William Lloyd Garrison, the AbolitionistGrimké, Archibald Henry
History
William Lloyd Garrison, the Abolitionist
Grimké, Archibald Henry
Garrison, William Lloyd, 1805-1879
At its tenth anniversary, in 1844, the American Society resolved
likewise that there should be no Union with slaveholders; and in May of
the same year the New England Society voted by a large majority to
dissolve the 'covenant with death, and the agreement with hell.' Almost
the whole number of the Garrisonian Abolitionists had by this time
placed upon their banner of immediate emancipation the revolutionary
legend "No Union with slaveholders." _Cathago est delenda_ were now ever
on the lips of the pioneer. 'The Union it must and shall be destroyed'
became the beginning, the middle, and the end of all his utterances on
the slavery question.
The attitude of the anti-slavery disunionists to the Government which
they were seeking to overthrow was clearly stated by Francis Jackson in
a letter returning to the Governor of Massachusetts his commission as a
justice of the peace. Says he, "To me it appears that the vices of
slavery, introduced into the constitution of our body politic by a few
slight punctures, has now so pervaded and poisoned the whole system of
our National Government that literally there is no health in it. The
only remedy that I can see for the disease is to be found in the
_dissolution of the patient_.... Henceforth it (the Constitution) is
dead to me, and I to it. I withdraw all profession of allegiance to it,
and all my voluntary efforts to sustain it. The burdens that it lays
upon me, while it is held up by others, I shall endeavor to bear
patiently, yet acting with reference to a higher law, and distinctly
declaring that, while I retain my own liberty, I will be a party to no
compact which helps to rob any other man of his."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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