AGITATION AND REPRESSION.
William Lloyd Garrison's return from his English mission was signalized
by two closely related events, viz., the formation of the New York City
Anti-Slavery Society, and the appearance of the first of a succession of
anti-slavery mobs in the North. The news of his British successes had
preceded him, and prepared for him a warm reception on the part of his
pro-slavery countrymen. For had he not with malice prepense put down the
"most glorious of Christian enterprises," and rebuked his own country in
the house of strangers as recreant to freedom? And when O'Connell in
Exeter Hall pointed the finger of scorn at America and made her a
by-word and a hissing in the ears of Englishmen, was it not at a meeting
got up to further the designs of this "misguided young gentlemen who has
just returned from England whither he has recently been for the sole
purpose as it would seem [to the _Commercial Advertiser_] of traducing
the people and institutions of his own country." Had he not caught up
and echoed back the hissing thunder of the great Irish orator:--"_Shame
on the American Slaveholders_! Base wretches should we shout in
chorus--base wretches, how dare you profane the temple of national
freedom, the sacred fane of Republican rites, with the presence and the
sufferings of human beings in chains and slavery!"
The noise of these treasons on a foreign shore, "deafening the sound of
the westerly wave, and riding against the blast as thunder goes," to
borrow O'Connell's graphic and grandiose phrases, had reached the
country in advance of Mr. Garrison. The national sensitiveness was
naturally enough stung to the quick. Here is a pestilent fellow who is
not content with disturbing the peace of the Union with his new
fanaticism, but must needs presume to make the dear Union odious before
the world as well. And his return, what is it to be but the signal for
increased agitation on the slavery question. The conquering hero comes
and his fanatical followers salute him forthwith with a new anti-slavery
society, which means a fresh instrument in his hands to stir up strife
between the North and the South. "Are we tamely to look on, and see this
most dangerous species of fanaticism extending itself through society?"
shrieked on the morning of Mr. Garrison's arrival in New York Harbor,
the malignant editor of the _Courier and Enquirer_.
The pro-slavery and lawless elements of the city were not slow to take
the cue given by metropolitan papers, and to do the duty of patriots
upon their country's enemies. Arthur Tappen and his anti-slavery
associates outwitted these patriotic gentlemen, who attended in a body
at Clinton Hall on the evening of October 2, 1833, to perform the
aforesaid duty of patriots, while the objects of their attention were
convened at Chatham Street Chapel and organizing their new fanaticism.
The mob flew wide of its mark a second time, for when later in the
evening it began a serenade more expressive than musical before the
entrance to the little chapel on Chatham street the members of the
society "folded their tents like the Arabs and as silently stole away."
The Abolitionists accomplished their design and eluded their enemies at
the same time. But the significance of the riotous demonstration went
not unobserved by them and their newly arrived leader. It was plain from
that night that if the spirit of Abolitionism had risen, the spirit of
persecution had risen also.
A somewhat similar reception saluted the reformer in Boston. An
inflammatory handbill announced to his townsmen his arrival. "The true
American has returned, _alias_ William Lloyd Garrison, the 'Negro
Champion,' from his disgraceful mission to the British metropolis,"
etc., etc., and wound up its artful list of lies with the malignant
suggestion that "He is now in your power--do not let him escape you, but
go this evening, armed with plenty of _tar and feathers_ and administer
to him justice at his abode at No. 9 Merchant's Hall, Congress street."
In obedience to this summons, a reception committee in the shape of "a
dense mob, breathing threatenings which forboded a storm," did pay their
respects to the "true American" in front of his abode at the _Liberator_
office. Fortunately the storm passed over without breaking that evening
on the devoted head of the "Negro Champion." But the meaning of the
riotous demonstration it was impossible to miss. Like the mob in New
York it clearly indicated that the country was on the outer edge of an
area of violent disturbances on the subject of slavery.
The peril which Garrison had twice escaped was indeed grave, but neither
it nor the certainty of future persecution could flutter or depress his
spirits. "For myself," he wrote subsequently in the _Liberator_, "I am
ready to brave any danger even unto death. I feel no uneasiness either
in regard to my fate or to the success of the cause of Abolition.
