A STUDY OP WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON A THESIS IN …
Transcript of A STUDY OP WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON A THESIS IN …
A STUDY OP WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON
by
CARL NORMAN HAYWOOD, B. A.
A THESIS
IN
HISTORY
Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Texas Technological College in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for
the Degree of
MASTER OF ARTS
Approved
Chairman of the 'ommittee
Accepted
Dean of the Graduate School
J\me, 1963
9,^
- ,5,,/5 TABLE OF CONTENTS >q
I. PREFACE 1
Society and Reformers 2
Garrison as a Reformer 3
II. EARLY LIFE AND ENTERPRISES 5
Parents 5
Introduction to Slavery 9
Printer 12
Abolitionist Editor 34
III. REFORM EFFORTS 42
Antislavery 44
Religion 60
Government 76
IV. CONCLUSIONS 97
BIBLIOGRAPHY 1
VL LOp
11
PREFACE
In all societies known to man, there has been in
equality. Men have had advantages, either by birth, wealth,
or power, over their fellow men. In most societies, if not
all, the powerful have abused their control over the less
powerful. However, all societies have had those individuals
Tidio have insisted that all men should be treated with a res
pect which is due to all h\jman beings. Each of these people
has been different in many ways from his society. Many peo
ple have labelled this type of person a reformer; others
have called him a fanatic. Pounders of great religions have
generally taught this principle: man has a dignity which is
common to all men, and all individuals are equal. This prin
ciple is one of the basic tenets not only of Christianity
but also of the Oriental religions, as well as of Communism.
Nineteenth century America saw a great n-umber of re
formers. William Lloyd Garrison was one of these. He was
called a fanatic, labelled a fool, made to suffer for what
he believed right, and there was built such a maze of facts
and legends around him that scholars today do not know the
complete truth of his influence and life. Garrison agitated
in such reforms as temperance, nonresistance, perfectionism,
anti-religion, and abolition. He is best known today for
his part in the agitation for the freedom of the slaves.
Garrison was a man of action. He cared little what
most people thought of him or of his ideas. He spoke and
wrote in violent terms, attaching such words as "robber,"
''adulterous," "den of vipers," "hellish fiends," etc. to
those who opposed him. In his private life he was modest.
His dress, his language, and his actions picture a quiet,
kindly man. Yet, when he picked up his pen to write the
editorials for his paper, his words were as acrid as those
of "the wicked wasp of Twickenham"I
Garrison was never widely popular, but he did influ
ence a large portion of the population. He remains almost
as much a figure of controversy today as he was during his
lifetime.
Writers since his death have been as divided in their
opinions of him as other writers were during his lifetime.
Some praise him highly, while others denounce him bitterly.
After his death in 1879» a number of biographies were writ
ten of him. Most of these were panegyrics.
Early in the twentieth century, a new interpretation
of Garrison began to appear in the biographies and defenses
of some of the anti-Garrison abolitionists. These latter
books attacked him, and they opened the doors for more at-
Xsome of the most important early biographies of Garrison are the following: William E. A. Axon, The Story of a Noble Life (London, I89O); Oliver Johnson, William Lloyd Garrison "and His Times (Boston, I88I); and Francis E. Cooke, An American Hero:"" the Story of William Lloyd Garrison (London, Ibtib). Also note Samuel J. May's Recollections of the Anti-Slavery Conflict (Boston, l8^) .
3
tackers. Soon the attacks were quite in style. As was re
cently witnessed in Russia, denunciation, while popular, at
tracts converts easily.
Modern historians have been forced to accept the fact
that Garrison was both complex and controversial. To de
nounce him bitterly or to praise him completely is to fall
victim to the mistake of the Capulets and the Montagues.
The truth concerning the man lies somewhere between the two
extremes. Consequently, two main schools of thought have
developed. One, led by such authors as Catherine Wolf and
Gilbert H. Barnes, holds the position that Garrison was a
glory-seeking, self-made martyr who played a negligible role
in the abolition movement.-^ Another group of writers con
tends that Garrison was a great man who was of benefit to
the causes of abolition, temperance, woman suffrage, and re
ligion.^
Obviously, neither position is completely right, nor
is either completely wrong. Both groups use documents writ
ten by Garrison and his contemporaries as proof of their
^Books of the period include William Birney's James G. Birney and His Times (New York, I89O) and John Jay Chapman«s William Lloyd GarrTFon (New York, 1913).
3see Hazel Catherine Wolf, On Freedom's Altar; the Martyr Complex in the Abolition Movement (Madison, 1952) and Gilber-fc Hobbs Barnes, The AntislaveFy Impulse (New York, 1933)*
4see Ralph Korngold, Two Friends of Man (Boston, 1950) and Russel B. Nye, William Lloyd Garrison (Boston, 1955) *
contentions, but both groups are also guilty of de-emphasi
zing materials which seemingly cast doubt on aspects of
their hypotheses.
I believe that William Lloyd Garrison was a complex
man. In many ways he was petty, sought glory, was a non-
intellectual, and a foe of progress. Further, he was often
quite inconsistent. William Birney pointed to this fact
vhen he wrote:
It seemed to matter little to him whether his professions and practice were in accord. In early manhood he quoted Scripture and talked religion like a clergyman, but he was not then and never became a communicant in any church. . . . He advocated immersion, but was never immersed. Claiming to be a Christian, he denied the in- ^ spiration of the Bible and the divinity of Christ. . . .
In other ways Garrison was a man of vision and a prophet of
things which came to pass.
In this study I shall attempt to find the truth con
cerning this man by examining his life, his background, and
his early life of reform. I shall also show how Garrison
revised his ideas concerning religion, slavery, and the gov
ernment .
Many vol\imes have been written concerning this man.
After examining many of these plus other material, the au
thor presents his ideas concerning William Lloyd Garrison.
'Villiam Birney, James G. Birney and His Times, The (lenesls of the Republican Party with Some Account of Abolition Movements in the South Before 1^2^ (New York, 1^90}, 521. Also note Wendell Phillips Garrison and Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, l605-l879. The Story of His Life Told by His Children, U vols.; (New York, Ibti^), 173^
-«r; T—!—••I., . ' < — — — I V H I • • I I I n I I I • — -•^••"^i.w
CHAPTER I
EARLY LIFE AND ENTERPRISES
Few, if any, ever understood why Fanny Lloyd con
sented to marry Abijah Garrison. She was a devoutly reli
gious Baptist. She had scoffed at the Baptists until she
went to hear an itinerant Baptist preacher. His sermon
touched her in some mystical way and "of those who went to
scoff one remained to pray . . . . " When Fanny announced
her Intention to join the Baptist Church, her parents warned
her that if she allowed herself to be baptized, she would
force them to disown her. Her defiance resulted in her move
to the home of an uncle, where she lived until her marriage
late in the eighteenth century.
Abijah Garrison was the only member of his family who
went to sea. He was a sailor and later became the master of
a ship. His alternative to a life at sea was the life of a
farmer. Though details of his life are almost nonexistent,
enough remain to form an outline. He seems to have been a
muscular man with a long birthmark under his chin. Like many
large men, he was kind and was quick to help other men.
There is no record of his having accepted the Baptist
religion or of his leading a religious life. He had hap
pened upon Fanny Lloyd by accident, and after a strained
HGarrisons, W. L. Garrison, I, l5*
5
self-introduction, he began to court her*
Several years after they had been married, Abijah and
Fanny Garrison moved to Newburyport, Massachusetts. A few
days later, in December, l805# William Lloyd was born. Jobs
were plentiful for the master of a ship, but Jefferson's em
bargo of 1807 ended the good living of the sailors in New
buryport. Most of the seamen turned to the tavern in their
spare time, and Abijah was no exception. His pious wife
frowned upon the practice of drinking, and a source of fric
tion was Injected into the seemingly happy house that the
Garrisons shared with Martha Parnham and her husband. The
consummation of Fanny's continual hypercritlcism came when
Abijah brought home some of his friends for a drinking party.
He found that his wife had gone to prayer meeting, and when
she returned, she found him and his friends slightly inebri
ated. Fanny demanded that the sailors leave her home. A
few days later Abijah left Fanny, his family, and Newbury
port.' He never retiirned. The time and place of his death
remain unknown.
Upon being deserted by her husband, Fanny lost all of
her support but none of her piety. She continued to hold
prayer meetings in her home and to attend all of the ser
vices of her church. However, her family was in need of
money, and Fanny began to supply it in several ways. She
became a practical nurse, a house cleaner, and a seamstress.
"^Garrisons, W. L. Garrison, I, 25-26.
She made candy which her children sold in the streets at
carnival time. With all her ingenuity, she could not make
enough money for the family to live. She made an arrange
ment with one of the rich families in Newburyport whereby
she could have the food left from their noon meal. Young
William was sent to get the pall of scraps which was placed
on their back step each afternoon. This lesson in humility
influenced Garrison. Later in life he never turned the poor
away from his door. When some of the neighborhood boys be
gan to suspect what was in the pail, they attempted to take
it away from him. A series of fights ensued, and Garrison
seems to have fought rather well.
When Fanny was no longer financially capable of car
ing for her children (William had one brother, James, sind
one sister, Elizabeth), she decided to take James and move
to Lynn, Massachusetts. Elizabeth was left with Martha
Farnham, while William was entrusted to the care of Ezekiel
Bartiett, a deacon of the small Baptist Church. "He sent
the boy to grammar school for a trimester, but at the end
of that period felt he needed his help to make ends meet."^
He was very kind to William and seems to have been the only
person whom Garrison considered as a father. The boy was
relatively happy with the Bartletts, but this stable home
did not last. Fanny apprenticed the thirteen-year-old James
^Korngold, Two Friends of Man, 9* ^Ibid.
8
to a shoemaker in Lynn. Finding a similar position with
Gamaliel Oliver, a Quaker, she sent for William to move to
Lynn to learn shoemaking. He hated the work, but he learned
to make shoes. A Lynn shoe manufacturer decided to set up
a shoe factory in Baltimore* Fanny and her two sons were
hired to go with him to work* James was to work in the manu
facturing of shoes, Fanny in his home, and William was to
run errands. Here the Garrisons were first introduced to
the sights of slave trading.-^^
In Massachusetts they had never seen slavery in its
fullest form, but in Baltimore they were introduced to it in
its crudest forms. Coffles of manacled slaves were led
through the streets on their way to the Southern plantations.
William was young, and this introduction to slavery did not
affect him as it did within a few years.
The shoemaking business failed to prosper in Balti
more, and the manufacturer decided to move back to Lynn.
Fanny chose to remain; she lived there for the rest of her
life. For a time she was able to make a tolerable living
for her family. James, however, had acquired a taste for
rum while working in Lynn. Riom had been served to the boys
as well as to the men as part of their wage. Perhaps Fanny
had grown bitter from her previous experiences with people
vdio drank. Her constant reproaches became unbearable to
James. One day, at the age of fifteen, he disappeared. He
•^^Garrlsons, W. L. Garrison, I, 31-32.
uxx jio sea.** All of his life he remained a sailor
and a drinker. William tried to reform James when he took
him into his house later in their lives, but all attempts
at therapy proved merely battles against the wind. James
remained as much addicted to alcohol as his brother was op
posed to its use.^
By 1816 William was so unhappy in Baltimore that
Fanny decided to let him return to Newburyport to live with
the Bartletts. His stay this time was more enjoyable than
before. For the first time in his short eleven years he had
a real home. He attended the town grammar school, where he
received the rudiments of an education. He later expanded
his education by reading. During the following two years
he enjoyed the greatest happiness which he had ever known.
1*5 For the first time, he led a normal life.
Two years later, I818, William received word from his
mother that she had apprenticed him to a cabinet maker in
Haverhill. Moses Short was a kindly man who did everything
possible to make young Garrison happy. Nevertheless, Garri
son did not like cabinet making, and six weeks after his ar-
^^Korngold, Two Friends of Man, 10.
^^Why one child became like his father and one like his mother is unknown. Sociologists would probably say the reason is environment, and this certainly has some validity Lloyd was never given rum on his job; whether he would have taken it is unknown. Though not unique with the Garrisons, their wide personality difference seems quite pronounced.
^%arrisons, W. L. Garrison, I, 32-33.
rmwmmimmtmm
'mimmmm :^^^^ ^ ____
10
rival, he packed his meager belongings and started for New
buryport before dawn* He was startled when he met Moses
Short at a relay station. His master had taken a shortcut.
Generally, a runaway apprentice received a flogging, but Mr.
Short was more understanding and possibly was as tired of
Garrison as the latter was of cabinet making. He freed Lloyd
from his apprenticeship but not without taking him back to
Haverhill and writing a formal release. Within a matter of
weeks. Garrison was back in Newburyport.^4
Garrison*s next apprenticeship was one which became
a part of his life. In the fall of 1818, Ephraim W. Allen,
the editor and publisher of the Newburyport Herald, adver
tised for an apprentice. After an interview, the papers
were arranged, and Garrison became a printer's apprentice.
This new job was one of joy for Garrison. He not on
ly learned the printer's trade, but he learned it well. He
worked hard at the case, and later in his life his knowl
edge of printing allowed him to make arrangements which en
abled him to publish his own paper while working out the
cost of its printing, "in his old age he was to say: 'Had
I not been a practical printer—an expert compositor and
able to work at the press--there had been no Liberator.»"^5
There was one other advantage which Garrison derived
l4por a detailed account of this period in Garrison's life, see Ibid., 33-35*
^^orngold. Two Friends of Man, 12.
11
from his pursuance of the printer's trade*
Like Franklin and many other apprentices before him, young Garrison picked up from his trade a great deal of information and a sense of language, partially compensating for his lack of formal schooling*^8
Since his employer exchanged papers with other edi
tors, especially in New England, Garrison had the chance to
read many articles concerning the politics of the day. He
joined the Franklin Club, which was devoted to reading de
bates and self-improvement. He spent much time in chvirch
and developed a piety almost as great as that of his mother.
"Garrison at sixteen thought seriously of giving his life to
missionary work . . . . "• ' The appeal of newspaper work
was greater than that of the clergy.
In 1822 he read an article concerning a successful
suit for breach of promise, and he decided to write an ar
ticle on the same subject. He sent the article anonymously
to the editor of the Herald, who published it. In this ar
ticle. Garrison, at the cynical old age of sixteen, derided
women for their soft lives in America and declared: "For
ray part, notwithstanding, I am determined to lead the sinpile
life and not trouble myself about the ladies."^8 HQ signed
the article "An Old Bachelor."
For the next several months he continued submitting
articles to the editor of the Herald. All of them bore the
•'•"Nye, Garrison and Reformers, 9. ^^jbid., 10.
l%ewburyport Herald, May 21, 1822.
12
initials "A. 0. B." At last Allen printed a notice asking
that the anonymous author come by his office. Garrison re
vealed his identity, and Allen encouraged him to continue to
write. Only once, in August, 1822, did the author-printer's
helper mention slavery in his column. In the Newburyport
Herald, August 2, 1822, Garrison maintained that the holding
of slaves was not a danger to the republican ideas of the
coxmtry, but he admitted that " . . . there can never be so
much purity, decorum, exactness and moderation in the morals
of a people among whom slaves aboiuid."^^
He continued writing for the Herald for the next two
years. His articles dealt mainly with current politics. He
20 advocated war to uphold o\ir rights in South America. " He
supported Harrison Gray Otis for governor.^-^ His articles
on his political choices, especially Otis, were panegyrics
to such a degree that Boswell would have blushed. Garrison
also wrote concerning international politics.^^ In this
realm he was far from his intellectual best.
When he had finished his apprenticeship near the end
23 of 1825, Garrison was much different from what he was to
^^ibid., August 2, 1822. ^^Ibid., July 16, 19, l822.
^^Ibid., March l4, April 1, April 4, I823.
^^Ibid., May 2, 16, I823.
^Garrison completed his seven-year apprenticeship contract on December 10, l825. However, he continued to work at the Herald office until the spring of 1826, when he joined Isaac Knapp as editor of the Free Press.
13
be within a few years. In l825:
The "No Government" man, who was to abstain from voting, was now preoccupied with politics. The religious liberal, accused by his clerical opponents of infidelity, was now 'a complete Baptist as to tenets.' The scorner of a Pharisaical observance of the Sabbath was now a strict Sabbatarian. The champion of Woman's Rights was now opposed to women exercising even the right of petition. The advocate of nonresistance was seriously considering entering West Point and becoming a professional soldier, and toyed with the idea of going to Greece to fight the Turks. As for slavery, which was to engross his life, he now gave it scarcely a thought.^^
Garrison remained with the Herald for a few months
after his term as apprentice had been served. He was look
ing for a position when he received word in March, l826,
that Isaac Knapp, who had bought a failing newspaper named
the Northern Chronicler, was looking for a partner. He had
been ill and could not do the work required of him. Knapp
had renamed the paper the Essex Coiirant and had published
it in Newburyport as a neutral political paper. Garrison
borrowed the necessary cash from Allen and bo\ight an inter
est in the paper. He changed the name of the paper to the
Free Press and took over as publisher in March, l826. The
Free Press* did not prosper, and at the end of six months.
Garrison and Knapp sold it. Garrison stayed in Newburyport
for the next year but worked for no particular individual.
^Korngold, Two Friends of Man, l5* Garrison was sur rounded by people who were interested in politics. His newspaper friends, the members of the Franklin Club (mentioned above), and even his fellow church goers were interested in politics. The materials he read were of a political nature; he naturally was influenced by these to think politically. He did not mention slavery, for he had not been introduced to the subject to a great degree.
lit
He worked for several publishers but not long for any one.
The reasons for this sporadic employment are not clear. Per
haps there was not enough work for steady employment, or his
ideas may have influenced his work too much. The former rea
son seems more likely since there is little evidence support
ing the latter. However, some consideration should be given
to both ideas.
In January of 1827, he moved to Boston, where he
worked intermittently. There were many young printers in
Boston, and steady work was hard to find.
The most important influence on Garrison while in Bos
ton was the preaching of Lyman Beecher. Beecher predicted
hell and brimstone for Catholics, Unitarians, and any theo
logical liberals. Garrison learned from Beecher to know
that he had the truth concerning most subjects. Beecher's
method of ascertaining truth was faith, the same answer
which Garrison's mother had given him* Beecher was more
persuasive than Fanny Garrison had been, but the message is
common to all religious zealots. The individual had to have
faith in his ideas, his interpretation of the Bible, and his
reasoning ability. This left no place for doubt or non-com
mitment.
