em to the task. Said the Richmond _Enquirer_ (edited
by the elder Ritchie), January 7, 1832: "Means, sure but gradual,
systematic but discreet, ought to be adopted for reducing the mass of
evil which is pressing upon the South, and will still more press upon
her the longer it is put off. We say, now, in the utmost sincerity of
our hearts, that our wisest men cannot give too much of their attention
to this subject, nor can they give it too soon." It was one of the
decisive hours of history:

Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side.

But the task was too great, or the life-long habit of the slave-owner
had been too enervating. The apparent expense, the collision of
different plans, the difficulty in revolutionizing the whole industrial
system, the hold of an aristocracy affording to its upper class a
fascinating leisure and luxury--these, and the absence of any high moral
inspiration in the movement, brought it to naught. Instead of decreeing
emancipation, the Legislature fell back on the policy of stricter
repression. It enacted that the advocacy of rebellion by writing or
printing should be a penitentiary offense, and to express the opinion
that masters had no rights to their slaves was made punishable by a fine
of $500 and one year in jail. To advise conspiracy was treason and its
punishment death. It had been enacted a year before that no white man be
allowed to assemble slaves to instruct them in reading and writing; and
to this it was now added that neither slaves nor free negroes be allowed
to preach.

And so Virginia abdicated her old-time leadership in the cause of human
rights, and the primacy of the South passed to South Carolina and to
Calhoun, the champion of slavery.

In the meantime the organization of the radical anti-slavery force went
on at the North. In 1832 Garrison, Oliver Johnson and ten others
constituted themselves the New England Anti-slavery Society. Almost its
first attack was directed against the Colonization Society, Garrison
being always as fierce against half-way friends as against pronounced
foes. In 1833 a little group of more moderate but resolute men organized
a local association in New York city, and under their call the American
Anti-slavery Society held its first meeting in Philadelphia, in
December. Among the New York leaders were Arthur and Lewis Tappan,
merchants of high standing and men of we