RISE OF ABOLITIONISM. (continued 2)

I need not copy any more of this infamous Act. The penalties denounced against the violation of it, you may be sure, were severe enough. That the persecutors of Miss Crandall were determined to visit them upon her, if they might, the sequel of my story will show.

On the receipt of the tidings that the Legislature had passed the law, joy and exultation ran wild in Canterbury. The bells were rung and a cannon fired, until all the inhabitants for miles around were informed of the triumph. So soon as was practicable, on the 27th of June, Miss Crandall was arrested by the sheriff of the county, or the constable of the town, and arraigned before Justices Adams and Bacon, two of the leaders of the conspiracy against her and her humane enterprise. The trial of course was a brief one; the result was predetermined. Before noon of that day a messenger came to let me know that Miss Crandall had been “committed” by the above-named justices, to take her trial at the next session of the Superior Court at Brooklyn in August; that she was in the hands of the sheriff and would be put into jail, unless I or some of her friends would come and “give bonds” for her in the sum of $300 or $500, I forget which. I calmly told the messenger that there were gentlemen enough in Canterbury whose bond for that amount would be as good or better than mine; and I should leave it for them to do Miss Crandall that favor. “But,” said the young man, “are you not her friend?” “Certainly,” I replied, “too sincerely her friend to give relief to her enemies in their present embarrassment; and I trust you will not find any one of her friends, or the patrons of her school, who will step forward to help them any more than myself.” “But, sir,” he cried, “do you mean to allow her to be put into jail?” “Most certainly,” was my answer, “if her persecutors are unwise enough to let such an outrage be committed.” He turned from me in blank surprise, and hurried back to tell Mr. Judson and the justices of his ill success.

A few days before, when I first heard of the passage of the law, I had visited Miss Crandall with my friend Mr. George W. Benson, and advised with her as to the course she and her friends ought to pursue, when she should be brought to trial. She appreciated at once and fully the importance of leaving her persecutors to show to the world how base they were, and how atrocious was the law they had induced the Legislature to enact,—a law, by the force of which a woman might be fined and imprisoned as a felon, in the State of Connecticut, for giving instruction to colored girls. She agreed that it would be best for us to leave her in the hands of those with whom the law originated, hoping that, in their madness, they would show forth all its hideous features.

Mr. Benson and I therefore went diligently around to all whom we knew were friendly to Miss Crandall and her school, and counselled them by no means to give bonds to keep her from imprisonment, because nothing would expose so fully to the public the egregious wickedness of the law, and the virulence of her persecutors as the fact that they had thrust her into jail.

When I found that her resolution was equal to the trial which seemed to be impending, that she was ready to brave and to bear meekly the worst treatment that her enemies would venture to subject her to, I made all the arrangements for her comfort that were practicable in our prison. It fortunately so happened that the most suitable room, not occupied, was the one in which a man named Watkins had recently been confined for the murder of his wife, and out of which he had been taken and executed. This circumstance, we foresaw, would add not a little to the public detestation of the Black Law.

The jailer, at my request, readily put the room in as nice order as was possible, and permitted me to substitute, for the bedstead and mattress on which the murderer had slept, fresh and clean ones from my own house and Mr. Benson’s.

About two o’clock P. M. another messenger came to inform me that the sheriff was on the way from Canterbury to the jail with Miss Crandall, and would imprison her, unless her friends would give him the required bail. Although in sympathy with Miss Crandall’s persecutors, he clearly saw the disgrace that was about to be brought upon the State, and begged me and Mr. Benson to avert it. Of course we refused. I went to the jailer’s house and met Miss Crandall on her arrival. We stepped aside. I said:—

“If now you hesitate, if you dread the gloomy place so much as to wish to be saved from it, I will give bonds for you even now.”

“O no,” she promptly replied; “I am only afraid they will not put me into jail. Their evident hesitation and embarrassment show plainly how much they deprecate the effect of this part of their folly; and therefore I am the more anxious that they should be exposed, if not caught in their own wicked devices.”

We therefore returned with her to the sheriff and the company that surrounded him to await his final act. He was ashamed to do it. He knew it would cover the persecutors of Miss Crandall and the State of Connecticut with disgrace. He conferred with several about him, and delayed yet longer. Two gentlemen came and remonstrated with me in not very seemly terms:—

“It would be a —— shame, an eternal disgrace to the State, to have her put into jail,—into the very room that Watkins had last occupied.”

“Certainly, gentlemen,” I replied, “and you may prevent this if you please.”

“O,” they cried, “we are not her friends; we are not in favor of her school; we don’t want any more —— niggers coming among us. It is your place to stand by Miss Crandall and help her now. You and your —— abolition brethren have encouraged her to bring this nuisance into Canterbury, and it is —— mean in you to desert her now.”

I rejoined: “She knows we have not deserted her, and do not intend to desert her. The law which her persecutors have persuaded our legislators to enact is an infamous one, worthy of the Dark Ages. It would be just as bad as it is, whether we should give bonds for her or not. But the people generally will not so soon realize how bad, how wicked, how cruel a law it is, unless we suffer her persecutors to inflict upon her all the penalties it prescribes. She is willing to bear them for the sake of the cause she has so nobly espoused. And it is easy to foresee that Miss Crandall will be glorified, as much as her persecutors and our State will be disgraced, by the transactions of this day and this hour. If you see fit to keep her from imprisonment in the cell of a murderer for having proffered the blessing of a good education to those who, in our country, need it most, you may do so; we shall not.”

They turned from us in great wrath, words falling from their lips which I shall not repeat.

The sun had descended nearly to the horizon; the shadows of night were beginning to fall around us. The sheriff could defer the dark deed no longer. With no little emotion, and with words of earnest deprecation, he gave that excellent, heroic, Christian young lady into the hands of the jailer, and she was led into the cell of Watkins. So soon as I had heard the bolts of her prison-door turned in the lock, and saw the key taken out, I bowed and said, “The deed is done, completely done. It cannot be recalled. It has passed into the history of our nation and our age.” I went away with my steadfast friend, George W. Benson, assured that the legislators of the State had been guilty of a most unrighteous act; and that Miss Crandall’s persecutors had also committed a great blunder; that they all would have much more reason to be ashamed of her imprisonment than she or her friends could ever have.

The next day we gave the required bonds. Miss Crandall was released from the cell of the murderer, returned home, and quietly resumed the duties of her school, until she should be summoned as a culprit into court, there to be tried by the infamous “Black Law of Connecticut.” And, as we expected, so soon as the evil tidings could be carried in that day, before Professor Morse had given to Rumor her telegraphic wings, it was known all over the country and the civilized world that an excellent young lady had been imprisoned as a criminal,—yes, put into a murderer’s cell,—in the State of Connecticut, for opening a school for the instruction of colored girls. The comments that were made upon the deed in almost all the newspapers were far from grateful to the feelings of her persecutors. Even many who, under the same circumstances, would probably have acted as badly as Messrs. A. T. Judson and Company, denounced their procedure as unchristian, inhuman, anti-democratic, base, mean.

ARTHUR TAPPAN.

The words and manner of Mr. Judson in the interview I had with him on the 11th of March, of which I have given a pretty full report, convinced me that he would do all that could be done by legal and political devices, to abolish Miss Crandall’s school. His success in obtaining from the Legislature the enactment of the infamous “Black Law” showed too plainly that the majority of the people of the State were on the side of the oppressor. But I felt sure that God and good men would be our helpers in the contest to which we were committed. Assurances of approval and of sympathy came from many; and erelong a proffer of all the pecuniary assistance we could need was made by one who was then himself a host. At that time Mr. Arthur Tappan was one of the wealthiest merchants in the country, and was wont to give to religious and philanthropic objects as much, in proportion to his means, as any benefactor who has lived in the land before or since his day. I was not then personally acquainted with him, but he had become deeply interested in the cause of the poor, despised, enslaved millions in our country, and alive to whatever affected them.

Much to my surprise, and much more to my joy, a few weeks after the commencement of the contest, and just after the enactment of the Black Law and the imprisonment of Miss Crandall, I received from Mr. Tappan a most cordial letter. He expressed his entire approbation of the position I had taken in defence of Miss Crandall’s benevolent enterprise, and his high appreciation of the importance of maintaining, in Connecticut especially, the right of colored people, not less than of white, to any amount of education they might wish to obtain, and the respect and encouragement due to any teacher who would devote himself or herself to their instruction. He added: “This contest, in which you have been providentially called to engage, will be a serious, perhaps a violent one. It may be prolonged and very expensive. Nevertheless, it ought to be persisted in to the last. I venture to presume, sir, that you cannot well afford what it may cost. You ought not to be left, even if you are willing, to bear alone the pecuniary burden. I shall be most happy to give you all the help of this sort that you may need. Consider me your banker. Spare no necessary expense. Command the services of the ablest lawyers. See to it that this great case shall be thoroughly tried, cost what it may. I will cheerfully honor your drafts to enable you to defray that cost.” Thus upheld, you will not wonder that I was somewhat elated. At Mr. Tappan’s suggestion I immediately “retained” the Hon. William W. Ellsworth, the Hon. Calvin Goddard, and the Hon. Henry Strong, the three most distinguished members of the Connecticut bar. They all confirmed me in the opinion that the “Black Law” was unconstitutional, and would probably be so pronounced, if we should carry it up to the United States Court. They moreover instructed me that, as the act for which Miss Crandall was to be tried was denounced as criminal, it would be within the province of the jury of our State court to decide upon the character of the law, as well as the conduct of the accused; and that therefore it would be allowable and proper for them to urge the wickedness of the law, in bar of Miss Crandall’s condemnation under it. But, before we get to the trials of Miss Crandall under Mr. Judson’s law, I have more to tell about Mr. Arthur Tappan.

