All through the winter of 1835-36,
demonstrations of violence continued to be made against
the friends of emancipation throughout the country.
The reign of terror inaugurated in 1832 threatened
to crush out the grandest principles of our Constitution.
Freedom of press and speech became by-words, and personal
liberty was in constant danger. A man or woman
needed only to be pointed out as an abolitionist to
be insulted and assaulted. No anti-slavery meetings
could be held uninterrupted by the worst elements
of rowdyism, instigated by men in high position. In vain the authorities were
appealed to for protection; they declared their inability to afford it. The few
newspapers that dared to express disapproval of such disregard of the doctrine
of equal rights were punished by the withdrawal of subscriptions and
advertisements, while the majority of the public press teemed with the vilest
slanders against the noble men and women who, in spite of mobs and social
ostracism, continued to sow anti-slavery truths so diligently that new converts
were made every day, and the very means taken to impose upon public opinion
enlightened it more and more.
During this winter we find nothing
especial to narrate concerning Sarah and Angelina.
Sarah’s diary continues to record her trials
in meeting, and her religious sufferings, notwithstanding
her recently expressed belief that her eternal salvation
was secured. Angelina kept no diary at this time,
and wrote few letters, but we see from an occasional
allusion in these that her mind was busy, and that
her warmest interest was enlisted in the cause of
abolition.
She read everything she could get
on the subject, wrote some effective articles for
the anti-slavery papers, and pondered night and day
over the question of what more she could do.
One practical thing she did was to write to the widow
of her brother Thomas, proposing to purchase from
her the woman whom she (Angelina) in her girlhood had
refused to own, and who afterwards became the property
of her brother. This woman was now the mother
of several children, and Angelina, jointly with Mrs.
Frost, proposed to purchase them all, bring them to
Philadelphia, and emancipate them. But no notice
was taken of the application, either by their sister-in-law
or their sister Eliza, to whom Angelina repeatedly
wrote on the subject.
Learning from their mother that she
was about to make her will, Angelina and Sarah wrote
to her, asking that her slaves be included in their
portions. To this she assented, but managed to
dispose of all but four before she died. These
were left to her two anti-slavery daughters, who at
once freed them, at the same time purchasing the husband
of one of them and freeing him.
As she continued to study anti-slavery
doctrines, one thing became very plain to Angelina that
the friends of emancipation, in order to clear their
skirts of all participation in the slave-owner’s
sin, must cease to use the products of slave labor.
To this view she tried to bring all with whom she
discussed the main subject, and so important did it
appear to her, that she thought of writing to some
of the anti-slavery friends in New York about it,
but her courage failed. After what she had gone
through because of the publication of her letter to
Mr. Garrison, she shrank from the risk of having another
communication made public. But her mind was deeply
exercised on this point, and when in the
spring she and Sarah went to attend Yearly
Meeting in Providence, R.I., an opportunity offered
for her to express her views to a prominent member
of the New York Society, whom she met on the boat.
She begged this lady to talk to Gerrit Smith, recently
converted from colonization, and others, about it,
and to offer them, in her name, one hundred dollars
towards setting up a free cotton factory. This
was the beginning of a society formed by those willing
to pledge themselves to the use of free-labor products
only. In 1826 Benjamin Lundy had procured the
establishment, in Baltimore, of a free-labor produce
store; and subsequently he had formed several societies
on the same principle. Evan Lewis had established
one in Philadelphia about 1826, and it was still in
existence.
The sisters had been so long and so closely tied to Philadelphia and their
duties there, that the relief of the visit to Providence was very great.
Sarah mentions it in this characteristic way:
“The Friend of sinners opened
a door of escape for me out of that city of bonds
and afflictions.” In Providence she records
how much more freedom she felt in the exercise of
her ministerial gift than she did at home.
Angelina sympathized with these sentiments,
feeling, as she expresses it, that her release from
Philadelphia was signed when she left for Providence.
She found it delightful to be able to read what she
pleased without being criticised, and to talk about
slavery freely. While in Providence she was refreshed
by calls upon her of several abolitionists, among
them a cotton manufacturer and his son, Quakers, with
whom she had a long talk, not knowing their business.
She discussed the use of slave-labor, and descanted
on the impossibility of any man being clean-handed
enough to work in the anti-slavery cause so long as
he was making his fortune by dealing in slave-labor
products. These two gentlemen afterwards became
her warm friends.
