Garrison. His character is interesting 
 in its weakness as in its strength, and the contempla- 
 tion of it is cheering as it shows what a fund of moral 
 force a society sound at the core always possesses, 
 dark as may be the apparent outlook, and how that 
 force may be called forth, perhaps from the most un- 
 suspected quarter, in the hour of need. 
 
 (3) 
 
Garrison's lil'o hus )j 
 
 told l)V his cliildn 
 
 ith 
 
 loving care and minuteness which make the four 
 portly volumes through which it extends a model of 
 biogi'aphical industry. In those volumes are comprised 
 tlie archives of the moral, as distinguished from the 
 political, movement against slavery. They claim a 
 place in all libraries of American history, but to 
 libraries their bulk confines them. It fell to the lot of 
 the present writer to notice them in two immbers of 
 " Macmillan's Magazine," and the interest which he 
 was led to feel in the subject, combined with the 
 reminiscences awakened in his own mind by their 
 narrative, induced him to compile this little vol- 
 ume. More than a compilation the volume can hardly 
 pretend to be, since for its material it is almost 
 entirely beholden to the larger work, so far as the 
 facts are concerned. The opinions, of course, are the 
 author's own and formed from his own point of view, 
 which is that of an Anglo-Canadian who sympathized 
 with the American friends of the Anti-Slavery cause. 
 The authors of the larger work have so far extended 
 their confidence to the present writer as to sanction 
 Ids use of the materials collected by them : they 
 are in no way responsible for his opinions. In form- 
 ing his estimate of the character with which he had 
 to deal he has had the advantage, on one side, of the 
 memoir on "Garrison and his Times," written by 
 Mr. Oliver Johnson, one of the foremost, ablest and 
 staunchest of Garrison's comrades in the great contest, 
 . (4) 
 
 i 1^ 
 
 • I 
 
 ■I 4 
 
^ 
 
 n,nd, on the othei-, of the Life of James G. Biniey, writ- 
 ten by Mr. William Birney, also a most competent ex- 
 ponent of his own side of the case. He has, of course, 
 ai vailed himself of the general authorities for the 
 jiistory of the time. 
 
 To the military heroism of tlie .struf>gle against the 
 ►Slave Power, literary monuments, as well as monu- 
 ments of marble, numerous and splendid, aiv being- 
 raised. Let the moral heroism also have its due. Tlie 
 interest of its history, if less thrilling, is not less deep. 
 
 In dealing witli the story of Garrison's life,* an 
 Anglo-Canadian writer is not encroaching on Ameri- 
 can ground. (iarrison was recognised as a fellow- 
 labourer witli Wilberforce, Clarkson, and Buxton. 
 He belongs not only to the United States, but to Eng- 
 hmd, as the grejit emancipating nation, and to Can- 
 a<la, as the asylum of the slave. 
 
 William Lloyd (;anison [1895-18791 : The Story of his Life told by his Childieii. 
 Vols MV, 8vo. New York : The Century Co., 188,1-8!). 
 
 m 
 
I. 
 
 William Lloyd Gaicuisux was born on tlic 10th of 
 Decembei', 1805, in the thriving na-icuntile town of 
 Newburyport, Mussuchusetts. His lather, Abijali 
 (;larrison, and his mother Fannv, wliose maiden name 
 was Lloyd, had migrated to New E: ghind, as many 
 then did and manv have done since, from the Britisli 
 colony of New Brunswick. Sti-ange and sad to say, 
 three years afterwards Abijah Garrison, who was a 
 seafaring man, forever deserted his wife and children. 
 He returned to New Brunswick and is believed to 
 have wandered on before his death to Canada.. He is 
 said to have loved his wife and children, and his 
 reason for deserting them is a mysteiy. But it is 
 supposed to have been in some way connected with 
 drink, the bane of society and of seafai'ing men above 
 ail others in those days. Mrs. Garrison, who was an 
 excellent woman, cheerfully took up as a mother her 
 lonely burden and went out as a monthly nurse. She 
 was not without humble friends wdio were good to 
 her in the evil days. Lloyd learned to read and 
 write at the primary school and was afterwards for 
 three months at a gTannuar school, but this he was 
 
 t>bliged to leave that he might earn his bread by 
 
 ( 7 ) 
 
helpin^^ liis iiiotlu-j's IVii'ml, J)t'»u;«)ii Bartlctt, in sjiw 
 M'ood, sliarpcn saws, an<l peddlt^ applcH. This work 
 lie (lid iK)t liki', and lie ran away from the Deacon's 
 st'rvifc, l>ut was brouglit back witli the young con»- 
 ]mnic)n of liis escapade by the (b'iver of tlie mail 
 coach. We are told that he was a thorough boy in 
 fondness for games and sports, trundled his hoop 
 baref()()t(Hl all over Newburyport, swam the Merriinac 
 in summer and skated on it in winter, was good at 
 sculling a boat, was expert at marldes, played at Imt 
 and ball and snowball, and sometimes led the South- 
 end boys in their battles with the North-enders. H<- 
 swam three-((uarters of a mile across the river and 
 swam back again against tiie tide, and in winter taice 
 neaily lost his life by breaking through the ice. He 
 caught a seaport boy's fancy for going to sea, but th»' 
 infection took little hold, and he was afterwards 
 thoroughly cured of it by sea-sickness. Like his 
 mother, he was fond of music, had a rich voice, and 
 joined the choir of the Baptist Church. There was 
 no sign of anything eccentric about him as a boy, 
 unless it were his rCiStlessness in the service of 
 Deacon Bartlett. His fondness for pet animals 
 showed a tender disposition. It is evident from his 
 correspondence with his mother that he was a loving 
 and dutiful son. In after years he said that he felt 
 like a little boy when he thought of his mother, and 
 always spoke of hei" memory with passionate affec- 
 tion. 
 
 ( H ) 
 
 1 
 
Tlic inotluTM lit'ultli and Ktreiif^th were bc^iunin^ 
 to fail. It wjiH iicpcNHary that Lloyd hIioiiKI earn his 
 I tread, and he was aj)prenticed to a Hhoemaker. Hi* 
 was only nine years old, and ho HnuiU that he Heenied 
 hardly higf^er than a last. The work was too heavy 
 for him and he always reineml)ered with horror the 
 heavy lapstone and his fingers sore with sewing, 
 though he also remembered the gt)odness of his 
 Qmiker master, Oliver, and his wife. 
 
 In 1815, Mr. Paul Newhall, a shoe-manufacturer of 
 Lynn, removing with his staff of workmen to Balti- 
 more, took Mrs. Garrison and her two boys with him. 
 At Baltimore, James, the elder boy, was apprenticed 
 at shoeniaking whik- Lloyd ran errands. Mr. New- 
 hall's factoiy failed, and Mrs. Ciarrison had to take to 
 monthly nursing again. She was not only religious, 
 but a missionary, evangelized the workmen and set 
 up a prayer-meeting for women. She had need of 
 such support as religion could give her, for, liesides 
 the failure of her health, troubles came upon her. 
 Her eldest boy, James, ran away to sea, where his 
 career was wretched and degraded. Its close forms 
 a tragic but honourable episode in Lloyd Garrison's 
 life. Lloyd, his mother says, is a fine boy, a church- 
 goer and likely to be a complete Baptist. But he was 
 . unhappy at Baltimore and yearned for Newburyport- 
 To Newburyport his mother sent him for a year, 
 hoping at the end of that time to find a place for him 
 again at Baltimore. In this she failed, an<l she had to 
 
t 
 
 
 resign hei'self to his prolonged absence from her side, 
 which she did in a pious and touching letter. 
 
 Lloyd was apprenticed to Moses Short, a cabinet- 
 i.iaker at Haverhill, Massachusetts, who treated him 
 with kindness Kiid whose trade he did not dislike. 
 But he still yearned for Newburyport and lan away 
 frcni his master. The master, however, being good- 
 natured, and seeing his home-sickness, freely let hinj 
 go back to Nt'wbui'vport and Deacon 13artlett. 
 Repeated ettbits were madj to tind a place lor him 
 but in vain, till Mr. Epln-aim W. Allen, proprietor of 
 the Newburyport llcrabl, wanting a boy to learn tlu' 
 printer's trade, took him as an apprentice. Tliis was 
 in hSliS when he was thirteen years old. His foot 
 was now on the lowest step of the right ladder. He 
 tool' to the work at once, became very skilful in 
 handling type, and felt pleasure in it through life. 
 Mr. Allen's house was near Dtraeon liartlett's, and the 
 boy was happy in liis new home. Mr. Allei\, writing 
 to Mrs. Garrison, says he never had a better bi)y. 
 This she repents in a letter to Lloyd declining some 
 Balsam of Quito, probably a quack medicine, whi( h lu' 
 had offered to send her, and saying that she wishes 
 for nothing more than tiie Balm of (Jilead whicli 
 heals souls. Mrs. Garrison's life was near its close. 
 Her letters henceforth chronicle the inroads of her 
 malady. That she was leaving lier children aio?ie and 
 unprovided fo' , was to her the sting of death. 
 "Thank (Jod," she wrote to Lloyd, "1 aui well taken 
 
 ( iO ) 
 
 
sidt', 
 
 tK)fc 
 
 He 
 
 il in 
 life. 
 
 1 the 
 
 care ot", for both Black and White are all attention to 
 me, and I have everything;- done that i.s necessary. 
 The ladies are all kind to nir, and I have a Coloured 
 woman that waits on me, that is so kind no one can 
 tell how kind she is, and although a Slave to Man, yet 
 a freeborn soul, by the gi-ace of God. Hei' name is 
 Heiniy, and should I never see you again, and you 
 should ever co)ne where she is, remember her for your 
 poor mothe)-''>! sake." She contrasts tlie bright morn- 
 ing of her life with its sad close, and turns from the 
 deceptive dreams of earthly happiness to what she 
 deems the happy realities oi religion. She was too 
 pool' to send Lloyd as many letters as he would have 
 wished, th(^ postage being twenty-five cents. But she 
 manag(!d in Iser intervals of convalescence to get 
 together for him a trunkful of clothes, which she sent 
 him as the last token of her love. Before her death, 
 in 182r, he went tt) Baltimore and saw lier once more. 
 Lloyd was getting on well with his trade, and 
 ))ecame so ex])ert that he was made foreman of the 
 office. As a compositor, his ra^Jdity and accuracy 
 were first-i'ate. Among the journeymen in his office 
 was Tobias Miller, afterwards jb clergyman and city 
 missionary, lovable in character, sensible and racy in 
 speech, from working ))y whose side he believed him- 
 self to have gained much. Not that Tobias Miller's 
 wisdom seems to have \>c(in recondite. " Patienct; and 
 perseverance!" "'Tisn't as bad as it wouUl be if it 
 were worse !" " Never mind ! 'Twill be all the same a 
 
 ( II ) 
 
,i'^ 
 
 the isand years lience " — were the utterances of his 
 philosophy when a desperate proof came for correc- 
 tion at midnight or a form was " pied." Garrison, 
 however, found comfort in them amidst the trials of 
 his after years. Probably it was tlie image of Mr. 
 Miller's placid resignation, enhanced by the sensitive- 
 ness of his temperament, rather than liis maxims, that 
 consoled. 
 
 A young printer was pretty sui'e to take to writing 
 if he had any gifts and tendencies that way. Garri- 
 son had a strong taste foi* poetry and romances, while 
 for poetry he seems to hav2 had himself no mean gift 
 had his stormy life permitted the regular cultivation 
 of it. His favourite poets were Byron, Moore, Pope, 
 Campbell, and Scott, and the immaturity of his taste 
 might excuse him if he loved Mrs. Hemans above 
 them all. He took a healthy delight in the Waverley 
 Novels. An American in a vortex of party-politics 
 could not fail to be a politician. Garrison in his teens 
 was an ardent Federalist and wielded his chivalrous 
 pen in defence of the heroes of that party when 
 fortune had left it stranded. But his first literar- 
 essay was u communication to the Herald, signed "An 
 Old Bachelor," on a verdict in a breach of promise case 
 which had excited his indignation. The paper would 
 not be i-eceived with applause by a Woman's Rights 
 Association, nor would it ;have chimed in happily 
 with Garrison's own writings, and speeches in after 
 
 days when he was plearling for the admission of 
 
 ( 12 ) 
 

 1 
 
 women to the platform ol' the Anti-Hluveiy i^;s.socin- 
 tion. " Women," he said, " in this country are too 
 much idolized and flattered; therefore they are puffed 
 up and inflated with pride and self-conceit. They 
 make the men crawl, beseech, and supplicate, wait 
 upon and do every manual service for them to gain 
 their favour and approbation: they (the men) are, 
 in fact, completely subservient to every whim and 
 caprice of these changeable mortals." " Women 
 generally feel their importance," he continued, "and 
 they use it without mercy." This communication 
 was accepted, and so were others, including an 
 account of a shipwreck — fabricated, we are told, by 
 the fancy of one glaringly ignorant of the sea. The 
 editor paid his gifted correspondent the compliment 
 of desiring an interview, but Garrison kept his secret 
 from all but his mother, who received the confidence 
 with mingled pride and misgiving. In a subsequent 
 letter she warns him of the garret which is the com- 
 mon lot of authors, and thinks that he would have 
 been better employed, if, instead of writing political 
 pieces, he had been searching the Scriptures for the 
 truth. 
 
 Garrison wrote two articles on South American 
 affairs, in which, touching on the outrages committed 
 by the young Republics on vessels belonging to the 
 United States after the sympathy shown their cause 
 by that power, the future apostle of moral force and 
 denouncer of all war recommends finishing the con- 
 
 ( 1-) 
 
M 
 
 ! 
 
 ;■! 
 
 troversy with cannon, whik* the <lo.stinod leader ol' tlio 
 ciTisadc against slavery glorifiew without reserve 
 American freedom, and shares the columns of the 
 Hfirold with Caleb Gushing, who maintained that 
 slave-owning was not at variance with republicanism 
 because the sight of men deprived of freedom made 
 others prize it more. On the other hand, he had 
 discernment enough to deprecate the election of Jack- 
 son. Like an orthodox republican, he denounced the 
 Holy Alliance and declaimed upon the wrongs of 
 Poland. He also duly caught tlio Greek fever and 
 thought of going to fight for Greece. His writing- 
 was mature and, for the purposes of a journalist, good. 
 At twenty he seemed cut out for success as an editoi'. 
 He was good-looking and well-dressed. His portrait 
 presents him with a smooth face, abundance of black 
 hair, and a ruft'ed shirt. He was a favourite with the 
 ladies. He was healthy, social, mercurial, ambitious, 
 filled with hope by the acceptance of his writing. 
 Nobodv would have seen on his head a social crown 
 of thorns. He had an excellent constitution, and was 
 able to say towards the close of life that, though he 
 had lived on all kinds of food, he had never known 
 that he had a stomach ; so that the reformer in his 
 case was not the dyspeptic. To add to his chances of 
 success in a respectable career he was, as liis mother 
 had foretold, a "complete Baptist," a strict church- 
 goer, a staunch supporter of the clergy, and an 
 
 uncritical believer in the Bible. 
 
 ( U ) 
 
Tlie tweiity-fir.st year oi' iiis age (1826) in I'uct .saw 
 him editor and proprietor ol" a paper. The Herald 
 passed under a changed name from the hands of Mr. 
 Allen into those of Isaac Knapp, and from his into 
 those of Garrison, who re-christened it the Free Presn, 
 Mr. Allen sliowing his confidence in his apprentice by 
 advancing money. The motto of the Free Press, 
 " Our Country, Our Whole Country, and Nothing but 
 Our Country," gives little indication of a future career 
 of disloyalty to the Union and loyalty to Humanity. 
 The journal also copied without comment the words 
 of the ineffable Edward Everett, once a Massachusetts 
 clergj^man, who had not only quoted the New Testa- 
 ment in support of slavery, but declared that there 
 was no cause in which he would sooner buckle a knap- 
 sack on Jiis back and put a musket to his shoulder 
 than the appression of a slave insurrection at the 
 South. The Free Prefis did indeed speak of slavery 
 as a curse, and a theme to dwell upon till the country 
 was rid of it; but this was a passing remark, and there 
 was nothing to show that the editor's thoughts were 
 turned in that particular direction. The Free Pres.<^ 
 had the good luck to bring out as a poet Whittier, 
 then a Quaker lad, working as a shoemaker with 
 hammer and lapstone at East Haverhill. Little did 
 the editor dream that he was opening the gate of fame 
 to the poetic champion of what was to be his own 
 great cause. The paper seems to have done fairly 
 
 well, but it lost party subscribers by taking an in- 
 
 (15) 
 
<k'poinlent lino, nml GaiTisoii, probably seeing that 
 no more was likely to be made of it, sold it to Mr. 
 John H. Harris, who at once put it on the opposite 
 tack. 
 
 Descending again from the tlignity of editorship to 
 the level of the journeyman printer, Garrison went to 
 Boston in quest of employment. He was some time 
 in linding it. Meanwhile he gratified his taste for 
 politics by attending a caucus, and proposing a candi- 
 date in opposition to the nomination of the leaders. 
 He broke down in his speech and was obliged to have 
 recourse to the manuscript in his hat. There ensued 
 a newspaper tournamsnt in wdiich, being rebuked 
 for his presumption, he defended himself with force 
 and sprightliness against a sneer at his youth. " 1 
 leave it," he said, "to metaphysicians to determine 
 the precise moment when wisdom and experience leap 
 into existence, — when for the first time the mind 
 distinguishes truth from error, selfishness from patri- 
 otism, and passion from reason. It is sufficient for 
 me that I am understood." In the end he formed a 
 connection with Mr. Collier, a Baptist city missionary, 
 the founder of the first temperance journal. Of that 
 journal, of v^hich the name was the National Philan- 
 fhro^jist, and the proclaimed object " the suppression 
 of intemperance and its kindred vices," Garrison was 
 made editor. In those days drinking was terribly 
 rife, and after the part it had played in Garrison's 
 
 family misfortunes, his heart in fighting against it 
 
 ( 16 ) 
 
would be witli hi« pen. Other rot'oriiifs. such as the 
 better keeping of the Sabbath, were combined with 
 Temperance. The Phlla tithroplsf, if we may believe 
 its editor, was successful in improving public senti- 
 ment and giving birth to reforming effort, but it was 
 never self-supporting. It was not likely that a papei" 
 avowedly set up to plead a particular cause, would 
 interest the world in general enough to make it a 
 connnercial success. Indeed, even for the advocacy of 
 a })articidar cause, it is better Hist to build your 
 pulpit and then to preach from it. When a journal 
 has obtained a hold, by its general merits, on a large 
 circle of readers, it may press its views on any special 
 (juestion with effect. In the second number of his 
 paper, Garrison had commented on the bill passed by 
 the House of Assembly of South Cai'olina, to forbid 
 the teaching of blacks to read and write, " 'here is," 
 he said, " something unspeakably pitiable and alarm- 
 ing in the state of that society where it is deemed 
 necessary for self-preservation to seal up the mind 
 and the intellect of man to brutal incapacity. We 
 shall not now consider the policy of this resolve, but 
 it illustrates the terrors of slavery in a manner as 
 eloipient and affecting as imagination can conceive. . . . 
 Truly, the alternatives of oppression are terrible. But 
 this sUite of things cannot always last, nor ignorance 
 alone shield us i'l'om destruction." These words, 
 written in 1828, i-ing up the curtain for a new scene 
 
 in the drama of Gairison's life. They heralded the 
 B ( 17 ) 
 
' 
 
 an-lN-al of hcuyMmn Luiuly ut Boston. There was a 
 happy conjunction of two bright though snmll stai-s 
 
 in the firmament of luunanity. 
 
 ( IB ) 
 
1 
 
 s a 
 tax's 
 
 II. 
 
 Garrison had lii.s precursors. Elilm Eiiibret', tlic 
 Quaker publislier of the first journal devoted to the 
 abolition of slavery, was one of them. But the chief 
 was Benjainin Lundy, also a Quaker, and a true and 
 admirable though most humble servant of humanity. 
 Lundy having lived at Wheeling, Virginia, had seen 
 the cotfles of negroes in chains go Ijy on their 
 way to the South. He was a sa<ldler, prosperous 
 in his trade, and made what for him was wealth, but 
 gave it all up to his cause. He fought with the pen 
 in different journals against the attempt to force 
 Missouri into the Union as 'a Slave State. Then he 
 set up at Mount Pleasant, in Ohio, a journal of his 
 own called the Genius of Universtd Emmicipatum. 
 It was brought out without a dollar of capital and with 
 only six subscribers, and for a time he walked a dis- 
 tance of twenty miles each month to Steubenville to 
 get the journal printed, and returned with the edition 
 on his back. He afterwards moved with his journal 
 to Tennessee and at last to Baltimore, whither he 
 trudged with his knapsack on his back, passing 
 through South-western Virginia and North Carolina, 
 and sowing the seeds of his doctrine by lecturing as 
 he went. He would seem to have been able to carry 
 
 ( 19) 
 
f -I 
 
 gunpowder in a turnaco ; but lie wus very guiitlt* ; his 
 doctrine was gradual emancipation and his policy was 
 colonization, which was accepted at the South. In the 
 interest of that policy he visited Hay ti. He was feeble 
 in frame, somewhat deaf, and a bad lecturer, liaving a 
 weak voice, so that his etibrts must have been painful, 
 and his motive cannot have been the love of plat- 
 form excitement or t)f self-display. At Baltimore he 
 continued to publisli the Genius of Universal Eiuun- 
 cipntum, going about to lecture and form associations 
 at the samo time. Baltimore was a port of the 
 domestic slave trade, with a turbulent and violent 
 mob. Lundy's mildness did not save him fu)m a 
 brutal assault by a slave-trading ruffian. It was after 
 this that he came to Boston, made tlie acquaintance 
 of Garrison, and, by pleading the cause to him, tired" a 
 heart which was ready onongh to catch the Hame. It 
 api^ears that (Jarrison's heart was tired all the more 
 easily from seeing the coldness oi the clergymen to 
 whom Lundy appealed in vain, foi- he cries out upon 
 " the moral cowardice, the chilling apathy, the criminal 
 unbelief, the cruel scepticism, that were i-evealed on 
 that nuimorable occasion." Everybody in the room 
 was against slavery, but then the formation of a 
 society at Boston woukl enrage and alarm the South. 
 ' Perhaps a select committee might be formed under 
 an inoti'ensive name.' Lundy, however, was encour- 
 aged enough to i-evisit Boston, where (August 7th, 
 
 1JS28), he held a meeting in tlie vestiy of a Baptist 
 
 ( -'0 ) 
 
his 
 
 7 was 
 
 n the 
 feeble 
 nwg a 
 liiitul, 
 
 phit- 
 LH'e he 
 'Jiitan- 
 latious 
 jf the 
 violent 
 lom u 
 Ls iit'ter 
 intaiiee 
 tired a 
 me. It 
 le more 
 men to 
 lit upon 
 irimiiial 
 uled on 
 e room 
 n of a 
 ) South. 
 1 under 
 encour- 
 ust 7th, 
 
 Baptist 
 
 Cliurcli. ;d whieli lie <lis<'ie(lited (leportjition ms m 
 ronierly, poijitin^ out that the increase in the number 
 of blacks at tlie South in a yeai* was greater than the 
 Colonization Society could handle in 1- ilf-a-century. 
 T]w nau'tino- was brought to an abrupt termination 
 by the pastor of the church, wiio rose and personally 
 denounced the Miiitation aiiainst slaverv^ as ottensive 
 to the Soutli and dangerous, aftirmino- that the States 
 were gradually getting rid of slavery by selling their 
 slaves to those furthei" South. A connnittee of 
 twenty, howe\-er, was formed, and (iarrison was (nie. 
 In the great F'l'esidential Campaign of 1828, Garri- 
 son, having made his mark as a writer, was invited 
 by a committee of prominent citizens at Bennington, 
 \'ei'mont, to come and edit a new paper there in 
 advocacy of the re-election of John Quincy Adams 
 against An<li'ew Jackson. The Jonrvid of flif Thnc-s 
 was the name of the paper. Its motto was Garrison's 
 favourite (]Uotation from (>icero : " Reason shall pre- 
 vail with us more than Poj^ular Opinion." Though 
 setup for a political campaign, the Journal of the 
 Timei-i declared itself independent of party. Inde- 
 pendent of everything luit public morality and con- 
 stitutional government it might be in opposing the 
 dictatorship of Jackson. But it further declared that 
 its editor had three objects in view, which he would 
 pursue through life — the suppression of intemper- 
 ance and its associate vices, the gradual emancipa- 
 tion of every slave in the Republic, and a per- 
 
 (21 ) 
 
i ■ 
 
 I 
 
 |»('t.nit,y «>r imtionnl ncucc It will l»c notcfl timt 
 ^ijKluiil »'iii}iiK'i|»Hti<>n WHS still the iiiai'k hihI limit ol' 
 liis uiiiis. He also uvowimI hiiiiscir n rHt'iul, t'Vi'ii tlu' 
 ciitlinsiHst, of what hv styled the Aincricuii system of 
 fostering the fjrowth of nutive imlustry l»y ii protec- 
 tive tarifr. 1'he creation of national centivs of in- 
 diistiy seemed to him to be proN'ed ]>y «laily experi- 
 ence to he the hest mode of promt)tin^ the welfare 
 of the peoi)le, and the ^reat secret of national a^gi'an- 
 dizement. It may safely ))e said that he luul not 
 studied the (piestion deeply in any of its aspects. 
 If he had, he might have douhted whether hy hreak- 
 ing up the conmiercial union of nations he would he 
 hastening the advent ot the kingdom of peace, which 
 was one of his three aspirations, and even Mdiether 
 the shackling of industry which the protective system 
 entails w^as consistent with universal emancipation. 
 We shall see a notalile change in liis sentiments on 
 this subject liereafter. 
 
 From its first number the Journal of the Time^ 
 showed the effect of its editor's intercourse with 
 Lundy V)y the clearness and vehemence of its utter- 
 ances on the sul)ject of slavery, though what Gar- 
 rison's biographers call the sciiles of Colonization had 
 not yet fallen from the editor's eyes. " For our- 
 selves," it said, " we are resolved to agitate this sub- 
 ject to the utmost ; nothing but death shall prevent 
 us from denouncing a crime which has no parallel in 
 
 human depravity ; w^e shall take high ground." With 
 
 ( i-^2 ) 
 
iluifc 
 lit of 
 » tlu' 
 
 111 of 
 
 •( >tec- 
 •f in- 
 :[)c'ri- 
 'Ifare 
 
 litcM'al tiutli it could twvy tlmt tin' niniiJiclt <1 sinvo 
 was driven to market past tlu' door of t\\v (^i[)it(tl in 
 uliicli Hat tlic ivprcst'iitativcs of that nioi'iiinn- star of 
 freedom, tins Aiiierieaii Ut'piil»lie. Over slavery in 
 tile District of Coluniltia Con«^reHS had powei' ; this 
 was accord i I i<(ly the point in the meiiiy s lines most 
 open to attack, (larrison ha<l tlu' honour of trans- 
 mitting to (N)noress a petition ^ot up hy himself and 
 signed l»y 2,852 citi/x'iis of Vermont, in favour of the 
 aholition of slavery in the District. 'I'he petition 
 was referred to a Committee, the re])ort of which 
 embodied the politician's view of the subject. Aoi- 
 tation, the Committee held, would tend to creati^ in- 
 subordination and restlessness among the slaves, "who 
 would otherwise be comparatively happy and con- 
 tented." Emancipation in the District would spread 
 disturbance through the Slave States. It winild de- 
 prive the inhabitants of property which they had 
 enjoyed under the laws of Virginia an<l Maryland. 
 As to the traffic, it was «loing good ])y gradually 
 carrying the negroes further South, "and although 
 violence might sometimes be done to their feelings 
 in the separation of families, yet it should be some 
 consolation to those whose feelings were interested in 
 their behalf, to know that their condition was more 
 freciuently bettered, and their minds ma<le happier by 
 the exchange ! " Garrison branded the report as " the 
 woi'st apology for the most relentless t^'ranny." It 
 was a pity that (ieorge III. and Grenville, still more 
 
 ( -»•> ) 
 
ij'l ■'■' 
 
 that Burke, lia<l not lived io ^•(^•l(l it. One month 
 later, Anrirew Jnrkson, onterinff Washington hy 
 storm, with violence and the spoils system in his train, 
 put Congress, liberty, and everything that could tend 
 to enuincipation under his feet. Slave-hunting on 
 Xoi'thern soil under tli(^ Fugitive Slave Law Avent 
 on merrily. When the c<v.intry was convulsed by 
 the Anti-Masonic excitement consequent on the dis- 
 appearance of Morgan, Oarrison drew a telling con- 
 trast between the commotion caused bv tlie al)duction 
 of one man, and the total ab.sence of anv feelinc' for 
 the two millions who M'ere groaning out their lives 
 in bondage. He vras happy at Bennington, felt 
 his powers, liked the Vermonters, an<l foujid their 
 climate the best in the world. 
 
 At Bennington, however, he did uot hmg remain. 
 Lundy, who had been watching his course, seeing that 
 he had now thorougldy given himsidf to the cause, 
 resolved to invite him to Baltimore, and walked from 
 Baltimore to Bennington for the purpose. He prcj- 
 posed that the Gfvius of Umvers,!! EnxDuipafiou 
 should be changed from a monthly to a weekly paper, 
 and that the j'^ounger partner should edit it while the 
 elder travelled to get subscriptions. Garrison accept- 
 ed the invitation and published his valedictory as 
 (^ditor of the Jovrval of the Timc)^, announcing his 
 devotion of himself t(^ the Anti-Slaverv cause, and 
 proclaiming once more that " Reason ha<i prevailed 
 
 with him more than Popular Opinion." The rival 
 
 ( -'4 ) 
 
»i 
 
 <> 
 
 editor <*xiilt(!<1 in liis <l«'])artur(i, mul [)ubIislnMl a Ictt^'J- 
 (lpHcril»inf;f liim ns nn egotistical dandy, witli a pair 
 f silvor-niountod spc^ctacles riding elegantly across his 
 nose, and displaying " the pert loquacity of a l)lue- 
 jay." Such did lie look, wlien se(!n from a liostile 
 ])()int of view. The enemy, howevei', was constrained 
 to admit (iarrison's talents, integrity, and patriotism.. 
 After leaving Bennington (1829), Garrison stayed a 
 while at Boston waiting for the return of Lundy, who 
 liad gone with twelve emancipated slaves to Hayti, 
 wliere surely he can hav(^ seen little to cheer him. 
 Meantime Garrison was invited to address the Con- 
 oiH'oational Societies of Pioston on the Fourth of July. 
 It seeniK that Bostori Conservatism was already on 
 the alert, for Gairison v;as subjected to the annoyance 
 of heinji" sued for S4 fine hv the clerk of a militia 
 company for failure of appearance at muster, and was 
 ohlige<l to heti-ay the barrenness of moral Journalism 
 as a trade by borrowing the petty sum of a friend. 
 The theme of his address, " Dangers to the Nation," 
 was likely to awaken <^hi suspicions of the eneni}'. 
 He said that his knees knocked tooether at the 
 thought of speaking before such a concourse. But he 
 had made U]) his mind that the address should be 
 severe and sombre. Severe and sombre it was. In 
 opp(\sition t(^ the vulgai- Fourth (^f July patriotism, 
 " covering only its native territory, blustering only for 
 its own rights, spurning moral restraint, and tyranniz- 
 ing where it could with impunity," he took his stand 
 
 ( 25 ) 
 
i 
 
 r 
 
 i ^ 
 
 nil i 
 
 i: li 
 
 ■!;l 
 
 on the ]»;itriotisni wliicli is Ijir^er than a contiiiont. 
 Of slavery and of tlie duty of getting rid of it he 
 spoke in the boldest strain. It ought, lie said, to 
 make the Fourth of July a day not of boisterous 
 merriment and idle pageantry, but of fasting and 
 prayer ; not of joy but of lamentation. It ought to 
 spike e\'ery cannon, to haul down every banner, to 
 clotlie the people in sackcloth, to bow dov.n their 
 heads in the dust. Pitiful was the list of grievances 
 which the Declaration of Independence, read on that 
 day, set forth against British tyranny, compared with 
 the grievances of the American slave. The orator 
 was sick, he said, of unmeaning declamation in 
 praise of liberty raid equality, of hypocritical cant 
 fibout the inalienable riglits of man. He could never 
 stand before an assembly of Europeans denouncIi\g 
 kingly government and boasting of his American 
 citizenship, for, if he did, the recollection of his 
 country's barbarity would blister his lips and make 
 his cheeks burn with shame. To freeze the blood of 
 the audience l)y depicting the cruelties of slavery was 
 . eedless I the one thing needful was to pohit out the 
 ^lath of duty. There were four things, the orator 
 averred, which ciuld not be gainsaid: the claim of the 
 f laves to sympathy and redress : the responsibility of 
 i\w Free States for the existence of slavery under the 
 national compact, and their consecpient right of re- 
 monstrance and abatement ; that no justification of 
 slavery could 1k^ found in the con<lition of its vic- 
 
 ( -^<> ) 
 
tiiiis ; tliat tlic Ithicks were capjiltle oi" lieiiio' hiised 
 by freedom ami education to tlie level of the whites. 
 To expect to succeed without collision or without a 
 struggle with the worst passions was hop*.' less ; l>ut 
 the orator was sanguine enough to believe that these 
 could be easily C(jn(juered by meekness, persever- 
 ance and prayer. Towards the close, however, tlie 
 address somewhat lialts, as its author would himself 
 have said at an after day. It admits the danger of 
 liberating all at once the present race of blacks. 
 This, it says, is out of the question; the fabric must 
 be reduced 1>rick by brick till it is brought so low 
 that it may l>e overturned without burying the nation 
 in its ruins. Then the orator rises again to an apoca- 
 lyptic pitch of denunciation, predicting, as the penalty 
 of persistance in national sin, horrors worse than 
 those of St. Domingo. 
 
 The Boston American Traveller had a notice of tlie 
 discourse, describing the orator as quite a youth in ap- 
 pearance, dressed in black, with a bare neck, and a 
 broad linen collar spread out over that of his coat. 
 His utterance at first was feeble, but he became im- 
 pressive as he went on. He was, of course, accused of 
 slandering his country and blaspheming the Declara- 
 tion of Independence. 
 
 Garrison's Fourth of July address set his own mind 
 actively at work, and after a few weeks of reflection 
 he decisively arrived at the momentous conclusion 
 which shaped his whole subsequent course, that im- 
 
 ( 27 ) 
 
• iMMliMtt^ (niiaiicijmt-ion, instead ol' ]h'.\ii^ :\ (Ijcmui. wms 
 the only solid ground upon whicl) the moral and roli- 
 f(ious reformer could take his stand. If slavery M'as 
 not merely a social, political and economical error, hut 
 a wrong and a sin, persistence in holding a man as 
 ])r()])(0'ty rvi'.u I'oi' a day nmst he wrongful and sinful. 
 If the slave had a right to his freedom, he had a right 
 to it that veiy hour. Emancipation innnediate and 
 unconditional was thenceforth the lodestar of (Jar- 
 rison's life. Wendell Phillij^s is i-apt with admiration 
 of this '.)oy, who .saw what .sages did not .see, that 
 morality ahme would compel submission, and that the 
 light policy wa.s the alwolute and unijualilied avowal 
 of the uttermo.st truth. It is needless to say that the 
 un(|ualitied avowal of the absolute and the utter- 
 most was the thing congenial to Wendell Philli])s's 
 own s(Md. Certain it is that while others made up 
 issues of ditteriMit kinds, constitutional, .social and 
 ec(Miomical, the moral i.ssue was made up b}' Calhoun, 
 who maintained that slavery was entirely right, and 
 Carrison, who m .intained that it was uttc^rlv and 
 
 intolerably wrono'. 
 
 ( 28 ) 
 
 i ! 
 
^r- 
 
 III. 
 
 The doctrine of iiiunecliute uiul uucoiKlitioual eman- 
 cipation had been already embraced by Garrison 
 when, Lundy having returned from Hayti, the two 
 men met at Baltimore to settle their partnership in 
 the Geiiias of Universal E')ii(tncipati(yii. But Lundy, 
 always mild, was not preparetl to < mbrace it. How 
 then was their partnership to be arranged { Lundy 
 proposed that each should put his initials to his own 
 articles, and that neither should be responsible for 
 what tlie other said. This proposal was accepted, and 
 the (iciriiiti of Universal E7)iancipation had two 
 voices. But one of the two was far the stronger. 
 Lundy, in his salutatory, merely explained the ar- 
 rangements. Garrison, in his, pji'oclaimed his sole 
 reliance on the eternal principles of justice for the 
 solution of the Slavery question, and declared that 
 they pointed to immediate and complete Emancipa- 
 tion. This bugle note, sounded loud and clear from 
 the first, could not fail to set the echoes Hying in a 
 centre of the traffic like Baltimore, where slave 
 auctions and the shipment of slaves were constantly 
 going on; and every week the Genius had a column 
 of Slavery cruelties and horrors, to which Baltimore 
 itself contributed its quota. In the first month of 
 
 ( -^9 ) 
 
!1? 
 
