Chapter VI: Part 6

Immediately after the first New England Antislavery Convention, which closed on the 29th of May, 1834, I devoted four or five weeks to lecturing on the Abolition of Slavery in most of the principal towns between Boston and Portland. In several places there were strong expressions of hostility to our undertaking. But nothing like personal violence was offered me. I stopped over Sunday, 8th of June, at Portsmouth, to supply brother A. P. Peabody’s pulpit, that he might preach in a neighboring town. I consented to do this, on the condition that I might deliver an antislavery lecture from his pulpit on Sunday evening. This he gladly agreed to, and took pains to publish my intention. But, greatly to my surprise, after the forenoon service, the Trustees of the church waited upon me, and informed me that, at the earnest demand of many prominent members, I should not be allowed to speak on slavery from their pulpit; that the meeting-house would not be opened that evening. My remonstrance with them was of no avail. So at the close of my afternoon services I said to the congregation: “You are all doubtless aware that I had arranged with your excellent pastor to deliver a lecture on American slavery from this desk this evening. But during the intermission your Trustees called and peremptorily forbade my doing so. Has our consenting with the oppressors of the poor indeed brought us to this? That I, who am striving to be a minister of Him “who came to break every yoke” am forbidden to plead with you who are reputed to be an eminently Christian church the cause of millions of our countrymen who are suffering the most abject bondage ever enforced upon human beings? I know not, I do not wish to know, who those prominent members of your church are that have presumed to close this pulpit, and deny to others the right to manifest their sympathy for the down-trodden, and to hear what may and should be done for their relief. The time shall come when those prominent ones will be brought down, and their children and children’s children will be ashamed to hear of their act.”

With this exception, and an unsuccessful attempt to disturb a meeting that I was addressing in Worcester, I met with no serious molestation in any of the towns of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, or Maine, where I lectured during the summer and autumn of 1834. The faces of many of the rich and fashionable were averted from me; but “the common people” seemed to hear me gladly. Politicians and would-be statesmen often encountered me in the stage-coaches and at the hotels where I stopped. Many of our conflicts were amusing rather than terrible. They always based themselves upon “the provisions of the Constitution,” about which it was soon made to appear, that they knew little or nothing. They took it for granted that the fathers of our Republic agreed that slavery should exist in any of the States where the white citizens chose to have it; and that the Constitution of our Union gave certain guarantees for the protection of their “peculiar institution” to the States in which it was maintained. Moreover, these political savans insisted that the Constitution provided that this matter should be left wholly to the slaveholders themselves; and that all condemnation of it as a wicked system, and the exposure of its evils and its horrors, was a violation of State comity, if not of the _rights_ of our fellow-citizens of the South.

Perceiving how little most of such friends of the Union knew about the fundamental law of our Republic, and finding, on inquiry, that copies of the Constitution were in that day very scarce, I not unfrequently shut up my opponents almost as soon as they opened their mouths upon the subject. When they ventured to say, “The Constitution, sir, settled this question in the beginning,” I would inquire, “My friend, have you ever read the Constitution?” “Everybody knows, sir, that slavery--” “Have you, yourself, read that document to which you appeal?” “Why, sir, do you presume to deny that guarantees--” “My friend, I ask again, have you yourself ever read the Constitution of the United States? I do not care to go into an argument with you until I know whether you are acquainted with our great national charter.” In this way, time and again, I drew from my would-be opponents (sometimes justices of the peace), the acknowledgment that they had never themselves seen a copy of the Constitution, but supposed that what everybody, except the Abolitionists, said of its provisions must be true. Occurrences of this sort I reported to the managers of the Antislavery Society so frequently, that they caused a large edition of the United States Constitution to be printed, so that copies of it might be distributed with our tracts, wherever the agents and lecturers saw fit. This was one of the _naughty_ things we did, so inimical to the peace and well-being of our country.

The discussions which I had with sundry individuals who were acquainted with the subject led me to study the Constitution with greater care and deeper interest than ever before. It seemed to me that we owed it to the memory of those venerated men whose names are conspicuous in the early history of our Republic--those men who so solemnly pledged “their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor” to the cause of freedom and the inalienable rights of man--to exonerate them, if we fairly could, from the awful responsibility that was laid upon them by those who insisted that they _guaranteed_ to the Southern States the unquestioned exercise of their assumed right to enforce the _enslavement_ of one sixth part of the population of the land, many of whom had shared with them in all the hardships and perils of their struggles for independence. It seemed to me that every article of the Constitution usually quoted as intended to favor the assumptions of slaveholders admitted of an opposite interpretation, and that we were bound by every honorable and humane consideration to prefer that interpretation. The conclusions to which I was brought on this subject I gave some time afterwards in the _Antislavery Magazine_ for 1836. But the publication of the “Madison Papers,” in which was given the minutes, debates, etc., of the convention which framed the Constitution, I confess, disconcerted me somewhat. I could not so easily maintain my ground in the discussions which afterwards agitated so seriously the Abolitionists themselves,--some maintaining that the Constitution was, and was intended to be, proslavery; others maintaining that it was antislavery. It seemed to me that it might be whichever the people pleased to make it. I rejoice, therefore, with joy unspeakable that the question is at length practically settled, though by the issue of our late awful war.

