Hon. Mr. Beardsley, mentioned above, one of the Committee of twenty-five, also said, “It is proper we should hear what the Convention have to say, either now or by their Committee. We are bound to hear them; we are bound to exercise all patience and long-suffering,even towards such an assembly as this.... For my part, I should like to hear what apology can be made for proceedings which we know, and they know, are intended to exasperate the members of our National Union against each other. They profess to come here on an errand of religion, while, under its guise, they are hypocritically plotting the dissolution of the American Union. They have been warned beforehand, have been treated with unexampled patience, and if they now refuse to yield to our demand, and any unpleasant circumstancesshould follow, we shall not be responsible.” Such talk, and more of the same sort that he uttered, was adapted, if it was not intended, to inflame the mobocrats yet more. So when, in conclusion, he said, “But let us hear their justification for this outrage on our feelings, if they have any to offer,” the cry rose, “No! we won’t hear them; they sha’n’t be heard. Let them go home. Let them ask our forgiveness, and we will let them go.” Many of the rioters were too evidently inflamed with strong drink as well as passion; and this was easily accounted for, though it was in the forenoon of the day, by the fact afterwards stated in the New YorkCommercial Advertiser, that the grog-shops in the neighborhood were thrown open and liquor furnishedgratuitouslyto the tools and minions of “the very respectable citizens, the best people of Utica,” who were determined their city should not tolerate a Convention of Abolitionists. It was evident that these leaders held “the baser sort” under some restraint, for one of them cried out, “Letthemsay the word, and I am ready to tear the rascals in pieces.” Loud threats of violence were reiterated, with imprecations and blasphemies. The leading members of the Committee of twenty-five besought the Convention to adjourn, and seeing that it was impossible to transact any more business, they did adjournsine die.
Most of the members retired unmolested excepting by abusive, profane, and obscene epithets. A cry was raised by some of the Committee for “the minutes” of the Convention, and members pressed upon the venerable Secretary, demanding that he should give them up. But he resolutely refused, though they crowded him against the wall, seized him by the collar, and threatened to beat him. A member of the Committee of twenty-five, a man holding an important public office,raised his cane over that aged and faithful minister of the Gospel and cried out, “God damn you! give the papers up, or I will knock you on the head.” At this, another of the Committee, a young man—his son—sprang forward and begged him, “Do, father, give them up and save your life. Give them to me, and I will pledge myself they shall be returned to you again.” With this Rev. Mr. Wetmore complied, and was let off without any further harm.
Many of the newspapers, especially those of New York City, exulted over the results of the riots of the 21st of October in Boston and Utica. They boasted that, by thus dealing with the Abolitionists, the people of the Northern States proved themselves to be sound to the core on the subject of slavery. “Hereafter,” said the New YorkSunday Morning News, “hereafter the leaders of the Abolitionists will be treated with less forbearance than they have been heretofore. The people will consider them as out of the pale of the legal and conventional protection which society affords to its honest and well-meaning members. They will be treated as robbers and pirates, as the enemies of the human kind.”
The most important incident of the Utica riot was the accession which it caused ofGerrit Smithto our ranks. The great and good man had, for many years, been an active opponent of slavery. He had always been in favor of immediate emancipation, and was unusually free from prejudice against colored people. But from almost the beginning of the Colonization Society he had been a member of it, deceived as we all were by the representations which its agents at the North made of its intentions and the tendency of its operations. He believed its scheme was intended to effect and would effect the abolition of slavery. He therefore joined it, and labored heartily in its behalf, and contributed mostgenerously to its funds,—ten thousand dollars, if not more. Mr. Smith was repulsed from the American Antislavery Society, and kept away for nearly two years, because he thought Mr. Garrison and his associates were unjust in their denunciations of the Colonization Society, and too severe in their censures of the American churches and ministers, as virtually the accomplices of slaveholders.
But the outrages committed upon the Abolitionists in the fall of 1834, and throughout the year 1835, fixed his attention more fully upon them. He determined to know, to search, and prove those who had become the subjects of such general and unsparing persecution. When, therefore, the Convention for the formation of a State Antislavery Society was to be held in Utica (only twenty-five or thirty miles from his residence), he could not withhold himself from it. He went thither, not as a member of any Antislavery Society, not intending to become a member, but determined to hear for himself what should be said, see what should be done, learn what might be proposed, and decide as he should find reason to, between the Abolitionists and their adversaries. Alas, that the prominent, influential, professedly religious men in every part of our country did not do likewise! Then would the names of comparatively few of them have gone down, in the history of this generation, as the leaders and instigators of a most shameful persecution of the friends of freedom and humanity.
Mr. Smith was so disgusted, shocked, alarmed, at the proceedings of “the gentlemen of property and standing” in Utica, that he invited all the members of the antislavery convention to repair to Peterboro’. And a large proportion of the members accepted his invitation. Insults and threats of violence were showered upon them wherever they were met in the streets of Utica and atthe hotels where they had quartered themselves. The same evil spirit of hatred pursued them on their way. Especially at Vernon, the hotel at which they had stopped for refreshment was beset by a mob, with an evident determination to rout them and drive them from the village. But the resolute action of Captain Hand, the landlord, dispersed the rioters.
Arrived at Peterboro’, the Abolitionists were most cordially received, not only at the hospitable and spacious mansion of Gerrit Smith, but into the houses of most of his neighbors. And the next day was held in the Presbyterian Church the first meeting of the New York State Antislavery Society. At that meeting Mr. Smith brought forward the followingresolution:—
“Resolved, That the right ofFREE DISCUSSIONgiven us by our God, and asserted and guarded by the laws of our country, is a right so vital to man’s freedom and dignity and usefulness that we can never be guilty of its surrender, without consenting to exchange that liberty for slavery and that dignity and usefulness for debasement and worthlessness.”
