W illiam Lloyd Garrison 
 
 THE ABOLITIONIST 
 
 BY 
 
 ARCHIBALD H. GRIMKE, M.A. 
 
 Author of "Charles Sumncr 
 
 FUNK & WAGNALl^S COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK AND I/DNDON 
 
COPYRIGHT 1891. BY 
 
 FUNK & WAGNAWvS 
 
 [Printed in the United States of Americ*} 
 
To Mrs. Anna M. Day, who has been a mother to 
 my little girt, and a sister to me, this book is gratefully 
 
 and affectionately dedicated, by 
 
 Thl Author. 
 
 238821 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 THE author of this volume desires by way of 
 preface to say just two things: firstly, that it is his 
 earnest hope that this record of a hero may be an aid 
 to brave and true living in the Republic, so that the 
 problems knocking at its door for solution may find 
 the heads, the hands, and the hearts equal to the per 
 formance of the duties imposed by them upon the 
 men and women of this generation. William Lloyd 
 Garrison was brave and true. Bravery and truth 
 were the secret of his marvelous career and achieve 
 ments. May his countrymen and countrywomen 
 imitate his example and be brave and true, not alone 
 in emergent moments, but in everyday things as 
 well. 
 
 So much for the author s firstly, now for his sec 
 ondly, which is to acknowledge his large indebted 
 ness in the preparation of this book to that store 
 house of anti-slavery material, the story of the life of 
 William Lloyd Garrison by his children. Out of its 
 garnered riches he has filled his sack. 
 
 HYDE PARK, MASS., May 10, 1891. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Dedication in 
 
 Preface v 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 The Father of the Man 11 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 The Man Hears a Voice: Samuel, Samuel ! 38 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 The Man Begins his Ministry 69 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 The Hour and the Man 92 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 The Day of Small Things no 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 The Heavy World is Moved 118 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Master Strokes 133 
 
 (vii) ~ 
 
Vlll CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 i Colorphobia 1 57 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 Agitation and Repression 170 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 Between the Acts 192 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 Mischief Let Loose 208 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 Flotsam and Jetsam 233 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 The Barometer Continues to Fall 242 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 Brotherly Love Fails, and Ideas Abound 263 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 R andom Shots 292 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 The Pioneer Makes a New and Startling Departure.. . 306 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 As in a Looking Glass 319 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 The Turning of a Long Lane 335 
 
CONTENTS. IX 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 Face to Face 356 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 The Death-Grapple 370 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 The Last 385 
 
 Index 397 
 
WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE FATHER OF THE MAN. 
 
 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON was born in Newbury- 
 port, Massachusetts, December 10, 1805. Forty years 
 before, Daniel Palmer, his great-grandfather, emi 
 grated from Massachusetts and settled with three 
 sons and a daughter on the St. John River, in Nova 
 Scotia. The daughter s name was Mary, and it was 
 she who was to be the future grandmother of our 
 hero. One of the neighbors of Daniel Palmer was 
 Joseph Garrison, who was probably an Englishman. 
 He was certainly a bachelor. The Acadian solitude 
 of five hundred acres and Mary Palmer s charms 
 proved too much for the susceptible heart of 
 Joseph Garrison. He wooed and won her, and on 
 his thirtieth birthday she became his wife. The 
 bride herself was but twenty-three, a woman of 
 resources and of presence of mind, as she needed to 
 be in that primitive settlement. Children and cares 
 came apace to the young wife, and we may be sure 
 confined her more and more closely to her house. 
 But in the midst of a fast-increasing family and of 
 
la ." WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 multiplying cares a day s outing did occasionally 
 come to the busy housewife, when she would go 
 down the river to spend it at her father s farm. 
 Once, ten years after her marriage, she had a narrow 
 escape on one of those rare days. She had started 
 in a boat with her youngest child, Abijah, and a lad 
 who worked in her household. It was spring and 
 the St. John was not yet clear of ice. Higher up the 
 river the ice broke that morning and came floating 
 down with the current. The boat in which Mary 
 Garrison and her baby rode was overtaken by tht 
 fragments and wrecked. The mother with her child 
 sought refuge on a piece of ice and was driven shore 
 ward. Wrapping Abijah in all the clothes she could 
 spare she threw him ashore. She and the lad fol 
 lowed by the aid of an overhanging willow bough 
 The baby was unharmed, for she had thrown him 
 into a snow-bank. But the perils of the river gave 
 place to the perils of the woods. In them Mary 
 Garrison wandered with her infant, who was no less 
 a personage than the father of William Lloyd Garri 
 son, until at length she found the hut of a friendly 
 Indian, who took her in and " entertained her with 
 his best words and deeds, and the next morning 
 conducted her safely to her father s." 
 
 The Palmers were a hardy, liberty-loving race of 
 farmers, and Joseph Garrison was a man of unusual 
 force and independence of character. The life which 
 these early settlers lived was a life lived partly 
 on the land and partly on the river. They were 
 equally at home with scythe or oar. Amid such 
 terraqueous conditions it was natural enough that 
 the children should develop a passion for the 
 
THE FATHER OF THE MAN. 13 
 
 sea. Like ducks many of them took to the water 
 and became sailors. Abijah was a sailor. The 
 amphibious habits of boyhood gave to his man 
 hood a restless, roving character. Like the ele 
 ment which he loved he was in constant motion. 
 He was a man of gifts both of mind and body. 
 There was besides a strain of romance and adventure 
 in his blood. By nature and his seafaring life he 
 probably craved strong excitement. This craving 
 was in part appeased no doubt by travel and drink. 
 He took to the sea and he took to the cup. But he 
 was more than a creature of appetites, he was a man 
 of sentiment. Being a man of sentiment what should 
 he do but fall in love. The woman who inspired his 
 love was no ordinary woman, but a genuine Acadian 
 beauty. She was a splendid specimen of woman 
 kind. Tall she was, graceful and admirably propor 
 tioned. Never before had Abijah in all his wander 
 ings seen a creature of such charms of person. Her 
 face matched the attractions of her form and her mind 
 matched the beauty of her face. She possessed a 
 nature almost Puritanic in its abhorrence of sin, and 
 in the strength of its moral convictions. She feared 
 to do wrong more than she feared any man. With 
 this supremacy of the moral sense there went along 
 singular firmness of purpose and independence of 
 character. When a mere slip of a girl she was called 
 upon to choose between regard for her religious con 
 victions and regard for her family. It happened in 
 this wise. Fanny Lloyd s parents were Episcopa 
 lians, who were inclined to view with contempt fel 
 low-Christians of the Baptist persuasion. To have 
 a child of theirs identify herself with this despised 
 
14 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 sect was one of those crosses which they could not 
 and would not bear. But Fanny had in a fit of girlish 
 frolic entered one of the meetings of these low-caste 
 Christians. What she heard changed the current of 
 her life. She knew thenceforth that God was no 
 respecter of persons, and that the crucified Nazarene 
 looked not upon the splendor of ceremonies but upon 
 the thoughts of the heart of His disciples. Here in a 
 barn, amid vulgar folk, and uncouth, dim surround 
 ings, He had appeared, He, her Lord and Master. 
 He had touched her with that white unspeakable 
 appeal. The laughter died upon the fair girlish face 
 and prayer issued from the beautiful lips. If vulgar 
 folk, the despised Baptists, were good enough for the 
 Christ, were they not good enough for her? Among 
 them she had felt His consecrating touch and among 
 them she determined to devote herself to Him. Her 
 parents commanded and threatened but Fanny Lloyd 
 was bent on obeying the heavenly voice of duty rather 
 than father and mother. They had threatened that 
 L if she allowed herself to be baptised they would turn 
 her out of doors. Fanny was baptised and her parents 
 1 made good the threat. Their home was no longer 
 her home. She had the courage of her conviction- 
 ability to suffer for a belief. 
 
 Such was the woman who subsequently became the 
 
 yOwife of Abijah Garrison, and the mother of one of 
 
 Uthe greatest moral heroes of the century. Abijah 
 
 followed the sea, and she for several years with an 
 
 increasing family followed Abijah. First from one 
 
 place and then another she glided after him in her 
 
 early married life. He loved her and his little ones 
 
 but the love of travel and change was strong within 
 
THE FATHER Of THE MAN. 1$ 
 
 him. He was ever restless and changeful. During 
 one of his roving fits he emigrated with his family 
 from Nova Scotia to the United States, It was in 
 the spring of 1805 that he and they landed in New- 
 buryport. The following December his wife pre 
 sented him with a boy, whom they called William 
 Lloyd Garrison. Three years afterward Abijah 
 deserted his wife and children. Of the causes which 
 led to this act nothing is now known. Soon after 
 his arrival in Newburyport he had found employ 
 ment. He made several voyages as sailing-master in 
 1805-8 from that port. He was apparently during 
 these years successful after the manner of his craft. 
 But he was not a man to remain long in one place. 
 What was the immediate occasion of "his strange 
 behavior we can only conjecture. Possibly an 
 increasing love for liquor had led to domestic differ 
 ences, which his pleasure-loving nature would not 
 brook. Certain it was that he was not like his wife. 
 He was not a man in whom the moral sense was 
 uppermost He was governed by impulse and she 
 by fixed moral and religious principles. He drank 
 and she abhorred the habit. She tried first moral 
 suasion to induce him to abandon the habit, and 
 once, in a moment of wifely and motherly indigna 
 tion, she broke up one of his drinking parties in her 
 house by trying the efficacy of a little physical 
 suasion. She turned the company out of doors and 
 smashed the bottles of liquor. This was not the 
 kind of woman whom Abijah cared to live with as a 
 wife. He was not the sort of man whom the most 
 romantic love could attach to the apron-strings of 
 any woman. And in the matter of his cup he prob- 
 
l6 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 ably saw that this was what he would be obliged to 
 do as the condition of domestic peace. The condi 
 tion he rejected and, rejecting it, rejected and cast-off 
 his wife and family and the legal and moral responsi 
 bilities of husband and father. 
 
 Bitter days now followed and Fanny Garrison 
 became acquainted with grief and want. She had 
 the mouths of three children to fill the youngest an 
 infant at her breast. The battle of this broken 
 hearted woman for their daily bread was as heroic as 
 it was pathetic. She still lived in the little house on 
 School street where Lloyd was born. The owner, 
 Martha Farnham, proved herself a friend indeed to 
 the poor harassed soul. Now she kept the wolf from 
 the door by going out as a monthly nurse " Aunt 
 Farnham " looking after the little ones in her 
 absence. She was put to all her possibles during 
 those anxious years of struggle and want. Even 
 Lloyd, wee bit of a boy, was pressed into the service. 
 She would make molasses candies and send him upon 
 the streets to sell them. But with all her industry 
 and resource what could she do with three children 
 weighing her down in the fierce struggle for exis 
 tence, rendered tenfold fiercer after the industrial 
 crisis preceding and following the War of 1812. 
 Then it was that she was forced to supplement her 
 scant earnings with refuse food from the table of " a 
 certain mansion on State street." It was Lloyd who 
 went for this food, and it was he who had to run the 
 gauntlet of mischievous and inquisitive children 
 whom he met and who longed for a peep into his tin 
 pail. But the future apostle of non-resistance was 
 intensely resistant, we may be sure, on such occa- 
 
THE FATHER OF THE MAN. 1 7 
 
 sions. For, as his children have said in the story of 
 his life : " Lloyd was a thorough boy, fond of games 
 and of all boyish sport. Barefooted, he trundled his 
 hoop all over Newburyport ; he swam in the Merri- 
 mac in summer, and skated on it in winter ; he was 
 good at sculling a boat ; he played at bat and ball 
 and snowball, and sometimes led the Southend 
 boys against the Northenders in the numerous con 
 flicts between the youngsters of the two sections ; he 
 was expert with marbles. Once, with a playmate, he 
 swam across the river to * Great Rock, a distance of 
 three-fourths of a mile and effected his return against 
 the tide ; and once, in winter, he nearly lost his life 
 by breaking through the ice on the river and reached 
 the shore only after a desperate struggle, the ice 
 yielding as often as he attempted to climb upon its 
 surface. It was favorite pastime of the boys of that 
 day to swim from one wharf to another adjacent, 
 where vessels from the West Indies discharged 
 their freight of molasses, and there to indulge in 
 stolen sweetness, extracted by a smooth stick inserted 
 through the bung-hole. When detected and chased, 
 they would plunge into the water and escape to the 
 wharf on which they had left their clothes." Such 
 was the little man with a boy s irrepressible passion 
 for frolic and fun. His passion for music was hardly 
 less pronounced, and this he inherited from his 
 mother, and exercised to his heart s content in the 
 choir of the Baptist Church. These were the bright 
 lines and spots in his strenuous young life. He 
 played and sang the gathering brood of cares out of 
 his own and his mother s heart. He needed to play 
 and he needed to sing to charm away from his spirit 
 
l8 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 the vulture of poverty. That evil bird hovered ever 
 over his childhood. It was able to do many hard things 
 to him, break up his home, sunder him from his 
 mother, force him at a tender age to earn his bread, 
 still there was another bird in the boy s heart, which 
 sang out of it the shadow and into it the sunshine. 
 Whatever was his lot there sang the bird within his 
 breast, and there shone the sun over his head and 
 into his soul. The boy had unconsciously drawn 
 around him a circle of sunbeams, and how could the 
 vulture of poverty strike him with its wings or stab 
 him with its beak. When he was about eight he was 
 parted from his mother, she going to Lynn, and he, 
 wee mite of a man, remaining in Newburyport. It was 
 during the War of 1812, and pinching times, when 
 Fanny Garrison was at her wit s end to keep the wolf 
 from devouring her three little ones and herself into 
 the bargain. With what tearing of the heart-strings 
 she left Lloyd and his little sister Elizabeth 
 behind we can now only imagine. She had 
 no choice, poor soul, for unless she toiled they 
 would starve. So with James, her eldest son, she 
 went forth into the world to better theirs and her 
 own condition. Lloyd went to live in Deacon Ezekiel 
 Bartlett s family. They were good to the little fellow, 
 but they, too, were poor. The Deacon, among other 
 things, sawed wood for a living, and Lloyd hardly 
 turned eight years, followed him in his peregrinations 
 from house to house doing with his tiny hands what 
 he could to help the kind old man. Soon Fanny 
 Lloyd s health, which had supported her as a magic 
 staff in all those bitter years since Abijah s desertion 
 of wife and children, began in the battle for bread in 
 
THE FATHER OF THE MAN. 19 
 
 Lynn, to fail her. And so, in her weakness, and with 
 a great fear in her heart for her babies, when she was 
 gone from them into the dark unknown forever, she 
 bethought her of making them as fast as possible self- 
 supporting. And what better way was there than to 
 have the boys learn some trade. James she had 
 already apprenticed to learn the mystery of shoe- 
 making. And for Lloyd she now sent and appren 
 ticed him, too, to the same trade. Oh! but it was 
 hard for the little man, the heavy lapstone and all 
 this thumping and pounding to make a shoe. Oh ! 
 how the stiff waxen threads cut into his soft fingers, 
 how all his body ached with the constrained 
 position and the rough work of shoemaking. But 
 one day_the little nine-year-old, who was " not much 
 bigger than a last," was able to produce a real shoe. 
 Then it was probably that a dawning consciousness 
 of power awoke within the child s mind. He him 
 self by patience and industry had created a some 
 thing where before was nothing. The eye of the boy 
 got for the first time a glimpse of the man, who was 
 still afar off, shadowy in the dim approaches of the 
 hereafter. But the work proved altogether beyond 
 the strength of the boy. The shoemaker s bench was 
 not his place, and the making of shoes for his kind 
 was not the mission for which he was sent into the 
 world. And now again poverty, the great scene-shif 
 ter, steps upon the stage, and Fanny Lloyd and her 
 two boys are in Baltimore on that never-ending quest 
 for bread. She had gone to work in a shoe factory 
 established by an enterprising Yankee in that ciry. 
 The work lasted but a few months, when the pro 
 prietor failed and the factory was closed. In a 
 
2O WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 strange city mother and children were left without 
 employment. In her anxiety and distress a new 
 trouble, the greatest and most poignant since Abijah s 
 desertion, wrung her with a supreme grief. James, 
 the light and pride of her life, had run away from 
 his master and gone to sea. Lloyd, poor little home 
 sick Lloyd, was the only consolation left the broken 
 heart. And he did not want to live in Baltimore, 
 and longed to return to Newburyport. So, mindful 
 of her child s happiness, and all unmindful of her 
 own, she sent him from her to Newburyport, which 
 he loved inexpressibly. He was now in his eleventh 
 year. Very happy he was to see once more the 
 streets and landmarks of the old town the river, 
 and the old house where he was born, and the church 
 next door and the school-house across the way and 
 the dear friends whom he loved and who loved him. 
 He went again to live with the Bartletts, doing with 
 his might all that he could to earn his daily bread, 
 and to repay the kindness of the dear old deacon and 
 his family. It was at this time that he received his 
 last scrap of schooling. He was, as we have seen, but 
 eleven, but precious little of that brief and tender 
 time had he been able to spend in a school-house. 
 He had gone to the primary school, where, as his 
 children tell us, he did not show himself " an apt 
 scholar, being slow in mastering the alphabet, and 
 surpassed even by his little sister Elizabeth." During 
 his stay with Deacon Bartlett the first time, he was 
 sent three months to the grammar-school, and now 
 on his return to this good friend, a few more weeks 
 were added to his scant school term. They proved 
 the last of his school-days, and the boy went forth 
 
THE FATHER OF THE MAN. 21 
 
 from the little brick building on the Mall to finish 
 his education in the great workaday world, under those 
 stern old masters, poverty and experience. By and by 
 Lloyd was a second time apprenticed to learn a trade. 
 It was to a cabinetmaker in Haverhill, Mass. He made 
 good progress in the craft, but his young heart still 
 turned to Newburyport and yearned for the friends 
 left there. He bore up against the homesickness as 
 best he could, and when he could bear it no longer, 
 resolved to run away from the making of toy bureaus, 
 to be once more with the Bartletts. He had partly 
 executed this resolution, being several miles on the 
 road to his old home, when his master, the cabinet 
 maker, caught up to him and returned him to Haver- 
 hill. But when he heard the little fellow s story of 
 homesickness and yearning for loved places and 
 faces, he was not angry with him, but did presently 
 release him from his apprenticeship. And so the boy 
 to his great joy found himself again in Newburyport 
 and with the good old wood-sawyer. Poverty and 
 experience were teaching the child what he never 
 could have learned in a grammar-school, a certain 
 acquaintance with himself and the world around 
 him. There was growing within his breast a self- 
 care and a self-reliance. It was the autumn of 1818, 
 when, so to speak, the boy s primary education in 
 the school of experience terminated, and he entered on 
 the second stage of his training under the same rough 
 tutelage. At the age of thirteen he entered the office 
 of the Newburyport Herald to learn to set types. 
 At last his boy s hands had found work which his 
 boy s heart did joy to have done. He soon mastered 
 the compositor s art, became a remarkably rapid 
 
22 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 composer. As he set up the thoughts of others, he 
 was not slow in discovering thoughts of his own 
 demanding utterance. The printer s apprentice felt 
 the stirrings of a new life. A passion for self-improve 
 ment took possession of him. He began to read the 
 English classics, study American history, follow the 
 currents of party politics. No longer could it be 
 said of him that he was not an apt pupil. He was 
 indeed singularly apt. His intelligence quickened 
 marvelously. The maturing process was sudden 
 and swift. Almost before one knows it the boy in 
 years has become a man in judgment and character. 
 This precipitate development of the intellectual life 
 in him, produced naturally enough an appreciable 
 enlargement of the ego. The young eagle had 
 abruptly awakened to the knowledge that he possessed 
 wings ; and wings were for use to soar with. 
 Ambition, the desire to mount aloft, touched and 
 fired the boy s mind. As he read, studied, and 
 observed, while his hands were busy with his work, 
 there was a constant fluttering going on in the eyrie 
 of his thoughts. By an instinct analogous to that 
 which sends a duck to the water, the boy took to the 
 discussion of public questions. It was as if an innate 
 force was directing him toward his mission the re 
 formation of great public wrongs. At sixteen he made 
 his first contribution to the press. It was a discus 
 sion of a quasi-social subject, the relation of the 
 sexes in society. He Was at the impressionable age, 
 when the rosy god of love is at his tricks. He was 
 also at a stage of development, when boys are least 
 attractive, when thy are disagreeably virile, full of 
 their own importance and the superiority of their sex. 
 
THE FATHER OF THE MAN. 23 
 
 In the " Breach of the Marriage Promise," by " An 
 Old Bachelor," these signs of adolescence are by no 
 means wanting, they are, on the contrary, distinctly 
 present and palpable. But there were other signs 
 besides these, signs that the youth had had his eyes 
 wide open to certain difficulties which beset the 
 matrimonial state and to the conventional steps 
 which lead to it, and that he had thought quite 
 soberly, if not altogether wisely upon them. The 
 writer was verdant, to be sure, and self-conscious, 
 and partial in his view of the relations of the sexes, 
 but there was withal a serious purpose in the writing. 
 He meant to expose and correct what he conceived 
 to be reprehensible conduct on the part of the 
 gentler sex, bad feminine manners. Just now he 
 sees the man s side of the shield, a few years later he 
 will see the woman s side also. He ungallantly con 
 cludes " to lead the single life] and not," as he 
 puts it, " trouble myself about the ladies." A most 
 sapient conclusion, considering that this veteran 
 misogynist was but sixteen years old. During the 
 year following the publication of this article, he plied 
 his pen with no little industry producing in all 
 fifteen articles on a variety of topics, such as " South 
 American Affairs," "State Politics," "A Glance at 
 Europe," etc., all of which are interesting now chiefly 
 as showing the range of his growing intelligence, and 
 as the earliest steps by which he acquired his later mas 
 tery of the pen and powerful style of composition. 
 In a letter addressed to his mother about this time, 
 the boy is full of Lloyd, undisguisedly proud of 
 Lloyd, believes in Lloyd. "When I peruse them 
 over " (/. e. those fifteen communications to the 
 
24 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 press), " I feel absolutely astonished," he naively con 
 fesses, "at the different subjects which I have dis 
 cussed, and the style in which they are written. 
 Indeed it is altogether a matter of surprise that I 
 have met with such signal success, seeing I do not 
 understand one single rule of grammar, and having a 
 very inferior education." The printer s lad was 
 plainly not lacking in the bump of approbativeness, 
 or the quality of self-assertiveness. The quick 
 mother instinct of Fanny Garrison took alarm at the 
 tone of her boy s letter. Possibly there was some 
 thing in Lloyd s florid sentences, in his facility of 
 expression, which reminded her of Abijah. He, too, 
 poor fellow, had had gifts in the use of the pen, and 
 what had he done, what had he come to ? Had he 
 not forsaken wife and children by first forsaking the 
 path of holiness? So she pricks the boy s bubble, 
 and points him to the one thing needful God in the 
 soul. But in her closing words she betrays what we 
 all along suspected, her own secret pleasure in her 
 son s success, when she asks, " Will you be so kind 
 as to bring on your pieces that you have written 
 for me to see?" Ah! was she not every inch a 
 mother, and how Lloyd did love her. But she was 
 no longer what she had been. And no wonder, for 
 few women have been called to endure such heavy 
 burdens, fight so hopelessly the battle for bread, all 
 the while her heart was breaking with grief. Disease 
 had made terrible inroads upon her once strong and 
 beautiful person. Not the shadow of the strength 
 and beauty of her young womanhood remained. She 
 was far away from her early home and friends, far 
 away from her darling boy, in Baltimore. James, 
 
THE FATHER OF THE MAN. 25 
 
 her pride, was at sea, Elizabeth, a sweet little maiden 
 of twelve, had left her to take that last voyage 
 beyond another sea, and Abijah, without one word 
 of farewell, with the silence of long years unbroken, 
 he, too, also ! had hoisted sail and was gone forever. 
 And now in her loneliness and sorrow, knowing that 
 she, too, must shortly follow, a great yearning rose 
 up in her poor wounded heart to see once more her 
 child, the comfort and stay of her bitter life. And 
 as she had written to him her wish and longing, 
 the boy went to her, saw the striking change, saw 
 that the broken spirit of the saintly woman was day 
 by day nearing the margin of the dark hereafter, 
 into whose healing waters it would bathe and be 
 whole again. The unspeakable experience of mother 
 and son, during this last meeting is not for you and 
 me, reader, to look into. Soon after Lloyd s return 
 to Newburyport a cancerous tumor developed on her 
 shoulder, from the effects of which she died Septem 
 ber 3, 1823, at the age of forty-five. More than a 
 decade after her death her son wrote : " She has been 
 dead almost eleven years ; but my grief at her loss is 
 as fresh and poignant now as it was at that period ; " 
 and he breaks out in praise of her personal charms in 
 the following original lines : 
 
 " She was the masterpiece of womankind 
 In shape and height majestically fine ; 
 Her cheeks the lily and the rose combined ; 
 Her lips more opulently red than wine ; 
 Her raven locks hung tastefully entwined ; 
 Her aspect fair as Nature could design ; 
 And then her eyes ! so eloquently bright ! 
 An eagle would recoil before her light." 
 
26 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 The influence of this superb woman was a lasting 
 power for truth and righteousness in the son s stormy 
 life. For a whole year after her death, the grief of 
 the printer s lad over his loss, seemed to have checked 
 the activity of his pen. For during that period noth 
 ing of his appeared in the Herald. But after the sharp 
 edge of his sorrow had worn off, his pen became 
 active again in the discussion of public men and pub 
 lic questions. It was a period of bitter personal and 
 political feuds and animosities. The ancient Federal 
 party was in articulo mortis. The death-bed of a 
 great political organization proves oftentimes the 
 graveyard of lifelong friendships. For it is a scene 
 of crimination and recrimination. And so it hap 
 pened that the partisans of John Adams, and the 
 partisans of John Adams s old Secretary of State, 
 Timothy Pickering, were in 1824 doing a thriving 
 business in this particular line. Into this funereal 
 performance our printer s apprentice entered with 
 pick and spade. He had thus early a penchant for 
 controversy, a soldier s scent for battle. If there was 
 any fighting going on he proceeded directly to have 
 a hand in it. And it cannot be denied that that hand 
 was beginning to deal some manly and sturdy blows, 
 whose resound was heard quite distinctly beyond 
 the limits of his birthplace. His communications 
 appeared now, not only in the Herald, but in the 
 Salem Gazette as well. Now it was the Adams-Pick 
 ering controversy, now the discussion of General 
 Jackson as a presidential candidate, now the state of 
 the country in respect of parties, now the merits of 
 "American Writers," which afforded his prentice 
 hand the requisite practice in the use of the pen. He 
 
THE FATHER OF THE MAN. 27 
 
 had already acquired a perfect knowledge of type 
 setting and the mechanical makeup of a newspaper. 
 During his apprenticeship he took his first lesson in 
 the art of thinking on his feet in the presence of an 
 audience. The audience to be sure were the mem 
 bers of a debating club, which he had organized. He 
 was very ambitious and was doubtless looking for 
 ward to a political career. He saw the value of ex 
 tempore speech to the man with a future, and he 
 wisely determined to possess himself of its advantage. 
 He little dreamt, however, to what great use he was 
 to devote it in later years. There were other points, 
 worth noting at this time, and which seemed to 
 prophecy for him a future of distinction. He 
 possessed a most attractive personality. His energy 
 and geniality, his keen sense of humor, his social and 
 bouyant disposition, even his positive and opinion 
 ated temper, were sources of popular strength to him. 
 People were strongly drawn to him. His friends 
 were devoted to him. He had that quality, which 
 we vaguely term magnetic, the quality of attach 
 ing others to us, and maintaining over them the as 
 cendency of our character and ideas. 
 
 In the midst of all this progress along so many 
 lines, the days of his apprenticeship in the Herald 
 office came to an end. He was just twenty. With true 
 Yankee enterprise and pluck, he proceeded to do for 
 himself what for seven years he had helped to do for 
 another publish a newspaper. And with a brave 
 heart the boy makes his launch on the uncertain sea 
 of local journalism and becomes editor and publisher 
 of a real, wide-awake sheet, which he calls the Free 
 Press. The paper was independent in politics and 
 
28 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 proved worthy of its name during the six months 
 that Garrison sat in the managerial chair. Here is 
 the tone which the initial number of the paper holds 
 to the public: " As to the political course of the 
 Free Press, it shall be, in the widest sense of the term, 
 independent. The publisher does not mean by this, to 
 rank amongst those who are of everybody s and of 
 nobody s opinion; . . . nor one of whom the 
 old French proverb says: // ne soit sur quel pied dan- 
 ser. [He knows not on which leg to dance.] Its 
 principles shall be open, magnanimous and free. It 
 shall be subservient to no party or body of men; and 
 neither the craven fear of loss, nor the threats of the 
 disappointed, nor the influence of power, shall ever 
 awe one single opinion into silence. Honest and fair 
 discussion it will court; and its columns will be open 
 to all temperate and intelligent communications 
 emanating from whatever political i; .irce. In fine 
 we will say with Cicero: * Reason shall prevail with 
 him more than popular opinion. They who like 
 this avowal may extend their encouragement; and if 
 any feel dissatisfied with it, they must act accord 
 ingly. The publisher cannot condescend to solicit 
 their support." This was admirable enough in its 
 way, but it was poor journalism some will say. And 
 without doubt when judged by the common com 
 mercial standard it was poor journalism. In this 
 view it is a remarkable production, but in another as 
 pect it is still more remarkable in that it took with 
 absolute accuracy the measure of the man. As a 
 mental likeness it is simply perfect. At no time dur 
 ing his later life did the picture cease to be an exact 
 moral representation of his character. It seems quite 
 
THE FATHER OF THE MAN. 29 
 
 unnecessary, therefore, to record that he proceeded 
 immediately to demonstrate that it was no high 
 sounding and insincere declaration. For in the 
 second number, he mentions with that singular 
 serenity, which ever distinguished him on such occa 
 sions, the discontinuance of the paper on account of 
 matter contained in the first issue, by ten indignant 
 subscribers. " Nevertheless," he adds, " our happi 
 ness at the loss of such subscribers is not a whit 
 abated. We beg no man s patronage, and shall ever 
 erase with the same cheerfulness that we insert the 
 name of any individual. . . . Personal or politi 
 cal offence we shall studiously avoid truth never." 
 Here was plainly a wholly new species of the genus 
 homo in the editorial seat. What, expect to make a 
 newspaper pay and not beg for patronage ? Why 
 the very idea was enough to make newspaperdom 
 go to pieces with laughter. Begging for patronage, 
 howling for subscribers, cringing, crawling, changing 
 color like the chameleon, howling for Barabbas or 
 bellowing against Jesus, all these things must your 
 newspaper do to prosper. On them verily hang the 
 whole law and all the profits of modern journalism. 
 This is what the devil of competition was doing in 
 that world when William Lloyd Garrison entered it. 
 It took him up into an exceedingly high mountain, we 
 may be certain, and offered him wealth, position, and 
 power, if he would do what all others were doing. And 
 he would not. He went on editing and publishing 
 his paper for six months regardful only of what his 
 reason approved regardless always of the disap 
 proval of others. Not once did he palter with his 
 convictions or juggle with his self-respect for the 
 
30 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 sake of pelf or applause. His human horizon was 
 contracted, to be sure. It could hardly be otherwise 
 in one so young. His world was his country, and 
 patriotism imposed limits upon his affections. "Our 
 country, our whole country, and nothing but our 
 country," was the ardent motto of the Free Press. 
 The love of family comes, in the order of growth, be 
 fore the love of country ; and the love of country 
 precedes the love of all mankind. " First the blade, 
 then the ear, then the full corn in the ear," is the 
 great law of love in the soul as of corn in the soil. Be 
 sides this contraction of the affections, there was also 
 manifest in his first journalistic venture a deficiency 
 in the organ of vision, a failure to see into things and 
 their relations. What he saw he reported faithfully, 
 suppressing nothing, adding nothing. But the ob 
 jects which passed across the disk of his editoral in 
 telligence were confined almost entirely to the 
 surface of things, to the superficies of national 
 life. He had not the ken at twenty to penetrate be 
 neath the happenings of current politics. Of the ex 
 istence of slavery as a supreme reality, we do not 
 think that he then had the faintest suspicion. No 
 shadow of its tremendous influence as a political 
 power seemed to have arrested for a brief instant his 
 attention. He could copy into his paper this 
 atrocious sentiment which Edward Everett delivered 
 in Congress, without the slightest comment or 
 allusion. " Sir, I am no soldier. My habits and ed 
 ucation are very unmilitary, but there is no cause in 
 which I would sooner buckle a knapsack on my 
 back, and put a musket on my shoulder than that of 
 putting down a servile insurrection at the South." 
 
THE FATHER OF THE MAN. 31 
 
 The reason is plain enough. Slavery was a terra 
 incognito to him then, a book of which he had not 
 learned the ABC. Mr. Everett s language made 
 no impression on him, because he had not the key to 
 interpret its significance. What he saw, that he set 
 down for his readers, without fear or favor. He had 
 not seen slavery, knew nothing of the evil. Acquaint 
 ance with the deeper things of life, individual or 
 national, comes only with increasing years, they are 
 hardly for him who has not yet reached his majority. 
 Slavery was the very deepest thing in the life of the 
 nation sixty-four years ago. And if Garrison did not 
 then so understand it, neither did his contemporaries, 
 the wisest and greatest of them so understand it. 
 The subject of all others which attracted his atten 
 tion, and kept his editorial pen busy, was the claim 
 of Massachusetts for indemnity from the general gov 
 ernment, for certain disbursements made by her for 
 the defence of her sea-coast during the war of 1812. 
 This matter, which forms but a mere dust point in 
 the perspective of history, his ardent young mind 
 mistook for a principal object, erected into a perma 
 nent question in the politics of the times. But the 
 expenditure of enormous energies upon things of 
 secondary and of even tertiary importance, to the 
 neglect of others of prime and lasting interest, is 
 supremely human. He was errant where all men go 
 astray. But the schoolmaster of the nation was 
 abroad, and was training this young man for the 
 work he was born to do. These six months were, 
 therefore, not wasted, for in the university of ex 
 perience he did ever prove himself an apt scholar. 
 One lesson he had learned, which he never needed to 
 
32 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 relearn. Just what that lesson was, he tells in his 
 valedictory to the subscribers of the Free Press, as 
 follows: "This is a time-serving age; and he who 
 attempts to walk uprightly or speak honestly, can 
 not rationally calculate upon speedy wealth or pre 
 ferment." A sad lesson, to be sure, for one so young 
 to learn so thoroughly. Perhaps some reader will 
 say that this was cynical, the result of disappoint 
 ment. But it was not cynical, neither was it the re 
 sult of disappointment. It was unvarnished truth, 
 and more s the pity, but truth it was none the less. 
 It was one of those hard facts, which he of all men, 
 needed to know at the threshold of his experience 
 with the world. Such a revelation proves disastrous 
 to the many who go down to do business in that 
 world. Ordinary and weak and neutral moral con 
 stitutions are wrecked on this reef set in the human 
 sea. Like a true mariner he had written it boldly on 
 his chart. There at such and such a point in the voy 
 age for the golden fleece, were the rocks and the soul- 
 devouring dragons of the way. Therefore, oh! my 
 soul, beware. What, indeed, would this argonaut of 
 the press take in exchange for his soul ? Certainly 
 not speedy wealth nor preferment. Ah ! he could 
 not praise where he ought to reprobate ; could not 
 reprobate where praise should be the meed. He had 
 no money and little learning, but he had a conscience 
 and he knew that he must be true to that conscience, 
 come to him either weal or woe. Want renders 
 most men vulnerable, but to it, he appeared, at this 
 early age, absolutely invulnerable. Should he and 
 that almost omnipotent inquisitor, public opinion, 
 ever in the future come into collision upon any prin- 
 
THE FATHER OF THE MAN. 33 
 
 ciple of action, a keen student of human nature 
 might forsee that the young recusant could never be 
 starved into silence or conformity to popular 
 standards. And with this stern, sad lesson treasured 
 up in his heart, Garrison graduated from another/ 
 room in the school-house of experience. All the dis 
 coveries of the young journalist were not of this 
 grim character. He made another discovery alto 
 gether different, a real gem of its kind. The drag 
 net of a newspaper catches all sorts of poets and 
 poetry, good, bad, and indifferent oftener the bad 
 and indifferent, rarely the good. The drag-net of the 
 Free Press was no exception to this rule ; but, one 
 day, it fetched up from the depths of the hard com 
 monplaces of our New England town life a genuine 
 pearl. We will let Mr. Garrison tell the story in his 
 own way: 
 
 " Going up-stairs to my office, one day, I observed 
 a letter lying near the door, to my address; which, on 
 opening, I found to contain an original piece of poetry 
 for my paper, the Free Press. The ink was very 
 pale, the handwriting very small; and, having at that 
 time a horror of newspaper original poetry which 
 has rather increased than diminished with the lapse 
 of time my first impulse was to tear it in pieces, 
 without reading it; the chances of rejection, after its 
 perusal, being as ninety-nine to one; . . . but sum 
 moning resolution to read it, I was equally surprised 
 and gratified to find it above mediocrity, and so gave 
 it a place in my journal. . . . As I was anxious to 
 find out the writer, my post-rider, one day, divulged 
 the secret, stating that he had dropped the letter in 
 the manner described, and that it was written by a 
 
34 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 Quaker lad, named Whittier, who was daily at work 
 on the shoemaker s bench, with hammer and lap- 
 stone, at East Haverhill. Jumping into a vehicle, I 
 lost no time in driving to see the youthful rustic 
 bard, who came into the room with shrinking diffi 
 dence, almost unable to speak, and blushing like a 
 maiden. Giving him some words of encouragement, 
 I addressed myself more particularly to his parents, 
 and urged them with great earnestness to grant him 
 every possible facility for the development of his 
 remarkable genius." 
 
 Garrison had not only found a true poet, but a true 
 friend as well, in the Quaker lad, John Greenleaf 
 Whittier. The friendship which sprang up between 
 the two was to last during the lifetime of the 
 former. Neither of them in those days of small 
 things could have possibly by any flight of the imagi 
 nation foreseen how their two lives, moving in par 
 allel lines, would run deep their shining furrows 
 through one of the greatest chapters of human his 
 tory. But I am anticipating, and that is a vice of 
 which no good storyteller ought to be guilty. So, 
 then, let me incontinently return from this excursion 
 and pursue the even tenor of my tale. 
 
 Garrison had stepped down from his elevated posi 
 tion as the publisher and editor of the Free Press. 
 He was without work, and, being penniless, it be 
 hooved him to find some means of support. With 
 the instinct of the bright New England boy, he deter 
 mined to seek his fortunes in Boston. If his honesty 
 and independence put him at a disadvantage, as pub 
 lisher and editor, in the struggle for existence, he 
 had still his trade as a compositor to fall back upon 
 
THE FATHER OF THE MAN. 35 
 
 As a journeyman printer he would earn his bread, 
 and preserve the integrity of an upright spirit. And 
 so without a murmur, and with cheerfulness and per 
 sistency, he hunted for weeks on the streets of Boston 
 for a chance to set types. This hunting for a job in 
 a strange city was discouraging enough. Twice be 
 fore had he visited the place, which was to be his 
 future home. Once when on his way to Baltimore 
 to see his mother, and once afterward when on a sort 
 of pleasure tramp with three companions. But the 
 slight knowledge which he was able to obtain of the 
 town and its inhabitants under these circumstances 
 did not now help him, when from office to office he 
 went in quest of something to do. After many fail 
 ures and renewed searchings, he found what he was 
 after, an opportunity to practice his trade. Business 
 was dull, which kept our journeyman printer on the 
 wing ; first at one and then at another printing office 
 we find him setting types for a living during the 
 year 1827. The winning of bread was no easy matter; 
 but he was not ashamed to work, neither was he 
 afraid of hard work. During this year, he found 
 time to take a hand in a little practical politics. 
 There was in July, 1827, a caucus of the Federal party 
 to nominate a successor to Daniel Webster in the 
 House of Representatives. Young Garrison attended 
 this caucus, and made havoc of its cut and dried pro 
 gramme, by moving the nomination of Harrison 
 Gray Otis, instead of the candidate, a Mr. Benjamin 
 Gorham, agreed upon by the leaders. Harrison Gray 
 Otis was one of Garrison s early and particular idols. 
 He was, perhaps, the one Massachusetts politician 
 whom the young Federalist had placed on a 
 
3 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 pedestal. And so on this occasion he went into the 
 caucus with a written speech in his hat, eulogistic of 
 his favorite. He had meant to have the speech at 
 his tongue s end, and to get it off as if on the spur 
 of the moment. But the speech stayed where it was 
 put, in the speaker s hat, and failed to materialize 
 where and when it was wanted on the speaker s 
 tongue. As the mountain would not go to Mahomet, 
 Mahomet like a sensible prophet went to the moun 
 tain. Our orator in imitation of this illustrious 
 example, bowed to the inevitable and went to his 
 mountain. Pulling his extempore remarks out of his 
 hat, he delivered himself of them to such effect as to 
 create quite an Otis sentiment in the meeting. This 
 performance was, of course, a shocking offence in the 
 eyes of those, whose plans it had disturbed. With 
 one particular old fogy he got into something of a 
 newspaper controversy in consequence. The " con 
 summate assurance " of one so young fairly knocked 
 the breath out of this Mr. Eminent Respectability ; 
 it was absolutely revolting to all his " ideas of pro 
 priety, to see a stranger, a man who never paid a tax 
 in our city, and perhaps no where else, to possess the 
 impudence to take the lead and nominate a candidate 
 for the electors of Boston !" The "young gentleman 
 of six months standing," was not a whit abashed or 
 awed by the commotion which he had produced. 
 That was simply a case of cause and effect. But he 
 seemed in turn astonished at his opponent s evident 
 ignorance of William Lloyd Garrison. " It is true," 
 he replied, with the proud dignity of conscious power, 
 " it is true that my acquaintance in this city is lim 
 ited. I have sought none. Let me assure him, how- 
 
THE FATHER OF THE MAX. 37 
 
 ever, that if my life be spared, my name shall one 
 day be known to the world at least to such extent 
 that common inquiry shall be unnecessary. This, I 
 know will be deemed excessive vanity but time 
 shall prove it prophetic." To the charge of youth 
 he makes this stinging rejoinder, which evinces the 
 progress he was making in the tournament of lan 
 guage : " The little, paltry sneers at my youth by 
 your correspondent have long since become point 
 less. It is the privileged abuse of old age the 
 hackneyed allegation of a thousand centuries the 
 damning crime to which all men have been subjected. 
 I leave it to metaphysicians to determine the precise 
 moment when wisdom and experience leap into exis 
 tence, when, for the first time, the mind distinguishes 
 truth from error, selfishness from patriotism, and 
 passion from reason. It is sufficient for me that I am 
 understood." This was Garrison s first experience with 
 "gentlemen of property and standing" in Boston. 
 It was not his last, as future chapters will abundantly 
 show. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE MAN HEARS A VOICE : SAMUEL, SAMUEL ! 
 
 THERE is a moment in the life of every serious soul, 
 when things, which were before unseen and unheard 
 in the world around him become visible and audible. 
 This startling moment comes to some sooner, to others 
 later, but to all, who are not totally given up to the 
 service of self, at sometime surely. From that mo 
 ment a change passes over such an one, for more and 
 more he hears mysterious voices, and clearer and 
 more clear he sees apparitional forms floating up 
 from the depths above which he kneels. Whence 
 come they, what mean they ? He leans over the 
 abyss, and lo ! the sounds to which he hearkens are 
 the voices of human weeping and the forms at which 
 he gazes are the apparitions of human woe ; they 
 beckon to him, and the voices beseech him in multi 
 tudinous accent and heart-break : " Come over, come 
 down, oh ! friend and brother, and help us." Then 
 he straightway puts away the things and the thoughts 
 of the past and girding himself with the things, and 
 the thoughts of the divine OUGHT and the almighty 
 MUST, he goes over and down to the rescue. 
 
 Such an epochal first moment came to William 
 Lloyd Garrison in the streets of Boston. Amid the 
 hard struggle for bread he heard the abysmal voices, 
 saw the gaunt forms of misery. He was a constant 
 
 (38) 
 
THE MAN HEARS A VOICE : SAMUEL, SAMUEL ! 39 
 
 witness of the ravages of the demon of drink saw 
 how strong men succumbed, and weak ones turned to 
 brutes in its clutch. And were they not his brothers, 
 the strong men and the weak ones alike ? And how 
 could he, their keeper, see them desperately beset 
 and not fly to their help ? Ah ! he could not and did 
 not walk by on the other side, but, stripling though 
 he was, rushed to do battle with the giant vice, which 
 was slaying the souls and the bodies of his fellow 
 citizens. Rum during the three first decades of the 
 present century was, like death, no respecter of per 
 sons, entering with equal freedom the homes of the 
 rich, and the hovels of the poor. It was in universal 
 demand by all classes and conditions of men. No 
 occasion was esteemed too sacred for its presence and 
 use. It was an honored guest at a wedding, a christ 
 ening, or a funeral. The minister whose hands were 
 laid in baptismal blessing on babes, or raised in the 
 holy sacrament of love over brides, lifted also the 
 glass ; and the selfsame lips which had spoken the 
 last words over the dead, drank and made merry 
 presently afterward among the decanters on the side 
 board. It mattered not for what the building was 
 intended whether for church, school, or parsonage, 
 rum was the grand master of ceremonies, the indis 
 pensable celebrant at the various stages of its com 
 pletion. The party who dug the parson out after a 
 snow-storm, verily got their reward, a sort of preliba- 
 tion of the visionary sweets of that land, flowing 
 not, according to the Jewish notion, with milk and 
 honey, but according to the revised version of Yan- 
 keedom, with milk and rum. Rum was, forsooth, a 
 very decent devil, if judged by the exalted character 
 
40 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 of the company it kept. It stood high on the rungs 
 of the social ladder and pulled and pushed men from 
 it by thousands to wretchedness and ruin. So flagrant 
 and universal was the drinking customs of Boston then 
 that dealers offered on the commons during holidays, 
 without let or hindrance, the drunkard s glass to 
 the crowds thronging by extemporized booths and 
 bars. Shocking as was the excesses of this period 
 " nothing comparatively was heard on the subject of 
 intemperance it was seldom a theme for the essay 
 ist the newspapers scarcely acknowledged its exist 
 ence, excepting occasionally in connection with some 
 catastrophes or crimes the Christian and patriot, 
 while they perceived its ravages, formed no plans for 
 its overthrow and it did not occur to any that a 
 paper devoted mainly to its suppression, might be 
 made a direct and successful engine in the great 
 work of reform. Private expostulations and individ 
 ual confessions were indeed sometimes made ; but 
 no systematic efforts were adopted to give precision 
 to the views or a bias to the sentiments of the 
 people." Such was the state of public morals and 
 the state of public sentiment up to the year 1826, 
 when there occurred a change. This change was 
 brought about chiefly through the instrumentality 
 of a Baptist city missionary, the Rev. William 
 Collier. His labors among the poor of Boston had 
 doubtless revealed to him the bestial character of 
 intemperance, and the necessity of doing something 
 to check and put an end to the havoc it was work 
 ing. With this design he established the National 
 Philanthropist in Boston, March 4, 1826. The editor 
 was one of Garrison s earliest acquaintances in the 
 
THE MAN HEARS A VOICE : SAMUEL, SAMUEL ! 4! 
 
 city. Garrison went after awhile to board with him, 
 and still later entered the office of the Philanthropist 
 as a type-setter. The printer of the paper, Nathaniel 
 H. White and young Garrison, occupied the same 
 room at Mr. Collier s. And so almost before our 
 hero was aware, he had launched his bark upon the 
 sea of the temperance reform. Presently, when the 
 founder of the paper retired, it seemed the most 
 natural thing in the world, that the young journey 
 man printer, with his editorial experience and ability, 
 should succeed him as editor. His room-mate, 
 White, bought the Philanthropist, and in April 1828, 
 formally installed Garrison into its editorship. Into 
 this new work he carried all his moral earnestness 
 and enthusiasm of purpose. The paper grew under 
 his hand in size, typographical appearance, and in 
 editorial force and capacity. It was a wide-awake 
 sentinel on the wall of society ; and week after 
 week its columns bristled and flashed with apposite 
 facts, telling arguments, shrewd suggestions, cogent 
 appeals to the community to destroy the accursed 
 thing. No better education could he have had as 
 the preparation for his life work. He began to 
 understand then the strength of deep-seated public 
 evils, to acquaint himself with the methods and in 
 struments with which to attack them. The Philan 
 thropist was a sort of forerunner, so far as the train 
 ing in intelligent and effective agitation was con 
 cerned, of the Genius of Universal Emancipation and 
 of the Liberator. One cannot read his sketch of the 
 progress niade by the temperance reform, from 
 which I have already quoted, and published by him 
 in the Philanthropist in April, 1828, without being 
 
42 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 struck by the strong similitude of the temperance 
 to the anti-slavery movement in their beginnings. 
 " When this paper was first proposed," the young 
 temperance editor records, " it met with a repulsion 
 which would have utterly discouraged a less zeal 
 ous and persevering man than our predecessor. The 
 moralist looked on doubtfully the whole community 
 esteemed the enterprise desperate. Mountains of 
 prejudice, overtopping the Alps, were to be beaten 
 down to a level strong interest, connected by a 
 thousand links, severed new habits formed; Every 
 house, and almost every individual, in a greater or 
 less degree, reclaimed. Derision and contumely 
 were busy in crushing this sublime project in its 
 birth coldness and apathy encompassed it on every 
 side but our predecessor, nevertheless, went boldly 
 forward with a giant s strength and more than a 
 giant s heart conscious of difficulties and perils, 
 though not disheartened, armed with the weapons 
 of truth full of meekness, yet certain of a splendid 
 victory and relying on the promises of God for 
 the issue." What an inestimable object-lesson to 
 Garrison was the example of this good man going 
 forth singlehanded to do battle with one of the 
 greatest evils of the age ! It was not numerical 
 strength, but the faith of one earnest soul that is 
 able in the world of ideas and human passions to re 
 move mountains out of the way of the onward march 
 of mankind. This truth, we may be sure, sunk many 
 fathoms deep into the mind of the young moralist. 
 And no wonder. For the results of two years agita 
 tion and seed sowing were of the most astonishing 
 character. "The change which has taken place in 
 
THE MAN HEARS A VOICE I SAMUEL, SAMUEL ! 43 
 
 public sentiment," he continues, " is indeed remark 
 able . . . incorporated as intemperance was, and 
 still w, into our very existence as a people. . . . 
 A regenerating spirit is everywhere seen ; a 
 strong impulse to action has been given, which, be 
 ginning in the breasts of a few individuals, and 
 then affecting villages, and cities, and finally whole 
 States, has rolled onward triumphantly through the 
 remotest sections of the republic. As union and 
 example are the levers adopted to remove this gi 
 gantic vice, temperance societies have been rapidly 
 multiplied, many on the principle of entire absti 
 nence, and others making it a duty to abstain from 
 encouraging the distillation and consumption of 
 spirituous liquors. Expressions of the deep abhor 
 rence and sympathy which are felt in regard to the 
 awful prevalence of drunkenness are constantly 
 emanating from legislative bodies down to various 
 religious conventions, medical associations, grand 
 juries, etc., etc. But nothing has more clearly 
 evinced the strength of this excitement than the 
 general interest taken in this subject by the con 
 ductors of the press. From Maine to the Mississippi, 
 and as far as printing has penetrated even among 
 the Cherokee Indians but one sentiment seems to 
 pervade the public papers, viz., the ^necessity of 
 strenuous exertion for the suppression of intemper 
 ance." Such a demonstration of the tremendous 
 power of a single righteous soul for good, we may 
 be sure, exerted upon Garrison lasting influences. 
 What a revelation it was also of the transcendent 
 part which the press was capable of playing in the 
 revolution of popular sentiment upon moral ques- 
 
44 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 tions ; and of the supreme service of organization 
 as a factor in reformatory movements. The seeds 
 sowed were faith in the convictions of one man against 
 the opinions, the prejudices, and the practices of the 
 multitude ; and knowledge of and skill in the use of 
 the instruments by which the individual conscience 
 may be made to correct and renovate the moral 
 sense of a nation. But there was another seed corn 
 dropped at this time in his mind, and that is the 
 immense utility of woman in the work of regenerating 
 society. She it is who feels even more than man the 
 effects of social vices and sins, and to her the moral re 
 former should strenuously appeal for aid. And this, 
 with the instinct of genius, Garrison did in the 
 temperance reform, nearly seventy years ago. His 
 editorials in the Philanthropist in the year 1828 on 
 " Female Influence " may be said to be the courier 
 avant of the Woman s Christian Temperance Union 
 of to-day, as they were certainly the precursors of the 
 female anti-slavery societies of a few years later. 
 
 But now, without his knowing it, a stranger from 
 a distant city entered Boston with a message, 
 which was to change the whole purpose of the young 
 editor s life. It was Benjamin Lundy, the indefati 
 gable friend of the Southern slave, the man who 
 carried within his breast the whole menagerie of 
 Southern slavery. He was fresh from the city 
 which held the dust of Fanny Garrison, who had 
 once written to her boy in Newburyport, how the 
 good God had cared for her in the person of a 
 colored woman. Yes, she had written: " The ladies 
 are all kind to me, and I have a colored woman that 
 waits on me, that is so kind no one can tell how kind 
 
THE MAN HEARS A VOICE : SAMUEL, SAMUEL ! 45 
 
 she is; and although a slave to man, yet a free-born 
 soul, by the grace of God. Her name is Henny, 
 and should I never see you again, and you should 
 come where she is, remember her, for your poor 
 mother s sake." And now, without his dreaming of 
 it, this devoted Samaritan in black, who, perhaps, 
 had long ago joined her dear friend in the grave, was 
 coming to that very boy, now grown to manhood, to 
 claim for her race what the mother had asked for 
 her, the kind slave-woman. Not one of all those little 
 ones of the nation but who had a home in the many- 
 mansioned heart of Lundy. He had been an eye and 
 ear witness of the barbarism of slavery. " My 
 heart," he sobbed, " was deeply grieved at the gross 
 abomination; I heard the wail of the captive; I felt 
 his pang of distress, and the iron entered my soul." 
 With apostolic faith and zeal he had for a decade 
 been striving to free the captive, and to tie up his 
 bruised spirit. Sadly, but with a great love, he had 
 gone about the country on his self-imposed task. 
 To do this work he had given up the business of a 
 saddler, in which he had prospered, had sacrificed 
 his possessions, and renounced the ease that comes 
 with wealth ; had courted unheard-of hardships, 
 and wedded himself for better and worse to poverty 
 and unremitting endeavor. Nothing did he esteem too 
 dear to relinquish for the slave. Neither wife nor 
 children did he withhold. Neither the summer s 
 heat nor the winter s cold was able to daunt him or 
 turn him from his object. Though diminutive and 
 delicate of body, no distance or difficulty of travel 
 was ever able to deter him from doing what his 
 humanity had bidden him do. From place to place, 
 
46 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 through nineteen States, he had traveled, sowing as 
 he went the seeds of his holy purpose, and watering 
 them with his life s blood. Not Livingstone nor 
 Stanley on the dark continent exceeded in sheer 
 physical exertion and endurance the labors of this 
 wonderful man. He belongs in the category of 
 great explorers, only the irresistible passion and pur 
 pose, which pushed him forward, had humanity, not 
 geography, as their goal. Where, in the lives of 
 either Stanley or Livingstone do we find a record of 
 more astonishing activity and achievement than what 
 is contained in these sentences, written by Garrison 
 of Lundy, in the winter of 1828? "Within a few 
 months he has traveled about twenty-four hundred 
 miles, of which upwards of nineteen hundred were 
 performed on foot ! during which time he has held 
 nearly fifty public meetings. Rivers and mountains 
 vanish in his path; midnight finds him wending his 
 solitary way over an unfrequented road; the sun is 
 anticipated in his rising. Never was moral sublimity 
 of character better illustrated." Such was the 
 marvelous man, whose visit to Boston, in the month 
 of March, of the year 1828, dates the beginning of a 
 new epoch in the history of America. The event of 
 that year was not the "Bill of Abominations," great 
 as was the national excitement which it produced; 
 nor was it yet the then impending political struggle 
 between Jackson and Adams, but the unnoticed 
 meeting of Lundy and Garrison. Great historic 
 movements are born not in the whirlwinds, the earth 
 quakes, and the pomps of human splendor and 
 power, but in the agonies and enthusiasms of grand, 
 heroic spirits. Up to this time Garrison had had, as 
 
THE MAN HEARS A VOICE : SAMUEL, SAMUEL ! 47 
 
 the. religious revivalist would say, no "realizing 
 sense " of the enormity of slave-holding. Occasion 
 ally an utterance had dropped from his pen which 
 indicated that his heart was right on the subject, but 
 which evinced no more than the ordinary opposition 
 to its existence, nor any profound convictions as to 
 his own or the nation s duty in regard to its extinc 
 tion. His first reference to the question appeared in 
 connection with a notice made by him in the Free 
 Press of a spirited poem, entitled " Africa," in which 
 the authoress sings of : 
 
 " The wild and mingling groans of writhing millions, 
 Calling for vengeance on my guilty land." 
 
 He commended the verses "to all those who wish to 
 cherish female genius, and whose best feelings are 
 enlisted in the cause of the poor oppressed sons of 
 Africa." He was evidently impressed, but the impres 
 sion belonged to the ordinary, transitory sort. His 
 next recorded utterance on the subject was also in 
 the Free Press. It was made in relation with some 
 just and admirable strictures on the regulation Fourth 
 of July oration, with its " ceaseless apostrophes to 
 liberty, and fierce denunciations of tyranny." Such 
 a tone was false and mischievous the occasion was 
 for other and graver matter. " There is one theme," 
 he declares, " which should be dwelt upon, till our 
 whole country is free from the curse it is slavery." 
 The emphasis and energy of the rebuke and exhorta 
 tion lifts this second allusion to slavery, quite outside 
 of merely ordinary occurrences. It was not an ordi 
 nary personal occurrence for it served to reveal in its 
 lightning-like flash the glow and glare of a conscience 
 taking fire. The fire slumbered until a few weeks 
 
48 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 before Lundy entered Boston, when there were again 
 the glow and glare of a moral sense in the first stages 
 of ignition on the enormity of slave institutions. The 
 act of South Carolina in making it illegal to teach a 
 colored person to read and write struck this spark 
 from his pen : " There is something unspeakably 
 pitiable and alarming," he writes in the Philanthropist, 
 " in the state of that society where it is deemed nec 
 essary, for self-preservation, to seal up the mind and 
 debase the intellect of man to brutal incapacity. . . . 
 Truly the alternatives of oppression are terrible. But 
 this state of things cannot always last, nor ignorance 
 alone shield us from destruction." His interest in the 
 question was clearly growing. But it was still in the 
 gristle of sentiment waiting to be transmuted into 
 the bone and muscle of a definite and determined pur 
 pose, when first he met Lundy. This meeting of the 
 two men, was to Garrison what the fourth call of God 
 was to Samuel, the Hebrew lad, who afterward became 
 a prophet. As the three previous calls of God and 
 the conversations with Eli had prepared the Jewish 
 boy to receive and understand the next summons of 
 Jehovah, so had Garrison s former experience and 
 education made him ready for the divine message 
 when uttered in his ears by Lundy. All the sense of 
 truth and the passion for righteousness of the young 
 man replied to the voice, " Here am I." The harden 
 ing process of growth became immediately manifest 
 in him. Whereas before there was sentimental oppo 
 sition to slavery, there began then an opposition, 
 active and practical. When Lundy convened many 
 of the ministers of the city to expose to them the bar 
 barism of slavery, Garrison sat in the room, and as 
 
THE MAN HEARS A VOICE : SAMUEL, SAMUEL ! 49 
 
 Lundy himself records, " expressed his approbation 
 of my doctrines." The young reformer must needs 
 stand up and make public profession of his new faith 
 and of his agreement with the anti-slavery principles 
 of the older. But it was altogether different with the 
 assembled ministers. Lundy, as was his wont on 
 such occasions, desired and urged the formation of an 
 anti-slavery society, but these sons of Eli of that gen 
 eration were not willing to offend their slave-holding 
 brethren in the South. Eyes they had, but they 
 refused to see; ears, which they stopped to the cry of 
 the slave breaking in anguish and appeal from the 
 lips of this modern man of God. Garrison, eleven 
 years later, after the lips, which were eloquent then 
 with their great sorrow, were speechless in the grave, 
 told the story of that ministers meeting. And 
 here is the story : 
 
 " He (Lundy) might as well have urged the stones 
 in the streets to cry out in behalf of the perishing 
 captives. Oh, the moral cowardice, the chilling apa 
 thy, the criminal unbelief, the cruel skepticism, that 
 were revealed on that memorable occasion ! My soul 
 was on fire then, as it is now, in view of such a devel 
 opment. Every soul in the room was heartily 
 opposed to slavery, but, it would terribly alarm and 
 enrage the South to know that an anti-slavery society 
 existed in Boston. But it would do harm rather than 
 good openly to agitate the subject. But perhaps a 
 select committee might be formed, to be called by some 
 name that would neither give offence, nor excite sus 
 picion as to its real design ! One or two only were 
 for bold and decisive action ; but as they had neither 
 station nor influence, and did not rank among the 
 
50 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 wise and prudent, their opinion did not weigh very 
 heavily, and the project was finally abandoned. Poor 
 Lundy ! that meeting was a damper to his feelings." 
 There is no doubt that Garrison was one of the very 
 few present, who " were for bold and decisive action" 
 against the iniquity. The grief and disappointment 
 of his brave friend touched his heart with a brother s 
 affection and pity. The worldly wisdom and luke- 
 warmness of the clergy kindled a righteous indigna 
 tion within his freedom-loving soul. This was his 
 first bitter lesson from the clergy. There were, alas, 
 many and bitterer experiences to follow, but of them 
 he little recked at the time. As this nineteenth-cen 
 tury prophet mused upon the horrible thing the fires 
 of a life purpose burned within him. And oftener 
 thenceforth we catch glimpses of the glow and glare 
 of a soul bursting into flame. The editorials in the 
 Philanthropist, which swiftly followed Lundy s visit, 
 began to throw off more heat as the revolving wheels 
 of an electrical machine throw off sparks. The evil 
 that there was in the world, under which, wherever he 
 turned, he saw his brother man staggering and bleed 
 ing, was no longer what it had been, a vague and 
 shadowy apparition, but rather a terrible and tremen 
 dous reality against which he must go forth to fight 
 the fight of a lifetime. And so he girded him with his 
 life purpose and flung his moral earnestness against 
 the triple-headed curse of intemperance, slavery, and 
 war. A mighty human love had begun to flow 
 inward and over him. And as the tide steadily rose 
 it swallowed and drowned all the egoism of self and 
 race in the altruism of an all-embracing humanity. 
 When an apprentice in the office of the Newburyport 
 
THE MAN HEARS A VOICE I SAMUEL, SAMUEL! 51 
 
 Herald, and writing on the subject of South American 
 affairs he grew hot over the wrongs suffered by 
 American vessels at Valparaiso and Lima. He was 
 for finishing " with cannon what cannot be done in a 
 conciliatory and equitable manner, where justice 
 demands such proceedings." This was at seventeen 
 when he was a boy with the thoughts of a boy. Six 
 years later he is a man who has looked upon the sor 
 rows of men. His old boy-world is far behind him, 
 and the ever-present sufferings of his kind are in 
 front of him. War now is no longer glorious, for it 
 adds immeasurably to the sum of human misery. 
 War ought to be abolished with intemperance and 
 slavery. And this duty he began to utter in the ears 
 of his country. " The brightest traits in the American 
 character will derive their luster, not from the laurels 
 picked from the field of blood, not from the magni 
 tude of our navy and the success of our arms," he 
 proclaimed, " but from our exertions to banish war 
 from the earth, to stay the ravages of intemperance 
 among all that is beautiful and fair, to unfetter those 
 who have been enthralled by chains, which we have 
 forged, and to spread the light of knowledge and 
 religious liberty, wherever darkness and superstition 
 reign. . . . The struggle is full of sublimity, the con 
 quest embraces the world." Lundy himself did not 
 fully appreciate the immense gain, which his cause 
 had made in the conversion of Garrison into an active 
 friend of the slave. Not at once certainly. Later he 
 knew. The discovery of a kindred spirit in Boston 
 exerted probably no little influence in turning for the 
 second time his indefatigable feet toward that city. 
 He made it a second visit in July, 1828, where again 
 
$2 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 he met Garrison. His experience with the ministers 
 did not deter him from repeating the horrible tale 
 wherever he could get together an audience. This 
 time he secured his first public hearing in Boston. 
 It was in the Federal Street Baptist Church. He 
 spoke not only on the subject of slavery itself, the 
 growth of anti-slavery societies, but on a new phase 
 of the general subject, viz., the futility of the Coloni 
 zation Society as an abolition instrument. Garrison 
 was present, and treasured up in his heart the words 
 of his friend. He did not forget how Lundy had 
 pressed upon his hearers the importance of petition 
 ing Congress for the abolition of slavery in the Dis 
 trict of Columbia, as we shall see further on. But 
 poor Lundy was unfortunate with the ministers. He 
 got this time not the cold shoulder alone but a cleri 
 cal slap in the face as well. He had just sat down 
 when the pastor of the church, Rev. Howard Malcolm, 
 uprose in wrath and inveighed against any intermed 
 dling of the North with slavery, and brought the 
 meeting with a high hand to a close. This incident 
 was the first collision with the church of the forlorn 
 hope of the Abolition movement. Trained as Garri 
 son was in the orthodox creed and sound in that creed 
 almost to bigotry, this behavior of a standard-bearer 
 of the church, together with the apathy displayed by 
 the clergy on a former occasion, caused probably the 
 first " little rift within the lute " of his creed, " that 
 by and by will make the music mute, and, ever widen 
 ing, slowly silence all." For in religion as in love, 
 " Unfaith in aught is want of faith in all." The Rev. 
 Howard Malcolm s arbitrary proceeding had pre 
 vented the organization of an anti-slavery committee. 
 
THE MAN HEARS A VOICE I SAMUEL, SAMUEL ! 53 
 
 But this was affected at a second meeting of the 
 friends of the slave. Garrison was one of the twenty 
 gentlemen who were appointed such a committee. 
 His zeal and energy far exceeded the zeal and energy 
 of the remaining nineteen. He did not need the 
 earnest exhortation of Lundy to impress upon his 
 memory the importance of " activity and steady per 
 severance." He perceived almost at once that every 
 thing depended on them. And so he had formed 
 plans for a vigorous campaign against the existence 
 of slavery in the District of Columbia. But before he 
 was ready to set out along the line of work, which he 
 had laid down for Massachusetts, the scene of his 
 labors shifted to Bennington, Vermont. Before he 
 left Boston, Lundy had recognized him as " a valuable 
 coadjutor." The relationship between the two men 
 was becoming beautifully close. The more Lundy 
 saw of Garrison, the more he must have seemed to 
 him a man after his own heart. And so no wonder 
 that he was solicitous of fastening him to his cause 
 with hooks of steel. The older had written the 
 younger reformer a letter almost paternal in tone 
 he must do thus and thus, he must not be dis 
 appointed if he finds the heavy end of the burthen 
 borne by himself, while those associated with him do 
 little to keep the wheels moving, he must remember 
 that " a few will have the labor to perform and the 
 honor to share." Then there creeps into his words a 
 grain of doubt, a vague fear lest his young ally should 
 take his hands from the plough and go the way of all 
 men, and here are the words which Paul might have 
 written to Timothy : " I hope you will persevere in 
 your work, steadily, but not make too large calcula- 
 
54 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 tions on what may be accomplished in a particularly 
 stated time. You have now girded on a holy war 
 fare. Lay not down your weapons until honorable 
 terms are obtained. The God of hosts is on your side. 
 Steadiness and faithfulness will most assuredly over 
 come every obstacle." The older apostle had yet to 
 learn that the younger always did what he undertook 
 in the field of morals and philanthropy. 
 
 But the scene had shifted from Boston to Benning- 
 ton, and with the young reformer goes also his plan 
 of campaign for anti-slavery work. The committee 
 of twenty, now nineteen since his departure, slum 
 bered and slept in the land of benevolent intentions, 
 a practical illustration of Lundy s pungent saying, 
 that " philanthropists are the slowest creatures breath 
 ing. They think forty times before they act/ The 
 committee never acted, but its one member in Ver 
 mont did act, and that promptly and powerfully as 
 shall shortly appear. Garrison had gone to Benning- 
 ton to edit the Journal of the Times in the interest of 
 the reelection of John Quincy Adams to the Presi 
 dency. For this object he was engaged as editor of 
 the paper. What he was engaged to do he performed 
 faithfully and ably, but along with his fulfillment of 
 his contract with the friends of Mr. Adams, he car 
 ried the one which he had made with humanity like 
 wise. In his salutatory he outlined his intentions in 
 this regard thus: " We have three objects in view, 
 which we shall pursue through life, whether in this 
 place or elsewhere namely, the suppression of in 
 temperance and its associate vices, the gradual eman 
 cipation of every slave in the republic, and the per 
 petuity of national peace. In discussing these topics 
 
THE MAN HEARS A VOICE I SAMUEL, SAMUEL ! 55 
 
 what is wanting in vigor shall be made up in zeal." 
 From the issue of that first number if the friends of 
 Adams had no cause to complain of the character of 
 his zeal and vigor in their service, neither had the 
 friends of humanity. What he had proposed doing 
 in Massachusetts as a member of the anti-slavery 
 committee of twenty, he performed with remarkable 
 energy and success in Vermont. It was to obtain 
 signatures not by the hundred to a petition for the 
 abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, but 
 by the thousands, and that from all parts of the State. 
 He sent copies of the petition to every postmaster in 
 Vermont with the request that he obtain signatures 
 in his neighborhood. Through his exertions a public 
 meeting of citizens of Bennington was held and in 
 dorsed the petition. The plan for polling the anti- 
 slavery sentiment of the State worked admirably. 
 The result was a monster petition with 2,352 names 
 appended. This he forwarded to the seat of Govern 
 ment. It was a powerful prayer, but as to its effect, 
 Garrison had no delusions. He possessed even then 
 singularly clear ideas as to how the South would re 
 ceive such petitions, and of the course which it would 
 pursue to discourage their presentation. He was no less 
 clear as to how the friends of freedom ought to carry 
 themselves under the circumstances. In the Journal 
 of the Times of November, 1828, he thus expressed 
 himself: " It requires no spirit of prophecy to pre 
 dict that it (the petition) will create great opposition. 
 An attempt will be made to frighten Northern 
 dough-faces as in case of the Missouri question. 
 There will be an abundance of furious declamation, 
 menace, and taunt. Are we, therefore, to approach 
 
56 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 the subject timidly with half a heart as if we were 
 treading on forbidden ground ? No, indeed, but ear 
 nestly, fearlessly, as becomes men, who are determined 
 to clear their country and themselves from the guilt 
 of oppressing God s free and lawful creatures." 
 About the same time he began to make his assaults 
 on the personal representatives of the slave-power in 
 Congress, cauterizing in the first instance three 
 Northern " dough-faces," who had voted against some 
 resolutions, looking to the abolition of the slave-trade 
 and slavery itself in the District of Columbia. So 
 while the South thus early was seeking to frighten 
 the North from the agitation of the slavery question 
 in Congress, Garrison was unconsciously preparing 
 a countercheck by making it dangerous for a North 
 ern man to practice Southern principles in the 
 National Legislature. He did not mince his words, 
 but called a spade a spade, and sin, sin. He per 
 ceived at once that if he would kill the sin of slave- 
 holding, he could not spare the sinner. And so he 
 spoke the names of the deliquents from the housetop 
 of the Journal of the Times, stamping upon their 
 brows the scarlet letter of their crime against liberty. 
 He had said in the October before: "It is time that 
 a voice of remonstrance went forth from the North, 
 that should peal in the ears of every slaveholder like 
 a roar of thunder. . . . For ourselves, we are resolved 
 to agitate this subject to the utmost; nothing but 
 death shall prevent us from denouncing a crime which 
 has no parallel in human depravity; we shall take 
 high ground. The alarm must be perpetual." A vpiae 
 of remonstrance, with thunder growl accompaniment, 
 was rising higher and clearer from the pen of the 
 
THE MAN HEARS A VOICE : SAMUEL, SAMUEL f 57 
 
 young editor. His tone of earnestness was deepening 
 to the stern bass of the moral reformer, and the 
 storm breath of enthusiasm was blowing to a blaze 
 the glowing coals of his humanity. The wail of 
 the fleeing fugitive from the house of bondage 
 sounded no longer far away and unreal in his ears, 
 but thrilled now right under the windows of his soul. 
 The masonic excitement and the commotion created 
 by the abduction of Morgan he caught up and shook 
 before the eyes of his countrymen as an object lesson 
 of the million-times greater wrong daily done the 
 slaves. " All this fearful commotion," he pealed, 
 " has arisen from the abduction of one man. More 
 than two millions of unhappy beings are groaning out 
 their lives in bondage, and scarcely a pulse quickens, 
 or a heart leaps, or a tongue pleads in their behalf. 
 Tis a trifling affair, which concerns nobody. Oh! 
 for the spirit that rages, to break every fetter of 
 oppression ! " Such a spirit was fast taking possession 
 of the writer. 
 
 Of this Lundy was well informed. He had not 
 lost sight of his young coadjutor, but had watched 
 his course with great hope and growing confidence. 
 In him he found what he had discovered in no one 
 else, anti-slavery activity and perseverence. He had 
 often found men who protested loudly their benevo 
 lence for the negro, but who made not the slightest 
 exertion afterward to carry out their good wishes. 
 " They will pen a paragraph, perhaps an article, or 
 so and then the subject is exhausted f" It was not so 
 with his young friend, the Bennington editor. He 
 saw that " argument and useful exertion on the sub- 
 iect of African emancipation can never be exhausted 
 
58 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 until the system of slavery itself be totally annihi 
 lated." He was faithful among the faithless found 
 by Lundy. To reassure his doubting leader, Garrison 
 took upon himself publicly a vow of perpetual con 
 secration to the slave. "Before God and our country," 
 he declares, " we give our pledge that the liberation 
 of the enslaved Africans shall always be uppermost 
 in our pursuits. The people of New England are 
 interested in this matter, and they must be aroused 
 from their lethargy as by a trumpet-call. They shall 
 not quietly slumber while we have the management 
 of a press, or strength to hold a pen." The question 
 of slavery had at length obtained the ascendency 
 over all other questions in his regard. And when 
 Lundy perceived this he set out from Baltimore to 
 Bennington to invite Garrison to join hands with 
 him in his emancipation movement at Baltimore. 
 He performed the long journey on foot, with staff in 
 hand in true apostolic fashion. The two men of 
 God met among the mountains of Vermont, and 
 when the elder returned from the heights the younger 
 had resolved to follow him to the vales where men 
 needed his help, the utmost which he could give 
 them. He agreed to join his friend in Baltimore and 
 there edit with him his little paper with the grand 
 name (The Genius of Universal Emancipation}, devoted 
 to preaching the gospel of the gradual abolishment of 
 American slavery. Garrison was to take the position 
 of managing editor, and Lundy to look after the sub 
 scription list. The younger to be resident, the elder 
 itinerant partner in the publication of the paper. 
 Garrison closed his relations with the Journal of the 
 Times, March 27, 1829, and delivered his valedictory 
 
THE MAN HEARS A VOICE I SAMUEL, SAMUEL ! 59 
 
 to its readers. This valedictory strikes with stern 
 hammer-stroke the subject of his thoughts. " Here 
 after," it reads, " the editorial charge of this paper 
 will devolve on another person. I am invited to 
 occupy a broader field, and to engage in a higher 
 enterprise; that field embraces the whole country 
 that enterprise is in behalf of the slave popula 
 tion." 
 
