HKB
NEW ENGLAND ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY.--UNIVERSALIST PROTEST.
"What concord hath Christ with Belial."--2 COR. vi. 15.
The New England Anti-Slavery Society was one of the most vigorous and persistent bodies that ever appeared on these western shores as a reformatory institution. Its chief leader was the indomitable Garrison, who had vowed that on the vexed question of American slavery "he would be heard," and whose "Liberator" was making its journeys from a Boston press throughout the land; hailed and patronized by a goodly company in the North, denounced as incendiary at the South, where a large sum was offered for the head of its editor. He had sympathetic companions of a persistency equal to his own: Wendell Phillips, Edmund Quincy, Samuel E. Sewell, N. P. Rogers, Stephen C. Foster, John Pierpont, Theodore Parker, Parker Pillsbury, Frederick Douglass, and C. L. Remond, among the men of New England, and the Tappans of New York, and representatives at the annual gatherings from Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington. Lucretia Mott and Abby Kelley (afterwards Mrs. Foster) were among the women expounders of this gospel of freedom, and "Anniversary Week" in Boston was made especially notable by their gatherings at Marlboro Chapel and Faneuil Hall. No matter what other meetings on that week were dull, there was always an exuberance of liveliness at the Anti-Slavery Convention. "Eloquence is dog-cheap at Marlboro Chapel," said Ralph Waldo Emerson; and it was. No better could be heard on the continent. The hardest and boldest resolutions were usually up for consideration, denouncing slaveholders and all their abettors, political, ecclesiastical, of whatever standing or profession. Church and state alike were subjects of their maledictions. Their defiance of all opposition had a clarion ring in it. Nothing pleased them more than to have their positions questioned or assailed. The adventurous wight who was willing to appear as a condemner of their doctrines was the very one for whom they were looking, and for whose presence and opposition they were profoundly thankful. Their meetings were electrifying. Such debates and orations, such questionings and rejoinders! Such hymns and spiritual songs, too, sung often by the Hutchinsons to the old tunes of "Amherst," "Lenox," and "New Jerusalem!" We hear them now; they brought the shouts and tears.
We remember a scene in Marlboro Chapel one afternoon during Anniversary Week. There came up for debate the question: "Does the Constitution of the United States justify slavery?" Rev. John Pierpont took the negative, and very logically maintained it for more than an hour. He appeared in the greatness of his strength, and at the close of his argument proposed to those of his auditors who wished, to question his statements. And never was seen a hungrier company of interrogators than then and there came upon him. But he was unmoved as a sea-rock in the midst of the breakers. His side of the question was not popular with most of the speakers and their sympathizers there, and he was subjected to a most searching cross-questioning. But he came out triumphantly (as it seemed) through it all. When three or four would speak at once, he would say: "One at a time, friends; the miller's rule holds,--first come, first served. I desire to hear you all." The afternoon sunshine suddenly blazing in from one of the windows upon his face, he aptly remarked: "Some subjects are involved in impenetrable darkness; but here we seem to have a super-abundance of light!" When the last inquirer had been answered, the speaker asked: "Are you all through?" And no other one questioning, he said: "And now, after the fashion of the good old divines, I come to the 'Improvement';" under which head he carefully and briefly reviewed the substance of the debate. It was a masterly plea.