The subject of this article is very opportune at the present time.[A]
While the roar of the cannon, fired in honor of Mr. Garrison at the
moment of his late departure from England, is still reverberating
through the land, it will be interesting and instructive to recall the
purpose of his mission to that country just thirty-four years ago; and
how he was vilified when he went, and denounced, hunted, mobbed, on
his return. He went there to undeceive the philanthropists of Great
Britain as to a gigantic fraud which had been practised upon them, as
well as the antislavery people of the United States. He has gone now
to the World’s Antislavery Convention as a delegate from our _National
Association_ for the education, and individual, domestic, and civil
elevation of our colored population, whose condition thirty years ago,
and until a much more recent period, it was confidently maintained, and
pretty generally conceded, could not be essentially improved within the
borders of our Republic, if, indeed, on the same continent with our
_superior Anglo-Saxon race_.
The conscience of our country was never at peace concerning the
enslavement of the colored people. It was denounced by Jefferson in
his original draft of the Declaration of Independence, and afterwards
in his “Notes on Virginia.” An effort to abolish slavery was made in
the Convention that framed our Constitution; and strenuous opposition
to that Magna Charta was made in several of the State Conventions
called to ratify it, because the abominable wrong was indirectly and
covertly sanctioned therein. Soon after we became a nation plans were
proposed and associations formed for the improvement of the condition
of the colored population; and the General Government was earnestly
entreated, in a petition headed by Dr. Franklin, “to go to the utmost
limits of its power” to eradicate the great evil from the land. But the
doctrine was industriously taught by our statesmen that the status of
that class of the people was left, in the Constitution of the Union,
to be determined by the government of each of the States in which they
may be found. And still greater pains were taken, by those who were
bent on the perpetuation of slavery, to make it generally believed
throughout the country that negroes were naturally a very inferior
race of men; utterly incapable of much mental or moral culture, and
better off in domestic servitude on our continent than in their native
state in Africa. Notwithstanding this disparagement of them, and the
other inducements pressed upon the white people everywhere to acquiesce
in their enslavement, many colored persons emancipated themselves,
especially in Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, and Louisiana; and many
more were set free by the workings of the consciences of their owners,
or in gratitude for their services to individuals or the public. Thus,
considerable bodies of freedmen were found almost everywhere in the
midst of the slaves. Not without reason, these persons became objects
of distrust to slaveholders. Devices were therefore sought to get rid
of their disturbing influence, and to prevent the increase of the
number of such persons.
In 1816 the grand scheme was proposed, and readily adopted in most of
the slaveholding States, for colonizing on the coast of Africa the free
colored people of the United States, and prohibiting the emancipation
of any more of the enslaved, excepting upon the condition of their
removal to Liberia.
To carry this great undertaking into complete effect it was necessary
to secure the patronage of the Federal Government. This obviously could
not be done, without first conciliating to the project the approval and
co-operation of the people of the non-slaveholding States. Accordingly,
agents, eloquent and cunning, were sent north, east, and west, to
summon the benevolent and patriotic everywhere to aid in an enterprise
which, it was claimed, would result in the safe but entire abolition of
American slavery.
The dreadful wrongs and cruelties inflicted upon our bondmen were
not kept out of sight by these agents, but sometimes glowingly
depicted. The participation of the Northern States in the original
sin of the enslavement of Africans was pertinently urged. The utter
impracticability and danger of setting free such hordes of ignorant,
degraded people were insisted on with particular emphasis. The
immense good that would be done to benighted Africa was eloquently
portrayed,--how the slave-trade might be stopped, and the knowledge
of the arts of civilized America, and the blessings of our Christian
religion, might be spread throughout that dark region of the earth,
from the basis of colonies planted at Liberia and elsewhere along those
coasts, hitherto visited only by mercenary and cruel white men. All
these considerations were so pressed upon the churches and ministers
and kind-hearted people of the Northern States, that erelong an
enthusiasm was awakened everywhere in favor of colonizing the colored
people of our country “in their native land,” and thus, at the same
time, evangelizing Africa and wiping out the shame of the American
Republic. Without stopping to consider the glaring inconsistencies of
the scheme, it was taken for granted to be the only feasible way of
doing what we all longed to have done,--abolishing slavery. So the
colonization of our colored population became the favorite enterprise
at the North, even more than at the South. Thousands who were so
prejudiced against them that they would never consent to admit them
to the enjoyment of the rights, and the exercise of the prerogatives,
of men in our country were ready to give liberally to have them
transported across the Atlantic, and were deluded into the belief that
it was a benevolent, yes, a Christian enterprise. The very elect were
deceived. The men who have since been most distinguished among the
Abolitionists--Mr. Garrison, Arthur Tappan, Gerrit Smith, James G.
Birney, and hundreds more--were for a while zealous Colonizationists.
Not until Mr. Garrison had been some time resident in Baltimore
as co-editor, with Benjamin Lundy, of the _Genius of Universal
Emancipation_, were the true purpose and spirit of Colonization
discovered. He there found out, as he afterwards made it plainly
appear, that the _intention_ of the originators, and of the Southern
promoters of the scheme, really was, “to rivet still closer the fetters
of the slaves, and to deepen the prejudice against the free people of
color.”
