| Chapter 1: | Constitutional Law and Slavery |
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Figure 1.2. William Lloyd Garrison was a founder of the American Anti-Slavery Society and editor of The Liberator, the nation’s most prominent abolitionist publication.
Source. National Archives and Records Administration.
Further challenging the basic premise of federal neutrality and the models of compromise and accommodation was the emergence of radical abolitionism.
In the 1830s, the abolitionism movement emerged with a vigorous antislavery agenda and corresponding perspectives on the Constitution’s meaning. The South responded by prohibiting abolitionist literature and expelling teachers suspected of harboring antislavery sentiment.4 This reaction reflected a growing fear that the call to end slavery would incite slave rebellions. Such censorship in modern times would be challenged as a deprivation of freedom of speech.5 The postmaster general, moreover, prohibited abolitionist literature from the federal mails. As the abolitionist movement intensified, the South adopted an increasingly harder line.