Belknap Press The Letters of William Lloyd Garrison: 1850-60 v. 4: From Disunionism to the Brink of War (Belknap Press): 1850–1860: Volume IV

The fiery editor of the Liberator helped shape the destiny of a divided nation rapidly moving toward war. His letters ring with denunciations of the Compromise of 1850 and the barbarous Fugitive Slave Law, a federal bill that not only sent runaway slaves back to angry masters but threatened the liberty of all free blacks. Despite such provocation. Garrison was an advocate of nonresistance during this period though he continued to advocate the emancipation of slaves. Garrison's writings also reflect the interests of his times. He engaged in lively correspondence with fellow countrymen Harriet Beecher Stowe, Wendell Phillips, Susan B. Anthony, Theodore Parker, and Stephen S. Foster. In a long letter to Louis Kossuth, he challenges that Hungarian patriot's stand of opposing tyranny in Europe while ignoring slavery in America. Set against a background of wide-ranging travels throughout the western United States and of family affairs back home in Boston, Garrison's letters of this decade make a distinctive contribution to antebellum life and thought. Review Anti-slavery scholars ought to be grateful once again for the exceeding care and scholarship which have gone into this publication. It provides us with another perspective on America's sole genius of reform agitation, a truly noble figure for all his personal quirks and growing mellowness with the passage of time.--Civil War History About the Author Louis Ruchames was Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts, Boston.