Without doubt, those old
Abolitionists and Liberty party people belonged to the category of
"humans."
The scales of the old grudge dropped from Garrison's eyes directly the
Free-Soil party loomed upon the political horizon. He recognized at once
that, if it was not against the slave, it was for the slave; apprehended
clearly that, in so far as the new party, which, by the way, was only
the second stage in the development of the central idea of his old
enemy, Liberty party, as the then future Republican party was to be its
third and final expression, apprehended clearly I say that, in so far as
the new party resisted the aggressions and pretensions of the
slave-power, it was fighting for Abolition--was an ally of Abolitionism.
In the summer of 1848, from Northampton, whither he had gone to take the
water cure, Garrison counseled Quincy, who was filling the editorial
chair, in the interim, at the _Liberator_ office, in this sage fashion:
"As for the Free-Soil movement, I feel that great care is demanded of us
disunionists, both in the _Standard_ and the _Liberator_, in giving
credit to whom credit is due, and yet in no case even seeming to be
satisfied with it." In the winter of 1848 in a letter to Samuel May,
Jr., he is more explicit on this head. "As for the Free-Soil movement,"
he observes, "I am for hailing it as a cheering sign of the times, and
an unmistakable proof of the progress we have made, under God, in
changing public sentiment.
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