The title of this article announces a great event in the progress of
our antislavery conflict, and opens a subject the adequate treatment of
which would fill a volume much larger than I intend to impose upon the
public.
From the beginning of Mr. Garrison’s enterprise excellent women were
among his most earnest, devoted, unshrinking fellow-laborers. Their
moral instincts made them quicker to discern the right than most men
were, and their lack of political discipline left them to the guidance
of their convictions and humane feelings. Would that I could name all
the women who rendered us valuable services when we most needed help.
In our early meetings, at our lectures, public discussions, &c., a
large portion of our auditors were females, whose sympathy cheered and
animated us. Among our first and fastest friends in Boston were Mrs.
L. M. Child, Mrs. M. W. Chapman, and her sisters, the Misses Weston,
and her husband’s sisters, Miss Mary and Miss Ann G. Chapman, and their
cousin, Miss Anna Green, now Mrs. Wendell Phillips,--then, as now, in
feeble health, but strong in faith and unfaltering in purpose. There,
too, were Mrs. E. L. Follen and her sister, Miss Susan Cabot, Miss
Mary S. Parker, Mrs. Anna Southwick, Mrs. Mary May, Mrs. Philbrick,
Miss Henrietta Sargent, and others. In Philadelphia we found wholly
with us, Lucretia Mott, Esther Moore, Lydia White, Sarah Pugh, Mrs.
Purvis, the Misses Forten, and Mary Grew. In New York, too, there were
many with whom I did not become personally acquainted. And indeed
wherever in our country the doctrine of “immediate, unconditional
emancipation” (first taught by a woman[K]) was proclaimed there were
found good women ready to embrace and help to propagate it. Often were
they our self-appointed committees of ways and means, and by fairs
and other pleasant devices raised much money to sustain our lecturers
and periodicals. The contributions from their pens were frequent and
invaluable. I have already spoken of Mrs. Child’s “Appeal,” and of her
many other excellent antislavery writings. I ought also to acknowledge
our indebtedness to her as the editor, for several years, of _The
Antislavery Standard_, which, without compromising its fidelity or
efficiency, she made very attractive by its literary qualities and its
entertaining and instructive miscellany.
Mrs. Maria W. Chapman, who wielded gracefully a trenchant pen, plied
it busily in our cause with great effect. Her successive numbers
of “Right and Wrong in Boston” were too incisive not to touch the
feelings of the good people of that metropolis, which claimed to be the
birthplace of American independence, but had ceased to be jealous for
“the inalienable rights of man.” Year after year her “Liberty Bell”
rung out the clearest notes of personal, civil, and spiritual liberty,
and she compiled our Antislavery Hymn Book,--“The Songs of the
Free,”--effusions of her own and her sisters’ warm hearts, and of their
kindred spirits in this country and England.
But though the excellent women whom I have named, and many more like
them, constantly attended our meetings, and often _suggested_ the best
things that were said and done at them, they could not be persuaded
to utter their thoughts aloud. They were bound to silence by the
almost universal sentiment and custom which forbade “women to speak in
meeting.”
In 1836 two ladies of a distinguished family in South Carolina--Sarah
and Angelina E. Grimké--came to New York, under a deep sense of
obligation to do what they could in the service of that class of
persons with whose utter enslavement they had been familiar from
childhood. They were members of the “Society of Friends,” and were
moved by the Holy Spirit, as the event proved, to come on this mission
of love. They made themselves acquainted with the Abolitionists,
our principles, measures, and spirit. These commended themselves
so entirely to their consciences and benevolent feelings that they
advocated them with great earnestness, and enforced their truth by
numerous facts drawn from their own past experience and observation.
In the fall of 1836 Miss A. E. Grimké published an “Appeal to the
Women of the South,” on the subject of slavery. This evinced such a
thorough acquaintance with the American system of oppression, and so
deep a conviction of its fearful sinfulness, that Professor Elizur
Wright, then Corresponding Secretary of the American Antislavery
Society, urged her and her sister Sarah to come to the city of New York
and address ladies in their sewing-circles, and in parlors, to which
they might be invited to meet antislavery ladies and their friends.
