The martyr age of the United States

M A R T Y R A G E

UNI TED STATE S,

BY HARRIET MARTINEAU,

University of California • Berkeley

REINHARD S. SPECK COLLECTION

of

HARRIET MARTINEAU

THE

MARTYR AGE

UNITED STATES

•''•
J

BY HARRIET MARTINEAU.

BOSTON:

WEEKS, JORDAN & CO.— OTIS, BROADERS & CO.
NEW YORK :-JOHN S. TAYLOR.

1839.

[In consequence of the repeated demands for the No. of the London
and Westminster Review containing Miss Martineau's Martyr Age in
the United States, the Publishers have been induced to issue the article
in a separate form, without any alteration. ]

THE MARTYR AGE.

1. Right and Wrong in Boston in 1835. Boston, U. S. :

Isaac Knapp.

2. Right and Wrong in Boston in 1836. Boston, U. S. :

Isaac Knapp.

3. Right and Wrong in Boston in 1837. Boston, U. S. :

Isaac Knapp.

THERE is a remarkable set of people now living
and vigorously acting in the world, with a consonance
of will and understanding which has perhaps never
been witnessed among so large a number of individ-
uals of such diversified powers, habits, opinions,
tastes and circumstances. The body comprehends
men and women of every shade of color, of every de-
gree of education, of every variety of religious opin-
ion, of every gradation of rank, bound together by no
vow, no pledge, no stipulation but of each preserving
his individual liberty ; and yet they act as if they
were of one heart and of one soul. Such union
could be secured by no principle of worldly interest ;
nor, for a terms of years, by the most stringent fana-
ticism. A well-grounded faith, directed towards a
noble object, is the only principle which can account
for such a spectacle as the world is now waking up to
contemplate in the abolitionists of the United States.

Before we fix our attention on the history of the
body, it may be remarked that it is a totally different
thing to be an abolitionist on a soil actually trodden

4

4 AMERICAN ABOLITIONISTS.

by slaves, and in a far-off country, where opinion is
already on the side of emancipation, or ready to be
converted ; where only a fraction of society, instead
of the whole, has to be convicted of guilt ; and where
no interests are put in jeopardy but pecuniary ones,
and those limited and remote. Great honor is due
to the first movers in the anti-slavery cause in every
land : but those of European countries may take rank
with the philanthropists of America who may espouse
the cause of the aborigines : while the primary aboli-
tionists of the United States have encountered, with
steady purpose, such opposition as might here await
assailants of the whole set of aristocratic institutions
at once, from the throne to pauper apprenticeship.
.Slavery is as thoroughly interwoven with American
institutions — ramifies as extensively through American
society, as the aristocratic spirit pervades Great Bri-
tain. The fate of Reformers whose lives are devoted
to making war upon either the one or the other must
be remarkable. We are about to exhibit a brief
sketch of the struggle of the American abolitionists
from the dawn of their day to the present hour, avoid-
ing to dwell on the institution with which they are at
war, both because the question of slavery is doubtless
settled in the minds of all our readers, and because
our contemplation is of a body of persons who are
living by faith, and not of a party of Reformers con-
tending against a particular social abuse. Our sketch
must be faint, partial^ and imperfect. The short life
of American abolitionism is so crowded with events
and achievements, that the selection of a few is all
that can be attempted. Many names deserving of
honor will be omitted ; and many will receive less
than their due : and in the case of persons who are so
devoted to others as to have no thoughts to bestow on
themselves, no information to proffer regarding their
own lives, it is scarcely possible for their describers

COLONIZATION SOCIETY. O

to avoid errors about their history. Though an extra-
ordinary light is shed from their deeds upon their lives,
it scarcely penetrates far enough into the obscurity of
the past to obviate mistake on the part of a foreign
observer.

Ten years ago there was external quiet on the sub-
ject of slavery in the United States. Jefferson and
other great men had prophesied national peril from it ;
a few legislators had talked of doing something to me-
liorate the " condition of society" in their respective
States ; the institution had been abolished in some of
the northern States, where the number of negroes was
small, and the work of emancipation easy and obvious-
ly desirable : an insurrection broke out occasionally,
in one place or another ; and certain sections of so-
ciety were in a state of perplexity or alarm at the tal-
ents, or the demeanor, or the increase of numbers of
the free blacks. But no such thing had been heard
of as a comprehensive and strenuously active objec-
tion to the whole system, wherever established. The
surface of society was heaving ; but no one surge had
broken into voice, prophetic of that chorus of many
waters in which the doom of the institution may now
be heard. Yet clear sighted persons saw that some
great change must take place ere long ; for a scheme
was under trial for removing the obnoxious part of the
negro population to Africa. Those of the dusky race
who were too clever, and those who were too stupid,
to be safe or useful at home, were to be exported ;
and slave-owners who had scruples about holding man
as property might, by sending their slaves away over
the sea, relieve their consciences without annoying
their neighbors. Such was the state of affairs pre-
vious to 1829.

The Colonization Society originated abolitionism.
It acted in two ways. It exasperated the free blacks

by the prospect of exile, and it engaged the attention
!*

COLONIZATION SOCIETF,

of those who hated slavery, though the excitement it
afforded to their hopes was illusory. Its action in
both ways became manifest in the year 1829. In the
spring of this year the stir began at Cincinnati, where
a strenuous effort was made to induce the white inhabi-
tants to drive away the free colored people, by putting
in force against them the atrocious state laws, which
placed them in a condition of civil disability, and pro-
viding at the same time the means of transportation to
Africa. The colored people held a meeting, peti-
tioned the authorities for leave to remain in their pre-
sent condition for sixty days, and despatched a com-
mittee to Canada, to see whether provision could be
made for their residence there. The sixty days ex-
pired before the committee returned : the populace of
Cincinnati rose upon the colored people, and compel-
led them to barricade themselves in their houses, in
assailing which, during three days and nights, several
lives were lost. Sir James Colebrook, Governor of
Upper Canada, charged the Committee with the fol-
lowing message : — " Tell the Republicans on your
side of the line that we do not know men by their
color. If you come to us, you will be entitled to all
the privileges of the rest of his Majesty's subjects. "
In consequence of this welcome message, the greater
part of the proscribed citizens removed to Canada,
and formed the Wilberforce settlement. The few
who remained behind were oppressed to the utmost
degree that the iniquitous laws against them could be
made to sanction. This was not a transaction which
could be kept a secret. Meetings were held by the
free blacks of all the principal towns north of the
Carolinas, and resolutions passed expressive of their
abhorrence of the Colonization Society. The reso-
lutions passed at the Philadelphia meeting are a fair
sample of the opinions of the class :

WILLIAM L. GARRISON. 7

" Resolved, — That we view with deep abhorrence the unmerited
stigma attempted to be cast upon the reputation of the free people
of color by the promoters of this measure, 'that they are a danger-
ous and useless part of the community,' when, in the state of dis-
franchisement in which they live, in the hour of danger they
ceased to remember their wrongs, and rallied round the standard of
their country.

" Resolved, — That we never will separate ourselves voluntarily
from the slave population in this country : they are our brethren by
the ties of consanguinity, of suffering, and of wrong : and we feel
that there is more virtue in suffering privations with them than in
fancied advantages for a season."

Such was one mode of operation of the Coloniza-
tion Society. The other was upon the minds of in-
dividuals of the privileged color who had the spirit of
abolitionism in them, without having yet learned how
to direct it. Of these the chief, the heroic printer's
lad, the master-mind of this great revolution, was then
lying in prison, undergoing his baptism into the
cause.

William Lloyd Garrison is one of God's nobility —
the head of the moral aristocracy whose prerogatives
we are contemplating. It is not only that he is invul-
nerable to injury — that he early got the world under
his feet in a way which it would have made Zeno
stroke his beard in complacency to witness, but that
in his meekness, his sympathies, his self-forgetfulness,
he appears u covered all over with the stars and or-
ders " of the spiritual realm whence he derives his
dignities and powers. At present he is a marked man
wherever he turns. The faces of his friends brighten
when his step is heard : the people of color almost
kneel to him ; and the rest of society jeer, pelt,
and execrate him. Amidst all this, his gladsome
life rolls on, " too busy to be anxious, and too
loving to be sad." He springs from his bed singing
at sunrise ; and if, during the day, tears should cloud
his serenity, they are never shed for himself. His
countenance of steady compassion gives hope to the

8 WILLIAM L, GARRISON.

oppressed, who look to him as the Jews looked to
Moses. It was this serene countenance, saint-like in
its earnestness and purity, that a man bought at a
print-shop, where it was exposed without a name, and
hung up as the most apostolic face he ever saw. It
does not alter the case that the man took it out of the
frame and hid it when he found that it was Garrison
who had been adorning his parlour. As for his own
persecutors, Garrison sees in them the creatures of
of unfavorable circumstances. He early satisfied
himself that a "rotten egg cannot hit truth ;"
and then the whole matter was settled. Such is his
case now. In 1829 it was very different. He was an
obscure lad, gaining some superficial improvement in
a country college, when tidings of the Colonization
scheme reached him, and filled him with hope for the
colored race. He resolved to devote himself to the
cause, and went down to Baltimore to learn such facts
as would enable him to lecture on the subject. The
fallacies of the plan melted before his gaze, while the
true principle became so apparent as to decide his
mission. While this process was going on, he got
into his first trouble. A Mr Todd, a New England
merchant, freighted a vessel with slaves for the New
Orleans market, in the interval of his annual thanks-
givings to God that the soil of his State was untrod-
den by the foot of a slave. Garrison said what he
thought of the transaction in a newspaper ; was tried
for libel, and committed to prison till he could pay the
imposed fine of a thousand dollars — a sum which'
might as well have been a million for any ability he
had to pay it. Some record of what was his state of
mind at this time was left on his prison wall : —

WILLIAM L. GARRISON. V

" I boast no courage on the battle-field,

Where hostile troops immix in horrid fray ;
For love or fame I can no weapon wield,

With burning lust an enemy to slay.
But test my spirit at the blazing stake,

For advocacy of the Rights of Man
And Truth — or on the wheel my body break ;

Let Persecution place me 'neath its ban ;
Insult, defame, proscribe my humble name ;

Yea, put the dagger at my naked breast ;
If I recoil in terror from the flame —

Or recreant prove when peril rears its crest,
To save a limb or shun the public scorn —
Then write me down for aye — weakest of woman torn."

W. L G.

The imprisonment of an honest man for such a
cause was an occasion for the outbreak of discontent
with slavery on all hands. u I was in danger," says
Garrison, " of being lifted up beyond measure, even
in prison, by excessive panegyric and extraordinary
sympathy." He was freed by the generosity of an
entire stranger, Mr Arthur Tappan, a wealthy mer-
chant of New York, whose entire conduct on the
question has been in accordance with the act of pay-
ing Garrison's fine.

Garrison's lectures were now upon abolition, not
colonization. He was listened to with much interest
in New York ; but at Boston he could obtain no place
to lecture in ; and it was not till it was clear that he
intended to collect an audience on the Common, in
the midst of the city, that a door was opened to him.
He obtained a few coadjutors, — for one, a simple-
minded clergyman, Mr May, who on the next Sunday
prayed for slaves, among other distressed persons, and
was asked, on coming down from the pulpit, whether
he was mad ? Another of these coadjutors, William
Goodell, said, in 1836, " My mind runs back to
nearly seven years ago, when I used to walk with
Garrison across yonder Common, and to converse
on the great enterprise for which we are now met.

10 WILLIAM L. GARRISON.

The work then was all future. It existed only in the
ardent prayer and the fixed resolves." It was wrought
out by prompt and strenuous action. Garrison and
his friend Knapp, a printer, were ere ere long living
in a garret on bread and water, expending all their
spare earnings and time on the publication of the
" Liberator," now a handsome and flourishing news-
paper ; then a small, shabby sheet, printed with old
types. " When it sold particularly well," says
Knapp, " we treated ourselves with a bowl of milk."
The venerable first number, dated January 1st, 1831,
lies before us in its primitive shabbiness ; and on its
first page, in Garrison's " Address to the Public," we
see proof that the vehemence of language, which has
often been ascribed to personal resentment (but by
none who knew him), has been from the beginning a
matter of conscience with him. "I am aware," he
says, " that many object to the severity of my lan-
guage, but is there not cause for severity ! I will be
as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice.
I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not
excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL
BE HEARD. The apathy of the people is enough to
make every statue leap from its pedestal, and to hasten
the resurrection of the dead. It is pretended that I
am retarding the cause of emancipation by the coarse-
ness of my invective, and the precipitancy of rny
measures. The charge is not true. On this question
my influence, humble as it is, is felt at this moment to
a considerable extent, and shall be felt in coming years
— not perniciously, but beneficially ; not as a curse,
but as a blessing ; and posterity will bear testimony
that I was right. I desire to thank God that he ena-
bles me to disregard the fear of man, and to speak his
truth in its simplicity and power."

The time was ripe for Garrison's exertions. A
pamphlet appeared in the autumn of 1829, at Boston,

WILLIAM L. GARRISON. 11

from the pen of a man of color, named Walker, which
alarmed society not a little. It was an appeal to his
colored brethren, to drown their injuries in the blood
of their oppressors. Its language is perfectly appal-
ling. It ran through several editions, though no book-
seller would publish it. Not long after, the author
was found murdered near his own door ; but whether
he had been assassinated for his book, or had been
fatally wounded in a fray, is not known. If the slave-
owners could but have seen it, Garrison was this
man's antagonist, not his coadjutor. Garrison is as
strenuous a "peace-man" as any broad-brimmed
Friend in Philadelphia ; and this fact, in conjunction
with his unlimited influence over the Negro popula-
tion, is the chief reason why no blood has been shed,
— why no insurrectionary movement has taken place
in the United States, from the time when his voice
began to be heard over the broad land till now. Ev-
ery evil, however, which happened, every shiver of
the master, every growl of the slave was henceforth to
!/e char;,- d upon Garrison. Some of the Southern
States oifered rewards for the apprehension of any
person who might be detected in circulating the " Li-
berator," or " Walker's Appeal ;" and one Legisla-
ture demanded of the Governor of Massachusetts that
Garrison should be delivered up to them. The fate
of Walker was before his eyes ; and it came to his
ears, that gentlemen in stage coaches said that it was
everywhere thought that " he would not be permitted
to live long ;" that he "would be taken away, and no
one be the wiser for it." His answer, on this and many
subsequent occasions, was the same in spirit. " Will
you aim at no higher victims than Arthur Tappan,
Geo. Thompson, and W. L. Garrison ? And who
and what are they ? Three drops from a boundless
ocean — three rays from a noon day sun — three parti-
cles of dust floating in a limitless atmosphere — nothing,

12 WILLIAM L. GARRISON.

subtracted from infinite fulness. Should you succeed
in destroying them, the mighty difficulty still remains."
As- a noble woman has since said, in defence of the
individuality of action of the leaders of the cause, " It
is idle to talk of ' leaders.' In the contest of morals
with abuses, men are but types of principles. Does
any one seriously believe that if Mr Garrison should
take an appealing, protesting, backward step, aboli-
tionists would fall back with him ?" The " mighty
difficulty" would still remain, — and remain as surely
doomed as ever, were Garrison to turn recreant or
die.

One more dreadful event was to happen before the
tk peace-man" could make his reprobation of violence
heard over the Union. The insurrection of slaves in
Southampton county, Virginia, in which eighty persons
were slain — parents with their five, seven or ten child-
ren, being massacred in the night — happened in 1832.
The affair is wrapped in mystery, as are most slave in-
surrections, both from policy on tlic pun of ihr. mas-
ters, and from the whites being too impatient to wait
the regular course of justice, and sacrificing their foes
as they could catch them. In the present case many
Negroes were slaughtered, with every refinement of
cruelty, on the roads, or in their masters' yards, with-
out appeal to judge, jury, or evidence. This kind of
management precludes any clear knowledge of the
causes of the insurrection ; but it is now supposed
near the spot to have been occasioned by the fanati-
cism of a madman, a Negro, who assured the blacks
who came to him for religious sympathy that they were
to run the course of the ancient Jews — slaying and
sparing not. We mention this rising because it is the
last on the part of the people of color. Free or enslav-
ed, they have since been peaceable ; while all the suc-
ceeding violences have been perpetrated by "gentlemen
of property and standing." It was natural that those

PRUDENCE CRANDALL. 13

who had suffered by this slaughter or its consequences,
those who mourned large families of relations thus cut
off, those who for the sake of their crops feared the
amendment of the system as a result of this exhibition
of its tendencies, those who for the sake of their
children nightly trembled in their beds, should cast
about for an object on whom to vent their painful feel-
ings ; and Garrison was that object. The imputation
of the insurrection to him was too absurd to be long
sustained ; but those who could not urge this against
him still remonstrated against his " disturbing the har-
mony and peace of society." " Disturbing the slave-
holders !" replied he. <c I am sorry to disturb any-
body. But the slave-holders have so many friends ;
I must be the friend of the slaves."

On the 22d of March, 1833, there appeared in the
" Liberator" the following advertisement: —

PRUDENCE CRANDALL.

" Principal of the Canterbury (Connecticut) Female
Boarding School, returns her most sincere thanks to those
who have patronized her School, and would give informa-
tion that, on the first Monday of April next, her School will
be opened for the reception of young Ladies and little Misses
of color. The branches taught are as follows ; — Reading,
Writing, Arithmetic, English Grammar, &c."