The dissenting tradition in which he was reared had no room for halfway measures. Fanny Garrison taught him to read and believe his Bible; Beecher and others in Boston's galaxy of divines showed him how it settled issues.^>^
25Nye, Garrison and Reformers, 13*
15
He never wavered from this time on. He had the truth;
others did not; therefore, they were "dogs and sorcerers,
and . * * murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth a
„26 lie*" The idea that he might possess only part of the
truth did not enter his categorical mind* He gave no thought
to the idea that those who opposed his thinking might have
some thread of truth* Garrison could not doubt, for:
The ignorant, the faithless, the doubter Goes to his destruction. How shall he enjoy This world, or the next. Or any happiness?
Bhagavad-Gita
When the Hard-Shell, radical doctrines of Garrison's
mother and Deacon Bartlett combined with the hell, self-
rlghteousness, and faith presented by Boston's clergy. Gar
rison's mind formed a rigidity which marked him for the rest
of his life. There was no vacillation in him, no gray in his thinking, only right and wrong, deep black and pure white. There could be no compromise with sin and only Garrison could define sin . . . In the last analysis his final court of appeal was conscience, not mind. Moral judgment was his first and last line of defense, and for this reason it was almost impossible to persuade him he was wrong. Foiinded on God and conscience, his stand was impregnable. 7
In his positive attitude Garrison was no different
from other religious zealots and moral absolutists. This
idea is one of the basic tenets of Puritanism. The individ-
^°Hllary A. Herbert, The Abolition Crusade and Its Consequences (New York, 1912), 37.
'Nye, Garrison and Reformers, 202.
16
ual believes that he has truth, but he cannot be content un
til he has enlightened others. He becomes God's agent whose
sacred duty is not fulfilled until he has saved his breth
ren, whose keeper he has automatically become. The Puritan
Garrison, like others of his breed, was morally compelled to
impart his knowledge to others. He had to condemn sin where
he saw it, and he saw it everywhere there was disagreement
with his ideas.
The ideas of Beecher did not fall on idle ears when
they were preached in Boston. Garrison learned quickly, and
he burned with desire to root out the sins of intemperance.
Sabbath breaking, tobacco, and slavery. He needed some me
dium by which he could condemn sin with a telling effect.
He had earlier contemplated a life in the ministry, but he
t\n»ned to the press.
He was not long in Boston when he took lodging with
William Collier, a Baptist missionary. Collier had founded
what is believed to be the first paper devoted completely to
temperance. His motto was: "Moderate Drinking is the Down
hill Road to Intemperance and Drunkenness." The people of
America were not interested in the ideas of William Collier
or of any other person concerning drinking. Americans, in
cluding Bostonians and the members of her esteemed clergy,
indulged in the drinking of alcoholic beverages.28
^"Garrisons, W. L. Garrison, I, 8l.
17
Collier knew little about journalism or any of the
finer points of writing. After about a year of continual
Indebtedness, he sold his paper, the National Philanthro
pist, to Nathaniel White. White asked Garrison to act as
the paper's editor*
Garrison now had the facility he desired. He was giv
en full charge of the editorial policy of the Philanthropist,
and he preceded to make the most of the opportunity to ex
press his personal views. The pages of the small paper were
filled with tirades against religious infidelity, war, to
bacco, immorality, and Sabbath mail deliveries. This young
editor of one of Boston's smallest and most insignificant
papers felt that he had made a good start in the editorial
world. When he was ignored by most people, his writing be
came more militant. When the list of subscribers grew—
one of the few times in Garrison's career that subscribers
grew imder his editorship—he was very much encouraged.^^^
He began looking for ways to promote interest in his cru
sade and his paper. One way of doing this was to attend
every public meeting held in the city and voice his senti
ments. People began to notice him, but few encouraged him.
Another way that Garrison devised for furthering his
cause was to suggest that women take part in the temperance
campaign. Since he had made little progress among the men.
^^Ibid., 80-83*
18
he appealed to women in order to get his ideas recognized.
He saw a great need for workers in his own cause and pro-
ceded to fill it in the best way he could,30 since he ac
cepted the solution to this problem by faith, then it could
not be wrong* He had learned that already. When he was at
tacked for inviting women into active membership in his
cause, he felt that his ideas were not attacked but that
right and truth were questioned. After all, did he not have
truth? Was he not trying to enlighten a lost and wicked
world? The answer was obvious to Garrison.
Ho did not always know why he believed in things
other than the fact that they were of a moral nature. And,
" . . . he was taught by a pious mother to see moral impli-
cations in all things."-^ He sometimes lacked logical rea
soning. He knew only that some things were wrong, and they
could be corrected. He realized that the drunken state of
some of the clergy and political officials was a detriment
to clear thinking and proper decisions; therefore, he was
against drinking. He saw that imprisonment for debt was a
blight on humanity, and he demanded change. He was one of
the first to condemn the northern labor system, the corrupt
political system, and imprisonment for debt.32 These were
3Qlbid., 85-86. 3lwolf, On Freedom's Altar, l8.
^^Garrisons, W. L. Garrison, I, 80 ff. Also, see the Liberator and Garrison's other writings, which abound with articles favoring fair treatment for rich and poor. For
19
great moral questions, and Garrison was a great moralist*
Obviously, he was right on many of these issues, but his log
ic led to many inconsistencies in his writing and in his
speaking* There were two main reasons why Garrison did not
think logically as we define the word. First, his devotion
to faith left him little need for formal logic* Second, he
had not been trained in logic.- - He had little education,
and the formal training that he did have was elementary.
Garrison was taught to feel more than to think. Perhaps
von Hoist, the German historian of this coimtry, was correct
when he wrote of Garrison:
. * . with a mind capable of logical thinking neither by natural endowment nor from education, his judgment in the hand of his vinbridled feeling was lost in a labyrinth of senseless abstractions . . . Clambering up on the ladder of his wonderful logic toward pure 'principles,' without looking to the right or to the left, he soon completely lost the ground of the real world under his feet.34
examples see the Free Press, May l8, l826; Journal of the Times, October 10, 1020, and January 16, 1829; the Liberator, January 6, 1831, January 15, l83l, and May 17, 1837*
33puritans, like most radicals, believed themselves to be logically perfect* However, the basis for their logic was in assumptions which most people would consider false. They assumed that they were their brothers' keepers, that they had a true understanding of God's will, that evil was confined to their definition, and that not one was righteous outside of their belief.
With these assumptions Puritans could have perfect logic. Assumptions such as these cannot be disputed, for if an individual cannot believe in them, he has no faith; therefore, he is lost.
34H. von Hoist, Constitutional and Political History of the United States. Translated by John Jay Lalor. (Chi-c"ago, 1888), n , 223-224.
20
Garrison never realized any inconsistency in his
thinking, and since he was convinced that none was there,
he never bothered to look. Had he discovered something that
seemed incongruous, he would undoubtedly have agreed with
the wise man of Concord, who said, "A foolish consistency is
35 the hobgoblin of little minds." However, Emerson also
wrote, "I covet truth . . . . "3" But Garrison coveted
truth only as he defined it. He believed by faith that he
had the truth. There was little reason to search for some
thing he already had.
Garrison's attempts to make himself and his paper
known did not go unrewarded. In 1827 he attended a caucus
of the Federalist Party, which had convened to nominate a
representative to Congress to succeed Daniel Webster, who
had been promoted to the Senate. The leaders of the party
had decided beforehand that they would nominate Benjamin
Gorham, a Boston lawyer. Garrison, who still remained loyal
to Harrison Gray Otis, prepared a speech nominating him.
When he heard the leaders praise Gorham before nominations
were opened, he proceeded to deliver his nomination speech.
He did not have the authority to speak, but he asked for the
floor and somehow received it. The party caucus was thrown
into a turmoil, and the leaders decided to adjourn for three
days to consult Otis. The following day the powerful Boston
3^Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Self Reliance."
3^tenerson, "Each and All."
21
Courier contained a denxmciation of Garrison signed with the
letter S. The article said in part that the author had had
considerable trouble learning the name of the brash young
man who had spoken so out of place the previous day. Garri
son made a quick reply which was published the following
day* In his defense he made the first public declaration
of his intention of becoming famous. In answer to the state
ment, " . . . with some difficulty I found out his name,"
Garrison replied:
I sympathize with the gentleman in the difficulty which he found to learn my cognomination. It is true that my acquaintance in this city is limited—I have sought for none. Let me assure him, however, that if my life be spared, my name shall one day be known to the world,— at least to such extent that common inquiry shall be unnecessary . . . time shall prove it prophetic.3'
Garrison had had an ideal opportunity; he did not
fall to reap the full value that it offered. He demanded
attention to his ideas, and using the weapon of bombastics,
he gained what he desired. Otis declined to be nominated
under any circumstances, and Garrison's outburst provided
no tangible reward except to make Boston aware of his pres
ence.
Just why he went to the Federalist Party caucus unin
vited remains unknown. Also a mystery is the reason why he
nominated Otis for Congress. Garrison had supported Otis
for governor in 1823, but since that time Otis seems not to
37Boston Courier, July Ik, 1827.
22
have occupied his thoughts.
Garrison was twenty-two when this incident occurred,
and the following year was one of decision and importance
in his life. Circ\imstances during l828 determined how his
name was to become known, "at least to such extent that com
mon inquiry" was unnecessary.
In March, l828, he met Benjamin Lundy, who introduced
him to antislavery. Lundy had become an apprentice to a
harness maker in Wheeling, Virginia, in I808. Having been
bom in New Jersey in I789, he had never seen slavery as it
really existed, but coffles of chained slaves which he had
seen led down the Wheeling streets had affected his Quaker
spirit. By l8l5 Lundy had moved to St. Clairsville, Ohio,
diere he had started in the harness-making business for him
self. He had prospered, and soon after, he had married.
Remembering the slaves he had seen, Lundy had founded the
Union Humane Society in l8l5, which was dedicated to helping
combat slavery.3°
Following the example of John Woolman, Lundy had sold
his possessions, including his business, and had given his
life to the antislavery cause. After various antislavery
activities had failed to satisfy him, he had moved to Mt.
Pleasant, Ohio, in 1821 and had founded his antislavery pa
per. The Genius of Universal Emancipation. He had a deep
38A short outline of Lundy's life is found in Birney, James G. Birney, 389-406.
23
belief that the slaveholders would free their slaves if the
freedmen could be removed from Southern soclety.- ^
L\andy had come to Boston in 1828 to lecture on sla
very and had taken rooms at Collier's, where Garrison lived.
Garrison, before he met Lundy, had a developing feeling
against slavery. He had mentioned it unfavorably, and af
ter South Carolina passed legislation prohibiting the teach
ing of slaves to read or write, he had written in the Na
tional Philanthropist;
There is . . . something unspeakably pitiable and alarming in the state of that society where it is deemed necessary, for self-preservation, to seal up the mind and debase the intellect of man to brutal incapacity. We shall not now consider the policy of this resolve, but it illustrates the terrors of slavery in a manner as eloquent and affecting as imagination can conceive . . . Truly, the alternatives of oppression are terrible. But this state of things cannot always last, nor ignorance alone shield us from destruct!on.' ^
We can see in this statement that Garrison had an insight
into slavery that few of his contemporaries had. He had be
gun to resent slavery, but Lundy brovight him into the anti-
slavery fold.
After arriving in Boston, Lundy wasted little time
in beginning his work. He arranged for a group of clergy
men to meet in the parlor of Collier's house. Garrison,
along with seven clergymen, attended the meeting. The cler
ics were willing to give their approval to the doctrine of
39Benjamln Liindy, The Life—Travels—and Opinions of * * * * (Philadelphia, lbl+7) *
^^National Philanthropist, January 11, 1828.
2k
emancipation, but they would not initiate any active move
ment or psirticipate in any organized antislavery committee
or society which Lundy encouraged them to form.4^
Garrison, however, was different. He saw immediately
that he had been feeling the same things as Lundy but that
he had not been emphasizing them. He was convinced, and he
showed this in his paper of the following week. In the
Philanthropist for March 28, l828. Garrison praised the
Genius of Universal Emancipation, Lundy's paper. Also, he
'•paid a warm tribute to Lundy and to the work which he had
already accomplished."42
Lundy believed in gradual, but total, abolition of
all slavery in the United States. He was a dedicated be
liever in colonizing the freed slaves in some foreign coun
try or in some territory. He had made several trips to
Canada, Texas, and Haiti, looking for places to found Negro
colonies. He was a hard-working, dedicated man, and these
characteristics appealed to Garrison. Further,
The hardship and loneliness of his /Garrison^s/ own youth made him temperamentally sympathetic to the underdog; Garrison knew what it was to beg . . . and Lundy, in his gentle Quaker way, gave Garrison's tough yoiaig mind a principle on which it could act.^J
At Lundy's death in l839. Garrison was willing to
4lNye, Garrison and Reformers, 20.
^2Garrlsons, W. L. Garrison, I, 94.
^3Nye, Garrison and Reformers, 19-20.
25
credit him with being the motivating force in his reform
work. In the eulogy which he was asked to deliver before
a Negro audience in Boston, Garrison acknowledged his debt to
Lundy in these words: "I feel that I owe everything . . .
instrumentally and under God, to Benjamin Lundy."^^
Though Garrison was immediately sympathetic with
Lundy's ideas, he was still primarily concerned with tem
perance. However, he influenced the drinking habits of the
people of the United States very little. He enco\u?aged the
women of the United States to form temperance societies,
and he wrote letters and circulated petitions trying to
stamp out the evils of drink. The fact that almost every
clergyman in the nation drank intoxicating beverages at pri
vate meetings and at such church functions as ordinations,
marriages, business meetings, etc. meant nothing to him.
There was no compromise with what Garrison believed sin, and
he had determined that drinking was sinful. His work with
the National Philanthropist produced few visible results
other than to make Garrison a friend of the cause of woman
suffrage.
The financial situation of the Philanthrop!st was
falling when a group of sympathizers from Bennington, Ver
mont, arrived in Boston. This was the summer of 1828, and
the Adams-Jackson campaign for President had begun. This
^Liberator, September 20, l839*
I WHIP .;ifyip-i
26
group of Bennington citizens approached Garrison concerning
the editorship of a new pro-Adams paper* Garrison, like
most Puritan reformers, disliked Jackson and decided that
he would accept the offer.45 He did not accept without
reservations. He asked the right to advocate peace, tem
perance, and his new reform, emancipation. The citizenry
accepted, and he moved to Bennington in the fall of 1828.
On October 3, l828, the first issue of the Journal of
the Times, his new paper, appeared. His salutatory con
tained the goal of the new paper. He wrote that the paper
would be "independent" and that "it shall be trammelled by
no interest, biassed by no sect, awed by no power."46 Here
is seen Garrison's Puritan sense of honesty. The main piir-
pose of foianding the paper was to agitate for the election
of John Quincy Adams to the Presidency. The paper was owned
and controlled and financed by the pro-Adams group. Garri
son accepted the editorship of the paper with the condition
that he could advocate his special ideas and biases, viz.,
peace, emancipation, and temperance. However, when advo
cated by himself, biases were not biases, sects were not
sects, and powers were not powers. In his special case these
45For more information concerning why the New England • Puritans disliked Jackson, see Mertcn L. Dillon, "The Failure of the American Abolitionists," Journal of Southern History, XXV (May, 1959), 162. See also Merton L. UiilOh, Elijah P. Love joy. Abolitionist Editor (Urbana, 1961), l8-
46 Journal of the Times, October 3, 1828.
27
things became Truths, and he advocated truth—not truth as
it might be, but Truth as Garrison knew that it really was.
In the same salutation in which he said no bias or sect
woTild control his paper, he also wrote:
. . . he who has not courage enough to hunt down popiilar vices, to combat popular prejudices, to encounter the madness of party, to tell the TRUTH ^emphasis mine__/ and maintain the truth, cost what it may, to attack villainy in its higher walks, and strip presumption of its vulgar garb, to meet the frowns of the enemy with the smiles of a friend, and the hazard of independence with the hope of reward, should be crushed at a blow if he dared tamper with the interests, or speculate upon the whims of the public.47
Thus one of the best examples of the zeal of Garri
son's Puritan mind is seen in this writing which he pub
lished at the age of twenty-foixr. He had become an apostle
to his fellow men, and we see in the first line the reli
gious motivation which his mother and Beecher had instilled
in him earlier. Garrison's basic philosophy was very close
to that which characterized the other abolitionists, who
increased in number within a few short years. Merton L.
Dillon has written concerning the abolitionists:
Most of them . . . could feel little kinship with those politicians and philosophers who assumed that men were naturally good and could be trusted to judge rightly without strict moral and religious guidance.58
To Garrison the world contained much evil, and there
were too few men who had "courage enough to hunt down popu-
*+Dillon, "The Palliore of the Abolitionists," 162.
ma I — tmt • < i i i i i« w i n • — i
28
lar vices and to combat popular prejudices . . . to tell the
truth and maintain the truth . . . . "
Later in his life, his feelings for humanity were to
temper to some degree his dogmatic religious views. Later
in this paper I shall dwell upon the character and the ac
tions of Garrison after l84l, when he had become more li
beral in his religious and political ideas. He advocated
radical change for the coimtry while clinging to the rigid
ity of his early years. He became too liberal in some res
pects, and liberals who become too liberal become narrow.
As Emily Dickinson has written:
He preached upon 'breadth' till it argued him narrow,— The broad are too broad to define; And of 'truth' until it proclaimed him a liar,—
The truth never flaunted a sign.49
The people of Bennington had little complaint concerning
the adequacy of Garrison's defense of Adams. Their editor
delivered an abundance of articles on Jackson's conduct in
Florida and Louisiana. He drew attention to the murder of
the Indian prisoners in Florida, Jackson's dueling, his
taste for violence, and especially to his "sinfulness as a
slaveholder and slave-trader." Further, most reformers were
New Englanders, and Jackson scoffed at New England's Puri
tanical teachings. Garrison seems to have felt that Adams
would lose the election. The most conclusive evidence of
this and the best example of his attack on Jackson are shown
^^^lly Dickinson, "The Preacher."
