Ernest Crosby, Garrison the non-resistant

[12] Lundy tried to rouse the Boston clergy to an interest in his plans, and to induce them to form an anti-slavery society. He invited them to a private meeting, but only a few responded, and of these only eight would go so far as to recommend his paper. One or two expressed their readiness to take part in an active movement, but they were men of small weight in the community. All of those who attended the meeting were opposed to slavery, but with one consent most of them made excuse. “It would enrage the South to know that an anti-slavery society existed in Boston.” “It would do harm to agitate the subject.” The project of a society had to be abandoned.

But if Lundy had failed with the clergy, he had inspired one more powerful than they were. Garrison was at the meeting, and was scandalized at the cowardice of these, the bravest representatives of the churches. A sudden enthusiasm for the cause of Negro freedom seized him. He began at once to attack slavery in his temperance paper, and announced as his triple aim the abolition of slavery, intemperance and war. Soon after this he went to Bennington, Vermont, to take charge of a newspaper which was supporting the re-election of President John Quincy Adams. In this journal Garrison continued to denounce slavery, to insist on its