William Lloyd Garrison: Biography, Achievements & Lasting Legacy

William Lloyd Garrison (December 10, 1805 – May 24, 1879) was an American abolitionist, journalist, and social reformer. His widely read anti-slavery newspaper The Liberator was a driving force that fueled the abolitionist era, which Garrison founded in 1831 and published in Boston until slavery in the United States was abolished by the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865. He supported the rights of women, and during the 1870s became a prominent voice for the women's suffrage movement.

Garrison promoted "no-governmentism", also known as "anarchism", and rejected the inherent validity of the American government on the basis that its engagement in war, imperialism, and slavery made it corrupt and tyrannical. His belief in individual sovereignty, and critique of coercive authority have been recognized as a precursor to certain strands of modern libertarian thought. He initially opposed violence as a principle and advocated for Christian pacifism against evil. However, at the outbreak of the American Civil War, Garrison recognized the necessity of armed struggle as a means to achieve the abolition of slavery and supported President Abraham Lincoln's efforts to end the institution. He was one of the founders of the American Anti-Slavery Society and promoted immediate and uncompensated, as opposed to gradual and compensated, emancipation of slaves in the United States.

Garrison was a typesetter, which aided him in running The Liberator. When working on his own editorials for the paper, he would compose them while setting the type for the publication, without first writing them out on paper.