which was in a state of incubation in Massachusetts in the year 1836.  The pro-slavery portion of Governor Everett’s message, together with the Southern demands for repressive legislation against the Abolitionists were referred to a joint legislative committee for consideration and report.  The chairman of the committee was George Lunt, of Newburyport, a bitter pro-slavery politician, who saw no sign, received no light which did not come out of the South.

The Abolitionists perceived the gravity of the new danger which threatened them, and rallied promptly to avert it.  They shrewdly guessed that the object of the committee would not be the enactment of any new law against themselves but the adoption of condemnatory resolutions instead.  This course they rightly dreaded more than the other, and to defeat it the managers of the Massachusetts Anti-slavery Society requested a public hearing of the committee, which was granted.  On March 4th Garrison and many of the anti-slavery leaders appeared before the committee, with a carefully planned programme of procedure.  To each of the selected speakers was assigned a distinct phase of the great subject of discussion before the committee.  Samuel J. May was appointed to open with an exposition of the anti-slavery movement and of the object and motives of its founders; Garrison to follow with an exhibition of the pacific character of the agitation as contained in official publications whereby forgiveness, submission, and non-resistance were steadily inculcated; Ellis Gray Loring was next to demonstrate the perfectly constitutional character of the agitation.  The Abolitionists had in no wise contravened the National or the State Constitution, either in letter or spirit, and so on through the programme.  It was thus that the Abolitionists dexterously killed two birds with one stone; for at the same time that they made their defence before the committee, they managed to present their cause to the attention of the public as well.  Appearing before the committee to prevent hostile action on the part of the legislature against their movement, they skillfully turned the occasion into the most notable meeting for agitating the subject of slavery in the State during the year.

The pro-slavery malignity of the chairman helped not a little to bring this result to pass.  He again and again interrupted the speakers with the greatest insolence of behavior.  Garrison, for a wonder, was allowed to finish his remarks without interruption.  Here is a specimen of the way in which Paul addressed himself to King Agrippa’s master—­public opinion: 

“Sir,” spoke he to the committee, “we loudly boast of our free country, and of the union of these States, yet I have no country!  As a New Englander and as an Abolitionist I am excluded by a bloody proscription from one-half of the national territory, and so is every man who is known to regard slavery with abhorrence.  Where is our Union? ...  The right of free and safe locomotion from one part