vitt, Amos A. Phelps, Lewis Tappan, and James Miller McKim.

Garrison's assertion that "the overthrow of the Colonization Society was
the overthrow of slavery itself," was, from the standpoint of a student
of history, an exaggerated one. We know now that the claim was not
founded on fact, that while they did stand together they did not fall
together. But the position was, nevertheless, the strongest possible one
for the anti-slavery movement to occupy at the time. In the disposition
of the pro-slavery forces on the field of the opening conflict in 1832,
the colonization scheme commanded the important approaches to the
citadel of the peculiar institution. It cut off the passes to public
opinion, and to the religious and benevolent influences of the land. To
reach these it was necessary in the first place to dislodge the society
from its coign of vantage, its strategical point in the agitation. And
this is precisely what "The Thoughts on African Colonization" did. It
dislodged the society from its powerful place in the moral sentiment of
the North. The capture of this position was like the capture of a
drawbridge, and the precipitation of the assaulting column directly upon
the walls of a besieged castle. Within the pamphlet was contained the
whole tremendous enginery of demolition. The anti-slavery agent and
lecturer thenceforth set it up wherever he spoke.

To him it was not only the catapult; it furnished the missile-like facts
and arguments for breaching the walls of this pro-slavery stronghold as
well.

The effect of the publication of "The Thoughts" in this country was
extraordinary, but the result of their circulation in England was hardly
less so. It produced there as here a revolution in public sentiment upon
the subject. The philanthropy and piety of Great Britain had generally
prior to the unmasking of the society, looked upon it as an instrument
of Emancipation, and had accordingly given it their powerful
countenance, and not a little material support. But from the moment that
the pamphlet reached England a decided change in this regard became
manifest. The society made fruitless attempts to break the force of the
blow dealt it by Garrison in the United States. But wherever its
emissaries traveled "The Thoughts" confronted and confounded them. So
that Mr. Garrison was warranted in saying that "all that sophistry or
misrepresentation could effect to overthrow its integrity has been
attempted in vain. The work