He requested me to keep him fully informed of the doings of Miss Crandall’s persecutors. And I assure you I had too many evil things to report of them. They insulted and annoyed her and her pupils in every way their malice could devise. The storekeepers, the butchers, the milk-pedlers of the town, all refused to supply their wants; and whenever her father, brother, or other relatives, who happily lived but a few miles off, were seen coming to bring her and her pupils the necessaries of life, they were insulted and threatened. Her well was defiled with the most offensive filth, and her neighbors refused her and the thirsty ones about her even a cup of cold water, leaving them to depend for that essential element upon the scanty supplies that could be brought from her father’s farm. Nor was this all; the physician of the village refused to minister to any who were sick in Miss Crandall’s family, and the trustees of the church forbade her to come, with any of her pupils, into the House of the Lord.

In addition to the insults and annoyances mentioned above, the newspapers of the county and other parts of the State frequently gave currency to the most egregious misrepresentations of the conduct of Miss Crandall and her pupils, and the basest insinuations against her friends and patrons. Yet our corrections and replies were persistently refused a place in their columns. The publisher of one of the county papers, who was personally friendly to me, and whom I had assisted to establish in business, confessed to me that he dared not admit into his paper an article in defence of the Canterbury school. It would be, he said, the destruction of his establishment. Thus situated, we were continually made to feel the great disadvantage at which we were contending with the hosts of our enemies.

In one of my letters to Mr. Tappan, when thus sorely pressed, I let fall from my pen, “O that I could only leave home long enough to visit you! For I could tell you in an hour more things, that I wish you to know, than I can write in a week.”

A day or two afterwards, about as quickly as he could then get to me after the receipt of my letter, the door of my study was opened, and in walked Arthur Tappan. I sprang to my feet, and gave him a pressure of the hand which told him more emphatically than words could have done how overjoyed I was to see him. In his usual quiet manner and undertone he said, “Your last letter implied that you were in so much trouble I thought it best to come and see, and consider with you what it will be advisable for us to do.” I soon spread before him the circumstances of the case,—the peculiar difficulties by which we were beset, the increased and increasing malignity of Miss Crandall’s persecutors, provoked, and almost justified in the public opinion, by the false reports that were diligently circulated, and which we had no means of correcting. “Let me go,” said he, “and see for myself Miss Crandall and her school, and learn more of the particulars of the sore trials to which her benevolence and her fortitude seem to be subjected.” As soon as possible the horse and chaise were brought to the door, and the good man went to Canterbury. In a few hours he returned. He had been delighted, nay, deeply affected, by the calm determination which Miss Crandall evinced, and the quiet courage with which she had inspired her pupils. He had learned that the treatment to which they were subjected by their neighbors was in some respects worse even than I had represented it to him; and he said in a low, firm tone of voice, which showed how thoroughly in earnest he was, she must be protected and sustained. “The cause of the whole oppressed, despised colored population of our country is to be much affected by the decision of this question.”

After some further consultation he rose to his feet and said, “You are almost helpless without the press. You must issue a paper, publish it largely, send it to all the persons whom you know in the county and State, and to all the principal newspapers throughout the country. Many will subscribe for it and contribute otherwise to its support, and I will pay whatever more it may cost.” No sooner said than done. We went without delay to the village, where fortunately there was a pretty-well-furnished printing-office that had been lately shut up for want of patronage. We found the proprietor, examined the premises, satisfied ourselves that there were materials enough to begin with, and Mr. Tappan engaged for my use for a year the office, press, types, and whatever else was necessary to commence at once the publication of a newspaper, to be devoted to the advocacy of all human rights in general, and to the defence of the Canterbury school, and its heroic teacher in particular.

We walked back to my house communing together about the great conflict for liberty to which we were committed, the spirit in which it ought to be conducted on our part, and especially the course to be pursued in the further defence of Miss Crandall. Soon after the stage-coach came along. Mr. Tappan, after renewed assurances of support, gave me a hearty farewell and stepped on board to return to New York. He left me the proprietor of a printing-office, and with ample means to maintain, as far as might be necessary, the defence of the Canterbury school against the unrighteous and unconstitutional law of the State of Connecticut. I need now only add that the trials at law were protracted until August, 1834, and that they, together with the conduct of the newspaper, cost me more than six hundred dollars, all of which amount was most promptly and kindly paid by that true philanthropist,—Arthur Tappan.

CHARLES C. BURLEIGH.

The excitement caused by Mr. Tappan’s unexpected visit, the hearty encouragement he had given me, and the great addition he had made to my means of defence, altogether were so grateful to me that I did not at first fully realize how much I had undertaken to do. But a night’s rest brought me to my senses, and I clearly saw that I must have some other help than even Mr. Tappan’s pecuniary generosity could give me. I was at that time publishing a religious paper,—The Christian Monitor,—which, together with my pulpit and parochial duties, filled quite full the measure of my ability. Unfortunately the prospectus of The Monitor, issued a year before the beginning of the Canterbury difficulty, precluded from its columns all articles relating to personal or neighborhood quarrels. Therefore, though the editor of a paper, I could not, in that paper, repel the most injurious attacks that were made upon my character. Had it been otherwise, there would have been no need of starting another paper. But, as Mr. Tappan promptly allowed, another paper must be issued, and to edit two papers at the same time was wholly beyond my power. What should I do?

Soon after the enactment of the “Black Law” an admirable article, faithfully criticising it, had appeared in The Genius of Temperance, and been copied into The Emancipator. It was attributed to Mr. Charles C. Burleigh, living in the adjoining town of Plainfield. I had heard him commended as a young man of great promise, and had once listened to an able speech from him at a Colonization meeting. To him, therefore, in the need of help, my thoughts soon turned. And the morning after Mr. Tappan’s visit I drove over to Plainfield. Mr. Burleigh was living with his parents, and helping them carry on their farm, while pursuing as he could his studies preparatory to the profession of a lawyer. It was Friday of the week, in the midst of haying time. I was told at the house that he was in the field as busy as he could be. Nevertheless, I insisted that my business with him was more important than haying. So he was sent for, and in due time appeared. Like other sensible men, at the hard, hot work of haying, he was not attired in his Sunday clothes, but in his shirt-sleeves, with pants the worse for wear; and, although he then believed in shaving, no razor had touched his beard since the first day of the week. Nevertheless, I do not believe that Samuel of old saw, in the ruddy son of Jesse, as he came up from the sheepfold, the man whom the Lord would have him anoint, more clearly than I saw in C. C. Burleigh the man whom I should choose to be my assistant in that emergency. So soon as I had told him what I wanted of him his eye kindled as if eager for the conflict. We made an arrangement to supply his place on his father’s farm, and he engaged to come to me early the following week. On Monday, the 14th of July, 1833, according to promise, he came to Brooklyn. He then put on the harness of a soldier in the good fight for equal, impartial liberty, and he has not yet laid it aside, nor are there many, if indeed any, of the antislavery warriors who have done more or better service than Mr. Burleigh.

On the 25th of July, 1833, appeared the first number of our paper, called The Unionist. After the first two or three numbers most of the articles were written or selected by Mr. Burleigh, and it was soon acknowledged by the public that the young editor wielded a powerful weapon. The paper was continued, if I remember correctly, about two years, and it helped us mightily in our controversy with the persecutors of Miss Crandall. After a few months C. C. Burleigh associated with him, in the management of The Unionist, his brother, Mr. William H. Burleigh, who also, at the same time, assisted Miss Crandall in the instruction of her school; and for so doing suffered not a little obloquy, insult, and abuse.

