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[385]

Chapter 21: the last.

Garrison,” said George Thompson on the steamer which was conveying the Government party out of Charleston Harbor on their return trip; “Garrison you began your warfare at the North in the face of rotten eggs and brickbats. Behold you end it at Charleston on a bed of roses!” The period of persecution had indeed ended, the reign of missiles had ceased, but with the roses there came to the pioneer not a few thorns. Bitter was the sorrow which visited him in the winter of 1863. Without warning his wife was on the night of December 29th, stricken with paralysis, which crippled her for the rest of her life. No words can adequately express all that she had been to the reformer in his struggle with slavery. She was a providential woman raised up to be the wife and helpmate of her husband, the strenuous man of God. “As a wife for a period of more than twenty-six years,” he wrote her on the completion of her fiftieth year, “you have left nothing undone to smooth the rugged pathway of my public career — to render home the all-powerful magnet of attraction, and the focal point of domestic enjoyment — to make my welfare and happiness at all times a matter of tender solicitude-and to demonstrate the depth and fixedness of that love which you so long [386] ago plighted to me. .. . Whatever of human infirmity we may have seen in each other, I believe few have enjoyed more unalloyed bliss in wedded life than ourselves.” For twelve years after that sad December night the lovely invalid was the object of her husband's most tender and assiduous care. And when at last she left him in January, 1876, the loneliness which fell upon his heart seemed more than he could bear.

Differences with old associates was a grievous thorn which came to the pioneer during the progress of the war. The first marked disagreement between him and them occurred at the annual meeting of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society not a month after his wife's prostration. The clash came between the leader and his great coadjutor Wendell Phillips over a resolution introduced by the latter, condemning the Government and declaring its readiness “to sacrifice the interest and honor of the North to secure a sham peace.” Garrison objected to the severity of this charge. He believed that there was but one party at the North of which it was true, and that was the party of Copperheads. He endeavored, therefore, to modify the harshness of the resolution by giving it a more moderate tone. But the anti-Lincoln feeling of the Convention proved too strong for his resistance, and Mr. Phillips's resolution was finally adopted as the sentiment of the society.

The discordant note thus struck grew sharper and louder during the year. The divergence of views in the ranks of the Abolitionists touching the Southern policy of the Administration grew wider, until the subject of Mr. Lincoln's renomination sundered the [387] little band into two wings-one for renomination, headed by Garrison, the other against renomination, and led by Phillips. These differences presently developed into, if not positive antagonism, then something closely akin to it between the two wings and the two leaders. No little heat was generated from the strong, sharp things said on both sides. Garrison was wiser than Phillips in his unwillingness to have the country, in the homely speech of the President, “swap horses while crossing a stream.”

Serious differences of opinion sprang up also between the two leaders and the two wings in relation to the proper time for dissolving the anti-slavery organizations. Garrison held on one side that this time had come with the adoption of the thirteenth amendment abolishing slavery, while Phillips held on the other that the societies should continue their operations until the negro was invested with the right to vote. And here it seems that Phillips was wiser than Garrison in his purpose not to abandon in 1865 the old machinery for influencing public sentiment in the negro's interest.

At the anniversary of the American Anti-Slavery Society, in May, 1865, Garrison contended for its dissolution, declaring that “Nothing is more clear in my own mind, nothing has ever been more clear, than that this is the fitting time to dissolve our organization, and to mingle with the millions of our fellowcountrymen in one common effort to establish justice and liberty throughout the land.” For two days the debate upon this question raged in the convention, but when the vote was taken it was found that a large majority of the delegates agreed with Mr. Phillips. [388] Mr. Garrison was, nevertheless, reflected President, but declined and withdrew from the society. The controversy was renewed at the annual meeting of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society in January, 1866. But here again a large majority voted against dissolution. Warm words fell from both Garrison and Phillips and their respective supporters, which tried sorely the friendship of the two leaders.

