FACE TO FACE.
Face to face at last were freedom and slavery. The final struggle
between them for mastery had come. Narrow, indeed, was the issue that
divided the combatants, slavery extension on the one side, and slavery
restriction on the other, not total and immediate emancipation, but it
was none the less vital and supreme to the two enemies. Back of the
Southern demand for "More slave soil" stood a solid South, back of the
Northern position, "No more slave soil" was rallying a fast uniting
North. The political revolution, produced by the Kansas-Nebraska Bill,
advanced apace through the free States from Maine to Michigan. A
flood-tide of Northern resistance had suddenly risen against the
slave-power.
Higher than anywhere else rose this flood-tide in Massachusetts. The
judge who remanded Anthony Burns to slavery was removed from office, and
a Personal Liberty Law, with provisions as bold as they were thorough,
enacted for the protection of fugitive slaves. Mr. Garrison sat beside
the President of the State Senate when that body voted to remove Judge
Loring from his office. Such was Massachusetts's answer to the
abrogation of the Missouri Compromise, and a triumphant slave-power. Its
instant effect was to accelerate in the South the action of the disunion
working forces there, to hurry the inevitable moment when the two
sections would rush together in a death-grapple within or without
Webster's once glorious Union.
Indeed the foes had already closed in a frightful wrestle for the
possession of Kansas. When the National Government adopted the popular
sovereignty doctrine in solution of the Territorial problem between the
two halves of the Union, freedom and slavery thereupon precipitated
their forces upon the debatable land, and, for the first time, the men
of the North and the men of the South came into actual physical
collision in defence of their respective ideas and institutions. The
possession of land is nine points of the law among Anglo-Saxons, and for
this immense advantage both sides flung themselves into Kansas--the
North by means of emigrant aid societies, the South by means of bands of
Border ruffians under the direction of a United States Senator. It was
distinctly understood and ordained in connection with the repeal of the
compromise of 1820, that final possession of the Territories then thrown
open to slave labor should be determined by the people inhabiting the
same. In the contest for peopling Kansas the superior colonizing
resources of the free States was presently made manifest. They, in any
fair contest with ballots, had a majority of the polls, and were,
therefore, able to vote slavery down. Worsted as the South clearly was
in a show of heads, it threw itself back upon fraud and force to decide
the issue in its favor. The cartridge-box took the place of the
ballot-box in bleeding Kansas, and violence and anarchy, as a
consequence, reigned therein for the space of several years.
This is no place to depict those scenes of slave-holding outrages,
supported as they were by a Northern President with Southern principles.
The sight of them rapidly changed the pacific character of the free
States. Many a peace man dropped his peace principles before this bloody
duel between the civilization of the South and that of the North.
Ministers and churches took up collections to send, not Bibles, but
Sharp's rifles to their brethren in Kansas. The South had appealed to
the sword, and the North had sternly accepted the challenge. War was in
the air, and the Northern temper, without there being any general
consciousness of it, was fast mounting to the war point in the
thermometer of the passions, thanks to the perfidy and ruffianism of the
slave-power in Congress and Kansas.
This trend and strong undertow of the nation toward a civil outbreak and
commotion, though unnoted by the multitude, was yet, nevertheless, seen
and felt by many thoughtful and far-seeing minds; and by no one more
clearly than by T.W. Higginson, who at the twentieth anniversary of the
Boston mob, discoursed thus on this head: "Mr. Phillips told us that on
this day, twenty years ago, the military could not protect the meeting,
because the guns were outside in the mob--or the men who should have
carried them! There has been a time since when the men were on the
outside and the guns too; and as surely as this earth turns on its axis,
that time will come again! And it is for you, men, who hear me, to think
what you will do when that time comes; and it is for you, women, who
hear me, to think what you will do, and what you are willing--I will not
say, to _consent_ that those you love should do, but what you are
willing to _urge_ them to do, and to send them from your homes, knowing
that they will do it, whether they live or die." The murderous assault
upon Charles Sumner in the Senate Chamber at Washington by Preston S.
Brooks, served to intensify the increasing belligerency of the Northern
temper, to deepen the spreading conviction that the irrepressible
conflict would be settled not with the pen through any more fruitless
compromises, but in Anglo-Saxon fashion by blood and iron.
