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8710047

Sayre, Robert Duane

THE EVOLUTION OF EARLY AMERICAN ABOLITIONISM: THE AMERICAN CONVENTION FOR PROMOTING THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY AND IMPROVING THE CONDITION OF THE AFRICAN RACE, 1794-1837

The Ohio State University Ph.D. 1987

University Microfilms I nternStiOnel SOO N. Z eeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106

Copyright 1987

by Sayre, Robert Duane All Rights Reserved

IHE EVOLUTION OF EARLY AMERICAN ABOLITIONISM:

THE AMERICAN CONVENTION FOR PROMOTING

THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY AND IMPROVING THE

CONDITION OF THE AFRICAN RACE, 1794-1837

DISSERTATION

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for

the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate

School of the Ohio State University

By

Robert Duane Sayre, A.B., M.Div.

*****

The Ohio State University

1987

Dissertation Committee: Approved by

Merton L. Dillon

Paul C. Bowers Advisor Marvin R. Zahniser Department of History Copyright by

Robert Duane Sayre

1987 "... The history of v^at the world calls failure is often more important, humanly speaking, than any other; for it tells those who come after what remains to be tried."

Richard Holmes, "'I Felt I Held the Pass­ word'— Travels to Shelley's Rocky Shore," The New York Times Book Review, 25 August 1985 To Roma

And to Jennifer and Amanda

With Thanks

1 1 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many persons have contributed to the completion of this disserta­

tion. I express sincere thanks to Dr. Merton L. Dillon idio assisted me

from my earliest days at Ohio State, nurtured my interest in antislav­ ery, and gave valuable guidance and cogent criticism throughout my

research.

Drs. Paul Bowers and Marvin Zahniser were inspirational teachers

to study and to teach with and have read these chapters with care, mak­

ing helpful comments and suggestions. My thanks go to Randall Miller

of St. Joseph University for helping in the selection of the topic and

for introducing me to research facilities in the Philadelphia area. To

all who have taught me to love the study of history, to Owen Ervin,

James Seyer, Kenneth Davison, Carl Klopfenstein, John Giltner, Paul

Minus, Donald Cooper and Thomas Woodson, the completion of this disser­

tation is a tribute to your labors.

The generous help of the staffs of the Historical Society of

Pennsylvania, the Library Company of Philadelphia, the Presbyterian

Historical Society, the Quaker Collection of Haverford College, the

Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College, the New York Histori­

cal Society, The Ohio State University, and Heidelberg College made my

research an enjoyable enterprise. Special appreciation goes to Gwen

Chapman, president of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, for permission

to quote from her society's copyrighted materials, and to Peter Parker

iii of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania for his assistance. Mr.

Peter Bergman deserves special thanks for his meticulous work in com­ piling and publishing the minutes of the American Convention, and for his kind words to this beneficiary of his labors.

A veiry special note of thanks goes to the staff of the Millers- ville University library, especially those persons in the inter-library loan department, whose patient assistance has reminded me anew of how great a debt researchers owe to those vÆio labor behind the scenes, pro­ viding us with the materials needed for our work. I owe a similar debt to all those who, nameless to me, read, sorted, and catalogued the docu­ ments that form the foundation of this dissertation.

The students and the board of directors of the United Campus

Ministry of Millersville University have been a constant source of en­ couragement and support throughout the years of this research.

To Charlie and Linda Carrick-Schreiber and Donna Sharer I offer a special thanks for their assistance and their friendship.

To my wife Roma I express my deepest gratitude for her love and unshakable faith that have sustained me through all my studies over so many years, and for the encouragement to do vhat once I could only dream of doing. To my daughters Jennifer and Amanda I thank you for under­ standing the time that my abolitionist friends of another era have taken from our life together, and for allowing them admittance to all our lives these several years.

IV VITA

I January 1945 ...... B o m - Tiffin, Ohio

1961-63, 1966, 1970-1971 ...... Printer, Managing Editor, Bloomville Gazette, Bloomville Ohio

1967-1971 ...... Pastor, Green Springs Calvary United Methodist Church, Green Springs, Ohio

1970 ...... A.B., Heidelberg College, Tiffin Ohio

1972-1974 ...... Pastor, Epworth and Hopewell United Methodist Churches, Gambier, Ohio

1974 ...... M.Div., Methodist Theological School in Ohio, Delaware, Ohio

1974-1979 ...... Pastor, Marengo and Fulton United Methodist Churches, Marengo, Ohio

1979-1981 ...... University Fellow and Graduate Assistant, The Ohio State Univer­ sity, Columbus, Ohio

1981-Present ...... University Pastor, Millersville University, Millersville, Pennsyl­ vania

FIELDS OF STUDY

Major Field: Nineteenth-Century United States History

Studies in Colonial and Revolutionary United States History, Dr. Paul C. Bowers

Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Latin American History, Dr. Donald B. Cooper

Eighteenth and Nineteenth-Century American Literature, Dr. Thomas Woodson V TABLE OF œNTENTS

DEDICATION...... ii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS...... iii

VITA ...... V

INTRODUCTION ...... I

CHAPTER p a g e

I. PRELUDE TO COOPERATION: THE QUAKERS SEEK COALITION 11

II. THE CONVENTION'S BEGINNINGS: THE ORGANIZATION OF ANTISLAVERY IN THE ENLIGHTENED CENTURY 53

III. FROM CONSTITUTION TO TRIENNIAL CONVENTIONS: DARK YEARS FOR THE MOVEMENT 101

IV. 'TO UNTIE THE GORDIAN KNOT' : ABOLITIONIST EFFORTS TO PROTECT AND EDUCATE BLACKS 137

V. COLONIZATION: AN ATTRACTIVE OPTION DIVIDES THE MOVEMENT 191

VI. THE MISSOURI YEARS: RESURGENCE AND REBUFF 237

VII. TO THE SOUTH AND BACK: THE THROES OF GRADUALISM 278

CONCLUSION ...... 322

APPENDIX

A Historiographical Analysis of the Quaker Roots of Antislavery ...... 334

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 351

vx INTRODUCTION

The American Convention for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery and

Improving the Condition of the African Race (1794-1837) was the first interstate antislavery organization in the United States. Founded at

Philadelphia by the cooperative efforts of the New York Manumission

Society and the Pennsylvania Abolition Society in 1794, the American

Convention was a congress of delegates from the various abolition so­ cieties in the United States. Termed at its fo;mding the Convention of

Delegates from the Abolition Societies Established in different Parts of the United States, the Convention adopted its formal title in its con­ stitution, vhich was drafted in 1801 and adopted in 1803.

The formal title adopted by the American Convention indicated its reasons for coming into being. The body sought to end slavery gradually and to better the condition of blacks in the United States. To these ends it petitioned Congress on sla\^ery and the slave trade, encouraged the formation of new abolition societies, worked to protect the legal rights of blacks against kidnapping and illegal sale, and fostered the education and moral instruction of blacks. Its tactics were those of moral and political persuasion vÆien petitioning Congress, and almost exclusively moral persuasion vhen urging local and state abolition so­ cieties to petition state legislatures, initiate schooling for blacks, or protect the rights of blacks. 2

The Pennsylvania and New York societies instrumental in initia­ ting the Convention were also its most consistently active constituents both in their local activities and in their participation in the Conven­ tion. Located in Philadelphia, the center of American abolitionism prior to the 1830s, the Pennsylvania Abolition Slavery was the oldest and most influential of the abolition societies, having been founded in 1775.

The Pennsylvania society was present at every regular and special session of the Convention and was the society most active in Convention govern­ ance. With the exception of sessions in 1829 and 1832, all Convention regular sessions convened in Philadelphia.^ The New York Manumission

Society, founded in New York City in 1785, also sent at least one repre­ sentative to every Convention session. In all at least thirty societies from eleven states and the District of Columbia were represent­ ed in Convention sessions over the nearly forty years of its active existence.

The American Convention met in twenty-two regular conventions from

1794 to 1832, with a special meeting in 1818 and adjourned sessions in

1821, 1826, and 1828. Conventions were held annually from 1794 to 1806, except for 1799 and 1802. From 1806 to 1817 the Convention held trien­ nial sessions, then beginning in 1819 initiated a pattern of biennial sessions that lasted through 1832. The three adjourned sessions in the

1820s resulted in nearly annual gatherings of the Convention in the 2 decade. After a poorly-attended meeting in 1832 the Convention failed to meet until 1837, and then only formally to disband and distribute its assets. 3

The history of the American Convention has never been adequately treated. Historians have explored the Quaker origins of antislavery, carefully dissected the antislavery rhetoric of the Revolutionary period, and written extensively on the radical abolitionism that dominated the antislavery movement from the 1830s on. Less systematic has been the examination of the gradual abolition movement of the early national period, a movement with its spiritual core in Quakerism and its secular arm in the American Convention. Alice Dana Adams called attention to this oversight in the title of her 1908 monograph. The Neglected Period of Anti-Slavery in America (1808-1831). Adams's book and its companion volume, Anti-Slavery in America; From the Introduction of African Slaves to the Prohibition of the Slave Trade (1619-1808) by Mary Stoughton

Locke, long remained the standard works for the study of American anti- slavery before 1830. Even after the important more recent work on early antislavery by Dwight Lowell Dumond, David Brion Davis, Thomas E. Drake,

Merton L. Dillon, Arthur Zilversmit, Winthrop D. Jordan, and Betty

Fladeland, these mnnographs continue to be the standard comprehensive treatments of early American antislavery.^ No historian studying the antislavery of the early national period can fail to acknowledge the seminal scholarship of Locke and Adams.

