Ernest Crosby, Garrison the non-resistant

[97] union with the Colonies by the silken ties of sentiment and the elastic bonds of freedom, rather than by any forced and formal connection or by any cast-iron scheme of supposed material interests.

Such were Mr. Gladstone's views, and such also were Garrison's. I do not believe that the final judgment of posterity will be favorable to the course of the North in the Civil War, any more than it will be favorable to the policy of coercion in Ireland. It requires delicate instruments to cure national diseases, and we took the sledge-hammer as ours. It may be high treason to say so, but I think that the statesmanship of Gladstone-and of Garrison — was sounder than that of Lincoln.

There is a class of critics which denies the importance of Garrison's services to the country on the ground that all idealists and reformers are mere empty voices, and that none but economic causes affect the condition of men. The world, according to these philosophers, crawls upon its belly, and its brain and heart follow submissively wherever the belly leads. This is known as the “economic interpretation of history,” and is particularly affected by Marxian socialists, who believe that state socialism is destined to be estab-Lshed by irresistible economic laws, and that their own idealism and agitation are altogether