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 thebravest, 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 herdependence, flowing from the consciousness of that weakness which God has given herforher 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 yieldsthe 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 allare 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 notonly 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 stillmore 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 uponThe 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 ClericalAbolitionists 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 thetruthof 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 repulsedfrom 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. Fitchsaid:—
“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.”
The name of Dr. Follen will send a grateful thrill through the memory of every one who really knew him. He was a dear son of God, and attracted all but such as were repulsed by the spirit of righteousness and freedom. He was a native of that country which gave birth to Luther. The light of civil and religious liberty kindled in Wittenberg shone upon his cradle. He was the son of Protestant parents, and received a religious education with little reference to the dogmas of any sect. He was born in the early years of the French Revolution,—that event which at first revived the hopes of the oppressed subjects of European despots. The Germans, especially those of the smaller members of the Confederacy, hailed the prospect of more liberal institutions in France as the harbinger of a better day for themselves. Charles Follen was just then at the age to receive into the depths of his soul the generous sentiments that were uttered by the purest, best men of Germany.His father, an enlightened civilian and liberal Christian, encouraged the growing ardor of his son in the cause of freedom and humanity.
When, therefore, the German States, finding themselves deceived by Bonaparte, united with one accord to oppose him, Charles Follen, then a student at the University of Giesen, and only nineteen years of age, came forward to act his first public part in the great struggle for civil liberty. He entered the allied army in a volunteer corps of young men, and endured the fatigues and incurred the dangers of those battle-fields, on which were witnessed the death-throes of the first Napoleon’s ambition. I have heard him describe his feelings, and what he believed to be the feelings of his youthful comrades, in that so-called “holy war of the people.” They refused to wear the trappings of soldiers. They needed not “the pomp and circumstance of war” to rouse or sustain the purpose of their souls. They came into the field of mortal strife as men, not soldiers, to contend for liberty, not laurels. Whenever he spoke of that momentous period of his life, a solemnity came over the calm, sweet face of Dr. Follen, his utterance was subdued, his whole frame pervaded by a deep emotion, so that, much as I differed from him in my opinion of that resort to carnal weapons, I could not doubt that he had thrown himself into the dread conflict with a self-sacrificing, I had almost said, a holy spirit. Körner, “the patriot poet of Germany,” was his personal friend, and it is a touching incident that some of his last mental efforts were most successful translations into our language of the breathing thoughts and burning words of that enthusiast of liberty.
Although the issue of the French Revolution cast down the hope of the friends of freedom, that hope was not destroyed. True they had been deceived. But theycould not doubt that freedom was a reality, the birthright of man. When, therefore, the real design of the self-styled “Holy Alliance” between Russia, Austria, and Prussia became manifest, many of the choicest spirits who had united under their banner to overthrow the tyrant of France uprose to withstand them. None were more resolute, few became more conspicuous, than the still youthful Follen, who had scarcely entered upon his professional career. He boldly claimed for his fellow-subjects of Hesse Darmstadt a mitigation of the feudal tenures under which they were oppressed. Thus he incurred the displeasure of the Grand Duke. But the farmers of that country gratefully acknowledged the importance of his service in letters that are still extant.
In 1817, when twenty-two years of age, he took his degree of Doctor of Laws, and became a teacher in the University of Jena. Here he found an atmosphere congenial to his free spirit. The most distinguished professors there were friends of liberal institutions. And the Duke of Saxe-Weimar was for a while indulgent towards them. At Jena appeared the first periodical publications that disturbed the diplomatists of Frankfort and Vienna. To these publications Dr. Follen contributed, and, even among such men as Dr. Oken and Professors Fries and Luden, he distinguished himself as an advocate of the rights of man.
The sovereigns of Austria and Prussia were alarmed. The professors of the University at Jena were proscribed, and the young men of Austria and Prussia who were students there were required to leave the infected spot. The persecution of Dr. Follen was carried further. An attempt was made to involve him in the guilt of the deluded murderer of Kotzebue, “that unblushing hireling of the Russian Autocrat,” and he was arrested on thecharge. He was fully exonerated, but the spirit which dictated his arrest made it uncomfortable for him to remain in Germany.