The work of Locke and Adams as it relates to the American Conven­ tion is problematic, however. Their analysis of the Convention depended almost entirely on the printed minutes of the Convention. Tnese minutes are invaluable; at many points the researcher is dependent solely on them in analyzing the Convention's work. At many other points, how­ ever, the records of the Convention's constituent abolition societies. 4 private correspondence of key society and Convention members, and ac­ counts in antislavery newspapers shed additional light on the operation and actions of the Convention. More recent historians have used many of these sources in their research on a variety of antislavery topics.

But these sources have not heretofore been used to focus exclusively on the American Convention and its role in the antislavery of the early national period.

The periodization that Locke and Adams used to set the limits for

their works also presents a problem vAien considering the American Con­ vention. Their logic seems faultless at first glance. Locke dealt with antislavery from its beginnings in the United States until the legal proscription on slave importation into the United States in 1808, and

Adams explored the continuation of antislavery from this hallmark date

to the emergence of the Garrisonian movement for immediate abolition.

This periodization, logical vhen thinking of the legal history of slav­

ery and attempting to divide the broad expanse of American antislavery

into manageable portions, is a most unnatural imposition on the history

of the American Convention. In separating the activities of the Conven­

tion into two distinct periods, Adams and Locke failed to appreciate,

and certainly to document, the continuity and evolution of American an­

tislavery in the period between the American Revolution and the triumph

of iramediatism. Appreciation of this evolution is essential to under­

standing the Convention's work. They treated reports to the Convention

in isolation, with no context provided. Adams's work is particularly

vulnerable on this point. Because her analysis of the Convention began

at 1808, she frequently failed to see connections between vhat transpired 5

in the Convention after that date and actions taken previously. Also, because of her overdependence on the printed Convention minutes, she

failed frequently to relate Convention actions to the work of the con­

stituent abolition societies, leading to misleading statements such as,

"The most moderate form of abolition, by manumission, was not often dis­

cussed in the Convention."^ This was literally true of the Convention,

but examination of records of its constituent societies shows not only that manumission was discussed, it was viewed as both blessing and curse

by the abolitionists. Adams's chapter on "Ranedies Proposed by the

American Convention" is especially faulty in failing to recognize the

genesis of many Convention proposals, some of them syntheses b o m of

years of attempt and failure, others introduced naively by Convention

delegates vho had not experienced the struggles of those years.^

It is the thesis of this work that the American Convention can be

understood only vdien viewed as part of an evolutionary process, a process

vhich began in the first Quaker stirrings against holding fellow human

beings in bondage and continued as those \dio took most seriously the

natural rights philosophy of the Revolutionary period came to see the

inconsistency of slavery in the land of freedom. As a new nation

struggled to define its political processes, antislavery advocates

tried to leara with the rest of the nation what those processes were so

that they might exert moral influence on national policy concerning

slavery. In this attempt, abolitionists were in turn influenced by the

political and social events that shaped the young nation. Failure to

recognize this evolution from the Revolutionary period to the 1830s

resulted in the tendency of American historians to write of later 6 abolitionism as though it sprang to life unaided and unprecedented in

1833. Although they did much to enhance our appreciation of early anti­

slavery, Locke and Adams, by their artificial interruption of abolition's history at 1808, actually perpetuated this problem vÆiich they had hoped

to correct.

The appendix to this work is primarily a Mstoriographical account

of the Quaker origins of American abolitionism. The reader unfamiliar with these Quaker antecedents may benefit from reading this section prior

to beginning the first chapter, for to address the beginnings of the

American Convention is to face the Quaker origins of antislavery. The

early abolition societies represented attempts by the Quakers to form coalitions that could be more effective in opposing slavery than their moral pleadings and perorations had been. Beginning in 1790 with peti­

tions on slavery and the slave trade that prompted the first Congression­

al debate on slavery, these abolition societies sought effective means

to influence national policy on slavery. In 1794 the creation of an

American convention of abolition societies becrme their answer. For the next forty years the Convention in turn tried to convert this initial

success of bringing Americans of antislavery principles together in one representative body into a national movement to ccxnbat slavery and the

slave trade.

In many ways this dissertation is a history of early abolitionism

in the United States, not in any comprehensive sense, but because the

struggles against slavery in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries either were initiated in the abolition societies and their

Convention, or directly affected them. Efforts to end the slave trade 7 and to rescue kidnapped free blacks, the cessation of southern antislav­ ery activity in the wake of Gabriel's rebellion and its effect on aboli­ tionism nationally, the movement of the national government into slaveholding and slavetrading territory in 1800, the ending of the slave trade and its surreptitious continuance, the War of 1812, the resurgence of abolitionist action coincident with the end of the war and the begin­ ning of the American Colonization Society, the political and moral struggle among abolitionists over colonization, the Missouri controversy, the campaigns to end the internal slave trade and slavery in the District of Columbia— The American Convention was marked by all and played its part in most. Constant throughout the Convention's existence was the question of the proper means of abolition. This debate livened in the

1820s, contributing to the divisions that finally crippled the Conven­ tion. This question of the means of abolition was also one of the con­ stants linking early abolitionism to the antislavery crusades of the

1830s and after.

Chapter I of this dissertation examines the forces leading aboli­ tionists to seek coalition in order to influence national policy.

Covered are the petitioning campaign of 1790, the Congressional debate on slavery that resulted, and the consequent recognition by Quakers that antislavery needed a broader base. It also treats the formation of the first abolition societies, and their activities at the time of the drafting and ratification of the Constitution.

Chapter II traces the development of the American Convention from its initial session in 1794 until 1801. It examines the precedent- setting first conventions, the apparent success in securing abolition of 8

American involvement in the foreign slave trade in 1794, the difficult years of the Quasi-War with France, the decline of southern antislavery, and the drafting of the Convention constitution in 1801.

Chapter III addresses the years 1803-1816, the period in which the

Convention in a crisis of confidence instituted triennial sessions. The decline of southern antislavery and reduced interest in abolition in the

Northeast led to the regionalization of the Convention in the mid-

Atlantic area. Abolitionist efforts were further diverted as.national attention focused on the conflicts with the French and British, culmina­ ting in the War of 1812. Societies in the urban centers were forced to localize activity to deal with the influx of black population and increased assaults on black freedoms.

Chapter IV focuses on the variety of activities to aid blacks that the Convention fostered in its constituent societies.

Chapter V details the impact of the colonization issue on the

Convention. Although colonization was attractive to many persons of antislavery principle, especially in the South, the Convention, after some initial attraction to the idea, consistently refused to endorse most colonization, especially that sponsored by the American Colonization

Society. The issue divided the constituents of the Convention, helping to contribute to its demise.

Chapter VI deals with the years 1817-1825. In this period, ques­ tions of national importance spurred the Convention and the abolition societies to renewed activity nationally. The Missouri question, the acquisition of Florida, recognition of South American independence, general emancipation, the internal slave trade, and the formation of new 9 abolition societies elicited new energy from the abolitionists, energy frequently engulfed in new discouragement.

Chapter VII treats the Convention from 1826 to its dissolution in

1837. The Convention held sessions in Baltimore and Washington, where

the issues of slavery in the District of Columbia and the internal

slave trade were volatile. Colonization continued to divide the aboli­

tionists, and the emergence of a new, immediatist abolition movement critical of both colonization and gradual abolition signaled the end of gradualism's dominance as an antislavery tactic. The conclusion will

analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the American Convention, and its

relation and contributions to later abolitionism.

In researching this subject the writer has used primarily the

printed minutes of the American Convention and the extensive papers of

The Pennsylvania Abolition Society at the Historical Society of Pennsyl­

vania in Philadelphia. The Pennsylvania Abolition Society papers,

available on microfilm, contain significant amounts of the papers and

correspondence of the American Convention as well as those of the Penn­

sylvania society. Also used were the papers of New York Manumission

Society, available on microfilm from the New-York Historical Society,

and the papers of the New Jersey Abolition Society in the Quaker Collec­

tion at Haverford College in Haverford, Pennsylvania. Other manuscript

collections used were in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the

Presbyterian Historical Society in Philadelphia, Ihe Quaker Collection

at Haverford College, and the Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore

College, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. 10

INTRODUCTION FOOTNOTES

^The 1829 session was held in Washington, D.C. The 1832 session scheduled at Washington could not be held due to poor attendance. After repeated attempts to secure a quorum, a rump session was held in Phila­ delphia. Adjourned sessions of the Convention were held in New York in 1821 and in Baltimore in 1826 and 1828.

triennial sessions were held in 1809, 1812, and 1815-16. No quorum was attained in 1815 and the session was postponed until 1816. A constitutional change adopted in 1816 moved the next triennial session from the scheduled January 1818 convening date to August 1817. At a special meeting called in 1818 the constitution again was altered to prescribe biennial sessions beginning in October 1819. The 1829 conven­ tion changed the constitution and fixed the next session for January 1832. Alice Dana Adams erred in fixing the date of the origination of biennial sessions. She was also unaware of the session of 1832, and fol­ lowed Edward Needles in mistakenly putting the last session of the Con­ vention in 1838, instead of 1837. Alice Dana Adams, The Neglected Per­ iod of Anti-Slavery in America (1808-1831), Radcliffe College Monographs, no. 14 (Boston, Mass.: Radcliffe College Press, 1908; reprint ed., Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1964), 154-55; Edward Needles, An His­ torical Memoir of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery; the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage, and for Itnpro^ng the Condition of the African Race (Philadelphia; M e ^ i h e w and Thompson, 1848; reprint ed., New York: A m o Press and New York Times, 1969), 96-97.

