Brooklyn, L.I., Aug. 28, 1849.

Mr. Editor:ーTwo weeks since, there appeared in the Irish American (published by P. Lynch, an Irish refugee, for which I honor him) an attack upon abolitionists generally, and more particularly upon William Lloyd 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. and Frederick Douglass, denouncing them for denouncing others as the greatest enemies to and the greatest obstacles in the way of speedy emancipation. A colored young man of this place replied to Mr. L., defending the motives and to some extent the measures of the abolitionists, though disapproving the particular act that gve birth to the articles above metioned, viz: Mr. Garrison's mission to invite Father Mathew to attend the anti-slavery festival at Worcester. This brought out the I. A. in a long explanation, withdrawing him censure of motives, and only censuring the measures of Messrs. Garrison and Douglass. He says, "that Wm. Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Dougalss are the greatest enemies to abolition and the greatest friends to the continuance of slavery in America, of all living men. One threatens the dissolution of the Union. For this he should be attained as a traitor. Frederick Douglass threatens a slave insurrection, together with an invasion of all the colored races of the West Indian and South American Islands, to tear up and destroy everything American, and slay without remorse every white man. The writer of this heard him more than once broach this doctrine." We would like the Irish American to point out one recorded speech of F. D.'s, containing an avowal of such doctrine. We confess we have never heard nor read such threats coming from him, and hardly think that it can be produced. It is very convenient to assert; now for the proof.

Mr. L.'s recommendation that Mr. Garrison be attainted as a traitor, besides being unconstitutional and anti-republican, comes with an ill grace from him, being himself in exile for advocating a dissolution of the British Union, (Great Britain and Ireland;) and speaking as he does in the most eulogistic terms of O'Brien, Mitchell, Meagher, and others who are attainted as traitors and doomed exiles for threatening the British United Kingdom with insurrection, and an invasion of all the race of "sympathizers."

It is a fact, that a parchment union exists between England and Ireland. It is also a fact, that a written compact exists between the North and the South; and it is equally a fact, in morals, that the support of good men to such unions depends upon whether they promote civil, social and religious liberty, and secure individual and conventional rights.ーIt was and is the opinion of Messrs. O'Brien, Mitchell, Meagher, and compatriots, that the union of England with their native country was and is fraught with evil; that it enables the few (whom they rightfully denouce as traitors to their country) to trample upon and tyrannize over the many, for which they receive the title of "good loyal subjects to their rightful sovereign." They belive that the union is abominable and intolerable, and that the people have a right to dissolve it by any means Providence has permitted them to have control of; and if failing, it shall not be for want of their support to the death, if necessary, as a sacred duty to their country, to their countrymen, and to their God. How noble!ーWhat exalted patriotism! Even he who holds that no reform is worth the spilling of one drop of human blood for, must feel in the inmost recesses of his heart an admiration for that devotion with which they offer up themselves upon the altar of their country's liberty. For my part, I love to dwell upon their memories whilst they yet live, and believe that they will be honored for their heroism as long as there is a heart to feel, a head to dictate, a hand to write, an eye to see, or an ear to hear the English language, whatever may be the views of its possessor in relation to moral or physical suasion. Who belives them to be fanatics? who that they are enemies to or obstacles in the way of their country's enfranchisement? "The nobler heart gives the lie to the baser tongue" of the loyalist who utters it. Where is the Irishman who dares say that they should be attainted as traitors? They might truly say to suchーNo, we are not traitors! but in our ardent love to our country, we proclaim him one! Messrs. Garrison, Douglass and compatriots believe that the unhallowed and iniquitous Union entered into between the North and South, is fraught with evil; that it enables the few (300,000 slaveholders) to trample upon and tyrannize over the many, (non-slaveholders and 3,000,000 slaves.) They want no other weapons than truth, "the coals of which they scatter broadcast over the nation's heart," together with the influence and testmony of good humane men, such as they believed Father Mathew to be, who hate slavery, as well as other evils, and are willing at all times to give their voices and influence against it, regardless of "indignant frowns" or any amount of odium that may be cast upon themーmen who would rather be right than popular, consistent than comfortable. They also belive that this Union is abominable and intolerable; and, by hypothesis, that if the Revolutionary fathers of this country were right in throwing off by physical force an oppression which, when compared with American slavery, one hour's endurance of the latter is more than ages of the former, then are the slaves and all sympathizers, without respect to color or divison of race, justified in using the same means (all others failing) to remove slavery.

