"My greatest trial is the continued opposition of my precious sister Sarah. She thinks I have been given over to blindness of mind, and that I do not know light from darkness, right from wrong. Her grief is that I cannot see it was wrong in me ever to have written the letter at all, and she seems to think I deserve all the suffering I have brought upon myself."
We approach now the most interesting period in the lives of the two sisters. A new era was about to dawn upon them; their quiet, peaceful routine was to be disturbed; a path was opening for them, very different from the one which had hitherto been indicated, and for which their long and painful probation had eminently prepared them. Angelina was the first to see it, the first to venture upon it, and for a time she travelled it alone, unsustained by her beloved sister, and feeling herself condemned by all her nearest friends.
[ CHAPTER XI. ]
All through the winter of 1835-36, demonstrations of violence continued to be made against the friends of emancipation throughout the country. The reign of terror inaugurated in 1832 threatened to crush out the grandest principles of our Constitution. Freedom of press and speech became by-words, and personal liberty was in constant danger. A man or woman needed only to be pointed out as an abolitionist to be insulted and assaulted. No anti-slavery meetings could be held uninterrupted by the worst elements of rowdyism, instigated by men in high position. In vain the authorities were appealed to for protection; they declared their inability to afford it. The few newspapers that dared to express disapproval of such disregard of the doctrine of equal rights were punished by the withdrawal of subscriptions and advertisements, while the majority of the public press teemed with the vilest slanders against the noble men and women who, in spite of mobs and social ostracism, continued to sow anti-slavery truths so diligently that new converts were made every day, and the very means taken to impose upon public opinion enlightened it more and more.[[3] ]
During this winter we find nothing especial to narrate concerning Sarah and Angelina. Sarah's diary continues to record her trials in meeting, and her religious sufferings, notwithstanding her recently expressed belief that her eternal salvation was secured. Angelina kept no diary at this time, and wrote few letters, but we see from an occasional allusion in these that her mind was busy, and that her warmest interest was enlisted in the cause of abolition.
She read everything she could get on the subject, wrote some effective articles for the anti-slavery papers, and pondered night and day over the question of what more she could do. One practical thing she did was to write to the widow of her brother Thomas, proposing to purchase from her the woman whom she (Angelina) in her girlhood had refused to own, and who afterwards became the property of her brother. This woman was now the mother of several children, and Angelina, jointly with Mrs. Frost, proposed to purchase them all, bring them to Philadelphia, and emancipate them. But no notice was taken of the application, either by their sister-in-law or their sister Eliza, to whom Angelina repeatedly wrote on the subject.
Learning from their mother that she was about to make her will, Angelina and Sarah wrote to her, asking that her slaves be included in their portions. To this she assented, but managed to dispose of all but four before she died. These were left to her two anti-slavery daughters, who at once freed them, at the same time purchasing the husband of one of them and freeing him.
As she continued to study anti-slavery doctrines, one thing became very plain to Angelina—that the friends of emancipation, in order to clear their skirts of all participation in the slave-owner's sin, must cease to use the products of slave labor. To this view she tried to bring all with whom she discussed the main subject, and so important did it appear to her, that she thought of writing to some of the anti-slavery friends in New York about it, but her courage failed. After what she had gone through because of the publication of her letter to Mr. Garrison, she shrank from the risk of having another communication made public. But her mind was deeply exercised on this point, and when—in the spring—she and Sarah went to attend Yearly Meeting in Providence, R.I., an opportunity offered for her to express her views to a prominent member of the New York Society, whom she met on the boat. She begged this lady to talk to Gerrit Smith, recently converted from colonization, and others, about it, and to offer them, in her name, one hundred dollars towards setting up a free cotton factory. This was the beginning of a society formed by those willing to pledge themselves to the use of free-labor products only. In 1826 Benjamin Lundy had procured the establishment, in Baltimore, of a free-labor produce store; and subsequently he had formed several societies on the same principle. Evan Lewis had established one in Philadelphia about 1826, and it was still in existence.
The sisters had been so long and so closely tied to Philadelphia and their duties there, that the relief of the visit to Providence was very great. Sarah mentions it in this characteristic way:—