SOURCE: Rhodes, James Ford. History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850, vol. 1, pp. 56-63. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1892.

In the following excerpt, Rhodes considers Garrison's work in relation to slave uprisings of the 1830s, and presents an assessment of his impact on mid-nineteenth-century American politics.

In August of this year (1831) occurred the Nat Turner insurrection in Virginia, which seemed to many Southerners a legitimate fruit of the bold teaching of Garrison, although there was indeed between the two events no real connection. But this negro rising struck terror through the South and destroyed calm reason. The leader, Nat Turner, a genuine African of exceptional capacity, knowing the Bible by heart, prayed and preached to his fellow-slaves. He told them of the voices he heard in the air, of the visions he saw, and of his communion with the Holy Spirit. An eclipse of the sun was...