CHAPTER VI.

CONCLUSION.

We know the arduous strife, the eternal laws, To which the triumph of all good is given, High sacrifice, and labor without pause, Even to the death:--else wherefore should the eye Of man converse with immortality? WORDSWORTH.

Friends and co-laborers for freedom! We have now a new and indispensable, though painful duty to perform. Our foes have hitherto been without the pale of the associations: we have now found the most deadly within. It misbecomes us to talk of “dissensions among _brethren_”--of “quarrels among _ourselves_,”--of “dreading the strife of tongues,”--of “hiding ourselves till this calamity be overpast.” Without our most strenuous exertions, it will never pass, but as the remorseless sea passes over the sinking vessel. If we would free the slave, we must meet and conquer a tyrannous influence and spirit, in the shape that it has _now_ taken, as we have done in all its transformations in the times that are past. We must disabuse our minds of the idea that all are brethren in the cause, who call themselves such.

“Do you love freedom?” is the question we have startled our age withal; and we have begun to judge men--of all classes and conditions,--by the reply their lives make to it. Class after class have thus been tried and condemned. In earlier times, we have bound ourselves steadfastly to the truth which condemned them. Its might made riches a reproach, and “gentlemen of property and standing” a by-word. All our band joined their voices to the oracular one of truth, when _these_ sinners were tried by their own principles of action, and found wanting. Why is it that _some_ now cast aside the inspired maxim, “by their fruits ye shall know them”--when another class of men--the ministry, are found recreant to the cause of humanity? _It is because they have become like unto them._

We are not without experience of the facility with which men add hypocrisy to wrong. Let the professions of such be to us, from henceforth, as though they were not uttered; their past good deeds, registered with those of Lucifer before his fall. This and this only, in this emergency, is allegiance to the God “whose word is truth--whose will is love--whose law is freedom.”

When, in earlier days in the cause, some of us foresaw the present state of things, we submitted our souls to the prospect of its painfulness. We said, “thy will be done,” in thus keeping our instrumentality effectual and pure.

“May the numerous unpopular questions with which the anti-slavery cause is connected” (thus ran our prayer) “continually come up with it as it is borne onward. So that, up to the final triumph, the act of joining an anti-slavery association may be, as it has hitherto proved,--a _test-act_.”[9]

And so we pray still; for still and forever, TRUTH is one and indivisible. All moral questions are by their nature inseparable, in any other than a mechanical sense, and while we sedulously keep them thus mechanically separate, because to do otherwise would be a sin against the freedom of others, and a betrayal of their confidence, we feel it to be no less a sin against freedom for others to impede any man’s course with reproach, on account of this eternal decree of God’s providence.

We have all preached emancipation by peaceful means; and now some are amazed that the attainment of _all_ right, in like manner, should have suggested itself to men’s minds! We have all denied that might makes right, and asserted the supremacy of moral power; and yet some are standing in terror-stricken astonishment that the “woman question” is stirred in every heart; and “other some” are persecuting and forsaking their brethren, because the examination and application of principles, though limited in the anti-slavery society by the terms of association, cannot be stayed in men’s minds or individual lives. The time has come for men to look their terrors for the future in the face. A little thought will show them thus much at least;--that it is no sin against an anti-slavery society, to apply, in another association, the peaceful principles by which it is proposed to abolish slavery, to the sins involved in existing governments or sacerdocies. If institutions, religious or political, are unable to stand the test of such an application, that, in the opinion of some, is the fault of the institutions. With this opinion, anti-slavery societies have no more to do than with the question sometimes started, of the duty of urging prayer upon the unconverted, whose prayers God pronounces an abomination. Discussion of collateral subjects is often salutary and necessary in our associations; but to a _decision_ upon them, by which new tests of membership are introduced, no anti-slavery society is competent. It ceases to be an anti-slavery society from the moment it assumes to decide upon opinions respecting governments or churches.