 "To my apprehension, the subject of slavery 
 involves interests of greater moment to our welfare as 
 a republic, and demands a more prudent and minute 
 investigation than any other which has come before 
 the American people since the Revolutionary struggle 
 than all others which now occupy their attention. 
 No body of men on the face of the earth deserve 
 their charities, and prayers, and united assistance so 
 much as the slaves of this country; and yet they are 
 almost entirely neglected. It is true many a cheek 
 burns with shame in view of our national incon 
 sistency, and many a heart bleeds for the miserable 
 African. It is true examples of disinterested benevo 
 lence and individual sacrifices are numerous, particu 
 larly in the Southern States; but no systematic, 
 vigorous, and successful measures have been made to 
 overthrow this fabric of oppression. I trust in God 
 that I may be the humble instrument of breaking at 
 least one chain, and restoring one captive to liberty; 
 it will amply repay a life of severe toil." The causes 
 of temperance and peace came in also for an earnest 
 parting word, but they had clearly declined to a 
 place of secondary importance in the writer s regard. 
 To be more exact, they had not really declined, but 
 the slavery question had risen in his mind above both. 
 
60 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 They were great questions, but it was the question- 
 had become his cause. 
 
 Lundy, after his visit to Garrison at Bennington, 
 started on a trip to Hayti with twelve emanci 
 pated slaves, whom he had undertaken to colonize 
 there. Garrison awaited in Boston the return of his 
 partner to Baltimore. The former, meanwhile, was 
 out of employment, and sorely in need of money. 
 Never had he been favored with a surplusage of the 
 root of all evil. He was deficient in the money- 
 getting and money-saving instinct. Such was plainly 
 not his vocation, and so it happened that wherever he 
 turned, he and poverty walked arm in arm, and the 
 interrogatory, " wherewithal shall I be fed and 
 clothed on the morrow ? " was never satisfactorily 
 answered until the morrow arrived. This led him at 
 times into no little embarrassment and difficulty. But 
 since he was always willing to work at the case, 
 and to send his " pride on a pilgrimage to Mecca," 
 the embarrassment was not protracted, nor did the 
 difficulty prove insuperable. 
 
 The Congregational societies of Boston invited 
 him in June to deliver before them a Fourth of July 
 address in the interest of the Colonization Society. 
 The exercises took place in Park Street Church. Ten 
 days before this event he was called upon to pay a 
 bill of four dollars for failure to appear at the May 
 muster. Refusing to do so, he was thereupon sum 
 moned to come into the Police Court on the glorious 
 Fourth to show cause why he ought not to pay the 
 amercement. He was in a quandary. He did not 
 owe the money, but as he could not be in two places 
 at the same time, and, inasmuch as he wanted very 
 
THE MAN HEARS A VOICE : SAMUEL, SAMUEL ! 6 1 
 
 much to deliver his address before the Congregational 
 Societies, and did not at all long to make the acquaint 
 ance of his honor, the Police Court Judge, he 
 determined to pay the fine. But, alack and alas! he 
 had " not a farthing " with which to discharge him 
 from his embarrassment. Fortunately, if he wanted 
 money he did not want friends. And one of these, 
 Jacob Horton, of Newburyport, who had married 
 his " old friend and playmate, Harriet Farnham," 
 came to his rescue with the requisite amount. 
 
 On the day and place appointed Garrison appeared 
 before the Congregational Societies with an address, 
 to the like of which, it is safe to say, they had never 
 before listened. It was the Fourth of July, but the 
 orator was in no holiday humor. There was not, in 
 a single sentence of the oration the slightest en 
 deavor to be playful with his audience. It was rather 
 an eruption of human suffering, and of the humanity 
 of one man to man. What the Boston clergy saw 
 that afternoon, in the pulpit of Park Street Church, 
 was the vision of a soul on fire. Garrison burned 
 and blazed as the sun that July afternoon burned 
 and blazed in the city s streets. None without 
 escaped the scorching rays of the latter, none within 
 was able to shun the fervid heat of the former. 
 Those of my readers who have watched the effects 
 of the summer s sun on a track of sandy land and 
 have noted how, about midday, the heat seems to 
 rise in sparkling particles and exhalations out of the 
 hot, surcharged surface, can form some notion of the 
 moral fervor and passion of this Fourth of July ad 
 dress, delivered more than sixty years ago, in Boston. 
 Through all the pores of it, over all the length and 
 
62 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 breadth of it, there went up bright, burning particles 
 from the sunlit sympathy and humanity of the young 
 reformer. 
 
 In beginning, he animadverted, among other 
 things, on the spread of intemperance, of political 
 corruption, on the profligacy of the press, and, amid 
 them all, the self-complacency and boastfulness of 
 the national spirit, as if it bore a charmed life. 
 
 " But," he continued, " there is another evil which, 
 if we had to contend against nothing else, should 
 make us quake for the issue. It is a gangrene prey 
 ing upon our vitals an earthquake rumbling under 
 our feet a mine accumulating material for a national 
 catastrophe. It should make this a day of fasting 
 and prayer, not of boisterous merriment and idle 
 pageantry a day of great lamentation, not of con 
 gratulatory joy. It should spike every cannon, and 
 haul down every banner. Our garb should be sack 
 cloth our heads bowed in the dust our supplica 
 tions for the pardon and assistance of Heaven. 
 
 " Sirs, I am not come to tell you that slavery is a 
 curse, debasing in its effects, cruel in its operations, 
 fatal in its continuance. The day and the occasion 
 require no such revelation. I do not claim the dis 
 covery as my own, that * all men are born equal, and 
 that among their inalienable rights are * life, liberty, 
 and the pursuit of happiness. Were I addressing any 
 other than a free and Christian assembly, the enforce 
 ment of this truth might be pertinent. Neither do I 
 intend to analyze the horrors of slavery for your 
 inspection, nor to freeze your blood with authentic 
 recitals of savage cruelty. Nor will time allow me to 
 explore even a furlong of that immense wilderness of 
 
THE MAN HEARS A VOICE : SAMUEL, SAMUEL ! 63 
 
 suffering which remains unsubdued in our land. I 
 take it for granted that the existence of these evils is 
 acknowledged, if not rightly understood. My object 
 is to define and enforce our duty, as Christians and 
 philanthropists." 
 
 This was, by way of exordium, the powerful skir 
 mish line of the address. Assuming the existence of 
 the evil, he advanced boldly to his theme, viz., the 
 duty of abolishing it. To this end he laid down four 
 propositions, as a skillful general plants his cannon 
 on the heights overlooking and commanding his 
 enemies works. The first, broadly stated, asserted 
 the kinship of the slave to the free population of the 
 republic. They were men ; they were natives of the 
 country; they were in dire need. They were igno 
 rant, degraded, morally and socially. They were the 
 heathen at home, whose claims far outranked those 
 in foreign lands ; they were higher than those of the 
 " Turks or Chinese, for they have the privileges of 
 instruction ; higher than the Pagans, for they are not 
 dwellers in a Gospel land; higher than our red men 
 of the forest, for we do not bind them with gyves, 
 nor treat them as chattels." 
 
 Then he turned hotly upon the Church, exclaiming: 
 "What has Christianity done by direct effort for 
 our slave population ? Comparatively nothing. She 
 has explored the isles of the ocean for objects of 
 commiseration; but, amazing stupidity ! she can gaze 
 without emotion on a multitude of miserable beings 
 at home, large enough to constitute a nation of free 
 men, whom, tyranny has heathenized by law. In her 
 public services they are seldom remembered, and in 
 her private donations they are forgotten. From one 
 
64 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 end of the country to the other her charitable soci 
 eties form golden links of benevolence, and scatter 
 their contributions like rain drops over a parched 
 heath; but they bring no sustenance to the perishing 
 slave. The blood of souls is upon her garments, yet 
 she heeds not the stain. The clanking of the prison 
 er s chains strike upon her ear, but they cannot pene 
 trate her heart." 
 
 Then, with holy wrath upon the nation, thus : 
 " Every Fourth of July our Declaration of Inde 
 pendence is produced, with a sublime indignation, to 
 set forth the tyranny of the mother country, and to 
 challenge the admiration of the world. But what a 
 pitiful detail of grievances does this document pre 
 sent, in comparison with the wrongs which our slaves 
 endure ? In the one case it is hardly the plucking of 
 a hair from the head ; in the other, it is the crushing 
 of a live body on the wheel the stings of the wasp 
 contrasted with the tortures of the Inquisition. Be 
 fore God I must say that such a glaring contradic 
 tion as exists between our creed and practice the 
 annals of six thousand years cannot parallel. In view 
 of it I am ashamed of my country. I am sick of our 
 unmeaning declamation in praise of liberty and 
 equality; of our hypocritical cant about the inalien 
 able rights of man. I would not for my right hand 
 stand up before a European assembly, and exult that 
 I am an American citizen, and denounce the usurpa 
 tions of a kingly government as wicked and unjust ; 
 or, should I make the attempt, the recollection of my 
 country s barbarity and despotism would blister my 
 lips, and cover my cheeks with burning blushes of 
 shame." 
 
THE MAN HEARS A VOICE : SAMUEL, SAMUEL ! 65 
 
 Passing to his second proposition, which affirmed 
 the right of the free States to be in at the death of 
 slavery, he pointed out that slavery was not sectional 
 but national in its influence. If the consequences of 
 slave-holding did not flow beyond the limits of the 
 slave section, the right would still exist, on the prin 
 ciple that what affected injuriously one part must 
 ultimately hurt the whole body politic. But it was 
 not true that slavery concerned only the States where 
 it existed the parts where it did not exist were 
 involved by their constitutional liability to be called 
 on for aid in case of a slave insurrection, as they were 
 in the slave representation clause of the national com 
 pact, through which the North was deprived of its 
 "just influence in the councils of the nation." And, 
 furthermore, the right of the free States to agitate 
 the question inhered in the principle of majority rule 
 the white population of the free States being almost 
 double that of the slave States, "and the voice of this 
 overwhelming majority should be potential." He 
 repelled in strong language the wrongfulness of 
 allowing the South to multiply the votes of those 
 freemen by the master s right to count three for every 
 five slaves, " because it is absurd and anti-republican 
 to suffer property to be represented as men, and vice 
 versa, because it gives the South an unjust ascend 
 ancy over other portions of territory, and a power 
 which may be perverted on every occasion." 
 
 He looked without shrinking upon the possibility 
 of disunion even then. 
 
 " Now I say that, on the broad system of equal 
 rights," he declared, " this inequality should no 
 longer be tolerated. If it cannot be speedily put 
 
66 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 down not by force but by fair persuasion if we are 
 always to remain shackled by unjust constitutional 
 provisions, when the emergency that imposed them 
 has long since passed away; if we must share in the 
 guilt and danger of destroying the bodies and souls 
 of men as the price of our Union ; if the slave States 
 will haughtily spurn our assistance, and refuse to con 
 sult the general welfare, then the fault is not ours if 
 a separation eventually takes place." 
 
 Considering that he was in his twenty-fourth year, 
 and that the Abolition movement had then no actual 
 existence, the orator evinced surprising prescience in 
 his forecast of the future, and of the strife and hos 
 tility which the agitation was destined to engender. 
 
 " But the plea is prevalent," he said, " that any 
 interference by the free States, however benevolent 
 or cautious it might be, would only irritate and 
 inflame the jealousies of the South, and retard the 
 cause of emancipation. If any man believes that 
 slavery can be abolished without a struggle with the 
 worst passions of human nature, quietly, harmoni 
 ously, he cherishes a delusion. It can never be done, 
 unless the age of miracles returns. No; we must 
 expect a collision, full of sharp asperities and bitter 
 ness. We shall have to contend with the insolence, 
 and pride, and selfishness of many a heartless being. 
 
 " Sirs, the prejudices of the North are stronger 
 than those of the South; they bristle like so many 
 bayonets around the slaves; they forge and rivet the 
 chains of the nation. Conquer them and the victory 
 is won. The enemies of emancipation take courage 
 from our criminal timidity. . . . We are . 
 afraid of our own shadows, who have been driven 
 
THE MAN HEARS A VOICE ! SAMUEL, SAMUEL ! 67 
 
 back to the wall again and again ; who stand trem 
 bling under their whips ; who turn pale, retreat, 
 and surrender at a talismanic threat to dissolve the 
 Union. . . ." But the difficulties did not daunt 
 him, nor the dangers cow him. He did not doubt, 
 but was assured, that truth was mighty and would 
 prevail. " Moral influence when in vigorous exer 
 cise," he said, " is irresistible. It has an immortal 
 essence. It can no more be trod out of existence by 
 the iron foot of time, or by the ponderous march of 
 iniquity, than matter can be annihilated. It may dis 
 appear for a time; but it lives in some shape or other, 
 in some place or other, and will rise with renovated 
 strength. Let us then be up and doing. In the 
 simple and stirring language of the stout-hearted 
 Lundy, all the friends of the cause must go to work, 
 keep to work, hold on, and never give up." The 
 closing paragraph is this powerful peroration : " I 
 will say, finally, that I despair of the republic while 
 slavery exists therein. If I look up to God for sue 
 cess, no smile of mercy or forgiveness dispels the 
 gloom of futurity; if to our own resources, they are 
 daily diminishing; if to all history our destruction is 
 not only possible but almost certain. Why should 
 we slumber at this momentous crisis ? If our hearts 
 were dead to every thought of humanity; if it were 
 lawful to oppress, where power is ample; still, if we 
 had any regard for our safety and happiness, we 
 should strive to crush the vampire which is feeding 
 upon our life-blood. All the selfishness of our nature 
 cries aloud for a better security. Our own vices are 
 too strong for us, and keep us in perpetual alarm; 
 how, in addition to these, shall we be able to contend 
 
68 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 successfully with millions of armed and desperate 
 men, as we must, eventually, if slavery do not cease ? " 
 Exit the apprentice, enter the master. The period of 
 preparation is ended, the time of action begun. The 
 address was the fiery cry of the young prophet ere 
 he plunged into the unsubdued wilderness of 
 American slavery. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE MAN BEGINS HIS MINISTRY. 
 
 Some time in August, 1829, Garrison landed in Bal 
 timore, and began with Lundy the editorship of 
 The Genius of Universal Emancipation. Radical as the 
 Park Street Church address was, it had, nevertheless, 
 ceased to represent in one essential matter his anti 
 slavery convictions and principles. The moral im 
 petus and ground-swell of the address had carried 
 him beyond the position where its first flood of feel 
 ing had for the moment left him. During the com 
 position of the address he was transported with grief 
 and indignation at the monstrous wrong which 
 slavery did the slaves and the nation. He had not 
 thought out for himself any means to rid both of the 
 curse. The white heat of the address destroyed for 
 the instant all capacity for such thinking. " Who can 
 be amazed, temperate, and furious in a moment ? 
 No man. The expedition of his violent love outran 
 the pauser reason " He had accepted the coloniza 
 tion scheme as an instrument for removing the evil, 
 and called on all good citizens " to assist in estab 
 lishing auxiliary colonization societies in every State, 
 county, and town " ; and implored " their direct and 
 liberal patronage to the parent society." He had not 
 apparently, so much as dreamed of any other than 
 gradual emancipation. " The emancipation of all 
 
 (69) 
 
70 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 the slaves of this generation is most assuredly out of 
 the question," he said ; " the fabric which now towers 
 above the Alps, must be taken away brick by brick, 
 and foot by foot, till it is reduced so low that it may 
 be overturned without burying the nation in its 
 ruins. Years may elapse before the completion of 
 of the achievement ; generations of blacks may go 
 down to the grave, manacled and lacerated, without 
 a hope for their children." He was on the Fourth of 
 July a firm and earnest believer in the equity and 
 efficacy of gradualism. But after that day, and some 
 time before nis departure for Baltimore, he began to 
 think on this subject. The more he thought the less 
 did gradualism seem defensible on moral grounds. 
 John Wesley had said that slavery was the "sum of 
 all villainies " ; it was indeed the sin of sins, and as 
 such ought to be abandoned not gradually but im 
 mediately. Slave-holding was sin and slaveholders 
 were sinners. The sin and sinner should both be de 
 nounced as such and the latter called to instant re 
 pentance, and the duty of making immediate restitu 
 tion of the stolen liberties of their slaves. This was 
 the tone ministers of religion held every where toward 
 sin and sinners, and this should be the tone held by 
 the preachers of Abolition toward slavery, and slave 
 holders. To admit the principle of gradualism was for 
 Abolition to emasculate itself of its most virile qual 
 ity. Garrison, consequently rejected gradualism as 
 a weapon, and took up instead the great and quicken 
 ing doctrine of immediatism. Lundy did not know 
 of this change in the convictions of his coadjutor 
 until his arrival in Baltimore. Then Garrison frankly 
 unburdened himself and declared his decision to con- 
 
THE MAN BEGINS HIS MINISTRY. 71 
 
 duct his campaign against the national iniquity along 
 the lines of immediate and unconditional emancipa 
 tion. The two on this new radicalism did not see 
 eye to eye. But Lundy with sententious shrewdness 
 and liberality suggested to the young radical: " Thee 
 may put thy initials to thy articles and I will put my 
 initials to mine, and each will bear his own burden." 
 And the arrangement pleased the young radical, for 
 it enabled him to free his soul of the necessity which 
 was then sitting heavily upon it. The precise state 
 of his mind in respect of the question at this juncture 
 in its history and in his own is made plain enough in 
 his salutatory address in The Genius of Universal 
 Emancipation. The vow made in Bennington ten 
 months before to devote his life to philanthrophy, 
 and the dedication of himself made six months after 
 ward to the extirpation of American slavery, he 
 solemnly renews and reseals in Baltimore. He does 
 not hate intemperance and war less, but slavery more, 
 and those, therefore, he formally relegates thenceforth 
 to a place of secondary importance in the endeavors 
 of the future. It is obvious that the colonization 
 scheme has no strong hold upon his intelligence. He 
 does not conceal his respect for it as an instrument 
 of freedom, but he puts no high value on its utility. 
 " It may pluck a few leaves," he remarks, " from the 
 Bohon Upas, but can neither extract its roots nor 
 destroy its withering properties. Viewed as an aux 
 iliary, it deserves encouragement ; but as a remedy 
 it is altogether inadequate." But this was not all. 
 As a remedy, colonization was not only altogether in 
 adequate, its influence was indirectly pernicious, in 
 that it lulled the popular mind into "a belief that 
 
72 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 the monster has received his mortal wound." He 
 perceived that this resultant indifference and apathy 
 operated to the advantage of slavery, and to the in 
 jury of freedom. Small, therefore, as was the good 
 which the Colonization Society was able to achieve, it 
 was mixed with no little ill. Although Garrison has 
 not yet begun to think on the subject, to examine into 
 the motives and purposes of the society, it does not 
 take a prophet to foresee that some day he will. He 
 had already arrived at conclusions in respect of the 
 rights of the colored people "to choose their own 
 dwelling place," and against the iniquity of their ex 
 patriation, which cut directly at the roots of the 
 colonization scheme. Later the pro-slavery character 
 of the society will be wholly revealed to him. But 
 truth in the breast of a reformer as of others must 
 needs follow the great law of moral growth, first the 
 blade, then the ear, and then the full corn in the ear. 
 It is enough that he has made the tremendous step 
 from gradual to immediate and unconditional eman 
 cipation on the soil. 
 
 At this period he tested the disposition of slave 
 holders to manumit their slaves. The Colonization 
 Society had given it out that there was no little 
 desire on the part of many masters to set their slaves 
 free. All that was wanted for a practical domonsta- 
 tion in this direction was the assurance of free 
 transportation out of the country for the emanci 
 pated slaves. Lundy had made arrangement for the 
 transportation of fifty slaves to Hayti and their 
 settlement in that country. So he and Garrison 
 advertised this fact in the Genius, but they waited in 
 vain for a favorable response from the South notwith- 
 
THE MAN BEGINS HIS MINISTRY. 73 
 
 standing the following humane inducement which this 
 advertisement offered: " THE PRICE OF PASSAGE WILL BE 
 ADVANCED, and everything furnished of which they 
 may stand in need, until they shall have time to pre 
 pare their houses and set in to work." No master 
 was moved to take advantage of the opportunity. 
 This was discouraging to the believers in the efficacy 
 of colonization as a potent anti-slavery instrument. 
 But Garrison was no such believer. With unerring 
 moral instinct he had from the start placed his 
 reliance " on nothing but the eternal principles of 
 justice for the speedy overthrow of slavery." 
 
 He obtained at this period an intimate personal 
 knowledge of the free colored people. He saw that 
 they were not essentially unlike other races that 
 there was nothing morally or intellectually peculiar 
 about them, and that the evil or the good which they 
 manifested was the common property of mankind in 
 similar circumstances. He forthwith became their 
 brave defender against the common slanders of the 
 times. " There is a prevalent disposition among all 
 classes to traduce the habits and morals of our free 
 blacks," he remarked in the Genius. " The most 
 scandalous exaggerations in regard to their condi 
 tion are circulated by a thousand mischievous 
 tongues, and no reproach seems to them too deep or 
 unmerited. Vile and malignant indeed is this prac 
 tice, and culpable are they who follow it. We do 
 not pretend to say that crime, intemperance, and 
 suffering, to a considerable extent, cannot be found 
 among the free blacks; but we do assert that they are 
 as moral, peaceable, and industrious as that class of 
 the whites who are, like them, in indigent circum- 
 
74 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 stances and far less intemperate than the great 
 body of foreign immigrants who infest and corrupt 
 our shores." This idea of the natural equality of the 
 races he presented in the Genius a few weeks before 
 with Darwinian breadth in the following admirable 
 sentences : " I deny the postulate that God has made, 
 by an irreversible decree, or any inherent qualities, 
 one portion of the human race superior to another. 
 No matter how many breeds are amalgamated no 
 matter how many shades of color intervene between 
 tribes or nations give them the same chances to 
 improve, and a fair start at the same time, and the 
 result will be equally brilliant, equally productive, 
 equally grand." 
 
 At the same time that he was making active, per 
 sonal acquaintance with the free colored people, he 
 was making actual personal acquaintance with the 
 barbarism of slavery also. " The distinct applica 
 tion of a whip, and the shrieks of anguish " of the 
 slave, his residence in Baltimore had taught him was 
 " nothing uncommon " in that city. Such an instance 
 had come to him while in the street where the office 
 of the Genius was located. It was what was occur- 
 ing at almost all hours of the day and in almost all 
 parts of the town. He had not been in Baltimore 
 a month when he saw a specimen of the brutality of 
 slavery on the person of a negro, who had been merci 
 lessly flogged. On his back were thirty-seven gashes 
 made with a cowskin, while on his head were many 
 bruises besides. It was a Sunday morning, fresh 
 from his terrible punishment, that the poor fellow 
 had found the editors of the Genius, who, with the 
 compassion of brothers, took him in, dressed his 
 
THE MAN BEGINS HIS MINISTRY. 75 
 
 wounds, and cared for him for two days. Such an 
 experience was no new horror to Lundy, but it was 
 doubtless Garrison s first lesson in that line, and it 
 sank many fathoms deep into his heart. 
 
 Maryland was one of the slave-breeding States and 
 Baltimore a slave emporium. There was enacted the 
 whole business of slavery as a commercial enterprise. 
 Here the human chattels were brought and here 
 warehoused in jails and other places of storage and 
 detention. Here they were put up at public auction, 
 and knocked down to the highest bidder, and from 
 here they were shipped to New Orleans, the great 
 distributing center for such merchandise. He heard 
 what Lundy had years before heard, the wail of 
 captive mothers and fathers, wives, husbands and 
 children, torn from each other ; like Lundy, " he 
 felt their pang of distress ; and the iron entered his 
 soul." He could not hold his peace in the midst of 
 such abominations, but boldly exposed and denounced 
 them. His indignation grew hot when he saw that 
 Northern vessels were largely engaged in the coast 
 wise slave-trade ; and when, to his amazement, he 
 learned that the ship Francis, owned by Francis 
 Todd, a Newburyport merchant, had sailed for New 
 Orleans with a gang of seventy-five slaves, his indig 
 nation burst into blaze. He blazoned the act and 
 the name of Francis Todd in the Genius, and did 
 verily what he had resolved to do, viz., " to cover with 
 thick infamy all who were concerned in this nefari 
 ous business," the captain as well as the owner of the 
 ill-freighted ship. He did literally point at these 
 men the finger of scorn. Every device known to the 
 printer s art for concentrating the reader s attention 
 
76 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 upon particular words and sentences, Garrison made 
 skillful use of in his articles from the deep damna 
 tion of the heavy black capitals in which he printed 
 the name Francis Todd, to the small caps in which 
 appeared the words, " sentenced to solitary confine 
 ment for life, "and which he flanked with two terrible 
 indices. But the articles did not need such embel 
 lishment. They were red hot branding irons without 
 them. One can almost smell the odor of burning 
 flesh as he reads the words : " It is no worse to fit 
 out piratical cruisers or to engage in the foreign 
 slave-trade, than to pursue a similar trade along our 
 coast ; and the men who have the wickedness to par 
 ticipate therein, for the purpose of keeping up wealth 
 should be (J3|r" SENTENCED TO SOLITARY CONFINEMENT 
 FOR LIFE ; ^Jgl they are the enemies of their own species 
 highway robbers, and murderers; and their final 
 doom will be, unless they speedily repent, to occupy 
 the lowest depths of perdition. I know that our laws 
 make a distinction in this matter. I know that the 
 man who is allowed to freight his vessel with slaves 
 at home, for a distant market, would be thought 
 worthy of death if he should take a similar freight 
 on the coast of Africa ; but I know, too, that this 
 distinction is absurd, and at war with the common 
 sense of mankind, and that God and good men regard 
 it with abhorrence. 
 
 " I recollect that it was always a mystery in New- 
 buryport how Mr. Todd contrived to make profitable 
 voyages to New Orleans and other places, when other 
 merchants, with as fair an opportunity to make 
 money, and sending to the same ports at the same 
 time invariably made fewer successful speculations. 
 
THE MAN BEGINS HIS MINISTRY. 77 
 
 The mystery seems to be unravelled. Any man can 
 gather up riches if he does not care by what means 
 they are obtained." 
 
 A copy of the Genius, containing this article Garri 
 son sent to the owner of the ship Francis. What fol 
 lowed made it immediately manifest that the brand 
 ing irons of the reformer had burned home with scar 
 ifying effect. Mr. Todd s answer to the strictures 
 was a suit at law against the editors of the Genius for 
 five thousand dollars in damages. But this was not 
 all. The Grand Jury for Baltimore indicted them for 
 publishing "a gross and malicious libel against 
 Francis Todd and Nicholas Brown." This was at the 
 February Term, 1830. On the first day of March fol 
 lowing, Garrison was tried. He was ably and elo 
 quently defended by Charles Mitchell, a young law 
 yer of the Baltimore Bar. But the prejudice of judge 
 and jury rendered the verdict of guilty a foregone 
 conclusion. April 17, 1830, the Court imposed a pen 
 alty of fifty dollars and costs, which, with the fine 
 amounted in all to nearly one hundred dollars. The 
 fine and costs Garrison could not pay, and he was 
 therefore committed to jail as a common rrialefactor. 
 His confinement lasted seven weeks. He did not 
 languish during this period. His head and hands 
 were in fact hardly ever more active than during the 
 term of his imprisonment. Shut out by Maryland 
 justice from work without the jail, he found and did 
 that which needed to be done within " high walls and 
 huge." He was an extraordinary prisoner and was 
 treated with extraordinary consideration by the War 
 den. He proved himself a genuine evangel to the 
 prisoners, visiting them in their cells, cheering them 
 
78 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 by his bouyant and benevolent words, giving them 
 what he had, a brother s sympathy, which to these ill- 
 fated ones, was more than gold or silver. He indited 
 for such of them as he deemed deserving, letters and 
 petitions to the Governor praying their pardon ; and 
 he had the great satisfaction of seeing many of his 
 efforts in this regard crowned with success. 
 
 But more than this his imprisonment afforded him 
 an opportunity for a closer acquaintance with the 
 barbarism of slavery than he could possibly have 
 made had he lived otherwise in Baltimore. A South 
 ern jail was not only the place of detention of 
 offenders against social justice, but of slaves waiting 
 for the next market-day, of recaptured fugitives wait 
 ing for their owners to reclaim them. Here they were 
 huddled and caged, pitiful and despairing in their 
 misery. Such scenes sickened the young reformer 
 every day. God had opened to him the darkest chap 
 ter in the book of the negroes wrongs. Here is a page 
 from that black volume of oppression and cruelty, the 
 record of which he has preserved in the following 
 graphic narrative : " During my late incarceration 
 in Baltimore prison, four men came to obtain a run 
 away slave. He was brought out of his cell to con 
 front his master, but pretended not to know him 
 did not know that he had ever seen him before could 
 not recollect his name. Of course the master was 
 exceedingly irritated. Don t you remember, said 
 he, * when I gave you not long since thirty-nine lashes 
 under the apple-tree? Another time when I gave you 
 a sound flogging in the barn ? Another time when 
 you was scourged for giving me the lie, by saying 
 that the horse was in a good condition? Yes, 
 
THE MAN BEGINS HIS MINISTRY. 79 
 
 replied the slave, whose memory was thus quickened, 
 I do recollect. You have beaten me cruelly without 
 cause ; you have not given me enough to eat 
 and drink ; and I don t want to go back again. 
 I wish you to sell me to another master. I 
 had rather even go to Georgia than to return 
 home ! 
 
 " I ll let you know, you villain, said the master, 
 1 that my wishes and not yours, are to be consulted. 
 I ll learn you how to run away again. 
 
 The other men advised him to take the black 
 home, and cut him up in inch pieces for his impu 
 dence, obstinacy, and desertion swearing tremen 
 dously all the while. The slave was ordered back to 
 his cell. Then ensued the following colloquy between 
 Garrison and the master: 
 
 G. " Sir, what right have you to that poor crea 
 ture?" 
 
 M. " My father left him to me." 
 
 G. " Suppose your father had broken into a bank 
 and stolen ten thousand dollars, and safely be 
 queathed that as a legacy; could you conscientiously 
 keep the money ? For myself, I had rather rob 
 any bank to an indefinite amount than kidnap a 
 fellow-being, or hold him in bondage ; the sin would 
 be less injurious to society, and less sinful in the 
 sight of God." 
 
 M. " Perhaps you would like to buy the slave 
 and give him his liberty ? " 
 
 G. "Sir, I am a poor man; and were I ever so 
 opulent, it would be necessary, on your part, to make 
 out a clear title to the services of the slave before I 
 could conscientiously make a bargaia" 
 
8o WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 M "Well, sir, I can prove from the Bible that 
 slavery is right." 
 
 G. "Ah! that is a precious book the rule of con 
 duct. I have always supposed that its spirit was 
 directly opposed to everything in the shape of fraud 
 and oppression. However, sir, I should be glad to 
 hear your text." 
 
 M. (hesitatingly) "Ham Noah s curse, you 
 know." 
 
 G. (hastily) " Oh, sir, you build on a very slender 
 foundation. Granting even what remains to be 
 proved that the Africans are the descendants of 
 Ham, Noah s curse was a prediction of future servi 
 tude, and not an injunction to oppress. Pray, sir, is 
 it a careful desire to fulfill the Scriptures, or to make 
 money, that induces you to hold your fellow-men in 
 bondage ? " 
 
 M. (excitedly) "Why, sir, do you really think that 
 the slaves are beings like ourselves ? that is, I mean 
 do you believe that they possess the same faculties 
 and capacities as the whites ? " 
 
 G. (energetically) " Certainly, sir, I do not know 
 that there is any moral or intellectual quality in the 
 curl of the hair, or the color of the skin. I cannot 
 conceive why a black man may not as reasonably ob 
 ject to my color, as I to his. Sir, it is not a black 
 face that I detest, but a black heart and I find it 
 very often under a white skin." 
 
 M. (derisively) "Well, sir, how should you like to 
 see a black man President of the United States ? " 
 
 G. (severely) " As to that, sir, I am a true Repub 
 lican, and bow to the will of the majority. If the 
 people prefer a black President, I should cheerfully 
 
THE MAN BEGINS HIS MINISTRY. 8l 
 
 submit ; and if he be qualified for the station, may 
 peradventure give him my vote." 
 
 M. (triumphantly) " How should you like to have 
 a black man marry your daughter ? " 
 
 G. (making a home thrust and an end of the dia 
 logue) " I am not married I have no daughter. 
 Sir, I am not familiar with your practices ; but allow 
 me to say, that slaveholders generally should be the 
 last persons to affect fastidiousness on that point ; for 
 they seem to be enamored with amalgamation 
 
 Garrison s pen was particularly busy during the 
 term of his imprisonment. He paid his respects to 
 the State s Attorney who prosecuted him, to the judge 
 who condemned him, and to Francis Todd, the owner 
 of the ship Francis. He prepared and scattered 
 broadcast a true account of his trial, showing how 
 the liberty of the press had been violated in the case. 
 He did not doubt that it would astonish Europe if it 
 were known there " that an American citizen lies in 
 carcerated in prison, for having denounced slavery and 
 its abettors in his own country." The fact created no 
 little astonishment in America. Slavery became dis 
 tinctly connected for the first time with abridgments 
 of the freedom of the press, and the right of free 
 speech. And the cause of the slave became involved 
 with the Constitutional liberties of the republic. In 
 punishing Garrison, the Abolitionist, the rights of 
 Garrison the white freeman were trampled on. And 
 white freemen in the North, who cared nothing for 
 Abolitionism, but a great deal for their right to speak 
 and write freely, resented the outrage. This fact was 
 the most important consequence, which flowed from 
 the trial and imprisonment of the young editor of 
 
82 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 The Genius of Universal Emancipation. u As the news 
 of my imprisonment became extensively known," he 
 wrote, " and the merits of the case understood, not a 
 mail rolled into the city but it brought me con- 
 solatary letters from individuals hitherto unknown to 
 me, and periodicals of all kinds from every section 
 of the Union (not even excepting the South), all 
 uniting to give me a triumphant acquittal all 
 severely reprehending the conduct of Mr. Todd 
 and all regarding my trial as a mockery of justice." 
 This unexpected result was one of those accidents of 
 history, which " have laws as fixed as planets have." 
 The prosecution and imprisonment of Garrison 
 was without doubt designed to terrorize him into 
 silence on the subject of slavery. But his persecutors 
 had reckoned without a knowledge of their victim. 
 Garrison had the martyr s temperament and invinci 
 bility of purpose. His earnestness burned the more 
 intensely with the growth of opposition and peril. 
 Within "gloomy walls close pent," he warbled gay 
 as a bird of a freedom which tyrants could not touch, 
 nor bolts confine: 
 
 " No chains can bind it, and no cell enclose, 
 Swifter than light, it flies from pole to pole, 
 And in a flash from earth to heaven it goes ! " 
 
 or with deep, stern gladness sang he to " The Guiltless 
 Prisoner" how: 
 
 " A martyr s crown is richer than a king s ! 
 
 Think it an honor with thy Lord to bleed, 
 
 And glory midst intensest sufferings ; 
 
 Though beat imprisoned put to open shame 
 
 Time shall embalm and magnify thy name." 
 
 "Is it supposed by Judge Brice," the guiltless pris- 
 
THE MAN BEGINS HIS MINISTRY. 83 
 
 oner wrote from his cell, " that his frowns can intimi 
 date me, or his sentence stifle my voice on the sub 
 ject of African oppression? He .does not know me. 
 So long as a good Providence gives me strength and 
 intellect, I will not cease to declare that the existence 
 of slavery in this country is a foul reproach to the 
 American name ; nor will I hesitate to proclaim the 
 guilt of kidnappers, slave abettors, or slaveowners, 
 wheresoever they may reside, or however high 
 they may be exalted. I am only in the alphabet 
 of my task ; time shall perfect a useful work. 
 It is my shame that I have done so little for the 
 people of color; yea, before God, I feel humbled 
 that my feelings are so cold, and my language 
 so weak. A few white victims must be sacri 
 ficed to open the eyes of this nation, and to show 
 the tyranny of our laws. I expect and am willing to 
 be persecuted, imprisoned, and bound for advocating 
 African rights ; and I should deserve to be a slave 
 myself if I shrunk from that duty or danger." The 
 story of the trial of William Lloyd Garrison, from 
 which the above brave words are taken, fell into the 
 hands of that noble man and munificent merchant, 
 Arthur Tappan, of New York. From the reading of 
 it he rose " with that deep feeling of abhorrence of 
 slavery and its abettors which every one must feel 
 who is capable of appreciating the blessings of 
 liberty," and thereupon notified Lundy to draw upon 
 him for one hundred dollars if that amount would 
 give the young editor his liberty. The fine and costs 
 of court were accordingly paid and just forty-nine 
 days after entering Baltimore jail a prisoner, Garrison 
 recovered his freedom. The civil action of Todd 
 
84 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 against him was still pending. Nothing daunted 
 Garrison went North two days after his discharge to 
 obtain certain evidence deemed important by his 
 counsel to his defence. He took with him an open 
 letter from Lundy looking to the renewal of the 
 the weekly Genius under their joint control. Prior 
 to Garrison s trial the paper had fallen into great 
 stress for want of money. Lundy and he had made 
 a division of their labors, the latter doing the editor 
 ial and office work, while the former traveled from 
 place to place soliciting subscriptions and collecting 
 generally the sinews of war. But the experiment 
 was not successful from a business standpoint. For 
 as Garrison playfully observed subsequently : 
 "Where friend Lundy could get one new subscriber, 
 I could knock a dozen off, and I did so. It was the 
 old experiment of the frog in the well, that went two 
 feet up and fell three feet back, at every jump." 
 Where the income of the paper did not exceed fifty 
 dollars in four months and the weekly expenditure 
 amounted to at least that sum, the financial failure of 
 the enterprise was inevitable. This unhappy event 
 did actually occur six weeks before the junior editor 
 went to jail ; and the partnership was formally dis 
 solved in the issue of the Genius of March 5, 1830. 
 But when Arthur Tappan made his generous offer of 
 a hundred dollars to effect Garrison s release, he 
 made at the same time an offer of an equal amount 
 to aid the editors in reestablishing the Genius. This 
 proposition led to hopes on the part of the two 
 friends to a renewal of their partnership in the cause 
 of emancipation. And so Garrison s visit to the 
 North was taken advantage of to test the disposition 
 
THE MAN BEGINS HIS MINISTRY. 85 
 
 of Northern philanthropy to support such a paper. 
 But what he found was a sad lack of interest in the 
 slave. Everywhere he went he encountered what 
 appeared to him to be the most monstrous indifference 
 and apathy on the subject. The prejudices of the free 
 States seemed to him stronger than were those of 
 the South. Instead of receiving aid and encourage 
 ment to continue the good work of himself and coad- 
 iutor, and for the doing of which he had served a term 
 of seven weeks in prison, men, even his best friends 
 sought to influence him to give it up, and to persuade 
 him to forsake the slave, and to turn his time and 
 talents to safer and more profitable enterprises nearer 
 home. He was informed by these worldly wise men 
 and Job s counselors that his " scheme was visionary, 
 fanatical, unattainable." "Why should he make 
 himself," they argued, "an exile from home and all 
 that be held dear on earth, and sojourn in a strange 
 land, among enemies whose hearts were dead to every 
 noble sentiment?" Ah! he himself confessed that all 
 were against his return to Baltimore. But his love 
 of the slave was stronger than the strength of the 
 temptation. He put all these selfish objections behind 
 him. As he has recorded the result of this experience : 
 " Opposition served only to increase my ardor, and 
 confirm my purpose." Strange and incomprehensible 
 to his fellows is the man who prefers " persecution, 
 reproach, and poverty " with duty, to worldly ease 
 and honor and riches without it. When a man 
 appears in society who is not controlled by motives 
 which usually govern the conduct of other men he 
 becomes at first an object of pity, then of contempt, 
 and, lastly, of hate. Garrison we may be sure at the 
 
86 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 end of this visit had made rapid transit from the first 
 to the second of these stages in the esteem of his 
 generation. 
 
 His experience was not all of this deplorable kind. 
 He left Baltimore without the money required to pay 
 his way North, depending literally upon the good 
 God to provide for him the necessary means to com 
 plete his journey. And such help was more than 
 once providentially afforded the young apostle of lib 
 erty. At New York, when he did not know how he 
 was to go farther for want of means, he met a Mr. 
 Samuel Leggett who gave him a pass on the " splendid 
 steamboat President. " It seems that this friend in his 
 need had read with indignation the story of his trial. 
 The bread which he had scattered from his prison on 
 the waters of public sentiment had thus returned to 
 him after many days in the timely assistance of a 
 sympathetic soul. And then, again, when he was in 
 Boston in sore distress for a little money, suddenly, 
 beautifully, the desire of his heart was satisfied. But 
 let him tell the incident in his own touching way. 
 His face was turned toward Baltimore : " But how 
 was I to return?" he asks. "I had not a dollar in 
 my pocket, and my time was expired. No one under 
 stood my circumstances. I was too proud to beg, and 
 ashamed to borrow. My friends were prodigal of 
 pity, but of nothing else. In the extremity of my 
 uneasiness, I went to the Boston post-office, and found 
 a letter from my friend Lundy, inclosing a draft for 
 $100 from a stranger and as a remuneration for my 
 poor inefficient services in behalf of the slaves !" The 
 munificent stranger was Ebenezer Dole, of Hallowell, 
 Maine. Money thus acquired was a sacred trust to 
 
THE MAN BEGINS HIS MINISTRY. 87 
 
 this child of Providence. " After deducting the 
 expenses of traveling," he goes on to say, " the 
 remainder of the above-named sum was applied 
 in discharging a few of the debts incurred by the 
 unproductiveness of the Genius" 
 
 Garrison returned to Baltimore, but he did not 
 tarry long in that slave-ruled city. Todd s suit 
 against him was tried after his departure, and the 
 jury soothed the Newburyport merchant s wounded 
 pride with a verdict for a thousand dollars. He never 
 attempted, however, to enforce the payment of the 
 same being content probably with the "vindication," 
 which his legal victory gave him. 
 
 Before the reformer left Baltimore he had definitely 
 abandoned the plans looking to a revival of his inter 
 est in the Genius. He determined instead to publish 
 a sheet devoted to the abolition of slavery under his 
 sole management and control. This paper he pro 
 posed to call the Public Liberator, and to issue from 
 Washington. The prospectus of this journalistic 
 project bearing date, August, 1830, declares in its 
 opening sentence its " primary object " to be " the 
 abolition of slavery, and the moral and intellectual 
 elevation of our colored population." " I shall spare 
 no efforts," he pledged himself, " to delineate the 
 withering influence of slavery upon our national 
 prosperity and happiness, its awful impiety, its rapid 
 extension, and its inevitable consequences if it be 
 suffered to exist without hindrance. It will also be 
 my purpose to point out the path of safety, and a 
 remedy for the disease." This comprehensive and 
 aggressive plan of campaign signalized the rise of an 
 Abolitionism wholly unlike the Abolitionism of any 
 
88 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 previous time in the history of the country. It did 
 in fact date the opening of a new era in the slavery 
 struggle in America. 
 
 With Northern indifference and apathy on the sub 
 ject of emancipation, Garrison s previous visit to the 
 North had acquainted him. Their existence he saw 
 interposed the main obstacle to the success of his 
 new venture in journalism. " The cause of this cal 
 lous state of feeling," he believed, " was owing to 
 their exceeding ignorance of the horrors of slavery." 
 He accordingly made up his mind to throw the light 
 which he possessed into the midst of this darkness. He 
 had written in prison three lectures on " Slavery and 
 Colonization." What better could he now do than to 
 deliver those lectures at the North? If the good people 
 and their religious leaders knew what he knew, they 
 would presently feel as he did on the question. He was 
 loath to leave Baltimore without giving this testi 
 mony against slavery. But unable to procure a room 
 for this purpose was finally compelled to content him 
 self with the witness he had already borne in the 
 Genius and in prison in behalf of the slave. In Phila 
 delphia he well-nigh failed to obtain a hall for his 
 lectures, but did finally succeed in getting the Frank 
 lin Institute, where, to small audiences, he lifted up 
 his voice against the iniquity of the times. He re 
 peated his lectures in New York, New Haven, and 
 Hartford. But not many came out to hear him. 
 The nation, its churches, and politicians had thrust 
 their fingers in their ears to every cry coming up 
 from the slave. Why should they go to sup with a 
 madman on horrors, with which as patriotic people 
 they were forbidden to concern themselves. And so 
 
THE MAN BEGINS HIS MINISTRY. 89 
 
 for the most part Garrison could do nothing with 
 communities, which had eyes, but obstinately refused 
 to see with them upon any subject relating to the 
 abominations of slavery. In his own town of New- 
 buryport, officers of Christian churches not only re 
 fused to hear his message themselves, but debarred 
 others from listening to the woes and wrongs of fel 
 low-creatures in bondage. As Mr. Garrison truly 
 said at the time : " If I had visited Newburyport to 
 plead the cause of twenty white men in chains, every 
 hall and every meeting-house would have been 
 thrown open, and the fervor of my discourses antici 
 pated and exceeded by my fellow-townsmen. The 
 fact that two millions of colored beings are groaning 
 in bondage, in this land of liberty, excites no interest 
 nor pity." If these damning facts are remembered 
 sixty years after their occurrence to the shame of 
 the trustees of the two churches, viz., the Presbyterian 
 Church on Harris street and the Second Congrega 
 tional Church, it is also remembered to the honor of 
 the two pastors, Rev. Dr. Daniel Dana, and the Rev. 
 Dr. Luther F. Dimmick, that they had thrown open 
 to the prophet the doors of their meeting-houses, 
 which the trustees afterward slammed in his face. 
 
 In Boston the same hard luck followed him. In 
 all that city of Christian churches he could not ob 
 tain the use of a single meeting-house, "in which to 
 vindicate the rights of TWO MILLIONS of Ameri 
 can citizens, who are now groaning in servile chains 
 in this boasted land of liberty ; and also to 
 propose just, benevolent, and constitutional meas 
 ures for their relief." So ran an advertisement 
 in the Boston Courier of the sorely tried soul. For 
 
90 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 two weeks he had gone up and down the town in 
 search of a room free of cost, in which to deliver his 
 message. The door of every sanctuary was locked 
 against his cause. It was then, as a final recourse, 
 that he turned to the Courier, and made his last ap 
 peal to the Christian charity of the city. The prayer 
 of the prophet was answered from an unexpected 
 quarter. It was that ecclesiastical dragon of the 
 times, Abner Kneeland, and his society of " blas 
 phemers," who proved afresh the truth of that 
 scripture which says : " Not every one that saith unto 
 me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of 
 heaven ; but he that doeth the will of my Father 
 which is in heaven." It was they that gave to liberty 
 a hearing, to the prophet of righteousness a chance 
 to deliver his message. It was in their meeting 
 house, in Julian Hall, that Garrison gave his lectures, 
 giving the first one on the evening of October 15, 
 1830. 
 
 Samuel J. May, who was present, has preserved his 
 impressions of the lecture and lecturer. " Never 
 before," he records many years afterward, " was I so 
 affected by the speech of man. When he had ceased 
 speaking I said to those around me : That is a 
 providential man ; he is a prophet ; he will shake 
 our nation to its center, but he will shake slavery out 
 of it. We ought to know him, we ought to help 
 him. Come, let us go and give him our hands. Mr. 
 Sewall and Mr. Alcott went up with me and we 
 introduced each other. I said to him, * Mr. Garrison, 
 I am not sure that I can indorse all you have said 
 this evening. Much of it requires careful considera 
 tion. But I am prepared to embrace you. I am 
 
THE MAN BEGINS HIS MINISTRY. 91 
 
 sure you are called to a great work, and I mean to 
 help you. Mr. Sewall cordially assured him of his 
 readiness also to cooperate with him. Mr. Alcott 
 invited him to his home. He went and we sat with 
 him until twelve that night, listening to his discourse, 
 in which he showed plainly that immediate, uncondi 
 tional emancipation, without expatriation, was the right of 
 every slave, and could not be withheld by his master an 
 hour without sin. That night my soul was baptised 
 in his spirit, and ever since I have been a disciple and 
 fellow-laborer of William Lloyd Garrison." A new 
 force had arisen in our history, and a new epoch 
 had broken bolts for humanity. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE HOUR AND THE MAN. 
 
 THE providential man was not yet twenty-five. In 
 personal appearance he was quite the reverse of his 
 friend Lundy. Garrison was gifted with a body 
 that matched his mind, strong, straight, sound in 
 every part, and proportioned in every member. As 
 he stood he was much above the medium height. 
 His dark hair had already partially left the crown of 
 the high dome-shaped head. His forehead com 
 bined height with breadth, which, taken in connec 
 tion with the brown eyes covered with the now 
 habitual glasses, lent to his countenance a striking 
 air of moral serenity and elevation. Force, firm 
 ness, no ordinary self-reliance and courage found 
 masterly expression in the rest of the face. There 
 was through the whole physical man a nice blending 
 of strength and delicacy of structure. The impres 
 sion of fineness and finish was perhaps mainly owing 
 to the woman-like purity and freshness of skin and 
 color, which overspread the virile lines and features 
 of the face from brow to chin. What one saw in that 
 face was the quality of justice made flesh, good-will 
 to men personified. 
 
 This characterization of the reformer s counte 
 nance may be considered absurd by some readers. 
 But absurd it is not. People who had read his stern 
 
 (9=0 
 
THE HOUR AND THE MAN. 93 
 
 denunciations of slave-holding and slaveholders, and 
 who had formed their image of the man from his 
 " hard language " and their own prejudices could not 
 recognize the original when they met him. His man 
 ner was peculiarly winning and attractive, and in 
 personal intercourse almost instantly disarmed hos 
 tility. The even gentleness of his rich voice, his un 
 failing courtesy and good temper, his quick eye for 
 harmless pleasantries, his hearty laugh, the Quaker- 
 like calmness, deliberateness, and meekness, with 
 which he would meet objections and argue the right 
 eousness of his cause, his sweet reasonableness and 
 companionableness were in strange contrast to popu 
 lar misconceptions and caricatures of him. No one 
 needed to be persuaded, who had once conversed 
 with him, that there was no hatred or vindictiveness 
 in his severities of language toward slaveholders. 
 That he was no Jacobin, no enemy of society, was 
 perceived the moment one looked into his grave, 
 kind face, or caught the warm accents of his pacific 
 tones, or listened to the sedate intensity, and human 
 ity of his discourses on the enormity of American 
 slavery as they fell from him in conversations between 
 man and man. Here is a case in point, a typical in 
 cident in the life of the reformer ; it occurred, it is 
 true, when he was twenty-seven, but it might have 
 occurred at twenty-five quite as well ; it is narrated 
 by Samuel J. May in his recollections of the anti- 
 slavery conflict : On his way from New York to 
 Philadelphia with Garrison, Mr. May fell into a dis 
 cussion with a pro-slavery passenger on the vexed 
 question of the day. There was the common pro- 
 slavery reasoning, which May answered as well as he 
 
94 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 was able. Presently Mr. Garrison drew near the dis 
 putants, whereupon May took the opportunity to 
 shift the anti-slavery burden of the contention to his 
 leader s shoulders. All of his most radical and un 
 popular Abolition doctrines Garrison immediately 
 proceeded to expound to his opponent. " After a 
 long conversation," says Mr. May, " which attracted 
 as many as could get within hearing, the gentleman 
 said, courteously : I have been much interested, sir, 
 in what you have said, and in the exceedingly frank 
 and temperate manner in which you have treated the 
 subject. If all Abolitionists were like you, there would 
 be much less opposition to your enterprise. But, sir, 
 depend upon it, that hair-brained, reckless, violent 
 fanatic, Garrison, will damage, if he does not ship 
 wreck, any cause. Stepping forward, I replied, * Allow 
 me, sir, to introduce you to Mr. Garrison, of whom 
 you entertain so bad an opinion. The gentleman 
 you have been talking with is he. " 
 
 Or take Harriet Martineau s first impressions on 
 seeing him. " His aspect put to flight in an instant 
 what prejudices his slanderers had raised in me. I 
 was wholly taken by surprise. It was a countenance 
 glowing with health, and wholly expressive of purity, 
 animation and gentleness. I did not wonder at the 
 citizen who, seeing a print of Garrison at a shop win 
 dow without a name to it, went in and bought it, and 
 framed it as the most saintlike of countenances." 
 
 The appearance of such a man on the stage of our 
 history as a nation, at this hour, was providential. 
 His coming was in the fulness of time. A rapid re 
 view of events anterior to the advent of Garrison will 
 serve to place this matter more clearly before the 
 
THE HOUR AND THE MAN. 95 
 
 general reader. To begin, then, at the beginning we 
 have two ships off the American coast, the one casting 
 anchor in Plymouth harbor, the other discharging its 
 cargo at Jamestown. They were both freighted with 
 human souls. But how different ! Despotism landed 
 at Jamestown, democracy at Plymouth. Here in the 
 germ was the Southern idea, slave labor, slave institu 
 tions ; and here also was the Northern idea, free labor, 
 free institutions. Once planted they grew, each seed 
 idea multiplying after its kind. In course of time 
 there arose on one side an industrial system in which 
 the plantation principle, race-rule and race-slavery, 
 were organic centers ; and, on the other, a social 
 system in which the principle of popular power and 
 government, the town meeting, and the common school 
 were the ganglia of social expansion. Contrary ideas 
 beget naturally enough contrary interests and insti 
 tutions. So it is no matter for surprise that the local 
 interests and institutions of the thirteen revolted 
 colonies lacked homogeneity and identity. What 
 was calculated to promote the general welfare of the 
 Northern one, it was quite possible might work a 
 totally opposite result in the Southern. For, indeed, 
 while there were slaves in them all, the slave system 
 had taken root in Southern soil only ; and while on 
 the other hand the spirit of freedom was existent in 
 each, free labor had rooted itself in Northern ground 
 solely. 
 
 As the war of the Revolution was an uprising 
 against arbitrary power, and for the establishment of 
 political liberty, it pushed easily into the foreground 
 the larger subject of human rights. Most of the 
 leading actors felt the inconsistency of keeping some 
 
96 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 men in bondage, when they were fighting to rid them 
 selves of a tyranny which, in comparison to the other, 
 was a state of honorable freedom. Their humanity 
 condemned African slavery, and they earnestly de 
 sired its extinction. The Declaration of Independ 
 ence proves to how high a level the tide of freedom rose 
 in the colonies. The grand truths by it proclaimed 
 the signers of that instrument did not restrict in their 
 application to some men to the exclusion of other 
 men. They wrote " All men/ and they meant ex 
 actly what they wrote. Too simply honest and great 
 they were to mean less than their solemn and deliber 
 ate words. 
 
 On political as well as on moral grounds they de 
 sired emancipation. But there was a difficulty which 
 at the time proved insuperable. The nation-making 
 principle, the idea of country, was just emerging out 
 of the nebulous civil conditions and relations of the 
 ante-Revolutionary epoch. There was no existent 
 central authority to reach the evil within the States 
 except the local governments of the States respect 
 ively. And States in revolt against the central au 
 thority of the mother country v/ould hardly be dis 
 posed to divest themselves of any part of their newly 
 asserted right to govern themselves for the purpose 
 of conferring the same upon any other political body. 
 To each State, then, the question was necessarily left 
 for settlement. 
 
 The war, during its continuance, absorbed the 
 united resources and energies of the people and their 
 leaders. The anti-slavery movement made accord 
 ingly but small progress. Reforms thrive only when 
 they get a hearing. Public attention is the food on 
 
THE HOUR AND THE MAN. 97 
 
 which they thrive. But precious little of this food 
 was the Abolition cause able to snatch in those bitter 
 years. It could not grow. It remained in the gristle 
 hardly more than a sentiment. But the sentiment 
 was a seed, the promise and potency of kindlier times. 
 With the close of the long struggle other questions 
 arose; got the people s ears; fixed the attention of the 
 leaders. Scant notice could emancipation extort from 
 men who had to repair the ravages of an exhausting 
 war, reconstruct shattered fortunes, restore civil soci- 
 ciety in parts tumbling into ruinous disorder. The 
 instinct of self-preservation was altogether too mas 
 terful for the moral starveling. It succumbed to cir 
 cumstances, content to obtain an occasional sermon, 
 an annual address, a few scattered societies to keep a 
 human glow in the bosom of the infant Confederacy. 
 The Confederation failed. The formation of a 
 more perfect union was demanded and undertaken. 
 This transcendent task straightway thrust into the 
 background every other enterprise and interest. The 
 feeble activity of the freedom-making principle was 
 checked, for the time being, by the energy of the 
 nation-making power. They were not antagonistic 
 forces only in the natural order of things, the earli 
 est stages in the evolution of the former had to come 
 after the first steps were taken in the development of 
 the latter. Before there could start a general move 
 ment against American slavery there must needs be 
 an American nation. An American nation was, in 
 the year 1787, in process of successful development. 
 With the adoption of the Constitution, the national 
 principle entered on a period of marvelous expan 
 sion and activity. 
 
98 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 Let it not, however, be hastily concluded that free 
 dom meanwhile was in total eclipse, that the anti- 
 slavery sentiment was absolutely without influence. 
 For it unquestionably inspired the Ordinance of 1787. 
 The Northwest Territory, out of which were subse 
 quently organized the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illin 
 ois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, was thereby, forever 
 secured to the Northern idea, and free labor. Sup 
 plementary to this grand act was the Constitutional 
 prohibition of the African slave-trade after the year 
 1808. Together they were intended to discourage 
 the growth of slavery the first by restricting its ter 
 ritorial extension, the second, by arresting its numer 
 ical increase. And without doubt they would have 
 placed the evil in the way of ultimate extinction had 
 other and far reaching causes not intervened to pro 
 duce adverse social and political conditions. 
 
 The first of these causes, in point of time, were cer 
 tain labor-saving inventions in England, which vastly 
 enhanced the demand for raw cotton. Arkwright s 
 invention of the spinning machine about twenty years 
 prior to the adoption of the Constitution, perfected 
 by the spinning-jenny of Hargreaves, and the mule 
 of Crompton, "turned Lancashire," the historian 
 Green says, " into a hive of industry." The then rapid 
 demand for cotton operated in time as a stimulus 
 to its production in America. Increased produc 
 tivity raised the value of slave property and slave 
 soil. But the slow and tedious hand method of sep 
 arating the fiber of the cotton bulb from the seed 
 greatly limited the ability of the Cotton States to 
 meet and satisfy the fast growing demand of the 
 English manufacturers, until Eli Whitney, in 1793, by 
 
THE HOUR AND THE MAN. 99 
 
 an ingenious invention solved the problem of supply 
 for these States. The cotton gin was not long in 
 proving itself the other half the other hand of the 
 spinning machine. 
 
 From that year the slave interests of the South 
 rose in market value, and its industrial system 
 assumed unexpected importance in the economic 
 world. The increased production of cotton led 
 directly to increased demand for slave labor and 
 slave soil. The increased demand for slave labor the 
 Constitutional provision relating to the African slave 
 trade operated in part to satisfy. The increased 
 demand for slave soil was likewise satisfied by the 
 cession to the United States by Georgia and North 
 Carolina of the Southwest Territory, with provisos 
 practically securing it to slavery. Out of this new 
 national territory were subsequently carved the slave 
 States of Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama. 
 
 Slave soil unlike free soil, is incapable of sustain 
 ing a dense population. Slave labor calls for large 
 spaces within which to multiply and prosper. The 
 purchase of Louisiana and the acquisition of Florida 
 met this agrarian necessity on the part of the South. 
 Immense, unsettled areas thus fell to the lot of the 
 slave system at the crisis of its material expansion and 
 prosperity. The domestic slave-trade under the im 
 petus of settling these vast regions according to the 
 plantation principle, became an enormous and spread 
 ing industry. The crop of slaves was not less profit 
 able than the crop of cotton. A Southern white 
 man had but to buy a score of slaves and a few hun 
 dred acres to get " rich beyond the dreams of avar 
 ice." So at least calculated the average Southern man. 
 
100 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 This revival of slavery disappointed the humane 
 expectation of its decline and ultimate extinction 
 entertained by the founders of the republic. It built 
 up instead a growing and formidable slave class, and 
 interest in the Union. With the rise of giant slave 
 interests, there followed the rise of a power devoted 
 to their encouragement and protection. 
 
 Three far-reaching concessions the slave States 
 obtained in the convention of 1787, viz., the right to 
 import slaves from Africa until 1808 ; the rendition 
 of fugitive slaves escaping into the free States, and 
 the three-fifths slave representation clause of the 
 Constitution all of which added vastly to the 
 security and value of this species of property, and 
 as a consequence contributed to the slave revival. 
 
 The equality of the States in the upper branch of 
 the National Legislature, taken in connection with the 
 right of the slave States to count five slaves as three 
 freemen in the apportionment of representatives to 
 the lower House of Congress, gave the Southern sec 
 tion an almost immediate ascendency in the Federal 
 Government. To the South was thus opened by an 
 unexpected combination of circumstances a wide 
 avenue for the acquisition of fabulous wealth, and to 
 Southern public men an incomparable arena for the 
 exercise of political abilities and leadership. An 
 institution, which thus ministered to two of the 
 strongest passions of mankind avarice and ambi 
 tion was certain to excite the most intense attach 
 ment. Its safety naturally, therefore, became among 
 the slave class an object of prime importance. 
 Southern jealousy in this regard ultimated inevitably 
 in Southern narrowness, Southern sectionalism, which 
 
THE HOUR AND T^rfE MCAtf." IOI 
 
 early manifested themselves in the exclusion from 
 lead in national affairs of Northern public men, 
 reputed to be unfriendly to slavery. Webster as late 
 as 1830, protested warmly against this intolerance. 
 Like begets like. And the proscribing of anti-slavery 
 politicians by the South, created in turn not a little 
 sectional feeling at the North, and helped to stimu 
 late there a consciousness of sectional differences, of 
 antagonism of interests between the two halves of 
 the Union. 
 
 Discontent with the original basis of the Union, 
 which had given the South its political coign of 
 vantage, broke out first in New England. The occa 
 sion, though not the cause, of this discontent was, 
 perhaps, the downfall of the Federal party, whose 
 stronghold was in the East. The commercial and 
 industrial crisis brought on by the embargo, and 
 which beggared, on the authority of Webster, " thou 
 sands of families and hundreds of thousands of indi 
 viduals " fanned this Eastern dissatisfaction into 
 almost open disaffection towards a government dom 
 inated by Southern influence, and directed by South 
 ern statesmanship. To the preponderance of this 
 Southern element in national legislation New Eng 
 land traced her misfortunes. She was opposed to 
 the War of 1812, but was overruled to her hurt by 
 the South. In these circumstances New England 
 went for correcting the inequalities of the original 
 basis of the Union, which gave to the South its 
 undue preponderance in shaping national laws and 
 policies. This was the purpose of the Hartford 
 Convention, which proposed the abrogation of the 
 slave representation clause of the Constitution, and 
 
102 WrULIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 the imposition of a check upon the admission of new 
 States into the Union. The second proposition did 
 not say " new slave States," but new slave States was, 
 nevertheless, intended by the Convention. Here in 
 point of time and magnitude, was the first distinct 
 collision of the two sets of ideas and interests of the 
 Republic. 
 
 Following the Treaty of Ghent other and imperious 
 questions engaged the public attention questions of 
 the tariff, of finance, internal improvements, national 
 defence, a new navy, forts and fortifications. Hard 
 times, too, engrossed an enormous share of this atten 
 tion. The immediate needs and problems of the 
 hour pushed into the background all less pressing 
 ones. The slavery question amidst the clamor and 
 babel of emergent and material interests, lost some 
 thing of its sectional heat and character. But its 
 fires were not extinguished, only banked as events 
 were speedily to reveal. 
 
 The application of Missouri for admission into the 
 Union as a slave State four years after the Hartford 
 Convention blew to a blaze the covered embers of 
 strife between the sections. The North was violently 
 agitated. For the admission of a new slave State 
 meant two more slave votes in the Senate, and an 
 increase on the old inequitable basis of slave repre 
 sentation in the lower House of Congress. It meant 
 to the Northern section indefinite Southern ascend 
 ency, prolonged Southern lead in national legislation. 
 All the smouldering passions of the earlier period, of 
 embargo, and non-intercourse, and the war of 1812, 
 flamed suddenly and fiercely in the heart of the free 
 States. 
 
THE HOUR AND THE MAN. IOJ 
 
 The length and bitterness of that controversy ex 
 cited the gravest apprehensions for the stability of 
 the Union. The dread of disunion led to mutual 
 concessions, to the Missouri Compromise. The slave- 
 holding section got its immediate claim allowed, and 
 the free States secured the erection of a line to the 
 north of which slavery was forever prohibited. And 
 besides this, the admission of Maine was supposed to 
 neutralize whatever political advantages, which would 
 accrue to the South from the admission of Missouri 
 as a slave State. Both sections were content, and the 
 slavery question was thought to be permanently 
 settled. With this final disposition of an ugly prob 
 lem, the peace and permanence of the Union were 
 viewed universally as fixed facts. Still, considering 
 the gravity of the case, a little precaution would not 
 go amiss. The slavery question had shaken men s 
 faith in the durability of the republic. It was there 
 fore adjudged a highly dangerous subject. The polit 
 ical physicians with one accord prescribed on the 
 ounce-of-prevention principle, quiet, SILENCE, and 
 OBLIVION, to be administered in large and increas 
 ing doses to both sections. Mum was the word, and 
 mum the country solemnly and suddenly became 
 from Maine to Georgia. But, alas! beneath the ashes 
 of this Missouri business, deep below the unnatural 
 silence and quiet, inextinguishable fires were burning 
 and working again to the surface of politics. In such 
 circumstances a fresh outbreak of old animosities 
 must occur as soon as the subterranean heat should 
 reach the point of highest combustibility in the 
 federal system. The tariff proved to be that point of 
 highest combustibility, 
 
IO4 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 Alexander Hamilton inaugurated the policy of 
 giving governmental aid to infant manufactures. The 
 wisdom of diversifying the industries of the young 
 nation was acquiesced in by the leading statesmen of 
 both sections. Beset as the republic then was by 
 international forces hostile to democratic institutions, 
 it was natural enough that the great men who pre 
 sided over its early years should seek by Federal legis 
 lation to render it, as speedily and completely as 
 possible, industrially self-dependent and self-sup 
 porting. The war of 1812 enforced anew upon the 
 attention of statesmen the importance of industrial in 
 dependence. The war debt, together with certain gov 
 ernmental enterprises and expenditures growing out 
 of the war, was largely, if not wholly, responsible for 
 the tariff of 1816. This act dates the rise of our 
 American system of protection. It is curious to note 
 that Southern men were the leaders of this new de 
 parture in the national fiscal policy. Calhoun, Clay, 
 and Lowndes were the guiding spirits of that period 
 of industrial ferment and activity. They little dreamt 
 what economic evils were to fall in consequence 
 upon the South. That section was not slow to feel 
 the unequal action of the protective principle. The 
 character of its labor incapacitated the South from 
 dividing the benefits of the new revenue policy with 
 its free rival. The South of necessity was restricted 
 to a single industry, the tillage of the earth. Slave 
 labor did not possess the intelligence, the skill, the 
 patience, the mechanical versatility to embark suc 
 cessfully in manufacturing enterprises. Free labor 
 monopolised the protected industries, and Northern 
 capital caught all the golden showers of fiscal legis- 
 
THE HOUR AND THE MAN. 105 
 
 lation. What the South needed, from an economic 
 point of view, was unrestricted access to the markets 
 of the world for her products, and the freest competi 
 tion of the world in her own markets. The limitations 
 imposed upon the slave States by their industrial 
 system was in itself a tremendous handicap in their 
 struggle for an advantageous place in the New World 
 of the nineteenth century; in their struggle with 
 their free sisters for political leadership in the Union. 
 But with the development of the protective principle 
 those States fell into sore financial distress, were 
 ground between the upper millstone of the protective 
 system and the nether millstone of their own indus 
 trial system. Prosperity and plenty did presently 
 disappear from that section and settled in the North. 
 In 1828 Benton drew this dark picture of the state of 
 the South : 
 
 " In place of wealth, a universal pressure for money 
 was felt ; not enough for common expenses ; the 
 price of all property down ; the country drooping 
 and languishing ; towns and cities decaying, and the 
 frugal habits of the people pushed to the verge of 
 universal self-denial for the preservation of their 
 family estates." 
 
 He did not hesitate to charge to Federal legislation 
 the responsibility for all this poverty and distress, 
 for he proceeds to remark that : 
 
 " Under this legislation the exports of the South 
 have been made the basis of the Federal revenue. 
 The twenty odd millions annually levied upon im 
 ported goods are deducted out of the price of their 
 cotton, rice, and tobacco, either in the diminished 
 prices which they receive for those staples in foreign 
 
106 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 ports, or in the increased price which they pay for 
 the articles they have to consume at home." 
 
 A suffering people are not apt to reason clearly or 
 justly on the causes which have brought them to in 
 digence. They feel their wretchedness and reach out 
 for a victim. And the law-making power usually 
 happens to be that victim. As the distress of the 
 South increased, the belief that Federal legislation 
 was responsible for it increased likewise. The spread 
 and deepening of this conviction in the Southern 
 States precipitated among them an ominous crisis in 
 their attachment to the Union. Nullification and an 
 embittered sectionalism was the hateful legacy 
 bequeathed to the republic by the tariff controversy. 
 It left the South in a hyper-sensitive state in all mat 
 ters relating to her domestic interests. It left the 
 North in a hyper-sensitive condition on all matters 
 touching the peace and stability of the Union. The 
 silence and oblivion policy on the subject of slavery 
 was renewed with tenfold intensity. Ulysses-like the 
 free States bound themselves, their right of free 
 speech, and their freedom of the press on this subject, 
 for fear of the Siren voices which came thrilling on 
 every breeze from the South. Quiet was the word, 
 and quiet the leaders in Church and State sought to 
 enforce upon the people, to the end that the vision of 
 " States dissevered, discordant, belligerent, of a land 
 rent with civil feuds, or drenched it may be, in fra 
 ternal blood," might not come to pass for their "glor 
 ious Union." 
 
 The increasing friction and heat between the sec 
 tions during twenty-five years, had effected every por 
 tion of the Federal system, and created conditions 
 
THE HOUR AND THE MAN. lO J 
 
 favorable to a violent explosion. Sectional differences 
 of a political and industrial complexion, forty years 
 had sufficed to develop. Sectional differences of a 
 moral and social character forty years had also suf 
 ficed to generate. To kindle all those differences, all 
 that mass of combustible feelings and forces into a 
 general conflagration a spark only was wanted. And 
 out of the glowing humanity of one man the spark 
 was suddenly struck. 
 
 It is curious to note that in the year 1829, the very 
 year in which William Lloyd Garrison landed in Bal 
 timore, and began the editorship of The Genius of 
 Universal Emancipation, the American Convention, or 
 national assembly of the old State societies for the 
 abolition of slavery, fell into desuetude. It was as if 
 Providence was clearing the debris of an old dispen 
 sation out of the way of the new one which his 
 prophet was beginning to herald, as if guarding 
 against all possibility of having the new wine, then 
 soon to be pressed from the moral vintage of the 
 nation, put into old bottles. The Hour for a new 
 movement against slavery had come, and with its 
 arrival the Man to hail it had also come. 
 
 Other men had spoken and written against slavery, 
 and labored for the freedom of the slave before Gar 
 rison had thought upon the subject at all. Washing 
 ton and Jefferson, Franklin, Jay, and Hamilton had 
 been Abolitionists before he was born, but theirs was 
 a divided interest. The establishment of a more per 
 fect union was the paramount object of their lives. 
 John Wesley had denounced slavery in language 
 quite as harsh as Garrison s, but his, too, was a 
 divided interest, the religious revival of the eight- 
 
I08 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 eenth century being his distinctive mission. Benezet, 
 Woolman, and Lundy were saints, who had yearned 
 with unspeakable sympathy for the black bondmen, 
 and were indefatigable in good works in his behalf, 
 but they had not that stern and iron quality without 
 which reforms cannot be launched upon the attention 
 of mankind. What his predecessors lacked, Garrison 
 possessed to a marvelous degree the undivided 
 interest, the supremacy of a single purpose, the stern 
 stuff out of which the moral reformer is made, and in 
 which he is panoplied. They were all his, but there 
 was another besides immediatism. This element 
 distinguished the movement against slavery, started 
 by him, from all other movements begun before he 
 arrived on the stage, for the emancipation of the 
 slaves in the Union. 
 
 This doctrine of immediate as opposed to grad 
 ual emancipation, was not original with Gar 
 rison, nor was he the first to enunciate it. More than 
 a dozen years before he was converted to it, Rev. 
 George Bourne, in " The Book and Slavery Irrecon 
 cilable," had shown that " the system (of slavery) is 
 so entirely corrupt that it admits of no cure but by 
 a total and immediate abolition. For a gradual emanci 
 pation is a virtual recognition of the right, and es 
 tablishes the rectitude of the practice. If it be just 
 for one moment, it is hallowed forever ; and if it be 
 inequitable, not a day should it be tolerated." In 
 1824, eight years after the publication of Bourne s 
 book, and five years before Garrison announced the 
 doctrine in the Genius, the Rev. James Duncan main 
 tained it, in his " Treatise on Slavery," with no un 
 certainty of sense or conviction. But neither Bourne 
 
THE HOUR AND THE MAN. 109 
 
 nor Duncan had been able to effect an incarnation of 
 the doctrine, without which the good which it aimed 
 at could not be achieved. What they failed to effect, 
 it is the glory of Garrison that he achieved in his 
 own person. He was " total and immediate Abolition " 
 personified. " Truth is mighty and will prevail," is 
 a wise saying and worthy of acceptation. But this 
 ultimate prevailing of TRUTH depends mainly upon 
 individual effort, applied not intermittently, but 
 steadily to a particular segment of the circle of con 
 duct. It is the long, strong, never-ending pull and tug 
 upon the wheels of conduct, which marks the great 
 reformer. He finds his age or country stuck in some 
 Serbonian bog of iniquity. He prays, but he prays 
 with his shoulders braced strenuously against the 
 body of society, and he does not cease his endeavors 
 until a revolution in conduct places his age or country 
 on firm ground beyond its Serbonian bog. The com 
 ing of such a man is no accident. When the Hour is 
 ready and the Man comes, a new epoch in the life of 
 a people arises from the conjunction. Of such vast 
 consequence verily was the coming into American 
 history of William Lloyd Garrison. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE DAY OF SMALL THINGS. 
 
