Who said let southern oppressors tremble

It is pretended, that I am retarding the cause of emancipation by the coarseness of my invective and the precipitancy of my measures.

The charge is not true. On this question my influence,--humble as it is,--is felt at this moment to a considerable extent, and shall be felt in coming years--not perniciously, but beneficially--not as a curse, but as a blessing; and posterity will bear testimony that I was right.

I desire to thank God, that he enables me to disregard "the fear of man which bringeth a snare," and to speak his truth in its simplicity arid power. By , Garrison's social reform rhetoric had become more ambitious, addressing more than slavery to addressing other social ills. Dissension in the antislavery movement was to result from his desire to combine abolition with other unpopular reforms, especially women's rights, pacifism and a sort of Christian anarchism that challenged the moral authority government.

The termination of the present year will complete the seventh volume of the Liberator: we have served, therefore, a regular apprenticeship in the cause of LIBERTY, and are now prepared to advocate it upon a more extended scale. In commencing this publication, we had but a single object in view -the total abolition of American slavery, and as a just consequence, the complete enfranchisement of our colored countrymen.

As the first step towards this sublime result, we found the overthrow of the American Colonization Society to be indispensable,-containing, as it did, in its organization, all the elements of prejudice, caste, and slavery. In entering upon our eighth volume, the abolition of slavery will still be the grand object of our labors, though not, perhaps, so exclusively as heretofore. There are other topic-. These we shall discuss as time and opportunity may permit.

Up to this time we have limited its application to those who are held in this country, by Southern taskmasters, as marketable commodities, goods and chattels, and implements of husbandry. Henceforth we shall use it in its widest latitude: the emancipation of our whole race from the dominion of man, from the thraldom of self, from the government of brute force, from the bondage of sin-and bringing them under the dominion of God, the control of an inward spirit, the government of the law of love, and into the obedience and liberty of Christ, who is "the same, yesterday, TODAY, and forever.

It has never been our design, in conducting the Liberator, to require of the friends of emancipation any political or sectarian shibboleth; though, in consequence of the general corruption of all political parties and religious sects, and of the obstacles which they have thrown into the path of emancipation, we have been necessitated to reprove them all. Nor have we any intention,-at least, not while ours professes to be an anti-slavery publication, distinctively and eminently,-to assail or give the preference to any sect or party.

We are bound by no denominational trammels; we are not political partisans; we have taken upon our lips no human creed: we are guided by no human authority; we cannot consent to wear the livery of any fallible body.

But whoever marches on to that ground, loving his creed, or sect, or party, or any worldly interest, or personal reputation or property, or friends, or wife, or children, or life itself, more than the cause of bleeding humanity,--or expecting to promote his political designs, or to enforce his sectarian dogmas, or to drive others from the ranks on account of their modes of faith,--will assuredly prove himself to be unworthy of his abolition profession, and his real character will be made manifest to all, for severe and unerring tests will be applied frequently: it will not be possible for him to make those sacrifices, or to endure those trials, which unbending integrity to the cause will require.

For ourselves, we care not who is found upon this broad platform of our common nature: if he will join hands with us, in good faith, to undo the heavy burdens and break the yokes of our enslaved countrymen, we shall not stop to inquire whether he is a Trinitarian or Unitarian, Baptist or Methodist, Catholic or Covenanter, Presbyterian or Quaker, Swedenborgian or Perfectionist.

However widely we may differ in our views on other subjects, we shall not refuse to labor with him against slavery, in the same phalanx, if he refuse not to labor with us. Certainly no man can truly affirm that we have sought to bring any other religious or political tests into this philanthropic enterprise than these:-"Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them"-"Remember those in bonds as bound with them. The doctrine of non-resistance as commonly received and practiced by Friends, or Quakers, and certain members of other religious denominations, we conceive to be utterly indefensible in its application to national wars: not that it "goes too far," but that it does not go far enough.

If a nation may not redress its wrongs by physical force if it may not repel or punish a foreign enemy who comes to plunder, enslave or murder its inhabitants then it may not resort to arms to quell an insurrection, or send to prison or suspend upon a gibbet any transgressors upon its soil. If the slaves of the South have not an undoubted right to resist their masters in the last resort, then no man, or body of men, may appeal to the law of violence in self-defense-for none have ever suffered, or can suffer, more than they.

If, when men are robbed of their earnings, their liberties, their personal ownership, their wives and children, they may not resist, in no case can physical resistance be allowable, either in an individual or collective capacity. Now the doctrine we shall endeavor to inculcate is, that the kingdoms of this world are to become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ; consequently, that they are all to be supplanted, whether they are called despotic, monarchical, or republican, and lie only who is King of kings, and Lord of lords, is to rule in righteousness.

Its government is one of love, not of military coercion or physical restraint: its laws are not written upon parchment, but upon the hearts of its subjects-they are not conceived in the wisdom of man, but framed by the Spirit of God: its weapons are not carnal, but spiritual.

Its soldiers are clad in the whole armor of God, having their loins girt, about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; their feet are shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; with the shield of faith they are able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked, and they wear the helmet of salvation, and wield the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God.

Hence, when smitten on the one cheek, they turn the other also; being defamed, they entreat; being deviled, they bless; being persecuted, they suffer it; they take joyfully the spoiling of their goods; they rejoice, inasmuch as they are partakers of Christ's sufferings; they are sheep in the midst of wolves; in no Extremity whatever, even if their enemies are determined to nail them to the cross with Jesus, and if they, like him, could summon legions of angels to their rescue, will they resort to the law of violence.

As to the governments of this world, whatever their titles or forms, we shall endeavor to prove that, in their essential elements, and as at present administered, they are all Anti-Christ; that they can never, by human wisdom, be brought into conformity to the will of God; that they cannot be maintained except by naval and military power; that all their penal enactments, being a dead letter without an army to carry them into effect, are virtually written in human blood; and that the followers of Jesus should instinctively shun their stations of honor, power, and emolument-at the same time "submitting to every ordinance of man, for the Lord's sake," and offering no physical resistance to any of their mandates, however unjust or tyrannical.

The language of Jesus is, "My kingdom is not of this world, else would my servants fight. For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, out to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. Human governments are to be viewed as judicial punishments. If a people turn the grace of God into lasciviousness, or make their liberty, an occasion for anarchy, or if they refuse to belong to the "one fold and one Shepherd,"-they shall be scourged by governments of their own choosing, and burdened with taxation, and subjected to physical control, and torn by factions, and made to eat the fruit of their evil doings, until they are prepared to receive the liberty and the rest which remain, on earth as well as in heaven, for THE PEOPLE OF GOD.

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