WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON.
Mr. Garrison's Birth and Parents--His Mother--Her Conversion
--His Boyhood--Apprenticed to a Printer--First Anti-Slavery
Address--Advice to Dr. Beecher--Benjamin Lundy--Garrison
goes to Baltimore--First Battle with Slavery--In Jail--First
number of the Liberator--Threats and Rage from the South--The
American Anti-Slavery Society--First Visit to England--The Era
of Mob Violence--The Respectable Boston Mob--Mr. Garrison's
account--Again in Jail--The Massachusetts Legislature Uncivil
to the Abolitionists--Logical Vigor of the Slaveholders--
Garrison's Disunionism--Denounces the Church--Liberality of
the Liberator--The Southerners' own Testimony--Mr. Garrison's
Bland Manners--His Steady Nerves--His use of Language--Things
by their Right Names--Abolitionist "Hard Language;" Garrison's
Argument on it--Protest for Woman's Rights--The triumph of his
Cause--"The Liberator" Discontinued--Second Visit to England--
Letter to Mrs. Stowe.
We have written the name of a man who has had a more marked influence
on our late national history than any other person who could be
mentioned. No man has been more positively active in bringing on that
great moral and political agitation whose issues have been in those
recent scenes and events which no American can ever forget.
When we remember that it was begun by one man, singlehanded, alone,
unfriended, despised and poor, we must feel in advance that such a man
came of no common stock, and possessed no common elements of character.
We are interested to inquire after the parentage and the early forming
causes which have produced such results. In Mr. Garrison's case he
frankly ascribes all that he is, or has ever been or done, to the
training, example and influence of a mother whose early history and
life-long character were of uncommon interest.
She was born of English stock, in the province of New Brunswick, and
grew up in that lethargic state of society which has received not
an impulse or a new idea since the time of Queen Anne. Her parents
attended the Established Church, drank the king's health on all proper
occasions, and observed the gradual growing up of a beautiful and
spirited daughter with tranquil satisfaction.
At the age of eighteen this young girl, with a party of gay companions,
went from curiosity to attend the religious services of some
itinerating Baptists, who were startling the dead echoes of that region
by a style of preaching, praying and exhorting, such as never had been
heard there before. They were commonly called Ranters, and the young
people promised themselves no small amusement from the spectacle of
their extravagances.
But the beautiful and gay girl carried unknown and dormant in her own
nature, the elements of an earnest and lofty religious character, which
no touch of the droning services of a dead church had ever yet stirred
to consciousness--and the wild singing, the fervent exhortations, the
vivid and real emotions which were exhibited in this meeting, fired the
electric train and roused the fervor of her own nature. Life, death,
eternity, all became vivid and real to her, and the command to come out
from a vain world and be separate; to confess Christ openly before men,
seemed to her to have a living and present power.
It is very commonly the case that minds for the first time awakened
to the real power of religion, feel that the only true faith is to be
found under the forms and ideas which have so moved them, and that
to confess Christ means a visible union with any particular body of
Christians who have made real to them the Christian idea. Such was the
call felt by this young girl to join herself with this despised body of
Christians.
Her parents were greatly shocked and annoyed when they found that
instead of ridiculing the Ranters, she was going again and again to
their services, with an undissembled earnestness: and when finally
she announced to them her purpose to unite herself to them in the
public ordinance of baptism, their indignation knew no bounds, and
they threatened her that if she did she should never enter their doors
again, or be to them more than a stranger.
Then was the crisis in which the woman stood between two worlds--two
kinds of life--on one side, the most earnest and whole-hearted
excitement of the higher moral feelings, on the other side, the
material good things of this world.
The mother of Lloyd Garrison hesitated not a moment between the
convictions of her conscience and a worldly good. Like the primitive
Christians, she went down into the waters of baptism feeling that she
was leaving father, mother, and home, and casting herself on God alone.
Her parents, with true John Bull obstinacy, made good their word,
and shut their doors upon her; but an uncle, struck perhaps with her
courage and constancy, opened to her an asylum where she remained till
her marriage. In later years her parents became reconciled to her.
The religious life thus begun was carried on with a marked and
triumphant fullness. She was a woman of enthusiastic convictions,
of strong mind, and of great natural eloquence, and during the
infancy and childhood of William Lloyd he was often with her in the
prayer-meetings, which were vivified by the electric eloquence of
her prayers and exhortations--for the Baptist as well as Methodist
denominations, allowed to women as well as men, a Christian equality in
the use of the gifts of instruction.
The father of Garrison, a man possessed of some genius and many
fascinating and interesting traits, was one of the victims of
intemperance in those days when so many families were saddened by its
blight; and at quite an early age Mrs. Garrison was left with a family
of helpless little ones, with no other heritage but her faith in God,
and her own undaunted and courageous spirit. She was obliged to put her
boys out at a very tender age, to struggle for themselves, while she
followed the laborious profession of a sick nurse.
William Lloyd, her second son, was by temperament fitted to be
impressed by a woman like his mother. He had listened to the burning
recital of her experience, and his heart, even in early infancy,
learned to thrill in sympathy with the solemn grandeur of religious
devotion and absolute self-sacrifice. All his mother's religious ideas
became his own; and even as a boy he was a strict and well versed
Baptist, having at his tongue's end every argument which supported the
peculiar faith which his mother's enthusiasm had taught him to regard
as the only true one.
The necessities of life, however, early separated him from her society.
When only nine years of age he was placed in the shop of a shoemaker to
learn the trade, but the confinement and employment were unfavorable
to his health and uncongenial to his feelings. He was longing for
educational advantages, and bent on a career in the world of ideas.
He was taken from this situation and sent to school at Newburyport,
paying for his board and schooling by sawing wood, doing errands, and
performing other labors out of school hours.
After some unsuccessful experiments at different situations, he found
at last a congenial sphere in being apprenticed as a printer to Ephraim
W. Allen, editor of the Newburyport _Gazette_.
His bent had always been for letters, and he engaged in this occupation
with enthusiasm, and that minute and careful faithfulness and accuracy
in regard to the smallest minutiæ which formed a very marked trait in
his character. In all that relates to the expression of ideas by the
written or printed signs of language, Garrison had a natural aptitude,
and attained to a peculiar perfection.
His handwriting was, and is, even at this time of life, as perfect in
point of legibility, neatness, and exact finish, as if he had been by
profession a writing-master.
Even in the days when the _Liberator_ was the most despised and
rejected of all papers, the very lowest in the scale of genteel
appreciation, its clear and elegant typography, and the grace and
completeness of its mechanical disposition, won for it admiration. He
understood to a nicety that art which solicits the eye of a reader, and
makes a printed sheet look attractive.
It was not long before his fervid mind began to reach beyond the
mechanical setting of his types, to the intellectual and moral purposes
to be accomplished through them.
Garrison was one of the ordained priests of nature, one of the order
of natural prophets who feel themselves to have a message to society,
which they must and will deliver.
He began sending anonymous articles to the paper on which he was
employed, which were well received, and which, consequently, he had
more than once the pleasure of setting up in type.
Encouraged by their favorable reception, he gradually began to offer
articles to other journals. A series of articles for the Salem
_Gazette_, under the signature "Aristides," attracted particular
attention, and were commended by Robert Walsh in the Philadelphia
National _Gazette_, who attributed them to Timothy Pickering; a
compliment of no small significance to a young mechanic.
In 1824, his employer, Mr. Allen, was obliged for a long time to be
absent from the charge of his paper, when Mr. Garrison acted as editor
of the Newburyport _Herald_, of which he had been previously printer.
In 1826 he became proprietor and editor of a paper called the _Free
Press_, in his native town. He toiled at it with unceasing industry,
and that patient cheerfulness of enthusiasm which made every labor
light. He printed his own editorials, _without previously writing
them_, a fact which more than anything else shows how completely he
had mastered the mechanical part of his profession. But with all this
industry and talent, the work of keeping up a newspaper of so high a
moral tone as that to which he was always aspiring, was simply beyond
the ability of a poor man, and he was obliged to relinquish it. He
went to Boston and engaged as a journeyman printer for a time, till in
1827 he became the editor of the _National Philanthropist_, the first
journal that advocated total abstinence, and in 1828 he joined a friend
at Bennington, Vt., in a journal devoted to peace, temperance, and
anti-slavery.
On the 4th of July, 1829, he delivered an address in Park Street
church, Boston, on the subject of slavery. At that time the subject
had taken a deep and absorbing hold upon his mind. He then regarded
the American Colonization Society's as the most practical and feasible
issue in the case--an opinion which he afterwards most fully retracted.
At this time he visited the leading orthodox ministers and editors in
and about Boston. Being himself a child of the church, he desired to
stir up in behalf of the slave that efficiency of church activity that
was effecting so much in the cause of temperance. Burning with zeal,
he sought the then active leader of the orthodox party, and begged him
to become leader in the movement, and command the forces in a general
anti-slavery crusade.
Dr. Beecher received him favorably, listened to him courteously, wished
him success, but said in regard to himself he had so "many irons in
the fire" that he could not think of putting in another. "Then," said
Garrison, "_you had better let all others go, and attend to this one
alone_." The results of time have shown that the young printer saw
further than the sages of his day.
It is worth remembering by those who criticized Garrison's generalship
in leading the anti-slavery cause, that in the outset he was not in
the least ambitious of being a general, and would willingly have
become _aide-de-camp_ to the ruling forces of the religious world.
