The position in which I am placed this morning is one very
unusual for me, and one that I find somewhat difficult; but I
consider it a signal distinction to be permitted to take a
prominent part in the proceedings of this day, which are
intended to commemorate one of the greatest of the great
triumphs of freedom, and to do honor to a most eminent
instrument in the achievement of that freedom. (Hear, hear.)
There may be, perhaps, those who ask what is this triumph of
which I speak? To put it briefly, and, indeed, only to put one
part of it, I may say that it is a triumph which has had the
effect of raising 4,000,000 of human beings from the very lowest
depths of social and political degradation to that lofty height
which men have attained when they possess equality of rights in
the first country on the globe. (Cheers.) More than this, it is
a triumph which has pronounced the irreversible doom of slavery
in all countries and for all time. (Renewed cheers.) Another
question suggests itself--how has this great matter been
accomplished? The answer suggests itself in another question.
How is it that any great matter is accomplished? By love of
justice, by constant devotion to a great cause, and by an
unfaltering faith that that which is right will in the end
succeed. (Hear, hear.)
When I look at this hall, filled with such an assembly; when I
partake of the sympathy which runs from heart to heart at this
moment in welcome to our guest of to-day, I cannot but contrast
his present position with that which, not so far back but that
many of us can remember, he occupied in his own country. It is
not forty years ago, I believe about the year 1829, when the
guest whom we honor this morning was spending his solitary days
in a prison in the slave-owning city of Baltimore. I will not
say that he was languishing in prison, for that I do not
believe; he was sustained by a hope that did not yield to the
persecution of those who thus maltreated him; and to show that
the effect of that imprisonment was of no avail to suppress or
extinguish his ardor, within two years after that he had the
courage, the audacity--I dare say many of his countrymen used
even a stronger phrase than that--he had the courage to commence
the publication, in the city of Boston, of a newspaper devoted
mainly to the question of the abolition of slavery. The first
number of that paper, issued on the 1st January, 1831, contained
an address to the public, one passage of which I have often read
with the greatest interest, and it is a key to the future life
of Mr. Garrison. He had been complained of for having used hard
language, which is a very common complaint indeed, and he said
in his first number: "I am aware that many object to the
severity of my language, but is there not cause for such
severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as
justice. I am in earnest, I will not equivocate, I will not
excuse, I will not retract a single inch, and I will be heard".
(Cheers.) And that, after all, expresses to a great extent the
future course of his life.
But what was at that time the temper of the people amongst whom
he lived, of the people who are glorying now, as they well may
glory, in the abolition of slavery throughout their country? At
that time it was very little better in the North than it was in
the South. I think it was in the year 1835 that riots of the
most serious character took place in some of the northern
cities; during that time Mr. Garrison's life was in the most
imminent peril; and he has never ascertained to this day how it
was that he was left alive on the earth to carry on his great
work. Turning to the South, a State that has lately suffered
from the ravages of armies, the State of Georgia, by its
legislature of House, Senate, and Governor, if my memory does
not deceive me, passed a bill, offering ten thousand dollars
reward, (Mr. Garrison here said five thousand) well, they seemed
to think there were people who would do it cheap, (laughter)
offered five thousand dollars, and zeal, doubtless, would make
up the difference, for the capture of Mr. Garrison, or for
adequate proof of his death. Now, these were menaces and perils
such as we have not in our time been accustomed to in this
country in any of our political movements, (hear, hear) and we
shall take a very poor measure indeed of the conduct of the
leaders of the emancipation party in the United States if we
estimate them by any of those who have been concerned in
political movements amongst us. But, notwithstanding all
drawbacks, the cause was gathering strength, and Mr. Garrison
found himself by and by surrounded by a small but increasing
band of men and women who were devoted to this cause, as he
himself was. We have in this country a very noble woman, who
taught the English people much upon this question, about thirty
years ago; I allude to Harriet Martineau. (Cheers.) I recollect
well the impression with which I read a most powerful and
touching paper which she had written, and which was published in
the number of the _Westminster Review_ for December, 1838. It
was entitled "The Martyr Age of the United States." The paper
introduced to the English public the great names which were
appearing on the scene in connection with this cause in America.
There was, of course I need not mention, our eminent guest of
to-day; there was Arthur Tappan, and Lewis Tappan, and James G.
