THE ABOLITIONISTS.
"If we have whispered Truth,
Whisper no longer;
Speak as the tempest does,
Sterner and stronger."
"Song of the Free," _Whittier_, 1836.
Great changes in the political and economical life of a nation seldom
take place abruptly. The forces responsible for a change or modification
of conditions are generally at work long before the final result.
Nations, like individuals, grope for the truth, forming different
opinions, trying different plans--now radical, now conservative--often
failing to see and grasp the solution when it is at hand, but all the
while bringing about conditions which, when the crisis comes, form a
solid and decisive basis for action. Such is the history of this country
with reference to slavery for the three decades prior to the Civil War.
From 1833 to the organization of the Republican Party, and after that
event to the promulgation of the Emancipation Proclamation, public
opinion was incessantly agitated by the organized efforts of the
Abolitionists, although they differed among themselves and divided as to
the best plan under which to act.
While the Northerners grouped into the Whig and Democratic Parties, and
condemned the constant agitation of the slavery question as disturbing
the public peace and jeopardizing party success, still they could not
help recognizing the cogency of the abolition argument; and as year
after year went by, and the aggressions of the slave power continued, a
steady change went on in the North and the anti-slavery sentiment became
more and more pronounced. When active political opposition to slavery
finally began it found the North not exactly unanimous as to what should
be done, but with her mind almost made up on one point, that slavery
should at least be restricted to the territory it then occupied; it
required a great political shock, such as came in 1854, to amalgamate
this sentiment. From this standpoint the opinions in the North reached
out to the extreme views of Garrison and his followers, that slavery
should be stamped out regardless of all consequences.
The Quakers, who, from the early colonial days, had been strongest in
their expressions against slavery, formed the first Anti-Slavery Society
in the United States at Philadelphia in 1775. The Revolution interrupted
their work, but at its conclusion they resumed their efforts patiently
and incessantly, year after year, in their attempts to arouse the public
mind to the enormity and dangerousness of the slave evil. Although other
States organized anti-slavery societies immediately after the
Revolution, the Pennsylvania Society took the leading part, and was
comparatively alone for many years in the work. In the First Congress
this Society presented a Memorial, asking Congress to exercise its
utmost powers for the abolition of slavery. The subject was the occasion
of a heated debate, and Congress decided that under the Constitution it
could not, prior to 1808, abolish the slave trade; but that it had
authority to prevent citizens of the United States from carrying on the
African slave trade with other nations (a law to this effect was
subsequently passed); and that it had no authority to interfere with the
emancipation of slaves or their treatment in any of the States. The
Pennsylvania Society watched Congress closely and worked along patiently
year after year, meeting with failure after failure. This early
Abolition movement had among its supporters the foremost men of the day
--Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Hamilton, Jay and Henry are some of
the illustrious names connected with the movement, just as in England
the names of Burke, Fox and Pitt are recorded against the iniquity. When
the purchase of the Louisiana Territory came before Congress, the
Pennsylvania Society petitioned that measures should be taken to prevent
slavery in the new territory, but the Federalists were more engrossed
with a discussion of Constitutional questions, and the opportune moment
went by without any action on the matter.
The agitation connected with the Missouri question brought about the
formation of a stronger anti-slavery sentiment in the North, and a group
of fearless men sprang up to devote their lives and energies to an
Abolition movement. They were radical in their views, progressive in
their methods and absolutely fearless in their denunciations. Benjamin
Lundy, a Quaker, may be said to be the father of the Abolition movement.
In 1821 he began the publication of _The Genius of Universal
Emancipation_, the first Abolition paper; he was joined at Baltimore in
1829 by William Lloyd Garrison, henceforth to be the most zealous,
unceasing and uncompromising of all the Abolitionists. Garrison, extreme
in his views, left Lundy, and in January, 1831, at Boston, without
capital and with little help, started _The Liberator_, and placed at its
head, "The Constitution of the United States is a covenant with death
and an agreement with Hell," which declaration was printed in every
edition of the paper until President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation
went into effect, when it was changed to "Proclaim liberty throughout
the land unto all the inhabitants thereof."
As a result of Mr. Garrison's activity many new abolition societies were
formed, and on December 4, 1833, a National Convention of them was held
at Philadelphia, and the American Anti-Slavery Society was organized,
with Beriah Green as President and Lewis Tappan and John G. Whittier as
Secretaries. This Convention decided to petition Congress to suppress
the domestic slave trade between the States, and to abolish slavery in
the District of Columbia and in every place over which Congress had
exclusive jurisdiction. It admitted that Congress had no right to
interfere with slavery in any State, but its plan was to circulate
extensively anti-slavery tracts and periodicals, not only in the North
but throughout all of the slave-holding States, and to organize
anti-slavery societies in every city and village where possible, and to
send forth its agents to lift their voices against slavery. It frowned
on the work of the American Colonization Society, which had been
organized in 1816, for the purpose of colonizing parts of Africa with
American negroes, as tending to deaden the public conscience on the
question.