That the campaign was carried on out of the church of New England,
and not in and by it, was because the church and the religious world
at that hour were absorbed in old issues--old activities and schemes
of benevolence--and had not grace given them to see that the great
critical national question of the day had thus been passed out of their
hands.
The articles in Garrison's paper, however, attracted the attention of
a little obscure old man, a Quaker, who was laboring in the city of
Baltimore, for the cause of the suffering slaves, with a devotion and
self-sacrifice worthy of the primitive Christians.
Benjamin Lundy, a quiet, persistent, drab-clothed, meek old man, one
of those valiant little mice who nibble undismayed on the nets which
enchain the strongest lions, was keeping up, in the city of Baltimore,
an anti-slavery paper which was read only by a few people who thought
just as he did, and which was tolerated in southern society only
because everybody was good-naturedly sure that it was no sort of matter
what it said.
Benjamin, however, took his staff in hand, and journeyed on foot up to
Bennington, Vt., to see the man who wrote as if he cared for the slave.
The strict Baptist and the meek Quaker met on the common ground of the
cross of Christ. Both were agreed in one thing; that here was Jesus
Christ, in the person of a persecuted race, hungry, thirsty, sick and
in prison, with none to visit and relieve; and the only question was,
would they arise and go to His help?
So Mr. Garrison went down to the city of Baltimore, to join his forces
with Benjamin Lundy. "But," as he humorously observed, "I wasn't much
help to him, for he had been all for gradual emancipation, and as soon
as I began to look into the matter, I became convinced that immediate
abolition was the doctrine to be preached, and I scattered his
subscribers like pigeons."
Good little Benjamin took the ruinous zeal of his new partner with the
tolerance which his sect extends to every brother who "follows his
light;" but a final assault of Garrison on one of the most villainous
aspects of slavery, quite upset the enterprise, and landed him in
prison. The story is in this wise: A certain ship, the Francis Todd,
from Newburyport, came to Baltimore and took in a load of slaves for
the New Orleans market. All the harrowing cruelties and separations
which attend the rending asunder of families, and the sale of slaves,
were enacted under the eyes of the youthful philanthropist, and in a
burning article he denounced the inter-state slave trade as piracy,
and piracy of an aggravated and cruel kind, inasmuch as those born and
educated in civilized and Christianized society, have more sensibility
to feel the evils thus inflicted, than imbruted savages. He denounced
the owners of the ship, and all the parties in no measured terms, and
expressed his determination to "cover with thick infamy all who were
engaged in the transaction." Then, to be sure, the sleeping tiger was
roused, for there was a vigor and power in the young editor's eloquence
that quite dissipated the good-natured contempt which had hitherto
hung round the paper. He was indicted for libel, found guilty, of
course, condemned, imprisoned in the cell of a man who had been hanged
for murder. His mother at this time was not living, but her heroic,
undaunted spirit still survived in her son, who took the baptism of
persecution and obloquy not merely with patience, but with the joy
which strong spirits feel in endurance. He wrote sonnets on the walls
of his prison, and by his cheerful and engaging manners made friends
of his jailor and family, who did everything to render his situation
as comfortable as possible. Some considerable effort was made for his
release, and much interest was excited in various quarters for him.
He was finally liberated by Arthur Tappan, who paid the exorbitant fine
for want of which he was imprisoned. He went out of jail, as people
generally do who are imprisoned for conscience's sake, more devoted
than ever to the cause for which he suffered. The river of his life,
which hitherto had had many branches, all flowing in the direction of
general benevolence, now narrowed and concentrated itself into one
intense volume, to beat day and night against the prison walls of
slavery, till its foundations should be washed away, and it should
tumble to dust.
He issued a prospectus of an anti-slavery journal at Washington, and
lectured through the northern cities, and was surprised to find the
many and vital cords by which the Northern States were held from the
expression of the natural feelings of humanity on a subject whose
claims were so obvious. In Boston he in vain tried to get the use of
a hall to lecture in; but a mob was threatened, and of all the public
edifices in the city, not one could be found whose owner would risk it
until a club of professed infidels came forward, and offered their hall
as a tribute to free speech.
On Jan. 1, 1831, Mr. Garrison issued the first number of the
_Liberator_. He had no money. The rank, respectability and religion of
Boston alike disowned him. At first, he and his partner, Isaac Knapp,
were too poor even to hire an office of their own, but the foreman in
the office of the _Christian Examiner_ generously employed them as
journeymen, taking their labor as compensation for the use of his type.
Mr. Garrison, after working as journeyman printer all day, spent the
greater part of the night in writing and printing his paper; and under
such auspices the first number came out.
Nothing more remarkable in human literature has ever appeared than
those few memorable paragraphs in which this obscure, unfriended young
mechanic thus issued his declaration of war against an evil embodied in
the Constitution and protected by the laws of one of the most powerful
nations of the earth. David meeting Goliath with a sling and stone was
nothing to it. The words have a prophetic assurance that sounds solemn
in the remembrance of recent events. He speaks as one having authority:
"During my recent tour for the purpose of exciting the minds of
the people by a series of discourses on the subject of slavery,
every place that I visited gave fresh evidence of the fact that a
greater revolution in public sentiment was to be effected in the
free States--and particularly in New England--than at the South. I
found contempt more bitter, opposition more active, detraction more
relentless, prejudice more stubborn, and apathy more frozen than among
slaveholders themselves. Of course there were individual exceptions to
the contrary. This state of things afflicted, but did not dishearten
me. I determined, at every hazard, to lift up the standard of
emancipation in the eyes of the nation, within sight of Bunker Hill,
and in the birth-place of liberty. That standard is now unfurled; and
long may it float, unhurt by the spoliations of time or the missiles
of a desperate foe; yea, till every chain be broken, and every bondman
set free! Let Southern oppressors tremble; let their secret abettors
tremble; let all the enemies of the persecuted black tremble. Assenting
to the self-evident truths maintained in the American Declaration of
Independence, 'that all men are created equal, and endowed by their
Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness,' I shall strenuously contend for the
immediate enfranchisement of our slave population.
* * * * *
"I am aware that many object to the severity of my language; but is
there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as
uncompromising as justice. On this subject I do not wish to think, or
speak, or write with moderation. No! No! Tell a man whose house is on
fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife
from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate
her babe from the fire into which it has fallen; but urge me not to use
moderation in a cause like the present! I am in earnest. I will not
equivocate--I will not excuse--I will not retreat a single inch. AND I
WILL BE HEARD. The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue
leap from its pedestal, and to hasten the resurrection of the dead.
It is pretended that I am retarding the cause of emancipation by the
coarseness of my invective, and the precipitancy of my measures. The
charge is not true. On this question, my influence, humble as it is,
is felt at this moment to a considerable extent; and it shall be felt
in coming years--not perniciously, but beneficially--not as a curse,
but as a blessing; and POSTERITY WILL BEAR TESTIMONY THAT I WAS RIGHT.
I desire to thank God that He enables me to disregard 'the fear of
man which bringeth a snare,' and to speak truth in its simplicity and
power; and I here close with this dedication:
"Oppression! I have seen thee, face to face,
And met thy cruel eye and cloudy brow;
But thy soul-withering glance I fear not now--
For dread to prouder feelings doth give place,
Of deep abhorrence! Scorning the disgrace
Of slavish knees that at thy footstool bow,
I also kneel--but with far other vow
Do hail thee and thy herd of hirelings base;
I swear, while life-blood warms my throbbing veins,
Still to oppose and thwart, with heart and hand,
Thy brutalizing sway--till Afric's chains
Are burst, and Freedom rules the rescued land,
Trampling Oppression and his iron rod;
Such is the vow I take--so help me God!"
Just thirty-five years after, on the first of January, 1866, Garrison
had the happiness of announcing that the glorious work to which he had
devoted himself was finally finished; and with humble ascriptions of
all the praise and glory to God, he proclaimed the cessation of the
_Liberator_. His own son had been a leader in that conquering army
which entered Charleston amid the shouts of liberated slaves, and
the fetters and hand-cuffs of the slave-mart were sent as peaceful
trophies to the _Liberator_ office in Boston. Never was it given to any
mortal in one generation to witness a more perfect triumph of a moral
enterprise!
But before this triumph came were years of sharp conflict. Tones so
ringing and so resolute, coming from the poorest den in Boston, could
not but find listeners! The vital instincts of all forms of oppression
are surprisingly acute, and prompt to discriminate afar what is really
a true and what a false alarm. A storm of agitation began, which
swelled, and eddied, and howled, and shook, and convulsed the nation
from year to year, till the end came.
The first number of the _Liberator_ brought fifty dollars from James
Forten, a colored man of Philadelphia, and the names of twenty-five
subscribers; and before long an obscure room was rented as an office,
where Garrison and his partner made their bed on the floor, boarded
themselves, and printed their paper.
A Southern magistrate, trembling for the institutions of his country,
wrote a somewhat dictatorial appeal to the mayor of Boston, Harrison
Gray Otis, to suppress that paper. Mr. Otis wrote in reply, that having
ferreted out the paper and the editor, he found that his office was an
obscure hole, his only visible auxiliary a negro boy, his supporters
a few insignificant persons of all colors--from which he argued that
there was no occasion for alarm, even though the obscure paper should
prove irrepressible. Very differently, however, thought the South.
