Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879; the story of his life told by his children: volume 3

[260] dissenters; refusing to denounce rum-sellers, but¹ bearing heavily on the consciences of buyers and consumers. His New England harvest gathered in, he returned to New York, and straightway by word and deed justified Mr. Garrison's charge that he had gone over to the side of the oppressor. He granted with alacrity an interview to Henry Clay, declaring it an honor² from the greatest man of the age, and directly began his Southern tour by way of the Federal capital. The South Carolina Temperance Advocate having cleared his character as a fanatic or anti-slavery helper, he had promised Judge John Belton O'Neall, President of the State Temperance Society—the same who would have hung John³ L. Brown for running off a female slave, and who brought upon himself all O'Connell's contempt and sarcasm— that he would visit the home of Calhoun.

Meanwhile, however, he had been notified by Judge Lumpkin, President of the Georgia State Temperance⁴ Society, and evidently not a man of one idea, that the invitation extended by that body, and accepted, was revoked—at least pending an explanation. The Judge had been supplied with a copy of the Irish Address of 1842, with Father Mathew's signature, and wrote to ask⁵ him if the document was genuine. The Apostle hesitated long, and then sent the merest line in reply, saying⁶ nothing to the point, but referring his inquirer to the report of his interview with Mr. Garrison—an explicit endorsement of that for correctness. This the Judge naturally looked upon as shuffling, since it involved no recantation⁷ of the Address; and peace was not made till Father Mathew, choosing Forefathers' Day, in Richmond, wrote⁸ again to this ‘honored and dear sir,’ with profuse apology⁹ for not knowing he was a high and mighty judge and so addressing him before. He renewed his ‘solemn declaration [to Mr. Garrison] of being firmly resolved not to interfere, in any the slightest degree, with the institutions of this mighty Republic.’ More, he pleaded, should not be asked of him in ‘this emphatically free country.’