William Lloyd Garrison, the Abolitionist. Archibald Henry Grimké
probably no little influence in turning for the second time his indefatigable feet toward that city. He made it a second visit in July, 1828, where again he met Garrison. His experience with the ministers did not deter him from repeating the horrible tale wherever he could get together an audience. This time he secured his first public hearing in Boston. It was in the Federal Street Baptist Church. He spoke not only on the subject of slavery itself, the growth of anti-slavery societies, but on a new phase of the general subject, viz., the futility of the Colonization Society as an abolition instrument. Garrison was present, and treasured up in his heart the words of his friend. He did not forget how Lundy had pressed upon his hearers the importance of petitioning Congress for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, as we shall see further on. But poor Lundy was unfortunate with the ministers. He got this time not the cold shoulder alone but a clerical slap in the face as well. He had just sat down when the pastor of the church, Rev. Howard Malcolm, uprose in wrath and inveighed against any intermeddling of the North with slavery, and brought the meeting with a high hand to a close. This incident was the first collision with the church of the forlorn hope of the Abolition movement. Trained as Garrison was in the orthodox creed and sound in that creed almost to bigotry, this behavior of a standard-bearer of the church, together with the apathy displayed by the clergy on a former occasion, caused probably the first "little rift within the lute" of his creed, "that by and by will make the music mute, and, ever widening, slowly silence all." For in religion as in love, "Unfaith in aught is want of faith in all." The Rev. Howard Malcolm's arbitrary proceeding had prevented the organization of an anti-slavery committee. But this was affected at a second meeting of the friends of the slave. Garrison was one of the twenty gentlemen who were appointed such a committee. His zeal and energy far exceeded the zeal and energy of the remaining nineteen. He did not need the earnest exhortation of Lundy to impress upon his memory the importance of "activity and steady perseverance." He perceived almost at once that everything depended on them. And so he had formed plans for a vigorous campaign against the existence of slavery in the District of Columbia. But before he was ready to set out along the line of work, which he had laid down for Massachusetts, the scene of his labors shifted to Bennington, Vermont. Before he left Boston, Lundy had recognized him as "a valuable coadjutor." The relationship between the two men was becoming beautifully close. The more Lundy saw of Garrison, the more he must have seemed to him a man after his own heart. And so no wonder that he was solicitous of fastening him to his cause with hooks of steel. The older had written the younger reformer a letter almost paternal in tone—he must do thus and thus, he must not be disappointed if he finds the heavy end of the burthen borne by himself, while those associated with him do little to keep the wheels moving, he must remember that "a few will have the labor to perform and the honor to share." Then there creeps into his words a grain of doubt, a vague fear lest his young ally should take his hands from the plough and go the way of all men, and here are the words which Paul might have written to Timothy: "I hope you will persevere in your work, steadily, but not make too large calculations on what may be accomplished in a particularly stated time. You have now girded on a holy warfare. Lay not down your weapons until honorable terms are obtained. The God of hosts is on your side. Steadiness and faithfulness will most assuredly overcome every obstacle." The older apostle had yet to learn that the younger always did what he undertook in the field of morals and philanthropy.
