We have seen, a few pages back, that
Angelina expressed her thankfulness at Sarah’s
change of views with respect to the anti-slavery cause.
Again we must regret the destruction of Sarah’s
letters, which would have shown us by what chains of
reasoning her mind at last reached entire sympathy
with Angelina’s. We can only infer that
her progress was rapid after the public rebuke which
caused her to turn her back on Philadelphia, and that
her sister’s brave and isolated position, appealing
strongly to her affection, urged her to make a closer
examination of the subject of abolitionism than she
had yet done. The result we know; her entire
conversion in a few weeks to Angelina’s views.
And from that time she travelled close by her sister’s
side in this as well as in other questions of reform,
drawing her inspiration from Angelina’s clearer
intuitions and calmer judgment, and frankly and affectionately
acknowledging her right of leadership.
The last of August, 1836, the sisters were once more together, Sarah having
accepted Mrs. Parkers invitation to come to Shrewsbury. The question of
future arrangements was now discussed. Angelina felt a strong inclination
to go to New England, and undertake there the same work which the committee in
New York wished her to perform, and she even wrote to Mr. Wright that she
expected to do so. Feeling also that Friends had the first right to her
time and labors, and that, if permitted, she would prefer to work within the
Society, she wrote to her old acquaintances, E. and L. Capron, the cotton
manufacturers of Uxbridge, Massachusetts, to consult them on the subject.
She mentions this in a letter to her friend, Jane Smith, saying:
“My present feelings lead me
to labor with Friends on the manufacture and use of
the products of slave-labor. They excuse themselves
from doing anything, because they say they cannot
mingle in the general excitement, and so on.
Now, here is a field of labor in which they need have
nothing to do with other societies, and yet will be
striking a heavy blow at slavery. These topics
the Anti-Slavery Society has never acted upon as a
body, and therefore no agent of theirs could consistently
labor on them. I stated to E. and L. Capron just
how I felt, and asked whether I could be of any use
among them, whether they were prepared to have the
morality of these things discussed on Christian principles.
I have no doubt my Philadelphia friends will oppose
my going there, but, Jane, I have realized very sensibly
of late that I belong not to them, but to Christ Jesus,
and that I must follow the Lamb whithersoever He leadeth....
I feel as if I was about to sacrifice every friend
I thought I had, but I still believe with T.D.
Weld, that this is ‘a cause worth dying for.’”
This is the first mention we find
of her future husband, whom she had not yet seen,
but whose eloquent addresses she had read, and whose
ill-treatment by Western mobs had more than once called
forth the expression of her indignation.
The senior member of the firm to which
she had written answered her letter in person, and,
she says, utterly discouraged her. He said that
if she should go into New England with the avowed intention
of laboring among Friends on the subject of slavery
in any way, her path would be completely closed,
and she would find herself entirely helpless.
He even went so far as to say that he believed there
were Friends who would destroy her character if she
attempted anything of the kind. He proposed that
she should go to his house for the winter, and employ
her time in writing for the Anti-Slavery Society,
and doing anything else she could incidentally.
But this plan did not suit her. She felt it right
to offer her services to Friends first, and was glad
she had done so; but if they would not accept them
she must take them elsewhere. Besides, when she
communicated her plan to Catherine Morris, Catherine
objected to it very decidedly, and said she could
not go without a certificate and a companion,
and these she knew Friends would not grant her.
“Under all these circumstances,”
Angelina writes, “I felt a little like the apostle
Paul, who having first offered the Jews the gospel,
and finding they would not receive it, believed it
right for him to turn to the Gentiles. Didst
thou ever hear anything so absurd as what Catherine
says about the certificate and a companion? I
cannot feel bound by such unreasonable restrictions
if my Heavenly Father opens a door for me, and I do
not mean to submit to them. She knows very well
that Arch Street Meeting would grant me neither, but
as the servant of Jesus Christ I have no right to
bow down thus to the authority of man, and I do not
expect ever again to suffer myself to be trammelled
as I have been. It is sinful in any human being
to resign his or her conscience and free agency to
any society or individual, if such usurpation can be
resisted by moral power. The course our Society
is now determined upon, of crushing everything which
opposes the peculiar views of Friends, seems to me
just like the powerful effort of the Jews to close
the lips of Jesus. They are afraid that the Society
will be completely broken up if they allow any difference
of opinion to pass unrebuked, and they are resolved
to put down all who question in any way the doctrines
of Barclay, the soundness of Fox, or the practices
which are built on them. But the time is fast
approaching when we shall see who is for Christ, and
who for Fox and Barclay, the Paul and Apollos
of our Society.”
