THE DENOUEMENT.
What _we would think_, is not the question here.
The affair speaks for itself, and clearest proofs.--SCHILLER.
The annual meeting of the Massachusetts Society was the time proposed
by the confederated agents and secretaries of the National and
Massachusetts Societies, for the full development of their plans. Like
children playing at draughts, they had calculated their own game,
but not the counteracting moves of their antagonists. Mr. Garrison’s
unexpected trumpet-blast, threw them into confusion. They were ignorant
of the extent of his knowledge, and, in their consternation, did the
exact thing, that innocence would by its nature have necessarily
avoided--denied the existence of any plot.
Mr. Garrison had spoken of two clergymen in Essex County. Mr. Torrey
and Mr. St. Clair, like Scrub in the comedy, were “sure he was talking
of them,” and went into a labored denial and explanation; all of
which, when examined and condensed, demonstrated that a great amount
of time and labor, and by means of the agents and the funds of the
Massachusetts and National Societies, had been privately expended in
sowing the seed of the new paper.
Mr. Phelps, to whom Mr. Garrison had not alluded, identified himself
with the plot, in a series of letters, whose remarkable bitterness
was charitably imputed by some to the peevishness of recent illness.
Others there were, who received these letters as a proclamation to
all concerned, that the writer was no longer “Mr. Garrison’s Brother
Phelps;” and as an evidence that the threat of the Recorder had
effected its purpose.
The Anti-Slavery Office became a scene of deep interest, both to the
devoted friend of the cause, and to the close observer of human nature,
while the tide of inquiring comers was on the flood. The innocent
regularly brought confirmation that the alarm-note of Mr. Garrison was
most fortunately timed. They all recollected some incomprehensible
circumstance on which the recent developments had shed a flood of
light. Some recalled a conversation with “your agent,” some, a remark
of “our secretary,” hinting at a change in the Board, or a way by which
clerical opponents might be gained over to the cause; “for we must have
all these men.” Abundance of sayings came to mind, by which, when first
uttered, they had been exceedingly puzzled, and had finally laid aside
as jests or incomprehensible:--having the master-key, they could now
unlock them all. Notes and letters by the dozen were forth-coming, from
Mr. Torrey and others, marked “confidential.” His correspondents now
began to feel that silence was crime. An eagerness to give and receive
information, marked the innocent. Not so the guilty. They vehemently
denied the existence of any plot,--said that Mr. Garrison was unfit to
be entrusted with any important post in the cause, that Non-Resistants
were not properly abolitionists,--that slavery was the creature of
law--that votes made it, and votes only could unmake it--that though
the Liberator did in its columns advocate political action, it was
inconsistent in so doing, and that they thought a new paper absolutely
necessary.
In this position, the day of the annual meeting found the conflicting
principles and men. Bigotry and sectarism were pitted against
religious liberty and Christian love,--openness and candor against
craft and concealment,--treachery against fidelity,--falsehood against
truth, and, (for things that are equal to the same things are equal to
one another,) freedom against bondage.
It was the largest anti-slavery gathering ever witnessed in
Massachusetts, and a noble sight it was to look upon. It preserved its
original heterogeneous character, being composed of old and young,
men and women; of every sect, party, condition and color, all filled
with the most absorbing interest. Well might every eye be rivetted,
and every heart wrapped in earnest attention. It was a turning point
in the cause. A strong and mighty wind had come to winnow the wheat
from the chaff; the crooked was to be made straight--the hidden was to
be revealed:--expectation was wrought up to the top of its bent. The
report of the Board of Managers, written by Mr. Garrison, was first
read. Men looked wonderingly at one another. “Is this the report that
we received such earnest entreaties to come and vote down? we find no
fault in it. Are these the opinions of our board of officers, which it
is represented to us as so desirable, for opinion’s sake, to change?
perhaps we might look farther, and find worse.”
The report was laid aside to afford opportunity for the utterance of
the thoughts which were swelling up, to find vent in every mind. The
business committee, desirous of affording every facility to debate,
opened the way by the introductions of the following resolutions.
Resolved, That the state of the Anti-Slavery cause in this
Commonwealth demands the establishment of an ably-conducted,
cheap, official organ, to be under the control of the Board of
Managers of the State Society, issued weekly to subscribers; to
advocate political as well as moral and religious action; to be
exclusively confined to the object of the Anti-Slavery cause, and
edited by a man or men, who can conscientiously, heartily and
consistently advocate all the anti-slavery measures, political
as well as moral action; and that the salary of the editor or
editors, together with all other necessary expenses thereof, be
paid out of the funds of the Society.
Resolved, That the Board of Managers are hereby instructed to make
arrangements, if practicable, with the proprietors and editor of
the Liberator, to make that paper the organ aforesaid, and under
the above restriction; or, if that cannot be done, that they
take measures, as soon as practicable, to establish an organ, as
recommended in the resolutions passed by the Worcester County
North Division Anti-Slavery Society, at its late annual meeting in
Fitchburg.
Mr. St. Clair first spoke. He occupied more than an hour in explaining
to the meeting that Mr. Torrey had no hand in the Fitchburg
resolutions. Mr. Torrey occupied the remainder of the afternoon in
denying the existence of any plot, deprecating the fulsome eulogy
of abolitionists, when they spoke of the Liberator;--said that its
circulation was so small that there was absolute need of another paper,
for the purpose of advertising the meetings, and that abolitionists
were determined to have a more effectual medium of communication with
the electors of Massachusetts. He said, “Mr. St. Clair, and myself, Mr.
Phelps and Mr. Stanton, we four, are the originators of this new paper.”
Mr. Stanton replied “I warn the gentleman to be careful of his
pronouns. I defy any one to show a letter or a fragment of a letter,
to prove that I have been implicated in the plan; for I have mentioned
it in but one, and that to a friend in _another State_.” Mr. Torrey
said that it was contemplated to obtain the services of some first-rate
editor--Elizur Wright, or John G. Whittier. “Ah! comes the arrow out of
_that_ quiver!” inly responded a few earnest listeners. But the general
feeling was, that it was only a swelling word used by Mr. Torrey, for
effect, so absurd, so impossible did it seem that either of those men
could be made to stand in Massachusetts upon the clerical platform
of hatred to Mr. Garrison. As soon would Wendell Phillips have been
suspected of laboring to accommodate pro-slavery prejudice with a less
odious editor in Pennsylvania; or Ellis Gray Loring, of supplying the
deficiencies of the Emancipator, by a hostile paper in New York. Mr.
Torrey urged the forlorn condition of Massachusetts among her sister
states, _without an organ_; and seemed as much impressed with the
mortification of being a member of a Society so sadly unfurnished, as
were the slavish Jews, when taunted by the surrounding nations with
having no king.
Mr. May did not suffer in the view of what so much affected Mr. Torrey.
“We have never wanted means of communication with the public,” he
said; “when the Massachusetts Society wants an _organ_, she sounds a
trumpet.” Night was closing round the combatants, and Mr. May moved
an indefinite postponement of the whole subject. Mr. Phelps exclaimed
against thus “giving the go-by to the most important subject that could
come before them.” Mr. May withdrew his motion, and the meeting closed,
to meet again in an hour.
Again the throng came together, with added numbers and spirit. Mr.
Stanton took the floor, and to the utter astonishment of the meeting,
proclaimed that the Liberator had lowered the standard of abolition,
that Mr. Garrison was recreant to the cause, and that _therefore_ a new
paper was indispensable.
