meeting, the City Marshal replied-" You
give us a great deal of trouble." This
trouble, however, their conciences com-
pelled them to give. They could not de-
meeting and free discussion. But Mrs
Chapman felt that every member should
have notice of what might await her; and
she herself carried the warning from house
to house, with all discretion and quietness.
Among those whom she visited was an
artizan's wife, who was sweeping out one
of her two rooms as Mrs Chapman
entered. On hearing that there was every
probability of violence, and that the warn-
ing was given in order that she might
stay away if she thought proper, she leaned
upon her broom and considered for awhile.
Her answer was-"I have often wished and
asked that I might be able to do something
for the slaves; and it seems to me that this
is the very time and the very way. You
will see me at the meeting, and I will keep
a prayerful mind, as I am about my work,
till then."

soul, in the full exercise of its most god-
like power of self-denial and exertion for
the good of others, is, emphatically, a ve-
ry unladylike thing. We have never heard
this objection but from that sort of wo-cline the duty of asserting their liberty of
man who is dead while she lives, or to be
pitied as the victim of domestic tyranny.
The woman who makes it is generally
one who has struggled from childhood up
to womanhood through a process of spi-
ritual suffocation. Her infancy was pas-
sed in serving as a convenience for the
display of elegant baby-linen. Her youth,
in training for a more public display of
braiding the hair, and wearing of gold,
and putting on of apparel; while the orna-
ment of a meek and quiet spirit,-the hid-
den man of the heart, is not deemed worthy
the attainment. Her summers fly away in
changes of air and water; her winters in
changes of flimsy garments, in inhaling
lamp-smoke, and drinking champagne at
midnight with the most dissipated men in
the community. This is the woman who
tells us it is unladylike to ask that children
may no longer be sold away from their
parents, or wives from their husbands, in
the District of Columbia, and adds, They
ought to be mobbed who ask it.'

how painful is the contemplation of the ruins of a nature a little lower than the angels!"-Right and Wrong in Boston in 1836, P. 27.

public.

Twenty-five reached the place of meeting, by presenting themselves three-quarters of an hour before the time. Five more strug. gled up the stairs, and a hundred were turned back by the mob. It is well known how these ladies were mobbed by some hundreds of gentlemen in fine broad-cloth❞—(Boston "We feel," she elsewhere declares, broad-cloth has become celebrated since that "that we may confidently affirm that no day). It is well known how those gentlemen woman of Massachusetts will cease to hurraed, broke down the partition, and threw exercise for the slaves the right of petition (her only means of manifesting her civil orange-peel at the ladies while they were at existence) for which Mr Adams has so prayer: but Mrs. Chapman's part in the nobly contended. Massachusetts women lessons of that hour has not been made will not forget in their petitions to Heaven the name of him who upheld their prayer for the enslaved of the earth, in the midst of sneers and wrath, bidding oppressors remember that they, too, were womenborn, and declaring that he considered the wives, and mothers, and daughters of his electors, as his constituents. . . . . What immediate effect would be produced on men's hearts, and how much they might be moved to wrath before they were touched with repentance, we have never been careful to inquire. We leave such cares with God; we do so with confidence in his paternal providence; for what we have done is right and womanly."-Right and Wrong in Boston in 1837, p. 84.

To consult on their labours of this and other kinds, the ladies of the Boston AntiSlavery Society intended to meet at their own office, Washington street, on the 21st of October. Handbills had been circulated and posted up in different parts of the city the day before, offering a reward to any persons who would commit certain acts of violence, such as "bringing Thompson to the tar-kettle before dark." The ladies were informed that they would be killed; and when they applied at the Mayor's office for protection to their lawful

She is the Foreign Corresponding Secre tary of the society; and she was in the midst of reading her Report, in a noise too great to allow of her being heard, when the mayor of Boston, Mr. Lyman, entered the room in great trepidation—

"Ladies," said he, "I request you to dis. solve this meeting."

"Mr. Mayor," said Mrs. Chapman, "we desire you to disperse this mob."

"Ladies," the mayor continued, "you must dissolve this meeting; I cannot preserve the peace."

،

"Mr. Mayor," replied Mrs. Chapman, this unlawful mob, and it is your business to we are disturbed in our lawful business by relieve us of it."

