...A short biography of William Lloyd Garrison

Front matter

WILLIAM rferaceBji Tolstoy

WILLIAM LLOYD GARRTSON.

vTbe ffree B(je |pre06 ii an earnest effort to spread those deep convictions in which the noblest spirits of every age and race have believed — that man's true aim and happiness is "unity in reason and love" ; the realisation of the brotherhood of all men : that we must all strive to eradicate, each from himself, those false ideas, false feelings, and false desires — personal, social, religious, economic — which alienate us one from another and produce nine-tenths oi all human suffering.

Introduction

BY LEO TOLSTOY. {Letter to V. Tchertkoff.)

I thank you very much for sending me your biography of Garrison.

Reading it, I lived again through the spring of my awakening to true life. While reading Garrison's speeches and articles I vividly recalled to mind the spiritual joy which I experienced twenty years ago, when I found out that the law of non-resistance — to which I had been inevitably brought by the recognition of the Christian teaching in its full meaning, and which revealed to me the great joyous ideal to be realised in Christian life — was even as far back as the forties not only recognised and proclaimed by Garrison (about Ballou I learnt later), but also placed by him at the foundation of his practical activity in the emancipation of the slaves.

My joy was at that time mingled with bewilderment as to how it was that this great Gospel truth, fifty years ago explained by Garrison, could have been so hushed up that I had now to express it as something new.

My bewilderment was especially increased by the circumstance that not only people antagonistic to the progress of mankind, but also the most advanced and progressive men, were either completely indifferent to this law, or vi.

INTRODUCTION.

actually opposed to the promulgation of that which lies at the foundation of all true progress.

But as time went on it became clearer and clearer to me that the general indifference and opposition which were then expressed, and still continue to be expressed — pre-eminently amongst political workers — towards this law of non-resistance are merely symptoms of the great significance of this law.

" The motto upon our banner," wrote Garrison in the midst of his activity, " has been from the commencement of our moral warfare ' Our Country is the World ; Our Countrymen are all Mankind.' We trust that it will be our only epitaph. Another motto we have chosen is, ' Universal Emancipation.' Up to this time we have limited its application to those who in this country are held by Southern taskmasters as marketable commodities, goods and chattels, and implements of husbandry. Henceforth we shall use it in its widest latitude — the emancipation of our whole race from the dominion of man, from the thraldom of self, from the government of brute force, from the bondage of sin, and the bringing it under the dominion of God, the control of an inward spirit, the government of the law of love. . . ."

Garrison, as a man enlightened by the Christian teaching, having begun with the practical aim of strife against slavery, very soon understood that the cause of slavery was not the casual temporary seizure by the Southerners of a few millions of negroes, but the ancient „ and universal recognition, contrary to the

INTRODUCTION. Vii.

Christian teaching, of the right of coercion on + the part of certain people in regard to certain others. A pretext for recognising this right has always been that men regarded it as possiable to eradicate or diminish evil by brute force, i.e., also by evil. Having once realised this fallacy, Garrison put forward against slavery neither the suffering of slaves, nor the cruelty of slaveholders, nor the social equality of men, but the eternal Christian law of refraining from opposing evil by violence, i.e., of "non-resistance." Garrison understood that which the most advanced among the fighters against slavery did not understand : that the only irrefutable argument against slavery is the denial of the right of any man over the liberty of another under any conditions whatsoever.

The Abolitionists endeavoured to prove that slavery was unlawful, disadvantageous, cruel : that it depraved men, and so on ; but the defenders of slavery in their turn proved the untimeliness and danger of emancipation, and the evil results liable to follow it. Neither the one nor the other could convince his opponent. Whereas Garrison, understanding that the slavery of the negroes was only a particular instance of universal coercion, put forward a general principle with which it was impossible not to agree — the principle that under no pretext has any man the right to dominate, i.e., to use coercion over his fellows. Garrison did not so much insist on the right of negroes to be free as he denied the right of any man whatsoever, or of any body of men, forcibly to coerce another man in any way. For the purpose of viii.

INTRODUCTION.

combating slavery he advanced the principle of struggle against all the evil of the world.

This principle advanced by Garrison was irrefutable, but it affected and even overthrew all the foundations of established social order, and therefore those who valued their position in that existing order were frightened at its announcement, and still more at its application to life ; they endeavoured to ignore it, to elude it ; they hoped to attain their object without the declaration of the principle of non-resistance to evil by violence, and that application of it to life which would destroy, as they thought, all orderly organisation of human life. The result of this evasion of the recognition of the unlawfulness of coercion was that fratricidal war which, having externally solved the slavery question, introduced into the life of the American people the new — perhaps still greater — evil of that corruption which accompanies every war.

