Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879; the story of his life told by his children: volume 2

[146] Europe, laughing and mocking at the boasted liberty of their neighbor; on the other stands the Devil, saying, ‘Esto perpetua.’ In view of such a representation, the question urges itself upon me—‘What have I, as a Christian, to do with such a villain?’ I live on the territory which he claims—under the protection, to some extent, of the laws which he promulgates. Must I therefore profess to be his friend? God forbid! I will rather flee my country. But every other country is under the same reprobate authority. I must, then, either go out of the world, or find some way to live where I am, without being a hypocrite or a partaker in the sins of the nation. I grant that ‘the powers that be are ordained of God,’ and this is not less true of individual than of national slaveholders. I am hereby justified in remaining a slave—but not in remaining a slaveholder. Every person who is, in the usual sense of the expression, a citizen of the United States, i.e., a voter, politician, etc., is at once a slave and a slaveholder—in other words, a subject and a ruler in a slaveholding government. God will justify me in the one character, but not in the other. I must therefore separate them and renounce the last. Holding simply the station of a subject, as a Christian I may respect the powers that be, for the Lord's sake, but I cannot make myself a partaker of their ungodly deeds by mingling in their counsels or assisting their operations. ‘Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.’

Thus I find a way to ‘cease to do evil’—now I would ‘learn to do well.’ I have renounced active co-operation with the oppressor on whose territories I live; now I would find a way to put an end to his oppression. But he is manifestly a reprobate: reproof and instruction only aggravate his sins. I cannot attempt to reform him, because I am forbidden to ‘cast pearls before swine.’ I must therefore either consent to remain a slave till God removes the tyrant, or I must commence war upon him, by a declaration of independence and other weapons suitable to the character of a son of God. I have chosen the latter course for the following reasons:

1. As a believer in the Bible I know that the territory of the United States belongs to God, and is promised, together with the dominion under the whole heaven, to Jesus Christ and his followers.

2. I therefore know that the charter of every government now existing is limited by the will and prediction of him who ordained it; and every nation that expects or hopes for perpetual