On the evening of that sad day, while the rioters were yet patrolling the city, exulting over their shameful deeds, and threatening the persons and property of the Abolitionists, Francis Jackson, called upon Miss Mary Parker, the truly devout and brave President of the Boston Female Antislavery Society, and renewed the offer of his dwelling in the following letter of invitation:—
“To the Ladies of the Boston Female Antislavery Society.
“Having with deep regret and mortification observed the manner in which your Society has been treated by a portion of the community, especially by some of our public journals, and approving as I do most cordially the objects of your association, I offer you the use of my dwelling-house in Hollis Street for the purpose of holding your annual meeting, or for any other meeting.
“Such accommodations as I have are at your service, and I assure you it would afford me great pleasure to extend this slight testimony of my regard for a Society whose objects are second to none other in the city.
“With great respect,
“Francis Jackson.”
This heroic act thrilled with joy the hearts of the “faithful,” and inspired them with new courage. For two or three years Mr. Jackson had evinced a deep interest in the antislavery cause, but we did not suspect that he had so much Roman virtue.
His invitation was gratefully accepted, and due notices were published in the usual form that the meeting would be held at his house on the 19th of November. Renewed efforts were made by our opposers to create another excitement. The air was filled with threats. But the editors of the newspapers did not come up to the work as before. Fewer prominent gentlemen encouraged “the baser sort,” and therefore the mob did not come out in its strength. About a hundred and thirty ladies and four gentlemen gathered at the time appointed in Mr. Jackson’s house, and were not molested on the way thither or while there, excepting by a few insulting epithets and an occasional ribald shout.
It was an intensely interesting meeting, conducted in the usual manner with the utmost propriety;[E] and an air of unfeigned solemnity was thrown over it by the consciousness of the dense cloud of malignant hatred that was hanging over us, and which might again burst upon us in some cruel outrage.
Among the ladies present were the celebrated Miss Harriet Martineau, of England, and her very intelligent travelling companion, Miss Jeffrey. At the right moment, when the regular business of the meeting had been transacted, Ellis Gray Loring, from the beginning a leading Abolitionist,—and one whose lead it was always well to follow, for he was a very wise, a single-hearted, and most conscientious man,—Mr. Loring handed me a slip of paper for Miss Martineau, on which was written an earnest request that she would then favor the meeting with some expression of her sympathy in the objects of the association. She immediately rose and said, with cordial earnestness: “I had supposed that my presence here would be understood as showing my sympathy with you. But as I am requested to speak, I will say what I have said through the whole South, in every family where I have been, that I consider slavery inconsistent with the law of God, and incompatible with the course of his providence. I should certainly say no less at the North than at the South concerning this utter abomination, and now I declare that in your principles I fully agree.”
Hitherto Miss Martineau had received from the élite of Boston very marked attentions. She had been treated with great respect, as one so distinguished for her literary works and philanthropic labors deserved to be. But from the day of that meeting, and because of the words she uttered there, she was slighted, rejected, and in various ways made to understand that she had given great offence to “the best society in that metropolis.”
Two days afterwards the Board of Managers of the Massachusetts Antislavery Society directed me, their Corresponding Secretary, by a unanimous vote, to express to Mr. Jackson the very high sense which they entertained of his generosity and noble independence in proffering, as he had done unsolicited, the use and protection of his dwelling-house to the Boston Female Antislavery Society, when they had just been expelled by lawless violence from a public hall.
My letter, written immediately in pursuance of this vote, drew from Mr. Jackson the following reply, which, considering the place where and the time when it was written, as well as its intrinsic excellence, deserves to be preserved among the most precious deposits in the Temple of Impartial Liberty, whenever such a structure shall be reared upon earth.
“Boston, November 25, 1835.
“Dear Sir,—I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your highly esteemed letter of the 21st inst., written in behalf of the Managers of the Massachusetts Antislavery Society, and expressing in very flattering terms their approbation of my conduct in granting to the ladies of the Antislavery Society the use of my dwelling-house for their Annual Meeting.
“That meeting was a most interesting and impressive one. It will ever be treasured by me, among the most pleasing recollections of my life, that it was my good fortune to extend to those respectable ladies the protection of my roof after they had been reviled, insulted, and driven from their own hall by a mob.
“But in tendering them the use of my house, sir, I not only had in view their accommodation, but also, according to my humble measure, to recover and perpetuate the right of free discussion, which has been shamefully trampled on. A great principle has been assailed,—one which lies at the very foundation of our republican institutions.
“If a large majority of this community choose to turn a deaf ear to the wrongs which are inflicted upon millions of their countrymen in other portions of the land,—if they are content to turn away from the sight of oppression, and ‘to pass by on the other side,’ so it must be.
“But when they undertake in any way to annul or impair my right to speak, write, and publish my thoughts upon any subject, more especially upon enormities which are the common concern of every lover of his country and his kind, so it must not be,—so it shall not be, if I can prevent it. Upon this great right let us hold on at all hazards. And should we, in its exercise, be driven from public halls to private dwellings, one house at least shall be consecrated to its preservation. And if in defence of this sacred privilege, which man did not give me, and shall not (if I can help it) take from me, this roof and these walls shall be levelled to the earth, let them fall! If it must be so, let them fall! They cannot crumble in a better cause. They will appear of very little value to me after their owner shall have been whipped into silence.
“Mobs and gag-laws, and the other contrivances by which fraud or force would stifle inquiry, will not long work well in this community. They betray the essential rottenness of the cause they are meant to strengthen. These outrages are doing their work with the reflecting.
“Happily, one point seems to be gaining universal assent, that slavery cannot long survive free discussion. Hence the efforts of the friends and apologists of slavery to break down this right. And hence the immense stake which the enemies of slavery hold, in behalf of freedom and mankind, in the preservation of this right. The contest is therefore substantially between liberty and slavery.
“As slavery cannot exist with free discussion, so neither can liberty breathe without it. Losing this, we shall not be freemen indeed, but little, if at all, superior to the millions we are now seeking to emancipate.
“With the highest respect,
“Your friend,
“Francis Jackson.“Rev. S. J. May, Cor. Sec. Mass. A. S. S.”