|
STILL'S
UNDERGROUND RAIL ROAD RECORDS,
REVISED EDITION.
(Previously Published in 1879 with title: The Underground Railroad)
WITH A LIFE OF THE AUTHOR.
NARRATING
THE HARDSHIPS, HAIRBREADTH ESCAPES AND DEATH STRUGGLES
OF THE
SLAVES
IN THEIR EFFORTS FOR FREEDOM.
TOGETHER WITH
SKETCHES OF SOME OF THE EMINENT FRIENDS OF FREEDOM, AND
MOST LIBERAL AIDERS AND ADVISERS OF THE ROAD
BY
WILLIAM STILL,
For many years connected with the Anti-Slavery Office in
Philadelphia, and Chairman of the Acting
Vigilant Committee of the Philadelphia Branch of the Underground
Rail Road.
Illustrated with 70 Fine Engravings
by Bensell, Schell and Others,
and Portraits from Photographs from Life.
Thou shalt not deliver unto his
master the servant that has escaped from his master unto thee. -
Deut. xxiii 16.
SOLD ONLY BY SUBSCRIPTION.
PHILADELPHIA:
WILLIAM STILL, PUBLISHER
244 SOUTH TWELFTH STREET.
1886
pp. 654 - 679
-------------------------
JAMES MILLER McKIM
Pg. 654
More vividly than it is possible for the pen to
portray, the subject of this sketch recalls the
struggles of the worst years of Slavery, when the
conflict was most exciting and interesting, when more
minds were aroused, and more laborers were hard at work
in the field; when more anti-slavery speeches were made,
tracts, papers, and books, were written, printed and
distributed; when more petitions were signed for the
abolition of Slavery; in a word, when the barbarism of
Slavery was more exposed and condemned than ever before,
in the same length of time. Abolitionists were
then intensely in earnest, and determined never to hold
their peace or cease their warfare, until immediate
and unconditional emancipation was achieved.
On the other hand, during this same period, it is not
venturing too much to assert that the slave power was
more oppressive than ever before;
[pg. 655]
slave enactments more cruel; the spirit of Slavery more
intolerant; the fetters more tightly drawn; perilous
escapes more frequent; slave captures and slave hunts
more appalling; in short, the enslavers of the race had
never before so defiantly assumed that negro Slavery was
sanctioned by the Divine laws of God.
Thus, while these opposing agencies were hotly
contesting the rights of man, James Miller McKim,
as one of the earliest, most faithful, and ablest
abolitionists in Pennsylvania, occupied a position of
influence, labor and usefulness, scarcely second to
Mr. Garrison.
For at least fourteen of the eventful years referred
to, it was the writer’s privilege to occupy a position
in the Anti-slavery office with Mr. McKim,
and the best opportunity was thus afforded to observe
him under all circumstances while battling for freedom.
As a helper and friend of the fleeing . bondman, in
numberless instances the writer has marked well his kind
and benevolent spirit, before and after the formation of
the late Vigilance Committee. At all times when
the funds were inadequate, his aid could be counted upon
for sure relief. He never failed the fugitive in
the hour of need. Whether on the Underground Rail
Road bound for Canada, or before a United States
commissioner trying a fugitive case, the slave found no
truer friend than Mr. McKim.
If the records of the Pennsylvania Society for
Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, and the Pennsylvania
Anti-slavery Society were examined and written out by a
pen, as competent as Mr. McKim’s, two or
three volumes of a most thrilling, interesting, and
valuable character could be furnished to posterity.
But as his labors have been portrayed for these pages,
by a hand much more competent than the writer’s, it only
remains to present it as follows:
The
subject of this sketch was born in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, Nov. 14,
1810, the oldest but one of eight children. On his father’s
side, he was of Scotch Irish, on his mother's (Miller) of
German descent. He graduated at Dickinson College in 1828; and
entering' upon the study of medicine, attended one or more courses
of lectures in the University of Pennsylvania. Before he was
ready to take his degree, his mind was powerfully turned towards
religion, and he relinquished medicine for the study of divinity,
entering the Theological Seminary at Princeton, in the fall of 1831,
and a year later, being matriculated at Andover. The death of
his parents, however, and subsequently that of his oldest brother,
made his connection with both these institutions a very brief one,
and he was obliged, as the charge of the family now devolved upon
him, to continue his studies privately at home, under the friendly
direction of the late Dr. Dutfield. An ardent
and pronounced disciple of the “New School” of Presbyterians,
belonging to a strongly Old School Presbytery; he was able to secure
license and ordina-
[pg. 656]
tion only by
transfer to another; and, in October, 1835, he accepted
a pulpit in Womelsdorf, Berks County, Pa., where he
preached for one year, to a Presbyterian congregation,
to what purpose, and with what views, may be learned
from the following passage taken from one of his
letters, written more than twenty years afterwards to
the National Anti-Slavery Standard.
"The first settled pastor
of this little flock was one sufficiently well-known to
such of your readers as will be interested in this, to
make mention of his name unnecessary. He had
studied for the ministry with a strong desire, and a
half formed purpose to become a missionary in foreign
lands. Before he had proceeded far in his studies,
however, he became alive to the claims of the ‘perishing
heathen’ here at home. When he received his
licensure, his mind was divided between the still felt
impulse of his first purpose and the pressure of his
later convictions. While yet unsettled on this
point, the case of the little church at Womelsdorf was
made known to him, followed by an urgent request from
the people and from the Home Missionary Society to take
charge of it. He acceded to the request and
remained there one year, zealously performing the duties
of his office to the best of his knowledge and ability.
The people, earnest and simple-hearted, desired the
‘sincere milk of the Word,’ and receiving it ‘grew
thereby.’ All the members of the church became
avowed abolitionists. They showed their faith by
their works, contributing liberally to the funds of the
Anti-slavery Society. Many a seasonable donation
has our Pennsylvania organization received from that
quarter. For though their anti-slavery minister
had left and had been followed by others of different
sentiments and though he had withdrawn from the church
with which they were in common connected, and that on
grounds which subjected him to the imputation and
penalties af heresy, these good people did not feel
called upon to change their relations of personal
friendship, nor did they make it a pretext, as others
have done, for abandoning the cause.”
In October, 1836, he accepted a lecturing agency under
the American Anti-slavery Society, as one of the
“seventy,” gathered from all professions, whom
Theodore D. Weld had by his eloquence inspired to
spread the gospel of emancipation. Mr. McKim
had long before this had his attention drawn to the
subject of slavery, in the summer of 1832; and the
reading of Garrison’s “Thoughts on Colonization,” at
once made him an abolitionist. He was an appointed
delegate to the Convention which formed the American
Anti-slavery Society, and enjoyed the distinction of
being the youngest member of that body.* Henceforth the
object of the society, and of his ministry became
inseparable in his mind.
---------------
* It may be a matter of some interest to state that the
original draft of the Declaration of Sentiments adopted at this
meeting, together with the autographs of the signers, is now in the
keeping of the New York Historical Society.
[pg. 657]
In the
following summer, 1834, he delivered in Carlisle two addresses in
favor of immediate emancipation, which excited much discussion and
bitter feeling in that border community, and gained him no little
obloquy, which was of course increased when, as a lecturer, on the
regular stipend of eight dollars a week and travelling expenses,
(“pocket lined with British gold” was the current charge), he
traversed his native state, among a people in the closest
geographical, commercial, and social contact with the system of
slavery. His fate was not different from that of his
colleagues, in respect of interruptions of his meetings by mob
violence, personal assaults with stale eggs and other more dangerous
missiles, and a public sentiment which everywhere encouraged and
protected the rioters.
Meantime, a radical change of opinion on theological
questions, led Mr. McKim formally to sever his
connection with the Presbyterian Church, and ministry. Being
now free to act without sectarian constraint, he was, in the
beginning of 1840, made Publishing Agent of the Pennsylvania
Anti-slavery Society, which caused him to settle in Philadelphia,
where he was married, in October, to Sarah A. Speakman, of
Chester county. The chief duties of his office at first, were
the publication and management of the Pennsylvania Freeman,
including, for an interval after the retirement of John G.