29
in one extended passage taken from the Journal of the Times
for October 31, 1829:
Whatever may be the result of the present tremendous conflict, we shall thank God on our bended knees that we have been permitted to denounce, as unworthy of the suffrages of a moral and religious people, a man ^ose hands are crimsoned with Innocent blood, whose lips are full of profanity, who looks on 'blood and carnage with philosophic compos\are'—a slaveholder, and, idiat is more iniquitous, a buyer and seller of human flesh—a military despot, who has broken the laws of the country and one whose only recommendations are that he has fought many duels—filled many offices, and failed in all—achieved the battle of New Orleans, at the expense of constitutional rights—and that he possessed the fighting propensities and courage of a tiger. We care not how numerous may be his supporters: to be in the minority against him would be better than to receive the commendations of a large and deluded majority.50
Garrison did not need a majority to fight against
evil. His battle was moral, and in a moral crusade "one
may chase a thousand and two put ten thousand to flight."^-^
He believed that Jackson was representative of the ungodly,
and that eventually he /Garrison^/ and his fellow workers
would enlighten the people concerning the way society and
life should be ruled. He emerged from the same type of so
ciety which produced Elijah P. Love joy, and Merton L.
Dillon's characterization of Love joy may also be descrip
tive of Garrison. Both "belonged to that species of New
England Puritan whose representatives have always supposed
that God speaks to them more intimately than He speaks to
^QJournal of the Times, October 31, l828.
^^Liberator, January 8, l84l*
30
ordinary men."52
Garrison took politics very seriously. His disap
pointment at the election of Jackson and the fears that he
entertained for his country are demonstrated in one of his
poems which he dedicated "To the American People" and
signed "A. 0. B.," reminiscent of his earlier days with the
Newburyport Herald. The end of the blank verse poem is:
My countryI oh my countryI I could weep. In agony of soul, hot, bloody tears To wipe away the blemish on your nama. Fix'd foully by one FATAL PRECEDENT.^3
His feelings toward slavery became more pronoxmced
after the election of Jackson. Before the election, which
was held on November 11, 1828, Garrison had devoted some
attention to slavery, but he had been commissioned by his
employers to gain the election of Adams. He did advocate
foxmding antislavery societies in Vermont and petitioned
Congress for the abolition of slavery in the District of
Columbia. At that time Garrison, as did Lundy, believed in
gradual emancipation. In a speech on July 1+, l829. Garrison
said:
. . * the emancipation of all the slaves of this generation is out of the question. The fabric, which now towers above the Alps, must be taken away brick by brick, and foot by foot, till it is reduced so low that it may be overturned without burying the nation in its ruins. Years may elapse before the completion of the
52Dlllon, Love joy, 1+1.
53Journal of the Times, December 10, 1828.
31
achievement . . . . ^
Within a few days from that time, he became an advo
cate of immediate emancipation. Not until the beginning
of the Civil War did he again tolerate thinking other than
iramediatism. In l829 many people began to call him a fana
tic. However, since all plans for even gradual emancipa
tion had been complete failiires, we might be correct in
thinking Garrison's abolition ideas somewhat visionary.
Though increasingly occupied with antislavery, he had
not forgotten the causes of temperance and peace. One col
umn in his paper was continually devoted to these subjects.
Benjamin Lundy, who continually read the editorials
in Garrison's paper, decided that his pupil might need en
couraging in the face of the attacks which were sure to
come* Also, many of the people whom Lundy had recruited had
failed to remain loyal for an extended period* Since Gar
rison seemed to be an exception, he wished to encourage this
new ally. Garrison had been very interested in the ideas of
LTindy, and he was now writing with dedication and was infu
sing new vigor into the cause of the slaves. Lundy wrote
an article in the Genius of Universal Emancipation, praising
Garrison's seeming steadfastness and expressing hope that
his zeal would continue. Garrison copied this article into
the pages of his paper for the purpose of "assiiring the edi-
54National Philanthropist and Investigator, July 22, 1829.
32
tor that our zeal in the cause of emancipation suffers no
diminution." Then, as if to reassure Lxxndy, Garrison wrote
boldly: "Before God and our country, we give our pledge
that the liberation of the enslaved Africans shall always be
uppermost in our pTirsuits."- -
Much has been written concerning Garrison's motives
for turning his attention toward antislavery.^" However,
the fact that he spent his life working for the betterment
of others cannot be denied. He had been taught that evil
must be eradicated. We, as well as Garrison, believe that
slavery was an evil. Since he was dedicated to abolishing
evil and to helping mankind, can we not reasonably believe
that a dedicated humanitarian would oppose such evil with
out being motivated by personal aggrandizement?
Had Garrison's chief motive been the desire for fame,
he would undoubtedly have accepted some of the chances for
fame which were offered to him later in his life. He re
fused to write his autobiography though encouraged to do so
by many prominent people. He probably could have had some
political appointment, but he refused.- ' Instead, after the
Civil War he chose to live a quiet life, free from contro
versy. He had interviews with Lincoln, Stanton, and several
55Journal of the Times, January 16, l829.
^"See introduction.
5' Korngold, Two Friends of Man, 329-331.
33
senators, but he never used any of them to further himself.
As Lundy read more articles written by Garrison, who
was still in Bennington during the spring of l829, the edi
tor of the Genius realized that Garrison's was a voice which
could be extremely beneficial to his work in Baltimore. He
needed a person who was dedicated and capable of writing
the editorials in the Genius of Universal Emancipation while
he himself worked toward securing subscribers and recruiting
personnel. The young Bennington editor seemed to be the
person for the job. Accordingly, Lundy laid his proposal
before Garrison, who promptly accepted.58
The idea of emancipation work with Lundy provided a
medium for Garrison to express his own views concerning sla
very. Without warning to his readers, the Journal of the
Times for March 27, 1829, carried his valedictory. In that
article Garrison stated that he had been invited to occupy
a "broader field, and to engage in a higher enterprise:
that field embraces the whole country—that enterprise is
in the behalf of the slave population."59 The edition
58The exact time and place of Lundy's invitation to Garrison remain a point of controversy. One idea is that Lundy walked to Bennington to talk to Garrison. See Korngold, Two Friends of Man, 30; Wolf, On Freedom's Altar, 19; Garrisons, W. L. Garrison, 120, An opposing idea is that Lundy did not go to Bennington but put the proposal before Garrison when they met in l828. See Birney, J. G. Birney, 389-1 0 6. For Lundy's account, which is slightly different from any of the others, see Lundy, Life, 28.
59Journal of the Times, March 27, l829.
3k
which carried the article also marked the end of the six
months' contract which he had signed with the men who had
first approached him.
Thus the editor took leave of his readers in order
to move to Baltimore to be "the humble instrument of break
ing at least one chain, and restoring one captive to liberty:
it will amply repay a life of severe toil."
Garrison left Bennington for Boston in April, I829.
He was to remain there for a short time and was then to join
Lundy in Baltimore. Lundy had to travel to Haiti to take
twelve freed slaves to settle there. The two men were to
meet in Baltimore in late July or early August of the same
year*
Garrison took residence in Collier's rooming house.
While there he met William Goodell, a man who had great in
fluence on Garrison before the latter left Boston. Goodell
advocated Immediate abolition of slavery. He disliked and
distrusted the American Colonization Society, which had been
founded in I8I6 by supporters of antislavery. The original
pxirpose of the society was to return Negroes to Africa.
However, with the passage of time the society shifted its
emphasis to colonizing merely the free Negroes rather than
trying to gain freedom for slaves. It was widely popular in
the North as well as in the South until l833, when it was
bitterly attacked by abolitionists.
60 Journal of the Times, March 27, I829.
35
Garrison wrote in I829 that immediate emancipation
was out of the question. " . . . no rational man cherished
so wild a vision.""-^ However, Goodell was a rational man,
and Garrison listened to his ideas and thought about them.
Before he left for Baltimore, he had decided to advocate im
mediate abolition of slavery.^2 Perhaps Goodell was not
fully responsible for Garrison's sudden change, but he un
doubtedly influenced his decision to a great degree.
While in Boston Garrison and Goodell called on sev
eral of the city's ministers trying to start some sort of
movement in favor of the slaves. They experienced much the
same reception that Lundy had received the previous year.
The ministers readily admitted the evil of slavery, but
since most members of their congregations either held slaves
on Southern plantations or were in sympathy with persons
who did, the ministers were not willing to make any commit
ment toward positive action. Garrison, however, was asked
to make the annual Fourth of July speech to be given in the
Park Street Church. His address was not the usual flowery
speech on the greatness of the Declaration of Independence.
Instead, it was a damning indictment of those who claimed
"•^Garrisons, W. L. Garrison, I, li|0.
^ye. Garrison and Refonners, 21;. Nye also points out that Garrison as well as Lundy had some doubts concerning the "colonization scheme" of gradual emancipation before this time. See also Garrisons, W. L. Garrison, I, ll+O.
36
to believe in the equality described in the Declaration but
TfAio enslaved the Negroes."3 Garrison was not at his ora
torical best, but when he had finished his speech, Boston
was aware of the presence of the brash young man."4 The
city might have taken warning from the speech of this awkward
young orator who would be heard, a boast which was later to
make Garrison famous.
When he arrived in Baltimore, his ideas were quite
different from the ideas of the man whom Lundy had hired to
be resident editor of the Genius of Universal Emancipation.
After discussing Garrison's immediate emancipation theory,
Lundy could not advocate the idea publicly. He did enter
tain grave doubts about the colonization society, but he
felt that the coimtry was not ready for immediatism. A com
promise plan was worked out so that Lundy would sign his
initial to his articles, and Garrison would do the same for
his own. At best this situation was strained. Lundy advo
cated one method for freeing the slaves, while Garrison be
lieved and taught another. Lundy proved right in his belief
that the co\intry was not ready for the idea of immediate
emancipation. At least, Lundy's readers were not ready. As
soon as they began to read the new editorial policy of the
Genius, they began to quit reading that paper. Cancellations
^3ijational Philanthropist and Investigator, July 22 and 29, lB 9"I
^Boston American Traveler, July 7, 1829.
37
came quickly. Garrison's introductory article entitled "To
the Public" brought many of those cancellations. The ar
ticle contained the propositions of the new editor, among
which was: "the slaves are entitled to immediate and com
plete emancipation: consequently, to hold them longer is
both tyrannical and unnecessary."^5
The idea of immediate emancipation was not completely
foreign to the readers of the Genius. Liindy had serialized
Elizabeth Heyrick's pamphlet entitled, "Immediate, not Grad
ual Emancipation" in the Genius for December 3 and 10, 1825*
However, Lundy was convinced that the country would not ac
cept immediate emancipation, and he continued to advocate
gradual emancipation. °"
As Garrison worked in Baltimore, he noticed more and
more that the ships which carried the slaves from that dis
tribution center to the plantations farther south were from
his native New England. When he noticed that a ship owned
by a resident of Newburyport, his old home, was to sail with
a cargo of slaves, he issued a bitter attack on the owner,
Francis Todd. The captain of the ship did not escape the
scathing pen of the insulted young editor. In the Genius for
November 13, 1829, Garrison enlightened his readers concern-
6^ ^The Genius of Universal Emancipation, September 2, 1829.
^^illiam Birney believes that Lundy had advocated immediate emancipation for several years prior to this date. His views are expressed in Birney, J. G. Birney, 389-i|.06.
38
ing the fact that the Francis, the name of Todd's ship, had
sailed with a cargo of seventy-five slaves. He ended his
revelation with this bit of prophecy: "Next week I shall
allude more particularly to this damning affair." As he
had promised, the following Genius carried an article which
was seething with anger toward Francis Todd. Speaking of
Todd and the captain of his ship. Captain Brown, Garrison
wrote:
Of Captain Nicholas Brown I should have expected better conduct. It is worse to fit out piratical cruisers, or to engage in the foreign slave trade, than to pursue a similar trade along our own coasts; and the men who have the wickedness to participate therein, for the purpose of heaping up wealth, should be SENTENCED TO SOLITARY CONFINEMENT FOR LIFE; they are the enemies of their own species—highway robbers and murderers; and their final doom will be, unless they speedily re-pent, to occupy the lowest depths of perdition.87
Garrison's anger had not been satisfied with the re
velation of the fact that Todd and Brown were slave trans
porters, but he continued in the same article to imply that
they had always made money this same way. He declared that
many in Newburyport had wondered how Todd had made such suc
cessful trips to New Orleans when others could not do the
same. "The mystery now seems to be unravelled." This
latter statement was more than Garrison could prove and
more than Todd could tolerate. He answered the charge with
a lawsuit against Garrison, Lundy, and the Genius for libel.
1829. 68
^'The Genius of Universal Emancipation, November 20,
Ibid.
39
The facts in the case proved that Todd was correct in his
accusation, for he had never transported any slaves before
his well-slandered trip of November, 1829.^9
The trial of Maryland versus Garrison for "contriving
and unlawfully, wickedly, and maliciously intending, to
hurt, injure and vilify . . . . " Francis Todd began on
March 1, I830. It was very short, and the time taken by
the jury to return a verdict of "guilty" was shorter. The
penalty assessed was fifty dollars plus costs, making the
total fine nearly one hundred dollars. Garrison could not
pay; so on April 17, I830, he entered the Baltimore jail.* ^
He charged that he had been imprisoned falsely and
contended that he had not received an impartial trial.
Both of these accusations had some validity, but he had li
belled Francis Todd, and he was in jail in lieu of the pay
ment of the fine.
While in jail Garrison had free access to most of
the building and even had dinner with the warden several
times. He was allowed as many visitors as would come to
see him, and he walked around the building and visited with
them freely. He was also furnished with pen and ink which
he used for correspondence. He wrote a series of lectures
which he planned to deliver when released. He also composed
^^Garrisons, W. L. Garrison, I, 170 n.
7Qlbid., 171.
40
poetry on the walls of the jail. Arthur Tappan, a New York
merchant, heard of Garrison's sentence and decided to inter
vene. He paid the fine, and Garrison went free after seven
weeks of confinement.71
The Genius had been suspended before the trial. The
last issue under the joint editorship of Lundy and Garrison
was dated March 5, I830. The editors decided that the part
nership would not work, and the last edition saw Garrison's
valedictory. Lundy began publishing the Genius again as a
monthly a few weeks after the trial. Garrison never wrote
regularly for it again.
After his release from jail. Garrison Went to New
York to visit Arthur Tappan. From New York he traveled to
Boston and then to Newburyport. He had planned to give his
series of lectures in most of the churches in the cities he
visited, but he found that their doors were closed to any
radical reform such as immediate emancipation. He found on
ly one place in which he could deliver his lectures, and
that was controlled by infidels. Though he had once writ
ten articles against infidels, he quickly accepted their
help. He was willing to de-emphasize his former position
concerning unbelievers in order to get his message against
slavery before the people. He was active in the reform
cause; he had suffered for that cause; he had a message of
71lbid., 190-191.
rmrw^mm^t
in divine importance designed to save the souls of people lost
in ignorance and sin. Garrison was now a full-fledged Puri
tan reformer.
With the beginning of the Liberator, which Garrison
first issued on January 1, I831, a new chapter began in his
life. He had learned that those to whom God had given spe
cial revelation concerning sin bore the divine responsibil
ity of enlightening the world. His Puritanical concept of
truth and his duty to reform evil were uppermost in his
mind, and Garrison prepared to fulfill his duty to God and
his fellow man.
CHAPTER II
REFORM
When you do a thing because you have determined that it ought to be done, never avoid being seen doing it, even if the opinion of the multitude is going to condemn you. For if your action is wrong, then avoid doing it altogether, but if it is right, why do you fear those who will rebuke you wrongly?
Epictetus
In the course of human life, most individuals adjudge basic
tenets by which they live. People live by principles which
are either their own or learned from others. Man's nature
is not one which enables him to live without principles or
goals. All of the world's great moral teachers have taught
in substance that "Man shall not live by bread alone."
When William Lloyd Garrison had reached the age of
twenty-six, he had decided to dedicate his life to the cause
•of freeing slaves. He had already suffered humiliation and
defeat in the form of the Baltimore jail, but his will was
undaunted. He would have agreed with Epictetus, who wrote:
Sickness is a hindrance to the body, but not to the will, unless the will consent. Lameness is a hindrance to the leg, but not to the will. Say this to yourself at each event that happens, for you shall find that though it hinders something else it will not hinder you. 2
Garrison had developed a philosophy of undeterred
nine.
^Matt. i|:4.
2Epictetus, The Manual of Epictetus, aphorism number
42
U3
will earlier in life. Consequently, when he made up his
mind, adversity could not induce him to change. He had giv
en his pledge before God and his country that the libera
tion of the enslaved Africans would always be uppermost in
his pursuits.3
After his release from jail in I83O, he decided that
he would have to start his own paper if he were to be able
to enlighten his brethren concerning slavery. He decided to
issue his paper, the Liberator, in Boston. A more fitting
location could not have been chosen. Boston was the city
where Garrison had bragged that he would one day be known;
this was the city where he had become convinced that imme
diate emancipation was necessary; this was the city of his
first major address, which was a tirade against slavery;
this was the city which was to reject Garrison for many
years, but finally was to become his stronghold. Boston
had several qualities which made it a good home for the Lib
erator. It was a city where great emphasis was placed on
faith; God and religion were held in high esteem. Reformers
were active there, and antislavery had been received favor
ably if not actively.
Garrison did not limit his agitation to slavery. He
took an active part in the reforms of religion, woman suf
frage, nonresistance, and others. The goal of chapter two
3Journal of the Times, January I6, I829.
kk
of this essay is to portray Garrison in some of these re
forms. The reader will note a definite trend in Garrison's
agitation. He always moved from his moral position to the
extreme of radicalism.
ANTISLAVERY
Garrison issued the first Liberator on January 1,
1831* His first editorial contained a summary of his plan
for fighting slavery. Writing of the harsh language he
was determined to use, he announced:
1 am aware, that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation . . , I am in earnest—I will not equivocate—I will not retreat a single inch—AND I WILL BE HEARD.4
Garrison did not mince words concerning his stand on imme
diate emancipation.
In the Park Street Church, on the Fourth of July, I829, in an address on slavery, I unreflectingly assented to the popular but pernicious doctrine of gradual abolition. I seize this opportunity to make a full and unequivocal recantation, and thus publickly to ask pardon of my God, of my country, and of my brethren the poor slaves, for having uttered a sentiment so full of timidity, injustice, and absurdity.5
Dwight Lowell Dumond has written that this latter statement
is far more important than the former.^ This emphasis upon
immediatism was new to Boston. Others had preached anti-
^Liberator, January 1, I831* I^il*
"Dwight Lowell Dumond, Antislavery, the Crusade for Freedom in America (Ann Arbor, 1961)
very, , 169.