No man was better able than Professor Wright to appreciate the value
of the contributions which these South Carolina ladies were prepared
to make to the cause of impartial liberty and outraged humanity. As
early as 1833, while Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy
in Western Reserve College, he published an elaborate and powerful
pamphlet on “The Sin of Slave-holding,” which we accounted one of our
most important tracts. Commended by him and by others who had read her
“Appeal,” Miss Grimké and her sister attracted the antislavery women of
New York in such numbers that soon no parlor or drawing-room was large
enough to accommodate those who were eager to hear them. The Rev. Dr.
Dunbar, therefore, offered them the use of the vestry or lecture-room
of his church for their meetings, and they were held there several
times. Such, however, was the interest created by their addresses, that
the vestry was too small for their audiences. Accordingly, the Rev.
Henry G. Ludlow opened his church to them and their hearers, of whom a
continually increasing number were gentlemen.
Early in 1837 the Massachusetts Antislavery Society invited these
ladies to come to Boston to address meetings of those of their own sex.
But it was impossible to keep them thus exclusive, and soon, wherever
they were advertised to speak, there a large concourse of men as well
as women was sure to be assembled. This was an added offence, which our
opposers were not slow to mark, nor to condemn in any small measure.
It showed plainly enough that “the Abolitionists were ready to set at
naught the order and decorum of the Christian church.”
My readers may smile when I confess to them that at first I was myself
not a little disturbed in my sense of propriety. But I took the matter
into serious consideration. I looked the facts fully in the face.
Here were millions of our countrymen held in the most abject, cruel
bondage. More than half of them were females, whose condition in some
respects was more horrible than that of the males. The people of the
North had consented to this gigantic wrong with those of the South, and
those who had risen up to oppose it were denounced as enemies of their
country, were persecuted, their property and their persons violated.
The pulpit for the most part was dumb, the press was everywhere,
with small exceptions, wielded in the service of the oppressors, the
political parties were vying with each other in obsequiousness to the
slaveholding oligarchy, and the petitions of the slaves and their
advocates were contemptuously and angrily spurned from the legislature
of the Republic. Surely, the condition of our country was wretched and
most perilous. I remembered that in the greatest emergencies of nations
women had again and again come forth from the retirement to which they
were consigned, or in which they preferred to dwell, and had spoken the
word or done the deed which the crises demanded. Surely, the friends
of humanity, of the right and the true, never needed help more than
we needed it. And here had come two well-informed persons of exalted
character from the midst of slavedom to testify to the correctness of
our allegations against slavery, and tell of more of its horrors than
we knew. And shall they not be heard because they are women? I saw, I
felt it was a miserable prejudice that would forbid woman to speak or
to act in behalf of the suffering, the outraged, just as her heart may
prompt and as God has given her power. So I sat me down and penned as
earnest a letter as I could write to the Misses Grimké, inviting them
to come to my house, then in South Scituate, to stay with us as long as
their engagements would permit, to speak to the people from my pulpit,
from the pulpit of my excellent cousin, Rev. E. Q. Sewall, Scituate,
and from as many other pulpits in the county of Plymouth as might be
opened to them.
They came to us the last week of October, 1837, and tarried eight days.
It was a week of highest, purest enjoyment to me and my precious wife,
and most profitable to the community.
On Sunday evening Angelina addressed a full house from my pulpit for
two hours in strains of wise remark and eloquent appeal, which settled
the question of the propriety of her “speaking in meeting.”
The next afternoon she spoke to a large audience in Mr. Sewall’s
meeting-house in Scituate, for an hour and a half, evidently to their
great acceptance. The following Wednesday I took the sisters to
Duxbury, where, in the Methodist Church that evening, Angelina held six
hundred hearers in fixed attention for two hours, and received from
them frequent audible (as well as visible) expressions of assent and
sympathy.
