In Truth, Alone

The Life of William Lloyd Garrison

History judges men pointedly. It exposes them, stripping their intentions bare before the ever-presiding jury of humankind. History condemns some for their great evils and notes others for their disappointingly ambiguous conduct.

Then there are a few whom history reveres. These men and women sit vindicated in the pages of the human experience, despite having faced derision and defeat in their personal experiences. Why were they not revered at first? The light of truth shines, and those entering into its rays first are often hated by those remaining in darkness. Our heroes of history clung not to what their peers dubbed “good” and “true”, but to what was good and true. These champions of endurance waged a battle, believing truth and goodness to be of higher qualities than the opinions of a mob. They knew what was true, spoke for what was true, and engaged in a life-consuming mêlée against the forces of falsehood.

William Lloyd Garrison’s battle was with slavery, an institution that Modernity (although it is no expert in truth and goodness) denounces as a most odious vice. However, most of nineteenth century America gave slavery tremendous support. Those who devoted themselves to the abolition of slavery incurred upon themselves unpopularity, censorship, insults, and the continual threat of a lynch mob. Fortitude was compulsory.

The early chapters of Garrison’s life fashioned and strengthened his constitution for the giant he would later face. He was born in 1805 in Newburyport, Massachusetts to Abijah and Frances Garrison. William Lloyd, or simply Lloyd as his mother loved to call him, discovered the value of perseverance early in his life. He would have been the second youngest out of five children, but by the time he was three, two of his sisters, named Mary Ann and Caroline, had died. Abijah, an alcoholic, deserted the family in 1808, leaving Frances in charge of Lloyd and his two siblings, elder brother James and younger sister Maria Elizabeth.

The Garrisons endured, however. William adored his mother, who loved him “so intensely that no language can describe the yearnings of her soul.” A brave woman, Frances was accustomed to joyfulness in estrangement. As a young woman she had kindled an intense passion for the Baptist sect, much to the distaste of her Episcopal family, and she committed herself to a change of church. In turn, her family cast her out of the home. Frances’ spiritual fervor and independent nature formed a pillar for her son’s future endeavors. William possessed a radiating warm and thoughtful personality that Frances attributed to a love of God. In her search for a job, she was often long absent from Newburyport, leaving William Lloyd to the care of Ezekiel Bartlett, a dedicated member of the Garrisons’ Baptist church. During the separation Lloyd and his beloved mother exchanged many letters, which undoubtedly contributed to his robust writing ability.

Employment led Frances Garrison to a permanent residence in Baltimore, and her two sons joined her. Both of them worked in apprenticeships- James to a shoemaker and William Lloyd to a cabinetmaker. Discontented, James quit his servitude and began a life on the sea. William Lloyd, deeply homesick for Newburyport, begged for release from his apprenticeship in 1818 (and in his thirteenth year). Acquiesced, he became apprenticed at the Newburyport Herald, due to the love he had for his hometown and not to a desire to write. Nevertheless, he quickly warmed to the Herald. Eventually, he was writing anonymous pieces for the Herald, receiving publication at least three times. Other newspapers like the Salem Gazette printed his work. William Lloyd Garrison’s career as a journalist had begun its earliest form.

In the final half of his seven-year apprenticeship, he was met again by hardship. His sister Elizabeth, who had eventually come to live in Baltimore, died, leaving her now sickly mother alone. Frances had nearly died from a hemorrhage two years prior, but she survived, informing William through her letter:

I am well taken care of, for both Black and White are all attention to me…The ladies are all kind to me, and I have a Coloured woman that waits on me, that is so kind no one can tell how kind she is, although a Slave to Man, yet a free born soul, by the grace of God. Her name is Henny, and should I never see you again, and you should ever come where she is, remember her for your poor mother’s sake.

This is perhaps the first recorded document of William Lloyd Garrison that mentions the word “slave”. It doubtless stirred his thoughts as he read what might have been his mother’s deathbed wishes. These were not deathbed wishes, however. Frances Garrison lived on, and the letters continued. In 1823 Lloyd proudly wrote to her about his recent publications in the Herald, which included a variety of topics but lacked slavery, which seemed to receive minimal media attention in that day. Before asking for copies of the works, Frances Garrison gave her son another charge, a grave warning that would have shaken the mind of any eighteen-year old boy:

…you think your time was wisely spent while you [were] writing political pieces… But instead of that you have taken the Hydra by the head, and now beware of his mouth; but as it is done, I suppose you think you had better go on and seek the applause of mortals. But, my dear L., lose not the favour of God; have an eye single to his glory, and you will not lose your reward.

