William Lloyd Garrison

William Lloyd Garrison was one of the most prominent leaders of the abolitionist movement. From 1831 to 1865 he edited and published the Liberator, a newspaper noted for its uncompromising abolitionist stance. In 1833 he helped found the American Anti-Slavery Society and was its president from 1843 to 1865.

Garrison’s most notable contribution to the abolitionist movement was his complete rejection of gradual abolition. Whereas more moderate abolitionists had hoped that slavery might slowly fade away in the South, Garrison argued that slavery was clearly evil and that plans for gradual abolition were thus morally wrong. Garrison also fiercely attacked the colonization movement, which held that freed blacks should be encouraged or forced to migrate to Africa. In the following excerpt from his 1832 book Thoughts on African Colonization, Garrison outlines his view that plans for gradual emancipation are fundamentally unjust.

Since...