THE PLOT.
Our plot is as good a plot as ever was laid; our friends true and
constant; a good plot, good friends, and full of expectations:
an excellent plot; very good friends. * * * Why my lord of YORK
commends the plot, and the general course of the action.
SHAKSPEARE.
The difficulties of writing the history of the _past_, are greatly
enhanced by the scantiness of the materials: our own contemporaneous
history on the contrary, seems clogged with their abundance. So many
simultaneous events, seemingly of small consequence, yet all having
an important bearing on each other, and proving, in reality, the
hinges on which the more conspicuous ones turn;--so many threads,
which the insufficiency of narration at once to combine, compels
the writer to drop for a time, although he must finally travel back
to pick them up, or the connections of things will but imperfectly
appear;--no wonder if the Mexican method of preserving the memory of
events by pictures, should seem preferable to our own. A succession
of paintings seems capable of presenting a much clearer view of
contemporaneous transactions, than any arrangement of pages. “Narrative
is linear--action is solid;” and we must overcome the difficulties of
conveying the latter through means of the former, as best we may.
The spirit of Freedom had, by the energy of its advent, struck terror
into the world that comprehended it not. The attempts to check its
advance by means of mobs, were but as the spur in a victorious charge.
The policy of the foes of Freedom became more subtle. It was now their
aim, by counterfeiting the voice of truth, by continually substituting
a false issue for the real one, and by assuming the guise of zeal for
the institutions of religion and government, to operate influentially
and as a check upon the abolition mind.--Though their first attempt,
developed in the preceding chapter, was, on the whole, a signal
failure, owing to the devoted love of abolitionists for their cause and
for each other, yet the hatred of the New England opposition seemed to
deepen as the increase of light and love exposed its malignity. The
position of the ministry, generally, grew more and more uneasy, as the
discrepancy between their claims as ambassadors of Christ, and the
character of their lives as opposed to the requisitions of his gospel,
became apparent.
They had, from the very commencement of the agitation, professed
themselves abolitionists in the abstract, and met the charge of
inconsistency in their practice by strong disapprobation of Mr.
Garrison. One might have thought, from their representations, that
Mr. Garrison possessed a power over their course, by which he could
actually hinder them from doing right. They addressed themselves to
the work of communicating their own prejudices to the minds of their
congregations, and greatly misrepresented both Mr. Garrison and the
Liberator. The most false and derogatory reports were circulated as to
his Christian and moral character. His blameless and excellent life
nullified these efforts with all who knew him; but it is not wonderful
that they should have taken effect in minds at a distance, whose only
avenues to information were the ones which this malicious course choked
up. It was unhesitatingly affirmed that the object of the Liberator was
to abolish the office of the ministry; though its pages were searched
in vain for any evidence of such an object. Nothing could there be
found but proofs that slavery had disqualified the great majority of
the incumbents of that office from exercising it.
It was triumphantly told that the Massachusetts Society had dropped
the Liberator--that Mr. Garrison was a Fanny Wright man--an infidel--a
Sabbath-breaker--a bad and dangerous man--promulgating the doctrines of
the French Jacobins, &c. &c.
An outcry was raised by the enemy without the camp, which was responded
to by the confederates within, that Mr. Garrison was loading the cause
with a burden of extraneous topics. All the careful observers of the
movement were aware of the falsity of this allegation, and testified to
his habitual avoidance of such topics in Anti-Slavery meetings.
In fact, such discussions were always introduced by those who
complained of them the loudest. All the anti-slavery editors were in
the allowed practice of incidentally introducing their own religious
and other opinions, notwithstanding their papers were the organs of
State Societies, and therefore bound to more caution. But it was made a
subject of accusation against Mr. Garrison when he did the same, though
his paper was his own, and he introduced no subjects into it unless
they had a practical bearing on the cause, and were at the same time
considered debateable in all sects. Others might introduce column after
column of extraneous matter: he was publicly accused, for a single
line. Special efforts were made to induce men to cease to subscribe for
the Liberator. It was, like Socrates, termed a corrupter of youth. Men
of high ecclesiastical standing declared that they, though “as much
abolitionists as any one else,” would never unite with the movement for
abolition, as long as Mr. Garrison led the van.