45 slavery previously, but total and immediate freedom was Gar
rison's new idea, and he shocked Boston with his new de
mands .
That Garrison was courageous enough to start the pa
per has startled some, for
. • . this man in a garret, without a dollar or a single subscriber or a dozen sympathizers with his undertaking, set up and struck off with his own hands sheets that were considered incendiary.7
When the Liberator first appeared, there were few peo
ple in the United States who advocated immediate emancipa
tion.° Garrison was something of a pioneer in this field.^
There were others who believed in immediatism, but no one
was widely writing or advocating it as Garrison proposed to
do. Several years were to pass before the idea of immediate
emancipation became the accepted theory €unong the proponents
of antislavery. People were distrustful of the abolition
ists for many years.^^ Hazel Catherine Wolf has pointed
out:
In 1834 • * * abolitionism frightened many Americans. William Lloyd Garrison's insistence upon immediatism was not only dividing active abolitionists over the
^Lorenzo Sears, Wendell Phillips, Orator and Agitator (New York, 1909), 20-21';
o For information concerning some of these people, see
Nye, Garrison and Reformers, 25.
^von Hoist called Garrison the "foimder" of American abolitionism. See von Hoist, Constitutional History, I, 22Ij..
• Alice Pelt Tyler, Freedom's Ferment, Phases of American Social History to i860 (Minneapolis, 19Ui|), 499-500.
U6
question of how and when to free the slaves; it was also leading to charges that abolitionists would flood the North with free Negroes, that they encouraged intermarriage, in short that abolitionism was a threat to the Constitution and the American Way of that day.^1
Before Garrison could enter into the editorship of
his new paper with full force, he had to decide upon some
method of action* The most pressing questions were whether
to be violent in denunciation of the slaveholders or to
adopt the gentle language of Lundy. He had to decide fur
ther what kind of method he was to advocate in freeing the
slaves. The answer to the first question was simple; he
would denounce the slaveholders and attach epithets to them.
In a letter to Samuel J. May written shortly after Garrison
had founded the Liberator, he stated:
Until the term 'slaveholder' sends as deep a feeling of horror to the hearts of those who hear it applied to any one as the term, 'robber,' 'pirate,' 'murderer' do, we must use and multiply epithets when condemning the sins of him who is guilty of 'the sum of all villainies.»12
Garrison's language was harsh. He many times at
tacked individuals rather than philosophies. When an anony
mous correspondent pestered him "with some crude advice"
regarding his bitter language. Garrison wrote: "My language
is exactly as suits me; it will displease many, I know—to
displease them is my intent!on."•'•3
• • Wolf, On Freedom's Altar, 55-56.
• The letter is quoted in part by Korngold, Two Friends of Man, 51-52. "The sum of all villainies," is a phrase which John Wesley attached to the system of slavery.
^3L!berator, March 26, 183I.
MMMni^^H^^_i -— • •"- :;-;r>-rt7"*'^JIflnMBHPimX
hi Garrison's moral background forced him to decide to
advocate moral "suasion" instead of physical force. How
ever, as Ralph Korngold points out concerning Garrison's
"suasion":
When Jesus of Nazareth called the Pharisees 'fools,' 'hypocrites,' 'devourers of widow's houses,' 'serpents,' 'generation of vipers'—and asked, 'How can ye escape the damnation of hell?'—he was obviously not using moral suasion, but moral pressure. This was the method Garrison decided to adopt.ln
This attack upon slavery worked no better for Garri
son than it had for Jesus. It did little toward convincing
the South that slaveholding was sinful. The outcome of his
agitation was to convince the North of the evil of slavery
and to bring public sentiment aroiuid so that when Abraham
Lincoln freed the slaves, he was only reflecting public
opinion. Archibald H. Grimke once said, "The public senti
ment which Lincoln obeyed, ^Garrison and ^ Phillips cre
ated. "^5
After deciding how he was to attack slavery. Garrison
was ready to begin publication. This he did with something
of a martyr complex. He was convinced that some abolition
ists would be killed for their ideas, and he was quite will
ing to be one of the first. He once said:
A few white victims must be sacrificed to open the eyes
•^^orngold. Two Friends of Man, 5l.
^5Quoted in Korngold, Two Friends of Man, 52.
18
of this nation and show the tyranny of our laws. I expect and am willing to be persecuted, imprisoned and bound for advocating African rights; and I should deserve to be.a slave myself if I shrunk from that duty or danger.-^^
The Liberator interjected a new vigor into the abo
lition cause. No longer were the slaveholders and slave-
traders to be without continued brutal criticism. No longer
was the system of slavery to be attacked and the individuals
idio practiced it ignored.
Garrison began at once to agitate for the abolition
of slavery in the nation's capital. He called the slave
holders by name and attached some of his long list of epi
thets to them. They became "vipers," "hellish fiends," and
"murderers."
Few people noticed the small paper at first. The
subscription list grew slowly, and the majority of the sub
scribers were "free people of color" who lived in the north
ern cities.-^' The Liberator blazed away with its harsh
editorials, and the editor, spurred by his Puritan zeal, did
not doubt that it was a great success. Garrison was quite
dedicated to his work. In his first issue he published a
poem (a practice which he repeated many times in the fol
lowing years) which showed this dedication. The last six
lines of the poem declare:
I swear, while life-blood warms my throbbing veins. Still to oppose and thwart, with heart and hand.
• Ibid., 45. " Nye, Garrison and Reformers, i|9.
49
Thy brutalizing sway—till Afric's chains Are burst, and Freedom rules the rescued land,— Trampling Oppression and his iron rod: -p Such is the vow I take—SO HELP MY GODI-'-°
The editor of the Liberator was making few friends
and fewer subscribers when on August 13, l83l, an itinerant
Negro preacher named Nat Turner led a slave insurrection in
Southampton, Virginia. Fifty-seven white people were left
dead in the wake of this rebellion. The revolt started a
draught of fear which paralleled that of the Reign of Terror
in France at the close of the previous century. Southerners
were terrified, and they did not know what had caused the
uprising. Finally, Governor Floyd of Virginia, speaking be
fore the Virginia legislature in December, I831, announced
that the Nat Turner rebellion was "\andoubtedly designed and
matured by unrestrained fanatics in some of the neighboring
states." Garrison was one of the most unrestrained fanatics
in the states, so the blame immediately fell upon him and
his "radical" paper.^9 The charge was untrue and just as
libelous as the one for which Garrison had spent seven weeks
in jail. The truth of the assertion was not seriously ques
tioned. Garrison was a scapegoat, and the southern papers
grasped the charge.
•^^iberator, January 1, 1831*
-^^arrison had nothing to do with the insurrection or with inciting the Negroes to revolt. However, the circulation of An Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World, written by David Walker, an obscure free Negro, during 1829-1830, may have had some influence on the slaves. How widely the pamphlet circulated among the Negroes is unknown.
TEXAS TCCHMOLOCICAL COULEE
50
He became the target for many southern vocal blows.
Rewards were offered for his arrest; he was threatened with
violence; his name was slandered, and
Consequently the South received, from its own press, the impression that Garrison represented a far larger Influence in Northern anti-slavery circles than he did, and thousands of Southerners who had never heard of Garrison before Nat Turner's revolt laid the responsibility for it at his office door.20
Garrison had said that he would one day be known;
fame had found him at last. Overnight the North was told
that this "unrestrained fanatic" was an undesirable. When
the South could tolerate this infamous writing no longer,
the mayor of Boston was asked to do something about Garri
son. With difficulty the mayor, Harrison Gray Otis, found
the rather obscure editor who was the object of such fury.
Otis informed Senator Robert Hayne of South Carolina (Hayne
had demanded that Otis take action against Garrison) that
neither Garrison nor the Liberator had any influence among
the respectable people of Boston. The matter was dropped
21 for the moment.
Garrison continued his controversial paper. He did
not use pictures or headlines. The material he printed
was from other writers as well as from his own pen. He cop
ied many articles from other papers and often commented upon
them. At times, he printed, without comment, some of the
charges made against him. The charges were usually so mis-
^^Nye, Garrison and Reformers, 3. - Ibid., 55*
51
directed that comment was unnecessary. There were different
sections to the Liberator, including a ladles' section, a
section of news entitled "The Journal of the Times," a sec
tion for poetry, and the familiar section of advertisement.22
The North came no closer to accepting the idea of im
mediate emancipation than it had previously, but the north
ern public became aware of the idea. Most northerners seem
ingly continued to support the colonization society until
1833, when Garrison and other abolitionists dealt it a tell
ing blow.
Several authors today contend that had the South been
less vocal concerning Garrison's paper, that it, as well as
its editor, would have vanished into obscurity. One such
author, Alice Felt Tyler, has written:
It is a rather amusing commentary of the state of opinion of the day that the Liberator was made famous by its Southern enemies rather than by Northern adherence to its doctrines. Mailed to the editors of more than a hundred periodicals, it aroused furious comment— coupled with a reprinting of its most radical statements—in the editorial columns of every important Southern paper. 3
The Liberator was never free from the charge that it
contained too much material unrelated to the cause of abo
lition. Garrison never gave up his ideas concerning tem-
For detailed information concerning the make-up of the Liberator, see Joseph A. Del Porto, A Study of American Anti-Slavery Journals, 82-84, 90 ff. This is an unpublished doctoral dissertation written at Michigan State College, 1953* It is available on microfilm through inter-library loan from that institution.
3Tyler, Freedom's Ferment, U86.
52
perance, peace, and woman suffrage. Every idea that he had,
he generally wrote about. When he changed his views con
cerning any subject, he was very vocal about his new ideas.
The pages of the Liberator suffered from a lack of clarity
and direction. Whereas Garrison should have directed his
writing toward a central theme, it usually reflected the
thought of a muddled mind. He seemed incapable of concen
trating on one idea to the exclusion of all others.
Russel B. Nye noted this and pointed it out by writing:
A reader never knew what new cause he might find suddenly spread out in its pages. Quincy, who often served as editor in Garrison's absence, complained that the paper had no editorial policies at all; it was a 'higgledy-piggledy' sheet, hastily made up, carelessly written, mirroring the mood of the moment. Quincy was quite right, and the reason was easy to see. The Liberator was Garrison's journalistic alter ego, reflecting . . . his own hastily made up, \mpre-dictable mlnd.25
The charges that the Liberator printed unrelated ma
terial and that Garrison's language was too violent became
sources of discord within abolitionist ranks. After l8U0
this trouble and subsequent division over participation in
politics were so great that the abolition ranks were split;
24por example, during the span of one month in I838, the Liberator contained articles on the following subjects: a peace discussion in Pawtucket, the Indians, the rights of women, the right of petition, the West Indies, Christianity and its professors, the temperance boarding house, and the destruction of Pennsylvania Hall in Philadelphia. Also printed were an address by Garrison concerning Elijah P. Lovejoy, a sermon by Rev. N. Gage of Haverhill, Massachusetts on "Slavery," and a sermon by Beecher on dueling. See the Liberator, July 6, 13, 20, 27, August 3, I838.
25Nye, Garrison and Reformers, 13U*
53
the abolitionists spent the next twenty-five years fighting
among themselves.
On January 6, l832, in the basement of a church situ
ated on Boston's "Nigger Hill," a group of men formed the
New England Anti-Slavery Society. Garrison had long desired
such a society, but irntil that night he had been unable to
find enough people to make the nvimber he considered neces
sary to form the society. This number he had decided should
be twelve. Two meetings had been held earlier, but of the
fifteen who had met, only ten had favored forming a society
dedicated to immediate emancipation. The others considered
it premature and would not co-operate. However, Garrison
had pushed for the society, and at the previous meeting com
mittees had been formed to draw up a constitution and pre
amble. At the meeting held on January 6, the preamble was
read, and the number required to satisfy Garrison signed the
document. Thus, Garrison was one of the leaders in founding
26 the New England Anti-Slavery Society.
The growth of the abolitionist movement was pheno
menal. Within two years the American Ant!-Slavery Society,
a national society, had a membership of nearly a quarter of
a million. It had agents in the field founding new local
societies at the rate of one per day and was sponsoring sev-
^^or details concerning the founding of the New England Anti-Slavery Society plus the constitution and declaration of the society, see the Liberator, February l8, 1832, and Garrisons, W. L. Garrison, I, 277"ff*
eral lecturers as well as several papers. Garrison held the
office of corresponding secretary for a short while. How
ever, he found the office too burdensome and retired from
the elected leadership. He relinquished little real author
ity, since he controlled the New England vote.
The idea of immediate emancipation grew with the
founding of the New England Anti-Slavery Society and the
American Anti-Slavery Society, which was established in
1833* However, the idea of colonization of the freed slaves
in a foreign country or territory was very widely accepted.
The churches, which were made up of slaveholders or their
sympathizers, were the major opponents of immediate emanci
pation* The main goal of the colonizationists was to rid
the country of the free blacks rather than to abolish slav
ery* In order for the immediatists to gain predominance,
they had first to expose the true goals of the American
Colonization Society. Garrison contributed to this end in
1832 when he wrote a pamphlet entitled Thoughts on Coloni
zation. ' This pamphlet was written to expose the true in
tentions of the exponents of colonization, and it served
its purpose well. Many of its members deserted and joined
the abolitionists.
27The complete title of the booklet was Thoughts on African Colonization or An Impartial Exhibition of the Doctrines y Principles and Purposes of the American Colonization Society, Together with the Resolutions, Addresses and j emons trance3 of the Free People of Color J
The colonizationists were strong in England, so Gar
rison decided to do something about that situation. He de
cided to go to England to expose the colonizationist agent
who was there on a money-raising tour* Garrison had no
funds for such a voyage; therefore, he did what he consid
ered the best thing to finance the trip; he went on a lec
ture tour denouncing the colonization society. The free
Negroes flocked to hear him, and their money came with them.
He collected enough for a one-way ticket to England; the re
turn fare he would consider when the time came.28
Once in England he proceeded to denounce the coloni
zation society in bitter terms. The leaders of the aboli
tion movement in Great Britain listened carefully, and by
the time Garrison left, every one of the leaders of the
British abolitionists (except Clarkson) had denounced the
colonizationists. The Boston editor ended his stay in Bri
tain by borrowing the money to ret\irn to the United States.
He was successful in England and sailed for America with the
2Q blessings of the British.
After disposing of the influence of the colonization
society. Garrison turned his attention toward the abolition
movement. He began to attack bitterly those who would not
support immediate emancipation. The South denounced Garri-
^^Garrisons, W. L. Garrison, I, 330, 331 n.
29por details concerning Garrison's success in England consult ibid., I, 3i|9-379*
56
son just as angrily as he denounced the South. He was un
fairly charged with almost every charge that could be given
a person of low character. He was accused of inciting the
Negroes to riot, of lying, of being an infidel, and of deny
ing the inspiration of the Bible. He was not above calling
names and attaching epithets, but neither were his opponents
The South long before this time had erected its defenses
against the idea that there might be some evil in slavery.
Many Southerners hated Garrison for his unconditional con
demnation of their inhuman institution.30
"Garrison" became a name of opprobrium, and his doc-
trines--"often misrepresented and misquoted--became symbols
of aggression. To the Southerner every antislavery msin was
31 a Oarrisonian abolitionist."-^
N'ot all of the criticism of Garrison came from the
South. In the North opposition began to grow. At first
members of the clergy who had been colonizationists were
the major critics. They were soon joined by others who dis
liked the intemperance of Garrison's language and his bring
ing other reform causes into the abolition movement. Many
denounced him for advocating the rights of women, whom Gar
rison believed should be equal to men. However, a new
charge began to be made against him. This was the charge
30There is much evidence to support this conclusion. Per a summary of most of it, see Tyler, Freedom's Ferment, 1|70-1|76. ~ "
3^Tyler, Freedom's Ferment, U86.
57
of trying to gain too much power. Garrison at this time had
not completely denounced the Constitution, nor had he been
influenced by the perfectionist ideas of Noyes. Noyes' in
fluence on Garrison's views concerning human government and
organized religion (plus the accusations discussed earlier)
led to the division of the American Anti-Slavery Society.
The growing attacks upon Garrison did not happen acci
dentally. There were some people and groups who naturally
sought to destroy him. The clergy looked for a charge that
they could hurl against him, and they found that many peo
ple, including some of the most influential in the antislav
ery society, did not appreciate his harsh language. Garri
son's children, considering this charge in their biography
of their father, wrote:
The disaffection in the anti-slavery ranks towards Mr. Garrison on account of his 'harsh' and 'unchristian* language . . . had not escaped the clerical supporters of the Colonization Society.32
By 1834 the attacks on Garrison's language were com
ing from all sides. Toward the end of that year, they be
came particularly bitter.33 The trouble not only afflicted
the recognized opponents of slavery, but did so "much more
grievously than the daring transgression of the Southern
kidnappers, or the wrongs and sufferings of our immense slave
32Qg pj gQj g V/, L. Garrison, I, 468.
33Liberator, December 27, l834«
58
population . . . . "34
Through l834 the attacks grew in intensity. Some
thing seemingly had to be done about the obvious division
in the antislavery ranks. Tappan wrote to George Thompson
on January 2, l835i
The fact need not be concealed from you that several of our emancipationists so disapprove of the harsh and, as they think,the un-christian language of the Liberator, that they do not feel justified in upholding it.35
From this letter of Tappan we can realize that the
criticism of Garrison had shifted from merely a disagreement
concerning the language he used to a criticism that this was
unchristian. True is the old adage: "If the criticism of
the individual brings not the desired result, criticize him
religiously; if this fails, criticize his motives."
Criticism of Garrison continued through I836, but it
seemed to have no visible results. Most of the critics con
tinued to work diligently in the antislavery cause, but be
neath the apparent calm brewed trouble. The year 1837 was
the time when this trouble was first to disrupt the national
society. In that year a group of clergymen issued a proc-
34 Ibid., January I8, l834*
35George Thompson was a British abolitionist who was sent to this country to work for antislavery. He was a brilliant orator but seems to have lacked the same power of logic which had escaped Garrison. Thompson was a militant follower of Garrison, but his stay in America was one of tvirmoil. He was stoned, driven out of towns, threatened with violence, and finally left the country when his plans for agitation proved fruitless and hopeless. Lewis Tappan to George Thompson, January 2, 1835* This letter may be found in the Boston Public Library.