Every mail brought to Garrison threats of assassination, and letters
whose mingled profanity and obscenity can only be described as John
Bunyan describes the discourse of Apollyon, "He spake as a dragon." The
Governors of one or two States set a price upon his head. The Governor
of Georgia, in terms somewhat more decent, offered five thousand
dollars to any one who should arrest and bring to trial under the laws
of that State, the editor or publisher of the _Liberator_. Many of Mr.
Garrison's friends, deeming his life in danger, besought him to wear
arms. He was, however, from religious conviction, a non-resistant of
evil, interpreting with literal strictness the Saviour's directions on
that subject; and so committed his life simply to the good providence
of God.
On January 1, 1832, he secured the co-operation of eleven others, who,
with himself, organized the American Anti-Slavery Society upon the
principle of immediate emancipation. Affiliated associations sprang
up all over the country--books, tracts, lectures, all the machinery
of moral agitation, began active movement. He went to England as agent
for the Emancipation Society, to hold counsel with the men who had
pioneered the same work successfully in England. He was warmly received
by Wilberforce, Brougham, Clarkson, and their associates, and succeeded
in opening their eyes to the entire inefficiency of the Colonization
Society as a substitute for the great duty of immediate emancipation,
so that Wilberforce, with eleven of his coadjutors, issued a protest
against it, not as in itself considered, but as it had been made a
shield to the consciences of those who deferred their immediate duty to
the slave on the ground of this distant and precarious remedy.
While in England this time, Mr. Garrison was invited to Stafford House,
and treated with marked attention by the Duchess of Sutherland, then in
the zenith of that magnificent beauty which, in union with a generous
nature and winning manners, made her one of the most distinguished
leaders among the nobility of the times. With a heart to feel every
grand and heroic impulse, she had entered with enthusiasm into the
anti-slavery movement of her own country, and was prepared to welcome
the obscure, unknown apostle of the same faith from American shores.
At her request, Garrison sat for his portrait to one of the most
distinguished artists of the time, and the copy was retained among the
memorabilia of Stafford House. Garrison humorously remarked that many
had desired to have his head before now, but the solicitation had never
come in so flattering a form. The noble woman has lived to enjoy the
triumph of that cause in which her large heart gave her that right of
personal possession which belongs to the very highest natures.
On his return from England he assisted in organizing the American
Anti-Slavery Society in Philadelphia, the declaration of whose
principles was prepared by him. From this time the anti-slavery
agitation was intensified, and the era of mob violence swept over the
country. The holding of an anti-slavery society in any place was the
appointed signal for scenes of riotous violence. In Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania Hall was burned, the negroes abused and maltreated. In
Cincinnati, Birney's printing-press and types were thrown into the
Ohio, and the negroes for days were hunted like beasts. In Alton,
Lovejoy was shot while defending his printing-press, and Boston,
notwithstanding the sepulchres of the fathers, and the shadow of Bunker
Hill spire, had her hour of the powers of darkness. Leading presses
abused the abolitionists in terms which aroused every vindictive
passion of the mob, and in October, 1835, a meeting of the Female
Anti-Slavery Society of Boston was riotously broken up by a collection
of persons, described in the journals of the day as "gentlemen of
property and standing."
The heroines of that memorable day and time, were ladies from the
very first Massachusetts families; sprung from the old heroic stock
of her historic fame. For vigor of mind, for education, for beauty,
accomplishments and genius, some of them might be cited who would
scarce find superiors in any land. Their meeting was in every way
feminine and proper, and in strict accordance with the spirit and
customs of New England, which recognize female organizations for
various benevolent purposes, as one of the most approved means for
carrying on society.
There was no more reason why a female Anti-Slavery Society should not
meet quietly, transact its own business and listen to speeches of its
own chosen orators, than the Female Foreign Missionary Society or the
Female Home Missionary Society, or the Female Temperance Union.
But certain newspapers of Boston called attention to the fact that
this meeting was so to be held, in articles written in that well known
style which stirs up and invites that very mobocratic spirit which it
pretends to deprecate.
These papers proceeded to say that those ladies were about to hold a
dangerous kind of meeting, which would be sure to end in a mob, that
they were about to be addressed by George Thompson, who was declared
to be nothing more nor less than a British agitator, sent over to make
dissension and trouble in America, and kept here for that purpose by
British funds.
It was now stated in the public prints that several store keepers
in the immediate vicinity of the Hall, had petitioned the Mayor to
suppress the meeting, as in case of a riot in the neighborhood their
property might be in danger. A placard was posted and circulated
through the city to the following purport, that
'The infamous foreign scoundrel, Thompson, would hold forth in
Anti-Slavery Hall in the afternoon, and that the present was a fair
opportunity for the friends of the Union 'to snake him out;' that a
purse of $100 has been subscribed by a number of patriotic citizens to
reward the individual who would lay violent hands on him, so that he
might be brought to the tar kettle before dark."
In consequence, the Mayor sent a deputy to Mr. Garrison to know if Mr.
Thompson did intend to address the meeting, for if he did not he wished
to apprise the people of it in order to tranquilize the excitement, and
if he did, it would be necessary to double the constabulary forces.
Mr. Garrison sent him word that Mr. Thompson was out of town, and would
not be present at the meeting. The remainder of this scene is best
given in Mr. Garrison's own words:
"As the meeting was to commence at 3 o'clock, P. M., I went to the hall
about twenty minutes before that time. Perhaps a hundred individuals
had already gathered around the street door and opposite to the
building, and their number was rapidly augmenting. On ascending into
the hall, I found about fifteen or twenty ladies assembled, sitting
with serene countenances, and a crowd of noisy intruders (mostly young
men) gazing upon them, through whom I urged my way with considerable
difficulty. 'That's Garrison,' was the exclamation of some of their
number, as I quietly took my seat. Perceiving that they had no
intention of retiring, I went to them and calmly said--'Gentlemen,
perhaps you are not aware that this is a meeting of the Boston _Female_
Anti-Slavery Society, called and intended exclusively for _ladies_,
and those only who have been invited to address them. Understanding
this fact, you will not be so rude or indecorous as to thrust your
presence upon this meeting. If, _gentlemen_,' I pleasantly continued,
'any of you are _ladies_--in disguise--why, only apprise me of the
fact, give me your names, and I will introduce you to the rest of
your sex, and you can take seats among them accordingly.' I then
sat down, and, for a few moments, their conduct was more orderly.
However, the stair-way and upper door of the hall were soon densely
filled with a brazen-faced crew, whose behavior grew more and more
indecent and outrageous. Perceiving that it would be impracticable
for me, or any other person, to address the ladies; and believing, as
I was the only male abolitionist in the hall, that my presence would
serve as a pretext for the mob to annoy the meeting, I held a short
colloquy with the excellent President of the Society, telling her that
I would withdraw, unless she particularly desired me to stay. It was
her earnest wish that I would retire, as well for my own safety as
for the peace of the meeting. She assured me that the Society would
resolutely but calmly proceed to the transaction of its business, and
leave the issue with God. I left the hall accordingly, and would have
left the building, if the stair-case had not been crowded to excess.
This being impracticable, I retired into the Anti-Slavery Office,
(which is separated from the hall by a board partition,) accompanied
by my friend, Mr. Charles C. Burleigh. It was deemed prudent to lock
the door, to prevent the mob from rushing in and destroying our
publications.
In the mean time, the crowd in the street had augmented from a hundred
to thousands. The cry was for 'Thompson! Thompson!'--but the Mayor
had now arrived, and, addressing the rioters, he assured them that
Mr. Thompson was not in the city, and besought them to disperse. As
well might he have attempted to propitiate a troop of ravenous wolves.
None went away--but the tumult continued momentarily to increase. It
was apparent, therefore, that the hostility of the throng was not
concentrated upon Mr. Thompson but that it was as deadly against the
Society and the Anti-Slavery cause. The fact is worthy of special
note--for it incontestably proves that the object of these 'respectable
and influential' rioters was to put down the cause of Emancipation, and
that the prejudice against Mr. Thompson was only a mere pretext.
Notwithstanding the presence and frantic behavior of rioters in the
hall, the meeting of the Society was regularly called to order by
the President. She read a select and exceedingly appropriate portion
of scripture, and offered a fervent prayer to God for direction and
succour and the forgiveness of enemies and rioters. It was an awful,
sublime and soul-thrilling scene. * * * The clear, untremulous tone of
that Christian heroine in prayer, occasionally awed the ruffians into
silence, and was heard distinctly even in the midst of their hisses,
yells and curses--for they could not long silently endure the agony of
conviction, and their conduct became furious. They now attempted to
break down the partition, and partially succeeded; but that little band
of women still maintained their ground unshrinkingly, and endeavored
to transact their business.
An assault was now made upon the door of the office, the lower panel of
which was instantly dashed to pieces. Stooping down, and glaring upon
me as I sat at the desk, writing an account of the riot to a distant
friend, the ruffians cried out--'There he is! That's Garrison! Out with
the scoundrel!' &c., &c. Turning to Mr. Burleigh I said--'You may as
well open the door, and let them come in and do their worst.' But he,
with great presence of mind, went out, locked the door, put the key
into his pocket, and by his admirable firmness succeeded in keeping the
office safe.
