avery orders by sundry of his generals in the
field, and upon particular members of his Cabinet who were understood to
be responsible for the shuffling, hesitating action of the Government in
its relation to slavery, an effective fire of criticism and rebuke.

Nevertheless Mr. Garrison maintained toward the Government a uniform
tone of sympathy and moderation. "I hold," said he, in reply to
strictures of Mr. Phillips upon the President at the annual meeting of
the Massachusetts Society in 1862; "I hold that it is not wise for us to
be too microscopic in endeavoring to find disagreeable and annoying
things, still less to assume that everything is waxing worse and worse,
and that there is little or no hope." He himself was full of hope which
no shortcomings of the Government was able to quench. He was besides
beginning to understand the perplexities which beset the administration,
to appreciate the problem which confronted the great statesman who was
at the head of the nation. He was getting a clear insight into the
workings of Lincoln's mind, and into the causes which gave to his
political pilotage an air of timidity and indecision.

"Supposing Mr. Lincoln could answer to-night," continued the pioneer in
reply to his less patient and hopeful coadjutors, "and we should say to
him: 'Sir, with the power in your hands, slavery being the cause of the
rebellion beyond all controversy, why don't you put the trump of jubilee
to your lips, and proclaim universal freedom?'--possibly he might
answer: 'Gentlemen, I understand this matter quite as well as you do. I
do not know that I differ in opinion from you; but will you insure me
the support of a united North if I do as you bid me? Are all parties and
all sects at the North so convinced and so united on this point that
they will stand by the Government? If so, give me the evidence of it,
and I will strike the blow. But, gentlemen, looking over the entire
North, and seeing in all your towns and cities papers representing a
considerable, if not a formidable portion of the people, menacing and
bullying the Government in case it dared to liberate the slaves, even as
a matter of self-preservation, I do not feel that the hour has yet come
that will render it safe for the Government to take that step.' I am
willing to believe that something of this kind weighs in the mind of the
President and the Cabinet, and that there is some ground for hesitancy
as a mere matter of political expedien