Chapter IX: Part 9

This extraordinary conduct of the city authorities kindled a fire of indignation throughout the city and the Commonwealth, that sent forth burning words of surprise and censure. Dr. Channing addressed an eloquent and impressive “letter to the citizens of Boston,” that produced the intended effect. It was widely circulated, and everywhere read with deep emotion. A public meeting was called by gentlemen who were not Abolitionists, to be held in the old Supreme Court Room, “to take into consideration the reasons assigned by the Mayor and Aldermen for withholding the use of Faneuil Hall, and to act in the premises as may be deemed expedient.” A large concourse of citizens assembled. George Bond, Esq., was chosen chairman, and B. F. Hallett, Secretary. Dr. Channing’s letter was read, and then a series of resolutions, “drawn up with consummate ability and strikingly adapted to the occasion,” were offered by Mr. Hallett, and after an animated discussion were unanimously adopted. A committee of two from each ward was appointed to renew the application (precisely in the words of the former one) for the use of Faneuil Hall, and to obtain signatures to the same. This request was not to be denied. The Mayor and Aldermen yielded to the pressure.

On the 8th of December the doors of Faneuil Hall were thrown open, and as many people as could find a place pressed in. Hon. Jonathan Phillips was called to the chair, and made some excellent introductory remarks. Dr. Channing then made an eloquent and impressive address, after which B. F. Hallett, Esq., read the resolutions which Dr. Channing had drawn up. These were seconded by George S. Hillard, Esq., in a very able speech. Then arose James T. Austin, the Attorney-General, and made a speech in the highest degree inflammatory and mobocratic. He declared that “Lovejoy died as the fool dieth.” He justified the riotous procedure of the Altonians, and compared them to “the patriotic Tea-Party of the Revolution.” What he said of the slaves was really atrocious. Hear him!

“We have a menagerie in our city with lions, tigers, hyenas, an elephant, a jackass or two, and monkeys in plenty. Suppose, now, some new cosmopolite, some man of philanthropic feelings, not only towards men but animals, who believes that all are entitled to freedom as an inalienable right, should engage in the humane task of giving liberty to these wild beasts of the forest, some of whom are nobler than their keepers, or, having discovered some new mode to reach their understandings, should try to induce them _to break their cages and be free_? The people of Missouri had as much reason to be afraid of their _slaves_ as we should have to be afraid of the wild beasts of the menagerie. They had the same dread of Lovejoy that we should have of this supposed instigator, if we really believed the bars would be broken and the caravan let loose to prowl about our streets.”

Though this was the most disgusting passage in Mr. Austin’s speech, nearly all of it was offensive to every true American heart, and some parts were really impious. He likened the Alton and St. Louis rioters to the men who inspired and led our Revolution. He infused so much of his riotous spirit into a portion of his audience that at the close of his speech they attempted to break up the meeting in an uproar. Happily for the reputation of Boston, there were present a preponderance of the moral _élite_ of the city. So soon as the disorder had subsided, a young man, then unknown to most of his fellow-citizens, took the platform, and soon arrested and then riveted the attention of the vast assembly to a reply to the Attorney-General that was “sublime, irresistible, annihilating.” I wish there were room in these columns for the whole of it. I can give you but a brief passage.

“Mr. Chairman, when I heard the gentleman lay down principles which placed the rioters, incendiaries, and murderers of Alton side by side with Otis and Hancock, with Quincy and Adams, I thought those pictured lips [pointing to the portraits in the hall] would have broken into voice to rebuke the recreant American, the slanderer of the dead. [Great applause and counter-applause.] Sir, the gentleman said that he should sink into insignificance if he dared not to gainsay the principles of the resolutions before this meeting. Sir, for the sentiments he has uttered on soil consecrated by the prayers of Puritans and the blood of patriots, the earth should have yawned and swallowed him up!”

I need only tell my readers that this was the _début_ of our Wendell Phillips, who has since become the leading orator of our nation, and the dauntless champion of our enslaved, down-trodden countrymen. He was then just established in the practice of law in Boston, with the most brilliant prospect of success in his profession. No young man would have risen so soon as he, or to so great a height as an advocate at the bar and a speaker in the forum, if he had pursued his course as a lawyer and a politician. But, blessed be the God of the oppressed, the cry of the millions, to whom in our Republic every right of humanity was denied, entered into his bosom. He espoused their cause with no hope of fee or reward, but that best of all compensations, the consciousness of having relieved suffering, and maintained great moral and political principles, and throughout the thirty-two years that have since passed away, he has consecrated his brilliant powers to the service of the enslaved with an assiduity and effect of which our whole nation has been the admiring witness.

Another young man, to whom we owe scarcely less than to Mr. Phillips, was brought into our ranks and impelled to take upon himself the odium of an Abolitionist by the awful catastrophe at Alton,--a young man bearing a name illustrious in the history of our country, and still highly honored in our State and nation. I allude to Edmund Quincy, a son of Hon. Josiah Quincy, who, having filled almost every other office in the gift of the people, was then President of Harvard College, and grandson of Josiah Quincy, Jr., one of the leading spirits of the American Revolution.

