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Title: Right and wrong in Massachusetts

Author: Maria Weston Chapman

Release date: July 4, 2022 [eBook #68457]

Language: English

Original publication: United States: Dow & Jackson's Anti-slavery Press, 1839

Credits: Steve Mattern, Martin Pettit and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)


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RIGHT AND WRONG

IN

MASSACHUSETTS.

BY MARIA WESTON CHAPMAN.


     There is a history in all men’s lives,
     Figuring the nature of the time deceased;
     The which observed, a man may prophesy,
     With a clear aim at the main chance of things
     As not yet come to life.          _Shakespeare._


BOSTON:
DOW & JACKSON’S ANTI-SLAVERY PRESS.
14 Devonshire Street.
1839.




RIGHT AND WRONG.




CHAPTER I.

RETROSPECTION.

     Before bringing forward upon the stage the characters who figure
     in the drama, I have endeavored to make the reader acquainted with
     the ground on which the different scenes were to be acted.
                                                               THIERRY.


The position of New England in 1829, was a most cheerless one
for Freedom. All the great interests of the country were nearly
or remotely involved in slaveholding, through all their various
arrangements, civil, ecclesiastical, mercantile and matrimonial; yet
all disclaimed its alliance. Every body was, in some way or other,
actively or passively, sustaining slavery; yet every body disclaimed
all responsibility for its existence, opposed all efforts for its
extinction, and was ‘as much anti-slavery as any body else.’ Even the
natural and kindly tide of human sympathy for suffering, was turned
away from the service of Freedom by the Colonization Society. The
moving principles of Northern and Southern life, had become inseparably
mingled below the surface of events, like the roots of giant trees
beneath the soil.

In the midst of this utter ignorance, iron indifference and base
hypocrisy respecting that groundwork of the human soul,--its
Freedom--rose up one to vindicate the grandeur and paramount importance
of its universal claim. He was young--unknown--poor:--“lord of
his presence, and no wealth beside.” But he had that best of all
educations, self-education, and that best of all qualifications for
his work, an entire devotedness to the principles of liberty which he
had espoused. Every step he took, was characteristic. He was enabled
by his ability as a writer, his skill as a practical mechanic, and
his laborious self-denial, to issue the first number of a periodical,
without having obtained a single subscriber. To him and to the
principles he advocated, the important thing was to find readers; which
the power evinced in his little sheet enabled him to do. Its name was
characteristic. It was neither a “journal,” nor an “observer,” nor a
“register,” nor a “recorder,” nor an “examiner.” He called it THE
LIBERATOR. Any other name would have but feebly expressed the depth
and affirmative nature of its principles. Those sacred and fundamental
principles found a response in the land, though the hearts from which
it came, were few and far between. The New England Anti-Slavery
Society was formed; and as man after man planted himself by the side
of Garrison and Knapp, a sense of duty seemed to pervade the soul
of each--the duty of _promulgating_ the truth of whose beauty and
necessity his soul was then made sensible. The Liberator was not their
organ, in an official sense,--but how could they conscientiously do
otherwise than sustain the instrumentality which their own experience
had proved so effectual?

They lectured on the subject of slavery as they found opportunity; and
by circulation of the Liberator and such publications as their means
could furnish, and by diligence in conversation and argument, they
succeeded in arousing a portion of the community to its consideration.

Though the idea of united, concentrated moral effort, was familiar
to their minds,--though the land was in fact permeated by education
and missionary Societies,--though this was emphatically the age of
benevolence and of voluntary association, yet a mighty preparation
of heart was needed in every individual who listened to this call of
Liberty, before he could resolve to avail himself of similar means
for the promulgation of her great principles: principles, which,
lying deeper than the shallow foundations of the popular benevolent
enterprises of the day, were identical with those of Christianity
herself.

Christianity, in every age, has ever presented herself as the
antagonist of its crying abomination. The same in spirit, her visible
appearance is modified by the giant obstacle she meets in each
successive generation. Sometimes, in conflict with idolatry, she stands
with her face of triumphant brightness opposed to the refined, the
intellectual, and the powerful; and every step is over a crumbling
altar and a prostrate priest. Sometimes, as in the days immediately
preceding those of which we write, her advanced guard are casting out
the unclean spirit of intemperance. In the close-succeeding years, she
comes, like LIBERTY, to inhabit the dwelling from which intemperance
has been banished to make room for her beatific presence.

By this call of the age for a manifestation of Christianity against
slavery, were hundreds drawn together during the first two years of
the existence of the N. E. Anti-Slavery Association. They came from
every sect, and class, and party--of every age and sex and color: and
often might the feeling with which the differing sectaries beheld,
each, the anxious labors of the other for the same object, and to their
astonishment found how much they possessed in common, have been well
expressed by the colloquy of the high caste German protestant and the
despised Jew.


     “This conduct, Jew, doth verily seem Christian.”

     “God bless you! what makes me to you a Christian
     Makes you to me a Jew.”


To establish their association on this broad and enduring foundation of
sympathy and earnest union in the exercise of every means sanctioned by
each member’s idea of law, humanity and religion, was the early labor
of New England abolitionists. At their second annual gathering, Charles
Follen offered the following resolution:--


     “Resolved, that this society has for its _sole object_ the
     abolition of slavery in the United States, without any reference
     to local interests, political parties, or religious sects.”


This resolution, says the report of that year, “was sustained in a
truly admirable manner, and unanimously adopted.”

The enthusiasm for liberty was sufficiently strong to overcome
not only bigotry but selfishness. Indeed those who had sacrificed
lucrative or honorable situations, or labored gratuitously, receiving
nothing in guerdon but the misrepresentation of the oppressor, were
hardly likely to yield to the temptation incident to other associated
operations,--that of making them subserve the love of power or praise.
Sectarianism and selfishness having been overcome, it was without any
emotion but that of joyful anticipation, that the New England Society
labored to carry out the following resolution, introduced by Mr.
Garrison in 1833:--


     “Resolved, that the formation of a national society is essential
     to the complete regeneration of public sentiment on the subject
     of slavery; and that the Board of Managers of the New England
     Society be authorized to call a national meeting of the friends of
     abolition, for the purpose of organizing such a society.”


Their success was thus announced in the annual report of 1835:--


     “In consequence of the formation of the American Society, and
     of the design contemplated to form State Societies in the New
     England States, which has been already accomplished in Maine,
     New Hampshire and Vermont, the operations of the New England
     Society during the past year have been very much confined to
     Massachusetts, and hereafter it will be _only_ a State Society.”


These enlarged souls thought it no humiliation to take a lower seat.
Their object was Liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants
thereof, and not the establishment of a powerful institution, of which
_they_ should have the control. They go on to say,--


     “Though the comparative importance of this association has, owing
     to the causes just mentioned, been in some measure diminished,
     yet its zeal, activity and numbers are unimpaired, while its
     principles are spreading with unexampled rapidity.”


We find them abjuring every thought of control, jurisdiction,
centralization and monopoly of means and power. Voluntarily taking
what in the apprehension of many would be a lower seat, they
assumed the name of the Massachusetts, instead of the New England
Anti-Slavery Society. The plan of a national organization, with its
various component parts, from state and county to town and parish
societies, was skilfully planned, and its execution commenced with
great spirit. There was no difficulty in obtaining funds for the use
of the Executive Committee of this national association, as _all_ the
abolitionists were its members, and their confidence in the men they
had selected to form this Committee, was very great. Unlike the parent
and pioneer Committee, it numbered among its members men of wealth; and
their liberality enabled them to send into the field numbers of able
financial and lecturing agents.

At the State gatherings and New England Conventions, these agents were
wont to take donations and pledges, which Massachusetts abolitionists,
with their characteristic disinterestedness, were anxious to make, that
the central committee might be supplied, even though it drained the
State Society of its resources.

A practical difficulty soon became obvious. Some, meaning to pledge
money to the State Society, found their pledge received as to the
National Society--others, meaning to sustain the National, found their
pledge recorded as to the State; and great confusion, both in the
accounts of the agents, and in the minds of abolitionists, was the
consequence. Notwithstanding this, the work went most encouragingly
forward;--all being delighted with the efficiency of the National
Society, however inconvenient and depressing, in a business sense,
its mode of operation might be, and however the action of the State
Society was paralyzed by the labors of its financial agents. Still it
was thought that some arrangement might be devised by which to obviate
the uncertainty and inconvenience which the double draft of funds
occasioned; and at the last quarterly meeting of the Massachusetts
Society in 1835, a committee was appointed to consider the subject.
They reported that the then existing arrangements were very
embarrassing to the Massachusetts Society; but no plan was adopted for
more convenient ones.

This was the situation and bearing of the fiscal arrangements at the
beginning of 1836.

Meanwhile the grand battle had been going powerfully on, and the
energies of all were severely tasked. The enthusiasm for the cause had
overleaped not only sectarian divisions, but the “graceful feebleness,”
which the age cherished as an ornament in the female character. The
women of the cause, in the difficult times of 1835, were peculiarly
active. They devoted themselves to the work of obtaining signatures
to petitions with commendable energy. A history of their progress
from door to door, with the obstacles they encountered, would be at
once touching, ludicrous, and edifying. Young women, whose labors
depended on public opinion, laid the claims of the enslaved to freedom
before those whose simple word might grant or deny their own means of
subsistence. Benevolent-looking elderly gentlemen, individuals of the
highest respectability and influence in the community, were wont to
witness the appeal kindly, favoring the applicant with good advice as
to her future course.

“My dear young lady, it gives me pain to see your efforts so entirely
wasted. You only injure the cause you espouse by thus leaving your
sphere. You actually prevent those who are capable of understanding
this question, and whom their sex points out as the only proper persons
to consider it, from entering upon its consideration. You make the
whole matter seem little, and below the attention of men.” But the
women judged for themselves, and very rationally too, that the women
whose efforts for the cause could not be hindered by men, were more
valuable auxiliaries than the men whose dignity forbade them to be
fellow-laborers with women.

The individual and collective energy of the community, both moral and
physical, was that year employed to keep women from leaving what was
termed “their appropriate sphere,” by petitioning and holding the
meetings of their respective Societies; but in vain.

Their sole reply to the restrictive efforts of the public, was conveyed
in such resolutions as the following:--“Resolved, that, in a conflict
of principles, we believe Scripture to teach that there is neither
bond or free, male or female, foreigner or native; but all are one
in Christ Jesus; and therefore feel ourselves called in common with
man, to toil and suffer, as all must, who effectually defend the
truth.” Manifold were the pretences under which men disguised their
hatred to freedom. From the beginning, those who professed to be
thoroughly opposed to Slavery in the abstract, (such was the cant
phrase of that time,) had concealed their hatred to liberty under the
guise of dislike to the measures of abolitionists. As those measures
were entirely unexceptionable in reality, the pretence settled down
into a stereotyped aversion to _harsh language_. Under this term,
were comprehended that faithfulness to principle, accuracy of moral
classification, appropriateness of style to subject, and strict
impartiality which the effects of Mr. Garrison’s example had been to
make general in the cause. It was this example of fidelity which made
an expression of confidence in him, or an expression of approbation of
his course, equivalent to a test-act. There are so many persons who
will assent to an abstractly righteous proposition, though they start
back in alarm from righteousness personified, that it was fortunate for
the cause, if such were prevented by his faithfulness from clogging it
with their useless numbers.

The most delightful and at the same time the most surprising
feature of the Anti-Slavery cause was the harmonious co-operation
of all engaged in its advancement. Delightful, because rare in any
circumstances,--surprising, because the materials of which the Society
was formed, were, to human eye, so discordant. But each member, in
virtue of a clear perception of the truth that the whole is greater
than a part, when sect came in collision with the universal cause of
freedom, made the less give way to the greater, and each was zealously
and kindly watchful, not to enforce his distinctive opinions, in
religion or politics, on his brother. Seeing that his brother had
religious and political principles of his own, he contented himself
with urging their constant application to the case of the enslaved.
This watchfulness was perhaps more careful in Massachusetts, than
in any other state. Abolition _there_ had been a growth and not a
manufacture; and it was observable that the more devoted was the zeal
of the abolitionists, the more enlarged was their toleration. It was
neither natural nor desirable that differences of opinion should not
occasionally appear in Abolition meetings, but their appearance was
never the signal of wrath and clamor.

The great hope of the association was that the church might be roused
by its instrumentality to put forth her moral power against slavery;
and at the New England convention of 1836, a resolution was proposed
declaring that a church using its influence to delay and prevent the
fulfilment of the will of Christ, has no claim to be considered his;
and that only those churches who employed their associated influence
_for_ reform, should be considered the true and real church of God.
Elizur Wright objected to any resolution which would divide the
church;--our object was to purify. Rev. Mr. Peckham followed him,
declaring that this Convention, not being an ecclesiastical body, was
not qualified to sit in judgment on the churches. Many of the members
of the Convention were not, he said, even church members, and therefore
it was improper for them to sit in judgment on the conduct of church
members. Should we say to this man, who is an abolitionist, Stand thou
here, and to another, who is opposed to abolition, Stand thou there?
Were there no spots upon our own garments, which those we undertake to
sever from the church might point out? On the question of abolition he
was ready to go as far as any Anti-Slavery man he ever saw; but when a
measure was proposed that must divide the churches, he must oppose it.
The Rev. Geo. Allen, of Shrewsbury, thought the passage of a resolution
dangerous which might be followed by denunciation, vituperation and
division of the churches. The resolution was recommitted. Subsequently
one was offered by Rev. J. T. Woodbury, enforcing discipline and
excommunication of slaveholders. The strong words of truth he uttered
on that occasion sank deep into the hearts of hundreds who heard them,
and influence their conduct to this day.


     “What is the Church doing?” he said. “Selling indulgences for
     sin--the worst of sins--the sin of _man-stealing_--yea, the sin
     of stealing and selling _a brother in the Church_! What do they
     do? The hammer is lifted over the head of the Christian--yes, the
     Christian, the child of God--and the cry is, who bids? Brother
     sells his brother, and the Church says, _it is all right_, while
     the watchmen, on the walls of Zion, pass the word, _all’s well!_
     Though the auctioneer is a church member, the seller, and buyer,
     and the poor slave, all members of the same Church, yet the Church
     does not censure the deed. _It is all right._ * * * The Church
     that does not pronounce slavery a sin, and deal with its members,
     who refuse to confess and forsake it, in effect, licenses slavery.
     It stands as the virtual endorser of the crime. If men are robbed
     of the Bible, and of all knowledge of letters; if parents are
     punished, as felons, for teaching their own children the alphabet,
     and the Church does nothing, then the Church, by its silence,
     endorses it, and declares it is all right. If parents are robbed
     of their children, forced to see them dragged to the market, and
     knocked off to the negro speculator--the Church stands by, and
     says, “_It’s all right._” The Church allows this, not only in its
     members, but in its elders, and deacons, and pastors, and bishops;
     and hence it stands justly responsible for selling indulgences
     to license the sin of slavery. * * * What! shall the American
     churches form Bible societies, and pledge themselves before
     God, that they will give the Bible to the whole world, and then
     withhold it from twenty-five hundred thousand souls in their very
     midst? What have we seen here? A Virginia Christian slaveholder
     comes here, and appeals to us about the Virginia State Bible
     Society, to send the Bible to the extreme ends of the earth. * * *
     Why don’t he give the Bible to his own slaves then, and teach them
     to read it, before he asks for our money to help him send Bibles
     to the slaves in sin in distant lands? How does he look; the agent
     of the Virginia Bible Society, begging for money, to give the
     Bible to Chinese men and Hindoo pariahs, and refusing to give it,
     or let us give it, to _six hundred thousand immortal beings in his
     own State_? Why, what a hypocrite! Is there a being on earth, the
     most degraded even of the miserable slaves, whose souls are left
     to perish, who cannot see the inconsistency, the absurdity, the
     hypocrisy of this? Is God a fool, to be thus mocked? Sir, I will
     raise my voice against such hypocrisy as long as I live. It shall
     ring in the ears of every slaveholder who asks us to help him give
     Bibles to the heathen, thousands of miles off, while he withholds
     them from the slaves at his own door. Why, his very Bibles, which
     he sends to the Hindoo, are bought with the blood and souls of his
     slaves. It is dividing the gains of hell with God. * * * If this
     is Christianity, well might the heathen say, God defend us from
     Christianity.”


A graphic picture, distinct as just, and yet there sat a few in this
very convention “ready to go as far as any Anti-Slavery man they ever
saw,” who deprecated division on _Anti-Slavery_ ground, though their
_general_ principle was, to hold no fellowship with immorality. The
resolution of Mr. Woodbury passed, with but one dissenting voice. Mr.
Sewall, who voted in the negative, and Mr. May, who declined voting on
the question, explained their conduct by stating that they “entertained
doubts whether any body of Christians had a right to exclude a man from
the communion table at all.” At the same time they heartily agreed
with the Abolition spirit of the resolution, and thought it the duty
of Christians who believe in the propriety of this discipline in the
church to vote for it. In the course of the Convention, a resolution
was presented, involving a personal pledge from each member, of life
and fortune and honor to the cause; and well-remembered words of
fervent solemnity yet sound in the ears of those who were then adjured
to stand firm, “come what might.” Women were earnestly entreated to
assist the passage of this resolution, and almost all present united in
it.

The ecclesiastical opposition to the cause could not fail to be
brought out in bold relief by the proceedings of this Convention.
During the whole year, its workings were manifest, and at the annual
meeting of the Massachusetts Society in 1837, its efforts were
successfully exerted in reducing the Abolitionists to the necessity
of meeting in a stable. Though the church cast its whole weight in
their way, the State was less obstinate in its opposition, and the use
of the State House was permitted for one session of the Society. Mr.
Stanton wished that this yielding on the part of the State might be
considered as a keen rebuke to those churches which had refused their
houses of worship, that we might plead in them the cause of 2,000,000
of American heathen. Mr. Fitch deprecated this “turning aside” to
remark upon the obstacles cast in our way. He feared there was danger
of losing sight of the end of our organization as an Anti-Slavery
Society. “We should not let these efforts for free discussion so absorb
our minds. Let us think of the infinitely more oppressive wrongs of
the poor slave.” There was an indefinable something in these remarks,
which revealed an entire want of comprehension of the hearts of
abolitionists in general. Was it for themselves, then, that they made
these efforts, and administered these rebukes? Were not their thoughts
riveted on the Slave? and was not this fixedness of determination the
very cause of their rebukes, and of their efforts for free discussion?
Free discussion of what? Why, of the Slaves’ wrongs and the means of
righting them! and yet this incomprehensible jargon about turning aside!

During the succeeding meetings, the Anti-Slavery spirit swelled high
and strong. The Liberator was warmly sustained by all the friends
present, among whom were Messrs. Chaplin, Walker, May, and Stanton.
“The inquiry is often made of me,” said Mr. Stanton, “why does not the
American Society sustain it? The answer is, Let Massachusetts sustain
it, as she ought.” Mr. St. Clair, in particular, expressed the warmest
eulogy on the Liberator. Mr. Garrison spoke as one knowing the folly
of being elevated by human applause, or depressed by human censure;
he remarked that it was neither his aim nor expectation, to please
every subscriber. “It must suffice that free discussion is my motto,
and those who are opposed to me in sentiment are always invited to
occupy a place.” Political action, as one of the modes contemplated by
the Society, was adverted to. Mr. Stanton introduced a resolution,
affirming that the people of Massachusetts ought _not_ to vote for an
upholder of slavery. Mr. Garrison warmly seconded the resolution.

At the New-England Convention of 1837, Mr. Phelps followed up the
efforts upon the church, by a series of resolutions, accompanied by
most convincing reasons, urging the necessity of the excommunication
of slaveholders, and a solemn consideration of the question whether,
the churches remaining obdurate, it be not the duty of the advocates of
truth and righteousness to “come out from among them, and be separate.”
These resolutions were heartily approved by the Convention, with the
exception of the Rev. Samuel Lee. The argument by Mr. Peckham, in
1836, that this Convention was not an ecclesiastical body, and that
many of its members were unconnected with any church, weighed much in
the mind of Mr. Lee. He represented that the brethren present, ought
to consider, before adopting the resolutions, the manner in which
they would be met by the associations of the Ministry. They will say
that this Convention was composed of men who hold that Christ is God,
and must be worshipped as such, and others who deny this, and believe
it idolatry so to worship him; again there are others who make no
pretensions to religion, but trample under foot the blood of Christ:
now they will say, these persons come together in an Anti-Slavery
Convention, conniving at each other’s sins, and then pass resolutions
touching a particular sin about which the church differs. There were
a great many ministers engaged in this good work, but though we were
abolitionists, must not the ministers of the church stand up for the
church, and protect her walls from being thrown down? These resolutions
proposed to divide the church--that would be the effect. They would
be an entering wedge. They would be driven home by the newspapers and
other influences, till the church was severed. Subsequently Mr. Lee
gave his brethren a word of caution not to say too much against the
church. Bad as it was, it was the light of the world; and if we wanted
to save the world, we must preserve the church of Christ on earth.

The Convention sat uneasily under this speech. Its spirit was
faithfully and eloquently opposed, and the resolutions were adopted
with but three dissenting voices; one, Mrs. Fifield of Weymouth, on
the ground that it was too great an assumption of power in man to
exclude his brother from the table of the Lord. The Rev. George Trask
introduced a resolution on the subject of peace, as connected with
abolition, which was sustained by William Goodell and others. Mr.
Goodell said that he was a peace man, and had he not supposed the
American Anti-Slavery Society to be also a Peace Society, he never
should have joined it. A discussion ensued respecting the declaration
of sentiment and constitution of the Society. Some thought the Peace
principles were involved in them, some not, according to their
different ideas of the extent of these principles.