It was still the cherished intention of C. C. Burleigh to devote himself to the law, and without neglecting his duties to The Unionist he so diligently and successfully pursued his preparatory studies, that in January, 1835, he was examined and admitted to the bar. The committee of examination were surprised at his proficiency. He was pronounced the best prepared candidate that had been admitted to the Windham County Bar within the memory of those who were then practising there; and confident predictions were uttered by the most knowing ones of his rapid rise to eminence in the profession. Scarcely did Wendell Phillips awaken higher expectations of success as a lawyer in Boston, than C. C. Burleigh had awakened in Brooklyn. But just at the time of his admission I received a letter from Dr. Farnsworth, of Groton, Massachusetts, then President of the Middlesex Antislavery Society, inquiring urgently for some able lecturer, whose services could be obtained as the general agent of that Society. I knew of no one so able as C. C. Burleigh. So I called upon him, told him of the many high compliments I had heard bestowed upon his appearance on the examination, and then said, “Now I have already a most important case, in which to engage your services,” and showed him Dr. Farnsworth’s letter. For a few minutes he hesitated, and his countenance fell. The bright prospect of professional eminence was suddenly overcast. He more than suspected that, if he accepted the invitation, he should get so engaged in the antislavery cause as to be unable to leave the field until after its triumph. He would have to renounce all hope of wealth or political preferment, and lead a life of continual conflict with ungenerous opponents; be poorly requited for his labors, and suffer contumely, hatred, persecution. I saw what was passing in his mind, and that the struggle was severe. But it lasted only a little while,—less than an hour. A bright and beautiful expression illuminated his countenance when he replied, “This is not what I expected or intended, but it is what I ought to do. I will accept the invitation.” He did so. Before the close of the week he departed for his field of labor. And I believe he ceased not a day to be the agent of one antislavery society or another, until after the lamented President Lincoln had proclaimed emancipation to all who were in bondage in our land.

When, in April, 1835, I became the General Agent of the Massachusetts Antislavery Society, I was brought into more intimate relations with Mr. Burleigh. We were indeed fellow-laborers. Repeatedly did we go forth together on lecturing excursions, and never was I better sustained. With him as my companion I felt sure our course would be successful. I always insisted upon speaking first; for, if I failed to do my best, he would make ample amends, covering the whole ground, exhausting the subject, leaving nothing essential unsaid. And if I did better than ever, Mr. Burleigh would come after me, and fill twelve baskets full of precious fragments. He is a single-minded, pure-hearted, conscientious, self-sacrificing man. He is not blessed with a fine voice nor a graceful manner. And the peculiar dress of his hair and beard has given offence to many, and may have lessened his usefulness. But he has a great command of language. He has a singularly acute and logical intellect. His reasoning, argumentative powers are remarkable. And he often has delighted and astonished his hearers by the brilliancy of his rhetoric, and the surpassing beauty of his imagery, and aptness of his illustrations. The millions of the emancipated in our country are indebted to the labors of few more than to those of Charles C. Burleigh. But to return.

MISS CRANDALL’S TRIAL.

On the 23d of August, 1833, the first trial of Prudence Crandall for the crime of keeping a boarding-school for colored girls in the State of Connecticut, and endeavoring to give them a good education,—the first trial for this crime,—was had in Brooklyn, the seat of the county of Windham, within a stone’s throw of the house where lived and died General Israel Putnam, who, with his compatriots of 1776, perilled his life in defence of the self-evident truth that “all men were created equal, and endowed by their Creator with the inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” It was had at the County Court, Hon. Joseph Eaton presiding.

The prosecution was conducted by Hon. A. T. Judson, Jonathan A. Welch, Esq., and I. Bulkley, Esq. Miss Crandall’s counsel were Hon. Calvin Goddard, Hon. W. W. Ellsworth, and Henry Strong, Esq.

The indictment of Miss Crandall consisted of two counts, which amounted to the same thing. The first set forth, in the technical terms of the law, that “with force and arms” she had received into her school; and the second, that, “with force and arms,” she had instructed certain colored girls, who were not inhabitants of the State, without having first obtained, in writing, permission to do so from the majority of the civil authority and selectmen of the town of Canterbury, as required by the law under which she was prosecuted.

Mr. Judson opened the case. He, of course, endeavored to keep out of sight the most odious features of the law which had been disobeyed by Miss Crandall. He insisted that it was only a wise precaution to keep out of the State an injurious kind of population. He urged that the public provisions for the education of all the children of the inhabitants of Connecticut were ample, generous, and that colored children belonging to the State, not less than others, might enjoy the advantages of the common schools, which were under the supervision and control of proper officials in every town. He argued that it was not fair nor safe to allow any person, without the permission of such officials, to come into the State and open a school for any class of pupils she might please to invite from other States. He alleged that other States of the Union, Northern as well as Southern, regarded colored persons as a kind of population respecting which there should be some special legislation. If it were not for such protection as the law in question had provided, the Southerners might free all their slaves, and send them to Connecticut instead of Liberia, which would be overwhelming. Mr. Judson denied that colored persons were citizens in those States, where they were not enfranchised. He claimed that the privilege of being a freeman was higher than the right of being educated, and asked this remarkable question: “Why should a man be educated who could not be a freeman?” He denied, however, that he was opposed to the improvement of any class of the inhabitants of the land, if their improvement could be effected without violating any of the provisions of our Constitution, or endangering the union of the States. His associates labored to maintain the same positions.

These positions were vigorously assailed by Mr. Ellsworth and Mr. Strong, and shown to be untenable by a great array of facts adduced from the history of our own country, of the opinions of some of the most illustrious lawyers and civilians of England and America, and of arguments, the force of which was palpable.

Nevertheless, the Judge saw fit, though somewhat timidly, in his charge to the Jury, to give it as his opinion that “the law was constitutional and obligatory on the people of the State.”

The Jury, after an absence of several hours, returned into court, not having agreed upon a verdict. They were instructed on some points, and sent out a second, and again a third time, but with no better success. They stated to the Court that there was no probability they should ever agree. Seven of them were for conviction, and five for acquittal. So they were discharged.

Supposing that this result operated as a continuance of the case to the next term of the County Court, to be held the following December, a few days after the trial I went with my family to spend several weeks with my friends in Boston and the neighborhood. But much to my surprise and discomfort, the last week in September, just as I was starting off to deliver an antislavery lecture, at a distance from Boston, I received the information that the persecutors of Miss Crandall, too impatient to wait until December for the regular course of law, had got up a new prosecution of her, to be tried on the 3d of October, before Judge Daggett of the Supreme Court, who was known to be hostile to the colored people, and a strenuous advocate of the Black Law. It was impossible for me so to dispose of my engagements that I could get back to Brooklyn in time to attend the trial. I could only write and instruct the counsel of Miss Crandall, in case a verdict should be obtained against her, to carry the cause up to the Court of Errors.

The second trial was had on the 3d of October; the same defence as before was set up, and ably maintained. But Chief Justice Daggett’s influence with the Jury was overpowering. He delivered an elaborate and able charge, insisting upon the constitutionality of the law; and, without much hesitation, the verdict was given against Miss Crandall. Her counsel at once filed a bill of exceptions, and an appeal to the Court of Errors, which was granted. Before that—the highest legal tribunal in the State—the cause was argued on the 22d of July, 1834. The Hon. W. W. Ellsworth and the Hon. Calvin Goddard argued against the constitutionality of the Black Law, with very great ability and eloquence. The Hon. A. T. Judson and the Hon. C. F. Cleaveland said all that perhaps could be said to prove such a law to be consistent with the Magna Charta of our Republic. All who attended the trial seemed to be deeply interested, and were made to acknowledge the vital importance of the question at issue. Most persons, I believe, were persuaded that the Court ought to and would decide against the law. But they reserved the decision until some future time. And that decision, I am sorry to say, was never given. The Court evaded it the next week by finding that the defects in the information prepared by the State’s Attorney were such that it ought to be quashed; thus rendering it “unnecessary for the Court to come to any decision upon the question as to the constitutionality of the law.”

Whether her persecutors were or were not in despair of breaking down Miss Crandall’s school by legal process, I am unable to say, but they soon resorted to other means, which were effectual.

HOUSE SET ON FIRE.

Soon after their failure to get a decision from the Court of Errors, an attempt was made to set her house on fire. Fortunately the match was applied to combustibles tucked under a corner where the sills were somewhat decayed. They burnt like a slow match. Some time before daylight the inmates perceived the smell of fire, but not until nearly nine o’clock did any blaze appear. It was quickly quenched; and I was sent for to advise whether, if her enemies were so malignant as this attempt showed them to be, it was safe and right for her to expose her pupils’ and her own life any longer to their wicked devices. It was concluded that she should hold on and bear yet a little longer. Perhaps the atrocity of this attempt to fire her house, and at the same time endanger the dwellings of her neighbors would frighten the leaders and instigators of the persecution to put more restraint upon “the baser sort.” But a few nights afterwards it was made only too plain that the enemies of the school were bent upon its destruction. About twelve o’clock, on the night of the 9th of September, Miss Crandall’s house was assaulted by a number of persons with heavy clubs and iron bars; five window-sashes were demolished and ninety panes of glass dashed to pieces.

I was summoned next morning to the scene of destruction and the terror-stricken family. Never before had Miss Crandall seemed to quail, and her pupils had become afraid to remain another night under her roof. The front rooms of the house were hardly tenantable; and it seemed foolish to repair them only to be destroyed again. After due consideration, therefore, it was determined that the school should be abandoned. The pupils were called together, and I was requested to announce to them our decision. Never before had I felt so deeply sensible of the cruelty of the persecution which had been carried on for eighteen months, in that New England village against a family of defenceless females. Twenty harmless, well-behaved girls, whose only offence against the peace of the community was that they had come together there to obtain useful knowledge and moral culture, were to be told that they had better go away, because, forsooth, the house in which they dwelt would not be protected by the guardians of the town, the conservators of the peace, the officers of justice, the men of influence in the village where it was situated. The words almost blistered my lips. My bosom glowed with indignation. I felt ashamed of Canterbury, ashamed of Connecticut, ashamed of my country, ashamed of my color. Thus ended the generous, disinterested, philanthropic, Christian enterprise of Prudence Crandall.