 'I I i 
 
 tliL'ir partiicr.ship, tliu two rot'oriuers received a visit 
 one Sunday from a slave who had just been whipped 
 with a cowhide, and on wliose bleeding back they 
 counted twenty-seven terrible gashes, while his head 
 was much bruised. His only fault was that he had 
 not loaded a waggon to suit the overseer. He was 
 at the time on the point of receiving his freedom 
 Expostulation was met with contempt and abuse. A 
 few days later, Garrison heard in a house which he 
 piussed the sound of the whip and cries of anguish, 
 and this, he notes, was nothing uncommon. 
 
 His first encounter was with the brutal slavetrader 
 who had assaulted Lundy. The man's advertisements 
 were refused on account of his notorious cruelty, even 
 by journals which published advertisements of other 
 slave auctions. Garrison exposed him in a scath- 
 ing article. The man ascribed the article to Lundy 
 and threatened vengeance. Garrison at once avowed 
 the authorship, and challenged the formidable ruffian 
 to meet him at his boardinjv-house and discuss the 
 (juestion. Here was no want of courage. The taunt 
 afterwards freely flung on Garrison and his comrades, 
 of keeping in the safe North and fearing to present 
 their doctrines in the stronghold of slavery, was prac- 
 tically refuted in advance. Garrison's second and 
 more serious encounter was with Mr. Todd, a mer- 
 chant of Newburyport, Garrison's own town, who had 
 allowed his ship to be freighted with slaves at Balti- 
 more. The transportation of slaves from one State to 
 
 ( 30 ) 
 
another was g'oiii^' <»n at tin- rate of til'ty tlioiisaii<l a 
 
 year. The foreign shue trade was now piracy: wliy 
 
 was the domestic shive trade to he lieM l)]anu'less '. 
 
 To(l<Vs crime wasdonhled hy his Puritan respectahility. 
 
 He was denounced in m flaming* editorial. Tliereupon 
 
 lie hrjught an action for lihel. On the trial it appeared 
 
 that the defendant had gone, as writers of flaming 
 
 editorials are apt to go, somewhat beyond the strict 
 
 facts. He failed to prove, what he had insinuated, that 
 
 Todd was in the habit of carrying slaves, and o-ived a 
 
 success over his rivals in trade, which otherwise was 
 
 mysterious, to that unholy source. He failed to pi'ovc 
 
 that the slaves were chained, though nothing was 
 
 more likely than that they would be chained as tlu; 
 
 coffles sent by land usually were, while the advocate 
 
 who could speak of them as " passengers " nmst ha ^ 
 
 had a front of brass. On the other hand, the mam 
 
 facts could not be denied. The ship had been freighte<l 
 
 wit'i slaves, more even in number than Oarrison had 
 
 alleged, and this had been done with Todd's knowledge 
 
 and approval. Garrison was defended with spirit. 
 
 But at Baltimore justice in slavery cases was not blind. 
 
 Garrison was found grilty of libel, and was condemned 
 
 to pay a fine of fifty dollars, together with fifty dollars 
 
 costs, or go to gaol. Not being able to pay the fine, to 
 
 gaol he went, and was saluted on his entrance with 
 
 the customary jeers of the gaol-birds. Stone walls, 
 
 however, did not make a prison. The gaoler was kind, 
 
 and the captive was allowed to receive the visits of 
 
 ( 31 ) 
 
 n 
 
ll 
 
 ■^», 
 
 til ' 
 
 1 
 
 1 ! 
 1 
 
 
 1 
 
 i 
 
 t 
 
 
 i 
 
 1 
 
 j ! 
 
 
 i 
 
 
 : 
 
 1 
 
 
 1 
 
 1 i 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 ti 
 
 Luiuly jind ot* Lsaiic Kuapp, liis uh\ coniiiuU' of the 
 printing-office, who hud come to Baltimore to work on 
 the Genias. He had the free range of the prison, 
 wais permitted to talk to all its inmates abont their 
 cases, and found it a good place for sketching " tlu' 
 lights and shadows of human nature." There were in 
 the gaol runaway slaves, whom it was the custom to 
 sell South, and slavetraders came to buy them. With 
 one of the traders, who seems to have been a miUl 
 specimen of his class, Garrison ojtfned a discussion by 
 asking him rather brusquely what right he had to his 
 slave. " My father left him to me, " was the innocent 
 reply. " Suppose, sir, your father had broken into a 
 bank and left you the fruits of his robbery ? " The 
 trader fell back on the curse of Ham. (Jarrison re- 
 plied that granting — what remained to be })roved — 
 that the Africans were the descendants of Ham, 
 Noah's curse was a prediction of future servitude, not 
 an injunction to oppress. With perhaps more force he 
 added, " Pray, sir, is it a careful desire to fulfil the 
 Scriptures, or to make money, that induces you to hold 
 your fellow -men in bondage y " The trader asked hin» 
 how he would like to see a black man President of the 
 United States. He I'eplietl adroitly, but horu'stiy, that 
 he was a loyal Repul)lican and should bow to the deci- 
 sion of the people. The last thrust was, "How should 
 you like to have a black man »riarry your daughter ^ " 
 This was parried with, " 1 am not married, 1 have no 
 daughter : " and the thrust was leturned with " Sir, 1 
 
 ( ••(-' ) 
 
 
 
.; ol" thf 
 
 work on 
 .' prison, 
 )Ut theii' 
 Ino- "tlu' 
 e were in 
 uwtoui U) 
 n. With 
 'H Ji uiiUl 
 ussion by 
 liul to his 
 innocent 
 cen into a 
 y { " H^he 
 irrison re- 
 pi'ove*! — 
 of Ham, 
 itiule, not 
 ire force he 
 J fulfil the 
 on to hold 
 sisked hini 
 dent of the 
 nestly, that 
 to the (leci- 
 :3()vv should 
 laughter '. ' 
 1 have no 
 vith " Sir, 1 
 
 am not familiar with your practices ; but allow me to 
 say that slaveholders generally should be the last per- 
 sons to att'ect fastidiousness on that point, for they 
 seem to be enamoured with amalgamation." 
 
 Part of his enforced leisure the prisoner employed 
 in writing verses, some of which are such as to con- 
 firm our belief that, had he taken that line, he would 
 have won at least a fair measure of reputation as a 
 poet. 
 
 THE GUILTLESS PllISUNEH. 
 
 Prisoner ! witliiu these gloomy walls close pent — 
 Guiltless of horrid crime or venial wrong — 
 
 Bear nobly up against thy punishment, 
 And in tliy innocence be great and strong ! 
 
 Perchance thy fault was love to all mankind ; 
 Tliou didst oppose some vile, oppressive laAv ; 
 
 Or strive all human fetters to unbind ; 
 Or would'st not bear the implements of war : — 
 
 Wliat then ? Dost thou so soon repent the deed ? 
 A martyr's crown is richer than a king's ! 
 
 Think it an honour with thy Lord to bleed, 
 And glory 'midst intensest sufferings ! 
 
 Though beat — imprisoned — put to open shame- 
 Time shall emljalm and magnify thy name. 
 
 Allen of the Herald, Whittier, and other friends, 
 
 were troubled about their friend's imprisonment, more 
 
 perhaps than he was himself. To their letters of 
 
 sympathy he responded by contrasting his own brief 
 
 and comparatively mild captivity with the cruel and 
 
 lifelong captivity of the slaves ; and he asked, if the 
 
 oppression of a single man excited so much emotion, 
 
 how much greater ought to be the emotion excited by 
 
 the far worse oppression of two millions. At last 
 c ( 33 ) 
 
w\ 
 
 ^ lilii 
 
 Wliitticr wrot«' to Henry Cluy, wliom Gairison, not 
 havinff yet lost fjiitli find interest in politicians, had 
 warmly supportetl Tor the Presidency. Clay was 
 mind* d to pay the tin*'. JUit he was i'orestalled liy 
 Artluir Tappan, a wealthy and philanthropic merchant 
 of New Yoi-k', who here conies on the scene as a lead- 
 ing friend and generous provider of the sinews of war 
 to the Anti-Slavery cause. Tappan sent a hundred 
 dollars, and (Jarrison, after a captivity of forty- 
 nine days, was set free. His spirit had not for a 
 moment f|uaile(l under imprisonment. He had heen 
 not only uncomplaining l»ut jocund ; K)r ha<l he be- 
 trayed the vanity which a youthful crusader would 
 he likely to lietray hy boasting of his martyrdom. 
 In him, beneath a gentle an<l rather feminine exterior, 
 was " strong man. It is needless to say that his wrath 
 turned more fiercely than ever against slaveowners : 
 they were henceforth in his eyes kidnappers and 
 man-stealers, whom it was the duty of every christian 
 church to expel from its communion. He was 
 still a devout christian and churchman, and to tho 
 action of the christian churches, above all things, he 
 still looked for countenance and support in the cham- 
 pionship of a great moral cause. 
 
 During Garrison's imprisonment his partner had 
 been compelled to reduce their journal, which never 
 had subscriptions enough to float it, from a weekly to 
 a monthly, and the partnership came to an end. Gar- 
 rison went back to his own State, and in 1830 
 
 ( .34 ) 
 
•ison, noi 
 inns, ha«\ 
 Clay ^v^vH 
 stallea l)y 
 ; uievchaut 
 
 ; aH a k't^«^- 
 
 eWH of war 
 a huivU-e*^ 
 
 ^ of fovty- 
 
 1 not fov '^ 
 
 Ic ha«l 1>^'^'^^ 
 
 1- bail U^ ^'^- 
 
 isadov woulil 
 nuivtyiHloin. 
 
 nine cxteviov, 
 
 liat liis wrath 
 slaveowners '. 
 aiappers and 
 ^-ery christian 
 
 un.' He was 
 ai, and to the 
 2 all things, he 
 L't in the cham- 
 
 partncr had 
 al, which never 
 ■om a weekly to 
 io an end. Gar- 
 
 and in 1830 
 
 licfuu Ircturiiiii" r<»r tlic rnusc. IJut lie suuii Imd a 
 cliiHin^^' rxiMTifUtM! in tlic ((uartcr wImtc Ik ini^lit 
 liuvc expected tlie wannest synipatliy. (MumcIics, 
 Itotli at Newlairyport and Hoston, were clost'd nuainst 
 liiiii : il" the pastor was willinn- to o))en tlic door, tin; 
 trustees, mindful of fiiianeial interests, were not. At 
 Boston it was left foi- a society of avowed intidols to 
 mvc the christian lecturer the use of a hall for a cause 
 in which tla^y had no pai'ticular inti'rest heyond their 
 loyalty to freedom of opinion, and in support of Avhieh 
 lie appealed to the CJospol which they rejecte(l. The 
 head of orthodox relif»'ion at Boston, J)r. Lyman 
 Bcecher, was present at the lecture hut gave no si^vn. 
 Afterwards he excused himself on the ground that he 
 had too many irons in the tire, telling Garrison at the 
 same time that if he would give up his fanatical no- 
 tions an<l he guided by the clergy, they would make 
 him the Wilhcrforce of America. But there were also 
 present Sanuiel J. May, a young Unitarian minister 
 from Connecticut, his cousin, Sanuiel K. Sewall, a Bos- 
 ton lawyer, and his l»rother-in-law, A. Bronson Alcott. 
 Mr. May has recorded his impressions. " Never be- 
 fore," he says, "was I so attected l»y the speech of man. 
 'When he had ceased speaking I said to those around 
 nie, ' That is a providential man ; he is a prophet ; ho 
 jwill shake our nation to the centre, lait he will shake 
 Islavcry out of it. We ought to know him, we ought 
 ^.0 help him. Come, let us go and give him our 
 
 They gave the lecturer their hands ; Mr. 
 (35) 
 
 iiands r " 
 
Hi 
 
 fi! 
 
 II 
 
 Alcott invittMl liim to liis Imnic, i\\u\ thrvr titfv »ill sat 
 late into thr iiiglit listening to him nn ho pr<jvod thnt 
 iinniediati', iincoiulitioiml oinancipation, without ex- 
 patriation, was the right of eveiy .slave and coukl not 
 he withlield l>y liis master an liour witlumt sin. " That 
 night," says Mr. May, " my soul was haptized in liis 
 spirit, and ever since I have ])een a diseiph' and fel- 
 knv-laljourer of William Lloyd Garrison." Sewall 
 }dso hecame a zealous disciple and very helpful. 
 
 (iarrison had made up his mind to .set up ant)ther 
 Anti-Slavery journal. His old friend and comrade, 
 baac Knapp, was ready to join him in the venture. 
 The (pie-stion was whether tlie place of pnhlication 
 should be Washington or Boston. Washington was 
 the centre of Government, l)nt Boston was the centre 
 of opinion, and as.suredly it was not le.ss in need of 
 having the gospel preached to it than any district in 
 which slavery reigned. The revo' ition of .sentiment 
 to be effected was greater, as Garrison said, in the 
 Free States and particularly in New England than in 
 the South. He found in New England "contempt 
 more bitter, opposition more active, detraction more 
 relentless, ])rejudice more .stubborn, and apathy more 
 frozen, than among slaveowners themselves." Frozen 
 apathy, at all events, could not be the condition of the 
 people at the South ; and if perchance any of them 
 had hearts to be touched, they had that before their 
 eyes and in the.'r ears which would touch their hearts, 
 
 while from the eye and ear of the North the bleed- 
 
 ( 36 ) 
 
4 
 
 u-y nil w»^ 
 L-ovPil that 
 ithout ex- 
 i could not 
 sin. "That 
 i/oil in his 
 le and t'el- 
 11." Sewall 
 
 Ipt'ul. 
 
 i u\) anothei" 
 nd comrade, 
 the venture. 
 ; puhlication 
 jhington was 
 ass the centre 
 ss in need of 
 ny district in 
 
 of senthnent 
 \ said, in the 
 ijrland than in 
 lid "contempt 
 etraction more 
 [I apathy more 
 ■Ives." Frozen 
 ■ondition of the 
 e any of them 
 lat before their 
 ich their hearts, 
 
 orth the bleed- 
 
 I 
 
 inp back of tlic slave and liis ciy of n^oiiy won* far 
 
 Mway. Wjishington Imd \\vh\ out no rnrourngcment. 
 
 Moreover, Lundy had ah'eady taken the Gcvrvft 
 
 there, and a second Anti-Shiverv shoot was not 
 
 required. So it was at Boston, " witliin si^ht of 
 
 Bunker Hill and in the birthplace of liliorty," that 
 
 the flag of Einanci])ation was i'aiso<l. On that spot, 
 
 ovorv Fourth of Julv, most loudly iosoun<lod the 
 
 thunders of patriotic dochunatioii against the memory 
 
 f the British oppressor, whoso tv)anny luid been felt 
 
 by the Colonists, not in whips and chains, but in a 
 
 small duty on toa. On that spot still groat mootings 
 
 wen- hold, and toironts of goiiorous olo(|Monce woi'o 
 
 ])ourod forth, in the cause of the tramplo(l Pole and 
 
 the hisurgont Greek. Sov was this tho moi'o IMiaiisa- 
 
 isni of liboi-ty : 't was all perfectly genuine in its 
 
 way. Our powers of solf-decoption are unboundo<l. 
 
 ( .'i7 ) 
 
 o 
 
--T' 
 
 
 "-'nwilHfckw.'i .*! !•■., 
 
 .' i 
 
 'ij! 
 
 m 
 
 I 
 
 IV. 
 
 On Saturday, January 1, 1831, the first number of 
 the Lihendor appeared. It was a weekly journal 
 hearing the names of William Lloyd (garrison and 
 Isaac Knapp as publishers. Its motto was " Our 
 Country is the World, Our C'ountrymen are Man- 
 kind," a direct c-hallengt; to those whose motto was 
 the Jin^) cry of those days, "Our Country, right or 
 wrong." It was a modest folio, with a page of four 
 coluunis measuring fourteen inches by nine and a 
 ([uarter. Garrison, as we have said, was very skilful 
 JUS a priiit«'r, and his journal, in ni'atness and accuracy, 
 di<l justice to his skill. The paper had not a dollar of 
 capital. It was printed at first with Ixjrrowed type, 
 (larj'ison and Knapp did all the work of every kind 
 between them, (iarrison of course doing the editorials. 
 That he wi'ote them can hardly be said: his habit was 
 often to set up without manuscript. The office was at 
 Merchants' Hall, burned down in the great tire of 
 1872, in the third story under the eaves. Oliver 
 Johnson, who was often there, has vividly described 
 the dingy walls; the small windows bespattered with 
 i:)rinters' ink; the press standing in one corner; the 
 Gomposing-stands opposite : the long editorial and 
 
 majling table covered with newsjjapers : the bed of 
 
 ( 38 ) 
 
st number oi 
 _'ekly journal 
 (juri'ison and 
 bo was "Our 
 len are Man- 
 )se motto was 
 nitry, right or 
 a page of four 
 y nine and a 
 as very skilful 
 ; and accuracy, 
 not a dollar of 
 borrowed type. 
 ; of every kind 
 tlu; editorials, 
 his hahit was 
 10 office was at 
 e irreat tire of 
 eaves. Oliver 
 vidly described 
 espattered with 
 me corner; the 
 >• editorial and 
 rs: the bed of 
 
 tlie editor and publisher on the flooi*. The publishers 
 announced in their first issue their determination to 
 go on as long as they had bread and water to live on. 
 In fact they lived on bread and milk, with a little 
 fruit and a few cakes, which they bought in small 
 shops below. Garrison apologi;'es for the meagreness 
 of the editorials, which, he says, he has but six hours 
 and those at midnight to compose, all the rest of his 
 time and the whole of that of his companion being 
 taken up by the mechanical work. He hoped soon to 
 have a negro apprentice to help them. Let it be 
 remembered that Garrison had in him, as a printer 
 and a writer, the means of earning a sure and com- 
 fortable livelihood, and, as a writer, in a way 
 gratifying to the ambition which his detractors paint 
 as his ruling motive. Supposing even that his whole 
 subsequent career was a series of ern^rs, honour antl 
 gratitude would surely be due to him who, at twenty- 
 six, with few friends and no resources l)ut those (jf his 
 own heart and brain, (H)uld thus sincerely devote 
 himself to a life's battle with a gigantic power of evil. 
 That his devotion was sincei'e, his perseverance for 
 thirty-live years amidst hardships and discoui'age- 
 ments, of which penury was not the greatest, is the 
 proof. 
 
 It wa"s against nothing less than the world, or at 
 least the world in which lu' lived, that this youth of 
 twenty-six with his humble partner took up arms. 
 
 Slavery was at the height of its power. It had been 
 
 ( 39 ) 
 
Mil 
 
 firmly installed in the Government by the complete 
 victory of Jackson over Quincy Adams ; for Jackson, 
 though opposed to Southern nullification and seces- 
 sionism, was a staunch friend of slavery. Since the 
 conflict which ended in the Missouri Compromise, the 
 slaveowning South had become solid, and no candi- 
 date for the all-coveted Presidency could hope to 
 succeed if he was under its ban. Democrats and 
 Whigs, therefore, alike bent their consciences to its 
 dictation and courted its vote. Its fell influence was 
 to be shown a few years hence by the miserable fall 
 of Webster. It had passed the provisional and pre- 
 carious stage of its existence, had put oil' its apolo- 
 getic attitude, had proclaimed itself righteous and 
 perpetual. Strong in its evil convictions, it wore a 
 sort of moral majesty in comparison with the recreant 
 North. Instead of the quiet demise which had once 
 been its ostensible demand, it had begun to dream 
 not only of endless life but of unlimited extension. 
 The people idolized the Union which had been the 
 source to them of wealth, security and greatness ; and 
 tne threat of secession brandished over their heads by 
 the slaveowner was enough, ■ as in the sequel lament- 
 ably appeared, to bring all with whom political consid- 
 erations were supreme to his feet. The interest of 
 commerce in slavery, since the invention of the cotton 
 gin and the development of the cotton trade, was im- 
 mense, and was apparently bound up with the institu- 
 tion, it being assumed on all hands that without negro 
 
 ( 40 ) 
 
I complete 
 )r Jackson, 
 and seces- 
 Since the 
 Tomise, the 
 [ no candi- 
 [d hope to 
 locrats and 
 mces to its 
 ifluence was 
 iserable fall 
 lal and pre- 
 ii' its apolo- 
 j'hteous and 
 s, it wore a 
 the recreant 
 ich had once 
 in to dream 
 d extension, 
 ad been the 
 eatness; and 
 leir heads by 
 ;quel lament- 
 itical consid- 
 e interest of 
 of the cotton 
 ade, was ini- 
 1 the Institu- 
 ^ithout negro 
 
 labour cotton could not be raised. Nor was the stake 
 of the North in the trade much less than that of the 
 South, since the North largely supplied the capita! 
 and the machinery of distribution, while the debts 
 which Southern improvidence contracted had nmde 
 the North its creditor for an enormous sum. May, 
 the al)olitionist, was called out from an anti -.slavery 
 meeting at New York by a leading merchant of the 
 city who said to him, " Mr. May, we are not sucli 
 fools as not to know that slavery is a great evil, a 
 great wrong. But it was consented to by the found - 
 era of our Republic. It was provided for in the Con- 
 stitution of oui' Union. A great portion of the 
 property of the Southerners is invested under its 
 sanction : and the business of the North as well 
 us the South has become adjusted to it. Tliere 
 are millions upon millions of tlollars due from 
 Southernei to the merchants and mechanics of 
 this city alone, the payment Ot which would be 
 jeopardized by any rupture between the North 
 and the South. We cannot afi'ord, sir, to let yt)U 
 and your associates succeed in your en<le4ivour to 
 overthrow slavery. It is not a matter of principle 
 with us: it is a matter of business necessity. We 
 cannot afford to let you succeed : and I have called 
 vou out to let vou know, and to let your fellow-la- 
 bourers know, that w«! do not mean to allow \()U to 
 succeed. We mean, sir, to put you abolitionists 
 
 down — by fair means if we Cfin, by foul uu'aus if we 
 
 (41 } 
 
'' i 
 
 must." It is still rather hard for a ricli man to enter 
 into the kingdom of heaven. Slavery was not less 
 clearly an economical mistake than it was a moral 
 wrong, slave labour being more costly than free 
 labour, as well as le.^ intelligent. This was de- 
 monstrable, but it was slavery that owed tlie mil- 
 lions to the merchants of New York. Nor was the 
 influence of the South over the North political and 
 commercial ahme, it was also social. Aristocracy, 
 albeit the aristocracy of slaveowners or even of 
 slave-breeders, imposed upon the mercantile Yankee, 
 though in all essential respects he was far superior to 
 the Southerner, as Venetian aristocracy had once im- 
 posed uj)on the mercantile Florentine. Southern 
 magnates brought their high airs and their ostenta- 
 tion of chivalry to Washington and the Northern 
 watering-places, while Southern youtlis were the mir- 
 rors of fashion in Northern universities. Slavery 
 gave the tone to society through all its circles down 
 even to the lowest. The bootblack was for slavery as 
 well as the Boston or New York financier, and felt 
 that he caught a ny of aristocracy thereby. The 
 Roman Catholic Irish, who were now innnigrating in 
 large numbers, indemnified themselves for their 
 depression in their own country by setting their feet 
 upon the negro, whose subjection they learned to prize 
 as giving them a comparative elevation, and they 
 went almost as one man into the party of slavery. 
 
 The War of 1812, made by a triumph of Southern 
 
 (42) 
 
passion over Northern princij^le liad been followed at 
 once by a triumph of military sentiment and a relax- 
 ation of Puritan morality. Moreover, the development 
 of connnorce and the opening of new mines of wealth 
 by the extension of canals, the introduction of rail- 
 ways and the spread of settlement, had turned the 
 minds of men to gain, nuulc them desirous of political 
 ([uiet, and indisposed thei.i to moral effort. Under 
 such influences people easily laid any flattering* unc- 
 tion to their souls, persuading themselves that the 
 slaves ^\'ere better off* than they would have been in 
 Africa, that they could not Ije set free without danger 
 of a massacre, that the constitutional impediments to 
 emancipation were insuperable, that the faith of 
 the nation pledged to the South must be kept, an<l 
 that, as the American Republic was the peculiar care 
 of heaven, everything nuist come right in the end. 
 8eldo!n has a nation been in a more dangerous mood 
 or more in need of the moral crusader. The churches 
 were controlled, and the pulpits either silenced or 
 tuned in favour of slavery by the conniiercial inter- 
 ests and the political or social conservatism which 
 prevailed in the congregations. The Press was under 
 the censorship of slavery, which extended not only 
 over journalism but over literature. Foreign books, 
 if they containe<l anti-slavery sentiments, were expur- 
 gated for the American market. So national moral- 
 ity was dumb. 
 
 ( 43 ) 
 
il 
 
 V. 
 
 AxciKXT slavery wnn hn*} enough. Let those who 
 dote on Athenican civilization turn from the pages of 
 Phito or the marbles of Phidias to the lines in the 
 " Frogs" of Aristophanes playfully rehearsing the 
 tortures which were applied to the slaves at Athens, 
 though there the system of slavery was lightest. 
 Let those who are captivated by the stately aspect of 
 liigh and cultivatetl society at Rome think of the 
 slave chained to the rich man's threshold, of the 
 gangs of slaves immured in dungeons and worked 
 like beasts, of the servile wars and the horrors of the 
 Nengeanee wliich followetl, of the filthy licentiousness 
 of which slaves were the wretched ministers. Yet 
 ancient slavery came to some extent in the course of 
 nature. It seemed natural and right to a philosopher 
 like Aristotle, whose writings are, for his age, full of 
 humanity, and who could speak beautifully and ten- 
 derly about affection. In itself it did no more vio- 
 lence to the moi'al sense of the slaveowner than is 
 done to the moral sense of the red ant when he 
 makes the black ant his thrall. It was to some ex- 
 tent justified by the circumstances of the community 
 in days in which war was the general state and the 
 
 freemen formed a warrior class defending the iudus- 
 
 ( 44 ) ■ 
 
trial class, to nnIioiu tht> t'ujuynient of security partly 
 made up for the lack of freedom. Nor was it hoj^e- 
 less, since, there being no insurniountahle barrier of 
 I'ace, the slave might look for a real emancipation, 
 which placed him or his children on a level with the 
 master class, and in the Imperial Court of Rome 
 sometimes ga\'e him the key of immense wealth and 
 overweennig power. Even without emancipation 
 there might be real friendship and almost moral 
 e(iuality between a good master like Cicero and a 
 slave like Tiro, In this way and with reference to 
 the ultimate outcome in human evolution, ancient 
 slavery might be regarded as a sort of educational 
 process applied to an inferior race. The possession of 
 unlimited power over fellow-men must always cor- 
 rupt ; but ancient slavery did not so far corrupt the 
 master class as to prevent it from producing noble 
 and l)eautiful characters as well as rendering the 
 most brilliant intellectual services to civilization, 
 Negro slavery in the Southern States, and wherever 
 else it existed, was a hideous anachronism ; it was a 
 winter fallen into the lap of the human spring. It 
 was utterly shocking to the moral sense, as the 
 remorse of the more virtuous slaveowners and the 
 fury of the more wicked alike proved. If ever it 
 had been patriarchal, even in the best households 
 of the South, it had retained no vestige of that char- 
 acter in the plantations where slaves were worked to 
 
 death like beasts for the profit of a master who 
 
 ( 45) 
 
1 
 
 never saw tliein, l)y un overseer who scarcely knew 
 their nniiies. Calhoun's line theory oi" the n ore com- 
 plex and perfect family, with its three domestic rela- 
 tions instead of two, was belied liy every plantation, 
 and l»y every bn'ge plantation most sif»nally lielied. 
 Besides, where was tlu' family of the slave ? That 
 a subject race was undergoing" a process of educa- 
 tion could not seriously l>e maintained when it was 
 denied the freedom of instruction even in the rudi- 
 ments of knowledge, freedom of meeting even foi* 
 the purpose of worship, freedom of intercourse, free- 
 dom of locomotion — everything, in short, that could 
 raise it above the condition of Iteasts. The negroes 
 were deliberately an<l systematically emliruted by 
 law, lest l)ecoming intelligent they should aspire to 
 liberty. Moral elevations there could bo none where 
 stable wedlock was denied and parental relations were 
 set at naught : husband and wife, parent and child, 
 being sent to separate auction blocks when the inter- 
 est of the slaveholder gave the word. It was averred 
 that the slave was happy. If he was, even in the 
 most swinish way, why the chains, why the l)lood- 
 hounds, why the demands upon the North for increas- 
 ed strictness in the execution of the fugitive slave 
 laws ? Why was it assumed by the opponents of 
 emancipation that if the slaves were set free their 
 first act wonld be the massacre of their masters ? 
 The accounts of cruelties practised on slaves it is 
 
 needless and would be odious to rehearse. They are 
 
 (40) 
 
 ^1! 
 
scjirct'ly knew 
 blu' iiMU'c coin- 
 (louu'stic ivbi- 
 'ly plnntntioii. 
 i^-nally liolio«l. 
 slnvu ? Tliat 
 ;ess of oducn- 
 1 wlion it was 
 1 ill tlie rii<li- 
 itiiif^ oven t'oi* 
 icrconi'so, fruo- 
 rt, that could 
 
 Tlio negroes 
 eniln'uted by 
 juld aspire to 
 JO none where 
 relations were 
 ent and child, 
 hen the inter- 
 t was averred 
 
 even in the 
 ly the Itlood- 
 th for increas- 
 ngitive slave 
 opponents of 
 set free their 
 leir masters ? 
 
 slaves it is 
 se. They are 
 
 as well attested as they are sickeninfj.* In TeiniessiM', 
 a Slave State Imt not a centre of the venom of sla\ ..y, 
 a negro who had killed his master was Imrned alive at 
 a slow fire, a thousand citi/ens coolly looking- on, an«l 
 the editor of a paper, who was a Methodist preacher, 
 saying that he would himself not only have taken 
 part but have proposed that the negro, instead of 
 being merely burned, should 1)0 torn to pieces with red 
 hot pincers.f If the large plantation, where the over- 
 seer was driving the negroes to death that he nn'ght 
 boast of having raised the largest crop, was the chief 
 I scene of these horrors, they would not fail to occur 
 
 i more or losrs wherever passion was unl)ridle<l an<l its 
 
 i 
 
 k victims wore helpless, while the community took the 
 
 guilt upon its conscience and compromised its morality 
 by connivance if not by tacit approbation. Unlike 
 ancient slavery, negro slavery in America was hope- 
 less, for colour was a fatal bar to fusion, and the lot 
 of the freed negro, a hated and suspected pariah, was 
 little better than that of the slave. The effect on the 
 character of the masters couM not be doul)tful. It 
 was deplored by the best men of the South. Gentle- 
 men no doubt the South had, with the ease an<l grace 
 of manner and the flowing hospitality which assured 
 position, wealth and freedom from toil or trade 
 
 * See Rankin's " Letters on American Slavery," especially Letter VHL See also 
 Olmsted's "Journeys and Explorations in the Cotton Kingdom," Vol. n., Chapter 6. 
 
 t Olmsted's "Journeys and Explorations in the Cotton Kingdom," U., 362. 
 Another case is given in the same volume, page 349. Judge Jay told Mr, Olm- 
 sted that he had evidence in his possession e\erv vear for twentv vuars. 
 
 ( 47 ) * 
 
m*'. 1 .1 ,«iMit*(iu'. >,u I'..*. !j 1 1 
 
 'WMMP 
 
 III lliilll 
 
 .lit 
 
 nUl 
 
 !,„,. I,ut the normal outcome of domes- 
 often l.oa«co . ^^ '^ ^.,,^ ^he bully. Un- 
 
 '-•^-P"''™""/!!.!., the Au.encan »lave. 
 ,„v„er «a» cou»e.ou»ly *"""?' f . ^,,^t u,, 
 
 -^™:ru;:urt»ot:mai...th.aheto 
 
 say aho. the ex .^^ ^,^^ ^^j, „t slave- 
 
 ■"'' ""' T hirin the place of the foreign 
 breedhig, which lad take 1 ^ ^^^^ ^^^^^, 
 
 „lave trade, must have en ^^ „,,, ,„_, 
 
 acterof a gentleman. Ihe >°"'»P ^„,j 
 
 „>,v,ea and compamons ni gios. 
 
 women could iieNei ^^ ^^^^ ^^^j. 
 
 trade, ^he " mean wh.tes^^t J^^^^^^^^^ 
 
 '''°^r"u;:So*t:.ave,anaUvedaUfe 
 they deemed the '^'^"8^ j^;,, they were ser- 
 
 Uttle better than vag». ^^^^^, ,,,,. 
 
 ^•"^ '^^"'Tn oTt^ eS pride of race. Drinking. 
 liearts were full of the I .^^^^es. 01m- 
 
 ,,„tlyitwa«;>a«-^iJ„,leomfortor 
 luxury and Ingh « w ^^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^^ ,^^ 
 
 refinement, on the top. ^^^ hospitality 
 
 literature or science. Ev^i^th 
 
nnes- 
 Un- 
 
 y 
 
 If 
 
 it the 
 d from 
 I he to 
 lUvttoeH 
 t' slave- 
 i'oreign 
 le char- 
 s reared 
 ess and 
 hyranuy. 
 men and 
 ss of his 
 not eni- 
 
 >'' 
 
 which 
 
 ^-ed a lift- 
 v:ere ser- 
 ugh their 
 Drinking, 
 es. 01m- 
 society in 
 ^^ar, Evi- 
 a veneer of 
 comfort or 
 tes had no 
 hospitality 
 
 of the South seems to have Iktii little more than tlic 
 rich man's craving for company in a social waste. 
 The higher industries, with their civilizing inMuenee, 
 were excluded not only by the ect)nomical hut by the 
 social and political conditions of a system which a 
 body of free and intelligent mechanics wt)uld have 
 overturned. The commerce of the whites with the 
 black women who were in their powei* could nt>t fail 
 to impair the digirlty and purity of domestic life. 
 Nor could property in female (piadroons and octo- 
 roons fail to give birth to a commerce of lust. If 
 the consignment by a heartless white of his own ott- 
 spring to the slave-driver was rare, it was not un- 
 known. The churches, instead of combating the 
 power of evil, put on its livery, consecrated its wrong- 
 doings, and wrested tlu; gospel to its service. (Jne 
 church sanctioned polygamy when ordained by the 
 cupidity of the slave-breeder, and another endorsed 
 the rule excluding negro evidence. Not one of them 
 seems even to have preached mercy, much less justice. 
 All this may be freely I'ecounted now, sin'".' the South 
 having not only lost slaveiy l)ut renounced it, the 
 whole story belongs to the past ; though something 
 of the barbarous recklessness of human life engen- 
 dered by the system lingers in its old seats, and the 
 lynching of negroes instead of bringing them to 
 regular trial, is still terribly common at the South. 
 In its fall the Slave Power was glorified by splendid 
 
 feats of arms. The virtues of the soldier, if any, 
 I) ( 49 ) 
 
 III 
 
' I 
 
 were thoHo which a system teaching scorn of in- 
 dustry was likely to breed in the dominant race. 
 But it was by the love of country, and by the spirit 
 of incn defending their liomes against an invader, 
 more than by slavery, or even by the \n''uhi of race, 
 that the arm of Southern heroism was moved. Of 
 the many who fought bravely on tliose famous fields 
 only a mere fraction were owners of slaves. 
 
 The a<lvocates of slavery wrought tlu'mselves uj) 
 at last to the belief that it was the indispensable 
 basis of a Republic. They talked even of relighting 
 the torch of liberty at the altar of slavery. They 
 had the ancient Republics in their minds, as had 
 Rousseau when he lapsed into the same heresy. But 
 those Repul)lics were not democracies ; they were oli- 
 garchies of warriors more or less narrow. To a truly 
 democratic Republic, such as the United States aimed 
 at being, slavery with its oligarchy of masters was 
 deadly poison. This its advocates themselves pro- 
 claimed when they poured scorn on a commonwealth 
 of " greasy mechanics," and avowed their belief that 
 slavery would be the right relation everywhere be- 
 tween the employer and the employed. On the other 
 hand, it had great political strength of an aggressive 
 kind. Its political leaders and representatives in Con- 
 gress were held together by a firm bond of social and 
 commercial interest. Their minds were entirely de- 
 voted to politics ; they had almost a life tenure of 
 
 their seats, while other members of Congress held 
 
 ( "0 ) 
 
their iseats l>y tlio prt'canoiis ti'imiv of })<>])ular t'li- 
 vour : amidst an assomV)ly of meroliants and platform 
 spcakcrH they wen' statesmen ; in this ivspeet the 
 country lias not since produced their j)eers. They 
 imposed by their assumption of social superiority, l»y 
 the loftiness of their bearing-, and by their familiarity 
 with the haViit and lan^ua^e of connnand. No won- 
 (U'r if the Republic was almost at tlu ii- feet. 
 
