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

[298] Societies with reference to the Executive Committee, and here Gerrit Smith's large-mindedness was again conspicuous in supporting a resolution urgently advising the Committee not to send, into any State, agents not acceptable to the managers of the State Society. Against this the Massachusetts seceders contended strongly, but the vote in its favor was overwhelming. The Committee¹ was again checkmated when proposing to send an agent to England to raise funds for the Society, to which Mr. Garrison with others objected; and to raise $32,500 for its own use during the coining year, which Alvan Stewart resisted, affirming that a dollar spent at Utica was² worth three dollars spent at New York. In short, little respect was paid to the grasping aims of the Committee as intimated in a passage in their report which said,³ that ‘the cause divided by State action does not present so commanding a front as if all its resources were concentrated in the national association.’

The final struggle with the Executive Committee was over that part of the annual report which related to political action. Mr. Garrison moved its reference to a⁴ committee of one from each State represented, and, this having been carried and he made chairman, reported back a recommendation that the part in question be omitted or amended, as liable to misconstruction. At the same time, he offered three resolves of his own drafting, which were adopted, the Committee being allowed to print their views as their own, and not as those of the Society:

1. Resolved, That it is the duty of the American people,⁵ and especially of abolitionists, to endeavor to elect such men only to legislative and other official stations as will advocate the repeal of every legal enactment by which the aid of the public authority is lent to the support of slavery.

2. Resolved, That the temporary and repeated failures to attain the objects sought by abolitionists, in petitioning and in voting at the polls for opponents of slavery, constitute no valid grounds for abandoning those measures; but we have full confidence