This was the second attempt made in Connecticut to establish a school for the education of colored youth. The other was in New Haven, two years before. So prevalent and malignant was our national prejudice against the most injured of our fellow-men!

MR. GARRISON’S MISSION TO ENGLAND.—NEW YORK MOBS.

The subject of this article is very opportune at the present time.A While the roar of the cannon, fired in honor of Mr. Garrison at the moment of his late departure from England, is still reverberating through the land, it will be interesting and instructive to recall the purpose of his mission to that country just thirty-four years ago; and how he was vilified when he went, and denounced, hunted, mobbed, on his return. He went there to undeceive the philanthropists of Great Britain as to a gigantic fraud which had been practised upon them, as well as the antislavery people of the United States. He has gone now to the World’s Antislavery Convention as a delegate from our National Association for the education, and individual, domestic, and civil elevation of our colored population, whose condition thirty years ago, and until a much more recent period, it was confidently maintained, and pretty generally conceded, could not be essentially improved within the borders of our Republic, if, indeed, on the same continent with our superior Anglo-Saxon race.

The conscience of our country was never at peace concerning the enslavement of the colored people. It was denounced by Jefferson in his original draft of the Declaration of Independence, and afterwards in his “Notes on Virginia.” An effort to abolish slavery was made in the Convention that framed our Constitution; and strenuous opposition to that Magna Charta was made in several of the State Conventions called to ratify it, because the abominable wrong was indirectly and covertly sanctioned therein. Soon after we became a nation plans were proposed and associations formed for the improvement of the condition of the colored population; and the General Government was earnestly entreated, in a petition headed by Dr. Franklin, “to go to the utmost limits of its power” to eradicate the great evil from the land. But the doctrine was industriously taught by our statesmen that the status of that class of the people was left, in the Constitution of the Union, to be determined by the government of each of the States in which they may be found. And still greater pains were taken, by those who were bent on the perpetuation of slavery, to make it generally believed throughout the country that negroes were naturally a very inferior race of men; utterly incapable of much mental or moral culture, and better off in domestic servitude on our continent than in their native state in Africa. Notwithstanding this disparagement of them, and the other inducements pressed upon the white people everywhere to acquiesce in their enslavement, many colored persons emancipated themselves, especially in Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, and Louisiana; and many more were set free by the workings of the consciences of their owners, or in gratitude for their services to individuals or the public. Thus, considerable bodies of freedmen were found almost everywhere in the midst of the slaves. Not without reason, these persons became objects of distrust to slaveholders. Devices were therefore sought to get rid of their disturbing influence, and to prevent the increase of the number of such persons.

In 1816 the grand scheme was proposed, and readily adopted in most of the slaveholding States, for colonizing on the coast of Africa the free colored people of the United States, and prohibiting the emancipation of any more of the enslaved, excepting upon the condition of their removal to Liberia.

To carry this great undertaking into complete effect it was necessary to secure the patronage of the Federal Government. This obviously could not be done, without first conciliating to the project the approval and co-operation of the people of the non-slaveholding States. Accordingly, agents, eloquent and cunning, were sent north, east, and west, to summon the benevolent and patriotic everywhere to aid in an enterprise which, it was claimed, would result in the safe but entire abolition of American slavery.

The dreadful wrongs and cruelties inflicted upon our bondmen were not kept out of sight by these agents, but sometimes glowingly depicted. The participation of the Northern States in the original sin of the enslavement of Africans was pertinently urged. The utter impracticability and danger of setting free such hordes of ignorant, degraded people were insisted on with particular emphasis. The immense good that would be done to benighted Africa was eloquently portrayed,—how the slave-trade might be stopped, and the knowledge of the arts of civilized America, and the blessings of our Christian religion, might be spread throughout that dark region of the earth, from the basis of colonies planted at Liberia and elsewhere along those coasts, hitherto visited only by mercenary and cruel white men. All these considerations were so pressed upon the churches and ministers and kind-hearted people of the Northern States, that erelong an enthusiasm was awakened everywhere in favor of colonizing the colored people of our country “in their native land,” and thus, at the same time, evangelizing Africa and wiping out the shame of the American Republic. Without stopping to consider the glaring inconsistencies of the scheme, it was taken for granted to be the only feasible way of doing what we all longed to have done,—abolishing slavery. So the colonization of our colored population became the favorite enterprise at the North, even more than at the South. Thousands who were so prejudiced against them that they would never consent to admit them to the enjoyment of the rights, and the exercise of the prerogatives, of men in our country were ready to give liberally to have them transported across the Atlantic, and were deluded into the belief that it was a benevolent, yes, a Christian enterprise. The very elect were deceived. The men who have since been most distinguished among the Abolitionists—Mr. Garrison, Arthur Tappan, Gerrit Smith, James G. Birney, and hundreds more—were for a while zealous Colonizationists.

Not until Mr. Garrison had been some time resident in Baltimore as co-editor, with Benjamin Lundy, of the Genius of Universal Emancipation, were the true purpose and spirit of Colonization discovered. He there found out, as he afterwards made it plainly appear, that the intention of the originators, and of the Southern promoters of the scheme, really was, “to rivet still closer the fetters of the slaves, and to deepen the prejudice against the free people of color.”

So different had been the representations of its purpose by the agents of the Colonization Society who had labored in its behalf throughout the free States, and so utterly unconscious were most of the Colonizationists on this side of Mason and Dixon’s line of harboring any such designs, that Mr. Garrison’s accusations fired them with indignation and wrath. They would not give heed to his incontrovertible evidence. Though his witnesses were numerous and could not be impeached, yet were they spurned by most of the persons in the free States who had espoused the cause. It was enough that Mr. Garrison had come out in opposition to the plan of Colonization. He was denounced as an infidel, set upon as an enemy of his country. The churches were all closed against him. Few ministers ventured to give him any countenance, and the politicians heaped upon him unmeasured abuse. All this made the more plain to the young Reformer and his co-laborers how thoroughly the virus of slavery had poisoned the American body ecclesiastic, as well as the body politic. It was seen that the church was becoming the bulwark of slaveholders. Mr. Garrison felt that the first thing to be done, therefore, was to batter down the confidence of the humane in the Colonization plan. Against this he drove his sharpest points, at this he aimed his heaviest artillery. So when it became known to us that the agents of that plan had labored, with sad effect, in Great Britain; that they had suborned to their purpose the aid of the English philanthropists, we all felt, with Mr. Garrison, that those friends of the oppressed must be undeceived without delay. No one was competent to do this work so thoroughly as Mr. Garrison himself. Accordingly, it was determined, in the spring of 1833, that he must see personally the prominent Abolitionists of Great Britain.

In pursuance of this object he sailed from New York on the first day of this month, thirty-four years ago. He went with the execrations of the leading Colonizationists, and all the proslavery partisans of our country upon his head. He was received in England with the utmost cordiality and respectful confidence by all the friends of liberty; for although, as he found, many of them had been persuaded by the agents of the Colonization Society to give their approval and aid to that scheme, they had done so because they had been made to believe that it was intended and adapted to effect the entire abolition of slavery in the United States.

Nothing could have been more opportune than was his arrival in London. He found there most of the leading Abolitionists of the United Kingdom watching and aiding the measures in Parliament about to issue in the emancipation of the enslaved in the British West India Islands. He was invited to their councils, and interchanged opinions freely and fully with them on the great questions, which were essentially the same in that country and our own. It was especially his privilege to become acquainted with William Wilberforce and Thomas Clarkson and Fowell Buxton and George Thompson, to name no more of the noble host that had fought the battles and won the victory of freedom for eight hundred thousand slaves. He was there when William Wilberforce was summoned to lay aside his earthly life, with his antislavery armor, and ascend, we trust, to the right hand of God. How appropriate that the young leader of the Abolitionists of America, whose work had just begun, should be present, as he was, at the obsequies of the veteran leader of the British Abolitionists just as their work was done!

Mr. Garrison remained in England three or four months, long enough to accomplish fully the object of his mission. He reached New York on the 30th of the following September, bringing with him this emphatic protest, signed by the most distinguished philanthropists, and several of the most distinguished statesmen of Great Britain:—

“We, the undersigned, having observed with regret that the American Colonization Society appears to be gaining some adherents in this country, are desirous to express our opinions respecting it. Our motive and excuse for thus coming forward are the claims which that Society has put forth to Antislavery support. These claims are, in our opinion, wholly groundless; and we feel bound to affirm that our deliberate judgment and conviction are that the professions made by the Colonization Society of promoting the abolition of slavery are delusive....

“While we believe its precepts to be delusive we are convinced that its real effects are of the most dangerous nature. It takes its root from a cruel prejudice and alienation in the whites of America against the colored people, slave or free. This being its source, its effects are what might be expected....