Whittier, the editorial conduct of that paper. In course
of time his functions were enlarged, and under the title of
Corresponding Secretary, he performed the part of a factotum and
general manager, with a share in all the anti-slavery work, local
and national. After the consolidation of the Freeman with the
Standard, in 1854, he became the official correspondent of the
latter paper, his letters serving to some extent as a substitute for
the discontinued Free man. The operations of the Underground
Rail Road came under his review and partial control, as has already
appeared in these pages, and the slave cases which came before the
courts claimed a large share of his attention. After the
passage of the Fugitive Slave Law, in 1851, his duties in this
respect were arduous and various, as may be inferred from one of his
private letters to an English friend, which found its way into print
abroad, and which will be found in another place. (See p.
581).
During the John Brown excitement Mr.
McKim had the privilege of ac companying Mrs. Brown
in her melancholy errand to Harper’s Ferry, to take her last leave
of her husband before his execution, and to- bring away the body.
His companions on that painful but memorable journey, were his wife,
and Hector Tyndale, Esq., afterwards honorably
distinguished in the war as General Tyndale.
Returning with the body of the hero and martyr, still in company
with Mrs. Brown, Mr. McKim proceeded to
North Elba, where he and Wendell Phillips, who had
joined him in New York with a few other friends gathered from the
neighborhood, assisted in the final obsequies.
When the war broke out, Mr.
McKim was one of the first to-welcome it
[pg. 658]
as the harbinger of the slave’s deliverance, and the
country’s redemption. “A righteous war,” he said,
“is better than a corrupt peace.
* * *
When War can only be averted by consenting to crime,
then welcome war with all its calamities.” In the
winter of 1862, after the capture of Port Royal, he
procured the calling of a public meeting of the citizens
of Philadelphia to consider and provide for the wants of
the ten thousand slaves who had been suddenly liberated.
One of the results of this meeting was the organization
of the Philadelphia Port Royal Relief Committee.
By request he visited the Sea Islands, accompanied by
his daughter, and on his return made a report which
served his associates as a basis of operations, and
which was republished extensively in this country and
abroad.
After the proclamation of emancipation, he advocated an
early dissolution of the anti-slavery organization, and
at the May Meeting of the American Anti-slavery Society,
in 1864, introduced a proposition looking to that
result. It was favorably received by Mr.
Garrison and others, but no action was taken upon it
at that time. When the question came up the
following year, the proposition to disband was earnestly
supported by Mr. Garrison, Mr.
Quincy, Mr. May, Mr. Johnson,
and others, but was strongly opposed by Wendell
Phillips and his friends, among whom from
Philadelphia were Mrs. Mott, Miss
Grew, and Robert Purvis, and was
decided by a vote in the negative.
Mr. MeKim was an early advocate of
colored enlistments, as a means of lifting up the blacks
and putting down the rebellion. In the spring of
1863, he urged upon the Philadelphia Union League, of
which he was a member, the duty of recruiting colored
soldiers; as the result, on motion of Thomas
Webster, Esq, a movement was set on foot
which led to the organization of the Philadelphia
Supervisory Committee, and the subsequent establishment
of Camp William Penn, with the addition to the national
army, of eleven colored regiments.
When, in November, 1863, the Port Royal Relief
Committee was enlarged into the Pennsylvania Freedman’s
Relief Association, Mr. McKim was made its
corresponding secretary. He had previously
resigned his place in the Anti-slavery Society,
believing that that organization was near the end of its
usefulness.
In the freedmen’s work, he traveled extensively, and
worked hard, establishing schools at the South and
organizing public sentiment in the free States. In
the spring of 1865, he was made corresponding secretary
of the American Freedman’s Commission, which he had
helped to establish, and took up his residence in the
city of New York. This association was after wards
amplified, in name and scope, into the American
Freedman’s Union Commission, and Mr. McKim
continued with it as corresponding secretary, laboring
for reconstruction by means of Freedman’s schools. and
impartial popular education. On the 1st of July,
1869, the Commission, by unani-
|
EMINENT ANTI-SLAVERY MEN. |
J. Miller McKim
|
Rev. William U. Furness
|
William Lloyd Garrison.
See p. 665 |
Lewis Tappan
See p. 680 |
[pg. 659]
mous vote on his motion, disbanded, and handed
over the funds in its treasury to its constituent State
associations. Mr. McKim retired from
his labors with impaired health, and has since taken no
open part in public affairs. He is one of the
proprietors of the New York Nation, in the establishment
of which, he took an effective interest.
Mr. McKim's long and assiduous career in
the anti-slavery cause, has given evidence of a peculiar
fitness in him for the functions he successively
discharged. His influence upon men and the times,
has been less as a speaker, than as a writer, and
perhaps still less as a writer than as an organizer, a
contriver of ways and means; fertile in invention,
prepared to take the initiative, and bringing to the
conversion of others, an earnestness of purpose and a
force of language that seldom failed of success.
In an enterprise where theory and sentiment were fully
represented, and business capacity, and what is called
"practical sense," were comparatively rare, his talents
were most usefully employed; while, in periods of
excitement - and when were such wanting? his
caution, sound judgment, and mental balance were
qualities hardly less needed or less important.
-------------------------
WILLIAM H. FURNASS, D. D.
Among the
Abolitionists of Pennsylvania no man stands higher than
Dr. Furness; and no anti-slavery minister
enjoys more universal respect. For more than
thirty years he bore faithful witness for the black man;
in season and out of season contending for his rights.
When others deserted the cause he stood firm; when
associates in the ministry were silent he spoke out.
They defined their position by declaring themselves "as
much opposed to slavery as ever, but without sympathy
for the abolitionists." He defined his by showing
himself more opposed to slavery than ever, and
fraternizing with the most hated and despised
anti-slavery people.
Dr. Furness came into the cause when it
was in its infancy, and had few adherents. From
that time till the day of its triumph he was one with
it, sharing in all its trials and vicissitudes. In
the operations of the Vigilance Committee he took the
liveliest interest. Though not in form a
member he was one of its chief co-laborers. He
brought it material aid continually, and was one of its
main reliances for outside support. His quick
sympathies were easily touched and when touched were
sure to prompt him to corresponding action. He
would listen with moistened eyes to a tale of outrage,
and go away saying never a word. But the story of
wrong would work upon him; and through him upon others.
His own feelings were communicated to his friends, and
his friends would send gifts to the Committee's
treasury. A wider spread sympathy would manifest
itself in the community, and the general interests of
the cause be visibly promoted. It was in the
latter respect, that of moral co-operation, that Dr.
[pg. 660]
Furness's services were most valuable.
After hearing a harrowing recital, whether he would or
not, it became the burden of his next Sunday's sermon.
Abundant proof of this may be found in his printed
discourses. Take the following as an illustration.
It is an extract from a sermon de livered on the 29th of
May, 1854, a period when the slave oligarchy was at the
height of its power and was supported at the North by
the most violent demonstrations of sympathy. The
text was, " Feed my Lambs: "
"And now. brothers, sisters, children, give me your
hearts, listen with a will to what I have to say.
As heaven is my witness, I would not utter one word save
for the dear love of Christ and of God, and the
salvation of your own souls. Does it require any
violent effort of the mind to suppose Christ to address
each one of us personally the same question that He put
to Peter, 'Lovest thou me?'
* *
* And at the hearing of His brief command, 'Feed
my lambs,' so simple, so direct, so unqualified, are we
prompted like the teacher of the law who, when Christ
bade him love his neighbor as himself, asked, 'And who
is my neighbor?' and in the parable of the good
Samaritan, received an answer that the Samaritans whom
he despised, just as we despise the African, was his
neighbor, are we prompted in like manner to ask, 'Who
are the lambs of Christ?' Who are His lambs?
