watched by the politicians as the mariner watches for the beacon on a stormy night. Massachusetts was thoroughly excited and roused. The most thoughtful and serious of the Republicans, who felt how critical was the condition of the country, and who trembled lest their party should shirk the issue, or fail to understand its import, looked to the moral agitators, whom the politicians could not silence, to point out the way of safety and success. If Northern Senators and Representatives in Congress withstood the slaveholders face to face in hot debate, and resisted them by every constitutional means; and if soldiers on the battle-field gave up their lives that the slave might go free; it is none the less true that neither in legislative halls nor on the field of bloody strife could the contest have been carried to a successful issue without the moral influences out of which it originally grew, and from which its inspiration was constantly derived. That these influences came more or less directly from the agitation of which Garrison was the recognized leader, there can be no doubt. It is not too much to say that there were moments in the struggle when, if the moral agitation had ceased, and Garrison and his friends retired from their work, the North would have faltered and turned back, and the Slave Power would have held the country more firmly than ever in its grasp. Those who remember the dark days of 1850, when, by a combination of the Democratic and Whig parties, a last great effort was made to effect "a final settlement" of the slavery question, by giving the South substantially all that she demanded, and to put the anti-slavery agitation down by a tremendous display of public sentiment and governmental authority, will not need to be reminded how dismal, for a time, was the prospect. Fugitive slaves were hunted in cities and towns on every hand, and ruthlessly dragged back into bondage by the power of the National Government. The courthouse in Boston was girded with chains, and official kidnappers, by the aid of the military, marched their victim down State Street, over ground hallowed by patriot blood, and in the presence of an indignant but helpless crowd. It was a question for some time whether the apostate Webster would not drag New England down after him into the pit of infamy to which he had himself descended. Boston, surprised and indignant at first in view of his defection, had been won to his side; Andover Theological Seminary, which for twenty years had interpreted the Bible in the interest of the men-stealers, now made haste to commend him, and to scoff at the idea that Conscience had any right to sit in judgment upon "iniquity framed by law" and sanctioned by the Constitution. Then it was that thirty ministers of the Methodist church made a pious pilgrimage to Marshfield, to congratulate Mr. Webster upon his success in making the land of the Pilgrims a hunting-ground for slaves. And then it was, thank God that Garrison and his brave comrades, unterrified, unseduced, lifted up a voice of power that rang out over the hills and through the vales of New England, summoning the friends of freedom to the rescue, and bidding them be of good cheer, for God was still God, and the Throne of Iniquity could not prosper. To that summons New England responded, and not New England alone, but the Middle States and the prairies of the West, and the Republic was saved! The Fugitive Slave law, and the decision of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case, virtually declaring that the negroes of the country had "no rights which a white man was bound to respect," measures which it was supposed by their inventors would utterly crush the anti-slavery movement,-only added fuel to the flame that was so hot before. They supplied Mr. Garrison and his friends with fresh arguments, and kindled in the hearts of thousands a deep hatred of the Union that bore such accursed fruit. The first of these measures begat a spirit of resistance with which the minions of slavery found themselves unable to cope. Daniel Webster, in the hope of striking terror to the hearts of Abolitionists, set up the doctrine that resistance to the slave-catching statute was treason against the United States, and punishable with death; but the effort to enforce this dictum in the trial of Castner Hanway covered the great "expounder" with universal ridicule. These days brought great trial and suffering to many. The mob spirit was revived in not a few places. In 1850, the anniversary of the American Anti-Slavery Society, in New York, was invaded by a band of ruffians, with Isaiah Rynders at their head. His efforts, however, to break up the anniversary failed. The scene was in a high degree dramatic and amusing. Mr. Garrison's coolness and tact as chairman completely baffled the disturbers. Frederick Douglass distinguished himself on this occasion, as on many others, by his wit and eloquence. A subsequent meeting of the society for business was, however, broken up by the same crew, the authorities of the city conniving at the outrage. In 1851 and 1852, the society was unable to secure the use of any church or hall in New York, and its meetings were consequently held in Rochester and Syracuse, successively. 1853 public sentiment had changed so that there was no longer any fear of disturbance, and the society returned to New York. It should be mentioned that, immediately after the Rynders mob of 1850, Mr. Phillips was invited to speak in Plymouth Church, in Brooklyn, the pastor appearing on the platform to vindicate freedom of speech, and the city authorities protecting the meeting. But I must take a flying leap from this point to the In closing days of the struggle. During the first two years of the war, Mr. Garrison, in common with all other friends of freedom, was exceedingly impatient with what seemed to be the uncertain, shilly-shally policy of President Lincoln. If they could have known all that was passing in his mind, and how fixed was his determination to free the slaves the instant that he believed he could do so rightfully, and with the certainty that the Northern people would stand by him, I have no doubt their patience would have been equal to the crisis; but they had seen so many men in high station falter and fail, that they were in constant terror lest he should be tempted to take some fatal step. He seemed to them like a turtle for slowness, and they piled hot coals upon his back to quicken his movements. But, when at last he issued his Proclamation of Emancipation and committed himself fully to the work of exterminating slavery, Mr. Garrison distrusted him no longer, and took the most charitable view of such of his acts as he could not wholly approve. When combinations were formed to prevent his renomination in 1864, Mr. Garrison gave them no countenance, believing that his re-election was absolutely necessary to keep the North united, and to defeat the schemes of those who were in sympathy with the Rebellion. Mr. Lincoln set a high value upon Mr. Garrison's support, not only as a tribute to his own fidelity, but on account of his great influence among the honest enemies of slavery of every class; and, when the arrangements were made to raise again the Flag of the Union on the walls of Fort Sumter, Mr. Garrison was invited, as a guest of the Government, to witness the imposing spectacle, and informed that his son, George Thompson Garrison, then an officer in the Fifty-fifth Massachusetts (colored) Regiment in South Carolina, would be furloughed in order that he might meet him there. At |