“On these grounds, therefore, and while we acknowledge the colony of Liberia, or any other colony on the coast of Africa, to be in itself a good thing, we must be understood utterly to repudiate the principles of the American Colonization Society. That Society is, in our estimation, not deserving of the countenance of the British public.

(Signed) “Wm. Wilberforce, Zachary Macaulay, William Evans, M. P., Samuel Gurney, S. Lushington, M. P., T. Fowell Buxton, M. P., James Cropper, Daniel O’Connell, M. P.,” and others.

Nothing could have maddened the slaveholders and their Northern abettors more than Mr. Garrison’s success in England, and their malignant, ferocious hatred of him broke out on his return. It so happened that, without any expectation of his arrival at the time, a meeting of those desirous of the abolition of slavery was called, on the evening of October 2, in Clinton Hall, to organize a city society. When it was known that Mr. Garrison would be present, most of the New York newspapers teemed with exciting articles, and an advertisement, signed “Many Southerners,” summoned “all persons interested in the subject” to be present at the same time and place. The Abolitionists, aware that a meeting at Clinton Hall would be broken up, quietly withdrew to Chatham Street Chapel, and had nearly completed the organization of the “New York City Antislavery Society,” when the mob of slaveholding patriots, disappointed of their prey at Clinton Hall, and finding out the retreat of the Abolitionists, rushed upon and dispersed them from Chatham Street Chapel, with horrid cries of detestation and threats of utmost violence, especially aimed at Mr. Garrison, of whom they went in search from place to place, declaring their determination to wreak upon him their utmost vengeance. Mr. Garrison, secure in their ignorance of his person, and curious to learn all he might of the mistaken notions and corrupt principles by which they were misled and driven to such excesses, went around with them in their bootless pursuit until he was tired, and the fire of their fury had cooled.

The New York newspapers, especially the Courier and Inquirer, the Gazette, Evening Post, and Commercial Advertiser, by their half-way condemnation of this outrage, and their gross misrepresentations of the sentiments and purposes of Mr. Garrison and his fellow-laborers, virtually justified that fearful assault upon “the liberty of speech,” and inauguration of “the Reign of Terror,” of which I shall hereafter give my readers some account.

THE CONVENTION AT PHILADELPHIA.

The publication of Mr. Garrison’s “Thoughts on Colonization” had arrested the attention of philanthropists in all parts of our country. Everywhere, public as well as private discussions were had respecting the professed and the real purpose and tendency of the Colonization plan. Converts to the great doctrine of the young Reformer—“Immediate emancipation without expatriation, the right of the slave and the duty of the master”—were added daily. Tidings came to us that many town and several county antislavery societies had been formed in several States of the Union, and the circulation of the Liberator had greatly increased. There was a growing feeling that Abolitionists of the whole country ought to know each other, devise some plan of co-operation, and make their influence more manifest. Repeatedly during the spring of 1833 Mr. Garrison expressed his opinion that the time had come for the formation of a National Antislavery Society.

After his departure on his mission to England the need of such an organization became more and more apparent, and before Mr. Garrison’s return, on the 30th of September, the call was issued for the Convention to be held in Philadelphia on the fourth, fifth, and sixth days of the ensuing December. Had we foreseen the peculiarly excited state of the public mind at that time, the important meeting might have been deferred. The success of Mr. Garrison’s labors in England, in opening the eyes of the British philanthropists to the egregious imposition which had been put upon them by the Colonization Society, the protest of the sainted Wilberforce and his most illustrious fellow-laborers, the stinging sarcasms of O’Connell, the champion of Ireland and of universal freedom, were working like moral blisters. More than all, the report of the great Exeter Hall meeting in London, by which colonization was denounced, and the doctrine of “immediate emancipation” fully indorsed, had lashed into fury all the proslavery-colonization-pseudo patriotism throughout the land. The storm had burst upon us in the mobs at New York; and whether it would ever subside until it had overwhelmed us, was a question which many answered in tones of fearful foreboding to our little band. But the Convention had been called before the outbreak, and we were not “wise and prudent” enough to relinquish our purpose of holding it.

On my way to the “City of Brotherly Love” I joined, at New York, a number of the brethren going thither, whom I had never seen before. I studied anxiously their countenances and bearing, and caught most thirstily every word that dropped from their lips, until I was satisfied that most of them were men ready to die, if need be, in the pass of Thermopylæ.

There was a large company on the steamer that took us from New York to Elizabethtown, and again from Bordentown to Philadelphia. There was much earnest talking by other parties beside our own. Presently a gentleman turned from one of them to me and said, “What, sir, are the Abolitionists going to do in Philadelphia?” I informed him that we intended to form a National Antislavery Society. This brought from him an outpouring of the commonplace objections to our enterprise, which I replied to as well as I was able. Mr. Garrison drew near, and I soon shifted my part of the discussion into his hands, and listened with delight to the admirable manner in which he expounded and maintained the doctrines and purposes of those who believed with him that the slaves—the blackest of them—were men, entitled as much as the whitest and most exalted men in the land to their liberty, to a residence here, if they choose, and to acquire as much wisdom, as much property, and as high a position as they may.

After a long conversation, which attracted as many as could get within hearing, the gentleman said, courteously: “I have been much interested, sir, in what you have said, and in the exceedingly frank and temperate manner in which you have treated the subject. If all Abolitionists were like you, there would be much less opposition to your enterprise. But, sir, depend upon it, that hair-brained, reckless, violent fanatic, Garrison will damage, if he does not shipwreck, any cause.” Stepping forward, I replied, “Allow me, sir, to introduce you to Mr. Garrison, of whom you entertain so bad an opinion. The gentleman you have been talking with is he.” I need not describe, you can easily imagine, the incredulous surprise with which this announcement was received. And so it has been from the beginning until now. Those who have only heard of Mr. Garrison, and have believed the misrepresentations of his enemies, have supposed him to be “a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.” But those who have become most intimately acquainted with him have found him to be “as harmless as a dove,” though indeed “as wise as a serpent.”

When we arrived in Philadelphia on the afternoon of the 3d of December, 1833, we learnt that a goodly number were already there; and the newspapers of the day were seeking to make our coming a formidable affair, worthy the especial attention of those patriotic conservators of the peace who dealt in brickbats, rotten eggs, and tar and feathers. The Police of the city had given notice to our Philadelphia associates that they could not protect us in the evening, and therefore our meetings must be held by daylight.

A previous gathering was had that evening at the house of Evan Lewis, a man who was afraid of nothing but doing or being wrong. Between thirty and forty were there, and we made such arrangements as we could for the ensuing day. One thing we did, which we were not careful to report, so you may never have heard of it. It was a weak, a servile act. We were ashamed of it ourselves, and you shall have a laugh at our expense if you like.

Some one suggested that, as we were strangers in Philadelphia, our characters and manner of life not known there, the populace might the more easily be made to believe that we had come for an incendiary purpose, and be roused to prevent the accomplishment of it; that, in order to avert the opposition which seemed preparing to thwart us, it would be well to get some one of the distinguished philanthropists of that city to preside over our deliberations, and thus be, as it were, a voucher to the public for our harmlessness. There was no one proposed of whom we could hope such patronage, save only Robert Vaux, a prominent and wealthy Quaker. To him it was resolved we should apply. Five or seven of us were delegated to wait upon the great man, and solicit his acceptance of the Presidency of the Convention. Of this committee I had the honor to be one. Just for this once I wish I had some wit, that I might be able to do justice to the scene. But I need not help you to see it in all its ludicrousness. There were at least six of us—Beriah Green, Evan Lewis, Eppingham L. Capron, Lewis Tappan, John G. Whittier, and myself—sitting around a richly furnished parlor, gravely arguing, by turns, with the wealthy occupant, to persuade him that it was his duty to come and be the most prominent one in a meeting of men already denounced as “fanatics, amalgamationists, disorganizers, disturbers of the peace, and dangerous enemies of the country.” Of course our suit was unsuccessful. We came away mortified much more because we had made such a request, than because it had been denied. As we left the door Beriah Green said in his most sarcastic tone, “If there is not timber amongst ourselves big enough to make a president of, let us get along without one, or go home and stay there until we have grown up to be men.”

The next morning as we passed along the streets leading to the place of meeting, the Adelphi Buildings, we were repeatedly assailed with most insulting words. On arriving at the hall we found the entrance guarded by police officers, placed there, I suppose, at the suggestion of some friends by order of the Mayor. These incidents helped us to realize how we and the cause we had espoused, were regarded in that City of Brotherly Love and Quakers.

At the hour appointed, on the morning of the 4th, nearly all the members were in their seats,—fifty-six in all, representing ten different States. No time was lost. A fervent prayer was offered for the divine guidance. If there was ever a praying assembly I believe that was one.

Beriah Green, then President of Oneida Institute, was chosen President of our Convention. Lewis Tappan, one of the earliest and most untiring laborers in the cause of the oppressed, a well-known merchant of New York, and John G. Whittier, one of Liberty’s choicest poets, were chosen Secretaries.

