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CHAPTER XLIV.

FURTHER DIFFICULTIES IN THE AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY.

Natural working of the new theories concerning Church and State-N. P. RogersHis inflexible adherence to his theory-The Collision.

THE particulars that follow may illustrate the effects of excessive exclusiveness among reformers. They may also throw light on that phase of attempted reformation that seems to look in the direction of displacing all organized control in human society.

Some of the leading minds in the American Anti-Slavery Society, after the division of 1840, were understood to repudiate the ideas commonly expressed by the term "Church," and the term "State," as regularly constituted organizations. It seemed to many, however, that their cherished organizations, the Non-Resistant Society and the Anti-Slavery Society, together or separate, constituted, to them, both a Church and a State, the union of Church and State being of the most intimate kind, amounting to identity; the discipline and polity being of the most rigorous and stringent character-the anathema tremendous-the infliction precipitate and unsparing. The absence of any other Church or any other State, would naturally tend to concentrate and vitalize, at this central point, whatever of the governing propensity in human nature (if there be any) that remained in them. This was believed to be the case.

If it were so, the fact would be likely to develop itself among the subjects of this government. Attracted within its

jurisdiction by perhaps an excessive dread of subordination, they would be likely to feel it the more keenly, if it should ever happen to be exercised upon themselves. The contingency was not long lingering.

Nathaniel P. Rogers, Esq., of New Hampshire, was a man of genius-of strong mental powers-an original and rapid thinker-a racy and vigorous writer-a non-resistant—and an abolitionist of the Garrison school. For a time he edited the National Anti-Slavery Standard, New York, then again the Herald of Freedom at Concord, N. H. In energy of purpose and weight of talent, he was second to no man among his associates, except Mr. Garrison—perhaps not second to him. He held himself subordinate to no man. There may have been a latent and unconscious rivalry between the two. Together, and with the concurrence perhaps of one other, a lady, the Society was easily managed. Pitted against each other, Greek against Greek, there must be schism.

With N. P. Rogers, his phase of abolition and his theory of non-government were no empty abstractions. At least he could not consent to be governed. He had not abjured the Church, to recognize a Bishop, nor the State, to bow before a Throne, or to any power, male or female, behind it. He spurned, as instinctively, and as indignantly, the rules of order observed in Anti-slavery Conventions and annual meetings, as he would those of Senates or Synods. When he spoke, as he often did with great power, he would not confine himself to reported resolutions. In Executive Committees he saw Sanhedrims, in Presidents of Societies, Popes, in recorded minutes, precedents, in Constitutions of voluntary associations, forms of government. These, as a consistent NonResistant and lover of liberty, he abjured. He became "a disorganizer" in the view of some who had been stigmatized as disorganizers themselves. In meetings of the Society, these points became matters of earnest debate. On one occasion of the kind, at Concord, in 1841, we were incidentally a wit ness, while Stephen S. Foster maintained against Rogers the claims of order, organization, and official prerogative.

sans.

The same sentiment forbade that Mr. Rogers should recognize the supervision of his "Herald of Freedom" by the Executive Committee of the New Hampshire Anti-Slavery Society, that claimed it as their organ. "I have to edit the Herald," said he, "and what I have to do, nobody else is to do or direct for me." A dispute arose concerning the control and the proprietorship of the paper. The merits of the case we do not know; but both sides had their warm partiThe controversy was carried to Boston. Mr. Garrison was among those who took sides against Mr. Rogers. The paper went out of his hands, but he started another of the same name, and maintained a controversy while he lived, for his health declined and he died, but not until the breach had extended beyond the boundaries of New England. Whereever there were supporters of the American Anti-Slavery Society in central and western New York, there were found some who sympathized with Rogers. The denunciations of his opponents against him were quite as severe as anything that had ever been fulminated against the "new organization" and the Liberty party. How the breach in the Society was healed-if it be healed-we cannot exactly say, but the penalty of insubordination and "schism," under the administration of the American Anti-Slavery Society, is now well understood. Its governors have evinced their capacity to bear rule.

CHAPTER XLV.

POLITICAL COURSE OF THE AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY SINCE ITS REVOLUTION OF 1844.

The Society not wholly composed of "Non-Resistants"-Position of its politicians— Welcomed as members of the Society-Commonly connected with the old political parties-Consequent standard of their political action, as compared with the Liberty party, or with the motto of "No Union with Slaveholders"-On a level with the mere "Wilmot Proviso" politicians, or the platform of the Free Soil partyTheir reception of the nomination of Mr. Van Buren, in 1848-Charges of apostacy against those Liberty Party men who came into the same measure-Relation of "Non-Resistants" in the Society to this political standard of their associatesTheir policy read in the light of their theory-Facts in confirmation-Embarrassments of political abolitionists in consequence of this opposition.

IT may, perhaps, be inferred, from the features of the revolution of 1844, that the American Anti-Slavery Society was afterwards or is now composed wholly of abolitionists who decline political voting-some on the principles of the NonResistance Society, and some or all on the ground of "no union with slaveholders," and the "pro-slavery Constitution of the United States."

Such a conclusion would be wide of the mark. The society that, on the ground of these features, (so recently acquired,) claims to be and to have been, since 1840, the only true AntiSlavery organization in America, contains political voting members still. How numerous they are, or what proportion of the entire body, we say not, now:-but it contains them. It welcomes them. It chooses to retain them. By its agents it invites the co-operation of such, assuring them that the "anti-slavery platform is as broad as ever-broad enough to

receive those who vote under the Federal Constitution as well as those who decline doing so."*

ers.

And this is not all. It has no rules and it desires none, for excluding those who vote for slavery, and even for slaveholdWe have the authority of Mr. Garrison in his Liberator, for saying this, although he declared, in his Springfield and Worcester Resolutions, in 1840-before cited that such a voter has no title to the name of an abolitionist."

When reminded by a Liberty League correspondent that the American Anti-Slavery Society, as well as other anti-slavery societies, contained pro-slavery voters and members of pro-slavery churches, he denied not the fact, and pleaded that the original Constitution of the Society, which remained unchanged, did not exclude them, but only excluded slavehold

ers.

He went further, and vindicated the policy, even at that late day, maintaining, in substance, that assent to the antislavery principles of the Society was the proper test of membership, and that each member must be left free to judge whether or no he honored his principles in his practice, so long as he did not become a slaveholder. He might vote for slaveholders, and hold religious fellowship with them, and remain in the Society.

In the light of this avowal, the exclusive claims of the American Anti-Slavery Society to purity of membership may be tested. The relation of the Society to politics, since 1844, may also be understood.

"

The Society is not a Society of self-disfranchised non-voters, after all, as the "Covenanters are. While some of its members hold that position, others of them do not. In the matter of membership, it is not a test. To the merits of that posi tion, whatever they may be, the Society, as such, has no valid claim.

Still further, the test of membership in that Society—as in

*This language was lately held, in our hearing, at Rochester, by Mr. S. S. Foster, agent of the Society, who was laboring to persuade an Anti-Slavery Society then organizing, and composed chiefly of political voters, to become auxiliary to the American A. S. Society.

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