William Lloyd Garrison Papers 1833-1882 Guide to the Microfilm Edition

Table of Contents Collection Summary Biographical Sketch Sources Collection Description Related Materials Arrangement Acquisition Information Chronological List of Items Preferred Citation Access Terms

Collection Summary

Biographical Sketch

William Lloyd Garrison was a renowned 19th-century abolitionist and reformer. He was born on December 10, 1805, in Newburyport, Mass., the fourth child of Abijah and Frances Maria (Lloyd) Garrison. His father, a sea captain, deserted the family before Garrison was three years old. Placed in the care of Deacon Ezekiel Bartlett, Garrison had a meager education, and in 1818, he was apprenticed for seven years to Ephraim W. Allen, editor of the Newburyport Herald. On March 22, 1826, he became editor of the local Free Press. When the Free Press failed, Garrison sought employment in Boston as a journeyman printer, and in the spring of 1828, he and Nathaniel H. White launched the National Philanthropist, a paper opposed to intemperance, lotteries, Sabbath-breaking, and war. That same year, he met Benjamin Lundy, a Quaker, who turned Garrison's attention to the evils of slavery. After a short time as editor of the Journal of the Times, an anti-Jackson paper based in Bennington, Vt., Garrison returned to Boston in March 1829 and, on Independence Day in the Park Street Church, delivered the first of many public addresses denouncing slavery. Later that summer, he became co-editor with Lundy of the Baltimore weekly Genius of Universal Emancipation.

Garrison was one of the first American abolitionists to demand not a gradual abolition of slavery, but the "immediate and complete emancipation of all slaves." In the Genius of Universal Emancipation, he vehemently criticized his opponents and accused Newburyport ship-owner Francis Todd of engaging in the domestic slave trade, for which Garrison was sued and found guilty of libel. Unable to pay his fine, he was imprisoned for seven weeks in the Baltimore jail and was released only through the intervention of philanthropist Arthur Tappan. During the autumn of 1830, Garrison lectured in eastern cities and eventually founded his famous periodical, the Liberator. Faced with limited resources and a circulation of less than 3,000, he and his partner Isaac Knapp printed the paper on a hand-press from borrowed type. The first issue, which came out on January 1, 1831, contained Garrison's manifesto ending with the words: "I am in earnest--I will not equivocate--I will not excuse--I will not retreat a single inch--and I will be heard."

Though Garrison was a non-violent activist, his condemnation of slavery and slave-owners was uncompromising and often inflammatory. For example, beginning with its 17th issue, the Liberator bore the image of a slave auction near the Capitol building in Washington, D.C. This image infuriated Southerners, who threatened Garrison with bodily harm. The state of Georgia offered a reward of $5,000 for his arrest and conviction.

The New England Anti-Slavery Society was formed in 1831, and Garrison, who had helped to draft its constitution, was elected corresponding secretary. In 1832, he wrote a pamphlet, Thoughts on African Colonization, that denounced the work of the American Colonization Society, an organization he had initially supported. In early May 1833, Garrison sailed for England to solicit funds for a manual-labor school for black youth. There he met and befriended many abolitionists, including Daniel O'Connell and George Thompson. On December 4, 1833, Garrison and more than fifty other delegates from ten states met in Philadelphia to form the American Anti-Slavery Society. Its declaration of principles included pacifistic language and was largely written by Garrison, who would serve for a short time as the organization's foreign secretary.

In 1835, George Thompson came to the United States on a lecture tour, but opponents protested many of his appearances. On October 21, at a meeting of the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society, a mob of several thousand assembled intending to tar-and-feather Thompson. The abolitionist had been warned, however, and the crowd seized Garrison instead, dragging him through the streets with a rope around his neck. Garrison, saved through the intervention of Mayor Theodore Lyman, spent the night in the Leverett Street jail and withdrew from the city in the morning.

Garrison was an effective propagandist, but his fanaticism, self-righteousness, and receptivity to radical ideas often antagonized even his ardent supporters. His desire to link abolitionism with other reform movements, such as women's rights, cost him the support of more conservative abolitionists, who were dismayed at the inclusion of Sarah and Angelina Grimke as speakers at their meetings. Also, the indifference of many clergymen to the slavery issue brought Garrison into open conflict with orthodox churches. He eventually denied the plenary inspiration of the Bible and even attended a meeting of the "Friends of Universal Reform" in November 1840. He vigorously denounced theaters, tobacco, capital punishment, and imprisonment for debt. However, his opposition to concerted political action led to a schism in the anti-slavery movement and the formation of third party. In June 1840, Garrison refused to participate in the World's Anti-Slavery Convention in London when he discovered that women were excluded from the proceedings.

As early as 1841, Garrison, who condemned the United States for continuing to sanction slavery, began urging the North to secede from the Union. Many members of the American Anti-Slavery Society emphatically protested, but under pressure from Garrison, the organization resolved, in January 1843, that the Constitution was "a covenant with death and an agreement with hell" that "should be annulled." Later that same year, Garrison was elected president of the American Anti-Slavery Society. In the summer and autumn of 1846, he visited England for the third time, addressing reform meetings, and in August 1847, he and Frederick Douglass went on a lecture tour beyond the Alleghenies, where Garrison debated defenders of the Union night after night. In 26 days, he spoke more than 40 times.