 AFTER leaving Baltimore, Garrison clung patheti 
 cally to the belief that, if he told what he had seen 
 of the barbarism of slavery to the North, he would 
 be certain to enlist the sympathy and aid of its lead 
 ers, political and ecclesiastical, in the cause of eman 
 cipation. The sequel to his efforts in this regard 
 proved that he was never more mistaken in his life. 
 He addressed letters to men like Webster, Jeremiah 
 Mason, Lyman Beecher, and Dr. Channing, " holding 
 up to their view the tremendous iniquity of the land, 
 and begging them, ere it should be too late, to inter 
 pose their great power in the Church and State, to 
 save our country from the terrible calamities which 
 the sin of slavery was bringing upon us." But there 
 is no evidence that this appeal produced the feeblest 
 ripple in the lives of the two first; and upon the two 
 last it was equally barren of result. Dr. Channing, 
 indeed, did not take the trouble to hear any one of 
 the three lectures of the young philanthropist. Dr. 
 Beecher, however, was at the pains to be present at 
 the first lecture given at Julien Hall. But he be 
 trayed no real interest in the subject. He had no 
 time to devote to anti-slvavery, had, in fine, too many 
 irons in the fire already. To this impotent apology 
 of the great preacher of immediatism in his dealing 
 
 (no) 
 
THE DAY OF SMALL THINGS. Ill 
 
 with all kinds of sin, except the sin of slave-holding, 
 for not espousing the cause of the slave, Mr. Garrison 
 made his famous retort : 
 
 " Then you had better let all your irons burn than 
 neglect your duty to the slave." 
 
 What more did this poor and friendless man, with 
 his one idea and his harsh language, know of duties 
 and dangers than Daniel Webster, who was busy sav 
 ing the Union; than Lyman Beecher, who was not 
 less busy saving souls; or than Dr. Channing, who was 
 quite as busy saving liberalism in matters of religion ? 
 What folly and presumption it must have seemed to 
 these mighty men this attempt of Garrison to impress 
 upon them a proper sense of their obligations to their 
 country. 
 
 " Your zeal," said Dr. Beecher to him, with unlim 
 ited condescension of tone " your zeal is commend 
 able, but you are misguided. If you will give up 
 your fanatical notions and be guided by us (the 
 clergy) we will make you the Wilberforce of 
 America." 
 
 And so what was the young man, burning up with 
 his one idea, to do in presence of such a failure to 
 win these men to the leadership of the anti-slavery 
 movement ? He could not hold his peace ; his mes 
 sage he was compelled to deliver in the ears of the 
 nation whether its leaders would hear or forbear. 
 Perhaps the common people would hearken to what 
 the wise and powerful had rejected. At any rate 
 they should hear what was resting upon his soul with 
 the weight of a great woe, the force of a supreme 
 command. But how was he, penniless and friendless, 
 to roll from his bosom the burden which was crush- 
 
112 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 ing it ; to pause long enough in the battle for bread 
 to fight the battle of the slave ? Ah, if he had money! 
 but no money did he have, not a dollar in his pocket ! 
 Oh, if he had rich friends who would dedicate their 
 riches to the preaching of the gospel of freedom ! but 
 alas ! rich friends there were none. Oh, if he could 
 cry to the Church for help in this hour of his need ! 
 but it was slowly dawning on him that not from the 
 Church would help come to his cause; for a grievous 
 thing had happened to the Church. The slave gor- 
 gon sat staring from the pews, and turning the pul 
 pits to stone, turning also to stone the hearts of the 
 people. 
 
 Undismayed by the difficulties which were closing 
 in around him, Garrison resolutely set himself to 
 accomplish his purpose touching the establishment 
 of a weekly paper devoted to the abolition of slavery. 
 He had promised in his Prospectus to issue the first 
 number of the Public Liberator " as soon as subscrip 
 tions thereto may authorize the attempt." But had 
 he waited for the fulfillment of this condition, the 
 experiment could never have been tried. When sub 
 scribers did not come in, the paper, he determined 
 should go forth all the same. But there are some 
 things in the publication of a paper which no man 
 can dispense with, which indispensable somethings 
 are : types, a press, an office, and an assistant. All 
 these requisites were wanting to the man whose sole 
 possession seemed an indomitable will, a faith in him 
 self, and in the righteousness of his cause, which noth 
 ing could shake, nor disappointment nor difficulty, 
 however great, was able to daunt or deter. To such 
 an unconquerable will, to such an invincible faith 
 
THE DAY OF SMALL THINGS. 113 
 
 obstacles vanish; the impossible becomes the attain 
 able. As Garrison burned to be about his work, help 
 came to him from a man quite as penniless and 
 friendless as himself. The man was Isaac Knapp, an 
 old companion of his in Newburyport, who had also 
 worked with him in the office of the Genius, in Balti 
 more. He was a practical printer, and was precisely 
 the sort of assistant that the young reformer needed 
 at this juncture in the execution of his purpose ; a 
 man like himself acquainted with poverty, and of un 
 limited capacity for the endurance of unlimited hard 
 ships. Together they worked out the financial prob 
 lems which blocked the way to the publication of the 
 paper. The partners took an office in Merchants 
 Hall building, then standing on the corner of Con 
 gress and Water streets, Boston, which gave their 
 joint enterprise a local habitation. It had already a 
 name. They obtained the use of types in the print 
 ing office of the Christian Examiner, situated in the 
 same building. The foreman, Stephen Foster, 
 through his ardent interest in Abolition, made the 
 three first numbers of the paper possible. The pub 
 lishers paid for the use of the types by working 
 during the day at the case in the Examiner s office. 
 They got the use of a press from another foreman 
 with Abolition sympathies, viz., James B. Yerrington, 
 then the printer of the Boston Daily Advocate. Thus 
 were obtained the four indispensables to the publica 
 tion of the Liberator types, a press, an office, and an 
 assistant. 
 
 When at length the offspring of such labor and 
 sacrifices made its appearance in the world, which 
 was on January i, 1831, it was, in point of size, insig- 
 
114 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 nificant enough. It did not look as if its voice would 
 ever reach beyond the small dark chamber where it 
 saw the light. Picture, oh ! reader, a wee sheet 
 with four columns to the page, measuring fourteen 
 inches one way and nine and a quarter the other, 
 and you will get an idea of the diminutiveness of the 
 Liberator on the day of its birth. The very paper on 
 which it was printed was procured on credit. To 
 the ordinary observer it must have seemed such a weak 
 ling as was certain to perish from inanition in the 
 first few months of its struggle for existence in the 
 world of journalism. It was domiciled during suc 
 cessive periods in four different rooms of the 
 Merchant s Hall building, until it reached No. u, 
 " under the eaves," whence it issued weekly for many 
 years to call the nation to repentance. A photographic 
 impression of this cradle-room of the anti-slavery 
 movement has been left by Oliver Johnson, an eye 
 witness. Says Mr. Johnson : " The dingy walls ; 
 the small windows, bespattered with printer s ink ; 
 the press standing in one corner ; the composing- 
 stands opposite ; the long editorial and mailing 
 table, covered with newspapers ; the bed of the 
 editor and publisher on the floor all these make 
 a picture never to be forgotten." For the first 
 eighteen months the partners toiled fourteen hours a 
 day, and subsisted " chiefly upon bread and milk, a 
 few cakes, and a little fruit, obtained from a baker s 
 shop opposite, and a petty cake and fruit shop in the 
 basement," and, alas, " were on short commons even at 
 that." Amid such hard and grinding poverty was 
 the Liberator born. But the great end of the 
 reformer glorified the mean surroundings : 
 
THE DAY OF SMALL THINGS. 11$ 
 
 * O truth ! O Freedom ! how are ye still born 
 In the rude stable, in the manger nursed; 
 What humble hands unbar those gates of morn 
 Through which the splendors of the New Day burst." 
 
 About the brow of this " infant crying in the night," 
 shone aureole-like the sunlit legend: Our country is the 
 world our countrymen are mankind. The difference be 
 tween this motto of the Liberator and that of the 
 Free Press : Our country , our whole country, and nothing 
 but our country measures the greatness of the revolu 
 tion which had taken place in the young editor. 
 The grand lesson he had learned, than which there is 
 none greater, that beneath diversities of race, color, 
 creed, language, there is the one human principle, 
 which makes all men kin. He had learned at the age 
 of twenty-five to know the mark of brotherhood made 
 by the Deity Himself : " Behold ! my brother is man, 
 not because he is American or Anglo-Saxon, or white 
 or black, but because he is a fellow-man," is the simple, 
 sublime acknowledgment, which thenceforth he was 
 to make in his word and life. 
 
 It was Mr. Garrison s original design, as we have 
 seen, to publish the Liberator from Washington. 
 Lundy had, since the issue of the Prospectus for the 
 new paper, removed the Genius to the capital of the 
 nation. This move of Lundy rendered the establish 
 ment of a second paper devoted to the abolition of 
 slavery in the same place, of doubtful utility, but, 
 weighty as was this consideration from a mere busi 
 ness point of view, in determining Garrison to locate 
 the Liberator in another quarter, it was not decisive. 
 Just what was the decisive consideration, he reveals 
 in his salutatory address in the Liberator. Here it is : 
 
Il6 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 " During my recent tour for the purpose of exciting 
 the minds of the people by a series of discourses on 
 the subject of slavery," he confides to the reader, 
 " every place that I visited gave fresh evidence of the 
 fact, that a greater revolution in public sentiment 
 was to be effected in the free States and particularly 
 in New England than at the South. I found con 
 tempt more bitter, opposition more active, detraction 
 more relentless, prejudice more stubborn, and apathy 
 more frozen than among slaveowners themselves 
 Of course there were individual exceptions to the 
 contrary. This state of things afflicted, but did noi 
 dishearten me. I determined, at every hazard, to lift 
 up the standard of emancipation in the eyes of the 
 nation, within sight of Bunker Hill, and in the birthplace 
 of liberty," This final choice of Boston as a base from 
 which to operate against slavery was sagacious, and 
 of the greatest moment to the success of the experi 
 ment and to its effective service to the cause. 
 
 If the reformer changed his original intention re 
 specting the place of publication for his paper, he made 
 no alteration of his position on the subject of slavery. 
 " I shall strenuously contend," he declares in the sal 
 utatory, " for the immediate enfranchisement of our 
 slave population." " In Park Street Church," he goes 
 on to add, "on the Fourth of July, 1829, in an address 
 on slavery, I unreflectingly assented to the popular 
 but pernicious doctrine of gradual abolition. I seize 
 this opportunity to make a full and unequivocal 
 recantation, and thus publicly to ask pardon of my 
 God, of my country, and of my brethren, the poor 
 slaves, for having uttered a sentiment so full of timid 
 ity, injustice, and absurdity." 
 
THE DAY OF SMALL THINGS. Iiy 
 
 To those who find fault with his harsh language he 
 makes reply : " I will be as harsh as truth, and as 
 uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not 
 wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation. 
 No ! no ! Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a 
 moderate alarm ; tell him to moderately rescue his 
 wife from the hands of the ravisher ; tell the mother 
 to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into 
 which it has fallen but urge me not to use moder 
 ation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest 
 I will not equivocate I will not excuse I will not 
 retreat a single inch AND I WILL BE HEARD." Mar 
 tin Luther s " Here I take my stand," was not braver 
 or grander than the " I will be heard," of the Ameri 
 can reformer. It did not seem possible that a young 
 man, without influence, without money, standing 
 almost alone, could ever make good those courageous 
 words. The country, in Church and State, had 
 decreed silence on the subject of slavery ; the patriot 
 ism of the North, its commerce, its piety, its labor and 
 capital had all joined hands to smother agitation, and 
 stifle the discussion of a question that imperilled the 
 peace and durability of Webster s glorious Union. 
 But one man, tearing the gag from his lips, defying 
 all these, cried, " Silence, there shall not be ! " and 
 forthwith the whole land began to talk on the for 
 bidden theme : 
 
 "O small beginnings ye are great and strong, 
 Based on a faithful heart and weariless brain! 
 Ye build the future fair, ye conquer wrong. 
 Ye earn the crown, and wear it not in vain!" 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE HEAVY WORLD IS MOVED. 
 
 ARCHIMEDES with his lever desired a place to stand 
 that he might move the world of matter. Garrison 
 with his paper, having found a place for his feet, 
 demonstrated speedily his ability to push from its 
 solid base the world of mind. His plan was very 
 simple, viz., to reveal slavery as it then existed in its 
 naked enormity, to the conscience of the North, to be 
 " as harsh as truth and as uncompromising as justice." 
 And so, week after week, he packed in the columns of 
 the Liberator facts, the most damning facts, against 
 slaveholders, their cruelty and tyranny. He painted 
 the woes of the slaves as if he, too, had been a slave. 
 For the first time the masters found a man who 
 rebuked them as not before had they been rebuked. 
 Others may have equivocated, but this man called 
 things by their proper names, a spade, a spade, and 
 sin, sin. Others may have contented themselves with 
 denunciations of the sins and with excuses for the 
 sinner, as a creature of circumstances, the victim of 
 ancestral transgressions, but this man offered no ex 
 cuses for the slave-holding sinner. Him and his sin he 
 denounced in language, which the Eternal puts only 
 into the mouths of His prophets. It was, as he had 
 said, " On this subject I do not wish to think, or 
 speak, or write, with moderation." The strength and 
 resources of his mother-tongue seemed to him wholly 
 
 (118) 
 
THE HEAVY WORLD IS MOVED. 119 
 
 inadequate for his needs, to express the transcend 
 ent wickedness of slave-holding. All the harsh, the 
 stern, the terrible and tremendous energies of the 
 English speech he drew upon, and launched at slave 
 holders. Amid all of this excess of the enthusiast 
 there was the method of a calculating mind. He 
 aimed to kindle a conflagration because he had ice 
 bergs to melt. " The public shall not be imposed 
 upon," he replied to one of his critics, " and men and 
 things shall be called by their right names. I retract 
 nothing, I blot out nothing. My language is exactly 
 such as suits me ; it will displease many, I know ; to 
 displease them is my intention." He was philosopher 
 
 /enough to see that he could reach the national con 
 science only by exciting the national anger. It was 
 not popular rage, which he feared but popular apa 
 thy. If he could goad the people to anger on the 
 subject of slavery he would soon be rid of their apa 
 thy. And so week after week he piled every sort of 
 combustible material, which he was able to collect on 
 board the Liberator and lighting it all, sent the fiery 
 messenger blazing among the icebergs of the Union. 
 Slaveholders were robbers, murderers, oppressors ; 
 they were guilty of all the sins of the decalogue, were 
 in a word the chief of sinners. At the same moment 
 that the reformer denied their right of property in 
 the slave, he attacked their character also, held them 
 up in their relation of masters to the reprobation of 
 the nation and of mankind as monsters of injustice 
 and inhumanity. The tone which he held toward 
 them, steadily, without shadow of change, was the 
 tone of a righteous man toward the workers of ini 
 quity. The indifference, the apathy, the pro-slavery 
 
120 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 sympathy and prejudice of^the free States rendered the 
 people of the North hardly less culpable. They were 
 working iniquity with the people of the South. This 
 was the long, sharp goad, which the young editor 
 thrust in between the bars of the Union and stirred 
 the guilty sections to quick and savage outbursts of 
 temper against him and the bitter truths which he 
 preached. Almost directly the proofs came to him 
 that he was HEARD at the South and at the North 
 alike. Angry growls reached his ears in the first 
 month of the publication of the Liberator from some 
 heartless New England editors in denunciation of his 
 " violent and intemperate attacks on slaveholders." 
 The Journal, published at Louisville, Kentucky, and 
 edited by George D. Prentice, declared that, " some 
 of his opinions with regard to slavery in the United 
 States are no better than lunacy." The American 
 Spectator published at the seat of the National Govern 
 ment, had hoped that the good sense of the " late tal 
 ented and persecuted junior editor " of the Genius^ 
 " would erelong withdraw him even from the side of 
 the Abolitionists." And from farther South the growl 
 which the reformer heard was unmistakably fero 
 cious. It was from the State of South Carolina and 
 the Camden Journal, which pronounced the Liberator 
 " a scandalous and incendiary budget of sedition." 
 These were the beginning of the chorus of curves, 
 which soon were to sing their serpent songs about his 
 head. Profane and abusive letters from irate slave 
 holders and their Northern sympathisers began to 
 pour into the sanctum of the editor. Within a few 
 months after the first issue of the Liberator the whole 
 aspect of the world without had changed toward 
 
THE HEAVY WORLD IS MOVED. 121 
 
 him. " Foes are on my right hand, and on my left," 
 he reported to some friends. "The tongue of detrac 
 tion is busy against me. I have no communion with 
 the world the world none with me. The timid, the 
 lukewarm, the base, affect to believe that my brains are 
 disordered, and my words the ravings of a maniac. 
 Even many of my friends they who have grown up 
 with me from my childhood are transformed into 
 scoffers and enemies." The apathy of the press, and 
 the apathy of the people were putting forth signs 
 that the long winter of the land was passing away. 
 
 To a colored man belongs the high honor of having 
 been the courier avant of the slavery agitation. This 
 man was David Walker, who lived in Boston, and 
 who published in 1829 a religio-political discussion 
 of the status of the negroes of the United States in 
 four articles. The wretchedness of the blacks in con 
 sequence of slavery he depicted in dark and bitter 
 language. Theodore Parker, many years afterward, 
 said that the negro was deficient in vengeance, the 
 lowest form of justice. " Walker s Appeal " evinced 
 no deficiency in this respect in its author. The pam 
 phlet found its way South, and was the cause of no 
 little commotion among the master-class. It was 
 looked upon as an instigation to servile insurrection. 
 The " Appeal " was proscribed, and a price put upon 
 the head of the author. Garrison deprecated the 
 sanguinary character of the book. For he himself 
 was the very reverse of Walker. Garrison was a full 
 believer in the literal doctrine of non-resistance as 
 enunciated by Jesus. He abhorred all war, and phy 
 sical collisions of every description, as wicked and 
 inhuman. He sang to the slave : 
 
122 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 " Not by the sword shall your deliverance be ; 
 Not by the shedding of your master s blood, 
 Not by rebellion or foul treachery, 
 Upspringing suddenly, like swelling flood ; 
 Revenge and rapine ne er did bring forth good. 
 God s time is best! nor will it long delay ; 
 Even now your barren cause begins to bud, 
 And glorious shall the fruit be ! watch and pray, 
 For lo ! the kindling dawn that ushers in the day." 
 
 He considered "Walker s Appeal" "a most inju 
 dicious publication, yet warranted by the creed of an 
 independent people." He saw in our Fourth-of-July 
 demonstrations, in our glorification of force as an 
 instrument for achieving liberty, a constant incentive 
 to the slaves to go and do likewise. If it was right 
 for the men of 1776 to rise in rebellion against their 
 mother-country, it surely could not be wrong were 
 the slaves to revolt against their oppressors, and 
 strike for their freedom. It certainly did not lie in 
 the mouth of a people, who apotheosized force, to 
 condemn them. What was sauce for the white man s 
 goose was sauce for the black man s gander. 
 
 The South could not distinguish between this sort 
 of reasoning, and an express and positive appeal to 
 the slaves to cut the throats of their masters. The 
 contents of the Liberator were quite as likely to pro 
 duce a slave insurrection as was " Walker s Appeal," 
 if the paper was allowed to circulate freely among 
 the slave population. It was, in fact, more dangerous 
 to the lives and interests of slaveholders by virtue of 
 the pictorial representation of the barbarism and 
 abomination of the peculiar institution, introduced 
 as a feature of the Liberator in its seventeenth num 
 ber, in the shape of a slave auction, where the slaves 
 
THE HEAVY WORLD IS MOVED. 123 
 
 are chattels, and classed with " horses and other 
 cattle," and where the tortures of the whipping-post 
 are in vigorous operation. Here was a message, 
 which every slave, however ignorant and illiterate 
 could read. His instinct would tell him, wherever 
 he saw the pictured horror, that a friend, not an 
 enemy, had drawn it, but for what purpose ? What 
 was the secret meaning, which he was to extract from 
 a portrayal of his woes at once so real and terrible. 
 Was it to be a man, to seize the knife, the torch, to 
 slay and burn his way to the rights and estate of a 
 man ? Garrison had put no such bloody import into 
 the cut. It was designed not to appeal to the pas 
 sions of the slaves, but to the conscience of the 
 North. But the South did not so read it, was inca 
 pable, in fact, of so reading it. What it saw was a 
 shockingly realistic representation of the wrongs of 
 the slaves, the immediate and inevitable effect of 
 which upon the slaves would be to incite them to 
 sedition, to acts of revenge. Living as the slave 
 holders were over mines of powder and dynamite, it 
 is not to be marveled at that the first flash of danger 
 filled them with apprehension and terror. The awful 
 memories of San Domingo flamed red and dreadful 
 against the dark background of every Southern 
 plantation and slave community. In the " belly " of 
 the Liberator s picture were many San Domingos. 
 Extreme fear is the beginning of madness; it is, indeed, 
 a kind of madness. The South was suddenly plunged 
 into a state of extreme fear toward which the Libera 
 tor and " Walker s Appeal " were hurrying it, by 
 one of those strange accidents or coincidences of 
 history. 
 
124 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 This extraordinary circumstance was the slave in 
 surrection in Southampton, Virginia, in the month of 
 August, 1831. The leader of the uprising was the 
 now famous Nat Turner. Brooding over the wrongs 
 of his race for several years, he conceived that he 
 was the divinely appointed agent to redress them. 
 He was cast in the mould of those rude heroes, who 
 spring out of the sides of oppression as isolated trees 
 will sometimes grow out of clefts in a mountain. 
 With his yearning to deliver his people, there mingled 
 not a little religious frenzy and superstition. Getting 
 his command from Heaven to arise against the mas 
 ters, he awaited the sign from this same source of 
 the moment for beginning the work of destruction. 
 It came at last and on the night of August 2ist; he and 
 his confederates made a beginning by massacring 
 first his own master, Mr. Joseph Travis, and his entire 
 family. Turner s policy was remorseless enough. 
 It was to spare no member of the white race, whether 
 man, woman, or child, the very infant at the mother s 
 breast was doomed to the knife, until he was able to 
 collect such an assured force as would secure the suc 
 cess of the enterprise. This purpose was executed 
 with terrible severity and exactness. All that night 
 the work of extermination went on as the slave leader 
 and his followers passed like fate from house to 
 house, and plantation to plantation, leaving a wide 
 swathe of death in their track. Terror filled the 
 night, terror filled the State, the most abject terror 
 clutched the bravest hearts. The panic was pitiable, 
 horrible. James McDowell, one of the leaders of the 
 Old Dominion, gave voice to the awful memories 
 and sensations of that night, in the great anti- 
 
THE HEAVY WORLD IS MOVED. 125 
 
 slavery debate, which broke out in the Virginia Legis 
 lature, during the winter afterward. One of the 
 legislators, joined to his idol, and who now, that 
 the peril had passed, laughed at the uprising as a 
 "petty affair." McDowell retorted "Was that a 
 * petty affair, which erected a peaceful and confiding 
 portion of the State into a military camp, which out 
 lawed from pity the unfortunate beings whose broth 
 ers had offended ; which barred every door, pene 
 trated every bosom with fear or suspicion, which so 
 banished every sense of security from every man s 
 dwelling, that let but a hoof or horn break upon the 
 silence of the night, and an aching throb would be 
 driven to the heart ? The husband would look to his 
 weapon, and the mother would shudder and weep 
 upon her cradle. Was it the fear of Nat Turner and 
 his deluded, drunken handful of followers which pro 
 duced such effects ? Was it this that induced distant 
 counties, where the very name of Southampton was 
 strange, to arm and equip for a struggle ? No, sir, it 
 was the suspicion eternally attached to the slave himself , 
 a suspicion that a Nat Turner might be in every 
 family, that the same bloody deed might be acted 
 over at any time and in any place, that the materials 
 for it were spread through the land, and were always 
 ready for a like explosion." 
 
 Sixty-one whites and more than a hundred blacks 
 perished in this catastrophe. The news produced a 
 profound sensation in the Union. Garrison himself, 
 as he records, was horror-struck at the tidings. 
 Eight months before he had in a strain of prophecy 
 penetrated the future and caught a glimpse of just 
 such an appalling tragedy : 
 
126 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 " Wo, if it come with storm, and blood, and fire, 
 When midnight darkness veils the earth and sky ! 
 Wo to the innocent babe the guilty sire 
 Mother and daughter friends of kindred tie ! 
 Stranger and citizen alike shall die! 
 Red-handed slaughter his revenge shall feed, 
 And havoc yell his ominous death-cry, 
 And wild despair in vain for mercy plead 
 While hell itself shall shrink and sicken at the deed ! " 
 
 After the Southampton insurrection the slavery 
 agitation increased apace, and the Liberator and its 
 editor became instantly objects of dangerous noto 
 riety in it The eyes of the country were irresistibly 
 drawn to them. They were at the bottom of the up 
 rising, they were instigating the slaves to similar 
 outbreaks. The savage growlings of a storm came 
 thrilling on every breeze from the South, and wrath 
 ful mutterings against the agitator and his paper 
 grew thenceforth more distinct and threatening 
 throughout the free States. October 15, 1831, Garri 
 son records in the Liberator that he " is constantly 
 receiving from the slave States letters filled with the 
 most diabolical threats and indecent language." In 
 the same month Georgetown, S. C., in a panic made 
 it unlawful for a free colored person to take the Lib 
 erator from the post-office. In the same month the 
 Charleston Mercury announced that " gentlemen of 
 the first respectability " at Columbia had offered a 
 reward of fifteen hundred dollars for the arrest and 
 conviction of any white person circulating the Libera 
 tor, Walker s pamphlet, " or any other publication of 
 seditious tendency." In Georgia the same symptoms 
 of fright were exhibited. In the same month the 
 
THE HEAVY WORLD IS MOVED. 127 
 
 grand jury at Raleigh, N. C., indicted William Lloyd 
 Garrison and Isaac Knapp for circulating the Libera 
 tor in that county. It was even confidently expected 
 that a requisition would be made by the Executive of 
 the State upon the Governor of Massachusetts for 
 their arrest, when they would be tried under a law, 
 which made their action felony. " Whipping and 
 imprisonment for the first offence, and death, without 
 benefit of clergy, for the second." Governor Floyd 
 said in his message to the Virginia Legislature in 
 December that there was good cause to suspect that 
 the plans of the Southampton massacre were " de 
 signed and matured by unrestrained fanatics in some 
 of the neighboring States." Governor Hamilton sent 
 to the South Carolina Legislature in the same month 
 an excited message on the situation. He was in 
 entire accord with the Virginia Executive as to the 
 primary and potent agencies which led to the slave 
 uprising in Virginia. They were " incendiary news 
 papers and other publications put forth in the non- 
 slave-holding States, and freely circulated within the 
 limits of Virginia." As specimens of "incendiary 
 newspapers and other publications, put forth in the 
 non-slave-holding States," the South Carolina official 
 sent along with his message, copies of the Liberator 
 and of Mr. Garrison s address to the " Free People of 
 Color," for the enlightenment of the members of the 
 Legislature. But it remained for Georgia to cap the 
 climax of madness when her Legislature resolved : 
 * That the sum of five thousand dollars be, and the 
 same is hereby appropriated, to be paid to any person 
 or persons who shall arrest, bring to trial and prosecute 
 to conviction, under the laws of this State, the editor 
 
128 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 or publisher of a certain paper called the Liberator, 
 published in the town of Boston and State of Mass 
 achusetts ; or who shall arrest and bring to trial and 
 prosecute to conviction, under the laws of this State, 
 any other person or persons who shall utter, publish, 
 or circulate within the limits of this State said paper 
 called the Liberator, or any other paper, circular, 
 pamphlet, letter, or address of a seditious character." 
 This extraordinary resolve was signed Dec. 26, 1831, 
 by "Wilson Lumpkin, Governor." The whole South 
 was in a state of terror. In its insane fright it would 
 have made short shrift of the editor of the Liberator, 
 had he by accident, force, or fraud have fallen into 
 the clutches of its laws. The Georgia reward of five 
 thousand dollars was as Mr. Garrison put it, " a bribe 
 to kidnappers." The Southern method of dealing 
 with the agitation within the slave States was violent 
 and effective. There could be no agitation after the 
 agitators were abolished. And the Southern method 
 was to abolish the agitators. 
 
 The suppression of Abolitionism within the slave 
 States was no difficult matter, but its suppression at 
 the North was a problem of a wholly different nature, 
 as the South was not long in finding out. It would 
 not understand why its violent treatment of the disease 
 within its jurisdiction could not be prescribed as a 
 remedy by the non-slave-holding half of the Union 
 within its borders. And so the South began to call 
 loudly and fiercely for the suppression of a movement 
 calculated to incite the slaves to insubordination and 
 rebellion. This demand of the South had its influence 
 at the North. Such newspapers as the National 
 Intelligencer ; and the Boston Courier suggested 
 
THE HEAVY WORLD IS MOVED. 129 
 
 amendments to the laws whereby the publication of 
 incendiary writings in the free States might be pro 
 hibited. The latter journal allowed that under the 
 criminal code of Massachusetts " every man has a 
 right to advocate Abolition, or conspiracy, or mur 
 der ; for he may do all these without breaking our 
 laws, although in any Southern State public justice 
 and public safety would require his punishment. 
 " But," the editor goes on to remark, " if we have no 
 laws upon the subject, it is because the exigency 
 was not anticipated . . . Penal statutes against 
 treasonable and seditious publications are necessary 
 in all communities. We have them for our own pro 
 tection ; if they should include provisions for the pro 
 tection of our neighbors it would be no additional 
 encroachment upon the liberty of the press." The 
 Governors of Virginia and Georgia remonstrated with 
 Harrison Gray Otis, who was Mayor of Boston in 
 the memorable year of 1831, "against an incendiary 
 newspaper published in Boston, and, as they alleged, 
 thrown broadcast among their plantations, inciting to 
 insurrection and its horrid results." As a lawyer 
 Mayor Otis, however, " perceived the intrinsic, if not 
 insuperable obstacles to legislative enactments made 
 to prevent crimes from being consummated beyond 
 the local jurisdiction." But the South was not seek 
 ing a legal opinion as to what it could or could not 
 do. It demanded, legal or illegal, that Garrison and the 
 Liberator be suppressed. To the Boston mayor the 
 excitement over the editor and his paper seemed like 
 much ado about nothing The cause appeared to 
 his supercilious mind altogether inadequate to the 
 effect. And so he set to work to reduce the panic by 
 
130 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 exposing the vulgarity and insignificance of the 
 object, which produced it. That he might give the 
 Southern bugaboo its quietus, he directed one of his 
 deputies to inquire into a publication, of which " no 
 member of the city government, nor any person," of 
 his honor s acquaintance, " had ever heard." The 
 result of this inquiry Mayor Otis reported to the 
 Southern functionaries. 
 
 " Some time afterward," he wrote, " it was reported 
 to me by the city officers that they had ferreted out 
 the paper and its editor; that his office was an ob 
 scure hole, his only visible auxiliary a negro boy, and 
 his supporters a very few insignificant persons of all 
 colors." 
 
 With this bare bodkin Harrison Gray Otis thought 
 to puncture the Southern panic. But the slave 
 holders had correcter notions of the nature and tend 
 ency of the Abolition enterprise than had the Boston 
 mayor. They had a strange, an obstinate presenti 
 ment of disaster from the first instant that the Liber 
 ator loomed upon their horizon. It was a battery 
 whose guns, unless silenced, would play havoc 
 with Southern interests and the slave system; ergo, 
 the paper must be suppressed; ergo, its editor must 
 be silenced or destroyed. And so when Otis, from 
 his serene height, assured them of his " belief that 
 the new fanaticism had not made, nor was likely to 
 make, proselytes among the respectable classes of 
 our people," they continued to listen to their fears, 
 and to cry the louder for the suppression of the 
 " incendiary newspaper published in Boston." 
 
 The editor of that paper never flinched before the 
 storm of malignity which was gathering about his 
 
THE HEAVY WORLD IS MOVED. 131 
 
 head. He pursued the even tenor of his way, labor 
 ing at the case more than fourteen hours every day, 
 except Sundays, upon the paper, renewing, week after 
 week, his assaults upon the citadel of the great ini 
 quity, giving no quarter to slave-holding sinners, but 
 carrying aloft the banner of IMMEDIATE AND UNCON 
 DITIONAL EMANCIPATION. Otis had looked to num 
 bers and respectability as his political barometer and 
 cue; but when, after diligent search with official 
 microscopes, he failed to observe the presence of 
 either in connection with this " new fanaticism," wise 
 man that he was, he turned over and renewed his slum 
 bers on the edge of a volcano whose ominous rum 
 bling the Southern heart had heard and interpreted 
 aright. He was too near to catch the true import of 
 the detonations of those subterranean forces which 
 were sounding, week after week, in the columns of 
 the Liberator. They seemed trivial, harmless, con 
 temptible, like the toy artillery of children bombard 
 ing Fort Independence. Garrison s moral earnest 
 ness and enthusiasm seemed to the Boston mayor 
 like the impotent rage of a man nursing memories of 
 personal injuries suffered at the South. 
 
 If there was panic in the South, there was none in 
 the office of the Liberator. Unterrified by the com 
 motion which his composing-stick was producing 
 near and far, he laughed to scorn the abuse and 
 threats of his enemies. When the news of the reward 
 of the State of Georgia " for the abduction of his 
 person " reached him, he did not quail, great as was 
 his peril, but boldly replied : 
 
 " Of one thing we are sure : all Southern threats 
 and rewards will be insufficient to deter us from pur- 
 
132 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 suing the work of emancipation. As citizens of the 
 United States we know our rights and dare maintain 
 them. We have committed no crime, but are expend 
 ing our health, comfort, and means for the salvation 
 of our country, and for the interests and security of 
 infatuated slaveholders, as well as for the relief of 
 the poor slaves." 
 
 Archimedes with his lever had moved the world. 
 Archimedes "in a small chamber, unfurnitured and 
 mean," had set a world of pro-slavery passions and 
 prejudices spinning away into space : 
 
 " Such earnest natures are the fiery pith, 
 
 The compact nucleus, round which systems grow; 
 Mass after mass becomes inspired therewith, 
 And whirls impregnate with the central glow." 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 MASTER STROKES. 
 
 " HELP came but slowly " to the reformer. With a 
 single instrument he had stirred the nation, as no 
 other man had done, on the slavery question. He had 
 thrown the South into widespread excitement, and 
 thawed the apathy of the North into widespread 
 attention. He had won an almost instant hearing for 
 his cause. But he knew that this was not enough. 
 Effective as he had shown the weapon of the press to 
 be, it alone was unequal to the conduct of prolonged 
 agitation. And prolonged agitation Garrison clearly 
 apprehended was to be the price of abolition. Back 
 of him and the Liberator he needed an organized 
 force, coadjutors like Aaron and Hur to hold up his 
 arms during the mighty conflict on which he had now 
 entered with the slave interests of the country. Those 
 interests were organized, and because they were 
 organized they were powerful. The sentiment of 
 freedom he determined to organize and to render it 
 thereby invincible. To organized wrong he designed 
 to oppose organized right, confident that organized 
 right would prevail in the end. He had knowledge 
 of the utility of temperance societies in advancing 
 the cause of sobriety among the people. He had 
 learned from Lundy how much he had relied upon 
 the union of men as anti-slavery helps. Garrison 
 determined to summon to his side the powerful 
 
134 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 agency of an anti-slavery society devoted to 
 immediate and unconditional emancipation. He had 
 already made converts ; he had already a small fol 
 lowing. At Julien Hall, on the occasion of his first 
 lecture on the subject of slavery, he had secured three 
 remarkable men to the movement, viz., Rev. Samuel 
 J. May, then a young Unitarian minister, Samuel E. 
 Sewall, a young member of the Bar, and A. Bronson 
 Alcott, a sage even in his early manhood. They had 
 all promised him aid and comfort in the great task 
 which he had undertaken. A little later two others, 
 quite as remarkable as those first three were drawn 
 to the reformer s side, and abetted him in the treason 
 to iniquity, which he was prosecuting through the 
 columns of the Liberator with unrivaled zeal and 
 devotion. These disciples were Ellis Grey Loring 
 and David Lee Child. They were a goodly company, 
 were these five conspirators, men of intellect and 
 conscience, of high family and social connections, of 
 brilliant attainments and splendid promises for the 
 future. To this number must be added a sixth^ 
 Oliver Johnson, who was at the time editing The 
 Christian Soldier, disciple of Garrison then, and ever 
 after his devoted friend. The early promises of this 
 noble half dozen friends of the slave were more than 
 fulfilled in after years. Often to the dingy room 
 " under the eaves " in Merchants Hall they climbed 
 to carry aid and comfort to " one poor, unlearned 
 young man," and to sit at his feet in this cradle-room 
 of the new movement. It was there in communion 
 with the young master that suggestions looking to 
 the formation of an anti-slavery society, were doubt 
 less first thrown out. 
 
MASTER STROKES. 135 
 
 " The place was dark, unfurnitured and mean ; 
 Yet there the freedom of a race began." 
 
 It was not all clear sailing for the editor of the Lib 
 erator even with such choice spirits. They did not 
 always carry aid and comfort to him, but diff 
 erences of opinions sometimes as well. He did not 
 sugar-coat enough the bitter truth which he was tell 
 ing to the nation. Some of them would have prefer 
 red The Safety Lamp to the Liberator as a title less 
 likely to offend the prejudices of many good people. 
 Some again objected to the pictorial heading of the 
 paper as an altogether unwise proceeding, and posi 
 tively mischievous. He had the same experience 
 when the formation of an Abolition society was under 
 consideration. He was confronted with this benevo 
 lent aversion to giving offence by calling things by 
 their right names. But much as he desired to have 
 his friends and followers organized for associated 
 action, where a principle was at stake he was with 
 them as with slavery itself absolutely inflexible and 
 uncompromising. He was for organizing on the 
 principle of immediate emancipation. A few deemed 
 that ground too radical and revolutionary, and were 
 for ranging themselves under the banner of Gradual 
 ism, thinking to draw to their ranks a class of people, 
 who would be repelled by Immediatism. But Garri 
 son was unyielding, refused to budge an inch to con 
 ciliate friend or foe not even such stanch supporters 
 as were Sewall and Loring, who supplied him again 
 and again with money needed to continue the publi 
 cation of the Liberator. No, he was right and they 
 were wrong, and they, not he, ought accordingly to 
 yield. The contention between the leader and his 
 
I$ WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 disciples was not what was expedient, but what was 
 right. It was on the part of the leader the assertion 
 of a vital principle, and on this ground he was 
 pledged against retreat. The mountain could not go 
 to Mahomet, therefore Mahomet must needs go to the 
 mountain. Garrison could not abandon his position, 
 wherefore in due time Loring, Child, and Sewall sur 
 rendered theirs. Finely has Lowell expressed this 
 righteous stubborness, and steadfastness to principle 
 in three stanzas of his poem entitled, " The Day of 
 Small Things," and which have such an obvious les 
 son for our own times that I shall venture to quote 
 them in this place : 
 
 "Who is it will not dare himself to trust? 
 Who is it hath not strength to stand alone ? 
 Who is it thwarts and bilks the inward MUST ? 
 He and his works, like sand from earth are blown. 
 
 " Men of a thousand shifts and wiles look here ! 
 See one straightforward conscience put in pawn 
 To win a world ! See the obedient sphere 
 By bravery s simple gravitation drawn ! 
 
 " Shall we not heed the lesson taught of old, 
 And by the Present s lips repeated still, 
 In our own single manhood to be bold, 
 Fortressed in conscience and impregnable will ? " 
 
 The history of the making of this first society is an 
 interesting story. There were four meetings in all 
 before it was found possible to complete the work of 
 its organization. These meetings extended over a 
 space of nearly three months, so obstinate were a 
 minority against committing the proposed society 
 to the principle of immediate emancipation. The 
 
MASTER STROKES. 137 
 
 very name which was to be given to the association 
 provoked debate and disagreement. Some were for 
 christening it " Philo-African," while Garrison would 
 no such milk-and-water title, but one which expressed 
 distinctly and graphically the real character of the or 
 ganization, viz., "New England Anti-Slavery Society." 
 He would sail under no false or neutral colors, but 
 beneath the red flag of open and determined hos 
 tility to slavery. It should be a sign which no one 
 could possibly mistake. The first meeting was held 
 at the office of Samuel E. Sewall, November 13, 1831. 
 At the third meeting, convened New Year s evening 
 of 1832, which was the first anniversary of the publi 
 cation of the Liberator, the work of organization was 
 finished, with a single important exception, viz., the 
 adoption of the preamble to the constitution. The 
 character of the preamble would fix the character of 
 the society. Therefore that which was properly first 
 was made to come last. The fourth meeting took 
 place on the night of January 6th in the African Bap 
 tist Church on what was then Belknap but now known 
 as Joy street. The young leader and fourteen of his 
 followers met that evening in the school-room for 
 colored children, situated under the auditorium of 
 the church. They could hardly have fallen upon a 
 more obscure or despised place for the consummation 
 of their enterprise in the city of Boston than was 
 this selfsame negro church and school-room. The 
 weather added an ever memorable night to the oppro 
 brium of the spot. A fierce northeaster accompanied 
 with " snow, rain, and hail in equal proportions " was 
 roaring and careering through the city s streets. To 
 an eye-witness, Oliver Johnson, " it almost seemed 
 
138 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 as if Nature was frowning upon the new effort to 
 abolish slavery ; but," he added, " the spirits of the 
 little company rose superior to all external circum 
 stances." 
 
 If there was strife of the elements without, neither 
 was there sweet accord within among brethren. 
 "The spirits of the little company" may have risen 
 superior to the weather, but they did not rise super 
 ior to the preamble, with the principle of immediatism 
 incorporated in it. Eleven stood by the leader and 
 made it the chief of the corner of the new society, 
 while three, Messrs. Loring, Sewall, and Child, re 
 fused to sign the Constitution and parted sorrowfully 
 from the small band of the New England Anti-Slavery 
 Society. But the separation was only temporary, for 
 each returned to the side of the reformer, and proved 
 his loyalty and valor in the trying years which fol 
 lowed. 
 
 The preamble which was the bone of so much con 
 tention declared that : " We, the undersigned, hold 
 that every person, of full age and sane mind, has a 
 right 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 difference 
 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, 
 
MASTER STROKES. 139 
 
 we declare that we will not operate on the existing 
 relations of society by other than peaceful and law 
 ful means, and that we will give no countenance to 
 violence or insurrection." 
 
 Twelve, the apostolic number, affixed to the pre 
 amble and constitution their names, and thus formed 
 the first Garrisonian Society for the abolition of slav 
 ery in the United States. The names of these apos 
 tolic men it is well to keep in mind. They are Wil 
 liam Lloyd Garrison, Oliver Johnson, Robert B. Hall, 
 Arnold Buffum, William J. Snelling, John E. Fuller, 
 Moses Thatcher, Joshua Coffin, Stillman B. New- 
 comb, Benjamin C. Bacon, Isaac Knapp, and Henry 
 K. Stockton. The band of reformers, their work 
 done, had risen to pass out of the low, rude room into 
 the dark night. The storm was still raging. They 
 themselves had perchance been sobered by the ex 
 periences of the evening. They had gone in fifteen, 
 they were returning twelve. And, after all, what had 
 they accomplished ? What could they a mere handful 
 do to abolish slavery entrenched as it was in Church 
 and State ? It is possible that some such dim dis 
 couragement, some such vague misgiving of the 
 futility of the evening s labor, was in the hearts of 
 those wearied men, and that their leader divined as 
 much, for the spirit of prophecy fell upon Garrison 
 just as they " were stepping out into the storm and 
 darkness." "We have met to-night," he said, "in 
 this obscure school-house ; our numbers are few and 
 our influence limited ; but, mark my prediction, Fan- 
 euil Hall shall erelong echo with the principles we 
 have set forth. We shall shake the nation by their 
 mighty power." Then the little band dispersed "into 
 
140 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 the storm and darkness," carrying with them these 
 words charged with hope and courage. 
 
 The fruitful seed of organized agitation Garrison 
 had securely planted in soil fertile and ready for its 
 reception. Its growth constitutes one of the marvels 
 of reforms. Within a few brief years it multiplied 
 into hundreds and thousands of societies throughout 
 the free States. But its beginnings were small and 
 humble enough. " The objects of the society " were 
 according to the second article of the constitution, 
 " to endeavor by all means sanctioned by law, human 
 ity, and religion, to effect the abolition of slavery in 
 the United States, to improve the character and con 
 dition of the free people of color, to inform and cor 
 rect public opinion in relation to their situation and 
 rights, and to obtain for them equal civil and politi 
 cal rights and privileges with the whites." The 
 means which were immediately adopted by the society 
 for the accomplishment of these objects were mainly 
 three, than which none others could have been 
 more effective. These were petitioning Congress on 
 the subject of slavery. The publication and circula 
 tion of anti-slavery addresses and tracts, and the em 
 ployment of anti-slavery agents, " in obtaining or 
 communicating intelligence, in the publication and 
 distribution of tracts, books, or papers, or in the exe 
 cution of any measure which may be adopted to pro 
 mote the objects of the society." Such was the simple 
 but unequaled machinery which the New England 
 .Anti-Slavery Society relied upon for success in the 
 war, which it had declared against American slavery. 
 The executive power of the body, and the operation 
 of its machinery were lodged in a board of managers 
 
MASTER STROKES. 141 
 
 of which Garrison s was the leading, originating 
 mind. The society started out bravely in the use of 
 its means by memorializing Congress for the aboli 
 tion of slavery, " in the District of Columbia and in 
 the Territories of the United States under their juris 
 diction," and by preparing and distributing an address 
 in maintenance of the doctrine of immediate emanci 
 pation. The board of managers set the machinery in 
 motion as far and as fast as the extremely limited 
 pecuniary ability of the society would permit. The 
 membership was not from the rich classes. It was 
 Oliver Johnson who wittily remarked that not 
 more than one or two of the original twelve, 
 " could have put a hundred dollars into the treasury 
 without bankrupting themselves." The remark was 
 true, and was quite as applicable to any dozen of the 
 new-comers as to the original twelve. The society 
 was never deficient in zeal, bnt it was certainly sadly 
 wanting in money. And money was even to such 
 men and to such a movement an important factor in 
 revolutionizing public opinion. 
 
 The Liberator was made the official organ of the 
 society, and in this way was added to its other wea 
 pons that of the press. This was a capital arrange 
 ment, for by it both the paper and the society were 
 placed under the direction of the same masterly 
 guidance. There was still one arrow left in the moral 
 quiver of the organization to reach the conscience of 
 the people, and that was the appointment of an agent 
 to spread the doctrines of the new propaganda of 
 freedom. In August the board of managers, meta 
 phorically speaking, shot this arrow by making Gar 
 rison the agent of the society to lecture on the sub- 
 
142 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 iect of slavery " for a period not exceeding three 
 months." This was the first drop from a cloud then 
 no bigger than a hand, but which was to grow and 
 spread until, covering the North, was, at the end of 
 a few short years, to flood the land with anti-slavery 
 agents and lecturers. 
 
 Our anti-slavery agent visited portions of Massachu 
 setts, Maine, and Rhode Island, preaching the Aboli 
 tion gospel in divers places, and to many people- 
 notably at such centers of population as Worcester, 
 Providence, Bangor, and Portland, making at the 
 latter city a signal conversion to his cause in the per 
 son of General Samuel Fessenden, distinguished then 
 as a lawyer, and later as the father of William Pitt 
 Fessenden. The anti-slavery schoolmaster was 
 abroad, and was beginning to turn New England and 
 the North into one resounding schoolhouse, where he 
 sat behind the desk and the nation occupied the 
 forms. 
 
 So effective was the agitation prosecuted by the 
 society during the first year of its existence that it 
 was no empty declaration or boast of the Abolitionist, 
 the new monthly periodical of the society, that 
 "probably, through its instrumentality, more public 
 addresses on the subject of slavery, and appeals in 
 behalf of the contemned free people of color, have 
 been made in New England, during the past year 
 (1832) than were elicited for forty years prior to its 
 organization." 
 
 The introduction of the principle of association 
 into the slavery agitation, and the conversion of it 
 into an organized movement was an achievement of 
 the first importance. To Garrison, more than to any 
 
MASTER STROKES. 143 
 
 man, or to all others put together, belongs the! 
 authorship of this immense initiative. He it was, 
 who, having " announced the principle, arranged the 
 method " of the Abolition movement. The marshal 
 ing of the anti-slavery sentiment of New England 
 under a common standard, in a common cause, was 
 a master stroke of moral generalship. This master 
 stroke the leader followed up promptly with a second 
 stroke not less masterly. That second stroke was his 
 " Thoughts on African Colonization," published in 
 the summer succeeding the formation of the New 
 England Anti-Slavery Society. 
 
 Garrison s championship of the cause of the slave 
 had started with strong faith in the efficacy and dis 
 interestedness of the colonization scheme as an instru 
 ment of emancipation. It commanded, therefore, his 
 early support. In his Park Street Church address he 
 evinced himself in earnest sympathy with the friends 
 of colonization. But after his arrival in Baltimore a 
 change began to exhibit itself in this regard. He 
 began to qualify his confidence in its utility; began 
 to discern in it influences calculated to retard general 
 emancipation. As these doubts and misgivings arose 
 within him he expressed them frankly in the Genius. 
 Lundy had been suspicious of the pro-slavery pur 
 poses or interests of the enterprise for many years. 
 He could not reconcile himself to the significant or, 
 at least, singular fact of so many slaveholders being 
 in the membership and the offices of the association. 
 Then, in addition to this lack of confidence on the 
 part of Lundy in the scheme, Garrison became ac 
 quainted, for the first time, with the objects of the 
 society s philanthropy the class of free people of 
 
144 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 color. He found that these people were not at all 
 well affected to the society; that they had no appre 
 ciation of its benevolent intentions in respect to them 
 selves. He found, on the contrary, that they were 
 positively embittered toward it and toward its designs 
 for their removal from the country as toward their 
 worst enemy. This circumstance was undoubtedly 
 a poser to their young friend. How could he recon 
 cile this deep-seated and widespread disbelief in the 
 purity of the motives of the Colonization Society, 
 with the simple integrity and humanity of the enter 
 prise itself ? Later, his acquaintance with such repre 
 sentatives of the free people of color in Philadelphia 
 as James Forten and his son-in-law, Robert Purvis, 
 served but to confirm those first impressions which 
 he received in Baltimore from the Watkinses and 
 the Greeners. It was the same experience in New 
 York and New Haven, in Boston and Providence. 
 He learned that from the very beginning, in the year 
 1817, that the free people of color in Richmond and 
 Philadelphia had, by an instinctive knowledge of 
 threatened wrong and danger, met and resolved 
 against the society and its sinister designs upon 
 themselves. These people did not wish to leave the 
 country; they did not wish to be sent to Liberia ; but 
 the society, bent on doing them good against their 
 will, did want them to leave the country, did wan : 
 to send them to Liberia. 
 
 And why did the society desire to remove the free 
 people of color out of the country ? Was it from mo- 
 ives of real philanthropy ? The colored people were 
 the first to detect its spurious humanity, the first to see 
 through the artful disguises employed to impose upon 
 
MASTER STROKES. 145 
 
 the conscience of the republic. Their removal, they 
 intuitively divined, was proposed not to do their race 
 a benefit, but rather to do a service to the owners of 
 slaves. These objects of the society s pseudo-phil 
 anthropy had the sagacity to perceive that, practi 
 cally, their expatriation tended to strengthen the 
 chains of their brethren then in slavery; for if the 
 South could get rid of its free colored population, its 
 slave property would thereby acquire additional 
 security, and, of consequence, increased market value. 
 Like cause, like effect. If the operation of the col 
 onization scheme was decidedly in the interest of the 
 masters, it was the part of wisdom to conclude as the 
 free colored people did actually conclude that the 
 underlying motive, the hidden purpose of the society 
 was also in the interest of the masters. 
 
 Garrison did not reach his conclusions as to the 
 pro-slavery character and tendency of the society 
 abruptly. The scales fell away gradually from his 
 eyes. He was not completely undeceived until he 
 had examined the reports of the society and found 
 in them the most redundant evidence of its insincer 
 ity and guilt. It was out of its own mouth that he 
 condemned it. When he saw the society in its true 
 character, he saw what he must do. It was a wolf in 
 sheep s skin running at large among the good shep 
 herd s flock, and inflicting infinite hurt upon his poor 
 sheep. He no longer wondered at the horror which 
 the colonization scheme inspired among the free 
 people of color. They were right. The society was 
 their dangerous and determined enemy; it was the 
 bulwark of the slave-holding classes. With the 
 instinct of a great purpose he resolved to carry this 
 
146 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 powerful bulwark of slavery by assault. To the 
 attack he returned week after week in the Liberator. 
 during a year and a half. Then he hurled himself 
 upon it with all his guns, facts, arguments, denuncia 
 tions, blowing away and burning up every shred of 
 false covering from the doctrines, principles, and 
 purposes of the society, revealing it to mankind in 
 its base and monstrous character. 
 
 The society s one motive " to get rid of the free 
 people of color," was outrageous enough, but this 
 was not its only sin. There was another phase to the 
 mischief it was working, which lifted it to the rank of 
 a great sinner. It was not only harmful in its princi 
 ples and purposes. " It imperatively and effectually 
 seals up the lips," so Garrison accused it, " of a vast 
 number of influential and pious men, who, for fear of 
 giving offence to those slaveholders with whom they 
 associate, and thereby leading to a dissolution of the 
 compact, dare not expose the flagrant enormities of 
 the system of slavery, nor denounce the crime of hold 
 ing human beings in bondage. They dare not lead 
 to the onset against the forces of tyranny ; and if 
 they shrink from the conflict, how shall the victory 
 be won ? I do not mean to aver that in their ser 
 mons, or addresses, or private conversations, they 
 never allude to the subject of slavery ; for they do so 
 frequently, or at least every Fourth of July. But my 
 complaint is that they content themselves with repre 
 senting slavery as an evil a misfortune a calamity 
 which has been entailed upon us by former genera 
 tions, and not as an individual CRIME, embracing in its 
 folds, robbery, cruelty, oppression, and piracy. They 
 do not identify the criminal ; they make no direct. 
 
MASTER STROKES. 147 
 
 pungent, earnest appeal to the consciences of men- 
 stealers." This was a damning bill, but it was true 
 in every particular ; and the evidence which Garri 
 son adduced to establish his charges was overwhelm 
 ing and irrefragable. 
 
 Nearly fifty years afterward, Elizur Wright 
 described the baleful influence of the society upon 
 the humanity and philanthropy of the nation. "The 
 humanity and philanthropy," he said, " which could 
 not otherwise be disposed of, was ingeniously seduced 
 into an African Colonization Society, whereby all 
 slaves who had grown seditious and troublesome to 
 their masters could be transplanted on the pestifer 
 ous African coast. That this wretched and seemingly 
 transparent humbug could have deluded anybody, 
 must now seem past belief ; but I must with shame 
 confess the fact that I for one was deluded by it. And 
 that fact would put me in doubt of my own sanity at 
 the time if I did not know that high statesmen, pres 
 idents of colleges, able editors, and that most 
 undoubted of firm philanthropists, Gerrit Smith, 
 shared the same delusion. Bible and missionary soci 
 eties fellowshipped that mean and scurvy device of 
 the kidnapper, in their holy work. It was spoken of 
 as the most glorious of Christian enterprises, had a 
 monthly magazine devoted to itself, and taxed about 
 every pulpit in the land for an annual sermon in its 
 favor." 
 
 Such was the Colonization Society, and its 
 entrenched strength in the piety and philanthropy of 
 the country at the moment when Garrison published 
 his "Thoughts." It did not seem possible that a single 
 arm however powerful, was able to start its roots ; 
 
148 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 but, directly upon the launching of this bolt, the 
 roots of the Bohun Upas, as Garrison graphically 
 designated the society, were seen to have started, and 
 the enterprise appeared blasted as by fire. The 
 deluded intellect and conscience of the free States 
 saw in the fierce light, which the pamphlet of the 
 reformer threw upon the colonization scheme how 
 shamefully imposed upon they had been. They had 
 believed the society "the most glorious of Christian 
 enterprises," and, lo ! it stood revealed to them a 
 " scurvy device of the kidnapper." The effect was 
 extraordinary. The book was seized and its con 
 tents devoured by some of the finest minds of the 
 North. Here is an example of the interest which it 
 excited and the converts which it made : " Last Mon 
 day evening was our Law Club meeting, and I had 
 the great satisfaction of hearing Judge Mellen, our 
 Chief-Justice, say he had read your Thoughts, was a 
 thorough convert to your views, and was ready to do 
 all in his power to promote them. Mr. Longfellow 
 [father of Henry W. Longfellow] was present also, 
 and with equal warmth and clearness expressed him 
 self also in favor of your views. This is getting the 
 two first men in the State for talents and influence in 
 benevolent effort. I have no doubt they will head 
 the list of those who will subscribe to form here an 
 anti-slavery society. Mr. Greenleaf [Simon] also, 
 will cordially come in, and I need not say he is one of 
 the first [men] in the State, for his character is known." 
 This quotation is made from a letter of General Sam 
 uel Fessenden, of Portland, Me., to Mr. Garrison, 
 dated December 14. 1832. Among the remarkable 
 minds which the "Thoughts " disillusioned in respect 
 
MASTER STROKES. 149 
 
 of the character and tendency of the Colonization 
 Society were Theodore D. Weld, Elizur Wright, and 
 Beriah Green, N. P. Rogers, William Goodell, Joshua 
 Leavitt, Amos A. Phelps, Lewis Tappan, and James 
 Miller McKim. 
 
 Garrison s assertion that " the overthrow of the 
 Colonization Society was the overthrow of slavery 
 itself," was, from the standpoint of a student of his 
 tory, an exaggerated one. We know now that the 
 claim was not founded on fact, that while they did 
 stand together they did not fall together. But the 
 position was, nevertheless, the strongest possible one 
 for the anti-slavery movement to occupy at the time. 
 In the disposition of the pro-slavery forces on the 
 field of the opening conflict in 1832, the colonization 
 scheme commanded the important approaches to the 
 citadel of the peculiar institution. It cut off the 
 passes to public opinion, and to the religious and 
 benevolent influences of the land. To reach these it 
 was necessary in the first place to dislodge the society 
 from its coign of vantage, its strategical point in 
 the agitation. And this is precisely what " The 
 Thoughts on African Colonization " did. It dislodged 
 the society from its powerful place in the moral sen 
 timent of the North. The capture of this position 
 was like the capture of a drawbridge, and the precip 
 itation of the assaulting column directly upon the 
 the walls of a beseiged castle. Within the pamphlet 
 was contained the whole tremendous enginery of 
 demolition. The anti-slavery agent and lecturer 
 thenceforth set it up wherever he spoke. 
 
 To him it was not only the catapult, it fur 
 nished the missile-like facts and arguments for 
 
150 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 breaching the walls of this pro-slavery stronghold as 
 well. 
 
 The effect of the publication of " The Thoughts " 
 in this country was extraordinary, but the result of 
 their circulation in England was hardly less so. It 
 produced there as here a revolution in public senti 
 ment upon the subject. The philanthropy and piety 
 of Great Britain had generally prior to the unmask 
 ing of the society, looked upon it as an instrument of 
 Emancipation, and had accordingly given it their 
 powerful countenance, and not a little material sup 
 port. But from the moment that the pamphlet 
 reached England a decided change in this regard 
 became manifest. The society made fruitless attempts 
 to break the force of the blow dealt it by Garrison in 
 the United States. But wherever its emissaries 
 traveled " The Thoughts " confronted and confounded 
 them. So that Mr. Garrison was warranted in saying 
 that " all that sophistry or misrepresentation could 
 effect to overthrow its integrity has been attempted 
 in vain. The work, as a whole, stands irrefutable." 
 The attempts made to maintain its hold upon the 
 British public were characterized by duplicity and 
 misrepresentation beyond anything practiced in 
 America. The work of deceiving the philanthropy 
 of Great Britain was conducted by the emissary of 
 the society, Elliott Cresson, a man perfectly fitted to 
 perform his part with remarkable thoroughness and 
 industry. Three thousand miles away from America, 
 and practically secure from contradiction, he went 
 about making outrageous statements as to the anti- 
 slavery character and purpose of the colonization 
 enterprise. As there was no one in England suffi- 
 
MASTER STROKES. 151 
 
 ciently acquainted with the operations and designs 
 of the society, he was enabled to falsify facts, to con 
 ceal the real principles of the scheme with astonish 
 ing audacity and activity. He approached Wilber- 
 force, and duped Clarkson into a belief in the anti- 
 slavery aim of the society. 
 
 Unmasked in America, the time had come when the 
 interests of the Abolition movement on this side of 
 the Atlantic required that it should be stripped of its 
 disguises on the other side also. No better instru 
 ment could be selected for this purpose than the man 
 who had torn the mask from its features in the United 
 States. And so in March, 1833, the Board of Man 
 agers of the New England Anti-Slavery Society noti 
 fied the public of the appointment of " William Lloyd 
 Garrison as their agent, and that he would proceed to 
 England as soon as the necessary arrangements can 
 be made, for the purpose of procuring funds to aid 
 in the establishment of the proposed MANUAL 
 LABOR SCHOOL FOR COLORED YOUTH, and 
 of disseminating in that country the truth in relation 
 to American slavery, and to its ally, the American 
 Colonization Society." The managers offered in 
 justification of their step the fact that " Elliott Cres- 
 son is now in England as an agent for the Coloniza 
 tion Society, and that he has procured funds to a 
 considerable amount by representing that the object 
 of the society is * to assist in the emancipation of all 
 the slaves now in the United States. It is important 
 that the philanthropists of that country should be 
 undeceived, and that the real principles and designs 
 of the Colonization Society should be there made 
 known," 
 
152 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 In pursuance of this mission Garrison sailed from 
 New York, May 2, 1833. Twenty days later he landed 
 in Liverpool. His arrival was opportune, for all 
 England was watching the closing scene in the drama 
 of West India Emancipation. He was an eye-witness 
 of the crowning triumph of the English Abolitionists, 
 viz., the breaking by Act of Parliament of the fetters 
 of eight hundred thousand slaves. He was in time to 
 greet his great spiritual kinsman, William Wilberforce, 
 and to undeceive him in respect of the Colonization 
 Society, before death claimed his body, and to fol 
 low him to his last resting-place by the side of Pitt 
 and Fox, in Westminster Abbey. 
 
 A highly interesting incident of this visit is best 
 told in Mr. Garrison s own words. He said : 
 
 " On arriving in London I received a polite invita 
 tion by letter from Mr. Buxton to take breakfast with 
 him. Presenting myself at the appointed time, when 
 my name was announced, instead of coming forward 
 promptly to take me by the hand, he scrutinized me 
 from head to foot, and then inquired, Have I the 
 pleasure of addressing Mr. Garrison, of Boston, in 
 the United States ? < Yes, sir, I replied, * I am he ; 
 and I am here in accordance with your invitation. 
 Lifting up his hands he exclaimed, Why, my dear 
 sir, I thought you were a black man ! And I have 
 consequently invited this company of ladies and 
 gentlemen to be present to welcome Mr. Garrison, 
 the black advocate of emancipation, from the United 
 States of America. I have often said that that is the 
 only compliment I have ever had paid to me that I care 
 to remember or to tell of ! For Mr. Buxton had 
 somehow or other supposed that no white American 
 
MASTER STROKES. 153 
 
 could plead for those in bondage as I had done, and 
 therefore I must be black ! " 
 
 Garrison promptly threw down his challenge to 
 Elliott Cresson, offering to prove him an impostor 
 and the Colonization Society " corrupt in its princi 
 ples, proscriptive in its measures, and the worst 
 enemy of the free colored and slave population of 
 the United States." From the first it was apparent 
 that Cresson did not mean to encounter the author 
 of the " Thoughts" in public debate. Even a mouse 
 when cornered will show fight, but there was no 
 manly fight in Cresson. Garrison sent him a letter 
 containing seven grave charges against his society, 
 and dared him to a refutation of them in a joint dis 
 cussion. This challenge was presented four times 
 before the agent of colonization could be pursuaded 
 to accept it. Garrison was bent on a joint public 
 discussion between himself and Mr. Cresson. But 
 Mr. Cresson was bent on avoiding his opponent. He 
 skulked under one pretext or another from vindicat 
 ing the colonization scheme from the seven-headed 
 indictment preferred against it by the agent of the 
 New England Anti-Slavery Society. As Cresson 
 could not be driven into a joint discussion with him 
 there was nothing left to Garrison but to go on with 
 out him. His arraignment and exposure of the 
 society in public and private was thorough and over 
 whelming. He was indefatigable in the prosecution 
 of this part of his mission. And his labor was not in 
 vain. For in less than three months after his reach 
 ing England he had rendered the Colonization 
 Society as odious there as his "Thoughts " had made 
 it in America. The great body of the anti-slavery 
 
154 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 sentiment in Great Britain promptly condemned the 
 spirit and object of the American Colonization Soci 
 ety. Such leaders as Buxton and Cropper " termed 
 its objects diabolical; 1 while Zachary Macaulay, 
 father of the historian, did not doubt that " the 
 unchristian prejudice of color (which alone has 
 given brith to the Colonizatian Society, though 
 varnished over with other more plausible pre 
 tences, and veiled under a profession of a Christian 
 regard for the temporal and spiritual interests of the 
 negro which is belied by the whole course of its 
 reasonings and the spirit of its measures) is so 
 detestable in itself that I think it ought not to be 
 tolerated, but, on the contrary, ought to be denounced 
 and opposed by all humane, and especially by all 
 pious persons in this country." 
 
 The protest against the Colonization Society 
 " signed by Wilberforce and eleven of the most dis 
 tinguished Abolitionists in Great Britain," including 
 Buxton, Macaulay, Cropper, and Daniel O Connell, 
 showed how thoroughly Garrison had accomplished 
 his mission. The protest declares, thanks to the 
 teachings of the agent of the New England Anti- 
 Slavery Society, that the colonization scheme " takes 
 its roots from a cruel prejudice and alienation in the 
 whites of America against the colored people, slave 
 or free. This being its source the effects are what 
 might be expected ; that it fosters and increases the 
 spirit of caste, already so unhappily predominant ; 
 that it widens the breach between the two races 
 exposes the colored people to great practical persecu 
 tion, in order to force them to emigrate ; and, finally, 
 is calculated to swallow up and divert that feeling 
 
MASTER STROKES. I$5 
 
 which America, as a Christian and free country, can 
 not but entertain, that slavery is alike incompatible 
 with the law of God and with the well-being of man, 
 whether the enslaver or the enslaved." The solemn 
 conclusion of the illustrious signers of this mighty 
 protest was that: " That society is, in our estimation, 
 not deserving of the countenance of the British 
 public." This powerful instrument fell, as Garrison 
 wrote at the time, "like a thunderbolt upon the 
 society." The damage inflicted upon it was immense, 
 irreparable. The name of Thomas Clarkson was 
 conspicuous by its absence from the protest. He 
 could not be induced to take positive ground against 
 the society. Garrison had visited him for this pur 
 pose. But the venerable philanthropist, who was 
 then blind, had taken position on neutral ground, and 
 conld not, after an interview of four hours, be 
 induced to abandon it. But, fortunately, potent as 
 the name of Clarkson would have been in opposition 
 to the society, it was not indispensable to its over 
 throw in Great Britain. Garrison had won to his 
 side "all the staunch anti-slavery spirits,"- while 
 Cresson was able to retain only " a few titled, wealthy, 
 high-pretending individuals." 
 
 The success of the mission was signal, its service to 
 the movement against slavery in America manifold. 
 Garrison writing from London to the board of 
 managers, summarized the results produced by it as 
 follows : " ist, awakening a general interest among 
 the friends of emancipation in this country, and 
 securing their efficient cooperation with us in the aboli 
 tion of slavery in the United States ; 2d, dispelling 
 the mists with which the agent of the American 
 
156 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 Colonization Society has blinded the eyes of benevo 
 lent men in relation to the design and tendency of 
 the society ; 3d, enlisting able and eloquent advo 
 cates to plead our cause ; 4th, inducing editors of 
 periodicals and able writers to give us the weight of 
 their influence ; 5th, exciting a spirit of emulation 
 in the redemption of our slave population among the 
 numerous female anti-slavery societies ; 6th, procur 
 ing a large collection of anti-slavery documents, 
 tracts, pamphlets, and volumes, which will furnish 
 us with an inexhaustible supply of ammunition." 
 These were indeed some of the grand results of 
 laborious weeks. His mission was ended. He was 
 profoundly grateful to the good God for its success. 
 The great movement which he had started against 
 oppression in his own country was awaiting his 
 aggressive leadership. He did not tarry abroad, 
 therefore, but set sail from London August 18, 1833, 
 for New York, where he landed six weeks later. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 COLORPHOBIA. 
 
 GARRISON S Abolitionism was of the most radical 
 character. It went the whole length of the humanity 
 of the colored race, and all that that implied. They 
 were, the meanest members, whether bond or free, 
 his brothers and his sisters. From the first he re 
 garded them as bone of his bone and blood of his 
 blood, as children with him of a common father. 
 Poor and enslaved and despised to be sure, wronged 
 by all men, and contemned by all men, but for that 
 very reason they were deserving of his most devoted 
 love and labor. He never looked down upon them 
 as wanting in any essential respect the manhood 
 which was his. They were men and as such 
 entitled to immediate emancipation. They were 
 besides entitled to equality of civil and political 
 rights in the republic, entitled to equality and fra 
 ternity in the church, equality and fraternity at the 
 North, equality and fraternity always and everywhere. 
 This is what he preached, this is what he practiced. 
 In not a single particular was he ever found separ 
 ating himself from his brother in black, saying to 
 him "thus far but no farther." He never drew the 
 line in public or private between him and the people 
 whose cause was his cause not even socially. He 
 went into their homes and was in all things one with 
 
 (15?) 
 
158 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 them. He forgot that he was white, forgot that they 
 were black, forgot the pride of race, forgot the stigma 
 of race too in the tie of human kinship which bound 
 him to them. If he had what they did not possess, 
 the rights of a man, the civil and political position of 
 a man in the State, the equality of a brother in the 
 church, it could not make him feel better than they, 
 it filled him instead with a righteous sense of wrong, 
 a passionate sympathy, a supreme desire and deter 
 mination to make his own rights the measure of 
 theirs. 
 
 " I lose sight of your present situation," he said 
 in his address before Free People of Color, "and 
 look at it only in futurity. I imagine myself sur 
 rounded by educated men of color, the Websters, and 
 Clays, and Hamiltons, and Dwights, and Edwardses 
 of the day. I listen to their voice as judges and 
 representatives, and rulers of the people the whole 
 people." This glowing vision was not the handiwork 
 of a rhetorician writing with an eye to its effect upon 
 his hearers. The ardent hope of the reformer was 
 rather the father of the golden dream. 
 
 This practical recognition of the negro as a man 
 and a brother was the exact opposite of the treatment 
 which was his terrible lot in the country. Never in 
 all history was there a race more shamefully op 
 pressed by a dominant race than were the blacks by 
 the whites of America. Held as slaves in the South, 
 they were stamped as social outcasts at the North. 
 There was no one, however mean or vicious, who if 
 he possessed a white skin, was not treated more 
 humanely than were they. In the most enlightened 
 of the free States they were discriminated against by 
 
COLORPHOBIA. I$9 
 
 public laws and proscribed by public opinion. They 
 were in a word pariahs of the republic. They were 
 shut out from all the common rights, and privileges 
 and opportunities enjoyed by the lowest of the 
 favored race. They were denied equality in the pub 
 lic school. The principle of popular education had 
 no application to a class which was not of the people, 
 a class which the common sentiment of a Christian 
 nation had placed at the zero point of political values, 
 and meant to keep forever at that point. Entrance 
 to the trades were barred to the blacks. What did 
 they want with such things where there was no white 
 trash so forgetful of his superiority as to consent to 
 work by their side. Nowhere were they allowed the 
 same traveling accommodations as white men, and they 
 were everywhere excluded from public inns. Neither 
 wealth nor refinement was able to procure them 
 admission into other than " Jim Crow cars." If 
 heart-sick at the outrages by every one heaped upon 
 them they turned for consolation to the house of 
 God, even there the spirit of proscription and caste 
 prejudice met them, and pointed to the " negro pew " 
 where they sat corraled from the congregation as if 
 they had no equal share in the salvation which the 
 pulpit preached. Everywhere the white man had 
 the right of way, even on the highway to heaven ! 
 And in no place was the negro made to feel the pre 
 judice against his color more gallingly than in 
 churches arrogating the name of Christian. He had 
 no rights on earth, he had none in trying to get into the 
 bosom of the founder of Christianity, which the white 
 sinners or saints were bound to respect. Even the 
 liberty-loving Quakers of Philadelphia were not 
 
l6o WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 above the use of the " negro seat " in their meetings 
 Somehow they discerned that there was a great gul: 
 separating in this life at least the white from the 
 black believer. That God had made of one blood al 
 nations of men, St. Paul had taught, but the Amen 
 can church had with one accord in practice drawr 
 the line at the poor despised colored man. He was 
 excluded from ecclesiastical equality, for he was 
 different from other men for whom Christ died. The 
 Bible declared that man was made but a little lower 
 than the angels ; the American people in their State 
 and Church supplemented this sentiment by acts 
 which plainly said that the negro was made but a 
 little above the brute creation. 
 
 Here are instances of the length to which the 
 prejudice against color carried the churches in those 
 early years of the anti-slavery movement : 
 
 In 1830, a colored man, through a business transac 
 tion with a lessee of one of the pews in Park Street 
 Church, came into possession of it. Thinking to 
 make the best use of his opportunity to obtain relig 
 ious instruction for himself and family fiom this 
 fountain of orthodoxy, the black pew-holder betook 
 him, one Sunday, to " Brimstone Corner." But he 
 was never permitted to repeat the visit. " Brimstone 
 Corner " could not stand him another Lord s day, 
 and thereupon promptly expelled him and his family 
 out of its midst. The good deacons displayed their 
 capacity for shielding their flock from consorting 
 with " niggers," by availing themselves of a techni 
 cality to relet the pew to a member who was not 
 cursed with a dark skin. On another Lord s day, in 
 another stronghold of Boston Christianity, Oliver 
 
COLORPHOBIA. l6l 
 
 Johnson ran the battery of " indignant frowns of a 
 large number of the congregation" for daring to take 
 a fellow-Christian with a skin not colored like his 
 own into his pew, to listen to Dr. Beecher. The 
 good people of the old Baptist meeting-house, at 
 Hartford, Conn., had evidently no intention of dis 
 turbing the heavenly calm of their religious devo 
 tions by so much as a thought of believers with black 
 faces ; for by boarding up the " negro pews " in front 
 and leaving only peep-holes for their occupants, they 
 secured themselves from a sight of the obnoxious 
 creatures, while Jehovah, who is no respecter of per 
 sons, was in His holy place. Incredible as it may 
 seem, a church in the town of Stoughton, Mass., 
 to rid itself of even a semblance of Christian fellow 
 ship and equality with a colored member, did actu 
 ally cut the floor from under the colored member s 
 pew ! 
 