The discussion had continued two hours, when Mr. Garrison arose.
“Brethren,” he said, “you all know my views on this subject. They cover
the extreme ground of non-resistance, and so, in my understanding of
it, does this resolution. Let me say to Brother Goodell, that I think
he, on further thought, would not wish to adopt it, neither do I think
the Assembly ready to pass it. This is neither the place nor the
occasion. Let us stop discussing it now.” The resolution was moulded
into the shape of a re-affirmation of pacific principles, as set forth
in the Declaration of sentiment of the National Convention in 1833,
and in that modified form unanimously adopted.

Many of the members of this meeting had their minds firmly anchored
on the ultra non-resistance principle. They saw it _through_ their
abolition principles, as the eye fastens upon the farthest surface of
a diamond through the transparent medium of the nearest; yet they felt
that it was not the business of Anti-Slavery organizations _as such_,
to come to a decision upon it, and they were desirous to wave its
consideration. Who could have foretold that these very persons, and Mr.
Garrison in particular, were hereafter to be arraigned as loading the
cause with foreign topics?

Up to this point of time, May, 1837, the hearts of the abolitionists
were united as the heart of one. Exceptions did exist to the general
love and harmony, but they were very rare. As a general rule, the mobs,
misrepresentations, and threats of prosecution at common law, seemed to
unite them the closer. Each strove to shelter the rest from whatever
storm of opposition they were called to share. They defended each other
from the charge of harsh and unchristian feelings and language--they
called for, and recorded the votes of women--they unanimously declared
in solemn assembly, that they, as abolitionists, believed that the
anti-slavery cause was one, with regard to which _all human_ beings,
whether men or women, citizens or foreigners, white or colored, had the
_same duties and the same rights_--they passed resolutions of thanks
for the co-operation of women, under the unusual and difficult duties
that devolved upon them. In vain were the noise of the waves, and the
tumult of the people; they broke harmlessly against this rock-founded
fortress.




CHAPTER II.

THE CLERICAL APPEAL.

     _Christian._ Did you know, about ten years ago, one TEMPORARY, who
     dwelt next door to one TURNBACK? Since we are talking about him,
     let us a little inquire into the reason of the sudden backsliding
     of him and such others. _Hopeful._ It may be profitable.
                                                                BUNYAN.


The re-action of the church, in consequence of such an effort as the
one made by this Convention, was greater than some who had fancied
themselves abolitionists were able to bear. Compelled to choose between
their pro-slavery brethren of the church and ministry and their
brethren of the abolition cause, they shrunk from the latter. Their
efforts to justify themselves in cramping the cause, that they might
avoid its reproach, constitute an era in its progress, known as the
“Boston Controversy.” The plan originated with five clergymen of Boston
and vicinity, the Rev. Messrs. Charles Fitch, Joseph H. Towne, Jonas
Perkins, David Sandford, and William Cornell. When the ecclesiastical
tumult swelled high, their hearts were stirred up with it, as the water
of inland wells is said to rise and fall with the ebb and flow of the
bitter ocean tide without.

Their appeal commenced with an acknowledgment of the sins of their
brethren, in the use of harsh language, and an accusation of the most
prominent abolitionists, of an unkind, improper and unchristian course,
as such, assuming as one of the principles of action in the cause,
that it must not be presented in a “brother’s pulpit,” when by so
doing a brother might be aggrieved. This last assumption was in direct
contradiction to the motto of every pulpit, as well as in defiance of
the professed principles of every christian minister to “cry aloud
and spare not” in the promulgation of truth, and “to show the people
their transgressions,”--“whether they will hear, or whether they will
forbear.”

The accusation of harsh language was robbed of its power by the heavily
charged and indiscriminate epithets which some of the appellants
themselves were accustomed to use. Having no standard within themselves
by which to graduate their language, the quality of their labors was
regulated by the market principle of demand and supply. The respective
churches in Boston, to which two of them had been called from the
country to minister, had more fame (or infamy, as the world counted
it) on account of abolition, than they deserved. The appellants soon
ascertained that the market was fluctuating, and they also fluctuated
and fell. Ignorant of the general temperature of the abolition mind
without, they fancied it in correspondence with that under their
immediate observation, and took the ill-considered step of appealing
before the world from the requisitions of their own acknowledged
principles of action with regard to the preaching of acknowledged truth.

It must be remembered, in excuse of clergymen who in this stage of the
cause put their hands to the plough and turned back, that the laudable
desire of the National Society to have the field filled with agents
had induced some to enter it whose preparation of heart was altogether
unequal to the work. They yielded to circumstances and to entreaties,
rather than to convictions of duty and love of the cause. Some too had
been prematurely urged into the anti-slavery ranks by the anxiety of
the women of their respective congregations to obtain the influence of
their names for the cause. This practice of making those life members
who are but slightly interested in the cause, however well calculated
to swell the funds of popular societies, and secure the efforts of the
ministry in their favor, has been productive of nothing but mischief
in Anti-Slavery Societies, and it is to be hoped that no persons will
hereafter be subjected to the painful alternative of accepting a
testimony of regard of which they are unworthy, or of acknowledging
enmity to the cause of Freedom. Let no one be constituted a life
member, whose own heart has not so wrought upon his life as to make it
clear that his membership is something more than a payment of fifteen
dollars.

The clerical appeal was, in fact, an invitation to the leaders of
the opposing host of clergymen, to come and take the direction of
the Anti-Slavery cause. The former character of its signers as
abolitionists--their confident tone, and the suddenness of the
movement, drew general attention and remark. A lively sensation ensued
throughout New England.

The appellants reported that they were cheered on by nine tenths
of their brother clergymen. This increased the agitation; for the
abolitionists had found, from the beginning, their most active
opponents among this class of men. Coming, as it did, immediately
after the claim of the Mass. General Association of Ministers, for
more respect and for the exclusion of agitating topics, the appeal
identified its originators with the opposing ministry, and disjoined
them from abolitionists. It was already seen of all, that this new
principle of suppressing the truth when the truth gives offence, would,
if generally adopted, completely extinguish the Anti-Slavery cause.
Merchants, who had received hints that they were to be hissed off
’Change, for bringing their principles into daily practice,--lawyers,
whose clients had deserted them in disgust when the pictures of
kneeling slaves found room in their places of business,--women, who
had been proscribed from their respective social circles for making a
morning call the medium of presenting a petition,--all perceived that
this case was the parallel of their own, and demanded of a clergyman
that he should resist _his_ temptations to a sinful neglect of duty as
well as themselves. They also exclaimed against the unworthy idea of
yielding up, on demand, those whose very faithfulness was the origin
of all the outcry. A whisper was circulated by the friends of the
clerical appeal, that struggle was useless, that they were sustained
not only _without_ but _within_ the camp, that the Executive Committee
at New York did not disapprove of their doings, and that it had been
decided at head quarters “_to cast off Garrison_.” This facilitated the
general movement of every eye to New York. Societies and individuals
loudly protested against the treachery to the cause, the treachery to
their own religious principles of action, and the treachery to their
comrades of which the appeal was the vehicle.--The religious world,
through all its various organs of communication with the universal
public, set up a shout of triumph. From Maine to the Potomac, and from
the Atlantic to the Ohio, the “Appeal” was the subject of conversation
with all to whom the name of abolition was familiar. The Anti-Slavery
editors in every state, discerned the spiritual peril as clearly as
if it had been a combat before the bodily eye, and all spoke out
for the right, except the Emancipator, the organ of the Committee
at New York, and James G. Birney, then editor of the Philanthropist
in Cincinnati. _His_ misapprehension of the case was excused by
those whom he condemned, and accounted for by the fact of his great
distance from the seat of the conflict. The appellants, however,
triumphantly claimed him as their own. Mr. Garrison, and the editor
pro tem. of the Liberator, Mr. Johnson, were forcible and conclusive
in their treatment of the case. Mr. Phelps, whose services as general
agent of the Massachusetts Society, some members of the Boston Female
Anti-Slavery Society forseeing this emergency, had made great exertions
to secure, came boldly up, to fill the breach where his presence was
so needful and desirable. The vigor of his assault quickly dislodged
the appellants from their new position “in a brother’s pulpit.” But
he received no thanks for his good service, from the committee at New
York. Every church, every Anti-Slavery Society, was convulsed by the
struggle--still no voice came from the central citadel. The Clerical
appellants meanwhile went on, as diverging lines ever will, widening
the distance between themselves and rectitude. The Massachusetts
Association of the Ministry had, two months previously, given currency
to the idea that the abolition cause had wrought deterioration in the
female character. The appellants made this idea, too, their own. Mr.
Woodbury, now an agent of the American Society, the same who had
thrown down the gauntlet to the pro-slavery church in 1836, chimed
in with the appeal, and suggested in addition, that the opinions of
Mr. Garrison on other subjects were just cause of offence in him,
and that their incidental expression in the Liberator was a high
misdemeanor. The appellants eagerly adopted this suggestion also; and
explained to the public, and endeavored to convince abolitionists,
that the toleration of women as free agents in the cause--the holding
George Fox’s views of the Sabbath--or embracing the principles of
non-resistance, afforded a just ground for excluding the offending
individuals from the Societies. “Let them go out from among us,” they
said, “for they are not of us; and the Massachusetts Society must
have a new organ.” Mr. Phelps, at this time standing under a load of
ignominy with the leaders of his denomination, and publicly threatened
by the Recorder, their periodical, that Mr. Garrison’s “brother Phelps”
would soon find his present position an unenviable one, succumbed to
this new shape of an attack, which, under its first guise, he had
met so boldly. Like the prince of Arabian story, he yielded to the
insulting outcries which burst out around him,--turned his face from
the ascent, and at that moment underwent the transformation to which
the prince’s change into a little black stone by the way-side, is
analogous.

It is astonishing that these men should not have been aware that on the
abolition platform their own sect stood but on a level with others,
and that Sabbatarian or Anti-Sabbatarian, man or woman, clergyman or
layman, voter or non-voter, warrior or non-resistant, must be measured
by their consistency and energy in applying each his own religious
views, to effect the abolition of slavery. But they had yielded to
that fear of man that bringeth a snare, and suffered themselves to be
overcome by pro-slavery influence, scantily disguised as sectarian zeal.

This pro-slavery influence was wielded by the leaders of the sect to
which the appellants belonged, with a skill and industry which the
Anti-Slavery party would have done well to imitate. This pretended
zeal, stimulated as it was by the hope of securing the approbation
of wealthy and influential men of business, who sustained the double
character of panders of slavery and pillars of churches, was not
without its reward. The leading commercial and religious journals
played into each others’ hands, and, from the daily and weekly press
of that period, it appears that great numbers of clergymen, of known
hostility to the cause, had contrived to signify that some movement of
this kind would afford them a pretence for joining it, while, at the
same time, such a movement would operate as an assurance that the cause
should no longer be urged forward with the speed and effect that rouses
the spirit of persecution. Men who had dreaded suffering, and felt
mortification at the idea of becoming followers (so they understood it)
of the bold, plain, uncompromising, untitled Garrison, hoped, by means
of this stepping-stone, to escape the reproach of their consciences,
without sacrificing their parishes or their pride.

The active appellants were but _two_ in number; but from time to time
they kept the public informed of the encouragement they received. One,
who entered into their feelings with the most ardent sympathy, was the
Rev. Charles T. Torrey, then of Providence. He declared that “their
appeal gave him unmingled satisfaction--that it would be sustained by
others;”--and bade them “thank God and take courage, in view of the
Liberator’s abuse.”

As weeks went on, it became evident, through the columns of the paper
in which the clerical appeal first appeared, that the cloak of bigotry
and intolerance was to be added to the garment of sectarian zeal,
which had at first been employed to hide their want of attachment to
the cause. There was talk of a “common ground,” which yet must not
be profaned by the feet of those abolitionists who were not of one
particular communion. Great preference of the National Society was
expressed, (though it counted as many heretics among its numbers as
did the Massachusetts Society;) because the members of the Executive
Committee chanced to be members also of sects which the appellants
considered Orthodox. Much exertion was made in the Theological
Seminary, at Andover, to obtain recruits for this new, exclusive
“common ground,” and thirty-nine young candidates for the ministerial
office came up to its defence.

Meanwhile, the claims of this clerical exclusiveness were adjudged by
the great body of abolitionists, to be in an attitude of antagonism
with the principles of Freedom. How can he free the slave, they argued,
who is occupied in imposing fetters upon the free? How can he love
liberty, who is acting in defiance of her first principles? Are not
things which are equal to the same things equal to one another?

The Massachusetts Society met at Worcester, to take action upon
this attempt to destroy its broad foundation of religious freedom
and toleration; and, disclaiming the exercise of judgment, in their
associated capacity, upon any man’s private opinions, the members
deemed it their duty to brand inconsistency with one’s _own_ standard
of action, as treachery to the cause.

Amasa Walker, a man peculiarly qualified to speak to such a question,
being a zealous member of the same sect as the appellants, manifested,
upon this occasion, rectitude and steadfastness worthy of a sect so
nobly founded, and, until the present day, so nobly sustained. He
explained the causes and developed the real character of the appeal,
stripping it of its mask of love for the slave, and zeal for the church
of God.

Dr. Osgood, of Springfield, was disposed to admit the justice of the
charge of harsh language against prominent abolitionists, but he made
an exception in favor of Mr. Birney. He thought himself as thorough
as it was possible for any man to be in the cause. He had labored
for its success wherever he went. “I have,” said he, “pleaded for
it in stage-coaches and steam-boats. I have argued in its behalf in
conversation. _I have never yet introduced it into my pulpit:--if I had
done so, I should have grieved away some of my best people._”

A condemnation was, notwithstanding, expressed against the idea that
one man’s wishes or sense of propriety, are the proper measure of the
rights and duties of another.

Being thus hindered in their attempt to change the nature and
foundation principles of the Massachusetts Society, the appellants
strove to destroy it by forming a new organization on the basis of
sectarianism, to be auxiliary to the National Society. Mr. Phelps,
though somewhat disappointed at the result of the whole campaign, in
the utter discomfiture of clerical abolitionism, and vexed that the
Massachusetts abolitionists insisted upon evidence of repentance from
the clerical appellants, before again placing confidence in them, was
still not quite prepared to relinquish his hold upon the old society.

This unwillingness was strengthened by the fact, that the strings of
management of the new one were not proffered to his hands. When he
learned that the call for a convention to form it was not a free and
general one, but limited to those who were quite decided to quit the
Massachusetts Society, and that the important arrangements were all
to be settled beforehand, and only the trifling details left to the
discretion of the Convention; then, and not till then, he publicly
warned abolitionists against putting themselves to the trouble of
“doing up Mr. Somebody’s details,” and expressed the hope that the few
towns in the Commonwealth that had responded to the new movement, might
remain as they were, a few. Orange Scott, one of the most conspicuous
of the Methodist abolitionists, exclaimed against the narrow exclusive
dividing spirit which was at work, and zealously defended the common
cause from its attacks.

Their advice, with the indefatigable labors of Mr. Garrison, cast a
damp upon the embryo mischief. But, excited, as Mr. Phelps’s sympathies
had been, for his clerical brethren, and alarmed as he had felt at
the outcry of heresy they had raised against Mr. Garrison, he could
not go on in the work, as aforetime, with a free, untroubled soul. He
had previously entered into a correspondence with Professor Smyth, of
Maine, a friend of the clerical appeal, respecting the necessity of
reforming the Massachusetts Society of its characteristic freedom, and
the means by which that reform could be effected without alarming the
sagacious watchfulness of Mr. Garrison;[1] and at the annual meeting
of the Massachusetts Society, warmly opposed that part of the annual
report which condemned the appeal as treacherous to the cause.

Events seldom pass for what they are worth, at the time they transpire;
and these signs and tokens


     “--------------which denoted
     A hot friend cooling,----”


seemed inconsequential to most of those who observed them. The
abolitionists had reposed unbounded confidence in Mr. Phelps, and
could not brook to have their souls darkened by suspicion of one so
well beloved. In watching the train of human events, how often are we
admonished to praise no man unreservedly while yet he lives;--to rest
our hearts upon no human excellence that is not


     “Hallowed, and guarded from all change by death.”


We must pause here, and settle in our memories the positions of
individuals and societies at this period, if we would understand the
times which come after. We must take the bearings and distances of the
cause in 1837, if we would possess a chart for our safe guidance among
the shoals and quicksands of 1839.

First, let us note the position of the Executive Committee at New
York. Blind to the crisis or unequal to it, they labored to preserve
neutrality in a case involving the preservation or the sacrifice of
principle; and pronounced the whole affair to be “entirely local--a
mere Boston controversy.” Of the three tests of fidelity, they stood
firm under the application of but two. They were untrue to principles
in keeping silence at such a moment, but they were not positively and
openly faithless to men, and they vindicated the broad platform of
the original Anti-Slavery agreement. They perceived the derangement
that a hostile and proscriptive organization in Massachusetts would
occasion in the whole Anti-Slavery system of organized action and did
not recognize any such society as a part of the affiliation. But the
feebleness that marked their course, at that trying crisis, deprived
them of the _perfect_ love and confidence that had till then been felt
in them by all the abolitionists. This feebleness and neutrality was,
however, a recommendation to those whose estimation is a dispraise. The
opposer of the cause instinctively felt that, without any change in his
_own_ position, the distance between himself and the New York Committee
was somewhat lessened: while the devoted friends were made aware that
that committee, notwithstanding its activity in keeping in motion the
smaller machinery of the cause, and its ability in conducting the tract
and book department, was yet the weak point of the whole Anti-Slavery
array. All attentive beholders, whether friends or foes, were taught,
by the observation of this period, that the machinery of organization,
with all its systematized and mechanical helps, must be utterly unequal
to obtain emancipation, unless freedom be the moving “spirit within
the wheels;”--that, however efficient may be the appliances and means
that money can set in motion, there are moments when one trumpet-blast
of victorious truth, were worth them all. The friends in Massachusetts
in vain continued to “look southward with upbraiding eye;”--there was
no voice nor any that answered to their condemnation of the base
metal which could not stand the furnace of the times. They therefore
made their own expression of opinion the more emphatic, and their own
testimony the more clear.

The Boston Female Society bore faithful witness to the truth,
notwithstanding the reluctance of its President, Vice-President,
Treasurer, and Recording Secretary. These officers ran well while they
fancied the enterprise under the blessing and direction of a portion of
the ministry. But, no sooner did it appear that they must advance alone
and self-sustained, than they turned to flight, and from that moment
became, in their measure, an obstacle to the cause, and a detriment to
the society hitherto so active.

Let us give one more glance at the position of individuals at this
period.

The appellants, recreant to the three grounds of fidelity in the
Anti-Slavery cause, fidelity to the principles--to the platform--and
to their comrades, were announcing their intention to weep in secret
places. Mr. Phelps, faithful to the first ground, but treacherous
to the two last, was endeavoring, unknown to his comrades of
the Massachusetts Board, to change the original character of
the Society, and at the same time to sustain the office of its
General Agent. Mr. Stanton, the most prominent Agent of the New
York Committee in Massachusetts, was wanting to the fundamental
principle of immediateism, in keeping silence on the _first_ ground
of the appeal;--to the mutual agreement that all sects were, in the
Anti-Slavery cause, on a common platform, in keeping silence on
the _second_ ground of the appeal; and to his brethren personally,
in silently seeing them attacked without standing with them on the
defensive. Instead of this three-fold fidelity, he was declaring it
to be impossible to “screw every body up to this high notch;” and
therefore it had better not be attempted, as the work would be done at
last by men who had not this devoted love for the cause, from political
and interested motives; and that the requisition of higher ones, would
certainly occasion division. The faithful in the cause were earnestly
urging him, and all who were thus wanting to the right, to insist on
the most impregnable fidelity and the most unshaken constancy, as
the only aid worth having, and the only means of holding the mastery
over policy and selfishness; and solemnly warning him that, when that
division, to which he alluded, should take place, the short-sighted,
the weak, the faltering, the treacherous, the unprincipled, the base,
would fall back together; while the deep-thinking, the strong, the
resolute, the faithful, the well-grounded, the noble-souled, would
close up and press onward.

The position of the Massachusetts Society only remains to be
considered. It ceased to defray the expenses of the Liberator from its
treasury, though most of the members would have rejoiced to continue
to do so. But they respected the consciences of the minority, very few
as they believed those to be who _honestly_ opposed the paper, and
determined, since freedom only could obtain freedom, at all events to
avoid the absurdity of infringing on religious liberty.

They concurred with Mr. Garrison in the opinion that the efficacy of
the paper and the consistency of the society would be best preserved
by the cessation of the pecuniary connection, if it gave pain or
embarrassment to the mind of a single contributor to the funds.

This did not greatly mend the matter to those who profaned the sacred
name of conscience, by making it a cloak for malice and for weakness.
Still Mordecai sat in the king’s gate--still it was the abolition of
Massachusetts which sustained the Liberator.

The Society received the natural reward of its faithfulness, in the
increase of its strength. Full of cheerful constancy, and reposing
undiminished confidence in its General Agent, whose short-comings
were known to but few, it pursued its course, rejoicing in freedom,
with renewed determination to impart her life-giving influence to the
enslaved. At the annual meeting of the National Society, an arrangement
was made to obviate that clashing of the fiscal concerns and the
interference of agents with each other’s track, which had been so
troublesome from the first. By this arrangement, no agents were to
labor in Massachusetts but in connection with the wishes of the State
Board of officers, and under their direction. With this understanding,
ten thousand dollars, were to be raised during the year, in this State,
in quarterly payments, for the central treasury at New York. Having
thus cast aside every weight and besetting sin, the society girt itself
afresh, to run with patient swiftness the race set before it.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] Clergymen, he intimated, must not be put forward to do it, as
in that case Mr. Garrison would have a handle by which to repel the
attempt; but _laymen_ must be sought out and employed for the purpose.




