The North was bound hand and foot by the slave-trade almost as effectually as the South. The great plea was the fear lest the Union would be dissolved. Cotton factories had sprung up on every hand, and it was believed that slave-labor was essential to the producing of cotton. Some thought it would not be safe to free the slaves; that assassinations would be the result. The real secret, however, was that each slave meant several hundred dollars, and freedom meant poverty to the masters. Meantime, the "Liberator" was making itself felt, despite Garrison's poverty. The Vigilance Association of South Carolina offered a reward of $1,500 for the apprehension and prosecution of any white person who might be detected in distributing or circulating it. In Raleigh, N.C., the grand jury found a bill against the young editor, hoping to bring him to that State for trial. Hon. Robert Y. Hayne, of South Carolina, having received a paper by mail, wrote to Harrison Gray Otis, Mayor of Boston, to ascertain the sender. Mr. Otis caused an agent to visit the office of the "Liberator," and returned answer to Mr. Hayne, that he found it "an obscure hole, his only visible auxiliary a negro boy; and his supporters a few very insignificant persons of all colors."
And where was this "obscure hole"? In the third story of a business block, "the walls dingy," says Mr. Oliver Johnson in "Garrison and his Times"; "the small windows bespattered with printers' ink; the press standing in one corner; the long editorial and mailing table covered with newspapers; the bed of the editor and publisher on the floor--all these make a picture never to be forgotten." Their food, what little they had, was procured at a neighboring bakery.
Soon Georgia passed a law offering $5,000 to any person arresting and bringing to trial, under the laws of the State, and punishing to conviction, the editor or publisher of the "Liberator." What a wonder that some ruffian at midnight did not break into the "obscure hole," and drag the young man off to a slave-vessel lying close by in the harbor! The leaven of anti-slavery was beginning to work. Twelve "fanatics" gathered one stormy night in the basement of an African church in Boston, and organized the New England Anti-Slavery Society in 1832.