of their principles, and consisted in their promulgation and practice.

Among the publications circulated by them, at an early day, were the Dialogue of Dr. Hopkins, and the Sermon of Dr. Jonathan Edwards, before mentioned, together with Wesley's Thoughts on Slavery. The first two, as we have seen, had been circulated long before, by the Anti-Slavery Societies, patronized by Stiles, Jay, and Franklin. The latter had been circulated by Methodist preachers, by direction of the Conferences, as late as the year 1804. But in 1834, the circulation of these writings was proscribed as treasonable, and condemned as insurrectionary. No writings of "modern abolitionists" were more severe against slaveholders than these, as an examination of them will show.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

OPPOSITION TO ABOLITIONISTS.-ITS CAUSES-ITS ELEMENTSITS NATURE AND METHODS.

Why abolitionists were opposed-False reasons assigned for it-Elements of the opposition-Conservatism in the Church-Commercial cupidity-Political rivalry -Scheme of Colonization-Servility of Literary Institutions-Nature and modes of opposition-The religious and political press-Mob violence-Early and remarkable instances-New York, Philadelphia, Worcester (Mass.), Canaan (N. H.), Boston, Utica (N. Y.), New Haven (Conn.), Alton (Ill.)-Murder of LovejoyBurning of Pennsylvania Hall-Three Riots in Cincinnati-Three in Philadelphia-Similar scenes elsewhere-Fomented by "the higher classes of Society""Gentlemen of property and standing"-the Conservative Clergy, and leading influences in the Colonization Society.

WHY were abolitionists opposed? And for what? It was for the agitation of the slave question. It was for the attempted propagation and practice of their principles, and for nothing else,* that abolitionists were violently assailed and vil lified.

It was not because they were "fanatics" or "incendiaries," nor because they insisted upon or recommended "amalgamation," or sought to incite the slaves to insurrection and bloodshed. These charges were only the unfounded aspersions of their enemies.

It was not because they had any of them, at that time, as sailed either the Churches, the Sabbath, the Bible, the Minis try, the Constitution, the Union, or the political parties. They

* It is admitted that many worthy men, including sincere friends of the enslaved, dissented from the distinctive views of abolitionists, and argued against them. Dr. Channing, to some extent, did this, as did many others. But this was no part of the kind of opposition of which we are speaking.

had simply assailed slavery, invoking all the powers of the Church and of the State, with their institutions—all religious sects and all political parties in the country-to join with them, in opposition to slavery. They were mostly themselves supporters of the different religious sects and political parties: and so far from anticipating any separation from them, or controversy with them, they fondly expected to secure their cooperation and assistance. To ministers of the gospel, especially, were their appeals confidingly and respectfully addressed.*

It was not because, in the first instance, they opposed, or thought of opposing, the Colonization Society. Mr. Garrison himself addressed, on invitation, a meeting of the Colonization Society, held in the Park-street Congregational Church in Boston, on the 4th of July, 1829.† The Colonization Society was not opposed by abolitionists until it was found to be the opposer of abolition, and the persecutor of the free people of color.

It was the "agitation of the subject" that was opposed, and not any particular measure or mode of treating it.

ELEMENTS OF THE OPPOSITION.

As the anti-slavery agitation was, primarily, the natural

*The writer accompanied Mr. Garrison, in 1829, in calling upon a number of prominent ministers in Boston, to secure their co-operation in the cause. Our expectations of important assistance from them were, at that time, very sanguine.

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This elaborate and able discourse was published in the National Philanthropist, under the title of "NATIONAL DANGERS," among which the speaker enumerated infidelity"-"the tyranny of government which compels its servants to desecrate the holy Sabbath"-the "desolations of liquid fire”—the abuse of the elective franchise the general exclusion of religious men from office-"the profligacy of the press," which attacks every holy enterprise, (e. g. the missionary cause, &c., which was then villified), and finally, the great abomination of slavery. On this latter topic the speaker dilated at length, and said-" I call on the ambassadors of Christ everywhere, to make known this proclamation, 'Thus saith the Lord God of the Africans, Let this people go, that they may serve me.' I ask them to 'proclaim liberty to the captive, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound.'" "1 call on the churches of the living God TO LEAD in this great ENTERPRISE!"