Behold that great multitude, more than three millions of
men and feeble women and children, wandering on our
soil; no not wandering, but chained down, not allowed to
stir a step at their own free will, crushed and hunted
with all the power of one of the mightiest nations that
the world has yet seen, wielded to keep them down in the
depths of the deepest degradation into which human
beings can be plunged. These, then that we
despise, are our neighbors, the poor, stricken lambs of
Christ.
To cast one thought towards them, may well cause ns to
bow down our heads in the very dust with shame. No
wonder that professing to love Christ and his religion,
we do not like to hear them spoken of; for so far from
feeding the lambs of Christ, we are exciting the whole
associated power of this land, to keep them from being
fed. 'Feed my lambs.' We might feed them with
fraternal sympathy, with hope, with freedom, the
imperishable bread of Heaven. We might lead them
into green pastures and still waters, into the glorious
liberty wherewith Christ died to make all men free, the
liberty of the children of God. We might secure to
them the exercise of every sacred affection and faculty,
wherewith the Creator has endowed them. But we do
none of those things. We suffer this great flock
of the Lord Jesus to be treated as chattels, bought and
sold, like beasts of burden, hunted and lacerated by
dogs and wolves. I say we, we of these Free Northern
communities, because it is by our allowance, signified
as effectually by silence, as by active co-operation,
that such things are. They could continue so,
scarcely an hour, were not the whole moral, religious
and physical power of the North pledged to their
support. Are we not in
[pg. 661]
closest league and union with those who claim and use
the right to buy and sell human beings, God's poor, the
lambs of Christ, a union, which we imagine brings us in
as much silver and gold as compensates for the sacrifice
of our humanity and manhood? Nay, are we not under
a law to do the base work of bloodhounds, hunting the
panting fugitives for freedom? I utter no word of
denunciation. There is no need. For facts
that have occurred only within the last week, transcend
all denunciation. Only a few hours ago, there was
a man with his two sons, hurried back into the inhuman
bondage, from which they had just escaped, and that man,
the brother, and those two sons, the nephews of a
colored clergyman of New York, of such eminence in the
New School Presbyterian Church, that he has received the
honors of a European University, and has acted as
Moderator in one of the Presbyteries of the same Church,
when held in the city where he resides. Almost at
the very moment the poor fugitive with his children,
were dragged through our city, the General Assembly of
that very branch of the Presbyterian Church, now is
session here, after discussing for days the validity of
Roman Catholic baptism, threw out as inexpedient to be
discussed, the subject of that great wrong which was
flinging back into the agony of Slavery, a brother of
one of their own ordained ministers, and cold not so
much as breath a word of condemnation against the false
and cruel deed which has just been consummated at the
capitol of the nation.
When such facts are occurring in the midst of us, we
cannot be guiltless concerning the lambs of Christ.
It is we, we who make up the public opinion of the
North, we who consent that these free Skates shall be
the hunting-ground, where these, our poor brothers and
sisters, are the game; it is we that withhold from them
the read of life, the inalienable rights of man.
As we withhold these blessings, so is it in our power to
bestow them. The sheep then that Christ commands
us, as we love Him, to feed, are those who are famishing
for the lack of the food which it is in our power to
supply. And we can help to feed and relieve and
liberate them, by giving our hearty sympathy to the
blessed cause of their emancipation, to the abolition of
the crying injustice with which they are treated, by
uttering our earnest protest against the increasing and
flagrant outrages of the oppressor, by withholding all
aid and countenance from the work of oppression."
To say that Dr. Furness, in his pleadings for
the slave, was "instant in season and out of season," is
not to exaggerate. So palpably was thsi true, that
even some of his sympathizing friends intimated to him,
that his zeal carried him beyond proper bounds, and that
his discourses were needlessly reiterative. To
these friends, - who, it is needless to say, did not
fully comprehend the breadth and bearing of the
question, - he would reply as he did in the following
extract from a sermon delivered soon after the one above
quoted:
"Again and again, I have had it said to me, with
apparently the most
[pg. 662]
perfect simplicity, 'Why do you keep saying so much
about the slaves? Do you imagine that there is one
among your hearers who does not agree with you? We
all know that Slavery is very wrong. What is the
use of harping upon this subject Sunday after Sunday?
We all feel about it just as you do.' 'Feel about
it just as I do.' Very likely, my friends.
It is very possible that you all feel as much, and that
many of you feel about it more than I do. God
knows that my regret always has been not that I feel so
much, but that I do not feel more. Would to Heaven
that neither you nor I could eat or sleep for pity, pity
for our poor down-trodden brothers and sisters.
But the thing to which I implore your attention now, is,
not what we know and feel, but the delusion which we are
under, in confounding knowing with doing,
in fancying that we are working to abolish Slavery
because we know that it is wrong. This is what I
would have you now to consider, the deception that we
practise on ourselves, the dangerous error into which we
fall, when we pass off the knowledge of our duty for the
performance of it. These are two very distinct
things. If you know what is right, happy are ye if
ye do it.
Observe, my friends, what it is to which I am now
entreating your consideration. It is not the
wrongs nor the rights of the oppressed upon which I am
now discoursing. It is our own personal exposure
to a most serious mistake. It is a danger, which
threatens our own souls, to which I would that our eyes
should be open, and on the watch.
And here, by the way, let me say that one great reason
why I refer as often as I do to that great topic of the
day, which, in one shape or another, is continually
shaking the land and marking the age in which we live,
is not merely the righting of the wronged, but the
instruction, the moral enlightenment, the religious
edification of our own hearts, which this momentous
topic affords. To me this subject involves
infinitely more than a mere question of humanity.
Its political bearing is the very least and most
superficial part of it, scarcely worth noticing in
comparison with its moral and religious relations.
Once, deterred by its outside, political aspect, I
shunned it as many do still, but the more it has pressed
itself on my attention, the more I have considered it -
the more and more manifest has it become to me, that it
is a subject full of light and of guidance, of warning
and inspiration for the individual soul. It is the
most powerful means of grace and salvation appointed in
the providence of Heaven, for the present day and
generation, more religious than churches and Sabbaths.
It is full of sermons. It is a perfect gospel, al
whole Bible of mind-enlightening, heart -cleansing,
soul-saving truth. How much light has it thrown
for me on the page of the New Testament! What a
profound significance has it disclosed in the precepts
and parables of Jesus Christ! How do His words
burst out with a new meaning! How does it help us
to appreciate His trials and the God-like spirit with
which He bore them!"
[pg. 663]
The dark winter of 1880 broke gloomily over all
abolitionists; perhaps upon none did it press more
heavily, than upon the small band in Philadelphia.
Situated as that city is, upon the very edge of Slavery,
and socially bound as it was, by ties of blood or
affinity with the slave-holders of the South, to all
human foresight it would assuredly be the first theatre
of bloodshed in the coming deadly struggle. As
Dr. Furness said in his sermon on old John Brown:
"Out of the grim cloud that hangs over the
South, a bolt has darted, and blood has flowed, and the
place where the lightning struck, is wild with fear."
The return stroke we all felt must soon follow, and
Philadelphia, we feared, would be selected as the spot
where Slavery would make its first mortal onslaught, and
the abolitionists there, the first victims. Dr.
Furness had taken part in the public meeting held on
the day of John Brown's execution, to offer
prayers for the heroic soul that was then passing away,
and had gone with two or three others, to the rail-road
station, to receive the martyr's body, when it was
brought from the gallows by Mr. (afterwards
General) Tyndale and Mr. McKim, and it was
generally feared that he and his church would receive
the brunt of Slavery's first blow The air was
thick with vague apprehension and rumor, so much so,
that some of Dr. Furness's devoted parishioners,
who followed his abolitionism but not his
non-resistance, came armed to church, uncertain what an
hour might bring forth, or in what shape of mob violence
or assassination the blow would fall. Few of
Dr. Furness's hearers will forget his sermon of
December 16, 1860, so full was it of prophetic warning,
and saddened by the thought of the fate which might be
in store for him and his congregation. It was
printed in the "Evening Bulletin," and made a deep
impression on the public outside of his own church, and
was reprinted in full, in the Boston "Atlas."
