Black Hawk's band of Sauk Indians tried to return to their ancestral lands in Illinois but were crushed during a short campaign in which Abraham Lincoln was a volunteer, though he saw no action. Other great moral issues were being confronted.
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I am in earnest - I will not equivocate - I will not excuse - I will not retreat a single inch - AND I WILL BE HEARD.'' ''On this subject, I do not wish to think, or speak, or write with moderation. ''I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice,'' Garrison promised. January saw the appearance of William Lloyd Garrison's newspaper, The Liberator, which throughout the decades before the Civil War would serve as the rallying voice of the abolitionist movement.
![1831 year of eclipse book review 1831 year of eclipse book review](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2013/05/26/books/review/Niebuhr-SUB/Niebuhr-SUB-articleLarge.jpg)
Farther north, a Yankee, though he did not know Nat Turner, was also doing what he could to end the evil of slavery. This all too earthly event filled white people with their own dire prophecies, and by the end of the year the Virginia Legislature was debating the future of slavery, a future that, given its economic importance, was never really in immediate doubt. Nat Turner of Virginia, however, had a liberating vision inspired by the celestial event: ''I saw white spirits and black spirits engaged in battle, and the sun was darkened - the thunder rolled in the heavens, and blood flowed in streams.'' In August he led a band of slaves in a bloody but futile revolt against their masters. As one contemporary newspaper noted, in many citizens this shading of the sun awakened ''a kind of vague fear, of impending danger - a prophetic presentiment of some approaching catastrophe.'' An eclipse that took place in February of that year provides Masur with a metaphor that links some of the ominous though disparate events. Masur skillfully presents the case for 1831 to be recognized as another 12-month period when the course of American society was changed forever. Certain years - 1492, 1776, 1898, 1914 are examples - mark turning points in history.