Chapter 20: A Formal Abolitionist Movement Begins in 1831

Among the disciples of preachers like Charles Finney are journalist William Lloyd Garrison and Quaker Lucretia Mott. Together they form the foundation for the cause of abolition.

Garrison announces his intent in the first issue of his paper, the Liberator, which will be published weekly from 1831 until 1865. In ringing terms the headline calls for an “immediate end” to slavery and ends with the bold faced promise, “I WILL BE HEARD!”

To put his crusade into motion, Garrison hires a band of roving “lecturers” who will include the soon to be famous Frederick Douglass. They speak on behalf of abolition in towns across the North. Together with “Mother Mott,” Garrison also founds the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1833.

But the vast majority of Northerners want absolutely nothing to do with abolition. They have already abandoned slavery, considered shipping all remaining blacks back to Africa, and fear that freeing those left in the South will only lead to a migration to their towns which they oppose.

Hence Garrison’s touring lecturers are perpetually met with the threat of bodily harm. This also applies to Garrison himself, and he is nearly lynched by a mob in his hometown of Boston in 1835.

But still he persists.