BETWEEN THE ACTS.
Mr. Garrison, in a private letter to a friend under date of September
12, 1834, summarises the doings of the preceding twelve months of his
life, and makes mention of a fact which lends peculiar interest to that
time: "It has been the most eventful year," he remarks, "in my history.
I have been the occasion of many uproars, and a continual disturber of
the public peace. As soon as I landed I turned the city of New York
upside down. Five thousand people turned out to see me tarred and
feathered, but were disappointed. There was also a small hubbub in
Boston on my arrival. The excitement passed away, but invective and
calumny still followed me. By dint of some industry and much persuasion,
I succeeded in inducing the Abolitionists in New York to join our little
band in Boston, in calling a national convention at Philadelphia. We
met, and such a body of men, for zeal, firmness, integrity, benevolence,
and moral greatness, the world has rarely seen in a single assembly.
Inscribed upon a declaration which it was my exalted privilege to write,
their names can perish only with the knowledge of the history of our
times. A National Anti-Slavery Society was formed, which astonished the
country by its novelty, and awed it by its boldness. In five months its
first annual meeting was held in the identical city in which, only seven
antecedent months, Abolitionists were in peril of their lives. In
ability, interest, and solemnity it took precedence of all the great
religious celebrations which took place at the same time. During the
same month, a New England anti-slavery convention was held in Boston,
and so judicious were its measures, so eloquent its appeals, so
unequivocal its resolutions, that it at once gave shape and character to
the anti-slavery cause in this section of the Union. In the midst of all
these mighty movements, I have wooed "a fair ladye," and won her, have
thrown aside celibacy, and jumped body and soul into matrimony, have
sunk the character of bachelor in that of husband, have settled down
into domestic quietude, and repudiated all my roving desires, and have
found that which I have long been yearning to find, a home, a wife, and
a beautiful retreat from a turbulent city."
Garrison does not exaggerate the importance of the initiatives and
achievements of the year, or the part played by him in its history. His
activity was indeed phenomenal, and the service rendered by him to the
reform, was unrivaled. He was in incessant motion, originating,
directing, inspiring the agitation in all portions of the North. What
strikes one strongly in studying the pioneer is his sleeplessness, his
indefatigableness, his persistency in pursuit of his object. Others may
rest after a labor, may have done one, two, or three distinct tasks, but
between Garrison's acts there is no hiatus, each follows each, and is
joined to all like links in a chain. He never closed his eyes, nor
folded his arms, but went forward from work to work with the
consecutiveness of a law of nature.
But amid labors so strenuous and uninterrupted the leader found
opportunity to woo and win "a fair ladye." She was a daughter of a
veteran Abolitionist, George Benson, of Brooklyn, Conn., who with his
sons George W. and Henry E. Benson, were among the stanchest of the
reformer's followers and supporters. The young wife, before her
marriage, was not less devoted to the cause than they. She was in
closest sympathy with her husband's anti-slavery interests and purposes.
Never had husband found wife better fitted to his needs, and the needs
of his life work. So that it might be truly said that Garrison even when
he went a-wooing forgot not his cause and that when he took a wife, he
made at the same time a grand contribution to its ultimate triumph.
How did Helen Eliza Garrison serve the great cause? One who knew shall
tell. He has told it in his own unequaled way. "That home," he says,
"was a great help. Her husband's word and pen scattered his purpose far
and wide; but the comrades that his ideas brought to his side her
welcome melted into friends. No matter how various and discordant they
were in many things--no matter how much there was to bear and
overlook--her patience and her thanks for their sympathy in the great
idea were always sufficient for the work also.... In that group of
remarkable men and women which the anti-slavery movement drew together,
she had her own niche--which no one else could have filled so perfectly
or unconsciously as she did.... She forgot, omitted nothing. How much we
all owe her!" These were words spoken by a friend, whose name will
appear later on in this story; words spoken by him at the close of her
beautiful life, as she lay dead in her coffin.
