en, "that you could conduct that
dear paper, the _Liberator_, in the singleness of purpose of its first
years, without traveling off from the ground of our true, noble,
heart-stirring Declaration of Sentiments--without breathing sentiments
which are novel and shocking to the community, and which seem to me to
have no logical sequence from the principles on which we are associated
as Abolitionists. I cannot but regard the taking hold of one great moral
enterprise while another is in hand and but half achieved, as an outrage
upon commonsense, somewhat like that of the dog crossing the river with
his meat. But you have seen fit to introduce to the public some novel
views--I refer especially to your sentiments on government and religious
perfection--and they have produced the effect which was to have been
expected. And now considering what stuff human nature is made of, is it
to be wondered at that some honest-hearted, thorough-going Abolitionists
should have lost their equanimity? As you well know I am comparatively
no bigot to any creed, political or theological, yet to tell the plain
truth, I look upon your notions of government and religious perfection
as downright fanaticism--as harmless as they are absurd. I would not
care a pin's head if they were preached to all Christendom; for it is
not in the human mind (except in a peculiar and, as I think, diseased
state) to believe them."

Barring the extreme plainness of speech with which Wright and Tappan
gave their advice to Mr. Garrison, it was in the main singularly sound
and wise. But the pioneer did not so regard it. He was possessed with
his idea of the importance of chastising the clerical critics, and of
the duty of the Executive Committee and of the _Emancipator_ to back him
in the undertaking. His temper was, under all circumstances, masterful
and peremptory. It was never more masterful and peremptory than in its
management of this business. The very reasonable course of the Board at
New York suggested to his mind a predominance of "sectarianism at
headquarters," seemed to him "criminal and extraordinary." As the
Executive Committee and its organ would not rebuke the schismatics, he
was moved to rebuke the Executive Committee and its organ for their
"blind and temporizing policy." And so matters within the movement
against slavery went, with increasing momentum, from bad to worse.

The break in the anti-slavery ranks widened as new causes of controversy
arose betw