"I know it, Mrs. Chapman, I know it;
but I cannot I cannot protect you; and I
entreat you to go."

"If that be the case," answered she, "as
we have accomplished our object, and vindi-
cated our right of meeting, we will, if the
meeting pleases, djourn."
round upon her companions, and proposed
that, to accommodate the authorities, they

She looked

1

should adjourn the meeting. This was agreed | left for these magnanimous gentlemen but to to, and the women passed down the stairs, sneak away. and through the mob, and, as the business of the day was finished, each to her own home. Certain of the fine broad-cloth men observed afterwards that Mrs. Chapman, in the high excitement of the hour, looked more like an angel than a woman who is visible every day. She was not aware that her friend Garrison was in the hands of the mob, and she therefore went home, as she had advised her companions to do, and sat down to her needle. Presently several gentlemen entered without asking admission. She recognized among them some members of Dr. Channing's church whom she was accus tomed to meet at worship Sunday by Sunday. They demanded Mr. Thompson, saying that they had reason to believe he was in that house. They wanted Mr. Thompson.

"I know it," said she; "and I know what you want with Mr. Thompson; you want his blood."

They declared they would not shed his blood; but she held off till they had pledged themselves that under no circumstances should Mr. Thompson receive bodily harm. "This pledge is what I wanted," said she; "and now I will tell you that Mr. Thompson is not here, and I am sure I don't know where he is."

She then told the gentlemen that she had something to say to them, and they must hear her. On a day like this, when the laws were broken, and the peace of society violated by those who ought best to know their value, it was no time for ceremony; she should speak with the plainness which the times demanded. And she proceeded with a remon. strance so powerful that, after some argument, her adversaries fairly succumbed: one wept, and another asked as a favor that she would shake hands with him. But at this crisis her husband came in. The sight of him revived the bad passions of these gentry. They said that they had to inform him that they had obtained the names of his commer. cial correspondents in the South, and were about to deprive him of his trade, by informing his southern connections that the mer. chants of Boston disowned him for a fellow. citizen, and had proscribed him from their society. Mr. Chapman quietly replied that by their thus coming to see him he was enabled to save them the trouble of writing to the South; and he proceeded to explain that, finding his southern commerce implicated with slave labour, he had surrendered more and more of it, and had this very week de. clined to execute order three thousand dollars.

to the amount of There was nothing

He

The women who were at the meeting of this memorable day were worthy of the occasion, not from being strong enough to fol. low the lead of such a woman as Maria Chapman, but from having a strength independent of her. The reason of Garrison being there was, that he went to escort his young wife, who was near her confinement. She was one of the last to depart, and it could not be concealed from her that her husband was in the hands of the mob, She stepped out of the window upon a shed, in the fearful excitement of the moment. was in the extremest danger. His hat was lost, and brickbats were rained upon his head, while he was hustled along in the direction of the tar.kettle, which was heating in the next street. The only words which escaped from the white lips of the young wife were "I think my husband will not deny his principles: I am sure my husband will never deny his principles." Garrison was rescued by a stout truck-man, and safely lodged in jail (the only place in which he could be secure), without having in the least flinched from the consequences of his principles. The differences in the minds of these women, and the view which they all agree to take of the persecution to which they are subjected, may be best shown in the cloquent words of the author of "Right and Wrong:"

Our common cause appears in a different vesture as presented by different minds. One is striving to unbind a slave's manacles-another to secure to all human souls their inalienable rights; one to secure the temporal well-being, and another the spiritual benefit, of the enslaved of our land. Some labour that the benefits which they feel that they have derived from their own system of theology may be shared by the bondman; others, that the bondman may have light and liberty to form a system for himself. Some, that he may be enabled to hallow the Sabbath day by rest and religious observances; some, that he may receive wages for the other six. Some are the sight of scourged and insulted manhood; and forcibly urged to the work of emancipation by others by the spectacle of outraged womanhood and weeping infancy. Some labour to preserve from torture the slave's body, and some for the salvation of his soul. Here are differences; nevertheless, our hopes and our hearts are one."Right and Wrong, vol. ii. p. 80.