 These cruel and anti-Christian distinctions in the 
 churches affected Garrison in the most painful man 
 ner. He says : 
 
 " I never can look up to these wretched retreats 
 for my colored brethren without feeling my soul 
 overwhelmed with emotions of shame, indignation, 
 and sorrow." 
 
 He had such an intimate acquaintance with mem 
 bers of this despised caste in Boston and Philadel 
 phia, and other cities, and appreciated so deeply their 
 intrinsic worth and excellence, as men and brethren, 
 that he felt their insults and injuries as if they were 
 done to himself. He knew that beneath many a 
 dark skin he had found real ladies and gentlemen, 
 and he knew how sharper than a serpent s tooth to 
 
l62 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 them was the American prejudice against their color. 
 In 1832, just after a visit to Philadelphia, where he 
 was the guest of Robert Purvis, and had seen mucii 
 of the Fortens, he wrote a friend : 
 
 "I wish you had been with me in Philadelphia to 
 see what I saw, to hear what I heard, and to experi 
 ence what I felt in associating with many colored 
 families. There are colored men and women, young 
 men and young ladies, in that city, who have few 
 superiors in refinement, in moral worth, and in all 
 that makes the human character worthy of admira 
 tion and praise." 
 
 Strange to say, notwithstanding all their merits 
 and advancement, the free people of color received 
 nothing but disparagement and contempt from emi 
 nent divines like Dr. Leonard W. Bacon and the em 
 issaries of the Colonization Society. They were " the 
 most abandoned wretches on the face of the earth" ; 
 they were " all that is vile, loathsome, and danger 
 ous" ; they were " more degraded and miserable than 
 the slaves," and ad infinitum through the whole gamut 
 of falsehood and traduction. It was human for the 
 American people to hate a class whom they had so 
 deeply wronged, and altogether human for them to 
 justify their atrocious treatment by blackening before 
 the world the reputation of the said class. That this 
 was actually done is the best of all proofs of the 
 moral depravity of the nation which slavery had 
 wrought. 
 
 Garrison s vindication of the free people of color 
 in Exeter Hall, London, on July 13, 1833, from this 
 sort of detraction and villification is of historic value: 
 
 " Sir," said he, addressing the chair, " it is not pos- 
 
COLORPHOBIA. 163 
 
 sible for the mind to coin, or the tongue to utter 
 baser libels against an injured people. Their condi 
 tion is as much superior to that of the slaves as the 
 light of heaven is more cheering than the darkness 
 of the pit. Many of their number are in the most 
 affluent circumstances, and distinguished for their 
 refinement, enterprise, and talents. They have flour 
 ishing churches, supplied by pastors of their own 
 color, in various parts of the land, embracing a large 
 body of the truly excellent of the earth. They have 
 public and private libraries. They have their tem 
 perance societies, their debating societies, their moral 
 societies, their literary societies, their benevolent soci 
 eties, their saving societies, and a multitude of kin 
 dred associations. They have their infant schools, 
 their primary and high schools, their sabbath schools, 
 and their Bible classes. They contribute to the support 
 of foreign and domestic missions to Bible and tract 
 societies, etc. In the city of Philadelphia alone they 
 have more than fifty associations for moral and intel 
 lectual improvement. In fact, they are rising up, 
 even with mountains of prejudice piled upon them, 
 with more than Titanic strength, and trampling be 
 neath their feet the slanders of their enemies. A 
 spirit of virtuous emulation is pervading their ranks, 
 from the young child to the gray head. Among them 
 is taken a large number of daily and weekly news 
 papers, and of literary and scientific periodicals, from 
 the popular monthlies up to the grave and erudite 
 North American and American Quarterly Reviews. I 
 have at this moment, to my own paper, the Liberator, 
 one thousand subscribers among this people; and, 
 from an occupancy of the editorial chair for more 
 
164 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 than seven years, I can testify that they are more 
 punctual in their payments than any five hundred 
 white subscribers whose names I ever placed indis 
 criminately in my subscription book." 
 
 There was an earnest desire on the part of the free 
 people of color to raise the level of their class in the 
 Union. At a convention held by them in Philadel 
 phia, in 1831, they resolved upon a measure calcu 
 lated to make up, to some extent, the deprivations 
 which their children were suffering by being excluded 
 from the higher schools of learning in the land. So 
 they determined to establish a college on the manual- 
 labor system for the education of colored youth. 
 They appealed for aid to their benevolent friends, 
 and fixed upon New Haven as the place to build their 
 institution. Arthur Tappan, with customary benefi 
 cence, " purchased several acres of land, in the south 
 erly part of the city, and made arrangements for the 
 erection of a suitable building, and furnishing it with 
 needful supplies, in a way to do honor to the city 
 and country." 
 
 The school, however, was never established owing 
 to the violent hostility of the citizens, who with the 
 Mayor, Aldermen, and Common Council resolved in 
 public meeting to "resist the establishment of the 
 proposed college in this place by every lawful means." 
 
 The free people of color were derided because of 
 their ignorance by their persecutors, but when they 
 and their friends proposed a plan to reduce that igno 
 rance, their persecutors bitterly opposed its execu 
 tion. New Haven piety and philanthropy, as embod 
 ied in the Colonization Society, were not bent on the 
 education of this class but on its emigration to the 
 
COLORPHOBIA. 165 
 
 coast of Africa solely. In such sorry contradictions 
 and cruelties did American prejudice against color 
 involve American Christianity and humanity. 
 
 This outrage was perpetrated in 1831. Two years 
 afterward Connecticut enacted altogether the most 
 shameful crime in her history. There lived in the 
 year 1833, in the town of Canterbury, in that State, 
 an accomplished young Quaker woman, named Pru 
 dence Crandall. Besides a superior education, she 
 possessed the highest character And this was well; 
 for she was the principal of the Female Boarding 
 School located in that town. The institution was, in 
 1833, at the beginning of its third year, and in a flour 
 ishing condition. While pursuing her vocation of a 
 teacher, Miss Crandall made the acquaintance of the 
 Liberator through a " nice colored girl," who was at 
 service in the school. Abhorring slavery from child 
 hood, it is no wonder that the earnestness of the 
 Liberator exerted an immediate and lasting influence 
 upon the sympathies of the young principal. The 
 more she read and the more she thought upon the 
 subject the more aroused she became to the wrongs 
 of which her race was guilty to the colored people. 
 She, too, would lend them a helping hand in their 
 need. Presently there came to her a colored girl 
 who was thirsting for an education such as the Can 
 terbury Boarding School for young ladies was dis 
 pensing to white girls. This was Miss Crandall s 
 opportunity to do something for the colored people, 
 and she admitted the girl to her classes. But she 
 had no sooner done so than there were angry objec 
 tions to the girl s remaining. 
 
 " The wife of an Episcopal clergyman who lived in 
 
l66 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 the village," Miss Crandall records, " told me that if 
 I continued that colored girl in my school it would 
 not be sustained." 
 
 She heroically icf used to turn the colored pupil out 
 of the school, and thereby caused a most extraordinary 
 exhibition of Connecticut chivalry and Christianity. 
 
 Seeing how matters stood with her in these circum 
 stances, Prudence Crandall conceived the remarkable 
 purpose of devoting her school to the education of 
 colored girls exclusively. She did not know whether 
 her idea was practicable, and so in her perplexity she 
 turned for counsel to the editor of the Liberator. She 
 went to Boston for this purpose, and there, at the old 
 Marlboro Hotel, on Washington street, on the even 
 ing of January 29, 1833, she discussed this business 
 with Mr. Garrison. This visit and interview con 
 firmed the brave soul in her desire to change her 
 school into one for the higher education of colored 
 girls. It was expected that a sufficient number of 
 such pupils could be obtained from well-to-do colored 
 families in cities like Boston, Providence, and New 
 York to assure the financial success of the enterprise. 
 When Miss Crandall had fully matured her plans in 
 the premises she announced them to the Canterbury 
 public. But if she had announced that she con 
 templated opening a college for the spread of con 
 tagious diseases among her townspeople, Canterbury 
 could not possibly have been more agitated and 
 horrified. Every door in the village was slammed in 
 her face. She was denounced in town meetings, and 
 there was not chivalry enough to cause a single 
 neighbor to speak in her defence. Samuel J. May 
 had to come -from an adjoining town for this pur- 
 
COLORPHOBIA. 167 
 
 pose. "But," says Mr. May, " they would not hear 
 me. They shut their ears and rushed upon me with 
 threats of personal violence." 
 
 As there was nothing in the statutes of Connecti 
 cut which made the holding of such a school as that 
 of Miss Crandall s illegal, the good Canterbury folk 
 procured the passage of a hasty act through the Leg 
 islature, which was then in session, " making it a 
 penal offence, punishable by fine and imprisonment, 
 for any one in that State keeping a school to take as 
 his or her pupils the children of colored people of 
 other States." But the heart of the young Quaker 
 woman was the heart of a heroine. She dared to 
 disregard the wicked law, was arrested, bound over 
 for trial, and sent to jail like a common malefactor. 
 It was no use, persecution could not cow the noble 
 prisoner into submission to the infamous statute. In 
 her emergency truth raised up friends who rallied 
 about her in the unparalleled contest which raged 
 around her person and her school. There was no 
 meanness or maliciousness to which her enemies did 
 not stoop to crush and ruin her and her cause. "The 
 newspapers of the county and of the adjoining coun 
 ties teemed with the grossest misrepresentations, and 
 the vilest insinuations," says Mr. May, " against Miss 
 Crandall, her pupils, and her patrons ; but for the 
 most part, peremptorily refused us any room in their 
 columns to explain our principles and purposes, or to 
 refute the slanders they were circulating." Four or 
 five times within two years she was forced into court 
 to defend her acts against the determined malignity 
 of men who stood high in the Connecticut Church 
 and State. The shops in the town boycotted her, the 
 
168 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 churches closed their doors to her and her pupils. 
 Public conveyances refused to receive them, and phy 
 sicians to prescribe for them. It is said that the 
 heroic soul was cut off from intercourse with her own 
 family, in the hope doubtless that she would the 
 sooner capitulate to the negro-hating sentiment of 
 her neighbors. But firm in her resolve the fair 
 Castellan never thought of surrendering the citadel 
 of her conscience at the bidding of iniquitous power. 
 Then, like savages, her foes defiled with the excre 
 ment of cattle the well whence the school drew its 
 supply of water, attacked the house with rotten eggs 
 and stones, and daubed it with filth. This drama of 
 diabolism was fitly ended by the introduction of the 
 fire fiend, and the burning of the detestable building 
 devoted to the higher education of " niggers." 
 Heathenism was, indeed, outdone by Canterbury 
 Christianity. 
 
 The circumstances of this outrage kindled Garri 
 son s indignation to the highest pitch. Words were 
 inadequate to express his emotions and agony of 
 soul. In the temper of bold and clear-eyed leader 
 ship he wrote George W. Benson, his future brother- 
 in-law, " we may as well, first as last," meet this pre 
 scriptive spirit, and conquer it. We f. e., all the 
 friends of the cause must make this a common con 
 cern. The New Haven excitement has furnished a 
 bad precedent a second must not be given or I know 
 not what we can do to raise up the colored popula 
 tion in a manner which their intellectual and moral 
 necessities demand. In Boston we are all excited at 
 the Canterbury affair. Colonizationists are rejoicing 
 and Abolitionists looking sternly." Like a true gen- 
 
COLORPHOBIA. 169 
 
 eral Garrison took in from his Liberator outlook the 
 entire field of the struggle. No friend of the slave, 
 however distant, escaped his quick sympathy or 
 ready reinforcements. To him the free people of color 
 turned for championship, and to the Liberator as a 
 mouthpiece. The battle for their rights and for the 
 the freedom of their brethren in the South advanced 
 apace. Everywhere the army of their friends and the 
 army of their foes were in motion, and the rising 
 storm winds of justice and iniquity were beginning 
 " to bellow through the vast and boundless deep " of 
 a nation s soul. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 AGITATION AND REPRESSION. 
 
 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON S return from his Eng 
 lish mission was signalized by two closely related 
 events, viz., the formation of the New York City 
 Anti-Slavery Society, and the appearance of the first 
 of a succession of anti-slavery mobs in the North. 
 The news of his British successes had preceded him, 
 and prepared for him a warm reception on the part of 
 his pro-slavery countrymen. For had he not with 
 malice prepense put down the " most glorious of 
 Christian enterprises," and rebuked his own country 
 in the house of strangers as recreant to freedom ? And 
 when O Connell in Exeter Hall pointed the finger of 
 scorn at America and made her a by-word and a hiss 
 ing in the ears of Englishmen, was it not at a meet 
 ing got up to further the designs of this " misguided 
 young gentlemen who has just returned from Eng 
 land whither he has recently been for the sole pur 
 pose as it would seem [to the Commercial Advertiser} 
 of traducing the people and institutions of his own 
 country." Had he not caught up and echoed back 
 the hissing thunder of the great Irish orator : Shame 
 on the American Slaveholders ! Base wretches should 
 we shout in chorus base wretches, how dare you 
 profane the temple of national freedom, the sacred 
 
 (.70) 
 
AGITATION AND REPRESSION. 171 
 
 fane of Republican rites, with the presence and the 
 sufferings of human beings in chains and slavery ! " 
 
 The noise of these treasons on a foreign shore, 
 " deafening the sound of the westerly wave, and rid 
 ing against the blast as thunder goes," to borrow 
 O Connell s graphic and grandiose phrases, had 
 reached the country in advance of Mr. Garrison. The 
 national sensitiveness was naturally enough stung to 
 the quick. Here is a pestilent fellow who is not 
 content with disturbing the peace of the Union with 
 his new fanaticism, but must needs presume to make 
 the dear Union odious before the world as well. And 
 his return, what is it to be but the signal for increased 
 agitation on 1 the slavery question. The conquering 
 hero comes and his fanatical followers salute him 
 forthwith with a ^new anti-slavery society, which 
 means a fresh instrument in his hands to stir up strife 
 between the North and the South. " Are we tamely 
 to look on, and se*e this most dangerous species of 
 fanaticism extending itself through society ? " shrieked 
 on the morning of Mr. Garrison s arrival in New York 
 Harbor, the malignant editor of the Courier and 
 Enquirer. 
 
 The pro-slavery and lawless elements of the city 
 were not slow to take the cue given by metropolitan 
 papers, and to do the duty of patriots upon their 
 country s enemies. Arthur Tappen and his anti-slav 
 ery associates outwitted these patriotic gentlemen, 
 who attended in a body at Clinton Hall on the even 
 ing of October 2, 1833, to perform the aforesaid duty 
 of patriots, while the objects of their attention were 
 convened at Chatham Street Chapel and organizing 
 their new fanaticism. The mob flew wide of its 
 
172 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 mark a second time, for when later in the evening t 
 began a serenade more expressive than musical before 
 the entrance to the little chapel on Chatham street 
 the members of the society " folded their tents like 
 the Arabs and as silently stole away." The Abolition 
 ists accomplished their design and eluded their ene 
 mies at the same time. But the significance of the 
 riotous demonstration went not unobserved by then 
 and their newly arrived leader. It was plain from 
 that night that if the spirit of Abolitionism had risen, 
 the spirit of persecution had risen also. 
 
 A somewhat similar reception saluted the reforme~ 
 in Boston. An inflammatory handbill announced to 
 his townsmen his arrival. " The true American, has 
 returned, alias William Lloyd Garrison, the Negro 
 Champion, from his disgraceful mission to the Brit 
 ish metropolis," etc., etc., and wound up its artful list 
 of lies with the malignant suggestion that " He is now 
 in your power do not let him escape you, but go 
 this evening, armed with plenty of tar and feathers 
 and administer to him justice at his abode at No. 9 
 Merchant s Hall, Congress street." In obedience to 
 this summons, a reception committee in the shape of 
 " a dense mob, breathing threatenings which forboded 
 a storm," did pay their respects to the " true Ameri 
 can " in front of his abode at the Liberator office. 
 Fortunately the storm passed over without breaking 
 that evening on the devoted head of the " Negro 
 Champion." But the meaning of the riotous demon 
 stration it was impossible to miss. Like the mob in 
 New York it clearly indicated that the country was 
 on the outer edge of an area of violent disturbances 
 on the. subject of slavery. 
 
AGITATION AND REPRESSION. 173 
 
 The peril which Garrison had twice escaped was 
 indeed grave, but neither it nor the certainty of 
 future persecution could flutter or depress his spirits. 
 " For myself," he wrote subsequently in the Liberator, 
 " I am ready to brave any danger even unto death. 
 I feel no uneasiness either in regard to my fate or to 
 the success of the cause of Abolition. Slavery must 
 speedily be abolished ; the blow that shall sever the 
 chains of the slaves may shake the nation to its 
 center may momentarily disturb the pillars of the 
 Union but it shall redeem the character, extend the 
 influence, establish the security, and increase the 
 prosperity of our great republic." It was not the 
 rage and malice of his enemies which the brave soul 
 minded, but the ever-present knowledge of human 
 beings in chains and slavery whom he must help. 
 Nothing could separate him from his duty to them, 
 neither dangers present nor persecutions to come. 
 The uncertainty of life made him only the more 
 zealous in their behalf. The necessity of doing, doing, 
 and yet ever doing for the slave was plainly pressing 
 deep like thorns into his thoughts. " I am more and 
 more impressed;" he wrote a friend a few weeks later, 
 " I am more and more impressed with the importance 
 of working whilst the day lasts. If we all do fade 
 as a leaf, if we are l as the sparks that fly upward, 
 if the billows of time are swiftly removing the sandy 
 foundation of our life, what we intend to do for the 
 captive, and for our country, and for the subjugation 
 of a hostile world, must be done quickly. Happily 
 our light afflictions are but for a moment. " 
 
 This yearning of the leader for increased activity 
 in the cause of immediate emancipation was shared 
 
174 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 by friends and disciples in different portions of the 
 country. Few and scattered as were the Abolition 
 ists, they so much the more needed to band together 
 for the great conflict with a powerful and organized 
 evil. This evil was organized on a national scale, 
 the forces of righteousness which were rising against 
 it, if they were ever to overcome it and rid the land 
 of it, had needs to be organized on a national seal* 
 also. Garrison with the instinct of a great reformer 
 early perceived the immense utility of a national 
 anti-slavery organization for mobilizing the whole 
 available Abolition sentiment of the free States in a 
 moral agitation of national and tremendous pro 
 portions. 
 
 He had not long to wait after his return from 
 England before this desire of his soul was satisfied. 
 It was in fact just a month afterward that a call for 
 a convention for the formation of the American Anti- 
 Slavery Society went out from New York to the friends 
 of immediate emancipation throughout the North. As 
 an evidence of the dangerously excited state of the 
 popular mind on the subject of slavery there stands 
 in the summons the significant request to delegates 
 to regard the call as confidential. The place fixed 
 upon for holding the convention was Philadelphia, 
 and the time December 4, 1833. 
 
 Garrison bestirred himself to obtain for the con 
 vention a full representation of the friends of free 
 dom. He sent the call to George W. Benson, at 
 Providence, urging him to spread the news among 
 the Abolitionists of his neighborhood and to secure 
 the election of a goodly number of delegates by the 
 society in Rhode Island. He forthwith bethought 
 
AGITATION AND REPRESSION. 175 
 
 him of Whittier on his farm in Haverhill, and 
 enjoined his old friend to fail not to appear in Phila 
 delphia. But while the young poet longed to go to 
 urge upon his Quaker brethren of that city " to make 
 their solemn testimony against slavery visible over 
 the whole land to urge them, by the holy memories 
 of Woolman and Benezet and Tyson to come up as 
 of old to the standard of Divine Truth, though even 
 the fires of another persecution should blaze around 
 them," he feared that he would not be able to do so. 
 The spirit was surely willing but the purse was 
 empty, " as thee know," he quaintly adds, "our farm 
 ing business does not put much cash in our pockets." 
 The cash he needed was generously supplied by 
 Samuel E. Sewall, and Whittier went as a delegate 
 to the convention after all. The disposition on the 
 part of some of the poorer delegates was so strong to 
 be present at the convention that not even the lack 
 of money was sufficient to deter them from setting 
 out on the expedition. Two of them, David T. Kim- 
 ball and Daniel E. Jewett, from Andover, Mass., did 
 actually supplement the deficiencies of their pocket-, 
 books by walking to New Haven, the aforesaid 
 pocket-books being equal to Jhe rest of the journey 
 from that point. 
 
 About sixty delegates found their way to Philadel 
 phia and organized on the morning of December 4th, 
 in Adelphi Hall, the now famous convention. It was 
 a notable gathering of apostolic spirits " mainly 
 composed of comparatively young men, some in 
 middle age, and a few beyond that period." They 
 had come together from ten of the twelve free States, 
 which fact goes to show the rapid, the almost epi- 
 
176 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 demic-like spread of Garrisonian Abolitionism through 
 the North. The Liberator was then scarcely three 
 years old, and its editor had not until the second day 
 of the convention attained the great age of twenty- 
 eight ! The convention of 1787 did not comprise 
 more genuine patriotism and wisdom than did this 
 memorable assembly of American Abolitionists. It 
 was from beginning to end an example of love to 
 God and love to men, of fearless scorn of injustice 
 and fearless devotion to liberty. Not one of those 
 three score souls who made up the convention, who 
 did not take his life in his hand by reason of the 
 act. It was not the love of fame surely which brought 
 them over so many hundreds of miles, which made so 
 many of them endure real physical privation, which 
 drew all by a common, an irresistible impulse to con 
 gregate for an unpopular purpose within reach of 
 the teeth and the claws of an enraged public 
 opinion. 
 
 The convention, as one man might have said with 
 the single-minded Lundy, " My heart was deeply 
 grieved at the gross abomination ; I heard the wail 
 of the captive ; I felt his pang of distress ; and the 
 iron entered my soul." The iron of slavery had 
 indeed entered the soul of every member of the con 
 vention. It was the divine pang and pity of it which 
 collected from the East and from the West this re 
 markable body of reformers. 
 
 The story of how they had to find a president illus 
 trates the contemporary distrust and antagonism, 
 which the anti-slavery movement aroused among the 
 men of standing and influence. Knowing in what 
 bad odor they were held by the community, and anx- 
 
AGITATION AND REPRESSION. 177 
 
 ious only to serve their cause in the most effective 
 manner, the members of the convention hit upon the 
 plan of asking some individual eminent for his res 
 pectability to preside over their deliberations, and 
 thereby disarm the public suspicions and quiet the 
 general apprehensions felt in respect of the incen 
 diary character of their intention. So in pursuance 
 of this plan six of their number were dispatched on 
 the evening of December 3d to seek such a man. But 
 the quest of the committee like that of Diogenes 
 proved a failure. After two attempts and two 
 repulses the committee were not disposed to invite 
 the humiliation of a third refusal and must have lis 
 tened with no little relief, to this blunt summary of 
 the situation by Beriah Green, who was one of the 
 six. " If there is not timber amongst ourselves," 
 quoth Green, " big enough to make a president of, 
 let us get along without one, or go home and stay 
 there until we have grown up to be men." The next 
 day Green was chosen, and established in a manner 
 never to be forgotten by his associates that the con 
 vention did possess " timber big enough to make a 
 president of." 
 
 Narrow as were the circumstances of many of the 
 members, the convention was by no means destitute 
 of men of wealth and business prominence. Such were 
 the Winslows, Isaac and Nathan, of Maine, Arnold 
 Buffum, of Massachusetts, and John Rankin and 
 Lewis Tappan, of New York. Scholarship, talents, 
 and eloquence abounded among the delegates. Here 
 there was no lack, no poverty, but extraordinary suf 
 ficiency, almost to redundancy. The presence of the 
 gentler sex was not wanting to lend grace and pictur- 
 
178 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 esqueness to the occasion. The beautiful and benig 
 nant countenance of Lucretia Mott shed over the 
 proceedings the soft radiance of a pure and regnant 
 womanhood ; while the handful of colored delegates 
 with the elegant figure of Robert Purvis at their head, 
 added pathos and picturesqueness to ihe personnel of 
 the convention. Neither was the element of danger 
 wanting to complete the historic scene. Its presence 
 was grimly manifest in the official intimation that 
 evening meetings of the convention could not be pro 
 tected, by the demonstrations of popular ill-will which 
 the delegates encountered on the streets, by the 
 detachment of constabulary guarding the entrance to 
 Adelphi Hall, and by the thrillingly significant precau 
 tion observed by the delegates of sitting with locked 
 doors. Over the assembly it impended cruel and 
 menacing like fate. Once securely locked within the 
 hall, the Abolitionists discreetly abstained from leav 
 ing it at noon for dinner, well knowing how small a 
 spark it takes to kindle a great fire. It was foolhardy 
 to show themselves nnnecessarily to the excited 
 crowds in the streets, and so mindful that true cour 
 age consisteth not in recklessness, they despatched 
 one of their number for crackers and cheese, which 
 they washed down with copious draughts of cold 
 water. But they had that to eat and drink besides, 
 whereof the spirits of mischief without could not 
 conceive. 
 
 The grand achievement of the convention was, of 
 course, the formation of the American Anti-Slavery 
 Society, but the crown of the whole was unquestion 
 ably the Declaration of Sentiments. The composi 
 tion of this instrument has an interesting history. It 
 
AGITATION AND REPRESSION. 179 
 
 seems that the delegates considered that the remark 
 able character of the movement which they were 
 launching upon the wide sea of national attention 
 demanded of them an expression altogether worthy 
 of so momentous an undertaking. The adoption of 
 a constitution for this purpose was felt to be inade 
 quate. A constitution was indispensable, but some 
 other expression was necessary to give to their work 
 its proper proportion and importance. Such a man 
 ifestation it was deemed meet to make in the form of 
 a declaration of sentiments. A committee was accord 
 ingly appointed to draft the declaration. This com 
 mittee named three of its number, consisting of Gar 
 rison, Whittier, and Samuel J. May to draw up the 
 document. The sub-committee in turn deputed Gar 
 rison to do the business. 
 
 Mr. May has told in his Recollections of the Anti- 
 Slavery Conflict, how he and Whittier left their friend 
 at ten o clock in the evening, agreeing to call at eight 
 the following morning and how on their return at 
 the appointed hour they found Garrison with shutters 
 closed and lamps burning, penning the last para 
 graph of the admirable document. He has told how 
 they three read it over together two or three times, 
 making some slight alterations in it, and how at nine 
 o clock the draft was laid by them before the whole 
 committee. The author of the recollections has left 
 a graphic account of its effect upon the convention. 
 " Never in my life," he says, " have I seen a deeper 
 impression made by words than was made by that 
 admirable document upon all who were present. 
 After the voice of the reader had ceased there was 
 silence for several minutes. Our hearts were in per- 
 
l8o WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 feet unison. There was but one thought with us all. 
 Either of the members could have told what the 
 whole convention felt. We felt that the word had 
 just been uttered which would be mighty, through 
 God, to the pulling down of the strongholds of 
 slavery." Such was the scene at the first reading of 
 the Declaration of Sentiments, Dr. Atlee, the reader. 
 The effect at its final reading was, if possible, even 
 more dramatic and eloquent. Whittier has depicted 
 this closing and thrilling scene. He has described 
 how Samuel J. May read the declaration for the last 
 time. " His sweet, persuasive voice faltered with 
 the intensity of his emotions as he repeated the 
 solemn pledges of the concluding paragraphs. After 
 a season of silence, David Thurston of Maine, rose as 
 his name was called by one of the secretaries and 
 affixed his name to the document. One after another 
 passed up to the platform, signed, and retired in 
 silence. All felt the deep responsibility of the occa 
 sion the shadow and forecast of a life-long struggle 
 rested upon every countenance." 
 
 The effects, so electrical and impressive, which fol 
 lowed the reading of the declaration were not 
 disproportioned to its merits, for it was an instru 
 ment of singular power, wisdom, and eloquence. 
 Indeed, to this day, more than half a century after it 
 was written it still has virtue to quicken the breath 
 and stir the pulses of a sympathetic reader out of 
 their normal time. A great passion for freedom and 
 righteousness irradiates like a central light the whole 
 memorable document. It begins by a happy refer 
 ence to an earlier convention, held some fifty-seven 
 years before in the same place, and which adopted a 
 
AGITATION AND REPRESSION. l8l 
 
 declaration holding " that all men are created equal ; 
 that they are endowed by their Creator with certain 
 inalienable rights ; that among these are life, LIBERTY, 
 and the pursuit of happiness ; " and how at the trum 
 pet-call of its authors three millions of people rushed 
 to arms "deeming it more glorious to die instantly 
 as free men, than desirable to live one hour as slaves"; 
 and how, though few in number and poor in re 
 sources those same people were rendered invincible 
 by the conviction that truth, justice, and right were 
 on their side. But the freedom won by the men of 
 1776 was incomplete without the freedom for which 
 the men of 1833 were striving. The authors of the 
 new declaration would not be inferior to the authors 
 of the old " in purity of motive, in earnestness of 
 zeal, in decision of purpose, intrepidity of action, in 
 steadfastness of faith, in sincerity of spirit." Unlike 
 the older actors, the younger had eschewed the 
 sword, the spilling of human blood in defence of 
 their principles. Theirs was a moral warfare, the 
 grappling of truth with error, of the power of love 
 with the inhumanities of the nation. Then it glances 
 at the wrongs which the fathers suffered, and at the 
 enormities which the slaves were enduring. The 
 " fathers were never slaves, never bought and sold 
 like cattle, never shut out from the light of knowledge 
 and religion, never subjected to the lash of brutal 
 taskmasters," but all these woes and more, an unim 
 aginable mountain of agony and misery, was the 
 appalling lot of the slaves in the Southern States. 
 The guilt of this nation, which partners such a crime 
 against human nature, " is unequaled by any other 
 on earth," and therefore it is bound to instant repent- 
 
182 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 ance, and to the immediate restitution of justice to 
 the oppressed. 
 
 The Declaration of Sentiments denies the right of 
 man to hold property in a brother man, affirms the 
 identity in principle between the African slave trade 
 and American slavery, the imprescriptibility of the 
 rights of the slaves to liberty, the nullity of all laws 
 which run counter to human rights, and the grand 
 doctrine of civil and political equality in the Repub 
 lic, regardless of race and complexional differences. 
 It boldly rejects the principle of compensated eman 
 cipation, because it involves a surrender of the posi 
 tion that man cannot hold property in man ; because 
 slavery is a crime, and the master is not wronged by 
 emancipation but the slaves righted, restored to 
 themselves ; because immediate and general emanci 
 pation would only destroy nominal, not real, property, 
 the labor of the slaves would still remain to the 
 masters and doubled by the new motives which free 
 dom infuses into the breasts of her children ; and, 
 finally because, if compensation is to be given at all it 
 ought to be given to those who have been plundered 
 of their rights. It spurns in one compact paragraph 
 the pretensions of the colonization humbug as "delu 
 sive, cruel, and dangerous." 
 
 But lofty and uncompromising as were the moral 
 principles and positions of the declaration, it never 
 theless recognized with perspicuity of vision the 
 Constitutional limitations of the Federal Govern 
 ment in relation to slavery. It frankly conceded 
 that Congress had no right to meddle with the evil in 
 any of the States. But wherever the national juris 
 diction reached the general government was bound 
 
AGITATION AND REPRESSION. 183 
 
 to interfere and suppress the traffic in human flesh t 
 It was the duty of Congress, inasmuch as it possessed 
 the power, to abolish slavery in the District of 
 Columbia, the National Territories, along the coast 
 and between the States. The free States are the 
 particeps criminis of the slave States. They are living 
 under a pledge of their tremendous physical force to 
 rivet the manacles of chattel slavery upon millions in 
 the South ; they are liable at any instant to be called 
 on under the Constitution to suppress a general 
 insurrection of the slaves. This relationship is crimi 
 nal, " is full of danger, IT MUST BE BROKEN UP." 
 
 So much for the views and principles of the 
 declaration, now for the designs and measures as 
 enumerated therein : " We shall organize anti-slavery 
 societies, if possible, in every city, town and village 
 in our land. 
 
 " We shall send forth agents to lift up the voice of 
 remonstrance, of warning, of entreaty, and of rebuke. 
 
 " We shall circulate, unsparingly and extensively, 
 anti-slavery tracts and periodicals. 
 
 " We shall enlist the pulpit and the press in the 
 cause of the suffering and the dumb. 
 
 " We shall aim at a purification of the churches 
 from all participation in the guilt of slavery. 
 
 " We shall encourage the labor of freemen rather 
 than that of slaves, by giving a preference to their 
 productions ; and 
 
 " We shall spare no exertions nor means to bring 
 the whole nation to speedy repentance." 
 
 The instrument closes by pledging the utmost of 
 its signers to the overthrow of slavery " come what 
 may to our persons, our interests, or our reputations 
 
184 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 whether we live to witness the triumph of Liberty, 
 Justice, and Humanity, or perish untimely as mar 
 tyrs in this great, benevolent, and holy cause." Twin 
 pledge it was to that ancestral, historic one made in 
 1776 : " And for the support of this declaration, with 
 a firm reliance on the protection of DIVINE PROVI 
 DENCE, we mutually pledge to each other, our lives, 
 our fortunes, and our sacred honor." 
 
 Whittier has predicted for the Declaration of 
 Sentiments an enduring fame : " It will live," he 
 declares, " as long as our national history." Samuel 
 J. May was equally confident that this " Declaration of 
 the Rights of Man," as he proudly cherished it, would 
 " live a perpetual, impressive protest against every 
 form of oppression, until it shall have given place to 
 that brotherly kindness which all the children of the 
 common Father owe to one another " As a particu 
 lar act and parchment-roll of high thoughts and 
 resolves, highly expressed, it will not, I think, attain 
 to the immortality predicted for it. For as such it 
 has in less than two generations passed almost 
 entirely out of the knowledge and recollection of 
 Americans. But in another sense it is destined to 
 realize all that has been foreshadowed for it by its 
 friends. Like elemental fire its influence will glow 
 and flame at the center of our national life long after 
 as a separate and sovereign entity it shall have been 
 forgotten by the descendants of its illustrious author 
 and signers. 
 
 The convention was in session three days, and its 
 proceedings were filled with good resolutions and 
 effective work. Arthur Tappan was elected Presi 
 dent of the national organization, and William Green, 
 
AGITATION AND REPRESSION. 185 
 
 Jr., Treasurer. Elizur Wright, Jr., was chosen Secre 
 tary of Domestic Correspondence, William Lloyd 
 Garrison Secretary of Foreign Correspondence, and 
 Abraham L. Cox Recording Secretary. Besides 
 these officers there were a Board of Management and 
 a number of Vice-Presidents selected. For three 
 days the hearts of the delegates burned within them 
 toward white-browed Duty and the master, Justice, 
 who stood in their midst and talked with divine 
 accents to their spirits of how men were enslaved 
 and cruelly oppressed by men, their own brothers, 
 and how the cry of these bondmen came up to 
 them for help. And with one accord there fell upon 
 the delegates a pang and pity, an uplifting, impelling 
 sense of woe unto us if we withhold from our 
 brethren in bonds the help required of us. This 
 rising tide of emotion and enthusiasm gathering 
 mass at each sitting of the convention, culminated 
 during the several readings of the Declaration of 
 Sentiments. And when on the third day Beriah 
 Green brought the congress to a close in a valedic 
 tory address of apostolic power and grandeur, and 
 with a prayer so sweet, so fervent, and strong as to 
 melt all hearts, the pent-up waters of the reform was 
 ready to hurl themselves into an agitation the like 
 of which had never before, nor has since, been seen 
 or felt in the Union. Thenceforth freedom s little 
 ones were not without great allies, who were " ex 
 ultations, agonies, and love, and man s unconquerable 
 mind." 
 
 Everywhere the flood of Abolitionism burst upon 
 the land, everywhere the moral deluge spread through 
 the free States. Anti-slavery societies rose as it were, 
 
1 86 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 out of the ground, so rapid, so astonishing were their 
 growth during the year following the formation of 
 the national society. In nearly every free State they 
 had appeared doubling and quadrupling in number, 
 until new societies reached in that first year to up 
 wards of forty. Anti-slavery agents and lecturers 
 kept pace with the anti-slavery societies. They began 
 to preach, to remonstrate, to warn, entreat, and re 
 buke until their voices sounded like the roar of many 
 waters in the ears of the people. Wherever there was 
 a school-house, a hall, or a church, there they were, 
 ubiquitous, irrepressible, a cry in the wilderness of a 
 nation s iniquity. Anti-slavery tracts and periodicals 
 multiplied and started from New York and Boston 
 in swarms, and clouds, the thunder of their wings 
 were as the thunder of falling avelanches to the guilty 
 conscience of the country. There was no State, 
 city, town, or village in the Republic where their 
 voice was not heard. 
 
 The Rev. Amos A Phelp s " Lectures on Slavery 
 and Its Remedy; " "the Rev. J. D. Paxton s Letters 
 on Slavery ; the Rev. S. J. May s letters to Andrew 
 T, Judson, The Rights of Colored People to Educa 
 tion Vindicated ; Prof. Elizur Wright, Jr s, Sin of 
 Slavery and Its Remedy ; Whittier s Justice and Ex 
 pediency ; and, above all, Mrs. Lydia Maria Child s 
 startling * Appeal in favor of that class of Americans 
 called Africans were the more potent of the new 
 crop of writings betokening the vigor of Mr. Garrison s 
 Propagandism," says that storehouse of anti- 
 slavery facts the " Life of Garrison " by his children. 
 Swift poured the flood, widespread the inundation of 
 anti-slavery publications, Money, although not com- 
 
AGITATION AND REPRESSION. 187 
 
 mensurate with the vast wants of the crusade, came 
 in in copious and generous streams. A marvelous 
 munificence characterized the charity of wealthy 
 Abolitionists. The poor gave freely of their mite, 
 and the rich as freely of their thousands. Something 
 of the state of simplicity and community of goods 
 which marked the early disciples of Christianity 
 seemed to have revived in the hearts of this band of 
 American reformers. A spirit of renunciation, of 
 self-sacrifice, of brotherly kindness, of passionate love 
 of righteousness, of passionate hatred of wrong, of 
 self-consecration to truth and of martyrdom lifted 
 the reform to as high a moral level as had risen 
 any movement for the betterment of mankind in any 
 age of the world. 
 
 The resolutions of the signers of the Declaration of 
 Sentiment, to enlist the pulpit in the cause of the 
 suffering and dumb, and to attempt the purification 
 of the churches from all participation in the guilt of 
 slavery, encountered determined opposition from the 
 pulpits and the churches themselves. The Abolition 
 ists were grieved and indignant at the pro-slavery 
 spirit which pulpits and churches displayed. But 
 what happened was as we now look back at those 
 proceedings, an inevitable occurrence, a foregone 
 conclusion. The pulpits were only representative of 
 the religion of the pews, and the pews were occupied 
 by the same sort of humanity that toil and spin and 
 haggle over dollars and cents six out of every seven 
 days. They have their selfish and invested interests, 
 fixed social notions, relationships, and prejudices, 
 which an episode like Sunday, churches, and sermons 
 do not seriously affect. Indeed, Sunday, churches, 
 
1 88 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 and sermons constitute an institution of modern civil 
 ization highly conservative of invested interests, 
 fixed social notions, relationships, and prejudices. 
 Who advances a new idea, a reformatory movement, 
 disturbs the status quo, stirs up the human bees in 
 that great hive called society, and that lesser one 
 called the church, and he must needs expect to have 
 the swarm about his head. 
 
 This was precisely what happened in the case of 
 the anti-slavery movement. It threatened the then 
 status quo of property rights, it attacked the fixed 
 social notions, relationships, and prejudices of the 
 South and of the North alike. The revolution which 
 this new idea involved in the slave States, was of the 
 most radical character, going down to a complete re 
 construction of their entire social system. At once 
 the human hornets were aroused, and in these circum 
 stances, the innocent and the guilty were furiously 
 beset. Because the new idea which disturbed the 
 South had originated in the North, the wrath of the 
 South rose hot against not the authors of the new 
 idea alone but against the people of that section as 
 well. But this sectional unpleasantness endangered 
 the stability of the Union, and menaced with obstruc 
 tions and diversions the golden stream of Northern 
 traffic, dollars, and dividends. This was intolerable, 
 and forthwith the Apiarian brotherhood of the free 
 States put together their heads with those of the slave 
 States to attack, sting, and utterly abolish the new 
 idea, and the new idea s supporters. The Northern 
 churches were, of course, in the Northern brother 
 hood. And when the new fanaticism threatened the 
 financial stability of the pews, the pulpits instead of 
 
AGITATION AND REPRESSION. 189 
 
 exerting themselves in behalf of the suffering and 
 dumb slaves, exerted themselves to preserve the pros 
 perity of the pews by frowning down the friends of 
 the slaves. They were among the first to stone the 
 new idea and its fiery prophets. " Away with them! " 
 shouted in chorus pulpit and pews. Sad ? yes, but 
 alas ! natural, too. These men were not better nor 
 worse than the average man. They were the average 
 men of their generation, selfish, narrow, material, 
 encrusted in their prejudices like snails in their shells, 
 struggling upward at a snail s pace to the larger life, 
 with its added sweetness and humanities, but experi 
 encing many a discomfiture by the way from those 
 foul and triple fiends, the World, the Flesh, and the 
 Devil. 
 
 Nowhere in the churches was their opposition to 
 the Abolition movement more persistent and illiberal 
 than in the theological seminaries, whence the pulpits 
 drew their supplies of preachers. Like master, like 
 servant, these institutions were indentured to the pub 
 lic, and reflected as in a mirror the body and pressure 
 of its life and sentiment. That a stream cannot rise 
 higher than its source, although a theological stream, 
 found remarkable demonstration in the case of Lane 
 Seminary. Here after the publication of the 
 "Thoughts on Colonization," and the formation of 
 the National Society, an earnest spirit of inquiry broke 
 out among the students on the subject of slavery. It 
 was at first encouraged by the President, Lyman 
 Beecher, who offered to go in and discuss the question 
 with his "boys." That eminent man did not long 
 remain in this mind. The discussions which he so 
 lightly allowed swept through the institution with the 
 
IQO WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 force of a great moral awakening. They were con 
 tinued during nine evenings and turned the seminary 
 at their close, so far as the students went, into an 
 anti-slavery society. This is not the place to go at 
 length into the history of that anti-slavery debate, 
 which, in its consequences, proved one of the events 
 of the anti-slavery conflict. Its leader was Theodore 
 D. Weld, who was until Wendell Phillips appeared 
 upon the scene, the great orator of the agitation. 
 
 Dr. Beecher had no notion of raising such a ghost 
 when he said, " Go ahead, boys, I ll go in and discuss 
 with you." It was such an apparition of independence 
 and righteousness as neither the power of the trustees 
 nor the authority of the faculty was ever able to dis 
 miss. The virtue of a gag rule was tried to suppress 
 Abolition among the students, but instead of suppress 
 ing Abolition, it well-nigh suppressed the seminary; 
 for, rather than wear a gag on the obnoxious subject, 
 the students to between seventy and eighty, compris 
 ing nearly the whole muster-roll of the school with 
 drew from an institution where the exercise of the 
 right of free inquiry and free speech on a great moral 
 question was denied and repressed. The same spirit 
 of repression arose later in the Theological School at 
 Andover, Mass. There the gag was effectively applied 
 by the faculty, and all inquiry and discussion relat 
 ing to slavery disappeared among the students. But 
 the attempt to impose silence upon the students of 
 Phillips s Academy near-by was followed by the seces 
 sion of forty or fifty of the students. 
 
 Ah ! the Abolitionists had undertaken to achieve 
 the impossible, when they undertook to enlist the 
 pulpit in the cause of the slaves, and to purify the 
 
AGITATION AND REPRESSION. 191 
 
 churches from all participation in the guilt of slavery. 
 For the average man, whether within or without the 
 church, is not controlled in his conduct toward his 
 brother man by the principles aud precepts of Jesus, 
 but by the laws of social and individual selfishness. 
 These selfish forces may at epochal moments align 
 themselves with justice and liberty, and they not 
 infrequently do, otherwise human progress must be 
 at an end. In advancing themselves, they perforce 
 advance justice and liberty. Thus do men love their 
 neighbors as themselves, and move forward to frater 
 nity and equality in kingdoms and commonwealths. 
 The special province of moral reformers, like Garri 
 son and the Abolitionists, seems to be to set these 
 egoistic and altruistic elements of human society at 
 war, the one against the other, thereby compelling its 
 members and classes, willy nilly, to choose between 
 the belligerents. Some will enlist on one side, some 
 on the other, but in the furnace heat of the passions 
 which ensues, an ancient evil, or a bad custom or 
 institution, gets the vitality burned out of it, which in 
 due time falls as slag out of the new order that arises 
 at the close of the conflict. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 MR. GARRISON, in a private letter to a friend under 
 date of September 12, 1834, summarises the doings 
 of the preceding twelve months of his life, and makes 
 mention of a fact which lends peculiar interest to 
 that time : " It has been the most eventful year," he 
 remarks, " in my history. I have been the occasion 
 of many uproars, and a continual disturber of the 
 public peace. As soon as I landed I turned the city 
 of New York upside down. Five thousand people 
 turned out to see me tarred and feathered, but were 
 disappointed. There was also a small hubbub in 
 Boston on my arrival. The excitement passed away, 
 but invective and calumny still followed me. By 
 dint of some industry and much persuasion, I suc 
 ceeded in inducing the Abolitionists in New York to 
 join our little band in Boston, in calling a national 
 convention at Philadelphia. We met, and such a 
 body of men, for zeal, firmness, integrity, benevo 
 lence, and moral greatness, the world has rarely seen in 
 a single assembly. Inscribed upon a declaration which 
 it was my exalted privilege to write, their names can 
 perish only with the knowledge of the history of our 
 times. A National Anti-Slavery Society was formed, 
 which astonished the country by its novelty, and 
 
BETWEEN THE ACTS. 193 
 
 awed it by its boldness. In five months its first annual 
 meeting was held in the identical city in which, only 
 seven antecedent months, Abolitionists were in peril 
 of their lives. In ability, interest, and solemnity it 
 took precedence of all the great religious celebrations 
 which took place at the same time. During the same 
 month, a New England anti-slavery convention was 
 held in Boston, and so judicious were its measures, 
 so eloquent its appeals, so unequivocal its resolutions, 
 that it at once gave shape and character to the anti- 
 slavery cause in this section of the Union. In the 
 midst of all these mighty movements, I have wooed 
 "a fair ladye," and won her, have thrown aside 
 celebacy, and jumped body and soul into matrimony, 
 have sunk the character of bachelor in that of hus 
 band, have settled down into domestic quietude, and 
 repudiated all my roving desires, and have found that 
 which I have long been yearning to find, a home, a 
 wife, and a beautiful retreat from a turbulent city." 
 Garrison does not exaggerate the importance of 
 the initiatives and achievements of the year, or the 
 part played by him in its history. His activity was 
 indeed phenomenal, and the service rendered by him 
 to the reform, was unrivaled. He was in incessant 
 motion, originating, directing, inspiring the agitation 
 in all portions of the North. What strikes one 
 strongly in studying the pioneer is his sleeplessness, 
 his indefatigableness, his persistency in pursuit of his 
 object. Others may rest after a labor, may have 
 done one, two, or three distinct tasks, but between 
 Garrison s acts there is no hiatus, each follows each, 
 and is joined to all like links in a chain. He never 
 closed his eyes, nor folded his arms, but went for- 
 
194 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 ward from work to work with the consecutiveness or 
 a law of nature. 
 
 But amid labors so strenuous and uninterrupted 
 the leader found opportunity to woo and win " a fait 
 ladye." She was a daughter of a veteran Abolitionist, 
 George Benson, of Brooklyn, Conn., who with his 
 sons George W. and Henry E. Benson, were among 
 the stanchest of the reformer s followers and sup 
 porters. The young wife, before her marriage, was 
 not less devoted to the cause than they. She was in 
 closest sympathy with her husband s anti-slavery 
 interests and purposes. Never had husband found wife 
 better fitted to his needs, and the needs of his life 
 work. So that it might be truly said that Garrison 
 even when he went a- wooing forgot not his cause and 
 that when he took a wife, he made at the same time 
 a grand contribution to its ultimate triumph. 
 
 How did Helen Eliza Garrison serve the great 
 cause ? One who knew shall tell. He has told it in 
 his own unequaled way. " That home," he says, "was 
 a great help. Her husband s word and pen scattered 
 his purpose far and wide ; but the comrades that his 
 ideas brought to his side her welcome melted into 
 friends. No matter how various and discordant they 
 were in many things no matter how much there was 
 to bear and overlook her patience and her thanks 
 for their sympathy in the great idea were always suf 
 ficient for the work also. . . . In that group of remark 
 able men and women which the anti-slavery move 
 ment drew together, she had her own niche which 
 no one else could have filled so perfectly or uncon 
 sciously as she did. . . . She forgot, omitted nothing. 
 How much we all owe her ! " These were words 
 
BETWEEN THE ACTS. 195 
 
 spoken by a friend, whose name will appear later on 
 in this story; words spoken by him at the close of her 
 beautiful life, as she lay dead in her coffin. 
 
 And here is another account of her written by the 
 husband on the first anniversary of their marriage : 
 " I did not marry her," he confides to her brother 
 George, " expecting that she would assume a promi 
 nent station in the anti-slavery cause, but for domes 
 tic quietude and happiness. So completely absorbed 
 am I in that cause, that it was undoubtedly wise in 
 me to select as a partner one who, while her benevo 
 lent feelings were in union with mine, was less immed 
 iately and entirely connected with it. I knew she 
 was naturally diffident, and distrustful of her own 
 ability to do all that her heart might prompt. She is 
 one of those who prefer to toil unseen to give by 
 stealth and to sacrifice in seclusion. By her unwear 
 ied attention to my wants, her sympathetic regards, 
 her perfect equanimity of mind, and her sweet and 
 endearing manners ; she is no trifling support to 
 Abolitionism, inasmuch as she lightens my labors, and 
 enables me to find exquisite delight in the family cir 
 cle, as an offset to public adversity." 
 
 And here is a lovely bit of self-revelation made to her 
 betrothed several months before they were wedded. 
 " I am aware of the responsibility that will devolve 
 upon me," she writes, " and how much my example 
 will be copied among that class you have so long 
 labored to elevate and enlighten. I have been con 
 sidering how the colored people think of dress, and 
 how much of their profits are expended for useless 
 ornaments that foolishly tend to make a show and 
 parade. As much stress will, of course, be laid on 
 
196 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 Garrison s wife by that class, it behooves me to be 
 very circumspect in all things, when called upon to 
 fill so important a station." 
 
 The marriage occurred September 4, 1834, and the 
 next day the pair set up housekeeping in " Freedom s 
 Cottage," on Bower street, Roxbury. The young 
 housekeepers were rich in every good thing except 
 money; and of that commodity there was precious 
 little that found its way into the family till. And 
 money was indispensable even to a philanthropist, 
 who cared as little for it as did Garrison. He had 
 never in his twenty-eight years experienced the sensa 
 tion which a bank account, however small, gives its 
 possessor. He had been toiling during the last three 
 years in a state of chronic self-forgetfulness, and of 
 consequence in a state of chronic inpecuniosity. He 
 had never been careful of what he got was careful 
 only of what he gave. For himself he was ready to 
 subsist on bread and water and to labor more than 
 fourteen hours at the case to make the issue of the 
 Liberator possible. But surely he could not put "a fair 
 ladye " on such limited commons even for the sake of 
 his cause. The laborer is worthy of his hire, and an 
 unworldly minded reformer ought to be supplied with 
 the wherewithal needful to feed, clothe, and house 
 himself and those dependent upon him. Some such 
 thought shaped itself in Garrison s mind as his cir 
 cumstances grew more and more straitened, and his 
 future as the head of a family looked more and more 
 ominous. Anxiety for the morrow pressed heavily 
 upon him as his responsibilities as a breadwinner 
 hugged closer and closer his everyday life. Poverty 
 ceased to be the ordinary enemy of former years, 
 
BETWEEN THE ACTS. 197 
 
 whom he from the lookouts of the unconquerable 
 mind used to laugh to scorn ; it had become instead 
 a cruel foe who worried as by fire the peace of his 
 soul. 
 
 There was the Liberator? The Liberator as a 
 moral engine was a marvelous success ; but the 
 Liberator as a money-maker was a most dismal fail 
 ure. If its owners had possessed only common apti 
 tude for business the failure need not have been so 
 complete, indeed the enterprise might have been 
 crowned with a moderate degree of success. But 
 never were two men more entirely lacking in the 
 methods, which should enter into ventures of that 
 character, than were Garrison and Knapp. Garrison 
 was unfortunate in this respect but it seems that 
 Knapp was more so. Neither took to book-keeping, 
 and neither overcame his serious deficiency in this 
 regard. The consequence was that the books kept 
 themselves, and confusion grew upon confusion until 
 the partners were quite confounded. Garrison naively 
 confesses this fault of the firm to his brother-in-law 
 thus : " Brother Knapp, you know, resembles me 
 very closely in his habits of procrastination. Indeed 
 I think he is rather worse than I am in this respect ! " 
 
 The paper was issued originally without a single 
 subscriber. At the end of the first volume the sub 
 scription list numbered five hundred names. In the 
 course of the next two volumes this number was 
 more than doubled, almost tripled, in fact. The sub 
 scription price was two dollars. The property would 
 have begun from this point to make returns to its 
 owners had they possessed the business training and 
 instinct requisite to its successful management. But 
 
198 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 they were reformers, not money-getters, and instead 
 of enjoying the profits they proceeded to use them 
 up incontinently in their first enlargement of the 
 paper. But while they had added to the cost of 
 publication, they took no thought to augment the 
 cost of subscription. The publishers gave more and 
 the subscribers received more for the sum of two 
 dollars. The pecuniary embarrassments of the 
 Liberator increased, and so the partners " bondage to 
 penury " increased also. This growing pressure was 
 finally relieved by "several generous donations," 
 made for the support of the paper. At the beginning 
 of the fourth volume, the publishers wisely or other- 
 wisely, again enlarged their darling, and again neg 
 lected to raise the subscription rates at the same 
 time. 
 
 Misfortunes never come without company, but alight 
 in flocks, and a whole flock of misfortunes it was to 
 the Liberator when Joshua Coffin, " that huge per 
 sonification of good humor," was appointed canvass 
 ing agent for the paper. He was as wanting in 
 business methods as his employers were. Confusion 
 now gathered upon confusion around the devoted 
 heads of the partners, was accelerated and became 
 daily more and more portentous and inextricable. 
 The delinquencies of subscribers grew more and 
 more grave. On the three first volumes they were 
 two thousand dollars in arrears to the paper. This 
 was a large, a disastrous loss, but traceable, to no 
 inconsiderable extent, doubtless, to the loose busi 
 ness methods of the reformer and his partner. The 
 Liberator at the beginning of its fourth year was 
 struggling in a deep hole of financial helplessness 
 
BETWEEN THE ACTS, 199 
 
 and chaos. Would it ever get out alive, or SHALL 
 THE LIBERA TOR DIE ? " burst in a cry of anguish, 
 almost despair, from its editor, so weak in thought of 
 self, so supreme in thought of others. 
 
 This carelessness of what appertained to the things 
 which concerned self, and devotion to the things 
 which concerned his cause, finds apt and pathetic 
 illustration in this letter to Samuel J. May in the sum 
 mer of 1834, when his pecuniary embarrassments and 
 burdens were never harder to carry : 
 
 " In reply to your favor of the 24th [July], my 
 partner joins with me in consenting to print an edi 
 tion of Miss Crandall s [defence] as large as the one 
 proposed by you, at our own risk. As to the profits 
 that may arise from the sale of the pamphlet, we do 
 not expect to make any ; on the contrary, we shall 
 probably suffer some loss, in consequence of the diffi 
 culty of disposing of any publication, however inter 
 esting or valuable in itself. But a trial so important 
 as Miss C. s, involving such momentous consequences 
 to a large portion of our countrymen, implicating so 
 deeply the character of this great nation, ought not to 
 go unpublished, and shall not while we have the nec 
 essary materials for printing it." 
 
 It is interesting to note that the weekly circu 
 lation of the Liberator, in the spring of 1834, was 
 twenty-three hundred copies, and that this num 
 ber was distributed in Philadelphia, four hun 
 dred ; in New York, three hundred ; in Boston, 
 two hundred ; in other parts of the free States 
 eleven hundred ; and that of the remaining three hun 
 dred, one-half was sent as exchange with other papers, 
 and eighty of the other half were divided equally 
 
2OO WILLIAK LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 between England and Hayti, leaving seventy copies 
 for gratuitous distribution. The colored subscribers 
 to the paper were to the whites as three to one. 
 
 There were several suggestions by sundry friends 
 looking to the release of the Liberator from its 
 embarrassments, and, to the relief of its unselfish 
 publishers, from the grinding poverty which its 
 issue imposed upon them. The most hopeful 
 and feasible of them was the scheme of which 
 Garrison wrote his betrothed April 14, 1834: "I 
 am happy to say," he pours into her ears, " that it 
 is probable the managers of the New England Anti- 
 Slavery Society will determine, to-morrow afternoon, 
 to take all the pecuniary liabilities of the Liberator 
 hereafter, and give me a regular salary for editing it, 
 and friend Knapp a fair price for printing it. My sal 
 ary will not be less than $800 per annum, and perhaps 
 it will be fixed at a $1,000. . . . The new arrangement 
 will go into effect on the ist of July." But alas; the 
 managers took no such action on the morrow, nor 
 went the "new arrangement " into effect at the time 
 anticipated. The editor was married in September, 
 and two months later the eagerly expected relief was 
 still delayed. This hope deferred must have caused 
 the young husband meanwhile no little anxiety and 
 heart sickness. 
 
 Love in a cottage is very pretty and romantic in 
 novels, but love in a cottage actually thriving on 
 " bread and water," was a sweet reality in the home 
 of the young couple in Roxbury. "All the world loves 
 a lover," says Emerson, but alas! there are exceptions 
 to all rules, and all the world loved not Garrison in 
 his newly found felicity as shall presently appear. 
 
BETWEEN THE ACTS. 2OI 
 
 The pledge made by the reformer in the initial 
 number of the Liberator to be " as harsh as truth," 
 had been kept to the letter. To some minds there is 
 nothing more difficult to understand and tolerate 
 than is the use of harsh language toward individual 
 wrongdoers. They appear to be much more solici 
 tous to turn away the wrath of the wicked than to 
 do away with their wickedness. Multitudes of such 
 minds were offended at the tremendous seventies of 
 Garrison s speech. They were for peace at any cost, 
 while Garrison was for truth at any cost. These pro- 
 slavery critics were not necessarily wanting in good 
 feelings to the slaves, or lacking in a sense of the 
 justice of their cause. But the feelings and the sense 
 were transitive to an abstract object, intransitive to 
 that terrible reality, the American slave. The indig 
 nation of such people exceeded all bounds when con 
 templating wrongs in the abstract, iniquity in the 
 abstract, while the genuine article in flesh and blood 
 and habited in broadcloth and respectability provoked 
 no indignation, provoked instead unbounded charity 
 for the willing victims of ancestral transgressions. 
 Upon the Southern slaveholder, as a creature of cir 
 cumstances, these people expended all their sympathy 
 while upon the Southern slave, who were to their 
 view the circumstances, they looked with increasing 
 disapprobation. Garrison s harsh language greatly 
 shocked this class excited their unbounded indigna 
 tion against the reformer. 
 
 Besides this class there was another, composed of 
 friends, whom Garrison s denunciatory style offended. 
 To Charles Pollen and Charles Stuart, and Lewis 
 Tappan, this characteristic of the writings of the 
 
202 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 great agitator was a sore trial. To them and to 
 others, too, his language seemed grossly intemperate 
 and vituperative, and was deemed productive of 
 harm to the movement. But Garrison defended his 
 harsh language by pointing to the state of the coun 
 try on the subject of slavery before he began to use 
 it, and to the state of the country afterward. How 
 utterly and morally dead the nation was before, how 
 keenly and marvelously alive it became afterward. 
 The blast which he had blown had jarred upon the 
 senses of his slumbering countrymen he admitted, 
 but he should not be blamed for that. What to his 
 critics sounded harsh and abusive, was to him the 
 trump of God. For, at the thunder-peal which the 
 Almighty blew from the mouth of his servant, how, 
 as by a miracle, the dead soul of the nation awoke to 
 righteousness. He does not arrogate to himself in 
 fallibility, indeed he is sure that his language is not 
 always happily chosen. Such errors, however, appear 
 to him trivial, in view of indisputable and extraordi 
 nary results produced by the Liberator. He believes 
 in marrying masculine truths to masculine words. 
 He protests against his condemnation by compari 
 son. " Every writer s style is his own it may be 
 smooth or rough, plain or obscure, simple or grand, 
 feeble or strong," he contends, " but principles are im 
 mutable." By his principles, therefore he would, be 
 judged. " Whittier, for instance,/ he continues, " is 
 highly poetical, exuberant, and beautiful. Stuart is 
 solemn, pungent, and severe. Wright is a thorough 
 logician, dextrous, transparent, straightforward. 
 Beriah Green is manly, eloquent, vigorous, devotional. 
 May is persuasive, zealous, overflowing with the milk 
 
BETWEEN THE ACTS. 203 
 
 of human kindness. Cox is diffusive, sanguine, mag 
 nificent, grand. Bourne thunders and lightens. 
 Phelps is one great, clear, infallible argument 
 demonstration itself. Jocelyn is full of heavenly- 
 mindedness, and feels and speaks and acts with a 
 zeal according to knowledge. Follen is chaste, pro 
 found, and elaborately polished. Goodell is per 
 ceptive, analytical, expert, and solid. Child (David 
 L.) is generously indignant, courageous, and demon 
 strative ; his lady combines strength with beauty, 
 argumentation with persuasiveness, greatness with 
 humility. Birney is collected, courteous, dispas 
 sionate his fearlessness excites admiration, his con 
 scientiousness commands respect." Of these writers, 
 which is acceptable to slaveholders or their apolo 
 gists ? Some have been cruelly treated and all been 
 calumniated as " fanatics, disorganizers, and mad 
 men." And why? "Certainly not for the phrase 
 ology which they use, but for the principles which they 
 adopt." 
 
 From another quarter came presently notes of dis 
 cord, aroused by Garrison s hard language. Sundry 
 of the Unitarian clergy, under the lead of Rev. Henry 
 Ware, Jr., took it into their heads that the editor of 
 the Liberator and some others were outrageously 
 abusing the Abolition cause, " mismanaging it by 
 their unreasonable violence " of language. Where 
 fore those gentlemen interposed to rescue the great 
 cause from harm by a brilliant scheme designed to 
 secure moderation in this regard. This brilliant 
 scheme was nothing less ubsurd than the establish 
 ment of a censorship over the Liberator. But as 
 these solicitous souls had reckoned without their 
 
204 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 host, their amiable plan came to naught ; but not, 
 however, before adding a new element to the univer 
 sal discord then fast swelling to a roar. To the 
 storm of censure gathering about his head the re 
 former bowed not neither swerved he to the right 
 hand nor to the left all the while deeming it, " with 
 the apostle, a small thing to be judged by man s 
 judgment." " I solicit no man s praise," he sternly 
 replies to his critics, "I fear no men s censure." 
 
 There was still another cause of offence given by 
 Garrison to his countrymen. It was not his hard Ian- 
 guage, but a circumstance less tolerable, if that was 
 possible, than even that rock of offence. It seems 
 that when the editor of the Liberator was in England, 
 and dining with Thomas Powell Buxton, he was asked 
 by the latter in what way the English Abolitionists 
 could best assist the anti-slavery movement in Amer 
 ica, and he had replied, " By giving us George Thomp 
 son." This unexpected answer of the American 
 appeared without doubt to the Englishman at the 
 time somewhat extraordinary. He had his misgivings 
 as to the wisdom, to say nothing of the propriety, of 
 an international act of such importance and delicacy 
 as the sending of George Thompson to America. He 
 questioned whether the national self-love of the 
 American people would not resent the arrival of an 
 Englishman on such a mission among them and 
 refuse him a fair hearing in consequence. But Gar 
 rison was confident that while Thompson s advent 
 would stir up the pro-slavery bile of the North and 
 all that, he would not be put to much if any greater 
 disadvantage as a foreigner in speaking in New Eng 
 land on the subject of slavery, than wen those Aboli 
 
BETWEEN THE ACTS. 205 
 
 tionists who were to the manner born. As to his 
 friend s personal safety in the East, Garrison was 
 extremely optimistic, had not apparently the slightest 
 apprehensions for him in this regard. 
 
 Well, after due deliberation, George Thompson con 
 sented to undertake the mission to America, and the 
 English reformers to send him, though not all of them. 
 For some there were like James Cropper, who were 
 indisposed to promoting such a mission, or " paying 
 agents to travel in the United States." It was natural 
 enough for Mr. Garrison to prefer such a request 
 after hearing George Thompson speak. For he was 
 one of those electric speakers, who do with popular 
 audiences what they will. In figure and voice and 
 action, he was a born orator. His eloquence was 
 graphic, picturesque, thrilling, and over English 
 audiences it was irresistible. Garrison fancied that 
 such eloquence would prove equally attractive to and 
 irresistible over American audiences as well. But in 
 this he was somewhat mistaken, for Thompson had 
 to deal with an element in American audiences of 
 which he had had no experience in England. What 
 that element was he had occasion to surmise directly 
 he arrived upon these shores. He reached New 
 York just sixteeen days after the marriage of his 
 friend, the editor of the Liberator to be immediately 
 threatened with mob violence by the metropolitan 
 press in case he ventured to " lecture in favor of 
 immediate Abolition," and to be warned that: " If our 
 people will not suffer our own citizens to tamper with 
 the question of slavery, it is not to be supposed that 
 they will tolerate the officious intermeddling of a 
 foreign fanatic." Then as if by way of giving him 
 
206 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 a taste of the beak and talons of the American amovr 
 propre, he and his family were put out of the Atlant c 
 Hotel in deference to the wish of an irate Southerner. 
 Thus introduced the English orator advanced speed 
 ily thereafter into closer acquaintance with the Amer 
 ican public. He lectured in many parts of New 
 England where that new element of rowdyism and 
 virulence of which his English audiences had given 
 him no previous experience, manifested its presence 
 first in one way and then in others, putting him 
 again and again in jeopardy of life and limb. At 
 Augusta, Maine, his windows were broken, and he 
 was warned out of the town. At Concord, New 
 Hampshire, his speech was punctuated with missiles. 
 At Lowell, Massachusetts, he narrowly escaped being 
 struck on the head and killed by a brickbat. Indeed 
 it was grimly apparent that the master of Freedom s 
 Cottage would be obliged to revise his views as to the 
 hazard, which his friend ran in speaking upon the 
 subject of slavery in New England. To do so was 
 weekly becoming for that friend an enterprise of 
 great personal peril. But it added also to the fierce 
 hatred with which the public now regarded Garrison. 
 He was the author of all the mischief, the slavery 
 agitation, the foreign emissary. He had even dared to 
 inject the poison of Abolitionism into the politics of 
 Boston and Massachusetts. This attempt on the part 
 of the Liberator to establish an anti-slavery test of 
 office was only another proof of the dangerous char 
 acter of the new fanaticism and the Jacobinical 
 designs of the Garrisonian fanatics, ergo, the impor 
 tance of suppressing the incendiaries. Down with 
 Thompson ! Garrison must be destroyed ! The 
 
BETWEEN THE ACTS. 207 
 
 Union it must and shall be preserved ! All these 
 the public excitement, which had risen everywhere 
 to a tempest, had come more and more to mean. A 
 tremendous crisis had come in the life of Garrison, 
 and a great peril, eagle-like, with the stirred-up hate 
 of a nation, was swooping upon him. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 MISCHIEF LET LOOSE. 
 
 A WILD-CAT-LIKE creature was abroad. To it the 
 Abolitionists were to be thrown. It was to destroy 
 Garrison, make an end of Thompson, and suppress 
 between its enormous jaws the grandest moral move 
 ment of the century. Besides doing up this modesi 
 little programme, the beast, O wonderful to say, was 
 also to crown its performances by "saving" the 
 Union. Rejoicing in the possession of such a con 
 servative institution, the politicians, the press, and 
 public opinion uncaged the monster, while from 
 secure seats they watched the frightful scenes of fury 
 and destruction enacted by it in the national arena. 
 
 These scenes began in the summer of 1834, and in 
 the city of New York. They were ushered in by the 
 breaking up of an anti-slavery celebration on the 
 Fourth of July by the clack and roar of several hun 
 dred young rowdies, gathered for the purpose. Their 
 success but whetted the appetite of the spirit of mis 
 chief for other ventures against the Abolitionists. As 
 a consequence New York was in a more or less dis 
 turbed state from the fourth to the ninth of the 
 month. The press of the city, with but a single ex 
 ception (The Evening Post) meanwhile goaded the 
 populace on by false and inflammatory representa 
 tions touching the negroes and their friends, to the 
 
 (208) 
 
MISCHIEF LET LOOSE. 209 
 
 rioting which began in earnest on the evening of the 
 ninth. That night a mob attacked Lewis Tappan s 
 house on Rose street, breaking in the door, smashing 
 blinds and windows, and playing havoc generally 
 with the furniture. On the following evening the 
 rioters assailed the store of Arthur Tappan, on Pearl 
 street, demolishing almost every pane of glass in the 
 front of the building. On the same evening the mob 
 paid its respects to Rev. Dr. Cox, by breaking win 
 dows both at his house and at his church. The negro 
 quarters in the neighborhood of Five Points, and 
 their houses in other parts of the city, were raided on 
 the night of the nth, and much damage done by the 
 lawless hordes which for nearly a week wreaked their 
 wrath upon the property of the negroes and their 
 anti-slavery friends. 
 
 After this brave beginning, the wild-cat-like spirit 
 continued, these ferocious demonstrations in New 
 Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Connecticut, 
 Maine, and New Hampshire. The slavery agitation 
 had increased apace. It had broken out in Congress 
 on the presentation of anti-slavery petitions. The 
 fire thus kindled spread through the country. South 
 ern excitement became intense, amounted almost to 
 panic. The activity of the anti-slavery press, the 
 stream of anti-slavery publications, which had, in 
 deed, increased with singular rapidity, was exagger 
 ated by the Southern imagination, struck it with a 
 sort of terror. There were meetings held in many 
 parts of the South, tremendous scenes enacted there. 
 In Charleston, South Carolina, the post-office was 
 broken open by an aristocratic mob, under the lead 
 of the famous Robert Y. Hayne, and a bonfire made 
 
210 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 of the Abolition mail-matter which it contained. As 
 this Southern excitement advanced, a passionate fear 
 for the stability of the Union arose in the heart of 
 the North. Abolition and the Abolitionists had pro 
 duced these sectional disturbances. Abolition and 
 the Abolitionists were, therefore, enemies of the 
 " glorious Union." Northern excitement kept pace 
 with Southern excitement until, in the summer of 
 1835, a reign of terror was widely established over 
 both sections. To Garrison, from his Liberator out 
 look, all seemed " Consternation and perplexity, for 
 perilous times have come." They had, indeed, come 
 in New York, as witness this from the pen of Lydia 
 Maria Child, who was at the time (August 15) in 
 Brooklyn. Says she: 
 
 " I have not ventured into the city, nor does one of 
 us dare to go to church to-day, so great is the excite 
 ment here. You can form no conception of it. Tis 
 like the time of the French Revolution, when no man 
 dared trust his neighbor. Private assassins from 
 New Orleans are lurking at the corners of the streets 
 to stab Arthur Tappan, and very large sums are 
 offered for any one who will convey Mr. Thompson 
 into the slave States. . . . There are several 
 thousand Southerners now in the city, and I am 
 afraid there are not seven hundred among them who 
 have the slightest fear of God before their eyes. Mr. 
 Wright [Elizur] was yesterday barricading his doors 
 and windows with strong bars and planks an inch 
 thick. Violence in some form seems to be generally 
 expected." 
 
 Great meetings to put the Abolitionists down af 
 forded vents during this memorable year to the pent- 
 
MISCHIEF LET LOOSE. 211 
 
 up excitement of the free States. New York had had 
 its great meeting, and had put the Abolitionists down 
 with pro-slavery resolutions and torrents of pro- 
 slavery eloquence. Boston, too, had to have her 
 great meeting and her cataracts of pro-slavery ora 
 tory to reassure the South of the sympathy and sup 
 port of " the great body of the people of the Northern 
 States." The toils seemed everywhere closing around 
 the Abolitionists. The huge head of the asp of public 
 opinion, the press of the land was everywhere busy, 
 day and night, smearing with a thick and virulent 
 saliva of lies the brave little band and its leader. 
 Anti-slavery publications, calculated to inflame the 
 minds of the slaves against their masters, and in 
 tended to instigate the slaves to servile insurrections, 
 had been distributed broadcast through the South by 
 the emissaries of anti-slavery societies. The Abolition 
 ists advocated the emancipation of the slaves in the 
 South by Congress, intermarriages between the two 
 races, the dissolution of the Union, etc. All of which 
 outrageous misrepresentations were designed to ren 
 der the movement utterly odious to the public, and 
 the public so much the more furious for its suppres 
 sion. 
 
 It was in the midst of such intense and widespread 
 excitement that Boston called its meeting to abolish 
 the Abolitionists. It was the month of August, and 
 the heat of men s passions was as great as the heat 
 of the August sun. The moral atmosphere of the 
 city was so charged with inflammable gases that the 
 slightest spark would have sufficed to produce an ex 
 plosion. The Abolitionists felt this and carried them 
 selves the while with unusual circumspection. They 
 
212 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 deemed it prudent to publish an address to neutralize 
 the falsehoods with which they were assailed by their 
 enemies. The address drawn up by Garrison for the 
 purpose was thonght " too fiery for the present time," 
 by his more cautious followers and was rejected. The 
 Liberator office had already been threatened in conse 
 quence of a fiery article by the editor, denouncing the 
 use of Faneuil Hall for the approaching pro-slavery 
 meeting. It seemed to the unawed and indignant 
 champion of liberty that it were " better that the 
 winds should scatter it in fragments over the whole 
 earth better that an earthquake should engulf it 
 than that it should be used for so unhallowed and 
 detestable a purpose ! " The anti-abolition feeling of 
 the town had become so bitter and intense that Henry 
 E. Benson, then clerk in the anti-slavery office, writ 
 ing on the i9th of the month, believed that there were 
 persons in Boston, who would assassinate George 
 Thompson in broad daylight, and doubted whether 
 Garrison or Samuel J. May would be safe in Faneuil 
 Hall on the day of the meeting, and what seemed 
 still more significant of the inflamed state of the pub 
 lic mind, was the confidence with which he predicted 
 that a mob would follow the meeting. The wild-cat 
 like spirit was in the air in the seething heart of the 
 populace. 
 
 The meeting was held August 2ist, in the old cradle 
 of liberty. To its call alone fifteen hundred names 
 were appended. It was a Boston audience both as to 
 character and numbers, an altogether imposing affair, 
 over whom the mayor of the city presided and before 
 whom two o f the most consummate orators of the 
 commonwealth fulmined against the Abolitionists. 
 
MISCHIEF LET LOOSE. 
 