59
lamation called The Clerical Appeal.3^ In effect the appeal
and the pastoral letter closed the doors of the Congrega
tional Church to the abolitionists. This action was a direct
result of the bitter attacks which Garrison had made against
the clergy and the fact that he had brought other reforms
into the abolition work. The basis for attacking Garrison
had shifted from his harsh language to his religious ideas.3'
From this time until l840 the ranks were dividing.
Garrison consolidated his position as a leader in the so
ciety by getting women admitted as voting delegates to the
national antislavery conventions. The opposing faction,
vfliich supported the officers of the national society, tried
to keep the abolitionists working together, but their ef
forts accomplished little. The schism began to widen, and
the organization divided into factions, much to the delight
of the South. The effectiveness of the abolitionists was
reduced to a fraction of what it had been before the divl-
3"The full title of this document was An Appeal of Clerical Abolitionists on Anti-slavery Measure's. This appeal was issued to bolster a previous document that had been issued by the clergy of New England entitled A Pastoral Letter of the General Association of NassachuseWs to the Orthodox Congregational Churches. Issued in July, 1^37, the Pastoral Letter was published in the Liberator for August 11, 1537. The Clerical Appeal was reprinted at the same time.
- 'For detailed information concerning the background, motives, authors, and aims of The Clerical Appeal, see Garrisons, W. L. Garrison, II, 133-137*
The Appeal seemingly tried to strengthen the control of the minister over his church. Garrison had stated that churches should force the ministers to make antislavery announcements, etc.
60
sion occurred. The split was effected by l837, but it was
not final and open until l840, when Garrison gained control
of the national society. The other leaders of the society
resigned to form the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery So
ciety. 3° Thus the forces were divided; the next twenty
years saw the battle. With the coming of the Civil War the
two factions once again co-operated to some degree.
RELIGION
William Lloyd Garrison was introduced to religion by
his mother, who had been turned out of her parents' home be
cause she had become a member of the Baptist Church. His
mother was pious, and she had definite ideas which she im
parted to her youngest son. She taught him to be positive
that he had the truth by using the test of faith. Fanny
Garrison had driven her husband to desert her by her con
stant nagging concerning the use of liquor. She had done
the same thing to her oldest son, James, when the boy began
to drink rxrm. which was given to him as part of his wage.
Besides the idea of faith which she gave to William, Fanny
also taught him that there could be no compromise with evil.
Garrison learned that he alone could define that term.
When he was imprisoned for libel in I830, Garrison
was very orthodox in his religious views. After he had been
3^The leaders of the American Anti-Slavery Society were Arthur and Lewis Tappan, Amos Phelps, and others.
61
released, he decided to go on a lecture tour and deliver
antislavery speeches. However, when he reached New Eng
land, he found that the religious leaders were in sympathy
with the slaveholders and would not allow him to use their
churches for antislavery meetings. When he arrived in Bos
ton, Garrison could not find a place from which to speak.
Finally, he was offered a hall by the First Society of Free
Enquirers, whose leader, Abner Kneeland, was an atheist.
Garrison accepted the offer, though
It was only a couple of years since Garrison had written about 'the depravity and wickedness of those . . . who reject the gospel of Jesus Christ,' but he now saw no reason why he should 'reject the co-operation of those who . . , make no pretense to evangelical piety' when 'the religious portion of the community are indifferent to the cries of suffering humanity.'39
Thus Garrison was forced to the conclusion that reli
gion was one of the centers of slavery's defense. However,
he did not immediately denounce religion, for his training
had taught him that the church was a holy institution which
was a necessity to the nation.
As Garrison began to work, he noted that the churches
were the most bitter of his opponents. Most members of the
clergy had been members of the colonization society, and
they resented the agitation for immediate emancipation.
When the colonization society was attacked with such force
that most of its influential leaders began to desert it.
39Korngold, Two Friends of Man, UU.
62
the churches' true intentions were exposed. They had re
mained colonizationists because they were in sympathy with
the slaveholders. The churches' uncompromising attitude led
Garrison to denounce all organized religion as being foreign
to Christ's teaching.
Even though he attacked religion. Garrison retained
deep respect for the Bible all of his life. When he dis
covered in 1831 that the New York General Tract Depository
had issued thirty thousand copies of the Bible for dona
tions mostly in the Mississippi Valley, he was elated. He
composed an article on that subject, and after a long eu
logy of the Depository, he wrote:
Take away THE BIBLE, and our warfare with oppression, and infidelity, and intemperance, and impurity, and crime, is at an end: our weapons are wrested away— our foundation is removed—we have no authority to speak, and no courage to act,40
Besides his respect for the Bible, Garrison con
tinued his belief that prayer could solve most problems,
and he often referred to that subject in speeches and his
writing. Speaking to a Fourth of July audience, he once
stated: "Prayer is omnipotent: its breath can melt ada
mantine rocks—its touch can break the stoutest chains."
After he had repudiated organized religion, he still held
to the idea. His children remark that he many times had
^^Liberator, April 2, l83l.
^•^Garrisons, W. L. Garrison, I, 136 ff.
63
*aiiiily prayer in their home. His works abound with nota-
:lcns "that a certain person offered a particularly good
prayer, or a certain meeting began with a prayer. In his
Delief in prayer and the Bible we can see Garrison as he
sought some form of religion which would war against slav
ery. He sought it in the organized churches, but he was
consistently rebuked. Failing to find this fusion of reli
gion and antislavery. he took some ideas from John Humphrey
Noyes and added what he desired to them. The result was
radical.
Garrison never veered from the abolition course which
he had decided was God-directed. He held a view concerning
the churches, which was openly antagonistic toward them.
For,
Believing that unless the churches officially adopted an openly abolitionist stand they were actually aiding slavery. Garrison attacked in turn each denomination which failed to do so, and eventually concluded that organized churches were useless and sinful.^'^
The year l835 was a decisive one for Garrison; that
was the year in which the facts about the churches and slav
ery were forced home to him. In Boston, churches and ves
tries were closed to abolition meetings, even when the meet
ings were to be held for prayer. The notices of the meetings
of the antislavery people were suppressed in the churches.^
^^Russel B. Nye, Fettered Freedom (East Lansing, 19U9), 13-14.
^3Liberator, April 11, 1835*
oq.
In another step to defeat the abolitionists, the Methodist
bishops of New Hampshire circulated a pastoral letter warn
ing against co-operation with abolitionists.^^ In New York
the American Bible Society disclaimed any connection with
the abolitionists. It even went so far as to seek praise
for its refusal to place Bibles in the hands of Southern
slaves and failed to recommend that the local branches of
the society do so.45 in Philadelphia the Baptist General
Tract Society forced its agents to agree not to meddle with
the slavery question.4" Garrison himself was a Baptist; he
could hardly tolerate repudiation from the others in the
religious field, but from his own church, it was unbearable.
This insult from his own church was not the only one
which it handed him during that year. The Baptist General
Convention (eighth Triennial) was appointed to meet in the
spring of 1835 at Richmond, Virginia. At this meeting the
Baptists were forced to render an answer to an address from
•the Board of Baptist Ministers in and near London. The ad
dress had been sent to the Baptist churches in America urg
ing them to join the abolitionists. The American board
refused to comply on the grounds that
. . . slavery was not originated by the American colonies, and that hence both the nation and the free States were guiltless in regard to it; that Maryland, Kentucky, and Virginia were endeavoring to get rid of the system;
^Ibid., October 31, 1835*
^5ibid., November 28, l835* ^^Ibid,
fW^f^VW trnv^m * • II W*wmfi^ wm^mf^. mv.
65
that slaveholders knew best the true interests of the negro; that emancipation was hazardous and must be gradual; that what was needed was calm and affectionate argument; that agitation would divide the Northern and Southern Baptists.47
Other churches followed the example.
The Presbyterian General Assembly insxilted the aboli
tionists also. When it met in Pittsburgh during 1835, it
referred all of the petitions on slavery to a committee
which was composed chiefly of Southerners. The committee
decided that a report should be made at the next assembly.48
During the same year the Synod of Virginia reported that
"the dogma that slavery was sinful was 'contrary . . . to
the clearest authority of the word of God.»"^°
When Garrison looked over the religion of the day, he
found that every church, regardless of denomination, advo
cated the same view as did Alexander Campbell, "a reputed
vicegerent of the Almighty," who Garrison said proclaimed
the divine right of slavery and the impiety of interference
with it.50
^^Ibid., March l4, 1835* The reply of the convention was not published by that body. Instead, the London Baptists who had sent the original letter encouraging the American Baptists to join Garrison and the abolitionists published it in their small paper. Garrison saw the request and the American reply and published both of them in the Liberator.
48The general policy of the Presbyterians was one of upholding slavery and condemning the abolitionists.
49Liberator, November l4, 1835*
5Qlbid., April 30, 1836.
66
The list of examples of the churches turning against
) abolitionists could be extended, but these will suffice
show that the trend was very discouraging to V/illiam
?rison. -
With the weight of his Puritan conscience urging him
b to turn against religion. Garrison moved away from or-
Ddoxy. In 1835 he condemned nineteenth-century Chris-
anity in these terms:
It is a fact, alike indisputable and shameful, that the Christianity of the 19th century, in this country, is preached and professed by those who hold their brethren in bondage as brute beasts I and so entirely polluted has the church become, that it has not moral power enough to excommunicate a member who is guilty of MAN-STEALING! Whether it be Unitarian or Orthodox, or Baptist or Methodist, Universalist or Episcopal, Roman Catholic or Christian, it is full of innocent blood— it is the stronghold of slavery--it recognizes as members those who grind the faces of the poor, and usurp over the helpless the prerogatives of the AlmightyI At the South, slaves and slaveholders, the masters and their victims, the spoilers and the spoiled, make up the Christian churchI The churches at the North par-take of the guilt of oppression, inasmuch as they are in full communion with those at the South. To each of them it may be said—'When thou sawest a thief, then thou contentedst with him, and hast been partaker with adulterers.' And the plain command to each of them is •Wherefore, Come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.'52
5-*-For more information concerning the anti-abolition sling in the churches, see the Liberator, January 9, fil 30, May 21 and 28, June 11 and Iti, August 8, Octo-? 8 and 29, and December 6, I836.
52Liberator, March l4, 1835*
67
This passage is extremely important in that it shows
vftiat Garrison had begun to think concerning religion. It
contains some of the ideas which he was to develop more
fully. For instance, note that Garrison quotes the passage
of scripture which exhorts the faithful to "come out from
among them" ^the churches_y, an idea which Garrison advo
cated in later years. The closing sentence is one in which
Garrison saw the "signs and commands" which he later used
to substantiate his perfectionist ideas.
He moved away from orthodox religion when he wrote
the article quoted above. He was condemning the recognized
religion of the day. We should note here that he did not
condemn Christianity, but merely the nineteenth-century ver
sion of it. However, when Garrison's own Baptist Board of
Foreign Missions decided not to accept immediate emancipa
tion, he almost gave up hope for organized religion. He
decided that-the orthodox churches were "Disgraces to Chris
tianity . . . heathenish, filled with apologies for sin and
sinners of the worst sort . . . predominantly corrupt and
servile." The Methodist Church became a "cage of unclean
birds and a synagogue of Satan"; Congregational clerics
were "implacable foes of God and man"; Presbyterians and
Baptists he summed up by saying that they were controlled by
black-hearted clergymen who "connived with slaveholders,"53
53por a summary of Garrison's charges against religion, and for the epithets which he labelled the churchmen, see Nye, Garrison and Reformers, 108-109*
00
Garrison was convinced that the Christian churches
were the centers and main pillars for American slavery. He
was also convinced that an "oath-taking, war-making, man-
enslaving religion" was then being passed off as Christianity
in New England, and the Liberator was exposing this corrup
tion. 54
When the members of the orthodox churches of New Eng
land read some of the charges that Garrison had made against
them, they decided to answer the charges of this brash edi
tor whom the newspapers were already calling the "Prince of
New England Infidelity."
The split was wide between the churches and the Oar
risonian abolitionists. It had not become a final breach,
but that situation was soon a reality. In June, l536, Lyman
Beecher, whom Garrison had greatly admired earlier, made a
speech against the desecration of the Sabbath. Garrison had
written articles on the subject when he was younger. Now he
could not tolerate Beecher's words. Beecher had not preached
antislavery sermons and thus, according to Garrison's rea
soning, was not a Christian. Garrison answered Beecher's ar
gument in a letter to Mrs. Garrison dated July 2, l836. He
declared that to make the Sabbath this important was merely
making one day of the week more important than the others.
He reasoned that every day should be consecrated to Jehovah.
^^Ibid., 108.
69
He continued, "Let men consecrate to the service of Jehovah
not merely one day in seven, but all their time, thought,
actions and powers."55
This tirade against Beecher and the Sabbath was not
the last of Garrison's statements concerning that day. He
had once refused to receive or send mail on Sunday lest he
break God's law, but he announced in the Liberator that
"keeping the Sabbath as a holy day" was simply "an outworn
and foolish superstition." He continued by stating that he
intended to expose this fact in the columns of his paper.
Boston had been shocked by this bold editor long be
fore this time, but now he had outdone even himself.
Garrison's tirades against the clergy had only begun.
As time passed, he developed a deep, abiding distrust for
organized religion, which he kept for the remainder of his
life. He hurled charges against the clergy only to have
that body classify him as the "anti-Christ" and the "ally of
the devil." He did not discard religion and accept nothing
in its place. He had been reared in the tradition of reli-
glon, the Bible, Christ, and prayer. They were part of his
life. He had not experienced life without an emphasis on
these things. He was incapable of living without memories
which we all integrate into our lives and make part of our
personalities.
55This letter is quoted by Garrisons, W. L. Garrison, II, 108.
70
Thus when Garrison renounced the orthodox churches,
the stage was set for him to accept some different theory by
which to live. His past experience demanded some religion
in order to continue the personality which had been formed
under its influence. He did not abandon his fundamental be
lief in the Bible and prayer. Long after the split with the
churches and even after the division with the other aboli
tionists, he wrote concerning the "Book of Books":
In a true estimate of the divine authority of the Scriptures, nocne can go beyond me. They are my text-book and worth all other books in the vmiverse. My trust is in God, my aim to walk in the footsteps of his Son, my rejoicing to be crucified to the world, and the world to me.56
In 1837 Lloyd Garrison met John Humphrey Noyes. Noyes
was a member and founder of the religious group known as the
Perfectionists. Their doctrine essentially was that no human
government should exist (Christ would reign over the earth)
and that man should be completely free from sin in this life
(thus the name, "Perfectionist"). On March 22, l837, Noyes
wrote a long letter to Garrison in which he outlined his pe
culiar ideas.^' Noyes' theory of the perfect life lived
above sin appealed to Garrison.
There is some evidence supporting the idea that Garri
son was turning toward Perfectionism even before the influ-
5^iberator, March l4, l835*
- 'The letter is too long to reproduce here, but it can be read in the Liberator, October 13, l837, where Garri son reprinted it.
71
ence of Noyes determined that he would definitely veer that
direction. In 1836 Garrison wrote a letter to Samuel J.
May in which he delivered a long condemnation of the Chris
tian churches. He ended the letter by stating: "Blessed
be God that I am not entangled with their yoke of bondage,
and that I am not allied to them in spirit or form."^ At
this early date he considered that he was not "allied" to
the religionists of the day. There is no statement of what
he did believe at this time, and the fact that he continued
to write and talk in the same form which had occupied him
the previous year lends credence to the assertion that he
was not sure what he believed concerning religion. We do
know for sure that he considered himself separated from or
ganized religion.
He seems to have developed some strong feelings
against religion by 1837* He did reject some orthodox ideas
dviring the time that he was fighting the religious groups.
In a letter which he wrote to George W. Benson on Novem
ber 19, 1835, Garrison showed a certain disrespect for the
idea of a national day on which men should be thankful for
their gifts from God. In this letter he wrote:
I am growing more and more hostile to outward forms and ceremonies and observances, as a religious duty, and trust I am more and more appreciating the nature and en-
58yiiliam Lloyd Garrison to Samuel J. May, September 23, 1836. All letters are to be found in the Boston Public Library. A copy on microfilm is in the possession of the author.
72
joying the privileges of that liberty wherewith the obedient soul is made free.-'"
The "liberty" which Garrison mentioned in the above
excerpt seems to be the idea that he had been liberated from
sin. He considered himself an "obedient soul" and believed
that he had been made free from the appeal of sin.
The next significant religious change in Garrison
was induced by Noyes. That Garrison was quick to accept
the new ideas is obvious in his personal correspondence and
in the Liberator's editorials. He quickly adopted Noyes'
views, and they became his own. Illustration of this fact
Is very pointed in a passage from a letter written by Garri
son to Henry C. Wright on April 16, l837. Less than a month
after he had received Noyes' letter. Garrison wrote to
Wright concerning religious ideas:
MY OWN /emphasis mine/ are very simple, but they make havoc of all sects, and rites, and ordinances of the priesthood of every name and order. Let me utter a startling assertion in your ear--There is nothing more offensive to the religionists of the day than practical holiness; and the doctrine that total abstinence from sin, in this life, is not only commanded but necessarily obtainable, they hate with a perfect hatred, and stigmatize entire freedom from sin as a delusion of the devil! Nevertheless, 'he that committeth sin is of the devil! . . . For by one offering he hath forever perfected them who are sanctified.'^0
No word of any sort is given to indicate that Garri
son had taken his logic from Noyes. Garrison had seemingly
59wiiiiam Lloyd Garrison to George W. Benson, November 19, 1835.
^^William Lloyd Garrison to Henry C. Wright, April 16, 1837.
73
given some thought to the ideas of perfectionism before this
time, but his logic and proof were certainly from John Humph
rey Noyes.^1-
To affirm that Garrison was completely captivated by
the ideas of Noyes is inaccurate. Noyes believed many things
vhlch Garrison could not have accepted. Noyes' ideas on free
love and his desire to live apart from the world among his
followers were ideas that Garrison never entertained. He had
no need for such beliefs. Louis Filler has written: "Noyes'
sexual theories did not frighten him /Garrison/. They did
not interest him."^2
At this point we can summarize and conclude that Gar
rison was forced first of all to admit that there was much
wrong practice in the religion which he had considered di
vine. He began to distrust certain of the leaders of the
religious world when they began to attack what he considered
his personal calling, abolition. When he found that at
tackers labelled his language "unchristian," he began to ad
vocate that certain practices long held by the clergy—
sanctity of the Sabbath, communion with slaveholders—were
Wong, man-made, and essentially evil. He further declared
^Icompare the Noyes letter. Liberator, October 13, L837, with Garrison's statement of his own view. The two ire too similar to be coincidental considering the short period of time between Garrison's receiving the one and Tlting the other.
