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Show 258 conceived or originatcJ one : that he so far mistook either himself or his timeR, that of most national <iuestions ho bas stood, at difrcrent IJeriods, on both sitles, nnd that his last opinion was alwa,ys the erroneous and the losing one. lie talkeJ. ngainst Slavery constantly up to 1850, but never exerted !l tittle of Anti~Slasery influence, or stirred one heart against the system. Giving the lie, in that disastrous year, to all his empty rhetoric, this great light in falling drew not after it one of heaven's host. If the cleph:mt turned from the van, he neither carried any awny with him, nor crushccl any in his retreat. Kidnappers at heart, who would have been silent, though not converted, had he spoken for Liberty, may ha..vo given him thanks when he descended to lead their ranks. rl'hey were the men whom his Anti~Slavery rhetoric of thirty years had neither convinced of his sincerity nor of his ideas. Ilad he spoken then for Liberty, be might, probably, have prevented the enactment of tbo Fugitive Slave Law, and turned back the 259 tide of Southern a"grc . 0 881011 : not, however, by aoy greatness or influence of his own. It would have been because other me _A·' . . 11 uams, 01ddmgs and their followers, on whom the MASTEJt STATES~ MAY of the Anti~Slavcry Movement, WM. l .. wyn GARRISON, had impressed his great idea,- because these men had elaborated for !Jim a policy, pro· pared for him a public, created for him a North built for him and showed him a way, nnd asked 0~ him only the easy virtue of walking 011 it. The two years that followed this change nrc allowed, on all hands, to have been the most laborious, active, and nblc of his whole career. Tried by the tone of the public press, or by any other test, Lis influence was as great as e\'Cr; nnd this so called great man talked every day and everywhere, wrote to everybody, and on ::tll occa. sions; his vigor of thought, his energy were mar· velloua; inste::td of seventy years, it seemed the "May of youth and bloom of lustihood." Yet what did he effect? Horace Mann, whoso hum- |