From the beginning of our antislavery efforts Mr. Edmund Quincy had been deeply interested in our undertaking. But, like very many others, he distrusted the wisdom of some of our measures, and especially the terrible severity of Mr. Garrison’s condemnation of slaveholders.

The outrages perpetrated upon Mr. Lovejoy and the liberty of the press at St. Louis and Alton dispelled all doubt of the unparalleled iniquity of holding human beings in the condition of domesticated brutes, and of the sinfulness of all who consent thereto. He has since been one of the towers of our strength; has presided, often with signal ability, at our meetings in the most troublous times, and occasionally spoken with force and marked effect. But he has rendered us especial services by his able pen. His contributions to _The Antislavery Standard_ and _The Liberator_ have been numerous and invaluable. His style has been as vigorous and penetrating as that of Junius, and his satire sometimes as keen. Thus have the attempts of slaveholders and their minions to crush the spirit of liberty served rather to bring to her standard the ablest defenders.

WOMAN QUESTION.--MISSES GRIMKÉ.

The title of this article announces a great event in the progress of our antislavery conflict, and opens a subject the adequate treatment of which would fill a volume much larger than I intend to impose upon the public.

From the beginning of Mr. Garrison’s enterprise excellent women were among his most earnest, devoted, unshrinking fellow-laborers. Their moral instincts made them quicker to discern the right than most men were, and their lack of political discipline left them to the guidance of their convictions and humane feelings. Would that I could name all the women who rendered us valuable services when we most needed help. In our early meetings, at our lectures, public discussions, &c., a large portion of our auditors were females, whose sympathy cheered and animated us. Among our first and fastest friends in Boston were Mrs. L. M. Child, Mrs. M. W. Chapman, and her sisters, the Misses Weston, and her husband’s sisters, Miss Mary and Miss Ann G. Chapman, and their cousin, Miss Anna Green, now Mrs. Wendell Phillips,--then, as now, in feeble health, but strong in faith and unfaltering in purpose. There, too, were Mrs. E. L. Follen and her sister, Miss Susan Cabot, Miss Mary S. Parker, Mrs. Anna Southwick, Mrs. Mary May, Mrs. Philbrick, Miss Henrietta Sargent, and others. In Philadelphia we found wholly with us, Lucretia Mott, Esther Moore, Lydia White, Sarah Pugh, Mrs. Purvis, the Misses Forten, and Mary Grew. In New York, too, there were many with whom I did not become personally acquainted. And indeed wherever in our country the doctrine of “immediate, unconditional emancipation” (first taught by a woman[K]) was proclaimed there were found good women ready to embrace and help to propagate it. Often were they our self-appointed committees of ways and means, and by fairs and other pleasant devices raised much money to sustain our lecturers and periodicals. The contributions from their pens were frequent and invaluable. I have already spoken of Mrs. Child’s “Appeal,” and of her many other excellent antislavery writings. I ought also to acknowledge our indebtedness to her as the editor, for several years, of _The Antislavery Standard_, which, without compromising its fidelity or efficiency, she made very attractive by its literary qualities and its entertaining and instructive miscellany.

Mrs. Maria W. Chapman, who wielded gracefully a trenchant pen, plied it busily in our cause with great effect. Her successive numbers of “Right and Wrong in Boston” were too incisive not to touch the feelings of the good people of that metropolis, which claimed to be the birthplace of American independence, but had ceased to be jealous for “the inalienable rights of man.” Year after year her “Liberty Bell” rung out the clearest notes of personal, civil, and spiritual liberty, and she compiled our Antislavery Hymn Book,--“The Songs of the Free,”--effusions of her own and her sisters’ warm hearts, and of their kindred spirits in this country and England.

But though the excellent women whom I have named, and many more like them, constantly attended our meetings, and often _suggested_ the best things that were said and done at them, they could not be persuaded to utter their thoughts aloud. They were bound to silence by the almost universal sentiment and custom which forbade “women to speak in meeting.”

In 1836 two ladies of a distinguished family in South Carolina--Sarah and Angelina E. Grimké--came to New York, under a deep sense of obligation to do what they could in the service of that class of persons with whose utter enslavement they had been familiar from childhood. They were members of the “Society of Friends,” and were moved by the Holy Spirit, as the event proved, to come on this mission of love. They made themselves acquainted with the Abolitionists, our principles, measures, and spirit. These commended themselves so entirely to their consciences and benevolent feelings that they advocated them with great earnestness, and enforced their truth by numerous facts drawn from their own past experience and observation.

In the fall of 1836 Miss A. E. Grimké published an “Appeal to the Women of the South,” on the subject of slavery. This evinced such a thorough acquaintance with the American system of oppression, and so deep a conviction of its fearful sinfulness, that Professor Elizur Wright, then Corresponding Secretary of the American Antislavery Society, urged her and her sister Sarah to come to the city of New York and address ladies in their sewing-circles, and in parlors, to which they might be invited to meet antislavery ladies and their friends. No man was better able than Professor Wright to appreciate the value of the contributions which these South Carolina ladies were prepared to make to the cause of impartial liberty and outraged humanity. As early as 1833, while Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy in Western Reserve College, he published an elaborate and powerful pamphlet on “The Sin of Slave-holding,” which we accounted one of our most important tracts. Commended by him and by others who had read her “Appeal,” Miss Grimké and her sister attracted the antislavery women of New York in such numbers that soon no parlor or drawing-room was large enough to accommodate those who were eager to hear them. The Rev. Dr. Dunbar, therefore, offered them the use of the vestry or lecture-room of his church for their meetings, and they were held there several times. Such, however, was the interest created by their addresses, that the vestry was too small for their audiences. Accordingly, the Rev. Henry G. Ludlow opened his church to them and their hearers, of whom a continually increasing number were gentlemen.