THE CLERGY AND THE QUAKERS.

The coming of George Thompson to our country in the fall of 1834, and his thrilling eloquence respecting our great national iniquity, awakened general attention to the subject, and caused more excitement about it than before. He came, as it were, a missionary from the philanthropists of Great Britain to show our people their transgression. The politicians tried to get up the public indignation against him as “a foreign emissary interfering with our political affairs.” The religionists resented his coming as an impertinence, though _they_ were much engaged in sending missionaries to the heathen to reclaim them from sins no more heinous than ours. Nevertheless, the people flocked to hear him, and many were converted. The demand for antislavery lectures came from all parts of New England, and from many parts of the Middle and Western States. A great work was to be done. The fields were whitening to the harvest, but the laborers were few. I therefore accepted the renewed invitation of the Massachusetts Antislavery Society to become its General Agent and Corresponding Secretary, and removed to Boston early in the spring of 1835. Many of my nearest relatives and dearest friends received me kindly, but with sadness. They feared I should lose my standing in the ministry and become an outcast from the churches. For a while it seemed as if their apprehensions were not groundless. None of the Boston ministers, excepting Dr. Channing, welcomed me. Dr. Follen, Dr. Ware, Jr., and Dr. Palfrey were then resident in Cambridge; Mr. Pierpont was in Europe. James Freeman Clarke had not left Louisville, and Theodore Parker was a student in the Divinity School. I was indeed soon made to feel that I was not in good repute. Dr. Ware, who had charge of the Hollis Street pulpit in the absence of the pastor, invited me to supply it, if I found I could do so consistently with my new duties. I engaged for two Sundays. But at the close of the first, one of the chief officers of the church waited upon me, by direction of the principal members, and requested me not to enter their pulpit again, assuring me, if I should do so, that a dozen or more of the prominent men with their families would leave the house. Of course I yielded that, and I was not invited into any other pulpit in the city, excepting Dr. Channing’s, during the fifteen months that I resided there.

Soon after my removal to Boston I was informed that a young and very popular minister in a neighboring town had preached an antislavery sermon on the Fast Day then just past. I hurried to see him, and requested him to read to me the sermon. He did so. It was an admirable _exposé_ of the wickedness of holding men in slavery, and of the duty incumbent upon all Christian and humane persons to do what they could to break such a yoke. It was the outpouring of an ingenuous, benevolent, generous heart, that deeply felt for the wrongs of the outraged millions in our country.

I begged a copy of the discourse for the press, assuring him it would be a most valuable contribution to the cause of the oppressed. He consented to let me have it, promising that, after retouching and fitting it for the press, he would send it to me. I returned to the Antislavery office and made arrangements to publish a large edition of that, which would then have been a remarkable sermon.

After waiting more than a week for the promised manuscript I called upon the author again. In answer to my inquiry why he had not fulfilled his promise he said: “I have concluded not to allow the discourse to be published. Some of the most prominent members of our church have earnestly advised me not to give it to the press.” “Why,” said I, “have they convinced you that slaveholding is not as sinful as you represented it to be, or that you have been misinformed as to the condition of our enslaved countrymen?” “O no,” he replied, “but then this is a very complicated, difficult matter between our Northern and Southern States, and I have been admonished to let it alone.” “Do you believe,” I inquired, “that those who so admonished you were prompted to give you such advice by their sense of justice to the enslaved, their compassion for those millions to whom all rights are denied, and whose conjugal, parental, filial, and fraternal affections are trampled under foot? Or were they influenced by pecuniary, or by party political considerations?” “It is not for me, sir, to say what their motives were,” he replied, in a tone that intimated displeasure. “They are among my best friends, and the most respectable members of my parish. I am bound to give heed to their counsel. I mean so to do. I shall not allow my sermon to be published. I shall not commit myself to the antislavery cause.” “Let me only say,” I added, “if you do not commit yourself to the cause of the _oppressed_, you will probably, erelong, be found on the side of the _oppressor_.” So we parted. And my prediction was fulfilled.

Two or three years afterwards it was reported that the same gentleman, having visited the Southern States and enjoyed the hospitality of the slaveholders, returned and preached a discourse very like “The South Side View of Slavery,” by Dr. Adams, of Essex Street.

On Fast Day, 1852, it so happened that I was visiting a parishioner of this brother minister. I accompanied him to church, and heard from that very able and eloquent preacher the most unjust and cruel sermon against the Abolitionists that I had ever listened to or read.

This incident and my reception in Boston prepared me in a measure for the warning given me by the New York merchant, as related on page 127. Still, I could not think so badly of my fellow-citizens, my fellow-Christians of the North, the New England States, as I was afterwards compelled to do.

That the cancer of slavery had eaten still deeper than I was willing to believe was soon after made too apparent to me.

THE QUAKERS.

We had always counted upon the aid and co-operation of the _Quakers_. We considered them “birthright” Abolitionists. And many of Mr. Garrison’s earliest supporters, most untiring co-laborers, and generous contributors were members of “the Society of Friends,” or had been. Besides John G. Whittier and James and Lucretia Mott, Evan Lewis, Thomas Shipley, and others, of whom I have already spoken, in my account of the Philadelphia Convention, there were the venerable Moses Brown, and the indefatigable Arnold Buffum, and that remarkable man, Isaac T. Hopper, and the large-hearted, open-handed Andrew Robeson and William Rotch, and Isaac and Nathan Winslow, and Nathaniel Barney, and Joseph and Anne Southwick,[D] and fifty more, whose praises I should delight to celebrate.

