The reader need "iiot be reminded of the scorn and detestation in which abohtionists at this time were held at the North as well as at the South, nor how patriotic were all attempts then deemed to silence them by insult and violence. One of the most, despised portions of these despised people, the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, at a season of high public excitement, invited Mr. Adams to attend one of their celebrations. He replied, " It would give me great pleasure to comply with the invitation," and after excusing himself on account of want of health and leisure, added, " I rejoice that the defence of human freedom is falling into younger and more vigorous hands. The youthful champions of the rights of human nature have buckled, and are buckling on their armor, and the scourging overseer, and the lynching lawyer, and the servile sophist, and the faithless scribe, and the priestly parasite, will vanish before them like Satan touched with the spear of Ithuriel. You have a glorious and arduous career before you ; and it is among the consolations of my last days, that I am able to cheer you in the pursuit, and exhort you to be stedfast and immoveable."
But the crowning crime of the abolitionists, was their union with English abolitionists in anti-slavery conven- tions held in London.
A northern member of Congress, sent under his frank to Mr. Polk, then Governor of Tennessee, certain proceed- ings of the " World's Convention." The Governor re- turned an insulting answer, concluding, " It is a matter of sincere regret that any American citizen should be guilty of such high treason to the first principles upon* which the States became united." Mr. Polk published his epistle, and it no doubt prepared the way for his ele- vation to the Presidency. In May, 1843, as a delegate to an Anti-Slavery Convention in London, was leaving Boston, he received the following lines : " My dear sir—I have only time to say G od bless you and your enterprize, for which ^I have no other pra3''er to make, than that its success may herald my nunc dlmittis.