An Anti-slavery Society meeting was
held in Providence while Angelina was there, but she
did not feel at liberty to attend it, though she mentions
seeing Garrison, Henry B. Stanton, Osborne, “and
others,” but does not say that she made their
acquaintance; probably not, as she was visiting orthodox
Quakers who all disapproved of these men, and Angelina’s
modesty would never have allowed her to seek their
notice.
Leaving Providence, the sisters attended
two Quarterly Meetings in adjacent towns, where, Angelina
states, the subject of slavery was brought up, “and,”
she says, “gospel liberty prevailed to such an
extent, that even poor I was enabled to open my lips
in a few words.” She neglected to say that
these few words introduced the subject to the meetings,
and produced such deep feeling that many hitherto wavering
ones went away strengthened and encouraged.
They also attended Yearly Meeting
at Newport, where many friends were made; and where
Angelina’s conversations on the subject which
absorbed all her thoughts produced such an impression
that she was strongly urged to remain in New England,
and become an anti-slavery missionary in the Society
of Friends. But she did not feel that she could
stay, as, she says, it was shown her very clearly
that Shrewsbury was her right place for the summer,
though why, she knew not. The reason was plainly
revealed a little later.
She returned to Shrewsbury refreshed and strengthened, and feeling that her
various experiences had helped her to see more clearly where her duty and her
work lay. But she was saddened by the conviction that if she gave herself
up, as she felt she must, to the anti-slavery cause, she would be cast loose
from her peaceful home, and from very many dear friends, to whom she was bound
by the strongest ties of gratitude and affection. She thus writes to a
friend:
“Didst thou ever feel as if
thou hadst no home on earth, except in the bosom of
Jesus? I feel so now.”
For several weeks after her return
to Shrewsbury, Angelina tried to withdraw her mind
from the subject which her sister thought was taking
too strong hold on it, and interfering with her spiritual
needs and exercises. Out of deference to these
views, she resumed her studies, and tried to become
interested in a “History of the United States
on Peace Principles,” which she had thought
some time before of writing. Then she began the
composition of a little book on the “Beauty and
Duty of Forgiveness, as Illustrated by the Story of
Joseph,” but gave that up to commence a sacred
history. In this she did become much interested
for a time, but her mind was too heavily burdened to
permit her to remain tranquil long. Still the
question was ever before her: “Is there
nothing that I can do?” She tried to be cheerful,
but felt at all times much more like shedding tears.
And her suffering was greater that it was borne alone.
The friend, Mrs. Parker, whom she was visiting, was
a comparative stranger, whose views she had not yet
ascertained, and whom she feared to trouble with her
perplexities. Of Sarah, so closely associated
with Catherine Morris, she could not make an entire
confidant, and no other friend was near. Catherine,
and some others in Philadelphia, anxious about her
evident and growing indifference to her Society duties,
tried to persuade her to open a school with one who
had long been a highly-prized friend, but Angelina
very decidedly refused to listen to the project.
“As to S.W.’s proposal,”
she writes, “I cannot think of acceding to it,
because I have seen so clearly that my pen, at least,
must be employed in the great reformations of the
day, and if I engaged in a school, my time would not
be my own. No money that could be given could
induce me to bind my body and mind and soul so completely
in Philadelphia. There is no lack of light as
to the right decision about this.”
For this reply she received a letter of remonstrance from Sarah, to which she
thus answered:
“I think I am as afraid as thou
canst be of my doing anything to hurt my usefulness
in our Society, if that is the field designed for me
to labor in. But, Is it? is often a query of
deep interest and solemnity to my mind. I feel
no openness among Friends. My spirit is oppressed
and heavy laden, and shut up in prison. What am
I to do? The only relief I experience is in writing
letters and pieces for the peace and anti-slavery
causes, and this makes me think that my influence is
to reach beyond our own limits. My mind is fully
made up not to spend next winter in Philadelphia,
if I can help it. I feel strangely released,
and am sure I know not what is to become of me.
I am perfectly blind as to the future.”
But light was coming, and her sorrowful
questionings were soon to be answered.
It was not long before Mrs. Parker saw that her guests cheerfulness was
assumed, and only thinly veiled some great trouble. As they became more
intimate, she questioned her affectionately, and soon drew from her the whole
story of her sorrows and her perplexities, and her great need of a friend to
feel for her and advise her. Mrs. Parker became this friend, and, though
differing from her on some essential points, did much to help and strengthen
her. For many days slavery was the only topic discussed between them, and
then one morning Angelina entered the breakfast-room with a beaming countenance,
and said:
“It has all come to me; God
has shown me what I can do; I can write an appeal
to Southern women, one which, thus inspired, will touch
their hearts, and lead them to use their influence
with their husbands and brothers. I will speak
to them in such tones that they must hear me, and,
through me, the voice of justice and humanity.”
