FLOTSAM AND JETSAM.
The results of the storm became immediately manifest in several ways.
Such a commotion did not leave things in precisely the state in which
they were on the morning of the memorable day on which it struck the
city. The moral landscape and geography of the community had sensibly
changed at its close. The full extent of the alteration wrought could
not at once be seen, nor was it at once felt. But that there were deep
and abiding changes made by it in the court of public opinion in Boston
and Massachusetts on the subject of slavery there is little doubt. It
disgusted and alarmed many individuals who had hitherto acted in unison
with the social, business, and political elements, which were at the
bottom of the riot. Francis Jackson, for instance, had been one of the
fifteen hundred signers of the call for the great Faneuil Hall meeting
of the 21st of August. But on the afternoon of the 21st of October he
threw his house open to the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society, after
its meeting had been broken up by the mob. It seemed to him then that it
was no longer a mere struggle for the freedom of the slave, but for the
right of free speech and free discussion as well. Dr. Henry I. Bowditch,
a young man, in 1835, eminent professor and physician subsequently,
dates from that afternoon of mob violence his conversion to
Abolitionism. In that selfsame hour seeds of resistance to slavery were
sown in two minds of the first order in the city and State. Wendell
Phillips was a spectator in the streets that day, and the father of
Charles Sumner, the sheriff at the time, fought bravely to save Garrison
from falling into the hands of the mob. The great riot gave those young
men their first summons to enter the service of freedom. It was not long
afterward probably that they both began to read the _Liberator_. From
that event many intelligent and conservative people associated slavery
with lynch law and outrage upon the rights of free speech and popular
assembly.
This anti-slavery reaction of the community received practical
demonstration in the immediate increase of subscribers to the
_Liberator_. Twelve new names were added to the subscription list in one
day. It received significant illustration also in Garrison's nomination
to the legislature. In this way did between seventy and eighty citizens
testify their sympathy for him and their reprobation of mob rule. In yet
another way was its influence felt, and this was in the renewed zeal and
activity which it instantly produced on the part of the Abolitionists
themselves. It operated upon the movement as a powerful stimulus to
fresh sacrifices and unwearied exertions. George W. Benson, Garrison's
brother-in-law, led off bravely in this respect, as the following
extract from a letter written by him in Boston, two days after the riot,
to Garrison, at Brooklyn, well illustrates. He had come up to the city
from Providence the night before, in quest of his sister and her
husband. Not finding them, he turned to the cause which had been so
ruthlessly attacked, and this is the sort of care which he bestowed upon
it. He got Burleigh to write a general relation of the mob for
publication in the _Liberator_, and Whittier to indite another, with an
appeal to the public, the same to be published immediately, and of which
he ordered three thousand copies for himself.
"I further ordered," he writes, "one thousand copies of A. Grimké's
letter, with your introductory remarks, and your address published in
the _Liberator_ several weeks since, with your name appended, and
Whittier's poetry on the times, in a pamphlet form. I urged all our
friends to redouble their exertions. They seemed well disposed to accept
the advice, as nothing will now avail but thorough measures. _Liberty or
Death_!"
This is a fair specimen of the indomitable, indefatigable spirit which
was born of the attempt to put Abolitionism down by lawlessness and
violence. Indeed, the "Broad-Cloth Mob," viewed in the light of the
important consequences which followed it, was equal to a hundred
anti-slavery meetings, or a dozen issues of the _Liberator_.
It is a curious and remarkable circumstance that, on the very day of the
Boston mob, there occurred one in Utica, N.Y., which was followed by
somewhat similar results. An anti-slavery convention was attacked and
broken up by a mob of "gentlemen of property and standing in the
community," under the active leadership of a member of Congress. Here
there was an apparent defeat for the Abolitionists, but the consequences
which followed the outrage proved it a blessing in disguise. For the
cause made many gains thereby, and conspicuously among them was Gerritt
Smith, ever afterward one of its most eloquent and munificent
supporters. If anti-slavery meetings made converts by tens, anti-slavery
mobs made them by hundreds. The enemies of freedom builded better than
they knew or intended, and Garrison had the weightiest of reasons for
feeling thankful to them for the involuntary, yet vast aid and comfort
which their pro-slavery virulence and violence were bringing him and the
anti-slavery movement throughout the free States. Example: in 1835-36,
the great mob year, as many as three hundred and twenty-eight societies
were organized in the North for the immediate abolition of slavery.
The mob did likewise help towards a satisfactory solution of the riddle
propounded by Garrison: "Shall the _Liberator_ die?" The fresh access of
anti-slavery strength, both in respect of zeal and numbers, begotten by
it, exerted no slight influence on the longevity of the _Liberator_.
Poor the paper continued, and embarrassed the editor for many a month
thereafter, but as an anti-slavery instrument its survival may be said
from that proceeding to have become a necessity. To allow the
_Liberator_ to die at this juncture would have been such a confession of
having been put down, such an ignominious surrender to the mobocrats as
the Abolitionists of Boston would have scorned to make. "I trust," wrote
Samuel E. Sewall, "there will not be even one week's interruption in the
publication of the _Liberator._" _Ex uno disce omnes_. He but voiced the
sentiment of the editor's disciples and associates in the city, in the
State, and in New England as well.
Besides these larger consequences there were others of a more personal
and less welcome character. The individual suffers but the cause goes
forward. Property-holders in Boston after the riot were not at all
disposed to incur the risk of renting property to such disturbers of the
peace as Garrison and the _Liberator_. The owner of his home on Brighton
street was thrown into such alarm for the safety of his property, if
Garrison continued to occupy it, that he requested the cancellation of
the lease and the vacation of the premises. Garrison and his friends,
all things considered, decided that it was the part of wisdom to accede
to the request--although this breaking up of his home was a sore trial
to the young husband in more ways than one.
