The Liberator

The Liberator was the most widely circulated anti-slavery newspaper during the antebellum period and throughout the Civil War. A prominent white abolitionist and the founder of the well-known American Anti-Slavery Society, William Lloyd Garrison, published and edited the newspaper in Boston. The Liberator criticized the US Constitution and any individuals or actions that would perpetuate slavery over its three decades of publication. When the Civil War came to an end in 1865, the newspaper's run came to an end. Garrison declared, "My duty as an abolitionist is ended," at the conclusion of the paper's run. He then focused on pacifism, women's suffrage, and denouncing southern governments' post-Reconstruction treatment of black people.

Garrison's criticism of the Constitution on the The Liberator was surrounded by extreme controversy. Garrison, who was once regarded as the most active and outspoken abolitionist in the entire globe, demanded the immediate release of all individuals kept in bondage and the restoration of enslaved people's natural rights decades before most other northern white abolitionists. Garrison's disposition drew many admirers, affectionately referred to as "Garrisonians," as well as many more opponents. Throughout his time as editor of The Liberator, his venomous attacks on all individuals and organizations that he believed to be culpable for slavery led to several threats and attempts on his life, including a $5000 bounty on his head in Georgia that is now worth more than $150,000.

Publication date: 1831 - 1865
Author: William Lloyd Garrison