Slavery must speedily be abolished; the blow that shall sever the chains
of the slaves may shake the nation to its center--may momentarily
disturb the pillars of the Union--but it shall redeem the character,
extend the influence, establish the security, and increase the
prosperity of our great republic." It was not the rage and malice of his
enemies which the brave soul minded, but the ever-present knowledge of
human beings in chains and slavery whom he must help. Nothing could
separate him from his duty to them, neither dangers present nor
persecutions to come. The uncertainty of life made him only the more
zealous in their behalf. The necessity of doing, doing, and yet ever
doing for the slave was plainly pressing deep like thorns into his
thoughts. "I am more and more impressed;" he wrote a friend a few weeks
later, "I am more and more impressed with the importance of 'working
whilst the day lasts.' If 'we all do fade as a leaf,' if we are 'as the
sparks that fly upward,' if the billows of time are swiftly removing the
sandy foundation of our life, what we intend to do for the captive, and
for our country, and for the subjugation of a hostile world, must be
done quickly. Happily 'our light afflictions are but for a moment.'"
This yearning of the leader for increased activity in the cause of
immediate emancipation was shared by friends and disciples in different
portions of the country. Few and scattered as were the Abolitionists,
they so much the more needed to band together for the great conflict
with a powerful and organized evil. This evil was organized on a
national scale, the forces of righteousness which were rising against
it, if they were ever to overcome it and rid the land of it, had needs
to be organized on a national scale also. Garrison with the instinct of
a great reformer early perceived the immense utility of a national
anti-slavery organization for mobilizing the whole available Abolition
sentiment of the free States in a moral agitation of national and
tremendous proportions.
He had not long to wait after his return from England before this desire
of his soul was satisfied. It was in fact just a month afterward that a
call for a convention for the formation of the American Anti-Slavery
Society went out from New York to the friends of immediate emancipation
throughout the North. As an evidence of the dangerously excited state of
the popular mind on the subject of slavery there stands in the summons
the significant request to delegates to regard the call as confidential.
The place fixed upon for holding the convention was Philadelphia, and
the time December 4, 1833.
Garrison bestirred himself to obtain for the convention a full
representation of the friends of freedom. He sent the call to George W.
Benson, at Providence, urging him to spread the news among the
Abolitionists of his neighborhood and to secure the election of a goodly
number of delegates by the society in Rhode Island. He forthwith
bethought him of Whittier on his farm in Haverhill, and enjoined his old
friend to fail not to appear in Philadelphia. But while the young poet
longed to go to urge upon his Quaker brethren of that city "to make
their solemn testimony against slavery visible over the whole land--to
urge them, by the holy memories of Woolman and Benezet and Tyson to come
up as of old to the standard of Divine Truth, though even the fires of
another persecution should blaze around them," he feared that he would
not be able to do so. The spirit was surely willing but the purse was
empty, "as thee know," he quaintly adds, "our farming business does not
put much cash in our pockets." The cash he needed was generously
supplied by Samuel E. Sewall, and Whittier went as a delegate to the
convention after all. The disposition on the part of some of the poorer
delegates was so strong to be present at the convention that not even
the lack of money was sufficient to deter them from setting out on the
expedition. Two of them, David T. Kimball and Daniel E. Jewett, from
Andover, Mass., did actually supplement the deficiencies of their
pocket-books by walking to New Haven, the aforesaid pocket-books being
equal to the rest of the journey from that point.
About sixty delegates found their way to Philadelphia and organized on
the morning of December 4th, in Adelphi Hall, the now famous convention.
It was a notable gathering of apostolic spirits--"mainly composed of
comparatively young men, some in middle age, and a few beyond that
period." They had come together from ten of the twelve free States,
which fact goes to show the rapid, the almost epidemic-like spread of
Garrisonian Abolitionism through the North. The _Liberator_ was then
scarcely three years old, and its editor had not until the second day of
the convention attained the great age of twenty-eight! The convention of
1787 did not comprise more genuine patriotism and wisdom than did this
memorable assembly of American Abolitionists. It was from beginning to
end an example of love to God and love to men, of fearless scorn of
injustice and fearless devotion to liberty. Not one of those three score
souls who made up the convention, who did not take his life in his hand
by reason of the act. It was not the love of fame surely which brought
them over so many hundreds of miles, which made so many of them endure
real physical privation, which drew all by a common, an irresistible
impulse to congregate for an unpopular purpose within reach of the teeth
and the claws of an enraged public opinion.
