one who would kidnap him and deliver his body within the limits of the
state. With one voice the entire South cried out that the _Liberator_
must be suppressed.

Later it became clear that Garrison's part in the Nat Turner rebellion
was nil. The _Liberator_ had not a single subscriber in the South; Nat
Turner had never seen a copy of the paper,--and Garrison had been
specific in his statements that he did not believe in active resistance
to authority, or in the use of force of any kind. But the storm had
broken, and Garrison had to fight his way through it.

Even in Boston Garrison had to face the mob, and meet the scorn of the
ruling classes of the city. His movement had no popular support, in the
true sense of the word, as it had twenty years later, when Wendell
Phillips led the forces of abolition. Cotton was king, and the fear of
losing the Southern trade sent the mercantile classes into a panic of
fear. Garrison's enemies were by no means confined to the South. He was
like David with his sling; and slavery, with all its vassals, North as
well as South, was Goliath armed with steel. But for Garrison there were
only two words, Right and Wrong, and he would not compromise concerning
either.

Within two years he succeeded in organizing in Philadelphia the American
Anti-Slavery Society; by 1835 he convinced William Ellery Channing that
the time had fully come for an active crusade, and this old minister,
with a literary reputation in Europe almost as great as that of
Washington Irving, published an abolition book called "Slavery," which
is said to have been read by every prominent man in public life. In 1840
the society numbered not less than 200,000, and the hardest of
Garrison's work was done.