Antislavery Press

By: Cherron A. Barnwell

Source:

 Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619-1895: From the Colonial Period to the Age of Frederick Douglass

Antislavery Press

On 1 January 1831, in Boston, Massachusetts, William Lloyd Garrison launched his weekly antislavery newspaper, the Liberator, and a new phase in the history of the antislavery press was under way. In his first editorial, Garrison brazenly declared,

"I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, to speak, or write, with moderation. … I am in earnest—I will not equivocate—I will not excuse—I will not retreat a single inch—AND I WILL BE HEARD."

(Cain, p. 72) The unforgiving tone of the Liberator was thenceforth established, reflecting the firmness of what was to be its purpose for the next thirty-five years. From the day of its inauguration to 29 December 1865, the Liberator loudly proclaimed Garrison's truths and his criticisms of proslavery advocates—as well as of those antislavery advocates whose views opposed his. The Liberator was the voice and soul of Garrison's abolitionist crusade.

By the time the Liberator appeared, it had become common practice for abolitionist reformers to disseminate their arguments in newspapers as well as through public lectures; Garrison proved no different in his approach. Such major publications as the Liberator and the American Anti-Slavery Society's organ, the National AntiSlavery Standard, edited for two years by Lydia Maria Child, formed the backbone of antislavery activism in the antebellum era and through the close of the Civil War.

Antislavery Press before 1830

Prior to the radical fervor of the abolitionist crusade, antislavery sentiments had existed to a lesser degree almost as long as had slavery itself. Primarily a cause taken up by Quakers and Methodists, antislavery action was too moderate to sway the public away from the institution, in large part owing to the economic prosperity it brought to the country. At the heart of early antislavery protests were biblical passages that supported the condemnation of the enslavement of Africans in America as sacrilege against God. Early proponents of abolition also focused on America's founding democratic principles, identifying the hypocrisy inherent in slavery's existing in a country that purportedly promised liberty and equal rights to all its citizens. Early antislavery advocates called for the proscription of slavery in territorial expansion and of the slave smuggling that occurred well after the African slave trade had been closed in America. Some supported plans of gradual emancipation and the deportation of free blacks.

Colonization schemes, however, proved only as successful as their short reach across the color line, as organizations like the American Colonization Society were eventually exposed as fronts for racists who believed that whites were superior to blacks and that free African Americans were incapable of being self-sufficient and contributing to the growth and development of the nation. From unheeded calls for the immediate emancipation of slaves to more moderate ones for the simple social uplift of the free “sable sons of Africa,” the beginnings of the antislavery movement witnessed the development of what would become the major focuses of the abolitionist crusade and its press from 1830 onward.

One of the earliest antislavery newspapers—one which reflected abolitionist principles that Garrison would later adopt—was the Philanthropist, of Mount Pleasant, Ohio, first edited and published by Charles Osborn. After seven months Benjamin Lundy became the paper's associate editor and most frequent contributor. Osborn, “an eminent minister in the Society of Friends,” founded the paper on 29 August 1817 and remained its editor and publisher until October 1818, when Elisha Bates took over to run the newspaper under the same name for the next four years. A study of Osborn's involvement in abolition credits him as being Garrison's most noteworthy precursor. Indeed, as George W. Julian wrote in 1882, he managed to

"proclaim the doctrine of immediate and unconditional emancipation when William Lloyd Garrison was only nine years old and nearly a dozen years before that doctrine was announced by Elizabeth Heyrick, in England; and … edit and publish the first anti-slavery newspaper in the United States, and is thus entitled to take rank as the real pioneer of American abolitionism."

(Blassingame, p. 3) For Osborn, colonization meant gradual emancipation, which “placed conditions in its way,” thus postponing freedom. Unwavering in his stance against slavery, Osborn boycotted goods produced by slave labor.

A page from the Anti-Slavery Almanac of 1839. The almanac, distributed annually by the American Anti-Slavery Society, included poems, drawings, essays, reporting, and other abolitionist material.

Library of Congress.

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The Philanthropist was followed by the Emancipator, which was published between April and October 1820 and was edited and produced by Elihu Embree of Jonesborough, Tennessee. In his 31 August 1820 editorial, Embree confessed his past ownership of slaves and admitted his shame for not adhering to true Christian principles. In using his antislavery newspaper as a medium for redemptive protest against slavery, Embree called to those men “with clean hands” to “eradicate the stain upon our national escutcheon.” During its six-month existence, the Emancipator served to advocate the abolition of slavery, report the movement's progress, biographically sketch its advocates, and mediate correspondence between antislavery societies.