Two or three constables having cleared the hall and staircase of the
mob, the Mayor came in and _ordered_ the ladies to desist, assuring
them that he could not any longer guarantee protection, if they did
not take immediate advantage of the opportunity to retire from the
building. Accordingly, they adjourned, to meet at the house of one of
their number, for the completion of their business; but as they passed
through the crowd, they were greeted with 'taunts, hisses, and cheers
of mobocratic triumph, from gentlemen of property and standing from all
parts of the city.' Even their absence did not diminish the throng.
Thompson was not there--the ladies were not there--but '_Garrison_
is there!' was the cry. 'Garrison! Garrison! We must have Garrison!
Out with him! Lynch him!' These and numberless other exclamations
arose from the multitude. For a moment their attention was diverted
from me to the Anti-Slavery sign, and they vociferously demanded its
possession. It is painful to state, that the Mayor promptly complied
with their demand! So agitated and alarmed had he become that in very
weakness of spirit he ordered the sign to be hurled to the ground,
and it was instantly broken in a thousand fragments by the infuriated
populace. The sign being demolished the cry for Garrison was resumed
more loudly than ever. It was now apparent that the multitude would
not disperse till I left the building, and as egress out of the front
door was impossible, the Mayor and some of his assistants as well as
some of my friends earnestly besought me to escape in the rear of the
building. At this moment an abolition brother, whose mind had been
previously settled on the peace question, in his anguish and alarm for
my safety, and in the view of the helplessness of the civil authority,
said, 'I must henceforth repudiate the principle of non-resistance.
When the civil arm is powerless, my own rights are trodden in the dust,
and the lives of my friends are put in imminent peril by ruffians, I
will hereafter stand ready to defend myself and them at all hazards.'
Putting my hand upon his shoulder, I said, 'Hold, my dear brother!
You know not what spirit you are of. Of what value or utility are the
principles of peace and forgiveness, if we may repudiate them in the
hour of peril and suffering? Do you wish to become like one of those
violent and blood-thirsty men who are seeking my life? Shall we give
blow for blow, and array sword against sword? God forbid! I will perish
sooner than raise my hand against any man, even in self-defence, and
let none of my friends resort to violence for my protection. If my life
be taken, the cause of emancipation will not suffer. God reigns--his
throne is undisturbed by this storm--he will make the wrath of man to
praise him, and the remainder he will restrain--his omnipotence will at
length be victorious.'
Preceded by my faithful and beloved friend Mr. J----R----C----, I
dropped from a back window on to a shed, and narrowly escaped falling
headlong to the ground. We entered into a carpenter's shop, through
which we attempted to get into Wilson's Lane, but found our retreat
cut off by the mob. They raised a shout as soon as we came in sight,
but the proprietor promptly closed the door of his shop, kept them at
bay for a time, and thus kindly afforded me an opportunity to find
some other passage. I told Mr. C. it would be futile to attempt to
escape--I would go out to the mob, and let them deal with me as they
might elect; but he thought it was my duty to avoid them as long as
possible. We then went up stairs, and finding a vacancy in one corner
of the room, I got into it, and he and a young lad piled up some
boards in front of me, to shield me from observation. In a few minutes
several ruffians broke into the chamber, who seized Mr. C. in a rough
manner, and led him out to the view of the mob, saying, 'This is not
Garrison, but Garrison's and Thompson's friend, and he says he knows
where Garrison is, but won't tell.' Then a shout of exultation was
raised by the mob, and what became of him I do not know; though, as
I was immediately discovered, I presume he escaped without material
injury. On seeing me, three or four of the rioters, uttering a yell,
furiously dragged me to the window, with the intention of hurling me
from that height to the ground; but one of them relented, and said,
'Don't let us kill him outright.' So they drew me back, and coiled a
rope about my body--probably to drag me through the streets. I bowed to
the mob, and requesting them to wait patiently until I could descend,
went down upon a ladder that was raised for that purpose. I fortunately
extricated myself from the rope, and was seized by two or three of
the leading rioters, powerful and athletic men, by whom I was dragged
along bare-headed, (for my hat had been knocked off and cut in pieces
on the spot,) a friendly voice in the crowd shouting, 'He shan't be
hurt! He is an American!' This seemed to excite sympathy in the breasts
of some others, and they reiterated the same cry. Blows, however, were
aimed at my head by such as were of a cruel spirit, and at last they
succeeded in tearing nearly all my clothes from my body. Thus was I
dragged through Wilson's Lane into State street, in the rear of the
City Hall, over the ground that was stained with the blood of the first
martyrs in the cause of LIBERTY and INDEPENDENCE, in the memorable
massacre of 1770; and upon which was proudly unfurled, only a few years
since, with joyous acclamations, the beautiful banner presented to
the gallant Poles by the young men of Boston! What a scandalous and
revolting contrast! My offence was in pleading for LIBERTY--liberty for
my enslaved countrymen, colored though they be--liberty of speech and
of the press for ALL! And upon that 'consecrated spot' I was made an
object of derision and scorn.
They proceeded with me in the direction of the City Hall, the cry
being raised, 'To the Common!' whether to give me a coat of tar and
feathers, or to throw me into the pond, was problematical. As we
approached the south door, the Mayor attempted to protect me by his
presence; but as he was unassisted by any show of authority or force,
he was quickly thrust aside; and now came a tremendous rush on the part
of the mob to prevent my entering the hall. For a time the conflict was
desperate; but at length a rescue was effected by a posse that came to
the help of the Mayor, by whom I was carried up to the Mayor's room.
In view of my denuded condition, one individual in the Post office
below stairs kindly lent me a pair of pantaloons, another a coat, a
third a stock, a fourth a cap, &c. After a brief consultation, the mob
densely surrounding and threatening the City Hall and Post Office, the
Mayor and his advisers said that my life depended on committing me
to jail, ostensibly as a disturber of the peace. Accordingly a hack
was got ready at the door and I was put into it, supported by Sheriff
Parkman and Ebenezer Bailey, the Mayor leading the way. And now ensued
a scene which baffles all description. As the ocean lashed to fury by a
storm, seeks to whelm a bark beneath the waves, so did the mob, enraged
at their disappointment, rush like a whirlwind upon the frail vehicle
in which I sat, and endeavored to drag me out of it. Escape seemed
a physical impossibility. They clung to the wheels--dashed open the
doors--seized hold of the horses--and tried to upset the carriage. They
were, however, vigorously repulsed by the police, a constable sprang in
by my side, the doors were closed, and the driver, using his whip on
the bodies of the horses and the heads of the rioters, happily made an
opening through the crowd, and drove with all speed to Leverett street.
In a few moments I was locked up in a cell, safe from my persecutors,
accompanied by two delightful associates, a good conscience and a
cheerful mind. In the course of the evening several of my friends came
to my grated window to sympathise and confer with me, with whom I
held strengthening conversation, till the hour of retirement, when I
threw myself on my prison bed, and slept tranquilly. In the morning, I
inscribed upon the walls of my cell, with a pencil, the following lines:
'Wm. Lloyd Garrison was put into this cell on Wednesday afternoon,
Oct. 21, 1835, to save him from the violence of a "respectable
and influential" mob, who sought to destroy him for preaching the
abominable and dangerous doctrine that "all men are created equal," and
that all oppression is odious in the sight of God. "Hail, Columbia!"
Cheers for the Autocrat of Russia, and the Sultan of Turkey!
Reader, let this inscription remain till the last slave in this
despotic land be loosed from his fetters.'
'When peace within the bosom reigns,
And conscience gives th' approving voice,
Though bound the human form in chains,
Yet can the soul aloud rejoice.
'Tis true, my footsteps are confined--
I cannot range beyond this cell;
But what can circumscribe my mind?
To chain the winds attempt as well!'
'Confine me as a prisoner--but bind me not as a slave.
Punish me as a criminal--but hold me not as a chattel.
Torture me as a man--but drive me not like a beast.
Doubt my sanity--but acknowledge my immortality.'
In the course of the forenoon, after passing through the mockery of an
examination, for form's sake, before Judge Whitman, I was released from
prison; but, at the _earnest solicitation of the city authorities_, in
order to tranquilize the public mind, I deemed it proper to leave the
city for a few days, accompanied by my wife, whose situation was such
as to awaken the strongest solicitude for her life."
At this distance of time it is difficult to conceive of such scenes as
occurring in Boston. They are to be accounted for by two things. First,
the intense keenness of the instincts of the Slaveholding power in the
United States, in discriminating from afar what the results of the
Anti-Slavery discussion would be, and the real power which was arising
in the apparently feeble body of the Abolitionists; and second, the
thousand ties of politics, trade, blood relationship, friendship and
religion that interlaced the South with the North, and made the North
for many years a tool of southern dictators and a mere reflection of
southern sympathies. There was scarcely a thing in northern society
that was not interwoven and intertwisted with southern society.
Northern schools and colleges were full of southern scholars--northern
teachers were all the while seeking places on southern plantations.
The great political bodies had each its southern wing, every religious
denomination had its southern members and southern interests. Every
kind of trade and industrial calling had its southern outlet. The ship
builders of Maine went to Charleston for their cargoes. Plantations
were fitted out at the North, by every kind of trade. Our mercantile
world was truly and in fact one firm with the South and felt any
disturbance to them as virtually as the South itself.
Hence Garrison's instinctive feeling that the battle was to be fought
_in the North_, where as yet there was a free press and the right of
free speech.