His words opened the flood-gates of many memories. Instantly rushed
through the minds of abolitionists all that had passed since he
first stood among them, the trusted and beloved; their guide--their
companion--their own familiar friend. Grief and indignation strove for
the mastery in their hearts as he went on. “A new paper was therefore
indispensable. True, it was said that the columns of the Liberator
were filled with political matter--but how is that political matter
obtained? It is wrought into my frame in head-aches and side-aches,
how that political matter is obtained. If lamps could speak, they
could tell that it is by taking your agents from the field to furnish
it, after the day’s exhausting labor.--There ought to be an editor to
do it. Again; what accompanied this political matter, on the other
side of the paper? Discussions calculated to nullify its effect.
Expressions of opposite opinions. It is not that other subjects are
introduced into the Liberator--it is that _such_ other subjects are
introduced--subjects so injurious to the cause. Mr. President, I would
not injure the Liberator or Mr. Garrison. On the subject of peace,
perhaps, he is nearer right than I am. But he has lowered the standard
of abolition.”
Mr. Garrison and Mr. Stanton had met continually during the season
previous to this attack. They had met as aforetime, brotherly, and
Mr. Stanton had never, even by a word, prepared his friend for such a
proceeding. Conviction was flashed upon the minds of the audience by
every sentence he uttered, that the spurious abolition, which, from
its being defended by the ministry, had obtained the name of clerical
abolition, had, at last made a conquest of a suitable _layman_ to
carry forward its operations. The minds of men rapidly reverted to the
clerical effort of 1837 to break up the Massachusetts Society. Again
they saw the effort renewed, to cast out its most efficient members.
Again the same old war-cry sounded in their ears--“Let them go out from
among us, for they are not of us; and the Massachusetts Society must
have a new organ!” How many a grieved heart, that had trustingly relied
on Stanton to combat this fresh attack on the cause, on thus hearing
his proclamation of his own treachery to his comrades, was ready to
exclaim,
“Oh had an angel spoke those words to me,
I would not have believed no tongue but Hubert’s.”
All, then, was true; the boast of Mr. St. Clair, that if he were
treacherous, then was Stanton and every agent of the Massachusetts
Society treacherous too; the declaration of Mr. Torrey--“_we four!_” No
need _now_, of a conservator of pronouns: the mask was thrown off.
Mr. Garrison indignantly repelled the charge brought against him. “Am
I recreant to the cause? who believes it?” “No! No!” burst forth from
the crowded aisles and galleries. “Let me ask him a question;” said Mr.
Stanton. “Mr. Garrison! do you or do you not believe it a sin to go to
the polls?”
The indignant audience did not cry “shame!”--they were too deeply
moved for utterance. They were silent in breathless astonishment. Was
this _Massachusetts_? Was it at a meeting of _her_ free-souled sons
and daughters, from a platform of toleration so broad that every human
being, laboring for immediate emancipation, might stand upon it, that
a man presented a creed-measure to his brethren, with the threat to
brand every brow as unworthy, that overtopped that little span? Was
it in prophetic fear of this disgraceful scene that Massachusetts
abolitionists had so early renounced the doctrine of racks and
thumb-screws--the idea of reproach for opinion? The same indignant
thoughts thronged up for utterance in every heart. Quakers, Calvinists,
Unitarians;--Whigs, Democrats, and Non-Resistants;--men of every
religious opinion and every political theory--this question insulted
them all. Might the believer in the religious duty of voting claim
authority to summon to the confessional, all whom he chose to mark for
exclusion from the cause, and enter into discussion and condemnation
of their belief? Then might every other sectary do the same. The
Baptist might banish the Friend--the Methodist might proscribe the
Independent--the white man reject the man of color--the women vote that
men were disqualified--or men assert the same absurdity with respect
to women. If the precious time of a thousand friends of the slave,
met to devise measures for making every voter an abolitionist, was
to be consumed in making every abolitionist a voter, men felt that
a change in their point of agreement--a change in the constitution
and the principles that made the constitution, must be effected. The
common pass-word must no longer be “immediate emancipation” alone, but
every sectarian or partizan must shout his _own_, and draw his weapon
upon every abolitionist who heeded it not. Hatred, wrong, and bondage,
unmasked their hideous faces to love, right, and freedom, in the
question that so roused every soul in that assembly.
Mr. Garrison promptly answered it, so as not to deny his principles,
nor yet to take up the gauge of the non-resistance conflict, which Mr.
Stanton had thrown down:--“Sin for _me_!” “I ask you again,” persisted
the infatuated questioner, “do you or do you not believe it a sin to go
to the polls?” “Sin for me”--was the same imperturbable reply.
This treacherous interrogatory,[5] fit act of a familiar of the holy
office to a heretic, but ineffably disgraceful from the Secretary
of the National Anti-Slavery Society to the man on whose motion the
National Anti-Slavery Society came into existence, stirred the souls of
the abolitionists as if they had seen the slave-driver stand suddenly
forth with his scourge and manacles, in visible embodyment of the
spiritual tyranny they now felt.
A scene of tempestuous conflict followed, as the whole scope and
bearing of the work that had been going on in the Commonwealth under
the auspices of the “four,” became apparent. They stood like him who
has tampered with the embankments that toil and sacrifice have built
between the devouring ocean and a level and fertile land. The indignant
feeling of the audience rose to an almost uncontrollable pitch; yet
they _did_ restrain it; for the winnowing-time had come, and they must
take careful note of men’s conduct _now_, that they might know who to
trust hereafter. Painful and unexpected it was to see Scott, Codding
and Geo. Allen swept away, as the whirlwind of debate went on. The
resolutions before the meeting were respecting a new paper. But the
arguments by which they were sustained, demanded not only a new paper,
but new principles--a new constitution--a new society--new officers.
Was the true and original test of membership--not an acknowledgment of
the justice and necessity of immediate emancipation, but a belief in
the religious duty of voting at the polls? Then would those arguments
require the dissolution of the Massachusetts Society, another set
of men as managers of a new one, and the utter destruction of the
Liberator. Yet those who brought forward those arguments, and who, if
sincere, were bound by them to destroy the worthless instrumentalities
of which they complained, uniformly declared, with the same breath,
that nothing was further from their intention than to injure the
Liberator, or to cast any imputations against the Board of Managers.
Ellis Gray Loring rose in reply. “On the question of the _need_ of a
new paper, I do not wish to speak. A need may exist which I do not
perceive. Brethren tell me that there is such a need. I only say that
to make such a paper the organ of the Society, and to sustain it at
the expense of the Society, over the head of the Liberator would have
a tendency to injure the latter. I do not say that gentlemen mean it.
They tell us they abjure such a thought. But it is a maxim in law, that
the purpose of a man’s acts must be presumed to correspond with their
manifest tendency.”
Wendell Phillips argued earnestly against the first resolution. The
second was so manifestly a mockery that it was scarcely noticed. The
spirit of the meeting rose against the whole intolerant contrivance
submitted to its decision. The “four,” when they perceived it, strove,
by every parliamentary device, to delay judgment. They strove to divide
the resolutions--to refer the matter to a committee--to adjourn the
meeting. In vain. The spirit that filled the Marlboro’ Chapel that
night, refused to be conjured into a committee-room, or to leave its
work unfinished. “Vote it down,” “vote it down,” was the reply to every
proposition; till Mr. Loring moved an indefinite postponement, which
was almost unanimously carried.