The advertisement closed with a long list of referen-
ces to gentlemen of the highest character.

The reason of this announcement was, that Miss
Crandall, a young lady of established reputation in
her profession, had been urgently requested to under-
take the tuition of a child of light color, had admitted
her among the white pupils, had subsequently admitted
a second, thereby offending the parents of her former
pupils ; ^nd, on being threatened on the one hand with
the loss of all her scholars, and urged on the other to
take more of a dark complexion, Tiad nobly resolved
2

14 PRUDENCE CRANDALL.

to continue to take young ladies of color, letting the
whites depart, if they so pleased. We relate the con-
sequences, because this is, as far as we know, the first
instance in the struggle of a protracted persecution of
a peaceable individual by the whole of the society of
the district.

A town-meeting was called on the appearance of
the advertisement, and the school was denounced in
violent terms. Miss Crandall silently prosecuted her
plan. The legislature was petitioned, through the ex-
ertion of a leading citizen of Canterbury, Mr Judson,
and a law was obtained in the course of the month of
May, making it a penal offence to establish any school
for the instruction of colored persons, not inhabitants
of the State, or to instruct, board, or harbor persons
entering the State for educational purposes. This law
was clearly unconstitutional, as it violated that clause
in the constitution which gives to the citizens of each
State all the privileges and immunities of the citizens
of the several States.* Perceiving this, Miss Cran-
dall took no notice, but went on with her school. She
was accordingly arrested, and carried before a justice
of the peace ; and the next spectacle that the inhabi-
tants of Canterbury saw was Miss Crandall going to
jail. She was bailed out the next day, and her trial
issued in nothing, as the jury could not agree. She
was again prosecuted, and again ; and at length con-
victed. She appealed to a higher Court, and struggled
on throught a long persecution till compelled to yield
from the lives of her pupils being in danger. Her
neighbors pulled down her fences, and filled up her
well. All the traders in the place refused to deal with
her, and she was obliged to purchase provisions and
clothing from a great distance. She and her pupils

*Laws which are infringements of the constitution are not binding
upon the Court of Judicature iu the last resort, the Supreme Court of
the United States.

MR AND MRS CHILD. 15

were refused admission to the churches ; her windows
were repeatedly broken during the night ; and at length
the attacks upon her house became so alarming, and
the menaces to her pupils on their way to school so
violent, that their parents were compelled to hide the
children in their own houses, and Mis Crandall retired
from the place. Her conduct was to the last degree
meek and quiet ; nothing need be said about its cour-
age.

By this time the abolition cause was supported by
twentysix periodicals, circulating from Maine to Vir-
ginia and Indiana. Some excellent individuals had
done the brave deed of publishing books in aid of the
same cause. Among these was Mrs Child, a lady of
whom society was exceedingly proud before she pub-
lished her £ Appeal,' and to whom society has been
extremely contemptuous since. Her works were
bought with avidity before, but fell into sudden obliv-
ion as soon as she had done a greater deed than writing
any os- : !1 of them. Her noble-minded husband lost
his legcii practice, sound and respected as were his tal-
ents, from affording his counsel to citizens of color ;
and he was maliciously arrested on the quays of New-
York, for a fictitious or extremely trifling old debt,
when he was just putting his foot on board a vessel for
England. The incident affected him deeply ; and his
brave wife was, for once, seen to sit down and weep :
but she shook off her trouble, packed up a bundle of
clothes for him, and went to cheer him in his prison,
whence, it is needless to say, he was presently released,
crowned in the eyes of his friends with fresh honors.
A circumstance which we happen to know respecting
this gentleman and lady illustrates well the states of
feeling on the great question in the different classes of
minds at the time. Mr Child was professionally con-
sulted by a gentleman of color. The client and his
lady visited Mr Child at his residence at Boston, one

16 MR AND MRS CHILD.

afternoon, and staid beyond the family tea-hour. Mrs
Child at length ordered up tea ; but before it could be
poured out, the visitors took their leave, not choosing
to subject Mr and Mrs Child to the imputation of sit-
ting at table with people of color. Boston soon rang
with the report that Mr and Mrs Child had given an
entertainment to colored people. Some aristocratic
ladies, seated in one of the handsomest drawing-rooms
in Boston, were one day canvassing this and other ab-
olition affairs, while Dr Channing appeared absorbed
in a newspaper by the fireside. The ladies repeated
tale after tale, each about as true as the one they be-
gan with, and greeted with loud laughter every attempt
of one of the party to correct their mistakes about
the ladies who were then under persecution, and in
peril for the cause. At length, Dr Channing turned
his head, and produced a dead silence by observing,
in the sternest tones of his thrilling voice, "The time
will come when those ladies will find their proper
places : and the time will come when the laughers will
find their proper 'place." This happened, however,
not in 1833, but when the persecution of the women
had risen to iis height.

By this time the degraded free blacks began to hold
up their heads ; and they entered upon a new course
of action, — setting out upon a principle of hope in-
stead of despair. As they found the doors of schools
shut against them, they formed associations for mutual
improvement. The best minds among them sent forth
urgent entreaties to the rest to labor at the work of
education, pleading that the nearer the prospect of an
improved social condition, the more pressing became
the necessity of strengthening and enriching their
minds for their new responsibilities. It was a glad day
for them when they saw the assemblage in Convention
at Philadelphia of anti-slavery delegates from ten
States out of the twentyfour of which the Union was

DECLARATION. 17

at that time constituted. These ten States were the
six which compose New England, and New York,
New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. Some State
Associations were already organized : the National
one organized by this Convention bears date Decem-
ber 1833. There might be seen Garrison, just re-
turned from England, refreshed by sympathy and ex-
hilarated by hope. There was May, the mild gentle-
man, the liberal clergyman, who unconsciously secures
courtesy from the most contemptuous of the foe,
when nothing but insult was designed. There was
Lewis Tappan, the grave Presbyterian, against whom
violence was even then brewing, and who was soon
to be despoiled of his property by the firebrands of a
rnob. These, and many others, put their signatures
to a Declaration, of which we subjoin the concluding
passage : —

" Submitting this DECLARATION to the candid considera-
tion of the people of this country ; and of the friends of lib-
erty throughout the world, we hereby affix our signatures to
it ; pledging ourselves that, under the guidance and by the
help of Almighty God, we will do all that in us lies, con-
sistently with this Declaration of our principles, to over-
throw the most execrable system of slavery that iias ever
been witnessed upon earth — to deliver our land from its
deadliest curse — to wipe out the foulest stain which rests
upon our national escutcheon — and to secure to the colored
population of the United States all the rights and privileges
which belong to them as men, and as Americans, — come
what may to our persons, our interests, or our reputation —
whether we live to witness the triumph of Liberty, Justice,
and Humanity, or perish untimely as martyrs in this great,
benevolent, and holy cause."

This was the first General Convention of Men
held for this object. Of another First Convention
we shall have occasion to speak hereafter.

The next year (1834) was a stirring year. The
u Young Men " of the large cities began to associate
themselves for the cause. Those of New York
2*

18 YOUNG MEN.

pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred
honor, (in the language and spirit of the Declaration
of Independence,) to overthrow slavery by moral as-
sault, or to die in the attempt. The most remarkable
accession of young men to the cause was from Lane
Seminary, Cincinnati, — a presbyterian college of high
reputation, with the eminent Dr Beecher to preside
over it. The students, most of whom were above
one-and-twenty, and fifty of whom were above five-and
twenty years of age, discussed the abolition and colo-
nization questions for eighteen evenings, and decided
unanimously in favor of the former. The alarmed
Faculty forbade discussion and association on the ques-
tion, and conferred an irresponsible power of expul-
sion on the Executive Committee. The students re-
fused to be tongue-tied, and preferred expulsion.
Those who were not formally expelled, withdrew ;
so that of forty theological students, only two returned
the next term ; and of classical students, only five out
of sixty. It is strange that the Faculty did not fore-
see the consequences. Almost every one of these
dispersed young men became the nucleus of an aboli-
tion society. Some distributed themselves among
other colleges : and some set about establishing a sem-
inary where freedom of thought and speech might be
secured, and whose doors should be open to students
of all complexions. Ere long, President Beecher's
two sons were active abolitionists ; several colleges
had invited students of color to enter ; and five estab-
lishments belonging to the noble Oberlin Institute were
overflowing with students of both sexes, and any color
that might please Heaven. Out of the forlornness of
Lane Seminary arose the prosperity of the Oberlin
Institute.

While these things were doing in the West, a strange
thing was happening in the South. In the midst of
the hot fields of Alabama, where the negro drinks the

MR BIRNEIT. ID

last dregs of his cup of bitterness, and sees his family
"killed off," before his eyes, in securing for one
whom he hates, the full abundance of a virgin soil ; —
from among the raw settlements where white men car-
ry secret arms, and black men secret curses, a great
man rose up before the public eye, and declared him-
self an abolitionist. Mr Birney was a great man in a
worldly as well as a moral sense, — not only " a gen-
tleman of property and standing," but Solicitor-Gen-
eral of the State, and in the way to be Judge of its
Supreme Court. But he was also an honest and a
moderate man. It was he who, being asked about in-
vestment for capital in the West, smiled, and said, ct I
am the worst person you could ask. My family and
I are happy with what we have : we do not know that
we should be happier with more ; and therefore we
inquire nothing about investments." None can be
fully aware of the singularity of this answer who have
not witnessed the prevalence and force of the spirit of
speculation in the Western States. — Mr Birney re-
moved from Alabama, emancipated and settled all his
slaves, giving them education in defiance of the laws
01 Kentucky, and himself setting up a newspaper in
Cincinnati, standing his ground there against many and
awful attempts upon his life, and at length gaining a
complete victory, and establishing freedom of speech
and the press. This is the gentleman to whom Mr
Channing wrote his splendid letter (on liberty of speech
and the press :) and to that letter Mr Birney acknowl-
edges himself under great obligations — Dr Channing's
name effecting in some minds changes which angelic
truth could not achieve. Mr Birney is he to whom
Southern Menabers of Congress now address them-
selves— now that they are compelled to stoop to ad-
dress abolitionists at all : — he is addressed as the gen-
tleman of the party — a distinction at which he would
be the first to smile. The whole South felt the shock

20 MR BIRNEY.

of such a man coming forth against its " peculiar do-
mestic institutions :" and all the more from Mr Bir-
ney's having been an active colonizationist — a bounti-
ful and influential friend to that society — even a collec-
tor of funds for it — till experience convinced him,
first of its inefficiency, and then of its wickedness.
There was much sensation about Mr Birney in many
a house. His name was carefully avoided before
strangers, as it was well that they should not hear the
story (" strangers could not understand it : ") but here
were men gnashing tb ^eth at him for " loosening
the bonds of society . re women horror-struck

lest he should introduce u insubordination " (meaning
midnight massacre ;) and children1* agreeing that he
could be no gentleman to think of putting notions into
the heads of "people," and turning them adrift to
take care of themselves. Silence brooded over the
cotton-fields where slaves were within earshot ; but
within the dwellings, multitudes of whites were whis-
pering about Mr Birney.

The cities of the North were at the same time in
commotion. From disturbing meetings and inflicting
petty social wounds, the enemies of the colored race
proceeded to gross outrage. The fear for the purses

* While children in the South were naturally adopting and exaggera-
ting their parents' views on the great question, calling Mr Adams a
" horrid creature " for vindicating the right of petition, and Mr Van
Bureu a " dear soul " for giving his casting vote in favor of the third
reading of the Gag Bill, there was sympathy in the North between chil-
dren and their parents who took the opposite side of the question.
One little girl of seven years old, an only child, happened to hear some-
body say to her father, that those who consumed slave products, during
the present crisis, were partly answerable for the sufferings of the ne-
groes. This sank into her mind. Some time after, her mother saw the
tears stealing down her face. On being spoken to, she threw her arms
round her mother's neck, and whispered, that she meajit never again to
eat cake, or sweetmeats, or sugar in any form. She was left entirely
to her own feelings on the matter, her parents only taking care to pro-
vide her with what they can get of free-labor sugar. Under every con-
ceivable circumstance of temptation, away from home, and among her
little companions, this young creature has remained faithful to her spon-
taneous resolution.

REIGN OF TERROR. 21

of the merchants and ship-owners of the North was
becoming exasperated into panic. The panic was
generously shared by those who had no ships, and con-
ducted no commerce. The lawyers and clergy,
u gentlemen of property and standing" of every sort,
and the press, gave their sympathy to the merchants,
and the result was presently visible in the reflection of
flames upon the midnight sky. The American reign
of terror now began. In Philadelphia fortyfour
houses and two churches were besieged : some few
greatly damaged, and the rest sacked and destroyed.
The fortyfour houses belonged to the^people of col-
or. In New York the mob hunted higher game. On
the fourth of July, (the anniversary of the day when
liberty was guaranteed to all American citizens by the
declaration of Independence,) the house of Mr Lewis
Tappan was sacked, and the furniture burned in the
street. A certain bureau, in which his children kept
their little keepsakes and other treasures, was thrown
upon the heap, and was soon crackling in the flames ;
an early taste of persecution for the young creatures,
and a circumstance exceedingly well adapted to per-
petuate their father's spirit in them. The house of
Dr Cox was seriously damaged, and the African
school-house in Orange street, with twelve adjacent
houses, chiefly belonging to people of color, was de-
stroyed. St. Philip's church was sacked, and several
others much damaged. The abolitionists not only
suffered the destruction of their property and the peril
of their lives, but the revilings of the press were pour-
ed out upon them. They were upbraided as the
cause of the riots, and were told that, though they
were served rightly enough, they had no business to
scare the city with the sight of their burning property
and demolished churches.

Next followed the virtual accession of a great north-
ern man to the cause ; for though Dr Channing con-

22 DR CHANNING.

tinued to censure the abolitionists for two years after
this, it was in the autumn of 1834 that his mind's eye
was fixed upon the question on which he has since
acted a brave part. It was at the close of this sum-
mer, in the parlor of his Rhode Island retreat, that
the memorable conversation with Mr Abdy took place
by which Dr Cbanning's attention was aroused to the
wrongs of the colored race. Scarcely any other man
of his heart and his principles could have remained so
long unaware of the actual state of the case : but there
are circumstances of health, habit, and environment
which account for the fact to those who know Dr
Channing. As soon as Mr Adby had quitted him, he
applied himself to learn the truth of the case, and in
the month of October preached a thorough-going abo-
lition sermon, as to its principles at least, though many
months elapsed before he learned fully to recognize the
merits of the men who were teaching and practising
them at the hazard of all that ordinary men most value.
But the ray of doubt which was thus carried into that
country retreat has now brightened into the sunshine
of perfect conviction ; it did so in time to dispel the
dark clouds which had gathered above the morals of
the Texas question. It is owing to Dr Channing,
finally and chiefly (though in the first instance to Mr
Child,) that the United States have been saved the
crime and the shame of annexing Texas to the Union,
for the purpose of the protraction of slavery.

At the close of this busy year it was found that the
Auxiliary anti- Slavery Societies had increased from
sixty to about two hundred. The great Executive
Committee proposed to their constituents to " thank
God and take courage."

The case of the abolitionists will not, however, be
truly regarded, if they are contemplated as herding to-
gether, supporting each other by sympathy and mutual
aid. They met, in smaller or larger numbers, from

AMOS DRESSER. * 23

time to time ; they met for refreshment and for mutual
strength : but it was in the intervals of these meetings,
the weary, lonely intervals, that their trials befellhem.
It was when the husband was abroad about his daily
business that he met with his crosses: his brother mer-
chants deprived him of his trade ; his servants insulted
him ; the magistrates refused him redress of grievan-
ces ; among his letters he found one enclosing the ear
of a negro ; or a printed hand-bill offering large re-
wards for his own ears or his head ; or a lithographed
representation of himself hanging from a gallows, or
burning in a tar-barrel. It was when the wife was ply-
ing her needle by the fireside that messages were
brought in from her tradesmen that they could supply
her no longer, or that letters dropped in with such con-
tents as the following : —

"MADAM, — I write to inform you that personal violence
is intended on you and your husband this evening.
" Yours in haste,

" AN ABOLITIONIST.
" Beware of nine o'clock."

It was in the course of ordinary life that their child-
ren came crying from school, tormented by their
school-fellows for their parents' principles ; that youths
had the doors of colleges slammed in their faces, and
that young men were turned back from the pulpit and
the bar. This was a course of life which required a
better support than the temporary enthusiasm of an
occasional meeting, be the emotions of the hour as
lofty and holy as they might. Such a support these
men and women had ; and never was it more wanted
than at this crisis in their history.

