William Lloyd Garrison, the Abolitionist. Archibald Henry Grimké
as well as the owner of the ill-freighted ship. He did literally point at these men the finger of scorn. Every device known to the printer's art for concentrating the reader's attention upon particular words and sentences, Garrison made skillful use of in his articles—from the deep damnation of the heavy black capitals in which he printed the name Francis Todd, to the small caps in which appeared the words, "sentenced to solitary confinement for life," and which he flanked with two terrible indices. But the articles did not need such embellishment. They were red hot branding irons without them. One can almost smell the odor of burning flesh as he reads the words: "It is no worse to fit out piratical cruisers or to engage in the foreign slave-trade, than to pursue a similar trade along our coast; and the men who have the wickedness to participate therein, for the purpose of keeping up wealth should be ==>SENTENCED TO SOLITARY CONFINEMENT FOR LIFE; <==they are the enemies of their own species—highway robbers, and murderers; and their final doom will be, unless they speedily repent, to occupy the lowest depths of perdition. I know that our laws make a distinction in this matter. I know that the man who is allowed to freight his vessel with slaves at home, for a distant market, would be thought worthy of death if he should take a similar freight on the coast of Africa; but I know, too, that this distinction is absurd, and at war with the common sense of mankind, and that God and good men regard it with abhorrence.
"I recollect that it was always a mystery in Newburyport how Mr. Todd contrived to make profitable voyages to New Orleans and other places, when other merchants, with as fair an opportunity to make money, and sending to the same ports at the same time invariably made fewer successful speculations. The mystery seems to be unravelled. Any man can gather up riches if he does not care by what means they are obtained."
A copy of the Genius, containing this article Garrison sent to the owner of the ship Francis. What followed made it immediately manifest that the branding irons of the reformer had burned home with scarifying effect. Mr. Todd's answer to the strictures was a suit at law against the editors of the Genius for five thousand dollars in damages. But this was not all. The Grand Jury for Baltimore indicted them for publishing "a gross and malicious libel against Francis Todd and Nicholas Brown." This was at the February Term, 1830. On the first day of March following, Garrison was tried. He was ably and eloquently defended by Charles Mitchell, a young lawyer of the Baltimore Bar. But the prejudice of judge and jury rendered the verdict of guilty a foregone conclusion. April 17, 1830, the Court imposed a penalty of fifty dollars and costs, which, with the fine amounted in all to nearly one hundred dollars. The fine and costs Garrison could not pay, and he was therefore committed to jail as a common malefactor. His confinement lasted seven weeks. He did not languish during this period. His head and hands were in fact hardly ever more active than during the term of his imprisonment. Shut out by Maryland justice from work without the jail, he found and did that which needed to be done within "high walls and huge." He was an extraordinary prisoner and was treated with extraordinary consideration by the Warden. He proved himself a genuine evangel to the prisoners, visiting them in their cells, cheering them by his bouyant and benevolent words, giving them what he had, a brother's sympathy, which to these ill-fated ones, was more than gold or silver. He indited for such of them as he deemed deserving, letters and petitions to the Governor praying their pardon; and he had the great satisfaction of seeing many of his efforts in this regard crowned with success.
But more than this his imprisonment afforded him an opportunity for a closer acquaintance with the barbarism of slavery than he could possibly have made had he lived otherwise in Baltimore. A Southern jail was not only the place of detention of offenders against social justice, but of slaves waiting for the next market-day, of recaptured fugitives waiting for their owners to reclaim them. Here they were huddled and caged, pitiful and despairing in their misery. Such scenes sickened the young reformer every day. God had opened to him the darkest chapter in the book of the negroes' wrongs. Here is a page from that black volume of oppression and cruelty, the record of which he has preserved in the following graphic narrative: "During my late incarceration in Baltimore prison, four men came to obtain a runaway slave. He was brought out of his cell to confront his master, but pretended not to know him—did not know that he had ever seen him before—could not recollect his name. Of course the master was exceedingly irritated. 'Don't you remember,' said he, 'when I gave you not long since thirty-nine lashes under the apple-tree? Another time when I gave you a sound flogging in the barn? Another time when you was scourged for giving me the lie, by saying that the horse was in a good condition?' 'Yes,' replied the slave, whose memory was thus quickened, 'I do recollect. You have beaten me cruelly without cause; you have not given me enough to eat and drink; and I don't want to go back again. I wish you to sell me to another master. I had rather even go to Georgia than to return home!'
"'I'll let you know, you villain,' said the master, 'that my wishes and not yours, are to be consulted. I'll learn you how to run away again.'"
The other men advised him to take the black home, and cut him up in inch pieces for his impudence, obstinacy, and desertion—swearing tremendously all the while. The slave was ordered back to his cell. Then ensued the following colloquy between Garrison and the master:
G.—"Sir, what right have you to that poor creature?"
M.—"My father left him to me."
G.—"Suppose your father had broken into a bank and stolen ten thousand dollars, and safely bequeathed that as a legacy; could you conscientiously keep the money? For myself, I had rather rob any bank to an indefinite amount than kidnap a fellow-being, or hold him in bondage; the sin would be less injurious to society, and less sinful in the sight of God."
M.—"Perhaps you would like to buy the slave and give him his liberty?"
G.—"Sir, I am a poor man; and were I ever so opulent, it would be necessary, on your part, to make out a clear title to the services of the slave before I could conscientiously make a bargain."
M—"Well, sir, I can prove from the Bible that slavery is right."
G.—"Ah! that is a precious book—the rule of conduct. I have always supposed that its spirit was directly opposed to everything in the shape of fraud and oppression. However, sir, I should be glad to hear your text."
M. (hesitatingly)—"Ham—Noah's curse, you know."
G. (hastily)—"Oh, sir, you build on a very slender foundation. Granting even—what remains to be proved—that the Africans are the descendants of Ham, Noah's curse was a prediction of future servitude, and not an injunction to oppress. Pray, sir, is it a careful desire to fulfill the Scriptures, or to make money, that induces you to hold your fellow-men in bondage?"
M. (excitedly)—"Why, sir, do you really think that the slaves are beings like ourselves?—that is, I mean do you believe that they possess the same faculties and capacities as the whites?"
G. (energetically)—"Certainly, sir, I do not know that there is any moral or intellectual quality in the curl of the hair, or the color of the skin. I cannot conceive why a black man may not as reasonably object to my color, as I to his. Sir, it is not a black face that I detest, but a black heart—and I find it very often under a white skin."
M. (derisively)—"Well, sir, how should you like to see a black man President of the United States?"
G. (severely)—"As to that, sir, I am a true Republican, and bow to the will of the majority. If the people prefer a black President, I should cheerfully submit; and if he be qualified for the station, may peradventure give him my vote."
M. (triumphantly)—"How should you like to have a black man marry your daughter?"
G. (making a home thrust and an end of the dialogue)—"I am not married—I have no daughter. Sir, I am not familiar with your practices; but allow me to say, that slaveholders generally should be the last persons to affect fastidiousness on that point; for they seem to be enamored with amalgamation."
Garrison's pen was particularly busy during the term of his imprisonment. He paid his respects to the State's Attorney who prosecuted him, to the judge who condemned him, and to Francis Todd, the owner of the ship Francis. He prepared