The anti-slavery cause, and intimate
association with so many of its enthusiastic advocates,
had indeed done much for Sarah Grimke. Her mind
was rapidly becoming purified from the dross that had
clogged it so long; religious doubts and difficulties
were fading away one by one, and the wide, warm sympathies
of her nature now freed, expanded gladly to a new
world of light and love and labor. As she expressed
it, she was like one coming into a clear brisk atmosphere,
after having been long shut up in a close room.
Her drowsy faculties were all stirred and invigorated,
and though her disappointments had left wounds whose
pain must always remind her of them, she had no longer
time to sit down and bemoan them. There was so
much to do in the broad, fresh fields which stretched
around her, and she had been idle so long! Is
it any wonder that she tried to grasp too much at first?
The affection between her and Angelina
was growing daily more tender perhaps a
little more maternal on her part. Drawn closer
together by the now complete separation from every
member of their own family, and by the disapproval
and coldness of their Philadelphia friends, they were
an inexpressible solace and help to each other.
Identified in all their trials, as now in their labors,
they worked together in a sweet unity of spirit, which
lessened every difficulty and lightened every burden.
They continued to lecture almost uninterruptedly
for five months, and though the prejudice against
them as women appeared but slightly diminished, people
were becoming familiarized to the idea of women speaking
in public, and the way was gradually being cleared
for the advance-guard of that noble army which has
brought about so many changes favorable to the weak
and downtrodden of its own sex.
Invitations to speak came to the sisters
from all parts of the State, and not even by dividing
their labors among the smaller towns could they begin
to respond to all who wished to hear them. Sometimes
the crowds around the place of meeting were so great
that a second hall or church would have to be provided,
and Sarah speak in one, while Angelina spoke in the
other. At one place, where over a thousand people
crowded into a church, one of the joists gave way;
it was propped up, but soon others began to crack,
and, although the people were warned to leave that
part of the building, only a few obeyed, and it was
found impossible to persuade them to go, or to consent
to have the speaking stopped.
At another place ladders were put
up at all the windows, and men crowded upon them,
and tenaciously held their uncomfortable positions
through the whole meeting. In one or two places
they were refused a meeting-house, on account of strong
sectarian feeling against them as Quakers. At
Worcester they had to adjourn from a large Congregational
church to a small Methodist one, because the clergyman
of the former suddenly returned from an absence, and
declared that if they spoke in his church he would
never enter it again. At Bolton, notices of their
meetings were torn down, but the town hall was packed
notwithstanding, many going away, unable to get in.
The church here had also been refused them. Angelina,
in the course of her lecture, seized an opportunity
to refer to their treatment, saying that if the people
of her native city could see her lecturing in that
hall because every church had been closed against
the cause of God’s down-trodden creatures, they
would clap their hands for joy, and say, “See
what slavery is doing for us in the town of Bolton!”
She describes very graphically going two miles to a meeting on a dark and
rainy night, when Sarah was obliged to remain at home on account of a cold, and
Abby Kelly drove her in a chaise, and how nearly they came to being upset, and
how they met men in flocks along the road, all going to the meeting. She
says:
It seemed as if I could not realize they were going to hear me, and adds:
“This was the first large meeting
I ever attended without dear sister, and I wonder
I did not feel desolate, for I knew not a creature
there. Nevertheless, the Lord strengthened me,
and I spoke with ease for an hour and a quarter.”
But the incessant strain upon her
nervous system, together with the fatigue and exposure
of almost constant travelling, began to tell seriously
on her health. In October she frequently speaks
of being “so tired,” of being “so
glad to rest a day,” etc., until, all these warnings being
unheeded, nature peremptorily called a halt. In the beginning of November,
after a week of unusual fatigue, having lectured six times in as many different
places, they reached Hingham quite worn out. Sarah, though still suffering
with a cold, begged to lecture in her sisters place, but Angelina had been
announced, and she knew the people would be disappointed if she failed to
appear. When they entered the crowded hall, a lady seeing how unwell
Angelina looked, seized both her hands and exclaimed:
“Oh, if you will only hold out
to-night, I will nurse you for a week!”
She did hold out for an hour and a
half, and then sank back exhausted, and was obliged
to leave the lecture unfinished. This was the
beginning of an illness which lasted, with its subsequent
convalescence, through the remainder of the year.
