g development of my deeply injured and oppressed people.

From motives of peace, instead of issuing my paper in Boston, among
my New England friends, I came to Rochester, western New York, among
strangers, where the circulation of my paper could not interfere with
the local circulation of the _Liberator_ and the _Standard;_ for at
that time I was, on the anti-slavery question,{307 CHANGE OF VIEWS} a
faithful disciple of William Lloyd Garrison, and fully committed to his
doctrine touching the pro-slavery character of the constitution of the
United States, and the _non-voting principle_, of which he is the known
and distinguished advocate. With Mr. Garrison, I held it to be the
first duty of the non-slaveholding states to dissolve the union with
the slaveholding states; and hence my cry, like his, was, "No union
with slaveholders." With these views, I came into western New York; and
during the first four years of my labor here, I advocated them with pen
and tongue, according to the best of my ability.

About four years ago, upon a reconsideration of the whole subject, I
became convinced that there was no necessity for dissolving the "union
between the northern and southern states;" that to seek this dissolution
was no part of my duty as an abolitionist; that to abstain from voting,
was to refuse to exercise a legitimate and powerful means for abolishing
slavery; and that the constitution of the United States not only
contained no guarantees in favor of slavery, but, on the contrary, it
is, in its letter and spirit, an anti-slavery instrument, demanding the
abolition of slavery as a condition of its own existence, as the supreme
law of the land.

Here was a radical change in my opinions, and in the action logically
resulting from that change. To those with whom I had been in agreement
and in sympathy, I was now in opposition. What they held to be a great
and important truth, I now looked upon as a dangerous error. A very
painful, and yet a very natural, thing now happened. Those who could not
see any honest reasons for changing their views, as I had done, could
not easily see any such reasons for my change, and the common punishment
of apostates was mine.

The opinions first entertained were naturally derived and honestly
entertained, and I trust that my present opinions have the same claims
to respect. Brought directly, when I escaped from slavery, into contact
with a class of abolitionists regarding the{308} constitut