Next, the popular antislavery newspaper Genius of Universal Emancipation, edited and published by Benjamin Lundy, in Mount Pleasant, Ohio, launched its first issue in 1821. Lundy, who had already regularly submitted articles to other antislavery newspapers and was actively involved in the antislavery movement to the extent that he organized the Union Humane Society, played an essential role in the antislavery movement. His main stance favored gradual emancipation, although he reported on various positions, including the dissenting ones of his coeditor, Garrison.

The Genius of Universal Emancipation was followed by John Finley Crow's Abolition Intelligencer and Missionary Magazine, first published in Shelbyville, Kentucky, on 7 May 1822, and Enoch Lewis's African Observer, a Monthly Journal, Containing Essays and Documents Illustrative of the General Character, and Moral and Political Effects, of Negro Slavery, first published in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in April 1827. The life span of each of these publications was just eleven months. Crow's Abolition Intelligencer editorial policy supported both the biblical monogenetic perspective of the creation of the human species and gradual emancipation, which he felt could be instituted through the revision of the Constitution. Crow's paper, therefore, aimed to

"Meliorate … the situation of free people of colour, by giving them proper aid and encouragement in the discharge of the great duties of morality and religion—to defend the rights of those who are legally free …, and to prepare the public mind for taking the necessary preparatory measures for the future introduction of a system of laws, for the gradual abolition of slavery, as those degraded people may be prepared for the enjoyment of civil liberty."

(Blassingame, p. 97) Lewis's African Observer attempted to quell animosity between the North and South, dispel party disaffection, “trace the moral influence of slavery on those who breathe its atmosphere—and to point out the best means for its peaceful extinction.”

The aforementioned papers were all produced by white men; black abolitionists, meanwhile, were championing their own cause alongside that of mainstream abolitionism. Black newspapers focused on the issues of slavery, abolition, racism, and the inclusion of free blacks in America's institutions. In opposing colonization, for instance, their stance was generally resolute, their protests fiery and straightforward. The first black newspaper, Freedom's Journal, formed by John Brown Russwurm and Samuel Cornish in New York in 1827, set the standard for black presses to follow; Freedom's Journal aimed to present the voice of a self-sufficient and determined free black community. On the other hand, black newspapers sometimes suffered shortcomings owing to the poor literacy rates of the black community. Addressing this later would be Frederick Douglass' Paper, which sought to “afford the most extensive opportunity for a free and full expression of sentiments by the illiterate as well as the learned.”

David Walker gained stature in and improved the literacy of the black community through his assistance of fugitive slaves, his writings in Freedom's Journal, and his famously controversial pamphlet, An Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World. In his incendiary Appeal, published in 1829, Walker called with eloquence and passion for black people to unite, rise up against their oppressors, and fight for their freedom. The fear he stirred among the slavocracy evidenced the masterfully persuasive tone of his writing. Walker's Appeal certainly had an influence on Garrison, who published portions of it in his newspaper. Garrison even formed rhetorical and stylistic alliances with Walker; both often referred to the Declaration of Independence. Together, Walker and Garrison, soon fanning the flames lit by Nat Turner's 1831 revolt, ushered in a radical new age of abolitionist reform.

William Lloyd Garrison and the Liberator

Garrison joined the cause of antislavery more than a decade before the inaugural issue of his Liberator was printed on 1 January 1831; by and large, political journalism was his method. In October 1818, at the age of thirteen, Garrison became apprenticed to the printer of the Newburyport Herald. At age seventeen he began writing impressive political treatises for the Herald as well as other newspapers, namely, the Haverhill Gazette, the Salem Gazette, and the Boston Commercial Gazette. At the age of twenty-one Garrison purchased and edited a newspaper in Newburyport called the Free Press. The paper proved unsuccessful, but Garrison's career would not. In 1828 he copublished the Journal of the Times in Vermont, which supported the antislavery cause, and in 1829 Benjamin Lundy, impressed by his talents and zeal, requested his coeditorship on the Baltimore-based Genius of Universal Emancipation. For that publication, Garrison submitted his radical abolitionist position in opposition to Lundy. Their coeditorship later ended because of a shared libel suit—and Garrison's forty-nine days' incarceration for denouncing a ship merchant for transporting a cargo of slaves from Baltimore to Louisiana.

Upon his release from prison, Garrison submitted a prospectus for an antislavery journal to be published in Washington, D.C. Additionally, he prepared antislavery lectures, which he delivered along the northeastern coast from Boston to Philadelphia. Because his lectures particularly excited the crowds in Boston, he decided that that city would be a better place to run a newspaper.

Within the pages of the Liberator, Garrison waged war against slavery and racial inequality. His aims for abolitionist reform as presented in his paper were firm:

"Assenting to the “self-evident truth” maintained in the American Declaration of Independence, “that all men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights—among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” I shall strenuously contend for the immediate enfranchisement of our slave population."

