And ever, when such stature they had gained1The gubernatorial messages of the three leading Republican States, at the opening of the year, gave dismal foreboding of what would attend Republican successes in 1860. Governor Morgan of New York proclaimed the readiness2 of that State to submit if the voice of the country should3 prove to be for slavery extension. The ambitious Governor of Ohio, Salmon P. Chase, “a political huckster who hopes to carry his principles to the Presidential market” Lib. 29.107. (in Quincy's phraseology), was silent on the absorbing4 national topic; in Massachusetts, Governor Banks, “a Presidential baby at nurse,” Lib. 29.107. was equally dumb. Later on, both Chase and Banks prevented their respective legislatures from passing laws such as Vermont had enacted5 to make the trial or rendition of slaves impossible on her soil.6 Chase's successor, William Dennison, taking the7 stump on his own behalf in the fall of 1859, declared the Republican Party a white man's party, repudiated for himself the name of abolitionist, and said he had no desire ‘to disturb the relation of master and slave where it exists under the sanction and protection of State Law.’ It was not surprising that, in view of such manifestations, a portion of the abolitionists, particularly those whose labors in the field had acquainted them with the
That Ilium's walls were subject to their view,
The trees' tall summits withered at the sight:
A constant interchange of growth and blight!
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fabled ‘spiry trees’ that sprung from the tomb of Protesilaus—
5 Lib. 28.199; 29.22, 44, 122.
6 In the summer of 1858, Mr. Garrison (in company with the Rev. Samuel May, Jr., and the Rev. N. R. Johnston, pastor of the Covenanter Church at Topsham, Vt.), made an anti-slavery tour of the Green Mountain State, which he had not revisited since he left it to join Lundy in Baltimore (Lib. 28.135,146). These speakers urged the sending up of petitions for an anti-slave-catching law, which were promptly heeded by the Legislature (Lib. 29: 22). See Mr. Garrison's cogent speech before the Massachusetts Legislative Committee on behalf of a similar law on Feb. 24, 1859 (Lib. 29: 34). The legislators' oath to support the U. S. Constitution he offset by their oath to the State Constitution, with its Art. 1, ‘All men are born free and equal,’ etc.
The Century Company. , 1885-1889.
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