The early Abolitionists were denounced as fanatics², or "fan-a-tics," according to the pronunciation of some of their detractors. They were treated as if partially³ insane. The writer when a boy attended the trial of a cause between two neighbors in a court of low grade. It was what was called a "cow case," and involved property worth, perhaps, as much as twenty dollars. One of the witnesses on the stand was asked by a lawyer, who wanted to embarrass or discredit⁴ him, if he were not an Abolitionist. Objection came from the other side on the ground that the inquiry⁵ was irrelevant⁶; but the learned justice-of-the-peace who presided held that, as it related to the witness's sanity⁷, and that would affect his credibility, the question was admissible. It is not, perhaps, so very strange that in those days, in view of the disreputableness of those whose cause they espoused⁸, and the apparently⁹ utter hopelessness of anything ever coming out of it, the supporters of Anti-Slaveryism should be suspected of being "out of their heads."

Although Don Quixote, who, according to the veracious¹⁰ Cervantes, set out with his unaided strong right arm to upset things, including wind-mills and obnoxious¹¹ dynasties, has long been looked upon as the world's best specimen¹² of a "fanatic," he would ordinarily be set down as a very Solomon beside the man who would undertake single-handed to

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