/ Please handle this volume with care. The University of Connecticut Libraries, Storrs ■ » -■» » » » ■» ^ <» » » vo O WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. [Frontis-piece AN AMERICAN HERO THE STORY OF WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON Mritten for U?ouiuj Ipcoplc BY FRANCES B. COOKE Author of '* An English Hero," " William Tyndale's Vow," " Nobl» Workert^" Etc. " O SMALL Vjegiuuingt-, ye are great and strong, Baaed on a faithful heart and weariless brain, i'e build ihc future fair, ye conquer wrong." LowKi.t LONDON GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS, LIMITED Broadway House, Carter Lane, E.G. CONTENTS. Newbckypokt , CHAPTER I. CHAPTER II. 1 Choosing a Side CHAPTER III. '* For Righteousness' Sake " 14 CHAPTER IV The " LlBERATOK " CHAPTER VI. " Shall the ' Lihekatok ' Die ? " 49 CHAPTER V. The First Anti-Slavery Society ... 60 73 IV CONTENTS. CHAPTER VII. PAGE The Boston Mob .86 CHAPTEK VIII. Discords in Camp 99 CHAPTER IX. "No Union with Slave-Holders ! " . , , 115 CHAPTER X. The Triumph of the Right .... 126 CHAPTER XI. Sunset . . .142 AN AMERICAN HERO. CHAPTER I. NEWBUBYFOBT. NE spring day in the year 1805, a ship from Nova Scotia anchored in the harbour of Newburyport, Massachusetts. A sea-captain named Abijah Garrison was among her passen- gers. Hard times had driven him from his old home in the North, and he had come with his wife and their two little children to seek a living in the United States. The first sight of Newburyport was cheeriug after their long voyage. The town was built on the side of a hill : at the foot lay ship-yards and wharves filled with merchant vessels and fishing boats, ^nd breezes from the Atlantic Ocean brouglit AN AMERICAN HERO. health and strength to the dwellers in the busy seaport. Among the streets and houses were still to be seen patches of meadow-land and groups of shady trees, remnants of country life, pleasant and restful to the eye. When the new settlers landed, their first business was to find a home ; and their search ended in a wooden house in School Street, where they rented from Martha Farnham, the wife of a coasting captain, some rooms that she did not need for her own use. One end of the dwelling, which from this time held two families, was joined to a chapel ; at the other end lay a little garden. There were five windows above, and two at each side, of the narrow doorway ; and in front ran the public highway, busy with the traffic of foot-passengers and heavily laden wains, sheltered at intervals with well-grown chestnut-trees. In this house, on December 10th, 1805, a new baby was added to the Garrison family, and the names William Lloyd were given to him — the latter being his mother's maiden name. Within a short time other changes took place : the little daughter, who had been brought from Nova Scotia, died, and when Lloyd was three years NEWBURYPOET. old, another little sister, whom they named Maria Elizabeth, was born. Then there were three children in the home — two boys and a gu^l. The clever captain, soon after his arrival in Newburyport, had found a post in one of the many ships belonging to the town; and all might have gone well with him if his moral courage had been equal to his physical valour. But many of the sailors, his new companions, were intemperate men ; and though he feared no storms on the Atlantic Ocean, he was not brave enough to say " No " when they tempted him to drink. Matters grew worse and worse as time went on, and, iu less than four years from the day when they landed in Newbury- port, Captain Garrison forsook his wife and children, and never came back to them again. So troubles came early to little Lloyd Garrison. Before he was seven years old, he shared his mother's cares. Every penny gained was of importance, and the little lad was sent out to sell sticks of candy in the town. Many a good-natured passer-by bought his wares, struck by the child's eager face : and after such good fortune, Lloyd used to run home joyfully with the money he had earned. Sometimes he AN AMERICAN HERO, was sent with a can to a large house in State Street for soup and bread which his mother was thankful to receive. At such times, small as he was, the boy used to shrink from the sight of other children as he carried his can, yet he hardly recognised himself the feeling which made him anxious to work rather than to live on charity. Good Mrs. Farnham was very kind to the poor mother and children whom she had taken into her house. And when, in course of time, Mrs. Garrison found employment as nurse in the town of Llyn, it was a great trouble to her to be obliged to leave the home which had sheltered her for so many years. Her eldest boy, James, she took with her; the little daughter, Elizabeth, she left in Mrs. Farnham's care, and Lloyd, at seven years of age, found himself in a new home. At the foot of the hill on which Newbury- port was built, near the busy ship-yards, lived old Deacon Bartlett and his wife. They were friends of Mrs. Garrison's, and members of the Baptist Church in which she used to worship. They were quite poor people. Close to their door they kept a little apple-stand, where they nEWLWRYTOJlT. sold fruit to thirsty sailors on hot summer days. Behind the house was a wood-yard, where the deacon sawed planks and made up bundles of chips for sale. There Lloyd went to live. His school-days were few, and the ways oi learnint^ were by no means pleasant ways for liim. He was left-handed, and the stern schoolmaster rapped his knuckles, and had little patience with his efforts to learn to write. So he was much happier when splitting wood with the deacon, or carrying out chips to customers in the town. Yet he worked hard at school, and though his school hours were fewer, and his difficulties greater, than those of his school-fellows, he learned to write a better hand than any of them. On Sundays, he sang in the choir of the Baptist Church, and people who listened with deliglit to his clear, flute-like voice, saw with surprise that the little chorister was the bare- footed boy who sold them their firewood during the week. The breezy streets and open common of Newburyport were fine playgrounds for Lloyd when his work was done. There he rolled his hoop and ran races with companions as full of spirit as himself. But dearest of all haunts AN AMERICAN HERO. was the river IMerrimac, which flowed witliin a stone's-throw of the deacon's door. He learned to swim like a fish in its waters, to scull in the good-natured seamen's boats, and in the winter to slide and skate. He was like an untrained colt in those days, and now and then got into mischief ; but he was always honest and true and tender-hearted, and though eager for fun, Lloyd was faithful to the old deacon who had to work so hard for a living, and he never for- sook the apple-stall or the chip-yard when his work was wanted, though the Merrimac lay sparkling in the sunlight, and he could hear his comrade's voices as they shouted at their play. Meanwhile, Lloyd's mother still lived at Llyn. The boy loved her heartily, and prized her letters, and wrote to her in return. He would have done anything to please her ; his greatest wish, small as he was, was to learn a trade, so that he might in time support her in comfort. So at nine years of age, the little fellow was ready when she sent for him to Llyn to learn shoe-making. The heavy lapstone wearied him, the strong waxed thread hurt his fingers, and the workmen laughed at him and told him NEWBVRYPOliT. he was "no bigger than a last." But he was brave and persevering, and proud of bis success when in some months' time he had made his first shoe. Then came a change. The shoemaker failed, and Lloyd was apprenticed to a cabinet-maker in another town, away from his mother, and also from his old friends at New bury port. Then he grew homesick and longed for the old deacon, and a sight of the sparkling Merrimac, and a breath of the fresh winds that blew from the Atlantic over his native town. Flis work pleased his master, who treated him kindly; but one summer morning, the young apprentice could bear his loneliness no longei", and set off over hill and dale, with his bundle over his shoulder, to walk to Newburyport and find fresh work among his old friends. He was overtaken and had to go back with the cabinet-maker and talk over his plans, which he ought to have done before. But when all was made plain, his master parted from him in a friendly manner, and Lloyd set forth again for Newburyport, a boy of only fourteen years of age, with his own way to make in the world. The tradesmen of Newburyport became used 8 AN AMERICAN HERO. to the sight of the honest-faced lad who sought so eagerly all that summer for work. The breezy common and sunny Merrimac were seldom play-places for him now : for deep down in his loving heart lay the firm resolve to be a comfort to his mother, and to be that, he must find some work to do. So it was a happy day for him when Mr. Allen, the editor of the Newhuryport Herald, agreed to take him as his apprentice; and on October 18th, 1818, Lloyd entered his printing oflfice to learn the printer's trade. Still, there were diflSculties before him, and this was well, for Lloyd Grarrison had not only to earn a livelihood, but to build up a character. It seemed to him at first hopeless that he should ever learn to set type rapidly. He felt clumsy and slow, and was not even tall enough to reach the table at which he had to work. How far away seemed the hope of making a home for his mother I The young apprentice earned little more than his board and clothes. It was no easy matter to pay for the postage of his letters to her; yet he wrote often, for it was the only pleasure he could give to his mother and the little sister, who was now living with her. Mrs. Garrison's health had L^BWBVliYFOIiT, broken down. She could no longer work ; but happily she had found kind friends to help her. lb her poverty and pain she was cheered by the news of her brave boy as the weeks went by and he was able to tell her of the progress he had made in learning the work of the printing office. Lloyd's new home was in the printer's house which was near that of his old friend, Deacon Bartlett, and he soon made friends in the prin- ter's wife and children. His master trusted and liked him and his willing, ready ways. As he grew more experienced in setting type, he was able to read and to think as he set it, and thus his place of work became as school and college to him. He borrowed books and formed opinions about the politics of Newburyport. At length he took a new and daring step. Evening after evening the printer's children wondered what made Lloyd so busy that he had no time to devote to them when working hours were over. They would have wondered still more if they had seen his excited, hopeful face when, one night, he dropped a packet into the post-office, and ran home whistling to await the result. The fact was, Lloyd had ventured to 10 AN AMERICAN H^UO. write in a disguised hand an article for the Neivburyport Herald, of which his master was the editor ; and when next morning Mr. Allen received the packet, and, having read its con- tents, handed the article to Lloyd to put in type for the newspaper, there was no happier young printer in the United States. He sent other papers after this which were also accepted, and only to his mother did Lloyd tell of this new interest in his life. He had still better news to send her when his master, called away on business, trusted liim so far as to leave him, still only an apprentice, in charge of the printing office during his absence. After tliis came a hoHday spent in a visit to his mother. Mrs. Garrison had not seen lier boy for seven years, and it was the greatest comfort to her to find him as tender and faithful as he was strong. This proved to be the last time the mother and son were to meet on earth. In less than three months afterwards Lloyd heard of her death. His little sister had passed away before her, and nothing had been heard for a long time of his brother James who had gone to sea, so now Lloyd was the only remaining member of the family. There was a dreary blank in the boy's NBWBURYPOBT. U life : the motive for his work was lost ; there was now no mother for whom he must make a home ; but the memory of her brave, unselfish life never left him, and in after years the thought of wliat she had wished him to become acted as a powerful influence over him. For nearly three years after his mother's death, Lloyd worked on in Mr. Allen's printing oflSce. No youth in Newbury port was more worthy of trust than he, and any task which he undertook was always faithfully performed. He was strong and quick and active, and the fierce winds which blew over Newburyport and lashed the waters of the Merrimac into frequent storm, tended to make him brave and fearless of hardships. It was a good training for the stirring life that lay before him. 'New- bury port was wide awake in politics. There was a strong Liberal party in the town not afraid of change and progress, and Lloyd Garrison threw in his lot with such men. Awa}^ in Europe the Greeks were fighting for freedom from Turkish rule, and his boyish sympathies were roused by the news of their struggle. He even longed to go and help them, and use his strong right arm in their cause. Perhaps it i2 AiSf AMERICAN tiEliO. sometimes seemed to him less heroic to be setting type in a dull newspaper office than to march to battle against tyrants to defend op- pressed men and women. But, however that might be, his type was always well set, and he was the most rapid and correct compositor in Mr. Allen's printing works. There was better work in store for Lloyd Garrison than mere force of weapons could achieve, and meanwhile, like many another hero, he was making ready for the day when God would call him to it. Lloyd Garrison was a pleasant companion as well as a hard worker, and many of the young people of Newburyport liked him well. But there were few among them whom lie could choose ior friends. Life was an earnest matter to him, and he cared most for those who were in earnest, and who sought after what was true and lasting. Isaac Knapp was such an one — a youth who, like himself, had made his own way in the world. Often the two lads talked to- gether of work they hoped to do before they died, and they planned great and noble schemes, such as boys often set before themselves, but too often forget like idle dreams as the years pass by. There was a quiet room over a book- the old grammar school, newburyport. garrison's birthplace. [Face p. IS NEWBUBYPOBT. 13 store in the town where the two friends were svelcome in the evenings to meet and read together, and talk over what they had read. In this book -store, WilHam Crocker, a youth a few months older than Lloyd Garrison, was an apprentice. He had been a shoemaker, and. before many years were over, he was to go out as a missionary into distant lands where at last he died in his self-chosen banishment. He, too, was in earnest, and was another of Lloyd's favourite companions. So months passed by, and the three friends grew up towards man- hood. Lloyd ended his apprenticeship, and in the early days of 1826 he said good-bye to the Herald oflBce, and set on foot a paper of his own, which he called the Free Press. He had no money for such a venture ; but Mr. Allen knew by that time of what stuff his old. ap- prentice was made, and lent him the sum he needed, knowing well that the debt would be paid in due time. And now the little bare- footed boy who had carried the old deacon's chips from door to door, was an editor and publisher in Newbury port. CHAPTER II CHOOSING A SIDE. HILE Lloyd Grarrison was thus growing up to manhood in New- buryport, a farmer's son named John Greenleaf Whittier was spending his boyhood in the pleasant country at Haverhill eighteen miles further up the river Merrimac. There, among sheltering woods and broad meadows, stood old farmsteads that had been in the possession of the same families for years past. Their owners knew and cared little about the busy world beyond their own blue hills. Squirrels and wild birds made their nests in that quiet country where there was no man to make them afraid, and healthy, happy children played on the river banks and grew up to work on the old farms as their fathers before them had done. 14 CHOOSING A SIDE, 15 Such an old homestead was owned by the Quaker, Farmer Whittier. He and his family- had no need to go beyond the borders of their own farm for the means of living. Their sheep and flax provided wool and linen for their homespun clothes. The mother and daughters spun and kept the house, and the father and his boys worked on the farm — a quiet, unevent- ful life. The Quaker meeting-house was too far away for more than a rare visit, and the children saw no faces except those of the neighbours who owned the other farms at Haverhill — with one exception. An old Scotchman used to come round sometimes with his pack on his back selling small wares to the farmers' wives : and it was a great event when he hung up his plaid and stayed for a night's shelter under the kind-hearted Quaker's roof. To please the children, he used to sing to them old Scotch ballads; and after one visit, he left behind him a volume of Burns' poems for the boy to read, whose eager, happy face he had watched during the singiug of the songs. This boy was John G-reenleaf Whittier, who must now appear in Lloyd Garrison's story. Dressed in home-spun clothes, ploughing and 16 AN AMERICAN EEEO. digging all the summer-time like the other young farmers of Haverhill, no one suspected that John Whittier had any other thoughts and dreams beyond those that satisfied their lives. But the fact was that as he went about his work, everything he saw spoke to him of some hidden beauty. The brook which flowed through his father's garden, the wild flowers in the meadows, the distant mountains, and all the other country sights and sounds — all these pictures took shape in musical words, and floated through his mind as he guided the plough or drove the cattle home from pasture in the evening. But writing poetry seemed nothing but folly to the good old Quaker farmer; and since, if John did his work well, he might spend his leisure as he chose, tho boy wrote out these poems, which came to him he knew not whence, and he kept a little store of them hidden away behind the rubbish in an unused garret of the old farmhouse. Time passed, and Lloyd Garrison, at New- buryport, down the river Merrimac, finished his apprenticeship, and set on foot his own paper, the Free Press. Some numbers reached CHOOSING A SID^. 