Volume Ii Part 11 (1/2)
Of the consequences of this simple affair it is not my intention to give any account, chiefly because it would be impossible to convey to my English readers my conviction of the smallness of the portion of American society which was concerned in the treatment inflicted upon me.
The hubbub was so great, and the modes of insult were so various, as to justify distant observers in concluding that the whole nation had risen against me. I soon found how few can make a great noise, while the many are careless or ignorant of what is going on about a person or a party with whom they have nothing to do; and while not a few are rendered more hearty in their regard and more generous in their hospitality by the disgraces of the individual who is under the oppression of public censure. All that I antic.i.p.ated at the moment of reading the note came to pa.s.s, but only for a time. Eventually, nothing remained which in the slightest degree modified my opinions or impaired my hopes of the society I was investigating.
The secretary's report was drawn up with remarkable ability, and some animating and beautiful letters were read from distant members of the a.s.sociation. The business which had been interrupted by violence was put in train again; and, when the meeting broke up, a strong feeling of satisfaction visibly pervaded it. The right of meeting was vindicated; righteous pertinacity had conquered violence, and no immediate check to the efforts of the society was to be apprehended.
The trials of the abolitionists of Boston were, however, not yet over.
Two months before, the attorney-general of the state had advocated in council the expected demand of the South, that abolitionists should be delivered up to the Slave States for trial and punishment under Southern laws. This fact is credible to those, and, perhaps, to those only, who have seen the pamphlet in reply to Dr. Channing's work on Slavery attributed to this gentleman. The South was not long in making the demand. Letters arrived from the governors of Southern States to the new governor of Ma.s.sachusetts, demanding the pa.s.sing of laws against abolitionism in all its forms. The governor, as was his business, laid these letters before the legislature of his state. This was the only thing he could do on this occasion. Just before, at his entrance upon his office, he had aimed his blow at the abolitionists in the following pa.s.sages of his address. The same delusion (if it be mere delusion) is visible here that is shared by all persons in power, who cannot deny that an evil exists, but have not courage to remove it; a vague hope that ”fate, or Providence, or something,” will do the work which men are created to perform; men of principle and men of peace, like the abolitionists; victims, not perpetrators of violence. ”As the genius of our inst.i.tutions and the character of our people are entirely repugnant to laws impairing the liberty of speech and of the press, even for the sake of repressing its abuses, the patriotism of all cla.s.ses of citizens must be invoked to abstain from a discussion which, by exasperating the master, can have no other effect than to render more oppressive the condition of the slave; and which, if not abandoned, there is great reason to fear will prove the rock on which the Union will split.” ...
”A conciliatory forbearance,” he proceeds to say, ”would leave this whole painful subject where the Const.i.tution leaves it, with the states where it exists, and in the hands of an all-wise Providence, who in his own good time is able to cause it to disappear, like the slavery of the ancient world, under the gradual operation of the gentle spirit of Christianity.” The time is at hand. The ”gradual operation of the gentle spirit of Christianity” had already educated the minds and hearts of the abolitionists for the work they are doing, but which the governor would fain have put off. It thus appears that they had the governor and attorney-general of the state against them, and the wealth, learning, and power of their city. It will be seen how their legislature was affected towards them.
As soon as they were aware of the demands of the Southern governors, they pet.i.tioned their legislature for a hearing, according to the invariable practice of persons who believe that they may be injured by the pa.s.sing of any proposed law. The hearing was granted, as a matter of course; and a committee of five members of the legislature was appointed to hear what the abolitionists had to say. The place and time appointed were the Senate Chamber, on the afternoon of Friday, the 4th of March.
The expectation had been that few or none but the parties immediately concerned would be present at the discussion of such ”a low subject;”
but the event proved that more curiosity was abroad than had been supposed. I went just before the appointed hour, and took my seat with my party, in the empty gallery of the Senate Chamber. The abolitionists dropped in one by one; Garrison, May, Goodell, Follen, E. G. Loring, and others. The committee treated them with ostentatious neglect, dawdling away the time, and keeping them waiting a full hour beyond the appointed time. The gallery filled rapidly, and more and more citizens entered the room below. To our great delight, Dr. Channing made his appearance there. At length it was manifest that the Senate Chamber was not large enough; and we adjourned to the Hall of Representatives, which was soon about two thirds filled.
I could not have conceived that such conduct could have been ventured upon as that of the chairman of the committee. It was so insulting as to disgust the citizens present, whatever might be their way of thinking on the question which brought them together. The chairman and another of the five were evidently predetermined. They spared no pains in showing it, twisting the meaning of expressions employed by the pleaders, noting down any disjointed phrase which could be made to tell against those who used it, conveying sarcasms in their questions and insult in their remarks. Two others evidenced a desire to fulfil their function, to hear what the abolitionists had to say. Dr. Channing took his seat behind the pleaders; and I saw with pleasure that he was handing them notes, acting on their side as decisively, and almost as publicly as if he had spoken.
After several unanswerable defences against charges had been made, and Mr. Loring had extorted the respect of the committee by a speech in which he showed that a legislative censure is more injurious than penal laws, it was Dr. Follen's turn to speak. He was presently stopped by the chairman, with a command that he should be respectful to the committee; with an intimation that the gentlemen were heard only as a matter of favour. They protested against this, their hearing having been demanded as a matter of right; they refused to proceed, and broke up the conference.
Much good was done by this afternoon's proceedings. The feeling of the bystanders was, on the whole, decidedly in favour of the pleaders, and the issue of the affair was watched with much interest. The next day the abolitionists demanded a hearing as a matter of right; and it was granted likewise as an affair of course. The second hearing was appointed for Tuesday the 8th, at the same place and hour.