He went to Switzerland, the resort of the free spirits of that day, and was appointed Professor of Civil Law at the University of Basle. Here he continued, both in his lectures and through the press, to give utterance to his liberal opinions. Consequently, in August, 1824, the governments of Prussia, Austria, and Russia demanded of the government of Basle to deliver him up, with the other Professors of Law in their university. At first this demand was refused. But, being afterwards enforced by a threat of the serious displeasure of the allied powers, it was yielded to, and Dr. Follen was compelled to depart, with no reproach upon his character but that which was cast upon it by the enemies of freedom. Exiled from Germany as the dreaded foe of the oppressors of his country, hunted by the allied sovereigns out of Europe, as if their thrones were insecure while he dwelt on the same continent with themselves—surely the man who made himself such a terror to despots was entitled to acarte-blancheon the confidence of freemen!
Thus recommended, he came to our country in December, 1824, a few months after the arrival of Lafayette. The illustrious Frenchman came to feast his eyes and rejoice his heart with the sight of the astonishing growth and unexampled prosperity of the nation for whose deliverance from a foreign yoke he had in his early manhood lavished his fortune and exposed his life. The illustrious German came, as it proved, to assist in a great moral enterprise, the success of which was indispensably necessary to complete the American Revolution, and verify the truths which it declared to the world.
Nearly a year after his arrival he spent in Philadelphiaperfecting himself in the language of our country. But by the advice of Lafayette, who highly esteemed him, he came to Boston, and in December, 1825, was appointed teacher of the German language in Harvard College, where, in 1830, he was raised to a professorship of German literature.
He had not been long in the United States before he was struck by the contrast between our institutions and our habits of thought and conversation. He was surprised that he so seldom met with a free mind, or saw an individual who acted independently. Most persons seemed to be in bonds to a political party or a religious sect, or both. “I perceive,” said he to an intimate friend, “that liberty in this country is a fact rather than a principle.”
Such a soul as Dr. Follen could not be indifferent to any movement tending to liberate more than three millions of people in the country, of which he had become a citizen, from the most abject cruel slavery, and his fellow-citizens from the awful iniquity of keeping them in such bondage. The bugle-blast ofThe Liberatorin 1831 summoned him to the conflict. Worldly wisdom, prudential considerations, would have withheld him if he had been like too many other men. He had then been in a professor’s chair at Cambridge about a year. He had married a lady worthy of his love. He had become a father. He had made many friends. He was admired for his rich and varied endowments, his extensive and accurate knowledge, and sound understanding. He was honored for his exertions and sacrifices in the cause of liberty in Europe. He was cherished as an invaluable acquisition to the literature of our country, and as a most successful teacher of youth. How obvious, then, that he had as many reasons as any, and more reasons than most, for remaining quiet, contenting himself with an occasional sigh over the wrongs of the slaves, or an eloquent condemnation of slavery inthe abstract, or the utterance of the form of prayer,—that the Sovereign Disposer of all events would, in his own good time, cause every yoke to be broken and oppression to cease. He was occupying a sphere of great responsibility, where, as was intimated to him, he might find enough to fill even the large measure of his ability for labor. Then he was wholly dependent upon his own exertions for the support of his family. Moreover, being a foreigner by birth, he was reminded that it was less decorous in him, than it might be in others, to meddle with the “delicate question” which touched so vitally the institutions of a very sensitive portion of the country.
But Charles Follen was a genuine man. In godly sincerity he felt as well as said, “that whatever affected the welfare of mankind was a matter of concern to himself.” He was astonished at the apathy of so large a portion of the respectable and professedly religious of our country to the wretched condition of more than a sixth part of the population, to the disastrous influence of their enslavement upon the characters of their immediate oppressors, upon the well-being of the whole Republic, and the cause of liberty throughout the world. When, therefore, the words of Garrison came to his ears, “he rejoiced in spirit and said, I thank thee, O Father, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto the babes; even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight.” He sought out the editor ofThe Liberator. He clambered up into his little chamber in Merchants’ Hall, where were his writing-desk, his types, his printing-press; and where, with the faithful partner of his early toils, Isaac Knapp, he was living like the four children of Israel in the midst of the corruptions of Babylon, living on pulse and water. This was a sight to fill with hope Follen’s sagacious soul. While, therefore, many who counted themselves servants of God andfriends of humanity thought, or affected to think, that no good could come out of such a Nazareth, he often went toThe Liberatoroffice to converse with and encourage the young man who had dared to brave the contumely and detestation of the world in “preaching deliverance to the captives and liberty to them that are bruised.”