^^Louis Filler, The Crusade Against Slavery, l8U0-l860, editors Henry Steele Commager and Richard D. Morris 1 ^ York, I960), 120.
71;
the orthodox churches to be the pillars of American slavery.
Garrison did not tolerate opposition to immediate
emancipation or criticism of his language from the clergy.
He dropped his belief in organized religion, but because of
his particular individual training and experiences, he could
not cease to believe in some type of religion. He was not a
person who could drift without something to which he could
dedicate his spiritual self. He developed a system of reli
gion to replace the one he had rejected. His new religion
kept Jesus Christ, the Bible, prayer, and other facets of
Christianity which he considered essential. It discarded
any type of organization, the clergy, church buildings, the
idea of a sacred Sabbath, and all formality. Garrison's
final concept of religion was summarized in a letter which
he wrote to his wife in I838:
. . . in Christ Jesus all stated observances are so many self-imposed and unnecessary yokes; and that prayers and worship are all embodied in that pure, meek, child-like state of heart which affectionately and reverently breathes but one petition--'Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.' Religion, dear Helen, is nothing but love—perfect love toward God and toward man—without formality, without hypocrisy, without partiality—depending upon no outward form to preserve its vitality or prove its existence."-
William Lloyd Garrison was a changed man by I838.
Not only was he a non-religionist, but also an anarchist.
The former street beggar was now widely known.
The founder of immediatism had become somewhat fa-
^%illiam Lloyd Garrison to his wife. May 12, 1838.
w^if^^mm'f • • I m .1 ill I .1 n i m » • .!•
75
natical, and many of his followers were not willing to ac
cept his new ideas. The division which resulted destroyed
the effectiveness of the antislavery workers. The clergy
whom Garrison loved so well as a youth—and had even con
sidered joining—became men degraded in his sight. He
summed up his feelings for the clergy with these words:
We have held up the American clergy, as a body, as the deadliest enemies of the 'holy and heaven-appointed' Institution of marriage, of the Bible, the weekly sabbath, the christian church, and ministry, and of revivals of true religion . . . . ^4
When we examine the position of the clergy during
this era, we can readily understand that it did not meet
the needs of many of the people. The rich, the upper so
cial class, and the clergy were many times working for the
good of each other. The poor factory worker in the North
6« and the slave in the South had little need of religion.^^
Industrialists used it to help persuade their mistreated
^Liberator, June l8, l84l.
^5por evidence of the exploitation of the poor by using religion, see Harvey Wish, Society and Thought in Modern America (New York, 1950), I, 2b0-2«2; II, 149. This exploitation developed even more with the coming of the great industrial growth beginning with the Civil War. Also see Merle Curti, The Growth of American Thought (New York, 19l|3) . The situation had grown so bad by IbYY that Henry Ward Beecher could state in the New York Times; "l do not say that a dollar a day is enough to support . . . a man and five children if a man would insist on smoking and drinking beer . . . But the man who cannot live on bread and water is not fit to live," Beecher's annual salary was $20,000. See Wish, Society and Thought, II, lU9. For religious and pro-slavery thought, see Clement Eaton, The Rise of Southern Civilization (New York, 196l) and W. S. Jenkins, Pro-Slavery Thought in the Old South (Chapel Hill, 1935), 2001T:;
76
workers that their plight was heaven-made and that they
should be satisfied. The Southern slave owners used the
'^pie-in-the-sky" promise of heaven to help keep many slaves
subjected. After all, only the good slaves would receive
"glory," and all the evil or disobedient ones were to re
ceive an eternity of everlasting hell, heaped upon them by
the great Christian God of love and mercy. To state that
there were no conscientious attempts to better the souls of
the poor would be false. However, the fact that the poor
were exploited by the rich, who used religion in that ex
ploitation, cannot be denied. William Lloyd Garrison was
forced to see this incongruity and the the abuses that it
tolerated. When he did so, his scorn was great enough to
cause him to label the religion of the day false to New
Testament Christianity, and interpreted by our standards
today, he was right.
GOVERNMENT
How Garrison was attacked by churchmen and how he
moved to a radical religious position has been demonstrated
In chapter one. It has also been shown how he caused a di
vision in the antislavery ranks because his views concerning
religion and government were unpalatable to many of the oth
er members of the American Anti-Slavery Society. The sec
tion on religion would seem to indicate that religion was
the only area which caused division. This is the result of
trying to emphasize one aspect of Garrison's work and life
((
to the exclusion of other areas.
As in religion. Garrison was very interested in poli
tics during his youth. He wrote articles on the subject; he
attended party meetings; he edited a newspaper advocating
the election of John Quincy Adams to the presidency; and he
advocated changing the Constitution of the United States to
abolish slavery. When he realized that most political lead
ers were turning deaf ears to him and his followers, who he
felt represented millions of people who had no other repre
sentatives, he turned to his acrid pen to denounce all forms
of government. The mistake that he made was the same mis
take made by many reformers; his opposition to things he be
lieved to be evil was too bitter. He did not merely advocate
change for improving the government, but he became somewhat
reactionary and demanded abolition of all government. He be
came disillusioned and condemned all politicians and all
political action. His answer to political complacency was
moral action to convince the politicians that they were
wrong. Any other form of agitation for change was automa
tically unacceptable. Once again we see the dominant theme
of black and white. Since I have related most of the impor
tant aspects of the political life of Garrison before l83l,
I shall begin this portion of this study with his founding
of the Liberator.
When he founded the Liberator, he had few friends and
even fewer followers. His idea of immediate emancipation was
r
78
accepted rapidly after the founding of the New England Anti-
Slavery Society in l832. Before a long period had elapsed,
he had begun advocating a national antislavery society.
One of the characteristics of most abolitionists was
a disrespect for certain laws. Arthur Yoimg Lloyd has writ
ten:
From the beginning the group showed a decided disrespect for the Constitution and the laws of the United States, for they maintained that any law which admitted the right of slavery was 'utterly null and ,/• void . . . and . . . ought to be instantly abrogated.
Most of the abolitionists disregarded the fugitive slave
laws, but the majority of them favored the Constitution and
desired to use it to abolish slavery.
The Garrisonian abolitionists had little reason for
accepting the power of the government. Either they had to
speak lofty words and fail to live up to them, or they had
to usurp the power of the government over them and disregard
the law. Their attitude certainly resembles the higher law
theory. God must be obeyed before men. This reasoning
seemingly fits well into Puritan thinking.
Garrison first advocated that the government change
the laws and abolish slavery in the District of Columbia.
He began to circulate petitions to this effect while in Ben-
Arthur Young Lloyd, The Slavery Controversy (Chapel Hill, 1939), 53-54. The quotations are from the Declaration of Sentiments and Constitution of the American Anti-slavery Society, d-9. The document was drafted at Philadel-o iave ry phi a , D ecember 6, l 833*
79
nington, Vermont, d\iring 1828. After I830 he began to de
mand that the Congress abolish slavery in the nation's capi
tal. When none of his efforts to gain freedom for the
slaves in Washington gained recognition. Garrison decided
to take more drastic action.
When he made his much-publicized trip to England in
1833, he took with him fuel for the fires he wanted to kindle
against the United States government. He needed something
drastic to shake the American abolitionists and politicians
out of their lethargic slxjmber. In a speech before the
British abolitionists in Exeter Hall, Garrison spoke the
words which startled many Americans and caused slaveholders
to shout treason. His speech contained these words of accu
sation against the United States:
I accuse her of insulting the majesty of Heaven with the grossest mockery that was ever exhibited to man—inasmuch as, professing to be the land of the free and the asylvim of the oppressed, she falsifies every profession, and shamelessly plays the tyrant.
I accuse her, before all nations, of giving an open, deliberate and base denial to her boasted Declaration, that 'all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.'
I accuse her of disfranchising and proscribing nearly half a million free people of color, acknowledging them not as countrymen and scarcely as rational beings, and seeking to drag them thousands of miles across the ocean on a plea of benevolence, when they ought to enjoy all the rights, privileges and immunities of American citizens.67
^"^Liberator, November 9, l833*
80
Southern papers, as well as the Liberator, printed
Garrison's speech. A bombshell of criticism burst when the
American public received the news. There was the demand,
especially in the South, for legal action against him. Lit
tle thought was given to the idea that the charges he had
made contained some truth. Truth in the South could be rec
ognized as such only when it defended slavery. In the North
the political leaders did not stop to examine the accusa
tions; they merely denied that they were true. From all
over America came the criticism which Garrison could not
understand. Some abolitionists joined the ranks of the crit-
Ics. Garrison fumed, but he would not retreat an inch.
He served warning to northern politicians that they
would face the combined antislavery vote if they did not
begin to agitate in Congress for the abolition of slavery
in the capital. He had now expanded his demand to include
the new territory which the United States was opening. He
waved his political threat in the pages of his paper. He
,minced no words, and he once again proved to be right when
he penned:
THE IMMEDIATE EMANCIPATION of the slaves in the District of Columbia and the Territories is to be made A TEST AT THE BALLOT-BOXES, in the choice of representatives in Congress . . . no man who is a slaveholder will receive the votes of conscientious and consistent abolitionists, for any station is the gift of the P©9n ple--especially the Presidency of the United States.^^
^^Ibid., December 27, 1834.
81
The friends of slavery were not idle while Garrison
was at work. They wanted to put an end to the distribution
of the Liberator and other antislavery materials in the
South. In July of l835, some citizens of Charleston broke
Into the post office and took possession of mail which they
considered incendiary. A meeting was called the next night,
and the antislavery literature was b\u?ned. The authors were
hanged in effigy.^" The Postmaster of the United States,
Amos Kendall, did nothing about the abuse of the law and
seemingly encouraged the action. His ambiguous statement
to the post master at Charleston, "I cannot sanction and
will not condemn the actions you have taken," left the ques
tion in controversy. He openly declared that he was in sym
pathy with the Charleston mob and that he felt the materials,
if incendiary, could not be delivered."^^ This type of dis
crimination prompted John Quincy Adams to write in his diary
for August 11, 1835:
There is something extraordinary in the present condition of parties throughout the Union. Slavery and democracy—especially the democracy founded, as ours is, upon the rights of man—would seem to be incompatible with each other.71
^^For the full account of the events, see the Libera-tor, August l5, 1835, and for the following meetings, see the ECberator. August 22, 1835*
7%ye, Fettered Freedom, 5U-69. Nye gives a good account of arguments used to support both sides of the mailing question.
'• John Quincy Adams, Memoirs. Quoted by Garrisons, HL L. Garrison, I, I|.87.
82
The protest from citizens in the North was great.
For southerners to attack one man was tolerable, but now
their section was going too far; it was destroying personal
liberty and freedom of the mail as well as discriminating
against the North. Here was practical proof that the gov
ernment of the people and by the people was not protecting
some people from special interests. Garrison, bellowing
with wounded pride and a just claim, roared in the pages of
the Liberator:
All Pandemonium is let loose--that insanity which precedes self-murder has seized upon the mind of the nation, 'for whom God purposes to destroy he first makes mad'--the American Constitution, nay. Government itself, whether local or general, has ceased to extend the arm of protection over the lives and property of Americaji citizens--Rapine and Murder have overcome Liberty and Law, and are rioting in violence and bloody excess—all is consternation and perplexity, for perilous times have come.'2
The abolitionists desired protection of their mailing
rights, and the federal government refused to provide it.
President Jackson even advised Congress to pass a law pro
hibiting the circulation of the incendiary mail. This ban
ning of the abolitionists' mail was not the only thing that
caused the North to think twice about the treatment of a
minority group. The state governments of the South were
offering tempting rewards for the leading abolitionists.
Five thousand dollars was offered for the delivery of Garri-
72Liberator, August l5, l835. Garrison wrote this only a few days after the events took place in Charleston The references in the quotation refer to the events in that southern town.
83
son to the South. He was tried in absentia for crimes rang
ing from inciting riots and disturbing the peace, to encour
aging the Negroes to revolt. None of these charges was
true. Garrison was a pacifist; he did not advocate violence
in any form.'- He explicitly exhorted slaves not to kill
their masters or revolt. He did not feel that the slaves
would avenge themselves, and he repeatedly warned them
against it.
In a letter to Thomas Shipley, Garrison showed that
he had a good understanding of the situation concerning the
lack of protection by the government. After listing the in
sults to which the abolitionists had been subjected in the
preceding months—being tarred and feathered, slandered,
beaten, stoned, their meetings broken up, and prices put
upon their heads. Garrison spoke of a movement to legally
deprive foes of slavery of their civil liberties: " . . .
there is a loud clamor for the passage of laws that shall
deprive us of liberty of speech and liberty of the press .
"74 . • .
At this time Garrison did not openly advocate the
abolition of the federal government. Instead, he believed
that the Constitution should be amended so that the pro-
slavery influences would be abolished. He believed that the
73Garrisons, W. L. Garrison, II, 219-276.
74william Lloyd Garrison to Thomas Shipley, December 15, 1835* Quoted by Garrisons, W. L. Garrison, II, 6I4..
81+
abolitionists should work for such an amendment. He real
ized that the national law demanded that the North return
any runaway slave foimd within its borders to the owner.
The abolitionists, as well as many other northerners, would
not obey this law. Garrison wrote to Shipley concerning the
subject:
Most cordially, too, do I agree with you in your views respecting the duty of procuring an amendment to o\ar national Constitution—of that part of it, which is wet with human blood, which requires us to send back into bondage those who escape from the lash and chain. It makes us as a people, and as a State, the abettors of human degradation and soulmurder; and shall we not, if possible, by a constitutional process, blot out that bloody stain?'>
We can conclude beyond reasonable doubt that Garrison
tried to make the best of the situation within the frame
work of the government. He was not advocating abolition of
the government; he was demanding change. Only when change
did not come did he reject all h\;mian government.
Change, for the government, was almost impossible.
The South continued to harass the abolitionists. The south
erners passed more strict state laws controlling the Negro,
They biorned mail and refused to deliver abolitionist liter
ature. The southern legislatures began to pass more legis
lation restricting travel rights of the abolitionists and
allowing southerners to deal with the "treacherous enemies
of peace" in a severe way. Once again the North was anta-
'5ibid. Also see the Liberator, November 28, l835.
85
gonized. Where was the freedom which was every American's
to enjoy? Where was the protection guaranteed him by the
Constitution? These questions and the obvious answers aided
Garrison in becoming more anti-government. Writing in the
Liberator, the "Prince of New England Infidelity" hurled
charges and satirical retorts at the South. When criti
cized for his attacks upon the government and his disunion
views, he cynically responded:
Sir, we loudly boast of our free country, and of the Union of these States. Yet I have no country! As a New Englander, and as an abolitionist, I am excluded by a bloody proscription from one-half of the national territory; and so is every man who is known to regard slavery with abhorrence. V/here is our Union? , . . The right of free and safe locomotion from one part of the land to the other is denied to us, except on peril of o\ir lives! . . . Therefore it is, I assert, that the Union is now virtually dissolved . . . . 76
The strange thing that many of Garrison's critics
overlook is the fact that he was right. When the govern
ment of any nation fails to protect the principles upon
which it was founded, then that nation and that government
are virtually dissolved. The United States is formed upon
the idea of freedom for the individual--freedom for him to
worship, think, and move about as he chooses. Of course,
there are restrictive measures keeping him from injuring
another individual's rights, but this is a necessity. When
the South, with the consent of the national government,
denied a basic freedom to a group of individuals because of
"^^iberator, March 26, l836.
• * j i "
86
its ideas, the government virtually destroyed the Union.
The ideas of Thomas Jefferson that evil or erroneous ideas
should be free to circulate as long as truth is free to de
feat them had no place in the "mind of the South." In ef
fect, the South became as guilty of being inflexible as was
Garrison.
At approximately this same time. Garrison was fight
ing the orthodox religious leaders. In his rebellion
against tyranny, he began to superimpose religion upon gov
ernment. He began to consider the idea that Christian obe
dience demands that the individual allow no government to
have control over him. Only Christ could exercise such con
trol.'• Thus the seed was planted for Garrison's idea of
abolishing the government because it used violence to main
tain control over the individual.
The government and abolitionism did not solve their
differences. Members of the American Anti-Slavery Society
continued to be abused. One, Elijah P. Lovejoy, was mur
dered. Many were beaten or stoned or driven from towns.
Even Garrison was dragged through the streets of Boston with
a rope aro-und him, and his life barely saved. His criticism
of the government continued to grow with the abuses which it
allowed. In l840 he introduced this resolution into the
antislavery ranks:
''William Lloyd Garrison to Henry E. Benson, December 15, 1835*
87
Resolved, That slavery has exercised a pernicious and most dangerous influence in the affairs of this Union, from its foundation to the present time; that this influence has increased, is increasing, and cannot be destroyed except by the destruction of slavery or the Union.'°
Thus the breach was official. Long before, the reso
lution condemning slavery and advocating disunion the Gar
risonian abolitionists had agreed that this was the course
to take. In that same year the American Anti-Slavery So
ciety had divided over the question of the power of Garri
son, his intemperate language, the woman suffrage question,
anti-religion, no government, and political action to abol
ish slavery. Garrison had gained control of the society by
the simple measure of packing the convention.
The new society, the American and Foreign Anti-Slav
ery Society, formed by the resigning members of the nation
al society, contended that the way to abolish slavery was
to elect politicians who would do the job. They had long
\irged this course of action, much to Garrison's dismay.
As in religion. Garrison could not abandon govern
ment without something to replace it. His answer was a fu
sion of religion and government. At this time the United
States government was influenced too much by a minority
composed of southerners who gave too little thought to the
interests of the masses. Garrison realized the government
did not satisfy the needs of many of the people. It was not
78Liberator, March 20, l840.
88
protecting the property or lives of many of the abolition
ists. It did not provide for the safety of free Negroes.
