1855. pation in a cause which, notwithstanding its grand advances, CHAP. XV. has yet to contend with Church and State, and all that is rich, strong, and powerful in the land! You have a place in our heart of hearts; we already feel the magnetism of your spirit and the quickening influence of your presence. How deeply do I regret that you did not arrive in season to be at the twentieth anniversary of the memorable twenty-first of October, 1835, held on the very spot where the mob of “gentlemen of property and standing" achieved such a ruinous victory! It was a most thrilling occasion, as you may readily suppose, and full of heart-stirring reminiscences. Three weeks ago, we were expecting the speedy and inevitable departure to the Spirit Land of our well-tried and noble friend Francis Jackson-his physician having oracularly pronounced his disease incurable, warranting no hope of his continuance beyond a fortnight. Now we are rejoicing that, almost as by superhuman power, he is convalescent, and looking and feeling much better than he has done for a year past! How happy will he be to take you by the hand, and you not less so to reciprocate congratulations! Mrs. Maria W. Chapman to W. L. Garrison. [WEYMOUTH, MASS., Dec. 1, 1855.] I MS. Saturday. Most cordial thanks for your kind words of welcome. hoped to have seen you on Wednesday, and tried hard; for I had a message and paper to give you from one who loves you well-Harriet Martineau. My sister Mary will give you the paper. It was copied with great difficulty, owing to her extreme feebleness at the time; and under that sense of the precarious tenure by which she has her life at this time, which gives to it the earnestness and impressiveness of a dying utterance.1 I hope Mrs. Garrison is better this morning. My kindest love to her and all your family. 1 The piece transcribed was the Rev. W. J. Fox's hymn, "A little child in bulrush ark" (Lib. 25: 194). Mary G. Chapman. VOL. III.-28 Feb. 2, 1856; TH CHAPTER XVI. FREMONT.-1856. HE election of N. P. Banks to the Speakership of the lower house of Congress, after a two months' struggle, over a South Carolinian slaveholder, was, in Mr. Lib. 26:23. Garrison's hope, "the first gun at Lexington of the new Lib. 26:178. Revolution." The victory of the Slave Power in the elecLib. 26:125. tion of James Buchanan - a typical Northern doughface May 22, 1856; Lib. 26:87. -to the Presidency in November, over John C. Frémont, with three parties in the field and only one issue, was in fact the Bunker Hill of that Revolution. Between these events, of the first political importance, occurred the beating of Charles Sumner in his seat in the Senate Chamber of the United States by the nephew of one of his colleagues, a Representative from South Carolina, Preston S. Brooks. The speech which drew down upon the Massachusetts Senator this murderous assault, was entitled แ "The Crime against Kansas"; and the assault itself was merely a part of that crime. Jefferson Davis, Pierce's Secretary of War, wielding all the power of the Adminis[30], [151]. tration in support of the pro-slavery invaders of Kansas, Lib. 26:173. publicly approved Brooks's action. Senator Douglas, the Lib. 26: 103. Lib. 26:87. arch-contriver of the Kansas iniquity, witnessed without Lib. 26:91, emotion and without interfering ("lest his motives might be misconstrued") the plying of the dragoon strokes which Brooks had learnt in the Mexican War; and afterWards took the stump with the South Carolinian in behalf of Buchanan. The Southern press spoke but one language. Lib. 26:93. The Richmond Enquirer held, as to Sumner's treatment, that it was the right discipline for him and the other Lib. 26: 107. "vulgar abolitionists in the Senate," who were "getting CHAP. XVI. above themselves." "They have grown saucy, and dare to be impudent to gentlemen. They have been suffered to run too long without collars. They must be 1856. Lib. 26: [149]. Lib. 26: 185. Lib. 26: [145]. How the love of Union on the part of the North ever survived such representative expressions of contempt and contumely as these, must always remain a mystery. The narrow miss which the Republican Party made of electing Frémont may fairly be set down to the fear of disunion, industriously played upon by men who meant Lib. 30:17. what they said, as was proved four years later. Toombs, and Mason, and Rhett, gave fair warning. Brooks recommended that the South rise, march on Washington, and [142], 169, seize the archives and the Treasury: "We should anticipate them [the free States], and force them to attack us." Henry A. Wise wrote with utmost accuracy to John W. Forney: "Whether the present state of peaceful revolution, of warlike brotherhood, of confederated antagonisms, of shake-hand enmity, of sectional union, of united enemies, shall continue, depends precisely upon the issue whether Black Republicanism is strong enough to elect John C. Frémont, with all the demon isms at his heels." Even Millard Fillmore, the Know-Nothing Presidential Lib. 26:170. candidate, had the frank indecency to justify secession in the event referred to. If all this was set down as bluster by those who knew the value of the Union to slavery, the abolitionists at least were excusable, as being the only party who proposed to put it to the test by a peaceable Northern secession. The Pierce Administration being resolved to sink or Lib. 26: [153]. 