at
the beginning of the rebellion characterized it to the close of the war,
albeit at no time doing or saying aught to compromise his anti-slavery
principle of total and immediate emancipation. On the contrary, he
urged, early and late, upon Congress and the President the exercise of
the war power to put an end for ever to slavery. Radical Abolitionists
like Stephen S. Foster were for denying to the Administration
anti-slavery support and countenance, and for continuing to heap upon
the Government their denunciations until it placed itself "openly and
unequivocally on the side of freedom," by issuing the edict of
emancipation. Against this zeal without discretion Garrison warmly
protested. "I cannot say that I do not sympathize with the Government,"
said he, "as against Jefferson Davis and his piratical associates. There
is not a drop of blood in my veins, both as an Abolitionist and a peace
man, that does not flow with the Northern tide of sentiment; for I see,
in this grand uprising of the manhood of the North, which has been so
long groveling in the dust, a growing appreciation of the value of
liberty and free institutions, and a willingness to make any sacrifice
in their defence against the barbaric and tyrannical power which avows
its purpose, if it can, to crush them entirely out of existence. When
the Government shall succeed (if it shall succeed) in conquering a
peace, in subjugating the South, and shall undertake to carry out the
Constitution as of old, with all its pro-slavery compromises, then will
be my time to criticise, reprove, and condemn; then will be the time for
me to open all the guns that I can bring to bear upon it. But blessed be
God that 'covenant with death' has been annulled, and that 'agreement
with hell' no longer stands. I joyfully accept the fact, and leave all
verbal criticism until a more suitable opportunity."

But it must be confessed that at times during the struggle, Lincoln's
timidity and apparent indifference as to the fate of slavery, in his
anxiety to save the Union, weakened Garrison's confidence in him, and
excited his keenest apprehensions "at the possibility of the war
terminating without the utter extinction of slavery, by a new and more
atrocious compromise on the part of the North than any that has yet been
made." The pioneer therefore adjudged it prudent to get his battery into
position and to visit upon the President for particular acts, such as
the revocation of anti-sl