THE CLERICAL APPEAL.
_Christian._ Did you know, about ten years ago, one TEMPORARY, who
dwelt next door to one TURNBACK? Since we are talking about him,
let us a little inquire into the reason of the sudden backsliding
of him and such others. _Hopeful._ It may be profitable.
BUNYAN.
The re-action of the church, in consequence of such an effort as the
one made by this Convention, was greater than some who had fancied
themselves abolitionists were able to bear. Compelled to choose between
their pro-slavery brethren of the church and ministry and their
brethren of the abolition cause, they shrunk from the latter. Their
efforts to justify themselves in cramping the cause, that they might
avoid its reproach, constitute an era in its progress, known as the
“Boston Controversy.” The plan originated with five clergymen of Boston
and vicinity, the Rev. Messrs. Charles Fitch, Joseph H. Towne, Jonas
Perkins, David Sandford, and William Cornell. When the ecclesiastical
tumult swelled high, their hearts were stirred up with it, as the water
of inland wells is said to rise and fall with the ebb and flow of the
bitter ocean tide without.
Their appeal commenced with an acknowledgment of the sins of their
brethren, in the use of harsh language, and an accusation of the most
prominent abolitionists, of an unkind, improper and unchristian course,
as such, assuming as one of the principles of action in the cause,
that it must not be presented in a “brother’s pulpit,” when by so
doing a brother might be aggrieved. This last assumption was in direct
contradiction to the motto of every pulpit, as well as in defiance of
the professed principles of every christian minister to “cry aloud
and spare not” in the promulgation of truth, and “to show the people
their transgressions,”--“whether they will hear, or whether they will
forbear.”
The accusation of harsh language was robbed of its power by the heavily
charged and indiscriminate epithets which some of the appellants
themselves were accustomed to use. Having no standard within themselves
by which to graduate their language, the quality of their labors was
regulated by the market principle of demand and supply. The respective
churches in Boston, to which two of them had been called from the
country to minister, had more fame (or infamy, as the world counted
it) on account of abolition, than they deserved. The appellants soon
ascertained that the market was fluctuating, and they also fluctuated
and fell. Ignorant of the general temperature of the abolition mind
without, they fancied it in correspondence with that under their
immediate observation, and took the ill-considered step of appealing
before the world from the requisitions of their own acknowledged
principles of action with regard to the preaching of acknowledged truth.
It must be remembered, in excuse of clergymen who in this stage of the
cause put their hands to the plough and turned back, that the laudable
desire of the National Society to have the field filled with agents
had induced some to enter it whose preparation of heart was altogether
unequal to the work. They yielded to circumstances and to entreaties,
rather than to convictions of duty and love of the cause. Some too had
been prematurely urged into the anti-slavery ranks by the anxiety of
the women of their respective congregations to obtain the influence of
their names for the cause. This practice of making those life members
who are but slightly interested in the cause, however well calculated
to swell the funds of popular societies, and secure the efforts of the
ministry in their favor, has been productive of nothing but mischief
in Anti-Slavery Societies, and it is to be hoped that no persons will
hereafter be subjected to the painful alternative of accepting a
testimony of regard of which they are unworthy, or of acknowledging
enmity to the cause of Freedom. Let no one be constituted a life
member, whose own heart has not so wrought upon his life as to make it
clear that his membership is something more than a payment of fifteen
dollars.
The clerical appeal was, in fact, an invitation to the leaders of
the opposing host of clergymen, to come and take the direction of
the Anti-Slavery cause. The former character of its signers as
abolitionists--their confident tone, and the suddenness of the
movement, drew general attention and remark. A lively sensation ensued
throughout New England.
The appellants reported that they were cheered on by nine tenths
of their brother clergymen. This increased the agitation; for the
abolitionists had found, from the beginning, their most active
opponents among this class of men. Coming, as it did, immediately
after the claim of the Mass. General Association of Ministers, for
more respect and for the exclusion of agitating topics, the appeal
identified its originators with the opposing ministry, and disjoined
them from abolitionists. It was already seen of all, that this new
principle of suppressing the truth when the truth gives offence, would,
if generally adopted, completely extinguish the Anti-Slavery cause.