“Resolved, That the right ofFREE DISCUSSIONgiven us by our God, and asserted and guarded by the laws of our country, is a right so vital to man’s freedom and dignity and usefulness that we can never be guilty of its surrender, without consenting to exchange that liberty for slavery and that dignity and usefulness for debasement and worthlessness.”
This resolution he supported and enforced by a speech of surpassing power,—a speech which deserves to be printed in letters of light large enough to be seen throughout our country.G
Ever since that eventful period of our history Gerrit Smith has been a most zealous fellow-laborer in the antislavery cause, and bountiful contributor of money in its behalf. He has made as many speeches in large meetings and small as any man who has not been a hired agent. He announced the doctrines of the immediate Abolitionists in the Congress of the United States and maintained them in several speeches of great ability. He has made frequent donations to some special, or to the general purposes of our Society of one, two, five, ten thousanddollars at a time. He has in every way befriended the colored people of our country, and at one time gave forty acres of land, in the State of New York, to each one of three thousand poor, temperate men of that class. I shall have an occasion in another place to speak more particularly of the acts of this almost unequalled giver.
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 theirslavesand 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 fromThe Liberatorupon 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 ourvital 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’sLiberator. The Doctordwelt 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 andmanner:—
“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.Weare 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 nomovementcan be in vain. We Abolitionists are what we are,—babes, sucklings, obscure men, silly women, publicans, sinners, and we shall manage this matter justas 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 notour faultthat those who might have conducted this great reform more prudently have left it to us to manage as we may. It is notour faultthat 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 verysubdued 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 ofThe Liberatorwould 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 disclaimedthe 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 topropertyin the person of any other man, and gave such a fearfulexposéof 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 andought notto be altered. Second. Public sentiment in the slaveholding States, whether right or not,cannotbe 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. Thiscalled 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 toThe Liberatorand 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.
This was the title of Dr. Channing’s book. It rendered the antislavery cause services so important that I am impelled to give a further account of it. It seemed to me at the time, it seems to me now, one of the most inconsistent books I have ever read. It showed how, all unconsciously to himself, the judgment of that wise man had been warped and his prejudices influenced by the deference, which had come to be paid pretty generally throughout our country, to the Southern slaveholding oligarchy; and by the denunciations which their admirers, sympathizers, abettors, and minions in the free States, poured without measure upon Mr. Garrison and his comparatively few fellow-laborers.
Dr. Channing’s profound respect for human nature and the rights of man, and his heartfelt compassion for the oppressed, suffering, despised, were such that he could not but see clearly the essential, inevitable, terrible wrongs and evils of slavery to the master as well as to his subject. He portrayed these cruelties and vices so clearly and forcibly that the pages of his book contain as utter condemnations of the domestic servitude in our Southern States, and as awful exposures of the consequent corruption, pollution of families and the communityin those States,—condemnations as utter and exposures as awful as could be found inThe Liberator. To his chapters on “Property in Man,” “Rights,” and “Evils of Slavery,” we could take no exceptions. But his chapter entitled “Explanations” seems to us, as Mr. Garrison called it, a chapter inrecantation,—a disastrous attempt to make it appear as if there could be sin without a sinner. He says that the character of the master and the wrong done to the slave are distinct points, having little or no relation to each other. He therefore did not “intend to pass sentence on the character of the slaveholder.” Jesus Christ taught that “by their fruits ye shall know men.” But the Doctor said in this chapter, “Men are not always to be interpreted by their acts or their institutions.” “Our ancestors,” he continued, “committed a deed now branded as piracy,” i. e. the slave-trade. “Were they, therefore, the offscouring of the earth?” No,—but they werepirates, their good qualities in other respects notwithstanding. They were guilty of kidnapping the Africans, and made themselves rich by selling their victims into slavery. Piracy was too mild a term for such atrocious acts. They were just as wicked before they were denounced by law as afterwards. And it was by bringing the people of England and of this country to see the enormity of the crimes inseparable from that trade in human beings, that they were persuaded to repent of it, to renounce and abhor it. Again Dr. Channing says under this head, “How many sects have persecuted and shed blood! Were their members, therefore, monsters of depravity?” I answer, their spirit was cruel and devilish, utterly unlike the spirit of Jesus. They were none of his, whatever may have been their professions. As well might we deny that David was a gross adulterer and mean murderer, because he wrote some very devotional psalms.
A more marvellous inconsistency in the book before us is this. The Doctor declares “that cruelty is not the habit of the slave States in this country.” “He might have affirmed just as truly,” said Mr. Garrison, “that idolatry is not the habit of pagan countries.” What is cruelty? The extremest is the reducing of a human being to the condition of a domesticated brute, a piece of mere property. The Doctor himself has said as much in another part of this volume, see the 26th page in his excellent chapter on “Property.” Having described what man is by nature, he adds, “The sacrifice of such a being to another’s will, to another’s present, outward, ill-comprehended good,is the greatest violence which can be offered to any creature of God. It is to cast him out from God’s spiritual family into the brutal herd.” “No robbery isso greatas that to which the slave ishabituallysubjected.” “The slavemustmeet crueltreatmenteither inwardly or outwardly. Either the soul or the body must receive the blow. Either the flesh must be tortured or the spirit be struck down.” No Abolitionist, not even Mr. Garrison, has set forth more clearly the extreme cruelty, inseparable from holding a fellow-man in slavery one hour.