"There is an exceeding great reward in faithful obedience; the clearer and deeper views of duty it gives; the greater love of God and manthe deliverance from fear and constraint-the less apprehension of suffering-the more freedom to die.' Enjoying these, may we never look for any reward less spiritual and enduring. We pray, for the sake of the oppressed, that God will aid us to banish from our hearts every vestige of selfishness; for, in proportion to our disinterestedness

will be our moral power for their deliverance. by their being sisters of the Hon. Thos. S. Not until our mount of sacrifice overtops the Grimke." This gentleman was, in point of mountain of southern transgression should we dare scholarship, the greatest ornament of the to ask the slave-holder to give up the bondsman. We should not dare to bid him relinquish what United States, and his character was honour. he (however erroneously) thinks his living, till ed by the whole community. After his death we have first cast into the treasury our own. his sisters strove by all the means which How dare we expect him to incur the displeasure could be devised by powerful intellects and of his friends and neighbours, till we have ex-kind hearts to meliorate the condition of the hausted every form of representation and entreaty slaves they had inherited. In defiance of with ours-till we have finally said, in the plain- the laws, they taught them, and introduced ness of Christian reproof, to the steady opponent of righteousness at the North, "the slave-holder upon their estates as many as possible of the But it would not goes up to his house justified rather than thou?" usages of free society. The experience of the past shows, not only that do. There is no infusing into slavery the emancipation must come, but also the manner of benefits of freedom. When these ladies had its coming. Our national confederacy is but just become satisfied of this fact, they surrenderbeginning to unite, on the only true principle of ed their worldly interests instead of their union-to give and not to receive. If we of the consciences. They freed their slaves, and North persevere, at every sacrifice to ourselves, in giving the truth, which alone can save the put them in the way of providing for them. country from the alternations of anarchy, insur- selves in a free region, and then retired to rection, and despotism, doubt not that there are Philadelphia, to live on the small remains of multitudes at the south who will receive it gladly, their former opulence. It does not appear at a far nobler sacrifice. The subline example that they had any intention of coming for. of such as Birney, and Thome, and Nelson, and ward publicly, as they have since done; but Allen, and Angelina E. Grimke, will not be given the circumstance of their possessing the in vain. A few more years of danger and intense exertion, and the South and the North will unite knowledge, which other abolitionists want, in reading the Constitution by the light from of the minute details and less obvious work. above, thrown on it by the Declaration of Inde-ings of the slavery system, was the occasion pendence, and not by the horrible glare of the of their being applied to, more and more slave-code. The cause of freedom will ere long become the popular one; and a voice of regret will be heard throughout the land from those who will have forgotten these days of misrepresentation and danger-"Why was not I among the early abolitionists!" Let us be deeply grateful that we are among the early called. Let us pray God to forgive the men who would deface every feature of a Christian community by making it personally dangerous to fulfil a Christian woman's duty; to forgive the man who sneers at the sympathy for the oppressed implanted by the Spirit of God in the heart of the mother that bore and cherished his infancy-of the wife, the helpmate of his manhood, and of the daughter whom that same quality of womanly devotedness would lead to shield his grey head with her own bosom. Let us never forget through these unquiet years, whereunto we are called,

4

The first in shame and agony,
The meanest in the lowest task;
This must we be-

frequently and extensively, for information,
till they publicly placed their knowledge at
the service of all who needed it, and at length
began to lecture wherever there was an au-
dience who requested to hear them. Their
Quaker habits of speaking in public render-
ed this easy to them; and the exertion of
their great talents in this direction has been
of most essential service to the cause. It
was before they adopted this mode of action
that the public first became interested in these
ladies, through a private letter written by
Angelina to her friend Garrison-a letter
which he did his race the kindness to publish,
and which strengthened even the great man's
strong heart.
We give the greater part of
it :-

I can hardly express to thee the deep and solemn interest with which I have viewed the violent proceedings of the last the stepping-stone by which the wealthy, the few weeks. Although I expected opposigifted, and the influential, are to pass unharmed, tion, yet I was not prepared for it so soon through the roar of waters, to the RIGHT side."--it took me by surprise, and I greatly Right and Wrong, vol. ii. pp. 81-83.

feared the abolitionists would be driven back in the first onset, and thrown into confusion. So fearful was I, that though I clung with unflinching firmness to our principles, yet I was afraid of even opening one of thy papers, lest I should see some indications of a compromise, some surrenI was induced to read thy appeal to the der, some palliation. Under these feelings citizens of Boston. Judge, then, what were my feelings, on finding that my fears were utterly groundless, and that thou stoodest firm in the midst of the storm, determined

to suffer and to die, rather than yield one inch.

