On his return to Haverhill he played his part in local politics and was talked of for Congress. Somewhat later he was drawn into the anti-slavery movement and for the next twenty-seven years this was his life. He was a member of the legislature in 1835, and was reëlected the next year; but in general terms it may be said that in publishing _Justice and Expediency_, and in uniting himself with the small, unpopular, and exasperating party of Abolitionists, he sacrificed hope of political advancement. He gave to the cause time, health, reputation, and when he had it to give, money. In company with Abolitionist leaders and orators he encountered mobs and speculated philosophically on the chance of losing his life. In 1837 he acted as a secretary to the American Anti-Slavery Society in New York. From 1838 to 1840 he edited ‘The Pennsylvania Freeman,’ published in Philadelphia. During an Abolitionist convention, Pennsylvania Hall, in which were the offices of the ‘Freeman,’ was sacked and burned by a pro-slavery mob. Whittier, disguised in a wig and a long overcoat, mingled with the rioters and contrived to save a few of his papers. It was a more dangerous rabble than that he encountered during the George Thomson riot at Concord, New Hampshire, three years earlier. Whittier once remarked that he never really feared for his life, but that he had no mind to a coat of tar and feathers. A true son of Essex, he soon wearied of city life. ‘I would rather live an obscure New England farmer,’ he said. ‘I would rather see the sunset light streaming through the valley of the Merrimac than to look out for many months upon brick walls, and Sam Weller’s “werry beautiful landscape of chimney-pots.”’ He really had no choice in the matter, having been warned to give up editorial work if he would keep his precarious hold on life. He obeyed the warning. But with Whittier journalism was a disease. He had a relapse in 1844, when he took charge of the ‘Middlesex Standard’ of Lowell, and again, in 1845–46, when he was virtual editor of the ‘Essex Transcript’ in Amesbury. No restriction was placed on his doing work at home. He wrote unceasingly, prose and verse, reaching his literary audience through the ‘Democratic Review’ and his audience of reformers through Bailey’s paper, ‘The National Era,’ both published in Washington. Whittier was corresponding editor of the ‘Era’ from 1847 to 1850, and printed in its columns, besides political articles, such now famous poems as ‘Maud Muller,’ ‘Ichabod,’ ‘Tauler,’ and ‘The Chapel of the Hermits.’