William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879: The Story of His Life Told by His ... - Wendell Phillips Garrison - Google Books

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TABLE OF CONTENTS.

THE BEGINNING OF THE END.

CHAPTER I.-RE-FORMATION AND REANIMATION (1841, ...1-42

Actively accused of infidelity, on both sides of the Atlantic,

Garrison restates his religious belief, but attends the closing

sessions of the Chardon-Street Convention. He labors dili-

gently in the field to revive the anti-slavery organization—

with Frederick Douglass at Nantucket, with N. P. Rogers in

New Hampshire. He begins to entertain disunion views.

Alienation and hostility of Isaac Knapp.

CHAPTER II.- THE IRISH ADDRESS (1842)

A monster anti-slavery Address to Irish-Americans, headed

by O'Connell, leader of the Repeal agitation in Ireland, tests

the pro-slavery spirit of Irish Catholicism in the United

States. Garrison comes out openly for the Repeal of the

Union of North and South, runs up this banner in the Lib-

erator, and launches the debate in the anti-slavery societies.

He makes a lecturing tour in Western New York, and falls

desperately ill on his return home. Death of his brother

CHAPTER III.—THE “COVENant with DeaTH” (1843).....81-95

After a summer at the water-cure, Garrison makes his home

in Boston, and renews with vigor the disunion campaign. He

is followed by the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society in pro-

nouncing the Constitution "a covenant with death and an

agreement with hell." He is made President of the Ameri-

can Society, of which the direction passes over to Boston.

CHAPTER IV.-"NO UNION WITH SLAVEHOLDERS!" (1844) 96-133

The American Anti-Slavery Society and the New England

Convention formally adopt Garrison's disunion doctrine, not

without individual protests and withdrawals. Breach with

CHAPTER V.-TEXAS (1845)...

Garrison joins in the Massachusetts movement of the Con-

science Whigs against the annexation of Texas, but their

disunionism oozes away after the event.

CHAPTER VI.— THIRD MISSION TO ENGLAND (1846)........150-186

In response to an invitation from the Glasgow Emancipation

Society, Garrison revisits Great Britain to join in the anti-

slavery crusade against the Free Church of Scotland, for

its collusion with American slaveholders. He speaks, with

Thompson and Douglass, incessantly throughout the United

Kingdom and Ireland; attends the World's Temperance

Convention; helps form an Anti-Slavery League; and de-

molishes the pro-slavery Evangelical Alliance. He pays a last

visit to Clarkson, who shortly dies.

CHAPTER VII.-FIRST WESTERN TOUR (1847)........

A too laborious lecture engagement with Frederick Douglass

begins in midsummer in Pennsylvania, and ends, at Cleve-

land, Ohio, with Garrison's prostration with fever, at the im-

minent peril of his life.

CHAPTER VIII.—THE ANTI-SABBATH CONVENTION (1848) 218-243

In view of active Sabbatarian propagandism, and of the

constant efforts of the clergy to put obstacles in the way of

Sunday abolition meetings, Garrison plans with H. C. Wright

an Anti-Sabbath Convention in Boston, draws up the call,

and directs the proceedings. He watches the rise of the

Free Soil Party. Review of the Life of Channing.

CHAPTER IX.-FATHER MATHEW (1849).....

Father Mathew, having visited Boston on his temperance

mission to the United States, is invited by the Massachusetts

Anti-Slavery Society to renew his testimony against slavery

(as a signer of the Irish Address of 1842) at a celebration

of British West India Emancipation. Garrison drafts and

presents the invitation, but is met with shuffling and refusal.

He exposes this behavior in the Liberator, and makes Father

Mathew's Southern tour both easy and difficult. Death of

Charles Follen Garrison. Garrison vindicates free discussion

of the Bible in the Liberator.

CHAPTER X.- THE RYNDERS MOB (1850)..

The New York Herald incites popular violence against the

anniversary meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society

in that city. Garrison presides, and speaks with the utmost

composure in the midst of a mob led by a local bully, with

the connivance of the city authorities. Second visit of

George Thompson to America.

CHAPTER XI.-GEORGE THOMPSON, M. P. (1851).... .313-338

Thompson renews his old triumphs in the Eastern and Mid-

dle States, and takes a leading part in the celebration of the

twentieth anniversary of the founding of the Liberator, at

which a gold watch is presented to Garrison.

CHAPTER XII.- KOSSUTH (1852)..........

The Hungarian refugee comes to the United States seek-

ing national aid for his country. Fully informed in advance

of the existence of slavery and the dominance of the Slave

Power, he affects neutrality and flatters the South. Garri-

son, on behalf of the American Anti-Slavery Society, ex-

poses him in an elaborate Letter. 'Uncle Tom's Cabin'

CHAPTER XIII. THE BIBLE CONVENTION (1853)......378-401

Garrison revisits the West, and attends a large number of

conventions; in particular, that at Hartford, Conn., to dis-

cuss the authority of the Scriptures, called by Andrew Jack-

son Davis, and mobbed by divinity students. His reputation

among sectarians on both sides of the Atlantic suffers a still

further decline. Friendly correspondence as to his heresy

with Harriet Beecher Stowe.

CHAPTER XIV.—THE NEBRASKA BILL (1854).................... 402–414

The abrogation of the Missouri Compromise produces a

powerful reaction at the North, by which the abolitionists

profit in respect of greater freedom of speech. Garrison

emphasizes his doctrine of disunion by publicly burning the

Constitution on the Fourth of July.

CHAPTER XV.- THE PERSONAL LIBERTY LAW (1855)..415-433

Massachusetts, at the instigation of the abolitionists, makes

its Personal Liberty Law more stringent in obstruction of the

Fugitive Slave Law. Celebration of the twentieth anniver-

sary of the mobbing of Garrison in Boston by men of

property and standing."

CHAPTER XVI.—FRÉMONT (1856)...

The pro-slavery atrocities in Kansas do not cause Garrison

to regard the border-ruffian otherwise than as a fellow-man,

or to view the newly formed Republican Party as an aboli-

tion organization. But, as between Frémont and Buchanan

or Fillmore, he wishes success to the Republican candidate

CHAPTER XVII.—THE DISUNION CONVENTION (1857)..448-464

The Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society celebrates its

twenty-fifth anniversary. Garrison takes part in a Dis-

union Convention held at Worcester under the auspices of

T. W. Higginson and other residents of that city. Another

and more representative convention at Cleveland is pro-

jected, but is abandoned in view of the financial panic. The

Dred Scott decision of the U. S. Supreme Court intervenes.

CHAPTER XVIII.—THE IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT (1858)

Both Seward and Lincoln overtake Garrison's declaration (as
far back as 1840) of the irreconcilability of freedom and
slavery. Conviction seizes upon many abolitionists that the
conflict will end only in blood. Garrison deprecates the idea,
and washes his hands of all responsibility for such a ter-
mination.

CHAPTER XIX.-JOHN BROWN (1859)..

Garrison notes the Republican party's falling off in principle

in view of its approaching electoral triumph; yet judges it

fairly in accordance with its own standards. He justifies John

Brown's Virginia raid by the Bunker Hill code, and, as a

non-resistant, disarms him only while disarming the slave-

CHAPTER XX.— ABRAHAM LINCOLN (1860)..............

Seward retracts his "irrepressible conflict" for the sake of

the Presidency, and falls under the censure of Garrison, as

does the Republican Party for its platform. The Demo-

cratic Party breaks in two at Charleston, and Lincoln is

elected President. Garrison hails the secession of South

Carolina as the end of the old Union and of slavery.

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