Her plan of going to New England frustrated,
Angelina hesitated no longer about accepting the invitation
from New York. But first there was a long discussion
of the subject with Sarah, who found it hard to resign
her sister to a work she as yet did not cordially approve.
She begged her not to decide suddenly, and pointed
out all sorts of difficulties the great
responsibility she would assume, her retiring disposition,
and almost morbid shrinking from whatever might make
her conspicuous; the trial of going among strangers,
made greater by her Quaker costume and speech, and
lastly, of the almost universal prejudice against
a woman’s speaking to any audience; and she asked
her if, under all these embarrassing circumstances,
added to her inexperience of the world, she did not
feel that she would ultimately be forced to give up
what now seemed to her so practicable. To all
this Angelina only answered that the responsibility
seemed thrust upon her, that the call was God’s
call, and she could not refuse to answer it.
Sarah then told her that if she should go upon this
mission without the sanction of the “Meeting
for Sufferings,” it would be regarded as a violation
of the established usages of the Society, and it would
feel obliged to disown her. Angelina’s
answer to this ended the discussion. She declared
that as her mind was made up to go, she could not ask
leave of her Society that it would grieve
her to have to leave it, and it would be unpleasant
to be disowned, but she had no alternative. Then
Sarah, whose loving heart had, during the long talk,
been moving nearer and nearer to that of her clear
child, surprised her by speaking in the beautiful,
tender language of Ruth: “If thou indeed
feelest thus, and I cannot doubt it, then my mind
too is made up. Where thou goest, I will go;
thy God shall be my God, thy people my people.
What thou doest, I will, to my utmost, aid thee in
doing. We have wept and prayed together, we will
go and work together.”
And thus fully united, heart and soul
and mind, they departed for New York, Angelina first
writing to inform the committee of her decision, and
while thanking them for the salary offered, refusing
to receive any. She also told them that her sister
would accompany her and co-operate with her, and they
would both bear their own expense.
After this time, the sisters found
themselves in frequent and intimate association with
the men who, as officers of the American Anti-Slavery
Society, had the direction of the movement. The
marked superiority of their new friends in education,
experience, culture, piety, liberality of view, statesmanship,
decision of character, and energy in action, to the
Philadelphia Quakers and Charleston slave-holders,
must have been to them a surprise and a revelation.
Working with a common purpose, these men were of varied
accomplishments and qualities. William Jay and
James G. Birney were cultured men of the world, trained
in legal practice and public life; Arthur Tappan,
Lewis Tappan, John Rankin, and Duncan Dunbar, were
successful merchants; Abraham L. Cox, a physician
in large practice; Theodore D. Weld, Henry B. Stanton,
Alvan Stewart, and Gerrit Smith were popular orators;
Joshua Leavitt, Elizur Wright, and William Goodell
were ready writers and able editors; Beriah Green
and Amos A. Phelps were pulpit speakers and authors,
and John G. Whittier was a poet. Some of them
had national reputations. Those who in December,
1835, protested against the false charges of publishing
incendiary documents calculated to excite servile war,
made against the Society by President Jackson, had
signed names almost as well known as his, and had
written better English than his message. Several
of them had been officers of the American Anti-Slavery
Society from its formation. Their energy had
been phenomenal: they had raised funds, sent
lecturers into nearly every county in the free States,
and circulated in a single year more than a million
copies of newspapers, pamphlets, magazines, and books.