Early in 1837 the Massachusetts Antislavery Society invited these ladies to come to Boston to address meetings of those of their own sex. But it was impossible to keep them thus exclusive, and soon, wherever they were advertised to speak, there a large concourse of men as well as women was sure to be assembled. This was an added offence, which our opposers were not slow to mark, nor to condemn in any small measure. It showed plainly enough that “the Abolitionists were ready to set at naught the order and decorum of the Christian church.”

My readers may smile when I confess to them that at first I was myself not a little disturbed in my sense of propriety. But I took the matter into serious consideration. I looked the facts fully in the face. Here were millions of our countrymen held in the most abject, cruel bondage. More than half of them were females, whose condition in some respects was more horrible than that of the males. The people of the North had consented to this gigantic wrong with those of the South, and those who had risen up to oppose it were denounced as enemies of their country, were persecuted, their property and their persons violated. The pulpit for the most part was dumb, the press was everywhere, with small exceptions, wielded in the service of the oppressors, the political parties were vying with each other in obsequiousness to the slaveholding oligarchy, and the petitions of the slaves and their advocates were contemptuously and angrily spurned from the legislature of the Republic. Surely, the condition of our country was wretched and most perilous. I remembered that in the greatest emergencies of nations women had again and again come forth from the retirement to which they were consigned, or in which they preferred to dwell, and had spoken the word or done the deed which the crises demanded. Surely, the friends of humanity, of the right and the true, never needed help more than we needed it. And here had come two well-informed persons of exalted character from the midst of slavedom to testify to the correctness of our allegations against slavery, and tell of more of its horrors than we knew. And shall they not be heard because they are women? I saw, I felt it was a miserable prejudice that would forbid woman to speak or to act in behalf of the suffering, the outraged, just as her heart may prompt and as God has given her power. So I sat me down and penned as earnest a letter as I could write to the Misses Grimké, inviting them to come to my house, then in South Scituate, to stay with us as long as their engagements would permit, to speak to the people from my pulpit, from the pulpit of my excellent cousin, Rev. E. Q. Sewall, Scituate, and from as many other pulpits in the county of Plymouth as might be opened to them.

They came to us the last week of October, 1837, and tarried eight days. It was a week of highest, purest enjoyment to me and my precious wife, and most profitable to the community.

On Sunday evening Angelina addressed a full house from my pulpit for two hours in strains of wise remark and eloquent appeal, which settled the question of the propriety of her “speaking in meeting.”

The next afternoon she spoke to a large audience in Mr. Sewall’s meeting-house in Scituate, for an hour and a half, evidently to their great acceptance. The following Wednesday I took the sisters to Duxbury, where, in the Methodist Church that evening, Angelina held six hundred hearers in fixed attention for two hours, and received from them frequent audible (as well as visible) expressions of assent and sympathy.

On Friday afternoon I went with them to the Baptist meeting-house in Hanover, where a crowd was already assembled to hear them. Sarah Grimké, the state of whose voice had prevented her speaking on either of the former occasions, gave a most impressive discourse of more than an hour’s length on the dangers of slavery, revealing to us some things which only those who had lived in the prison-house could have learnt. Angelina followed in a speech of nearly an hour, in which she made the duty and safety of immediate emancipation appear so plainly that the wayfaring man though a fool must have seen the truth. If there was a person there who went away unaffected, he would not have been moved though an angel instead of Angelina had spoken to him. I said then, I have often said since, that I never have heard from any other lips, male or female, such eloquence as that of her closing appeal. Several gentlemen who had come from Hingham, not disposed nor expecting to be pleased, rushed up to me when the audience began to depart, and after berating me roundly for “going about the neighborhood with these women setting public sentiment at naught and violating the decorum of the church,” said “there can be no doubt that they have a right to speak in public, and they ought to be heard; do bring them to Hingham as soon as may be. Our meeting-house shall be at their service.” Accordingly, the next day I took them thither, and they spoke there with great effect on Sunday evening, November 5th, from the pulpit of the Unitarian Church, then occupied by Rev. Charles Brooks.

The experience of that week dispelled my Pauline prejudice. I needed no other warrant for the course the Misses Grimké were pursuing than the evidence they gave of their power to speak so as to instruct and deeply impress those who listened to them. I could not believe that God gave them such talents as they evinced to be buried in a napkin. I could not think they would be justified in withholding what was so obviously given them to say on the great iniquity of our country, because they were women. And ever since that day I have been steadfast in the opinion that the daughters of men ought to be just as thoroughly and highly educated as the sons, that their physical, mental, and moral powers should be as fully developed, and that they should be allowed and encouraged to engage in any employment, enter into any profession, for which they have properly qualified themselves, and that women ought to be paid the same compensation as men for services of any kind equally well performed. This radical opinion is spreading rapidly in this country and in England, and it will ultimately prevail, just as surely as that God is impartial and that “in Christ Jesus there is neither bond nor free, neither male nor female.” And yet it has been, and is, as strenuously opposed and as harshly denounced as was our demand of the immediate emancipation of the enslaved. Men and women, press and pulpit, statesmen and clergymen, legislative and ecclesiastical bodies have raised the cry of alarm, and pronounced the advocates of the equal rights of women dangerous persons, disorganizers, infidels.

