[Letter to] Dear Mary
Contributors: Benson, Mary, 1797-1842, recipient
Series: William Lloyd Garrison Correspondence (1823-1879)
Published: 1839
Place of publication: Boston, [Mass.]
Language: eng
Format: [manuscript]
Subjects: Correspondence; History; Antislavery movements; Abolitionists
Notes: Holograph, signed.

William Lloyd Garrison begins this letter to Mary Benson on Feb. 10, 1839. He asks his sister-in-law, Mary Benson, to visit them again.

On page two, William Lloyd Garrison continues this letter on March 3, 1839. Garrison writes to Mary Benson: "Doubtless, you wish to be informed as to the complexion of things in Boston. I can only say that, so far as the anti-slavery cause is concerned, we are (O sorrowful fact!) a divided house. That sweet fellowship which formerly prevailed in our ranks is gone, and I fear irrecoverably." Amos Augustus Phelps is working against the Liberator. Henry Brewster Stanton is completely alienated. Alanson St. Clair and Daniel Wise have resigned their agencies and are working for the "Abolitionist." There has been a collision between the New York Executive Committee and the Massachusetts Board. Some friends abroad think that Garrison is opposed to a new paper on selfish grounds. Garrison recognizes a design to subvert the Liberator and drive him from the ranks. Nathaniel Colver hates Christian pacifism. Mrs. Chapman is "writing a letter to Henry Clay, in reply to his speech."

Merrill, Walter M. Letters of William Lloyd Garrison, v.2, no.141.