Still Dr. Channing objected to our primal doctrine,—“immediate emancipation.” But could there have been a more obvious inference than this, which an upright mind would unavoidably draw from a consideration of the rights of man, the evils of slavery, and the unparalleled iniquity of subjecting a human being to such degradation. I ask, could there have been a more obvious inference than that any, every human being held in such a condition ought to beimmediately releasedfrom it? It is plain to me that Dr. Channing himself drew the same inference that Elizabeth Heyrick,Hof England,and Mr. Garrison had drawn, although he rejected the trenchant phrase in which they declared that inference. Having exhibited so faithfully and feelingly the wrongs and the evils of slavery, he says, on the 119th page of this book: “What, then, is to be done for the removal of slavery?In the first place, the slaveholder should solemnly disclaim the right of property in human beings. The great principle that man cannot belong to man should be distinctly recognized. The slave should be acknowledged as a partaker of a common nature, as having the essential rights of humanity. This great truth lies at the foundation of every wise plan for his relief.” Would not any one suppose, if he had not been forbidden the supposition, that the writer of these lines intended to enjoin theimmediateemancipation of the enslaved? Surely, he would havethe first thingthat is to be done for their relief done immediately. Surely, he would have the foot of the oppressor taken from their necksat once. He would have the heavy yoke that crushes them broken without delay. Surely, he would have thefoundationof the plan for the removal of slavery laidimmediately. He would not, could not counsel the slaveholder to postpone a day, nor an hour, the recognition of the right of his slave to be treated as a fellow-man. There is a remarkable resemblance between what Dr. Channing here says ought to be donein the first place, and what the Abolitionists had from the beginning insisted ought to be doneimmediately.
One of the Doctor’s objections to our chosen phrase was that it was liable to be misunderstood. But, as we said at the time, “ifimmediate emancipationexpresses our leading doctrine exactly, it ought to be used and explanations of it be patiently given until the true doctrine has come to be generally understood, received, and obeyed.” Now,immediate emancipationwas the comprehensivephrase that did best express the right of the slave and the duty of the master. In whatever sense we used the wordimmediate, whether in regard to time or order, the word expressed just what we Abolitionists meant. We insisted upon it in opposition to those who were teaching slaveholders to defer to another generation, or to some future time an act of common humanity that was due to their fellow-menat once; and would be due every minute until it should be done. We insisted upon it in opposition to the popular but deceptive, impracticable, and cruel scheme which proposed to liberate the slaves on condition of their removal to Africa.
Dr. Channing further objected that “the use of the phraseimmediate emancipationhad contributed much to spread far and wide the belief, that the Abolitionists wished immediately to free the slave fromallhis restraints.” But ought we to have been held responsible for such a senseless, wanton misconstruction of words that had been explained a thousand times by our appointed lecturers, in our tracts, and in the “Declaration of the Sentiments, Purposes, and Plans of the American Antislavery Society,” which was published three years before Dr. Channing’s book appeared? Freemen,—Republican freemen were, are, and ever ought to be subject to the restraints of civil government, equal and righteous laws. From the commencement of our enterprise, our only demand for our enslaved countrymen has been that they should forthwith be admitted to all the rights and privileges of freemen upon the same conditions as others, after they shall have acquired (those of them who do not now possess) the qualifications demanded of others.
Still further the Doctor accused us Abolitionists of having “fallen into the common error of enthusiasts,—that of exaggerating their object, of feeling as if no evil existed but that which they opposed, and as if no guilt couldbe compared with that of countenancing or upholding it.” We grieved especially that he suffered this censure to drop from his pen, as, coming from him, it would repress in many bosoms the concern which was beginning to be felt more than ever before for the slaves and the slaveholders. There was no danger that we should esteem or lead others to esteem the evils of their condition to be greater than they were. All about us there was still an alarming insensibility or indifference to the subject. This could not have been made to appear more glaring than by the Doctor himself, on the 137th page of his book. “Suppose,” he there said, “suppose that millions ofwhitemen were enslaved, robbed of all their rights in a neighboring country, and enslaved by a black race who had torn their ancestors from the shores on which our fathers had lived. How deeply should we feel their wrongs!” Ay, how much more deeply would even the Abolitionists feel for them! Yet why should we not all feel as much, in the case that actually existed in our country as in the one supposed? We are unable to find a reason of which we ought not to be ashamed, because it must be one based upon a cruel prejudice, the offspring of the degradation into which we had forced the black men. I really wish if there are any who think with Dr. Channing that the Abolitionists didexaggeratethe guilt of holding men in slavery, or consenting with slaveholders,—I really wish such persons would read Dr. Channing’s chapter on the “Evils of Slavery,” and then show us, if he can, wherein we exaggerated them.
Dr. Channing repelled with great emphasis the charge often brought against Abolitionists, that we were endeavoring to incite the slaves to violence, bloodshed, insurrection. He said, page 131: “It is a remarkable fact, that though the South and the North have been leagued to crush them, though they have been watched by amillion of eyes, and though prejudice has been prepared to detect the slightest sign of corrupt communication with the slave, yet this crime has not been fastened on a single member of this body.” No, not one of our number, that I was acquainted with, ever suggested the resort to insurrection and murder by the enslaved as the means of delivering them from bondage. And in our Declaration at Philadelphia we solemnly disclaimed any such intention.
