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

[235] by it. Now I utterly repudiate the whole of the mankilling, God-defying rights of power and bloodshed which that system assumes to have; but there are certain things originating in Government, and sanctioned by it, which I think are innocent, and may be innocently used. For example, I do not see how one who assents to the principles laid down in their unqualified extent can receive or pass a bank-bill, which is a promise of a corporation created by Government, depending upon it, and enforced by it by physical power in the last resort. So with coined money: it bears the image and superscription of human government, and is guarded by severe laws. Now I cannot think it sinful to recognize government so far as to take or give away money. So an insurance company is a creature of Government, and he who takes out a policy of insurance may call in the strong arm of the Law if his due be not accorded to him; but I cannot think it wrong to pay a premium of insurance, and receive the money in case of loss. To sue for it and compel payment is another thing. So the various instruments by which property is transferred or arranged involve the ultimate resort to force; but I cannot believe that every mortgage, deed, lease, contract, bond, etc., etc., is necessarily a sinful recognition of the man-killing, injury-resisting principle.

I grant that the resort to force is never to be had, but the injury to be submitted to and forgiven. But the ordinary and innocent business of life can no more be carried on without these contrivances than it can without money; and I hold that a man giving or taking them without the intention of appealing to force at the inception, and without actual resort to it at the conclusion, of such contracts, no more recognizes the vicious principles of government than he does who takes or passes money. Again, a monied or a benevolent corporation is a creature of Government; but I cannot think that I should sin in owning stock in a bank, insurance company, or railroad, or in becoming a trustee of a benevolent corporation. I might mention a variety of other things, if I had time to think of them, which, though recognized by, originating in, and sustained by Government, I must think indifferent, and to involve no sacrifice of the non-resistant principle in him that has to do with them—provided he never actually resorts to the force provided for him, and never intends to do so. I take [it] the sinfulness of connexion with any of these things consists in the thought of violence, and in the act of violence; and that he