Another and a most auspicious event signalizes in my memory the year
1835. It was the publication of Dr. Channing’s book on Slavery. He had
for many years been the most distinguished minister of religion in New
England, certainly in the estimation of the Unitarian denomination; and
his fame as a Christian moralist, a philosopher, and finished writer
had been spread far and wide throughout England, France, and Germany by
a large volume of his Discourses, Essays, and Reviews published in 1830.
A few weeks after his graduation from Harvard College in 1798, when
about nineteen years of age, determined to be no longer dependent upon
his mother and friends for a living, he gladly accepted the situation
of a tutor in the family of Mr. Randolph, of Richmond, Virginia. Here
he often met many of the most distinguished gentlemen and ladies of the
city and the State, and visited them freely at their city homes and
on their plantations. He was delighted with their cordial and elegant
courtesy. But he saw also their _slaves_ and the sensuality which
abounded amongst them. These made an impression upon his heart which
was never effaced.
In the fall of 1830 he went to the West Indies for his health, and
passed the winter in St. Croix. There he witnessed again the inherent
wrongs of slavery and the vices which it engenders. On his return
in May, 1831, he spoke freely and with the deepest feeling from
his pulpit of the inhuman system, and its debasing effects upon the
oppressors as well as the oppressed. At that time the public mind in
New England had begun to be agitated upon the subject of slavery,
as it never had been before by the scathing denunciations that were
every week poured from _The Liberator_ upon slaveholders and their
abettors and apologists. Dr. Channing’s sensitive nature shrank from
the severity of Mr. Garrison’s blows, and yet he acknowledged that
the gigantic system of domestic servitude in our country ought to
be exposed, condemned, and subverted. He found his highly esteemed
friend, Dr. Follen, with his excellent wife and several others of the
best women in Boston, and Ellis Gray Loring and Samuel E. Sewall and
others, whom he highly esteemed, giving countenance and aid to the
“young fanatic.” This drew his attention still more to the subject
of slavery. Soon after his return from the West Indies I visited Dr.
Channing, and found his mind very much exercised. He sympathized with
the Abolitionists in their abhorrence of the domestic servitude in our
Southern States, and their apprehension of its corrupting influence
upon the government of our Republic, and the political as well as
moral ruin to which it tended. But he distrusted our measures, and
was particularly annoyed, as I have already stated, by Mr. Garrison’s
“scorching and stinging invectives.” Whenever I was in the city and
called upon the Doctor, he would make particular inquiries respecting
our doctrines, purposes, measures, and progress. Repeatedly he invited
me to his house for the express purpose, as he said, of learning more
about our antislavery enterprise. He always spoke as if he were deeply
interested in it, but he was afraid of what he supposed to be some
of our opinions and measures. I was surprised that he was so slow to
accept our vital doctrine, “immediate emancipation.” But owing, I
suppose, to his great aversion to excited speeches and exaggerated
statements, and his peculiar distrust of associations, he had never
attended any of our antislavery meetings, where the doctrine of
immediate emancipation was always explained. The Doctor, therefore,
as well as the people generally, misunderstood it, and had been
misinformed in several other respects as to the purposes, measures,
and spirit of the Abolitionists. Still he persisted in abstaining from
our meetings until after the alarming course taken by the Governor and
Legislature of Massachusetts, in the spring of 1836, of which I shall
give an account in the proper place.
Late in the year 1834, being on a visit in Boston, I spent several
hours with Dr. Channing in earnest conversation upon Abolitionism and
the Abolitionists. My habitual reverence for him was such that I had
always been apt to defer perhaps too readily to his opinions, or not
to make a very stout defence of my own when they differed from his.
But at the time to which I refer I had become so thoroughly convinced
of the truth of the essential doctrines of the American Antislavery
Society, and so earnestly engaged in the dissemination of them, that
our conversation assumed, more than it had ever done, the character of
a debate. He acknowledged the inestimable importance of the object we
had in view. The evils of Slavery he assented could not be overstated.
He allowed that removal to Africa ought not to be made a condition
of the liberation of the enslaved. But he hesitated still to accept
the doctrine of immediate emancipation. His principal objections,
however, were alleged against the severity of our denunciations, the
harshness of our epithets, the vehemence, heat, and excitement caused
by the harangues at our meetings, and still more by Mr. Garrison’s
_Liberator_. The Doctor dwelt upon these objections, which, if they
were as well founded as he assumed them to be, lay against what was
only incidental, not an essential part of our movement. He dwelt upon
them until I became impatient, and, forgetting for the moment my wonted
deference, I broke out with not a little warmth of expression and
manner:--
“Dr. Channing,” I said, “I am tired of these complaints. The cause
of suffering humanity, the cause of our oppressed, crushed colored
countrymen, has called as loudly upon others as upon us Abolitionists.
It was just as incumbent upon others as upon us to espouse it. _We_ are
not to blame that wiser and better men did not espouse it long ago.
The cry of millions, suffering the most cruel bondage in our land, had
been heard for half a century and disregarded. ‘The wise and prudent’
saw the terrible wrong, but thought it not wise and prudent to lift a
finger for its correction. The priests and Levites beheld their robbed
and wounded countrymen, but passed by on the other side. The children
of Abraham held their peace, and at last ‘the very stones have cried
out’ in abhorrence of this tremendous iniquity; and you must expect
them to cry out like ‘the stones.’ You must not wonder if many of those
who have been left to take up this great cause, do not plead it in all
that seemliness of phrase which the scholars and practised rhetoricians
of our country might use. You must not expect them to manage with all
the calmness and discretion that clergymen and statesmen might exhibit.