^lary Stoughton Locke, Anti-Slavery in America: From the Introduc­ tion of Afric^ Slaves to the Prohibition of the Slave Trade (1619-1808), Radcliffe College Monographs, no. 11 (Boston, Mass.: Radcliffe Col- lege Press, 1901; reprint ed., Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1965).

See the Bibliography for works by these authors.

^Adams, The Neglected Period, 169.

^Adams, The Neglected Period, 165-76. CHAPTER I

PRELUDE TO COOPERATION

THE QUAKERS SEEK COALITION

On 24 June 1789, James Pemberton, writing for the Pennsylvania

Abolition Society, communicated to the Society Instituted for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade at London the intention of the PAS^ to lay the subject of slavery before the new Congress meeting in New York.

He observed that the priority in Congress of the "necessary arrangement of public affairs" had made it inexpedient to bring up slavery before now, but "we think it may be proper before their adjournment to bring it into view."^

When the abolition society acted on its intention in early Febru­ ary 1790, submitting a memorial to Congress praying for the removal of

"this inconsistency from the character of the American people," the memorial was carried to New York by Quaker members of the society who bore a similar petition from the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of 3 Friends. The petitions sparked the first Congressional debate on slav­ ery in the newly-constituted Republic, a debate historian Howard Ohline has contended determined the early policy of the United States toward slavery.^ The vitriolic attacks engendered by the petitions, attacks directed primarily against the Quakers, demonstrated the depth of pro­ slavery feelings and influenced future directions abolitionists would

11 12

take in protesting against slavery.

The Quaker petition was introduced in the House of Representa­

tives on Thursday, 11 February. It called on Congress to "remove every

obstruction to public righteousness, which the influence of artifice of

particular persons, governed by the narrow, mistaken views of self-

interest has occasioned," and appeared to plea for the abolition of the

slave trade. A similar petition from New York Quakers introduced the

same day asked for a determination of the national government's powers

in regard to slavery and the slave trade. Supporters moved to commit

the petitions for committee consideration without a second reading, hoping to speed consideration and hasten the return home of the Quaker

lobbyists, including John Pemberton of Philadelphia, who had delivered

the petitions and stayed to enlist support for them. Instead of quick conmitment, they received the first volley of a scathing anti-Quaker attack.^

Michael Stone of Maryland and Edaenus Burke of South Carolina ac­ cused the Quakers of improper interference, Burke charging that "The men in the gallery had come here to meddle in business with which they had nothing to do." James Jackson of Georgia was particularly harsh.

Questioning the patriotism of the Quakers, he begged rhetorically, "Is it to them we owe our present happiness? Was it they who formed the

Constitution? Did they, by their arms or contributions, establish our

independence?" Alluding to the purported opposition of the Quakers to

independence, Jackson questioned, "Why, then, on their application

should we injure men, who, at the risk of their lives and fortunes,

secured to the community their liberty and property?" Although several 13 representatives, James Madison notable among them, urged the immediate commitment of the petitions, the largely southern opposition prevailed, and the customary second reading was delayed until the next day.^

Prior to the second reading on Friday, the petition of the Penn­ sylvania Abolition Society, signed by its president Benjamin Franklin, was presented. The PAS memorial asked the Congress to give "serious at­ tention to the subject of slavery," to "countenance the restoration of liberty" to the slaves, and to discourage "every species of traffic in the persons of your fellow-man." The writers made clear that their pe­ tition represented the views of "various religious denominations," and the abolitionists credited what they perceived as its more favorable reception to this broader support.^

The southern representatives vho had denounced the Quaker peti­ tion did not join in this favorable reception. The Pennsylvania memo­ rial touched off another round of verbal reprisals, with Thomas Tucker of South Carolina asserting that he was surprised to see another peti­ tion "and that signed by a man [Franklin] vdio ought to have known the

Constitution better." Such petitions were worse than useless, he con­ tinued, containing the seeds of potential harm. They would buoy up the hopes of the Negroes, "and as they could not reason on the subject, as more enlightened men would, they might be led to do \diat they would be punished for, and the owners of them, in their own defence, would be compelled to exercise over them a severity they were not accustomed to."

The PAS petition carrying Franklin's signature and claiming the support of representatives of religious groups other than the Quakers forced

its opponents to develop arguments more sophisticated than the 14 ad hominem attacks on the Quakers. They continued, however, to draw heavily on anti-Quaker prejudice and to see in what William Loughton

Smith of South Carolina called "an attack upon the palladium of the O property of our country" a Quaker-inspired plot. David Stuart wrote to George Washington that it gave Virginians "particular umbrage, that the Quakers should be so busy in this business. That they will raise up a storm against themselves appears to me very certain."^

James Madison and John Page of Virginia, with Elbridge Gerry of

Massachusetts, attempted to arrest the storm and redirect the floor de­ bate from the pro-slavery, anti-Quaker direction taken by Tucker and

Smith. They urged that the memorials dealt only with correcting vio­ lations, a proper matter for Congressional discussion. Madison went further, suggesting that Congress could use the petitions to introduce a discussion of the status of slavery in states to be formed from the western territories. Smith would have none of it, continuing to argue that the memorials called for the abolition of the slave trade, some­ thing he claimed Congress was forbidden by the Constitution even to dis­ cuss. The petitions finally were committed for committee consideration by a 43-14 vote, all but one of the dissenting votes coming from repre­ sentatives of states from Maryland south.

Ihe Quaker lobbyists carefully monitored the work of the commit­

tee, headed by Abiel Foster of New Hampshire. John Pemberton wrote to his brother James in Philadelphia on 23 February of the political real­

ities he observed. He said that easterners were likely to join south­ erners in opposing any substantial change in slavery policy because

they wanted Vermont admitted, "apprehending it will throw weight in 15

their Scale and so are in danger of joining the Southern proposal too much like Scratch me and I will Scratch thee.” On 2 March he wrote that

the easterners were afraid that the southern delegates would "rise in a flame," and so they temporized. Quaker good will had run up against hard political reality. "I believe they are in general favorable to

the cause of humanity, yet want if possible to please the opposite

side."12

Howard Ohline drew heavily on the Pemberton correspondence to reach the conclusion that compromise was at the heart of the action

that Congress finally took, or failed to take, on the antislavery peti­

tions. Ohline contended that the need of Congressmen from the North­ east and Middle Atlantic states for southern support for Hamilton's

Report on Public Credit, debate on vdiich was concurrent with discussion of the antislavery memorials, influenced their dealing with the issues raised by the petitions. Northern temporizing led to the dilution of the

Foster committee report when it reached Committee of the Whole consid­ eration in March 1790, and to severe limitations being placed on the ability of the national government to deal with questions related to 13 slavery. Ohline detected three strands of dissatisfaction with the

Constitutional compromise on slavery to which the petitions gave vent.

First, abolitionist petitions were an attempt to clear up uncertainty growing out of the Constitutional ratifying debates about the powers of

the new government. The support of Madison and others for consideration of the abolition petitions was due in part to the opportunity the ensuing debate might afford for clearing up details regarding slavery in new states. Second, New Yorkers had been unable to obtain passage 16 of a state law against the slave trade because a majority of assembly­ men there believed this was now a national power. The New York slave

trade grew as a result, and opponents of the trade, New York Quakers foremost among them, needed to know with whom jurisdiction lay in order

to seek relief. Third, Quakers were strongly opposed to the portions of the Constitution that supported slavery, and used the vehicle of the petition to register their opposition and ask for relief.

The petitioners quickly recognized that any serious consideration of the issues involved in the memorials was being frustrated by the anti-Quaker direction of the debate. The animus continued vhen the pe­ titions were submitted to the Senate on 15 February. Ralph Izard and

Pierce Butler of South Carolina attacked the memorials, in the process calling the Quakers "fanatics.John Pemberton dispatched a letter to James Pemberton the same day, noting his concern with the opposition evidenced by Izard and Butler. He was equally dismayed, however, that so little was said in opposition to the South Carolinians. Having been told two days before that a large majority would favor the Quaker peti­ tion in the Senate, he lamented that "this throws a Damp."^^

Fearful that the debate would not reach a higher plane, Pemberton and Warner Mifflin, the Delaware Quaker who joined in the lobbying, pre­ pared a list of issues in late February for the Foster committee to consider. Most importantly, they asked Congress to declare the limits of its powers over slavery. Mifflin, realizing how destructive the as­ sociation of the issues involved with Quakerism had become, took it on himself to visit George Washington in an attempt to clear up misunder­ standings about Quaker motives.Washington understood the petitions 17 to be Quaker-inspdired, and wrote in June that "the introduction of the

Memorial respecting Slavery, was to be sure, not only an illogical piece 1A of business, but occasioned a great waste of time."

The "great waste of time" continued on 17 March, as the House met as a Committee of the Whole to examine the Foster report. John Brown of Virginia continued the attack on the Quakers, crediting their "inter­ position" with rendering the prospects of the southern states in slaves

"very precarious." Edaenus Burke, in a tirade for which he was finally called to order, accused the Quakers of being spies in the Revolution, 20 and of provisioning and guiding enemy armies. William Loughton Smith resumed his attack of a month earlier. Charging that Quakers were in­ consistent with their principles by interfering in government affairs.

Smith pointed with pride to southern willingness to leave the vexatious

Quakers alone.

