Leo Tolstoy

“ Garrison did not so much insist on the right of negroes to be free, as he denied the right of any man whatsoever, or of any body of men, to forcibly coerce another man in any way. For the purpose of combating slavery, he advanced the principle of struggle against all the evil of the world. ”

“ Another motto we have chosen is ‘UNIVERSAL EMANCIPATION.’ Up to this time, we have limited its application to those who in this country are held 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 servitude of self, from the government of brute force, and from the bondage of sin. ”

“ The Abolitionists endeavored to prove that slavery was unlawful, disadvantageous, and cruel, that it depraved men, and so on. But the defenders of slavery in their turn proved the untimeliness and danger of emancipation, and the evil results liable to follow it. ”

“ Whereas Garrison, understanding that the slavery of the negroes was only a particular instance of universal coercion, put forward a general principle with which it was impossible not to agree: the principle that under no pretext has any man the right to dominate or to use coercion over his fellows. ”

“ Garrison, as a man enlightened by Christian teaching, having begun with the practical aim of strife against slavery, very soon understood that the cause of slavery was not the casual temporary seizure of a few million negroes by the Southerners, but the ancient and universal recognition, contrary to Christian teaching, of the right of coercion on the part of certain people in regard to certain others. A pretext for recognizing this right has always been that men regarded it as possible to eradicate or diminish evil by brute force – i.e. ”