eginning, but it was the beginning of the end.
That slavery was to be put down without political action in a
government carried on by the ballot was never a tenable proposition,
and the inevitable work was at last inaugurated. It was done
opportunely. Harrison and Van Buren were alike objectionable to
anti-slavery men who understood their record. To choose between
them was to betray the cause. Van Buren had attempted to shelter
the slave trade under the national flag. He had allied himself to
the enemies of the right of petition and the freedom of debate, as
the means of conciliating the South. He had taken sides with
Jackson in his lawless interference with the mails at the bidding
of slave-holders. In a word, he had fairly earned the description
of "a Northern man with Southern principles." General Harrison,
on the other hand, was a pro-slavery Virginian. While Governor of
Indiana Territory he had repeatedly sought the introduction of
slavery into that region through the suspension of the ordnance of
1787, which had forever dedicated it to freedom. He had taken
sides with the South in 1820 on the Missouri question. He had no
sympathy with the struggle of Adams and his associates, against
the gag and in favor of the right of petition, and regarded the
discussion of the slavery question as unconstitutional. The first
draft of his inaugural was so wantonly offensive to the anti-slavery
Whigs who had aided in his election, that even Mr. Clay condemned
it, and prevailed on the General to modify it. He had declared
that "the schemes of the Abolitionists were fraught with horrors,
upon which an incarnate devil only could look with approbation."
With such candidates the hour had fairly struck for anti-slavery
men, who believed in the use of the ballot, to launch the grand
movement which was finally to triumph over all opposition; while
to oppose this movement, however honestly, was to encourage men to
choose between parties equally untrustworthy, and by thus prolonging
their rule to defeat all practical anti-slavery work. It was the
singular mistake of the non-voting Abolitionists at this time,
that, while they looked forward to political action as the ultimate
result of their moral agitation, they vehemently opposed the
formation of an anti-slavery political party, and either withheld
their votes or divided them between these pro-slavery chieftains,
though giving by far the larger proportion to the Whig candida