The convention, as one man might have said with the single-minded Lundy,
"My heart was deeply grieved at the gross abomination; I heard the wail
of the captive; I felt his pang of distress; and the iron entered my
soul." The iron of slavery had indeed entered the soul of every member
of the convention. It was the divine pang and pity of it which collected
from the East and from the West this remarkable body of reformers.
The story of how they had to find a president illustrates the
contemporary distrust and antagonism, which the anti-slavery movement
aroused among the men of standing and influence. Knowing in what bad
odor they were held by the community, and anxious only to serve their
cause in the most effective manner, the members of the convention hit
upon the plan of asking some individual eminent for his respectability
to preside over their deliberations, and thereby disarm the public
suspicions and quiet the general apprehensions felt in respect of the
incendiary character of their intention. So in pursuance of this plan
six of their number were dispatched on the evening of December 3d to
seek such a man. But the quest of the committee like that of Diogenes
proved a failure. After two attempts and two repulses the committee were
not disposed to invite the humiliation of a third refusal and must have
listened with no little relief, to this blunt summary of the situation
by Beriah Green, who was one of the six. "If there is not timber amongst
ourselves," quoth Green, "big enough to make a president of, let us get
along without one, or go home and stay there until we have grown up to
be men." The next day Green was chosen, and established in a manner
never to be forgotten by his associates that the convention did possess
"timber big enough to make a president of."
Narrow as were the circumstances of many of the members, the convention
was by no means destitute of men of wealth and business prominence. Such
were the Winslows, Isaac and Nathan, of Maine, Arnold Buffum, of
Massachusetts, and John Rankin and Lewis Tappan, of New York.
Scholarship, talents, and eloquence abounded among the delegates. Here
there was no lack, no poverty, but extraordinary sufficiency, almost to
redundancy. The presence of the gentler sex was not wanting to lend
grace and picturesqueness to the occasion. The beautiful and benignant
countenance of Lucretia Mott shed over the proceedings the soft radiance
of a pure and regnant womanhood; while the handful of colored delegates
with the elegant figure of Robert Purvis at their head, added pathos and
picturesqueness to the _personnel_ of the convention. Neither was the
element of danger wanting to complete the historic scene. Its presence
was grimly manifest in the official intimation that evening meetings of
the convention could not be protected, by the demonstrations of popular
ill-will which the delegates encountered on the streets, by the
detachment of constabulary guarding the entrance to Adelphi Hall, and by
the thrillingly significant precaution observed by the delegates of
sitting with locked doors. Over the assembly it impended cruel and
menacing like fate. Once securely locked within the hall, the
Abolitionists discreetly abstained from leaving it at noon for dinner,
well knowing how small a spark it takes to kindle a great fire. It was
foolhardy to show themselves unnecessarily to the excited crowds in the
streets, and so mindful that true courage consisteth not in
recklessness, they despatched one of their number for crackers and
cheese, which they washed down with copious draughts of cold water. But
they had that to eat and drink besides, whereof the spirits of mischief
without could not conceive.
The grand achievement of the convention was, of course, the formation of
the American Anti-Slavery Society, but the crown of the whole was
unquestionably the Declaration of Sentiments. The composition of this
instrument has an interesting history. It seems that the delegates
considered that the remarkable character of the movement which they were
launching upon the wide sea of national attention demanded of them an
expression altogether worthy of so momentous an undertaking. The
adoption of a constitution for this purpose was felt to be inadequate. A
constitution was indispensable, but some other expression was necessary
to give to their work its proper proportion and importance. Such a
manifestation it was deemed meet to make in the form of a declaration of
sentiments. A committee was accordingly appointed to draft the
declaration. This committee named three of its number, consisting of
Garrison, Whittier, and Samuel J. May to draw up the document. The
sub-committee in turn deputed Garrison to do the business.
