Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879; the story of his life told by his children: volume 3

[226] visions of the main topic, calculated to give a permanent value to the pamphlet report. These he assigned with much fitness, as when Edmund Quincy was pitched upon¹ to treat of ‘the assumed judgments upon Sabbath-breakers.’ But he could not command the necessary collaboration, and his scheme was very imperfectly carried out. Three sets of resolutions were introduced, and furnished² matter for debate—the longest by Mr. Garrison, others by John W. Browne³ and Theodore Parker; with supplementary ones by Charles K. Whipple. George W. Benson presided over the two days session in the Melodeon—an ill-lighted hall used on week-days for secular entertainments, and on Sundays by Mr. Parker's congregation as their meeting-house. The orthodox religious press, as represented by the Boston Recorder, voted Charles C. Burleigh the ablest speaker, yet added: “The most influential speaker, whose dictates, whether opposed or not, swayed the whole course of things, was the redoubtable Garrison himself. At every turn in the business, his hand grasped the steering-oar; and, let his galley-slaves row with what intent they would, he guided all things at his will.” Lib. 18.53. For example, the ‘Prince of New England infidelity,’ as the same paper styled him, successfully opposed such of Mr. Parker's resolutions as deprecated a⁴ Sunday ‘devoted to common work or amusements,’ and contemplated one dedicated “to rest—to religious, moral, and intellectual culture, to social intercourse.” Lib. 18.76. ‘I would not,’ said this clergyman, ‘keep the Sunday like a fanatic; I would not, like a fanatic, destroy it.’

We will not dwell on the proceedings of the Convention, in which the promoter's part was foreshadowed by the Call. They were published in successive issues of the⁵ Liberator, and finally in pamphlet form—not without a manifestation of Divine displeasure by the medium of a thief, who stole Mr. Garrison's overcoat containing the⁶