The landlord of the building where was located the _Liberator_ office
promptly notified the publishers to remove the paper not many mornings
after the mob. This was particularly hard luck, inasmuch as the most
dilligent quest for another local habitation for the paper, failed of
success. No one was willing to imperil his property by letting a part of
it to such a popularly odious enterprise. So that not only had the
household furniture of the editor to be stored, but the office effects
of the paper as well. The inextinguishable pluck and zeal of Garrison
and his Boston coadjutors never showed to better advantage than when
without a place to print the _Liberator_, the paper was "set up in
driblets" in other offices at extraordinary expense, and sent out week
after week to tell the tale of the mob, and to preach with undiminished
power the gospel of universal emancipation.
But more afflictive to the feelings of the reformer than the loss of his
home, or that of the office of the _Liberator_, was the loss of his
friend, George Thompson. It seemed to him when the English orator
departed that "the paragon of modern eloquence," and "the benefactor of
two nations," had left these shores. Garrison's grief was as poignant as
his humiliation was painful. George Thompson had come hither only as a
friend of America, and America had pursued him with the most relentless
malice. The greatest precautions were taken after the "Broadcloth Mob"
to ensure his safety. The place of his concealment was kept a secret and
committed only to a few tried friends. There is no doubt that had these
precautions not been observed and his hiding place been discovered by
the ruffians of the city, his life would have been attempted. Indeed it
is almost as certain that had he ventured to show himself in public he
would have been murdered in broad daylight in any of the large towns and
cities of Massachusetts. His mission was clearly at an end unless he was
determined to invite martyrdom. In these circumstances there was nothing
to do but to smuggle him out of the country at the first opportunity. On
Sunday, November 8, the anxiously looked-for moment came when George
Thompson was put upon a packet, in which he sailed for St. Johns, New
Brunswick, whence he subsequently took passage for England. Garrison was
inconsolable. "Who now shall go forth to argue our cause in public," he
sadly asked, "with subtle sophists and insolent scoffers?" little
dreaming that there was then approaching him out of the all-hail
hereafter a greater in these identical respects than George Thompson,
indisputably great as he was.
It was a blessed refuge to Garrison, the Benson homestead of Brooklyn,
termed Friendship's Valley. Hunted as a partridge by his enemies here he
found the quiet, and sympathy, and the right royal welcome and affection
for which his heart panted amidst the dust, and din, and dangers of the
crusade against slavery. But grateful as were the domestic sweets of
Friendship's Valley, his was altogether too militant and masterful a
spirit to yield himself without a struggle to the repose which it
offered. He did not at all relish the idea of being a forced exile from
Boston, of being obliged to edit the _Liberator_ at such long range. But
his friends urged him to submit to the one, and do the other, both on
grounds of economy and common prudence. He was almost super-anxious lest
it be said that the fear of the mob drove him out of Boston, and that
the fear of it kept him out. This super-anxiety in that regard his
friends to a certain degree shared with him. It was a phase of Abolition
grit. Danger attracted this new species of reformers as a magnet draws
iron. Instead of running away from it, they were, with one accord,
forever rushing into it. And the leader in Brooklyn was for rushing back
to Boston, where, if one chanced to sow the wind in the morning, he
might be morally certain of reaping the whirlwind in the afternoon.
Two weeks after he had been secretly conveyed to Canton by Deputy
Sheriff Parkman, being the day of his discharge from Leverett street
jail, he was back again in Boston. The popular excitement had subsided.
He showed himself freely in the streets and was nowhere molested. One
day, however, while at the anti-slavery office on Washington street, he
witnessed what was perhaps a final manifestation of the cat-like spirit
of the great mob. A procession passed by with band and music, bearing
aloft a large board on which were represented George Thompson and a
black woman with this significant allusion to the riot, made as if
addressed to himself by his dusky companion in disgrace: "When are we
going to have another meeting, Brother Thompson?" The cat-like creature
had lapsed into a playful mood, but its playfulness would have quickly
given place to an altogether different fit did it but know that Garrison
was watching it from the window of the very room where a few weeks
before he had nearly fallen into its clutches.
Garrison remained in Boston two weeks, going about the city, wherever
and whenever business or duty called him in a perfectly fearless way. He
left on the afternoon of November 18th. On that same afternoon the
Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society held a memorable meeting at the house
of Francis Jackson. It was then that Harriet Martineau, another foreign
emissary, avowed her entire agreement with the principles of the
Abolitionists, which subjected her to social ostracism, and to unlimited
abuse from the pro-slavery press of the city.
The new hatred of slavery which the mob had aroused in Boston found
heroic expression in a letter of Francis Jackson's replying to a vote of
thanks of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society to him for his
hospitality to the ladies after their meeting was broken up by the mob.
Mr. Jackson in his answer points with emphasis to the fact that his
hospitality had a double aim, one was the accommodation of the ladies,
the other the preservation of the right of free discussion. In his
regard a foundation principle of free institutions had been assailed.
"Happily," he shrewdly observed, "one point seems already to be gaining
universal assent, that slavery cannot long survive free discussion.
Hence the efforts of the friends, and apologists of slavery to break
down this right. And hence the immense stake which the enemies of
slavery hold, in behalf of freedom and mankind, in its preservation. The
contest is, therefore, substantially between liberty and slavery.
"As slavery cannot exist with free discussion, so neither can liberty
breathe without it. Losing this, we, too, shall be no longer free men
indeed, but little, if at all, superior to the millions we now seek to
emancipate." This apprehension and spirit of resistance, voiced by
Francis Jackson, was Garrison's new ally, which, phoenix-like, was born
out of the ashes of that terrific attempt of his enemies to effect his
destruction, known as the "Broad-Cloth Mob."