But we had received no expression of sympathy from any “Yearly” or “Monthly Meeting,” and we felt moved to _seek a sign_ from them. Accordingly, at the suggestion of some of the Friends who were actively engaged with us, I went to Newport, R. I., in June, 1835, at the time of the great New England Yearly Meeting, to see if I could obtain from them any intimation of friendliness. My wife accompanied me. When we arrived at the principal hotel in the place, where I was told we should find “the weighty” as well as a large number of the lighter members of the Society, we were at a loss to account for the fluster of the landlord and his helpers, and the tardiness with which we were informed that we could be accommodated. After we had got established, I learned from one who had urged my coming, that there had been quite a commotion in consequence of the report that the General Agent of the Massachusetts Antislavery Society was about to visit the “Yearly Meeting.” William ----, and William ----, and Oliver ----, and Isaac ----, and Thomas ----, wealthy cotton manufacturers and merchants, had bestirred themselves to prevent such “an intrusion,” as they were pleased to term it. They had secured the public halls of Newport against me during the continuance of the “Yearly Meeting,” and had been trying, on the morning of the day that I arrived, to induce the landlord to refuse me any accommodation in his house. And they would have succeeded, had not forty of his boarders informed him that if he did not receive me they would quit his premises. These forty, though of less account in the meeting, which, I learned, was governed by the aristocracy that occupied the high seats, were more weighty in the receipts of the hotel-keeper. He therefore compromised with the dignitaries by agreeing to serve their meals in a private parlor, so that their eyes might not be offended at the sight of the antislavery agent in the common dining hall.

I sought, through several of their very respectable members, permission to attend their “Meeting on Sufferings” and present to their consideration the principles and plans of the American Antislavery Society and its auxiliaries. This request was peremptorily denied. I then besought them to give their “testimony on slavery,” as they had sometimes done in times past. This they also refused.

An arrangement was then made by the members who were Abolitionists, many of whom boarded with me at “Whitfield’s,” that I should address as many as saw fit to meet me in the large reception-room of the hotel, in the evening of the second day of my visit. So soon as this was known, it was asked of me if I would consent to let the meeting be conducted somewhat in the manner of “the Society of Friends” so that any who should be moved to speak might have the liberty. I acquiesced most cheerfully, not doubting that I should be moved, and should be expected to address the meeting first and give the direction to it.

Fifty or sixty persons assembled at the hour appointed. Deeming it respectful to my Quaker brethren to sit in silence a few minutes after the meeting came to order, I did so, and in so doing lost my chance to be heard. A wily brother took advantage of my sense of propriety, rose before me and delivered a long discourse upon slavery, made up of the commonplaces and platitudes of the subject, about which all were agreed. He was followed instantly by another in the same vein, and when the evening was far spent and the auditors were beginning to withdraw, I was permitted to speak a few minutes upon the vital points in the questions between the immediate Abolitionists and the slaveholders on the one hand, and the Colonizationists on the other hand.

However, the next morning, in the presence of twenty or more, I had unexpectedly a long and pretty thorough discussion with the distinguished John Griscom, so that my visit to Newport was not wholly lost.

I am sorry that truth compels me to add, that afterwards we had too many proofs that “the Society of Friends,” with all their antislavery professions, were not, as a religious sect, much more friendly than others to the immediate emancipation of the enslaved without expatriation. They were disposed to be Colonizationists rather than Abolitionists.

THE REIGN OF TERROR.

Rejected as we Abolitionists were generally by the religionists of every denomination, denounced by many of the clergy as dangerous, yes, impious persons, refused a hearing in almost all the churches, it was not strange that the statesmen and politicians had no mercy upon us.

The first most serious opposition from any minister I myself directly encountered was in the pleasant town of Taunton. I went thither on the 15th of April, 1835, and had a very successful meeting in the Town Hall, which was filled full with respectable persons of both sexes. So much interest in the subject was awakened that a large number on the spot signified their readiness to co-operate with those who were laboring to procure the abolition of American slavery. To my surprise, the most prominent minister in the town, a learned and liberal theologian, and a gentleman of unexceptionable private character, took the utmost pains to prevent the formation of an auxiliary antislavery society there. He declared that “the slaves were the property of their masters,” that “we of the North had no more right to disturb this _domestic arrangement_ of our Southern brethren, and prevent the prosecution of their industrial operations, than the planters had to interfere with our manufactures and commerce.” He dealt out to the Abolitionists no small number of opprobrious epithets; charged us with being the cause of the New York mobs of October, 1834, and insisted that, if we “were permitted to prosecute our measures, it would inevitably dissolve the Union and cause a civil war.”

This was the substance of the _verbal_ opposition that we met with everywhere throughout the Northern, Middle, and Western States; strengthened by the arguments of the civilians and statesmen, intended to show that the enslavement of the colored population of certain States was settled by the _founders_ of our Republic, who made several compromises in relation to it, and gave sundry guarantees to the slaveholders which must be held sacred.