Merchants, who had received hints that they were to be hissed off
’Change, for bringing their principles into daily practice,--lawyers,
whose clients had deserted them in disgust when the pictures of
kneeling slaves found room in their places of business,--women, who
had been proscribed from their respective social circles for making a
morning call the medium of presenting a petition,--all perceived that
this case was the parallel of their own, and demanded of a clergyman
that he should resist _his_ temptations to a sinful neglect of duty as
well as themselves. They also exclaimed against the unworthy idea of
yielding up, on demand, those whose very faithfulness was the origin
of all the outcry. A whisper was circulated by the friends of the
clerical appeal, that struggle was useless, that they were sustained
not only _without_ but _within_ the camp, that the Executive Committee
at New York did not disapprove of their doings, and that it had been
decided at head quarters “_to cast off Garrison_.” This facilitated the
general movement of every eye to New York. Societies and individuals
loudly protested against the treachery to the cause, the treachery to
their own religious principles of action, and the treachery to their
comrades of which the appeal was the vehicle.--The religious world,
through all its various organs of communication with the universal
public, set up a shout of triumph. From Maine to the Potomac, and from
the Atlantic to the Ohio, the “Appeal” was the subject of conversation
with all to whom the name of abolition was familiar. The Anti-Slavery
editors in every state, discerned the spiritual peril as clearly as
if it had been a combat before the bodily eye, and all spoke out
for the right, except the Emancipator, the organ of the Committee
at New York, and James G. Birney, then editor of the Philanthropist
in Cincinnati. _His_ misapprehension of the case was excused by
those whom he condemned, and accounted for by the fact of his great
distance from the seat of the conflict. The appellants, however,
triumphantly claimed him as their own. Mr. Garrison, and the editor
pro tem. of the Liberator, Mr. Johnson, were forcible and conclusive
in their treatment of the case. Mr. Phelps, whose services as general
agent of the Massachusetts Society, some members of the Boston Female
Anti-Slavery Society forseeing this emergency, had made great exertions
to secure, came boldly up, to fill the breach where his presence was
so needful and desirable. The vigor of his assault quickly dislodged
the appellants from their new position “in a brother’s pulpit.” But
he received no thanks for his good service, from the committee at New
York. Every church, every Anti-Slavery Society, was convulsed by the
struggle--still no voice came from the central citadel. The Clerical
appellants meanwhile went on, as diverging lines ever will, widening
the distance between themselves and rectitude. The Massachusetts
Association of the Ministry had, two months previously, given currency
to the idea that the abolition cause had wrought deterioration in the
female character. The appellants made this idea, too, their own. Mr.
Woodbury, now an agent of the American Society, the same who had
thrown down the gauntlet to the pro-slavery church in 1836, chimed
in with the appeal, and suggested in addition, that the opinions of
Mr. Garrison on other subjects were just cause of offence in him,
and that their incidental expression in the Liberator was a high
misdemeanor. The appellants eagerly adopted this suggestion also; and
explained to the public, and endeavored to convince abolitionists,
that the toleration of women as free agents in the cause--the holding
George Fox’s views of the Sabbath--or embracing the principles of
non-resistance, afforded a just ground for excluding the offending
individuals from the Societies. “Let them go out from among us,” they
said, “for they are not of us; and the Massachusetts Society must
have a new organ.” Mr. Phelps, at this time standing under a load of
ignominy with the leaders of his denomination, and publicly threatened
by the Recorder, their periodical, that Mr. Garrison’s “brother Phelps”
would soon find his present position an unenviable one, succumbed to
this new shape of an attack, which, under its first guise, he had
met so boldly. Like the prince of Arabian story, he yielded to the
insulting outcries which burst out around him,--turned his face from
the ascent, and at that moment underwent the transformation to which
the prince’s change into a little black stone by the way-side, is
analogous.
It is astonishing that these men should not have been aware that on the
abolition platform their own sect stood but on a level with others,
and that Sabbatarian or Anti-Sabbatarian, man or woman, clergyman or
layman, voter or non-voter, warrior or non-resistant, must be measured
by their consistency and energy in applying each his own religious
views, to effect the abolition of slavery. But they had yielded to
that fear of man that bringeth a snare, and suffered themselves to be
overcome by pro-slavery influence, scantily disguised as sectarian zeal.