In accordance with his views touching the discontinuance of the anti-slavery societies, Garrison discontinued the publication of the Liberator after the completion of its thirty-fifth volume in December, 1865. He did not mean by this act to cease his labors for the negro. Far from it. For he, like Phillips, stood for his absolute equality before the law. But he perceived that old things had passed away, and with them the need of the old instruments, and that what remained to be done for the black man required to be done with new means. “The object,” said he in his valedictory, “for which the Liberator was commenced, the extermination of chattel slavery, having been gloriously consummated, it seems to me specially appropriate to let its existence cover the historic period of the great struggle; leaving what remains to be done to complete the work of emancipation to other instrumentalites (of which I hope to avail myself), under new auspices, with more abundant means, and with millions instead of hundreds for allies.”

With the discontinuance of the Liberator Garrison's occupation, from which he had derived a regular though somewhat uncertain income for the support of his family, was gone. He was not in destitute circumstances, [389] however, thanks to the generosity of friends, who had already secured him the home in Roxbury, where he spent the remaining years of his life. He had also been one of the legatees under the will of Charles F. Hovey, who left about forty thousand dollars to the anti-slavery cause. But the age of the reformer, he was then sixty, and the state of his health, which was much impaired, together with the helplessness of his wife, made some provision for his and her support, other than the little which he possessed, a matter of anxious thought on the part of himself and his friends. He had given thirty-five years of his life to the public good. His services to his country and to the world were above all price, all money considerations. It was felt that to him who had given so much to the world, the world should in his need make some substantial acknowledgement in return.

Some of his countrymen, accordingly, conceived the plan of a national testimonial to the philanthropist, which should ensure to him during the rest of his life a competence.

A committee having this end in view was organized March 28, 1866, at the house of Dr. Henry I. Bowditch. John A. Andrew, who was its chairman, wrote the address to the public, to which were appended the chief names in the politics and literature of the land. Nearly two years afterward, on March io, 1868, the committee were able to place in Mr. Garrison's hands the handsome sum of thirty-one thousand dollars with a promise of possibly one or two thousand more a little later. To the energy and devotedness of one man, the Rev. Samuel May, Jr., more than to any [390] other, and perhaps than all others put together, this noble achievement was due. The pioneer was deeply moved at the high and generous character of the recognition accorded his labors. “Little, indeed, did I know or anticipate how prolonged or how virulent would be the struggle,” said he in his reply to the committee, “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 hands 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, sometime or other, if remembered at all, I should stand vindicated in the eyes of my countrymen.” The names of John Bright, John Stuart Mill, William E. Foster, and Samuel Morley, among the contributors to the fund, lent to the testimonial an international character.

In May, 1867, Garrison went abroad the fourth time, and traveled in Great Britain and on the Continent. Everywhere that he went he was received as an illustrious visitor and as a benefactor of mankind. At a breakfast in London which “was intended to commemorate one of the greatest of the great triumphs of freedom, and to do honor to a most eminent instrument in the achievement of that freedom,” and at which were gathered the genius, the wealth, and aristocracy of England and Scotland, John Bright, who presided, welcomed the illustrious guest “with [391] a cordiality which knows no stint and no limit for him and for his noble associates, both men and women,” and ventured to speak a verdict which he believed would be sanctioned by all mankind, viz., that

William Lloyd Garrison and his fellow-laborers in that world's work — are they not

On Fame's eternal bead-roll worthy to be filed?

With the discontinuance of the Liberator Garrison's active career came to a close. But his sympathetic interest in the freedmen, temperance, the cause of women, and in ot.ier reformatory enterprises continued unabated. iie watched with stern and vigilant eye, and bleeding heart the new rebellion at the South whose purpose was the nullification of the civil and political rights of the blacks, and the overthrow of the military rule of the National Government in the Southern States. He did not see what time has since made clear that a genuine reconstruction of the South, and the ultimate solution of the Southern problem had, in accordance with social laws, to proceed from within, from the South itself, not from without and from Washington. The old fire again burned in his speech as tidings of the violence of — he whites and the sufferings of the blacks reached him from the former slave section. Indeed, the last written word;: of hs, addressed to the public, were words in defence of the race to whose freedom he had devoted his life-words which, trumpettongued raised anew the rallying-cry of “Liberty and equal rights for each, for all, and for ever, wherever the lot of man is cast within our broad domains!”