It was not long before the South perceived that if free inquiry and
free discussion were going to be allowed in Massachusetts, it would be
all over with them, and like men who were brought up always to have
their own way and had but to command to be obeyed, several southern
states sent immediate and earnest communications to the Massachusetts
Legislature, requesting the General Court to enact laws making it penal
for the citizens of Massachusetts to form abolition societies or print
and publish abolition sentiments.
The Governor of Massachusetts, in his message to the Legislature at
this time, expressed his belief that the abolitionists were guilty of
an offence punishable by common law.
This part of the Governor's message, together with the resolutions from
the Legislatures of slaveholding states, was referred to a committee of
five.
The Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society addressed a memorial to this
committee, praying to be permitted to appear before them and show that
they had done nothing but what they had a perfect constitutional right
to do by the laws of Massachusetts.
On the Fourth and Eighth of March, 1836, these memorable interviews
took place at the state house, in the chamber of the representatives.
A committee of some of the leading abolitionists attended--Mr. I.
May, Mr. E. Gray Loring, Mr. Sewell, Dr. Follen, of Harvard College,
and Mr. Garrison. Dr. Channing also met with them as an expression of
sympathy and to mark his sense of the vitally important nature of the
transactions to the rights of personal liberty in Massachusetts.
The meeting was attended by many spectators, and the abolitionists had
opportunity to defend their course and conduct.
Mr. Garrison's speech at this time is one of the most energetic and
characteristic of his utterances. After alluding to the duty of all men
to plead for the rights of the dumb and the oppressed, he then went on
to say:
"Mr. Chairman, there is one aspect of this great question which has not
yet been presented to the committee. The liberties of the people of
the free States are identified with those of the slave population. If
it were not so, there would be no hope, in my breast, of the peaceful
deliverance of the latter class from their bondage. Our liberties are
bound together by a ligament as vital as that which unites the Siamese
twins. The blow which cuts them asunder, will inevitably destroy
them both. Let the freedom of speech and of the press be abridged or
destroyed, and the nation itself will be in bondage; let it remain
untrammelled, and southern slavery must speedily come to an end."
The chairman of the committee however insulted the abolitionists,
refused them a fair hearing, and substantially turned them out of the
Legislature, to protest at their leisure. The Legislature however did
not pass the laws demanded by the South.
Miss Martineau, who visited Boston in those days, described feelingly
what she justly called the martyr age in America.
The abolitionists in Boston at this time, were ostracized from genteel
society. Rank and fashion cut them in the street, and crossed out their
names from visiting lists. Whoever joined them must expect as a matter
of course to give up what was called in Boston, good society.
Their houses were constantly threatened by anonymous letters, nor was
the threat a vain one.
One of the most accomplished women of Boston, whose genius and beauty
and fine manners won her a distinguished position afterwards in
European society, lives to remember now, how her house was fired while
she was still an invalid in her chamber with an infant daughter only
three weeks old, and how she was obliged to sit by an open window to
get air for herself and infant, from the smoke that filled the house
after the fire had been discovered and brought under.
Now there were in the whole North, thousands of people who thought
slavery a wrong, an inhumanity, and who wished with a greater or less
degree of ardor that it might cease from the earth. But all these
people were associated for some purpose social, moral or religious,
with people at the South, who were in a state of feverish combativeness
on this subject, who were accustomed to command from their cradles,
impatient of contradiction, and violent in their passions; and in
every way and form, and every branch of life in state and church, the
demand was stringent and imperative: "You shall not say that slavery is
wrong--you shall not agitate that question or discuss it at all, and
you shall join with us to discountenance and put down all who endeavor
to agitate the public mind. If you don't _we_ won't have any thing to
do with you or your purposes or schemes."
This was the language which kept the whole North boiling like a pot for
years. On the one hand, the force of conscience and humanity, and on
the other, the passionate determined resistance of the South operating
through northern men, who, though disliking slavery yet had their
various purposes to carry, for which they needed the help of the South.
So even the religious societies felt that their great moral and
religious work was so important that they must yield a little, in order
to gain the help of southern Christians. The Tract Society struck out
from English reprints every line and sentence which might be supposed
to reprove slavery; the Sunday School Union followed suit. The various
religious bodies, embarrassed by their southern wings, spent their
time in every annual meeting in ingenious skirmishing, in which the
main body sought to keep the peace between the active minority of
abolitionists, and the irritated, determined, dictatorial southern
brethren, whose sentiments were exactly expressed by Dr. Plummer, of
Virginia:
"If abolitionists will set the world in a blaze, it is but fair that
they should receive the first warming at the fire. Let them understand
that they will be caught if they come among us, and they will take good
heed to keep out of our way; there is not one among them that has any
idea of shedding his blood for his cause."
The ministers of the slaveholding region were driven on by the
unsparing, uncompromising slave-owners, and were the most high-handed
defenders of the system. Northern religious bodies, in order to carry
on their purposes in union with the South, were obliged to make
constant concessions at which their conscience revolted. The Methodist
church, in 1840, passed a law forbidding their colored members to
give testimony in church trials in slave States. The debates on this
question are worth looking back to now, as they give a dramatic reality
to the great driving, pushing process which was then going on in favor
of slavery.
A trembling brother, after voting for this astounding prohibition,
which took away the last hope of even a hearing in Christ's church for
the poor hunted slave--rose the day after he had helped pass it, and
humbly and plaintively tried to get it taken back.
He said that the resolution "was introduced under peculiar
circumstances, during considerable excitement, and he went for it as
a _peace offering to the South_, without sufficiently reflecting upon
the precise import of its phraseology, but after a little deliberation
he was sorry! He was convinced that if the resolution remained on the
journal, it would be disastrous to the whole Northern church."
Dr. A. J. Few, of Georgia, arose, and it is instructive to see how
resolute men, who have made up their minds, and know exactly what they
mean to do, despise timid men, who are divided between policy and
conscience. Dr. Few said:
"Look at it! What do you declare to us, in taking this course! Why,
simply, as much as to say, 'We cannot sustain you in the condition
which you cannot avoid! We cannot sustain you in the _necessary
conditions_ of slaveholding; one of its _necessary conditions_ being
the rejection of negro testimony!' If it is not sinful to hold slaves,
under all circumstances, _it is not sinful to hold them in the only
condition, and under the only circumstances in which they can be held_.
The rejection of negro testimony is one of the necessary circumstances
under which slaveholding can exist; indeed, it is utterly impossible
for it to exist without it; therefore it is not sinful to hold slaves
_in the condition and under the circumstances in which they are held at
the South, inasmuch as they can be held under no other circumstances_.
* * * If you believe that slaveholding is necessarily sinful, come
out with the abolitionists, and honestly say so. If you believe that
slaveholding is necessarily sinful, you believe we are necessarily
sinners; and if so, come out and honestly declare it, and _let us leave
you_. * * * We want to know distinctly, precisely and honestly the
position which you take. We cannot be tampered with by you any longer.
We have had enough of it. We are tired of your sickly sympathies. * * *
If you are not opposed to the principles which it involves, unite with
us, like _honest men_, and go home, and boldly meet the consequences."
From this it appears that the Southern slaveocracy was not only a
very united, determined body, but also remarkably logical as to the
necessary ways and means which were essential to the support of their
system, and that not only they were prepared to go the whole length
themselves, but they meant to have nothing to do with any one who would
not go the whole length with them.
The result of this one victory was to split the Methodist church
in two. Mr. Peck was right in supposing that there was yet enough
conscience in the Northern Methodists to feel the impossibility of
holding a book of discipline which called slavery "the sum of all
villainies," and yet keeping union with those who were making it the
first object of life to uphold it. Some such crisis of conscience,
always brought on by the slave-driving, dictatorial, determined and
logical South, in time rent asunder all the principal denominations
into a northern and southern wing. For however they might have been
disposed towards the policy of non-intervention, the South never
allowed them to stand long on that ground. They must not only cease to
remonstrate against slavery, but help them by consenting to positive
laws and measures in its defence. So great was the power of this
dictatorial spirit, that when the New School Presbyterian church had
broken off from the great body of southern churches, who went with
the Old School, yet the one or two synods who were left among them
extorted from the whole body the decree that "masters ought not to be
disciplined for selling slaves without their consent, even when fellow
members of the same churches with themselves."
Now this history of what went on in the church of America--for the
church, meaning by it all the religious denominations, did embody as
a general fact, the whole religious and moral force of the country,
shows more strongly than anything else what was likely to be going on
in bodies that did not profess any moral character or considerations.
If this was the state to which the dictation of the southern slavepower
had driven the church, what was to be hoped of the political world and
the world of trade?
Mr. Garrison looked over this dark field, and saw the battle--for there
_was_ a battle all over the land--a battle in which the truth and the
right were being steadily, daily and everywhere beaten. The church and
the world seemed to be vieing with each other who could retreat fastest
before their victorious masters, and every day some new right of
humanity was thrown down for the pursuing army to worry and tear--just
as retreating fugitives throw back a lamb or a dog to stop a pack of
hungry wolves.
Garrison saw at once that the root of all this defeat and disaster
was the desire of UNION with slaveholders, and forthwith he unfurled
his banner and sounded his trumpet to the watchword, NO UNION WITH
SLAVEHOLDERS.
Immediately the Constitution of the United States was brought up before
him. Does not the constitution form a union with slaveholders? Has it
not express compromises designed to protect slave property? Is not the
basis of representation throughout all the southern states made on
three-fifths of a slave population? Now Mr. Garrison, what do you say
to that?