While the fate of the new paper was pending, a doubt was raised by
Mr. Phelps and Mr. St.Clair, as to the right of women to a voice in
the decision. The question was hardly a debateable one in a society
whose constitution welcomed all persons to an equal seat, and whose
resolutions had proclaimed that, in the cause of philanthropy, all
persons, whether men or women, have the same duties and the same
rights. The decision was therefore referred to the President.
It was not for Francis Jackson, whose house had, in 1835, been placed
at the disposal of the women, under threats of its destruction, after
the mercantile world had decided that they were out of their sphere
in the anti-slavery cause--it was not for _him_ to shrink from a
just decision because the _religious world_ had taken up the cry.
Now, as then, the women had judged for themselves. _Here_, also, was
a responsibility which they did not choose to delegate; and leaving
ministers on one side and merchants on the other, they came, according
to their wont, each to serve the cause as conscience and judgment
should dictate. They came with their husbands and their brethren, from
the cities and from the villages. The anti-slavery halls had been ever
to them as an altar before which to dedicate their young children to
righteousness and freedom. They came with the joyful consciousness that
whatever subjects might be adjudged foreign, they, at least, were at
home.
“_The Chair rules that it is in order for women to vote._”
Not a voice was raised in appeal. The Massachusetts Society dared
not, for the slave’s sake--it would not for its own, exile any of its
members from its councils.
The report of the Board of Managers was next taken up, and again
the friends of the new paper rallied to the attack. Preparatory to
action upon it, and as a step towards its condemnation, Mr. St. Clair
presented a resolution, affirming it to be the _imperious duty of
every abolitionist who could conscientiously do so, to go to the
polls_. The design of this resolution evidently was, to convict the few
non-resistants present, of inconsistency as non-resistants or of guilt
as abolitionists; and as such the meeting received it. At any other
time the resolution would doubtless have passed--the great majority
of the Society being voters. But, aroused to vigilant watchfulness
of all who were attempting to drive them blindfold into absurdity
and intolerance, they refused to make the slightest change on the
resolutions of former years. They had never said more, during their
whole eight years’ existence as a Society, than that they would not
vote for slavery; and they saw too plainly the motives of this novel
demand for a resolution worded affirmatively. Neither had they been so
bitterly reproached with the introduction of foreign subjects, without
learning that the word “duty” or the word “ought,” in relation to
forms of civil or church government, on which abolitionists so widely
differ, must necessarily open the discussion of the whole vast subject
of human society in all its aspects. It would have been impossible, at
this moment, to have procured the passage of any resolution whatever,
on which the opposition might build enginery by which to cast reproach
upon any faithful abolitionist. So plainly had they exhibited their
hearts, even while professing the greatest regard for the Society and
all its members, that men’s common sense forbade them to afford any
facilities for such a purpose.
Mr. Garrison substituted the following resolution, which, being in
agreement with the uniform practice of the Society, and in strict
conformity to its principles and constitution, was almost unanimously
adopted.
“Resolved, That those abolitionists who feel themselves called
upon, by a sense of duty, to go to the polls, and yet purposely
absent themselves from the polls whenever an opportunity is
presented to vote for a friend of the slave--or who, when there,
follow their party predilections to the abandonment of their
abolition principles--are recreant to their high professions, and
unworthy of the name they assume.”
The Society thus refused to turn its attention from its original
object--to make every slave a freeman, to the new and inferior one, of
making every freeman a voter. The members felt that this latter was
their more appropriate business, as citizens of Massachusetts.
After the passage of this resolution, the previous arguments of the
“four,” for a new paper, were reiterated against the report, by the
Rev. Orange Scott, the Rev. Daniel Wise, and the Rev. Hiram Cummings,
of the Methodist Church.
There appeared evidences, however, that the Methodist _laity_ were
not so easily won into the toils of the clerical Congregationalists.
However much they might love their clergy and their sect, they loved
the universal cause of liberty and humanity more. The venerable Seth
Sprague expressed this, with feeling and noble simplicity, in answer to
Mr. Cummings, of whose church he was a member.
“I love to hear my young brother preach the gospel; but when he talks
of politics, it will hardly be considered vanity in me to say I know
more about that than he. For forty years I have been in the political
harness; and many a day, in that time, have I been out to rouse men
up to the polls. Sir, I never found any difficulty in it--they are
always ready enough to go; but to make them vote right, after they get
there--_that’s_ the rub. And who can do that like my brother Garrison?
His paper converted me, politically.
I have had great satisfaction in my old age in going to all the
Anti-Slavery meetings within my reach; and as I returned from them,
with my heart warmed by the hopes which their union and zeal and
harmony had kindled, I thought within myself, I am old now--an old man,
and shall not live to see the work of emancipation accomplished. But,
on my death-bed, when about to quit this world, I shall joyfully think
of those I leave in it, the abolitionists,--a band of brothers--united
as the heart of one, to accomplish this great work.--But I cannot say
so _now_!--I cannot say so now!” And the venerable man thought it no
shame to weep over the love and confidence he had seen so wantonly
betrayed; and all the people wept with him.
The opposition still wished to continue the discussion, though noon
was long past, and their words were but repetition upon repetition.
Dr. Follen said, “I think discussion should now cease, upon the same
principle that bids the miller stop the wheel, when there is no more
grain in the hopper.”
The whole unmodified report was accepted--Ayes 183--Noes 24. A better
proof than its adoption could not be offered, that the great body of
the Massachusetts Society separated that day, with the determination
of carrying the work vigorously forward, through means of the elective
franchise. They separated, with the triumphant consciousness of a
three-days’ battle,
“Won for their ancient freedom, pure and holy!--
For the deliverance of a groaning earth!
For the wronged captive, bleeding, crushed, and lowly,
Their voice went forth.”
It was a painful trial they had passed; painful as when brother meets
the visor’d face of brother in civil war. They had hoped that this cup
might pass, but they had not refused to drink it; and their eyes were
opened, and the bitterness of their grief taken away.
The same Board of Managers having been selected, the acceptance of the
report and the rejection of the new paper, were sufficient indications
of the course they were expected by the Society to pursue. They
therefore suggested to their agents, Mr. St. Clair and Mr. Wise, that,
as there existed in the Commonwealth a difference of opinion in regard
to the contemplated periodical, and there having been no prospectus
or specimen number issued by which it could be judged, it would be
proper to use no efforts while engaged in their agency, to further its
introduction or extend its circulation.
But those agents were already too deeply involved to heed the
suggestion. The paper was already started, as an individual enterprize,
in their names, with those of Mr. Phelps, Mr. Scott and others, to
the number of twenty-seven, as a publishing committee, Mr. Stanton
acting as editor. Various and discordant were the reasons given for
persevering in the undertaking, after the demonstration of the Annual
Meeting, that its necessity was not of that imperative nature that had
been represented.
Mr. Stanton stated that it was a satellite of the Liberator, and that
he could have wished it had been named “the Liberator Junior.” Mr.
John E. Fuller, on the contrary, when men who had never professed to
be abolitionists hesitated to take it, gave them to understand that
it was “to put down Garrison.” Mr. Wise described it as an “anti
non-resistance paper,” and Mr. St. Clair as “a plan of Mr. Garrison’s
own, warmly advocated by the wealthy and influential Dr. Farnsworth.”
They went on to procure subscribers in connection with their lectures,
and at the expense of the Massachusetts Society. Mr. Scott and Mr.