Meanwhile the substance of the question remained unsolved, and the same problem, only in a new form, now stands before the people of the United States. Formerly the question was how to free the negroes from the violence of the slaveholders ; now the question is how to free the negroes from the violence of all the whites, and the whites from the violence of all the blacks.

The solution of this problem in a new form is to be accomplished certainly not by the lynching of the negroes, nor by any skilful and liberal measures of American politicians, but only by the application to life of that same principle

INTRODUCTION.

ix.

which was proclaimed by Garrison half a century ago.

The other day in one of the most progressive periodicals I read the opinion of an educated and intelligent writer, expressed with complete assurance in its correctness, that the recognition by me of the principle of non-resistance to evil by violence is a lamentable and somewhat comic delusion which, taking into consideration my old age and certain merits, can only be passed over in indulgent silence.

Exactly the same attitude towards this question did I encounter in my conversation with the remarkably intelligent and progressive American Bryan. He also, with the evident intention of gently and courteously showing me my delusion, asked me how I explained my strange principle of non-resistance to evil by violence, and as usual he brought forward the argument, which seems to everyone irrefutable, of the brigand who kills or violates a child. I told him that I recognise non-resistance to evil by violence because, having lived seventy-five years, I have never, except in discussions, encountered that fantastic brigand, who, before my eyes desired to kill or violate a child, but that perpetually I did and do see not one but millions of brigands using violence towards children and women and men and old people and all the labourers in the name of the recognised right of violence over one's fellows. When I said this my kind interlocutor, with his naturally quick perception, not giving me time to finish, laughed, and recognised that my argument was satisfactory.

INTRODUCTION,

No one has seen the fantastic brigand, but the world, groaning under violence, lies before everyone's eyes. Yet no one sees, nor desires to see, that the strife which can liberate man from violence is not a strife with the fantastic brigand, but with those actual brigands who practise violence over men.

Non-resistance to evil by violence really means only that the mutual interaction of rational beings upon each other should consist not in violence (which can be only admitted in relation to lower organisms deprived of reason) but in rational persuasion ; and that, consequently, towards this substitution of rational persuasion for coercion all those should strive *' who desire to further the welfare of mankind.

It would seem quite clear that in the course of the last century, fourteen million people were killed, and that now the labour and lives of millions of men are spent on wars necessary to no one, and that all the land is in the hands of those who do not work on it, and that all the produce of human labour is swallowed up by those who do not work, and that all the deceits which reign in the world exist only because violence is allowed for the purpose of suppressing that which appears evil to some people, and that therefore one should endeavour to replace violence by persuasion. That this may become possible it is necessary first of all to renounce the right of coercion.

Strange to say, the most progressive people of our circle regard it as dangerous to repudiate the right of violence and to endeavour to replace it by persuasion. These people, having

INTRODUCTION.

xi.

decided that it is impossible to persuade a brigand not to kill a child, think it also impossible to persuade the working men not to take the land and the produce of their labour from those who do not work, and therefore these people find it necessary to coerce the labourers.

So that however sad it is to say so, the only explanation of the non-understanding of the significance of the principle of non-resistance to evil by violence consists in this, that the conditions of human life are so distorted that those who examine the principle of non-resistance imagine that its adaptation to life and the substitution of persuasion for coercion would destroy all possibility of that social organisation and of those conveniences of life which they enjoy-

But the change need not be feared ; the principle of non-resistance is not a principle of coercion but of concord and love, and therefore it cannot be made coercively binding upon men. The principle of non-resistance to evil by violence, which consists in the substitution of persuasion for brute force, can be only accepted voluntarily, and in whatever measure it is freely accepted by men and applied to life — i.e., according to the measure in which people renounce violence and establish their relations upon rational persuasion — only in that measure is true progress in the life of men accomplished.

Therefore, whether men desire it or not, it is only in the name of this principle that they can free themselves from the enslavement and oppression of each other. Whether men desire xii.

INTRODUCTION.

it or not, this principle lies at the basis of all true improvement in the life of men which has taken place and is still to take place.

Garrison was the first to proclaim this principle as a rule for the organisation of the life of men. In this is his great merit. If at the time he did not attain the pacific liberation of the slaves in America, he indicated the way of liberating men in general from the power of brute force.

Therefore Garrison will for ever remain one of the greatest reformers and promoters of true human progress.

I think that the publication of this short biography will be useful to many.

COMPILERS' PREFACE.