This pro-slavery influence was wielded by the leaders of the sect to
which the appellants belonged, with a skill and industry which the
Anti-Slavery party would have done well to imitate. This pretended
zeal, stimulated as it was by the hope of securing the approbation
of wealthy and influential men of business, who sustained the double
character of panders of slavery and pillars of churches, was not
without its reward. The leading commercial and religious journals
played into each others’ hands, and, from the daily and weekly press
of that period, it appears that great numbers of clergymen, of known
hostility to the cause, had contrived to signify that some movement of
this kind would afford them a pretence for joining it, while, at the
same time, such a movement would operate as an assurance that the cause
should no longer be urged forward with the speed and effect that rouses
the spirit of persecution. Men who had dreaded suffering, and felt
mortification at the idea of becoming followers (so they understood it)
of the bold, plain, uncompromising, untitled Garrison, hoped, by means
of this stepping-stone, to escape the reproach of their consciences,
without sacrificing their parishes or their pride.
The active appellants were but _two_ in number; but from time to time
they kept the public informed of the encouragement they received. One,
who entered into their feelings with the most ardent sympathy, was the
Rev. Charles T. Torrey, then of Providence. He declared that “their
appeal gave him unmingled satisfaction--that it would be sustained by
others;”--and bade them “thank God and take courage, in view of the
Liberator’s abuse.”
As weeks went on, it became evident, through the columns of the paper
in which the clerical appeal first appeared, that the cloak of bigotry
and intolerance was to be added to the garment of sectarian zeal,
which had at first been employed to hide their want of attachment to
the cause. There was talk of a “common ground,” which yet must not
be profaned by the feet of those abolitionists who were not of one
particular communion. Great preference of the National Society was
expressed, (though it counted as many heretics among its numbers as
did the Massachusetts Society;) because the members of the Executive
Committee chanced to be members also of sects which the appellants
considered Orthodox. Much exertion was made in the Theological
Seminary, at Andover, to obtain recruits for this new, exclusive
“common ground,” and thirty-nine young candidates for the ministerial
office came up to its defence.
Meanwhile, the claims of this clerical exclusiveness were adjudged by
the great body of abolitionists, to be in an attitude of antagonism
with the principles of Freedom. How can he free the slave, they argued,
who is occupied in imposing fetters upon the free? How can he love
liberty, who is acting in defiance of her first principles? Are not
things which are equal to the same things equal to one another?
The Massachusetts Society met at Worcester, to take action upon
this attempt to destroy its broad foundation of religious freedom
and toleration; and, disclaiming the exercise of judgment, in their
associated capacity, upon any man’s private opinions, the members
deemed it their duty to brand inconsistency with one’s _own_ standard
of action, as treachery to the cause.
Amasa Walker, a man peculiarly qualified to speak to such a question,
being a zealous member of the same sect as the appellants, manifested,
upon this occasion, rectitude and steadfastness worthy of a sect so
nobly founded, and, until the present day, so nobly sustained. He
explained the causes and developed the real character of the appeal,
stripping it of its mask of love for the slave, and zeal for the church
of God.
Dr. Osgood, of Springfield, was disposed to admit the justice of the
charge of harsh language against prominent abolitionists, but he made
an exception in favor of Mr. Birney. He thought himself as thorough
as it was possible for any man to be in the cause. He had labored
for its success wherever he went. “I have,” said he, “pleaded for
it in stage-coaches and steam-boats. I have argued in its behalf in
conversation. _I have never yet introduced it into my pulpit:--if I had
done so, I should have grieved away some of my best people._”
A condemnation was, notwithstanding, expressed against the idea that
one man’s wishes or sense of propriety, are the proper measure of the
rights and duties of another.