We knew that slavery could bepeaceablyabolished only by the consent of the slaveholders and the legislators of their States. We knew that they could not fail to be affected, moved by the right action of our Federal Government, touching the enslavement of the colored population in the District of Columbia, and in the territories that were entirely under the jurisdiction of Congress. And we knew that the members of Congress could not be reached and impelled to act as we wished them to, but by the known sentiments and expressed wishes of their constituents,—the people of the nation North and South. It was needful, therefore, to press the subject upon the consideration of the people throughout the land. Accordingly, we did all in our power to awaken the public attention, to agitate the public mind, to touch the public heart. We sent able lecturers to speak wherever there were ears to hear them, and we sent newspapers and tracts wherever the mails would carry them.
Dr. Channing reproached us for this, especially for sending our publications to the slaveholders. But we know not how else we could have made them sensible of the horror with which their system of domestic servitude was viewed by thousands in the Northern States; and inform them correctly of our determination to effect the liberation of their bondmen; and the peaceful meansand legal measures by which we intended, if possible, to accomplish our purpose. We wondered greatly at the Doctor’s objection to our course in this direction. To whom should we have sent our publications, if not to those whose cherished institution we were aiming by them to undermine and overthrow? Would it have been open, manly, honorable not to have done so?
One more objection Dr. Channing made, which seemed to us as unreasonable as the last. It was to ourmannerof forming our Antislavery Associations. He said: “The Abolitionists might have formed an association, but it should have been an elective one. Men of strong principles, judiciousness, sobriety, should have been carefully sought as members. Much good might have been accomplished by the co-operation of such philanthropists.” Alas! such philanthropists, the wise and prudent men, to whom he probably alluded, seemed to have made up their minds to acquiesce in the continuance of slavery, so long as our white brethren at the South saw fit to retain the institution; or to help them take it down very gradually, by removing the victims of it to the shores of Africa. Nearly fifty years had passed, and such philanthropists as he indicated had done little or nothing for the enslaved, and seemed to be growing more indifferent to their wrongs. If we had elected them, would they have associated with us? Are they the men to bear the brunt of a moral conflict? “Not many wise,”—as this world counts wisdom,—“not many rich, not many mighty,” were ever found among the leaders of reform. God has always chosen the foolish to confound the wise. It is left for imprudent men, enthusiasts, fanatics, to begin all difficult enterprises. They have usually been the pioneers of reform. Else why was not the abolition of slavery attempted and accomplished long before by that “better class”?
I have not dwelt so long upon this book, and criticised parts of it so seriously, in order to throw any shade upon the memory of that great man, whom I have so much reason to revere and love. But I have done this in order to reveal more fully to the present generation, and to those who may come after us, the sad state of the public mind and heart in New England thirty-five years ago. All the objections Dr. Channing alleged against us in this book were the common current objections of that day, hurled at us in less seemly phrases from the press, the platform, and the pulpit. They would not have been thought of, if we had been laboring for the emancipation of white men. It was sad that a man of such a mind and heart as Dr. Channing’s could have thought them of sufficient importance to press them upon us as he did. Nevertheless, his book contained so many of the vital principles for which we were contesting, set forth so luminously and urged so fervently, that it proved to be, as I have already said, a far greater help to our cause than we at first expected. And we look back with no little admiration upon one who, enjoying as he did, in the utmost serenity, the highest reputation as a writer and a divine, put at hazard the repose of the rest of his life, and sacrificed hundreds of the admirers of his genius, eloquence, and piety, by espousing the cause of the oppressed, which most of the eminent men in the land would not touch with one of their fingers.
In the winter of 1835 and 1836 the slaveholding oligarchy made a bolder assault than ever before upon the liberty of our nation, and the most alarming intimations were given of a willingness to yield to their imperious demands. The legislatures of Alabama, Georgia,South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia passed resolutions of the same import, only those of Virginia and South Carolina were clothed, as might have been expected, in somewhat more imperative and threatening terms. These resolutions insisted that each State, in which slavery was established, had the exclusive right to manage the matter in the way that the inhabitants thereof saw fit; and that the citizens of other States who were interfering with slavery in any way, directly or indirectly, were guilty of violating their social and constitutional obligations, and ought to be punished. They therefore “claimed and earnestly requested that the non-slaveholding States of the Union should promptly andeffectually suppressall abolition societies, and that they should make ithighly penalto print, publish, and distribute newspapers, pamphlets, tracts, and pictorial representations calculated or having a tendency to excite the slaves of the Southern States to insurrection and revolt.”
These resolutions further declared that “they should consider every interference with slavery by any other State, or by the General Government, as a direct and unlawful interference, to be resisted at once, and under every possible circumstance.” Moreover, they insisted that they “should consider the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia as a violation of the rights of the citizens of that District, and as a usurpationto be at once resisted, as nothing less than the commencement of a scheme of much more extensive and flagrant injustice.”
Resolutions in these words, or to the same effect, passed by the legislatures of the above-mentioned States, were transmitted by the governors of those States severally to the governors of each of the non-slaveholding States, among them to the chief magistrate of Massachusetts, then the Hon. Edward Everett.
On the 15th of January, 1836, that gentleman delivered his address to both branches of the Legislature at the organization of the State Government. In the course of that address, as in duty bound to do under the circumstances, he alluded particularly to the subject of slavery, and to the excitement kindled throughout the country by the discussion of it in the free States.
