William Lloyd Garrison was the most prominent of the young, radical abolitionists who burst on the American landscape in the 1830s. Garrison attacked black slavery, prevalent throughout the southern states, with unparalleled vehemence. Exasperated at the betrayal of the Revolutionary promise that all forms of human bondage would disappear in this new land of liberty and marshaling all the evangelical fervor of the religious revivals then sweeping the country, Garrison demanded no less than the immediate emancipation of all slaves. He not only opposed any compensation to slaveholders and any colonization outside the country of freed slaves, but also demanded full political rights for all blacks, whether in the North or the South.

The son of a sailor who had abandoned his family, Garrison grew up ...