The dedication at Reading—Spiritualism—The Colored Military Company—The arrival of John B. Gough—The liquor dealers' meeting—Republican State Convention at Portland—the Fusion Meeting in Boston, in favor of Freedom—The National Convention.

BOSTON, Aug. 20, 1855.

MR. EDITOR:—On Sunday, Aug. 12, the large and beautiful new hall, at Reading, (which
I alluded to in my last,) was dedicated to the Anti-Slavery Movement. Messrs. W. L. 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. , C. L. RemondDouglass, Charles Remond

Charles Remond Douglass (1844–1920), named after the abolitionist Charles Remond, was the youngest of Frederick and Anna Murray Douglass’s sons. He was born in Lynn, Massachusetts, and, like his brothers, was both educated in Rochester and trained by his father in the newspaper office. Like Lewis H. Douglass, Charles enlisted in the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Infantry during the Civil War, but mainly served with the Fifth Massachusetts Cavalry Regiment, where he was promoted to the rank of first sergeant. After the war, Charles settled in Washington, D.C., and found employment first as a clerk in the Freedmen’s Bureau (1867–69) and later in the Treasury Department (1869–75). After his father purchased the in 1870, Charles acted as a correspondent for the newspaper. In 1871 he served as a clerk to the Santo Domingo Commission, and President Ulysses S. Grant later appointed him consul to Puerto Plata, Santo Domingo. From 1875 to 1879 he was a clerk in the U.S. consulate in Santo Domingo. Returning to the United States in 1879, he entered the West Indies import-export business while living in Corona, New York. In 1882, Charles moved back to Washington, D.C., and took a job as an examiner in the Pension Bureau. He remained there until 1892, when he entered the real estate business. Douglass Papers, ser. 2, 3:860; Douglass Papers, ser. 3, 1:126; McFeely, Frederick Douglass, 239, 257–58, 272; EAAH , 1: 407–08. , and W. PhillipsPhillips, Wendell

Boston-born and Harvard-educated Wendell Phillips (1811-84) ranked second only to Garrison in influence in the American Anti-Slavery Society in the 1840s and 1850s. Bored with the legal profession and influenced by his antislavery fiancee, Ann Terry Greene, Phillips dedicated himself to abolitionism beginning in 1837. A highly gifted orator, Phillips was in demand as a lecturer even in nonabolitionist circles. Besides abolition, Phillips championed woman suffrage, prohibition, penal reform, Indian rights, and legislative protection for workers. When Garrison retired from the presidency of the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1865, Phillips assumed the post and led abolitionists until passage of the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870. James Brewer Stewart, Wendell Phillips: Liberty's Hero (Baton Rouge, La., 1986); Irving H. Bartlett, Wendell Phillips: Brahmin Radical (Boston, 1961); DAB, 14:546-47. , were the orators of the day. The meeting was large and of unusual interest, some coming ten or fifteen miles from different sections of the State, to hear those old champion orators of freedom, and to add the weight of their presence and influence to the Anti-Slavery movement. The Hutchinsons were there, and gave us some of their best vocal music. Geo. W. Putnam read an excellent ode, composed by him for the occasion. There were three meetings during the day, and all were well attended. The citizens did every thing they could to administer to the material wants of the body, and all seemed to regret that the happy Meetings had been brought to a close.

After reading your views and those of Mr. W. L. Garrison on Prof. Mahan's book; I have been surprised to find you both spiritualists. Perhaps I might go farther and say, ?

The Colored Military known as the "Massasoits Gurads," is now organized and Mr. John
P. Coburn has been chosen Captain. Your correspondent not being a member, is not positive as to the number of the members enrolled, but has been informed that they now muster nearly one hundred, and that it is their intention to petition to his excellency the Governor for a grant of Arms similar to that granted by the Executive of Rhode Island to a colored military company in Providence. The Boston , the only daily Anti-Slavery paper that we have with a back-bone, says, "We think it very doubtful whether the Governor will feel authorized to loan arms to a company not chartered under the laws. And we are somewhat at a loss to see why our colored friends who so reasonably objected to being set apart as a class in the school, should now voluntarily set themselves apart as a class in Military service." This appears to us "to strike the nail on the head," but we lay no claims to correct judgement in this matter; they may have one hundred reasons that I know not of why such a company should be formed.

Mr. John B. Gough the great temperance orator, arrived at this port on Friday morning in the America. He was waited on upon by a committee in accordance with an announcement made in the daily papers, and cordially welcomed. He declines any public demonstration at this time. He left early in the same afternoon of his arrival for his home in Boylston.—He is expected to speak in this city in a month or two, and will probably return to England in July '56.

The Liquor dealers have held a meeting during the present week and appointed a committee to call a convention on the 30th inst. at Worcester, for the nominations of an entire State ticket to be supported at the November election. Rev. Mr. Lovejoy, who Madame Rumor says goes in for "Rum and hard cider," has been suggested as a proper candidate for the gubernational chair!

The Republican State Convention at Portland is one among the many cheering signs of the times and adds new life to the political anti-slavery union of all Northern freemen upon an anti-slavery platform. Some fifteen or twenty thousand men assembled at a State convention, all bend upon a union of Northern men for freedom, shows at least that the ball in motion is gathering something besides moss.

On Thursday we had a grand fusion meeting in this city at Chapman Hall. Whigs, Free-soilers, Know Nothings, ., assembled, laid aside petty party differences, and agreed to fight together for freedom. The meeting was large and enthusiastic. Among the speakers we noticed Hon. Samuel Hoar of Concord, Hon. John. Z. Goodrich of Stockbridge, Hon. Moses Kimball of Boston, Hon. Ed. L. Keys of Dedham, Hon. Chas. Francis Adams of Quincy, Hon. John C. Park of Boston, Hon. Amasa Walker of New Brookfield, Hon. Geo. Bliss of Springfield, Hon. Stephen C. Phillips of Salem, Hon. J. W. Foster of Brimfield, Hon. Homer Bartlett of Lowell, Rich. H. Dana, Jr. of Cambridge, Hon. E. C. Baker of Medford, and Hon. Henry Wilson of Natick.

The best feeling prevailed throughout the meeting, and all appeared in earnest to form a platform plain and simple, upon which all Northern men without distinction of party would unite for freedom. The following resolutions was reported and unanimously accepted:

, That the time has fully come for a united and earnest effort of the people of Massachusetts, in concert with the friends of freedom throughout the Union, whose object shall be to restrain the alarming encroachments of slavery.

, That as a means to this end, there should be an early assembrage of the people of this Commonwealth in Mass Convention.

, That the following gentlemen constitute a Committee to issue a call and make arrangements for such an assemblage first having, if possible a constitution with any other committees of political organizations, a public meeting having the same purpose in view.

These resolutions were fiercely discussed, and the convention adjourned about 7 o'clock P. M. subject to the call of the committee.

What are our friends doing in relation to the National Convention to be held at Philadelphia? Let every city, town and hamlet, be fully represented. Preliminary meetings should now be held in every section distant from Philadelphia, and pecuniary arrangements made for the traveling and other expences of the Convention. Let every man who can carry one stone to the building be there, and let us have a movement set on foot at once practiced and useful and tending to elevate the condition of the colored man in America; for such a movement let us all labor in earnest and give our mites.

S.