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

[257] his exclusive profit. A part of the scheme embraced the employment of Oliver Johnson, as General Agent, to take charge of the business correspondence of the paper,¹ promote its circulation, and render such editorial assistance as he might to Mr. Garrison, who on his part was to be ‘entirely free and untrammelled in the performance of his editorial duties.’ The prospectus of the ninth volume pledged the paper, as of old, not to make war² upon sect or party any further than sect or party made war upon bleeding humanity; not to assail any man's creed or promulgate the editor's peculiar theological sentiments; not to assail the station of the clergy or the authority of the church. A small portion of its space would continue to be devoted, as heretofore, to the free discussion of the subject of peace. Retrospectively, Mr. Garrison had this pointed word for gradualism:

Our cry, from the commencement, was for the immediate deliverance of the oppressed from chains and slavery. For³ this we were ranked among madmen. It was said that nothing but gradual emancipation was either safe or practicable: how gradual, no man undertook to show. Well—eight years have passed away. During that period, not less than four hundred thousand slaves have been emancipated by death, and their places supplied by more than half a million of new victims. Is not this a long time for “preparation” ? But who are better prepared for liberty now than they were eight years ago? None. And we seriously ask, Has not the experience of two centuries shown that gradualism in theory is perpetuity in practice? Is there an instance, in the history of the world, where slaves have been educated for freedom by their taskmasters? But if—by any management or contrivance—such an event had happened, or such scholastic treatment had been successfully given, still our cry would continue to be for immediate and unconditional emancipation; because to predicate a right to enslave men upon their ignorance, much more upon the complexion of their skin, is absurd, inhuman, monstrous. If the lapse of two hundred years be not sufficient to meet the claims of gradualism, (the rights of man out of the question), no quarter should longer be given to it by any friend of God or man.