The first combined assault was made upon “The Rights of Women” by the Pastoral Association of Massachusetts in the fall of 1837 or the spring of 1838, in their spiritual bull against the antislavery labors of the Misses Grimké, which it utterly condemned as unchristian and demoralizing. This, of course, made it the duty, as it was pleasure, of the New England Abolitionists to stand by those excellent women, who had rendered such inestimable services to the cause of the enslaved, the down-trodden, the despised millions of our countrymen. Therefore, at the next New England Antislavery Convention, held in Boston, May, 1838, attended by delegates from eleven States, it was “_Voted_, That all persons present, or who may be present, at subsequent meetings, whether men or women, who agree with us in sentiment on the subject of slavery, be invited to become members and participate in the proceedings of the Convention.”

This gave rise to a long and very animated discussion, but was passed by a very large majority. Immediately eight Orthodox clergymen requested to have their names erased from the roll of that Convention, and seven others, including some of our faithful fellow-laborers, presented a protest against the vote, which, by their request, was entered upon the records, and published with the doings of the Convention.

At that same great gathering a committee of three persons was appointed to prepare and transmit a memorial to each and all of the ecclesiastical associations in New England, of every sect, beseeching them to testify against the further continuance in our country of slavery, and take such measures as they might deem best to induce the members of their several denominations who were guilty of the dreadful iniquity to consider and turn away from it. One of that committee was a much respected woman, as well qualified as either of her associates to discharge the duties assigned them. An excellent memorial was prepared and presented in accordance with the vote. But it was very coldly received by some, and rudely treated by others of the ecclesiastical bodies to which it was sent. On the presentation of it to the Rhode Island Congregational Consociation, a scene of great excitement ensued. The memorial was treated with all possible indignity. Most of the brethren who had been earnest for the reception of it, and for such action as it requested, when they were informed that one of the committee by whom the memorial was prepared was a woman, united in a vote “_to turn the illegitimate product from the house, and obliterate from the records all traces of its entrance_.” No deliberative assembly ever behaved in a more indecorous manner. And those who were most active in trampling upon that respectful petition in behalf of bleeding humanity were the professed ministers of Him who came to preach deliverance to the captive. “_O tempora! O mores!!_”

“THE PASTORAL LETTER” AND “THE CLERICAL APPEAL.”

Abolitionists from the first were persons of both sexes and all complexions, of every class in society, of every religious denomination, of each of the three learned professions, of both political parties, and of all the various trades and occupations in which men and women engage. Although it is too true that most ministers, especially in the cities, were slow to espouse the cause of the oppressed, yet it is due to them to say that, taking the country through, there were, in proportion to their numbers, more of that profession than of either of the others who embraced the doctrine of “immediate emancipation,” advocated it publicly, wrote columns, pamphlets, and volumes in its defence, and suffered no little obloquy and persecution for so doing. And they were, as I have said, of every Protestant sect. Whenever a complete history of our antislavery conflict shall be written, grateful and admiring mention will be made of the valuable services and generous sacrifices of many ministers whose names may not appear in my slight sketches.

These various individuals were evidently moved by one spirit, drawn together by the conviction that there was a great, a fearful iniquity involved in the enslavement of millions of the inhabitants of our land, that if the God-given rights of humanity were (as the founders of our Republic declared them to be) inalienable, then those men, who were holding human beings as their chattels, were setting the will and authority of the Almighty at defiance, and would bring themselves to ruin. Moreover, there was a deep conviction awakened in the hearts of those who openly espoused the cause of the bondmen, that the people of the North were verily guilty in consenting to their enslavement; and, as the States and the churches refused to interfere for their deliverance, it was left for individuals and voluntary associations to do what might be done, so to correct public opinion and awaken the public conscience that slavery could not be tolerated in the land.

Further than this there was little agreement among the early Abolitionists. But this proved to be a mighty solvent. And for years the wonderful, the beautiful, the Christian sight was seen,--Trinitarians and Unitarians, Methodists and Universalists, Baptists and Quakers, laboring together in the cause of suffering fellow-beings, with so much earnestness that they had set aside, for the while, their theological and ritualistic peculiarities, and seemed to rejoice in their release from those narrow enclosures. Coming out of our hall on the second evening of our Convention in Philadelphia, in December, 1833, a young Orthodox minister took my arm with an affectionate pressure, and said, “Brother May, I never thought that I could feel towards a Unitarian as I feel towards you.” My reply was: “Dear M., if professing Christians were only real Christians, engaged in the work of the Lord, they could not find the time nor the heart to quarrel about creeds and rites.” Wherever I went, preaching the gospel of impartial liberty, I was as cordially received by Orthodox as by Unitarian Abolitionists, until I came to have a much more brotherly feeling towards an antislavery Presbyterian or Baptist or Methodist than I did towards a Unitarian who was proslavery, or indifferent to the wrongs of the bondmen. And this feeling was obviously reciprocated. I was repeatedly invited to preach in the pulpits of Orthodox ministers, and to commune with Orthodox churches. Once I attended a church in company with Miss Ann G. Chapman, one of the most single-minded and true-hearted of women. The invitation to the Lord’s table was given in such words as virtually excluded us. Of course we arose and departed. But so soon as the service was over both the minister and deacon (beloved antislavery brethren) came to my lodgings to assure me that the exclusion was not intended, and that whenever Miss Chapman and myself might again be at their church on a similar occasion, they hoped that we would commune there.

