William Lloyd Garrison, the AbolitionistGrimké, Archibald Henry
History
William Lloyd Garrison, the Abolitionist
Grimké, Archibald Henry
Garrison, William Lloyd, 1805-1879
It was a blessed refuge to Garrison, the Benson homestead of Brooklyn,
termed Friendship's Valley. Hunted as a partridge by his enemies here he
found the quiet, and sympathy, and the right royal welcome and affection
for which his heart panted amidst the dust, and din, and dangers of the
crusade against slavery. But grateful as were the domestic sweets of
Friendship's Valley, his was altogether too militant and masterful a
spirit to yield himself without a struggle to the repose which it
offered. He did not at all relish the idea of being a forced exile from
Boston, of being obliged to edit the _Liberator_ at such long range. But
his friends urged him to submit to the one, and do the other, both on
grounds of economy and common prudence. He was almost super-anxious lest
it be said that the fear of the mob drove him out of Boston, and that
the fear of it kept him out. This super-anxiety in that regard his
friends to a certain degree shared with him. It was a phase of Abolition
grit. Danger attracted this new species of reformers as a magnet draws
iron. Instead of running away from it, they were, with one accord,
forever rushing into it. And the leader in Brooklyn was for rushing back
to Boston, where, if one chanced to sow the wind in the morning, he
might be morally certain of reaping the whirlwind in the afternoon.
Two weeks after he had been secretly conveyed to Canton by Deputy
Sheriff Parkman, being the day of his discharge from Leverett street
jail, he was back again in Boston. The popular excitement had subsided.
He showed himself freely in the streets and was nowhere molested. One
day, however, while at the anti-slavery office on Washington street, he
witnessed what was perhaps a final manifestation of the cat-like spirit
of the great mob. A procession passed by with band and music, bearing
aloft a large board on which were represented George Thompson and a
black woman with this significant allusion to the riot, made as if
addressed to himself by his dusky companion in disgrace: "When are we
going to have another meeting, Brother Thompson?" The cat-like creature
had lapsed into a playful mood, but its playfulness would have quickly
given place to an altogether different fit did it but know that Garrison
was watching it from the window of the very room where a few weeks
before he had nearly fallen into its clutches.
Garrison remained in Boston two weeks, going about the city, wherever
and whenever business or duty called him in a perfectly fearless way. He
left on the afternoon of November 18th. On that same afternoon the
Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society held a memorable meeting at the house
of Francis Jackson. It was then that Harriet Martineau, another foreign
emissary, avowed her entire agreement with the principles of the
Abolitionists, which subjected her to social ostracism, and to unlimited
abuse from the pro-slavery press of the city.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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