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

Against such forebodings, Mr. Garrison had not merely the conviction, but the evidence, that the anti-slavery sentiment fostered by the Liberator would compare favorably in point of vitality with that derived from periodicals not open to the reproach of ‘irrelevancy.’ On August 30, 1838, Mrs. Chapman wrote to him: ‘Wendell Phillips told me, after his excursion through¹ Worcester County, that the Emancipator left men asleep as to the forwarding of the work, and that he could get no assistance in his labors but from Liberator men.’ Still, Mrs. Chapman and her sisters, whose exertions at this time may be said to have been indispensable to Mr.² Garrison's pecuniary maintenance, knew better than any one else the possible damage to the Liberator from becoming practically the organ of the Non-Resistance Society. Hence the following letter, which had the desired effect:

Miss Anne Warren Weston to W. L. Garrison.

Weymouth, Nov. 11, 1838.

³ I feel as though the interest I take both in the cause of peace and that of abolition, will be a sufficient apology for the suggestion I am about to make; and though it may not, perhaps, meet with your approbation, I am sure that you will be aware that my earnest solicitude for the entire success of both these causes prompts me. I am desirous that the Non-Resistance Society should possess an organ of communication with the public other than the Liberator, and this as well on account of the one cause as the other. I fear that the introduction of non-resistance articles into the Liberator will ultimately prove a source of vexation and discord to the abolitionists, and that we shall spend more time in conflict upon this point among ourselves than is desirable. Upon anything that is part and parcel of abolition, I am willing,—yes, I am earnestly desirous, —that the anti-slavery party should divide, and divide again, if by that means their principles and measures may be maintained in their pristine purity; but, it is admitted by all, the doctrines of non-resistance are not identical with those of abolition. I know that these bear collaterally upon those, and thus