CHAPTER III.

THE PLOT.

     Our plot is as good a plot as ever was laid; our friends true and
     constant; a good plot, good friends, and full of expectations:
     an excellent plot; very good friends. * * * Why my lord of YORK
     commends the plot, and the general course of the action.
                                                           SHAKSPEARE.


The difficulties of writing the history of the _past_, are greatly
enhanced by the scantiness of the materials: our own contemporaneous
history on the contrary, seems clogged with their abundance. So many
simultaneous events, seemingly of small consequence, yet all having
an important bearing on each other, and proving, in reality, the
hinges on which the more conspicuous ones turn;--so many threads,
which the insufficiency of narration at once to combine, compels
the writer to drop for a time, although he must finally travel back
to pick them up, or the connections of things will but imperfectly
appear;--no wonder if the Mexican method of preserving the memory of
events by pictures, should seem preferable to our own. A succession
of paintings seems capable of presenting a much clearer view of
contemporaneous transactions, than any arrangement of pages. “Narrative
is linear--action is solid;” and we must overcome the difficulties of
conveying the latter through means of the former, as best we may.

The spirit of Freedom had, by the energy of its advent, struck terror
into the world that comprehended it not. The attempts to check its
advance by means of mobs, were but as the spur in a victorious charge.
The policy of the foes of Freedom became more subtle. It was now their
aim, by counterfeiting the voice of truth, by continually substituting
a false issue for the real one, and by assuming the guise of zeal for
the institutions of religion and government, to operate influentially
and as a check upon the abolition mind.--Though their first attempt,
developed in the preceding chapter, was, on the whole, a signal
failure, owing to the devoted love of abolitionists for their cause and
for each other, yet the hatred of the New England opposition seemed to
deepen as the increase of light and love exposed its malignity. The
position of the ministry, generally, grew more and more uneasy, as the
discrepancy between their claims as ambassadors of Christ, and the
character of their lives as opposed to the requisitions of his gospel,
became apparent.

They had, from the very commencement of the agitation, professed
themselves abolitionists in the abstract, and met the charge of
inconsistency in their practice by strong disapprobation of Mr.
Garrison. One might have thought, from their representations, that
Mr. Garrison possessed a power over their course, by which he could
actually hinder them from doing right. They addressed themselves to
the work of communicating their own prejudices to the minds of their
congregations, and greatly misrepresented both Mr. Garrison and the
Liberator. The most false and derogatory reports were circulated as to
his Christian and moral character. His blameless and excellent life
nullified these efforts with all who knew him; but it is not wonderful
that they should have taken effect in minds at a distance, whose only
avenues to information were the ones which this malicious course choked
up. It was unhesitatingly affirmed that the object of the Liberator was
to abolish the office of the ministry; though its pages were searched
in vain for any evidence of such an object. Nothing could there be
found but proofs that slavery had disqualified the great majority of
the incumbents of that office from exercising it.

It was triumphantly told that the Massachusetts Society had dropped
the Liberator--that Mr. Garrison was a Fanny Wright man--an infidel--a
Sabbath-breaker--a bad and dangerous man--promulgating the doctrines of
the French Jacobins, &c. &c.

An outcry was raised by the enemy without the camp, which was responded
to by the confederates within, that Mr. Garrison was loading the cause
with a burden of extraneous topics. All the careful observers of the
movement were aware of the falsity of this allegation, and testified to
his habitual avoidance of such topics in Anti-Slavery meetings.

In fact, such discussions were always introduced by those who
complained of them the loudest. All the anti-slavery editors were in
the allowed practice of incidentally introducing their own religious
and other opinions, notwithstanding their papers were the organs of
State Societies, and therefore bound to more caution. But it was made a
subject of accusation against Mr. Garrison when he did the same, though
his paper was his own, and he introduced no subjects into it unless
they had a practical bearing on the cause, and were at the same time
considered debateable in all sects. Others might introduce column after
column of extraneous matter: he was publicly accused, for a single
line. Special efforts were made to induce men to cease to subscribe for
the Liberator. It was, like Socrates, termed a corrupter of youth. Men
of high ecclesiastical standing declared that they, though “as much
abolitionists as any one else,” would never unite with the movement for
abolition, as long as Mr. Garrison led the van.

The Rev. Joel Hawes, D. D., of Connecticut, was one of these. Judging
of them from their ominous silence, when sectarianism had been most
violent in its attacks on the integrity of the cause, he felt a
drawing towards the Executive Committee at New York, and fancied them
_altogether_ such ones as himself.

His adhesion had been hailed with joy by abolitionists. They soon found
reason to know that such adherents are more ruinous than open enemies,
to the cause they espouse.

He travelled in Massachusetts, shortly after the New England Convention
of 1838, memorable as the scene of the first attempt to exclude women
from membership in anti-slavery meetings.

A number of clergymen of his own denomination, headed by Mr. Torrey
and Mr. Phelps, had most inconsistently labored to vote away the
freedom and the rights of the female members of that Convention. So
indefinite were their ideas on the whole great subject of rights, that
they overlooked the obvious thought, that no general anti-slavery
convocation could take such ground without denying the fundamental
principle that brought them together. In the horror of their great
darkness on the subject of “_woman’s_ rights,” they trampled on _human_
rights, and the rights of _membership_, in the persons of those women
whom they labored to exclude.

They also deeply wounded the feelings of the great body of the men
there present; few of whom but had occasion to acknowledge, with
grateful affection and respect, how much a mother, wife or sister had
done, in the difficult years that were past, to help and strengthen
them in the labors and sacrifices of the cause.

Women are so accustomed to suffering under the many indignities which
men unconsciously inflict, that in this instance they felt less keenly
for themselves than did their brethren for them, the tyrannical attempt
to assume their responsibilities.

The refusal of the Convention to eject them from their seats, with
the excellent memorial of its Committee, Mr. Johnson, Miss Kelley and
Mr. St. Clair, to the ecclesiastical associations of New-England,
excited much indignation among the ministry, with which Dr. Hawes was
in a state of mind to sympathize. After his return to Connecticut,
he stated, in a letter to a friend, that he had recently visited
Massachusetts, and conversed with several _leading abolitionists
there_: that in reference to the doings of the New England Convention,
they declared that “they could no longer work in such a team,” and
that, unless the Massachusetts Society would take ground in opposition
to this action of the Convention, _there must and should be a new
organization_. Dr. Hawes added, that if he resided in Massachusetts he
should be with them in favor of such a movement.

One spark of true love of Freedom--the feeblest real desire to impart
it to the enslaved, would have overpowered, in his heart, this spirit
of the clerical appeal, and forbade him to identify himself with any
such effort to subvert the broad foundations of the cause or to exclude
any who had borne the burden and heat of the earlier abolition day.

Notwithstanding all the efforts of calumny, bigotry and tyranny,
Mr. Garrison still led the van. There was no help for it. It was a
necessity growing out of the nature of the case, and which could
not be avoided, however much the foe might desire it, and the false
friends labor to accommodate them. There is an efficacy in treacherous
concealment, to “be-darken and confound the mind of man,” or these
Parleys and Flatterwells must have discerned the philosophical
impossibility. But, failing to do so, they went on with their secret
devices.

In all these efforts, the friends of the clerical appeal joined with
great zeal. They had announced the intention of weeping in secret
places, because of its ill success. They were better than their word;
not only weeping, but laboring in secret places. Mr. Torrey, who had,
in the mean time removed from Providence to Salem, was particularly
active. He instituted a vigorous secret correspondence to facilitate
the establishment of a new anti-slavery paper in Massachusetts. He was
now the Secretary of the Essex Co. Society, and, as such, used all the
influence in his power to misrepresent and injure the Liberator; he
intimated that Mr. Garrison had become insufferably idle and negligent,
that his paper was left to printer’s boys and _any body_ to fill up,
that it was demoralizing in its tendency and miserably deficient in
talent; and in conformity with these declarations, he instructed the
agents of the county society to recommend other papers in the towns
where they labored. Having done this, he urged the necessity of a
new paper, because there was such a prejudice against the Liberator,
that it was impossible to get it into sufficient circulation, even to
advertise the county meetings.

He was aided in sowing the new-paper seed, by Mr. Phelps and Mr.
St. Clair. The latter will be recollected as the neophyte of the
Massachusetts Annual Meeting of 1837. The apparent sincerity and
heartiness of his appearance there had recommended him to an agency.
His summary absolution of all the sins of the Liberator, past, present,
_and to come_, was pardoned, as prompted by a good feeling, though too
carelessly expressed.[2] It seemed impossible to believe that he was
insincere, though certainly indiscreet.

In their progress through the country on anti-slavery missions, the
agents of the Massachusetts Society never failed, from the beginning,
to learn how hard it is to be reproached for a righteous man’s name’s
sake. To appreciate the force of their temptation, let the beholder,
for a moment, place himself in their situation. It is in the power of
the minister in almost every parish, to procure them a hearing,--but
he is in combination with his brethren to “put down Garrison.” Is it
wonderful that, instead of silencing the bigot or the slanderer with
the assertion “he is a good man and a faithful abolitionist, and his
opinions on other subjects are no more our business than your own,”
they should have striven to repel their assailants by endeavoring to
draw a line of distinction between him and themselves? Parallel to this
was the course of Peter; unrepented of, it deepens into the darker dye
that marks a Judas.

When men who sought a pretence to avoid the consideration of the
cause, were told that the Massachusetts Board of Managers differed as
widely as themselves from Mr. Garrison’s opinions on other subjects,
their intolerance forbade them to credit the statement. If the
Agents ventured to cast freely off, in the name of the Society, all
responsibility for Mr. Garrison’s individual opinions, and to vindicate
the rectitude and energy of his abolition course from the beginning,
they were obliged to endure the reproach of being “tools of Garrison,”
and singing his praises, when they should rather be employed in
removing such a stumbling-block out of the path of “good men.” A truly
noble soul, thus spurred up to the encounter, would have exclaimed in
the spirit of Bürger:--


     “Thank Heaven for song and praise, that I _can_
     Thus sing the song of the faithful man!”


The enemy, thus met, would have ceased to play so ineffectual a string;
but, perceiving the weakness of the agents of this year, he never
ceased to have recourse to it.

Let not those who have never been tried in such a furnace, condemn,
without pardon and pity, those whose nobility of spirit was not equal
to pass the assay.

There appears to have been, on the part of Mr. Phelps, and the other
agents of this period, an inability to comprehend or appreciate the
just and straight-forward course of the Massachusetts Board, with whom
they were associated, as well as a consciousness that it would never
permit its sanction to be used for their purposes. They therefore
carefully kept their operations secret from the Board, while they were
using its funds and sanction to carry them on, in conjunction with Mr.
Torrey, and Mr. Stanton, the Secretary of the Executive Committee at
New York. All the Summer and Autumn of 1838, the scheme for a new paper
was thus secretly carried on. Mr. Torrey wrote afterwards to a friend,
“the clergymen throughout the State have been sounded; and they are for
it, to a man.”

The plan of a new paper, to be under their own dictation, and in
an attitude of opposition to the man and to the paper whom their
misrepresentations had made odious, could not fail to be approved
by the _ministry_; but to _abolitionists_, a different form of
introduction was found necessary. To them it was represented that
it would aid the Liberator, and that possibly Mr. Garrison might be
induced to become the editor. Its comparative cheapness, too, was an
inducement to some honest minds, who were unaware of its purpose to
effect a division in their ranks.

More than a year had elapsed since the clerical appeal conspiracy. Some
of the appellants had become officers of county Societies. Certain of
their brethren in spirit, as well as in the ministry, had taken the
lead in town Societies;--a creeping movement was in this way going on
among them, to get the control of the organizations; and, co-operating
with it, were the young theologians who had aided the old attempt
against the cause; now, some of them, as the occupants of pulpits,
rejoicing in the opportunity to lend their aid to the new one.

Mr. Phelps, in whom general confidence was yet unimpaired, was every
where warm in his eulogies of Mr. Torrey’s diligence in the cause. But
those who had opportunities of observing his course closely, were made
aware that mischief and diligence are by no means incompatible. His
labors were unremitting to weaken the bonds of relationship between
the County Society and the State Society. The abolitionists of Essex,
generally, saw not the tendency and design of these efforts. They
could be made without suspicion, as the National Society had ever been
a favorite with Massachusetts men, with whom it originated, and who
constitute the largest portion of its efficient members. Such men could
not readily conceive of the possibility of acting in their _County_
capacity or their _National_ capacity, in opposition to themselves in
their State capacity. But the active brains of the Secretary of the
Executive Committee at New York, together with the Secretaries of the
Massachusetts and the Essex County Societies, had devised and cherished
the idea of such a change, though it would necessarily convert the
affiliated Anti-Slavery system from a harmonious whole, into jarring
and discordant divisions. A society had, before this, been formed in
the western part of the State, to be directly auxiliary to the National
Society. This circumstance was unnoticed at the time, except by a few,
who waited for the light of future events by which to interpret its
meaning.

Such disunion and derangement could not be easily effected in the
region where the free spirit first laid the broad foundations of its
organized action. It was necessary to cast about for some plausible
ground on which to create division of feeling, and to proceed upon it
with the utmost caution.

Public sentiment had become so far changed in Massachusetts by the
eight years’ warfare of abolitionists, that ministers were almost
as liable to public censure for an _open_ pro-slavery course, as
for an open advocacy of Freedom. They, of all men, were, in one
sense, justified in the customary declaration that they were “as much
anti-slavery as others;” for they kept careful watch of the times,
that they might not vary from them materially. With all their prudence
and caution, they found this _double_ public a difficult monster to
manage. Though, as a body, they had undergone no change of feeling,
they perceived that their efforts to check the progress of Freedom,
must be made more carefully than ever; and they adopted a tone of great
solicitude for “the _poor_ slave.”

Pity, even when unfeigned, is not principle, any more than “American
Union”[3] was anti-slavery; and in this instance “poor slave” was but
the synonym for hostility to the Massachusetts Society. Well has _cant_
been called “the second power of a lie.”

The additional ground on which a division of feeling preparatory to the
projected outward division was attempted, was the assertion, sedulously
disseminated by Mr. St. Clair, Mr. Torrey, Mr. Stanton, and Mr. Phelps,
that the Massachusetts Society was a “no-government Society.” Of this
the only proof was, that it had not ostracised Mr. Garrison. It was
argued that the Constitution of the Massachusetts Society required the
use of every means sanctioned by law, humanity and religion; therefore
Mr. Garrison and all other Non-Resistants who decline exercising the
elective franchise, were, by the terms of the Constitution, excluded
from the Society.

“Political action,” adverted to in the Constitution, now had a new
definition affixed to it. It was defined by one of this new school to
mean _poll-itical_ action, or action at the _polls_.

This logic, though very efficacious among those who had rather see
the battle rage round the polls than round the pulpit, produced but
little effect on the real abolitionists. “Law _and_ humanity _and_
religion;” they said----“Well! these must, by the Constitution of the
Society, _conjunctively_ agree upon the means to be employed, and each
man was _of course_ to be his _own_ judge of their requisitions; for
there never would have been a Constitution or a Society on any _other_
understanding. Law! Well; the _law_ sanctions my restoration of a
fugitive slave, should I deem such a propitiation of the master likely
to produce a happy effect in hastening a general emancipation. Am I
therefore bound to do it? No! for my humanity and religion interpose
their veto. But, what if Mr. Garrison’s humanity and religion forbid
him to vote? _I_ cannot see why they should, but that’s _his_ look-out
as an individual--not mine as an abolitionist:--and the Constitution of
the Massachusetts Society covers us both.”

Such plain blunt reasonings could put to flight the assumption that
voting at the polls was a test of membership: but of course it did
but increase the bitterness of feeling of those who sought a cause of
offence against the Society, to find none.

That Mr. Garrison was personally aimed at, and the Massachusetts
Society also, because it would not consent to his ignominious
expulsion, no one doubted, who was at the receipt of clerical custom.
The _on dits_ were plentiful, authenticated and conclusive. “Garrison
has too much influence,” said one. “We must take it down little by
little.” “Have you got Garrison down yet?” said another; “we are ready
to come in when he is out of the way.” “All the Massachusetts meetings
are mere Garrison-glorifications,” said a third; “they forget the
_poor slave_.” “Oh, the Massachusetts Society is the mere creature of
Garrison,” said a fourth. “So many good abolitionists as there are in
the State, opposed to him, why not get rid of him at once?” said the
outside row. “All in good time--a new paper first, as the organ of the
Society--and we can make advantageous changes in the Board of Managers
also, _as they wish to resign_,”--replied the inner circle, that were
most closely hemming round the Massachusetts Society, with hostility in
the disguise of friendship.

Charitable judgment is an excellent thing. _Possibly_, Arnold thought
that the revolutionary principles might be promoted by giving up
Washington to the discontents of the factious, and the demands of
the foe; and exactly the same possibility exists that these men
of great professions and hitherto unattainted names, were sincere
blunderers,--not treacherous apostates. An excellent thing _in its
place_, is charitable judgment. Whether its place be to refuse to see
or to sum up evidence, admits of controversy.

The accusations against the Massachusetts Society, however, appeared,
on _evidence_, to be unfounded. Its Board of Managers had issued an
address to abolitionists preparatory to the political campaign, and
had concentrated their agents upon the fourth Congressional District,
where the political parties were so nicely matched against each other,
that the abolitionists, though but the dust of the balance, might, it
was hoped, by successive defeats of the election, at length procure
a candidate from one or the other party on whom they could unite.
This one fact of the personal labors and concentration of effort for
political effect on the part of the Managers of the Society, presented
itself to every mind and neutralized the misrepresentations that were
so industriously circulated. In reality, the whole force of the Society
had been bent to this one point; and the Board, knowing that the County
Societies were deeply pledged in the matter of funds, relied upon
abolitionists in their _county_ capacity to raise the money now due to
the National Society, on the Massachusetts pledge.

At this juncture, one of the faithful friends in Andover, was startled
by the reception of a letter from Mr. Torrey, so explicit as to rouse
him at once to a perception of the meaning and tendencies of things,
which, till then, had escaped his notice. The letter dwelt on the great
influence of Mr. Garrison in Massachusetts, and thence argued that
it would not be safe to attack him or the Liberator openly;--on the
great need of a new paper;--which he, (Mr. Torrey) had ascertained
by sounding the clergymen throughout the State; and they were for it
to a man. “Now, Brother ----, have on a full delegation at the Annual
Meeting, at 10 o’clock in the morning, prepared to stay two days. Have
them pledged to go for the new paper, and to _spar_ the annual report,
and we will show them how it is done.”

Upon the reception of this letter, those who had been wont to keep
watch and ward over the interests of the cause in Essex, met and
decided to communicate instantly with other friends, that, if possible,
the evil might be subdued in this stage of its progress.

Dr. Farnsworth, of Middlesex, with whose own observation and experience
their intelligence harmonized, instantly suggested to Mr. Garrison the
idea of removing all their pretensions for such a paper by issuing a
small cheap sheet of exclusively Anti-Slavery matter. Mr. Garrison,
from whom, though in almost daily communication with Mr. Phelps, Mr.
St. Clair and Mr. Stanton, their whole plan had been carefully kept,
could hardly credit so treacherous a proceeding.

Had an honest desire for a new paper been entertained, _he_, surely,
whose note of joyous exultation had welcomed the appearance of every
new anti-slavery periodical, should have been among the first whose
aid was sought; and, that the plan had _not_ reached his ears, seemed
to him to prove conclusively, that at least those brethren of the
Society with whom he had daily intercourse, could not be engaged in
it. Relying on Dr. Farnsworth’s good judgment, he, however, decided to
issue the specimen number of the periodical proposed.

But, as day after day brought fresh proof of a skilfully arranged plan
of secret action against the Massachusetts Society, his mind misgave
him as to the efficiency of any paper he might issue, to stay its
progress, and he relinquished the idea.

Dr. Farnsworth, meanwhile, receiving no information of this, continued
diligently to prepare the way in Middlesex County for the expected
sheet. Of these labors, the enemies of the Liberator took advantage,
and artfully represented his honest efforts for a paper which should
subserve the pending election, and, at the same time remove all
pretence for setting on foot an influence hostile to the Liberator, as
a part of their own plan.

Singular symptoms were noticed in the political management of the
Fourth District. Without consulting either the Massachusetts or the
Middlesex County Board, Mr. Stanton undertook the task of determining
on whom the abolitionists should scatter their votes. Somewhat
remarkable was his selection of the Rev. J. T. Woodbury,--the man
who, in 1836, had thrown down the gauntlet to the pro-slavery church;
and, in 1837, lacked the moral force to sustain the pressure of the
antagonism he had impulsively sought; the man against whose commission
as a local agent by the New York Executive Committee, the Massachusetts
Board formally remonstrated when they found him a participant in the
clerical appeal.

Deeper solicitude for the cause would have shown him that men who fail
in the “cushioned seat ecclesiastical,” cannot faithfully discharge the
equally weighty responsibilities of the Congressional one. The evil
considerations that temptingly beset the latter, are as numerous--their
angelic disguises as complete. But Mr. Stanton’s own course, during
that year, had not been such as to make his soul more keenly alive to
the sacred beauty of fidelity.

Dr. Farnsworth’s continually increasing knowledge of the machinations
now on foot, increased his sense of the necessity of a counteracting
influence; and, with a faithfulness which was undamped by the apparent
neglect which had met his first warning, he continued to urge on the
members of the Massachusetts Board, the necessity of a new cheap
periodical, as their organ, to be edited by Mr. Garrison; _monthly_ if
they thought best, though in his judgment a _weekly_ issue would more
effectually remove the pretences of those who were laboring for the
destruction of the Liberator.