Mr. May has told in his _Recollections of the Anti-Slavery Conflict_,
how he and Whittier left their friend at ten o'clock in the evening,
agreeing to call at eight the following morning and how on their return
at the appointed hour they found Garrison with shutters closed and lamps
burning, penning the last paragraph of the admirable document. He has
told how they three read it over together two or three times, making
some slight alterations in it, and how at nine o'clock the draft was
laid by them before the whole committee. The author of the recollections
has left a graphic account of its effect upon the convention. "Never in
my life," he says, "have I seen a deeper impression made by words than
was made by that admirable document upon all who were present. After the
voice of the reader had ceased there was silence for several minutes.
Our hearts were in perfect unison. There was but one thought with us
all. Either of the members could have told what the whole convention
felt. We felt that the word had just been uttered which would be mighty,
through God, to the pulling down of the strongholds of slavery." Such
was the scene at the first reading of the Declaration of Sentiments, Dr.
Atlee, the reader. The effect at its final reading was, if possible,
even more dramatic and eloquent. Whittier has depicted this closing and
thrilling scene. He has described how Samuel J. May read the declaration
for the last time. "His sweet, persuasive voice faltered with the
intensity of his emotions as he repeated the solemn pledges of the
concluding paragraphs. After a season of silence, David Thurston of
Maine, rose as his name was called by one of the secretaries and affixed
his name to the document. One after another passed up to the platform,
signed, and retired in silence. All felt the deep responsibility of the
occasion--the shadow and forecast of a life-long struggle rested upon
every countenance."
The effects, so electrical and impressive, which followed the reading of
the declaration were not disproportioned to its merits, for it was an
instrument of singular power, wisdom, and eloquence. Indeed, to this
day, more than half a century after it was written it still has virtue
to quicken the breath and stir the pulses of a sympathetic reader out of
their normal time. A great passion for freedom and righteousness
irradiates like a central light the whole memorable document. It begins
by a happy reference to an earlier convention, held some fifty-seven
years before in the same place, and which adopted a declaration holding
"that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator
with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, LIBERTY, and
the pursuit of happiness;" and how at the trumpet-call of its authors
three millions of people rushed to arms "deeming it more glorious to die
instantly as free men, than desirable to live one hour as slaves"; and
how, though few in number and poor in resources those same people were
rendered invincible by the conviction that truth, justice, and right
were on their side. But the freedom won by the men of 1776 was
incomplete without the freedom for which the men of 1833 were striving.
The authors of the new declaration would not be inferior to the authors
of the old "in purity of motive, in earnestness of zeal, in decision of
purpose, intrepidity of action, in steadfastness of faith, in sincerity
of spirit." Unlike the older actors, the younger had eschewed the sword,
the spilling of human blood in defence of their principles. Theirs was a
moral warfare, the grappling of truth with error, of the power of love
with the inhumanities of the nation. Then it glances at the wrongs which
the fathers suffered, and at the enormities which the slaves were
enduring. The "fathers were never slaves, never bought and sold like
cattle, never shut out from the light of knowledge and religion, never
subjected to the lash of brutal taskmasters," but all these woes and
more, an unimaginable mountain of agony and misery, was the appalling
lot of the slaves in the Southern States. The guilt of this nation,
which partners such a crime against human nature, "is unequaled by any
other on earth," and therefore it is bound to instant repentance, and to
the immediate restitution of justice to the oppressed.
The Declaration of Sentiments denies the right of man to hold property
in a brother man, affirms the identity in principle between the African
slave trade and American slavery, the imprescriptibility of the rights
of the slaves to liberty, the nullity of all laws which run counter to
human rights, and the grand doctrine of civil and political equality in
the Republic, regardless of race and complexional differences. It boldly
rejects the principle of compensated emancipation, because it involves a
surrender of the position that man cannot hold property in man; because
slavery is a crime, and the master is not wronged by emancipation but
the slaves righted, restored to themselves; because immediate and
general emancipation would only destroy nominal, not real, property, the
labor of the slaves would still remain to the masters and doubled by the
new motives which freedom infuses into the breasts of her children; and,
finally because, if compensation is to be given at all it ought to be
given to those who have been plundered of their rights. It spurns in one
compact paragraph the pretensions of the colonization humbug as
"delusive, cruel, and dangerous."
