Hutchinsons, whom we have asked to repeat some of the very words and music that so thrilled the old anti-slavery meetings for so many years, and in so many places at home and abroad. Our venerable friend, Mr. John W. Hutchinson, the sole surviving member of the famous quartet, will, however, first sing a song which he has written specially for this occasion and which he has adapted to a tune of his own. I hope he will preface it with some reminiscences. Mr. Hutchinson then came forward and made the following remarks, addressed particularly to his former associates, after which he sang "Few, Faithful and True," accompanied in the chorus by his daughter, Mrs. Viola Hutchinson Campbell, and his granddaughter, Miss Kate Campbell : ADDRESS AND SONG BY MR. JOHN W. HUTCHINSON. Dear Friends:-This is an impressive occasion and a momentous review. We bid you all a hearty welcome. To the few veterans whose life has dwindled to so short a span, let me say, we congratulate you that one more opportunity is offered that will ́yield sacred remembrances of joys we have tasted, and of true friendships we have experienced throughout the many years during which we labored in the vineyard of good will to all mankind. Your joys are full, and our hearts are made glad this day, even though it should chance to be the last. We meet here upon ground sacred to the memory of our ancestors, who, two hundred and fifty years ago, settled and cultivated this soil, deriving title from the aborigines who had so recently vacated their corn fields and hunting grounds. Here seven generations, bearing the name of Hutchinson, have followed in due succession. From this place heroes of that and many another family went forth to the defence of liberty, and were among the bravest at the battles of Lexington and Bunker Hill and in the struggles of the Revolution. We, who have lived since that day of sharp conflicts with the foes of freedom, have rejoiced to hear again the sound of emancipation. And now, in our old age, we assemble with our countrymen here and commemorate the events that established the fact that the nation could live with chattel slavery entirely eliminated, and right made triumphant. Familiar as household words shall be the names of Garrison, Rogers, Thompson, Phillips. Douglass, Weld, Quincy, Jackson, Burleigh, Sumner, Chase, Wilson, Birney, Brown, Foster, Kelley, May, Pillsbury, Putnam, Mott, Purvis, Chapman, McKim, Whittier, Abraham Lincoln and Lucy Stone, with the Tribe of Jesse, and full many others. The scenes and occurrences of anti-slavery days shall, in our social gatherings, be ever remembered. I cannot express, as I would, the sentiments I feel at such a gathering as this. The associations of half a century of experience mingle with these passing hours and fill me with delight, which I can only try to voice in song. Mr. Hutchinson's spirited verses were sung with wonderful effect, and those who were present and who had heard him forty or fifty years before were kindled by him with the same enthusiasm as then and discovered no loss of his musical genius and electrifying power. We give the closing lines of his poem, as a re-echo of the opening stanzas, omitting the portions that touched more directly upon "The combat fierce, the battle long." "So, now, good friends, rejoice with me; The promised day we live to see; With grateful hearts and strong desire, REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT. Ladies and Gentlemen:-As we have been delayed in our proceedings by circumstances with which you are familiar, I shall not long prevent you from listening to other speakers by any words of my own. But I may be permitted to say in behalf of the Danvers Historical Society that I warmly welcome all of you to this commemoration of old anti-slavery days. Especially do we welcome the veterans who are gathered here on the platform or who are mingled in the larger crowd before me,-veterans of many a well-fought battle, all or most of whom at the very outset dedicated themselves to the sacred cause of liberty and continued in the fight until the very end, subjected to persecution, to outrage, to wrong, yet faithful ever to the principles of truth and justice. We would fain do them special honor here and now, and thank them from our very hearts, for the service which they have rendered, for the example which they have set, for the influence which they have exerted, for all that they have done for our beloved country, and for the world at large. You have taught us, dear friends (the speaker looking around the platform), how te stand for the right, to stand for it consistently and uncompromisingly, and having done all, to stand. We are all of us the better, we trust, for what you have been, for what you have said, for the lives that you have lived. The blessing of them that were ready to perish is upon you, with the growing benedictions of a grateful people. Thinned and wasted are your ranks, and old age is with most of you, yet we rejoice to know that you are all still young and strong in thought and spirit, and love and faith. God grant that the time may yet be distant, when you shall go hence as have gone so many of your comrades in the memorable conflict. But be that day sooner or later, we are most happy to have you here, and hope to hear something from you of the immortal story. For better or worse, we have arranged for a single session only, and what with so many addresses that are to be delivered, so many letters to be read, and so many songs to be sung, each speaker is expected to be brief. We would gladly hear everyone at great length, but the hours fly fast and the committee have thought that the audience would prefer to hear numerous short speeches rather than a few very long ones, and they have made out the programme accordingly. I have the pleasure now of introducing to you a distinguished son of an illustrious father-a father who was foremost to enter upon the great warfare, to fling the gauntlet down at the feet of the slave power and breast the storm of hatred and abuse which he encountered--a son who worthily bears his name, and inherits his