In the month of July, L835, one of the dismissed
students of the Lane Seminary, Amos Dresser by
name, travelled southward from Cincinnati, for the
purpose of selling bibles and a few other books, as a
means of raising funds for the completion of his edu-

24 » AMOS DRESSER.

cation ; a very common practice in the west, and high-
ly useful to the residents of new settlements. At
Nashville, Tennessee, he was arrested on suspicion of
being an abolition agent ; which was not the fact, and
in support of which there was positively no evidence
whatever. He had not spoken with slaves, or distrib-
uted books among free persons of color. He was
brought before a Committee of Vigilance, consisting
of sixtytwo of the principal citizens, among whom
were seven elders of the Presbyterian church. His
examination lasted from between four and five in the
afternoon till eleven at night. His trunk was brought
before the Committee and emptied. In it were found
three volumes, written by abolitionists, put in by
Dresser for his private reading ; and some old news-
papers of the same character, used as stuffing to pre-
vent the books from rubbing. His private journal was
examined ; but as it was in pencil, consisting only of
memoranda, and those put in abbreviation, little could
be made out of it. The Mayor gave up the attempt
to read it aloud, observing, as he laid it down, that it
was u evidently very hostile to slavery." Private let-
ters from friends were then read aloud, and wise looks
were exchanged among the judges at every expression
which could be laid hold of as indicating a different
way of thinking from theirs. At eleven o'clock the
young man was sent into an adjoining room to await the
judgment of the Committee. He had not conceived
the idea of any very serious issue of the examination ;
and it was, therefore, with horror that he heard from
the principal city officer that the Committee were de-
bating whether his punishment should be thirtynine
lashes, or a hundred (a number considered fatal, in the
way in which abolitionists are flogged,) or death by
hanging. The Committee acknowledged, through the
whole proceeding, that Dresser had broken no law ;
but pleaded that if the law did not sufficiently protect

AMOS DRESSER. 25

slavery against the assaults of opinion, an association of
gentlemen must make law for the occasion. Dresser
was found guilty of three things : of being a member
of an anti-Slavery Society in another State — of hav-
ing books of an anti-Slavery tendency in his posses-
sion, and of being believed to have circulated such in
his travels. He was condemned to receive twenty
lashes on his bare back in the market place. To the
market place he was marched, amidst the acclamation
of the mob ; and there by torchlight, and just as the
chimes were about to usher in the Sunday, he was
stripped and flogged with a heavy cow-hide. At the
close, an involuntary exclamation of thanksgiving es-
caped his lips that it was over, and that he had been
able to bear it. u God d — n him. stop his praying !"
was shouted on all hands. Twentyfour hours were
allowed him to leave the city ; but it was thought un-
safe for him to remain a moment longer than was abso-
lutely necessary, or to return to his lodgings. Some
kind person or persons, entire strangers to him, drew
him into a house, bathed his wounds, gave him food,
and furnished him with a disguise, with which he left
the place on foot, early in the morning. Neither
clothes, books, nor papers were ever returned to him,
though he made every necessary application. There
is little in the excitement of annual or quarterly meet-
ings which can sustain a young man under an ignomin-
ious public whipping, in a strange city, where there
was not one familiar face to look upon. Dresser has
some other support, which has prevented his shrinking
from the consequences of his opinions then and ever
since. When he visited Boston, some time after, he
spoke at an abolition meeting. We have before us, in
the form of an animadversion upon this, a specimen of
the newspaper comments of the time upon such trans-
actions as Dresser was the subject of. We quote from
the Boston Courier : —
3

26 AMOS DRESSER.

"Hearing yesterday, as I passed Congress Hall, the
screams of one who appeared to be in distress, I went up to
see what could be the matter, when I found several hun-
dred females, of all occupations and colors, gazing and
quivering at a spectacle of the most writhing agony. A
miserable young man, expelled not long since for disor-
derly conduct from Lane Seminary, was endeavoring to
avenge himself on slave-holders. * *

If the women, such as composed this motley assembly,
cannot find sufficient to do in taking care of their ragged
children, then let some employment be given them, in which
they may at least be saved from disgracing their sex : or, if
they must have a spectacle, let them put the halter at once
around the neck of this martyr to revenge, witness his
swinging fidgets, and then go home."

It was about this time that the Attorney General of
Massachusetts, Austin by name, gave advice to the
Governor in Council that any abolitionists demanded
by the South should be delivered up for trial under
Southern laws, (the sure result of which is known to
be death.) A pamphlet by a leading lawyer of Bos-
ton, named Sullivan, followed on the same side, offer-
ing a legal opinion that those who discussed the sub-
ject of slavery (an act injurious to the peace of socie-
ty) might be brought under the penal laws of Massa-
chusetts ; ex post facto laws, if no others could be
found A friend of Dr Channing's wrote to him that
it was now time for him to come forward : and he obey-
ed the suggestion. During the Autumn he wrote his
tract on Slavery, and published it at Christmas. Dur-
ing the interval some remarkable events had taken place.

Our historical review has now brought us up to the
date of the first of the works whose titles we have
prefixed to this article, and which a^e, substantially,
annual Reports of the proceedings of the Massachu
setts Female Anti-Slavery Society. We have arrived
at the most remarkable period of the great struggle,
when an equal share of its responsibility and suffering
came to press upon women. We have seen how

FEMALE ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 27

men first engaged in it, and how young men after-
wards, as a separate element, were brought in. Many
women had joined from the first, and their numbers
had continually increased : but their exertions had
hitherto consisted in raising funds, and in testifying
sympathy for the colored race and their advocates.
Their course of political action, which has never
since been checked, began in the autumn of 1835.

The Female Anti-Slavery Society in Boston is
composed of women of every rank, and every reli-
gious sect, as well as of all complexions. The pres-
ident is a Presbyterian ; the chief secretary is a Uni-
tarian ; and among the other officers and members
may be found Quakers, Episcopalians, Methodists,
and Swedenborgians. All sectarian jealousy is lost
in the great cause ; and these women have, from the
first day of their association, preserved, not only har-
mony, but strong mutual affection, while differing on
matters of opinion as freely and almost as widely as if
they had kept within the bosom of their respective
,- c ts. I, on such a set of women was the responsi-
bility thrown of vindicating the liberty of meeting and
of free discussion in Boston ; and nobly they sustain-
ed it.

Before we proceed, it is necessary to say a few
words upon the most remarkable of these women, —
the understood author of the books whose titles stand
at the head of our article. Maria Weston was educa-
ted in England, and might have remained here in the
enjoyment of wealth, luxury, and fashion : but with
these she could not obtain sufficient freedom of
thought and action to satisfy her noble nature ; and,
no natural ties detaining her, she returned to New En-
gland, to earn her bread there by teaching, and breathe
as freely as she desired. She has paid a heavy tax of
persecution for her freedom ; but she has it. Sho is
a woman of rare intellectual accomplishment, full ef

28 MARIA CHAPMAN.

reading, and with strong and well exercised powers of
thought. She is beautiful as the day, tall in her per-
son, and noble in her carriage, with a voice as sweet
as a silver bell, and speech as clear and sparkling as a
running brook. Her accomplishments have expanded
in a happy hame. She has been for some years the
wife of Mr Henry Chapman, a merchant of Boston,
an excellent man, whose spirit of self-denial is equal
to his wife's, and is shown no less nobly in the same
cause. A woman of genius like her's cannot but take
the lead wherever she acts at all ; and shs is the life
and soul of the enterprise in Boston. The foes of
the cause have nicknamed her " Captain Chapman ;"
and the name passes from mouth to mouth as she
walks up Washington street, — not less admired, per-
haps, all the while than if she were only the most
beautiful woman in the city. The lady, with all her
sisters, took her ground early, and has always had so-
ber reason to plead for every one of her many exten-
sions of effort. She is understood to have drawn up
the petition which follows, — a fair specimen of ihe

multitudes of petitions from women which have been
piloH ,„, ~-^~r *u~ -i-i~ ~r n „„ ,:u ,u~ ,,onprn_

~ i' " O " " -/

ble John Quincy Adams has been roused to the re-
markable conflict which we shall presently have to re-
late : —

" PETITION

" To the Honorable Senate and House of Representatives in
Congress assembled,

" The undersigned, women of Massachusetts, deeply con-
vinced of the sinfulness of slavery, and keenly aggrieved by
its existence in a part of our country over which Congress
possess exclusive jurisdiction in all cases whatsoever, do
most earnestly petition your honorable body immediately to
abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, and to declare
every human being free who sets foot upon its soil.

" We also respectfully announce our intention to present
the same petition yearly before your honorable body, that it

MARIA CHAPMAN. 29

may at least be a, "memorial of us,' that in the holy cause
of Human Freedom * we have done what we could.' "

In answer to objections against such petitioning, the
author of ' Right and Wrong in Boston' says —

" If we are not enough grieved at the existence of slavery
to ask that it may be abolished in the ten miles square over
which Congress possess exclusive jurisdiction, we may rest
assured that we are slave-holders in heart, and indeed under
the endurance of the penalty which selfishness inflicts, — the
slow but certain death of the soul. We sometimes, but not
often, hear it said — ' It is such an odd, unladylike thing to
do!' We concede that the human soul, in the full exercise
of its most god-like power of self-denial and exertion for
the good of others, is, emphatically, a very unladylike thing.
We have never heard this objection but from that sort of
woman who is dead while she lives, or to be pitied as the
victim of domestic tyranny. The woman who makes it is
generally one who has struggled from childhood up to wo-
manhood through a process of spiritual suffocation. Her
infancy was passed in serving as a convenience for fclic dis-
play of elegant baby-linen. Her youth, in training for a
more public display of braiding the hair, and wearing of
gold, and putting on of apparel; while the ornament of a
meek and quiet spirit, — the hidden man of the heart, is not
deemed worthy the attainment. Her summers fly away in
changes of air and water ; her winters in changes of flimsy
garments, in inhaling-lamp-smoke, and drinking champagne
at midnight with the most dissipated men in the community.
This is the woman who tells us it is unladylike to ask that
children may no longer be sold away from their parents, or
wives from their husbands, in the District of Columbia, and
adds, ' They ought to be mobbed who ask it.' . „ . . O
how painful is the contemplation of the ruins of a nature a
little lower than the angels!'3 — Right and Wrong in Boston
in 1886, p. 27.

" We feel," she elsewhere declares, "that we may con-
fidently affirm that no woman of Massachusetts will cease
to exercise for the slaves the right of petition (her only
means of manifesting her civil existence) for which Mr
Adams has so nobly contended. Massachusetts women will
not forget in their petitions to Heaven the name of him
who upheld their prayer for the enslaved of the earth, in the
midst of sneers and wrath, bidding oppressors remember
that they, too, were women-born, and declaring that he con-

3*

30 MARIA CHAPMAN.

sidered the wives, and mothers, and daughters of his elec-
tors, as his constituents. . . . What immediate effect would
be produced on men's hearts, and how much they might be
moved to wrath before they were touched with repentance,
we have never been careful to inquire. We leave such
cares with God ; we do so with confidence in his paternal
providence ; for what we have done is right and woman-
Jy.»— Right and Wrong in Boston in 1837, p. 84.

To consult on their labors of this and other kinds,
the ladies of the Boston Anti-Slavery Society intend-
ed to meet at their own office, Washington street, on
the 21st of October. Handbills had been circulated
and posted up in different parts of the city the day
before, offering a reward to any persons who would
commit certain acts of violence,— such as "bringing
Thompson to the tar-kettle before dark." The ladies
were informed that they would be killed ; and when
they applied at the Mayor's office for protection to
their lawful meeting, the City Marshal replied — u You
give us a great deal of trouble." This trouble, how-
ever, their consciences compelled them to give.
They could not decline the duty of asserting their
liberty of meeting and free discussion. But Mrs
Chapman felt that every member should have notice
of what might await her ; and she herself carried the
warning from house to house, with all discretion and
quietness. Among those whom she visited was an
artizan's wife, who was sweeping out one of her two
rooms as Mrs Chapman entered. On hearing that
there was every probability of violence, and that the
warning was given in order that she might stay away
if she thought proper, she leaned upon her broom and
considered for awhile. Her answer was — " I have
often wished and asked that I might be able to do
something for the slaves ; and it seems to me that
this is the very time and the very way. You will see
me at the meeting and I will keep a prayerful mind,
as I am about my work, till then."

MARIA CHAPMAN. 31

Twentyfive reached the place of meeting by pre-
senting themselves three-quarters of an hour before
the time. Five more struggled up the stairs, and a
hundred were turned back by the mob. It is well
known how these ladies were mobbed by some hun-
dreds of gentlemen in fine broad-cloth " — (Boston
broad-cloth has become celebrated since that day.)
It is well known how those gentlemen hurraed, broke
down the partition, and threw orange-peel at the ladies
while they were at prayer ; but Mrs Chapman's part
in the lessons of that hour has not been made public.

She is the Foreign Corresponding Secretary of the
society ; and she was in the midst of reading her Report,
in a noise too great to allow of her being heard, when
the mayor of Boston, Mr Lyman, entered the room
in great trepidation —

" Ladies," said he, " I request you to dissolve this
meeting."

"•Mr Mayor," said Mrs Chapman, " we desire you
to disperse this mob."

"Ladies, "the mayor continued, "you must dis-
solve this meeting ; I cannot preserve the peace.7'

"Mr Mayor," replied Mrs Chapman, "we are
disturbed in our lawful business by this unlawful mob,
and it is your business to relive us of it."

" I know it, Mrs Chapman, 1 know it ; but I can-
not : I cannot protect you ; and I entreat you to go."

" If that be the case," answered she, " as we have
accomplished our object, and vindicated our right of
meeting, we will, if the meeting pleases, adjourn."
She looked round upon her companions, and proposed
that, to accommodate the authorities, they should ad-
journ the meeting. This was agreed to, and the
women passed down the stairs, and through the mob,
and, as the business of the day was finished, each to
her own home. Certain of the fine broad-cloth men
observed afterwards that Mrs Chapman, in the high

32 MARIA CHAPMAN.

excitement of the hour, looked more like an angel
than a woman who is visible every day. She was not
aware that her friend Garrison was in the hands of the
mob, and she therefore went home, as she had advised
her companions to do, and sat down to her needle.
Presently several gentlemen entered without asking
admission. She recognized among them some mem-
bers of Dr Channing's church whom she was accus-
tomed to meet at worship Sunday by Sunday. They
demanded Mr Thompson, saying that they had reason
to believe he was in that house. They wanted Mr
Thompson.

" I know it," said she; "and I know what you
want with Mr Thompson ; you want his blood."

They declared they would not shed his blood ; but
she held off till they had pledged themselves that
under no circumstances should Mr Thompson receive
bodily harm.

"This pledge is what I wanted," said she ; u and
now I will tell you that Mr Thompson is not here,
and I am sure I don't know where he is."

She then told the gentlemen that she had something
to say to them, and they must hear her. On a day
like this, when the laws were broken, and the peace
of society violated by those who ought best to know
their value, it was no time for ceremony ; she should
speak with the plainness which the times demanded.
And she proceeded with a remonstrance so powerful
that, after some argument, her adversaries fairly suc-
cumbed : one wept, and another asked as a favor that
she would shake hands with him. But at this crisis
her husband came in. The sight of him revived the
bad passions of these gentry. They said that they
had to inform him that they had obtained the
names of his commercial correspondents in the
South, and were about to deprive him of his trade, by
informing his southern connections that the merchants

MARIA CHAPMAN. 33

of Boston disowned him for a fellow-citizen, and had
proscribed him from their society. Mr Chapman
quietly replied that by their thus coming to see him he
was enahled to save them the trouble of writing to the
South ; and he proceeded to explain that, finding his
southern commerce implicated with slave labor, he
had surrendered more and more of it, and had this
very week declined to execute orders to the amount
of three thousand dollars. There was nothing left
for these magnanimous gentlemen but to sneak away.
The women who were at the meeting of this mem-
orable day were worthy of the occasion, not from
being strong enough to follow the lead of such a woman
as Maria Chapman, but from having a strength inde-
pendent of her. The reason of Garrison being there
was, that he went to escort his young wife, who was
near her confinement. She was one of the last to
depart, and it could not be concealed from her that
her husband was in the hands of the mob. She step-
ped out of the window upon a shed, in the fearful ex-
citement of the momeni. He was in the extremest
danger. His hat was lost, and brickbats were rained
upon his head, while he was hustled along in the di-
rection of the tar-kettlo, TTThich was heating in the
next street. The only words which escaped from the
white lips of the young wife were — " I think my hus-
band will not deny his principles : I am sure my hus-
band will never deny his principles." Garrison was
rescued by a stout truck-man, and safely lodged in
jail (the only place in which he could be secure.)
without having in the least flinched from the conse-
quences of his principles. The differences in the
minds of these women, and the view which they all
agree to take of the persecution to which they are
subjected, may be best shown in the eloquent words
of the author of " Right and Wrong: "

34 RIGHT AND WRONG.

" Our common cause appears in a different vesture as pre-
sented by different minds. One is striving to unbind a slave's
manacles — another to secure to all human souls their ina-
lienable rights ; one to secure the temporal well-being, and
another the spiritual benefit of the enslaved of our land.
Some labor that the benefits which they feel that they have
derived from their own system of theology may be shared by
the bondman ; others, that the bondman may have light and
liberty to form a system for himself. Some, that he may be
enabled to hallow the Sabbath-day by rest and religious ob-
servances ; some, that he may receive wages for the other
six. Some are forcibly urged to the work of emancipation
by the sight of scourged and insulted manhood ; aud others
by the spectacle of outraged womanhood and weeping in-
fancy. Some labor to preserve from torture the slave's
body, and some for the salvation of his soul. Here are dif-
ferences ; nevertheless, our hopes and our hearts are one.1'
— Right and Wrong, vol. ii. p. 80.

