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[158] afterwards described it, ‘Where Friend Lundy could get one new subscriber, I could knock a dozen off, and I did so. It was the old experiment of the frog in1 the well, that went two feet up, and fell three feet back, at every jump.’ The diminishing subscription-list had no deterrent effect upon the editors. Garrison steadily urged immediatism, and replied vigorously to his critics. He was strengthened by Elizabeth Heyrick's admirable letters on Colonial Slavery, and cheered by the act of President Guerrero of Mexico in proclaiming immediate emancipation to the ten thousand slaves in that country. Of those critics who declared that the slaves, if freed and turned loose, would cut the throats of their late oppressors, he exclaimed:
‘Is it worth our while to reason with such men? Need they2 be told, that if fire be quenched, it cannot burn—if the fangs of the rattlesnake be drawn, he cannot be dangerous—if seed be annihilated, it cannot germinate? Will they continue to multiply their bugbears, and exaggerate their idle fears, and prophesy evil things, and weary our ears with their ridiculous cant? If we liberate the slaves, and treat them as brothers and as men, shall we not take away all motive for rebellion? And if we persist in crushing them down to the earth, and lacerating their bodies with our whips, will they not rise up, sooner or later, like an army of unbound giants, and carry rapine and slaughter in their path? No—respond our sapient advisers and far-sighted philanthropists—there will be a reversal of the case!’

The twenty-first biennial session of the ‘American Convention for the Abolition of Slavery and Improvement of the African Race in the United States’ was held in Washington early in December, 1829, a room in the City Hall being offered for its sessions by the Mayor and Aldermen. The number of delegates present was small, and their proceedings were of little value, consisting largely of a discussion of various colonization schemes as a means of abolishing slavery. Lundy was a delegate, Garrison remaining in Baltimore. Prior to the assembling of the Convention, the Genius had announced the

1 Speech to Franklin Club, Oct. 14, 1878.

2 G. U. E., Oct. 30, 1829, p. 59.

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