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

Chapter 7: the National Testimonial.—1866.

In February, Mr. Garrison made his second and final visit to Washington, for the sake of spending a few days with his daughter, who had recently become Mrs. Henry⁵ Villard and gone there to reside. He lectured in Philadelphia to a large audience, on his way thither, and spent⁶ ten days at the Capital at a peculiarly exciting time, when⁷ the apostasy of Andrew Johnson to the party which had elected him first became open and pronounced, through his veto of the Freedmen's Bureau Bill, and his disgraceful harangue in denunciation of Congress to a crowd in front of the White House, on Washington's Birthday.⁸

W. L. Garrison to W. P. Garrison.

Washington, Feb. 22, 1866.

⁹ I have come here at a very interesting and opportune period. This is a live Congress, and every day is big with events of national importance. I have heard several very radical speeches in the Senate—one by Senator Yates, ‘flat-footed’ in favor of¹⁰ universal (male) suffrage; another by Senator Wade, on his¹¹ proposed amendment of the Constitution, allowing no man to be reflected to the office of President of the United States— a very bold speech in its utterance; and a third, by Senator Trumbull, distinguished for logical power and vigor of¹² treatment, pulverizing the President's veto [of the Freedmen's Bureau Bill], and showing him to have falsified all its provisions and purposes. I have also listened to the reading of a speech by that Kentucky factionist, Garrett Davis, in support of the veto. The Copperhead strength is very weak, in intellect and numbers, in both houses of Congress.

Last evening, I called with Harry at Secretary Stanton's¹³ residence, but he and his wife had gone out to spend the evening.¹⁴

This forenoon, I had a brief interview with General Howard, who is, of course, full of uncertainty as to what is to be the [177] duration or power of the Bureau; but he told me that he had an interview with the President yesterday, who gave him to understand that he should speedily announce, by proclamation, that the war has ended and peace been restored; and that the Bureau would continue until a year from that date, according to the terms of the bill constituting the Bureau. He is not, however, to be depended on, especially as all Rebeldom and Copperdom are so warmly espousing his cause. To-morrow promises to be a very lively day in the Senate, on the subject. Senator Wilson is to introduce another bill, providing for the¹⁵ continuance of the Bureau two years from May next, with enlarged powers; but if it pass, the President will doubtless veto it, as in the former instance.

To-day (22d) Washington is all astir. The day is superb as to the weather—like an April day in Boston—and Pennsylvania Avenue is thronged by all sorts of people. An immense mass of secessionists and Copperheads are holding a meeting at the Theatre, to sustain the recreant President; and I understand he is to address them! I am sure the bottomless pit is equally jubilant.

I have just come, with Franky, from the Capitol, where a most¹⁶ fitting and eloquent eulogium has been bestowed upon the character and services of the late Henry Winter Davis by Senator Creswell of Maryland. The hall of the House was crowded in¹⁷ every part. The Judges of the Supreme Court were present— the leading military men—dignitaries of all kinds—Senators and Representatives, etc. I got in after the oration began, and was standing back near the door, when Speaker Colfax got¹⁸ his eye upon me, and instantly sent a messenger to conduct me to a seat near to Secretary Stanton, Judge Chase, and¹⁹ other notables. After the services, I spoke to Stanton, who²⁰ expressed great regret that he was not at home last evening, and said he would not be absent again if I would call.²¹ I was introduced to a large number of Senators, Representatives, and persons from various parts of the country, and warmly received.

To-morrow evening I am to lecture in the Union League Hall. . . . On Sunday evening I expect to address the colored people in one of their churches.

The Union League Hall was a small room holding but four hundred persons, but it was the only one that could be obtained for Mr. Garrison's lecture, all other halls and churches (including the Unitarian) being refused to the gentleman who had invited him to speak in Washington.²² The Odd Fellows' Hall was first engaged, but the proprietors, on learning the name of the lecturer, demanded a bond that no colored person should be admitted, which was of course refused.