Their good friends, Samuel and Eliza Philbrick, brought
the sisters to their beautiful home in Brookline,
and surrounded them with every care and comfort kind
hearts could suggest. Sarah then found how very
weary she was also, and how opportune was this enforced
rest.
“Thus,” wrote Angelina
some weeks afterwards to Jane Smith, “thus ended
our summer campaign. Oh, how delightful it was
to stretch my weary limbs on a bed of ease, and roll
off from my mind all the heavy responsibilities which
had so long pressed upon it, and, above all, to feel
in my soul the language, ‘Well done.’
It was luxury indeed, well worth the toil of months.”
Sarah, too, speaks of looking back
upon the labors of the summer with feelings of unmixed
satisfaction.
That the leaven prepared in Sarah
Grimke’s letters on the “Province of Woman”
was beginning to work was evidenced by a public discussion
on woman’s rights which took place at the Boston
Lyceum on the evening of De, 1837. The amount
of interest this first public debate on the subject
excited was shown by the fact that an audience of fifteen
hundred of the most intelligent and respectable people
of Boston crowded the hall and listened attentively
to the end. Sarah and Angelina, the latter now
almost entirely recovered, were present, accompanied
by Mr. Philbrick.
“A very noble view throughout,”
says Angelina, and adds: “The discussion
has raised my hopes of the woman question. It
was conducted with respect, delicacy, and dignity,
and many minds no doubt were roused to reflection,
though I must not forget to say it was decided against
us by acclamation, our enemies themselves being judges.
It was like a meeting of slave-holders deciding that
the slaves are happier in their present condition
than they would be freed.”
Soon after this, Angelina writes that
some Boston women, including Maria Chapman and Lydia
M. Child, were about to start a woman’s rights
paper, and she adds: “We greatly hope dear
Maria Chapman will soon commence lecturing, and that
the spark we have been permitted to kindle on the
woman question will never die out.”
The annual meeting of the Massachusetts
Anti-Slavery Society was held the latter part of January,
1838, and was notable in several respects. On
the second day, the “great Texas meeting,”
as it was called, was held in Faneuil Hall, and the
fact that this Cradle of Liberty was loaned to the
abolitionists was bitterly commented upon by their
opponents, while abolitionists themselves regarded
it as strong evidence of the progress their cause
had made. Angelina writes Jane Smith a graphic
account of the speakers and speeches at this meeting,
but especially mentions Henry B. Stanton, who made
the most powerful speech of the whole session, and
was so severe on Congress, that a representative who
was present arose to object to the “hot thunderbolts
and burning lava” that had been let loose on
the heads of “the powers that be, of those whom
we were commanded to honor and obey.” These
remarks were so ridiculous as to excite laughter, and
the manner in which Stanton demolished the speaker
by his own arguments called forth such repeated rounds
of applause that the great orator was obliged to insist
upon silence.
At this meeting, said to have been
the largest ever held in Boston, several hundred women
were present, a most encouraging sign to Sarah Grimke
of the progress of her ideas.
After some parleying, the hall of
the House of Representatives was granted the Society
for their remaining meetings, and here Quincy, Colver,
Phelps, and Wendell Phillips spoke and made a deep
impression, so deep that a committee was appointed
to take into consideration the petitions on the subject
of slavery.
Stanton, half in jest, asked Angelina
if she would not like to speak before that committee,
as the names of some thousands of women were before
it as signers of petitions. She had never thought
of such a thing, but, after reflecting upon it a day,
sent Stanton word that if the friends of the cause
thought well of it, she would speak as he had
proposed. He was surprised and troubled, for,
though he was all right in the abstract on the woman
question, he feared the consequences of such a manifest
assertion of equality.
“It seems,” Angelina writes,
“even the stout-hearted tremble when the woman
question is to be acted out in full. Jackson,
Fuller, Phelps, and Quincy were consulted. The
first is sound to the core, and went right up to the
State House to inquire of the chairman of the committee
whether I could be heard. Wonderful to tell, he
said Yes, without the least hesitation, and actually
helped to remove the scruples of some of the timid-hearted
abolitionists. Perhaps it is best I should bear
the responsibility wholly myself. I feel
willing to do it, and think I shall say nothing more
about it, but just let Birney and Stanton make the
speeches they expect to before the committee this
week, and when they have done, make an independent
application to the chairman as a woman, as a Southerner,
as a moral being.... I feel that this is the
most important step I have ever been called to take:
important to woman, to the slave, to my country, and
to the world.”