1? Haverhill. Farmer Whitfcier read them, and was struck with the honest, straightforward tone of the editor's leading articles. So a breath of fresh air from the outside world entered the old farmhouse every week from the day when the carrier began to bring the Free Press from Newbury port, and throw it over the Whittiers' garden fence. Now in the paper there was a " Poet's Corner," for Lloyd Garrison had a high ideal for his news- paper. He wished not only to give his readers right views on politics, and to discuss fairly the great questions of the day ; but also to give them noble and beautiful thoughts to read, and the young poet-farmer at Haverhill began tG look forward eagerly to the arrival of the Free Press, for the sake of the poems that were inserted in it. One day John Whittier was mending the fence, when the carrier from Newbury port stopped his horse in the road to throw him the paper. What was the boy's surprise to find a poem of his own, called the " Exile's Departure," in the much-prized "Poet's Corner." There it stood in clear print signed " W," and beneath it a note from the editor, 18 AN AMERICAN HERO. askiDg for more poems from the same writer ! What magic had brought about this strange event ? It was soon explained. His sister, far prouder of John's success than ever he himself would be, had found his secret store of poems in the old garret, and had ventured to send one of them, written out with trembling fingers and a beating heart, to the office of the Free Press. And how had Lloyd Garrison received the poem ? The pale ink was very hard to read, and his first impulse was to tear up the " original poem,'* which was little likely to be of any use to him. But the writing was in an unformed, youthful hand, and perhaps at the sight there came across his mind the memory of the day when he had sent his first paper to the Newburyport Herald and his good friend, Mr. Allen, had given him courage to persevere. So he read it through and then he found that his youthful correspondent gave promise of great future power. Other poems followed. As he read them, Lloyd began to wish to know their author's name. At last he learned that his poet was a boy hard at work in the fields at Haverhill. CHOOSING A SIDE. 19 The youug editor resolved that he would seek out this youth who probably needed help in the struggle of life ; and one summer day, when the Free Press was still only six months old, he took a holiday and drove out from Newburyport along the pleasant country roads to Haverhill. As has been said, it was a rare event for any stranger to visit Mr. Whittier's farm ; and when the new-comer from the distant town accosted the old Quaker, saying, " I want to see you about your son," the farmer asked, somewhat anxiously, " What has the boy been doing ? " Meanwhile, John was at work in the field bare-footed, and his sister was sent to summon him to the stranger's presence. In came the farm-boy, waiting only to put on his jacket and shoes, timid, yet eager to see the great man, whose errand, no doubt, the loving sister had partly guessed. He found a youth hardly older than himself talking to his father, and advising him to give an education to the lad who could write unaided such poems as the Free Press had printed. " Poetry will never give him bread," said the straightforward Quaker, who objected to having 20 AN AMERICAN HERO. " such notions put in the boy's head." But Lloyd Garrison's sympathy had wakened to new life the slumbering energies within the young farmer's mind. ** Where there's a will, there's a way." All through that summer and the following autumn, John worked well on the farm, and no day-dreams nor poet's fancies interfered with the duties that fell to his lot. Then came winter, bringing long months when the snow lay on the ground and no farm- work could be done. John spent his leisure in learn- ing to make shoes from a labourer on his father's farm who was willing to teach him his winter's trade, and by this occupation he earned enough to buy a suit of clothes in the spring, and to pay for a term's study at the Haverhill Academy; for Lloyd Garrison still stood his friend, and prevailed on the farmer to agree to the boy's great longing. But before that term was ended, Lloyd's own fortunes had changed. The Free Press had proved to be too outspoken for the people of Newburyport. Its brave young editor would not write to please the public. Men found in its pages fearless words about right and wrong that somewhat roughly handled their CHOOSING A SIDE. 21 own hobbies, and after a fair trial, it was plain that the paper would not pay. It was rather hard to go back as a journeyman printer to his old master's oflfice ; but Lloyd Garrison had a brave heart, and no difl&culties damped his courage ; so for three months he set type there as he had done when a boy. Then, when all the aiJairs of the Free Press were settled, and the loan from Mr. Allen repaid, he set forth to Boston to begin the world afresh, with no money and no friends in the unknown town. A printer who knew the character he had borne in New- buryport gave him a home in his house till he could earn money to pay for his board; but there were hard times just then in Boston, and many men were out of work. Lloyd had a long and weary search. Day after day he visited offices, to be met by the same answer that there was no room for him. Yet there was an impulse within him which bore him bravely on. His mind was not only fixed on bread-winning. He saw that there was great work to be done in the world, and great need of workers, right causes to be helped and wrongs to be redressed, and he was eager to be a helper on the riglit side. So each morning he went forth with 22 AN AMERICAN HERO. fresh zeal to seek a little niche in which he might plant himself among the world's workers. And at length he found it. There was a paper published in Boston called the National Philanthropist. So far it had scarcely paid its way, and a pushing editor was needed to help it forward. The post was offered to Lloyd Garrison, and he gladly took it; for it promised to give him not only the means of living, but also the means of influence he wished for. It was the first temperance paper ever published, and was greatly needed in those days, when drinking customs were so widely spread. Lloyd widened its use, and made it the organ of other reforms ; and the citizens of Boston found there, beside their daily news, honesty in politics, and brave words against the sins and follies of society in their town. While Lloyd was still searching for work, a great meeting was held in Boston, to consider the choice of a representative to Congress. The nomination was at hand, and young Garri- son felt very strongly that a wrong man was likely to be chosen. It was true that he him- self was young in years and unknown to his CHOSING A SIDE. /ellow-citizens, and doubtless he shrank from the ordeal of his first public speech. Neverthe- less, he was in earnest, and must bring all the influence he could to support the right. There was a stirring among the excited people, and a cry of *' Who is he ? " when this youthful stranger mounted on a bench and laid before the crowd the higher grounds which should rule their votes, and which he thought they failed to see. He broke down before the close of his speech ; but his words prevailed, and the justice and truth deep down within his hearers rose up in answer, and public opinion was changed by the brave, honest speech of a young man friendless and out of work. This pro- raised well for his usefulness in after years. But too often the fair promises of youth fade away and are forgotten. Was it to be so in his case ? We shall see. Yery often, during his life in Boston, Lloyd's thoughts went back to the happy evenings at Newburyport, when he and his friend Isaac Knapp had read together, and talked over the questions which they had found hard to solve in these early days. Grlad would he have been of tMs lost companion now, as he thought 24 AN AMERICAN HERO. about the great matters which were stirring the minds of men, and which he could not leave unnoticed in the pages of his paper. He used to take long solitary walks on Boston Common, away from the noises of the town, that the fresh breezes which blew over it might help to clear his weary brain ; and one day, while the winter snow was lying thickly, and stormy winds were blowing, in the first week of the year 1828, he sought its silence and solitude to consider a new problem. Was it just and right, he asked himself, that a bill should be passed in one of the Southern States, forbidding coloured men and women to learn to read and write ? Such was the question to which he must find an answer; for such a bill had just been passed in South Carolina, and the National Philan^ thropist must not pass the news over in silence. Surely there must be something wrong in the system that led masters, for the sake of their own safety, to seal up the inquiring minds of their slaves, and keep them on the level of the brutes. As he pondered, a clear light began to dawn on Lloyd Grarrison's mind, and he went on to question, for the first time, whether negro slavery, which w^s established by law CHOOSING A SIDE. 25 in the Southern States of America was not a crime. Boston citizens who read the Philanthropist that week were startled by the bold opinions which the little paper put forth against the scheme of the South Carolina Bill. It was a new thing to see the rights of the slaves de- fended, and to see them spoken of as human beings, instead of chattels to be bought and sold. But the surprise ended with the week, and the subject was dropped again in Boston ; for there, as in all other cities in the Northern States, it was a dangerous matter to utter a whisper against the slavery of the South, which brought the North its wealth. Boston was the great market for slave-grown cotton. There merchants lived who made their money by cotton traffic. On slave labour depended the prosperity of the North ; and to question the white man's right to enslave the negroes would be to endanger the Union itself. So all Boston believed, and on all sides there was silence about the great national sin. But Lloyd Grar- rison could not stifle the promptings of his conscience, and every day his belief grew stronger that the slave system was wrong. 26 AN AMERICAN HERO. About this time a stranger to Boston, named Benjamin Lundy, came to tlie printer's house, where Lloyd was living, and asked for a few nights* lodging. He was already known by name to young Grarrison, who, when he was a boy, had heard Mr. Lundy's eventful story, and thought of him as a hero. Lloyd had pictured to himself a very diflferent person from the small, insignificant-looking deaf man who now stood before him ; and no one will wonder at this who reads the tale of Lundy's brave life. He was born a Quaker in the State of New Jersey, which borders on Massachusetts; and while Lloyd Garrison was still a baby in Mrs. Farnham's little wooden house in Newburyport, the young Quaker had gone out into the world to earn a living. And he had wandered in search of it southwards, till in the slave-holding State of Virginia he had found a saddler at Wheeling, on the river Ohio, who took him as an apprentice, and promised to teach him his trade. The New Jersey boy was honest and hard-working, and he prospered in his new home as time went on. When his apprentice- ship was at an end, he set up in business as a saddler. His work was so good that he soon CHOOSING A SIDE. 27 found custom, married, and made a home, and all would have gone well and happily with him had not his tender heart been touched by the constant sight of sorrows he could not relieve; for in those days, gangs of slaves used to be driven chained together through the streets of Wheeling, on their way down the river to hope- less slavery in States still further south. The sight of their sad faces, and the sound of the cruel driver's lash, filled him with a longing to help them ; and he resolved, when in a few years he had made some money, to sell his saddler's business, and set on foot a newspaper that might draw attention to their woes. He knew nothing about printing, and at first walked twenty miles each week to get his paper printed, bringing back the edition in a pack on his shoulders, and selling copies as he went on his way. By-and-by he bought a press of his own, and learned to use it ; but his wandering life still continued. He travelled on foot from State to State, holding meetings in various towns, and telling everywhere the same tale of the sufferings of the slaves. Meanwhile he lost thousands of dollars; and at last a very poor man, with no capital of his own, he removed to 28 AN AMERICAN HERO. Baltimore, and there published a paper called the Genius of Universal Emancipation. There his wife, whom he loved dearly, died, his chil- dren were scattered, and his home was broken up. Pity for the slaves, whose sorrows were ' so much greater than his own, made him forget his losses in still harder work for them ; and years passed away in such self-sacrificing labour. No wonder Lloyd Garrison was ready to greet a hero when for the first time he met this man. The poor Quaker, on his side, bent and worn with anxiety and overwork, saw in the strong youth, so full of energy, and eager to stand by the right, the promise of a noble worker in years to come. They had much talk together, and Lloyd entered heartily into the plan when Mr. Lundy told him that he had invited all the clergymen in Boston to meet him, that they might form an anti-slavery society in the city. When the day appointed for the meeting came, the unwearied man waited the result of his invitations. Lloyd Garrison hoped for the best, and waited with him. Boston was already rich in good works, and there were famous preacliers in her churches. Might it CHOOSING A SIDE. 20 not be that this brave raan would succeed in rousing them to consider the long-neglected question? The doubt was soon ended. One by one the clergymen dropped in. Only eight came ; yet how much might not eight wise men do if they were in earnest. Benjamin Lundy rose to speak, and his bent form and feeble voice were soon forgotten in the enthusiasm of his words, as he told his mission to Bos- ton. Years afterwards, Lloyd Garrison recalled the story of that meeting in these words:— ''He might as well have urged the stones in the street to cry out on behalf of the perishing captives. My soul was on fire. Every soul in the room was heartily opposed to slavery, but — • hut it would terribly alarm and enrage the South to know that an anti-slavery society existed in Boston. But — it would do harm rather than good to agitate the subject; hut — we had nothing to do with the subject, and the less we meddled with it, the better. Oh! the moral cowardice, the chilling apathy, the criminal unbelief, the cruel scepticism that were revealed on that memorable occasion ! Poor Lundy ! that meeting was a damper to his 30 AN AMERICAN HERO. feelings; but he was not a man to be cast down, come what might." So ended Benjamin Lundy's mission to Bob- ton, and the following day he set forth to sow his seed in less stony ground. Garrison carried about with him the memory of the noble, home- less man, and thought how sadly Boston needed heroes like him, who were ready to uphold the right at all costs. For four months longer he edited the Philanthropist, At the end of that time the paper fell into the hands of fresh owners, and he had to consider what should be his next step in life. CHAPTEE III. ''FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS' SAKE.'* GRE AT event was at hand in the United States, and the whole nation was excited and astir. Towards the iJ end of the year a new President was to be elected, and even villages and country towns far away from the seat of Government at Washington forgot their local politics and lesser interests in view of the great national struggle. In the farthest corner of Vermont, under the shadow of the Green Mountains, the village of Bennington was wide awake to the claims of the rival candidates, and there came thence a little company of men seeking Lloyd Garrison at Boston, with the request that he would take up his abode among them in the distant Vermont village, and become the edi- 31 iJ2 AN AMERICAN HERO. tor of a new paper which should uphold the election of John Quincy Adams, the present President, whose term of ofl&ce was drawing to a close. Now Garrison was quite ready to uphold the claims of Mr. Adams, and the object of the journal had his full sympathy. But he was not willing to spend his time and strength in the pursuit of politics alone, while there were so many great moral evils to be mended in the world, and he could raise his voice against them. So he made answer that he would accept the post they offered him on one condi- tion : and this was, that he might be free to deal in the paper as he liked with the great questions of war and slavery and intemperance ; and to this condition the "citizens" of Ben- nington agreed. The new paper was to be called the Journal of the Times, and the first number was to appear in October. In the interval, Lloyd went to see his friends in Newburyport. He met with a hearty welcome from Mr. Allen, the printer, and renewed the old intercourse with bis friend Isaac Knapp. What a pleasure it was to revisit, after his absence, the places ''FOB RIGHTEOUSNESS' SAKE." 33 where his boyhood had been spent : the little wooden house in School Street, where good Mrs. Farnham had been a kind friend to his mother in her trouble ; the chapel where he had sung on Sundays, and the woodyard where he had worked with the old deacon. As he wandered by the Merrimac, he seemed to hear again the voices of his old companions, with whom he had had such merry times when he was only a little bare-footed errand-boy ; and as he went up and down the hilly streets, memories came back to him of his weary search for work so many years ago, when, homesick and lonely, he had made his way back from the cabinet- maker's employment to his native town. The summer was over when he reached his new home in Vermont. The woods were rich with golden autumn tints, and there was beauty on every side. The clear blue sky by day and the bright starlight nights were a constant delight to him. Before his printing- office door lay the village green, where the men of Bennington used to meet when their day's work was over, to discuss the events of the day, and the news from foreign lands. He found ibhem frank, harci-Forking people, ready to D 34 AN AMERICAN HERO. welcome new ideas, and there were six hundred subscribers to his paper in the first week. Bennington lay in a valley running north and south. Full in view in the east rose the Green Mountains with cloud shadows chasing the sunlight over their slopes, and in the west the grand heights of Mount Anthony stood up dark and purple against the sunset skies. In the midst of so much outward beauty, grand ideals seemed to rise before the youth's mind with greater clearness than of old, and great ques- tions of right and wrong grew more plain to his judgment, and stronger than ever grew his longing to do some good work in the world, and help to mend some crooked ways before he died. The Journal of the Times gained supporters for Mr. Adams, and the political leaders in the paper were all that were required. But its usefulness did not end there : Lloyd Garrison's words in the new journal roused his hearers to think on whatever subject he wrote, for they came straight from his heart. So, on the village green at Bennington that autumn, topics were discussed that had been passed over in silence hitherto ; and wherever the Journal of the Times made its way, men "FOR BI0HTE0U8NESS' SAKE:* 35 could not close their ears to such a trumpet-call as the following, which appeared in its pages: — " It is time that a remonstrance went forth from the North that should peal in the ear of every slave-holder like the roar of thunder. For ourselves, we are resolved to agitate this subject to the utmost. Nothing but death shall prevent us from denouncing a crime which has no parallel in human depravity. We shall take high ground. The alarm must be perpetual." Prudent and cautious people, when they read the Journal of the Times, shook their heads over such bold handling* of an unsafe theme. But there were no slave-holders in Vermont, and it was a far cry from there to Boston, where the cotton trade brought men their daily bread. So the outspoken young editor was allowed to take his own course ; and it was said that the novelty of its contents helped the sale of the journal. None of these considerations weighed with Lloyd Garrison, however. All he knew was that he could not keep silence in face of such an evil. But words of sympathy helped to give him courage, and a few of these reached aim sometimes. 