Amid this general access of the fighting propensity, Garrison preserved
the integrity of his non-resistant principles, his aversion to the use
of physical force as an anti-slavery weapon. Men like Charles Stearns
talked of shouldering their Sharp's rifles against the Border ruffians
as they would against wild beasts. For himself, he could not class any
of his fellow-creatures, however vicious and wicked, on the same level
with wild beasts. Those wretches were, he granted, as bad and brutal as
they were represented by the free State men of Kansas, but to him they
were less blameworthy than were their employers and indorsers, the
pro-slavery President and his Cabinet, pro-slavery Congressmen, and
judges, and doctors of divinity, and editors. Incomparably guilty as
these "colossal conspirators against the liberty, peace, happiness, and
safety of the republic" were; and, though his moral indignation "against
their treasonable course" burned like fire, he, nevertheless, wished
them no harm. He shrank from the idea of the physical collision of man
with a brother man, and with him all mankind were brothers. No one is
able to draw a sword or point a rifle at any member of the human family,
"in a Christian state of mind." He held to Jesus, who condemned
violence, forbade the entertainment by his disciples of retaliatory
feelings and the use of retaliatory weapons. When Jesus said "Love your
enemies," he did not mean, "Kill them if they go too far."
Garrison's moral radicalism and political sagacity were never exhibited
to better advantage than during these tremendous years of the crisis. He
saw the sudden rise of a great political organization opposed to the
farther extension of slavery to national territory. It was by no means a
party after his heart, and for total and immediate emancipation, and the
dissolution of the Union, yet he perceived that while this was true, it
was, nevertheless, in its narrow purpose, battling against the
slave-power, fighting the slave system, and to this extent was worthy of
the commendation of Abolitionists. "It helps to disseminate no small
amount of light and knowledge," the reformer acutely observed, "in
regard to the nature and workings of the slave system, being
necessitated to do this to maintain its position; and thus, for the time
being, it is moulding public sentiment in the right direction, though
with no purpose to aid us in the specific work we are striving to
accomplish, namely, the dissolution of the Union, and the abolition of
slavery throughout the land." While bating no jot of his anti-slavery
principles, he all the same put in practice the apostolic injunction to
give credit to whom credit is due, by cordially commending what he found
worthy of commendation in the purpose and policy of the Republican
party, and by urging a like conduct upon his followers. In the
Presidential canvass of 1856 his sympathies went strongly with Frémont
as against Buchanan and Fillmore, although his Abolition principles
precluded him from voting for the Republican candidate or from urging
his disciples to vote for him. But, barring this moral barrier, had he
"a million votes to bestow" he "would cast them all for Frémont ... not
because he is an Abolitionist or a Disunionist ... but because he is for
the non-extension of slavery, in common with the great body of the
people of the North, whose attachment to the Union amounts to idolatry."
When the election was over the motto of the _Liberator_ was still "No
union with slaveholders," and would have remained the same though
Frémont instead of Buchanan had triumphed at the polls, until indeed the
domination of the slave-power had ended, and the North and the National
Constitution had been divorced from all criminal connection with
slavery. The anti-slavery agitation for the dissolution of the Union
went on with increased zeal. A State convention, called by T.W.
Higginson and others, "to consider the practicability, probability, and
expediency of a separation between the free and slave States, and to
take such other measures as the condition of the times may require," met
at Worcester, Mass., January 15, 1857, with Frank W. Bird in the chair,
and William Lloyd Garrison among the vice-presidents. The pioneer's
speech on the occasion was a characteristic and noteworthy utterance.
Its tone throughout was grave and argumentative. Here is a specimen of
it, and of the way in which he met the most serious objection to the
Abolition movement for disunion: "The air is filled with objections to a
movement of this kind. I am neither surprised nor disquieted at this.
One of these is of a very singular nature, and it is gravely urged that
it is conclusive against disunion. It is to this effect: We must remain
in the Union because it would be inhuman in us to turn our backs upon
millions of slaves in the Southern States, and to leave them to their
fate! Men who have never been heard of in the anti-slavery ranks, or who
are ever submitting to a compromise of principle, have their bowels
wonderfully moved all at once with sympathy for the suffering slave!
Even our esteemed friend, Theodore Parker (who deals in no cant) says,
in his letter, that he cannot consent to cut himself off from the slave
population. Now, we who are engaged in this movement claim to be equally
concerned for the liberation of the slave. If we have not yet proved our
willingness to suffer the loss of all things, rather than turn and flee,
God knows that we are prepared to bear any new cross that He, in His
Providence, may be disposed to lay upon us. For one, I make no parade of
my anxiety for the deliverance of those in bondage; but I do say that it
strikes me as remarkable that those who, for a quarter of a century,
have borne the heat and burden of the day, should have the imputation
cast upon them of intending to leave four millions of slaves in their
chains, by seeking the overthrow of this Union!...
