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

Sonnet: on completing my thirty-fifth year

If to the age of threescore years and ten,¹
     God of my life! thou shalt my term prolong,
Still be it mine to reprobate all wrong,
     And save from woe my suffering fellow-men.
Whether, in Freedom's cause, my voice or pen
     Be used by Thee, who art my boast and song,
To vindicate the weak against the strong,
     Upon my labors rest Thy benison!
O! not for Afric's sons alone I plead,
     Or her descendants; but for all who sigh
In servile chains, whatever their caste or creed:
     They not in vain to Heaven send up their cry;
For all mankind from bondage shall be freed,
     And from the earth be chased all forms of tyranny.

The retrospect from the beginning, on this thirty-fifth birthday, may well have astounded the still youthful founder of the anti-slavery movement. But passing from the romance of his own career to the events of the twelvemonth just closing, there was much to stimulate his ardor for the fray. The new gag applied by ² Congress in January³ had stirred again in Massachusetts the spirit of resistance to tyranny, leading to another vigorous protest, by the Legislature, against the denial⁴ of the right of petition, and to resolutions urging Congress to abolish the domestic slave trade ‘without delay,’⁵ and to decree the immediate abolition of slavery in the District—this last resolve being adopted almost unanimously