Jan. 1 1831 William Lloyd Garrison publishes 1st issue of abolitionist journal

[Valin]

The Salutation

 

To date my being from the opening year,

I come, a stranger to this busy sphere,

Where some I meet perchance may pause and ask,

What is my name, my purpose, or my task?

 

My name is "Liberator"! I propose

To hurl my shafts at freedoms deadliest foes!

My task is hardfor I am charged to save

Man from his brother!to redeem the slave!

 

Ye who may hear, and yet condemn my cause,

Say, shall the best of Natures holy laws

Be trodden down? and shall her open veins

Flow but for cement to her offsprings chains?

 

Art thou a parent? shall thy children be

Rent from thy breast, like branches from the tree,

And doomd to servitude, in helplessness

On other shores, and thou ask no redress?

 

Thou, in whose bosom glows the sacred flame

Of filial love, say, if the tyrant came,

To force thy parent shrieking from thy sight,

Would thy heart bleedbecause thy face is white?

 

Art thou a brother? shall thy sister twine

Her feeble arm in agony on thine,

And thou not lift the heel, nor aim the blow,

At him who bears her off to life-long wo?

 

Art thou a sister? will no desprate cry

Awake thy sleeping brother, while thine eye

Beholds the fetters locking on the limb

Stretched out in rest, which hence, must end, for him?

 

Art thou a lover?no! nought eer was found

In lovers breast, save cords of love, that bound

Man to his kind! then, thy profession save!

Forswear affection or release thy slave!

 

Thou who art kneeling at thy Makers shrine,

Ask if Heaven takes such offerings as thine!

If in thy bonds the son of Afric sighs,

Far higher than thy prayer his groans will rise!

 

God is a God of mercy, and would see

The prison doors unbarrdthe bondmen free!

He is a God of truth, with purer eyes

Than to behold the oppresors sacrifice!

 

Avarice, thy cry and thine insatiable thirst

Make men consent to see his brother cursed!

Tears, sweat and blood thou drinkst, but, in their turn,

They shall cry "more!" while vengeance bids them burn.

 

The Lord hath said it!who shall him gainsay?

He says, "the wicked they shall go away,"

Who are the wicked?Contradict who can,

They are the oppressors of their fellow man!

 

Aid me, New England! tis my hope in you

Which gives me strength my purpose to pursue!

Do you not hear your sister States resound

With Africs sights to have her sons unbound?

 

The complete archived issues of, and transcribed articles from, William Lloyd Garrisons newspaper The Liberator (1831-1865)