But instead of showing that the subject of human rights was ever up, and must needs be ever up, for the consideration of the American people, in private circles and public assemblies; that it ought not and could not be prohibited,—instead of conceding the impossibility (in our country especially) of preventing the freest expression of the opinion, that such a glaring inconsistency, such a tremendous iniquity as the enslavement of millions ought not to be tolerated; that the genius of our Republic, the spirit of the age, the principles of Christianity, the impartial love of the Father of all mankind, each and all demanded the abolition of slavery,—instead of availing himself of the occasion so fully given him, from his high position, to reiterate the glorious doctrines of the Declaration of Independence, and to press upon the complaining States the obvious necessity of their yielding to the self-evident claims of humanity,—instead of this, His Excellency saw fit to commend the disastrous policy of the framers of our Republic; to pass a severe censure upon us Abolitionists, and to intimate his opinion that we were guilty of offences punishable at common law.
This part of his speech was referred to a joint committee of two from the Senate and three from the House of Representatives, Hon. George Lunt, Chairman. By order of the managers of the Massachusetts Antislavery Society, I addressed a letter to the above-named committee, asking permission to appear before them by representatives,and show reasons why there should be no legislative action condemnatory of the Abolitionists. The request was granted, and on the 4th of March the proposed interview took place in the chamber of the Representatives, in the presence of many citizens.
At first a member of the committee, Mr. Lucas, objected to our proceeding; said we were premature; that we should have waited until the committee had reported; that we had no reason to apprehend the Legislature would do anything prejudicial to us, or to the liberties of the people. I replied, “that formerly it would have been a gratuitous, an impertinent apprehension, but recent occurrences have admonished us, that we may not any longer safely rest in the assurance that our liberties are secure. Alarming encroachments have been made upon them, even in the metropolis of New England. We do not fear,” I continued, “that your committee will recommend, or that our Legislature will enact, a penal law against Abolitionists. But we do apprehend that condemnatory resolutions may be reported and passed; and these we deprecate more than a penal law for reasons that we wish to press upon your consideration.”
After some discussion between the members of the committee Mr. Lucas withdrew his objection, and we were allowed to proceed. I commenced, being the General Agent of the Society, and gave a sketch of the origin, the organization, and progress of the abolition enterprise,—stating distinctly our purpose and the instrumentalities by which we intended to accomplish it. I laid before the committee copies of our newspapers, reports, and tracts,—especially the constitutions of several State and County Antislavery Societies, and more especially the report of the convention that met in Philadelphia, in December 1833, and organized the American Antislavery Society, and issued a declarationof sentiments and purposes. All these documents, I insisted, would make it plain to the committee that we were endeavoring to effect the abolition of slavery by moral means,—not by rousing the enslaved to insurrection, but by working such changes in the public sentiment of the nation respecting the cruelty and wickedness of our slave system, that strong, earnest remonstrances would be sent from the Legislature, and still more from the ecclesiastical bodies in all the free States to corresponding bodies in the slave States, imploring them to consider the awful iniquity of making merchandise of fellow-men, and treating them like domesticated brutes; at the same time offering to co-operate with them and share generously in the expense of abolishing slavery, and raising their bondmen to the condition and privileges of the free.
Some discussion here ensued as to the character of some of our publications, and the propriety of certain expressions used by some of our speakers and writers. And then Ellis Gray Loring was heard in our behalf. This gentleman had been prominent among the New England Abolitionists from the very beginning of Mr. Garrison’s undertaking. There were combined in him the strength and resolution of a man with the intuitive wisdom and delicacy of a woman. He addressed the committee more than half an hour in a most pertinent manner, replying aptly to their questions and objections. “The general duty,” said Mr. Loring, “of sympathizing with and succoring the oppressed will probably be conceded. It is enjoined by Christianity. We are impelled to it by the very nature which our Creator has conferred upon us. What, then, is to limit our exercise, as Abolitionists, of this duty and this right? The relations we bear to the oppressor control, it is said, our duty to the oppressed. If we are bound to abstain fromthe discussion of slavery, it must be either because we are restrained by the principles of international law, or by some provisions of the Constitution of the United States. But, gentlemen, if the slaveholding States were foreign nations, it could not be shown that we have done anything which the law of nations forbids. We have done nothing for the overthrow of slavery in our Southern States which that law forbids, more than our foreign missionary societies have for many years been doing for the subversion of idolatry in pagan lands,—nothing more than was done in this city and all over our country to aid the Poles and the Greeks in their struggle for freedom, of which our ancient allies, the Russians and the Turks, were determined to deprive them. If, then, the Law of nations does not restrain us, is it in the Constitution of the United States that such restraint is imposed? Far from it. I find in that, our Magna Charta, an abundant guaranty for the liberty of speech; but I look in vain in the letter of the Constitution for any prohibition of the use of moral means for the extirpation of slavery or any other evil.”
Mr. Loring here took up the three clauses of the Constitution in which alone any allusion is made to the subject of slavery, and showed clearly that there was nothing in them which forbade the fullest and freest discussion of the political expediency or moral character of that system of oppression. And he confirmed his position by referring to the fact, that the framers of that great document did not understand it as the proslavery statesmen and politicians of our day would have it understood. Washington declared himself warmly in favor of emancipation. Jefferson’s writings contain more appalling descriptions and more bitter denunciations of slavery than are to be found in the publications of modern Abolitionists; and Franklin, Rush, and John Jay weremembers of an antislavery society formed a few years after they had signed the Constitution, and they joined in a petition to Congress praying for the abolition of that system of domestic servitude, so inconsistent with our political principles and disastrous to our national honor and prosperity.”
I have not given, nor have I room to give, anything like a full report of Mr. Loring’s speech. He closed with these words: “A greatprinciple, gentlemen, is involved in the decision of this Legislature. I esteem as nothing in comparison our feelings or wishes as individuals. Personal interests sink into insignificance here. Sacrifice us if you will, but do not wound liberty through us. Care nothing for men, but let the oppressor and his apologist, whether at the North or the South, beware of the certain defeat which awaits him who is found fighting against God.”
