'Men often make up in wrath what they want in reason.' -William Rounsville Alger
Alger, a Unitarian minister who lived in the mid-19th century, was a prolific writer and a staunch Abolitionist. Given the opportunity to deliver an oration in Boston on the 4th of July, 1857, Alger acknowledged that it would be easy to "indulge in boastful generalities" about the character of the country, but instead chose to deliver an excoriating address on the evils of slavery. An uproar followed, as Alger's subject matter was seen as too inflammatory for the occasion. "That I have done my duty," he wrote, "the attacks are harmless and welcome."