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

[165] sense of duty. But, after you have so nobly said, ‘True-hearted abolitionists never will quarrel with each other,’ we have little fear that you will quarrel with the Executive Committee. If you do, the war will all be on one side. I trust there is not a man among us who will be so heartless, ungrateful, or different from the great body of abolitionists throughout the country, as to insult, disparage, or attempt to injure one whom we are bound to honor and to love for his early, unremitting, and invaluable devotion to the cause. So fully am I possessed with these feelings toward you, my dear friend, that it is painful to differ from you on the subject we are discussing. And I do it in the firm persuasion that shortly you will view the matter differently from what you now do, and approve the course we are determined on taking here.

4. You speak of ‘sedition,’ and of ‘chastising Messrs. Fitch, Towne and Woodbury.’ I do not like such language. They come up to the average abolitionism of the day. By denouncing them, then, you denounce probably a majority of the members of the American anti-slavery societies in the United States. Is this wise? For myself, whenever I have found a man doing anything for the cause of the poor slave, or for the free people of color, I have forborne to censure him severely, believing that he was on — our side, partially at least, and would be, by and bye, wholly. We cannot afford to drive away, or ‘knock in the head,’ friends who are substantially right. No, no. We must be patient, forbearing, forgiving, especially to those of our own household.

You will not think from this that I would relinquish foundation-principles. By no means. But, holding on to these, I would rebuke those who err, with all long-suffering, profiting by their reproofs, even if unkindly made.

5. Our silence with regard to the Andover Appeal appears to you more extraordinary than silence with reference to the Clerical Appeal. Marvellous! We know the signers—both those who were abolitionists before the measure was concocted, and those who became members of the Anti-Slavery Society ‘on the spur of the occasion.’ Would it, then, have been becoming in the Executive Committee to have issued a counter Appeal to that of some 30 or 40 young men, who felt desirous of showing their opinion on the subject of the schism between the abolitionists in and near Boston? Why, my dear sir, our hands would be full were we to reprimand all we see faulty or