1848. Ante, 2: 106. John Cod man. Leonard Woods. Heman seldom found in any land. He was, moreover, a doctor of CHAP.VIII. divinity-by title, one of the class so correctly described by the intrepid reprover, Isaiah (lvi. 10). But, though a D. D., he was not a 'dumb dog.' Probably no one cared for titles less than himself. Compare him, in moral intrepidity, in popular usefulness, in reformatory labors, with the Rev. Dr. Codman, Rev. Dr. Woods, Rev. Dr. Humphrey, and a host of others, and what pigmies they are by his side! His preeminence was not intellectual-for he had not an extraordinary intellect but moral, religious, humane, in the largest and best use of those terms. He was utterly divorced from bigotry and sectarism. He believed in eternal progress, and therefore never stood still, but went onward—if not rapidly, without faltering. He changed his views and positions from time to time, but only to advance never to retreat. Theologically, he is to be regarded as a prodigy on the score of independent investigation and free utterance. In this field, his labors cannot be overestimated. Humphrey. "Again-he moved in a wealthy and an aristocratic circle, or rather was surrounded by those who are the last to sympathize with outcast humanity, or to believe that any good thing can come out of Nazareth. To write and speak on the subject of slavery as he did-unsatisfactory as it was to the abolitionists, who yearned to have him take still higher ground - was, in his position, an act of true heroism and of positive self-sacrifice; and, for a time-extending almost to the hour of his death cost him the friendship of many whose good opinions nothing but a sense of duty could induce him to forfeit. The Unitarian denomination, as such, was deeply afflicted Ante, p. 24. and mortified at his abolition tendencies; and, in spite of its almost idolatrous attachment to him, it could scarcely be at peace with him. Now that he is dead and the times have greatly changed, there is nothing to which that denomination (especially when charged with being still pro-slavery) more complacently points, in the illustrious career of Dr. Channing, than to his efforts to extirpate slavery in the land. "Much to my regret, I had no personal acquaintance with this remarkable man, though I longed for at least a single interview. But the Liberator was not to his taste, and my manner of conducting the anti-slavery enterprise seemed to him harsh, repulsive, and positively injurious. As he never Ante, 1:466; expressed a wish to converse with me, I did not feel free to intrude myself upon his notice. For twelve years, he saw me VOL. III.-16 2:97, 98. CHAP. VIII. struggling against all that was evil in the land—in a cause worthy of universal acclaim-with fidelity and an unfaltering 1848. spirit- but during all that time he never conveyed to me, directly or indirectly, a word of cheer, or a whisper of encouragement. Consequently, we never met for an interchange of sentiments. Had we done so, though there is no probability that we should have seen eye to eye in all things, we might have been mutually benefited. I am sure that he misjudged my spirit, as well as misapprehended the philosophy of the anti-slavery reform; and I now think that I did not fully appreciate the difficulties of his situation or the peculiarities of his mind. His great mistake was it amounted almost to infatuation—in supposing that a national evil like that of slavery, two centuries old, which had subdued to itself all the religious and political elements, and which held omnipotent sway over the land, could be overthrown without a mighty convulsion, or even much agitation, if wisely and carefully treated. He thought that it was the manner and the spirit of the abolitionists, and not the object they sought to accomplish, that so greatly excited the country, especially the Southern portion of it; and so, to set them a good example-to show them how easily they might propitiate the slaveholders while pleading Ante, 1:439, for the emancipation of their slaves-he wrote his work on 466; 2:54, etc. slavery, the circulation of which was deemed incendiary at Cf. ante, the South, and the publication of which caused Gen. Waddy 1:466, 467; 2:57: and Thompson of South Carolina to exclaim, on the floor of ConLib. 23:154. gress, that 'Dr. Channing was playing second fiddle to GarriGeo. Thompson and Thompson.' This was an instructive experiment to the Doctor, and he did not fail to profit by it." 1 son. 1 In 1853, having occasion to review the incident of his meeting with Dr. Channing at the State House (ante, 2: 96), Mr. Garrison wrote (Lib. 23 : 154): "When Dr. Channing took me by the hand, it was only an act of ordinary civility on his part, as he did not catch my name, and did not know me personally; and, therefore, meant nothing at all by it. No interchange of opinions took place between us on that occasion. If, afterward [as reported by Miss Martineau], on ascertaining distinctly who it was that had been introduced to him, he remarked that he was not the less happy to have shaken hands with' me, I can only say that never, at any subsequent period, to the hour of his death, did he intimate a desire to see me again ; and neither by accident nor design did we ever again meet each other face to face. The truth is, I was no favorite of Dr. Channing, at any time. He never gave me one word of counsel or encouragement. He never invited me to see him, that he might understand, from my own lips, my real feelings and purposes, and afford me the benefit of his experience and advice. My early, faithful, clear-sighted friend, Prof. Follen, tried to induce him to 1848. Apr. 20, 1848; Lib. In Theodore Parker Mr. Garrison found the