Archibald H. Grimke, William Lloyd Garrison the Abolitionist

[374] his madness there was always remarkable method. When the nation was apathetic, dead on the subject of slavery, he used every power which he possessed or could invent to galvanize it into life. But with the prodigious excitement which swept over the free States at the outbreak of the war, Garrison saw that the crisis demanded different treatment. Abolitionists and their moral machinery he felt should be withdrawn, for a season at least, from their conspicuous place before the public gaze, lest it happen that they should divert the current of public opinion from the South to themselves, and thus injure the cause of the slave. He accordingly deemed it highly expedient that the usual anniversary of the American Anti-Slavery Society, held in New York, ought, under the circumstances, to be postponed, coming as it would but a few weeks after the attack on Sumter, and in the midst of the tremendous loyal uprising against the rebels. This he did, adding, by way of caution, this timely counsel: “Let nothing be done at this solemn crisis needlessly to check or divert the mighty current of popular feeling which is now sweeping southward with the strength and impetuosity of a thousand Niagaras, in direct conflict with that haughty and perfidious slave-power which has so long ruled the republic with a rod of iron, for its own base and satanic purposes.”

The singular tact and sagacity of the pioneer in this emergency may be again seen in a letter to Oliver Johnson, who was at the time editing the Anti-Slavery Standard. Says the pioneer: “Now that civil war has begun, and a whirlwind of violence and excitement is to sweep through the country, every day increasing ”