I am most happy to conclude this narrative by stating, because it is so highly honorable to Rev. Charles Fitch, the author of the Appeal, that some time afterwards he saw and frankly confessed his fault. On the 9th of January, 1840, in a letter addressed to Mr. Garrison, after a very proper introduction to such a confession, Mr. Fitch said:—
“I feel bound in duty to say to you, sir, that to gain the good will of man was the only object I had in view in everything which I did relative to the ‘Clerical Appeal.’ As I now look back upon it, in the light in which it has of late been spread before my own mind (as I doubt not by the Spirit of God), I can clearly see that in all that matter I had no regard for the glory of God or the good of man. If you can make any use of this communication that you think will be an honor to Him, or a service to the cause of truth, dispose of it at your pleasure.”
It surely will do good to republish this magnanimous, noble, Christian confession of the wrong that was attempted to be done by that “Clerical Appeal.”
DR. CHARLES FOLLEN.
The name of Dr. Follen will send a grateful thrill through the memory of every one who really knew him. He was a dear son of God, and attracted all but such as were repulsed by the spirit of righteousness and freedom. He was a native of that country which gave birth to Luther. The light of civil and religious liberty kindled in Wittenberg shone upon his cradle. He was the son of Protestant parents, and received a religious education with little reference to the dogmas of any sect. He was born in the early years of the French Revolution,—that event which at first revived the hopes of the oppressed subjects of European despots. The Germans, especially those of the smaller members of the Confederacy, hailed the prospect of more liberal institutions in France as the harbinger of a better day for themselves. Charles Follen was just then at the age to receive into the depths of his soul the generous sentiments that were uttered by the purest, best men of Germany. His father, an enlightened civilian and liberal Christian, encouraged the growing ardor of his son in the cause of freedom and humanity.
When, therefore, the German States, finding themselves deceived by Bonaparte, united with one accord to oppose him, Charles Follen, then a student at the University of Giesen, and only nineteen years of age, came forward to act his first public part in the great struggle for civil liberty. He entered the allied army in a volunteer corps of young men, and endured the fatigues and incurred the dangers of those battle-fields, on which were witnessed the death-throes of the first Napoleon’s ambition. I have heard him describe his feelings, and what he believed to be the feelings of his youthful comrades, in that so-called “holy war of the people.” They refused to wear the trappings of soldiers. They needed not “the pomp and circumstance of war” to rouse or sustain the purpose of their souls. They came into the field of mortal strife as men, not soldiers, to contend for liberty, not laurels. Whenever he spoke of that momentous period of his life, a solemnity came over the calm, sweet face of Dr. Follen, his utterance was subdued, his whole frame pervaded by a deep emotion, so that, much as I differed from him in my opinion of that resort to carnal weapons, I could not doubt that he had thrown himself into the dread conflict with a self-sacrificing, I had almost said, a holy spirit. Körner, “the patriot poet of Germany,” was his personal friend, and it is a touching incident that some of his last mental efforts were most successful translations into our language of the breathing thoughts and burning words of that enthusiast of liberty.
Although the issue of the French Revolution cast down the hope of the friends of freedom, that hope was not destroyed. True they had been deceived. But they could not doubt that freedom was a reality, the birthright of man. When, therefore, the real design of the self-styled “Holy Alliance” between Russia, Austria, and Prussia became manifest, many of the choicest spirits who had united under their banner to overthrow the tyrant of France uprose to withstand them. None were more resolute, few became more conspicuous, than the still youthful Follen, who had scarcely entered upon his professional career. He boldly claimed for his fellow-subjects of Hesse Darmstadt a mitigation of the feudal tenures under which they were oppressed. Thus he incurred the displeasure of the Grand Duke. But the farmers of that country gratefully acknowledged the importance of his service in letters that are still extant.
In 1817, when twenty-two years of age, he took his degree of Doctor of Laws, and became a teacher in the University of Jena. Here he found an atmosphere congenial to his free spirit. The most distinguished professors there were friends of liberal institutions. And the Duke of Saxe-Weimar was for a while indulgent towards them. At Jena appeared the first periodical publications that disturbed the diplomatists of Frankfort and Vienna. To these publications Dr. Follen contributed, and, even among such men as Dr. Oken and Professors Fries and Luden, he distinguished himself as an advocate of the rights of man.
The sovereigns of Austria and Prussia were alarmed. The professors of the University at Jena were proscribed, and the young men of Austria and Prussia who were students there were required to leave the infected spot. The persecution of Dr. Follen was carried further. An attempt was made to involve him in the guilt of the deluded murderer of Kotzebue, “that unblushing hireling of the Russian Autocrat,” and he was arrested on the charge. He was fully exonerated, but the spirit which dictated his arrest made it uncomfortable for him to remain in Germany.
He went to Switzerland, the resort of the free spirits of that day, and was appointed Professor of Civil Law at the University of Basle. Here he continued, both in his lectures and through the press, to give utterance to his liberal opinions. Consequently, in August, 1824, the governments of Prussia, Austria, and Russia demanded of the government of Basle to deliver him up, with the other Professors of Law in their university. At first this demand was refused. But, being afterwards enforced by a threat of the serious displeasure of the allied powers, it was yielded to, and Dr. Follen was compelled to depart, with no reproach upon his character but that which was cast upon it by the enemies of freedom. Exiled from Germany as the dreaded foe of the oppressors of his country, hunted by the allied sovereigns out of Europe, as if their thrones were insecure while he dwelt on the same continent with themselves—surely the man who made himself such a terror to despots was entitled to a carte-blanche on the confidence of freemen!