No man is required, as an abolitionist, to endorse or oppose governments or church establishments. But every thoughtful and honest mind, whether its anchor have “entered into that which is within the veil” or not, feels called by its allegiance to freedom, instantly to resist any attempt to make one man accountable to another for the progress of his mind. This same allegiance to the foundation principle of inalienable _human_ rights, warns a man against laboring to prevent woman from standing upon it, if such should be her determination. She may, in his opinion, be sinning against propriety--sinning against Paul, by acting in anti-slavery societies: but he himself sins against freedom in striving for her exclusion; and any act against freedom, is treason to the slave.

Men whose principles, thus imperfectly developed, are at war with each other, will, in all probability, become worse in their last state than in their first, especially if they are yielding not so much to their own convictions as to the pretexts in which a public _abstractly_ opposed to slavery, is fain to clothe its hatred to a _real_ opposition. If they are striving to pacify the foes of freedom by these outrages upon her principles and her advocates, their case is a desperate one, and affords but little probability of repentance.

Surrounded as we are by the smoke and dust of the hottest conflict, we must keep all these considerations in mind, if we would avoid perplexity and doubt. Let us, from time to time, survey the field from a higher point of view, and take careful note of the divisions of the battle, and the nature of the ground on which the hosts are encamped. What do we discern, as we ascend the mount of vision and of difficulty? We perceive hatred and malignant opposition occupying the same post as when we first roused them from their apathy. We are ever contending with our old opponents, under new names, and with every change of name and pretext, some whom we have loved and trusted, are “carried away by their dissimulation.”[10]

At the beginning, they were “as much Anti-Slavery as any one, but hated Mr. Garrison.” What are they now? Even “more Anti-Slavery than any one, but hate Mr. Garrison.” Through all their various phases of Colonizationists, American Unionists, Clerical Appellants, new organizationists, their moving spirit is the same;--hatred of the freedom that defies their control. Even while professing to be laboring for emancipation, they have always been careful to express their hatred of the _free spirit_ in which abolitionists carry on the enterprize. It must needs be so. There is eternal enmity between the spirit which prompts a man to strive for the mastery, and the spirit which calls no man master. It is an eternal truth, that he who wishes to rule, is unfit to serve.

From this point of observation, we may notice not only the timidity and treachery of some, but the touching fidelity of others. A single individual was once exalted by our opponents into a symbol of faithfulness to liberty and humanity. Now, the whole associated host of a State are assailed with slander and contempt for a like fidelity.

In this symbolic sense, an association is endowed by the enemies of truth and freedom with a notoriety and importance not its own. In every such case, we have a finger of Providence, pointing out to us the course we should pursue with respect to it. Identifying ourselves with it, we listen for the voices that have been wont to cheer the onset. The soul that is now silent is self-condemned.

Let us enlarge our horizon by ascending still higher, so that we can at a glance command the present and the past; for so come many instructive lessons to the mind. We behold far back in the distance, days like those of Wat Tyler, of Wycliffe, of Knox, and Luther and Washington. On closely observing any such era of accelerated progress, we perceive great bodies of men, unaccountably to us, giving back at a critical instant--thrown into confusion by circumstances which we, at this distance of time, discern to have been of but the smallest moment; and, seeing how the speedy and triumphant success of the right is thereby prevented, we suffer a sort of pain that we are unable to cast upon their path the light of our knowledge. “Had they but known what we so readily discern,” we exclaim, “how different would have been their course!” and we marvel that they were unable to break the spell that bound them, and which one added glance of foresight or of faith would have shivered.

We forget that, besides the natural obscurity of the hour unilluminated by the future, there is ever a shrinking terror on men’s minds, which forbids them boldly to face the phantoms of their own times:--a spurious charity for wrong, which, prompted by a vision of _oneself_ in a similar condemnation, is not forgiveness, but treachery to Right. We overlook the obvious consideration that those transition periods were, like our own, infested with the treacherous and the selfish, whose fancied interest it was to suppress facts, circulate falsehoods, make up false issues, apologise for wrong, palliate crime, veil baseness under “decent pretexts,” exalt profession into performance, and by any and every means delay impending change.