(Cain, p. 71) Garrison espoused the “immediate, unconditional emancipation of slaves without compensation to slave owners.” Every stance he took in contending for the immediate liberation of slaves was expressed in the Liberator, which thus charted the development of his perspectives as well as the course of the abolitionist crusade. In an 1832 editorial entitled “Guilt of New England,” Garrison held the North responsible for the continuation of slavery because of its peripheral involvement in the institution. This position, first presented in his famous 1829 speech “An Address to the American Colonization Society,” was accompanied by a disunionist call for the dissolution of the United States: “So long as we continue one body—a union—a nation—the compact involves us in the guilt and danger of slavery.” In a 29 December 1832 editorial entitled “On the Constitution and the Union,” Garrison accused the nation's founding fathers of being hypocritical in the charter document; he charged that in striking the “infamous bargain which they made between themselves, they virtually dethroned the Most High God, and trampled beneath their feet their own solemn and heavenattested Declaration.”

As Garrison and fellow abolitionists organized antislavery societies across the country, their manifestos and progress were reported in the Liberator. The 14 December 1833 editorial, “Declaration of the National AntiSlavery Convention,” presented the aims of the new Philadelphia branch of the American Anti-Slavery Society. On 23 January 1836 Garrison offered “The Progress of Antislavery,” a reprinted letter to a fellow abolitionist. The Liberator followed the format of religious reform newspapers in including such writings as well as in appending other movements to abolitionist reform. The following editorial titles reflect Garrison's various interests: “Rights of Woman” (1838), “Women's Rights” (1853), and “The Bible and Women's Rights” (1855).

The Liberator also chronicled the activities of black abolitionists. In support of Frederick Douglass—the fugitive slave who became the foremost black abolitionist and orator as well as the editor of his own antislavery newspapers, beginning with the North Star—the Liberator charted his activities in America and abroad and reprinted his speeches and letters. In a 1 July 1842 editorial, Garrison reported his impressions of Douglass from an antislavery meeting:

"After I had spoken at some length, I was followed by two witnesses on the side of non-resistance. … The first was Frederick Douglass. He stood there as a slave—a runaway from the southern house of bondage—not safe, for one hour, even on the soil of Massachusetts—with his back all horribly scarred by the lash … with every thing in his past history, his present condition, his future prospects, to make him a fierce outlaw, and a stern avenger of outraged humanity! He stood there, not to counsel retaliation, not to advocate the right of the oppressed to wade through blood to liberty … O no!—but with the spirit of Christian forgiveness in his heart, with the melting accents of charity on his lips, with the gentleness of love beaming in his eyes! His testimony was clear and emphatic."

(Cain, p. 108) Unfortunately, their friendship later became strained as a result of Douglass's production of the North Star and was finally severed when Garrison perceived Douglass's “new anti-slavery interpretation of the Constitution” as ambitiously self-serving. In his second autobiography, My Bondage and My Freedom (1855), Douglass discusses Garrison's disapproval of his ability to learn and think independently—and apart from the views of Garrison and other white abolitionists.

During its thirty-four-year run the Liberator targeted a northern audience, as there Garrison “found contempt more bitter, opposition more active, detraction more relentless, prejudice more stubborn, and apathy more frozen, than among slave owners themselves.” The Liberator particularly attracted free black northerners; subscriptions were filled in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, “where significant numbers of free black[s] resided.” Indeed, black subscribers kept the newspaper running from its inception: “The receipt of $50 from James Forten, a wealthy colored citizen of Philadelphia, with the names of twenty-five subscribers, was the first cheering incentive to perseverance, and the journal was issued without interruption from that day.” Garrison's often brash tone and his passion for emancipation led some readers to mistake him for an African American, and regardless of his identity his forceful attacks on racism maintained his appeal to black readers. White subscribers never exceeded 400, with the total number of subscribers ranging between 2,500 and 3,000.

The Liberator's uncompromising tone and the “severity” of Garrison's language incited hostility in both the North and South, to the extent that Garrison's life was often threatened—even by democratic institutions: “In December, 1831, the Legislature of Georgia passed an act, offering a reward of $5,000 to any person who should arrest, bring to trial, and prosecute to conviction, under the laws of that State, the editor or the publisher” of the Liberator. Garrison's contemporary biographer, William Cain, reports: “On October 21, 1835, Garrison was accosted by twelve Boston men, roughed up, his clothes torn, and he was hauled by a rope along Wilson's Lane toward State Street.”

On the whole, radical abolitionist reform met with hostility from the masses. Frantic public officials, perceiving such reform attempts as insurrectional, worked to suppress abolitionist mailings and newspapers. Violent adversaries went as far as to burn several abolitionist newspapers. Elijah P. Lovejoy, the editor of the Alton Observer, received the ultimate retribution for allotting space in his paper to the subject of abolition: aside from his paper's offices being set on fire four times, he lost his life to mob rule. Mainstream newspapers, meanwhile, hardly spared space on their sheets for the subject of abolition, perceiving antislavery reform as a public nuisance.