The next one who addressed the committee was the Rev. William Goodell, one of the sturdiest, most sagacious and logical of our fellow-laborers. We are indebted to him for “a full statement of the reasons which were in part offered to the committee,” &c., &c., given to the public in a pamphlet which was issued from the press a few days after our interviews with said committee.
I shall here quote only the most important passage in his speech: “We would deprecate the passage of any condemnatory resolutions by the Legislature, even more than the enactment of a penal law, for in the latter case we should have some redress. We could plead the unconstitutionality of such a law, at any rate, it could not take effect until we had had a fair trial. Not so, gentlemen of this committee, in the case of resolutions. We should have no redress for the injurious operation of such an extra-judicial sentence. The passage of such resolutions by this and other legislatureswould help to fix in the public mind the belief that Abolitionists are a specially dangerous body of men, and so prepare the public to receive such a law as the slaveholding States might dictate. We solemnly protest against a legislative censure, because it would be a usurpation of an authority never intrusted to the Legislature. They are not a judicial body, and have no right to pronounce the condemnation of any one.”
“Hold,” said Mr. Lunt, the Chairman of the committee, “you must not indulge in such remarks, sir. We cannot sit here and permit you to instruct us as to the duties of the Legislature.”
Mr. Goodell resumed, justified the remark for which he had been called to order, and completed his very able argument against any concurrence on the part of the General Court of Massachusetts with the demands of the Southern States.
Mr. Garrison next addressed the committee in a very comprehensive and forcible speech. But he neglected to give any report of it in hisLiberator. I can therefore lay before your readers only this brief passage: “It is said, Mr. Chairman, that the Abolitionists wish to destroy the Union. It is not true. We would save the Union, if it be not too late. To us it would seem that the Union is already destroyed. To us there is no Union. We, sir, cannot go through these so-called United States enjoying the privileges which the Constitution of the Union professed to secure to all the citizens of this Republic. And why? Because, and only because, we are laboring to accomplish the very purposes for which it is declared in the preamble to the Constitution that the Union was formed! Because we are laboring ‘to establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, and promote the general welfare.’”
Dr. Follen then arose. He was extensively knownand very much respected and beloved by all who had known him, as a Professor in Harvard College, or as a preacher of true Christianity in several parishes in the vicinity of Boston. He had done and suffered much for the sake of civil and religious liberty in his own country,—Germany,—and had come to our country in the high hope of enjoying the blessings and privileges of true freedom. He early espoused the antislavery cause, and rendered us essential services by his wise counsels and his labors with several prominent persons whom we had failed to reach. He was selected as one of the nine to maintain our rights before the legislative committee, and avert the wrong that seemed impending over us from the unhappy suggestions in the speech of Governor Everett.
The Doctor evidently felt very deeply the grave importance of the occasion. He commenced his speech with some profound remarks upon the rights of man and the spirit and purpose of our republican institutions, and then proceeded to point out the fearful encroachments, that had been made on the fundamental principles of our Republic by slaveholders and their Northern partisans. “And now,” said he, “they are calling upon the Northern legislatures to abolish the Abolitionists by law. We do not apprehend, gentlemen, that you will recommend, or that our General Court will enact, such a law. But we do apprehend that you may advise, and the Legislature may pass, resolutions severely censuring the Abolitionists. Against this measure we most earnestly protest. We think its effects would be worse than those of the penal law. The outrages committed in this city upon the liberty of speech, the mobs in Boston last October, were doubtless countenanced and incited by the great meeting of August, in Faneuil Hall. Now, gentlemen, would not similar consequences follow the expressionby the Legislature of a similar condemnation? Would not the mobocrats again undertake to execute the informal sentence of the General Court? Would they not let loose again their bloodhounds upon us?”
“Stop, sir!” cried Mr. Lunt. “You may not pursue this course of remark. It is insulting to the committee and to the Legislature which they represent.”
Dr. Follen sat down, and an emotion of deep displeasure evidently passed through the crowd of witnesses.
I sprang to my feet and remonstrated with Mr. Lunt. Mr. Loring and Mr. Goodell also expressed their surprise and indignation at his course. But it was of no avail. He would not consent that Dr. Follen should proceed to point out what we considered the chief danger to be guarded against. We therefore declined to continue our interview with the committee; and gave them notice that we should appeal to the Legislature for permission to present and argue our case in our own way before them, or before another committee.
We left the committee very much dissatisfied with the treatment we had received from Mr. Lunt and the majority of his associates. Hon. Ebenezer Moseley was an honorable exception. From the first he had treated us in the most fair and gentlemanly manner. And at the last he protested against the procedure of the Chairman.
We forthwith drew up, and the next morning presented, a memorial to the Legislature, intimating that we had not been properly treated by the committee, and asking that ourrightto be heard might be recognized, and that we might be permitted to appear and show our reasons in full, why the Legislature of Massachusettsshould not enact any penal law, nor pass any resolutions condemning Abolitionists and antislavery societies. The remonstrance was read in both branches of the Legislature and referred to the same committee, with instructions to hear us according to our request.
On the afternoon of the 8th, therefore, we met the committee again in the Hall of the Representatives. The reports which had gone forth of our first interview had so interested the public, that the house was now quite filled with gentlemen and ladies, many of whom had never before shown any sympathy with the antislavery reform.
