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[202] great agitator was a sore trial. To them and to others, too, his language seemed grossly intemperate and vituperative, and was deemed productive of harm to the movement. But Garrison defended his harsh language by pointing to the state of the country on the subject of slavery before he began to use it, and to the state of the country afterward. How utterly and morally dead the nation was before, how keenly and marvelously alive it became afterward. The blast which he had blown had jarred upon the senses of his slumbering countrymen he admitted, but he should not be blamed for that. What to his critics sounded harsh and abusive, was to him the trump of God. For, at the thunder-peal which the Almighty blew from the mouth of his servant, how, as by a miracle, the dead soul of the nation awoke to righteousness. He does not arrogate to himself infallibility, indeed he is sure that his language is not always happily chosen. Such errors, however, appear to him trivial, in view of indisputable and extraordinary results produced by the Liberator. He believes in marrying masculine truths to, masculine words. He protests against his condemnation by comparison. “Every writer's style is his own — it may be smooth or rough, plain or obscure, simple or grand, feeble or strong,” he contends, “but principles are immutable.” By his principles, therefore he would, be judged. “Whittier, for instance,,” he continues,

is highly poetical, exuberant, and beautiful. Stuart is solemn, pungent, and severe. Wright is a thorough logician, dextrous, transparent, straightforward. Beriah Green is manly, eloquent, vigorous, devotional.

May is persuasive, zealous, overflowing with the milk

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Elizur Wright (1)
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