36 AN AMERICAN EEBO, John Greenleaf Whittier, the farmer's son at Haverhill, whom he had befriended three years before, had shown himself worthy of the help then given him; and while still working patiently at the cobbler's bench, and on his father's farm, had toiled eagerly up the hard ways of learning. And Lloyd Garrison had never lost sight of him; had published his poems in his Boston paper, and had written cheering words to him. No wonder that the youth never forgot that summer morning when, in the old farmhouse. Garrison's words to his father had changed the whole current of his unsatisfied life. No wonder that he loved Lloyd Garrison with boyish enthusiasm. As he read the Journal of the Times, he saw in Garrison's writing the prophecy of a great career, and he ventured to write a letter to him, urging him to be of good courage, and to labour bravely on against slavery, in the certain hope that there were great things waiting for him to do. And this letter gladdened Garri- son when he read it. Far away in Baltimore, Benjamin Lundy was watching whether the hopes he had formed of the young printer, whom he had met in Boston, ''FOB BIGHTEOUtiNESS' SAKE. 37 were to be realized. Month after month, tokens reached him that young Garrison's whole soul was against the sin of slavery ; and at last he resolved to carry out a scheme which became dearer to him every day. He would go to Bennington, and try to induce the fearless youth to come to Baltimore, in the heart of the slave States, and help him to put new life into his anti-slavery paQ £iV Th^JIndu^ So the good Quaker, too poor to make the long journey, except on foot, took his pack on his back, and his staff in his hand, and set forth over hill and dale to the Green Mountains in Vermont. Thick snow lay on the ground, and chill winds and cutting hailstorms blew and beat against him as he went day after day on his dreary journey. But no obstacles nor hardships daunted him ; and when he came in sight of the great hills that sheltered Bennington, he forgot his weariness in his longing to grasp Garrison's friendly hand once more, and gain the promise of his much-needed help. The two men took solemn counsel together. It was no light matter for Garrison to agree to the step the older man urged him to take. His proposal was that the Genius should be pub- 38 AN AMERICAN HERO. ished once a week, instead of once a month ; and while Garrison lived in Baltimore and took charge, of the paper, Lundy was to travel and find fresh subscribers. Lloyd had now been six months at Bennington. The President's election was over : Greneral Jackson, a slave- holder, had been elected ; so all the efforts of the Journal of the Thnes to oppose him had been in vain. As he thought over the new scheme proposed to him, Lloyd saw that it opened a wider field of usefulness before him ; his task in Bennington was done, and he agreed to leave his Vermont home at the end of March, 1829, and follow Benjamin Lundy to the new and dangerous task. During his long journey, Lloyd had time to meditate on all that lay before him. He was going to the home of slave-owners. At Balti- more, slaves torn from their friends were sold or shipped to Southern markets. Yet there, in the midst of resolute slave-traders, he was to raise the warning cry that slavery was a sin, and must end. What would be his fate? Hitherto the gentle voice of Lundy had hardly been noticed. The end and aim of the Genius had been the gradual emancipation of the "FOB RIGHTEOUSNESS' SAKE.'' 39 slaves; and though it told of the pains and sor- rows they endured, the indefinite future when they should gain their freedom had no terror for the slave-owners. But Garrison knew that this mode of treatment must end now. Slavery was wrong, and, like all other wrongs, must be put an end to at once. Men made excuses and silenced the voice of conscience. Now he would speak, and they should listen, whatever might be the result to himself. That was in God's hands, and he had to think of nothing but his duty. And this was a penniless youth of twenty-four years old ! As soon as he reached Baltimore, Lloyd told Mr. Lundy what he had resolved to do. But it was like yoking a lion to a lamb to make partners of these two men, and the gentle, timid Quaker shrank back from the young man's daring. He ended their talk thus : " Thou shalt put thy initials to thy articles, and I will put my initials to my articles, and each of us will bear his own burden." " Very good," replied Lloyd Garrison ; " that will answer, and I shall be able to free my soul." Then the partners began their work. Mr. Lundy set forth on his travels. Lloyd Garrison 40 AK AMERICAN IimtO. lived in Baltimore, and edited the weekly issue of the Genius, Day by day he saw the weep- ing slaves driven, chained together, through the city streets, on their way to the river Ohio, to embark to Southern towns. He heard the slave-driver's whip and the bitter cry. News came to Baltimore that a plan was on foot to wrest the great free lands of Texas from Mexico, and make fresh slave states there. When Lloyd Garrison heard this, he cried : " What sort of religion have these men ? There is no courage in the land and no faith- fulness." The former gentle whisper of the Genius changed to a voice of thunder, and the slave-holders of Baltimore and the region round about listened, and their anger knew no bounds. They muttered threats against Garri- son, and were fiercely indignant at the pro- posals he made. " It would be dangerous to free the slaves," they cried ; " they would rise up and cut their old masters' throats." In Northern cities copies of the Genius were read, and there the cry was, " The North will be ruined — the Union will be broken. That mad- cap Garrison must be silenced ! " After this, subscriptions to the paper began to fall off. ''POB RiGItTEOVSKESS' SAKE,*' 41 Where Lundy got one subscriber, Garrison lost a dozen. In those days he used to say that he was seldom troubled with bits of silver, and had no need for a purse. One morning a vessel from Newbury port, his dear native town, came into Baltimore harbour. She was named the Francis, and belonged to Mr. Ford, a Newburyport mer- chant, a man who was well known to Garrison. She lay there waiting for her cargo, and in a few days set her white sails and floated off to New Orleans. On board she carried eighty slaves. When Lloyd Garrison heard of it, he was so angry that a citizen of the free North should thus support the slave-trade of the South, that he published a fierce attack on the Newburyport merchant, who, in return, brought an action for libel against Garrison, and Garrison was summoned to trial in the Court-house at Baltimore. There was great excitement and much re- joicing in the city when the trial was over, and it was known that the verdict was against " the madcap Garrison," and that he had been sentenced to pay a heavy fine. By that time the partnership with Benjamin Lundy had 42 AN AMERICAN HERO. been dissolved, for the partners had been steadily losing money for some weeks. Lloyd was too poor to pay the fine. Probably he would not have paid it if he could do so. The night after the trial was over he slept in Baltimore prison. The first ray of sunlight slanting in next morning through the high, round window in his cell found him as happy and peaceful as if he had wakened to a new day in his safe home beside the sheltering Green Mountains of Vermont. A lonof im- prisonment lay before him. But as the days passed by, the gaoler gave him increasing liberty to wander at his will within the prison walls. He made friends with his fellow-cap- tives, and spent much time in helping and advising them. Some of those men, when they went back into the busy world, never forgot words they had heard from Lloyd Garrison in their quiet prison cells. Some- times he came in contact with slave-traders, who came there in search of runaway slaves. For them he had a store of fierce and searching words. In bygone times he had composed poems as he wandered on Boston Common and on the sunny Green Mountain slopes. Now, "FOR BtGH'TEOUSNESS' SAKE:' 43 no less contented in his gloomy prison cell, happy thoughts came to him, and he left this sonnet written on its walls, — " Prisoner, within these gloomy walls close pent, Guiltless of horrid crime or venal wrong, Bear nobly up against thy punishment. And in thy innocence be great and strong. Perchance thy fault was love to all mankind ; Thou didst oppose some vile, oppressive law, Or strive all human fetters to unbind ; Or wouldst not wear the implements of war. What then ? Dost thou so soon repent the deed ? A martyr's crown is richer than a king's I Think it an honour with thy Lord to bleed, And glory 'midst intensest sufferings. Though beat, imprisoned, put to open shame. Time shall embalm and magnify thy name ! " Thus the days passed away within his prison walls. Outside the prison, the story of Gar- rison's trial spread far and wide. The general verdict was that he had received his deserts. Yet he had a few warm friends. Of these, the young poet Whittier was in great trouble on his account, and Garrison's cheerful letters did not console him. He could not rest till he had obtained his benefactor's release; and day and night the youth pondered over the means to be taken for this end. Now there was a Ken- 44 AN AMERICAN HERO. tucky statesman, Henry Clay by name, who was slightly known to Whittier. He was a wealthy man, and though he owned slaves, yet he looked forward with hope to some distant day when, with safety to their masters, and no risk to the prosperity of the nation, they might be set free. Mr. Clay could not help admiring Garrison's courage and his faithful- ness to what he thought was right ; and when John Greenleaf Whittier wrote to the Ken- tucky senator, praying him to pay the fine and set the guiltless prisoner free, he did not at once refuse. Meanwhile, Benjamin Lundy and Isaac Knapp came to see their friend in prison, and his old master, Mr. Allen, the printer, wrote in the Newburyport Herald in his defence and praise; and while Senator Clay still hesitated and Whittier still made urgent appeals, a New York merchant, named Arthur Tappan, came forward and paid the fine. So now Lloyd Garrison was again a free man ; but there was no longer any place for him in Baltimore. Still, though he had not a dollar in the world, he had strength and talent ; and life, with all its fresh chances, lay before ''FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS' SAKE:' 45 him. How should he use them all ? Had he learned by this time to be silent when it was not safe to speak? Warning letters reached him, advising him to choose some safe, useful course in life, in which he might prosper. He was told that all his efforts against slavery would be useless, for what could one young man do when three millions were in chains, and a whole nation was against him. But there was a voice within which spoke to Lloyd Garrison more clearly than did all those well-meant warnings, and this voice said : "Do what is right, and leave results to God." And Garrison listened and obeyed. He determined to go to the North again, and to set on foot an anti-slavery paper in the Free States. From there came the influence that supported slavery in the South, and he would labour night and day to waken the consciences of the Northerners, and rouse public opinion against that great sin that brought the North its wealth. A welcome gift of money paid all he owed ; a free passage was given to him in a steamer to R/hode Island, and when landed there, he set forth on foot from city to city to deliver lectures against slavery. Sometimes 46 AN AMERICAN HERO. a night's shelter was given to him — most often bj Quakers; but few really warm welcomes greeted him, except from the freed negroes. Often he was forbidden to lecture, and the doors of public rooms were closed to him. At length he came to Boston, and there he sought out statesmen, clergymen, and merchants, and opened his heart to them ; but one and all made excuse. The old arguments were used — cotton could only be obtained by slave-labour ; free men could not cultivate it. To free the slaves at once would be unsafe for the masters, and would bring the Union into danger. Texts from the Bible were brought forward to prove that slave-holding was no sin. One or two people spoke of the hope of gradual emanci- pation, and of the possibility of establishing distant colonies of freed negroes ; but even for such schemes, in their opinion, the time had not yet come. Still, G-arrison was not cast down. Fresh cotton factories had sprung up about the city since he had left it less than a year before. There was no time to lose. He must begin his work without supporters and with no capital, and trust to Grod for help. By-and-by the citizens of Boston were in- ''FOB RIGHTEOUSNESS' SAKE." 47 formed that a new paper, under the title of the Liberator, would be set on foot there by William Lloyd Garrison, and the motto of the paper ran thus, — " Our country is the world ; our countrymen are all mankind." After he had made this announcement, Lloyd sought through Boston for some build- ing in which he might give a lecture, and was resolved, if no room was granted to him, to speak on the open common to all who would come to listen. The only place he could obtain was the small hall where in- fidels in Boston held their meetings, and then he advertised a lecture in that room for Friday night, October 15th, and waited the result. Surely these were dismal prospects for a youth who loved the companionship of his fellow-men, and had human longings for their sympathy. Might it not be that he was only risking safety and reputation for an idle dream ? Was it not pc^-sible that those were wise warnings which declared his efforts against slavery could be of no avail ? If such doubts sometimes crossed Lloyd Garrison's mind, they had no resting-place there, and 48 AN AMERICAN HERO. the following sonnefc which he wrote about this time tells another tale : — " How fall Fame's pillars at the toucli of Time ! How fade like flowers the memories of the dead ! How vast the grave that swallows up a clime ! How dim the light by ancient glory shed ! One generation's clay enwraps the next, And dead men are the aliment of earth ; Passing away is Nature's funeral text, Uttered coeval with creation's birth. I mourn not, care not, if my humble name With my frail body perish in the tomb. It courts a heavenly, not an earthly, fame, That through eternity shall brightly bloom. Write it within Thy Book of Life, Lord, And in the last great day a golden crown award.' CHAPTER ly. THE ''LIBERATOR." IGrHTY miles from Boston, in the village of Brooklyn, there lived a young minister, the Rev. S. J. May. His church was an ancient country meeting-house, an^d his parishioners were, for the most part, farmers. Some of his friends, who had known him in his college days, said that their old class-mate was wasting his powers in this quiet, uneventful life. He had a gentle nature and a winning voice and quick sympathies, and loved to live in peace with all men ; but those who knew him best, knew that if ever a hard call of duty came, he would not shrink back from obeying it. Early in the month of October, 1830, he paid 50 AN AMERICAN SEBO. a visit to his father's house in Boston ; and while there, he learned that William Lloyd Garrison, of whose imprisonment in Baltimore he had heard, was going to give a lecture in the Julian Hall. Mr. May resolved that he would go to listen, and with him went his cousin, Samuel Sewell, a rising Boston lawyer, and another friend. Few well-known men cared to be seen at such a place and for such a purpose. The hall was only partly filled when the lecturer began to speak, and we may be sure that few signs of approval greeted him as he gave his lecture. But at its close, the young minister turned to his companions with these words : " That is a providential man. He is a prophet ; he will shake our nation to its centre, but he will shake slavery out of it. Come, let us go and give him our hands.'* So they went on to the platform, those three young men, and held out their friendly hands to the lonely hero, and his heart leaped for joy as Samuel J. May said to him, in much-moved tones : "I am sure you are called to a great work, and I mean to help you." They did not part till the city clocks struck midnight, and till Garrison had convinced them that " im- THE ''LIBEBATOBr 51 mediate emancipation was tlie right of every slave, and could not be withheld by his master for an hour without sin." The following Sunday, the young minister from Brooklyn preached in one of the city churches. To the surprise and horror of the congregation, his theme was slavery, and he boldly upheld Grarrison and his views. Next day, when the work-a-day world was astir, his old father was told by business men of the treasonable, fanatical language used by his son, and he was advised to arrest him, if possible, in his mad career. But in his quiet life, Samuel May had gained great courage to do right, and no arguments would now move him from his purpose. He went back to Brooklyn the disciple and follower of William Lloyd Garrison, and ready to work with him when the time came for action. This young minister was a Unitarian. Garrison was a Baptist, and had been brought up to believe that a man's salvation depended on his holding the orthodox belief. Perhaps he began now to think this a mistake. At all events, experi- ence taught him in time that a religious life is shown in deeds, and not in creeds ; and the 52 AN AMERICAN HERO. grasp of this good heretic's hand began a life- long friendship that October night But this new friend eighty miles away at Brooklyn could not help Lloyd Garrison in what he was about to do in Boston now, and he must enter on the struggle without delay. When a soldier marches out to battle, com- panions in arms are with him ; trusted com- manders urge him on ; his blood is hot, and he knows that the favour of his countrymen is with him. For Garrison in Ms warfare it was different. He was going to battle single- handed, and, except for three or four distant friends, all men were against him, and no voice, except the whisper of his conscience, said, " Go on." The prospectus of the new paper was already scattered over Boston. On the first morning of the New Year 1831, the first number was to be published. Only a little time was left in which to find an office and a printing press, and the " Mad-cap Garrison *' had no sub- scribers and no capital. In the third storey of a dingy building in the city, beneath the eaves, he made his work- shop and his home. The small windows were fHE '' LIBEBATOB." 58 bespattered with printer's ink ; the wooden floor served him for a bed. A long deal table, a desk, some common chairs, and, in course of time, a second-hand printing-press, filled up the garret, and there he made this vow : ** I will be harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. I am in earnest. I will not equivo- cate; I will not excuse. I will not retreat a single inch, and I will be heard J^ " In a small chamber, friendless and nnseen, Toiled o'er his type a poor, unlearned young man. The place was dark, unfurnitured and mean, Yet there the freedom of a race began. Help came but slowly. Surely no man yet Put lever to the heavy world with less. What need of help ? He knew how types were set, He had a dauntless spirit, and a press."* Isaac Knapp, the friend of G-arrison's boy- hood, knew also " how types were set," and he had not forgotten the old days when he and Lloyd used to talk together in Newburyport of the great things they hoped to do when they were men. And now, in this " day of small beginnings," he came to Boston, poor and un- known, to share his friend's toils and dangers, * " The Da^ of Small Things," b^ James Russell Lowell. 54 AN AMERICAN HERO. and live and work with him in the obscure garret where he had made his home. There was a small baker's shop in the street below, so they had not far to go for a loaf when they needed food. They got a ream or two of paper on credit for the first issue of the Liberator, and a little money for other ex- penses came in from Mr. Sewell, the Boston lawyer, and from another friend at a distance. The New Year's morning dawned. The Liberator lay in printed piles on the long deal table, and any one who bought a copy that day, after it was distributed through Boston, read these words on the first page : " The pub- lishers of the Liberator h^ve formed their co- partnership with a deteri^ination to print the paper so long as they can subsist on bread and water, or their hands find employment. The friends of the cause may therefore take courage : its enemies may surrender at dis- cretion." The little four-paged paper went out with its message into the city streets. Busy men whose trade it threatened, and prudent men who held its schemes to be unwise and premature, read it, and were sad or angry, THE " liberator:' 66 as the case might be. And Lloyd Garrison and Isaac Knapp led lives of constant toil and little sleep : and, though the bread shop stood open in the narrow street below, they were often hungry in those days. Each week a new number came out, and Garrison was always as " harsh as truth," and did not mince his words. A few men in Boston, partially converted by his words, sought him out in his garret, and found the partners always hard at work and hopeful — Garrison sitting at his desk writing for the next week's issue. Sometimes he might be seen with a favourite cat beside him, rubbing her soft fur against him as he wrote his articles ; for he was tender at heart still to both men and animals, and only savage against their evil deeds. Most welcome and dearest of all visitors was Samuel J. May from Brooklyn. One day his gentle nature recoiled from the biting words he read in the Liberator, and he came to Boston fearing that Garrison, in the heat and eagerness of youth, was doing harm to the cause he had at heart. On his arrival in the city, he went to the JAheraior office and found his friend, as usual, in the cheerless garret. With the \ ^ 56 AN AMERICA]^ HERO. winning voice and ways that were so dear to Lloyd Garrison, he tempted him to come out into the sunshine for an hour. As they walked together, using the freedom that their close intimacy permitted, Mr. May turned to his companion, and said, " Oh, my friend, do try to moderate your indignation and keep more cool. Why, you are all on fire." Garrison stood still and laid his hand on his friend's arm, while the deep feeling within showed itself in face and voice as he thus made reply : " Brother May, I have need to be all on fire, for I have moun- tains of ice about me to melt," And truly, like a firebrand, his messenger, the Liberator, went out beyond Boston, through the free Northern States and down into the Southern Slave States. Back came abuse and threats and warnings that Garrison's life and liberty were henceforth in danger; and at last the Senate and House of Representatives in Georgia offered to give a thousand dollars to any person who would arrest the editor of the Liberator, and bring him to trial and prosecution. Meanwhile, it was not only the slaves in the ^listant cotton plantations of the South for VOL,. I. r w 1 1. 