These are parallel cases: they have points parallel and equi-distant, are situated in the same plane, run parallel, equidistant, and therefore must be equal. Can you approve the one, and condemn the other? Can you adjudge Mr. O'Brien and compatriots as worthy of all praise, for advocating the dissolution of oppressive ties, and condemn Mr. Garrison and compatriots, for the same thing? Can these be fanatics, and those escape? can one party be enemies to what they profess to desire, without subjecting the other to the same charge? The mercenary, time-serving, truculent, scribbling suppliant must be aware of its falseness whilst he pens it. The memory of the fearless champions of universal freedom, whose exalted patriotism impels them to be loyal to right, to humanity, and to God, rather than to compacts and to kings, to ties and tyranny, both trans and cis-atlantic, will be cherished and perpetuated; while that of their traducers will rot with their worthless carcases. In regard to the particular of the Boston abolitionists, I differ alike from the editor of the I. A. and his correspondent.ーFrom the previous writings of Father Mathew, they had a right to invite and to expect him to be present at their gathering, and repeat his testimony against slavery. They had no right to presume that one bearing such a reputation as a reformer and a Christian would be deterred either by "indignant frowns" or any amount of odium that he might have been subjected to from advocating anything that his convictions urged him to subscribe to, and bate his breath, and cringe his knee.

They supposed, very naturally, that to all such frown and odium, he would exclaim:

"We speak the truth, we will be heard,

Though all creation crack,

We will not bate a single word,

Or take a letter back.

We speak the truth, and what care we

For hissing and for scorn,

Whilst some faint gleaming we can see

Of Freedom's coming morn?

Let liars fear ー let cowards shrink ー

Let traitors turn away;

Whatever we have dared to think,

That dare we also say."

Mr. Lynch, while condemning Mr. O'Connell for bringing the anti-slavery question into Repeal Associations, admits his right to have gone on the anti-slavery platform, or to have called meetings for that special object. If Mr. O. had such rights, why not Father Mathew? Did the abolitionists ask Father Mathew to introduce the subject of slavery in a repeal, tempearance, or any other than an anti-slavery meeting? They simply invited him to attend and partake of their hospitality, and thus throw the weight of his influence against slavery. Was this asking too much of the man who called upon his brethren in this country to identify themselves with the abolitionists? Was this entrapping or attempting to inveigle him into snares? I love the temperance cause as much as Mr. lynch and others, who seem so solicitous about the singleness of Father Mathew's mission; but I love to see it advocated by men who are so convinced of its beneficence that they cannot be frightened by the frowns of runsellers, or seduced by the smiles of rumdrinkers into silence or indifference.

In reply to "Phileleutherus," I would remark that it is not enough that Father Mathew breakfasted F. Douglass in Ireland, took him by the hand in Brooklyn, or received a deputation of colored gentlemen at the Irving House; any slaveholder, on a like mission, might do the same without impairing his standing with Mr. Calhoun & Co. I well remember how kindly I have been received, and taken upon the knee and by the hand, and breakfasted by slaveholders, when a boy, at the South. This, although an evidence of the absence of prejudice against color, was not "more effective testimony against slavery than the most labored denunciation, such as Mr. Garrison would approve." I supposed that Father Mathew has no more prejudice against a black coat or black boots, than slaveholders have against the same, or white slaves, It is worthy of remark, that Mr. L. is opposed to inconsistencies!

Yours for Liberty and Reform!

J. C. H.Holly, Joseph Cephas

Joseph Cephas Holly (1825–55), the elder brother of emigrationist James Theodore Holly, was a pragmatic black abolitionist who identified himself as a Garrisonian yet supported political abolitionists, including Douglass. Born to free black parents in Washington, D.C., Holly moved to Brooklyn, New York, in 1844 and became a shoemaker. Among the early subscribers to the North Star, Holly wrote five articles on American slavery for the paper between February and June 1848. He addressed antislavery appeals to northern blacks and whites and to southern nonslaveholders, linking the rights of poor whites with those of blacks. In 1850 Holly moved to Burlington, Vermont, and established a bootmaking business with the financial backing of Lewis Tappan. He embarked upon tours of Vermont, serving as an agent for Douglass’s newspaper and speaking on a number of issues related to the needs and rights of African Americans. Although Holly and his brother James held divergent views on colonization and emigration, they lectured together, debating the issues publicly. Shortly after Joseph moved to Rochester in 1853, he was a delegate to the black national convention that assembled there, and he published a volume of poetry, Freedom’s Offering (1853). NS, 4, 18 February, 10 March, 7 April, 9 June 1848, 6 July 1849, 1 February 1850; FDP, 22 January, 5 February, 23 March, 1, 15 April 1852, 17 June, 22 July, 28 October 1853, 12 January 1855; David M. Dean, Defender of the Race: James Theodore Holly, Black Nationalist Bishop (Boston, 1979), 3–20; Geraldine O. Matthews, Black American Writers, 1773–1949: A Bibliography and Union List (Boston, 1975), 148; Miller, Search for a Black Nationality, 108–10; Ripley, Black Abolitionist Papers, 4:25–26n