The first forenoon was spent in a free but somewhat desultory interchange of thought upon the topics of prominent interest, and in listening to a number of cheering letters from individuals in different parts of the United States, assuring us of their hearty sympathy and co-operation, though they were unable to be with us in person.

Discussion and argument were not found necessary to bring us to the resolution to institute an American Antislavery Society, for that was the especial purpose for which we had come together. Committees were chosen to draft a constitution and to nominate a list of officers. When the dining hour arrived, with one consent it was agreed that it was better than meat to remain in the hall, and commune with one another upon the interests of the cause we had espoused. And there and thus did we spend the dinner-time on that and each of the succeeding days. Baskets of crackers and pitchers of cold water supplied all the bodily refreshment that we needed.

The reports of the committees occupied us through the afternoon. We then came unanimously to the conclusion that it was needful to give, to our country and the world, a fuller declaration of the sentiments and purposes of the American Antislavery Society than could be embodied in its Constitution. It was therefore resolved “that Messrs. Atlee, Wright, Garrison, Joselyn, Thurston, Sterling, William Green, Jr., Whittier, Goodell, and May be a committee to draft a Declaration of the Principles of the American Antislavery Society for publication, to which the signatures of the members of this Convention shall be affixed.”

In my next article I will give my readers a particular account of the conception and production of our Magna Charta.

THE PHILADELPHIA CONVENTION.

The committee of ten, appointed at the close of the first day to prepare a declaration of the sentiments and purposes of the American Antislavery Society, felt that the work assigned them ought to be most carefully and thoroughly done, embodying, as far as possible, the best thoughts of the whole Convention. Accordingly, about half of the members were invited to meet, and did meet, the committee early at the house of our chairman, Dr. Edwin P. Atlee.

After an hour’s general conversation upon the importance of the document to be prepared, and the character it ought to possess, we agreed that each one present should, in his turn, utter the sentiment or announce the purpose which he thought ought to be given in the declaration. This was done, and revealed great unanimity, and at the same time not a little individuality of opinion among the members. I cannot now recall many of the suggestions thrown out. One, however, was so pregnant that it contained the text and the substance of several of my lectures afterwards. “I wish,” said Elizur Wright, “that the difference between our purpose and that of the Colonization Society should be explicitly stated. We mean to exterminate slavery from our country with its accursed influences. The Colonizationists aim only to get rid of the slaves so soon as they become free. Their plan is unrighteous, cruel, and impracticable withal. Our plan needs but a good will, a right spirit amongst the white people, to accomplish it.”

After a session of more than two hours thus spent a sub-committee of three was appointed to prepare a draft of the proposed declaration, to be reported next morning at nine o’clock to the whole committee, in the room adjoining the hall of the Convention. William L. Garrison, John G. Whittier, and myself composed that sub-committee. We immediately repaired to the house of Mr. James McCrummel, a colored gentleman, with whom Mr. Garrison was at home; and there, after a half-hour’s consultation, it was of course determined that Mr. Garrison, our Coryphæus, should write the document, in which were to be set before our country and the world “the sentiments and purposes of the American Antislavery Society.” We left him about ten o’clock, agreeing to come to him again next morning at eight.

On our return at the appointed hour we found him, with shutters closed and lamps burning, just writing the last paragraph of his admirable draft. We read it over together two or three times very carefully, agreed to a few slight alterations, and at nine went to lay it before the whole committee. By them it was subjected to the severest examination. Nearly three hours of intense application were given to it, notwithstanding repeated and urgent calls from the Convention for our report. All the while Mr. Garrison evinced the most unruffled patience. Very few alterations were proposed, and only once did he offer any resistance. He had introduced into his draft more than a page in condemnation of the Colonization scheme. It was the concentrated essence of all he had written or thought upon that egregious imposition. It was as finished and powerful in expression as any part of that Magna Charta. We commented upon it as a whole and in all its parts. We writhed somewhat under its severity, but were obliged to acknowledge its exact, its singular justice, and were about to accept it, when I ventured to propose that all of it, excepting only the first comprehensive paragraph, be stricken from the document, giving as my reason for this large erasure, that the Colonization Society could not long survive the deadly blows it had received; and it was not worth while for us to perpetuate the memory of it, in this Declaration of the Rights of Man, which will live a perpetual, impressive protest against every form of oppression, until it shall have given place to that brotherly kindness, which all the children of the common Father owe to one another. At first, Mr. Garrison rose up to save a portion of his work that had doubtless cost him as much mental effort as any other part of it. But so soon as he found that a large majority of the committee concurred in favor of the erasure, he submitted very graciously, saying, “Brethren, it is your report, not mine.”

With this exception, the alterations and amendments which were made, after all our criticisms, were surprisingly few and unessential; and we cordially agreed to report it to the Convention very much as it came from his pen.

Between twelve and one o’clock we repaired with it to the hall. Edwin P. Atlee, the Chairman, read the Declaration to the Convention. Never in my life have I seen a deeper impression made by words than was made by that admirable document upon all who were there present. After the voice of the reader had ceased there was a profound silence for several minutes. Our hearts were in perfect unison. There was but one thought with us all. Either of the members could have told what the whole Convention felt. We felt that the word had just been uttered which would be mighty, through God, to the pulling down of the strongholds of slavery.

The solemn silence was broken by a Quaker brother, Evan Lewis, or Thomas Shipley, who moved that we adopt the Declaration, and proceed at once to append to it our signatures. He said, “We have already given it our assent; every heart here has responded to it; and there is a doctrine of the ‘Friends’ which impelled me to make the motion I have done: ‘First impressions are from heaven.’ I fear, if we go about criticising and amending this Declaration, we shall qualify its truthfulness and impair its strength.”

The majority of the Convention, however, thought it best, in a matter so momentous, to be deliberate; to weigh well every word and act by which our countrymen and the world would be called to justify or condemn us and our enterprise. Accordingly, we adjusted ourselves to hear the Declaration read again, paragraph by paragraph, sentence by sentence, and to pass judgment upon it in every particular. The whole afternoon, from one o’clock until five, was assiduously and patiently devoted to this review. Discussion arose on several points; but no one spoke who had not something to say. Never had I heard in a public assembly so much pertinent speech, never so little that was unimportant. The result of the afternoon’s deliberations was a deeper satisfaction with the Declaration. Some expressions in it were called in question, but few were changed. And just as the darkness of night had shut down upon us we resolved unanimously to adopt it. On motion of Lewis Tappan we voted that Abraham L. Cox, M. D., whom the mover knew to be an excellent penman, be requested to procure a suitable sheet of parchment, and engross thereon our magna charta before the following morning, that it might then receive the signatures of each one of the members.

At the opening of the meeting next morning the Doctor was there, with the work assigned him beautifully executed. He read the Declaration once and again. Another hour was expended in the consideration of certain expressions in it. But no changes were made. It was then submitted for signatures; and Thomas Whitson, of Chester County, Pennsylvania, being obliged to leave the city immediately, came forward and had the honor of signing it first. Sixty-one others subscribed their names on the 6th day of December, 1833.

If I ever boast of anything it is this: that I was a member of the Convention that instituted the American Antislavery Society. That assembly, gathered from eleven different States of our Republic, was composed of devout men of every sect and of no sect in religion, of each political party and of neither; but they were all of one mind. They evidently felt that they had come together for a purpose higher and better than that of any religious sect or political party. Never have I seen men so ready, so anxious to rid themselves of whatsoever was narrow, selfish, or merely denominational. I was all the more affected by the manifestation of this spirit, because I had been living for ten years in Connecticut, where every one who did not profess a faith essentially “Orthodox” was peremptorily proscribed. In the Philadelphia Convention there were but two or three of my sect, which you know at that time had but few avowed adherents anywhere except in the eastern half of Massachusetts, and was then, much more than now, especially obnoxious to all other religionists in the land. Yet we were cordially treated as brethren, admitted freely, without reserve or qualification, into that goodly fellowship. They were indeed a company of the Lord’s freemen, a truly devout company. And the scrupulous regard for the rights of the human mind, no less than for the other natural rights of man, was shown from the beginning to the end of the Convention.

Much the largest number of any sect present were what were then, and are now, called Orthodox, or Evangelical. There were ten or twelve ministers of one or the other of those denominations that claim to be Orthodox; yet I distinctly remember that some of them were the most forward and eager to lay aside sectarianism, and their generous example was gladly followed by all others. At the suggestion of an Orthodox brother, and without a vote of the Convention, our President himself, then an Orthodox minister, readily condescended to the scruples of our Quaker brethren, so far as not to call upon any individual to offer prayer; but at the opening of our sessions each day he gave notice that a portion of time would be spent in prayer. Any one prayed aloud who was moved so to do.

It was at the suggestion also of an Orthodox member that we agreed to dispense with all titles, civil or ecclesiastical. Accordingly, you will not find in the published minutes of the Convention appendages to any names,—neither D. D., nor Rev., nor Hon., nor Esq.,—no, not even plain Mr. We met as fellow-men, in the cause of suffering fellow-men.

