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.