Their moderation, good judgment, and piety had been
seen and known of all men. Faithful in the exposure
of unfaithfulness to freedom on the part of politicians
and clergymen, they denounced neither the Constitution
nor the Bible. Their devotion to the cause of
abolition was pure; for its sake they suppressed the
vanity of personal notoriety and of oratorical display.
Among them, not one can be found who sought to make
a name as a leader, speaker, or writer; not one who
was jealous of the reputation of co-adjutors; not
one who rewarded adherents with flattery and hurled
invectives at dissentients; not one to whom personal
flattery was acceptable or personal prominence desirable;
not one whose writings betrayed egotism, self-inflation
or bombast. Such was their honest aversion to
personal publicity, it is now almost impossible to
trace the work each did. Some of their noblest
arguments for Freedom were published anonymously.
They made no vainglorious claims to the original authorship
of ideas. But never in the history of reform
was work better done than the old American Anti-Slavery
Society did from its formation in 1833 to its disruption
in 1840. In less than seven years it regained
for Freedom most of the vantage-ground lost under
the open assaults and secret plottings, beginning
in 1829, of the Jackson administration, and in the
panic caused by the Southampton insurrection; blew
into flame the embers of the national anti-slavery
sentiment; painted slavery as it was; vindicated the
anti-slavery character of the Constitution and the
Bible; defended the right of petition; laid bare the
causes of the Seminole war: exposed the Texas
conspiracy and the designs of the slave power for
supremacy; and freed the legitimate abolition cause
from “no human government,” secession,
and anti-constitution hérésies. In short,
it planted the seed which flowered and fruited in a
political party, around which the nation was to gather
for defence against the aggressions of the slave power.
At the anti-slavery office in New
York, Angelina and Sarah learned, much to their satisfaction,
that the work that would probably be required of Angelina
could be done in a private capacity; that it was proposed
to organize, the next month (November), a National
Female Anti-Slavery Society, for which women agents
would be needed, and they could make themselves exceedingly
useful travelling about, distributing tracts, and
talking to women in their own homes.
There the matter rested for a time.
Writing to her friend Jane Smith in Philadelphia after their return to
Shrewsbury, Angelina says:
“I am certain of the disapproval
of nearly all my friends. As to dear Catherine,
I am afraid she will hardly want to see me again.
I wrote to her all about it, for I wanted her to know
what my prospects were. I expect nothing less
than the loss of her friendship and of my membership
in the Society. The latter will be a far less
trial than the former.... I cannot describe to
thee how my dear sister has comforted and strengthened
me. I cannot regard the change in her feelings
as any other than as a strong evidence that my Heavenly
Father has called me into the anti-slavery field,
and after having tried my faith by her opposition,
is now pleased to strengthen and confirm it by her
approbation.”
In a postscript to this letter, Sarah says:
“God does not willingly grieve
or afflict the children of men, and if my suffering
or even my beloved sister’s, which is harder
to bear than my own, can help forward the cause of
Truth and Righteousness, I may rejoice in that we
are found worthy not only to believe on, but also to
suffer for, the name of Jesus.”
Angelina adds that she shall be obliged
to go to Philadelphia for a week or so, to dispose
of her personal effects, and asks Jane to receive
her as a boarder, as she did not think it would be
right to impose herself upon either her sister, Mrs.
Frost, or Catherine, on account of their disapproval
of anti-slavery measures.
“I never felt before,”
she says, “as if I had no home. It
seems as if the Lord had completely broken up my rest
and driven me out to labor for the poor slave.
It is His work I blame no one.”
A few weeks later, the sisters were again in New York, the guests of that
staunch abolitionist, Dr. Cox, and his good wife, Abby, as earnest a worker in
the cause as her husband. An anti-slavery convention had been called for
the first week in the month of November, and met soon after their arrival.
It was at this convention that Angelina first saw and listened to Theodore D.
Weld. Writing to her friend Jane, she says:
“The meetings are increasingly
interesting, and to-day (11th) we enjoyed a moral
and intellectual feast in a most noble speech from
T.D. Weld, of more than two hours, on the question,
‘What is slavery?’ I never heard so grand
and beautiful an exposition of the dignity and nobility
of man in my life.”
