LYNN, Oct. 13, 1853.

FRIEND DOUGLASS:—I noticed, in a late
number of your paper, that certain mem
bers of the old organization, by their unwar
rantable abuse and slander, seem bent on car
rying the war into Africa, against all those
who may differ with them in general, and
yourself in particular. Allow me to say, sir,
that from these attacks I think you have
nothing to fear. Your course of late has
met the hearty approval of the great and
only efficient portion of the anti-slavery par
ty. They honor your judgment, and admire
the courage which has led you to assume the
position you so proudly occupy. Be assured,
you are daily making to yourself unseen
friends, who, in the hour of trial, will sus
tain and bear you up.

In reading the account of your recent re
ception in Boston, I am forcibly reminded of
the conduct of the Essex County Anti-Sla
very Society, which met in Lynn some two
or three months since; at which time and

place, one of the immortal three made him
self very conspicuous by his denunciations
of all those who professed to be opposed to
slavery, yet remained out of the Garrisonian
Camp. I am not aware that any report of
this meeting has as yet appeared in the oracle. I trust, therefore, that a brief notice
of its doings may not be unacceptable at the
present time, inasmuch as your political mo
tives were called in question, and your anti
slavery character most grossly assailed.

The meeting, if I remember rightly, was
rather thinly attended during the earlier part
of the day, which led Mr. Remond to make
the very chilly comparison between it and a
grave-yard; he also indulged in some very
harsh and unpleasant strictures on the peo
ple of Lynn, but failed to elicit any discus
sion at that time. In the afternoon there
was quite a respectable audience. The first
thing in order, was the selection of a board
of officers for the ensuing year. The busi
ness being properly attended to, Mr. Remond
took the floor, and in his particular manner,
proceeded to arraign the people for their
lack of interest in the abolition movement,
affirming that the true spirit of reform had
died out; that Lynn was living on its past
fame, and should no longer be considered
the Banner Town of the Commonwealth.—
He stated in substance that the Liberator was
the legitimate rule of faith and practice;
that all those who laid any claim to an anti
slavery character, whether they be Free Soil
or Free Democrat, were base imposters, not
worthy to be trusted with the cause of the
slave. This was the style of his remarks
and the tone of his tirades—not having lost
all faith in you as an abolitionist, I ventured
to inquire of Mr. Remond whether he con
sidered you as yet sound on this great ques
tion; he turned to me with much pity, ex
pressed in his countenance, that I should be
so ignorant of your decline and fall, and
deigned to make in substance the following
answer: "Perhaps my friend thinks he has
now asked a question which is a poser; but I
would say to him, and to all those who may
be ignorant of the present position of Fred
erick Douglass, that we do not now consider
him an anti-slavery man. When he left the
old organization, his glory left him; he has
ceased to be an abolitionist; his light has de
parted; his sun has gone down; Frederick
Douglass is no more." This, of course, was
news to the audience, and led them to ask
after the anti-slavery health of other emi
nent men who have renounced the feeble
and ineffectual faith of the Garrisonians, and
laid their hands on the great lever of politi
cal action. These men, one and all, were, as
you would say, handed over to infamy and
condemnation.

Mr. Remond was succeeded by your friend
Dr. Addison Davis, who rose in defence of
the Free Soil party and the anti-slavery char
acter of Lynn, which he deemed had been
basely slandered. He reviewed in a masterly
manner the course of the Mass. Anti-Slavery
Society, from its humble birth to its present
position of arrogance and pride. He failed
not to rebut with arguments, strong and
weighty, every assertion made, and every
position claimed against the Free Soil party
and its noble leaders. Mr. Remond had
aroused the wrong passenger this time; for
you are well aware that Dr. Davis has been
for many years an efficient member of the
Mass. Anti-Slavery Society. He gave good
and sufficient reasons why the people were
not interested in this Society; and affirmed
that the abolition movement had been in
jured by the bringing in of side issues, and
heaping upon it grievous burthens which it
should not bear; that many honest and con
scientious persons had kept aloof from cer
tain measures which they deemed immoral
and seditious; and cited the Liberator to
prove that it was as much an anti-Bible as an
anti-slavery paper. He frequently alluded
to 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. (who was present) with
marked respect, and closed with an encomi
um of praise to that gentleman. Something
being said in relation to the Free Soil party
not allowing free discussion, Mr. Putnam
rose and said that free discussion was not al
lowed on the platform of the old organiza
tion; and that he had been gagged at the
late N. E. A. S. Convention. Mr. Remond
instantly declared aloud that "Mr. P. did
not tell the truth." Mr. Putnam then gave
an account of the opposition that he met
with at the N. E. Convention. Mr. Remond
admitted that G. W. Putnam had been in
jured, and that he had received ill treatment
himself from the same source, but objected
bringing the subject up in public. This ad-
mission, as you will see, covers much ground,
and coming from the source it does, is of some
importance.

At the close of the meeting, the grand
master of ceremonies, Mr. G., arose, and,
with fiery indignation, proceeded to pour out
the vials of his wrath on those who, that day,
had dared to question the conduct of that
par excellent organization, the Mass. Anti
Slavery Society. It is not for me to pen the
polished epithets, which graced the speech
of this great apostle of universal emancipa
tion. Suffice it to say, we were all cast out as
vile and degenerate, fit only to associate (to
use his own words) with Capt. Rynders and
bar-room rowdies. Thus did he repay the
words of adulation and praise, with bitter,
vindictive and vile abuse. So malicious was
the feeling, that Mr. Remond, in the evening,
had the daring impudence to offer a resolu
tion to strike G. W. Putnam's name from the
list of officers, and turn him out of the So
ciety.

I am well aware, Mr. Editor, that in send
ing you this communication, I lay myself
open to the tomahawk and scalping-knife;
and in the hands of some, they are
instruments of fearful import. But it mat
ters not to me. I have sought to give you a
plain, unvarnished sketch of one of the most
disgraceful meetings I ever attended—made
so by the wanton and unprovoked abuse of the
Free Soil party, and its eminent leaders, by
such men as Charles L. Remond, and his
worthy associates. They ought rather to lift
up their hands and thank God that there is a
[free?] and vigorous anti-slavery party in the
country, whose destiny it is to sweep from the
land the blighting curse of human bondage.
If in its mighty and majestic course it has
taken the wind from the sails of their weath
er-beaten and water-logged hulks, they
would be glad; and instead of firing into us
as we pass their envions and malicious shot,
they should cheer us on and bid us God-speed
to the heaven of our hope.

Yours for the cause,

H. B. W.