Some well-meaning friends of the abolitionists had in the interval advised that the most accomplished, popular, and gentlemanly of the abolitionists should conduct the business of the second day; that the speeches should be made by Dr. Follen, Messrs. Loring and Sewall, and one or two more; and that Garrison and Goodell, the homely, primitive, and eminently suffering men of the apostles.h.i.+p, should be induced to remain in the background. The advice was righteously rejected; and, as it happened, theirs were the speeches that went farthest in winning over the feeling of the audience to their side. I shall never forget the swimming eye and tremulous voice with which a n.o.ble lady of the persecuted party answered such a suggestion as I have mentioned. ”Oh,”
said she, ”above all things, we must be just and faithful to Garrison.
You do not know what we know; that, unless we put him, on every occasion, into the midst of the _gentlemen_ of the party, he will be torn to pieces. Nothing can save him but his being made one with those whom his enemies will not dare to touch.” As for Mr. Goodell, he had been frequently stoned. ”He was used to it.” They appeared in the midst of the professional gentlemen of the a.s.sociation, and did the most eminent service of the day.
The hall was crowded, and shouts of applause broke forth as the pleaders demolished an accusation or successfully reb.u.t.ted the insolence of the chairman. Dr. Follen was again stopped, as he was showing that mobs had been the invariable consequence of censures of abolitionism pa.s.sed by public meetings in the absence of gag-laws. He was desired to hold his tongue, or to be respectful to the committee; to which he replied, in his gentlest and most musical voice, ”Am I, then, to understand that, in speaking ill of mobs, I am disrespectful to the committee?” The chairman looked foolish enough during the applauses which followed this question.
Dr. Follen fought his ground inch by inch, and got out all he had to say. The conduct of the chairman became at last so insufferable, that several spectators attempted a remonstrance. A merchant was silenced; a physician was listened to, his speech being seasoned with wit so irresistible as to put all parties into good-humour.
The loudly-expressed opinion of the spectators as they dispersed was, that the chairman had ruined his political career, and, probably, filled the chair of a committee of the legislature for the last time. The result of the affair was that the report of the committee ”spoke disrespectfully” of the exertions of the abolitionists, but rejected the suggestion of penal laws being pa.s.sed to control their operations. The letters from the South therefore remained unanswered.
The abolitionists held a consultation whether they should complain to the legislature of the treatment their statements had received, and of the impediments thrown in the way of their self-justification. They decided to let the matter rest, trusting that there were witnesses enough of their case to enlighten the public mind on their position. A member of the legislature declared in his place what he had seen of the treatment of the appellants by the chairman, and proposed that the committee should be censured. As the aggrieved persons made no formal complaint, however, the matter was dropped. But the faith of the abolitionists was justified. The people were enlightened as to their position; and in the next election they returned a set of representatives, one of whose earliest acts was to pa.s.s a series of anti-slavery resolutions by a majority of 378 to 16.
These were a few of the signs of the times in Ma.s.sachusetts when I was there. They proved that, while the aristocracy of the great cities were not to be trusted to maintain the great principles on which their society was based, the body of the people were sound.
HOT AND COLD WEATHER.
”Weigh me the fire; or canst thou find A way to measure out the wind; Show me that world of stars, and whence They noiseless spill their influence!
This if thou canst.”
HERRICK.
”Sic vita.”
I believe no one attempts to praise the climate of New-England. The very low average of health there, the prevalence of consumption and of decay of the teeth, are evidences of an unwholesome climate which I believe are universally received as such. The mortality among children throughout the whole country is a dark feature of life in the United States. I do not know whether any investigation has been made into the numbers who die in infancy; but there can be no mistake in a.s.suming that it is much greater than among the cla.s.ses in Europe who are in a situation of equal external comfort. It was afflicting to meet with cases of bereavement which seem to leave few hopes or objects in life; it is afflicting to review them now, as they rise up before my mind. One acquaintance of mine had lost four out of six children; another five out of seven; another six out of seven; another thirteen out of sixteen; and one mourner tells me that a fatality seems to attend the females of his family, for, out of eighteen, only one little granddaughter survives; and most of this family died very young, and of different kinds of disease. Never did I see so many wo-worn mothers as in America. Wherever we went in the North, we heard of ”the lung fever” as of a common complaint, and children seemed to be as liable to it as grown persons.
The climate is doubtless chiefly to blame for all this, and I do not see how any degree of care could obviate much of the evil. The children must be kept warm within doors; and the only way of affording them the range of the house is by warming the whole, from the cellar to the garret, by means of a furnace in the hall. This makes all comfortable within; but, then, the risk of going out is very great. There is far less fog and damp than in England, and the perfectly calm, sunny days of midwinter are endurable; but the least breath of wind seems to chill one's very life. I had no idea what the suffering from extreme cold amounted to till one day, in Boston, I walked the length of the city and back again in a wind, with the thermometer seven degrees and a half below zero. I had been warned of the cold, but was anxious to keep an appointment to attend a meeting. We put on all the merinoes and furs we could muster; but we were insensible of them from the moment the wind reached us. My m.u.f.f seemed to be made of ice; I almost fancied I should have been warmer without it. We managed getting to the meeting pretty well, the stock of warmth we had brought out with us lasting till then.
But we set out cold on our return; and, by the time I got home, I did not very well know where I was and what I was about. The stupefaction from cold is particularly disagreeable, the sense of pain remaining through it; and I determined not to expose myself to it again. All this must be dangerous to children; and if, to avoid it, they are shut up during the winter, there remains the danger of encountering the ungenial spring.
It is a wretched climate. The old lines would run in my head,