{"id":1220,"date":"2007-05-25T20:23:18","date_gmt":"2007-05-25T20:23:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theliberatorfiles.com\/garrison\u2019s-uncompromising-role-in-society\/"},"modified":"2011-07-21T20:13:14","modified_gmt":"2011-07-21T20:13:14","slug":"garrison%e2%80%99s-uncompromising-role-in-society","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.theliberatorfiles.com\/garrison%e2%80%99s-uncompromising-role-in-society\/","title":{"rendered":"The Role of Garrison in Society"},"content":{"rendered":"

A view by the author \/ researcher \/ collector, Horace Seldon<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cOur Country is the World; Our Countrymen are all Mankind\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

As an introduction to William Lloyd Garrison, I cite the words which appeared regularly on the masthead of the Liberator<\/em>. There they are on every front page. \u201cOur Country is the World; Our Countrymen are all Mankind\u201d. While I do not recall the editor commenting on those words as an overarching theme for his thought, I offer them as a way of organizing the truths which encompass Garrison\u2019s uncompromising vision for society. Henry Mayer has said of Garrison that he was not \u201ca systematic thinker, he had no bent for introspection. He was not a philosopher, but a journalist and polemicist who improvised variations on a few grand themes as the moment required, caring less for logic than for effect\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

I think that Lloyd will not mind my using those masthead words as an organizing theme of his visions, at least for this moment. \u201cOur country is the World; Our Countrymen are all Mankind\u201d. This universal statement encompasses every cause which conceives fair, just treatment of all persons. Rooted in the Biblical injunction that God has made of one blood all nations to dwell on earth, it is a faith-statement. For Garrison that faith was an injunction, a command explicit for all people for all time, in every circumstance. Extended to the inherent logic of that conviction, there is no room for any justification of any act which denies that fundamental unity. There can be no argument of substance.<\/p>\n

Of the numerous principles which can be attributed as guides to understanding Garrison, this is the one which might be bedrock. Here is a foundation which undergirds all else that he believes in and lives for.<\/p>\n