The Rev. Joel Hawes, D. D., of Connecticut, was one of these. Judging
of them from their ominous silence, when sectarianism had been most
violent in its attacks on the integrity of the cause, he felt a
drawing towards the Executive Committee at New York, and fancied them
_altogether_ such ones as himself.
His adhesion had been hailed with joy by abolitionists. They soon found
reason to know that such adherents are more ruinous than open enemies,
to the cause they espouse.
He travelled in Massachusetts, shortly after the New England Convention
of 1838, memorable as the scene of the first attempt to exclude women
from membership in anti-slavery meetings.
A number of clergymen of his own denomination, headed by Mr. Torrey
and Mr. Phelps, had most inconsistently labored to vote away the
freedom and the rights of the female members of that Convention. So
indefinite were their ideas on the whole great subject of rights, that
they overlooked the obvious thought, that no general anti-slavery
convocation could take such ground without denying the fundamental
principle that brought them together. In the horror of their great
darkness on the subject of “_woman’s_ rights,” they trampled on _human_
rights, and the rights of _membership_, in the persons of those women
whom they labored to exclude.
They also deeply wounded the feelings of the great body of the men
there present; few of whom but had occasion to acknowledge, with
grateful affection and respect, how much a mother, wife or sister had
done, in the difficult years that were past, to help and strengthen
them in the labors and sacrifices of the cause.
Women are so accustomed to suffering under the many indignities which
men unconsciously inflict, that in this instance they felt less keenly
for themselves than did their brethren for them, the tyrannical attempt
to assume their responsibilities.
The refusal of the Convention to eject them from their seats, with
the excellent memorial of its Committee, Mr. Johnson, Miss Kelley and
Mr. St. Clair, to the ecclesiastical associations of New-England,
excited much indignation among the ministry, with which Dr. Hawes was
in a state of mind to sympathize. After his return to Connecticut,
he stated, in a letter to a friend, that he had recently visited
Massachusetts, and conversed with several _leading abolitionists
there_: that in reference to the doings of the New England Convention,
they declared that “they could no longer work in such a team,” and
that, unless the Massachusetts Society would take ground in opposition
to this action of the Convention, _there must and should be a new
organization_. Dr. Hawes added, that if he resided in Massachusetts he
should be with them in favor of such a movement.
One spark of true love of Freedom--the feeblest real desire to impart
it to the enslaved, would have overpowered, in his heart, this spirit
of the clerical appeal, and forbade him to identify himself with any
such effort to subvert the broad foundations of the cause or to exclude
any who had borne the burden and heat of the earlier abolition day.
Notwithstanding all the efforts of calumny, bigotry and tyranny,
Mr. Garrison still led the van. There was no help for it. It was a
necessity growing out of the nature of the case, and which could
not be avoided, however much the foe might desire it, and the false
friends labor to accommodate them. There is an efficacy in treacherous
concealment, to “be-darken and confound the mind of man,” or these
Parleys and Flatterwells must have discerned the philosophical
impossibility. But, failing to do so, they went on with their secret
devices.
In all these efforts, the friends of the clerical appeal joined with
great zeal. They had announced the intention of weeping in secret
places, because of its ill success. They were better than their word;
not only weeping, but laboring in secret places. Mr. Torrey, who had,
in the mean time removed from Providence to Salem, was particularly
active. He instituted a vigorous secret correspondence to facilitate
the establishment of a new anti-slavery paper in Massachusetts. He was
now the Secretary of the Essex Co. Society, and, as such, used all the
influence in his power to misrepresent and injure the Liberator; he
intimated that Mr. Garrison had become insufferably idle and negligent,
that his paper was left to printer’s boys and _any body_ to fill up,
that it was demoralizing in its tendency and miserably deficient in
talent; and in conformity with these declarations, he instructed the
agents of the county society to recommend other papers in the towns
where they labored. Having done this, he urged the necessity of a
new paper, because there was such a prejudice against the Liberator,
that it was impossible to get it into sufficient circulation, even to
advertise the county meetings.
