History of American Abolitionism Part 3

"ROE LOCKWOOD, Secretary."

In its issue of October 30, 1828, we find the following:--

"It appears from an article in the Journal of the Times, a newspaper of some promise just established in Bennington, Vt., that a pet.i.tion to Congress for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia is about to be put in circulation in that State.

"The idea is an excellent one, and we hope it will meet with success.

That Congress has a right to abolish slavery in that District seems reasonable, though we fear it will meet with some opposition, so very sensitive are the slaveholding community to every movement relating to the abolition of slavery. At the same time, it would furnish to the world a beautiful pledge of their sincerity if they would unite with the non-slaveholding States, and by a unanimous vote proclaim freedom to every soul within sight of the capital of this free government. We could then say, and the world would then admit our pretence, that the voice of the nation is against slavery, and throw back upon Great Britain that disgrace which is of right and justice her exclusive property."

Another of its editorials on November, 15, 1828:--

"We are all equally interested in demolishing the fabric (of slavery) and we may as well go to work peaceably and reduce it brick by brick as to make it a matter of warfare, and throw our enterprise and industry into the opposite scale."

In the course of time changes were made in the ownership of the paper, but one of its original proprietors is still its senior editor.

About this period William Lloyd Garrison made his appearance upon the stage, and he has been probably one of the most intensely hated, as well as one of the most sternly, severely and vociferously enthusiastic men in the Union. He is a native of Ma.s.sachusetts, and at a very early age was placed in a printing office in Newburyport by his mother. Shortly after he was twenty-one years of age he set up a paper which he called the Free Press, which was read chiefly by a cla.s.s of very advanced readers at the North. After this he removed to Vermont, and edited the Journal of the Times. This was as early as 1828. In September, 1829, he removed to Baltimore for the purpose of editing the Genius of Universal Emanc.i.p.ation, in company with Benjamin Lundy. While performing these duties, a Newburyport merchant, named Francis Todd, fitted out a small vessel, and filled it in Baltimore with slaves for the New Orleans market. Mr.

Garrison noticed this fact in his paper, and commented upon it in terms so severe that Mr. Todd directed a suit to be brought against him for libel.

He was thereupon tried, convicted and thrown in jail for non-payment of the fine (one hundred dollars and costs.) After an incarceration of fifty days, he was released on the payment of his fine, by Mr. Arthur Tappan, of this city, who, and his brother Lewis, before and since that time, have been chiefly celebrated for their efforts in the cause of abolition. In 1831, he wrote a few paragraphs that bear out the idea we have advanced--that there was then more real philanthropy in the South than at the North. He says:--

"I issued proposals for the publication of the "_Liberator_" in Washington City, during my recent tour, for the purpose of exciting the minds of the people on the subject of slavery. Every place I visited gave fresh evidences of the fact that a greater revolution in public sentiment was to be effected in the free States, and particularly in New England, than at the South. I found contempt more bitter, opposition more active, detraction more relentless, prejudice more stubborn and apathy more frozen, than among the slaveowners themselves. I determined at every hazard to lift up the standard of emanc.i.p.ation in the eyes of the nation, within sight of Bunker Hill, and in the birthplace of liberty. I am in earnest; I will not equivocate, I will not excuse, I will not retreat a single inch. I will be heard. The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue lift from its pedestal, and to hasten the resurrection of the dead."

From this time it may be said that the anti-slavery cause took its place among the moral enterprises of the day. It a.s.sumed a definite shape, and commenced that system of warfare which has since been unremittingly waged against the South.

During this year--1830--Mr. Tappan, Rev. S. S. Jocelyn, and others, projected the establishment of a seminary of learning at New Haven for the benefit of colored students; but, opposition manifesting itself, it was abandoned.

The first regularly organized convention of colored men ever a.s.sembled in the United States for a similar purpose also held a meeting this year, and aided and abetted by the Tappans, Jocelyns and other agitators of the period, attempted to devise ways and means for bettering their condition and that of their race. They reasoned that all distinctive differences made among men on account of their origin was wicked, unrighteous and cruel, and solemnly protested against every unjust measure and policy in the country having for its object the proscription of the colored people, whether state, national, munic.i.p.al, social, civil or religious. In fact, white men and black seem to have started in the race together, consorting like brothers and sisters together in their aims and projects to accomplish the same end.

About this time publications began to be scattered through the South, whose direct tendency was to stir up insurrection among the slaves. The Liberator found its way mysteriously into the hands of the negroes, and individuals, under the garb of religion, were discovered in private consultation with the slaves. Suddenly, in August, 1831, the whole Union was startled by the announcement of an outbreak among the slaves of Southampton County, Va; and now commences the history of a career of violence and bloodshed that has marked every footstep of the abolition movement.

THE NAT TURNER INSURRECTION.

The leader of this outbreak was a slave named Nat Turner, and from him its name has been derived. Impelled by the belief that he was divinely called to be the deliverer of his oppressed countrymen, he succeeded in fixing the impression upon the minds of two or three others, his fellow slaves.

