ut Angelina
confesses that "our judgment is not convinced, and we hardly know what
to do about it, for we have just as high an opinion of Brother
Garrison's views, and _he_ says '_go on_.'" The influence of Weld and
Whittier finally prevailed with "Carolina's high-souled daughters," and
they refrained from further agitation of the subject of Women's rights
lest they should thereby injure the cause of the slave.

But the leaven of equality was not so effectually disposed of. It had
secured permanent lodgment in the anti-slavery body, and the
fermentation started by it, went briskly on. Such progress did the
principle of women's rights make among the Eastern Abolitionists,
especially among those of Massachusetts, that in the spring of 1838 the
New England Anti-Slavery Society voted to admit women to equal
membership with men. This radical action was followed by a clerical
secession from the society, which made a stir at the time. For among the
seceding members was no less a personage than Amos A. Phelps, who was
the general agent of the Massachusetts Society, and therefore one of
Garrison's stanchest supporters. The reform instituted by the New
England Society, in respect of the character of its membership, was
quickly adopted by the Massachusetts Society and by several local
organizations, all of which set the ball of discord spinning among the
brethren at a great rate. But by this time all the new ideas,
Sabbatical, no-government, perfectionist, non-resistance, as well as
women's rights, were within the anti-slavery arena, and fencing and
fighting for a chance to live, with the old ideas and the old order.

Garrison championed all of the new ideas, and in doing so arrayed
against himself all of the special champions of the existing
establishments. In his reduced physical state, the reformer was not
equal to the tremendous concussions of this "era of activity," as
Emerson named it. At moments he appeared bewildered amid the loud,
fierce clamor of contending ideas, each asserting in turn its moral
primacy. For an instant the vision of the great soul grew dim, the great
heart seemed to have lost its bearings. All of the new ideas thawed and
melted into each other, dissolved into one vague and grand solidarity of
reforms. The voice of the whole was urging him amid the gathering moral
confusion to declare himself for all truth, and he hearkened irresolute,
with divided mind. "I feel somewhat at a loss to know what to do"--h