 In 1(S81 there was a rising;- of slaves at Southamp- 
 ton, in V'ir^inia, headed by \at Turner, who a))pears 
 to have been half-era/ed. Tlie houses of planters 
 were burned, planters and their families were slain. 
 A terrible outpouring- of wiiite venj^eance ensued. 
 In an assembly of the Virginia Lef»;islature which 
 followed, voices were raised against slavery as the 
 bane and peril of the State. 'IMiese were the dyin^- 
 accents of the anti-.slavery sentiment which had been 
 freely expressed by Virginian patriots such as Jctl'er- 
 son and Randolph. More in keeping- with existing- 
 sentiment was the protest that " a. slaveowner had as 
 good a right to the child of his own slavt? as to the 
 foal of his own mare," Abolitionism in Virginia was 
 thenceforth silent, and the hope of Emancipation from 
 within had breathed its last. 
 
 If slavery did not exist in the North, caste did, 
 and with even greater intensity than at the South, 
 where the planters' children, brought up by negro 
 
 nurses, learned habits of familiarity with the i-ace, and 
 
 ( 51 ) 
 
 HI 
 
 
Ilii 
 
 m 
 
 where the bkiek man liaving ns a skive no more social 
 pretensions than a dog, the white man could not be 
 compromised by tlie contact. At the North the negro 
 was free, but a pariah or something lower still. He 
 was not allowed to associate with the whites in any 
 way. His children could not be in the public school 
 with tliem. He could not sit down to table with 
 them, or sit beside tliem in the theatre or the street 
 cars. He could not worship beside them in the 
 churches, where it was proclaimed in the name of 
 Christ that God had made all races of one blood to 
 dwell together on the earth. He was excluded from 
 all professions, from all the higher callings, and even 
 from all handicraft of the skilled kind, nothing being- 
 left to him but manual and menial laboui-. "Where is 
 the use," plaintively nmrmured an intelligent negrcj 
 boy, " of my trying to learn when I can never be any- 
 thing but 'a nigger' ?" His presence and touch were 
 hardly less offensive than those of the vilest animal. 
 Most men would pi'obably have thought less of being- 
 convicted of sharp ])ractice in connnerce or of any 
 crime of violence short of murder, than of a serious 
 deroii'ation from white caste in intv'rcourse with a 
 negr<x The very mention of a mixed marriage would 
 have been worse than blasphemy. Had the slaves 
 been white the whole scene would have been changed, 
 and slavery would have been swept away in a flood 
 
 of philanthropic sentiment. It was colour tliat was 
 
 (■52) 
 
 ivr, 
 
fatal, and fatal in a sonso in wln'cb porliaps Oan-ison 
 novor allowed liis thoughts to dwell. The only bright 
 point in the horizc^n was Englan<l, where humanity 
 liad triumphed and Emancipation was close at hand. 
 
 V ^"' ) 
 
VI. 
 
 1 t 
 
 i 
 
 Emancipat[()X iininodiMto, unconditional, and with- 
 out compensation — such was the platform on which 
 (iarrison liad now taken his stand, and such were the 
 doctriiK^s which the Liberator, a.« soon as it ffot fairlv 
 iui<lei- way, began to preach. The first article fol- 
 lowe<l upon the belief in the utter wrongfulness and 
 sinfulness of slavery, which was the necessary basis of 
 tlie moral and religious movement, and in firmly 
 grasping which Garrison had grasped the sole and 
 certain assurance of victory. If man couhi have no 
 pi'operty in man, he could no more have property for 
 a day than for evei*. The slave was at once entitled 
 to his freedom : he was entitled to set himself free if 
 he could by Hight or by insurrection. If the slaves 
 who were sliipped in Mr. Todd's vessel had risen upon 
 the crew, tuml)led into the hold or even killed those 
 who resisted, anci carried the vessel into a free port, 
 they would liave been doing right in the eyes of all 
 but tlie slave-owner and his friends. For the same 
 i-eason it was logical to protest against any condition 
 not imposed in the interest of the slave. But con- 
 ditions might be imposed in the slave's interest, to 
 smooth and safeguard a transition which no reason- 
 able man could believe to be free from peril. The 
 
 ( ^4) 
 
policy of provisional apprenticeship was adopted for 
 that purpose by the British Parliament, and though 
 without practical success, surely without moral wrong. 
 Hut in refusing to sanction compensation to tlie slave- 
 owner, Garrison would surely have gone astray. 
 Wluit is or is not property in tlie eye of morality, 
 morality must decide. What is or is not property in 
 a particular connnunity, is decided by the law of that 
 counnunity. The law of the American connnunity 
 liad sanctioned the holding of property in slaves, 
 and though the slave was not bound by that law the 
 connnunity itself was. Men had been induced to 
 invest their money in slaves under the guarantee of 
 tlie public faith, and Emancipation without compensa- 
 tion, so far as the Republic was concerned, would have 
 been breach of faitli and robbery. Tlie slaveowner 
 liad sinned no more in holding slaves than the State 
 had sinned in sanctioning his possession, and if a 
 sacrifice was to be made to public morality, equity 
 demaniled that it should be made by all alike. The 
 British legislature, overriding extremist proposals, 
 acted upon this principle and it did right. What the 
 conscience of the individual slaveowner might dictate 
 to him, was another affair. To declare that there 
 sliould be no compensation, and thus to threaten a 
 powerful body of proprietors with beggary, would 
 have been to make the conflict internecine. After the 
 Civil War it was sorrowfully recalled that the price of 
 
 the slaves w^ould have been about six hundred millions, 
 
 (55) 
 
wliicli would liavo Itoon a rlioap rodoinption from a 
 strufifii'lo wliieh cost rinlifc t.lionsan<l iiiillionH of nionov, 
 1tosi<l(\s tljo I)lo()(l an<l havoc. If the Lihrrafor had 
 been instrnmcntal in provontiuf)- sucli a settlement, a 
 dark sluule of resixmsibilitv wouhl rest upon its 
 ])}i.^'es. I)ut it is not likely that the settlement ever 
 conld hiive taken ]>l{ice. Not tlu' comnuM'cial interest 
 .•done of the slMV(>owner, hut his jioliticid ambition 
 ;nid his soci;d ])ride W(M'(^ boniul n]) with the institu- 
 tion. Tf he had Iumm) willing' to part with his crops of 
 cotton and tobacco, he would not have been willing" to 
 ])',\yt with his aristocracy. Nor would it have been 
 easy, when the State had paid its njoney, to enforce 
 the real fulfilment of the barf»ain. Even now when 
 the S<Mith has been humbled by deiVsit, it is not easy 
 to make her obcv th(^ law. Nothinp- more than the 
 substitution of serfaoe for slavery would probably 
 hare been the result. Any such scheme, howtn-er, 
 would scarcely have be«Mi feasible for a government 
 like that of the American Republic. The redemption 
 of the slaves in the West Indies had been conceived 
 and carri(>d into effect b}' the Imperial Government 
 and Parliament, acting upon the dependencies with 
 autocratic power. A Czar conceived and carried into 
 effect the emancipation of the serfs in Russia. But a 
 measure of this kind could hardly have been con- 
 ceived, much less could it have been carried into 
 effect, amidst the fluctuations of popular suffrage and 
 
 the distractions of political party. It is probable that 
 
 ( 5G ) 
 
the eoiifliot was rcjilly in'cpn^ssil)!*', jind (loomed to 
 end o\i\n\r in sejwinitioii oi* ('iv il Wmv. 
 
 Th(» Haliitatory of tlic //ihcrahn' avowed that its 
 editor iiu'ant to speak out witliout restraint, "I will 
 be as luirsli ns truth mid as uncoinproiuisin^- as justice. 
 On this subject I <1<) not wish to think, oi' speak, or 
 write, with moderation. Xo! No! Tell a man whose 
 hous(^ is on tire to ^ive a, moderate alarm ; tell him to 
 moderately rescue his wife IVom tlu^ hands ol* the 
 ravisher : tidl the mother to gradually exti'icati^ hei- 
 l)a]»e from the fire into which it lias fallen : — hut urge 
 me not to use moderation in a cause like th(^ present. 
 I am in earnest — I will not (Mpiivocate — I will not ex- 
 cuse — I will not retreat a sinpfle inch— and I will he 
 heard." This promise was amply k«»pt. Some of 
 (iarrison's best friends, and of the' l)est fi'iends of his 
 caus(\ complainecl of the severity of his lanf!fua|i;e, an«l 
 their complaint cannot be set aside as unfounded. 
 Railing accusations are a mistake, even when th(^ 
 delinquent is Satanic. TTnmeasured and indiscrim- 
 inate language can never be justified, Washington 
 had inherited an evil kind of property and an im- 
 perfect morality in connection with it ; but no one 
 could have called him a man-stealer : and there were 
 still owners of slaves to whom the name as little be- 
 longed. Citations of the controversial invective of 
 Luther and Milton will avail us nothing : the age of 
 Luther and Milton was in that respect uncivilized. 
 
 A youth dealing with a subject on which his feelings 
 
 ( C7 ) 
 
1 
 
 \ 
 
 1 
 
 ' i 
 
 'I 
 
 
 i I 
 
 
 
 i 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 i 
 
 
 11 
 
 arc t'Xc*ite(.l, is sure to l>u uiimousured. However, it was 
 to the conscience of the nation that Garrison was 
 appealing, and an appeal to conscience is unavoidaVjly 
 severe. Nothing will warrant the appeal but that 
 which necessitates severity. The voice of conscienct; 
 herself within us is severe. In answer to the clergy- 
 men who shrank from him, or professed to shrink 
 from him, on account of the violenct; of his language, 
 (larrison might have pointed, not only to passages in 
 the Hebrew prophets, but to passages in the ciiscourses 
 of Christ. He might have reminded them of the 
 language in which they were themselves, t;very Sun- 
 day in the pulpit, warning men to turn fi'om every 
 sin Imt slavery. With no small force he pleaded 
 that he had icebergs of indifference round him, and 
 it would take a good deal of fire in himself to melt 
 them. To hate and denounce the sin either in the 
 aV)stract, or as that of a class or conununitv, is not to 
 hate or denounce the individual sinner. To an in- 
 <lividual slaveowner who had shown any disposition to 
 hear him, Garrison would have l»een all courtesy and 
 kindness. We may be sure that he would have clasped 
 at once to his heart any slaveowner who had re- 
 pented. Having, to Uf-e his own iigure, taken in his 
 hand the trumpet of God, he resolved to blow a strong 
 l)last. He could not believe that there was a sin with- 
 out a sinner, nor could he separate the sinner from 
 the sin. There was much wrath but no venom in 
 
 the man. If there had been venom in him it would 
 
 ( 58) 
 
liav(> Ih'HimI hiH coUiiteiinnce hikI depurtiueiit. Mis.s 
 
 Martineaii, not an nncritical observer, was profoundly 
 
 imprcHsed with the saintlike expression and the sweet- 
 
 iKiss of his maimer. In private and in his family he 
 
 was all gentleness and affection. Let it be said, too, 
 
 that he set a noble example to controversial editors in 
 
 his fair treatment of his opponents. Not only did he 
 
 always give insertion to their replies, but he copied 
 
 their criticisms from other journals into his own. 
 
 Fighting for freedom of discussion, hu was ever loyal 
 
 to his own principle. 
 
 What is certain is that the Liberator, in spite of 
 
 the smallness of its circulation, which was hardl}' 
 
 (Miough to keep it alive, soon told. The South was 
 
 moved to its centre. The editorials probably would 
 
 not have caused much alarm, as the slaves could not 
 
 read, Wliat was likely to cause more alarm was the 
 
 frontispiece, which spoke plainly enough to the slave's 
 
 eye. It represented an auction at which " slaves, 
 
 liorses and other cattle" were being offered for sale, 
 
 and a whipping-past at which a slave was being 
 
 Hogged, In the backgroand was the capitol at Wasli- 
 
 iugton, with a flag inscribed •' Liberty" floating over 
 
 the dome. There might have been added the motto 
 
 of Virginia, .sic semper Tyrannii^, and perhaps 
 
 some extracts from the republican orations with 
 
 wliich even now the Soutli was celebrating the xio.- 
 
 tory of French liberty over Charles X. On seeing the 
 
 Liherotor the realm of slavery bestirred itself. A 
 
 ( 59 ) 
 
 ;;!l 
 
 
I'i! 
 
 ; :, 
 
 Vigilanco Association took tlic mnttor in li}in<l. First 
 came fiery and lilood thirsty editorials; tlien Mnony- 
 nums tlireats ; tlieii attempts liy legal enactment to 
 prevent the circnlation of the Lihmitov at the Sonth. 
 The Grand Jury of North Carolina found a true 1 >ill 
 against Garrison for the circulation of a paper of 
 seditious tendency, the penalty for which was whip- 
 ping and imprisonment for the first oft'ence, and 
 death without benefit of clergy for the second. Tlie 
 General Assend)ly of (Jeorgia offered a reward of five 
 thousand dollars to an}^ one who, under the laws of 
 that State, should arrest the editor of the Liherator, 
 Vtring him to trial, and prosecute him to conviction. 
 The Soufjfi reproached Boston with allowing a hatter}' 
 to bo planted on her soil against the ramparts of 
 Southern institutions. Boston felt the reproach, and 
 showed that she would gladly have suppressed the 
 incendiary print and perhaps have delivered up its 
 editor, hut the law was against her, and the mass of 
 her people, though wavering in their allegiance to 
 niorality on the question of slavery, were still loyal 
 to freedom of opinion. When a Southern Governor 
 appealed to the Mayor of Boston to take proceed- 
 ings, the Mayor of Boston could only shake his head 
 and assure his Southern friend that Garrison's paper 
 was of little account. The reward offered by the Gen- 
 eral Assembly of Georgia looked very like an incite- 
 ment to kidnapping. Justice to the South requires 
 
 it to be said that nothing of the kind was ever at- 
 
 ( 60 ) 
 
 l| 
 
tempted, nor was the hand of a Southern government 
 visible in any outrage committed against nbolitionists 
 at the North, though individual Southerners miglit 
 take part, and the spirit of the Southern fire-eater 
 was always tliere. 
 
 It was just at this time that the South and its client- 
 age at the North were thrown into a paroxysm of ex- 
 citement by the Bloody Monday, as Nat Turner's i-is- 
 ingat Southampton was called. The rising was easily 
 suppressed, and Virginia saw, as Jamacia has since 
 seen, how cruel is the panic of a dominant race. Not 
 the slightest connection of the outbreak with North- 
 ern abolitionism was traced. That Garrison or any- 
 one connected with him ever incited the slaves to re- 
 volt, or said a word intentionally wliich could lead to 
 servile war, seems to be utterly mitrue. His preacli- 
 ing to the slaves, on the contrary, was always patience, 
 submission, abstinence from violence, while in his own 
 moral code he carried non-resistance to an extreme. 
 Moreover, his championship held out hojoe., and what 
 goads to insurrection is despair. The most incendiary 
 tiling ever uttered was the judgment of Chief Justice 
 Taney, who laid it down tliat the slave had no rights 
 against his master, since it plainly followed, if the 
 slave had no rights against his master, that the master 
 had no rights against the slave, and that the slave was 
 morally at liberty when lie could to steal the master's 
 goods or cut his throat. Of the evils of slavery tlie 
 
 Liher(dor could hardly speak in words more inflam- 
 
 (01 ) 
 
r'\ 
 
 inatory than tlione which had been iiwefl hy the Vir- 
 ginian Jefferson and Randolph, or even than those 
 which were used by some members of tlie Virginian 
 Assembly in 1«S31. To suppose that tlie shives when 
 set free would fall upon their masters and unu'der 
 them was absurd : they miglit rise to break their 
 chains, but why should they rise when tlieir chains 
 were broken? Mr, BiiTiey's slaves, when emancipated, 
 cheerfully took service under him as free lal>ourers. 
 The horrors of St. ])omingo were connnitted not by 
 free negroes but by slaves grievously oppressed, 
 among whom had been thrown the torch of revolu- 
 tion and civil war. More than once the whites have 
 massacred the blacks, but the blacks have never in a 
 state of freedom massacred the whites. When at last 
 the slaves in the South were enfranchised by North- 
 ern arms, iiardly a single case of outrage connnitted 
 by them against their masters was recorded. The 
 masters, as well as the abolitionists, are entitled to 
 the benefit of that fact, while the slaves are entitled 
 to it most of all. 
 
 The iiearest approach made by Garrison to strcmg 
 measures was his approval of the Quaker policy of 
 extinguishing slavery by refusing to buy its pro<lucts, 
 or boycotting it, to use the now familiar term. He 
 does not seem, however, to have relied greatly on this 
 plan, nor was it worth much. Products are indis- 
 tinguishably blended ; interests are blende<l still more 
 
 indistinguishably ; the Quaker, if he was in trade, 
 
 (62) 
 
 if 
 
tliouglj ho iiii^Mit refuse to wear a cotton shirt or to 
 smoke tobacco, could never }»c safe against havin^^ 
 ^'ains made by the sale of cotton or tobacco in jiis 
 ])ocket. 
 
 Hardlv less arduous tiuin the war to be wniicd 
 a^'ainst Slavery in the South was the war to be wa^ed 
 amiinst the exclusiveness of race at the North. Oarri- 
 son bravely trampled upon caste, and in every way 
 identifii <1 himself personally witli the negroes. Moral 
 courage in those daw could no fui'ther ^o. His efrv>its 
 ill tliis dii'ection, h Avever, we cannot help le^ardinjL;' 
 with a pensive mis^-ivint^. He, like other enthusiasts 
 (►f Abolition, had persuaded himself that colour was 
 nothing', that the feeling about it was a mere preju- 
 dice, that the Black Man not only was a brother to 
 be taken at ,onee to the white man's heart, Init was 
 in every respect, intellectual as well as moral, the 
 white man's etpial, and, to prove himself so, wantecl 
 nothing' but education. To the allegation of some 
 pio-sla\ery fanatics that the negro was not a man, 
 or not of the same species as the white, the existence 
 on a large scale of a mixed breed, the offspring of 
 white lust abusing its command of negro women, was, 
 as has alrea<ly been saitl, an answer hideously con- 
 clusive. That the antipathy and the contempt felt 
 for the African were extravagant, and even vile, 
 that they were largely consequent on the brand of 
 slavery which was capable of being remove<l, that 
 
 the negro had never had fair play and Mil he had it 
 
 ( tia ) 
 
: J 
 
 was unjust to disrate liiin, intt'lk'ctually or moi'ally, 
 was most true. In his native land, it might be said, 
 tiu' climate, condnned with the seductive lavishness 
 ot" nature, induced toi"por and represseil efiort. To 
 Hayti, it niiglit be urged, he had been brought in tlu' 
 slave-ship only to pass through a most cruel and 
 degrading bondage into a tornado of revolutionary 
 strife and blood. What he would be in such a 
 country as the United States and under the happiei' 
 training ol* American institutions, still remained to be 
 seen. In Hayti he had produced 'J'oussaint, as to 
 whose character there could be no doubt and as little 
 as to his capacity, since he had the honour of being 
 kidnapped and murdered as a dangerous man by the 
 great Napoleon. But the social delibility of colour 
 unhappily was a dream ; the physical antipathy is 
 a fact which cannot l)e put out of sight ; the intel- 
 lectual inferiority of the negro, as a rule, whether it 
 be congenital and ingrained, or the mere eti'ect of cir- 
 cumstance and thus capable of efi'acement, is a fact not 
 to be gainsaid ; and out of the grave of slavery in 
 the South has risen, apparently defying solution, the 
 problem of the races. To touch the tenderest point : 
 Garrison deniunded the repeal of a Massachusetts law 
 I'ning any one who should marry a negro or an 
 Indian to a white, and he bore with perfect serenity 
 the jeers which his chivalry provoked. But he mar- 
 ried a white woman. Would he have married a 
 
 black ? Could he have borne to see his son bringing 
 
 (64) 
 
or inuially, 
 
 ight bu Htiitl, 
 
 lavisline.sH 
 
 ert'ort. To 
 >uglit in tlu! 
 . cruel jukI 
 
 olutioiitiry 
 
 in such a 
 the happiei* 
 uinecl to be 
 <aint, an to 
 ntl as little 
 ur of beiny- 
 nan by the 
 I of coloui' 
 ntipathy is 
 ; the intel- 
 whether it 
 rt'ect of cir- 
 8 a fact not 
 slavery in 
 >lution, the 
 rest point : 
 lusetts law 
 !gro or an 
 et serenity 
 it he niar- 
 niarried a 
 n bringing' 
 
 home a bjaek wife, or liis daughter in tlie arms of a 
 black husband ? Unless those questions can V»e an- 
 swered in the affirmative, here was a part of the 
 problem, the deptli of which he had not sounded, 
 and the difficult and almost desperate character of 
 which, were he now alive, he would be force<l to ac- 
 knowledge. 
 
 The determination to keep the negro down and 
 deny him education was not nuich less strong at the 
 North than at the South. Prudence Crandall, a school 
 teacher, at Canterbury, Conn., finding that a negro 
 girl would not be admitted among the whites, tried, 
 with Garrison's sanction, to open a school for negro 
 girls alone. The town was in a ferment. Miss 
 Crandall was l)oyc<3tte(l, she and her pupils were 
 insulted, the door and steps of her house were smeared 
 with filth and her well was polluted. As she still 
 hekl her ground, outraged caste procured an en- 
 actment subjecting to fine an«l imprisonment any 
 person wdio should set up anywhere in Connecticut a 
 school for resident coloured pupils not members of 
 the State. When the law was passed, bells were rung 
 and cannon were fired. Miss Crandall was indicted 
 and sent to gaol. Counsel was found for her by 
 Arthur Tappan, who had paid Garrison's fine at Balti- 
 more, and a long law-suit ended in a failure of the 
 prosecution only on technical grounds. But the 
 school was broken up by violence, the house was set 
 
 on fire, assaulted by a midnight mob with clubs and 
 E ( 66 ) 
 
 ■ \\ 
 
 \ ^ 
 
i I 
 
 wrecked ; nor was tliere any redress. Let it he noted 
 tlint these things were done not l>y magnates of New 
 York connuerce or city servants of Mannnon, but by 
 the rural popuhition of a New Enghmd State. A 
 sclienie for founding a negro college at New Haven 
 w^as crushed at once by a protest of the leatling 
 citizens, " as an unwarrantable and dangerous inter- 
 ference with the internal concerns of other States, and 
 as incompatible with the prosperity if not with the 
 existence of the present institutions of learning." 
 The Faculty of Yale, by their silence, approved the 
 manifesto.* 
 
 The Liberator was the voice of one crying in the 
 wilderness ; to give it practical force, embodiment in 
 an organization was required. The New England 
 Anti -Slavery Society was accordingly formed. It took 
 that name and inscribed " immediate emancipation" on 
 its banner, after some pleading in favour of a feebler 
 aim and a milder appellation among tlie more timid, 
 wdiose hesitation was overborne by the strong will of 
 Garrison. It was finally organized in the year 1832, 
 in the schoolroom under the African Baptist Church 
 in Belknap Street, Boston. " Of that adjourned meet- 
 ing," says Mr. Johnson, " my recollections are very 
 vivid. A fierce north-east storm, combining snow, rain 
 and hail in about ecjual proportions, was raging, and 
 the streets were full of slush. They were dark, too, 
 for the city of Boston in those days was very econom- 
 
 •Johnsoii's "Ciarrisoii and the Anti-Slavery Movement," 119-128. 
 
 (66) 
 
b l>c noted 
 es of New 
 311, but by 
 ■^tate. A 
 !W Haven 
 e leading 
 ■ous iiiter- 
 Jtates, and 
 with the 
 J earning." 
 )roved the 
 
 iiig in the 
 )diinent in 
 England 
 1. It took 
 pation" on 
 a feebler 
 ore timid, 
 ng will of 
 ^ear 1832, 
 t Church 
 lied meet- 
 are very 
 now, rain 
 iging, and 
 ilark, too, 
 r econom- 
 
 ical of light on ' Niggor Hill.' It almost secincd as if 
 nature was frowning upon the new elKtrt to al»olish 
 slavery. But the spirits of the little compan}' rose 
 superior to all external circumstances." The preamble 
 of the Constitution was as follows : — 
 
 "We, the undersigned, hold that every person of full 
 ace and sane mind has a ric'lit to immediate freedom 
 from personal bondage of whatsoever kind, unless 
 imposed by the sentence of the law for the commission 
 of some crime. We hold that man cannot, consistently 
 with reason, religion, and the eternal and immutable 
 principles of justice, be the property of man. We 
 hold that whoever retains his fellow-man in bondage 
 is guilty of a grievous wrong. We hold that a mere 
 dift'erence of complexion is no reason why any man 
 should be deprived of any of his natural rights, or 
 subjected to any political disability. While we 
 advance these opinions as the principles on which we 
 intend to act, we declare that we will not operate on 
 the existing relations of society by other than peace- 
 ful and lawful means, and that we will give no 
 countenance to violence or insurrection." 
 
 There is nothing in this fanatical or extravagant in 
 the eyes of anyone who believes that the negro is a 
 man. Yet it cost the association the allegiance for 
 a time of Child, Loring, and Sewall, two of whom had 
 been the pecuniary mainstay of the Liberator. Those 
 who signed, to the apostolic number of twelve, were 
 
 William Lloyd GarrisoU; Oliver Johnson, Robert B. 
 
 ( 07 ) 
 
TLill, AnioM Biiffum, WilH.ain J. Siicllino-, Jolm E. 
 Fullt'i*, Moses 'I'luieli*'!*, JosliuH Cotliii, Stillnian B. 
 Ne\vcoi)il>, Benjauiin C. Bacon, Isaac Knapp, and 
 Henry K. Stockton — hardly any of tlieni, according 
 to Mr. Johnson, worth a Imndrcd dollars. However, 
 after signing th y stepped out with glad hearts into 
 the dark and stormy night. The objects of the 
 society were define<l to he "to endeavour, l>y all 
 means sanctioned by law, humanity and religion, to 
 eftect the al)olition of slavery in the United States, 
 to improve the character and condition of the free 
 people of colour, to improve and correct public opinion 
 in relation to their situation and rights, and obtain 
 for them ecpial ci\'il and political rights and privil- 
 eges with the white." A reasonal)le aim, the real 
 equality of the African with the white man in poli- 
 tical capacity being always pre-suj)posed. 
 
 ( <>8 ) 
 
 I 
 
if>-, .Toll 11 E. 
 Stillman R. 
 Knapp, and 
 II, according 
 However, 
 I licaris into 
 L'cts of the 
 our, Ity all 
 
 religion, to 
 lited States, 
 
 of the free 
 ihlic opinion 
 
 an<l obtain 
 
 and privil- 
 ni, the real 
 lan in poli- 
 
 VI. 
 
 The forces placed under Garrison's command by the 
 formation of the New England Anti-Slavery Society 
 were at once led by him to the attack of the Coloni- 
 zation Society, in which he now saw the deadliest foe 
 of his cause, though it liad at one time engaged his 
 sympathy. The declared ol)ject of the Colonization 
 Society was to found on the coast of Africa a colony, 
 such as Liberia is, as an asylum for negroes who had 
 been set free in the South, and at the same time as an 
 experimental seed-plot an<l centre of African civiliza- 
 tion. It is just, as well as charitable, to assume that 
 the intentions of the founders had been sincere and 
 good, though Webster expressed suspicion from the 
 first. The position of a free negro at the Soutli was 
 abject and hopeless, while belief in the necessity of 
 separating tlie races which this policy implied had, 
 «is has already been hinted, a stronoor foundation 
 than Garrisonians were willino- to allow. But tlie 
 Society seems by tliis time to have rc-dly degenerated 
 into a safety-valve for slavery and a drug for the 
 conscience of the Nortli. It uiujuestionably had sin- 
 ister support. As a solution of the ({uestion its policy 
 was almost farcical, since the number of negroes 
 
 whom it could cany oW was a mere driltlet compared 
 
 ( 00 ) 
 
 ti I 
 
r HI. 
 
 1 
 
 with the yearly increase from breeding and the con- 
 traband trade. Its great crime in Garrison's eyes, 
 however, was that it treated the negro as an alien 
 whose presence was a calamity to himself and to the 
 State, not as an American citizen under a cloud of 
 unmerited oppression who ought to be set free and 
 made happy in the land of his birth or adoption. 
 He assailed its doctrines and purposes in a pamphlet 
 deemed his masterpiece. It was certainly a strong 
 point to be able to say that of all the officers of the 
 Society nearly three-fourths were slaveowners, yet 
 not one of them had emancipated a slave to be sent 
 to Liberia ; that the President was the owner of a 
 thousand slaves, and that a former President had 
 offered a large reward to any one who would capture 
 a runaw^ay female and put her into any gaol in the 
 United States. But it was when he came to the as- 
 sumption of tlie perpetual degii^dation of tlie negro 
 that tlie writer's wrath burst into flame. " The de- 
 testation of feeling, the fire of moral indignation, and 
 the agony of soul which I have felt kindling and 
 swelling witliin me, in the progress of this review, 
 under this section reacli the acme of intensity." The 
 doctrine and sentiments of the pamphlet estranged 
 so many as neai'ly to kill the Liherfffor, but its sale, 
 being large, brought timely relief to the excheciuer. 
 
 Garrison now got himself deputed to England 
 where the emissaries of the Society had been enlist- 
 ing sympatliy and support in tlie name of Abolition- 
 
 ( 70 ) 
 
 ■MMMi 
 
y and the coii- 
 farrison's eyes, 
 ro as an alien 
 self and to the 
 der a cloud of 
 e set free and 
 1 or adoption, 
 in a i)aniphlet 
 linly a strong 
 officers of the 
 iveowners, yet 
 lave to be sent 
 he owner of a 
 President had 
 would capture 
 ny gaol in the 
 same to the as- 
 1 of the negro 
 ne. "The de- 
 idignation, and 
 kindling and 
 )f tliis review, 
 tensity." The 
 hlet estranged 
 ", but its sale, 
 3 exche(|uer. 
 I to England 
 1 been enlist- 
 of Altoh'tion- 
 
 ism, and had led astray even Clarkson and others of 
 the elect. Addressing coloured meetings on his road 
 and dodging by his movements persecutors who were 
 on his track, he made liis way to New York and 
 sailed for England as the representative of American 
 Abolitionism, May 2, 1883, being then not twenty- 
 eight years of age. He found the British measure on 
 the eve of becoming law. As it include'] compensa- 
 tion and apprenticeship he was inclined to regard it 
 with disdain, though he might have learned a lesson 
 from i''s steadfast justice if not from its practical wis- 
 dom. He was heartily received, and among other 
 attentions pai'^^ him was invited to breakfast hy Bux- 
 ton. When he entered, his host, instead of taking his 
 hand at once, scanned him with a look of surprise, 
 and inquired with an accent of doubt whether he had 
 the pleasure of addressing Mr. Garrison, of Boston, 
 in the United States. Being told that he had, he 
 lifted up his hands and exclaimed " Why, my dear 
 sir, I thought you were a black man ! and I have con- 
 sequently invited this company of ladies and gentle- 
 men to be present to welcome Mr. Garrison, the black 
 advocate of emancipation from the United States oi 
 America." Garrison took this as a high compliment 
 since it implied a belief that no white American 
 would plead as he had done for the slave. He might 
 further have welcomed the incident as a proof that 
 the negro, in a land where he had not borne the brand 
 of slavery, was not an ol>ject of social abhorrence. 
 
 (7i) 
 
 
 hl\ 
 
 '4 
 
 
! I 
 
 I 
 
 Garrison also luid tlio lionour ol" I (rcuk lasting with 
 Wilbert'orce, and was di^eply impressed by liia serene 
 patience und(.'r liodily suffering, his silver}'- voice, his 
 benevolent smile, the look of intellect in his eye, the 
 union of fluency and modesty in his discoiu'se, the 
 exactness and elegance of his diction, the cond)ination 
 of dignity with aflability and simplicity in his man- 
 ner. The harmony of gentleness with energy and 
 moral might reminded Garrison of Christ and the 
 Apostles. The frail and puny frame curled up on a 
 sofa struck him as a curious contrast to the colossal 
 majesty of Daniel Webster; and he liad yet to see 
 that in Webster's body dwelt a mighty intellect but 
 not so great a soul. Soon after, W^ilberforce died, and 
 at tlie end of the august funeral procession at West- 
 minster Abbey, headed by Wellington and Peel, walk- 
 ed the editor of the Liberator. 
 
 Garrison was successful in his mission. He con- 
 vinced the British Abolitionists, if not that the Colon- 
 ization Society was " the mystery of ini([uity," that its 
 objects were equivocal and that it was undei^erving of 
 their support. To this they set their hands ; Clark- 
 son alone, who was blind and at the mercy of infor- 
 mants, persisting in neutrality for the time. The 
 agent of the Society was discomfited and left the field. 
 Garrison had a successful meeting in Exeter Hall, the 
 temple of Evangelical philanthrophy, and addressed it 
 at great length. Citing the denunciation of the 
 
 American slaveholders by 0'C(jnnell, whose memory 
 
 (72) 
 
m 
 
 niUKt filvvjiys l)o lionouriMl niuoiif^ tliose ol' the enemies 
 
 of slavery, he suid that never was a more just and 
 
 fearless rebuke given to a guilty nation, adding tliat 
 
 whatever responsihility might attach to (ir^'at Britain 
 
 for the introduction of slavery into the United States, 
 
 (and the talk of robbery and kidnapping as things 
 
 that might be entailed, in his opinion was jn'ecious 
 
 absurdity), from the first moment in which the people 
 
 of the United States published their Declaration of 
 
 Independence to the world, they became exclusively 
 
 accountable for the existence and continuancii of 
 
 negro slavery. O'Connell had promised to be at the 
 
 meeting and speak, but he had forgotten all about it. 
 
 He was found at a breakfast just rising to address the 
 
 company. A note of remin<ler having been slipped 
 
 into his hand, he drove oft' at once to the Hall, and, as 
 
 Garrison said, " threw off his magnificent speech as he 
 
 threw off his coat." To Garrison's ear, invective 
 
 against slavery was sure to be magnificent if it was 
 
 full-bodied, and for full-bodied invective O'Connell 
 
 was the man. The American slaveowners, said the 
 
 orator, "are the basest of the base, the must execrable 
 
 of the execrable. I thank God that upon the wings 
 
 of the Press the voice of so humble an individual as 
 
 myself will pass against the westerii breeze — that it 
 
 will reach the rivers, the lakes, the mountains and the 
 
 glens of America — and tliat the friends of liberty 
 
 there will sympathise with me, and rejoice that I 
 
 here tear down the image of libei'ty from the 
 
 (73) 
 
 I ( 
 
 ! 5 
 1 1 
 
rocrcrtiit Imid of Aiiu'i'iea, and condcinii hor as tlie 
 vilest i)f liypocrites, the greatest of liars." The Press 
 did carrv^ these words against tlie western breeze, and 
 they ct)uld not Fail to prepare for (Jarrison a warm 
 reception on his ivtnrn. 
 
 It ninst he own ^- i lie was now, hoth in point of 
 principle and of pel: -■■ .i somewhat slippery ground. 
 It is incundient on a reform i to fulfil all righteous- 
 ness, and to render to Csesar all things that to-day 
 be'long to Cresar, though he may hope that the ulti- 
 mate effect of his preaclimg will he the dethronement 
 of CfBsar and the enthronement of a Ijetter power. 
 Garrison avowed himself, on philanthropic (juestions 
 at least, a cosmopolitan ; he declared that his country 
 was the world, and his countrymen were all man- 
 kind. This was well ; hut the hour of cosmopolitan- 
 ism had not yet fully come, and meantime it was 
 necessary to keep terms with national sentiment not 
 on grounds of policy merely, but because patriotism, 
 which could hardly be dissevered from national senti- 
 ment or even from national pride, was a part of the 
 virtue of ordinary men. However, if Garrison was 
 advancing too fast or too far, it was at all events on a 
 line c>n which, if our most generous hopes are fulfilled, 
 humanity would some day overtake him. 
 
 On his return, Garrison was received as a traducer 
 of his country ; a meeting to organize an Anti-Sla- 
 very Society in the city of N(.'V,^ York, for which he 
 
 chanced to come in, was mobbed, and the Abolition- 
 
 (74) 
 
 i i in n i - TFT""""'-'"'""*'"'"' 
 
 , I ml _ iilMIIHIM 
 
I '!l 
 
 isis wore all driven from the linll except one imper- 
 turbable Quakei-, who retained his seat and discon- 
 certed the invaders by his laconic serenity. A threat- 
 ening mob beset the Liherato)' office at Boston. The 
 pro-slavery press of course opened lire. But Garri- 
 son, in face of the storm ol sliot, nailed his colours 
 to the mast. " I speak tlie truth, painful, humiliat- 
 ing and terrible as it is; and because I am bold and 
 faithful to do so, am I to be branded as the calum- 
 niator and enemy of my country? If to sutler sin 
 upon my brother be to hate him in my heart, then 
 to suffer sin upon my country would be an evidence, 
 not of my love, but hatred of her. Sir, it is l)ecause 
 my affection for her is intense and paramount to all 
 selfish considerations that I do not parley with her 
 crimes. I know that she can neither be truly happy 
 nor prosperous while she continues to manacle and 
 brutalize every sixth child born on her soil. Lyiiig 
 lips are speaking ' peace, peace to her, but she shall 
 not see peace until the tears of her repentance shall 
 have washed away every stain of blood from her es- 
 cutcheon.' " " They," concluded Garrison, " were the 
 real traducers of the country who, by their practices 
 were dishonouring her before the world." This was 
 the true philosophy of the matter, but a populace is 
 not philosophic. 
 