This reflection should remind us that such light as we are fain to cast upon past times in our impatience of their blindness, is the same as duty binds us to communicate to our own. When we observe the importance of small things in the world’s history; it should point us to the cheerful discharge of so lowly a duty as to record those in which we have been engaged. Let us not deem any of them so unimportant as to refuse to draw from them lessons of wisdom, nor strive to persuade ourselves that aught _can_ be trifling, which is wrought into the great page of the past. “To serve the nineteenth century we must _know_ the nineteenth century:” therefore, nothing is without consequence which helps to illustrate our times. Facts, warnings, rebuke, encouragement, consolation, advice, labor,--whatever the times demand, let us give as we have power and opportunity, and we shall soon be made to know _what it was_ that kept so great a distance between the words of lonely warning that have risen prophet-like upon the past; and _why_, at some periods, there could be no “open vision” or corresponding energy, but only the feebleness and incertitude of ignorance and fear. Custom is never, by her nature, the handmaid of freedom; and therefore in a struggle for the extinction of slavery, if we speak only according to custom, we shall lose the unhesitating distinctness which the occasions of the cause demand. The occasion now demands, in an especial manner, the plain directness of the very palace of truth.

Let us, however, avoid the mistake of supposing that we can find in the past, the exact parallel of the present, in any other than a spiritual sense. Truth--Love--Freedom--are ever the same; but the outward signs of their presence, and the manner of their workings upon society, will, at different times, be far unlike. The problems they present, may be wrought out by different processes, though the results are the same. This reflection will enlighten us as to the causes of the convulsive terror now manifested by the body of the ministry and their dupes--the clerical politicians. We shall learn how it came to pass that the latter were desirous of disjoining themselves from the abolition host, while they yet claimed the name of abolitionists. We shall see on what temptations they have

“fallen away Like water from us, never found again, But where they mean to sink us.”

At the outset, they were encouraged by the comparatively quiet progress of abolition in England, to believe that our own would necessarily follow the same course. Strong as was the agitation there, it effected its work, without shaking the ponderous establishments, civil and ecclesiastical, which bore down upon the land with their “weight of calm.” Here, on the contrary, the lighter yokes of church and state are so shaken by the contest, as to convulse those hearts with terror for their existence which lack the honesty to acknowledge the worse than uselessness of a church or a government which sustains slavery, and the humble faith in God to say,

“Whatever fall--whate’er endure, I know thy word shall still stand sure.”

When such lose their confidence in the identity of the principles of freedom, with those of order and Christianity, they are disunited in soul from those who are pressing forward with undiminished confidence; and to disguise their change of feeling they sacrifice their integrity.[11]

In our grief at their conduct, we undergo strong temptations to palliate and conceal, when we ought to expose and condemn. The greater need, therefore, that we often ascend the mount of communion with the HIGHEST, there to strengthen our vision and our hearts.

“Weak eyes on darkness dare not gaze: It dazzles like the noontide blaze, But he who sees GOD’S face, may brook On the true face of sin to look.”

“Some natural tears we shed” over those who have turned back from the van, and are trampling down the ranks they once cheered onward; but thus strengthened and enlightened, we shall not long indulge a useless sorrow. We shall cease to be impatient when those whom we yet believe true, are slow to see and to act, in an emergency requiring promptitude. We shall but redouble our own laborious vigilance;--we shall but make more intense our own fervent endeavor. We are laying the foundations of many generations; and need not to be disturbed by the discomposure of such as comprehend us not. What though, to our human weakness, the end to be attained seem farther off, as faithfulness rouses indifference into opposition, or converts spiritual terror into treachery? yet is the day of redemption nearer than when we believed. What though, in future and severer perils which we KNOW beset the path we must go, we should, for a season, be deserted of all in whom we trusted for aid in this work of redemption? even our Savior was left to “watch alone one bitter hour,” before any comforting angel was sent of heaven to strengthen him.

Truth--Love--Freedom! evermore must their victories for humanity be won through suffering--but they shall be WON. “Forever, Oh Lord! thy word is settled in heaven.”

FOOTNOTES:

[9] Right and Wrong in Boston, written in 1835.

