k under a Constitution which united
right and wrong, freedom and slavery. As his reflections deepened, the
conviction forced its way into his mind that the Union was the strong
tower of the slave-power, which could never be destroyed until the
fortress which protected it was first utterly demolished. In the spring
of 1842 the pioneer was prepared to strike into this new path to effect
his purpose.

"We must dissolve all connection with those murderers of fathers," he
wrote his brother-in-law, "and murderers of mothers, and murderers of
liberty, and traffickers of human flesh, and blasphemers against the
Almighty at the South. What have we in common with them? What have we
gained? What have we not lost by our alliance with them? Are not their
principles, their pursuits, their policies, their interests, their
designs, their feelings, utterly diverse from ours? Why, then, be
subject to their dominion? Why not have the Union dissolved in form as
it is in fact, especially if the form gives ample protection to the
slave system, by securing for it all the physical force of the North? It
is not treason against the cause of liberty to cry, "Down with every
slave-holding Union!" Therefore, I raise that cry. And O that I had a
voice louder than a thousand thunders, that it might shake the land and
electrify the dead--the dead in sin, I mean--those slain by the hand of
slavery."

A few weeks later the first peal of this thunder broke upon the startled
ears of the country through the columns of the _Liberator_. The May
meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society was drawing near, and the
reformer, now entirely ready to enter upon an agitation looking to the
dissolution of the Union, suggested "the duty of making the REPEAL OF
THE UNION between the North and the South the grand rallying point until
it be accomplished, or slavery cease to pollute our soil. We are for
throwing all the means, energies, actions, purposes, and appliances of
the genuine friends of liberty and republicanism into this one channel,"
he goes on to announce, "and for measuring the humanity, patriotism, and
piety of every man by this one standard. This question can no longer be
avoided, and a right decision of it will settle the controversy between
freedom and slavery." The stern message of Isaiah to the Jews,
beginning, "Hear the word of the Lord, ye scornful men that rule this
people. Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with DEATH and
with HELL ar