"What I say," said Garrison, "is, that slavery is a sin against God
and man, and if the constitution of the United States does agree to
defend and protect it, it is a sinful league, and it is a covenant with
death, and an agreement with hell," and out came the _Liberator_ with
the solemn curses of the old prophets at its head, and the Garrisonian
abolitionists organized themselves on the principle that they would
hold no union with slaveholders in church or in state, they would
belong to no religious or secular body which did not treat slavery
as a sin against God, and they would lift up their testimony against
every person, party or denomination in church or in state that made any
concession to the slaveholding power, for the sake of accomplishing
_any_ purpose whatsoever.
Here we see the whole scope of subject-matter for the _Liberator_, and
for all the lectures and speeches from the platforms of the Garrisonian
abolition societies for years and years. For as there was scarcely a
thing in society in those days that was not the joint work of the North
and the South, and as the South _never_ made a concession, of course
there was through all the various ramifications of political, social
and religious life, a continued series of concessions on the part
of the North. These concessions were always, everywhere unsparingly
discussed, reproved and denounced by the Garrisonians, and so there was
controversy constantly and everywhere.
The ministry of New England, from the days of President Edwards, had
adopted a peculiar and pungent style of preaching immediate repentance
of sin. They repudiated all half efforts, insensible approaches,
dream-like floatings toward right, and narrowed the question of
individual responsibility down to the present moment, and urged
repentance on the spot as the duty of all. Garrison had received his
early education in this school, and he drove his preaching of immediate
repentance for the sin of slavery, his requirements for an instant
clearing of the soul from all complicity with it, with the solemnity
of an old Puritan. He had the whole language of the Old Testament at
his tongue's end, and a text from the old prophets ready like an arrow
on a bow-string, to shoot into every loop-hole of the concessions and
compromises that were constantly going on. He reproved without fear or
favor, ministers, elders, Christians, statesmen, governors, authors,
and denounced the whole church as contaminated by the sanction and
support it gave to the accursed thing.
He was denounced in turn by the church as an infidel and an opposer
of religion, but he persisted in hurling right and left the stern
denunciations of the Old Testament: "When thou sawest a thief, thou
_consentedst_ with him--thou hast been partaker with adulterers,"
and he declared that the visible union of church and state with an
organization which practiced systematic robbery on four millions of
human beings, and made legal marriage among them an impossibility,
was in the very highest sense consenting with thieves, and being made
partakers with adultery.
There is not the least doubt that the course of _entire_ separation
from slaveholders in church and state, would have been a perfect and
efficient stop to the evil, could it have been compassed. Could we
once imagine a state of things in which every man and woman in the
United States who admitted that slavery was an injustice, should come
to the point of refusing all fellowship or connection with it, either
in church or state, or in any of the traffic or intercourse of life,
we should imagine a state in which there would have been immediately
a majority which could have revised the constitution of the United
States, and cast out the offensive clauses, as has since been done.
But measures so stringent and thorough, supposed an education of the
public conscience which had not yet taken place, and the Garrisonian
Abolitionists therefore were always a small minority, extremely
unfashionable and every where spoken against. Small as they were,
they were the indispensables of the great conflict--its very heart.
Garrison and his band of coadjutors formed a _steady force_ which
acted night and day with unvarying consistency. While everybody else
in the United States had something else to conserve, some side issues
to make, some other point to carry, Garrison and his band had but one
thing to say--that American slavery is a sin; but one thing to do--to
preach immediate repentance and forsaking of sin. They withdrew from
every organization which could in any way be supposed to tolerate or
hold communion with it, and walked alone, a small, but always active
and powerful body. They represented the pure, abstract form of every
principle as near as it is possible for it to be represented by human
frailty. Free speech, free inquiry and freedom of conscience found
perfect expression in their meetings, and the _Liberator_ was the
one paper in which any honest, well-meaning person might print _any_
conscientious opinion, however contrary to those generally received in
society. Of course it became the channel for much crude thought, for
much startling and strange expression; and its circulation was confined
almost entirely to the small party whose opinions it expressed. A
large portion of the Liberator was every week devoted to extracts cut
from southern papers, giving a vivid picture of the barbaric state of
society, produced by slavery. Here, without note or comment, came the
accounts clipped from different southern papers, of the assaults, frays
and murders daily perpetrated by white men on each other in a land
where violence was ever above law. There were, too, the advertisements
of slave auctions and runaway negroes; of blood-hounds kept for human
hunting; while in a weekly corner called the "Refuge of Oppression,"
all the violent doctrines of the most rabid slave holders found every
week a faithful reproduction in their own language. For an exact
picture of the image and body of the most extreme form of southern
slave holding and its results on society, the _Liberator_ was as
perfect a moral daguerreotype as could be produced.
A solemn instance of the terrible sequence of Divine retribution has
been presented to this generation which will not soon be forgotten.
All this disgusting, harrowing, dreadful record of cruelty, crime and
oppression which the _Liberator_ went on, year after year, in vain
holding up to the inspection of the North, as being perpetrated within
the bounds of slaveholding society, was shrunk from as too dreadful and
disgusting to be contemplated.
"We do not wish to have our feelings harrowed; we do not wish to be
appalled and disgusted with records of cruelty and crime," was the
almost universal voice of good society at the North, as they went
steadily on, compromising with and yielding to the exactions of a
barbarous oligarchy. God so ordered it in return, that the cup of
trembling which had so long been drunk by the slave alone, should be
put into the hands of thousands of the sons and daughters of the free
North. Thousands of them were starved, tortured, insulted, hunted by
dogs, separated from home and friends, and left to linger out a cruel
death in life, through the barbarity of those very slaveholders, with
whose sins we had connived, with whose cruelties practiced on the
helpless negroes we had refused to interfere. So awful a lesson of the
justice of a living God we trust will never be forgotten. If every
northern man and woman had from the very first been as careful in
regarding the rights of the slave, as determined to hold no fellowship
with evil as Garrison, the solution of our great national question
might have been a far more peaceful one.
In the days of the great conflict, Mr. Garrison was accused of being in
a bad spirit, of the utterance of violent, angry and abusive language.
A very mistaken idea of his personal character, in fact, went abroad in
the world.
In his personal intercourse he is peculiarly bland and urbane, one of
the few men capable of conducting an argument on the most interesting
subject without the slightest apparent excitement of voice or manner,
allowing his adversary every polite advantage and admitting all his
just statements with perfect fairness. It is said that a fiery young
southerner once fell into a discussion on slavery with him when he was
travelling incog., on board a steamboat. Garrison quite won his heart
by the fairness and courtesy with which he discussed the subject, and
brought him to admissions which the frank southerner in a good humor
was quite willing to make. On parting he said to him, "If that Garrison
there in Boston were only like you, we should be more ready to listen
to him."
A great deal of this amiability doubtless is owing to the singular
steadiness and healthiness of Garrison's nervous system. In this he
was one of the most peculiarly constituted men, in whom nature ever
combined traits expressly for a great work. All his personal habits are
those of a methodical unexcitable man, and not in the least like the
hurry and enthusiasm of a fanatic. He is methodical, systematic and
precise in all his arrangements, neat and careful in respect to the
minutest trifle.
His handwriting is always of the finished completeness of a writing
master, and in the most vehement denunciations, not a letter was
ever misplaced or a comma or exclamation point, omitted. Every thing
he ever wrote was perfected for the press as it left his pen. Such
habits as these speak a composed and equable nervous system. In fact,
Garrison's nerves never knew what it was to shiver and vibrate either
with irritation or with fear. He is gifted with the most perfect
imperturbable cheerfulness, which no outward discomposure seems to have
any power to shake.
His politely bowing to the furious Boston mob before descending to put
himself in their hands, is a very characteristic thing, and during
all the tossings and tumults of the hour that followed, Garrison was
probably the serenest person that ever had his clothes torn off his
back for expressing his opinions.
That language in the Liberator which looked to the world as if it must
have been uttered in a passion, because it was so far above the usual
earnestness of expression on such subjects, was in his case the result
of a deliberate system.
Garrison said that the world blinded conscience and made false issues
with itself by the habitual calling of things by the wrong names;
that there was no kind of vice which might not be disguised under a
polite phrase. Theft might be spoken of as an ingenious transfer of
property--adultery as a form of the elective affinity, and so on, but
that all such phraseology had an immoral tendency.
In like manner the stealing of men and women from Africa--the
systematic appropriation of all the fruits of their industry and
labor--was robbery. Whoever did this was a thief.
Garrison called slaveholders, no matter of what rank in society, of
what personal amiabilities and virtues, man-thieves. Whoever formed
union with slaveholders, united with man-thieves, and as the partaker
in law is judged as being a thief, those who united with man-thieves
became themselves thieves.
Having reasoned this out logically, Garrison steadily and
systematically applied these terms wherever he thought they applied.
The Garrisonian tract, "The church a den of thieves," is a specimen
of this kind of logic, and this unsparing use of terms. Whatever may
be thought of the justice of such reasoning or the propriety of such
logical application of terms, we still wish the fact to stand out
clear, that these denunciations were not boiled up by heated passions,
but reasoned out by logic, and that it was a part of a systematic
plan to bring back the moral sense of society by a habit of calling
things by discriminating names. Thus in the Liberator every agent of
the United States who helped to catch and return a slave was always
spoken of as a kidnapper--all defences of the fugitive slave law were
familiarly denominated defences of kidnapping. Theodore Parker, in his
sermons about the time of the fugitive slave law, makes very effective
use of these terms, and it is not to be denied that the habit of thus
constantly using language which in a word makes a moral discrimination
is a very powerful influence in forming popular opinion.
