Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879; the story of his life told by his children: volume 4

One week later, the forty-third anniversary of the Mob¹ was celebrated by an impromptu gathering of the surviving veterans of the cause, at the rooms of the New² England Women's Club, and, considering the shortness of the notice, a surprising number of them came together. Mr. Garrison, though suffering from a severe cold, spoke for upwards of an hour, recounting the history of the Mob, and reading the confession of its chief instigator, James L. Homer, given in a previous volume. Of the³ eyewitnesses of the affair who were present, Wendell Phillips, James N. Buffum, and A. Bronson Alcott gave their recollections, and the occasion was one of rare interest and pleasure.

The following frank note which Mr. Garrison wrote to Mr. Phillips at the close of this eventful month, had reference to a financial tract which the latter had written, and to his strange support of General Butler as a⁴ candidate for the gubernatorial chair of Massachusetts.

W. L. Garrison to Wendell Phillips.

Roxbury, Oct. 30, 1878.

⁵ my dear Phillips: . . . Thanks for your tract on the money question — a question which I do not profess to have mastered in all its bearings, though I do not deem it a difficult matter to discriminate between that which carries intrinsic value with it, and that which possesses no such value; in other words, between gold and a paper promise which may or may not be redeemed. With me, however, it is a very subordinate question, although it is assumed to be one of paramount importance at the present hour. While the freedmen at the South are, on ‘the Mississippi plan’ and by ‘the shotgun policy,’ ruthlessly deprived of their rights as American citizens, and no protection is extended them by the Federal Government on the ground of impotency, the old anti-slavery issue is still (and must be persistently insisted [on] as constituting) the paramount issue before the country.

I cannot endorse your estimate of Gen. Butler. Indeed, your praise of him is so lavish as to surprise me. He was re-elected with a virtual understanding and expectation that he, of all