WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON: DELIVERANCE FROM SLAVERY

Mariana Antonio Serrano

NATIONAL HISTORY DAY

February 4, 2020

Word Count: 2238

"My name is 'LIBERATOR'! I propose/ to hurl my shafts at freedom's deadliest foes!/

My task is hard-for I am charged to save/ Man from his brother!-to redeem the slave!"1

With these opening words on January 1, 1831, the very first issue of the abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator, was published in Boston, Massachusetts at No.6 Merchants Hall, "at the corner of Walter and Congress streets" 2 . This paper would circulate around the United States to 3000 subscribers and to many more readers,3 bearing on the front page of every issue its motto," Our country is the world-our countrymen are mankind."4 This newspaper ultimately triumphed in spreading the abolitionist fire to the masses.

The intense zeal that William Lloyd Garrison, editor of The Liberator, held for the cause of the immediate abolition of slavery was the key to his success as an abolitionist. How did

William Lloyd Garrison impact the abolitionist movement? William Lloyd Garrison kept the abolitionist movement prosperous despite damaging failures by way of the publication of The

Liberator, correspondence with other abolitionist groups, and by standing firm, though the very same abolitionists he worked with disagreed with his "radical" viewpoint on abolitionism, because he was insistent on not telling a part of the truth of the immorality of slavery, but the whole truth.

Garrison's beginnings as an abolitionist were rooted in his childhood and adolescence.

Frances, his mother, a strongly religious woman, was the source of Garrison's strong belief that

1 W illiam Lloyd Garrison, "Salutation ," The Liberator, Vol. 1, Issue 1, January 1, 1831. 2 Henry Mayer, A ll on Fire: William Lloyd Garrison and the Abolition of Slavery, ( New York: St. Martin's Press,1998),113. ; The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, "The Liberator", https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Liberator-American-newspaper,(Accessed November 12,2019). 3 Mayer,113. 4 Ibid, 447.

1 slavery was evil. 5 Garrison remembered what his mother taught him about religion and morals, especially about going into spiritual battle and of "deliverance". 6 Deliverance in this context for

Garrison meant deliverance from sin, which is what he saw slavery as, which he stated clearly in a speech titled "No Compromise with the Evil of Slavery".7 These religious lessons were present in the opening issue of The Liberator when he says that he will not draw help from political parties, but from religious organizations so he can defend "the great cause of human rights".8 9 In the same issue, he wrote an original poem called "Universal Emancipation", where he speaks of the difficult fight for freedom of all persons. Garrison believed that not only was the emancipation of the enslaved populus important, but also the emancipatation of free blacks from a social kind of slavery, since most of The Liberator's readers were free black men, Garrison realized their need.1 0 People may have recognized that slavery itself was wrong, but still had a difficult time believing that these free blacks should also have equal rights as the white folk did.

Thus, Frances Garrison's religious lessons carried into William Lloyd Garrison's career as an abolitionist.

The second crucial event that would lead to Garrison's work as an abolitionist was his first successful job as a teenager at a newspaper in his hometown, Newburyport Herald.1 1 He had an apprenticeship there that lasted seven years under Ephraim W. Allen. 12 Allen imparted much

5 "William Lloyd Garrison," B iography.com, A &E Networks Television, 19 June 2019, www.biography.com/writer/william-lloyd-garrison. 6 Mayer, 13. 7 B lackPast, “(1854) William Lloyd Garrison, ‘No Compromise with the Evil of Slavery’ •,” (1854) William Lloyd Garrison, "No Compromise with the Evil of Slavery" •, October 5, 2019, https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/1854-william-lloyd-garrison-no-compromise-evil-slavery/) 8 William Lloyd Garrison, "To the Public," T he Liberator, Vol. 1, Issue 1, January 1, 1831, 1. 9 Ibid, 1 10 11 Mayer, 23 12 "William Lloyd Garrison," B iography.com, A &E Networks Television, 19 June 2019, www.biography.com/writer/william-lloyd-garrison.