So different had been the representations of its purpose by the
agents of the Colonization Society who had labored in its behalf
throughout the free States, and so utterly unconscious were most of the
Colonizationists on this side of Mason and Dixon’s line of harboring
any such designs, that Mr. Garrison’s accusations fired them with
indignation and wrath. They would not give heed to his incontrovertible
evidence. Though his witnesses were numerous and could not be
impeached, yet were they spurned by most of the persons in the free
States who had espoused the cause. It was enough that Mr. Garrison had
come out in opposition to the plan of Colonization. He was denounced as
an infidel, set upon as an enemy of his country. The churches were all
closed against him. Few ministers ventured to give him any countenance,
and the politicians heaped upon him unmeasured abuse. All this made the
more plain to the young Reformer and his co-laborers how thoroughly
the virus of slavery had poisoned the American body ecclesiastic, as
well as the body politic. It was seen that the church was becoming the
bulwark of slaveholders. Mr. Garrison felt that the first thing to be
done, therefore, was to batter down the confidence of the humane in
the Colonization plan. Against this he drove his sharpest points, at
this he aimed his heaviest artillery. So when it became known to us
that the agents of that plan had labored, with sad effect, in Great
Britain; that they had suborned to their purpose the aid of the English
philanthropists, we all felt, with Mr. Garrison, that those friends of
the oppressed must be undeceived without delay. No one was competent
to do this work so thoroughly as Mr. Garrison himself. Accordingly, it
was determined, in the spring of 1833, that he must see personally the
prominent Abolitionists of Great Britain.
In pursuance of this object he sailed from New York on the first day
of this month, thirty-four years ago. He went with the execrations
of the leading Colonizationists, and all the proslavery partisans of
our country upon his head. He was received in England with the utmost
cordiality and respectful confidence by all the friends of liberty; for
although, as he found, many of them had been persuaded by the agents of
the Colonization Society to give their approval and aid to that scheme,
they had done so because they had been made to believe that it was
intended and adapted to effect the entire abolition of slavery in the
United States.
Nothing could have been more opportune than was his arrival in London.
He found there most of the leading Abolitionists of the United Kingdom
watching and aiding the measures in Parliament about to issue in the
emancipation of the enslaved in the British West India Islands. He was
invited to their councils, and interchanged opinions freely and fully
with them on the great questions, which were essentially the same in
that country and our own. It was especially his privilege to become
acquainted with William Wilberforce and Thomas Clarkson and Fowell
Buxton and George Thompson, to name no more of the noble host that had
fought the battles and won the victory of freedom for eight hundred
thousand slaves. He was there when William Wilberforce was summoned to
lay aside his earthly life, with his antislavery armor, and ascend, we
trust, to the right hand of God. How appropriate that the young leader
of the Abolitionists of America, whose work had just begun, should
be present, as he was, at the obsequies of the veteran leader of the
British Abolitionists just as their work was done!
Mr. Garrison remained in England three or four months, long enough to
accomplish fully the object of his mission. He reached New York on
the 30th of the following September, bringing with him this emphatic
protest, signed by the most distinguished philanthropists, and several
of the most distinguished statesmen of Great Britain:--
“We, the undersigned, having observed with regret that the American
Colonization Society appears to be gaining some adherents in this
country, are desirous to express our opinions respecting it. Our
motive and excuse for thus coming forward are the claims which
that Society has put forth to _Antislavery_ support. These claims
are, in our opinion, wholly groundless; and we feel bound to
affirm that our deliberate judgment and conviction are that the
professions made by the Colonization Society of promoting the
abolition of slavery are delusive....
“While we believe its precepts to be delusive we are convinced that
its _real_ effects are of the most dangerous nature. It takes its
root from a cruel prejudice and alienation in the whites of America
against the colored people, slave or free. This being its source,
its effects are what might be expected....
“On these grounds, therefore, and while we acknowledge the colony
of Liberia, or any other colony on the coast of Africa, to be _in
itself_ a good thing, we must be understood utterly to repudiate
the principles of the American Colonization Society. That Society
is, in our estimation, not deserving of the countenance of the
British public.
(Signed)
“WM. WILBERFORCE,
ZACHARY MACAULAY,
WILLIAM EVANS, M. P.,
SAMUEL GURNEY,
S. LUSHINGTON, M. P.,
T. FOWELL BUXTON, M. P.,
JAMES CROPPER,
DANIEL O’CONNELL, M. P.,”
and others.
Nothing could have maddened the slaveholders and their Northern
abettors more than Mr. Garrison’s success in England, and their
malignant, ferocious hatred of him broke out on his return. It so
happened that, without any expectation of his arrival at the time, a
meeting of those desirous of the abolition of slavery was called, on
the evening of October 2, in Clinton Hall, to organize a city society.
When it was known that Mr. Garrison would be present, most of the New
York newspapers teemed with exciting articles, and an advertisement,
signed “Many Southerners,” summoned “all persons interested in the
subject” to be present at the same time and place. The Abolitionists,
aware that a meeting at Clinton Hall would be broken up, quietly
withdrew to Chatham Street Chapel, and had nearly completed the
organization of the “New York City Antislavery Society,” when the mob
of _slaveholding patriots_, disappointed of their prey at Clinton
Hall, and finding out the retreat of the Abolitionists, rushed upon
and dispersed them from Chatham Street Chapel, with horrid cries of
detestation and threats of utmost violence, especially aimed at Mr.
Garrison, of whom they went in search from place to place, declaring
their determination to wreak upon him their utmost vengeance. Mr.
Garrison, secure in their ignorance of his person, and curious to learn
all he might of the mistaken notions and corrupt principles by which
they were misled and driven to such excesses, went around with them in
their bootless pursuit until he was tired, and the fire of their fury
had cooled.
The New York newspapers, especially the _Courier and Inquirer_,
the _Gazette_, _Evening Post_, and _Commercial Advertiser_, by
their half-way condemnation of this outrage, and their gross
misrepresentations of the sentiments and purposes of Mr. Garrison and
his fellow-laborers, virtually justified that fearful assault upon “the
liberty of speech,” and inauguration of “the Reign of Terror,” of which
I shall hereafter give my readers some account.