He was aided in sowing the new-paper seed, by Mr. Phelps and Mr.
St. Clair. The latter will be recollected as the neophyte of the
Massachusetts Annual Meeting of 1837. The apparent sincerity and
heartiness of his appearance there had recommended him to an agency.
His summary absolution of all the sins of the Liberator, past, present,
_and to come_, was pardoned, as prompted by a good feeling, though too
carelessly expressed.[2] It seemed impossible to believe that he was
insincere, though certainly indiscreet.
In their progress through the country on anti-slavery missions, the
agents of the Massachusetts Society never failed, from the beginning,
to learn how hard it is to be reproached for a righteous man’s name’s
sake. To appreciate the force of their temptation, let the beholder,
for a moment, place himself in their situation. It is in the power of
the minister in almost every parish, to procure them a hearing,--but
he is in combination with his brethren to “put down Garrison.” Is it
wonderful that, instead of silencing the bigot or the slanderer with
the assertion “he is a good man and a faithful abolitionist, and his
opinions on other subjects are no more our business than your own,”
they should have striven to repel their assailants by endeavoring to
draw a line of distinction between him and themselves? Parallel to this
was the course of Peter; unrepented of, it deepens into the darker dye
that marks a Judas.
When men who sought a pretence to avoid the consideration of the
cause, were told that the Massachusetts Board of Managers differed as
widely as themselves from Mr. Garrison’s opinions on other subjects,
their intolerance forbade them to credit the statement. If the
Agents ventured to cast freely off, in the name of the Society, all
responsibility for Mr. Garrison’s individual opinions, and to vindicate
the rectitude and energy of his abolition course from the beginning,
they were obliged to endure the reproach of being “tools of Garrison,”
and singing his praises, when they should rather be employed in
removing such a stumbling-block out of the path of “good men.” A truly
noble soul, thus spurred up to the encounter, would have exclaimed in
the spirit of Bürger:--
“Thank Heaven for song and praise, that I _can_
Thus sing the song of the faithful man!”
The enemy, thus met, would have ceased to play so ineffectual a string;
but, perceiving the weakness of the agents of this year, he never
ceased to have recourse to it.
Let not those who have never been tried in such a furnace, condemn,
without pardon and pity, those whose nobility of spirit was not equal
to pass the assay.
There appears to have been, on the part of Mr. Phelps, and the other
agents of this period, an inability to comprehend or appreciate the
just and straight-forward course of the Massachusetts Board, with whom
they were associated, as well as a consciousness that it would never
permit its sanction to be used for their purposes. They therefore
carefully kept their operations secret from the Board, while they were
using its funds and sanction to carry them on, in conjunction with Mr.
Torrey, and Mr. Stanton, the Secretary of the Executive Committee at
New York. All the Summer and Autumn of 1838, the scheme for a new paper
was thus secretly carried on. Mr. Torrey wrote afterwards to a friend,
“the clergymen throughout the State have been sounded; and they are for
it, to a man.”
The plan of a new paper, to be under their own dictation, and in
an attitude of opposition to the man and to the paper whom their
misrepresentations had made odious, could not fail to be approved
by the _ministry_; but to _abolitionists_, a different form of
introduction was found necessary. To them it was represented that
it would aid the Liberator, and that possibly Mr. Garrison might be
induced to become the editor. Its comparative cheapness, too, was an
inducement to some honest minds, who were unaware of its purpose to
effect a division in their ranks.
