The next three years were spent by James Garrison under his brother's roof, with a temporary stay at Brook- Ante, 2:358. lyn during the latter's journey to England. In the summer of 1841, he made a voyage to New Brunswick, to visit his relations. He had taken the pledge of total abstinence, but was betrayed by the captain into breaking it, yet on the whole kept steady until he landed in Boston in August. Then that fatality which seemed to him to have its iron grip upon him, suppressing every effort of his fallen manhood to rise again, brought him to the Liberator office during his brother's absence in New Hampshire. While the latter, with Rogers, was making Ante, p. 22. the woods of the White Mountains ring with the anthems of the free, or rejoicing in the conversion of their com- Ante, p. 22. panion from the smoker's habit, James Garrison for the thousandth time fell, a victim to circumstances: "Had I have come out home when I left the vessel, all perhaps would have been well. But no, it was not to be until the cup of my bitterness was full; and none but God and myself can tell what I have suffered in body and in mind for my rashness. A great number of the Ohio's, Macedonian's, and Grampus's ship's company being ashore, I had a great many old shipmates among them. Suffice to say, I was led on to destruction. Coming to my senses, I thought of you, of Helen, of Mary, Mother, and the Home (the only one I ever knew) [where] I had spent so many happy hours. The amount of suffering and expense I had caused you all, the breaking of my pledge, the promises I had made to reform — all rushed to my mind like the advancing roar of some mighty whirlwind. To drown those dreadful thoughts, I procured two ounces of laudanum, with a full determination to put a stop to my wretched existence." The attempted suicide was baffled, and once more, and to the end, the hapless man found a refuge in the home ever open to him in Cambridgeport. He lacked the nerve to tell his brother what had happened, so wrote a frank account, which he left on his table; his mind balancing between futile plans of engaging anew as a sailor, and a half-formed resolve still to make away with his hated life. Thus the affecting paper closed: MS. Mrs. Garri son; Mary Mrs. Sally Benson; Benson. MS. Mary Ben son; Mrs. Sally Benson; Mrs. Garrison. "I am not writing this to show you my good or evil qualities, for I am confident you know them all. But my only wonder is, how you can put up with such treatment even from a brother. I write without flattery, for I am well assured you know it yourself- there is no one, under such circumstances, who would receive under his threshold such a brother. How often and often has it been said to me in Boston, by men in good standing in life, and by those who have only heard of you by hearsay, 'James H. Garrison, I would give all I possess in this world to have such a brother.' But I have abused that brother's lenity, and how can I expect any clemency from his hands? "I do not ask it; but one boon I crave: Forget you ever had such a brother. To-morrow I go into Boston. I thank you for your kindness this last time, for when I came out, I was laboring under the mania potu and deliriums, and my hand is not steady yet. I have suffered, and that greatly, this last few nights, with that terrible disease, which none knows but those who have experienced it: it is horrid, indescribable! I am sorry for poor Mary, Mother, and Helen. I know their feelings are mortified, but what will they be when they see this? But as I do not wish to conceal anything from them, I must expect their condemnation on him who has acted so improperly. I hope they will receive my thanks for their past kindness, the remembrance of which I shall hold dear in this throbbing bosom while life retains its empire. What I have written is facts without exaggeration. My mind could not rest until I had told you all. I stated it in writing, as I could not do it verbally, my mind being too much agitated." The month in which James Garrison passed away was marked by two other deaths of much greater consequence. Lib. 12:159. On Sunday, October 2, Channing breathed his last at Bennington, Vt., 1 close beside the printing-office in which Garrison had pledged himself to Lundy to make the cause of abolition his life-work. His last public effort had been in behalf of the slave, for at Lenox, on August 1st, he delivered an admirable address in eulogy of West India emancipation and of the anti-slavery enterprise in his own Oct. 3, 1842; country. The next day, in Boston, Henry G. Chapman Lib. 12:159. died in his thirty-ninth year, with Roman philosophy : 1 In the present Walloomsac House. "I happened," wrote Edmund Quincy to Richard Webb, "to call not long after his departure, and was invited, as one who had long stood in the relation of a brother to the family, to the chamber of death. It was the most striking scene I ever beheld. The body was surrounded by the surviving family; Maria standing, with all the composure and peace of a guardian angel, at its head, and his venerable father seated in resignation at his feet. The serenity of Mrs. Chapman was as perfect as I had ever seen it, and she told all the little incidents of the last few hours with the utmost tranquillity. Her sisters were not all as calm as she, but they all felt the power of her peace upon them. MS. Jan. 29, 1843. Mrs. H. G. “At the funeral, she evinced the same tranquillity. Samuel J. May was invited to perform the usual services, at Chapman's request, not as a priest but as a friend, out of regard to the feelings of his father and