It was a larger and more enthusiastic assemblage which Mr. Garrison addressed in the Rev. Henry Highland Garnet's church, the following Sunday evening, and he²³ received a fervent welcome from his colored friends. On both occasions he expressed himself with emphasis concerning the President's veto and speech; and, on his way northward, he lectured to a great audience at the Academy of Music in Brooklyn, declaring that the language²⁴ in which Andrew Johnson had assailed Congress, in his speech at the White House, was in itself a sufficient ground for his impeachment and removal from office. This proposition he urged further in an article in the N. Y. Independent, the last but one that he was able to²⁵ write that year, and in a lecture which he delivered in Auburn, Syracuse, and elsewhere.²⁶

In the month of January he had experienced a severe fall in Boston, as he was on his way to spend the evening at the house of James T. Fields, with Mrs. Stowe,²⁷ Governor Andrew, and other friends, and struck the icy pavement with such violence that his right hand and shoulder were badly bruised, and his arm almost paralyzed for a time. He had hardly recovered from the effects of it when he had the misfortune to fall a second time, as he was hurrying to a train, and again struck²⁸ heavily on his right arm and shoulder. This accident caused him many months of suffering, and effectually disabled him from any literary or other work for the rest of the year. It supplied, too, a sufficient reason for his not attempting a task to which he was strongly urged by [179] his friends, namely, the preparation of a History of the Anti-Slavery Movement in the United States. While he was at work on the last number of the Liberator, he had²⁹ received an earnest request to undertake such a work, from the publishing firm of Ticknor & Fields, who³⁰ subsequently made a very liberal proposition to that end. Mr. Garrison provisionally accepted it, but he had many³¹ doubts and misgivings on the subject, and, after two years of alternating resolution and hesitation, he abandoned the idea. The only overt step he took towards it was the hiring of an office in the city, to which the files of³² the Liberator were taken for his examination and review; but the days and weeks he had proposed to devote to them were spent in writing letters and clipping the current newspapers, and the first line of the History was never written. ‘Be merciful!’ he wrote to one of his children, who was³³ impatient to have him begin the work. ‘It is a matter requiring the gravest deliberation before I actually commit myself one way or another. I confess, I do not feel competent to the mighty task, and fear I shall make a failure of it, if I try.’ Nearly two years later, in writing to Samuel J. May, in commendation of the “ Recollections of the Anti-Slavery Conflict” which the latter was then publishing serially in the Boston Christian Register, he thus expressed himself:

I am now thinking seriously of devoting the next year, if³⁴ spared, to writing a History of the Anti-Slavery Struggle, and shall feel grateful for any aid you can render me. Unfortunately, my memory of persons and events grows more and more like a sieve; and a good memory is a most important auxiliary in such a connection. How to shape the work will be puzzling —the subject is so vast, the actors so many, the incidents so multitudinous. You lovingly fear I shall not do justice to myself. Certainly, how to dispose of myself, without seeming to be egotistical by personal references on the one hand, or affectedly modest by omitting them on the other, will be a difficult and delicate task. But I shall try to avoid extremes, and to write with all possible simplicity and directness. It is of very little consequence in regard to any record of ourselves. Time [180] makes mockery of fame. Enough that the Right has triumphed, that Slavery is overthrown, and that God is glorified.

During the spring and summer months of 1866, Mr. Garrison tried various treatments and remedies for his torturing pains, but time alone brought him relief or cure. Whist became a favorite diversion to him, and he spent many an evening playing the game with his children and with George Thompson, who had now become a neighbor in Roxbury and was almost daily interchanging calls with his old comrade. More than ever Mr. Garrison devoted himself to his wife, who, though sadly crippled, found much solace in reading and in correspondence with her absent children. The domestic event of the year was the birth³⁵ at Rockledge of their first grandchild, whose advent gave³⁶ them unspeakable delight, and whom Mr. Garrison never wearied of carrying in his arms, lulling to sleep, or entertaining with song or piano.

