Dec. 29, 1865
Months after the end of the Civil War, abolitionist leader William Lloyd Garrison produced the last issue of “The Liberator,” which he began publishing in 1831.
In the first issue, he wrote, “I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject [of slavery], I do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation. No! No! Tell 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.”
His fight to end slavery emanated from his deep faith, and he envisioned a world beyond bondage: “My Bible assures me that the day is coming when even the ‘wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the wolf and the young lion and the fatling together’; if this be possible, I see no cause why those of the same species—God’s rational creatures—fellow countrymen, in truth, cannot dwell in harmony together.”
Garrison worked, too, with the Underground Railroad and Harriet Tubman, whom he nicknamed “Moses.”
When the day came to celebrate the nation’s independence in 1854, Garrison and other members of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society gathered for a picnic. He stood before them and chastised the U.S. Constitution, which regarded those enslaved as property, rather than people. He set a copy on fire and called it “a covenant with death and an agreement with hell.” He called for “amens” from the crowd, which exploded, “Amen!”
A pro-slavery mob tried to lynch him and would have succeeded if some sympathizers hadn’t turned him over instead to authorities. A gallows was even erected outside his office, and he was burned in effigy.
In addition to his work to end slavery, he became a leading advocate for women’s rights. With the last issue published, Garrison declared that his “vocation as an Abolitionist, thank God, has ended.” He continued to fight for the rights of African Americans and women. His works influenced Russian author Leo Tolstoy, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. A memorial in Boston now honors Garrison.
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