The writings of John Greenleaf Whittier, Volume 6.
John Greenleaf Whittier, Ed.

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‘ [234] the rainbow. We have engraven it there, on the blue table of the cold vault, in letters tall enough for the reading of the nations. And why has the far South not read and believed before this? Because a steam has gone up—a fog –from New England's pulpit and her degenerate press, and hidden the beaming revelation from its vision. The Northern hierarchy and aristocracy have cheated the South.’

He spoke at times with severity of slaveholders, but far oftener of those who, without the excuse of education and habit, and prompted only by a selfish consideration of political or sectarian advantage, apologized for the wrong, and discountenanced the anti-slavery movement. ‘We have nothing to say,’ said he, ‘to the slave. He is no party to his own enslavement,–he is none to his disenthralment. We have nothing to say to the South. The real holder of slaves is not there. He is in the North, the free North. The South alone has not the power to hold the slave. It is the character of the nation that binds and holds him. It is the Republic that does it, the efficient force of which is north of Mason and Dixon's line. By virtue of the majority of Northern hearts and voices, slavery lives in the South!’

In 1840, he spent a few weeks in England, Ireland, and Scotland. He has left behind a few beautiful memorials of his tour. His Ride over the Border, Ride into Edinburgh, Wincobank Hall, Ailsa Craig, gave his paper an interest in the eyes of many who had no sympathy with his political and religious views.