When this proposition was formally presented to the Board by Mr.
Garrison, Mr. Phelps chanced to be absent; but Mr. Eayrs, a member with
whom Mr. Phelps was on terms of confidence which he did not extend to
all the other members, remarked that it would be better to postpone any
action of this kind, as there would probably be changes in the Board at
the annual meeting. So innocent were some of the members of the Board
of any knowledge of what was practising against them, and so repugnant
was suspicion to their natures, that those of them whose eyes had not
been recently opened by personal experiences, honestly supposed that
such a paper might satisfy the alleged demand; and, after a few days’
delay, on account of Mr. Phelps’s absence, it was decided to issue
three thousand copies of a specimen number, Messrs. Garrison, Phillips
and Quincy to be an editorial committee. On learning this, Mr. Phelps
said, with much agitation, that such a paper would by no means answer
the demand. His words and his manner were a sufficient assurance that
the plot had gone too far to be arrested by any possible effort of
the Massachusetts Board, and all their energies were now bent to the
painful task of hastening its complete development.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] “Of Mr. Garrison I will say, as the Pope said of his minion, I
will absolve him of all the sins he ever has committed, or ever will
commit.”--_Speech of Mr. St. Clair in 1837._

[3] A scheme so called, for benefiting the colored race, without giving
offence by the mention of Freedom, or Human Rights.




CHAPTER IV.

THE WARNING.

     The task of _such_ an editor, Mr. President, is an arduous and
     thankless one. He must shield his friends by movements for which
     they will be apt to censure him. He must save the cause by the
     very blows from which the apparently judicious will anticipate
     its annihilation. He must stand on an eminence from which he can
     see what other men cannot see. He must be eyes to the blind,
     whose want of eye-sight will lead them to make war upon their
     benefactor. He must rouse men from their dangerous sleep, who,
     while they begin to see men as trees walking, will murmur because
     they are waked, and instead of thanking their deliverer, find
     fault with the rudeness that disturbed them, and assume to give
     directions when they should be beginning to learn. WILLIAM GOODELL.


Time, which waits for no man, but keeps on, with even foot-fall,
whether witness of right or wrong, frankness and openness, or chicanery
and intrigue, brought round the year 1839.

Mr. Torrey, who had represented his county as crying out for a new
paper, till possibly the echo of his own voice might have led him to
think his testimony true, now found a feeling waking up in Old Essex
that he had not anticipated. The women there, with whom, in the spirit
of a true mussulman, he had, a few months previous, considered it
defilement to sit in Convention, had always been most effectual helpers
of the financial department of the cause. Some of them had been among
the earliest laborers; and, experienced in observing the pertinacity
with which the enemy, from the beginning, had striven to possess
himself of the fortress, by striking down the warder of the gate, were
startled by Mr. Torrey’s great zeal for a new paper. They compared
it with his hatred of the Liberator, so manifest during the clerical
appeal controversy, and took note, from time to time, of the manner in
which he argued this new necessity.

They found that, like the Colonization Society, the necessity had two
faces; one for the real and the other for the pretended abolitionist.
They saw that this “necessity” was founded on prejudice against the
Liberator, as the Colonization Society rests upon prejudice against the
free man of color.


     “Oh, surer than suspicion’s hundred eyes,
     Is that fine sense, which, to the pure in heart,
     By mere oppugnancy of their own goodness,
     Reveals the approach of evil.”


They decided to strengthen the Liberator for the coming emergency, and
raised $500 for its support.

This appropriation operated like an Ithuriel spear upon the craft
of the confederated opposers. It had been their policy to represent
their proposed periodical as likely to _aid_ the circulation of the
Liberator. Now, Mr. Torrey pronounced this appropriation a highly
improper one. He put his condemnation of the measure into the shape of
a general principle. “An _Anti-Slavery_ Society, aiding the circulation
of the _Boston Recorder_, the _Liberator_, or any other such irrelevant
periodical! it would meet strong opposition at Lynn.” He mistook, from
inability to appreciate, the abolitionists of that neighborhood. That
indefinable sensation began to stir through the anti-slavery ranks
which betokens a conflict. The “oppugnancy” rose in every true heart
near the scene of action; but so craftily had the enemy wrought, that
the danger was, lest he should accomplish his ends before he could be
unmasked to the general gaze. Men who saw not the causes, observed the
whirl and eddy of the current of events. The feeling was like that
described by Max. Piccolomini, before the revolt of Friedland.


                           ----“Something,
     I can’t but know, is going forward round me.
     I see it gathering--crowding--driving on,
     In wild uncustomary movements. Well--
     In due time, it will doubtless reach even me.”


There was a breathless and impatient looking for.

Indications of the exact course that the miners and sappers were
pursuing, now came to light. Mr. St. Clair, still an agent of
the Massachusetts Board, left in their office a rough draught of
resolutions to effect a fatal change in the basis of the Massachusetts
Society, making it exclusive and sectarian, by a rejection of all as
consistent members, who did not sustain the government of the country
at the polls. The establishment of a new paper was also enjoined, in
terms the necessary effect of which was destructive of the Liberator.
These resolutions were endorsed by Mr. Torrey, thus:


     “Good. I think, now, such resolutions should have been presented
     at the Essex County Meeting at Amesbury Mills. CHARLES T. TORREY.”


The plan was, to carry the State by counties and by towns, and then to
crowd up to the grand annual meeting in irresistible strength, to give
the finishing blow.

The next meeting of consequence was that of the Worcester County
Society, (north division,) at Fitchburg. There, Mr. St. Clair
introduced the new ideas, by means of the projected resolutions. At
the close of the meeting, after most of the friends had retired, and
against the wishes of some who remained, he persisted in presenting
them. They were adopted, after speeches from himself and the Rev.
Mr. Colver, by the raising of five or six hands; probably without a
perception of their design and tendency on the part of that few.


     FITCHBURG RESOLUTIONS.

     Whereas, slavery is the creature of legislation, upheld and
     supported by law, and is to be abolished by law, and by law only;
     and

     Whereas, in order to secure its legal overthrow, the legislative
     bodies having power over the same must be composed of good men and
     true, who will go for its immediate abolition; and

     Whereas, it is impossible to obtain such a legislative body,
     unless abolitionists carry their principles to the ballot-box, and
     vote only for men of this character; and

     Whereas, it is impossible to urge this duty on the consideration
     of abolitionists without an able paper, which will take this
     ground and maintain it _consistently, firmly and constantly_:
     Therefore,

     Resolved, 1st, That, in the opinion of this Society, every
     abolitionist is in duty bound, not to content himself with merely
     refusing to vote for any man who is opposed to the emancipation of
     the slave, BUT TO GO TO THE POLLS, AND THROW HIS VOTE FOR SOME
     MAN KNOWN TO FAVOR IT.

     2d. That it is his imperious duty to make inalienable human
     rights the first and paramount principles in political action;
     and, when any two candidates for Congress or the State
     Legislature are put in nomination, one for and the other against
     the immediate abolition of slavery, he is in duty bound to
     vote for the abolitionist, independent of all other political
     considerations;--or, if neither candidate be of this description,
     then he is equally bound to go to the polls, and vote for some
     true man in opposition to them both, and to do all he can,
     lawfully, to defeat their election.

     3d. That a weekly and ably-conducted anti-slavery paper, which
     shall take right, high, and consistent ground on this subject,
     and constantly urge abolitionists, as in duty bound, to use their
     political, as well as their moral and religious power and rights
     for the immediate overthrow of slavery, is now greatly needed in
     Massachusetts, as has been but too plainly proved at the expense
     of the cause, by difficulties which have been experienced in
     the Fourth Congressional District, in reaching the anti-slavery
     electors on the subject of their political duties.

     4th. That we therefore earnestly recommend to the Board of
     Managers of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, or to the
     Society itself at its next annual meeting, to establish a paper of
     this description--of about the size and price of the Herald of
     Freedom--to be issued every week to subscribers--to be exclusively
     confined to slavery and abolition--to urge constantly, political
     as well as moral and religious action--to be edited by some able,
     efficient man, who can conscientiously and heartily advocate all
     these points--and to be under the entire control of the Executive
     Committee of the State Society.

     5th. That we desire every County and Town Society, which may hold
     a meeting previous to the annual meeting of the State Society, to
     take up and pass an opinion on this subject.


These resolutions were lithographed and sent to the officers of
Societies, by Mr. Phelps, Mr. St. Clair, and Mr. Torrey, accompanied by
earnest injunctions to county meetings to send up great delegations to
the annual meeting, instructed to carry them through, with assurances
to such as they could not fully trust, that “they were opposed to
nothing but dough-face-ism.”

In the same number of the Liberator in which the resolutions appeared,
an unanticipated obstacle to their design was also announced. The
President of the Massachusetts Society, though neither peace man nor
perfectionist, but one who, individually, considered it his duty to use
his elective franchise, took charge of the financial concerns of the
Liberator, in conjunction with two of his colleagues of the Board; and
in their individual capacity they gave notice to the public of their
reasons for so doing. That paper was, in their view identified with
the anti-slavery cause in a manner that could be affirmed of no other
print, not only from the circumstance of its having been the first, but
more strongly, because of the faithfulness, constancy, and disregard of
peril and persecution; the excellence of character editorial talent,
and intuitive sagacity, of its conductor. And because they thought
those qualities never more needed than at that moment, they called upon
all who loved the cause to stand by the Liberator. It was signed by
Francis Jackson, William Bassett, and Edmund Quincy.

Here was an unexpected blow:--A contradiction of calumnies, a financial
security, a politician’s attestation to the value of the Liberator,
combined in one view, before the eyes of the anti-slavery community.
It was done, too, without any claim on the part of the doers, that the
Liberator should sink from being the organ of all in the cause who
chose to use it, into the mere instrument of a few. This was prophetic
of stout resistance to the narrow, exclusive, and enslaving spirit
which had so long wrought in secret, to undermine the broad foundations
of the anti-slavery cause.

The shrewd proverb of the lookers-on during revolutions, says that


     “Treason never prospers: what’s the reason?
     When it prospers, men don’t _call_ it treason.”


Happily for the slave, at this critical instant, there were not wanting
men to _call_ out “Treason!” against this whole procedure, irrespective
of its probable success, in that soul-cleaving and victorious voice
which carries with it instant conviction.

It is interesting to observe the course of men in peculiar and trying
times, and to notice the strong contrasts of character and conduct that
such times present.

Mr. Phelps, Mr. Stanton, Mr. Torrey, and Mr. St. Clair were hurrying
from meeting to meeting with the Fitchburg resolutions, or driving
the quill over quires of paper, urging the instant convocation of the
societies for the introduction of the new paper, saying that it was not
intended to be in opposition to the old, but only introduced because
nine out of ten of the abolitionists in the State _would not_ take the
Liberator,--that it would probably be adopted with great unanimity as
the organ of the State Society, at the Annual Meeting--and dwelling
strongly on the importance of sending up large delegations, instructed
to vote in its favor.

Mr. Garrison stood calmly watching the aspect of the times, and when
the signs were full, he raised the note of warning--


     “WATCHMAN, WHAT OF THE NIGHT?”

     The annual meeting of the State Anti-Slavery Society will be held
     in this city on the 23d inst. There are many indications which
     lead us to regard it as pregnant with momentous consequences to
     the abolition cause in this section of the country. Perhaps at
     no period has there been so much cause for just alarm as at the
     present. Strong foes are without, insidious plotters are within
     the camp. A conflict is at hand,--if the signs of the times do not
     deceive us,--which is to be more hotly contested, and which will
     require more firmness of nerve and greater singleness of purpose,
     (combined with sleepless vigilance and unswerving integrity,) than
     any through which we have passed to victory. Once more, therefore,
     we would speak trumpet-tongued--sound an alarm-bell--light up a
     beacon-fire--give out a new watch-word--so that there may be a
     general rallying of our early, intrepid, storm-proof, scarred and
     veteran coadjutors, at the coming anniversary,--all panoplied as
     of yore, and prepared to give battle to internal contrivers of
     mischief, as readily as to external and avowed enemies.

     The danger which now threatens all that is pure and vital in our
     cause, is two-fold and complex. From the commencement of our
     sacred struggle, we have been resisted by every religious sect,
     and made by turns the foot-ball of every political party. As
     among all sects and all parties, there are some who will never
     bow the knee to Baal, but are resolved to follow RIGHT and TRUTH
     through flood and fire, come what may--these, by the irresistible
     affinity of principle, have come into our ranks, repudiating every
     sectarian distinction, every party badge, and refusing to march
     under any other banner than that of HUMANITY. Bravely have they
     contended, cheerfully have they suffered, in the cause of their
     enslaved countrymen; and nobly have they withstood a thousand wily
     artifices to seduce them from their post. And they will persevere
     unto the end.


       “Tempt them with bribes, ’twill be in vain;
       Try them with fire, you’ll find them true.”


     But all external opposition, in whatever form it may appear,
     is harmless, compared to internal sedition.--And with pain we
     avow it, there is a deep scheme laid by individuals, at present
     somewhat conspicuous, as zealous and active abolitionists, to put
     the control of the anti-slavery movements in this Commonwealth
     into other hands. This scheme, of course, is of clerical origin,
     and the prominent ringleaders fill the clerical office. One of the
     most restless was a participant in the famous “Clerical Appeal”
     conspiracy,--though not one of the immortal FIVE. The design is,
     by previous management and drilling, to effect such a change in
     the present faithful and liberal-minded Board of Managers of the
     State Society, at the annual meeting, as will throw the balance
     of power into the hands of a far different body of men, for the
     accomplishment of ulterior measures which are now in embryo.--The
     next object is, to effect the establishment of a new weekly
     anti-slavery journal, to be the organ of the State Society, for
     the purpose, if not avowedly, yet designedly to subvert the
     Liberator, and thus relieve the abolition cause in this State of
     the odium of counteracting such a paper. Then----make way for the
     clergy! For, by “hanging Garrison,” and repudiating the Liberator,
     they will surely condescend to take the reins of anti-slavery
     management into their own hands!

     The plot, thus far, has been warily managed,--so as, if possible,
     to “deceive the very elect.” Many, we know, are already ensnared,
     and some, at least, who neither intend nor suspect mischief.
     The guise in which it is presented, is one of deep solicitude
     for the success of our cause. No attempt is made to lower down
     the standard--O no!--but simply to change the men to whom has
     been so long entrusted the management of the enterprize, and
     put in their place younger men, better men, who will accomplish
     wonders, and perform their duties more faithfully--that’s all!
     While, privately, by conversation, letters, circulars, &c. &c.
     every effort is making to disparage the Liberator, (the paper
     is too tame for these rampant plotters!) and to calumniate its
     editor, no hostility to either is to be openly avowed! Far from
     it; for honesty in this case might not, peradventure, prove to
     be the best policy.--The shape in which this new project is to
     be urged, is developed in the resolutions which were adopted at
     the recent meeting of the Worcester County North Division A.
     S. Society, at Fitchburgh. Those resolutions were concocted in
     Essex County, by the joint labors of two clergymen, and passed as
     above stated,--only four or five hands, we learn, being raised in
     their favor. The plan is, it seems, to get as many anti-slavery
     societies committed in favor of these resolutions, before the
     annual meeting, as possible. The _political_ necessity which is
     urged for another paper is ridiculous; and we know it is nothing
     but a hollow pretence.

     The trusty friends of our good cause, and all who desire to
     baffle the machinations of a clerical combination, will need no
     other notice than this, to induce them to rally at the annual
     meeting, and watch with jealousy and meet with firmness every
     attempt, however plausibly made, to effect any material change
     in the management of the concerns of the State Society. The
     spirit that would discard such men as Francis Jackson, Ellis Gray
     Loring, Samuel E. Sewall, Edmund Quincy, and Wendell Phillips, is
     treacherous to humanity.

     As a specimen of the billing and cooing which is going on
     between gentlemen of the sacerdotal robe, in order to bring
     about a radical alteration in anti-slavery control, read the
     following extract from a recent letter of the Rev. Dr. Osgood,
     of Springfield, to Prof. Emerson, of the Theological Seminary at
     Andover:

     “I do not say these things to palliate the conduct of these
     writers in the anti-slavery papers who have poured such _torrents
     of abuse_ upon the non-conformists among the clergy. I have ever
     spoken freely about many of these communications, both to friends
     and opposers. I think there has been _a bad spirit_ manifested
     on the side of the abolitionists toward the opposing clergy; or,
     if you please, those who stand aloof and do nothing. I do most
     sincerely hope that my brethren who _like you_ (!) hate slavery,
     but still remain neuter, (!) will calmly review the whole ground,
     and sacrifice all minor considerations, and work with us in
     this cause. I see no insuperable objections. I desire this the
     more ardently, because the character of the ministry suffers,
     in the estimation of many good men, by the course they pursue,
     while the enemies of all righteousness take occasion to thrust
     a sword into the vitals of religion itself, through the clergy.
     Mr. Garrison, sir, is not the principal offender in this matter;
     [very gentle!]--he is made answerable, as a public editor, for the
     conduct of others. But ☞ _our brethren_ [such men as Moses Stuart
     and Ralph Emerson!] _can easily take the sword out of the hand of
     these_ VIOLENT AND PREJUDICED MEN. ☜ ☞ And I trust they will soon
     do it EFFECTUALLY, by some course of ACTION. _The cause would be
     greatly promoted by their co-operation”!!_ ☜


Wendell Phillips, the same who took the brunt of the battle at
Faneuil Hall, upon the day when men met there to wash their hands of
Lovejoy’s murder, was among the foremost to detect the subtler form of
danger. His letter to the financial committee of the Liberator, which
appeared in the next column to the call of the watchman, stripped
the opposition of their disguises, with a firm and dexterous hand.
It exhibits, in a condensed form, the mind of one who had knowledge
of the cause throughout the State, as a lecturer and a manager of
the Society, and throughout the land, as an acute and philosophical
observer. In politics, a voter,--in theology, a Calvinist,--in church
government, a congregationalist,--looking on these things from the
same point of view with those who were laboring for the destruction of
Freedom, toleration and fraternal confidence in the cause, he came to
diametrically opposite conclusions.--


     “The _heart’s_ aye the part aye,
     That makes us right or wrong.”


     LETTER OF WENDELL PHILLIPS.

     _Messrs. Jackson, Quincy, and Bassett_:

     DEAR SIRS--I wish to express to you the satisfaction which the
     new arrangements for the Liberator have given me. They will gain
     for it a wider circulation and more permanent usefulness. I feel
     not merely for the paper itself--though it would give me pain, I
     confess, to see the first banner which was unfurled in our cause,
     which has braved for so many years the battle and the breeze,
     having lived down its enemies, sink at last from the coldness
     of its friends. But, apart from this, I regard the success of
     the Liberator as identical with that of the abolition cause
     itself. Though so bitterly opposed, it does more to disseminate,
     develope and confirm our principles, than any other publication
     whatever. The spirit which produced, still animates it, and with
     magnetic influence draws from all parts of society every thing
     like around it. Other measures may suit different circumstances,
     and other parts of the country; but here, and now, the spirit of
     the Liberator is the touchstone of true hearts. Almost all the
     opposition it has met with, various as it seems, springs from one
     cause. At starting, some who agreed with its principles denounced
     it as “foul-mouthed and abusive;” next, the occasional expression
     of some individual opinions of its editor, gained it the name
     of “irreligious and Jacobin;”--and now some point to its peace
     views as infidel in their tendency, and a stumbling-block in our
     way. Under all these disguises have men concealed their motives,
     sometimes even from themselves.

     The real cause of this opposition, in my opinion, is the
     fundamental principle upon which the Liberator has been
     conducted:--that rights are more valuable than forms; that
     truth is a better guide than prescription; that no matter how
     much truth a sect embodies, no matter how useful a profession
     may be, no matter how much benefit any form of government may
     confer--still they are all but dust in the balance when weighed
     against the protection of human rights, the discussion and
     publication of great truths; that all forms of human device are
     worse than useless, when they stand in Truth’s way. These are
     its principles;--frank, fearless single-heartedness, the utmost
     freedom of thought and speech, its characteristics. If we fail to
     impress these on each abolition heart, our efforts are paralyzed,
     and our cause is lost. Pride of settled opinion, love of lifeless
     forms, undue attachments to sect, are its foes.

     With the fullest charity for all conscientious scruples, and
     dissenting, as I do, from the peace-views of the Liberator, I
     cannot see how their discussion, conducted in a Christian spirit,
     and with sincere love of truth, can offend the conscience of any
     man. Limited to a brief space, as it is, it can have no effect
     on the general character of the paper. I mean to give all my
     influence, (and, in this crisis, when the paper so much needs
     its friends, I wish that influence were greater,) to gain it the
     confidence, and pour its spirit into the mind of every one I can
     reach. I shall esteem it a privilege to second your efforts. The
     danger I most dread is, to have our cause fall under the control
     of any party, sect, or profession. That way ruin lies. The
     chiefest bulwark against it, I know of, is the Liberator. Success
     to it. May it have the cordial support of every abolition heart.

     Yours, truly,
     WENDELL PHILLIPS.

     Boston, Jan. 7th, 1839.


Troubles, however different in their nature, always seem to have
fellowship with each other. At this juncture, while the Anti-Slavery
community in Massachusetts were laboring under the pain and
astonishment of the recent development, came a Sub-Committee,
consisting of Mr. Leavitt and Mr. Stanton, from New York, to say that,
as the stated payments due to the National Treasury were unpaid, the
contract became null and void.[4]

The Massachusetts Board could not, as lawyers, or as men of business,
admit this to be the case; but, anxious to discharge the obligation,
they came to the following resolution, in the presence of the New York
Committee.