She goes on to give a synopsis of the entire speech, and by her frequent
enthusiastic comments reveals how much it and the speaker impressed her.
She continues:
“After the meeting was over,
W.L. Garrison introduced Weld to us. He
greeted me with the appellation of ‘my dear sister,’
and I felt as though he was a brother indeed in the
holy cause of suffering humanity; a man raised up
by God and wonderfully qualified to plead the cause
of the oppressed. Perhaps now thou wilt want
to know how this lion of the tribe of abolition looks.
Well, at first sight, there was nothing remarkable
to me in his appearance, and I wondered whether he
was really as great as I had heard. But as soon
as his countenance became animated by speaking, I
found it was one which portrayed the noblest qualities
of the heart and head beaming with intelligence, benevolence,
and frankness.”
On the last page of her letter she
says: “It is truly comforting to me to
find that sister is so much pleased with the Convention,
that she acknowledges the spirit of brotherly love
and condescension manifest there, and that earnest
desire after truth which characterizes the addresses.
We have been introduced to a number of abolitionists,
Thurston, Phelps, Green, the Burleighs, Wright, Pritchard,
Thome, etc., and Amos Dresser, as lovely a specimen
of the meekness and lowliness of the great Master
as I ever saw. His countenance betrayeth that
he has been with Jesus, and it was truly affecting
to hear him on Sixth Day give an account of the Nashville
outrage to a very large colored school.
“The F.A.S. Society is
to have its first public meeting this week, at which
we hope to hear Weld, but fear he will not have time,
as he is not even able to go home to meals, and told
me he had sat up until two o’clock every night
since he came to New York. As to myself, I feel
I have nothing to do but to attend the Convention
at present. I am very comfortable, feeling in
my right place, and sister seems to feel so too, though
neither of us sees much ahead.”
In her next letter she describes the
deepening interest of the Convention, and Sarah’s
increasing unity with its members.
“We sit,” she says, “from
9 to 1, 3 to 5, and 7 to 9, and never feel weary at
all. It is better, far better than any
Yearly Meeting I ever attended. It is still uncertain
when we shall adjourn, and it is so good to be here
that I don’t know how to look forward to the
end of such a feast.... T.D. Weld is to
begin his Bible argument to-morrow. It will occupy,
he says, four days.”
The Convention adjourned the latter
part of November, 1836, and we may judge how profitable
its meetings had proved to Sarah Grimke, from the
fact that she at once began the preparation of an “Epistle
to the Clergy of the Southern States,” which,
printed in pamphlet form, was issued some time in
December, and was as strong an argument against the
stand on the subject of slavery taken by the majority
of the clergy as had yet appeared. Reading it,
one would little suspect how recent had been the author’s
opposition to just such protests as this, calculated
to stir up bitter feelings and create discussion and
excitement in the churches. It is written in
a spirit of gentleness and persuasion, but also of
firm admonition, and evidently under a deep sense of
individual responsibility. It shows, too, that
Sarah had reached full accord with Angelina in her
views of immediate emancipation.
By the time the Convention was over,
the sisters, and portions of their history, had become
so well known to abolitionists, that the leaders felt
they had secured invaluable champions in these two
Quaker women, one so logical, brilliant, and persuasive;
the other so intelligent, earnest, and conscientious;
and both distinguished by their ability to testify
as eye-witnesses against the monstrous evils of slavery.
It was proposed that they should begin
to hold a series of parlor meetings, for women only,
of course. But it was soon found that they had,
in private conversations, made such an impression,
that no parlors would be large enough to accommodate
all who desired to hear them speak more at length.
Upon learning this, the Rev. Mr. Dunbar, a Baptist
clergyman, offered them the use of his Session room,
and the Female Anti-Slavery Society embraced the opportunity
to make this the beginning of regular quarterly meetings.
On the Sunday previous to the meeting, notice of it
was given out in four churches, without however, naming
the proposed speakers. But it became known in
some way that the Misses Grimke were to address the
meeting, and a shock went through the whole community.
