Chapter 7: the National Testimonial.—1866.
Without an occupation or accumulated savings, advanced in years, and with health impaired, Garrison contemplates a History of the Anti-slavery movement, but fails to begin it. His friends address themselves to raising a National Testimonial, which receives the most distinguished support, and in the end ensures him a competence.No act of Mr. Garrison's could have afforded more convincing proof of his unselfishness than his voluntary discontinuance of the Liberator, and his joyful recognition of the accomplishment of its immediate object.1 Certainly it was not without a pang of regret that he gave up the paper and its office, the loss of which and of his long-established editorial routine made him feel, as he expressed it, ‘like a hen plucked of her feathers.’ Old habits he could not at once shake off. Many of his exchanges continued to come to him, and he would read and clip from them as industriously as though he were still purveying for the Liberator; and during the few weeks in which the office of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society (which had also been the subscription-office of the Liberator) was continued, he went to it almost daily, as of old. The Society itself voted, at the January meeting, by a majority of three to one, not to2 disband, after a debate in which the argument in favor of dissolution was sustained by Mr. Quincy, Mr. May, and3 Mr. Garrison, who all withdrew from the organization. The importance of continuing it was urged with much intensity of feeling and language by Mr. Phillips and his supporters, whose imputation that the retiring members were deserting the cause was warmly resented by Mr.