Many timid persons everywhere, by such assertions and appeals, were deterred from yielding to the convictions which the self-evident truths, urged by the Abolitionists, awakened. Still the cause of the oppressed made visible progress in all parts of the non-slaveholding States. Alarmed by this, the barons of the South, as Mr. Adams significantly styled them, stirred up their dependants and partisans to demand something more of their Northern brethren than denunciation and opprobrium against the Abolitionists. “They must be put down by law or _without law_, as the necessity of the case might require.” And the determination to do _just this_ was at length come to by “the gentlemen of property and standing” throughout the North, as the New York merchant, mentioned on the foregoing 127th page informed me.

In pursuance of this determination, the great meeting in Faneuil Hall, called, as I have said already, by fifteen hundred of the respectable gentlemen of Boston, was held on the 21st of August, 1835. The grave misrepresentations, the plausible arguments, the inflammatory appeals made by the very distinguished civilians who addressed that meeting, invoked those demon spirits throughout New England that did deeds, of which I hope the instigators themselves became heartily ashamed.

How devilish those spirits were I was made to know a few evenings after that never-to-be-forgotten meeting. I went to the quiet town of Haverhill, by special invitation from John G. Whittier and a number more of the genuine friends of humanity. I had lectured there twice before without opposition, and went again not apprehending any disturbance. The meeting was held in the Freewill Baptist Church,--a large hall over a row of stores. The audience was numerous, occupying all the seats and evidently eager to hear. I had spoke about fifteen minutes, when the most hideous outcries, yells, from a crowd of men who had surrounded the house startled us, and then came heavy missiles against the doors and blinds of the windows. I persisted in speaking for a few minutes, hoping the blinds and doors were strong enough to stand the siege. But presently a heavy stone broke through one of the blinds, shattered a pane of glass and fell upon the head of a lady sitting near the centre of the hall. She uttered a shriek and fell bleeding into the arms of her sister. The panic-stricken audience rose _en masse_, and began a rush for the doors. Seeing the danger, I shouted in a voice louder than I ever uttered before or since, “_Sit down, every one of you, sit down!_ The doors are not wide; the platform outside is narrow; the stairs down to the street are steep. If you go in a rush, you will jam one another, or be thrown down and break your limbs, if not your necks. If there is any one here whom the mob wish to injure, it is myself. I will stand here and wait until you are safely out of the house. But you must go in some order as I bid you.” To my great joy they obeyed. All sat down, and then rose, as I told them to, from the successive rows of pews, and went out without any accident.

When the house was nearly empty I took on my arm a brave young lady, who would not leave me to go through the mob alone, and went out. Fortunately none of the ill-disposed knew me. So we passed through the lane of madmen unharmed, hearing their imprecations and threats of violence to the ---- Abolitionist when he should come out.

It was well we had delayed no longer to empty the hall, for at the corner of the street above we met a posse of men more savage than the rest, dragging a cannon, which they intended to explode against the building and at the same time tear away the stairs; so furious and bloodthirsty had “the baser sort” been made by the instigations of “the gentlemen of property and standing.”

In October it was thought advisable for me to go and lecture in several of the principal towns of Vermont. I did so, and everywhere I met with contumely and insult. I was mobbed five times. In Rutland and Montpelier my meetings were dispersed with violence. Of the last only shall I give any account, because I had been specially invited to Montpelier to address the Vermont State Antislavery Society. The Legislature was in session there at that time, and many of the members of that body were Abolitionists. We were, therefore, without much opposition, granted the use of the Representatives’ Hall for our first meeting, on the evening of October 20. A large number of persons--as many as the hall could conveniently hold--were present, including many members of the Legislature, and ladies not a few. There were some demonstrations of displeasure in the yard of the Capitol and a couple of eggs and a stone or two were thrown through the window before which I was standing. But their force was spent before they reached me, and therefore they were not suffered to interrupt my discourse. At the close, I was requested to tarry in Montpelier and address the public again the next evening from the pulpit of the First Presbyterian Church, the largest audience-room in the village. This I gladly consented to do. But the next morning placards were seen all about the village, admonishing “the people generally, and ladies in particular, not to attend the antislavery meeting proposed to be held that evening in the Presbyterian church, as the person who is advertised to speak will certainly be prevented, _by violence if necessary_.” In the afternoon I received a letter signed by the President of the bank, the Postmaster, and five other “gentlemen of property and standing” in Montpelier, requesting me to leave town “without any further attempt to hold forth the absurd doctrine of antislavery, and save them the trouble of using any other measures to that effect.” But as I had accepted the invitation to deliver a second lecture, I determined to make the attempt so to do, these threats notwithstanding. Accordingly, just before the hour appointed, with a venerable Quaker lady on my arm, I proceeded to the meeting-house and took a seat in the pulpit. After a prayer had been offered by Rev. Mr. Hurlbut, I rose to speak. But I had hardly uttered a sentence when the ringleader of the riot, Timothy Hubbard, Esq., rose with a gang about him and commanded me to desist. I replied, “Is this the respect paid to the _liberty of speech_ by the free people of Vermont? Let any one of your number step forward and give reasons, if he can, why his fellow-citizens, who wish, should not be permitted to hear the lecture I have been invited here to deliver. If I cannot show those reasons to be fallacious, false, I will yield to your demand. But for the sake of one of our essential rights, the liberty of speech, I shall proceed if I can.” While I was saying these words the rioters were still. But so soon as I commenced my lecture again, Mr. Hubbard and his fellows cried out, “Down with him!” “Throw him over!” “Choke him!” Hon. Chauncy L. Knapp, then, or afterwards, I believe, Secretary of State, remonstrated earnestly, implored his fellow-citizens not to continue disgracing themselves, the town, and the State. But his words were of no avail. The moment I attempted a third time to speak the rioters commenced a rush for the pulpit, loudly shouting their violent intentions. At this crisis Colonel Miller, well known as the companion of Dr. Howe in a generous endeavor to aid Greece in her struggle for independence in 1824,--Colonel Miller, renowned for his courage and prowess, sprang forward and planted himself in front of the leader, crying in a voice of thunder, “Mr. Hubbard, if you do not stop this outrage now, I will knock you down!” The rush for the pulpit was stayed; but such an alarm had spread through the house, that there was a hasty movement from all parts towards the doors, and my audience dispersed. Colonel Miller, Mr. Knapp, and several other gentlemen urged me to remain in town another day and attempt a meeting the next evening, assuring me that it should be protected against the ruffians. But it was Friday, and I had engaged to be in Burlington the next day, to preach for Brother Ingersoll the following Sunday, and deliver an antislavery lecture from his pulpit in the evening. So I was obliged to leave our good friends in the capital of Vermont mortified and vexed at what had occurred there.

