The Abolition Crusade and Its Consequences Part 5

Dr. Hart's chair at Harvard is within gunshot of Faneuil Hall, yet the great meeting there of August 31, 1835, is not mentioned in either his or Professor Sumner's book, nor is there to be found in either of them _any explanation of the reasons underlying the general and emphatic condemnation throughout the North at that period of the Abolitionists and their methods_.

In 1854, at Framingham, Ma.s.sachusetts, the Abolitionists celebrated the Fourth of July thus: Their leader, William Lloyd Garrison, held up and burned to ashes, before the applauding mult.i.tude, one after another, copies of

1st. The fugitive slave law.

2d. The decision of Commissioner Loring in the case of Burns, a fugitive slave.

3d. The charge to the Grand Jury of Judge Benjamin R. Curtis in reference to the effort of a mob to secure a fugitive slave.

4th. "Then, holding up the United States Const.i.tution, he branded it as the source and parent of all other atrocities, 'a covenant with death and an agreement with h.e.l.l,' and consumed it to ashes on the spot, exclaiming, 'So perish all compromises with tyranny! And let all the people say, Amen!' A tremendous shout of 'Amen!' went up to heaven in ratification of the deed, mingled with a few hisses and wrathful exclamations from some, who evidently were in a _rowdyish_ state of mind, but who were at once cowed by the popular feeling."[30]

[30] Garrison's "Garrison," vol. III, p. 412.

The Abolitionist movement was radical; it was revolutionary. When an accredited teacher of history, in one of the greatest of our universities, writes a volume on "Abolition and Slavery," why should he restrict himself in comment, as Dr. Hart thus does in his preface? The book is "intended to show that there was more than one side to the controversy, and that both the milder form of opposition called anti-slavery and _the extreme form called Abolition_, were _confronted by practical difficulties_ which to many public men seemed insurmountable."

Why should not the historian, in addition to pointing out the "difficulties" encountered by these extremists, _show how and why the people of that day condemned their conduct_?

Condonation of the Abolitionists, and a proper regard for the Const.i.tution of the United States, cannot be taught to the youth of America at one and the same time.

The writer has been unable to find any of the incendiary pamphlets that had proved so inflammatory. He has, however, before him a little anonymous publication ent.i.tled "Slavery Ill.u.s.trated in its Effects upon Woman," Isaac Knapp, Boston, 1837. It was for circulation in the North, being "Affectionately Inscribed to all the Members of Female Anti-Slavery Societies," and it is only cited here as an ill.u.s.tration of the almost inconceivable venom with which the crusade was carried on to _embitter the North against the South_. It is a vicious attack upon the morality of Southern men and women, and upon Southern churches. None of its charges does it claim to authenticate, and it gives no names or dates. One incident, related as typical, is of two white women, all the time in full communion with their church, under pretence of a boarding-house, keeping a brothel, negro women being the inmates.

In the chapter ent.i.tled "Impurity of the Christian Churches" is this sentence: "At present the Southern Churches are only one vast consociation of hypocrites and sinners."

The booklet was published anonymously, but at that time any prurient story about slavery in the South would circulate, no matter whether vouched for or not.

CHAPTER IV

FEELING IN THE SOUTH--1835

Not stronger than the proceedings of a great non-partisan public meeting, or than the action of religious bodies, but going more into detail as to public opinion in the South and the effect upon it of Abolition agitation, is the evidence of a quiet observer, Professor E.

A. Andrews, who, in July, 1835, had been sent out as the agent of "The Boston Union for the Relief and Improvement of the Colored Race." His reports from both Northern and Southern States, consisting of letters from various points, const.i.tute a book, "Slavery and the Domestic Slave Trade," Boston, 1836.

July 17, 1835, from Baltimore, Professor Andrews reports that a resident clergyman, who appears to have his entire confidence, says, among other things, "that a disposition to emanc.i.p.ate their slaves is very prevalent among the slave-holders of this State, could they see any way to do so consistently with the true interest of the slave, but that it is their universal belief that no means of doing this is now presented except that of colonizing them in Africa."

From the same city, July 17, 1835, he writes, p. 53: "In this city there appears to be no strong attachment to slavery and no wish to perpetuate it."

Again, on p. 95: "There is but one sentiment amongst those with whom I have conversed in this city, respecting the possibility of the white and colored races living peaceably together in freedom, nor during my residence at the South and my subsequent intercourse with the Southern people, _did I ever meet with one who believed it possible for the two races to continue together after emanc.i.p.ation_.... When the slaves of the South are liberated they form an integral part of the population of the country, and must influence its destiny for ages--perhaps forever."

