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CHAP. XIII.

1853.

F

CHAPTER XIII.

THE BIBLE CONVENTION.— 1853.

ROM among a dozen conventions which make the year 1853 memorable in Mr. Garrison's career, we choose for a caption the one that most affected his popular reputation. Theologically, his progress had been (from the orthodox point of view) steadily downward. The Ante, 2:421. Chardon-Street Convention of 1840-41 had shown him willing to discuss the sanctity of the Sabbath, the MinisAnte, p. 218. try, and the Church. The Anti-Sabbath Convention of 1848 marked the change from inquiry to open opposition to Sabbatarianism. The Hartford Bible Convention gave public notice of his abandonment of the common view of the inspiration of the Scriptures in which he had been bred. This, though not the lowest possible stage of descent-for an Anti-Bible Convention or Society was conceivable — was practically to touch bottom, and left nothing to be desired by his clerical detractors.

MS. Apr. 18, 1853, W. L. G.

to H. E. G.;

ante, p. 207.

The first quarter of the year had been spent in and about Boston, but by the middle of April Mr. Garrison began his labors in the more distant fields. An antislavery convention had been called in Cincinnati for April 19, 1853, by the women of that city, and he was invited to attend. The scene was new to him, and he could visit on the way the friends in Cleveland to whom he had owed his life in 1847. On the day appointed he stood on the banks of the Ohio, and beheld for the first time the slave-cursed soil of Kentucky. For him the stream was perilously narrow, yet words of welcome and of fellowship had been sped across it from an ex-slave

1853.

Ante, 1:260; Autobiography C. M.

Clay, 1:5557. Cf. Lib. 14:34.

holder, Cassius M. Clay, living yonder in a perpetual CHAP. XIII. state of siege, and carrying his life in his hands. He had, while a student at Yale, in June, 1831, heard Mr. Garrison's discourse at New Haven against Colonization, and then and there resolved to make relentless war on the institution of slavery. Meantime, he had emancipated his slaves and preached abolition, at all hazards to his person and property; joined in the Mexican War by a monstrous aberration of principle as of judgment, yet holding fast to his main purpose to make Kentucky free; and furnished an example without a parallel both of heroism and of the folly of attempting to undermine the Slave Power from within, even with its own weapons of violence—in other words, of "going South,” as the abolitionists were taunted with not doing. A constant reader of the Liberator, and invited, like its editor, to Lib. 23:66. attend the Cincinnati Convention, he wrote to the committee:

Lib. 16:99, 114: Autobiography of

103,105, III,

Clay, I: IIO.

"You say W. L. Garrison will be present. I wish to say a word Lib. 23:70. of that man. As a man, he stands first among living men,

because he has labored most of all in that cause which is of
most worth to mankind. It is not for me to say whether, with
equal firmness and sensibility to the Right, he might or might
not have done more service in a great cause! It is enough that,
with whatever talent was loaned him by Deity, with that he has
zealously, at all hazard of all things, contended for the highest
interests of men. The day for his appreciation has not come!
There is, however, one saying of his traducers, and the traducers
of those who act with him, which I will notice that 'they have
set back the cause of emancipation by agitation'! Nothing is
more false.
The cause of emancipation advances only with
agitation let that cease, and despotism is complete. The
slaveholders have just as much intention of yielding up their
slaves as the sum of the kings of the earth have of laying down,
for the benefit of the people, their sceptres! How long will,
without agitation, kingdoms last?"

At the Convention, Mr. Garrison met, not Clay, indeed, but another abolition Southerner, the Rev. John Rankin, whose 'Letters' had stirred him as his own New Haven Ante, 1: 305.

discourse had fired Clay, and to whom he now renewed Lib. 23:70; his public acknowledgments as a disciple. Since the ante, 1: 306. economic evils of slavery had been forcibly pointed out in that work, it was meet that Mr. Garrison (in sight, too, and almost within hearing of thriftless Kentucky) should offer the following among other resolutions:

Lib. 23:70.

"Resolved, That the abolitionists of this country are as much interested in the welfare, prosperity, and safety of the slaveholders as they are in the liberation and elevation of the slaves; that, in the abolition of the entire slave system, no actual property will be impaired or destroyed, but every kind of property will be enhanced and improved in value; that freedom is industrious, economical, enterprising, and fertile in useful expedients and beneficent discoveries, while slavery is indolent, wasteful, turning into barrenness the most fruitful soil, or paralyzing all the inventive and progressive faculties; and that emancipation can be as triumphantly defended on the ground of political economy and material prosperity, as it can be on moral and religious principle."

The Western tour was to have been prolonged to Michigan, but a sharp pleuritic attack confined Mr. Garrison to his bed and made return imperative—to the Lib. 23:75. great disappointment of those who were expecting him at Adrian. Not more than a fortnight's rest, however, was allowed him in Boston, for the American Anti-Slavery Society was to hold its anniversary once more in New York city. In the interval, he attended on May 5 a dinner Lib. 23:74. given in Boston by the Free Democracy to John P. Hale, whose Senatorial term had expired and his place been filled by Charles G. Atherton, of "gag" memory. Mr. Hale's political attitude towards slavery, under the compromises of the Constitution, certainly had not been acceptable to the abolitionists; but his solitary courage amid a contemptuous and murderous pro-slavery body like the Senate of the United States deserved, and had always received, recognition in the Liberator. Mr. Garrison, therefore, took his place without scruple beside Charles Sumner, John G. Palfrey, Horace Mann, Henry

Ante, 2: 247-249.

