"Semi-circular seats, backed against a line of magnificent trees to accommodate, we should judge, from two to three hundred," Rogers narrates, "were filled, principally with women, and the men who could not find seats stood on the green sward on either hand; and, at length, when wearied with standing, seated themselves on the ground. Garrison, mounted on a rude platform in front, lifted up his voice and spoke to them in prophet tones and surpassing eloquence, from half-past three till I saw the rays of the setting sun playing through the trees on his head.... They (the auditory) heeded it not any more than he, but remained till he ended, apparently indisposed to move, though some came from six, eight, and even twelve miles distance." So bravely prospered the revival agitation, under the vigorous preaching of the indomitable pioneer.
In the midst of the growing activities of the revival season of the anti-slavery movement, Garrison had some personal experiences of a distressing nature. One of these was the case of his quondam friend and partner in the publication of the Liberator, Isaac Knapp. He, poor fellow, was no longer the publisher of the paper. His wretched business management of his department tended to keep the Liberator in a state of chronic financial embarrassment. When the committee, who assumed charge of the finances of the paper, took hold of the problem, they determined to let Knapp go. He was paid $150 or $175 as a quid pro quo for his interest in the Liberator. Unfortunate in the business of a publisher, he was yet more unfortunate in another respect. He had become a victim of intemperance. His inebriety increased upon him, accelerated, no doubt, by his business failure. Notwithstanding Garrison's strong and tender friendship for Knapp, the broken man came to regard him as an enemy, and showed in many ways his jealousy and hatred of his old friend and partner. Very painful was this experience to the pioneer.
An experience which touched Garrison more nearly arose out of the sad case of his brother James, who, the reader will recall, ran away from his mother in Baltimore and went to sea. He ultimately enlisted in the United States Navy, and what with the brutalities which he suffered at the hands of his superiors, by way of discipline, and with those of his own uncontrolled passions and appetites, he was, when recovered by his brother William, a total moral and physical wreck. But the prodigal was gathered to the reformer's heart, and taken to his home where in memory of a mother long dead, whose darling was James, he was nursed and watched over with deep and pious love. There were sad lapses of the profligate man even in the sanctuary of his brother's home. The craving for liquor was omnipotent in the wretched creature, and he was attacked by uncontrollable desire for drink. But William's patience was infinite, and his yearning and pity at such times were as sweet and strong as a mother's. Death rung the curtain down in the fall of 1842, on this miserable life with its sorry and pathetic scenes.
About this time a trial of a different sort fell to the lot of Garrison to endure. The tongue of detraction was never more busy with his alleged infidel doctrines or to more damaging effect. Collins, in England, seeking to obtain contributions for the support of the agitation in America found Garrison's infidelity the great lion in the way of success. Even the good dispositions of the venerable Clarkson were affected by the injurious reports in this regard, circulated in England mainly by Nathaniel Colver, a narrow and violent sectary of the Baptist denomination of the United States. It was, of course, painful to Garrison to feel that he had become a rock of offence in the path of the great movement, which he had started and to which he was devoting himself so energetically. To Elizabeth Pease, one of the noblest of the English Abolitionists, and one of his stanchest transatlantic friends, he defended himself against the false and cruel statements touching his religious beliefs. "I esteem the Holy Scriptures," he wrote her, "above all other books in the universe, and always appeal to 'the law and the testimony' to prove all my peculiar doctrines." His religious sentiments and Sabbatical views are almost if not quite identical with those held by the Quakers. "I believe in an indwelling Christ," he goes on to furnish a summary of his confession of faith, "and in His righteousness alone; I glory in nothing here below, save in Christ and in Him crucified; I believe all the works of the devil are to be destroyed, and Our Lord is to reign from sea to sea, even to the ends of the earth; and I profess to have passed from death unto life, and know by happy experience, that there is no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit." These were the pioneer's articles of faith. Their extreme simplicity and theological conservatism it would seem ought to have satisfied the evangelicals of all denominations. They were in essentials thoroughly orthodox. But in the composition of the shibboleths of beliefs non-essentials as well as essentials enter, the former to the latter in the proportion of two to one. It is not surprising, therefore, that Garrison's essentials proved unequal to the test set up by sectarianism, inasmuch as his spiritual life dropped the aspirate of the non-essentials of religious forms and observances.
