Part 10 (1/2)
”When it (the Appeal) cae number of copies were sent by mail to South Carolina Most of the after this, the city authorities of Charleston learned that Miss Gri to visit her mother and sisters, and pass the winter with them Thereupon the mayor called upon Mrs
Grihter that the police had been instructed to prevent her landing while the steamer remained in port, and to see to it that she should not communicate, by letter or otherwise, with any persons in the city; and, further, that if she should elude their vigilance and go on shore, she would be arrested and imprisoned until the return of the vessel Her Charleston friends at once conveyed to her the e of the mayor, and added that the people of Charleston were so incensed against her, that if she should go there despite the mayor's threat of pains and penalties, she could not escape personal violence at the hands of thewould probably compromise her family; not only distress theht to do; but for that fact, she would certainly exercise her constitutional right as an Ao to Charleston to visit her relatives, and if for that, the authorities should inflict upon her pains and penalties, she would willingly bear thee would help to reveal to the free States the fact that slavery defies and tramples alike upon constitutions and laws, and thus outlaws itself”
These brave words said no elina Grimke's moral heroism would have borne her to the front of the fiercest battle ever fought for huhts; and she would have counted it little to lay down her life if that could help on the victory She touched as yet only the surf of the breakers into which she was soon to be swept, but her clear eye would not have quailed, or her cheek have blanched, if even then all their cruelty could have been revealed to her
CHAPTER XII
We have seen, a few pages back, that Angelina expressed her thankfulness at Sarah's change of vieith respect to the anti-slavery cause Again we ret the destruction of Sarah's letters, which would have shown us by what chains of reasoning her elina's We can only infer that her progress was rapid after the public rebuke which caused her to turn her back on Philadelphia, and that her sister's brave and isolated position, appealing strongly to her affection, urged her to make a closer examination of the subject of abolitionism than she had yet done The result we know; her entire conversion in a feeeks to Angelina's views And from that time she travelled close by her sister's side in this as well as in other questions of reforelina's clearer intuitions and cal her right of leadershi+p
The last of August, 1836, the sisters were onceaccepted Mrs Parker's invitation to coe inclination to go to New England, and undertake there the same hich the committee in New York wished her to perforht that she expected to do so Feeling also that Friends had the first right to her time and labors, and that, if permitted, she would prefer to ithin the Society, she wrote to her old acquaintances, E and L Capron, the cotton e, Massachusetts, to consult them on the subject She :--
”My present feelings lead me to labor with Friends on the manufacture and use of the products of slave-labor They excuse thele in the general excitement, and so on Now, here is a field of labor in which they need have nothing to do with other societies, and yet will be striking a heavy blow at slavery These topics the Anti-Slavery Society has never acted upon as a body, and therefore no agent of theirs could consistently labor on them I stated to E and L Capron just how I felt, and asked whether I could be of any use a them, whether they were prepared to have the s discussed on Christian principles I have no doubtthere, but, Jane, I have realized very sensibly of late that I belong not to them, but to Christ Jesus, and that I must follow the Lamb whithersoever He leadeth I feel as if I was about to sacrifice every friend I thought I had, but I still believe with TD
Weld, that this is 'a cause worth dying for'”
This is the first mention we find of her future husband, whom she had not yet seen, but whose eloquent addresses she had read, and whose ill-treatment by Western mobs had nation
The senior member of the firm to which she had written answered her letter in person, and, she says, utterly discouraged her He said that if she should go into New England with the avowed intention of laboring a Friends on the subject of slavery in _any_ way, her path would be completely closed, and she would find herself entirely helpless He even went so far as to say that he believed there were Friends ould destroy her character if she atteo to his house for the winter, and e for the Anti-Slavery Society, and doing anything else she could incidentally But this plan did not suit her She felt it right to offer her services to Friends first, and was glad she had done so; but if they would not accept them she must take them elsewhere
Besides, when she communicated her plan to Catherine Morris, Catherine objected to it very decidedly, and said she _could not_ go without a certificate and a corant her
”Under all these circuelina writes, ”I felt a little like the apostle Paul, who having first offered the Jews the gospel, and finding they would not receive it, believed it right for hi so absurd as what Catherine says about the certificate and a companion? I cannot feel bound by such unreasonable restrictions if my Heavenly Father opens a door for me, and I do not mean to sub would grant ht to bon thus to the authority of ain to suffer myself to be tra to resign his or her conscience and free agency to any society or individual, if such usurpation can be resisted by moral power The course our Society is now deter which opposes the peculiar views of Friends, seems to me just like the powerful effort of the Jews to close the lips of Jesus They are afraid that the Society will be completely broken up if they allow any difference of opinion to pass unrebuked, and they are resolved to put down all who question in any way the doctrines of Barclay, the soundness of Fox, or the practices which are built on the e shall see who is for Christ, and who for Fox and Barclay, the Paul and Apollos of our Society”