This appeal was begun that very day,
but before she had written many pages, she was interrupted
in her task by a letter which threw her into a state
of great agitation, and added to her perplexity.
This letter was from Elizur Wright, then secretary
of the American Anti-Slavery Society, the office of
which was in New York. He invited her, in the
name of the Executive Committee of the Society, to
come to New York, and meet with Christian women in
sewing circles and private parlors, and talk to them,
as she so well knew how to do, on slavery.
The door of usefulness she had been
looking for so long was opened at last, but it was
so unexpected, so different from anything she had yet
thought of, that she was cast into a sea of trouble.
Naturally retiring and unobtrusive, she shrank from
so public an engagement, and this proposal frightened
her so much that she could not sleep the first night
after receiving it. She had never spoken to the
smallest assembly of Friends, and even in meeting,
where all were free to speak as the spirit moved them,
she had never uttered a word; and yet, how could she
refuse? She delayed her answer until she could
make it the subject of prayer and consult with Sarah.
Desiring to leave her sister entirely free to express
her opinion, she merely wrote to her that she had
received the proposition.
Sarah was beginning to feel that Angelina was growing beyond her, and, may
be, above her. She did not offer a word of advice, but most tenderly
expressed her entire willingness to give up her precious child, to go
anywhere, and do anything she felt was right. And in a letter to a friend,
alluding to this, she says:
“My beloved sister does indeed
need the prayers of all who love her. Oh! may
He who laid down his life for us guide her footsteps
and keep her in the hollow of His holy hand.
Perhaps the Lord may be pleased to cast our lot somewhere
together. If so, I feel as if I could ask no
more in this world.”
Sarahs willingness to surrender her to whatever work she felt called to do
was a great relief to Angelina. In writing to thank her and to speak more
fully of Mr. Wrights letter, she says:
“The bare idea that such a thing
may be required of me is truly alarming, and that
thy mind should be at all resigned to it increases
the fear that possibly I may have to do it. It
does not appear by the letter that it is expected
I should extend my work outside of our Society.
One thing, however, I do see clearly, that I am not
to do it now, for I have begun to write an ’Appeal
to the Christian Women of the South,’ which
I feel must be finished first.”
She then proceeds to give an account of the part of this Appeal already
written, and of what she intended the rest to be, and shows that she shared the
feelings common among Southerners, the anticipation of a servile insurrection
sooner or later. She says:
“In conclusion I intend to take
up the subject of abolitionism, and endeavor to
undeceive the South as to the supposed objects of
anti-slavery societies, and bear my full testimony
to their pacific principles; and then to close
with as feeling an appeal as possible to them
as women, as Christian women, setting before them the
awful responsibility resting on them at this crisis;
for if the women of the South do not rise in the
strength of the Lord to plead with their fathers,
husbands, brothers, and sons, that country must witness
the most dreadful scenes of murder and blood.
“It will be a pamphlet of a dozen
pages, I suppose. My wish is to submit it
to the publishing committee of the A.A.S.S., of New
York, for revision, to be published by them with
my name attached, for I well know my name
is worth more than myself, and will add weight
to it. Now, dearest, what dost thou think of it?
A pretty bold step, I know, and one of which my
friends will highly disapprove, but this is a
day in which I feel I must act independently of
consequences to myself, for of how little consequence
will my trials be, if the cause of truth is helped
forward ever so little. The South must be
reached. An address to men will not reach
women, but an address to women will reach the whole
community, if it can be reached at all.
“I mean to write to Elizur Wright
by to-morrow’s mail, informing him that
I am writing such a pamphlet, and that I feel as if
the proposition of the committee is one of too
much importance, either to accept or refuse, without
more reflection than I have yet been able to give
to it. The trial would indeed be great, to have
to leave this sweet, quiet retreat, but if duty
calls, I must go.... Many, many thanks for
thy dear, long letters.”
While Angelina was thus busily employed, and buoyed up by the hope of
benefiting those whose wrongs she had all her life felt so deeply, Sarah was
reaching towards her, and in trying to be indulgent to her and just to her
Society at the same time, she was awakening to her own false position and to
some of the awful mistakes of her religious life. Through the summer, such
passages as the following appear in her diary:
“The approach of our Yearly
Meeting was almost overwhelming. I felt as if
I could be thankful even for sickness, for almost anything
so I might have escaped attending it. But my
dear Saviour opened no door, and after a season of
unusual conflict I was favored with resignation.