The right of petition was denied. Some people did not have »
the right to send mail anywhere they chose. There were
state laws which provided for the arrest of any person
thought to be in sympathy with abolitionists.79 Garrison,
though he saw the abuse of personal liberty, could not sug
gest a logical remedy. He condemned the government and ad
vocated abolishing it and replacing it with a Christian
anarchy which was so impractical that it was absurd. The
idea sounds good in words, but there is no element of logic
connected with it. This religion-government was something
which could not be corrupted, and that was what Garrison
wanted. He was looking for something in which to put his
faith. Lacking something better, he reverted to the one
thing which was of paramount importance, religion. His rea
soning was stated in his usual muddled wording which nobody
really understood. In some vague way he connected peace,
anti-government, and religion and came up with a system
vAiich, to Garrison, was perfectly reasonable. He reasoned
thusly:
Now, if the prayer of our Lord be not a mockery; if the Kingdom of God is to come universally, and his will be done ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN; and if, in that kingdom, no carnal weapon can be wielded, and swords are beaten into ploughshares, and spears into pruninghooks, fiind there is none to molest or make afraid, and no
79 Nye, Fettered Freedom, 56.
89
statute-book but the Bible, and no judge but Christ; then why are not Christians obligated to come out NOW, and be separate from the 'Kingdoms of this world,' which are all based upon THE PRINCIPLE OF VIOLENCE, and which require their officers and servants to govern and be governed by that principle."^
As he had done in religion. Garrison had worked out
a form of government which was "perfect." In theory the
reign of a great God over all of the earth would be desir
able, but this is merely escape from reality. There is
nothing in Christianity to justify such a belief. Garrison
needed something to take the place of government, so he in
vented it and called it true because he accepted it by
faith. He neglected to explain who was to be God's admin
istrator on earth. Garrison believed deeply in religion
and government, but when he realized that neither of these
lived up to his ideals, he abandoned both. When orthodox
ideas broke down, he worked out a perfect system which he
knew to be true because he accepted it by using an intel
lect trained to accept by faith at the expense of reason.
Garrison believed in achieving his goals of freedom
for the slave and abolition of the government by use of
moral action only. He had abandoned his earlier ideas of
forming a Christian political party to agitate for slavery's
abolition. Disillusioned with politics, he had turned away
from all forms of political action and had begun to advo
cate the power of Christ to rule the world. When asked to
compare a moral and a political contest. Garrison wrote in
^QLiberator, December l5, l837.
90
the Liberator:
A political contest . . . differs essentially from one that is moral. In the latter, one may chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight. In the former, profligacy and virtue, good and evil, right and wrong, meet on equal terms. Success depends wholly on numerical superiority.^1
These definitions may have meaning in religion or in
philosophy, but they are not true in reality. Thoreau, in
"Civil Disobedience," advocated working toward a perfect
state in which no government would be necessary. Such a
state cannot be true in reality. Perfection is not attain-
able, for obviously people differ as to what perfection is.
Garrison did not feel that he should abandon politics
for no reason. As has been stated previously, he claimed to
have become a complete pacifist. He felt that human govern
ment was upheld by force and that force was used to control
and limit the individual. He further believed that govern
ment tried to do right at the point of a bayonet. As a re
sult, he decreed that he and his followers should refrain
from partaking of this system of force. And, "If we cannot
occupy a seat in the legislature or on the bench, neither
can we elect others to act as our substitutes in any such
capacity."°2
^^Ibid., January 8, l84l. ft? Ibid., August 3, 1838. This quotation was taken
from the Declaration of the Peace Convention held in Boston, September 18-20, I838. Garrison wrote the Declaration and Sentiments.
91
From the beginning of the movement to create a poli
tical party. Garrison was opposed to the idea. - The offi
cers of the American Anti-Slavery Society proposed to form
a party. One of their chief agitators was Henry B. Stanton.
He taught that all abolitionists had a moral and religious
duty to vote if they were qualified. If they refused, they
should be branded "recreant to the cause of the slave."^U
When these two forces finally met. Garrison claimed
that people should not vote, Stanton claimed they should,
and a bitter feud erupted. Garrison was his usual nebulous
self. When pinned down and asked if he thought it a sin to
vote, he merely replied: "Sin for me." He had evaded the
question very well. He would not make an all-inclusive
statement that voting was sinful in all cases. In his writ
ing he always left the question somewhat unanswered.
A division was necessary. Two forces such as these
could not work in harmony. The climax came when the soci
ety divided in l840.
The rank and file abolitionists realized that poli
tical action was the only possible answer to ending slav
ery. There was no chance to gain control of the southern
legislatures; therefore, they decided to try to elect fed
eral officers;- for the federal government, they believed,
had the power to control slavery. This conclusion they drew
^3see the Liberator, June 2, l837.
Q^Ibid., February 22, l839.
92
from the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which prohibited slav
ery in the Northern Territory. 5 "Wherever one looked, the
road to success pointed toward Washington. Therefore abo
lition, much against Garrison's will, inevitably became in
volved in politics."®^
Garrison, in Boston, advocated disunion. There was
no chance to save the nation. "No union with Slaveholders"
became the motto on the masthead of the Liberator.
The division of the society in l8i|0 left the Garri
sonian faction a vociferous minority. Russell B. Nye is
correct when he states that "after 181 0 abolition was no
longer a moral but a political issue."°' Certainly, the
crusade still had a moral motive, but the way to achieve re
sults was through political action.^" The followers of Gar
rison attacked the political-action group of abolitionists
without mercy. However, many of the new Garrisonian con
verts soon left and joined the abolitionists who favored po
litical action.^9
"5The compromise provided that slavery would be prohibited in the Louisiana Purchase north of a line at 36^30'. The area in the Louisiana Purchase south of the same line would permit slavery.
^^je, Garrison and Reformers, 89. "" Ibid., 131.
°°Certainly Mr. Nye does not mean that slavery was no longer a moral crime. His statement seems to denote the idea that a majority of people associated with abolitionism believed, after l840, that the way to achieve results in their cause was through the ballot box. Obviously the motivating force behind most abolitionists was the belief that slavery was a moral sin against God and man.
"^Nye, Garrison and Reformers, 130.
93
Garrison did not present an official statement con
cerning disunion to the abolition societies before 1842.
At the January, 1842, meeting of the Massachusetts Anti-
Slavery Society, he introduced a resolution dealing with
the disunion issue. However, the strange thing was that he
did not push it to a vote. Perhaps his reason was that he
did not know for sure just what he believed. Though he ad
vocated it, he seemingly never unreservedly believed in dis
union. His actions of I86O-6I support this conclusion. In
those years, which will be discussed later, he wrote vio
lently against the South's right to secede. Furthermore,
he defended the North's right to use physical force to main
tain the union.
The question is, why did he do these things? Why did
he not push his disunion views until the mid-l840's? Why
did he renounce his nonresistance and his secession views in
1861? The answer, I believe, lies in the fact that in the
early l8i|0's he did not believe in disunion as fully as he
thought he did. If he did believe in disunion, how could he
have reversed the views which he had developed over a period
of twenty years within a matter of days? How could a dis-
unionist suddenly become an upholder of the union so quickly?
There was no gradual change. A reasonable answer is that
Garrison did not realize what the success of his idea would
be to the slaves until it came about. These conclusions may
be questioned; they are, however, certainly plausible. There
is no better explanation of Garrison's actions.
94
By mid-1842 Garrison was in need of a more definite
position on the disunion question. Consequently, on May 13,
1.8I|2, the headline-motto of the Liberator was: "A REPEAL OF
rHE UNION BETWEEN NORTHERN LIBERTY AND SOUTHERN SLAVERY IS
ESSENTIAL TO THE ABOLITION OF THE ONE AND THE PRESERVATION
OF THE OTHER." The road for disunion seemed clear. In l8i|3
he forced the vote on disunion in the Massachusetts Anti-
Slavery Society, which he controlled "lock, stock, and bar
rel." The result of the vote was passage by a large major
ity.
The idea was introduced in the American Anti-Slavery
Society in the following year, and after three days of de
bate, the oratory of Wendell Phillips was decisive. The so
ciety was committed to the doctrine.
The abolitionists were relatively quiet for the next
decade. They fought among themselves, and the new Liberty
Party, which was formed by the American and Foreign Anti-
Slavery Society, unsuccessfully ran candidates for Presi
dent, beginning in l840. Garrison's group came under the
Influence of Phillips to such a degree that Garrison was
somewhat in the background.
On April l5, I86I, a great change came over Garrison.
On that day Lincoln called for volunteers to fight against
the South.
The bombardment of Sumter, and Lincoln's call for troops, brought Garrison to the President's support at once. Lincoln's determination to crush rebellion, thought Garrison, called for rejoicing among abolition-
95
ists. Yet the fact that the South had seceded placed Garrison and other disimionists in an awkward position. After preaching disunion for more than a decade, they recognized that to allow the slave states to secede simply meant that slavery would continue to flourish in the South without hindrance.90
Garrison was in a strained position. When the wave
r nationalism spilled over him, he forgot that he was a
Dnresistant and a disunionist. Here was a man who was a
eliever in no human government preaching that the South
id not have the right to secede. The North, he rational-
zed, had the right to desire disunion, but the South was
;ompletely unjustified in seeking it.^^
When the nonresistant question rose. Garrison justi
fied his new position by saying that since he could not con-
irert the northerners to his principles, they had to follow
what they believed. Nor was he being inconsistent, he said,
to hope for their success.
Thus the battle which had raged within Garrison for
Many years was completely reversed. The radical reverted
back to conservatism. The anti-government man became pro-
Lincoln; the nonresistant gave his blessings to his son, who
9^Ibid., 169-170. Garrison made various attempts to reconcile his previous ideas with his new teachings. For a panoramic view of his statements concerning the Civil War and Lincoln's determination to win it, see Garrison's editorials in the Liberator for April 13, 20, 27; May 11, I8; June 1, 15, 186IT Garrison's abrupt change concerning the union can be shown by comparing his editorial of February 17, 1861, with the previously-mentioned editorials.
9lFor a summary of Garrison's reasoning, see Korngold, rwo Friends of Man, 283-285.
96
lecame an officer in the Union army. The violent language
)f the Liberator became temperate and advocated help for
jincoln:
Garrison once again was criticized, this time by his own followers, for . . . all failed . . . to appreciate the fact that even under the Garrisonian attack upon the constitution there was an instinctive love of country that was bound to assert Itself in the face of grave national danger.92
" Annie Heloise Abel and Frank J. Klingberg (editors), A Side-Lif ht on Anglo-American Relations. l639-lo3o (Lan-caster, 192?), 4^« ~
CHAPTER III
CONCLUSION
"In short, I did what I could for the redemption of the human race."
William Lloyd Garrison
The preceding chapters have been designed to convey.
In panoramic scope, the life of William Lloyd Garrison. The
author has attempted to present particular highlights of
Garrison's life, showing how he acted or reacted toward
abettors of slavery.
In this final section, some conclusions will be drawn
concerning Garrison, in light of the facts presented in the
preceding chapters. As a natural consequence of such an at
tempt, the writer has used little new material. The presen
tation of redundant information has been necessary in places,
but it has been used only where it seemed needed.
As was stated in the preface to this paper. Garrison
has been the victim of various accusations. A chief con
tention of his critics is that he was a glory-seeking fana
tic who had little feeling for the Negro. Garrison himself
realized that truth about reformers is almost always exag
gerated. He once said:
The truth is he who commences any reform which at last becomes one of transcendent importance and is crowned with victory, is always ill-judged and unfairly estimated. At the outset he is looked upon with contempt, and treated in the most opprobrious manner, as a wild fanatic or a dangerous disorganizer. In due time the cause grows and advances to its sure triumph; and in proportion as it nears the goal, the popular es-
97
98
tlmate of his character changes, till finally excessive panegyric is substituted for outrageous abuse. The praise, on the one hand, and the defamation on the other, are equally unmerited.1
The "excessive panegyric" or the "outrageous abuse"
if Garrison's motives and actions stems from basic mlsun-
lerstandings of the man.
Basically Garrison was a Puritan. Having been raised
In the Puritan tradition, he was his brother's keeper. His
Bother and the elite of the Bostonian clergy taught him that
8vll was paramount in the world, that he was able to under
stand what evil was, and that he was morally obligated and
commanded by God to enlighten people concerning the coming
judgment. Seeking to fulfill God's implicit charge to go
teach all men. Garrison early in life began to enlighten
the populace concerning the evils of Sabbath desecration,
drinking and smoking. His condemnation neglected no form
of evil. That he would be a reformer was almost inevitable,
for he had never experienced life outside the Puritan shell
designed by his mother.
Garrison constantly searched for an appropriate meth-
^Certainly the author is not condemning all historians as being unobjective. He is merely stating that the personal feelings of any person help limit that person's Interpretation of facts. That this is true in the interpretations of Garrison is shown by the fact that every book of Importance written by southern scholars deals unfavorably with him and his motives. All northern writers, with one exception, pay tribute to him. Certainly northern "cholars differ as to his importance, but they do not de-ttounce or ignore him as southerners do.
99
[by which to fulfill his design to create reform. The
larch ended in l828, when he became an advocate of anti-
Lavery. Before that time he had been printer, editor,
pprentice cabinet maker, cobbler, and errand boy. He had
erlously considered joining the ministry, becoming a poli-
iclan, going to West Point, and soldiering in the war be-
ween the Greeks and Txirks. All of these were contemplated
efore he reached the age of twenty-four.^
That Garrison should consider all of these occupa
tions yet choose reform as his career is not surprising.
le lived in an era of reformers.
The Industrial Revolution was changing the America
ihlch had been a nation of small farmers and artisans. New
factories were rising, and labor unions struggled for the
Legal right to exist. Inventions—Morse's telegraph, the
railroad, McCormick's reaper, Howe and Singer's sewing ma
chine—were helping to make the economy boom. In the midst
)f this prosperity, the common man began to demand a greater
)lace in society.
This was the age of Horace Greeley, whose New York
tribune has been called the "political Bible" of the common
iwi, Greeley fought--among other causes--for labor unions
d against corporation monopolies, for "land to the land-
888," for prohibition, and against slavery.
See Filler, The Crusade Against Slavery, 56.
100
Utopian societies flourished—Robert Owen's New Har
mony, Etienne Cabet and his "Icarians," John Humphrey Noyes'
Oneida, and, less important but more celebrated, the tran
scendental commtinity at Brook Farm. Strange religious no
tions, taught by the Utopians and by others, gained thou
sands of converts. The Mormons, the Shakers, and funda-
mentalist groups prospered.-^
Robert Dale Owen dipped into other popular reforms.
He attacked child labor and the debtor's prison and fought
for free land for the poor. Other reformers worked to rid
the cities of the slums. Dorothea Dix visited mental in
stitutions and wrote of the wretched condition of the in
sane. Headway was made in penal reform, pushed particularly
by the Pennsylvania Quakers.
The elevation of the common man could hardly leave
the rights of women untouched. The role of the upper-class
American woman had been one of a delicate, idle, lovely
creature--the subordinate, not the equal, of her husband.
Women had almost no legal rights, having been declared by
Blackstone to be dependent upon their husbands for legal
standing. Such women as Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady
Stanton, and Lucretia Mott launched campaigns to give women
independent legal status.
^or a concise, though not exhaustive, study of this era, see Tyler, Freedom's Ferment, and Wish, Society and Thought in Early America.
101
This era saw a campaign against the use of liquor. Women
revolted against hard-drinking husbands, especially the
Irish and German immigrants, who worked in the factories.
Temperance workers began to teach that God condemns any
drinking of alcoholic beverages.
Foremost among social reform movements of the nine
teenth century was abolition. Garrison was by no means the
only, or even the most important, of the abolitionists.
Theodore Weld organized local societies of the American
Anti-Slavery Society, trained abolitionist agents, distri
buted antislavery literature, and was an effective lobby
ist. Elijah Lovejoy, an abolitionist editor, was murdered
by a mob in Alton, Illinois. There were also prominent
Southern abolitionlsts--James G. Birney, the Grimke sisters,
and others. Bninent among Negro antislavery workers were
the former slaves, Frederick Douglass, and a remarkable
woman orator. Sojourner Truth. John Greenleaf Whittier
played an active role in behalf of the slave. The tran-
•cendentalists, Emerson, Thoreau, and Alcott, worked against
slavery.
Though Garrison might have become a reformer in any
tge, the early nineteenth century was the era of many men
^0 wished to improve their society.
When in 1827 Benjamin Lundy revealed to his new pro
tege the sin of slavery. Garrison immediately decided to
put his talent into convincing others of this truth. He
'i'v:. . )
102
began condemning slavery. When he moved to Bennington, Ver-
aont, to edit a pro-John Quincy Adams paper. Garrison re
served the right to advocate antislavery in addition to
condemning Jackson. This he did with vigor until his con
tract expired. On that day he resigned to go to Baltimore
to work in the antislavery cause with Lundy. Garrison, in
short, had been converted. He vowed, before God and his
country, that the well-being of the slaves would be upper
most in his pursuits.^ There were brief periods when he
concentrated on some new idea,^ but foremost in his thoughts
was the burning conviction that slavery was a crime, "a
damning crime." He felt the obligation to enlighten the
slaveholders of their sin. Antislavery gave meaning to a
life which had been trained to seek out sin and work for
its destruction.
In teaching him that sin must be eradicated, his
mother and the clergy of Boston had also taught that sin
was defined and determined by faith. The individual, when
condemning sin by faith, could not be wrong. Garrison had
learned well. In l827 he was convinced, by faith, that sla-
^Journal of the Times, January 16, I829.
- One example of this was in l839, when Garrison attended a peace convention. He wrote the Declaration and Sentiments for the nonresistance society formed in that year. However, even though he was a nonresistant in l839, he was still more interested in antislavery. An examination of the Liberator for that year will bear witness to this fact. Also, the latter part of l839 and the early part of l8i|0 was a period when Garrison was working to gain control of the Americsui Anti-Slavery Society.
103
very was a sin. in 1828, by the same standard, he was
equally convinced that immediate emancipation of the slaves
Bust be effected.
However, when Garrison became so engrossed in anti-
slavery that all else became expendable, a conflict quickly
developed. Also using the test of faith, most clergymen
concluded that holding slaves was not a sin. Their answer
was different from Garrison's; obviously, their pupil con
cluded, they were wrong.