On Friday afternoon I went with them to the Baptist meeting-house
in Hanover, where a crowd was already assembled to hear them. Sarah
Grimké, the state of whose voice had prevented her speaking on either
of the former occasions, gave a most impressive discourse of more than
an hour’s length on the dangers of slavery, revealing to us some things
which only those who had lived in the prison-house could have learnt.
Angelina followed in a speech of nearly an hour, in which she made the
duty and safety of immediate emancipation appear so plainly that the
wayfaring man though a fool must have seen the truth. If there was a
person there who went away unaffected, he would not have been moved
though an angel instead of Angelina had spoken to him. I said then, I
have often said since, that I never have heard from any other lips,
male or female, such eloquence as that of her closing appeal. Several
gentlemen who had come from Hingham, not disposed nor expecting to be
pleased, rushed up to me when the audience began to depart, and after
berating me roundly for “going about the neighborhood with these women
setting public sentiment at naught and violating the decorum of the
church,” said “there can be no doubt that they have a right to speak in
public, and they ought to be heard; do bring them to Hingham as soon as
may be. Our meeting-house shall be at their service.” Accordingly, the
next day I took them thither, and they spoke there with great effect on
Sunday evening, November 5th, from the pulpit of the Unitarian Church,
then occupied by Rev. Charles Brooks.
The experience of that week dispelled my Pauline prejudice. I needed
no other warrant for the course the Misses Grimké were pursuing than
the evidence they gave of their power to speak so as to instruct and
deeply impress those who listened to them. I could not believe that
God gave them such talents as they evinced to be buried in a napkin.
I could not think they would be justified in withholding what was so
obviously given them to say on the great iniquity of our country,
because they were women. And ever since that day I have been steadfast
in the opinion that the daughters of men ought to be just as thoroughly
and highly educated as the sons, that their physical, mental, and moral
powers should be as fully developed, and that they should be allowed
and encouraged to engage in any employment, enter into any profession,
for which they have properly qualified themselves, and that women
ought to be paid the same compensation as men for services of any kind
equally well performed. This radical opinion is spreading rapidly in
this country and in England, and it will ultimately prevail, just
as surely as that God is impartial and that “in Christ Jesus there
is neither bond nor free, neither male nor female.” And yet it has
been, and is, as strenuously opposed and as harshly denounced as was
our demand of the immediate emancipation of the enslaved. Men and
women, press and pulpit, statesmen and clergymen, legislative and
ecclesiastical bodies have raised the cry of alarm, and pronounced
the advocates of the equal rights of women dangerous persons,
disorganizers, infidels.
The first combined assault was made upon “The Rights of Women” by
the Pastoral Association of Massachusetts in the fall of 1837 or the
spring of 1838, in their spiritual bull against the antislavery labors
of the Misses Grimké, which it utterly condemned as unchristian and
demoralizing. This, of course, made it the duty, as it was pleasure, of
the New England Abolitionists to stand by those excellent women, who
had rendered such inestimable services to the cause of the enslaved,
the down-trodden, the despised millions of our countrymen. Therefore,
at the next New England Antislavery Convention, held in Boston, May,
1838, attended by delegates from eleven States, it was “_Voted_, That
all persons present, or who may be present, at subsequent meetings,
whether men or women, who agree with us in sentiment on the subject
of slavery, be invited to become members and participate in the
proceedings of the Convention.”
This gave rise to a long and very animated discussion, but was passed
by a very large majority. Immediately eight Orthodox clergymen
requested to have their names erased from the roll of that Convention,
and seven others, including some of our faithful fellow-laborers,
presented a protest against the vote, which, by their request, was
entered upon the records, and published with the doings of the
Convention.