" ... I declare that this talk of leaving the slave to his fate is not a
true representation of the case; and it indicates a strange dullness of
comprehension with regard to our position and purpose. What! Is it to
forsake the slave when I cease to be the aider and abettor of his
master? What! When the North is pressing down upon four millions of
slaves like an avalanche, and we say to her, 'Take off that
pressure--stand aside--give the slave a chance to regain his feet and
assert his freedom!' is that turning our backs upon him? Here, for
example, is a man engaged in highway robbery, and another man is acting
as an accessory, without whose aid the robber cannot succeed. In saying
to the accomplice. 'Hands off! Don't aid the villain!' shall I be told
that this is enabling the highwayman to rob with impunity? What an
absurdity! Are we not trying to save the pockets of all travelers from
being picked in seeking to break up all connection with highway
robbery?"
The convention projected a general convention of the free States to
consider the subject, and "_Resolved_, That the sooner the separation
takes place, the more peaceful it will be; but that peace or war is _a
secondary consideration_ in view of our present perils. Slavery must be
conquered, peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must." The projected
general convention, owing to the monetary crisis of 1857, did not take
place; but the extraordinary public excitement on the slavery question
increased rather than diminished during the year. The increasing menace
to the domination of the slave-power from this source had become so
great that it was deemed prudent on the part of the upholders of that
power to allay it by means of an authoritative utterance upon the vexed
question of slavery in the national Territories from the highest
judicial tribunal in the Land. The Northern respect for the opinion of
the Supreme Court, the South and her allies in the free States counted
upon as the vehicle of the quieting medicament. For, if the Missouri
Compromise were pronounced by that Court unconstitutional and,
therefore, _ab initio_, null and void, no wrong was done the North
through its formal repeal by Congress. The act of abrogation, in this
view, added nothing to the South which did not belong to it as well
before as after its passage, detracted nothing from the North which was
justly its due in the premises. In pursuance of this cunningly devised
scheme the Supreme Court delivered itself of an opinion in the famous
"Dred Scott Case." So abhorrent it was to the intelligence and moral
sense of the free States, that it produced results altogether opposed to
those designed by the men who invoked it. Instead of checking, the
execrated judgment augmented enormously the existing excitement.
Garrison's bitter taunt that "the Union is but another name for the iron
reign of the slave-power," was driven home to the North, by the Dred
Scott decision, with the logic of another unanswerable fact. Confidence
in the independence and impartiality of the Supreme Court was seriously
shaken, and widespread suspicion struck root at the North touching the
subserviency of that tribunal to the interests and designs of the
slave-power.
The popular agitation at this fresh and alarming evidence of the purpose
and power of the South upset the machinations of the schemers, swelled
the numerical strength of the new Northern party opposed to the
Territorial aggressions and pretensions of the slave section. So rapid
was the growth of the Republican party that the slave leaders
anticipated its accession to power at the then next Presidential
election. So certain were they in their forebodings of defeat that they
set about in dead earnest to put their side of the divided house in
order for the impending struggle for Southern independence. Military
preparations went forward with a vengeance, arms and munitions of war
which were the property of the General Government began to move
southward, to Southern military depots and posts for the defence of the
United States South, when at last the word "DISUNION" should be
pronounced over the Republic. The Lincoln-Douglass debate augmented
everywhere the excitement, fed the already mighty numbers of the new
party. More and more the public consciousness and conviction were
squaring with Mr. Lincoln's oracular words in respect that the Union
could not "endure permanently half slave and half free."
The darkness and tumult of the rising tempest were advancing apace, when
suddenly there burst from the national firmament the first warning peal
of thunder, and over Virginia there sped the first bolt of the storm.
John Brown with his brave little band, at Harper's Ferry, had struck for
the freedom of the slave. Tired of words, the believer in blood and iron
as a deliverer, had crossed from Pennsylvania into Virginia on the
evening of October 16, 1859, and seized the United States Armory at
Harper's Ferry. Although soon overpowered, captured, tried, and hanged
for his pains by the slave-power, the martyr had builded better than he
knew. For the blow struck by him then and there ended almost abruptly
the period of argument and ushered in the period of arms. The jar from
that battle-ax at the roots of the slave system hurled together in a
death struggle right and wrong, freedom and slavery, in the republic.
