CONSERVATISM IS FASHIONABLE.
Nothing is more fashionable than conservatism. Slavery—what a hot- bed of sensualism! What a pandemonium of cruelty and crime!
All over the North the merchant, the politician, and the clergyman pledged each other to silence. It was the fashion.
A few brave souls protested. Sneers and ridicule followed them. Ah, can it be believed,—the blue-eyed daughters of New England joined in the sneers. They drew aside their skirts as they passed the champions of liberty and virtue. No other memory connected with the antislavery revolution is so hard for me to bear. If only they, hearing the cry of agony from their outraged sisters in the South, had listened, sympathized, and, in their own gentle way, striven to help the torn and bleeding ones, I could bear the memory of the brutal indifference of men.