mother. After he had made a prayer, S. J. May. Garrison, who had been told by Mrs. Chapman if he had any word to utter not to withhold it, made a very excellent address, to the no small astonishment of certain of the relatives, who had not looked for an anti-slavery lecture at such a time. Neither Mrs. C. nor any of the family put on mourning, which was a strange thing in a community where the chains of custom and public opinion are like links of iron. 66 A day or two afterwards, I went to town to see her, apprehending that when the excitement was over, a reaction might take place. But I found her in the same angelic peace that I had left her. She said she had no feeling of separation; that she had gone down with him to the brink of the River, and that he had gone over and she returned. And the household fell naturally back into its usual liveliness and helpfulness, without any effort or affectation." 1 M. W. Chapman. With one more death we close the chapter. The Non- Lib. 12: 107. Resistant expired, on June 29, 1842, for want of meansconclusive evidence that the Non-Resistance Society was Ante, 2:347. 1 Hardly a number of the Liberator in the last two months of 1842 but shows traces of Mrs. Chapman's preternatural activity with pen and in deed. During Mr. Garrison's illness, she helped to fill his editorial page, and yet found time to foment the Latimer agitation (ante, p. 66), and to direct, as usual, the Anti-Slavery Bazaar. In short, she illustrated anew the force of a lesson which she early learned from an old sea-captain. "Talk of fast sailers!" he would say. "I never saw a vessel that would sail without a great deal of assistance" (MS. May 23, 1840, M. W. Chapman to Louisa Loring). Lib. 12:171. Lib. 12:47, 143, 155; Herald of Freedom, 8:129. not identical with Garrisonian abolitionism.1 The Society, nevertheless, held its fourth annual meeting, and had already, in September, 1841, at Mr. Garrison's instance, authorized Henry C. Wright to go abroad as a sort of general missionary for the causes of peace, abolition, temperance, chastity, and a pure and equal Christianity. MS. Mar. The suspension of its organ, however, beyond hope of 26, 1843, E. Quincy to recovery, showed that the limit of organized growth had R.D. Webb. been reached, and that the millennial expectations of the Declaration of Sentiments must be fulfilled in some other form. "It does not follow," wrote Mr. Garrison in review Lib. 12:83. of Judge Jay's 'War and Peace,' "that the Almighty will crown with success all means and measures alike, for the furtherance of the cause of peace. It is not enough that we have a good cause; this will avail us little or nothing unless the principles which we advance and the measures which we adopt to carry it forward are just and appropriate." The most appropriate peace measure in America was clearly the abolition of slavery. Ante, 2:233, 234; also, 229. Cf. Lib. 14: [180]. 1 The absence of H. C. Wright in England was one of the causes of the lapse of the Non-Resistant; but chief was the fact that "our time, our means, our labors are so absorbed in seeking the emancipation of our enslaved countrymen, that we cannot do as much specifically and directly for non-resistance as it would otherwise be in our power to perform” (MS. Mar. 1, 1843, W. L. G. to H. C. Wright). "The A. S. cause misses you much even more than the N. R. cause (as far as they are separable). But I never could separate N. R. from my idea of reform generally. It is the temper of mind in which all enterprises for humanity should be undertaken, rather than a distinct enterprise of itself" (MS. Mar. 31, 1843, M. W. Chapman to H. C. Wright). "The [Non-Resistance] Society, I regret to say, has had only a nominal existence during the past year — and, indeed, ever since your departure. It is without an organ, without funds, without agents, without publications" (MS. Oct. 1, 1844, W. L. G. to H. C. Wright). CHAPTER III. THE "COVENANT WITH DEATH."-1843. R. GARRISON returned to his editorial duties in MR. 13: 10. His MS. Apr. 15, 1843, W. L. G. to G. W. Benson. the latter part of January, 1843, but his health Lib. was far from restored. He struggled on till June, when a mysterious distress in the left side again caused him grave apprehensions that he had not long to live. latest residence in Cambridgeport, though very healthfully situated, was associated with an extraordinary amount of sickness and fatality. As the lease would expire on July 1, it was decided to remove for the summer to the country, and no place offered such attractions as the Community at Northampton, Mass. isms, p. 154. This was the third of those original experiments by which Massachusetts, as J. H. Noyes says, "appears to Am. Socialhave anticipated the advent of Fourierism, and to have prepared herself for or against the rush of French ideas," throwing them out "on her three avenues of approach— Unitarianism [Brook Farm], Universalism [Hopedale], Ante, p. 25. and Nothingarianism." The Northampton Association of Education and Industry was, indeed, committed to no creed, not even to communism, as it was a joint-stock concern. All its prominent members were known personally to Mr. Garrison, who vouched for them as "among Lib. 12:143. the freest and best spirits of the age," when publishing their manifesto. Organization was effected on April 8, Noyes's Am. 1842, and as George W. Benson was one of the founders, the progress of the enterprise was constantly reported to his brother-in-law. "The subject of social reorganization," wrote the latter on December 16, 1843, to R. D. VOL. III.-6 81 Socialisms, p. 155. MS. |