Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879; the story of his life told by his children: volume 2

[137] agency in Essex County, prior to which, as the pastor of a church in Amesbury, he too had used noticeably strong¹ language on the guilt of slavery, and had advised favoring the anti-slavery charity as both the most needy and the most important. These gentlemen, now feeling the weight of the cause to be somehow resting on their shoulders, came forward, in the name of ‘nine-tenths’ of the abolitionists, to unfold their budget of complaints against Mr. Garrison and the Liberator. Uniform precedents might have assured them of ready access to the columns of that paper, but, for reasons that quickly came to light, they chose the Spectator for their medium. With a like want of directness, though the plot had been some time in hatching, its development was deferred till Mr. Garrison was out of dangerous proximity; and the first flaws that were picked were in the editorial conduct of his substitute, Oliver Johnson, whose articles were always signed with his initial.

The Clerical Appeal was of course at once transferred to its legitimate place in the Liberator. Its grievances² were (1) the ‘hasty, unsparing, almost ferocious denunciation’ [in the Liberator] of a minister from the South who had been preaching in Boston, on the ground of his being a slaveholder—a charge believed by the appellants to be not true. (2) Insinuations [in the Liberator] that the Rev. Dr. Blagden was a slaveholder—meaning Mr. Johnson's repeated inquiry whether that was true which was currently reported of that gentleman, who paid no attention to the ‘insinuation.’ （3) The Liberator's ‘demand’ that ministers should read anti-slavery notices handed them to read, whereas they had a right to suppress them, and anti-slavery clergymen exchanging with them should in deference likewise suppress these notices. (4) The diverting of support from home and foreign missions and other church efforts to the anti-slavery cause [in the spirit of Wendell Phillips's Lynn resolution,³ which had been seconded by Mr. Johnson in the Liberator]. (5) The abuse of gospel ministers and excellent Christians