Stanton were no less active in the same way, at the expense of the
National Society.
The paper was named “The Massachusetts Abolitionist;” and when the
array of its twenty-seven god-fathers appeared, Mr. Garrison directed
public attention to them, as the nucleus of a hostile society in
Massachusetts. This they individually denied; but the nature of the
case, as well as their course as individuals, prevented their denial
from obtaining credence. Colonization--American Union--Clerical
Appeal--those embodyings of the spirit of the reluctant age with
which abolitionists were in conflict,--had all been baffled. But
the spirit yet lived, subtler from added experience, and this was
the new tabernacle it had built. All these movements had, at their
first appearance, comprised some of the faithful, but deceived. Great
forbearance was therefore to be exercised, and great efforts made to
unmask the deceit.
This could only be effected by calling the attention of abolitionists
to the personal conduct of the men; as the paper itself was purposely
kept free from any thing which could enlighten the friends at a
distance as to the enmity of its conductors to the Massachusetts
Society. Their scheme could not, at first, be fairly judged by those
who did not witness its less public manifestations. It was like the
fabled mermaid, seated where it could delude the unwary mariner;--above
the water, fair and human--beneath, terminating in scaly and horrible
deformity. Those could not fairly judge it, who did not know that
its principal supporters, at the very moment that they disclaimed
hostility to the Massachusetts Society, were laboring at county
meetings to disjoin the Counties from the State organization, and to
divert funds from its treasury; while, at the same time, they labored
to produce the most unfavorable impression from the fact that its
pledge to the central treasury yet remained unpaid.
The Massachusetts Society was like a ship struggling with a heavy
sea. No sooner was one wave surmounted, than another threatened its
destruction. The next came in the shape of an answer from the New York
Committee to the invitation to collect the money due, by whatever means
they chose, provided that they should but acknowledge the existence of
the Massachusetts Society. It contained a refusal on the part of the
Committee to abide by the contract (the final limitation of which had
not yet arrived,) and declared their intention to proceed as if neither
contract nor Massachusetts Society were in existence. Such a step would
be so fatal to harmonious and efficient action--so destructive to the
Massachusetts Society,--so disgraceful to the New York Committee, that,
in the hope that a last strenuous effort might prevail against it, a
special deputation was instantly sent to New York, to confer with the
brethren, face to face.
Arguments, remonstrance, entreaty, were alike in vain. One of
the Committee thought that “New York should assume the entire
control of the Anti-Slavery funds, paying to Massachusetts such
an allowance as should be necessary for carrying on the cause in
that State, which sum would not, he supposed, be large.” All the
New York brethren remained firm in their determination;--neither
modification--mitigation--nor even what the merchant often grants his
bankrupt creditor,--_extension_,--could be obtained.
The Massachusetts brethren felt it necessary to allude to the new
paper, and its injurious effects on the treasury and the cause. The
reply of the New York brethren was, “_We are neutral._”
Fatal rock! to which the blind, the feeble, and the faltering cling, as
the tide of controversy rises which is to overwhelm them, but on which
the unfaithful merely _pretend_ to find anchorage!
The Massachusetts brethren turned to their homes in sorrow and surprise
at the determination they had been unable to move. Only one course
remained for the preservation of their Society. Its injury, if not its
destruction, would be the necessary consequence of hesitating to adopt
it, and they announced their intention of public remonstrance against
the conduct of the Ex. Committee, and a reference of the whole case to
their common constituents--the abolitionists of Massachusetts. Grief,
they must, at all events, have felt: but _astonishment_ at the result
of their conference would have been spared, had they been informed that
it was, on one side, but a mere form, the whole affair having been
decided, a week previous, by the issue of a circular, of which the
following is an extract, signed by Messrs. Stanton, Tappan, Leavitt,
Birney, and the most prominent of the New York Board.
“The amount which the Massachusetts Board had “guaranteed” to pay
to this Society by the first of February just passed, was $7,500.
Of that sum, but $3,920 have been received, leaving $3,680 due to
this Society. From recent consultations had with the Massachusetts
Board, we are fully authorized in saying, that the Board will not
be able to pay this sum, much less the additional sum of $2,500
to fall due on the first of May next; nor do we believe it will
be received from the abolitionists of Massachusetts, _unless the
Executive Committee of the American Society send their own agents
into the field to raise it_. To the adoption of this latter course
they feel impelled by a sense of the duties they owe the slave.
They feel constrained to abandon this “arrangement” for the
following, among other reasons:
1. It works badly for this Society. Much the greater part of
the $3,920 received from Massachusetts, has been raised at the
expense of this Society, as the following statement shows. It was
collected as follows:
(1.) By individuals and societies, and
sent directly to the Treasury of this Society,
and, in the collection of which, the
Massachusetts Society took no part, $471 12
(2.) By the “Cent-a-week” Societies,
through the labors of N. Southard, who
is employed and paid by the American
Society, 271 05
(3.) By the direct labors of Messrs.
O. Scott, Ichabod Codding, and H. B.
Stanton, who was employed and paid by
the American Society, 812 42
(4.) By Isaac Winslow and H. B.
Stanton, at New Bedford, for circulating
Thome and Kimball’s journal, 750 00
(5.) Received of the Treasurer of the
Massachusetts Society, $1,616 24; $500
of which was collected by Messrs. Stanton,
Tillson, and Thomson,--the former
employed by the American Society;--and
$500 of which were paid by the Boston
Female Anti-Slavery Society, on condition
that Mr. Stanton would deliver an
address before them, and solicit pledges,
which he did. Total, $3,920 83
Thus, of the $3,920 received from Massachusetts, since this
arrangement was entered into, only about $1,000 at the utmost,
have been raised by the Massachusetts Society. Nearly all the
residue has been raised by the American Society. We ask any candid
man, if this is “carrying out the plan,” as contemplated by the
resolution of the Annual Meeting? And is it not suicidal for this
Society to pursue such a “plan” any longer?”
Ah, what a rent was here, in the love--the trusting reverence with
which Massachusetts abolitionists had persisted, against their better
judgments, in looking to New York! What a document to cast before
her faithful men,--this new style of account-current, in which what
they _had_ paid, was equally placed to their discredit with what
they had not paid! What a reproach to her high-souled women, who had
unreservedly dedicated themselves to the cause![6] What a shock to
behold the anti-slavery enterprize presented in this degrading view to
the gaze of the world! The American A. S. Society, placed, by this act
of its committee, in the attitude of glorying in the collectorship of
coppers!--the _Parent_ Society, (as it had ever been affectionately and
deferentially called,) busied like Saturn, in devouring its progeny!
This act created a necessity for a procedure still more vigorous than
had been contemplated. The integrity and usefulness and good name of
the National Society must, if possible, be rescued from the jeopardy
in which this course of the committee had placed them. More than the
existence of the Massachusetts Society was at stake--the _cause_ was
endangered by the conduct of the committee at this moment. It was
painful to meet them on the _low_ ground of dollars and cents; but they
had taken the field _there_, and there they must, of consequence, be
met and rebuked.
The Massachusetts Board, therefore, not only issued an address to the
Abolitionists of the State, as they had given notice of their purpose
to do, calling on them to assume the conduct of the affair, but they,
at the same time, gave solemn warning of the perilous crisis, and
appointed the quarterly State meeting, as a suitable time for its
consideration.
More confirmation greeted the Massachusetts brethren on their return,
of the fact that their agents were undermining the ground on which the
Society stood.
