Garrison the Non-Resistant
By
Ernest Crosby
Chapter 2
The Boston Mob
Woe unto
you! for ye build the sepulchres of the prophets, and your fathers killed them.
-- St. Luke, xi:47.
In
1831 Garrison founded the New England Anti-Slavery Society at Boston, and began
to lecture in its behalf. This was followed by the formation of a great number
of such bodies, state and local, including the national society founded at
Philadelphia in 1833. For some years associations were established at the rate
of more than one a day, and a single society sometimes numbered its members by
the thousand. Garrison's talents for public speaking stood him in good stead in
promoting the formation of these bodies. He was not an orator, but the force,
earnestness and logic of his addresses almost always carried his audiences with
him. The first great contest in which Garrison had to engage was between the
"immediatists" and the American Colonization Society, an institution
whose chief function was to put the conscience of the people at rest under the
delusion that the Negroes could be deported to Hayti or Liberia, but which in
reality was only effective in removing freedmen whose efforts on behalf of their
brethren in bonds were feared by the slave-holders, and the latter were by no
means unfriendly to this movement. Garrison exposed the plan thoroughly in a
pamphlet published in 1832, and a twelvemonth later, on a special mission to
England, he won over the principal Abolitionists there to immediatism as opposed
to colonization, including the venerable Wilberforce. Six years afterwards, on
another visit to Great Britain, he had the satisfaction of securing the adhesion
of Clarkson, who hitherto had been induced by misrepresentation to support the
colonizationists. In America it soon became clear, owing to Garrison's exposure
of it, that colonization meant the indefinite continuance of slavery. Among the
humors of his first stay in London was a dinner-party at which his host on
receiving him and hearing his name lifted up his hands and exclaimed, "Why,
my dear sir, I thought that you were a black man, and I have consequently
invited this company of ladies and gentlemen to be present to welcome Mr.
Garrison, the black advocate of emancipation from America!" He had in fact
supposed that no white American could plead for the slave as he had done in the
Liberator. This was a compliment to the editor indeed! Garrison attended
Wilberforce's funeral at Westminster Abbey, an humble follower in a
distinguished throng, but destined to do even more for the African race than the
great Englishman.
On
landing at New York on his return from England in 1833, Garrison was present at
a meeting called for the purpose of organizing a City Anti-Slavery Society. The
enemies of the movement had issued circulars calling for a pro-slavery
demonstration at the same time and place, with the object of breaking up the
meeting, and a mob of drunken blackguards came together in consequence and
succeeded in bringing the meeting to a violent close. The Courier and Enquirer
had much to do with fomenting the riot on this occasion and the Commercial
Advertiser and other "respectable" newspapers joined in denouncing
Garrison. The Evening Post said: "We should be sorry that any invasion of
his personal rights should occur to give him consequence and to increase the
number of his associates." When Garrison reached Boston, he found that
there, too, circulars had preceded him, calling upon the public to meet in front
of his office on a given evening armed with plenty of tar and feathers, but
although a dense mob breathing threatenings which foreboded a storm came
together, they dispersed without doing any damage.
The
angry temper of the Northern public had also been shown elsewhere. In
Connecticut, in 1833, Prudence Crandall, who had established a school for
colored girls, was shut out of the churches, shops and public conveyances; her
well was filled with manure, and her house smeared with filth and at last set on
fire. At Boston the directors of the Athenaeum library excluded Mrs. Child from
using it because she was an Abolitionist. When anti-slavery sentiment made
itself audible at Lane Theological Seminary, the trustees, with the assent of
the president, Dr. Lyman Beecher, suppressed all debate on the subject. The Rev.
Dr. Leonard Bacon accused candidates for elective office who were willing to
array themselves under the banner of the Abolitionists, with being
"political desperadoes;" and the American Bible Society actually
refused a gift of five thousand dollars which was to be devoted to the
distribution of Bibles among the slaves! The great church assemblies showed
their friendship for slavery in many ways, and a Presbyterian elder did not
hesitate to say in the General Assembly of that denomination at Pittsburg, in
1835, that the church was the patron of slavery and responsible for its
cruelties. Throughout the whole period of agitation against slavery not a
Catholic priest nor an Episcopal clergyman came forward as a friend of the
oppressed, with one possible exception. They were engaged in the time-honored
pastime of passing by on the other side.