2 wisdom to the young apprentice about the newspaper business including, "the newspaper…'ought to be made the vehicle, and a most effective one, too, for disseminating literary, moral and religious instruction' " 13, and "...an independent press is the surest safeguard of freedom."1 4 Garrison must have remembered these words, for this is the reason he began publication of The Liberator, to tell readers about the truth of slavery.1 5 Garrison, unlike his previous attempts at learning a trade, excelled in the art of journalism, and picked up the skills that would help him start his own newspaper. It was at Newbury Port where William Lloyd

Garrison found his vocation for the newspaper business. 16 Thus, the culmination of Garrison's education and his experience are present in The Liberator.

William Lloyd Garrison had a unique struggle in his fight against slavery, and that was that he held such radical opinions that even other abolitionists did not want to work with him or really even agree with him at all. He stated," I have found the minds of the people strangely indifferent to the subject of slavery. Their prejudices were invincible--stronger, if possible, than those of slaveholders." 17 Simply, that the hearts and minds of many people needed to be changed, a great task in of itself. The biggest obstacle was the amount of people that needed to be integrated into or saved by the abolitionist movement. The populus of enslaved people added up enormously. In a census done in 1860, the number of enslaved people was up to four million.

18 William Lloyd Garrison himself commented on these numbers," In this free and christian

13 Ibid, 27. 14 Ibid, 23 15 Garrison, "To the Public", 1. 16 Ibid, 27. 17 W illliam Lloyd Garrison, “William Lloyd Garrison on Slavery,” Digital History, accessed December 13, 2019, http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=3&psid=348) 18 Lincoln Mullen," These Maps Reveal How Slavery Expanded Across the United States," 2014, Smithsonian.com, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/maps-reveal-slavery-expanded-across-united-states-180951452/

3 republic, too, be it remembered, there were kidnapped during the past year, and reduced to remediless bondage, more than fifty thousand infants, the offspring of slave parents!!! A greater number, this year, is to meet a similar doom! Have we no reason to fear the judgments of Heaven upon our guilty land?"1 9

With the abolitionists, they condemned Garrisons' radical idea of immediatism, as well as his relentless condemnation of slavery in his newspaper The Liberator.2 0 Immediatism is the idea that slavery should be ended promptly, and gradual abolitionism vouched for a slower route. 2 1

Garrison called for immediatism, though he knew that gradual abolitionism would win in the end.2 2 Most Northern abolitionists believed in gradual slavery.2 3 He still held on to the hope that slavery would be abolished fairly quickly. He saw that immediate abolitionism would also be the immediate deliverance of the people of the sin of slavery," IMMEDIATE EMANCIPATION alone can save her from the vengeance of Heaven, and cancel the debt of ages!"2 4. His view on the abolition of slavery was seen as radical abolitionism, termed as "Garrisonian".2 5 His abolitionism was so extreme and for a good reason too. It needed to be so that people would not want to accept it but go back and accept something that seemed radical, the abolition of slavery, and then slowly come to accept immediate abolitionism. In general, the divisive nature within the abolitionist movement was a real stumbling block for Garrison and his spread of his abolitionist ideas.

19 G arrison, "To the Public". 20 M ayer, 128. 21 B oundless US History, “From Gradualism to Abolitionism,” Lumen, Accessed February 4, 2020, https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-ushistory/chapter/anti-slavery-resistance-movements/. 22 M ayer, 129. 23 B oundless US History, “From Gradualism to Abolitionism,” Lumen, Accessed February 4, 2020, https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-ushistory/chapter/anti-slavery-resistance-movements/. 24 W illiam Lloyd Garrison, "The Insurrection," The Liberator, Vol. 1, Issue 36, September 3, 1831. 25 Mayer, 129.

4 Those at work in the legislature also hindered progress. Politicians were very taboo on the whole subject of slavery, since it was what was literally tearing the nation apart. Many politicians were only involved on the condition that they would not be asked to discuss slavery, for fear of losing votes. 26 William Lloyd Garrison agreed with them in the sense that there was no way he would be able to entrust such a sensitive and complicated topic as slavery was to a group of people that he believed were in need of serious moral reform.2 7

Part of this included the Constitution. Garrison viewed the Constitution as pro-slavery.

