Are we, therefore, to approach the subject timidly--with half a heart--as if we were treading on forbidden ground?
No, indeed, but earnestly, fearlessly, as becomes men, who are determined to clear their country and themselves from the guilt of oppressing God's free and lawful creatures." About the same time he began to make his assaults on the personal representatives of the slave-power in Congress, cauterizing in the first instance three Northern "dough-faces," who had voted against some resolutions, looking to the abolition of the slave-trade and slavery itself in the District of Columbia.

So while the South thus early was seeking to frighten the North from the agitation of the slavery question in Congress, Garrison was unconsciously preparing a countercheck by making it dangerous for a Northern man to practice Southern principles in the National Legislature.

He did not mince his words, but called a spade a spade, and sin, sin.

He perceived at once that if he would kill the sin of slave-holding, he could not spare the sinner.

And so he spoke the names of the delinquents from the housetop of the _Journal of the Times_, stamping upon their brows the scarlet letter of their crime against liberty.