NEW HAVEN, Sept. 17, 1855.

MR. EDITOR:—If there is an important truth
in the maxim that the "price of liberty is eternal
vigilance," so there is often encouragement in
reading the "signs of the times," especially
when the field is large and the varied forces are
scattered widely apart. While the great mass
of the American people slept, the enemy not
only sewed the tares, but enlarged his borders,
and made his stakes strong. When WM. LLOYD
GARRISONGarrison, William Lloyd

William Lloyd Garrison (1805-79) was the foremost white abolitionist of the nineteenth century and was credited with the discovery of Douglass as a speaker at an antislavery meeting in Nantucket in 1841. He began his career as an apprentice printer on the Newburyport (Mass.) Herald at the age of thirteen. Garrison became editor of the Newburyport Free Press in 1826, but the paper closed within a year. He was then associated with a series of periodicals in Boston that advocated reform before Benjamin Lundy offered the young journalist the opportunity to write for his antislavery newspaper. Garrison joined Lundy in editing the Genius of Universal Emancipation in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1829, during the last year of the paper's 1821-1830 run. In 1830 a libel suit against the editors forced the paper to close and landed Garrison in jail. After his release, he courted the wealthy merchants of New York and Boston in order to start the Liberator (1831-65), a weekly journal based in Boston in which he advocated an immediate end to slavery. Garrison's brand of abolition condemned any institution that would tolerate the existence of slavery, including churches, political parties. and even the United States itself and any scheme aimed at removing black people from the country. Instead, Garrison hoped to raise the public's awareness that slavery was morally wrong and thereby force its end in an almost millennial moment of emancipation. His approach appealed to both white and black antislavery advocates but earned him many enemies among those only moderately opposed to slavery and slaveholders alike. Seeing the need for greater action and organization beyond the pages of the Liberator; Garrison joined with other abolitionists to form the New England Anti-Slavery Society in 1831. Two years later he helped found the larger American Anti-Slavery Society. In 1833 he established ties with English abolitionists after a trip to Great Britain, and he later brought the noted and notorious speaker George Thompson to the United States for a tour. Garrison also dedicated himself to women's rights, encouraging women to enter the public sphere by inviting them, via the Liberator, to form female antislavery societies. In addition to the thirty-three women's antislavery societies that flourished by 1838, Garrison's American Anti-Slavery Society welcomed women as well as blacks into its ranks. However, female delegates were excluded from the World's Anti-Slavery Convention of 1840 in London. The issue of women's participation in the antislavery movement and Garrison's absolute refusal to turn to politics to end slavery caused a division in the American Anti-Slavery Society. Brothers Lewis and Arthur Tappan, who opposed women's acting as speakers and who hoped to use politics toward abolition, broke with Garrison's American Anti-Slavery Society, forming the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, or the "New Organization" in 1841. Garrison's ideas were so closely associated with the "Old Organization" that the American Anti-Slavery Society became known simply as the "Garrisonians." With the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865, Garrison believed that he had accomplished his life's work and that of the antislavery movement. He then resigned from the presidency of the American Anti-Slavery Society and closed the Liberator. Wendell Phillips Garrison and Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879: The Story of His Life Told by His Children, 4 vols. (New York, 188589); Henry Mayer, All on Fire: William Lloyd Garrison and the Abolition of Slavery (New York, 1998); James Brewer Stewart, William Lloyd Garrison and the Challenge of Emancipation (Arlington Heights, Ill., 1992); John L. Thomas, The Liberator: William Lloyd Garrison (Boston, 1963); Dictionary of American Biography, 20 vols. (New York, 1928-36), 7:168-72. first sounded his trumpet of alarm
and warning in the ears of this guilty nation,
we said that "

