Of the two chief pretences for such an organization—the first, that the subject of women’s rights to sustain civil and ecclesiastical offices &c. had been “dragged in,” and “hitched on,” (as the phrases were,) was an entirely false pretence, that subject never having been introduced in the Massachusetts Society. Women had, indeed, persisted in exercising the rights and duties of members, which they could not be prevented from doing without a violation of the letter and spirit of the Society’s constitution, and if the necessity of a new organization was grounded on this circumstance, its contrivers were plainly hypocritical in striving to make it auxiliary to the National Society, which also admitted women. They intimated, that they hoped to be able to make that Society recede from its ground next year;—but honestly bigoted minds, conscientiously opposed to women’s acting in the anti-slavery cause on their own responsibility, would surely never begin their course of opposition by the sin of co-operation for a year. The second pretence, that the old Society had become a no-government society, was without a shadow of foundation. The strongest political resolution it had ever adopted, to which Mr. Stanton’s resolution in 1837 was feeble, had been passed this year. But, then it had refused to cast out Mr. Garrison: “ay! there’s the rub!” This exclamation of the Prince of Denmark, when his mind was occupied with the question, “to be or not to be,” conveys, in this connection, a summary of the reasons which decided the new organization “to be.”
The New England convention decided that such an association, so gathered, so founded and so organized, could not give aid to any organization upon the old basis, which it had deserted and condemned; and they notified the Executive Committee at New York of the same. The hostility of its founders to the Massachusetts Society—the difference it had made as to the fundamental principles, the exclusiveness of its foundation—its mathematical position, working the same derangement in the anti-slavery system as a new planet in the orbit of the earth might do in the solar system,—all forbade it fraternal greeting or long life.
The course the New York Committee should take in action, would be the measure of their own worth to the cause. So opposite were these two Societies, that one or the other must needs be unworthy of the affiliation. If the New York Committee should, after their well-remembered wont, think neutrality possible, still to be neutral would be to spare the criminal; and “Judex damnatur cum nocens absolvitur.”
From the new organization thus formed, it was planned to send out division unto every local Society. Mr. St. Clair, and Mr. Wise, who had been the Swiss of this warfare, at one time during the year, the agents of the Massachusetts Board, at another, of the new paper, at another, of the New York Committee, were now made the agents of the new organization, for completing the work of division.
This having been done, Mr. Stanton no longer delayed to intimate to the Massachusetts Board “that it would be the aim of the New-York Committee to comply, as far as they could conscientiously, with the advice of their constituents as to agents.”
What was the new organization, then, in reality?—men asked themselves. Its designs were unmasked by abolitionists in Massachusetts, as the Annual Meeting, the Quarterly Meeting, the Bristol County Meeting, the Essex County Meeting, the Plymouth County Meeting, the Worcester County Meetings, the Middlesex County Meeting, and the multiplied meetings of town Societies had conclusively proved. It was but an agent of the New York Committee, under the name of an organization. What would be its effect? to fulfil the wishes of pro-slavery divines, by multiplying nominal abolitionists of its own spirit, as millstones about the neck of the cause. May the New-York Committee dare to claim credit for veracity, if they but
“Keep the word of promise to the ear,
And break it to the sense?—”
When, at the Judgment, they shall stand up face to face with the New England band of early abolitionists who so loved and trusted them, what more can each one of them say than this:—“My mouth has never lied to thee!”
What is the attitude of the contending hosts of freedom and slavery in Massachusetts, at the present time—the summer of 1839? The unfaithful have turned to flight, overpowered by the subtlety and fury of a pro-slavery church and ministry;—have dishonored their Master, by conceding that such a church and ministry are his;—have forsaken and betrayed the faithful, offering them up as a propitiation to this ecclesiastical pro-slavery;—have devised a new anti-slavery organization on hypocritical and false pretences, behind which to disguise their apostacy for a season.