     “Resolved, That the Executive Committee be invited to send their
     agents into the State, and take any other measures they may
     deem best, to collect the amount due on the pledge made by this
     society, and to become due on the first of February, and to remit
     the whole to the treasury of the Massachusetts Society, under the
     promise that the same shall be _immediately_ and _wholly_ remitted
     to New York; and that in the collection of the same, they be
     authorised to receive the amount of pledges hitherto made to the
     Massachusetts Society.”


They hoped, by this, to open a way for the instant redemption of the
pledge, through the means of the friendly co-operation of the New York
Committee, and trusted that the rash, unbusiness-like and unbrotherly
nullification of so necessary an arrangement, would be avoided.

To the surprise of the Massachusetts men, who _then_ could perceive no
sufficient motive for such a course, the New York Committee declined
to accept these terms. Were they suffering for the money? Why then
did they not take the readiest and the best way to get it?--_through_
the Massachusetts Society,--not _over_ it? Did they love peace and
unity? Why then for one moment hesitate? They were invited to send in
their agents, and take any other means they might deem best, under the
arrangement of the preceding June. What more ought brethren and honest
men to desire? What more could be accomplished by _their_ plan, of
going on as if the Massachusetts Society were not in existence? _One_
thing more it could not _fail_ to accomplish,--the destruction of the
Massachusetts Society. Was it possible that the New York brethren had
_aimed_ at that? _Were_ it so, they could not better have hit the
mark than by coming at that painful moment, to envenom a financial
embarrassment which, singly, could have been so easily met, by mingling
it with the poisoned sources of difficulty that had just been laid
bare. They came for money, at a moment when the state treasury was
found empty--the state agents proved treacherous, the state energies
bent upon working out a political demonstration in the eyes of the
whole country. And because, under all these difficulties, a part of the
money had not been paid when it became due, they refused to collect
it, _with_ permission, for the mere pleasure, it seemed, of collecting
it _without_ permission. If they were unwilling to acknowledge,
even in form, the existence of the Massachusetts Society, what was
the legitimate inference? Did the Committee really agree with the
slaveholder, and his soul-guard from the truth,--the associations of
the ministry, that the Massachusetts Society _ought_ to be destroyed?

Massachusetts men deemed it a virtue to repel these thoughts, which
the conduct of the New York Committee could not fail to suggest. They
shrunk from the pain of beholding and weighing the evidence of a want
of fraternal confidence, and devotion to the cause. They were doomed
for this weakness, to feel soon, in their own persons, how much better
it is to judge our fellows by _their_ deeds, than by our _own_ hopes or
_fears_.

FOOTNOTE:

[4] For the terms of this contract and the occasion of its necessity,
see pages 10 and 47.




CHAPTER V.

THE DENOUEMENT.

     What _we would think_, is not the question here.
     The affair speaks for itself, and clearest proofs.--SCHILLER.


The annual meeting of the Massachusetts Society was the time proposed
by the confederated agents and secretaries of the National and
Massachusetts Societies, for the full development of their plans. Like
children playing at draughts, they had calculated their own game,
but not the counteracting moves of their antagonists. Mr. Garrison’s
unexpected trumpet-blast, threw them into confusion. They were ignorant
of the extent of his knowledge, and, in their consternation, did the
exact thing, that innocence would by its nature have necessarily
avoided--denied the existence of any plot.

Mr. Garrison had spoken of two clergymen in Essex County. Mr. Torrey
and Mr. St. Clair, like Scrub in the comedy, were “sure he was talking
of them,” and went into a labored denial and explanation; all of
which, when examined and condensed, demonstrated that a great amount
of time and labor, and by means of the agents and the funds of the
Massachusetts and National Societies, had been privately expended in
sowing the seed of the new paper.

Mr. Phelps, to whom Mr. Garrison had not alluded, identified himself
with the plot, in a series of letters, whose remarkable bitterness
was charitably imputed by some to the peevishness of recent illness.
Others there were, who received these letters as a proclamation to
all concerned, that the writer was no longer “Mr. Garrison’s Brother
Phelps;” and as an evidence that the threat of the Recorder had
effected its purpose.

The Anti-Slavery Office became a scene of deep interest, both to the
devoted friend of the cause, and to the close observer of human nature,
while the tide of inquiring comers was on the flood. The innocent
regularly brought confirmation that the alarm-note of Mr. Garrison was
most fortunately timed. They all recollected some incomprehensible
circumstance on which the recent developments had shed a flood of
light. Some recalled a conversation with “your agent,” some, a remark
of “our secretary,” hinting at a change in the Board, or a way by which
clerical opponents might be gained over to the cause; “for we must have
all these men.” Abundance of sayings came to mind, by which, when first
uttered, they had been exceedingly puzzled, and had finally laid aside
as jests or incomprehensible:--having the master-key, they could now
unlock them all. Notes and letters by the dozen were forth-coming, from
Mr. Torrey and others, marked “confidential.” His correspondents now
began to feel that silence was crime. An eagerness to give and receive
information, marked the innocent. Not so the guilty. They vehemently
denied the existence of any plot,--said that Mr. Garrison was unfit to
be entrusted with any important post in the cause, that Non-Resistants
were not properly abolitionists,--that slavery was the creature of
law--that votes made it, and votes only could unmake it--that though
the Liberator did in its columns advocate political action, it was
inconsistent in so doing, and that they thought a new paper absolutely
necessary.

In this position, the day of the annual meeting found the conflicting
principles and men. Bigotry and sectarism were pitted against
religious liberty and Christian love,--openness and candor against
craft and concealment,--treachery against fidelity,--falsehood against
truth, and, (for things that are equal to the same things are equal to
one another,) freedom against bondage.

It was the largest anti-slavery gathering ever witnessed in
Massachusetts, and a noble sight it was to look upon. It preserved its
original heterogeneous character, being composed of old and young,
men and women; of every sect, party, condition and color, all filled
with the most absorbing interest. Well might every eye be rivetted,
and every heart wrapped in earnest attention. It was a turning point
in the cause. A strong and mighty wind had come to winnow the wheat
from the chaff; the crooked was to be made straight--the hidden was to
be revealed:--expectation was wrought up to the top of its bent. The
report of the Board of Managers, written by Mr. Garrison, was first
read. Men looked wonderingly at one another. “Is this the report that
we received such earnest entreaties to come and vote down? we find no
fault in it. Are these the opinions of our board of officers, which it
is represented to us as so desirable, for opinion’s sake, to change?
perhaps we might look farther, and find worse.”

The report was laid aside to afford opportunity for the utterance of
the thoughts which were swelling up, to find vent in every mind. The
business committee, desirous of affording every facility to debate,
opened the way by the introductions of the following resolutions.


     Resolved, That the state of the Anti-Slavery cause in this
     Commonwealth demands the establishment of an ably-conducted,
     cheap, official organ, to be under the control of the Board of
     Managers of the State Society, issued weekly to subscribers; to
     advocate political as well as moral and religious action; to be
     exclusively confined to the object of the Anti-Slavery cause, and
     edited by a man or men, who can conscientiously, heartily and
     consistently advocate all the anti-slavery measures, political
     as well as moral action; and that the salary of the editor or
     editors, together with all other necessary expenses thereof, be
     paid out of the funds of the Society.

     Resolved, That the Board of Managers are hereby instructed to make
     arrangements, if practicable, with the proprietors and editor of
     the Liberator, to make that paper the organ aforesaid, and under
     the above restriction; or, if that cannot be done, that they
     take measures, as soon as practicable, to establish an organ, as
     recommended in the resolutions passed by the Worcester County
     North Division Anti-Slavery Society, at its late annual meeting in
     Fitchburg.


Mr. St. Clair first spoke. He occupied more than an hour in explaining
to the meeting that Mr. Torrey had no hand in the Fitchburg
resolutions. Mr. Torrey occupied the remainder of the afternoon in
denying the existence of any plot, deprecating the fulsome eulogy
of abolitionists, when they spoke of the Liberator;--said that its
circulation was so small that there was absolute need of another paper,
for the purpose of advertising the meetings, and that abolitionists
were determined to have a more effectual medium of communication with
the electors of Massachusetts. He said, “Mr. St. Clair, and myself, Mr.
Phelps and Mr. Stanton, we four, are the originators of this new paper.”

Mr. Stanton replied “I warn the gentleman to be careful of his
pronouns. I defy any one to show a letter or a fragment of a letter,
to prove that I have been implicated in the plan; for I have mentioned
it in but one, and that to a friend in _another State_.” Mr. Torrey
said that it was contemplated to obtain the services of some first-rate
editor--Elizur Wright, or John G. Whittier. “Ah! comes the arrow out of
_that_ quiver!” inly responded a few earnest listeners. But the general
feeling was, that it was only a swelling word used by Mr. Torrey, for
effect, so absurd, so impossible did it seem that either of those men
could be made to stand in Massachusetts upon the clerical platform
of hatred to Mr. Garrison. As soon would Wendell Phillips have been
suspected of laboring to accommodate pro-slavery prejudice with a less
odious editor in Pennsylvania; or Ellis Gray Loring, of supplying the
deficiencies of the Emancipator, by a hostile paper in New York. Mr.
Torrey urged the forlorn condition of Massachusetts among her sister
states, _without an organ_; and seemed as much impressed with the
mortification of being a member of a Society so sadly unfurnished, as
were the slavish Jews, when taunted by the surrounding nations with
having no king.

Mr. May did not suffer in the view of what so much affected Mr. Torrey.
“We have never wanted means of communication with the public,” he
said; “when the Massachusetts Society wants an _organ_, she sounds a
trumpet.” Night was closing round the combatants, and Mr. May moved
an indefinite postponement of the whole subject. Mr. Phelps exclaimed
against thus “giving the go-by to the most important subject that could
come before them.” Mr. May withdrew his motion, and the meeting closed,
to meet again in an hour.

Again the throng came together, with added numbers and spirit. Mr.
Stanton took the floor, and to the utter astonishment of the meeting,
proclaimed that the Liberator had lowered the standard of abolition,
that Mr. Garrison was recreant to the cause, and that _therefore_ a new
paper was indispensable.

His words opened the flood-gates of many memories. Instantly rushed
through the minds of abolitionists all that had passed since he
first stood among them, the trusted and beloved; their guide--their
companion--their own familiar friend. Grief and indignation strove for
the mastery in their hearts as he went on. “A new paper was therefore
indispensable. True, it was said that the columns of the Liberator
were filled with political matter--but how is that political matter
obtained? It is wrought into my frame in head-aches and side-aches,
how that political matter is obtained. If lamps could speak, they
could tell that it is by taking your agents from the field to furnish
it, after the day’s exhausting labor.--There ought to be an editor to
do it. Again; what accompanied this political matter, on the other
side of the paper? Discussions calculated to nullify its effect.
Expressions of opposite opinions. It is not that other subjects are
introduced into the Liberator--it is that _such_ other subjects are
introduced--subjects so injurious to the cause. Mr. President, I would
not injure the Liberator or Mr. Garrison. On the subject of peace,
perhaps, he is nearer right than I am. But he has lowered the standard
of abolition.”

Mr. Garrison and Mr. Stanton had met continually during the season
previous to this attack. They had met as aforetime, brotherly, and
Mr. Stanton had never, even by a word, prepared his friend for such a
proceeding. Conviction was flashed upon the minds of the audience by
every sentence he uttered, that the spurious abolition, which, from
its being defended by the ministry, had obtained the name of clerical
abolition, had, at last made a conquest of a suitable _layman_ to
carry forward its operations. The minds of men rapidly reverted to the
clerical effort of 1837 to break up the Massachusetts Society. Again
they saw the effort renewed, to cast out its most efficient members.
Again the same old war-cry sounded in their ears--“Let them go out from
among us, for they are not of us; and the Massachusetts Society must
have a new organ!” How many a grieved heart, that had trustingly relied
on Stanton to combat this fresh attack on the cause, on thus hearing
his proclamation of his own treachery to his comrades, was ready to
exclaim,


     “Oh had an angel spoke those words to me,
     I would not have believed no tongue but Hubert’s.”


All, then, was true; the boast of Mr. St. Clair, that if he were
treacherous, then was Stanton and every agent of the Massachusetts
Society treacherous too; the declaration of Mr. Torrey--“_we four!_” No
need _now_, of a conservator of pronouns: the mask was thrown off.

Mr. Garrison indignantly repelled the charge brought against him. “Am
I recreant to the cause? who believes it?” “No! No!” burst forth from
the crowded aisles and galleries. “Let me ask him a question;” said Mr.
Stanton. “Mr. Garrison! do you or do you not believe it a sin to go to
the polls?”

The indignant audience did not cry “shame!”--they were too deeply
moved for utterance. They were silent in breathless astonishment. Was
this _Massachusetts_? Was it at a meeting of _her_ free-souled sons
and daughters, from a platform of toleration so broad that every human
being, laboring for immediate emancipation, might stand upon it, that
a man presented a creed-measure to his brethren, with the threat to
brand every brow as unworthy, that overtopped that little span? Was
it in prophetic fear of this disgraceful scene that Massachusetts
abolitionists had so early renounced the doctrine of racks and
thumb-screws--the idea of reproach for opinion? The same indignant
thoughts thronged up for utterance in every heart. Quakers, Calvinists,
Unitarians;--Whigs, Democrats, and Non-Resistants;--men of every
religious opinion and every political theory--this question insulted
them all. Might the believer in the religious duty of voting claim
authority to summon to the confessional, all whom he chose to mark for
exclusion from the cause, and enter into discussion and condemnation
of their belief? Then might every other sectary do the same. The
Baptist might banish the Friend--the Methodist might proscribe the
Independent--the white man reject the man of color--the women vote that
men were disqualified--or men assert the same absurdity with respect
to women. If the precious time of a thousand friends of the slave,
met to devise measures for making every voter an abolitionist, was
to be consumed in making every abolitionist a voter, men felt that
a change in their point of agreement--a change in the constitution
and the principles that made the constitution, must be effected. The
common pass-word must no longer be “immediate emancipation” alone, but
every sectarian or partizan must shout his _own_, and draw his weapon
upon every abolitionist who heeded it not. Hatred, wrong, and bondage,
unmasked their hideous faces to love, right, and freedom, in the
question that so roused every soul in that assembly.

Mr. Garrison promptly answered it, so as not to deny his principles,
nor yet to take up the gauge of the non-resistance conflict, which Mr.
Stanton had thrown down:--“Sin for _me_!” “I ask you again,” persisted
the infatuated questioner, “do you or do you not believe it a sin to go
to the polls?” “Sin for me”--was the same imperturbable reply.

This treacherous interrogatory,[5] fit act of a familiar of the holy
office to a heretic, but ineffably disgraceful from the Secretary
of the National Anti-Slavery Society to the man on whose motion the
National Anti-Slavery Society came into existence, stirred the souls of
the abolitionists as if they had seen the slave-driver stand suddenly
forth with his scourge and manacles, in visible embodyment of the
spiritual tyranny they now felt.

A scene of tempestuous conflict followed, as the whole scope and
bearing of the work that had been going on in the Commonwealth under
the auspices of the “four,” became apparent. They stood like him who
has tampered with the embankments that toil and sacrifice have built
between the devouring ocean and a level and fertile land. The indignant
feeling of the audience rose to an almost uncontrollable pitch; yet
they _did_ restrain it; for the winnowing-time had come, and they must
take careful note of men’s conduct _now_, that they might know who to
trust hereafter. Painful and unexpected it was to see Scott, Codding
and Geo. Allen swept away, as the whirlwind of debate went on. The
resolutions before the meeting were respecting a new paper. But the
arguments by which they were sustained, demanded not only a new paper,
but new principles--a new constitution--a new society--new officers.
Was the true and original test of membership--not an acknowledgment of
the justice and necessity of immediate emancipation, but a belief in
the religious duty of voting at the polls? Then would those arguments
require the dissolution of the Massachusetts Society, another set
of men as managers of a new one, and the utter destruction of the
Liberator. Yet those who brought forward those arguments, and who, if
sincere, were bound by them to destroy the worthless instrumentalities
of which they complained, uniformly declared, with the same breath,
that nothing was further from their intention than to injure the
Liberator, or to cast any imputations against the Board of Managers.

Ellis Gray Loring rose in reply. “On the question of the _need_ of a
new paper, I do not wish to speak. A need may exist which I do not
perceive. Brethren tell me that there is such a need. I only say that
to make such a paper the organ of the Society, and to sustain it at
the expense of the Society, over the head of the Liberator would have
a tendency to injure the latter. I do not say that gentlemen mean it.
They tell us they abjure such a thought. But it is a maxim in law, that
the purpose of a man’s acts must be presumed to correspond with their
manifest tendency.”

Wendell Phillips argued earnestly against the first resolution. The
second was so manifestly a mockery that it was scarcely noticed. The
spirit of the meeting rose against the whole intolerant contrivance
submitted to its decision. The “four,” when they perceived it, strove,
by every parliamentary device, to delay judgment. They strove to divide
the resolutions--to refer the matter to a committee--to adjourn the
meeting. In vain. The spirit that filled the Marlboro’ Chapel that
night, refused to be conjured into a committee-room, or to leave its
work unfinished. “Vote it down,” “vote it down,” was the reply to every
proposition; till Mr. Loring moved an indefinite postponement, which
was almost unanimously carried.

While the fate of the new paper was pending, a doubt was raised by
Mr. Phelps and Mr. St.Clair, as to the right of women to a voice in
the decision. The question was hardly a debateable one in a society
whose constitution welcomed all persons to an equal seat, and whose
resolutions had proclaimed that, in the cause of philanthropy, all
persons, whether men or women, have the same duties and the same
rights. The decision was therefore referred to the President.

It was not for Francis Jackson, whose house had, in 1835, been placed
at the disposal of the women, under threats of its destruction, after
the mercantile world had decided that they were out of their sphere
in the anti-slavery cause--it was not for _him_ to shrink from a
just decision because the _religious world_ had taken up the cry.
Now, as then, the women had judged for themselves. _Here_, also, was
a responsibility which they did not choose to delegate; and leaving
ministers on one side and merchants on the other, they came, according
to their wont, each to serve the cause as conscience and judgment
should dictate. They came with their husbands and their brethren, from
the cities and from the villages. The anti-slavery halls had been ever
to them as an altar before which to dedicate their young children to
righteousness and freedom. They came with the joyful consciousness that
whatever subjects might be adjudged foreign, they, at least, were at
home.

“_The Chair rules that it is in order for women to vote._”

Not a voice was raised in appeal. The Massachusetts Society dared
not, for the slave’s sake--it would not for its own, exile any of its
members from its councils.

The report of the Board of Managers was next taken up, and again
the friends of the new paper rallied to the attack. Preparatory to
action upon it, and as a step towards its condemnation, Mr. St. Clair
presented a resolution, affirming it to be the _imperious duty of
every abolitionist who could conscientiously do so, to go to the
polls_. The design of this resolution evidently was, to convict the few
non-resistants present, of inconsistency as non-resistants or of guilt
as abolitionists; and as such the meeting received it. At any other
time the resolution would doubtless have passed--the great majority
of the Society being voters. But, aroused to vigilant watchfulness
of all who were attempting to drive them blindfold into absurdity
and intolerance, they refused to make the slightest change on the
resolutions of former years. They had never said more, during their
whole eight years’ existence as a Society, than that they would not
vote for slavery; and they saw too plainly the motives of this novel
demand for a resolution worded affirmatively. Neither had they been so
bitterly reproached with the introduction of foreign subjects, without
learning that the word “duty” or the word “ought,” in relation to
forms of civil or church government, on which abolitionists so widely
differ, must necessarily open the discussion of the whole vast subject
of human society in all its aspects. It would have been impossible, at
this moment, to have procured the passage of any resolution whatever,
on which the opposition might build enginery by which to cast reproach
upon any faithful abolitionist. So plainly had they exhibited their
hearts, even while professing the greatest regard for the Society and
all its members, that men’s common sense forbade them to afford any
facilities for such a purpose.

Mr. Garrison substituted the following resolution, which, being in
agreement with the uniform practice of the Society, and in strict
conformity to its principles and constitution, was almost unanimously
adopted.


     “Resolved, That those abolitionists who feel themselves called
     upon, by a sense of duty, to go to the polls, and yet purposely
     absent themselves from the polls whenever an opportunity is
     presented to vote for a friend of the slave--or who, when there,
     follow their party predilections to the abandonment of their
     abolition principles--are recreant to their high professions, and
     unworthy of the name they assume.”


The Society thus refused to turn its attention from its original
object--to make every slave a freeman, to the new and inferior one, of
making every freeman a voter. The members felt that this latter was
their more appropriate business, as citizens of Massachusetts.

After the passage of this resolution, the previous arguments of the
“four,” for a new paper, were reiterated against the report, by the
Rev. Orange Scott, the Rev. Daniel Wise, and the Rev. Hiram Cummings,
of the Methodist Church.

There appeared evidences, however, that the Methodist _laity_ were
not so easily won into the toils of the clerical Congregationalists.
However much they might love their clergy and their sect, they loved
the universal cause of liberty and humanity more. The venerable Seth
Sprague expressed this, with feeling and noble simplicity, in answer to
Mr. Cummings, of whose church he was a member.

“I love to hear my young brother preach the gospel; but when he talks
of politics, it will hardly be considered vanity in me to say I know
more about that than he. For forty years I have been in the political
harness; and many a day, in that time, have I been out to rouse men
up to the polls. Sir, I never found any difficulty in it--they are
always ready enough to go; but to make them vote right, after they get
there--_that’s_ the rub. And who can do that like my brother Garrison?
His paper converted me, politically.

