It was not long before her clear intellect discerned the true bearings of the case. She soon acknowledged that, however distasteful to her might be the language used by the abolitionists, they were completely innocent of the charges made against them, and were, in fact, the blameless apostles of a most holy cause. From the time of forming this judgment, her course was clear. She boldly avowed abolitionist principles, and took an early opportunity of attending an anti-slavery meeting at which, in a short speech, she avowed her conviction that slavery was inconsistent with the law of God, and incompatible with the course of His providence. It is unnecessary at this distance of time to recount in detail the fury with which this declaration was regarded by the bulk of American society, and by almost the whole American press. Insult and contumely now met her at every turn, in quarters where she had before received nothing but adulation and flattery. But she was not of a nature to be induced by threats of personal violence to consent to that which her reason and conscience condemned. She remained then and always an ardent abolitionist, and when the great question of the existence of slavery in the United States was submitted to the arbitrament of war, she was one of the chief among the leaders of political opinion in England who kept our country as a nation free from the guilt and folly of supporting the secession of the Southern States from the American Union. The late Mr. W. E. Forster said at the time that it seemed to him as if Harriet Martineau alone were keeping this country straight in regard to America.