[In] reply to so much of yourChapman, Maria Weston

Maria Weston Chapman (1806-85), known as "Garrison's Lieutenant," was a forceful writer and editor of several antistavery periodicals. From a family of wealthy Bostonians who educated their daughters in Europe, she briefly supervised one of the nation's first female high schools. After marrying merchant [Henry Grafton Chapman]] in 1830, she became active in the abolitionist movement. When her husband died in 1842, abolition became the consuming work of her life. Chapman was a driving force in both the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society and the American Anti-Slavery Society. Although she shunned public speaking, she served on committees and organized bazaars and other fundraising events for the Garrisonians. She also edited the annual report of the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society, and she assisted in editing both the Liberator and the National Anti-Slavery Standard. Clare Taylor, Women of the Anti-Slavery Movement: The Weston Sisters (New York, 1995); Catherine Clinton, "Maria Weston Chapman," in Portraits of American Women, comp. G. J. Barker-Benfield and Catherine Clinton, 2, vols. (New York, 1991), 1:147-67; Jane H. Pease and William H. Pease, Bound with Them in Chains: A Biographical History of the Antislavery Movement (Westport, Conn., 1972), 28–59; Edward T. James et al., eds., Notable American Women, 1607-1950: A Biographical Dictionary, 3 vols. (Cambridge, Mass., 1971), 1:324-25; DAB, 4:19. letter as relates to my having attended the recent meeting of the British and Foreign Antislavery in London—I must say I have no confession to make or pardon to ask for my conduct in the matter. I went there with the counsel and advice of good friends—friends who are as anxious for the emancipation of the slaves as any with whom I think I have ever met. I went for reasons wh[ic]h seemed good. I was not carried there by that you term "money temptations" no such was offered and I may say—(though you may think it an evidence of my self sufficiency) no such temptations would have been availing. When I received the invitation I without reflection or consultation with any one, declined . the This I did from mere predjudice. My friend George Thompson was in London at the time. I was in Edinburgh he at once wrote urging me for many reason—most of which sprung out of our free Church aggetation—to come to London and avail myself of the oppertunity afforde by that meeting of striking an important blow in behalf of "sending back the money' I believe Mr. Thompson now regrets having advised me to go. I do not know that he does but I think he does since reading the article to which you refer in the Standard. I must however say that I do not regret having gone thether or [illegible] when I was there.

I do not believe that even the Broad Street Committee admittting them to be all you say of them. I do not think them too bad to be preached to. I will speak in any meeting where freedom of speech is allowed and where I may do any thing toward exposing the bloodlust of slavery—I did not go into that meeting as a new organizationist. I distinctly told the meeting just what the Broad Street Committee knew before they invited me—that I was an old organisationist and had I been fully reported you would have seen that I was not there in disguise—or at the sacrifice of principle—or friends at home. I did indorse what under bigotry was done six years ago—or what may be done by some body six years hence. I attended that meeting for a specific purpose and in doing so compromised no more than did Mr. GarrisonGarrison, William Lloyd

William Lloyd Garrison (1805-79) was the foremost white abolitionist of the nineteenth century and was credited with the discovery of Douglass as a speaker at an antislavery meeting in Nantucket in 1841. He began his career as an apprentice printer on the Newburyport (Mass.) Herald at the age of thirteen. Garrison became editor of the Newburyport Free Press in 1826, but the paper closed within a year. He was then associated with a series of periodicals in Boston that advocated reform before Benjamin Lundy offered the young journalist the opportunity to write for his antislavery newspaper. Garrison joined Lundy in editing the Genius of Universal Emancipation in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1829, during the last year of the paper's 1821-1830 run. In 1830 a libel suit against the editors forced the paper to close and landed Garrison in jail. After his release, he courted the wealthy merchants of New York and Boston in order to start the Liberator (1831-65), a weekly journal based in Boston in which he advocated an immediate end to slavery. Garrison's brand of abolition condemned any institution that would tolerate the existence of slavery, including churches, political parties. and even the United States itself and any scheme aimed at removing black people from the country. Instead, Garrison hoped to raise the public's awareness that slavery was morally wrong and thereby force its end in an almost millennial moment of emancipation. His approach appealed to both white and black antislavery advocates but earned him many enemies among those only moderately opposed to slavery and slaveholders alike. Seeing the need for greater action and organization beyond the pages of the Liberator; Garrison joined with other abolitionists to form the New England Anti-Slavery Society in 1831. Two years later he helped found the larger American Anti-Slavery Society. In 1833 he established ties with English abolitionists after a trip to Great Britain, and he later brought the noted and notorious speaker George Thompson to the United States for a tour. Garrison also dedicated himself to women's rights, encouraging women to enter the public sphere by inviting them, via the Liberator, to form female antislavery societies. In addition to the thirty-three women's antislavery societies that flourished by 1838, Garrison's American Anti-Slavery Society welcomed women as well as blacks into its ranks. However, female delegates were excluded from the World's Anti-Slavery Convention of 1840 in London. The issue of women's participation in the antislavery movement and Garrison's absolute refusal to turn to politics to end slavery caused a division in the American Anti-Slavery Society. Brothers Lewis and Arthur Tappan, who opposed women's acting as speakers and who hoped to use politics toward abolition, broke with Garrison's American Anti-Slavery Society, forming the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, or the "New Organization" in 1841. Garrison's ideas were so closely associated with the "Old Organization" that the American Anti-Slavery Society became known simply as the "Garrisonians." With the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865, Garrison believed that he had accomplished his life's work and that of the antislavery movement. He then resigned from the presidency of the American Anti-Slavery Society and closed the Liberator. Wendell Phillips Garrison and Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879: The Story of His Life Told by His Children, 4 vols. (New York, 188589); Henry Mayer, All on Fire: William Lloyd Garrison and the Abolition of Slavery (New York, 1998); James Brewer Stewart, William Lloyd Garrison and the Challenge of Emancipation (Arlington Heights, Ill., 1992); John L. Thomas, The Liberator: William Lloyd Garrison (Boston, 1963); Dictionary of American Biography, 20 vols. (New York, 1928-36), 7:168-72. Leavitt &c. who last autumn attended meetings and acted on Committees together in order to prevent the annexation of Texas—I might argue the question if I had time—but I have not. I have said this much that you may know just where I am in the matter—and think that much due to you—since you have taken so much pains to write me respecting it—I shall not say anything [ ]t the matter in any letter. I may write for the public eye as I think and that

recently got a [illegible] circle to work for the Bazaar [at?] [B]oston. Consisting of few influential young ladies in "Carlile' Eng'—They will send a box this autumn Mr J. D. Carr of the same place will send you a valueable contribution to the refreshment table consisting of a large box of fancy Buiscut I am sory I cant say more The ladies waiting to take this to the office.

Very respectfully

Yours F. Douglass

London 18 Aug 1846