Nearly a century after the first unified resistance against the British, strife over slavery widened to the point of civil war, and the condition of slaves in America was in several aspects worse than at any time during the 18th century. As the nation tried to sort out its most intractable political issue, politicians and advocates on each side of the divide became increasingly more passionate, and vocal. The dam would burst completely after Abraham Lincoln’s election in 1860, and the refusal of Northern states to strictly apply the new fugitive slave law would be explicitly cited in several of the Southern states’ articles of secession in late 1860 and early 1861. By April 1861, the Civil War had broken out.

Well before Lincoln and the “Black Republicans” were cited by secessionist firebrands looking to justify their stances, one of the men they most bitterly opposed was abolitionist editor William Lloyd Garrison. While many begin their adult lives with very strident views and then mellow over time, he did just the opposite. Raised by a pious single mother, he embraced the general teachings of the Christian faith as a young man, and in his 20s, he became convicted that slavery was the greatest moral evil in the nation. Thereafter, he devoted most of his life to seeing it ended, and he refused to give an inch in the name of compromise on the things he felt strongly about. As he famously put it, “With reasonable men, I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter, nor waste arguments where they will certainly be lost.” 

At the same time, while he held unshakable convictions and never wavered in giving voice to them, he was just as comfortable around people who did not share his religious background, so long as they stood with him against America’s “peculiar institution”. This put him in the company of many like-minded people, some of whom he helped organize and publicize through various organizations and publications. Even among them, however, he was relatively unique in his desire to see 19th-century women enjoy the same freedoms and political opportunities he wanted for African Americans. Few Americans in any era could tout the civil rights record William Lloyd Garrison could boast of.

At the end of his life, Garrison could look back on the fact that he had played a major role in ending America’s original sin, and its most evil institution.