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

[92] that the Dr. has not made any new moral discoveries, which his admirers would fain make a great doctorof-divinity-worship-ping public believe is the fact. Secondly—To show that the Dr. endorses those very principles which peculiarly characterize the abolitionists as a party, and for the dissemination of which they have been scorned, traduced, injured, and mobbed, as fanatics, madmen and traitors. Thirdly—To show that the Dr. has acted disingenuously, and evinced a want of magnanimity, in not even slightly intimating that the abolitionists, with all their zeal and fanaticism, have uniformly and consistently maintained the great essential doctrines upon which human rights find an immovable basis. My object, in this last particular, is not so much to bring honor to any particular individuals, (though the rule is a good one—‘Honor to whom honor is due’), as it is to vindicate the anti-slavery cause, as such, from the misrepresentations which have been cast upon it, even by some of the very men who are now lauding Dr. C.'s book to the skies. They who have been maligned ought to possess their souls in patience; but they certainly have a right modestly to acquit themselves, if they can.

I think that you and I will agree as to the propriety and utility of such a presentation of the case.

Some other parallelisms will be drawn, which will be quite as afflicting to the Dr. and his admirers. These will show that his book abounds with inconsistencies, and neutralizes every useful truth contained in it. Abolitionists, in my opinion, have been hasty and unwise in praising the book, and taking special pains to circulate it. You will probably see, in the Liberator of¹ to-morrow, twenty-four reasons why I think they ought not to laud or commend the work. The graphic picture which you have painted in your noble and disinterested speech in Boston, (a speech which ought to have been spoken in your behalf, not mine, for you are a much older and a better soldier, and without your early co-operation the anti-slavery cause would have dragged heavily),—I say, that picture of the effect produced upon an individual ‘remotely connected with slaveholding,’ in reading Dr. C.'s book through, shows plainly the inefficacy, nay the deleterious tendency, of such a give-and-take-again production. Your other objection is a vital one—‘Dr. C.'s separates the sinner from his sin.’ This is a radical defect; and a book which is radically defective will never aid in reforming a radically corrupt nation.