blood, and perpetuates his interest in every good and holy cause-William Llojd Garrison. [Great applause.] ADDRESS BY MR. WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. I was invited by your President to speak, in the few minutes allowed me, upon the early anti-slavery life of my father. I could add little if any to the record of his authentic biography, and therefore elect to treat of a phase of the great movement still confused and generally misunderstood because of surviving prejudices and of personal antagonisms unforgotten or inherited. To one baptized in the early spirit of the cause, and born into the circle of uncompromising abolition, nothing is marked in the current attempts to write history than the utter failure of historians to grasp the secret of the anti-slavery reform, or to appreciate the undeviating policy of its leader. The distance is not yet great enough to allow the proper perspective, and the temper of the times is so swayed by the gospel of expediency that we must wait for the just recognition which is sure to come with the nation's ultimate moral regeneration. What Lowell has written of Lincoln is equally applicable to the pioneer of the anti-slavery cause; So always firmly he; He knew to bide his time, Still patient in his simple faith sublime, But now, when a sacred treaty with a friendly nation, which recognizes "the inherent and inalienable rights of man to changehis home and allegiance . . . from one country to another, for the purposes of curiosity, of trade, or as permanent residents," is basely broken,—when the days of the Fugitive Slave Law are reappearing with the Chinese for victims,-when the attempt to steal Hawaii recalls the fillibustering efforts to seize Cuba,--when a secret star-chamber treaty with Russia permits the Czar to drag back to death or exile the accused political refugees who naturally sought safety in the land of Washington and Lincoln,-when the injustice to the Indian and the southern negro is still condoned,—at such a time, what wonder that the popular estimate of the Garrisonian abolitionists is false and misleading! 66 im Pick up the attempted histories which have been written since the civil war, bearing upon the causes and the struggles which led to the downfall of slavery, and read the authors' characterization of those impracticable men and women who contended for mediate and unconditional emancipation" and demanded that the covenant with Death and the agreement with Hell" be annulled. You gather from the portrayal that they were excellent and wellmeaning but fanatical people, given to harsh language and using methods subsequently shown to be mistaken. That by their ̈ ultimate action in sustaining the Union, as against the South, they confessed the error of their early contention. and must therefore be considered less clear of vision than the statesmen of the Re-publican party. That, while they were of service in creating a moral sentiment against slavery, they must have been an uncomfortable lot to associate with, and the fact that society ignored them is sufficient evidence to that effect. In short, they were a necessary if disagreeable element in the great revolution, and cannot therefore be left out of the history, although it is frequently feasible to compress them into a few lines. Some " captain with his gun," who, but for these fanatics, would have slept in oblivion, commands more pages. I shall aim to show with a forced conciseness, far too inadequate, that the very weakness alleged against the abolitionists was their tower of strength; that their direct language was their most effective virtue, that their refusal to take part in political organizations vindicates their claim to the highest statesmanship; that their unbending adherence to absolute principle made them more formidable than an army with banners; and, finally, that the "covenant with Death and the agreement with Hell" was annulled with the destruction of the old Union, leaving no barrier to their acceptance of the new. In the initial day of anti-slavery, as at present, he who announced the moral law and proclaimed its constant and inevitable working, was forced to confront criticism and credulity and to see himself held in contempt by the so-called practical partyworkers. Herbert Spencer, in his earlier and better day, has admirably characterized "people who hate anything in the way of exact conclusions, to whom "right is never in either extreme, but always half way between the extremes," who are continually trying to reconcile Yes and No; who have great faith in the "judicious mean," and who "would scarcely believe an oracle if it uttered a full-length principle." "Were you to inquire of them," he says, "whether the earth turns on its axis from east to west or from west to east, you might almost expect the reply,— 'A little of both,' or 'Not exactly either.'" And the wise philosopher bids us recollect "that ethical truth is as exact and as peremptory as physical truth," that "there can be no half-andhalf opinions,' ," and that in the nature of things "the fact must be either one way or the other." Long before Spencer formulated this axiom it was apprehended and acted upon by Garrison. To his moral nature the question of obedience to the law could never arise, and, to his eyes, disobedience was fraught with danger and punishment. To affirm that slavery was wrong, was to him equivalent to saying that it must be abolished at once. "At once!" exclaims the startled expedientist. Think of the danger and disturbance to follow!" The calm reformer replied, "Wrong can never be too quickly righted. The longer it prevails, the more terrible the judgment." No efforts to shake his position prevailed. On matters of mere opinion or expediency, no one was more accommodating than he, but on principle he stood like Gibraltar. So he was ever a landmark to steer by. Political promontories suffer geographical changes. What chart could locate a Webster permanent enough to prevent the shipwreck of mariners reckoning on his stability? Who can measure the drift from his Plymouth Rock speech to that of the 7th of March? |