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approval of Mrs. M. W. Chapman, an influential member of the board of managers of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, and called out a sharp reprimand from her, for insubordinationEditorial Emendation: Expanded Second American Edition, First Printing Boston: De Wolfe, Fiske & Co., 1893: for my insubordination. to my superiors. This was a strange and distressing revelation to me, and one of which I was not soon relieved. I thought I had only done my duty, and I think so still. The chief reason for the reprimand was the use which the Liberty party papersEditorial Emendation: liberty. would make of my seeming rebellion against the commanders of our Anti-Slavery Army.

In the growing city of Rochester we had in every way a better reception. Abolitionists of all shades of opinion were broad enough to give the Garrisonians (for such we were) a hearing. Samuel D. Porter and the Avery family, though they belonged to the Gerrit Smith, Myron Holly, and William Goodell school,All three men were active in New York state's Liberty party in its early years. Myron Holley died in 1841, but the other two led the small antislavery political faction that eventually became the Radical Abolition party, with which Douglass later affiliated. John Stauffer, The Black Hearts of Men: Radical Abolitionists and the Transformation of Race (Cambridge, Mass., 2001), 12, 117; Wiecek, Sources of Antislavery Constitutionalism, 205, 218. were not so narrow as to refuse us the use of their church for the convention. They heard our moral suasion arguments, and in a manly way met us in debate. We were opposed to carrying the anti-slavery cause to the ballot-box, and they believed in carrying it there. They looked at slavery as a creature of law; we regarded it as a creature of public opinion. It is surprising how small the difference appears as I look back to it, over the space of forty years; yet at the time of it this difference was immense.

During our stay at Rochester we were hospitably entertained by Isaac and Amy Post, two people of all-abounding benevolence, the truest and best of Long Island and Elias Hicks Quakers.Members of the Society of Friends, or Quakers, had a long history of support for gradualist methods to end slavery across the United States. After the Revolution, many Quakers abandoned their traditional avoidance of worldly affairs and enlisted with evangelical Christians in many of the era's benevolence campaigns. In 1827-28 the denomination suffered a wrenching schism, or "Great Separation," when a faction led by Long Island minister Elias Hicks (1748-1830) withdrew from fellowship with "Orthodox" Friends and created their own separate meetings across the nation. While many of the theologically more liberal Hicksite Quakers, such as Amy and Isaac Post of Rochester, became active abolitionists, disputes over appropriate antislavery tactics caused some meetings to expel abolitionist members. In the 1840s and 1850s some of these displaced Hicksite Quaker abolitionists created their own Congregational or Progressive Friends meetings. The Garrisonians found strong support among this latter dissident sect of Quakers. Hamm, God`s Government Begun, xvii, xxi-xxiii, 201-02, 216-17; McKivigan, War against Proslavery Religion, 28, 44, 106; Hewitt, Women`s Activism and Social Change, 115-16. They were not more amiable than brave, for they never seemed to ask. What will the world say? but walked straight forward in what seemed to them the line of duty, please or offend whomsoever it might. Many a poor fugitive slave found shelter under their roof when such shelter was hard to find elsewhere, and I mention them here in the warmth and fullness of earnest gratitude.

Pleased with our success in Rochester, we—that is Mr. Bradburn and myself—made our way to Buffalo, then a rising city of steamboats, hustle, and business. Buffalo was too busy to attend to such matters as we had in hand. Our friend, Mr. Marsh, had been able to secure for our convention only an old dilapidatedEditorial Emendation: delapidated. and deserted room, formerly used as a post-office. We went at the time appointed, and found seated a few cab-men in their coarse, every-day clothes, whips in hand, while their teams were standing on the street waiting for a job. Friend Bradburn looked around upon this unpromising audience, and turned upon his heel, saying he would not speak to "such a set of ragamuffins," and took the first steamer to Cleveland, the home of his brother Charles, and left me to "do" Buffalo alone. For nearly a week I spoke every day in this old post-officeThe earliest U.S. Post Office in Buffalo, New York, was located on Main and South Division Streets, in Ellicott Square. In 1842 a new, fireproof Post Office building was erected on the corner of Seneca and Washington Streets. Douglass seems to be referring to the Ellicott Square building. A Directory for the City of Buffalo ... 1832 (Buffalo, N.Y., 1832), 96, 103; Walker`s Buffalo City Directory ... 1842 (Buffalo, N.Y., 1842), 26. to audiences constantly increasing in numbers and respectability, till the Baptist church was thrown open to me;

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