Pro-slavery
meetings were held in New York and other cities and pro-slavery riots broke out
in many parts of the North. A great meeting was held at Faneuil Hall, Boston, on
August 21st, 1835, to protest against Abolition. The principal men of the city
took part and the mayor was in the chair. One of the orators turned to the
portrait of Washington and invoked his example on behalf of the slave-holders.
The sum of three thousand dollars was offered in the South for the apprehension
of Arthur Tappan, the New York philanthropist. At Concord (auspicious name!)
Whittier was pelted with stones and mud. A Harvard professor lost his chair on
account of his Abolition sentiments, and leading Northern publishers took pains
to assure the South that they would print nothing hostile to slavery. This
ignominious subservience to the slave power seemed to be almost universal.
Amid
such opposition and although "all pandemonium was let loose," Garrison
became only more confident and determined. Four men, he tells us, are enough to
revolutionize the world. Financial difficulties continually beset his path, but
he always succeeded in surmounting them, and despite many a gale, the Liberator
was able to proceed on its way. But the most conspicuous pro-slavery
demonstration was in the event directed against Garrison himself, and was the
immediate result of the antagonism of the enemies of Abolition towards George
Thompson, a distinguished English Abolitionist, who was lecturing in America,
and whose interference with our "domestic" institutions was most
offensive to them. It was announced that he would address a meeting of ladies on
the afternoon of October 21st, 1835, at a hall adjoining the offices of the
Anti-Slavery Society and the Liberator, at 46 Washington street, Boston.
Placards were posted in public places urging good citizens to bring the
"infamous foreign scoundrel to the tar-kettle before dark." In
response to this several thousand angry men gathered in the street at the time
set for the meeting, but Thompson had been wisely kept away. The women showed
the greatest coolness and courage and went quietly on with their proceedings,
although the door of the hall and the stairways of the building were thronged by
a threatening and unruly mob. The mayor arrived upon the scene and endeavored to
disperse the crowd outside by announcing that the Englishman was not in the
city, but they soon showed that they did not care on whom they vented their
wrath, provided only that it was on an Abolitionist. At last they broke in
through the door of the Anti-Slavery Society office, where Garrison was calmly
writing a letter. Some constables succeeded, however, in getting the rioters out
of the house before further violence was done, and the mayor, going to the
meeting-room, ordered the ladies to leave the building, as he would be unable to
protect them longer. They adjourned accordingly to the house of one of their
number, marching out two and two, each white woman taking a colored one with
her. "When we emerged into the open daylight," says one of the number,
"there went up a roar of rage and contempt. They slowly gave way as we came
out. As far as we could look either way the crowd extended -- evidently of the
so-called 'wealthy and respectable,' 'the moral worth,' the 'influence and
standing.'"
"Garrison!
Garrison!" was now the cry. "We must have Garrison! Out with him!
Lynch him!" The mob demanded that the anti-slavery society signboard be
removed. The mayor at once ordered it to be taken down, and it was speedily torn
to pieces. The mayor now besought Garrison to escape by the rear of the
building, and the latter, preceded by a friend, dropped from a back window on
the roof of a shed and sought refuge in a carpenter shop on the street behind;
but his retreat was already cut off. The workmen in the shop did what they could
for him, shutting the front door and keeping the crowd back until Garrison could
hide himself upstairs, but in a few minutes the ruffians broke in and had no
difficulty in finding his place of concealment. They seized him and dragged him
to the window, intending to throw him out, but someone below in the street
shouted, "Don't kill him outright," and, changing their minds, they
tied a rope round him and let him down by a ladder. Fortunately he was received
at the bottom by two strong men who were determined that the fame of Boston
should not be stained by a lynching. They succeeded, with superhuman efforts, in
guiding him through the crowd, in which it was evident now that Garrison had
some sympathizers, to the door of the neighboring city hall, over the very
ground where the first martyrs of the Revolution were slain in the Boston
massacre of 1770, and where their degenerate descendants were now taking the
part of the oppressors. The mayor had already reached the building. "On my
way from the Liberator office to the city hall," he says, "several
people said to me, 'They are going to hang him! For God's sake, save him!'"
