[491]
even so to them.
It teaches me, further, to “remember them that are in bonds as bound with them.”
I endeavored to act up to that instruction.
I say, I am yet too young to understand that God is any respecter of persons.
I believe that to have interfered as I have done—as I have always freely admitted I have done—in behalf of his despised poor, was not wrong, but right.
Now, if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children, and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments—I submit: so let it be done!1
From
Mr. Garrison's speech on the same evening, we select the passage distinguishing himself from the subject of his eulogy:
A word upon the subject of Peace.
I am a non-resistant—2 a believer in the inviolability of human life, under all circumstances; I, therefore, in the name of God, disarm John Brown, and every slave at the South.
But I do not stop there; if I did, I should be a monster.
I also disarm, in the name of God, every slaveholder and tyrant in the world.
For wherever that principle is adopted, all fetters must instantly melt, and there can be no oppressed and no oppressor, in the nature of things.
How many agree with me in regard to the doctrine of the inviolability of human life?
How many non-resistants are there here to-night?
(A single voice— “I.” ) There is one! Well, then, you who are otherwise, are not the men to point the finger at John Brown and cry “traitor” —judging you by your own standard.
Nevertheless, I am a non-resistant, and I not only desire, but have labored unremittingly to effect, the peaceful abolition of slavery, by an appeal to the reason and conscience of the slaveholder; yet, as a peace man—an “ultra” peace man —I am prepared to say: “ Success to every slave insurrection at3 the South, and in every slave country.”
And I do not see how I compromise or stain my peace profession in making that