Benjamin Lundy (1789-1839) nurtured the antislavery movement in the United States during the 1820s through his newspaper, the Genius of Universal Emancipation.

Benjamin Lundy was born into a New Jersey Quaker family on Jan. 4, 1789. Although he had little formal education, he acquired the traits of activism and concern for oppressed people. At the age of 19 he moved to Wheeling, Va., where he learned saddle-making and first saw slaves being marched southward. In St. Clairsville, Ohio, he married Esther Lewis. In 1815 he founded the Union Humane Society, devoted to using legal and political means to free slaves and to assist free blacks. When an antislavery newspaper was started in a nearby town in 1817, Lundy found that he could write effectively. Henceforth, antislavery journalism became his primary interest.

Witnessing slavery firsthand in Missouri in 1819, Lundy realized that economic and political pressures, not just moral attack, would be needed to eliminate...