support and encouragement came from representatives from Virginia
and other slave States. Opposition was expressed by members from
South Carolina and Georgia. These for the most part relied upon
their constitutional guaranties. But for these guaranties, said
Smith, of South Carolina, his State would not have entered the
Union. In the extreme utterances in opposition to the petition
there is a suggestion of the revolution which was to occur forty
years later.

Active abolitionists who gave time and money to the promotion of
the cause were always few in numbers. Previous to 1830 abolition
societies resembled associations for the prevention of cruelty to
animals--in fact, in one instance at least this was made one of
the professed objects. These societies labored to induce men to
act in harmony with generally acknowledged obligations, and they
had no occasion for violence or persecution. Abolitionists were
distinguished for their benevolence and their unselfish devotion
to the interests of the needy and the unfortunate. It was only
when the ruling classes resorted to mob violence and began to
defend slavery as a divinely ordained institution that there was
a radical change in the spirit of the controversy. The
irrepressible conflict between liberty and despotism which has
persisted in all ages became manifest when slave-masters
substituted the Greek doctrine of inequality and slavery for the
previously accepted Christian doctrine of equality and universal
brotherhood.



CHAPTER II. THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE CRUSADE