William Lloyd Garrison: Valedictory Editorial of the Liberator

William Lloyd Garrison’s self- described roles were those of agitator, moral censor, prophet, and “universal reformer.” His gifts were his extraordinary skills as an editorial polemicist and his resolve to follow the implications of his religious illuminations wherever they might lead him. In an age of rapidly multiplying editorial voices, Garrison proved to be a master of making himself (as he put it in his First Liberator Editorial) “heard!” When the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified, Garrison ended his thirty- five- year editorship of his abolitionist newspaper. In the Valedictory Editorial of the Liberator he explains why, in his view, an organized abolitionist movement was no longer needed.