The Abolitionists / Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights, 1830-1864

at various points throughout the West, but they failed to take permanent root and soon disappeared. The failure was not due to any lack of interest, but rather to an excess of zeal

ey gave their energies and resources. In the "long run" they were amply vindicated, b

nted, a society always appealed to the New Englander as the natural instrumentality. There is a tradition that when Boston was

etty large place, but Anti-Slavery people were scarce. The number (doubtless selected because it was Apostolic) assumed to be necessary was twelve. Fifteen people of somewhat similar views were at last brought together. After much discussion nine favored an organization and six opposed it. So far the operation was a failure. B

Boston known as "Nigger Hill." The conference was in the month of December, and the night is thus described by Oliver Johnson, who was one of the twelve: "A fierce northeast storm, combining rain

tepping out into the gloomy night, that Mr. Garrison, who, it is scarcely necessary to say, was one of the twelve, remarked to his associates: "We have met to-night in

ormulation, was certainly a most remarkable document. Its essential proposition was: "We, the undersigned, hold that every person of full age and sound m

onclave that had met in the finest hall in the country, was unquestionably a remarkable and memorable pronouncement. It was for the

reedom to a larger number than were benefited by the other declaration. But what chiefly distinguished it, the time and the situation being considered, was its radical utterance. It gave no countenance to any measure of compromise. It offered no pabulum to the wrongdoer in the form of compensation for stolen humanity. It demanded what was right, and demanded it at

emble. Philadelphia, with its Quaker contingent, offered a more inviting field, and to that city it was decided to go. But serious obstructions here interposed. Representatives appeared from fourteen States, which was highly encouraging, but no prominent Philad

participants not to hold night sessions, as they in that case would not promise protection. The good behavior of Philadelphia on this occasion was noteworthy, but it was too

Its publications, in spite of careful watching of the mails and other precautions adopted by the slaveholders, reached all parts of

nd entertained them-sometimes clandestinely-after a public talk or two, would carry them on to the next stations on their routes, occasionally contributing a few dollars to their purses. It made no particular difference to them whether they spoke in halls, in churches, or in the open air. Before beginning their addresses their usu

way. They gave their audiences hard words, and often received hard knocks in return. They called the slaveholders robbers and man-stealers. They branded Northern politicians with Southern principles as "dough-faces." But their hardest

addened John

hardest word

e window from the outside to see what awaited him in a room where he was to speak, he saw a pot of boiling tar on the stove that heated the room and a pillow-case full of feathers conveniently near, while a half-drunken crowd was in possession of the place, and concluded to run. He, however, had been seen and was pursued. There was a foot race, but as some of the pursuers were better sprinters than Hudson, and he was about to be captured, he dashed into the first house he came to and asked for protec