It was intended that Dr. Follen should address the committee first, beginning just where he had been, on the 4th, so rudely commanded by Mr. Lunt to leave off, and that he should press home that part of his argument which we all deemed so important. But he was detained from the meeting until a later hour. It devolved upon me, therefore, to commence. I confined my remarks to two points. First, I contended that our publications were not incendiary, not intended nor adapted to excite the oppressed to insurrection. Secondly, I assured the committee that, whatever they might think of the character of our publications, we had never sent them to the slaves nor to the colored people of the South, and gave them our reasons for having refrained so to do.
Samuel E. Sewall, Esq., then made a somewhat extended, but very close legal and logical argument against the demands of the slaveholding States,—“arrogant, insolent demands,” as he called them. “To yield to them would be to subvert the foundations of our civil liberties, and make it criminal to obey the laws of God, and follow the example of Jesus Christ.” His excellent speech evidently made an impression upon the committeeas well as his larger audience. But I have not room here for such an abstract of it as I should like to give.
While Mr. Sewall was speaking Dr. Follen came in, and when he had ended the Doctor arose and commenced by showing very clearly that we Abolitionists were accused ofcrimeby the legislatures of several of our Southern States, and that the Governor of Massachusetts had indorsed the accusation, because we had exercised in the cause of humanity that liberty of speech and of the press which was guaranteed to us in the Constitution of our Republic, not less explicitly than in the fundamental law of this State. “We have endeavored by persuasion, by argument, by moral and religious appeals to urge upon the nation, and especially upon our Southern brethren, the necessity of freeing themselves from the sin, the evils, and the shame of slavery. You cannot punish or censure freedom of speech in Abolitionists, without preparing the way to censure it in any other class of citizens who may for the moment be obnoxious to the majority. A penal enactment against us is less to be dreaded than condemnatory resolutions; for these are left to be enforced by Judge Lynch and his minions, and I must say, as I said the other day—”
“I call you to order, sir,” said Mr. Lunt, with great emphasis. “This is not respectful to the committee.”
Dr. Follen replied, “I am not conscious of having said anything disrespectful to the committee. I beg to be informed in what I am out of order.”
Mr. Lunt replied, “Your allusion to mobs, for which you were called to order at our first interview, is not proper.”
“Am I then to understand,” said Dr. Follen, “that deprecating mobs is disrespectful to this committee?”
Mr. Moseley, one of the committee, here spoke with much feeling; said he dissented wholly from the action of the Chairman. “I see nothing in the allusion tomobs disrespectful to the committee or the Legislature; and I consider Dr. Follen entirely in order.”
Some discussion ensued. Two others of the committee, making a majority, silently assented to the opinion of Mr. Lunt. So it was decided that the Doctor was out of order, and must not allude to mobs.
Here I called the attention of Mr. Lunt to the memorial, in answer to which we were permitted by the Legislature to appear before the committee, and they were instructed to hear us. “It seemed, on the fourth instant, that the Chairman considered that we came here by his grace to exculpate ourselves from the charges alleged against us by the Legislatures of several of the Southern States; and that we were not to be permitted to express our anxious apprehensions of the effects of any acts by our Legislature intended to gratify the wishes of those States. In order, therefore, that we might appear before you in theexercise of our right as free citizens, we have appealed to the Senate and House of Representatives, and have received their permission so to do. Dr. Follen was setting before you what we deem the most probable and most serious evil to be apprehended from any condemnatory resolutions which the Legislature might be induced to pass; and if he is not permitted to press this upon your consideration our interview with the committee must end here.” Mr. Lunt then consulted with his associates and intimated that Dr. Follen might proceed. He did so, and having referred to the disastrous influence of the great meeting in Faneuil Hall, August, 1835, and of the condemnatory resolutions there passed, he showed clearly that far greater outrages upon the property and persons of Abolitionists would be likely to follow the passage of similar resolutions by the Legislature of the Commonwealth.
Rev. William Goodell then arose and made a mostable and eloquent speech. He ignored for the time being all the personal dangers and private wrongs of the Abolitionists; he set aside for the moment the consideration of everything else but the imminent peril that seemed to be impending over the very life of liberty in our country. “For what, Mr. Chairman,” said he, “are Abolitionists accused by the Southern States, and our own Legislature called upon to condemn them? For nothing else but exercising and defending the inalienable rights of the people. What have we said that is not said in your Declaration of Independence? and why are we censured for carrying into practice what others have been immortalized as patriots for writing and adopting? In censuring us you censure the Father of our Country. I turn to the portrait of Washington as it looks upon us in this hall, and remind you how he declared that he earnestly desired to see the time when slavery should be abolished. For saying this, and urging it upon our countrymen, the mandate has come from the South to stop our mouths, and we are here to avert the sentence our own Legislature is called upon to pronounce upon us.” Mr. Goodell then went on to quote the strongest antislavery sentiments uttered by President Jefferson, Chief Justice John Jay, and Hon. William Pinckney, a distinguished member of the Legislature of Maryland, the last in stronger language of condemnation than ever issued from an antislavery press. “Shall the men of the South speak thus, and we be compelled to hold our peace? Mr. Chairman, in this hour of my country’s danger, I should disdain to stand here pleading for my personal security. In behalf of my fellow-citizens throughout the land, I implore the Legislature of this Commonwealth to pause before they act on those documents of the South. What are they? A demand for the unconditional surrender to the South of the firstprinciples of your Constitution, the surrender of your liberties. It is a blow particularly aimed at the independence of your laboring classes.” Mr. Goodell here quoted the declaration of Governor McDuffie and other distinguished Southern gentlemen, distinctly asserting the doctrine that “the laboring population of no nation on earth are entitled to liberty or capable of enjoying it.” “Mr. Chairman, we are charged with aiming at disunion, because we seek what only can save the Union. I charge upon those who promulgate the doctrines on your table, a deep and foul conspiracy against the liberties of the laboring people of the North.” Mr. Lunt here interrupted him.