At that same great gathering a committee of three persons was
appointed to prepare and transmit a memorial to each and all of the
ecclesiastical associations in New England, of every sect, beseeching
them to testify against the further continuance in our country of
slavery, and take such measures as they might deem best to induce the
members of their several denominations who were guilty of the dreadful
iniquity to consider and turn away from it. One of that committee was a
much respected woman, as well qualified as either of her associates to
discharge the duties assigned them. An excellent memorial was prepared
and presented in accordance with the vote. But it was very coldly
received by some, and rudely treated by others of the ecclesiastical
bodies to which it was sent. On the presentation of it to the Rhode
Island Congregational Consociation, a scene of great excitement
ensued. The memorial was treated with all possible indignity. Most of
the brethren who had been earnest for the reception of it, and for
such action as it requested, when they were informed that one of the
committee by whom the memorial was prepared was a woman, united in a
vote “_to turn the illegitimate product from the house, and obliterate
from the records all traces of its entrance_.” No deliberative assembly
ever behaved in a more indecorous manner. And those who were most
active in trampling upon that respectful petition in behalf of bleeding
humanity were the professed ministers of Him who came to preach
deliverance to the captive. “_O tempora! O mores!!_”
“THE PASTORAL LETTER” AND “THE CLERICAL APPEAL.”
Abolitionists from the first were persons of both sexes and all
complexions, of every class in society, of every religious
denomination, of each of the three learned professions, of both
political parties, and of all the various trades and occupations
in which men and women engage. Although it is too true that most
ministers, especially in the cities, were slow to espouse the cause of
the oppressed, yet it is due to them to say that, taking the country
through, there were, in proportion to their numbers, more of that
profession than of either of the others who embraced the doctrine
of “immediate emancipation,” advocated it publicly, wrote columns,
pamphlets, and volumes in its defence, and suffered no little obloquy
and persecution for so doing. And they were, as I have said, of every
Protestant sect. Whenever a complete history of our antislavery
conflict shall be written, grateful and admiring mention will be made
of the valuable services and generous sacrifices of many ministers
whose names may not appear in my slight sketches.
These various individuals were evidently moved by one spirit, drawn
together by the conviction that there was a great, a fearful iniquity
involved in the enslavement of millions of the inhabitants of our
land, that if the God-given rights of humanity were (as the founders
of our Republic declared them to be) inalienable, then those men, who
were holding human beings as their chattels, were setting the will and
authority of the Almighty at defiance, and would bring themselves to
ruin. Moreover, there was a deep conviction awakened in the hearts of
those who openly espoused the cause of the bondmen, that the people
of the North were verily guilty in consenting to their enslavement;
and, as the States and the churches refused to interfere for their
deliverance, it was left for individuals and voluntary associations
to do what might be done, so to correct public opinion and awaken the
public conscience that slavery could not be tolerated in the land.
Further than this there was little agreement among the early
Abolitionists. But this proved to be a mighty solvent. And for
years the wonderful, the beautiful, the Christian sight was
seen,--Trinitarians and Unitarians, Methodists and Universalists,
Baptists and Quakers, laboring together in the cause of suffering
fellow-beings, with so much earnestness that they had set aside, for
the while, their theological and ritualistic peculiarities, and seemed
to rejoice in their release from those narrow enclosures. Coming out
of our hall on the second evening of our Convention in Philadelphia,
in December, 1833, a young Orthodox minister took my arm with an
affectionate pressure, and said, “Brother May, I never thought that I
could feel towards a Unitarian as I feel towards you.” My reply was:
“Dear M., if professing Christians were only real Christians, engaged
in the work of the Lord, they could not find the time nor the heart to
quarrel about creeds and rites.” Wherever I went, preaching the gospel
of impartial liberty, I was as cordially received by Orthodox as by
Unitarian Abolitionists, until I came to have a much more brotherly
feeling towards an antislavery Presbyterian or Baptist or Methodist
than I did towards a Unitarian who was proslavery, or indifferent
to the wrongs of the bondmen. And this feeling was obviously
reciprocated. I was repeatedly invited to preach in the pulpits of
Orthodox ministers, and to commune with Orthodox churches. Once I
attended a church in company with Miss Ann G. Chapman, one of the most
single-minded and true-hearted of women. The invitation to the Lord’s
table was given in such words as virtually excluded us. Of course
we arose and departed. But so soon as the service was over both the
minister and deacon (beloved antislavery brethren) came to my lodgings
to assure me that the exclusion was not intended, and that whenever
Miss Chapman and myself might again be at their church on a similar
occasion, they hoped that we would commune there.
