Garrison, WILLIAM LLOYD

Garrison, WILLIAM LLOYD, journalist and abolitionist, was born at Newburyport, Massachusetts, December 10, 1805. His father was a man of literary taste and ability, but, falling into dissolute habits, deserted his wife, who, to support her family, had to turn professional nurse. William, who had previously tried shoemaking and cabinet- making, was apprenticed to the printer of the Newburyport Herald, an occupation which suited his taste; he soon made himself master of the mechanical part of the business, and when only sixteen or seventeen began to write for the Herald. His contributions, which were anonymous, were favourably received, and he soon commenced to send articles to the Salem Gazette and other papers, drawing the attention of political circles by a series of articles under the signature Aristides, with the view of removing the almost universal apathy on the subject of slavery. In 1824 he became editor of the Herald, and some of J. G. Whittier's earliest poems were accepted by him, while their author was yet unknown to fame. After two or three other attempts, in 1829 he joined Mr Lundy at Baltimore in editing the Genius of Universal Emancipation. The vigorous expression of his anti-slavery views in this last paper led to his imprisonment for libel, from which he was released by Mr Tappan, a New York merchant, who paid his fine. He now prepared a series of emancipation lectures, subsequently delivered in New York and other places. He returned to Boston, and in 1831 started the Liberator, without capital or subscribers, a paper with which his name is inseparably associated, and which he carried on for thirty-five years, until slavery was abolished in the United States. For the first few years the mail brought hundreds of letters to Garrison, threatening his assassination if he did not discontinue this journal; the legislature of Georgia offered a reward of 5000 dollars to any one who should prosecute and bring him to conviction in accordance with the laws of that state; in 1835 he was severely handled by a Boston mob, and the mayor of that city was constantly appealed to from the South to suppress his paper. In spite of all, he successfully persevered. In 1833 he visited Great Britain, and on his return organised the American Anti-slavery Society, of which he was afterwards president. He visited England again, in the furtherance of his anti-slavery opinions, in 1846 and 1848. The diverging views of the anti-slavery party, as to whether a political platform should be adopted, and as to the voting and speaking of women, rent the body for a time, but on 1st January 1863 Lincoln's proclamation of freedom to the slaves as a military measure placed the civil struggle on an anti-slavery basis. In 1865, when Garrison's labours had been completely successful, and after the total abolition of slavery in the United States, his friends presented him with 30,000 dollars (£6000) as a memorial of his services. In 1867 he was once more in England, and entertained at a public breakfast in St James's Hall. He died at New York, 24th May 1879. A bronze statue has been erected to his memory in Boston. Some Sonnets and other Poems by him were published in 1847, and Selections from his Writings and Speeches in 1852. See Johnson's William Lloyd Garrison (1882); William Lloyd Garrison: the Story of his Life, by his children (4 vols. 1885-89); and poems to his memory by both Whittier and Lowell.