 One of their hearers, a young attorney of twenty-four, 
 who listened to Peleg Sprague and Harrison Gray Otis 
 that day, described sixteen years afterward the latter 
 and the effects produced by him on that audience. 
 Our young attorney vividly recalled how " Abolition 
 ist was linked with contempt, in the silver tones of 
 Otis, and all the charms that a divine eloquence and 
 most felicitous diction could throw around a bad 
 cause were given it ; the excited multitude seemed 
 actually ready to leap up beneath the magic of his 
 speech. It would be something, if one must die, to 
 die by such a hand a hand somewhat worthy and 
 able to stifle anti-slavery, if it could be stifled. The 
 orator was worthy of the gigantic task attempted ; 
 and thousands crowded before him, every one of their 
 hearts melted by that eloquence, beneath which Mas 
 sachusetts had bowed, not unworthily, for more than 
 thirty years." 
 
 Here is a specimen of the sort of goading which 
 the wild-cat-like spirit of the city got from the ora 
 tors. It is taken from the speech of Peleg Sprague. 
 The orator is paying his respects to George Thomp 
 son, " an avowed emissary" " a professed agitator," 
 who " comes here from the dark and corrupt institu 
 tions of Europe to enlighten us upon the rights of 
 man and the moral duties of our own condition. 
 Received by our hospitality, he stands here upon our 
 soil, protected by our laws, and hurls firebrands, ar 
 rows, and death into the habitations of our neighbors 
 and friends, and brothers ; and when he shall have 
 kindled a conflagration which is sweeping in desola 
 tion over our land, he has only to embark for his own 
 country, and there look serenely back with indiffer- 
 
214 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 ence or exultation upon the widespread ruin by which 
 our cities are wrapt in flames, and our garments rolled 
 in blood." 
 
 The great meeting was soon a thing of the past but 
 not so its effects. The echoes of Otis and Sprague did 
 did not cease at its close. They thrilled in the air, 
 they thrilled long afterward in the blood of the people. 
 When the multitude dispersed Mischief went out into 
 the streets of the city with them. Wherever after 
 ward they gathered Mischief made one in their midst. 
 Mischief was let loose, Mischief was afoot in the town. 
 The old town was no place for the foreign emissary, 
 neither was it a safe place for the arch-agitator. On 
 the day after the meeting, Garrison and his young 
 wife accordingly retreated to her father s home at 
 Brooklyn, Conn., where the husband needed not to be 
 jostling elbows with Mistress Mischief, and her /#/.$. 
 
 Garrison s answer to the speeches of Otis and 
 Sprague was in his sternest vein. He is sure after 
 reading them that, " there is more guilt attaching to 
 the people of the free States from the continuance of 
 slavery, than those in the slave States." At least he 
 is ready to affirm upon the authority of Orator 
 Sprague, " that New England is as really a slave- 
 holding section of the republic as Georgia or South 
 Carolina." Sprague, he finds, "in amicable compan 
 ionship and popular repute with thieves and adult 
 erers ; with slaveholders, slavedealers, and slave- 
 destroyers ; , . . with the disturbers of the public 
 peace ; with the 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." 
 
MISCHIEF LET LOOSE. 215 
 
 To Otis who was then nearly seventy years of age 
 Garrison addressed his rebuke in tones of singular 
 solemnity. It seemed to him that the aged statesman 
 had transgressed against liberty " under circum 
 stances of peculiar criminality." "Yet at this solemn 
 period," the reprobation of the prophet ran, " you 
 have not scrupled, nay, you have been ambitious, to 
 lead and address an excited multitude, in vindication 
 of all imaginable wickedness, embodied in one great 
 system of crime and blood to pander to the lusts and 
 desires of the robbers of God and his ppor to con 
 sign over to the tender mercies of cruel taskmasters, 
 multitudes of guiltless men, women, and children 
 and to denounce as an unlawful and dangerous asso 
 ciation a society whose only object is to bring this 
 nation to repentance, through the truth as it is in 
 Jesus." 
 
 These audacious and iconoclastic performances of 
 the reformer were not exactly adapted to turn from 
 him the wrath of the idol worshipers. They more 
 likely added fuel to the hot anger burning in Boston 
 against him. Three weeks passed after his departure 
 from the city, and his friends did not deem it safe 
 for him to return. Toward the end of the fourth 
 week of his enforced absence, against which he was 
 chafing not a little, an incident happened in Boston 
 which warned him to let patience have its perfect 
 work. It was on the night of September iyth that the 
 dispositions of the city toward him found grim ex 
 pression in a gallows erected in front of his house at 
 23 Brighton street. This ghastly reminder that the 
 fellow-citizens of the editor of the Liberator continued 
 to take a lively interest in him, " was made in real 
 
2l6 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 workmanship style, of maple joist five inches through, 
 eight or nine feet high, for the accommodation of 
 two persons." Garrison and Thompson were the two 
 persons for whom these brave accommodations were 
 prepared. But as neither they nor their friends were 
 in a mood to have trial made of them, the intended 
 occupants consenled to give Boston a wide berth, and 
 to be somewhat particular that they did not turn in 
 with her while the homicidal fit lasted. 
 
 This editing his paper at long range, and this 
 thought of life and safety Garrison did not at all relish. 
 They grew more and more irksome to his fearless 
 and earnest spirit. For his was a " pine-and-fagot " 
 Abolitionism that knew not the fear of men or their 
 wrath. But now he must needs have a care for the 
 peace of mind of his young wife, who was, within a 
 few months, to give birth to a child. And her anxiety 
 for him was very great. Neither was the anxiety of 
 devoted friends and followers to be lightly disre 
 garded. All of which detained the leader in Brook 
 lyn until the 25th of the month, when the danger 
 signals seemed to have disappeared. Whereupon he 
 set out immediately for his post in Boston to be at the 
 head of his forces. He found the city in one of those 
 strange pauses of popular excitement, which might 
 signify the ebb of the tide or only the retreat of the 
 billows. He was not inclined to let the anti-Abolition 
 agitation subside so soon, before it had carried on its 
 flood Abolition principles to wider fields and more 
 abundant harvests in the republic. Anxious lest the 
 cat-like temper of the populace was falling into 
 indifference and apathy, he and his disciples took 
 occasion to prod it into renewed wakefulness and 
 
MISCHIEF LET LOOSE. 2I^ 
 
 activity. The instruments used for this purpose were 
 anti-slavery meetings and the sharp goad of his Lib 
 erator editorials. The city was possessed with the 
 demon of slavery, and its foaming at the mouth was 
 the best of all signs that the Abolition exorcism was 
 working effectively. So, in between the glittering 
 teeth and the terrible paws was thrust the madden 
 ing goad, and up sprang the mighty beast horrible to 
 behold. 
 
 One of these meetings was the anniversary of the 
 formation of the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society 
 which fell on October i4th. The ladies issued their 
 notice, engaged a hall, and invited George Thompson 
 to address them. Now the foreign emissary was 
 particularly exasperating to Boston sensibility on 
 the subject of slavery. He was the veritable red 
 rag to the pro-slavery bull. The public announce 
 ment, therefore, that he was to speak in the city 
 threw the public mind into violent agitation. The 
 Gazette and the Courier augmented the excitement 
 by the recklessness with which they denounced the 
 proposed meeting, the former promising to Thomp 
 son a lynching, while the latter endeavored to 
 involve his associates who were to the " manner 
 born " in the popular outbreak, which was confi 
 dently predicted in case the " foreign vagrant " 
 wagged his tongue at the time appointed. 
 
 Notwithstanding the rage of press and people 
 the meeting was postponed through no willingness 
 on the part of the ladies, but because of the panic 
 of the owners of the hall lest their property should 
 be damaged or destroyed in case of a riot. The 
 ladies, thereupon, appointed three o clock in the 
 
2l8 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 afternoon of October 2ist as the time, and the hall 
 adjoining the Anti-Slavery Office, at 46 Washington 
 street, as the place where they would hold their 
 adjourned meeting. This time they made no men 
 tion of Mr. Thompson s addressing them, merely 
 announcing several addresses. In fact, an address 
 from Mr. Thompson, in view of the squally outlook, 
 was not deemed expedient. To provide against 
 accidents and disasters, he left the city on the day 
 before the meeting. But this his enemies did not 
 know. They confidently expected that he was to 
 be one of the speakers. An inflammatory handbill 
 distributed on the streets at noon of the 2ist seemed 
 to leave no doubt of this circumstance in the pro- 
 slavery portion of the city. 
 
 The handbill referred to ran as follows: 
 
 THOMPSON, 
 THE ABOLITIONIST!!! 
 
 That infamous foreign scoundrel, THOMPSON, will hold 
 forth this afternoon at the Liberator office, No. 48 Washing 
 ton street. The present is a fair opportunity for the friends of 
 the Union to snake Thompson ottt ! It will be a contest be 
 tween the Abolitionists and the friends of the Union. A 
 purse of $100 has been raised by a number of patriotic citizens 
 to reward the individual who shall first lay violent hands on 
 Thompson, so that he may be brought to the tar-kettle before 
 dark. Friends of the Union, be vigilant ! 
 
 Boston, Wednesday, 12 o clock. 
 
 That Wednesday forenoon Garrison spent at the 
 anti-slavery office, little dreaming of the peril which 
 was to overtake him in that very spot in the after 
 noon. He went home to an early dinner, since his 
 wife was a member of the society, and he himself was 
 
MISCHIEF LET LOOSE. 219 
 
 set down for an address. As he wended his way 
 homeward, Mischief and her gang were afoot dis 
 tributing the aforesaid handbills "in the insurance 
 offices, the reading-rooms, all along State street, in 
 the hotels, bar-rooms, etc.," and scattering it 
 " among mechanics at the North End, who were 
 mightily taken with it." Garrison returned about a 
 half hour before the time appointed for the meeting. 
 He found a small crowd of about a hundred indi 
 viduals collected in front of the building where the 
 hall was situated, and on ascending to the hall more 
 of the same sort, mostly young men, choking the 
 access to it. They were noisy, and Garrison pushed 
 his way through them with difficulty. As he entered 
 the place of meeting and took his seat among the 
 ladies, twenty had already arrived, the gang of young 
 rowdies recognized him and evinced this by the 
 exclamation : "That s Garrison ! " The full signifi 
 cance of the crowd just without the hall did not seem 
 to have occurred to the man whom they had iden 
 tified. He did not know that they were the foam 
 blown from the mouth of a great mob at the moment 
 filling the streets in the neighborhood of the build 
 ing where he sat with such serenity of spirit. His 
 wife who had followed him from their home saw 
 what Garrison did not see. The crowd of a hundred 
 had swelled to thousands. It lay in a huge irregular 
 cross, jammed in between the buildings on Washing 
 ton street, the head lowering in front of the anti- 
 slavery office, the foot reaching to the site where 
 stood Joy building, now occupied by the Rogers, 
 the right arm stretching along Court street to the 
 Court House, and the left encircling the old State 
 
220 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 House, City Hall and Post-office then, in a gigantic 
 embrace. All hope of urging her way through that 
 dense mass was abandoned by Mrs. Garrison, and a 
 friend, Mr. John E. Fuller, escorted her to his home, 
 where she passed the night. 
 
 Meantime the atmosphere upstairs at the hall be 
 gan to betoken a fast approaching storm. The 
 noises ominously increased on the landing just out 
 side. The door of the hall was swung wide open and 
 the entrance filled with rioters. Garrison, all uncon 
 scious of danger, walked over to these persons and 
 remonstrated in his grave way with them in regard 
 to the disturbance which they were producing,winding 
 up with a characteristic bit of pleasantry : " Gentle 
 men," said he, " perhaps you are not aware that this 
 is a meeting of the Boston Female Anti-Slavery 
 Society, called and intended exclusively for ladies, 
 and those only who have been invited to address 
 them. Understanding this fact you will not be so 
 rude and indecorous as to thrust your presence upon 
 this meeting." But he added, " If, gentlemen, any of 
 you are ladies in disguise why only apprise me of the 
 fact, give me your names, and I will introduce you 
 to the rest of your sex, and you can take seats among 
 them accordingly." The power of benignity over 
 malignity lasted a few moments after this little 
 speech, when the situation changed rapidly from bad 
 to worse. "The tumult continually increased," says 
 an eye-witness, " with horrible execrations, howling, 
 stamping, and finally shrieking with rage. They 
 seemed not to dare to enter, notwithstanding their 
 fury, but mounted on each other s shoulders, so that 
 a row of hostile heads appeared over the slight parti- 
 
MISCHIEF LET LOOSE. 221 
 
 tion, of half the height of the wall which divides 
 the society s rooms from the landing place. We 
 requested them to allow the door to be shut ; but 
 they could not decide as to whether the request 
 should be granted, and the door was opened and 
 shut with violence, till it hung useless from its 
 hinges." 
 
 Garrison thinking that his absence might quiet 
 these perturbed spirits and so enable the ladies to 
 hold their meeting without further molestation volun 
 teered at this juncture to the president of the society 
 to retire from the hall unless she desired him to 
 remain. She did not wish him to stay but urged him 
 to go at once not only for the peace of the meeting 
 but for his own safety. Garrison thereupon left the 
 hall meaning at the time to leave the building as well, 
 but egress by the way of the landing and the stairs, 
 he directly perceived was impossible, and did what 
 seemed the next best thing, entered the anti-slavery 
 office, separated from the hall by a board partition. 
 Charles C. Burleigh accompanied him within this 
 retreat. The door between the hall and the office was 
 securely locked, and Garrison with that marvelous 
 serenity of mind, which was a part of him, busied 
 himself immediately with writing to a friend an 
 account of the scenes which were enacting in the next 
 room. 
 
 The tempest had begun in the streets also. The 
 mob from its five thousand throats were howling 
 "Thompson ! Thompson ! " The mayor of the city, 
 Theodore Lyman, appeared upon the scene, and 
 announced to the gentlemen of property and stand 
 ing, who were thus exercising their vocal organs, that 
 
222 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 Mr. Thompson was not at the meeting, was not in the 
 city. But the mayor was a modern Canute before the 
 sea of human passion, which was rushing in over law 
 and authority. He besought the rioters to disperse, 
 but he might as well have besought the waves break 
 ing on Nastasket Beach to disperse. Higher, higher 
 rose the voices ; fiercer, fiercer waxed the multitude; 
 more and more frightful became the uproar. The 
 long-pent-up excitement of the city and its hatred of 
 Abolitionists had broken loose at last and the deluge 
 had come. The mayor tossed upon the human inun 
 dation as a twig on a mountain stream, and with him 
 for the nonce struggled helplessly the police power of 
 the town also. 
 
 Upstairs in the hall the society and its president 
 are quite as powerless as the mayor and the police 
 below. Miss Mary S. Parker, the president, is strug 
 gling with the customary opening exercises. She has 
 called the meeting to order, read to the ladies some 
 passages from the Bible, and has lifted up her voice 
 in prayer to the All Wise and Merciful One " for direc 
 tion and succor, and the forgiveness of enemies and 
 revilers." It is a wonderful scene, a marvelous 
 example of Christian heroism, for in the midst of the 
 hisses and threats and curses of the rioters, the prayer 
 of the brave woman rose clear and untremulous. But 
 now the rioters have thrown themselves against the 
 partition between the landing-place and the hall. 
 They are trying to break it down; now, they have 
 partially succeeded. In another moment they have 
 thrown themselves against the door of the office 
 where Garrison is locked. The lower panel is dashed 
 in. Through the opening they have caught sight of 
 
MISCHIEF LET LOOSE. 223 
 
 their object, Garrison, serenely writing at his desk. 
 " There he is ! That s Garrison ! Out with the 
 scoundrel ! " and other such words of recognition and 
 execration, burst from one and another of the mob. 
 The shattering of the partition, the noise of splitting 
 and ripping boards, the sharp crash caused by the 
 shivering of the office door, the loud and angry out 
 cries of the rioters warn the serene occupant of the 
 office that his position has become one of extreme 
 peril. But he does not become excited. His com 
 posure does not forsake him. Instead of attempting to 
 escape, he simply turns to his friend, Burleigh, with 
 the words, "You may as well open the door, and let 
 them come in and do their worst." But fortunately, 
 Burleigh was in no such extremely non-resistant 
 mood. 
 
 The advent of the mayor and the constables upon 
 the scene at this point rescued Garrison from imme 
 diately falling into the hands of the mob, who were 
 cleared out of the hall and from the stairway. Now the 
 voice of the mayor was heard urging the ladies to go 
 home as it was dangerous to remain ; and now the voice 
 of Maria Weston Chapman, replying : " If this is 
 the last bulwark of freedom, we may as well die here 
 as anywhere." The ladies finally decided to retire, 
 and their exit diverted, while the operation lasted, the 
 attention of the huge, cat-like creature from their 
 object in the anti-slavery office. When the passing 
 of the ladies had ceased, the old fury of the mob 
 against Garrison returned. " Out with him!" " Lynch 
 him!" rose in wild uproar from thousands in the 
 streets. But again the attention of the huge, cat-like 
 creature was diverted from its object in the second 
 
224 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 story of the building before which it was lashing 
 itself into frenzy. This time it was the anti-slavery 
 sign which hung from the rooms of the society over 
 the sidewalk. The mob had caught sight of it, and 
 directly set up a yell for it. The sensation of utter 
 helplessness in the presence of the multitude seemed 
 at this juncture to return to the chief magistrate of 
 the city. It was impossible to control the cataract- 
 like passions of the rioters. He heard their awful 
 roar for the sign. The din had risen to terrific pro 
 portions. The thought of what might happen next 
 appalled him. The mob might begin to bombard the 
 sign with brickbats, and from the sign pass to the 
 building, and from the building to the constables, 
 and then but the mayor glanced not beyond, for he 
 had determined to appease the fury of the mob by 
 throwing down to it the hateful sign. A constable 
 detached it, and hurled it down to the rioters in the 
 street. But by the act the mayor had signified that 
 the rule of law had collapsed, and the rule of the 
 mob had really begun. When the rioters had wreaked 
 their wrath upon the emblem of freedom, they were 
 in the mood for more violence. The appetite for de 
 struction, it was seen, had not been glutted; only 
 whetted. Garrison s situation was now extremely 
 critical. He could no longer remain where he was, 
 for the mob would invade the building and hunt him 
 like hounds from cellar to garret. He must leave the 
 building without delay. To escape from the front 
 was out of the question. A way of escape must, 
 therefore, be found in the rear. All of these consid 
 erations the mayor and Garrison s friends urged 
 upon him. The good man fell in with this counsel, 
 
MISCHIEF LET LOOSE. 22$ 
 
 and, with a faithful friend, proceeded to the rear of 
 the building, where from a window he dropped to a 
 shed, but in doing so was very nearly precipitated to 
 the ground. After picking himself up he passed into a 
 carpenter s shop, meaning to let himself down into 
 Wilson s Lane, now Devonshire street, but the 
 myriad-eyed mob, which was searching every portion 
 of the building for their game, espied him at this 
 point, and with that set up a great shout. The work 
 men came to the aid of the fugitive by closing the 
 door of the carpenter s shop in the face of his pur 
 suers. The situation seemed desperate. Retreat 
 from the front was cut off; escape from the rear an 
 ticipated and foiled. Garrison perceived the futility 
 of any further attempts to elude the mob, and pro 
 posed in his calm way to deliver himself up to them. 
 But his faithful Achates, John Reid Campbell, advised 
 him that it was his duty to avoid the mob as long as 
 it was possible to do so. Garrison thereupon made 
 a final effort to get away. He retreated up stairs, 
 where his friend and a lad got him into a corner of 
 the room and tried to conceal his whereabouts by 
 piling some boards in front of him. But, by that 
 time, the rioters had entered the building, and within 
 a few moments had broken into the room where Gar 
 rison was in hiding. They found Mr. Reid, and de 
 manded of him where Garrison was. But Reid 
 firmly refused to tell. They then led him to a win 
 dow, and exhibited him to the mob in the Lane, 
 advising them that it was not Garrison, but Garri 
 son s and Thompson s friend, who knows where Gar 
 rison is, but refuses to tell. A shout of fierce exulta 
 tion from below greeted this announcement. Almost 
 
226 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 immediately afterward, Garrison was discovered and 
 dragged furiously to the window, with the intention 
 of hurling him thence to the pavement. Some of the 
 rioters were for doing this, while others were for 
 milder measures. " Don t let us kill him outright ! " 
 they begged. So his persecutors relented, coiled a 
 rope around his body instead, and bade him descend 
 to the street. The great man was never greater 
 than at that moment. With extraordinary meekness 
 and benignity he saluted his enemies in the street. 
 From the window he bowed to the multitude who 
 were thirsting for his destruction, requesting them 
 to wait patiently, for he was coming to them. Then 
 he stepped intrepidly down the ladder raised for 
 the purpose, and into the seething sea of human 
 passion. 
 
 Garrison must now have been speedily torn to 
 pieces had he not been quickly seized by two or three 
 powerful men, who were determined to save him 
 from falling into the hands of the mob. They 
 were men of great muscular strength, but the muscular 
 strength of two or three giants would have proven 
 utterly unequal to the rescue, and this Mr. Garrison s 
 deliverers evidently appreciated. For while they em 
 ployed their powerful arms, they also employed strat 
 agem as well to effect their purpose. They shouted 
 anon as they fought their way through the excited 
 throng, " He is an American! He shan t be hurt! " and 
 other such words which divided the mind of the mob, 
 arousing among some sympathy for the good man. 
 By this means he was with difficulty got out of Wil 
 son s lane into State street, in the rear of the old State 
 House. The champion was now on historic ground, 
 
MISCHIEF LET LOOSE. 227 
 
 ground consecrated by the blood of Crispus Attucks 
 and his fellow-martyrs sixty-five years before. His 
 hat was lost, much of his clothing was stripped from 
 his body, he was without his customary glasses, and 
 was therefore practically blind. He could hear the 
 awful clamor, the mighty uproar of the mob, but he 
 could not distinguish them one from another, friend 
 from foe. Nevertheless he " walked with head erect, 
 calm countenance flashing eyes like a martyr going 
 to the stake, full of faith and manly hope " accord 
 ing to the testimony of an eye-witness. Garrison 
 himself has thrown light on the state of his mind 
 during the ordeal. " The promises of God," he after 
 ward remembered, sustained his soul, " so that it was 
 not only divested of fear, but ready to sing aloud for 
 joy." 
 
 The news now reached the ears of the mayor that 
 Garrison was in the hands of the mob. Thereupon 
 the feeble but kindly magistrate began to act afresh 
 the role of the twig in the mountain stream. He and 
 his constables struggled helplessly in the human cur 
 rent rushing and raging around City Hall, the head 
 and seat of municipal law and authority. Without 
 the aid of private citizens Garrison must inevitably 
 have perished in the commotions which presently 
 reached their climax in violence and terror. He was 
 in the rear of City Hall when the mayor caught up 
 to him and his would-be rescuers. The mayor per 
 ceived the extremity of the situation, and said to the 
 Faneuil Hall giants who had hold of Garrison, "Take 
 him into my office," which was altogether more easily 
 said than done. For the rioters have raised the cry 
 " to the Frog Pond with him! " Which order will be 
 
228 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 carried out, that of the magistrate or that of the mob ? 
 
 These were horrible moments while the two hung 
 trembling in the balance. But other private citizens 
 coming to the assistance of the mayor struck the 
 scales for the moment in his favor, and Garrison was 
 finally hustled, and thrust by main force into the 
 south door of the City Hall and carried up to the 
 mayor s room. But the mob had immediately effec 
 ted an entrance into the building through the north 
 door and filled the lower hall. The mayor now 
 addressed the pack, strove manfully in his feeble way 
 to prevail upon the human wolves to observe order, 
 to sustain the law and the honor of the city, he even 
 intimated to them that he was ready to lay down his 
 life on the spot to maintain the law and preserve 
 order. Then he got out on the ledge over the south 
 door and spoke in a similar strain to the mob on the 
 street. But alas ! he knew not the secret for revers 
 ing the Circean spell by which gentlemen of property 
 and standing in the community had been suddenly 
 transformed into a wolfish rabble. 
 
 The increasing tumult without soon warned the 
 authorities that what advantage the mayor may have 
 obtained in the contest with the mob was only tem 
 porary and that their position was momentarily becom 
 ing more perilous and less tenable. It was impos 
 sible to say to what extreme of violence a multitude 
 so infuriated would not go to get their prey. It 
 seemed to the now thoroughly alarmed mayor that 
 the mob might in their frenzy attack the City Hall 
 to effect their purpose. There was one building in 
 the city, which the guardians of the law evidently 
 agreed could resist the rage of the populace, and 
 
MISCHIEF LET LOOSE. 229 
 
 that building was the jail. To this last stronghold 
 of Puritan civilization the authorities and the powers 
 that were, fell back as a dernier resort to save Garri 
 son s life. But even in this utmost pitch and extrem 
 ity, when law was trampled in the streets, when 
 authority was a reed shaken in a storm, when 
 anarchy had drowned order in the bosom of the 
 town, the Anglo-Saxon passion for legal forms as 
 serted itself. The good man, hunted for his life, 
 must forsooth be got into the only refuge which 
 promised him security from his pursuers by a regular 
 judicial commitment as a disturber of the peace. Is 
 there anything at once so pathetic and farcical in the 
 Universal history of mobs ? 
 
 Pathetic and farcical to be sure, but it was also 
 well meant, and therefore we will not stop to quarrel 
 with men who were equal to the perpetration of a legal 
 fiction so full of the comedy and tragedy of civilized 
 society. But enough the municipal wiseacres 
 having put their heads together and evolved the bril 
 liant plan of committing the prophet as a disturber of 
 the peace, immediately set about its execution, which 
 developed in the sequence into a bird of altogether 
 another color. For a more perilous and desperate 
 device to preserve Garrison s life could not well 
 have been hit upon. How was he ever to be got 
 out of the building and through that sea of ferocious 
 faces surging and foaming around it. First then by 
 disguising his identity by sundry changes in his 
 apparel. He obtained a pair of trousers from one 
 kindly soul, another gave him a coat, a third lent him 
 a stock, a fourth furnished him a cap. A hack was 
 summoned and stationed at the south door, a posse 
 
230 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 of constables drew up and made an open way from 
 the door to it. Another hack was placed in readiness 
 at the north door. The hack at the south door was 
 only a ruse to throw the mob off the scent of their 
 prey, while he was got out of the north door and 
 smuggled into the other hack. Up to this point, the 
 plan worked well, but the instant after Garrison had 
 been smuggled into the hack he was identified by the 
 mob, and then ensued a scene which defies descrip 
 tion ; no writer however skillful, may hope to repro 
 duce it. The rioters rushed madly upon the vehicle 
 with the cry: " Cut the traces ! Cut the reins ! " They 
 flung themselves upon the horses, hung upon the 
 wheels, dashed open the doors, the driver the while 
 belaboring their heads right and left with a powerful 
 whip, which he also laid vigorously on the backs of 
 his horses. For a moment it looked as if a catastrophe 
 was unavoidable, but the next saw the startled horses 
 plunging at break-neck speed with the hack up Court 
 street and the mob pursuing it with yells of baffled 
 rage. Then began a thrilling, a tremendous race for 
 life and Leverett street jail. The vehicle flew along 
 Court street to Bodoin square, but the rioters, with 
 fell purpose flew hardly less swiftly in its track. 
 Indeed the pursuit of the pack was so close that the 
 hackman did not dare to drive directly to the jail but 
 reached it by a detour through Cambridge and Blos 
 som streets. Even then the mob pressed upon the 
 heels of the horses as they drew up before the portals 
 of the old prison, which shut not an instant too soon 
 upon the editor of the Liberator, who was saved from 
 a frightful fate to use a Biblical phrase but by the 
 skin of his teeth. 
 
MISCHIEF LET LOOSE. 2$I 
 
 Here the reformer safe from the wrath of his foes, 
 was locked in a cell ; and here, during the evening, 
 with no abatement of his customary cheerfulness and 
 serenity of spirit, he received several of his anxious 
 friends, Whittier among them, whom through the 
 grated bars he playfully accosted thus : "You see my 
 accommodations are so limited, that I cannot ask you 
 to spend the night with me." That night in his 
 prison cell, and on his rude prison bed, he slept the 
 sleep of the just man, sweet and long : 
 
 " When peace within the bosom reigns, 
 *And conscience gives th approving voice ; 
 Though bound the human form in chains, 
 Yet can the soul aloud rejoice. 
 
 " Tis true, my footsteps are confined 
 I cannot range beyond this cell 
 But what can circumscribe my mind, 
 To chain the winds attempt as well ! " 
 
 The above stanzas he wrote the next morning on 
 the walls of his cell. Besides this one he made two 
 other inscriptions there, to stand as memorabilia of 
 the black drama enacted in Boston on the afternoon 
 of October 21, 1835. 
 
 After being put through the solemn farce of an 
 examination in a court, extemporized in the jail, Gar 
 rison was discharged from arrest as a disturber of the 
 peace ! But the authorities, dreading a repetition of 
 the scenes of the day before, prayed him to leave the 
 city for a few days, which he did, a deputy sheriff 
 driving him to Canton, where he boarded the train 
 from Boston to Providence, containing his wife, and 
 together they went thence to her father s at Brook- 
 
232 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 lyn, Conn. The apprehensions of the authorities in 
 respect of the danger of a fresh attack upon him were 
 unquestionably well founded, inasmuch as diligent 
 search was made for him in all of the outgoing stages 
 and cars from the city that morning. 
 
 In this wise did pro-slavery, patriotic Boston trans 
 late into works her sympathy for the South. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 
 
 THE results of the storm became immediately mani 
 fest in several ways. Such a commotion did not 
 leave things in precisely the state in which they were 
 on the morning of the memorable day on which it 
 struck the city. The moral landscape and geography 
 of the community had sensibly changed at its close. 
 The full extent of the alteration wrought could not 
 at once be seen, nor was it at once felt. But that 
 there were deep and abiding changes made by it in 
 the court of public opinion in Boston and Massachu 
 setts on the subject of slavery there is little doubt. 
 It disgusted and alarmed many individuals who had 
 hitherto acted in unison with the social, business, and 
 political elements, which were at the bottom of the 
 riot. Francis Jackson, for instance, had been one of 
 the fifteen hundred signers of the call for the great 
 Faneuil Hall meeting of the 2ist of August. But on 
 the afternoon of the 2ist of October he threw his 
 house open to the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Soci 
 ety, after its meeting had been broken up by the mob. 
 It seemed to him then that it was no longer a mere 
 struggle for the freedom of the slave, but for the right 
 of free speech and free discussion as well. Dr. Henry 
 I. Bowditch, a young man, in 1835, eminent professor 
 and physician subsequently, dates from that after 
 noon of mob violence his conversion to Abolitionism. 
 
 (233) 
 
234 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 In that selfsame hour seeds of resistance to slavery 
 were sown in two minds of the first order in the city 
 and State. Wendell Phillips was a spectator in 
 the streets that day, and the father of Charles Sum- 
 ner, the sheriff at the time, fought bravely to save 
 Garrison from falling into the hands of the mob. 
 The great riot gave those young men their first 
 summons to enter the service of freedom. It was 
 not long afterward probably that they both began 
 to read the Liberator. From that event many intelli 
 gent and conservative people associated slavery with 
 lynch law and outrage upon the rights of free speech 
 and popular assembly. 
 
 This anti-slavery reaction of the community re 
 ceived practical demonstration in the immediate 
 increase of subscribers to the Liberator. Twelve new 
 names were added to the subscription list in one day. 
 It received significant illustration also in Garrison s 
 nomination to the legislature. In this way did be 
 tween seventy and eighty citizens testify their sym 
 pathy for him and their reprobation of mob rule. In 
 yet another way was its influence felt, and this was 
 in the renewed zeal and activity which it instantly 
 produced on the part of the Abolitionists themselves. 
 It operated upon the movement as a powerful stimu 
 lus to fresh sacrifices and unwearied exertions. 
 George W. Benson, Garrison s brother-in-law, led off 
 bravely in this respect, as the following extract from 
 a letter written by him in Boston, two days after the 
 riot, to Garrison, at Brooklyn, well illustrates. He 
 had come up to the city from Providence the night 
 before, in quest of his sister and her husband. Not 
 finding them, he turned to the cause which had been 
 
FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 235 
 
 so ruthlessly attacked, and this is the sort of care 
 which he bestowed upon it. He got Burleigh to 
 write a general relation of the mob for publication in 
 the Liberator, and Whittier to indite another, with an 
 appeal to the public, the same to be published im 
 mediately, and of which he ordered three thousand 
 copies for himself. 
 
 " I further ordered," he writes, " one thousand 
 copies of A. Grimke s letter, with your introductory 
 remarks, and your address published in the Liberator 
 several weeks since, with your name appended, and 
 Whittier s poetry on the times, in a pamphlet form. 
 I urged all our friends to redouble their exertions. 
 They seemed well disposed to accept the advice, as 
 nothing will now avail but thorough measures. Lib 
 erty or Death ! " 
 
 This is a fair specimen of the indomitable, indefati 
 gable spirit which was born of the attempt to put 
 Abolitionism down by lawlessness and violence. In 
 deed, the " Broad-Cloth Mob," viewed in the light of 
 the important consequences which followed it, was 
 equal to a hundred anti-slavery meetings, or a dozen 
 issues of the Liberator. 
 
 It is a curious and remarkable circumstance that, 
 on the very day of the Boston mob, there occurred 
 one in Utica, N. Y., which was followed by 
 somewhat similar results. An anti-slavery conven 
 tion was attacked and broken up by a mob of " gen 
 tlemen of property and standing in the community," 
 under the active leadership of a member of Congress. 
 Here there was an apparent defeat for the Abolition 
 ists, but the consequences which followed the outrage 
 proved it a blessing in disguise. For the cause made 
 
236 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 many gains thereby, and conspicuously among them 
 was Gerrit Smith, ever afterward one of its most elo 
 quent and munificent supporters. If anti-slavery meet 
 ings made converts by tens, anti-slavery mobs made 
 them by hundreds. The enemies of freedom builded 
 better than they knew or intended, and Garrison had 
 the weightiest of reasons for feeling thankful to them 
 for the involuntary, yet vast aid and comfort which 
 their pro-slavery virulence and violence were bringing 
 him and the anti-slavery movement throughout the 
 free States. Example: in 1835-36, the great mob year, 
 as many as three hundred and twenty-eight societies 
 were organized in the North for the immediate aboli 
 tion of slavery. 
 
 The mob did likewise help towards a satisfactory 
 solution of the riddle propounded by Garrison : 
 " Shall the Liberator die ? " The fresh access of anti- 
 slavery strength, both in respect of zeal and num 
 bers, begotten by it, exerted no slight influence on 
 the longevity of the Liberator. Poor the paper con 
 tinued, and embarrassed the editor for many a month 
 thereafter, but as an anti-slavery instrument its sur 
 vival may be said from that proceeding to have be 
 come a necessity. To allow the Liberator to die at 
 this juncture would have been such a confession of 
 having been put down, such an ignominious surren 
 der to the mobocrats as the Abolitionists of Boston 
 would have scorned to make. " I trust," wrote 
 Samuel E. Sewall, " there will not be even one week s 
 interruption in the publication of the Liberator Ex 
 uno disce omnes. He but voiced the sentiment of the 
 editor s disciples and associates in the city, in the 
 State, and in New England as well. 
 
FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 237 
 
 Besides these larger consequences there were others 
 of a more personal and less welcome character. 
 The individual suffers but the cause goes for 
 ward. Property-holders in Boston after the riot 
 were not at all disposed to incur the risk of rent 
 ing property to such disturbers of the peace 
 as Garrison and the Liberator. The owner of 
 his home on Brighton street was thrown into such 
 alarm for the safety of his property, if Garrison con 
 tinued to occupy it, that he requested the cancella 
 tion of the lease and the vacation of the premises. 
 Garrison and his friends, all things considered, 
 decided that it was the part of wisdom to accede to 
 the request although this breaking up of his home 
 was a sore trial to the young husband in more ways 
 than one. 
 
 The landlord of the building where was located 
 the Liberator office promptly notified the publishers 
 to remove the paper not many mornings after the 
 mob. This was particularly hard luck, inasmuch 
 as the most dilligent quest for another local habita 
 tion for the paper, failed of success. No one was 
 willing to imperil his property by letting a part of 
 it to such a popularly odious enterprise. So that 
 not only had the household furniture of the editor to 
 be stored, but the office effects of the paper as well. 
 The inextinguishable pluck and zeal of Garrison and 
 his Boston coadjutors never showed to better advan 
 tage than when without a place to print the Liberator, 
 the paper was " set up in driblets " in other offices at 
 extraordinary expense, and sent out week after week 
 to tell the tale of the mob, and to preach with undi- 
 minished power the gospel of universal emancipation. 
 
238 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 But more afflictive to the feelings of the reformei 
 than the loss of his home, or that of the office of the 
 Liberator, was the loss of his friend, George Thomp 
 son. It seemed to him when the English orator 
 departed that "the paragon of modern eloquence," 
 and " the benefactor of two nations," had left these 
 shores. Garrison s grief was as poignant as his 
 humiliation was painful. George Thompson had 
 come hither only as a friend of America, and 
 America had pursued him with the most relentless 
 malice. The greatest precautions were taken after 
 the " Broadcloth Mob " to ensure his safety. The 
 place of his concealment was kept a secret and com 
 mitted only to a few tried friends. There is no 
 doubt that had these precautions not been observed 
 and his hiding place been discovered by the ruffians 
 of the city, his life would have been attempted. In 
 deed it is almost as certain that had he ventured to 
 show himself in public he would have been murdered 
 in broad daylight in any of the large towns and cities 
 of Massachusetts. His mission was clearly at an 
 end unless he was determined to invite martyrdom. 
 In these circumstances there was nothing to do but 
 to smuggle him out of the country at the first oppor 
 tunity. On Sunday, November 8, the anxiously 
 looked-for moment came when George Thompson 
 was put upon a packet, in which he sailed for St. 
 Johns, New Brunswick, whence he subsequently took 
 passage for England. Garrison was inconsolable. 
 " Who now shall go forth to argue our cause in pub 
 lic," he sadly asked, " with subtle sophists and inso 
 lent scoffers ? " little dreaming that there was then 
 approaching him out of the all-hail hereafter a 
 
FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 239 
 
 greater in these identical respects than George 
 Thompson, indisputably great as he was. 
 
 It was a blessed refuge to Garrison, the Benson 
 homestead of Brooklyn, termed Friendship s Valley. 
 Hunted as a partridge by his enemies here he found the 
 quiet, and sympathy, and the right royal welcome and 
 affection for which his heart panted amidst the dust, 
 and din, and dangers of the crusade against slavery. 
 But grateful as were the domestic sweets of Friend 
 ship s Valley, his was altogether too militant and 
 masterful a spirit to yield himself without a struggle 
 to the repose which it offered. He did not at all 
 relish the idea of being a forced exile from Boston, 
 of being obliged to edit the Liberator at such long 
 range. But his friends urged him to submit to the 
 one, and do the other, both on grounds of economy 
 and common prudence. He was almost super- 
 anxious lest it be said that the fear of the mob drove 
 him out of Boston, and that the fear of it kept him 
 out. This super-anxiety in that regard his friends to a 
 certain degree shared with him. It was a phase of 
 Abolition grit. Danger attracted this new species of 
 reformers as a magnet draws iron. Instead of run 
 ning away from it, they were, with one accord, for 
 ever rushing into it. And the leader in Brooklyn 
 was for rushing back to Boston, where, if one chanced 
 to sow the wind in the morning, he might be mor 
 ally certain of reaping the whirlwind in the after 
 noon. 
 
 Two weeks after he had been secretly conveyed to 
 Canton by Deputy Sheriff Parkman, being the day of 
 his discharge from Leverett street jail, he was back 
 again in Boston. The popular excitement had sub- 
 
240 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 sided. He showed himself freely in the streets and 
 was nowhere molested. One day, however, while at 
 the anti-slavery office on Washington street, he wit 
 nessed what was perhaps a final manifestation of the 
 cat-like spirit of the great mob. A procession passed 
 by with band and music, bearing aloft a large board 
 on which were represented George Thompson and a 
 black woman with this significant allusion to the riot, 
 made as if addressed to himself by his dusky com 
 panion in disgrace : " When are we going to have 
 another meeting, Brother Thompson ?" The cat-like 
 creature had lapsed into a playful mood, but its play 
 fulness would have quickly given place to an alto 
 gether different fit did it but know that Garrison was 
 watching it from the window of the very room where 
 a few weeks before he had nearly fallen into its 
 clutches. 
 
 Garrison remained in Boston two weeks, going 
 about the city, wherever and whenever business or 
 duty called him in a perfectly fearless way. He left 
 on the afternoon of November i8th. On that same 
 afternoon the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society 
 held a memorable meeting at the house of Francis 
 Jackson. It was then that Harriet Martineau, another 
 foreign emissary, avowed her entire agreement with 
 the principles of the Abolitionists, which subjected 
 her to social ostracism, and to unlimited abuse from 
 the pro-slavery press of the city. 
 
 The new hatred of slavery which the mob had 
 aroused in Boston found heroic expression in a letter 
 of Francis Jackson s replying to a vote of thanks of 
 the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society to him for 
 his hospitality to the ladies after their meeting was 
 
FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 241 
 
 broken up by the mob. Mr. Jackson in his answer 
 points with emphasis to the fact that his hospitality 
 had a double aim, one was the accommodation of the 
 ladies, the other the preservation of the right of free 
 discussion. In his regard a foundation principle of 
 free institutions had been assailed. " Happily," he 
 shrewdly observed, " one point seems already to be 
 gaining universal assent, that slavery cannot long 
 survive free discussion. Hence the efforts of the friends, 
 and apologists of slavery to break down this right. 
 And hence the immense stake which the enemies of 
 slavery hold, in behalf of freedom and mankind, in 
 its preservation. The contest is, therefore, substan 
 tially between liberty and slavery. 
 
 "As slavery cannot exist with free discussion, so 
 neither can liberty breathe without it. Losing this, 
 we, too, shall be no longer free men indeed, but little, 
 if at all, superior to the millions we now seek to 
 emancipate." This apprehension and spirit of resist 
 ance, voiced by Francis Jackson, was Garrison s new 
 ally, which, phoenix-like, was born out of the ashes 
 of that terrific attempt of his enemies to effect his 
 destruction, known as the "Broad-Cloth Mob." 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE BAROMETER CONTINUES TO FALL. 
 
 HAVING made trial of the strong arm of the mob ae 
 an instrument for putting down the Abolitionists, and 
 been quite confounded by its unexpected energy and 
 unmanageableness, Boston was well disposed to lay 
 the weapon aside as much too dangerous for use. For 
 the wild-cat-like creature might take it into its head 
 when once it had got a taste of blood, to suppress 
 some other isms in the community besides Aboli 
 tionism. No, no, the gentlemen of property and 
 standing in the community had too much at stake to 
 expose their property and their persons to the perils 
 of any further experiments in that direction, even for 
 the sake of expressing their sympathy for their dear 
 brethren in the South, or of saving the dear Union 
 into the bargain. Another method more in accord 
 with the genius of their high state of civilization, they 
 opined, might be invented to put the agitation and the 
 agitators of the slavery question down. The politi 
 cians thereupon proceeded to make this perfectly 
 wonderful invention. Not the strong arm of the mob, 
 quoth these wiseacres, but the strong arm of the law 
 it shall be. And the strong arm of the law they 
 forthwith determined to make it. 
 
 Massachusetts was hearkening with a sort of fascin 
 ation to the song of the slave syren. And no wonder. 
 
THE BAROMETER CONTINUES TO FALL. 243 
 
 For the song of the slave syren was swelling and 
 clashing the while with passionate and imperious 
 energy. South Carolina had led off in this kind of 
 music. In December following the Boston mob Gov 
 ernor McDuffie, pitched the key of the Southern con 
 cert in his message to the legislature descriptive of 
 anti-slavery publications, and denunciatory of the 
 anti-slavery agitation. The Abolitionists were, to his 
 mind, " enemies of the human race," and the move 
 ment for immediate emancipation ought to be made 
 a felony punishable "by death without benefit of 
 clergy." He boldly denied that slavery was a politi 
 cal evil, and vaunted it instead as " the corner stone of 
 our republican edifice" The legislature upon the 
 receipt of this extraordinary message proceeded to 
 demand of the free States the suppression, by effective 
 legislation, of anti-slavery societies and their incend 
 iary publications. The burden of this demand was 
 directly caught up by North Carolina, Alabama, Vir 
 ginia, and Georgia. But there were some things 
 which even a pro-slavery North could not do to oblige 
 the South. Neither party, much as both desired it, 
 dared to undertake the violation by law of the great 
 right of free speech and of the freedom of the press. 
 Not so, however, was it with sundry party leaders, 
 notably the governors of New York and Massachu 
 setts, who were for trying the strong arm of the law 
 as an instrument for suppressing Abolitionism. 
 Edward Everett was so affected by the increasing 
 Southern excitement and his fears for the safety of 
 the dear Union that he must needs deliver himself in 
 his annual message upon the Abolition agitation. He 
 was of the opinion that the Abolitionists were guilty 
 
244 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 of an offence against Massachusetts which might be 
 " prosecuted as a misdemeanor at common law," He 
 evidently did not consider that in the then present 
 state of political parties and of public opinion any 
 repressive legislation upon the subject could be got 
 through the legislature, and hence the immense util 
 ity of the old machinery of the common law, as an 
 instrument for putting down the agitation. But in 
 order to get this machinery into operation, careful 
 preparation was necessary. Proof must not be want 
 ing as to the dangerous and unpatriotic character and 
 tendency of the movement to be repressed. There 
 should be the most authoritative utterance upon this 
 point to warrant the effective intervention of the 
 Courts and Grand Juries of the commonwealth in the 
 prosecution of the Abolitionists, as disturbers of the 
 peace. Ergo the Governor s deliverance in his annual 
 message against them. Now, if the legislature could 
 be brought to deliver itself in tones not less certain, 
 the third coordinate branch of the State government 
 might catch its cue and act with energy in suppress 
 ing the disturbers of the peace of the commonwealth 
 and of the dear Union as well. This was the scheme, 
 the conspiracy which was in a state of incubation in 
 Massachusetts in the year 1836. The pro-slavery por 
 tion of Governor Everett s message, together with the 
 Southern demands for repressive legislation against 
 the Abolitionists were referred to a joint legislative 
 committee for consideration and report. The chair 
 man of the committee was George Lunt, of Newbury- 
 port, a bitter pro-slavery politician, who saw no sign, 
 received no light which did not come out of the 
 South. 
 
THE BAROMETER CONTINUES TO FALL. 245 
 
 The Abolitionists perceived the gravity of the new 
 danger which threatened them, and rallied promptly 
 to avert it. They shrewdly guessed that the object 
 of the committee would not be the enactment of any 
 new law against themselves but the adoption of con 
 demnatory resolutions instead. This course they 
 rightly dreaded more than the other, and to defeat it 
 the managers of the Massachusetts Anti-slavery Soci 
 ety requested a public hearing of the committee, 
 v/hich was granted. On March 4th Garrison and 
 many of the anti-slavery leaders appeared before the 
 committee, with a carefully planned programme of 
 procedure. To each of the selected speakers was 
 assigned a distinct phase of the great subject of dis 
 cussion before the committee. Samuel J. May was 
 appointed to open with an exposition of the anti- 
 slavery movement and of the object and motives of 
 its founders; Garrison to follow with an exhibition 
 of the pacific character of the agitation as contained 
 in official publications whereby forgiveness, submis 
 sion, and non-resistance were steadily inculcated; 
 Ellis Gray Loring was next to demonstrate the per 
 fectly constitutional character of the agitation. The 
 Abolitionists had in no wise contravened the National 
 or the State Constitution, either in letter or spirit, and 
 so on through the programme. It was thus that the 
 Abolitionists dexterously killed two birds with one 
 stone; for, at the same time that they made their 
 defence before the committeee, they managed to pre 
 sent their cause to the attention of the public as well. 
 Appearing before the committee to prevent hostile 
 action on the part of the legislature against their 
 movement, they skillfully turned the occasion into 
 
246 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 the most notable meeting for agitating the subject of 
 slavery in the State during the year. 
 
 The pro-slavery malignity of the chairman helped 
 not a little to bring this result to pass. He again 
 and again interrupted the speakers with the 
 greatest insolence of behavior. Garrison, for a won 
 der, was allowed to finish his remarks without inter 
 ruption. Here is a specimen of the way in which 
 Paul addressed himself to King Agrippa s master 
 public opinion : 
 
 " Sir," spoke he to the committee, " we loudly boast 
 of our free country, and of the union of these States, 
 yet I have no country ! As a New Englander and as 
 an Abolitionist I am excluded by a bloody proscrip 
 tion from one-half of the national territory, and so is 
 every man who is known to regard slavery with ab 
 horrence. Where is our Union ? . The right 
 of free and safe locomotion from one part of the land 
 to the other is denied to us, except on peril of our 
 lives. . . . Therefore it is, I assert, that the Union 
 is now virtually dissolved. . . . Look at McDuf- 
 fie s sanguinary message ! Read Calhoun s Report 
 to the U. S. Senate, authorizing every postmaster in 
 the South to plunder the mail of such Northern let 
 ters or newspapers as he may choose to think incendi 
 ary ! Sir, the alternative presented to the people of 
 New England is this : they must either submit to be 
 gagged and fettered by Southern taskmasters, or 
 labor unceasingly for the removal of slavery from 
 our country." 
 
 This was a capital stroke, a bold and brilliant 
 adaptation of the history of the times to the advance 
 ment of the anti-slavery movement in New England. 
 
THE BAROMETER CONTINUES TO FALL. 247 
 
 Missing Garrison, the anger of the chairman fell upon 
 Goodell and Prof. Follen, like a tiger s whelp. Fol- 
 len was remarking upon the Faneuil Hall meeting, 
 how it had rendered the Abolitionists odious in Bos 
 ton, and how, in consequence, the mob had followed 
 the meeting. 
 
 " Now, gentlemen," the great scholar continued, 
 " may we most reasonably anticipate that similar 
 consequences would follow the expression by the 
 legislature of a similar condemnation ? Would not 
 the mob again undertake to execute the informal 
 sentence of the General Court ? Would it not let 
 loose again its bloodhounds upon us ?" 
 
 At this point Mr. Lunt peremptorily stopped the 
 speaker, exclaiming : 
 
 " Stop, sir ! You may not pursue this course of 
 remark. It is insulting to this committee and the 
 legislature which they represent." 
 
 The Abolitionists, after this insult, determined to 
 withdraw from the hearing, and appeal to the legis 
 lature to be heard, not as a favor but of right. A 
 new hearing was, therefore, ordered, and the reform 
 ers appeared a second time before the committee. 
 But the scenes of the first were repeated at the second 
 hearing. The chairman was intolerably insolent to 
 the speakers. His violent behavior to William Good- 
 ell, who was paying his respects to the Southern 
 documents lying on the table of the committee, ter 
 minated the second hearing. These documents Mr. 
 Goodell described as fetters for Northern freemen, 
 and boldly interrogated the chairman in respect of 
 them thus : 
 
 " Mr. Chairman, are you prepared to attempt putting 
 
248 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 them on ? " But the chairman was in no mood to 
 listen to the question. His insolence reached a cli 
 max as he exclaimed passionately to Mr. Goodell, 
 " Stop, sir ! Sit down, sir ! The committee will hear 
 no more of this." But the temper of the Abolitionists 
 had risen also, as had also risen the temper of the great 
 audience of citizens who were present at the hearing 
 which was had in the hall of the House of Represen 
 tatives. " Freemen we came," retorted Goodell, " and 
 as freemen we shall go away." Scarcely had these 
 words died upon the ears when there rose sharply 
 from the auditory, the stern protest " Let us go 
 quickly, lest we be made slaves." 
 
 The attempt to suppress the Abolitionists was a 
 failure. It but stimulated the agitation and deepened 
 the popular interest in the subject. Strong allies 
 within and without the legislature were enlisted on 
 the side of freedom. The turning of the tide of pub 
 lic sentiment in the grand old State had come. Slowly 
 did it rise for awhile, but from that event it never 
 ceased to flow in and with increasing volume. The 
 condemnatory report of the insolent chairman proved 
 as innocuous as the baying of dogs at the moon. The 
 legislature refused to indorse it and the pro-slavery 
 resolutions attached to it. They were both ignomin- 
 iously laid upon the table, and what is more to the 
 purpose as a straw to show the drift of popular 
 opinion on the slaver) question in Massachusetts, 
 their author failed of a renomination as Senator at the 
 hands of hit dissatisfied constituents. 
 
 The conflic was raging not alone in Massachu 
 setts but all through the free States. In Congress 
 the battle was assuming an intensely bitter character. 
 
THE BAROMETER CONTINUES TO FALL. 249 
 
 Here the South was the agitator. Here she kept the 
 political waters in a state of violent ebullition. As 
 the discord grew, sectionalism threw darkening and 
 portentous shadows over the face of the Union. 
 The South was insisting in all stages of passion that 
 the tide of Abolition be checked in the North, that 
 the flood of incendiary publications be suppressed at 
 their sources in the free States. The Southern slave- 
 holding President had suggested the suppression of 
 these by Congress. He would " prohibit, under 
 severe penalties, the circulation in the Southern 
 States, through the mail, of incendiary publications 
 intended to instigate the slaves to insurrection." But 
 when Webster and a few Northern leaders objected 
 to such a proceeding as unconstitutional and in 
 derogation of the freedom of the press, the South 
 treated the objection as inimical to Southern interest 
 and security. Thereupon the Southern excitement 
 increased all the faster. The slave-power was not 
 disposed to accept anything short of complete sub 
 mission on the part of the North. And this the 
 North could not well yield. While the slave-holding 
 States were clamoring for the suppression of Aboli 
 tionism in the free States, Abolitionism was giving 
 evidences of extraordinary expansion, and activity. 
 It had risen well above the zero point in politics. It 
 was gaining numbers and it was gaining votes. A 
 new element had appeared at the polls and both of 
 the old parties began to exhibit a certain degree of 
 impressibility to the latest attraction. The slave- 
 power with quick instinct recognized in the new 
 comer a dangerous rival, and schemed for its destruc 
 tion. Southern jealousy took on the character of 
 
250 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 insanity. Neither Northern Whigs nor Northern 
 Democrats were permitted to show any regard for 
 the rival. They were to snub and utterly abolish 
 her, otherwise they should be snubbed and utterly 
 abolished by the slave-power. They could not with 
 impunity give to Abolitionism the scantiest attention 
 or courtesy. Not even a gallant like John Quincy 
 Adams, who was able to see nothing attractive in the 
 little band of reformers. They seemed to him, in 
 fact, " a small, shallow, and enthusiastic party preach 
 ing the abolition of slavery upon the principles of 
 extreme democracy." If Mr. Adams had little love 
 for the South, he had none whatever for the Aboli 
 tionists. By no stretch of the imagination could he 
 have been suspected of any sentimental attachment 
 to the Abolition movement. For his unvarying atti 
 tude towards it was one of grim contempt. But if 
 the old Roman had no love for the Abolitionists, he 
 did have a deep-seated attachment and reverence for 
 certain ancient rights appertaining to free institu 
 tions, which nothing was able to shake. Among 
 these was the great right of petition, viewed by the 
 ex-President as a right of human nature. For a 
 dozen years he stood in Congress its sleepless senti 
 nel. And herein did he perform for freedom most 
 valiant service. It made no difference to the daunt 
 less old man whether he approved of the prayer of a 
 petition or not, if it was sent to him he presented it 
 to the House all the same. He presented petitions 
 for the abolition of slavery in the District of Colum 
 bia, and one, at least, against it, petitions from black 
 and white, bond and free, with superb fidelity to the 
 precious right which he championed. 
 
THE BAROMETER CONTINUES TO FALL. 25! 
 
 This characteristic of the aged statesman kept the 
 Southern members^in a state of chronic apprehension 
 and excitement. They bullied him, they raged like 
 so many wild animals against him, they attempted to 
 crush him with votes of censure and expulsion all to 
 no purpose. Then they applied the gag : " That all 
 petitions, memorials, and papers touching the aboli 
 tion of slavery, or the buying, selling, or transferring 
 slaves, in any State, or district, or territory of the 
 United States, be laid on the table without being 
 debated, printed, read, or referred, and that no action 
 be taken thereon." Mr. Adam s denunciation of this 
 action as a violation of the Constitution, of the right 
 of the people to petition, and of the right to freedom 
 of speech in Congress, found wide echo through the 
 North. The violence, intolerence. and tyranny of the 
 South were disgusting many of the most intelligent 
 and influential minds in the non-slave-holding States, 
 and driving them into more or less close affiliation 
 with the anti-slavery movement. 
 
 And so it was wherever one turned there were con 
 flict and uproar. Everywhere contrary ideas, inter 
 ests, institutions, tendencies, were colliding with 
 inextinguishable rage. All the opposites and irrecon- 
 cilables in a people s life had risen and clashed 
 together in a death struggle for mastery. Freedom 
 and slavery, civilization and barbarism had found an 
 Armageddon in the moral consciousness of the 
 Republic. Now the combatants rallied and the bat 
 tle thickened at one point, now around another. At 
 Washington the tide rolls in with resounding fury 
 about the right of petition and the freedom of debate, 
 then through the free States it surges and beats 
 
252 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 around the right of free speech and the freedom of 
 the press. Storm clouds are flying from the East and 
 from the West, flying out of the North and out of the 
 South. Everywhere the chaos of the winds has 
 burst, and the anarchy of the " live thunder." 
 
 Benton with his customary optimism from a South 
 ern standpoint, rejoiced in the year 1836 that the 
 people of the Northern States had " chased off the 
 foreign emissaries, silenced the gabbling tongues of 
 female dupes, and dispersed the assemblies, whether 
 fanatical, visionary, or incendiary, of all that congre 
 gated to preach against evils that afflicted others, not 
 them, and to propose remedies to aggravate the dis 
 ease which they pretended to cure." Calhoun s pes 
 simism was clearer eyed. The great nullifier per 
 ceived at once the insuppressible nature of the Aboli 
 tion movement and early predicted that the spirit 
 then abroad in the North would not " die away of 
 itself without a shock or convulsion." Yes, it was as 
 he had prophesied, the anti-slavery reform was, at 
 the very moment of Benton s groundless jubilation, 
 rising and spreading with astonishing progress 
 through the free States. It was gaining footholds in 
 the pulpit, the school, and the press. It was a stal 
 wart sower, scattering broadcast as he walked over 
 the fields of the then coming generation truths and 
 antipathies of social principles, which were to make 
 peace impossible between the slave-holding and the 
 non-slave-holding halves of the Union. 
 
 In the year 1836 the anti-slavery leaven or residuum 
 for instance, was sufficiently potent to preserve the 
 statutes of the free States, free from repressive laws 
 directed against the Abolitionists. This was much 
 
THE BAROMETER CONTINUES TO FALL. 253 
 
 but there was undoubtedly another phase of the agi 
 tation, a phase which struck the shallow eye of Ben- 
 ton, and led him into false conclusions. It was not 
 clear sailing for the reform. It was truly a period of 
 stress and storm. Sometimes the reform was in a 
 trough of the sea of public opinion, sometimes on the 
 crest of a billow, and then again on the bosom of a 
 giant ground swell. In Boston in this selfsame year 
 which witnessed Benton s exultation over the fall of 
 Abolitionism, the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society 
 was not able to obtain the use of hall or church for 
 its annual meeting, and was in consequence forced 
 into insufficient accommodations at its rooms on 
 Washington street. The succeeding year the society 
 was obliged, from inability to obtain the use of either 
 hall or church in the city, to occupy for its annual 
 meeting the loft over the stable connected with the 
 Marlborough Hotel. It is a long way from this rude 
 meeting-house to the hall of the House of Represent 
 atives, but in this storm and stress period the distance 
 was traversed in a few brief hours. The society 
 applied in its exigency for the use of the hall for an 
 evening meeting, and the application was granted by 
 the members. It was a jeu d* esprit of Henry B. Stan- 
 ton, " That when Boston votes we go into a stable, 
 but when the State votes we go into the State House." 
 It was even so, for the incident served to reveal what 
 was true everywhere through the free States that the 
 anti-slavery reform was making fastest progress 
 among people away from the great centres of popu 
 lation. It found ready access to the simple Ameri 
 can folk in villages, in the smaller towns, and in the 
 rural districts of New England and the North, And 
 
254 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 already from these independent and uncorrupted 
 sons and daughters of freedom had started the deep 
 ground swell which was to lift the level of Northern 
 public opinion on the question of slavery. 
 
 This Walpurgis period of the movement culminated 
 on November 7, 1837, in a terrible tragedy. The 
 place was a little Illinois town, Alton, just over the 
 Mississippi River from St. Louis, and the victim was 
 Elijah P. Lovejoy. He was a minister of the Presby 
 terian Church, and the editor of a weekly religious 
 newspaper, first published in St. Louis and removed 
 by him later to Alton. His sin was that he did not 
 hold his peace on the subject of slavery in the col 
 umns of his paper. He was warned " to pass over in 
 silence everything connected " with that question. 
 But he had no choice, he had to cry aloud against 
 iniquities, which, as a Christian minister and a Chris 
 tian editor, he dared not ignore. His troubles with 
 the people of St. Louis took in the spring of 1836 
 a sanguinary turn, when he denounced the lynching 
 of a negro by a St. Louis mob, perpetrated under cir 
 cumstances of peculiar atrocity. In consequence 
 of his outspoken condemnation of the horror, his 
 office was broken into and destroyed by a mob. 
 Lovejoy thereupon removed his paper to Alton, but 
 the wild-cat-like spirit pursued him across the river 
 and destroyed his press. He replaced his broken 
 press with a new one, only to have his property a 
 second time destroyed. He replaced the second with 
 a third press, but a third time the mob destroyed his 
 property. Then he bought a fourth press, and 
 resolved to defend it with his life. Pierced by bullets 
 he fell, resisting the attack of a mob bent on the de- 
 
THE BAROMETER CONTINUES TO FALL. 255 
 
 struction of his rights. Lovejoy died a martyr to free 
 speech and the freedom of the press. 
 
 The tidings of this tragedy stirred the free States 
 to unwonted depths. The murder of an able and sin 
 gularly noble man by a mob was indeed horrible 
 enough, but the blow which took his life was aimed 
 at the right of free speech and the freedom of the 
 press. He was struck down in the exercise of his lib 
 erties as a citizen of the town where he met death, 
 and of the State and country to which he belonged. 
 What brave man and good in the North who might 
 not meet a similar fate for daring to denounce evils 
 approved by the community in which his lot was 
 cast ? Who was safe ? Whose turn would it be next 
 to pay with his life for attempts to vindicate the 
 birthright of his citizenship? What had Lovejoy 
 done, what had he written, that thousands of people 
 who did not agree with Garrison would not have 
 done and have written under like circumstances ? He 
 was not a disciple of Garrison, he did not accept the 
 doctrine of immediate emancipation, and yet a pro- 
 slavery mob had murdered him. Yes, who was 
 safe ? Who was to be the next ? A great horror 
 transfixed the North, and bitter uncertainty, and 
 tremendous dread of approaching perils to its 
 liberties. 
 
 Ah ! had not Garrison spoken much plain truth at 
 the public hearing of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery 
 Society before the insolent chairman and his commit 
 tee when he said: " The liberties of the people of the 
 free States are identified with those of the slave pop 
 ulation. If it were not so, there would be no hope, in 
 my breast, of peaceful deliverance of the latter class 
 
256 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 from their bondage. Our liberties are bound together 
 by a ligament as vital as that which unites the Siam 
 ese twins. The blow which cuts them asunder, will 
 inevitably destroy them both. Let the freedom of 
 speech and of the press be abridged or destroyed, and 
 the nation itself will be in bondage ; let it remain 
 untrammeled, and Southern slavery must speedily 
 come to an end." The tragedy at Alton afforded 
 startling illustration of the soundness of this remark. 
 Classes like individuals gain wisdom only by experi 
 ence ; and the murder of Lovejoy was one of those 
 terrific experiences which furrow themselves in the 
 soul of a people in frightful memories and apprehen 
 sions which do not disappear but remain after long 
 lapse of years. 
 
 Twelve days after the murder it was before the 
 development of the telegraph and rapid postal facili 
 ties the news reached Boston. It produced the most 
 profound sensation. Many of the leading citizens 
 felt straightway that if the rights assailed in the per 
 son of Lovejoy were to be preserved to themselves 
 and their section, immediate action was required. A 
 great meeting was proposed, and Faneuil Hall 
 applied for. The application was denied by the 
 municipal authorities on the plea that its use for such 
 a purpose might provoke a mob. The city was, how 
 ever, dealing now not with the despised Abolitionists, 
 but with men of property and standing in the com 
 munity and was soon brought to its senses by the 
 indignant eloquence of Dr. Channing, appealing to 
 the better self of Boston in this strain : " Has it come 
 to this ? Has Boston fallen so low ? May not its cit 
 izens be trusted to come together to express the great 
 
THE BAROMETER CONTINUES TO FALL. 257 
 
 principles of liberty for which their forefathers died ? 
 Are our fellow-citizens to be murdered in the act of 
 defending their property and of assuming the right 
 of free discussion ? And is it unsafe in this metrop 
 olis to express abhorrence of the deed ? " 
 
 A second application for the hall was granted, and 
 a meeting, which is an historical event in the annals 
 of the old town, was held December 8, 1837 a meet 
 ing memorable as an uprising, not of the Abolition 
 ists, but of the conservatism and respectability of the 
 city in behalf of the outraged liberties of white men. 
 Ever memorable,too, for that marvelous speech of Wen 
 dell Phillips, which placed him instantly in the front 
 rank of minds with a genius for eloquence, lifted him , 
 at once as an anti-slavery instrument and leader close 1 
 beside William Lloyd Garrison. The wild-cat-like 
 spirit which had hunted Thompson out of the coun 
 try and Lovejoy to death, had more than made 
 ^ood the immense deficit of services thus created 
 through the introduction upon the national stage of 
 the reform of this consummate and incomparable 
 orator. 
 
 The assassination of Lovejoy was an imposing 
 object lesson to the North, but it was not the last. 
 Other and terrible illustrations of the triumph of 4 ] 
 mobs followed it, notably the burning of Pennsylva- I 
 nia Hall in Philadelphia i>n the evening of May 17, I 
 1838. As the murder of Lovejoy formed the culmi 
 nation of outrages directed against the rights of per 
 son, the burning of Pennsylvania Hall furnished the \ 
 climax of outrages committed against the rights of 
 property. The friends of the slave and of free dis 
 cussion in Philadelphia feeling the netrd of a place 
 
258 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 where they might assemble for the exercise of the 
 right of free speech in a city which denied to them 
 the use of its halls and meeting-houses, determined 
 to erect for themselves such a place. At a cost oi 
 forty thousand dollars they built Pennsylvania Hall 
 and devoted it to " Free Discussion, Virtue, Liberty, 
 and Independence." 
 
 Two days after the dedicatory exercises were had 
 the hall was occupied by the annual convention of 
 American Anti-Slavery Women. On the evening of 
 May i6th, Garrison, Maria Weston Chapman, Ange 
 lina Grimk6 Weld and others addressed the conven 
 tion in the new temple of freedom. The scenes of 
 that evening have been graphically described by the 
 first speaker as follows : " The floor of the hall was 
 densely crowded with women, some of the noblest 
 specimens of our race, a large proportion of whom 
 were Quakers. The side aisles and spacious galleries 
 were as thickly filled with men. Nearly three thou 
 sand people were in the hall. There seemed to be 
 no visible symptoms of a riot. When I rose to speak 
 I was greeted with applause by the immense assem 
 bly, and also several times in the course of my 
 remarks. As soon, however, as I had concluded my 
 address, a furious mob broke into the hall, yelling 
 and shouting as if the very fiends of the pit had sud 
 denly broken loose. The audience rose in some con 
 fusion, and would undoubtedly have been broken up, 
 had it not been for the admirable self-possession of 
 some individuals, particularly the women. The 
 mobocrats finding that they could not succeed in 
 their purpose, retreated into the streets, and, sur 
 rounding the building, began to dash in the windows 
 
THE BAROMETER CONTINUES TO FALL. 259 
 
 with stones and brick-bats. It was under these 
 appalling circumstances that Mrs. Chapman rose for 
 the first time in her life, to address a promiscuous 
 assembly of men and women and she acquitted her 
 self nobly. She spoke about ten minutes, and was 
 succeeded by A. E. G. Weld, who occupied nearly 
 an hour. As the tumult from without increased, and 
 the brick-bats fell thick and fast (no one, however, 
 being injured) her eloquence kindled, her eye flashed, 
 and her cheeks glowed, as she devoutly thanked the 
 Lord that the stupid repose of that city had at length 
 been disturbed by the force of truth. When she sat 
 down, Esther Moore (a Friend) made a few remarks, 
 then Lucretia Mott, and finally Abby Kelley, a noble , 
 young woman from Lynn. 
 
 " The meeting broke up about 10 o clock, and we 
 all got safely home. The next day the street was 
 thronged with profane ruffians and curious specta 
 tors the women, however, holding their meetings in j 
 the hall all day, till towards evening. It was given ) 
 out by the mob that the hall would be burnt to the 
 ground that night. We were to have a meeting in 
 the evening, but it was impossible to execute our 
 purpose. The mayor induced the manager to give 
 the keys of the building into his hands. He then 
 locked the doors, and made a brief speech to the mob, 
 assuring them that he had the keys, and that there 
 would be no meeting, and requesting them to retire. 
 He then went home, but the mob were bent on the 
 destruction of the hall. They had now increased to 
 several thousands, and soon got Into the hall by 
 dashing open the doors with their axes. They then 
 set fire to this huge building, and in the course of an 
 
260 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 hour it was a solid mass of flame. The bells of the 
 city were rung, and several engines rallied ; but no 
 water was permitted to be thrown upon the building. 
 The light of the fire must have been seen a great 
 distance." 
 
 At midnight Garrison was spirited out of the city, 
 and conveyed in a covered carriage by a friend to 
 Bristol, about twenty miles, where in the morning he 
 took the steamboat for Boston. The light of that 
 fire was visible a great distance in more senses than 
 one. The burning of Pennsylvania Hall proved a 
 public enlightener. After that occurrence the gen 
 tlemen of property scattered through the free States 
 devoted themselves less to the violent suppression of 
 Abolitionism and more to the forcible suppression, 
 upon occasion, of the alarming manifestations 
 of popular lawlessness, which found significant 
 demonstration just a week later in the city of 
 Boston. 
 
 Mr. Garrison has preserved for us an instructive 
 account of this affair, too, and here is the story as told 
 by him to his brother-in-law, George W. Benson, in a 
 letter dated May 25th : " The spirit of mobocracy, 
 like the pestilence, is contagious ; and Boston is once 
 more ready to reenact the riotous scenes of 1835. 
 The Marlboro Chapel, having just been completed, 
 and standing in relation to our cause just as did 
 Pennsylvania Hall, is an object of pro-slavery malevo 
 lence. Ever since my return, threats have been given 
 out that the chapel should share the fate of the hall. 
 Last evening was the time for its dedication ; and, 
 so threatening was the aspect of things, four com 
 panies of light infantry were ordered to be in readi- 
 
THE BAROMETER CONTINUES TO FALL. 261 
 
 ness, each being provided with 100 ball cartridges, to 
 rush to the scene of riot on the tolling of the bells. 
 The Lancers, a powerful body of horsemen, were 
 also in readiness. During the day placards were 
 posted at the corners of the streets, denouncing the 
 Abolitionists, and calling upon the citizens to rally at 
 the chapel in the evening, in order to put them down. 
 An immense concourse of people assembled, a large 
 proportion doubtless from motives of curiosity, and 
 not a few of them with evil designs ; but owing to 
 the strong military preparations, the multitude 
 refrained entirely from any overt acts of violence. 
 They did not disperse till after 10 o clock, and dur 
 ing the evening shouted and yelled like a troop of 
 wild savages. Some ten or twelve were seized and 
 carried to the watch-house, and this morning fined 
 for their disorderly conduct." 
 
 The frightful excesses of the Walpurgis period of 
 the agitation reacted through the free States to an 
 extraordinary extent in favor of Abolition. The 
 greater the horror committed by the wild-cat-like 
 spirit, the greater the help which the reform derived 
 therefrom. The destruction of property, and the 
 destruction of life instead of putting down the hated 
 Abolitionists aroused in the public mind apprehen 
 sions and antagonisms in respect of mobs, which 
 proved, immediately and ultimately, of immense ad 
 vantage to freedom. This revulsion on the part of 
 the North from lawless attempts to abolish Aboli 
 tionism, affected almost unavoidably, and in the be 
 ginning of it almost unconsciously, the friendly dis 
 positions of that section toward slavery, the root 
 and mainspring of these attempts. Blows aimed at 
 
262 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 the agent were sure, regardless of the actor s inten 
 tion, to glance and strike the principal. In spite of 
 mobs then, and to a remarkable degree because of 
 mobs, Abolitionism had become a powerful motor 
 in revolutionizing public opinion in the free States 
 on the subject of slavery. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 BROTHERLY LOVE FAILS, AND IDEAS ABOUND. 
 
 During those strenuous, unresting years, included 
 between 1829 and 1836, Garrison had leaned on his 
 health as upon a strong staff. It sustained him with 
 out a break through that period, great as was the 
 strain to which it was subjected. But early in the 
 latter year the prop gave way, and the pioneer was 
 prostrated by a severe fit of sickness. It lasted off 
 and on for quite two years. His activity the first 
 year was seriously crippled, though at no time, ow 
 ing to his indomitable will, could he be said to have 
 been rendered completely hors de combat. Almost the 
 whole of 1836 he spent with his wife s family in 
 Brooklyn, where his first child was born. This new 
 mouth brought with it fresh cares of a domestic char 
 acter. He experienced losses also. Death removed 
 his aged father-in-law in the last month of 1836, and 
 four weeks later Henry E. Benson, his brother-in-law. 
 Their taking off was a sad blow to the reformer and 
 to the reform. That of the younger man cast a 
 gloom over anti-slavery circles in New England ; for 
 at the time of his death he was the secretary and 
 general agent of the Massachusetts Society, and al 
 though not twenty-three, had displayed uncommon 
 capacity for affairs. The business ability which he 
 brought into his office was of the greatest value 
 
264 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 where there was such a distinct deficiency in that re 
 spect among his coadjutors, and the loss of it seemed 
 irreparable. 
 
 Afflicted as he was, the leader was nevertheless 
 cheered by the extraordinary progress of the move 
 ment started by him. The growth and activity of 
 Abolitionism were indeed altogether phenomenal. In 
 February, 1837, Ellis Gray Loring estimated that 
 there were then eight hundred anti-slavery societies 
 in the United States, that an anti-slavery society had 
 been formed in the North every day for the last two 
 years, and that in the single State of Ohio there were 
 three hundred societies, one of which had a member 
 ship of four thousand names. The moral agitation 
 was at its height. The National Society had hit upon 
 a capital device for increasing the effectiveness of 
 its agents and lecturers. This was to bring them 
 together in New York for a few weeks study of the 
 slavery question under the direction of such masters 
 as Theodore D. Weld, Beriah Green, Charles Stuart, 
 and others. All possible phases of the great subject, 
 such as, What is slavery ? What is immediate eman 
 cipation ? The consequences of emancipation to the 
 South, etc., etc., pro-slavery objections and argu 
 ments were stated and answered. The agents and 
 lecturers went forth from the convention bristling 
 with facts, and glowing with enthusiasm to renew the 
 crusade against slavery. Garrison, broken in health 
 as he was, went on from Boston to attend this school 
 of his disciples. He spoke briefly but repeatedly to 
 them upon the all-absorbing topic which had brought 
 them together. " It was a happy circumstance, too," 
 he wrote, " that I was present with them, and that 
 
BROTHERLY LOVE FAILS. 265 
 
 they had an opportunity to become personally 
 acquainted with me ; for, as I am a great stumbling- 
 block in the way of the people, or, rather, of some 
 people, it would be somewhat disastrous to our cause 
 if any of our agents, through the influence of popular 
 sentiment, should be led to cherish prejudices 
 against me." 
 
