Chapter 4: Pennsylvania Hall.—the non-resistance society.—1838.
Garrison will no longer accept the aid of the Massachusetts Society, and give color to the charge that the Liberator is its organ. But this does not pacify the enemies of the paper. He takes part in the proceedings at the dedication of Pennsylvania Hall, Philadelphia, and is obliged to flee the city when the building is burnt by a mob. At the New England Convention in Boston, his views as to the equality of the sexes in abolition membership prevail, leading to a clerical protest and secession. He also secures the admission of women on equal terms at a Peace Convention called in Boston, and draws up a Constitution and Declaration of Sentiments for a Non-resistance Society thereupon formed.Shall we say that with his eighth volume the editor of the Liberator turned over a new leaf? Cutting loose from his embarrassing connection with the treasury of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, he resumed the right to conduct his paper without regard to official or private susceptibilities—himself alone the judge of what it was proper to say, or to let others say, in its columns; of what proportion of its space and his attention should be given to abolition, or to the other reforms which he had, and had long had, at heart. This was,1 in fact, rather a return than a new departure, though he had never renounced his editorial independence. Still, the occasion called for a new manifesto, which, in the form of a prospectus, was published with the signatures of the old partners, Garrison and Knapp, in the Liberator of December 15, 1837. Despite its length, the greater part of this important document must be given here. Thus it began:
The termination of the present year will complete the2 seventh volume of the Liberator: we have served, therefore, a regular apprenticeship in the cause of Liberty, and are now prepared to advocate it upon a more extended scale. In commencing this publication, we had but a single object in view—the total abolition of American slavery, and, as a just consequence, the complete enfranchisement of our colored countrymen. As the first step towards this sublime result, we found the overthrow of the American Colonization Society to be indispensable,—containing, as it did, in its organization, all the elements of prejudice, caste, and slavery.
