William Lloyd Garrison, the AbolitionistGrimké, Archibald Henry
History
William Lloyd Garrison, the Abolitionist
Grimké, Archibald Henry
Garrison, William Lloyd, 1805-1879
"In reply to your favor of the 24th [July], my partner joins with me in
consenting to print an edition of Miss Crandall's [defence] as large as
the one proposed by you, at our own risk. As to the profits that may
arise from the sale of the pamphlet, we do not expect to make any; on
the contrary, we shall probably suffer some loss, in consequence of the
difficulty of disposing of any publication, however interesting or
valuable in itself. But a trial so important as Miss C.'s, involving
such momentous consequences to a large portion of our countrymen,
implicating so deeply the character of this great nation, ought not to
go unpublished, and _shall_ not while we have the necessary materials
for printing it."
It is interesting to note that the weekly circulation of the
_Liberator_, in the spring of 1834, was twenty-three hundred copies, and
that this number was distributed in Philadelphia, four hundred; in New
York, three hundred: in Boston, two hundred; in other parts of the free
States eleven hundred; and that of the remaining three hundred, one-half
was sent as exchange with other papers, and eighty of the other half
were divided equally between England and Hayti, leaving seventy copies
for gratuitous distribution. The colored subscribers to the paper were
to the whites as three to one.
There were several suggestions by sundry friends looking to the release
of the _Liberator_ from its embarrassments, and, to the relief of its
unselfish publishers, from the grinding poverty which its issue imposed
upon them. The most hopeful and feasible of them was the scheme of which
Garrison wrote his betrothed April 14, 1834: "I am happy to say," he
pours into her ears, "that it is probable the managers of the New
England Anti-Slavery Society will determine, to-morrow afternoon, to
take all the pecuniary liabilities of the _Liberator_ hereafter, and
give me a regular salary for editing it, and friend Knapp a fair price
for printing it. My salary will not be less than $800 per annum, and
perhaps it will be fixed at a $1,000.... The new arrangement will go
into effect on the 1st of July." But alas; the managers took no such
action on the morrow, nor went the "new arrangement" into effect at the
time anticipated. The editor was married in September, and two months
later the eagerly expected relief was still delayed. This hope deferred
must have caused the young husband meanwhile no little anxiety and heart
sickness.
Love in a cottage is very pretty and romantic in novels, but love in a
cottage actually thriving on "bread and water," was a sweet reality in
the home of the young couple in Roxbury. "All the world loves a lover,"
says Emerson, but alas! there are exceptions to all rules, and all the
world loved not Garrison in his newly found felicity as shall presently
appear.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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