" There is an exceeding great reward in faithful obedi-
ence ; the clearer and deeper views of duty it gives ; the
greater love of God and man — the deliverance from fear and
constraint — the less apprehension of suffering — c the more
freedom to die.' Enjoying these, may we never look for
any reward less spiritual and enduring. We pray, for the
sake of the oppressed, that Gc>;l will aid us to banish from
our hearts every vestige of seli; -hness ; for, in proportion to
our disinterestedness will be our moral power for their deli-
verance. Not until our mount of sacrifice overtops the
mountain of southern tran«grcssiou should we date to ask the
^lave-holder to give up the bondsman. We should not dare
to bid him relinquish what he (however erroneously) thinks
his living, till we have first cast into the treasury our own.
How dare we expect him to incur the displeasure of his
friends and neighbors, till we have exhausted every form of
representation and entreaty with ours — till we have finally
said, in the plainness of Christian reproof, to the steady op-
ponent of righteousness at the North, " the slave-holder goes
up to his house justified rather than thou ?" The experi-
ence of the past shows, not only that emancipation must
come, but also the manner of its coming. Our national
confederacy is but just beginning to unite, on the only true
principle of union — to give and not to receive. If we of the
North persevere, at every sacrifice to ourselves, in giving
the truth, which alone can save the country from the alter-
nations of anarchy, insurrection, and despotism, doubt not
that there are multitudes at the South who will receive it

ANGELINA E. GRIMKE. 35

gladly, at a far nobler sacrifice. The sublime example of
such as Birney, and Thome, and Nelson, and Allen, and
Angelina E. Grimke, will not be given in vain. A few more
years of danger and intense exertion, and the South and
the North will unite in reading the Constitution by the light
from above, thrown on it by the Declaration of Indepen-
dence, and not by the horrible glare of the slave code. The
cause of freedom will ere long become the popular one ;
and a voice of regret will be hoard throughout the land from
those who will have forgotten these days of misrepresenta-
tion and danger — " Why was not I among the early aboli-
tionists !" Let us be deeply grateful that we are among the
early called. Let us pray God, to forgive the men who
would deface every feature of a Christian community by
making it personally dangerous to fulfil a Christian woman's
duty ; to forgive the man who sneers at the sympathy for
the oppressed implanted by the Spirit of God in the heart
of the mother that bore and cherished his infancy — of the
wife, the helpmate of his manhood, and of the daughter
whom that same quality of womanly devotedness would lead
to shield his grey head with her own bosom. Let us never
forget through these unquiet years, whereunto we are called,

' The first in shame and agony,
The meanest, in the lowest task ;
This must we be !' —

the stepping-stone by which the wealthy, the gifted, and the
influential, are to pass unharmed, through the roar of waters,
to the RIGHT side." — Right and Wrong, vol. ii. pp. 81 — 83.

;: Angelina E. Grimke." Who is she ? She and
her sister Sarah are Quaker ladies of South Carolina.
Our author says of their visit to Boston, to act and
speak in this cause — " It might have been anticipated
that they would have met with a friendly reception
from those calling themselves the better sort, for they
were highly connected. Unfortunately they were
but women, though the misfortune of that fact was
greatly abated by their being sisters of the Hon. Thos.
S. Grimke." This gentlemen was, in point of scho-
larship, the greatest ornament of the United States,
and his character was honored by the whole commu-
nity. After his death his sisters strove by all the

36 ANGELINA E. GRIMKE.

means which could be devised by powerful intellects
and kind hearts to meliorate the condition of the slaves
they had inherited. In defiance of the laws, they
taught them, and introduced upon their estates as ma-
ny as possible of the usages of free society. But it
would not do. There is no infusing into slavery the
benefits of freedom. When these ladies had become
satisfied of this fact, they surrendered their worldly
interests instead of their consciences. They freed
their slaves, and put them in the way of providing for
themselves in a free region, and then retired to Phi-
ladelphia, to live on the small remains of their former
opulence. It does not appear that they had any in-
tention of coming forward publicly, as they have since
done ; but the circumstance of their possessing the
knowledge, which other abolitionists want, of the mi-
nute details and less obvious workings of the slavery
system, was the occasion of their being applied to,
more and more frequently and extensively, for infor-
mation, till they publicly placed their knowledge at
the service of all who needed it, and at length began
to lecture wherever there was an audience who re-
quested to hear them. Their Quaker habits of speak-
ing in public rendered this easy to them ; and the ex-
ertion of their great talents in this direction has been
of most essential service to the cause. It was before
they adopted this mode of action that the public first
became interested in these ladies, through a private
letter written by Angelina to her friend Garrison — a
letter which he did his race the kindness to publish,
and which strengthened even the great man's strong
heart. We give the greater part of it : —

" I can hardly express to thee the deep and solemn inter-
est with which 1 have viewed the violent proceedings of the
last few weeks. Although I expected opposition, yet I was
not prepared for it so soon — it took me by surprise, and 1
greatly feared the abolitionists would be driven back in the
first onset, and thrown into confusion. So fearful was I,

ANGELINA E. GRIMKE. 3t

that though I clung with unflinching firmness to our princi-
ples, yet I was afraid of even opening one of thy papers, lest
I should see some indications of a compromise, some surren-
der, some palliation. Under these feelings I was induced to
read thy appeal to the citizens of Boston. Judge, then, what
were my feelings, on finding that my fears were utterly
groundless, and that thou stoodest firm in the midst of the
storm, determined to suffer and to die, rather than yield
one inch.

"Religious persecution always begins with mobs; it is
always unprecedented in any age or country in which it
commences, and therefore there are no laws by which re-
formers can be punished : consequently, a lawless band of
unprincipled men determine to take the matter into their
hands, and act out in mobs, what they know are the princi-
ples of a large majority of those who are too high in church
and state to condescend to mingle with them, though they
secretly approve and rejoice over their violent measures.
The first martyr who ever died was stoned by a lawless
mob; and if we look at the rise of various sects— methodists,
Friends, &c., — we shall find that mobs began the persecu-
tion against them, and that it was not until after the people
had thus spoken out their wishes, that laws were framed to
fine, imprison, or destroy them. Let us, then, be prepared
for the enactment of laws even in our free States against
abolitionists. And how ardently has the prayer been
breathed, that God would prepare us for all he is preparing
for us !

" My mind has been especially turned towards those who
are standing in the forefront of the battle ; and the prayer
has gone up for their preservation — not the preservation of
their lives, but the preservation of their minds in humility
and patience, faith, hope, and charity — that charity which is
the bond of perfectness. If persecution is the means which
God has ordained for the accomplishment of this great end,
Emancipation, then, in dependence upon him for strength
to bear it, 1 feel as if I should say, let it come ; for it is my
deep, solemn, deliberate conviction, that this is a cause
worth dying for.

" At one time I thought this system would be overthrown
in blood, with the confused noise of the warrior ; but a hope
gleams across my mind that our blood will be spilt, instead
of the slaveholders' ; our lives will be taken, and theirs
spared : — I say a hope, for of all things I desire to be spared
the anguish of seeing our beloved country desolated with
the horrors of a servile war. A. E. GRIMKE."

38 ANGELINA E. GRIMKE.

In answer to an overwhelming pressure of invita-
tions, these ladies have lectured in upwards of sixty
towns of the United States to overflowing audiences.
Boston itself has listened to them with reverence.
Some of the consequences of their exertions will be
noticed as we proceed : meantime we must give our
author's report of this novelty in the method of pro-
ceeding : —

" The idea of a woman's teaching was a startling novelty,
even to abolitionists; km their principled and, habitual rev-
erence for the freedom of individual action induced them to
a course unusual among men — to examine before they con-
demned. Only a short examination was needed to convince
thenj that the main constituents in the relation of teacher and
taught are ignorance on one side and knowledge on the other.
They had been too long accustomed to hear the Bible quoted
in defence of slavery, to be astonished that its authority should
be claimed for the subjugation of woman the moment she
should act for the enslaved. The example and teaching of
the Grimkes wrought conviction as to the rights and conse-
quent duties of women in the minds of multitudes. Preju-
dices and ridiculous associations of ideas vanished. False
interpretations of scripture disappeared. Probably our chil-
dren's children, our sons no less than our daughters, will
dwell on the memory of these women, as the descendants of
the bondman of to-day will cherish the name of Garrison." —
Right and Wrong, vol. iii. p. 61.

Angelina E. Grimke was married, last spring, to
Theodore D. Weld, a man worthy of her, and one
of the bravest of the abolition confessors. There
were some remarkable circumstances attending the
wedding. It took place at Philadelphia, and, the laws
of Pennsylvania constituting any marriage legal which
(the parties being of age,) is contracted in the
presence of twelve persons, was attended neither
by clergyman nor magistrate. Mr Weld, in prom-
ising to be just and affectionate to his wife, and to
protect and cherish her, expressly abjured all use
of the power which an unjust law put into his hands
over her property, her person, and her will. Angeli-

MR M'DUFFIE. 39

na having promised to devote herself to her husband's
happiness, they proceeded to hallow their agreement by
prayer from the lips of two of the party. Among
those assembled, besides the near connections of the
bride and bridegroom, there was Garrison who took
charge of the certifying part of the business, and two
persons of color, friends of the Grimkes, and who
had been their slaves.

A gentleman of the class from which the Grimkes
have emerged, Mr M'Duffie, Governor of South
Carplina, wrote a remarkable message to the legisla-
ture of his State the same year, 1835. He declared
therein that freedom can be .preserved only in socie-
ties where work is disreputable, or where there is a
hereditary aristocracy, or a military despotism, and
that he preferred the first, as being the most republi-
can. He further declared —

" No human institution, in my opinion, is more manifestly
ronsi?Ti'i" with the will of God than domestic slavery ; and
; o one ul' !;is ordinances is written in more legible characters
than that \vhich consigns the African race to this condition,
as more conducive to their own happiness than any other of
of which they are suseentjhle." .... " Domestic nla-
very, therefore, instead of being a political evil, is the corner-
stone of our republican edifice. No patriot who justly esti-
mates our privileges will tolerate the idea of emancipation,
at any period, however remote, or on any conditions of pecu-
niary advantage, however favorable. I would as soon think
of opening a negotiation for selling the liberty of the State
at once, as of making any stipulations for the ultimate eman-
cipation of our slaves. So deep is my conviction on this
subject, that if I were doomed to die immediately after re-
cording these sentiments, I would say, in all sincerity, and
under all the sanctions of Christianity and patriotism, * God
forbid that my descendants, in the remotest generations,
should live in any other than a community having the insti-
tution of domestic slavery, as it existed among the patriarchs
of the primitive Church, and in all the states of antiquity !'
— Governor M'Duffie's Message, 18.S5.

When this message, endorsed by a committee of the

40 RESCUE OF A SLAVE.

South Carolina Legislature, with General Hamilton
for its chairman, arrived in New England, Dr Chan-
ning observed in conversation that, but for the obliga-
tion to preserve peace and good humor, he should
have liked to ask the yeomanry of his State (that
body of whom Washington exclaimed in a paroxysm
of admiration and gratitude, tc God bless the yeoman-
ry of Massachusetts ! ") what they thought of the
doctrine that freedom can be preserved only where
the efficient classes of society are slaves, where work
is disreputable, and where slavery is cherished as uthe
corner-stone of the republican edifice/'

The other events which attracted the most attention
during this year were two. The first was a desperate
and cruel massacre of upwards of twenty persons
on the gibbet at Vicksburg on the Mississippi, on a
vague and unfounded suspicion of an intended rising
among the slaves. The other remarkable event was
the u disinterring of the law of Massachusetts," in
defence of two women who had been kidnapped, in
order to be carried into southern slavery.

A ong was oustuv^u iu iv^^L «„ ~^ ^f ilic Boston
wharfs, and put off again suddenly, in consequence of
a few words being spoken to the captain by some one
on shore. This awakened curiosity, and some men
of color rowed round the brig in a boat, but were
warned off — not, however, before they had seen that
two women were making signals of distress from the
cabin window. The ever-vigilant abolitionists obtain-
ed a writ of habeas corpus, and got these women out
of the custody of the captain, and safely provided for
in jail. The ladies were aware of the difficulty of
rescuing kidnapped persons, as in case of acquittal on
charge of being a slave, the claimant is commonly able
to lay hands on his victim again instantly on some
charge of theft. They therefore resolved to be at
the Court-house during the trial of the claim now

RESCUE OF A SLAVE. 41

tinder notice, that they might not only comfort the
poor women by their presence, but aid their instant
escape in case of their discharge being pronounced.
Unusual as was the spectacle of the presence of ladies
in the Court-house (except in cases of murder, or
others of like " thrilling interest,") five of the La-
dies' Society appeared in Court at nine in the morning,
and surrounded the prisoners. The claimant endeav-
ored to set up a clause of the Constitution against the
Massachusetts Bill of Rights ; but the bill of Rights
carried the day, on the plea of an abolitionist lawyer,
Mr Sewall ; and Judge Shaw arrived, amidst the dead
silence of the Court, at his closing clause, tc whence
it appears that the prisoners must be discharged. " At
the word every one rose — the counsel on both sides,
the men of color who thronged the Court, and the
women who surrounded the prisoners. The claimant
darted forth his arm ; but a lane had been made, and
the poor women were gone. The next minute the
place was empty. One of the women, fainted in
the lobby, but her safety was cared for.

Among the attendant ladies was a Quaker, "im-
pressed with a sense of the duty of rebuke." She
observed to the claimant —

"Lidy. Thy prey hath escaped thee.

"Claimant. Madam, you are very rude to a stranger.

"Lady. What, then, art thou, who cornest here to kidnap
women ?

"Claimant. I am a member of the Methodist Church, and
presume 1 give much more to the Colonization Society
than all of you together.

"Lady. Why art thou here, then, hunting for those who
have colonized themselves? I despise thy conduct and thy
Colonization Society alike."

In Massachusetts alone there was an accession of
twenty societies during this year. The report says —

" Five of them are of females. Our opposers affect to

4*

42 MOBS.

sneer at their co-operation ; but we welcome, and are grate-
ful for it. The influence of woman never was, never will be,
insignificant : it is dreaded by those who would be thought
to contemn it. Men have always been eager to secure their
co-operation. We hail it as most auspicious of our success
that so many faithful and zealous women have espoused the
anti-slavery cause in this republic. Events of the past year
have proved that those who have associated themselves with
us will be helpmates indeed ; for they are animated by a spirit
that can brave danger, endure hardship, and face a frowning
world.

It is impossible, in a sketch like the present, to enu-
merate the acts of violence, or to describe the mobs
with which the abolitionists have had to contend. At
Canaan, in New Hampshire, there was an academy,
to which some benevolent persons had procured ad-
mission for about twelve young men of color. All
seemed to be going on well, when a town meeting was
called, and it was resolved to put a stop to the instruc-
tion of people of color. Three hundred citizens as-
sembled one morning, provided with ropes and rollers,
and fairly rolled away the Noyes Academy over the
boundary of the State. At Cincinnati the gentry dis-
graced themselves by a persecution of Mr. Birney,
which caused the destruction of his office, press, and
types, but which terminated in the triumph of his mor-
al power over their brute force. At St Louis, in
Missouri, a mulatto, named M'Intosh, was burned
alive under circumstances of deep atrocity ; and be-
cause he was heard to pray as his limbs were slowly
consuming, he was pronounced by the magistrates to
be in league with the abolitionists. The gentlemen of
Charleston broke open the post-office, and burned the
mails in the street, on the charge of their containing
anti-slavery papers. Such were a few of the events
of the year 1836.

The Governors of some of the Southern States de-
manded of the Governor and Legislature of Massa-

MASSACHUSETTS LEGISLATURE. 43

chusetts the enactment of penal laws against the abo-
litionists, or that they should be given up to southern
justice. The Massachusetts abolitionists, as is well
known, requested to be heard against the passing of
such laws ; were favored with an apparent audience
before a committee of the Legislature ; were insulted
by the committee, broke off the conference, and de-
manded a full hearing as a matter of right ; establish-
ed all their positions, and justified themselves with the
best part of the community, so that the demands of
the south were thrown under the table, and a Legisla-
ture was returned, after the next election, whose first
act was to pass a set of resolutions strongly denounc-
ing slavery, and asserting liberty of speech and the
press. The particulars of this triumph are well
known ; how the mild and brave Dr Follen fought his
ground, inch by inch, in the midst of insult and cap-
tious opposition, till every heart and every voice was
wTith him : how the accomplished lawyer, Ellis Gray
Loring, commanded the respect of the commute by
his readiness, and the power of his moderation : how
Mr May tamed his foes (for the committee took no
pains to conceal that they were foes) into a gentleness
almost equal to his own : and how the brutality of the
chairman of the first committee, Mr Lunt, was so atro-
cious that he was politically defunct from that day. A
slight circumstance or two may illustrate the state and
temper of the times. While the committee were,
with ostentatious negligence, keeping the abolitionists
waiting, the Senate Chamber presented an interesting
spectacle. The contemptuous committee, dawdling
about some immaterial business, were lolling over a
table, one twirling a pen, another squirting tobacco-
juice, and a third giggling. The abolitionists, to whom
this business was a prelude to life or death, were earn-
estly consulting in groups — at the further end of the
chamber Garrison and another, standing head to head ;

44 MASSACHUSETTS LEGISLATURE.

somewhat nearer, Dr Follen, looking German all over,
and a deeper earnestness than usual overspreading his
serene and meditative countenance ; and, in consulta-
tion with him, Mr Loring, looking only too frail in
form, but with a face radiant with inward light. There
was May, and Goodell, and Sewall, and several more,
and many an anxious wife, or sister, or friend, looking
down from the gallery. During the suspense the door
opened, and Dr Charming entered — one of the last
people that could on that wintry afternoon have been
expected. He stood lor a few moments, muffled in
cloak and shawl-handkerchief, and then walked the
whole length of the room, and was immediately seen
shaking hands with Garrison.* A murmur ran through
the gallery, and a smile went round the chamber. Mrs
Chapman whispered to her next neighbor, " Right-
eousness and peace have kissed each other." Garri-
son, the dauntless Garrison, turned pale as ashes, and
sank down on a seat. Dr Channing had censured the
abolitionists in his pamphlet on slavery, Garrison had
in the ' Liberator,' rejected the censure ; and here
they were shaking; hands in the Senate Chamber. It
was presently found that a pressure of numbers com-
pelled an adjournment to the larger House of Repre-
sentatives. There Dr Channing sat behind the speak-
ers, handing them notes, and most obviously affording
them his countenance, so as to be from that day con-
sidered by the world as an accession to their princi-
ples, though not to their organized body. Another
circumstance worthy of note is that a somewhat so-
phisticated well-wisher to the cause suggested that at
the second meeting the gentlemen of the party alone
should speak — such as Follen, Loring, and Sewall ;
and that the more homely and more openly reviled
members, Garrison and Goodell and others, should

* He afterwards explained that he was not at the moment cer-
tain that it was Mr Garrison, but that lie was not the less happy
to have shaken hands with him.

