January 6, 1854
A large audience assembled in the Belknap Street Church for the second annual meeting of the Association. The group had been established in the previous year, “for the purpose of annually testifying the love and affection we cherish for the Pioneer, and unflinching Advocate of Immediate Emancipation”. Speakers review his life and its importance in the emancipation cause. In his response Garrison affirms his central commitments, and at the conclusion, “he briefly alluded, as a matter of deep regret, to the alienation of Mr. Douglass from his old friends, but said he had no wish to bias the minds of any present in regard to the controversy. They must read and decide for themselves. Whoever might falter or prove recreant, our cause was of God, and must ultimately grind all opposition to powder. (Cheers.)”
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