Mr. St. Clair first spoke. He occupied more than an hour in explaining to the meeting that Mr. Torrey had no hand in the Fitchburg resolutions. Mr. Torrey occupied the remainder of the afternoon in denying the existence of any plot, deprecating the fulsome eulogy of abolitionists, when they spoke of the Liberator;—said that its circulation was so small that there was absolute need of another paper, for the purpose of advertising the meetings, and that abolitionists were determined to have a more effectual medium of communication with the electors of Massachusetts. He said, “Mr. St. Clair, and myself, Mr. Phelps and Mr. Stanton, we four, are the originators of this new paper.”
Mr. Stanton replied “I warn the gentleman to be careful of his pronouns. I defy any one to show a letter or a fragment of a letter, to prove that I have been implicated in the plan; for I have mentioned it in but one, and that to a friend in another State.” Mr. Torrey said that it was contemplated to obtain the services of some first-rate editor—Elizur Wright, or John G. Whittier. “Ah! comes the arrow out of that quiver!” inly responded a few earnest listeners. But the general feeling was, that it was only a swelling word used by Mr. Torrey, for effect, so absurd, so impossible did it seem that either of those men could be made to stand in Massachusetts upon the clerical platform of hatred to Mr. Garrison. As soon would Wendell Phillips have been suspected of laboring to accommodate pro-slavery prejudice with a less odious editor in Pennsylvania; or Ellis Gray Loring, of supplying the deficiencies of the Emancipator, by a hostile paper in New York. Mr. Torrey urged the forlorn condition of Massachusetts among her sister states, without an organ; and seemed as much impressed with the mortification of being a member of a Society so sadly unfurnished, as were the slavish Jews, when taunted by the surrounding nations with having no king.
Mr. May did not suffer in the view of what so much affected Mr. Torrey. “We have never wanted means of communication with the public,” he said; “when the Massachusetts Society wants an organ, she sounds a trumpet.” Night was closing round the combatants, and Mr. May moved an indefinite postponement of the whole subject. Mr. Phelps exclaimed against thus “giving the go-by to the most important subject that could come before them.” Mr. May withdrew his motion, and the meeting closed, to meet again in an hour.
Again the throng came together, with added numbers and spirit. Mr. Stanton took the floor, and to the utter astonishment of the meeting, proclaimed that the Liberator had lowered the standard of abolition, that Mr. Garrison was recreant to the cause, and that therefore a new paper was indispensable.
His words opened the flood-gates of many memories. Instantly rushed through the minds of abolitionists all that had passed since he first stood among them, the trusted and beloved; their guide—their companion—their own familiar friend. Grief and indignation strove for the mastery in their hearts as he went on. “A new paper was therefore indispensable. True, it was said that the columns of the Liberator were filled with political matter—but how is that political matter obtained? It is wrought into my frame in head-aches and side-aches, how that political matter is obtained. If lamps could speak, they could tell that it is by taking your agents from the field to furnish it, after the day’s exhausting labor.—There ought to be an editor to do it. Again; what accompanied this political matter, on the other side of the paper? Discussions calculated to nullify its effect. Expressions of opposite opinions. It is not that other subjects are introduced into the Liberator—it is that such other subjects are introduced—subjects so injurious to the cause. Mr. President, I would not injure the Liberator or Mr. Garrison. On the subject of peace, perhaps, he is nearer right than I am. But he has lowered the standard of abolition.”
Mr. Garrison and Mr. Stanton had met continually during the season previous to this attack. They had met as aforetime, brotherly, and Mr. Stanton had never, even by a word, prepared his friend for such a proceeding. Conviction was flashed upon the minds of the audience by every sentence he uttered, that the spurious abolition, which, from its being defended by the ministry, had obtained the name of clerical abolition, had, at last made a conquest of a suitable layman to carry forward its operations. The minds of men rapidly reverted to the clerical effort of 1837 to break up the Massachusetts Society. Again they saw the effort renewed, to cast out its most efficient members. Again the same old war-cry sounded in their ears—“Let them go out from among us, for they are not of us; and the Massachusetts Society must have a new organ!” How many a grieved heart, that had trustingly relied on Stanton to combat this fresh attack on the cause, on thus hearing his proclamation of his own treachery to his comrades, was ready to exclaim,
“Oh had an angel spoke those words to me,
I would not have believed no tongue but Hubert’s.”