Study Questions
1. Who were the anti-abolitionist rioters? Describe their social background and reasons for supporting slavery.
2. William Lloyd Garrison has sometimes been regarded as a fanatic. What evidence in this chapter supports and what evidence contradicts that accusation?
3. Describe the role of Boston mayor Theodore Lyman in the broadcloth riot. Should he have done more to protect William Lloyd Garrison? Or did he do all that he could in view of the fact that many of the city’s leaders were in the mob?
4. What part did women play in the abolitionist movement, and what special difficulties did they encounter?
5. Garrison favored active women’s participation in the abolitionist movement but married a woman who would stay at home and tend the family. Is this a contradiction? Did he fail to apply his principles to his own life?
6. Were abolitionist spokesmen too strident and inflammatory, or did they make an appropriate response to an unjust institution?
7. Discuss William Lloyd Garrison’s motivation in devoting his life to abolitionism.
1. Who were the anti-abolitionist rioters? Describe their social background and reasons for supporting slavery.
2. William Lloyd Garrison has sometimes been regarded as a fanatic. What evidence in this chapter supports and what evidence contradicts that accusation?
3. Describe the role of Boston mayor Theodore Lyman in the broadcloth riot. Should he have done more to protect William Lloyd Garrison? Or did he do all that he could in view of the fact that many of the city’s leaders were in the mob?
4. What part did women play in the abolitionist movement, and what special difficulties did they encounter?
5. Garrison favored active women’s participation in the abolitionist movement but married a woman who would stay at home and tend the family. Is this a contradiction? Did he fail to apply his principles to his own life?
6. Were abolitionist spokesmen too strident and inflammatory, or did they make an appropriate response to an unjust institution?
7. Discuss William Lloyd Garrison’s motivation in devoting his life to abolitionism.