MASSACHUSETTS LEGISLATURE. 45

keep in the back ground. This was mentioned to
Mrs. Chapman. Her righteous spirit rejected the
counsel at once, on the ground of its falseness of prin-
ciple. "Besides," said she, u we owe it to Garri-
son to protect him ; and his only protection is being
placed in the midst of the gentlemen, where his foes
dare not touch him. If we do not vigilantly keep
him there." she continued, with swimming eyes and
quivering lips, u he will be murdered next riot-sea-
son— he will be torn to pieces next autumn." As it
turned out, it was the eloquence of Garrison and Good-
ell that carried the day, and the inexperienced ad-
viser owned himself mistaken. Such are the small
facts which indicate the temper of the times.

The day was now passed when the insignificance of
the abolition movement could be a subject for taunts.
The tone of contempt had been kept up till the last
possible moment ; but that moment was gone by. A
few legislatures had declared themselves like that of
Massachusetts ; the Governor of Pennsylvania (" ho-
nest Joe Ritner," the wagoner's boy,) had publicly
reprobated the disposition of Northern Members of
Congress " to uu»v to uie dark spirit of slavery ;" all
the candidates for state offices in Vermont, both of
the federal and democratic party were abolitionists ;
and it might be said, as a general fact, that in New
England the yeomanry were the abolitionists, while the
large commercial and manufacturing towns were as
strenuous in their opposition as ever. The number of
societies, though multiplying from day to day, had
ceased to become an indication of abolitionists in the
community. There were now thousands, more or
less animated by the cause, who, for various reasons
(some of which reasons were very good), did not join
societies. Dr Channing entertains strong objections
to associations for moral objects. Certain State legis-
latures found they could effect more in the Chamber

46 THE GAG BILL.

for being unpledged, and being known to speak from
independent conviction. Many women, and Mrs Fol-
len at the head of such, held themselves ready to join
at any moment, but felt that more aid might be given
to the cause by fighting the baitles of the abolitionists
out of the circle of partizanship than within it. Such
have been among the most powerful defenders of the
right for the last few years, while an inferior order of
persons has been crowding into the abolition ranks.
With the good of an accession of numbers must come
the evil of a deterioration of quality ; and it is best
that there should be a distribution of the noblest ori-
ginal spirits, — some continuing to lead societies, and
others maintaining an independent position. But, un-
der this arrangement, the multiplication of societies
ceases to be a test of the increase of numbers.

The President had now taken the matter in hand.
General Jackson, the people's man, who talked of li-
berty daily, with energetic oaths and flourishes of the
hand, inquired of Congress whether they could not
pass a law prohibiting, under severe penalties, the
transmission through the mails of anti-slavery publica-
tions,— or, as he worded it, of publications "intended
to excite the slaves to insurrection." Mr Calhoun,
the great bulwark of slavery, declared in Congress that
such a measure would be unconstitutional ; but that a
bill which he had prepared would answer the purpose.
This was the celebrated Gag Bill. We insert it as
amended for the third reading, as we could not expect
of our readers that they should credit our report of its
contents ! Here stands the Bill which in 1836 was
read a third time in the Senate of a Republican Con-
gress—

" A BILL

"For prohibiting deputy postmasters from receiving- or
transmitting through the mail to any State, Territory,.

THE GAG BILL. 47

or District, certain papers therein mentioned, the cir-
culation of which, by the laws of said State, Territory,
or District, may be prohibited, and for other purposes.
" Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assem-
bled, That it shall not be lawful for any deputy postmaster
in any State, Territory or District of the United States,
knowingly to deliver to any person whatsoever, any pam-
phlet, newspaper, handbill, or other printed paper or pic-
torial representation touching the subject of slavery,
where, by the laws of the said State, Territory, or Dis-
trict, their circulation is prohibited ; and any deputy post-
master who shall be guilty thereof, shall be forthwith
removed from office.

" SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That nothing in
the acts of Congress to establish and regulate the Post
Office Department shall be construed to protect any de-
puty postmaster, mail-carrier, or other officer or agent of
said Department, who shall knowingly circulate, in any
State, Territory, or District, as aforesaid, any such pam-
phlet, newspaper, handbill, or other printed paper or pic-
torial representation, forbidden by the laws of such State,
Territory, or District.

" SEC. 3. And be it further enacted by the authority
aforesaid, That the deputy postmasters of the offices
where the pamphlets, newspapers, handbills, or other
printed papers or pictorial representations aforesaid, may
arrive for delivery, shall, under the instructions of the
Postmaster General, from time to time give notice of the
same, so that they may be withdrawn by the person who
deposited them originally to be mailed, and if the same
shall not be withdrawn in one month thereafter, shall be
burnt or otherwise destroyed."

Mr Van Bnren, now President of the United
States, was then Vice President and held the casting
vote in the Senate. Every one knows his terror of
committing himself. What must have been his
feelings when his casting vote was called for as to
the Ihird reading of this bill? He was standing

TEXAS.

behind a pillar, talking, when the votes were de-
clared to be eighteen to eighteen. " Where's the
Vice President?" shouted Mr Calhoun's mighty
voice. Mr Van Buren carne forward, and voted
for the third reading. -" The Northern States are
sold !" groaned the New England senators with
one voice. By their strenuous efforts the bill was
thrown out on the third reading. If it had passed
it wjuld have remained to be seen, as the abolition-
ists remarked, c' whether seven millions of freemen
should become slaves, or two and a half millions of
slaves should become free ?"

For men and women engaged in a moral enter-
prise so stupendous as that under notice, there is
no rest. It is well for them that the perspec ive of
their toils is shrouded from them when they set
forth : for there is perhaps no human soul that
could sustain the whole certainty. Not a day's re-
pose can these people snatch. If they were to close
their eyes upon their mission for even the shortest
interval, they would find that new dangers had
gathered, and that their work was in arrear. To-
wards the end of 1836 the abolitionists felt their
prospects were darker than ever. The annexation
of Texas to the Union seemed an evil scarcely pos-
sible to be averted : and, if it were not averted, their
enterprise was thrown back centuries. Instead of
sinking in despair at seeing the success of their foes
in flattery, not only the worldly interests of the
sordid and ambitious part of society, but the best
feelings of the superficial and thoughtless, they
made a tremendous effort. Mr Child began with
an admirable exposure of the Texas scheme in the
' Anti-Slavery Quarterly Magazine,' andDr Chan-
ning finished the business (for the present) by his
noble tract. As for the rest they sounded a tocsin
of alarm that aroused the land to a sense of its dan-
ger ; they sent their appeals, warnings, arid remon-

TEXAS. 49

strances into every part of the republic ; they held
meetings by day and by night, with reference sole-
ly to this momentous question ; they covered the
entire surface of the nation with tracts, circulars,
arid papers, revealing the design of the southern
planters ; in short, they put into motion all that has
been done for the perpetual exclusion of Texas from
the American confederacy. At the extra session of
Congress in September, through their instrumental-
ity, in the course of a few weeks, many thousand
petitions, signed by hundreds of thousands of men
and women, were received by that body, remonstra-
ting against the annexation in strong and emphatic
language. Never before had the people made such a
demonstration of their will in the form of petition."
It was a no"ble spectacle — the bulk of a nation pro-
testing against an acquisition of territory, on the
ground of its being wrong.

In August of this year it became known to the
abolitionists in Boston that a child was in the city,
brought as a slave from New Orleans, and to be
carried back thither as a slave. They determined
to attempt, the rescue of this child by law. If they
failed, she was only as she was before • if they
succeeded, the case would be a parallel one with
that of Sommersett in England, under Lord Mans-
field's famous decision. The laws of Massachu-
setts were appealed to, as had been proposed, with-
out good result, in similar cases before. This time
the case was in the hands of sound lawyers, and
tried before a courageous judge, Chief Justice Shaw.
The child was declared free ; and her happy fate
decides that of all slaves (except fugitives) who
shall henceforth touch the soil of Massachusetts.
The newspapers opened out in full cry against her
protectors, for having separated her from her moth-
er. They overlooked the fact that parental claims
merge in those of the master ; that a slave child is
5

50 ELLIS GRAY LORING.

not pretended to belong to its parents ; and that if
the owner of this particular child views the relation
in the right light, he has nothing to do but to eman-
cipate the mother. The newspapers, however, de-
clared of the counsel and others concerned, " they
can never fully expiate their crimes, until offences
such as theirs are punished by imprisonment at hard
labor for life." Mr Ellis Gray Loring, by whom the
cause was gained, is one of the last people in the
world on whom the charge of fanaticism could be
fixed. He is a lover of ease — of intellectual refin-
ed ease — but still of ease. He is in frail health,
and his temper is somewhat indolent, and very do-
mestic and retiring ; his intellect is contemplative,
and his tastes somewhat unsocial. It must be
something very unlike fanaticism that can bring
such a man out of his retirement into the storm
which has for some years been pelting around him,
and from which he might have shrouded himself,
if any man might. But he was one of the very earli-
est of the abolitionists ; and he has poured out his
money and husbanded his intellect and his heart for
the cause, as if he had been the opposite of an invalid
and a speculative philosopher. He has his appro-
priate office, like the rest. He is the balance wheel
of the abolition movement in the society in which
he lives. One of his most effective speeches was
one in which he gave his reasons, as a cautious
and moderate man, for joining the abolitionists.
An eminent lady in Boston was heard to account
to some strangers for the conduct of the abolition-
ists, by saying, that they liked to be persecuted.
This could never be said of Mr Loring, in such an
opposite direction do his tastes lie, (as his and eve-
ry one's ought), and it it is equally inconceivable
of this kind of man, that he should be flinging his
sacrifices into the lap of Providence as the heavy
purchase-money of spiritual safety and luxury in a

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 51

future life — a species of calculation only one degree
hss sordid than that of the selfish, who siezewhat
indulgences lie close round about them. Such sup-
positions fail in the case of a man like Ellis Gray
Loring ; and none will serve but that of the irre-
sistibleness of truth to a pure and high toned mind.
The decision of Judge Shaw in the case of this
slave-child was presently followed in Connecticut ;
and, within a very short time, the abolitionists ob-
tained right of jury trial for persons arrested as fu-
gitive slaves in the states of Massachusetts, New
Jersey and Vermont.

At the beginning of the remarkable year 1837,
great confusion was excited in Congress by Mr
Adams's management of a low jest aimed at him
by the Southern members. A petition was sent to
him signed by nine slaves, requesting of the House
of Representatives to expel him, on the ground of
the countenance he afforded to the petitions of per-
sons who would put an end to the blessed institu-
tion of t-'i.ivery. Mr Adams presented this docu-
ment as if it was a bona fide petition. The uproar
in the House was tremendous ; but the attention of
the members was fairly fixed upon the right of pe-
tition as held by slaves, and the venerable ex-Pres-
ident has since been acting a more heroic part than
any of his predecessors on that floor have ever been
called to go through. The name of John Quincy
Adams will stand out bright from the page of
American history for ever, as the vindicator of the
right of petition in the perilous times of the repub-
lic. We pass over, as well known, the conflict on
Mr Pinckney's resolutions, the speeches of the
Southern members, (after their late complacent as-
surances that the subject of slavery would never
he breathed in Congress) and the new President's
somewhat fool-hardy declaration against any relax-
ation of the present state of things in regard to sla-

52 CONVENTION OF WOMEN.

very, in his inaugural address, on the 4th of March.
Our space is only too narrow for the two other
great events of the year, which are less widely un-
derstood.

During the second week of May was held the
first General Convention of Women that was ever
assembled. Modest as were its pretensions, and
quietly as it was conducted, it will stand as a great
event in history — from the nature of the fact itself,
and probably from the importance of its consequen-
ces. "This," says the Report, reasonably enough,
" was the beginning of an examination of the claims
and character of their clergy, which will end only
with a reformation, hardly less startling or less
needed than that of Luther."

The Convention met at New York, and consist-
ed of one hundred and seventyfotir delegates, from
all parts of the Union. Lucretia Mott, an eminent
Quaker preacher of Philadelphia — a woman of an
intellect as sound and comprehensive as her heart
is noble — presided. The (joiivbulicu sat for three
successive days ; and, by means of wise prepara-
tion, and the appointment of sub-committees, trans-
acted a great deal of business. Some fine address-
es, to different classes interested in the question,
were prepared by the sub-committees, and a plan
of political action and other operations fixed on for
the year. One resolution was passed to the effect
that it was immoral to separate persons of color
from the rest of society, and especially in churches;
and that the members of the Convention pledged
themselves to procure for the colored people, if pos-
sible, an equal choice with themselves of sittings
in churches ; and, where this was not possible, to
take their seats with the despised class. Another
resolution was to this effect, " that whereas our
fathers, husbands, and brothers have devoted them-
selves to the rescue of the enslaved, at the risk of

ORTHODOX CLERGY. 53

ease, reputation, and life, we^ their daughters,
wives, and sisters, honoring their conduct, hereby
pledge ourselves to uphold them by our sympathy,
to share their sacrifices, and vindicate their char-
acters." After having discharged their function,
and gained some strength of heart and enlighten-
ment of mind by their agreement in feeling and
differences of opinion, these women went home, to
meet again the next year at Philadelphia.

On the 27th of June the orthodox clergy took up
their position against the abolitionists. The occa-
sion was the General Association of Massachusetts
Clergymen. They had long shown themselves to
be uneasy at the improvements in certain of their
flocks in self-reliance; and their anger and fear
blazed out at the meeting of this association. Their
causes of complaint were two fold : that there was
a decay of deference to the pastoral office, and that
an alteration was taking place in the female char-
acter. On the first point they alleged that discus-
sion of moral questions was promoted among their
people independently of the pastors, and that " top-
ics of reform were presented within the parochial
limits of settled pastors without their consent. If
there are certain topics upon which the pastor does
not preach with the frequency, or in the manner
which would please his people, it is a violation of
sacred and important rights to encourage a stran-
ger to present them. Deference and subordination
are essential to the happiness of society, and pecu-
liarly so in the relation of a people to their pastor."
The complaint regarding the women of the age
urged that female influence should be employed in
bringing minds to the pastor for instruction, instead
of presuming to give it through any other medium.
The movement begun by these Resolutions, worthy
of the dark ages, was kept up by a set of sermons,
in which this magnanimous clergy came out to war

54 DR FOLLEN.

against women — the Misses Grimke in particular.
It is wonderful how many of these sermons ended
with a simile about a vine, a trellis and an elm.

It does not appear that the parties most interest-
ed would have thought of mixing up the question
of the Rights of Woman with that of the Rights of
Man in Slavery : but the clergy thus compelled the
agitation of it. The women themselves merely
looked into their own case, and went on doing what
they found to be their duty. But men had more
to do regarding it ; more to learn upon it ; and the
result of the examination to which they have been
driven is, that many newspapers,* and a large pro-
portion of the Anti- Slavery body, have come out
boldly and without reservation for the political
rights of women : the venerable Adams has perti-
naciously vindicated their right of petition on the
floor of Congress, and the clergy are completely
foiled. Long before all this took place, there was
a clergyman who advocated the agency of woman
in social questions, in words which are worthy of
preservation. At a public meeting in 1835, Dr
Follen spoke as follows. He is not, like his cleri-
cal brethren, of the same mind with Rabbi Eliezurj
who said, " Perish the Book of the Law rather than
it should be expounded by a woman !"

" And now, Mr President, I come to the last topic of my
resolution. I maintain that, with regard to the Anti-Slavery
cause, men and women have the same duties and the same
rights. The ground I take on this point is very plain, I wish
to spare you, I wish to spare myself the worthless and disgust-
ing task of replying, in detail, to all the coarse attacks and
flattering sophisms, by which men have endeavored to entice
or to drive women from this, and from many other spheres

* The prospectus of the 'Liberator,' January 1838, has the following
paragraph: — "As our object is Universal Emancipation— to redeem
woman as well as man from a servile to an equal condition — we shall
go for the Rights of Woman to their fullest extent."