I have had great satisfaction in my old age in going to all the
Anti-Slavery meetings within my reach; and as I returned from them,
with my heart warmed by the hopes which their union and zeal and
harmony had kindled, I thought within myself, I am old now--an old man,
and shall not live to see the work of emancipation accomplished. But,
on my death-bed, when about to quit this world, I shall joyfully think
of those I leave in it, the abolitionists,--a band of brothers--united
as the heart of one, to accomplish this great work.--But I cannot say
so _now_!--I cannot say so now!” And the venerable man thought it no
shame to weep over the love and confidence he had seen so wantonly
betrayed; and all the people wept with him.

The opposition still wished to continue the discussion, though noon
was long past, and their words were but repetition upon repetition.
Dr. Follen said, “I think discussion should now cease, upon the same
principle that bids the miller stop the wheel, when there is no more
grain in the hopper.”

The whole unmodified report was accepted--Ayes 183--Noes 24. A better
proof than its adoption could not be offered, that the great body of
the Massachusetts Society separated that day, with the determination
of carrying the work vigorously forward, through means of the elective
franchise. They separated, with the triumphant consciousness of a
three-days’ battle,


     “Won for their ancient freedom, pure and holy!--
     For the deliverance of a groaning earth!
     For the wronged captive, bleeding, crushed, and lowly,
         Their voice went forth.”


It was a painful trial they had passed; painful as when brother meets
the visor’d face of brother in civil war. They had hoped that this cup
might pass, but they had not refused to drink it; and their eyes were
opened, and the bitterness of their grief taken away.

The same Board of Managers having been selected, the acceptance of the
report and the rejection of the new paper, were sufficient indications
of the course they were expected by the Society to pursue. They
therefore suggested to their agents, Mr. St. Clair and Mr. Wise, that,
as there existed in the Commonwealth a difference of opinion in regard
to the contemplated periodical, and there having been no prospectus
or specimen number issued by which it could be judged, it would be
proper to use no efforts while engaged in their agency, to further its
introduction or extend its circulation.

But those agents were already too deeply involved to heed the
suggestion. The paper was already started, as an individual enterprize,
in their names, with those of Mr. Phelps, Mr. Scott and others, to
the number of twenty-seven, as a publishing committee, Mr. Stanton
acting as editor. Various and discordant were the reasons given for
persevering in the undertaking, after the demonstration of the Annual
Meeting, that its necessity was not of that imperative nature that had
been represented.

Mr. Stanton stated that it was a satellite of the Liberator, and that
he could have wished it had been named “the Liberator Junior.” Mr.
John E. Fuller, on the contrary, when men who had never professed to
be abolitionists hesitated to take it, gave them to understand that
it was “to put down Garrison.” Mr. Wise described it as an “anti
non-resistance paper,” and Mr. St. Clair as “a plan of Mr. Garrison’s
own, warmly advocated by the wealthy and influential Dr. Farnsworth.”

They went on to procure subscribers in connection with their lectures,
and at the expense of the Massachusetts Society. Mr. Scott and Mr.
Stanton were no less active in the same way, at the expense of the
National Society.

The paper was named “The Massachusetts Abolitionist;” and when the
array of its twenty-seven god-fathers appeared, Mr. Garrison directed
public attention to them, as the nucleus of a hostile society in
Massachusetts. This they individually denied; but the nature of the
case, as well as their course as individuals, prevented their denial
from obtaining credence. Colonization--American Union--Clerical
Appeal--those embodyings of the spirit of the reluctant age with
which abolitionists were in conflict,--had all been baffled. But
the spirit yet lived, subtler from added experience, and this was
the new tabernacle it had built. All these movements had, at their
first appearance, comprised some of the faithful, but deceived. Great
forbearance was therefore to be exercised, and great efforts made to
unmask the deceit.

This could only be effected by calling the attention of abolitionists
to the personal conduct of the men; as the paper itself was purposely
kept free from any thing which could enlighten the friends at a
distance as to the enmity of its conductors to the Massachusetts
Society. Their scheme could not, at first, be fairly judged by those
who did not witness its less public manifestations. It was like the
fabled mermaid, seated where it could delude the unwary mariner;--above
the water, fair and human--beneath, terminating in scaly and horrible
deformity. Those could not fairly judge it, who did not know that
its principal supporters, at the very moment that they disclaimed
hostility to the Massachusetts Society, were laboring at county
meetings to disjoin the Counties from the State organization, and to
divert funds from its treasury; while, at the same time, they labored
to produce the most unfavorable impression from the fact that its
pledge to the central treasury yet remained unpaid.

The Massachusetts Society was like a ship struggling with a heavy
sea. No sooner was one wave surmounted, than another threatened its
destruction. The next came in the shape of an answer from the New York
Committee to the invitation to collect the money due, by whatever means
they chose, provided that they should but acknowledge the existence of
the Massachusetts Society. It contained a refusal on the part of the
Committee to abide by the contract (the final limitation of which had
not yet arrived,) and declared their intention to proceed as if neither
contract nor Massachusetts Society were in existence. Such a step would
be so fatal to harmonious and efficient action--so destructive to the
Massachusetts Society,--so disgraceful to the New York Committee, that,
in the hope that a last strenuous effort might prevail against it, a
special deputation was instantly sent to New York, to confer with the
brethren, face to face.

Arguments, remonstrance, entreaty, were alike in vain. One of
the Committee thought that “New York should assume the entire
control of the Anti-Slavery funds, paying to Massachusetts such
an allowance as should be necessary for carrying on the cause in
that State, which sum would not, he supposed, be large.” All the
New York brethren remained firm in their determination;--neither
modification--mitigation--nor even what the merchant often grants his
bankrupt creditor,--_extension_,--could be obtained.

The Massachusetts brethren felt it necessary to allude to the new
paper, and its injurious effects on the treasury and the cause. The
reply of the New York brethren was, “_We are neutral._”

Fatal rock! to which the blind, the feeble, and the faltering cling, as
the tide of controversy rises which is to overwhelm them, but on which
the unfaithful merely _pretend_ to find anchorage!

The Massachusetts brethren turned to their homes in sorrow and surprise
at the determination they had been unable to move. Only one course
remained for the preservation of their Society. Its injury, if not its
destruction, would be the necessary consequence of hesitating to adopt
it, and they announced their intention of public remonstrance against
the conduct of the Ex. Committee, and a reference of the whole case to
their common constituents--the abolitionists of Massachusetts. Grief,
they must, at all events, have felt: but _astonishment_ at the result
of their conference would have been spared, had they been informed that
it was, on one side, but a mere form, the whole affair having been
decided, a week previous, by the issue of a circular, of which the
following is an extract, signed by Messrs. Stanton, Tappan, Leavitt,
Birney, and the most prominent of the New York Board.


     “The amount which the Massachusetts Board had “guaranteed” to pay
     to this Society by the first of February just passed, was $7,500.
     Of that sum, but $3,920 have been received, leaving $3,680 due to
     this Society. From recent consultations had with the Massachusetts
     Board, we are fully authorized in saying, that the Board will not
     be able to pay this sum, much less the additional sum of $2,500
     to fall due on the first of May next; nor do we believe it will
     be received from the abolitionists of Massachusetts, _unless the
     Executive Committee of the American Society send their own agents
     into the field to raise it_. To the adoption of this latter course
     they feel impelled by a sense of the duties they owe the slave.
     They feel constrained to abandon this “arrangement” for the
     following, among other reasons:

     1. It works badly for this Society. Much the greater part of
     the $3,920 received from Massachusetts, has been raised at the
     expense of this Society, as the following statement shows. It was
     collected as follows:

     (1.) By individuals and societies, and
     sent directly to the Treasury of this Society,
     and, in the collection of which, the
     Massachusetts Society took no part,                       $471 12

     (2.) By the “Cent-a-week” Societies,
     through the labors of N. Southard, who
     is employed and paid by the American
     Society,                                                   271 05

     (3.) By the direct labors of Messrs.
     O. Scott, Ichabod Codding, and H. B.
     Stanton, who was employed and paid by
     the American Society,                                      812 42

     (4.) By Isaac Winslow and H. B.
     Stanton, at New Bedford, for circulating
     Thome and Kimball’s journal,                               750 00

     (5.) Received of the Treasurer of the
     Massachusetts Society, $1,616 24; $500
     of which was collected by Messrs. Stanton,
     Tillson, and Thomson,--the former
     employed by the American Society;--and
     $500 of which were paid by the Boston
     Female Anti-Slavery Society, on condition
     that Mr. Stanton would deliver an
     address before them, and solicit pledges,
     which he did.                                  Total,   $3,920 83


     Thus, of the $3,920 received from Massachusetts, since this
     arrangement was entered into, only about $1,000 at the utmost,
     have been raised by the Massachusetts Society. Nearly all the
     residue has been raised by the American Society. We ask any candid
     man, if this is “carrying out the plan,” as contemplated by the
     resolution of the Annual Meeting? And is it not suicidal for this
     Society to pursue such a “plan” any longer?”


Ah, what a rent was here, in the love--the trusting reverence with
which Massachusetts abolitionists had persisted, against their better
judgments, in looking to New York! What a document to cast before
her faithful men,--this new style of account-current, in which what
they _had_ paid, was equally placed to their discredit with what
they had not paid! What a reproach to her high-souled women, who had
unreservedly dedicated themselves to the cause![6] What a shock to
behold the anti-slavery enterprize presented in this degrading view to
the gaze of the world! The American A. S. Society, placed, by this act
of its committee, in the attitude of glorying in the collectorship of
coppers!--the _Parent_ Society, (as it had ever been affectionately and
deferentially called,) busied like Saturn, in devouring its progeny!

This act created a necessity for a procedure still more vigorous than
had been contemplated. The integrity and usefulness and good name of
the National Society must, if possible, be rescued from the jeopardy
in which this course of the committee had placed them. More than the
existence of the Massachusetts Society was at stake--the _cause_ was
endangered by the conduct of the committee at this moment. It was
painful to meet them on the _low_ ground of dollars and cents; but they
had taken the field _there_, and there they must, of consequence, be
met and rebuked.

The Massachusetts Board, therefore, not only issued an address to the
Abolitionists of the State, as they had given notice of their purpose
to do, calling on them to assume the conduct of the affair, but they,
at the same time, gave solemn warning of the perilous crisis, and
appointed the quarterly State meeting, as a suitable time for its
consideration.

More confirmation greeted the Massachusetts brethren on their return,
of the fact that their agents were undermining the ground on which the
Society stood.

Mr. St. Clair had concerted with the Rev. S. Hopkins Emery, and two or
three other clergymen, comprising one third of the Bristol county board
of officers, and, in the absence of the rest, they passed resolutions
hostile to the Massachusetts Society, making that county auxiliary to
the plans of the New York Committee, and nominating _himself_ as a
_county_ agent. He had forwarded his resignation of his commission as
an agent of the _State_ board,--Mr. Wise shortly afterwards followed
his example, and both were thereupon appointed agents of the N. York
Committee, in which capacity they continued to labor in alienating the
counties, and circulating the new paper.

Boards of Managers and the people they aim _to manage_, not
unfrequently differ, in the anti-slavery cause, as in all other causes;
and therefore it was that the Massachusetts Board, feeling no love of
management or rule, were in the habit, on every extraordinary case,
of referring its decision to their constituents, as the only way of
presenting to each one the opportunity to discharge his individual
duty to the Society, and as the best method of obtaining the manifold
advantages of discussion.

The town and parish societies, in various parts of the State, began to
meet for the consideration of this matter, which was felt to be one
involving more than a single glance could unriddle.

Those members of the Boston Female Society, who had the interests of
the slave most at heart, communicated with their officers, for the
purpose of calling a meeting. Their request was not complied with.
Again they applied, to the number of forty-five, which number was
deemed a sufficient assurance that a meeting was seriously required
by the members. Notwithstanding the remonstrances of two of the
counsellors, the President, Vice President, Secretary, and Treasurer,
the identical individuals who, in 1837, refused to sustain the cause
against the incursions of spiritual wickedness, still refused to notify
a meeting.

_Every_ moment stands at the juncture of two eternities, and is
therefore of solemn consequence; but the importance of making use of
this, was more than ordinarily apparent.

The women of Lynn were standing alone and unsupported at the post of
danger;--the Massachusetts Society in peril, never more needed or
better deserved support;--a hope existed that George Thompson might
again be induced to visit America by a timely and earnest effort to
second the invitation of the Young Men’s Convention, with the necessary
funds;--Henry Clay, from his place in the Senate, was calling upon his
fair countrywomen “to _desist_ from anti-slavery efforts;”--this was
the moment taken by the officers of the Boston Female Anti-Slavery
Society to labor harder to make it desist, than they had ever before
done to induce it to go forward. They visited the members personally,
assuring them that it was _unconstitutional_ to call a special
meeting[7]--that the board saw no necessity for one, and finally
entreated them to take their names from the requisition. As one among
other reasons why they should do so, the President said that she
apprehended there was a design on the part of some, to recall George
Thompson, and, as he left the country _in debt_, his return would, from
that circumstance, be a prejudice to the cause, and she was therefore
anxious to prevent a meeting!!

By labors like this, a meeting was hindered at the time; but as one
wrong step ever demands another to sustain it, preparation was made
for the Society’s impending quarterly meeting, which _could not be
prevented_, by the use of a sectarian gathering-word, which did not
fail to rally all the unworthy members:--“Come and help us to put
down the Unitarians.” Not one in fifty of the members were of that
denomination, and the few who were, had ever been remarkable for the
joy and good faith with which they met all who differed from them in
opinion, and the heartiness with which they condemned the sins against
freedom committed by their own sect. Mr. Phelps, now the pastor of the
Free Church, was also affording his aid to unjustifiable sectarism,
and, by a meeting thus drawn together, was a majority obtained who left
undone all that the interests of the slave most loudly demanded should
be done. A majority, in behalf of whom the President declared at that
meeting that “as to the difficulty between the Massachusetts Society
and the Executive Committee, the ladies did not understand it--they
had not come prepared to go into it,--it would take too much time--why
should we enter into the quarrels that were going on?” Yet, after that
very meeting, the President, and Secretary, as a committee on the fair
for raising funds, issued an address, _without the knowledge_ but _in
the name_ of the whole Society, in which they argued the necessity that
existed that all the women of Massachusetts should send their funds
to New-York, because the Massachusetts Society had failed to meet its
stated payments!! This circular was committed to one of the agents of
the new paper, to be distributed in the country, with instructions to
keep it private in the city _from those in whose name it was issued_.

The minority of the Society, who were neither ignorant nor unprepared,
and who neither grudged their time nor _themselves wholly_, when the
Anti-Slavery cause called for the sacrifice, were much pained to find
that into this little sluice, opened at the time of the clerical
appeal, had rushed the cold and bitter waters of indifference, and
sectarism and chicanery, in a flood that threatened to sink the little
vessel that had, in earlier days, done good service to the cause. But
they knew their place as a minority, and prepared to fulfil that duty
in another capacity, that they were prevented from discharging in this.
The Massachusetts Society,--the parent and pioneer of all the rest,
must not suffer for its fidelity, because the officers of the Boston
Female Society had done wrong.

They were, besides, a very _large_ and _efficient_ minority, numbering
among them the women who had first originated and mainly sustained,
for four successive years, the plan of raising funds by means of an
annual fair, and they did not permit themselves to be hindered on
this occasion, any more than in former years, by the _smallness_ of
the pivot on which the duty of the moment turned. They knew that, for
a season, it would _appear_ trifling;--they also knew that it really
_was_ the type and representative of a principle,--one of the many
indications now observable of that stage in the progress of reform,
when minds a little enlarged by its principles, begin to resist, in
alarm, the philosophical necessity of a further widening process, and,
to avoid it, return to their original state.

But to resume the Chronological order of events.

The tenth wave seemed about to break upon the Massachusetts Society.
The Board of Managers looked around them upon the circumstances of
their case, for indications of the will of Providence. They were ready
and desirous to cast down the painful staff of office. Better men, they
wished, might be found to sustain it--but each looked on the other and
said, “Where can his fellow be found, for clear-sighted devotion and
faithfulness.”

Once more they decided to mount the breach together, for the cause’s
sake. Had it been only for themselves, they would have scorned to
stand one instant, in the humiliating posture in which the conduct of
the New York Committee had placed them. But it was for the slave--for
their brethren throughout the State, who had confided in them; and
they doubted not that those brethren would throng up to the rescue.
This mutual confidence was not misplaced. The members of the Society
came together in great numbers, with the determination of paying up
all arrearages, and, if possible, staying the destructive collision of
feeling which they saw going on.

The New York Committee were not absent. Thither came Birney, and
Torrey, and Stanton, and Tappan, and St. Clair, and Phelps, and Scott;
and face to face they met Garrison, and Loring, and Phillips, and
Chapman, and Follen, and French, and Brimblecom, in the presence of
all the people. Men from the counties were there, to tell how those who
_should_ be acting as financial agents, were laboring to complete the
division which had, more than any thing else, occasioned the deficiency
in the funds. Men from the towns were there, to hand over their purses
with the declaration that to their delay the deficiency should, in
part, be charged, and not to their Board of officers. The indignant
members from New Bedford were there, who had forwarded eight hundred
and fifty dollars for the slave, and had seen it used for the purpose
of casting reproach on the Massachusetts Society. And there, too, was
Lynn, and Andover, and Plymouth, and Reading, and Abington, and the
representatives of fifty other towns, where the Anti-Slavery enterprize
had first struck root and borne the most abundant fruits--all earnestly
bent upon conciliation--upon healing the breach, and upon sustaining
the Massachusetts Society.

In the course of discussion, many things before unknown appeared. The
New York Committee excused themselves by the plea of necessity. They
were dunned daily themselves, and they had been compelled to this
course to get the money. “Had they got it?” asked Wendell Phillips,
“had not all the sources been stopped by this proceeding, against which
they had been warned? Why could they not have co-operated--why could
they not still co-operate harmoniously with the State Board? why should
their agents, _Mr. Stanton, one of themselves_, among the number, make
terms with the _County_ Boards, which they had denied to the _State_
Board? Mr. Stanton could, it appeared, co-operate with Mr. Torrey, in
Essex, raising funds for the county treasury, and receiving only a
part of them again for the National Treasury--why could he not extend
co-operation, on better terms, to us in Boston?” The fact appeared that
money had been forwarded to New York by the hand of agents on account
of the pledge, which had never been credited accordingly. Men saw that
there had been no delay or hesitancy in “taking the Massachusetts Board
by the throat, and crying, Pay what thou owest,” and they inquired why
their own attempts to liquidate the debt, had not been noticed.[8] The
live-long day the discussion went on, the perplexity in which men’s
minds had been involved becoming clearer and clearer, till after as
complete an investigation of the case as could be made, and the most
determined opposition on the part of the New York Committee and those
engaged in the new paper, the meeting sustained the course of the
Massachusetts Society, by the passage of the following resolution: ayes
142--noes 23.


     Resolved, That the course pursued by the Board of Managers of the
     Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, in relation to the difficulty
     now existing between that Board and the Executive Committee of the
     Parent Society, meets our hearty approval.


Wendell Phillips now renewed the offer of harmonious co-operation.


     Resolved, That we are ready harmoniously to co-operate with the
     Executive Committee of the American Anti-Slavery Society, in the
     collection of funds within this Commonwealth, provided they will
     act with us under the arrangement of June last.


Hereupon the long-denied and painfully-concealed hostility to the
Massachusetts Society burst forth, and the attempts to cast out Mr.
Garrison, or to sink the Society with him, were renewed. Mr. Tappan
saw no reason why the Committee should expect to receive the money
at all, unless by taking the matter entirely out of the hands of the
Massachusetts Society. The Managers could offer no better guarantee
than at first.

“We _can_--we _do_ offer a better guarantee,” replied Wendell Phillips.
“We are in a far better condition to meet this pledge, than before. The
political campaign in the Fourth District is at an end, and will no
longer absorb the funds, or the energies of the agents. We are stronger
as a Board; we have a new General Agent; we are awake, throughout the
State, to the emergency.”

Mr. Stanton seemed to suppose that membership in the Massachusetts
Society implied an obligation never to change one’s views on other
subjects; for he read extracts from the Liberator, proving that Mr.
Garrison had changed his opinions as to the principles of civil
government, since the first establishment of that paper. Rev. George
Allen burst into vehement invective. “I am ready,” said he, pointing
to Mr. Garrison, “to attack the wolf in his very den, with the
bleeding relics of his mangled victims yet between his teeth.” Mr.
Birney, to the utter astonishment of the meeting, descended to the
proscriptive ground first assumed by Mr. Stanton, and intimated that no
non-resistant could consistently or honorably remain a member of the
Anti-Slavery Society.

Men’s minds went back to the days of the clerical appeal, when Birney,
then an editor in Ohio, had been tried and found wanting. That
deficiency, so long veiled with silent and brotherly care by those whom
he yielded up to the enemy, now defied concealment. He proclaimed his
sympathy and knowledge with that of the N. Y. Committee, in the recent
plottings. “WE felt the need of this new paper in Massachusetts.”

A sudden light burst upon the meeting. All this
whole long day’s labored ringing of changes upon
“dollars”--“contract”--“non-fulfilment”--“null and void”--all the
foregone course of the Committee,--it was only a pretence, then, for
keeping hostile agents in the State to work the Society’s destruction,
under pretence of obtaining money! This debt of a few thousand
dollars--men now saw why the wound it had made should be so dangerous.
It was like the scratch of a poisoned weapon--slight, but possibly
mortal.

