CONCLUSION.
We know the arduous strife, the eternal laws,
To which the triumph of all good is given,
High sacrifice, and labor without pause,
Even to the death:--else wherefore should the eye
Of man converse with immortality?
WORDSWORTH.
Friends and co-laborers for freedom! We have now a new and
indispensable, though painful duty to perform. Our foes have hitherto
been without the pale of the associations: we have now found the
most deadly within. It misbecomes us to talk of “dissensions among
_brethren_”--of “quarrels among _ourselves_,”--of “dreading the strife
of tongues,”--of “hiding ourselves till this calamity be overpast.”
Without our most strenuous exertions, it will never pass, but as the
remorseless sea passes over the sinking vessel. If we would free the
slave, we must meet and conquer a tyrannous influence and spirit,
in the shape that it has _now_ taken, as we have done in all its
transformations in the times that are past. We must disabuse our minds
of the idea that all are brethren in the cause, who call themselves
such.
“Do you love freedom?” is the question we have startled our age withal;
and we have begun to judge men--of all classes and conditions,--by the
reply their lives make to it. Class after class have thus been tried
and condemned. In earlier times, we have bound ourselves steadfastly
to the truth which condemned them. Its might made riches a reproach,
and “gentlemen of property and standing” a by-word. All our band joined
their voices to the oracular one of truth, when _these_ sinners were
tried by their own principles of action, and found wanting. Why is it
that _some_ now cast aside the inspired maxim, “by their fruits ye
shall know them”--when another class of men--the ministry, are found
recreant to the cause of humanity? _It is because they have become like
unto them._
We are not without experience of the facility with which men add
hypocrisy to wrong. Let the professions of such be to us, from
henceforth, as though they were not uttered; their past good deeds,
registered with those of Lucifer before his fall. This and this
only, in this emergency, is allegiance to the God “whose word is
truth--whose will is love--whose law is freedom.”
When, in earlier days in the cause, some of us foresaw the present
state of things, we submitted our souls to the prospect of its
painfulness. We said, “thy will be done,” in thus keeping our
instrumentality effectual and pure.
“May the numerous unpopular questions with which the anti-slavery cause
is connected” (thus ran our prayer) “continually come up with it as it
is borne onward. So that, up to the final triumph, the act of joining
an anti-slavery association may be, as it has hitherto proved,--a
_test-act_.”[9]
And so we pray still; for still and forever, TRUTH is one and
indivisible. All moral questions are by their nature inseparable, in
any other than a mechanical sense, and while we sedulously keep them
thus mechanically separate, because to do otherwise would be a sin
against the freedom of others, and a betrayal of their confidence, we
feel it to be no less a sin against freedom for others to impede any
man’s course with reproach, on account of this eternal decree of God’s
providence.
We have all preached emancipation by peaceful means; and now some
are amazed that the attainment of _all_ right, in like manner, should
have suggested itself to men’s minds! We have all denied that might
makes right, and asserted the supremacy of moral power; and yet some
are standing in terror-stricken astonishment that the “woman question”
is stirred in every heart; and “other some” are persecuting and
forsaking their brethren, because the examination and application of
principles, though limited in the anti-slavery society by the terms
of association, cannot be stayed in men’s minds or individual lives.
The time has come for men to look their terrors for the future in
the face. A little thought will show them thus much at least;--that
it is no sin against an anti-slavery society, to apply, in another
association, the peaceful principles by which it is proposed to abolish
slavery, to the sins involved in existing governments or sacerdocies.
If institutions, religious or political, are unable to stand the test
of such an application, that, in the opinion of some, is the fault of
the institutions. With this opinion, anti-slavery societies have no
more to do than with the question sometimes started, of the duty of
urging prayer upon the unconverted, whose prayers God pronounces an
abomination. Discussion of collateral subjects is often salutary and
necessary in our associations; but to a _decision_ upon them, by which
new tests of membership are introduced, no anti-slavery society is
competent. It ceases to be an anti-slavery society from the moment it
assumes to decide upon opinions respecting governments or churches.
