ll
circumstances, to borrow a phrase of Phillips, "Our old enemy, Liberty
party." And, as Quincy naively confesses in an article in the
_Liberator_ pointing out the reasons why Abolitionists should give to
the Free-soil party incidental aid and comfort, which were forbidden to
their "old enemy, Liberty party," the significant and amusing fact that
the latter was "officered by deserters." Ay, there was indeed the rub!
The military principle of the great leader forbade him to recognize
deserters as allies. Discipline must be maintained, and so he proceeded
to maintain the anti-slavery discipline of his army by keeping up a
constant fusillade into the ranks of the deserter band, who, in turn,
were every whit as blinded by the old quarrel and separation, and who
slyly cherished the modest conviction that, when they seceded, the salt
of old organization lost its savor, and was thenceforth fit only to be
trampled under the Liberty party's feet. Without doubt, those old
Abolitionists and Liberty party people belonged to the category of
"humans."

The scales of the old grudge dropped from Garrison's eyes directly the
Free-Soil party loomed upon the political horizon. He recognized at once
that, if it was not against the slave, it was for the slave; apprehended
clearly that, in so far as the new party, which, by the way, was only
the second stage in the development of the central idea of his old
enemy, Liberty party, as the then future Republican party was to be its
third and final expression, apprehended clearly I say that, in so far as
the new party resisted the aggressions and pretensions of the
slave-power, it was fighting for Abolition--was an ally of Abolitionism.

In the summer of 1848, from Northampton, whither he had gone to take the
water cure, Garrison counseled Quincy, who was filling the editorial
chair, in the interim, at the _Liberator_ office, in this sage fashion:
"As for the Free-Soil movement, I feel that great care is demanded of us
disunionists, both in the _Standard_ and the _Liberator_, in giving
credit to whom credit is due, and yet in no case even seeming to be
satisfied with it." In the winter of 1848 in a letter to Samuel May,
Jr., he is more explicit on this head. "As for the Free-Soil movement,"
he observes, "I am for hailing it as a cheering sign of the times, and
an unmistakable proof of the progress we have made, under God, in
changing public sentiment. Those who have left the Whig and Democratic