Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879; the story of his life told by his children: volume 3

[492] declaration. Whenever there is a contest between the oppressed and the oppressor,—the weapons being equal between the parties,—God knows that my heart must be with the oppressed, and always against the oppressor. Therefore, whenever commenced, I cannot but wish success to all slave insurrections. I thank God when men who believe in the right and duty of wielding carnal weapons, are so far advanced that they will take those weapons out of the scale of despotism, and throw them into the scale of freedom. It is an indication of progress, and a positive moral growth; it is one way to get up to the sublime platform of non-resistance; and it is God's method of dealing retribution upon the head of the tyrant. Rather than see men wearing their chains in a cowardly and servile spirit, I would, as an advocate of peace, much rather see them breaking the head of the tyrant with their chains. Give me, as a non-resistant, Bunker Hill, and Lexington, and Concord, rather than the cowardice and servility of a Southern slave-plantation.

Their common human kindness and hatred of slavery, and their Old Testament inspiration, furnish grounds for an instructive parallel between Garrison and John Brown. ‘He was of the old Puritan stock,’ said the former at¹ Tremont Temple; “a Cromwellian who ‘believed in God,’ and at the same time ‘in keeping his powder dry.’ He believed in ‘the sword of the Lord and of Gideon,’ and acted accordingly. Herein I differed from him. But, certainly, he was no ‘infidel’ —oh, no! How it would have added to the fiendish malignity of the New York if John Brown had only been an ‘ infidel,’ evangelically speaking!” Lib. 29.177. On the other hand, Brown—in virtue of what, unless of bloodshed?—became at once a hero to clergymen who had long ago branded Garrison as an infidel because of his non-resistance. Both brought the Bible to bear against slavery; but the reformer who clung to the Christian doctrine of suffering, and laid the foundations of his policy in non-resistance, was reviled² as the offscouring of earth by a Christian community. Again by way of contrast, we cannot imagine Garrison, in his attack upon slavery, going under assumed names, concealing his designs under false pretences, or shooting