He refused to sign a petition, presented by George Shea of New York, for Jefferson Davis's release from Fortress Monroe, and had no disposition to join Gerrit Smith and Horace Greeley in that movement. Always opposed to capital punishment, he declared that if Davis, with his colossal guilt, escaped the gallows, hanging ought certainly to be forever abolished. The election, in the fall of 1866, of a former compositor on the Liberator as the first³⁷ colored member of the Massachusetts Legislature afforded him great satisfaction.

Deprived of his income from the Liberator, prevented by his injuries from writing or lecturing, his wife permanently crippled, and his children not yet in a position to relieve him of pecuniary care, Mr. Garrison naturally contemplated his rapidly melting resources with much anxiety, unaware that a movement was already on foot to relieve him from all future concern on that score, and to make him comfortably independent for the remainder of his days. Near the end of March, a number of³⁸ gentlemen met at the house of Dr. Henry I. Bowditch, and formed themselves into a Committee for the purpose of [181] raising a national testimonial to Mr. Garrison, in grateful and honorable recognition of his part in bringing about the great consummation of universal freedom and homogeneous institutions in the United States. Ex-Governor Andrew accepted the chairmanship with great³⁹ heartiness, and wrote the Address to the Public, to which a national character was unmistakably given by the approving signatures—gladly appended in every case— of the Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, and Chief Justice of Massachusetts, the State's Senators and Representatives in Congress, Senators and Representatives from sixteen other States (including Missouri), the Chief Justice of the United States, the President of the Senate, the eminent⁴⁰ poets and litterateurs of the country, and leading citizens⁴¹ of New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Chicago. The press also cordially endorsed the movement, which was so quietly initiated that Mr. Garrison knew nothing of it for several weeks, and was taken utterly by surprise when it was announced to him. The following is a transcript of the circular to the Public:

National Testimonial to William Lloyd Garrison.

The accomplishment of the Great Work of Emancipation in the United States directs our minds to the duty of some fit public recognition of the man who must in all future time be regarded as its visible leader.

William Lloyd Garrison, then in the twenty-sixth year of his age, established the Liberator newspaper in 1831, and thenceforward devoted his abilities and his career to the promotion of ‘immediate and unconditional emancipation.’ After the lapse of thirty-five years of the most exacting labor, of controversy, peril, and misconception, he has been permitted to see the object gained to which he, at first almost alone, consecrated his life. The generation which immediately preceded ours regarded him only as a wild enthusiast, a fanatic, or a public enemy. The present generation sees in him the bold and honest reformer, the man of original, self-poised, heroic will, inspired by a vision of universal justice made actual in the practice of nations; who, daring to attack without reserve the worst and [182] most powerful oppression of his country and his time, has outlived the Giant Wrong he assailed, and has triumphed over the sophistries by which it was maintained.

In this difficult and perilous work, his labors have been so exclusively directed to the single aim of the overthrow of American Slavery, and so absorbing and severe, that, with abilities capable of winning fortune as well as reputation, he is now, in respect to worldly honors and emoluments, as he was at the commencement of his career.

We ask simply to arrest the attention of the American people to the obligations they owe to this American.

Although he contended for the rights of human nature—and thus, in a degree, made mankind his constituency—yet here was the field of his enterprise, and ours was the land to be immediately redeemed.

He was the advocate of no private interest, he was the representative of no sect or party; with no hope of worldly profit to be reaped from the measures and the principles he urged, he was the conspicuous, the acknowledged, the prophetic leader of the movement in behalf of the American Slave—now consummated by the Edict of Universal Emancipation.

It cannot mar the dignity of his position as a man of honest intellectual and moral independence, to receive a substantial testimonial of the good — will and grateful respect of his friends and countrymen; nor can it be more than an honorable recognition on the part of the uncounted multitudes, of all parties and sections, who must confess themselves to have become his debtors, to give to him such a testimonial, and to make it substantial.