Were it possible to conceive of any cause justifying the use of violence, surely the abolition of slavery, as it existed in America seventy years ago, would constitute such a cause. When, therefore, we find the greatest champion of emancipation adhering 5 throughout life to non-resistance principles of the most comprehensive kind — and that, in the face of imprisonment, mob violence and almost certain death, we feel that the life and thoughts of such a man must necessarily be of interest to all friends of Peace.

Under this impression we propose, for the benefit of such as are debarred a more extensive study of his character and work, to give a brief outline of the life and views of William Lloyd Garrison, the champion of Liberty and lover of mankind.

Any who may find their appetite stimulated rather than satisfied by the perusal of these pages are referred to " The Life and Times of William Lloyd Garrison," by his children, who have generously allowed us to quote from it without restriction — a permission of which, as the reader will see, we have amply availed ourselves. *

The original biography is, in our opinion, one of the greatest works of the kind,

* All portions of our work included in quotation marks represent extracts from the book as published by Messrs, Fisher Unwin, xiv.

compilers' preface.

and chronicles, perhaps, the most important epoch in the history of the American nation.

Consisting as it does of four large volumes, furnished with numerous portraits, not of Garrison only, but also of many of the remarkable public men and women of his time — the publication is necessarily expensive. Those who may not have the means of purchasing it, would do well in requesting the public libraries in their neighbourhood to procure it.

In reference to the present little compilation, we can only regret that the desire to render it accessible to as large a circle of readers as possible has prevented our giving a more detailed account of one of the finest lives ever lived amongst men.

Should the necessity of a new short life of Garrison be questioned, seeing that so many already exist — we need only mention that the peculiarity of our compilation lies in the fact that it has been prepared by persons in unreserved accord with Garrison's non-resistance principles, which have consequently here received the full emphasis they deserve and he himself laid upon them.

WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON.

Chapter I

William Lloyd Garrison was born in 1805, at Newburyport, Massachusetts. To this town his father, Abijah Garrison, a sailor by profession, had but recently migrated from Nova Scotia, where his family, of English origin and Puritan principles, had been for some time settled. With him came Frances Lloyd, his wife, daughter of an Irish emigrant to the Province of Nova Scotia. Brought up in the beliefs of the Episcopal Church, she had early incurred the displeasure of her family by joining the despised sect of Baptists. Persecution, taking the form of banishment from her father's house, served only to strengthen her convictions ; and her younger son, who seems to have inherited his mother's religious disposition, for many years showed a marked preference for her peculiar faith.

This second son, William Lloyd, was scarcely three years old when Abijah Garrison, although professing great affection for his wife and children, deserted them and returned to his native province.

The young wife thus left alone to support her three children, made a brave effort to bring them up well ; but the necessity of earning a livelihood separated her for long periods from her family, and when Lloyd was about ten years old, she was obliged, finally, to leave Newburyport and settle at Baltimore.

For seven years circumstances kept mother and son apart, until in 1823 Lloyd paid his mother a final visit, only a few weeks before her death. Notwithstanding this long separation, Fanny Garrison exercised considerable influence over her younger son, who ever preserved a warm and grateful remembrance of her.

(The elder son, strongly attracted to his father's profession, had run away to sea ; and the only daughter died some months before her bereaved mother.)

Thus, practically left an orphan while still a boy, William Lloyd was early thrown upon his own resources. After trying his hand at several occupations, he was finally apprenticed, at the age of thirteen, to the printing trade, entering the office of the Newburyport Herald, at the same time finding a home in the house of his master, the editor. Not only did he speedily win the love and esteem of all the inmates of his new home, but he soon became a most expert and rapid compositor. The extent to which he became master of his trade is evidenced by the fact that in later life many of his editorial articles were set up in type by himself without being previously committed to paper.

During his apprenticeship in the Herald office, Garrison wrote his first newspaper article, sending it anonymously to the editor, and having the pleasure of himself setting it up in type. The success of his first attempt encouraged him to further efforts, and he became a frequent contributor, taking up the current political topics of the day with characteristic ardour.

Before the term of his apprenticeship expired he was entrusted with the entire supervision of the printing office, and at times, during his master's absence, with the editorial management of the paper also. The experience thus gained was turned to good account, and within a few months of the expiration of his apprenticeship, in 1826, we find him editing and publishing a local newspaper, entitled The Free Press.

The branch cf moral reform which first engaged Garrison's serious attention was the temperance cause. To this he devoted himself with energy and enthusiasm, and never to the day of his death did he cease to take a keen interest in the promotion of temperance. Even when engaged heart and soul in the great work of his life — the abolition of slavery, he said :

" God is my witness that, great as is my detestation of slavery and the foreign slave trade, I had rather be a slave-holder — yea, a kidnapper on the African coast — than sell this poison to my fellow creatures for common consumption. Since the creation of the world there has been no tyrant like intemperance, and no slaves so cruelly treated as his " (vol. i., p. 268).