This plan was carried out, thanks
to James C. Alvord, the chairman of the committee;
and the halls of the Massachusetts Legislature were
opened for the first time to a woman. Wendell
Phillips says of that meeting: “It
gave Miss Grimke the opportunity to speak to the best
culture and character of Massachusetts; and the profound
impression then made on a class not often found in
our meetings was never wholly lost. It was not
only the testimony of one most competent to speak,
but it was the profound religious experience of one
who had broken out of the charmed circle, and whose
intense earnestness melted all opposition. The
converts she made needed no after-training. It
was when you saw she was opening some secret record
of her own experience that the painful silence and
breathless interest told the deep effect and lasting
impression her words were making.”
We have not Angelina’s account
of this meeting, but referring to it in a letter to
Sarah Douglass, she says: “My heart never
quailed before, but it almost died within me at that
tremendous hour.”
But one hearing did not satisfy her, and the committee needed no urging to
grant her another. At the second meeting, the hall was literally packed,
and hundreds went away unable to obtain seats. When she arose to speak,
there was some hissing from the doorways, but the most profound silence reigned
through the crowd within. Angelina first stood in front of the Speakers
desk, then she was requested to occupy the Secretarys desk on one side, and
soon after, that she might be seen as well as heard, she was invited to stand in
the Speakers place. And from that conspicuous position she spoke over two
hours without the least interruption. She says to Sarah Douglass:
“What the effect of these meetings
is to be, I know not, nor do I feel that I
have anything to do with it. This I know, that
the chairman was in tears almost the whole time I
was speaking,” and she adds: “We
abolition women are turning the world upside down,
for during the whole meeting there was sister seated
up in the Speaker’s chair of state.”
These meetings were followed by the
six evening lectures at the Odeon, to which reference
has already been made. Sarah delivered the first
lecture, taking for her subject the history of the
country in reference to slavery. She spoke for
two hours, fearlessly, as she always did, and though
she says Garrison told her he trembled with apprehension,
the audience of fifteen hundred people listened respectfully
and attentively, frequently applauding the utterance
of some strongly expressed truth, and showing no excitement
even under the rebukes she administered to Edward
Everett, then Governor of Massachusetts, for his speech
in Congress in 1826, and to ex-Governor Lincoln for
his in 1831. Both these worthies had declared
their willingness to go down South to suppress servile
insurrection.
This was the last time Sarah spoke in public. Her throat, which had
long troubled her, was now seriously affected, and entire rest was prescribed.
She did not murmur, for she had increasingly felt that Angelinas speaking was
more effective than hers, and now she believed the Lord was showing her that
this part of the work must be left to her more gifted sister, and she gladly
yielded to her the task of delivering the five succeeding lectures. In
relation to these lectures, the son of Samuel Philbrick has kindly sent me the
following extract from a diary kept by his father. Under date of April 23,
1838, he says:
“In February Angelina addressed
the committee of our legislature on the subject of
slavery and the slave trade in the District of Columbia
and Florida, and the inter-state slave trade, during
three sittings of two hours each, in the Representatives’
Hall in Boston, before a crowded audience, stowed
as close as they could stand in every aisle and corner.
Her addresses were listened to with profound attention
and respect, without interruption to the last.
More than five hundred people could not get seats,
but stood quietly during two full hours, in profound
silence.
“During the last few weeks she
has delivered five lectures, and Sarah one at the
Odeon, before an assembly of men and women from all
parts of the city. Every part of the building
was crowded, every aisle filled. Estimated number,
two thousand to three thousand at each meeting.
There was great attention and silence, and the addresses
were intensely interesting.”
These over, the sisters bade farewell
to their most excellent Brookline friends, in whose
family they had so peacefully rested for six months,
and returned to Philadelphia, Sarah accepting a temporary
home with Jane Smith, while Angelina went to stay with
Mrs. Frost, at whose house two weeks later, that is
on the 14th of May, she was united in marriage to
Theodore D. Weld.