We, the undersigned, do therefore invite all people who rejoice in the destruction of Slavery, in the reestablishment of the Union on the basis of Universal Freedom, who appreciate his past service in the cause of Liberty, and the dignity and judgment with which he has accepted and interpreted the more recent events of public history, to unite with us in presenting a national testimonial of not less than Fifty Thousand Dollars to our fellow-countryman—William Lloyd Garrison.⁴²

April 25, 1866.

Mr. Garrison often said that he prized this document, with its signatures, more than all the pecuniary results that might follow from it. As to these he was never sanguine, having seen many an ambitious attempt to reward public benefactors or commemorate popular heroes fail miserably, and knowing well that the career of even a successful reformer does not appeal to the popular fancy like that of a victorious general or an idolized political leader. And in truth, with all its weight of names, the Garrison Testimonial owed its success in a very large measure to the untiring devotion of the Secretary and Assistant Treasurer, Rev. Samuel May, Jr., to the practical work of securing subscriptions.⁴³ For two years, under many disadvantages, he gave himself unremittingly to the task, until, in the spring of 1868, the result was announced to Mr. Garrison in the following letter:

The Testimonial Committee to W. L. Garrison.

Boston, March 10, 1868.

⁴⁴ dear Sir: The undersigned, a committee appointed to obtain for you a national testimonial in acknowledgment of your preeminent services in forwarding the abolition of American slavery, having brought our labors nearly to a close, think the time has arrived to present you with a statement of the result. We have received in all, after deducting every necessary expense, thirty-one thousand dollars, which we are happy now [184] to place in your hands; and this sum we have reason to believe will be increased one or two thousand dollars more from sources where we know a subscription has been undertaken, but is not yet finished.

The testimonial is in every sense national. Contributions to it have come from every quarter of the country, from all classes, the rich and the poor, the educated and the unlearned, from persons of both sexes, of every religious and political opinion, and of every race. The sums we have received have been given always cheerfully, often joyfully, the donors declaring it a privilege and an honor to share in the offering. Distinguished philanthropists of other countries have also, unsolicited, added their offerings to this testimonial fund.

It gives us the highest gratification to present this national tribute to you as the leader and inspirer of the movement against American slavery, which has resulted in one of the greatest moral triumphs the world has ever witnessed. Having devoted yourself from early manhood wholly to the cause of human freedom, regardless of all personal dangers and sacrifices, you have now the joy of living in a country of which all the inhabitants are free. Whatever trials and sufferings may await the race for which you have labored, they can never again be reduced to slavery.

Our pleasure on this occasion is saddened only by the recollection that our chairman, the late Governor Andrew, who entered into the plan of the committee with all the energy of his sympathetic nature, using both his tongue and pen to promote it, cannot place his name with ours here. No one would have rejoiced more than he in the accomplishment of this effort.

We trust, Mr. Garrison, the offering we present will cheer you and Mrs. Garrison during the remainder of your lives, be they longer or shorter, not merely by the material resources which it brings, but by the precious recollection that it is the gift of a grateful generation of your countrymen and friends. May you long be spared, a living example, to your country and the world.

Your friends,

Samuel E. Sewall, J. Ingersoll Bowditch, William E. Coffin, William Endicott, Jr., Samuel May, Jr., Edmund Quincy, Thomas Russell, Robert C. Waterston.

[185]

W. L. Garrison to the Testimonial Committee.

Boston, March 12, 1868.

