William Lloyd Garrison

William Lloyd Garrison stands out as one of the most prominent, important, and influential abolitionists in US history. He ran a newspaper and gave speeches across the country. He was especially noted for his vehement critique of the US as an inherently unethical country due to the institution of slavery, a view which contrasted him to some other abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass, who believed in the redeeming qualities of the ideals the country was founded on. Learn more about William Lloyd Garrison, his views, and his significance in this summary.

The US and Slavery

In the decades preceding the American Civil War, the American public was contending with an existential contradiction:

• On one hand, the country was founded on constitutional ideals of freedom and liberty.
• On the other hand, it continued its brutal oppression and exploitation of enslaved Africans.

In the Northern States, where the economy wasn’t dependent upon slave labor, anti-slavery sentiment gained popularity. The Southern States' increasing reliance on slavery not only for their economy but for their identity eventually led to the Civil War.

Of the voices promoting abolition, few were more influential or radical than that of William Lloyd Garrison.

Fig 1 - William Lloyd Garrison

William Lloyd Garrison Biography

William Lloyd Garrison was born in 1805 in Newburyport, Massachusetts. In his early 20s, Garrison worked as the editor of the National Philanthropist and the Journal of the Times. In 1931, he launched his own newspaper, The Liberator, which became highly influential within the antislavery movement, criticizing both slave owners and northern moderates alike.

Garrison was also an activist, founding the New England Anti-Slavery Society, and helping to organize the American Anti-Slavery Society. His publications and oratory made him a leader of the antislavery movement in the United States. However, his refusal to compromise on such issues as the inclusion of women also caused splinters within those societies.

He died on May 24th, 1879, in New York.

The Abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison

At 25, Garrison first joined the abolitionist movement and the American Colonization Society.

While on the surface, the aim of

The American Colonization Society may have seemed to have African liberation at heart, but there were members of the society who favored slavery, while others saw sending freed slaves to Africa as a solution to handle a large population of emancipated Black citizens.

For these reasons, Garrison broke with the organization by 1830. He championed instead Immediatism. And in 1832, he founded the New England Anti-Slavery Society, which was founded on the principle of Immediatism.

Fig. 2 - Engraving of Garrison.

William Lloyd Garrison Newspaper: The Liberator

As a strict pacifist, Garrison believed that persuasion was the key to abolition. It was essential, then, that he be able to spread his ideas. To this end, he founded The Liberator in 1831.

The Liberator was a weekly newspaper that ran for 35 years, from 1831 to 1865, the year the American Civil War was won by the Union and slavery ended.

The Liberator served as an effective platform for Garrison’s Immediatist message. It gained attention for being wholly uncompromising on the issue of abolition and became the most influential newspaper in the pre-Civil War United States.

The Liberator was published out of Boston, and it had a weekly paid readership of 3,000, three-quarters of whom were freed African Americans. Its message, however, reached many more people and was read internationally.

The Liberator’s influence wasn’t limited to Garrison’s fellow abolitionists. Many southerners were familiar with the paper and feared that it was representative of northern political sentiments. That fear propelled slave owners to further entrench slavery through legislation.

In reality, Garrison’s paper was radical even by abolitionist standards. However, it was instrumental in furthering the abolitionist cause in the United States and helped turn the tide of public opinion from American Colonization to Immediatism.

Fig. 3 - John Brown's last speech published in the Liberator.

William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass

Born into slavery around the year 1818, Frederick Douglass escaped in 1838. While a young man, he learned to read and write, and after he gained his freedom became a highly influential abolitionist author and speaker.

Inspired by The Liberator, Douglass joined Garrison’s movement. Upon meeting in 1841, William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass were fast friends. Douglass’ early belief in moral suasion was likely influenced by Garrison’s own advocacy for it, though it put Douglass at odds with many Black abolitionists' contemporaries.

Garrison helped arrange a speaking tour of Great Britain for Douglass, whose skills as an orator and first-hand experience of slavery lifted him to prominence among abolitionist circles. His tour was so successful that he found funding to create his own newspaper, The North Star.

With time, Douglass became less idealistic and more pragmatic than Garrison, even to the point of believing that violent resistance could be a useful means to the abolitionist cause.

Fig. 4 - Frederick Douglass

Douglass and Garrison Split on their Views of the US Constitution

Douglass also separated from Garrison on the issue of the constitution. Garrison and his followers believed that the constitution was an intrinsically pro-slavery document.

Using the slogan “No Union With Slaveholders” he argued for the secession of the anti-slavery North from the pro-slavery South. To remain a union was to be complicit in the actions of the Southern States.

For Garrison, the continuation of slavery under the Constitution amounted to the entire American experiment being inherently corrupt and morally bankrupt. He famously burned a copy of the Constitution on July 4, 1854, calling it "a covenant with death, and an agreement with hell."⁴

Douglass aligned himself with the views of Lysander Spooner, essentially, holding that the Constitution was not morally bankrupt by allowing slavery, but that slavery was itself unconstitutional.

Garrison and Women’s Rights

Garrison was a proponent of women’s rights. Many members of the American Anti-Slavery Society opposed Garrison’s views on women’s suffrage and did not want women participating alongside them in the abolitionist movement.

This disagreement contributed to further splintering the Society. Many of the Society’s more conservative members did not believe women should be allowed to hold leadership positions within the organization.

In 1839, these issues led to the formation of the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, and the Liberty Party. The American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society did not admit women, while the Liberty Party only allowed them the ability to fundraise. The American Anti-Slavery Society, meanwhile, was significantly weakened by this split in leadership, and its influence diminished in the years that followed.

William Lloyd Garrison's Accomplishments

Garrison has gone down in history as a leading abolitionist figure who significantly impacted the course of history. It's unquestionable that his writings, speeches, and outspoken views played a role in moving public opinion in the north toward being in favor of freedom.

The Liberator acquired a larger audience for the abolitionist movement. Over the course of its 35-year history, The Liberator published over 1800 issues, reaching at least 3000 paid subscribers weekly and many more readers. Between his publishing and his activism, Garrison’s ideas played an important role in persuading countless people of the moral ill of slavery.

William Lloyd Garrison's Significance

While his importance in the anti-slavery movement is indisputable, there is some criticism about his ideas. Some historians point out that his rift with Frederick Douglass showed a commitment to a tactic that was more idealistic than pragmatic. Additionally, some believe that his ideas weren’t entirely anti-racist.

Arguably, Garrison had been pointing out that slavery is dehumanizing by design; that part of its cruelty was that the effect of trauma crippled the potential inherent in all people. Though, Kendi might say that this statement shows a belief that the humanity of enslaved Blacks could be owned and dominated by whites, and that this belief is racist.

In recent decades, there has been a concerted effort among historians and writers to center black anti-slavery activists and black experience in the historical narrative. Before that, white male activists such as Garrison were afforded a greater platform and their work was overrepresented in a political discourse that also included black and female voices.

Garrison also faced criticism for his pacifism, with some historians pointing out that this pacifism was unlikely to win the slave population their freedom. The conflict between the North and South would eventually test Garrison’s pacifism. Though he supported the North, it can be argued that his judgment of which side was in the right did not necessarily compromise his pacifist principles.