I give these facts, and could give many more like them, to show
the anti-sectarian tendency of the antislavery reform. This was
perceived by many of “the wise and prudent” leaders of the sects,
and was evidently watched by them with a jealous eye. As the number
of Abolitionists increased, and our influence in the churches came
to be felt more and more, many of those leaders joined antislavery
societies, partly, no doubt, because they had been brought to see the
truth of our doctrines and the importance of the work we were laboring
to accomplish, but also in part, if not chiefly (as I was afterwards
forced to suspect), because they wished to maintain the ascendency
over their sects, and to prevent the obliteration of the lines which
separated them from such as they were pleased to consider unsound in
faith.
We were greatly encouraged and gladdened by the accessions we received
in 1835 and 1836. Many ministers of the evangelical sects joined
us, not a few of them Doctors of Divinity. And the obligations of
Christians to the bondmen in our land, and the discipline that should
be brought to bear on those professing Christians who were holding them
in slavery, became the subjects of earnest debate in several of the
large ecclesiastical bodies. But we found these new-comers were much
disposed to object to the liberty that was allowed on our platform.
Generally the president or chairman of our meetings would call upon
some one to invoke the divine blessing upon our undertaking. Sometimes,
in deference to our Quaker brethren, we would sit in silence until the
Spirit moved some one to offer prayer. Then again, persons who were
not members of any religious denomination, nay, even some who were
suspected of being, if not known to be, unbelievers, infidels, were
permitted to co-operate with us, to contribute to our funds, to take
part in our deliberations, and to be put upon our committees. This
was a scandal in the estimation of those of the “straitest sect.” Our
only reply was, that as so many, who made the highest professions of
Christian faith, turned a deaf ear to the cries of the millions who
were suffering the greatest wrongs, we were grateful for the assistance
of such as made no professions. Not those who cried Lord, Lord, but
those who were eager to do the will of the impartial Father, were the
persons we valued most.
But nothing gave so much offence as the admission of women to speak in
our meetings, to act on our committees, and to co-operate with us in
any way they saw fit. In my last I gave some account of the rupture
it caused in our New England Antislavery Convention in 1838. This was
foreshadowed the year previous. Some time in the summer of 1837 the
General Association of Massachusetts issued a “Pastoral Letter to the
churches under their care,” intended to avert the alarming evils which
were coming upon them from the over-heated zeal of the Abolitionists.
First, the extraordinary document mourns over the loss of deference
to the pastoral office, which is enjoined in Scripture, and which is
essential to the best influence of the ministry. At this day, when
all but Roman Catholics and High Church Episcopalians are wondering
at, if not amused by, the dealing of Bishop Potter with Mr. Tyng, it
may surprise my readers to be told that thirty years ago the Orthodox
Congregational ministers of Massachusetts set up the same claim of
authority in their several parishes, that the diocesan of New York and
New Jersey demands for his clergymen. “One way,” they said in their
Pastoral Letter, “one way in which the respect due to the pastoral
office has been in some cases violated, is in encouraging lecturers or
preachers on certain topics of reform to present their subjects within
the parochial limits of settled pastors, _without their consent_.”
“Your minister is ordained of God to be your teacher, and is commanded
to feed that flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made him overseer.