 In February, 1837, the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery 
 Society came to the rescue of the Liberator from its 
 financial embarrassments and hand-to-mouth exist 
 ence by assuming the responsibility of its publica 
 tion. The arrangement did not in any respect 
 compromise Mr. Garrison s editorial independence, 
 but lifted from him and his friend Knapp in his own 
 language, " a heavy burden, which has long crushed 
 us to the earth." The arrangement, nevertheless, 
 continued but a year when it was voluntarily set 
 aside by Mr. Garrison for causes of which we must 
 now give an account. 
 
 In the letter from which we have quoted above, 
 touching his visit to the Convention of Anti-Slavery 
 Agents, Garrison alludes to one of these causes. He 
 says : " I was most kindly received by all, and treated 
 as a brother, notwithstanding the wide difference of 
 opinion between us on some religious points, especi 
 ally the Sabbath question." The italics are our own. 
 Until within a few years he had been one of the 
 strictest of Sabbath observers. Although never for 
 mally connected with any church, he had been a 
 narrow and even an intolerant believer in the creed 
 and observances of New England orthodoxy. Words 
 failed him in 1828 to express his abhorrence of a 
 meeting of professed infidels : " It is impossible," he 
 
266 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 exclaimed with the ardor of a bigot, " to estimate the 
 depravity and wickedness of those who, at the 
 present day, reject the Gospel of Jesus Christ, 7 etc. 
 A year and a half later while editing the Genius in 
 Baltimore, he held uncompromisingly to the stern 
 Sabbatical notions of the Puritans. A fete given to 
 , Lafayette in France on Sunday seemed to him an 
 ! act of sheer religious desecration. The carrying of 
 passengers and the mails on the Sabbath provoked 
 his energetic reprobation. He was in all points of 
 New England Puritanism, orthodox of the orthodox. 
 Subsequently he began to see things in a different 
 light. As the area of his experience extended it 
 came to him that living was more than believing, 
 that it was not every one who professed faith in 
 Jesus had love for him in the heart ; and that there 
 were many whom his own illiberalism had rated as 
 depraved and wicked on mere points of doctrine, 
 who, nevertheless, shamed by the blamelessness and 
 nobility of their conduct multitudes of ardent Chris 
 tians of the lip-service sort. Indeed this contradic 
 tion between creed and conduct struck him with con 
 siderable force in the midst of his harsh judgments 
 against unbelief and unbelievers. " There are, in 
 fact," he had remarked a year or two after he had 
 attained his majority, " few reasoning Christians ; the 
 majority of them are swayed more by the usages of 
 the world than by any definite perception of what 
 constitutes duty so far, we mean, as relates to the 
 subjugation of vices which are incorporated, as it 
 were, into the existence of society ; else why is it 
 that intemperance, and slavery, and war, have not 
 ere this in a measure been driven from our land ? " 
 
BROTHERLY LOVE FAILS. 267 
 
 As the months of his earnest young life passed 
 him by, they showed him as they went how horrible 
 a thing was faith without works. " By their fruits 
 ye shall know them," the Master had said, and more 
 and more as he saw how many and great were the 
 social evils to be reformed, and in what dire need 
 stood his country of righteous action, did he come 
 to put increasing emphasis on conduct, as the one 
 thing needful to rid the land of the triple curse of 
 slavery, intemperance, and war. As he mused upon 
 these giant evils, and the desolation which they were 
 singly and together causing in the world, and upon 
 the universal apathy of the churches in respect of 
 them, it seemed to him that the current religion was 
 an offence and an abomination. And in his prophetic 
 rage he denounced it as " a religion which quadrates 
 with the natural depravity of the heart, giving 
 license to sin, restraining no lust, mortifying not the 
 body, engendering selfishness, and cruelty ! a relig 
 ion which walks in silver slippers, on a carpeted 
 floor, having thrown off the burden of the cross and 
 changed the garments of humiliation for the splendid 
 vestments of pride ! a religion which has no courage, 
 no faithfulness, no self-denial, deeming it better to 
 give heed unto men than unto God ! " This was in 
 the autumn of 1829, but though he was thus violently 
 denunciatory of contemporary religion, the severity 
 of his judgment against the skepticism of the times 
 had not been materially modified. He still regarded 
 the unbeliever with narrow distrust and dislike. 
 When, after his discharge from Baltimore jail, he was 
 engaged in delivering his message on the subject of 
 slavery, and was seeking an opportunity to make 
 
\ 
 
 268 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 what he knew known to the people of Boston, he was 
 forced, after vainly advertising for a hall or meeting 
 house in which to give his three lectures, to accept 
 the offer of Abner Kneeland s Society of Infidels of 
 the use of their hall for that purpose. The spirit of 
 these people, branded by the community as blas 
 phemers, and by himself, too, in all probability, 
 Garrison saw to be as admirable as the spirit dis 
 played by the churches of the city toward him and 
 his cause was unworthy and sinful. But, grateful as 
 he was for the hospitality of the infidels, he, neverthe 
 less, rather bluntly informed them that he had no 
 sympathy with their religious notions, and that he 
 looked for the abolition of slavery to evangelicism, 
 and to it alone. 
 
 A few years in the university of experience, where 
 he learned that conduct is better than creeds, and 
 living more than believing, served to emancipate him 
 from illiberal prejudices and narrow sectarianism. 
 He came to see, " that in Christ Jesus all stated 
 observances are so many self-imposed and unneces 
 sary yokes ; and that prayer and worship are all 
 embodied in that pure, meek, child-like state of heart 
 which affectionately and reverently breathes but one 
 petition Thy will be done on earth as it is in 
 heaven. Religion . . . is nothing but love perfect 
 love toward God and toward man without formality, 
 without hypocrisy, without partiality depending 
 upon no outward form to preserve its vitality or 
 prove its existence." 
 
 This important change in Mr. Garrison s religious 
 convictions became widely known in the summer of 
 1836 through certain editorial strictures of his upon 
 
BROTHERLY LOVE FAILS. 269 
 
 a speech of Dr. Lyman Beecher, at Pittsburgh, on the 
 subject of the Sabbath. The good doctor was cold 
 enough on the question of slavery, which involved 
 not only the desecration of the Sabbath, but of the 
 souls and bodies of millions of human beings. If 
 Christianity was truly of divine origin, and Garrison 
 devoutly believed that it was, it would approve its 
 divinity by its manner of dealing with the vices and 
 evils which were dragging and chaining the feet of 
 men to the gates of hell. If it parleyed with iniquity, 
 if it passed its victims by on the other side, if it did 
 not war incessantly and energetically to put down 
 sin, to destroy wickedness, it was of the earth, earthy; 
 and its expounders were dumb dogs where they 
 should bark the loudest and bite the hardest ; and 
 Dr. Beecher appeared to him one of these dumb dogs, 
 who, when he opened his mouth at all, was almost 
 sure to open it at the men who were trying through 
 evil report and good to express in their lives the 
 spirit of Him who so loved the world that He gave 
 His Son to die to redeem it. He bayed loud enough 
 at the Abolitionists but not at the abomination which 
 they were attacking. He was content to leave it to 
 the tender mercies of two hundred years. No such 
 liberal disposition of the question of the Sabbath was 
 he willing to allow. He waxed eloquent in its behalf. 
 His enthusiasm took to itself wings and made a great 
 display of ecclesiastical zeal beautiful to behold. 
 " The Sabbath," quoth the teacher who endeavored 
 to muzzle the students of Lane Seminary on the 
 subject of slavery, whose ultimate extinction his 
 prophetic soul quiescently committed to the operation 
 of two centuries ; " the Sabbath," quoth he, " is 
 
270 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 the great sun of the moral world Out upon you, 
 said Garrison, the LORD GOD is the great sun of Hu 
 moral world, not the Sabbath. It is not one, but 
 every day of the week which is His, and which mer 
 should be taught to observe as holy days. It is nol 
 regard for the forms of religion but for the spirit, 
 which is essential to righteousness. What is the 
 command, Remember the Sabbath day to keep it 
 holy, but one of ten commandments ? Is the viola 
 tion of the fourth any worse than the violation of the 
 third or fifth, or sixth ? Nowhere is it so taught in 
 the Bible. Yet, what is slavery but a breaking and 
 treading down of the whole ten, what but a vast 
 system of adultery, robbery, and murder, the daily 
 and yearly infraction on an appalling scale not alone 
 of the spirit but of the letter of the decalogue ? 
 
 Mr. Garrison then passed to criticisms of a more 
 special character touching the observance of the day 
 thus : " These remarks are made not to encourage 
 men to do wrong at any time, but to controvert a 
 pernicious and superstitious notion, and one that is 
 very prevalent, that extraordinary and supernatural 
 visitations of divine indignation upon certain trans 
 gressors (of the Sabbath particularly and almost 
 exclusively) are poured out now as in the days of 
 Moses and the prophets. Whatever claim the Sab 
 bath may have to a strict religious observance, we 
 are confident it cannot be strengthened, but must 
 necessarily be weakened, by all such attempts to 
 enforce or prove its sanctity." This pious but 
 rational handling of the Sabbath question gave 
 instant offence to the orthodox readers of the 
 Liberator. For it was enough in those days to con- 
 
BROTHERLY LOVE FAILS. 271 
 
 vict the editor of rank heresy. From one and another 
 of his subscribers remonstrances came pouring in 
 upon him. A young theological student at Yale 
 ordered his paper stopped in consequence of the 
 anti-Sabbatarian views of the editor. A Unitarian 
 minister at Harvard, Mass., was greatly cut up by 
 reason thereof, and suddenly saw what before he did 
 not suspect. " I had supposed you," he wrote in his 
 new estate, " a very pious person, and that a large 
 proportion of the Abolitionists were religious persons. 
 I have thought of you as another Wilber- 
 force but would Wilberforce have spoken thus of 
 the day on which the Son of God rose from the 
 dead ? " Garrison s query in reply " Would Wilber 
 force have denied the identity of Christ with the 
 Father ? " was a palpable hit. But as he himself 
 justly remarked, "Such questions are not arguments, 
 but fallacies unworthy of a liberal mind." Never 
 theless, so long as men are attached to the leading 
 strings of sentiment rather than to those of reason, 
 such questions will possess tremendous destructive 
 force, as Mr. Garrison, in his own case, presently per 
 ceived. He understood the importance of not arous 
 ing against him " denominational feelings or peculi 
 arities," and so had steered the Liberator clear of the 
 rocks of sectarianism. But when he took up in its 
 columns the Sabbath question he ran his paper 
 directly among the breakers of a religious contro 
 versy. He saw how it was with him at once, saw 
 that he had stirred up against him all that religious 
 feeling which was crystallized around the first day of 
 the week, and that he could not hope to escape with 
 out serious losses in one way or another. " It is 
 
272 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 pretty certain," he writes Samuel J. May in Septem 
 ber, 1836, "that the Liberator will sustain a serious 
 loss in its subscriptions at the close of the present 
 volume ; and all appeals for aid in its behalf will be 
 less likely to prevail than formerly. I am conscious 
 that a mighty sectarian conspiracy is forming to 
 crush me, and it will probably succeed to some 
 extent." 
 
 This controversy over the Sabbath proved the thin 
 edge of differences and dissensions, which, as they 
 went deeper and deeper, were finally to rend asunder 
 the erstwhile united Abolition movement. The pe 
 riod was remarkable for the variety and force of new 
 ideas, which were coming into being, or passing into 
 general circulation. And to all of them it seems that 
 Garrison was peculiarly receptive. He took them all 
 in and planted them in soil of extraordinary fertility. 
 It was immediately observed that it was not only one 
 unpopular notion which he had adopted, but a whole 
 headful of them. And every one of these new ideas 
 was a sort of rebel-reformer, a genuine man of war. 
 They had come as a protest against the then existing 
 beliefs and order of things, come as their enemies and 
 destroyers. Each one of them was in a sense a 
 stirrer-up of sedition against old and regnant rela 
 tions and facts, political, moral, and religious. Who 
 ever espoused them as his own, espoused as his own 
 also the antagonisms, political, moral, and religious 
 which they would excite in the public mind. All of 
 which was directly illustrated in the experience of the 
 editor of the Liberator. Each of these new notions 
 presently appeared in the paper along with Abolition 
 ism. What was his intention timid people began to 
 
BROTHERLY LOVE FAILS. 273 
 
 inquire ? Did he design to carry them along with the 
 Abolition movement ? Suspicious minds fancied they 
 saw " in Mr. Garrison, a decided wish, nay, a firm 
 resolve, in laboring to overthrow slavery, to over 
 throw the Christian Sabbath and the Christian min 
 istry. His doctrine is that every day is a Sabbath, 
 and every man his own minister. There are no 
 Christian ordinances, there is no visible church." His 
 no-government and non-resistant ideas excited yet 
 further the apprehensions of some of his associates 
 for the safety of that portion of the present order to 
 which they clung. As developed by Garrison they 
 seemed to deny the right of the people " to frame a 
 government of laws to protect themselves against 
 those who would injure them, and that man can 
 apply physical force to man rightfully under no cir 
 cumstances, and not even the parent can apply the 
 rod to the child, and not be, in the sight of God, a 
 trespasser and a tyrant." 
 
 Garrison embraced besides Perfectionism, a sort of 
 political, moral, and religious Come-outerism, and 
 faith in " universal emancipation from sin." His 
 description of himself abont this time as " an Ishmael- 
 itish editor " is not bad, nor his quotation of " Woe is 
 me my mother ! for I was born a man of strife " as 
 applicable to the growing belligerency of his rela 
 tions with the anti-slavery brethren in consequence 
 of the new ideas and isms, which were taking posses 
 sion of his mind and occupying the columns of the 
 Liberator. 
 
 Among the strife-producers during this period of 
 the anti-slavery agitation, the woman s question played 
 a principal part. Upon this as upon the Sabbath 
 
274 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 question, Garrison s early position was one of extreme 
 conservatism. As late as 1830, he shared the common 
 opinions in regard to woman s sphere, and was 
 strongly opposed to her stepping outside of it into 
 that occupied by man. A petition of seven hundred 
 women of Pittsburgh, Pa., to Congress in behalf- of 
 the Indians gave his masculine prejudices a great 
 shock. " This is, in our opinion," he declared, " an 
 uncalled for interference, though made with holiest 
 intentions. We should be sorry to have this practice 
 become general. There would then be no question 
 agitated in Congress without eliciting the informal 
 and contrariant opinions of the softer sex." This top 
 lofty sentiment accorded well with the customary 
 assumption and swagger of one of the lords of crea 
 tion. For the young reformer was evidently a firm 
 believer in the divine right of his sex to rule in the 
 world of politics. But as he grew taller and broader 
 the horizon of woman widened, and her sphere 
 embraced every duty, responsibility, and right for 
 which her gifts and education fitted her. The hard 
 and fast lines of sex disappeared from his geography 
 of the soul. He perceived for a truth that in human 
 ity there was neither male nor female, but that man 
 and woman were one in work and destiny equals in 
 bearing the world s burden, equals in building the 
 world s glory. He heard in his heart the injunction of 
 the eternal wisdom saying : "Whom God hath joined 
 together let no man put asunder ; " and straightway 
 disposed his opinions and prejudices, his thoughts 
 and purposes in cordial obedience therewith. He saw 
 at once the immense value of woman s influence in 
 the temperance movement, he saw no less quickly her 
 
BROTHERLY LOVE FAILS. 275 
 
 importance in the anti-slavery reform, and he had 
 appealed to her for help in the work of both, and she 
 had justified his appeal and proven herself the most 
 devoted of coadjutors. 
 
 In the beginning of the movement against slavery 
 the line of demarcation between the sexes was strictly 
 observed in the formation of societies. The men had 
 theirs, the women theirs. Each, sexually considered, 
 were very exclusive affairs. It did not seem to have 
 occurred to the founders of the New England Anti- 
 Slavery Society, or of the national organization to 
 admit women to membership in them, nor did it seem 
 to enter the mind of any woman to prefer a request 
 to be admitted into them. Anti-slavery women organ 
 ized themselves into female anti-slavery societies, did 
 their work apart from the men, who plainly regarded 
 themselves as the principals in the contest, and 
 women as their moral seconds. The first shock, 
 which this arrangement, so accordant with the oak- 
 and-ivy notion of the masculine half of mankind, 
 received, came when representatives of the gentler 
 sex dropped the secondary role assigned women in 
 the conflict, and began to enact that of a star. The 
 advent of the sisters Grimke upon the anti-slavery 
 stage as public speakers, marked the advent of the V 
 idea of women s rights, of their equality with men in 
 the struggle with slavery. 
 
 At the start these ladies delivered their message to 
 women only, but by-and-bye as the fame of their elo 
 quence spread men began to appear among their 
 auditories. Soon they were thrilling packed halls 
 and meeting-houses in different parts of the country, 
 comprised of men and women. The lesson which 
 
276 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 their triumph enforced of women s fitness to enact 
 the r61e of principals in the conflict with slavery was 
 not lost upon the sex. Women went, saw, and con 
 quered their prejudices against the idea of equality ; 
 likewise, many men. The good seed of universal lib 
 erty and equality fell into fruitful soil and germinated 
 in due time within the heart of the moral movement 
 against slavery. 
 
 The more that Sarah and Angelina Grimk6 reflected 
 upon the sorry position to which men had assigned 
 women in Church and State the more keenly did they 
 feel its injustice and degradation. They beat with 
 their revolutionary idea of equality against the iron 
 bars of the cage-like sphere in which they were born, 
 and within which they were doomed to live and die 
 by the law of masculine might. At heart they were 
 rebels against the foundation principle of masculine 
 supremacy on which society and government rested. 
 While pleading for the freedom of the slaves, the 
 sense of their own bondage and that of their sisters 
 rose up before them and revealed itself in bitter ques 
 tionings. " Are we aliens," asked Angelina, " because 
 we are women ? Are we bereft of citizenship because 
 we are the mothers, wives, and daughters of a mighty peo 
 ple ? Have women no country no interests staked on 
 the public weal no partnership in a nation s guilt or 
 shame ? " This discontent with the existing social 
 establishment in its relation to women received sym 
 pathetic responses from many friends to whom the 
 sisters communicated the contagion of their unrest 
 and dissatisfaction. Angelina records that, "At 
 friend Chapman s, where we spent a social evening, I 
 had a long talk with the brethren on the rights of 
 
BROTHERLY LOVE FAILS. 277 
 
 women, and found a very general sentiment prevail 
 ing that it is time our fetters were broken. L. M. 
 Child and Maria Chapman strongly supported this 
 view ; indeed very many seem to think a new order 
 of things is very desirable in this respect." 
 
 This prevalence of a sentiment favorable to women s 
 rights, which Angelina observed in Mrs. Chapman s 
 parlors possessed no general significence. For true 
 to the character of new ideas, this particular new 
 idea did not bring peace but a sword. It set Aboli 
 tion brethren against Abolition brethren, and blew 
 into a flame the differences of leaders among them 
 selves. But the first irruption of strife which it 
 caused proceeded from without, came from the 
 church or rather from the clergy of the Orthodox 
 Congregational churches of Massachusetts. This cler 
 ical opposition to the idea of women s rights found 
 expression in the celebrated "Pastoral Letter," issued 
 by the General Association of Ministers of that 
 denomination to the churches of the same in the sum 
 mer of 1837. This ecclesiastical bull had two dis 
 tinct purposes to accomplish ; first, to discourage the 
 agitation of the slavery question by excluding anti- 
 slavery agents from lecturing upon that subject in 
 the churches ; and, second, to suppress the agitation 
 of the woman s question by setting the seal of the dis 
 approval of the clergy to the appearance of women in 
 their new and revolutionary role of public speakers 
 and teachers on the burning subjects of the times. 
 The reverend authors threw up their hands and 
 eyes in holy horror at the " widespread and perma 
 nent injury " which seemed to them to threaten "the 
 female character." They scorned the new-fangled 
 
278 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 notion of woman s independence, and asked for noth 
 ing better than the Pauline definition of her " appro 
 priate duties and influence." "The power of women," 
 
 quoth they, " is in her dependence When she 
 
 assumes the place and tone of man as a public 
 reformer, our care and protection of her seem unnec 
 essary ; we put ourselves in self-defence against her, 
 she yields the power which God has given her for 
 protection, and her character becomes unnatural ! " 
 
 These Congregational ministers were not the only 
 representatives of the lordly sex to whom the idea of 
 women s equality was repellent. Anti-slavery breth- 
 . ren, too, were flinging themselves into all postures of 
 self-defence against the dangerous innovation, which 
 the sisters Grimke" were letting into the social estab 
 lishment, by itinerating " in the character of public 
 lecturers and teachers." Amos A. Phelps was quite 
 as strongly opposed to women preachers, to women 
 assuming the " place and tone of man as a public 
 reformer," as Nehemiah Adams himself. He remon 
 strated with them against their continued assump 
 tion of the character of public lecturers and teachers, 
 but to no purpose. Sarah and Angelina were uncom 
 promising, refused to yield one iota of their rights as 
 " moral and responsible beings." They firmly declined 
 to make their Quakerism and not their womenhood 
 their warrant for " exercising the rights and perform 
 ing the duties" of rational and responsible beings, for 
 the sake of quieting tender consciences, like that of 
 Phelps, among the anti-slavery brethren. They were in 
 earnest and demanded to know "whether there is such 
 \ a thing as male and female virtues, male and female 
 - duties." Angelina writes: "My opinion is that there 
 
BROTHERLY LOVE FAILS. 279 
 
 is no difference, and that this false idea has run the f 
 ploughshare of ruin over the whole field of morality, j 
 My idea is that whatever is morally right for a man j 
 to do is morally right for a woman to do. I recog- I 
 nize no rights but human rights. ... I am persuaded i 
 that woman is not to be, as she has been, a mere sec- , 
 ond-hand agent in the regeneration of a fallen world,} 
 but the acknowledged equal and co-worker with 
 man in this glorious work." 
 
 The debate on the subject threatened for a short i 
 season to push the woman s question to the level of 1 
 the slavery question. The contention became acri- 
 monius, and the alienation of friendships was wide- j 
 spread. John G. Whittier and Theodore D. Weld, 
 who were both avowed believers in the idea of 
 women s rights, nevertheless, felt that the agitation 
 of the subject, under the circumstances, was a grave 
 blunder. " No moral enterprise, when prosecuted 
 with ability and any sort of energy, ever failed under 
 heaven," wrote Weld to Sarah and Angelina, " so 
 long as its conductors pushed the main principle, and 
 did not strike off until they reached the summit level. 
 On the other hand, every reform that ever foundered ( 
 in mid-sea, was capsized by one of these gusty ) 
 side-winds." Both Weld and Whittier endeavored 
 to dissuade the sisters from mooting the question of 
 women s rights at all, and to urge them to devote 
 their voice and pen to the " main principle " exclu 
 sively. But Angelina confesses that " our judgment 
 is not convinced, and we hardly know what to do 
 about it, for we have just as high an opinion of 
 Brother Garrison s views, and he says go on " The 
 influence of Weld and Whittier finally prevailed with 
 
280 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 : "Carolina s high-souled daughters," and they re 
 frained from further agitation of the subject ol 
 Women s rights lest they should thereby injure the 
 cause of the slave. 
 
 But the leaven of equality was not so effectually 
 disposed of. It had secured permanent lodgment in 
 the anti-slavery body, and the fermentation started 
 by it, went briskly on. Such progress did the princi 
 ple of women s rights make among the Eastern Abo 
 litionists, especially among those of Massachusetts, 
 , that in the spring of 1838 the New England Anti- 
 ! Slavery Society voted to admit women to equal 
 i membership with men. This radical action was fol 
 lowed by a clerical secession from the society, which 
 made a stir at the time. For among the seceding 
 members was no less a personage than Amos A. 
 ; Phelps, who was the general agent of the Massachu- 
 ; setts Society, and therefore one of Garrison s 
 stanchest supporters. The reform instituted by the 
 New England Society, in respect of the character of 
 its membership, was quickly adopted by the Massa 
 chusetts Society and by several local organizations, 
 all of which set the ball of discord spinning among 
 the brethren at a great rate. But by this time all the 
 f new ideas, Sabbatical, no-government, perfectionist, 
 I non-resistance, as well as women s rights, were within 
 i the anti-slavery arena, and fencing and fighting for a 
 
 chance to live, with the old ideas and the old order. 
 .1 Garrison championed all of the new ideas, and in 
 ; doing so arrayed against himself all of the special 
 [ champions of the existing establishments. In his re 
 duced physical state, the reformer was not equal to 
 the tremendous concussions of this " era of activity," 
 
BROTHERLY LOVE FAILS. 28 1 
 
 as Emerson named it. At moments he appeared be 
 wildered amid the loud, fierce clamor of contend 
 ing ideas, each asserting in turn its moral primacy. 
 For an instant the vision of the great soul grew dim, 
 the great heart seemed to have lost its bearings. All 
 of the new ideas thawed and melted into each other, 
 dissolved into one vague and grand solidarity of 
 reforms. The voice of the whole was urging him 
 amid the gathering moral confusion to declare him 
 self for all truth, and he hearkened irresolute, with 
 divided mind. " I feel somewhat at a loss to know 
 what to do " he confesses at this juncture to George *. 
 W. Benson, " whether to go into all the principles of 
 holy reform and make the Abolition cause subordi 
 nate, or whether still to persevere in the one beaten 
 track as hitherto. Circumstances hereafter must 
 determine this matter." That was written in August, 
 1837 ; a couple of months later circumstances had 
 not determined the matter, it would seem, from the 
 following extract from a letter to his brother-in-law : 
 " It is not my intention at present to alter either the 
 general character or course of the Liberator. My 
 work in the anti-slavery cause is not wholly done ; 
 as soon as it is, I shall know it, and shall be pre 
 pared, I trust, to enter upon a mightier work of 
 reform." 
 
 Meanwhile the relations between the editor of the 
 Liberator and the managers of the national organiza 
 tion were becoming decidedly strained. For it seemed 
 to them that Garrison had changed the anti-slavery 
 character of his paper by the course which he had 
 taken in regard to the new ideas which were finding 
 their way into its columns to the manifest harm of 
 
282 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 the main principle of immediate emancipation. This 
 incipient estrangement between the pioneer and the 
 executive committee of the national society was 
 greatly aggravated by an occurrence, which, at the 
 time, was ^elevated to an importance that it did not 
 deserve. This occurrence was what is known in anti- 
 slavery annals as the Clerical Appeal." Five clergy 
 men, who were obviously unfriendly to Garrison, and 
 distrustful of the religious and social heresies which 
 they either saw or fancied that they saw in the Liber 
 ator ; and withal jealous lest the severities of the paper 
 against particular pro-slavery ministers should dimin 
 ish the influence and sacred character of their order, 
 published, in August of 1837, in the New England Spec 
 tator an acrid arraignment of editor and paper, upon 
 five several charges, designed to bring Garrisonism to 
 the block and speedy death. This document was fol 
 lowed by two other appeals by way of supplement 
 and rejoinder from the same source, an " Andover 
 Appeal " from kindred spirits and a bitter, per 
 sonal letter from one of the " seventy agents," all of 
 them having a common motive and purpose, viz., 
 sectarian distrust and dislike of Garrison, and desire 
 to reduce his anti-slavery influence to a nullity. 
 
 In his diseased and suffering bodily condition, Gar 
 rison naturally enough fell into the error of exagger 
 ating the gravity of these attacks upon himself. Insig 
 nificant in an historical sense, they really were an epi 
 sode, an unpleasant one to be sure for the time being, 
 but no more. To Garrison, however, they appeared 
 in a wholly different light. It seemed a rebellion on 
 a pretty grand scale, which called for all his strength, 
 all the batteries of the friends of freedom, all his ter- 
 
BROTHERLY LOVE FAILS. 283 
 
 rible and unsparing severities of speech to quell it. 
 All his artillery he posted promptly in positions com 
 manding the camp of the mutineers, and began to 
 pour, as only he could, broadside after broad 
 side into the works of the wretched little camp of 
 rebels. He could hardly have expended more energy 
 and ammunition in attacking a strategical point of { 
 Southern slavery, than was expended in punishing a \ 
 handful of deserters and insurgents. But, alas ! he 
 was not satisfied to draw upon his own resources for 
 crushing the clerical sedition, he demanded reinforce 
 ments from the central authorities in New York as 
 well. And then began a contention between him and 
 the Executive Committee of the National Society, 
 which issued only in ill. 
 
 Garrison considered it the duty of the Executive 
 Committee to disapprove officially of the action of the 
 Massachusetts recalcitrants, and also the duty of its 
 organ, the Emancipator, to rebuke the authors of the 
 " appeals." Not so, replied Lewis Tappan and Elizur ^ 
 Wright, your request is unreasonable. If you choose 
 to make a mountain out of a molehill, you choose to 
 make a mistake which the Executive Committee will; 
 not repeat. Your troubles are wholly local, of no f 
 general importance whatever. "What! Shall a whole 
 army stop its aggressive movements into the territor- 1 
 ies of its enemies to charge bayonets on five soldiers, j 
 subalterns, company, or even staff officers, because ( 
 they stray into a field to pick berries, throw stones or \ 
 write an appeal ? To be frank with you we shall 
 make bold to say that we do not approve of the 
 appeal, it is very censurable, its spirit is bad, but 
 neither do we approve of your action in the premises, 
 
284 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 it is also very censurable and its spirit is bad, What 
 then ? shall the Executive Committee condemn the 
 authors of the appeal and not condemn the editor of 
 I the Liberator also ? If strict military justice were 
 | done should not both parties be cashiered ? Let the 
 Sabbath and the theoretic theology of the priesthood 
 alone for the present." " I could have wished, yes, I 
 have wished from the bottom of my soul," it is 
 Wright who now holds the pen, " that yon could con 
 duct that dear paper, the Liberator, in the singleness 
 of purpose of its first years, without traveling off 
 from the ground of our true, noble, heart-stirring 
 Declaration of Sentiments without breathing senti 
 ments which are novel and shocking to the commun- 
 , ity, and which seem to me to have no logical sequence 
 from the principles on which we are associated as 
 Abolitionists. I cannot but regard the taking hold of 
 one great moral enterprise while another is in hand 
 ! and but half achieved, as an outrage upon common- 
 ; sense, somewhat like that of the dog crossing the 
 river with his meat. But you have seen fit to intro 
 duce to the public some novel views I refer especi 
 ally to your sentiments on government and religious 
 v perfection and they have produced the effect which 
 was to have been expected. And now considering 
 what stuff human nature is made of, is it to be won 
 dered at that some honest-hearted, thorough-going 
 Abolitionists should have lost their equanimity ? As 
 you well know I am comparatively no bigot to any 
 creed, political or theological, yet to tell the plain 
 truth, I look upon your notions of government and 
 ; religious perfection as downright fanaticism as 
 ! harmless as they are absurd. I would not care a pin s 
 
BROTHERLY LOVE FAILS. 285 
 
 head if they were preached to all Christendom ; for 
 it is not in the human mind (except in a peculiar ; 
 and, as I think, diseased state) to believe them." / 
 
 Barring the extreme plainness of speech with which 
 Wright and Tappan gave their advice to Mr. Garri 
 son, it was in the main singularly sound and wise. 
 But the pioneer did not so regard it. He was pos 
 sessed with his idea of the importance of chastising 
 the clerical critics, and of the duty of the Executive 
 Committee and of the Emancipator to back him in the 
 undertaking. His temper was, under all circum 
 stances, masterful and peremptory. It was never 
 more masterful and peremptory than in its manage 
 ment of this business. The very reasonable course of 
 the Board at New York suggested to his mind a pre-- 
 dominance of " sectarianism at headquarters," seemed 
 to him "criminal and extraordinary." As the Execu-i 
 tive Committee and its organ would not rebuke the 
 schismatics, he was moved to rebuke the Executive 
 Committee and its organ for their " blind and 
 temporizing policy." And so matters within the 
 movement against slavery went, with increasing 
 momentum, from bad to worse. 
 
 The break in the anti-slavery ranks widened as new 
 causes of controversy arose between the management 
 in Boston and the management at New York. The 
 Massachusetts Abolitionists had stood stanchly by 
 Garrison against the clerical schismatics. They also 
 inclined to his side in his trouble with the national 
 board. Instead of one common center of activity and 
 leadership the anti-slavery reform began now to 
 develop two centers of activity and leadership. Gar 
 rison and the Liberator formed the moral nucleus at 
 
286 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 one end, the Executive Committee and the Emancipa 
 tor the moral nucleus at the other. Much of the ener 
 gies of the two sides were in those circumstances, 
 absorbed in stimulating and completing the pro 
 cesses which were to ultimate in the organic division 
 of the body of the movement against slavery. When 
 men once begin to quarrel they will not stop for lack 
 of subjects to dispute over. There will be no lack, 
 for before one disputed point is settled another has 
 arisen. It is the old story of the box of evils. Begin 
 nings must be avoided, else if one evil escapes, others 
 will follow. The anti-slavery Pandora had let out one 
 little imp of discord and many big and little imps 
 were incontinently following. 
 
 Against all of the new ideas except one, viz., the 
 idea of anti-slavery political action, the New York 
 leadership, speaking broadly, had opposed itself. But 
 as if by some strange perversity of fate, this particu 
 lar new idea was the only one of the new ideas to 
 which the Boston leadership did not take kindly. It 
 became in time as the very apple of the eye to the 
 management of the National Society. And the more 
 ardently it was cherished by them, the more hateful 
 did it become with the Boston Board. It was the 
 only one of the new ideas which had any logical 
 sequence from the Abolition cause. In a country 
 where the principle of popular suffrage obtains, all 
 successful moral movements must sometime ultimate 
 in political action. There is no other way of fixing in 
 laws the changes in public sentiment wrought during 
 this period of agitation. The idea of political action 
 was therefore a perfectly natural growth from the 
 moral movement against slavery. The only reason- 
 
BROTHERLY LOVE FAILS. 287 
 
 able objection to it would be one which went to show 
 that it had arrived out of due course, that its appear 
 ance at any given time was marked by prematurity in 
 respect of the reasons, so to speak, of the reform. 
 For every movement against a great social wrong 
 as was the anti-slavery movement must have its 
 John-the-Baptist stage, its period of popular awaken 
 ing to the nature and enormity of sin and the duty 
 of immediate repentance. 
 
 The anti-slavery enterprise was at the time of the 
 controversy between the New York and the Boston 
 Boards in this first stage of its growth. It had not 
 yet progressed naturally out of it into its next phase 
 of political agitation. True there were tendencies 
 more or less strong to enter the second stage of its 
 development, but they seem irregular, personal, and 
 forced. The time had not come for the adoption of 
 the principle of associated political action against 
 slavery. But the deep underlying motive of the advo 
 cates of the third-party idea was none the less a grand 
 one, viz., "to have a free Northern nucleus," as Elizur 
 Wright put it, "a standard flung to the breeze some 
 thing around which to rally." Garrison probed to 
 the quick the question in a passage of an address to 
 the Abolitionists, which is here given : " Abolition 
 ists ! you are now feared and respected by all politi 
 cal parties, not because of the number of votes you 
 can throw, so much as in view of the moral integrity 
 and sacred regard to principle which you have 
 exhibited to the country. It is the religious aspect of 
 your enterprise which impresses and overawes men 
 of every sect and party. Hitherto you have seemed 
 to be actuated by no hope of preferment or love of 
 
288 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 power, and therefore have established, even in the 
 minds of your enemies, confidence in your disinter 
 estedness. If you shall now array yourselves as a 
 political party, and hold out mercenary rewards to 
 induce men to rally under your standard, there is 
 reason to fear that you will be regarded as those who 
 have made the anti-slavery cause a hobby to ride into 
 office, however plausible or sound may be your pre 
 texts for such a course. You cannot, you ought not, 
 to expect that the political action of the State will 
 move faster than the religious action of the Church, 
 in favor of the abolition of slavery ; and it is a fact 
 not less encouraging than undeniable, that both the 
 Whig and Democratic parties have consulted the 
 wishes of Abolitionists even beyond the measure of 
 their real political strength. More you cannot expect 
 under any circumstances." 
 
 Hotly around this point raged the strife among 
 brethren. Actuated by the noblest motives were 
 both sides in the main, yet, both sides displayed in 
 the maintenance of their respective positions an 
 amount of weak human nature, which proves that 
 perfection is not attainable even by the most dis 
 interested of men. Harsh and abusive language 
 good men uttered against good men. Distrust, 
 suspicion, anger, and alienation took possession of 
 the thoughts of the grandest souls. Saints and 
 heroes beseemed themselves like very ordinary folk, 
 who, when they come to differences, come directly 
 afterward to high words and thumping blows. The 
 love of David and Jonathan which once united Garri 
 son and Phelps, has died. Garrison and Stanton 
 meet and only exchange civilities. They, too, have 
 
BROTHERLY LOVE FAILS. 289 
 
 become completely alienated, and so on down the 
 long list of the " goodliest fellowship . . . whereof 
 this land holds record/ To a sweet and gentle 
 spirit like Samuel J. May, the acrimony and scenes 
 of strife among his old associates was unspeakably 
 painful. Writing to Garrison from South Scituate, 
 May i, 1839, h e touches thus upon this head : " I 
 now think I shall not go to New York next week. In 
 the first place, I cannot afford the expense . . . But 
 I confess, I do not lament my inability to go so much 
 as I should do if the prospect of an agreeable meet 
 ing was fairer. I am apprehensive that it will be not 
 so much an anti-slavery as anti-Garrison and anti- 
 Phelps meeting, or anti-board-of-managers and anti- 
 executive committee meeting. Division has done its 
 work, I fear, effectually. The two parties seem to 
 me to misunderstand, and therefore sadly misrepre 
 sent one another. I am not satisfied with the course 
 you and your partisans have pursued. It appears to 
 me not consistent with the non-resistant, patient, 
 long-suffering spirit of the Gospel. And I do not 
 believe that either the cause of the slave, or the cause 
 of peace and righteousness has been advanced." 
 
 The situation was further complicated by the dis 
 covery of a fresh bone of contention. As if to give 
 just a shade of sordidness to the strife there must 
 needs arise a money difficulty between the two rival 
 boards of leaders. This is how our recent band of 
 brothers happened to stumble upon their new apple 
 of discord. Soon after the formation of the National 
 Society an arrangement was made with each of the 
 State societies whereby they agreed to operate finan 
 cially their respective territories and to turn into the 
 
290 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 national treasury the several sums which at the 
 annual meeting they obligated themselves to con 
 tribute to the general work. This arrangement was 
 intended to avoid the expense, conflict, and confusion 
 consequent upon the employment of two sets of 
 agents to work the same territory. Matters went on 
 quite smoothly under this plan between the Massa 
 chusetts Board and the National Board until the be 
 ginning of the year 1839, when the former fell into 
 arrears n the payment of its instalments to the latter. 
 Money from one cause or another, was hard to get 
 at by the Massachusetts Board, and the treasury in 
 New York was in an extremely low state. The rela 
 tions between the two boards were, as we have seen, 
 much strained and neither side was in the mood to 
 cover with charity the shortcomings of the other. 
 Perhaps the board at New York was too exacting, 
 perhaps the board at Boston T yas not sufficiently 
 zealous, under the circumstances. But what were the 
 real irritating causes which kept the two boards 
 at loggerheads over the matter need not here be 
 determined. This fact is clear that the arrangement 
 was rescinded by the New York management, and 
 their agents thrown into Massachusetts. This action 
 only added fuel to a fire which was fast assuming 
 the proportions of a conflagration. All the antU 
 Garrisonians formed themselves into a new anti- 
 slavery society, and the National Board, as if to burn 
 its bridges, and to make reconciliation impossible, 
 established a new paper in Boston in opposition to 
 the Liberator. The work of division was ended. 
 There was no longer any vital connection between 
 the two warring members of the anti-slavery reform. 
 
BROTHERLY LOVE FAILS. 2gi 
 
 To tear the dead tissues asunder which still joined 
 them, all that was wanted was anothar sharp shock, 
 and this came at the annual meeting of the National 
 Society in 1840 over the woman s question. The 
 issue, " Shall a woman serve with men on a com 
 mittee ? " was precipitated upon the convention by 
 the appointment of that brilliant young Quakeress, 
 Abby Kelley, on the business committee with ten 
 men. The convention confirmed her appointment by 
 about a hundred majority in a total vote of 1,008. 
 Whereupon those opposed to this determination of 
 the question, withdrew from the convention and 
 organized the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery 
 Society. Garrison had triumphed and he was 
 immensely elated with his victory. His moral leader 
 ship was definitely established, never again to be 
 disputed by his disciples and followers. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 RANDOM SHOTS. 
 
 THE division of the anti-slavery organization into 
 two distinct societies did not immediately terminate 
 the war between them. From New York and the 
 American society the contest over the woman s 
 qnestion was almost directly shifted after the tri 
 umph of the Garrisonians in the convention, to Lon 
 don and the World s Convention, which was held in 
 the month of June of the year 1840. To this anti- 
 slavery congress both of the rival anti-slavery organ 
 izations in America elected delegates. These dele 
 gates, chosen by the older society and by its auxili 
 aries of the States of Massachusetts and Pennsylva 
 nia, were composed of women and men. Lucretia 
 Mott was not only chosen by the National Society, 
 but by the Pennsylvania Society as well. The Mass 
 achusetts Society selected Lydia Maria Child, Maria 
 Weston Chapman, and Ann Green Phillips together 
 with their husbands among its list of delegates. Eng 
 land at this time was much more conservative on the 
 woman s question than America. The managers of 
 the World s Convention did not take kindly to the 
 notion of women members, and signified to the Amer 
 ican societies who had placed women among their 
 delegates that the company of the women was not ex 
 pected. Those societies, however, made no alteration 
 
 (292) 
 
RANDOM SHOTS. 293 
 
 in deference to this notice, in the character of their 
 delegations, but stood stoutly by their principle of 
 " the EQUAL BROTHERHOOD of the entire HUMAN FAMI 
 LY without distinction of color, sex, or clime." 
 
 A contest over the admission of women to member 
 ship in the World s Convention was therefore a fore 
 gone conclusion. The convention, notwithstanding a 
 brilliant fight under the lead of Wendell Phillips in 
 behalf of their admission, refused to admit the women 
 delegates. The women delegates instead of having 
 seats on the floor were forced in consequence of this 
 decision to look on from the galleries. Garrison, 
 who with Charles Lenox Remond, Nathaniel P. Rog 
 ers, and William Adams, was late in arriving in Eng 
 land, finding, on reaching London the women exclud 
 ed from the convention and sitting as spectators in 
 the galleries, determined to take his place among 
 them, deeming that the act of the convention which 
 discredited the credentials of Lucretia Mott and her 
 sister delegates, had discredited his own also. Re 
 mond, Rogers, and Adams followed his example and 
 took their places with the rejected women delegates 
 likewise. The convention was scandalized at such 
 proceedings, and did its best to draw Garrison and 
 his associates from the ladies in the galleries to the 
 men on the floor, but without avail. There they re 
 mained an eloquent protest against the masculine 
 narrowness of the convention. Defeated in New York, 
 the delegates of the new American and Foreign Anti- 
 Slavery Society triumphed over their victors in Lon 
 don. But their achievements in the World s Conven 
 tion, in this regard, was not of a sort to entitle them 
 to point with any special pride in after years ; and, as 
 
294 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 a matter of fact, not one of them would have proba 
 bly cared to have their success alluded to in any sketch 
 of their lives for the perusal of posterity. 
 
 Garrison and his associates were the recipients of 
 the most cordial and flattering attention from the 
 English Abolitionists. He was quite lionized, in fact, 
 at breakfasts, fetes, and soirees. The Duchess of 
 Sunderland paid him marked attention and desired 
 his portrait, which was done for Her Grace by the cele 
 brated artist, Benjamin Robert Haydon, who execu 
 ted besides a large painting of the convention, in which 
 he grouped the most distinguished members with ref 
 erence to the seats actually occupied by them during 
 its sessions. Of course to leave Garrison out of such 
 a picture would almost seem like the play of " Ham 
 let " with Hamlet omitted, a blunder which the artist 
 was by no means disposed to make. Garrison was 
 accordingly invited to sit to him for his portrait. 
 Haydon, who it seems was a student of human nature 
 as well as of the human form, made the discovery of 
 a fact which at first surprised and angered him. In 
 making his groupings of heads he decided to place 
 together the Rev. John Scoble, George Thompson 
 and Charles Lenox Remond. When Scoble sat to 
 him, Haydon told him of his design in this regard. 
 But, remarked Haydon, Scoble " sophisticated imme 
 diately on the propriety of placing the negro in the 
 distance, as it would have much greater effect." The 
 painter now applied his test to Thompson who " saw 
 no objection." Thompson did not bear the test to 
 Haydon s satisfaction, who observed that "A man 
 who wishes to place the negro on a level must no 
 longer regard him as having been a slave, and feel 
 
RANDOM SHOTS. 295 
 
 annoyed at sitting by his side." But when the artist 
 approached Garrison on the subject it was wholly 
 different. " I asked him," Haydon records with obvi 
 ous pleasure, " and he met me at once directly." 
 
 Thompson was not altogether satisfactory to Gar 
 rison either during this visit as the following extract 
 from one of his letters to his wife evinces : " Dear 
 Thompson has not been strengthened to do battle for 
 us, as I had confidently hoped he would be. He is 
 placed in a difficult position, and seems disposed to 
 take the ground of non-committal, publicly, respect 
 ing the controversy which is going on in the United 
 States." 
 
 Garrison, Rogers, and Remond in the company of 
 Thompson made a delightful trip into Scotland at 
 this time. Everywhere the American Abolitionists 
 were met with distinguished attentions. " Though I 
 like England much, on many accounts," Garrison 
 writes home in high spirits, " I can truly say that I 
 like Scotland better." An instance, which may be 
 coupled with that one furnished by Haydon, occurred 
 during this Scottish tour, and illustrates strongly the 
 kind of stuff of which he was made. On his way to 
 the great public reception tendered the American 
 delegates by the Glasgow Emancipation Society, a 
 placard with the caption, " Have we no white slaves ? " 
 was put into his hands. Upon acquainting himself 
 with its contents he determined to read it to the meet 
 ing, and to make it the text of remarks when he was 
 called upon to address the meeting. He was present 
 ly announced and the immense audience greeted him 
 with every manifestation of pleasure and enthusiasm, 
 with loud cheering and waving of handkerchiefs. 
 
296 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 Nevertheless he held to his purpose to speak upon 
 the subject of the placard, unwelcome though it 
 should prove to his hearers. " After reading the in 
 terrogation, I said in reply : No broad as is the 
 empire, and extensive as are the possessions of Great 
 Britain, not a single white SLAVE can be found in 
 them all ; and I then went on to show the wide dif 
 ference that exists between the condition of human 
 beings who are held and treated as chattels personal, 
 and that of those who are only suffering from certain 
 forms of political injustice or governmental oppres 
 sion . . . . But, I said, although it is not true that 
 England has any white slaves, either at home or 
 abroad, is it not true that there are thousands of her 
 population, both at home and abroad, who are de 
 prived of their just rights, who are grievously op 
 pressed, who are dying even in the midst of abund 
 ance, of actual starvation ? YES ! and I expressly 
 called upon British Abolitionists to prove themselves 
 the true friends of suffering humanity abroad, by 
 showing that they were the best friend of suffering 
 humanity at home." Truth, justice, duty, always 
 overrode with him the proprieties, however sacredly 
 esteemed by others. Of a piece with this fact of the 
 placard of the white slave was his custom in refusing 
 the wine proffered by some of his British friends to 
 their guests. He was not content with a simple re 
 fusal and the implied rebuke which it involved, he 
 must needs couple his declaration with an express re 
 buke to host and hostess for tempting men into the 
 downward way to drunkenness. 
 
 While in attendance upon the sessions of the 
 World s Convention Garrison received tidings, of the 
 
RANDOM SHOTS. 297 
 
 birth of his third child. The second, whom he named 
 for himself, was born in 1838. The third, who was 
 also a son, the fond father named after Wendell Phil 
 lips. Three children and a wife did not tend to a so 
 lution of the always difficult problem of family main 
 tenance. The pressure of their needs upon the hus 
 band sometimes, simple as indeed they were owing to 
 the good sense and prudence of Mrs. Garrison, 
 seemed to exceed the weight of the atmospheric col 
 umn to the square inch. The fight for bread was one 
 of the bitterest battles of the reformer s life. The ar 
 rangement made in 1837, whereby the Massachusetts 
 Anti-Slavery Society assumed the responsibility of the 
 publication of the Liberator, Garrison rescinded at 
 the beginning of 1838, for the sake of giving himself 
 greater freedom in the advocacy in its columns of the 
 several other reforms in which he had enlisted, be 
 sides Abolitionism. But Garrison and the paper were 
 now widely recognized as anti-slavery essentials and 
 indispensables. Many of the leaders of the movement 
 perceived, as Gerrit Smith expressed it in a letter en 
 closing fifty dollars for the editor, that " Among the 
 many things in which the Abolitionists of our coun 
 try should be agreed, are the two following : (i) The 
 Liberator must be sustained ; (2) its editor must be 
 kept above want ; not only, nor mainly, for his own 
 or his family s happiness ; but that, having his own 
 mind unembarrassed by the cares of griping poverty, 
 he may be a more effective advocate of the cause of 
 the Saviour s enslaved poor." A new arrangement, in 
 accordance with this suggestion for the support of 
 the paper and the preservation of the editor from 
 want, was made in 1839, and its performance taken 
 
298 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 in charge by a committee of gentlemen, who under 
 took to raise the necessary funds for those objects. 
 Thus it was that Garrison, through the wise and gen 
 erous provision of friends, was enabled to augment 
 the happiness of an increasing family, and at the same 
 time add to his own effectiveness as an anti-slavery 
 instrument. 
 
 Garrison found occasion soon after his return from 
 the World s Convention for the employment of all 
 his added effectiveness for continuing the moral 
 movement against slavery. For what with the strife 
 and schism in the anti-slavery ranks, followed by the 
 excitements of the long Presidential canvass of 1840, 
 wherein the great body of the Abolitionists developed 
 an uncontrollable impulse to political action, some 
 through the medium of the new Liberty party which 
 had nominated James G. Birney for the Presidency, 
 while others reverted to the two old parties with 
 which they had formerly acted what with all these 
 causes the pure moral movement started by Garrison 
 was in grave danger of getting abolished or at least 
 of being reduced to a nullity in its influence upon 
 public opinion. John A. Collins, the able and re 
 sourceful general agent of the Massachusetts Anti- 
 Slavery Society, wrote in the deepest anxiety to Gar 
 rison from New Bedford, September i, 1840, on this 
 head. Says he : "I really wish you understood per 
 fectly the exact position the friends of the old organi 
 zation hold to the two great political parties, and 
 how generally they have been caught up in the whirl 
 wind of political enthusiasm. Could you but go 
 where I have been, and have seen and heard what I 
 have seen and heard ; could you see men aye, and 
 
RANDOM SHOTS. 299 
 
 women, too who have been and still are your warm 
 est advocates, who have eschewed sectarianism, and 
 lost their caste in the circle in which they moved, for 
 their strong adherence to your views and measures, 
 declare that they would sooner forego their Abolition 
 ism than their party. . . . Now, these are not the 
 views of here and there a straggling Abolitionist, but 
 of seven-tenths of all the voting Abolitionists of the 
 State. . . . They are entirely unconscious of the 
 demoralizing influence of their course. They need 
 light, warning, entreaty, and rebuke." Besides this de 
 moralization of the Abolitionists, as described by Col 
 lins, the parent society at New York fell into bad 
 financial straits. It was absolutely without funds, 
 and without any means of supplying the lack. What 
 should it do in its extremity but appeal to the Massa 
 chusetts Society which was already heavily burdened 
 by its own load, the Liberator. The new organ of 
 the national organization, The Anti- Slavery Standard, 
 surely must not be allowed to fail for want of funds 
 in this emergency. The Boston management rose to 
 the occasion. Collins was sent to England in quest 
 of contributions from the Abolitionists of Great 
 Britain. But, great as was the need of money, the 
 relief which it might afford would only prove tem- 
 porory unless there could be effected a thorough anti- 
 slavery revival. This was vital. And therefore 
 to this end Garrison now bent his remarkable 
 energies. 
 
 Agents, during this period when money was scarce, 
 were necessarily few. But the pioneer proved a host 
 in himself. Resigning the editorial charge of the 
 Liberator into the capable hands of Edmund Quincy, 
 
300 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 Garrison itinerated in the role of an anti-slavery lec 
 turer in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hamp 
 shire, reviving everywhere the languishing interest o: 
 his disciples. On the return of Collins in the sum 
 mer of 1841, revival meetings and conventions startec 
 up with increased activity, the fruits of which were ol 
 a most cheering character. At Nantucket, Garrison 
 made a big catch in his anti-slavery net. It was 
 Frederick Douglass, young, callow, and awkward, but 
 with his splendid and inimitable gifts flashing 
 through all as he, for the first time in his life, ad 
 dressed an audience of white people. Garrison, with 
 the instinct of leadership, saw at once the value of the 
 runaway slave s oratorical possibilities in their rela 
 tions to the anti-slavery movement. It was at his 
 instance that Collins added Douglass to the band of 
 anti-slavery agents. The new agent has preserved 
 his recollections of the pioneer s speech on that 
 eventful evening in Nantucket. Says he : " Mr. 
 Garrison followed me, taking me as his text ; and 
 now, whether I had made an eloquent plea in 
 behalf of freedom or not, his was one never to be 
 forgotten. Those who had heard him oftenest, and 
 had known him longest, were astonished at his mas 
 terly effort. For the time he possessed that almost 
 fabulous inspiration, often referred to but seldom 
 attained, in which a public meeting is transformed, 
 as it were, into a single individuality, the orator 
 swaying a thousand heads and hearts at once, and by 
 the simple majesty of his all-controlling thought, 
 converting his hearers into the express image of his 
 own soul. That night there were, at least, a thousand 
 Garrisonians in Nantucket !" 
 
RANDOM SHOTS. 301 
 
 Here is another picture of Garrison in the lecture- 
 field. It is from the pen of N. P. Rogers, with whom 
 he was making a week s tour among the White Moun 
 tains, interspersing the same with anti-slavery meet 
 ings. At Plymouth, failing to procure the use of a 
 church for their purpose, they fell back upon the 
 temple not made with hands. 
 
 " Semi-circular seats, backed against a line of mag 
 nificent trees to accommodate, we should judge, from 
 two to three hundred," Rogers narrates, " were filled, 
 principally with women, and the men who could not 
 find seats stood on the green sward on either hand; 
 and, at length, when wearied with standing, seated 
 themselves on the ground. Garrison, mounted on a 
 rude platform in front, lifted up his voice and spoke 
 to them in prophet tones and surpassing eloquence, 
 from half-past three till I saw the rays of the setting 
 sun playing through the trees on his head. . . 
 They (the auditory) heeded it not any more than he, 
 but remained till he ended, apparently indisposed to 
 move, though some came from six, eight, and even 
 twelve miles distance." So bravely prospered the 
 revival agitation, under the vigorous preaching of 
 the indomitable pioneer. 
 
 In the midst of the growing activities of the revival 
 season of the anti-slavery movement, Garrison had 
 some personal experiences of a distressing nature. 
 One of these was the case of his quondam friend and 
 partner in the publication of the Liberator, Isaac 
 Knapp. He, poor fellow, was no longer the publisher 
 of the paper. His wretched business management of 
 his department tended to keep the Liberator in a state 
 of chronic financial embarrassment. When the com- 
 
302 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 mittee, who assumed charge of the finances of the 
 paper, took hold of the problem, they determined tc 
 let Knapp go. He was paid $150 or $175 as a quid 
 pro quoior his interest in the Liberator. Unfortunate 
 in the business of a publisher, he was yet more unfor 
 tunate in another respect. He had become a victim 
 of intemperance. His inebriety increased upon him, 
 accelerated, no doubt, by his business failure. Not 
 withstanding Garrison s strong and tender friendship 
 for Knapp, the broken man came to regard him as an 
 enemy, and showed in many ways his jealousy and 
 hatred of his old friend and partner. Very painful 
 was this experience to the pioneer. 
 
 An experience which touched Garrison more 
 nearly arose out of the sad case of his brother James, 
 who, the reader will recall, ran away from his mother 
 in Baltimore and went to sea. He ultimately enlisted 
 in the United States Navy, and what with the brutal 
 ities which he suffered at the hands of his superiors, 
 by way of discipline, and with those of his own uncon 
 trolled passions and appetites, he was, when recovered 
 by his brother William, a total moral and physical 
 wreck. But the prodigal was gathered to the 
 reformer s heart, and taken to his home where in 
 memory of a mother long dead, whose darling was 
 James, he was nursed and watched over with deep 
 and pious love. There were sad lapses of the profli 
 gate man even in the sanctuary of his brother s home. 
 The craving for liquor was omnipotent in the wretched 
 creature, and he was attacked by uncontrollable 
 desire for drink. But William s patience was infinite, 
 and his yearning and pity at such times were as sweet 
 and strong as a mother s. Death rung the curtain down 
 
RANDOM SHOTS. 303 
 
 in the fall of 1842, on this miserable life with its sorry 
 and pathetic scenes. 
 
 About this time a trial of a different sort fell to the 
 lot of Garrison to endure. The tongue of detraction 
 was never more busy with his alleged infidel doc 
 trines or to more damaging effect. Collins, in Eng 
 land, seeking to obtain contributions for the support 
 of the agitation in America found Garrison s infidel 
 ity the great lion in the way of success. Even the 
 good dispositions of the venerable Clarkson were 
 affected by the injurious reports in this regard, circu 
 lated in England mainly by Nathaniel Colver, a nar 
 row and violent sectary of the Baptist denomination 
 of the United States. It was, of course, painful to 
 Garrison to feel that he had become a rock of offence 
 in the path of the great movement, which he had 
 started and to which he was devoting himself so 
 energetically. To Elizabeth Pease, one of the noblest 
 of the English Abolitionists, and one of his stanchest 
 transatlantic friends, he defended himself against the 
 false and cruel statements touching his religious 
 beliefs. "I esteem the Holy Scriptures," he wrote her, 
 " above all other books in the universe, and always 
 appeal to the law and the testimony to prove all my 
 peculiar doctrines." His religious sentiments and 
 Sabbatical views are almost if not quite identical with 
 those held by the Quakers. " I believe in an indwell 
 ing Christ," he goes on to furnish a summary of his 
 confession of faith, " and in His righteousness alone ; 
 I glory in nothing here below, save in Christ and in 
 Him crucified; I believe all the works of the devil are to 
 be destroyed, and Our Lord is to reign from sea to 
 sea, even to the ends of the earth ; and I profess to 
 
304 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 have passed from death unto life, and know by happy 
 experience, that there is no condemnation to them 
 who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, 
 but after the spirit." These were the pioneer s articles 
 of faith. Their extreme simplicity and theologi 
 cal conservatism it would seem ought to have satisfied 
 the evangelicals of all denominations. They were in 
 essentials thoroughly orthodox. But in the compo 
 sition of the shibboleths of beliefs non-essentials as 
 well as essentials enter, the former to the latter in the 
 proportion of two to one. It is not surprising, there 
 fore, that Garrison s essentials proved unequal to the 
 test set up by sectarianism, inasmuch as his spiritual 
 life dropped the aspirate of the non-essentials of re 
 ligious forms and observances. 
 
 But the good man had his compensation as well as 
 his trials. Such of a very noble kind was the great 
 Irish address brought over from Ireland by Remond 
 in December 1841. It was signed by Daniel O Con- 
 nell, Father Mathew, and sixty thousand Roman 
 Catholics of Ireland, Avho called upon the Irish 
 Roman Catholics of America to make the cause of the 
 slaves of the United States their cause. Large ex 
 pectations of Irish assistance in the anti-slavery agi 
 tation were excited in the bosoms of Abolitionists by 
 this imposing appeal. Garrison shared the high hopes 
 of its beneficent influence upon the Ireland of America, 
 with many others. Alas ! for the " best laid schemes 
 of mice and men," for the new Ireland was not popu 
 lated with saints, but a fiercely human race who had 
 come to their new home to better their own con 
 dition, not that of the negro. Hardly had they 
 touched these shores before they were Americanized 
 
RANDOM SHOTS. 305 
 
 in the colorphobia sense, out-Heroded Herod in 
 hatred of the colored people and their anti-slavery 
 friends. Indeed, it was quite one thing to preach Abo 
 litionism with three thousand miles of sea-wall between 
 one and his audience, and quite another to rise and do 
 the preaching with no sea-wall to guard the preacher 
 from the popular consequences of his preaching, as 
 Father Mathew quickly perceived and reduced to 
 practice eight years later, when he made his memorable 
 visit to this country. In vain was the monster docu 
 ment unrolled in Faneuil Hall, and many Abolition 
 ists with Irish blood were put forward to sweep the 
 chords of Erin s heart, and to conjure by their elo 
 quence the disciples of St. Patrick to rally under the 
 banner of freedom. There was no response, except 
 the response of bitter foes. Erin s harp vibrated to 
 no breeze which did not come out of the South. The 
 slave-power had been erected into patron saint by 
 the new Ireland in America, and the new Ireland in 
 America was very well content with his saintship s pa 
 tronage and service. Thus it happened that the great 
 expectations, which were excited by the Irish address, 
 were never realized. But the pioneer had other fish 
 in his net, had, in fact, meanwhile, got himself in 
 readiness for a launch into a new and startling agita 
 tion. As to just what this new and startling agita 
 tion was we must refer the reader to the next 
 chapter. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE PIONEER MAKES A NEW AND STARTLING 
 DEPARTURE. 
 
 WHEN Garrison hoisted the banner of immediate 
 emancipation he was over-confident of success 
 through the instrumentality of the church. It did 
 not enter his heart to conceive that after he had de 
 livered his message touching the barbarism of slavery 
 that a church calling itself Christian, or that a min 
 istry arrogating to itself the character of the Christ, 
 could possibly say him nay. But he learned sadly 
 enough the utter folly of such expectations. For 
 from pew and pulpit the first stones were hurled 
 against him, and the most cruel and persistent oppo 
 sition and persecution issued. Then as the move 
 ment which he had started advanced, he saw how it 
 was, why the church had played him false and the 
 cause of freedom. It was because the poison of slav 
 ery which the evil one had injected into the nation s 
 arteries had corrupted the springs of justice and 
 mercy in that body. The Church was not free, it, too, 
 was in bonds to slavery, how then could it help to 
 free the slaves ? That was the reason that pulpit and 
 pew cried out against him and persecuted him. It 
 was not they but the slave despotism, which ruled 
 them, which wrought its fell purpose within them. 
 
 (306) 
 
THE PIONEER MAKES A NEW DEPARTURE. 307 
 
 If the reformer cast his eyes about him for other 
 help it was the same; the slime of the serpent was 
 upon State as well as Church. Both of the two great 
 political parties were bound hands and feet, and given 
 over to the will of the slave tyranny. In all depart 
 ments of Government, State and National, the posi 
 tive, all-powerful principle was slavery. Its dread 
 nolo me tangere had forced Congress into the denial of 
 the right of petition, and into the imposition of a gag 
 upon its own freedom of debate. It was the grand 
 President-maker, and the judiciary bent without a 
 blush to do its service. What, then, in these circum 
 stances could the friends of freedom hope to achieve? 
 The nation had been caught in the snare of slavery, 
 and was in Church and State helpless in the vast 
 spider-like web of wrong. The more the reformer 
 pondered the problem, the more hopeless did success 
 look under a Constitution which united right and 
 wrong, freedom and slavery. As his reflections deep 
 ened, the conviction forced its way into his mind that 
 the Union was the strong tower of the slave-power, 
 which could never be destroyed until the fortress 
 which protected it was first utterly demolished. In 
 the spring of 1842 the pioneer was prepared to strike 
 into this new path to effect his purpose. 
 
 " We must dissolve all connection with those mur 
 derers of fathers," he wrote his brother-in-law, " and 
 murderers of mothers, and murderers of liberty, and 
 traffickers of human flesh, and blasphemers against 
 the Almighty at the South. What have we in com 
 mon with them? What have we gained ? What have we 
 not lost by our alliance with them ? Are not their prin 
 ciples, their pursuits, their policies, their interests, 
 
308 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 their designs, their feelings, utterly diverse from ours ? 
 Why, then, be subject to their dominion ? Why not 
 have the Union dissolved in form as it is in fact, es 
 pecially if the form gives ample protection to the 
 slave system, by securing for it all the physical force 
 of the North ? It is not treason against the cause of 
 liberty to cry, " Down with every slave-holding 
 Union !" Therefore, I raise that cry. And O that I 
 had a voice louder than a thousand thunders, that it 
 might shake the land and electrify the dead the 
 dead in sin, I mean those slain by the hand of 
 slavery." 
 
 A few weeks later the first peal of this thunder 
 broke upon the startled ears of the country through 
 the columns of the Liberator. The May meeting of 
 the American Anti-Slavery Society was drawing near, 
 and the reformer, now entirely ready to enter upon 
 an agitation looking to the dissolution of the Union, 
 suggested " the duty of making the REPEAL OF 
 THE UNION between the North and the South the 
 grand rallying point until it be accomplished, or 
 slavery cease to pollute our soil. We are for throwing 
 all the means, energies, actions, purposes, and appli 
 ances of the genuine friends of liberty and republi 
 canism into this one channel," he goes on to announce, 
 "and for measuring the humanity, patriotism, and 
 piety of every man by this one standard. This ques 
 tion can no longer be avoided, and a right decision 
 of it will settle the controversy between freedom and 
 slavery. The stern message of Isaiah to the Jews, 
 beginning, " Hear the word of the Lord, ye scornful 
 men that rule this people. Because ye have said, We 
 have made a covenant with DEATH and with HELL are 
 
THE PIONEER MAKES A NEW DEPARTURE. 309 
 
 we at agreement," seemed to the American Isaiah to 
 describe exactly the character of the National Consti 
 tution. " Slavery is a combination of DEATH and 
 HELL," he declares, with righteous wrath, " and with 
 it the North have made a covenant, and are at agree 
 ment. As an element of the Government it is omni 
 potent, omniscient, omnipresent. As a component 
 part of the Union, it is necessarily a national interest. 
 Divorced from Northern protection, it dies ; with 
 that protection it enlarges its boundaries, multiplies 
 its victims, and extends its ravages." 
 
 The announcement of this new radicalism caused a 
 sensation. Many genuine Garrisonian Abolitionists 
 recoiled from a policy of disunion. Lydia Maria 
 Child and James S. Gibbon of the Executive Com 
 mittee of the National Society hastened to disavow for 
 the society all responsibility for the disunion senti 
 ment of the editor of the Liberator. His new depart 
 ure seemed to them " foreign to the purpose for which 
 it was organized." Like all new ideas, it was a sword- 
 bearer, and proved a decided disturber of the peace. 
 The Union-loving portion of the free States had never 
 taken to the Abolition movement, for the reason that 
 it tended to disturb the stability of their idol. But 
 now the popular hatred of Abolitionism was intensi 
 fied by the avowal of a distinct purpose on the part 
 of its leader to labor for the separation of the sec 
 tions. The press of the North made the most of this 
 design to render altogether odious the small band of 
 moral reformers, to reduce to a nullity their influ 
 ence upon public opinion. 
 
 Notwithstanding its rejection by James Gibbons 
 and Lydia Maria Child the new idea of the dissolu- 
 
3IO WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 tion of the Union, as an anti-slavery object, found in 
 stant favor with many of the leading Abolitionists, 
 like Wendell Phillips, Edmund Quincy, Parker Pills- 
 bury, Stephen S. Foster and Abby Kelley. At the 
 anniversary meeting of the American Society in 1842, 
 the subject was mooted, and, although there was no 
 official action taken, yet it was apparent that a ma 
 jority of the delegates were favorable to its adoption 
 as the sentiment of the society. 
 
 The ultimate object of Garrison was the abolition 
 of slavery. Disunion led directly to this goal, there 
 fore he planted his feet in that way. But while he 
 shot the agitation at a distant mark, he did not mean 
 to miss less remote results. There was remarkable 
 method in his madness. He agitated the question 
 of the dissolution of the Union " in order that the 
 people of the North might be induced to reflect upon 
 their debasement, guilt, and danger in continuing in 
 partnership with heaven-daring oppressors, and thus 
 be led to repentance." 
 
 The Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society at its 
 annual meeting in January, 1843 "dissolved the 
 Union," wrote Quincy to R. D. Webb, " by a hand 
 some vote, after a warm debate. The question was 
 afterward reconsidered and passed in another shape, 
 being wrapped up by Garrison in some of his favorite 
 Old Testament Hebraisms by way of vehicle, as the 
 apothecaries say. " This is the final shape which 
 Garrison s " favorite Old Testament Hebraisms " 
 gave to the action of the society : 
 
 " Resolved, That the compact which exists between 
 the North and the South is a covenant with death 
 and an agreement with hell involving both parties 
 
THE PIONEER MAKES A NEW DEPARTURE. 311 
 
 in atrocious criminality and should be immediately 
 annulled." 
 
 At its tenth anniversary, in 1844, the Ameri 
 can Society resolved likewise chat there should 
 be no Union with slaveholders ; and in May of the 
 same year the New England Society voted by a large 
 majority to dissolve the * covenant with death, and the 
 agreement with hell. Almost the whole number of 
 the Garrisonian Abolitionists had by this time placed 
 upon their banner of immediate emancipation the 
 revolutionary legend "No Union with slaveholders." 
 Cathago est delenda were now ever on the lips of the 
 pioneer. The Union it must and shall be destroyed 
 became the beginning, the middle, and the end of all 
 his utterances on the slavery question. 
 
 The attitude of the anti-slavery disunionists to the 
 Government which they were seeking to overthrow 
 was clearly stated by Francis Jackson in a letter re 
 turning to the Governor of Massachusetts his com 
 mission as a justice of the peace. Says he, "To me 
 it appears that the vices of slavery, introduced into the 
 constitution of our body politic by a few slight 
 punctures, has now so pervaded and poisoned the 
 whole system of our National Government that liter 
 ally there is no health in it. The only remedy that 
 I can see for the disease is to be found in the dissolu 
 tion of the patient. . . . Henceforth it (the Con 
 stitution) is dead to me, and I to it. I withdraw all 
 profession of allegiance to it, and all my voluntary 
 efforts to sustain it. The burdens that it lays upon 
 me, while it is held up by others, I shall endeavor to 
 bear patiently, yet acting with reference to a higher 
 law, and distinctly declaring that, while I retain my 
 
312 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 own liberty, I will be a party to no compact which 
 helps to rob any other man of his." 
 
 The Abolition agitation for the dissolution of the 
 Union was assisted not a little by sundry occur 
 rences of national importance. The increasing arro 
 gance and violence of the South in Congress on all 
 matters relating to the subject of slavery was one of 
 these occurrences. Freedom of debate and the right 
 of petition, Southern intolerance had rendered well 
 nigh worthless in the National Legislature. In this 
 way the North, during several months in every year, 
 was forced to look at the reverse and the obverse 
 faces of the Union. These object-lessons taught 
 many minds, no doubt, to count the cost which the 
 preservation of the Union entailed upon the free 
 States " to reflect upon their debasement, guilt, and 
 danger" in their partnership with slaveholders. An 
 other circumstance which induced to this kind of re 
 flection was the case of George Latimer, who was 
 seized as a fugitive slave in Boston in the autumn of 
 1842. From beginning to end the Latimer case re 
 vealed how completely had Massachusetts tied her 
 own hands as a party to the original compact with 
 slavery whose will was the supreme law of the land. In 
 obedience to this supreme law Chief-Justice Shaw re 
 fused to the captive the writ of habeas corpus, and 
 Judge Story granted the owner possession of the 
 fugitive, and time to procure evidence of his owner 
 ship. But worse still Massachusetts officials and one 
 of her jails were employed to aid in the return of a 
 man to slavery. This degradation aroused the great 
 est indignation in the State and led to the enactment 
 of a law prohibiting its officials from taking part in 
 
THE PIONEER MAKES A NEW DEPARTURE. 313 
 
 the return of fugitive slaves, and the use of its jails 
 and prisons for their detention. The passage of 
 this personal liberty measure served to increase the 
 activity of the anti-Union working forces in the 
 South 
 
 Then, again, the serious difficulty between Massa 
 chusetts and two of the slave States in regard to their 
 treatment of her colored seamen aided Garrison in 
 his agitation for the dissolution of the Union by the 
 keen sense of insult and injury which the trouble 
 begat and left upon the popular mind. Colored men 
 in Massachusetts enjoyed a fair degree of equality 
 before her laws, were endowed with the right to vote, 
 and were, barring the prejudice against color, treated 
 by the commonwealth as citizens. They were 
 employed in the merchant service of her interstate 
 trade. But at two of the Southern ports where her 
 vessels entered, the colored seamen were seized by the 
 local police and confined in houses of detention until 
 the vessels to which they belonged were ready to 
 depart, when they were released and allowed to join 
 the vessels. This was a most outrageous proceeding, 
 outrageous to the colored men who were thus deprived 
 of their liberty, outrageous also to the owners of the 
 vessels who were deprived of the service of their 
 employes. Of what avail was the constitutional guar 
 anty that "the citizens of each State shall be 
 entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens 
 in the several States, many men began to question ? 
 The South was evidently disposed to support only that 
 portion of the national compact which sustained the 
 slave system, all the rest upon occasion it trampled 
 on and nullified. This lesson was enforced anew upon 
 
314 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 Massachusetts by the affair of her colored seamen. 
 Unable to obtain redress of the wrong done her citi 
 zens, the State appointed agents to go to Charleston 
 and New Orleans and test the constitutionality of the 
 State laws under which the local authorities had 
 acted. But South Carolina and Louisiana, especially 
 the former, to whom Samuel Hoar was accredited, 
 evinced themselves quite equal to the exigency to 
 which the presence of the Massachusetts agents gave 
 rise. To cut a long story short, these gentlemen, 
 honored citizens of a sister State, and covered with 
 the aegis of the Constitution, found that they could 
 make no success of the business which they had in 
 hand, found indeed that as soon as that business was 
 made public that they stood in imminent peril of 
 their lives. Whereupon, wisely conceiving discretion 
 to be the better part of valor, they beat a hasty 
 retreat back to their native air. The Massachusetts 
 agents were driven out of Charleston and New 
 Orleans. Where was the sacred and glorious union 
 between Massachusetts and South Carolina and Louis 
 iana that such things were possible were constantly 
 occurring ? The circumstance made a strong impres 
 sion on the State whose rights were thus grossly vio 
 lated. It helped to convert Massachusetts to its later 
 opposition to slavery, and to make its public senti 
 ment more tolerant of the Garrisonian opposition to 
 the covenant with death and the agreement with hell. 
 To the agitation growing out of the scheme for the 
 annexation of Texas must, however, be ascribed the 
 premium among all the anti-Union working facts and 
 forces of the first few years after Garrison and his 
 coadjutors had raised the cry of "No union with 
 
THE PIONEER MAKES A NEW DEPARTURE. 315 
 
 slaveholders." This agitation renewed the intensity 
 and sectionalism of the then almost forgotten strug 
 gle over the admission of Missouri nearly a quarter 
 of a century before, and which was concluded by the 
 Missouri compromise. This settlement was at the 
 time considered quite satisfactory to the South. But 
 Calhoun took an altogether different view of the mat 
 ter twenty years later. The arrangement by which 
 the South was excluded from the upper portion of 
 the Louisiana Territory he came to regard as a cardi 
 nal blunder on the part of his section. The fact is that 
 within those two decades the slave-holding had been 
 completely outstripped by the non-slave-holding 
 States in wealth, population, and social growth. The 
 latter had obtained over the former States an indis 
 putable supremacy in those respects. Would not the 
 political balance settle also in the natural order of 
 things in the Northern half of the Union unless it 
 could be kept where it then was to the south of 
 Mason and Dixon s line by an artificial political 
 make-weight. This artificial political make-weight 
 was nothing less than the acquisition of new slave 
 territory to supply the demand for new slave States. 
 Texas, with the territorial dimensions of an empire, 
 answered the agrarian needs of the slave system. And 
 the South, under the leadership of Calhoun, deter 
 mined to make good their fancied loss in the settle 
 ment of the Missouri controversy by annexing Texas. 
 But all the smouldering dread of slave domination, 
 all the passionate opposition to the extension of 
 slavery, to the acquisition of new slave territory and 
 the admission of new slave States, awoke hotly in 
 the heart of the North. " No more slave territory." 
 
