SENATE OF MASSACHUSETTS.

29

cloak and shawl-handkerchief, and then walked the whole length of the room, and was immediately seen shaking hands with Garrison.* A murmur ran through the gallery, and a smile went round the chamber. Mrs. Chapman whispered to her next neighbour, "Righteousness and peace have kissed each other.” Garrison, the dauntless Garrison, turned pale as ashes, and sank down on a seat. Dr. Channing had censured the abolitionists in his pamphlet on slavery; Garrison had, in the Liberator,' rejected the censure; and here they were shaking hands in the Senate Chamber. It was presently found that a pressure of numbers compelled an adjournment to the larger House of Representatives. There Dr. Channing sat behind the speakers, handing them notes, and most obviously affording them his countenance, so as to be from that day considered by the world as an accession to their principles, though not to their organized body. Another circumstance worthy of note is that a somewhat sophisticated well-wisher to the cause suggested that at the second meeting the gentlemen of the party alone should speaksuch as Follen, Loring, and Sewall; and that the more homely and more openly-reviled members, Garrison and Goodell and others, should keep in the back ground: This was mentioned to Mrs. Chapman. Her righteous spirit rejected the counsel at once, on the ground of its falseness of principle. "Besides," said she, "we owe it to Garrison to protect him; and his only protection is being placed in the midst of the gentlemen, where his foes dare not touch him. If we do not vigilantly keep him there," she continued, with swimming eyes and quivering lips, "he will be murdered next riot-season - he will be torn to pieces next autumn." As it turned out, it was the eloquence of Garrison and Goodell that carried the day, and the inexperienced adviser owned himself mistaken. Such are the small facts which indicate the temper of the times.

The day was now passed when the insignificance of the abolition movement could be a subject for taunts. The tone of contempt had been kept up to the last possible moment; but that moment was gone by. A few legislatures had declared themselves, like that of Massachusetts; the Governor of Pennsylvania (" honest Joe Ritner," the waggoner's boy,) had publicly reprobated the disposition of Northern members of Congress "to bow to the dark spirit of slavery;" all the candidates for state offices in Vermont, both of the federal and democratic party, were abolitionists; and it might be said, as a general fact, that in New England, the yeomanry were with the abolitionists, while the large commermercial and manufacturing towns were as strenuous in their opposition as ever. The number of societies, though multiplying from day to day, had ceased to become an indication of the proportion of abolitionists in the community. There were now thousands, more or less animated by the cause, who, for various reasons (some of which reasons were very good), did not join societies. Dr. Channing entertains strong objections to

* He afterwards explained that he was not at the moment certain that it was Mr. Garrison, but that he was not the less happy to have shaken hands with him.

associations for moral objects. Certain state legislators found they could effect more in the Chamber for being unpledged, and being known to speak from independent conviction. Many women, and Mrs. Follen at the head of such, held themselves ready to join at any moment, but felt that more aid might be given to the cause by fighting the battles of the abolitionists out of the circle of partizanship than within it. Such have been among the most powerful defenders of the right for the last few years, while an inferior order of persons has been crowding into the abolition ranks. With the good of an accession of numbers must come the evil of a deterioration of quality; and it is best that there should be a distribution of the noblest original spirits,-some continuing to lead societies, and others maintaining an independent position. But, under this arrangement, the multiplication of societies ceases to be a test of the increase of numbers.

The President had now taken the matter in hand. General Jackson, the people's man, who talked of liberty daily, with energetic oaths and flourishes of the hand, inquired of Congress whether they could not pass a law prohibiting, under severe penalties, the transmission through the mails of anti-slavery publications,-or, as he worded it, of publications "intended to excite the slaves to insurrection." Mr. Calhoun, the great bulwark of slavery, declared in Congress that such a measure would be unconstitutional; but that a bill which he had prepared would answer the purpose. This was the celebrated Gag Bill. We insert it, as amended for the third reading, as we could not expect of our readers that they should credit our report of its contents. Here stands the Bill which in 1836 was read a third time in the Senate of a Republican Congress

"A BILL

"For prohibiting deputy postmasters from receiving or transmitting through the mail to any State, Territory, or District, certain papers therein mentioned, the circulation of which, by the laws of said State, Territory, or District, may be prohibited, and for other purposes.

"Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That it shall not be lawful for any deputy postmaster, in any State, Territory, or District, of the United States, knowingly to deliver to any person whatever, any pamphlet, newspaper, handbill, or other printed paper or pictorial representation touching the subject of slavery, where, by the laws of the said State, Territory, or District, their circulation is prohibited; and any deputy postmaster who shall be guilty thereof, shall be forthwith removed from office.

"SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That nothing in the acts of the Congress to establish and regulate the Post Office Department shall be construed to protect any deputy postmaster, mail-carrier, or other officer or agent of said Department, who shall knowingly circulate, in any State, Territory, or District, as aforesaid, any such pamphlet, newspaper, handbill, or other printed paper or pictorial representation, forbidden by the laws of such State, Territory, or Dis

trict.

"SEC. 5. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That the deputy postmasters of the offices where the pamphlets, newspapers, handbills, or other printed papers or pictorial representations aforesaid, may arrive for delivery, shall, under the instructions of the Postmaster-General, from time to time give

ANNEXATION OF TEXAS.

31.

notice of the same, so that they may be withdrawn by the person who deposited them originally to be mailed, and if the same shall not be withdrawn in one month thereafter, shall be burnt or otherwise destroyed."

Mr Van Buren, now President of the United States, was then VicePresident, and held the casting vote in the Senate. Every one knows his terror of committing himself. What must have been his feelings when his casting vote was called for as to the third reading of this Bill? He was standing behind a pillar, talking, when the votes were declared to be eighteen to eighteen. "Where's the Vice-President ?" shouted Mr. Calhoun's mighty voice. Mr. Van Buren came forward, and voted for the third reading. "The Northern States are sold!" groaned the New England senators, with one voice. By their strenuous efforts the bill was thrown out on the third reading. If it had passed, it would have remained to be seen, as the abolitionists remarked, "whether seven millions of freemen should become slaves, or two and a half millions of slaves should become free ?"

for

For men and women engaged in a moral enterprise so stupendous as that under notice, there is no rest. It is well for them that the perspective of their toils is shrouded from them when they set forth; there is perhaps no human soul that could sustain the whole certainty. Not a day's repose can these people snatch. If they were to close their eyes upon their mission for even the shortest interval, they would find that new dangers had gathered, and that their work was in arrear. Towards the end of 1836, the abolitionists felt their prospects were darker than ever. The annexation of Texas to the Union seemed an evil scarcely possible to be averted: and, if it were not averted, their enterprise was thrown back centuries. Instead of sinking into despair at seeing the success of their foes in flattering, not only the worldly interests of the sordid and ambitious part of society, but the best feelings of the superficial and thoughtless, they made a tremendous effort. Mr. Child began with an admirable exposure of the Texas scheme in the Anti-Slavery Quarterly Magazine,' and Dr. Channing finished the business (for the present) by his noble tract. As for the rest, "they sounded a tocsin of alarm that aroused the land to a sense of its danger; they sent their appeals, warnings, and remonstrances into every part of the republic; they held meetings by day and by night, with reference solely to this momentous question; they covered the entire surface of the nation with tracts, circulars, and papers, revealing the designs of the southern planters; in short, they put into motion all that has been done for the perpetual exclusion of Texas from the American confederacy. At the extra session of Congress in September, through their instrumentality, in the course of a few weeks, many thousand petitions, signed by hundreds of thousands of men and women were received by that body, remonstrating against the annexation in strong and emphatic language. Never before had the people made such a demonstration of their will in the form of petition." It was a noble spectacle—the bulk of a nation protesting against an acquisition of territory, on the ground of its being wrong.

In August of this year it became known to the abolitionists in Boston

that a child was in the city, brought as a slave from New Orleans, and to be carried back thither as a slave. They determined to attempt the rescue of this child by law. If they failed, she was only as she was before; if they succeeded, the case would be a parallel one with that of Sommersett in England, under Lord Mansfield's famous decision. The laws of Massachusetts were appealed to, as had been proposed, without good result, in similar cases before. This time the case was in the hands of sound lawyers, and tried before a courageous judge, Chief Justice Shaw. The child was declared free; and her happy fate decides that of all slaves (except fugitives) who shall henceforth touch the soil of Massachusetts. The newspapers opened out in full cry against her protectors, for having separated her from her mother. They overlooked the fact that parental claims merge in those of the master; that a slave-child is not pretended to belong to its parents; and that if the owner of this particular child views the relation in the right light, he has nothing to do but to emancipate the mother. The newspapers, however, declared of the counsel and others concerned, "they can never fully expiate their crimes, until offences such as theirs are punished by imprisonment at hard labour for life." Mr. Ellis Gray Loring, by whom the cause was gained, is one of the last people in the world on whom the charge of fanaticism could be fixed. He is a lover of ease-of intellectual, refined ease-but still of ease. He is in frail health, and his temper is somewhat indolent, and very domestic and retiring; his intellect is contemplative, and his tastes somewhat unsocial. It must be something very unlike fanaticism that can bring such a man out of his retirement into the storm which has for some years been pelting around him, and from which he might have shrouded himself, if any man might. The decision of Judge Shaw in the case of this slave child was presently foilowed in Connecticut; and, within a very short time, the abolitionists obtained right of jury trial for persons arrested as fugitive slaves in the states of Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Vermont.