But lofty and uncompromising as were the moral principles and positions
of the declaration, it nevertheless recognized with perspicuity of
vision the Constitutional limitations of the Federal Government in
relation to slavery. It frankly conceded that Congress had no right to
meddle with the evil in any of the States. But wherever the national
jurisdiction reached the general government was bound to interfere and
suppress the traffic in human flesh. It was the duty of Congress,
inasmuch as it possessed the power, to abolish slavery in the District
of Columbia, the National Territories, along the coast and between the
States. The free States are the _particeps criminis_ of the slave
States. They are living under a pledge of their tremendous physical
force to rivet the manacles of chattel slavery upon millions in the
South; they are liable at any instant to be called on under the
Constitution to suppress a general insurrection of the slaves. This
relationship is criminal, "is full of danger, IT MUST BE BROKEN UP."
So much for the views and principles of the declaration, now for the
designs and measures as enumerated therein: "We shall organize
anti-slavery societies, if possible, in every city, town and village in
our land.
"We shall send forth agents to lift up the voice of remonstrance, of
warning, of entreaty, and of rebuke.
"We shall circulate, unsparingly and extensively, anti-slavery tracts
and periodicals.
"We shall enlist the pulpit and the press in the cause of the suffering
and the dumb.
"We shall aim at a purification of the churches from all participation
in the guilt of slavery.
"We shall encourage the labor of freemen rather than that of slaves, by
giving a preference to their productions; and
"We shall spare no exertions nor means to bring the whole nation to
speedy repentance."
The instrument closes by pledging the utmost of its signers to the
overthrow of slavery--"come what may to our persons, our interests, or
our reputations--whether we live to witness the triumph of Liberty,
Justice, and Humanity, or perish untimely as martyrs in this great,
benevolent, and holy cause." Twin pledge it was to that ancestral,
historic one made in 1776: "And for the support of this declaration,
with a firm reliance on the protection of DIVINE PROVIDENCE, we mutually
pledge to each other, our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor."
Whittier has predicted for the Declaration of Sentiments an enduring
fame: "It will live," he declares, "as long as our national history."
Samuel J. May was equally confident that this "Declaration of the Rights
of Man," as he proudly cherished it, would "live a perpetual, impressive
protest against every form of oppression, until it shall have given
place to that brotherly kindness which all the children of the common
Father owe to one another." As a particular act and parchment-roll of
high thoughts and resolves, highly expressed, it will not, I think,
attain to the immortality predicted for it. For as such it has in less
than two generations passed almost entirely out of the knowledge and
recollection of Americans. But in another sense it is destined to
realize all that has been foreshadowed for it by its friends. Like
elemental fire its influence will glow and flame at the center of our
national life long after as a separate and sovereign entity it shall
have been forgotten by the descendants of its illustrious author and
signers.
The convention was in session three days, and its proceedings were
filled with good resolutions and effective work. Arthur Tappan was
elected President of the national organization, and William Green, Jr.,
Treasurer. Elizur Wright, Jr., was chosen Secretary of Domestic
Correspondence, William Lloyd Garrison Secretary of Foreign
Correspondence, and Abraham L. Cox Recording Secretary. Besides these
officers there were a Board of Management and a number of
Vice-Presidents selected. For three days the hearts of the delegates
burned within them toward white-browed Duty and the master, Justice, who
stood in their midst and talked with divine accents to their spirits of
how men were enslaved and cruelly oppressed by men, their own brothers,
and how the cry of these bondmen came up to them for help. And with one
accord there fell upon the delegates a pang and pity, an uplifting,
impelling sense of 'woe unto us' if we withhold from our brethren in
bonds the help required of us. This rising tide of emotion and
enthusiasm gathering mass at each sitting of the convention, culminated
during the several readings of the Declaration of Sentiments. And when
on the third day Beriah Green brought the congress to a close in a
valedictory address of apostolic power and grandeur, and with a prayer
so sweet, so fervent, and strong as to melt all hearts, the pent-up
waters of the reform was ready to hurl themselves into an agitation the
like of which had never before, nor has since, been seen or felt in the
Union. Thenceforth freedom's little ones were not without great allies,
who were "exultations, agonies, and love, and man's unconquerable mind."