More than a year had elapsed since the clerical appeal conspiracy. Some
of the appellants had become officers of county Societies. Certain of
their brethren in spirit, as well as in the ministry, had taken the
lead in town Societies;--a creeping movement was in this way going on
among them, to get the control of the organizations; and, co-operating
with it, were the young theologians who had aided the old attempt
against the cause; now, some of them, as the occupants of pulpits,
rejoicing in the opportunity to lend their aid to the new one.
Mr. Phelps, in whom general confidence was yet unimpaired, was every
where warm in his eulogies of Mr. Torrey’s diligence in the cause. But
those who had opportunities of observing his course closely, were made
aware that mischief and diligence are by no means incompatible. His
labors were unremitting to weaken the bonds of relationship between
the County Society and the State Society. The abolitionists of Essex,
generally, saw not the tendency and design of these efforts. They
could be made without suspicion, as the National Society had ever been
a favorite with Massachusetts men, with whom it originated, and who
constitute the largest portion of its efficient members. Such men could
not readily conceive of the possibility of acting in their _County_
capacity or their _National_ capacity, in opposition to themselves in
their State capacity. But the active brains of the Secretary of the
Executive Committee at New York, together with the Secretaries of the
Massachusetts and the Essex County Societies, had devised and cherished
the idea of such a change, though it would necessarily convert the
affiliated Anti-Slavery system from a harmonious whole, into jarring
and discordant divisions. A society had, before this, been formed in
the western part of the State, to be directly auxiliary to the National
Society. This circumstance was unnoticed at the time, except by a few,
who waited for the light of future events by which to interpret its
meaning.
Such disunion and derangement could not be easily effected in the
region where the free spirit first laid the broad foundations of its
organized action. It was necessary to cast about for some plausible
ground on which to create division of feeling, and to proceed upon it
with the utmost caution.
Public sentiment had become so far changed in Massachusetts by the
eight years’ warfare of abolitionists, that ministers were almost
as liable to public censure for an _open_ pro-slavery course, as
for an open advocacy of Freedom. They, of all men, were, in one
sense, justified in the customary declaration that they were “as much
anti-slavery as others;” for they kept careful watch of the times,
that they might not vary from them materially. With all their prudence
and caution, they found this _double_ public a difficult monster to
manage. Though, as a body, they had undergone no change of feeling,
they perceived that their efforts to check the progress of Freedom,
must be made more carefully than ever; and they adopted a tone of great
solicitude for “the _poor_ slave.”
Pity, even when unfeigned, is not principle, any more than “American
Union”[3] was anti-slavery; and in this instance “poor slave” was but
the synonym for hostility to the Massachusetts Society. Well has _cant_
been called “the second power of a lie.”
The additional ground on which a division of feeling preparatory to the
projected outward division was attempted, was the assertion, sedulously
disseminated by Mr. St. Clair, Mr. Torrey, Mr. Stanton, and Mr. Phelps,
that the Massachusetts Society was a “no-government Society.” Of this
the only proof was, that it had not ostracised Mr. Garrison. It was
argued that the Constitution of the Massachusetts Society required the
use of every means sanctioned by law, humanity and religion; therefore
Mr. Garrison and all other Non-Resistants who decline exercising the
elective franchise, were, by the terms of the Constitution, excluded
from the Society.
“Political action,” adverted to in the Constitution, now had a new
definition affixed to it. It was defined by one of this new school to
mean _poll-itical_ action, or action at the _polls_.
This logic, though very efficacious among those who had rather see
the battle rage round the polls than round the pulpit, produced but
little effect on the real abolitionists. “Law _and_ humanity _and_
religion;” they said----“Well! these must, by the Constitution of the
Society, _conjunctively_ agree upon the means to be employed, and each
man was _of course_ to be his _own_ judge of their requisitions; for
there never would have been a Constitution or a Society on any _other_
understanding. Law! Well; the _law_ sanctions my restoration of a
fugitive slave, should I deem such a propitiation of the master likely
to produce a happy effect in hastening a general emancipation. Am I
therefore bound to do it? No! for my humanity and religion interpose
their veto. But, what if Mr. Garrison’s humanity and religion forbid
him to vote? _I_ cannot see why they should, but that’s _his_ look-out
as an individual--not mine as an abolitionist:--and the Constitution of
the Massachusetts Society covers us both.”
