Garrison had no delusions. He possessed even then singularly clear ideas
as to how the South would receive such petitions, and of the course
which it would pursue to discourage their presentation. He was no less
clear as to how the friends of freedom ought to carry themselves under
the circumstances. In the _Journal of the Times_ of November, 1828, he
thus expressed himself: "It requires no spirit of prophecy to predict
that it (the petition) will create great opposition. An attempt will be
made to frighten Northern 'dough-faces' as in case of the Missouri
question. There will be an abundance of furious declamation, menace, and
taunt. Are we, therefore, to approach the subject timidly--with half a
heart--as if we were treading on forbidden ground? No, indeed, but
earnestly, fearlessly, as becomes men, who are determined to clear their
country and themselves from the guilt of oppressing God's free and
lawful creatures." About the same time he began to make his assaults on
the personal representatives of the slave-power in Congress, cauterizing
in the first instance three Northern "dough-faces," who had voted
against some resolutions, looking to the abolition of the slave-trade
and slavery itself in the District of Columbia. So while the South thus
early was seeking to frighten the North from the agitation of the
slavery question in Congress, Garrison was unconsciously preparing a
countercheck by making it dangerous for a Northern man to practice
Southern principles in the National Legislature. He did not mince his
words, but called a spade a spade, and sin, sin. He perceived at once
that if he would kill the sin of slave-holding, he could not spare the
sinner. And so he spoke the names of the delinquents from the housetop of
the _Journal of the Times_, stamping upon their brows the scarlet letter
of their crime against liberty. He had said in the October before: "It
is time that a voice of remonstrance went forth from the North, that
should peal in the ears of every slaveholder like a roar of thunder....
For ourselves, we are resolved to agitate this subject to the utmost;