The law that makes him a chattel is to be trampled under foot; the compact that is formed at his expense, and cemented with his blood, is null and void; the church that consents to his enslavement is horribly atheistical; the religion that receives to its communion the enslaver is the embodiment of all criminality.
Garrison denounces the laws and institutions that uphold slavery, calling them criminal and atheistic.
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A million of slaves were ready to rise and strike for freedom at the first tap of the drum.
Whether it be personal or political, mental or corporeal, intellectual or spiritual, I am for its instant, its total Abolition.
The present American Union, therefore, is only one in form, not in reality.
Everywhere to do homage to it, to avoid collision with it, to propitiate its favour, is deemed essential--nay, is essential to political preferment and ecclesiastical advancement.