1 1AM I.I.OVD GAIll! I S O ,N AND ISAAC KNAPP, PUBL S II Kits. [NO. »T. B.>jro.« MA5S»tUU3r.TTS.] Ol R COU.NTRV IS Til ; \vor.i.D— oiR RiL-23.IB3l. i: li 12 12 a 3 12 A S ® 'Ji W >l. I.I.OVU CARRIIiOIf, EDITOR. tL7 TM»l)DlUn per annam, p«7&l>le iu ■tr.I liilb copy. ?C7- N. lalne.iptioo ..lU be rec.i.cj foi > •hort- 4.MC. 1 111.1.1.. (•.-..«/,««. n r.citi.A. BcLt.. AV»-1V* C In.tni C»i.s>. ri.ila.ltlfl„.i. THE I.XBERATOS. ."""lil' or repel Ihc hoij elaiin tu iu »t« i^Subfe','!^' "ibr ihi!!!.! it blUb LURISTI4K SECBI'.TARV.-COLONI ZATio.t socii;tv. *l'l.efetU>«il>|atltcl« eppcstain lite cdilormi de >.nn»el efllie bet Ch,»ti„o Seeretir,. piinlril >i • 'I1i«re ar* Ibref cteeeee of pwople in lUrlford—. U.. rieli aliilee. Ihe pgor e.l(aaa bene.alenl « ehri-liaa tfi I. ihwa a ienee raeun oh, all lira bUela al» I a«erlnin Mitut pljcea ara pravided Tor Ihe i inniodalien af oar coloied people. A hoaja de< :ed to tha wotehip afAliiiishly God, .Iieald ba I t plaea far tlia eiercaa ot despotic piineiplei. ' With deep regret wa hava rbfervad *oma arlic . or religion wilb that part •ated ela.ea ara aaat la Liberia ; aaai evangeliM Africa ; ananimaui in their frua i lawn agch libarvlity ! Thia ia iiidaad gfatifying I ';;iin. ■f."V^* *** ' a»n in con.ti.aniiy lisvc ibd ihei Hicned, Wd im lo •pprrlieiwl thai toi I •» siierul u jrei inighi be. ntfc i flppvtril lo 111* Cahiaiz4lwu ^MrKiy— ihoughl t Ir Krdconw ias*ihcr. Tif bt.aJ itw |>«w fwyUnaMinelj ryn precept of the bible can Juilify lendcncf of the Soc. giiik;. orecluetwi by iligiofl end phileBlbf«p7 eie Bckeewle^eed ; th>^ ^e ptece* may be itow ; faKiiof le eoalend n-lb lech ^oraBce'pre^diceeedflnvr. Thaceevic'.-^n, country, uul tvniy believtn- Uwi ihejr i r of tha iniiitutioo. Pri«»ie and i Kinj imifiedialc ebvliliim, i(«rM^ and e<|aal privilefea .' Wlij ere • Ihe and dot; e sii..ple one .' It ii : Ui il.e tj » of ihi peofU ere CllW wuIlmIvowMj du»l, at.d tbej (>«pe is Atrknew. ^^ ■| fa* editor *r th« Chfiriien Secretary oetnote. ii.d wiclcfd Att eo doiof. I h>d oe^ •r » probit « •" thai ira, . aad alia a aB|) ether »baraiO I ha.a abtl.l/. raailire aaai.ioa^ Iha aflendiAg part/, prvea aothing la ay eaio^ ■ i hara baaa pained aarer.l timaa b, raaduig aiuda^ •fi'.L II ii uidoabtedl, lha del, af cKr^nara ■( bau Ibair ■aalin.oaj ag.in«iha .ieea ef ih. aga ; aadj [Face p. 56. THE "LIBERATOR. 57 whom Garrison was working. In Boston and other cities of the North were little colonies of Free Blacks who had bought their freedom or escaped from slavery. These men were des- pised and ill-treated by the white men amoDg whom they lived. Few means of livelihood were open to them. They were looked upon as scarcely human. There were " negro pews " set apart for them in churches and special forms in schools, and it was a rare thing for a coloured traveller to be admitted into a public car or boat with white passengers. To earn their daily bread was often a hard task, for no coloured apprentice could find a place in any shop where white men worked. Lloyd Garri- son's love of justice and his pity were both roused by the knowledge of the sad, crushed lives of the Free Blacks ; and every week the Liberator held appeals on their behalf. His paper became their mouthpiece. He en- couraged them to write for it, and urged them, in its columns, to be sober and in- dustrious, and to respect themselves, and learn to be worthy of the good days that were yet to come for them. " The time is not far distant," he wrote, " when you ^nd the 68 AN AMERICAN HEBO. trampled slaves will all be free and enjoy the same rights in this country as other citizens. Prayer will forward the work faster than all the pens in the land. We can do nothing without it." Few citizens of Boston were ever to be seen in the haunts of the Free Blacks. But Lloyd Garrison sought them out and made friends with them in their miserable homes. Deeds went with him hand in hand with words ; and before long, a negro lad was to be seen working as apprentice with himself and Isaac Knapp at their printing press. For Garrison's heart ached for the hopeless-looking children grow- ing up to share the despised condition of their fathers ; and even in those days of his great poverty he would help one negro boy to rise. In Boston was a famous Baptist preacher at this time — Dr. Lyman Beecher by name. Lloyd Garrison used to attend his church on Sundays. The vast building was crowded with worshippers, and echoed with their loud songs of praise ; and Bible and tract societies, and missions to the poor, and good works of many kinds were set on foot by the preacher and his flock. But none of the Free Blacks were wel- THE "LIBEBATOB." 59 corned in tliat church as God's children, equal with the white men in His sight. Dr. Beecher disapproved of Garrison's zeal for the immediate abolition of slavery, and feared lest any excite- ment in the churches on such a subject miglit injure the great revival of religion, which he believed was daily gaining strength within them. " A strange religion ! " Garrison now began to say to himself ; and by degrees the belief grew up in his mind that Christianity and slavery could not exist together. The busy days of 1831 were drawing to a close. The hours of daylight were few, and long, dark evenings had come. Still, threatening letters were sent to Garrison, and large rewards tempted needy men to kidnap the young editor on whose head a price was set. But Garrison knew no fear. He went about the city by day or night, when and where his duty led him, and laid plans for new efforts to be begun early in the coming year. CHAPTER V. THE FIRST ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. ~''^^| dawned. HERE was stormy weather in Bos- the new year, 1832, The snow lay thickly on the ground, and the east wind, with cutting blasts of hail, blew keenly. Few passengers were abroad, when, one night dur- ing the first week of the year, Lloyd Garrison and his partner made their way to a lonely part of the city, and ascended a steep, narrow street known as " Nigger Hill.'* No lamps ever broke the darkness of the winter's night in that part of Boston; but high up the hill-side a light was twinkling, smd, thus guided, they reached at last the half-open door of a school-house, where the Free Blacks were accustomed to send their children to learn to read and write. THE FIRST ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 61 The two young men passed out of the storm mto the welcome shelter of the lighted room ; and there, in course of time, they were joined by ten other white men. One of their number, a Quaker hatter, named Arnold Buffum, was chosen to take the chair, and they began the business for the sake of which they had met together. These twelve men might have been a band of conspirators plotting agamst their country, as they conferred together with closed doors on that lonely, storm-swept hill. In reality, they had met at Garrison's summons to found the first anti-slavery society in America ; and one by one they followed him to the table, and signed their names to the new constitution. There were brave words on that paper which should never be forgotten. Thest3 men, on signing it, bound themselves to rid their native land of the grievous wrong of \slavery, but to do so only by peaceful and law- bil means, and to give no countenance to vio- !ieiice or insurrection. Truly, the young leader of this little band KaTd a mighty faith in the power of moral influence ; yet he was still little more than a boy, living in a dreary gar- ret, half starved on bread and water; but he 62 AN AMERICAN HERO. had found out betimes that all who work for the right have God upon their side, and he knew that his seemingly hopeless cause must win in the end. When their work was done, and they all stood on the threshold of the school-house, looking out into the black, stormy night. Gar- rison turned to his companions and said : " We have met to-night in this obscure schoolroom. Our numbers are few and our influence limited ; but, mark my prediction, Faneuil Hall shall ere long echo with the principles we have set forth. We shall shake the nations by their might3^ power." And with these hopeful words, the little company parted, and each man went his way to the perilous task he had undertaken. Meanwhile the Liberator was carrying Gar- rison's appeals through the land, and rousing fresh workers. And here must be told the story of a brave woman who read Garri- son^s messenger, and answered nobly. In the pleasant country town of Canterbury, in Con- necticut, there stood a large white house, overlooking the broad common. Prudence Crandall, a young Quakeress, had opened a school there, and every one in Canterbury knew THE FIRST ANTI SLAVERY SOCIETY. 63 and respected Miss Crandall, and slie and her many scholars led happy, industrious lives. In course of time, a girl, whose parents lived in Canterbury, asked leave to enter Prudence CrandalFs school. She had been well trained so far, but needed further help. No one in the village could say a word against her, except this — that her skin was not quite white. Now Miss Crandall had read the Liberator for some weeks past, and when it became known in Canterbury that she had admitted the coloured girl into her school, and she was warned that such a step, if persisted in, would ruin her, she grew bold, encouraged by Lloyd Grarrison's words, and replied: "_MyL_scliool may sink, then, for I will not turn her out." " Could T not do more than this ? " was the next thought, as she read in the Liberator of the multitudes of despised little ones among the freed negroes for whom Garrison pleaded, and whom so few men would help. And her next act was to give up her flourishing school and '^ all her prospects in Canterbury, that she might" open her door to coloured girls only. Prudence Crandall sought Garrison's help in her new plan. He gladly sent her the scholars 64 AN AMERICAN HERO. she wanted; and very soon the well-known school-house on the Canterbury common was again filled with twenty happy, hard-working girls. But it was not long before troubles began. The people of Canterbury were indig- nant that Free Blacks should be treated in their town as if they were white ! Public meetings were held to protest against the school. A new law was passed prohibiting the establishment of such an institution anywhere in the State of Connecticut, in which the town of Canterbury stood. For a time Miss Crandall was im- prisoned. Mr. May and Mr. Arnold Buffum, the white-haired president of the Anti- Slavery Society, who came to her trial to defend her, were refused a hearing. One by one the shops were closed against her ; and had it not been for the help of her father, who lived in Can- terbury, she and her scholars might have starved. Her well was filled with rubbish ; rotten eggs and stones were thrown at her house. At one time it was set on fire. No doctor would visit the school, and the church was closed against the inmates. If they ap- peared in the streets, they were insulted and hooted. For two years Prudence Crandall THE FIRST ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 65 bravely persevered. At leDgtli a mob attacked the house at midnight, broke the windows with clubs and iron bars, and she was forced to close her school. But was this the end of all her self-sacrifice and courage ? Had all her noble efforts been of no avail? No! Other men and women, who only needed such an ex- ample as she gave, were roused, by the tale of her endurance, to join tha__struggle and help Garrison and his little band. And so his influence spread, and here and there a new worker started up; and still Garrison said, " I will be heard. I will not retreat an inch ; I will be true as truth." Certainly those were days in which there could be no standing still. Lloyd Garrison's efforts to educate the Free Blacks had wakened a new cry in the States. " Teach them if you must," some men were beginning to say; " make them free and equal citizens, but not with l}he white men. Send them far away to some distant colony where white men have no place." And with this watchword a new society had arisen, calling itself "The^olon izat ion So ciety," and the design of its members was ta send the 66 AN AMERICAN HERO. free negroes back to savage Africa, away from the civilization which their labour had helped to create. Garrison saw how selfish and inhuman such a scheme was. He knew, too, that it was but a device to avert the dangers that threatened the system of slavery— only a salve to the cob- sciences of men who would not agree to the immediate emancipation of the slaves. It was the more needful, with this new enemy to face, that Garrison and his band should work the J( harder. He was secretary of the lately formed Anti-Slavery Society, and soon he was ap- pointed agent to travel over the country and give lectures and addresses. In addition to this new employment, he wrote a pamphlet, called ** Thoughts on the Colonization So- ciety," and sent it far and wide, in the footstepg of the LiheratoVy to waken sympathy and speak for justice for the Free Blacks. His twenty- fifth birthday found him thus hard at work, and he wrote in his journal that night : " Yes ; now I have struck deep into manhood. Well, then, manhood shall be my most serviceable stage, and, being so, the happiest of the whole.*' Meanwhile, good news was coming to Garri- THE FIRST ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 67 son from across the sea ia England. There, greathearted men, Wilber force and the blind Clarkson, Mr. Buxton, Joseph Sturge, and many others, a noble army of workers, were straining every power to set free the slaves in the West Indian Islands, which were among the English possessions. Like Garrison in America, these men in England were demand- ing immediate freedom for the slaves, and the few voices which had first raised the cry were gradually rousing the whole nation to see the right, and declare that this justice must be done. Among the English people were many wealthy men ready to give help also to the Anti-Slavery cause in America, and before long a new task presented itself for Lloyd G-arrison. It was resolved that he should cross the ocean, and tell his message in England, and also gain funds here, if possible, to found a college for the free coloured people in the States. IS'or was tJiis the whole of his mission. An agent from the Colonization Society was already in Eng- land, and Garrison, who had vowed to be harsh as truth, must follow this agent and expose the evils which lay at the basis of the scheme he had gone to uphold. 68 AN AMERICAN HERO. The news of this proposed visit to England, and G-arrison's motives for making it, were soon widely known, and from that time fresh perils awaited him. His enemies were more anxious than ever to seize him, and carry him away prisoner to the Southern States. Each day the danger increased. His friends trembled for his safety as he went from city to city on his lecturing tour. It was well known that spies were watching for him, that writs on false pretences were out against him, and that agents from the South were seeking a chance to serve them upon him, and carry him off by cunning or by force. Still, he never shrank from any duty. Passing quickly from place to place, and so escaping capture, he gave addresses and founded new branch Anti-Slavery Societies, and gained funds for his mission to England. At Philadelphia the freed negroes gathered together to listen to him, and greeted him as their deliverer, sobbing like children as they pressed up to him to take his hands and tell him how they loved and thanked him for his noble work in their behalf. In course of time he reached New York, whence he was to sail for England. There was a delay of three days mE FIBST ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 6^ in the departure of the ship, and during that interval his friends knew well that it was un- safe for him to be seen in the city. On this account, Mr. Arthur Tappan, the merchant to whom in former days Garrison had owed his release from prison at Baltimore, concealed him in an upper room safely out of the reach of the Southern agent, who was known to be on the ^watch for him. On the first of May the ship set sail, and in a few hours was out of sight of land, bearing Lloyd G-arrison towards England. His name was well known there, and brave, true men were ready to grasp his hand in friendship. But whether lonely and hunted, or honoured and in safety, this American hero had a clear aim before him, and he cared not where his way led, if only he could carry out the work he had set himself to do. A few words must tell of the sunny summer days he spent in England. He found a kindly welcome from the moment he landed in Liver- pool, and at once was in the midst of the great struggle which was agitating the whole country, and growing stronger every day. He was present at stormy debates in Parliament, and heard how excuses were made and pleas were 70 AN AMERICAN HERO. brought forward in defence of slavery. He joined in the eager watch for news from the far-off West Indian Isles, where slaves and planters in great excitement were awaiting the result of the battle in the mother country across the sea. And this self-taught, penniless youth, made great and fearless by his devotion to what was true and right, met with a hearing wherever he went. Crowds in Exeter Hall, in London, listened in deep silence to his earnest words, while orators and statesmen, famous through the world, gathered on the platform and gave him their ready support. He little knew how the story of his own brave devotion to duty in the city of Baltimore and the cheerless Boston garret had encouraged those English workers to be firm and true, and lie in his turn went home the stronger for their help and sympathy. Before he sailed from England, the victory was won. The Bill which was to set free 800,000 slaves had passed the Commons. Before he landed in America, it had received the Royal assent. In twelve months' time the decree was to take effect, and the West Indian slaves would all be free men. When this news reached the United States, THE FIRST ANTLSLAVERY tiUCIETY. ?1 the excitement it caused was intense. In the South, the planters expected riots to break out any moment among their slaves. In the North, anger against Garrison waxed hotter, for with the news came reports of his anti-slavery speeches in England, and of his opposition to the Colonization scheme. His return was eagerly looked for. It was known that he was to land in New York, and placards against him were posted on the walls. On the day of his arrival, threatening crowds collected in the streets and in the neighbourhood of the harbour. His first duty on landing was to attend an anti- slavery meeting in the city. It was to no peace- ful reunion of friends and followers that he wended his way that night. Personally, he was not well known in New York, and he could pass safely through the angry mob in a way that would have been impossible for him in Boston. At the last moment, for the sake of safety, the place of meeting was changed, and Garrison and his fellow-workers assembled in a quiet, unpre- tending chapel. But when their business was over, as they were leaving by a door at the back of the building, a furious crowd broke in at the front, and the chapel echoed with shouts n An AMERICAN HJERO. for G-arrison, and with yells and curses, while the light shone on bowie knives and pistols, and on the scowling faces of the invaders disappointed of their prey. Such was Lloyd Garrison's welcome home ! But even while his opponents thus sought his destruction, towards them he had no bitterness of feeling. His only wish was to deliver them from a deadly curse and an awful sin. CHAPTER VI. (1 «*£*^TVjy?