However, the selection of E. D. Bassett, as Minister and Consul-General to Hayti, astonished even those who had the most favorable opinion of President Grant, and satisfied the people generally, both colored and white. Since the close of the war, colored men have been appointed to honorable situations in the Custom Houses in the various States, also in the Post Office and Revenue Department. CHAPTER XLVIII. THE ABOLITIONISTS. A little more than forty years ago, William Lloyd Garrison hoisted the banner of immediate and unconditional emancipation, as the right of the slave, and the duty of the master. The men and women who gradually rallied around him, fully comprehended the solemn responsibility they were then taking, and seemed prepared to consecrate the best years of their lives to the cause of human freedom. Amid the moral and political darkness which then overshadowed the land, the voice of humanity was at length faintly heard, and soon aroused opposition; for slavery was rooted and engrafted in every fibre of American society. The imprisonment of Mr. Garrison at Baltimore, at once directed public attention to the heinous sin which he was attacking, and called around him some of the purest and best men of the country. The Boston mob of 1835 gave now impulse to the agitation, and brought fresh aid to the pioneer of the movement. Then came the great battle for freedom of speech and the press; a battle in which the heroism of this small body of proscribed men and women had ample room to show their genius and abilities. The bold and seeming audacity with which they attacked slavery in every corner where the monster had taken refuge, even in the face of lynchings, riots, and murders, carried with it a charm which wrung applause from the sympathizing heart throughout the world, and showed that the American Abolitionists possessed a persistency and a courage which had never found a parallel in the annals of progress and reform. In the spring of 1859, we attended a meeting of the Executive Committee of the American Anti-slavery Society, as it was then organized, and we shall write of the members as they appeared at that time. The committee was composed of twelve persons besides the chairman, and were seated around a long table. At the head of the table sat William Lloyd Garrison, the Chairman of the Board, and the acknowledged leader of the movement. His high and prominent forehead, piercing eye, pleasant, yet anxious countenance, long nose, and smile upon his lips, point him out at once as a man born to guide and direct.