The Portland daily press., 1864-12-15
william LlOyd Garrison.

too serious, too much impressed with the
weight of his subject to deal In pleasantries or
amusing Illustrations. BE seems too calm and
sel-possessed to be seized away by bursts OF
passion thrilling his hearers. His thoughts ar
range themselves in orderlysequence, but not
in logical propositions, that coerce the assent
Of the intellect. The raciest public speakers
even in the pulpit are satirists. Garrison 10
too truthful to exaggerate, ana ms only satire
Is when he makes a stunning and comprenen-
sive epithet do the office of a roundabout des-
| cription or assertion
Tho secret of his influence is that there is a
| man bebind the speech greater than the
sneech.--s man that the speech only helps
70 disclose. The leading characteristics of
the man are clearness of moral conviction,
fidelity of devotion to what he believes good
aud true, keen perception and an infexi-
BILE hatred of injustice. For thirty years he
has inveighcd upon the public platform
against the Villainy of American slavery,
and during that time the church has held up
his name as asynonym of infidelity, and the
State as the embodiment of sedtion. Serving
thesame cause by substantially the same meth
OILS for less period, Wendell Phillips now
declares himself an dgitGtor He has SO learn
ed the art Of assailing abuses with eloquent
speech, that he would plot reform in the king
dom of Heaven. If Mr.. Garrison should de-
clare himself an agitator, his placid face it up
with spiritual beauty, his sweet rich voice
speaking out OF an unsecured heart, his unfail-
ing charity, that in long controversy with
his times, has left no room for cynicism, his
cheerful views Of the divine providence pre-
pairing glorious destiny for his country and
countrymen, that has SO bitterly prosecuted
him, would all belle the selfaccusation.
This is a man to nestle into the affections of
home, to walk placidly around the circle Of
friends, reversing and supporting the institu-
tions and the faith of his age. But the sensi-
tiveness of conscience, that takes cognisance
of great organized sins, that escape the scru-
tiny of small souls looking after their petty
| personal deficiencies, and uncomfortable rage
at expressions that fell ION the poor and the
despised, made him assume the task of an ac-
cuser and innovator. One listens TO his earn
est words as to something more than a ha-
irangue from a professional agitator. a man
whom habitor dyspepsia has made Dioge-
mes; Indeed as to the echo of the woes and
wrongs of all the enslaved, reverberated from
!, asoul endowed with the plying sensitiveness
Of Jesus. .aAocA fA1A A9A
This is not only the secret of Mr. Garrison's
power as a speaker, but it is the secret of his
influence in the country and gives him justly
the place of leadership in the antislavery enter
| prise now rapidly approaching its consumma-
ton. Garrison has stood in the temper and
withthe inspiration of a Hebrew prophet, land
while secuted as not believing the prophets or
revering the Bible, no man has SO reproduced
in his modes of thought and action the Biblical
ideas and the old prophetic situations, and de.
nounced slaveholdiug with such fiery earnest
ness and iron pertinaeity, that the nation has
been aroused, first to rage, then to argument,
then to slow conviction and at last to repent
ance This influence has been almost purely
4 moral and religious,--an earnest soul ar0using
othersouls. As to practical methods he has
scarcely proposed any. 1t was nearly ten years
before the small school of his disciples attempt
ed to form a political platforms, and it. wa.
\ futile and impractcable to the last degree, viz
that the North, or at least Massachusetts
should dissolve the Union, seeding for liber-
ty as South Carolina has done for slavery. Let
us not doubt the nobeness OF such devotion
men ever came to adopt it, True, only q
peaceful secession was proposed, but South
Carolina preferred peaceful secession and
4 once out of the Uuion, wanted TO be let alonel
Thank God, that the guilt and miseries of this
great civil war were not suffered to fall upon
Massachusetts,, fighting hopelessly against
slavery, but against loyalty, against civic good
faith, and against the Unionl iosq sasadol . !
.tlo' But Mr.. Garrison Is not to bereproached now
j with the futility of his special methods of over
throwing the power of slavery. Other practi-
] cal schemes have proved just as inefiicacious.
The Liberty party, intent upon imposing up
on the legislature and the Judiciary its ideal
construction Of the constitution. the old Wits
party, once supported by a large faction Of
the Democracy, assured that to check the ir.
: ruption of slavery into free territories would
bring about its slow decay. How utterly In
adequate all their methods to remove a great
crime and curse, which required great con
n vulsion threatening the overthrow of an en-
pre-. As quickening the national conscience
the discussion these projects ELECTED ha
helped to educate the people TO do their duty
in the crisis the madness of slayery and nc
the indignation Of good men has brought on
As remedies it is clear to see they might hav,
scotched, but never could have killed TIL
Is monster that was devouring the national life
I. 1t is curious fact that the Slave Power fel
to actual loggerheads, not with Garrison, o
! Geritt Smith, OF Greeley, butEwitht the mos
10 conservative men and opinions of the North
with Everett willing to waive the Wilmot Pro
!. oviso and divide the territories with slavery 70
the sake Of the Union, and with Douglas will
ing to concede anything to the South tina
left the Northern Democracysa platoon
wheFeon they could keep up their msjorities
and that the North bored the compass Of cor
cession to the extreme point of the Crittende
: Resolutions and the, constitutional sanctio
Of state slavery, before itaccepted the offere
arbitrament OF war.
. Nor has Mr.. Garrison been intimately cor
: nected with these movements and events, b
2 which the issue abetwixt slavery and freedom
now submitted to the wager Of battle has bee
brought on. BE did not aid prominently /
the colonization OF California and of Kanss
with free state settlers. Other men have tax
en- a more active part in redeeming individus
slaves and in aiding and defending fugitivel
He had no completely with John Browns fl
tai but but most consequential attack upo
slavery. He has been precluded BY the stres
of conscience from taking part in the grea