respected friends: In replying to your very kind letter of the 10th instant, transferring to my hands the truly generous sum obtained by you as a national testimonial, in recognition of my labors in the anti-slavery cause through a long and perilous struggle, I shall try in vain to find words adequately to express my feelings. I can only tender to you my heartfelt thanks for this signal proof of your personal esteem and good-will. I am so constituted as not to fear the frowns of men, when conscious of being in the right; yet no one should desire more strongly than I have always done to secure the regards of the wise, the good, and the true, next to the approval of my own conscience as unto God. All controversy, where no principle is involved, no right to be vindicated, no wrong to be redressed, is utterly distasteful to my temperament. If, therefore, for a long series of years, I was ‘a disturber of the peace’ and ‘a troubler of Israel,’ it was not of my choice or seeking; but necessity was laid upon me so to act, by the heinous wrongfulness of chattel slavery, by the Christian obligation to remember those in bonds as bound with them, by the irresistible claims of outraged human nature, and by a more than patriotic interest in the welfare of my native land. Little indeed did I know or anticipate how prolonged or how virulent would be the struggle, when I lifted up the standard of immediate emancipation, and essayed to rouse the nation to a sense of its guilt and danger. But, having put my hand to the plow, how could I look back? For, in a cause so righteous, I could not doubt that, having turned the furrows, if I sowed in tears I should one day reap in joy. But, whether permitted to live to witness the abolition of slavery or not, I felt assured that, as I demanded nothing that was not clearly in accordance with justice and humanity, some time or other, if remembered at all, I should stand vindicated in the eyes of my countrymen. In the very first number of the Liberator I said:

It is pretended, that I am retarding the cause of emancipation by the coarseness of my invective and the precipitancy of my measures. The charge is not true. On this question my influence, humble as it is, is felt at this moment to a considerable extent, and shall be felt in coming years, not perniciously but beneficially—not as a curse but as a blessing; and posterity will bear testimony that I was right. Ante, 1.225.

Happily, I have not had to wait for posterity for my vindication—a generous and complete vindication. But, by the [186] mighty power of a wonder-working Providence, I have been permitted to see the gory system of slavery annihilated, and its four millions of captives set free. My reproach has been turned into commendation, and my shame into honor. In approval of this testimonial, I see the honored name of Chief Justice Chase, of the U. S. Supreme Court, himself an early and fearless champion in the same good cause—that of the Hon. James Speed of Kentucky, late Attorney-General of the United States—the names of Senators and Representatives in Congress from Maine to Oregon—the names of the Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, and Chief Justice of Massachusetts—the names of eminent merchants, lawyers, collegiate professors, poets, philanthropists, editors, etc., etc. In view of a list so broadly representative, and distinguished for such intellectual, moral, and political weight—added to this the list of approving contributors to the fund—I feel the profoundest humility mingled with the deepest gratitude. Some of these I have never seen, and probably shall never see in the flesh; but I wish to thank each one of them as in his immediate presence. Among the contributors abroad are the honored names of John Bright, John Stuart Mill, William E. Forster, Thomas B. Potter, Samuel Morley, John Cropper, and Arthur Albright. The moral verdict rendered by such an array is prized by me incomparably above all the gold and silver ever coined. While it has particular reference to my career, for the reasons set forth in the appeal, it also means much more than this—namely, the vindication of the anti-slavery movement as such, and of all who have faithfully labored to secure its triumph. Its design, therefore, is neither pecuniary reward nor personal exaltation; but is vitalized and made all-embracing by the sublime historical event to which it relates.

Having never sought the applause of my fellow-men, nor asked any favors at their hands, nor claimed to be more than others in labors and sacrifices in the cause of the oppressed, I trust no one will be found so unjust as to impute to me a wish to have any of my co-laborers thrown into the shade. Long before I took up the advocacy of the rights of man, without regard to race or complexion, many had done the same, in their way and according to the light given them. Liberty has never been without her witnesses on earth. The Declaration of Independence contains, in its ‘self-evident truths,’ all the abolitionism I have ever enunciated. So does the Golden Rule. Certainly I have never sought to put myself up, nor any fellowworker [187] down. As to where I have stood and what I have done, by the help of God, for the extinction of slavery in this land, the fury of the oppressor in the past is a more sure certificate than any that can now be given me by the friends of freedom. Yet, without co-workers from the greatest to the least, and in every position in society, my labors had been almost in vain, and peradventure the year of jubilee indefinitely postponed.