Mr. St. Clair had concerted with the Rev. S. Hopkins Emery, and two or
three other clergymen, comprising one third of the Bristol county board
of officers, and, in the absence of the rest, they passed resolutions
hostile to the Massachusetts Society, making that county auxiliary to
the plans of the New York Committee, and nominating _himself_ as a
_county_ agent. He had forwarded his resignation of his commission as
an agent of the _State_ board,--Mr. Wise shortly afterwards followed
his example, and both were thereupon appointed agents of the N. York
Committee, in which capacity they continued to labor in alienating the
counties, and circulating the new paper.
Boards of Managers and the people they aim _to manage_, not
unfrequently differ, in the anti-slavery cause, as in all other causes;
and therefore it was that the Massachusetts Board, feeling no love of
management or rule, were in the habit, on every extraordinary case,
of referring its decision to their constituents, as the only way of
presenting to each one the opportunity to discharge his individual
duty to the Society, and as the best method of obtaining the manifold
advantages of discussion.
The town and parish societies, in various parts of the State, began to
meet for the consideration of this matter, which was felt to be one
involving more than a single glance could unriddle.
Those members of the Boston Female Society, who had the interests of
the slave most at heart, communicated with their officers, for the
purpose of calling a meeting. Their request was not complied with.
Again they applied, to the number of forty-five, which number was
deemed a sufficient assurance that a meeting was seriously required
by the members. Notwithstanding the remonstrances of two of the
counsellors, the President, Vice President, Secretary, and Treasurer,
the identical individuals who, in 1837, refused to sustain the cause
against the incursions of spiritual wickedness, still refused to notify
a meeting.
_Every_ moment stands at the juncture of two eternities, and is
therefore of solemn consequence; but the importance of making use of
this, was more than ordinarily apparent.
The women of Lynn were standing alone and unsupported at the post of
danger;--the Massachusetts Society in peril, never more needed or
better deserved support;--a hope existed that George Thompson might
again be induced to visit America by a timely and earnest effort to
second the invitation of the Young Men’s Convention, with the necessary
funds;--Henry Clay, from his place in the Senate, was calling upon his
fair countrywomen “to _desist_ from anti-slavery efforts;”--this was
the moment taken by the officers of the Boston Female Anti-Slavery
Society to labor harder to make it desist, than they had ever before
done to induce it to go forward. They visited the members personally,
assuring them that it was _unconstitutional_ to call a special
meeting[7]--that the board saw no necessity for one, and finally
entreated them to take their names from the requisition. As one among
other reasons why they should do so, the President said that she
apprehended there was a design on the part of some, to recall George
Thompson, and, as he left the country _in debt_, his return would, from
that circumstance, be a prejudice to the cause, and she was therefore
anxious to prevent a meeting!!
By labors like this, a meeting was hindered at the time; but as one
wrong step ever demands another to sustain it, preparation was made
for the Society’s impending quarterly meeting, which _could not be
prevented_, by the use of a sectarian gathering-word, which did not
fail to rally all the unworthy members:--“Come and help us to put
down the Unitarians.” Not one in fifty of the members were of that
denomination, and the few who were, had ever been remarkable for the
joy and good faith with which they met all who differed from them in
opinion, and the heartiness with which they condemned the sins against
freedom committed by their own sect. Mr. Phelps, now the pastor of the
Free Church, was also affording his aid to unjustifiable sectarism,
and, by a meeting thus drawn together, was a majority obtained who left
undone all that the interests of the slave most loudly demanded should
be done. A majority, in behalf of whom the President declared at that
meeting that “as to the difficulty between the Massachusetts Society
and the Executive Committee, the ladies did not understand it--they
had not come prepared to go into it,--it would take too much time--why
should we enter into the quarrels that were going on?” Yet, after that
very meeting, the President, and Secretary, as a committee on the fair
for raising funds, issued an address, _without the knowledge_ but _in
the name_ of the whole Society, in which they argued the necessity that
existed that all the women of Massachusetts should send their funds
to New-York, because the Massachusetts Society had failed to meet its
stated payments!! This circular was committed to one of the agents of
the new paper, to be distributed in the country, with instructions to
keep it private in the city _from those in whose name it was issued_.
The minority of the Society, who were neither ignorant nor unprepared,
and who neither grudged their time nor _themselves wholly_, when the
Anti-Slavery cause called for the sacrifice, were much pained to find
that into this little sluice, opened at the time of the clerical
appeal, had rushed the cold and bitter waters of indifference, and
sectarism and chicanery, in a flood that threatened to sink the little
vessel that had, in earlier days, done good service to the cause. But
they knew their place as a minority, and prepared to fulfil that duty
in another capacity, that they were prevented from discharging in this.
The Massachusetts Society,--the parent and pioneer of all the rest,
must not suffer for its fidelity, because the officers of the Boston
Female Society had done wrong.
They were, besides, a very _large_ and _efficient_ minority, numbering
among them the women who had first originated and mainly sustained,
for four successive years, the plan of raising funds by means of an
annual fair, and they did not permit themselves to be hindered on
this occasion, any more than in former years, by the _smallness_ of
the pivot on which the duty of the moment turned. They knew that, for
a season, it would _appear_ trifling;--they also knew that it really
_was_ the type and representative of a principle,--one of the many
indications now observable of that stage in the progress of reform,
when minds a little enlarged by its principles, begin to resist, in
alarm, the philosophical necessity of a further widening process, and,
to avoid it, return to their original state.
But to resume the Chronological order of events.
The tenth wave seemed about to break upon the Massachusetts Society.
The Board of Managers looked around them upon the circumstances of
their case, for indications of the will of Providence. They were ready
and desirous to cast down the painful staff of office. Better men, they
wished, might be found to sustain it--but each looked on the other and
said, “Where can his fellow be found, for clear-sighted devotion and
faithfulness.”
Once more they decided to mount the breach together, for the cause’s
sake. Had it been only for themselves, they would have scorned to
stand one instant, in the humiliating posture in which the conduct of
the New York Committee had placed them. But it was for the slave--for
their brethren throughout the State, who had confided in them; and
they doubted not that those brethren would throng up to the rescue.
This mutual confidence was not misplaced. The members of the Society
came together in great numbers, with the determination of paying up
all arrearages, and, if possible, staying the destructive collision of
feeling which they saw going on.
The New York Committee were not absent. Thither came Birney, and
Torrey, and Stanton, and Tappan, and St. Clair, and Phelps, and Scott;
and face to face they met Garrison, and Loring, and Phillips, and
Chapman, and Follen, and French, and Brimblecom, in the presence of
all the people. Men from the counties were there, to tell how those who
_should_ be acting as financial agents, were laboring to complete the
division which had, more than any thing else, occasioned the deficiency
in the funds. Men from the towns were there, to hand over their purses
with the declaration that to their delay the deficiency should, in
part, be charged, and not to their Board of officers. The indignant
members from New Bedford were there, who had forwarded eight hundred
and fifty dollars for the slave, and had seen it used for the purpose
of casting reproach on the Massachusetts Society. And there, too, was
Lynn, and Andover, and Plymouth, and Reading, and Abington, and the
representatives of fifty other towns, where the Anti-Slavery enterprize
had first struck root and borne the most abundant fruits--all earnestly
bent upon conciliation--upon healing the breach, and upon sustaining
the Massachusetts Society.