But the scholars, the statesmen, the clergy had done nothing,--did
not seem about to do anything, and for my part I thank God that at
last any persons, be they who they may, have earnestly engaged in this
cause; for no _movement_ can be in vain. We Abolitionists are what we
are,--babes, sucklings, obscure men, silly women, publicans, sinners,
and we shall manage this matter just as might be expected of such
persons as we are. It is unbecoming in abler men who stood by and would
do nothing to complain of us because we do no better.
“Dr. Channing,” I continued with increased earnestness, “it is not
_our fault_ that those who might have conducted this great reform more
prudently have left it to us to manage as we may. It is not _our fault_
that those who might have pleaded for the enslaved so much more wisely
and eloquently, both with the pen and the living voice than we can,
have been silent. We are not to blame, sir, that you, who, more perhaps
than any other man, might have so raised the voice of remonstrance
that it should have been heard throughout the length and breadth of
the land,--we are not to blame, sir, that you have not so spoken. And
now that inferior men have been impelled to speak and act against what
you acknowledge to be an awful system of iniquity, it is not becoming
in you to complain of us because we do it in an inferior style. Why,
sir, have you not taken this matter in hand yourself? Why have you not
spoken to the nation long ago, as you, better than any other one, could
have spoken?”
At this point I bethought me to whom I was administering this
rebuke,--the man who stood among the highest of the great and good in
our land,--the man whose reputation for wisdom and sanctity had become
world-wide,--the man, too, who had ever treated me with the kindness of
a father, and whom, from my childhood, I had been accustomed to revere
more than any one living. I was almost overwhelmed with a sense of my
temerity. His countenance showed that he was much moved. I could not
suppose he would receive all I had said very graciously. I awaited his
reply in painful expectation. The minutes seemed very long that elapsed
before the silence was broken. Then in a very subdued manner and in
the kindliest tones of his voice he said, “Brother May, I acknowledge
the justice of your reproof. I have been silent too long.” Never shall
I forget his words, look, whole appearance. I then and there saw the
beauty, the magnanimity, the humility of a truly great Christian soul.
He was exalted in my esteem more even than before.
The next spring, when I removed to Boston and became the General Agent
of the Antislavery Society, Dr. Channing was the first of the ministers
there to call upon me, and express any sympathy with me in the great
work to which I had come to devote myself. And during the whole
fourteen months that I continued in that office he treated me with
uniform kindness, and often made anxious inquiries about the phases of
our attempted reform of the nation.
Early in December, 1835, Dr. Channing’s volume on Slavery issued from
the press. A few days after its publication, he invited Samuel E.
Sewall and myself to dine with him, that he might learn how we liked
his book. Both of us had been delighted with some parts of it, but
neither of us was satisfied with other parts; much dissatisfied with
some. He requested and insisted on the utmost freedom in our comments.
He listened to our objections very patiently, and seemed disposed to
give them their due weight.
As was to be expected, the appearance of a work on Slavery, by Dr.
Channing, caused a great sensation throughout the land. It was sought
for with avidity. It found its way into many parlors from which a copy
of _The Liberator_ would have been spurned. Most of the statesmen of
our country read it, and many slaveholders.
Not many days elapsed before the responses which it awakened began
to be heard; and they were by no means altogether such as he had
expected. Although he disclaimed the Abolitionists; stated that
he had never attended one of our meetings, nor heard one of our
lecturers; although he made several grave objections to our doctrines
and measures, and unwittingly gave his sanction to several of the
most serious misrepresentations of our sentiments, our objects, and
means of prosecuting them; yet he so utterly repudiated the right of
any man to _property_ in the person of any other man, and gave such
a fearful _exposé_ of the sinfulness of holding slaves and the vices
which infested the communities where human beings were held in such an
unnatural condition, that the Southern aristocracy and their Northern
partisans came soon to regard him as a more dangerous man than even Mr.
Garrison. He was denounced as an enemy of his country, as encouraging
the insurrection of the slaves, and as in effect laboring to do as much
harm as the Abolitionists.
In due time an octavo pamphlet of forty-eight pages was published in
Boston, entitled “Remarks on Dr. Channing’s Slavery.” It was evidently
written by a very able hand, and was attributed to one of the most
prominent lawyers in that city. The writer spoke respectfully of
Dr. Channing, but condemned utterly his doctrines on the subject
of slavery, and found in them all the viciousness of the extremest
abolitionism. The author announced and labored to maintain the
following false propositions: “First. Public sentiment in the free
States in relation to slavery is perfectly sound and _ought not_ to be
altered. Second. Public sentiment in the slaveholding States, whether
right or not, _cannot_ be altered. Third. An attempt to produce any
alteration in the public sentiment of the country will cause great
additional evil,--moral, social, and political.”
Such bald scepticism was not to be tolerated. “A Review of the Remarks”
was soon sent forth. This called out a “Reply to the Review,” and thus
the subject of slavery was fully broached among a class of people who
had given no heed to _The Liberator_ and our antislavery tracts.
In future articles I shall have occasion gratefully to acknowledge the
further services rendered by Dr. Channing to the antislavery cause,
and to show how at last he came nearly to accord in sentiment with the
ultra-Abolitionists.