she would have gone to a frolic. She had no thought that serious
fighting was to follow. She did not believe, as one of the Southern
leaders expressed it, that the Northern people would go to war for the
sake of the "niggers."




CHAPTER VI

ANTI-SLAVERY PIONEERS


The early Abolitionists were denounced as fanatics, or "fan-a-tics,"
according to the pronunciation of some of their detractors. They were
treated as if partially insane. The writer when a boy attended the
trial of a cause between two neighbors in a court of low grade. It was
what was called a "cow case," and involved property worth, perhaps, as
much as twenty dollars. One of the witnesses on the stand was asked by
a lawyer, who wanted to embarrass or discredit him, if he were not an
Abolitionist. Objection came from the other side on the ground that
the inquiry was irrelevant; but the learned justice-of-the-peace who
presided held that, as it related to the witness's sanity, and that
would affect his credibility, the question was admissible. It is not,
perhaps, so very strange that in those days, in view of the
disreputableness of those whose cause they espoused, and the
apparently utter hopelessness of anything ever coming out of it, the
supporters of Anti-Slaveryism should be suspected of being "out of
their heads."