And here is another account of her written by the husband on the first
anniversary of their marriage: "I did not marry her," he confides to her
brother George, "expecting that she would assume a prominent station in
the anti-slavery cause, but for domestic quietude and happiness. So
completely absorbed am I in that cause, that it was undoubtedly wise in
me to select as a partner one who, while her benevolent feelings were in
union with mine, was less immediately and entirely connected with it. I
knew she was naturally diffident, and distrustful of her own ability to
do all that her heart might prompt. She is one of those who prefer to
toil unseen--to give by stealth--and to sacrifice in seclusion. By her
unwearied attention to my wants, her sympathetic regards, her perfect
equanimity of mind, and her sweet and endearing manners; she is no
trifling support to Abolitionism, inasmuch as she lightens my labors,
and enables me to find exquisite delight in the family circle, as an
offset to public adversity."
And here is a lovely bit of self-revelation made to her betrothed
several months before they were wedded. "I am aware of the
responsibility that will devolve upon me," she writes, "and how much my
example will be copied among that class you have so long labored to
elevate and enlighten. I have been considering how the colored people
think of dress, and how much of their profits are expended for useless
ornaments that foolishly tend to make a show and parade. As much stress
will, of course, be laid on Garrison's _wife_ by that class, it behooves
me to be very circumspect in all things, when called upon to fill so
important a station."
The marriage occurred September 4, 1834, and the next day the pair set
up housekeeping in "Freedom's Cottage," on Bower street, Roxbury. The
young housekeepers were rich in every good thing except money; and of
that commodity there was precious little that found its way into the
family till. And money was indispensable even to a philanthropist, who
cared as little for it as did Garrison. He had never in his twenty-eight
years experienced the sensation which a bank account, however small,
gives its possessor. He had been toiling during the last three years in
a state of chronic self-forgetfulness, and of consequence in a state of
chronic inpecuniosity. He had never been careful of what he got--was
careful only of what he gave. For himself he was ready to subsist on
bread and water and to labor more than fourteen hours at the case to
make the issue of the _Liberator_ possible. But surely he could not put
"a fair ladye" on such limited commons even for the sake of his cause.
The laborer is worthy of his hire, and an unworldly minded reformer
ought to be supplied with the wherewithal needful to feed, clothe, and
house himself and those dependent upon him. Some such thought shaped
itself in Garrison's mind as his circumstances grew more and more
straitened, and his future as the head of a family looked more and more
ominous. Anxiety for the morrow pressed heavily upon him as his
responsibilities as a breadwinner hugged closer and closer his everyday
life. Poverty ceased to be the ordinary enemy of former years, whom he
from the lookouts of the unconquerable mind used to laugh to scorn; it
had become instead a cruel foe who worried as by fire the peace of his
soul.
There was the _Liberator_? The _Liberator_ as a moral engine was a
marvelous success; but the _Liberator_ as a money-maker was a most
dismal failure. If its owners had possessed only common aptitude for
business the failure need not have been so complete, indeed the
enterprise might have been crowned with a moderate degree of success.
But never were two men more entirely lacking in the methods, which
should enter into ventures of that character, than were Garrison and
Knapp. Garrison was unfortunate in this respect but it seems that Knapp
was more so. Neither took to book-keeping, and neither overcame his
serious deficiency in this regard. The consequence was that the books
kept themselves, and confusion grew upon confusion until the partners
were quite confounded. Garrison naïvely confesses this fault of the firm
to his brother-in-law thus: "Brother Knapp, you know, resembles me very
closely in his habits of procrastination. Indeed I think he is rather
worse than I am in this respect!"
The paper was issued originally without a single subscriber. At the end
of the first volume the subscription list numbered five hundred names.
In the course of the next two volumes this number was more than doubled,
almost tripled, in fact. The subscription price was two dollars. The
property would have begun from this point to make returns to its owners
had they possessed the business training and instinct requisite to its
successful management. But they were reformers, not money-getters, and
instead of enjoying the profits they proceeded to use them up
incontinently in their first enlargement of the paper. But while they
had added to the cost of publication, they took no thought to augment
the cost of subscription. The publishers gave more and the subscribers
received more for the sum of two dollars. The pecuniary embarrassments
of the _Liberator_ increased, and so the partners' "bondage to penury"
increased also. This growing pressure was finally relieved by "several
generous donations," made for the support of the paper. At the beginning
of the fourth volume, the publishers wisely or other-wisely, again
enlarged their darling, and again neglected to raise the subscription
rates at the same time.