Birney of Alabama, a planter and slave-owner, who liberated his
slaves and came north, and became, as I think, the first
presidential candidate upon abolition principles in the United
States. (Hear, hear.) There were besides them, Dr. Channing,
John Quincy Adams, a statesman and President of the United
States, and father of the eminent man who is now Minister from
that people amongst us. (Cheers.) Then there was Wendell
Phillips, admitted to be by all who know him perhaps the most
powerful orator who speaks the English language. (Hear, hear.) I
might refer to others, to Charles Sumner, the well-known
statesman, and Horace Greeley, I think the first of journalists
in the United States, if not the first of journalists in the
world. (Hear, hear.) But besides these, there were of noble
women not a few. There was Lydia Maria Child; there were the two
sisters, Sarah and Angelina Grimke, ladies who came from South
Carolina, who liberated their slaves, and devoted all they had
to the service of this just cause; and Maria Weston Chapman, of
whom Miss Martineau speaks in terms which, though I do not
exactly recollect them, yet I know described her as
noble-minded, beautiful and good. It may be that there are some
of her family who are now within the sound of my voice. If it be
so, all I have to say is, that I hope they will feel, in
addition to all they have felt heretofore as to the character of
their mother, that we who are here can appreciate her services,
and the services of all who were united with her as co-operators
in this great and worthy cause. But there was another whose name
must not be forgotten, a man whose name must live for ever in
history, Elijah P. Lovejoy, who in the free State of Illinois
laid down his life for the cause. (Hear, hear.) When I read that
article by Harriet Martineau, and the description of those men
and women there given, I was led, I know not how, to think of a
very striking passage which I am sure must be familiar to most
here, because it is to be found in the Epistle to the Hebrews.
After the writer of that epistle has described the great men and
fathers of the nation, he says: "Time would fail me to tell of
Gideon, of Barak, of Samson, of Jephtha, of David, of Samuel,
and the Prophets, who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought
righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions,
quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword,
out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned
to flight the armies of the aliens." I ask if this grand passage
of the inspired writer may not be applied to that heroic band
who have made America the perpetual home of freedom?
(Enthusiastic cheering.)
Thus, in spite of all that persecution could do, opinion grew in
the North in favor of freedom; but in the South, alas! in favor
of that most devilish delusion that slavery was a Divine
institution. The moment that idea took possession of the South
war was inevitable. Neither fact nor argument, nor counsel, nor
philosophy, nor religion, could by any possibility affect the
discussion of the question when once the Church leaders of the
South had taught their people that slavery was a Divine
institution; for then they took their stand on other and
different, and what they in their blindness thought higher
grounds, and they said, "Evil! be thou my good;" and so they
exchanged light for darkness, and freedom for bondage, and good
for evil, and, if you like, heaven for hell. * * * *
There was a universal feeling in the North that every care
should be taken of those who had so recently and marvellously
been enfranchised. Immediately we found that the privileges of
independent labor were open to them, schools were established in
which their sons might obtain an education that would raise them
to an intellectual position never reached by their fathers; and
at length full political rights were conferred upon those who a
few short years, or rather months, before, had been called
chattels, and things to be bought and sold in any market. (Hear,
hear.) And we may feel assured, that those persons in the
Northern States who befriended the negro in his bondage will not
now fail to assist his struggles for a higher position. * * *
* * * *
To Mr. Garrison more than any other man this is due; his is the
creation of that opinion which has made slavery hateful, and
which has made freedom possible in America. (Hear, hear.) His
name is venerated in his own country, venerated where not long
ago it was a name of obloquy and reproach. His name is venerated
in this country and in Europe wheresoever Christianity softens
the hearts and lessens the sorrows of men; and I venture to say
that in time to come, near or remote I know not, his name will
become the herald and the synonym of good to millions of men who
will dwell on the now almost unknown continent of Africa. (Loud
cheers.) * * *
To Mr. Garrison, as is stated in one of the letters which has
just been read, to William Lloyd Garrison it has been given, in
a manner not often permitted to those who do great things of
this kind, to see the ripe fruit of his vast labors. Over a
territory large enough to make many realms, he has seen hopeless
toil supplanted by compensated industry; and where the bondman
dragged his chain, there freedom is established for ever. (Loud
cheers.) We now welcome him amongst us as a friend whom some of
us have known long; for I have watched his career with no common
interest, even when I was too young to take much part in public
affairs; and I have kept within my heart his name, and the names
of those who have been associated with him in every step which
he has taken; and in public debate in the halls of peace, and
even on the blood-soiled fields of war, my heart has always been
with those who were the friends of freedom. (Renewed cheering.)
We welcome him then with a cordiality which knows no stint and
no limit for him and for his noble associates, both men and
women.
After this eloquent and able speech by the chairman, the honor of
proposing an address to Mr. Garrison devolved upon the Duke of Argyll,
who introduced the subject in the following glowing speech: