These Days Before the Vote: "I shall not array myself as the political partisan of any man. In defending the great cause of human rights, I wish to derive the assistance of all religions and of all parties."

Chicago, Ill. — Today’s entry this Monday afternoon continues These Days Before the Vote, a series addressing each day before the November election a principle or position on which the liberal democratic tradition rests.

In the inaugural issue of William Lloyd Garrison's The Liberator, Garrison wrote that “I shall not array myself as the political partisan of any man. In defending the great cause of human rights, I wish to derive the assistance of all religions and of all parties.” See William Lloyd Garrison, To the Public, The Liberator, Jan. 1, 1831, at 1.

From that first editorial in that first issue, a full generation — of regional violence, then continent-wide war — would pass before formal emancipation. Garrison could not have known how many years would pass, yet he knew the only sound, practical position to advance of his cause: an invitation to any and all, wherever to be found.

We will not, as libertarians, prevail in our defense of individual liberty if we do not join those many millions now in opposition to authoritarian populism. We of Never Trump — those of us remaining from among libertarians and conservatives who refused to compromise first principles — cannot expect to prevail alone. There are many millions of our fellow citizens, in every city, state, and region, who have come together as a broad coalition in defense of liberal democracy.

(If one must state this truth a thousand times, so be it: the defense of liberal democracy is a defense of individual rights within a free society. This was, is, and reasonably always will be the proper understanding of the definition and condition of liberal democracy.)

The effective defense of our first principles requires us to join with others in a grand coalition supporting liberal democratic values. We have much to offer those with whom we have joined in our opposition to authoritarian populism. Nothing will come of standing off from the conflict that stretches from ocean to ocean.

Success requires the assistance of 'all parties' and will come no other way.