This attempt on the part of John Brown to liberate the slaves seemed to
Garrison "misguided, wild, and apparently insane, though disinterested
and well-intended." On non-resistant grounds he deplored this use of the
sword to effect emancipation, and condemned the leader. But, judging him
according to the standard of Bunker Hill and the men of 1776, he did not
doubt that Brown deserved "to be held in grateful and honorable
remembrance to the latest posterity, by all those who glory in the deeds
of a Wallace or Tell, a Washington or Warren."
The raid of Brown and his subsequent execution, and their reception at
the North revealed how vast was the revolution in public sentiment on
the slavery question which had taken place there, since the murder of
Lovejoy, eighteen years before. Lovejoy died defending the right of free
speech and the liberty of the press, yet the Attorney-General of
Massachusetts declared that "he died as the fool dieth." Brown died in
an invasion of a slave State, and in an effort to emancipate the slaves
with a band of eighteen followers, and he was acclaimed, from one end of
the free States to the other, hero and martyr. Mr. Garrison commenting
on this immensely significant fact, acutely and justly observed that:
"The sympathy and admiration now so widely felt for him, prove how
marvelous has been the change affected in public opinion during the
thirty years of moral agitation--a change so great indeed, that whereas,
ten years since, there were thousands who could not endure my lightest
word of rebuke of the South, they can now easily swallow John Brown
whole and his rifle into the bargain. In firing his gun, he has merely
told us what time of day it is. It is high noon, thank God!"
But there is another circumstance hardly less significant of another
change at the North even more momentous than the one just noted.
On December 2d, the day on which Brown was hung, solemn funeral
observances were held throughout the North by Abolitionists. At the
great meeting in Boston, held in Tremont Temple, and presided over by
Samuel E. Sewall, Garrison inquired as to the number of non-resistants
who were present. To this question there came a solitary reply. There
was but one non-resistant beside himself in the hall. Where were his
followers? Why had they forsaken their principles? The tide of Northern
belligerency, which was everywhere rising to its flood, everywhere
rushing and mounting to the tops of those dams which separate war and
peace had swept away his followers, had caused them to forsake their
principles. True to their Anglo-Saxon instinct, they had reverted to the
more human, if less Christian method of cutting the Gordian knot of the
republic with the sword.
The irresistible drift of the North toward the point where peace ends
and war begins, which that solitary "I" at the John Brown meeting
denoted, was still further indicated by what appeared not wholly unlike
a change in Mr. Garrison's attitude on the same subject. His
non-resistant position was the same, but somehow his face seemed to turn
warward too, with the rest of the nation, in the following passage taken
from his address at that John Brown meeting:
"Nevertheless, I am a non-resistant," said he, speaking to that solitary
confession of non-resistance principles, "and I not only desire, but
have labored unremittingly to effect the peaceful abolition of slavery,
by an appeal to the reason and conscience of the slaveholder; yet, as a
peace man, an ultra peace man, I am prepared to say: Success to every
slave insurrection at the South, and in every slave country. And I do
not see how I compromise or stain my peace profession in making that
declaration. Whenever there is a contest between the oppressed and the
oppressor, the weapons being equal between the parties, God knows that
my heart must be with the oppressed, and always against the oppressor.
Therefore, whenever commenced, I cannot but wish success to all slave
insurrections.... Rather than see men wearing their chains, in a
cowardly and servile spirit, I would as an advocate of peace, much
rather see them breaking the head of the tyrant with their chains. Give
me, as a non-resistant, Bunker Hill, and Lexington, and Concord, rather
than the cowardice and servility of a Southern slave plantation."
The unmistakable signs of disintegration, the swift action of the
national tragedy, the Charleston Convention, the disruption of the
Democratic party, the last bond between the North and the South, filled
the heart of the pioneer with solemn joy. "Only think of it!" he exulted
at the anniversary of the American Anti-Slavery Society in New York, May
8, 1860; "only think of it! the party which has for so many years cried
out, 'There must be no agitation on this subject' is now the most
agitated of all the parties in the country. The party which declares
that there ought not to be any sectionalism as against slavery, has now
been sundered geographically, and on this very question! The party which
had said, 'Let discussions cease forever,' is busily engaged in the
discussion, so that, possibly, the American Anti-Slavery Society might
adjourn _sine die_, after we get through with our present meetings, and
leave its work to be carried on in the other direction!" This was all
true enough. The sections were at last sundered, and a day of wrath was
rising dark and dreadful over "States dissevered, discordant,
belligerent."