I give these facts, and could give many more like them, to show the anti-sectarian tendency of the antislavery reform. This was perceived by many of “the wise and prudent” leaders of the sects, and was evidently watched by them with a jealous eye. As the number of Abolitionists increased, and our influence in the churches came to be felt more and more, many of those leaders joined antislavery societies, partly, no doubt, because they had been brought to see the truth of our doctrines and the importance of the work we were laboring to accomplish, but also in part, if not chiefly (as I was afterwards forced to suspect), because they wished to maintain the ascendency over their sects, and to prevent the obliteration of the lines which separated them from such as they were pleased to consider unsound in faith.

We were greatly encouraged and gladdened by the accessions we received in 1835 and 1836. Many ministers of the evangelical sects joined us, not a few of them Doctors of Divinity. And the obligations of Christians to the bondmen in our land, and the discipline that should be brought to bear on those professing Christians who were holding them in slavery, became the subjects of earnest debate in several of the large ecclesiastical bodies. But we found these new-comers were much disposed to object to the liberty that was allowed on our platform. Generally the president or chairman of our meetings would call upon some one to invoke the divine blessing upon our undertaking. Sometimes, in deference to our Quaker brethren, we would sit in silence until the Spirit moved some one to offer prayer. Then again, persons who were not members of any religious denomination, nay, even some who were suspected of being, if not known to be, unbelievers, infidels, were permitted to co-operate with us, to contribute to our funds, to take part in our deliberations, and to be put upon our committees. This was a scandal in the estimation of those of the “straitest sect.” Our only reply was, that as so many, who made the highest professions of Christian faith, turned a deaf ear to the cries of the millions who were suffering the greatest wrongs, we were grateful for the assistance of such as made no professions. Not those who cried Lord, Lord, but those who were eager to do the will of the impartial Father, were the persons we valued most.

But nothing gave so much offence as the admission of women to speak in our meetings, to act on our committees, and to co-operate with us in any way they saw fit. In my last I gave some account of the rupture it caused in our New England Antislavery Convention in 1838. This was foreshadowed the year previous. Some time in the summer of 1837 the General Association of Massachusetts issued a “Pastoral Letter to the churches under their care,” intended to avert the alarming evils which were coming upon them from the over-heated zeal of the Abolitionists. First, the extraordinary document mourns over the loss of deference to the pastoral office, which is enjoined in Scripture, and which is essential to the best influence of the ministry. At this day, when all but Roman Catholics and High Church Episcopalians are wondering at, if not amused by, the dealing of Bishop Potter with Mr. Tyng, it may surprise my readers to be told that thirty years ago the Orthodox Congregational ministers of Massachusetts set up the same claim of authority in their several parishes, that the diocesan of New York and New Jersey demands for his clergymen. “One way,” they said in their Pastoral Letter, “one way in which the respect due to the pastoral office has been in some cases violated, is in encouraging lecturers or preachers on certain topics of reform to present their subjects within the parochial limits of settled pastors, _without their consent_.” “Your minister is ordained of God to be your teacher, and is commanded to feed that flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made him overseer. If there are certain topics upon which he does not preach with the frequency, or in the manner that would please _you_, it is a violation of _sacred and important_ RIGHTS to encourage a stranger to present them.” “Deference and _subordination_ are essential to the happiness of society, and _peculiarly so_ in the relation of a people to their pastor.” Happily for those who may come after us, we Abolitionists have done much to emancipate the people from such spiritual bondage, and secure to them the privilege of seeking after knowledge wherever it may be found, and yielding themselves to good influences, let them come through whatever channel they may.

But the “Pastoral Letter” dwelt at greater length upon the dangers which threatened the female character with wide-spread and permanent injury. Forgetting that women were the _bravest_, as well as the most devoted and affectionate of the first disciples of Jesus, that in all ages since they have been prominent among the confessors of Christianity, and that in our day they do more than men to uphold the churches,--forgetting these facts, the frightened authors and signers of that letter uttered themselves thus: “The power of woman is in her _dependence_, flowing from the consciousness of that weakness which God has given her _for_ her protection, and which keeps her in those departments of life that form the characters of individuals and of the nation.... But, when she assumes the place and tone of man as a public reformer, _our care and protection of her seem unnecessary_; we put ourselves in self-defence against her; she yields the power which God has given her for protection, and her character becomes unnatural. If the vine, whose strength and beauty is to lean upon the trellis-work and half conceal its clusters, thinks to assume the independence and the overshading nature of the elm, it will not only cease to bear fruit, but will fall in shame and dishonor into the dust.” Did not those ministers know--were there not in their day wives who sustained their husbands instead of leaning upon them? women who were the stay and staff of the men of their families--their mental and moral stamina? There have been such women in all other times; we have known and do know such women now. If our antislavery conflict has done nothing else, it has shown that there is neither orthodox nor heterodox, neither white nor black, neither male nor female, but all _are one in the work of the Lord_.