 Here a bright ray of domestic happiness falls on the 
 dark and troubled scene. On September 4th, 1834, 
 
 (Harrison was married to Miss Helen Jienson, whose 
 
 (75) 
 
 !ii 
 
 i If 
 
!| 
 
 d i 
 
 I ! 
 
 i ( 
 
 ; 
 
 * - i 
 
 ratlior WHS a iiienibcr ol' the pliilantliropic circle, tuid 
 wlio had liiiaself been first drawn tt) Garrison as a 
 phihmthropist. Ah soon as it was known that tlie 
 Anial^aniationist was about to l)e married, tlie mouths 
 of the mockers of courst> were opened. They were 
 phiyfully informed in reply that they wouM socm be 
 enabled to decide whether the editor of the Llhovator 
 was ^oing to espouse a white or a black woman. I'he 
 woman whom he did espouse and in whom he found 
 an excellent wife, far from resend)linf( the " Ameri- 
 cans called Africans," as the abolitionists styled the 
 negroes, was plump and rosy, with blue eyes and fair 
 brown hair. In justice to the opponents of Garrison 
 and to those who have inherited the desperate difficul- 
 ties of the race problem, it must l)e noted once more 
 that if he was an Amalgamationist it was in theory 
 only, and that amalgamation lay nearer the root of 
 the whole questioii than he ever allowed himself to 
 perceive. 
 
 Hitherto there had been only the New England 
 Society and some other local societies. A great step in 
 advance was taken Oct. 29, 1888, by the call of a con- 
 vention for the formation of the American Anti-Shuery 
 Society. The call was signed by Arthin* '^i'appan. 
 President, Joshua Leavitt, one of the Managers, and 
 Eliznr Wright, jr.. Secretary of the New York City 
 Anti-Slavery Society. The meeting-place was Phila- 
 delphia, to which in the beginning of Dccem])er the 
 
 Abolitionists made their way, though Wliittier, and 
 
 (70) 
 
ii't'k', and 
 ^on iiH a 
 that the 
 
 mouth.s 
 icy woro 
 
 soon 1)0 
 
 in. The 
 found 
 Aineri- 
 A'led the 
 and fair 
 garrison 
 difficul- 
 ice more 
 II theory 
 root of 
 niself to 
 
 Enghmd 
 '> step in 
 P a con- 
 slavery 
 'ai)pan, 
 'I's, and 
 •k City 
 Phila- 
 er the 
 1", aiul 
 
 |M'ilijips not he alone, had to contend with the ditlieul- 
 ties of a slender [>urse. On the road (Jari'ison ^ot into 
 conversation with a fellow-passeiif^'er wlio did not 
 know liini hy sio-lit, on the suhject of slavery. Tlie 
 stranger was most ravoin-aldy impress«^<l hy (j}ari"ist)n's 
 exposition, and said that ii' all Abolitionists were like 
 him there would he less o[)position to the enterprise, 
 "Hut, sir, depend upon it that hair-hrained, recklcHH 
 fanatic, Oarrisoi*, will damag'e if lie does not ship- 
 wreck any cause." "Allow me, sir, to introduce you 
 to Mr. (jarrison," said a fellow^-delegate, the Rev. S. J. 
 May. On the morning of December the 4th, lietween 
 fifty and sixty (k'le^ates, representing ten of the 
 twelve free States, made their way, greeted as they 
 went with abusive language, to Adelphi Hall, which 
 they found guarde<l by the police. The police, in 
 spite of tlie popular ferment, seems always to have 
 done its duty. The assembly consisted largely of 
 young men. Beriah (Jreen was President of the con- 
 vention. An attempt had been made to get the chair 
 taken by a Philadelphian wdiose character would give 
 the meeting an air of respectability, but of course in 
 vain. Garrison was deputed to draft a Declaration of 
 Principles. This he did l)etween ten at night and 
 eight in the morning, wdien he was found with shutters 
 closed and lamps burning just writing the last para- 
 graph. We may be sure that the matter was ready 
 beforehand in his mind ; perhaps to a great extent had 
 
 taken form. The declaration w^as accepted as he drew 
 
 ( 77 ) 
 
 ,•1 
 
 1 1 
 
p 
 
 pf 
 
 ■i tiliLL 
 
 it, wiili the (•X('('])ti()ii ol' n paraf^'i'.iph dirccti'd no'uinsfc 
 liis lintctl ciu'iiiy, i\\v Coloiilziitioii Society, wliicii was 
 wiHcly stricken out as a iu'imUcss attack on the <lyin^. 
 TIic n()((rl 'riionias Sliiph'y took exception to tlie term 
 " iiiaii-stcalcr" as applied indiscriminately to tlio slave- 
 owners, and, tiKjuii't liisscrupK's, the words " according* 
 to Scriptnr*'" were inserted ; Mr. (Jarrison objecting' on 
 the ground that this would make the rights of man de- 
 pendent upon a text. Mr. May says that he never in 
 his life saw a deeper impression made hy a <locument. 
 "After the voice of the reader had leased, there was a 
 profoun<l silence ft)r several minutes. Our hearts were 
 in perfect unison. There was but one tlumght with us 
 all. Either of the members could have told wluit the 
 whole convention felt. We felt that the word had just 
 been uttered which would be mi<»;hty, through CJod, to 
 the pulling down of the strongholds of slavery." The 
 manifesto is adnurable from Garrison's point of view, 
 and, given entire, it will be a fair exposition of his aims 
 as well as a good specimen of his literary work. 
 
 DECLARATION OF SENTIMENTS. 
 
 The Convention assembled in the city of Philadelphia, to or- 
 ganize a National Anti-Slavery Society, promptly seize the op- 
 portunity to promulgate the following Declaration of Senti- 
 ments, as cherished by them in relation to the enslavement of 
 one-sixth portion of the American people. 
 
 More than fifty-seven years have elapsed since a band of 
 
 patriots convened in this place to devise measures for the de- 
 
 liveru-ice of this country from a foreign yoke. The corner- 
 
 (78) 
 
HtoiH^ H|Min wliicli thoy fniiiulofl the Teniph' nf Fr(U'»l(im whh 
 l»rt>ii(lly tliiH : — "timt all iiioii iiiu cruiitod utiiiiil ; tliat the}' iiru 
 ciulttwed by tlioir Creator with cortain inalieiiaido rij^hts, that 
 Hiin»ii«^ thuHi! aro lifo, Lil)crty, and tho purHiiit of happiiioHH." At 
 tlio sound of their trinupot-call, three inillioiiB of people ro8o uj) 
 art from the Bleep of death and iimhcd to tho strife of blood ; 
 deeming it more glorious to die instantly as freemen, than desir- 
 able to live one hour as slaves. They were few in number, — 
 p(/or in resourees ; but the honest conviction that Truth, Justice 
 and Right Wcre on their side, made them invincible. 
 
 We have met together for the achievement of an enteri)rise 
 without which that of our fathers is incomplete ; and which, for 
 its magnitude, solemnity, and probable results upon the destiny 
 of the world, as far transcends theirs as moi'al truth does phy- 
 sical force. 
 
 In purity of motive, in earnestness of zeal, in decision of pur- 
 pose, in intrepidity of action, in steadfastness of faith, in sincer- 
 ity of spirit, we would not be inferior to them. 
 
 Their princi[)les led them to wage war against their oppres- 
 sors, and to spill human blood like water, in order to be free. 
 Ours forbid the doing of evil that good may come, and lead us 
 to reject, and to entreat the oppressed to reject, the use of all 
 carnal weapons for deliverance from bondage, relying solely 
 upon those which are spiritual, and mighty ti\rough God to the 
 pulling down of strongholds. 
 
 Their measures were physical resistance — the marshalling in 
 arms — the hostile arm'- — the mortal encounter. Ours shall be 
 such only as the opposition of moral purity to moral corruption 
 — the destruction of error by the potency of truth — the over- 
 throw of prejudice by the power of love — and tho abidition of 
 slavery by the spirit of repentance. 
 
 Their grievances, great as they were, were trifling in compari- 
 son with the wrongs and sufferings of those for whom we pkai 
 Our fathers were never slaves — never bought and sold like 
 
 ( 79 ) 
 
 * i'il 
 
: li 
 
 cattle — never shut out from the liglit and knowledge of religion— 
 never subjected to the lash of brutal taskmasters. 
 
 But those for whose emancipation we are striving — constitu- 
 ting at the present time at least one-sixth part of our country- 
 men — are recognized by law, and treated by their fellow-beings 
 as marketable commodities, as goods and chattels, as brute 
 beasts ; are plundered daily of the fruits of their toil without 
 redress ; really enjoy no constitutional nor legal protection from 
 licentious and murderous outriages upon their persons ; and are 
 ruthlessly torn asunder, — the tender babe from the arms of 
 its frantic uKjther — the heart-broken wife from her weeping 
 husband — at the caprice or ])leasure of irresponsible tyrants. 
 For the crime of having a dai'k complexion, they suffer the pangs 
 of hunger, the infliction of stripes, the ignominy of brutal servi- 
 tude. Tliey are kept in heathenisii darkness by laws expressly 
 enacted to make their instruction a criminal oftence. 
 
 These are the prominent circumstances in the condition of 
 more than two millions of our peo])le, the proof of which may 
 be found in thousands of indisputable facts and in he laws of the 
 «laveliolding States. 
 
 Hence we maintain — that, in view of the civil and religious 
 privileges of this nation, the guilt of its oppression is unequalled 
 by any other on the face of the earth ; and, therefore, that it is 
 bound to repent instantly, to undo the heavy burdens, and to 
 let the oppressed go free. 
 
 W'^ further maintain — that no man has a right to enslave or 
 imbrute his brother — to hold or acknowledge him, for one 
 moment, as a piece of merchandise — to keep back his hire by 
 fraud — or to brutalize his mind, by denying him the means of 
 nitellectual, social and moral improvement. 
 
 The right to enjoy liberty is inalienable. To invade it is to 
 Uiurp the prerogative of Jehovah. Every man has a right to 
 his own body — to the products of his own labour — to the pro- 
 tection of law— and to the common advantages of society. It is 
 
 (80) 
 
religion— 
 
 — consMtu- 
 ir countiy- 
 low-beings 
 , as brute 
 )il without 
 ction from 
 s ; and are 
 e arms of 
 r weeping 
 B tyrants. 
 ■ the i)angs 
 utal servi- 
 expresaly 
 
 ndition of 
 v^hich may 
 aws of the 
 
 religious 
 riequallod 
 
 that it is 
 IS, and to 
 
 nslave or 
 
 for one 
 
 3 hire by 
 
 means of 
 
 e it is to 
 right to 
 the pro- 
 It is 
 
 [»irauy to buy or steal a native African, to subject him to servi- 
 tude. Surely the sin is as great to enslave an American as an 
 African. 
 
 Therefore we belie\ e and attirm — that there is \\u ditt'erence, 
 in principle, between the African slave trade and American 
 slavery : 
 
 That every American citizen who retains a human being in 
 involuntary bondage as his property, is, according to Scripture 
 (Exodus xxi. : 16), a man-stealer : 
 
 That the slaves ought instantly to be set fi'ee, and brought 
 under the pr«»tection of law : 
 
 That if they had lived from the time of Pharaoh down to the 
 present period, and had been entailed through successive gener- 
 ations, their right to be free could never have been alienated, 
 but their claims wcnild have constantly risen in solemnity : 
 
 That all those laws which are now in force, admitting the 
 right of slavery, are, therefore, before fJod, utterly null and 
 void ; being an audacious usurpation of the Divine prerogative, 
 a daring infringement on the hr.v of nature, a base overthrow of 
 the very foundations of the social compact, a complete extinc- 
 tion of all the relations, endearments and <jbligations of 
 mankind, and a presumptuous transgression of all the holy 
 commandments ; and that therefore they ought instantly to be 
 abrogated. 
 
 We further believe and atlirm— that all persons of colour who 
 possess the (pialiticatiims which are demanded of others, ought 
 to be admitted forthwith to the enjoyment of the same privileges 
 and the exercise of the same prerogatives, as others ; aiul that 
 the paths of preferment, of wealth, and of intelligence, sh<juld 
 be opened as widely to them, as to pers(ms of a white comi»k'xion. 
 
 We maintain that no compensation should be given to the 
 ]>lanters emancipating their slaves ; 
 
 Because it would be a surrender <»f the great fundanient.il 
 pi'inci[)le, that man cannot hold )tro[)erty in man ; 
 F ( «i ) 
 
! II 
 
 i , 
 
 I' i \ 
 
 I 
 
 i: i 
 
 i I 
 
 i : 
 
 I 
 
 ! 
 
 Because slavery is a crime, and therefore is not iui article to 
 bo sold ; 
 
 Because the holders of slaves are not the just proprietors of 
 what they claim ; freeing the slave is not depi'iving them of pro- 
 pert}', but restoring it to its rightful owner ; it is not wronging 
 the master, but righting the slave — restoring him to himself ; 
 
 Because immediate and general emancipation would only 
 destroy nominal, not real, property ; it would not amputate a 
 limb or break a bone of the slaves, but, by infusing motives into 
 their breasts, would make them doubly valuable to the masters 
 as free labourers ; and 
 
 Because, if compensation is to be given at all, it should be 
 given to the outraged and guiltless .slaves, and not to those who 
 have plundered and abused them. 
 
 We regard as delusive, cruel and dangerous, any scheme of 
 expatriation which pretends to aid, either directly or indirectly, 
 in the emancipation of the slaves, or to be fi substitute for the 
 immediate and total abolition of slaveiy. 
 
 We fully and unanimously recognise the sovereignty of each 
 State to legislate exclusively on the subject of the slavery which 
 is tolerated within its Ihnits ; we concede that Conj;ress, under 
 the present national cnnpact, has no right to interfe.ve with any 
 of the slave States in relation to this momentous subject : 
 
 But we maintain that Congress has a right, and is i^olemnly 
 bound, to suppress the domestic slave trade between tlie several 
 States, and to abolish slavery in those portions of our territory 
 -vhich the Constitution has placed under its exclusive jurisdic- 
 tion. 
 
 We also maintain that there are, at the present time, the 
 
 highest obligations resting upon the people of the free States to 
 
 remove slavery by moral and political action, as prescribed in 
 
 the Constitution of the United States. They are now living 
 
 under a pledge of their tremendous physical force, to fasten the 
 
 galling fetters of tyranny upoii the limbs of millions in the 
 
 ( 82 ) 
 
,11 jirticle to 
 
 iprietors of 
 tiem of pro- 
 )t wronging 
 liimself ; 
 tvould only 
 amputate a 
 iiotives into 
 the masters 
 
 t should be 
 ) those who 
 
 r scheme of 
 ■ indirectly, 
 fcute for the 
 
 ity of each 
 ivei'y which 
 I'ess, under 
 re with any 
 ect: 
 
 is i^olemnly 
 tVie several 
 .ir territory 
 v'e jurisdic- 
 
 t time, the 
 je States to 
 escribed in 
 now living 
 i fasten the 
 oils ill the 
 
 Southern States ; they are liable to bo called at any moment to 
 suppress a general insurrection of the slaves ; they authorize the 
 slaveowner to vote for three-tifths of his slaves as property, and 
 thus enable him to perpetuate his oppression ; they support a 
 standing army at the South for its ])rotection ; and they seize the 
 slave who has escaped into their territories, and send him ba^^k 
 to 1)0 tortured by an enraged master or a brutal driver, Tliis 
 rolati(m to slavery is criminal, and full of danger; (Y Doist he 
 hrol<en vp. 
 
 These are our views and priiicii»los —these our designs and 
 measures. With entire confidence in the overruling justice of 
 (iod, we plant ourselves upon the Declaration of our Indopeii- 
 donce and the traths of Divine Revelation, as upon the Ever- 
 lasting Rock. 
 
 We shall organize Anti-Slavery Societies, if possible, in e\ery 
 city, town and village in our land. 
 
 We shall send forth agents to lift up the voice of rom>.'i.straiice, 
 of warning, of entreaty and of rebuke. 
 
 We shall circulate, unsparingly and oxtoiisivoly, anti-slavery 
 tracts and periodicals. 
 
 We shall enlist the pulpit and the press in the eauso of the 
 suffering and the dumb. 
 
 We shall aim at a purification of the churches fiom all partici- 
 pation in the guilt of slavery. 
 
 We shall enccmrage the labour of freemen rather than that of 
 slaves, by giving a preference to their productions ; and 
 
 We shall spare no exertion nor means to bring the whole 
 natitin to speedy repentance. 
 
 Our trust for victory is solely in God. \\'e may lie personally 
 defeated, but our principles never ! Truth, Justice, Reason, 
 Humanity, must and will gloriously triumph. Already a host 
 is coming up to the help of the Lord against the mighty, and tlie 
 prospect before us is full of encouragement. 
 
 ( 8:i ) 
 
 'HI 
 
1; 
 
 Submitting this Declaration to the candid examination of tlie 
 l)eople of this country, and of the friends of liberty throughout 
 the world, we hereby afhx our signatures to it ; pledging our- 
 selves that, under the guidance and by the help of Almighty 
 God, we will do all that in us lie3, consistently with this De- 
 claration of our principles, to overthrow the most execral)le sys- 
 tem of slavery that has ever been witnessed up on earth ; to de- 
 liver ouv land from its deadliest curse ; to wipe out the foulest 
 stain that rests upon our national escutcheon ; and to secure to 
 the coloured population of the United States all the rights and 
 pri\ileges which beknig to them as men and as Americans — come 
 what may to our persons, our interests, or our reputations — 
 whether we live to witness the triumph of Liberty, Justice and 
 Humanity, or perish untimely as martyrs in this great, ])ene- 
 volent and holy cause. 
 
 Done at Philadelphia, the Gth day of December, A.D. 183o. 
 
 It' shivery was ti wrong' not loss otIcvohs tlian taxa- 
 tiin without representation on the si!!;;!.! •*•. scale and 
 in the niildest form, the second Phila'-lpi.ia ])eclara- 
 tic*n niight fairly challenoe comparison, botiiin import- 
 mice and righteousness, with the first. 
 
 " To bring the wliole nation to speedy repentance" 
 
 was the s]K'cial object of this Convention, and of the 
 
 nu)vement whicli'it embodied. It was the object of 
 
 no other ass(.)ciation or nK)vement and it was tlie one 
 
 tliri^'," ue*"dfuj. In tins lies the value and the interest 
 
 of the founder's life. Repentance there could not be 
 
 witbcvu e )n\ iction of sin, irji- could there be convic- 
 
 tioi' ;-' sii'. \.'ith>Htt bringing home its sinfulness in 
 
 i)la''- Ing'iaae to the conscience of the misdoei-. On 
 
 the sul»ject )i' the clauses refusing con'.pensation to 
 
 (84 ) 
 
 
 - ■•' Fv»>ww»Mt m ' iiwnw i w iW|ll|g|)||M| 
 
the slavoownor and oi' the avoiimonts 1)y whirli fclio 
 
 refusal is snppoi'tcd, onoiif;'!! lins alrpa<ly Ihmmi said. 
 
 Arthur Tappan was made president of the Association, 
 
 and Garrison left Philadelphia rejoicing" in the work 
 
 of his hands. 
 
 ( 85 ) 
 
 ' I 
 
i 
 
 1 
 
 VII. 
 
 A CRITICAL step "".vas taken hy tlie Abolitionists when 
 George Tlionipson, the British Anti-Slavery Lecturer, 
 with whom Garrison had formed a close alliance in 
 England, was brought over to the United States to 
 assist in the crusade. Thompson was an eloquent 
 as well as an excellent man, and liad done good service 
 to tlie cause in his country. But not only was he a 
 foreigner, he was one of a nation against which Ameri- 
 can prejudice was strong, und the prouidice of the 
 Irish, who formed ii large and most violent element of 
 the pro-slavery democracy, stronger still. Emancipa- 
 tion, it is true, was the cause of mankind — it morally 
 transcended all national boundaries ; Imt what is 
 morally transcended cannot always in practice be 
 safely ignored. The intervention of a Frenchman in 
 the British struggle for abolition would certainly have 
 kindled the wratli (J Tories and West Indian pro- 
 prietors to rui txtraordtnary degree. After the Civil 
 War, when tiie vicfA>jy w; '^ v/on, Thompson's services 
 were acknowledged nnd i\is mission was ratified by 
 the representatives the American people who l)e- 
 stowed on him publii honours. But when at the call 
 of Garris<';) and the Anti-Slavery Society he came 
 
 over, as the re]?resentative of British Abolitionism, to 
 
 ( H(i ) 
 
help the cause in America, lie ran no small risk of 
 causing an explosion which, besides its consequences 
 to himself and his party, might, had he been killed or 
 seriously maltreated, have set the two governments 
 by the ears. The arrival of the British emissary and 
 his appearance on the anti-slavery platform, where he 
 did not fail to show his power, inflamed the popular 
 wrath to fury. Nor was it the wrath of the masses 
 only that was inflamed, but that of the wealthy, re- 
 spectable and orthodox. Advantage was taken of the 
 reaction caused at once by the hateful intervention of 
 the Englishman and by the violence of Garrison's 
 language, to concert a flank movement in the shape of 
 a convention of moderates to form an American Union 
 for the Relief and Improvement of the Coloured Race. 
 Privately it was avowed that its object was to put 
 down Garrison and his friends. On the afternoon of 
 Augt. 21, 1835, the social, political, religious and in- 
 tellectual chiefs of Boston filled that cradle of liberty, 
 Faneuil Hall, with the mayor in the chair. The reso- 
 lutions arraigned the Abolitionists as agitators who 
 sought to excite servile insurrection, and to " scatter 
 among our Southern brethren firebrands, arrows, and 
 death." But what galled most evidently was the pre- 
 sence of " a certain notorious foreign agent, an avowed 
 emissary, sustained by foreign funds, a professed agita- 
 tor upon questions deeply, profoundly political, which 
 lay at the very foundation of our Union." Mr. Gar- 
 rison, from the (juiet retreat of " Friendship's Valley," 
 
 ( 87 ) 
 
 . ; 
 
 V 
 
% 
 
 \ 
 
 1 
 
 ^1 i 
 
 I !' 
 
 till- lioii-f^ of liis wife's t'ntlicr, wlii'vc ho was vo]V),sin^ 
 .snit to the LihrratdV wlmt the chroniclers of his life 
 justly call " unstinted comments" upon tlic speeclics 
 and speakers of Faneuil Hall. " Where are you, sir?" 
 — thus lie apostropliized one of the speakers — " In 
 amicable conij^anionship and popular repute with 
 thiev ;and adulterers; with slaveliolders, slave-dealers 
 and slave-destroyers : witli those who call the heings 
 whom God created but a little lower than the an^^els, 
 things an<l rhafffls: with the proscribers of th<' great 
 chart of eternal life ; with the rancorous enemies 
 of the friends of universal ''mancipation : with tlie 
 (b'sturbers of the pul)lic peace ; with tiie robbers of the 
 public mail ; with ruffians .who insult, pollute and 
 lacerate helpless women ; and with conspirators against 
 the lives and liberties of New England citizens." To 
 the taunt thai he dared not go to the South, where 
 his preaching was most needed, Garrison could always 
 retort with force. Had he not published an anti- 
 slavery journal in Maryland and in Baltimore, a den 
 of the domestic slave trade ? Had he not sufi'ered im- 
 prisonment on account of the boldness of his denuncia- 
 tions? Had he not continued the publication as long as 
 subscribers could be found ? Did the friends of Polish 
 or ({reek freedom in Boston make it a point of honour 
 to go and denounce Russian tyranny in the dominions 
 of the Czar, or Turkish tv>'iinnv in the dominions of 
 the Sultan { Did those who used the taunt, he might 
 
 have asked, Avish tliat lie shouhl be murdered, and that 
 
 ( 88 ) 
 
 I ^ 
 
i»oni^-,s 
 
 their IVioids ut the South shouM 1m' his nmrcicrci's { 
 
 His ori^riiial iiitciiticni, in tlw uliJUHloimiont of wliich 
 
 I'etir lm<l no part, was to hring out liis journal at 
 
 Wasliiuf^ton, whore slavery provaihMl and Soutlici'n 
 
 firo-L'atcrs abounded. 
 
 Tho appeals made at the Faiuieil Hall meeting to 
 
 the feeling' against Tliompson hore their fruit. The 
 
 result was a. riot got up, one of the organs of the 
 
 part}' being witness, not by a rablile, but by " men of 
 
 property and standing," who had a, large interest at 
 
 stake in the community and were determined, let the 
 
 conse([uences be what they might, " to put a stop to 
 
 the impudent, bullying conduct of the foreign vagrant, 
 
 Thompson, and his associates in mischief!" Thompson 
 
 was expected to speak at a meeting of the Ladies' 
 
 Anti-Slavery Society. Fortunately he was not there : 
 
 had he fallen into the hau'ls of the mob, it is certain 
 
 that he would have been tarred and feathered, and not 
 
 vnilikely that he would have been lynched. Missing 
 
 their intended victim, the mob laid hands on Garrison, 
 
 put him in peril of his life, tore his clothes oft' his 
 
 back, and dragged him through the streets with a 
 
 rope round liis body, evidently meaning mischief, 
 
 though cries arose to spare " the American," and there 
 
 f-"eems to b«' no reason to think that the mob intended 
 
 murder. He was rescued from tlu.' fangs of his 
 
 enemies by Mayor Lyman, who saw no other way of 
 
 placing him in safety than by committing him to 
 
 prison, to which he was accordingly consigned, the 
 
 ( 89 ) 
 
 ' 1 
 
crowd sur^in^^ fiercely round tlio carriafjo as ho wont. 
 It is due to tlio mayor to say thtit, though he did not 
 do all that ought to have been done, he seems to have 
 done the best he could. In the prison, much torn and 
 battered. Garrison spent the night. On the wall of 
 his cell he wrote : " William Lloyd Garrison was put 
 into this cell on Wednesday afternoon, Oct. 21, 1835, 
 to save him from the violence of a ' respectable and 
 influential ' mob, who sought to destroy him for 
 preaching the abominable and dangerous doctrine, 
 that ' all men are created equal,' and that all oppres- 
 sion is odious in the sight of God. ' Hail, Columbia ! ' 
 Cheers for the Autocrat of Russia and the Sultan of 
 Turkey ! Reader, let this inscription remain till the 
 last slave in this despotic land be loosed from his fet- 
 ters." Thompson happily got safe out of the country. 
 To some of those who denounced him in Faneuil Hall 
 he might have replied that he came to America by 
 the same right by which they sent an rniissary of 
 the Colonization Society to England. 
 
 Cool critics say that the sufferings and perils 
 undergone by the Abolitionists have been overstated, 
 as those of martyrs after their canonization are apt 
 to be. That the A]3olitionists had to run the social 
 gauntlet cannot be denied. But they were also 
 mobbed in many places. At New York, Lewis Tap- 
 pan's home was sacked, and violence reigned till it ex- 
 cited the alarm of the wealthy men at whose beck it 
 
 had broken loose. Thompson had stones and brick- 
 
 ( 90 ) 
 
 \ 
 
 i.',.iMB 
 
lijits llnnti' ut liim. and wiis, us we luiv 
 
 I 
 
 <' seen, Ml ju'l'l 
 
 l..r 
 
 his liTc. All Aiiti-SIuvrry Hall at I'liihulclpliia was 
 l>iini(Ml down (Hose to the spot )n which the Dcchira- 
 
 tion o 
 
 r Ind 
 
 opendi'iu'i 
 
 liad 1 
 
 leen si 
 
 fe'» 
 
 ie<l. Wt' havo see 
 
 a 
 
 what liefell Miss Crandall, The office of Biniey's 
 paper was destroyed l)y a nioh at Cincinnati. At 
 Nashville, Tenn., Amos Dresser, a j)ivinity student, 
 was puldidy ilo^^^ed and expelle<l from the city for 
 having anti-shivery pnhlications in liis trunk. An- 
 other Abolitionist was tarred and feathered and sub- 
 jected to exposure which shortened liis days. At Alton, 
 in Illinois, Elijah Lovejoy lost bis life in defending 
 himself and a party of his friends against the ruffians 
 by whom they were besieged. Pro-slavery justices of 
 the peace di'alt with Abolitionists as vagabonds, and 
 Emerson had reason for saying that there was a mob 
 judiciary as well as a mob legislative. This was An- 
 drew Jackson's hour, and the spirit of violence and 
 tyranny was abroad. In the South, men suspected of 
 Abolitionism were lynched, Vigilance Connnittees were 
 formed, and fanatical journals gave vent to threats of 
 abduction and assassination which, though no attempt 
 was ever made, or was ever very likely to be made, to 
 carry them into effect, might well disturb a Northern 
 Abolitionist's sleep. At Charleston, the Abolitionist 
 matter was taken out of the mails and burned before 
 a great concourse of citizens in the public square, Gar- 
 rison and two of his coadjutors being burned in effigy 
 at the same time : while the Jacksonian Postmaster- 
 
 ( i^l ) 
 
 I! 
 
IMAGE EVALUATION 
 TEST TARGET (MT-S) 
 
 1.0 
 
 I.I 
 
 ■ifi^ IIIIIM 
 
 •^ 1^ 1112.2 
 
 ^ '- IIIIIM 
 
 1.8 
 
 
 125 
 
 1.4 III 1.6 
 
 
 .^ 6" 
 
 ► 
 
 Hiotographic 
 
 Sdences 
 
 Corporation 
 
 «^ 
 
 
 Is 
 
 V 
 
 LV 
 
 <?>. -^ 
 
 <^ 
 
 '^^^^ 
 
 \ 
 
 k 
 
 >> 
 
 ^<h^ 
 
 23 WEST MAIN STREET 
 
 WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 
 
 (716)872-4503 
 

 
 
 f 
 
CJenernl, Kendall, t(>M tlu> Charleston postmaster that 
 thou^li he conhl not approve he would not condenni 
 his conduct. The Abolitionists did not brave what the 
 first Christians liraved, but they did brave a good deal. 
 Thompson, as the foreigner who had dared to inter- 
 fere in this matter, figured in a message of President 
 Jackson to Congress, recommending the prohibition, 
 under severe penalties, of the circulation thi'ough the 
 mails of incendiary publications intended to instigate 
 the slaves to insurrection. It is needless to repeat 
 that no such intention existe<l, nor was insurrection 
 likely to be instigated by the hope which the publica- 
 tions bore with them of peaceable re<leniption. Turner 
 and the slaves wlio rose with him at Southampton 
 against the cruelty of their masters, we may be sure, 
 had not been reading Garrisonian publications. Tliis, 
 like the struggle to prevent the presentation of jDetitions 
 against slavery in Congress, and the threats of putting 
 the conmion law in motion against the Abolitionists, 
 was an attempt to gag freedom of opinion. Whether 
 opinion should be free thenceforth then became a 
 momentous though collateral issue, and to the advan- 
 tage of the Garrisonians ; for the Noi'thern people, let 
 it be said once more, were still loyal at heart in their 
 allegiance to a principle which is the greatest and 
 
 clearest gain of our modern civilization. 
 
 (1)2) 
 
VIII. 
 
 Beixci now (liS3(S) leader as well as editor, and by 
 help of the Society partly released from the shackles of 
 editorship; Garrison went forth as a travelling mission- 
 ary and took the platform. He had not the physical 
 powers of a great platform speaker, but he seems to 
 have been always impressive, and if the specimens of 
 his oratory which we have before us were delivered 
 without notes, he had the mental gifts of the orator in 
 liberal measure. By Sunnier, at a later period, his 
 speaking Vk^as compared to a rain of lire, and by 
 Lowell, a better judge of taste than Sunnier, it was 
 highly praised. He seems also to have had perfect 
 self-possession on the platform, even amidst the most 
 furious storms, though his temperament was nervous, 
 and he sat paralysed in a carriage while a restive 
 horse was backing him to destruction. His experien- 
 ces in his tours were of course varied. In one place 
 he was received with sympathy, in another with 
 howls, and perhaps with rotten eggs. But he is 
 always cheery, even when he has to contend with 
 sickness as well as with a froward generation, and you 
 see that he heartily enjoys scenery and incident as he 
 goes along. 
 
 Between the etlbrts of Thompson mid (Jarrison, with 
 
 (U3) 
 
 : »■ 
 
 ''d 
 
the airl of such backers as Oliver Jolinson and Samuel 
 J. May, the movement bore fruit apace. Tliirteen hun- 
 dred Anti-Slavery Societies were jiresently spread 
 over the Northern States. Important recruits came 
 into the Abolition camp. Among them was the able, 
 excellent and very wealthy Gerrit Smith, whose acces- 
 sion was the more creditable to him because Garrison, 
 with inflexible severity, censured his course in the very 
 article of conversion. Among them also were James 
 Russell Lowell and Edward Quincy. But the most 
 notable was Wendell Phillips, whose witness was the 
 more striking because he was a scion of Bostonian 
 wealth and aristocracy, while his eloquence, a unique 
 combination of vehemence and fervour with grace, 
 polish, and persuasiveness, would have made the for- 
 tune of any cause. The orator in him was revealed at 
 an indignation meeting called at Faneuil Hall to de- 
 nounce the killing of Lovejoy, tlie Abolitionist, at Alton. 
 Attorney-General Austin, a pro-slaver}^ man, there ex- 
 cused the Alton riot by the example of the Boston tea 
 riot, upon which Wendell Phillips sprang to his feet 
 and retorted : " Sir, when I heard tlie gentleman lay 
 down principles which place the rioters, incendiaries, 
 and murderers of Mount Benedict [the scene of an 
 anti-Catholic outrage] and Alton side by side with Otis 
 and Hancock, with Quincy and Adams, I thought those 
 pictured lips [pointing to the portraits in the hall] 
 would have broken into voice to rebuke the recreant 
 
 American — the slanderer of tlie dead. The gentleman 
 
 (94) 
 
said that he should sink into insigniticanco if ho dnred 
 to gainsay the principles of tliese resolutions. Sir, for 
 the sentiments he has uttered, on soil consecrated by 
 the prayers of Puritans and the blood of patriots, the 
 earth should have yawned and swallowed him up 1 " 
 There were points, however, in tlie cliaracter of this 
 highly -gifted man wdiich made his accession in the end 
 not unalloyed gain to the cause. Ellis Gray Loring, a 
 lawyer of mark, bearer of a name afterwards honour- 
 ably known to patriots in connection with the Civil 
 War, had enlisted from the beginning, 
 
 Boston, her plutocracy strangely allied with hor 
 mob, remained flint-hearted. Not a church or hall 
 for an anti-slavery meeting could be had there, and 
 after nineteen rebuffs the Society had to meet over 
 a stable. But the State had begun to be of a different 
 mind from the city, and an application to the legisla- 
 ture for the use of the Hall of Representatives was 
 granted without debate, though not without a nearly 
 successful attempt to revoke the concession. 
 
 There was plenty of work for the moral force which 
 had thus been generated to do. There was no danger 
 of its energy being wasted, as the energy of such move- 
 ments sometimes is, for want of a resisting medium, 
 like gunpowder exploded in the open air ; for the 
 South was thoroughly roused and was acting on the 
 offensive, seeing that in acting the offensive lay her 
 only chance of safety. Nor was it to mere safety that 
 
 she now aspired, but to extension and dominion. The 
 
 (95) 
 
 .y 
 
 I . I 
 •■ i 
 
 li 
 i il 
 
 ■ il 
 
 ^Hl 
 
 ''li' 
 
CiHiTisoniaiis were cnlled upon to comhat leoifslative 
 iiiovements <lirectecl by the South and her henchmen 
 in the North against freedom of speeeli : to vindicate 
 in the courts the right of shives brought Nortli to their 
 liberty, and of fugitives chiimed as slaves to the ordi- 
 nary safeguards on their trial : to ply Congress with 
 petitions for the abolition of slavery in the District of 
 Columbia: to oppose the admission of new Slave States 
 into the Union and the eftbrts of Southern filibusters 
 to wrest Texas from Mexico and annex her to the 
 realm of Slavery. Add the treatment of the coloured 
 seamen in Southern ports, the tampering with the mails, 
 and the offers of Southern Legislatures of rewards for 
 the apprehension of Garrison, which looked so like 
 setting a price upon his head. Governor Everett, 
 always zealous in the cause of Slavei-y, proposed to 
 put the connnon law in force against the Abolitionists, 
 and the Garrisonians were heard before a Committee 
 of the Legislature in bar of such a proceeding. 
 