Everywhere the flood of Abolitionism burst upon the land, everywhere the
moral deluge spread through the free States. Anti-slavery societies rose
as it were, out of the ground, so rapid, so astonishing were their
growth during the year following the formation of the national society.
In nearly every free State they had appeared doubling and quadrupling in
number, until new societies reached in that first year to upwards of
forty. Anti-slavery agents and lecturers kept pace with the anti-slavery
societies. They began to preach, to remonstrate, to warn, entreat, and
rebuke until their voices sounded like the roar of many waters in the
ears of the people. Wherever there was a school-house, a hall, or a
church, there they were, ubiquitous, irrepressible, a cry in the
wilderness of a nation's iniquity. Anti-slavery tracts and periodicals
multiplied and started from New York and Boston in swarms, and clouds,
the thunder of their wings were as the thunder of falling avalanches to
the guilty conscience of the country. There was no State, city, town, or
village in the Republic where their voice was not heard.
The Rev. Amos A Phelp's "Lectures on Slavery and Its Remedy;" "the Rev.
J.D. Paxton's 'Letters on Slavery'; the Rev. S.J. May's letters to
Andrew T. Judson, 'The Rights of Colored People to Education
Vindicated'; Prof. Elizur Wright, Jr.'s, 'Sin of Slavery and Its
Remedy'; Whittier's 'Justice and Expediency'; and, above all, Mrs. Lydia
Maria Child's startling 'Appeal in favor of that class of Americans
called Africans' were the more potent of the new crop of writings
betokening the vigor of Mr. Garrison's Propagandism," says that
storehouse of anti-slavery facts the "Life of Garrison" by his children.
Swift poured the flood, widespread the inundation of anti-slavery
publications. Money, although not commensurate with the vast wants of
the crusade, came in copious and generous streams. A marvelous
munificence characterized the charity of wealthy Abolitionists. The poor
gave freely of their mite, and the rich as freely of their thousands.
Something of the state of simplicity and community of goods which marked
the early disciples of Christianity seemed to have revived in the hearts
of this band of American reformers. A spirit of renunciation, of
self-sacrifice, of brotherly kindness, of passionate love of
righteousness, of passionate hatred of wrong, of self-consecration to
truth and of martyrdom lifted the reform to as high a moral level as had
risen any movement for the betterment of mankind in any age of the
world.
The resolutions of the signers of the Declaration of Sentiment, to
enlist the pulpit in the cause of the suffering and dumb, and to attempt
the purification of the churches from all participation in the guilt of
slavery, encountered determined opposition from the pulpits and the
churches themselves. The Abolitionists were grieved and indignant at the
pro-slavery spirit which pulpits and churches displayed. But what
happened was as we now look back at those proceedings, an inevitable
occurrence, a foregone conclusion. The pulpits were only representative
of the religion of the pews, and the pews were occupied by the same sort
of humanity that toil and spin and haggle over dollars and cents six out
of every seven days. They have their selfish and invested interests,
fixed social notions, relationships, and prejudices, which an episode
like Sunday, churches, and sermons do not seriously affect. Indeed,
Sunday, churches, and sermons constitute an institution of modern
civilization highly conservative of invested interests, fixed social
notions, relationships, and prejudices. Who advances a new idea, a
reformatory movement, disturbs the _status quo_, stirs up the human bees
in that great hive called society, and that lesser one called the
church, and he must needs expect to have the swarm about his head.