Undismayed by the censure and warning of so exalted a body as the General Association, we Abolitionists continued to labor as we had done, pursuing the same measures, using the same instrumentalities, employing as our agents and lecturers women no less than men, whom we found able as well as willing to do good service. And to several, besides those I have already named, the bondmen and their advocates were immeasurably indebted. Abby Kelly (now Mrs. Foster) performed for years an incredible amount of labor. Her manner of speaking in her best days was singularly effective. Her knowledge of the subject was complete, her facts were pertinent, her arguments forcible, her criticisms were keen, her condemnation was terrible. Few of our agents of either sex did more work while her strength lasted, or did it better.

Susan B. Anthony was one of the living spirits of our financial department, indomitable in her purposes, ingenious in her plans, untiring in her exertions, she not only kept herself continually at work, but spurred all about her to new effort. She has often herself spoken to excellent effect, and more frequently stimulated others to their best efforts.

Miss Sallie Holley has seldom consented to speak in our largest assemblies, or in our cities. But we have very frequently heard of her diligent labors in the rural districts, and of the good fruits she has gathered there. Her eloquence is particularly dignified and impressive.

I should love to tell of Lucy Stone, and Antoinette L. Brown, and Mrs. E. C. Stanton, and Ernestine L. Rose, all wise women and attractive speakers, but their word and work has been given more to the advocacy of “Woman’s Rights.” The reformation for which they have toiled so long and so well, though the offspring of Abolitionism, is still _more radical_; and to the history of it volumes will hereafter be devoted.

I can here only name Miss Anna E. Dickinson, now one of the most attractive of the popular lecturers. Although another of the women who have been brought out of their retirement by the exigency of the times, yet she came upon the platform about the period at which I intend these recollections shall cease.

As surely as the conflict with slavery has been found to be irrepressible, so surely will it be found to be impossible to suppress the conflict for the rights of women until they shall be securely placed where the Creator intended them to stand, on an entire equality with men in their domestic, social, legal, and political relations.

Not long after the “Pastoral Letter,” there came forth from some of the members of the Massachusetts General Association a still more pointed attack upon _The Liberator_, Mr. Garrison and his associates, one which would have been very damaging if it had not been so easily repelled. It was entitled the “Appeal of Clerical Abolitionists on Antislavery Measures,” signed by two Orthodox ministers of Boston, and three in the vicinity of that city. As these gentlemen had belonged to the Antislavery Society, and two of them had been vehement if not fierce in their advocacy of our doctrines, it would seem that they must have known whereof they affirmed. They prefaced their Appeal with a declaration of their lively interest in the cause of the oppressed, their clear perception of the sinfulness and their detestation of slavery. Then they went on to accuse the leading Abolitionists, 1st, of hasty, unsparing, and almost ferocious denunciation “of a certain reverend gentleman because he had resided in the South,” without having taken pains to ascertain whether he had been a slaveholder or not; 2d, They accused us of “hasty insinuations” against an Orthodox minister of high standing in Boston, that he was a slaveholder, without having had any proof of the _truth_ of the reports we may have heard so damaging to the reverend gentleman’s reputation. Their third, fourth, and fifth accusations were, that we had demanded of ministers what we had no right to require of them; had abused them for not doing as we called upon them to do, and, through our zeal in the cause of the enslaved, we had become indifferent to other Christian enterprises, and would withdraw from them the regards of those who co-operated with us, and that we had censured and denounced excellent Christian ministers and church-members because they were not prepared to enter fully into the work of antislavery societies.

This document, coming from such persons, of course was the occasion of no little excitement. Our enemies exulted over it as testimony against us, given by those who had been in our councils and well knew what spirit animated us. Others who had been timid friends, or half inclined to join our ranks, were at first repulsed from us by the apprehension that there was too much truth in these charges.

But as soon as possible elaborate and thorough replies were published to this Appeal, denying the truth of each of the above-named accusations, and showing them to be false. One of the replies was written by Mr. Garrison, in his clear and trenchant style, and showed up the inconsistency as well as the falseness of the accusations by ample quotations from the writings and speeches of Mr. Fitch, the author of the Appeal. The other reply was from the pen of Rev. A. A. Phelps.

This good orthodox brother was then the General Agent of the Antislavery Society, and therefore felt it to be incumbent upon him to repel charges so unjust and so injurious. No one but Mr. Garrison was so competent as he to do this. From an early period Mr. Phelps had been engaged in this great reform. In 1833 or 1834 he published a volume on the subject, which showed how thoroughly he understood the principles, how deeply he was imbued with the spirit, of the undertaking. He gave years of undivided attention to the cause, and by the labors of his pen and his voice rendered essential services. His reply to the Appeal was complete, exhaustive, unanswerable. And thus what was intended to do us harm was overruled for our good. It gave a fair and proper occasion for the fullest exposition to the public of our doctrines, our measures, and of the spirit in which we intended to prosecute them.

