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GARRISON, WILLIAM LLOYD (1805-1879)
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See also:GARRISON, See also: He also wrote for other papers with equal success. A See also:series of See also:political essays, written by him for the See also:Salem See also:Gazette, was copied by a prominent See also:Philadelphia See also:journal, the editor of which attributed them to the Hon. See also:Timothy See also:Pickering, a distinguished statesman of Massachusetts. His skill as a printer won for him the position of fore-See also:man, while his ability as a writer was so marked that the editor of the Herald, when temporarily called away from his See also:post, See also:left the See also:paper in his See also:charge.
The See also:printing-See also:office was for him, what it has been for many another poor boy, no mean substitute for the See also:academy and for the See also:college. He was full of See also:enthusiasm for See also:liberty; the struggle of the Greeks to throw off the See also:Turkish yoke enlisted his warmest sympathy, and at one time he seriously thought of entering the See also:West Point Academy and fitting himself for a soldier's career. His See also:apprenticeship ended in 1826, when he began the publication of a new paper (actually the old one under a new name), the See also:Free See also:Press, in his native See also:place. The paper, whose See also:motto was " Our See also:Country, our Whole Country, and nothing but our Country," was full of spirit and intellectual force, but Newburyport was a sleepy place and the enterprise failed. Garrison then went to See also:Boston, where, after working for a time as a journeyman printer, he became the editor of the See also:National Philanthropist, the first journal established in See also:America to promote the cause of See also:total See also:abstinence from intoxicating liquors. His See also:work in this paper was highly appreciated by the See also:friends of See also:temperance, but a See also:change in the proprietorship led to his withdrawal before the end of the year. In 1828 he was induced to establish the Journal of the Times at See also:Bennington, See also:Vermont, to support the re-See also:election of See also: In Boston he had met See also:Benjamin See also:Lundy (q.v.), who had for years been See also:preaching the abolition of slavery. Garrison had been deeply moved by Lundy's appeals, and after going to Vermont he showed the deepest See also:interest in the slavery question. Lundy was then See also:publishing in Baltimore a small monthly paper, entitled The See also:Genius of Universal Emancipation, and he resolved to go to Bennington and invite Garrison to join him in the editor-See also:ship. With this See also:object in view he walked from Boston to Bennington, through the See also:frost and See also:snow of a New See also:England See also:winter, a distance of 125 M. His See also:mission was successful. Garrison was
deeply impressed by the See also:good Quaker's zeal and devotion, and he resolved to join him and devote himself thereafter to the work of abolishing slavery.
In pursuance of this See also:plan he went to Baltimore in the autumn of 1829, and thenceforth the Genius was published weekly, under the See also:joint editorship of the two men. It was understood, however, that Garrison would do most of the editorial work, while Lundy would spend most of his time in lecturing and procuring subscribers. On one point the two editors differed radically, Lundy being the See also:advocate of See also:gradual and Garrison of immediate emancipation. The former was possessed with the See also:idea that the negroes, on being emancipated, must be colonized somewhere beyond the limits of the United States; the latter held that they should be emancipated on the See also:soil of the country, with all the rights of freemen. In view of this difference it was agreed that each should speak on his own individual responsibility in the paper, appending his initial to each of his articles for the See also:information of the reader. It deserves mention here that Garrison was then in utter See also:ignorance of the change previously wrought in the opinions of See also:English abolitionists by See also: The sinfulness of slavery being admitted, the See also:duty of immediate emancipation to his clear ethical See also:instinct was perfectly See also:manifest. He saw that it would be idle to expose and denounce the evils of slavery, while responsibility for the See also:system was placed upon former generations, and the duty of abolishing it transferred to an indefinite future. His demand for immediate emancipation See also:fell like a See also:tocsin upon the ears of slaveholders. For See also:general talk about the evils of slavery they cared little, but this assertion that every slave was entitled to instant freedom filled them with alarm and roused them to anger, for they saw that, if the See also:conscience of the nation were to See also:respond to the proposition, the system must inevitably fall. The Genius, now that it had become a vehicle for this dangerous See also:doctrine, was a paper to be feared and intensely hated. Baltimore was then one of the centres of the domestic slave trade, and upon this See also:traffic Garrison heaped the strongest denunciations. A See also:vessel owned in Newburyport having taken a See also:cargo of slaves from Baltimore to New See also: See also:Whittier, the Quaker poet, interceded with See also: His conviction of the righteousness of his cause, of the evils and dangers of slavery, and of the See also:absolute See also:necessity of the contemplated movement, was intensified by opposition, and he resolved to go forward, trusting in See also:God for success.
