William Lloyd Garrison

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William Lloyd Garrison

William Lloyd Garrison (born December 12, 1805 in Newburyport , Massachusetts , † May 24, 1879 in New York City ) was an American writer and activist for the abolition of slavery in the United States .

Life

Garrison, who was a typesetter for his hometown newspaper in his youth , soon began writing articles, often under the pen name Aristides . After making contact with the abolitionists in Boston , he was committed to the abolition of slavery and wrote for and later with the editor, the Quaker Benjamin Lundy, in the newspaper Genius of Universal Emancipation . His outspoken views repeatedly earned him reprisals. In 1830 he was jailed for six weeks on charges of insult because he had called a slave trader "robber and murderer" in an article in Genius ; he was also the target of numerous death threats.

Garrison soon made a name for himself as one of the most eloquent and sharpest opponents of slavery. While other abolitionists of the time pleaded for a gradual path to emancipation, Garrison argued for the "immediate and complete liberation of all slaves" . In response to a worried objection to a speech by Garrison that slavery was protected by the constitution , Garrison replied that if this were true, then that constitution should be burned.

From January 1, 1831, Garrison published The Liberator magazine, which he published for 35 years and which resolutely and passionately advocated the principles of the abolitionists. The paper was usually published once a week on Friday and contained programmatic essays and speech manuscripts by opponents of slavery as well as texts by former slaves. At peak times, the print run was around 3000 copies. The Liberator soon became the main mouthpiece of the movement and Garrison the most hated man in the southern states . In December of the same year, the state of Georgia put a $ 5,000 bounty on him.

William Lloyd Garrison

On January 1, 1832, Garrison founded the New England Anti-Slavery Society , an anti-slavery society to which numerous clubs leaned that pursued the same purpose.

In 1833 he took a trip to Great Britain to advertise and agitate for the anti-slavery movement. Upon his return, he helped found the American Anti-Slavery Society in Philadelphia , of which he became president.

Garrison worked closely with Frederick Douglass , but later differences of opinion between the two men over how to assess the United States' Constitution led to a division in society. Douglass, along with Lysander Spooner and Gerrit Smith , believed the Constitution allowed emancipation, while Garrison called copies of the Constitution, which he called "a treaty with death and hell," on July 4, 1854, during an abolitionist meeting in Framingham , Massachusetts, publicly burned and branded it as a document of slavery.

In 1853, Garrison called Reverend John Rankin of Ohio his "anti-slavery father"; Rankin's book on slavery "was what caused my entry into the fight against slavery," he said. In 1865 he resigned after the American Civil War had achieved the liberation of slaves, at least on paper. Society itself was also dissolved.

After the 13th Amendment to the Constitution passed the Senate in 1865 to abolish slavery, Garrison decided to stop printing his newspaper Liberator . For the last 14 years of his life he worked in other reform movements, such as the movement for women's suffrage and the temperance movement . He died in 1879 and was buried in Forest Hills Cemetery in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts.

He left two sons and a daughter:

  • William Lloyd Garrison (1838-1909), who was also politically active
  • Wendell Phillips Garrison (1840-1907), the 1865-1906 editor of the literary side of the New York Nation was
  • Helen Garrison Villard , called Fanny (1844–1928), she is also politically active.

Garrison died in 1879 at his daughter Fanny's home. His own house, in which he lived from 1864 to 1879, is now listed as a National Historic Landmark on the National Register of Historic Places under the name William Lloyd Garrison House .

Quotes

“I register numerous objections to the harshness of my language; but aren't there reasons for this hardship? I'm as rough as truth and as uncompromising as justice. In this regard, I will not think, speak or write moderately. No! No! Tell a man whose house is on fire to raise the alarm moderately; ask him to save his wife some way from the rapist's hands; tell a mother that she will gradually remove her baby who has fallen into the fire; - but do not press me to exercise moderation in a case like this. I'm serious - I don't use excuses - I don't apologize - I don't back off an inch; - BUT I WILL BE HEARD. The apathy of the people can make a statue jump from its pedestal and hasten the resurrection of the dead. "

- The Liberator , editorial January 1, 1831.

"I accuse my country of birth of the insult to heavenly majesty which she has ever inflicted on her with the grossest mockery of man."

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Commemoration

literature

Web links

Commons : William Lloyd Garrison  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

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Individual evidence

  1. ^ William Lloyd Garrison and The Liberator at USHistory.org.
  2. ^ Ann Hagedorn: Beyond The River: The Untold Story of the Heroes of the Underground Railroad. Simon & Schuster, 2002, ISBN 0-684-87065-7 , p. 58.
  3. ^ William Lloyd Garrison: To the Public. In: The Liberator. January 1, 1831, p. 1.
  4. ↑ quoted from Jonathan Zimmerman: Losing our religion. The Christian Science Monitor, April 20, 2005.
  5. ^ A memorial of William Lloyd Garrison from the city of Boston. City Council Boston (Mass.), 1886.
personal data
SURNAME Garrison, William Lloyd
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American writer and campaigner for the abolition of slavery in the United States
DATE OF BIRTH December 12, 1805
PLACE OF BIRTH Newburyport , Massachusetts
DATE OF DEATH May 24, 1879
Place of death New York City