Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 6.djvu/156

 320 WORKMEN AND HEROES Tu Benjamin Lundy, a Quaker, and at that time editor of the Genius of Universal Emancipation, in Baltimore a paper devoted to the gradual abolition of slavery belongs the honor of first attempting to awaken public sentiment on the subject. Upon his visit to Boston, August 7, 1828, he made the acquaint- ance of Garrison, whose eyes he opened to the iniquity of the slave system. During the same year Mr. Garrison accepted the invitation of a committee of prominent citizens of Bennington, Vt., to edit the Journal of the Times, a weekly newspaper devoted to the re-election of John Quincy Adams against Andrew Jackson. While started for campaign purposes, the Journal of the Times declared for independence of party and advocated the suppression of intemperance, the gradual emancipation of the slave, the doctrines of peace, and the so-called American system of protection for fostering native in- dustry. Attracted by the anti-slavery utterances of Mr. Garrison, Lundy resolved to invite him to share in the editorship of his paper, walking from Baltimore to Bennington for the purpose. His earnestness had the desired effect upon Mr. Garrison, who accepted his proffer and relinquished the Journal of the Times. Before going to Baltimore Mr. Garrison was invited to address the Congrega- tional societies of Boston on July 4th, at the Park Street Church, and took for his theme " Dangers to the Nation." The poet John Pierpont was present and wrote a hymn for the occasion. The address was a stirring denunciation of slavery and a rebuke to the nation for its pretentious devotion to liberty. The speaker was accused by a Boston paper of slandering his country and blasphem- ing the Declaration of Independence. Upon his arrival at Baltimore, Garrison, having convinced himself of the ne-. cessity of immediate and unconditional emancipation, it was agreed, inasmuch as Lundy adhered to the methods of gradual emancipation, that each should sign his own editorials. Mr. Todd, a Newburyport merchant, having allowed his ship to be used in the inter-state slave trade between Baltimore and New Orleans, Mr. Garrison faithfully denounced in unmeasured terms his fellow-townsman, and asserted the equal wickedness of the domestic slave trade with that of the foreign traffic, which, at that time, was in the law considered piracy. Arrested, tried, and con- victed of libel, although the facts were proven, Garrison was incarcerated in the Baltimore jail, April 17, 1830, in default of a fine of $50 with $50 costs. Un- daunted in his captivity, he continued to write his protest against slavery and to record in verse his feelings. His famous sonnet, "The Immortal Mind," was written with pencil upon the walls of his cell. Liberated at the expiration of forty-nine days, through the generosity of Arthur Tappan, of New York, who paid his fine, Garrison visited Boston and Newburyport, endeavoring to speak in both places, but the doors of halls and churches were closed against him. At last the hall used by a society of avowed infidels, in Boston, to whom Abner Kneeland preached, was opened to Mr. Garrison for three anti-slavery lectures, and among the audience at his first lecture were Samuel J. May, Samuel E.