On the 1st of See also:January 1831, without a See also:dollar of See also:capital, and without a single subscriber, he and his partner See also:Isaac Knapp (1804–1843) issued the first number of the Liberator, avowing their " determination to See also:print it as See also:long as they could subsist on See also:bread and See also:water, or their hands obtain employment." Its motto was, " Our country is the world—our countrymen are mankind "; and the editor, in his address to the public, uttered the words which have become memorable as embodying the whole purpose and spirit of his See also:life: " I am in earnest—I will not equivocate—I will not excuse—I will not See also:retreat a single inch—and I will be heard." Help came but slowly. For many months Garrison and his brave partner, who died long before the end of the conflict, made their See also:bed on the See also:floor of the See also:room, " dark, unfurnished and mean," in which they printed their paper, and where See also:Mayor See also:Harrison See also: The conflict was irrepressible. Slavery must be over-thrown, if not by peaceful means, then in See also:blood. The first society
organized under Garrison's auspices, and in accordance with his principles, was the New England Anti-Slavery Society, which adopted its constitution in January 1832. In the See also:spring of this year Garrison issued his Thoughts on African Colonization, in which he showed by ample citations from See also:official documents that the American Colonization Society was organized in the interest of slavery, and that in offering itself to the See also:people of the North as a See also:practical remedy for that system it was guilty of deception. His See also:book, aided by others taking substantially the same view, smote the society with a See also:paralysis from which it never recovered. Agents of the American Colonization Society in England having succeeded in deceiving leading Abolitionists there as to its character and tendency, Garrison was deputed by the New England Anti-Slavery Society to visit England for the purpose of counteracting their influence. He went in the spring of 1833, when he was but twenty-seven years of See also:age, and was received with great cordiality by British Abolitionists, some of whom had heard of his bold assaults upon American slavery, and had seen a few See also:numbers of the Liberator. The struggle for emancipation in the West Indies was then at the point of See also:culmination; the leaders of the cause, from all parts of the See also:kingdom, were assembled in See also:London, and Garrison was at once admitted to their See also:councils and treated with distinguished See also:consideration. He took home with him a " protest " against the American Colonization Society, signed by See also:Wilberforce, Zachary See also:Macaulay, See also:Samuel See also:Gurney, William See also:Evans, S. Lushington, T. See also:Powell See also:Buxton, See also: Garrison's visit to England enraged the pro-slavery people and press of the United States at the outset, and when he re-turned home in See also:September with the " protest " against the Colonization Society, and announced that he had engaged the services of See also:George See also:Thompson as a lecturer against American slavery, there were fresh outbursts of rage on every hand. The American Anti-Slavery Society was organized in December of that year (1833), putting forth a masterly See also:declaration of its principles and purposes from the See also:pen of Garrison. This added fresh See also:fuel to the public excitement, and when Thompson came over in the next spring, the hostility to the cause began to manifest itself in mobs organized to suppress the discussion of the slavery question. Now began what Harriet See also:Martineau called " the See also:martyr age in America." In the autumn of 1835 Thompson was compelled, in See also:order to See also:save his life, to embark secretly for England. Just before his departure the announcement that he would address the Woman's Anti-Slavery Society of Boston created " a See also:mob of gentlemen of See also:property and See also:standing," from which, if he had been See also:present, he could hardly have escaped with his life. The whole city was in an uproar. Garrison, almost denuded of his clothing, was dragged through the streets with a rope by infuriated men. He was rescued with great difficulty, and consigned to the gaol for safety, until he could be secretly removed from the city. Anti-slavery societies were greatly multiplied throughout the North, and many men of influence, both in the church and in the state, were won to the cause. Garrison, true to his See also:original purpose, never, faltered or turned back. The Abolitionists of the United States were a united body until 1839-1840, when divisions sprang up among them. Garrison countenanced the activity of See also:women in the cause, even to the extent of allowing-• them to See also:vote and speak in the anti-slavery societies, and appointing them as lecturing agents; moreover, he believed in the political equality of the sexes, to which a strong party was opposed upon social and religious grounds. Then there were some who thought Garrison dealt too severely with the churches and pulpits for their complicity with slavery, and who accused him of a want of religious orthodoxy; indeed, according to the