I am most happy to conclude this narrative by stating, because it is so highly honorable to Rev. Charles Fitch, the author of the Appeal, that some time afterwards he saw and frankly confessed his fault. On the 9th of January, 1840, in a letter addressed to Mr. Garrison, after a very proper introduction to such a confession, Mr. Fitch said:--

“I feel bound in duty to say to you, sir, that to gain the good will of man was the only object I had in view in everything which I did relative to the ‘Clerical Appeal.’ As I now look back upon it, in the light in which it has of late been spread before my own mind (as I doubt not by the Spirit of God), I can clearly see that in all that matter I had no regard for the glory of God or the good of man. If you can make any use of this communication that you think will be an honor to Him, or a service to the cause of truth, dispose of it at your pleasure.”

It surely will do good to republish this magnanimous, noble, Christian confession of the wrong that was attempted to be done by that “Clerical Appeal.”

DR. CHARLES FOLLEN.

The name of Dr. Follen will send a grateful thrill through the memory of every one who really knew him. He was a dear son of God, and attracted all but such as were repulsed by the spirit of righteousness and freedom. He was a native of that country which gave birth to Luther. The light of civil and religious liberty kindled in Wittenberg shone upon his cradle. He was the son of Protestant parents, and received a religious education with little reference to the dogmas of any sect. He was born in the early years of the French Revolution,--that event which at first revived the hopes of the oppressed subjects of European despots. The Germans, especially those of the smaller members of the Confederacy, hailed the prospect of more liberal institutions in France as the harbinger of a better day for themselves. Charles Follen was just then at the age to receive into the depths of his soul the generous sentiments that were uttered by the purest, best men of Germany. His father, an enlightened civilian and liberal Christian, encouraged the growing ardor of his son in the cause of freedom and humanity.

When, therefore, the German States, finding themselves deceived by Bonaparte, united with one accord to oppose him, Charles Follen, then a student at the University of Giesen, and only nineteen years of age, came forward to act his first public part in the great struggle for civil liberty. He entered the allied army in a volunteer corps of young men, and endured the fatigues and incurred the dangers of those battle-fields, on which were witnessed the death-throes of the first Napoleon’s ambition. I have heard him describe his feelings, and what he believed to be the feelings of his youthful comrades, in that so-called “holy war of the people.” They refused to wear the trappings of soldiers. They needed not “the pomp and circumstance of war” to rouse or sustain the purpose of their souls. They came into the field of mortal strife as men, not soldiers, to contend for liberty, not laurels. Whenever he spoke of that momentous period of his life, a solemnity came over the calm, sweet face of Dr. Follen, his utterance was subdued, his whole frame pervaded by a deep emotion, so that, much as I differed from him in my opinion of that resort to carnal weapons, I could not doubt that he had thrown himself into the dread conflict with a self-sacrificing, I had almost said, a holy spirit. Körner, “the patriot poet of Germany,” was his personal friend, and it is a touching incident that some of his last mental efforts were most successful translations into our language of the breathing thoughts and burning words of that enthusiast of liberty.

Although the issue of the French Revolution cast down the hope of the friends of freedom, that hope was not destroyed. True they had been deceived. But they could not doubt that freedom was a reality, the birthright of man. When, therefore, the real design of the self-styled “Holy Alliance” between Russia, Austria, and Prussia became manifest, many of the choicest spirits who had united under their banner to overthrow the tyrant of France uprose to withstand them. None were more resolute, few became more conspicuous, than the still youthful Follen, who had scarcely entered upon his professional career. He boldly claimed for his fellow-subjects of Hesse Darmstadt a mitigation of the feudal tenures under which they were oppressed. Thus he incurred the displeasure of the Grand Duke. But the farmers of that country gratefully acknowledged the importance of his service in letters that are still extant.

In 1817, when twenty-two years of age, he took his degree of Doctor of Laws, and became a teacher in the University of Jena. Here he found an atmosphere congenial to his free spirit. The most distinguished professors there were friends of liberal institutions. And the Duke of Saxe-Weimar was for a while indulgent towards them. At Jena appeared the first periodical publications that disturbed the diplomatists of Frankfort and Vienna. To these publications Dr. Follen contributed, and, even among such men as Dr. Oken and Professors Fries and Luden, he distinguished himself as an advocate of the rights of man.

The sovereigns of Austria and Prussia were alarmed. The professors of the University at Jena were proscribed, and the young men of Austria and Prussia who were students there were required to leave the infected spot. The persecution of Dr. Follen was carried further. An attempt was made to involve him in the guilt of the deluded murderer of Kotzebue, “that unblushing hireling of the Russian Autocrat,” and he was arrested on the charge. He was fully exonerated, but the spirit which dictated his arrest made it uncomfortable for him to remain in Germany.

