His mother was a member of our church, and I thought somewhere in his veins must stir anti-slavery blood.

So I wrote a letter to the _Journal_, which appeared with an editorial disclaimer, "but the fair writer should have a hearing." This letter was followed by another, and they continued to appear once or twice a week during several months.
I do not remember whom I attacked first, but from first to last my articles were as direct and personal as Nathan's reproof to David.

Of slavery in the abstract I knew nothing.

There was no abstraction in tying Martha to a whipping-post and scourging her for mourning the loss of her children.

The old Kentucky saint who bore the torture of lash and brine all that bright Sabbath day, rather than "curse Jesus," knew nothing of the abstraction of slavery, or the finespun theories of politeness which covered the most revolting crimes with pretty words.
This great nation was engaged in the pusillanimous work of beating poor little Mexico--a giant whipping a cripple.