*l r ' *" SHALL THE 'LIBERATOR' DIE F" N the quiet country at Haverhill, far away from the noise and strife of cities, the young poet, John Greenleaf Whittier, was living on the old farm among the meadows, while Lloyd Garrison was leading his busy life thus filled with anxiety and dangers. One evening in November, 1833, the early dusk was just hiding the hills and woods from sight, when a messen- ger from Boston entered the farmhouse with greetings from Garrison. It was a startling break in Whittier's peaceful life to hear that he was needed to join the workers against slavery, and that the brave man to whom he owed so much wanted his help at a great Con- vention which was about to meet in Phila- delphia in a few days' time. Reports of angry 73 n Alt AmuiOAN BEBO. mobs and city riots and ill-treatment of the Abolitionists had already reached Haverhill. Philadelphia lay on the borderland of slavery, and no one could deny that the proposed undertaking was a perilous one. But young Whittier was brave and true at heart. He had long been writing poems against slavery. Now he was ready, at Garrison's summons, for deeds. So his ready reply was, " I will go." A great part of that night was spent in making plans for the care of the farm during his absence. Early the next morning, he took his place on the stage-coach for Boston, that he might join Garrison in that city, and travel in his company to Philadelphia. At New York jind other places, fellow-travellers joined them, bound on the same errand as themselves ; and they went on their way to Philadelphia. There were many subjects to discuss as they travelled. These men were all delegates from ten out of the twelve Free States in the Union, and Garrison had called them together to Philadelphia as their meeting-place, for the purpose of founding, for the first time, a National Anti-Slavery Society. By the time they reached their destination, they numbered ^ SHALL THE 'LIBERATOR' DIEr' % forty. Their first meeting was held in the evening at the home of Evan Lewis, a simple, earnest, hard-working man, neither wealthy nor famous, of whom it was said that "he was afraid of nothing but doing or being wrong.'' The next day the first public meeting was to be held, and no time must be lost in finding a president. If possible, he must be a man well known in the city. So, forth into the night went Lloyd Garrison and his friends, John Greenleaf Whittier and Samuel J. May; and, calling at one great house after another, they made their request ; but in vain. The chief citizens of Philadelphia made excuses and gave cold receptions to the visitors who asked their help. The scheme of immedi- ate emancipation found no favour ; the city was •m~arstate oF excitement at the prospect of the meetings. Indeed, the Mayor had declared that the police could secure no protection to persons assembling after nightfall with such a purpose in view. For this reason the Convention was to meet by daylight ; yet no well-known citizen would promise his countenance and support. The night was far advanced when the three friends came back to Evan Lewis' house and 76 AN AMEEtCAN nEUO. told their tale of failure. What was to be done? Up rose a brave youth in the company, and, looking round on the perplexed faces about him, he said, " Well, if there is not timber among ourselves to make a president of, let us get along without one, or go home and stay there till we have grown up to be men." His advice was followed, and before they parted for the night, Beriah Green, an eloquent speaker, was out of their own ranks to preside at the meeting. Early next morning rough men assembled in the streets of Philadelphia, and the approach of the delegates to the place of meeting was the signal for abuse and mockery. The hall was guarded by policemen, but no one was refused admission. Within gathered a little company of sixty-two men, mostly young in years, but strong in their opposition to slavery. Some were clad in plain, homespun garments fresh from their farms — some in Quaker garb. There were others who had left city offices, or schools and colleges, to attend the meetings. Among them were men whose homes were known to have been shelters for runaway slaves ; women, such as Lucretia Mott who were ready to give "SHALL THE 'LIBERATOR' DIE r' 11 their lives to help on the anti-slavery cause ; strong youths who looked ready for a struggle with the unruly mob then gathering outside the doors ; and gentler natures, like the peaceful, sunny-faced Samuel May, who sat beside William Lloyd Garrison, the leader of them all. All day the delegates held counsel ; and as dusk closed in upon the city, the meeting ended to open again next day. It was resolved that the first act of the members should then be to sign a "^de clarat ion of principles.'* By this declaration, the designs of the new society would be made known, and also the work which they pledged themselves to do. To Lloyd Gj-arris on^ was_giverL Ae task of drawing up the declaration : and while the other wearied dele- gates rested from their labours, he spent the night in writing. Next morning his friends sought him in his poor lodging under the roof of a coloured man living in Philadelphia. They found him still at work, his lamp burning just as they had left it on the previous night, and the daylight was making its way unnoticed through the small attic window^ Important pledges, awaiting the signature of the delegates, 78 AN AMERICAN HERO. lay on the table before him — pledges to form anti-slavery societies, as far as possible, in every city in the land ; to purify the churches from any share in the guilt of slavery ; to send forth lecturers to keep the subject before the public, and to spare no exertions to bring the whole nation to speedy repentance of the great national sin. Such promises, with others of like nature, were laid before the assembly. A long discus- sion followed. It would be no easy task to keep these pledges : the effort to do so would involve great labour — possibly also risk to liberty and life. What wonder if at first some of the listeners shrank back from signing the paper which their fearless leader had drawn up ? For the last time the declaration was read aloud by Samuel J. May. As he read, his voice was broken by emotion, so deeply did he feel the meaning of the words. A solemn silence fell upon the little company. It was broken at length by the sound of footsteps, as one person after another, without speaking, advanced to the platform and signed. Thus was formed the American Anti-Slavery Society : and with these new^ pledges^ jhe members parted froj n^ "SHALL THE 'LIBERATOR DIE?" 79 each^otheivaad^wont^ forth their separate w a^s into-the-world . Travellers on mountain-heights far above human dwellings find the sources of mighty rivers in streamlets that trickle from beneath the everlasting snows. From little seeds taking root and germinating in fertile soil have arisen the vast forests that clothe the surface of the earth. In like manner, some of the grandest reformations of the world are due to the thoughts and work of a few faithful souls. Only three years had passed since Garrison and his brave companions had met in the little school-house on the lonely, windswept hill, to found the first anti-slavery society in Boston. Now the American Anti- Slavery Society with its delegates from ten States, had given to the movement a national basis. Garrison could witness the progress of his work and an in- creasing number of helpers ; but he could also see fresh dangers threatening. For as the anti- slavery party worked harder and became more widely known, so did the opposition to it increase. Riots broke out in cities where meetings were held, the houses of the Aboli- tionists were attacked, and slavery was de- 80 AN AMERICAN HERO. fended more strongly than ever by both pulpit and press. For many months past, Grarrison's thoughts, in the midst of his excitement and hard work, had turned to a peaceful dwelUng where he had sometimes been received as an honoured guest. The memory of its happy family circle shone like a bright light over the pathway of this lonely, homeless man. The house stood in a large garden among the hills near Brooklyn, and there lived Mr. George Benson, once a busy merchant in the town of Providence. Now he had given up the cares of business, and devoted his time and strength to help the cause of the oppressed slaves. In old days, Mr. Lundy had stayed there as he wandered over the country with his pack on his back to sell his anti-slavery papers : and more recently, Prudence Crandall and her pupils had found firm friends in Mr. Benson and his family. In this home, in the year 1834, William Lloyd Garrison found the loving woman who became a faithful helpmate to him, in Helen Benson, the youngest daughter of the family. She was so sunny in her temper, and so large-hearted and unselfish, that her friends used to call her "SHALL THE 'LIBERATOR DIE r* 81 " Peace and Plenty." Honouring Garrison as she did, for his noble, self-denying life, when she found that he loved her, Helen Benson could see no better lot for herself than to share his cares. So in the autumn of that year their simple wedding took place, and they made a new home in a cottage among the woods at Roxbury, three miles from the heart of Boston, where the Liberator office stood. They were very poor ; but poverty and happiness may go hand in hand. Isaac Knapp lived with them and helped to pay the rent of their tiny dwelUng, to which they gave the name of "Freedom's Cottage." This newly found joy never interfered with Garrison's work. The leading articles in the Liberator neither failed not flagged, and business often kept him so late at the printing office that he walked home at midnight along the lonely country road. On such occasions, unknown to him, his friends among the freed negroes used to make a point of following him at a distance, lest he should be waylaid and murdered ; and they only turned back to the city when the light from the cottage shone out upon the night as the door opened to admit G / ^ 82 AN AMERICAN HERO. him. Happily his youDg wife, waiting for him at home, knew nothing of the faithful body- guard, nor of the need for such defence. During the summer of 1834, tidings, for which both England and America had been anxiously watching, came from the West Indian Islands. They told how the slaves on the plantations there had at last received their promised liberty. The great day of emancipa- tion had come and gone : the slaves had assem- bled in their island chapels when the first of August arrived, to await there for the midnight hour that was to set them free. Amid prayers and hymns and cries of joy, they greeted their new life. Neither rioting nor bloodshed took place; and after a short holiday, peacefully spent, the negroes gathered again upon the old plantations to work as free men for fair wages. Was it any wonder that such tidings gave G-arrison fresh spirit for his work? and yet sometimes even to him the task he had under- taken seemed well-nigh hopeless. ^The Liberator, after all his efforts, did not pay expenses, and there were increasing arrears of debt which must be met. '* Shall the Liberator die?" was the ques<-ion SHALL THE 'LIBERATOR' DIE?'* 8S with which he again and again appealed in its pages to his subscribers. The outlook was gloomy. His young wife told him merrily that it suited her to live on bread and water : and truly it seemed as if his work for humanity threatened to bring starvation on his own home. Still, though to this was added the knowledge that his life was often in danger, C-arrison felt the peace of mind which conies from duty faithfully done, and he could say of his greatest trials and perplexities, " They cannot reach up to the level of my home mood." Moreover — and this was a great relief — a new helper was on his way to Garrison from England. His arrival might be expected any day. " He is coming among us as an angel of mercy. His name is as sweet as the tones of a flute to my ear." Thus Garrison wrote in the Liberator of the young Englishman, who was no other than George Thompson, a great orator, whose energies had bec-n turned against slavery in the West Indies for years past. The victory won in England twelve months before had been in great measure due to his labours. He was a young man about Garrison's own age; and through the an ti- slavery struggle in his own $4 AN AMEBlGAN HERO. land, lie bad served as lecturing agent for the London Anti-Slavery Society, drawing crowds wherever he went, to listen to his wonderful eloquence. It will be remembered that while Garrison was in England, seeking help for his uphill conflict in America, the Westlndian^ Emanci- pation Bill passed the House of Lords. Then Ijreofge Thompson's work was done ; and when Garrison was asked by the English leaders, "In what way can we best help your cause ? " he at once replied, " By giving us George Thompson." The young English orator had promised to follow Garrison to the United States to begin a new anti-slavery lecturing tour there : and it mattered not to him that Garrison said he could offer him " no reward of any kind, except that which comes from doing well." Still, in his own heart, Garrison had fondly hoped that George Thompson had only to speak to con- vince all hearers, and that with his help, slavery must soon end in America. So now, when each ship that entered New Yoi'k harbour might bring this English helper among her passengers. Garrison was eagerly on the watcli for news of his arrival. But he had "SHALL THE 'LIBERATOR' LIE F" 85 discovered by this time that no easy path of victory awaited George Thompson. He was already denounced by press and pulpit, and held as an enemy to American institutions, as one who, with the help of British gold, was bent on destroying the union of the Northern and Southern States. So strongly was public opinion known to be against him, that an honest pilot, who wished every man to have fair play, spoke these words of warning to the chaplain of a ship at that time about to enter New York harbour : ** If you have George Thompson on board, hide him for the sake of his life." By the time the newly landed English orator met Garrison in Boston, he had strange ex- periences to relate of the rough greeting he had already met with in America. Happily there was another story to tell also of glad welcomes sent to him from anti-slavery societies scattered over the States, and a hopeful little company gathered round the log fire in Garrison's cottage to talk over future plans, while the bleak night winds blew fiercely through the woods at Rox- bury. ^^"i-?;-.-.^ % ^ rf^ i. ^^^ n^^ ^A.f^-^^^^^ CHAPTER YII, THE BOSTON MOB. HE year 1835 was known in America as the '' great mob year." Garri- son's story leads us now into scenes of violence and hair-breadth escapes — in days when every man who dared to uphold the cause of the slaves carried his life in his hand. In 1831, when the unknown young printer had just raised his voice against slavery in Boston, no one but he ventured to whisper the suggestion of immediate freedom for the slave, and even the plan of gradual emancipation was scarcely breathed. But the little torch he so bravely carried in that dark- ness had lighted a mighty fire which no man could put out. So, as the months went by, the excitement waxed fiercer and fiercer, and at length a reign of terror was reached. In 1835, THE BOSTON MOB. 87 the old days of the French Revolution were brought to mind in the cities of the United States. No man could trust his neighbour; private assassins lurked at the corners of the streets, and there was no security of life or property for a suspected Abolitionist. The fierce cry rose against Grarrison and bis band of workers, — t You shall not succeed in your efforts; we niean to put you down by fair means if we can — by foul means if we must," and the mere discussion of the subject of slavery was looked upon as treason against the govern- ment and union of the States. . Still, Garrison hoped to win the right bj peabefulTmeans and ,^oral influence alone. Freedom's Cottage, in the woods at Roxbury, stood empty towards the end of 1835; for Garrison and his brave young wife went to live in Boston, so as to be in the midst of the coming struggle. John Greenleaf Whittier, too, had given up his poet's paradise "and all the delights of his home at Haverhill. Not content with writing " Songs of Freedom," which gave magical courage to the brave heroes who looked upon him as their poet and prophet in that stormy time, he, too, became a worker ; and, as AN AMERICAN HEllO. secretary of the National An ti- Slavery Society, and editor of a paper at Philadelphia, he entered on a business career which was opposed to all his tastes aiid wishes. Thus, of his own free will the poet put aside the life which was so dear to him, and followed Garrison's leading, while startling events befel him in quick suc- cessioD. At one time his office was burned over his head ; at another he rode for his life through the city streets, 'mid a storm of stones and bullets; more than once he was mobbed with George Thompson. No wonder if some- times his thoughts turned with longing to the quiet meadows and still windings of the river at Haverhill. No wonder that, when one day musing of his forsaken paradise, he wrote, — ** Oil ! not of choice, for themes of public wrong, I leave the green and pleasant paths of song." Meanwhile George Thompson had been lec- turing for nearly twelve months in the States. Wherever he went, he left behind him undyi^ memories of ^wonderful eloquence ; and^aew friends rose up at his words, to help the anti- slavery cause. But he roused enemies also. The notice of a lecture to be given by him in THE BOSTON MOB. any city became the signal for a mob. He went to and from the place of meeting at the risk of his life. Brickbats and stones saluted him, and cries of " Lynch him '' were the greet- ings of the rioters. When his name was spoken in public, it was as if a fire-brand had been thrown into the midst of the crowd. And it came to pass, at last, that even Garrison -^^ sadly acknowledged that the English orator must take his leave. After this, it became a question how to save his life until such time as he could safely embark for England. Unknown to all, except a few faithful friends, he was secreted for some weeks in Boston, waiting the departure of a small English brig bound for St. John's. From that port he could set sail across the ocean. Work connected with the Liberator filled Garrison's days, and sometimes his nights. Anti-slavery publications were sent down by thousands into the Southern States, and caused a panic there. The mails were seized, money rewards for the heads of Garrison and Thomp- son were offered from all parts of the South. They were hung in effigy before the door of Garrison's house in Boston. It became more 90 AN AMERICAN HERO, and more difficult to hire a hall in any city for the purpose of an anti-slavery meeting. Every attempt to raise the condition of the freed negroes in the North was crushed as it arose. A school opened for coloured people roused the opposition of a whole State, and the building was speedily a heap of ruins. Even peaceful Haverhill was the scene of a riot, and the gentle Samuel May, when lecturing there, was mobbed by a wrathful crowd. Such news reached Garrison day by day ; yet still his faith was firm that right must win in the end, and still he said, as he had said in former days, "I will not retreat an inch. I will not equivocate. I will be heard." But let no one think that it cost