Not a word would have been said if they had restricted
themselves to a private parlor meeting, but that it
should be transferred to such a public place as the
parlor of a church made quite a different affair of
it. Friends were of course as loud as Friends
could properly be in their expressions of disapproval,
while other denominations, not so restrained, gave
Mr. Dunbar, the abolitionists, and the “two
bold Southern women” an unmistakable piece of
their mind. Even Gerrit Smith, always the grandest
champion of woman, advised against the meeting, fearing
it would be pronounced a Fanny Wright affair, and
do more harm than good. Sarah and Angelina were
appalled, the latter especially, feeling almost as
if she was the bold creature she was represented to
be. She declared her utter inability, in the
face of such antagonism, to go on with the work she
had undertaken, and the more she looked at it, the
more unnatural and unwise it seemed to her; and when
printed hand-bills were scattered about, calling attention
in a slighting manner to their names, both felt as
if it were humanly impossible for them to proceed
any further. But the meeting had been called,
and as there was no business to come before it, they
did not know what to do.
“In this emergency,” Angelina
writes, “I called upon Him who has ever hearkened
unto my cry. My strength and confidence were renewed,
my burden slipped off, and from that time I felt sure
of God’s help in the hour of need, and that
He would be mouth and wisdom, tongue and utterance
to us both.”
“Yesterday,” she continues,
“T.D. Weld came up, like a brother, to
sympathize with us and encourage our hearts. He
is a precious Christian, and bade us not to fear,
but to trust in God. In a previous conversation
on our holding meetings, he had expressed his full
unity with our doing so, and grieved over that factitious
state of society which bound up the energies of woman,
instead of allowing her to exercise them to the glory
of God and the good of her fellow creatures.
His visit was really a strength to us, and I felt no
more fear. We went to the meeting at three o’clock,
and found about three hundred women there. It
was opened with prayer by Henry Ludlow; we were warmly
welcomed by brother Dunbar, and then these two left
us. After a moment, I arose and spoke about forty
minutes, feeling, I think, entirely unembarrassed.
Then dear sister did her part better than I did.
We then read some extracts from papers and letters,
and answered a few questions, when at five the meeting
closed; after the question had been put whether our
sisters wished another meeting to be held. A good
many rose, and Henry Ludlow says he is sure he can
get his session room for us.”
This account of the first assembly
of women, not Quakers, in a public place in America,
addressed by American women, is deeply interesting,
and touching from its very simplicity.
We who are so accustomed to hear women
speak to promiscuous audiences on any and every subject,
and to hear them applauded too, can scarcely realize
the prejudice which, half a century back, sought to
close the lips of two refined Christian ladies, desirous
only of adding their testimony against the greatest
evil of any age or country. But those who denounced
and ridiculed them builded better than they knew, for
then and there was laid the corner-stone of that temple
of equal rights for women, which has been built upon
by so many brave hearts and willing hands since, and
has brought to the front such staunch supporters and
brilliant advocates as now adorn every convention of
the Woman’s Rights Associations.
After mentioning some who came up and spoke to them after the meeting was
over, Angelina adds:
“We went home to tea with Julia
Tappan, and Brother Weld was all anxiety to hear about
the meeting. Julia undertook to give some account,
and among other things mentioned that a warm-hearted
abolitionist had found his way into the back part of
the meeting, and was escorted out by Henry Ludlow.
Weld’s noble countenance instantly lighted up,
and he exclaimed: ’How supremely ridiculous
to think of a man’s being shouldered out of
a meeting, for fear he should hear a woman speak!’...
“In the evening a colonizationist
of this city came to introduce an abolitionist to
Lewis Tappan. We women soon hedged in our expatriation
brother, and held a long and interesting argument with
him until near ten o’clock. He gave up
so much that I could not see what he had to stand
on when we left him.”
