To the Public

Published on January 1, 1831, “To the Public” is a front-page editorial describing the goals and guiding principles of a new newspaper at the time, The Liberator. In this essay, William Lloyd Garrison, a well-known abolitionist editor and orator, explains what readers might expect in future issues and defends the political, religious, and moral underpinnings of his new publication. The full text of “To the Public” is in the public domain and widely available, including at PBS.org.

The first paragraph explains that, although Garrison had originally intended to publish The Liberator in Washington, DC, he did not receive consistent public support for that idea. In addition, another newspaper with similar abolitionist leanings, The Genius of Universal Emancipation, had recently moved its operations to the nation’s capital. Garrison served as deputy editor of that paper between 1829 and the founding of The Liberator.

Garrison continues the editorial by referring to his primary purpose: “exciting the minds of the people” to rally against slavery in the United States (Paragraph 2). He says that he traveled across the country giving lectures and writing articles on abolition and found the most receptive audiences in states that had already outlawed slavery, in particular, in the New England states.