Garrison withdraws from lecturing

“In order to save unnecessary correspondence, and applications for my services which cannot be complied with, I beg leave to inform my anti-slavery friends, and all others, who are interested in the various reforms of the day, that I am obliged to give up public lecturing, from physical necessity and by the advice of medical counsel, in consequence of the delicate state of my lungs, attended with a serious disease in my left side.  I am not under medical treatment, and shall need some months of repose, in all probability, before I shall be in a safe condition to resume my public labors as a lecturer.  It is a great trial to my feelings, especially at the present time when the voice as well as the pen is  so much needed in the great cause of emancipation, for me to be unable to address the people, face to face; but it is better to be prudent than rash, to seek health while there is a prospect of obtaining it, than to make recovery impossible by an excess of labor.  But this withdrawal, I trust will enable me hereafter to devote myself more assiduously and uninterruptedly to my editorial labors, than I have been able to do hitherto…”  William Lloyd Garrison,  Boston, October 24, 1844  (Liberator, October 25, 1844, pg 2)