Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879; the story of his life told by his children: volume 1

‘ [304] manifested, and he cared not how soon gentlemen played the game out. . . . He could tell gentlemen that when they moved that question seriously, they from the South would meet it elsewhere. It would not be disputed in that House but in the open field, where powder and cannon would be their orators, and their arguments lead and steel.’ The memorial was withdrawn, and the Society found itself willy-nilly in the category of dangerous agitators of what its friends were accustomed to style an ‘important and delicate question,’ an ¹ ‘interesting and fearful subject.’ On the heels of this unexpected discomfiture, Mr. Garrison flung down his gage, which the Society dared not pick up for the space of² six months.

The Liberator, on the other hand, gave every outward sign of prosperity. The last number of the first volume had gathered up, for a parting broadside, all the selected testimonials, domestic and foreign, against slavery which had been published in weekly instalments during the year. The new volume exhibited an enlargement by nearly two-thirds, with five columns to the page instead of four, and these both broader and longer, but with no change in the subscription price.³ The pictorial heading remained unaltered, and, probably derived from an English source, a series of woodcuts illustrating the iniquities of slavery began to be interspersed with the text. One of these represented a kneeling female slave, surmounted by the familiar legend, ‘Am I not a Woman and a Sister?’ and was made the occasion, in the first number, of opening a ‘Ladies' Department’ (after the example of⁴ the Genius), as likely to enhance the interest of the Liberator, ‘and give a new impetus to the cause of⁵ emancipation.’ The editor could not believe his countrywomen to be less philanthropic or less influential than their British sisters, who were heartily engaged in