William Lloyd Garrison, the Abolitionist. Archibald Henry Grimké
higher than the Pagans, for they are not dwellers in a Gospel land; higher than our red men of the forest, for we do not bind them with gyves, nor treat them as chattels."
Then he turned hotly upon the Church, exclaiming: "What has Christianity done by direct effort for our slave population? Comparatively nothing. She has explored the isles of the ocean for objects of commiseration; but, amazing stupidity! she can gaze without emotion on a multitude of miserable beings at home, large enough to constitute a nation of freemen, whom tyranny has heathenized by law. In her public services they are seldom remembered, and in her private donations they are forgotten. From one end of the country to the other her charitable societies form golden links of benevolence, and scatter their contributions like rain drops over a parched heath; but they bring no sustenance to the perishing slave. The blood of souls is upon her garments, yet she heeds not the stain. The clanking of the prisoner's chains strike upon her ear, but they cannot penetrate her heart."
Then, with holy wrath upon the nation, thus:
"Every Fourth of July our Declaration of Independence is produced, with a sublime indignation, to set forth the tyranny of the mother country, and to challenge the admiration of the world. But what a pitiful detail of grievances does this document present, in comparison with the wrongs which our slaves endure? In the one case it is hardly the plucking of a hair from the head; in the other, it is the crushing of a live body on the wheel—the stings of the wasp contrasted with the tortures of the Inquisition. Before God I must say that such a glaring contradiction as exists between our creed and practice the annals of six thousand years cannot parallel. In view of it I am ashamed of my country. I am sick of our unmeaning declamation in praise of liberty and equality; of our hypocritical cant about the inalienable rights of man. I would not for my right hand stand up before a European assembly, and exult that I am an American citizen, and denounce the usurpations of a kingly government as wicked and unjust; or, should I make the attempt, the recollection of my country's barbarity and despotism would blister my lips, and cover my cheeks with burning blushes of shame."
Passing to his second proposition, which affirmed the right of the free States to be in at the death of slavery, he pointed out that slavery was not sectional but national in its influence. If the consequences of slave-holding did not flow beyond the limits of the slave section, the right would still exist, on the principle that what affected injuriously one part must ultimately hurt the whole body politic. But it was not true that slavery concerned only the States where it existed—the parts where it did not exist were involved by their constitutional liability to be called on for aid in case of a slave insurrection, as they were in the slave representation clause of the national compact, through which the North was deprived of its "just influence in the councils of the nation." And, furthermore, the right of the free States to agitate the question inhered in the principle of majority rule—the white population of the free States being almost double that of the slave States, "and the voice of this overwhelming majority should be potential." He repelled in strong language the wrongfulness of allowing the South to multiply the votes of those freemen by the master's right to count three for every five slaves, "because it is absurd and anti-republican to suffer property to be represented as men, and vice versa, because it gives the South an unjust ascendancy over other portions of territory, and a power which may be perverted on every occasion."
He looked without shrinking upon the possibility of disunion even then.
"Now I say that, on the broad system of equal rights," he declared, "this inequality should no longer be tolerated. If it cannot be speedily put down—not by force but by fair persuasion—if we are always to remain shackled by unjust, constitutional provisions, when the emergency that imposed them has long since passed away; if we must share in the guilt and danger of destroying the bodies and souls of men as the price of our Union; if the slave States will haughtily spurn our assistance, and refuse to consult the general welfare, then the fault is not ours if a separation eventually takes place."
Considering that he was in his twenty-fourth year, and that the Abolition movement had then no actual existence, the orator evinced surprising prescience in his forecast of the future, and of the strife and hostility which the agitation was destined to engender.
"But the plea is prevalent," he said, "that any interference by the free States, however benevolent or cautious it might be, would only irritate and inflame the jealousies of the South, and retard the cause of emancipation. If any man believes that slavery can be abolished without a struggle with the worst passions of human nature, quietly, harmoniously, he cherishes a delusion. It can never be done, unless the age of miracles returns. No; we must expect a collision, full of sharp asperities and bitterness. We shall have to contend with the insolence, and pride, and selfishness of many a heartless being.
"Sirs, the prejudices of the North are stronger than those of the South; they bristle like so many bayonets around the slaves; they forge and rivet the chains of the nation. Conquer them and the victory is won. The enemies of emancipation take courage from our criminal timidity. … We are … afraid of our own shadows, who have been driven back to the wall again and again; who stand trembling under their whips; who turn pale, retreat, and surrender at a talismanic threat to dissolve the Union. … " But the difficulties did not daunt him, nor the dangers cow him. He did not doubt, but was assured, that truth was mighty and would prevail. "Moral influence when in vigorous exercise," he said, "is irresistible. It has an immortal essence. It can no more be trod out of existence by the iron foot of time, or by the ponderous march of iniquity, than matter can be annihilated. It may disappear for a time; but it lives in some shape or other, in some place or other, and will rise with renovated strength. Let us then be up and doing. In the simple and stirring language of the stout-hearted Lundy, all the friends of the cause must go to work, keep to work, hold on, and never give up." The closing paragraph is this powerful peroration: "I will say, finally, that I despair of the republic while slavery exists therein. If I look up to God for success, no smile of mercy or forgiveness dispels the gloom of futurity; if to our own resources, they are daily diminishing; if to all history our destruction is not only possible but almost certain. Why should we slumber at this momentous crisis? If our hearts were dead to every thought of humanity; if it were lawful to oppress, where power is ample; still, if we had any regard for our safety and happiness, we should strive to crush the vampire which is feeding upon our life-blood. All the selfishness of our nature cries aloud for a better security. Our own vices are too strong for us, and keep us in perpetual alarm; how, in addition to these, shall we be able to contend successfully with millions of armed and desperate men, as we must, eventually, if slavery do not cease?" Exit the apprentice, enter the master. The period of preparation is ended, the time of action begun. The address was the fiery cry of the young prophet ere he plunged into the unsubdued wilderness of American slavery.
CHAPTER III.
THE MAN BEGINS HIS MINISTRY.
Some time in August, 1829, Garrison landed in Baltimore, and began with Lundy the editorship of The Genius of Universal Emancipation. Radical as the Park Street Church address was, it had, nevertheless, ceased to represent in one essential matter his anti-slavery convictions and principles. The moral impetus and ground-swell of the address had carried him beyond the position where its first flood of feeling had for the moment left him. During the composition of the address he was transported with grief and indignation at the monstrous wrong which slavery did the slaves and the nation. He had not thought out for himself any means to rid both of the curse. The white heat of the address destroyed for the instant all capacity for such thinking. "Who can be amazed, temperate, and furious—in a moment? No man. The expedition of his violent love outran the pauser reason" He had accepted the colonization scheme as an instrument for removing the evil, and called on all good citizens "to assist in establishing auxiliary colonization societies in every State, county, and town"; and implored "their direct and liberal patronage to the parent society." He had not apparently, so much as dreamed of any other than gradual emancipation. "The emancipation of all the slaves of this generation is most assuredly out of the