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 politiciansWelcomed 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.

Ir 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 slaveholders. 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 position, 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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others-opens the door to those voters who, in Mr. Garrison's view, have no title to the name of abolitionists." How then does he ascertain the claims of the Society to the name of abolitionist, in contrast with the claims of other societies? He need not institute a comparison with the Liberty party, which contains no such voters.

The Society is composed, to an unknown extent, of political voters*—perhaps of pro-slavery voters. In the Society they have an equal right with Mr. Garrison and faithful abolitionists. How then does the motto of "no union with slaveholders" expurgate the Society? Is there no union with slaveholders in a voluntary and fraternal union with those who vote for them?

Being composed, to a certain extent, of political voters, the Society must have a standard of political ethics and action. It has one. How does it compare with the standard of other anti-slavery societies, and with the standard of the Liberty party?

No anti-slavery society that we know of has a lower standard, in this respect, than the American Society. The Liberty party has a much higher one.

Political voters connected with the American Anti-Slavery Society, since 1844, it may be presumed, with possible exceptions, have not voted with the Liberty party. The dread of being branded "apostates," if nothing else, will have restrained them from that.

For whom, then, have they been casting their votes? And what tone of political ethics has been indicated by their voting?

The candidates of the Liberty party, before its incipient absorption into the embroyo Free Soil party, in the autumn of

* It is not known that the number of non-voting Non-Resistants has increased since they were estimated at "one or two hundred in all New England." Some prominent advocates of the doctrine have resumed voting. We know of few who abstain from the polls on account of the "pro-slavery Constitution," but there are some. If political voters do not compose a majority of the supporters of the Society, it must be feebler than we have supposed it to be.