 Garrison, however, while he mw with pleasure the 
 influence 'which the growing strength of the Aboli- 
 tionist vote was beginning to exercise on ])oliticians, 
 steadfastly refused to give his movement the form of 
 a political party. There his moral insight and his 
 personal disinterestedness stood him and his cause in 
 good stead. He said that if Abolitionism once made a 
 political party it must be like other political parties. 
 It must in the first place, like them, have its machin- 
 ery, costly as well as e\il. Then it would lose its 
 
 ( «« ) 
 
cluiracter Tor disiiiturustediicss ; niipi'iiici[)le(l usplruiits 
 would swann to it, making flaming anti-slavery pre- 
 tensions but seeking loaves and fishes. Its principles 
 would become a marketable commodity. Its leaders, 
 instead of being champions of righteousness and 
 preachers of national repentance, would thenceforth 
 be candidates for the Presidency or for Cabinet offices, 
 and the patronage connected with them. Other 
 issues would for the sake of votes be mingled with 
 Abolition, and would very likely choke it. In a 
 purely moral cause one might put to flight a thous- 
 and ; but the success or defeat of a political party was 
 a mere question of numbers. In this Garrison differed 
 from Birney. The name of Birney is written in light 
 as a Champion of Emancipation. Originally a slave- 
 owner, he emancipated his slaves. He then devoted 
 his own life to the advocacy of Emancipation, facing 
 some violence and a great deal of hatred and slander, 
 which to a man in his social position would be not 
 lees hard to endure than violence itself. Not unnatur- 
 ally, though it is conceived wrongly, he came to the 
 conclusion that to bring his force directly to bear on 
 national politics was the best way of accomplishing 
 hia object, and that this, under a system of party gov- 
 ernment, could only be done by organizing a party. 
 He accordingly joined in organizing the Liberty party, 
 and was twice nominated by it for the Presidency — 
 in 1840, and again in 1844, against Polk, a thorough- 
 
 1 I 
 
 n '1 
 
 :i ' I 
 
 'i '! 
 
 n 
 
 
 3:f 
 
 
 a 
 
 (97) 
 
going upholder of Slavery, and Clay, the man of 
 comproinise. Hi.s character is the guarantee that no 
 personal ambition mingled with his motives for ac- 
 cepting the nomination. The result, liowever, con- 
 firmed Garrison's judgment. Birney polled just 
 enough votes to defeat Clay and throw the govern- 
 ment directly into the hands of Slavery. This was 
 no gain, though many tears were wasted over the 
 defeat of Clay, who had no moral hatred of slavery, 
 and was ready to compromise with it on almost 
 any terms rather than risk the dissolution of the 
 Union. Chance of success for Birney's party there 
 liad never been, and it is .seldom that a cause can l)e 
 serve *^ by rushing upon assure«l defeat, while the 
 biUvii estrangement of all Clay's supporters was the 
 necessary penalty of an attempt wliich had deprived 
 their idol of the (flection. The experiment is instruc- 
 tive to all reformers who are tempted to organize a 
 new party. Even success would be disastrous, inas- 
 much as it would entail the necessity of a number 
 of appointments for which there would not be fit men, 
 would call forth a swarm of office-seekers, and wouM 
 burden the particular reform with a multitude of 
 (juestions entirely foreign to it and pertaining to the 
 general policy of the State. 
 
 " Whereas the American Church " — so ran a motion 
 brought forward at an anti-slavery convention by 
 
 Mr. Garrison — " with the exception of some of its 
 
 (98) 
 
 r 
 
smaller l)ranclios, lias j^iven its umlisi»nis«'<l sfuu'tioil 
 
 and support to the system of American Slavery, in the 
 following among other ways, (1) by profound silence 
 on the sin of slaveholding, (2) by tolerating slave- 
 breeding, slave-trading and slaveholding in its minis- 
 ters and members, (8) by receiving the avails of the 
 traffic in slaves and the souls of men into the treas- 
 uries of its different benevolent institutions, and (4) 
 by its indifference and opposition to the anti-slavery 
 enterprise — therefore be it Resolved, that the Church 
 ought not to be regarded and treated as the Church of 
 Christ, but as the foe of freedom, humanity and pure 
 religion, so long as it occupies its present position." 
 This is a severe indictment, concluding with a severe 
 sentence. Its averments have been contested, but 
 seem on the whole to have been made good. Gerrit 
 Smith, a moderate man, spoke not less decide<.lly 
 though less vehemently than Garrison on the sul)ject. 
 Channing, with all his desire to preserve charity and 
 avoid extremes, could not defend the conduct of the 
 churches. Their unchristian refusal to treat the negro 
 as a Christian brother and fellow -worshipper cannot 
 possibly be denied. In the cases of the Roman Catho- 
 lic and the Episcopal Churches, this behaviour can 
 hardly be ascribed to cowardice, since it is more than 
 doubtful whether either of them was at heart o]:)posed 
 to slavery. The Roman Catholic Church, it is believed, 
 never put forth her power against slavery in Cuba, 
 
 ( 99 ) 
 
 M 
 
 .it 
 
 li 1 
 
whore it provnilcfl in its worst loriii, or even did much 
 for tiie spiritiml ohnution of the shive ; nor more diil 
 she in Brazil and in the South American Republics, 
 when slavery existed there and she had everything her 
 own way. The Roman Catholic Bishop, Hughes, took 
 up his pen in defence of the institution. Moreover, the 
 rank and file of the Roman Catholic Church were 
 Irish, the bitter haters and contemners of the negro. 
 Of the loyalty of the whole Episcopal Church to 
 slavery, Calhoun could speak with confidence, and he 
 seems not to have been far wrong. Bishop Coxe, of 
 Western New York, was at a later day one of the few 
 decided opponents of slavery among the leaders of a 
 church which, socially as well as ecclesiastically con- 
 servative, was the asylum of Copperheads during the 
 Civil War. In England, Episcopalians of the Evangeli- 
 cal section, such as Wilberforce, had played a leading 
 part in Abolition ; but the High Church section, which 
 was also Tory, had been for the most part actively or 
 passively on the other side. Richard Hurrell Froude, 
 a good representative of High Church feeling, in part 
 of his Diary relating to the West Indies, speaks of 
 "the nigger" and of "Anti-Slavery cant" with a Vir- 
 ginian air. But the Protestant Churches, the Method- 
 ists, the Baptists, the Presbyterians, must be held to 
 have been sinning against light. They practically ad- 
 mitted it themselves when, the South having seceded, 
 
 and the social pressure under which they had bowed 
 
 (100) 
 
• 
 
 their homlH to BjuiI having Itccn removed, tliey pji.sHcd 
 at once to the Aiiti-Shivery and Unionist side. Tliat 
 they were maintaining a ^^eneral code of (/hristian 
 morality wliich, wlien the social thi'ahlom was at an 
 end, would extend its influence to the suhjcct of 
 slavery is true, hut is hanlly an answer to the charge! 
 of apostacy on the great moral (juestion of the day ; 
 nor were niinisterH likely to produce much effect by 
 dilating on the sins of the Canaanites or the Pharisees 
 when it was plain, as it must have been even to the 
 slave-traders of their congi'egations, that with regar<l 
 to the most flagrant sin of their own generation they 
 dared not speak the truth. The fear of a rupture with 
 their Southern branches, which were hopelessly bound 
 up with slavery, furnishes pei'haps a sounder excuse 
 for the conduct of the Northern Churches, though it is 
 difficult to understand how any Christian society can 
 have highly valued its connection with clergymen who 
 promiscuously advertised for sale horses, waggons, 
 cattle and African Christians. The Methodist Church, 
 it might l)e supposed, would be the least plutocratic, 
 and we seem to sound the depths of the fall when we 
 learn that the Metho<list General Conference at 
 Cincinnati repelled with contumely a mild reprobation 
 of slavery transmitted by the Wesleyan Methodists of 
 England, and that thirty Methodist ministers went to 
 compliment Webster after the speech which numbered 
 him with the apostates. The refusal of the Quakers, 
 
 ( 101 ) 
 
 1 ^ 
 
 1 ■: '.J.: 
 
tlic ^M'cnt pliilnntliropic sect, to lid]) tlio slave was 
 pcrluips (^veii more disappointing, Imt the Quakers 
 were a conunercial as well as a philanthropic body. 
 Churches as well as the spiritual man have their 
 foundations in the dust. They depend on the purses 
 of the congregation, and they have trustees as well as 
 ministers. Sometimes in the course of (iarrison's 
 history we see the minister willinj*- to allow tht; Lib- 
 erator the use of a church, but forbidden by the 
 trustees. The primitive Christians, a society con- 
 sisting of poor men, having all things in common and 
 out of the pale of respectability, might set at de- 
 fiance the social sentiment of their age. But the 
 American Churches were segments (^f American 
 society, which, allowing the highest assignable influ- 
 ence to the pew, could hardly be expected to be 
 actuated in its segments by motives very different from 
 those by which it was actuated in the mass. 
 
 The Bible sanctioned Slavery. This could not be 
 denied. Nor on that issue could Archbishop Hughes, 
 who maintained the affirmative, fail to .score a point. 
 The true answer with which the Abolitionists, not 
 being historical critics, were hanlly prepared, was that 
 the Bible, though it sanctioned slavery, did not sanc- 
 tion American slavery. What it .sanctioned, or at 
 least recognised, was primeval slavery, which, like 
 other features of primeval society, extended to the 
 
 Hebrew pt»lity as well as to the politie.s of Ovher races. 
 
 ( 102 ) 
 
 .. 
 
• 
 
 / 
 
 The Hlavu code «»F tlie Peiitnteueh is ifiiwiikulile, com- 
 pared witli the other .slave codes of aiiti<(uity, not tor 
 its .stringency, hut for its niil<hie.s.s and the tendency 
 wljich it .shovv.s to limit the power of the ma.ster over 
 the slave ; .so much oo, that it might almo.st have 
 been deemed hy the Abolitioni.sts the work of their 
 precunsors in Pentateuchic days. The New 'IV.stament 
 recognized .slavery in the .same manner a.s it recog- 
 nized all the political and .social institutions of the day, 
 the mission of Christianity not being revolution, but 
 the changes in the heart from which all other bene- 
 ficial changes in the end would How. The prochuna- 
 tion of the univer.sal Fatherhood of Ood and the 
 brotherhood of man was morally the deatli-knell of 
 slavery. Paul .sent back Onesiuius to Philemon; Imt 
 it was with the injunction to receive him as a brother 
 beloved and as Paul him.self. Abolitionists might 
 have been willing to let the Southern slaveowner have 
 back his runaways on tho.se terms. 
 
 Only the irrational Bibliolator, therefore, could im- 
 agine that American .slavery had the Bible on its side. 
 Hut irrational Bibliolatry still pi'evaile<l. In the 
 South, when? it was seconded by intere.st, it had 
 complete po.sse.s.sion of the popular conscience. " Stone- 
 wall " Jack.son appears to have been a very religious 
 man, fighting as he thought in defence of a <livine 
 ordinance, and at the same time in fulHlment of the 
 pi'ophecy that Ham should be a sei'\unt in the tents of 
 
 ( 103) 
 
his bretliren. One of Croin well's soldiers would pro- 
 bably have done the same. He would have kept the 
 negro in bondage as he would have smitten any one 
 whom he identified with the Canaanite, and hewed any 
 one whon^ he identified with -A gag in pieces before the 
 Lord, Belief in the unqualified inspiration of the Old 
 Testament atsd the permanency of its precepts has 
 
 more than once made wild work with morality. 
 
 ( 104 ) 
 
 ! 
 
T 
 
 IX. 
 
 Garrison liad been a move tlinn ortliodox Baptist 
 and a regular churchgoer. He had looked to the 
 churches as the appointed instruments for bringing 
 the nation to a right in^nd. Great was the bitterness 
 of his disappointment. He never did anything by 
 halves. He not only withdrew his confidence from 
 the churches, but violently broke with them and de- 
 nounced them without measure. They were "cages of 
 unclean birds and synagogues of Satan." As to the 
 clergy, Christianity indignantly rejected their sancti- 
 monious pretensions ; they were hirelings and blind 
 leaders of the blind, dumb dogs and spiritual popes ; 
 they loved the flee.c better than the flock, find were 
 mighty hindrances to the march of human freedoni 
 and the enfranchisement of the souls of men. Even 
 Channing v/as treated with scant respect, though lie 
 wrote nobly against slavery, and went so far with 
 Garrison as to say that it was better that the Union 
 should be dissolved than that Texas should be re- 
 ceived into it as a Slave State, while his greatness as 
 a moral teacher could not be denied and his hesitation 
 (when he did hesitate) was evidently sincere. Chan- 
 ning apparently disliked organized agitation, prefer- 
 ring to rely on individual conviction. It has been 
 
 ( 105 ) 
 
 
 •n 
 
 tm 
 
 ! 
 
Rif 
 
 truly Hjiid that noii differ us niueli in thoir .spiritual 
 as in their physical physiognomies, and the spiritual 
 physiognomy of Channing was freedom. 
 
 Not only did Garrison shake tiit: dust off* his feet 
 against the churcl^es, hut he was led greatly to 
 change his views as to the authority of tlie Bihle, to 
 which tlie churches i ppealed with apparent force as a 
 warrant for connivance at slavery. Hie historical 
 view of the question had not presented itself to his 
 mind, and to him it was inconceivable that God shou'd 
 liji.ve sanctioned or permitted at one stage in the edu- 
 cation of the race what was evil at another stage. A 
 religious man — an intensely religious man — he con- 
 tinued to V)e. He ei)ntinued also to love the Bible and 
 to make a constant use of its language in enforcing 
 moral truth. In this no Puritan could exceed him. 
 But lie hade farewell to tradition, to authority; to in- 
 spiration. Here let him speak for himself, as he 
 speaks well. 
 
 " Of the liiillid is who profess to believe in t^.o Bible hs the 
 insi)ireil word of (Jod, how few there are who have had the wish 
 or the courage to know on what ground tliey have for'ned their 
 opinion I They have been tiaight that, to aUow a doul>t to arise 
 in their minds on this point, would be sacrilt)gio\is, and t(» put 
 in peril their salvation. They must lielieve in the [)len'U'y iii- 
 spiratic»n of tlie ' sacred ohnue ' or they are ' intidels ' who will 
 justly deserve to be 'cast int;j the lake of tire and brimstone.' 
 Itiiposture may always be suspecced when I'eason i.s couuiianded 
 t(> abdicate tlie throne ; when investigation is iiiade a criminal 
 act ; when the bodies or spirits of men are threatened with j)ains 
 
 ( 106 ) 
 
Hud ])enaltie8 if tlioy do not subscribe to tho [xipulur belief ; 
 when appeals are inao. to luiinnn credulity, and not to the 
 understanding. 
 
 "Now, nothing can be more consonant to reason than that 
 the more valu.ible a thing is, the more it will bear to be ex- 
 amined. If the Bil)le be, from Genesis to Revelation, divine- 
 ly inspired, its warmest partisans need not be concerned as to 
 its fate. It is to be examined with the same freedom as any 
 other book, and taken precisely for what it is worth. It nuist 
 stand or fall < n its own inherent qualities, like any other volume. 
 To know what it teaches, men must not stultify themselves, nor 
 be made irrational by a blind homage. Their reason nmst be 
 absolute in judgment, and act freely, or they cannot know the 
 truth. They are not to object to what is simply incomprehen- 
 sible — because no man can comprehend how it is that the sun 
 gives light or the acorn produces the oak ; but what is clearly 
 monsti'c (US or absurd or imi)ossible cannot be endcrsed by ^eason, 
 and can never properly be made a test of religious faith, or an 
 evidence of moral character. 
 
 "To say that everything contained within the lids o the 
 Bible is divinely ius|)ired, and to insist u])on the dogma as 
 fundamentally inqxa-tant, is to give utterance to a bold fiction, 
 and to require the suspension of the reasoning faculties. To say 
 that eveiythir.g in the Bible is to be believed, simply because it 
 is found in that volume, is eciually absurd and pernicious. It is 
 the pr<»vin('e of reason to 'search the Scri[)tures,' and determine 
 what in them is true and what false — what is probable and 
 what incredible — what is comi>atil)le with the hapi)iiiess of man- 
 kind, and what ought to be rejected as an* example or rule <»f 
 action — what is the letter that killeth, and what the si)irit that 
 maketh alive. When the various b<H»k,s of the Bil)hi were writ- 
 ten, or by whom they were written, no man living van lell. Tliisi 
 is purely a matter of conjecture ; and as conjecture is not eev- 
 
 ( 107 ) 
 
 .- I 
 
 'i4< 
 
tainty, it ceases to be authoritative. Nor is it of vast conse- 
 quence, in the eye of reason, whether they to whom the Bible 
 is ascribed wrote it or not ; whether Paul was the author of the 
 Epistle to the Hebrews, or any other Epistle which is attributed 
 to hiui; whether Moses wrote the Pentateuch, or Joshua the 
 history of his own exploits, or David the Psalms, or Solomon 
 the Proverbs ; or whether the real authors were some unknown 
 persons. ' What is writ is writ,' and it must stand or fall by the 
 test of just criticism, by its reasonableness and utility, by the 
 probabilities of the case, by historical confirmation, by human 
 experience and observation, by the facts of science, by the in- 
 tuition of the spirit. Truth is older than any parchment, and 
 would still exist though a universal conflagration shoukl consume 
 all the books in the world. To discard a portion of Scripture is 
 not necessarily tf) reject the truth, but may be the highest 
 evidence that one can give of his love of truth." 
 
 Thus, in tlie eyes of the orthodox, Garrison became 
 an ' infidel,' and was thenceforth branded by that name. 
 Heterodox he certaiidy did l»ecome, tliough it must be 
 repeated he remained intensely religious, and to com- 
 pare him to the Jacol»ins was absurd. Tlie Bible 
 henceforth to liiin, thougli an infinitely precious, was 
 not an inspired book: the House of God Wfis "nothing 
 but mere ordinary brick and mortar," the Sabbath was 
 like other days, and the office of a clergyman was 
 " one which it was scarcely possible for any man to 
 fill without loss of independence or spiritual detri- 
 ment." " The infidelity of the Anti-Slavery move- 
 ment," said Garrison's sworn brother-in-arms, Samuel 
 
 May, jr., "consists in this simple tiling, tliat it has out- 
 
 (108 ) 
 
stripped tlic cIuucIk's of tlic bind in the pnictical ap- 
 plication of Christianity to tlio wants, wrongs and op- 
 pressions of our own age and our own country." This, 
 it is true, was the original cause, but it was not the limit 
 of the separation. Garrison had also been a strict Sab- 
 batarian, but with other ecclesiastical ordinances he 
 renounced the Sabbath. The churches had denounced 
 the holding of Abolitionist meetings on that day. 
 
 Another novelty which Garrison embraced was 
 Woman's Rights. He had found women very helpful 
 to him in anti-slavery work. Nor could anything be 
 more reasonable than that women should take an 
 active part in a great movement of social reform, and 
 one which in certain aspects specially touched the 
 interests and appealed to the hearts of their sex. This 
 they might do in what all the world would allow to 
 be a womanly way, t * women in a womanly way had 
 played an illustrious part in the foundation of Christ- 
 ianity. But it was a wide step from this to the con- 
 vention, and a wider step to the platform. When 
 Garrison's female helpmates, Abby Kelley and the 
 Grimkds, took those steps they shocked a sentiment 
 which was deeply rooted, and which they could not 
 expect to be changed in a day. It might also be 
 naturally felt that, while mob violence was abroad, it 
 was not delicate or even (juite manly to expose women 
 to the chances of such a fray. Garrison as usual went 
 to the extreme length of his opinion, and asserted, not 
 
 only the right of women to take the moral and 
 
 ( 109 ) 
 
 '!{ 
 
 ! it 
 ii 
 
 in 
 
 m 
 
social plati'orm, Init tli«' politicul <M|njility of tlie sexes 
 — .1 <loctriiie Tor wliieli the worlci was very far from 
 l>eing prepared then, even if it is prepared now. The 
 Grinik^ sisters, Lucretia Mott, and Abby Kelley, appear 
 by their success as speakers to have justified Garrison's 
 faith in the charuis of female eloquence. Yet few will 
 contend that the products of the female phitform have 
 been so entirely lovely as to stamp all gainsayers with 
 bigotry. A philanthropic but insane woman, possessed 
 with some fantastic notion of liberty, was in the habit 
 of talking at anti-slavery meetings in defiance of the 
 authority of t'le Chair. The Chair, having on one 
 occasion ordered her at last to be removed, she was 
 borne out by Wendell Phillips and two others, male 
 members of the convention. " I am better off," she 
 cried, " than my Lord : he had only one ass to ride 
 upon, I have three." Garrison had a keen sense of 
 humour. We may l)e sure that he smiled at such in- 
 cidents, but his earnest soul was not disturbed. This 
 eccentric woman was not the only grotesque figure 
 that sometimes intruded on his meetings. 
 
 So far, however, Garrison was w^ithin the bounds of 
 tenable, if not of indisputable, opinion. Unfortunately 
 he did not stop tliere. It was an age of eccentricities, 
 Utopias and chimei'as, religious, social and political. 
 The old beliefs were giving way. The narrowness of 
 the cliurches and the meanness of their attitude on 
 this very question of morality drove forth the free 
 
 and aspiring into the wilderness. This was the day 
 
 (110) 
 
mn 
 
 of OvviMi's socialist foiiniiunitics, oi' Uiook Farm, ol' 
 Tliorraii'iS lierniitaj'r. Kvcrv^ inaii ol" iiitclh ct, as 
 Emerson said, lia<l tlic seliemo of an ideal society in 
 his pocket. Oari'ison's heart and mind were open, or, 
 to use the phrase of one of his circle, hospitable to all 
 schemes that seeme<l to promii e increased happiness to 
 mankind. Nor were tlu? approaches to his faith much 
 ^•narde<l. Through life he was addicted to patent 
 me<licines and other ((uackei'ies. He gave himself 
 not only to novelties such as phrenology, homcpopathy, 
 and hydropathy, Init to clairvoyants who diagnosed 
 his maladies through the hacks of their heads, and 
 whose diagnosis he trusted when it agreed with his own. 
 Phrenologists pronounced his l)uni]i of ideality lai'ge : 
 and he said that he should like to take up his al)o<le 
 in the country that he might live in the ideal if then; 
 was not so nnich wrong in the world to he put right, 
 (iarrison even fell for a time under the spiritual in- 
 fluence of John Humphrey Noyes, the founder of the 
 Oneida conuL.-nity, and a man of the same stamp as 
 Harris, the founder of the Erie connnunity, who ol>- 
 tained a strange ascendaneyovei" Laurence Oliphunt. 
 Noyes taught tlu^ docti'ine of Perfectionism, believing 
 that sinlessness was attainable in this world and had 
 l)y himself been attained. He also renounce<l all alle- 
 giance to temporal governments, including that of the 
 [Inited States, regarding them as creations of human 
 wickedness, and asserting the title of Jesus (^hi'ist t<» 
 the throne of the worl<l. His practical attitude, how- 
 
 111 ) 
 
 fH 
 
 1 i 
 
ever, towards governments was not that of reltel- 
 lion, liut of Non-Resistance. Noyes was no doubt able 
 and imposing, and he made a deep impression on Gar- 
 rison. Perfectionism, in the strict spiritual sense of 
 the term, appears to have been in Garrison's case a 
 passing phase ; to his biographers, at least, the discov- 
 ery that he had been a Perfectionist and a disciple of 
 Noyes was new. But Non-Resistance, or, as opponents 
 called it, No-Government, took a stronger hold. It 
 took a hold so strong that Garrison even renounced 
 active citizenship and made himself, as it were, a 
 political eunuch for the Kingdom of Heaven's sake. 
 His language implies that the constable and sheriff, the 
 judge and law-giver, were to be swept away ; that 
 to talk of punishing the evil and protecting the weak 
 by courts of justice is at variance with Christianity ; 
 and that we cannot, if we are true to our religion, sue 
 any man at law, to compel him by force to restore 
 anything which he may have wrongfully taken from 
 us or others, but if he has seized our coat, we ought to 
 surrender up our cloak, rather than subject the man to 
 punishment. " As to the governments of this world," 
 he says, " whatever their titles or forms, we shall en- 
 deavour to prove that, in their essential elements, and 
 as at present administered, they are all anti-Christ ; 
 that they can never by human wisdom be brought 
 into conformity with the will of God ; that they can- 
 not be maintained except by naval and military 
 power ; that all their penal enactments, being a dead 
 
 ( 112 ) 
 
letter without an anny to cany tlieiii into otieet, arc 
 virtually written in human Vdood ; and that the fol- 
 lowers of JesuK should instinctively shun their stations 
 of honour, power and emolument — at the same time 
 'submitting to every ordinance of man, for the Lord's 
 sake,' and ottering no physical resistance to any of 
 their mandates, however unjust or tyrannical." On 
 resuming the Liheritfor as his own organ, he hegan to 
 introduce in it his Perfectionism and Non-Resistance, 
 to the natural dismay of such of his friends as were 
 singly <levoted to Abolition. In vain did they press 
 upon him that his doctrines, carried out to their logi- 
 cal extreme, wouM dissolve the family and society, 
 prevent a father from restraining his children, and 
 forbid the Liberator himself, when he was attacked by 
 a mob, to accept the protection of the police. In vain 
 was it argued tiiat the abolition of Slavery itself, if it 
 was to be ett'ected by legislation, would involve the ac- 
 tion of an earthly government. To Non-Resistance 
 he clung with all the tenacity of his character, and 
 placed in jeopardy his great mission to organize a 
 movement for the dissemination of the doctrine. A 
 natural revulsion followed, even among the friends of 
 the anti-slavery cause in England, to some of whom 
 Garrison's name became a terror. 
 
 In reviewing such an episode, we must 1 tear in mind 
 that the wisdom of this world is not the note of a 
 moral crusader. The temperament of a Savanarola 
 
 or a Garrison is pretty sure to be such as will ex- 
 H ( 113 ) 
 
 ir' 
 
pose him to dehision. Savanarola's tempcraiiuint 
 exposed him to liaUucination. OaiTison's fancies about 
 Non-Resistance and No-Government led him rather in- 
 to logical than into practical aberrations. He was con- 
 strained to condemn the Abolitionist Lovejoy for de- 
 fending himself against the Pro-slavery mob by 
 which he was slain. He had to parry the charge of 
 theoretical anarchy by protesting that he was no 
 anarch, since he believed in the Government of God. 
 But he did rothing anarchic or insane ; he practised 
 the passive obedience which, as we have seen, ho 
 preached ; and he went straight on his path as a cru- 
 sader against slavery. He had a sort of saving clause 
 in his No-Government creed, since he held that human 
 Governments " are the results of human disoltedience 
 to the requirements of heaven and they are better 
 than anarchy ; just as a hailstorm is preferable to an 
 earth(juake, or the smallpox to the Asiatic cholera." 
 He could (|uietly bear the hailstorm and put up with 
 the smallpox. The moral force which he had created 
 and which he sustained continued to act on the voters, 
 though he henceforth himself refused to vote. Noyes's 
 slippery theories about the relations of the sexes, oscil- 
 lating between chimerical asceticism and license, could 
 take no hold on the mind of an excellent husband and 
 father, though calumny did not fail to connect them 
 with Garrison's name.* 
 
 * It may be well here to remind the reader that (iarrison's sons arc in noway 
 responsible for the opinions of the writer, though they have allowed hin\ to upe 
 their work as an authentic repertory of facts. 
 
 ( 114:) 
 
 " 
 
 * 
 
9» 
 
 Criticism will Itc kiiul to a man who, in tlui midst 
 of so much that was dishoiiost, sordid and timo-serv- 
 ing, was doinfr his host with a sin^lo lioai't ni every 
 way for riglituousnoss and for tin; good of mankind, 
 strange as some of his eccentricities may have been. 
 Non-Resistance and No-(}overinnent had the good 
 effect of keeping its professor clearer tlian ever of 
 political party. John Stuart Mill afterwards, in n 
 eulogy on Garrison, dwelt on the happy tendency of a 
 great reform to draw with it other great reforms, evi- 
 dently having in his mind what to him wouM appeal- 
 the happy association of Anti-Slavery with Woman's 
 Right. Nor is even a moral crusader bound to he a 
 man of one idea. But such a galaxy of heresies was 
 sure not only to make or embitter enemies, Init to dis- 
 concert and estrange friends. The first consef|uence 
 was an appeal from the clergy against Garrison's 
 hevesies, his rebellious attitude towards their order, 
 and his encouragement of female propagandists, 
 whose action not onl}'^ jarred with their notions of 
 female propriety but encroached on their ministerial 
 domain. This bombshell, thrown from without, burst 
 without doing mucli harm, though a desperate (juarrel 
 with a set of men very powerful and in their hearts 
 probably inclined to the right, if their church trus- 
 tees would have left them free, could do the cause no 
 good. Far more serious was <lissension in the Garri- 
 sonian camp itself, which, by the withdrawal of sup- 
 port, put the Liberator in peril of its life, and after- 
 
 (115) 
 
Wrtrds lu'ou^dit on opoii and iiTcfoiifilulilr schism, tirsl 
 in the MassachusottH Society and then in th(^ Parent 
 Society at New York. It would smvly Ije unjnst to 
 tax all Garrison's opponents on this occasion with 
 clerical fanaticism or personal Jealousy, an«l to hrand 
 all their proceedings as conspiracy and calial. The 
 names of Arthur Tappan, Garrison's first and niost 
 f^enerous pr«)tector, of his brother Lewis, of Gerrit 
 Smith, who was partly at least with the dissidents, 
 rtnd of John G. Whittier, are an answer to sweeping 
 imputations. These men had good reason for desir- 
 ing that Abolitionism should not l>e compromised hy 
 association with No-Government, Non-Resistance, anti- 
 Sabbatarianism, opposition to capital punishment, 
 theological heterodoxy, and the politi-^al ecjuality of 
 the sexes. Garrison had a right to his own opinions 
 on all subjects, and he had a right to give them free 
 expression in the Lihevdtor when that journal was 
 entirely his own and not the official organ of the 
 party. But the (question of his personal right was 
 one thing, that of his eligibility as a leader and of his 
 journal's eligibility as a mouthpiece were another; 
 ai.d on the second point there might well be sincere 
 misgiving. Wilberforce would assuredly have for- 
 feited the leadership of British Abolitionism if he had 
 taken to preaching the doctrines of Humphrey Noyes, 
 throwing down the gauntlet of defiance to all the 
 clergy, tilting against the Sabbath, and agitating in 
 
 favour of Female Sufi'rage. Elizur Wright, whose 
 
 ( 110 ) 
 
ui'^Muiu'nts (l}in'is(m'H sons, keeping' tlu' n<»l»l«' tin- 
 tlitioii of tiicii' I'Mtlicr's ('jiiidour, \\n\{' ruitlirully s*! 
 hcforc UH, put the cnse most forcilily niid at tlic sjinic 
 tinu; in the most friendly way. He and tliose wli(» 
 thought like him were entitled to respectful attt-ntion. 
 To the char^^e of making the movement sectarian, 
 they might have retorted that sects, and very narrow 
 sects, may he founded on denial and destruction as 
 well as on positive doctrines or institutions, and that 
 the Garrisonians were f,dving Al)olitionism tlie char- 
 acter before the world of an anti-Hihlical. anti- 
 Clerical, anti-Governmental, anti-Sabbatarian and 
 Female-Suffragist sect. Gn the other hand, there 
 was mucli to be said for the policy of winking- 
 hard at CJarrison's errors, retaining him as leader, and 
 trying to keep him in the straight path. His single- 
 ness of aim, purity, disinterestedness, were beyond 
 suspicion : in devotion to the cause and in the sacrifi- 
 ces which he had made for it he surpassed all its other 
 champions, and it was thoroughly identified with his 
 name. Garibaldi was liable to serious aberrations, but 
 as his aberrations were of the head, not of the heart, 
 and he was the soul and cynosure of the movement, 
 the friends of Italian independence deemed it best to 
 keep him as their leader, steadying his course by their 
 healthy counsels as well as they could. Garrison's 
 enemies — and enemies he no doubt had — accused him 
 of arrogant assumption and of bearing himself as if he 
 
 were the cause incarnate. It is very difficult for a 
 
 (117) 
 
iiuin to load without lujikiu^- it i'elt tluit lie is tlio 
 k'Jider and tlicrcliy ^ivin^' iiiiil>rH^e to touchy and 
 jealous natures. But Miss Martincau hears witness to 
 ({arrison's reniarkahle freedom from arrogance, and 
 even to the humility of his manner. In his home, 
 she says, no one would have suspected that he was the 
 great man. He certaiidy never played the Moses or 
 the Mahomet. At all events, it would have been well 
 to bear with nnich, rather than incur a fatal schism. 
 " Contest for Leadership" is a sinister pln-ase to ap- 
 pear in the history of a moral crusade, and a sound 
 full of comfort to the enemy. I'he contest in this 
 case, lioweN'er, was not between (Jarrison and a rival, 
 but l)etween one policy or principle and another. 
 
 So far as Garrison was contending against the 
 conversion of Abolition from a moral movement into 
 a third political party, putting forward candidates for 
 the Presidency and the offices of State, we must pro- 
 nounce him to have been still acting in the right, and 
 to have received from subsequent experience the 
 strongest confirmation of his views. So far as he 
 insisted on the doctrine of political effacement and the 
 renunciation by citizens of a citizen's right and duty, 
 and so far as he insisted on mixing up Abolition, 
 ostensibly or practically, with No-Goverinnent, Non- 
 Resistance, anti-Sabbatarianism, anti-Clericalism, or 
 Woman's Rights, most people will hold that he was 
 
 in the wrong, and that his opponents, if they were not 
 
 ( 118 ) 
 
 1^ 
 
actuuted l>y persoiml rooliiigs or by cli^UL', luul right 
 upon their side. 
 
 What was the exact (juestioii on which tlie two 
 parties at hist joined issue it is not easy to discern. 
 In the Massachusetts Society, wliich was the scene of 
 their first encounter, the issue seems to have been that 
 between ' No-Governnient ' and political duty. In the 
 debate Garrison was hard pressed. Ke was called 
 upon again and again to say definitely v/hether voting 
 was sinful, and the only answer which he would give 
 was that " it was sinful for him." How could he think 
 a thing sinful for himself and not sinful for other 
 people, the moral circumstances of all, in respect of the 
 matter in (question, being identically the same ? In 
 the Massachusetts Society tlie Garrisonians gained an 
 easy victory. But the final Ijattle was fought in a 
 Convention of the Parent Society at New York. To 
 that Armageddon the Garrisonians of Massachusetts 
 went in a steamer chartered for the purpose, buoyant 
 from their recent triumph. Their buoyancy perhaps 
 was rather too great, consideving that they were going 
 to fight old friends. " There never," wrote Garrison , 
 " has been such a mass of ' ultraism ' afloat, in one 
 boat, since the first victim was stolen from the fire- 
 smitten and blood-red soil of Africa. Tliere were 
 persons of all ages, complexions and conditioris, from 
 our time-honoured and veteran friend Seth Sprague, 
 through ripened manhood down to rosy youth. They 
 were, indeed, the moral and religious elite of New 
 
 ( 119 ) 
 
 f I, : 
 
England Abolitionism, who liavo l)Uckl(Ml on tlio anti- 
 slavery armour to wear to the t'luX of the conHict, or 
 to the close of life. It was truly a great and joyful 
 meeting, united together by a common bond, and par- 
 taking of the one spirit of hn>>;anity. Such greetings 
 and shaking of hands ! such interchanges of thoughts 
 and opinions ! such zeal and disinterestedness and 
 faith ! Verily it was good to be there ! " The other 
 party mustered all its forces. The issue on this occa- 
 sion was the Woman Question. Miss Abby Kelley 
 was nominated by the- Woman's Rights party as a 
 member of the business committee, and her election 
 was carried by a majority of about a hundred out 
 of a vote of 1008. Thus Garrison was victorious and 
 retained the leadership. But the other party seceded, 
 and the breach never was healed. It was a disastrous 
 and discreditable episode in the history of a moral 
 
 cnisade, 
 
 ( 120 ) 
 
1 
 
 X. 
 
 Confirmed in his leadership, Garrison appeared as 
 tlie representative of American Abolitionism at the 
 World's Convention in London (1840). He took with 
 him among his colleagues in the delegation Lucretia 
 Mott and other women, and he insisted on their ad- 
 mission to the Convention. Here he had to encoun- 
 ter a prejudice against the appearance of women on 
 the platform, or as active participants in public meet- 
 ings, still stronger than that against which he had con- 
 tended in his own country. In those days even a 
 man of social position and refinement in England was 
 disposed tc shrink from the platform unless he was in 
 public life, and the appearance of his wife and daugh- 
 ter there would have been shocking to him in the 
 highest degree. Nor could it be denied that this feel- 
 ing was intimately related to the domestic character 
 of the race and the str(!ngth of its family institutions. 
 It was true that this was a World's Ct)nvention, and 
 that a merely local sentiment had no right to l)e 
 heard. But this was not merely a local sentiment: 
 it was almost a universal sentiment, though it was 
 peculiai'ly strong in the countiy in which the Conven- 
 tion met. The object of that Convention was not to 
 reform the relations between the sexes and assert the 
 
 ( 121 ) 
 
 'il 
 
 I!.! 
 
I'l^lit of women to iiioniit plnti'onns, lnit to sot froci 
 the slave. Garrison had brought the women over. 
 In refusing to sit in the Convention w^ithout them and 
 seceding to the gallery he did right. But the women, 
 if tliey cared more for the cause than for their own 
 claims, would have done well in putting an end to the 
 dilemma by peremptory withdrawal. 
 