[10] See Paul to the Galatians, from which epistle it appears that the Christian cause had then reached a stage in its progress where it was beset with the same difficulties as the anti-slavery cause at present meets. It had so diminished the trust in the existing institutions, and so strengthened the reverence for principles, that many _professing_ Christianity, were driven back into Judaism.

[11] Better, far better, said the organ of the clerical appellants in 1837, that slavery should remain perpetual, than that the existing institutions with which it is so intimately interwoven, should be disturbed. To most minds comes this moment of distrust of the principles of righteousness--want of faith in God. Orange Scott, who then stood firm, has in this last crisis, deserted the cause, moved by the same temptation. When he sees Church and State shaken by the advent of righteous and free principles, “upon the earth distress of nations with perplexity--the sea and waves roaring--men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming upon the earth,” he says--“Slavery is the least evil of the two.” With propriety might he be asked, with what feelings would the slave of the Louisiana sugar cauldron contemplate the utter destruction of the civil and ecclesiastical arrangements by which he is crushed, soul and body? Would _he_ say better, far better that slavery should remain perpetual as “the least evil of the two?” Yet we are commanded to remember those in bonds as bound with them. However deep may be our attachment to institutions, we must do _right_, in the faith that righteousness can destroy no good thing.

APPENDIX.

The following letters are selected and subjoined as specimens of the secret correspondence of this period.

[CONFIDENTIAL.]

_Salem, Dec. 7th, 1838._

REV. S. J. MAY.

_Dear Brother_,--I presume you have been consulted on the subject named below; but my anxiety on the topic, leads me to write you. We found, some time ago, that the admission of other subjects into the Liberator had entirely destroyed its circulation, in many parts of this County, and others were gradually dropping it, while a large proportion of our most efficient abolitionists were uneasy, and took it only because they must have the local Anti-Slavery news of this State. As a paper more generally circulated and exerting a better influence was felt to be necessary, to advance the cause in this County, we attempted to start a local Anti-Slavery paper here. But some were afraid--a few loudly opposed; and the _great expense_, (far exceeding our first estimates,) _finally deterred us from the undertaking_. Still the conviction of the necessity of a paper, devoted to Anti-Slavery alone, which might circulate without objection, among all classes of our friends, has daily gathered strength--and many who opposed our project then, alarmed at the _demoralizing doctrines now promulgated_ in the Liberator, say we _must have_ a paper, at all events. I have no desire to injure Mr. Garrison. His services in the cause entitle him to something more than gratitude. But the Liberator will, of course, remain under his control, and will continue, no doubt, to pursue the same course it has for a year past; and it _cannot, therefore, continue to be the Anti-Slavery paper of the State_, without a _virtual_ endorsement of its doctrines. Nor will it have a free circulation among the large portion, the immense majority, of the Anti-Slavery community, who dissent from its new views. Now the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society _is a pretty considerably large and somewhat important body_--and why should it not have an _official organ_, of communication with the public, to be devoted to _Anti-Slavery alone_? I am not particular about the editor. If Mr. Garrison would edit such a paper, and _devote his whole time and strength to it_, instead of leaving it to printers’ boys and every body, as he has the Liberator for two years past, I should be perfectly pleased to have him editor, _though of course he would not consent_. Quite a large number of our old and steadfast friends, who have been consulted, are favorable to the thing. It will be brought forward by me, at the Annual Meeting, if it is found that our discreet friends generally approve of it. Please communicate your views to me freely and confidentially (if you wish.) I have no time this morning to say a word on other topics.

With respect and affection, CHARLES T. TORREY.

