John Jay Chapman, William Lloyd Garrison

It is impossible not to sympathize with the state of mind revealed in these last sentences — a state of mind to which Jay has been brought by the march of events. The truth is that the whole vast problem was constantly moving forward. Not only Garrison and Jay, but every soul who lived in America during these years held fluctuating views about the matter of slavery; and the complex controversy moved forward like a glacier, cracking and bending and groaning, and marking the everlasting rocks as it progressed. In the end, we come to see that the whole struggle was a solid struggle, an ever-changing Unity, an orchestra in which all the various instruments were interdependent and responsive to one another. We see also that each individual then living was somehow a little microcosm which reflected and had relations with the whole moving miracle; and that every element of the great universe was represented in him. We can perceive plainly, to-day, how necessary it was that each error should be made; that Garrison should issue his inconsecutive fulminations of dogma, and