VOLUME TWENTY-FIRST
In entering upon the new year, and the twenty-first of the existence of the Liberator, we proffer to all our subscribers and coadjutors the warmest congratulations of the season, and our best wishes for their happiness……………………..
It is impossible to describe the emotions we feel in commencing our third decade as the editor of the Liberator. The contrast in the state of public sentiment on the subject of slavery, as evinced twenty years ago and at the present time, is truly overpowering. Then, not a whisper against the Slave Power could be heard in any section of the republic; now, a million voices are calling in thunder tones for its eternal overthrow……Then, not a paragraph could be found in any of the newspapers, touching this ‘delicate question’; now, there is scarcely one journal of the two thousand published in the land, that does not discuss this as the paramount question of the times……..Then we stood single-handed and alone; now, the friends of freedom and emancipation are too multitudinous to be numbered. Then, the Slave Power held absolute and unquestioned sway, and had nothing to disturb its repose; now, it is filled with fear and trembling, can sleep no more, has been greatly shorn of its strength, and is ere long to be humbled in the dust. Such is the power of Truth, fearlessly uttered and faithfully applied!
(Liberator, Jan 3, 1851, pg3)
