"It imperatively and effectually seals up the lips," so Garrison accused
it, "of a vast number of influential and pious men, who, for fear of
giving offence to those slaveholders with whom they associate, and
thereby leading to a dissolution of the compact, dare not expose the
flagrant enormities of the system of slavery, nor denounce the crime of
holding human beings in bondage. They dare not lead to the onset against
the forces of tyranny; and if they shrink from the conflict, how shall
the victory be won? I do not mean to aver that in their sermons, or
addresses, or private conversations, they never allude to the subject of
slavery; for they do so frequently, or at least every Fourth of July.
But my complaint is that they content themselves with representing
slavery as an evil--a misfortune--a calamity which has been entailed
upon us by former generations,--_and not as an individual_ CRIME,
embracing in its folds, robbery, cruelty, oppression, and piracy. _They
do not identify the criminal_; they make no direct, pungent, earnest
appeal to the consciences of men-stealers." This was a damning bill, but
it was true in every particular; and the evidence which Garrison adduced
to establish his charges was overwhelming and irrefragable.
Nearly fifty years afterward, Elizur Wright described the baleful
influence of the society upon the humanity and philanthropy of the
nation.
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