 In other respects the Convention went off well. 
 Splendid entertainments were gi ven, one by Mrs. Opie, 
 and another by the great Quaker banker, Samuel 
 Gurney, who sent seven barouches to convey the dele- 
 gates to his suburban seat. "A great sensation did we 
 produce as we paraded through the streets of 
 London." The Duchess of Sutherland came in all her 
 splendour. Haydon made a picture of the Convention, 
 and the Duchess bespoke a copy of Garrison's like- 
 ness. O'Connell contributed some eloquence, which it 
 is needless to say was " blistering." Not less blister- 
 ing was Garrison's language in a letter to the Quaker, 
 Pease, in which, denouncing slaveowners, and Ameri- 
 can slaveowners above all, as unequalled among op- 
 pressors " in ferociousness of spirit, moral turpitude of 
 character, and desperate depravity of heart," he de- 
 clared that he considered their conversion "by appeals 
 to their understand: ogs, consciences and hearts, about 
 as hopeless as any attempt to transform wolves and 
 hyenas into lambs and doves by the same process." 
 
 To read such invective w^ithout a shudder one must 
 
 ( 122 ) 
 
, 
 
 ])ear in mind tliut at this tinu* iicoTocs in tl'.i' Soutli 
 were being l»urnL'(l ali\c at a .slow fiiv. 
 
 One of Garrison'.s companions on this mission was 
 C. L. Remond, a ct)loured man. In the American ship 
 Remond was compelled to go in the steerage, and had 
 to undergo the indignities of niggerhood. In England 
 he accompanied his whitii friends everywhere, sat 
 down to table with dukes and duchesses, and was re- 
 ceived with favour in every circle. Garrison moral- 
 izes on the difference between tlie conduct of demo- 
 cracy and that of aristocracy ; but it is always to be 
 borne in mind that in England the negro had never 
 been branded with slavery. 
 
 The reception of Garrison on his return seems to 
 show the progress that his movement had been mak- 
 ing. " Although," h« says, "we took the ' Bostonians ' 
 by surprise, they nevertheless rushed to the wharves 
 by thousands, and gave the Acadia a grand reception. 
 It was one of the most thrilling scenes I ever wit- 
 nessed ; and as it was the termination of my voyage, 
 I could not help weeping like a child for joy. Never 
 did home before look so lovely. On landing, we 
 were warmly received by a deputation of our white 
 and coloured anti-slavery friends, from whom I re- 
 ceived the pleasing intelligence that my dear wife and 
 children were all well. These I soon embraced in my 
 arms, gratefully returning thanks to God for all his 
 kindness manifested to us during our separation. I 
 
 need not attempt to describe the scene." The heart of 
 
 ( 123 ) 
 
 t 
 
 i 
 
 i4 
 
 
Boston luTselt' wjis uppart'iitly beo-iiininf»' to cluin^o. 
 A nolilor spirit sconis to luivo hiieii {iroused l>y such 
 outruges on law ns tlie killing of Lovojoy, an«l by the 
 aggressions on tlie freedom of opinion. 
 
 The schism could not fail to weaken the movement. 
 It was immediately followed by the collapse of a num- 
 ber of local associations. Happily the conscience of 
 the nation had already been effectually stirred, and, as 
 Garrison said, "the mighty reaction was felt, and 
 abolition was going forward with wind and tide." 
 Societies — so the chronicle of his life tells us — were 
 still increasing in number, even Connecticut at last 
 wheeling into line, while its legislature repealed the 
 law aimed against Prudence Crandall's school, secured 
 fugitive slaves the right to trial by jury, and joined in 
 the Northern protest against the admission of new 
 Slave States, and assertion of the right and duty of 
 Congress to abolish slavery in the district of Columbia. 
 Notwithstanding hard times, money had been found 
 for the maintenance of a host of travelling lecturers 
 and for the myriad publications of the American 
 Society. Political conventions began to adopt anti- 
 slavery resolutions. The clergy attended in increased 
 numbers anti-slavery meetings. In the Methodist 
 clmrch especially, there was a spread of anti-slavery 
 sentiment which reactionary bishops found it difficult 
 to keep down. Six out of twenty-eight Methodist 
 Conferences and a thousand itinerant clergymen of 
 
 the Methodist church had declared for the cause. 
 
 ( 124 ) . 
 
 . 
 
Five-sixths of the ministers ol" Frnnklin eountv, 
 Massachusetts, and a clerical convention at Worcester, 
 pronounced against slavery and in favour of innne- 
 diate alolition. Petitioning Congress for abolition, 
 against extension of tlvj area of slavery, and in 
 support of the right of petitioniiig itself, went on. 
 In despite of all errors or extravagances on the pai't 
 of the preacher, the national conscience had been 
 pricked and the call to repentance had been heaivl. 
 
 Garrison continued to exercise his poetic powers, 
 which, as has already been sai<l, were not mean. 
 Perhaps the best description and vindication of his 
 general position are to be found in the two sonnets 
 which he wrote about this time, and which are also 
 fair specimens of his gift. One of the sonnets is an 
 invocation to Liberty ; the other was written on com- 
 pleting his thirty-fifth year ; — 
 
 I. 
 
 Ihey tell i '■e, Liberty ! that, in thy name, 
 
 I may not plead for all the human race ; 
 
 That some are born to bondage and disgrace, 
 Some to a heritage of woe and shame, 
 And some to power supreme, and glorious fame. 
 
 With my whole soul I spurn the doctrine l)ase, 
 
 And, as an equal brotherhood, embrace 
 All people, and for all fair freedom claim I 
 Know this, man ! whatever thy earthly fate — 
 
 God never made a tyrant, nor a slay?: : 
 Woe, tlien, to those who dare to desecrate 
 
 His glorious image ! — for to all He gave 
 Eternal rights, which none can violate ; 
 And, by a mighty hand, the oppressed He yet shall save. 
 
 ( 125 ) 
 
 
 nil: 
 
i i 
 
 II. 
 
 If to the age of threescore years and ten, 
 
 Cxod of my life ! thou slialt my term jjrolong, 
 
 Still be it mine to reprol)ate all wrong, 
 And save from woe my suffering fellow-men. 
 Whether, in Freedom's cause, my voice or ])en 
 
 Be used by Thee, who art my boast and song. 
 
 To vindicate the weak against the strong, 
 Upon my labours rest Thy benison ! 
 O ! not for Afric's sons alone I plead. 
 
 Or her descendants ; but for all who Ugh 
 In servile chains, whate'er their caste or creed : 
 
 They not in vain to Heaven send up their cry ; 
 For all mankind from liondage shall be freed, 
 And from the earth be chased all forms of tyranny. 
 
 On his return to America we find him at tlie Chardon 
 Street Chapel Convention, tlie object of whicli was to 
 call a meeting for the discussion of the Sal)l)ath and for 
 an enquiry into the origin, nature and autliority of 
 the ministry and the church as now existing. Among 
 those present were some men of mark, such as James 
 Russell Lowell, Theodore Parker, R. W. Emerson, and 
 W. E. Channing. The anti-slavery movement may 
 he regarded as a segment of a great moral movement 
 of which, as well as of the theological liberalism of his 
 day, Theodore Parker was perhaps the foremost apostle, 
 unless Emerson deserves that palm. The Chardon 
 Street Convention came to nothing, but the discussion 
 which arose out of it gave Garrison an opportunity of 
 once more explaining his "infidelity." 
 
 "I am an ' intidel,' forsooth, because I do )iot believe in the 
 
 ( 126) 
 
inherent holiness of the first tiny of the week ; in n reyuhir 
 priesthood; in a mere Hesh-and-bloocl coi'poration as constitut- 
 ing the true church of Christ ; in temple worship as a part of the 
 new dispensation ; in being baptized with water, and observing 
 the 'ordinance' of the supper, etc., etc. I am an 'infidel' 
 because I do believe in consecrating all time, and body and soul, 
 unto God ; in ' a royal priesthood, a chosen generatif)n ' ; in a 
 spiritual church, built up of lively stones, the he vd of which is 
 Christ ; in worshipping God in spirit and in truth, without 
 regard to time or p^ce ; in being baptized with the Holy Spirit, 
 and enjoying spiritual connnunion with the Father, etc. If 
 this be infidelity, then is Quakerism infidelity." 
 
 Presently we have Garrison coming again to tlie 
 rescue of Perfectionism againt clerical attacks. But 
 Noyes differed from liim on the Woman Question. 
 This difference may have had the fortunate effect of 
 diminishing the sinister influence of the prophet. 
 Noyes's community also failed to attract. We seem 
 to hear little henceforth of Perfectionism, and some- 
 what less even of No-Government and Non-Resistance. 
 The Non-Re>iwtavf, the organ of the Non -Resistance 
 Society, and the Society itself, presently expired. 
 
 Woman's Rights continued in full force. 
 
 ( 127 ) 
 
 ,HII 
 
 r\ 
 
XI. 
 
 Thk lu'xt clijipter in tlu; "Story" is " Ke-foniuitioii 
 and Rcnnimation." In tliis, so nuicli oF the intellec- 
 tual element of the party having- been cut oft' ])y the 
 schism, a rougher element came more!#t) the front. All 
 fervid moral movements, it is truly sai<l, " unavoid- 
 ably draw to tiiemselves the insane, the unbalanced, 
 the blindly enthusiastic." After. the secesri(m of other 
 elements, the prominence of such elements could not 
 fail to be increased. " Moral plouf^hshares," the chron- 
 icle calls them, and it admits that their logic was severe 
 and relentless, tlieir «list. mrse not seldom grim, and 
 their invective sweeping. They were of the same 
 stamp as the Fifth Monarchy Men of the English 
 Revolution or the enthusiastic Quakers. The objects 
 of their onslaughts Avere the churches. Garrison, we 
 are told, in spirit was completely in harmony with 
 them, but in details of language and of policy he felt 
 at liberty to differ. He having moved a resolution 
 at a meeting that among the responsible classes in the 
 non-slaveholding States the religious professors, and 
 especially the clergy, stand wickedly pre-eminent, one 
 of the " moral ploughshares" moved as an amendment 
 that " the church and clergy of the United States as 
 
 a whole constitute a great brotherhood of thieves," 
 
 ( 128 ) 
 
 ., 
 
ith 
 .'It 
 
 one 
 eiit 
 
 as 
 
 >> 
 es, 
 
 " 
 
 The clergy were not nmcli to Ih? hlamerl if tlu-y rlirl 
 not receive such hot-goHpellers with open arrns. 
 
 Among his Hul)orflin}ite missions, Garrison was still 
 an apostle oF temperance, and he preached not only 
 against drink hut against tobacco. In a trip, partly 
 for lecturing, partly for pleasure, which he took ahout 
 this time, a pleasant and lively incident in coruiection 
 with this part of his apostleship occurnul. 
 
 " As we rode through the [Franconia] Notch after friends 
 Beach and Rogers, we were alarmed at seeing ttmokc issue from 
 their chaise-top, and cried out to them that their chaise was 
 afire I We were more than suspicious, however, that it was 
 something worse than that, and that the .smoke came (JUt of 
 friend Rogers' mouth. And it so turned out. This was before 
 we reached the Notch tavern. Alighting there to water our 
 beasta, we gave him, all round, a faithful admonition. For 
 anti-slavery does not fail to spend its intervals of public service 
 in mutual and searching correction of the faults of its friends. 
 We gave it soundly to friend Rogers — that he, an abolitionist, 
 on his way to an anti-slavery convention, should desecrate his 
 anti-slavery mouth and that glorious Mountain Notch with a 
 stupefying tobacco weed. We had halted at the Iron Works 
 tavern to refresh our horses, and, while they were eating, 
 walked to view the furnace. As we crossed the little bridge, 
 friend Rogers took out another cigar, as if to light it when we 
 should reach the fire. 'Ts it any malady y)U have got, brother 
 Rogers,' said we to him, 'that you smoke that thing, or is it 
 habit and indulgence merely V 'It is nothing but habit,' said 
 he, gravely ; 'or, I would say, it io(is nothing else,' and he sig- 
 nificantly cast the little roll over the railing into the Ammonoo- 
 
 suck. ' A revolution ! ' exclaimed Garrison, ' a glorious revolu- 
 I ( 129 ) 
 
 'V 
 
 \i . 
 
tioii without noifio or mnokr,' iiiul ha Hwuiig his liat cheerily 
 iiboiit hin hiiiiil. 
 
 *' It WHS )i priitty incident, and wo joyfully witni'ssed it and 
 fis joyfully record it. It was a vice abandoned, a self-iudul- 
 yence denied, and fmni principle. It was quietly and beauti- 
 fully done. We call on any HUiokinj^ abolitionist to take notice 
 and to take pattern. Anti-slavery wants her mouths for other 
 uses than to be tlues for besottinj^ tobacco-smoke. They may 
 as well almost be rum-ducts as tobacco-funnels. .\nd we rejoice 
 that so few mouths or noses in our ranks are thus profaned. 
 Abolitionists are j,'enerally as cra/.y in regard to rum and tobacco 
 as in regard to slavery. Some of them refrain from eating flesh 
 and drinking tea and cofl'ee. Some are so bewildered that they 
 won't fight in the way of Christian retaliation, to the great dis- 
 fcurbance (tf the churches they belong to, and the annoyance of 
 their pastors. They do not embrace these 'new-fangled notions' 
 as abolitionists — but then one fanaticism leads to another, and 
 they arc getting to be mono-maniacs, as the Reverend brother 
 Punchard called us, on every subject." 
 
 The moral atmosphere, though a good deal purified 
 
 by the abolition movement, was still foul, and quencl • 
 
 ed lights, even bright lights, brought into it from 
 
 without. There cfime from Ireland an appeal against 
 
 slavery, addressed to the Irish of the United States, 
 
 and signed by sixty thousand Irishmen, witli O'Con- 
 
 nell at their head. The meeting at Faneuil Hall, at 
 
 which this address was unrolled, was said by Garrison 
 
 to have been indescribably enthusiastic and to have 
 
 made a deep impression on the public mind. On the 
 
 mind of the Irish in America it made none. The 
 
 Irishman was not disposed to have his foot taken from 
 
 ( 130) 
 
; from 
 
 the neck c)f the negro, the one Vteing on whom he 
 could look down. Nor w»is lie «HH|)ostMl to forfeit tlu' 
 political plunder which came to him as the henchman 
 of the DenuK'ratic ])arty, now the party of slavery 
 and the South. The Irish Bishop Hu<,di('s, the 
 apologist of slavery, (piestioned the autheiitieity of the 
 docu)nent. The Irish moh of Philadelphia responded 
 to it hy a nnirderous riot, the pi-ecursor of the draft 
 riot in New York, and hy the hurning of a lienevolent 
 society's hall. The slaveowners played up to the hand 
 of their allies in the North, and at the same time 
 gratified their hatred of England, as the great anti- 
 slavery power, by espousing the cause of Irish liberty. 
 Nor did Garrison himself shrink from winning Irish 
 support by declaring for the Repeal of the Union. 
 Father Mathew, the Irish apostle of Temperance, after- 
 wards visited the United States, and was received with 
 enthusiasm by his compatriots. He had signed the 
 appeal against slavery, and the Oarrisonians fondly 
 hoped that this time a Daniel was come to judgment. 
 Their hopes were dashed when he affected scarcely to 
 remember that he had signed the appeal, and plainly 
 showed that he would gladly repudiate his signature. 
 Extracts from O'Connell's anti-slavery speeches were 
 thrust before him by the Liberator in vain. He not 
 only would have nothing to do with abolition 
 or abolitionists, but he made himself scandalously 
 agreeable to the other side. All that Garrison could 
 
 do with him was to present him in a very sorry aspect 
 
 ( 131 ) 
 
 
 ; ! 
 
} 1 
 
 before the world, and press home the moral lesson of 
 his apostasy. This was etfectually done. A similar 
 disappointment awaited the aV)olitionists wlien Kos- 
 suth visited the United States. Him also, as a 
 champion of liberty, they expected to avow his sym- 
 pathy with the liberators of the slave. He av()we<l, 
 on the contrary, his sympathy with Southern auto- 
 nonjy and the right of every people to regulate its 
 own atfairs and institutions. The abolitionists were 
 not aware that the liberty of which Kossuth himself 
 was the champion was that of a dominant race, and 
 that there would be a certain Ulament of sympathy 
 between the southern white who wished, to do as he 
 liked with his own negro, and the Maygar who wished 
 to do as lie liked with his own Croat. 
 
 The agents 3ent out by the Free Church of Scot- 
 land, after its secession from the State Church, to the 
 United States, to seek assistance in America, lapsed 
 even more sadly than Father Mathew and Kossuth, 
 They took money from Presbyterian slaveowners. To 
 stop this scandal. Garrison a third time crossed the 
 Atlantic. He was successful in his mission, though 
 the churches rang in vain with the cry, "Send back 
 the moTiey ! " He met personally with a reception 
 which shi wed that his name was still great with the 
 British friends of his cause. His principal speech is 
 as good a specimen as could be given of his oratory, 
 and it shows, by its adaptation to hearers who were 
 
 fighting for the liberation of the Church from the 
 
 ( 132 ) 
 
State, that the speaker could on occasion disphiy tact 
 as well as power. The speech is f^iven as re[)orted in 
 the Lovdiyii Universe of August 28, 1846. 
 
 " He W1V8 received with enthusiastic cheering, hundreds ris- 
 ing fr(»m their seats. He wished to know if they were in earn- 
 est when they gave him that reception ? Were they disposed to 
 regard him as the friend of universal liberty ? Then he begged 
 to tell them, that if they went over to America they would be 
 deemed fit subjects for Lynch law. (Laughter and cheers.) 
 What! were they in earnest? Were there no apologists for 
 slavery there '( None to applaud those ancient slaveholding 
 patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob ? None to talk of send- 
 ing Onesimus back to his master because he was a slave ? Were 
 there none to apologize for those pious men who plundered 
 cradles of babes, tortured women by the slave-driver's lash, and 
 sent men to the auction-block? 'Why, then,' said Mr. Gar- 
 rison, 'here's my hand for every one of you, and here's a heart 
 that beats in unison with your own.' (Great cheering.) , . 
 
 " ' It is no connuon ccmflict in which we are engaged, because 
 whatever forms of political oppression you may have here, or in 
 Europe, or in the world besides, there is no power so dread- 
 ful and exterminating as American slavery. It began with the 
 very beginning of the Union (hear 1), and it has grown with 
 our growth until it now holds complete mastery over the whole 
 country, so that the two great political i)arties are eager to do 
 its bidding, and religious sects bow^ before it and do it homage ; 
 in one word, it has completely subjected Church and State. 
 Above all, we are against Church and State because they are on 
 the side of slavery, and they shall go down tt)gether. (Great 
 applause.) It is said that the abolitionists are assailing the 
 American church ; it is true. It is said they are assailing the 
 American clergy in [as] a body ; it is true. It is said they are 
 
 ( 133 ) 
 
rtssiilling the Government under whicli tliey live ; it is true. Tt 
 is aaid they are seeking the dissolution of the Union ; it is true. 
 Why do I say this ? Because the church is the stronghold of 
 the system ; because the Government was originally so con- 
 structed that it gives its entire support to slavery, so long as the 
 slaveholder shall desire it. 
 
 " ' Now, to come to facts, and to show you that I do not ex- 
 aggerate in what I state, I will read for you a few extracts, 
 giving you the very words of the abettors of slavery in the 
 church. 
 
 " ' Such is slavery in America ! And yet the abolitionists are 
 stigmatized as iniidels because they would have no such Christ- 
 ianity or republicanism as sanctioned such atrocities. Slavery 
 is a curse wherever it is found. It not only smites with barren- 
 ness the most fertile soil in the world, but it makes human life 
 cheap, and, in fact, of no value at iftU. (Cheers. ) A year ag< > 
 I thought I would collect from the newspapers all the horrible 
 details of killing, maiming, etc., connected with slavery, and put 
 them in my paper. My collection was imperfect, for I had n<» 
 Southern papers, for they will not send papers to me from the 
 South. I took the Northern papers, and took out of them the 
 most bloody deeds. They are very few indeed, but they show 
 the state of society there, and a state of insecurity for human 
 life such as can nowhere else be found. The list was begun n 
 year ago, and this paper is full of short paragraphs. [Here Mr. 
 (Jarrison unrolled a paper, the width of one of our columns, 
 made up of short accounts of murders, etc. , and unrolled it from 
 end to end. It was about twelve yards long. There were calls for 
 a few to be read. Mr. Garrison then read two or three, and then 
 continued.] And yet there are those who attemi)t to excuse this 
 state (»f things. I am sorry that there are Englishmen dis])ose(l 
 t(» apttlogize f<»r these American christians who keep bloodhounds I 
 They say, they are under a great mistake —they are in error, but 
 you must call such christians no hard or bad names. But I say 
 
 ( 134 ) 
 
e. Tfc 
 I true, 
 old of 
 ) con- 
 as the 
 
 lot ex- 
 
 Ltracts, 
 
 in the 
 
 ists are 
 christ- 
 Slavery 
 barren- 
 nan life 
 ear a<;t> 
 horrible 
 and put 
 had no 
 :rom the 
 hem the 
 ley show 
 V humati 
 begun a 
 lere Mr. 
 columns, 
 d it from 
 calls ft»r 
 and then 
 scuse this 
 disi)o8ed 
 dhounds I 
 3rror, but 
 But I say 
 
 the American jjcople are excluded from apology. They hold the 
 Declaration in their hand that all men are equal ; then they 
 enslave their brother, and whip him, and hunt him with blood- 
 hounds, and profess the gospel of Christ. Now, no man can be 
 excused for enslaving another, whether he be savage or civilized. 
 (Great applause.) God has put a witness in every man's breast 
 which protests against man holding a man in bondage. I never 
 debate the question as to whether man may hold property in 
 man. I never degrade myself by debating the question, " Is 
 slavery a sin 1 " It is a self-evident truth, which God hath 
 engx'avrtii on our very nature. Where I see the holder of a slave, 
 1 charge the sin upon him, and I denounce him 
 
 •' ' Now, what have we American abolitionists a right to ask 
 of you Englishmen ? You ought not to receive slaveholders as 
 honest christian men. You ought not to invite them t(» your 
 pulpits, to your connnunion tables. Will you see to it that 
 they never ascend your pulpits ? If you will, then the slave 
 will bless you, and th nks from the American abolitionists 
 will come over in thundei tones for your decision, and you will 
 give a blow to slavery from which it will not recover. We ask 
 another thing of you. Send us no more delegates to the States, 
 or, if you do, let there be no divinity among them. Nothing 
 but common humanity c..n stand in the United States. (Cheers.) 
 Send us no more Baptist clerical delegates, or Methodist, or 
 Presbyterian, or Quaker clerical delegates. They have all play- 
 ed into the hands of slavery against the abolitionists. (Cheers.) 
 
 From Dr. C , down to the last delegation, they have all done 
 
 an evil work, and have strengthened slavery against us. Like the 
 priest and tlie Levite, they have passed us by and gone on the 
 other side. They found the cause of abolitionism unpopular. 
 The mass of society were pro-slavery, so they went v/ith them 
 and we have gone to the wall. Send us no more, if you please. 
 
 (Cheers.) We have had to say. Save us from our English 
 
 ( 135 ) 
 
 ill 
 
H: 
 
 il 
 
 I I 
 
 friends, and Wc will take care of our enemies. There have l)een 
 those who have gone over to America, and who have nobly 
 stood their ground. They liave passed tlu'ough the tire, and no 
 smell of it has been found on them. That man (pointing to the 
 chairman, Mr. Thompscm) has gone through it. (Immense 
 cheering, continued for some time.) Though ;ising on the top- 
 most wave of popularity at home, he consented to aid us, where 
 he was sure to be mobbed and scouted. But he never blenched. 
 He was not afraid to make himself the friend and companion of 
 the negro ; and if he had remained, his life would have been 
 taken. If we had desired it, he would have remained and 
 hazarded his life ; but we said, Go ! Now, I don't know if had 
 he been divine he could have stood it. While a man remains 
 common humanity, I can trust him ; but when he gets up into 
 the air, where there comes something superhuman about him, I 
 am afraid of him. (Cheers.) 
 
 " ' Another thing don't d(». Send no more men to the South 
 to get uKmey. The Free Church of Scotland is, like democratic 
 America, stained with blood. It has the price of blood in its 
 treasury. Oh ! that Free Church of Scotland ! I am for free- 
 dom everywhere, and rejoice that that church is a free one ; but 
 it has received a paltry bribe, and abetted slavery. I have no 
 idea they will send back the mcmey. The laity I believe would 
 send it back, but the divinity prevents it.' " 
 
 In the meantime, as the leader of American aboli- 
 tionism, Garrison had been taking a bold step for- 
 wards. He had declared for the dissolution of the 
 Union. Political iconoclasm could no further go. 
 The Union was the idol to which the nation, even 
 that part of the nation of which mammon was not 
 the god, had blindly bowed down and been willing to 
 
 ■sacrifice its morality. In the Union the people saw 
 
 (136) 
 
fs 
 
 boli- 
 t'or- 
 the 
 
 go- 
 even 
 
 s not 
 
 gto 
 
 saw 
 
 the source of incaleulaole blessings antl the pledoe of 
 American greatness. The fiat of nature seemed liore- 
 in to conspire with t\w dictates of policy and pi-i(Us 
 for the Mississippi, then more important than it lias 
 been since the introduction of railways, appeared phy- 
 sically to bind the whole frame together. The sen- 
 timent had been ardently propagatea by Clay and 
 the men of the West, an offspring of the collective 
 nai/ion to which the old divisions between Federal- 
 ism and anti-Federalism were unknown. It had been 
 intensified by the War of 1812. It had been fixed 
 and glorified by Webster's great speech against Hayne. 
 The people had been trained even to believe that the 
 sacred compact demanded unquestioning observance, 
 and t-ieir moral perceptions on the subject of slavery 
 had been confuse<l by that belief. They fancied that, 
 being bound by their covenant, they were no morti 
 morally free agents, and that therefore they were ac- 
 quitted of sin, To speak against the Union was flat 
 blasphemy ; and of this blasphemy Garrison and his 
 circle were now guilty in the highest degree. 
 
 Of the political abolitionists, some persuaded them- 
 selves that slavery was not in the Constitution ; 
 others admitted that it was in the Constitution, but 
 thought it possible that the Constitution might be 
 amended ; others, again, like Grerrit Smith, with a ve- 
 nial inconsistency, took both lines at once. Garrison 
 was under no delusion on either point. He saw that 
 
 though the actual words ' slaves' and ' slaveowners' 
 
 (137) 
 
 i 
 
 %' 
 
ini^lit not he found in the Constitution, " otlicr won s 
 were used intelligently and specitically to meet the 
 necessities of slavery," and that the agreement had 
 been sealed with a full knowledge of the import of 
 those words and in good faith on hoth sides. The ex- 
 tension of the slave trade for twenty years, the 
 provision giving political security to the slaveowner's 
 property by assigning him votes for his slaves, and 
 the enactment of a fugitive slave law, were practical 
 comments too clear to leave any doul)t in an honest 
 mind. Garrison knew, also, that Jefferson had pro- 
 posed to introduce into the Declaration of Indepen- 
 dence a clause branding, though nsost unjustly, Georgr 
 III. as the author of the slave trade, but had been 
 compelled by the slaveowners to withdraw it. If the 
 name of slaveiy had been avoided by the framers of 
 the Constitution, while they recognized and perpetu- 
 ated the thing, this proved not their innocence but 
 their consciousness of guilt. False interpretation of a 
 document in the interest of freedom seemed to 
 Garrison neither moral nor strong. As little was he 
 inclined to a patriotic falsification of history. " The 
 truth is," he said, " our fathers w^ere intent on securing 
 liberty to themselves, without being very scrupulous 
 as to the means they used to accomplish their purpose. 
 They were not actuated by the spirit of universal 
 philanthrop^, . and though in words they recognized 
 occasionally the brt)therhood of the human race, in 
 
 practice they continually denied it. They did not 
 
 ( 138 ) 
 
 
1>!ush to (M)sIjiv(' ji portion of t)i(^ii' r«'llovv-in('ii, and to 
 buy and sell them as cattle in the market, while they 
 w»»re fii^liting against the oppression of the mother 
 country, and l)oasting of their regard for the rights of 
 men. Why, then, concede to them virtues which they 
 did not ])()ssess!'" Patrick Henry, t/ie Brutus of the 
 Revolution, was all his life noted for his sharpness as 
 a slave-trader, The slaveowner, in appealing to the 
 Constitution, had the facts undeniably on his side ; an<l 
 the same compact which expressly gave him slavery, 
 gave him also by implication a right to the necessary 
 safeguards of shivery, such as a fugitive slave law to 
 be executed in good faith Vjy the North, and the aid of 
 federal arms, if necessary, in suppressing slave insur- 
 rection. Chief Justice Taney was vile ; but lie was not 
 far from speaking the truth when he pronounced that, 
 in the view of the framers of the Constitution, the 
 black man had no rights which the white man was 
 bound to respect. The Constitution, said Garrison, 
 meant " precisely what those who framed and adopted 
 it meant " No violent construction of it could be ad- 
 mitted against the wishes of either of the parties to 
 the bargain. No just or honest use of it could be 
 made, in opposition to the plain intention of its fram- 
 ers, " except to declare the contract at an end and to 
 refuse to serve under it," 
 
 Hope either of amending the Constitu.tion with the 
 consent of the slaveowner, or of amending it against 
 
 his will yet without disruption, could seriously be 
 
 ( 139 ) 
 
 I 'i 
 
ntfSs 
 
 i. 
 
 entertained by no man who considered the temper of 
 the slaveowners, the rehxtive forces of the two poUtical 
 elements, ov tlie history of the Missouri Compromise, 
 and of all tliat had since occuiTcd. Compromise, re- 
 cognizing shiv^ery, and seeking" to put teri'itoi'ial limits 
 to it, was tlie highest mark of political aspiration. 
 Finally to put tei-i-itorial limits to a power full of 
 growth and ambition was scarcely possible, as the 
 annexation of Texas ])roved. But while the union 
 lasted, nothing could prevent slavery from pervading, 
 morally and socially, the whole Republic. Nothing 
 could dissever the responsibility. Nothing could savi; 
 the North from the obligation to lend its force, in case 
 of necessity, for the suppression of slave insurrection. 
 Nothing could relieve it from the satanic duty of 
 slave-catching. The legislative obstacles which anti- 
 slavery sentiment at the North put in the way of 
 extradition, and the escape of negroes to Canada 
 which it facilitated, were breaches, though it might be 
 glorious breaches, of good faith towards the Southern 
 partner in the compact. Politicians like Clay and 
 Webster were completely blinded to the future by 
 their worship of the Union. Politicians like Seward, 
 who said that there was an irrepressible conflict, and 
 Lincoln, who said that the Union must in the end be 
 all slave or all free, had an inkling of the fatal truth. 
 But if the conflict was irrepressible, what form was it 
 to take ? That of a constitutional struggle, or that of 
 
 violence ? If the Union was destined to be all slave 
 
 (140) 
 
or all free, bow was the question which of the two it 
 should be to be decided ? Neither Seward nor Lincoln 
 dared to say or perhaps even to conjecture. But if 
 (hither of them had raised the veil of the future he 
 would certainly have seen behind it the frrini visage 
 of civil war. The plan of buying out slavery being 
 for reasons already mentioned, hopeless, and in fact 
 having hardly a serious adherent, the only way of 
 abolishing slavery or ridding the North of responsi- 
 bility for il without dissolving the Union was civil 
 war. The only way of ridding the North of slavery 
 and at the same time escaping civil war was that 
 which Garrison now propounded, the dissolution of the 
 Union. In no uncertain language did he propound it. 
 All ears must have tingled when they heard the divine 
 work of the Revolutionary Fathers denounced as " a 
 covenant with death and an agreement witli hell." 
 No wonder if audiences hissed and the press tlumdered 
 when Longfellow's ode to the Union was dubbed " a 
 eulogy dripping with the blood of embruted humanity," 
 and to the poet's image of a ship of State was opposed 
 that of a ship "rotting through all her timbers, leaking 
 from stem to stern, labouring heavily on a storm-tossed 
 sea, surrounded by clouds of disastrous pcjrtent," navi- 
 gated by pirates, and destined to go down amidst the 
 exultation of all who were yearning for the deliverance 
 of a groaning world. " No Union with slaveliolders " 
 was henceforth the watchword of the Liberator. South 
 
 Carolina shouted back, " No Union with free labour." 
 
 ('141 ) 
 
Both were in the right ; and in compliance with their 
 unite<l (U'UihihI lay the only chance of escaping the 
 war which (jiarri.son was unjustly charged with having 
 kindled. 
 
 The weak point in (Harrison's policy was that his 
 No-Goverinnent theory had left him without a motor. 
 How hut thi'ough the agency of Goverinnent was the 
 Union to he dissolved ? How Imt by going to the 
 polls could the GovernnHnit l)e set in motion ;' His new 
 programme set forth that his aim was " to persuade 
 Northern voters that the strongest political influence 
 which they can wield for the overthi'ow of slavery is, 
 to cease sustaining the existing compact, by withdraw- 
 ing from the polls, and calmly waiting for the time 
 when a righteous government shall supersede the in- 
 stitutions of tyranny." But was that change to he 
 wrought by miracle :" And how, according to the 
 Perfectionist theory, could any human government be 
 righteous ? Here again, however, it was not the poli- 
 tical or the anti-political theory, but the appeal to the 
 publi<3 conscience, v/hich really told. The annexation 
 of Texas came to disabuse the people of their fond 
 belief in a quiet and limited Slave Power. To those 
 who regarded the new motto as calculated to impair 
 the character and influence of the Society, the Lib- 
 erator replied that " the Society had never had any 
 character except for fanaticism, and never would have 
 any till the trumpet of jubilee sounded through the 
 
 land, and that its influence had been just in proportion 
 
 ( 142 ) 
 
1! 
 
 to its faith in (Jod, its Hflelity to its principles, and its 
 readiness to be withor.t reputation." For the present 
 he anticipated fresh contumely and derision. It can 
 hardly he sai<l that his anticipation was fulfilled. Out- 
 hursts of wrath, of course, there were, and were sure 
 to he when the (convention of the Anti-Slavery So- 
 ciety presented a banner to its president, bearing on 
 it the satirical device of the national eagle with one 
 foot on the Constitution and the other on a prostrate 
 slave. Yet disunionist l»anners multiplied, and dis- 
 union sentiment spread not only among the Old School 
 or moral party of Abolitionists, but beyond. 
 
 But the Union having l)een dissolved what was to 
 become of the negroes ? Were they to be left to the 
 mercy of the slaveowner ? To this (juestion the mind 
 of tlu^ Liberator seems not to have been practically 
 turned. He protested, it is true, in general words, that 
 he had no intention of abandoning his client. But the 
 specific mode in which the rescue of the client was to 
 be effected does not appear. " My reliance," he says, 
 " for the deliverance of the oppressed universally, i« 
 upon the nature of man, the inherent wrongfulness of 
 oppression, the power of truth, and the omnipotence 
 of God." But he had said before that the slaveowner 
 was beyond the pale of moral influence, and that you 
 might as well try to change the nature of a beast of 
 prey. The oftener we review the question the more 
 certain it seems that in the absence of any superior 
 
 power, such as had been exercised by the Czar, in 
 
 ( 143 ) 
 
II l> —»»><■»»< 
 
 the abolition of Russinii S(>rfaff<\ or V>y the Inipcrial 
 Parliament, in th(i abolition of slavery in the West 
 Indies, the inevitable end was either tin; triumph of 
 slavery or civil war. 
 
 The year bS45 saw the apparent triumph of Hlav«!ry, 
 which, havin^r achieved the annexation of Texas, had 
 put the politicians, and seemed to have put the nation, 
 under its feet. The yea:- bS47 saw Garrison carrying 
 the torch of conscience into dark places of the West 
 on the invitation of the Abolitionists of Ohio. He was 
 accompanied by Frederick Douglass, whose elo(|uenee 
 might be cited as a proof of the capacities of his race 
 had he been a pure negro; but he Av^as a half-caste. 
 The negro race, both in its native land and in the 
 lands to which it has been transported by the slave- 
 ship, has been placed under such disadvantages that 
 no fair inference as to its capacity can be drawn from 
 what it has yet done or produced. But Toussaint 
 L'Ouverture, it is believed, is the only pure negro who 
 has yet risen to anything like eminence; and Toussaint, 
 tfj<ougfi a perfect negro, seems to have been of a pecu- 
 liar and princely family. Mixed, however, as the race 
 of Frederick Douglass was, and manifest as was his 
 relation to the white race, this did not save him from 
 contumely, even in a free State. When seated in the 
 cars he was ordered by a man, who had a lady with 
 him, in a slave-driving tone, to get out of that seat. 
 He Muietly replied that he would readily give up the 
 
 '^at if he w^ere requested in a civil manner. The 
 
 ( I-Jt ) 
 
wliiti' iiiHii th»'r<'npon laid vioh'iit liaiids upon liiin, 
 flrji^^r».,| liiiii out, and, wlu'ii Doiif^lass protcstrd, told 
 liim he would knock bis twih <l(>\vn his tlnoat. At 
 Harris! >ur^', i\\v niol) luiviiif; Ix'cn told that a " ni^^er" 
 was to lecture, canic provided with hrickhats, rotten 
 eggs and fire-crackers, of which they made a liljeral use. 
 Douglass was not allowed to sit down at the eating 
 tables, and for two days hardly tasted food. Garrison 
 contrasts this with the splendid reception given the 
 same man in all parts of Great Britain. Nothing, 
 perhaps, has ever equalled the intensity ot caste 
 feelings generated by the brand of slavery, combined 
 with the difference of colour and the physical antipathy, 
 in the United States. Nor was the keenness of the 
 American in discovering the slightest trace of negro 
 blood where no stranger would have suspected its ex- 
 istence, less remarkable than his abhorrence of it when 
 discovered. Garrison's defiance of the feeling by open 
 and persistent intercourse with the blacks was proof 
 of a moral heroism to which, since caste has been 
 mitigated by the abolition of slavery, we can hardly 
 do full justice. Heretic though he might be, no man 
 ever bore witness more bravely or with greater self- 
 sacrifice to the brotherhood of man, which is the social 
 foundation of Christianity. 
 
