There could be little sympathy between Birney and William Lloyd
Garrison, whose style of denunciation appeared to the former as
an incitement to war and an excuse for mob violence. As soon as
Birney became the accepted leader in the national society, there
was friction between his followers and those of Garrison. To
denounce the Constitution and repudiate political action were,
from Birney's standpoint, a surrender of the only hope of
forestalling a dire calamity. He had always fought slavery by the
use of legal and constitutional methods, and he continued so to
fight. In this policy he had the support of a large majority of
abolitionists in New England and elsewhere. Only a few personal
friends accepted Garrison's injunction to forswear politics and
repudiate the Constitution.

The followers of Birney, failing to secure recognition for their
views in either of the political parties, organized the Liberty
party and, while Birney was in Europe in 1840, nominated him as
their candidate for the Presidency. The vote which he received
was a little over seven thousand, but four years later he was
again the candidate of the party and received over sixty thousand
votes. He suffered an injury during the following year which
condemned him to hopeless invalidism and brought his public
career to an end.

Though Lundy and Birney were contemporaries and were engaged in
the same great cause, they were wholly independent in their work.
Lundy addressed himself almost entirely to the non-slaveholding
class, while all of Birney's early efforts were "those of a
slaveholder seeking to induce his own class to support the policy