When the resolution was read recommending the institution of a monthly “concert of prayer” for the abolition of slavery, a Quaker objected to its passage, on the ground that he believed not in stated times and seasons for prayers, but that then only can we truly pray when we are moved to do so by the Holy Spirit. Effingham L. Capron, a member of the “Society of Friends,” immediately and earnestly expressed regret that his brother had interposed such an objection. “For,” said he, “this measure is only to be recommended by the Convention, not insisted on, much less to be incorporated into the constitution of the society we have formed; and such is the liberal, catholic spirit of all here present,” he added, “that I do not suspect any one wishes to urge the measure upon those who would have conscientious scruples against it.” “Certainly not, certainly not,” said the mover of the resolution. “Certainly not, certainly not,” was responded from all parts of the hall. On this explanation the brother withdrew his opposition, and the resolution passed, nem. con.

LUCRETIA MOTT.

A number of excellent women, most of them of the “Society of Friends,” were in constant attendance upon the meetings of the Convention, which continued three days successively, without adjournment for dinner. On the afternoon of the second day, in the midst of a very interesting debate (I think it was on the use of the productions of slave-labor), a sweet female voice was heard. It was Lucretia Mott’s. She had risen and commenced speaking, but was hesitating, because she feared the larger part of the Convention not being Quakers might think it “a shame for a woman to speak in a church,” and she was unwilling to give them offence. Her beautiful countenance was radiant with the thoughts that had moved her to speak; and the expression was made all the more engaging by the emotion of deference to the supposed prejudices of her auditors, with which it was suffused.

Our President, Beriah Green, conferred not with flesh and blood, but, filled as he was with the liberal spirit of the apostle who wrote, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither male nor female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus,” at once, without waiting for the formal sanction of the Convention, cried out in the most encouraging, cordial tone, “Go on, ma’am, we shall all be glad to hear you.” “Go on,” “Go on,” was responded by many voices. She did go on; and no man who was there will dissent from me when I add that she made a more impressive and effective speech than any other that was made in the Convention, excepting only our President’s closing address.

Lucretia Mott afterwards spoke repeatedly; and one or two graceful amendments of the language of our Declaration were made at her suggestion. Two other excellent women also took part in our discussions,—Esther Moore and Lydia White,—and they spoke to good purpose. Now, that no brother was scandalized by this procedure (and there were several there who afterwards opposed us on the “woman question,”) we have evidence enough in the following resolution, which was passed near the close of the third day, without dissent or a word to qualify or limit its application: “Resolved, that the thanks of the Convention be presented to our female friends for the deep interest they have manifested in the cause of antislavery, during the long and fatiguing session of the Convention.” Was not the fact that three of our female friends had taken an active part in our meetings, had repeatedly “spoken in the church”—must not this fact have been prominent to the view of every one who was called to vote on the above resolution? And yet I do aver that I heard not a word, either in or out of the hall, censuring their course, or expressing regret that they had been allowed to take part in our discussions. Far otherwise. It seemed to be regarded as another of the many indications we had seen of the deep hold which the antislavery cause had taken of the public heart. We remembered in the history of our race that, (although women had ordinarily kept themselves in the retirement of domestic life,) in the great emergencies of humanity,—in those imminent crises which have tried men’s souls, and from which we date the signal advances of civilization,—women have always been conspicuous at the martyr’s stake, in the councils of Church and State, and even in the conduct of armies. We therefore hailed the deep interest manifested by them in the cause of our oppressed countrymen, as an omen that another triumph of humanity was at hand. No one suggested that it would be well to invite the women to enroll their names as members of the Convention and sign the Declaration. It was not thought of in season. But I have not a doubt, such was the spirit of that assembly, that, if the proposal had been made, it would have been acceded to joyfully by a large majority, if not by all. We had not convened there to shape our enterprise to the received opinions or usages of any sect or party. We were not careful to do what might please “the scribes and pharisees and rulers of the people.” We had come together at the cry of suffering, wronged, outraged millions. We had come to say and do what, we hoped, would rouse the nation to a sense of her tremendous iniquity. We were willing, we were anxious, that all who had ears to hear should hear “the truth which only tyrants dread.” And I have no doubt, that at that time all immediate Abolitionists would have readily consented that every one (man or woman) who had the power had also the right to utter that truth; to utter it with the pen or with the living voice; to utter it at the fireside in the private circle, or to the largest congregation from the pulpit, or, if need be, from the house-top. It was not then in our hearts to bid any one be silent, who might be moved to plead for the down-trodden millions in our country who were not permitted to speak for themselves. We were willing “that the very stones should cry out,” if they would.

The subjects that elicited most discussion in the Convention were Colonization; the use of the productions of slave-labor; the doctrine of compensation; and the duty of relying wholly on moral power. The results to which we came are expressed in the Constitution, the Declaration, or the Resolutions that were passed.

No one can read the published minutes of our proceedings, and not perceive how emphatically and solemnly we avowed the determination not to commit the cause we had espoused in any way to an arm of flesh, but to trust wholly to the power of truth and the influence of the Holy Spirit to change the hearts of slaveholders and their abettors. This principle, which was repudiated by a portion of the American Antislavery Society under the excitement caused by the murder of Lovejoy in 1837, was accounted by a large majority of the Convention as the principle upon which our enterprise should be prosecuted, or could be brought to a peaceful triumph. Those only who were ready to take up the cross, to suffer loss, shame, and even death, seemed to us then fit to engage in the work we proposed. The third article of the Constitution was as follows: “This Society will never, in any way, countenance the oppressed in vindicating their rights by physical force.” And the pacific spirit and intentions of the Society were still more distinctively and emphatically set forth in the Declaration, in exposition of the third article above quoted. That document begins with an allusion to the Magna Charta of the American Revolution, which was prepared and signed fifty-seven years before in the very city where we were assembled. It exhibits clearly the contrast between our philanthropic enterprise and that of our fathers. It says: “Their principles led them to wage war against their oppressors, and to spill human blood like water in order to be free. Ours forbid the doing of evil that good may come, and lead us to reject, and entreat the oppressed to reject, the use of any carnal weapons for deliverance from bondage; relying solely upon those which are spiritual and ‘mighty through God’ to the pulling down of strongholds. Their measures were physical,—the marshalling in arms, the hostile array, the mortal encounter. Ours shall be such only as the opposition of moral purity to moral corruption, the destruction of error by the potency of truth, the overthrow of prejudice by the power of love, the abolition of slavery by the spirit of repentance.”

This language was not adopted hastily or inconsiderately. Its import was duly weighed. A few of the members hesitated. They were not non-resistants. They were not, at first, ready to say they would not fight, if they should be roughly used by the opposers of our cause. But it was strenuously urged in reply that, whatever might be true as to the right of self-defence, in the prosecution of our great undertaking, violent resistance to the injurious treatment we might receive would have a disastrous effect. It was insisted that we ought to go forth to labor for the abolition of slavery, in the spirit of Christian reformers, expecting to be persecuted, and resolved never to return evil for evil. The result of our discussion was that all the members of the Convention signed the Declaration, thereby pledging themselves, and all who should thereafter sign the Constitution—“Come what may to our persons, our interests, or our reputations; whether we live to witness the triumph of liberty, justice, and humanity, or perish untimely as martyrs in this great, benevolent, and holy cause.”

Such was the spirit that at last pervaded the whole body. I cannot describe the holy enthusiasm which lighted up every face as we gathered around the table on which the Declaration lay, to put our names to that sacred instrument. It seemed to me that every man’s heart was in his hand,—as if every one felt that he was about to offer himself a living sacrifice in the cause of freedom, and to do it cheerfully. There are moments when heart touches heart, and souls flow into one another. That was such a moment. I was in them and they in me; we were all one. There was no need that each should tell the other how he felt and what he thought, for we were in each other’s bosoms. I am sure there was not, in all our hearts, the thought of ever making violent, much less mortal, defence of the liberty of speech, or the freedom of the press, or of our own persons, though we foresaw that they all would be grievously outraged. Our President, Beriah Green, in his admirable closing speech, gave utterance to what we all felt and intended should be our course of conduct. He distinctly foretold the obloquy, the despiteful treatment, the bitter persecution, perhaps even the cruel deaths we were going to encounter in the prosecution of the undertaking to which we had bound ourselves. Not an intimation fell from his lips that, in any extremity, we were to resort to carnal weapons and fight rather than die in the cause. Much less did he intimate that it might ever be proper for us to defend, by deadly weapons, the liberty of speech and the press. O no! The words which came glowing from his lips were of a very different import. He exhorted us most solemnly, most tenderly, to cherish the Holy Spirit which he felt was then in all our hearts, and go forth to our several places of labor willing to suffer shame, loss of property, and, if need be, even of life, in the cause of human rights; but not intending to hurt a hair of the heads of our opposers, whom we ought to regard in pity more than in anger. Would that every syllable which he uttered had been engraven upon some imperishable tablet! Would that the spirit which then inspired him had been infused into the bosom of every one who has since engaged in the antislavery cause!

MRS. L. MARIA CHILD.

