John Jay Chapman, William Lloyd Garrison

“ [238] men, and now the Nebraska Bill leaves us staring. The Anti-Slavery Society will add many members this year. The Whig Party will join it: the Democrats will join it. The population of the Free States will join it. I doubt not, at last, the Slave States will join it. But be that sooner or later and whoever comes or stays away, I hope we have reached the end of our unbelief, have come to a belief that there is a divine Providence in the world, which will not save us but through our own cooperation.”

Happy Emerson, who has lived to be so moved! Now what is it that has brought Emerson to this pass? It is Daniel Webster's defection. Webster's defection was like the falling of a mighty tower that jarred whole classes and categories of men into an understanding of the Slave Power. It did what neither Lovejoy's murder, nor the Annexation of Texas was able to do: --it waked up “the better element.” To this group, the better element, Emerson belonged by education and tradition. He crossed the Jordan along with the rest of his caste. This was just twenty-five years after Garrison's discovery of Immediate Emancipation: for these things were hidden from the wise and prudent and were