Those who have left the Whig and Democratic
parties for conscience's sake, and joined the movement, deserve our
commendation and sympathy; at the same time, it is our duty to show
them, and all others, that there is a higher position to be attained by
them or they will have the blood of the slave staining their garments.
This can be done charitably yet faithfully. On the two old parties,
especially the Whig-Taylor party, I would expend--_pro tempore_, at
least--our heaviest ammunition." This is as it should be, the tone of
wise and vigilant leadership, the application of the true test to the
circumstances, viz., for freedom if against slavery; not to be
satisfied, to be sure, with any thing less than the whole but disposed
to give credit to whom it was due, whether much or little. Pity that the
pioneer could not have placed himself in this just and discriminating
point of view in respect of his old enemy, Liberty party, praising in it
what he found praiseworthy, while blaming it for what he felt was
blameworthy. But perfection weak human nature doth not attain to in this
terrestrial garden of the passions, and so very likely the magnanimity
which we have desired of Garrison is not for that garden to grow but
another and a heavenly.
Garrison ill brooked opposition, came it from friends or foes. He was so
confident in his own positions that he could not but distrust their
opposites.
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