In the course of discussion, many things before unknown appeared. The
New York Committee excused themselves by the plea of necessity. They
were dunned daily themselves, and they had been compelled to this
course to get the money. “Had they got it?” asked Wendell Phillips,
“had not all the sources been stopped by this proceeding, against which
they had been warned? Why could they not have co-operated--why could
they not still co-operate harmoniously with the State Board? why should
their agents, _Mr. Stanton, one of themselves_, among the number, make
terms with the _County_ Boards, which they had denied to the _State_
Board? Mr. Stanton could, it appeared, co-operate with Mr. Torrey, in
Essex, raising funds for the county treasury, and receiving only a
part of them again for the National Treasury--why could he not extend
co-operation, on better terms, to us in Boston?” The fact appeared that
money had been forwarded to New York by the hand of agents on account
of the pledge, which had never been credited accordingly. Men saw that
there had been no delay or hesitancy in “taking the Massachusetts Board
by the throat, and crying, Pay what thou owest,” and they inquired why
their own attempts to liquidate the debt, had not been noticed.[8] The
live-long day the discussion went on, the perplexity in which men’s
minds had been involved becoming clearer and clearer, till after as
complete an investigation of the case as could be made, and the most
determined opposition on the part of the New York Committee and those
engaged in the new paper, the meeting sustained the course of the
Massachusetts Society, by the passage of the following resolution: ayes
142--noes 23.
Resolved, That the course pursued by the Board of Managers of the
Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, in relation to the difficulty
now existing between that Board and the Executive Committee of the
Parent Society, meets our hearty approval.
Wendell Phillips now renewed the offer of harmonious co-operation.
Resolved, That we are ready harmoniously to co-operate with the
Executive Committee of the American Anti-Slavery Society, in the
collection of funds within this Commonwealth, provided they will
act with us under the arrangement of June last.
Hereupon the long-denied and painfully-concealed hostility to the
Massachusetts Society burst forth, and the attempts to cast out Mr.
Garrison, or to sink the Society with him, were renewed. Mr. Tappan
saw no reason why the Committee should expect to receive the money
at all, unless by taking the matter entirely out of the hands of the
Massachusetts Society. The Managers could offer no better guarantee
than at first.
“We _can_--we _do_ offer a better guarantee,” replied Wendell Phillips.
“We are in a far better condition to meet this pledge, than before. The
political campaign in the Fourth District is at an end, and will no
longer absorb the funds, or the energies of the agents. We are stronger
as a Board; we have a new General Agent; we are awake, throughout the
State, to the emergency.”
Mr. Stanton seemed to suppose that membership in the Massachusetts
Society implied an obligation never to change one’s views on other
subjects; for he read extracts from the Liberator, proving that Mr.
Garrison had changed his opinions as to the principles of civil
government, since the first establishment of that paper. Rev. George
Allen burst into vehement invective. “I am ready,” said he, pointing
to Mr. Garrison, “to attack the wolf in his very den, with the
bleeding relics of his mangled victims yet between his teeth.” Mr.
Birney, to the utter astonishment of the meeting, descended to the
proscriptive ground first assumed by Mr. Stanton, and intimated that no
non-resistant could consistently or honorably remain a member of the
Anti-Slavery Society.
Men’s minds went back to the days of the clerical appeal, when Birney,
then an editor in Ohio, had been tried and found wanting. That
deficiency, so long veiled with silent and brotherly care by those whom
he yielded up to the enemy, now defied concealment. He proclaimed his
sympathy and knowledge with that of the N. Y. Committee, in the recent
plottings. “WE felt the need of this new paper in Massachusetts.”
A sudden light burst upon the meeting. All this
whole long day’s labored ringing of changes upon
“dollars”--“contract”--“non-fulfilment”--“null and void”--all the
foregone course of the Committee,--it was only a pretence, then, for
keeping hostile agents in the State to work the Society’s destruction,
under pretence of obtaining money! This debt of a few thousand
dollars--men now saw why the wound it had made should be so dangerous.
It was like the scratch of a poisoned weapon--slight, but possibly
mortal.
Rodney French, of New Bedford, informed the meeting of the manner in
which the funds of abolitionists had been necessarily absorbed; those
of the clear-sighted, in sustaining the cause against the insidious
attacks it had been undergoing--those of the blinded, in unsuspectingly
co-operating with the disguised enemy. “Had this paper been presented
in its true colors,” said he, “no funds would have been swallowed up
by it in our county of Bristol. But men have been deceived, and they
are now finding it out. Let me beseech our National Committee to change
the ground they have taken. I do entreat them to meet us like brothers,
and accede to this resolution. It is an olive-branch. The money will
easily be raised by this harmonious co-operation--confidence will be
preserved, and the slave in his chains will rejoice.” Abby Kelly, the
delegate from Millbury, followed in the same strain. “Let us even make
ourselves beggars,” she said, “for the slave, who is denied the poor
privilege of begging!” and she pledged herself to pay fifty dollars
of the amount necessary to be raised, and her town of Millbury three
times that sum. John A. Collins, the General Agent of the Massachusetts
Society, stepped upon the platform, with securities to the amount
of seven hundred dollars, in his hands, and begged Mr. Birney, who
had risen to speak, to give way for a moment, that he might announce
them to the meeting. Mr. Birney waved him aside--“We do not want your
pledges!” and proceeded to reply to Rodney French.--“If the gentleman
supposes that I will be the bearer of such a proposition as the one
contained in this resolution, to my colleagues at New York, let me tell
him that he has altogether mistaken my character.”
No more remained to be said. Wendell Phillips immediately withdrew the
resolution so decisively repulsed.
Mr. Tappan commented with severity upon the “disgraceful scene he had
witnessed,” and counselled a division in the Society, saying that were
he resident in Massachusetts as he was in New York, he should endeavor
to effect it.
A division in the Society, because the Society had determined, for the
slave’s sake, _to continue to exist_; and had sustained its Board of
Managers in their efforts for its preservation! here, then, was another
layman, ready to do the bidding of the ministry in breaking up the
Massachusetts Society. He _might_ not be doing it intentionally, but
_doing_ it men saw he was, by this counsel.
The meeting separated, but not till multitudes had been disenchanted by
that eight hours’ session of many a fond belief, that, till then, had
stood undoubted in their minds.
The friends resolved in their inmost spirits, as they departed, to pay
the utmost farthing of this pledge, notwithstanding the afflicting
disclosure the Committee had made of their motives for having all along
refused harmonious co-operation for its redemption.
This day had been a painful one for the Massachusetts Board; but they
knew that they had done right, and therefore felt no anxiety as to the
result.
They were sustained by the abolitionists of the State, and they
rejoiced at it; not for themselves, but as a proof of the fidelity
of their brethren to the cause. They had been sustained against the
most determined hostility. A statement of the case, in the form best
calculated to injure the Society, had, previous to the meeting, been
scattered broad-cast over the State, under the direction of Mr.
Stanton. It was matter of astonishment that so much effort to do injury
should not have produced a greater effect. Truth was mighty, and had
prevailed, to strip the difficulty of _one_ of its disguises--the
cloak of the mere _dun_, and show it in the attitude of the assassin.
The effect of the meeting was magical. The friends, in all parts of
the State, rallied together and mulcted themselves afresh. How prompt
were their donations, how fervent and brotherly their expressions of
confidence, how painful their solicitude at the developments made by
the New York Committee, how forbearing their course with regard to its
doings, the resolutions and correspondence of that period, testify.