Turner could read and write, and these acquirements gave him an influence over his a.s.sociates. He was possessed, however, of little information, and, is represented to have been cowardly, cruel, and as he afterwards confessed, "a little credulous." It was a matter of notoriety that "secret agents of abolition had corrupted and betrayed him." However that may be, Nat declared that "he was advised" only to read to the slaves, that "Jesus came not to bring peace, but a sword!" Such a tree produced fitting fruits.

About midnight on the Sabbath of the 21st of August, 1831, Turner, with his confederates, burst into his master's house, and murdered every one of the white inmates. They were armed with knives and axes, and, in order to strike terror into the whites, most shockingly mangled the bodies of their victims. Neither helpless infancy nor female loveliness were spared. They then, by threats of death, compelled all the slaves to join them who would not do it voluntarily, and, exciting themselves to fury by ardent spirits, they proceeded to the next plantation. The happy family were reposing in the sound and quiet slumbers which precede the break of day, as the shouts of the raving insurgents fell upon their ears. It was the work of a moment, and they were all weltering in their gore. Not a white individual was spared to carry the tidings. The blow which dashed the infant left its brains upon the hearth. The head of the youthful maiden was in one part of the room and her mangled body was in another. Here again the number of insurgents was increased by those who voluntarily joined them, and by others who did it through compulsion. Stimulating their pa.s.sions still more by intoxication, and arming themselves with such guns as they could obtain, some on horseback and others on foot, they rushed along to the next plantation. The morning now began to dawn, and the shrieks of those who fell under the sword and the axe of the negro were heard at a distance, and thus the alarm was soon spread from plantation to plantation, carrying inconceivable terror to every heart. The whites supposed it was a plot deeply laid and widely spread, and that the day had come for indiscriminate ma.s.sacre. One gentleman who heard the appalling tidings hurried to a neighboring plantation, and arrived there just in time to hear the dying shrieks of the family and triumphant shouts of the negroes. He hastened in terror to his own home, but the negroes were there before him, and his wife and daughter had already fallen victims to their fury. Thus the infuriated slaves went on from plantation to plantation, gathering strength at every step, and leaving not a living white behind.

They pa.s.sed the day, until late in the afternoon, in this work of carnage, and numberless were the victims of their rage.

The population in this country is not dense, and, rapidly as the alarm spread, it was impossible for some time to collect a sufficient number to make a defence. Every family was entirely at the mercy of its own slaves.

It is impossible to conceive of more distressing circ.u.mstances of apprehension. It is said that most of the insurgent slaves belonged to kind and indulgent masters, and consequently no one felt secure.

Late in the afternoon, a small party of whites, well armed, collected at a plantation for defence. The slaves came on in large numbers, and, emboldened by success, they at first drove back the whites. The slaves pressed on, thirsting for blood, and shouting with triumphant fury as the whites slowly retreated, apparently destined to be butchered, with their wives and children. Just at this awful moment a reinforcement of troops arrived, which turned the tide of victory and dispersed the slaves.

Exhausted with the horrible labors of the day, the insurgents retired to the woods and marshes to pa.s.s the night.

Early the next morning they commenced their work again. But the first plantation they attacked--that of Dr. Blount--they were driven from by the slaves, who rallied around their master, and fearlessly hazarded their lives in his defence. By this time the whites were collected in sufficient force to bar their further progress. The fugitives were scattered over the country in small parties, but every point was defended, and wherever they appeared they were routed, shot, taken prisoners, and the insurrection quelled. The leader, Nat Turner, for a few weeks succeeded in concealing himself in a cave in Southampton county, near the theatre of his b.l.o.o.d.y exploits; but was finally taken, and suffered the extreme penalty of the law.

To describe the state of alarm to which this outbreak gave rise is impossible. Whole States were agitated; every plantation was the object of fear and suspicion; free negroes and slaves underwent the most rigid examination; armed bodies of men were held in constant readiness for any emergency which might arise; every slave who had partic.i.p.ated in the insurrection was either shot or hung, and for months the entire South remained in a fever of excitement.

All this time the abolition journals of the North were singing their hallelujahs over the event. They circulated through the South then much more freely than at present, and the following extract was read from one of these by a gentleman to his terrified family, in the presence of the gentleman from whom the above particulars were derived:--

"The news from the South is glorious. General Nat is a benefactor of his race. The Southampton ma.s.sacre is an auspicious era for the African. The blood of the men, women and children shed by the sword and the axe in the hand of the negro is a just return for the drops which have followed the master's lash."

Another extract, of similar rhetoric, from the record of that day, is from a speech by the "Reverend" Mr. Bayley, then of Sheffield, Ma.s.s.:--

"It is time that the ice was broken--time that the blacks considered they have the same right to regain their liberties, and even the present property of their owners, as the Hebrews had in despoiling the heathen round about them. The blacks should also know that it is their duty to destroy, if no other means offer conveniently, the monstrous incubuses and tyrants, yclept planters; and I, for one, would gladly lend a helping hand to lay them in one common grave! The country would be all the better for ridding the world of such a nest of vampyres."

