Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879; the story of his life told by his children: volume 1

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On this subject, I imagine my views and feelings are too well known to render an elaborate exposition necessary. In its investigation, I shall use great plainness of speech—believing that truth can never conduce to mischief, and is best discovered by plain words. I shall assume, as self-evident truths, that the liberty of a people is the gift of God and nature:—That liberty consists in an independency upon the will of another:— That by the name of slave, we understand a man who can neither dispose of his person or goods, but enjoys all at the will of his master:—That no man can have a right over others, unless it be by them granted to him:—That virtue only gives a natural preference of one man above another, or why one should be chosen rather than another:—That the creature having nothing, and being nothing but what the Creator makes him, must owe all to him, and nothing to anyone from whom he has received nothing:—That that which is not just, is not law; and that which is not law, ought not to be in force:—That he who oppugns the public liberty, overthrows his own, and is guilty of the most brutish of all follies whilst he arrogates to himself that which he denies to all men:—That whosoever grounds his pretensions of right upon usurpation and tyranny, declares himself to be an usurper and a tyrant—that is, an enemy to God and man—and to have no right at all:—That that which was unjust in its beginning, can of itself never change its nature:—That he who persists in doing injustice, aggravates it, and takes upon himself all the guilt of his predecessors:— That there is no safety where there is no strength, no strength without union, no union without justice, no justice where faith and truth are wanting:—That the right to be free is a truth planted in the hearts of men, and acknowledged so to be by all that have hearkened to the voice of nature, and disproved by none but such as through wickedness, stupidity, or baseness of spirit, seem to have degenerated into the worst of beasts, and to have retained nothing of men but the outward shape, or the ability of doing those mischiefs which they have learnt from their master the devil.—Vide Algernon Sidney's Discourses on Government—the Declaration of American Independence—the Constitutions and Bills of Rights of the several States, &c., &c.

I shall spare no efforts to delineate the withering influence of slavery upon our national prosperity and happiness, its awful impiety, its rapid extension, and its inevitable consequences if it be suffered to exist without hindrance. It will also be my