No marriage could have been more true,
more fitting in every respect. The solemn relation
was never entered upon in more holiness of purpose
or in higher resolve to hold themselves strictly to
the best they were capable of. It was a rededication
of lives long consecrated to God and humanity; of
souls knowing no selfish ambition, seeking before all
things the glory of their Creator in the elevation
of His creatures everywhere. The entire unity
of spirit in which they afterwards lived and labored,
the tender affection which, through a companionship
of more than forty years, knew no diminution, made
a family life so perfect and beautiful that it brightened
and inspired all who were favored to witness it.
No one could be with them under the most ordinary
circumstances without feeling the force and influence
of their characters.
Invitations were sent to about eighty persons, mostly abolitionists, of all
colors, some jet black. Nearly all came; representing Pennsylvania, New
York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. Among them
were H.B. Stanton, C.C. Burleigh, William Lloyd Garrison, Amos
Dresser, H.C. Wright, Maria and Mary Chapman, Abby Kelly, Samuel
Philbrick, Jane Smith, and Sarah Douglass of course, and Mr. Welds older
brother, the president of the asylum for deaf mutes. Sarah Grimkes
account of the wedding, written to a friend in England, is most interesting; and
one cannot but wonder if another like it ever took place. The letter was
written while the then and ever after inseparable trio was at Manlius, New York,
visiting Mr. Welds family. After a slight mention of other matters, she
says:
“I must now give thee some account
of my dear sister’s marriage, which probably
thou hast already heard of. Her precious husband
is emphatically a man of God, a member of the Presbyterian
Church. Of course Angelina will be disowned for
forming this connection, and I shall be for attending
the marriage. We feel no regret at this circumstance,
believing that the discipline which cuts us off from
membership for an act so strictly in conformity with
the will of God, and so sanctioned by His word as
is the marriage of the righteous, must be anti-Christian,
and I am thankful for an opportunity to testify against
it. The marriage was solemnized at the house of
our sister, Anna R. Frost, in Philadelphia, on the
14th instant. By the law of Pennsylvania, a marriage
is legal if witnessed by twelve persons. Neither
clergyman nor magistrate is required to be present.
Angelina could not conscientiously consent to be married
by a clergyman, and Theodore D. Weld cheerfully consented
to have the marriage solemnized in such manner as
comported with her views. We all felt that the
presence of a magistrate, a stranger, would be unpleasant
to us at such a time, and we therefore concluded to
invite such of our friends as we desired, and have
the marriage solemnized as a religious act, in a religious
and social meeting. Neither Theodore nor Angelina
felt as if they could bind themselves to any preconceived
form of words, and accordingly uttered such as the
Lord gave them at the moment. Theodore addressed
Angelina in a solemn and tender manner. He alluded
to the unrighteous power vested in a husband by the
laws of the United States over the person and property
of his wife, and he abjured all authority, all government,
save the influence which love would give to them over
each other as moral and immortal beings. I would
give much could I recall his words, but I cannot.
Angelina’s address to him was brief but comprehensive,
containing a promise to honor him, to prefer him above
herself, to love him with a pure heart fervently.
Immediately after this we knelt, and dear Theodore
poured out his soul in solemn supplication for the
blessing of God on their union, that it might be productive
of enlarged usefulness, and increased sympathy for
the slave. Angelina followed in a melting appeal
to our Heavenly Father, for a blessing on them, and
that their union might glorify Him, and then asked
His guidance and over-shadowing love through the rest
of their pilgrimage. A colored Presbyterian minister
then prayed, and was followed by a white one, and
then I felt as if I could not restrain the language
of praise and thanksgiving to Him who had condescended
to be in the midst of this marriage feast, and to
pour forth abundantly the oil and wine of consolation
and rejoicing. The Lord Jesus was the first guest
invited to be present, and He condescended to bless
us with His presence, and to sanction and sanctify
the union which was thus consummated. The certificate
was then read by William Lloyd Garrison, and was signed
by the company. The evening was spent in pleasant
social intercourse. Several colored persons were
present, among them two liberated slaves, who formerly
belonged to our father, had come by inheritance to
sister Anna, and had been freed by her. They
were our invited guests, and we thus had an opportunity
to bear our testimony against the horrible prejudice
which prevails against colored persons, and the equally
awful prejudice against the poor.”
This unconventional but truly religious
marriage ceremony was in perfect harmony with the
loyal, noble natures of Theodore Weld and Angelina
Grimke, exemplifying the simplicity of their lives
and the strength of their principles. No grand
preparations preceded the event; no wedding bells
were rung on the occasion; no rare gifts were displayed:
but the blessing of the lowly and the despised, and
the heart-felt wishes of co-workers and co-sufferers
were the offerings which lent to the occasion its
purest joy and brightest light.