People will boggle a great while about fulfilling constitutional
obligation when catching a slave is put in those terms, but when it is
put as "kidnapping," the question becomes far more direct and simple.
The Garrisonians doubtless were philosophical in the precision of the
moral nomenclature they adopted, and their success in stimulating
drugged and paralyzed moral sentiment was largely owing to it.
To be sure, in the application of wholesale moral syllogism to
particular individual cases, there was often something that appeared
extremely hard and unjust to the individual. When an amiable northern
Doctor of Divinity, who never owned a slave in his life and never
expected to, found himself cited in the Liberator by the familiar
designation of a man-thief, because he had been in the General
Assembly, good naturedly uniting with a large body of southern
slaveholders in suppressing all inquiry into their great systematic
robbery, the northern Doctor was naturally indignant and so were all
his friends and adherents.
To be sure it was only a skillful turning of that syllogistic crank
by which New England theology demonstrated that every individual not
conscious of a certain moral change of heart, was a malignant enemy of
God, and had not a spark of moral excellence of any kind, no matter
what sort of a man he might be, or what moral virtues he might practice.
Garrison simply reversed the crank and turned this unsparing kind of
logic back on the church and clergy, who felt some of the surprise
and pain of the eagle in the fable who found himself shot through by
an arrow feathered from his own wing; and in both cases it may be
doubted whether great moral syllogisms do not involve many instances of
individual and personal injustice.
But it is best to let Garrison state his own case as he did in the
Liberator:
"I am accused of using hard language. I admit the charge. I have not
been able to find a soft word to describe villainy, or to identify the
perpetrator of it. The man who makes a chattel of his brother--what is
he? The man who keeps back the hire of his laborers by fraud--what is
he? They who prohibit the circulation of the Bible--what are they? They
who compel three millions of men and women to herd together, like brute
beasts--what are they? They who sell mothers by the pound, and children
in lots to suit purchasers--what are they? I care not what terms are
applied to them, provided they do apply. If they are not thieves, if
they are not tyrants, if they are not men-stealers, I should like
to know what is their true character, and by what names they may be
called. It is as mild an epithet to say that a thief is a thief, as it
is to say that a spade is a spade.
"The anti-slavery cause is beset with many dangers; but there is one
which we have special reason to apprehend. It is that this hollow cant
about hard language will insensibly check the free utterance of thought
and close application of truth which have characterized abolitionists
from the beginning. As that cause is becoming popular, and many may be
induced to espouse it from motives of policy rather than from reverence
for principle, let us beware how we soften our just severity of speech,
or emasculate a single epithet. The whole scope of the English language
is inadequate to describe the horrors and impurities of slavery.
Instead therefore, of repudiating any of its strong terms, we rather
need a new and stronger dialect.
* * * * *
"The cry of hard language has become stale in my ears. The faithful
utterance of that language has, by the blessing of God, made the
anti-slavery cause what it is, ample in resources, strong in numbers,
victorious in conflict. * * * Soft phrases and honeyed accents
were tried in vain for many a year;--they had no adaptation to the
subject. 'Canst thou draw out the leviathan, Slavery, with a hook?
or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest down? Canst thou put a
hook into his nose? or bore his jaw through with a thorn? Will he
make many supplications unto thee? wilt thou take him for a servant
forever? Shall not one be cast down at the sight of him? Out of his
nostrils goeth smoke, as out of a seething pot or caldron. His breath
kindleth coals, and a flame goeth out of his mouth. His heart is as
firm as a stone; yea, as hard as a piece of the nether mill-stone.
When he raiseth up himself, even the mighty are afraid. He esteemeth
iron as straw, and brass as rotten wood.' O, the surpassing folly
of those 'wise and prudent' men, who think he may be coaxed into a
willingness to be destroyed, and who regard him as the gentlest of all
fish--provided he be let alone! They say it will irritate him to charge
him with being a leviathan; he will cause the deep to boil like a pot.
Call him a dolphin, and he will not get angry! If I should call these
sage advisers by their proper names, no doubt they would be irritated
too."
The era of mob violence, which swept over the country in consequence of
the anti-slavery agitation, led to a discussion of the peace question,
in which Garrison took an earnest part as a champion of the principles
of non-resistance, and in 1838 he led the way in organizing the New
England Non-Resistance Society, whose declaration of sentiments was
prepared by him. The active part taken by the women of the country in
these moral changes, led to a discussion of the rights of women. Mr.
Garrison was at once an advocate for the principle that women should
be allowed liberty to do whatever God and nature qualified them to
do--to vote, to serve on committees, and to take part in discussions
on equal terms with the other sex. Upon this principle there was
a division in the Anti-Slavery Society in 1840; and in the World's
Anti-Slavery Convention, held that year in London, Mr. Garrison, being
delegate from that society, refused to take his seat because the female
delegates from the United States were excluded. Probably no act of Mr.
Garrison's eventful life was a more difficult and triumphant exercise
of consistent principle than this.
He had come over to England for sympathy, for at home he was despised,
and rejected, and hated, and Exeter Hall was filled with an applauding,
tumultuous crowd, ready to make him the lion of the hour, but not ready
to receive his female coadjutors.
As usual, Mr. Garrison conferred not with flesh and blood for a moment,
but rose, bade farewell to the society, and leaving his protest, walked
out serenely through the crowd, and thus sealed his protest in favor of
the equal rights of woman.
The consideration that he thus renounced an overwhelming public
sympathy, and cut himself loose from the patronage of all good society
in England, could not weigh a moment with him in comparison with a
principle, and the doctrine of the moral, social and political equality
of woman may be said to have found in Garrison its first public
champion.
The question now arises: If Garrison and his little band were indeed
morally right in their position--_No union with slaveholders_, on what
ground did the whole valiant anti-slavery corps proceed who did not
come out from the church or the state, but saw their way clear to
remain in existing organizations, and fight in and by them.
The free soil party of the political abolitionists generally were
headed by men of pure and vital moral sense, who believed just as
sincerely as Mr. Garrison that slavery was a wrong and an injustice.
How then could they avoid the inference that they could have no union
with slaveholders? The statement of this ground properly belongs to the
biographical sketches of Charles Sumner and Henry Wilson, which will
immediately follow this.
The Garrisonians, and Mr. Garrison at their head, had so perfect an
instinct in their cause that they always could feel when a party
was at heart morally sincere and in earnest. So, though they always
most freely and most profusely criticised the works and ways of the
political abolitionists, they were on the whole on excellent terms with
them.
They had gotten up such a name for speaking just their minds of every
body and thing, that their privilege of criticism came to be allowed
freely, and on the whole the little band was thought by the larger
one to do good political work by their more strictly and purely moral
appeals to the conscience of the community. Where there had been pretty
active Garrisonian labor in lecturing, came in the largest political
vote.
It is but justice to say that Mr. Garrison's conduct throughout
his course demonstrated that it was not a constitutional love
of opposition, or a delight in fault-finding which inspired his
denunciations of slavery and of the Union as the defence of slavery.
For from the time of the Emancipation Proclamation, Garrison became a
warm, enthusiastic Unionist. When the United States flag, cleansed of
all stain of slavery, was once more erected on Fort Sumter, Garrison
made the voyage down to testify by his presence at the scene his
devotion and loyalty to the flag of his country.
Garrison's non-resistant principles did not allow him to take any
active part in the war. But in the same manner they caused him to allow
perfect and free toleration to such of his sons as desired to enter the
army. The right of individual judgment in every human being was always
sacred with him, and the military command which took possession of
Charleston had among its officers a son of William Lloyd Garrison.
The scene in the Boston Music Hall, on the 1st of January, 1864, when
the telegraphic dispatch of the Emancipation Proclamation was received
by an enthusiastic concourse of citizens, and welcomed by the first
literary talent of Boston, was one of those occurrences of the visible
triumph of good men in their day and generation, of which the slavery
conflict gives many instances.
This scene was in all respects a remarkable one, as marking the moral
progress of Boston, but in order to feel its full power we must again
run our eye over the events of the past few years, of which it was the
outcome.
It was only thirty-four years since the Legislature of Georgia had
passed an act signed by Gov. Lumpkin, offering the sum of five thousand
dollars for whoever would bring into the State of Georgia the person
of William Lloyd Garrison, there to answer to the laws of Georgia for
the publication of the _Liberator_--an "incendiary sheet." Everybody
knew that this proclamation meant a short shrift and a long rope to
Garrison, but there was at that time no counter movement on the part
of his own State for his protection, no official declaration on the
part of the Massachusetts Legislature to certify that she considered
offering rewards for the kidnapping of her citizens to be a violation
of State rights. In fact, so completely was Garrison, thus threatened
by the South, unprotected by law and public sentiment at the North,
that five years later, when the outcry from slaveholding legislatures
became stronger, a Massachusetts Governor actually recommended
imposing pains and penalties on the abolitionists for the discussion
of the subject, and the Legislature actually took into discussion the
propriety of doing so.
Was ever thirty years productive of a greater moral change than this
1st of January, 1864, witnessed?
