Great men are rarely isolated mountain-peaks; they are the summits of ranges.

Higginson was called as pastor at the First Religious Society of Newburyport Massachusetts a Unitarian church known for its liberal Christianity. The writings of William Lloyd Garrison and Lydia Maria Child were particularly influential to Higginson's abolitionist enthusiasm during the early 1840s. Believing that war was only an excuse to expand slavery and the slave power Higginson wrote anti-war poems and went door-to-door to get signatures for anti-war petitions.

During the Civil War he served as colonel of the 1st South Carolina Volunteers the first federally authorized African-American regiment from 1862-1864. He was active in the American Abolitionism movement during the 1840s and 1850s identifying himself with disunion and militant abolitionism. Following the war Higginson devoted much of the rest of his life to fighting for the rights of freed slaves women and other disfranchised peoples.