him little pain to stand so much alone, and to know the hatred he brought on himself by his work and words. It was true that he wore a brave face as he met the rioters in the streets, and that his words were fearless and stern in the Liberator; but a kind and unexpected greeting from a stranger touched hira so deeply in his loneli- ness as to break the strong man down ; and hardest of all to him was the need, which sometimes came, of acting in opposition to THE BOSTON MOB. 91 his friends in what he felt it right to do and say. The month of October in that " great mob year" drew near, and the thoughts of all anti- slavery workers centred in Boston ; for on the 21st of October, a meeting of the Women*s Anti-Slavery Society was to be held in the Anti- Slavery Hall, adjoining the Liberator office in that city, and there was no hope that the day would be allowed to pass without disturbance. It was to be no secret meeting with closed doors. Those Boston women, few in number, dared to be true to the right in face of public scorn, and fearless of the danger they incurred. Garrison calmly helped in the preparations, placarded the meeting over the city walls, and arranged to be present and give an address. More than fifty years have passed since that day, and still the need of women's influence against wrong is as great now as it was then. So it is well that the story of these brave Boston women, who left their sheltered homes that October morning to face an angry mob, should not be forgotten. A false rumour had been spread abroad that George Thompson would attend the meeting; and on the morning 9d AN AMERICAN HERO. of the day the followiDg notice appeared upon the walls : " Thomjpson the Abolitionist, That infamous foreign scoundrel will attend the meeting at the Liberator office this afternoon. The present is a fair opportunity for the friends of the Union to snake Thompson out. It will be a contest between the Abolitionists and the friends of the Union. A price of one hundred dollars has been raised to reward the individual who shall first lay violent hands on Thompson, so that he may be brought to the tar-kettle be- fore dark. Friends of the Union, be vigilant ! " The Anti-Slavery Hall was up some flights of stairs, and was divided from the Liberator office by a wooden partition. In this room, before three o'clock in the afternoon, the mem- bers of the society, both white and coloured women, gathered together; and in the streets below, a surging crowd collected to watch for the foreign scoundrel Thompson, and for ** the mad-cap Garrison." Garrison, however, was already in the hall ; and as the rioters pushed up the narrow staircase, the foremost of them mounted on the shoulders of their strong com- panions to peer in at the ladies seated quietly in the room, a ery wns raised, "That's Garri- THE BOSTON MOB. 03 son/' and was answered by sbouts of rage from below. For a few moments afterwards there was an astonished silence on the part of the intruders as Garrison advanced to them and spoke in defence of the ladies, and the privacy of their meeting. Then again the storm broke forth, and shrieks, and howls, and hisses rose up from the crowds as they pressed more closely up the narrow street. **Out with the scoundrel ! Here's Garrison ! " was the con- tinual cry. It was evident that his presence only excited rage, and the lady president be- Bought him to withdraw to the Liberator office, behind the wooden partition. Seated there. Garrison could hear the solemn voice of the president, in her opening prayer, thank God that while there were so many to molest, none 30uld make them afraid. And once more burst L'orth fresh threats and curses and deafening noise when the secretary tried in vain to read the Annual Eeport. Still the little band of women remained, each one in her place, though missiles were thrown and the secretary was struck. A shout arose of " The Mayor is com- ing ! " and straightway forcing their way up the staircase came a strong force of constables. H AK AMERICAN HERO. with tlie Mayor at their head, and with him some of Garrison's friends. " Go home, ladies ! " cried the Mayor. " Do you wish to see a scene of bloodshed ? If not, go home I I can protect you now ; in a little while this will be impossible." So two and two they descended the stairs, and the Boston women of gentle birth each walked beside a coloured woman, to protect her from the mob that waited in the streets below. There the crowd, with a roar of rage and contempt, parted to let them pass; and they saw among the scowling faces those of *' gentlemen of standing and position," whom in quieter days they had known as their friends. Meanwhile, Mrs. Garrison had been prevented from reaching the meeting-place by the mob. She waited at home for her husband's return ; but hour after hour passed, and he did not come. At last, rumours reached her of the tumult in the city. She was young, and ten- derly attached to him, and all her maiden life had been passed in the sunshine of a safe and happy home. But never for a moment did she wish to turn him away from any danger into which his duty led him. That night, when THE BOSTOX MOB, 95 a friend came to tell her what bad befallen him, she made answer, ** I believe my husband will be true to his principles.'* Surely William Garrison had found a help- mate in his wife. Eonnd the Liberator office, the swaying, swelling crowds cried out for Garrison. " We must have Garrison ! Out with him ! Lynch him ! " And within sat their victim, with calm and peaceful face, with no sign of fear; nor had he any anxious thought, save on his wife's account. Not so his friends, who had forced their way up the staircase through the tightly packed rioters, and now did not know how to save him from their fury. *' Throw us out Garrison ! Lynch him ! " yelled the mob in the street below, and the ruffians on the stairs battered on the wooden door that the Mayor had locked behind him. " Let us fight a way for Garrison ! " cried some one, and his friends prepared to lead the way and open a path for him with blows. Then outspoke this hero, true to his vow of using peaceful means and moral influence alone, — Oa AN- AMERICAN BEkO, " You do not know what spirit you are o^. Would you like to become like those violent, bloodthirsty men who are seeking for my life ? Shall we give blow for blow ? God forbid ! I will die sooner than raise my hand against any man, even io self-defence, and let none of my friends resort to violence for my protection. If my life be taken, the cause of emancipation will not suffer. God reigns. His throne is unmoved by the storm. His truth will at length be victorious.'* While Garrison was speaking, the Mayor held a hurried consultation with the constables. The crowd would not disperse, it was agreed, while Garrison was in the building. He must leave it by a back window. But this new de- sign was discovered, and the mob, surging and yelling, tore round to the back in time to seize Garrison as he lighted from the roof of a shed on to the ground. In an instant, with torn clothes, and bareheaded, he was dragged along the streets by means of a rope thrown round his body, 'mid cries of " They've got him ! they've got him I " Could it be, as people said, that he had a smile upon his face ? The crowd followed, hooting. As the Mayor turned into Portion of Plan of Boston, enlarged from Smith's map, 1835, showing : A, Anti-Slavery Offices, Washington Street ; and B, City Hall (Old State House). [Face p. 96. THE BOSTON MOB. 97 the street, he was met by the shout, " They're going to hang him I For God's sake, save him ! " On by a short cut fco the city hall sped Mayor and constables. Garrison and his captors, dragging him by the rope, must pass the build- ing. The constables seized the right moment, and pulled him through the doorway, while a yell of disappointed rage went up from the maddened mob. But there was no resting- place for Garrison in the city hall. The Mayor, though the Boston mob held him somewhat in awe for the sake of his office, was not a man who could be firm as a rock when justice and fair play were at stake. He must get rid of this disturber Garrison at all costs, and con- cluded that the safest place to lodge him in for the night was the city jail. Accordingly, two lines of constables were formed, and Garrison was passed out between them, and hurried into a coach. The driver lashed his horses, and hit vnth. his whip the heads and hands of the men who sprang forward to seize the reins and cling to the carriage wheols. The horses plunged and reared, and the living mass gave way before the rocking coach, then formed !1 AN AMEBIGAN HERO. again, and tore up the streets in pursuit. When dusk settled down upon the city, Garrison was, for the second time in his life, a prisoner. Whittier and Isaac Knapp visited him, and talked with him through the grated window of his cell, and carried his cheering message to his wife. So ended the Boston mob; and peaceful sleep visited this man, who would not strike a blow in self-defence, yet did not fear ** to be in the right with two or three,*' though the multi- tude raged against him. Next morning he was set at liberty. But the Boston authorities begged him for the peace of the city to absent himself for a time; and, avoiding all public conveyances, which were being searched in the hope of capturing him. Garrison left Boston, and followed his wife into the country. CHAPTER VIII. DISCORDS IN THE CAMP. LL really great heroes have tender, gentle hearts. This American hero was no exception to the rule. Al- though hard pressed by poverty, and hunted by fierce enemies, the kindly greet- ings of friends had power to call forth his re- sponse in a moment, and the voices of little children, or the sound of music, could waken sunshine within him in the darkest hour. His wife knew how true the saying was that no trials nor anxieties could reach up to his home mood. Early in 1836 the first boy came to gladden their home. He was named George Thompson. There could be no more tender father than Garrison, whose rebukes were so unsparing and severe against the sin of slavery. At night, he often spent long hours in hushing 90 100 AN AMERICAN HERO. the little restless baby to sleep, tliat the mother might have undisturbed repose. Yet his own health broke down after the treatment he re- ceived from the Boston mob. Attacks of fever visited him, and for a year or so he was un- able to undertake any active work for the anti-slavery cause. Still, wherever he was, his influence never ceased to make itself widely felt. It is a true saying that " the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.*' As in the early days of Christianity the persecution of the Roman emperors only added new mem- bers to the Christian flock, so in the " martyr age of America," fresh workers sprang up to follow G-arrison's banner. Meanwhile, wonders had been wrought in Philadelphia, where, in 1833, Whittier had gone at Garrison's call, to help to found the Ameri- can Anti-Slavery Society. A great building had been afterwards erected there by the friends of freedom, and on May 17th, 1838, it was to be opened for public use, and dedi- cated to the free discussion of questions of liberty, education, and temperance. On the appointed day, anti-slavery workers, who had gathered together at Philadelphia from various DISCORDS IN TUB CAMP, 101 parts of the States, turned their st(^ps in the bright spring sunshine to Pennsylvania HalL For three days meetings were held there. On the evening of the third day it was noised abroad through the city that William Lloyd Garrison, among other speakers, would ad- dress the assembly ; and at an early hour the hall was densely filled. Three thousand per- sons were present. The floor of the hall was covered with women. The side aisles and wide galleries were closely packed with men. All seemed to betoken good order ; but iir. reality the streets outside were quickly filling with excited people, for whom no standing room could be found in the hall. William Lloyd G-arrison rose to speak, and his subject was the immediate emancipation of the slaves. He was very eloquent, and spoke strongly against half measures and delay in doing right. The close of his speech was the signal for a terrible uproar. The mob outside the build- ing began to dash in the windows with stones, and to yell and rage outside the doors. At this juncture up rose Mrs. Chapman, a Boston woman, well known for her interest in anti-slavery work, to address for the first time 102 AN AMERICAN HERO. a large assembly; and after her, one brave woman after another, believing that all gentle influences were needed that memorable day, spoke in Pennsylvania Hall — among them Mrs. Weld (Angelina Grimke), Lucretia Mott, Esther Moore, and Abby Kelley, still almost a girl, from the country town of Lynn. It was not strange that, from that time. Garrison asked more earnestly than ever for the help of women in his work, or that he tried to teach that no one was unwomanly who used for right and gentle ends the power and influence God gave her. That day life and property in Philadelphia were spared, but only for a few hours. Next night, Pennsylvania Hall was set on fire by the jnob, and the light of the burning building was seen for miles round — a witness to the result of the ungoverned passions of men, while the homes and churches, and even the persons of the coloured people in the city, suffered injury at the hands of the rioters. From city to city in the North this brutal spirit which tried to put down free speech by force had spread, till the reign of terror reached its height. For an Abolitionist to venture into mSGOBDS IN THE GAMP. 103 the Southern States was to risk his life ; and it was an offence against public opinion to op- pose slavery in almost any society, for slavery was held to be the ** corner-stone of the Re- public," and men were traitors to the State, it was said, who would thus endanger the Union. But even the most resolute slave-owner began to see that no mob violence could put an end to the anti-slavery agitation, and a new atti- tude must be assumed. From the slave-holders and their Northern friends came very frequent demands for laws to be passed against the Abolitionists, that these disturbers of the peace and treason-mongers should be punished with death. Now in Boston at this time, Dr. Channing v^as one of the best known preachers. No one in the city was more respected and admired than he. Hitherto he had held aloof from the great struggle that was going on, and spoke gravely against Garrison's bitter language in the Liberator, and against the outbreaks of passion in the cities of the Northern States, that were roused by the action of the Abolition- ists. For he was a lover of peace, and looked on quarrels among men who should live as 104 ^^ AMERtCAN TTEBO. brethreo, as terrible evils. G-arrison and his friend, Mr. May, had often spoken together about the great influence Dr. Channing might have in helping on their work. Garrison had written to him in vain to this effect. Perhaps there was no man for whom the Brooklyn minister had greater reverence. He had re- collections of Dr. Channing's great influence over his own boyhood ; and in youth and man- hood, the great preacher had been to him both a prophet and a saint. So it was a grief to him that such a leader of men as Dr. Chan- ning should remain silent about, and apart from, the great struggle to which by that time he had consecrated his own life. Now Samuel May felt such reverence for this wise man who had been the guide of his youth, that it would have been an easier task for him to oppose a mob of rough and ignorant men than to seek out Dr. Channing to tell him that he was neg- lecting a duty. But since he had come under Garrison's influence, the gentle-hearted, peace- loving man had never any dread of standing alone for a principle, nor did he now hesitate to do this task which he felt conscience called him to undertake. So he travelled to Boston, DISCORDS tX THE CAMP. 105 was admitted to Dr. Channing's study, and there their talk turned on the anti-slavery struggle, and^h the violent measures which Dr. Chan- ning so much deplored. As the younger man heard the thrilling tones of the voice that had such power over men, he felt a great longing to gain his influence in the cause, and thus he spoke : " God has called to the work many mighty men, and they have not answered. We have come from the hedges and ditches, high- ways and byways, and are here to do the work. Look to it, sir, for the work in the Master's vineyard will surely be done. Is it not time, sir, that you spoke ? " The greatest men are the most willing to be learners, and are never afraid to acknowledge their mistakes. Dr. Channing kept silence for a little while, and then he made this answer to the eager young man, whom he had known as a little child : " Brother May, I feel the justice of your reproof. I have kept silence too long." Not long afterwards the Northern and South- ern States of America were roused to great excitement. A powerful book against slavery issued from the press. It was by Dr. Chan- ning. It was widely read, and there was no 106 AN AMERICAN HERO. longer any doubt on which side the popular preacher stood. And now comes the story of the great meet- ing in Faneuil Hall — the large building in Boston that has won the name of ** the Cradle of Liberty," where men of Boston gathered together at Dr. Channing's appeal to defend freedom of the press. Terrible news had come from the town of Alton, in Illinois, where the editor of a newspaper — Elijah P. Lovejoy, had bravely written in his columns in defence of a down- trodden, brutally treated slave, and had pledged himself to defend the cause of human rights, and to die, if need be, in their defence. Three times his printing-press had been de- stroyed by a mob in Alton. A fourth press had arrived upon the scene, and been placed in tiie office ready for the next day's work. That night, Mr. Lovejoy and some of his friends kept watch in the printing-office to insure the safety of the press. Long before dawn they heard the tramp of feet break on the silence. Men were gathering outside, and shortly the cry of " Turn them out : fire the building," greeted the watchers' ears.