Mr. Moseley, one of the committee, here spoke with much feeling; said he dissented wholly from the action of the Chairman. “I see nothing in the allusion to mobs disrespectful to the committee or the Legislature; and I consider Dr. Follen entirely in order.”
Some discussion ensued. Two others of the committee, making a majority, silently assented to the opinion of Mr. Lunt. So it was decided that the Doctor was out of order, and must not allude to mobs.
Here I called the attention of Mr. Lunt to the memorial, in answer to which we were permitted by the Legislature to appear before the committee, and they were instructed to hear us. “It seemed, on the fourth instant, that the Chairman considered that we came here by his grace to exculpate ourselves from the charges alleged against us by the Legislatures of several of the Southern States; and that we were not to be permitted to express our anxious apprehensions of the effects of any acts by our Legislature intended to gratify the wishes of those States. In order, therefore, that we might appear before you in the exercise of our right as free citizens, we have appealed to the Senate and House of Representatives, and have received their permission so to do. Dr. Follen was setting before you what we deem the most probable and most serious evil to be apprehended from any condemnatory resolutions which the Legislature might be induced to pass; and if he is not permitted to press this upon your consideration our interview with the committee must end here.” Mr. Lunt then consulted with his associates and intimated that Dr. Follen might proceed. He did so, and having referred to the disastrous influence of the great meeting in Faneuil Hall, August, 1835, and of the condemnatory resolutions there passed, he showed clearly that far greater outrages upon the property and persons of Abolitionists would be likely to follow the passage of similar resolutions by the Legislature of the Commonwealth.
Rev. William Goodell then arose and made a most able and eloquent speech. He ignored for the time being all the personal dangers and private wrongs of the Abolitionists; he set aside for the moment the consideration of everything else but the imminent peril that seemed to be impending over the very life of liberty in our country. “For what, Mr. Chairman,” said he, “are Abolitionists accused by the Southern States, and our own Legislature called upon to condemn them? For nothing else but exercising and defending the inalienable rights of the people. What have we said that is not said in your Declaration of Independence? and why are we censured for carrying into practice what others have been immortalized as patriots for writing and adopting? In censuring us you censure the Father of our Country. I turn to the portrait of Washington as it looks upon us in this hall, and remind you how he declared that he earnestly desired to see the time when slavery should be abolished. For saying this, and urging it upon our countrymen, the mandate has come from the South to stop our mouths, and we are here to avert the sentence our own Legislature is called upon to pronounce upon us.” Mr. Goodell then went on to quote the strongest antislavery sentiments uttered by President Jefferson, Chief Justice John Jay, and Hon. William Pinckney, a distinguished member of the Legislature of Maryland, the last in stronger language of condemnation than ever issued from an antislavery press. “Shall the men of the South speak thus, and we be compelled to hold our peace? Mr. Chairman, in this hour of my country’s danger, I should disdain to stand here pleading for my personal security. In behalf of my fellow-citizens throughout the land, I implore the Legislature of this Commonwealth to pause before they act on those documents of the South. What are they? A demand for the unconditional surrender to the South of the first principles of your Constitution, the surrender of your liberties. It is a blow particularly aimed at the independence of your laboring classes.” Mr. Goodell here quoted the declaration of Governor McDuffie and other distinguished Southern gentlemen, distinctly asserting the doctrine that “the laboring population of no nation on earth are entitled to liberty or capable of enjoying it.” “Mr. Chairman, we are charged with aiming at disunion, because we seek what only can save the Union. I charge upon those who promulgate the doctrines on your table, a deep and foul conspiracy against the liberties of the laboring people of the North.” Mr. Lunt here interrupted him.
“Mr. Goodell, I must interfere,” he said. “You must not charge other States with a foul conspiracy, nor treat their public documents with disrespect.” Mr. Goodell replied: “Something may be pardoned to a man when he speaks for the liberties of a nation.” Mr. Lunt continued: “The documents emanating from other States are required by our Federal Constitution to be received with full faith and credit here.” “Certainly, sir,” responded Mr. Goodell. “I wish them to be regarded as official, accredited documents, and I have referred to an accredited document from the Governor of South Carolina, in which he says, that the laborers of the North are incapable of understanding or enjoying freedom, that liberty in a free State best subsists with slavery, and that the laborers must be reduced to slavery, or the laws cannot be maintained. This, sir, is also a document entitled to full faith and credit,—holding up a report of the doings of the Legislature of South Carolina, in which they declared an entire accordance with Governor McDuffie in the sentiments expressed in his message.” Mr. Lunt here interposed with great warmth. “Stop, sir!” Mr. Goodell stopped, but remained standing. “Sit down, sir,” said Mr. Lunt; “the committee will hear no more of this.” Mr. Goodell said: “My duty is discharged, Mr. Chairman, if I cannot proceed in the way that seems to me necessary to bring our case properly before the committee and the Legislature. We came here as free men, and we will go away as freemen should.” Some one in the vast audience that had been watching our proceedings with intensest interest cried out, “Let us go quickly lest we be made slaves.” I here made one more appeal to Mr. Lunt. “Are we, sir, to be again denied our right of being heard in pursuance of our memorial to the Legislature?” The Chairman intimated that they had heard enough.
