episode in his life. But his battle with those forces had begun thirteen
years earlier, when he threw down the gauntlet to them in his Phi Beta
Kappa oration. Emerson by his writings did more than any other man to
rescue the youth of the next generation and fit them for the fierce
times to follow. It will not be denied that he sent ten thousand sons to
the war.

In speaking of Emerson's attitude toward the anti-slavery cause, it has
been possible to dispense with any survey of that movement, because the
movement was simple and specific and is well remembered. But when we
come to analyze the relations he bore to some of the local agitations of
his day, it becomes necessary to weave in with the matter a discussion
of certain tendencies deeply imbedded in the life of his times, and of
which he himself was in a sense an outcome. In speaking of the
Transcendentalists, who were essentially the children of the Puritans,
we must begin with some study of the chief traits of Puritanism.

What parts the factors of climate, circumstance, and religion have
respectively played in the development of the New England character no
analysis can determine. We may trace the imaginary influence of a harsh
creed in the lines of the face. We may sometimes follow from generation
to generation the course of a truth which at first sustained the spirit
of man, till we see it petrify into a dogma which now kills the spirits
of men. Conscience may destroy the character. The tragedy of the New
England judge enforcing the Fugitive Slave Law was no new spectacle in
New England. A dogmatic crucifixion of the natural instincts had been in
progress there for two hundred years. Emerson, who is more free from
dogma than any other teacher that can be named, yet comes very near
being dogmatic in his reiteration of the Moral Law.