No man is required, as an abolitionist, to endorse or oppose
governments or church establishments. But every thoughtful and honest
mind, whether its anchor have “entered into that which is within the
veil” or not, feels called by its allegiance to freedom, instantly
to resist any attempt to make one man accountable to another for the
progress of his mind. This same allegiance to the foundation principle
of inalienable _human_ rights, warns a man against laboring to prevent
woman from standing upon it, if such should be her determination. She
may, in his opinion, be sinning against propriety--sinning against
Paul, by acting in anti-slavery societies: but he himself sins against
freedom in striving for her exclusion; and any act against freedom, is
treason to the slave.
Men whose principles, thus imperfectly developed, are at war with
each other, will, in all probability, become worse in their last
state than in their first, especially if they are yielding not so
much to their own convictions as to the pretexts in which a public
_abstractly_ opposed to slavery, is fain to clothe its hatred to a
_real_ opposition. If they are striving to pacify the foes of freedom
by these outrages upon her principles and her advocates, their case is
a desperate one, and affords but little probability of repentance.
Surrounded as we are by the smoke and dust of the hottest conflict,
we must keep all these considerations in mind, if we would avoid
perplexity and doubt. Let us, from time to time, survey the field from
a higher point of view, and take careful note of the divisions of the
battle, and the nature of the ground on which the hosts are encamped.
What do we discern, as we ascend the mount of vision and of difficulty?
We perceive hatred and malignant opposition occupying the same post as
when we first roused them from their apathy. We are ever contending
with our old opponents, under new names, and with every change of name
and pretext, some whom we have loved and trusted, are “carried away by
their dissimulation.”[10]
At the beginning, they were “as much Anti-Slavery as any one, but
hated Mr. Garrison.” What are they now? Even “more Anti-Slavery than
any one, but hate Mr. Garrison.” Through all their various phases
of Colonizationists, American Unionists, Clerical Appellants, new
organizationists, their moving spirit is the same;--hatred of the
freedom that defies their control. Even while professing to be laboring
for emancipation, they have always been careful to express their hatred
of the _free spirit_ in which abolitionists carry on the enterprize.
It must needs be so. There is eternal enmity between the spirit which
prompts a man to strive for the mastery, and the spirit which calls
no man master. It is an eternal truth, that he who wishes to rule, is
unfit to serve.
From this point of observation, we may notice not only the timidity
and treachery of some, but the touching fidelity of others. A single
individual was once exalted by our opponents into a symbol of
faithfulness to liberty and humanity. Now, the whole associated host of
a State are assailed with slander and contempt for a like fidelity.
In this symbolic sense, an association is endowed by the enemies of
truth and freedom with a notoriety and importance not its own. In every
such case, we have a finger of Providence, pointing out to us the
course we should pursue with respect to it. Identifying ourselves with
it, we listen for the voices that have been wont to cheer the onset.
The soul that is now silent is self-condemned.
Let us enlarge our horizon by ascending still higher, so that we can at
a glance command the present and the past; for so come many instructive
lessons to the mind. We behold far back in the distance, days like
those of Wat Tyler, of Wycliffe, of Knox, and Luther and Washington.
On closely observing any such era of accelerated progress, we perceive
great bodies of men, unaccountably to us, giving back at a critical
instant--thrown into confusion by circumstances which we, at this
distance of time, discern to have been of but the smallest moment; and,
seeing how the speedy and triumphant success of the right is thereby
prevented, we suffer a sort of pain that we are unable to cast upon
their path the light of our knowledge. “Had they but known what we
so readily discern,” we exclaim, “how different would have been their
course!” and we marvel that they were unable to break the spell that
bound them, and which one added glance of foresight or of faith would
have shivered.
We forget that, besides the natural obscurity of the hour unilluminated
by the future, there is ever a shrinking terror on men’s minds, which
forbids them boldly to face the phantoms of their own times:--a
spurious charity for wrong, which, prompted by a vision of _oneself_ in
a similar condemnation, is not forgiveness, but treachery to Right. We
overlook the obvious consideration that those transition periods were,
like our own, infested with the treacherous and the selfish, whose
fancied interest it was to suppress facts, circulate falsehoods, make
up false issues, apologise for wrong, palliate crime, veil baseness
under “decent pretexts,” exalt profession into performance, and by any
and every means delay impending change.