The audience here began to leave the hall, but were arrested by a voice in their midst. It was that of Dr. Gamaliel Bradford, not a member of the Antislavery Society, who had come there only as a spectator, but had been so moved by what he had witnessed that he pronounced an eloquent, thrilling, impassioned, but respectful appeal in favor of free discussion. I wish that I could spread the whole of it before my readers. So soon as he sat down Mr. George Bond, one of the most prominent merchants and estimable gentlemen of Boston, expressed a desire to say a few words to the committee. “I am not a petitioner nor an Abolitionist,” said he; “but, though opposed to some of the measures of these antislavery gentlemen, I hold to some opinions in common with them. If under these circumstances the committee will permit, I beg leave to offer a few remarks.” The Chairman preserved silence; but another member of the committee intimated to Mr. Bond that he might proceed. “It strikes me,” said Mr. Bond, “that this is a subject of deep and vital importance; and I fear as a citizen that the manner in which it has been treated by the committee will produce an excitement throughout the Commonwealth. With due respect to the committee, I beg leave to say that, from the little experience I have had in legislative proceedings, it is not the practice to require of persons, appearing before a committee, a strict conformity to rules. They are usually indulged in telling their own story in their own way, provided it be not disrespectful. I have certainly heard nothing from the gentlemen of the Antislavery Society that called for the course that has been adopted. It does seem to me that some of the committee have been too fastidious, too hypercritical.”
Mr. Lunt here broke out again. “Be careful, sir, what you say. The committee will not submit to it.” Mr. Bond replied: “I certainly have no wish to say anything unpleasant to the committee, but I cannot help regretting the course that has been taken to withhold a full hearing from the parties interested. They came here through their memorial, which had been received by the Legislature and referred to this committee, and I expected that the committee would have allowed them to say what they pleased, using proper language. If they state their case improperly, it will injure them and not the committee. I may be wrong, but I regret to see the grounds given for the gentlemen and their friends to say they have been denied a hearing. The action on this question here is of immense importance in the influence it may have, not only upon those who have appeared before the committee, but upon the Legislature, the community, the Commonwealth, and the whole country.” When Mr. Bond had closed, instead of proffering to us a further hearing, the committee broke up without a formal adjournment, the Chairman immediately retiring, conscious, as it seems to me he must have been, of the very general indignation which his conduct had excited. Just as he was leaving, Mr. Moseley, one of the committee, said to him, “I am not satisfied with your course. You have been wrong from the beginning. I will not sit again on such a committee.”
The large audience retired from the hall murmuring their astonishment, shame, indignation at the conduct of the Chairman. Many gentlemen and ladies, who had never shown us favor before, came to assure us that they had been led, by what they had heard and seen that afternoon, to take a new view of the importance of the great reform we were laboring to effect.
Nothing, however, gratified us so much as seeing Dr. Channing approach Mr. Garrison, whom until then he had appeared to avoid, shake him cordially by the hand, and utter some words of sympathy. From that time until his death the larger portion of his publications were upon the subject of slavery, increasing in earnestness and power to the last.
The conduct of the committee, especially the Chairman, was severely censured next day in the Senate by Hon. Mr. Whitmarsh, and other members of that body. Reports of our interviews were published and republished throughout the Commonwealth, and called out from almost every part of it condemnatory comments. Many were brought over to the antislavery faith, and our party became not a little significant in the estimation of the politicians. Governor Everett’s too evident inclination to yield to the insolent demands of the slaveholding oligarchy damaged him seriously in the confidence of his fellow-citizens, and, if I remember correctly, at the very next election he was beaten by the opposing candidate, whose sentiments on slavery were thought to be more correct than his.