Being thus hindered in their attempt to change the nature and
foundation principles of the Massachusetts Society, the appellants
strove to destroy it by forming a new organization on the basis of
sectarianism, to be auxiliary to the National Society. Mr. Phelps,
though somewhat disappointed at the result of the whole campaign, in
the utter discomfiture of clerical abolitionism, and vexed that the
Massachusetts abolitionists insisted upon evidence of repentance from
the clerical appellants, before again placing confidence in them, was
still not quite prepared to relinquish his hold upon the old society.
This unwillingness was strengthened by the fact, that the strings of
management of the new one were not proffered to his hands. When he
learned that the call for a convention to form it was not a free and
general one, but limited to those who were quite decided to quit the
Massachusetts Society, and that the important arrangements were all
to be settled beforehand, and only the trifling details left to the
discretion of the Convention; then, and not till then, he publicly
warned abolitionists against putting themselves to the trouble of
“doing up Mr. Somebody’s details,” and expressed the hope that the few
towns in the Commonwealth that had responded to the new movement, might
remain as they were, a few. Orange Scott, one of the most conspicuous
of the Methodist abolitionists, exclaimed against the narrow exclusive
dividing spirit which was at work, and zealously defended the common
cause from its attacks.
Their advice, with the indefatigable labors of Mr. Garrison, cast a
damp upon the embryo mischief. But, excited, as Mr. Phelps’s sympathies
had been, for his clerical brethren, and alarmed as he had felt at
the outcry of heresy they had raised against Mr. Garrison, he could
not go on in the work, as aforetime, with a free, untroubled soul. He
had previously entered into a correspondence with Professor Smyth, of
Maine, a friend of the clerical appeal, respecting the necessity of
reforming the Massachusetts Society of its characteristic freedom, and
the means by which that reform could be effected without alarming the
sagacious watchfulness of Mr. Garrison;[1] and at the annual meeting
of the Massachusetts Society, warmly opposed that part of the annual
report which condemned the appeal as treacherous to the cause.
Events seldom pass for what they are worth, at the time they transpire;
and these signs and tokens
“--------------which denoted
A hot friend cooling,----”
seemed inconsequential to most of those who observed them. The
abolitionists had reposed unbounded confidence in Mr. Phelps, and
could not brook to have their souls darkened by suspicion of one so
well beloved. In watching the train of human events, how often are we
admonished to praise no man unreservedly while yet he lives;--to rest
our hearts upon no human excellence that is not
“Hallowed, and guarded from all change by death.”
We must pause here, and settle in our memories the positions of
individuals and societies at this period, if we would understand the
times which come after. We must take the bearings and distances of the
cause in 1837, if we would possess a chart for our safe guidance among
the shoals and quicksands of 1839.
First, let us note the position of the Executive Committee at New
York. Blind to the crisis or unequal to it, they labored to preserve
neutrality in a case involving the preservation or the sacrifice of
principle; and pronounced the whole affair to be “entirely local--a
mere Boston controversy.” Of the three tests of fidelity, they stood
firm under the application of but two. They were untrue to principles
in keeping silence at such a moment, but they were not positively and
openly faithless to men, and they vindicated the broad platform of
the original Anti-Slavery agreement. They perceived the derangement
that a hostile and proscriptive organization in Massachusetts would
occasion in the whole Anti-Slavery system of organized action and did
not recognize any such society as a part of the affiliation. But the
feebleness that marked their course, at that trying crisis, deprived
them of the _perfect_ love and confidence that had till then been felt
in them by all the abolitionists. This feebleness and neutrality was,
however, a recommendation to those whose estimation is a dispraise. The
opposer of the cause instinctively felt that, without any change in his
_own_ position, the distance between himself and the New York Committee
was somewhat lessened: while the devoted friends were made aware that
that committee, notwithstanding its activity in keeping in motion the
smaller machinery of the cause, and its ability in conducting the tract
and book department, was yet the weak point of the whole Anti-Slavery
array. All attentive beholders, whether friends or foes, were taught,
by the observation of this period, that the machinery of organization,
with all its systematized and mechanical helps, must be utterly unequal
to obtain emancipation, unless freedom be the moving “spirit within
the wheels;”--that, however efficient may be the appliances and means
that money can set in motion, there are moments when one trumpet-blast
of victorious truth, were worth them all. The friends in Massachusetts
in vain continued to “look southward with upbraiding eye;”--there was
no voice nor any that answered to their condemnation of the base
metal which could not stand the furnace of the times. They therefore
made their own expression of opinion the more emphatic, and their own
testimony the more clear.
