Before the reformer left Baltimore he had definitely abandoned the plans looking to a revival of his interest in the Genius.  He determined instead to publish a sheet devoted to the abolition of slavery under his sole management and control.  This paper he proposed to call the Public Liberator, and to issue from Washington.  The prospectus of this journalistic project bearing date, August, 1830, declares in its opening sentence its “primary object” to be “the abolition of slavery, and the moral and intellectual elevation of our colored population.”  “I shall spare no efforts,” he pledged himself, “to delineate the withering influence of slavery upon our national prosperity and happiness, its awful impiety, its rapid extension, and its inevitable consequences if it be suffered to exist without hindrance.  It will also be my purpose to point out the path of safety, and a remedy for the disease.”  This comprehensive and aggressive plan of campaign signalized the rise of an Abolitionism wholly unlike the Abolitionism of any previous time in the history of the country.  It did in fact date the opening of a new era in the slavery struggle in America.

With Northern indifference and apathy on the subject of emancipation, Garrison’s previous visit to the North had acquainted him.  Their existence he saw interposed the main obstacle to the success of his new venture in journalism.  “The cause of this callous state of feeling,” he believed, “was owing to their exceeding ignorance of the horrors of slavery.”  He accordingly made up his mind to throw the light which he possessed into the midst of this darkness.  He had written in prison three lectures on “Slavery and Colonization.”  What better could he now do than to deliver those lectures at the North?  If the good people and their religious leaders knew what he knew, they would presently feel as he did on the question.  He was loath to leave Baltimore without giving this testimony against slavery.  But unable to procure a room for this purpose was finally compelled to content himself with the witness he had already borne in the Genius and in prison in behalf of the slave.  In Philadelphia he well-nigh failed to obtain a hall for his lectures, but did finally succeed in getting the Franklin Institute, where, to small audiences, he lifted up his voice against the iniquity of the times.  He repeated his lectures in New York, New Haven, and Hartford.  But not many came out to hear him.  The nation, its churches, and politicians had thrust their fingers in their ears to every cry coming up from the slave.  Why should they go to sup with a madman on horrors, with which as patriotic people they were forbidden to concern themselves.  And so for the most part Garrison could do nothing with communities, which had eyes, but obstinately refused to see with them upon any subject relating to the abominations of slavery.  In his own town of Newburyport, officers of Christian churches not