Making "this Great War" (Abraham Lincoln)
William Lloyd Garrison
“I am a believer in that portion of the Declaration of American Independence in which it is set forth, as among self-evident truths, 'that all men are created equal. . . .' Hence, I am an abolitionist. [. . .] Every slave is a stolen man; every slaveholder is a man stealer. ” |
William Lloyd Garrison founded the Anti-Slavery Society with the Tappan brothers in 1833.
Through The Liberator, his abolitionist newspaper first released January 1, 1831, Garrison became known as America's most radical abolitionist. The Liberator was published weekly until the Civil War ended in 1865. Garrison published the Rebels' "Defence of the Students" in The Liberator Jan. 10, 1835 (click to read). As the Rebels' aspirations mirrored Garrison's, they worked together often in later years. |
Tom's Turn
The president of Lane Seminary in 1834 was Reverend Lyman Beecher, "rated the greatest of New England divines" (Dwight Lowell Dumond).
"[The Rebels] loved him [Beecher] as a father, and it was always afterward his confident opinion that if he could have been here during the summer vacation, when the direct collision between the students and the Board of Trustees occured, he could so have controlled the fiery spirit of those ardent young men, as to prevent the sad result." Beecher's family witnessed the Lane debates. His daughter, Harriet "became interested in the debate on slavery . . . when Theodore Dwight Weld and the other 'Lane Rebels' challenged her father's authority" ("Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin").
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"The Lane Seminary debates marked the shift in American antislavery efforts from colonization to abolition" (Ohio Historical Marker), inspiring Stowe to later write Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly, presenting slaves sympathetically and emphasizing slaveowners' cruelty.
Uncle Tom's Cabin became the highest-selling American book at that time; translated into 30 languages, only the Bible surpassed its popularity. " 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' accomplished its purpose--of arousing public indignation to the evils of negro slavery--far beyond the wildest hopes of the woman who wrote it." |