pointments in different directions. He was exceedingly sharp-tongued
and very fearless. Nothing seemed to please him better than a
"scrimmage" with his opponents. Often he conquered mobs by resolutely
talking them down and making them ashamed of themselves. But on one
occasion, looking through the window from the outside to see what
awaited him in a room where he was to speak, he saw a pot of boiling
tar on the stove that heated the room and a pillow-case full of
feathers conveniently near, while a half-drunken crowd was in
possession of the place, and concluded to run. He, however, had been
seen and was pursued. There was a foot race, but as some of the
pursuers were better sprinters than Hudson, and he was about to be
captured, he dashed into the first house he came to and asked for
protection. The proprietor was a kinsman of mine. He was an old man,
but hearty and vigorous. He ordered his sons to take their guns and
guard the other entrances, while he took his stand in the front door
with an axe in his hand. When the mob came up and demanded the
Abolitionist, he gave warning that he would brain the first man that
attempted to enter his house without his consent. So evidently in
earnest was he that the rowdies, after a little bluster, concluded to
give up the hunt and left in disgust.

CHAPTER X

WANTED, AN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY

The National Anti-Slavery Society--the society organized by
Garrison and his _confreres_, and which longest maintained its
organization--made one great mistake. It disbanded. It assumed that
its work was done when African slavery in this country was pronounced
defunct by law. It took it for granted that the enslavement of the
colored man--not necessarily the negro--was no longer possible under
the Stars and Stripes. Then and there it committed a grievous blunder.
Its paramount error was in assuming that a political party could for
all time be depended upon as a party of freedom. It trusted to the
assurances of politicians that they would protect the colored man in
all his natural and acquired rights, and in that belief voluntarily
gave up the ghost and cast its mantle to the winds.

Now, the fact is that the National Anti-Slavery Society was never more
needed than it is to-day. There is a mighty work to be done that was
directly in the line of its operations. First and foremost, it will
not be denied that a citizen of our Republic who is deprived of the
elective franchise is robbe