Bailey, Gamaliel

The Rise of Aggressive Abolitionism: Addresses to the Slaves

“…Lydia Maria Child, Abigail Kelley Foster, and other Garrisonians gloried in agitating for general emancipation and resented diverting scarce resources into attempts to, as Foster later put it, "run off slaves." 42 Smith, in his Address, had employed violent images that Garrison carried a step further in his Address. But in 1843 Garrison's violent imagery made his colleagues uncomfortable.…”

“…He voted for radical political abolitionist Gerrit Smith in the presidential election of 1848. 42 By then radical political abolitionists and Garrisonians together constituted a small but influential minority within the broader antislavery movement. In their critiques of American society and in their efforts to convince first Free Soilers and later Republicans that they must embrace immediate abolition and black rights, the two groups were quite similar.…”