Another meeting, similar to the first, was held the next week, when so much
interest was manifested that it was decided to continue the meetings every week
until further notice. By the middle of January they had become so crowded,
and were attended by such an influential class of women, that Mr. Ludlow
concluded to offer his church to them. He always opened the meetings with
prayer, and then retired. The addresses made by the sisters were called
lectures, but they were rather familiar talks, occasionally a discussion,
while many questions were asked and answered. Angelinas confidence in
herself increased rapidly, until she no longer felt the least embarrassment in
speaking; though she alludes to the exhausting effect of the meetings on her
physical system. Of Sarah, she says, writing to Jane Smith:
“It is really delightful to
see dear sister so happy in this work.... Some
Friends come to hear us, but I do not know what they
think of the meetings or of us. How
little, how very little I supposed, when I used so
often to say ‘I wish I were a man,’ that
I could go forth and lecture, that I ever would do
such a thing. The idea never crossed my mind
that as a woman such work could possibly be assigned
to me.”
To this letter there is a postscript from Sarah, in which she says:
“I would not give up my abolition
feelings for anything I know. They are intertwined
with my Christianity. They have given a new spring
to my existence, and shed over my whole being sweet
and hallowed enjoyments.”
Angelina’s next letter to her
friend is dated, “2d Mth, 1837,” and
continues the account of the meetings. She mentions
that, at the last one, they had one male auditor,
who refused to go out when told he must, so he was
allowed to stay, and she says: “Somehow,
I did not feel, his presence embarrassing at all,
and went on just as though he had not been there.
Some one said he took notes, and I think he was a
Southern spy, and shall not be at all surprised if
he publishes us in some Southern paper.”
Truly it was a risky thing for a lord
of creation to intrude himself into a woman’s
meeting in those days!
Angelina goes on to remark that more Friends are attending their meetings,
and that if they were not opened with prayer, still more would come. Also,
that Friends had been very kind and attentive to them in every way, and never
said a discouraging word to them. She then discourses a little on
phrenology, at that time quite a new thing in this country, and relates an
anecdote of Brother Weld, as follows:
“When he went to Fowler in this
city, he disguised himself as an omnibus driver.
The phrenologist was so struck with the supposed fact
that an omnibus driver should have such an extraordinary
head, that he preserved an account of it, and did
not know until some time after that it was Weld’s.
He says that when he first had his head examined at
Utica, he was told he was deficient in the organ of
color, his eyebrow showing it. He immediately
remembered that his mother often told him: ’Theodore,
it is of no use to send you to match a skein of silk,
for you never bring the right color.’ When
relating this, he observed a general titter in the
room, and on inquiring the reason a candle was put
near him, and, to his amazement, all agreed that the
legs of his pantaloons were of different shades of
green. Instead of a ridge all around his eyebrow,
he has a little hollow in one spot.”
A society for the encouragement of abstinence from the use of slave products
had just been formed in Philadelphia, and Angelina desired her friend to put her
name to the pledge, but not Sarahs. In a postscript Sarah explains this,
saying:
“I do abstain from slave produce
as much as I can, just because I feel most easy to
do so, but I cannot say my judgment is convinced;
therefore, I would rather not put my name to the pledge.”
Her judgment was convinced, however,
very shortly afterwards, by a discussion of the subject
with Weld and some others, and she then wrote to Jane
Smith to set her name down, as she found her testimony
in the great cause was greatly strengthened by keeping
clean hands.
There is much told of their meetings, and their other experiences in New
York, which is very interesting, and for which I regret I have not room.
Angelina describes in particular one visit they made to a poor family, that of
one of her Sunday-school pupils, where they stayed to tea, being afterwards
joined by Mr. Weld, who came to escort them home. She says of him:
“I have seen him shine in the
Convention and in refined circles, but never did I
admire him so much. His perfect ease at this fireside
of poverty showed that he was accustomed to be the
friend and companion of the poor of this world.”
The family here mentioned was doubtless
a colored one, as it was in the colored Sunday school
that both sisters taught. They had already proved,
by their friendship for Sarah Douglass, the Fortens,
and other colored families of Philadelphia, how slight
was their prejudice against color, but the above incident
proves the entire sincerity of their convictions and
their desire to avail themselves of every opportunity
to testify to it. Still, there is no doubt that
to the influence of Theodore Weld’s conversations
they owed much of their enlightenment on this as well
as on some other points of radical abolitionism.