He even went so far as to burn a copy of it saying,"So perish all compromises with tyranny."2 8

What this statement of Garrison is really saying is that he believes that the Constitution was oppressive, as slavery is a tyrannical relationship between slave and master. Again, here he illustrates how he distrusts the government in matters of slavery, especially in the way the government handled the situation. In the Constitution, there is no outright condemnation of slavery2 9. The words "slave" or "slavery" are not in the text on purpose.3 0 A slave voter counts as

"three-fifths" of a free man3 1. This language angered Garrison the most, the fact that enslaved people were dehumanized in this way and that slavery was actuallly protected in a document of a government that claimed that all men are created equal. Amendments to the Constitution included adding slaves as property and support to the Fugitive Slave Act.3 2

26 M ayer,169. 27 Ibid, 51. 28 P aul, Johnson. A History of the American People, Phoenix, 2004, 447. 29 Ibid, 189. 30 Ibid, 189. 31 I bid, 189. 32 M ayer, 169.

5 In 1850 a law by the name of the Fugitive Slave Law was passed for the purpose of silencing abolitionists.3 3 It stated that any slave owner could recapture a runaway slave, even if found in the free states.3 4 No slave was safe anywhere, further complicating matters for abolitionists. The problem with this law was that it represented a large failure on the part of abolitionists, that just as they had convinced the North that slavery was wrong, the South retaliated with this law. 35 With the addition of this law, the South was guaranteeing the protection of slavery.3 6 This also was the reason he distrusted so many politicians, that the government protected the very evil he sought to bring the truth about to the people of the United States.

Generally speaking, what William Lloyd Garrison needed to accomplish was an increase of passion in the belief that slavery was morally wrong, and to encourage politicians to take upon this great cause.

Despite these onerous challenges, Garrison spearheaded his work as an abolitionist by publishing The Liberator. He published The Liberator so he could spread the zeal of abolitionism he felt deeply in his heart. He opened The Liberator with an article written "To the Public", where he proudly states that he will stop at nothing to "lift up the standard of emancipation in the eyes of the nation...till every chain be broken, and every bondman set free!"3 7 He continues in the same article that he will not use "moderate" language when speaking about the abolitionist cause, because he feels it is a hard truth that must be expressed. 38 He even moved to Boston to publish

The Liberator because in Boston Garrison was surrounded by people who were "awake to the

33 M ayer, 407. 34 H istory.com Editors, “Fugitive Slave Acts,” History.com (A&E Television Networks, December 2, 2009), https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/fugitive-slave-acts. 35 Mayer, 407. 36 I bid, 407. 37 Garrison. "To the Public," 1. 38 G arrison,"To the Public," 1.

6 moral movements of the world."3 9 It would be much easier to argue that slavery was immoral to a populus that were open to those ideas. By first convincing that particular populus, it would then be easier to convince those who were harder of heart towards this topic.

Doing this opened the door for other anti-slavery texts, such as the famous Uncle Tom's

Cabin, which was published years after the first issue of The Liberator in 1852, to be quickly accpeted in a radical frame that The Liberator had placed it in.4 0 Many people praised Garrison for how his newspaper featured both pro-slavery and anti-slavery articles. 41 The motto on top of every issue of The Liberator perfectly captures how Garrison believed that slavery was a dehumanizating institution,"Our country is the world- our country men are mankind."4 2 The phrase "Our country men are mankind" was especially important, because the "country men '' here meant all people, including African Americans, contrary to what people believed at the time. Garrison showed the humanity of the enslaved with just a simple phrase. The Liberator thus was able to spread effectively the message of the abolitionists.

Garrison's consultation with other abolitionists was critical. In 1832, Garrison founded the New-England Anti-Slavery Society, which was later called the American Anti-Slavery

Society. 43 This organization actually inspired the creation of fifty more groups like it in the

North. 44 He felt the abolitionist movement itself was divided, needed to spread his unique message of abolitionism, and so formed this society with like-minded others. 45 Garrison wrote a

39 M ayer, 46. 40 “ Uncle Tom's Cabin Is Published,” History.com (A&E Television Networks, November 13, 2009), https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/uncle-toms-cabin-is-published) 41 William Lloyd Garrison, T he Liberator. 42 Garrison, "To the Public," 1. 43 "William Lloyd Garrison," B iography.com, A &E Networks Television, 19 June 2019, www.biography.com/writer/william-lloyd-garrison. 44 M ayer, 170. 45 "William Lloyd Garrison," B iography.com, A &E Networks Television, 19 June 2019, www.biography.com/writer/william-lloyd-garrison.