He stopped not to inquire how it might affect his temporal interests, or even his good name, to espouse so unpopular a cause. “Some men,” said he, “are so afraid of doing wrong that they never do right.” The shameful fact, that the cause of millions of enslaved human beings in a country that made such high pretensions to liberty as ours wasunpopular, so astonished and alarmed him that he felt all the more called to rise above personal considerations. Therefore, soon after the New England Antislavery Society was instituted, he made known his intention to join it. Some friends remonstrated. They admonished him that so doing would be very detrimental to his professional success. He hesitated a little while on account of his wife. But that gifted, high-minded, whole-hearted lady reproved the hesitation, and bade him act in accordance with his sense of duty, and in keeping with his long devotion to the cause of liberty and humanity. He joined the society, became one of its vice-presidents, was an efficient officer, and rendered us invaluable services. At that time I became intimately acquainted with him, and soon learned to love him tenderly and respect him profoundly.
The apprehensions of his friends proved to be too well founded. The funds for the support of his professorship at Cambridge were withheld; and he was obliged to retire from a position which had been most agreeable to himself, for which he was admirably qualified, and in which he had been exceedingly useful. It was a severe trial to his feelings, and the loss of his salary subjectedhim to no little inconvenience. But liberty, the rights of man, and his sense of duty were more precious to him than physical comforts or even life.
In May, 1834, was held in Boston the first New England Antislavery Convention. It was a large gathering. Dr. Follen was one of the committee of arrangements, and evinced great interest in making the meeting effective.LHe was also appointed Chairman of the “address” that was ordered “to the people of the United States,” and was the writer of it. His spirit breathes throughout it. It showed how wholly committed he was to the enterprise of the Abolitionists, how thoroughly he understood the principles on which we had from the first relied, and how unfeignedly he desired to make them acceptable to his fellow-citizens by the most lucid exposition of them, and the most earnest presentation of their importance.
In 1835 and 1836 I was the General Agent of the Society. This brought me into a much closer connection with him. It was during the most stormy period,—the time that tried men’s souls. I have given some account of it in previous articles, and have made some allusions to Dr. Follen’s fidelity and fearlessness. He never quailed. His countenance always wore its accustomed expression of calm determination. He aided us by his counsels, animated us by his resolute spirit, and strengthened us by the heart-refreshing tones of his voice. In this crisis it was, at our annual meeting in January, 1836, that he made his bravest speech. There was not a word, not a tone, not a look of compromise in it. He met our opponents at the very points where some of ourfriends thought us deserving of blame, and he manfully maintained every inch of our ground. That speech may be found in the Appendix to the Memoir of his life. It is not easy even for us to recall, and it is impossible to give to those who were not Abolitionists then, a clear idea of the state of the community at the time the above-named speech was made. The culmination of our trials was the sanction which the Governor of Massachusetts gave to the opinion of one of the judges, that we had committed acts that were punishable at common law. I have given some description of the scenes that were witnessed in the Hall of Representatives. Dr. Follen distinguished himself there. We can never cease to be grateful to him for his pertinacity in withstanding the aggressive overbearance of the Chairman of the joint-committee of the Senate and House appointed to consider our remonstrance against Governor Everett’s condemnation of us. I have sometimes thought it was the turning-point of our affairs in the old Commonwealth.
Soon afterwards Dr. Follen removed to New York and became pastor of the first Unitarian church. It was a situation so eligible, and in every respect so desirable to him, that many supposed he would suffer his Abolitionism to become latent, or at least would refrain from giving full and free expression to it in the pulpit. They knew not the man. He did there as he had done elsewhere. Modestly, mildly, yet distinctly, he avowed his antislavery sentiments, and endeavored to make his hearers perceive how imperative was the obligation pressing upon them as patriots, scarcely less than as Christians, to do all in their power to exterminate slavery from our country. He was chosen a member of the Executive Committee of the American Antislavery Society, and promptly accepted the appointment. The members of that Board testified that “his sound judgment, his discriminatingintellect, his amenity of manners, and his uncommonly single-hearted integrity greatly endeared him to his associates.” Yet was the offence he gave by his antislavery preaching such that, after about two years, his services were dispensed with by the Unitarian church.
He returned to Massachusetts, and soon interested so highly the liberal Christians at East Lexington that he was invited to become their pastor. They set about in 1839 the building of a meeting-house, in accordance with his taste, and after a plan which I believe he furnished. The 15th day of January, 1840, was fixed upon as the day for the dedication, and Dr. Channing was engaged to preach on the occasion.
