1841.

Lib. 11:90. May 25, 1841.

CHAP. I. ity of individual to associated action" almost fatuous;1 and especially by the Transcendental wing, who pushed individualism to its furthest limits. Finally, some nonLib. 11:79. resistants were alarmed for their consistency when submitting to presidents, vice-presidents, and committees. In these currents of opinion Mr. Garrison did not lose his head. At the Middlesex County Anti-Slavery Society's quarterly meeting at Holliston on April 27, 1841, he Lib. 11: 70. drew the resolution which declared "That if 'new organization' be in diametrical opposition to the genius of the anti-slavery enterprise, no-organization (as now advocated in certain quarters) would, in our opinion, be still more unphilosophical and pernicious in its tendencies." Yet a like resolution from his hand was staved off at the closely following New England Convention, under the lead of William Chace, who had imbibed most deeply what Abby Kelley called the "transcendental spirit," and who at Nantucket flatly proclaimed the anti-slavery organization "the greatest hindrance to the anti-slavery enterprise, because of its sectarianism," and hence called on aboliLib. 11:147. tionists to shake the dust from their feet against it "when they called upon others to leave church organizations."2 George Bradburn wrote to Francis Jackson on June 1, Plain Speak- 1841: "William Chace has gone to tilling the soil, deeming it a crime against God to get a living in any other way! This seems not less strange than his condemnation of associations." Chace had, however, a partner in husbandry, Christopher A. Greene, with whom he lived in a sort of community; and notable in this very year were

MS. Sept.

30, 1841, to

W.L. G.

MS.

Ler, 1:23.

MS. Aug.

15, 1841,

G. W. Ben

son to W. L. G.

1 His flatterers pretended that the abolition societies had cost him the public ear on the subject of slavery. "Dr. Channing himself," said the Unitarian Monthly Miscellany, "has not a tithe of the influence he would have had, had there been no organization. Protest as he may, he will be identified with the organized mass" (Lib. 11: 69). Mrs. Child, on the contrary, asserted in the Standard that Channing had intended to preach a sermon on slavery after his return from the West Indies (ante, 1:466), but never did, and only broke silence after he had caught the glow of associated anti-slavery action (Lib. 11: 93).

2 N. H. Whiting of Marshfield wrote to Mr. Chace on Aug. 29, 1841: "Old and new organization are alike beneath my feet now" (Lib. 11: 199).

CHAP. 1.

1841.

Oct. 30, 1840.

MS.

Rev. Geo.

Ripley.

the attempts—in advance of the great wave of Fourierism-to reconcile individualism with association and organization. As Emerson notified Carlyle in the previous autumn, "We are all a little wild here with numberless projects of social reform. Not a reading man but has a draft of a new community in his waistcoat pocket." And on December 31, 1840, Quincy wrote to Collins: "Ripley is as full of his scheme of a community as ever. He has made some progress towards establishing one at West Roxbury, where he lived last summer. The main trouble is the root of all evil, as he finds plenty of penniless adventurers and but few moneyed ones. Emerson thought of it but retired. Still, R. is sanguine, and I hope will succeed, for what a residence such a neighborhood would make Dedham !" On January 30, 1841: "Ripley is actually going to commence the 'New State MS. Quincy and the New Church' at Ellis's farm

. in the

to J. A.

Collins.

Lib. II: 10.

Lib. II: 1.

I.

spring." The idea of "Brook Farm," as it was henceforth to be known, notoriously proceeded from Dr. Channing. In his recent work on West India Emancipation he had even professed to see in the original principles of the abolitionists" a struggling of the human mind towards Christian union," and said he had hoped that this body, purified, would found a religious community. One of their number, the Rev. Adin Ballou, presently set forth, in his Lib. 11:33. Practical Christian, the scheme and constitution of Fraternal Community No. 1 at Mendon, Mass., afterwards known as the Hopedale Community, with non-resistance as one of its corner-stones.

As little as he had been attracted to Noyes's religious community, was Mr. Garrison drawn towards any of these experiments, one of which, yet in the bud, would approach him from the side of his brother-in-law. In the applica

1 George W. Benson, early in 1841, having disposed of the family property in Brooklyn, Conn.: "Where do you settle?" asked Mr. Garrison; and, suggesting that he remove to Cambridgeport, "What say you to a little social community among ourselves? Bro. Chace is ready for it; and I think we must be pretty bad folks if we cannot live together amicably within gun-shot of each other" (MS. Jan. 7, 1841).

tion of his peculiar views to the conduct of life, there was Lib. 13:47. nothing utopian or extravagant. He sympathized with every honest motive and effort for the regeneration of mankind, and could make allowance for aberration either of judgment or of intellect. He saw the abolition cause Ante, 2:428. (like other fervid moral movements) unavoidably draw to itself the insane, the unbalanced, the blindly enthusiastic. He remained calm, collected, steadfast; hewing to the Lib. 12:94 line of principle, but tolerant to the last degree of temperament, expression, measures, not his own.

Lib. 11:193;

post, p. 29.