"But the trouble cannot be escaped. It must come.
But we can put it off. By annihilating fee speech;
by forbidding the utterance of a word in the pulpit and
by the press, for the rights of man; by hurling back
into the jaws of oppression, the fugitive gasping for
his sacred liberty; by recognizing the right of one man
to buy and sell other men; by spreading the blasting
curse of depotism over the whole soil of the nation, you
may allay the brutal frenzy of a handful of southern
slave-masters; you may win back the cotton States to
cease from threatening you with secession, and to plant
their feet upon your necks, and so evade the trouble
that now menaces us. Then you may live on the few
years that are left you, and perhaps - it is not certain
- we may be permitted to make a little more money and
die in our beds. But no, friends, I am mistaken.
We cannot put the trouble off. Or, we put it off
in its present shape, only that it may take another and
more terrible form. If, to get rid of the present
alarm, we concede all that makes it worth while to live
- and nothing less will avail - perhaps those who can
deliberately make such a concession, will not feel the
degradation,
[Pg. 664]
but, stripped of all honor and manhood, they may eat as
heartily and sleep as soundly as ever. But the
degradation is not the less, but the greater, for our
unconsciousness of it. The trouble which we shall
then bring upon our selves, is a trouble in comparison
with which the loss of all things but honor is a
glorious gain, and a violent death for right's sake on
the scaffold, or by the hands of a mob, peace and joy
and victory.
Since we are thus placed, and there is no alternative
for us of the free States, but to meet the trouble that
is upon us, or by base concessions and compromises to
bring upon ourselves a far greater trouble, in the name
of God, let us let all things go, and cleave to the
right. Prepared to confront the crisis like men,
let us with all possible calmness endeavor to take the
measure of the calamity that we dread. God knows I
have no desire to make light of it. But I affirm,
that never since the world began, was there a grander
cause for which to speak, to suffer and to die, than the
cause of these free States, as against that of the
States now rushing upon Secession. The great
grievance of which they complain, is nothing more nor
less than this : that we endanger the right they claim
to treat human beings as beasts of burden. And
they maintain this monstrous claim by measures inhuman
and barbarous, listening not to the voice of reason or
humanity, but treating every man who goes amongst them,
suspected of not favoring their cause, or of the
remotest connection with others who do not favor it,
with a most savage and fiendish cruelty. It is the
conflict between barbarism and civilization, between
liberty and the most horrible despotism that ever cursed
this earth, in which we are called to take part.
And all that is great and noble in the past, all the
patriots and martyrs that have suffered in man's behalf,
all the sacred instincts and hopes of the human soul are
on our side, and the welfare of untold generations of
men. Oh, if God, in his infinite bounty, grants us
the grace to appreciate the transcendent worth of the
cause which is now at stake, there is no trouble that
can befall us, no, not the loss of property, of idolized
parents or children, or life itself, that we shall not
count a blessed privilege. To serve this dear
cause of peace and liberty and love, we have no need to
grasp the sword or any instrument of violence and death.
But we must be ready without flinching, to confront the
utmost that men can do, and amidst all the uproar and
violence of human passions, still calmly to assert and
to exercise our sacred and inalienable liberties, let
who will frown and forbid, assured that no just and
law-of God-abiding people, will ever do otherwise than
give us their sympathy and their aid.
Death is the worst that can befall us, if so be that we
are faithful to the right. It is a solemn and a fearful
thing to die, and mortality shrinks from facing that
last great mystery. But we must all die, my
friends, and the dying hour is not far distant from the
youngest of us. To most of us it is very
near. To many, only a few brief years remain.
And for the sake of
[Pg. 665]
these few and uncertain years, shall we push off this
present trouble upon our children, who have to stay here
a little longer? There is nothing that can so
sweeten the bitter cup of mortality when we shall be
called to drink it, nothing that can so cheer us in the
prospect of parting from all we love, nothing that can
send such a blessed light on before us into the dark
valley which we must enter, as the consciousness of
fidelity to man and to God. And now in these times
of great trouble which have come upon us, we have a
peculiar and special opportunity of testifying our
fidelity, and of enjoying a full experience of its power
to support us. We may gather from this trouble, a
sweetness that shall take away from all suffering
its bitterness. We may kindle that light in our
bosoms, which shall make death come to us as a radiant
angel."
Four months after the above was uttered, on the 28th of
April, 1861, after the attack on Fort Sumter, and the
whole North had burst into a flame, people of all
denominations flocked to Dr. Furness's
church, as to that church which had shown that it was
founded on a rock, and none can ever forget the
long-drawn breath with which the sermon began: "The long
agony is over!" It was the Te Deum" of a
life-time.
Dr. Furness's words and counsels were not
wanting throughout the war, and his sermons were
constantly printed in the daily press and in separate
pamphlet form. And since its close he has
continued his absorbing study of the historical accounts
of Jesus.
Dr. Furness was born in Boston, in April,
1802, and was graduated at Harvard, in 1820, and five
years later became the minister of the First
Congregational Unitarian Christians, in this city, and
is consequently the senior clergyman, here, on the score
of length of pastorate.
Happy is the man, and enviable the gospel minister,
who, looking back upon his course in the great
anti-slavery contest, can recall as the chief charge
brought against him, that of being over-zealous!
That he spoke too often and said too much in favor of
the slave! There are but few men, and still
fewer ministers, who have a right to take comfort from
such recollections! and yet it is to this small class
that the cause is most indebted under God, for its
triumph, and the country for its deliverance from
Slavery.
WILLIAM
LLOYD GARRISON
The
Character and career of the leader of the movement for immediate
emancipation in this country, are too well known to be dwelt on
here; nor, in the space at our command, is it possible to give in
full those facts of his life which have already appeared in print.
His earliest biographer was Mary Howitt; and another even
more famous authoress, Mrs. H. B. Stowe, in "Men of Our
Times," has stood in the same relation to him, while his
[Pg. 666]
life-long friend, Oliver Johnson, has writen the best concise
account of him, in "Appleton's New American Cyclopaedia.
Mr. Garrison (the Cyclopaedia is, on this
point, in error) was born Dec. 12, 1804, in Newburyport, Mass, his
father, Abijah Garrison, being a ship-captain, trading
with the West Indies, and his mother, Fanny Lloyd, a
woman of remarkable beauty, as well as piety and force of character.
Intemperate habits led the husband and father from home to a
solitary and obscure end, leaving his family entirely dependent. William
(or as he was always called, Lloyd), was the youngest but one
of five children, and had not done with his schooling before he
began to contribute to his own support; at first in Lynn, where he
was set at shoemaking, at the age of eleven; afterwards in
Newburyport, and finally, in 1818, at Haverhill, where he was
apprenticed to a cabinet maker. Not finding these trades
suited to his taste, the same year he was indentured to Ephraim
W. Allen, editor of the “Newburyport Herald,” and in the
printing-office he completed his education, so far as he was to have
any, with such early success, as soon to be an acceptable
contributor to his employer’s paper, while the authorship of his
articles was still his own secret. As soon as his
apprenticeship came to a close, in 1826, he became proprietor of the
“Free Press,” in his native city, but the paper failed of
support. Seeking work as a journeyman, in Boston, he was
engaged in 1827 to edit, in the interest of “total abstinence,” the
“fictional Philanthropist,” the first paper of its kind ever
published. On a change of proprietors in 1828, he was induced
to join a friend in Bennington, Vt., in publishing the “Journal
of the Times,” which advocated the election of John Quincy
Adams for president, besides being devoted to peace, temperance,
anti-slavery and other reforms. In this town, Mr.
