Garrison on the Emancipation Proclamation
January 9, 1863 , The Liberator
“…however effectual may be the President’s Emancipation Proclamation in breaking the chains of the bondmen in such rebellious sections of the country as he has just designated, — and Heaven grant that it may be as potent in operation as it is comprehensive in its scope; nevertheless, nothing at this hour is settled so surely as the continued enslavement of four millions of the inhabitants of the land; and while any of these remain to wear the yoke, the primary object and specific work of this Society will not have been accomplished. Slavery, in the so-called loyal Border States is as inexcusable, as criminal, as revolting, as unendurable, as pregnant with evil and ruin, as in the rebellious Confederate States, and must be as vigorously and as uncompromisingly assailed, until liberty is proclaimed “throughout all the land, to all the inhabitants thereof.”
