the territories;
that the Missouri Compromise had always been void, since Congress did
not have the right to enact a law which arbitrarily deprived citizens
of their property.

Reading the decision word for word with dismay and pondering
indignantly over the cold letter of the law, Susan found herself so
aroused and so full of the subject that she occasionally made a
spontaneous speech, and thus gradually began to free herself from
reliance on written speeches. She spoke from these notes: "Consider
the fact of 4,000,000 slaves in a Christian and republican
government.... Antislavery prayers, resolutions, and speeches avail
nothing without action.... Our mission is to deepen sympathy and
convert into right action: to show that the men and women of the North
are slaveholders, those of the South slave-owners. The guilt rests on
the North equally with the South. Therefore our work is to rouse the
sleeping consciousness of the North....[74]

"We ask you to feel as if you, yourselves, were the slaves. The
politician talks of slavery as he does of United States banks, tariff,
or any other commercial question. We demand the abolition of slavery
because the slave is a human being and because man should not hold
property in his fellowman.... We say disobey every unjust law; the
politician says obey them and meanwhile labor constitutionally for
repeal.... We preach revolution, the politicians, reform."

Instinctively she reaffirmed her allegiance to the doctrine, "No Union
with Slaveholders," and she gloried in the courage of Garrison,
Phillips, and Higginson, who had called a disunion convention,
demanding that the free states secede. It was good to be one of this
devoted band, for she sincerely believed that in the ages to come "the
prophecies of these noble men and women will be read with the same
wonder and veneration as those of Isaiah and Jeremiah inspire
today."[75]

She gave herself to the work with religious fervor. Even so, she could
not make her antislavery meetings self-supporting, and at the end of
the first season, after paying her speakers, she faced a deficit of
$1,000. This troubled her greatly but the Antislavery Society,
recognizing her value, wrote her, "We cheerfully pay your expenses and
want to keep you at the head of the work." They took note of her
"business enterprise, practical sagacity, and platform ability," and
looked upon the expenditure of $1,000 for the education and
development of such an ex