Garrison began his agitation of the subject of Slavery, “in
consequence of which there was transmitted to Congress an
anti-slavery memorial, more numerously signed than any similar paper
previously submitted to that body.” It was in Bennington, too, that
he received from Benjamin Lundy, who had met him the
previous year at his boarding-house in Boston, an invitation to go
to Baltimore, and aid him in editing the “Genius of Universal
Emancipation.”
Baltimore was no strange city to Mr. Garrison.
Thither he had accompanied his mother, in 1815, serving as a
chore-boy, and he had visited her just before her death, in 1823.
He took leave of Boston in the fall of 1829, after having acted as
the orator of the day, July 4th, in Park Street church, and
surprised his hearers by the boldness of his utterances on the
subject of Slavery. The causes of his imprisonment at
Baltimore scarcely need to be repeated. For an alleged “gross
and malicious libel" on a townsman (of Newburyport) whose ship was
engaged in the coast-wise slave-trade, and whom he accordingly
denounced in the “Genius,” he was tried and convicted, and
sentenced to pay a fine of $50 and costs. The cell in which he
was confined for forty-nine days, and from which he was liberated
only
[Pg. 667]
by the spontaneous liberality of Arthur Tappan, a perfect
stranger to him, he had the satisfaction of reseeking, after the
close of the war, in company with Judge Bond, but the prison
had been removed.
Compelled to part company with Lundy, to whom he
has ever owned his moral indebtedness, Mr. Garrison at length
started in Boston, in January 1831, his "Liberator," with
little else besideshis "dauntless spirit and a press." The
difficulties which beset the birth of this paper were never entirely
overcome, and its publication was attended, thought all the
thirty-five years of its existence, with constant struggle and
privation, and with personal labor, at the printer's case, and over
the forms, which only an iron constitution could have endured.
The "Liberator" was the organ of the editor alone, and
he gave room in it to the numerous reforms which were, in his mind,
only subordinate to abolition. In 1865 the last volume was
issued, Mr. Garrison having already, in May, withdrawn
from the American Anti-slavery Society, which he had
helped to found, in 1833, and of which, as he drew up the
Declaration of Sentiments, he may be supposed to have known
something of the original aims and proper duration.
In September, 1834, Mr. Garrison was married to
Helen Eliza, daughter of the venerable philanthropist,
George Benson, of Providence, R. I., who had, even in the
previous century, been an active member of a combined anti-slavery
and freedmen’s aid society in that city. In October, 1835,
occurred the Boston riot, led by “gentlemen of property and
standing,” in which Mr. Garrison's life was imperilled, and
which made him once more familiar with the interior of a jail - this
time, a place of refuge. In 1832, he went to England, as an
agent of the New England Anti-slavery Society, to awaken English
sympathy for the anti-slavery movement, and to nudeceive Clarkson
and Wilberforce and their distinguished associates as to the
nature and object of the Colonization Society, as to which he had
already had occasion to undeceive himself. His mission was
eminently successful in both its aspects, and resulted in the
subsequent visits of George Thompson to this country, between
whom and himself a strong personal attachment had arisen and has
ever since continued. A second visit to England he made as a
delegate to the World’s Anti-slavery Convention, in which he refused
to sit after his female colleagues had been rejected. A third
visit, still in behalf of the cause, took place in 1846.
Twenty years later - the war over and Slavery abolished - he again
went abroad, to repair his health and renew old friendships, and for
the first time passed over to the Continent. In England, he
was greeted with cordial appreciation and hospitality by all
classes. Numerous public receptions of a most flattering
character were given to him, but without the effect of causing him
to magnify his own merits or to forget the honor due to his
associates in the anti-slavery struggle. At the London
Breakfast, where John Bright presided, and John Stuart
Mill, the Duke of Argyll, and others spoke, he said, when called
upon
[Pg. 668]
to reply: “I disclaim, with all the sincerity of my soul, any
special praise for anything I have done. I have simply tried
to maintain the integrity of my soul before God, and to do my
duty.” In Edinburgh, the “freedom of the city” was conferred
upon him with impressive ceremonies - he being the third American
ever thus honored. In Paris he was also received with
distinction, his special mission to that city being to attend the
International Anti-slavery Convention, in the capacity of a delegate
from the American Freedman’s Union Commission, of which he was first
vice-president.
The justice of the war on the part of the North, and
its effect on the fate of Slavery at the South, were never subjects
of doubt in the mind of Mr. Garrison, and he quickly
recognized the force of events which had taken from the
abolitionists the helm of direction, and reunited them with their
countrymen in the irresistible flood which no man's hand guided, and
no man’s hand could stay. An agitator from conviction and not
from choice, he was only too glad to lay down the heavy burden of a
life-time, and retire to well-earned repose, after such a vision of
faint hope realized as certainly no other reformer was ever blessed
with. He had lived to see the disunion which he advocated on
sacred principles, attempted by the South in the name of the sum of
all villanies; the uprising of the North; the grand career of
Lincoln; the proclamation of emancipation; the arming of the
blacks - his own son among their officers; the end of the rebellion;
and the consummation of his prayers and labors for the salvation of
his country. He had taken part in the ceremonies at the
recovery of Sumter, had walked the streets of Charleston, and
received floral tokens of the gratitude of the emancipated. To
him it seemed as if his work was done, and that he might, without
suspicion or accusation, cease to be conspicuous, or to occupy the
public attention in any way relating to the past and recalling his
part in the anti-slavery struggle. Notoriety, no longer a
necessity, was eagerly avoided; and the physical rest which was now
enjoined upon him the liberality of his friends having enabled him
to secure, he settled down into the quiet life of a private citizen,
whose great duty had become to him merely one of the duties which
every man owes his country and his race. His sweet temper, his
modesty, his unfailing cheerfulness, his rarely mistaken judgment of
men and measures; his blameless and happy domestic life, and his
hospitality; his warm sympathy with all forms of human suffering -
these and other qualities which cannot be enumerated here, will
doubtless receive the just judgment of posterity.
As a fitting adjunct to the foregoing sketch, extracts
from some of the speeches made at the London breakfast so
magnanimously extended to Mr. Garrison in 1867, are here
introduced. As presiding officer on the occasion, John
Bright, M. P. spoke as follows:
[Pg. 669]
SPEECH OF MR. BRIGHT, M. P.
The
position in which I am placed this morning is one very unusual for
me, and one that I find somewhat difficult; but I consider it a
signal distinction to be permitted to take a prominent part in the
proceedings of this day, which are intended to commemorate one of
the greatest of the great triumphs of freedom, and to do honor to a
most eminent instrument in the achievement of that freedom.
(Hear, hear.) There may be, perhaps, those who ask what is
this triumph of which I speak? To put it briefly, and, indeed,
only to put one part of it, I may say that it is a triumph which has
had the effect of raising 4,000,000 of human beings from the very
lowest depths of social and political degradation to that lofty
height which men have attained when they possess equality of rights
in the first country on the globe. (Cheers) More than
this, it is a triumph which has pronounced the irreversible doom of
slavery in all countries and for all time. (Renewed cheers.)
Another question suggests itself - how has this great matter been
accomplished? The answer suggests itself in another question.
How is it that any great matter is accomplished? By love of
justice, by constant devotion to a great cause, and by an
unfaltering faith that that which is right will in the end succeed.
(Hear, hear.)