_Salem, Dec. 19th, 1838._

DEAR BROTHER MAY,--

I dont know but my mentioning the objections _some_ felt to the Liberator, led you to think of the project of a new paper, as a sort of _opposition line_ to the Liberator. But this is far from my idea of the matter. True, the character and contents of that paper exclude it from circulation in this county so extensively, that it does not answer the purpose of advertising our County Meetings even. Nor will its circulation increase. In some of the strongest Anti-Slavery towns, where most is done for the cause, scarcely a single copy is taken, or can be got in. So it is all over the State. I suppose not more than half the circulation of the Liberator, (probably not one third,) is in Massachusetts. Nor will this state of things, in that respect, be materially changed at present, in my judgment. I think it certain that papers from New York or elsewhere, cannot do for our State to act efficiently. And that there are thousands of abolitionists, and others who need, and would take a paper, wholly devoted to Anti-Slavery and published at Boston, admits not of a question. It would have five hundred to one thousand subscribers in this County, _at once_. Now, I think the good of our cause _demands_ of us, that such a paper be started, and a small monthly, like “Human Rights,” besides. And if it is done as our official State paper, there can be no ground for considering it as in opposition to the Liberator. Whereas, if individuals start a paper, the case will be just the reverse. It will then be a rival to the Liberator, and will materially injure its circulation. Now, a State official, _confined_ to Anti-Slavery exclusively, will not cross the track of the Liberator scarcely at all. I have, so far, heard of not a syllable of disapproval but from yourself, from any part of the State. I do still hope, on reflection, you will think differently of the thing. There can be no evil, or warfare, it seems to me, unless those who like the Liberator insist that it shall be, virtually, _the State Paper_, while not so in form, and choose to claim the whole of the vast unoccupied field, in this State, as its own. But if they resist and successfully, the measure proposed, _then_ all peace or compromise will indeed end. A new paper will, no doubt, be started, as an individual enterprize, and it will not spare the peculiarities of opinion, etc. manifested in the Liberator. It is true, it is open to controversy on peace, etc. But, on that very account, it has no claims to be the _Anti-Slavery_ paper of Massachusetts, and to circulate as such, among those who reluctantly take it for its local news, while they cannot endure its sectarianism.

Now, my dear Brother, I have written very plainly what I think. Do consider the matter again and maturely. Our cause _must_ be prosecuted at all hazards and sacrifices, but that of principle, and I do think duty to our cause requires a new paper wholly anti-slavery. If those who like the Liberator cannot then sustain it, what will it prove, but the absolute need of a new paper?

Yours, as ever, for the slave, and with much affection, CHARLES T. TORREY.

_Salem, Jan. 7th, 1839._

_Dear Sir_,--I write to urge the importance of a full representation of your society at the Annual Meeting of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, on the 23d and 24th of this month. Measures of very great importance to the progress of the cause throughout the State will be brought forward, particularly the establishment of a new paper, of high character, to be devoted to Anti-Slavery only; and to be under the official control of the State Society; one which will urge political action as a _Christian duty_, in accordance with our original principles of association. _Other things_ of equal moment to the onward progress of our cause, will be presented--probably on the _first day_ of the meeting; other and obvious considerations will show the great importance of having a full representation, from two to twenty from every Society. Let every one who can attend, do so. Let none be chosen who will not attend. Select the most judicious and tried friends of the cause, and let them be there at the opening of the meeting, at ten o’clock oh the 23d, and be prepared to stay two days.

If your Society meets to choose delegates, let there be an expression of opinion about the new paper, (to be purely Anti-Slavery, and nothing else; to oppose nothing but slaveholding and doughface-ism) and let the vote be embodied in the instructions of the delegates.

Please to see the officers of your Society, and have your delegation promptly appointed.

Yours, for the slave, CHARLES T. TORREY. _Rec. Sec. Essex Co. A. S. Society._

_Boston, April 2d, 1838._

_Dear Brother_,--I understand that ---- has left, or is about leaving you, and that you are on the lookout for a successor. Permit me to recommend to you, ----.

And now a word in respect to abolition. You are aware of the collision between the State and National Societies--have seen, I suppose, the statement of the case in the “Christian Journal, Extra”--and know that your County Board have taken supervision of the field within your County, and invited in the agents of the American Society, thus virtually taking sides with that Society. Well, your County Society is to meet soon in New Bedford, at which time and place, I have no doubt an effort will be made to undo what the County Board have done, and to pass resolutions sustaining the State, and condemnatory of the County and Parent Boards; and what with the Quakers and colored people in New Bedford, it will not be strange if the attempt succeeds.