The Southern citizens might also consider the toleration of Quakers as an injury to the community, because in time of war they would not defend their country from the enemy, and in time of peace they were interfering in the concerns of others, and doing every thing in their power to excite the slaves in the Southern States to in­ surrection; notwithstanding, the people of those States had not, required the assistance of Congress to exterminate the Quakers.

The debate in the Senate continued for several days. On 22 March

Elias Boudinot of New Jersey gave a lengthy defense of the Quakers, in

which he also defended Benjamin Franklin, the condition of whose facul­

ties James Jackson had questioned. The next day the Committee of the

Whole House voted 29-25 to amend substantially the report of Foster's

special committee. The amendments restated vhat historian William

Wiecek calls "the federal consensus," reaffirming "That Congress

have no authority to interfere in the emancipation of slaves, or in the 18

treatment of them within any of the States; it remaining with the sev­ eral States alone to provide any regulations therein, which humanity O Q and true policy may require." Ihe vhole House deleted any mention of

the ability of Congress to levy a tax on slaves. They also removed the

final paragraph of the special committee report, that paragraph a sop directed to the memorialists saying that the power of Congress would be

exercised "for the humane objects of the memorialists, so far as they

can be promoted on the principles of justice, humanity, and good poli­

cy." One avenue was left open by the Congress for further petitioning.

It declared its authority to restrain United States citizens from sup­

plying foreigners with slaves and to provide for humane treatment dur­

ing the passage of slaves being imported into the United States.

William Pinkney, the prominent Maryland Quaker and veteran of

antislavery attempts in his state's House of Delegates, had not held

much hope for the 1790 petition effort. He had written in early March

to James Pemberton that he wished "the Society Success in their appli­

cation to Congress— Their powers, however, do not appear to me suffi- 25 ciently extensive to do much." It is not certain whether he was re­

ferring to the abolition society or the Society of Friends, or whether

he made any distinction. The abolition society members quickly real­

ized, however, that they had to make this distinction. They recognized

that not only was their power not great, but vdiat little they had was

diffused by their vulnerability to anti-Quaker and anti-northern at­

tack. William Loughton Smith had exposed this vulnerability in the

Senate debate. He questioned whether petitions on slavery had been

sutmitted by any but "the Pennsylvania Society and a few Quakers? Were 19 the citizens of the Nortihem and Eastern States to dictate to Congress 0Ç\ on a measure in idiich the Southern States were so deeply interested?"

The abolitionists realized they must avoid this opprobrium their foes quickly had laid on the Quakers, an opprobrium vAiich had clouded the issues presented in the petitions and made the work of their opponents easier. When next they petitioned Congress, their memorials came from a broader segment of antislavery sentiment than "the Pennsylvania Soci­ ety and a few Quakers."

John Murray, Jr., a prominent Quaker merchant in New York City and an officer of the New York Manumission Society there, saw the weak­ ness of the abolitionist position even before the Congressional debates.

Murray suggested in a letter of 4 February 1790 to the Pennsylvania so­ ciety that any memorial presented to Congress would meet with greater success if it was issued by "all the different manumission societies on 27 the Continent, acting conjointly therein." Murray's letter did not arrive in time to alter the resolve of the PAS to join the Quakers in sending memorials to New York. After 1790, however, Murray's suggestion prevailed whenever the societies memorialized Congress. In an effort to broaden support for antislavery and to counteract the identification of abolitionism with Quakerism, the Quakers curtailed their antislavery campaign after 1790 and encouraged their members to work in the aboli- 28 tion societies. These societies forwarded memorials to Congress and the state legislatures, hoping that memorials from secular bodies, geo­ graphically distributed, would escape the hostility invoked against the petitions identified with northern Quakers. 20

It was an identification the abolitionists found difficult to es­ cape. Quakers were prominent in nearly all of the abolition societies 29 formed in the eighteenth century in the United States. Arthur Zilver-

smit summed up the early history of abolitionism by saying it was "es­

sentially the record of Quaker antislavery activities." He asserted

that the abolition societies were Quaker "front" organizations formed

in an effort to broaden Quaker influence by cooperation with like- 30 minded persons of other religious and philosophical backgrounds.

Quakers were the founding element of the Society for the Relief of Free

Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage, organized in Philadelphia at the

Sun Tavern in April 1775. They revived the society in 1784 after the

Revolutionary lull, and remained the dominant force in the society fol- 31 lowing its expansion to include non-Quakers in 1787. The New York

Manumission Society, organized in 1785 as a "Society for promoting the

Manumission of Slaves; and protecting such of them as have been or may 32 be liberated," was also heavily Quaker. Like the Pennsylvania soci­

ety urban in character, with New York City as its chief focus, the NYMS

even earlier than the PAS sought to broaden its appeal beyond the con­

fines of Quakerism. Friends, however, played prominent and often cru­

cial roles in the New York society until its dissolution in 1849. The

extensive research conducted by David Brion Davis into the prominence

of Quakers in the abolition societies revealed that more than three-

quarters of the most active members of the PAS in its first twenty-five

years were Quakers. He also identified roughly half of those active in

the NYMS as Quakers, noiting that, except in Connecticut and Kentucky,

Quakers largely organized and supported the early abolition societies^3 21

The strength of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society and the net­ work of Quaker contacts developed in the Middle States were decisive influences in the formation of the New Jersey and Delaware abolition societies. Warner Mifflin, the controversial Quaker traveling elder, was instrumental in founding the first Delaware society at Dover in

1788.^^ The New Jersey Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery was formed in 1793 at Burlington, New Jersey, northeast of Philadelphia across the Delaware River and the alternate meeting site of the Phila- 35 delphia Yearly Meeting of Friends. The society was begun in large part by members of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society resident in New

Jersey, and met frequently in Friends meeting houses in Burlington and

Trenton throughout its existence. Prominent New York and Pennsylvania

Friends urged Quaker Moses Brown of Rhode Island to begin an abolition society at Providence, \diich he succeeded in organizing in 1788.

IVhen the Providence society aided in the prosecution of Rhode Island slave trader John Brown, he castigated them, calling them the "Abolition 37 Society, otherwise the Society of Friends." In the societies in Vir­ ginia, North Carolina, Maryland, and Tennessee, Quakers were always the 38 dominant elements.

Although created largely under Quaker aegis, the abolition soci­ eties to be successful needed to attract others who came to antislavery out of different motives than those that drove the Friends. The Quakers were not quick to inquire about such motives for embracing antislavery.

In more than one abolition society they were willing to associate with slaveholders in the accomplishment of their aims. They needed coalition with any and all vho sought to end slavery if they were to accomplish 22 its final extinction. The coalition was formed by the involvement with

the Quakers of individuals who came to the abolition cause from a vari- 39 ety of perspectives. Some, like John Jay and Alexander Hamilton, the first presidents of the New York Manumission Society, and Benjamin

Franklin and Benjamin Rush, early presidents of the Pennsylvania Aboli­

tion Society, had been active in the Revolutionary movement. The Quak­

ers had not approved their actions then, but they happily accepted them

as partners in the abolition cause. The potential social radicalness

of the concept of disinterested benevolence in the Edwardsean theology

was realized, with a nod to Scottish Common Sense philosophy, in the

prominent roles played by Jonathan Edwards, Jr. and Samuel Hopkins in

early abolition efforts in Connecticut and Rhode Island respectively.^^

Their Calvinistic approach to sin differed markedly from that of the

Quakers, but they called slavery a sin, and that was enough. More im­

portant than any differences the Quakers had with such notables was

their public prominence and the credibility they brought to abolition­

ism. It was a credibility desperately needed after the 1790 debates in

Congress, but one the abolitionists had sought even earlier.

The architects of the first abolition societies recognized how

strong was the opposition they faced, and how great their need of public

support, especially the support of prominent citizens. The association

of men of prominence and, ostensibly, power can be misconstrued to

prompt the assumption that their coming together primarily met needs

for the exercise of social control. To make this assumption is to miss

their craving for support for their unpopular stand. Early abolition

leaders, many of whom had gained their philanthropic experience within 23 the narrow confines of Quaker antislavery or in well-received benevolent endeavors on behalf of the sick and the poor, found themselves in un­ charted waters in forming societies dealing with the potentially vola­ tile issue of slavery. They coveted the testimonials they received.

In 1785, shortly after the founding of the New York Manumission

Society, the standing committee reported receiving letters from "Gentle­ men of High Character in various parts of the United States" applauding their humane efforts on behalf of the poor Africans. They opined that it gave them "reason to expect great assistance from their generous dis­ positions."^^ This assistance had little or nothing to do with expected financial support, but with the credibility that would accrue to the society from their association, and with the help that such individuals might offer in important litigation or legislative struggles. As with any modern movement that accumulates the names of recognized persons for its letterhead board of directors, the abolition societies sought to demonstrate that people of good will, intelligence, and social promi­ nence supported their aims.

Historian Betty Fladeland noted the importance to American aboli­ tionists of the 1830s and after of receiving recognition and support from British sympathizers at a time when they were regarded as fanatics at home.^^ It is telling that eighteenth-century antislavery men, many themselves notable, sought the same kinds of recognition, encouragement, and support. The New York society's standing committee maintained cor­ respondence with "many respectable personages in almost every state of the Union" in the early years of the society's existence, and opened correspondence with the London Society in November 1787 and with La 24

Société des Amis des Noirs à Paris in August 1788.^^ This correspon­ dence served to encourage the members of the society that they were not alone in their sentiments, gave them repeated assurance that the ratio­ nal and the well-bred supported their aims, and marked the beginnings of cooperative action to achieve common goals.