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See also:standards of his time he was decidedly heterodox, though he had an intensely religious nature and was far from being an infidel, as he was often charged with being. He was, moreover, not only a non-resistant but also an opponent of all political systems based on force. " As to the governments of this See also:world," he said, " whatever their titles or forms we shall endeavour to prove that in their essential elements, as at present administered, they are all anti-See also:Christ; that they can never by human See also:wisdom be brought into conformity with the will of God; that they cannot be maintained except by See also:naval and military power to carry them into effect; that all their penal enactments, being a dead See also:letter without any See also:army to carry them into effect, are virtually written in human blood; and that the followers of Jesus should instinctively shun their stations of honor, power, and emolument—at the same time ` submitting to every See also:ordinance of man for the See also:Lord's See also:sake' and offering no See also:physical resistance to any of their mandates, however unjust or tyrannical." These views were very distasteful to many, who, moreover, See also:felt that Garrison greatly injured abolitionism by causing it to be associated in men's minds with these unpopular views on other subjects. The dissentients from his opinions determined to See also:form an anti-slavery political party, while he believed in working by moral rather than political party instrumentalities. These See also:differences led to the organization of a new National Anti-Slavery Society in 1840, and to the formation of the " Liberty Party " (q.v.) in politics. (See See also:BIRNEY, JAMES G.) The two societies sent their delegates to the World's Anti-Slavery See also:Convention in London in 184o, and Garrison refused to take his seat in that body, because the women delegates from the United States were excluded. The discussions of the next few years served to make clearer than before the practical workings of the constitution of the United States as a See also:shield and support of slavery; and Garrison, after a long and painful reflection, came to the conclusion that its pro-slavery clauses were immoral, and that it was therefore wrong to take an See also:oath for its support. The Southern states had greatly enlarged See also:representation in Congress on See also:account of their slaves, and the national government was constitutionally See also:bound to assist in the See also:capture of fugitive slaves, and to suppress every See also:attempt on their part to gain their freedom by force. In view of these provisions, Garrison, adopting a bold scriptural figure of speech, denounced the constitution as " a See also:covenant with See also:death and an agreement with See also:hell," and See also:chose as his motto, " No union with slaveholders."
One class of Abolitionists sought to evade the difficulty by strained interpretations of the clauses referred to, while others, admitting that they were immoral, felt themselves obliged, notwithstanding, to support the constitution in order.to avoid what they thought would be still greater evils. The American Anti-Slavery Society, of which Garrison was the president from 1843 to the See also:day of emancipation, was during all this See also:period the nucleus of an intense and powerful moral agitation, which was greatly valued by many of the most faithful workers in the See also: He therefore ceased from that See also:hour to advocate disunion, and devoted himself to the task of preparing the way for and hastening on the inevitable event. His services at this period were recognized and honoured by President Lincoln and others in authority, and the whole country knew that the agitation which made the abolition of slavery feasible and necessary was largely due to his uncompromising spirit and indomitable courage. In 1865 at the See also:close of the war, he declared that, slavery being abolished, his career as an abolitionist was ended. He counselled a See also:dissolution of the American Anti-Slavery Society, insisting that it had become functus officiis, and that whatever needed to be done for the See also:protection of the freedmen could best be accomplished by new associations formed for that purpose. The Liberator was discontinued at the end of the same year, after an existence of See also:thirty-five years. He visited England for the second time in 1846, and again in 1867, when he was received with distinguished honours, public as well as private. In 1877, when he was there for the last time, he declined every form of public recognition. He died in New York on the 24th of May 1879, in the seventy-See also:fourth year of his age, and was buried in Boston, after a most impressive funeral service, four days later. In 1843 a small See also:volume of his Sonnets and other Poems was published, and in 1852 appeared a volume of Selections from his Writings and Speeches. His wife, See also:Helen Eliza See also:Benson, died in 1876. Four sons and one daughter survived them. Garrison's son, WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON (1838–1909), was a prominent advocate of the single tax, free trade, woman's See also:suffrage, and of the See also:repeal of the See also:Chinese Exclusion Act, and an opponent of imperialism; another son, WENDELL See also:PHILLIPS GARRISON (184o–19o7), was See also:literary editor of the New York Nation from 1865 to 1906. The above See also:article, with certain modifications, reproduces the account given in the 9th edition of this work by See also:Oliver See also: Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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