Misfortunes never come without company, but alight in flocks, and a
whole flock of misfortunes it was to the _Liberator_ when Joshua Coffin,
"that huge personification of good humor," was appointed canvassing
agent for the paper. He was as wanting in business methods as his
employers were. Confusion now gathered upon confusion around the devoted
heads of the partners, was accelerated and became daily more and more
portentous and inextricable. The delinquencies of subscribers grew more
and more grave. On the three first volumes they were two thousand
dollars in arrears to the paper. This was a large, a disastrous loss,
but traceable, to no inconsiderable extent, doubtless, to the loose
business methods of the reformer and his partner. The _Liberator_ at the
beginning of its fourth year was struggling in a deep hole of financial
helplessness and chaos. Would it ever get out alive, or "SHALL THE
_LIBERATOR_ DIE?" burst in a cry of anguish, almost despair, from its
editor, so weak in thought of self, so supreme in thought of others.
This carelessness of what appertained to the things which concerned
self, and devotion to the things which concerned his cause, finds apt
and pathetic illustration in this letter to Samuel J. May in the summer
of 1834, when his pecuniary embarrassments and burdens were never harder
to carry:
"In reply to your favor of the 24th [July], my partner joins with me in
consenting to print an edition of Miss Crandall's [defence] as large as
the one proposed by you, at our own risk. As to the profits that may
arise from the sale of the pamphlet, we do not expect to make any; on
the contrary, we shall probably suffer some loss, in consequence of the
difficulty of disposing of any publication, however interesting or
valuable in itself. But a trial so important as Miss C.'s, involving
such momentous consequences to a large portion of our countrymen,
implicating so deeply the character of this great nation, ought not to
go unpublished, and _shall_ not while we have the necessary materials
for printing it."
It is interesting to note that the weekly circulation of the
_Liberator_, in the spring of 1834, was twenty-three hundred copies, and
that this number was distributed in Philadelphia, four hundred; in New
York, three hundred: in Boston, two hundred; in other parts of the free
States eleven hundred; and that of the remaining three hundred, one-half
was sent as exchange with other papers, and eighty of the other half
were divided equally between England and Hayti, leaving seventy copies
for gratuitous distribution. The colored subscribers to the paper were
to the whites as three to one.
There were several suggestions by sundry friends looking to the release
of the _Liberator_ from its embarrassments, and, to the relief of its
unselfish publishers, from the grinding poverty which its issue imposed
upon them. The most hopeful and feasible of them was the scheme of which
Garrison wrote his betrothed April 14, 1834: "I am happy to say," he
pours into her ears, "that it is probable the managers of the New
England Anti-Slavery Society will determine, to-morrow afternoon, to
take all the pecuniary liabilities of the _Liberator_ hereafter, and
give me a regular salary for editing it, and friend Knapp a fair price
for printing it. My salary will not be less than $800 per annum, and
perhaps it will be fixed at a $1,000.... The new arrangement will go
into effect on the 1st of July." But alas; the managers took no such
action on the morrow, nor went the "new arrangement" into effect at the
time anticipated. The editor was married in September, and two months
later the eagerly expected relief was still delayed. This hope deferred
must have caused the young husband meanwhile no little anxiety and heart
sickness.
Love in a cottage is very pretty and romantic in novels, but love in a
cottage actually thriving on "bread and water," was a sweet reality in
the home of the young couple in Roxbury. "All the world loves a lover,"
says Emerson, but alas! there are exceptions to all rules, and all the
world loved not Garrison in his newly found felicity as shall presently
appear.