Warning her son to reject the empty praise of men and pursue God’s glory, she completed her final letter. Lloyd travelled to Baltimore but was unable to locate her. She died before she could write him again. She had enriched and molded his life, but she had only seen the first fruits of her labor.

Despite his personal sorrows, he was enjoying career success and growing in prominence. After finishing his apprenticeship in 1825, he became the editor of his own paper, the Free Press. It was clear that Garrison was a reformer, but the paper’s initial writing on slavery cast a unclear view on his position. His paper once published a direct copy of Edward Everett’s congressional speech, which made a brazen defense of slavery, but many of paper’s editorials encouraged mildly anti-slavery sentiments. However, Garrison shook off the ambiguity in one of his first public statements on slavery in the June 29, 1826 issue of the Free Press: “There is one theme that should be dwelt upon, till the whole country is free from its curse- it is SLAVERY.”

At that time the number of enslaved blacks totaled an orderly 2,000,000. Government had mainly chosen to avoid the slavery question with compromise. Congress proclaimed the slave trade to be outlawed in 1808 but legislated nothing for the American slaves who had already been victimized by the slave trade. Compromise upon compromise in pursuit of unhindered expansion ensured that each newly formed free state would be matched by a newly formed slave state. This was the situation Garrison faced.

While Garrison was still the editor of the Free Press, a new influence entered his life: Benjamin Lundy. Since 1821 Lundy had been running the Genius of Universal Emancipation, one of the first few American periodicals dedicated to opposing slavery. After relocating Genius to Baltimore, the slender Quaker ventured to other east coast states in search of support. His attempts to invoke the consciences of Massachusetts residents received lukewarm reactions, but one man responded well; Garrison paid serious attention and respect to Lundy, who noted Garrison’s enthusiasm and talent. They maintained a pleasant friendship leading up to December of 1828, when the Genius directly addressed Garrison in its front page:

There are many who are ready to acknowledge- O yes, they will acknowledge (good honest souls!) with due frankness and alacrity- that something should be done for the abolition of slavery. They will, also, pen a paragraph- perhaps an article, or so- and then- the subject is EXHAUSTED!! … We will not, however, pursue this part of the subject, lest our friend Garrison may think that we are about to insinuate a vote of censure against him, in anticipation! In truth, we do hope that he will remain true to the cause.

Garrison affirmed that he would remain true to the cause. He partnered with Lundy to increase Genius’s publication from monthly to weekly. William Lloyd Garrison had taken a public stance on slavery.
Very quickly, he learned the consequences of taking a public stance. In its quest for complete abolition, the Genius exposed the injustices of slavery. “The Black List” section of the paper illustrated the horrors of the domestic slave trade. Although importing slaves from other countries was illegal, trafficking American slaves from state to state was completely protected. Just like their ancestors, these “homebred” slaves were forced into inhumane ship conditions and treated like animals. “The Black List” named a certain Francis Todd as the captain of a slaving ship. The State of Maryland came to Todd’s defense, and Garrison was sentenced to six months in jail for libel. Baltimore had always been a place of trial for Garrison. Before taking up Genius, his last visit to Baltimore had been to find his dying mother, and it had been a bitter disappointment. Now he was in prison.

~ BALTIMORE JAIL ~

Although the forces of slavery sought to break his spirit of resistance with the sentence, Garrison’s time in captivity solidified his cause. “Opposition only served to increase my ardor, and confirm my purpose,” he wrote after being released on bail seven weeks later. The Baltimore Jail frequently housed captured slaves who waited to be recovered by their owners or slave traders. No other circumstance could instill more empathy in Garrison’s piercing conscience:

As I lay on my couch one night, in jail, I was led to contrast my situation with that of the poor slave. Ah! My dear Sir, how wide the difference! … I have been charged with a specific offence- have had the privilege of a trial by jury, and the aid of eminent counsel- and am here ostensibly to satisfy the demands of justice. A few months, at the longest will release me from my captivity… He has not been tried by the laws of his country. No one has stepped forth to vindicate his rights. He has been made an abject slave, simply because God has given him a skin not colored like his master’s; and Death, the great Liberator, alone can break his fetter.

Garrison departed Baltimore prison with renewed vigor. His ambitions had risen as well. After peacefully conferring with his friend Lundy, he resigned from the Genius of Universal Emancipation. He wanted to start his own paper, one that completely manifested his views. Lundy had endorsed a gradual freeing of the slaves, but Garrison did away with the word “gradual”. He wanted complete emancipation, he wanted it immediately, and he was ravenous to declare his message to the world.