But the good man had his compensation as well as his trials. Such of a very noble kind was the great Irish address brought over from Ireland by Remond in December 1841. It was signed by Daniel O'Connell, Father Mathew, and sixty thousand Roman Catholics of Ireland, who called upon the Irish Roman Catholics of America to make the cause of the slaves of the United States their cause. Large expectations of Irish assistance in the anti-slavery agitation were excited in the bosoms of Abolitionists by this imposing appeal. Garrison shared the high hopes of its beneficent influence upon the Ireland of America, with many others. Alas! for the "best laid schemes of mice and men," for the new Ireland was not populated with saints, but a fiercely human race who had come to their new home to better their own condition, not that of the negro. Hardly had they touched these shores before they were Americanized in the colorphobia sense, out-Heroded Herod in hatred of the colored people and their anti-slavery friends. Indeed, it was quite one thing to preach Abolitionism with three thousand miles of sea-wall between one and his audience, and quite another to rise and do the preaching with no sea-wall to guard the preacher from the popular consequences of his preaching, as Father Mathew quickly perceived and reduced to practice eight years later, when he made his memorable visit to this country. In vain was the monster document unrolled in Faneuil Hall, and many Abolitionists with Irish blood were put forward to sweep the chords of Erin's heart, and to conjure by their eloquence the disciples of St. Patrick to rally under the banner of freedom. There was no response, except the response of bitter foes. Erin's harp vibrated to no breeze which did not come out of the South. The slave-power had been erected into patron saint by the new Ireland in America, and the new Ireland in America was very well content with his saintship's patronage and service. Thus it happened that the great expectations, which were excited by the Irish address, were never realized. But the pioneer had other fish in his net, had, in fact, meanwhile, got himself in readiness for a launch into a new and startling agitation. As to just what this new and startling agitation was we must refer the reader to the next chapter.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE PIONEER MAKES A NEW AND STARTLING DEPARTURE.
When Garrison hoisted the banner of immediate emancipation he was over-confident of success through the instrumentality of the church. It did not enter his heart to conceive that after he had delivered his message touching the barbarism of slavery that a church calling itself Christian, or that a ministry arrogating to itself the character of the Christ, could possibly say him nay. But he learned sadly enough the utter folly of such expectations. For from pew and pulpit the first stones were hurled against him, and the most cruel and persistent opposition and persecution issued. Then as the movement which he had started advanced, he saw how it was, why the church had played him false and the cause of freedom. It was because the poison of slavery which the evil one had injected into the nation's arteries had corrupted the springs of justice and mercy in that body. The Church was not free, it, too, was in bonds to slavery, how then could it help to free the slaves? That was the reason that pulpit and pew cried out against him and persecuted him. It was not they but the slave despotism, which ruled them, which wrought its fell purpose within them.
If the reformer cast his eyes about him for other help it was the same; the slime of the serpent was upon State as well as Church. Both of the two great political parties were bound hands and feet, and given over to the will of the slave tyranny. In all departments of Government, State and National, the positive, all-powerful principle was slavery. Its dread nolo me tangere had forced Congress into the denial of the right of petition, and into the imposition of a gag upon its own freedom of debate. It was the grand President-maker, and the judiciary bent without a blush to do its service. What, then, in these circumstances could the friends of freedom hope to achieve? The nation had been caught in the snare of slavery, and was in Church and State helpless in the vast spider-like web of wrong. The more the reformer pondered the problem, the more hopeless did success look under a Constitution which united right and wrong, freedom and slavery. As his reflections deepened, the conviction forced its way into his mind that the Union was the strong tower of the slave-power, which could never be destroyed until the fortress which protected it was first utterly demolished. In the spring of 1842 the pioneer was prepared to strike into this new path to effect his purpose.
"We must dissolve all connection with those murderers of fathers," he wrote his brother-in-law, "and murderers of mothers, and murderers of liberty, and traffickers of human flesh, and blasphemers against the Almighty at the South. What have we in common with them? What have we gained? What have we not lost by our alliance with them? Are not their principles, their pursuits, their policies, their interests, their designs, their feelings, utterly diverse from ours? Why, then, be subject to their dominion? Why not have the Union dissolved in form as it is in fact, especially if the form gives ample protection to the slave system, by securing for it all the physical force of the North? It is not treason against the cause of liberty to cry, "Down with every slave-holding Union!" Therefore, I raise that cry. And O that I had a voice louder than a thousand thunders, that it might shake the land and electrify the dead—the dead in sin, I mean—those slain by the hand of slavery."
A few weeks later the first peal of this thunder broke upon the startled ears of the country through the columns of the Liberator. The May meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society was drawing near, and the reformer, now entirely ready to enter upon an agitation looking to the dissolution of the Union, suggested "the duty of making the REPEAL OF THE UNION between the North and the South the grand rallying point until it be accomplished, or slavery cease to pollute our soil. We are for throwing all the means, energies, actions, purposes, and appliances of the genuine friends of liberty and republicanism into this one channel," he goes on to announce, "and for measuring the humanity, patriotism, and piety of every man by this one standard. This question can no longer be avoided, and a right decision of it will settle the controversy between freedom and slavery." The stern message of Isaiah to the Jews, beginning, "Hear the word of the Lord, ye scornful men that rule this people. Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with DEATH and with HELL are we at agreement," seemed to the American Isaiah to describe exactly the character of the National Constitution. "Slavery is a combination of DEATH and HELL," he declares, with righteous wrath, "and with it the North have made a covenant, and are at agreement. As an element of the Government it is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent. As a component part of the Union, it is necessarily a national interest. Divorced from Northern protection, it dies; with that protection it enlarges its boundaries, multiplies its victims, and extends its ravages."