The Massachusetts brethren turned to their homes in sorrow and surprise at the determination they had been unable to move. Only one course remained for the preservation of their Society. Its injury, if not its destruction, would be the necessary consequence of hesitating to adopt it, and they announced their intention of public remonstrance against the conduct of the Ex. Committee, and a reference of the whole case to their common constituents—the abolitionists of Massachusetts. Grief, they must, at all events, have felt: but astonishment at the result of their conference would have been spared, had they been informed that it was, on one side, but a mere form, the whole affair having been decided, a week previous, by the issue of a circular, of which the following is an extract, signed by Messrs. Stanton, Tappan, Leavitt, Birney, and the most prominent of the New York Board.
“The amount which the Massachusetts Board had “guaranteed” to pay to this Society by the first of February just passed, was $7,500. Of that sum, but $3,920 have been received, leaving $3,680 due to this Society. From recent consultations had with the Massachusetts Board, we are fully authorized in saying, that the Board will not be able to pay this sum, much less the additional sum of $2,500 to fall due on the first of May next; nor do we believe it will be received from the abolitionists of Massachusetts, unless the Executive Committee of the American Society send their own agents into the field to raise it. To the adoption of this latter course they feel impelled by a sense of the duties they owe the slave. They feel constrained to abandon this “arrangement” for the following, among other reasons:
1. It works badly for this Society. Much the greater part of the $3,920 received from Massachusetts, has been raised at the expense of this Society, as the following statement shows. It was collected as follows:
(1.) By individuals and societies, and
sent directly to the Treasury of this Society,
and, in the collection of which, the
Massachusetts Society took no part,$471 12 (2.) By the “Cent-a-week” Societies,
through the labors of N. Southard, who
is employed and paid by the American
Society,271 05 (3.) By the direct labors of Messrs.
O. Scott, Ichabod Codding, and H. B.
Stanton, who was employed and paid by
the American Society,812 42 (4.) By Isaac Winslow and H. B.
Stanton, at New Bedford, for circulating
Thome and Kimball’s journal,750 00 (5.) Received of the Treasurer of the
Massachusetts Society, $1,616 24; $500
of which was collected by Messrs. Stanton,
Tillson, and Thomson,—the former
employed by the American Society;—and
$500 of which were paid by the Boston
Female Anti-Slavery Society, on condition
that Mr. Stanton would deliver an
address before them, and solicit pledges,
which he did.Total, $3,920 83 Thus, of the $3,920 received from Massachusetts, since this arrangement was entered into, only about $1,000 at the utmost, have been raised by the Massachusetts Society. Nearly all the residue has been raised by the American Society. We ask any candid man, if this is “carrying out the plan,” as contemplated by the resolution of the Annual Meeting? And is it not suicidal for this Society to pursue such a “plan” any longer?”
| (1.) By individuals and societies, and sent directly to the Treasury of this Society, and, in the collection of which, the Massachusetts Society took no part, | $471 12 |
| (2.) By the “Cent-a-week” Societies, through the labors of N. Southard, who is employed and paid by the American Society, | 271 05 |
| (3.) By the direct labors of Messrs. O. Scott, Ichabod Codding, and H. B. Stanton, who was employed and paid by the American Society, | 812 42 |
| (4.) By Isaac Winslow and H. B. Stanton, at New Bedford, for circulating Thome and Kimball’s journal, | 750 00 |
| (5.) Received of the Treasurer of the Massachusetts Society, $1,616 24; $500 of which was collected by Messrs. Stanton, Tillson, and Thomson,—the former employed by the American Society;—and $500 of which were paid by the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society, on condition that Mr. Stanton would deliver an address before them, and solicit pledges, which he did. | Total, $3,920 83 |
Ah, what a rent was here, in the love—the trusting reverence with which Massachusetts abolitionists had persisted, against their better judgments, in looking to New York! What a document to cast before her faithful men,—this new style of account-current, in which what they had paid, was equally placed to their discredit with what they had not paid! What a reproach to her high-souled women, who had unreservedly dedicated themselves to the cause![6] What a shock to behold the anti-slavery enterprize presented in this degrading view to the gaze of the world! The American A. S. Society, placed, by this act of its committee, in the attitude of glorying in the collectorship of coppers!—the Parent Society, (as it had ever been affectionately and deferentially called,) busied like Saturn, in devouring its progeny!
This act created a necessity for a procedure still more vigorous than had been contemplated. The integrity and usefulness and good name of the National Society must, if possible, be rescued from the jeopardy in which this course of the committee had placed them. More than the existence of the Massachusetts Society was at stake—the cause was endangered by the conduct of the committee at this moment. It was painful to meet them on the low ground of dollars and cents; but they had taken the field there, and there they must, of consequence, be met and rebuked.
The Massachusetts Board, therefore, not only issued an address to the Abolitionists of the State, as they had given notice of their purpose to do, calling on them to assume the conduct of the affair, but they, at the same time, gave solemn warning of the perilous crisis, and appointed the quarterly State meeting, as a suitable time for its consideration.
More confirmation greeted the Massachusetts brethren on their return, of the fact that their agents were undermining the ground on which the Society stood.
Mr. St. Clair had concerted with the Rev. S. Hopkins Emery, and two or three other clergymen, comprising one third of the Bristol county board of officers, and, in the absence of the rest, they passed resolutions hostile to the Massachusetts Society, making that county auxiliary to the plans of the New York Committee, and nominating himself as a county agent. He had forwarded his resignation of his commission as an agent of the State board,—Mr. Wise shortly afterwards followed his example, and both were thereupon appointed agents of the N. York Committee, in which capacity they continued to labor in alienating the counties, and circulating the new paper.
Boards of Managers and the people they aim to manage, not unfrequently differ, in the anti-slavery cause, as in all other causes; and therefore it was that the Massachusetts Board, feeling no love of management or rule, were in the habit, on every extraordinary case, of referring its decision to their constituents, as the only way of presenting to each one the opportunity to discharge his individual duty to the Society, and as the best method of obtaining the manifold advantages of discussion.