Such plain blunt reasonings could put to flight the assumption that
voting at the polls was a test of membership: but of course it did
but increase the bitterness of feeling of those who sought a cause of
offence against the Society, to find none.
That Mr. Garrison was personally aimed at, and the Massachusetts
Society also, because it would not consent to his ignominious
expulsion, no one doubted, who was at the receipt of clerical custom.
The _on dits_ were plentiful, authenticated and conclusive. “Garrison
has too much influence,” said one. “We must take it down little by
little.” “Have you got Garrison down yet?” said another; “we are ready
to come in when he is out of the way.” “All the Massachusetts meetings
are mere Garrison-glorifications,” said a third; “they forget the
_poor slave_.” “Oh, the Massachusetts Society is the mere creature of
Garrison,” said a fourth. “So many good abolitionists as there are in
the State, opposed to him, why not get rid of him at once?” said the
outside row. “All in good time--a new paper first, as the organ of the
Society--and we can make advantageous changes in the Board of Managers
also, _as they wish to resign_,”--replied the inner circle, that were
most closely hemming round the Massachusetts Society, with hostility in
the disguise of friendship.
Charitable judgment is an excellent thing. _Possibly_, Arnold thought
that the revolutionary principles might be promoted by giving up
Washington to the discontents of the factious, and the demands of
the foe; and exactly the same possibility exists that these men
of great professions and hitherto unattainted names, were sincere
blunderers,--not treacherous apostates. An excellent thing _in its
place_, is charitable judgment. Whether its place be to refuse to see
or to sum up evidence, admits of controversy.
The accusations against the Massachusetts Society, however, appeared,
on _evidence_, to be unfounded. Its Board of Managers had issued an
address to abolitionists preparatory to the political campaign, and
had concentrated their agents upon the fourth Congressional District,
where the political parties were so nicely matched against each other,
that the abolitionists, though but the dust of the balance, might, it
was hoped, by successive defeats of the election, at length procure
a candidate from one or the other party on whom they could unite.
This one fact of the personal labors and concentration of effort for
political effect on the part of the Managers of the Society, presented
itself to every mind and neutralized the misrepresentations that were
so industriously circulated. In reality, the whole force of the Society
had been bent to this one point; and the Board, knowing that the County
Societies were deeply pledged in the matter of funds, relied upon
abolitionists in their _county_ capacity to raise the money now due to
the National Society, on the Massachusetts pledge.
At this juncture, one of the faithful friends in Andover, was startled
by the reception of a letter from Mr. Torrey, so explicit as to rouse
him at once to a perception of the meaning and tendencies of things,
which, till then, had escaped his notice. The letter dwelt on the great
influence of Mr. Garrison in Massachusetts, and thence argued that
it would not be safe to attack him or the Liberator openly;--on the
great need of a new paper;--which he, (Mr. Torrey) had ascertained
by sounding the clergymen throughout the State; and they were for it
to a man. “Now, Brother ----, have on a full delegation at the Annual
Meeting, at 10 o’clock in the morning, prepared to stay two days. Have
them pledged to go for the new paper, and to _spar_ the annual report,
and we will show them how it is done.”
Upon the reception of this letter, those who had been wont to keep
watch and ward over the interests of the cause in Essex, met and
decided to communicate instantly with other friends, that, if possible,
the evil might be subdued in this stage of its progress.
Dr. Farnsworth, of Middlesex, with whose own observation and experience
their intelligence harmonized, instantly suggested to Mr. Garrison the
idea of removing all their pretensions for such a paper by issuing a
small cheap sheet of exclusively Anti-Slavery matter. Mr. Garrison,
from whom, though in almost daily communication with Mr. Phelps, Mr.