In December Dr. Follen went to New York and delivered a course of lectures. On the evening of the 13th of January he embarked on board the ill-omened steamer Lexington to return. She took fire in the night, and all the passengers and crew excepting three perished in the flames, or in their attempts to escape from them. Dr. Follen, alas! was not one of the three.
The grief and consternation caused by that awful catastrophe need not be described. Few if any persons in the community had so great cause for sorrow as the Abolitionists. One of the towers of our strength had fallen. The greatness of our loss was dwelt upon at the annual meeting of the Massachusetts Society a few days afterward, and it was unanimously voted: “That an address on the life and character of Charles Follen, and in particular upon his early and eminent services to the cause of abolition, be delivered by such person and at such time and place as the Board of Managers shall appoint.” Their appointment fell upon me, and I was requested to give notice so soon as my eulogy should be written. I gave such a notice early in February, when Iwas informed by the managers that they had not yet been able to procure a suitable place, for such a service as they wished to have in connection with my discourse. They had applied for the use of every one of the Unitarian and for several of the Orthodox churches in Boston, and all had been refused them. It was said that Dr. Channing did obtain from the trustees of Federal Street Church consent that the eulogy on Dr. Follen, whom he esteemed so highly, might be pronounced from his pulpit. But another meeting of the trustees, or of the proprietors, was called, and that permission was revoked. More sad still the meeting-house at East Lexington, which had been built under his direction, which he was coming from New York to dedicate, and in which he was to have preached as the pastor of the church if his life had been spared,—even that meeting-house was refused for a eulogy and other appropriate exercises in commemoration of the early and eminent services of Dr. Follen to the cause of freedom and humanity in Europe, and more especially in our country. Such was the temper of that time, such the opposition of the people in and about the metropolis of New England to Mr. Garrison and his associates.
In consequence of this treatment by the churches, and as a protest against it, the Board of Managers determined to defer the delivery of the eulogy, until the meeting-house of some religious body in Boston should be granted for that purpose. No door was unbarred to us for more than two months. In April one of our fellow-laborers, Hon. Amasa Walker, having become one of the proprietors of Marlborough Chapel, succeeded in getting permission for the Massachusetts Antislavery Society, and other friends of Dr. Follen, to meet in that central and very ample room on the evening of the 17th of April, there to express in prayer, in eulogy, and hymnsour gratitude to the Father of spirits for the gift of such a brother, so able, so devoted, so self-sacrificing; to attempt some delineation of his admirable character, some acknowledgment of his inestimable services, and thus make manifest our deep sense of bereavement and loss occasioned by his sudden and as we supposed dreadful death.
It so happened that the 17th of April, 1840, was Good Friday,—a most appropriate day on which to mourn the death and commemorate the glorious life of one who had been so true a disciple of Him, who was crucified on Calvary for his fidelity to God and to the redemption of man.
The assemblage was large, estimated by some at two thousand. A prayer was offered by Rev. Henry Ware, Jr.,—such a prayer as we expected would rise from the large, liberal, loving, devout heart of that excellent man. A most appropriate hymn, written by himself, was then read by Rev. John Pierpont. After my discourse was delivered another touching hymn from the pen, or rather the heart, of Mrs. Maria W. Chapman was read by Rev. Dr. Channing, and sung very impressively by the congregation, after which the services were closed by a benediction from Rev. J. V. Himes, a zealous antislavery brother of the Christian denomination.
All great reformations have had their bards. The Hebrew prophets were poets. They clothed their terrible denunciations of national iniquities and their confident predictions of the ultimate triumph of truth and righteousness in imagery so vivid that it will never fade. Mr. Garrison was bathed in their spirit when a child byhis pious mother. He is a poet and an ardent lover of poetry. The columns ofThe Liberator, from the beginning, were every week enriched by gems in verse, not unfrequently the product of his own rapt soul. No sentiment inspires men to such exalted strains as the love of liberty. Many of the early Abolitionists uttered themselves in fervid lines of poetry,—Mrs. M. W. Chapman, Mrs. E. L. Follen, Miss E. M. Chandler, Miss A. G. Chapman, Misses C. and A. E. Weston, Mrs. L. M. Child, Mrs. Maria Lowell, Miss Mary Ann Collier, and others, male and female. In 1836—the time that tried men’s souls—Mrs. Chapman gathered into a volume the effusions of the above-named, together with those of kindred spirits in other lands and other times. The volume was entitled, “Songs of the Free and Hymns of Christian Freedom.” Many of these songs and hymns will live so long as oppression of every kind is abhorred, and men aspire after true liberty. This book was a powerful weapon in our moral welfare. My memory glows with the recollections of the fervor, and often obvious effect, with which we used to sing in true accord the 13th hymn, byMiss E. M. Chandler:—
“Think of our country’s gloryAll dimmed with Afric’s tears!Her broad flag stained and goryWith the hoarded guilt of years!”
