The year 1831 is notable for three events in the history of the anti-slavery controversy: on the first day of January in that year William Lloyd Garrison began in Boston the publication of the Liberator; in August there occurred in Southampton, Virginia, an insurrection of slaves led by a negro, Nat Turner, in which sixty-one white persons were massacred; and in December the Virginia Legislature began its long debate on the question of slavery.
On the part of the abolitionists there was at no time any sudden break in the principles which they advocated.Lundy did nothing but revive and continue the work of the Quakers and other non-slaveholding classes of the revolutionary period.Birney was and continued to be a typical slaveholding abolitionist of the earlier period.Garrison began his work as a disciple of Lundy, whom he followed in the condemnation of the African colonization scheme, though he went farther and rejected every form of colonization.Garrison likewise repudiated every plan for gradual emancipation and proclaimed the duty of immediate and unconditional liberation of the slaves.
The first number of the Liberator contained an Address to the Public, which sounded the keynote of Garrison's career."I shall contend for the immediate enfranchisement of our slave population--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--I am in earnest--I will not equivocate--Iwill not retreat a single inch, and I WILL BE HEARD!"The New England Anti-Slavery Society, of which Garrison was the chief organizer, was in essential harmony with the societies which Lundy had organized in other sections.Its first address to the public in 1833 distinctly recognized the separate States as the sole authority in the matter of emancipation within their own boundaries.Through moral suasion, eschewing all violence and sedition, its authors proposed to secure their object.In the spirit of civil and religious liberty and by appealing to the Declaration of Independence, the Liberty party of 1840 and 1844, by the Freesoil party of 1848, and later by the Republican party, and that nearly all of the abolitionists continued to be faithful adherents to those principles, are sufficient proof of the essential unity of the great anti-slavery movement.The apparent lack of harmony and the real confusion in the history of the subject arose from the peculiar character of one remarkable man.
The few owners of slaves who had assumed the role of public defenders of the institution were in the habit of using violent and abusive language against anti-slavery agitators.This appeared in the first debate on the subject during Washington's administration.Every form of rhetorical abuse also accompanied the outbreak of mob violence against the reformers at the time of Garrison's advent into the controversy.He was especially fitted to reply in kind."I am accused," said he, "of using hard language.I admit the charge.I have not been able to find a soft word to describe villainy, or to identify the perpetrator of it."This was a new departure which was instantly recognized by Southern leaders.But from the beginning to the bitter end, Garrison stands alone as preeminently the representative of this form of attack.It was significant, also, that the Liberator was published in Boston, the literary center of the country.
There is no evidence that there was any direct connection between the publication of the Liberator and the servile insurrection which occurred during the following August.* It was, however, but natural that the South should associate the two events.A few utterances of the paper were fitted, if not intended, to incite insurrection.One passage reads: "Whenever there is a contest between the oppressed and the oppressor--the weapons being equal between the parties--God knows that my heart must be with the oppressed, and always against the oppressor.Therefore, whenever commenced, I cannot but wish success to all slave insurrections."Again: "Rather than see men wearing their chains in a cowardly and servile spirit, I would, as an advocate of peace, much rather see them breaking the heads of the tyrant with their chains."* Garrison himself denied any direct connection with the Nat Turner insurrection.See "William Lloyd Garrison, the Story of His Life told by His Children," vol.I, p.251.
