1864 THE LIBERATOR. Civil War Emancipation Proclamation Issues of Anti-Slavery Periodical.

Four very rare, Civil War issues of the most radical anti-slavery newspaper in America, William Lloyd Garrison's The Liberator. 

Issued from 1831 to 1865, The Liberator was the most widely circulated anti-slavery newspaper during the antebellum period and throughout the Civil War. It was published and edited in Boston by William Lloyd Garrison, a leading white abolitionist and founder of the influential American Anti-Slavery Society. Over the three decades of its publication, The Liberator denounced all people and acts that would prolong slavery, including the United States Constitution. Garrison’s condemnation of the Constitution itself as a racist document was incredibly controversial and eventually led to his split with Frederick Douglass.

Once referred to as the most aggressive and outspoken abolitionist the world-over, Garrison was decades ahead of most other northern white abolitionists in demanding the immediate emancipation of all people held in bondage and the restoration of the natural rights of enslaved persons. Garrison’s clarity and non-compromise made him simultaneously loved by slaves and freedmen and hated by detractors. Though the most widely read abolitionist paper in America, nearly 75% of the readership of The Liberator were black freemen in the North. His largest supporters were slaves, freedmen, and more progressive northern young men and women. Conservative Northerners and nearly all Southerners were not fans. His life was threatened regularly, he was mobbed, beaten, and multiple attempts of assassination were made. In Georgia the state itself issued a $5,000 bounty for him [nearly $250,000 in today's buying power].

These rare issues from just after the Emancipation Proclamation and before the end of the Civil War, which Garrison felt left him to move on to advocate and focus his attention on women's suffrage. 

The four issues include: April 1, 1864; April 29, 1864; May 6, 1864; and May 13, 1864.

Contents include: The Government and the Colored Troops, Universal Emancipation, Constitutional Emancipation, Letter from President Lincoln, George Thompson, Thirty-First Anniversary of the Anti-Slavery Society, Mr. Thompson's Movements, Gerrit Smith on the Fort Pillow and Plymouth Massacres, Woman's Loyal National League, Owen Lovejoy [Poem], In Memoriam - Thomas Starr King [Poem], Bloodhounts on the Trail [Refugee Slaves & Underground Railroad], Radicalism, Slavery Must Perish, Amendment of the Constitution, Greeley Vs. Lincoln, Help for the Freedmen, General Banks - Colored Soldiers and Freedmen, Hannah Thurston, Rebel Atrocities against Negro Troops, Treatment of Freedmen a Modified Slavery, The Murder of Colored Soldiers, Rebel Rhymes, Speech of Parson Brownlow on Becoming an Anti-Slavery Man, Women's Estimate of their Sex, Burial of a Colored Soldier, Miscegenation by Jefferson Davis, Copperhead Loyalty, The Abolition Party, The Address of the Rebel Legislature of Virginia, Case of a Non-Resistant Conscript, etc., 

As usual, in very tender condition. Textually complete. One issue toned heavily at top quarter of front sheet, two issues with one panel of the top quarter detached but present, all issues tender with tears at folds. Shipped folded as they have been stored for many years.