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

[86] Boston are strongly opposed to slavery! Pardon my hard language—‘they are liars, and the truth is not in them.’ They stand ready, at any moment, to crush the slaves and to co-operate with the masters. While such a city behaves so wickedly, I do think we ought to be more tender of the South —or, rather, we ought to be more impartial in our denunciations. Spare not your hypocritical and callous-hearted city, but at your meeting hold it up in all the infamy which attaches to its professions and conduct. Woe unto thee, Boston! for if the mighty works which have been done in thee, had been done in Charleston or Savannah, peradventure they had repented long ago.

I hope bold and emphatic resolutions will be adopted, respecting the murderous proposition of the Nero McDuffie in his¹ message, and the equally despotic suggestions of the Domitian² Marcy; for every proper occasion should be seized upon to bear testimony against such dangerous documents.

Strong resolutions should also be passed against the continuance of slavery and the slave trade in the District of Columbia, and especially in reprehension of the inhuman policy and base servility of our Northern representatives in Congress, upon this subject.

Our brother Thompson will be greatly strengthened and gratified, if a resolution should be passed in kind remembrance of him and those who sustained his mission.-I think our bro. Stuart ought also to be remembered, inasmuch as he is laboring ‘with all his might,’³ most nobly, successfully, and disinterestedly, in our sacred cause. . . .

The Annual Report, I am confident, will confer credit upon your head and heart. You know something of my anxiety respecting its remarks upon Dr. Channing's work: let there be an impartial mixture of praise and reproof. I think our antislavery brethren, generally, ought to be warned to give no heed to the Dr.'s advice to us,—to abandon our societies, to give up our watchword Immediate Emancipation,—to the charge of fanaticism, etc., etc. The imputation upon us ought to be repelled, that, in spite of all our toils, perils, sacrifices, ay, and successes, ‘nothing seems to have been gained’! but ‘perhaps something has been lost to the cause of freedom and humanity’! Et tu Brute? Our enemies have never stabbed more deeply than this. . . .