Admiral Chadwick in his recent work, The Causes of the Civil War, thus presents the position of prominent Abolitionists with respect to servile insurrections and especially the efforts to precipitate one at Harper's Ferry:
"Parker was also one who could say, 'I should like of all things to see an insurrection of slaves. It must be tried many times before it succeeds, as at last it must,' an expression which was the outcome of his own full knowledge of what was brewing. Of this the others of the Boston Secret Committee, Stearns, Higginson, Howe, and Sanborn, as already shown on the authority of the last, also had full information, as had Gerrit Smith, with the exception, perhaps, of the exact place at which Brown was to strike. Brown's funds were supplied by these men, who were accessories before the fact in the fullest meaning of the phrase. It is impossible to justify such actions.
"Stearns and his fellows were not martyrs; they did not risk their lives; they were not in open warfare; they were simply in secret conspiracy to carry by bolder instruments throughout the South the horrors of Hayti, still vivid in the recollection of many then yet living."[[327]]
THE UNION PROTECTS SLAVEHOLDERS
But the Abolitionists appreciated that it was the Union and its power that stood as the strongest barrier against the success of their instigations to servile insurrection, and held in leash the giant form, Slavery, with its pike and brand. Long ago Mr. Garrison had said:
"What protects the South from instant destruction? Our physical force. Break the chain which binds her to the Union and the scenes of St. Domingo would be witnessed throughout her borders. She may affect to laugh at this prophecy but she knows her security lies in Northern bayonets. Nay, she has repeatedly taunted the free states with being pledged to protect her."[[328]]
| [307] | William Lloyd Garrison, by his children, Vol. III, p. 88. |
| [308] | Idem, p. 100. |
| [309] | Idem, p. 414. |