" W. L. GARRISON, Editor.
" I. KNAPP, Publisher.

55

of moral action. « Go home and spin F is the well-meaning
advice of the domestic tyrant of the old school. ' Conquer by
personal charms and fashionable attractions !' is the brilliant
career marked out for her by the idols and the idolaters of
fashion. ' Never step out of the bounds of decorum and the
customary ways of doing good,' is the sage advice of mater-
nal caution. * Rule by obedience, and by submission sway I'
is the saying of the moralist poet, sanctioning female servi-
tude, and pointing out a resort and compensation in female
cunning. What with the fear of the insolent remarks about
women, in which those of the dominant sex, whose bravery
is the generous offspring of conscious impunity, are particu-
larly apt to indulge ; and with the still stronger fear of being
thought unfeminine — it is, indeed, a proof of uncommon
moral courage, or of an overpowering sense of religious duty
and sympathy with the oppressed, that a woman is induced
to embrace the unpopular, unfashionable, obnoxious princi-
ples of the abolitionists. Popular opinion, the habits of soci-
ety, are all calculated to lead women to consider the place, the
privileges and the duties which etiquette has assigned to them,
as their peculiar portion, as more important than those which
nature has given them in common with men. Men have at
all times been inclined to allow to women peculiar privileges,
while withholding from them essential rights. In the pro-
gress of civilization and Christianity, one right after another
has been conceded, one occupation after another has been
placed within the reach of women. Still are we far from a
practical acknowledgment of the simple truth, that the ration-
al and moral nature of man is the foundation of all rights and
duties, and that women as well as men are rational and moral
beings. It is on this account that I look upon the formation
of Ladies' Anti-Slavery Societies as an event of the highest
interest, not only for its direct beneficial bearing on the cause
of emancipation, but still more as an indication of the moral
growth of society. Women begin to feel that the place which
men have marked out for them, is but a small part of what
society owes to them, and what they themselves owe to soci-
ety, to the whole human family, and to that Power to whom
each and all are indebted and accountable, for the use of the
powers entrusted to them. It is indeed, a consoling thought,
that such is the providential adaptation of all things, that the
toil and the sufferings of the slave, however unprofitable to
himself, and however hopeless, are not wholly thrown away
and vain — that the master who has deprived him of the fruits
of his industry, of every motive and opportunity for exercis-
ing his highest faculties, has not been able to prevent his ex-

56

ercising, unconsciously, a moral and spiritual influence all
over the world, breaking down every unnatural restraint, and
calling forth the simplest and deepest of all human emotions7
the feeling of man for his fellow man, and bringing out the
strongest intellectual and moral powers to his rescue. It is,
indeed, natural that the ery of misery, the call for help, that
is now spreading far and wide, and penetrating the inmost re-
cesses of society, should thrill, with peculiar power, through
the heart of woman. For it is woman, injured, insulted wo-
man, that exhibits the most baneful and hateful influences of
slavery. But I cannot speak of what the free woman ought
and must feel for her enslaved sister — because I am over-
whelmed by the thought of what we men, wey who have moth-
ers, and wives, and daughters, should not only feel, but do,
and dare, and sacrifice, to drain the marshes whose exhala-
tions infect the moral atmosphere of society."

As no degree of violence directed to break up the
meetings of the Ladies' Society, was too strong for
the consciences of certain of the gentlemen of Bos-
ton, so no device was clearly too low for their pur-
pose of hindering utterance. When they found
they could not stop the women's tongues by vio-
lence they privily sprinkled cayenne-pepper on the
stove of their place of meeting, thus compelling
them to cough down their own speakers.

The next attempt of such of the orthodox clergy
as had professed abolitionism, was to break up the
Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, in which more
freedom of thought was allowed than they consid-
ered suitable to the dignity of their body. They
declared the society to be composed of materials so
heretical and anti-christian, that they proposed to
withdraw from it, and form a new association with
a uniform profession of faith. The attempt failed.
The laity of all denominations protested with abso-
lute unanimity against any new organization upon
sectarian grounds, and the harmony of the body at
large is more assured than ever. The clergy have
for the present succumbed. If they adduce any
further clerical claims, it is highly probable that the
stir will indeed, "end only with a reformation hard-

ORTHODOX CLERGY. 57

ly less startling or less needed than that of Luther."
It is evident to those who remember the conference
between George Thompson and Mr Breckinridge at
Glasgow, that it would be unwise in the American
clergy to provoke an inquiry into the conduct of
their body during the great moral struggle of the
age. See the effect already : —

" As there is no royal road to mathematics, so there is no cle-
rical road to abolition. The principles are too pure to admit
of caste, even though it were the high Braminical. A gene-
ral may not file the abolitionists to the right and left, and
enter at literal beat of drum ; nor may a clergyman claim to
be speaker, as in a church meeting, by virtue of his office;
nor may a woman plead her sex's pernicious privileges, or
pretended disabilities. Women of New England ! We are
told of our powerful indirect influence ; our claim on man's
gallantry and chivalry. We would not free all the slaves in
Christendom by indirection — such indirection. We trust to
be strengthened for any sacrifices in their cause ; but we may
not endanger our own souls for their redemption. Let our
influence be open and direct : such as our husbands and
brethren will not blush to see us exercise." — When clergy-
men plead usage and immemorial custom in favor of unutter-
able wrong, and bid us keep silence for courtesy, and },ul the
enginery of church organization in play as a hindrance to our
cause, and not as a help, our situation calls for far more stren-
uous exertion than when, in 1835, the freedom of the wo-
men of Boston was vilely bartered away in the merchant-
thronged street. Our situation is as much more perilous
now, as spiritual is more dreadful than temporal outrage.
We have no means to strengthen and nourish our spirits but
by entertaining and obeying the free Spirit of God." — " As
yet our judgment is unimpaired by hopes of the favor, and
our resolution undamped by the fear ot the host who oppose
us. As yet our hearts are not darkened by the shadow of
unkindness. We listen to clerical appeals, and religious ma-
gazines, and the voices of an associated clergy, as though we
heard them not, so full on the ear of every daughter among
us falls the cry of the fatherless and those who have none to
help them — so full in every motherly heart and eye rises the
image of one pining in captivity, who cannot be comforted
because her children are not." — Right and Wrong in Boston,
iii. pp. 73, 75, 86,

58 ELIJAH P. LOVEJOY.

If the orthodox clergy are wise, they will let mat-
ters rest where they are.*

The other great event of the year concerned the
freedom of the press, and was as remarkable in its
consequences as it was interesting in itself. Never
was there a case of martyrdom more holy than that
which we are about to relate. Never was there more
complete evidence that a man in the prime of life, at-
tached to the world by the tenderest ties, and of a
calm, rational mind, was able long to sustain the ap-
prehension of violent death, and to meet it at last,
rather than yield up a principle which he knew to be
true. Fie could not give up truth for safety and life
— no not even for wife and child. Elijah P. Love-
joy was a native of Maine, a graduate of Waterville
College. He settled at St. Louis, Missouri, and at-
tained a high reputation as editor of a newspaper
there. He became a clergyman, and at length an ab-
olitionist. After the burning of M'Intosh, at St.
Louis, he spoke out in his newspaper about the atroci-
ty of the deed, and exposed the iniquities of tho dis-
trict judge, and of the mob which overawed Marion
College and brought two of the students before a
Lynch Court. For this, his press and types were de-
stroyed, and he established himself on the opposite
side of the river, in the free State of Illinois. But
the town of Alton, in which he set up his press, was
as dangerous to him as if it had stood in a slave State.
It was the resort of slave-traders and river-traders,

* A resident of Boston was expressing to a European traveller one
day, in the year 1836, his regret that strangers should be present in the
country when its usual quiet and sobriety were disturbed. " I am
glad," observed ihe traveller, "to have been m the country in its martyr
age." "Martyr age ! martyr age !" cried a clergyman, remarkable for
the assiduity" of his parochial visiting. " What do you mean ? We
don't burn people in Smithfield here." "No;" replied the stranger,
" because ' Boston refinement ' will not bear the roasting of the bodies
of men and women ; but you come as near to this pass as you dare.
You rack their consciences and wring their souls-" " Our martyr
age ! our martvr age t" the clergyman went on muttering to himself, ia
all the excitement of a new idea.

ELIJAH P. LOVEJOY. 59

who believed their interests to depend on the preser-
vation of slavery. For some time after his settlement
at Alton, he did not think it necessary to enter into
express discussion of the slavery question. At length
he saw it to be his duty to do so : he called together
the supporters of the paper, and laid his views before
them. They consented to let his conscience have
free course : he did his duty, and his press was again
destroyed by a mob. Twice more was his property
annihilated in the same manner, without the slightest
alteration of conduct on his part. His paper contin-
ued to be the steady, dispassionate advocate of free-
dom and reprover of violence. In October 1837, he
wrote to a friend in New York, to unburden his full
head and heart. After having described the fury
and murderous spirit of his assailants, and the man-
ner in which for weeks his footsteps had been tracked
by assassins, he proceeded —

" And now, my dear brother, if you ask what are
my own feelings at a time like this, I answer, perfect-
ly calm, perfectly resigned. Though in the midst of
danger, I have a constant sense of security that keeps
me alike from fear and anxiety. I read the Bible,
and especially the Psalms, with a delight, a refreshing
of soul I never knew before. God has said, ' As
thy day is, so shall thy strength be ;' and he has made
his promise good. Pray for me.— —We have a few
excellent brethren here, in Alton. They are sincere-
ly desirous to know their duty at this crisis, and to do
it : but as yet they cannot see that duty requires them
to maintain their cause here, at all hazards. Of this
be assured, the cause of truth still lives in Illinois,
and will not want defenders. Whether our paper
starts again will depend on our friends, East, West,
North, and South. So far as it depends on me, it
shall go forward. By the blessing of God, I will not
abandon the enterprise so long as I live, and until

60 ELIJAH P. 1,OVEJOY.

success has crowned it. And there are those in Illi-
nois who join me in this resolution. And if I am to
die, it cannot be in a better cause.

Your's, till death or victory,
E. P. LOVEJOY."

Death and victory were now both at hand. Two
or three weeks after this letter was written, he was
called before a large meeting of the townsmen on a
singular affair. A committee of gentlemen was ap-
pointed to mediate between the editor of the ' Alton
Observer ' and the mob. They drew up a set of
11 Compromise Resolutions," so called, which yielded
everything to the mob, and required of Lovejoy to
leave the place. One member of the committee, Mr
Gilman, remonstrated : but he was overborne. Love-
joy was summoned, and required to leave the place.
He listened till the chairman had said what he had to
say, and then stepped forward to the bar. There,
with grisly Murder peeping over his shoulder, he bore
his last verbal testimony in the following unpremedi-
tated address, reported by a person present.

" I feel, Mr Chairman, that this is the most solemn
moment of my life. I feel, I trust, in some measure,
the responsibilities which at this hour I sustain to these
my fellow-citizens, to the church of which I am a
minister, to my country and to God. And let me beg
of you, before I proceed further, to construe nothing
I shall say as being disrespectful to this assembly ; I
have no such feeling ; far from it. And if I do not
act or speak according to their wishes at all times, it
is because I cannot conscientiously do it. It is pro-
per I should state the whole matter, as I understand
it, before this audience. I do not stand here to argue
the question as presented by the honorable gentle-
man,* the chairman of that committee, for whose

* Hon. Cyrus Edwards, Senator from Madison County, and Whig
Candidate for Governor.

ELIJAH P. LOVEJOY. 61

character I entertain great respect, though I have not
the pleasure of his personal acquaintance : my only
wonder is how that gentleman could have brought
himself to submit such a Report.

" Mr Chairman, I do not admit that it is the busi-
ness of this assembly to decide whether I shall or shall
not publish a newspaper in this city. The gentlemen
have, as the lawyers say, made a wrong issue. I have
the right to do it. 1 know that I have the right to
speak and publish my sentiments, subject only to the
laws of the land for the abuse of that right. This
right was given me by my Maker, and is solemnly
guaranteed to me by the constitution of these United
States, and of this State. What I wish to know of
you is whether you will protect me in the exercise of
this right, or whether, as heretofore, I am to be sub-
jected to personal indignity and outrage. These res-
olutions, and the measures proposed by them, are
spoken of as a compromise ; a compromise between
two parties. Mr Chairman, this is not so ; there is
but one party here. It is simply a question whether
the law shall be enforced, or whether the mob shall
be allowed, as they now do, to continue to trample it
under their feet, by violating with impunity the rights
of an innocent individual. Mr Chairman, what have
I to compromise ? If freely to forgive those who
have so greatly injured me ; if to pray for their tem-
poral and eternal happiness ; if still to wish for the
prosperity of your city and State, notwithstanding all
the indignities I have suffered in it ; if this be the
compromise intended, then do I willingly make it.
My rights have been shamefully and wickedly outrag-
ed ; this I know and feel, and can never forget ; but
I can and do freely forgive those who have done it.

11 But if by a compromise is meant, that I should
cease doing that which duty requires of me, I cannot
make it. And the reason is, that I fear God more
6

62 ELIJAH P. LOVEJOY.

than I fear man. Think not that I would lightly go
contrary to public sentiment around me. The good
opinion of my fellow men is dear to me, and I would
sacrifice any thing but principle to obtain their good
wishes , but when they ask me to surrender this, they
ask for more than I can — than I dare give. Ref-
erence is made to the fact, that T offered, a few days
since, to yield up the editorship of the * Observer' into
other hands. This is true, I did so ; because it was
thought, or said by some, that perhaps the paper would
be better patronised in other hands. They declined
accepting my offer, however, and since then we have
heard from the friends and supporters of the paper in
all parts of the State. There was but one sentiment
among them, and this was that the paper should be
sustained in no other hands but mine. It is also a.
very different question, whether I shall voluntarily, or
at the request of friends, yield up my post, or whether
I shall forsake it at the demand of a mob. The form-
er I am at all times ready to do, when circumstances
seem to require it, as I will never put my personal
wishes or interests in competition with the cause of
that Master whose minister I am ; but the latter, be
assured, I NEVER WILL DO. God in his providence —
so say all my brethren, and so I think — has devolved
me the responsibility of maintaining my ground here ;
and, Mr Chairman, I am determined to do it. A voice
comes to me from Maine, from Massachusetts, from
Connecticut, from New York, from Pennsylvania ;
yea from Kentucky, from Mississippi, from Missouri,
calling upon me in the name of all that is dear to
heaven or earth, to stand fast ; and by the help of
God, I WILL STAND. I know I am but one, and you
are many. My strength would avail but little against
you all : you can crush me if you will, but I shall die
at my post, for I cannot and will not forsake it. Why
should I flee from Alton ? Is not this a free State ?

ELIJAH P. LOVEJOY. 63

When assailed by a mob in St Louis, I came here as
to the home of freedom and of the laws. The mob
have pursued me here, and why should I retreat again ?
Where can I be safe, if not here? Have I not a right
to claim the protection of the laws? and what more
can I have in any other place? Sir, the very act of
retreating will embolden the mob to follow me wher-
ever I go. No, sir, there is no way to escape the mob
but to abandon the path of duty ; and that, God help-
ing me, I never will do.

" It has been said here that my hand is against
every man, and every man's hand against me. The
last part of the declaration is too painfully true. I do
indeed find almost every hand lifted against me, but
against whom in this place has my hand been raised ?
I appeal to every individual present ; whom of you
have I injured? whose character have I traduced?
whose family have I molested? whose business have I
meddled with? If any, let him rise here and testify
against mo. — No one answers.

11 And Jo not your resolutions say that you find
nothing against my private or personal character?
And does any one believe that if there was anything
to be found, it would not be found and brought forth?
If in anything I have offended against the law, am I
so popular in this community as that it would be dif-
ficult to convict me ? You have courts and judges
and juries ; they find nothing against me, and now
you have come together for the purpose of driving
out a confessedly innocent man, for no cause but that
he dares to think and speak as his conscience and his
God dictate. Will conduct like this stand the scru-
tiny of your country, of posterity, above all, of the
judgment day ? For, remember, the Judge of that
day is no respecter of persons.

" Pause, I beseech you, and reflect. The present
excitement will soon be over ; the voice of conscience

64 ELIJAH P. LOVEJOY.

will at last be heard : and in some season of honest
thought, even in this world, as you review the scenes
of this hour, you will be compelled to say, ' he was
right — he was right.'

" But you have been exhorted to be lenient and
compassionate, and in driving me away to affix no
unnecessary disgrace upon me. Sir, I reject all such
compassion. You cannot disgrace me. Scandal,
falsehood, and calumny have done their worst. My
shoulders have borne the burden till it sits easy upon
them. You may hang me up as the mob hung up
the individuals at Vicksburg ; you may burn me at
the stake as they did M'Intosh at St Louis ; you may
tar and feather me, or throw me into the Mississippi,
as you have often threatened to do. I, and I alone,
can disgrace myself; and the deepest of all disgrace
would be, at a time like this, to deny my Master by
forsaking his cause. — He died for me, and I were
most unworthy to bear his name, should I refuse, if
need be, to cue iui mm.

