As the friends of the Union were disposed to haggle at no price to preserve it, so was Garrison disposed to barter the Union itself in exchange for the abolition of slavery.  “Now, then, let there be a CONVENTION OF THE FREE STATES,” he suggested, “called to organize an independent government on free and just principles; and let them say to the slave States:  Though you are without excuse for your treasonable conduct, depart in peace!  Though you have laid piratical hands on property not your own, we surrender it all in the spirit of magnanimity!  And if nothing but the possession of the Capitol will appease you, take even that without a struggle!  Let the line be drawn between us where free institutions end and slave institutions begin!”

But the thunder of the rebel guns in Charleston Harbor wrought in the reformer a complete revolution in this regard.  In the tremendous popular uprising which followed that insult to the national flag he perceived that the old order with its compromises and dispositions to agree to anything, to do anything for the sake of preserving the Union had passed away forever.  When it was suggested as an objection to his change of base that the “Administration is endeavoring to uphold the Union, the Constitution, and the Laws, even as from the formation of the Government,” he was not for a moment deceived by its apparent force, but replied sagely that “this is a verbal and technical view of the case.”  “Facts are more potential than words,” he remarked with philosophic composure, “and events greater than parchment arrangements.  The truth is, the old Union is nan est invenius, and its restoration, with its pro-slavery compromises, well-nigh impossible.  The conflict is really between the civilization of freedom and the barbarism of slavery—­between the principles of democracy and the doctrines of absolutism—­between the free North and the man-imbruting South; therefore, to this extent hopeful for the cause of impartial liberty.”

With the instinct of wise leadership, he adjusted himself and his little band of Abolitionists, as far as he was able, to the exigencies of the revolution.  In his madness there was always remarkable method.  When the nation was apathetic, dead on the subject of slavery, he used every power which he possessed or could invent to galvanize it into life.  But with the prodigious excitement which swept over the free States at the outbreak of the war, Garrison saw that the crisis demanded different treatment.  Abolitionists and their moral machinery he felt should be withdrawn, for a season at least, from their conspicuous place before the public gaze, lest it happen that they should divert the current of public opinion from the South to themselves, and thus injure the cause of the slave.  He accordingly deemed it highly expedient that the usual anniversary of the American Anti-Slavery Society, held in New York, ought, under the circumstances, to be postponed, coming as it would