Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879; the story of his life told by his children: volume 2

[246] in the national politics slavery was, and must be made, the main question, all efforts of existing parties to the contrary notwithstanding. In this they differed from Orestes A. Brownson, who, vaunting his own practicality, asserted: ‘Our enquiry should be, What is the¹ question for to-day? . . . The question for to-day is the currency question.’ And Brownson, of course, merely expressed the prevailing sentiment of the electorate at large.² The more sanguine and less patient temperaments among the abolitionists were beginning to feel that an anti-slavery party was an indispensable sign of the recognition of the main question, and their number was swelled when the fall elections of 1838 brought some disappointments: neither in Ohio nor in New York had the abolition vote affected the result as decidedly or extensively as was anticipated. It had not ‘come out,’ it had not discriminated. The impulsive Gerrit Smith was so far discouraged as to recommend³ new anti-slavery organizations of non-pro-slavery voters. ‘Let this be done,’ he said, ‘and the present antislavery societies will, of course, fall speedily to the ground.’ Mr. Garrison, on the other hand, objected to any ‘alteration in our constitutions with the vain hope⁴ of making morally dishonest men politically just.’

Logically, philosophically, and historically, it was the South that was dragging slavery into politics. The annexation of Texas (for the spread of the institution and the assured control of Federal legislation in regard to it), which was unremittingly prepared in that ‘Republic’ and at Washington, was a high political question; the proposed admission of Florida as an additional slave⁵