Her plan of going to New England frustrated, Angelina hesitated no longer about accepting the invitation fro discussion of the subject with Sarah, who found it hard to resign her sister to a work she as yet did not cordially approve She begged her not to decide suddenly, and pointed out all sorts of difficulties--the great responsibility she would assu fro areater by her Quaker costume and speech, and lastly, of the al to any audience; and she asked her if, under all these e circumstances, added to her inexperience of the world, she did not feel that she would ultiive up what now seeelina only answered that the responsibility seemed thrust upon her, that the call was God's call, and she could not refuse to answer it
Sarah then told her that if she should go upon this s,” it would be regarded as a violation of the established usages of the Society, and it would feel obliged to disown her Angelina's answer to this ended the discussion
She declared that as her o, she could not ask leave of her Society--that it would grieve her to have to leave it, and it would be unpleasant to be disowned, but she had no alternative Then Sarah, whose loving heart had, during the long talk, beennearer and nearer to that of her clear child, surprised her by speaking in the beautiful, tender language of Ruth: ”If thou indeed feelest thus, and I cannot doubt it, then o; thy God shall be my God, thy people my people What thou doest, I will, to ether, ill go and work together”
And thus fully united, heart and soul andto infor the to receive any She also told them that her sister would accompany her and co-operate with her, and they would both bear their own expense
After this time, the sisters found themselves in frequent and intimate association with the men who, as officers of the American Anti-Slavery Society, had the direction of the movement The marked superiority of their new friends in education, experience, culture, piety, liberality of view, statesy in action, to the Philadelphia Quakers and Charleston slave-holders,with a common purpose, these men were of varied accomplishments and qualities William Jay and Jaal practice and public life; Arthur Tappan, Lewis Tappan, John Rankin, and Duncan Dunbar, were successful e practice; Theodore D Weld, Henry B Stanton, Alvan Stewart, and Gerrit Sht, and William Goodell were ready writers and able editors; Beriah Green and Amos A Phelps were pulpit speakers and authors, and John G
Whittier was a poet Some of them had national reputations Those who in Decees of publishi+ng incendiary docuainst the Society by President Jackson, had signed nalish than his e Several of them had been officers of the Ay had been phenomenal: they had raised funds, sent lecturers into nearly every county in the free States, and circulated in a single year azines, and books Their ment, and piety had been seen and known of all men Faithful in the exposure of unfaithfulness to freedoymen, they denounced neither the Constitution nor the Bible Their devotion to the cause of abolition was pure; for its sake they suppressed the vanity of personal notoriety and of oratorical display Aht to make a name as a leader, speaker, or writer; not one as jealous of the reputation of co-adjutors; not one who rewarded adherents with flattery and hurled invectives at dissentients; not one to whom personal flattery was acceptable or personal prootism, self-inflation or bombast Such was their honest aversion to personal publicity, it is now almost impossible to trace the work each did Souments for Freedolorious claiinal authorshi+p of ideas But never in the history of reform ork better done than the old American Anti-Slavery Society did from its formation in 1833 to its disruption in 1840 In less than seven years it regained for Freedoround lost under the open assaults and secret plottings, beginning in 1829, of the Jackson administration, and in the panic caused by the Southampton insurrection; blew into flame the embers of the national anti-slavery sentiment; painted slavery as it was; vindicated the anti-slavery character of the Constitution and the Bible; defended the right of petition; laid bare the causes of the Sens of the slave power for supreitiovernment,” secession, and anti-constitution heresies In short, it planted the seed which flowered and fruited in a political party, around which the nation was to gather for defence against the aggressions of the slave power
At the anti-slavery office in New York, Angelina and Sarah learned, much to their satisfaction, that the work that would probably be required of Angelina could be done in a private capacity; that it was proposed to organize, the next month (November), a National Feents would be needed, and they couldabout, distributing tracts, and talking to women in their own ho to her friend Jane Selina says:--
”I am certain of the disapproval of nearly all my friends As to dear Catherine, I aain I wrote to her all about it, for I wanted her to knohatless than the loss of her friendshi+p and of my membershi+p in the Society The latter will be a far less trial than the former I cannot describe to thee how ard the change in her feelings as any other than as a strong evidence that my Heavenly Father has calledtried then and confirm it by her approbation”
In a postscript to this letter, Sarah says:--