February 16, 1849
Martin Stowell writes to Garrison, from Warren, Jan 30, 1849. He tells the story of his wife, who wrote a letter to her church, charging them with sustaining war, capital punishment, and slavery. A committee of the church met with her, trying to rescue her from the road to hell. Then she met with the church and delivered a strong “comeouterism” message; she “asked them if they were sorry for having sustained War, Slavery, and Capital Punishment …to all of which they unanimously declared they were not. She then rose, and, in a calm, distinct voice, said, ‘Then I do hereby declare my brothers and sisters of the Congregational Church in Warren and throughout the country, expelled from my communion.’”
The editor comments: “All honor to this faithful and fearless witness of God and humanity! A slavery sustaining, war approving, gallows upholding church cannot be a Christian church.”
February 23, 1849
Under the title They Fear the Light, here are the resolutions adopted at the Mass Anti-Slavery Society meeting, and the subject of the articles which appeared in the Feb. 9 edition of the paper. The resolution in reference to Calhoun, it claims, has “elicited a good deal of fierce and ribaldrous critricism in various quarters”. Then the disputed resolution is appended: “That in openly and unequivocally advocating slavery as a just, beneficent and democratic institution, John C. Calhoun, of South Carolina, is to be commended for his frankness and directness; that for his earnestness , consistency, intrepidity and self-sacrifice, in defending and seeking to extend and perpetuate what he thus professes to regard as superlatively excellent, he is equally to be commended; and that he stands in admirable contrast, and is incomparably to be preferred, to those northern time-servers and doug-faces, who professedly look upon slavery with abhorrence, and yet are found ever ready to compromise the sacred principles of liberty, to betray the rights of the people of the North, and on bended knee to worship the Slave Power of the South.”
March 9, 1849
Joseph Merrill writes from Danvers (New Mills), Feb 22, 1849, and praises highly both of the Fosters, who have held a series of meetings in that town.
March 16, 1849
This letter, is from Clay to Richard Pindell, Esq., dated Feb 17, 1849, New Orleans.
Clay states his unhappiness with slavery and he laments that in 1799 Kentucky did not adopt a system of gradual emancipation in its Constitution. Since that did not happen, he now urges a path to emancipation: “After full and deliberate consideration of the subject, it seems to me three principles should regulate the establishment of a system of emancipation. The first is that it should be slow in its operation, cautious and gradual so as to occasion no convulsion nor rash or sudden disturbance in the existing habits of society. Second, that, as an indispensable condition, the emancipated slaves should be removed from the State to some colony. And thirdly, that the expenses of their transportation to such colony, including an outfit for six months after their arrival, should be defrayed from a fund to be raised from the labor of each freed slave…… Nothing could be more unwise than the immediate liberation of all the slaves in the State… it would lead to the most frightful and fatal consequences…..”
Garrison includes a long response, which he signs with: “Yours, for immediate emancipation without expatriation.”
March 23, 1849
Signed by Abner Ross, Fairfield District, is notice of a “negro girl named Molly”, who has run away …. “She is sixteen or seventeen years of age slim made, lately branded on the left cheek thus R, and a piece taken off her left ear on the same side; the same letter on the inside of both her legs.” Twenty Dollars Reward is offered for her return.
From the Raleigh Standard, a paper of North Carolina: — “Ran away, a negro woman and two children. A few days before she went off, I burned her with a hot iron on the left side of her face. I tried to make the letter M. Micajah Ricks”
March 30, 1849
Under the title Shall He Be Hung?, here is an article about Washington Goode, a “colored man, a sailor, … under sentence of death”….noted is a petition to the Governor for the commutation of the sentence …signatures include Samuel May, Ellis Gray Loring, Wendell Phillips, H. I. Bowditch, James Freeman Clarke, J. A. Andrew. The signers claim that the evidence of his guilt is circumstantial, and of flimsy character…that many mistakes have been made, and they also make an appeal that “no good can spring from such an example” because he is “ignorant, friendless, degraded”.
April 6, 1849
“The meeting at the Tremont Temple, on Sunday evening last, to extend to William and Ellen Crafts, the interesting fugitives from Georgia, a public welcome, was one of thrilling interest, and doubtless of highly beneficial results.” Garrison made introductory remarks, William W. Brown introduced the Crafts. Mr. Craft spoke, followed by Wendell Phillips, in his usual eloquent strain: “most effectively did he exhibit the criminal indifference and hypocrisy of the American Church, and the base subserviency of the political parties (Free Soil not excepted), on the subject of slavery.”
April 6, 1849
An item from the Harrisburg Keystone, conveys a view of legislation and legislators. It asks farmers, mechanics, laboring men to review the huge volume of acts passed at each session “almost wholly made up of acts of incorporation, or supplementary thereto, and special and local acts, most of which ought never to have been passed. Yet every man in the community is taxed to keep up the legislative machinery between three and four months of every year……We may talk of parties, and of principles of government, as much as we please, but unless they are made productive of some good to the people, they are of no practical utility.”
April 13, 1849
A report from the N.W. Washingtonian of an enthusiastic meeting at Tremont Temple, at which about five hundred people signed a petition for Goode’s repreve The article includes a strong statement favoring correction rather then execution as the better way to assure the safety of the community. “Shall we be safer then to hang Washington Goode? No. So far as security is concerned, he can be safely kept in prison. So far as the example is concerned, the community justly fear the hanging, and require that it shall be in private. Its only effect upon the vicious will be to brutalize them, and sharpen their appetite for blood. If Goode shall be hung, we are all safer previous to the deed being committed, than we shall be afterward. But there is one other consideration, the reformation of the criminal himself. We never should lose sight of this. In securing this, we secure the safety of the community, and the abstract ends of justice….”
April 13, 1849
Death and funeral of Garrison’s child is noted. Speakers at the service included Parker, Phillips, Quincy, Pillsbury, Wright, John Spear, Bronson Alcott.