Mr.

At the beginning of the remarkable year 1837, great confusion was excited in Congress by Mr. Adams's management of a low jest aimed at him by the Southern members. A petition was sent to him signed by nine slaves, requesting of the House of Representatives to expel him, on the ground of the countenance he afforded to the petitions of persons who would put an end to the blessed institution of slavery. Adams presented this document as if it was a bonâ fide petition. The uproar in the House was tremendous; but the attention of the members was fairly fixed upon the right of petition as held by slaves, and the venerable ex-President has since been acting a more heroic part than any of his predecessors on that floor have ever been called to go through. The name of John Quincy Adams will stand out bright from the page of American history for ever, as the vindicator of the right of petition in the perilous times of the republic. We pass over, as well known, the conflict on Mr. Pinckney's resolutions, the speeches of the Southern members (after their late complacent assurances that the subject of slavery would never be breathed in Congress) and the new President's somewhat fool-hardy declaration against any relaxation of the present state of things in regard to slavery, in his inaugural address, on the 4th

GENERAL CONVENTION OF WOMEN.

33

of March. Our space is only too narrow for the two other great events of the year, which are less widely understood.

During the second week of May was held the first General Convention of Women that was ever assembled. Modest as were its pretersions, and quietly as it was conducted, it will stand as a great event in history—from the nature of the fact itself, and probably from the importance of its consequences. "This," says the Report, reasonably enough, was the beginning of an examination of the claims and character of their clergy, which will end only with a reformation, hardly less startling or less needed than that of Luther."

One resolution was passed to the effect that it was immoral to separate persons of colour from the rest of society, and especially in churches; and that the members of the Convention pledged themselves to procure for the coloured people, if possible, an equal choice with themselves of sittings in churches; and, where this was not possible, to take their seats with the despised class. Another resolution was to this effect, "that whereas our fathers, husbands, and brothers have devoted themselves to the rescue of the enslaved, at the risk of ease, reputation, and life, we, their daughters, wives, and sisters, honouring their conduct, hereby pledge ourselves to uphold them by our sympathy, to share their sacrifices, and vindicate their characters." After having discharged their function, and gained some strength of heart and enlightenment of mind by their agreement in feeling and differences of opinion, these women went home, to meet again the next year at Philadelphia.

On the 27th of June, the orthodox clergy took up their position against the abolitionists. The occasion was the General Association of Massachusetts Clergymen. The movement begun by the Resolutions then passed, worthy of the dark ages, was kept up by a set of sermons, in which this magnanimous clergy came out to war against women— the Misses Grimke in particular. It is wonderful how many of these sermons ended with a simile about a vine, a trellis, and an elm.

It is evident to those who remember the conference between George Thompson and Mr Breckinridge at Glasgow, that it would be unwise in the American clergy to provoke an inquiry into the conduct of their body during the great moral struggle of the age. See the effect already :

"As there is no royal road to mathematics, so there is no clerical road to abolition. The principles are too pure to admit of caste, even though it were the high Braminical. A general may not file the abolitionists to the right and left, and enter at literal beat of drum; nor may a clergyman claim to be speaker, as in a church meeting, by virtue of his office; nor may a woman plead her sex's pernicious privileges, or pretended disabilities. Women of New England! we are told of our powerful indirect influence; our claims on man's gallantry and chivalry. We would not free all the slaves in Christendom by indirection-such indirection. We trust to be strengthened for any sacrifices in their cause; but we may not endanger our own souls for their redemption.Let our influence be open and direct: such as our husbands and brethren will not blush to see us exercise.”—“ When elergymen plead usage and immemorial custom in favour of unutterable wrong, and bid us keep silence for courtesy and put the enginery of church organization in play as a hindrance to our cause

D