“Mr. Goodell, I must interfere,” he said. “You must not charge other States with a foul conspiracy, nor treat their public documents with disrespect.” Mr. Goodell replied: “Something may be pardoned to a man when he speaks for the liberties of a nation.” Mr. Lunt continued: “The documents emanating from other States are required by our Federal Constitution to be received with full faith and credit here.” “Certainly, sir,” responded Mr. Goodell. “I wish them to be regarded as official, accredited documents, and I have referred to an accredited document from the Governor of South Carolina, in which he says,that the laborers of the North are incapable of understanding or enjoying freedom, that liberty in a free State best subsists with slavery, and that the laborers must be reduced to slavery, or the laws cannot be maintained. This, sir, is also a document entitled to full faith and credit,—holding up a report of the doings of the Legislature of South Carolina, in which they declared an entire accordance with Governor McDuffie in the sentiments expressed in his message.” Mr. Lunt here interposed with great warmth. “Stop, sir!” Mr. Goodell stopped, but remained standing. “Sit down,sir,” said Mr. Lunt; “the committee will hear no more of this.” Mr. Goodell said: “My duty is discharged, Mr. Chairman, if I cannot proceed in the way that seems to me necessary to bring our case properly before the committee and the Legislature. We came here as free men, and we will go away as freemen should.” Some one in the vast audience that had been watching our proceedings with intensest interest cried out, “Let us go quickly lest we be made slaves.” I here made one more appeal to Mr. Lunt. “Are we, sir, to be again denied our right of being heard in pursuance of our memorial to the Legislature?” The Chairman intimated that they had heard enough.
The audience here began to leave the hall, but were arrested by a voice in their midst. It was that of Dr. Gamaliel Bradford, not a member of the Antislavery Society, who had come there only as a spectator, but had been so moved by what he had witnessed that he pronounced an eloquent, thrilling, impassioned, but respectful appeal in favor of free discussion. I wish that I could spread the whole of it before my readers. So soon as he sat down Mr. George Bond, one of the most prominent merchants and estimable gentlemen of Boston, expressed a desire to say a few words to the committee. “I am not a petitioner nor an Abolitionist,” said he; “but, though opposed to some of the measures of these antislavery gentlemen, I hold to some opinions in common with them. If under these circumstances the committee will permit, I beg leave to offer a few remarks.” The Chairman preserved silence; but another member of the committee intimated to Mr. Bond that he might proceed. “It strikes me,” said Mr. Bond, “that this is a subject of deep and vital importance; and I fear as a citizen that the manner in which it has been treated by the committee will produce an excitement throughoutthe Commonwealth. With due respect to the committee, I beg leave to say that, from the little experience I have had in legislative proceedings, it is not the practice to require of persons, appearing before a committee, a strict conformity to rules. They are usually indulged in telling their own story in their own way, provided it be not disrespectful. I have certainly heard nothing from the gentlemen of the Antislavery Society that called for the course that has been adopted. It does seem to me that some of the committee have been too fastidious, too hypercritical.”
Mr. Lunt here broke out again. “Be careful, sir, what you say. The committee will not submit to it.” Mr. Bond replied: “I certainly have no wish to say anything unpleasant to the committee, but I cannot help regretting the course that has been taken to withhold a full hearing from the parties interested. They came here through their memorial, which had been received by the Legislature and referred to this committee, and I expected that the committee would have allowed them to say what they pleased, using proper language. If they state their case improperly, it will injure them and not the committee. I may be wrong, but I regret to see the grounds given for the gentlemen and their friends to say they have been denied a hearing. The action on this question here is of immense importance in the influence it may have, not only upon those who have appeared before the committee, but upon the Legislature, the community, the Commonwealth, and the whole country.” When Mr. Bond had closed, instead of proffering to us a further hearing, the committee broke up without a formal adjournment, the Chairman immediately retiring, conscious, as it seems to me he must have been, of the very general indignation which his conduct had excited. Just as he was leaving, Mr. Moseley, one of the committee, said tohim, “I am not satisfied with your course. You have been wrong from the beginning. I will not sit again on such a committee.”
The large audience retired from the hall murmuring their astonishment, shame, indignation at the conduct of the Chairman. Many gentlemen and ladies, who had never shown us favor before, came to assure us that they had been led, by what they had heard and seen that afternoon, to take a new view of the importance of the great reform we were laboring to effect.
Nothing, however, gratified us so much as seeing Dr. Channing approach Mr. Garrison, whom until then he had appeared to avoid, shake him cordially by the hand, and utter some words of sympathy. From that time until his death the larger portion of his publications were upon the subject of slavery, increasing in earnestness and power to the last.
The conduct of the committee, especially the Chairman, was severely censured next day in the Senate by Hon. Mr. Whitmarsh, and other members of that body. Reports of our interviews were published and republished throughout the Commonwealth, and called out from almost every part of it condemnatory comments. Many were brought over to the antislavery faith, and our party became not a little significant in the estimation of the politicians. Governor Everett’s too evident inclination to yield to the insolent demands of the slaveholding oligarchy damaged him seriously in the confidence of his fellow-citizens, and, if I remember correctly, at the very next election he was beaten by the opposing candidate, whose sentiments on slavery were thought to be more correct than his.