By November 1788 the New York society found that the volume of such correspondence handled by the standing committee had become cumber­ some. Feeling that the standing committee's time was better spent in the numerous actions pending for the freedom of blacks, the society ap­ pointed a committee of correspondence to relieve them. The Pennsylvania

Abolition Society also began to correspond regularly with other indivi­ duals and groups that supported abolition following their reorganization in 1787. In May 1787 the PAS granted corresponding membership to

Matthew Clarkson and John Jay of the New York Manumission Society and the two societies, the only such societies at that time, began regular correspondence. As more societies appeared, the Pennsylvania society became the chief conduit for correspondence among them and for distribu­ ting information from the societies at London and Paris. In this cor­ respondence lay the seeds of interstate cooperation and national alli­ ance to achieve abolitionist goals.

David Brion Davis commented on the importance of this interstate communication to the reformers, observing that it gave them "a sense of united effort in overcoming powerful interests and in implementing the principles of the Revolution.Equally important, however, was the opportunity to share grievances. The abolitionists of the 1780s and

1790s, although optimistic that in time slavery would be eradicated. 25 were not blind to the struggle this would entail. The standing conmit-

tee of the New York society in 1785 voiced optimism that "compleat free­ dom tho considerably remote is still to be expected” in New York, but cautioned that many slaveholders remained violently opposed to manumit­ ting their slaves.The Pennsylvania Abolition Society, in a letter written vdiile the petition of 1790 was under consideration in committee, warned the society at London not to expect significant early results from PAS efforts. The letter stressed three themes that loomed large in abolitionist thinking in the period: the strength of the opposition, the gradual methods needed to overcome such opposition, and the projec­ ted success of gradualist measures.

However desirable it may be to the benevolent both in Europe and America to observe a rapid progress in this business we dare not flatter ourselves with anything more than a very gradual work— Long habits of Strong Interests are not to be overcome in an Instant . . . but finally conviction will spread from man to man until a large majority of the People of America will think it safe as well as just to let the oppressed go f r e e . * /

In the meantime, the channel for grievances opened by interstate and international communication was filled with tales of difficulties en­ countered locally, SOTie of vÆiich called for aid from cohorts in other states, some of which cried for relief at the national level.

Sometimes the cause for grievance lay in an unexpected source.

Jeremy Belknap rejoiced at being able to be an instrument in liberating some slaves in 1788. He wrote to Benjamin Rush from Boston that the freeing of the slaves and their coming with Prince Hall to thank him for his agency was "rich compensation for all the curses of the vAiole tribe of African traders aided by the Distillery which have been liber­ ally bestowed on the Clergy of this town" for their work in organizing 26 the petition that led to tlhe slaves' freedom. Rush shared Belknap's elation and proceeded to publish the letter in Philadelphia. When copies got into the hands of Belknap's enemies, he remonstrated that

Rush had only intensified the vilification he and his ministerial 48 colleagues were receiving.

John Murray, Jr. described the arduous road ahead of the New York society in 1790 as one containing "many obstacles and embarrassments

. . . none perhaps of a more potent nature, than the circumstances of a great Body of Dutch, who hold slaves in this Government, and seem . . . startled, and in arms, whenever a proposition comes forward touching that People." The success in Pennsylvania with the passage of a gradual abolition law in 1780 was not likely soon to be repeated in New

York, Murray indicated, for there was little to hope for from a legis- 49 lature with so many Dutch in it.

The success in Pennsylvania would not soon be matched in Maryland, either, William Pinkney warned in 1790.

At present the advocates of freedom in this state dare not attempt much for fear they should lose everything. The Progress of that liberal policy which has already distinguished Pennsylvania will be here slow and gradual. The subject is rendered too delicate by the unconquerable selfishness of some and the Timidity of others to admit of its being proposed at once.^®

Pinkney went on to describe the gargantuan task of conquering hereditary prejudices, silencing fears for public safety, exciting compassion for mistreated blacks, instilling principles of justice, and conquering self-interest that lay before the reformers.

This outlet for expressing vdiat seemed at times the hopelessness of the task, and the answering commiseration received from other 27 societies undoubtedly helped. The day-to-day battle against slavery and the slave trade frequently was fou^t, however, with a debilitating sense of isolation, an isolation hinted at in the complaints of Murray and Pinkney. In some places, the battle was not even being joined.

When Rhode Islanders wrestled with the question of forming an abolition society in 1788, one Rhode Islander corresponding with the Pennsylvania society wrote that vhile many in his state felt some sort of association was necessary to give "force and stability" to the law prohibiting slave trading, "others fear the consequence of joining a Society like yours."

Friends of the blacks in Rhode Island were caught between seeing the law "trampled upon with impunity" and taking on the difficult and ex- 52 pensive task of privately prosecuting offenders. Far from the friendlier climate of Philadelphia or even New York City, it was a lonely choice for those vÆio had "a considerable weight of wealth in a 53 part of the mercantile interest to contend with."

A partial solution to this sense of isolation was the naming by the established societies of honorary members in areas vÆiere slavery or the slave trade was entrenched. This practice aided the struggling abolitionists in those places and gave the established societies asso­ ciation with additional influential persons whose reputations could buttress their work. The Rhode Island letter of 1788 indicated that the defense there of some illegally imported blacks would have been aided had the PAS appointed agents in Rhode Island. In response the

PAS named, among others, Samuel Hopkins as an honorary member.The

New York society also named Hopkins an honorary member in 1788, and at the same time admitted the Reverend Ezra Stiles, president of Yale 28

College. Lafayette, the French abolitionist J. P. Brissot de Warville,

English abolitionists Granville Sharp and Thomas Clarkson, and Samuel

Hoare, Quaker secretary of the London society, were also made honorary members of the NYMS the same year.^^

The naming of honorary members also enabled the societies to dis­ seminate their information more widely, and, they believed, to increase their influence beyond local bounds. The NYMS standing committee noted in May 1792 that all the society's members but a few lived in New York

City. Their influence, therefore, "tho' considerable was not co-exten- sive with the necessity of its being exerted" and many blacks needing aid were not receiving it. With this in mind, the NYMS determined to appoint honorary members in every town in New York and, if efforts to begin a society in New Jersey failed, to repeat the procedure there.

Gradually the written conmunications, with the grievances and pleas for help from other societies that they contained, created the realization that many of the local' problems could not be cured without national action. But such action had been made more difficult by the

Constitution with its sanction of slavery and the slave trade. Still in their infancies, novices in how to effect change through legislative channels, especially at the national level, the abolition societies failed to respond in any significant way to the opportunity to influence the course of slavery in the Constitutional Convention or the subsequent ratifying conventions. At least one historian has indicted them for this failure, and their silence during this important period indeed is re­ markable.^^ 29

Little in the written record offers clues to their reticence. On

2 June 1787 the Pennsylvania Abolition Society memorialized the

recently-begun Constitutional Convention on putting an end to the slave

trade. It was to be the only effort by the abolition societies to shape

the course of the convention. The New York Manumission Society belated­

ly appointed a committee on 16 August to draw up a memorial to the

federal convention. The committee, composed of John Jay, White Matlack,

and Nathaniel Lawrence, brought in a memorial, the substance of vhich

is not recorded, which was read and approved at a special meeting the next day. The memorial was never forwarded; "The society being informed

that it was probable the Convention would not take up the Business re- CQ solved not to send the same."

It is possible that Alexander Hamilton, a member of the NYMS, con­ veyed this impression to the society. Hamilton, \dio had left the Con­

stitutional Convention on 29 June, appeared for a single day at the

Convention on 13 August. His visit was in the interim between attacks

on slavery and on the three-fifths compromise by Rufus King and Gouver­ neur Morris on 8 August and consideration of the slave trade and navi­ gation acts that began on 21 August. The prevailing atmosphere was

tense, the potential high for disruption of the Convention by these

sensitive North-South issues. Hamilton may well have concluded that

slavery could not be discussed without endangering the entire Constitu­

tion.^^

It is probable that the abolitionists were content that nothing

so potentially disruptive should affect the Philadelphia deliberations.

The prominent Quakers vdio peopled the abolition societies were strong 30 backers of a centralized government with sufficient power to instill public virtue, and most of the persons of prominence vdio had joined them in the abolition societies held similar views. Even if slavery had been fully discussed, the Pennsylvania and New York societies would have felt their position adequately represented by PAS president Benjamin

Franklin, Hamilton, and northern slavery opponents such as King and

Morris.

The silence of the abolitionists at the time of the ratifying conventions was based on similar considerations. The presence and prominence of strong defenders of the document in the abolition socie­

ties, including Hamilton and John Jay in the New York society, and

Franklin in the PAS, and the Federalist disposition of the membership

of the societies, undoubtedly mitigated against abolitionist opposition

to the Constitution on antislavery principle. Displeased with the pro­ visions regarding slavery in the Constitution, the Quakers generally were prepared to accept the document, then to work through the channels

that the new government afforded for the mitigation of slavery. David

Brion Davis observed that the Quakers tended to find the strong points of union in the Constitution and turned their eyes from the sections

that sanctioned slavery.