He went to Switzerland, the resort of the free spirits of that day, and was appointed Professor of Civil Law at the University of Basle. Here he continued, both in his lectures and through the press, to give utterance to his liberal opinions. Consequently, in August, 1824, the governments of Prussia, Austria, and Russia demanded of the government of Basle to deliver him up, with the other Professors of Law in their university. At first this demand was refused. But, being afterwards enforced by a threat of the serious displeasure of the allied powers, it was yielded to, and Dr. Follen was compelled to depart, with no reproach upon his character but that which was cast upon it by the enemies of freedom. Exiled from Germany as the dreaded foe of the oppressors of his country, hunted by the allied sovereigns out of Europe, as if their thrones were insecure while he dwelt on the same continent with themselves--surely the man who made himself such a terror to despots was entitled to a _carte-blanche_ on the confidence of freemen!

Thus recommended, he came to our country in December, 1824, a few months after the arrival of Lafayette. The illustrious Frenchman came to feast his eyes and rejoice his heart with the sight of the astonishing growth and unexampled prosperity of the nation for whose deliverance from a foreign yoke he had in his early manhood lavished his fortune and exposed his life. The illustrious German came, as it proved, to assist in a great moral enterprise, the success of which was indispensably necessary to complete the American Revolution, and verify the truths which it declared to the world.

Nearly a year after his arrival he spent in Philadelphia perfecting himself in the language of our country. But by the advice of Lafayette, who highly esteemed him, he came to Boston, and in December, 1825, was appointed teacher of the German language in Harvard College, where, in 1830, he was raised to a professorship of German literature.

He had not been long in the United States before he was struck by the contrast between our institutions and our habits of thought and conversation. He was surprised that he so seldom met with a free mind, or saw an individual who acted independently. Most persons seemed to be in bonds to a political party or a religious sect, or both. “I perceive,” said he to an intimate friend, “that liberty in this country is a fact rather than a principle.”

Such a soul as Dr. Follen could not be indifferent to any movement tending to liberate more than three millions of people in the country, of which he had become a citizen, from the most abject cruel slavery, and his fellow-citizens from the awful iniquity of keeping them in such bondage. The bugle-blast of _The Liberator_ in 1831 summoned him to the conflict. Worldly wisdom, prudential considerations, would have withheld him if he had been like too many other men. He had then been in a professor’s chair at Cambridge about a year. He had married a lady worthy of his love. He had become a father. He had made many friends. He was admired for his rich and varied endowments, his extensive and accurate knowledge, and sound understanding. He was honored for his exertions and sacrifices in the cause of liberty in Europe. He was cherished as an invaluable acquisition to the literature of our country, and as a most successful teacher of youth. How obvious, then, that he had as many reasons as any, and more reasons than most, for remaining quiet, contenting himself with an occasional sigh over the wrongs of the slaves, or an eloquent condemnation of slavery in the abstract, or the utterance of the form of prayer,--that the Sovereign Disposer of all events would, in his own good time, cause every yoke to be broken and oppression to cease. He was occupying a sphere of great responsibility, where, as was intimated to him, he might find enough to fill even the large measure of his ability for labor. Then he was wholly dependent upon his own exertions for the support of his family. Moreover, being a foreigner by birth, he was reminded that it was less decorous in him, than it might be in others, to meddle with the “delicate question” which touched so vitally the institutions of a very sensitive portion of the country.

But Charles Follen was a genuine man. In godly sincerity he felt as well as said, “that whatever affected the welfare of mankind was a matter of concern to himself.” He was astonished at the apathy of so large a portion of the respectable and professedly religious of our country to the wretched condition of more than a sixth part of the population, to the disastrous influence of their enslavement upon the characters of their immediate oppressors, upon the well-being of the whole Republic, and the cause of liberty throughout the world. When, therefore, the words of Garrison came to his ears, “he rejoiced in spirit and said, I thank thee, O Father, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto the babes; even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight.” He sought out the editor of _The Liberator_. He clambered up into his little chamber in Merchants’ Hall, where were his writing-desk, his types, his printing-press; and where, with the faithful partner of his early toils, Isaac Knapp, he was living like the four children of Israel in the midst of the corruptions of Babylon, living on pulse and water. This was a sight to fill with hope Follen’s sagacious soul. While, therefore, many who counted themselves servants of God and friends of humanity thought, or affected to think, that no good could come out of such a Nazareth, he often went to _The Liberator_ office to converse with and encourage the young man who had dared to brave the contumely and detestation of the world in “preaching deliverance to the captives and liberty to them that are bruised.”

He stopped not to inquire how it might affect his temporal interests, or even his good name, to espouse so unpopular a cause. “Some men,” said he, “are so afraid of doing wrong that they never do right.” The shameful fact, that the cause of millions of enslaved human beings in a country that made such high pretensions to liberty as ours was _unpopular_, so astonished and alarmed him that he felt all the more called to rise above personal considerations. Therefore, soon after the New England Antislavery Society was instituted, he made known his intention to join it. Some friends remonstrated. They admonished him that so doing would be very detrimental to his professional success. He hesitated a little while on account of his wife. But that gifted, high-minded, whole-hearted lady reproved the hesitation, and bade him act in accordance with his sense of duty, and in keeping with his long devotion to the cause of liberty and humanity. He joined the society, became one of its vice-presidents, was an efficient officer, and rendered us invaluable services. At that time I became intimately acquainted with him, and soon learned to love him tenderly and respect him profoundly.