“Oh! the cruel treatment I have
undergone from those in authority. I could not
have believed it had I not been called to endure it.
But the Lord permits it. My part is not to judge
how far they have been moving under divine direction,
but to receive humbly and thankfully through them
the lessons of meekness, lowliness, faith, patience,
and love, and I trust I may be thankful for the opportunity
thus afforded to love my enemies and to pray for them,
and perhaps it is to prepare me to feel for others,
that I have been thus tried and afflicted.”
That she was thus prepared was evidenced
through all the varied experiences of her after-life,
for certainly no more sympathetic soul ever dwelt
in a mortal frame, and more generously diffused its
warmth and tenderness upon all who came within its
radius.
After the next First Day meeting, she writes:
“The suffering in my own meeting
is so intense that I think nothing short of a settled
conviction that obedience and eternal life are closely
connected could enable me to open my lips there.”
Two weeks later, an almost prophetic sentence is written.
“Truly discouragement does so
prevail that it would be no surprise to me if Friends
requested me to be silent. Hitherto, I have been
spared this trial, but if it comes, O Holy Father,
may my own will be so slain that I may bow in reverent
adoring submission.”
Notwithstanding all this distress,
however, Sarah might still have lingered on some time
longer, stifling in the dry dust of the Quaker Church,
and refusing to partake of the living water Angelina
proffered to her, but for an incident which occurred
about this time, scarcely a fortnight after the last
sentence quoted, an incident which proved
to be the last straw added to the heavy burden she
had borne so submissively, if not patiently.
It is best given in her own words, and I may add,
it is the last entry in her most remarkable diary.
“8th Md. Went this
morning to Orange Street meeting after a season of
conflict and prayer. I believed the Lord required
this sacrifice, but I went with a heart bowed down,
praying to Jesus that I might not speak my own words,
that he would be pleased to make a way for me, or,
if what I had to deliver brought upon me opposition,
to strengthen me to endure it. The meeting had
been gathered some time when I arose, and after repeating
our Lord’s thrice-repeated query to Peter, ’Lovest
thou me?’ I remarked that it was addressed to
one who had been forgiven much, and who could appeal
to the Searcher of hearts that he did indeed love
Him. Few of us had had the temptation to endure
which overcame Peter when he denied his Lord and Master.
But although few of us might openly deny the Lord
who bought us, yet there is, I apprehend, in many
of us an evil heart of unbelief, which alienates us
from God and disqualifies from answering the query
as Peter did. I had proceeded so far when Jonathan
Evans rose and said: ’I hope the Friend
will now be satisfied.’ I immediately sat
down and was favored to feel perfectly calm.
The language, ’Ye can have no power at all against
me unless it be given you,’ sustained me, and
although I am branded in the public eye with the disapprobation
of a poor fellow worm, and it was entirely a breach
of discipline in him to publicly silence a minister
who has been allowed to exercise her gifts in her
own meeting without ever having been requested to
be silent, yet I feel no anger towards him. Surely
the feelings that could prompt to so cruel an act cannot
be the feelings of Christian love. But it seems
to be one more evidence that my dear Saviour designs
to bring me out of this place. How much has his
injunction rested on my mind of latter time. ’When
they persecute you in one city, flee ye into another.’
I pray unto Thee, O Lord Jesus, to direct the wanderer’s
footsteps and to plant me where thou seest I can best
promote thy glory. Expect to go to Burlington
to-morrow.”
To those unacquainted with the Society
of Friends fifty years ago, and its discipline at
that period, so different from what it is now, this
incident may seem of little consequence; but it was,
on the contrary, extremely serious. Jonathan
Evans was the presiding elder of the Yearly Meetings,
a most important personage, whose authority was undisputed.
He was sometimes alluded to as “Pope Jonathan.”
He had disliked Sarah from the time of her connection
with the Society, and had habitually treated her and
her offerings with a silent indifference most significant,
and which, of course, had its effect on many who pinned
their prejudices as well as their faith to the coats
of the elders. It was owing entirely to this
secretly-exercised but well-understood opposition,
that Sarah had for nine long years used her ministerial
gift only through intense suffering. She believed,
against much rebellion in her own breast, that it
had been given her to use in God’s service,
and that she had no right to withhold it; but she had
been made so often to feel the condemnation under
which she labored, that she was really not much surprised
when the final blow came.
