XX.

The Question of Disunion — The Declaration of 1833 - The American Idol-The "Covenant with Death," and the "Agreement with Hell" — Dr. Channing's Opinion-"No Union with Slaveholders"- The Demoralizing Influence of the Constitution-The Claim that it was Anti-Slavery - John Quincy Adams's Opinion -Judge Jay in Favor of Disunion - Need of a Sound Ethical Basis Political Effects of the Agitation The Rebellion Changes the Issue - Mr. Garrison Vindicated.

As early as 1843, Mr. Garrison began to discuss in "The Liberator" the question whether it was not the duty of the people of the free States, on account of the inherent wickedness of those provisions of the Constitution which related to slavery, to dissolve their political relations with the South. It was a startling proposition, from which many Abolitionists while acknowledging the strength of the arguments urged in its behalf, shrank back appalled. It seems strange now that Mr. Garrison's mind did not sooner arrive at this point, and that for so long a time the Abolitionists habitually claimed that their movement had a tendency to preserve the Union. Turning to the Declaration of Sentiments our Magna Charta — adopted in 1833, I find this passage:

"They [the people of the free States] are now living under a pledge of their tremendous physical force, to fasten the galling fetters of tyranny upon the limbs of millions in the Southern States; they are liable to be called at any moment to suppress a general insurrection of the slaves; they authorize the slave-owner to vote for three-fifths of his slaves as property, and thus enable him to perpetuate his

oppression; and they seize the slave, who has escaped into their territories, and send him back to be tortured by an enraged master or a brutal driver. This relation to slavery is criminal, and full of danger: IT MUST BE BROKEN UP.”

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That Mr. Garrison could write this passage with care and deliberation, and read it many times in the course of ten years, without being aware that it was a specific argument for disunion, only shows how near even a clear-headed man can sometimes come to a new thought without quite discovering it. If the relation of the people of the free States to slavery, as defined in the provisions of the Constitution, was criminal and full of danger," how could it be innocently tolerated for an hour? And how could it "be broken up," without at the same time breaking the bonds of the Union? The Constitution could not be changed without the consent of the slave States, or a considerable portion of them; and certainly that consent was not likely to be given. And yet, it is to be presumed that, for ten years, Mr. Garrison regarded this striking paragraph from his own pen only as defining an obligation resting upon the people of the free States to remove slavery by moral and political action, as prescribed in the Constitution of the United States." And it would seem that the Abolitionists, as a body, cherished the conviction that the measures sanctioned by the Constitution were adequate to the complete overthrow of the slave system; although from the beginning they confessed that, under the present national compact, Congress has no right to interfere with any of the States, in relation to this momentous subject." However this apparent blindness may be explained, it now passed away from the mind of Mr. Garrison, who thenceforth saw clearly that the obligations imposed by the Constitution upon the people of the non-slaveholding States in relation to slavery were immoral in their nature, and therefore not to be inno

cently acknowledged by them, on any plea of interest or necessity, for a single day. Of course, when this became clear to his mind, he did not lack courage to declare the truth. No man knew better than he that the Union was the idol of the American people, and worshipped by them as the source of every national blessing, the glory of the past and the present, and the foundation of every hope for the future. The Jewish nation hardly had a deeper reverence for the ark, which they supposed to be the very dwelling-place of Jehovah, than the people of the United States had for thir matiana' compact; and when Mr. Garrison, finding in the words of the prophet Isaiah a phrase happily suited to his purpose, denounced it as a ovenant with death" and an agreement with hell”

xxviii. 18), they lifted up their hands as if they had rd the most awful blasphemy. Even the religious ess chose to seem unaware that the words were borowed from Scripture, and went on prating of Mr. Garrison's "harsh and vituperative language!" If any one imagines that the Hebrew prophet had any more provocation for the use of such words than Mr. Garrison had, he is advised to study the record. If the Jews acknowledged any covenant more deadly, or any agreement more characteristic of hell than that, by which the Northern people bound themselves in respect to slavery in the National Constitution, the Bye of no commentator upon the Scriptures has ever poirated it out. Mr. Garrison found his models of style in dealing with popular systems of iniquity in the Jewish prophets, and in Jesus and his Apostles; which counts at once for his "hard language" and his great power as a reformer. Dr. Channing, though he did not follow Isaiah so closely as Mr. Garrison did, ye saw clearly the character of the national compact. "The free States," he said, "are guardians and essential supports of slavery. We are the jailers and con

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stables of the institution. . . . On this subject our fathers, in framing the Constitution, swerved from the right. We, their children, at the end of half a century, see the path of duty more clearly than they, and must walk in it. No blessings of the Union can be a compensation for taking part in the enslaving of our fellow-creatures. And to this conviction they must speedily come, or the power of self-recovery will be lost forever, and their damnation made sure." If Dr. Channing had not died so soon after writing these words, perhaps he and Mr. Garrison would have struck hands in the effort to induce the people of the free States to repudiate the unrighteous promises made by the fathers, and refuse to be the jailers and constables of the slave system. Who knows?

Mr. Garrison, as soon as the truth became clear to his own mind, set himself to the task of bringing his associates up to the same high ground, and to the exhibition of the same courage that he had himself displayed. There must be no faltering at such a crisis; the truth must be proclaimed, whether men would hear or forbear. The right, and the right alone, was his pole-star, to be followed in every emergency and at every hazard. Henceforth it must be his chief business to convict the Northern people of sin in consenting to be "the guardians and essential supports" of slavery, and to bring them to a heartfelt and speedy repentance. Their dangerous and criminal relation to the slave system must soon "be broken up," or, in the words of Channing, "the power of selfrecovery would be lost forever." There were, there could be, no questions of expediency worth a moment's consideration, or that could offer any excuse for delay. He began with the Massachusetts Society in January, 1844; but even that body was not then quite ready to follow his lead. He brought the subject before the American Society in May, and, after a long and very

exciting discussion, that society, by a vote of 59 to 21, put itself squarely on the ground of disunion. The New England Convention followed, two weeks later, voting the same way, 250 to 24. Then the whole Garrisonian phalanx swung solidly round to the same position, and the movement thenceforth carried aloft the banner, "No Union with Slaveholders."

Not for a moment did Mr. Garrison stop to consider what would be the consequences, near or remote, of taking this ground. Whether a multitude would rally around him, or half his old friends turn sorrowfully away, he could not, nor did he even seek to know. He saw the truth, and instantly obeyed its voice, sure, if he considered the matter at all, that the consequences could not be otherwise than good; and the result justified his confidence. If there was no flocking of great numbers to the standard, the moral power of the movement was augmented by being placed upon a sound and consistent ethical basis, where its friends could stand without dodging or wavering, and which made all weapons formed against it harmless. The time had come when it was absolutely necessary to destroy the idolatrous reverence for the Constitution which had so long been the shield and buckler of slavery, and a covert for tricksters and hucksters of every sort. Nothing could more surely promote the demoralization of a people than the "exaltation above all that is called God, or that is worshipped," of a Constitution of government defiled by slavery, and made the chief fortress for its protection. In any point of view, therefore, it was a high service rendered to the people of this country when the antislavery movement assailed this fortress, and showed it to be full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. In the early days of the cause, we used to wonder why Northern members of Congress who were anti-slavery at home found it so hard to keep their footing in