Rodney French, of New Bedford, informed the meeting of the manner in
which the funds of abolitionists had been necessarily absorbed; those
of the clear-sighted, in sustaining the cause against the insidious
attacks it had been undergoing--those of the blinded, in unsuspectingly
co-operating with the disguised enemy. “Had this paper been presented
in its true colors,” said he, “no funds would have been swallowed up
by it in our county of Bristol. But men have been deceived, and they
are now finding it out. Let me beseech our National Committee to change
the ground they have taken. I do entreat them to meet us like brothers,
and accede to this resolution. It is an olive-branch. The money will
easily be raised by this harmonious co-operation--confidence will be
preserved, and the slave in his chains will rejoice.” Abby Kelly, the
delegate from Millbury, followed in the same strain. “Let us even make
ourselves beggars,” she said, “for the slave, who is denied the poor
privilege of begging!” and she pledged herself to pay fifty dollars
of the amount necessary to be raised, and her town of Millbury three
times that sum. John A. Collins, the General Agent of the Massachusetts
Society, stepped upon the platform, with securities to the amount
of seven hundred dollars, in his hands, and begged Mr. Birney, who
had risen to speak, to give way for a moment, that he might announce
them to the meeting. Mr. Birney waved him aside--“We do not want your
pledges!” and proceeded to reply to Rodney French.--“If the gentleman
supposes that I will be the bearer of such a proposition as the one
contained in this resolution, to my colleagues at New York, let me tell
him that he has altogether mistaken my character.”

No more remained to be said. Wendell Phillips immediately withdrew the
resolution so decisively repulsed.

Mr. Tappan commented with severity upon the “disgraceful scene he had
witnessed,” and counselled a division in the Society, saying that were
he resident in Massachusetts as he was in New York, he should endeavor
to effect it.

A division in the Society, because the Society had determined, for the
slave’s sake, _to continue to exist_; and had sustained its Board of
Managers in their efforts for its preservation! here, then, was another
layman, ready to do the bidding of the ministry in breaking up the
Massachusetts Society. He _might_ not be doing it intentionally, but
_doing_ it men saw he was, by this counsel.

The meeting separated, but not till multitudes had been disenchanted by
that eight hours’ session of many a fond belief, that, till then, had
stood undoubted in their minds.

The friends resolved in their inmost spirits, as they departed, to pay
the utmost farthing of this pledge, notwithstanding the afflicting
disclosure the Committee had made of their motives for having all along
refused harmonious co-operation for its redemption.

This day had been a painful one for the Massachusetts Board; but they
knew that they had done right, and therefore felt no anxiety as to the
result.

They were sustained by the abolitionists of the State, and they
rejoiced at it; not for themselves, but as a proof of the fidelity
of their brethren to the cause. They had been sustained against the
most determined hostility. A statement of the case, in the form best
calculated to injure the Society, had, previous to the meeting, been
scattered broad-cast over the State, under the direction of Mr.
Stanton. It was matter of astonishment that so much effort to do injury
should not have produced a greater effect. Truth was mighty, and had
prevailed, to strip the difficulty of _one_ of its disguises--the
cloak of the mere _dun_, and show it in the attitude of the assassin.

The effect of the meeting was magical. The friends, in all parts of
the State, rallied together and mulcted themselves afresh. How prompt
were their donations, how fervent and brotherly their expressions of
confidence, how painful their solicitude at the developments made by
the New York Committee, how forbearing their course with regard to its
doings, the resolutions and correspondence of that period, testify.
The Committee returned to New York, still keeping in the field, at the
public expense, the agents who had been creating a division. The work
went vigorously on, notwithstanding the drawback this occasioned. All
this _imbroglio_ had been caused, in the first instance, by men of the
orthodox Congregational sect, and it was fitting that the honor of that
sect should be vindicated by the laborious fidelity of others of its
members. That the money was raised,--five or six thousand dollars in
the space of two months, for the most part in very small sums, so that
the State Treasurer was enabled to authorize the draft of the N. York
Committee before the final payment became due, was owing mainly to the
self-devoting labors of orthodox Congregational licentiates, of the
Theological Seminary at Andover. From that sect came the bane--from
that sect came also the antidote.

At that moment of general and anxious effort for the payment of the
pledge, private circulars were issued by Mr. Phelps, in behalf of the
publishing committee of the new paper, in which he urged men to devote
_all_ their funds to its establishment, for this, among other reasons,
that they would _then_ know what became of their money. This showed the
origin of the rumors which had been circulated, that the Massachusetts
Society fraudulently permitted its funds to be used to sustain the
Liberator; and that it paid an editorial stipend--(“a fat salary” as
the term was,) to Mr. Garrison. These reports, false as they were,
came with an ill grace from those who, it is to be hoped unknowingly,
received from Mr. James Boutelle, one of their agents, money entrusted
to him for the payment of the pledge, but who appropriated it to the
“Massachusetts Abolitionist.”

All these labors were in vain.--The pledge was redeemed, against all
opposition.

Next came the Annual Meeting of the National Society, where men from
all the States met to consult for the good of the cause.

In full National Assembly, they resisted the idea that a difference
of mind respecting forms of government was a disqualification for
membership in the Society. They preserved inviolate the ancient broad
foundation. They resisted, as the Massachusetts Society had done, any
attempt to deprive women of their constitutional and inalienable right
“to know, and utter, and to argue freely,” in this National Council. A
resolution was also reported by the financial committee of the Society,
that thirty-five thousand dollars was as large a sum as could be
advantageously placed at the disposal of the Executive Committee during
the year; as they deemed that more could be effected for the cause by a
local than by a central expenditure.

The Society also earnestly requested the Executive Committee to send no
agents into the States, except with the advice of the State Societies.
This salutary measure was strenuously opposed by those connected with
the new paper in Massachusetts. Previous to the meeting, they labored
personally and by correspondence, to secure the attendance of such
as would co-operate with them for the exclusion of women, and of the
non-resisting members. The Executive Committee, too, were, some of
them, no less active to the same effect. Mr. Birney issued an article
in the Emancipator, the organ of the whole Society, and sustained
from its treasury, in which he asserted not only that a part of the
members were unfitted, by their religious principles, for a place
in the Society, but argued the merits of their principles _per se_,
representing them as identical with those of the bloody and licentious
Anabaptists of the sixteenth century.

These labors all fell short of their aim. Still, as at first, the
Society continued odious by the presence of its founder:--he, into
whose heart God had put strength not to deny his individual principles,
though their sacrifice was demanded by those whose love and approbation
had heretofore been so dear, and who, through four dangerous and
toilsome years, had stood with him, shoulder to shoulder, in the
forefront of the battle against slavery. Oh that evil tongues and times
had not been too mighty for their integrity! May every one of them yet
be enabled to see that any infringement of the principles of Freedom,
is a hindrance to the emancipation of the slave, not to be removed by
thousands of gold and silver, or the mightiest physical array. May
God of his infinite mercy grant us, as a NATIONAL ASSOCIATION of
Americans, for the redemption of our country from slavery, the grace to
see, that, as we can never give what we cease to possess, so our labors
for the emancipation of the slave must be in vain, after the insulted
angel of freedom has departed.

The Massachusetts Board of Officers met immediately after this meeting,
and decided to raise five thousand dollars, for the year 1839-40,
as the proportion which ought to be borne by their State, of the
thirty-five thousand dollars specified by the Financial Committee, as
the proper appropriation to the central treasury. They notified the
Executive Committee of this pledge, upon the understanding that all
money raised in Massachusetts should be credited to its redemption,
and that no agents of the New York Committee should labor in the State
without the concurrence of the State Board.

To this communication, Mr. Stanton, in behalf of the committee,
replied, that they had still two agents in the field, (Mr. _St. Clair_
and Mr. _Wise_,) and he inquired whether any objection would be made to
their remaining in that capacity!!!

The New England Convention followed quickly upon the tread of the
National Meeting. This occasion had ever been, among abolitionists,
a hallowed festival, to which each came to receive from all the rest
whatever they might be able to give of comfort, and of knowledge, and
of cheer, and to bid them all be sharers in his own full jubilee of
heart.

Here they had enjoyed their last earthly communion with the
early-called and tenderly-beloved, who had been caught up out of the
thick of the battle into heaven; and, therefore, the returns and the
memories of this day,


     ----“Like spots of earth where angels’ feet had stepped,
     Were holy.”----


A shadow marred the customary brightness of the day, to those who had
witnessed those workings of the spirit of treachery and intolerance,
which have been traced in the preceding pages.

Their forebodings were justified. This spirit made one more attempt
to rend them as it departed; but, failing in its purpose, it deserted
the foundation it had been unable to destroy. The intention of
forming a hostile Society had frequently been charged home upon the
members of the publishing committee of the new paper, and as often
strenously denied. Yet, here it stood, at length, a new organization
in Massachusetts, giving, as its reason for coming into existence, the
recreancy, i.e. the tolerance of the old. That it differed from the
old Society, in not seeing that every real interest of mankind must
be universal, and necessarily gather up all men in the prosecution
of its march, was _narrow_, _short-sighted_, _unfortunate_. That its
founders had not _openly_ announced themselves at the time when Dr.
Hawes consulted with _leading abolitionists_ nearly a year before, and
that they had ever since been carrying on a concealed warfare upon the
old Society, in the mask of friendship and brotherhood, _must be very
differently characterized_.

Elizur Wright, Jr., so well known and loved of abolitionists, in days
that were past, was carried away in the toils--_another layman_,
in the clutches of the power that constitutes in New England the
strongest obstacle to emancipation. He became a Secretary of the new
organization, and the editor of the Massachusetts Abolitionist, and
immediately strove to justify his course by asserting the recreancy
of the Massachusetts Society. He was like the child drifting from
the shore, after having un-moored his little bark, who cried out
that _the land was rushing backward_, as the treacherous waves bore
him swiftly away. In the New England Convention of 1836, he had
deprecated division, in a church so corrupted by slavery, that nothing
but division could save it from destruction. In 1839, he was wrought
upon by the circumstances with which the corrupt leaders of that same
corrupt body had surrounded him, to labor on their behalf, for a
division in the anti-slavery ranks. Those who recollected his course
then, possessed a key to his present proceedings.

Some of the leaders of the new movement appeared in the N. England
Convention, after their secession, and gave reasons for their
conduct. The reason of the Rev. John Le Bosquet was, that they felt
conscientiously obliged to impede the free and conscientious action
of women in the anti-slavery cause. The Rev. Mr. Trask said that they
wished to afford an opportunity for men of name and influence, in
church and state, to come and take the conduct of the anti-slavery
enterprise;--men who now took no interest in it, and never would do
so, unless they were made officers. Elizur Wright thought the new
organization needed, because the old Society had refused to pronounce
the act of voting at the polls a fundamental principle--a test of
membership--Christian duty. That ninety-nine hundredths of the
Society actually and conscientiously went to the polls, was nothing so
long as those remained members, in as good standing as himself, who
conscientiously refused to go. The Rev. Mr. Torrey’s reasons were _all_
these, with “others which had never yet been given by any one.” Mr.
Garrison, deeply pained by the wounds inflicted on the cause, had said,
with much feeling, “I could weep tears of blood over this division, if
it would avail to stay its evils.” Mr. Torrey, ridiculing his emotion,
remarked that, “to see the gentleman weep tears of blood, would indeed
be a curious physiological fact.”

Disconcerted as the exclusive councils of the framers of the new
organization had frequently been by the intrusive “common people,” they
took, from that experience, a hint in modelling their new constitution.
Not every one who signed it was to be permitted to vote in their
_Society_, however strictly his vote might be required of him at the
polls. Only one gentleman for every twenty-five members was to have the
privilege of uniting with the officers and agents of the Society in the
transaction of business.

Of the two chief pretences for such an organization--the first, that
the subject of women’s rights to sustain civil and ecclesiastical
offices &c. had been “_dragged in_,” and “_hitched on_,” (as the
phrases were,) was an entirely _false_ pretence, that subject never
having been introduced in the Massachusetts Society. Women had, indeed,
persisted in exercising the rights and duties of members, which they
could not be prevented from doing without a violation of the letter
and spirit of the Society’s constitution, and if the necessity of a
new organization was grounded on this circumstance, its contrivers
were plainly hypocritical in striving to make it auxiliary to the
National Society, which also admitted women. They intimated, that they
hoped to be able to make that Society recede from its ground _next
year_;--but _honestly_ bigoted minds, _conscientiously_ opposed to
women’s acting in the anti-slavery cause on their own responsibility,
would surely never begin their course of opposition by the sin of
co-operation for a _year_. The second pretence, that the old Society
had become a no-government society, was without a shadow of foundation.
The strongest political resolution it had ever adopted, to which Mr.
Stanton’s resolution in 1837 was feeble, had been passed this year.
But, then it had refused to cast out Mr. Garrison: “ay! _there’s_ the
rub!” This exclamation of the Prince of Denmark, when _his_ mind was
occupied with the question, “to be or not to be,” conveys, in this
connection, a summary of the reasons which decided the new organization
“to be.”

The New England convention decided that such an association, so
gathered, so founded and so organized, _could not give aid_ to
any organization upon the old basis, which it had _deserted_ and
_condemned_; and they notified the Executive Committee at New York
of the same. The hostility of its founders to the Massachusetts
Society--the difference it had made as to the fundamental principles,
the exclusiveness of its foundation--its mathematical position, working
the same derangement in the anti-slavery system as a new planet in
the orbit of the earth might do in the solar system,--all forbade it
fraternal greeting or long life.

The course the New York Committee should take in action, would
be the measure of their own worth to the cause. So opposite were
these two Societies, that one or the other must needs be unworthy
of the affiliation. If the New York Committee should, after their
well-remembered wont, think neutrality possible, still to be neutral
would be to spare the criminal; and “_Judex damnatur cum nocens
absolvitur_.”

From the new organization thus formed, it was planned to send out
division unto every local Society. Mr. St. Clair, and Mr. Wise, who
had been the _Swiss_ of this warfare, at one time during the year, the
agents of the Massachusetts Board, at another, of the new paper, at
another, of the New York Committee, were now made the agents of the new
organization, for completing the work of division.

_This_ having been done, Mr. Stanton no longer delayed to intimate
to the Massachusetts Board “that it would be the aim of the New-York
Committee to _comply_, as far as they could conscientiously, with the
advice of their constituents as to agents.”

What was the new organization, then, in reality?--men asked themselves.
Its designs were unmasked by abolitionists in Massachusetts, as the
Annual Meeting, the Quarterly Meeting, the Bristol County Meeting, the
Essex County Meeting, the Plymouth County Meeting, the Worcester County
Meetings, the Middlesex County Meeting, and the multiplied meetings of
town Societies had conclusively proved. It was but an agent of the New
York Committee, under the name of an organization. What would be its
effect? to fulfil the wishes of pro-slavery divines, by multiplying
nominal abolitionists of its own spirit, as millstones about the neck
of the cause. May the New-York Committee dare to claim credit for
veracity, if they but


     “Keep the word of promise to the _ear_,
     And break it to the sense?--”


When, at the Judgment, they shall stand up face to face with the New
England band of early abolitionists who so loved and trusted them, what
more can each one of them say than this:--“My _mouth_ has never lied to
thee!”

What is the attitude of the contending hosts of freedom and slavery in
Massachusetts, at the present time--the summer of 1839? The unfaithful
have turned to flight, overpowered by the subtlety and fury of a
pro-slavery church and ministry;--have dishonored their Master, by
conceding that such a church and ministry are _his_;--have forsaken
and betrayed the faithful, offering them up as a propitiation to
this ecclesiastical pro-slavery;--have devised a new anti-slavery
organization on hypocritical and false pretences, behind which to
disguise their apostacy for a season.

The faithful, undismayed by treachery, undeterred by obloquy and
persecution, unshaken by abuse, strengthened by experience, relying
neither on a pro-slavery church, government, or ministry, but on GOD,
and _themselves_ as his ready instruments, have bound themselves more
firmly to the cause and to each other, and are laboring with increased
ardor in the promulgation of the truth which alone can save this
slaveholding people.

FOOTNOTES:

[5] The following resolution, submitted to the business Committee in
the hand-writing of Mr. Stanton, will explain the use which was to have
been made of Mr. Garrison’s answer, had the plot succeeded. “We shall
thus,” said one, “get rid of the Non-Resistants and the women.”


     “Resolved, That every minister of the gospel is bound to preach
     against slavery; that every member of a Christian Church is bound
     to have no fellowship with this unfruitful work of darkness; that
     every ecclesiastical body is bound to purify itself of these
     abominations; and that every person entitled to the elective
     franchise, is bound _not only to refrain from voting_ for persons
     as national and state officers, who are unwilling to use all their
     authority for the immediate abolition of slavery, but is BOUND AT
     EVERY ELECTION, TO REPAIR TO THE POLLS, and cast his vote for such
     men as will go to the verge of their official authority, for its
     instant annihilation; _and that every member of an Anti-Slavery
     Society, who refuses_, UNDER ANY PRETEXT, _thus to act morally
     or politically, or counsels others to such a course, is guilty
     of gross inconsistency, and widely departs from the original and
     fundamental principles of the Anti-Slavery enterprize_.”

[6] Those women of the Boston Female Society who had long seen a
tendency in the conduct of the New York Committee to injure the
Massachusetts Society, had taken pains to have their customary
annual appropriation to the cause pledged through the Massachusetts
treasury, in anticipation of this very contingency. Their surprise was
proportionately great at the ingenuity with which their contribution
was made discreditable to the Massachusetts Society and to themselves,
by the incorrect assertion that it had been made in _consequence_ of
Mr. Stanton’s labors.

[7] Most of the business of this Society had, from the beginning, been
transacted in _Special Meeting_, and almost the only power granted to
the Board of this Society by its Constitution, is this, of calling
meetings. The Constitution expressly states that “the President and
other officers ARE AUTHORIZED _to call special meetings_,” while there
is not a syllable which authorizes them to refuse.

[8] Speech of Samuel Reed, of Abington.




CHAPTER VI.

CONCLUSION.

     We know the arduous strife, the eternal laws,
     To which the triumph of all good is given,
     High sacrifice, and labor without pause,
     Even to the death:--else wherefore should the eye
     Of man converse with immortality?
                                           WORDSWORTH.


Friends and co-laborers for freedom! We have now a new and
indispensable, though painful duty to perform. Our foes have hitherto
been without the pale of the associations: we have now found the
most deadly within. It misbecomes us to talk of “dissensions among
_brethren_”--of “quarrels among _ourselves_,”--of “dreading the strife
of tongues,”--of “hiding ourselves till this calamity be overpast.”
Without our most strenuous exertions, it will never pass, but as the
remorseless sea passes over the sinking vessel. If we would free the
slave, we must meet and conquer a tyrannous influence and spirit,
in the shape that it has _now_ taken, as we have done in all its
transformations in the times that are past. We must disabuse our minds
of the idea that all are brethren in the cause, who call themselves
such.

“Do you love freedom?” is the question we have startled our age withal;
and we have begun to judge men--of all classes and conditions,--by the
reply their lives make to it. Class after class have thus been tried
and condemned. In earlier times, we have bound ourselves steadfastly
to the truth which condemned them. Its might made riches a reproach,
and “gentlemen of property and standing” a by-word. All our band joined
their voices to the oracular one of truth, when _these_ sinners were
tried by their own principles of action, and found wanting. Why is it
that _some_ now cast aside the inspired maxim, “by their fruits ye
shall know them”--when another class of men--the ministry, are found
recreant to the cause of humanity? _It is because they have become like
unto them._

We are not without experience of the facility with which men add
hypocrisy to wrong. Let the professions of such be to us, from
henceforth, as though they were not uttered; their past good deeds,
registered with those of Lucifer before his fall. This and this
only, in this emergency, is allegiance to the God “whose word is
truth--whose will is love--whose law is freedom.”

When, in earlier days in the cause, some of us foresaw the present
state of things, we submitted our souls to the prospect of its
painfulness. We said, “thy will be done,” in thus keeping our
instrumentality effectual and pure.

“May the numerous unpopular questions with which the anti-slavery cause
is connected” (thus ran our prayer) “continually come up with it as it
is borne onward. So that, up to the final triumph, the act of joining
an anti-slavery association may be, as it has hitherto proved,--a
_test-act_.”[9]

And so we pray still; for still and forever, TRUTH is one and
indivisible. All moral questions are by their nature inseparable, in
any other than a mechanical sense, and while we sedulously keep them
thus mechanically separate, because to do otherwise would be a sin
against the freedom of others, and a betrayal of their confidence, we
feel it to be no less a sin against freedom for others to impede any
man’s course with reproach, on account of this eternal decree of God’s
providence.

We have all preached emancipation by peaceful means; and now some
are amazed that the attainment of _all_ right, in like manner, should
have suggested itself to men’s minds! We have all denied that might
makes right, and asserted the supremacy of moral power; and yet some
are standing in terror-stricken astonishment that the “woman question”
is stirred in every heart; and “other some” are persecuting and
forsaking their brethren, because the examination and application of
principles, though limited in the anti-slavery society by the terms
of association, cannot be stayed in men’s minds or individual lives.
The time has come for men to look their terrors for the future in
the face. A little thought will show them thus much at least;--that
it is no sin against an anti-slavery society, to apply, in another
association, the peaceful principles by which it is proposed to abolish
slavery, to the sins involved in existing governments or sacerdocies.
If institutions, religious or political, are unable to stand the test
of such an application, that, in the opinion of some, is the fault of
the institutions. With this opinion, anti-slavery societies have no
more to do than with the question sometimes started, of the duty of
urging prayer upon the unconverted, whose prayers God pronounces an
abomination. Discussion of collateral subjects is often salutary and
necessary in our associations; but to a _decision_ upon them, by which
new tests of membership are introduced, no anti-slavery society is
competent. It ceases to be an anti-slavery society from the moment it
assumes to decide upon opinions respecting governments or churches.