66

a short examination was needed to con. vince them that the main constituents in Religious persecution always begins the relation of teacher and taught are ig with mobs; it is always unprecedented in norance on one side and knowledge on any age or country in which it commences, the other. They had been too long accusand therefore there are no laws by which tomed to hear the Bible quoted in defence reformers can be punished; consequently, of slavery, to be astonished that its authora lawless band of unprincipled men deter- ity should be claimed for the subjugation mine to take the matter into their hands, of woman the moment she should act for and act out in mobs, what they know are the enslaved. The example and teaching the principles of a large majority of those of the Grimkes wrought conviction as to who are too high in church and state to the rights and consequent duties of women condescend to mingle with them, though in the minds of multitudes. Prejudices they secretly approve and rejoice over and ridiculous associations of ideas vatheir violent measures. The first martyr nished. False interpretations of scripture whoever died was stoned by a lawless mob; disappeared. Probably our children's and if we look at the rise of various sects- children, our sons no less than our daughmethodists, Friends, &c.,-we shall find ters, will dwell on the memory of these that mobs began the persecution against women, as the descendants of the bondthem, and that it was not until after the man of to-day will cherish the name of people had thus spoken out their wishes, Garrison."-Right and Wrong, vol. iii. that laws were framed to fine, imprison, or destroy them. Let us, then, be prepared for the enactment of laws even in our free States against abolitionists. And how ardently has the prayer been breathed, that God would prepare us for all he is preparing for us!

p. 61.

Angelina E. Grimke was married, last spring, to Theodore D. Weld, a man worthy of her, and one of the bravest of the aboli. tion confessors. There were some remarkable circumstances attending the wedding. My mind has been especially turned towards those who are standing in the It took place at Philadelphia, and, the laws forefront of the battle; and the prayer has of Pennsylvania constituting any marriage gone up for their preservation-not the legal which (the parties being of age) is preservation of their lives, but the preser- contracted in the presence of twelve persons, vation of their minds in humility and pa- was attended neither by clergyman nor ma. tience, faith, hope, and charity-that char-gistrate. Mr. Weld, in promising to be just ity which is the bond of perfectness. If and affectionate to his wife, and to protect persecution is the means which God has and cherish her, expressly abjured all use of ordained for the accomplishment of this the power which an unjust law put into his great end, Emancipation, then, in dependence upon him for strength to bear it, I hands over her property, her person, and her feel as if I could say, let it come; for it is will. Angelina having promised to devote my deep, solemn, deliberate conviction, herself to her husband's happiness, they that this is a cause worth dying for. proceeded to hallow their agreement by prayer from the lips of two of the party. Among those assembled, besides the near connections of the bride and bridegroom, there was Garrison, who took charge of the certifying part of the business, and two persons of colour, friends of the Grimkes, and who had been their slaves.

At one time I thought this system would be overthrown in blood, with the confused noise of the warrior; but a hope gleams across my mind that our blood will be spilt, instead of the slaveholders'; our lives will be taken, and theirs spared-I say a hope, for of all things I desire to be spared the anguish of seeing our beloved country desolated with the horrors of a servile A. E. GRIMKE."

war.

A gentleman of the class from which the Grimkes have emerged, Mr. M'Duffie, Gov. ernor of South Carolina, wrote a remarkable message to the legislature of his State this same year, 1835. He declared therein that freedom can be preserved only in societies

In answer to an overwhelming pressure of invitations, these ladies have lectured in upwards of sixty towns of the United States to overflowing audiences. Boston itself has listened to them with reverence. Some where work is disreputable, or where there of the consequences of their exertions will be noticed as we proceed: meantime we must give our author's report of this novelty in the method of proceeding :

"The idea of a woman's teaching was a startling novelty, even to abolitionists; but their principled and habitual reverence for the freedom of individual action induced them to a course unusual among men-to examine before they condemned. Only

is a hereditary aristocracy, or a military despotism, and that he preferred the first, as being the most republican. He further de.

clared -

"No human institution, in my opinion, is more manifestly consistent with the will of God than domestic slavery; and no one of his ordinances is written in more legible characters than that which consigns the African race to this condition, as more

RESCUE OF A SLAVE.

