Garrison, William Lloyd

Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)

William Lloyd (1805-1879), an American abolitionist. He was apprenticed to a shoemaker, but turned to journalism. He began at the foot of the ladder by learning to set type. He became editor of the Newburyport Herald, in which capacity he was one of the first, it is said, to discover the poetic genius of a writer, then unknown to fame, John G. Whittier. In 1829, in connection with a Mr. Lundy, a Quaker, he started The Genius of Universal Emancipation at Baltimore. The anti-slavery utterances of this paper were so offensive that he was imprisoned for libel. In 1831 he returned to Boston and established The Liberator. He began without money and without friends. His chief assistant was a negro boy who did chores about the office. From this time on, for a period of thirty-five years, or until the emancipation of American slaves, he was the head and front of the American anti-slavery movement. He organized the Anti-Slavery Society and visited England several times. He upbraided the various parties impartially in turn for yielding to the influence of slaveholders. His life was threatened frequently. The legislature of Georgia offered a standing reward for his arrest and conviction under the laws of that state. The mayor and leading men of Boston received numerous appeals from people urging them to suppress The Liberator. After the close of the Civil War The Liberator was discontinued. Friends of Garrison made up a purse of $30,000 to provide for his old age. He died in New York City. A bronze statue has been erected in his memory in Boston, the chief scene of his editorial labors. Both Lowell and Whittier have written poems to his memory. SAYINGS. The right to enjoy liberty is inalienable. Every man has a right to his own body, to the products of his labor, to the protection of law, and to the common advantages of society. I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. Urge me not to use moderation in a case like the present! I am in earnest; I will not equivocate; I will not excuse; I will not retreat a single inch; and I will be heard.