Not all Quakers, however, favored the Constitution, and those who were Antifederalists on antislavery principle proved an embarrassment

to the more genteel Federalist Quakers. Dr. Jeremy Belknap indicated to

Benjamin Rush that a Quaker preacher, an influential Antifederalist in

Massachusetts, had been opposing the Constitution in 1788 by claiming 31 that all Americans would lose their freedom to the slave power if the slave trade was allowed to continue for another twenty years. Belknap questioned vÆiether any Quakers in Pennsylvania held a similar interpre­ tation of the importation clause. Hoping that there were "men of sense" among the Quakers in Philadelphia who would find such an argument ab­ horrent, Belknap asked Rush for documentation of this so he could counteract the arguments of his Quaker adversary. Rush apparently set­ tled Belknap's mind by assuring him that the Quakers at Philadelphia were Federalist. Belknap expressed relief, but said that some New En­ gland Quakers had come to assume that the constitution meant to provide federal sanction for slavery as well as the slave trade for at least twenty years.Abolitionists of the Federalist persuasion had no in­ tention of seeing slavery legitimized by the Constitution. In their cautious manner, the abolition societies accepted the compromises the

Constitution represented, and prepared to memorialize the new government on the subjects of slavery and the slave trade.

With hindsight it is possible to fault the abolition societies for

their failures in the period of the drafting and ratifying of the Con­ stitution. It must be remembered, however, that the societies viewed themselves primarily as local, at best state, organizations. The inter­ state correspondence that would lead them to see the need for and poten­

tial efficacy of national cooperation was in nascent form. This corres­ pondence existed regularly only between Pennsylvania and New York, and

the societies in those states represented only the urban centers. The only organization with the potential for a national abolition effort was

the Society of Friends. As became all-too-evident in the Congressional 32 debates of 1790, Quakers continued to carry the stain of their neutral­ ity in the American Revolution. The rebuff of two Quaker petitions to the Continental Congress praying the abolition of slavery and the slave trade in 1783 and 1785 marked the beginnings of Quakers' awareness of 62 their political limitations. In the infant stages of finding a ve­ hicle for antislavery action in the abolition societies, Quaker leaders were understandably cautious in approaching the govemment-in-the-mak- ing, a government they wanted to see established on as firm a base as possible. The early abolitionists struggled to create institutions that could deal adequately with the slavery problem they readily per­ ceived, but were uncertain how to address. Sir James Stephen wrote in

1849 that "agitation for the accomplishment of great political objects has taken a place among the social arts." "But," he cautioned, "sixty years since, it was among the inventions slumbering in the womb of time, taught by no professors, and illustrated by no examples."

Perhaps most important of all in accounting for the slowness of the abolition societies to act in the crucial Constitution-making peri­ od is the realization that they were made up of men conservative in nature vho were involved in vdiat many of their fellow-citizens viewed as a radical activity. Members of the New York Manumission Society doubted the propriety of sending a memorial on slavery to the Constitu­ tional Convention. This may suggest only a debate on the wisdom of sending a petition not likely to be considered, but it is possible that it involved the questioning of lAether or not the potentially divisive topic should be broached at all. At any rate, it is only one example out of many of the overvhelming concern given by the societies to 33

questions of propriety and expediency. The appearances of the word

"expedient" and the even more frequent appearances of "inexpedient" in

relation to proposed action on abolition in local society and American

Convention records are too frequent to miss their implication. The

societies were cautious and deliberate. In a fashion consistent with

Quaker principles they sought to make their case, but in doing so to

create the least amount of turmoil. The Maryland society proudly stat­

ed in 1793 that it had from its inception been "extremely circumspect"

in conduct, had tried to avoid alarming slaveholders, and had not inter­

fered with the laws of property.Alexander Addison of the Washington,

Pennsylvania society spoke for his fellow westerners in 1790, but his

words could have served as a model for any of the societies;

The most effectual way to advance our cause, and speed its estab­ lishment is cautiously to examine every question, to adopt only such as are supported by Law, and to prosecute those that are adopted in the most respectable judicatories.

The standing committee of the New York society in 1797 remarked on the

caution that marked its activities, a trait consistent with NYMS policy

from the society’s inception. The committee declared it had

endeavoured to combine an active zeal for the interest of the oppressed, with that degree of moderation, caution, and forbearance, the continued exercise of vÆiich cannot but produce the happiest effects, in promoting the great principles of our institution.^^

It is possible, too, to make too much of the revolutionary fervor

of the period and to exaggerate the optimism of the early abolitionists.

As has been seen, at the same time that they were optimistic about the

eventual abolition of slavery in the United States, they were realistic

about the opposition they faced.Warner Mifflin stated that his hopes for the eradication of slavery had peaked with the Declaration of 34

Independence but abated thereafter.^® Ironically, the sanctioning of slavery in the Constitution served as an effective demonstration of the grip that slavery held on the land, and of the powerful and widespread opposition to loosening its hold. The vehement defense of slavery in

Congress in 1790 reinforced the belief of the abolitionists that princi­ palities and powers were arrayed against them. Only gradual and persis­ tent action, they reasoned, could overcome such opposition. But even adherence to such conservative principles did not always save them from attack. The New York standing committee ccxnplained in 1792 that

the principles of the society had been "misrepresented or extremely mis­ understood," adding that "much opprobrium" had been directed at the mem­ bers, "and the passions of many raised against them."®^

The results of the 1790 petitions from the Quakers and the PAS might have disheartened men less confident of the righteousness of their cause, less aware of the patience and fortitude that the task before

them required. James Pemberton concluded that the debates, acrimonious

and potentially dispiriting as they had been, at least allowed the abo­

litionists to disseminate their principles. In that he found hope. He

observed that public awareness of the plight of blacks was at a new high.^^ Joseph Townsend, a Quaker from Baltimore vÆio served as secre­

tary of the Maryland society, wrote to Pemberton that the debates gave

"great encouragement for perseverance," and asserted "they have given

us more than we ask'd of them."^^

Further inspiration came from the burgeoning number of abolition

societies, as news had come to Philadelphia beginning in 1788 of the

formation of abolition societies in Delaware, Rhode Island, Connecticut, 35 and Maryland, at Richmond, Virginia, and at Washington in southwestern

Pennsylvania. The PAS even announced the intention of individuals in 72 Augusta, Georgia to form an association. The "more" that Townsend alluded to was the specificity of Congress on its powers over the for­ eign slave trade. The Pennsylvania society now determined to press the case, focus on this necessary step to abolition, and call on Congress to do vhat it was empowered to do, "alleviate as much as possible the hor- 70 rors of the slave trade." This time it resolved not to act alone nor in unfortunate concert with Quaker memorializing, but to call on the other abolition societies to join it in flooding Congress with a collec­

tion of memorials on the slave trade. In a circular letter of 25 Octo­ ber 1790 to the various abolition societies the PAS urged the societies

to draft memorials and forward them to James Pemberton, now president of the PAS, so they could be submitted together at the next session of

Congress. The letter encouraged the societies to use similar language

in all the addresses, "as this must necessarily increase their weight.

Responses to the Pennsylvania request were positive, although not

all the societies explicitly followed the instructions. The New York

society on 30 November appointed a committee to prepare a memorial and

approved the draft on 14 December. The society decided it was more ap­

propriate to send the original draft to the New York Congressmen. Mat­

thew Clarkson, vice president of the NYMS, was instructed to send the

PAS a copy of the memorial and to inform the PAS that the original was

to be sent to New York' Congressional delegation. The Rhode Island so­

ciety at Providence, constantly involved in direct struggle with slave 35 traders vdio argued that the Constitution superseded Rhode Island law banning the trade, sent a memorial dated 28 December 1790. An accompa­ nying letter expressed hope for better results from this effort than had issued from the 1790 PAS petition. That memorial, the society com­ plained, had harmed its attempts to initiate a society in Boston. The memorial had also offended persons there otherwise favorably disposed to its intent, its timing having interfered with the Massachusetts need for southern support on state debt assumption. Ezra Stiles, president of the Connecticut society, sent its memorial on 25 January 1791.^^

The Washington, Pennsylvania society, organized as an "Association for the Relief of Free Negroes, etc." begrudgingly forwarded a letter for the purpose, but president Alexander Addison stated pointedly that the members thought the petitions inappropriate, unwise, and untimely.

Since the society believed Congress had no power to restore slaves to freedom, nor to prevent the enslavement of freemen, Addison reasoned.

Congress was therefore possessed of no powers "commensurate with the principles of our organization." Due to its small size, it could "add but little weight to the scale" anyway. On account of their hatred of slavery, however, and with "a desire to comply with every reasonable re­ quest of our respected brethren," the members forwarded a letter for the

PAS to use.^^

New York Congressman Egbert Benson, a member of the New York Manu­ mission Society, acknowledged receipt of the New York memorial on 15

February 1791, but indicated that he thought it best to delay its intro- 77 duction until the second Congress convened in Philadelphia. The bit­ ter debate of the previous year still fresh in their minds, the 37

society's members agreed, and the New York memorial was held to be pre­ sented with the rest of the Pennsylvania society's collection.

The memorial of the New York society called the trade "repugnant

to the principles of humanity, to those Ideas of the rights of mankind vhich form the basis of the Government of the United States, and to the benign Sentiments of the Christian Religion." The memorialists rue­ fully acknowledged the Congressional action of 1790, stating that, while they regretted Congress could not abolish the slave trade, it was in

Congress's power to alleviate the "evil." The content of the memorial indicated that the societies had learned the lessons of the Quaker-PAS effort of 1790. The memorial's precepts were those of natural rights, humanitarian principles, and Christian sentiment, with the religious ar­ gument tertiary. It addressed a specific topic, one vdiich the Congress had claimed jurisdiction over, and avoided the rambling "do something, do anything" nature of the 1790 petitions. The memorial drew on the foreign correspondence of the society to counterbalance the charges of parochial interest raised in the First Congress. The petitioners point­ ed to Europe vdiere, they claimed, some of the best men were at work to rid their countries of the slave trade, and expressed the hope the U.S. 78 Congress might do the same. Others of the memorials also demonstrated that their authors had learned from the criticism of the 1790 petitions.