This reflection should remind us that such light as we are fain to
cast upon past times in our impatience of their blindness, is the
same as duty binds us to communicate to our own. When we observe
the importance of small things in the world’s history; it should
point us to the cheerful discharge of so lowly a duty as to record
those in which we have been engaged. Let us not deem any of them so
unimportant as to refuse to draw from them lessons of wisdom, nor
strive to persuade ourselves that aught _can_ be trifling, which is
wrought into the great page of the past. “To serve the nineteenth
century we must _know_ the nineteenth century:” therefore, nothing
is without consequence which helps to illustrate our times. Facts,
warnings, rebuke, encouragement, consolation, advice, labor,--whatever
the times demand, let us give as we have power and opportunity, and we
shall soon be made to know _what it was_ that kept so great a distance
between the words of lonely warning that have risen prophet-like upon
the past; and _why_, at some periods, there could be no “open vision”
or corresponding energy, but only the feebleness and incertitude of
ignorance and fear. Custom is never, by her nature, the handmaid of
freedom; and therefore in a struggle for the extinction of slavery,
if we speak only according to custom, we shall lose the unhesitating
distinctness which the occasions of the cause demand. The occasion now
demands, in an especial manner, the plain directness of the very palace
of truth.
Let us, however, avoid the mistake of supposing that we can find in the
past, the exact parallel of the present, in any other than a spiritual
sense. Truth--Love--Freedom--are ever the same; but the outward signs
of their presence, and the manner of their workings upon society, will,
at different times, be far unlike. The problems they present, may be
wrought out by different processes, though the results are the same.
This reflection will enlighten us as to the causes of the convulsive
terror now manifested by the body of the ministry and their dupes--the
clerical politicians. We shall learn how it came to pass that the
latter were desirous of disjoining themselves from the abolition host,
while they yet claimed the name of abolitionists. We shall see on what
temptations they have
“fallen away
Like water from us, never found again,
But where they mean to sink us.”
At the outset, they were encouraged by the comparatively quiet progress
of abolition in England, to believe that our own would necessarily
follow the same course. Strong as was the agitation there, it effected
its work, without shaking the ponderous establishments, civil and
ecclesiastical, which bore down upon the land with their “weight of
calm.” Here, on the contrary, the lighter yokes of church and state are
so shaken by the contest, as to convulse those hearts with terror for
their existence which lack the honesty to acknowledge the worse than
uselessness of a church or a government which sustains slavery, and the
humble faith in God to say,
“Whatever fall--whate’er endure,
I know thy word shall still stand sure.”
When such lose their confidence in the identity of the principles of
freedom, with those of order and Christianity, they are disunited in
soul from those who are pressing forward with undiminished confidence;
and to disguise their change of feeling they sacrifice their
integrity.[11]
In our grief at their conduct, we undergo strong temptations to
palliate and conceal, when we ought to expose and condemn. The greater
need, therefore, that we often ascend the mount of communion with the
HIGHEST, there to strengthen our vision and our hearts.
“Weak eyes on darkness dare not gaze:
It dazzles like the noontide blaze,
But he who sees GOD’S face, may brook
On the true face of sin to look.”
“Some natural tears we shed” over those who have turned back from
the van, and are trampling down the ranks they once cheered onward;
but thus strengthened and enlightened, we shall not long indulge a
useless sorrow. We shall cease to be impatient when those whom we yet
believe true, are slow to see and to act, in an emergency requiring
promptitude. We shall but redouble our own laborious vigilance;--we
shall but make more intense our own fervent endeavor. We are laying the
foundations of many generations; and need not to be disturbed by the
discomposure of such as comprehend us not. What though, to our human
weakness, the end to be attained seem farther off, as faithfulness
rouses indifference into opposition, or converts spiritual terror into
treachery? yet is the day of redemption nearer than when we believed.
What though, in future and severer perils which we KNOW beset the path
we must go, we should, for a season, be deserted of all in whom we
trusted for aid in this work of redemption? even our Savior was left to
“watch alone one bitter hour,” before any comforting angel was sent of
heaven to strengthen him.
Truth--Love--Freedom! evermore must their victories for humanity be won
through suffering--but they shall be WON. “Forever, Oh Lord! thy word
is settled in heaven.”
FOOTNOTES:
[9] Right and Wrong in Boston, written in 1835.
