January 3, 1851
“It is impossible to describe the emotion 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-one 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 ‘delecate 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. …Throughout the whole of this long period, the Liberator has had to struggle against wind and tide …. Its circulation is still limited, and we expect will continue to be so until the end of the conflict….we shall strive to make it for the future, as free, independent and fearless as it has been hitherto.”
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