[
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mild, gentle, and amiable.
In spirit
Mr. Garrison was completely in harmony with them.
In details of language, of policy, he was free to differ from them.
Thus, at the
New England Convention in May, 1841,
1 Mr. Garrison's resolution in regard to the church read as follows:
Resolved, That among the responsible classes in the nonslaveholding States, in regard to the existence of slavery, the religious professions [professors], and especially the clergy, stand wickedly preeminent, and ought to be unsparingly exposed and reproved before all the people.
Lib. 11.90.
To
Henry C. Wright, however, it appeared that it should read as follows:
‘Resolved, That the church and clergy of the United States,2 as a whole, constitute a great brotherhood of Thieves,3 inasmuch as they countenance and support the highest kind of theft, i. e., man-Stealing; and duty to God and the slave4 demands of abolitionists that they should denounce them as the worst foes of liberty and pure religion, and forthwith renounce them as a Christian church and clergy.’
To this substitute rallied
Parker Pillsbury,
Stephen S. Foster, and
N. P. Rogers, while
Mr. Garrison and
Charles C. Burleigh contended for the original formula; the debate raging long, with a drift toward the obnoxious expression in capitals, which was at last abandoned.
5
So in a question of measures.
At a quarterly meeting of the Massachusetts Society held at
Millbury on August 17, 1841,
Mr. Foster moved the following:
6
‘Resolved, That we recommend to abolitionists as the most7 consistent and effectual method of abolishing the “negro pew,” ’