[10] See Paul to the Galatians, from which epistle it appears that the
Christian cause had then reached a stage in its progress where it was
beset with the same difficulties as the anti-slavery cause at present
meets. It had so diminished the trust in the existing institutions, and
so strengthened the reverence for principles, that many _professing_
Christianity, were driven back into Judaism.
[11] Better, far better, said the organ of the clerical appellants in
1837, that slavery should remain perpetual, than that the existing
institutions with which it is so intimately interwoven, should
be disturbed. To most minds comes this moment of distrust of the
principles of righteousness--want of faith in God. Orange Scott, who
then stood firm, has in this last crisis, deserted the cause, moved by
the same temptation. When he sees Church and State shaken by the advent
of righteous and free principles, “upon the earth distress of nations
with perplexity--the sea and waves roaring--men’s hearts failing them
for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming upon the
earth,” he says--“Slavery is the least evil of the two.” With propriety
might he be asked, with what feelings would the slave of the Louisiana
sugar cauldron contemplate the utter destruction of the civil and
ecclesiastical arrangements by which he is crushed, soul and body?
Would _he_ say better, far better that slavery should remain perpetual
as “the least evil of the two?” Yet we are commanded to remember those
in bonds as bound with them. However deep may be our attachment to
institutions, we must do _right_, in the faith that righteousness can
destroy no good thing.
APPENDIX.
The following letters are selected and subjoined as specimens of the
secret correspondence of this period.
[CONFIDENTIAL.]
_Salem, Dec. 7th, 1838._
REV. S. J. MAY.
_Dear Brother_,--I presume you have been consulted on the subject
named below; but my anxiety on the topic, leads me to write you.
We found, some time ago, that the admission of other subjects
into the Liberator had entirely destroyed its circulation, in
many parts of this County, and others were gradually dropping
it, while a large proportion of our most efficient abolitionists
were uneasy, and took it only because they must have the local
Anti-Slavery news of this State. As a paper more generally
circulated and exerting a better influence was felt to be
necessary, to advance the cause in this County, we attempted to
start a local Anti-Slavery paper here. But some were afraid--a
few loudly opposed; and the _great expense_, (far exceeding our
first estimates,) _finally deterred us from the undertaking_.
Still the conviction of the necessity of a paper, devoted to
Anti-Slavery alone, which might circulate without objection, among
all classes of our friends, has daily gathered strength--and
many who opposed our project then, alarmed at the _demoralizing
doctrines now promulgated_ in the Liberator, say we _must have_
a paper, at all events. I have no desire to injure Mr. Garrison.
His services in the cause entitle him to something more than
gratitude. But the Liberator will, of course, remain under his
control, and will continue, no doubt, to pursue the same course
it has for a year past; and it _cannot, therefore, continue to
be the Anti-Slavery paper of the State_, without a _virtual_
endorsement of its doctrines. Nor will it have a free circulation
among the large portion, the immense majority, of the Anti-Slavery
community, who dissent from its new views. Now the Massachusetts
Anti-Slavery Society _is a pretty considerably large and somewhat
important body_--and why should it not have an _official organ_,
of communication with the public, to be devoted to _Anti-Slavery
alone_? I am not particular about the editor. If Mr. Garrison
would edit such a paper, and _devote his whole time and strength
to it_, instead of leaving it to printers’ boys and every body,
as he has the Liberator for two years past, I should be perfectly
pleased to have him editor, _though of course he would not
consent_. Quite a large number of our old and steadfast friends,
who have been consulted, are favorable to the thing. It will be
brought forward by me, at the Annual Meeting, if it is found that
our discreet friends generally approve of it. Please communicate
your views to me freely and confidentially (if you wish.) I have
no time this morning to say a word on other topics.
With respect and affection,
CHARLES T. TORREY.
_Salem, Dec. 19th, 1838._
DEAR BROTHER MAY,--
I dont know but my mentioning the objections _some_ felt to the
Liberator, led you to think of the project of a new paper, as a
sort of _opposition line_ to the Liberator. But this is far from
my idea of the matter. True, the character and contents of that
paper exclude it from circulation in this county so extensively,
that it does not answer the purpose of advertising our County
Meetings even. Nor will its circulation increase. In some of the
strongest Anti-Slavery towns, where most is done for the cause,
scarcely a single copy is taken, or can be got in. So it is all
over the State. I suppose not more than half the circulation of
the Liberator, (probably not one third,) is in Massachusetts. Nor
will this state of things, in that respect, be materially changed
at present, in my judgment. I think it certain that papers from
New York or elsewhere, cannot do for our State to act efficiently.