“Think of our country’s gloryAll dimmed with Afric’s tears!Her broad flag stained and goryWith the hoarded guilt of years!”
“Think of our country’s gloryAll dimmed with Afric’s tears!Her broad flag stained and goryWith the hoarded guilt of years!”
Or the 15th, byMr. Garrison:—
“The hour of freedom! come it must.O, hasten it in mercy, Heaven!When all who grovel in the dustShall stand erect, their fetters riven.”
“The hour of freedom! come it must.O, hasten it in mercy, Heaven!When all who grovel in the dustShall stand erect, their fetters riven.”
“The hour of freedom! come it must.O, hasten it in mercy, Heaven!When all who grovel in the dustShall stand erect, their fetters riven.”
Or the 7th, byMrs. Follen:—
“‘What mean ye, that ye bruise and bindMy people,’ saith the Lord;‘And starve your craving brother’s mind,That asks to hear my word?’”
“‘What mean ye, that ye bruise and bindMy people,’ saith the Lord;‘And starve your craving brother’s mind,That asks to hear my word?’”
“‘What mean ye, that ye bruise and bindMy people,’ saith the Lord;‘And starve your craving brother’s mind,That asks to hear my word?’”
Or the 102d, byMrs. Chapman:—
“Hark! hark! to the trumpet call,—‘Arise in the name of God most high!’On ready hearts the deep notes fall,And firm and full is the strong reply:‘The hour is at hand to do and dare!Bound with the bondmen now are we!We may not utter the patriot’s prayer,Or bend in the house of God the knee!’”
“Hark! hark! to the trumpet call,—‘Arise in the name of God most high!’On ready hearts the deep notes fall,And firm and full is the strong reply:‘The hour is at hand to do and dare!Bound with the bondmen now are we!We may not utter the patriot’s prayer,Or bend in the house of God the knee!’”
“Hark! hark! to the trumpet call,—‘Arise in the name of God most high!’On ready hearts the deep notes fall,And firm and full is the strong reply:‘The hour is at hand to do and dare!Bound with the bondmen now are we!We may not utter the patriot’s prayer,Or bend in the house of God the knee!’”
Or that stirring song, byMr. Garrison:—
“I am an Abolitionist;I glory in the name.”
“I am an Abolitionist;I glory in the name.”
“I am an Abolitionist;I glory in the name.”
The singing of such hymns and songs as these was like the bugle’s blast to an army ready for battle. No one seemed unmoved. If there were any faint hearts amongst us, they were hidden by the flush of excitement and sympathy.
In 1838 or 1839 Mrs. Chapman, assisted by her sisters, the Misses Weston, and Mrs. Child, commenced the publication ofThe Liberty Bell. A volume with this title was issued annually by them for ten or twelve years, especially for sale at the yearly antislavery fair. These volumes were full of poetry in prose and verse. The editors levied contributions upon the true-hearted of other countries besides our own, and enriched their pages with articles from the pens of all the above-named, and from Whittier, Pierpont, Lowell, Longfellow, Phillips, Quincy, Clarke, Sewall, Adams, Channing, Bradburn, Pillsbury, Rogers, Wright, Parker, Stowe, Emerson, Furness, Higginson, Sargent, Jackson, Stone, Whipple, our own countrymen and women; and Bowring, Martineau, Thompson, Browning, Combe, Sturge, Webb, Lady Byron, and others, of England; and Arago, Michelet, Monod, Beaumont, Souvestre, Paschoud, and others, of France. It would not be easy to find elsewhere so full a treasury of mental and moral jewels.
The names of most of our illustrious American poetsappear in TheLiberty Bellmore or less frequently. To all of them we were and are much indebted. James Russell Lowell was never, I believe, a member of the Antislavery Society. He was seldom seen at our meetings. But his muse rendered us essential services. His poems—“The Present Crisis,” “On the Capture of Fugitive Slaves near Washington,” “On the Death of Charles T. Torrey,” “To John G. Palfrey,” and especially his “Lines to William L. Garrison,” and his “Stanzas sung at the Antislavery Picnic in Dedham, August 1, 1843”—committed him fully to the cause of freedom,—the cause of our enslaved countrymen.