It was after a talk with him that Angelina describes
the Female Anti-Slavery Society of New York as utterly
inefficient, “doing literally nothing,”
and ascribes its inefficiency to the sinful prejudice
existing there, which shut out colored women from any
share in its management, and gave little encouragement
to them even to become members.
She adds: “I believe it
is our duty to visit the poor, white and colored,
just in this way, and to receive them at our houses.
I think that the artificial distinctions in society,
the separation between the higher and the lower orders,
the aristocracy of wealth and education, are the very
rock of pauperism, and that the only way to eradicate
this plague from our land will be to associate with
the poor, and the wicked too, just as our Redeemer
did. To visit them as our inferiors, the recipients
of our bounty, is quite a different thing from going
among them as our equals.”
In her next letter to Jane Smith, Angelina gives an interesting account of
H.B. Stantons great speech before the Committee of the Massachusetts
legislature on the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia; a speech
which still ranks as one of the ablest and most brilliant ever delivered in this
country. There is no date to this letter, but it must have been written
the last of February or first of March, 1837. She begins thus:
“I was wondering, my dear Jane,
what could be the reason I had not heard from thee,
when brother Weld came in with thine and Mira’s
letters hanging from the paper on which they had been
tied. ’I bring you,’ he said, ’a
good emblem of the fate of abolitionists, so
take warning;’ and held them up to our view....
“Brother Garrison was here last
Sixth Day and spent two hours with us. He gave
us a most delightful account of recent things in Boston,
which I will try to tell thee of. “When
the abolitionists found how their petitions were treated
in Congress, they sent in, from all parts of Massachusetts,
petitions to the legislature, requesting it to issue
a protest against such contempt of the people’s
wishes and rights. The legislature was amazed
at the number and respectability of these petitions,
and appointed a committee to take them under consideration.
Abolitionists then asked for a hearing before that
committee, not in the lobby, but in the Hall of Representatives.
The request was granted, and though the day was exceedingly
stormy, a good number were out. A young lawyer
of Boston first spoke an hour and a half; H.B.
Stanton followed, and completely astonished the audience,
but could not get through by dark, and asked for another
meeting. The next afternoon an overflowing audience
greeted him; he spoke three hours, and did not yet
finish. Another meeting was appointed for the
next evening, and he says he thinks hundreds went
away because they could not get in. Stanton spoke
one hour and a quarter, and then broke down from the
greatness of the effort, added to the unceasing labors
of the winter. A profound silence reigned through
the crowded hall. Not one moved to depart.
At last a member of the committee arose, and asked
if there was any other abolitionist present who wished
to speak. Stanton said he believed not, as they
now had the views of the Anti-Slavery Society.
The committee were not satisfied; and one of them
said if there was any abolitionist who wished to follow
Mr. Stanton, they would gladly hear all he had to
say, but all declined. Brother Garrison said such
was the desire to hear more on this subject, that
he came directly to New York to get Weld to go and
speak before them, but his throat is still so much
affected that it will be impossible for him to do so.
Isn’t this cheering news? Here are seven
hundred men in the Massachusetts legislature, who,
if they can be moved to protest against the unconstitutional
proceedings of Congress, will shake this nation to
its centre, and rock it in a revolutionary storm that
must either sink it or save it.”
After closing their meetings in New
York, the sisters held similar ones in Newark, Bloomfield,
and other places in New Jersey, in all of which Sarah
was as active and enthusiastic as Angelina, and from
this time we hear no more of the gloom and despondency
which had saddened so many of the best years of her
life. But, identified completely with her sister’s
work, she was busy, contented and satisfied of the
Lord’s goodness and mercy.
These meetings had all been quiet
and undisturbed in every way, owing of course, to
the fact that only women attended, but the newspapers
had not spared them. Ridicule, sarcasm, and pity
were liberally bestowed upon the “deluded ladies”
by the press generally, and the Richmond Whig published
several editorials about “those fanatical women,
the Misses Grimke.” But writing against
them was the extent of the opposition at that time,
and this affected them very little.
