Ernest Crosby, Garrison the non-resistant

[35] of the fugitive slave law-so far had political compromise allured them from the principle of immediate emancipation. It was fortunate that they never got the upper hand in the American Anti-Slavery Society. The question of woman's rights was also a burning one among the Abolitionists, and the cause of divisions. Should they or should they not take an equal part with men in conventions and committee work? Garrison stoutly upheld their right on all occasions; and when at the world's anti-slavery convention in London in 1840 they were excluded from the floor, he declined to present his credentials as a delegate and took his seat among the spectators in the gallery.

Garrison's policy against slavery was chiefly directed toward the creation of sentiment, but he had several minor measures at heart which he strove to forward with his customary persistence. He was active in petitioning Congress to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia. For years, as is well known, the Southern members tried to deny the right of petition in this regard, and John Quincy Adams bravely withstood them. The course of the South in opposing this clear Constitutional right disgusted all fairminded people in the North and helped to spread and consolidate anti-slavery opinion. Another aim of Garrison's was to persuade