CHAPTER III
THE NEW ABOLITIONISTS
On the first day of January, 1831, there came out in Boston a new paper, The Liberator, William Lloyd Garrison, editor. That was the beginning, historians now generally agree, of "New Abolitionism." The editor of the new paper was the founder of the new sect.
Benjamin Lundy was a predecessor of Garrison, on much the same lines as those pursued by the latter. Lundy had previously formed many Abolition societies. The Philanthropist of March, 1828, estimated the number of anti-slavery societies as "upwards of 130, and most of them in the slave States, and of Lundy's formation, among the Quakers."[22] But Garrison became the leader and Lundy the disciple.
Garrison was a man of pleasing personal appearance, abstemious in habits, and of remarkable energy and will power. He was a vigorous and forceful writer. Denunciation was his chief weapon, and he had "a genius for infuriating his antagonists." The following is a fair specimen of his style. Speaking of himself and his fellow-workers as the "soldiers of God," he said: "Their feet are shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace.... Hence, when smitten on one cheek they turn the other also, being defamed they entreat, being reviled they bless," etc. And on that same page,[23] and in the same prospectus, showing how he "blesses" those who, as he understands, are outside of the "Kingdom of God," he says: "All without are dogs and sorcerers, and ... and murderers, and idolaters, and whatsoever loveth a lie."
Mr. Garrison had no perspective, no sense of relation or proportion. In his eye the most humane slave-holder was a wicked monster. He had a genius for organization, and a year after the first issue of The Liberator he and his little body of brother fanatics had grown into the New England Anti-Slavery Society.
The new sect called themselves for a time the "New Abolitionists," because their doctrines were new. The principles upon which this organization was to be based were not all formulated at once. The key-note was sounded in Garrison's "Address to the Public" in the first number of The Liberator:
I shall strenuously contend for the immediate enfranchisement of our slave population. I shall 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.