" Again, you have been told that I have a family
who are dependent upon me, and this has been given
as a reason why I should be driven off as gently as
possible. It is true, Mr Chairman, I am a husband
and n father, and this it is that adds the bitterest in-
gredient to the cup of sorrow I am called to drink.
I am made to feel the wisdom of the Apostle's ad-
vice, ' It is better not to marry.' I know, sir, that
in this contest, I stake not my life only, but that of
others also. I do not expect my wife will ever recov-
er from the shock received at the awful scenes through
which she was called to pass at St. Charles. And
how was it the other night on my return to my home ?
I found her driven into the garret through fear of the
mob, who were prowling round my house. And
scarcely had I entered the house ere my windows
were broken by the brickbats of the mob, and she

ELIJAH P. LOVEJOY. 65

so alarmed as rendered it impossible for her to sleep
or rest that night. I am hunted as a partridge on
the mountain. I am pursued as a felon through
your streets ; to the guardian power of the law I look
in vain for that protection against violence, which
even the vilest criminal may enjoy. Yet think not
that I am unhappy. — Think not that I regret the
choice I have made ; while all around me is violence
and tumult, all is peace within. An approving con-
science and the rewarding smile of God are a full
recompense for all that I forego, and all that I en-
dure. Yes sir, I enjoy a peace which nothing can
destroy. I sleep sweetly and undisturbed, except
when awakened by the brickbats of the mob.

" No sir, I am not unhappy ; I have counted the
cost, and stand prepared freely to offer up my all in
the service of God. Yes sir, I am fully aware of all
the sacrifice I make, in here pledging myself to con-
tinue the contest until the last. (Forgive these tears.
I had not intended to shed them, and they flow not
for myself, but for others. )- — But I am commanded to
forsake father and mother, and wife and children for
Jesus' sake; and as his professed disciple I stand
pledged to do it. The time for fulfilling this pledge
in my case, it seems to me has come. Sir, I dare
not flee away from Alton ; should I attempt it, I
should feel that the angel of the Lord with his fla-
ming sword was pursuing me wherever I went. It
is because I fear God, that I am not afraid of all who
oppose me in this city. No sir, the contest has com-
menced here, and here it must be finished. Before
God and you all, I here pledge myself to continue it,
if need be, till death ; and if I fall, my grave shall be
made in Alton."

A few days after this he was murdered. His of-
fice was surrounded by an armed mob, and defend-
ed from within by a guard furnished by the Mayor
6*

66 ELIJAH P. LOVEJOY.

of Alton. When the attack was supposed to be
over, Lovejoy looked out to reconnoitre. He re-
ceived five bullets in his body, was able to reach a
room on the first floor, declared himself fatally
wounded, and fell on his face dead. His age was
thirtytwo.

A letter from a Boston abolitionist to a friend
bears on one page the following. '' E. P. Lovejoy,
at Alton, is fairly suffering the persecution of St.
Paul. Alton is anxious for the trade of Missouri
and the lower Mississippi, and is willing to sacri-
fice a few Abolitionists to conciliate its slave-hold-
ing customers. Lovejoy has been three times mob-
bed," &c. &c, &c. — "The Attorney General of Illi-
nois said, at a meeting of gentlemen ' of property
and standing,' that the community ought not to re-
sort to violence ' until it became absolutely neces-
sary,' Thank heaven, it is now beginning to be Il-
linois versus Alton. The spirit is rising among the
farmers, and Lovejoy will yet conquer the State."
The next page begins, " I have just heard of the
murder of Lovejoy at Alton. He was shot by an
armed mob. Now he will indeed conquer the
State, and, I trust, the nation. I meant to have
given you my budget of gossip ; but my heart is
very full, and I cannot write more now."

In a note to this tract on Slavery, Dr Channing
had said, a year before this, "One kidnapped, mur-
dered abolitionist would do more for the violent de-
struction of slavery than a thousand societies. His
name would be sainted. The day of his death
would be set apart for solemn, heart stirring com-
memoration. His blood would cry through the
land with a thrilling voice, would pierce every
dwelling, and find a response in every heart,"
These latter clauses have come true. The anniver-
sary of Lovejoy's death will be a sacrament day
to his comrades till slavery shall be no more : and

ELIJAH P. LOVEJOF. 67

as for the community, — the multitudes who were
too busy eating and drinking, planting, trading,
or amusing themselves, to know the pangs that
were rending the very heart of their society, — those
who considered abolitionism too " low" a subject
for their ears, and the abolitionists too " odd" a set
of people for their notice. — the shock of murder has
roused even these from their apathy, and carried
into their minds some notion that they are living
in remarkable times, and that they have some ex-
traordinary neighbors. We believe that no steps
have been taken to punish the murderers ; but such
punishment was urged by the newspapers even in
the slave States ; and the cry of reprobation of the
deed was vehement from all the more enlightened
parts of the Union. Dr Channing did his duty
well. The rioters at Alton were heard encour-
aging one another by reference to old Boston. The
time was at hand for them to learn that there was
a right as well as wrong in the time honored city.

It was proposed to hold a meeting in Boston,
where there should be no distinction of sect or par-
ty, and no reference to any anti-slavery organiza-
tion, to express the alarm and horror of the citizens
at the view of the prostration of civil liberty, and
at the murder of a Christian minister for daring
to maintain his inalienable and constitutional rights.
Application was made to the authorities for the use
of Faneuil Hall for the occasion, — Dr Channing's
name being placed at the head of the requisition.
The authorities were intimidated by a counter-pe-
tition, and refused the use of the Hall, on the
ground of the request not being in accordance with
public sentiment ! Dr Channing published in the
newspapers a letter, of which we give some passa-
ges :

" To intimate that such resolutions would not express the
public opinion of Boston, and would even create a mob, is to

68 ELIJAH P. LOVEJOY.

pronounce the severest libel on this city. It is to assert lhat
peaceful citizens cannot meet here in safety to strengthen and
pledge themselves against violence, and in defence of the
dearest and most sacred rights. And has it come to this ?
Has Boston fallen so low ? May not its citizens be trusted
to come together to express the great principles of liberty,
for which their fathers died ? Are our fellow citizens to be
murdered in the act of defending their property and of assert-
ing the right of free discussion ; and is it unsafe in this me-
tropolis, once the refuge of liberty, to express abhorrence of
the deed ? If such be our degradation, we ought to know
the awful truth ; and those among us who retain a portion of
the spirit of our ancestors, should set themselves to work to
recover their degenerate posterity. But I do not believe in
this degeneracy. The people of Boston may be trusted.
There is a moral soundness in this community on the great
points involved in the petition which has been rejected.
There is among us a deep abhorrence of the spirit of violence
•which is spreading through our land ; and from this city
ought to go forth a voice to awaken the whole country to its
danger, to the growing peril of the substitution of lawless
force for the authority of the laws. This, in truth, was the
great object of those who proposed the meeting, to bring out
a loud, general expression of opinion and feeling, which
would awe the spirit of mobs, and would especially secure
the press from violence. Instead of this, what is Boston now
doing? Into what scale is this city now thrown ? Boston
now says to Alton, go on ; destroy the press ; put down the
liberty of speech ; and still more, murder the citizen who as-
serts it ; and no united voice shall here be lifted up against you,
lest a like violence should break forth among ourselves. * ^

" A government which announces its expectation of a mob,
does virtually, though unintentionally, summon a mob, and
would then cast all the blame of it on the * rash men' who
might become its victims." *

" But is there no part of our country where a voice of
power shall be lifted up in defence of rights incomparably
more precious than the temporary interests which have often
crowded Faneuil Hall to suffocation ? Is the whole country
to sleep? An event has occurred which ought to thrill the
hearts of this people as the heart of one man. A martyr has
fallen among us to the freedom of the press. A citizen has
been murdered in defence of the right of free discussion. I
do not ask whether he was Christian or unbeliever, whether
he was abolitionist or colonizationist. He has been murdered
in exercising what I hold to be the dearest right of the citi-

FREE DISCUSSION. 6

zen. Nor is this a solitary act of violence. It is the con-
summation of a long series of assaults on public order, on
freedom, on the majesty of the laws."

A spontaneous meeting of citizens was held to
discuss the refusal of the authorities, and Dr Chan-
ning's strictures on it. The consequence was that
the very same requisition was again tendered to
the authorities, with such a mass of signatures to
it that its prayer was granted with an obseqious-
ness as remarkable as the previous insult. Fan-
euil Hall was thrown open on the 8th of December,
and crowded. The chair was taken by a respect-
ed citizen, who was allied with no party, — Mr Jon-
athan Phillips. The resolutions were prepared by
Dr Channing. Neither ho, nor the chairman, nor
any one but the organized abolitionists (who have
good reason to know their townsmen) was fully
aware of the crisis to which this meeting brought
the fate of the abolitionists throughout the commu-
nity. It hung at last for the space of three minutes
upon tb« lips of one vory young speaker, who was
heard only because of his rank. It came to the
turn of a hair whether the atrocious mob-speech
of the Attorney General should be acted upon, or
whether lie should be overwhelmned with the rep-
robation of society ; whether the abolitionists
should have the alternative of being murdered at
home, and being driven into the wilderness, or
whether liberty of speech and the press should pre-
vail. Happily, the eloquence of young Wendell
Phillips secured the victory. Among other discov-
eries, the Attorney General announced that Love-
joy died " as a fool dieth," and that his murder-
ers were patriots of the same order as the Tea-
Party of the Revolution. An extract from a pri-
vate letter will best describe this critical meeting.

" You will have heard of Dr Channing's recent exploit.
The massacre of one of our beloved friends in the West for

70 FREE DISCUSSION.

being an abolitionist and acting up to his principles, induced
Dr C. to sign a call for a public indignation meeting in Fa-
neuil Hall. It was a noble sight, — that ball on that day.
The morning sunlight never streamed in over such a throng.
By night it has been closer packed ; but never, they tell me,
by day. I went (for the Woman Question), with fifteen
others. The indignation at us was great. People said it
gave the meeting the air of an abolition gathering to have
women there ; it hung out false colors. Shame ! when it
was a free discussion meeting, and nothing more, that wo-
men should have 4 given color to the idea that it was for
abolition purposes.' Good, is it not, that sixteen women
can give a character to a meeting of twentyfive hundred
men ? O that you had been there ! A hundred women or
so in a drawing room, gathered together by a new application
of religious and democratic, viz : Christian principles, was all
that Boston had to show you when you were here. But this
Faneuil Hall gathering, to protect the minority in the appli-
cation of their principles was an imposing spectacle. The
meeting began with prayer; no sound but that sublime one
in stirring times — the sound of many feet on a puhlic floor.
You know that Dr Channing's voice is low, and Faneuil Hall
is empty of seats. The crowd surged up closer round
the platform ; and ever as they made room the space
behind filled iii. ±ij« counting-houses disgorged for the oc-
casion, and I think Dr Chaiitiing must have seen his mistake
as to the good state of heart of his neighbors and townsmen.
One third of the meeting, 1 think, were abolitionists and free
discussionists (small proportion of the former) ; one third of
bitter opjwnents ; and one third swayed to and fro by every
speaker. The name of Dr Channing prohahly kept this
floating third up to the pitch of an affirmative note on certain
resolutions be had prepared. James T. Austin (Attorney-
General) was there, and made a diabolical speech. It was
loudly cheered. I gave up all hopes of a favorable termina-
tiod of the meeting then. He tried to raise a storm of indig-
nation, but failed, baffled by the effort of a very dear young
friend and connexion of ours, who, from being of a good fa-
mily (Republicanism !) was enabled to get a hearing^ though
an abolitionist, and an agent of the abolition society. Wm.
Sturgis and George Bond, when he was almost overpowered
by the clamor, threw in their weight on the right side, and
free discussion of the subject of free discussion prevailed.
So much lor the local aspect of the cause at present. Stout
men — my husband for one — came home that day, and ' lifted
up their voices and wept.' Dr Channing did not know how

SECOND CONVENTION OF WOMEN. 71

dangerous an experiment (as people count danger) he adven-
tured. We knew that we must send the children out of town,
and sleep in our day-garments that night, unless free discus-
sion prevailed. Lovejoy stood upon the defensive, as the Bill
of Rights and New England Divinity bear him out in having
done. His death lies, in a double sense, at the door of the
church ; for she trained him to self-defence, and then attacked
him. This new aspect of the cause, orthodox church opposi-
tion to it as a heresy, has presented itself since you were here,
and a most perilous crisis it has been. I think the ship has
righted ; but she was on her beam-ends so long, that I thought
all was over for ' this 200 years,' as Dr Beecher says. I have
just sent off 55,000 women's signatures for the abolition in
the District of Columbia — a weary labor. My brain turns
with the counting and indorsing. I wrote well on them for
liio iioiior of Massachusetts, which is the reason I write so
badly to you now. I am thoroughly tired. God be with
you evermore !"

The second General Convention of Women was
held, as appointed, at Philadelphia, in the spring of
the present year. Once, again, has the intrepidity
of these noble Christian women been put to the
proof; the outrages in this "city of brotherly love"
having been the most fearful to which they have
yet been exposed. The cause of the extraordinary
violence of this year is to be found in the old max-
im that men hate those whom they have injured.
The State Convention, which had been employed
for many previous months in preparing a new con-
stitution for Pennsylvania, had deprived the citi-
zens of color of the political rights which they had
held (but rarely dared to exercise) under the old
constitution. Having done this injury, the perpe-
trators, and those who assented to their act, were
naturally on the watch against those whom they
had oppressed, and were jealous of every move-
ment, 'When the abolitionists began to gather to
their Convention, when the liberal part of the Qua-
ker population came abroad, and were seen greet-
ing their fellow-emancipators in the city of Penn —

72 MARIA CHAPMAN.

when the doors of the fine new building, Pennsyl-
vania Hall, were thrown open, and the people of
color were seen flocking thither, with hope in their
faces, and with heads erect, in spite of the tyranny
of the new laws, the hatred of their oppressors
grew too violent for restraint. It was impossible
to find reasonable and true causes of complaint
against any of the parties concerned in the Con-
vention, and falsehoods were therefore framed and
circulated. Even these falsehoods were of a na-
ture which makes it difficult for people on this side
of the Atlantic to understand how they should be
used as a pretext for such an excess of violence as
succeeded. The charge against the abolitionists
was, that thay ostentatiously walked the streets
arm-in-arm with people of color. They did not do
this, because the act was not necessary to the as-
sertion of any principle, and would have been of-
fensive ; but if they had, it might have been asked
what excuse this was for firing Pennsylvania Hall?
The delegates met and transacted their business,
as in the preceding year, but this time with a yell-
ing mob around the doors. The mild voice of An-
gelina Weld was heard above the hoarse roar ; but
it is said that the transient appearance of Maria
Chapman was the most striking circumstance of
the day. She was ill, and the heat of the weather
was tremendous ; but, scarcely able to sustain her-
self under an access of fever, she felt it her duty to
appear on the platform, showing once more that
where shame and peril are, there is she. Com-
menting upon the circumstances of the moment, the
strain of her exhortation accorded well with the
angelic beauty of her countenance, and with the
melting tones of her voice, and with the summary
of duty which she had elsewhere presented : "Our
principles teach us how to avoid that spurious char-
ity which would efface moral distinctions, and that

PENNSYLVANIA HALL. 73

our duty to the sinner is, not to palliate, but to par-
don ; not to excuse, but to forgive, freely, fully, as
we hope to be forgiven." To these principles she
has ever been faithful, whether she gathers her
children about her knees at home, or bends over
the pillow of a dying friend, or stands erect amidst
the insults and outrages of a mob, to strengthen the
souls of her fellow-sufferers. Her strain is ever
the same — no compromise, but unbounded forgive-
ness,

If the authorities had done their duty, no worse
mischief than threat and insult would have hap-
pened • but nothing effectual was done in answer
to a demonstration on the part cf the mob, repeated
for three or four nights; so at last they broke into
Pennsylvania Hall, heaped together the furniture
and books in the middle of the floor, -and burned
them and the building together. The circumstance
which most clearly indicates the source of the rage
of the mob, was their setting fire to the Orphan
Asylum for colored children ; a charity wholly un-
connected with abolitionism, and in no respect, but
the complexion of its inmates, on a different footing
from any other charitable institution in the Quaker
city. The Recorder interposed vigorously ; and,
after the burning of the Hall, the city firemen un-
dertook the protection of all the buildings in the
place, public and private. The morning after the
fire the abolitionists were asked what they intend-
ed to do next. Their answer was clear and ready.
They had already raised funds and engaged work-
men to restore their Hall, and had issued their no-
tices of the meeting of the third General Convention
in the spring of 1839. They have since applied
for damages, which we believe the city agreed,
without demur, to pay. It is astonishing that the
absurdity of persecuting such people as these has
not long been apparent to all eyes. Their foes
7

74 THE SOUTH.

might as well wage a pop-gun war against the con-
stellations of the sky.

It appears as if each State had to pass through
riot to rectitude on this mighty question. Every
.State which has now an abolition legislature, and
is officered by abolitionists, has. we believe, gone
through this process. The course of events seems
to be this : the abolitionists are first ridiculed, as a
handful of insignificant fanatics ; then the mer-
chants begin to be alarmed for their purses, and the
aristocracy for their prerogatives ; the clergy and
professional men act arid speak for the merchant-
interest, and engage the authorities to discounte-
nance the movement, which they do by threatening
penal laws, or uttering warnings of mobs. A mob
ensues, of course ; the apprehensions of the magis-
tracy furnishing the broadest hint. The business
is brought home to the bosom of every citizen. All,
especially the young men, look into the matter, ral-
ly in defence of the law, elect a good legislature,
look carefully to their magistracy, and the right
prevails. Such seems to have been the process in
every State disgraced by an anti-abolition riot. We
trust it may be so in Pennsylvania. Mrs Child said
long ago that this evil spirit having so long inti-
mately possessed the nation, we cannot expect that
it should be cast out without much rending and
tearing.