At this time, 1829-30, Garrison was at a crossroad
In his life. He had to choose between orthodox religion,
which tolerated slavery, and abolition, which pronounced
slavery a sin. He wavered only slightly and then chose
abolition. By l837 he had rejected all organized religion.
Orthodoxy was expendable when compared to abolition; ortho
dox Christians did not teach the true doctrine of Christ.
Thus Garrison denounced the nineteenth-century version of
Christianity.
In rejecting nineteenth-century Christianity he was
not prompted by the desire for recognition. Nor did a quest
for martyrdom, personal gain, or power, play a significant
role in his actions. He merely desired to eradicate vrtiat he
knew by faith to be evil. He had tried to reform the
churches, but he had failed. When the churches refused to
Join him, he concluded that they were "cages of unclean
birds" and "pillars of American slavery." He did the only
thing that any person with his convictions and in like
10l|
circumstances would do: he rejected what he believed to
be evil.
His rejection of organized religion in favor of abo
litionism was part of a definite pattern in Garrison's life
He firmly believed in organized churches, but he was more
a humanitarian than a believer in orthodoxy. Believing
that God demanded that he stamp out evil, he subordinated
organized religion to abolition. This pattern became the
motif in Garrison's life. If any institution upheld sla
very and would not change. Garrison determined that it must
be annihilated.
This motif is again demonstrated in Garrison's atti
tude toward the government. He believed that the federal
government possessed the authority to abolish slavery. In
stead of aiding in the abolition movement, however, the
federal government, strongly influenced by pro-slavery
southerners, passed more laws sympathetic to slaveholders.
It allowed abolition petitions to go unacknowledged (1838-
1|0) and abolition mail to be burned or go undelivered
(1835). It failed to protect the lives and property of
abolitionists. When the government did not change rapidly
enough. Garrison rejected it. He did so only after it
showed no inclination to aid the abolitionists. Government
was expendable; freedom for the Negroes was not.
Once again when we examine Garrison's position con
cerning human government we find no thoughts of personal
aggrandizement. He merely believed that personal liberty
105
was a gift of God and that to keep slaves was a sin. There
was no doubt that slavery was sinful; therefore, to uphold
it, no matter what motive was used, was wrong. He believed
that right should be pursued without delay.
It appears to us a self evident truth, that, whatever the gospel is designed to destroy at any period of the world,,being contrary to it, ought NOW to be abandoned."
He sought no office, desired no power in the government,
and was not motivated by desire for personal fame. He
merely thought that freedom for the slaves was to be ob
tained, cost what it would.
Nowhere is this thesis so clearly discernible as in
his actions at the beginning of the Civil War. Earlier,
when Garrison had realized that the South had no intention
of ever freeing the slaves, he had begun to advocate forcing
that section to leave the Union. His motto, carried on the
masthead of his paper, had been "No Union with Slaveholders."
Also, since 1838 he had declared that no person or nation
had the right to fight any type of battle, offensive or de
fensive. The principles of Christ superseded the vindictive
7 justice of the Old Testament.' Thus, for twenty years Garrison had advocated nonresistance and division of the Union.
With the outbreak of the Civil War in 186I, Garrison
suddenly realized that to let the South leave the Union
^Liberator, September 2Q, I838.
" Ibid.
106
would merely establish a slave empire forever in a place
where abolitionist influence would not reach. He also be
gan to understand that Lincoln, if he won the war, would
probably emancipate the slaves. Garrison did not falter.
He immediately became pro-Lincoln. He wrote and spoke
against allowing the South to leave the Union. He gave
his blessing to his son, who led a group of Negroes off to
fight in the war. Twenty years of nonresistance and dis
union agitation were changed almost overnight.
Garrison was a realist and thus quickly began up-
holding Lincoln's power to crush the rebellion. Views he
had held for years were expendable; he had found a realistic
method for accomplishing his life's goal.
He was denounced bitterly by friends and enemies for
his sudden change. What they, as well as many writers to
day, failed to realize is that Garrison did not change at
all. He had always believed that human bondage was a sin.
He had dedicated his life to helping free three million
people from "oppression's iron rod." Success was of para
mount importance: to this end every principle was subor
dinated. Garrison felt that he had to succeed, for:
In the clear light of Reason, it will be seen that he /the reformer/ simply stood up to discharge a duty which he owed to his God, to his fellow-men, to the land of his nativity.9
^Compare the Liberator, March, I86I, with April, 186I.
^Liberator, January 2k, l85l.
107
He had struggled for thirty years to obtain freedom for the
slaves. With the goal in sight, everything, including his
own life, was expendable.
This life of duty which he felt he owed to "his God,
to his fellow-men, to the land of his nativity," caused
him much hardship. He was separated from his family for
long periods of time; he worked long, hard hours with little
financial reward; he was confined to jail for a brief pe
riod; he was mobbed, insulted, cursed, threatened, and ridi
culed. In spite of these hardships, there are still those
who accuse him of seeking self-martyrdom or glory. Had mar
tyrdom been his desire, he could easily have arranged that
by entering the South, where he was tried iri absentia and
where large rewards were offered for his arrest. But he
realized that dead men could not help free the nation from
the terrible sin of slavery.
If fame had been his chief reason for becoming an
abolitionist, then the opportunities coming after the Civil
War would have been taken. He met Lincoln several times,
senators sought him, and he was asked to write his autobio
graphy. Instead of fame, he retired from his severe toil.
His life's goal accomplished. Garrison suddenly became an
old man. He lived a quiet life in retirement until his
death in l879.
Garrison remains today a controversial figure among
historians. Some authorities feel that he was of paramount
108
Importance in antislavery work, though one historian has
completely ignored Garrison's work.^^ Obviously I have of
necessity subordinated the great contributions of other abo
litionists, but one fact remains: three million former
slaves were free, and Garrison had helped free them. Faults
he certainly had, yet Garrison had, in short, done what he
could for the redemption of the human race.
lOLioyd, The Slavery Controversy.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Books
Abel, Annie Heloise, and Klingberg, Frank J. (editors). A Side-Light on Anglo-American Relations, l839-l858. Furnished by the Correspondence of Lewis Tappan and Others with the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society"! Lancaster, 1927. Some of the best information found in this book is in the notes which the authors include. The main point of the book is to present some of the papers of Lewis Tappan and some of the British abolitionists. These papers were found by the author, Abel, while examining the files of the Anti-Slavery and Aborigines' Protection Society.
Adams, Alice Dana. The Neglected Period of Anti-Slavery in America, 150^-31> Boston, 190tt.
Barnes, Gilbert Hobbs. The Antislavery Impulse, l830-l8I).l|. New York, 1933. Barnes is one of the leaders of the school which derides Garrison's position in the abolition movement. Barnes' hypothesis is that Garrison had little influence outside his own vicinity and that the true leaders of the abolition movement were the people of New York and the western states. Theodore Weld and the Tappans have important roles in this book. Barnes believes that Garrison was famous only because he had a few friends who preached his fame without cessation. He maintains this and believes that Garrison was famous also because his enemies in the South considered him the voice of abolition.
Birney, William. James G. Birney and His Times, The Genesis of the Republican Farty with some Account ^Abolition Movements in the South before 10^0^New York,
This book is more than just the standard biography of James G. Birney. It has the standard history, including the background, ancestors, childhood,etc. of the man, but also it has a great amount of information concerning the internal struggle which went on within the abolition movement after l8U0. The book is a long attack on William Lloyd Garrison and his influence in the abolition movement. Many of the charges brought against Garrison are hearsay and are
not supported sufficiently. The book suffers from a lack of pointedness. Many pages are devoted to answering charges against Birney, and the real life and times of Birney are lost. The book is recommended for the person who wishes to view the anti-slavery society and the problems which confronted it.
^*^' 19M^* " ^ growth of American Thought. New York,
This book is one of the basic studies in American history. The book is a study, as indicated by the title, of the development of ideas in America. I have found parts four and five particularly valuable to a study of ideas current during the antislavery agitation. For information concerning the dominant ideas following the Civil War, see section seven.
lllon, Merton . Elijah P. Lovejoy. Abolitionist Editor. Urbana, 196I. Dr. Dillon's stated purpose in writing his biography of Lovejoy was to "contribute to an understanding of the pre-Civil War reform movements in general and of abolitionism in particular." The book is well documented and written in a style which is particularly impressive. The accoiint of Lovejoy and his martyrdom in the free state of Illinois while defending his constitutional right of freedom of the press presents an insight into the thinking and the motivation of the abolitionists not found elsewhere.
amend, Dwight Lowell. Antislavery Origins of the Civil War in the United States. Ann Arbor, I960. Professor Dumond has written a book trying to trace the origins of the Civil War. His central theme, that without Negro slavery there would have been no Civil War, is an obvious attack on the revisionists. Mr. Dumond"^s research and knowledge of the pre-Civil War era are astounding. However, his conclusion that Abraham Lincoln was an abolitionist lacks the documentation and logic which are more characteristic of the book.
. Antislavery, The Crusade for Freedom in America. Ann Arbor, 1961.
iton, Clement. The Rise of Southern Civilization. New York, 1961.
Lklns, Stanley M. Slavery, A Problem in American Institutional and Intellectual Life. Chicago, 1959. Stanley Elklns, a sociologist, wrote Slavery after making a study of the type of person produced in a
slave society. The main study of the book is to show the personality characteristics produced by a slave society. However, Mr. Elkins included a section on the intellectual and slavery; this section examines the "guilty innocence" of the intellectuals of the slavery period. There are two appendixes in the book. One is of particular interest to the student interested in slavery. Aopendix B discusses the "'Profitability' of Slavery." The introduction of the book is a limited, though adequate, examination of the literature of the antislavery era.
iller, Louis. The Crusade Against Slavery, 18UO-I86O. Edited by Henry Steele Commager and Hichard B. Morris. New York, I960. This book gives a good panoramic view of the crusade against slavery, but it fails to give elaborate detail. The author spends much time on Garrison and Phillips to the exclusion of some of the lesser lights of the abolition movement. Concerning Garrison, Mr. Filler takes the view that he was not the prime figure that many have made him out to be in the abolition movement. Filler emphasizes the roles of Phillips and Weld.
'ladeland, Betty. J. G. Birney, Slaveholder to Abolitionist. Ithaca, 1955.
rarrison, Wendell Phillips, and Garrison, Francis Jackson. William Lloyd Garrison, l805"l879, The Story of His Life Told^by His Children. New York, ltiti9. This is not a true biography of Garrison, but it is extremely valuable to anyone who wishes to do any research in the abolition field. The four volumes contain reproductions of valuable materials which would be otherwise inaccessible to many researchers. The Garrisons have written an exhaustive panegyric of their father, but I doubt that Birney's charge that the book is "a legal brief filed for posterity in behalf of William Lloyd Garrison" is exactly accurate. I have found that most books written about Garrison lean heavily upon the materials fovind in these books. I certainly have leaned upon this work to a great degree.
erbert, Hilary A. The Abolition Crusade and Its Consequences. New York, 1912.
enkins. W. S. Pro-Slavery Thought in the Old South. Chapel Hill, THT.
orngold, Ralph. Two Friends of Man, The Story of William
as it
j-oyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips and T] ^lonship with Abraham Lincoln. Boston, 1' Tne title of this book is not so accurate as xu could have been. The book actually deals mainly with William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips. Lincoln occupies only a few pages near the end. The main value of the book seems to be in Korngold's research. He has gained a good insight into the character of Garrison. However, though the research is commendable, the student must be aware that the author has tended to slant some of the material. I would hesitate to label this as unscholarly in view of the prestige and academic standing of the author. Any misinterpretation by Korngold is lost in the weight of his contribution to the field of scholarship .
jloyd, Arthur Young. The Slavery Controversy. I831-186O. Chapel Hill, 1939*: I believe that Mr. Lloyd has written a book which would have been more in vogue during the previous century. His book is biased without real evidence to support the biases. Mr. Lloyd's main thesis is that the abolitionists forced the South to make a defense of slavery which it would not have made had the abolitionists not attacked the system so violently. His thesis has little validity and has received much criticism from various sources. Several authors have shown that the idea is without supporting evidence. One such writer is Alice Felt Tyler, in her book. Freedom's Ferment.
Jundy, Benjamin. Life—Travels—and Opinions of . . . . Philadelphia, lttl|7.
lye, Russel B. Fettered Freedom, Civil Liberties and the Slavery Controversy, 1^30 to lb60. East Lansing, 1949.
. William Lloyd Garrison and the Humanitarian Reformers. Edited by Oscar Handlln. Boston, 1955. Dr. Nye is chairman of the Department of English at Michigan State College. His familiarity with the English language enabled him to write in a style which is particularly rewarding. Not only did Dr. Nye write from a good insight into the role which Garrison played in the abolition movement, but he formed basic conclusions which I have found very valuable. I am especially indebted to Mr. Nye for the introduction to the idea of the black and white theme which I have developed in Garrison's life. Mr. Nye introduces the idea in one paragraph, and I have
5
developed it as one of the dominant ideas of Garrison's life.
hneider, Herbert W. The Puritan Mind. Ann Arbor, I960. Proceeding on the thesis that the "final history of anything cannot be written," Mr. Schneider has written a fine book concerning the ideas and facets of P\xritan thinking. Beginning with the concept of the holy commonwealth, Mr. Schneider develops Puritan thinking concerning the wars of the Lord, the Great Awakening, and the fall. He ends the book with a chapter on "Ungodly Puritans." I feel that the book is extremely valuable when examining the thinking of the Puritans.
lars, Lorenzo. Wendell Phillips, Orator and Agitator. New York, 1909I This book is more like a commentary on Phillips' role in the abolition movement than it is a biography. A few pages are devoted to the early life, ancestry, influences on, and education of Phillips, but chapter two begins with the cause in which Phillips was to become famous. Garrison is treated kindly, but the dominant part in the whole crusade is definitely given to Phillips.
lomas, Benjamin P. Theodore Weld, Crusader for Freedom. New Brunswick, 1950. One of the better biographies of the anti-slavery personalities. Much concerning Weld is not known today, and much that we do know we have discovered only in the last few years. Thomas' book is well-documented, and the bibliography is impressive. Weld is given the most important role in the antislavery movement, a role many believe he did occupy.
rler, Alice Felt. Freedom's Ferment, Phases of American Social History to lti60. Minneapolis, 194U. Miss Tyler has written one of the most informative books written on the subject of reform. She discusses the different aspects of American social life up to the Civil War. Included in the book are chapters on the religions, humanitarian crusades, and social aspects of the young republic. The book is well written and is recommended for an inclusive though not exhaustive study of the social problems of America.
n Hoist, H. Constitutional and Political History of the United States. Edited by John Jay Lalor. Chicago, IBBH:
sh, Harvey. Society and Thought in Early America. New
York, 1950.
. Society and Thought in Modern America. New York, 1950:
Wolf, Hazel Catherine. On Freedom's Altar, The Martyr Com-
Slex in the Abolition Movement. Madison, 1952. iss Wolf has written a very valuable book concerning the idea that Garrison was a person who was a martyr by choice. This hypothesis has some validity, but I believe that Miss Wolf tends to be rather selective in the material used in supporting her ideas. At least, I can safely surmise that she overlooks much material which may cast some different light upon the reasoning behind some of Garrison's actions. I do not want to de-emphasize the importance of this book, but merely to inform the reader that there is room for questioning some points in it.
Letters
William Lloyd Garrison to E. W. Allen, June 11, I830. These letters may be found in the Boston Public Library.
William Lloyd Garrison to George W. Benson, September 12, 183U.
Lewis Tappan to George Thompson, January 2, l835.
William Lloyd Garrison to Mary Benson, November 27, l835.
William Lloyd Garrison to Henry E. Benson, December l5. l835
William Lloyd Garrison to Thomas Shipley, December 17, l835.
William Lloyd Garrison to Helen Garrison, July 2, l836.
William Lloyd Garrison to Samuel J. May, September 23, l836.
William Lloyd Garrison to Henry C. Wright, April I6, l837.
William Lloyd Garrison to Elizabeth Pease, November 6, l837.
William Lloyd Garrison to Helen Garrison, May 12, 1838.
William Lloyd Garrison to Samuel J. May, September 8, 1838.
William Lloyd Garrison to Marcus Gunn, July 27, I8U0.
\t* ^ 7 ••1-a.xajn i ioyd Garrison to Joseph Pease, August 3, 18^0.
William Lloyd Garrison to Henry C. Wright, August 23, l8i|0.
Newspapers
Boston American Traveler. July 7, l829.
Free Press. May l8, l826.
Journal of the Times. l828-l829.
Liberator. l83l-l865. SiTrrison's paper has furnished the basis of this study. I have used the articles written by Garrison and many things printed by him to furnish facts and illustrations of ideas. The Liberator's editorials would furnish the basis for a more exhaustive study of Garrison.
Newburyport Herald. l822-l823.
New York Times. June 5, l877.
Salem Anti-Slavery Bugle. November 28, 18^5.
Periodical
Dillon, Merton L. "The Failure of the American Abolitionists," Journal of Southern History, XXV (May, 1959), 162.
Unpublished Materials
Del Porto, Joseph A. "A Study of American Anti-Slavery Journals." Unpublished Ph. D. dissertation, Michigan State College, 1953. This dissertation is of extreme value to the student who is studying the work done in the journalistic field of abolitionism. The thesis oversteps the scope of the title in that it includes much of the controversy which ensued after l8i|0 and much of the dissention which occurred in the abolition ranks before that date. Garrison is given much of the area in the dissertation.
. I llllUMM.LpjpiO.il'J ••.IJIBipil"!W up iiKfHlfi i* i ' i . ' l '"" ' H ^ " " ' " " ' •
8
Minutes of the American Anti-Slavery Society, l833-l8UO. These records may be fo\md in the Boston Public Library.
Minutes of the American Anti-Slavery Society Executive Com-mittee, l837-l8Ul.
Other Sources
Bhagavad-Gita (The Song of God). Renunciation Through Knowledge. "
Bible.
Dickenson, Emily. "The Preacher."
Bnerson, Ralph Waldo. "Each and All."
. "Self Reliance."
Epictetus. The Manual of Epictetus.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Blithedale Romance.
Shakespeare, William. Romeo and Juliet.
Trotsky, Leon. Stalin, An Appraisal of the Man and His In-fluence. New York, 1941.
Turgenev, Ivan. "An Unhappy Girl."