 The receptions given to tho Abolitionists varied at 
 different places. The clergy. Garrison says, were hos- 
 tile, and his feeling against the clergy grew stronger 
 
 than ever. Sometimes a place for his meetings could 
 J ( 146 ) 
 
IE 
 
 f: \ 
 
 I! I 
 
 III! 
 
 liardly be found ; but at other places the coinnion peo- 
 ple heard him gladly, and the concourse was immense. 
 At New Lyme in Ohio, " when the dense mass moved 
 otf' in their long array of vehicles, dispersing in every 
 direction to their several homes, some a distance of 
 ten, others of twenty, others of eighty miles, it was a 
 a wonderful f-pectacle." A coloured man rode three 
 hundred miles to the meeting. The speaker might 
 feel confident as he looked at the receding crowd that 
 whatever the mood of the politicians or the magnates 
 of commerce might be, the conscience of the people 
 had been touched ; and where the people was master, 
 victory in the end was sure. 
 
 The Liberator, however, had not seen the last of 
 mobs. In 1850, at the time when Webster's apostasy 
 had put fresh heart into the party of slavery at the 
 North, and the excitement on the subject had been 
 kindled anew, he went to preside at the annual meet- 
 ing of the Anti-Slavery Society at New York. He 
 was received by the "satanic" forces not only with 
 vituperation, but with menace to which he succumbed 
 only so far as to belie the pictures of caricaturists 
 by exchanging the turn-down collar to which he had 
 clung for the stand-up collar of the day. In his speech 
 he dwelt on the inconsistency between the profession 
 of the Christian churches and their practice, contrast- 
 ing the importance attached to the belief in Jesus 
 with the feeble eftect of that belief on character and 
 
 conduct. First of all he arraigned the Roman Catholic 
 
 ( 146 ) 
 
\ peo- 
 lense. 
 ftoved 
 every 
 ice of 
 was a 
 i three 
 might 
 d that 
 ignates 
 people 
 master, 
 
 last of 
 postasy 
 
 at the 
 id been 
 il meet- 
 k. He 
 ly with 
 cumbed 
 
 aturists 
 he had 
 speech 
 lofessioii 
 lontrast- 
 
 ji Jesus 
 
 iter ami 
 'atholic 
 
 Church for allowing her priests and members to hold 
 slaves. This called up Captain Rynders, a self-made 
 man, who, from being a professed gambler in the 
 South-west, liad risen to local political leadership under 
 the auspices of Tammany, witliout merging the bravo 
 in the politician, and posed as a defender of the Union 
 against traitors and of Clu'istian society against in- 
 fidels. Captain Ryntlers interpolated a question 
 whether there were no other cluirches beside the Catho- 
 lic CI U'ch whose clergy and members held slaves. 
 On this point he received prompt and full satisfaction. 
 " Shall we look," Garrison went on to say, " to the 
 Episcopal Church for hope. It was the boast of John 
 C. Calhoun, shortly before his death, that that church 
 was impregnable to anti-slavery. That vaunt was 
 founded on truth, for the Episcopal clergy and laity 
 are buyers and sellers of human flesh. We cannot 
 therefore look to them. Shall we look to the Presby- 
 terian Church ? The whole weight of it is on the side 
 of oppression. Ministers and people buy and sell 
 slaves, apparently without any compunctious visitings 
 of conscience. We cannot, therefore, look to them, 
 nor to the Baptists, nor the Methodists ; for they, too, 
 are against the slave, and all the sects are combined to 
 prevent that jubilee which it is the will of God should 
 come. * * Be not startled when I say that a be- 
 lief in Jesus is no evidence of goodness (hisses) ; no, 
 friends." ' 
 
 " Voice — Yes, it is." ,u 
 
 ( 147 ) 
 
 I'll' 
 1 
 
 !t- ; it; 
 
^--3 
 
 m\ 
 
 lU i 
 
 i '^1 
 
 " Mh. Gaurikon. — Our friend says 'yes' ; my posi- 
 tion is ' no.' It is worthless as a test, for the reason I 
 have ah-eady assigned in reference to the other tests. 
 His praises are sung in Louisiana, Akibania, and th? 
 other Southern States just as well as in Massachu- 
 
 " Captain Rynders. — Are you aware that the slaves 
 in the South have their prayer-meetings in honour of 
 Christ? 
 
 " Mr. Garrison. — Not a slaveholding or a slave- 
 breeding Jesus. (Sensation.) The slaves believe in a 
 Jesus that strikes off chains. In this country, Jesus 
 has become obsolete. A profession In him is no 
 longer a test. Who objects to his course in Judea ? 
 The old Pharisees are extinct, and may safely be 
 denounced. Jesus is the most respectable person in 
 the United States. (Great sensation, and murmurs of 
 disapprobation.) Jesus sits in the President's chair of 
 the United States. (A thrill of horror here seemed to 
 run through the assembly.) Zachary Taylor sits 
 there, which is the same thing, for he believes in 
 Jesus. He believes in war and the Jesus that ' gave 
 the Mexicans hell.' (Sensation, uproar and confusion.)" 
 
 The name of Zachary Taylor aroused the politician 
 in the soui of Captain Rynders, who at once charged 
 home. Followed by his crew, shouting and swearing, 
 he rushed from the gallery to the Speaker's desk, and 
 with clenched fist defied Garrison to say anything 
 against the President of the United States. Garrison 
 
 ( 148 ) 
 
 hx 
 
disclaimed any sUch intention, and his disclaimer was 
 enforced by Mr. Thomas Kane, a young follower, 
 who, not having subscribed the doctrine of Non- 
 Resistance, declared that not a hair of his leader's head 
 should be harmed, and shook his fist in the captain's 
 face. Afterwards spoke a henchman of Rynders, who 
 maintained that the blacks were not men but of the 
 monkey tribe. He was confronted by Frederick 
 Douglass, saying, " I cannot follow the gentleman who 
 has just spoken in his argument. I will assist him 
 in it, however. I offer myself for your examination. 
 Am I a man? " " You," ejaculated Captain Rynders, 
 " are not a black man, you are only half a nigger." 
 " Then, " replied Douglass, " I am half-brother to 
 Captain Rynders. " At the last session the meeting 
 was broken up by the mob, which carried a resolution, 
 moved, we are told, by an ex-policeman of the Eighth 
 Ward who had been " broken " foi' being found drunk 
 in a house of ill-fame. 
 
 " Resolved, That this meeting doys not see sufficient 
 reasons for interfering with the domestic institutions 
 of the South, even if it were constitutional — which it 
 is not — and therefore will not countenance fanatical 
 agitation whose aims and ends are tlie overthrow of 
 the churches, a reign of anarchy, a division of inter- 
 ests, the supremacy of a hypocritical atheism, a general 
 amalgamation, and a dissolution of the Union. For 
 these reasons, this meeting recommends to these 
 humanity-moiigers the confining of its [sic] investiga- 
 
 ( 149 ) 
 
•Ai«^, - . 
 
 11' I 
 
 
 tions to the pi'ogrcss of degradation among the negroes 
 of the North, and the increasing inequality and 
 poverty of the free whites and Hacks of New York 
 and similar places, instead of scurrility, V)lasphemy and 
 vituperation," 
 
 It was at this time that, under the terrors of the 
 new Fugitive Slave Law, which passed at the dictation 
 of the South and swept away all securities tor justice, 
 six thousand black Christians, a larger luimber than 
 that of the Puritan exiles, were driven from their 
 homes in th'i Northern States to a refuge on British 
 soil. The fieo spirit of the people in the North was 
 deeply stirred, and it was in vain that the chiefs of 
 commerce and society held great public meetings to 
 keep it down. When the fugitive slave, Anthony 
 Burns, after an attempt to rescue him, was marched 
 through the streets of Boston with all the pomp of 
 military escort to be restored to his master in Virginia, 
 flags were hung out at half-mast or draped in mourn- 
 ing. The clergy at last were moved, though sonie of 
 their leaders still came forward to preach the moral 
 and religious duty of upholding the Union l)y implicit 
 submission to the law. The law in truth was deal — 
 not clearer, however, than had been the legal right of 
 the Imperial Parliament of Great Britain to tax the 
 Colonies when Boston rose in rebellion and threw the 
 tea of British merchants into the water. 
 
 The next episode in Garrison's life was pleasant. 
 
 George Thompson, now an M.P., ventured over again 
 
 ( IDO ) 
 
from England, a sign in itself that, whatever might be 
 the backslidings of politicians, Abolition as a moral 
 cause had gained ground among the people. He 
 was charged to present a testimonial to Garrison, in 
 the shape of a gold watch, commemorating the twenty 
 years of the LiherfUors life. In acknowledgment, 
 Garrison said : — 
 
 " Mr. President, if this were a rotten egg [holding up the 
 watch], or a jrickbat, I should know how to receive it. (Laugh- 
 ter and cheers.) If these cheers were the yells of a frantic mob 
 seeking my life, I should know precisely how to behave. But 
 the presentation of this valuable gift is as unexpected by me as 
 would be the falling of the stars from the heavens ; and I feel 
 indescribably small before you in accepting it. A gold watch ! 
 Why, I have been compensated in this cause a million times over. 
 In the darkest hour, in the greatest peril, I have felt just at that 
 moment that it was everything to be in such a cause. I know 
 that the praises which have fallen from the lips of my beloved 
 brother and faithful coadjutor have been spoken in all sincerity ; 
 otherwise they would be intolerable. I know that I am among 
 those not accustt)med to flatter, and who do not mean to flatter. 
 I know how to appreciate such demonstraticnis as great me here 
 to-night. Had it not been for such as are here assembled, we 
 should not have had an Anti-Slavery struggle. I am sorry, my 
 friends, that I have not a gold watch to present to each one of 
 you. (Laughter.) You all deserve one I " 
 
 At his interview with Miss Martineau, Garrison had 
 
 seemed embarrassed, and had thanked her for wishing 
 
 to see one so odious as himself, in a manner which she 
 
 thought overstrained. She afterwards remarked to 
 
 ( 151 ) 
 
jljl 
 
 i 
 
 the friend who had brought them together, that there 
 appeared to her to be a want of manliness in Garrison's 
 agitation. The friend replied that she "could not 
 know what it was to be t)ie object of insult and liatred 
 to the whole of society for a series of years : tliat 
 Garrison could bear what he met with from street to 
 street, and from town to town ; but that a kind look 
 and shake of the liand from a stranger unmainied him 
 for the moment." A shock in itst'i' is disaoreeable, 
 and it is not unlikely that a man long attempered to 
 unpopularity as his element, would at hrst feel a 
 shock on being addressed in the unwonted language 
 of sympatiiy and praise. Having grown familiar with 
 rotten eggs, he would hardly know what to do at first 
 with a gold watch. 
 
 A testimonial more significant than a thousand gold 
 watches was at this time presented to the leader of 
 the moral movement against slavery. " Uncle Tom's 
 Cabin," while it owed its literary excellence to the 
 creative genius of Mrs. Beecher Stowe, was morally 
 the offspring of the awakening which Garrison had 
 done most to bring about. Its timeliness as a moral 
 birth was, in part at least, the cause of its prodigious 
 success. That its tangible effects on votes or even on 
 public opinion were not so great as iis circulation, we 
 are told by Wendell Phillips, and we should be pre- 
 pared to believe. It is wonderful how little anything 
 tells on votes under the system of party government 
 
 except party : while as works of fiction are not taken 
 
 ( 152 ) 
 
.seriously, people may cry or laugh over a religious, 
 jtolitical or social novt'l and yet lay it <lown with their 
 opinions little, and their conduct not at all, changed. 
 In Eiii^-land not a few cried over " Uncle Tom " and 
 laughed over Topsy, who aftrrwards took the part of 
 the Houth. But " Uncle Tom's Cabin," though it might 
 not tiirn suffrages on the Nebraska Bill, or call forth 
 a monster petition for the repeal of the Fugitive 
 Slave Law, could not fail to melt the icy barrier 
 of hatred and contempt for race. In this respect 
 its writer may claim to share the Liberator's palm, 
 (iarrison spoke with ardent admiration of the tale, 
 notwitlistanding that its writer's views did not wholly 
 square with his own. A correspondence followed be- 
 tween him and Mrs. Beecher Stowe, in which Mrs. 
 Htowe, when she deprecated needless bombardment of 
 the Bible and the Sabbath, with which the religion of 
 common people was bound up while their morality 
 was bound up with their religion, had a good deal of 
 reason on her side. However, Garrison's " infidelity ** 
 did not prevent a cordial meeting. 
 
 Meantime events were advancing to their crisis. 
 In 1854 the Nebraska Bill, by repudiating the Mis- 
 souri Compromise, threw open the lists once more for 
 the comtbat between Slavery and Freedom, and 
 armed collision in the Territory soon followed. The 
 South liad constrained the subservient politicians of 
 Washington to pass the new Fugitive Slave Law. 
 
 The North refused to execute it. Massachusetts 
 
 ( 163) 
 
 ^1! 
 
 .ill 
 
 Ilil 
 
 III 
 
sa- 
 
 il 
 
 Hi 
 
 ii 
 
 answered it with tlie Personal Liberty Bill, whereby 
 she hurled defiance, not only at the South, but at the 
 Constitution. (iHrris<ni was filled with the spirit of 
 the hour. On the 4th of July, l<S54, at the open air 
 celebration at Franiinghani, Mass., by the Abolition- 
 ists, he solennily biu'ned, amidst loud acclamations, the 
 Fuf^itive Slave Law ; the decision of Edward G. 
 Loring, the Massachusetts officer who, acting as a 
 United States Connnissioner, had sent Anthony Burns 
 back to slavery: the charge of ifndge Benjamin R. 
 Curtis to the United States Cirand Jury in reference 
 to the " treasonable " assault upon the Court House 
 for the rescue of the fugitive ; and, finally, the Con- 
 stitution of the United States. Holding u]) the Con- 
 stitution, he denounced it as the parent of all the 
 other initpiities, branded it as a covenant with death 
 and an agreement with hell, and cast it into the flames, 
 exclaiming, "So perish all compromises with tyranny ! 
 and let all the people say, Amen ! " A loud response 
 from the people went up to heaven. As might have 
 been expected, a response not less loud in a different 
 strain went up elsewhere. Yet Garrison was so far 
 accepted that when the motion for the removal of 
 Loring from his office came on in the Massachusetts 
 
 Senate, a seat was given him at the President's side. 
 
 ( 154 ) 
 
 4 
 
 II ; 
 
 iiiiiiii 
 
 1 
 
xn. 
 
 Vkiiv few, so far as we can tell from s[)eeclu's hik' 
 writings, seems to have foreseen, or even strongly 
 surmised, the approach of civil war. Gerrit Smith 
 read the meaning of the Kansas struggle, hut Seward, 
 the foremost of public men on the right side, evi- 
 dently had no idea that his irrepressible conflict 
 was actually at hand ; he was working for the Presi- 
 dency on the opposite hypt)thesis. Lincoln, appar- 
 ently, had just as little notion that the house could no 
 longer remain divided against itself, and the tin»e had 
 come when it must be decided whether the Union 
 should be all slave or all free. Garrison saw no fur- 
 ther than the rest. " Rely upon it," he said, at a Dis- 
 union Convention, in 1857, " there is not an intelligent 
 slaveholder at the South who is for a dissolution of 
 the Union." Ht was firmly persuaded that the threat 
 was only used to bring the North upon its knees. 
 Reverting to those days now, we can distinctly hear 
 the thunder-tread of advancing destiny and see the 
 shadows deepening on the troubled scene. The first 
 act of secession, as the South might have plausibly 
 contended, was the Personal Liberty Law of Missa- 
 chusetts. The first blow was struck by the Southern 
 
 fire-eater, Brooks, when he felled Sunnier to the earth 
 
 ( 165 ) 
 
m I' 
 
 t; 
 t 
 
 If 
 
 
 ij 
 
 
 
 i 
 
 
 si! 
 
 ;i 
 
 i 
 
 ; 
 
 ! 
 
 1 
 
 I ■. 
 
 in the Senate House for n speecli wliioli, it mwHt be 
 owned, was as rleadly a provocation to Southern vio- 
 lence as words could convey. But the attempt of 
 the South to brin^' Kansas into the Union by force 
 as i, Slave State was actually' civil war. There were 
 Garrisonians who provide<l themselves with Sharp's 
 rifles, for use, as they said, " not against men, but 
 against beasts I " Garrison himself pnjtested that if 
 anybody ought to be provided with a Sharp's rifle it 
 was the slave. For himself, he remained faithful to 
 Non-Resistance. The sequel of the conflict in Kansas 
 was the raid of John Brown on Virginia, which fur- 
 nished the theme for the Mameillnise of the Civil 
 
 War. 
 
 Garrison felt himself bound to designate the 
 
 raid in the Liberator as a misguided, wild, and ap- 
 parently insane, though disinterested and well-in- 
 tended, effort of insurrection to emancipate the slaves 
 in Virginia. " Our views of war and bloodshed," he 
 said, " even in the best of causes, are too well known 
 to need repeating here ; but let no one who glories in 
 the Revolutionary struggle of 1776 deny the right of 
 the slaves to imitate the example of our fathers." In 
 a subsequent number, he, always with a reserve in 
 favour of Non-Resistance, lauded Brown as a hero to 
 be remembered with Wallace and Tell, Washington 
 and Warren; and. judging him by the code of Bunker 
 Hill, the mate of any who ever wielded the sword for 
 liberty. In the general outburst of sympathy he saw 
 
 a proof of tlie marvellous change wrought by thirty 
 
 ( 156 ) 
 
ynnvH of iiiorul afjitation. " T«mi yonrs since, thcj'c 
 were thousands who couhl not ^-nHurf any light- 
 est word of rebuke of the South : they can now 
 easily swallow John Brown whole, and his rifle into 
 the bargain. In firinif his gun he lias merely told us 
 what time of day it is. It is high noon, tiiank God !'' 
 Not so thought those the paramount allegiance of 
 whose hearts had always been to the Union, and 
 who now sent up cries of alarm on all sides, and 
 waved the white flag to the South. Even Henry 
 Wilson, Sumner's colleague in the Senate, deplored the 
 burden laid upon the Republican party by arraying 
 against it " that intense, passionate and vehement 
 spirit of nationality which glows in the bosoms of the 
 American people." The logic of the head and the 
 heart, he said, taught him to regard all such move- 
 ments, whether in the North or in the South, as crimes 
 against liberty. The banner which he desired them 
 to follow was that of " Liberty and Union." There 
 was even a last splutter of mob-violence at an anti- 
 slavery meeting at Boston, memorable for having 
 brought on the anti-slavery platform, in defence of 
 freedom of speech, Emerson, whose attitude towards 
 Abolitionism had before been rather philosophic. 
 
 Desire what Wilson and patriots of his class would, 
 fate was irresistibly ranging all of them under the 
 banner of Liberty but not of Union, at least not of 
 Union till Liberty should have prevailed. The politi- 
 cal combinations, after much shifting and crossing, 
 
 (167) 
 
 i^li 
 
 

 Hi 
 
 i H 
 
 a«'ttl»'<l tlowii on onr Nidc iiit<» »i w«'ll-(l»'fin('<| pai'ty of 
 the North, under tli«^ name of tlu' Rppnlilicnn party, 
 confronting the united Soutli. Elements there still 
 were at the North lielonginfj to the opposite t*nds of 
 society, a plutocracy at <me end, a mo]» at the other, 
 which a<lhered to the Southern alliance and its em- 
 oluments, under the title of the Democratic party, 
 and afterwards furnish(Ml respectively the Copper- 
 heads of pro-slavery drawing-rooms and tlu; anti- 
 draft rioters of the slums of New York. But the 
 armies were formed, in the main, on Mason and Dixon's 
 Line, and Destiny had given the signal for battle. 
 
 Presidential elections are fraught with danger — 
 among other respects in this, that they bring every 
 issue to a violent head. The contest between Buchan- 
 an and Fremont was the first engagement, and 
 resulted in a numerical victory, morally ominous of 
 coming defeat for the South. The second and decis- 
 ive engagement was the contest out of which Abra- 
 ham Linc(^ln, who held that a house could not remain 
 divided against itself, came as President of the United 
 States. Lincoln might profess, and in all sincerity 
 profess, his entire loyalty to the Constitution, and his 
 conscientious determination to secure to slavery its 
 full pound of legal flesh. But the South saw that the 
 North had shaken ofi its yoke, and that the practical 
 securities were gone The Southern leaders now 
 took their leave of Congress. They were allowed to 
 
 depart, avowedly for the purpose of rebellion, by the 
 
 ( 168 ) 
 
*»xecntiv«', wincli IwkI it Item stnui^' Hnnn;;li >\i niu'»» 
 to anvst tlu'in all aiui hold tluMii ptTsoimlly rcspon- 
 .siliU' tor any riHino- ajrainst Fe<l«'ral authoiity in tln'ir 
 StatcH, uiifrjit possiMy hav»' dt'lVatt'd tlicir design. 
 
 'riicu foliowcMJ a Hci'iic which .showrd th" diHi'iciift! 
 ill value lu'twM'cn the political an<l the moral opposi- 
 tion to slavery, 'i'hrcatened now in earnest with the 
 dissolution of the Union, the mere politicians fell upon 
 their knees, and besou^dit the South to I'or^iv*' the re- 
 bellious conduct of the North and return, otiering- im- 
 mense concessions as the price. They were ready to 
 enact that slavery should never be abolished in the 
 District without the consent of Maryland and Vir- 
 ginia ; to enjoin Northern States to repeal all their 
 Personal Liberty Acts ; to have the case of the fugi- 
 tive slave tried, not in the free State to which he had 
 fled, but in the slave State to which he belonged ; to 
 restrain Congress and the Territorial legislatures from 
 prohibiting slavery in a Territory ; to restore the Mis- 
 souri Compromise line, with a national guarantee for 
 slavery on the south of it ; to debar any but men of 
 Caucasian race from ever voting for any officta- of the 
 National Government. Mr. Charles Francis Adams 
 the heir of the statesman wluj had nobly fought for 
 the right of petition, and himself aftei'wards the admir- 
 able ambassador of the Federal Government in Eng- 
 land, was so transported by devotion to the Union as 
 to propose a security for slavery such as no Southern 
 
 man had ever ventured to demand. He moved to 
 
 (159) 
 
^■^ 
 
 ,1 
 
 t ■ ' 
 
 I IM 
 
 enact that " no Amendment of the Constitution, having 
 for its object any interference witli slavery, should 
 originate with any State that did not recognize that 
 relation within its own limits, or be valid without the 
 assent of every one of the States composing the 
 Union." This proposition was opposed l:.y only three 
 members of a House Committee of thirty-three. The 
 same Committee reported in favour of the admission of 
 New Mexico, then including Arizona, as a slave State. 
 An amendment of the Constitution, which, though less 
 stringent than that proposed by Mr. Adams, would 
 yet, as Mr. Blaine says, have made slavery perpetual 
 in the United States, as far as any influence or power 
 of the National Government could affect it, actually 
 passed the House of Representatives by a majority of 
 133 to 65, and the Senate by a two-thirds majority, 
 and was prevented from being submitted to the States 
 only by the outbreak of civil war.* Nothing, there- 
 fore, but the madness of the South prevented the abso- 
 lute and irrevocable surrender of the North to slavery, 
 so far as the politicians were concerned. Testimony 
 of more appalling force could not have been given to 
 the value of the moral movement of which Garrison 
 had been the head. What were the evils of excessive 
 enthusiasm in a good cause, or of undue violence of 
 language, compared with those of the political weak- 
 ness and disloyalty to principle which dictated this 
 offer of capitulation ? 
 
 " See Blaiue'8 " T'.venty Years of Contfress," 1. 'Jee. 
 ( 160 ) 
 
Garrison could not fail to see how complete was 
 the excuse afforded by the conduct of Congress to on- 
 lookers in Great Britain and elsewhere for misunder- 
 standing the character and object of the conflict. They 
 were justified in taking it henceforth to be a mere 
 struggle for aggrandizement, with which they were 
 bound to sympathize no further than they <lesired the 
 greatness of the American Republic. It is to the last- 
 ing credit of the people of Great Britain that the mass 
 of them did, nevertheless, discern that practically this 
 was a war between freedom and slavery, and that they 
 faced the cotton famine rather than aid slavery against 
 freedom. The South, too, might well feel thenceforth 
 that the moral professions of the North were hypocrisy, 
 and that the real object of the invader was con(|uest, 
 while their own flag was that of patriotism fighting 
 for national independence. Warrants for rebellion, 
 when the governed were dissatisfied with the Govern- 
 ment, the Secessionists might have found in the writ- 
 ings of the whole train of American publicists and 
 orators from Jeft'erson to Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 The South, as we know, spurned the ofl'er of sub- 
 mission, and then euvsued the greatest civil war in his- 
 tory. Which side struck the tirst blow is a question 
 of no moral importance. It may perhaps be said that 
 the North did in ordering Fort Sumter to be re-vic- 
 tualled at all hazards. . War was the decree of Fate. 
 The North and South were two nations, radically op- 
 posed to each other in political cliaracter and require- 
 .» ( 161 ) 
 
 II 
 
 ill 
 
 liiill 
 
Ir 
 
 M II 
 
 ineiits as in social structure. The continuance of their 
 Union without the abolition of slavery was impossi- 
 ble : of the abolition of slavery there was practically 
 no hope in the absence of a supreme and arbitrating 
 power ; tlie dissolution therefore was inevitable : Gar- 
 rison's policy alone could have nv ,de it peaceful. 
 
 In perfect consistency with his principles, Garrison 
 welcomed the dissolution of the Union by the South. 
 Separation, thenceforth, was inevitable. From the 
 covenant with death and the agreement with hell the 
 North was set free by the hand of God acting through 
 the madness of the South. " Now, then," said Garri- 
 son, " let there be a Convention of the Free States 
 called to organize an independent government on free 
 and just principles: let the South take the public pro- 
 perty on which it has laid piratical hands, let it take 
 even the Capital if it will, and depart in peace to 
 organize its own confederation of violence and tyr- 
 anny." But he had scarcely penned the words when 
 all thought of peaceful separation was swept away by 
 the torrent of public wrath evoked by the tiring on 
 Fort Sumter. Yet the thought came back to many 
 ^ninds after Chancellorsville, and ha^ perhaps been 
 often called up again by the desperate difficulties of 
 reconstruction. 
 
 With a war merely for the Union, Garrison evident- 
 ly could not have sympathized. • He, however, clearly 
 discerned from the beginning that, whatever might be 
 
 the ostensible object, it would be a war for the extir- 
 
 ( 162 ) 
 
pation of slavery. He wisely put off the meeting of 
 the Anti-Slavery Society which might have declared 
 against the action of the Government and the Repub- 
 lican party. The old Union, he said, had gone out of 
 existence and its restoration with pro-slavery com- 
 promise was impossible. " The conflict is really be- 
 tween the civilization of freedom and the barbarism of 
 sir. very — between the principles of democracy and the 
 doctrines of absolutism — between the free North and 
 the man-imbruting South ; therefore, to this extent, 
 hopeful for the cause of impartial liberty. So that 
 we cannot endorse the assertion, that 'this is the dark- 
 est hour for the slave in the history of American ser- 
 vitude.' No, it is the brightest ! " Lincoln and the 
 Republicans were instruments in the hands of God for 
 the achievement of Emancipation. 
 
 But could a Non-Resistant sympathize with war at 
 all, even for the liberation of his kind ? Garrison 
 practically solved that (question for himself as it was 
 solved by John Bright, who was also, though not ex- 
 actly a non-resistant, an avowed enemy of all war. A 
 war really against slavery had been brought about by 
 other agencies than his and certainly not through his 
 fault. The world was, to use his own expression, not 
 on the plane of Jesus, but on a much lower plane, and 
 he' had to look at it as it was. The practical question 
 was whether in the conflict of forces, neither of them 
 perhaps hallowed, the more unhallowed or the less un- 
 hallowed should prevail. Whatever the professions of 
 
 ( 163 ) 
 
 'II 
 
the Unionist Government might be, practically this 
 was a war against slavery ; nor till it manifestly be- 
 came a war against slavery was Garrison's sympathy 
 declared. What he said himself was that when he 
 called the Union " a covenant with death and an agree- 
 ment with hell," he had not foreseen that Death 
 and Hell would secede. This was rather a playful 
 evasion of the question of conscience than an answer 
 to it. The answer was that when a battle was actual- 
 ly going on between good and evil, the doctrine of 
 Non-Resistance would have been not only visionary 
 but crazy if it had forbidden you to take the side of 
 good. 
 
 To be " on the plane of Jesus," according to the lit- 
 eral interpretation of Christ's words, had been Garri- 
 son's aspiration, and it was an aspiration Which those 
 who propose to take the Gospel as their inspired rule 
 of life are hardly entitled to censure or deride. But 
 the world being " on a plane which was not that 
 of Jesus," for Garrison, as a citizen and a member of 
 society, to act in conformity with his individual ideal 
 would have been to renounce all influence for good 
 over the world, and almost to give up commerce witli 
 his kind. 
 
 Garrison's peculiar doctrines, we may surmise, had 
 been partly the offspring of circumstance. He had 
 been against earthly government when the Govern- 
 ment of his country was in the hands of the Slave 
 
 Power ; he had been against any use of force to 
 
 ( 164 ) 
 
this 
 ybe- 
 Dathy 
 in he 
 igree- 
 Death 
 layt'ul 
 nswer 
 Lctual- 
 ine of 
 ionary 
 side of 
 
 the lit- 
 
 Garri- 
 
 1 
 those 
 
 ed rule 
 
 But 
 
 )t that 
 
 iber of 
 
 ideal 
 
 r good 
 
 e witli 
 
 se, had 
 le had 
 tovern- 
 Slave 
 Lrce to 
 
 compel obedience to rulers when the Slave Power had 
 the force on its side ; he had been against the ascend- 
 ancy of the churches and the clergy so long as the 
 churches and the clergy were upholding or conniving 
 at slavery ; he had been against the authority of the 
 Bible because the Bible was cited, with apparent 
 justice, as authorizing a slave code ; he had been 
 against the Sabbath because clergymen had denounced 
 the holding of abolition meetings on that day. The 
 cliurches and the cl**rgy, the Protestant churches and 
 clergy at least, had now, with the Government and the 
 force, come over to the side of right. 
 
 The Draft, however, still brought a knotty case of 
 conscience for the Non-Resistant. What was the duty 
 of a non-resistant Abolitionist drafted as a soldier ? 
 To provide a .substitute was morally the same thing as 
 fighting yourself. But could the Non-Resistant law- 
 fully pay the fine to a fighting government? The Lib- 
 erator concluded that he could upon compulsion, the 
 alternative being imprisonment or other penalty. 
 Nobody who had not abstained from voting under a 
 constitution which established slavery, tihe Liberator 
 held, 'jould claim the privilege of conscience as an 
 exemption from the Draft. Exemptions on sectarian 
 grounds he pronounced utterly unjust. This hit the 
 commercial Quakers who had held Abolitionism at 
 arm's length. ♦ 
 
 Garrison did not at once trust or support Abraham 
 
 Lincoln. There was no reason why he should. Lin- 
 
 ( 165 ) 
 
 !!''-' 
 
 ::i:. ( 
 
 
 iifi '* 
 
 li'i'i 
 
 ; 1 I 
 
coin, when he appeared upon the grand scene, must 
 have been in Garrison's eyes a pohtician. He had 
 entered public life through the same portal as other 
 politicians, which was that of party rather tlian of 
 principle or truth. The moral depth and fervour, tlie 
 tenderness and pensiveness which afterwards, by their 
 manifestations in a position of unique gravity and 
 responsibility, distinguished Lincoln from all other 
 Presidents and public men of the United States, and 
 appealed with unrivalled force to the heart of the 
 American people, v/ere not then visible to any eye 
 outside the circle of his own friends.* His opposition 
 to slavery, so far as appeared, was strictly constitu- 
 tional and conservative — that is, practically futile- 
 He had never denounced it morally as a burning 
 wrong with which there could be no compromise. He 
 had said, " that a house divided against itself would 
 not stand," and " that the day must come when the 
 Union would be all slave or all free : " but was not 
 Seward the author of the equally memorable phrase, 
 " irrepressible conflict," and had not Seward, in im- 
 mediate view of the nomination to the Presidency, 
 shown pretty plainly, by his softened language, that, 
 so far as he was concerned, the conflict would be re- 
 pressed ? President Lincoln set out with a pledge of 
 his intention to secure to slavery, in full measure, all 
 its constitutional rights. He may have foreseen that 
 
 * They are now more tlian ever visible to every eye in the admirable essay of 
 Mr. Call Suhurz. 
 
 ( 16G ) 
 
n 
 
 must 
 e had 
 other 
 lan of 
 ir, the 
 J their 
 y and 
 other 
 !S, and 
 of the 
 ly eye 
 losition 
 mstitu- 
 futilc' 
 lurning 
 e. He 
 would 
 en the 
 as not 
 hrase, 
 m im~ 
 deney, 
 , that, 
 be re- 
 Ige of 
 re, all 
 n that 
 
 essay of 
 
 
 events were coming which would absolve him from 
 that pledge ; but there is no reason to doubt that, 
 had events taken another turn, the pledge would 
 have been redeemed. Long after the commencement 
 of tlie war, and when the hearts of thorougligoing 
 Abolitionists were almost sick with waiting for 
 Emancipation, he propounded a scheme for buying 
 out slavery which now strikes us as strangely 
 weak in principle as well as in its details. His 
 scheme even recognized the lawfulness of re-ewtab- 
 lishing slavery by providing that, if slavery were any- 
 where re-established, the State should refund the money 
 paid for compensation. Twice. Lincoln reconnnended 
 this plan, and he would have postponed Emancipation 
 till the existing slaveowners were dead, giving the 
 existing slaves only the " inspiriting assurance " of 
 freedom to be enjo3'ed by their children. To explain 
 and justify his course, it is needful always to bear in 
 mind that he was not master even of the North, but 
 only the Constitutional President, with limited 
 powers, of a group of States in which there was still 
 a strong pai'ty opposed to the war, and in which the 
 bulk of the people had taken arms, ostensibly at least, 
 not to put down slavery but to preserve the Union, 
 uphold the law, and avenge an insult to the national 
 flag. Garrison, however, never offered Lincoln any 
 perverse or factious opposition. From the moment 
 when the Emancipation Proclamation was issued he 
 heartily supported him, and he declared in favour of 
 
 ( ItiT ) 
 
^^ 
 
 his re-election. His course in relation to this ques- 
 tion widely differed from that of Wendell Phillips, 
 whose impetuous and uncompromising spirit could not 
 endure or forgive the President's hesitation, and who, 
 unmollified by the Em». r'ipi' ! " i Proclamation, set 
 himself fiercely against Li: *>* . -. ^-election. 
 
 For Abolitionists who wti.. not V )n-Resistants the 
 path of duty, as Garrison held, was plain. The Gov- 
 ernment having by the Emancipation Proclamation 
 declared itself wholly on the side of liberty, it could 
 " receive the sanction and surport of every Abolition- 
 ist, whether in a moral or military point of view. " In 
 fact. Garrison became a non-combatant War Republi- 
 can, with his heart very thoroughly in tlie war. 
 