So he thought, and so he spake, and all believed
him: but, alas! he thought, and the
multitude thought, that it was only the colored
man and the slave which had fallen among
thieves, and were cast down, robbed and peeled,
and left for dead, by priest and politician, by
saint and sinner. That opinion has been
changed or modified long ere this, undoubtedly;
and it has been found that the slave system demands
victims for its black and bloody alters,
irrespective of the complexion of the face.—
The struggle now going on for liberty, will result
in the freedom of the whole people, or in
the triumph of the black power and the ruin of
the entire country. Multitudes begin to see
this: and hence in noting the "signs of the
times," it is well to see those who, just starting
from their slumbers, begin to speak for freedom,
and dream they are crying aloud, when they but
feebly repeat the language and express the sentiments
which the abolitionist poured in thunder
tones on their "cold, dull hearts" years ago.
A sermon was recently delivered before the
General Association of Congregational Ministers
of Connecticut, by REV. DR. WOLSEY,
President of Yale College, which has been published
in pamphlet form, and also in the just as though man
could be and the living God, who is
no respecter of persons, and honor God, whom
he has not seen, and despise and trample upon
his brother, whom he has seen!

The public will recollect that, a few months
ago, a large anti-Nebraska meeting was held in
this city, and that some who occupied no very
desirable position on the subject of freedom,
were earnest and loud in their denunciations
against those who were urging forward the repeal
of the Missouri Compromise—among others
were some of the Professors in the College.
Their words fly to the South, and were sternly
denounced. "Old Yale" was threatened with a
loss of scholars. Well, the new class just entered,
numbers ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY-TWO, the
largest since its foundations were laid.—
When will men learn that "honesty is the best
policy"—that it is always safe to do right?—
Thanks to MRS. STOWE, for writing "Uncle
Tom's Cabin:" the end of its influence is not
yet. Some months since it was read in one of
the lordly mansions in the old dominion and
"pronounced trash;" and yet from the lips of
those who read it, the name of New England,
the land of freedom, was heard by one, who
caught every accent and pondered every word,
one who "would not be free if she could,"
and whom it would be safe to bring to the
North at least to New York; but, lo! "riches
take wings and fly away." Let the young
mistress be consoled; her waiting maid is safe,
and will be as diligent and faithful in following
her destiny in Freedom as she would have been in
old Virginia. In good earnest the friends of New
York seem to be moving in behalf of their
Political Rights. With deep interest we have
examined the doings of their convention just
held in the city of Troy; their plan of effort is
wise and well. Will it be fulfilled? Will all
the counties be visited by the able Lecturers
named? Will the people rally in numbers
and with "material aid," and sustain this effort?
Our sympathies are keenly alive; and with our
brethren in the Empire State, for we are disfranchised
and though in a manner different
from them, still we are disfranchised, in a way,
impudent before God, and insulting to Humanity.
The term "White" in the Constitution of
the State, among qualifications of an Elector
prevents our approach to the ballot box.—
But as it is not degrading to go there in the name
stated by the authority of
, when others
stand there in their simple manhood? Heaven
bless all your efforts and crown them with success!
With union and action much will be accomplished.
Some time since the following
question was debated before the "New Haven
Literary and Debating Society," with a great
deal of earnestness, for two or three evenings.
We will not mention the names of the disputants,
or the decision of the Judges: "Is there intelligence
enough among the Free Colored People
of the United States, to develop and carry
into successful opperation any enterprise, which
shall be a credit to them as a people?" We
will not say that we have quoted the precise
words, as we write from memory, but we give
the substance of the question and just at this
time, when the eyes of so many are turning to
wards the National Convention, soon to be held
in Philadelphia.

We hope the question will be pondered well;
and that the future may give such an HISTORICAL
answer, as will preclude the necessity or occasion
of even debating it again. We suppose our
brethren in Massachusetts, would hardly at the
present time give such a question a thought, as
they have now, we suppose, achieved all they
ask for, and stand "." We
have much yet to do, and thank them for the
inspiring influence, which their example and
that of the friends there present us; especially
are we thankful for the argument of HON.
CHARLES SUMNER against caste-schools, for which
we are indebted to our friend WM. C. NELL, to
whom every colored man is indebted for the
labor of his pen in doing justice to the toils of
our fathers in the day that "tried men's souls"
in the tented field. We hope all who are earnestly
working in the field of our elevation will
procure the argument of MR. SUMNER.

A. G. B.