January 4, 1856
A letter to Garrison, comes from Charles E. Mickley, writing from Fairfield, Lenawee Co. Michigan. He reports the proceedings of an Anti-Slavery meeting, knowing that “friends of the slave in the East are deeply interested in the progress of the anti-slavery movement in the West”.
February 8, 1856
Under the Refuge of Oppression column, from the Richmond Examiner comes an appeal to invoke the Lynch Law. “In any other country than this – under any other government but ours — Greeley, Giddings, Sumner and Seward, with their gang of conspirators, would long since have suffered a felon’s death upon the gibbet, for the crime of treason against the country and the Constitution…..”
February 22, 1856
In the Refuge of Oppression column, is an article from the Richmond Enquirer, titled The Modern Abomination of Free Schools. It claims that the “worst of all abominations” is “the modern system of free schools”. It claims that it has been proved that “the New England system of free schools has been the cause and prolific source of all the legions of horrible infidelities and treasons that have turned her cities into Sodoms and Gomorrahs, and her fair land into the common nesting place of howling bedlamites…”
February 22, 1856
The named organization is characterized as “that great incorporated representative of the popular religion” “The clergy generally, the deacons, and the weighty and influential brethren, as well as the Doctors of Divinity, still insist on throwing the cloak of Christianity over the abominations of slavery; that is to say, they maintain in theory and practice, that actual slaveholding, and the defence of it, and the avowal of a determination to persist in it, are no barrier to their full recognition of such a person as a Christian, a church-member in good standing, or a minister of the Gospel…”
February 22, 1856
A letter to Samuel May, Jr., name of writer and place from which it comes omitted. In it the writer asks for more copies of The Liberator, which he will distribute, and which he claims will be read with “avidity”. “Slavery is not so strong in the South as many suppose. Some persons here who do not own slaves, are as good anti-slavery men as I ever desire to see, but they are cautious in talking about it.
February 22, 1856
An ad urging ladies to utilize the services of this saloon, at 365 Washington Street, run by Madame Carteaux
February 29, 1856
Here the editor cites an objection which has criticized the inclusion of this column in the paper. The editor recalls how this “department of infamy” had been established in the paper, and cites some of the reasons for it. “We must hold on to the ‘Refuge of Oppression,’ until slavery cease to curse our land, or The Liberator terminates its existence; and we beg our readers to ‘mark, learn, and inwardly digest’ its contents, from week to week, as furnishing powerful incentives to renewed labor in the cause of our ‘fellow-countrymen in chains.’”
March 14, 1856
A letter from S. Mitchell, Cornville, Maine, addressed to Garrison. “It seems to me the moment we begin to have any faith or trust in political action, all is lost. Can Satan cast out Satan? Will slavery ever be destroyed in this country, so long as government exists? Never! Slavery is part and parcel of it. When we lay the axe at the root of the tree, (government), then will all wrong cease, and not till then…..Our business is to preach truth-to show that man is governed by the principles of Christianity, which are Love, Liberty, Justice, Right and Truth…”
March 14, 1856
A letter from Smith, addressed to “George”, who is fourteen years old, and Smith has seen him smoking. A strong remonstrance that George is poisoning both body and soul.
March 14, 1856
An article tells of a recent Convention, at Glen Haven (no state), advocating reform in Dress for Woman. “Our object is not to advocate for her positions of singularity, eccentricity, immodesty, or to get her out of her ‘appropriate sphere’, but to enable her to act with that freedom needful to find out what her ‘appropriate sphere’ is.”