An assemblage of all that Boston had to show of intellect, scholarship,
art, rank and fashion, all came together of one accord to one place
to celebrate the triumph of those great principles for which Garrison
had once been dragged with a rope ignominiously through the streets of
Boston.
Now that serene head, with its benevolent calmness, rising in one of
the most conspicuous and honored seats in the house, was the observed
of all observers. The hisses of mob violence, the scoffs and sneers,
had changed to whispered tributes all over the house, "There he is,
look!" and mothers pointed him to their children. "There is the good
man who had the courage to begin this glorious work, years ago!"
Of Garrison's appearance at this time, it is sufficient to say that
it was no more nor less serene and untroubled than when he stood amid
the hisses of the mob in Faneuil Hall. He had always believed in this
victory as steadfastly in the beginning as in the end, for God, who
makes all his instruments for his own purposes, had given him in the
outset that "faith which is the substance of things hoped for, and the
evidence of things not seen," and to God alone, without a thought of
self, did he ascribe the glory.
On the 1st of January, 1865, Mr. Garrison having finished the work for
which the Liberator was established in Boston, came out with his last
editorial announcing the discontinuing of that paper. He says:
"The object for which the _Liberator_ was commenced--the extermination
of chattel slavery--having been gloriously consummated, it seems to me
specially appropriate to let its existence cover the historic period
of the great struggle; leaving what remains to be done to complete the
work of emancipation to other instrumentalities, (of which I hope to
avail myself,) under new auspices, with more abundant means and with
millions instead of hundreds for allies.
"Most happy am I to be no longer in conflict with the mass of my
fellow-countrymen on the subject of slavery. For no man of any
refinement or sensibility can be indifferent to the approbation of his
fellow-men, if it be rightly earned. But to obtain it by going with
the multitude to do evil, is self-degradation and personal dishonor.
Better to be always in a minority of one with God--branded as a madman,
incendiary, fanatic, heretic, infidel--frowned upon by the powers
that be, and mobbed by the populace--or consigned ignominiously to
the gallows, like him whose 'soul is marching on,' though his 'body
lies mouldering in the grave,' or burnt to ashes at the stake, like
Wickliffe, or nailed to the cross, like Him who 'gave himself for the
world,' in defence of the RIGHT, than like Herod, having the shouts of
the multitude crying, 'It is the voice of a god, and not of a man!'
"Commencing my editorial career when only twenty years of age, I have
followed it continuously till I have attained my sixtieth year--first
in connection with _The Free Press_, in Newburyport, in the spring of
1826; next, with _The National Philanthropist_, in Boston, in 1827;
next, with _The Journal of the Times_, in Bennington, Vt., in 1828-9;
next, with _The Genius of Universal Emancipation_, in Baltimore, in
1829-30; and finally, with the _Liberator_, in Boston, from the 1st of
January, 1831, to the 1st of January, 1866,--at the start, probably the
youngest member of the editorial fraternity in the land, now, perhaps,
the oldest, not in years, but in continuous service,--unless Mr.
Bryant, of the New York _Evening Post_, be an exception.
"Whether I shall again be connected with the press, in a similar
capacity, is quite problematical; but at my period of life, I feel no
prompting to start a new journal at my own risk, and with the certainty
of struggling against wind and tide, as I have done in the past.
"I began the publication of the _Liberator_ without a subscriber,
and I end it--it gives me unalloyed satisfaction to say--without a
farthing as the pecuniary result of the patronage extended to it during
thirty-five years of unremitted labors.
"From the immense change wrought in the national feeling and sentiment
on the subject of slavery, the _Liberator_ derived no advantage at any
time in regard to its circulation.
* * * * *
"Farewell, tried and faithful patrons! Farewell, generous benefactors,
without whose voluntary but essential pecuniary contributions the
_Liberator_ must have long since been discontinued! Farewell, noble
men and women who have wrought so long and so successfully, under
God, to break every yoke! Hail, ye ransomed millions! Hail, year of
jubilee! With a grateful heart and a fresh baptism of the soul, my last
invocation shall be--
'Spirit of Freedom! on--
Oh! pause not in thy flight
Till every clime is won,
To worship in thy light:
Speed on thy glorious way,
And wake the sleeping lands!
Millions are watching for the ray,
And lift to thee their hands.
Still 'Onward!' be thy cry--
Thy banner on the blast;
And as thou rushest by,
Despots shall shrink aghast.
On! till thy name is known
Throughout the peopled earth;
On! till thou reign'st alone,
Man's heritage by birth;
On! till from every vale, and where the mountains rise,
The beacon lights of Liberty shall kindle to the skies!'
WM. LLOYD GARRISON."
There were those in the party of the Garrisonian Abolitionists whose
course at this time seemed to justify the popular impression that
faultfinding had so long been their occupation, that they were not
willing to accept even their own victory at the price of giving up
their liberty of denunciation. It is doubtless very dangerous to the
finer tissues of one's moral nature to live only to deny and contend
and rebuke.
But Mr. Garrison showed conclusively that it was love of right and not
love of contention, that animated him by this prompt, whole hearted
acknowledgment of the good when it came. No American citizen ever
came more joyfully and lovingly into the great American Union, than
he who so many years had stood outside of it, for conscience' sake;
and he showed just as much steadiness and independence in disregarding
the criticisms of some of his former coadjutors, as he formerly had
in disregarding those of pro-slavery enemies. He would not say that
a work was _not_ done which _was_ done--he was honest and fair in
acknowledging honest and fair work, and he very wisely distinguished
between emancipation, as a fixed and final fact, and reconstruction, as
belonging to the new era founded on emancipation. In his last editorial
he very quietly and sensibly states his views on this subject, and
repels the charge which had been made that he was deserting the battle
before the victory was won. He ends by saying:
"I shall sound no trumpet and make no parade as to what I shall do
for the future. After having gone through with such a struggle as has
never been paralleled in duration in the life of any reformer, and for
nearly forty years been the target at which all poisonous and deadly
missiles have been hurled, and having seen our great national iniquity
blotted out, and freedom 'proclaimed throughout all the land to all the
inhabitants thereof,' and a thousand presses and pulpits supporting the
claims of the colored population to fair treatment where not one could
be found to do this in the early days of the anti-slavery conflict,
I might, it seems to me--be permitted to take a little repose in my
advanced years, if I desired to do so. But, as yet, I have neither
asked nor wished to be relieved of any burdens or labors connected
with the good old cause. I see a mighty work of enlightenment and
regeneration yet to be accomplished at the South, and many cruel wrongs
done to the freedmen which are yet to be redressed; and I neither
counsel others to turn away from the field of conflict, under the
delusion that no more remains to be done, nor contemplate such a course
in my own case."
Mr. Garrison's health, which had suffered severely from his long
labors, required the relief of foreign travel.
He once more revisited England, where his course was one unbroken
triumph. A great breakfast was given in his honor at St. James' Hall,
London, at which John Bright presided. The Duke of Argyle presented
a complimentary address to Mr. Garrison, congratulating him on the
successful termination of the Anti-Slavery struggle. Lord John Russell
seconded this address, and at this time magnanimously retracted certain
hasty sayings in regard to the recent conflict in America, at its
commencement. In the city of Edinburgh he was received in a crowded
public meeting with tumultuous cheering, and the freedom of the city
was solemnly presented to him by the Lord Provost and magistracy. In a
private letter he says:
"I need not tell you that I went to England with no purpose or thought
of being lionized, but only quietly to see old friends, to seek
recreation, hoping to renovate my failing health by the voyage. But I
shall ever gratefully remember those friendly manifestations towards me
and my native land."
In conclusion, it is but justice to human nature in general and to
New England in particular, to say that the poets of New England, true
to a divine inspiration always honored Garrison, even in his days of
deepest darkness and rebuke. Longfellow, Russell, Lowell, Whittier and
Emerson, came out boldly with Anti-Slavery poems. They were the wise
men, star-led, who brought to the stable and the manger of the infant
cause, the gold, frankincense and myrrh. It was a great opportunity,
and they had grace given them to use it, and not all the fame they had
won otherwise, honors them so much as those tributes to humanity and
liberty which they bestowed in the hour of her utmost need.
We will conclude this sketch by a letter from Mr. Garrison, which best
shows the spirit in which he regards the result of the great conflict.
"DEAR MRS. STOWE:
For your very appreciative and congratulatory letter on the "marvellous
work of the Lord," which the Liberator marks as finished, I proffer
you my heartfelt thanks, and join with you in a song of thanksgiving
to Him, who, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm has set free the
captive millions in our land.
"The instrumentalities which the God of the oppressed has used for
the overthrow of the slave system, have been as multifarious and
extraordinary as that system has been brutal and iniquitous. Every
thing that has been done, whether to break the yoke or to rivet it more
strongly, has been needed to bring about the great result. The very
madness of the South has worked as effectively anti-slavery-wise as the
most strenuous efforts of the abolitionists.
"The outlawry of all Northern men of known hostility to slavery--the
numberless pro-slavery mobs and lynchings, her defiant and awful
defence of the traffic in human flesh, her increasing rigor and
cruelties towards the slaves, and finally her horrible treason and
rebellion to secure her independence as a vast slaveholding empire,
through all time, all mightily helped to defeat her impious purpose and
to hasten the year of jubilee. Thus it is that
God moves in a mysterious way,
His wonders to perform;
He plants his footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.
And who but God is to be glorified?
[Illustration: Charles Sumner]