But with all her religious humility
her pride was great, and her sensitiveness to any
discourtesy very keen. She may not have felt anger
against Elder Evans. We can imagine, on the contrary,
that her heart was filled with pity for him, but a
pity largely mixed with contempt; and it is certain
that the Society was made, in her view, responsible
for his conduct. Every slight she had ever received
in it came back to her exaggerated; all her dissatisfaction
with its principles of action doubled; the grief she
had always felt at its indifference to the doctrine
of the atonement, and its neglect to preach “Jesus
Christ and him crucified,” of which she had
often complained, was intensified, and her first impulse
was to quit the Society, as she determined to quit
Philadelphia, for ever.
Angelina was greatly shocked when
she learned of the treatment her sister had received,
but the words, “I will break your bonds and set
you free,” came immediately to her mind, and
so comforted her that her grief and indignation were
turned to joy. She had long felt that, kind as
Catherine Morris had always been, her strict orthodox
principles, which she severely enforced in her household,
circumscribed Sarah’s liberty of thought and
action, and operated powerfully in preventing her
from rising out of her depressed and discouraged state.
But though the question had often revolved itself
in her mind, and even been discussed between her and
her sister, neither had been able to see how Sarah
could ever leave Catherine, bound to her as she was
by such strong ties of gratitude, and feeling herself
so necessary to Catherine’s comfort. But
now the way was made clear, and certainly no true
friend of Sarah could expect her to remain longer in
Philadelphia.
It is surprising that Sarah had not
discovered many years earlier that the attempt must
be futile to engraft a scion of the Charleston aristocracy
upon the rugged stock of Quaker orthodoxy.
She went to Burlington, to the house
of a dear friend who knew of all her trials, and there
she remained for several weeks.
Angelina had finished her “Appeal,”
and, only two days before she heard of the Evans incident,
wrote to Sarah to inform her of the fact. This
letter is dated “Aust, 1836.”
After a few affectionate inquiries,
she says: “I have just finished my ‘Appeal
to Southern Women.’ It has furnished work
for two weeks. How much I wish I could have thee
here, if it were only for three or four hours, that
we might read it over together before I send it to
Elizur Wright. I read it to Margaret, and she
says it carries its own evidence with it; still, I
should value thy judgment very much if I could have
it, but a private opportunity offers to-morrow, and
I think I had better send it. It must go just
as I sent my letter to W.L.G., with fervent prayers
that the Lord would do just as he pleased with it.
I believe He directed and helped me to write it, and
now I feel as if I had nothing to do but to send it
to the Anti-Slavery Society, submitting it entirely
to their judgment.... I cannot be too thankful
for the change thou expressest in thy feelings with
regard to the Anti-Slavery Society, and feel no desire
at all to blame thee for former opposition, believing,
as I do, that it was permitted in order to drive me
closer to my Saviour, and into a deeper examination
of the ground upon which I was standing. I am
indeed thankful for it; how could I be otherwise,
when it was so evident thou hadst my good at heart
and really did for the best? And it did not hurt
me at all. It did not alienate me from the blessed
cause, for I think the same suffering that would drive
us back from a bad cause makes us cling to and love
a good one more ardently. O sister, I feel as
if I could give up not only friends, but life itself,
for the slave, if it is called for. I feel as
if I could go anywhere to save him, even down to the
South if I am called there. The conviction deepens
and strengthens, as retirement affords fuller opportunity
for calm reflection, that the cause of emancipation
is a cause worth suffering for, yea, dying for, if
need be. With regard to the proposed mission in
New York, I can see nothing about it, and never did
any poor creature feel more unfit to do anything than
I do to undertake it. But what duty presses me
into, I cannot press myself out of.... I sometimes
feel frightened to think of how long I was standing
idle in the market-place, and cannot help attributing
it in a great measure to the doctrine of nothingness
so constantly preached up in our Society. It
is the most paralyzing, zeal-quenching doctrine that
ever was preached in the Church, and I believe has
produced its legitimate fruit of nothingness in reducing
us to nothing, when we ought to have been a light
in the Christian Church.... Farewell, dearest,
perhaps we shall soon meet.”
The Appeal was sent to New York, and this was what Mr. Wright wrote to the
author in acknowledging its receipt:
“I have just finished reading
your Appeal, and not with a dry eye. I do not
feel the slightest doubt that the committee will publish
it. Oh that it could be rained down into every
parlor in our land. I know it will carry the
Christian women of the South if it can be read, and
my soul blesses that dear and glorious Saviour who
has helped you to write it.”