The Committee returned to New York, still keeping in the field, at the
public expense, the agents who had been creating a division. The work
went vigorously on, notwithstanding the drawback this occasioned. All
this _imbroglio_ had been caused, in the first instance, by men of the
orthodox Congregational sect, and it was fitting that the honor of that
sect should be vindicated by the laborious fidelity of others of its
members. That the money was raised,--five or six thousand dollars in
the space of two months, for the most part in very small sums, so that
the State Treasurer was enabled to authorize the draft of the N. York
Committee before the final payment became due, was owing mainly to the
self-devoting labors of orthodox Congregational licentiates, of the
Theological Seminary at Andover. From that sect came the bane--from
that sect came also the antidote.
At that moment of general and anxious effort for the payment of the
pledge, private circulars were issued by Mr. Phelps, in behalf of the
publishing committee of the new paper, in which he urged men to devote
_all_ their funds to its establishment, for this, among other reasons,
that they would _then_ know what became of their money. This showed the
origin of the rumors which had been circulated, that the Massachusetts
Society fraudulently permitted its funds to be used to sustain the
Liberator; and that it paid an editorial stipend--(“a fat salary” as
the term was,) to Mr. Garrison. These reports, false as they were,
came with an ill grace from those who, it is to be hoped unknowingly,
received from Mr. James Boutelle, one of their agents, money entrusted
to him for the payment of the pledge, but who appropriated it to the
“Massachusetts Abolitionist.”
All these labors were in vain.--The pledge was redeemed, against all
opposition.
Next came the Annual Meeting of the National Society, where men from
all the States met to consult for the good of the cause.
In full National Assembly, they resisted the idea that a difference
of mind respecting forms of government was a disqualification for
membership in the Society. They preserved inviolate the ancient broad
foundation. They resisted, as the Massachusetts Society had done, any
attempt to deprive women of their constitutional and inalienable right
“to know, and utter, and to argue freely,” in this National Council. A
resolution was also reported by the financial committee of the Society,
that thirty-five thousand dollars was as large a sum as could be
advantageously placed at the disposal of the Executive Committee during
the year; as they deemed that more could be effected for the cause by a
local than by a central expenditure.
The Society also earnestly requested the Executive Committee to send no
agents into the States, except with the advice of the State Societies.
This salutary measure was strenuously opposed by those connected with
the new paper in Massachusetts. Previous to the meeting, they labored
personally and by correspondence, to secure the attendance of such
as would co-operate with them for the exclusion of women, and of the
non-resisting members. The Executive Committee, too, were, some of
them, no less active to the same effect. Mr. Birney issued an article
in the Emancipator, the organ of the whole Society, and sustained
from its treasury, in which he asserted not only that a part of the
members were unfitted, by their religious principles, for a place
in the Society, but argued the merits of their principles _per se_,
representing them as identical with those of the bloody and licentious
Anabaptists of the sixteenth century.
These labors all fell short of their aim. Still, as at first, the
Society continued odious by the presence of its founder:--he, into
whose heart God had put strength not to deny his individual principles,
though their sacrifice was demanded by those whose love and approbation
had heretofore been so dear, and who, through four dangerous and
toilsome years, had stood with him, shoulder to shoulder, in the
forefront of the battle against slavery. Oh that evil tongues and times
had not been too mighty for their integrity! May every one of them yet
be enabled to see that any infringement of the principles of Freedom,
is a hindrance to the emancipation of the slave, not to be removed by
thousands of gold and silver, or the mightiest physical array. May
God of his infinite mercy grant us, as a NATIONAL ASSOCIATION of
Americans, for the redemption of our country from slavery, the grace to
see, that, as we can never give what we cease to possess, so our labors
for the emancipation of the slave must be in vain, after the insulted
angel of freedom has departed.
The Massachusetts Board of Officers met immediately after this meeting,
and decided to raise five thousand dollars, for the year 1839-40,
as the proportion which ought to be borne by their State, of the
thirty-five thousand dollars specified by the Financial Committee, as
the proper appropriation to the central treasury. They notified the
Executive Committee of this pledge, upon the understanding that all
money raised in Massachusetts should be credited to its redemption,
and that no agents of the New York Committee should labor in the State
without the concurrence of the State Board.
To this communication, Mr. Stanton, in behalf of the committee,
replied, that they had still two agents in the field, (Mr. _St. Clair_
and Mr. _Wise_,) and he inquired whether any objection would be made to
their remaining in that capacity!!!
The New England Convention followed quickly upon the tread of the
National Meeting. This occasion had ever been, among abolitionists,
a hallowed festival, to which each came to receive from all the rest
whatever they might be able to give of comfort, and of knowledge, and
of cheer, and to bid them all be sharers in his own full jubilee of
heart.
Here they had enjoyed their last earthly communion with the
early-called and tenderly-beloved, who had been caught up out of the
thick of the battle into heaven; and, therefore, the returns and the
memories of this day,
----“Like spots of earth where angels’ feet had stepped,
Were holy.”----
A shadow marred the customary brightness of the day, to those who had
witnessed those workings of the spirit of treachery and intolerance,
which have been traced in the preceding pages.
Their forebodings were justified. This spirit made one more attempt
to rend them as it departed; but, failing in its purpose, it deserted
the foundation it had been unable to destroy. The intention of
forming a hostile Society had frequently been charged home upon the
members of the publishing committee of the new paper, and as often
strenously denied. Yet, here it stood, at length, a new organization
in Massachusetts, giving, as its reason for coming into existence, the
recreancy, i.e. the tolerance of the old. That it differed from the
old Society, in not seeing that every real interest of mankind must
be universal, and necessarily gather up all men in the prosecution
of its march, was _narrow_, _short-sighted_, _unfortunate_. That its
founders had not _openly_ announced themselves at the time when Dr.
Hawes consulted with _leading abolitionists_ nearly a year before, and
that they had ever since been carrying on a concealed warfare upon the
old Society, in the mask of friendship and brotherhood, _must be very
differently characterized_.
Elizur Wright, Jr., so well known and loved of abolitionists, in days
that were past, was carried away in the toils--_another layman_,
in the clutches of the power that constitutes in New England the
strongest obstacle to emancipation. He became a Secretary of the new
organization, and the editor of the Massachusetts Abolitionist, and
immediately strove to justify his course by asserting the recreancy
of the Massachusetts Society. He was like the child drifting from
the shore, after having un-moored his little bark, who cried out
that _the land was rushing backward_, as the treacherous waves bore
him swiftly away. In the New England Convention of 1836, he had
deprecated division, in a church so corrupted by slavery, that nothing
but division could save it from destruction. In 1839, he was wrought
upon by the circumstances with which the corrupt leaders of that same
corrupt body had surrounded him, to labor on their behalf, for a
division in the anti-slavery ranks. Those who recollected his course
then, possessed a key to his present proceedings.
Some of the leaders of the new movement appeared in the N. England
Convention, after their secession, and gave reasons for their
conduct. The reason of the Rev. John Le Bosquet was, that they felt
conscientiously obliged to impede the free and conscientious action
of women in the anti-slavery cause. The Rev. Mr. Trask said that they
wished to afford an opportunity for men of name and influence, in
church and state, to come and take the conduct of the anti-slavery
enterprise;--men who now took no interest in it, and never would do
so, unless they were made officers. Elizur Wright thought the new
organization needed, because the old Society had refused to pronounce
the act of voting at the polls a fundamental principle--a test of
membership--Christian duty. That ninety-nine hundredths of the
Society actually and conscientiously went to the polls, was nothing so
long as those remained members, in as good standing as himself, who
conscientiously refused to go. The Rev. Mr. Torrey’s reasons were _all_
these, with “others which had never yet been given by any one.” Mr.
