Right and wrong in Massachusetts

by Maria Weston Chapman

Dr. Farnsworth, of Middlesex, with whose own observation and experience their intelligence harmonized, instantly suggested to Mr. Garrison the idea of removing all their pretensions for such a paper by issuing a small cheap sheet of exclusively Anti-Slavery matter. Mr. Garrison, from whom, though in almost daily communication with Mr. Phelps, Mr. St. Clair and Mr. Stanton, their whole plan had been carefully kept, could hardly credit so treacherous a proceeding.

Had an honest desire for a new paper been entertained, he, surely, whose note of joyous exultation had welcomed the appearance of every new anti-slavery periodical, should have been among the first whose aid was sought; and, that the plan had not reached his ears, seemed to him to prove conclusively, that at least those brethren of the Society with whom he had daily intercourse, could not be engaged in it. Relying on Dr. Farnsworth’s good judgment, he, however, decided to issue the specimen number of the periodical proposed.

But, as day after day brought fresh proof of a skilfully arranged plan of secret action against the Massachusetts Society, his mind misgave him as to the efficiency of any paper he might issue, to stay its progress, and he relinquished the idea.

Dr. Farnsworth, meanwhile, receiving no information of this, continued diligently to prepare the way in Middlesex County for the expected sheet. Of these labors, the enemies of the Liberator took advantage, and artfully represented his honest efforts for a paper which should subserve the pending election, and, at the same time remove all pretence for setting on foot an influence hostile to the Liberator, as a part of their own plan.

Singular symptoms were noticed in the political management of the Fourth District. Without consulting either the Massachusetts or the Middlesex County Board, Mr. Stanton undertook the task of determining on whom the abolitionists should scatter their votes. Somewhat remarkable was his selection of the Rev. J. T. Woodbury,—the man who, in 1836, had thrown down the gauntlet to the pro-slavery church; and, in 1837, lacked the moral force to sustain the pressure of the antagonism he had impulsively sought; the man against whose commission as a local agent by the New York Executive Committee, the Massachusetts Board formally remonstrated when they found him a participant in the clerical appeal.

Deeper solicitude for the cause would have shown him that men who fail in the “cushioned seat ecclesiastical,” cannot faithfully discharge the equally weighty responsibilities of the Congressional one. The evil considerations that temptingly beset the latter, are as numerous—their angelic disguises as complete. But Mr. Stanton’s own course, during that year, had not been such as to make his soul more keenly alive to the sacred beauty of fidelity.

Dr. Farnsworth’s continually increasing knowledge of the machinations now on foot, increased his sense of the necessity of a counteracting influence; and, with a faithfulness which was undamped by the apparent neglect which had met his first warning, he continued to urge on the members of the Massachusetts Board, the necessity of a new cheap periodical, as their organ, to be edited by Mr. Garrison; monthly if they thought best, though in his judgment a weekly issue would more effectually remove the pretences of those who were laboring for the destruction of the Liberator.

When this proposition was formally presented to the Board by Mr. Garrison, Mr. Phelps chanced to be absent; but Mr. Eayrs, a member with whom Mr. Phelps was on terms of confidence which he did not extend to all the other members, remarked that it would be better to postpone any action of this kind, as there would probably be changes in the Board at the annual meeting. So innocent were some of the members of the Board of any knowledge of what was practising against them, and so repugnant was suspicion to their natures, that those of them whose eyes had not been recently opened by personal experiences, honestly supposed that such a paper might satisfy the alleged demand; and, after a few days’ delay, on account of Mr. Phelps’s absence, it was decided to issue three thousand copies of a specimen number, Messrs. Garrison, Phillips and Quincy to be an editorial committee. On learning this, Mr. Phelps said, with much agitation, that such a paper would by no means answer the demand. His words and his manner were a sufficient assurance that the plot had gone too far to be arrested by any possible effort of the Massachusetts Board, and all their energies were now bent to the painful task of hastening its complete development.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] “Of Mr. Garrison I will say, as the Pope said of his minion, I will absolve him of all the sins he ever has committed, or ever will commit.”—Speech of Mr. St. Clair in 1837.