Not until Mr. Garrison had been some time resident in Baltimore as co-editor, with Benjamin Lundy, of the Genius of Universal Emancipation, were the true purpose and spirit of Colonization discovered. He there found out, as he afterwards made it plainly appear, that the intention of the originators, and of the Southern promoters of the scheme, really was, “to rivet still closer the fetters of the slaves, and to deepen the prejudice against the free people of color.”

So different had been the representations of its purpose by the agents of the Colonization Society who had labored in its behalf throughout the free States, and so utterly unconscious were most of the Colonizationists on this side of Mason and Dixon’s line of harboring any such designs, that Mr. Garrison’s accusations fired them with indignation and wrath. They would not give heed to his incontrovertible evidence. Though his witnesses were numerous and could not be impeached, yet were they spurned by most of the persons in the free States who had espoused the cause. It was enough that Mr. Garrison had come out in opposition to the plan of Colonization. He was denounced as an infidel, set upon as an enemy of his country. The churches were all closed against him. Few ministers ventured to give him any countenance, and the politicians heaped upon him unmeasured abuse. All this made the more plain to the young Reformer and his co-laborers how thoroughly the virus of slavery had poisoned the American body ecclesiastic, as well as the body politic. It was seen that the church was becoming the bulwark of slaveholders. Mr. Garrison felt that the first thing to be done, therefore, was to batter down the confidence of the humane in the Colonization plan. Against this he drove his sharpest points, at this he aimed his heaviest artillery. So when it became known to us that the agents of that plan had labored, with sad effect, in Great Britain; that they had suborned to their purpose the aid of the English philanthropists, we all felt, with Mr. Garrison, that those friends of the oppressed must be undeceived without delay. No one was competent to do this work so thoroughly as Mr. Garrison himself. Accordingly, it was determined, in the spring of 1833, that he must see personally the prominent Abolitionists of Great Britain.

In pursuance of this object he sailed from New York on the first day of this month, thirty-four years ago. He went with the execrations of the leading Colonizationists, and all the proslavery partisans of our country upon his head. He was received in England with the utmost cordiality and respectful confidence by all the friends of liberty; for although, as he found, many of them had been persuaded by the agents of the Colonization Society to give their approval and aid to that scheme, they had done so because they had been made to believe that it was intended and adapted to effect the entire abolition of slavery in the United States.

Nothing could have been more opportune than was his arrival in London. He found there most of the leading Abolitionists of the United Kingdom watching and aiding the measures in Parliament about to issue in the emancipation of the enslaved in the British West India Islands. He was invited to their councils, and interchanged opinions freely and fully with them on the great questions, which were essentially the same in that country and our own. It was especially his privilege to become acquainted with William Wilberforce and Thomas Clarkson and Fowell Buxton and George Thompson, to name no more of the noble host that had fought the battles and won the victory of freedom for eight hundred thousand slaves. He was there when William Wilberforce was summoned to lay aside his earthly life, with his antislavery armor, and ascend, we trust, to the right hand of God. How appropriate that the young leader of the Abolitionists of America, whose work had just begun, should be present, as he was, at the obsequies of the veteran leader of the British Abolitionists just as their work was done!

Mr. Garrison remained in England three or four months, long enough to accomplish fully the object of his mission. He reached New York on the 30th of the following September, bringing with him this emphatic protest, signed by the most distinguished philanthropists, and several of the most distinguished statesmen of Great Britain:—

“We, the undersigned, having observed with regret that the American Colonization Society appears to be gaining some adherents in this country, are desirous to express our opinions respecting it. Our motive and excuse for thus coming forward are the claims which that Society has put forth to Antislavery support. These claims are, in our opinion, wholly groundless; and we feel bound to affirm that our deliberate judgment and conviction are that the professions made by the Colonization Society of promoting the abolition of slavery are delusive....

“While we believe its precepts to be delusive we are convinced that its real effects are of the most dangerous nature. It takes its root from a cruel prejudice and alienation in the whites of America against the colored people, slave or free. This being its source, its effects are what might be expected....

“On these grounds, therefore, and while we acknowledge the colony of Liberia, or any other colony on the coast of Africa, to be in itself a good thing, we must be understood utterly to repudiate the principles of the American Colonization Society. That Society is, in our estimation, not deserving of the countenance of the British public.

(Signed)
“Wm. Wilberforce,
Zachary Macaulay,
William Evans, M. P.,
Samuel Gurney,
S. Lushington, M. P.,
T. Fowell Buxton, M. P.,
James Cropper,
Daniel O’Connell, M. P.,”
and others.

Nothing could have maddened the slaveholders and their Northern abettors more than Mr. Garrison’s success in England, and their malignant, ferocious hatred of him broke out on his return. It so happened that, without any expectation of his arrival at the time, a meeting of those desirous of the abolition of slavery was called, on the evening of October 2, in Clinton Hall, to organize a city society. When it was known that Mr. Garrison would be present, most of the New York newspapers teemed with exciting articles, and an advertisement, signed “Many Southerners,” summoned “all persons interested in the subject” to be present at the same time and place. The Abolitionists, aware that a meeting at Clinton Hall would be broken up, quietly withdrew to Chatham Street Chapel, and had nearly completed the organization of the “New York City Antislavery Society,” when the mob of slaveholding patriots, disappointed of their prey at Clinton Hall, and finding out the retreat of the Abolitionists, rushed upon and dispersed them from Chatham Street Chapel, with horrid cries of detestation and threats of utmost violence, especially aimed at Mr. Garrison, of whom they went in search from place to place, declaring their determination to wreak upon him their utmost vengeance. Mr. Garrison, secure in their ignorance of his person, and curious to learn all he might of the mistaken notions and corrupt principles by which they were misled and driven to such excesses, went around with them in their bootless pursuit until he was tired, and the fire of their fury had cooled.

The New York newspapers, especially the Courier and Inquirer, the Gazette, Evening Post, and Commercial Advertiser, by their half-way condemnation of this outrage, and their gross misrepresentations of the sentiments and purposes of Mr. Garrison and his fellow-laborers, virtually justified that fearful assault upon “the liberty of speech,” and inauguration of “the Reign of Terror,” of which I shall hereafter give my readers some account.

THE CONVENTION AT PHILADELPHIA.

The publication of Mr. Garrison’s “Thoughts on Colonization” had arrested the attention of philanthropists in all parts of our country. Everywhere, public as well as private discussions were had respecting the professed and the real purpose and tendency of the Colonization plan. Converts to the great doctrine of the young Reformer—“Immediate emancipation without expatriation, the right of the slave and the duty of the master”—were added daily. Tidings came to us that many town and several county antislavery societies had been formed in several States of the Union, and the circulation of the Liberator had greatly increased. There was a growing feeling that Abolitionists of the whole country ought to know each other, devise some plan of co-operation, and make their influence more manifest. Repeatedly during the spring of 1833 Mr. Garrison expressed his opinion that the time had come for the formation of a National Antislavery Society.