- A short struggle followed. The brave editor was shot through DISCORDS IN THE CAMP. 107 tlie heart, and the ruffians, wlio wished to prevent liberty of the press in Alton, forced their way into the building, destroyed all before them, broke up the new printing-press, and threw the pieces into the river Mississippi which flowed below. When this news came to Boston, it was freely discussed. Pulpits and newspapers de- fended the rioters, or made excuses for their deed. Was not Lovejoy an Abolitionist ? it was asked. At all hazards must not such men be silenced? Dr. Channing loved peace, but he kIso loved free speech, and he was deeply moved by this murder of Mr. Lovejoy, and by this triumph of brute force over right. Truly, the warning he had received was a just one. It was time that he spoke ; for men of in- fluence must lend their voices to defend freedom of thought and speech. So that night, when the great meeting was held, the walls of Faneuil Hall echoed with the cheers of Boston citizens, whose better selves were quickened by the burning, indignant words of Dr. Channing; and Wendell Phillips, a young rising lawyer, whom Garrison had called to the work a few weeks before, risked reputation and success in 108 AN AMERICAN HERO. life, and followed with so noble a speecli that it never left the memories of those who heard it. There was a contrast ! on the one hand, the tyranny of brute force on the part of the lawless mob at Alton ; on the other hand, the influence of the moral enthusiasm of men in Faneuil Hall, who hnew the right must win in the end. The little stone which the boy Garri- son had set rolling years before had gathered as it rolled, and his prophecy that Faneuil Hall should echo with the principles set forth by a handful of men in the lonely school-house on " Nigger Hill " was realized; The news of this great public meeting, when it reached him, while he was still suffering from the treatment of the Boston mob, seemed to him like a song of triumph. During the years in which Garrison's in- fluence had been slowly making way in the North, two sisters, named Sarah and Angelina Grimke, had passed their happy girlhood in the Southern States at Charleston, in South Caro- lina. Their father was a well-known judge, and when he died, they lived together in their pleasant home in the midst of a large circle of old friends. "An easy, prosperous hfe lies DISCORDS IN THE CAMP, 109 before them," it was said ; but such speakers little knew that beneath all this apparent com- fort the sisters* hearts were aching at the sight of the sorrows and degradations of the women who were in slavery around them. They read Garrison's Liberator and the other anti-slavery papers which made their forbidden way into the Southern States : and at last a strong feel- ing of duty led them to give up home and friends and property in that land polluted by slavery, and to go northwards to Philadelphia, self-exiled among strangers, to try what they could do in helping on the struggle that was being waged there against this terrible wrong. After a while, Angelina wrote and published a short appeal to women of the South against slavery. It was only a little pamphlet, but its words came straight from her heart. She was asked to go to New York to speak to women on the subject in a private house in the city. She went, and her earnestness made her eloquent. Time after time, wives and mothers and sisters listened to her and carried home the story of her words. At length, large assemblies of both men and women gathered in public halls to listen to this woman, who, 110 AN AMERICAN HERO. from her own experience, could tell so truly of the cruelty and wickedness of the slavery by which the Northern merchants made their wealth. When Mrs. Chapman, for conscience' sake, rose up for the first time to address the great Convention in Pennsylvania Hall, while the mob stormed and raged outside, it was to do no pleasant, easy work. Lucretia Mott, and Esther Moore, and Abby Kelley, and Prudence Crandall, and a host of other women, whose hearts were bleeding with pity for the slaves, followed the hard call of duty when they took up the anti-slavery work. Was it surprising that when Garrison found these noble, self- sacrificing women among his best helpers, he demanded that they should be enrolled as members of the anti-slavery societies in which they worked, and allowed to vote and speak when anti-slavery meetings were held ?^ He was eager to join hands with all good workers. In his opinion, friends of freedom should meet on common ground, without regard to creed, or politics, or sex. After a struggle the American Anti-Slavery Association fell in with his views and elected DISCORDS IN THE CAMP. Ill women as members. But serious results fol- lowe3 this new step. Old companions and fellow-workers of Garrison could not sympa- thize with this and other plans that he felt it was right to set on foot. Discords arose. A branch society was formed, and the strength of the anti-slavery party was weakened by the division. Mr. Arthur Tappan was the leader of this new party. Garrison was deeply pained. He owed very much to the good New York merchant who years before had freed him from the Baltimore prison, and had often shown him sympathy and given him help in later times. He would have gladly given way to Mr. Tappan's wishes if it had been in his power to do so. But principle was at stake : he must be true to the right, and therefore he sadly parted from his friend. Other partings as painful followed this one. Garrison was a man of peace, and hoped to rid the land of slavery by peaceful means alone. Old friends, burning with zeal, found fault with his measures, and said that influence alone could never win the day. They, too, joined the new association. So, just when the outlook seemed to be bright- ening, when 2000 anti-slavery societies were- in 112 AN AMEBIGAN HERO. the field, and Garrison had gathered a noble army together, the new organization was formed, and the division changed the strength into weakness. And now harder trials fell upon this American hero than those which had come from the ill-usage of mobs or the threats of Southern assassins ; for his fellow-country- men began to give him the hard names of athiest and unbeliever, of Sabbath-breaker, and enemy to the Christian religion. " He is a heretic,'' they cried ; ** his views are unsound. If we could get rid of Garrison and his friends, many of the clergy and laymen of influence would help in the struggle. There is no room for such as he on the anti-slavery platform." Such were the hard words spoken at this time of the man to whom the noble work so far done was due. They were spoken by men who could not see how deeply religious he really was, or how his deeds and words sprang from true love to God and man. He was called a Sabbath-breaker because he did not scruple on Sundays, if he had the chance, to speak or write in defence of the down-trodden slaves. " A man's religion," so he said, " must bo gtiown by acts of mercy to his fellow-men," DISCORDS IN THE CAMP. 113 Garrison wished to make all days holy days by filling them all with good deeds. He was called an atheist and an unbeliever because he turned away from all connection with the churches and clergy that upheld slavery. "Christianity can have no complicity with slave-holders," he cried. So long as men high in position in the churches kept slaves and the clergy supported the slave system from their pulpits, so long he believed they would all be false to Christ's religion of love, and their churches could be no true branches of the Church of God. His views were said to be un- sound because, when men brought forward texts from the Old Testament to sanction slavery, he answered that though the Bible was the best of all books, it must be judged like other human compositions ; for it told the story of the gradual education of the human race, and texts which ran counter to the commands of conscience to-day sprang from the mistaken ideas of men in their early gropings after right. The new organization was called the National Anti- Slavery Society. Its formation was the cause of much rejoicing to the supporters of slavery. " See ! " they said, " by this split in ^- 1 114 AN AMERICAN HERO. their ranks our enemies are putting themselves down." Garrison still went on his way with a brave heart. " Our cause is of God," he answered, " and we need not fear the results of conflict." And still it was his aim by moral influence alone to awaken the consciences of the people of the Northern States, and to rouse public opinion against the great sin that brought the North its wealth. In old times men suffered martyrdom as heretics for holding beliefs that in the next age were held as sacred truths by the children of the persecutors. " Slowly the Bible of the race is writ." William Lloyd Garrison, bear- ing patiently the hard names of atheist and unbeliever, was teaching his fellow-countrymen other lessons besides the evil of slavery. He was showing them, though they were slow to learn, that Christianity does not consist in creeds and forms, but in a life of loving service ; that God's word is not confined to the pages of a book, however grand that book may be, but is still spoken every day in the con- sciences of men who will listen to His whisper with open ears. CHAPTER IX. "NO UNION WITH SLAVE-HOLDERS!'* the west of the busy cities of the United States lay vast territories stretching out to the foot of the Rocky Mountains. The fresh winds swept over their prairies and forests, and the sun rose and set over the broad uncultivated land, which, as yet, few civilized men had ever looked upon. The slave-holders of the Southern States who wanted to extend the slave trade began to turn their gaze towards those unclaimed territories, and, when plans were made for adding them as new States to the Union, resolved at all costs to establish slavery in them. Texas, one of those great outlying lands, really belonged to Mexico. But popular opinion said, " Might is Right," and in the 116 116 AN AMERICAN HERO. - year 1845 tlie Uuited States went to war with Mexico, and in the end a part of Texas was added to the slave States. Still, Kansas and Nebraska lay outside the Union. On their borderland lived peaceful, happy settlers, farming their plots of ground and hating slavery with all their hearts. The time was coming when these territories would be also added to the United States; and the question was still unanswered, would the slave- power gain these dominions, or would they be joined to the number of the free States of the North ? William Lloyd Garrison, always watchful and alert, discovered the slave-holders' plot. He saw that if they gained their way in these territories, they would not only extend their slave trade — they would also increase their representation in Congress. Already most of the laws passed by the United States Govern- ment favoured slavery. One fact became more and more clear to him — -the free North could not rightly carry out these laws, and the union of the free and slave States must be broken ! Think what courasfe was needed to make this statement. The Union was the idol ''NO UNION WITH SLAVE-HOLDERS!'' 117 of every American. It was no less tlian treason to the State to suggest the breaking of this bond. No other newspaper editor dared to utter such a thought. Yet this was the new word that Garrison felt called upon to speak ; and forth from the Liberator came the clear tones : " This criminal Union must be broken. The free North must have no union with slave-holders. There must be no delay — the bond between the North and South must be severed. *' Garrison did not stop to ask, " What will become of me if I make this declaration ? " — not even " What will my friends say ? " His only thought was, " What is right ? " And once more as in old days he said to himself, '' I am in earnest. I will not equivocate. I will not retreat a single inch ; and I will be lieard^ It was true division had weakened his cause. No matter, right is right, and if he had stood quite alone, he would still have set himself the task of wakening the con- science of his fellow-men to see that they must have no union with oppressors. When Garrison had been for some months writing in this bold tone in the Liberator, a new voice began to make itself heard in 118 AN AMERICAN HERO. Boston. Early in 1845, Theodore Parker was preacliing in the Melodeon — a large hall in the city. He had come to Boston from West Roxbury, a quiet country village not many miles away. There farmers had been his hearers in the little church among the fields. Now, out of back streets and city slums came the hard-worked, weary men and women to listen to the preacher whose words brought a living religion and a new spring of hope into their dark lives. And the secret of this man's power was that from boyhood he had listened to the whispers of his con- science, and believed that the living God speaks now in the conscience of every rnaiij woman, and child as plainly as ever He spoke to prophets in the days of old. So the message he had to give he always gave with vigour and earnestness ; and when, very soon after his arrival in Boston, he met with Garrison, he found that he must use his influence with the great crowds that flocked to hear him in the Melodeon, to teach them that there was a " higher law," which forbade the slavery legal- ized by the laws of the United States. Then, while most other preachers did not dare to ''NO UNION WITH SLAVE-HOLDEBS !'' 119 speak on the subject, he "thundered" against slavery, and it was not long before he had to help Garrison in work as well as in words. One day a ship from New Orleans, in the Southern States, sailed into Boston harbour. She was owned by Boston merchants, and manned by Boston sailors. Unknown to captain and crew, a slave at New Orleans had managed to escape from his owner, while the ship still lay in the dock, and had hidden himself away among the merchandise in the dark hold. At the end of the voyage, when the vessel was moored in Boston harbour, the poor stowaway crawled from his hiding- place, hoping to find himself at last a free man in this city of the free States, where no slaves were ever bought or sold. Great was the excitement in Boston when th^ "Owners of the ship sent the miserable man back to his master in New Orleans ; and there was no law but the moral law, which they did not heed, to say them nay. At once GaiTison and Theodore Parker joined together to summon a great meeting in Faneuil Hall. The crowd Slathered round the doors lonir before fhr\ o !20 AN AMERICAN EEEO. were opened, and it is said the hall was packed from floor to roof. At that meeting a vigilance committee was formed of well-known anti- slavery workers who bound themselves to prevent the repetition of such an outrage in the city. But not alone in Boston were the friends of freedom roused by deeds of cruelty and wrong, which took place on the free soil of the Northern States. Such events multiplied as the anti-slavery struggle deepened. In 1850 a new law was passed in Congress, and the tidings spread quickly through the land that by this " Fugitive Slave Bill " the law of che land had decreed heavy fine and imprison- ment for any person in the Northern States who gave shelter to a slave escaped from his owner in the South. Kidnappers and spies sped on their cruel errands from town to town, and the miserable fugitives were hunted and tracked and carried back to bondage. Not only so, the children of freed negroes who had never been in slavery were seized and taken captive to the slave States. No coloured person was from that time safe anywhere in t1ie United States. "NO UNION WITH SLAVE-EOLDEBS !" 121 But if tales of horror are told of those days, there are grand stories also to tell of the heroism of men and women who feared no danger that might result to themselves, and bravely sheltered and rescued the persecuted slaves. Boston Court-house was hung with chains ; the slave pens were filled with miserable fugitives ; but Garrison and Theodore Parker used to make their way there, and speak hopeful, comforting words to the poor trem- bling prisoners ; and it was well known in Boston that neither of these two men would scruple to break this new infamous Fugitive Slave Law. The year 1850, and many years that followed, were marked by shameful compromises and weak yielding for the sake of peace on the part of the Northern States. Again and again did they give way to the demands of the slave- holding South. In those times Grarrison's voice was always clear. He never faltered, never gave way when enemies tried to bribe and threaten him. ** This criminal union with slave-holders must be broken," was still his cry. No wonder that with his whole honest soul he hated those compromising times. In i 122 AN AMERICAN HERO. 1854, another famous measure was passed by vote of Congress. It was known by the name of the " Kansas Nebraska Bill,*' and at the same time the ** Missouri Compromise,*' dating from the year 1820, which prohibited the extension of slavery north and west of the State of Missouri, was repealed; for this new law decreed that the inhabitants of the great western territories should decide for themselves by vote the question of admit- ting slavery within their borders, and both Kansas and Nebraska lay beyond that bound- ary fixed by the Missouri Compromise more than thirty years before. Nor did the plotting of the Southern States end here. The voting in Kansas and Nebraska must be managed so that the slave system should gain the day ; and a host of " border ruflSans *' from the South poured in upon the peaceful farmers settled there, and plundered and burned their homes, with the design of driving arWay those old dwellers who would vote against the establishment of slavery in their midst. But an unexpected result followed. Not for the sake of freedom, buf to help the plundered settlers, the Northern States sent down men and arms to Kansas, and "NO UNION WITH SLAVE-HOLDERS!" 123 a kind of civil war broke out that lasted many a weary year. Like a great rock firmly planted amid shift- ing sands or storm-beaten waters, William Lloyd G-arrlson stands out among the fickle, time-serving politicians of those days. True to his early aim of rousing the moral indignation of the people against slavery, he would have nothing to do with the political aspect of the question. "Waken the consciences of the people," he said, " and the laws will be mended." So on this point he was contented once more to stand almost alone, and part company from his friends, who could not see with him that to exercise the right of voting even was one way of supporting a criminal Government. It is not a matter for debate, in this short story of Garrison's life, whether he or his friends were right in this matter. His conscience told him that he must have no dealings with the " unclean thing," and he also feared that hope of fame or popular applause might lower the aim of men who tried to work for the anti- slavery cause by any political channel. Always at the head of the great moral movement stood this American hero, crying, " Right is right, and 124 AN AMERICAN HERO. the free North must have no dealings with the slave-holders of the South." Again and again all would have been lost in those years of hesi- tation and compromise on the part of the United States Government, but for Garrison and men like him who stood firm to principle, and would not equivocate or retreat an inch. The passing of the Fugitive Slave Bill in 1850 had startled many careless souls who thought little of the sorrows of the kidnapped slaves before the Act was passed which legaU ized his capture. A still greater shock was felt wlien the judgment was passed in the Supreme Court of the United States that the " negro had no rights which a white man need regard." Surely Garrison's constant warnings against the iniquity of the laws framed by the Union were borne out by facts. Politicians began to study the Liberator, and lectures given by Garrison, Wendell Phillips, S. J. May, Theodore Parker, and many other anti-slavery orators, were crowded by eager listeners. Frederick Douglas, too, a noble coloured man who had tasted the horrors of slavery himself, had joined the band of workers, and was giving up life and strength to help his kindred still '* NO UNION WITH SLAVE-IIOLDEBS r' 125 :a chains. Whittier was pouring forth fresh " Songs of Freedom," and his verses rang through the land as each new occasion for shame or triumph rose. So the chorus of voices swelled and deepened, and the year 1860 drew near. As beacon fires answer each other from the mountain tops, so the indignant protests against the encroach- ments of the Southern slave power were heard in one State after another, and the answer came back from the far-away west. The crisis was at hand, and England, watching from across the sea, recalled her own great struggle, and knew that in some way the victory was about to be won. CHAPTER X. THE TRIUMPH OF THE RIGHT, N the days when William Lloyd Gairison was yet a little lad run- ning errands for his master about the hilly streets of Newburyport, another boy, whose name was destined to be as famous in the history of the anti-slavery struggle, was spending his youth among settlers in the waste lands of Indiana. A rough log cabin was his home, and his growing strength was used in helping his father to cut down the forest trees, to pile the timber up, and cultivate the land they cleared with so much labour. It was very rare to find among those toil-worn settlers any love of letters ; yet this boy might be seen, when work was over, teaching himself to write by the light of the log fire, and patiently making letters with a 126 THE TlUVyil'll OF THE JUGIIT. 