Again: "Rather than see men wearing their chains in a cowardly
and servile spirit, I would, as an advocate of peace, much rather
see them breaking the heads of the tyrant with their chains."

* Garrison himself denied any direct connection with the Nat
Turner insurrection. See "William Lloyd Garrison, the Story of
His Life told by His Children," vol. I, p. 251.

George Thompson, an English co-laborer with Garrison, is quoted
as saying in a public address in 1835 that "Southern slaves
ought, or at least had a right, to cut the throats of their
masters."* Such utterances are rare, and they express a passing
mood not in the least characteristic of the general spirit of the
abolition movement; yet the fact that such statements did emanate
from such a source made it comparatively easy for extremists of
the opposition to cast odium upon all abolitionists. The only
type of abolition known in South Carolina was that of the extreme
Garrisonian agitators, and it furnished at least a shadow of
excuse for mob violence in the North and for complete suppression
of discussion in the South. To encourage slaves to cut the
throats of their masters was far from being a rhetorical figure
of speech in communities where slaves were in the majority. Santo
Domingo was at the time a prosperous republic founded by former
slaves who had exterminated the Caucasian residents of the
island. Negroes from Santo Domingo had fomented insurrection in
South Carolina. The Nat Turner incident was more than a
suggestion of the dire possibilities of the situation. Turner was
a trusted slave, a preacher among the blacks. He succeeded in
concealing his plot for weeks. When the massacre began, slaves
not in the secret were induced to join. A majority of the slain