With this energetic organization the anti-slavery movement now gained
rapidly in strength, but its political work for many years was confined
to a fruitless interrogation of candidates and to sending hundreds of
petitions and memorials to Congress. Anti-slavery pamphlets and papers
were also sent broadcast North and South. On seeing _The Liberator_,
with its extreme views, and on reading the anti-slavery pamphlets, the
South was enraged beyond all bounds. A North Carolina Grand Jury
indicted Garrison, and Georgia offered a large reward for his arrest and
conviction. On July 29, 1835, all anti-slavery papers were taken from
the postoffice at Charleston, S. C., by a mob and destroyed. The
following year Mr. Calhoun, in the Senate, demanded the suppression of
the right of petition on any matter connected with slavery, and in 1838
the House adopted the infamous Atherton Gag-Rule, "Every Petition,
Memorial, Resolution, Proposition or Paper touching or relating in any
way or to any extent whatever to slavery or the abolition thereof,
shall, on presentation and without further action thereon, be laid upon
the table without being debated, printed or referred." This remarkable
rule was adopted year after year in the House until 1844, when it was
repealed through the efforts of John Quincy Adams, who for ten years
fought nobly for the Right of Petition, although he was not entirely in
sympathy with the Abolitionists.
During this period the sentiment against the Abolitionists was very
strong in the North. In many places mobs seized upon and destroyed their
papers and printing presses, and broke up their meetings and mobbed the
speakers. James G. Birney's paper, _The Philanthropist_, was twice
mobbed in Cincinnati. On November 7, 1837, the Abolition cause was
baptized in blood by the murder of Elijah P. Lovejoy, who was shot while
defending his paper and press from the attack of a pro-slavery mob at
Alton, Illinois. The following month Wendell Phillips delivered his
first abolition speech against the aggressions of the Slave Power and
the murder of Lovejoy. The continued despotism of the Slave Power, its
attempts to muzzle the freedom of speech and press, to deny the Right of
Petition, to obstruct the mails, and to obtain an Extradition Law for
the trial of citizens in slave States on charges of circulating
anti-slavery documents, and the use of violence against all who dared
raise their voices against the slavery dogmas, aroused the abolition
societies to more radical action, and a group of Abolitionists now
formed, determined on political action. This was one of the causes of
the disruption of the American Anti-Slavery Society and the withdrawal
of Garrison and his followers, who refused to take part in any election
held under the pro-slavery Constitution.
The great leaders of the Whigs and Democrats in the North, who were
aspirants to the presidency, dared not take any active stand against the
growing demands of the Slave Power, and both parties bowed abjectly to
the monster and passed in silence these gross violations of
constitutional rights. Both parties deprecated the slavery agitation,
especially the Whigs, who were highly incensed because it jeopardized
their candidates more than it did those of the Democrats. The failure of
the two great political parties to act led to the first political
organization of the anti-slavery sentiment. At Warsaw, New York, on
November 13, 1839, the Abolitionists held a convention and nominated
James G. Birney, of New York, for President, and Thomas Earl, of
Pennsylvania, for Vice-President. This was subsequently called the
"Liberty Party," and was the first of the three anti-slavery parties to
appear in national politics. Its platform demanded the abolition of
slavery in the District of Columbia and in the territories; stoppage of
the interstate slave trade, and opposition to slavery to the fullest
extent of Constitutional powers. Mr. Birney did not desire the
nomination, and in the election of 1840, that resulted in the defeat of
Van Buren by Harrison, the Abolitionists received only 7069 votes out of
a total of two and one-half millions. The membership of the abolition
societies at this time was about 200,000; the failure to show strength
at the polls may be accounted for by reason of the refusal of many to
vote at any election held under the Constitution, and also that many
feared the dissolution of the Union, and preferred, if they voted at
all, to remain with the Democratic or Whig Parties in the hope that
their party would take some decisive action on the question.
While the Slave Power in the United States was making violent efforts to
perpetuate itself and stifle all opposition, all the other civilized
countries of the world were abolishing slavery. Great Britain abolished
it in all her colonies in the year 1833 at a cost of one hundred
millions of dollars; but the United States, already showing itself to be
the most progressive nation in the world, could not throw off the evil,
and it remained a cause of bitter distraction until overthrown
politically by the success of the Republican Party and removed by
Secession, War, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the amendments to the
Constitution.
Although the Abolition cause seemed hopeless after the election of 1840,
they persisted in their work, and soon a series of events happened--
Texas Annexation, the Mexican War, and the Wilmot Proviso, which,
independent of their efforts, brought about a direct issue between the
North and South on the great question--an issue to be finally decided
only by the Civil War. The work of the early Abolitionists, however, had
an influence of inestimable value and weight on the immediate success of
the Republican Party when it was organized.