When I look at this hall, filled with such an assembly;
when I partake of the sympathy which runs from heart to heart at
this moment in welcome to our guest of today, I cannot but contrast
his present position with that which, not so far back but that many
of us can remember, be occupied in his own country. It is not
forty years ago, I believe about the year 1829, when the guest whom
we honor this morning was spending his solitary days in a prison in
the slave-owning city of Baltimore. I will not say that he was
languishing in prison, for that I do not believe; he was sustained
by a hope that did not yield to the persecution of those who thus
maltreated him; and to show that the effect of that imprisonment was
of no avail to suppress or extinguish his ardor, within two years
after that he had the courage, the audacity - I dare say many of his
countrymen used even a stronger phrase than that - he had the
courage to commence the publication, in the city of Boston, of a
newspaper devoted mainly to the question of the abolition of
slavery. The first number of that paper, issued on the 1st
January, 1831, contained an address to the public, one passage of
which I have often read with the greatest interest, and it is a key
to the future life of Mr. Garrison. He had been
complained of for having used hard language, which is a very common
complaint indeed, and he said in his first number: “I am aware that
many object to the severity of my language, but is there not cause
for such severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as
uncompromising as justice. I am in earnest, I will not equivocate, I
will not excuse, I will not
[Pg. 670]
retract a single inch, and I will be heard." (Cheers.)
And that, after all, expresses to a great extent the future course
of his life.
But what was at that time the temper of the people
amongst whom he lived, of the people who are glorying now, as they
well may glory, in the abolition of slavery throughout their
country? At that time it was very little better in the North
than it was in the South. I think it was in the year 1835 that
riots of the most serious character took place in some of the
northern cities; during that time Mr. Garrison’s life was in
the most imminent peril; and he has never ascertained to this day
how it was that he was left alive on the earth to carry on his great
work. Turning to the South, a State that has lately suffered
from the ravages of armies, the State of Georgia, by its legislature
of House, Senate, and Governor, if my memory does not deceive me,
passed a bill, offering ten thousand dollars reward, (Mr.
Garrison here said five thousand) well, they seemed to think
there were people who would do it cheap, (laughter) offered five
thousand dollars, and zeal, doubtless, would make up the difference,
for the capture of Mr. Garrison, or for adequate proof of his
death. Now, these were menaces and perils such as we have not
in our time been accustomed to in this country in any of our
political movements, (hear, hear) and we shall take a very poor
measure indeed of the conduct of the leaders of the emancipation
party in the United States if we estimate them by any of those who
have been concerned in political movements amongst us. But,
notwithstanding all drawbacks, the cause was gathering strength, and
Mr. Garrison found himself by and by surrounded by a small
but increasing band of men and women who were devoted to this cause,
as he himself was. We have in this country a very noble woman,
who taught the English people much upon this question, about thirty
years ago; I allude to Harriet Martineau. (Cheers)
I recollect well the impression with which I read a most powerful
and touching paper which she had written, and which was published in
the number of the Westminster Review for December, 1838.
It was entitled “The Martyr Age of the United States." The
paper introduced to the English public the great names which were
appearing on the scene in connection with this cause in America.
There was, of course I need not mention, our eminent guest of
to-day; there was Arthur Tappan, and Lewis
Tappan, and James G. Birney of Alabama, a planter and
slave-owner, who liberated his slaves and came north, and became, as
I think, the first presidential candidate upon abolition principles
in the United States. (Hear, hear.) There were besides them,
Dr. Charming, John Quincy Adams,
a statesman and President of the United States, and father of the
eminent man who is now Minister from that people amongst us.
(Cheers) Then there was Wendell Phillips,
admitted to be by all who know him perhaps the most powerful orator
who_ speaks the English language. (Hear, hear.) I might refer
to others, to Charles Sumner, the well-known
statesman, and
[Pg. 671]
Horace Greeley, I think the first of journalists in
the United States, if not the first of journalists in the world.
(Hear, hear.) But besides these, there were of noble women not
a few. There was Lydia Maria Child; there were the two
sisters, Sarah and Angelina Grimke, ladies who came
from South Carolina, who liberated their slaves, and devoted all
they had to the service of this just cause; and Maria
Weston Chapman, of whom Miss Martineau
speaks in terms which, though I do not exactly recollect them, yet I
know described her as noble-minded, beautiful and good. It may
be that there are some of her family who are now within the sound of
my voice. If it be I so, all I have to say is, that I hope
they will feel, in addition to all they have felt heretofore as to
the character of their mother, that we who are here can appreciate
her services, and the services of all who were united with her as
co-operators in this great and worthy cause. But there was
another whose name must not be forgotten, a man whose name must live
for ever in history, Elijah P. Lovejoy, who in the free State
of Illinois laid down his life for the cause. (Hear, hear.)
When I read that article by Harriet Martineau, and the
description of those men and women there given, I was led, I know
not how, to think of a very striking passage which I am sure must be
familiar to most here, because it is to be found in the Epistle to
the Hebrews. After the writer of that epistle has described
the great men and fathers of the nation, he says: “Time would fail
me to tell of Gideon, of Barak, of Samson, of
Jephtha, of David, of Samuel, and the Prophets,
who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained
promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of
fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made
strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the
aliens.” I ask if this grand passage of the inspired writer
may not be applied to that heroic band who have made America the
perpetual home of freedom ? (Enthusiastic cheering.)
Thus, in spite of all that persecution could do,
opinion grew in the North in favor of freedom; but in the South,
alas! in favor of that most devilish delusion that slavery was
a Divine institution. The moment that idea took possession of
the South war was inevitable. Neither fact nor argument, nor
counsel, nor philosophy, nor religion, could by any possibility
affect the discussion of the question when once the Church leaders
of the South had taught their people that slavery was a Divine
institution; for then they took their stand on other and different,
and what they in their blindness thought higher grounds, and they
said, “Evil! he thou my good;” and so they exchanged light for
darkness, and freedom for bondage, and good for evil, and, if you
like, heaven for hell. *
* * *
There was a universal feeling in the North that every
care should be taken of those who had so recently and marvellously
been enfranchised. Immediately we found that the privileges of
independent labor were open to them, schools were established in
which their sons might obtain an edu-
[Pg 672]
cation that would raise
them to an intellectual position never reached by their fathers; and
at length full political rights were conferred upon those who a few
short years, or rather months, before, had been called chattels, and
things to be bought and sold in any market. (Hear, hear.) And
we may feel assured, that those persons in the Northern States who
befriended the negro in his bondage will not now fail to assist his
struggles for a higher position. *
* * *
* * *
To Mr. Garrison more than any other man
this is due; his is the creation of that opinion which has made
slavery hateful, and which has made freedom possible in America.
(Hear, hear.) His name is venerated in his own country,
venerated where not long ago it was a name of obloquy and reproach.
His name is venerated in this country and in Europe wheresoever
Christianity softens the hearts and lessens the sorrows of men; and
I venture to say that in time to come, near or remote I know not,
his name will be come the herald and the synonym of good to millions
of men who will dwell on the now almost unknown continent of Africa.
(Loud cheers.) * *
*
To Mr. Garrison, as is stated in one of
the letters which has just been read, to William Lloyd
Garrison it has been given, in a manner not often permitted
to those who do great things of this kind, to see the ripe fruit of
his vast labors. Over a territory large enough to make many
realms, he has seen hopeless toil supplanted by compensated
industry; and where the bondman dragged his chain, there freedom is
established for ever. (Loud cheers.) We now welcome him
amongst us as a friend whom some of us have known long; for I have
watched his career with no common interest, even when I was too
young to take much part in public affairs; and I have kept within my
heart his name, and the names of those who have been associated with
him in every step which he has taken; and in public debate in the
halls of peace, and even on the blood-soiled fields of war, my heart
has always been with those who were the friends of freedom. (Renewed
cheering.) We welcome him then with a cordiality which knows
no stint and no limit for him and for his noble associates, both men
and women. * *
* * *
* * *
After this eloquent and able speech by the chairman,
the honor of proposing an address to Mr. Garrison
devolved upon the Duke of Argyll, who introduced the subject in the
following glowing speech:
SPEECH OF THE DUKE OF ARGYLL.
MR.
