could preach Anti-Slaveryism and live. In the North the conditions
were not much better. Every man and woman--because the muster-roll of
the Abolition propagandists was recruited from both sexes--carried on
the work at the hazard of his or her life. Sneers, scowls, hootings,
curses, and rough handling were absolutely certain. One incident
throws light on the state of feeling at that time.

When Pennsylvania Hall, which the Abolitionists of
Philadelphia--largely Quakers--had erected for a meeting place at a
cost of forty thousand dollars was fired by a mob, the fire department
of that city threw water on surrounding property, but not one drop
would it contribute to save the property of the Abolitionists.

Why was it that this devotion to slavery and this hostility to its
opposers prevailed in the non-slaveholding States? They had not always
existed. Indeed, there was a time, not so many years before, when
slavery was generally denounced; when men like Washington and
Jefferson and Henry, although themselves slave-owners, led public
opinion in its condemnation. Everybody was anticipating the day of
universal emancipation, when suddenly--almost in the twinkling of an
eye--there was a change. If it had been a weather-cock--as to a
considerable extent it was, and is--public opinion could not have more
quickly veered about.

Slavery became the popular idol in the North as well as in the South.
Opposition to it was not only offensive, but dangerous. It was
sacrilege.

So far as the South was concerned the revolution is easily accounted
for. Slavery became profitable. A Yankee magician had touched it with