And that there are thousands of abolitionists, and others who
need, and would take a paper, wholly devoted to Anti-Slavery
and published at Boston, admits not of a question. It would
have five hundred to one thousand subscribers in this County,
_at once_. Now, I think the good of our cause _demands_ of us,
that such a paper be started, and a small monthly, like “Human
Rights,” besides. And if it is done as our official State paper,
there can be no ground for considering it as in opposition to the
Liberator. Whereas, if individuals start a paper, the case will be
just the reverse. It will then be a rival to the Liberator, and
will materially injure its circulation. Now, a State official,
_confined_ to Anti-Slavery exclusively, will not cross the track
of the Liberator scarcely at all. I have, so far, heard of not a
syllable of disapproval but from yourself, from any part of the
State. I do still hope, on reflection, you will think differently
of the thing. There can be no evil, or warfare, it seems to me,
unless those who like the Liberator insist that it shall be,
virtually, _the State Paper_, while not so in form, and choose
to claim the whole of the vast unoccupied field, in this State,
as its own. But if they resist and successfully, the measure
proposed, _then_ all peace or compromise will indeed end. A new
paper will, no doubt, be started, as an individual enterprize, and
it will not spare the peculiarities of opinion, etc. manifested
in the Liberator. It is true, it is open to controversy on peace,
etc. But, on that very account, it has no claims to be the
_Anti-Slavery_ paper of Massachusetts, and to circulate as such,
among those who reluctantly take it for its local news, while
they cannot endure its sectarianism.
Now, my dear Brother, I have written very plainly what I think.
Do consider the matter again and maturely. Our cause _must_ be
prosecuted at all hazards and sacrifices, but that of principle,
and I do think duty to our cause requires a new paper wholly
anti-slavery. If those who like the Liberator cannot then sustain
it, what will it prove, but the absolute need of a new paper?
Yours, as ever, for the slave, and
with much affection,
CHARLES T. TORREY.
_Salem, Jan. 7th, 1839._
_Dear Sir_,--I write to urge the importance of a full
representation of your society at the Annual Meeting of the
Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, on the 23d and 24th of this
month. Measures of very great importance to the progress of the
cause throughout the State will be brought forward, particularly
the establishment of a new paper, of high character, to be devoted
to Anti-Slavery only; and to be under the official control of
the State Society; one which will urge political action as a
_Christian duty_, in accordance with our original principles of
association. _Other things_ of equal moment to the onward progress
of our cause, will be presented--probably on the _first day_ of
the meeting; other and obvious considerations will show the great
importance of having a full representation, from two to twenty
from every Society. Let every one who can attend, do so. Let none
be chosen who will not attend. Select the most judicious and tried
friends of the cause, and let them be there at the opening of the
meeting, at ten o’clock oh the 23d, and be prepared to stay two
days.
If your Society meets to choose delegates, let there be an
expression of opinion about the new paper, (to be purely
Anti-Slavery, and nothing else; to oppose nothing but slaveholding
and doughface-ism) and let the vote be embodied in the
instructions of the delegates.
Please to see the officers of your Society, and have your
delegation promptly appointed.
Yours, for the slave,
CHARLES T. TORREY.
_Rec. Sec. Essex Co. A. S. Society._
_Boston, April 2d, 1838._
_Dear Brother_,--I understand that ---- has left, or is about
leaving you, and that you are on the lookout for a successor.
Permit me to recommend to you, ----.
And now a word in respect to abolition. You are aware of the
collision between the State and National Societies--have seen, I
suppose, the statement of the case in the “Christian Journal,
Extra”--and know that your County Board have taken supervision of
the field within your County, and invited in the agents of the
American Society, thus virtually taking sides with that Society.
Well, your County Society is to meet soon in New Bedford, at
which time and place, I have no doubt an effort will be made to
undo what the County Board have done, and to pass resolutions
sustaining the State, and condemnatory of the County and Parent
Boards; and what with the Quakers and colored people in New
Bedford, it will not be strange if the attempt succeeds.
