ABSTRACT
A combination of politics and humanitarianism permitted Great Britain to take the edge off her human suffering without the worst excesses of catastrophe. The Continental governments chose to police their troubled classes, rather than propitiate them. The journal became one which, though "tainted with the spirit of compromise," in Garrison's words, offered valuable information and an essentially antislavery position. Zachary Taylor was suspicious of the men and the measures involved in the Compromise, but it is difficult to believe that he would have stood out against them. The press rang with what appeared Seward's invitation to lawlessness. The concept of a "higher law" had circulated freely for many years. Theodore Parker had since accepted the Mexican War, and all compromises, and now threatened to sue her for false quotation. William Lloyd Garrison was a pillar of disunion, but he was also a pillar of antislavery: there was inspiration in his work. Northerners retained their votes and negotiated with compromisers.
