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| Issue #1 of the Liberator |
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Garrison knew, however, that his paper alone would not be enough to reach the whole nation. Even several years after founding the paper, the total number of subscriptions did not total over 500. Achieving a national reputation and spreading his message would take some creativity, and this creativity marked Garrison's success. His course of action was unique but very effective. During this period, many newspapers had exchange programs with other papers where they would send a copy of their paper to another newspaper for a copy of that paper. In this way, a primitive news network was created where editorials and articles from a paper in Boston could be read in a local paper in South Carolina.
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| Garrison's famous declaration in the premier issue of the Liberator |
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Garrison set up many exchanges with other papers. He would send copies to Southern papers, who would receive it and find it offensive. These papers would then quote it or reprint it to show their readers the thinking of the "diabolical Yankees." Then Northern editors opposed to abolition or neutral to it would reprint the Southern editorials and add their comments because it was considered good copy. From here, the articles would find their way back to Garrison and the Liberator, where he would respond and start the whole cycle over again.(2)
The paper grew continuously for quite a while, and gained readers (if not supporters) across the country. Garrison found success in the growing rumblings against the anti-slavery movement and felt that the Liberator was primarily and instrumentally responsible for putting slavery at the top of the national conscious.(3) He continued to use the paper to amplify his voice until publishing the final issue in 1865, turning to its pages when he couldn't convince people by speaking to them.
Garrison began speaking publicly much more often after marrying Helen Benson in 1834. These speeches were aimed at gaining new supporters for the Liberator. Now that Garrison had a wife and soon would have a family to support, he needed to make the Liberator generate some moderate level of income for him. Not that Garrison ever had money to spend, but Helen managed to raise his children and run his house for Garrison without complaining.(4)
Garrison would pay the price for his vocal and extreme abolitionist views. The backlash against abolitionism would come to focus on him for a while. Garrison was almost lynched on one occasion and mobbed several times during his life. These experiences led him to question the correctness of his path, but he remained on his course and managed to gain strength from these incidences.
Garrison knew a escaped slave in Boston who was from the Baltimore area. While helping this man in Boston, he found out that he had a sister still in Baltimore who was ready to leave if someone could get her a train ticket. Garrison made an effort in March, 1853, to get this woman out of Baltimore by asking a friend of his in Philadelphia, a Mr. J. Miller McKim, to attempt to get a ticket to Baltimore if possible, for which Garrison would forward money.(5)
Garrison's mother brought Baltimore back into Garrison's life for a short while. Though dead for many years, Garrison's mother had some money on deposit at the Savings Bank of Baltimore which had just been accumulating interest. Garrison, upon learning of this sum from a friend of his mother's immediately wrote to John Needles, a Quaker in Baltimore whom Garrison had know when he was still in Baltimore. This was the first correspondence between the two since Garrison left Baltimore. He eventually received the money after having to pay for the moving of his mother and sister's graves. The total sum equaled $350, as indicated in Garrison's letter to John Needles in September of 1857. This money did not remain long, as it was spent paying for medical and funeral costs for Garrison's aunt, who was living with him during this time.(6)
| For many a year I have been an outlaw in the South for your sakes, and a large price was set on my head, simply because I endeavored to remember those in bonds as bound with them. I have faithfully tried in the face of the fiercest opposition, and under the most depressing circumstances, to make your cause my cause, my wife and children your wives and children, subjected to the same outrage and degradation; myself on the same auction block, to be sold to the highest bidder. . . .(7) |
Garrison died in 1879 in New York. He fell ill in April while trying to raise money to relocate Blacks in Kansas. After being brought home to New York, he died a month later. Garrison was the father of 5 children and one of the most famous abolitionists in American history. He summed up his life quite effectively in his Valedictory in the last issue of the Liberator and, as was his nature, thanked his readers and supporters for their work.(8)
1. 2. 3. 
4. Truman Nelson, ed. Documents of Upheaval. New York: Hill and Wang, 1966, pp. xx-xxi.
5. Merrill, pp. 229-30.
6. Merrill, p. 419, pp. 471-2, and pp. 485-6.
7. Nelson, p. xxi.
8. Thomas, p. 451 and Nelson, pp. 277-82.