Rev. John Pierpont gave us his hand at an earlier day. He took upon himself “our reproach” in 1836, when we most needed help. I have already made grateful mention of his “Word from a Petitioner,” sent to me by the hand of the heroic Francis Jackson in the midst of the convention of the constituents of Hon. J. Q. Adams, called at Quincy to assure their brave, invincible representative of their deep, admiring sense of obligation to him for his persistent and almost single-handed defence of the sacred right of petition on the floor of Congress.
Mr. Pierpont’s next was atocsinin deed as well as in name. He was impelled to strike his lyre by the alarm he justly felt at the tidings from Alton of the destruction of Mr. Lovejoy’s antislavery printing-office, and the murder of the devoted proprietor. His indignation was roused yet more by the burning of “Pennsylvania Hall” in Philadelphia, and the shameful fact that at the same time, 1838, no church or decent hall could be obtained in Boston for “love or money,” in which to hold an antislavery meeting; but we were compelled to resort to an inconvenient and insufficient room over the stable of Marlborough Hotel.
His next powerful effusion wasThe Gag, a caustic andscathing satire upon the Hon. C. G. Atherton, of New Hampshire, for his base attempt in the House of Representatives at Washington to put an entire stop to any discussion of the subject of slavery.
His next piece wasThe Chain, a most touching comparison of the wrongs and sufferings of the slaves with other evils that injured men have been made to endure.
Then followedThe Fugitive Slave’s Apostrophe to the North Star, which showed how deeply he sympathized with the many hundreds of our countrymen who, to escape from slavery, had toiled through dismal swamps, thick-set canebrakes, deep rivers, tangled forests, alone, by night, hungry, almost naked and penniless, guided only by the steady light of the polar star, which some kind friend had taught them to distinguish, and had assured them would be an unerring leader to a land of liberty. They who have heard the narratives of such as have so escaped need not be told that Mr. Pierpont must have had the tale poured through his ear into his generous heart.M
But of all our American poets, John G. Whittier has from first to last done most for the abolition of slavery. All my antislavery brethren, I doubt not, will unite with me to crown him our laureate. From 1832 to the close of our dreadful war in 1865 his harp of liberty was never hung up. Not an important occasion escaped him. Every significant incident drew from his heart some pertinentand often very impressive or rousing verses. His name appears in the first volume ofThe Liberator, with high commendations of his poetry and his character. As early as 1831 he was attracted to Mr. Garrison by sympathy with his avowed purpose to abolish slavery. Their acquaintance soon ripened into a heartfelt friendship, as he declared in the following lines, written in 1833:—
“Champion of those who groan beneathOppression’s iron hand:In view of penury, hate, and death,I see thee fearless stand.Still bearing up thy lofty brow,In the steadfast strength of truth,In manhood sealing well the vowAnd promise of thy youth.*****“I love thee with a brother’s love;I feel my pulses thrill,To mark thy spirit soar aboveThe cloud of human ill.My heart hath leaped to answer thine,And echo back thy words,As leaps the warrior’s at the shineAnd flash of kindred swords!*****“Go on—the dagger’s point may glareAmid thy pathway’s gloom,—The fate which sternly threatens thereIs glorious martyrdom!Then onward with a martyr’s zeal;And wait thy sure reward,When man to man no more shall kneel,And God alone be Lord!”
“Champion of those who groan beneathOppression’s iron hand:In view of penury, hate, and death,I see thee fearless stand.Still bearing up thy lofty brow,In the steadfast strength of truth,In manhood sealing well the vowAnd promise of thy youth.*****“I love thee with a brother’s love;I feel my pulses thrill,To mark thy spirit soar aboveThe cloud of human ill.My heart hath leaped to answer thine,And echo back thy words,As leaps the warrior’s at the shineAnd flash of kindred swords!*****“Go on—the dagger’s point may glareAmid thy pathway’s gloom,—The fate which sternly threatens thereIs glorious martyrdom!Then onward with a martyr’s zeal;And wait thy sure reward,When man to man no more shall kneel,And God alone be Lord!”
“Champion of those who groan beneathOppression’s iron hand:In view of penury, hate, and death,I see thee fearless stand.Still bearing up thy lofty brow,In the steadfast strength of truth,In manhood sealing well the vowAnd promise of thy youth.