conducive to their own happiness than any | vided for in jail. The ladies were aware of other of which they are susceptible.".... the difficulty of rescuing kidnapped persons, "Domestic slavery, therefore, instead of as, in case of acquittal on the charge of be. being a political evil, is the corner-stone of ing a slave, the claimant is commonly able our republican edifice. No patriot who justly estimates our privileges will tolerate to lay hands on his victim again instantly on the idea of emancipation, at any period, some charge of theft. They therefore rehowever remote, or on any conditions of solved to be at the Court-house during the pecuniary advantage, however favourable. trial of the claim now under notice, that they I would as soon think of opening a nego- might not only comfort the poor women by tiation for selling the liberty of the State their presence, but aid their instant escape at once, as of making any stipulations for in case of their discharge being pronounced. the ultimate emancipation of our slaves. Unusual as was the spectacle of the presence So deep is my conviction on this subject of ladies in the Court-house (except in cases that if I were doomed to die immediately after recording these sentiments, I would of murder, or others of like "thrilling inte say, in all sincerity, and under all the rest"), five of the Ladies' Society appeared sanctions of Christianity and patriotism, in Court at nine in the morning, and surThe claimant en'God forbid that my descendants, in the rounded the prisoners.

remotest generations, should live in any deavoured to set up a clause of the Constituother than a community having the institution against the Massachusetts Bill of Rights; tion of domestic slavery, as it existed but the Bill of Rights carried the day, on among the patriarchs of the primitive Church, and in all the states of antiquity" the plea of an abolitionist lawyer, Mr. Sew-Governor M'Duffiie's Message, 1835.

When this message, endorsed by a committee of the South Carolina Legislature, with General Hamilton for its chairman, arrived in New England, Dr. Channing ob served in conversation that, but for the obli. gation to preserve peace and good humour, he should have liked to ask the yeomanry of his State (that body of whom Washington exclaimed, in a paroxysm of admiration and gratitude, "God bless the yeomanry of Massachusetts !") what they thought of the doctrine that freedom can be preserved only where the efficient classes of society are slaves, where work is disreputable, and where slavery is cherished as "the corner-stone of the republican edifice."

The other events which attracted the most The attention during this year were two. first was a desperate and cruel massacre of upwards of twenty persons on the gibbet at Vicksburgh, on the Mississippi, on a vague and unfounded suspicion of an intended rising among the slaves. The other remarkable event was the "disinterring of the law of Massachusetts," in defence of two women who had been kidnapped, in order to be carried into southern slavery.

A brig was observed to touch at one of the Boston wharfs, and put off again suddenly, in consequence of a few words being spoken to the captain by some one on shore. This awakened curiosity, and some men of colour rowed round the brig in a boat, but were warned off-not, however, before they had seen that two women were making signals of distress from the cabin window. The ever-vigilant abolitionists obtained a writ of habeas corpus, and got these women out of the custody of the captain, and safely pro

all; and Judge Shaw arrived, amidst the dead silence of the Court, at his closing clause, “whence it appears that the prisoners must be discharged." At the word every one rose-the counsel on both sides, the men

of colour who thronged the Court, and the Women who surrounded the prisoners. The claimant darted forth his arm; but a lane had been made, and the poor women were The next minute the place, was empty. One of the women fainted in the lobby, but her safety was cared for.

gone.

Among the attendant ladies was a Quaker, " impressed with a sense of the duty of rebuke." She observed to the claimant"Lady. Thy prey hath escaped thee. "Claimant. Madam, you are very rude to a stranger.

Lady. What, then, art thou, who comest here to kidnap women?

"Claimant. I am a member of the Methodist Church, and presume I give much more to the Colonization Society than all of you together.

66

Lady. Why art thou here, then, hunting for those who have colonized themselves? I despise thy conduct and thy Colonization Society alike."

In Massachusetts alone there was an accession of twenty societies during this year. The report says

"Five of them are of females. Our opposers affect to sneer at their co-operation; but we welcome, and are grateful for it. The influence of woman never was, never will be, insignificant: it is dreaded by those who would be thought to contemn it. Men have always been eager to secure their co-operation. We hail it as most auspicious of cur success that so many faithful and zealous women have espoused the anti-slavery cause in this republic. Events of the past year have proved that those who have associated themselves with us will be helpmates indeed; for they