But the scene had shifted from Boston to Bennington, and with the young reformer goes also his plan of campaign for anti-slavery work. The committee of twenty, now nineteen since his departure, slumbered and slept in the land of benevolent intentions, a practical illustration of Lundy's pungent saying, that "philanthropists are the slowest creatures breathing. They think forty times before they act." The committee never acted, but its one member in Vermont did act, and that promptly and powerfully as shall shortly appear. Garrison had gone to Bennington to edit the Journal of the Times in the interest of the reelection of John Quincy Adams to the Presidency. For this object he was engaged as editor of the paper. What he was engaged to do he performed faithfully and ably, but along with his fulfillment of his contract with the friends of Mr. Adams, he carried the one which he had made with humanity likewise. In his salutatory he outlined his intentions in this regard thus: "We have three objects in view, which we shall pursue through life, whether in this place or elsewhere—namely, the suppression of intemperance and its associate vices, the gradual emancipation of every slave in the republic, and the perpetuity of national peace. In discussing these topics what is wanting in vigor shall be made up in zeal." From the issue of that first number if the friends of Adams had no cause to complain of the character of his zeal and vigor in their service, neither had the friends of humanity. What he had proposed doing in Massachusetts as a member of the anti-slavery committee of twenty, he performed with remarkable energy and success in Vermont. It was to obtain signatures not by the hundred to a petition for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, but by the thousands, and that from all parts of the State. He sent copies of the petition to every postmaster in Vermont with the request that he obtain signatures in his neighborhood. Through his exertions a public meeting of citizens of Bennington was held and indorsed the petition. The plan for polling the anti-slavery sentiment of the State worked admirably. The result was a monster petition with 2,352 names appended. This he forwarded to the seat of Government. It was a powerful prayer, but as to its effect, Garrison had no delusions. He possessed even then singularly clear ideas as to how the South would receive such petitions, and of the course which it would pursue to discourage their presentation. He was no less clear as to how the friends of freedom ought to carry themselves under the circumstances. In the Journal of the Times of November, 1828, he thus expressed himself: "It requires no spirit of prophecy to predict that it (the petition) will create great opposition. An attempt will be made to frighten Northern 'dough-faces' as in case of the Missouri question. There will be an abundance of furious declamation, menace, and taunt. Are we, therefore, to approach the subject timidly—with half a heart—as if we were treading on forbidden ground? No, indeed, but earnestly, fearlessly, as becomes men, who are determined to clear their country and themselves from the guilt of oppressing God's free and lawful creatures." About the same time he began to make his assaults on the personal representatives of the slave-power in Congress, cauterizing in the first instance three Northern "dough-faces," who had voted against some resolutions, looking to the abolition of the slave-trade and slavery itself in the District of Columbia. So while the South thus early was seeking to frighten the North from the agitation of the slavery question in Congress, Garrison was unconsciously preparing a countercheck by making it dangerous for a Northern man to practice Southern principles in the National Legislature. He did not mince his words, but called a spade a spade, and sin, sin. He perceived at once that if he would kill the sin of slave-holding, he could not spare the sinner. And so he spoke the names of the delinquents from the housetop of the Journal of the Times, stamping upon their brows the scarlet letter of their crime against liberty. He had said in the October before: "It is time that a voice of remonstrance went forth from the North, that should peal in the ears of every slaveholder like a roar of thunder. … For ourselves, we are resolved to agitate this subject to the utmost; nothing but death shall prevent us from denouncing a crime which has no parallel in human depravity; we shall take high ground. The alarm must be perpetual." A voice of remonstrance, with thunder growl accompaniment, was rising higher and clearer from the pen of the young editor. His tone of earnestness was deepening to the stern bass of the moral reformer, and the storm breath of enthusiasm was blowing to a blaze the glowing coals of his humanity. The wail of the fleeing fugitive from the house of bondage sounded no longer far away and unreal in his ears, but thrilled now right under the windows of his soul. The masonic excitement and the commotion created by the abduction of Morgan he caught up and shook before the eyes of his countrymen as an object lesson of the million-times greater wrong daily done the slaves. "All this fearful commotion," he pealed, "has arisen from the abduction of one man. More than two millions of unhappy beings are groaning out their lives in bondage, and scarcely a pulse quickens, or a heart leaps, or a tongue pleads in their behalf. 'Tis a trifling affair, which concerns nobody. Oh! for the spirit that rages, to break every fetter of oppression!" Such a spirit was fast taking possession of the writer.
Of this Lundy was well informed. He had not lost sight of his young coadjutor, but had watched his course with great hope and growing confidence. In him he found what he had discovered in no one else, anti-slavery activity and perseverance. He had often found men