What your views on the matter in dispute are, I know not, nor is
it of any importance for me to know, so far as it concerns what
I wish now to say to you. I will only say, then, as I cannot go
now into the matter in detail, that I regard the Parent Committee
in the right. They ought to be sustained. Nor do I believe that
the State Board would ever have sent out their protest but for
certain “ulterior measures” which they wished to accomplish
thereby--one of these is to crush the Massachusetts Abolitionist,
by shutting out of the State, the Agents of the Parent Society who
are generally favorable to it, and where they can do it, without
interfering with the duties of their agency, are in the habit
of getting subscribers for it--another is to make the Society
Anti-Orthodox in its influence--and another, by having the entire
control of the cause in the State, to take advantage of it for
the promulgation of non-resistance, no-government, &c. &c. I can
give you facts when I see you that will bear me out in all these
positions. The truth is, Garrison and the Board are themselves
guilty of the very things they are charging on others. They are
just in the attitude of the man who cries “Stop thief,” that he,
under cover of that cry, may make off with the stolen goods. I
hope to see you and converse with you at length on these subjects
by and by. Meanwhile, if you agree with me that the Parent
Committee ought to be sustained, I hope you will see that the
meeting at New Bedford is not a packed one, but that those who
think with us, as well as others, are on the ground prepared to
hear the case, and take proper action thereon, should it come up.
Remember me affectionately to your family.
Yours truly,
A. A. PHELPS.
P. S. Brother ---- is a good abolitionist--but wise and prudent
at the same time that he is firm and decided on the subject. Of
course he would not make a _hobby_ of it.
Such efforts and accusations as the above letter Mr. Phelps did
not hesitate privately to put forth against his brethren of the
Board, though he never intimated to them, personally, that any such
imaginations darkened his mind. And even on resigning his seat with
them, one month after the date of this letter, he did not intend that
his reasons for doing so should be made public. His own testimony,
respecting similar allegations presented as reasons for the formation
of a new Society only a year previous, is true now. At the moment that
this letter was written, the Massachusetts Society had eight Orthodox
Agents in the field, and but one of another belief. True, the Society
could not, without violating its principles, become an Orthodox Society
_exclusively_; but the Society did deem it a fortunate circumstance
that Orthodox pro-slavery should be met and exposed by Orthodox
anti-slavery.
Who that reads Mr. Phelps’s testimony, Jan. 1838, as given below, but
must deeply compassionate the struggle and concealment and weakness of
soul which afterwards completely overpowered him, notwithstanding his
better knowledge, and dictated his course during the remainder of that
year, up to the formation of a new organization, in 1839, and until, as
the climax of his course, he submitted to be examined for installation
as pastor of the Free Church, by the well known pro-slavery divine, the
Rev. Hubbard Winslow.
MR. PHELPS’S TESTIMONY IN 1838.
“And last, not least, there must needs be a new organization, and a
withdrawal from the Massachusetts Society, because, “both the organ and
management of it are under anti-orthodox influence.” True, there is
not as much orthodoxy in either, as I wish there was, and as I think
there ought to be; but it is not the result, so far as I have seen,
of any trickery on the part of those who are not Orthodox, nor of any
disposition, on their part, to make Orthodoxy or Anti-Orthodoxy a test
of membership or office. And as it is, full one half the officers
and managers of the Society are Orthodox men; this “Anti-Orthodox
influence” has chosen and is sustaining an “Orthodox” Agent, and one
that is sent for sometimes to repair the mischief done by agents of
the American Society: this Society, at its public meetings, _has_
“passed resolutions recommending that ministers and Christians, in
their public meetings, should pray for the slave;” its own public
meetings have been “opened with prayer;” its agent, (to say nothing of
the liberty of its organ,) and its members have always had liberty to
plead for the slave, in as “orthodox” language, and by as “orthodox”
arguments as they pleased; and, in fine, the society has every one
of those characteristics, by virtue of which, the Spectator declares
the American Society to be “practically orthodox;” and yet, strange
to tell, the American Society looks upon the difficulties that have
sprung up here out of these things, with which itself, by its agents
and otherwise, has had as much to do as any one, as a mere personal and
family quarrel; and _the friends of the new organization, on the other
hand, cannot endure the Massachusetts Society, to be sure, but are for
going into most cordial and hearty auxiliaryship to the American!_
A.A. PHELPS.”