The solution of this attack upon us is told in a very few1 words. Friend Lundy has suffered a jealous and envious spirit, we fear, to take possession of his breast; which has manifested itself, more or less, for several years past. At the time he was prosecuting his scheme for colonizing in Texas a portion of the free colored population of the country, we ventured to express in the Liberator our doubts as to its utility and2 success:3 at the same time warmly commending him for his labors, and doing ample justice to the benevolence of his motives. This elicited from him a letter to us, dated at Natchez,4 which was filled with abusive and insulting language, but which we suppressed in kindness to him, and to which we5 should not have alluded, had not necessity been laid upon us by this fresh attack. The truth is, Friend Lundy has a very irritable disposition, which is easily roused; and he finds it impossible to forgive us for venturing to question the propriety of his colonization scheme. To show that his panegyric upon the Abolitionist and the new organization is not of much value, we need only to state, that he took sides with the Clerical Appeal, in his paper at Philadelphia!6
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language by no means creditable to his head or heart.’
The Liberator's course was ‘erratic and dogmatical’; its editorial conduct ‘whimsical and unreflecting’; and to Mr. Garrison's ‘arrogance’ a large portion of the elder Society was subservient.
The establishment of the Massachusetts Abolitionist gave Lundy peculiar satisfaction, as he could not bear ‘the absurd theories and vagaries of W. L. Garrison and H. C. Wright,’ which they ‘force . . . into the anti-slavery controversy.’
3 ‘We ask, in relation to it,--so far, at least, as the abolition cause is concerned,—Cui bono?’ （Lib. 5: 71).
4 An error for Nashville (see Lib. 5. 95).
6 Under date of Nov. 13, 1837, C. C. Burleigh writes from Philadelphia to J. M. McKim (Ms.): ‘Before you get this you will probably have seen the National Enquirer of last Thursday [Nov. 9], containing the attack on Garrison by Lundy. It creates no small stir and excitement among our good folks in and about the city. The Delaware Co. people are quite “up in arms” about it, and declare that unless the paper recedes from its position, they will withdraw entirely their support from it. The Philadelphia city and county society are agitating the subject, and unless some measures are taken, either by Lundy or the Executive Committee, to change the attitude of the Enquirer, they will probably pass a set of resolutions condemning the course of the paper, and will perhaps cut entirely loose from it—or, if the Society does not, a majority of its members probably will. There seems to be an almost unanimous condemnation of Lundy's act,’ etc. The Enquirer was founded by Lundy on Aug. 3, 1836; and on Mar. 18, 1837. the Pennsylvania A. S. Society made itself pecuniarily responsible for it. Lundy gave way to Whittier on March 9, 1838 ( “ Life of Lundy,” pp. 289, 293, 301).
The Century Company. , 1885-1889.
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