The account I have given above of the valuable services rendered in the Philadelphia Convention by Lucretia Mott, Esther Moore, and Lydia White, doubtless reminded my readers of many other excellent women, whose names stand high among the early antislavery reformers. The memories of them are most precious to me. If I live to write out half of my Recollections, and you do not weary of them, I shall make most grateful mention of our female fellow-laborers in general, of several of them in particular, though I cannot do ample justice to any.

There is one of whom I must speak now, because I have already passed the time, at which her inestimable services commenced. In July, 1833, when the number, the variety, and the malignity of our opponents had become manifest, we were not much more delighted than surprised by the publication of a thoroughgoing antislavery volume, from the pen of Mrs. Lydia Maria Child. She was at that time, perhaps, the most popular as well as useful of our female writers. None certainly, excepting Miss Sedgwick, rivalled her. The North American Review, then, if not now, the highest authority on matters of literary criticism, said at the time: “We are not sure that any woman in our country would outrank Mrs. Child. This lady has long been before the public as an author with much success. And she well deserves it, for in all her works we think that nothing can be found which does not commend itself by its tone of healthy morality and good sense. Few female writers, if any, have done more or better things for our literature, in its lighter or graver departments.” That such an author—ay, such an authority—should espouse our cause just at that crisis, I do assure you, was a matter of no small joy, yes, exultation. She was extensively known in the Southern as well as the Northern States, and her books commanded a ready sale there not less than here. We had seen her often at our meetings. We knew that she sympathized with her brave husband in his abhorrence of our American system of slavery; but we did not know that she had so carefully studied and thoroughly mastered the subject. Nor did we suspect that she possessed the power, if she had the courage, to strike so heavy a blow. Why, the very title-page was pregnant with the gist of the whole matters under dispute between us,—“Immediate Abolitionists,” and the slaveholders on the one hand, and the Colonizationists on the other,—“An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans CALLED Africans.” The volume, still prominent in the literature of our conflict, is replete with facts showing, not only the horrible cruelties that had been perpetrated by individual slaveholders or their overseers, but the essential barbarity of the system of slavery, its dehumanizing influences upon those who enforced it scarcely less than upon those who were crushed under it. Her book did us an especially valuable service in showing, to those who had paid little attention to the subject, that the Africans are not by nature inferior to other—even the white—races of men; but that “Ethiopia held a conspicuous place among the nations of ancient times. Her princes were wealthy and powerful, and her people distinguished for integrity and wisdom. Even the proud Grecians evinced respect for Ethiopia, almost amounting to reverence, and derived thence the sublimest portions of their mythology. And the popular belief, that all the gods made an annual visit to feast with the excellent Ethiopians, shows the high estimation in which they were then held, for we are not told that such an honor was bestowed on any other nation.” Mrs. Child’s exposure of the fallacy of the Colonization scheme, as well as the falsity of the pretensions put forth by its advocates, amply sustained all Mr. Garrison’s accusations. And her exposé of the principles of the “Immediate Abolitionists” was clear, and her defence of them was impregnable.

This “Appeal” reached thousands who had given no heed to us before, and made many converts to the doctrines of Mr. Garrison.

Of course, what pleased and helped us so much gave proportionate offence to slaveholders, Colonizationists, and their Northern abettors. Mrs. Child was denounced. Her effeminate admirers, both male and female, said there were “some very indelicate things in her book,” though there was nothing narrated in it that had not been allowed, if not perpetrated, by “the refined, hospitable, chivalric gentlemen and ladies” on their Southern plantations. The politicians and statesmen scouted the woman who “presumed to criticise so freely the constitution and government of her country. Women had better let politics alone.” And certain ministers gravely foreboded “evil and ruin to our country, if the women generally should follow Mrs. Child’s bad example, and neglect their domestic duties to attend to the affairs of state.”

Mrs. Child’s popularity was reversed. Her writings on other subjects were no longer sought after with the avidity that was shown for them before the publication of her “Appeal.” Most of them were sent back to their publishers from the Southern bookstores, with the notice that the demand for her books had ceased. The sale of them at the North was also greatly diminished. It was said at the time that her income from the productions of her pen was lessened six or eight hundred dollars a year. But this did not daunt her. On the contrary, it roused her to greater exertion, as it revealed to her more fully the moral corruption which slavery had diffused throughout our country, and summoned her patriotism as well as her benevolence to more determined conflict with our nation’s deadliest enemy. Indeed, she consecrated herself to the cause of the enslaved. Many of her publications since then have related to the great subject, viz.: The Oasis, Antislavery Catechism, Authentic Anecdotes, Evils and Cure of Slavery, Other Tracts, Life of Isaac T. Hopper, and, more than all, her letters to Governor Wise, of Virginia, and to Mrs. Mason, respecting John Brown. Those letters had an immense circulation throughout the free States, and were blazoned by all manner of anathemas in the Southern papers. Her letter to Mrs. Mason especially was copied by hundreds of thousands, and was doubtless one of the efficient agencies that prepared the mind of the North for the final great crisis.

For several years, assisted by her husband, Mrs. Child edited the Antislavery Standard, elevated its literary character, extended its circulation, and increased its efficiency.

But, in a more private way, this admirable woman rendered the early Abolitionists most important services. She, together with Mrs. Maria W. Chapman and Eliza Lee Follen, and others, of whom I shall write hereafter, were presiding geniuses in all our councils and more public meetings, often proposing the wisest measures, and suggesting to those who were “allowed to speak in the assembly” the most weighty thoughts, pertinent facts, apt illustrations, which they could not be persuaded to utter aloud. Repeatedly in those early days, before Angelina and Sarah Grimké had taught others besides Quaker women “to speak in meeting,” if they had anything to say that was worth hearing,—repeatedly did I spring to the platform, crying, “Hear me as the mouthpiece of Mrs. Child, or Mrs. Chapman, or Mrs. Follen,” and convulsed the audience with a stroke of wit, or electrified them with a flash of eloquence, caught from the lips of one or the other of our antislavery prophetesses.

N. B.—That Mrs. Child, when she became an Abolitionist, did not become a woman “of one idea” is evinced, not only by her two volumes of enchanting “Letters from New York,” “Memoirs of Madame de Staël” and “Madame Roland,” “Biographies of Good Wives,” and several exquisite books for children, but still more by her three octavo volumes, entitled “Progress of Religious Ideas,” which must have been the result of a vast amount of reading and profound thought on all the subjects of theology and religion. Her later work, “Looking towards Sunset,” is full of beautiful ideas about that future life, for which her untiring devotion to all the humanities in this life must have so fully prepared her.

ERUPTION OF LANE SEMINARY.

Lane Seminary was an institution established by our orthodox fellow-Christians, mainly for the preparation of young men for the ministry. It attained so much importance in the estimation of its patrons, that, in 1832, they claimed for it the services and the reputation of Rev. Dr. Beecher, who left Boston at that time and became its president. There he found, or was soon after joined by, Prof. Calvin E. Stowe, another distinguished teacher of Calvinistic theology. This school of the prophets was placed on Walnut Hill, in the vicinity of Cincinnati, that it might be near to the Southwestern States, and was separated from Kentucky only by the river Ohio. It had attracted, by the reputation of its Faculty, from all parts of the country, quite a number of remarkably able, earnest, conscientious, and, as they proved to be, eloquent young men.

At the time when the signal event occurred of which I am now to give some account, there were in the literary and theological departments of Lane Seminary more than a hundred students. Eleven of these were from different slave States; seven of them sons of slaveholders, one himself a slaveholder when he entered the institution, and one of the number—James Bradley—had emancipated himself from the cruel bondage by the payment of a large sum, that he had earned by extra labor. Besides these, there were ten of the students who had resided more or less in the slave States, and were well acquainted with the condition of the people, and the influence of their “peculiar institution” of domestic servitude. Moreover, that you may appreciate fully the importance of the event I am going to narrate to you, and know that it was not (as some at the time represented it to be) a boyish prank, or mere college rebellion,—“a tempest in a teapot,”—let me tell you that the youngest student in the seminary was nineteen years of age, most of the students were more than twenty-six years old, and several of them were over thirty. They were sober, Christian men, who were preparing themselves, in good earnest, to preach the Gospel; and they believed that one of its proclamations was “liberty to the captives, let the oppressed go free, break every yoke.”

Soon after the seminary was opened, a Colonization Society was formed among the students. At the time of which I speak most of them were members of that Society, and were encouraged by the Faculty so to be. But the publication of Mr. Garrison’s “Thoughts on Colonization,” and the formation of the “American Antislavery Society,” attracted the attention of some of their number. Conversations arose on the subject between them and their fellows. An anxious inquiry was awakened as to the truth of the allegations brought against the Colonization scheme, and as to the justice of the new demand made by Mr. Garrison and his associates for the “immediate abolition of slavery.” At length, in February, 1834, it was proposed that there should be a thorough public discussion of two questions:—

1st. Whether the people of the slaveholding States ought to abolish slavery at once, and without prescribing, as a condition, that the emancipated should be sent to Liberia, or elsewhere, out of our country?