Garrison was conducted with much difficulty to the mayor's office, and as he was
now bareheaded and half naked, the friends of the mayor were obliged to lend him
clothes to cover him. They decided that the only way to save him was to commit
him to jail as a disturber of the peace! A carriage was sent to the door to
deceive the mob, and while they waited, another carriage bore him from a door in
the rear to the city jail. But the people, when they discovered the ruse, rushed
upon the vehicle and tried to drag him out. They clung to the wheels, dashed
open the doors, seized hold of the horses and tried to upset the carriage. But
the police did their best, the driver plied his whip on the horses and on the
rioters, and by some miracle Garrison was deposited at the jail in safety and
locked up in a cell. On the morrow he left Boston and did not return until the
fury of the storm had spent itself, but even then he was forced to change his
residence, as his former landlord feared that his house might be destroyed.
The
biographers of Garrison call attention to the attitude of the authorities during
this episode. "Law officers in abundance overlooked the scene of the mob;
the legislators, in special session at the state house -- John G. Whittier among
them -- hastened down to become spectators. Law was everywhere, but justice was
fallen in the streets..... Wendell Phillips, commencing practice in his native
city, and not versed, perhaps, in the riot statutes, wondered why his regiment
was not called out." An alderman, when questioned while the riot was in
progress, "intimated that, though it was the duty of the mayor to put down
the riot, the city government did not very much disapprove of the mob to put
down such agitators as Garrison and those like him." The editor of the New
England Galaxy overheard a justice of the peace remark: "I hope they will
catch him (Garrison) and tar and feather him; and though I would not assist, I
can tell them five dollars are ready for the man that will do it."
The
press, secular and religious, unanimously showed its opposition to the
Abolitionists in this matter. The Daily Advertiser considered "the whole
transaction as the triumph of the law over lawless violence," and the
Christian Watchman (save the mark!), a Baptist journal, declared that the
Abolitionists were as culpable as the mob.
In
the pages of the Liberator Garrison described the riot, and attacked its
promoters and sympathizers with his customary force and ability. During the
danger he had not for a moment lost his composure, as all who saw him bore
witness, friend and foe alike. "Throughout the whole of the trying
scene," he testifies himself, "I felt perfectly calm -- nay, very
happy. It seemed to me that it was indeed a blessed privilege thus to suffer in
the cause of Christ. Death did not present one repulsive feature. The promises
of God sustained my soul, so that it was not only divested of fear, but ready to
sing for joy." This same courage enabled him to stigmatize the outrage in
his paper according to its deserts, and never for an instant did he alter his
tone from any sense of fear. Harriet Martineau, who was visiting America at this
time, gives her impressions of Garrison's appearance and manner. "It was a
countenance glowing with health, and wholly expressive of purity, animation and
gentleness." She found "sagacity the most striking attribute of his
conversation," which was "of the most practical cast."
The
year 1837 showed a marked improvement in New England sentiment. While it is true
that the Congregational Church protested against the discussion of "certain
topics" in meeting-houses, and that the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society
could not find a suitable hall or church to meet in at Boston and was obliged to
organize over a stable, still the legislature went so far as to permit it to
make use of the state house. This was a strong indication that the Abolitionists
had become a power to reckon with. Twelve hundred anti-slavery societies were
now in operation, and the foul murder of the Rev. E. P. Lovejoy, at Alton,
Illinois, by a mob which thus exhibited its disapproval of his anti-slavery
journal, did much to stir up Abolition sentiment, already stimulated by many
similar outrages in the South. Lovejoy's assassination brought Wendell Phillips
into the ranks of the Garrisonians, and he declared himself in an eloquent
speech at Faneuil Hall at a meeting called to express the indignation of all
that was best in Boston. But still the low passions of the friends of slavery
continued to show themselves at the North. In 1838, during a convention of
Abolitionists, Pennsylvania Hall, a building recently erected in Philadelphia
for these and other philanthropic meetings, was burned to the ground by a
pro-slavery mob; and it was only by calling out the militia that a similar crime
was prevented in Boston, where another hall had been built for the same
purposes.
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