Garrison, deeply pained by the wounds inflicted on the cause, had said,
with much feeling, “I could weep tears of blood over this division, if
it would avail to stay its evils.” Mr. Torrey, ridiculing his emotion,
remarked that, “to see the gentleman weep tears of blood, would indeed
be a curious physiological fact.”
Disconcerted as the exclusive councils of the framers of the new
organization had frequently been by the intrusive “common people,” they
took, from that experience, a hint in modelling their new constitution.
Not every one who signed it was to be permitted to vote in their
_Society_, however strictly his vote might be required of him at the
polls. Only one gentleman for every twenty-five members was to have the
privilege of uniting with the officers and agents of the Society in the
transaction of business.
Of the two chief pretences for such an organization--the first, that
the subject of women’s rights to sustain civil and ecclesiastical
offices &c. had been “_dragged in_,” and “_hitched on_,” (as the
phrases were,) was an entirely _false_ pretence, that subject never
having been introduced in the Massachusetts Society. Women had, indeed,
persisted in exercising the rights and duties of members, which they
could not be prevented from doing without a violation of the letter
and spirit of the Society’s constitution, and if the necessity of a
new organization was grounded on this circumstance, its contrivers
were plainly hypocritical in striving to make it auxiliary to the
National Society, which also admitted women. They intimated, that they
hoped to be able to make that Society recede from its ground _next
year_;--but _honestly_ bigoted minds, _conscientiously_ opposed to
women’s acting in the anti-slavery cause on their own responsibility,
would surely never begin their course of opposition by the sin of
co-operation for a _year_. The second pretence, that the old Society
had become a no-government society, was without a shadow of foundation.
The strongest political resolution it had ever adopted, to which Mr.
Stanton’s resolution in 1837 was feeble, had been passed this year.
But, then it had refused to cast out Mr. Garrison: “ay! _there’s_ the
rub!” This exclamation of the Prince of Denmark, when _his_ mind was
occupied with the question, “to be or not to be,” conveys, in this
connection, a summary of the reasons which decided the new organization
“to be.”
The New England convention decided that such an association, so
gathered, so founded and so organized, _could not give aid_ to
any organization upon the old basis, which it had _deserted_ and
_condemned_; and they notified the Executive Committee at New York
of the same. The hostility of its founders to the Massachusetts
Society--the difference it had made as to the fundamental principles,
the exclusiveness of its foundation--its mathematical position, working
the same derangement in the anti-slavery system as a new planet in
the orbit of the earth might do in the solar system,--all forbade it
fraternal greeting or long life.
The course the New York Committee should take in action, would
be the measure of their own worth to the cause. So opposite were
these two Societies, that one or the other must needs be unworthy
of the affiliation. If the New York Committee should, after their
well-remembered wont, think neutrality possible, still to be neutral
would be to spare the criminal; and “_Judex damnatur cum nocens
absolvitur_.”
From the new organization thus formed, it was planned to send out
division unto every local Society. Mr. St. Clair, and Mr. Wise, who
had been the _Swiss_ of this warfare, at one time during the year, the
agents of the Massachusetts Board, at another, of the new paper, at
another, of the New York Committee, were now made the agents of the new
organization, for completing the work of division.
_This_ having been done, Mr. Stanton no longer delayed to intimate
to the Massachusetts Board “that it would be the aim of the New-York
Committee to _comply_, as far as they could conscientiously, with the
advice of their constituents as to agents.”
What was the new organization, then, in reality?--men asked themselves.
Its designs were unmasked by abolitionists in Massachusetts, as the
Annual Meeting, the Quarterly Meeting, the Bristol County Meeting, the
Essex County Meeting, the Plymouth County Meeting, the Worcester County
Meetings, the Middlesex County Meeting, and the multiplied meetings of
town Societies had conclusively proved. It was but an agent of the New
York Committee, under the name of an organization. What would be its
effect? to fulfil the wishes of pro-slavery divines, by multiplying
nominal abolitionists of its own spirit, as millstones about the neck
of the cause. May the New-York Committee dare to claim credit for
veracity, if they but
“Keep the word of promise to the _ear_,
And break it to the sense?--”
When, at the Judgment, they shall stand up face to face with the New
England band of early abolitionists who so loved and trusted them, what
more can each one of them say than this:--“My _mouth_ has never lied to
thee!”
What is the attitude of the contending hosts of freedom and slavery in
Massachusetts, at the present time--the summer of 1839? The unfaithful
have turned to flight, overpowered by the subtlety and fury of a
pro-slavery church and ministry;--have dishonored their Master, by
conceding that such a church and ministry are _his_;--have forsaken
and betrayed the faithful, offering them up as a propitiation to
this ecclesiastical pro-slavery;--have devised a new anti-slavery
organization on hypocritical and false pretences, behind which to
disguise their apostacy for a season.
The faithful, undismayed by treachery, undeterred by obloquy and
persecution, unshaken by abuse, strengthened by experience, relying
neither on a pro-slavery church, government, or ministry, but on GOD,
and _themselves_ as his ready instruments, have bound themselves more
firmly to the cause and to each other, and are laboring with increased
ardor in the promulgation of the truth which alone can save this
slaveholding people.
FOOTNOTES:
[5] The following resolution, submitted to the business Committee in
the hand-writing of Mr. Stanton, will explain the use which was to have
been made of Mr. Garrison’s answer, had the plot succeeded. “We shall
thus,” said one, “get rid of the Non-Resistants and the women.”
“Resolved, That every minister of the gospel is bound to preach
against slavery; that every member of a Christian Church is bound
to have no fellowship with this unfruitful work of darkness; that
every ecclesiastical body is bound to purify itself of these
abominations; and that every person entitled to the elective
franchise, is bound _not only to refrain from voting_ for persons
as national and state officers, who are unwilling to use all their
authority for the immediate abolition of slavery, but is BOUND AT
EVERY ELECTION, TO REPAIR TO THE POLLS, and cast his vote for such
men as will go to the verge of their official authority, for its
instant annihilation; _and that every member of an Anti-Slavery
Society, who refuses_, UNDER ANY PRETEXT, _thus to act morally
or politically, or counsels others to such a course, is guilty
of gross inconsistency, and widely departs from the original and
fundamental principles of the Anti-Slavery enterprize_.”
[6] Those women of the Boston Female Society who had long seen a
tendency in the conduct of the New York Committee to injure the
Massachusetts Society, had taken pains to have their customary
annual appropriation to the cause pledged through the Massachusetts
treasury, in anticipation of this very contingency. Their surprise was
proportionately great at the ingenuity with which their contribution
was made discreditable to the Massachusetts Society and to themselves,
by the incorrect assertion that it had been made in _consequence_ of
Mr. Stanton’s labors.
[7] Most of the business of this Society had, from the beginning, been
transacted in _Special Meeting_, and almost the only power granted to
the Board of this Society by its Constitution, is this, of calling
meetings. The Constitution expressly states that “the President and
other officers ARE AUTHORIZED _to call special meetings_,” while there
is not a syllable which authorizes them to refuse.
[8] Speech of Samuel Reed, of Abington.