Of this testimonial I may be permitted to say, that none was ever more unsought or more unexpected; none more spontaneous or more honorable was ever proffered. Under the guise of self-abnegation, I might decline it; but I have labored in vain if I have now to prove my disinterestedness by refusing to accept this mark ‘of the good — will and grateful respect of friends and countrymen.’ He who insists upon always giving, but never receiving, may possibly discover that he is actuated by a false pride and a selfish exclusiveness. Perceiving the spirit and object which have prompted this testimonial, and the complete justification of a once hated but now gloriously triumphant cause embodied in it, I accept it in no dependent sense, nor as a pecuniary reward for any sacrifices made or labors performed, but with becoming self-respect, and with untrammelled freedom of thought, speech, and action. I accept it, moreover, not as relating to any other question than that of slavery, not as an approval of all my methods of action or modes of expression (for some of these I should be quite sure to alter on a critical revision, now that the heat and smoke of the conflict are ended), but exactly for what it is intended to sanction and commend, to wit—the cause of universal freedom, and an unswerving advocacy of that cause, at whatever cost or peril. By the abolition of slavery, notwithstanding the pangs and dangers of our present transitional state, we may ultimately hope for all crowning mercies upon our beloved country. For brass there shall be brought forth gold, and for iron silver, and for wood brass, and for stones iron. Every man shall sit under his own vine, and there shall be none to molest or make afraid.

My pleasure, gentlemen of the committee, is saddened in this connection, as well as your own, in view of the sudden demise of your lamented chairman, ex-Governor Andrew, who honored me with his friendship and confidence when friends and supporters were ‘few and far between,’ and who took a more than friendly interest in the inception and completion of this testimonial, himself writing the appeal to the people, and exerting his influence to get it responded to, to the full extent therein [188] designated. Were he now living, no one would take more pleasure in the result than himself. His loss is a national bereavement. For, since the tragical death of President Lincoln, what public man has been so widely lamented as himself? So gentle, yet so forcible! so conciliating, yet so outspoken! so modest, yet so intrepid! so yielding where no sense of duty was involved, yet so inflexible in the maintenance of his principles! so full of ‘the milk of human kindness,’ yet so like a flame of fire against injustice! so thoroughly domestic in his affections and habits, yet so ready at all times to be sacrificed in the service of his country!—among the most manly of men, the most upright of statesmen, and the best of patriots! What he did as Governor of the Commonwealth, during the late slave-holding rebellion, both for the State which he represented and the nation whose liberties he upheld, is it not a signal part of the history of the times, to be admiringly rehearsed by a grateful posterity? In him the hunted fugitive slave always found an advocate ready to interpose all his legal ability and forensic eloquence to shield him from the terrible fate of rendition; for the millions in bondage he cherished the deepest sympathy; and the entire colored population of the republic should ever cherish his memory with grateful emotions.

Again warmly thanking you as a committee, and all who have in any manner participated in procuring this testimonial, I remain, with the highest personal regard,

Yours, for a free country and a free world,

Wm. Lloyd Garrison.

The English contributions alluded to by Mr. Garrison aggregated nearly three hundred pounds, and some of these were transmitted through James Russell Lowell, who made it the occasion for writing the following note:

J. R. Lowell to W. L. Garrison.

Elmwood, 29th Dec., 1866.

⁴⁵ my dear Sir: In sending me some subscriptions by friends in England towards the ‘Garrison Testimonial,’ Mr. Thomas C. Ryley copies a passage from the letter of Mr. Bright,⁴⁶ enclosing a £ 5 contribution. As I am sure the extract must give pleasure to you and yours, I recopy it:

‘It is true I have ten times more applications for subscriptions than I can comply with, but I gladly send you £ 5 towards [189] the Garrison fund. I know no nobler man than Wm. Lloyd Garrison, and no man more rejoices that he has lived to see the great day of freedom than I do. I hope he will believe that our small contributions to the fund but faintly express the esteem and affection which his English friends feel towards him.’

Allow me, my dear sir, to add my own hearty sympathy with Mr. Bright's words, and to say that nothing could have been more in keeping with the uniform wisdom of your anti-slavery leadership than the time you chose for resigning it.

With great respect,

Very truly yours,

J. R. Lowell.