Archibald H. Grimke, William Lloyd Garrison the Abolitionist

[141] of which Garrison's was the leading, originating mind. The society started out bravely in the use of its means by memorializing Congress for the abolition of slavery, “in the District of Columbia and in the Territories of the United States under their jurisdiction,” and by preparing and distributing an address in maintenance of the doctrine of immediate emancipation. The board of managers set the machinery in motion as far and as fast as the extremely limited pecuniary ability of the society would permit. The membership was not from the rich classes. It was Oliver Johnson who wittily remarked that not more than one or two of the original twelve, “could have put a hundred dollars into the treasury without bankrupting themselves.” The remark was true, and was quite as applicable to any dozen of the new-comers as to the original twelve. The society was never deficient in zeal, bnt it was certainly sadly wanting in money. And money was even to such men and to such a movement an important factor in revolutionizing public opinion.

The Liberator was made the official organ of the society, and in this way was added to its other weapons that of the press. This was a capital arrangement, for by it both the paper and the society were placed under the direction of the same masterly guidance. There was still one arrow left in the moral quiver of the organization to reach the conscience of the people, and that was the appointment of an agent to spread the doctrines of the new propaganda of freedom. In August the board of managers, metaphorically speaking, shot this arrow by making Garrison the agent of the society to lecture on the subiect