In 1831 twenty-six year old Garrison published the first issue of his newspaper The Liberator, which would fuel anti-slavery discussion for the next 30 years. He made his intentions plain and unrelenting, introducing the paper in the following manner:

I 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. No! No! Tell me a man whose house is on fire, to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen; — but urge me not to use moderation in a cause 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.

Few men were as uncompromising as William Lloyd Garrison. His demand for complete and instantaneous emancipation was far from popular even with his fellow Northerners, let alone the slave-owning South. Possessing deep Christian convictions, Garrison frequently cited verses like Galatians 3:28: “In Christ Jesus, all are one; there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female.” Combining Biblical points with the explicit words of the Declaration of Independence, Garrison championed a solid defense of racial equality and exhorted his fellow Christians to defend the image of God. For those who cared little for his biblical arguments, he could flaunt his wit to prove a point. His article “A Short Catechism, adapted for all the parts of the United States” satirized the logic of his opponents with 31 examples:

1. Why is American slaveholding not in all cases sinful? Because its victims are black.
2. Why is gradual emancipation right? Because the slaves are black.
3. Why is immediate emancipation wrong, dangerous, impracticable? Because the slaves are black.
4. Why ought one-sixth portion of the American population to be exiled from their native soil? Because they are black.

The pervasive belief that blacks were naturally inferior to whites irked Garrison to no end, and he addressed the question of racial equality in both word and action. In addition to his written arguments, he demonstrated the disregarded capabilities of blacks in a simple and effective way: empowering them to display their God-given gifts in support of abolition. The world had depicted them as incapable of higher intelligence. The world had judged them as incapable of higher morality. The world had rated them less than human. Now the world would be forced to look upon them and observe its profound mistake.

~ HUMAN SURVIVORS ~

William Lloyd Garrison soon found an opportunity to expose the lie. Months after the release of The Liberator a young black woman met with him, requesting a job. Her name was Maria Stewart, and she had been born free. Despite their differences in skin color and gender, Garrison and Stewart understood each other. Both were orphans (Maria at age five and William Lloyd at age eighteen), both had lived with the family of a clergyman (Maria for most of her childhood and William Lloyd during his mother’s absences), and both saw their religious and abolitionist causes as intimately linked. Widowed at age 26, Stewart received a genuine Christian faith and found her life changed. Among the changes was a newly instilled compassion for her enslaved brothers and sisters. Although her gender and skin color severely narrowed her audience size, she wanted her voice to be heard.

Garrison listened, and he offered her a spot in his paper. He published her existing manuscript, Religion and the Pure Principles of Morality, the Sure Foundation on which We Build, which exuded Stewart’s desire for a spiritual revival. True religion, she believed, was essential for the culture change and its ultimate goal of abolition. Throughout her writing and speaking career, Stewart chided multiple members of her audience. She questioned the salvation of uncharitable white men; she criticized the Church for indecisiveness; she rebuked the “fair daughters of Africa” for “burying their minds and talents beneath a load of iron pots and kettles;” and she said that black men lacked ambition.

She became very unpopular, to say the least. After working with Garrison and The Liberator for two years, Stewart retired, but it was not a failure as her opponents suggested. She had courageously represented her chained brothers and sisters. Her eloquence and passion evidenced qualities of a most human kind, and Garrison was responsible for her platform of influence.

In 1841 William Lloyd Garrison made contact with a talented young black man. The man had gone by the last name of Bailey for most of life, and that is because he was a slave for most of his life. He had escaped his master in 1838, leaving Maryland and migrating to Massachusetts. In his free state, the man formerly named Bailey found work. During spare time he read, counting The Liberator among his favorite resources.

Garrison and the free man met at convention for the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. Having been asked to give a speech about his life in slavery, Bailey nervously complied. He spoke in detail of the injustices done to him and other slaves. Although he had little experience in rhetoric, his message was impactful. Garrison took note. When the speech was over, Garrison asked the crowd, “Have we been listening to a thing, a piece of property, or to a man?” The crowd was stirred further, boisterously responding that they had been listening to a man; they affirmed that he was a human being. The Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society hired him that day, and a certain portion of the credit went to Garrison. Garrison and the man formerly named Bailey would grow to become close friends and fellow workers in abolitionism.

