n the national territories, under the national flag on the high seas,
for it lay within the constitutional reach of the federal political
power, and its abolition was demanded in the Third party platform. These
leaders were confident that the existence of slavery depended upon its
connection with the National Government. Their aim was to destroy the
evil by cutting this connection through which it drew its blood and
nerve supplies. They planted themselves upon the anti-slavery character
of the Constitution, believing that it "does not sanction nor
nationalize slavery but condemns and localizes it."

This last position of the Liberty party leaders struck Garrison as a
kind of mental and moral enormity. At it and its authors, the
anti-slavery Jupiter, launched his bolts, fast and furious. Here is a
specimen of his chain lightning: "We have a very poor opinion of the
intelligence of any man, and very great distrust of his candor or
honesty, who tries to make it appear that no pro-slavery compromise was
made between the North and the South, at the adoption of the
Constitution. We cherish feelings of profound contempt for the quibbling
spirit of criticism which is endeavoring to explain away the meaning of
language, the design of which as a matter of practice, and the adoption
of which as a matter of bargain, were intelligently and clearly
understood by the contracting parties. The truth is the misnamed
'Liberty party' is under the control of as ambitious, unprincipled, and
crafty leaders as is either the Whig or Democratic party; and no other
proof of this assertion is needed than their unblushing denial of the
great object of the national compact, namely, union at the sacrifice of
the colored population of the United States. Their new interpretations
of the Constitution are a bold rejection of the facts of history, and a
gross insult to the intelligence of the age, and certainly never can be
carried into effect without dissolving the Union by provoking a civil
war." All the same, the pioneer to the contrary notwithstanding, many of
these very Liberty party leaders were men of the most undoubted candor
and honesty and of extraordinary intelligence.

Garrison was never able to see the Liberty party, and for that matter
Wendell Phillips, Edmund Quincy, and others of the old organization
leaders could not either, except through the darkened glass of personal
antagonisms growing out of the schism of 1840. It was always, under a