But on my arrival at Burlington I received tidings from Boston of a far greater outrage that had been perpetrated at the same time, in the metropolis of New England. On page 127 I made mention of the “well-dressed, gentlemanly” mob of October 21st, which broke up a regular meeting of the Female Antislavery Society. The fury of the populace had been incited to the utmost by articles in the _Commercial Gazette_, the _Courier_, the _Sentinel_, and other newspapers, of which the following is a specimen: “It is in vain that we hold meetings in Faneuil Hall, and call into action the eloquence and patriotism of our most talented citizens; it is in vain that speeches are made and resolutions adopted, assuring our brethren of the South that we cherish rational and correct notions on the subject of slavery, if Thompson and Garrison, and their vile associates in this city, are to be permitted to hold their meetings in the broad face of day, and to continue their denunciations against the planters of the South. They _must be put down_ if we would preserve our consistency. The evil is one of the greatest magnitude; and _the opinion prevails very generally_ that if there is no law that will reach it, it must be reached in some other way.”

Though “the patriots” had been especially maddened by the report that “the infamous foreign scoundrel, Thompson,” “the British emissary, the paid incendiary, Thompson,” was to address the meeting, yet, when assured he was not and would not be there, they did not desist. “But Garrison is!” was the cry; “snake him out and finish him!” They tore down the sign of the Antislavery office and dashed it to pieces; compelled the excellent women to leave their hall, seized upon Mr. Garrison, tore off his clothes, dragged him through the streets, and would have hanged him, had it not been for the almost superhuman efforts of several gentlemen, assisted by some of the police and a vigorous hack-driver, who together succeeded in getting him to Leverett Street Jail, where he was committed for safe-keeping.

The disgraceful story was too well told at the time ever to be forgotten, especially by Mr. Garrison himself, and more especially by Mrs. Maria Weston Chapman, in a little volume entitled “Right and Wrong in Boston.”

To show my readers still further how general the determination had become throughout the Northern States to put down the antislavery agitation by foul means, I will here only allude to the significant fact that on the same day, October 21, 1835, a mob, led on or countenanced by gentlemen of respectability, broke up an antislavery meeting in Utica, N. Y., and drove out of the city such men as Gerrit Smith, Alvan Stuart, and Beriah Green. Hereafter I will give a full account of the infamous proceeding, and of some of its consequences.

FRANCIS JACKSON.

There is a most interesting sequel to my brief narrative of the great outrage upon liberty in the metropolis of New England, which cannot be so pertinently told in any other connection.

After the first attempt of the Female Antislavery Society to hold their annual meeting on the 14th of October, in Congress Hall, was thwarted by the fears of the owner and lessee, Mr. Francis Jackson offered the use of his dwelling-house in Hollis Street for that purpose. But the ladies were unwilling to believe that they should be molested in their own small hall, No. 46 Washington Street, and thought it more becoming to meet there than to retreat to the protection of a private house. So the meeting was appointed to be held there on the 21st. The result, so disgraceful to the reputation of Boston, has just been given.

On the evening of that sad day, while the rioters were yet patrolling the city, exulting over their shameful deeds, and threatening the persons and property of the Abolitionists, Francis Jackson, called upon Miss Mary Parker, the truly devout and brave President of the Boston Female Antislavery Society, and renewed the offer of his dwelling in the following letter of invitation:--

“TO THE LADIES OF THE BOSTON FEMALE ANTISLAVERY SOCIETY.

“Having with deep regret and mortification observed the manner in
which your Society has been treated by a portion of the community,
especially by some of our public journals, and approving as I do
most cordially the objects of your association, I offer you the use
of my dwelling-house in Hollis Street for the purpose of holding
your annual meeting, or for any other meeting.