The Boston Female Society bore faithful witness to the truth,
notwithstanding the reluctance of its President, Vice-President,
Treasurer, and Recording Secretary. These officers ran well while they
fancied the enterprise under the blessing and direction of a portion of
the ministry. But, no sooner did it appear that they must advance alone
and self-sustained, than they turned to flight, and from that moment
became, in their measure, an obstacle to the cause, and a detriment to
the society hitherto so active.
Let us give one more glance at the position of individuals at this
period.
The appellants, recreant to the three grounds of fidelity in the
Anti-Slavery cause, fidelity to the principles--to the platform--and
to their comrades, were announcing their intention to weep in secret
places. Mr. Phelps, faithful to the first ground, but treacherous
to the two last, was endeavoring, unknown to his comrades of
the Massachusetts Board, to change the original character of
the Society, and at the same time to sustain the office of its
General Agent. Mr. Stanton, the most prominent Agent of the New
York Committee in Massachusetts, was wanting to the fundamental
principle of immediateism, in keeping silence on the _first_ ground
of the appeal;--to the mutual agreement that all sects were, in the
Anti-Slavery cause, on a common platform, in keeping silence on
the _second_ ground of the appeal; and to his brethren personally,
in silently seeing them attacked without standing with them on the
defensive. Instead of this three-fold fidelity, he was declaring it
to be impossible to “screw every body up to this high notch;” and
therefore it had better not be attempted, as the work would be done at
last by men who had not this devoted love for the cause, from political
and interested motives; and that the requisition of higher ones, would
certainly occasion division. The faithful in the cause were earnestly
urging him, and all who were thus wanting to the right, to insist on
the most impregnable fidelity and the most unshaken constancy, as
the only aid worth having, and the only means of holding the mastery
over policy and selfishness; and solemnly warning him that, when that
division, to which he alluded, should take place, the short-sighted,
the weak, the faltering, the treacherous, the unprincipled, the base,
would fall back together; while the deep-thinking, the strong, the
resolute, the faithful, the well-grounded, the noble-souled, would
close up and press onward.
The position of the Massachusetts Society only remains to be
considered. It ceased to defray the expenses of the Liberator from its
treasury, though most of the members would have rejoiced to continue
to do so. But they respected the consciences of the minority, very few
as they believed those to be who _honestly_ opposed the paper, and
determined, since freedom only could obtain freedom, at all events to
avoid the absurdity of infringing on religious liberty.
They concurred with Mr. Garrison in the opinion that the efficacy of
the paper and the consistency of the society would be best preserved
by the cessation of the pecuniary connection, if it gave pain or
embarrassment to the mind of a single contributor to the funds.
This did not greatly mend the matter to those who profaned the sacred
name of conscience, by making it a cloak for malice and for weakness.
Still Mordecai sat in the king’s gate--still it was the abolition of
Massachusetts which sustained the Liberator.
The Society received the natural reward of its faithfulness, in the
increase of its strength. Full of cheerful constancy, and reposing
undiminished confidence in its General Agent, whose short-comings
were known to but few, it pursued its course, rejoicing in freedom,
with renewed determination to impart her life-giving influence to the
enslaved. At the annual meeting of the National Society, an arrangement
was made to obviate that clashing of the fiscal concerns and the
interference of agents with each other’s track, which had been so
troublesome from the first. By this arrangement, no agents were to
labor in Massachusetts but in connection with the wishes of the State
Board of officers, and under their direction. With this understanding,
ten thousand dollars, were to be raised during the year, in this State,
in quarterly payments, for the central treasury at New York. Having
thus cast aside every weight and besetting sin, the society girt itself
afresh, to run with patient swiftness the race set before it.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Clergymen, he intimated, must not be put forward to do it, as
in that case Mr. Garrison would have a handle by which to repel the
attempt; but _laymen_ must be sought out and employed for the purpose.