But though so quietly and peacefully
solemnized, this marriage was to have its celebration, one
little anticipated, but according well with the experiences
which had preceded it, and serving to make it all the
more impressive and its promises more sacred.
Refused the use of churches and lecture-rooms,
and denied the privilege of hiring halls for their
meetings, the abolitionists of Philadelphia, with
other friends of free discussion, formed an association,
and built, at an expense of forty thousand dollars,
a beautiful hall, to be used for free speech on any
and every subject not of an immoral character.
Daniel Neall was the president of this association,
and William Dorsey the secretary. The hall, one
of the finest buildings in the city, was situated
at the southwest corner of Delaware, Sixth, and Harris
streets, between Cherry and Sassafras streets.
It was opened for the first time on
Angelina Grimke’s wedding-day, and was filled
with one of the largest audiences ever assembled in
Philadelphia.
As soon as the president of the association had taken his seat, the secretary
arose and explained the uses and purposes the hall was expected to serve.
He said:
“A number of individuals of
all sects, and those of no sect, of all parties, and
those of no party, being desirous that the citizens
of Philadelphia should possess a room wherein the
principles of liberty and equality of civil
rights could be freely discussed, and the evils
of slavery fearlessly portrayed, have erected this
building, which we are now about to dedicate to liberty
and the rights of man.... A majority of the stockholders
are mechanics or working-men, and (as is the case
in almost every other good work) a number are women.”
The secretary then proceeded to read letters from John Quincy Adams, Thaddeus
Stevens, Gerrit Smith, Theodore Weld, and others, who had been invited to
deliver addresses, but who, from various causes, were obliged to decline.
That from Weld was characteristic of the earnestness of the man. After
stating that for a year and a half he had been prevented from speaking in public
on account of an affection of the throat, and must therefore decline the
invitation of the committee, he adds:
“I exult in the erection of
your ‘temple of freedom,’ and the more,
as it is the first and only one, in a republic of
fifteen millions, consecrated to free discussion and
equal rights.”
“For years they have been banished
from our halls of legislation and of justice, from
our churches and our pulpits. It is befitting
that the city of Benezet and of Franklin should be
the first to open an asylum where the hunted exiles
may find a home. God grant that your Pennsylvania
Hall may be free, indeed!”
The empty name is everywhere, free
government, free men, free speech, free
people, free schools, and free churches.
Hollow counterfeits all! Free! It is the climax
of irony, and its million echoes are hisses and jeers,
even from the earth’s ends. Free! Blot
it out. Words are the signs of things.
The substance has gone! Let fools and madmen
clutch at shadows. The husk must rustle the more
when the kernel and the ear are gone. Rome’s
loudest shout for liberty was when she murdered it,
and drowned its death shrieks in her hoarse huzzas.
She never raised her hands so high to swear allegiance
to freedom as when she gave the death-stab, and madly
leaped upon its corpse; and her most delirious dance
was among the clods her hands had cast upon its coffin.
Free! The word and sound are omnipresent masks
and mockers. An impious lie, unless they stand
for free lynch law and free murder,
for they are free.
“But I’ll hold. The
times demand brief speech, but mighty deeds. On,
my brethren! uprear your temple. “Your brother
in the sacred strife for all,
“THEODORE D. WELD.”
David Paul Brown, of Philadelphia, was invited to deliver the dedicatory
address, which, with other exercises, occupied the mornings and evening of three
days, and included addresses by Garrison, Thomas P. Hunt, Arnold Buffum, Alanson
St. Clair, and others, on slavery, temperance, the Indians, right of free
discussion, and kindred topics. On the second day, an appropriate and
soul-stirring poem by John G. Whittier was read by C.C. Burleigh.