“Such accommodations as I have are at your service, and I assure
you it would afford me great pleasure to extend this slight
testimony of my regard for a Society whose objects are second to
none other in the city.

“With great respect,
“FRANCIS JACKSON.”

This heroic act thrilled with joy the hearts of the “faithful,” and inspired them with new courage. For two or three years Mr. Jackson had evinced a deep interest in the antislavery cause, but we did not suspect that he had so much Roman virtue.

His invitation was gratefully accepted, and due notices were published in the usual form that the meeting would be held at his house on the 19th of November. Renewed efforts were made by our opposers to create another excitement. The air was filled with threats. But the editors of the newspapers did not come up to the work as before. Fewer prominent gentlemen encouraged “the baser sort,” and therefore the mob did not come out in its strength. About a hundred and thirty ladies and four gentlemen gathered at the time appointed in Mr. Jackson’s house, and were not molested on the way thither or while there, excepting by a few insulting epithets and an occasional ribald shout.

It was an intensely interesting meeting, conducted in the usual manner with the utmost propriety;[E] and an air of unfeigned solemnity was thrown over it by the consciousness of the dense cloud of malignant hatred that was hanging over us, and which might again burst upon us in some cruel outrage.

Among the ladies present were the celebrated Miss Harriet Martineau, of England, and her very intelligent travelling companion, Miss Jeffrey. At the right moment, when the regular business of the meeting had been transacted, Ellis Gray Loring, from the beginning a leading Abolitionist,--and one whose lead it was always well to follow, for he was a very wise, a single-hearted, and most conscientious man,--Mr. Loring handed me a slip of paper for Miss Martineau, on which was written an earnest request that she would then favor the meeting with some expression of her sympathy in the objects of the association. She immediately rose and said, with cordial earnestness: “I had supposed that my presence here would be understood as showing my sympathy with you. But as I am requested to speak, I will say what I have said through the whole South, in every family where I have been, that I consider slavery inconsistent with the law of God, and incompatible with the course of his providence. I should certainly say no less at the North than at the South concerning this utter abomination, and now I declare that in your principles I fully agree.”

Hitherto Miss Martineau had received from the _élite_ of Boston very marked attentions. She had been treated with great respect, as one so distinguished for her literary works and philanthropic labors deserved to be. But from the day of that meeting, and because of the words she uttered there, she was slighted, rejected, and in various ways made to understand that she had given great offence to “the best society in that metropolis.”

Two days afterwards the Board of Managers of the Massachusetts Antislavery Society directed me, their Corresponding Secretary, by a unanimous vote, to express to Mr. Jackson the very high sense which they entertained of his generosity and noble independence in proffering, as he had done unsolicited, the use and protection of his dwelling-house to the Boston Female Antislavery Society, when they had just been expelled by lawless violence from a public hall.

My letter, written immediately in pursuance of this vote, drew from Mr. Jackson the following reply, which, considering the place where and the time when it was written, as well as its intrinsic excellence, deserves to be preserved among the most precious deposits in the Temple of Impartial Liberty, whenever such a structure shall be reared upon earth.

“BOSTON, November 25, 1835.

“DEAR SIR,--I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your
highly esteemed letter of the 21st inst., written in behalf of the
Managers of the Massachusetts Antislavery Society, and expressing
in very flattering terms their approbation of my conduct in
granting to the ladies of the Antislavery Society the use of my
dwelling-house for their Annual Meeting.

“That meeting was a most interesting and impressive one. It will
ever be treasured by me, among the most pleasing recollections of
my life, that it was my good fortune to extend to those respectable
ladies the protection of my roof after they had been reviled,
insulted, and driven from their own hall by a mob.

“But in tendering them the use of my house, sir, I not only had
in view their accommodation, but also, according to my humble
measure, to recover and perpetuate the right of free discussion,
which has been shamefully trampled on. A great principle has been
assailed,--one which lies at the very foundation of our republican
institutions.

“If a large majority of this community choose to turn a deaf ear to
the wrongs which are inflicted upon millions of their countrymen in
other portions of the land,--if they are content to turn away from
the sight of oppression, and ‘to pass by on the other side,’ so it
must be.

“But when they undertake in any way to annul or impair my right
to speak, write, and publish my thoughts upon any subject, more
especially upon enormities which are the common concern of every
lover of his country and his kind, so it must not be,--so it shall
not be, if I can prevent it. Upon this great right let us hold on
at all hazards. And should we, in its exercise, be driven from
public halls to private dwellings, one house at least shall be
consecrated to its preservation. And if in defence of this sacred
privilege, which man did not give me, and shall not (if I can help
it) take from me, this roof and these walls shall be levelled to
the earth, let them fall! If it must be so, let them fall! They
cannot crumble in a better cause. They will appear of very little
value to me after their owner shall have been whipped into silence.

“Mobs and gag-laws, and the other contrivances by which fraud
or force would stifle inquiry, will not long work well in this
community. They betray the essential rottenness of the cause they
are meant to strengthen. These outrages are doing their work with
the reflecting.

“Happily, one point seems to be gaining universal assent, that
slavery cannot long survive free discussion. Hence the efforts of
the friends and apologists of slavery to break down this right.
And hence the immense stake which the enemies of slavery hold, in
behalf of freedom and mankind, in the preservation of this right.
The contest is therefore substantially between liberty and slavery.