316 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 " No more slave States," resounded during this 
 crisis, through the free States. "Texas or dis 
 union," was the counter cry which reverberated 
 through the slave States. Even Dr. Channing, who 
 had no love for Garrison or his anti-slavery ultraism, 
 was so wrought upon by the scheme for the annexa 
 tion of Texas as to profess his preference for the 
 dissolution of the Union, " rather than receive Texas 
 into the Confederacy." "This measure, besides en 
 tailing on us evils of all sorts," the doctor boldly 
 pointed out, " would have for its chief end to bring 
 the whole country under the slave-power, to make 
 the general Government the agent of slavery ; and 
 this we are bound to resist at all hazards. The free 
 States should declare that the very act of admitting 
 Texas will be construed as a dissolution of the Union." 
 
 The Northern blood was at fever heat, and an 
 unwonted defiance of consequences, a fierce contempt 
 of ancient political bugaboos marked the utterances 
 of men erstwhile timid of speech upon all questions 
 relating to slavery. In the anti-Texas conven 
 tion held in Faneuil Hall January 29, 1845, a ^ tn s 
 timidity disappeared in the presence of the new peril. 
 It was not a convention of Abolitionists, although Gar 
 rison was a member, but of politicians, mostly of the 
 Whig party. " The anti-slavery spirit of the conven 
 tion," wrote Edmund Quincy to R. D. Webb, " was 
 surprising. The address and the speeches of the 
 gentlemen, not Abolitionists, were such as caused 
 Garrison to be mobbed ten years ago, and such as 
 we thought thorough three or four years ago. There 
 were no qualifications, or excuses, or twaddle." 
 
 Garrison flung himself into the anti-Texas move- 
 
THE PIONEER MAKES A NEW DEPARTURE. 317 
 
 ment with all his customary force and fire. Elected 
 a delegate to the Faneuil Hall Convention by the influ 
 ence of Francis Jackson, he took a leading part in its 
 proceedings, " created the most stir in the whole mat 
 ter," Wendell Phillips thought. Charles Sumner, 
 who heard him speak for the first time, was struck 
 with his " natural eloquence," and described his 
 words as falling " in fiery rain." Again at a mass meet 
 ing for Middlesex County, held at Concord, to consider 
 the aggressions of the slave-power, did the words of 
 the pioneer fall " in fiery rain." Apprehensive that the 
 performance of Massachusetts, when the emergency 
 arose, would fall far short of her protestations, he 
 exclaimed, " I have nothing to say, sir, nothing. I 
 am tired of words, tired of hearing strong things 
 said, where there is no heart to carry them out. 
 When we are prepared to state the whole truth, and 
 die for it, if necessary when, like our fathers, we are 
 prepared to take our ground, and not shrink from it, 
 counting not our lives dear unto us when we are 
 prepared to let all earthly hopes go back to the 
 board then let us say so ; //// then, the less we say 
 the better, in such an emergency as this. But who 
 are we, will men ask. that talk of such things ? Are 
 we enough to make a revolution ? No, sir ; but we 
 are enough to begin one, and, once begun, it never 
 can be turned back. I am for revolution were I 
 utterly alone. I am there because I must be there. 
 I must cleave to the right. I cannot choose but obey 
 the voice of God. 
 
 " . . . Do not tell me of our past Union, and for 
 how many years we have been one. We were only 
 one while we were ready to hunt, shoot down, and 
 
318 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 deliver up the slave, and allow the slave-power to 
 form an oligarchy on the floor of Congress ! The 
 moment we say no to this, the Union ceases the 
 Government falls." 
 
 The Texan struggle terminated in the usual way, 
 in the triumph of the slave-power. Texas was 
 annexed and admitted into the sisterhood of States, 
 giving to the Southern section increased slave repre 
 sentation in both branches of Congress, and thereby 
 aiding to fasten, what at the moment appeared to be 
 its permanent domination in national affairs. As 
 Garrison had apprehended, the performance of the 
 North fell far short of its protestations when the 
 crisis came. It swallowed all its brave words, and 
 collapsed into feeble and disheartened submission to 
 its jubilant and hitherto invincible antagonist. The 
 whole North except the small and irrepressible band 
 of Garrisonian Abolitionists were cast down by the 
 revulsive wave of this disastrous event. Writing to 
 his friend Webb, Garrison discourses thus upon the 
 great defeat : " Apparently the slave-holding power 
 , has never been so strong, has never seemed to be so 
 invincible, has never held such complete mastery over 
 the whole, has never so sucessfully hurled defiance at 
 the Eternal and Just One, as at the present time ; and 
 yet never has it in reality been so weak, never has it 
 had so many uncompromising assailants, never has it 
 been so filled with doubt and consternation, never 
 has it been so near its downfall, as at this moment. 
 Upon the face of it, this statement looks absurdly 
 paradoxical ; but it is true, nevertheless. We are 
 groping in thick darkness ; but it is that darkest 
 hour which is said to precede the dawn of day." 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 AS IN A LOOKING GLASS. 
 
 GARRISON was the most dogmatic, as he was the 
 most earnest of men. It was almost next to impos 
 sible for him to understand that his way was not the 
 only way to attain a given end/ A position reached 
 by him, he was curiously apt to look upon as a sort 
 of ultima thule of human endeavor in that direction of 
 the moral universe. And, notwithstanding instances 
 of honest self-depreciation, there, nevertheless, hung 
 around his personality an air and assumption of 
 moral infallibility, as a reformer. His was not a 
 tolerant mind. Differences with him he was prone to 
 treat as gross departures from principle, as evidences 
 of faithlessness to freedom. He fell upon the men 
 who did not see eye to eye with him with tomahawk 
 and scalping knife. He was strangely deficient in a 
 sense of proportion in such matters. His terrible 
 severities of speech, he visited upon the slave-power 
 and the Liberty party alike. And although a non- 
 resistent, in that he eschewed the use of physical 
 force, yet there never was born among the sons of 
 men a more militant soul in the use of moral force, 
 in the quickness with which he would whip out the 
 rapiers, or hurl the bolts and bombs of his mother 
 tongue at opponents. The pioneer must have been 
 an unconscious believer in the annihilation of the 
 
 (319) 
 
320 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 wicked, as he must have been an unconscious believer 
 in the wickedness of all opposition to his idea of 
 right and duty. This, of course, must be taken only 
 as a broad description of the reformer s character. 
 He was a man, one of the grandest America has 
 given to the world, but still a man with his tendon of 
 Achilles, like the rest of his kind. 
 
 His narrow intolerance of the idea of anti-slavery 
 political action, and his fierce and unjust censure of 
 the champions of that idea, well illustrate the trait in 
 point. Birney and Whittier, and Wright and Gerrit 
 Smith, and Joshua Leavitt, he apparently quite forgot, 
 were actuated by motives singularly noble, were in 
 their way as true to their convictions as he was to his. 
 No, there was but one right way, and in that way 
 stood the feet of the pioneer. His way led directly, 
 unerringly, to the land of freedom. All other ways, 
 and especially the Liberty party way, twisted, doubled 
 upon themselves, branched into labyrinths of folly 
 and self-seeking. " Ho ! all ye that desire the free 
 dom of the slave, who would labor for liberty, follow 
 me and I will show you the only true way," was the 
 tone which the editor of the Liberator held to men, 
 who were battering with might and main to breach 
 the walls of the Southern Bastile. They were plainly 
 not against the slave, althpugh opposed to Mr. Garri 
 son, narrowly, unjustly opposed to him, without 
 doubt, but working strenuously according to their 
 lights for the destruction of a common enemy and 
 tyrant. This was the test, which Garrison should 
 have taken as conclusive. The leaders of the Liberty 
 party, though personally opposed to him and to his 
 line of action, were, nevertheless, friends of the slaves, 
 
AS IN A LOOKING GLASS. 32! 
 
 and ought to have been so accounted and treated by 
 the man who more than any other was devoted to the 
 abolition of slavery. 
 
 But the whole mental and moral frame of the man 
 precluded such liberality of treatment of opponents 
 They had rejected his way, which was the only true 
 way, and were, therefore, anathema maranatha. When 
 a moral idea which has been the subject of wide 
 spread agitation, and has thereby gained a numerous 
 following, reaches out, as reach out it must, sooner or 
 later, for incorporation into law, it will, in a republic 
 like ours, do so naturally and necessarily through 
 political action along the lines of an organized party 
 movement. The Liberty party formation was the 
 product of this strong tendency in America. Prema 
 ture it possibly was, but none the less perfectly n 
 ural. Now every political party, that is worthy of 
 the name, is a compound rather than a simple fact, 
 consisteth of a bundle of ideas rather than a single 
 idea. Parties depend upon the people for success, 
 upon the people not of one interest but of many 
 interests and of diversities of views upon public ques 
 tions. One plank is not broad enough to accommo 
 date their differences and multiplicity of desires. 
 There must be a platform built of many planks to 
 support the number of votes requisite to victory at 
 the polls. There will always be one idea or interest 
 of the many ideas or interests, that will dominate the 
 organization, be erected into a paramount issue upon 
 which the party throws itself upon the country, but 
 the secondary ideas or interests must be there all the 
 same to give strength and support to the main idea 
 and interest. 
 
322 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 Besides this peculiarity in the composition of thf5 
 great political parties in America, there is another no : 
 less distinct and marked, and that is the Constitu 
 tional limitations of the Federal political power, 
 Every party which looks for ultimate success at the 
 polls must observe strictly these limitations in its aims 
 and issues. Accordingly when the moral movement 
 against slavery sought a political expression of the 
 idea of Abolition it was constrained within the metes 
 and bounds set up by the National Constitution. 
 Slavery within the States lay outside of the political 
 boundaries of the general Government. Slavery within 
 the States, therefore, the more sagacious of the Lib 
 erty party leaders placed not among its bundle of 
 ideas, into its platform of national issues. But it was 
 otherwise with slavery in the District of Columbia, in 
 the national territories, under the national flagon the 
 high seas, for it lay within the constitutional reach of 
 the federal political power, and its abolition was 
 demanded in the Third party platform. These 
 leaders were confident that the existence of slavery 
 depended upon its connection with the National Gov 
 ernment. Their aim was to destroy the evil by cut 
 ting this connection through which it drew its blood 
 and nerve supplies. They planted themselves upon 
 the anti-slavery character of the Constitution, believ 
 ing that it " does not sanction nor nationalize slavery 
 but condemns and localizes it." 
 
 This last position of the Liberty party leaders 
 struck Garrison as a kind of mental and moral 
 enormity. At it and its authors, the anti-slavery 
 Jupiter, launched his bolts, fast and furious. Here 
 is a specimen of his chain lightning : " We have 
 
AS IN A LOOKING GLASS. 323 
 
 a very poor opinion of the intelligence of any 
 man, and very great distrust of his candor or 
 honesty, who tries to make it appear that no pro- 
 slavery compromise was made between the North and 
 the South, at the adoption of the Constitution. We 
 cherish feelings of profound contempt for the quib 
 bling spirit of criticism which is endeavoring to ex 
 plain away the meaning of language, the design of 
 which as a matter of practice, and the adoption of 
 which as a matter of bargain, were intelligently and 
 clearly understood by the contracting parties. The 
 truth is the misnamed * Liberty party is under the 
 control of as ambitious, unprincipled, and crafty lead 
 ers as is either the Whig or Democratic party; and 
 no other proof of this assertion is needed than their 
 unblushing denial of the great object of the national 
 compact, namely, union at the sacrifice of the colored 
 population of the United States. Their new inter 
 pretations of the Constitution are a bold rejection of 
 the facts of history, and a gross insult to the intelli 
 gence of the age, and certainly never can be carried 
 into effect without dissolving the Union by provoking 
 a civil war." All the same, the pioneer to the contrary 
 notwithstanding, many of these very Liberty party 
 leaders were men of the most undoubted candor and 
 honesty and of extraordinary intelligence. 
 
 Garrison was never able to see the Liberty party, 
 and for that matter Wendell Phillips, Edmund 
 Ouincy, and others of the old organization leaders 
 could not either, except through the darkened glass 
 of personal antagonisms growing out of the schism 
 of 1840. It was always, under all circumstances, to 
 borrow a phrase of Phillips, " Our old enemy, Liberty 
 
324 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 party." And, as Quincy naively confesses in an arti 
 cle in the Liberator pointing out the reasons why 
 Abolitionists should give to the Free-soil party inci- 
 denfal aid and comfort, which were forbidden to their 
 " old enemy, Liberty party," the significant and 
 amusing fact that the latter was " officered by de 
 serters." Ay, there was indeed the rub ! The mili 
 tary principle of the great leader forbade him to 
 recognize deserters as allies. Discipline must be 
 maintained, and so he proceeded to maintain the 
 anti-slavery discipline of his army by keeping up a 
 constant fusillade into the ranks of the deserter band, 
 who, in turn, were every whit as blinded by the old 
 quarrel and separation, and who slyly cherished the 
 modest conviction that, when they seceded, the salt 
 of old organization lost its savor, and was thenceforth 
 fit only to be trampled under the Liberty party s feet. 
 Without doubt, those old Abolitionists and Liberty 
 party people belonged to the category of "humans." 
 
 The scales of the old grudge dropped from Garri 
 son s eyes directly the Free-Soil party loomed upon 
 the political horizon. He recognized at once that, if 
 it was not against the slave, it was for the slave; ap 
 prehended clearly that, in so far as the new party, 
 which, by the way, was only the second stage in the 
 development of the central idea of his old enemy, 
 Liberty party, as the then future Republican party 
 was to be its third and final expression, apprehended 
 clearly I say that, in so far as the new party resisted 
 the aggressions and pretensions of the slave-power, it 
 was fighting for Abolition was an ally of Aboli 
 tionism. 
 
 In the summer of 1848, from Northampton, whither 
 
AS IN A LOOKING GLASS. 325 
 
 he had gone to take the water cure, Garrison coun 
 seled Quincy, who was filling the editorial chair, in 
 the interim, at the Liberator office, in this sage fash 
 ion : " As for the Free-Soil movement, I feel that great 
 care is demanded of us disunionists, both in the 
 Standard and the Liberator, in giving credit to whom 
 credit is due, and yet in no case even seeming to be 
 satisfied with it." In the winter of 1848 in a letter to 
 Samuel May, Jr., he is more explicit on this head. " As 
 for the Free-Soil movement," he observes, " I am 
 for hailing it as a cheering sign of the times, and an 
 unmistakble proof of the progress we have made, 
 under God, in changing public sentiment. Those 
 who have left the Whig and Democratic parties for 
 conscience s sake, and joined the movement, deserve 
 our commendation and sympathy ; at the same time, 
 it is our duty to show them, and all others, that there 
 is a higher position to be attained by them or they 
 will have the blood of the slave staining their gar 
 ments. This can be done charitably yet faithfully. On 
 the two old parties, especially the Whig-Taylor party, 
 I would expend /r<? tempore, at least our heaviest 
 ammunition." This is as it should be, the tone of 
 wise and vigilant leadership, the application of the 
 true test to the circumstances, viz., for freedom if 
 against slavery ; not to be satisfied, to be sure, with 
 any thing less than the whole but disposed to give 
 credit to whom it was due, whether much or little. 
 Pity that the pioneer could not have placed himself 
 in this just and discriminating point of view in re 
 spect of his old enemy, Liberty party, praising in it 
 what he found praiseworthy, while blaming it for 
 what he felt was blameworthy. But perfection weak 
 
326 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 human nature doth not attain to in this terrestrial 
 garden of the passions, and so very likely the magna 
 nimity which we have desired of Garrison is not for 
 that garden to grow but another and a heavenly. 
 
 Garrison ill brooked opposition, came it from friends 
 or foes. He was so confident in his own positions 
 that he could not but distrust their opposites. Of 
 course, if his were right, and of that doubt in his mind 
 there was apparently none, then the positions of all 
 others had to be wrong. This masterful quality of 
 the man was constantly betrayed in the acts of 
 his life and felt by his closest friends and associates 
 in the anti-slavery movement. Quincy, writing to 
 Richard Webb, narrates how, at the annual meeting 
 of the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1843, Garri 
 son was for removing it to Boston, but that he and 
 Wendell Phillips were for keeping it where it then 
 was in New York, giving at the same time sundry 
 good and sufficient reasons for the faith that was in 
 them, and how, thereupon, "Garrison dilated his nos 
 trils like a war-horse, and snuffed indignation at us." 
 " If the Boston friends were unwilling to take the 
 trouble and responsibility," were the petulant, accus 
 ative words put by Quincy into his chief s mouth on 
 the occasion, " then there was nothing more to be 
 said ; we must try to get along as well as we could in 
 the old way." And how they disclaimed " any un 
 willingness to take trouble and responsibility," while 
 affirming " the necessity of their acting on their own 
 idea." 
 
 Another characteristic of the pioneer is touched 
 upon by the same writer in a relation which he was 
 making to Webb of Garrison s election to the presi- 
 
AS IN A LOOKING GLASS. 327 
 
 dency of the parent society. Says Quincy : "Garri 
 son makes an excellent president at a public meeting 
 where the order of speakers is in some measure ar 
 ranged, as he has great felicity in introducing and in- 
 terlocuting remarks ; but at a meeting for debate he 
 does not answer so well, as he is rather too apt, with 
 all the innocence and simplicity in the world, to do 
 all the talking himself." 
 
 The same friendly critic has left his judgment of 
 other traits of the leader, traits not so much of the 
 man as of the editor. It is delivered in a private 
 letter of Quincy to Garrison on resigning the tempo 
 rary editorship of the Liberator to " its legitimate 
 possessor." who had been for several months health- 
 hunting at Northampton in the beautiful Connecticut 
 Valley. Quincy made bold to beard the Abolition 
 lion in his lair, and twist his tail in an extremely 
 lively manner. " Now, my dear friend," wrote the 
 disciple to the master, " you must know that to the 
 microscopic eyes of its friends, as well as to the tele 
 scopic eyes of its enemies, the Liberator has faults j 
 these they keep to themselves as much as they hon 
 estly may, but they are not the less sensible of them, 
 and are all the more desirous to see them immediately 
 abolished. Luckily, they are not faults of principle 
 neither moral nor intellectual deficiencies but faults 
 the cure of which rests solely with yourself. 
 
 "I hardly know how to tell you what the faults are 
 that we find with it, lest you should think them 
 none at all, or else unavoidable. But no matter, of 
 that you must be the judge ; we only ask you to lis 
 ten to our opinion. We think the paper often bears 
 the mark of haste and carelessness in its getting up ; 
 
328 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 that the matter seems to be hastily selected and put 
 in higgledy-piggledy, without any very apparent reason 
 why it should be in at all, or why it should be in the 
 place where it is. I suppose this is often caused by 
 your selecting articles with a view to connect remarks 
 of your own with them, which afterward in your 
 haste you omit. Then we complain that each paper 
 is not so nearly a complete work in itself as it might 
 be made, but that things are often left at loose ends, 
 and important matters broken off in the middle. I 
 assure you, that Brother Harriman is not the only 
 one of the friends of the Liberator who grieves over 
 your * more anon and more next week which 
 anon and next week never arrive. 
 
 " Then we complain that your editorials are too 
 often wanting, or else such, from apparent haste, as 
 those who love your fame cannot wish to see ; that 
 important topics, which you feel to be such, are too 
 often either entirely passed over or very cursorily 
 treated, and important moments like the present 
 neglected. 
 
 " We have our suspicions, too. that good friends 
 have been disaffected by the neglect of their com 
 munications ; but of this we can only speak by con 
 jecture. In short, it appears to those who are your 
 warmest friends and the stanchest supporters of the 
 paper, that you might make the Libtrator a more 
 powerful and useful instrumentality than it is, power 
 ful and useful as it is, by additional exertions on 
 your part.* It is very unpleasant to hear invidious 
 comparisons drawn between the Liberator and Emanci 
 pator with regard to the manner of getting it up, 
 and to have not to deny but to excuse them ani we 
 
AS IN A LOOKING GLASS. 329 
 
 knowing all the time that you have all the tact and 
 technical talent for getting up a good newspaper that 
 Leavitt has, with as much more, intellectual ability 
 as you have more moral honesty, and only wanting 
 some of his (pardon me) industry, application, and 
 method." 
 
 Garrison, to his honor, did not allow the exceeding 
 candor of his mentor to disturb their friendship. 
 The pioneer was not wholly without defence to the 
 impeachment. He might have pleaded ill health, of 
 which he had had quantum suf. since 1836 for himself 
 and family. He might have pleaded also the dissipa 
 tion of too much of his energies in consequence of 
 more or less pecuniary embarrassments from which 
 he was never wholly freed ; but, above all, he might 
 have pleaded his increasing activity as an anti-slavery 
 lecturer. His contributions to the movement against 
 slavery were of a notable character in this direction, 
 both in respect of quantity and quality. He was not 
 alone the editor of the Liberator, he was unquestion 
 ably besides one of the most effective and interesting 
 of the anti-slavery speakers indeed in the judgment 
 of so competent an authority as James Russell 
 Lowell, he was regarded as the most effective of the 
 anti-slavery speakers. Still, after all is placed to his 
 credit that can possibly be, Quincy s complaints 
 would be supported by an altogether too solid basis 
 of fact. The pioneer was much given to procrastina 
 tion. What was not urgent he was strongly tempted 
 to put off for a more convenient time. His work 
 accumulated. He labored hard and he accom 
 plished much, but because of this habit of postponing 
 for to-morrow what need not be done to-day, he was 
 
33O WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 necessarily forced to leave undone many things which 
 he ought to have done and which he might have 
 accomplished had he been given to putting off for 
 to-morrow nothing which might be finished to-day. 
 
 The pioneer was a man of sorrows and acquainted 
 with grief, but never was he wholly cast down by his 
 misfortunes. His cheerful and bouyant spirit kept 
 him afloat above his sorrows, above his griefs. The 
 organ of mirthfulness in him was very large. He 
 was an optimist in the best sense of that word, viz., 
 that all things work together for good to them that 
 love goodness. In the darkest moments which the 
 Abolition cause encountered his own countenance was 
 full of light, his own heart pierced through the 
 gloom and communicated its glow to those about 
 him, his own voice rang bugle-like through reverse 
 and disaster. 
 
 In his family the reformer was seen at his best. 
 His wife was his friend and equal, his children his 
 playfellows and companions. The dust of the great 
 conflict he never carried with him into his home to 
 choke the love which burned ever brightly on its 
 hearth and in the hearts which it contained. What 
 he professed in the Liberator, what he preached in 
 the world, of non-resistance, woman s rights, perfec 
 tionism, he practiced in his home, he embodied as 
 father, and husband, and host. Never lived reformer 
 who more completely realized his own ideals to 
 those nearest and dearest to him than William Lloyd 
 Garrison. 
 
 He had seven children, five boys and two girls. 
 The last, Francis Jackson, was born to him in the 
 year 1848 Two of them died in childhood, a boy 
 
AS IN A LOOKING GLASS. 331 
 
 and a girl. The loss of the boy, whom the father 
 had " named admiringly, gratefully, reverently," 
 Charles Follen, was a terrible blow to the reformer, 
 and a life-long grief to the mother. He seemed to 
 have been a singularly beautiful, winning, and affec 
 tionate little man and to have inspired sweet hopes 
 of future "usefulness and excellence" in the breasts 
 of his parents. " He seemed born to take a century 
 on his shoulders, without stooping ; his eyes were 
 large, lustrous, and charged with electric light ; his 
 voice was clear as a bugle, melodious, and ever ring 
 ing in our ears, from the dawn of day to the ushering 
 in of night, so that since it has been stilled, our dwell 
 ing has seemed to be almost without an occupant," 
 lamented the stricken father to Elizabeth Pease, of 
 Darlington, England. 
 
 " Death itself to me is not terrible, is not repulsive," 
 poured the heartbroken pioneer into the ears of his 
 English friend, " is not to be deplored. I see in it as 
 clear an evidence of Divine wisdom and beneficence 
 as I do in the birth of a child, in the works of crea 
 tion, in all the arrangements and operations of nature. 
 I neither fear nor regret its power. I neither expect 
 nor supplicate to be exempted from its legitimate 
 action. It is not to be chronicled among calamities ; 
 it is not to be styled "a mysterious dispensation of 
 Divine Providence "; it is scarcely rational to talk of 
 being resigned to it. For what is more rational, what 
 more universal, what more impartial, what more ser 
 viceable, what more desirable, in God s own time, 
 hastened neither by our ignorance or folly ? . . . 
 
 " When, therefore, my dear friend, I tell you that 
 the loss of my dear boy has overwhelmed me with 
 
332 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 sadness, has affected my peace by day and my repose 
 by night, has been a staggering blow, from the shock 
 of which I find it very difficult to recover, you will 
 not understand me as referring to anything pertain 
 ing to another state of existence, or as gloomily affec 
 ted by a change inevitable to all ; far from it. Where 
 the cherished one who has been snatched from us is, 
 what is his situation, or what his employment, I 
 know not, of course ; and it gives me no anxiety 
 whatever. Until I join him at least my responsibility 
 to him as his guardian and protector has ceased ; he 
 does not need my aid, he cannot be benefited by my 
 counsel. That he will still be kindly cared for by 
 Him who numbers the very hairs of our heads, and 
 without whose notice a sparrow cannot fall to the 
 ground ; that he is still living, having thrown aside 
 his mortal drapery, and occupying a higher sphere of 
 existence, I do not entertain a doubt. My grief 
 arises mainly from the conviction that his death was 
 premature ; that he was actually defrauded of his 
 life through unskillful treatment ; that he might have 
 been saved, if we had not been so unfortunately situ 
 ated at that time. This to be sure, is not certain ; 
 and not being certain, it is only an ingredient of con 
 solation that we find in our cup of bitterness." 
 
 The pioneer was one of the most generous of givers. 
 Poor indeed he was, much beyond the common allot 
 ment of men of his intelligence and abilities, but he 
 was never too indigent to answer the appeals of 
 poverty. If the asker s needs were greater than his 
 own he divided with him the little which he had. To 
 his home all sorts of people were attracted, Abolition 
 ists, peace men, temperance reformers, perfectionists, 
 
AS IN A LOOKING GLASS. 333 
 
 homoeopathists, hydropathists, mesmerists, spiritual 
 ists, Grahamites, clairvoyants, whom he received with 
 unfailing hospitality, giving welcome and sympathy 
 to the new ideas, food and shelter for the material 
 sustenance of the fleshly vehicles of the new ideas. 
 He evidently was strongly of the opinion that there 
 are " more things in heaven and earth than are 
 dreamt of " in the philosophy of any particular period 
 in the intellectual development of man. No age 
 knows it all. It was almost a lo, here, and a lo, 
 there, with him, so large was his bump of wonder, so 
 unlimited was his appetite for the incredible and the 
 improbable in the domain of human knowledge and 
 speculation. Great was the man s faith, great was 
 his hope, great was his charity. 
 
 He was one of the most observant of men in all 
 matters affecting the rights of others; he was one of 
 the least observant in all matters appertaining to him 
 self. With a decided taste for dress, yet his actual 
 knowledge of the kind of clothes worn by him from 
 day to day was amusingly inexact, as the following 
 incident shows: Before wearing out an only pair of 
 trousers, the pioneer had indulged in the unusual lux 
 ury of a new pair. But as there was still considerable 
 service to be got out of the old pair, he, like a prudent 
 man, laid aside the new ones for future use. His 
 wife, however, who managed all this part of the do 
 mestic business, determined, without consulting him, 
 the morning when the new trousers should be donned. 
 She made the necessary changes when her lord was 
 in bed, putting the new in the place of the old. Gar 
 rison wore for several days the new trousers, thinking 
 all the time that they were his old ones until his illu- 
 
334 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 sions in this regard were dispelled by an incident 
 which cost him the former. Some poor wretch of a 
 tramp, knocking in an evil hour at the pioneer s door 
 and asking for clothes, decided the magnificent pos 
 sessor of two pairs of trousers, to don his new ones 
 and to pass the old ones on to the tramp. But when 
 he communicated the transaction to his wife, she 
 hoped, with a good deal of emphasis, that he had not 
 given away the pair of breeches which he was wear 
 ing, for if he had she would beg to inform him that 
 he had given away his best ones ! But the pioneer s 
 splendid indifference to meum and tnuin where his own 
 possessions were concerned was equal to the occasion. 
 He got his compensation in the thought that his loss 
 was another s gain. That, indeed, was not to be ac 
 counted loss which had gone to a brother-man whose 
 needs were greater than his own. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE TURNING OF A LONG LANE. 
 
 GARRISON S forecast of the future, directly after the 
 annexation of Texas, proved singularly correct. 
 Never, as at that moment, had the slave-power 
 seemed so secure in its ascendency, yet never, at any 
 previous period, was it so near its downfall. Freedom 
 had reached that darkest hour just before dawn; and 
 this, events were speedily to make clear. If the South 
 could have trammeled up the consequences of annexa 
 tion, secure, indeed, for a season, would it have held 
 its political supremacy in America ? But omnipotent 
 as was the slave-power in the Government, it was not 
 equal to this labor. In the great game, in which 
 Texas was the stakes, Fate had, unawares, slipped into 
 the seat between the gamesters with hands full of 
 loaded dice. At the first throw the South got Texas, 
 at the second the war with Mexico fell out, and at 
 the third new national territory lay piled upon the 
 boards. 
 
 Calhoun, the arch-annexationist, struggled desper 
 ately to avert the war. He saw as no other Southern 
 leader saw its tremendous significance in the conflict 
 between the two halves of the Union for the political 
 balance. The admission of Texas had made an ad 
 justment of this balance in favor of the South. Cal- 
 houn s plan was to conciliate Mexico, to sweep with 
 
 (335) 
 
336 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 our diplomatic broom the gathering war-clouds from 
 the national firmament. War, he knew, would im 
 peril the freshly fortified position of his section war 
 which meant at its close the acquisition of new na 
 tional territory, with which the North would insist 
 upon retrieving its reverse in the controversy over 
 Texas. War, therefore, the great nullifier resolved 
 against. He cried halt to his army, but the army 
 heard not his voice, heeded not his orders, in the wild 
 uproar and clamor which arose at the sight of help 
 less Mexico, and the temptation of adding fresh slave 
 soil to the United States South, through her spolia 
 tion. Calhoun confessed that, with the breaking out 
 of hostilities between the two republics an impene 
 trable curtain had shut from his eyes the future. The 
 great plot for maintaining the political domination of 
 the South had miscarried. New national territory 
 had become inevitable with the firing of the first gun. 
 Seeing this, Calhoun endeavored to postpone the evil 
 day for the South by proposing a military policy of 
 " masterly inactivity" whereby time might be gained 
 for his side to prepare to meet the blow when it fell. 
 But his " masterly inactivity" policy was swept aside 
 by the momentum of the national passion which 
 the war had aroused. 
 
 California and New Mexico became the strategic 
 points of the slavery struggle at the close of the war. 
 To open both to the immigration of slave-labor was 
 thenceforth the grand design of the South. Over 
 Oregon occurred a fierce preliminary trial of strength 
 between the sections. The South was thrown in the 
 contest, and the anti-slavery principle of the Ordi 
 nance of 1787 applied to the Territory. Calhoun, 
 
THE TURNING OF A LONG LANE. 337 
 
 who was apparently of the mind that as Oregon went 
 so would go California and New Mexico, was violently 
 agitated by this reverse. " The great strife between 
 the North and the South is ended," he passionately 
 declared. Immediately the charge was made and 
 widely circulated through the slave States that the 
 stronger was oppressing the weaker section, wresting 
 from it its just share in the common fruits of common 
 victories. For had not California and New Mexico 
 been won by the bravery and blood of the South as 
 of the North, and how then was the North to deprive 
 the South of its joint ^ownership of them without 
 destroying the federal equality of the two halves of 
 the Union ? What was it but to subvert the Union 
 existing among the States ? 
 
 Disunion sentiment was thenceforth ladled out to 
 the slave States in increasing quantities. The turn 
 ing of the long lane in the domination of the slave- 
 power was visibly near. With Garrison at one end and 
 Calhoun at the other the work of dissolution advanced 
 apace. The latter announced, in 1848, that the sepa 
 ration of the two sections was complete. Ten years 
 before, Garrison had made proclamation that the 
 Union, though not in form, was, nevertheless, in fact 
 dissolved. And possibly they were right. The line 
 of cleavage had at the date of Calhoun s announce 
 ment passed entirely through the grand strata of 
 national life, industrial, moral, political, and religious. 
 There remained indeed but a single bond of connec 
 tion between the slave-holding and the non-slave- 
 holding States, viz., fealty to party. But in 1848 
 not even this slender link was intact. 
 
 The anti-slavery uprising was a fast growing factor 
 
338 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 in the politics of the free States. This was evinced 
 by the aggressiveness of anti-slavery legislation, the 
 repeal of slave sojournment laws, the enactment of 
 personal liberty laws, the increasing preference mani 
 fested by Whig and by Democratic electors for anti- 
 slavery Whig, and anti-slavery Democratic leaders. 
 Seward and Chase, and Hale and Hamlin, Thaddeus 
 Stevens and Joshua R. Giddings, were all in Congress 
 in 1849. A revolution was working in the North ; a 
 revolution was working in the South. New and 
 bolder spirits were rising to leadership in both sec 
 tions. On the Southern stage were Jefferson Davis, 
 Barnwell Rhett, David Atchison, Howell Cobb, 
 Robert Toombs, and James M. Mason. The outlook 
 was portentous, tempestuous. 
 
 The tide of excitement culuminated in the crisis 
 of 1850. The extraordinary activity of the under 
 ground railroad system, and its failure to open the 
 national Territories to slave immigration had trans 
 ported the South to the verge of disunion. California, 
 fought over by the two foes, was in the act of with 
 drawing herself from the field of contention to a 
 position of independent Statehood. It was her rap 
 for admission into the Union as a free State which pre 
 cipitated upon the country the last of the compromises 
 between freedom and slavery. It sounded the open 
 ing of the final act of Southern domination in the 
 republic. 
 
 The compromise of 1850, a series of five acts, three 
 of which it took to conciliate the South, while two 
 were considered sufficient to satisfy the North, was, 
 after prolonged and stormy debate, adopted to save 
 Webster s glorious Union. These five acts were, in 
 
THE TURNING OF A LONG LANE. 339 
 
 the agonized accents of Clay, to heal "the five fire- 
 gaping wounds" of the country. But the wounds 
 were immedicable, as events were soon to prove. 
 Besides, two at least of the remedies failed to operate 
 as emollients. They irritated and inflamed the 
 national ulcers and provoked fresh paroxysms of the 
 disease. The admission of California as a free State 
 was a sort of perpetual memento mori to the slave- 
 power. It hung forever over the South the Damo- 
 clean blade of Northern political ascendency in the 
 Union. The fugitive slave law on the other hand 
 produced results undreamt of by its authors. Who 
 would have ventured to predict the spontaneous, irre 
 sistible insurrection of the humane forces and passions 
 of the North which broke out on the passage of the 
 infamous bill ? Who could have foretold the moral 
 and political consequences of its execution, for in 
 stance, in Boston, which fifteen years before had 
 mobbed anti-slavery women and dragged Garrison 
 through its streets? The moral indignation aroused 
 by the law in Massachusetts swept Webster and the 
 Whigs from power, carried Sumner to the Senate and 
 crowned Liberty on Beacon Hill. It worked a rev 
 olution in Massachusetts, it wrought changes of the 
 greatest magnitude in the free States. 
 
 From this time the reign of discord became uni 
 versal. The conflict between the sections increased 
 in virulence. At the door of every man sat the fierce 
 figure of strife. It fulmined from the pulpit and 
 frowned from the pews. The platforms of the free 
 States resounded with the thunder of tongues. The 
 press exploded with the hot passions of the hour. 
 Parties warred against each other. Factions arose 
 
340 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 within parties and fought among themselves with no 
 less bitterness. Wrath is infectious and the wrathful 
 temper of the nation became epidemic. The Ishmael- 
 itish impulse to strike something or someone, was 
 irresistible. The bonds which had bound men to one 
 another seemed everywhere loosening, and people in 
 masses were slipping away from old to enter into 
 new combinations of political activity. It was a pe 
 riod of tumultuous transition and confusion. The 
 times were topsy-turvy and old Night and Chaos were 
 the angels who sat by the bubbling abysses of the 
 revolution. 
 
 In the midst of this universal and violent agitation 
 of the public mind the old dread of disunion returned 
 to torment the American bourgeoisie, who through 
 their presses, especially those of the metropolis of the 
 Union, turned fiercely upon the Abolitionists. While 
 the compromise measures were the subject of excited 
 debate before Congress, the anniversary meeting of 
 the American Anti-Slavery Society fell due. But the 
 New York journals, the Herald in particular, had no 
 mind to allow the meeting to take place without 
 renewing the reign of terror of fifteen years before. 
 Garrison was depicted as worse than Robespierre, with 
 an insatiable appetite for the destruction of established 
 institutions, both human and divine. The dissolu 
 tion of the Union, the " overthrow of the churches, 
 the Sabbath, and the Bible," all were required to glut 
 his malevolent passion. " Will the men of sense allow 
 meetings to be held in this city which are calculated 
 to make our country the arena of blood and murder," 
 roared the Herald, " and render our city an object of 
 horror to the whole South ? . . . Public opinion 
 
THE TURNING OF A LONG LANZ. 341 
 
 should be regulated. These Abolitionists should not 
 be allowed to misrepresent New York." In order to 
 suppress the Abolitionists that paper did not blink at 
 any means, however extreme or revolutionary, but 
 declared boldly in favor of throttling free discussion. 
 " When free discussion does not promote the public 
 good/ argued the editor, " it has no more right to 
 exist than a bad government that is dangerous and 
 oppressive to the common weal. It should be over 
 thrown." The mob thus invoked came forward on 
 the opening of the convention to overthrow free dis 
 cussion. 
 
 The storm which the New York press was at so 
 much labor to brew, Garrison did not doubt would 
 break over the convention. He went to it in a truly 
 apostolic spirit of self-sacrifice. "Not knowing the 
 things that shall befall me there, saving that bonds 
 and afflictions abide with me in every city," he wrote 
 his wife an hour before the commencement of the 
 convention. His prevision of violence was quickly 
 fulfilled. He had called Francis Jackson to the chair 
 during the delivery of the opening speech which fell 
 to the pioneer to make as the president of the society. 
 His subject was the Religion of the Country, to which 
 he was paying his respects in genuine Garrisonian 
 fashion. Belief in Jesus in the United States had no 
 vital influence on conduct or character. The chief 
 religious denominations were in practice pro-slavery, 
 they had uttered no protest against the national sin. 
 There was the Roman Catholic Church whose "priests 
 and members held slaves without incurring the rebuke 
 of the Church." At this point the orator was inter 
 rupted by one of those monstrous products of the 
 
342 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 slums of the American metropolis, compounded of the 
 bully, the blackleg, and the demagogue in aboul 
 equal proportions. It was the notorious Captain 
 Isaiah Rynders, perched with his band of black 
 guards in the organ loft of the tabernacle and ready 
 to do the will of the metropolitan journals by over 
 throwing the right of free discussion. He was not dis 
 posed to permit Mr. Garrison s censure of the Roman 
 Catholic Church to pass unchallenged, so he begged 
 to ask " whether there are no other churches as well as 
 the Catholic Church, whose clergy and lay members 
 hold slaves?" To which the anti-slavery leader 
 replied with the utmost composure, not inclined to 
 let even Captain Rynders interrupt the even and 
 orderly progression of his discourse : " Will the 
 friend wait for a moment, and I will answer him in 
 reference to other churches ? " " The friend " there 
 upon resumed his seat in the organ loft, and Garrison 
 proceeded with his indictment of the churches. There 
 was the Episcopal Church, whose clergy and laity 
 dealt with impunity in human flesh, and the Presby 
 terians, whose ministers and members did likewise 
 without apparently any compunctious visitings of 
 conscience, ditto the Baptist, ditto the Methodist. In 
 fact "all the sects are combined," the orator sternly 
 continued, " to prevent that jubilee which it is the 
 will of God should come." 
 
 But the bully in the organ loft, who was not con 
 tent for long to play the part of Patience on a monu 
 ment, interrupted the speaker with a second question 
 which he looked upon, doubtless, as a hard nut to 
 crack. " Are you aware," inquired the blackleg 
 " that the slaves in the South have their prayer- 
 
THE TURNING OF A LONG LANE. 343 
 
 meetings in honor of Christ?" The nut was quickly 
 crushed between the sharp teeth of the orator s scath 
 ing retort. Mr. Garrison " Not a slave-holding or 
 a slave-breeding Jesus. (Sensation.) The slaves be 
 lieve in a Jesus that strikes off chains. In this coun 
 try Jesus has become obsolete. A profession in him 
 is no longer a test. Who objects to his course in 
 Judaea? 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 Presi 
 dent 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 be 
 lieves in Jesus. He believes in war, and the Jesus 
 that gave the Mexicans hell. (Sensation, uproar, 
 and confusion.) 
 
 This rather sulphurous allusion to the President of 
 the glorious Union, albeit in language used by him 
 self in a famous order during the Mexican War, acted 
 as a red rag upon the human bull in the organ loft, 
 who, now beside himself with passion, plunged madly 
 down to the platform with his howling mob at his 
 heels. " I will not allow you to assail the President of 
 the United States. You shan t do it !" bellowed the 
 blackguard, shaking his fist at Mr. Garrison. But 
 Mr. Garrison, with that extraordinary serenity of 
 manner which was all his own, parleyed with the 
 ruffian, as if he was no ruffian and had no mob at his 
 back. " You ought not to interrupt us," he remon 
 strated with gentle dignity. " We go upon the prin 
 ciple of hearing everybody. If you wish to speak, I 
 will keep order, and you shall be heard." Rynders 
 
344 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 was finally quieted by the offer of Francis Jackson to 
 give him a hearing as soon as Mr. Garrison had 
 brought his address to an end. 
 
 Rev. W. H. Furness, of Philadelphia, who was a 
 member of the convention and also one of the speak 
 ers, has preserved for us the contrasts of the occasion. 
 " The close of Mr. Garrison s address," says he, 
 " brought down Rynders again, who vociferated and 
 harangued at one time on the platform, and then 
 pushing down into the aisles, like a madman followed 
 by his keepers. Through the whole, nothing could 
 be more patient and serene than the bearing of Mr. 
 Garrison. I have always revered Mr. Garrison for 
 his devoted, uncompromising fidelity to his great 
 cause. To-day I was touched to the heart by his 
 calm and gentle manners. There was no agitation, 
 no scorn, no heat, but the quietness of a man engaged 
 in simple duties." 
 
 The madman and his keepers were quite vanquished 
 on the first day of the convention by the wit, repar 
 tee, and eloquence of Frederick Douglass, Dr. Fur- 
 ness, and Rev. Samuel R. Ward, whom Wendell Phil 
 lips described as so black that " when he shut his eyes 
 you could not see him." But it was otherwise on the 
 second day when public opinion was " regulated," 
 and free discussion overthrown by Captain Rynders 
 and his villainous gang, who were resolved, with the 
 authors of the compromise, that the Union as it was 
 should be preserved. 
 
 But, notwithstanding the high authority and 
 achievements of this noble band of patriots and 
 brothers, Garrison s detestation of the Union but 
 increased, and his cry for its dissolution grew deeper 
 
THE TURNING OF A LONG LANE. 345 
 
 and louder. And no wonder. For never had the 
 compact between freedom and slavery seemed more 
 hateful than after the passage of the Fugitive Slave 
 Bill. The state of panic which it created among the 
 colored people in the free States will form, if ever 
 written down, one of the most heartrending chapters 
 in human history. Hundreds and thousands fled 
 from their homes into the jaws of a Canadian winter 
 to escape the jaws of the slave-hounds, whose fierce 
 baying began presently to fill the land from Massa 
 chusetts to Ohio. It made no difference whether 
 these miserable people had been always free or were 
 fugitives from slavery, the terror spread among 
 them all the same. The aged and the young turned 
 their backs upon their homes and hurried precipi 
 tately into a strange country. Fathers with wives 
 and children dependant upon them for their daily 
 bread, were forced by the dread of being captured 
 and returned to bondage to abandon their homes 
 and loved ones, sometimes without so much as a 
 touch of their hands or a tone of their voices in 
 token of farewell. Perhaps on his way to work in 
 the morning some husband or son has caught a 
 glimpse among the faces on the street of one face, 
 the remembrance of which to the day of death, 
 he can never lose, a face he had known in some far 
 away Southern town or plantation, and with which 
 are connected in the poor fellow s brain the most 
 frightful sufferings and associations. Crazed at the 
 sight, with no thought of home, of the labors which 
 are awaiting him, oblivious of everything but the 
 abject terror which has suddenly taken possession of 
 him, he hastens away to hide and fly, fly and hide, until 
 
WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 he reaches a land where slave-hounds enter not, and 
 panting fugitives find freedom. Wendell Phillips 
 tells of an old woman of seventy who asked his 
 advice about flying, though originally free, and fear 
 ful only of being caught up by mistake. The dis 
 tress everywhere was awful, the excitement inde 
 scribable. From Boston alone in the brief space of 
 three weeks after the rescue of Shadrach, nearly a 
 hundred of these panic-stricken creatures had fled. 
 The whole number escaping into Canada Charles 
 Sumner placed as high as six thousand souls. But 
 in addition to this large band of fugitives, others 
 emigrated to the interior of New England away from 
 the seaboard centers of trade and commerce where 
 the men-hunters abounded. 
 
 The excitement and the perils of this period were 
 not confined to the colored people. Their whita 
 friends shared both with them. We are indebted to Mr. 
 Phillips for the following graphic account of these 
 excitements and perils in Boston in March, 1851. 
 He has been describing the situation in the city, in 
 respect of the execution of the infamous law, to 
 Elizabeth Pease, and goes on thus : " I need not 
 enlarge on this ; but the long evening sessions 
 debates about secret escapes plans to evade where we 
 can t resist the door watched that no spy may enter 
 the whispering consultations of the morning some 
 putting property out of their hands, planning to 
 incur penalties, and planning also that, in case of 
 conviction, the Government may get nothing from 
 them the doing, and answering no questions 
 intimates forbearing to ask the knowledge which it 
 may be dangerous to have all remind one of those 
 
THE TURNING OF A LONG LANE. 347 
 
 foreign scenes which have hitherto been known to us, 
 transatlantic republicans, only in books." 
 
 On the passage of the Black Bill, as the Abolition 
 ists stigmatised the law, it was not believed that the 
 moral sentiment of Boston would execute it, so hor 
 rified did the community seem. But it was soon ap 
 parent to the venerable Josiah Quincy that " The 
 Boston of 1851 is not the Boston of 1775. Boston," 
 the sage goes on to remark, "has now become a 
 mere shop a place for buying and selling goods; 
 and, I suppose, also of buying and selling men." The 
 great idol of her shopkeepers, Daniel Webster, 
 having striven mightily for the enactment of the 
 hateful bill while Senator of the United States, had 
 gone into Millard Fillmore s Cabinet, to labor yet 
 more mightily for its enforcement. The rescue of 
 Shadrach, which Mr. Secretary of State character 
 ized "as a case of treason," set him to thundering 
 for the Union as it was, and against the "fanatics," 
 who were stirring up the people of the free States 
 to resist the execution of the Fugitive Slave Law. 
 But he was no longer " the God-like " Webster, for 
 he appeared to the editor of the Liberator as " an 
 ordinary-looking, poor, decrepit old man, whose limbs 
 could scarce support him; lank with age; whose 
 sluggish legs were somewhat concealed by an over 
 shadowing abdomen; with head downcast and arms 
 shriveled, and dangling almost helpless by his side, 
 and incapable of being magnetized for the use of 
 the orator." The voice and the front of "the God 
 like" had preceded the "poor decrepit old man" to 
 the grave. Garrison dealt no less roughly and irrev 
 erently with another of the authors of the wicked 
 
348 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 law and another of the superannuated divinities of a 
 shopkeeping North, Henry Clay. * HENRY CLAY, 
 with one foot in the grave," exclaimed the reformer, 
 "and just ready to have both body and soul cast into 
 hell, as if eager to make his damnation doubly sure, 
 rises in the United States Senate and proposes an 
 inquiry into the expediency of passing yet another 
 law, by which every one who shall dare peep or 
 mutter against the execution of the Fugitive Slave Bill 
 shall have his life crushed out." 
 
 In those trial times words from the mouth or the 
 pen of Abolitionists had the force of deadly missiles. 
 Incapacitated as Garrison was to resort to physical 
 resistance to the Fugitive Slave Law by his non- 
 resistant doctrine, it seemed that all the energy and 
 belligerency of the man went into the most tremen 
 dous verbal expressions. They were like adamantine 
 projectiles flung with the savage strength of a catapult 
 against the walls of slavery. The big sinners, like Web 
 ster and Clay, he singled out for condign punishment, 
 were objects of his utmost severities of speech. It was 
 thus that he essayed to breach the iron dungeon in 
 which the national iniquity had shut the national con 
 science. Saturated was the reformer s mind with the 
 thought of the Bible, its solemn and awful imagery, 
 its fiery and prophetic abhorrence and denunciations 
 of national sins, all of which furnished him an un 
 failing magazine whence were drawn the bolts which 
 he launched against the giant sin and the giant sin 
 ners of his time. And so Clay had not only " one 
 foot in the grave," but was "just ready to have both 
 body and soul cast into hell." 
 
 While physical resistance of the Slave Law was 
 
THE TURNING OF A LONG LANE. 349 
 
 wholly out of the question with Garrison, he, never 
 theless, refused to condemn the men with whom it 
 was otherwise. Here he was anything but a fanatic. 
 All that he required was that each should be consis 
 tent with his principles. If those principles bade him 
 resist the enforcement of the Black Bill, the apostle 
 of non-resistance was sorry enough, but in this emer 
 gency, though he possessed the gentleness of the 
 dove, he also practised the wisdom of the serpent. 
 That truth moves with men upon lower as well as 
 higher planes he well knew. It is always partial and 
 many-colored, refracted as it is through the prisms 
 of human passion and prejudice. If it appear unto 
 some minds in the red bar of strife and blood, so be 
 it. Each must follow the light which it is given him 
 to discern, whether the blue of love or the red of 
 war. Great coadjutors, like Wendell Phillips, Theo 
 dore Parker, and Dr. Henry I. Bowditch, were for 
 forcible resistance to the execution of the Law. So 
 were the colored people. Preparations to this end 
 went on vigorously in Boston under the direction of 
 the Vigilance Committee. The Crafts escaped the 
 clutches of the slave-hunters, so did Shadrach escape 
 them, but Sims and Burns fell into them and were 
 returned to bondage. 
 
 From this time on Wendell Phillips became in Bos 
 ton and in the North more distinctly the leader of the 
 Abolition sentiment. The period of pure moral agi 
 tation ended with the passage of the Fugitive Slave 
 Law. That act opened a new era in the movement, an 
 era in which non-resistance had no place, an era in 
 which a resort to physical force in settlement of 
 sectional differences, the whole trend of things were 
 
350 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 making inevitable. Fighting, the Anglo-Saxon 
 method, as Theodore Parker characterized it, of mak 
 ing a final settlement of just such controversies as 
 was the slavery question, was in the air, had become 
 without any general consciousness of it at the time 
 appearing in the popular mind, a foregone conclus 
 ion, from the moment that the South wrested from 
 the National Government the right to defy and 
 override the moral sentiment of free State com 
 munities. With this advance of the anti-slavery 
 agitation a stage nearer the end, when fighting would 
 supersede all other methods, the fighters gravitated 
 naturally to the front of the conflict, and the apostle 
 of non-resistance fell somewhat into the background 
 of the great movement started by him. 
 
 Garrison had begun, indeed, to recognize that there 
 were other ways besides his way of abolishing slav 
 ery had begun to see that these with his led to Rome, 
 to the ultimate extinction of the evil, to which anti- 
 slavery unionists and disunionists were alike de 
 voted. His innate sagacity and strong sense of jus 
 tice lifted the reformer to larger toleration of mind. 
 At a dinner given in Boston in May, 1853, by the Free 
 Democracy to John P. Hale, he was not only present 
 to testify his appreciation of the courage aud services 
 of Mr. Hale to the common cause, but while there 
 was able to speak thus tolerantly tolerantly for him 
 certainly of a Union dear to the company about the 
 table yet hateful beyond measure to himself : " Sir, 
 you will pardon me," spoke the arch anti-slavery dis- 
 unionist, " for the reference. I have heard something 
 here about our Union, about the value of the Union, 
 and the importance of preserving the Union. Gen- 
 
THE TURNING OF A LONG LANE. 351 
 
 tlemen, if you have been so fortunate as to find a 
 Union worth preserving, I heartily congratulate you. 
 Cling to it with all your souls ! " For himself, he has 
 not been so fortunate. With a price set on his head in 
 one of the Southern States, and outlawed in all of 
 them, he begs to be pardoned if found lacking in 
 loyalty to the existing Union, which to him, alas, : "is 
 but another name for the iron reign of the slave-power. 
 We have no common country as yet. God grant we 
 may have. We shall have it when the jubilee comes 
 and not till then," he declared, mindful of the convic 
 tions of others, yet bravely true to his own. The seeds 
 of liberty, of hatred of the slave-power, planted by 
 Garrison were springing up in a splendid crop through 
 the North. Much of the political anti-slavery of the 
 times were the fruit of his endeavor. Wendell Phil 
 lips has pointed out how the Liberty party was bene 
 fited by the meetings and speeches of Garrisonian 
 Abolitionists. What was true of the Liberty party 
 was equally true of Free Soil and Free Democracy. 
 Although the little band remained small, it was po 
 tent in swelling, year after year, the anti-slavery mem 
 bership of all the parties, Whig and Democratic, as 
 well as of those already mentioned. "Uncle Tom s 
 Cabin " might fairly be classed among the large in 
 direct results produced by Garrison. " But " as Phil 
 lips justly remarked, " Uncle Tom would never 
 have been written had not Garrison developed the 
 facts ; and never would have succeeded had he not 
 created readers and purchasers." Garrisonism had 
 become an influence, a power that made for liberty 
 and against slavery in the United States. It had be 
 come such also in Great Britain. George Thompson, 
 
352 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 writing the pioneer of the marvelous sale of " Uncle 
 Tom " in England, and of the unprecedented demand 
 for anti-slavery literature, traced their source to his 
 friend: "Behold the fruit of your labors," he ex 
 claimed, " and rejoice." 
 
 Mr. Garrison s pungent characterization of the 
 " Union " at the dinner of the Free Democracy as 
 " but another name for the iron reign of the slave- 
 power," found almost instant illustration of its truth 
 in the startling demand of that power for the repeal 
 of the Missouri Compromise. In 1850 the South lost 
 California, but it received at the time an advantage 
 of far-reaching consequence, viz., the admission of 
 the principle of federal non-intervention upon the 
 subject of slavery in the national Territories into the 
 bill organizing Territorial Governments for New Mex 
 ico and Utah. The train which was to blow down 
 the slave wall of 1820 and open to slave immigration 
 the northern half of the Louisiana Territory, was laid 
 in the compromise measures of 1850. 
 
 Calhoun, strongly dissatisfied as he was with the 
 Missouri settlement, recoiled from countenancing any 
 agitation on the part of the South looking to its 
 repeal on the ground that such action was calculated 
 to disturb " the peace and harmony of the Union." 
 But four years after the death of the great nullifier, 
 his disciples and followers dared to consummate a 
 crime, the consequences of which he shrank from 
 inviting. The political conditions four years had 
 indeed modified in one important particular at least. 
 In Calhoun s lifetime, there was no Northern leader 
 bold enough to undertake to engineer an act of abro 
 gation through Congress. If the North were willing, 
 
THE TURNING OF A LONG LANE. 353 
 
 possessed sufficient magnanimity, to surrender, in the 
 interest of brotherly love between the sections, the 
 benefits which inured to it under the Missouri Com 
 promise, neither Calhoun nor the South would have 
 declined the proffered sacrifice. The selection of 
 Stephen A. Douglas in 1854 as the leader of the 
 movement for repeal put a new face on the business, 
 which was thereby made to appear to proceed from 
 the free, not from the slave States. This was 
 adroit, the fixing upon the losing section the initia 
 tive and the responsibility of the act of abroga 
 tion. 
 
 Besides this element, there was another not less 
 specious which lent to the scheme an air of fairness, 
 and that was the application to the Territories of the 
 American principle of local self-government, in other 
 words, the leaving to the people of the Territories the 
 right to vote slavery up or vote it down, as they 
 might elect. The game was a deep one, worthy of 
 the machinations of its Northern and Southern 
 authors. But, like other elaborate schemes of mice 
 and men, it went to pieces under the fatal stroke of 
 an unexpected circumstance. The act which abro 
 gated the Missouri Compromise broke the much- 
 enduring back of Northern patience at the same 
 time. In the struggle for the repeal Southern Whigs 
 and Southern Democrats forgot their traditionary 
 party differences in battling for Southern interests, 
 which was not more or less than the extension to 
 the national Territories of the peculiar institution. 
 The final recognition of this ugly fact on the part of 
 the free States, raised a popular flood in them big 
 enough to whelm the Whig party and to float a great 
 
354 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 political organization, devoted to uncompromising 
 opposition to the farther extension of slavery. The 
 sectionalism of slavery was at last met by the section 
 alism of freedom. From that moment the old Union, 
 with its slave compromises, was doomed. In the 
 conflict then impending its dissolution was merely 
 a matter of time, unless indeed the North should 
 prove strong enough to preserve it by the might of its 
 arms, seeing that the North still clung passionately to 
 the idea of national unity. 
 
 Not so, however, was it with Garrison. Sharper 
 and sterner rose his voice against any union with 
 slaveholders. On the Fourth of July following the 
 repeal of the Missouri Compromise, the reformer at 
 Framingham, Mass., gaye a fresh and startling sign 
 of his hatred of the Union by burning publicly the 
 Constitution of the United States. Before doing so 
 however, he consigned to the flames a copy of the 
 Fugitive Slave Law, next the decision of Judge Lor- 
 ing remanding Anthony Burns to slavery, also the 
 charge of Judge Benjamin R. Curtis to the Grand 
 Jury touching the assault upon the court-house for the 
 rescue of Burns. Then holding up the United States 
 Constitution, he branded it as the source and parent 
 of all the other atrocities a covenant with death 
 and an agreement with hell and consumed it to 
 ashes on the spot, exclaiming, " So perish all com 
 promises with tyranny ! And let all the people say, 
 Amen ! " This dramatic act and the " tremendous 
 shout " which " went up to heaven in ratification of 
 the deed" from the assembled multitude, what were 
 they but the prophecy of a fiercer fire already burn 
 ing in the land, soon to blaze about the pillars of the 
 
THE TURNING OF A LONG LANE. 355 
 
 Union, of a more tremendous shout soon to burst 
 with the wrath of a divided people over that 
 
 "perfidious bark 
 Built i th eclipse, and rigged with curses dark." 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 FACE TO FACE. 
 
 FACE to face at last were freedom and slavery. 
 The final struggle between them for mastery had 
 come. Narrow, indeed, was the issue that divided 
 the combatants, slavery extension on the one side, 
 and slavery restriction on the other, not total and 
 immediate emancipation, but it was none the less 
 vital and supreme to the two enemies. Back of the 
 Southern demand for " More slave soil " stood a solid 
 South, back of the Northern position, " No more slave 
 soil " was rallying a fast uniting North. The political 
 revolution, produced by the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, 
 advanced apace through the free States from Maine 
 to Michigan. A flood-tide of Northern resistance 
 had suddenly risen against the slave-power. 
 
 Higher than anywhere else rose this flood-tide in 
 Massachusetts. The judge who remanded Anthony 
 Burns to slavery was removed from office, and a Per 
 sonal Liberty Law, with provisions as bold as they 
 were thorough, enacted for the protection of fugitive 
 slaves. Mr. Garrison sat beside the President of the 
 State Senate when that body voted to remove Judge 
 Loring from his office. Such was Massachusetts s 
 answer to the abrogation of the Missouri Compro 
 mise, and a triumphant slave-power. Its instant 
 
 (356) 
 
FACE TO FACE. 357 
 
 effect was to accelerate in the South the action of the 
 disunion working forces there, to hurry the inevi 
 table moment when the two sections would rush 
 together in a death-grapple within or without Web 
 ster s once glorious Union. 
 
 Indeed the foes had already closed in a frightful 
 wrestle for the possession of Kansas. When the 
 National Government adopted the popular sover 
 eignty doctrine in solution of the Territorial problem 
 between the two halves of the Union, freedom and 
 slavery thereupon precipitated their forces upon the 
 debatable land, and, for the first time, the men of the 
 North and the men of the South came into actual 
 physical collision in defence of their respective ideas 
 and institutions. The possession of land is nine 
 points of the law among Anglo-Saxons, and for this 
 immense advantage both sides flung themselves into 
 Kansas the North by means of emigrant aid socie 
 ties, the South by means of bands of Border ruffians 
 under the direction of a United States Senator. It 
 was distinctly understood and ordained in connection 
 with the repeal of the compromise of 1820, that final 
 possession of the Territories then thrown open to 
 slave labor should be determined by the people 
 inhabiting the same. In the contest for peopling 
 Kansas the superior colonizing resources of the free 
 States was presently made manifest. They, in any 
 fair contest with ballots, had a majority of the polls, 
 and were, therefore, able to vote slavery down. 
 Worsted as the South clearly was in a show of heads, 
 it threw itself back upon fraud and force to decide 
 the issue in its favor. The cartridge-box took the 
 place of the ballot-box in bleeding Kansas, and vio- 
 
358 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 lence and anarchy, as a consequence, reigned therein 
 for the space of several years. 
 
 This is no place to depict those scenes of slave-hold 
 ing outrages, supported as they were by a Northern 
 President with Southern principles. The sight of 
 them rapidly changed the pacific character of the 
 free States. Many a peace man dropped his peace 
 principles before this bloody duel between the civili 
 zation of the South and that of the North. Ministers 
 and churches took up collections to send, not Bibles, 
 but Sharp s rifles to their brethren in Kansas. The 
 South had appealed to the sword, and the North had 
 sternly accepted the challenge. War was in the air, 
 and the Northern temper, without there being any 
 general consciousness of it, was fast mounting to the 
 war point in the thermometer of the passions, thanks 
 to the perfidy and ruffianism of the slave-power in 
 Congress and Kansas. 
 
 This trend and strong undertow of the nation 
 toward a civil outbreak and commotion, though 
 unnoted by the multitude, was yet, nevertheless, seen 
 and felt by many thoughtful and far-seeing minds ; 
 and by no one more clearly than by T. W. Higgin- 
 son, who at the twentieth anniversary of the Boston 
 mob, discoursed thus on this head: "Mr. Phillips 
 told us that on this day, twenty years ago, the mili 
 tary could not protect the meeting, because the guns 
 were outside in the mob or the men who should 
 have carried them ! There has been a time since 
 when the men were on the outside and the guns too ; 
 and as surely as this earth turns on its axis, that time 
 will come again ! And it is for you, men, who 
 hear me, to think what you will do when that time 
 
FACE TO FACE. 359 
 
 comes ; and it is for you, women, who hear me, to 
 think what you will do, and what you are willing I 
 will not say, to consent that those you love should do, 
 but what you are willing to urge them to do, and to 
 send them from your homes, knowing that they will 
 do it, whether they live or die." The murderous 
 assault upon Charles Sumner in the Senate Chamber 
 at Washington by Preston S. Brooks, served to in 
 tensify the increasing belligerancy of the Northern 
 temper, to deepen the spreading conviction that the 
 irrepressible conflict would be settled not with the 
 pen through any more fruitless compromises, but in 
 Anglo-Saxon fashion by blood and iron. 
 
 Amid this general access of the fighting pro 
 pensity, Garrison preserved the integrity of his non- 
 resistant principles, his aversion to the use of physical 
 force as an anti-slavery weapon. Men like Charles 
 Stearns talked of shouldering their Sharp s rifles 
 against the Border ruffians as they would against wild 
 beasts. For himself, he could not class any of his 
 fellow-creatures, however vicious and wicked, on the 
 same level with wild beasts. Those wretches were, 
 he granted, as bad and brutal as they were repre 
 sented by the free State men of Kansas, but to him 
 they were less blameworthy than were their employ 
 ers and indorsers, the pro-slavery President and his 
 Cabinet, pro-slavery Congressmen, and judges, and 
 doctors of divinity, and editors. Incomparably guilty 
 as these " colossal conspirators against the liberty, 
 peace, happiness, and safety of the republic " were ; 
 and, though his moral indignation " against their 
 treasonable course" burned like fire, he, nevertheless, 
 wished them no harm. He shrank from the idea of 
 
360 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 the physical collision of man with A brother man, 
 and with him all mankind were brothers. No one is 
 able to draw a sword or point a rifle at any member 
 of the human family, "in a Christian state of mind." 
 He held to Jesus, who condemned violence, forbade 
 the entertainment by his disciples of retaliatory feel 
 ings and the use of retaliatory weapons. When Jesus 
 said " Love your enemies," he did not mean, " Kill 
 them if they go too far." 
 
 Garrison s moral radicalism and political sagacity 
 were never exhibited to better advantage than during 
 these tremendous years of the crisis. He saw the 
 sudden rise of a great political organization opposed 
 to the farther extension of slavery to national terri 
 tory. It was by no means a party after his heart, and 
 for total and immediate emancipation, and the disso 
 lution of the Union, yet he perceived that while this 
 was true, it was, nevertheless, in its narrow purpose, 
 battling against the slave-power, fighting the slave 
 system, and to this extent was worthy of the commen 
 dation of Abolitionists. " It helps to disseminate no 
 small amount of light and knowledge," the reformer 
 acutely observed, " in regard to the nature and work 
 ings of the slave system, being necessitated to do 
 this to maintain its position ; and thus, for the time 
 being, it is moulding public sentiment in the right 
 direction, though with no purpose to aid us in the 
 specific work we are striving to accomplish, namely, 
 the dissolution of the Union, and the abolition of 
 slavery throughout the land." While bating no jot 
 of his anti-slavery principles, he all the same put in 
 practice the apostolic injunction to give credit to 
 whom credit is due, by cordially commending what 
 
FACE TO FACE. 361 
 
 he found worthy of commendation in the purpose 
 and policy of the Republican party, and by urging a 
 like conduct upon his followers. In the Presidential 
 canvass of 1856 his sympathies went strongly with 
 Fremont as against Buchanan and Fillmore, although 
 his Abolition principles precluded him from voting 
 for the Republican candidate or from urging his dis 
 ciples to vote for him. But, barring this moral bar 
 rier, had he "a million votes to bestow" he "would 
 cast them all for Fremont . . . not because he is an 
 Abolitionist or a Disunionist . . . but because he is 
 for the non-extension of slavery, in common with the 
 great body of the people of the North, whose attach 
 ment to the Union amounts to idolatry." 
 
 When the election was over the motto of the Liber 
 ator was still " No union with slaveholders," and 
 would have remained the same though Fremont in 
 stead of Buchanan had triumphed at the polls, until 
 indeed the domination of the slave-power had ended, 
 and the North and the National Constitution had 
 been divorced from all criminal connection with slav 
 ery. The anti-slavery agitation for the dissolution of 
 the Union went on with increased zeal. A State con 
 vention, called by T. W. Higginson and others, " to 
 consider the practicability, probability, and expedi 
 ency of a separation between the free and slave States, 
 and to take such other measures as the condition of the 
 times may require," met at Worcester, Mass., Janu 
 ary 15, 1857, with Frank W. Bird in the chair, and 
 William Lloyd Garrison among the vice-presidents. 
 The pioneer s speech on the occasion was a character 
 istic and noteworthy utterance. Its tone throughout 
 was grave and argumentative. Here is a specimen 
 
362 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 of it, and of the way in which he met the most ser 
 ous objection to the Abolition movement for disunion : 
 " The air is filled with objections to a movement of this 
 kind. I am neither surprised nor disquieted at this. 
 One of these is of a very singular nature, and it is 
 gravely urged that it is conclusive against disunion. 
 It is to this effect: We must remain in the Unioi 
 because it would be inhuman in us to turn our backs 
 upon millions of slaves in the Southern States, and t:> 
 leave them to their fate ! Men who have never beei 
 heard of in the anti-slavery ranks, or who are ever 
 submitting to a compromise of principle, have their 
 bowels wonderfully moved all at once with sympathy 
 for the suffering slave! Even our esteemed friend, 
 Theodore Parker (who deals in no cant) says, in his 
 letter, that he cannot consent to cut himself off from 
 the slave population. Now, we who are engaged in 
 this movement claim to be equally concerned for the 
 liberation of the slave. If we have not yet proved our 
 willingness to suffer the loss of all things, rather than 
 turn and flee, God knows that we are prepared to 
 bear any new cross that He, in His Providence, may 
 be disposed to lay upon us. For one, I make no pa 
 rade of my anxiety for the deliverance of those in bon 
 dage ; but I do say that it strikes me as remarkable 
 that those who, for a quarter of a century, have borne 
 the heat and burden of the day, should have the im 
 putation cast upon them of intending to leave four 
 millions of slaves in their chains, by seeking the over 
 throw of this Union ! . . . 
 
 "... I declare that this talk of leaving the slave 
 to his fate is not a true representation of the case ; 
 and it indicates a strange dullness of comprehension 
 
FACE TO FACE. 363 
 
 with regard to our position and purpose. What ! Is 
 it to forsake the slave when I cease to be the aider 
 and abettor of his master ? What ! When the North 
 is pressing down upon four millions of slaves like an 
 avalanche, and we say to her, * Take off that pressure 
 stand aside give the slave a chance to regain his 
 feet and assert his freedom ! is that turning our 
 backs upon him ? Here, for example, is a man en 
 gaged in high way robbery, and another man is acting 
 as an accessory, without whose aid the robber cannot 
 succeed. In saying to the accomplice. Hands off ! 
 Don t aid the villain ! shall I be told that this is en 
 abling the highwayman to rob with impunity ? What 
 an absurdity ! Are we not trying to save the pockets 
 of all travelers from being picked in seeking to break 
 up all connection with highway robbery ?" 
 
 The convention projected a general convention of 
 the free States to consider the subject, and " Re- 
 wlved, That the sooner the separation takes place, 
 the more peaceful it will be; but that peace or war is 
 a secondary consideration in view of our present perils. 
 Slavery must be conquered, peaceably if we can, for 
 cibly if we must." The projected general convention, 
 owing to the monetary crisis of 1857, did not take 
 place; but the extraordinary public excitement on 
 the slavery question increased rather than diminished 
 during the year. The increasing menace to the domi 
 nation of the slave-power from this source had be 
 come so great that it was deemed prudent on the 
 part of the upholders of that power to allay it by 
 means of an authoritative utterance upon the vexed 
 question of slavery in the national Territories from 
 the highest judicial tribunal in the land, The North- 
 
364 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 ern respect for the opinion of the Supreme Court, the 
 South and her allies in the free States counted upon 
 as the vehicle of the quieting medicament. For, if 
 the Missouri Compromise were pronounced by that 
 Court unconstitutional and, therefore, ab initio, null 
 and void, no wrong was done the North through its 
 formal repeal by Congress. The act of abrogation, 
 in this view, added nothing to the South which did 
 not belong to it as well before as after its passage, 
 detracted nothing from the North which was justly 
 its due in the premises. In pursuance of this cun 
 ningly devised scheme the Supreme Court delivered 
 itself of an opinion in the famous " Dred Scott Case." 
 So abhorrent it was to the intelligence and moral sense 
 of the free States, that it produced results altogether 
 opposed to those designed by the men who invoked 
 it. Instead of checking, the execrated judgment 
 augmented enormously the existing excitement. Gar 
 rison s bitter taunt that " the Union is but another 
 name for the iron reign of the slave-power," was 
 driven home to the North, by the Dred Scott decision, 
 with the logic of another unanswerable fact. Con 
 fidence in the independence and impartiality of the 
 Supreme Court was seriously shaken, and widespread 
 suspicion struck root at the North touching the sub 
 serviency of that tribunal to the interests and designs 
 of the slave-power. 
 
 The popular agitation at this fresh and alarming 
 evidence of the purpose and power of the South upset 
 the machinations of the schemers, swelled the numeri 
 cal strength of the new Northern party opposed to 
 the Territorial aggressions and pretensions of the 
 slave section. So rapid was the growth of the Re- 
 
FACE TO PACE. 365 
 
 publican party that the slave leaders anticipated its 
 accession to power at the then next Presidential elec 
 tion. So certain were they in their forebodings of de 
 feat that they set about in dead earnest to put their 
 side of the divided house in order for the impending 
 struggle for Southern independence. Military prepa 
 rations went forward with a vengeance, arms and 
 munitions of war which were the property of the 
 General Government began to move southward, to 
 Southern military depots and posts for the defence of 
 the United States South, when at last the word 
 " DISUNION " should be pronounced over the Re 
 public. The Lincoln-Douglass debate augmented 
 everywhere the excitement, fed the already mighty 
 numbers of the new party. More and more the pub 
 lic consciousness and conviction were squaring with 
 Mr. Lincoln s oracular words in respect that the 
 Union could not " endure permanently half slave and 
 half free." 
 
