previous next
[88] previous time in the history of the country. It did in fact date the opening of a new era in the slavery struggle in America.

With Northern indifference and apathy on the subject of emancipation, Garrison's previous visit to the North had acquainted him. Their existence he saw interposed the main obstacle to the success of his new venture in journalism. “The cause of this callous state of feeling,” he believed, “was owing to their exceeding ignorance of the horrors of slavery.” He accordingly made up his mind to throw the light which he possessed into the midst of this darkness. He had written in prison three lectures on “Slavery and Colonization.” What better could he now do than to deliver those lectures at the North? If the good people and their religious leaders knew what he knew, they would presently feel as he did on the question. He was loath to leave Baltimore without giving this testimony against slavery. But unable to procure a room for this purpose was finally compelled to content himself with the witness he had already borne in the Genius and in prison in behalf of the slave. In Philadelphia he well-nigh failed to obtain a hall for his lectures, but did finally succeed in getting the Franklin Institute, where, to small audiences, he lifted up his voice against the iniquity of the times. He repeated his lectures in New York, New Haven, and Hartford. But not many came out to hear him. The nation, its churches, and politicians had thrust their fingers in their ears to every cry coming up from the slave. Why should they go to sup with a madman on horrors, with which as patriotic people they were forbidden to concern themselves. And so

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

hide Places (automatically extracted)
hide People (automatically extracted)
Sort people alphabetically, as they appear on the page, by frequency
Click on a person to search for him/her in this document.
William Lloyd Garrison (1)
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: