"
Garrison's pen was particularly busy during the term of his
imprisonment. He paid his respects to the State's Attorney who
prosecuted him, to the judge who condemned him, and to Francis Todd, the
owner of the ship _Francis_. He prepared and scattered broadcast a true
account of his trial, showing how the liberty of the press had been
violated in the case. He did not doubt that it would astonish Europe if
it were known there "that _an American citizen lies incarcerated in
prison, for having denounced slavery and its abettors in his own
country_." The fact created no little astonishment in America. Slavery
became distinctly connected for the first time with abridgments of the
freedom of the press, and the right of free speech. And the cause of the
slave became involved with the Constitutional liberties of the republic.
In punishing Garrison, the Abolitionist, the rights of Garrison the
white freeman were trampled on. And white freemen in the North, who
cared nothing for Abolitionism, but a great deal for their right to
speak and write freely, resented the outrage. This fact was the most
important consequence, which flowed from the trial and imprisonment of
the young editor of _The Genius of Universal Emancipation_. "As the news
of my imprisonment became extensively known," he wrote, "and the merits
of the case understood, not a mail rolled into the city but it brought
me consolatary letters from individuals hitherto unknown to me, and
periodicals of all kinds from every section of the Union (not even
excepting the South), all uniting to give me a triumphant acquittal--all
severely reprehending the conduct of Mr.
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