CHAIRMAN, LADIES, AND GENTLEMEN: - It is hard to follow an address
of such extraordinary beauty, simplicity and power; but it now
becomes my duty at your command, sir, to move an address of hearty
congratulation to our distinguished guest, William Lloyd
Garrison. (Cheers) Sir, this country is from time to
time honored by the presence of many
[Pg 673]
distinguished, and of a few illustrious men; but for the most part
we are contented to receive them with that private cordiality and
hospitality with which, I trust, we shall always receive strangers
who visit our shores. The people of this country are not
pre-eminently an emotional people; they are not naturally fond of
public demonstrations; and it is only upon rare occasions that we
give, or can give, such a reception as that we see here this day.
There must be something peculiar in the cause which a man has
served, in the service which he has rendered, and in our own
relations with the people whom he represents, to justify or to
account for such a reception. (Hear, hear.) As regards the cause, it
is not too much to say that the cause of negro emancipation in the
United States of America has been the greatest cause which, 1n
ancient or in modern times, has been pleaded at the bar of the moral
judgment of mankind. (Cheers) I know that to some this will sound as
the language of exaggerated feeling; but I can only say that I have
expressed myself in language which I believe conveys the literal
truth. (Hear, hear.)
I have, indeed, often heard it said in deprecation of
the amount of interest which was bestowed in this country on the
cause of negro emancipation in America, that we are apt to forget
the forms of suffering which are immediately at our own doors, over
which we have some control, and to express exaggerated feeling as to
the forms of suffering with which we have nothing to do, and for
which we are not responsible. I have never objected to that
language in so far as it might tend to recall us to the duties which
lie immediately around us, and in so far as it might tend to make us
feel the forgetfulness of which we are sometimes guilty, of the
misery and poverty in our own country; but, on the other hand, I
will never admit, for I think it would be confounding great moral
distinctions, that the miseries which arise by way of natural
consequence out of the poverty and the vices of mankind, are to be
compared with those miseries which are the direct result of positive
law and of a positive institution, giving to man property in man.
(Loud cheers.), It is true, also, that there have been forms
of servitude, meaning thereby compulsory labor, against which we do
not entertain the same feelings of hostility and horror with which
we have regarded slavery in America.
* *
* * *
* * *
It was a
system of which it may be truly said, that it was twice cursed.
It cursed him who served, and it cursed him that owned the slave.
(Hear, hear.) When we recollect the insuperable temptations
which that system held out to maintain in a state of degradation and
ignorance a whole race of mankind; the horrors of the internal
slave-trade, more widely demoralizing, in my opinion, than the
foreign slave-trade itself; the violence which was done to the
sanctities of domestic life; the corrupting effect which it was
having upon the very churches of Christianity, when we recollect all
these things, wig-pan fully estimate the evil from which my
distinguished friend
[Pg 674]
and his coadjutors have at last redeemed their country. (Cheers)
It was not only the Slave states which were concerned in the guilt
of slavery; it had struck its roots deep in the free States of North
America. * *
*
We honor Mr. Garrison, in the first
place, for the immense pluck and courage he displayed. (Cheers)
Sir, you have truly said that there is no comparison between the
contests in which he had to fight and the most bitter contests of
our own public life. In looking back, no doubt, to the contest
which was maintained in this country some thirty-five years ago
against slavery in our colonies, we may recollect that Clarkson
and Wilberforce were denounced as fanatics, and had to
encounter much opprobrium; but it must not be forgotten that, so far
as regards the entwining of the roots of slavery into the social
system, in the opinions and interests of mankind, there was no
comparison whatever between the circumstances of that contest here
and those which attended it in America. (Hear, hear.) The
number of persons who in this country were enlisted on the side of
slavery by personal interest was always comparatively few; whilst,
in attacking slavery at its head-quarters in the United States,
Mr. Garrison had to encounter the fiercest passions which
could be reused. * *
* *
Thank God, Mr. Garrison appears before us
as the representative of the United States; freedom is now the
policy of the government and the assured policy of the country, and
we can to-day accept and welcome Mr. Garrison, not
merely as the liberator of the slaves, but as the representative
also of the American Government. (Cheers) *
* * *
THE ADDRESS TO WILLIAM LLOYD
GARRISON, ESQ.
"SIR: -
We heartily welcome you to England in the name of thousands of
Englishmen who have watched with admiring sympathy your labors for
the redemption of the negro race from slavery, and for that which is
a higher object than the redemption of any single race, the
vindication of the universal principles of humanity and justice; and
who having sympathized with you in the struggle, now rejoice with
you in the victory.
"Forty years ago, when you commenced your efforts,
slavery appeared to be rapidly advancing to complete ascendency in
America. Not only was it dominant in the Southern States, but
even in the Free States it had bowed the constituencies, society,
and, in too many instances, even the churches to its will.
Commerce, linked to it by interest, lent it her support. A
great power of the state. It bestowed political offices and
honors, and was thereby enabled to command the apostate homage of
political ambition. Other nations felt the prevalence in your
national councils of its insolent and domineering spirit.
There was a moment, most critical in the history of America and of
the world, when it seemed as though that continent, with all its
resources and all its hopes, was about to become the heritage of the
slave power.
[Pg 675]
"But Providence interposes to prevent the permanent
triumph of evil. It interposes, not visibly or by the
thunderbolt, but by inspiring and sustaining high moral effort and
heroic lives.
"You commenced your crusade against slavery in
isolation, in weakness, and in obscurity. The emissaries of
authority with difficulty found the office of the Liberator
in a mean room, where its editor was aided only by a negro boy, and
supported by a few insignificant persons (so the officers termed
them) of all colors. You were denounced, persecuted, and
hunted down by mobs of wealthy men alarmed for the interests of
their class. You were led out by one of these mobs, and saved
from their violence and the imminent peril of death, almost by a
miracle.. You were not turned from your path of devotion to
your cause, and to the highest interests of your country, by
denunciation, persecution, or the fear of death. You have
lived to stand victorious and honored in the very stronghold of
slavery; to see the flag of the republic, now truly free, replace
the flag of slavery on Fort Sumter; and to proclaim the doctrines of
the Liberator in the city, and beside the grave of Calhoun.
"Enemies of war, we most heartily wish, and doubt not
that you wish as heartily as we do, that this deliverance could have
been wrought out by peaceful means. But the fierce passions
engendered by slavery in the slave-owner, determined it otherwise;
and we feel at liberty to rejoice, since the struggle was
inevitable, that its issue has been the preservation, not the
extinction, of all that we hold most dear. We are, however,
not more thankful for the victories of freedom in the field than for
the moderation and mercy shown by the victors, which have exalted
and hallowed their cause and ours in the eyes of all nations.
"We shall now watch with anxious hope the development,
amidst the difficulties which still beset the regeneration of the
South, of a happier order of things in the States rescued from
slavery, and the growth of free communities, in which your name,
with the names of our fellow-workers in the same cause, will be held
in grateful and lasting remembrance.
"Once more we welcome you to a country in which you
will find many sincere admirers and warm friends."
EARL
RUSSELL and JOHN STUART MILL, M. P., at the close of the
address, followed with most eloquent speeches, conferring on the
honored guest the highest praise for his life-long and successful
labors in the cause of freedom. After these gentlemen had
taken their seats, the Chairman proposed that the address should be
passed unanimously.
The Chairman's call was responded to by the whole
assemblage lifting up their hands; and Mr. Garrison,
presenting himself in front of the platform, was received with an
enthusiastic burst of cheering, hats and handkerchiefs being waved
by nearly all present.
[Pg 676]
SPEECH OF MR. GARRISON.
Mr.
Garrison said: Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, - For
this marked expression of your personal respect, and appreciation of
my labors in the cause of human freedom, and of your esteem and
friendship for the land of my nativity. I offer you, one and
all, my grateful acknowledgments had a remarkably tonic effect,
materially strengthening to the back-bone. (Laughter.)
