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

[408] dukes, and marquises, and earls, and royalty itself, in all the hereditary splendor of an ancient monarchy, surrounded with luxury and pomp, and the people impoverished and oppressed to sustain it all; but here, in New England, one looks for such inequality in vain.

Yet I have had no reason personally to speak ill of the nobility. I have to make grateful acknowledgment of much kindness and attention from them. But I want to see them invested in their own nobility alone. I want them to be the noblemen of nature.

But here are the people! And oh, how would my heart leap if my thoughts might stop here. True, there are here no such institutions, civil or ecclesiastical, as there weigh heavily on the people; but our country tolerates—yea, cherishes with all her might—what is a thousand times worse —slavery. It is in vain that we strive to take an exalted rank among the nations till this is done away. No matter what we are—no matter how well fed and clothed are a part of our people—no matter how abundant are our civil and religious privileges—no matter how excellent and how equalizing are our institutions—no matter how great are our facilities for instruction, our ardor in benevolent operations:—it all goes for nothing, so long as we grind to the dust three millions of our countrymen because their skins are not colored like our own. . . .

And now I want the colored people to sympathize with all¹ who need their sympathy. I want them to call on British abolitionists to sympathize with the oppressed and suffering classes in their own land. I beseech them to put forth the finger of warning and entreaty to their British friends, in view of all the sufferings of those at hand, even at their doors. I call upon the colored people to support every unpopular reform the world over—to pity and plead for the poor oppressed Irishmen; for all who suffer, whether at the South, or on the British shores, or in India, or numbered by the hundred millions.² We should, as nations, reciprocate rebukes. And as we send our souls to theirs, freighted with reproof and exhortation, let them meet on the deep, and embrace as angel spirits, and pass on. (Applause). When they rebuke our manifold national sins, let us also be faithful in rebuking theirs, and then we shall have cancelled the debt. (Applause). . . .