When it was read some days after to the gentlemen of the committee, they
found in it such an intimate knowledge of the workings of the whole slave
system, such righteous denunciation of it, and such a warm interest in the cause
of emancipation, that they decided to publish it at once and scatter it through
the country, especially through the South. It made a pamphlet of
thirty-six pages. The Quarterly Anti-Slavery Magazine for October, 1836,
thus mentions it:
“This eloquent pamphlet is from
the pen of a sister of the late Thomas S. Grimke,
of Charleston, S.C. We need hardly say more of
it than that it is written with that peculiar felicity
and unction which characterized the works of her lamented
brother. Among anti-slavery writings there are
two classes one especially adapted to make
new converts, the other to strengthen the old.
We cannot exclude Miss Grimke’s Appeal from
either class. It belongs pre-eminently to the
former. The converts that will be made by it,
we have no doubt, will be not only numerous, but thorough-going.”
Mr. Wright spoke of it as a patch
of blue sky breaking through the storm-cloud of public
indignation which had gathered so black over the handful
of anti-slavery workers.
This praise was not exaggerated.
The pamphlet produced the most profound sensation
wherever it was read, but, as Angelina predicted,
she was made to suffer for having written it.
Friends upbraided and denounced her, Catherine Morris
even predicting that she would be disowned, and intimating
pretty plainly that she would not dissent from such
punishment; and Angelina even began to doubt her own
judgment, and to question if she ought not to have
continued to live a useless life in Philadelphia,
rather than to have so displeased her best friends.
But her convictions of duty were too strong to allow
her to remain long in this depressed, semi-repentant
state. In a letter to a friend she expresses
herself as almost wondering at her own weakness; and
of Catherine Morris she says: “Her disapproval,
more than anything else, shook my resolution.
Nevertheless, I told her, with many tears, that I
felt it a religious duty to labor in this cause, and
that I must do it even against the advice and wishes
of my friends. I think if I ever had a clear,
calm view of the path of duty in all my life, I have
had it since I came here, in reference to slavery.
But I assure thee that I expect nothing less than
that my labors in this blessed cause will result in
my being disowned by Friends, but none of these things
will move me. I must confess I value my right
very little in a Society which is frowning on all
the moral reformations of the day, and almost enslaving
its members by unchristian and unreasonable restrictions,
with regard to uniting with others in these works of
faith and labors of love. I do not believe it
would cost me one pang to be disowned for doing my
duty to the slave.”
But her condemnation reached beyond
the Quaker Society even to her native city, where her Appeal produced a
sensation she had little expected. Mr. Welds account of its reception
there is thus given:
“When it (the Appeal) came out,
a large number of copies were sent by mail to South
Carolina. Most of them were publicly burned by
postmasters. Not long after this, the city authorities
of Charleston learned that Miss Grimke was intending
to visit her mother and sisters, and pass the winter
with them. Thereupon the mayor called upon Mrs.
Grimke and desired her to inform her daughter that
the police had been instructed to prevent her landing
while the steamer remained in port, and to see to
it that she should not communicate, by letter or otherwise,
with any persons in the city; and, further, that if
she should elude their vigilance and go on shore,
she would be arrested and imprisoned until the return
of the vessel. Her Charleston friends at once
conveyed to her the message of the mayor, and added
that the people of Charleston were so incensed against
her, that if she should go there despite the mayor’s
threat of pains and penalties, she could not escape
personal violence at the hands of the mob. She
replied to the letter that her going would probably
compromise her family; not only distress them, but
put them in peril, which she had neither heart nor
right to do; but for that fact, she would certainly
exercise her constitutional right as an American citizen,
and go to Charleston to visit her relatives, and if
for that, the authorities should inflict upon her
pains and penalties, she would willingly bear them,
assured that such an outrage would help to reveal
to the free States the fact that slavery defies and
tramples alike upon constitutions and laws, and thus
outlaws itself.”
These brave words said no more than
they meant, for Angelina Grimke’s moral heroism
would have borne her to the front of the fiercest battle
ever fought for human rights; and she would have counted
it little to lay down her life if that could help
on the victory. She touched as yet only the surf
of the breakers into which she was soon to be swept,
but her clear eye would not have quailed, or her cheek
have blanched, if even then all their cruelty could
have been revealed to her.