The Martyrdom of Abolitionist Charles Torrey

3. Political Abolitionism

 POLITICAL ABOLITIONISM The 1839 meeting of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society would be a watershed for American abolitionism. In the early years of the century, the abolitionist movement’s dominant theme had been gradualism—the belief that the emancipation of slaves could be brought about slowly in a series of graduated steps. These included the freeing or manumission of slaves by slaveholders, as George Washington had done at his death; allowing slaves to purchase their freedom; and changing state laws to gradually abolish slavery, as the northern states had done by the 1790s. The problem with gradualism was, in the words of one abolitionist, that it would bring about emancipation “sometime between now and never.” In the 1820s colonization , the sending of free blacks and slaves to Liberia, emerged as another form of gradualism. Given this history, William Lloyd Garrison ’s call for the immediate emancipation of slaves by moral suasion was regarded as radical and rhetorically aggressive, especially by slaveholders themselves. The schism of 1839, however, gave birth to political abolitionism as an alternative tactic for achieving emancipation. Garrison viewed political abolitionism as a threat to moral suasion and to his leadership, and insofar as political abolitionism was successful, it weakened Garrison’s authority. Bruce Laurie, in Beyond Garrison, claimed that “in the 1840s Garrison’s camp was dwarfed by political antislavery and was probably smaller still a decade later. . . . Garrisonianism and political abolitionism . . . were headed in different directions by the middle of the 1840s, with the former in decline and the latter on the rise.” Howard Temperley, in British Antislavery , 1833–1870, noted that “even in Garrison’s native Massachusetts his followers constituted a minority of the antislavery body.” Reinhard Johnson, author of The Liberty Party, similarly claimed that “by 1845 . . . the Garrisonians were a numerically weak, though vocal, 49 50 | the martyrdom of abolitionist charles torrey segment of Massachusetts abolitionism. Key Garrisonians privately lamented the diminution of their following and acknowledged that almost all abolitionists adhered to the Liberty party.” Johnson is one of the few historians to have focused on the importance of Torrey, Phelps, St. Clair, and the other breakaway abolitionists in helping to establish political abolitionism and its public persona, the Liberty Party. The official name of the organization created by the dissidents was the Massachusetts Abolition Society, but Garrison and his followers usually referred to it as the New Organization. Similarly, Torrey , Phelps, and others generally referred to Garrison’s group as the Old Organization. From its beginnings, the New Organization was set up to use political means to fight slavery. Membership was restricted to gentlemen who were, in Phelps’s words, “sober, serious and prayerful,” and voting for abolitionist candidates was incumbent on everyone. The political abolitionists’ power was to come from the ballot box, and this, they said, would make them “feared as they never would have been had they remained in the quiescent land of abstractions.” Immediately following the schism in January 1839, a fierce fight ensued between the New and Old organizations for the fealty of local abolitionist societies. According to observers, “Amos Phelps and his fellow ministers organized day and night to convince local antislavery societies to break with the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society and affiliate with” the New Organization. “Private letters innumerable have been written in every direction, especially by Phelps.” Garrison and his followers worked equally hard to undermine “the clerics ,” as they referred to Phelps, Torrey, St. Clair, and so forth. When Garrison successfully persuaded the Essex County Society to oust Torrey as its corresponding secretary, Garrison called it a “grand meeting.” In the end, some local societies remained affiliated with Garrison, others affiliated with the New Organization, and still others split into two societies. Women in the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society voted 142–10 to affiliate with the New Organization, despite the fact that the New Organization did not admit women as full members, because “it was found impracticable to remain united with . . . their no-government friends.” The schism also affected political abolitionism | 51 surrounding state societies. Rhode Island continued to follow Garrison , whereas Maine, where Garrison “was almost universally disliked for his anti-clericalism and aggressive manner,” followed the New Organization. Much of the fighting took place on the pages of the two organizations ’ newspapers. Elizur Wright, Torrey’s Yale classmate, came to Boston from the American Anti-Slavery Society’s New York office to edit the Massachusetts Abolitionist. Wright...