original with Garrison, nor was he the first to enunciate it. More than
a dozen years before he was converted to it, Rev. George Bourne, in "The
Book and Slavery Irreconcilable," had shown that "the system (of
slavery) is so entirely corrupt that it admits of no cure but by a
_total and immediate abolition_. For a gradual emancipation is a virtual
recognition of the right, and establishes the rectitude of the practice.
If it be just for one moment, it is hallowed forever; and if it be
inequitable, not a day should it be tolerated." In 1824, eight years
after the publication of Bourne's book, and five years before Garrison
announced the doctrine in the _Genius_, the Rev. James Duncan maintained
it, in his "Treatise on Slavery," with no uncertainty of sense or
conviction. But neither Bourne nor Duncan had been able to effect an
incarnation of the doctrine, without which the good which it aimed at
could not be achieved. What they failed to effect, it is the glory of
Garrison that he achieved in his own person. He was "_total and
immediate Abolition_" personified. "Truth is mighty and will prevail,"
is a wise saying and worthy of acceptation. But this ultimate prevailing
of TRUTH depends mainly upon individual effort, applied not
intermittently, but steadily to a particular segment of the circle of
conduct. It is the long, strong, never-ending pull and tug upon the
wheels of conduct, which marks the great reformer. He finds his age or
country stuck in some Serbonian bog of iniquity. He prays, but he prays
with his shoulders braced strenuously against the body of society, and
he does not cease his endeavors until a revolution in conduct places his
age or country on firm ground beyond its Serbonian bog. The coming of
such a man is no accident. When the Hour is ready and the Man comes, a
new epoch in the life of a people arises from the conjunction. Of such
vast consequence verily was the coming into American history of William
Lloyd Garrison.