The abolitionists, as a body, are now fairly rec-
ognized by the South. Mr Birney has been applied
to by Mr Elmore, a southern member of Congress,
under the sanction of Mr Calhoun himself, for a
fulfilment of his offer to lay open all the affairs of
the anti-slavery body. The affairs of the abolition-
ists have from the beginning been open to all the
world; the evil has been that the world would not
attend to them. Now, however, "the South de-
sires to learn the depth, height and breadth of the

MR BIRNEY. 75

storm which impends over her." She has learned
what she wants, for Mr Birney has forwarded ex-
ceedingly full replies to the fourteen queries pro-
posed by the southern representatives and senators.
This may be regarded as an extremely fortunate
event. It is a most cheering testimony to the pro-
gress of the cause ; and it affords some hope that
the South will take warning in time, and present
an honorable exception to the conduct and catas-
trophe of a struggle for and relinquishment of irre-
sponsible power. The hope is faint ; for instances
are rare, if not unknown, of privileged bodies sur-
rendering their social privileges on a merely moral
summons. But again, instances aro rare, if not un-
known, of a privileged class appealing to a mag-
nanimous foe for an exposure of his forces, his de-
signs, and his expectations. Whatever irritability
may display itself in the conduct of the appeal, the
fact is highly honorable to both parties. To our
minds, it is one of the most striking circumstances
of this inn jostic story. Mr Birney's reply is far too
long to be given here, even in the briefest abstract.
It is extremely interesting, from the honorable ac-
curacy and candor of its statements, and its absti-
nence from all manifestation of the triumph which
its facts might well justify. These important pa-
pers go by'the name of the ' Elmore Correspon-
dence.'

The most melancholy feature of the struggle — more
so than even the conduct of the clergy (which has
been far more extraordinary than we have had space
to- relate) — is the degeneracy of Congress. The right
of petition has been virtually annihilated for these
three years past ; and the nation has been left un-
represented on the most important question which
has been occupying the nation's mind. The peo-
ple hold their remedy in the ballot box. The elec-
tions are now going forward ; and we doubt not

76 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.

the electors will take care that such a suspen-
sion of their rights does not happen again. We un-
derstand, indeed, that the usual federal and de-
mocratic questions are in many cases laid aside at
the present elections for the all-important one of
the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia,
and the prohibition of the inter-state slave trade.
Happen what may, it will not be forgotten in fu-
ture times that there was one man who did his du-
ty. Several others tried, bat. found circumstances too
strong for them. John Quincy Adams has con-
quered circumstances. Speculation has for some
years been busy on the fact of this gentleman being
a Massachusetts representative after having been
President of the United States. While some hon-
ored the succession of offices as a proof of the
highest patriotism, others magnanimously interpre-
ted it is an indication of vain, restless ambition.
His late conduct must convince all fair-minded ob-
servers of the intrepidity and purity of his patriot-
ism. At his years it is impossible that he can look
to the anti-slavery party for any rewards adequate
to what he has risked and undergone in defence of
their rights. Inch by inch has he maintained
alone the ground of constitutional rights ; month
after month has he painfully struggled for speech,
and been gagged by unconstitutional resolutions
and ex-post facto rules. We will not enter upon the
grievous tale of the insults that have been heaped
upon his revered head, and the moral inflictions by
which his noble heart has been wrung. This man
was (by universal acknowledgment) the purest of
the American Presidents, except Washington ;
and he has lived to see the nation he governed
virtually deprived (however temporarily) of their
rights of petition and free discussion ; and
when he protested against this privation, one
member started up to say that he considered Mr

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 77

Adams to be in the wane of his intellect, and an-
other to call him a sort of stormy petrel, delighting
in commotion. (This is of a piece with the assur-
ance that the abolitionists like to be persecuted.)
The more pertinaciously his mouth was stopped,
the more vigilantly did Mr Adams watch for an
opportunity to speak. At last he found it. Under
cover of remarks on the Report of the Committee
of Foreign Affairs in relation to Texas, he deliver-
ed himself of all his protests and all his opinions on
the vicious legislation of the last two sessions on
slavery, Texas, and the reception of petitions. For
an hour a day during twelve days he spoke, under
perpetual calls to order, but with power to proceed
till he chose to stop. We subjoin an extract from
that hour-long oratory, which will not be forgotten
by any of the hundreds who heard it, or by any of
the millions who owe to him the patient and intrep-
id assertion of their constitutional rights in the
martyr-age of the republic.

" Thursday, June 28, 1838.

" Mr Adams resumed the floor in support of his resolu-
tion respecting the admission of Texas to the Union.

" When I last addressed the House I was engaged in dis-
cussing the principle asserted by the Chairman of the Com-
mittee on Foreign Affairs ; the practical effect of which
must be to deprive one half of the population of these Uni-
ted States of the right to petition before this House. I say
it goes to deprive the entire female sex of all right of pe-
tition here. The principle is not an abstract principle. It
is stated abstractedly, in the report of his remarks, which I
have once read to the House. 1 will read it again ; it is
highly important, and well deserving of the attention of
this House, and its solemn decision. It referred to all peti-
tions on the subject of the annexation of Texas to this
Union which come from women : —

" c Many of these petitions were signed by women. He
always felt regret when petitions thus~signed were present-
ed to the House relating to political matters. He thought
these females could have a sufficient field for the exercise
of their influence in the discharge of their duties to their

78 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.

fathers, their husbands, or their children, cheering the do-
mestic circle, and shedding over it the mild radiance of the
social virtues, instead of rushing into the fierce struggles of
political life. He felt sorrow at this departure from their
proper sphere, in which there was abundant room for the
practice of the most extensive benevolence and philanthro-
py, because he considered it discreditable, not only to their
own particular section of the country, but also to the na-
tional character, and thus giving him a right to express this
opinion.'

" Now, I say, in the first place, that this principle is er-
roneous, vicious. Asa moral principle it is vicious ; and in
its application the chairman of the committee made it the
ground of a reproach to the females of my district ; thous-
ands of whom, besides those 238 who signed the first peti-
tion I presented here, have signed similar petitions. That
is his application. And what is the consequence intended
to follow? Why, that petitions of that sort deserve no
consideration, and that the committee are, therefore, fully
justified in never looking into one of them. And this, be-
cause they conae from women; and women, departing from
their own proper sphere, in the domestic circle, do what is
discreditable, not only to their own particular district of
country, but to the national character. There is the broad
principle, and there is its application. This has compelled
me to probe it to the bottom, and to show that it is funda-
mentally wrong, that it is vicious, and the very reverse of
that which should prevail.

" Why does it follow that women are fitted for nothing
but the cares of domestic life ? for bearing children, and
cooking the food of a family ? devoting all their time to
the domestic circle— to promoting the immediate personal
comfort of their husbands, brothers, and sons ? Observe,,
sir, the point of departure between the chairman of the
committee and myself. I admit that it is their duty to at-
tend to these things. I subscribe fully to the elegant com-
pliment passed by him upon those members of the female
sex who devote their time to these duties. But I say that
the correct principle is, that women are not only justified,
but exhibit the most exalted virtue when they do depart
from the domestic circle, and enter on the concerns of their
country, of humanity, and of their God. The mere depar-
ture of women from the duties of the domestic circle, far
from being a reproach to her, is a virtue of the highest or-
der, when it is done from purity of motive, by appropriate
means, and towards a virtuous purpose. There is the true

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 79

distinction. The motive must be pure, the means appro-
priate, and the purpose good. And I say that woman, by
the discharge of such duties, has manifested a virtue which
is even above the virtues of mankind, and approaches to a
superior nature. That is the principle I maintain, and
which the chairman of the committee has to refute, if he
applies the position he has taken to the mothers, the sisters,
and the daughters of the men of my district who voted to
send me here. Now I aver, further, that in the instance to
which his observation refers, viz. in the act of petitioning
against the annexation of Texas to this Union, the motive
was pure, the means appropriate, and the purpose virtuous,
in the highest degree. As an evident proof of this, I recur to
the particular petition from which this debate took its rise,
viz. to the first petition I presented here against the annexa-
tion— a petition consisting of three lines, and signed by 238
women of Plymouth, a principal town in my own district.
Their words are —

" ( The undersigned, women of Plymouth (Mass-), thor-
oughly aware of the sinfulness of slavery, and the conse-
quent impolicy and disastrous tendency of its extension in
our country, do most respectfully remonstrate, with all our
souls, against the annexation of Texas to the United States,
as a slave-holding territory.'

" Those are the words of their memorial. And I say
that, in presenting it here, their motive was pure, and of
the highest order of purity. They petitioned under a con-
viction that the consequence of the annexation would be
the advancement of that which is sin in the sight of God,
viz. slavery. I say, further, that the means were appro-
priate, because it is Congress who must decide on the ques-
tion ; and, therefore, it is proper that they should petition
Congress if they wish to prevent the annexation. And I
say, in the third place, that the end was virtuous, pure, and
of the most exalted character, viz. to prevent the perpetua-
tion and spread of slavery through America. I say, more-
over, that I subscribe, in my own person, to every word the
petition contains. I do believe slavery to be a sin before
God, and that is the reason, and the only insurmountable
reason, why we should refuse to annex Texas to this Union.
For, although the amendment I have moved declares that
neither Congress nor any other portion of this Government
is of itself competent to make this annexation, yet I hold it
not impossible, with the consent of the people of the Uni-
ted States and of the people of Texas, that a Union might
properly be accomplished. It might be effected by an a-

80 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.

mendment of the Constitution, submitted to the approval of
the people of the United States, as all other amendments
are to he submitted, and by afterwards submitting the ques-
tion to the decision of the people of both States. — I admit
that in that way such a union might be, and may be, form-
ed. But not with a State tolerating slavery ; not with a
people who have converted freemen into slaves ; not so
long as slavery exists in Texas. So long as that continues,
I do not hold it practicable, in any form, that the two nations
should ever be united. Thus far I go. I concur in every
word of the petition I had the honor to present ; and I hold
it to be proof of pure patriotism, of sincere piety, and of
every virtue that can adorn the female character.

" With regard to this principle I am willing it shall be
discussed. I hope it will be discussed, not only in this
House, but throughout this nation.

" I should not have detained the House so long in estab-
lishing this position, had I not felt it a duty I owed to my
constituents to vindicate the characters of their wives and
sisters and daughters, who were assailed by the sentiment
I have opposed.

" And now, to close with a little anecdote, which I hope
will put the House into a good humour. In consequence of
the stand I have taken here, on the subject of the right of
petition, a great number of petitions and memorials have
been sent to me, many of which I did not present ; some
were sent with a sinister purpose — to make me ridiculous,
or the right of petition ridiculous. Others were of a more
atrocious character, and the language in which they were
expressed would have, of itself, precluded their reception
here. But there is one from a man whom I take to be a
profound humorist, and a keen and deep satirist. His peti-
tion is, that Congress would enter into negociations with
the Queen of Great Britain to prevail on her to abdicate the
throne of that nation. And why? Because affairs of state
do not belong to women. Now, if this petition had been
sent to the honorable chairman of the Committee on Foreign
Relations, I really do not see, with his notions, how he
could have refused to present it. (A laugh.) But I de-
clined the presentation of it because I feared that there
might be a portion of the House who would not perceive
in such a petition the satire which [ thought was intended
as a serious proposition. 1 do not intend to put the House
to the trial of that matter, or myself in an attitude of com-
ing under the censure of this House for treason, in offering
such advice to the President ; or at least as becoming the

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 81

cause of a war with England. For when the Government
of one country addresses the Sovereign of another with a
request to abdicate the throne, it is a pretty serious affair.
In that point of view it was impossible for me to present
the paper ; but, in the other, I think I might have done so
with great propriety and effect. And even now, as the
chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs appears to
sympathise in feeling and sentiment with the petitioner, if
bethinks it might be serviceable to present the paper, I will
cheerfully communicate it to him." (A laugh.)

During the last year, several Halls of State
Legislatures have been granted to the abolitionists
for their meetings, while the churches have remained
closed against them. The aspect of these assem-
blages has been very remarkable, from the union
of religious and political action witnessed there. But
the most extraordinary spectacle of all — a spectacle
perhaps unrivalled in the history of the world —
was the address of Angelina Grimke before a Com-
mittee of the Legislature of Massachusetts. Some
have likened it to the appeal of Hortensia to the
Roman Senate; but others have truly observed
that the address of Angelina Grimke was far the
nobler of the two. as she complained not as the
voice of a party remonstrating against injuries done
to itself, but as the advocate of a class too degraded
and helpless to move or speak on its own behalf.
The gentle dignity of the speaker's manner, and
the power of statement and argument shown in her
address, together with the righteousness of her
cause, won the sympathies of as large an audience
as the State House would contain, and bore down
all ridicule, prejudice, and passion. Two emotions
divided the vast assemblage of hearers : — sympathy
in her cause, and veneration for herself. The only
fear now entertained by the abolitionists with regard
to the cause in the leading State of Massachusetts,
is lest it should become too flourishing, arid lose
something of its rectitude in its prosperity.

82 PROSPECTS OF THE ABOLITIONISTS.

The history of this struggle seems to yield a few
inferences which must, we think, be evident to all
impartial minds ; and which are as important as
they are clear. One is, that this is a struggle which
cannot subside till it has prevailed. If this be
true, the consequence of yielding to it would be
the saving of a world of guilt and woe. Another
is, that other sorts of freedom, besides emancipa-
tion from slavery, will come in with it , that the
aristocratic spirit in all its manifestations is Toeing
purged out of the community ; — that with every
black slave a white will be also freed. Another is.
that republicanism is in no degree answerable for
the want of freedom and of peace under which the
American nation is now suffering ; — that, on the
contrary, the turbulence and tyranny are the im-
mediate offspring of the old-world, feudal, European
spirit which still lives in the institution assailed,
and in the bosoms of the aristocracy of the coun-
try, while the bulwarks of the Constitution, the
true republicans, are the puctcemen," the suffer-
ers, the moral soldiers, who have gone out armed
only with faith, hope, and charity. Another is,
that the colored people have a promising morale on
which to ground their civilization. Their whole
conduct affords evidences of generosity, patience,
and hopefulness, from which fine results of char-
acter may be anticipated, whenever this unfortu-
nate race shall have leave to exert their unfettered
energies under circumstances of average fairness.

It is a wide world that we live in, as wonderful
in the diversity of its moral as of its natural feat-
ures. A just survey of the whole can leave little
doubt that the abolitionists of the United States are
the greatest people now living and moving in it.
There is beauty in the devotedness of the domestic
life of every land ; there is beauty in the liberality
of the philosophers of the earth, in the laborious-

PROSPECTS. OF THE ABOLITIONISTS. 83

ness of statesmen, in the beneficence of the wealthy,
in the faith and charity of the poor. All these
graces flourish among this 'martyr company, and
others with them, which it is melting to the very
soul to contemplate. To appreciate them fully,
one must be among them. One must hear their
diversity of tongue — from the quaint Scripture
Phraseology of the Pilgrims to the classical lan-
guage of the scholar — to estimate their liberality.
One must witness the eagerness with which each
strives to bring down the storm upon his own head
to save his neighbor, and to direct any transient
sunshine into his friend's house rather than his
own, to understand their generosity. One must see
the manly father weeping over his son's blighted
prospects, and the son vindicating his mother's in-
sulted name, to appreciate their disinterestedness.
One must experience something of the soul-sick-
ness and misgiving caused by popular hatred, and
of the awful pangs of an apprehended violent death,
to enter fully into their heroism. Those who are
living in peace afar off can form but a faint con-
ception of what it is to have no respite, no pros-
pect of rest, of security, of success, within any
calculable time. The grave, whether it yawns
beneath his feet, or lies on the far horizon, is, as
they well know, their only resting-place ; adversity
is all around them, like the whirlwind of the
desert. But, if all this can be scarcely conceived
of at a distance, neither can their bright faces be
seen there. Nowhere but among such, can an
array of countenances be beheld so little lower than
the angels.' Ordinary social life is spoiled to them ;
but another which is far better has grown up among
them. They had more life than others to begin
with, as the very fact of their enterprise shows ;
and to them that have much shall more be given.
They are living fast and loftily. The weakest of

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/63J

81 PROSPECTS OP THE ABOLITIONISTS.

m}

them who drops into the grave worn out, and the
youngest that lies murdered on his native republi-
can soil, has enjoyed a richer harvest of time, a
larger gift out of eternity, than the octogenarian
self-seeker, however he may have attained his
ends. These things, as branches of general
truths, may be understood at the distance of half
the globe. Let us not, therefore, wait, as it
has been the .world's custom to wait, for another
century to greet the confessors and martyrs who
stretch out their strong arms to bring down Heaven
upon our earth ; but even now, before they have
stripped off care and sorrow with their mortal
frame. — even now, while sympathy may cheer and
thanks may animate, let us make our reverent con-
gratulations heard over the ocean which divides us
from the spiritual potentates of our age.

H. M.