7 very important document that would unite his organization more firmly to the abolitionists movement.4 6 In that document, he stated the clear goal and intentions of his newly formed group, which included "remov[ing] slavery by moral and political action."4 7 Furthermore, he consulted with British abolitionists about abolitionist strategies that he could use. 48 He easily found allies in

Britain because of his cause who would gladly help him.4 9 Part of the reason was because the

English felt that they owed American abolitionists help in their cause, feeling that they had contributed to the continuation of slavery in America.5 0 In one particular case, they gave him specific strategies to demean a pro-slavery politician, one of which included publicly discussing him in The Liberator . 51 He as well employed many others to join his unique cause of abolitionism. He hired Frederick Douglass to speak in favor of the abolitionist movement.5 2 He did this because he saw a gifted speaker in Douglass, and Douglass' personal witness to the horrors of slavery would be great in changing people's lives. 53 Thus, Garrison's abolitionism was gaining popularity and influencing others around him, overcoming the barrier of disunity within the abolitionist movement and the legislature trying to work against him.

Garrison's work as an abolitionist was quite fruitful, and inspired others to continue his zeal in civil rights movements. The New England Anti-Slavery Society disbanded. This was not a bad thing, however, because it meant that what the society had set out to do was accomplished, which was to spread the abolitionist fire, and thus a triumph.5 4 This also meant that the strategy

46 Mayer, 127. 47 Ibid, 175. 48 I bid, 155. 49 I bid ,155. 50 I bid, 155. 51 I bid, 155. 52 I bid, 310. 53 I bid, 310 54 M ayer, 589.

8 that the abolitionists employed were effective, because enslaved people were liberated through military efforts and slavery was abolished by "constitutional amendment" that which Garrison had denounced in many times in The Liberator. 55 Though Garrison had not wanted to work with the government, he ended up influencing them. Furthermore, the Emancipation Proclamation was decreed on January 1, 1863. This meant that Garrison lived to see his dream of the abolishment of slavey in politics, since he died in 1879.5 6 Garrison's views on equal rights, which was unpopular in his time, is now seen in the next century's many civil rights movements, and is ultimately held by most people in the status quo, and is a "social movement forged in the crucible of a nation's soul." 57 His own great-grandson carried on this zeal for human rights and conversed with Martin Luther King, Jr. over such matters.5 8 Thus, William Lloyd Garrison helped the abolitionist truth triumph and remain relevant in the people's minds of his time and beyond, amid many difficulties.

55 I bid, 143. 56 "William Lloyd Garrison," B iography.com, A &E Networks Television, 19 June 2019, www.biography.com/writer/william-lloyd-garrison. 57 M ayer, 630. 58 “ 852 RARE: A Letter from Martin Luther King, Jr.,” Et. Seq: The Harvard Law School Library Blog, June 2, 2015, http://etseq.law.harvard.edu/2013/01/852-rare-a-letter-from-martin-luther-king-jr/)

9 Annotated Bibliography

Primary Sources

● BlackPast. “(1854) William Lloyd Garrison, ‘No Compromise with the Evil of Slavery’

.” (1854) William Lloyd Garrison, "No Compromise with the Evil of Slavery", October 5,

2019.

https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/1854-william-lloyd-garrison-no-com

promise-evil-slavery/.

This is a web article provided by BlackPast.com and has a transcript of one of William Lloyd

Garrison's speeches about slavery. He defends his stance about why slavery is so wrong. This source was used to give evidence of Garrison's idea that slavery was a sin.

● The Liberator. Accessed 2019. http://fair-use.org/the-liberator/.

This website provides a digitized library of William Lloyd Garrison's infamous newspaper, The

Liberator. The Liberator is an abolitionits newspaper that ran for thirty five years, seeking to enlighten the masses about the horrible truth about slavery. This work was used in the paper to shed light on Garrison's ideas and information about the abolitionist movement during the period it ran.

