G. Loring, S. E. Sewall, Richard Hildreth, W. I. Bowditch,
the masterly essays of the _Emancipator_ at New York and the _Liberator_
at Boston, and the various addresses of the Massachusetts and American
Societies for the last twenty years. The idea of the antislavery
character of the Constitution,--the opiate with which Free Soil quiets
its conscience for voting under a pro-slavery government,--I heard first
suggested by Mr. Garrison in 1838. It was elaborately argued that
year in all our antislavery gatherings, both here and in New York, and
sustained with great ability by Alvan Stewart, and in part by T. D.
Weld. The antislavery construction of the Constitution was ably argued
in 1836, in the _Antislavery Magazine_, by Rev. Samuel J. May, one of
the very first to seek the side of Mr. Garrison, and pledge to the slave
his life and efforts,--a pledge which thirty years of devoted labors
have redeemed. If it has either merit or truth, they are due to no
legal learning recently added to our ranks, but to some of the old
and well-known pioneers.
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