In the summer of 1848, from Northampton, whither he had gone to take the water cure, Garrison counseled Quincy, who was filling the editorial chair, in the interim, at the _Liberator_ office, in this sage fashion: "As for the Free-Soil movement, I feel that great care is demanded of us disunionists, both in the _Standard_ and the _Liberator_, in giving credit to whom credit is due, and yet in no case even seeming to be satisfied with it." In the winter of 1848 in a letter to Samuel May, Jr., he is more explicit on this head. "As for the Free-Soil movement," he observes, "I am for hailing it as a cheering sign of the times, and an unmistakable proof of the progress we have made, under God, in changing public sentiment. Those who have left the Whig and Democratic parties for conscience's sake, and joined the movement, deserve our commendation and sympathy; at the same time, it is our duty to show them, and all others, that there is a higher position to be attained by them or they will have the blood of the slave staining their garments. This can be done charitably yet faithfully. On the two old parties, especially the Whig-Taylor party, I would expend--_pro tempore_, at least--our heaviest ammunition." This is as it should be, the tone of wise and vigilant leadership, the application of the true test to the circumstances, viz., for freedom if against slavery; not to be satisfied, to be sure, with any thing less than the whole but disposed to give credit to whom it was due, whether much or little. Pity that the pioneer could not have placed himself in this just and discriminating point of view in respect of his old enemy, Liberty party, praising in it what he found praiseworthy, while blaming it for what he felt was blameworthy. But perfection weak human nature doth not attain to in this terrestrial garden of the passions, and so very likely the magnanimity which we have desired of Garrison is not for that garden to grow but another and a heavenly.