1856. 171, 103. Lib. 26:87, 95. Lib. 26:99. CHAP. XVI. Swim with Border-Ruffian supremacy in Kansas, the Territory was plunged deeper and deeper into civil war, with the United States troops as a complicating factor Lib. 26: 127, dispersing the free-State Legislature, disarming Northern immigrant bodies as well as attempting to exclude the Southern raiders, and assisting in the execution of "bogus" writs. Three Southern armies spread terror in every free-State settlement, especially Lawrence, whose hotel and printing-office were battered down by way of judicial abatement as nuisances, and Osawatomie, which was sacked. Entrance to Kansas by the Missouri River [135], [147], route was practically closed, and even the Iowa and Nebraska frontiers were watched and picketed. The first free-State reprisals were made by John Brown in what his latest biographer calls the "Pottawatomie executions” -midnight extirpation with the sword, in true Southern fashion, of a nest of harborers of Border Ruffianism; and the capture of a raiding company at Black Jack Creek, "the first regular battle fought between free-State and John Brown, pro-slavery men in Kansas.” Lib. 26:107, IIO, 129, 171. Sanborn's John Brown, chap. ix. May 25, 1856. June 2, 1856. Sanborn's p. 241. Lib. 26:51. Wanton bloodshed in that Territory, and not antislavery principle, wrought the North to the pitch of resistance symbolized by the vote for Frémont. It carried the clergy off their feet, and opened their churches to meetings for the donation of Sharp's rifles for Kansas-Henry Ward Beecher and Theodore Parker being conspicuous in the promotion of this object, and both incurring Mr. GarriLib. 26: 34, son's friendly and discriminating censure. To the former, 42, 54, 58. Lib. 26: 5:42. who had said, "You might just as well read the Bible to D. R. Atch- buffaloes as to those fellows who follow Atchison and ison. B. F. Stringfel Stringfellow," he rejoined: Lib. 26:51, 54 low. Lib. 26:42. "Is it not to be sorely pressed, yea, to yield the whole ground, to represent any class of our fellow-creatures as being on the same level with wild beasts? To such a desperate shift does the slaveholder resort, to screen himself from condemnation. The negroes, he avers, are an inferior race a connecting link between men and monkeys and therefore it is folly to talk of giving them liberty and equal rights. 1856. “For our own part, we deeply compassionate the miserable CHAP. XVI. and degraded tools of the slave propagandists, who know not what they do, and (as Mr. Beecher correctly says) are 'raked together from the purlieus of a frontier slave State, drugged with whiskey, and hounded on by broken-down and desperate politicians.' But they are far less blameworthy than their employers and endorsers. To a great extent, they are the victims of a horribly false state of society in Missouri, and no doubt fearfully depraved; yet they are not beasts, nor to be treated as beasts. Convince us that it is right to shoot anybody, and our perplexity would be to know where to beginwhom first to despatch, as opportunity might offer. We should have to make clean work of the President and his CabinetDouglas, Atchison, Stringfellow, Toombs, Wise, and their associates - Doctors Lord, Adams, Spring, Fuller, and others of the same cloth — Judges Loring, Kane, Grier, and Slave Commissioners generally-the conductors of such papers as the New York Journal of Commerce, Observer, Express, Herald, and the Satanic press universally. These are the intelligent, responsible, and colossal conspirators against the liberty, peace, happiness, and safety of the republic, whose guilt cannot easily be exaggerated. Against their treasonable course our moral indignation burns like fire, though we wish them no harm; only we are sure that they are utterly without excuse." "Mr. Beecher says: 'We know that there are those who will Lib. 26:54. scoff at the idea of holding a sword or a rifle, in a Christian state of mind.' He will allow us to shrink from such an idea without scoffing. We know not where to look for Christianity if not to its founder; and, taking the record of his life and death, of his teaching and example, we can discover nothing which even remotely, under any conceivable circumstances, justifies the use of the sword or rifle on the part of his followers; on the contrary, we find nothing but self-sacrifice, willing martyrdom (if need be), peace and good-will, and the prohibition of all retaliatory feelings, enjoined upon all who would be his disciples. When he said: 'Fear not those who kill the body,' he broke every deadly weapon. When he said: 'My kingdom is not of this world, else would my servants fight that I should not be delivered to the Jews,' he plainly prohibited war in selfdefence, and substituted martyrdom therefor. When he said: 'Love your enemies,' he did not mean, 'Kill them if they go too far.' When he said, while expiring on the cross: 'Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do,' he did not treat Luke 12:4. John 18:36. Luke 6: 27. Luke 23: 34. |