If there are certain topics upon which he does not preach with the
frequency, or in the manner that would please _you_, it is a violation
of _sacred and important_ RIGHTS to encourage a stranger to present
them.” “Deference and _subordination_ are essential to the happiness
of society, and _peculiarly so_ in the relation of a people to their
pastor.” Happily for those who may come after us, we Abolitionists have
done much to emancipate the people from such spiritual bondage, and
secure to them the privilege of seeking after knowledge wherever it may
be found, and yielding themselves to good influences, let them come
through whatever channel they may.
But the “Pastoral Letter” dwelt at greater length upon the dangers
which threatened the female character with wide-spread and permanent
injury. Forgetting that women were the _bravest_, as well as the
most devoted and affectionate of the first disciples of Jesus, that
in all ages since they have been prominent among the confessors of
Christianity, and that in our day they do more than men to uphold the
churches,--forgetting these facts, the frightened authors and signers
of that letter uttered themselves thus: “The power of woman is in her
_dependence_, flowing from the consciousness of that weakness which
God has given her _for_ her protection, and which keeps her in those
departments of life that form the characters of individuals and of the
nation.... But, when she assumes the place and tone of man as a public
reformer, _our care and protection of her seem unnecessary_; we put
ourselves in self-defence against her; she yields the power which God
has given her for protection, and her character becomes unnatural. If
the vine, whose strength and beauty is to lean upon the trellis-work
and half conceal its clusters, thinks to assume the independence and
the overshading nature of the elm, it will not only cease to bear
fruit, but will fall in shame and dishonor into the dust.” Did not
those ministers know--were there not in their day wives who sustained
their husbands instead of leaning upon them? women who were the stay
and staff of the men of their families--their mental and moral stamina?
There have been such women in all other times; we have known and do
know such women now. If our antislavery conflict has done nothing else,
it has shown that there is neither orthodox nor heterodox, neither
white nor black, neither male nor female, but all _are one in the work
of the Lord_.
Undismayed by the censure and warning of so exalted a body as the
General Association, we Abolitionists continued to labor as we had
done, pursuing the same measures, using the same instrumentalities,
employing as our agents and lecturers women no less than men, whom
we found able as well as willing to do good service. And to several,
besides those I have already named, the bondmen and their advocates
were immeasurably indebted. Abby Kelly (now Mrs. Foster) performed
for years an incredible amount of labor. Her manner of speaking in
her best days was singularly effective. Her knowledge of the subject
was complete, her facts were pertinent, her arguments forcible, her
criticisms were keen, her condemnation was terrible. Few of our agents
of either sex did more work while her strength lasted, or did it better.
Susan B. Anthony was one of the living spirits of our financial
department, indomitable in her purposes, ingenious in her plans,
untiring in her exertions, she not only kept herself continually at
work, but spurred all about her to new effort. She has often herself
spoken to excellent effect, and more frequently stimulated others to
their best efforts.
Miss Sallie Holley has seldom consented to speak in our largest
assemblies, or in our cities. But we have very frequently heard of her
diligent labors in the rural districts, and of the good fruits she has
gathered there. Her eloquence is particularly dignified and impressive.
I should love to tell of Lucy Stone, and Antoinette L. Brown, and Mrs.
E. C. Stanton, and Ernestine L. Rose, all wise women and attractive
speakers, but their word and work has been given more to the advocacy
of “Woman’s Rights.” The reformation for which they have toiled so
long and so well, though the offspring of Abolitionism, is still _more
radical_; and to the history of it volumes will hereafter be devoted.
I can here only name Miss Anna E. Dickinson, now one of the most
attractive of the popular lecturers. Although another of the women who
have been brought out of their retirement by the exigency of the times,
yet she came upon the platform about the period at which I intend these
recollections shall cease.
As surely as the conflict with slavery has been found to be
irrepressible, so surely will it be found to be impossible to suppress
the conflict for the rights of women until they shall be securely
placed where the Creator intended them to stand, on an entire equality
with men in their domestic, social, legal, and political relations.
