The West also has had its movements of reform which have espoused
non-violence as a principle. The most significant one in the United
States has been the abolition crusade before the Civil War. Its most
publicized faction was the group led by William Lloyd Garrison, who has
had a reputation as an uncompromising extremist. Almost every school boy
remembers the words with which he introduced the first issue of the
_Liberator_ in 1831:
"I _will_ be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as
justice.... I am in earnest--I will not equivocate--I will not
excuse--I will not retreat a single inch--AND I WILL BE HEARD."
He lived up to his promise during the years that followed, and it is no
wonder that Parrington called him "the flintiest character amongst the
New England militants."[85] In the South they regarded him as an inciter
to violence, and barred his writings from the mails.
Garrison's belief in "non-resistance" is less often stressed, yet his
espousal of this principle was stated in the same uncompromising terms
as his opposition to slavery. In 1838 he induced the Boston Peace
Convention to found the New England Non-Resistance Society. In the
"Declaration of Sentiments" which he wrote and which the new Society
adopted, he said:
"The history of mankind is crowded with evidences proving that
physical coercion is not adapted to moral regeneration; that the
sinful dispositions of men can be subdued only by love; that evil
can be exterminated from the earth only by goodness."[86]
Throughout his long struggle against slavery, Garrison remained true to
his principles of non-resistance. But his denunciations of slavery made
more impression on the popular mind, and aided in stirring up much of
the violent sentiment in the North which expressed itself in a crescendo
of denunciation of the slave owners. In the South, where anti-slavery
sentiment had been strong before, a new defensive attitude began to
develop. As Calhoun said of the northern criticism of slavery:
"It has compelled us to the South to look into the nature and
character of this great institution, and to correct many false
impressions that even we had entertained in relation to it. Many in
the South once believed that it was a moral and political evil;
that folly and delusion are gone; we see it now in its true light,
and regard it as the most safe and stable basis for free
institutions in the world."[87]
In the North the violent statements of the abolitionists aroused a
physically violent response. Mobs attacked abolition meetings in many
places, and on one occasion Garrison himself was rescued from an angry
Boston mob. This violence in turn aroused many men like Salmon P. Chase
and Wendell Phillips to espouse the anti-slavery cause because they
could not condone the actions of the anti-abolitionists.[88] Garrison
himself proceeded serenely through the storms that his vigorous writings
precipitated.
Feelings rose on both sides, and many who heard and accepted the
Garrisonian indictment of slavery knew nothing of his non-resistance
principles.[89] Others, who did, came reluctantly to the conclusion that
a civil war to rid the country of the evil would be preferable to its
continuance. In time the struggle was transferred to the political
arena, where men acted sometimes on the basis of interest and not always
on the basis of moral principles. The gulf between the sections widened,
and civil war approached.
As abolitionists themselves began to express the belief that the slavery
issue could not be settled without bloodshed, Garrison disclaimed all
responsibility for the growing propensity to espouse violence. In the
_Liberator_ in 1858 he said:
"When the anti-slavery cause was launched, it was baptized in the
spirit of peace. We proclaimed to the country and to the world that
the weapons of our warfare were not carnal but spiritual, and we
believed them to be mighty through God to the pulling down even of
the stronghold of slavery; and for several years great moral power
accompanied our cause wherever presented. Alas! in the course of
the fearful developments of the Slave Power, and its continued
aggressions on the rights of the people of the North, in my
judgment a sad change has come over the spirit of anti-slavery men,
generally speaking. We are growing more and more warlike, more and
more disposed to repudiate the principles of peace.... Just in
proportion as this spirit prevails, I feel that our moral power is
departing and will depart.... I will not trust the war-spirit
anywhere in the universe of God, because the experience of six
thousand years proves it not to be at all reliable in such a
struggle as ours....
"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.