From New Jersey they went up the North River with Gerrit Smith, holding
interesting meetings at Hudson and Poughkeepsie. At the latter place they
spoke to an assembly of colored people of both sexes, and this was the first
time Angelina ever addressed a mixed audience, and it was perhaps in accordance
with the fitness of things that it should have been a colored one. She
often spoke of this in after years, looking back to it with pleasure.
Here, also, they attended a meeting of the Anti-slavery Society of the
Protestant Episcopal Methodist Church, and spoke against the sin of prejudice.
In a letter to Sarah Douglass, Sarah says:
“My feelings were so overcome
at this meeting that I sat down and wept. I feel
as if I had taken my stand by the side of the colored
American, willing to share with him the odium of a
darker skin, and I trust if I am permitted again to
take my seat in Arch Street Meeting House, it will
be beside thee and thy dear mother.”
These Hudson River meetings ended
the labors of the sisters in New York for the time.
They returned to the city to take a little needed rest,
and to prepare for the Female Anti-Slavery Convention,
which was to meet there early in May. The Society
which had sent them forth had reason to be well satisfied
with its experiment. Not only had they awakened
enthusiasm and sincere interest in abolition, but had
demonstrated the ability of women to publicly advocate
a great cause, and the entire propriety of their doing
so. One of the members, of the committee asserted
that it would be as impossible to calculate the number
of converts they had made, as to estimate the encouragement
and strength their zeal and eloquence had given to
abolitionists all over the country. Men were
slow to believe the reports of their wives and sisters
respecting Angelina’s wonderful oratory, and
this incredulity produced the itching ears which soon
drew to the meetings where the Grimke sisters were
to speak more men than women, and gave them the applause
and hearty support of some of the ablest minds of New
England. The Female Anti-slavery Convention opened
with seventy-one delegates; the Misses Grimke, at
their own request, representing South Carolina.
During this convention they met many congenial souls,
among whom they particularize Lydia M. Child, Mary
T. Parker, and Anna Weston, as sympathizing so entirely
with their own views respecting prejudice and the
province of woman.
The latter question had long been
Sarah’s pet problem, to the solution of which
she had given much thought and study, ever since the
time when she was denied participation in her brother’s
education because of her sex. It is scarcely
too much to say that to her mind this question was
second in importance to none, and though the word enfranchisement,
as applied to woman, had not yet been uttered, the
whole theory of it was in Sarah’s heart, and
she eagerly awaited the proper time and place to develop
it. Angelina, while holding the same views, would
probably have kept them in the background longer,
but for Sarah’s arguments, supported by the
objection so frequently urged against the encouragement
of their meetings, that slavery was a political
subject with which women had nothing to do. This
objection she answered in a masterly paper, an “Appeal
to the Women of the Nominally Free States,”
which was printed in pamphlet form and sent out by
the Female Anti-Slavery Convention, and attracted
wide attention. The chief point she took was
this: “The denial of our duty to act in
this cause is a denial of our right to act; and if
we have no right to act, then may we well be termed
‘the white slaves of the North,’ for, like
our brethren in bonds, we must seal our lips in silence
and despair.”
The whole argument, covering nearly
seventy pages, is remarkable in its calm reasoning,
sound logic, and fervid eloquence, and will well repay
perusal, even at this day. About the same time
a beautiful and most feeling “Address to Free
Colored Americans” was written by Sarah, and
likewise circulated by the Convention. These two
pamphlets made the sisters so widely known, and so
increased the desire in other places to hear them
speak, that invitations poured in upon them from different
parts of the North and West, as well as from the New
England States. It was finally decided that they
should go to Boston first, to aid the brave, good
women there, who, while willing to do all that women
could do for the cause in a private capacity, had
not yet been persuaded to open their lips for it in
any kind of a public meeting. It was not contemplated,
however, that the sisters should address any but assemblies
of women. Even Boston was not yet prepared for
a greater infringement of the social proprieties.