Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879; the story of his life told by his children: volume 1

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I accuse her of the horrid crime of kidnapping one hundred thousand infants annually, the offspring of slave parents.

I accuse her of stealing the liberties of two millions of the creatures of God, and withholding the just recompense of their labor; of ruthlessly invading the holiest relations of life, and cruelly separating the dearest ties of nature; of denying these miserable victims necessary food and clothing for their perishable bodies, and light and knowledge for their immortal souls; of tearing the husband from his wife, the mother from her babe, and children from their parents, and of perpetrating upon the poor and needy every species of outrage and oppression.

And, finally, I accuse her of being callously indifferent to the accumulated wrongs and sufferings of her black population, assiduous in extenuating her oppressive acts, and determined to slumber upon the brink of a volcano which is in full operation, and which threatens to roll its lava tide over the whole land.

He cited O'Connell's reply to the excuse that England had established and encouraged American slavery, with its tingling conclusion—‘The friends of humanity and liberty in Europe should join in the universal cry of Shame on the American slaveholders! Base wretches, should we shout in chorus—base wretches, how dare you profane the temple of national freedom, the sacred fane of republican rites, with the presence and the sufferings of human beings in chains and slavery!’ ‘Sir,’ continued Mr. Garrison, ‘never was a more just and fearless rebuke given to a guilty nation. . . . Whatever responsibility may attach to Great Britain for the introduction of slavery into the United States (and to talk of robbery and kidnapping as things that may be entailed is precious absurdity), the first moment the people of the United States published their Declaration of Independence to the world, from that moment they became exclusively accountable for the existence and continuance of negro slavery.’

The last of the long array of charges next brought against the Colonization Society was its denial that the free blacks could ever be elevated; which opened the