After about six months the editorship of The Free Press was abandoned, and Garrison betook himself to Boston in search of employment. This change of locality brought him into contact with W. Collier, a Baptist city missionary, who had recently established the first periodical ever devoted mainly to the cause of temperance. This paper, The National Philanthropist, soon passed into Garrison's hands. Although it had for its chief object the promotion of temperance, and took for its motto — " Moderate drinking is the downhill road to intemperance and drunkenness," the Philanthropist also discussed such subjects as

b lotteries, imprisonment for debt, peace, the desecration of the Sabbath by Sunday mails, and travelling and infidelity. This latter subject excited the greatest abhorrence in the mind of the orthodox editor.

" It is impossible/' he said, " to estimate the depravity and wickedness of those who at the present day reject the Gospel of Jesus Christ, when the proofs of its Divine origin have been accumulating for eighteen centuries, till the mass of evidence exceeds computation — when its blessed influence is penetrating the lands where thick darkness dwells, conquering the prejudices and customs and opinions of the people — and when it has acquired a grandeur of aspect and breadth of expansion, a vividness of glory and an increase of moral strength which stamps upon it the impress of Divinity in such legible characters that to doubt is impiety — to reject , the madness of folly " (vol. i. p. 84).

Garrison's veneration for the Scriptures and also for the Sabbath is interesting in connection with his future mental and spiritual development. Already he had to admit the astonishing indifference of professing Christians to the subject of war.

" They have been guilty," he declared, " of a neglect which no discouragement, no excuse, no inadequacy can justify. Why is it," he asked, " that by far the larger portion of the professed followers of the Lamb have maintained a careless, passive neutrality ? .... There are, in fact, few reasoning Christians ; the majority of them are swayed more by the usages of the world than by any definite perception of what constitutes duty — so far, we mean, as relates to the subjugation of vices which are incorporated, as it were, into the existence of society ; else why is it that intemperance and slavery and war have ilot ere this in a measure been driven from our land ? Is there not Christian influence enough here, if properly concentrated, to accomplish these things ? Scepticism itself cannot be at a loss to answer this question " (vol. i., pp. 84, 85).

Hitherto the cause of emancipation, soon to absorb so large a part of Garrison's life, had drawn from him but few expressions of interest. The Free Press had, it is true, contained some commendatory remarks on a poem entitled " Africa," an impassioned appeal on behalf of the slave ; and in an article on the Fourth of July we find the following words : —

" There is one theme which should be dwelt upon till our whole country is free from the curse — it is slavery" (vol. i., p. 66) ; and again in the second number of the Philanthropist, edited by Garrison, he had commented on the passage of a bill by South Carolina to prohibit the instruction of negroes. " There is," he declared, " something unspeakably pitiable and alarming in the state of that society where it is deemed necessary, for self-preservation, to seal up the mind and debase the intellect of man to brutal incapacity. We shall not now consider the policy of this resolve, but it illustrates the terrors of slavery in a manner as eloquent and affecting as imagination can conceive. . . . Truly, the alternatives of oppression are terrible. But this state of things cannot always last, nor ignorance alone shield us from destruction" (vol. i. ? pp. 86, 87).

But it was not until March, 1828, that a meeting occurred which led to the final dedication of his life to the cause of the slave.

Benjamin Lundy, a Quaker from New Jersey, had already devoted thirteen years to this great cause. During a four years* residence in Virginia his soul was so stirred by his being constantly compelled to witness the horrors of the slave trade that he organised an anti-slavery society, called the " Union Humane Society," and wrote an appeal urging the formation of similar societies throughout the land.

The first American periodical having for its avowed object the suppression of slavery had been established in 1820 by a friend named Elihu Embree, and on Embree's death in 1821, Lundy continued his work by the publication of a similar paper entitled The Genius of Universal Emancipation. Not only did he learn the printers' trade that he might be able to print this — the only antisi a very journal inthecountry — with his own hands, but he also took long journeys, often on foot, everywhere endeavouring to awaken men's minds to a conviction of the enormity of the slave system.

