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

‘ [391] an interesting account of his efforts to establish the¹ penny-postage law.’ On July 6, at Freemasons' Hall, on occasion of the first anniversary of the British India Society, Mr. Garrison spoke sympathetically, offering as² an excuse for interfering with British affairs the plea: ‘It was because he had looked at home that he was there that day.’ The extent to which he shared the generous illusion as to the possible agency of British India in the abolition of American slavery, is manifested in the following remarkable letter, written just on the eve of his departure from England:

W. L. Garrison to Joseph Pease.

Liverpool, August 3, 1840.

³ esteemed friend: At your request, I sit down to give you my opinion as to the prospect of the speedy and peaceable overthrow of slavery in the United States. Let me say, then—

1. That Christianity sanctions the use of nothing but moral and religious means and measures for the suppression of any sin, or the overthrow of any system of iniquity—in other words, it forbids the doing of evil that good may come, however vast the good to be achieved, or small the evil to be resorted to for its accomplishment. To bring the products of free labor into competition with those of slave labor, and thus secure the abolition of slavery and the slave trade throughout the world, is a peaceable, legitimate, and Christian measure, which commends itself to the approval of all good men.

2. That there is not any instance recorded, either in sacred or profane history, in which the oppressors and enslavers of mankind, except in individual cases, have been induced, by mere moral suasion, to surrender their despotic power, and let the oppressed go free; but, in nearly every instance, from the time that Pharaoh and his hosts were drowned in the Red Sea, down to