What your views on the matter in dispute are, I know not, nor is it of any importance for me to know, so far as it concerns what I wish now to say to you. I will only say, then, as I cannot go now into the matter in detail, that I regard the Parent Committee in the right. They ought to be sustained. Nor do I believe that the State Board would ever have sent out their protest but for certain “ulterior measures” which they wished to accomplish thereby--one of these is to crush the Massachusetts Abolitionist, by shutting out of the State, the Agents of the Parent Society who are generally favorable to it, and where they can do it, without interfering with the duties of their agency, are in the habit of getting subscribers for it--another is to make the Society Anti-Orthodox in its influence--and another, by having the entire control of the cause in the State, to take advantage of it for the promulgation of non-resistance, no-government, &c. &c. I can give you facts when I see you that will bear me out in all these positions. The truth is, Garrison and the Board are themselves guilty of the very things they are charging on others. They are just in the attitude of the man who cries “Stop thief,” that he, under cover of that cry, may make off with the stolen goods. I hope to see you and converse with you at length on these subjects by and by. Meanwhile, if you agree with me that the Parent Committee ought to be sustained, I hope you will see that the meeting at New Bedford is not a packed one, but that those who think with us, as well as others, are on the ground prepared to hear the case, and take proper action thereon, should it come up. Remember me affectionately to your family.

Yours truly, A. A. PHELPS.

P. S. Brother ---- is a good abolitionist--but wise and prudent at the same time that he is firm and decided on the subject. Of course he would not make a _hobby_ of it.

Such efforts and accusations as the above letter Mr. Phelps did not hesitate privately to put forth against his brethren of the Board, though he never intimated to them, personally, that any such imaginations darkened his mind. And even on resigning his seat with them, one month after the date of this letter, he did not intend that his reasons for doing so should be made public. His own testimony, respecting similar allegations presented as reasons for the formation of a new Society only a year previous, is true now. At the moment that this letter was written, the Massachusetts Society had eight Orthodox Agents in the field, and but one of another belief. True, the Society could not, without violating its principles, become an Orthodox Society _exclusively_; but the Society did deem it a fortunate circumstance that Orthodox pro-slavery should be met and exposed by Orthodox anti-slavery.

Who that reads Mr. Phelps’s testimony, Jan. 1838, as given below, but must deeply compassionate the struggle and concealment and weakness of soul which afterwards completely overpowered him, notwithstanding his better knowledge, and dictated his course during the remainder of that year, up to the formation of a new organization, in 1839, and until, as the climax of his course, he submitted to be examined for installation as pastor of the Free Church, by the well known pro-slavery divine, the Rev. Hubbard Winslow.

MR. PHELPS’S TESTIMONY IN 1838.

“And last, not least, there must needs be a new organization, and a withdrawal from the Massachusetts Society, because, “both the organ and management of it are under anti-orthodox influence.” True, there is not as much orthodoxy in either, as I wish there was, and as I think there ought to be; but it is not the result, so far as I have seen, of any trickery on the part of those who are not Orthodox, nor of any disposition, on their part, to make Orthodoxy or Anti-Orthodoxy a test of membership or office. And as it is, full one half the officers and managers of the Society are Orthodox men; this “Anti-Orthodox influence” has chosen and is sustaining an “Orthodox” Agent, and one that is sent for sometimes to repair the mischief done by agents of the American Society: this Society, at its public meetings, _has_ “passed resolutions recommending that ministers and Christians, in their public meetings, should pray for the slave;” its own public meetings have been “opened with prayer;” its agent, (to say nothing of the liberty of its organ,) and its members have always had liberty to plead for the slave, in as “orthodox” language, and by as “orthodox” arguments as they pleased; and, in fine, the society has every one of those characteristics, by virtue of which, the Spectator declares the American Society to be “practically orthodox;” and yet, strange to tell, the American Society looks upon the difficulties that have sprung up here out of these things, with which itself, by its agents and otherwise, has had as much to do as any one, as a mere personal and family quarrel; and _the friends of the new organization, on the other hand, cannot endure the Massachusetts Society, to be sure, but are for going into most cordial and hearty auxiliaryship to the American!_

A.A. PHELPS.”