St. Clair and Mr. Stanton, their whole plan had been carefully kept,
could hardly credit so treacherous a proceeding.
Had an honest desire for a new paper been entertained, _he_, surely,
whose note of joyous exultation had welcomed the appearance of every
new anti-slavery periodical, should have been among the first whose
aid was sought; and, that the plan had _not_ reached his ears, seemed
to him to prove conclusively, that at least those brethren of the
Society with whom he had daily intercourse, could not be engaged in
it. Relying on Dr. Farnsworth’s good judgment, he, however, decided to
issue the specimen number of the periodical proposed.
But, as day after day brought fresh proof of a skilfully arranged plan
of secret action against the Massachusetts Society, his mind misgave
him as to the efficiency of any paper he might issue, to stay its
progress, and he relinquished the idea.
Dr. Farnsworth, meanwhile, receiving no information of this, continued
diligently to prepare the way in Middlesex County for the expected
sheet. Of these labors, the enemies of the Liberator took advantage,
and artfully represented his honest efforts for a paper which should
subserve the pending election, and, at the same time remove all
pretence for setting on foot an influence hostile to the Liberator, as
a part of their own plan.
Singular symptoms were noticed in the political management of the
Fourth District. Without consulting either the Massachusetts or the
Middlesex County Board, Mr. Stanton undertook the task of determining
on whom the abolitionists should scatter their votes. Somewhat
remarkable was his selection of the Rev. J. T. Woodbury,--the man
who, in 1836, had thrown down the gauntlet to the pro-slavery church;
and, in 1837, lacked the moral force to sustain the pressure of the
antagonism he had impulsively sought; the man against whose commission
as a local agent by the New York Executive Committee, the Massachusetts
Board formally remonstrated when they found him a participant in the
clerical appeal.
Deeper solicitude for the cause would have shown him that men who fail
in the “cushioned seat ecclesiastical,” cannot faithfully discharge the
equally weighty responsibilities of the Congressional one. The evil
considerations that temptingly beset the latter, are as numerous--their
angelic disguises as complete. But Mr. Stanton’s own course, during
that year, had not been such as to make his soul more keenly alive to
the sacred beauty of fidelity.
Dr. Farnsworth’s continually increasing knowledge of the machinations
now on foot, increased his sense of the necessity of a counteracting
influence; and, with a faithfulness which was undamped by the apparent
neglect which had met his first warning, he continued to urge on the
members of the Massachusetts Board, the necessity of a new cheap
periodical, as their organ, to be edited by Mr. Garrison; _monthly_ if
they thought best, though in his judgment a _weekly_ issue would more
effectually remove the pretences of those who were laboring for the
destruction of the Liberator.
When this proposition was formally presented to the Board by Mr.
Garrison, Mr. Phelps chanced to be absent; but Mr. Eayrs, a member with
whom Mr. Phelps was on terms of confidence which he did not extend to
all the other members, remarked that it would be better to postpone any
action of this kind, as there would probably be changes in the Board at
the annual meeting. So innocent were some of the members of the Board
of any knowledge of what was practising against them, and so repugnant
was suspicion to their natures, that those of them whose eyes had not
been recently opened by personal experiences, honestly supposed that
such a paper might satisfy the alleged demand; and, after a few days’
delay, on account of Mr. Phelps’s absence, it was decided to issue
three thousand copies of a specimen number, Messrs. Garrison, Phillips
and Quincy to be an editorial committee. On learning this, Mr. Phelps
said, with much agitation, that such a paper would by no means answer
the demand. His words and his manner were a sufficient assurance that
the plot had gone too far to be arrested by any possible effort of
the Massachusetts Board, and all their energies were now bent to the
painful task of hastening its complete development.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] “Of Mr. Garrison I will say, as the Pope said of his minion, I
will absolve him of all the sins he ever has committed, or ever will
commit.”--_Speech of Mr. St. Clair in 1837._
[3] A scheme so called, for benefiting the colored race, without giving
offence by the mention of Freedom, or Human Rights.