Despite mob violence and other opposition, abolitionist reform progressed. In 1832 Garrison and other abolitionists formed the New England Anti-Slavery Society, later renamed the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society; in 1833 they founded a national organization called the American Anti-Slavery Society. The American AntiSlavery Society produced its own journal, the National Anti-Slavery Standard, following the model of the Liberator. While undergoing several name changes, the National Anti-Slavery Standard remained the weekly organ of the American Anti-Slavery Society from 1840 to 1870. It was published out of both New York and Philadelphia, and letters, editorials, poetry, advertisements, and illustrations filled its pages. In the manner of the mainstream press, the Standard also included local, national, and foreign news.

Like the Liberator, the Standard espoused immediate emancipation and racial equality. Immersed in American Enlightenment principles, the Standard set forth its objectives:

"It is manifestly the will of the Society that this paper should be conducted on the broad principle of the universal fraternity of the human race, irrespective of sect, party, sex, color or country. All who love freedom and abhor slavery, all who believe in the doctrine of immediate emancipation will receive from the conductors of this paper that equal consideration which the society itself accords, and be welcomed as co-laborers whenever they present themselves in that character."

(Blassingame, p. 9) The National Anti-Slavery Standard also had one purpose outside those of the Liberator: to expand the membership of the American Anti-Slavery Society and, as such, to formally initiate more followers into abolitionist reform. Presenting before its public an open argument in favor of abolition, the Standard professed a “freedom of expression [that] respect[s] the grand object of the society and the means for its accomplishment.” To this end, the organ differed from the Liberator in that it avoided functioning as one man's paper. The Liberator, on the other hand, was thoroughly Garrison's: “Through crisis after crisis personal editorial control of the paper … was his in the sense that few influential organs of public opinion have ever belonged to one man.”

While the National Anti-Slavery Standard was the American Anti-Slavery Society's weekly journal, the society also published four other journals, namely, the Anti-Slavery Record, Human Rights, the Emancipator, and the Slave's Friend. These journals were published on monthly bases, alternating weeks. The Anti-Slavery Record was issued out of New York City from January 1835 to December 1837; the abolitionists William Goodell, the Reverend Joshua Leavitt, and Amos Augustus Phelps all edited the journal, each serving for one year. Human Rights was issued out of New York from July 1835 to February 1839.

Lovejoy, eventually known as the martyr of abolition for losing his life to mob violence, edited several papers for the American Anti-Slavery Society. The first was the St. Louis Observer, which he served from November 1833 to July 1836; he was charged with inciting free black people in his position at the Observer, to which his opponents responded by destroying his office and the paper. He then moved his press to Alton, Illinois, where he established the Alton Observer on 1 October 1836. On 21 August 1837 the paper was destroyed, and on 7 November 1837 Lovejoy was murdered. Elisha Chester took over editorship of the Alton Observer in December 1837, but the paper ceased publication in 1838.

The war that abolitionist reformers waged against slavery was both moral and religious, and the movement's newspapers were its weapons. The antislavery press after 1830 furthered the reformist objectives and stances set forth by earlier abolitionist publications. They “put faces and voices to the crusade,” introducing the public to prominent abolitionists such as Wendell Phillips, the poet John Greenleaf Whittier, the Englishman George Thompson, and Lydia Maria Child. The role of the antislavery press was to agitate as well as to disseminate beliefs regarding not only slavery but also the social climate that fostered the abominable institution. Abolitionists severely criticized the church and attacked America's government and its charter document for being hypocritical. In recording the historical course and progress of abolitionist reform, the antislavery press between 1830 and 1870 propagated social views that excited the spirit of freedom and justice in America's soul. Antislavery newspapers aroused the nation's ability to overcome all threats to the democratic life that it wished to provide for all its citizens.

See also Abolitionism; American Anti-Slavery Society; American Colonization Society; Antislavery Movement; Bible; Black Abolitionists; Black Press; Black Uplift; Child, Lydia Maria; Colonization; Cornish, Samuel; Disunionism; Douglass' Monthly; Douglass, Frederick; Evolution; Feminist Movement; Forten, James; Frederick Douglass' Paper; Garrison, William Lloyd; Garrisonian Abolitionists; Goodell, William; Literature; Lundy, Benjamin; Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society; Methodist Episcopal Church; My Bondage and My Freedom; North Star; Oratory and Verbal Arts; Phillips, Wendell; Racism; Reform; Religion; Religion and Slavery; Russwurm, John Brown; Slavery; Society of Friends (Quakers); Suffrage, Women's; Thompson, George; Turner, Nat; Violence against African Americans; Walker, David; Whittier, John Greenleaf; and Women.

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