Lib. 23:

[83].

1853.
T. H. Ben-
Bryant. W.
H Seward.

ton. W. C.

Wilson, Anson Burlingame, Richard H. Dana, Jr., John CHAP. XIII. Jay, and Joshua Leavitt. On Cassius Clay's offering the toast "The True Union: To Benton, to Bryant, to Seward, to Greeley, to Garrison, to Phillips, to Quincy the union of ALL the opponents of the propaganda of slavery," there were loud calls for Garrison, who responded with peculiar felicity, paying just tributes to Hale and to Lib. 23:74. Clay,1 yet not forgetting his delenda est Carthago.

H. Greeley.

"Ladies and Gentlemen," he began, "I am happy to be with Lib. 23:74. you on this occasion. Whatever may be our peculiar views as to the best measures to be adopted, or the precise position to be occupied, one thing is true here we are all'Hale fellows' (enthusiastic applause); and, what is better still, 'Hale fellows WELL MET.' (Continued cheers.) It is not often that antislavery men are in a majority. (Applause.) I believe we have it all our own way here this evening. It is not possible that there can be a single pro-slavery man or woman in this vast assembly; and I will prove it. Allow me to put it to vote. As many here as are in favor of the immediate and everlasting overthrow of slavery, will please to say Aye! (An almost universal shout of affirmation went up.) As many as are opposed to the abolition of slavery, will say No! (A few voices replied 'No!' — evidently through a misconception of the speaker's remarks.) Sir, it is as I thought it would be the Ayes have it! (Cheers and laughter.) And I hold that those who answered in the negative are bound, by their own rule of action, to come over to our side and make the vote unanimous; for pro-slavery in our country always is looking to majorities, and to be on the popular side. (Laughter and cheers.)

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"Sir, you will pardon me for the reference. I have heard something here about our Union, about the value of the Union, and the importance of preserving the Union. Gentlemen, if you have been so fortunate as to find a Union worth preserving, I heartily congratulate you. Cling to it with all your souls! For

1 The first meeting of Garrison and C. M. Clay, whenever it took place, was not as early as 1844, as the latter records in his Autobiography (1: 99; see Lib. 16 : 23). "I said to him: 'Why, Garrison, I had expected to see a long-faced ascetic; but I see you patriots are jolly, sleek fellows-not at all debarred of the good things of life.' He replied, in the same vein: 'And therein, Clay, you are wrong, and somewhat confound things. The ascetics are the wrong-doers! Who should be happy, if not those who are always right?' Garrison was a man of great common sense and much wit."

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CHAP. XIII. 1853.

Lib. 23: [78], 81.

myself, I have not been so fortunate. With a price set upon my head by one of the Southern States of the Union outlawed everywhere in the slaveholding South for my hatred of slavery you will pardon me if I am somewhat lacking in loyalty to the existing Union. (Laughter.)

"The Union! What is it? Where is it? Where, as the uncompromising friends of liberty, will you find protection under it? Gentlemen, look well to your language; use it intelligently and truly. The two great pro-slavery parties in the land join with you in glorifying this Union, and pledging to maintain it as a slavery-sustaining compact. If you use the term ' Union' in the ordinary political sense, then I ask how it happens that you who are pledged to give [no] support to slavery are thus in perfect agreement with those parties? If you do not, then I ask where is the Union, and what do you mean by preserving it? Why, are you not conscious of the fact that in South Carolina, in Alabama, in any slaveholding State, this anti-slavery gathering would not be tolerated? We should all be deemed worthy of Lynch law, and in all probability be subjected to a coat of tar and feathers! What a glorious Union it is that we are enjoying! How worthy of preservation!

"Alas! the 'Union' is but another name for the iron reign of the Slave Power. We have no common country, as yet. God grant we may have! We have no common Union, as yet. God grant we may have! We shall have it when the jubilee comes and not till then."

The American Anti-Slavery Society met in New York city at the Chinese Assembly Room on May 11, 1853, amid the utmost quiet. Calhoun, and Clay, and Webster had, Lib. 23:81. as Mr. Garrison pointed out, been translated since 1850. Was there no one to give the signal to Rynders to save the Union once more by mobbing the abolitionists away for another term of years? Could Mr. Garrison, unchecked, mention as signs of progress the blotting out of those pillars of the Slave Power, the Jerry rescue, the armed stand against the Fugitive Slave Law at Christiana, the success of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin'? So it appeared. Ante, p. 294. Douglass, too, was there, but where was his "halfbrother"? Dr. Furness's place was supplied by Henry Ward Beecher, who made his first speech on an abolition

Lib. 23:

[82].

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