This was precisely what happened in the case of the anti-slavery
movement. It threatened the then _status quo_ of property rights, it
attacked the fixed social notions, relationships, and prejudices of the
South and of the North alike. The revolution which this new idea
involved in the slave States, was of the most radical character, going
down to a complete reconstruction of their entire social system. At once
the human hornets were aroused, and in these circumstances, the innocent
and the guilty were furiously beset. Because the new idea which
disturbed the South had originated in the North, the wrath of the South
rose hot against not the authors of the new idea alone but against the
people of that section as well. But this sectional unpleasantness
endangered the stability of the Union, and menaced with obstructions and
diversions the golden stream of Northern traffic, dollars, and
dividends. This was intolerable, and forthwith the Apiarian brotherhood
of the free States put together their heads with those of the slave
States to attack, sting, and utterly abolish the new idea, and the new
idea's supporters. The Northern churches were, of course, in the
Northern brotherhood. And when the new fanaticism threatened the
financial stability of the pews, the pulpits instead of exerting
themselves in behalf of the suffering and dumb slaves, exerted
themselves to preserve the prosperity of the pews by frowning down the
friends of the slaves. They were among the first to stone the new idea
and its fiery prophets. "Away with them!" shouted in chorus pulpit and
pews. Sad? yes, but alas! natural, too. These men were not better nor
worse than the average man. They were the average men of their
generation, selfish, narrow, material, encrusted in their prejudices
like snails in their shells, struggling upward at a snail's pace to the
larger life, with its added sweetness and humanities, but experiencing
many a discomfiture by the way from those foul and triple fiends, the
World, the Flesh, and the Devil.
Nowhere in the churches was their opposition to the Abolition movement
more persistent and illiberal than in the theological seminaries, whence
the pulpits drew their supplies of preachers. Like master, like servant,
these institutions were indentured to the public, and reflected as in a
mirror the body and pressure of its life and sentiment. That a stream
cannot rise higher than its source, although a theological stream, found
remarkable demonstration in the case of Lane Seminary. Here after the
publication of the "Thoughts on Colonization," and the formation of the
National Society, an earnest spirit of inquiry broke out among the
students on the subject of slavery. It was at first encouraged by the
President, Lyman Beecher, who offered to go in and discuss the question
with his "boys." That eminent man did not long remain in this mind. The
discussions which he so lightly allowed swept through the institution
with the force of a great moral awakening. They were continued during
nine evenings and turned the seminary at their close, so far as the
students went, into an anti-slavery society. This is not the place to go
at length into the history of that anti-slavery debate, which, in its
consequences, proved one of the events of the anti-slavery conflict. Its
leader was Theodore D. Weld, who was until Wendell Phillips appeared
upon the scene, the great orator of the agitation.
Dr. Beecher had no notion of raising such a ghost when he said, "Go
ahead, boys, I'll go in and discuss with you." It was such an apparition
of independence and righteousness as neither the power of the trustees
nor the authority of the faculty was ever able to dismiss. The virtue of
a gag rule was tried to suppress Abolition among the students, but
instead of suppressing Abolition, it well-nigh suppressed the seminary;
for, rather than wear a gag on the obnoxious subject, the students--to
between seventy and eighty, comprising nearly the whole muster-roll of
the school--withdrew from an institution where the exercise of the right
of free inquiry and free speech on a great moral question was denied and
repressed. The same spirit of repression arose later in the Theological
School at Andover, Mass. There the gag was effectively applied by the
faculty, and all inquiry and discussion relating to slavery disappeared
among the students. But the attempt to impose silence upon the students
of Phillips's Academy near-by was followed by the secession of forty or
fifty of the students.
Ah! the Abolitionists had undertaken to achieve the impossible, when
they undertook to enlist the pulpit in the cause of the slaves, and to
purify the churches from all participation in the guilt of slavery. For
the average man, whether within or without the church, is not controlled
in his conduct toward his brother man by the principles and precepts of
Jesus, but by the laws of social and individual selfishness. These
selfish forces may at epochal moments align themselves with justice and
liberty, and they not infrequently do, otherwise human progress must be
at an end. In advancing themselves, they perforce advance justice and
liberty. Thus do men love their neighbors as themselves, and move
forward to fraternity and equality in kingdoms and commonwealths. The
special province of moral reformers, like Garrison and the
Abolitionists, seems to be to set these egoistic and altruistic elements
of human society at war, the one against the other, thereby compelling
its members and classes, willy nilly, to choose between the
belligerents. Some will enlist on one side, some on the other, but in
the furnace heat of the passions which ensues, an ancient evil, or a bad
custom or institution, gets the vitality burned out of it, which in due
time falls as slag out of the new order that arises at the close of the
conflict.