*****
“I love thee with a brother’s love;I feel my pulses thrill,To mark thy spirit soar aboveThe cloud of human ill.My heart hath leaped to answer thine,And echo back thy words,As leaps the warrior’s at the shineAnd flash of kindred swords!
*****
“Go on—the dagger’s point may glareAmid thy pathway’s gloom,—The fate which sternly threatens thereIs glorious martyrdom!Then onward with a martyr’s zeal;And wait thy sure reward,When man to man no more shall kneel,And God alone be Lord!”
Mr. Whittier proved the sincerity of these professions. He joined the first antislavery society and became an active official. Notwithstanding his dislike of public speaking, he sometimes lectured at that early day, when so few were found willing to avow and advocate the right of the enslaved to immediate liberation from bondage without the condition of removal to Liberia. Mr. Whittier attended the convention at Philadelphia in December,1833, that formed the American Antislavery Society. He was one of the secretaries of that body, and a member, with Mr. Garrison, of the committee appointed to prepare the “Declaration of our Sentiments and Purposes.” Although, as I have elsewhere stated, Mr. Garrison wrote almost every sentence of that admirable document just as it now stands, yet I well remember the intense interest with which Mr. Whittier scrutinized it, and how heartily he indorsed it.
In 1834, by his invitation I visited Haverhill, where he then resided. I was his guest, and lectured under his auspices in explanation and defence of our abolition doctrines and plans. Again the next year, after the mob spirit had broken out, I went to Haverhill by his invitation, and he shared with me in the perils which I have described on a former page.
In January, 1836, Mr. Whittier attended the annual meeting of the Massachusetts Antislavery Society, and boarded the while in the house where I was living. He heard Dr. Follen’s great speech on that occasion, and came home so much affected by it that, either that night or the next morning, he wrote those “Stanzas for the Times,” which are among the best of hisproductions:—
“Is this the land our fathers loved,The freedom which they toiled to win?Is this the soil whereon they moved?Are these the graves they slumber in?Arewethe sons by whom are borneThe mantles which the dead have worn?“And shall we crouch above these gravesWith craven soul and fettered lip?Yoke in with marked and branded slaves,And tremble at the driver’s whip?Bend to the earth our pliant knees,And speak but as our masters please?*****“Shall tongues be mute when deeds are wroughtWhich well might shame extremest hell?Shall freemen lock the indignant thought?Shall Pity’s bosom cease to swell?Shall Honor bleed? Shall Truth succumb?Shall pen and press and soul be dumb?“No;—by each spot of haunted ground,Where Freedom weeps her children’s fall,—By Plymouth’s rock and Bunker’s mound,—By Griswold’s stained and shattered wall,—By Warren’s ghost,—by Langdon’s shade,—By all the memories of our dead!*****“By all above, around, below,Be our indignant answer,—NO!”
“Is this the land our fathers loved,The freedom which they toiled to win?Is this the soil whereon they moved?Are these the graves they slumber in?Arewethe sons by whom are borneThe mantles which the dead have worn?“And shall we crouch above these gravesWith craven soul and fettered lip?Yoke in with marked and branded slaves,And tremble at the driver’s whip?Bend to the earth our pliant knees,And speak but as our masters please?*****“Shall tongues be mute when deeds are wroughtWhich well might shame extremest hell?Shall freemen lock the indignant thought?Shall Pity’s bosom cease to swell?Shall Honor bleed? Shall Truth succumb?Shall pen and press and soul be dumb?“No;—by each spot of haunted ground,Where Freedom weeps her children’s fall,—By Plymouth’s rock and Bunker’s mound,—By Griswold’s stained and shattered wall,—By Warren’s ghost,—by Langdon’s shade,—By all the memories of our dead!*****“By all above, around, below,Be our indignant answer,—NO!”
“Is this the land our fathers loved,The freedom which they toiled to win?Is this the soil whereon they moved?Are these the graves they slumber in?Arewethe sons by whom are borneThe mantles which the dead have worn?
“And shall we crouch above these gravesWith craven soul and fettered lip?Yoke in with marked and branded slaves,And tremble at the driver’s whip?Bend to the earth our pliant knees,And speak but as our masters please?
*****
“Shall tongues be mute when deeds are wroughtWhich well might shame extremest hell?Shall freemen lock the indignant thought?Shall Pity’s bosom cease to swell?Shall Honor bleed? Shall Truth succumb?Shall pen and press and soul be dumb?