Pennsylvania reminded Congress of the Declaration, and the "unalienable right of all men to equal liberty.The Connecticut society pointed to its own extensive presence throughout the state, and claimed its sen- 80 timents were those of a large majority of the citizens of the state. 38

The collective petitions were laid before the House of Represen-

tives on 8 December 1791. The Pennsylvania society by its pleas had garnered memorials from Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Virginia,

three from Maryland, and the correspondence from Washington, Pennsyl­ vania. The petitions prayed Congress to adopt specific measures to pro­ hibit citizens of the United States from engaging in the African trade

in order to supply slaves to foreigners, to deny the fitting out in

U.S. ports of foreign ships destined for the slave trade, and to provide

for the humane treatment of slaves being imported "into the states ad- 01 mitting such importations." Accepted without the bitter debate that

marked the introduction of the 1790 petitions, the memorials were re­

ferred to a committee of vhich Egbert Benson of New York was a member,

but which also included Abraham Baldwin of Georgia and William Loughton

Smith of South Carolina. There the memorials stayed for the duration

of the Second Congress. The subject of the slave trade remained dor­ mant, save for a memorial from Warner Mifflin in 1793, until the Ameri­

can Convention forwarded its first petition on the slave trade in 1794 82 and thereby prompted the Congress to consider the subject once more.

The effort that resulted in the 8 December petitions, unproductive

as it was in inducing Congress to move against the slave trade, demon­

strated that the diverse group of abolition societies could cooperate

in attempting to influence legislation at the national level. Increas­

ingly, the societies saw the need jointly to exert vÆiatever influence

they had in slavery-related matters nationally. This need to influence

Congress was not the only reason the abolition societies arrived at the

idea of a national organization, however. The societies, which had been 39 instituted to address slavery and the problems of free blacks in their localities, found the work they were doing did not end conveniently at their respective state borders. Interstate cooperation became an in­ creasing necessity if they were to accomplish their goals. This early cooperation took the form of sharing information and advice about laws governing slavery and attempts in the various states to abolish slavery 83 or mitigate its effects. The societies also assisted each other in the recovery of kidnapped blacks, and in attempting to form additional abolition societies.

Interstate cooperation was essential in many cases in vdiich the societies sought to gain freedom for kidnapped or illegally detained blacks. These cases sometimes nearly overwhelmed the societies. Warner

Mifflin expressed the frustration of many abolitionists when he said

that he was so beset with the complaints of blacks that he scarcely knew which way to turn. The cases were frequently complex, involving

the laws of more than one state or nation, and requiring complicated

legal maneuverings. James Pemberton communicated to Granville Sharp of the London society in 1791 that the Pennsylvania society's acting committee "in the course of their laborious business" on behalf of blacks "often [had] occasion to direct their inquiries to distant places and to develope [sic] many dark and intricate transactions."®^

Because they found they often could not engage in freedom cases wdthout such information, the New York and Pennsylvania societies began

in the 1780s to try to determine what other states were doing about

slavery. In February 1788, the New York Manumission Society informed

the London society that it had been endeavoring to discover what was 40 being done toward manumission and abolition in various states, but had received little cooperation from its correspondents. In 1789, the

Pennsylvania Abolition Society wrote to New Jersey governor William

Livingston for information on a new law in New Jersey banning the slave trade and easing restrictions on manumissions. At the same time, the

PAS addressed the governors of Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Delaware soliciting laws on the slave trade and manumissions in those states.

The societies often found that such information gathering was time- consuming. They came to see that p national body could accomplish the task with improved facility and less duplication of effort. Consoli­ dating information gathering would free the local societies to tend cases pressing at home. It would also provide the coordination neces- 85 sary vÆien these cases leaped state and national boundaries.

The case of Dorcas, a slave freed in 1778 by Thomas Benedict of

Norwalk, Connecticut, demonstrates the difficulties frequently encoun­ tered, difficulties \diich pushed the societies toward united action.

Following her manumission, Dorcas, bound for Halifax to be a servant to a British officer's family, was kidnapped and carried to Jamaica by way of England. Benedict learned of her plight after she had been enslaved in Kingston for eight years. Unable to go to Jamaica to seek her re­ lease, Benedict intended to find a sailor who might act as his agent in securing her release. The expense would be great, he knew, and his correspondence with the Pennsylvania Abolition Society in August 1791 was designed to enlist its aid. By November Benedict had failed to find anyone to make the trip. Potential agents volunteered, but the costs attending their travel were prohibitive. Finally, with the aid 41 of the PAS, Benedict's son was sent to Kingston in the sumner of 1792 vhere a suit for Dorcas's freedom was satisfactorily concluded in Decem­ ber. Dorcas subsequently sued Dr. Hunter, her master in Jamaica, win­ ning a suit for 400£, but additional information had to be supplied by way of New York City to gain the freedom of her son.

The Pennsylvania Abolition Society filled the role of an inter­ state, or, in Dorcas's case, an international vehicle in the absence of a true national organization. Located in Philadelphia, the cultural, economic, and, by the 1790s, political center of the new nation, the role was a natural one which would continue during the life of the

American Convention. But no one society could be expected to maintain interstate correspondence, serve as a clearinghouse of information, assist in financing adventures like the one involved in freeing Dorcas, lobby the Congress, and attend to the concerns of the black population in its own locale. Drawn-out, long-distance litigation such as that involved in the Dorcas affair brought home the realization that a truly national society was needed. The spread of abolition societies into the

South in the early 1790s increased the prospects for the usefulness of such a national coordinating body. The existence of southern societies opened the way for northerners to. gain first-hand information about slavery in the South, and enhanced the possibilities for gathering in­ formation about kidnapped blacks transported there.

The state and local abolition societies also recognized that in their attempts to involve members of various religious denominations and ideologies in the work of abolition they opened the way to a heterogene­ ity of opinions about antislavery strategy. This diversity seemed to 4/

some to mandate a national coordinating body. At the same time it ren­

dered difficult the formation of such an entity. Following the call for

a national convention of abolition societies, John Murray, Jr. wrote to

James Pemberton that just as the PAS had taken the lead in defending

blacks, now he hoped that if any problems were to result from such a

gathering Pennsylvania would

be candid in their observations on that head, for however united we may be in the common cause, yet we are not all alike sentimented in respect to the means proper to be adopted, and pursued, hence the expediency of a communication of Ideas, and an endeavor to cultivate a good understanding between us.°'

The first convention meeting in Philadelphia in 1794 emphasized that

"information, and an unreserved comparison of one another's sentiments,

relative to the important cause in vÆiich we are severally engaged, are 00 our principal objects."

The call for a national convention originated in the New York so­ ciety on 20 November 1792. Twenty-four members gathered in a quarterly meeting approved a resolution to write circular letters to the various

abolition societies, "and to Influential persons in those States where

such societies do not exist," proposing they send delegates to meet in 89 convention in Philadelphia on 1 January 1794. In such a meeting, the

New York society hoped, could be laid the groundwork of an organization

for sharing information, cooperation in kidnapping cases and other

litigation, and addressing the national government.

The New York society also hoped the call for a national convention would move those of abolitionist sentiment in New Jersey, including

some who were members of the NYMS and the PAS, to form themselves into a society. Although too kind a group of Christians to say so publicly. 43

New York abolitionists had grown tired of carrying on activities to aid blacks in northern New Jersey. By 1792, as abolitionists saw it. New

Jersey constituted the only weak link in a chain of abolition societies stretching from Rhode Island to Virginia. The Pennsylvania society wrote a letter to PAS members resident in New Jersey urging the forma­ tion of a society that would perform "its proportionate duties" in con­ cert with the other societies. By the time the committee of correspon­ dence of the New York society posted its circular call to convention, 90 New Jerseyites had gathered and formed an abolition society.

The committee of correspondence of the New York society sent out the call on 14 March 1793 requesting deputies from the several abolition societies to gather "for the purpose of deliberating on and considering the great cause of their oppressed Fellow Creatures the African Race."

The specific purpose of the convention, the committee announced, was to prepare an address to Congress. Recalling the history of antislavery petitioning and probably their own sense of frustration at their little- heeded efforts in New York, the committee members concluded that an address from such a convention would "convey the collective sense of a large number of Citizens in most of the United States, and therefore obtain a more full and respectful attention, than an address from only one or two individual Societies.

The Pennsylvania Abolition Society on 4 April 1793 acceded to the call for a convention, provided a majority of abolition societies agreed. The PAS also joined the NYMS in forwarding letters to the existent societies. Pennsylvania directed letters to the societies at

Baltimore, Richmond, and Dover, Delaware. It encouraged sending letters 44 to the New Jersey society, the Chester River and Easton societies in

Maryland, the Connecticut society, and the societies at Wilmington, 92 Delaware, and Providence, Rhode Island. By May the New York corres­ ponding committee reported favorable replies from several societies, creating the hope of a sizeable convention. Buoyed by the news, the so­ ciety instructed the comnittee to direct a mailing to influential per­ sons friendly to abolition in states with no existing societies, \diich included New Hampshire, Kentucky, Vermont, North Carolina, South Caro- 93 lina, and Georgia, encouraging them to form societies and attend. It is not known vÆiether invitations were sent to these states, nor vdiich influential persons were addressed.

