William Lloyd Garrison, the AbolitionistGrimké, Archibald Henry
History
William Lloyd Garrison, the Abolitionist
Grimké, Archibald Henry
Garrison, William Lloyd, 1805-1879
_principles_ are immutable." By his principles, therefore he would, be
judged. "Whittier, for instance," he continues, "is highly poetical,
exuberant, and beautiful. Stuart is solemn, pungent, and severe. Wright
is a thorough logician, dextrous, transparent, straightforward. Beriah
Green is manly, eloquent, vigorous, devotional. May is persuasive,
zealous, overflowing with the milk of human kindness. Cox is diffusive,
sanguine, magnificent, grand. Bourne thunders and lightens. Phelps is
one great, clear, infallible argument--demonstration itself. Jocelyn is
full of heavenly-mindedness, and feels and speaks and acts with a zeal
according to knowledge. Follen is chaste, profound, and elaborately
polished. Goodell is perceptive, analytical, expert, and solid. Child
(David L.) is generously indignant, courageous, and demonstrative; his
lady combines strength with beauty, argumentation with persuasiveness,
greatness with humility. Birney is collected, courteous,
dispassionate--his fearlessness excites admiration, his
conscientiousness commands respect." Of these writers, which is
acceptable to slaveholders or their apologists? Some have been cruelly
treated and all been calumniated as "fanatics, disorganizers, and
madmen." And why? "Certainly not for the _phraseology_ which they use,
but for the _principles_ which they adopt."
From another quarter came presently notes of discord, aroused by
Garrison's _hard language_. Sundry of the Unitarian clergy, under the
lead of Rev. Henry Ware, Jr., took it into their heads that the editor
of the _Liberator_ and some others were outrageously abusing the
Abolition cause, "mismanaging it by their unreasonable violence" of
language. Wherefore those gentlemen interposed to rescue the great cause
from harm by a brilliant scheme designed to secure moderation in this
regard. This brilliant scheme was nothing less absurd than the
establishment of a censorship over the _Liberator_. But as these
solicitous souls had reckoned without their host, their amiable plan
came to naught; but not, however, before adding a new element to the
universal discord then fast swelling to a roar. To the storm of censure
gathering about his head the reformer bowed not--neither swerved he to
the right hand nor to the left--all the while deeming it, "with the
apostle, a small thing to be judged by man's judgment." "I solicit no
man's praise," he sternly replies to his critics, "I fear no men's
censure."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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