Not long after the “Pastoral Letter,” there came forth from some of
the members of the Massachusetts General Association a still more
pointed attack upon _The Liberator_, Mr. Garrison and his associates,
one which would have been very damaging if it had not been so easily
repelled. It was entitled the “Appeal of Clerical Abolitionists on
Antislavery Measures,” signed by two Orthodox ministers of Boston, and
three in the vicinity of that city. As these gentlemen had belonged
to the Antislavery Society, and two of them had been vehement if not
fierce in their advocacy of our doctrines, it would seem that they
must have known whereof they affirmed. They prefaced their Appeal with
a declaration of their lively interest in the cause of the oppressed,
their clear perception of the sinfulness and their detestation of
slavery. Then they went on to accuse the leading Abolitionists, 1st,
of hasty, unsparing, and almost ferocious denunciation “of a certain
reverend gentleman because he had resided in the South,” without having
taken pains to ascertain whether he had been a slaveholder or not; 2d,
They accused us of “hasty insinuations” against an Orthodox minister of
high standing in Boston, that he was a slaveholder, without having had
any proof of the _truth_ of the reports we may have heard so damaging
to the reverend gentleman’s reputation. Their third, fourth, and fifth
accusations were, that we had demanded of ministers what we had no
right to require of them; had abused them for not doing as we called
upon them to do, and, through our zeal in the cause of the enslaved,
we had become indifferent to other Christian enterprises, and would
withdraw from them the regards of those who co-operated with us, and
that we had censured and denounced excellent Christian ministers and
church-members because they were not prepared to enter fully into the
work of antislavery societies.
This document, coming from such persons, of course was the occasion of
no little excitement. Our enemies exulted over it as testimony against
us, given by those who had been in our councils and well knew what
spirit animated us. Others who had been timid friends, or half inclined
to join our ranks, were at first repulsed from us by the apprehension
that there was too much truth in these charges.
But as soon as possible elaborate and thorough replies were published
to this Appeal, denying the truth of each of the above-named
accusations, and showing them to be false. One of the replies was
written by Mr. Garrison, in his clear and trenchant style, and showed
up the inconsistency as well as the falseness of the accusations by
ample quotations from the writings and speeches of Mr. Fitch, the
author of the Appeal. The other reply was from the pen of Rev. A. A.
Phelps.
This good orthodox brother was then the General Agent of the
Antislavery Society, and therefore felt it to be incumbent upon him to
repel charges so unjust and so injurious. No one but Mr. Garrison was
so competent as he to do this. From an early period Mr. Phelps had been
engaged in this great reform. In 1833 or 1834 he published a volume on
the subject, which showed how thoroughly he understood the principles,
how deeply he was imbued with the spirit, of the undertaking. He gave
years of undivided attention to the cause, and by the labors of his pen
and his voice rendered essential services. His reply to the Appeal was
complete, exhaustive, unanswerable. And thus what was intended to do us
harm was overruled for our good. It gave a fair and proper occasion for
the fullest exposition to the public of our doctrines, our measures,
and of the spirit in which we intended to prosecute them.
I am most happy to conclude this narrative by stating, because it is so
highly honorable to Rev. Charles Fitch, the author of the Appeal, that
some time afterwards he saw and frankly confessed his fault. On the 9th
of January, 1840, in a letter addressed to Mr. Garrison, after a very
proper introduction to such a confession, Mr. Fitch said:--
“I feel bound in duty to say to you, sir, that to gain the good will
of man was the only object I had in view in everything which I did
relative to the ‘Clerical Appeal.’ As I now look back upon it, in the
light in which it has of late been spread before my own mind (as I
doubt not by the Spirit of God), I can clearly see that in all that
matter I had no regard for the glory of God or the good of man. If
you can make any use of this communication that you think will be an
honor to Him, or a service to the cause of truth, dispose of it at your
pleasure.”
It surely will do good to republish this magnanimous, noble, Christian
confession of the wrong that was attempted to be done by that “Clerical
Appeal.”