No man is required, as an abolitionist, to endorse or oppose
governments or church establishments. But every thoughtful and honest
mind, whether its anchor have “entered into that which is within the
veil” or not, feels called by its allegiance to freedom, instantly
to resist any attempt to make one man accountable to another for the
progress of his mind. This same allegiance to the foundation principle
of inalienable _human_ rights, warns a man against laboring to prevent
woman from standing upon it, if such should be her determination. She
may, in his opinion, be sinning against propriety--sinning against
Paul, by acting in anti-slavery societies: but he himself sins against
freedom in striving for her exclusion; and any act against freedom, is
treason to the slave.

Men whose principles, thus imperfectly developed, are at war with
each other, will, in all probability, become worse in their last
state than in their first, especially if they are yielding not so
much to their own convictions as to the pretexts in which a public
_abstractly_ opposed to slavery, is fain to clothe its hatred to a
_real_ opposition. If they are striving to pacify the foes of freedom
by these outrages upon her principles and her advocates, their case is
a desperate one, and affords but little probability of repentance.

Surrounded as we are by the smoke and dust of the hottest conflict,
we must keep all these considerations in mind, if we would avoid
perplexity and doubt. Let us, from time to time, survey the field from
a higher point of view, and take careful note of the divisions of the
battle, and the nature of the ground on which the hosts are encamped.
What do we discern, as we ascend the mount of vision and of difficulty?
We perceive hatred and malignant opposition occupying the same post as
when we first roused them from their apathy. We are ever contending
with our old opponents, under new names, and with every change of name
and pretext, some whom we have loved and trusted, are “carried away by
their dissimulation.”[10]

At the beginning, they were “as much Anti-Slavery as any one, but
hated Mr. Garrison.” What are they now? Even “more Anti-Slavery than
any one, but hate Mr. Garrison.” Through all their various phases
of Colonizationists, American Unionists, Clerical Appellants, new
organizationists, their moving spirit is the same;--hatred of the
freedom that defies their control. Even while professing to be laboring
for emancipation, they have always been careful to express their hatred
of the _free spirit_ in which abolitionists carry on the enterprize.
It must needs be so. There is eternal enmity between the spirit which
prompts a man to strive for the mastery, and the spirit which calls
no man master. It is an eternal truth, that he who wishes to rule, is
unfit to serve.

From this point of observation, we may notice not only the timidity
and treachery of some, but the touching fidelity of others. A single
individual was once exalted by our opponents into a symbol of
faithfulness to liberty and humanity. Now, the whole associated host of
a State are assailed with slander and contempt for a like fidelity.

In this symbolic sense, an association is endowed by the enemies of
truth and freedom with a notoriety and importance not its own. In every
such case, we have a finger of Providence, pointing out to us the
course we should pursue with respect to it. Identifying ourselves with
it, we listen for the voices that have been wont to cheer the onset.
The soul that is now silent is self-condemned.

Let us enlarge our horizon by ascending still higher, so that we can at
a glance command the present and the past; for so come many instructive
lessons to the mind. We behold far back in the distance, days like
those of Wat Tyler, of Wycliffe, of Knox, and Luther and Washington.
On closely observing any such era of accelerated progress, we perceive
great bodies of men, unaccountably to us, giving back at a critical
instant--thrown into confusion by circumstances which we, at this
distance of time, discern to have been of but the smallest moment; and,
seeing how the speedy and triumphant success of the right is thereby
prevented, we suffer a sort of pain that we are unable to cast upon
their path the light of our knowledge. “Had they but known what we
so readily discern,” we exclaim, “how different would have been their
course!” and we marvel that they were unable to break the spell that
bound them, and which one added glance of foresight or of faith would
have shivered.

We forget that, besides the natural obscurity of the hour unilluminated
by the future, there is ever a shrinking terror on men’s minds, which
forbids them boldly to face the phantoms of their own times:--a
spurious charity for wrong, which, prompted by a vision of _oneself_ in
a similar condemnation, is not forgiveness, but treachery to Right. We
overlook the obvious consideration that those transition periods were,
like our own, infested with the treacherous and the selfish, whose
fancied interest it was to suppress facts, circulate falsehoods, make
up false issues, apologise for wrong, palliate crime, veil baseness
under “decent pretexts,” exalt profession into performance, and by any
and every means delay impending change.

This reflection should remind us that such light as we are fain to
cast upon past times in our impatience of their blindness, is the
same as duty binds us to communicate to our own. When we observe
the importance of small things in the world’s history; it should
point us to the cheerful discharge of so lowly a duty as to record
those in which we have been engaged. Let us not deem any of them so
unimportant as to refuse to draw from them lessons of wisdom, nor
strive to persuade ourselves that aught _can_ be trifling, which is
wrought into the great page of the past. “To serve the nineteenth
century we must _know_ the nineteenth century:” therefore, nothing
is without consequence which helps to illustrate our times. Facts,
warnings, rebuke, encouragement, consolation, advice, labor,--whatever
the times demand, let us give as we have power and opportunity, and we
shall soon be made to know _what it was_ that kept so great a distance
between the words of lonely warning that have risen prophet-like upon
the past; and _why_, at some periods, there could be no “open vision”
or corresponding energy, but only the feebleness and incertitude of
ignorance and fear. Custom is never, by her nature, the handmaid of
freedom; and therefore in a struggle for the extinction of slavery,
if we speak only according to custom, we shall lose the unhesitating
distinctness which the occasions of the cause demand. The occasion now
demands, in an especial manner, the plain directness of the very palace
of truth.

Let us, however, avoid the mistake of supposing that we can find in the
past, the exact parallel of the present, in any other than a spiritual
sense. Truth--Love--Freedom--are ever the same; but the outward signs
of their presence, and the manner of their workings upon society, will,
at different times, be far unlike. The problems they present, may be
wrought out by different processes, though the results are the same.
This reflection will enlighten us as to the causes of the convulsive
terror now manifested by the body of the ministry and their dupes--the
clerical politicians. We shall learn how it came to pass that the
latter were desirous of disjoining themselves from the abolition host,
while they yet claimed the name of abolitionists. We shall see on what
temptations they have


                           “fallen away
     Like water from us, never found again,
     But where they mean to sink us.”


At the outset, they were encouraged by the comparatively quiet progress
of abolition in England, to believe that our own would necessarily
follow the same course. Strong as was the agitation there, it effected
its work, without shaking the ponderous establishments, civil and
ecclesiastical, which bore down upon the land with their “weight of
calm.” Here, on the contrary, the lighter yokes of church and state are
so shaken by the contest, as to convulse those hearts with terror for
their existence which lack the honesty to acknowledge the worse than
uselessness of a church or a government which sustains slavery, and the
humble faith in God to say,


     “Whatever fall--whate’er endure,
     I know thy word shall still stand sure.”


When such lose their confidence in the identity of the principles of
freedom, with those of order and Christianity, they are disunited in
soul from those who are pressing forward with undiminished confidence;
and to disguise their change of feeling they sacrifice their
integrity.[11]

In our grief at their conduct, we undergo strong temptations to
palliate and conceal, when we ought to expose and condemn. The greater
need, therefore, that we often ascend the mount of communion with the
HIGHEST, there to strengthen our vision and our hearts.


     “Weak eyes on darkness dare not gaze:
     It dazzles like the noontide blaze,
     But he who sees GOD’S face, may brook
     On the true face of sin to look.”


“Some natural tears we shed” over those who have turned back from
the van, and are trampling down the ranks they once cheered onward;
but thus strengthened and enlightened, we shall not long indulge a
useless sorrow. We shall cease to be impatient when those whom we yet
believe true, are slow to see and to act, in an emergency requiring
promptitude. We shall but redouble our own laborious vigilance;--we
shall but make more intense our own fervent endeavor. We are laying the
foundations of many generations; and need not to be disturbed by the
discomposure of such as comprehend us not. What though, to our human
weakness, the end to be attained seem farther off, as faithfulness
rouses indifference into opposition, or converts spiritual terror into
treachery? yet is the day of redemption nearer than when we believed.
What though, in future and severer perils which we KNOW beset the path
we must go, we should, for a season, be deserted of all in whom we
trusted for aid in this work of redemption? even our Savior was left to
“watch alone one bitter hour,” before any comforting angel was sent of
heaven to strengthen him.

Truth--Love--Freedom! evermore must their victories for humanity be won
through suffering--but they shall be WON. “Forever, Oh Lord! thy word
is settled in heaven.”

FOOTNOTES:

[9] Right and Wrong in Boston, written in 1835.

[10] See Paul to the Galatians, from which epistle it appears that the
Christian cause had then reached a stage in its progress where it was
beset with the same difficulties as the anti-slavery cause at present
meets. It had so diminished the trust in the existing institutions, and
so strengthened the reverence for principles, that many _professing_
Christianity, were driven back into Judaism.

[11] Better, far better, said the organ of the clerical appellants in
1837, that slavery should remain perpetual, than that the existing
institutions with which it is so intimately interwoven, should
be disturbed. To most minds comes this moment of distrust of the
principles of righteousness--want of faith in God. Orange Scott, who
then stood firm, has in this last crisis, deserted the cause, moved by
the same temptation. When he sees Church and State shaken by the advent
of righteous and free principles, “upon the earth distress of nations
with perplexity--the sea and waves roaring--men’s hearts failing them
for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming upon the
earth,” he says--“Slavery is the least evil of the two.” With propriety
might he be asked, with what feelings would the slave of the Louisiana
sugar cauldron contemplate the utter destruction of the civil and
ecclesiastical arrangements by which he is crushed, soul and body?
Would _he_ say better, far better that slavery should remain perpetual
as “the least evil of the two?” Yet we are commanded to remember those
in bonds as bound with them. However deep may be our attachment to
institutions, we must do _right_, in the faith that righteousness can
destroy no good thing.




APPENDIX.


The following letters are selected and subjoined as specimens of the
secret correspondence of this period.


     [CONFIDENTIAL.]

     _Salem, Dec. 7th, 1838._

     REV. S. J. MAY.

     _Dear Brother_,--I presume you have been consulted on the subject
     named below; but my anxiety on the topic, leads me to write you.
     We found, some time ago, that the admission of other subjects
     into the Liberator had entirely destroyed its circulation, in
     many parts of this County, and others were gradually dropping
     it, while a large proportion of our most efficient abolitionists
     were uneasy, and took it only because they must have the local
     Anti-Slavery news of this State. As a paper more generally
     circulated and exerting a better influence was felt to be
     necessary, to advance the cause in this County, we attempted to
     start a local Anti-Slavery paper here. But some were afraid--a
     few loudly opposed; and the _great expense_, (far exceeding our
     first estimates,) _finally deterred us from the undertaking_.
     Still the conviction of the necessity of a paper, devoted to
     Anti-Slavery alone, which might circulate without objection, among
     all classes of our friends, has daily gathered strength--and
     many who opposed our project then, alarmed at the _demoralizing
     doctrines now promulgated_ in the Liberator, say we _must have_
     a paper, at all events. I have no desire to injure Mr. Garrison.
     His services in the cause entitle him to something more than
     gratitude. But the Liberator will, of course, remain under his
     control, and will continue, no doubt, to pursue the same course
     it has for a year past; and it _cannot, therefore, continue to
     be the Anti-Slavery paper of the State_, without a _virtual_
     endorsement of its doctrines. Nor will it have a free circulation
     among the large portion, the immense majority, of the Anti-Slavery
     community, who dissent from its new views. Now the Massachusetts
     Anti-Slavery Society _is a pretty considerably large and somewhat
     important body_--and why should it not have an _official organ_,
     of communication with the public, to be devoted to _Anti-Slavery
     alone_? I am not particular about the editor. If Mr. Garrison
     would edit such a paper, and _devote his whole time and strength
     to it_, instead of leaving it to printers’ boys and every body,
     as he has the Liberator for two years past, I should be perfectly
     pleased to have him editor, _though of course he would not
     consent_. Quite a large number of our old and steadfast friends,
     who have been consulted, are favorable to the thing. It will be
     brought forward by me, at the Annual Meeting, if it is found that
     our discreet friends generally approve of it. Please communicate
     your views to me freely and confidentially (if you wish.) I have
     no time this morning to say a word on other topics.

     With respect and affection,
     CHARLES T. TORREY.


     _Salem, Dec. 19th, 1838._

     DEAR BROTHER MAY,--

     I dont know but my mentioning the objections _some_ felt to the
     Liberator, led you to think of the project of a new paper, as a
     sort of _opposition line_ to the Liberator. But this is far from
     my idea of the matter. True, the character and contents of that
     paper exclude it from circulation in this county so extensively,
     that it does not answer the purpose of advertising our County
     Meetings even. Nor will its circulation increase. In some of the
     strongest Anti-Slavery towns, where most is done for the cause,
     scarcely a single copy is taken, or can be got in. So it is all
     over the State. I suppose not more than half the circulation of
     the Liberator, (probably not one third,) is in Massachusetts. Nor
     will this state of things, in that respect, be materially changed
     at present, in my judgment. I think it certain that papers from
     New York or elsewhere, cannot do for our State to act efficiently.
     And that there are thousands of abolitionists, and others who
     need, and would take a paper, wholly devoted to Anti-Slavery
     and published at Boston, admits not of a question. It would
     have five hundred to one thousand subscribers in this County,
     _at once_. Now, I think the good of our cause _demands_ of us,
     that such a paper be started, and a small monthly, like “Human
     Rights,” besides. And if it is done as our official State paper,
     there can be no ground for considering it as in opposition to the
     Liberator. Whereas, if individuals start a paper, the case will be
     just the reverse. It will then be a rival to the Liberator, and
     will materially injure its circulation. Now, a State official,
     _confined_ to Anti-Slavery exclusively, will not cross the track
     of the Liberator scarcely at all. I have, so far, heard of not a
     syllable of disapproval but from yourself, from any part of the
     State. I do still hope, on reflection, you will think differently
     of the thing. There can be no evil, or warfare, it seems to me,
     unless those who like the Liberator insist that it shall be,
     virtually, _the State Paper_, while not so in form, and choose
     to claim the whole of the vast unoccupied field, in this State,
     as its own. But if they resist and successfully, the measure
     proposed, _then_ all peace or compromise will indeed end. A new
     paper will, no doubt, be started, as an individual enterprize, and
     it will not spare the peculiarities of opinion, etc. manifested
     in the Liberator. It is true, it is open to controversy on peace,
     etc. But, on that very account, it has no claims to be the
     _Anti-Slavery_ paper of Massachusetts, and to circulate as such,
     among those who reluctantly take it for its local news, while
     they cannot endure its sectarianism.

     Now, my dear Brother, I have written very plainly what I think.
     Do consider the matter again and maturely. Our cause _must_ be
     prosecuted at all hazards and sacrifices, but that of principle,
     and I do think duty to our cause requires a new paper wholly
     anti-slavery. If those who like the Liberator cannot then sustain
     it, what will it prove, but the absolute need of a new paper?

     Yours, as ever, for the slave, and
     with much affection,
     CHARLES T. TORREY.


     _Salem, Jan. 7th, 1839._

     _Dear Sir_,--I write to urge the importance of a full
     representation of your society at the Annual Meeting of the
     Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, on the 23d and 24th of this
     month. Measures of very great importance to the progress of the
     cause throughout the State will be brought forward, particularly
     the establishment of a new paper, of high character, to be devoted
     to Anti-Slavery only; and to be under the official control of
     the State Society; one which will urge political action as a
     _Christian duty_, in accordance with our original principles of
     association. _Other things_ of equal moment to the onward progress
     of our cause, will be presented--probably on the _first day_ of
     the meeting; other and obvious considerations will show the great
     importance of having a full representation, from two to twenty
     from every Society. Let every one who can attend, do so. Let none
     be chosen who will not attend. Select the most judicious and tried
     friends of the cause, and let them be there at the opening of the
     meeting, at ten o’clock oh the 23d, and be prepared to stay two
     days.

     If your Society meets to choose delegates, let there be an
     expression of opinion about the new paper, (to be purely
     Anti-Slavery, and nothing else; to oppose nothing but slaveholding
     and doughface-ism) and let the vote be embodied in the
     instructions of the delegates.

     Please to see the officers of your Society, and have your
     delegation promptly appointed.

     Yours, for the slave,
     CHARLES T. TORREY.
     _Rec. Sec. Essex Co. A. S. Society._


     _Boston, April 2d, 1838._

     _Dear Brother_,--I understand that ---- has left, or is about
     leaving you, and that you are on the lookout for a successor.
     Permit me to recommend to you, ----.

     And now a word in respect to abolition. You are aware of the
     collision between the State and National Societies--have seen, I
     suppose, the statement of the case in the “Christian Journal,
     Extra”--and know that your County Board have taken supervision of
     the field within your County, and invited in the agents of the
     American Society, thus virtually taking sides with that Society.
     Well, your County Society is to meet soon in New Bedford, at
     which time and place, I have no doubt an effort will be made to
     undo what the County Board have done, and to pass resolutions
     sustaining the State, and condemnatory of the County and Parent
     Boards; and what with the Quakers and colored people in New
     Bedford, it will not be strange if the attempt succeeds.

     What your views on the matter in dispute are, I know not, nor is
     it of any importance for me to know, so far as it concerns what
     I wish now to say to you. I will only say, then, as I cannot go
     now into the matter in detail, that I regard the Parent Committee
     in the right. They ought to be sustained. Nor do I believe that
     the State Board would ever have sent out their protest but for
     certain “ulterior measures” which they wished to accomplish
     thereby--one of these is to crush the Massachusetts Abolitionist,
     by shutting out of the State, the Agents of the Parent Society who
     are generally favorable to it, and where they can do it, without
     interfering with the duties of their agency, are in the habit
     of getting subscribers for it--another is to make the Society
     Anti-Orthodox in its influence--and another, by having the entire
     control of the cause in the State, to take advantage of it for
     the promulgation of non-resistance, no-government, &c. &c. I can
     give you facts when I see you that will bear me out in all these
     positions. The truth is, Garrison and the Board are themselves
     guilty of the very things they are charging on others. They are
     just in the attitude of the man who cries “Stop thief,” that he,
     under cover of that cry, may make off with the stolen goods. I
     hope to see you and converse with you at length on these subjects
     by and by. Meanwhile, if you agree with me that the Parent
     Committee ought to be sustained, I hope you will see that the
     meeting at New Bedford is not a packed one, but that those who
     think with us, as well as others, are on the ground prepared to
     hear the case, and take proper action thereon, should it come up.
     Remember me affectionately to your family.

     Yours truly,
     A. A. PHELPS.

     P. S. Brother ---- is a good abolitionist--but wise and prudent
     at the same time that he is firm and decided on the subject. Of
     course he would not make a _hobby_ of it.


Such efforts and accusations as the above letter Mr. Phelps did
not hesitate privately to put forth against his brethren of the
Board, though he never intimated to them, personally, that any such
imaginations darkened his mind. And even on resigning his seat with
them, one month after the date of this letter, he did not intend that
his reasons for doing so should be made public. His own testimony,
respecting similar allegations presented as reasons for the formation
of a new Society only a year previous, is true now. At the moment that
this letter was written, the Massachusetts Society had eight Orthodox
Agents in the field, and but one of another belief. True, the Society
could not, without violating its principles, become an Orthodox Society
_exclusively_; but the Society did deem it a fortunate circumstance
that Orthodox pro-slavery should be met and exposed by Orthodox
anti-slavery.

Who that reads Mr. Phelps’s testimony, Jan. 1838, as given below, but
must deeply compassionate the struggle and concealment and weakness of
soul which afterwards completely overpowered him, notwithstanding his
better knowledge, and dictated his course during the remainder of that
year, up to the formation of a new organization, in 1839, and until, as
the climax of his course, he submitted to be examined for installation
as pastor of the Free Church, by the well known pro-slavery divine, the
Rev. Hubbard Winslow.


MR. PHELPS’S TESTIMONY IN 1838.

“And last, not least, there must needs be a new organization, and a
withdrawal from the Massachusetts Society, because, “both the organ and
management of it are under anti-orthodox influence.” True, there is
not as much orthodoxy in either, as I wish there was, and as I think
there ought to be; but it is not the result, so far as I have seen,
of any trickery on the part of those who are not Orthodox, nor of any
disposition, on their part, to make Orthodoxy or Anti-Orthodoxy a test
of membership or office. And as it is, full one half the officers
and managers of the Society are Orthodox men; this “Anti-Orthodox
influence” has chosen and is sustaining an “Orthodox” Agent, and one
that is sent for sometimes to repair the mischief done by agents of
the American Society: this Society, at its public meetings, _has_
“passed resolutions recommending that ministers and Christians, in
their public meetings, should pray for the slave;” its own public
meetings have been “opened with prayer;” its agent, (to say nothing of
the liberty of its organ,) and its members have always had liberty to
plead for the slave, in as “orthodox” language, and by as “orthodox”
arguments as they pleased; and, in fine, the society has every one
of those characteristics, by virtue of which, the Spectator declares
the American Society to be “practically orthodox;” and yet, strange
to tell, the American Society looks upon the difficulties that have
sprung up here out of these things, with which itself, by its agents
and otherwise, has had as much to do as any one, as a mere personal and
family quarrel; and _the friends of the new organization, on the other
hand, cannot endure the Massachusetts Society, to be sure, but are for
going into most cordial and hearty auxiliaryship to the American!_

A.A. PHELPS.”



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