Letters of Lydia Maria Child, with a biographical introduction by John G. Whittier and an appendix by Wendell Phillips.

L ETTERS. 79
was seething beneath their feet! poisoning the wellspring of popular indignation, which was rising in its
might! IMr. A., on the eve of departing for Europe,
wrote to me, "' The North will not really do anything
to maintain their own dignity. See if they do! I am
willing to go abroad, to find some relief from the
mental pain that the course of public affairs in this
country has for many years caused me." But I am
more hopeful. Such a man as Charles Sumner will
not bleed and suffer in vain. Those noble martyrs of
liberty in Kansas will prove missionary ghosts, walking through the land, rousing the nation from its
guilty slumbers. Our hopes, like yours, rest on Fremont. I would almost lay down my life to have him
elected. There never has been such a crisis since
we were a nation. If the slave-power is checked
now, it will never regain its strength. If it is not
checked, civil war is inevitable; and, with all my
horror of bloodshed, I could be better resigned to
that great calamity than to endure the tyranny that
has so long trampled on us. I do believe the North
will not, this time, fall asleep again, after shaking
her mane and growling a little.
I saw by the papers that Mr. Curtis was in the
field, and I rejoiced to know lie was devoting his
brilliant talents and generous sympathies to so noble
a purpose. I envy him; I want to mount the rostrum
myself. I have such a fire burning in my soul, that it
seems to nme I could pour forth a stream of lava that
would bury all the respectable servilities, and all the
mob servilities, as deep as Pompeii; so that it would
be an enormous labor ever to dig up the skeletons of
their memories.
We also talk of little else but Kansas and Fremont.