To them and to others, too, his language seemed grossly intemperate and vituperative, and was deemed productive of harm to the movement.

But Garrison defended his harsh language by pointing to the state of the country on the subject of slavery before he began to use it, and to the state of the country afterward.

How utterly and morally dead the nation was before, how keenly and marvelously alive it became afterward.

The blast which he had blown had jarred upon the senses of his slumbering countrymen he admitted, but he should not be blamed for that.

What to his critics sounded harsh and abusive, was to him the trump of God.