The Abolition Crusade and Its Consequences

, William Lloyd Garrison, editor. That was the beginning, historians now generally agr

Abolition societies. The Philanthropist of March, 1828, estimated the number of anti-slavery societies as "upwards of 130, and most

imen of his style. Speaking of himself and his fellow-workers as the "soldiers of God," he said: "Their feet are shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace.... Hence, when smitten on one cheek they turn the other also, being defamed they entreat, being reviled they

older was a wicked monster. He had a genius for organization, and a year after the first issue of The L

w. The principles upon which this organization was to be based were not all formulated at once. Th

population. I shall be as harsh as truth and as uncompromising as justice

ning crime," the editor said: "Therefore my efforts sha

oncern of all, and that it was to be put down by making not only slavery but also the slave-hold

confiscation of his property. It was, too, the beginning of that sectional war by people of the North against the existence of

on of their country because under it slavery in those sections was none of their business; and of course they repudiated the Mis

the evils of slavery broadcast through the South; and they

elaborate plot to rise, massacre the white population, seize the shipping in the harbor, and, if hard pressed, to sail away t

ne men, women, and children, which took place in Virginia seven months after the first issue of The Liberator. One of Turner's lieutenants is stated to have been a free negro. This insurrection the South attributed to The Liberator. Professor Hart says

been responsible for the Turner insurrection, would have lessened nei

t year in the Virginia Assembly, the immediate cause of which was no doubt the Turner insurrection. The members of that body had not been elected on any issue of that c

e enlightened sense of the wrong and evil of slavery tha

h brought forward a bill to accomplish g

d out of Virginia, stronger and truer in deprecating the evils of slavery, than was said in that discussion,

ing from the condition of the colored population of the Commonwealth and were induced by policy, as well as humanity, to attempt the immediate

slave-holding county of Albemarle,

at region had long since closed its doors; and now the Abolitionists were sending South their circulars in numbers. Many were sent to Charleston, South Carolina,[27] wh

roduced in the South by attempts to circulate through the mails inflammatory appeals addressed to the passions of the slaves, in pr

society could not "hire a hall or a meeting-house." The Abolition idea had been for a time thought chimerical and therefore negligible. Later, civic, business, soci

religious and intellectual élite of Boston filled Faneuil Hall on the afternoon

e Boston Transcript

solemnly agreed with each other to leave to their respective States the jurisdiction pertaining to the relation of master and slave within their boundaries, and

they may appear, to coerce any of the United States to abolish slave

of slavery in those States without their consent. For the purpose of securing freedom of individual thought they are needless-and they afford to those persons in th

ding among them a spirit of insubordination, are repugnant to the duties of the man and the citizen, and that where such measures become

t a regard to the supremacy of those laws is the rule of our conduct-and consequently to deprecate all tumultuous assemblies, all riotous or violent proceedings

to a then recent lynching of negroes in

atter among our Southern brethren firebrands, arrows, and death,' and of attempting to force Abolition by appeals to the terror of the masters and the

son") that "if their sentiments prevailed it would be all over with the Union, whi

viewed in the light of what fo

n sitting knows the surrounding circumstances. That Boston meeting pronounced the deliberate judgment of the most intelligent men of Boston on the situation, as t

ished by that great Faneuil Hall mee

l anti-slavery movement that was sweeping over all America between 1770 and

a local elder. The Presbyterian General Assembly in 1818 unanimously resolved that "sl

w of the awful social and political cataclysm that seemed to be threatened, there occurred a stupendous change. We learn from Hart that Garrison "soon found that neither minister nor church anywhere in the lower South continued (as before) to protest against slavery; that the cloth in the North was arrayed aga

ference of 1838, by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, by the American Home Missionary Society, t

ide the church and with which religion could have no concern, except in sofar as it was a vital assault upon the State, and the peace of the State. To make their opposition effective the Christians of that day did this remarkable thing. They reversed their religious views on slavery, which the Abolitionist

emporaneous evidence against the agitators and their methods than even t

, as it actually existed, was not then as horrible to Northerners, who could go across the line and see i

le that was now on, to the position into which they had been driven-that slavery was sanctioned by the Bible-nor is it matter of wonder t

es at first opposed the Abolitionists. It illustrates the courage with which the Abolitionists stood

pted, "squarely on the question whether a bishop could own slaves, and all the Southern members withdrew and organized the Methodist Episcopal Church, South." Professor Hart, p. 214, says of th

tand alone. In the years 1835, 1836, and 1837 a great wave of anti-Abolition excitement swept over the North. In New York, Philadelp

their nefarious methods, were driving the South to desperation and endangering the Union. If the North at that time saw the situation as it really was, the historian of the present day should say so. If, on the other hand, the people of both the North and S

ourth of July thus: Their leader, William Lloyd Garrison, held up and bur

fugitive

sioner Loring in the case

Benjamin R. Curtis in reference to the e

med it to ashes on the spot, exclaiming, 'So perish all compromises with tyranny! And let all the people say, Amen!' A tremendous shout of 'Amen!' went up to heaven in ratification

ery," why should he restrict himself in comment, as Dr. Hart thus does in his preface? The book is "intended to show that there was more than one side to the controversy, and that bo

the "difficulties" encountered by these extremists, show h

for the Constitution of the United States, cannot be t

tely Inscribed to all the Members of Female Anti-Slavery Societies," and it is only cited here as an illustration of the almost inconceivable venom with which the crusade was carried on to embitter the North against the South. It is a vicious attack upon the morality of Southern men and women, and

es" is this sentence: "At present the Southern Churches a

ime any prurient story about slavery in the South wo