B. G. Lovejoy.
[Since his residence in London as Ambassador to the Court of St. James and his resignation from the position of Secretary of State, Col. Hay has divided his time between Washington and his summer home at Lake Sunapee, in New Hampshire.—Editors.]
THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON
THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON
AT CAMBRIDGE
Colonel Higginson looks back on the anti-slavery period as on something quite unusual in human experience. He believes there has been no other movement of the moral consciousness in man since the period of the Puritan upheaval which has given such mental quickening and force to those taking part in it. He sees in it the better part of his training as an author; and it has guided him in his relations to the social and intellectual agitations of his time. His training as a reformer he cannot forget; and he still remains first of all the friend of human progress. In 1850, he lost his pulpit in Newburyport because of his zealous advocacy of the anti-slavery cause, in season and out of season. At the same time, he was the Freesoil candidate for Congress in the northeastern district of Massachusetts. He became the pastor of a Free Church in Worcester, not connected with any sect, and organized quite as much in behalf of freedom in politics as for the sake of freedom in religion. He was connected with all the most stirring anti-slavery scenes in Boston, and he eagerly favored physical resistance to the encroachments of the pro-slavery party. He joined in the Anthony Burns riot, in which he was wounded, and which failed only through a misunderstanding. He was a leader in organizing Freesoil parties for Kansas, and spent six weeks in the Territory in that behalf. He was one of those who planned a party for the rescuing of John Brown after his sentence at Harper’s Ferry; and he early offered his services to the Governor of Massachusetts on the breaking out of the Civil War. His zeal for the blacks was so well known, that it inspired the following lines of some anonymous poetizer:
There was a young curate of Worcester
Who could have a command if he’d choose ter;
But he said each recruit
Must be blacker than soot
Or else he’d go preach where he used ter!
In fact, he recruited two companies in the vicinity of Worcester, and was given a captain’s commission. While yet in camp he received the appointment to the colonelcy of the First South Carolina Volunteers—“the first slave regiment mustered into the service of the United States during the late Civil War,”—nearly six months previous to Colonel Shaw’s famous regiment, the 54th Mass. Volunteers.
Col. Higginson signed the first call, in 1850, for a national convention of the friends of woman’s suffrage, which was held in Worcester. One of the leaders of that movement since, his fifteen-years’ defence of it in the columns of The Woman’s Journal shows the faithfulness of his devotion. His connection with the Free Religious Association proves that he has been true to the faith of his youth, and to his refusal to connect himself with any sect in entering the pulpit. When that association lost its pristine glow and devotion, with the passing of the transcendental period, he still remained faithful to his early idea, that all religious truth comes by intuition. His addresses before it on “The Sympathy of Religions” and on “The Word Philanthropy” indicate the direction of his faith in humanity and in its development into ever better social, moral, and spiritual conditions.
Whatever the value of the independent movement in politics, which has given us a change in the political administration of the country for the first time in a quarter of a century, it doubtless owes its inception and strength largely to those men, like Curtis, Higginson, and Julian, who were enlisted heart and soul in the anti-slavery agitation, and who got there a training which has made them impatient of party manipulation and wrong-doing. Had these men not been trained to believe in man more than in party, there would have been no independent organization and no revolution in our politics. In 1880, Colonel Higginson was on the committee of one hundred for the organization of a new party in case Grant was nominated for a third term; and four years previously he placed himself in line with the Independents. In 1884, he was the mover of the resolution in the Boston Reform Club for the calling of a convention, out of which grew the independent movement of that year. The resolutions reported by him were taken up in the New York convention and the spirit of them carried to successful issue. He was a leading speaker for the Independents during the campaign, giving nearly thirty addresses in the States of Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey. The chairman of the Massachusetts committee wrote him after the campaign of the great value of his services, and thanked him in the most flattering terms in behalf of the Independents of the State.
Colonel Higginson is an author who finds his intellectual inspiration in contact with Nature and man, as well as in books. His essays on out-door life, and on physical culture, show the activity of his nature and his zeal for all kinds of knowledge. He easily interests himself in all subjects; he can turn his mind readily from one pursuit to another, and he enjoys all with an equal relish. He has a love of mathematics such as few men possess; and, when in college, Professor Peirce anticipated that would be the direction of his studies. During the time of the anti-slavery riots he one day met the Professor in the street, and remarked to him that he should enjoy an imprisonment of several months for the sake of the leisure it would give him to read La Place’s “Mécanique Céleste.” “I heartily wish you might have that opportunity,” was the Professor’s reply; for he disliked the anti-slavery agitation as much as he loved his own special line of studies. Colonel Higginson has also been an enthusiastic lover of natural history, and he could easily have given his life to that pursuit. Perhaps not less ardent has been his interest in the moral and political sciences, to the practical interpretation of which his life has always been more or less devoted. Not only has he been the champion of the reforms already mentioned, but he has been the zealous friend of education. For three years a member of the Massachusetts State Board of Education, he has also been on the visiting committees of Harvard University and the Bridgewater Normal School for several years. He was in the Massachusetts Legislature during 1880 and 1881. He has been an active member of the Social Science Association; and he is now the President of the Round Table Club of Boston, which grew out of that organization.