The first lines will give an idea of the spirit of the whole poem, one of the
finest efforts Whittier ever made:
“Not with the splendors
of the days of old,
The spoil of nations and barbaric
gold,
No weapons wrested from the
fields of blood,
Where dark and stern the unyielding
Roman stood,
And the proud eagles of his
cohorts saw
A world war-wasted, crouching
to his law;
Nor blazoned car, nor banners
floating gay,
Like those which swept along
the Appian Way,
When, to the welcome of imperial
Rome,
The victor warrior came in
triumph home,
And trumpet peal, and shoutings
wild and high,
Stirred the blue quiet of
th’ Italian sky,
But calm and grateful, prayerful,
and sincere,
As Christian freemen only,
gathering here,
We dedicate our fair and lofty
hall,
Pillar and arch, entablature
and wall,
As Virtue’s shrine,
as Liberty’s abode,
Sacred to Freedom, and to
Freedom’s God.”
The Anti-Slavery Convention of American
Women was then holding a session in the city, and
among the members present were some of the brightest
and noblest women of the day, women with courage as
calm and high to dare, as with hearts tender to feel
for human woe. The Convention occupied the lecture-room
of Pennsylvania Hall, under the main saloon.
A strong desire having been expressed by many citizens
to hear some of these able pleaders for the slave,
notice was given that there would be a meeting in
the main saloon on the evening of the 16th, at which
Angelina, E.G. Weld, Maria Chapman, and others
would speak.
Up to the time of this announcement,
no apprehension of any disturbance had been felt by
the managers of the hall. So far all the meetings
had been conducted without interruption; nor could
anyone have supposed it possible that in a city renowned
for its order and law, and possessing a large and
efficient police force, a public outrage upon an assemblage
of respectable citizens, many of them women, could
be perpetrated. But it was soon to be shown how
deeply the spirit of slavery had infused itself into
the minds of the people of the free States, leading
them to disregard the rights of individuals and to
wantonly violate the sacred principles guaranteed
by the Constitution of the country.
During the day some threats of violence
were thrown out, and written placards were
posted about the city inviting interference with the
proposed meeting, forcibly if necessary.
But this was regarded only as the expression of malice
on the part of a few, or perhaps of an individual,
and occasioned no alarm. Still, the precaution
was taken to request the mayor to hold his police
force in readiness to protect the meeting in case
of need. The day passed quietly. Long before
the time announced for the meeting, the hall, capable
of containing three thousand people, was thronged,
and, by the time the speakers arrived, every seat
was filled, every inch of standing room was occupied,
and thousands went away from the doors unable to obtain
admittance. The audience was for the most part
a highly respectable and intelligent one, and, notwithstanding
the great crowd, was exceedingly quiet. William
Lloyd Garrison opened the meeting with a short but
characteristic speech, during which he was frequently
interrupted by hisses and groans; and when he ended,
some efforts were made to break up the meeting.
In the midst of the confusion, Maria W. Chapman arose,
calm, dignified, and, with a wave of her hand, as though
to still the noise, began to speak, but, before she
had gone far, yells from the outside proclaimed the
arrival there of a disorderly rabble, and at once
the confusion inside became so great, that, although
the brave woman continued her speech, she was not
heard except by those immediately around her.
Sarah Grimke thus wrote of Mrs. Chapman’s
appearance on that occasion: “She is the
most beautiful woman I ever saw; the perfection of
sweetness and intelligence being blended in her speaking
countenance. She arose amid the yells and shouts
of the infuriated mob, the crash of windows and the
hurling of stones. She looked to me like an angelic
being descended amid that tempest of passion in all
the dignity of conscious superiority.”
Then Angelina Weld, the bride of three days, came forward, and so great was
the effect of her pure, beautiful presence and quiet, graceful manner, that in a
few moments the confusion within the hall had subsided. With deep
solemnity, and in words of burning eloquence, she gave her testimony against the
awful wickedness of an institution which had no secrets from her. She was
frequently interrupted by the mob, but their yells and shouts only furnished her
with metaphors which she used with unshrinking power. More stones were
thrown at the windows, more glass crashed, but she only paused to ask:
“What is a mob? What would
the breaking of every window be? Any evidence
that we are wrong, or that slavery is a good and wholesome
institution? What if that mob should now burst
in upon us, break up our meeting, and commit violence
upon our persons would this be anything
compared with what the slaves endure? No, no:
and we do not remember them ‘as bound with them,’
if we shrink in the time of peril, or feel unwilling
to sacrifice ourselves, if need be, for their sake.
I thank the Lord that there is yet life enough left
to feel the truth, even though it rages at it that
conscience is not so completely seared as to be unmoved
by the truth of the living God.”
