ABSTRACT
The flintiest character amongst the New England militants, curiously enough, was the son of an immigrant family, brought to Newburyport and abandoned by a shiftless father. William Lloyd Garrison was not an offspring of generations of New England Puritanism, but a waif thrown by chance on the bleak shores of Massachusetts, and left to shift pretty much for himself. His political opinions, which he embraced more ardently than intelligently, were faithful reflections of current Massachusetts partisanship. If Garrison was the flintiest character amongst the militant Abolitionists, Whittier was certainly the gentlest. Like other Abolitionists, Whittier had clung to his hopes of Webster in spite of frequent signs of the latter's backsliding. No more Puritan mind than Mrs. Stowe's ever contributed to the literature of New England. It was hard for the New England conscience to quit the pulpit and turn artist; and it was particularly hard for Mrs. Stowe with her ardent nature and multiplying domestic cares.
