Garrison does not want “to be eaten”

Aug 28, 1837

Responding to public criticism, Garrison refers to an abolitionist who says that he never ‘swallowed William Lloyd Garrison, and I never tried to swallow him’.  Garrison responds:  “For myself, I feel within me the instinct of self-preservation too strongly to be willing to allow either man or beast to swallow me, either in a figuratrive or literal sense.  I desire to remain uneaten; my earnest entreaty is, that no man will think of making a meal of me, either in the gross, or in choice proportions….”  1

1 Letters of William Lloyd Garrison – Volumes I – VI