Here a shower of stones was thrown
through the windows, and there was some disturbance
in the audience, but quiet was again restored, and
Angelina proceeded, and spoke for over an hour, making
no further reference to the noise without, and only
showing that she noticed it by raising her own voice
so that it could be heard throughout the hall.
Not once was a tremor or a change
of color perceptible, and though the missiles continued
to fly through the broken sashes, and the hootings
and yellings increased outside, so powerfully did her
words and tones hold that vast audience, that, imminent
as seemed their peril, scarcely a man or woman moved
to depart. She sat down amid applause that drowned
all the noise outside.
Abby Kelly, then quite a young woman,
next arose and said a few words, her first public
utterances. She was followed by gentle Lucretia
Mott in a short but most earnest speech, and then
this memorable meeting, the first of the kind where
men and women acted together as moral beings, closed.
There was a dense crowd in the streets
around the hall as the immense audience streamed out,
but though screams and all sorts of appalling noises
were made, no violence was offered, and all reached
their homes in safety.
But the mob remained, many of its
wretched members staying all night, assaulting every
belated colored man who came along. The next morning
the dregs of the populace, and some respectable looking
men again assembled around the doomed hall, but the
usual meetings were held, and even the convention
of women assembled in the lecture room to finish up
their business. The evening was to have been occupied
by a public meeting of the Wesleyan Anti-Slavery Society
of Philadelphia, but as the day waned to its close,
the indications of approaching disturbance became
more and more alarming. The crowd around the
building increased, and the secret agents of slavery
were busy inflaming the passions of the rabble against
the abolitionists, and inciting it to outrage.
Seeing this, and realizing the danger which threatened,
the managers of the hall gave the building over to
the protection of the mayor of the city, at his
request. Of course the proposed meeting was
postponed. All the mayor did was to appear in
front of the hall, and, in a friendly tone, express
to the mob the hope that it would not do anything
disorderly, saying that he relied upon the men he
saw before him, as his policemen, and he wished
them “good evening!” The mob gave “three
cheers for the mayor,” and, as soon as he was
out of sight, extinguished the gas lights in front
of the building. The rest is soon told.
Doors and windows were broken through, and with wild
yells the reckless horde dashed in, plundered the
Repository, scattering the books in every direction,
and, mounting the stairways and entering the beautiful
hall, piled combustibles on the Speaker’s forum,
and applied the torch to them, shrieking like demons, as
they were, for the time. A moment more, and the
flames roared and crackled through the building, and
though it was estimated that fifteen thousand persons
were present, and though the fire companies were early
on the scene, not one effort was made to save the
structure so recently erected, at such great cost,
and consecrated to such Christian uses. In a
few hours the smouldering walls alone were left.
Angelina Weld never again appeared
in public. An accident soon after her marriage
caused an injury of such a nature that her nervous
system was permanently impaired, and she was ever
after obliged to avoid all excitement or over-exertion.
The period of her public labors was short, but how
fruitful, how full of blessings to the cause of the
slave and to the many who espoused it through her powerful
appeals! Great was her grief; for, knowing now
her capabilities, she had looked forward to renewed
and still more successful work; but she accepted with
sweet submission the cross laid upon her. Not
a murmur arose to her lips. She was content to
leave all to the Lord. He could find some new
work for her to do. She would trust Him, and patiently
wait.
The loss of the services of one so
richly endowed, so devoted, and so successful, was
deeply felt by the friends of emancipation, and especially
as at this important epoch efficient speakers were
sorely needed, and two of the most efficient, Weld
and Burleigh, were already, from overwork, taken from
the platform.
But though denied the privilege of
again raising her voice in behalf of the oppressed,
Angelina continued to plead for them through her pen.
She could never forget the cause that could never forget
her, and to her writings was transferred much of the
force and eloquence of her speaking.
Immediately after the destruction of Pennsylvania Hall, Mr. and Mrs. Weld,
accompanied by Sarah Grimke, paid a visit to Mr. Welds parents in Manlius, from
which place, Sarah, writing to Jane Smith, says:
“O Jane, it looks like almost
too great a blessing for us three to be together in
some quiet, humble habitation, living to the glory
of God, and promoting the happiness of those around
us; to be spiritually united, and to be pursuing with
increasing zeal the great work of the abolition of
slavery.”
The “quiet, humble habitation”
was found at Fort Lee, on the Hudson, and there the
happy trio settled down for their first housekeeping.