January 3, 1845
A meeting held at which Garrison and others resolve to petition the legislature to “abolish capital punishment in this Commonwealth”. Includes the following: ” Resolved, That it is among the glorious objects of Christianity to save men’s lives, not to destroy them – to abolish the gallows and every other instrument of inhumanity, as well as war and slavery – to reclaim the criminal and not to ruin him – to overcome evil with good , and not to extract eye for eye, or tooth for tooth, or life for life.”
January 17, 1845
Here is an article recounting how the Synod of Kentucky (probably Presbyterian), has adopted resolutions which recommend “all masters to use efforts for the moral and religious improvement of their servants, especially by teaching them the truths of the Bible, and inducing them to stand upon the stated means of grace.”
Comment by the Editor: “This is merely another attempt to ’sugar o’er the devil’, and strengthen the accursed slave system. It is a horrible mockery to talk of religiously instructing those who are held to be ‘chattels personal’. Two centuries have shown this to be an impossibility.”
January 31, 1845
Here is an Aug, 45 letter from Clarkson, addressed to “the Christian and well-disposed Citizens of the Northern States of America”. A letter encouraging all abolitionists, concluding with: “Consider whether you will be any longer trodden down by the people of the South, any longer submit to gagging bills, any longer submit to be the jailors for their fugitive slaves, or whether you will be your own masters, aiming at the restoration of morals, and making laws agreeable to your Declaration of Independence, the object of which originally was the liberty and happiness of the people.”
February 7, 1845
Under the heading, Foreign Intelligence, a notice about a man who now confesses to a murder for which another was executed. “This is not the first time, by many hundreds, that the innocent has suffered, instead of the guilty, in this awful and irrevocable manner. Down with the gallows!”
February 14, 1845
Here is notice from Nantucket, of a meeting in the Town Hall to promote “abolition of caste in our public schools” It was resolved, “That the colored children of this town have an equal right to all the schools, in common with all other children.”
February 21, 1845
A long letter from Rogers, in Concord, N.H., dated Feb 1, 1845. It concerns the Herald of Freedom, its dissolution, and Roger’s dismay at Garrison’s failure to support it. There are implications here of severe disagreement, and almost a dissolution of Roger’s close ties to Garrison. Rogers expresses “mortification at the changes wrought in anti-slavery affairs within the last few months. I ought not to be sorry for it, for our positions are more clearly revealed. You have encountered, heretofore, wave after wave of the assaults of new organization and corporate conservatism. You have triumphed over them all. I have been with you against them all. You are now on the side of conservatism and legitimacy. It is not congenial to your nature – it is uncongenial to the spirit of reform, and cannot prosper. No amount of genius, or talent, or influence, can give it the final victory.”
There is a long response from Garrison. “The truth is, friend Rogers has become a monomaniac on the subject of organization and free meeting, and it is perfectly idle, while he is in that state of mind, to argue with him…”
March 7, 1845
A notice that the State Senate has passed “the law asked by the friends of the colored people, in relation to public schools.”
March 7, 1845
The Judge sentences Fairbanks to hard labor for a total of fifteen years, five years for each of three indictments against him. The three indictments include one for having enticed a slave named Louis to leave his owners, one for abetting the escape of a slave named Harriet, property of Patterson Bain, and the third regarding a boy named Joe, property of Bain. In the trial Fairbanks professes penitence … “he lamented that he engaged in any enterprise of the kind, but protested the conscience sense of duty under which he then acted, the result of his early education; said that he now believed that he was wrong; that he had found that the efforts of the abolitionists , instead of ameliorating, had only served to embitter the fate of the slaves; that they, the slaves, were more comfortably situated here than any of their comrades who had escaped, and concluded by imploring their clemency.” The trial took place in Lexington, Kentucky.
March 7, 1845
This notice has appeared before, from John P.Coburn, informing that his clothing store has been moved, and is now located at “51 Cornhill and 24 Brattle Street”. (Raises question about the locale of both streets at this time in history – were the two so located that Coburn might have had access to his store from both ???????)
March 28, 1845
A notice that Gov. Briggs has appointed Thursday, April 3rd, to be fast day. The editor makes fun of the day: “There is no more religion in the appointment of an annual fast, than in the annual recurrence of a political election….. The time for holding the annual fast in this State always is April. It is, at best, an April fool’s day business.”
