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."