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

[90] ideas contained in his monthly articles on ‘Human Rights’ published in the Emancipator, and suggested¹ that this be shown by parallel passages in the Liberator. But the indebtedness was general. As for his impulse to write at all, Dr. Channing told Mrs. Child in 1833 that the reading of her “Appeal” had aroused his ² conscience to the query whether he ought to remain silent on the subject. Mr. Garrison's direct private exhortation early in the following year must have kept him (or³ any man) awake to his duty. But it was not till after the mob of October 21 that he was ‘heartily engaged in⁴ writing on the subject of slavery.’⁵ Mrs. Child, in an open letter to him, written after she had read his essay, declared: ‘Had it not been for the honest enthusiasm⁶ of Wm. L. Garrison, I should have never felt, thought, or written on this subject. How far this is the case with Doctor Channing, no mortal, not even himself, can tell.’

In no spirit of jealousy, however, did Mr. Garrison approach his review, which, after all, was less elaborate⁷ and extended than he had contemplated. The thing to be noticed in his attitude is the same as in the case of Gerrit Smith: an unyielding purpose to expose and refute the errors, fallacies, and misrepresentations of every proselyte to the cause, or every ally, however great his name or desirable his accession. He had watched for the second edition of the essay, and found a few more pages added, but no improvement on the score of consistency or fairness. It reiterated all the offensive allusions to and unmerited charges against the immediate emancipationists; it withdrew, but without apology,⁸ the endorsement of Kaufman's libel on George Thompson. Mr. Garrison summed up his objections under twenty-five heads, showing that the book ‘is utterly destitute of any redeeming, reforming power—that it is calumnious, contradictory, and unsound—and that it ’