But, sir, the shower of compliments and applause which has greeted
me on this occasion would assuredly cause my heart to fail me, were
it not that this generous reception is only incidentally personal to
myself. (Hear, hear.) You, ladies and gentlemen, are
here mainly to celebrate the triumph of humanity over its most
brutal foes; to rejoice that universal emancipation has at last been
proclaimed throughout the United States: and to express, as you have
already done through the mouths of the eloquent speakers who have
preceded me, sentiments of peace and of good-will toward the
American Republic. Sure I am that these sentiments will be
heartily reciprocated by my countrymen. (Cheers.)
[Pg 677]
I must
here disclaim, with all sincerity of soul, any special praise for
anything that I have done. I have simply tried to maintain the
integrity of my soul before God, and to do my duty.
(Cheers.) I have refused to go with the multitude to do evil.
I have endeavored to save my country from ruin. I have south
to liberate such as were held captive in the house of bondage.
But all this I ought to have done.
And now, rejoicing here with you at the marvellous
change which has taken place across the Atlantic, I am unable to
express the satisfaction I feel in believing that, henceforth, my
country will be a mighty power for good in the world. While
she held a seventh portion of her vast population in a state of
chattelism, it was in vain that she boasted of her democratic
principles and her free institutions; ostentatiously holding her
Declaration of Independence in one hand, and brutally wielding her
slave-driving lash in the other. Marvellous inconsistency and
unparalleled assurance. But now, God be praised, she is
free, free to advance the cause of liberty throughout the world.
(Loud cheers.)
Sir, this is not the first time I have been in England.
I have been here three times before on anti-slavery missions; and
wherever I traveled, I was always exultantly told, “Slaves cannot
breathe in England!” Now, at last, I am at liberty to say, and
I came over with the purpose to say it, “Slaves cannot breathe in
America!” (Cheers.) And so England and America stand side by
side in the cause of negro emancipation; and side by side may they
stand in all that is just and noble and good, leading the way
gloriously in the world’s redemption. (Loud cheers.)
I came to this country for the first time in 1833, to
undeceive Wilberforce, Clarkson, and other eminent
philanthropists, in regard to the real character, tendency, and
object of the American Colonization Society. I am happy to say
that I quickly succeeded in doing so. Before leaving, I had
the pleasure of receiving a protest against that Society as an
obstruction to the cause of freedom throughout the world, and,
consequently, as undeserving of British confidence and patronage,
signed by William Wilberforce, Thomas Fowell Buxton,
Zachary Macaulay, and other illustrious philanthropists.
On arriving in London I received a polite invitation by letter from
Mr. Buxton to take breakfast with him.
Presenting myself at the appointed time, when my name was announced,
instead of coming forward promptly to take me by the hand, he
scrutinized me from head to foot, and then inquired, somewhat
dubiously, “Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. Garrison,
of Boston, in the United States?” “Yes, sir,” I replied, “I am
he; and I am here in accordance with your invitation.” Lifting
up his hands he exclaimed, “Why, my dear sir, I thought you were a
black man. And I have consequently invited this company of
ladies and gentlemen to be present to welcome Mr. Garrison,
the black advocate of emancipation from the United States of
America.” (Laughter) I have often said, sir,
[Pg 678]
that that is the only compliment I have ever had paid to me that I
care to remember or tell of. For Mr. Buxton had somehow
or other supposed that no white American could plead for those in
bondage as I had done, and therefore I must be black.
(Laughter)
It is indeed true, sir, that I have had no other rule
by which to be guided than this. I never cared to know precisely how
many stripes were inflicted on the slaves. I never deemed it
necessary to go down into the Southern States, if I could have gone,
for the purpose of taking the exact dimensions of the slave system.
I made it from the start, and always, my own case, thus: Did I
want to be a slave? No. Did God make me to be a
slave? No. But I am only a man, only one of the human
race; and if not created to be a slave, then no other human being
was made for that purpose. My wife and children, dearer to me
than my heart's blood, were they made for the auction-block?
Never! And so it was all very easily settled here (pointing to
his breast). (Great cheering.) I could not help being an
uncompromising abolitionist.
Here allow me to pay a brief tribute to the American
abolitionists. Put ting myself entirely out of the question, I
believe that in no land, at any time, was there ever a more devoted,
self-sacrificing, and uncompromising band of men and women.
Nothing can be said to their credit which they do not deserve.
With apostolic zeal, they counted nothing dear to them for the sake
of the slave, and him dehumanized. But whatever has been
achieved through them is all of God, to whom alone is the
glory due. Thankful are we all that we have been
permitted to live to see this day, for our country’s sake, and for
the sake of mankind. Of course, we are glad that our reproach
is at last taken away; for it is very desirable, if possible, to
have the good opinions of our fellow-men; but if, to secure these,
we must sell our manhood and sully our souls, then their bad
opinions of us are to be coveted instead.
Sir, my special part in this grand struggle was in
first unfurling the banner of immediate and unconditional
emancipation, and attempting to make a common rally under it.
This I did, not in a free State, but in the city of Baltimore, in
the slave-holding State of Maryland. It was not long before I
was arrested, tried, condemned by a packed jury, and incarcerated in
prison for my anti-slavery sentiments. This was in 1830.
In 1864 I went to Baltimore for the first time since my
imprisonment. I do not think that I could have gone at an
earlier period, except at the peril of my life; and then only
because the American Government was there in force, holding the
rebel elements in subserviency. I was naturally curious to see
the old prison again, and, if possible, to get into my old cell; but
when I went to the spot, behold! the prison had vanished; and
so I was greatly disappointed, ( Laughter.) On going to
Washington, I mentioned to President Lincoln. the
disappointment I had met with. With a smiling countenance and
a
[Pg 679]
ready wit, he replied, “So, Mr. Garrison, the
difference between 1830 and 1864 appears to be this: in 1830 you
could not get out, and in 1864 you could not get in!” (Great
laughter.) This was not only wittily said, but it truthfully
indicated the wonderful revolution that had taken place in Maryland;
for she had adopted the very doctrine for which she imprisoned me,
and given immediate and unconditional emancipation to her eighty
thousand slaves. (Cheers.)
I commenced the publication of the “Liberator” in
Boston, on the 1st of January, 1831. At that time I was very
little known, without allies, without means, without subscribers,
yet no sooner did that little sheet make its appearance, than the
South was thrown into convulsions, as if it had suddenly been
invaded by an army with banners! Notwithstanding, the whole
country was on the side of the slave power - the Church, the State,
all parties, all denominations, ready to do its bidding! O the
potency of truth, and the inherent weakness and conscious insecurity
of great wrong! Immediately a reward of five thousand dollars
was offered for my apprehension, by the State of Georgia. When
General Sherman was making his victorious march
through that State, it occurred to me, but too late, that I ought to
have accompanied him, and in person claimed the reward - (laughter)
- but I remembered, that, had I done so, I should have had to take
my pay in Confederate currency, and therefore it would not have paid
traveling expenses. (Renewed laughter.) Where is Southern
Slavery now? (Cheers) Henceforth, through all coming
time, advocates of justice and friends of reform, be not
discouraged; for you will, and you must succeed, if you have a
righteous cause. No matter at the outset how few may be
disposed to rally round the standard you have raised - if you battle
unflinchingly and with out compromise - if yours be a faith that
cannot be shaken, because it is linked to the Eternal Throne - it is
only a question of time when victory shall come to reward your
toils. Seemingly, no system of iniquity was ever more strongly
intrenched, or more sure and absolute in its sway, than that of
American Slavery; yet it has perished.
" In the earthquake God has
spoken;
He has smitten with His thunder
The iron walls asunder,
And the gates of brass are broken." |
So it has been, so it is, so it
ever will be throughout the earth, in every conflict for the right.
(Great cheering.) *
* * *
* *
Ladies and gentlemen, I began my advocacy of the
Anti-slavery cause at the North in the midst of brickbats and rotten
eggs. I ended it on the soil of South Carolina, almost
literally buried beneath the wreaths and flowers which were heaped
upon me by her liberal bondmen. (Cheers.)
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