Had the churches and ministry responded, as they should have done, to this appeal, they would have been spared the trouble of opposing "infidel abolitionism," and the pretext of being repulsed from the anti-slavery enterprise by it.

working of a religious sentiment in the religious community, so the opposition to it was, primarily, the natural working of a counter sentiment in the same religious community. There was not a religious sect that did not experience the shock of the two antagonistic principles contending against each other in the same ecclesiastical communion.

From the times of the Edwardses, there had been a progressive and a conservative party in the Churches; the former aspiring after an enlarged liberty, and the latter seeking to repress it; the former insisting upon the doctrine of immediate and unconditional repentance (as did Hopkins); the latter pleading for indulgences, postponement, gradualism, and temporizing expedients; the former responded promptly to the call for the immediate and unconditional abolition of slavery; the latter had previously intrenched and fortified itself in the fortress of the Colonization Society, and was determined to permit no disturbance of its supremacy and its quietude.

The first collision, therefore, was manifested in the bosom of the principal religious sects at the North, including espe cially the Congregationalists of New England, and the Presbyterians of the Middle States, and speedily followed in the Methodist, Baptist, and other communions. The religious presses of these, particularly of the Congregational sect, in the hands of the conservative party, were the first to traduce, to misrepresent, to villify, and to oppose the abolitionists, representing them as anarchists, Jacobins, villifiers of great and good men who had been slaveholders, (but who had not been directly mentioned by abolitionists*) incendiaries, plot

* The Vermont Chronicle, edited by Rev. Joseph Tracy, early in 1883, represented that the Liberator had called Washington a man-stealer and a robber, now in hell! But this was only the inference of Mr. Tracy from a communication in the Liberator, written by a Presbyterian clergyman of New York (Rev. Geo. Bourne), formerly a resident of Virginia, in which the doctrine of Edwards—and in nearly the same language was affirmed (without any allusion to Washington), that slaveholding was man-stealing, and an act of robbery. Yet the charge went the rounds of the religious papers, was copied at the South, then by the New York City editors, and repeated by the mob who sacked the house, and burnt the furniture of Lewis Tappan

ters of insurrection and disunion, and enemies of the public peace. By these artful and injurious appeals, other than religious elements of opposition were soon roused.

Commercial cupidity in the cities trading with the South, was one of these elements, very early brought into action. Political corruption and rivalry came next in order. Abolitionists were found in both political parties. The leading whig presses first,* and the democratic afterwards, exerted themselves to throw off the imputed contamination, and assure the South that their party was "sound to the core, on the subject of slavery."

All these elements of opposition found their centre, their home and their manifestation, from the beginning, in the Colonization Society, the pet of the conservatists both in the Church and the State. The meetings, the publications, the agents, and the advocates of this Society, were almost uniformly and invariably at the head of every movement and of every disturbance in which the abolitionists were assailed.

Literary Institutions at the North desiring or enjoying Southern patronage, Northern watering-places the resort of Southern visitors, manufacturing establishments and villages of artizans and mechanics vending their fabrics and wares at the South-these were points from which an influence was almost certain to emanate, opposed to all earnest agitation of the subject of slavery.

Over all these elements and posts of opposition, presided the slave interest itself, the power that controlled so extensively both the Church and the State; the mammoth oligarchy of the nation, assimilating and wielding for its own ends, all the minor interests and elements of aristocracy in the land.

in the streets, in July, 1834. Mr. Tracy would not retract the charge. He was afterwards editor of the Boston Recorder, and then of the New York Observer, the two oldest religious papers in the country, and advocates of the Colonization Society.

* This priority of action was perhaps owing to the fact that a greater number of prominent abolitionists were then found in the Whig party than in the Democratic, which latter was in the ascendant, and therefore identified with the pro-slavery action of the Government, and averse to agitation.