Whether the abolitionists of the present time have modified the ideas they promulgated then, we shall see hereafter from a few among the ten thousand specimens that might be adduced.

The effect of these tirades upon the South cannot be well conceived.

Public opinion, just then opening to a free discussion of the question, drew back and shut itself within its castle. The bonds of slavery were bound tighter, the rivets were more strongly fastened, and a reactionary movement commenced that has never yet terminated.

CHAPTER V.

The New England Anti-Slavery Society, 1832--More Newspapers and Tracts--New York City Anti-Slavery Society and the Incidents of Its Organization--The American Anti-Slavery Society and its Creed--The Extent and System of their operations--Abolition Riots in New York--An Era of Excitement--Negro Conspiracy in Mississippi--George Thompson, the English Abolitionist--Riot at Alton, Ill., and Death of the Rev. E. P. Lovejoy.

In the year 1832, January 30, the New England or Ma.s.sachusetts Anti-Slavery Society went into operation, but with limited means. From this society have sprung the American Anti-Slavery Society and all its numerous auxiliaries. It was the first organized body that attacked slavery on the principle of its inherent sinfulness, and enforced the consequent duty of "immediate emanc.i.p.ation." All the events of a historical character which have marked the annals of the last thirty years, may be traced directly to the agitation which this society first set on foot in this country. Men have been forced to throw aside their disguises and stand forth either as the open defenders of slavery or as propagators of the abolition movement. The two great antagonistic parties of the present day are the children of its vile creation. It has excited the very fury of antagonism; it has shaken the pulpit with excommunicating thunders; it has indulged in the most bitter invective, deluged the country with invented instances of Southern barbarity, denounced the Const.i.tution as a "league with h.e.l.l," and scattered its venom in every household of the free States, until men, women and children have become imbued with its contaminating infection. Their discourses have all been tirades; their exordium, argument and peroration have turned on epithets, slanders, inuendoes; Southerners have been reviled as "tyrants,"

"thieves," "murderers," "atrocious monsters," "violators of the laws of nature, G.o.d and man," while their homes have been designated as "the abodes of iniquity," and their land "one vast brothel."

More abolition papers sprang into existence. The New York Evangelist, then conducted by the Rev. Samuel Griswold, espoused the cause. Through the influence of the Tappans, millions of anti-slavery tracts were circulated monthly, and sent by mail to all portions of the country, and especially to clergymen. These publications were likewise scattered through the South, their direct tendency being to stir up the slaves to further insurrection. Recruits of all ages and professions came forward, and the cause numbered amongst its adherents many of the theologians and professional men of the period.

THE NEW YORK CITY ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY.--1833.

On the 2d of October, 1833, a New York City Anti-Slavery Society was organized, though not without some demonstrations of opposition. In fact, a large majority of the most respectable citizens were opposed to the enterprise, and they accordingly determined, if possible, to crush the dangerous project in the bud. The meeting was advertised to be held in Clinton Hall, but during the course of the day the public feeling was excited by the posting through the city of a large placard, of which the following is a copy:--

"NOTICE--TO ALL PERSONS FROM THE SOUTH: All persons interested in the subject of a meeting called by J. Leavitt, W. Green, Jr., W. Goodell, J. Rankin and Lewis Tappan, at CLINTON HALL, this Evening, at 7 o'clock, are requested to attend at the same hour and place.

"New York, Oct. 2d, 1833.

"MANY SOUTHERNERS."

Southerners, however, had nothing to do with the meeting. At an early hour people began to a.s.semble in crowds in front of Clinton Hall, but the trustees, or some others, had closed the premises. The throng, however, still increased, and it soon became evident from the execrations mutually indulged in by the people, that the authors of the projected meeting were acting with discreet valor in staying away. William Lloyd Garrison, who had then just returned from England, where he had been engaged in fomenting excitement against this country, traducing its people and inst.i.tutions, and who was expected to take part in the proceedings of the meeting, was an especial object of popular abhorrence and disgust, and it is said that many grave and respectable citizens would have gladly a.s.sented to his decoration in a coat of tar and feathers. Notwithstanding the notification of "No meeting," Clinton Hall was opened and crowded to suffocation. Speeches were delivered by a number of citizens, and a series of resolutions, prepared by Mr. F. A. Tallmadge, were adopted, deprecating any interference in the question of slavery, and expressing a determination to resist every attempt on the part of the abolitionists to effect their object.

It appears, however, that the purposes for which the meeting was originally called were indirectly attained. Finding it much easier to raise a popular whirlwind than to ride securely upon it, they prudently and privately changed their place of meeting to Chatham street chapel.

Here the New York City Anti-Slavery Society was duly organized, having for its object the "total and immediate abolition of slavery in the United States." Its first officers were:--

_President_--Arthur Tappan.

_Vice-President_--Wm. Green, Jr.

_Treasurer_--John Rankin.

_Corresponding Secretary_--Elizur Wright, Jr.