“As slavery cannot exist with free discussion, so neither can
liberty breathe without it. Losing this, we shall not be freemen
indeed, but little, if at all, superior to the millions we are now
seeking to emancipate.

“With the highest respect,
“Your friend,
“FRANCIS JACKSON.

“REV. S. J. MAY, Cor. Sec. Mass. A. S. S.”

Well said Mrs. Maria W. Chapman, who was usually the first to give the most pertinent expression to the best thought of every occasion,--well said Mrs. Chapman, “Ten such men would have saved our city and country from the indelible disgrace which has been inflicted upon them by the outrageous proceedings of the 21st and 24th of October. Mr. Jackson has by this act done all that _one_ man can do to redeem the character of Boston.” And were there not nine other men in the metropolis of New England, where dwelt descendants of Samuel Adams and Josiah Quincy, and relatives of Joseph Warren and James Otis and John Hancock, and other men of Revolutionary fame; were there not nine other men there to spring to the rescue of the ark of civil liberty? Alas! they did not appear. The abettors of slavery were in the ascendant. “The gentlemen of property and standing” thought it good policy, both politically and pecuniarily considered, to trample the Declaration of Independence under foot. And the people generally seemed willing to perpetrate wrongs far greater than Great Britain ever inflicted on their fathers.

RIOT AT UTICA, N. Y.--GERRIT SMITH.

The resort to mobocratic violence in so many parts of the Middle, Northern, and Eastern States showed how general had become the determination of the “gentlemen of property and standing” (as the leaders everywhere claimed or were reported to be) to put down the Abolitionists by _foul means_, having found it impossible to do so by _fair_ discussion. This had been peremptorily demanded of them by their Southern masters; and they had evidently come to the conclusion that no other means would be effectual to stay the progress of universal, impartial liberty. No one fact showed us how almost universally this plan of operations was adopted, so plainly as the fact that, at the very same time, October 21, 1835, antislavery meetings were broken up and violently dispersed in Boston, Mass., Utica, N. Y., and Montpelier, Vt.

Societies for the abolition of slavery had been formed in the city of New York, and in many towns and several counties of the State. And it had come to be obvious that their efficiency would be greatly increased if they should be united in a State organization. Accordingly, invitations were sent everywhere to all known associations, and to individuals where there were no associations, calling them to meet on the 21st of October in Utica, then the most central and convenient place, for the purpose of forming a New York State Antislavery Society.

So soon as it became public that such a Convention was to be held in their city, certain very “prominent and respectable gentlemen” set about to avert “the calamity and disgrace.” It was denounced in the newspapers, and deprecated by loud talkers in the streets. Soon the excitement became general. When it was known that permission had been given for the Convention to occupy the Court-room, “the whole population was thrown into an uproar.” A large meeting of the people was held on Saturday evening, October 17th, and adopted measures to preoccupy the room where the Convention were called to assemble; and in every way, by any means, prevent the proceedings of such a body of “fanatics,” “incendiaries,” “madmen.” Hon. Samuel Beardsley, member of Congress from Oneida County, declared that “the disgrace of having an Abolition Convention held in the city is a deeper one than that of twenty mobs; and that it would be better to have Utica razed to its foundations, or to have it destroyed like Sodom and Gomorrah, than to have the Convention meet here.”[F]

Nevertheless, delegates from all parts of the State and individuals interested in the great cause, at the appointed time, came into Utica in great numbers,--six or eight hundred strong. On arriving at the Court house, they found the room pre-occupied by a crowd of their vociferous opponents, and therefore quietly repaired to the Second Presbyterian meeting house.

As soon as practicable the Convention was organized by the choice of Hon. Judge Brewster, of Genesee County, Chairman, and Rev. Oliver Wetmore, of Utica, Secretary. The Hon. Alvan Stewart, a most excellent man and distinguished lawyer, as Chairman of the Committee of the Utica Antislavery Society, which had first proposed the calling of the Convention, rose, and after a few pertinent and impressive remarks, moved the formation of a New York State Antislavery Society, and read a draft of a Constitution. While he was reading a noisy crowd thundered at the doors for admission. One of the Aldermen of the city, in attempting to keep them back, had his coat torn to pieces. As soon as the reading of the draft was finished, it was unanimously adopted as the Constitution, and the _State Antislavery Society was formed_.

Mr. Lewis Tappan then proceeded to read a declaration of sentiments and purposes, that had been carefully prepared. But he had not half finished the document, when a large concourse of persons rushed into the house and commanded him to stop. He, however, persisted in the discharge of his duty with increased earnestness to the end, when the declaration was adopted unanimously by a rising vote.

The Convention then gave audience to the leaders of the mob, who declared themselves to be a Committee of twenty-five, sent thither by a meeting of the citizens of Utica, held that morning in the Court-house. Hon. Chester Hayden, first Judge of the County, was Chairman of this Committee. He presented a series of condemnatory resolutions, which had just been adopted at the Court-house. They were respectfully listened to by the Convention, and then the mob gave loud utterance to their denunciations and threats. The Judge remonstrated with the rioters, saying: “We have been respectfully listened to by the Convention, I hope _my friends_ will permit the answer of the Convention to be heard in peace.” Mr. Tappan then moved that a committee of ten be appointed to report what answer should be made to the citizens.