True to his grand motto “My country is the world! my countrymen are all mankind,” he espoused the [392] cause of the Chinese, and denounced the National policy of excluding them on the ground of race from the republic but a few months before his death. The anti-Chinese movement appeared to him “narrow, conceited, selfish, anti-human, anti-Christian.” “Against this hateful spirit of caste,” wrote the dying philanthropist, “I have earnestly protested for the last fifty years, wherever it has developed itself, especially in the case of another class, for many generations still more contemned, degraded, and oppressed; and the time has fully come to deal with it as an offence to God, and a curse to the world wherever it seeks to bear sway.”

On the same grand principle of human fraternity Mr. Garrison dealt with the questions of trade and tariffs also. He believed in liberty, civil, religious, and commercial. He was in fact a radical free trader on moral and humanitary grounds. “He is the most sagacious political economist,” was a remark of his, “who contends for the highest justice, the most farreaching equality, a close adherence to natural laws, and the removal of all those restrictions which foster national pride and selfishness.” And here is another like unto it: “Believing that the interests of the American people in no wise materially differ from those of the people of any other country, and denying the rectitude or feasibility of building ourselves up at their expense by an exclusive policy, obstructing the natural flow of material exchanges, I avow myself to be a radical free trader, even to the extent of desiring the abolition of all custom-houses, as now constituted, throughout the world. That event is far distant, undoubtedly, but I believe it will come with [393] the freedom and enlightenment of mankind. My faith is absolute that it will prove advantageous to every branch of industry, whether at home or abroad.” The closing years of the reformer's life were years of great bodily suffering. A disease of the kidneys and a chronic catarrh of the head made steady inroads upon the res-urces of his constitution, made life at times a wheel .al which he was racked with physical tortures, al. of which he bore with the utmost fortitude and serenity of spirit. “The longer I live, the longer I desire to live,” he wrote Samuel J. May, “and the more I see the desirableness of living; yet certainly not in this frail body, but just as it shall please the dear Father of us all.” One by one he saw the little band of which he was leader dwindle as now one and now another dropped by the way. And it was he or Mr. Phillips, or both, who spoke the last loving words over their coffins. As the little band passed on to the unseen country, a new joy awoke in the soul of the leader left behind, the joy of anticipation, of glad reunion beyond the grave. “How unspeakably pleasant it will be to greet them, and to be greeted by them on the other side of the line,” it seemed to him as he, too, began to descend toward the shore of the swift, silent river. The deep, sweet love for his mother returned with youthful freshness and force to him, the man of seventy-three years, at the thought of coming again into her presence. A strange yearning was tugging at his heart for all the dear ones gone before. The fond mother, who had watched over his childhood, and the fond wife, who had been the stay of his manhood, were the first two whom he yearned to meet after crossing the river [394] The joyous thought of his approaching meeting with those white-souled women cheered and comforted the reformer amid excruciating physical sufferings. Worn out by heroic and Herculean labors for mankind and by a complication of diseases, he more and more longed for rest, to go home to beloved ones as he expressed it. To the question, “What do you want, Mr. Garrison?” asked by the attending physician on the day before his death, he replied, weariedly, “To finish it up!” And this he did at the home of his daughter, Mrs. Henry Villard, in New York, in the midst of children and grandchildren, near midnight, on May 24, 1879.

“While that ear could listen,” said Wendell Phillips over the illustrious champion of liberty as he lay dead in the old church in Roxbury; “While that ear could listen, God gave what he has rarely given to man, the plaudits and prayers of four millions of victims.” But as he lay there he had, besides, the plaudits and praise of an emancipated nation. The plaudits and praise of an emancipated race, mingling melodiously with those of an emancipated nation made noble music about his bier. In the city, where forty-three years before he was mobbed, the flags floated at half-mast in his honor; and on Beacon Hill, where the Government once desired his destruction, the voice of appreciation was heard and tokens of the State's sorrow met the eye. Great in life great also in death was William Lloyd Garrison.

Men of a thousand shifts and wiles, look here!
     See one straightforward conscience put in pawn
To win a world; see the obedient sphere
     By bravery's simple gravitation drawn! [395]
Shall we not heed the lesson taught of old,
     And by the present's lips repeated still,
In our own single manhood to be bold,
     Fortressed in conscience and impregnable will?

[396]

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