The pledge made by the reformer in the initial number of the _Liberator_
to be "as harsh as truth," had been kept to the letter. To some minds
there is nothing more difficult to understand and tolerate than is the
use of harsh language toward individual wrongdoers. They appear to be
much more solicitous to turn away the wrath of the wicked than to do
away with their wickedness. Multitudes of such minds were offended at
the tremendous severities of Garrison's speech. They were for peace at
any cost, while Garrison was for truth at any cost. These pro-slavery
critics were not necessarily wanting in good feelings to the slaves, or
lacking in a sense of the justice of their cause. But the feelings and
the sense were transitive to an abstract object, intransitive to that
terrible reality, the American slave. The indignation of such people
exceeded all bounds when contemplating wrongs in the abstract, iniquity
in the abstract, while the genuine article in flesh and blood and
habited in broadcloth and respectability provoked no indignation,
provoked instead unbounded charity for the willing victims of ancestral
transgressions. Upon the Southern slaveholder, as a creature of
circumstances, these people expended all their sympathy while upon the
Southern slave, who were to their view _the circumstances_, they looked
with increasing disapprobation. Garrison's harsh language greatly
shocked this class--excited their unbounded indignation against the
reformer.
Besides this class there was another, composed of friends, whom
Garrison's denunciatory style offended. To Charles Pollen and Charles
Stuart, and Lewis Tappan, this characteristic of the writings of the
great agitator was a sore trial. To them and to others, too, his
language seemed grossly intemperate and vituperative, and was deemed
productive of harm to the movement. But Garrison defended his harsh
language by pointing to the state of the country on the subject of
slavery before he began to use it, and to the state of the country
afterward. How utterly and morally dead the nation was before, how
keenly and marvelously alive it became afterward. The blast which he had
blown had jarred upon the senses of his slumbering countrymen he
admitted, but he should not be blamed for that. What to his critics
sounded harsh and abusive, was to him the trump of God. For, at the
thunder-peal which the Almighty blew from the mouth of his servant, how,
as by a miracle, the dead soul of the nation awoke to righteousness. He
does not arrogate to himself infallibility, indeed he is sure that his
language is not always happily chosen. Such errors, however, appear to
him trivial, in view of indisputable and extraordinary results produced
by the _Liberator_. He believes in marrying masculine truths to
masculine words. He protests against his condemnation by comparison.
"Every writer's style is his own--it may be smooth or rough, plain or
obscure, simple or grand, feeble or strong," he contends, "but
_principles_ are immutable." By his principles, therefore he would, be
judged. "Whittier, for instance," he continues, "is highly poetical,
exuberant, and beautiful. Stuart is solemn, pungent, and severe. Wright
is a thorough logician, dextrous, transparent, straightforward. Beriah
Green is manly, eloquent, vigorous, devotional. May is persuasive,
zealous, overflowing with the milk of human kindness. Cox is diffusive,
sanguine, magnificent, grand. Bourne thunders and lightens. Phelps is
one great, clear, infallible argument--demonstration itself. Jocelyn is
full of heavenly-mindedness, and feels and speaks and acts with a zeal
according to knowledge. Follen is chaste, profound, and elaborately
polished. Goodell is perceptive, analytical, expert, and solid. Child
(David L.) is generously indignant, courageous, and demonstrative; his
lady combines strength with beauty, argumentation with persuasiveness,
greatness with humility. Birney is collected, courteous,
dispassionate--his fearlessness excites admiration, his
conscientiousness commands respect." Of these writers, which is
acceptable to slaveholders or their apologists? Some have been cruelly
treated and all been calumniated as "fanatics, disorganizers, and
madmen." And why? "Certainly not for the _phraseology_ which they use,
but for the _principles_ which they adopt."
From another quarter came presently notes of discord, aroused by
Garrison's _hard language_. Sundry of the Unitarian clergy, under the
lead of Rev. Henry Ware, Jr., took it into their heads that the editor
of the _Liberator_ and some others were outrageously abusing the
Abolition cause, "mismanaging it by their unreasonable violence" of
language. Wherefore those gentlemen interposed to rescue the great cause
from harm by a brilliant scheme designed to secure moderation in this
regard. This brilliant scheme was nothing less absurd than the
establishment of a censorship over the _Liberator_. But as these
solicitous souls had reckoned without their host, their amiable plan
came to naught; but not, however, before adding a new element to the
universal discord then fast swelling to a roar. To the storm of censure
gathering about his head the reformer bowed not--neither swerved he to
the right hand nor to the left--all the while deeming it, "with the
apostle, a small thing to be judged by man's judgment." "I solicit no
man's praise," he sternly replies to his critics, "I fear no men's
censure."
