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

[243] been shown, Mr. Garrison, in spite of his ill-health and his many irons in the fire, had his full share—one agrees with the Massachusetts Board of Managers, in¹ their address to abolitionists in August: ‘The mighty reaction is felt, and we are now going forward with wind and tide.’ State societies were increasing in number, even Connecticut at last wheeling into line, while its² Legislature repealed the law aimed against Prudence³ Crandall's school, secured fugitive slaves the right to trial by jury, and joined in the Northern protest against the admission of new slave States, and assertion of the right and duty of Congress to abolish slavery in the District—truly, a marvellous change in five years. Local societies still multiplied at the rate of one a day.^{4 5} Notwithstanding the hard times, funds had been forthcoming for the maintenance of a host of travelling lecturers, and for the myriad publications of the American Society. A system of circulating anti-slavery ⁶ libraries for every town was hopefully initiated. State after⁷ State recorded its opposition to some one of the forms of pro-slavery lawlessness and aggrandizement, or manifested its tolerance of the abolitionists. Political ⁸ conventions began to adopt anti-slavery resolves. The increased attendance of the clergy at anti-slavery ⁹ meetings was remarked, together with the great spread of¹⁰ anti-slavery sentiment in the Methodist Church, giving rise already to an incipient schism, on account of the¹¹ persecuting efforts of the bishops to repress agitation. Six out of twenty-eight Methodist conferences were¹² thoroughly abolitionized, and it was estimated that a thousand itinerant clergymen of that denomination were abolitionists. In Massachusetts, five-sixths of the ministers of Franklin County, of all denominations, united in¹³ a declaration against slavery and in favor of immediate