Hon. Mr. Beardsley, mentioned above, one of the Committee of twenty-five, also said, “It is proper we should hear what the Convention have to say, either now or by their Committee. We are bound to hear them; we are bound to exercise all patience and long-suffering, _even towards such an assembly as this_.... For my part, I should like to hear what apology can be made for proceedings which we know, and they know, are intended to exasperate the members of our National Union against each other. They profess to come here on an errand of religion, while, under its guise, they are hypocritically plotting the dissolution of the American Union. They have been warned beforehand, have been treated with unexampled patience, and if they now refuse to yield to our demand, and any unpleasant circumstances should follow, we shall not be responsible.” Such talk, and more of the same sort that he uttered, was adapted, if it was not intended, to inflame the mobocrats yet more. So when, in conclusion, he said, “But let us hear their justification for this outrage on our feelings, if they have any to offer,” the cry rose, “No! we won’t hear them; they sha’n’t be heard. Let them go home. Let them ask our forgiveness, and we will let them go.” Many of the rioters were too evidently inflamed with strong drink as well as passion; and this was easily accounted for, though it was in the forenoon of the day, by the fact afterwards stated in the New York _Commercial Advertiser_, that the grog-shops in the neighborhood were thrown open and liquor furnished _gratuitously_ to the tools and minions of “the very respectable citizens, the best people of Utica,” who were determined their city should not tolerate a Convention of Abolitionists. It was evident that these leaders held “the baser sort” under some restraint, for one of them cried out, “Let _them_ say the word, and I am ready to tear the rascals in pieces.” Loud threats of violence were reiterated, with imprecations and blasphemies. The leading members of the Committee of twenty-five besought the Convention to adjourn, and seeing that it was impossible to transact any more business, they did adjourn _sine die_.

Most of the members retired unmolested excepting by abusive, profane, and obscene epithets. A cry was raised by some of the Committee for “the minutes” of the Convention, and members pressed upon the venerable Secretary, demanding that he should give them up. But he resolutely refused, though they crowded him against the wall, seized him by the collar, and threatened to beat him. A member of the Committee of twenty-five, a man holding an important public office, raised his cane over that aged and faithful minister of the Gospel and cried out, “God damn you! give the papers up, or I will knock you on the head.” At this, another of the Committee, a young man--his son--sprang forward and begged him, “Do, father, give them up and save your life. Give them to me, and I will pledge myself they shall be returned to you again.” With this Rev. Mr. Wetmore complied, and was let off without any further harm.

Many of the newspapers, especially those of New York City, exulted over the results of the riots of the 21st of October in Boston and Utica. They boasted that, by thus dealing with the Abolitionists, the people of the Northern States proved themselves to be sound to the core on the subject of slavery. “Hereafter,” said the New York _Sunday Morning News_, “hereafter the leaders of the Abolitionists will be treated with less forbearance than they have been heretofore. The people will consider them as out of the pale of the legal and conventional protection which society affords to its honest and well-meaning members. They will be treated as robbers and pirates, as the enemies of the human kind.”

The most important incident of the Utica riot was the accession which it caused of _Gerrit Smith_ to our ranks. The great and good man had, for many years, been an active opponent of slavery. He had always been in favor of immediate emancipation, and was unusually free from prejudice against colored people. But from almost the beginning of the Colonization Society he had been a member of it, deceived as we all were by the representations which its agents at the North made of its intentions and the tendency of its operations. He believed its scheme was intended to effect and would effect the abolition of slavery. He therefore joined it, and labored heartily in its behalf, and contributed most generously to its funds,--_ten thousand dollars_, if not more. Mr. Smith was repulsed from the American Antislavery Society, and kept away for nearly two years, because he thought Mr. Garrison and his associates were unjust in their denunciations of the Colonization Society, and too severe in their censures of the American churches and ministers, as virtually the accomplices of slaveholders.

But the outrages committed upon the Abolitionists in the fall of 1834, and throughout the year 1835, fixed his attention more fully upon them. He determined to know, to search, and prove those who had become the subjects of such general and unsparing persecution. When, therefore, the Convention for the formation of a State Antislavery Society was to be held in Utica (only twenty-five or thirty miles from his residence), he could not withhold himself from it. He went thither, not as a member of any Antislavery Society, not intending to become a member, but determined to hear for himself what should be said, see what should be done, learn what might be proposed, and decide as he should find reason to, between the Abolitionists and their adversaries. Alas, that the prominent, influential, professedly religious men in every part of our country did not do likewise! Then would the names of comparatively few of them have gone down, in the history of this generation, as the leaders and instigators of a most shameful persecution of the friends of freedom and humanity.

Mr. Smith was so disgusted, shocked, alarmed, at the proceedings of “the gentlemen of property and standing” in Utica, that he invited all the members of the antislavery convention to repair to Peterboro’. And a large proportion of the members accepted his invitation. Insults and threats of violence were showered upon them wherever they were met in the streets of Utica and at the hotels where they had quartered themselves. The same evil spirit of hatred pursued them on their way. Especially at Vernon, the hotel at which they had stopped for refreshment was beset by a mob, with an evident determination to rout them and drive them from the village. But the resolute action of Captain Hand, the landlord, dispersed the rioters.