Chapter 3: the ‘covenant with death.’—1843.
After a summer at the water-cure, Garrison makes his home in Boston, and renews with vigor the disunion campaign. He is followed by the Massachusetts Anti-slavery Society in pronouncing the Constitution “ a covenant with death and an agreement with hell.” he is made President of the American Society, of which the direction passes over to Boston.Zzzr. Garrison returned to his editorial duties in the latter part of January, 1843, but his health1 was far from restored. He struggled on till June, when a mysterious distress in the left side again caused him2 grave apprehensions that he had not long to live. His latest residence in Cambridgeport, though very healthfully situated, was associated with an extraordinary amount of sickness and fatality. As the lease would expire on July 1, it was decided to remove for the summer to the country, and no place offered such attractions as the Community at Northampton, Mass. This was the third of those original experiments by which Massachusetts, as J. H. Noyes says, “appears to have anticipated the advent of Fourierism, and to have prepared herself for or against the rush of French ideas,” Am. Socialisms, p. 154. throwing them out “on her three avenues of approach— Unitarianism [Brook Farm], Universalism [Hopedale], and Nothingarianism.” Ante, p. 25. The Northampton Association of Education and Industry was, indeed, committed to no creed, not even to communism, as it was a joint-stock concern. All its prominent members were known personally to Mr. Garrison, who vouched for them as “among the freest and best spirits of the age,” Lib. 12.143. when publishing their manifesto. Organization was effected on April 8,3 1842, and as George W. Benson was one of the founders,4 the progress of the enterprise was constantly reported to his brother-in-law. ‘The subject of social reorganization,’ wrote the latter on December 16, 1843, to R. D.5
