The Convention sat uneasily under this speech. Its spirit was faithfully and eloquently opposed, and the resolutions were adopted with but three dissenting voices; one, Mrs. Fifield of Weymouth, on the ground that it was too great an assumption of power in man to exclude his brother from the table of the Lord. The Rev. George Trask introduced a resolution on the subject of peace, as connected with abolition, which was sustained by William Goodell and others. Mr. Goodell said that he was a peace man, and had he not supposed the American Anti-Slavery Society to be also a Peace Society, he never should have joined it. A discussion ensued respecting the declaration of sentiment and constitution of the Society. Some thought the Peace principles were involved in them, some not, according to their different ideas of the extent of these principles.
The discussion had continued two hours, when Mr. Garrison arose. “Brethren,” he said, “you all know my views on this subject. They cover the extreme ground of non-resistance, and so, in my understanding of it, does this resolution. Let me say to Brother Goodell, that I think he, on further thought, would not wish to adopt it, neither do I think the Assembly ready to pass it. This is neither the place nor the occasion. Let us stop discussing it now.” The resolution was moulded into the shape of a re-affirmation of pacific principles, as set forth in the Declaration of sentiment of the National Convention in 1833, and in that modified form unanimously adopted.
Many of the members of this meeting had their minds firmly anchored on the ultra non-resistance principle. They saw it through their abolition principles, as the eye fastens upon the farthest surface of a diamond through the transparent medium of the nearest; yet they felt that it was not the business of Anti-Slavery organizations as such, to come to a decision upon it, and they were desirous to wave its consideration. Who could have foretold that these very persons, and Mr. Garrison in particular, were hereafter to be arraigned as loading the cause with foreign topics?
Up to this point of time, May, 1837, the hearts of the abolitionists were united as the heart of one. Exceptions did exist to the general love and harmony, but they were very rare. As a general rule, the mobs, misrepresentations, and threats of prosecution at common law, seemed to unite them the closer. Each strove to shelter the rest from whatever storm of opposition they were called to share. They defended each other from the charge of harsh and unchristian feelings and language—they called for, and recorded the votes of women—they unanimously declared in solemn assembly, that they, as abolitionists, believed that the anti-slavery cause was one, with regard to which all human beings, whether men or women, citizens or foreigners, white or colored, had the same duties and the same rights—they passed resolutions of thanks for the co-operation of women, under the unusual and difficult duties that devolved upon them. In vain were the noise of the waves, and the tumult of the people; they broke harmlessly against this rock-founded fortress.
CHAPTER II. THE CLERICAL APPEAL.
Christian. Did you know, about ten years ago, one Temporary, who dwelt next door to one Turnback? Since we are talking about him, let us a little inquire into the reason of the sudden backsliding of him and such others. Hopeful. It may be profitable.
Bunyan.
The re-action of the church, in consequence of such an effort as the one made by this Convention, was greater than some who had fancied themselves abolitionists were able to bear. Compelled to choose between their pro-slavery brethren of the church and ministry and their brethren of the abolition cause, they shrunk from the latter. Their efforts to justify themselves in cramping the cause, that they might avoid its reproach, constitute an era in its progress, known as the “Boston Controversy.” The plan originated with five clergymen of Boston and vicinity, the Rev. Messrs. Charles Fitch, Joseph H. Towne, Jonas Perkins, David Sandford, and William Cornell. When the ecclesiastical tumult swelled high, their hearts were stirred up with it, as the water of inland wells is said to rise and fall with the ebb and flow of the bitter ocean tide without.
Their appeal commenced with an acknowledgment of the sins of their brethren, in the use of harsh language, and an accusation of the most prominent abolitionists, of an unkind, improper and unchristian course, as such, assuming as one of the principles of action in the cause, that it must not be presented in a “brother’s pulpit,” when by so doing a brother might be aggrieved. This last assumption was in direct contradiction to the motto of every pulpit, as well as in defiance of the professed principles of every christian minister to “cry aloud and spare not” in the promulgation of truth, and “to show the people their transgressions,”—“whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear.”