One of these journeys brought him to Boston, where he met Garrison, who wrote of him in the following glowing terms : —

" Every inch of him is alive with power. . . . No reformer was ever more devoted, zealous, persevering or sanguine. He has fought single handed against a host, without missing a blow or faltering a moment ; but his forces are rapidly gathering, and he will yet free our land. . . . Within a few months he has travelled about twenty-four hundred miles, of which upwards of sixteen hundred were performed on foot / — during which time he has held nearly fifty public meetings. Rivers and mountains vanish in his path ; midnight finds him wending his solitary way over an unfrequented road ; the sun is anticipated in his rising. Never was moral sublimity of character better illustrated " (vol. i., pp. 92, 93).

Of a meeting of Boston clergymen, convened by Lundy Garrison wrote eleven years later, as follows : —

" He might as well have urged the stones in the streets to cry out in behalf of the perishing captives. Oh, the moral cowardice, the chilling apathy, the criminal unbelief, the cruel scepticism that were revealed on that occasion ! My soul was on fire then, as it is now, in view of such a development. Every soul in the room was heartily opposed to slavery ; but it would terribly alarm and enrage the South to know that an anti-slavery society existed in Boston ! But it would do harm rather than good openly to agitate the subject ! But we had nothing to do with the question, and the less we meddled with it the better. But perhaps a select committee might be formed, to be called by some name that would neither give offence, nor excite suspicion as to its real design ! One or two only were for bold and decisive action ; but, as they had neither station nor influence, and did not rank among the wise and prudent, their opinions did not weigh very heavily, and the project was abandoned. Poor Lundy ! that meeting was a damper to his feelings ; but he was not a man to be utterly cast down, come what might. No one at the outset had bid him ' God-speed 1 in his merciful endeavour to deliver his enslaved countrymen ; and he was inflexible to persevere even unto the end, though unassisted by any of those whose countenance he had a right to expect " (vol. L, pp. 93, 94).

Lundy's visit to Boston was, however, not without result. The cause of the down-trodden slave had now taken such a hold upon the heart of the young editor of the Philanthropist that it was henceforth to be the chief interest of his life, — not, however, to the exclusion of other branches of reform — intemperance and war still claiming a large share of his attention.

In July, 1828, Garrison resigned the editorship of the Philanthropist, and in the autumn of the same year was offered a six months' engagement as editor of a new political journal at Bennington, Vermont, to be entitled The Journal of the Times. This offer was accepted on condition that the editor should be at liberty to discuss, in addition to politics, various topics, such as morals, education, temperance, slavery, etc.

The spirit in which this work was undertaken may be gathered from the following extract from Garrison's Salutatory : —

" . . . Of all the despicable and degraded beings, a time serving, truckling editor has no parallel ; and he who has not courage enough to hunt down popular vices, to combat popular prejudices, to encounter the madness of party, to tell the truth and maintain the truth, cost what it may, to attack villainy in its higher walks and strip presumption of its vulgar garb, to meet the frowns of the enemy with the smiles of a friend, and the hazard of independence with the hope of reward, should be crushed at a blow if he dared to tamper with the interests or speculate upon the whims of the public " (vol. i., p. 103).

The subject of slavery was at once enthusiastically taken up in The Journal of the Times. In the first number the editor spoke of the " importance of petitioning Congress this session in conjunction with our Southern brethren for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia." He also suggested the formation of anti-slavery societies in all the important towns in the twelve Free States. Owing largely to Garrison's personal activity, a petition drawn up by himself and bearing 2,352 signatures was presented to Congress. The question of emancipation was warmly discussed by some of the northern representatives, and resolutions were passed that a committee should inquire

WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON.

into the subject ; but owing to the determined opposition of the South the matter was soon dropped, and Congress passed no more resolutions in favour of freedom in the District until after the secession of the South.

On the expiration of his six months' engagement (in the spring of 1829), Garrison accepted a pressing invitation from Lundy to join him in the management of The Genius of Universal Emancipation, which he proposed to enlarge and publish weekly instead of monthly.

During a short stay in Boston, on his way to join Lundy, Garrison was invited to deliver a Fourth of July address at Park Street Church, in the interests of the Colonisation Society.

An unsuccessful attempt to prevent the delivery of this lecture by procuring a writ summoning the lecturer to appear at the police court, to account for his refusal to pay a fine for not appearing at a muster of the Militia Company, led to the following declaration of principles. It is especially interesting as showing the very decided non-resistant attitude taken by Garrison even at this early date.

u I am not professedly a Quaker/' he wrote, " but I heartily, entirely and practically embrace the doctrine of non-resistance, and am conscientiously opposed to all military exhibitions. I now solemnly declare that I will never obey any order to bear arms, but rather cheerfully suffer imprisonment and persecution. What is the design of militia musters ? To make men skilful murderers. I cannot consent to become a pupil in this sanguinary school " (vol. i., p. 125 note).