There was still another cause of offence given by Garrison to his
countrymen. It was not his _hard language_, but a circumstance less
tolerable, if that was possible, than even that rock of offence. It
seems that when the editor of the _Liberator_ was in England, and dining
with Thomas Powell Buxton, he was asked by the latter in what way the
English Abolitionists could best assist the anti-slavery movement in
America, and he had replied, "_By giving us George Thompson_." This
unexpected answer of the American appeared without doubt to the
Englishman at the time somewhat extraordinary. He had his misgivings as
to the wisdom, to say nothing of the propriety, of an international act
of such importance and delicacy as the sending of George Thompson to
America. He questioned whether the national self-love of the American
people would not resent the arrival of an Englishman on such a mission
among them and refuse him a fair hearing in consequence. But Garrison
was confident that while Thompson's advent would stir up the pro-slavery
bile of the North and all that, he would not be put to much if any
greater disadvantage as a foreigner in speaking in New England on the
subject of slavery, than were those Abolitionists who were to the manner
born. As to his friend's personal safety in the East, Garrison was
extremely optimistic, had not apparently the slightest apprehensions for
him in this regard.
Well, after due deliberation, George Thompson consented to undertake the
mission to America, and the English reformers to send him, though not
all of them. For some there were like James Cropper, who were indisposed
to promoting such a mission, or "paying agents to travel in the United
States." It was natural enough for Mr. Garrison to prefer such a request
after hearing George Thompson speak. For he was one of those electric
speakers, who do with popular audiences what they will. In figure and
voice and action, he was a born orator. His eloquence was graphic,
picturesque, thrilling, and over English audiences it was irresistible.
Garrison fancied that such eloquence would prove equally attractive to
and irresistible over American audiences as well. But in this he was
somewhat mistaken, for Thompson had to deal with an element in American
audiences of which he had had no experience in England. What that
element was he had occasion to surmise directly he arrived upon these
shores. He reached New York just sixteen days after the marriage of his
friend, the editor of the _Liberator_ to be immediately threatened with
mob violence by the metropolitan press in case he ventured to "lecture
in favor of immediate Abolition," and to be warned that: "If our people
will not suffer our own citizens to tamper with the question of slavery,
it is not to be supposed that they will tolerate the officious
intermeddling of a foreign fanatic." Then as if by way of giving him a
taste of the beak and talons of the American _amour propre_, he and his
family were put out of the Atlantic Hotel in deference to the wish of an
irate Southerner. Thus introduced the English orator advanced speedily
thereafter into closer acquaintance with the American public. He
lectured in many parts of New England where that new element of rowdyism
and virulence of which his English audiences had given him no previous
experience, manifested its presence first in one way and then in others,
putting him again and again in jeopardy of life and limb. At Augusta,
Maine, his windows were broken, and he was warned out of the town. At
Concord, New Hampshire, his speech was punctuated with missiles. At
Lowell, Massachusetts, he narrowly escaped being struck on the head and
killed by a brickbat. Indeed it was grimly apparent that the master of
Freedom's Cottage would be obliged to revise his views as to the hazard,
which his friend ran in speaking upon the subject of slavery in New
England. To do so was weekly becoming for that friend an enterprise of
great personal peril. But it added also to the fierce hatred with which
the public now regarded Garrison. He was the author of all the mischief,
the slavery agitation, the foreign emissary. He had even dared to inject
the poison of Abolitionism into the politics of Boston and
Massachusetts. This attempt on the part of the _Liberator_ to establish
an anti-slavery test of office was only another proof of the dangerous
character of the new fanaticism and the Jacobinical designs of the
Garrisonian fanatics, ergo, the importance of suppressing the
incendiaries. Down with Thompson! Garrison must be destroyed! The
Union--it must and shall be preserved! All these the public excitement,
which had risen everywhere to a tempest, had come more and more to mean.
A tremendous crisis had come in the life of Garrison, and a great peril,
eagle-like, with the stirred-up hate of a nation, was swooping upon him.