Chapter 6: the schism.—1840.
The nomination of Birney and Earle is finally effected in a pseudo-national A. S. Convention at Albany. The New York State A. S. Society becomes disorganized, and the Executive Committee of the American Society call in its agents, dispose of its organ, and shut up the office in New York City. At the annual meeting in May, Garrison and his New England supporters outnumber the partisans of the Executive Committee, and recover control of the Parent Society. A secession ensues, upon the issue of equal female membership, and the American and Foreign A. S. Society is formed, under the lead of the Tappans. Garrison is appointed one of the American Society's delegates to the World's A. S. Convention in London, and sails in May.The sectarian reaction against the moral leadership of Mr. Garrison, as an abolitionist, culminated in the year upon which we now enter. So far as it took the phase of a Third Party movement, it was aided by the unparalleled excitement of the Presidential campaign which ended in the election of General Harrison. Under the guise of ‘New Organization’ (whose clerical origin must ever be kept in view) it fell in with the proslavery mastery of the leading denominations, notably the Methodist and the Presbyterian. Hence, the resolutions in which the great majority of the abolitionists expressed their sentiments during 1840, were directed against the formation of a political anti-slavery party; against giving support at the polls to either Harrison or Van Buren (on the ground of their notorious subserviency to slavery); against the exclusive and oligarchical spirit of the seceders from the old organization; and against churches either silent towards or in active fellowship with slaveholders. The common action and identity of interest between New Organization and Third Party have already appeared in this narrative, and will be more and more conspicuous as we proceed. Mr. Garrison's opposition to the latter will be understood only by bearing in mind the facts: (1) that Holley, Stewart, Birney and Gerrit Smith proposed to convert the existing anti-slavery (immediate-emancipation) organization into a political
