him. "Foes are on my right hand, and on my left," he reported to some
friends. "The tongue of detraction is busy against me. I have no
communion with the world--the world none with me. The timid, the
lukewarm, the base, affect to believe that my brains are disordered, and
my words the ravings of a maniac. Even many of my friends--they who have
grown up with me from my childhood--are transformed into scoffers and
enemies." The apathy of the press, and the apathy of the people were
putting forth signs that the long winter of the land was passing away.

To a colored man belongs the high honor of having been the _courier
avant_ of the slavery agitation. This man was David Walker, who lived in
Boston, and who published in 1829 a religio-political discussion of the
status of the negroes of the United States in four articles. The
wretchedness of the blacks in consequence of slavery he depicted in dark
and bitter language. Theodore Parker, many years afterward, said that
the negro was deficient in vengeance, the lowest form of justice.
"Walker's Appeal" evinced no deficiency in this respect in its author.
The pamphlet found its way South, and was the cause of no little
commotion among the master-class. It was looked upon as an instigation
to servile insurrection. The "Appeal" was proscribed, and a price put
upon the head of the author. Garrison deprecated the sanguinary
character of the book. For he himself was the very reverse of Walker.
Garrison was a full believer in the literal doctrine of non-resistance
as enunciated by Jesus. He abhorred all war, and physical collisions of
every description, as wicked and inhuman. He sang to the slave:

"Not by the sword shall your deliverance be;
Not by the shedding of your master's blood,
Not by rebellion--or foul treachery,
Upspringing suddenly, like swelling flood;