From Fredericksburg, Virginia, Professor Andrews writes:

Since I entered the slave-holding country I have seen but one man who did not deprecate wholly and absolutely the direct interference of Northern Abolitionists with the inst.i.tutions of the South. "I was an Abolitionist," has been the language of numbers of those with whom I have conversed; "I was an Abolitionist, _and was laboring earnestly to bring about a prospective system of emanc.i.p.ation. I even saw, as I believed, the certain and complete success of the friends of the colored race at no distant period, when these Northern Abolitionists interfered, and by their extravagant and impracticable schemes frustrated all our hopes....

Our people have become exasperated, the friends of the slaves alarmed_, etc....[31] Equally united are they in the opinion that the servitude of the slaves is far more rigorous now than it would have been had there been no interference with them. _In proportion to the danger of revolt and insurrection, have been_ the severity of the enactments for controlling them and the diligence with which the laws have been executed."

[31] "Slavery and the Domestic Slave Trade," Andrews, pp. 156-57.

From a private letter, written at Greenville, Alabama, August 30, 1835, by a distinguished lawyer, John W. Womack, to his brother, we quote:

The anti-slavery societies in the Northern and Middle States are doing all they can to destroy our domestic harmony by sending among us pamphlets, tracts, and newspapers--for the purpose of exciting dissatisfaction and insurrection among our slaves.... Meetings have been held in Mobile, in Montgomery, in Greensboro, and in Tuscaloosa, and in different parts of all the Southern States. At these meetings resolutions have been adopted, disclaiming (_sic_) and denying the right of the Northern people to interfere in any manner in our internal domestic concerns.... It is my solemn opinion that this question (to wit, slavery) will ultimately bring about a dissolution of the Union of the States.

It should be remembered that in 1832 the ma.s.sacre in Santo Domingo of all the whites by the blacks was fresh in mind. It had occurred in 1814--after manumission--and had produced, especially in the minds of statesmen and of all observers of the many signs of antagonism between the two races, a profound and lasting impression.

The fear that the races, both free, could not live together was in the mind of Thomas Jefferson, of Henry Clay, and of every other Southern emanc.i.p.ationist. And deportation, its expense, and the want of a home to which to send the negro--here was a stumbling-block in the way of Southern emanc.i.p.ation.

Indeed, the incompatibility of the races was an appalling thought in the minds of Southerners for the whole thirty years of anti-slavery agitation. It was even with Abraham Lincoln, and weighed upon his mind when, at last, in 1862, military necessity placed upon his shoulders the responsibility of emanc.i.p.ating the Southern slaves. Serious as was the responsibility, the question was not new to him. When Mr. Lincoln said, in his celebrated Springfield speech in 1858, "I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free," and added that he did not expect the government to fail, he certainly expected that emanc.i.p.ation in the South was coming; and, of course, he thought over what the consequences might be.

In that same debate with Douglas, in his speech at Charleston, Illinois, Mr. Lincoln said: "There is a physical difference between the white and black races, which, I believe, will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality."

In his memorial address on Henry Clay, in 1852, he had said: "If, as the friends of colonization hope, the present and coming generations of our countrymen shall by some means succeed in freeing our land from the dangerous presence of slavery, and at the same time in restoring a captive people to their long lost father-land, ... it will, indeed, be a glorious consummation. And if to such a contribution the efforts of Mr.

Clay shall have contributed ... none of his labors will have been more valuable to his country and his kind."

In his famous emanc.i.p.ation proclamation he promised "that the effort to colonize persons of African descent upon this continent or elsewhere, with the consent of the government existing there, will be continued."

It must have been with a heavy heart that the great President announced the failure of all his efforts to find a home outside of America for the freedmen, _when he informed Congress in his December message, 1862, that all in vain he had asked permission to send the negroes, when freed, to the British, the Danish, and the French West Indies; and that the Spanish-American countries in Central America had also refused his request_. He could find no places except Hayti and Liberia. He even made the futile experiment of sending a s.h.i.+p-load to a little island off Hayti.[32] Hume, in "The Abolitionists," tells us that Mr. Lincoln for a time _considered setting Texas apart as a home for the negroes_--so much was he disturbed by this trouble.

[32] Within perhaps a year Mr. Lincoln was compelled to bring these negroes home; they were starving.

CHAPTER V

ANTI-ABOLITION AT THE NORTH

Southerners, save perhaps a few who were wise enough to foresee what the consequences might be, were deeply gratified when they read (1835-1838) of the violent opposition in the North to the desperate schemes of the Abolitionists. Surely these mobs fairly represented public opinion, and that public opinion certainly was a strong guaranty to the South of future peace and security.

But the Abolitionists themselves were not dismayed. They may have misread, indeed it is certain they did misunderstand, the signs of the times. Garrison in his _Liberator_ took the ground--as do his children in their life of him, written fifty years later--that the great Faneuil Hall meeting of August 31, 1835, which they themselves declare represented "the intelligence, the wealth, the culture, and the religion of Boston," was but an indication of the "pro-slavery" sentiment then existing. In reality it was just what it purported to be--an authoritative condemnation, not of the anti-slavery opinions, but of the avowed purposes and methods of the new sect. The mobbing of Garrison and the sacking of his printing office in Boston on September 26th, however, and the lawless violence to Abolitionists that followed the denunciations of that despised sect by speakers, and by the public press, in New York, in Philadelphia, in Cincinnati, and elsewhere in the North, proved disastrous in the extreme.