 The darkness and tumult of the rising tempest 
 were advancing apace, when suddenly there burst 
 from the national firmanent the first warning peal of 
 thunder, and over Virginia there sped the first bolt of 
 the storm. John Brown with his brave little band, 
 at Harper s Ferry, had struck for the freedom of the 
 slave. Tired of words, the believer in blood and iron 
 as a deliverer, had crossed from Pennsylvania into 
 Virginia on the evening of October 16, 1859, anc ^ 
 seized the United States Armory at Harper s Ferry. 
 Although soon overpowered, captured, tried, and 
 hanged for his pains by the slave-power, the martyr had 
 builded better than he knew. For the blow struck by 
 him then and there ended almost abruptly the period 
 
366 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 of argument and ushered in the period of arms. Th-i 
 jar from that battle-ax at the roots of the slave sys 
 tem hurled together in a death struggle right and 
 wrong, freedom and slavery, in the republic. 
 
 This attempt on the part of John Brown to liberate 
 the slaves seemed to Garrison " misguided, wild, and 
 apparently insane, though disinterested and well- 
 intended." On non-resistant grounds he deplored 
 this use of the sword to effect emancipation, and con 
 demned the leader. But, judging him according to 
 the standard of Bunker Hill and the men of 1776, he 
 did not doubt that Brown deserved " to be held in 
 grateful and honorable remembrance to the latest pos 
 terity, by all those who glory in the deeds of a Wal 
 lace or Tell, a Washington or Warren." 
 
 The raid of Brown and his subsequent execution, 
 and their reception at the North revealed how vasi; 
 was the revolution in public sentiment on the slavery 
 question which had taken place there, since the-, 
 murder of Lovejoy, eighteen years before. Lovejoy 
 died defending the right of free speech and the 
 liberty of the press, yet the Attorney-General of 
 Massachusetts declared that " he died as the fool 
 dieth." Brown died in an invasion of a slave State, 
 and in an effort to emancipate the slaves with a band 
 of eighteen followers, and he was acclaimed, from one 
 end of the free States to the other, hero and martyr. 
 Mr. Garrison commenting on this immensely signifi 
 cant fact, acutely and justly observed that : " The 
 sympathy and admiration now so widely felt for him, 
 prove how marvelous has been the change affected in 
 public opinion during the thirty years of moral 
 agitation a change so great indeed, that whereas, 
 
FACE TO FACE. 367 
 
 ten years since, there were thousands who could not 
 endure my lightest word of rebuke of the South, they 
 can now easily swallow John Brown whole and his 
 rifle into the bargain. In firing his gun, he has 
 merely told us what time of day it is. It is high noon, 
 thank God ! " 
 
 But there is another circumstance hardly less sig 
 nificant of another change at the North even more 
 momentous than the one just noted. 
 
 On December 2d, the day on which Brown was 
 hung, solemn funeral observances were held through 
 out the North by Abolitionists. At the great meet 
 ing in Boston, held in Tremont Temple, and presided 
 over by Samuel E. Sewall, Garrison inquired as to the 
 number of non-resistants who were present. To this 
 question there came a solitary reply. There was but 
 one non-resistant beside himself in the hall. Where 
 were his followers ? Why had they forsaken their 
 principles ? The tide of Northern belligerency, which 
 was everywhere rising to its flood, everywhere rush 
 ing and mounting to the tops of those dams which 
 separate war and peace had swept away his fol 
 lowers, had caused them to forsake their principles. 
 True to their Anglo-Saxon instinct, they had re 
 verted to the more human, if less Christian method 
 of cutting the Gordian knot of the republic with the 
 sword. 
 
 The irresistible drift of the North toward the point 
 where peace ends and war begins, which that solitary 
 " I " at the John Brown meeting denoted, was still 
 further indicated by what appeared not wholly unlike 
 a change in Mr. Garrison s attitude on the same sub 
 ject. His non-resistant position was the same, but 
 
368 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 somehow his face seemed to turn warward too, with 
 the rest of the nation, in the following passage take i 
 from his address at that John Brown meeting : 
 
 " Nevertheless, I am a non-resistant," said he, 
 speaking to that solitary confession of non-resistance 
 principles, "and I not only desire, but have labored 
 unremittingly to effect the peaceful abolition of slav 
 ery, by an appeal to the reason and conscience of the 
 slaveholder; yet, as a peace man, an ultra peace 
 man, I am prepared to say : Success to every slave 
 insurrection at the South, and in every slave countr). 
 And I do not see how I compromise or stain my peace 
 profession in making that declaration. Whenever 
 there is a contest between the oppressed and the 
 oppressor, the weapons being equal between the par 
 ties, God knows that my heart must be with the 
 oppressed, and always against the oppressor. There 
 fore, whenever commenced, I cannot but wish success 
 to all slave insurrections. . . . Rather than see men 
 wearing their chains, in a cowardly and servile spirit, 
 I would as an advocate of peace, much rather see them 
 breaking the head of the tyrant with their chains. 
 Give me, as a non-resistant, Bunker Hill, and Lex 
 ington, and Concord, rather than the cowardice and 
 servility of a Southern slave plantation." 
 
 The unmistakable signs of disintegration, the swift 
 action of the national tragedy, the Charleston Con 
 vention, the disruption of the Democratic party, the 
 last bond between the North and the South, filled 
 the heart of the pioneer with solemn joy. " Only 
 think of it ! " he exulted at the anniversary of the 
 American Anti-Slavery Society in New York, May 8, 
 1860 ; "only think of it ! the party which has for so 
 
FACE TO FACE. 369 
 
 many years cried out, There must be no agitation on 
 this subject is now the most agitated of all the 
 parties in the country. The party which declares that 
 there ought not to be any sectionalism as against 
 slavery, has now been sundered geographically, and 
 on this very question ! The party which had said, 
 Let discussions cease forever, is busily engaged in 
 the discussion, so that, possibly, the American Anti- 
 Slavery Society might adjourn sine die, after we get 
 through with our present meetings, and leave its work 
 to be carried on in the other direction !" This was all 
 true enough. The sections were at last sundered, 
 and a day of wrath was rising dark and dreadful over 
 "States dissevered, discordant, belligerent." 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE DEATH-GRAPPLE. 
 
 THE triumph of the Republican party at the polls 
 was the signal for the work of dissolution to begin, 
 Webster s terrific vision of " a land rent with civL 
 feuds " became reality in the short space of sis 
 weeks after Lincoln s election, by the secession oi 
 South Carolina from the Union. Quickly other 
 Southern States followed, until a United States South 
 was organized, the chief stone in the corner of the 
 new political edifice being Negro slavery. It was not 
 six weeks after the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln, 
 when the roar of cannon in Charleston Harbor an 
 nounced to the startled country that war between the 
 States had begun. The first call of the new Presi 
 dent for troops to put down the rebellion and to save 
 the Union, and the patriotic uprising which it evoked 
 made it plain that the struggle thus opened was to 
 be nothing less than a death-grapple between the two 
 sections. 
 
 Before the attack on Fort Sumter, Garrison was 
 opposed to coercing the rebel States back into the 
 Union. He admitted the Constitutional power of 
 the National Government to employ force in main 
 taining the integrity of the Republic. " The Federal 
 Government must not pretend to be in actual opera 
 tion, embracing thirty-four States," the editor of the 
 
 (370) 
 
THE DEATH-GRAPPLE. 371 
 
 Liberator commented, " and then allow the seceding 
 States to trample upon its flag, steal its property, and 
 defy its authority with impunity ; for it would then 
 be (as it is at this moment) a mockery and a laughing 
 stock. Nevertheless to think of whipping the South 
 (for she will be a unit on the question of slavery) into 
 subjection, and extorting allegiance from millions of 
 people at the cannon s mouth, is utterly chimerical. 
 True, it is in the power of the North to deluge her 
 soil with blood, and inflict upon her the most terrible 
 sufferings ; but not to conquer her spirit, or change 
 her determination." 
 
 He, therefore, proposed that " the people of the 
 North should recognize the fact that THE UNION is DIS 
 SOLVED, and act accordingly. They should see, in 
 the madness of the South, the hand of God, liberat 
 ing them from l a covenant with death and an * agree 
 ment with hell/ made in a time of terrible peril, and 
 without a conception of its inevitable consequences, 
 and which has corrupted their morals, poisoned their 
 religion, petrified their humanity as towards the mill 
 ions in bondage, tarnished their character, harassed 
 their peace, burdened them with taxation, shackled 
 their prosperity, and brought them into abject 
 vassalage." 
 
 It is not to be wondered at that Garrison, under 
 the circumstances, was for speeding the South rather 
 than obstructing her way out of the Union. For 
 hardly ever had the anti-slavery cause seen greater 
 peril than that which hung over it during the months 
 which elapsed between Lincoln s election and the 
 attack on Sumter, owing to the paralyzing apprehen 
 sions to which the free States fell a prey in view of the 
 
37 2 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 then impending disruption of their glorious Union. 
 Indeed no sacrifice of anti-slavery accomplishments, 
 policy, and purpose of those States were esteemed too 
 important or sacred to make, if thereby the dissolu 
 tion of the Union might be averted. Many, Republi 
 cans as well as Democrats, were for repealing the 
 Personal Liberty Laws, and for the admission of 
 New Mexico as a State, with or without slavery, for 
 the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law, for sup 
 pressing the right of free speech and the freedom of 
 the press on the subject of slavery, and for surrender 
 ing the Northern position in opposition to the exten 
 sion of slavery to national Territories, in order to 
 placate the South and keep it in the Union. Noth 
 ing could have possibly been more disastrous to the 
 anti-slavery movement in America than a Union 
 saved on the terms proposed by such Republican 
 leaders as Williarr\H. Seward, Charles Francis Adams, 
 Thomas Corwin, and Andrew G. Curtin. The Union, 
 under the circumstances, was sure death to the slave, 
 in disunion lay his great life-giving hope. There 
 fore his tried and sagacious friend was for sacrificing 
 the Union to win for him freedom. 
 
 As the friends of the Union were disposed to haggle 
 at no price to preserve it, so was Garrison disposed 
 to barter the Union itself in exchange for the aboli 
 tion of slavery. " Now, then, let there be a CONVEN 
 TION OF THE FREE STATES," he suggested, "called to 
 organize an independent government on free and 
 just principles ; and let them say to the slave States : 
 Though you are without excuse for your treason 
 able conduct, depart in peace ! Though you have 
 laid piratical hands on property not your own, we 
 
THE DEATH-GRAPPLE. 373 
 
 surrender it all in the spirit of magnanimity ! And 
 if nothing but the possession of the Capitol will 
 appease you, take even that without a struggle ! Let 
 the line be drawn between us where free institutions 
 end and slave institutions begin ! " 
 
 But the thunder of the rebel guns in Charleston 
 Harbor wrought in the reformer a complete revolu 
 tion in this regard. In the tremendous popular up 
 rising which followed that insult to the national 
 flag he perceived that the old order with its com 
 promises and dispositions to agree to anything, to do 
 anything for the sake of preserving the Union had 
 passed away forever. When it was suggested as an 
 objection to his change of base that the " Adminis 
 tration is endeavoring to uphold the Union, the Con 
 stitution, and the Laws, even as from the formation 
 of the Government," he was not for a moment de 
 ceived by its apparent force, but replied sagely that 
 " this is a verbal and technical view of the case." 
 " Facts are more potential than words," he remarked 
 with philosophic composure, " and events greater 
 than parchment arrangements. The truth is, the 
 old Union is non est inventus, and its restoration, with 
 its pro-slavery compromises, well-nigh impossible. 
 The conflict is really between the civilization of 
 freedom and the barbarism of slavery between the 
 principles of democracy and the doctrines of absolu 
 tism between the free North and the man-imbruting 
 South ; therefore, to this extent hopeful for the cause 
 of impartial liberty." 
 
 With the instinct of wise leadership, he adjusted 
 himself and his little band of Abolitionists, as far as 
 he was able, to the exigencies of the revolution. In 
 
374 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 his madness there was always remarkable method. 
 When the nation was apathetic, dead on the subject 
 of slavery, he used every power which he possessed 
 or could invent to galvanize it into life. But with the 
 prodigious excitement which swept over the free 
 States at the outbreak of the war, Garrison saw that 
 the crisis demanded different treatment. Abolition 
 ists and their moral machinery he felt should be with 
 drawn, for a season at least, from their conspicuous 
 place before the public gaze, lest it happen that they 
 should divert the current of public opinion from the 
 South to themselves, and thus injure the cause of 
 the slave. He accordingly deemed it highly ex 
 pedient that the usual anniversary of the American 
 Anti-Slavery Society, held in New York, ought, 
 under the circumstances, to be postponed, coming 
 as it would but a few weeks after the attack on 
 Sumter, and in the midst of the tremendous loyal 
 uprising against the rebels. This he did, adding, by 
 way of caution, this timely counsel: " Let nothing be 
 done at this solemn crisis needlessly to check or divert 
 the mighty current of popular feeling which is now 
 sweeping southward with the strength and impetu 
 osity of a thousand Niagaras, in direct conflict with 
 that haughty and perfidious slave-power which has 
 so long ruled the republic with a rod of iron, for its 
 own base and satanic purposes." 
 
 The singular tact and sagacity of the pioneer in 
 this emergency may be again seen in a letter to Oliver 
 Johnson, who was at the time editing the Anti-Slavery 
 Standard. Says the pioneer : " Now that civil war 
 has begun, and a whirlwind of violence and excite 
 ment is to sweep through the country, every day in- 
 
THE DEATH-GRAPPLE. 375 
 
 creasing in interest until its bloodiest culmination, it 
 is for the Abolitionists to stand still and see the sal 
 vation of God, rather than to attempt to add any 
 thing to the general commotion. It is no time for 
 minute criticism of Lincoln, Republicanism, or even 
 the other parties, now that they are fusing, for a 
 death-grapple with the Southern slave oligarchy; for 
 they are instruments in the hands of God to carry 
 forward and help achieve the great object of emanci 
 pation for which we have so long been striving. . . 
 We need great circumspection and consummate 
 wisdom in regard to what we may say and do under 
 these unparalleled circumstances. We are rather, for 
 the time being, to note the events transpiring than 
 seek to control them. There must be no needless 
 turning of popular violence upon ourselves by any 
 false step of our own." 
 
 The circumspection, the tact, and sagacity which 
 marked his conduct at the beginning of the rebellion 
 characterized it to the close of the war, albeit at no 
 time doing or saying aught to compromise his anti- 
 slavery principle of total and immediate emancipa 
 tion. On the contrary, he urged, early and late, upon 
 Congress and the President the exercise of the war 
 power to put an end for ever to slavery. Radical 
 Abolitionists like Stephen S. Foster were for denying 
 to the Administration anti-slavery support and coun 
 tenance, and for continuing to heap upon the Gov 
 ernment their denunciations until it placed itself 
 " openly and unequivocally on the side of freedom," 
 by issuing the edict of emancipation. Against this 
 zeal without discretion Garrison warmly protested. 
 " I cannot say that I do not sympathize with the Gov- 
 
37^ WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 ernment," said he, " as against Jefferson Davis and 
 his piratical associates. There is not a drop of blood 
 in my veins, both as an Abolitionist and a peace man, 
 that does not flow with the Northern tide of senti 
 ment; for I see, in this grand uprising of the man 
 hood of the North, which has been so long groveling 
 in the dust, a growing appreciation of the value of 
 liberty and free institutions, and a willingness to 
 make any sacrifice in their defence against the bar 
 baric and tyrannical power which avows its purpose, 
 if it can, to crush them entirely out of existence. 
 When the Government shall succeed (if it shall suc 
 ceed) in conquering a peace, in subjugating the South, 
 and shall undertake to carry out the Constitution as 
 of old, with all its pro-slavery compromises, then will 
 be my time to criticise, reprove, and condemn ; then 
 will be the time for me to open all the guns that I 
 can bring to bear upon it. But blessed be God that 
 * covenant with death has been annulled, and that 
 agreement with hell no longer stands. I joyfully 
 accept the fact, and leave all verbal criticism until a 
 more suitable opportunity." 
 
 But it must be confessed that at times during the 
 struggle, Lincoln s timidity and apparent indifference 
 as to the fate of slavery, in his anxiety to save the 
 Union, weakened Garrison s confidence in him, and 
 excited his keenest apprehensions " at the possibility 
 of the war terminating without the utter extinction 
 of slavery, by a new and more atrocious compromise 
 on the part of the North than any that has yet been 
 made." The pioneer therefore adjudged it prudent 
 to get his battery into position and to visit upon the 
 President for particular acts, such as the revocation 
 
THE DEATH-GRAPPLE. 377 
 
 of anti-slavery orders by sundry of his generals in the 
 field, and upon particular members of his Cabinet 
 who were understood to be responsible for the shuffl 
 ing, hesitating action of the Government in its rela 
 tion to slavery, an effective fire of criticism and 
 rebuke. 
 
 Nevertheless Mr. Garrison maintained toward the 
 Government a uniform tone of sympathy and moder 
 ation. " I hold," said he, in reply to strictures of Mr. 
 Phillips upon the President at the annual meeting of 
 the Massachusetts Society in 1862; "I hold that it is 
 not wise for us to be too microscopic in endeavoring 
 to find disagreeable and annoying things, still less to 
 assume that everything is waxing worse and worse, 
 and that there is little or no hope." He himself was full 
 of hope which no shortcomings of the Government 
 was able to quench. He was besides beginning to 
 understand the perplexities which beset the adminis 
 tration, to appreciate the problem which confronted 
 the great statesman who was at the head of the 
 nation. He was getting a clear insight into the work 
 ings of Lincoln s mind, and into the causes which 
 gave to his political pilotage an air of timidity and 
 indecision. 
 
 " Supposing Mr. Lincoln could answer to-night, * 
 continued the pioneer in reply to his less patient and 
 hopeful coadjutors, " and we should say to him : 
 * Sir, with the power in your hands, slavery being the 
 cause of the rebellion beyond all controversy, why 
 don t you put the trump of jubilee to your lips, and 
 proclaim universal freedom ? possibly he might 
 answer : Gentlemen, I understand this matter quite 
 as well as you do. I do not know that I differ in 
 
37^ WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 opinion from you ; but will you insure me the sup 
 port of a united North if I do as you bid me ? Are all 
 parties and all sects at the North so convinced and so 
 united on this point that they will stand by the Gov 
 ernment ? If so, give me the evidence of it, and I will 
 strike the blow. But, gentlemen, looking over tho 
 entire North, and seeing in all your towns and cities 
 papers representing a considerable, if not a formid 
 able portion of the people, menacing and bullying the 
 Government in case it dared to liberate the slaves, 
 even as a matter of self-preservation, I do not feel 
 that the hour has yet come that will render it safe for 
 the Government to take that step. I am willing to 
 believe that something of this kind weighs in the 
 mind of the President and the Cabinet, and that there 
 is some ground for hesitancy as a mere matter oi 
 political expediency." This admirable and discrim 
 inating support of the President finds another capital 
 illustration in weighty words of his in answer to ani 
 madversions of Prof. Francis W. Newman, of Eng 
 land, directed against Mr. Lincoln. Says Garrison : 
 " In no instance, however, have I censured him (Lin 
 coln) for not acting upon the highest abstract princi 
 ples of justice and humanity, and disregarding his 
 Constitutional obligations. His freedom to follow 
 his convictions of duty as an individual is one thing 
 as the President of the United States, it is limited by 
 the functions of his office, for the people do not elect 
 a President to play the part of reformer or philan 
 thropist, nor to enforce upon the nation his own 
 peculiar ethical or humanitary ideas without regard 
 to his oath or their will." 
 
 Great indeed was the joy of the pioneer when Pres- 
 
THE DEATH-GRAPPLE. 379 
 
 ident Lincoln on January i, 1863, issued his Emanci 
 pation Proclamation. The same sagacious and states 
 manlike handling of men and things distinguished 
 his conduct after the edict of freedom was made as 
 before. When the question of Reconstruction was 
 broached in an administrative initiative in Louis 
 iana, the President gave great offence to the more 
 radical members of his party, and to many Abolition 
 ists by his proposal to readmit Louisiana to Statehood 
 in the Union with no provision for the extension of 
 the suffrage to the negro. This exhibition of the 
 habitual caution and conservatism of Mr. Lincoln 
 brought upon him a storm of criticism and re 
 monstrances, but not from Garrison. There was 
 that in him which appreciated and approved the 
 evident disposition of the President to make haste 
 slowly in departing from the American principle of 
 local self-government even in the interest of liberty. 
 Then, too, he had his misgivings in relation to the vir 
 tue of the fiat method of transforming chattels into 
 citizens. " Chattels personal may be instantly trans 
 lated from the auction-block* into freemen," he re 
 marked in defence of the administrative policy in the 
 reconstruction of Louisiana, " but when were they 
 ever taken at the same time to the ballot-box, and in 
 vested with all political rights and immunities ? Ac 
 cording to the laws of development and progress it is 
 not practicable. . . . Besides, I doubt whether he has 
 the Constitutional right to decide this matter. Ever 
 since the Government was organized, the right of suf 
 frage has been determined by each State in the Union 
 for itself, so that there is no uniformity in regard to it. 
 . , , In honestly seeking to preserve the Union, it 
 
380 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 is not for President Lincoln to seek, by a special 
 edict applied to a particular State or locality, to do 
 violence to a universal rule, accepted and acted upon 
 from the beginning till now by the States in their in 
 dividual sovereignty. . . . Nor, if the freed blacks 
 were admitted to the polls by Presidential fiat do I 
 see any permanent advantage likely to be secured by 
 it ; for, submitted to as a necessity at the outset, as 
 soon as the State was organized and left to manage 
 its own affairs, the white population with their supe 
 rior intelligence, wealth, and power, would unques 
 tionably alter the franchise in accordance with their 
 prejudices, and exclude those thus summarily brought 
 to the polls. Coercion would gain nothing." A very 
 remarkable prophecy, which has since been exactly 
 fulfilled in the Southern States. Garrison, however, 
 in the subsequent struggle between Congress and Mr. 
 Lincoln s successor over this selfsame point in its 
 wider relation to all of the Southern States, took 
 sides against Andrew Johnson and in favor of the Con 
 gressional fiat method of transforming chattels per 
 sonal into citizens. The elimination of Abraham Lin 
 coln from, and the introduction of Andrew Johnson 
 upon the National stage at this juncture, did un 
 doubtedly effect such a change of circumstances, as 
 to make the Congressional fiat method a political nec 
 essity. It was distinctly the less of two evils which 
 at the moment was thrust upon the choice of the 
 Northern people. 
 
 The same breadth and liberality of view, which 
 marked his treatment of Mr. Lincoln upon the sub 
 ject of emancipation and of that of reconstruction, 
 marked his treatment also of other questions which 
 
THE DEATH-GRAPPLE. 381 
 
 the suppression of the rebellion presented to his con 
 sideration. Although a radical peace man, how just 
 was his attitude toward the men and the measures 
 of the War for the Union. Nothing that he did 
 evinced on his part greater tact or toleration than his 
 admirable behavior iy. this respect. To his eldest son, 
 George Thompson, who was no adherent of the doc 
 trine of non-resistance, and who was commissioned by 
 Governor Andrew, a second lieutenant in the Fifty- 
 fifth Massachusetts Regiment, the pioneer wrote ex 
 pressing his regret that the young lieutenant had not 
 been able" to adopt those principles of peace which 
 are so sacred and divine to my soul, yet you will bear 
 me witness that I have not laid a straw in your way 
 to prevent your acting up to your own highest con 
 victions of duty." Such was precisely his attitude 
 toward the North who, he believed, in waging war 
 against the South for the maintenance of the Union, 
 was acting up to her own highest convictions of duty. 
 And not a straw would he place across her path, under 
 those circumstances, though every step bore witness 
 to one of the most gigantic and destructive wars in 
 history. 
 
 Garrison did not have to wait for posthumous ap 
 preciation from his countrymen. His steady and 
 discriminating support of the Government, and his 
 ardent sympathy with the arms of the North won him 
 appreciation in his lifetime. Indeed, there came to him, 
 if not popularity, something closely akin to it during 
 the war. His visit to the capital in June, 1864, well 
 illustrates the marvelous changes which had taken 
 place in the Union touching himself and his cause. 
 On his way to Washington the pioneer stopped over 
 
382 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 at Baltimore, which he had not revisited for thirty- 
 four years, and where the Republican Convention, 
 which renominated Lincoln was in session. He 
 watched the proceedings from the gallery, and wit 
 nessed with indescribable emotions the enthusiastic 
 demonstrations of joy with which the whole body of 
 delegates greeted the radical anti-slavery resolution 
 of the Convention. To the reformer it was " a full 
 indorsement of all the Abolition fanaticism and 
 incendiarism" with which he had been branded for 
 years. The jail where he had been held a prisoner 
 for seven weeks, like the evil which he had de 
 nounced, was gone, and a new one stood in its place, 
 which knew not Garrison. In the court-house where 
 he was tried and sentenced he was received by a 
 United States judge as an illustrious visitor. Judge 
 Bond hunted up the old indictment against the junior 
 editor of the Genius of Universal Emancipation, where 
 it had lain for a generation, during which that guilt 
 less prisoner had started a movement which had 
 shaken the nation by its mighty power, and slavery 
 out of it. " Eight or nine of the original jurymen 
 who gave the verdict against Mr. Garrison are still 
 living," wrote Theodore Tilton, at the time, to the 
 Independent, " and Judge Bond jocosely threatened to 
 summon them all into Court, that Mr. Garrison might 
 forgive them in public." 
 
 At Washington the pioneer s reception seemed to 
 him like a dream. And no wonder. He was heartily 
 received by President Lincoln and Secretary Stanton. 
 He was accorded the most marked attentions on the 
 floor of both branches of Congress. On every side 
 there rose up witnesses to the vastness of the revolu- 
 
THE DEATH-GRAPPLE. 383 
 
 tion which had taken place, and to the fact that the 
 great Abolitionist was no longer esteemed an enemy 
 of the Republic but one of its illustrious citizens. 
 This was evinced in a signal and memorable manner 
 a little later when the National Government extended 
 to him an invitation to visit Fort Sumter as its guest 
 on the occasion of the re-raising over it of the Stars 
 and Stripes. He went, and so also went George 
 Thompson, his lifelong friend and coadjutor, who 
 was the recipient of a similar invitation from the 
 Secretary of War. 
 
 This visit of Mr. Garrison, taken in all its dramatic 
 features, is more like a chapter of fiction, with its 
 strange and improbable incidents and situations, than 
 a story of real life. The pioneer entered Georgia 
 and trod the streets of Savannah, whose legislature 
 thirty-three years before had set a price upon his 
 head. In Charleston he witnessed the vast ruin which 
 the war had wrought, realized how tremendous had 
 been the death-struggle between Freedom and 
 Slavery, and saw everywhere he turned that slavery 
 was beaten, was dead in its proud, rebellious center. 
 Thousands upon thousands of the people whose 
 wrongs he had made his own, whose woes he had 
 carried in his soul for thirty-five years, greeted him, 
 their deliverer, in all stages of joy and thanksgiving. 
 They poured out at his feet their overflowing love and 
 gratitude. They covered him with flowers, bunches 
 of jessamines, and honeysuckles and roses in the 
 streets of Charleston, hard by the grave where Cal- 
 houn lay buried. " Only listen to that in Charleston 
 streets ! exclaimed Garrison, on hearing the band of 
 one of the black regiments playing the air of Old 
 
384 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 John Brown, and we both broke into tears," relates 
 Rev. Theodore L. Cuyler, who stood by the side of 
 the pioneer that April morning under the spire of 
 St. Michael s church. 
 
 " The Government has its hold upon the throat of 
 the monster, slavery," Mr. Garrison assured an audi 
 ence of nearly four thousand freedmen, " and is 
 strangling the life out of it." It was even so. Rich 
 mond had fallen, and Lee had surrendered. The 
 early and total collapse of the rebellion was impend 
 ing. The Government was, indeed, strangling the 
 life out of it and out of slavery, its cause and main 
 spring. The monster had, however, a crowning hor 
 ror to add to a long list of horrors before fetching its 
 last gasp. The assassination of President Lincoln 
 was the dying blow of slavery, aimed through him at 
 the Union which he had maintained. Appalling as 
 was the deed, it was vain, for the Union was saved, 
 and liberty forever secured to the new-born nation. 
 As Garrison remarked at the tomb of Calhoun, on 
 the morning that Lincoln died, " Down into a deeper 
 grave than this, slavery has gone, and for it there is 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 THE LAST. 
 
 " GARRISON," said George Thompson on the steamer 
 which was conveying the Government party out of 
 Charleston Harbor on their return trip; "Garrison 
 you began your warfare at the North in the face of 
 rotten eggs and brickbats. Behold you end it at 
 Charleston on a bed of roses ! " The period of per 
 secution had indeed ended, the reign of missiles had 
 ceased, but with the roses there came to the pioneer 
 not a few thorns. Bitter was the sorrow which vis 
 ited him in the winter of 1863. Without warning his 
 wife was on the night of December 29th, stricken with 
 paralysis, which crippled her for the rest of her life. 
 No words can adequately express all that she had 
 been to the reformer in his struggle with slavery. 
 She was a providential woman raised up to be the wife 
 and helpmate of her husband, the strenuous man 
 of God. " As a wife for a period of more 
 than twenty-six years," he wrote her on the comple 
 tion of her fiftieth year, "you have left nothing 
 undone to smooth the rugged pathway of my public 
 career to render home the all-powerful magnet of 
 attraction, and the focal point of domestic enjoy 
 ment to make my welfare and happiness at all times 
 a matter of tender solicitude and to demonstrate the 
 depth and fixedness of that love which you so long 
 
 (385) 
 
386 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 ago plighted to me. . . . Whatever of human 
 infirmity we may have seen in each other, I believe 
 few have enjoyed more unalloyed bliss in wedded 
 life than ourselves." For twelve years after that sad 
 December night the lovely invalid was the object of 
 her husband s most tender and assiduous care. And 
 when at last she left him in January, 1876, the lone 
 liness which fell upon his heart seemed more than he 
 could bear. 
 
 Differences with old associates was a grievous thorn 
 which came to the pioneer during the progress of the 
 war. The first marked disagreement between him 
 and them occurred at the annual meeting of the Mas 
 sachusetts Anti-Slavery Society not a month after 
 his wife s prostration. The clash came between the 
 leader and his great coadjutor Wendell Phillips over 
 a resolution introduced by the latter, condemning the 
 Government and declaring its readiness " to sacrifice 
 the interest and honor of the North to secure a sham 
 peace." Garrison objected to the severity of this 
 charge. He believed that there was but one party at 
 the North of which it was true, and that was the 
 party of Copperheads. He endeavored, therefore, to 
 modify the harshness of the resolution by giving it 
 a more moderate tone. But the anti-Lincoln feeling 
 of the Convention proved too strong for his resist 
 ance, and Mr. Phillips s resolution was finally adopted 
 as the sentiment of the society. 
 
 The discordant note thus struck grew sharper and 
 louder during the year. The divergence of views in 
 the ranks of the Abolitionists touching the Southern 
 policy of the Administration grew wider, until the 
 subject of Mr. Lincoln s renomination sundered the 
 
THE LAST. 387 
 
 little band into two wings one for renomination, 
 headed by Garrison, the other against renomination, 
 and led by Phillips. These differences presently 
 developed into, if not positive antagonism, then some 
 thing closely akin to it between the two wings and 
 the two leaders. No little heat was generated from 
 the strong, sharp things said on both sides. Garrison 
 was wiser than Phillips in his unwillingness to have 
 the country, in the homely speech of the President, 
 " swap horses while crossing a stream." 
 
 Serious differences of opinion sprang up also be 
 tween the two leaders and the two wings in relation 
 to the proper time for dissolving the anti-slavery 
 organizations. Garrison held on one side that this 
 time had come with the adoption of the thirteenth 
 amendment abolishing slavery, while Phillips held on 
 the other that the societies should continue their 
 operations until the negro was invested with the right 
 to vote. And here it seems that Phillips was wiser 
 than Garrison in his purpose not to abandon in 1865 
 the old machinery for influencing public sentiment 
 in the negro s interest. 
 
 At the anniversary of the American Anti-Slavery 
 Society, in May, 1865, Garrison contended for its dis 
 solution, declaring that " Nothing is more clear in 
 my own mind, nothing has ever been more clear, than 
 that this is the fitting time to dissolve our organi 
 zation, and to mingle with the millions of our fellow- 
 countrymen in* one common effort to establish justice 
 and liberty throughout the land." For two days the 
 debate upon this question raged in the convention, 
 but when the vote was taken it was found that a large 
 majority of the delegates agreed with Mr. Phillips. 
 
388 "WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 Mr. Garrison was, nevertheless, reelected President, 
 but declined and withdrew from the society. The 
 controversy was renewed at the annual meeting of the 
 Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society in January, 1866. 
 But here again a large majority voted against disso 
 lution. Warm words fell from both Garrison and 
 Phillips and their respective supporters, which tried 
 sorely the friendship of the two leaders. 
 
 In accordance with his views touching the discon 
 tinuance of the anti-slavery societies, Garrison dis 
 continued the publication of the Liberator after the 
 completion of its thirty-fifth volume in December, 
 1865. He did not mean by this act to cease his 
 labors for the negro. Far from it. For he, like 
 Phillips, stood for his absolute equality before the 
 law. But he perceived that old things had passed 
 away, and with them the need of the old instruments, 
 and that what remained to be done for the black man 
 required to be done with new means. " The object," 
 said he in his valedictory, " for which the Liberator 
 was commenced, the extermination of chattel slavery, 
 having been gloriously consummated, it seems to me 
 specially appropriate to let its existence cover the 
 historic period of the great struggle ; leaving what 
 remains to be done to complete the work of emanci 
 pation to other instrumentalites (of which I hope to 
 avail myself), under new auspices, with more abun 
 dant means, and with millions instead of hundreds 
 for allies." 
 
 With the discontinuance of the Liberator Garrison s 
 occupation, from which he had derived a regular 
 though somewhat uncertain income for the support 
 of his family, was gone. He was not in destitute cir- 
 
THE LAST. 389 
 
 cumstances, however, thanks to the generosity of 
 friends, who had already secured him the home in 
 Roxbury, where he spent the remaining years of his 
 life. He had also been one of the legatees under the 
 will of Charles F. Hovey, who left about forty thous 
 and dollars to the anti-slavery cause. But the age 
 of the reformer, he was then sixty, and the state of 
 his health, which was much impaired, together with 
 the helplessness of his wife, made some provision for 
 his and her support, other than the little which he 
 possessed, a matter of anxious thought on the part 
 of himself and his friends. He had given thirty-five 
 years of his life to the public good. His services to 
 his country and to the world were above all price, all 
 money considerations. It was felt that to him who 
 had given so much to the world, the world should in 
 his need make some substantial acknowledgement in 
 return. 
 
 Some of his countrymen, accordingly, conceived 
 the plan of a national testimonial to the philanthro 
 pist, which should ensure to him during the rest of 
 his life a competence. 
 
 A committee having this end in view was organ 
 ized March 28, 1866, at the house of Dr. Henry I. Bow- 
 ditch. John A. Andrew, who was its chairman, wrote 
 the address to the public, to which were appended 
 the chief names in the politics and literature of the 
 land. Nearly two years afterward, on March 10, 1868, 
 the committee were able to place in Mr. Garrison s 
 hands the handsome sum of thirty-one thousand dol 
 lars with a promise of possibly one or two thousand 
 more a little later. To the energy and devotedness of 
 one man, the Rev. Samuel May, Jr., more than to any 
 
390 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 other, and perhaps than all others put together, this 
 noble achievement was due. The pioneer was 
 deeply moved at the high and generous character of 
 the recognition accorded his labors. - " Little, indeed, 
 did I know or anticipate how prolonged or how viru 
 lent would be the struggle," said he in his reply to 
 the committee, " when I lifted up the standard of 
 immediate emancipation, and essayed to rouse the 
 nation to a sense of its guilt and danger. But hav 
 ing put my hands to the plow, how could I look 
 back? For, in a cause so righteous, I could not 
 doubt that, having turned the furrows, if I sowed in 
 tears I should one day reap in joy. But, whether 
 permitted to live to witness the abolition of slavery 
 or not, I felt assured that, as I demanded nothing 
 that was not clearly in accordance with justice and 
 humanity, sometime or other, if remembered at all, 
 I should stand vindicated in the eyes of my country 
 men." The names of John Bright, John Stuart Mill, 
 William E. Foster, and Samuel Morley, among the 
 contributors to the fund, lent to the testimonial an 
 international character. 
 
 In May, 1867, Garrison went abroad the fourth 
 time, and traveled in Great Britain and on the Con 
 tinent. Everywhere that he went he was received as 
 an illustrious visitor and as a benefactor of mankind. 
 At abreakfast in London which "was intended to com 
 memorate one of the greatest of the great triumphs 
 of freedom, and to do honor to a most eminent instru 
 ment in the achievement of that freedom," and at 
 which were gathered the genius, the wealth, and 
 aristocracy of England and Scotland, John Bright, 
 who presided, welcomed the illustrious guest " with 
 
THE LAST. 391 
 
 a cordiality which knows no stint and no limit for 
 him and for his noble associates, both men and 
 women," and ventured to speak a verdict which he 
 believed would be sanctioned by all mankind, viz., 
 that "William Lloyd Garrison and his fellow-labor 
 ers in that world s work are they not 
 
 " On Fame s eternal bead-roll worthy to be filed ? " 
 
 With the discontinuance of the Liberator Garrison s 
 active career came to a close. But his sympathetic 
 interest in the freedmen, temperance, the cause of 
 women, and in other reformatory enterprises con 
 tinued unabated. He watched with stern and vigi 
 lant eye, and bleeding heart the new rebellion at the 
 South whose purpose was the nullification of the civil 
 and political rights of the blacks, and the overthrow 
 of the military rule of the National Government in 
 the Southern States. He did not see what time has 
 since made clear that a genuine reconstruc 
 tion of the Sonith, and the ultimate solution of 
 the Southern problem had, in accordance with 
 social laws, to proceed from within, from the South 
 itself, not from without and from Washington. The 
 old fire again burned in his speech as tidings of the 
 violence of -he whites and the Bufferings of the blacks 
 reached him from the former slave section. Indeed, 
 the last written word:: of rns, addressed to the public, 
 were words in defence of ;he race to whose freedom 
 he had devoted his life words which, trumpet- 
 tongued raised anew the rallying-cry of " Liberty and 
 equal rights for each, for all, and for ever, wherever 
 the lot of man is cast within our broad domains ! " 
 
 True to his grand motto " My country is the world ! 
 my countrymen are all mankind," he espoused the 
 
39 2 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 cause of the Chinese, and denounced the National pol 
 icy of excluding them on the ground of race from the 
 republic but a few months before his death. The anti- 
 Chinese movement appeared to him " narrow, con 
 ceited, selfish, anti-human, anti-Christian." " Against 
 this hateful spirit of caste," wrote the dying philan 
 thropist, " I have earnestly protested for the last fifty 
 years, wherever it has developed itself, especially in 
 the case of another class, for many generations still 
 more contemned, degraded, and oppressed ; and the 
 time has fully come to deal with it as an offence to 
 God, and a curse to the world wherever it seeks to 
 bear sway." 
 
 On the same grand principle of human fraternity 
 Mr. Garrison dealt with the questions of trade and 
 tariffs also. He believed in liberty, civil, religious, 
 and commercial. He was in fact a radical free trader 
 on moral and humanitary grounds. " He is the most 
 sagacious political economist," was a remark of his, 
 " who contends for the highest justice, the most far- 
 reaching equality, a close adherence to natural laws, 
 and the removal of all those restrictions which foster 
 national pride and selfishness." And here is another 
 like unto it : " Believing that the interests of the 
 American people in no wise materially differ from 
 those of the people of any other country, and denying 
 the rectitude or feasibility of building ourselves up 
 at their expense by an exclusive policy, obstructing 
 the natural flow of material exchanges, I avow my 
 self to be a radical free trader, even to the extent of 
 desiring the abolition of all custom-houses, as now 
 constituted, throughout the world. That event is far 
 distant, undoubtedly, but I believe it will come with 
 
THE LAST. 393 
 
 the freedom and enlightenment of mankind. My 
 faith is absolute that it will prove advantageous to 
 every branch of industry, whether at home or abroad." 
 The closing years of the reformer s life were years 
 of great bodily suffering. A disease of the kidneys 
 and a chronic catarrh of the head made steady 
 inroads upon the resources of his constitution, made 
 life at times a wheel ^.i which he was racked with 
 physical tortures, ah of which he bore with the ut 
 most fortitude and serenity of spirit. "The longer I 
 live, the longer I desire to live," he wrote Samuel J. 
 May, " and the more I see the desirableness of living; 
 yet certainly not in this frail body, but just as it shall 
 please the dear Father of us all." One by one he 
 saw the little band of which he was leader dwindle 
 as now one and now another dropped by the way. 
 And it was he or Mr. Phillips, or both, who spoke the 
 last loving words over their coffins. As the little 
 band passed on to the unseen country, a new joy 
 awoke in the soul of the leader left behind, the joy of 
 anticipation, of glad reunion beyond the grave. " How 
 unspeakably pleasant it will be to greet them, and to 
 be greeted by them on the other side of the line," it 
 seemed to him as he, too, began to descend toward 
 the shore of the swift, silent river. The deep, sweet 
 love for his mother returned with youthful freshness 
 and force to him, the man of seventy-three years, at 
 the thought of coming again into her presence. A 
 strange yearning was tugging at his heart for all the 
 dear ones gone before. The fond mother, who had 
 watched over his childhood, and the fond wife, who 
 had been the stay of his manhood, were the first two 
 whom he yearned to meet aft.r crossing the river 
 
394 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 The joyous thought of his approaching meeting 
 with those white-souled women cheered and com 
 forted the reformer amid excruciating physical suffer 
 ings. Worn out by heroic and Herculean labors for 
 mankind and by a complication of diseases, he more 
 and more longed for rest, to go home to beloved 
 ones as he expressed it. To the question, " What do 
 you want, Mr. Garrison ?" asked by the attending 
 physician on the day before his death, he replied, 
 weariedly, " To finish it up !" And this he did at the 
 home of his daughter, Mrs. Henry Villard, in New 
 York, in the midst of children and grandchildren, 
 near midnight, on May 24, 1879. 
 
 " While that ear could listen," said Wendell 
 Phillips over the illustrious champion of liberty as 
 he lay dead in the old church in Roxbury; " While 
 that ear could listen, God gave what he has rarely 
 given to man, the plaudits and prayers of four mil 
 lions of victims." But as he lay there he had, besides, 
 the plaudits and praise of an emancipated nation. 
 The plaudits and praise of an emancipated race, min 
 gling melodiously with those of an emancipated nation 
 made noble music about his bier. In the city, where 
 forty-three years before he was mobbed, the flags 
 floated at half-mast in his honor ; and on Beacon 
 Hill, where the Government once desired his destruc 
 tion, the voice of appreciation was heard and tokens 
 of the State s sorrow met the eye. Great in life 
 great also in death was William Lloyd Garrison. 
 " Men of a thousand shifts and wiles, look here ! 
 
 See one straightforward conscience put in pawn 
 
 To win a world ; see the obedient sphere 
 
 By bravery s simple gravitation drawn ! 
 
THE LAST. 395 
 
 Shall we not heed the lesson taught of old, 
 And by the present s lips repeated still, 
 In our own single manhood to be bold, 
 Fortressed in conscience and impregnable will ? " 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Adams, Charles Francis, 372. 
 
 Adams, John Quincy, 54, 250-251. 
 
 Adams, Nehemiah, 278 
 
 Adams, William, 292. 
 
 Alcott, A. Bronson, 90, 91, 134. 
 
 American Anti-Slavery Society, 174, 311, 340, 373, 387. 
 
 Andover Seminary, 190. 
 
 Andrew, John A., 381, 389. 
 
 Annexation of Texas, 335. 
 
 Anti-Slavery Standard, 299. 
 
 Atchison, David, 338, 374. 
 
 Attucks, Crispus, 227. 
 
 Bacon, Leonard W., 162. 
 
 Bartlett, Ezekiel, 18, 20. 
 
 Beecher, Lyman, no, in, 161, 189, 190, 269. 
 
 Benson, George, 194, 263. 
 
 Benson, George W., 168, 178, 234, 260, 281. 
 
 Benson, Henry E., 212, 263. 
 
 Benton, Thomas H., 105-106, 252, 253, 
 
 Bird, Frank W., 361. 
 
 Birney, James G., 203, 298, 320. 
 
 Bond, Judge, 382. 
 
 Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society, 217, 233, 240. 
 
 Bourne, Rev. George, 108, 203. 
 
 (397) 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Bowclitch, Henry I., 233, 349, 389. 
 Bright, John, 390, 391. 
 Brooks, Preston S., 359. 
 Brown, John, 365-368. 
 Buffum, Arnold, 139, 177. 
 Burleigh, Charles C., 221, 223, 235. 
 Buxton, Thomas Fowell, 152, 154, 204. 
 
 Calhoun, John C., 246, 252, 315, 335, 336, 337, 352, 353, 384. 
 
 Campbell, John Reid, 225. 
 
 Channing, Dr. W. E., no, in, 256, 316. 
 
 Chapman, Maria Weston, 223, 258, 259, 277, 292. 
 
 Chase, Salmon P., 338. 
 
 Child, David Lee, 134, 136, 138, 203. 
 
 Child, Lydia Maria, 186, 203, 210, 277, 292, 309. 
 
 Clay, Henry, 339, 348. 
 
 Clerical Appeal, 282. 
 
 Clarkson, Thomas, 155, 303. 
 
 Coffin, Joshua, 139, 198. 
 
 Cobb, Howell, 338. 
 
 Collier, Rev. William, 40. 
 
 Collins, John A., 298, 299, 300, 303. 
 
 Colonization Society, 60, 72, 144-156, 162. 
 
 Colored Seaman, 313-314. 
 
 Colorphobia, 157-169. 
 
 Colver, Nathaniel, 303. 
 
 Commercial Advertiser, New York, 170. 
 
 Courier, Boston, 128, 129, 217. 
 
 Courier and Enquirer , New York, 171. 
 
 Corwin, Thomas, 372. 
 
 Cox, Abraham L., 185, 203, 209. 
 
 Crandall, Prudence, 165-168, 199. 
 
 Cresson, Elliott, 150, 151, 153. 
 
 Cropper, James, 154, 205. 
 
 Curtin, Andrew G., 372. 
 
 Curtis, Benjamin R., 354. 
 
 Cuyler, Rev. Theodore L., 384. 
 
INDEX. 399 
 
 Davis, Jefferson, 338, 376. 
 
 Disunion Convention at Worcester, 361-363. 
 
 Dole, Ebenezer, 86. 
 
 Douglas, Stephen A., 353, 365. 
 
 Douglass, Frederick, 300, 344. 
 
 Dred Scott Case, 364. 
 
 Duncan, Rev. James, 108-109. 
 
 Emancipator, The, 283, 285, 286, 328. 
 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 281. 
 Evening Post, New York, 208. 
 Everett, Edward, 30, 31, 243, 244. 
 
 Farnham, Martha, 16. 
 
 Fessenden, Samuel, 141, 148. 
 
 Follen, Prof. Charles, 201, 203, 247. 
 
 Forten, James, 144. 
 
 Foster, Stephen S., 310, 375. 
 
 Foster, William E., 390. 
 
 Fremont, John C, 361. 
 
 Free Press, 27, 34. 
 
 Fugitive Slave Law, effect of, 345-347. 
 
 Fugitive Slaves, The Crafts, Shadrach, Sims, Burns, 349. 
 
 Fuller, John E., 219. 
 
 Furness, Rev. W. H., 344. 
 
 Garrison, Abijah, 12-15, 18. 
 
 Garrison, Charles Follen, 331-332. 
 
 Garrison, Francis Jackson, 330. 
 
 Garrison, George Thompson, 381. 
 
 Garrison, Helen Eliza, 194-196, 219, 297, 331, 385-386. 
 
 Garrison, James, 19, 20, 302-303. 
 
 Garrison, Joseph, 11, 12. 
 
 Garrison, Wendell Phillips, 297. 
 
 Garrison, William Lloyd, Early years, 1 1-26 ; Publishes Free 
 Press, 27-34; seeks work in Boston, 35; nominates Harri 
 son Gray Otis for Congress, 35-36; temperance and the 
 
400 INDEX. 
 
 Philanthropist, 39-44 ; meets Lundy, 44; early attitude or 
 the slavery question, 46-50 ; on war, 51; first experience with 
 ministers on the subject of slavery, 52 ; Anti-slavery Com 
 mittee of twenty, 53 ; goes to Bennington, Vt., to edit the 
 Journal of the Times, 54-55 ; monster anti-slavery petitior 
 to Congress, 55 ; anticipates trouble with the South, 56 
 begins to preach freedom, 56-57 ; agrees to help Lund} 
 edit the Genius of Universal Emancipation, 58 ; Congre 
 gational Societies of Boston invite him to deliver Fourth- 
 of- July oration, 60; the address, 61-67; goes to Baltimore 
 69; raises the standard of immediate emancipation, 70; 
 Lundy and he agree to differ, 71 ; defends Free People oi 
 Color, 73-74 ; makes acquaintance with barbarism of slavery, 
 74 ; ship Francis and Francis Todd, 75-77 ; prosecuted and 
 imprisoned, 77-83 ; released, 83 ; visits the North, 84 ; 
 returns to Baltimore but leaves it again for good, 87 ; lec 
 tures on slavery, 88-91; character, 92-94; incarnation of 
 immediate emancipation, 109; Dr. Lyman Beecher, no-iii ; 
 difficulties in the way of publishing the Liberator, 112-115 I 
 his method of attacking slavery, 1 18 ; he is heard, 120 ; Wal 
 ker s appeal, 121-122; Nat Turner, 125-126; southern ex 
 citement, 127-128; New England Anti-Slavery Society, 
 137-138; appointed agent, 141 ; thoughts on African coloni 
 zation, 143-150; first visit to England, 152-156; Mr. Bux- 
 ton s mistake, 152; prejudice against color, 157; Prudence 
 Crandall, 166, 168 ; organization of New York City Anti- 
 Slavery Society and beginning of the mob period, 170-172 ; 
 formation of American Anti-Slavery Society, 174-185*; dec 
 laration of sentiments, 182-184; increased agitation, 185-186; 
 marriage, 193; the wife, 194-196; poverty of the Liberator, 
 197-200; the paper displeases friends, 201-204; George 
 Thompson, 204-206 ; Faneuil Hall meeting to put the Abol 
 itionists down, 211-215; gallows for two, 215-216; the 
 Broad-Cloth Mob, 218-232 ; Thompson leaves the country, 
 238 ; appears before a committee of Massachusetts legis 
 lature, 245-246; Pennsylvania Hall, 257-260; Marlboro 
 Chapel, 260-261 ; ill health, 263 ; Educational Convention of 
 
INDEX. 401 
 
 anti-slavery agents, 264-265 ; the Sabbath question, 265-272; 
 The woman s question, 273-280; clerical appeal, 282-285; 
 anti-slavery political action, 286-288 ; conflict between the 
 New York and the Boston boards, 289-291 ; the World s Con 
 vention, 292-295 ; visit to Scotland, 295-296 ; in the lecture 
 field, 300-301 ; his brother James, 302-303 ; meets charges 
 of infidelity, 303-304 ; Irish Address, 304-305 ; no union with 
 slaveholders, 306-312; Texas agitation, 316-318; dislikes 
 Liberty party, 319-323; some characteristics, 326-334; the_ 
 Rynders Mob, 340-344 ; publicly burns the United States 
 Constitution, 354; answers objections to his disunionism, 
 362-363 ; Harper s Ferry, 365-367 ; secession : first attitude 
 to it, 370-373 ; second attitude, 373 ; adapts himself to cir 
 cumstances, 373-381 ; Lincoln and emancipation, 379 ; visits 
 Baltimore, Washington, Charleston, 381-384; illness and 
 death of his wife, 385-386 ; differences with anti-slavery 
 associates, 386-388 ; discontinues the Liberator, 388 ; 
 national testimonial, 389-390; fourth visit to England, 390- 
 391 ; champions cause of Southern negroes, 391 ; champions 
 cause of Chinese, 392 ; believes in Free Trade, 392-393 ; 
 illness and death, 393-395. 
 
 Garrison, William Lloyd, Jr., 297. 
 
 Gazette, Boston, 217. 
 
 Genius of Universal Emancipation, 58, 69, 71-75. 
 
 Gibbons, James S., 309. 
 
 Giddings, Joshua R., 338. 
 
 Goodell, William, 149, 203, 247, 248. 
 
 Green, William, Jr., 184. 
 
 Grimke, Angelina E., 235, 258-259. 
 
 Grimke, Sisters, 275-280. 
 
 Hale, John P., 338, 350. 
 
 Hamilton, Alexander, 104. 
 
 Hamlin, Hannibal, 338. 
 
 Haydon, Benjamin Robert, 294, 295. 
 
 Hayne, Robert Y., 209. 
 
 Herald, Newburyport, 21, 26. 
 
402 INDEX. 
 
 Herald, New York, 340, 341. 
 Higginson, T. W., 358-359, 361. 
 Hoar, Samuel, 314. 
 Horton, Jacob, 61. 
 Hovey, Charles F., 389. 
 
 Jackson, Francis, 233, 240-241, 311-312, 317, 341, 344. 
 
 Jewett, Daniel E., 175. 
 
 Jocelyn, Rev. Simeon Smith, 203. 
 
 Johnson, Andrew, 380. 
 
 Johnson, Oliver, 114, 134, 137, 139, 160-161, 374. 
 
 Journal, Camden (S. C), 128. 
 
 Journal, Louisville (Ky.), 120. 
 
 Kansas, Struggle over, 357-358. 
 
 Kelley, Abby, 259, 291, 310. 
 
 Kimball, David T., 175. 
 
 Knapp, Isaac, 113, 127, 139, 197, 200, 265, 301-302. 
 
 Kneeland, Abner, 90, 268. 
 
 Lane Seminary, 189. 
 
 Latimer, George, 312. 
 
 Leavitt, Joshua, 149,320. 329. 
 
 Leggett, Samuel. 86. 
 
 Liberator, The, 111-20, 126-29, I 3 I I 4 I J 63, 165, 169, 176, 
 
 197-204, 236, 237, 265, 284, 297, 327-329, 388. 
 Lincoln, Abraham, 365, 370, 375, 376, 377, 378, 379, 380, 382, 384. 
 Lloyd, Fanny, 13-20, 24-26, 44-45. 
 Longfellow, Stephen, 148. 
 Loring, Edward Greeley. 354. 
 Loring, Ellis Grey, 134, 135 136, 138, 245, 264. 
 Lovejoy, Elijah P., 254-257. 
 Lowell, James Russell, 136, 329. 
 Lumpkin, Wilson, 128. 
 Lundy, Benjamin,44, 45, 46,48-54, 57, 58, 69, 71, 72, 75, 108, 
 
 133. 
 
 Lunt, George, 244 247, 248. 
 Lyman, Theodore, 223, 224. 227, 228, 
 
INDEX. 403 
 
 Macaulay, Zachary, 154. 
 
 Malcolm, Rev. Howard, 52. 
 
 Martineau, Harriet, 94, 240. 
 
 Mason, James M., 338. 
 
 Mason, Jeremiah, in. 
 
 Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, 265, 280, 297, 310. 
 
 Mathew, Father, 304, 305. 
 
 May, Samuel, Jr., 325, 389. 
 
 May, Samuel J., 90, 93, 94, 134, 166, 167, 179, 180, 186, 199, 
 
 245, 272, 289, 393. 
 McDowell, James, 124, 125. 
 McKim, James Miller, 149. 
 McDuffie, Governor, 243, 246. 
 Mercury, Charleston, 126, 
 Mill, John Stuart, 390. 
 Missouri Compromise, Repeal of, 352-354. 
 Moore, Esther, 259. 
 Morley, Samuel, 390, 
 Mott, Lucretia, 178,259, 292, 293. 
 
 National Intelligencer, 128. 
 
 New England Anti-Slavery Society, 137-141, 200, 280, 311. 
 
 New England Spectator, 282. 
 
 Newman, Prof. Francis W., 378. 
 
 O Connell, Daniel, 154, 170, 171, 304. 
 
 Otis, Harrison Gray, 35, 129, 130, 131, 213, 214, 215. 
 
 Palmer, Daniel, n. 
 
 Palmer, Mary, n, 12. 
 
 Parker, Mary S., 222, 234, 
 
 Parker, Theodore, 121,349,350, 362. 
 
 Pastoral Letter, 277. 
 
 Paxton, Rev. J. D., 186. 
 
 Pease, Elizabeth, 303, 331, 346. 
 
 Pennsylvania Hall, 257-260. 
 
 Phelps, Amos A., 149, 186, 203, 278, 280, 288. 
 
404 INDEX. 
 
 Phillips Academy (Andover), 190. 
 
 Phillips, Ann Green, 292, 293. 
 
 Phillips, Wendell, 190, 257, 310, 317, 323, 3*6 344. 346-347. 
 
 349. 35L 386, 387, 388, 393.394- 
 Pillsbury, Parker, 310, 
 Prentice, George D., 120. 
 Purvis, Robert, 144, 162, 178. 
 
 Quincy, Edmund, 299, 310, 316, 323, 324, 325, 326, 327-329. 
 Quincy, Josiah, 347. 
 
 Rankin, John, 177. 
 
 Remond, Charles Lenox, 293, 295, 304. 
 
 Rhett, Barnwell, 338. 
 
 Rogers, Nathaniel P., 149. 293, 295, 301. 
 
 Rynders, Isaiah, 341-344. 
 
 Scoble, Rev. John, 294. 
 
 Sewall, Samuel E., 90, 91, 134. 135. 136, ! 37. 138, 175. 236, 3^7. 
 
 Seward, William H., 338, 372. 
 
 Shaw, Chief-Justice, 312. 
 
 Slavery, Rise and Progress of, 95-107. 
 
 Smith, Gerritt, 147, 236, 297, 320. 
 
 Sprague, Peleg, 213, 214. 
 
 Stanton, Edwin M., 382. 
 
 Stanton, Henry B., 253, 288. 
 
 Stearns, Charles, 359. 
 
 Stevens, Thaddeus, 338. 
 
 Stuart, Charles, 201,202,264. 
 
 Sumner, Charles, 234, 317, 339. 346", 359, 
 
 Tappan, Arthur, 83, 84, 164, 171, 184, 209, 210. 
 
 Tappan, Lewis, 149: 177, 201, 209, 283, 285. 
 
 Texas Agitation, 3i4-3 l8 . 
 
 Thompson, George, 204-206, 210, 212, 213, 216, 217, 218,238, 
 
 294.295.35i.383. 385- 
 Thurston, David, 180. 
 
INDEX. 405 
 
 Tilton, Theodore, 382. 
 
 Todd, Francis, 75, 76, 77, 81, 82, 87. 
 
 Toombs, Robert, 338. 
 
 Travis, Joseph, 124. 
 
 Turner, Nat., 124-125. 
 
 Uncle Tom s Cabin, 351-352. 
 Villard, Mrs. Henry, 394. 
 
 Walker, David, 121, 122, 123, 126. 
 
 Ward, Rev. Samuel R., 344. 
 
 Ware, Rev. Henry, Jr., 203. 
 
 Weob, Richard D., 310, 316, 318, 326. 
 
 Webster, Daniel, 35, 101, no, in, 117, 249, 338, 339, 347, 348, 
 
 370. 
 
 Weld, Theodore D., 149, 190, 264, 279. 
 Wesley, John, 70, 107. 
 White, Nathaniel H., 41. 
 Whitney, Eli, 98. 
 
 Whittier, John Greenleaf, 34, 175, 179, 186, 202, 234, 279, 320. 
 Wilberforce, William, 152, 154. 
 Winslow, Isaac, 177. 
 Winslow, Nathan, 177. 
 Wright, Elizur, 147, 149, 185, 186, 202, 210, 283-285, 287, 320. 
 
 Yerrington, James B., 113, 
 
The Public Ledger, Philadelphia, sayt : u Ro 
 mance pales its feeble fires before the recital of the 
 plain facts in Howe s adventurous career. . . . Mr. 
 Sanborn s friendship with Dr. Howe for over 20 years 
 enabled him to catch the personal and confidential 
 tone indispensable to the true biography." 
 
 Dr. Sam 9 ! G. Howe 
 
 THE PHILANTHROPIST 
 By F. B. SANBORN. 
 
 tamo, Cloth, 370 pp. With Portrait. 
 $1.50. Post-free. 
 
 Among the great motive powers of the world are 
 enthusiasm and courage ; and the world has pro 
 duced few men in whom the onion of these was more 
 strikingly exemplified than in Dr. 8. Q. Howe. Among 
 his triumphs is the remarkable achievement of bringing 
 Laura Bridgman, the deaf, dumb, and blind New 
 Hampshire child, into intellectual and spiritual com 
 munion with mankind. 
 
 " In this biography we have a volume of interest, 
 information, and inspiration." The Morning Star, 
 Boston. 
 
 Of great value : "Asa contribution to the history 
 of the growth and life of the American people, this 
 book is of (fTeat value." The Christian Union. 
 New York. 
 
 Everything is well told : " For nearly half a cen 
 tury there were but few philanthropic enterprises of 
 any kind in the United States which did not obtain 
 assistance from Dr. S. G. Howe. ... He was at the 
 front of all efforts made in this country in aid of the 
 oppressed of other lands. ... All this is well told by 
 P. B. Sanborn in this book." The New York 
 Herald. 
 
 PUNK & WAONALLS COMPANY, Publishers, 
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^Zci?x::?x::r^^ 
 
 The Pott Express, Rochester, N. Y., says : 
 1 This is a charming volume. . . . Issues of national 
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 personnel, which are far-reaching and whose trend 
 will be part of the twentieth century interests for 
 the world." 
 
 Frederick Douglass 
 
 THE COLORED ORATOR 
 By FREDERIC MAY HOLLAND. 
 
 Revised Edition, Brought Down to date of Mr. |J| 
 Douglass Death ; New Portrait, etc. 
 
 tamo, Cloth, 431 pp. Price, $1.50. Poet-free. 
 
 A readable biography of Mr. Douglass." New 
 York Herald. 
 
 Of great value and intense interest." The 
 Prest, New York. 
 
 1 The book Is extremely and strongly interesting ; 
 with it once in hand, one will continue for hours when 
 he ought to be sleeping." GoldenRule, Boston. 
 
 Can rest contented : "With the scrupulous justice 
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 I can easily rest contented. "Frederick Douglass. 
 
 "The story Illustrates at once the glory and 
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 culties, in the teeth of what formidable resistance, the 
 advance of civilization has to be made." New York 
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 FUNK &WAGNALLS COMPANY, Publishers, 
 44-60 East 23d Street, New York. 
 
The Courier-Journal, Louisville, Ky., says : 
 "This book is a fascinating one for the student, the 
 reformer, the ambitious, the young, and the old. It 
 furnishes an invigorating study for embryo public 
 speakers as well as full fledged orators. . . ." 
 
 John B. Gough 
 
 THE APOSTLE OF COLD WATER 
 By CARLOS MARTYN. 
 
 i a mo, Cloth, 336 pp.; with Portrait. Price, 
 $1.50. Post-free. 
 
 "The tale told in this volume once read cannot 
 easily be forgotten, and its memories are valuable." 
 Cincinnati Commercial Gazette. " It should find a 
 place in every family library, and in every other li 
 brary accessible to the youth of our country." Na 
 tional Presbyterian, Indianapolis. 
 
 "An intensely interesting biography of this 
 > singular person . . . we have a warm welcome for the 
 volume. . . ." New York Herald. 
 
 The proof : " Our reading of this life brings back 
 to us the peculiar spiritual inspiration which Mr. 
 Gough s own speeches, lectures, and conversations 
 used to produced . . . This fact proves decisively the 
 high merit of the biography." Joseph Cook, in 
 Our Day, Boston. 
 
 "Gracefully and even lovingly written by Carlos 
 Martyn . . . there is not a dull uninteresting line 
 throughout the entire book, in which are many facts 
 aad incidents with which are linked such names as 
 Charles Dickens ; C. H. Spurgeon; Samuel Johnson ; 
 Wm. 3. Gladstone; NealDow; Henry Ward Beecher, 
 and many others equally well known to us." IJie 
 Baltimore American. 
 
 " Whoever falls to read this book misses a rare 
 pleasure. 11 Christian Intelligencer, New York. 
 
 FUNK&WAGNALLS COMPANY, Publianera, 
 44-60 East 23d Street, New York, 
 
 to&#~&~:5&^^ 
 
Christian Inquirer, New York : * "The best view 
 of the matchless orator that has ever been given to 
 the public." 
 
 Wendell Phillips 
 
 THE AGITATOR 
 By CARLOS MARTYN. 
 
 iarao; cloth; 600 pp.; with Portrait. Price, 
 $1.50. Post-free. 
 
 In an Appendix, in the Volume, are given, in full, 
 three of Wendell Phillips masterpieces, never before 
 published in book form): "The Lost Arts," "Daniel 
 O Connell," and "The Scholar in a Republic." 
 
 "It brings back the charmed presence. . . . The 
 
 ! book must carry to its readers an inspiration for 
 reform." William Lloyd Garrison. 
 
 " The style of writing is delightful. It IB like a 
 weet song. . . . One is carried away with it." 
 Christian Intelligencer, New York. 
 
 "I have read the book with great interest. ... A 
 very discriminating study of the most eloquent man 
 produced in this country in a century." Hon. 
 Chaunoey M. Depew. 
 
 I do not know of any novel which has given me so 
 
 much pleasure for many years. ... I shall recom- 
 
 j mend all my friends to read the book [Carlos Martyn s 
 
 Wendell Phillips.] "-Hon. Abram 8. Hewitt, 
 
 ex-Mayor of New York. 
 
 WAQNALLS COMPANY, Publisher*, 
 New York and London 
 
Herald / Gospel Liberty, Dayton, Ohio: "No 
 grander study opens to the student of character than 
 la afforded by this grand work. Bnrich yooreelf with 
 its possession." 
 
 Horace Greeley 
 
 THE EDITOR 
 By FRANCIS NICOL ZABRISKIE, D.D. 
 
 lamo. cloth; 398 pp; with Portrait. Price, 
 $1,50. Post-free. 
 
 Let others tell how well the author, himself a veteran 
 editor (now deceased), succeeded with this work: 
 
 With keen Insight into the character of this 
 study, the biographer leads the reader spell-bound. 
 . . . Every reader must rise with a higher conception of 
 what an earnest, unselfish life me/ns." Princeton 
 Press, Princeton, N. J. 
 
 "Horace Greeley will always be dear to the Ameri 
 can people, and our children and children s children 
 will read the story of his life and labors with delight. 
 If they read it in such a volume as that of Dr. Za- 
 briskie s, they will have a very clear conception of 
 the man." The New York Observer. 
 
 It Is well that the life of the man whom John Bright 
 pronounced to be the greatest Editor of the world 
 should be written by a man who was once an editor, 
 one of the most graceful and vigorous essayists in our 
 land. This new biography of Greeley is worthy to 
 to stand beside the biographies of Henry Clay by Carl 
 Schurz, and of Patrick Henry by Prof. Moses Coit 
 Tyler." New York Evangelist. 
 
 FUNK& WAGNALLS COMPANY, Publishers, 
 
 44-60 East 23d Street, New York.. 
 
The Outlook (Edited by Lyman Abbott, D.V., 
 successor to Henry Ward Beecher as pastor of Plymouth 
 Church, Brooklyn, New York) : "It is with the aspect 
 of Mr. Beecher as a reformer, rather than as a theo 
 logian, author, or preacher, that Mr. Barrows deals. . . . 
 It gives the story of Mr. Beecher s v life in lees space 
 and in handier form than any other volume with which 
 we are acquainted." 
 
 Henry Ward Beecher 
 
 THE SHAKESPEARE 
 
 OF THE PULPIT 
 By JOHN HENRY BARROWS. 
 
 tamo, Cloth ; 557 pp.; With Portrait. Price, 
 $1.50. Post-free. 
 
 The certified points of merits of this work con 
 clusively place it foremost as the standard popular 
 biography of Henry Ward Beecher. 
 
 " Altogether It Is a valued contribution to Beecher 
 literature." New York Herald. 
 
 "It will give to many a far better and truer con 
 ception of Mr. Beecher than they before possessed." 
 Christian Inquirer, New York. 
 
 "AH in all it is the best ramming up of the life and 
 character of this great preacher ana orator that I have 
 ever read." H on. Nelson Ding ley, Washing- |< 
 
 ton, D. C. 
 
 "I am especially pleased with the chapters relat 
 ing to the famous trial. The subject is handled very 
 delicately, and at the same time thoroughly vindicates 
 the pastor of Plymouth Church from all intentional 
 wrong doing." Francis JE. Clark t J>.2>., Prtt. 
 Soc, of Christian Endeavor, Boston. 
 
 PUNK & WAQNALLS COMPANY. Publisher*. 
 
 44-60 East 23d Street, New York. 
 
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 Eetigio- Philosophical Journal, Chicago : 
 " The Author, Archibald H. Grimke, excels in bio 
 graphical work. The book is well calculated to fire 
 the spirit of patriotism in the youth of our land." 
 
 Charles Sumner 
 
 THE SCHOLAR IN POLITICS 
 By ARCHIBALD H. GRIMKE, M.A. 
 
 1 2 mo, Cloth ; 415 pp.; With Portrait. Price, \ 
 $1.50. Post-free. 
 
 In Grimke s Life of Sumner, the political side of the 
 great revolutionary contest is chiefly prominent; this 
 in contrast to the moral aspect of the gigantic straggle 
 shown in the author s Life of Garrison. 
 
 Interest never flags : u Grand as is this theme, rx> 
 well has it been handled, from beginning to end, we 
 find nothing but Sumner. . . . The interest never 
 flags; the pictures of the events that led to the end, 
 are painted without prejudice. . . ." New York 
 Evangelist. 
 
 " America has been fortunate in producing great i j 
 men at every crisis of her short but eventful history, < 
 and in the foremost rank of her great names aye, of ! 
 the great men of the nineteenth century we must 
 place that of Charles Sumner. . . . 
 
 " The author is an able writer ; he excels in biograph 
 ical work, and the present volume sustains his high 
 reputation. . . ."Indiana Baptist. 
 
 " To the author and to his publishers readers and 
 students owe a debt of gratitude for this valuable 
 addition to the library shelves. Perusuai of it will || 
 inspire the young with patriotism and strenghten 
 lofty purposes in American manhood." The Toledo 
 B*e, Ohio. 
 
 PUNK & WAQNALLS COMPANY, Publishers, !; 
 
 44-60 East 23d Street, New York, 
 
The Interior, Chicago, say s : " This book presents 
 a common-sense, calm estimate of the unique char 
 acter and career of Lincoln; sets forth his real great 
 ness and goodness, without making an ado over It." 
 
 Abraham Lincoln 
 
 THE LIBERATOR 
 By CHARLES WALLACE FRENCH. 
 
 I2mo, Cloth; 398 pp.; With Portrait. Price, 
 $1.50. Post-free. 
 
 This book deals with the man rather than with the 
 statesman and president; hence this life is unique. 
 
 "It is particularly fuli in delineation of personal 
 trai ts and characteristic anecdotes . . . and is pleasant 
 reading."^- Christian Intelligencer, New York. 
 
 "As a popular epitome of that which crowds 10 
 huge volumes of the Hay-Nicolay biography, we 
 hardly know its equal." Detroit Journal, Mich. 
 
 Leaves nothing out: "Mr. Lincoln is set before 
 the reader in the amplitude of his diverse individu 
 ality, and the story of his life, as given, while concise 
 and comparatively brief, leaves nothing out." 
 Standard, Chicago. 
 
 " Will be helpful to persons who lack opportunity 
 or patience to study biographies in which a multitude 
 of words darken counsel . . . plain truth about Abra 
 ham Lincoln has the charm of romance and almost 
 the uplift of revelation." Roston Times. 
 
 " Abraham Lincoln s personality was so unique, 
 so grand, so strong, that it not only opens up a vast 
 field of research, which the author has explored care 
 fully and lovingly, but also furnishes one of the most 
 interesting ideals of true American manhood." 
 Daily Democrat, Woodland, California. 
 
 FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY, Publishers, jj 
 44-60 East 23d Street, New York. 
 
"A well written biography." New York Sun. 
 ] " Lucid and sympathetic." Jfew York Tribune. 
 
 William E. Dodge 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN HERCHANT 
 By CARLOS MARTYN 
 
 Cloth; 349pp.; With Portrait. Price, 
 $1.50. Post-free. 
 
 This biography of one of New York s most success 
 ful merchants, whose public acts gave him a national 
 reputation, Is largely interspersed with the history of 
 events happening in the stirring times of his greatest 
 activity. 
 
 "Such books 85 these are of incalculable value 
 to the young, and an inspiration to all who are seeking 
 to do good as well as get gain in this world." The \ 
 Gospel Banner t Augusta, Me. 
 
 " The Editor has handled his subject In so able a 
 manner that the reader is entranced, and is carried on 
 and on until with a sigh of regret the book is laid 
 down." The Chicago Herald. 
 
 " flany of the passages are taken from the lec 
 tures and speeches delivered by him in his lifetime 
 which give a vivid impression of the home, business, 
 and public life of the great merchant and philanthro 
 pist" The Plaindealer, Cleveland, Ohio. 
 
 FUNK & WAGN ALLS COMPANY, Publishers, 
 44-60 East 23d Street, New York. 
 
Tlie Commercial Gazette, Cincinnati, says : 
 : "This volume contains considerable matter never 
 before published, is full of fascinating reading, and is 
 of inestimable historic value." 
 
 John Brown 
 And His Men 
 
 WITH BOMB ACCOUNT OP THE ROADS THEY TRAVELED 
 TO REACH HARPER S FERRY. 
 
 By COL. RICHARD J. HINTON, 
 
 A Contemporary of John Brown. 
 
 tamo, Cloth; 752 pp.; aa Portraits. Price, 
 $1.50. Post-free. 
 
 In an Appendix are given the principal and more 
 important documents prepared by John Brown, or 
 relating directly to the enterprises against American 
 slavery in which he was actively engaged ; also a 
 copious Index to the volume. 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM A COUPLE OF LETTERS. 
 
 ANACOSTIA, D. C., CEDAR HILL, Feb. 11, 1895. 
 MY DEAR COLONEL HINTON: 
 
 Your History of the raid upon Harper s Ferry, by 
 John Brown and his men, leaves nothing in that line 
 to be desired. . . . You were in the center of the 
 circle, and hence have had an inside view of the whole 
 transaction. You have done for John Brown and his 
 men. and for the truth of history, a magnificent 
 service. Frederick Douglass. 
 
 MY DKAB COLONEL HINTON : FKB> 14 1895 
 
 Your work on John Brown and His Men is most 
 strongly and vividly done. In fact, wherever I open 
 the book, I find it alive with the undying interest of 
 the greatest hour of our history. Perhaps mankind 
 must yet make another struggle ; but so far Brown 
 remains the hero of the supreme endeavor for freedom, 
 and this is what you make your readers feel, without 
 weakening any fact concerning him. 
 
 William Dean Uowells. 
 
 FUNK & WA6NALLS COMPANY, Publishers, 
 
 44-60 East 23d Street, New York. 
 
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