127 charred stick on a rough wooden board. A Bible, catechism, and spelling book had de- scended to his family from more prosperous days, and the young student pored over them, and kept this treasured library safe from wind and rain under the eaves of the wooden roof. By-and-by fresh emigrants settled in the neighbourhood, and new interests came into the narrow round of the log-cabin life. Years afterwards, Abraham Lincoln — for so the boy was called — remembered the eager- ness with which he had walked many miles to borrow a life of Washington from one of those new-comers ; the grief with which he found the volume, in its hiding-place under the roof, soaked by a storm that had risen in the night; and the willingness with which he worked for its owner until he had paid the worth of the damaged book, and made the Life of Washington his own. As he grew older, Abraham became known for his dry humour. His quaint sayings and odd jokes made the forest-clearers merry as they sat and rested from their work. It was a common thing for him to mount the stump 128 AN AMERICAN HERO. of a tree in the harvest field, and there repeat long passages to the reapers from the few books he had read, or make a speech in rough, but telling words, careless whether he had few or many hearers. But there was another side to this young orator's character. Behind the jokes lay a vein of sadness ; behind the rough outside a tender heart, well known to his father, step-mother, and sister, and the close companions of his life. Abraham Lincoln was never known to be anything but gentle to either man or beast ; and whether he hired himself out, or worked with his father cutting timber in the forest, or paddled the flat boat which he had built to carry produce to the nearest market down the river, he was always ready to give a helping hand to any one who needed it. Time passed, and new plans were formed by the Lincoln household. Abraham's father resolved to leave the rough log cabin in Indiana, and settle two hundred miles away in the State of Illinois. Strange day-dreams had been visiting young Lincoln's mind of late — visions of other work than forest-clear- ing ; and as he walked by the side of the great TEE TRIUMPH OF THE RIGHT. 129 wagon ttiat carried the household goods to the uew home, his thoughts went out towards the wide, unknown world wliicli lay before his opening manhood. But he would not leave his fatlier till he saw him well settled, and the strong, capable young man had no difficulty in getting work with the farmers of Illinois. So he split rails all day to pay for his food and clothing, and walked six or seven miles night and morning to tlie various farms, reading as be went on bis way, whenever be was fortunate enousfb to have the rare treat of a borrowed book. In the winter of 1830 an offer was made to him to take part charge of a boat-load of pork and corn down the river Mississippi to New Orleans. Then be had his first glimpse of the horrors of slavery, and the sights in New Orleans be never forgot. The cargo was well sold, and a better offer followed. A store- keeper was wanted at the little settlement of New Salem, in Illinois, and Abraham Lincoln was cbosen for the post. Because be could read and write — rare accomplishments in that regfon-^e was made clerk at tbe polling bootb during an election there, and be became well K 130 AN AMERICAN HERO. known all over that part of the country. Nov^ he began to read a newspaper regularly, and to interest himself in the politics of the times. The poor settlers looked upon him as a wise councillor, and they made him umpire and peacemaker in their quarrels. He was known everywhere as " Honest Abe," and welcomed in every log cabin and village home that he entered. It was said that he was ** the best- natured, best-informed, most modest, kindest, gentlest, roughest, strongest, best young fel- low in all New Salem and the region round about." Perhaps those uncultivated, hard-working settlers valued most, of all young Lincoln's qualities, his physical courage and great bodily powers. They made him captain of a volunteer band, and he led his men out against " Black Hawk," an Indian chief who was making inroads on the white men's settlements. They were all proud of him for his great strength of arm. The marvels of his rail-chopping and harvest work passed from mouth to mouth quite as readily as did his exploits as a man of letters or an arbitrator. And this strength was used so often and so THE TBIUMFH OF THE RIGHT. 131 helpfully for weaker men, that the anecdotes told of him read like tales of the feats of some good genius who set himself the task of clear- ing obstacles and troubles from the pathway of heavily laden mortals. Step by step new chances opened out before Abraham Lincoln, and he used them wisely. He was made postmaster of New Salem, and gained more influence in consequence. Picture him reading the newspaper, and commenting on its politics to the little crowd gathered at evening round the entrance to his store. Many poor hearts were cheered in those days when the good postmaster deciphered to them the precious ill-spelt letters which they could not read from dear ones far away from the old home. At length he was asked to offer him- self as candidate for the Illinois Legislature. He lost the election, for he was true to prin- ciples which were not popular ; but he was still " Honest Abe," and on the next trial his candidature was successful. No one who knew Abraham's tender, honest heart, won- dered to hear that from his place in the State House he protested again and again against resolutions in favour of slavery. For eight 132 AN AMERICAN HERO. years he was a member at intervals of the IlHnois Legislature ; then a higher honour was conferred on him, and for one term he was elected as member for that State to the House of Representatives in Washington, where he made many vigorous speeches against the war with Mexico and the annexation of Texas as a slave state. So he became known throughout the country as an anti-slavery legislator. Meanwhile, he had studied for the law, and entered into partnership with a well-known lawyer at Springfield, in Illinois, and became successful in his profession, and famous, too, for his honesty and his generous help of clients who were too poor ever to repay his services. He had not sought re-election to the House of Representatives, and the days came when the struggle in Kansas arose, and when the en- croachments of the Southern slave power over the yielding North were increasing rapidly. " Honest Abe ** burnt with indignation, and more than once he canvassed the States as a candidate for the Senate. Not disheartened by failure, he travelled from town to town to lecture, and his popularity was very great. As he watched the signs of the times, he saw that THE TRlUMl'ff OF TUB RlGtlT. 133 the struggle was gradually absorbing tlie life of the natiou, and that without doubt the end was drawing 'ligh. Whc^ i/he year 1860 opened, a great event was at hand. Before the close of the coining twelve months, a new President would have been chosen to rule over the people of the United Stores. Would he be in favour of freedom or slavery ? What would the voters of the great nation decree? How far had public opinion been moved by tlid events of the past few years, and the labours of William Lloyd Garrison and the workers who had risen up around him ? In May, the people of Illinois chose Abraham Lincoln for their candidate. Six months must pass before the election, and the wildest excite- ment spread through the land. On the 6th of November, 1860, Abraham Lincoln was declared sixteenth President of the United States, and the thirty millions of people who were his fellow- countrymen heard the news with very varied feelings. Lincoln was known as an Abolitionist, and the Southerners saw an end to their hopes of extending slavery. He entered office March 134 AJSf AMtlRiCAN HERO. 4th5 1861, and having bound himself to preserve the Union, he did all in his power as President to uphold friendly relations with the South ; but on one point he was firm — -slavery should not increase further on the free lands of the North and West. Garrison, with his resolute mind fixed on immediate abolition, on no delay in doing right, distrusted the new President's measures ; but the day came when Abraham Lincoln was found to be firm as a rock, when South Carolina summoned a State Convention at Charleston, the Southern States seceded, and the first shot of the rebellion was fired from Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbour, Garrison saw now that slavery was doomed to perish. The great uprising of the Northern States to suppress the rebellion had changed the aspect of aff*airs. Events followed one another in quick succession. The Northern senators withstood the slave-holders boldly in the Senate House, and the terrible war swept over the country. All might have been pre- vented if enough men like Garrison had been true to the right from the first. Garrison was a man of peace, and this war which he had dreaded was a fearful ending to the slavery he THE miUMPB OF THE BIGHT 135 had so long been struggling against. But the end had come, and his advice to the Northern soldiers was, " You believe in war — then do your duty and fight for the right." At last the great proclamation was issued by the President which promised freedom to every slave in the rebel States on the first day in the year 1868. Then Garrison believed in Abraham Lincoln, and more than one conference took place between the two men who now acknow- ledged the same end and aim. And so four million slaves were at last free men ; but the President knew and felt that the great moral influence exercised in past years by Garrison was the real source of the triumph he had stepped in to win. This is no history of the war. As an episode in Garrison's stormy life, it enters into this story ; but there is no space and no need to tell of the awful battle-fields, and the desolate homes, and the fierce struggle of relatives and friends who met in hand-to-hand conflict during this appalling civil war. It lasted four long years. On April 9th, 1865, the commander of the Confederate army, General Lee, surrendered, and there was peace in the land. By Act of lo6 AX AMEniCAN tlEUO. CoDgress, every one throughout the nation was declared free for evermore. The glad news was rung out in the country, and amid the roaring of cannon and the rejoicings of the people, it was proclaimed that war and slavery were at an end. JohnGreenleaf Whittier, the poet of the people, faithful to the last to the anti-slavery work for which Garrison had summoned him from his paradise at Haverhill, wrote more than one song of thanksgiving that year. Probably his *' Peace Autumn," some verses of which follow, spoke in poets' language the thoughts of many hearts : — " Thank God for rest, where none molest, And none can make afraid ; For peace that sits as plenty's guest Beneath the homestead shade. " Bring pike and gun, the sword's red scourge, The negro's broken chains, And beat them at the blacksmith's forge To ploughshares for our plains. "Alike henceforth our hills of snow, And vales where cotton flowers : All streams that flow, all winds that blow, Are freedom's motive powers. Til£) TRimiPn OP THE UIGHT. 13? *' Build up an altar to the Lord, Oh grateful hearts of ours ! And shape it of the greenest sward That ever drank the showers. " Lay all the bloom of gardens there, And there the orchard fruits ; Brino- o-olden grain from sun and air, From earth her goodly roots. " There let our banners droop and flow, The stars uprise and fall ; Our roll of martyrs, sad and slow. Let sighing breezes call. " Their names let hands of horn and taa And rough-shod feet applaud. Who died to make the slave a man. And link with toil reward. " There let the common heart keep time, To such an anthem sung As never swelled on poet's rhyme. Or thrilled on singer's tongue. " A song of faith that trusts the end To match the good begun ; Nor doubts the power of love to blend The hearts of men as one." . And thus the great struggle to which William Lloyd Garrison had consecrated his life was over. •* Thank God," he said, " I am an Abolitionist no longer." The American Anti- 138 AN AMERlGAK IIEUO. Slavery Society was dissolved, and the publica- tion of the Lihei^ator ceased. Thirty-five years had passed since the first number made its way down into the Boston streets from the poor, gloomy garret in which the " mad-cap Garri- son '* had begun his apparently hopeless task. One day before the close of that memorable year 1865, Garrison received an official invita- tion to the city of Charleston, in South Carolina. The flag of the Union was to be raised again among great rejoicings on Fort Sumter, whence the first shot in the rebellion had been fired. His friend, George Thompson, who had shared some of his dangers in past years, was again in America, and accompanied him, for he, too, was to be an honoured guest of the Government. The English orator, who had seen the victory of hard-won causes in his own land, bore home with him undying memories of that visit to the city that had so lately been in the centre of the slave-system. " I am going,'* he wrote to a friend, '* to celebrate the triumph of Garrisonian abolition- ism in Charleston — going in company with Garrison himself." And such a triumph was celebrated there as TSE TRIUMPH OF THE RIGHT. 139 Charleston never saw before, and probably will never see again. From early morning, songs of joy and shouts of welcome resounded ; the streets were filled with vast hosts of freed men, who thronged round Garrison, and bore him on their shoulders, and could not find means to testify the gratitude they felt. Later in the day a great gathering was held in the largest church in the city. Three thousand freed negroes met together in the building, and Garrison received a wreath of flowers from the hands of children who had been slaves only a year before. Speeches were made by the freed men, and by the visitors jvho had come to Charleston to the celebration, and all joined to honour Garrison, who not long before had been an outlaw in the South. Meanwhile bis thoughts turned to the friends and helpers who had also worked so bravely during the struggle. Perhaps the form of the brave old Quaker, Benjamin Lundy, rose, in fancy, before him; and of Isaac Knapp, the friend of his youth ; of the good niercliant, Arthur Tappan, and the poet Whittier ; of the Rev. S. J. May ; of brave Prudence Crandall, and the noble women of Philadelphia, Boston, and New UO AN AMERICAN HERO. York ; of Theodore Parker and Wendell Phillips, and a host of others. However that might be, in the fashion of all true heroes, he gave the glory of the victory to his comrades in the work, and in his reply he spoke of George Thompson's valiant labours in the cause, and did honour to senators and politi- cians who had laboured in later years for the slaves, though on lines differing from his own. And whenever Abraham Lincoln's name was heard that day, it is said that the cheers of the people sounded " like the roaring of the sea in storm." Two years later Mr. Garrison paid a visit to England. Soon after his arrival, noted men of all creeds and varied politics met together in St. James's Hall, in London, to do honour to the American hero. Some of the words he spoke on that occasion fitly illustrate the spirit of his life. "I must here disclaim," he said, "with all sincerity of soul, any special praise for any- thing I have done. I have simply tried to maintain the integrity of my soul before God and to do my duty. I have refused to go with the multitude to do evil. I have endeavoured THE TlilUMPH OF THE lilGRT. 141 to save my country from crime. I liave sougbt to liberate such as were held captive in the house of bondage. But all this I ought to have done. Henceforth, through all coming time, advocates of justice and friends of re- form, be not discouraged ; for you will and you must succeed if you have a righteous cause. No matter at the outset how few may be dis- posed to rally round the standard you have raised, if you battle unflinchingly and without compromise, if yours is the faith that cannot be shaken, because it is linked to the eternal throne, it is only a question of time when victory shall come to reward your toils. So it has been, so it is, so it ever will be throughout the earth in any conflict for the right ! " CHAPTER XL SUNSET. HEY cannot reach up to the levei of my home mood." In these words Mr. Garrison often spoke of the heavy cares and per- plexities that made up so much of his life during the long anti-slavery struggle. An old friend says of him, *' He was always cour- ageous and hopeful. Never in a siogle instance did I see him io a discouraged mood. His faith in the goodness of his cause, and in the over-ruling providence of God, was so absolute that he was calm and cheerful alike under clear and cloudy skies. I have seen him again and again, when the expenses of the Liberator were running far beyond its receipts, and he did not know whence the money was to come to supply the wants of his family ; but never once did SUNSET. 143 aoy shadow fall on his spirit on this account. He had given himself and all his powers to a cause that he believed had the favour and support of Heaven, and he did not doubt that he would be taken care of." * And now that the struggle was over, its leader was a man of sixty years of age — in broken health — who had spent his strength and all the best days of his life in the service of humanity. And though he wished for no other reward than the triumph of the cause for which he had worked, his grateful country desired that her hero's closing years should be passed in peace and sunshine. So his friends in America and across the sea in England joined together to subscribe the sum of thirty thousand dollars, that no further anxieties as to the support of his family might press upon him. And at Roxbury, where he and his young wife had begun their married life in ** Freedom's Cottage," he bought a pleasant country house called " Rockledge." Old friends loved to visit this happy home, and to talk over the days that, as Garrison said, * " William Lloyd Garrison and his Times," by Oliver Johnson, p. 396. 144 AN AMERICAN HERO, " had tried men's souls,'' and new friends found a genial welcome there, and carried sacred memories away. Mr. Garrison had five chil- dren living: two of them had reached man's estate, and were doing their own good work in the world. In course of time, his only daugh- ter married and went to New York ; but both sons and daughter often came back to "Rock- ledge," and the merry voices of little grand- children gave an added brightness to the house. There was scarcely a shadow cast on this brightness when Mrs. Garrison, the faithful wife and mother, became, an invalid ; for her cheerfulness and sunny ways made every one about her glad, and brought out all the tender- ness which formed so large a part of Mr. Garrison's character. And still he found time to work for the world, and took up the great questions of temperance and peace, and women's work, and purity in social life, and his wonderful influence made itself widely felt, though most of his days were passed in the retirement of his country home. In 1876 his wife died. The following year he went to England with one of his sons. Declining all public receptions, he spent three SUNSET. 145 months in wanderino- through beautiful scenery, and in quiet visits to old friends. He never crossed the Atlantic again, and many warm English hearts treasured his parting words as he took leave of all in the old country : " If we do not meet again in this world, we surely shall in a better." After this journey, his health became grad- ually more infirm, and towards the end of the year 1878 he began, both in his letters and his conversation, to speak of "going home." When staying with his daughter, Mrs. Villard, at New York, in the following spring, the sum- mons came. He passed away peacefully in the midst of his children and grandchildren as they sang to him his favourite hymns, and the world heard with sorrow, on May 24th, 1879, that William Lloyd Grarrison was dead. The story of his funeral has no gloom about it. The lifeless body was carried back to " Rockledge," and on May 28th, when the neighbouring church was filled with sunlight and bright with flowers, his family and a large assemblage of people gathered together there, and looked for the last time on the face of their friend. John Greenleaf Whittier wrote a U6 AN AMERIOAN HERO. farewell poem, which was read on the occasion, and addresses were delivered by Wendell Phillips and other old friends and fellow- workers. There is a beautiful cemetery, called " Forest Hills,'* near Roxbury. There William Lloyd Garrison was laid beside his wife, while the sky was glowing with the colours of the sunset, and round the grave coloured men and women sang a parting hymn. And so the story of an American hero ends. It tells of a mighty movement which gave freedom in the end to four millions of slaves, and owed its birth to a poor, self-taught printer-boy, who vowed to be true to the right though the whole world was against him. University of Connecticut Libraries