While that great wave of anti-Abolition feeling was sweeping over that whole region from East to West, there were many good people who deluded themselves with the idea that this new sect with its visionary and impracticable ideas was being consigned to oblivion, but in what followed we have a lesson that unfortunately some of our people have not yet fully learned. Mob law in any portion of our free country, where there is law with officers to enforce it, is a mistake, a mistake that is likely to be followed sooner or later by most disastrous results. The mobs that marked the beginning of our Revolution in 1774 were legitimate; they meant revolt, revolt against const.i.tuted authorities.

But where a mob does not mean the overthrow of government, where it only means to subst.i.tute its own blind will for the arm of the law, not good but evil--it may be long deferred, but evil eventually--is sure to follow. When mobs a.s.sailed Abolitionists because they threatened the peace and tranquillity of the country, evil followed swiftly.

Violent and harsh treatment of these mischievous agitators almost everywhere in the North, and the heroism with which they endured ignominy and insult, brought about a revulsion of public sentiment. To understand the philosophy of this, read two extracts from the writings of that great, and universally admired, pulpit orator, Dr. William E.

Channing of Boston, the first written sometime prior to that August meeting:

The adoption of the common system of agitation by the Abolitionists has not been justified by success. From the beginning it has created alarm in the considerate, and strengthened the sympathies of the Free States with the slave-holder. It has made converts of a few individuals, but alienated mult.i.tudes. _Its influence at the South has been almost wholly evil. It has stirred up bitter pa.s.sions, and a fierce fanaticism, which have shut every ear and every heart against its arguments and persuasions._ These efforts are more to be deplored, because the hope of freedom to the slave lies chiefly in the dispositions of his master. The Abolitionist proposed indeed to convert the slave-holder; and for this end he _approached them with vituperation, and exhausted upon them the vocabulary of reproach_. And he has reaped as he sowed.... Perhaps (though I am anxious to repel the thought) something has been lost to the cause of freedom and humanity.[33]

[33] "Channing's Works," vol. II, ed. 1837, pp. 131-32.

These were Dr. Channing's opinions of the Abolitionists prior to August, 1835, and he seems to have kept silent for a time after the mobbing that followed that great Faneuil Hall meeting; but a year later, when many other things had happened along the same line, he spoke out in an open letter to James G. Birney, an Abolitionist editor who had been driven from Cincinnati, and whose press, on which _The Philanthropist_ was printed, had been broken up. In that letter, p. 157, _supra_, speaking of course not for himself alone, Dr. Channing says:

I think it best ... to extend my remarks to the spirit of violence and persecution which has broken out against the Abolitionists throughout the whole country. Of their merits and demerits as Abolitionists I have formerly spoken.... I have expressed my fervent attachment to the great end to which they are pledged and at the same time _my disapprobation, to a certain extent, of their spirit and measures_.... Deliberate, systematic efforts have been made, _not here and there, but far and wide_, to wrest from its adherents that _liberty of speech and the press_, which our fathers a.s.serted in blood, and which our National and State Governments are pledged to protect as our most sacred right. Its most conspicuous advocates have been hunted and stoned, its meetings scattered, its presses broken up, and nothing but the patience, constancy and intrepidity of its members has saved it from extinction.... They are _sufferers for the liberty of thought, speech and press; and in maintaining this liberty, amidst insult and violence, they deserve a place among its honorable defenders_.

Still admitting that "their writings have been blemished by a spirit of intolerance, sweeping censure, and rash, injurious judgment," this great man now threw all the weight of his influence on the side of the Abolitionists, because they were _the champions of free speech_. Their moral worth and steady adherence to their ideas of non-resistance he pointed to admiringly, and it must always be remembered to their credit that the private lives of Garrison and his leading co-workers were irreproachable. Indeed, the unselfish devotion of these agitators and their high moral character were in themselves a serious misfortune. They soon attracted a lot of zealots, male and female, who became as reckless as they were. And these out-and-out fanatics were not themselves office-seekers. What they feared, they said, was that a "lot of soulless scamps would jump on to their shoulders to ride into office";[34] and there really was the great danger, as appeared later.

[34] Garrison's "Garrison," vol. III, p. 214.

In the results that followed the mobbing of Abolitionists in the North, from 1834 to 1836, is to be found another lesson for those voters of this day who can profit by the teachings of history. The violent a.s.saults on the Abolitionists by the friends of the Const.i.tution and the Union const.i.tuted an epoch in the lives of these people. It gave them a footing and a hearing and many converts.