Practical fear can erode even a lifelong abolitionist’s principle at the moment of triumph.

Evidence

Garrison’s principled courage, which had made him a legend when emancipation seemed so far away, had been replaced by practical fear in 1864 when abolition seemed so close. Garrison feared Democrats gobbling up enough war-weary and anti-emancipation voters to seize presidential power, negotiate a war settlement, and maintain slavery. “Let us possess our souls in patience,” he wrote. William Lloyd Garrison—the longtime evangelist of immediate emancipation—counseled patience. — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 605

Garrison’s principled courage, which had made him a legend when emancipation seemed so far away, had been replaced by practical fear in 1864 when abolition seemed so close. — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 605

Categorization

• XREF: This inversion — the radical becoming the voice of caution once victory is near — parallels Kendi’s core mechanism where self-interest, not principle, drives position-taking; connects to the reader’s interest in when ideas precede versus follow policy.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning: The…, 605