“To the Public” is a foundational manifesto for radical abolitionism. It sets forth the moral principles for, Garrison says, “the immediate enfranchisement of our slave population” while anticipating counterarguments from those who favor a gradualist approach (Paragraph 4). The call for “immediate enfranchisement” serves as a rallying cry in an era when many abolitionists proposed two very different solutions: gradual emancipation and/or colonization, that is, the deportation of former slaves to Africa or elsewhere. Both gradual emancipation and colonization were viewed as “practical” solutions to slavery, the least upsetting to the social order and the beliefs that supported it. Garrison associated with both these schools of thought, though by 1831 both had become morally repugnant to him. Both gradual emancipation and colonization were advanced as methods of abolition into the 1860s.

Garrison’s manifesto joins the debate over slavery in medias res. The first sentence presumes that the reader is not only familiar with debates on abolition in general but also knowledgeable about Garrison’s writing and work. Garrison directs his arguments toward those who are predisposed to believe in some sort of abolition, and he wants to arouse their passions in favor of a radical and immediate end to slavery.