accessibility CHAP. VIII. and sympathy which were lacking in Dr. Channing; and a colleague in the anti-slavery and other philanthropic causes; a preacher, too, whose discourses gave him moral and intellectual satisfaction, and of whose slender congregation he now virtually became a member, without theological profession or attachment. More intimately still, in April of this year, on the death of his loved infant, Elizabeth Pease, he naturally turned to Mr. Parker for ministrations of comfort which were gladly rendered at the funeral. "No strange thing," he wrote to this clergyman on the morning of the fatal day, "has happened unto us, in view of human mortality-nothing dark or mysterious; yet we feel our bereavement deeply and tenderly." The grief of the parents over this first inroad on their little flock was softened by the birth of another child — their last― on October 29, 1848. Him, for weighty reasons of friendship and of obligation, they named after Francis Jackson. make my acquaintance, believing it would be mutually serviceable; but he never manifested any desire to do so. Of this, I never made any complaint. My self-respect and strong sense of propriety would not allow me to thrust myself upon his attention, or the notice of any other public man. I do not think he cherished toward me any personal unkindness-far from it. But my mode of dealing with slavery and its abettors was very distasteful to him; and between my philosophy of reform and his own there was a very great difference, the difference between principle and sentiment. His nerves were delicately strung. The sound of a ram's horn was painfully distressing to him. He was firmly persuaded that nothing but a silver trumpet was needed to cause the walls of Jericho to fall; and so he did his best upon his own. 18:67. MS. CHAP. IX. 1849. CHAPTER IX. FATHER MATHEW.-1849. HE historian of the anti-slavery cause THE 1 or of the country-for the year we have now reached, must tell of the two great tides of feeling and passion surging from North to South and from South to North, over the question of the Federal Territories. Should the Wilmot Proviso secure to California and New Mexico 1 the freedom decreed them by the country from which they had been torn; should the Missouri Compromise line of 1820 be extended to the Pacific; or should the contention of the Southern extremists prevail, viz., that slave property had, equally with all other kinds of property, a right to be taken into any part of the national domain not definitively organized and admitted as one of the States of the Union? Should, again, the renewed efforts, described in the last. Ante, p. 236. chapter, to purge the seat of the national Government of the sin and scandal of slaveholding and slave-trading succeed, or be resisted even to the death of the Union. itself? Lib. 19:5, 6, 19, 27, 41,62. In the winter months of 1848-49 the North as a whole 9,10,13,14 stood firm in its pledge to non-extension of slavery and emancipation in the District. On the other hand the Lib. 19:1, 5, South, through its legislatures and other organs of public opinion, was more truly unanimous in pronouncing for disunion in case either article of this programme should triumph in Congress. In spite of some reluctance in the 14, 25, 27, 29. 1 Not merely the area we now know by that name, but nearly the whole of Arizona, with parts of Nevada and Colorado. See Map XV., Statistical Atlas U. S. Census, 1880. Lib. 19:2, 10, 14, 18. caucus of Southern delegates to take this menacing posi- Ante, p. 236. tion, Calhoun's influence was paramount, and his Address in their name to their constituents was put forth, in the vain hope, by working upon Northern fears, to force the Lib. 19:41. organization of California without the Proviso. It was, however, but a feeble document even in a rhetorical point of view, and did not march boldly up to the remedy of secession. As to slavery, it affirmed that the free and servile races at the South "cannot be separated, and Lib. 19:18. cannot live together in peace and harmony, or to their mutual advantage, except in their present relation"; for suffrage would follow in the train of emancipation, and the white race then become subject. Lib. 19:2. Lib. 19:41. Lib. 19:77. May 14, 15. Νου. Ι, 1849; Lib. The closing of the Thirtieth Congress, with the prayer of California for a free constitution unheeded, but also with no legislation to the contrary, leaving the situation unchanged, was not calculated to allay the excitement at the South. Armed immigration to that Territory was set on foot. In May a practical disunion convention was held at Columbia, S. C., and gave its approval to Calhoun's Address. In November a similar body assembled at Jackson, Miss.; and, in advance of the opening of the Thirtyfirst Congress, the Governors of Tennessee, Georgia, and Lib. 19:181, Alabama took, in their messages, corresponding ground as representatives of Southern sentiment. A little later, joint committees of the legislatures of Georgia and South Lib. 20:5. Carolina applied the secession screw to Northern doughfaces, in resolutions fit to precipitate a crisis if the new Congress should not prove more subservient than the last. 19:185. 193. Ante, pp. 59, Another cause helped to keep the South fretful and heated: the escape of slaves to the North was reaching alarming proportions, and recovery was blocked by the "personal liberty" laws whose passage, at the instance of the abolitionists, has been noticed in the several States. This was particularly felt along the border, in Maryland, Virginia, and in the Ohio Valley. In the Virginia Legislature, Pennsylvania's withdrawal of State aid to kidnap- Lib. 19:1. Lib. 18:23. 92, 216; Lib. 19:1, 153. |