This contrast may be pursued, in the anti-slavery ranks, between their leader and some of his coadjutors who lacked either his breadth, his tact, his humor, his persuasiveness, or his felicitous command of phraseology— qualities which make it doubtful if Mr. Garrison was ever mobbed for words actually spoken in public. Certain strongly marked individualities among the New England field agents of the era succeeding the schism fall under the description just given negatively. As New Organization and the Liberty Party had furnished a cover to parsons and congregations to quit the anti-slavery field, and emboldened them to shut out and to persecute the lecturers of the old organization, the iniquity of the American churches became the chief theme of those whose meetings were disturbed or suppressed, and persons assailed, in consequence. The logic of the picturesque group we have in mind was severe and relentless, their discourse "harsh" and not seldom grim, their invective sweeping; and, in one instance in particular, a deliberate policy of church intrusion brought upon itself physical and legal penalties but little softened by passive resistance. It would be rash if not censorious to deny that these moral ploughshares were fitted for the rough work allotted to them. The self-denying and almost outcast lives they led for the slave's sake compel admiration and gratitude. Their anti-slavery character was tried by all manner of tests short of martyrdom without embittering them, and in private their disposition was singularly

mild, gentle, and amiable. In spirit Mr. Garrison was completely in harmony with them. In details of language, of policy, he was free to differ from them.

Thus, at the New England Convention in May, 1841, Mr. Garrison's resolution in regard to the church read as follows:

"Resolved, That among the responsible classes in the nonslaveholding States, in regard to the existence of slavery, the religious professions [professors], and especially the clergy, stand wickedly preeminent, and ought to be unsparingly exposed and reproved before all the people."

To Henry C. Wright, however, it appeared that it should read as follows:

CHAP. I.

1841.

May 25.

Lib. II:90.

"Resolved, That the church and clergy of the United States, Lib. 11:90. as a whole, constitute a great BROTHERHOOD OF THIEVES,1 inasmuch as they countenance and support the highest kind of theft, i. e., MAN-STEALING; and duty to God and the slave de- Ante, pp. 12, mands of abolitionists that they should denounce them as the worst foes of liberty and pure religion, and forthwith renounce them as a Christian church and clergy."

To this substitute rallied Parker Pillsbury, Stephen S. Foster, and N. P. Rogers, while Mr. Garrison and Charles C. Burleigh contended for the original formula; the debate raging long, with a drift toward the obnoxious expression in capitals, which was at last abandoned.2

So in a question of measures. At a quarterly meeting of the Massachusetts Society held at Millbury on August 17, 1841, Mr. Foster moved the following:

13.

S. S. Foster.

“Resolved, That we recommend to abolitionists as the most Lib. 11:139. consistent and effectual method of abolishing the 'negro pew,'

1 See Mr. Wright's exposition of this expression in his letter to A. A. Phelps entitled, "The Methodist Episcopal Church and Clergy of the United States a Brotherhood of Men-Stealers" (Lib. 11: 130).

2 Speaking for himself, however, and not for the Society, Mr. Garrison presently declared "a great brotherhood of thieves" tame language to apply to the action of the Presbyterian General Assembly at Philadelphia on May 20. The Committee of Bills and Overtures unanimously refused to report on the "exciting topic" of slavery, and desired to return the papers on that subject to the presbyteries which had presented them. By an overwhelming vote the whole business was indefinitely postponed (Lib. 11 : 95).

CHAP. I.

1841.

to take their seats in it, wherever it may be found, whether in a gentile synagogue, a railroad car, a steamboat, or a stagecoach." 1

This had the approval of essrs. Pillsbury and Collins, but not of H. C. Wright, or of Garrison, or of Edmund Quincy, and did not prevail. In fact, what J. H. Noyes Ante, p. 11. called "the whole phalanx of Massachusetts Ultraists " had a conservative element of which the editor of the Liberator was, paradoxical as it might seem, the head. He was himself a shining example of moderate and calculated utterance, while little disturbed by the want of it in those whose anti-slavery sincerity, courage, zeal, and "There is

Lib. 12:94. devotedness he felt to be equal to his own.

danger," he wrote in June, 1842, in a fine plea for toleration of idiosyncracies, "of abolitionists becoming invidious and censorious toward each other, in consequence of making constitutional peculiarities virtuous or vicious Lib. 12:95. traits," or, in other words, "on account of the manner in which the cause is advocated" by this person or that. "I Boston Post. see by the Post," writes George Bradburn to Francis Jackson, on August 7, 1841, "that friend Loring does not choose to be understood as discussing abolition topics in the style of our friends Wright and Pillsbury.

MS.

E. G. Loring.

H. C. Wright, P.Pillsbury.

1 With the extension of the railroad system, the inhuman prejudice against color was catered to by corporations even in excess of the requirements of average public sentiment. A "Jim Crow" car was provided, in which colored travellers were forced to sit although they had purchased first-class tickets. They were expelled in the most ruffianly manner from white cars, against the remonstrances of white passengers, who not seldom were themselves dragged out for condemning such brutality (Lib. 11: 175, 180, 182), or for taking seats in the Jim Crow car by way of testimony, in the spirit of Mr. Foster's resolution. Colored servants, on the other hand, were allowed to accompany their employers (Lib. 11:132). The Eastern Railroad of Boston, of which a Quaker was the malignant superintendent (Lib. 12:35), attained an evil preeminence in these outrages (Lib. 11 : 47, 94, 143, 157, 162, 163, 165, 166, 170). Worst of all, police justices refused to punish the assaults even upon white passengers (Lib. 11: 127, 128, 180). Yet it was asked, What has the North to do with slavery? And it is even now pretended that the North was peopled with abolitionists until the Liberator was founded (New-Englander, 45:1, et seq.). See in Lib. 12:56 the "Travellers' Directory" time-tables of the several railroads, with a caption showing whether they make any distinction in regard to color.