“No;—by each spot of haunted ground,Where Freedom weeps her children’s fall,—By Plymouth’s rock and Bunker’s mound,—By Griswold’s stained and shattered wall,—By Warren’s ghost,—by Langdon’s shade,—By all the memories of our dead!
*****
“By all above, around, below,Be our indignant answer,—NO!”
I can hardly refrain from giving my readers the whole of these stanzas. But I hope they all are, or will at once make themselves, familiar with them. As I read them now, they revive in my bosom not the memory only, but the glow they kindled there when I first pored over them. Then his lines entitled “Massachusetts to Virginia,” and those he wrote on the adoption of Pinckney’s Resolution, and the passage of Calhoun’s Bill, excluding antislavery newspapers and pamphlets and letters from the United States Mail,—indeed, all his antislavery poetry helped mightily to keep us alive to our high duties, and fired us with holy resolution. Let our laureate’s verses still be said and sung throughout the land, for if the portents of the day be true, our conflict with the enemies of liberty, the oppressors of humanity, is not yet ended.
If the enslaved millions of our countrymen had been white, the task of emancipating them would have been a light one. But as only colored persons were to be seen in that condition, and they were ignorant and degraded,and as all of that complexion, with rare exceptions, even in the free States, were poor, uneducated, and held in servile relations, or engaged in only menial employments, it had come to be taken for granted that they were fitted only for such things. It was confidently assumed that they belonged to aninferior raceof beings, somewhere between monkey and man; that they were made by the Creator for our service, to be hewers of wood and drawers of water; and pious ministers, and some who were reputed to be wise in the sacred Scriptures, gave their sanction to the arrogant assumption by proving (to those who were anxious to believe) that negroes were descendants from the impious son of Noah, whom that patriarch cursed, and in his wrath decreed that his posterity should be the lowest of servants.
Our opponents gave no heed to the glaring facts, that the colored people were not permitted to rise from their low estate, wereheld downby our laws, customs, and contemptuous treatment. Not only were they prevented from engaging in any of the lucrative occupations, but they were denied the privileges of education, and hardly admitted to the houses dedicated to the worship of the impartial Father of all men.
I have given in early numbers of this series a full account of the fight we had in defence of the Canterbury School in Connecticut. More than a year before that, a number of well-qualified young men having been refused admission into Yale College and the Wesleyan Seminary at Middletown,because of their complexion, the Rev. Simeon S. Jocelyn, one of the best of men, generously assisted by Arthur Tappan and his brother Lewis Tappan, and others, endeavored to establish in New Haven an institution for the collegiate education of colored young men. The benevolent project was so violently opposed by “the most respectable citizens” of the place,Hon. Judge Daggett among them, that it was abandoned. A year or two afterwards the trustees of “Noyes Academy,” in Plymouth, New Hampshire, after due consideration, consented to allow colored pupils to be admitted into the academy. The respectable people of the town were so incensed, enraged by this encroachment upon the prerogative of white children, that, readily helped by the rougher but not baser sort of folks, they razed the building in which the school was kept from its foundation and carted it off into a meadow or swamp. In none of our cities, that I was acquainted with before the antislavery reform commenced, were colored children admitted into the “common schools” with white children. Hon. Horace Mann and his fellow-laborers in the cause of humanity, as well as education, put this injustice to shame in Massachusetts, if not elsewhere, and the doors of all public schools were opened to the young, without regard to complexion.
But this was not the utmost of the contempt with which colored people were treated. They were not permitted to ride in any public conveyances, stage-coaches, omnibuses, or railroad-cars, nor to take passage on any steamboats or sail-packets, excepting in the steerage or on deck. Many instances of extreme suffering, as well as great inconvenience and expense, to which worthy, excellent colored persons were subjected came to the knowledge of Abolitionists, and were pressed upon the public consideration, until the crying iniquity was abated.
And still there was a deeper depth to the wrong we did to these innocent victims of prejudice. In all our churches they were set apart from the white brethren, often in pews or pens, built high up against the ceiling in the corners back of the congregation, so that the favored ones who came to worship the “impartialFather”of all men might not be offended at the sight of those to whom in hisinscrutablewisdom he had given a dark complexion.
There was quite an excitement caused in the Federal Street Church in 1822 or 1823, because one of the very wealthy merchants of Boston introduced into his pew in the broad aisle, one Sunday, a black gentleman. To be sure he was richly dressed, and had a handsome person, but he was black,—very black.