VIII

THE ANTISLAVERY MOVEMENT

REFERENCES

GENERAL AUTHORITIES: J. F. Clarke, "The Antislavery Movement in Boston," Winsor's Memorial History of Boston, III, Chapter vi; T. W. Higginson, Contemporaries, Boston: Houghton, 1899. For further references, see Channing and Hart, Guide, §§ 187 ff.

GARRISON

WORKS: Selections from the Writings and Speeches of William Lloyd Garrison, Boston: R. F. Wallcut, 1852.

BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM: Life by W. P. Garrison and F. J. Garrison, 4 vols., New York: Century Co., 1885-1889.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Channing and Hart, Guide, § 187.

SELECTIONS: Hart, Contemporaries, IV, No. 126; Stedman, 102; *Stedman and Hutchinson, VI, 222-230.

PARKER

WORKS: Works, 14 vols., London: Trübner, 1863-1865; Speeches, Addresses and Occasional Sermons, 2 vols., Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1852.

BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM: John Weiss, Life and Correspondence of Theodore Parker, 2 vols., New York: Appleton, 1864; J. W. Chadwick, Theodore Parker, Boston: Houghton, 1900.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: As for Garrison.

SELECTIONS: Stedman and Hutchinson, VI, 514-520.

PHILLIPS

WORKS: Speeches, Lectures, and Letters, 2 vols., Boston: Lee & Shepard, 1863-1892.

BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM: G. L. Austin, Life and Times of Wendell Phillips, Boston: Lee & Shepard, 1888.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: As for Garrison.

SELECTIONS: Hart, Contemporaries, IV, No. 102; Stedman and Hutchinson, VII, 60-68.

SUMNER

WORKS: Works, 15 vols., Boston: Lee & Shepard, 1870-1883.

BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM: E. L. Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, 4 vols., Boston: Roberts, 1877-1893; Moorfield Storey, Charles Sumner, Boston: Houghton, 1899 (AS); Rhodes, History of the United States, II, Chapter vii.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Channing and Hart, Guide, §§ 202, 211.

SELECTIONS: Hart, Contemporaries, IV, Nos. 146, 174; Stedman and Hutchinson, VII, 68–78.

MRS. STOWE

WORKS: Works, Riverside Edition, 16 vols., Boston: Houghton, 1896. BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM: Mrs. J. T. Fields, The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe, Boston: Houghton, 1897.

SELECTIONS: Carpenter, 312-322; Hart, Contemporaries, IV, No. 24; Stedman and Hutchinson, VII, 132–155.

LINCOLN

WORKS: Complete Works, ed. J. G. Nicolay and John Hay, 2 vols., New York: Century Co., 1894; Passages from [Lincoln's] Speeches and Letters, New York: Century Co., 1901.

BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM: Life, by J. G. Nicolay and John Hay, 10 vols., New York: Century Co., 1890; J. T. Morse, Jr., Abraham Lincoln, 2 vols., Boston: Houghton, 1893 (AS).

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Channing and Hart, Guide, especially § 208.

SELECTIONS: Carpenter, 260-267; Hart, Contemporaries, IV, Nos. 44, 66, 101, 127, 145; Stedman and Hutchinson, VI, 470–485.

ENTHUSIASM for reform was obviously involved in the conception of human nature which underlay the worldwide revolutionary movement whose New England manifestation took the forms of Unitarianism and Transcendentalism. If human nature is essentially good, if evil is merely the consequence of what modern evolutionists might call artificial environment, it follows that relaxation Inherent in of environment, releasing men from temporary bondage, must change things for the better. The heyday of Transcendentalism consequently had a humorous superficial aspect, admirably described in Lowell's essay on

Enthu

siasm for Reform

Unitarian

ism and

Transcen

dentalism.

Thoreau (1865). “A sudden mental and moral mutiny,' he calls it, in which "every possible form of intellectual and physical dyspepsia brought forth its gospel." So long as reform remains in this stage, it can hardly impress people of common-sense as worse than ridiculous. When reform becomes militant, however, trouble heaves in sight; and the militant shape which New England reform took in the '40s clearly involved not only a social revolution, but an unprecedented attack on that general right of property which the Common Law had always defended.

Opposition

to Slavery.

Negro slavery, at one time common to all the English- Early speaking colonies, had died out in the Northern States. During the first quarter of the nineteenth century, meanwhile, the condition of industry in the South had tended to stimulate the institution in that region until it assumed unforeseen social and economic importance. Throughout colonial history there had been considerable theoretical objection to slavery.* Samuel Sewall opposed it; so from the beginning did the Quakers; and even in the South itself there were plenty of people who saw its evils and hoped for its disappearance. But no thoroughly organized movement against it took place until the air of New England freshened with the spirit of Renaissance.

Channing, who passed the years from 1798 to 1800 in Richmond, wrote from there:

"Master and slave! Nature never made such a distinction, or established such a relation. Man, when forced to substitute the will of another for his own, ceases to be a moral agent; his title to the name of man is extinguished, he becomes a mere machine in the hands of

* Consult the references under "Slavery" in Stedman and Hutchinson's Library of American Literature, Vol. XI.

Garrison.

his oppressor. The influence of slavery on the whites is almost as fatal as on the blacks themselves."

To Channing the conclusion here stated was unavoidable. If human beings are essentially good, they have a natural right to free development. No form of environment could more impede such development than lifelong slavery. So slavery confronted honest believers in human

excellence with a dilemma. Either this thing was a monstrous denial of fundamental truth, or else the negroes were not human. Something like the latter view was certainly held by many good people. In the South, indeed, it became almost axiomatic. To most philanthropic Northern people in 1830, on the other hand, the distinction between Caucasians and Africans seemed literally a question of complexion.

Men they

believed to be incarnate souls; and the color which a soul happened to assume they held a mere accident.*

Accordingly, a full nine years before the foundation of the Dial, there was unflinchingly established in Boston a newspaper, which until the close of the Civil War remained the official organ of the New England antislavery men. This was the Liberator, founded in 1831 by WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON (1805-1879). Born of the poorer classes at Newburyport, by trade a printer, by tempera

*This is compactly shown in the phrasing of the title of Lydia Maria Child's Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans called Africans (1833).

ment an uncompromising reformer, he was stirred from youth by a deep conviction that slavery must be uprooted. When he founded the Liberator, he had already made himself conspicuous; but the educated classes. thought him insignificant. In 1833 he was a principal founder of the Antislavery Society in Philadelphia. From that time, the movement strengthened. Garrison died in 1879. For the last fifteen years of his life he was held, as he is held by tradition, a great national hero, a man who stood for positive right, who won his cause, who deserves unquestioning admiration, and whose opponents merit equally unquestioning contempt.

So complete a victory has rarely been the lot of any earthly reformer, and there are aspects in which Garrison deserves all the admiration accorded to his memory. Fanatical, of course, he was absolutely sincere in his fanaticism, absolutely devoted and absolutely brave. What is more, he is to be distinguished from most Americans who in his earlier days had attained eminence and influence by the fact that he never had such educational training as should enable him to see more than one side of a question. The greatest strength of an honest, uneducated reformer lies in his unquestioning singleness of view. He really believes those who oppose him to be as wicked as he be lieves himself to be good. What moral strength is inherent in blind conviction is surely and honorably his.

servative

Opinion.

But because Garrison was honest, brave, and strenuous, Th. Conand because long before his life closed, the movement to which he unreservedly gave his energy proved triumphant, it does not follow that the men who opposed him were wicked. To understand the temper of the conservative people of New England we must stop for a moment, and