● Willliam Lloyd Garrison. “William Lloyd Garrison on Slavery,” Digital History.

Accessed December 13, 2019.

http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=3&psid=348).

This is a digitized primary source provided by the Gilder Lehrman Institute. It is a letter written by William Lloyd Garrison to Ebenezer Dole, accounting his imprisonment on account of his

10 abolitionist activities. This source was used to take a quote from to show Garrison's trouble in talking to the populus about slavery.

Secondary Sources

● Boundless US History. “From Gradualism to Abolitionism.” Lumen. Accessed February

4, 2020.

https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-ushistory/chapter/anti-slavery-resistance-m

ovements/.

This source is provided by Lumen Learning, an educational resource. This is a web article about anti-slavery resistance movements, and has a subsection dedicated to the degrees of abolitionism.

This source was used to provide definitions of immediatism and gradualism as well as to confirm that most Northern abolitionists accepted gradualism more.

● The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, "The Liberator",

https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Liberator-American-newspaper,(Accessed

November 12,2019).

This article written by the Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, an online encyclopedia composed by many scholars, focuses on giving straight facts about The Liberator, the newspaper created and run by William Lloyd Garrison. This article only was used for brief contextual facts about The Liberator.

● History.com Editors. “Fugitive Slave Acts,” History.com (A&E Television Networks,

December 2, 2009). https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/fugitive-slave-acts).

This is a web article written by History.com editors on the subject of the Fugitive Slave Acts. It gives factual information surrounding the aforementioned topic. This article was used to provide

11 context and information about the Fugitive Slave Acts which were a barrier to Garrison's abolitionist activities.

● Johnson, Paul. A History of the American People. Phoenix, 2004.

This book by renowned historian Paul Johnson covers American History. It seeks to answer questions surrounding the excellence of America. This book was used to state information about what Garrison's beliefs were about the Constitution, and general information about Garrison himself.

● Mayer, Henry. All on Fire: William Lloyd Garrison and the Abolition of Slavery. New

York: St. Martin's Press, 1998.

Henry Mayer, finalist for the National Book Award, writes a biography of William Lloyd

Garrison of the period in which he wrote his influential newspaper, The Liberator. Mayer argues that Garrison inspired two generations succeeding him to come together to fight a social inequality and achieve change in an idea that had been widely accepted as morally right, through his work in writing his abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator. This book will be used to demonstrate Garrison's zeal for his work, and what exactly moved him to do it, as well as what chronologically happened during the time The Liberator was published.

● Mullen, Lincoln." These Maps Reveal How Slavery Expanded Across the United States,"

2014. Smithsonian.com.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/maps-reveal-slavery-expanded-across-united-st

ates-180951452/

This is a web article on the history of the expansion of slavery. This article was used to support the barrier of the amount of slaves Garrison had to work to free through his abolitionist activities.

12 ● “Uncle Tom's Cabin Is Published.” History.com. A&E Television Networks, November

13, 2009. https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/uncle-toms-cabin-is-published.

This source was written by History.com editors and is a web article about Uncle Tom's Cabin written by Harriet Beecher Stowe. It is purely informative and contextualizing in nature. This source was only used to provide the date for when the novel was published.

● William Lloyd Garrison," Biography .com. A&E Networks Television. 19 June 2019.

www.biography.com/writer/william-lloyd-garrison.

This is a web article written by Biography.com on the life of William Lloyd Garrison. This source was used to confirm facts about Garrison's life and to make sure other secondary sources compared to it.

● “852 RARE: A Letter from Martin Luther King, Jr.,” Et. Seq: The Harvard Law School

Library Blog. June 2, 2015.

http://etseq.law.harvard.edu/2013/01/852-rare-a-letter-from-martin-luther-king-jr/)

This is an article written about a primary source that provides an image of it, a letter written by

Martin Luther King Jr. to a descendant of William Lloyd Garrison, asking him to be a part of his civil rights movement. This letter was used to show how Garrison's work of deliverance has continued through modernity within his family.

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