 In one military scene Garrison actually formed a 
 conspicuous figure. He and Wendell Phillips were 
 present when Andrew, the great war governor of Mas- 
 sachusetts, put the State and national colours into tlie 
 hands of Colonel Shaw, the devoted commander of the 
 first negro regiment raised for the service of the 
 United States. He saw the regiment march, with 
 soldierly bearing and amidst enthusiastic cheers, sing- 
 ing the " John Brown " song along tlie streets of Bos- 
 ton, himself standing on the very spot over which he 
 had been dragged by the mob of 1835. When he be- 
 held the barrier of race thus thrown down and the 
 manhood of the negro so signally recognized, he might 
 well think that tlie hardest of all victories had been 
 
 won. He might exultingly contrast the spectacle be- 
 
 ( 168 ) 
 
forehiHoyoswitli tliu troatiiioiit of Fivdjrick Douglass 
 when they were together on their lecturing tour, ])y 
 the rowdy who colhired him in the car, or by the 
 keepers of refreslunent rooms who <h-ove him from tlie 
 table. Unhappily, no transport of emotion could efface 
 difference of colour or physical repulsion : the heyday 
 of enthusiasm over, nature would resume her sway 
 and the difficulty of race would return. The recogni- 
 tion of the negro's e<jua]ity, however, Ijy his enlist- 
 ment as a soldier, helped to lu'ing to a head for thd last 
 time the violence from which Garrist)n and other 
 A>)olitionists had once suffered. A mob rose in 
 New York, shot negroes, hanged them to lamp-posts, 
 hunted them down, maltreated them, threw them into 
 the river, burned a Coloured Orphan Asylum to the 
 ground and sacked the Coloured Sailor's Home. The 
 Union soldiers who were at last brought up to (juell 
 the rising were not Non-Resistants, and a thousand of 
 the rioters paid for the outrage with their lives. 
 
 There was a scene still more liistoric when, the 
 Union troops having entered Charleston, Garrison 
 stood beside a colossal marble slab on which, as a 
 great man's sufficient epitaph, was inscribed the single 
 name " Calhoun." Amidst all tlie medley of motives, 
 political, social or commercial, amidst all that was con- 
 fused, equivocal and doubtful, those two men had 
 clearly embodied the moral forces, the antagonism of 
 which was at the bottom of the whole. Garrison 
 
 represented the thoroughgoing belief that slavery was 
 
 ( 169 ) 
 
 
 'M. 
 
 ^jlj 
 
 I. 
 
 I 
 
 I i 
 
 Jil 
 
 Ij 
 
 ill 
 
evil, Calhoun the thoroughgoing belief that it was 
 good. Each faith, like all faith, was strong in its 
 way. The spirit of Calhoun had fought desperately 
 and long. To subdue him had cost lives and treasure 
 untold ; but he had succumbed at last, and his con- 
 queror stood beside his grave in the very heart of his 
 dominion, close to the spot where Abolitionist literature 
 had been burnt amidst the acclaim of thousands, and 
 on ground where a few years before no Abolitionist's 
 life would have been worth an hour's purchase. Gar- 
 rison's preaching could have done nothing without the 
 strong hearts and arms which gave effect to it on so 
 many fields. But it was largelj^ by the moral force 
 which he, more than any other man, had set in motion, 
 that those hearts were fired and those arms were 
 nerved. The hatred of slavery gained strengtii and 
 came more and more to the front as the struggle went 
 on. Nor does it seem likely that the mere desire to 
 regain the political and commercial advantages of the 
 Union would have carried the nation through the 
 reverses which marked the first years of the w^ar, and 
 which led many even of the warmest friends of the 
 North on the other side of the Atlantic to think that 
 the South had shown itself unconquerable, and the 
 wisest course would be to let it depart in peace. Cer- 
 tainly the Emancipation Proclamation was the moral 
 turning-point of the war. 
 
 From Charleston, where he received an ovation of 
 
 negro gratitude. Garrison went to visit his son in the 
 
 ( 170 ) 
 
 Bi :!'i 
 
neighbouring ca \ There he found twelve InuHhod 
 
 plantation slaves just swept by the troops from the 
 
 interior. He called upon them to give three cheers 
 
 for freedom. To his surprise they were silent : they 
 
 did not know how to cheer. 
 
 ( 171 ) 
 
 ■j the 
 m so 
 force 
 ftion, 
 were 
 and 
 ent 
 e to 
 the 
 the 
 and 
 the 
 that 
 the 
 Cer- 
 oral 
 
 in of 
 the 
 
 i! 
 
XIII. 
 
 The South liaving been subdued, and th<^ Thirteenth 
 Amendment of the Constitution, which forever abol- 
 ished slavery, having been virtually carried, Garri- 
 son's work was done. He had the rare good sense to 
 know that his work was done and to act decisively on 
 that conviction, by laying down his controversial pen, 
 witlidrawing liis journal, resigning his leadership, and 
 retiring into the peace of private life. He showed 
 hereby the purity of iiis aim and character. If per- 
 sonal ambition, pride of leadership, the love of excite- 
 ment, the craving for self -display enters as alloy into 
 the motives of an agitator, he is pretty sure when 
 one agitation has reached its goal to be hurried on 
 to another. Repose and silence become intolerable. 
 Brougham never could have rested ; no sooner was 
 Catholic Emancipation passed than O'Connell took up 
 the Repeal of the Union ; and Wendell Phillips, the 
 king of the platform, was carried on by the impetus 
 .of his own eloquence and the combativeness of his 
 nature from agitation to agitation till he died. 
 
 Was the Anti-Slavery Society to be kept in exis- 
 tence now that its object had been gained ? Wendell 
 
 Phillips vehemently contended that it should. Garri- 
 
 ( 172 ) 
 
II 
 
 his 
 
 as- 
 lell 
 
 Irri- 
 
 Hon proiiouiiciMl in favour of its dissolution, and his 
 worIh are a lesson to agitators : — 
 
 " My friends, lot us not any Ioniser aflect Hupfriurity when we 
 are not superior — let us not aHHuni's to l»e better than other 
 people when wo are not any better. When they are reiterating 
 all that we Hay, and disposed to do all that we wish to have 
 done, what more can wo ask? And yet I know the desiiv to 
 keep t(»gether, I'ocause of past memories and labours, is a very 
 natural one. But let us challenge and connnatul the respect nf 
 the nation, and of tho friends of freedom throuj^hout the world, 
 by a wise and sensible conclusion. Of course, we are not to 
 cease labouring in regard to whatever remains to be done; but 
 let ua work with the millions, and not exclusively as the American 
 Anti-Slavery Society. As co-workers are everywhere found, as 
 our voices are everywhere listened to with approbation and our 
 sentiments cordially endorsed, let us not continue to be isoj.itcd. 
 My friend, Mr. Phillips, says he has been used t() isolation, ati'l 
 he thinks he can endure it some time longer. My answer is, 
 that when a man stands alone with God for truth, for lil)erty, 
 for righteousness, he may glory in his isolation ; l)ut when the 
 principle which kept him isolated has at last conciuered, then 
 to glory in isolation seems to me no evidence of courage or 
 fidelity." 
 
 The vote being taken, Harrison's resolution was re- 
 jected by 118 to 48, and Wendell Pliillips prevailed. 
 Garrison then retired in a modest and amial)le way, 
 without showing the slightest mortification, and em- 
 phatically putting aside all attempts to sow jealcjusy 
 between Phillips and himself. Phillips was not less 
 generous, and avowed that from Garrison his best in- 
 spirations had always been derived. There was after- 
 
 ( 173 ) 
 
 ' 
 
 I ] 
 
iflBF^- 
 
 " 
 
 w ards a passage of arms between them, but in this the 
 challenger appears to have been Phillips, who in his 
 haste accused Garrison and other retiring members of 
 deserting the cause. It seems that Garrison would 
 have been willing to remain with the Society till the 
 ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment was formally 
 complete, had he believed that this would be the end ; 
 but he knew that when the last State had voted, the 
 tiery spirits would be fiery still, and tlie question of 
 dissolving the Society would have to be faced again. 
 
 The Liberator was in Garrison's own hands, and he 
 decided at once that, having fulfilled its mission, it 
 should cease to appear. The closing scene of its ex- 
 istence may be given in the words of his sons : — 
 
 •'For tlio one remaiuiiig number of the Liberator, M '. Garri- 
 ac r.''; children besought him to at (mce prepare his valedictory 
 eMTOi'ial, leaving to others the drudgery of the proof-reading and 
 mechanical details of the pai)er. The proofs he insisted on read- 
 ing himself, and the outside pages he also 'made up' from the 
 galleys, but the inside pages he finally allowed his friend and 
 assistant, Winchell Yerrinton, to mrike up under his direction; 
 a considei.ible portion of the editorial page being given to letters 
 of congratulation and farewell from old and tried friends. When 
 these were inserted, less than a column's space was left in which 
 to complete his valedictory, and, the number being already late 
 for the press, he wrote the remainder of it w"th the printers 
 standing at his elbow for 'copy,' which he doled out to them a 
 few lines at a time. The final paragraph he set with his own 
 hands, and then stepped to the imposing-table or stone to insert 
 it in the vacant place awaiting it. Evening had come, and the 
 little group in the printing-oftice gathered silently about to wit- 
 
 ( 174 ) 
 
11088 the closing act. As the form was hacked fur the last time 
 hy the senior Yerrinton, all present felt a sense of loss and be- 
 reavement. Mr. Garrison alone preserved his wonted cheerful- 
 ness and serenity. From the death-bed of the Liberator, he 
 went directly to a committee meeting of tlie New England 
 Freedmen's Aid Society, his face towards the resurrection and 
 the life of Freedom." 
 
 " Most happy am I," said Garrison, " to be no lonf^er 
 in conflict witli the mass of my i'ellow-countrymcn on 
 the subject of slavery. For no man of any refinement 
 or sensibility can be indifferent to the approbation of 
 his fellow-men, if it be rightly earned." His action 
 showed that, n. so saying, he spoke from liis lieart. 
 
 The last number of the Liberator contained the 
 valedictory, but the preceding number had contained 
 the paean, which may be taken as sincere, and assur- 
 edly was not penned by an infidel : 
 
 "Rejoice, and give praise and glory to God, ye who have so 
 long and so untiringly participated in all the trials and vicissitudes 
 of that mighty conflict I Having sown in tears, now reap in joy. 
 Hail, redeemed, regenerated .\merica ! Hail, North and South, 
 East and West I Hail, the cause of Peace, of Liberty, of Righte- 
 ousness, thus mightily strengthened and signally glorified I Hail, 
 the Present, with its transcendent claims, its new duties, its im- 
 perative obligations, its sublime opportunities I Hail, the Future, 
 with its pregnant hopes, its glorious promises, its illimitable 
 powers of expansion and development I Hai), ye ransomed 
 millions, no more to be chained, scourged, mutilated, bought and 
 sold in the market, robbed of all rights, hunted as partridges 
 upon the mountains in your flight to obtain deliverance from 
 the house of bondage, branded and scorned as a connecting link 
 
 ( 176 ) 
 
\\l 
 
 V ' 
 
 ?■!!< 
 
 J "'4 
 
 i'i 
 
 i I::' 
 
 between the huiujiu race and the brute creation I Hail, all 
 nati<>ns, tribes, kindreds, and peoples, 'made of one blood,' in- 
 terested in a common redemption, heirs of the aame immortal 
 destiny 1 Kail, angels in glory and spirits of the just made per- 
 fect, and tune your harps anew, singing, ' (ireai and marvellous 
 are Thy works. Lord Ood, Almighty ; just and true are Thy 
 ways. Thou King of Saints I Who shall not fear Thee, O Lord, 
 and glorify Thy name ? for Thou only art holy : for all nations 
 shall come and worship before Thee : for Thy judgments are made 
 manifest.' " 
 
 He ini^ht retire and repose, but of course he could 
 not be idle. He became a regular contributor to the 
 Independent, and wrote in support of reforms which 
 he had already espoused, notably of Prohibition, or, as 
 its advocates called it, Temperance, the first cause to 
 which he had dedicated his pen. As a sworn enemy 
 of race-distinction and caste, he laid his familiar lance 
 in rest ag-ainst the politicians who, in contempt of 
 treaties, were ^,dvocating the exclusion of the Chinese ; 
 nor had he nuich difficulty in unhorsing opponents 
 whose arguments, whether social, industrial or religious, 
 were mere subterfuge, their real motive being their 
 desirt; to capture the Irish and Cxerman vote. On (jne 
 subject which he treated his views had undergone 
 a notable change. Early in life he had been taken 
 as we have seen, with protection to native industry 
 But in his great struggle for the freedom of the slave 
 he had learned to embrace freedom of every kind, and 
 to trust its beneficence without reserve. He saw, what 
 the workingmen of his country are at last beginning 
 
 ( 170 ) 
 
to soo, that t*(>tt(;rs imposed on trndc^ are i'ettcirs imposed 
 on industry. He had also had ^a*eat experience in 
 combating the sopliistries of self-interest, and had 
 learned to know tliem when he saw them, however art- 
 fully disguised. " ' The protection of American la- 
 bour ' has a taking sound ; but it really means the re- 
 striction and taxation of that lal)our. Protection 
 against what ? Have we not the Ijest educated and 
 most intelligent population on earth ? And does not 
 this imply industry, tlirift, skill, enterprise, invention, 
 capital, ])eyond any other forty millions of people { 
 Have we not muscles as well as Itrains ? Have we not 
 a country unrivalle<I in the variety and almndance of 
 its natural productions, and the abounding riches of 
 its mineral resources? What more need we to claim, 
 or ought we to have ? If, in an open field, we cannot 
 successfully compete with ' the cheap and pauperized 
 labour of Europe,' in all that is necessary to our com- 
 fort, or even to our luxury, then let us go to the wall ! 
 Was the slave labour of the South at all a match for 
 the free labour of the North ? In which section of the 
 Union was industry best protected or wealth most 
 augmented ? Is it not ludicrous to read what piteous 
 calls are made for the protection of the strong against 
 the weak, of the intelligent against the ignorant, i)f 
 the well-fed against the half-starving, of our free re- 
 publican nation against the efi'ete governments of the 
 Old World, in all that relates to the welfare of the 
 
 people ^ With all that God has done for us in giving 
 J. ( 177 ) 
 
 •H 
 

 US such a goodly heritage, cannot we contrive to live 
 and flourish without er(;cting harriers against the 
 freest intercourse with all nations ^ Must we guard 
 our ports against the free importation of hemp, iron, 
 hroa<lcloth, silk, coal, etc., as though it were a ques- 
 tion of (juarantine for the smallpox or the Asiatic 
 cholera? Refusing to do so, will the natural conse- 
 (juences V)e ' vacant factories, furnaces standing idle, 
 the shops of manufacturing industry closed, labour 
 begging and starving for the want of employment' and 
 all the other fearful results that are so confidently 
 predicted by the advocates of the protective policy, 
 falsely so-called / Similar predictions were made by 
 the defenders of Southern slavery in regard to the 
 abolition of that nefarious system, and in order to 
 suoject to popular odium those who demanded the 
 immediate and unconditional emancipation of the 
 oppressed. Freedom, as well as Wisdom, !■* justified 
 of her children: and in proportion as she bears 
 sway will it go well with any people." 
 
 We are surprised, on the other hand, to find com- 
 paratively little on record as to his opinions on the 
 great question of Reconstruction, or as to the practical 
 results, political and social, of Emancipation. In his 
 re}/ly to V. W. Newman, who had condemned Lincoln 
 for not -uiranci.ising the negroes of Louisiana, there 
 is J. pasba|;e Vihich has a cons* rvative ring. "By what 
 polit''t.'i prt jedent jr administrative policy in any 
 
 couitvy," ht' asks, "could he [the President] have been 
 
 ( 178 ) 
 
justified if he had attempted to do this? When was it 
 ever known that lil:)eratioii from liondage was accom- 
 panied by a recognition of political e(juality ? Chattels 
 personal may be instantly ti'anslated from the'auction- 
 l)lock into freemen; but when were they ever taken at 
 the same time to the ballot-box and invested with all 
 political rights and immunities ^ According to the 
 laws of development and progress it is not practicable. 
 To denounce or complain of President Lincoln for not 
 disregarding public sentiment, and not Hying in the 
 face of these laws, is hardly just. Besides, I doubt 
 whether he has the Cfnistitutional right to <leci<le this 
 matter. Ever since this government was organized, 
 the right of suffrage has been <letermined by eacii 
 State in the Union for itself, so that there is no uni- 
 formity in regai'd to it. In some free States, coloured 
 citizens are alhjwed to vote, in others they are not. It 
 is always a State, never a national, matter. In honestly 
 seeking to preserve the Union, it is not for President 
 Lincoln to seek, by a special edict applied to a particu- 
 lar State or locality, to do violence to a universal rule 
 accepted and acted ujxni fiom the beginning till now 
 l)y the States in theii' individual sovereignty. Under 
 the war power, he had the constitutional right to 
 emancipate the slaves in every rebel State, and also to 
 insist that, in any plan of reconsti'uction that might be 
 agreed upon, slaveiy should be admitted to be dead, 
 beyond power of I'esurrection. "^Phat benig accomp- 
 lished, 1 (|uestion whether he could safely or advan- 
 
 ( 179 ) 
 
 i » 
 
 : i 
 
In 
 
 if 
 
 •hi; 
 
 m 
 
 tagcouyly — to say tlio least — enforce a rule, ah initio, 
 touching the ballot which abolishes complexional dis- 
 tinctions ; any more than he could safely or advan- 
 tageously decree that all women (whose title is e(|uall}/ 
 good) should enjoy the electoral right and help to form 
 the State. Nor, if the freed blacks were admitted to 
 the polls by Presi<lential hat, do I sei.' any permanent 
 advantage likely to })e secured by it ; foi", submitted to 
 as a necessity at th(3 outset, as soon as the State was 
 organized and left to manage its own affairs, the white 
 population, with their superitn* intelligence, wealth and 
 power, would um^uestionably alter the franchise in ac- 
 cordance with their prejudices, and exclude those thus 
 suiianariiy brought to the polls. Coercion would gain 
 nothing. In other words, — as in your own country ,^ — 
 universal sutt'ram; will be hard to win and to hold with- 
 out a general preparatiori of feeling and sentiment. 
 But it will couK.', both at the South an<l with you ; yet 
 only by a struggle on the pufl of the di^tfrmwhisfd, 
 and a growing conviction of its justice, ' in the goo<l 
 time conn'ng.' Witli t^ic abolition oC slavery in tlu^ 
 South, prejudice' iv " coi.jiu'phobia,' the natural product 
 of the system, nill gradualiy disappear — as in the case 
 of your West India colonies — and })lack men will win 
 their way to wealtli, v-omction, eminence and official 
 station. I ask only a ch ritable judgment for President 
 Lincoln respecting this niatter, whether in Louisiana 
 or a-ny other State." 
 
 Garrison, however, favoured the bestowal of the 
 
 ( 180 ) 
 
suffrjige hy Federal eriJictineiit on the nefjro. TTe also 
 favoured the impeachment of President Johnson — a 
 measure of violence justified, as fair-minded Repub- 
 licans like Fessenden saw, by no criminal acts on the 
 part of the Presi<lent, but adopted as a desperate mode 
 of bringing th(; policy oi the Executive again into 
 ha]*mony witli that of the Legislature, which, under 
 the British Constitution, would have l)een done by a 
 vote of want of confidence followed by a change of 
 ministry, but for which, under the American Constitu- 
 tion, no provision had been madii. Garrison, it seems, 
 would also have maintainc^d the ascen<lancy of the car- 
 pet-bagging governments by prolonging the military 
 occupation of the South. Foi* this, Kuklux outrage 
 had given him at least a tenable ground. Later on, 
 though he took no active part in ])olitics, his heart 
 seems to have been witli that party of uncomproiiiis- 
 ing Emancipationists whose policy was nicknamed by 
 moderates, that of "sliaking the Bloody Shirt." He 
 insisted on the adoption oi* every possible measure for 
 levelling the bari'ier of race, and pi'otested against the 
 omission from the Civil Rights Bill of participation in 
 the common schools. He deprecated t\m erecticm by 
 coloured people of a church foi- their own race, and 
 pointed to Berea College, in Kentucky, where the races 
 were educated together, as showing the true way to 
 the pacification and happiness of the South. But he 
 lived fifteen years aftei* Emancipation. Did he care- 
 fully observe its results '( Did \u\ make a calm stu<ly 
 
 ( 181 ) 
 
 It 
 
!!! 
 
 of tho situjitioii ? T)'u] ho watch tho progress of thft 
 negroes in the South and compare it with their pro- 
 gress in Hayti or Liberia, where they were not undei' 
 the political tutehige of the white race ^ Above all, did 
 events appear to liim to show that there was any hope 
 of tb<^ fusion of the races ^ Without intermarriage 
 there can hardly be social e(]uality : without social 
 eijuality there can hai'dly be real political eipiality or 
 a genuine connnon wealth, let the franchise be distri- 
 Imted as it may. 'i'he Roman Commons were in the 
 right when, having wrested from the politicians a share 
 of all political fi-anchises and offices, they still i'efuse<l 
 to rest content without the concession of intermarriage. 
 But the Patricians and Plebeians were, if not of the 
 same, of kindred races: there was at any rate no barrier 
 of colour or of )>hysicul antipathy between them. The 
 same may be sai I of other cases in which Emancipation 
 has been a complete success, as in that of the en- 
 franchisement of the medieval serfs. Bat fusion be- 
 tween the races ii' the Southern States has, since 
 Emancipation, become more impossible than ever. 
 The link, evil as it was in its source, of half-caste 
 population, by wliich they were formerly connected, 
 cannot fail to dwindle when the l»lack woman is no 
 longer at the mercy of the white overseei", 'I'he social 
 feeling of the superior against the inferior race is not 
 likely to be softened 1)Uo rathe" intensified when the 
 inferioi race has pi-etentions to tHjuality. In the West 
 
 Indies there has been no fusion of races. In Jamaica 
 
 ( 182 ) 
 
tliore was p(iHtical discord vvliicli at last lirokr out in- 
 to inurtlenju.s conHict, when tlio Imperial (lovernuient, 
 l)y which Emancipation liad heen ordained, threw 
 down its warder between the combatants and restored 
 peace })y suspending the Constitution. In the South- 
 ern States there is no controlling and arbitrating 
 power but Congress, which is not, like the British 
 Government, impartial, the Southern whites having a 
 strong repr(!sentation in it and almost a veto on its 
 action, while the action on the other side is swayed by 
 desire of tlu^ negro vote. 'V\\o pi-actical solution for 
 the present seems to be the political donnnation of the 
 white race and the exclusion, in the mass, of the black 
 race from the ballot. Personal liberty the l)lack has 
 gained, and personal security, except that he is still 
 too often lynched l^y white lawlessness instead of 
 being, like the whites, tried by jury. Industrial free- 
 dom he also enjoys, and, thanks to his possession of it, 
 his material condition has already been improved. 
 This would not have satisfied (larrison, who demanded 
 for the negro nothing less than full American citizen- 
 ship. But, once more, he had never looked fairly in 
 the face the terrible problem of race, of which personal 
 and industrial liberty without the power of exercising 
 the f ranch irse is at least a provisional solution. What 
 the ultimate solution will be, and whether it will cer- 
 tainly be brought alx)ut without social war, is a ques- 
 tion which the best heads in the United States appear 
 
 at present unable to answer. 
 
 (183) 
 
S ,! 
 
 lit 
 
 
 XIV. 
 
 "I BEfiAN the publication of tlie Llhrrator without u 
 .subscriber, and I end it — it f^ive.s me unalloyed .satis- 
 faction to .say — without a farthing as the pecuniary 
 result of the patronage extended to it during thirty- 
 five years of unremitted laVjour.s." These were 
 Garri.son's words when he brought his editorship to a 
 close. The contrast is curious between the barrenness 
 of Abolitionist j(>u)*nali.sm and the innnensely profit- 
 able circulation of the Abolitionist novel. There can 
 be no doubt that with Garrison's vigour and readiness 
 in writing as an ordinary journalist, he would have 
 made a good income. It would liave been rank 
 ingratitude to allow a great servant of the country 
 and of humanity to close his days n penury. The 
 sum of thirty-one thousand dollars was raised for 
 him by subscription, and if he had hesitated to accept 
 it, he would have done a wrong to his fellow-citizens. 
 In 1867, Garrison went to rejoice with his friends 
 in England over the triumph of their common cause. 
 He met with an enthusiastic reception in all parts of 
 the country. In his mind, at all events, the baseless 
 belief that the English people were on the side of 
 slavery can never have found place. The attendance 
 
 at a complimentary breakfast given him in London, 
 
 (184) 
 
 V 
 
 'Si if 
 
 mil 
 
vvitliout ii 
 yo(l satis- 
 pocuniMiy 
 ng thirty- 
 lese were 
 rship to a 
 )arreniiess 
 L'ly protit- 
 Tliuro can 
 [ readiness 
 ould have 
 )een rank 
 le country 
 ury. The 
 aised tor 
 to accept 
 citizens, 
 is friends 
 ion cause, 
 parts of 
 le baseless 
 e side of 
 ttendance 
 1 London, 
 
 prt'Nonts a loii^^ list of rninons nanics, and anion*,' tlicni 
 tliat of Lord Husst'll, who had couh' rxpivssly to 
 recall any unjust tlnn^s which, iiiisit'd hy the offers 
 ot* coniproinisc with slavery made in ( *onort'ss on tiie 
 approach oF the war. Ik^ iiii<;ht have said of Lincoln 
 and the American (Jovennneiit. Mill pronounce*! the 
 euh)^y of ])hilosophy on the reformer wlio ha*l hern 
 deride<l as an incendiarv an<l a, fanatic. Hut the 
 principal pni't on the occasion was jn.'-tly assigned to 
 Brii(ht, who thi'ouj^hout the conllict had u]>held with 
 his nohlest el()(|uence the cause of tlie North, thou;;h 
 to his memory, when he died, the Senate of the 
 United States refused to pay a tribute, because, hav- 
 ing been the firm friend of theii* Union, he had been 
 loyal also to his own. (Jeoi'ge Thom])son was there 
 with his son-Ih-law, F. W. Chesson, a man who by the 
 steadfast, unselfish and modest devotion of a life to 
 the championship of weak and oppressed races, earned 
 though he did not wear a crown. His name, by nujst 
 rea<lers hardly notice<l among those of the illustrious 
 company at the Garrison breakfast, shines conspicuous 
 in the eyes of all who liad watched his life-long 
 lal)ours and knew his worth. 
 
 It was one of the proofs of Garrisons freedom from 
 personal and)ition and the irritability which it is ajjt 
 to engender, that he carried througli all his contro- 
 versies and through the life-long storm of oblocjuyand 
 abuse a temper in private perfectly unsoured, warm 
 
 affections, and the fullest capacity for <lomestic enjov- 
 
 ( 185 ) 
 
IMAGE EVALUATION 
 TEST TARGET (MT-S) 
 
 h 
 
 // 
 
 ^/ 
 
 ^ 
 
 .•^" MP. 
 
 .^4 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^^ ^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 %^ 
 
 A 
 
 
 
 1.0 
 
 I.I 
 
 1 ^ Ilia 
 
 ^ 1^ 12.0 
 
 1.8 
 
 
 1.25 1.4 
 
 1.6 
 
 
 -^ 6" - 
 
 
 ► 
 
 Photographic 
 
 Sciences 
 Corporation 
 
 23 WEST MAIN STREET 
 
 WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 
 
 (716) 872-4503 
 
'<ip wj 
 
hh 
 
 }■ V 
 
 ri 
 
 I i 
 
 nient. His wife, who had gone through the tem- 
 pests at his side, and to whom he was tenderly attached, 
 after })eing long a sufterer from ill-health, died three 
 years before him. But his sons remained to him. 
 There remained to him, also, many of his old fellow- 
 crusaders and friends. Isaac Kjiapp, his partner in 
 the Liherator, had, in the midst of the first agitation, 
 fallen, sad to relate, into evil habits and, in spite 
 of Garrison's gen' ous eflfbrts to redeem him, had 
 come to a bad end. Lundy had also departed early, 
 and before his death there had been a coolness on his 
 side, caused by divergence of polic}'', which, however, 
 had not prevented his former coadjutor from render- 
 ing full justice to his memory. Wendell Phillips had 
 drifted away on the tide of battles in which Garrison 
 had no part. But Oliver Johnson and S. May, Jr., 
 were still at their leader's side. Garrison's old age 
 was the serene evening of a stormy yet happy da}'. 
 It was so serene that he could find amusement, we are 
 told, in whist, but had too much openness of nature 
 to conceal his hand. He died in New York city in 
 his seventy-fourth year, May 24th, 1879, and was 
 buried in Boston, where the best years of his life 
 
 had been spent. 
 
 ( 180 ) 
 
y\\ the teiii- 
 !rly attached, 
 h, died three 
 ined to hiiu. 
 IS old fellow - 
 s partner in 
 rst agitation, 
 md, in spite 
 sm him, had 
 (parted early, 
 )olness on his 
 lich, however, 
 from render- 
 1 Phillips had 
 hieh Garrison 
 S. May, Jr., 
 son's old age 
 happy da}', 
 iment, we are 
 iss of nature 
 York city in 
 79, and was 
 s of his life 
 
 * » 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 I'Aci: 
 
 Introdvction, 
 
 Skction I. — The Ciarrison family — Garrison's boyhood — His ap- 
 prentice years as a printer — Early essays as a writer — Connec- 
 tion witli the Newburyport Herald — Visits Boston — Connec- 
 tion with the National PhilauthropUt there 
 
 Skction II. — Garrison forms the acquaintance of the abolition- 
 ist advocate, Benjamin Lundy — Edits the Journal of the. TitntN 
 ut Bennington, Vt. — Petitions Congress to abolish slavery in Dis- 
 trict of Cohunbia — Fined for non-service in militia — Delivers 
 a Fourth of July address in Boston, on the national sin of 
 Slavery — Personal appearance and di ess 
 
 H 
 
 11) 
 
 Skction III, — Forms partnership with Lundy and becomes as- 
 sociate editor of the Geniiin of Universal Emancii>atioH — Sees 
 iniquities of the slave traffic at Baltimore — Advocates imme- 
 diate emancipation — Encounter with slavetrader — Denounces 
 owner of a slave ship— Sued for libel, is convicted and impri- 
 soned — Life in prison — Discussion with a slaveholder — Writes 
 abolition poetry — Arthur Tappan, the philanthropist, pays 
 Garrison's fine — Garrison begins to lecture for the anti-slavery 
 cause — Churches are closed against him — Makes a disciple of 
 Samuel J. May — Isaac Knapp joins Garrison in setting up 
 another anti-slavery journal "JD 
 
 Skction IV. — Founding of The Z//'(ra<or at Boston — Motto of 
 the new jouinal — Garrison launched on his life's work — Early 
 hardships and ceaseless opposition — Slavery everywhere dom- 
 inant — National morality dumb ^is 
 
 Skction V. — Ancient slavery — Condition of the slave at Athens 
 and Rome — No insurmountable barrier of race — Friendship 
 and sometimes moral ecjuality between the slave and a good 
 master — Slavery in America contrasted — Effect on the charac- 
 
 ( 187 ) 
 
I'M.y. 
 ter of the slaveholder, a tranipler on humanity — Society in the 
 Cotton States — Representatives of the Slave States in Con- 
 gress — Their political strength and assumption of social supe- 
 riority — Rising of slaves at Southampton, Virginia — Terrible 
 outpouring of white vengeance — The Negro at the North a 
 pariah — Caste and the bar of colour 4+ 
 
 Sk(!TION' VI. — (iarrisoii's abolition platform in tlie Liberator — 
 Severity of his denunciations of slavery — Compensation to tlic 
 slaveowner scouted by the Liberator — Wrongfulness of eman- 
 cipation without it — Abolition of slavery in the West Indies 
 — The realm of slavery disturbed by the LUxtrator — The jour- 
 nal boycotted and its editor threatened — Nat Turner's rising — 
 Chief Justice Taney's judgment — Race exclusiveness at the 
 North — fiarrison at war with caste feeling — Insoluble pro- 
 blem of the races — Prudence Crandall opens a school for col- 
 oured children — She i0> persecuted, and the school broken up 
 — Organization of the New England Anti-Slavery Society — Pre- 
 amble of its constitution and objects aimed at TA 
 
 Skotion VI. A. — (Tarrison's antagonism to the Colonization So- 
 ciety — Why he assailed its doctrines and purposes — Visits 
 England as the representative of American abolitionism — 
 Heartiness of his welcome — Buxton's mistake — Great meeting 
 at Exeter Hall — O'Connell's invective against slavery — Garri- 
 son returns to America — Accused of having traduced his coun- 
 try in England— Incendiary violence of the pro-slavery Press 
 — The Liherator'n reply to his calumniators — fiarrison's mar- 
 I'iage — The American Anti-Slavery Society founded at Phila- 
 delphia — Garrison drafts the Declaration of Sentiments — 01)- 
 ject of the Convention and the movement which it embodied, 
 "to bring the whole nation to speedy repentance " ♦'»?► 
 
 SE(moN VII. — A British anti-slavery lecturei- visits America 
 — Violent outcry against the "foreign emissary"' — A public 
 meeting at Boston denounces Thompson — Garrison criticizes 
 the speeches and speakers at the meeting — Inflamed state of 
 the public mind — Garrison falls into the hands of the mob — 
 Rescued by the Mayor of Boston, he spends the night in 
 prison — Thompson escapes and returns to England — The 
 
 abolitionists suffer martyrdom for the cause s(\ 
 
 (188) 
 
4+ 
 
 in 
 the 
 
 rA 
 
 lai- 
 ila- 
 il)- 
 
 Iliu 
 
 tea 
 of 
 
 SC* 
 
 VMIK 
 
 Skction VIII. — Garrison devotoa himself more assiiluously to 
 lecturing — His mental gifts as an orator — Giovvth of tiie 
 abolition movement — Its effect on the politicians — Tiie 
 fAhe.rator opposed to the movement becoming politi«;al — .1. (^. 
 Uirney organizes the Liberty Party and becomes its candidate 
 for the Presidency — The Churches in relation to the anti- 
 slavery crusade — The Bible and American slavery !)."i 
 
 Skctiox IX. — Garrison breaks with the Churches — Bids farewell 
 to orthodox Christianity — Embraces Woman's Rights and 
 asserts the political equality of the sexes — Comes under the 
 influence of J. Humphrey Noyes — Is attracted by Perfection- 
 ism and espouses the doctrine of Non-Resistance — Imports 
 both into the columns of the Liberator — Dismay of his friends 
 — Condems Lovejoy for defending himself against his assassins 
 — Abolitionism fears being compromised by Garrison's 
 heresies — Defection of some of his friends — The schism affects 
 the Liberator, and displays itself in the two chief anti-slavery 
 societies — The leadership in dispute — Garrison confirmed in 
 the leadership l»l.">. 
 
 Sk(!TION" X. — Garrison attends the World's Convention in Lon- 
 don — English prejudice against women delegates — Success of 
 the Convention — (iratifying reception in England — Redmond, 
 the negro delegate — Turn of the tide in America — Abolition- 
 ism gathers strength — Garrison's poetic effusions — Discussion 
 of the Sabbath question — The Liberator exonerates himself 
 from the charge of infidelity 121 
 
 Skction XI. — *' Moral Ploughshares '" — Attacks on the clergy — 
 Temperance and other moral movements — Ireland's appeal 
 against slavery in the United States — Defection of the Irish 
 in America — Kossuth and Father Mathew disappoint tiie 
 Abolitionists in their attitude towards slavery — Further visit 
 to Britain — Disruption in the Scottish Church — Garrison de- 
 precates the Free Church of Scotland taking inoney from tlie 
 Southern Presbyterians— He declares for the dissolution of 
 the Union — Slavery and the Constitution — "The irrepressible 
 conflict" — Union with slaveholders characterised as a " cove- 
 nant with death and an agreement with hell " — The Libera- 
 tor's No-Government theory breaks down— Accompanied by 
 Fred. Douglass, Garrison carries the torch of conscience into 
 
 ( 18« ) 
 
 .■.T>m»rr:--,-.iTO;ip;tj),'il|rw«w-j 
 
h' I 
 
 ■ -^i 
 
 ft I 
 
 the West — Further experience of the existence of caste feeling 
 — Garrison presides at an annual meeting of the Anti-Slavery 
 tSociety at New York — The Rynders' incident — Effects of the 
 new Fugitive Slave Law — English testimonial to the Liberator 
 — " Uncle Tom's Cal)in" — The combat deepens — Massachua- 
 setts on the side of Freedom— The Franiingliam demonstration l'2H 
 
 Section' XIL — The approach of Civil War — John Brown's raid 
 on Virginia — The political parties divide on Mason and Dixon's 
 Line — Lincoln appears on the scene — The Southern leaders 
 take leave of Congress — Rebellion — The politicians truckle to 
 the Slave South — Hollowness of the moral professions of the 
 North — Garrison's attitude in relation to the war — Non-resis- 
 tance and the draft — Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclama- 
 tion — Coloured regiments in the war — The draft riots at New 
 York — Calhoun versus the Liberator — The moral turning-point 
 of the war ],"> 
 
 Section XIII, — The Union preserved and Slavery doomed — 
 The Thirteenth Amendment — Close of the Liberator's work — 
 Wendell Phillips' motion to maintain the Anti-Slavery Society 
 prevails — Garrison withdraws from the Society and discon- 
 tinues the Liberator — His valedictory — Again champions Tem- 
 perance and espouses Free Trade — Comparative silence on the 
 question of Reconstruction 1 72 
 
 Section XIV. — Public Testimonial to the Liberator — Final 
 visit to England — Complimentary breakfast in London — Per- 
 sonal traits ; Closing years ; death 184 
 
 ( 190 ) 
 
 I - ':• 
 
 i ■ 
 
 ■i ■ 
 
•).) 
 
 •-■■^^'■'f'*mmHmm'fn;.-i,