However, resistance among the abolitionists to Garrison's disunionist stance was growing. Garrison, who had strongly opposed the Mexican War and the annexation of Texas, denounced Daniel Webster's "Seventh of March" speech that encouraged compromise on the issue of slavery in the new territory. But Webster's speech provoked a strong reaction against Garrison and the disunionist faction, and at the annual meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society on May 7, 1850, a mob led by Isaiah Rynders disrupted the proceedings. But Garrison persisted. On July 4, 1854, at an abolitionist gathering in Framingham, Mass., Garrison publicly burned the Constitution of the United States. He welcomed the secession of the South in 1860-1861, though as a pacifist, he could not sanction John Brown's uprising at Harpers Ferry. He criticized Lincoln's uncertain policies, but, recognizing the significance of the Emancipation Proclamation, would not openly condemn the president. At the December 1863 meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society in Philadelphia, the two factions of abolitionists finally reconciled.

At the conclusion of the Civil War, in April 1865, Garrison and George Thompson attended the ceremonies in Charleston, S.C., and witnessed the raising of the Stars and Stripes over Fort Sumter. Garrison gave a brief address. He had proposed the dissolution of the American Anti-Slavery Society in January 1865, but his motion was rejected. He did, however, decline a 23rd term as its president and was succeeded by Wendell Phillips. The final issue of the Liberator, which came out on December 29, 1865, contained Garrison's editorial celebrating the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment.

On September 4, 1834, Garrison had married Helen Eliza Benson of Brooklyn, Conn., and the couple settled in Roxbury, Mass., in a house called "Freedom's Cottage." They had seven children, two of whom died in infancy. Their surviving children were: George Thompson Garrison; William Lloyd Garrison, Jr., a prominent advocate of the single tax, free trade, women's suffrage, and the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act; Wendell Phillips Garrison, literary editor of the New York Nation from 1865 to 1906; Helen Frances "Fanny" Garrison (later Villard); and Francis Jackson Garrison, Garrison's biographer.

Despite two painful accidents that made physical activity difficult, Garrison traveled to England again in 1867. On his return, he became an intermittent contributor to the New York Independent and continued his activism for prohibition, women's suffrage, justice for Native Americans, and the elimination of prostitution. In 1868, Garrison's admirers raised a testimonial fund for him of more than $30,000. His wife Helen Eliza Garrison died of pneumonia on January 28, 1876, and Garrison made his last trip to England the following year, but his health was so poor that he could only occasionally appear in public. He died of a kidney disease on May 24, 1879, at the home of his daughter Fanny Garrison Villard in New York. He was buried in Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston.

Sources

Fuess, Claude M. "William Lloyd Garrison." Dictionary of American Biography. Ed. Allen Johnson and Dumas Malone. Vol. 7. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1937. 168-72.

Collection Description

This microfilm edition of the William Lloyd Garrison papers consists of one box of manuscripts reproduced on one reel of microfilm. The collection contains the family correspondence of William Lloyd Garrison; his wife Helen Eliza (Benson) Garrison (1811-1876); other members of the Benson family of Brooklyn, Connecticut, including George W. Benson (1808-1879), Sarah T. Benson (1770-1844), and Sarah T. Benson (1799-1850); and all five surviving Garrison children: George Thompson Garrison (1836-1904), William Lloyd Garrison, Jr. (1838-1909), Wendell Phillips Garrison (1840-1907), Helen Frances "Fanny" Garrison (1844-1928) (later Villard), and Francis Jackson Garrison (1848-1916). The correspondence details the domestic activities of the Garrison family--the births of two children, the health of Helen Eliza Garrison, travels undertaken by various members of the family, visits by and to friends and relatives, and letters concerning Garrison's illness and death in May 1879. The collection also includes several manuscript poems composed by Garrison; letters from fellow abolitionists Francis Jackson (1789-1861), Samuel J. May (1797-1871), Samuel E. Sewall (1799-1888), and Gerrit Smith (1797-1874) concerning reform activities; and financial records of two testimonial funds collected on Garrison's behalf.

Other individuals represented in the collection include George Thompson (1804-1878), Samuel Philbrick (1789-1859), Wendell Phillips (1811-1884), Charles F. Hovey (1807-1859), Ellis Gray Loring (1803-1858), Thomas Davis (1806-1895), Caroline C. Thayer (d. 1891), Robert Folger Wallcut (1797-1884), Samuel May, Jr. (1810-1899), James Miller McKim (1810-1874), Henry Villard (1835-1900), Horace White (1834-1916), Richard Davis Webb (1805-1872), John Bright (1811-1889), Elias Nason (1811-1887), Charles Sumner (1811-1874), and Harriet Martineau (1802-1876).

Related Materials

The Massachusetts Historical Society (MHS) holds a complete collection of William Lloyd Garrison's weekly newspaper, the Liberator, from vol. 1, no. 1 (1 Jan. 1831) to vol. 35, no. 52 (29 Dec. 1865).

Arrangement

The collection is arranged chronologically.

Acquisition Information

Gift of Francis J. Garrison, Feb. 1916.

Chronological List of Items

Preferred Citation

William Lloyd Garrison papers, Massachusetts Historical Society.

Access Terms

This collection is indexed under the following headings in ABIGAIL, the online catalog of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Researchers desiring materials about related persons, organizations, or subjects should search the catalog using these headings.