Garrison on Slavery as Shame of the Nation
July 9, 1829
Garrison comments that it is common on the Fourth of July to praise the Declaration of Independence “to set forth the tyranny of the mother country, and to challenge the admiration of the world. But what a pitiful detail of grievances does this document present, in comparison with the wrongs which our slaves endure! In the one case, it is hardly the plucking of a hair from the head; in the other, it is the crushing of a live body on the wheel” … “Before God I must say, that such a glaring contradiction, as exists between our creed and practice, the annals of five thousand years cannot parallel. In view of it, I am ashamed of my country…”1