January 1, 1831
Garrison makes his now-famous statement: “I am aware that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject I do not wish to think, or speak, or write with moderation. No! no! Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen; — but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — and I will be heard. The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal, and to hasten the resurrection of the dead.”
October 13, 1837
John Gulliver writes on Oct 10 to Garrison, complaining that in a previous paper Garrison had done him an “injustice in your strictures on my remarks at the Worcester Convention….” He asks that Garrison publish a copy of those remarks into the paper…
The editor responds: “Certainly your request shall be complied with, yet we shall be sorry to be compelled to make you publicly ridiculous in publishing your remarks. We have treated you tenderly, instead of unkindly, considering the virulence and personality of your attack.”
Oct. 20, 1837
Gulliver’s remarks are printed here, and the gist of his complaint is that one fault of the Liberator is that it is “cruel and unrelenting in its spirit”. He complains that followers of Garrison seem to be expected to treat him like a king:…”..having led us right so often, we have appeared to think he can never lead us wrong.’
Garrison responds with about two pages of notes, 39 in all !!!!
June 29, 1838
Here is a piece taken from Martineau’s Retrospect of Western Travel
October 2, 1840
From the American Wesleyan Observer, signed by Orange Scott. ‘ Till within the last two years we have had unlimited confidence in Mr. Garrison. We have defended him in private and in public. But we must say, we lost our confidence, in great measure, even in his moral integrity! We can no longer view him as an honorable, high-minded man — not even as a man of true moral principle!……Look at the mean, underhanded course taken by Mr. Garrison to instill his peculiar and disorganizing notions upon the community!” It goes on to claim that he wants to rule all the abolitionists of the country, who oppose his notions of perfectionism , his desire to “crowd forward the women into all public stations and duties”
November 11, 1842
From the New England (Catholic) Reporter, an article is titled, “The Liberator, alias, the Disorganizer” It names the Liberator “that mighty advocate for the slave, whose puissant editor should be immediately transported to Ethiopia, there to dwell in all love and harmony with the wild negroes – the Liberator is the most factious and disorganizing journal that aims at the severance of the federal Union, the stake-burning of religion’s ministers, all of whom it stigmatizes ……”
March 3, 1843
Under the Refuge of Oppression, is an item from the Maine Cultivator, signed by “Xenos”. It evokes a “middle course” for thought and action. “If the Garrison school remembered this, they would lead useful lives by devoting themselves to honorable industry, instead of instituting an apostleship of error, and under the pretense of reforming the public mind, endeavoring to transform it into a state of rebellion against all authority, human and divine. ….. How pitiable it is that so many should undertake to walk in his erring footsteps…..”
July 28, 1843
Under the Refuge of Oppression, an item from the Northampton Democrat;
“It is already known to our readers that this bold reformer has come to spend the summer in Northampton……it is very critical of a recent speech in that city, by Garrison, near the town hall, on the ‘glorious Fourth’. “He began with a lie in his mouth by asserting that he was refused admittance to the Town Hall. Every citizen of Northampton knows that the hall is free to all sorts of lecturers ….. he made a ‘long harangue against the town’ , thanking heaven that he was allowed to speak in the open air. A band began to play, a number of people left the scene.. “This was a perfect test of the feelings of our citizens.” With Garrison’s remarks “the clergy came in for the greatest share of abuse….But with all this disgusting balderdash, Garrison has great power as a speaker”….. townspeople gathered for the day and most ignored Garrison…. The unhappy Garrisonians “withdrew to their unsocial home to plot mischief, and try to undermine the happy constitution, laws and institutions of our common country…”
May 17, 1844
Brother Kurtz, a clergyman and editor of Lutheran Observer, is here quoted:
‘A number of individuals, with Mr. Garrison at their head, have been petitioning the Massachusetts Legislature to abolish capital punishment, and, in case their prayer should be denied, they ask that the gallows be erected near a meeting house, that the execution take place on the Sabbath day, and that the minister be the executioner’ We give the foregoing to show where this notorious individual has got to. What will be his next step, time alone will tell.”
June 13, 1845
From the Putney (Vermont) Perfectionist …. “Garrison is a bigot on the subject of slavery. Any deviation from his views of the morality of that and certain other outward acts, calls forth from him anathemas like those hurled from Rome. But he is unspeakably ‘liberal’ on the subject of religion, tolerating, and complimenting in various indirect ways, every thing —- from Sabbatarianism to infidelity.” ….. “It becomes all who are advocating the cause of human liberty, to beware of these men, who, while professing to aim a blow at slavery, are stabbing Christianity at the heart, and thus crushing the hopes of the oppressed…..”
