William Lloyd Garrison, the AbolitionistGrimké, Archibald Henry
History
William Lloyd Garrison, the Abolitionist
Grimké, Archibald Henry
Garrison, William Lloyd, 1805-1879
Barring the extreme plainness of speech with which Wright and Tappan
gave their advice to Mr. Garrison, it was in the main singularly sound
and wise. But the pioneer did not so regard it. He was possessed with
his idea of the importance of chastising the clerical critics, and of
the duty of the Executive Committee and of the _Emancipator_ to back him
in the undertaking. His temper was, under all circumstances, masterful
and peremptory. It was never more masterful and peremptory than in its
management of this business. The very reasonable course of the Board at
New York suggested to his mind a predominance of "sectarianism at
headquarters," seemed to him "criminal and extraordinary." As the
Executive Committee and its organ would not rebuke the schismatics, he
was moved to rebuke the Executive Committee and its organ for their
"blind and temporizing policy." And so matters within the movement
against slavery went, with increasing momentum, from bad to worse.
The break in the anti-slavery ranks widened as new causes of controversy
arose between the management in Boston and the management at New York.
The Massachusetts Abolitionists had stood stanchly by Garrison against
the clerical schismatics. They also inclined to his side in his trouble
with the national board. Instead of one common center of activity and
leadership the anti-slavery reform began now to develop two centers of
activity and leadership. Garrison and the _Liberator_ formed the moral
nucleus at one end, the Executive Committee and the _Emancipator_ the
moral nucleus at the other. Much of the energies of the two sides were
in those circumstances, absorbed in stimulating and completing the
processes which were to ultimate in the organic division of the body of
the movement against slavery. When men once begin to quarrel they will
not stop for lack of subjects to dispute over. There will be no lack,
for before one disputed point is settled another has arisen. It is the
old story of the box of evils. Beginnings must be avoided, else if one
evil escapes, others will follow. The anti-slavery Pandora had let out
one little imp of discord and many big and little imps were
incontinently following.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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