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Secondary sourceBook1924

William Lloyd Garrison on Non-Resistance

Fanny Garrison Villard · 1924

A 1924 book by Fanny Garrison Villard on William Lloyd Garrison's belief in non-resistance, with a personal sketch and a tribute by Leo Tolstoi.

Villard's book studies Garrison's non-resistance, drawing on his own words and family memory to explain his pacifist principles.

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William Lloyd Garrison on Non-ResistancePDF · 112 pages
Fanny Garrison Villard, William Lloyd Garrison on Non-Resistance, New York: The Nation Press Printing Co., 1924. Scanned book (PDF), Internet Archive.

About this source

What it is

William Lloyd Garrison on Non-Resistance is a 1924 book by Fanny Garrison Villard, published in New York by The Nation Press Printing Co. Its title page says it includes a personal sketch and a tribute by Leo Tolstoi. It opens with a line from Garrison's first issue of The Liberator, dated January 1, 1831. The copy here is a scanned PDF from the Internet Archive, digitized in 2013.

Why it matters

The book presents Garrison's belief in non-resistance, the principle that violence should not be used even against injustice. Its author draws on family memory to describe how that belief shaped his life and his anti-slavery work. Including a tribute by Tolstoi links Garrison's pacifism to an international debate about nonviolence in the early twentieth century.

Look closer

  • Which passages are Garrison's own words, and which are the author's or Tolstoi's voice?
  • Why might a family member write about Garrison's principles, and what might that make the account look like?
  • How does the book's emphasis on non-resistance square with the violence of the slavery struggle it describes?

This book is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of William Lloyd Garrison on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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Yellowed title page of the 1845 Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Text reads 'Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself', 'Boston: Published at the Anti-Slavery Office, No. 25 Cornhill, 1845'.Book

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Title page of 'Thoughts on African Colonization' (Boston, 1832). Large heading reads 'Thoughts on African Colonization: or an impartial exhibition of the doctrines, principles and purposes of the American Colonization Society', with text 'together with the resolutions, addresses and remonstrances of the free people of color'. Epigraphs from the Bible appear below, followed by 'By Wm. Lloyd Garrison'. Imprint: 'Boston: Printed and published by Garrison and Knapp, No. 11, Merchants' Hall, 1832'.Book

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William Lloyd Garrison · 1832

Oil portrait of a balding older man with wire-rimmed spectacles, wearing a black coat, white shirt, and black neckcloth, against a dark brown background. He faces forward with a neutral expression.Painting

Primary source

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Nathaniel Jocelyn · 1833

Masthead of The Liberator newspaper, an engraved illustration with the title THE LIBERATOR in large letters across the bottom. Scenes include an auction of enslaved people with a sign reading slaves, horses, sheep, and other goods, a central robed figure with arms raised breaking chains, enslaved people working in fields, and a gate at right. Below the title is the motto Our Country is the World, our Countrymen are all Mankind.Newspaper article

Primary source

The Liberator, 15 December 1854

Hammatt Billings · 15 December 1854

Front page of The Liberator, Boston, Friday, January 3, 1862, Vol. XXXII, No. 1, Whole No. 1619. A woodcut vignette of figures, including a standing woman, sits above the masthead. Dense columns of small printed text fill the page.Newspaper article

Primary source

The Liberator

William Lloyd Garrison · 1831-1865

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