The man’s new name was Frederick Douglass. He would go on to become the most famous and influential abolitionist in the history of our union. He was an intellectual giant, the utter opposite the culture’s stereotypical black man. When he published his autobiography, many people doubted his authorship. After all, black folk were not capable of such skill. Douglass was a living and oozing thorn in the side of those who called slaves inferior. Slaves were not allowed to be educated. Nor were they supposed to be freed. Those two standards were obvious to a slave-owner. If you educated the slave, he might match you in mental skill, or worse, exceed you. The slave could not be presented as an equal in any way, because, after all, that might permit him equal rights (such as liberty).

If an intelligent black were allowed to speak about his previous experiences in slavery, he might tell the truth. The institution of slavery would melt away when people began seeing former slaves as human survivors of a great injustice.

Garrison’s efforts, as do the efforts of most great reformers, received hatred and violence from many. Many newspapers, not limited to southern ones, characterized him as a bloodthirsty “n***er lover.” Harsh words, however, were not the extreme manifestation of Garrison’s opposition. When Nat Turner’s slave rebellion occurred within a year of The Liberator’s release, the State of Georgia posed a $5,000 reward for anyone who captured Garrison and brought him to trial on account of distributing incendiary material. But some antagonists went even further. In 1835 a mob stormed a Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society meeting and apprehended Garrison; the sheriff saved him from a lynching.

~ THE WAR WITHIN ~

Although he was a physical pacifist, William Lloyd Garrison made war with his words. He would not equivocate. He cared very little for the concept of a “middle ground”, and he voiced his disapproval at those who sought to please both sides. The famous Noah Webster, whose name lives on in the titles of our dictionaries, received harsh criticism from Garrison. Although he helped to form the Connecticut society for the Abolition of Slavery in 1791, Webster’s conviction waned during Garrison’s time: “Slavery is a great sin and a general calamity- but it is not our sin, though it may prove to be a terrible calamity to us in the north. But we cannot legally interfere with the South on this subject.” Webster believed his only responsibility was to not own slaves. In modern terms, he was personally opposed to slavery. The statement repulsed Garrison, who called Webster an apostate comparable only to Judas.

In the name of non-equivocation, Garrison separated himself from some of his fellow abolitionists. In 1854 he demonstrated why he was an extreme figure with an unforgettable act. Exasperated by politicians and a government that allowed slavery, Garrison rejected the Constitution as a pro-slavery document. However, he did not limit his criticism to his fiery words. He unapologetically burned a copy of the Constitution. To him, the Constitution was a banner for the nation’s abominable commitment to compromising. When Frederick Douglass suggested that the document could be used to defend abolitionism, Garrison fiercely refused and incurred a bitter fallout between the two friends. Formerly united in purpose for over ten years, they walked separately for the next twenty.

As they walked separately, slavery reached its breaking point. The Constitution was not abolished; it was amended. After the Union had been broken and subsequently preserved, after the slaves had been freed, and after Garrison had ended The Liberator’s circulation in 1865, he and Douglass reunited as old men. They had succeeded. Garrison called his work as an abolitionist complete. In 1879 he died, his name entering into the care of history.

History remembers William Lloyd Garrison as one of the most uncompromising opponents of slavery. He was perhaps the most polarizing man of his day, pressing even the most devoted abolitionists to a higher standard. The Douglass rift was a painful by-product of his dedication to a clear conscience. The major influences in his life, particularly his mother and Benjamin Lundy, had instilled in him a hatred for lukewarm action. The readers of this article might call him an extremist, particularly in light of his constitution burning and various incendiary comments, but that is no new sentiment; he was labeled as an extremist during his life. Moreover, he would welcome the title. It is evident that William Lloyd Garrison was intentionally offensive in all of his crusading.

Was it his offensiveness that marked him as a hero? The heroes of history offended many, but so did the villains of history. One must look deeper- into truth. The heroes of history were marked by one thing: that they fought on the side of truth.

It was fitting that Frederick Douglass, the man who had experienced the pain of detachment and division from Garrison, uttered the following words at Garrison’s funeral: “It was the glory of this man that he could stand alone with the truth, and calmly await the result.”

William Lloyd Garrison clung to the truth. He trusted in a future vindication in spite of present trials. Neither public defamation, nor jail time, nor murderous mobs could deter him. His cause was not inspired by the opinions of his peers but by the illuminations of a higher truth. He held firmly to this belief:

“POSTERITY WILL BEAR TESTIMONY THAT I WAS RIGHT.”

~ By JD Anderson ~