"I pray you, abolitionists, still to adhere to that truth. Do not get impatient; do not become exasperated; do not attempt any new political organization; do not make yourselves familiar with the idea that blood must flow. Perhaps blood will flow--God knows, I do not; but it shall not flow through any counsel of mine. Much as I detest the oppression exercised by the Southern slaveholder, he is a man, sacred before me. He is a man, not to be harmed by my hand nor with my consent.... While I will not cease reprobating his horrible injustice, I will let him see that in my heart there is no desire to do him harm,--that I wish to bless him here, and bless him everlastingly,--and that I have no other weapon to wield against him but the simple truth of God, which is the great instrument for the overthrow of all iniquity, and the salvation of the world."[90] Yet Garrison's fervor for the emancipation of the slaves was so great that when the Civil War came, he said of Lincoln and the Republicans: "They are instruments in the hand of God to carry forward and help achieve the great object of emancipation for which we have so long been striving.... All our sympathies and wishes must be with the Government, as against the Southern desperadoes and buccaneers; yet of course without any compromise of principle on our part."[91] Although Lincoln insisted that the purpose of the North was the preservation of the Union rather than emancipation, eventually he did free the slaves. It would seem that Garrison, for all his non-resistance declarations, bore some of the responsibility for the great conflict. In this case, as in the case of Satyagraha, the demand for reform by non-violent means was translated into violence by followers who were more devoted to the cause of reform than they were to the non-violent methods which their leaders proclaimed. FOOTNOTES: [85] Vernon Louis Parrington, _Main Currents in American Thought_ (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1930), II, 352. [86] The "Declaration" is reprinted in Allen, _Fight for Peace_, 694-697. [87] Quoted in Avery Craven, _The Coming of the Civil War_ (New York: Scribners, 1942), 161. [88] Jesse Macy, _The Anti-Slavery Crusade_ (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1919), 69-70. [89] For the many elements in the abolition movement, see Gilbert Hobbs Barnes, _The Antislavery Impulse, 1830-1844_ (New York: D. Appleton-Century, 1933). [90] Wendell Phillips Garrison, _William Lloyd Garrison_ (New York: Century, 1889), III, 473-474. [91] Letter to Oliver Johnson, quoted in Allen, _Fight for Peace_, 449-450. VI. NON-RESISTANCE