For all the early optimism of the NYMS, responses from the remain­ ing, societies were slow in coming in, and not until sometime between its

August and November quarterly meetings was the New York society assured that a majority of societies would attend. At the 19 November quarter­ ly meeting the NYMS named its delegation of Peter Jay Munro, Moses Rog­ ers, Thomas Franklin, and William Dunlap. The committee on correspon­ dence was instructed to issue a letter to the various societies in­ forming them of the constituency of the New York delegation and encour­ aging their attendance. Delegations were instructed to gather in Phil­ adelphia on 1 January 1794. There they were to consult James Pemberton, president of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, vdio would tell them 94 where the meeting was to take place. 45

CHAPTER I FOOTNOTES

^The Pennsylvania Abolition Society (established 1775, re­ established 1787), formally The Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery and for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage and for Improving the Condition of the African Race, will frequently be referred to as the PAS throughout the text and in the foot­ notes of this work. The Society Instituted for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade at London will be termed the London society.

^PAS to the London Society, 24 June 1789, PAS Letterbook, 1789- 1794, Pennsylvania Abolition Society Collection (microfilm publication), (Philadelphia: Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1976), Reel 11. 3 Annals of Congress, 1 Cong. 2 sess., 1198 (12 February 1790).

^Howard A. Ohline, "Slavery, Economics, and Congressional Poli­ tics, 1790," Journal of Southern History 46 (August 1980): 336.

^Annals of Congress, 1 Cong. 2 sess., 1183-84, 1186 (11 February 1790).

^Annals of Congress, 1 Cong. 2 sess., 1185-87 (11 February 1790).

^Annals of Congress, 1 Cong. 2 sess., 1197-98 (12 February 1790); PAS to London Society, 28 February 1790, PAS Letterbook, 1789-94, PAS Collection, Reel 11. 8 Annals of Congress, 1 Cong. 2 sess., 1198, 1202 (12 February 1790). 9 David Stuart to George Washington, 15 March 1790, in Writings of Washington, 31: 28 n., quoted in Paul F. Boiler, Jr., "Washington, The Quakers, and Slavery, Journal of Negro History 46 (April 1961): 85-86.

^^St. George Tucker cautioned Page about his comments on the peti­ tions, stating that vdiile he and Page shared the belief that "slavery is a curse upon our country," Page must be careful of sentiments expressed in Congress, as there was a report that Page had "advocated the Aboli­ tion of Slavery by Congress." Tucker to Page, 29 March 1790, loose correspondence (hereafter Ic), PAS'.Collection, Reel 11.

^^Annals of Congress, 1 Cong. 2 sess., 1203-5 (12 February 1790). 12 John Pemberton to James Pemberton, 23 February, 2 March 1790, Ic, PAS Collection, Reel 11. 13 Ohline, "Slavery, Economics, and Congressional Politics," 336. See p. 36 of this paper for confirmation of Ohline* s argument in a let­ ter of the Rhode Island Abolition Society. 46

^^Ohline, "Slavery, Economics, and Congressional Politics," 339-40.

^^Quoted in ibid.

^^John Pemberton to James Pemberton, 15 February 1790, Ic, PAS Collection, Reel 11.

^^Ohline, "Slavery, Economics, and Congressional Politics," 345, 348; Boiler, "Washington, The Quakers, and Slavery," 86. 18 George Washington to David Stuart, 15 June 1790, quoted in Boiler, "Washington, The Quakers, and Slavery," 87.

^^Annals of Congress, 1 Cong. 2 sess., 1452 (17 March 1790). 20 Annals of Congress, 1 Cong. 2 sess., 1453 (17 March 1790). 21 Annals of Congress, 1 Cong. 2 sess., 1458 (17 March 1790).

^^William Wiecek, The Sources of Antislavery Constitutionalism in ^erica,. 1760-1848 (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1977), 16, passim. 23 Annals of Congress, 1 Cong. 2 sess., 1474 (23 March 1790).

^^Annals of Congress, 1 Cong. 2 sess., 1473-74 (23 March 1790).

^^William Pinkney to James Pemberton, 3 March 1790), Ic, PAS Col­ lection, Reel 11.

Annals of Congress, 1 Cong. 2 sess., 1457 (17 March 1790). 27 John Murray, Jr. to James Pemberton, 4 February 1790, Ic, PAS Collection, Reel 11. The Murray Hill section of Manhattan is named for Murray and his descendants. 28 Richard Bauman, For the Reputation of Ttuth; Politics, Religion, and Conflict Among the Pennsylvania Quakers, 1759-1800 (Baltimore and London; Johns Hopkins University Press, 1971), 199. This is a different argument than that advanced by Confederate apologist F. G. DeFontaine in 1861 \dien he described the reaction of the abolition societies to the Congressional action of 1790: "This sentiment was generally acquiesced in, and satisfaction and tranquility ensued, the abolition societies there-after limiting their exertions, in respect to the black population, to offices of humanity within the scope of existing laws." History of American Abolitionism: Its Four Great Epochs (New York: D. Appleton and Co., l86l), lO. Although the Quakers for strategic reasons reduced their formal antislavery activity after 1790, the activity of indivduals and the collective activity of Quakers in the abolition societies gives no evidence of DeFontaine's ascribed "satisfaction and tranquility." 47 29 For more on the Quaker origins of American antislavery and on the importance of transatlantic cooperation to the first generations of abolitionists, see Appendix. 30 Arthur Zilversmit, The First Emancipation; the Abolition of Slavery in the North (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967), 165, 35%

^^feyne J. Ebarly, "The Pennsylvania Abolition Society, 1775-1830" (Ph.D. dissertation, Pennsylvania State University, 1973), 26-30. 32 Zilversmit, The First Emancipation, 147. Zilversmit said that five of seventeen founding members of the New York Manumission Society (•hereafter referred to frequently as NYMS) were Quakers. Thomas Drake in Quakers and Slavery in America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1950), 98 put the ratio at twelve of eighteen. See David Brion Davis, The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770-1823 (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1975), 2l7 for a treatment of the dif­ ficulty of discerning the numbers of Quakers in the abolition societies. This difficulty is demonstrated in the case of Zilversmit's and Drake's ratios. The records of the NYMS show that nineteen persons attended the initial meeting on 25 January 1785, and thirty-two were present at the next meeting vÆien a constitution was drafted. New York Manumission Society Papers, vol. 5, Standing Committee Minutes, 25 January 1785, 4 February 1785; vol. 6 , General Minutes, 25 January 1785, New York Historical Society, New York. 33 Davis, The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 216-17.

^^PAS to PAS members in New Jersey, n.d., PAS Letterbook, 1789-94, PAS Collection, Reel 11; Monte A. Calvert, "The Abolition Society of Delaware, 1801-1807," Delaware History 10 (April 1963): 298. On Mifflin, see Patience Essah, "Slavery and Freedom in the First State: The History of Blacks in Delaware from the Colonial Period to 1865," (Ph.D. disser­ tation, University of California, Los Angeles, 1985), 151-53. 35 Henry Scofield Cooley detected an abolition society in New Jer­ sey as early as 1786. If such a society existed it was short-lived and carried on no significant correspondence. See Cooley, A Study of Slavery in New Jersey, Johns Hopkins University Studies in History and Political Science, ed. Herbert B. Adams, vols. 9-10 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1896), 18/428 (dual numbering system). 36 Davis, The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 217. 37 Moses Brown Papers, Rhode Island Historical Society, quoted in Drake, Quakers and Slavery in America, 111. Moses and John Brown were brothers on opposite sides of the antislavery struggle. 38 Stephen B. Weeks, Southern Quakers and Slavery, Johns Hopkins University Studies in History and Political Science, ed. Herbert B. 48 Adams, v. 15 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1896; reprint ed., New York: Bergman Publishers, 1968), 213, 234-36; Gordon Esley Fin- nie, "The Antislavery Movement in the South, 1787-1836: Its Rise and Decline and Its Contribution to Abolitionism in the West," (Ph.D. disser­ tation, Duke University, 1962), 147, 212-19; John Michael Shay, "Hie Antislavery Movement in North Carolina," (Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University, 1971), 410-38; Jeffrey Brooke Allen, "The Racial Thought of White North Carolina Opponents of Slavery, 1789-1876," North Carolina Historical Review 59 (January 1982): 54. 39 On the melding of religious sentiment with political philosophy in opposing slavery, see Appendix.

^^See Samuel Hopkins, "A Dialogue on Slavery, 1776," a reprint of A Dialogue Concerning the Slavery of the Africans, Showing it to be the Duty and Interest of the American Colonies to Bnancipate All the African Slaves . . . (Norwich, t4ass.: 1776), in Roger Bruns, ed., Am I Not A Man ^ d A Brother: The Antislavery Crusade of Revolutionary America, 1688- 1788 (New York: Chelsea House, 1977), 397-426; "Ebenezer Baldwin and Jonathan Edwards, Jr., 'Some Observations upon the Slavery of Negroes,' October-December 1773," in Bruns, 293-302; Jonathan Edwards, Jr., The Injustice and Impolicy of the Slave Trade and of the Slavery of The Africans illustrated in A Sermon preached before the Connecticut Society for the Promotion of Freedom, and for the Relief of Persons Unlawfully Held in Bondage, at their Annual Meeting in New Haven, September 15, 1791 (Providence: John Carter, 1792).

^^NYMS Papers, 6 : 27 (11 August 1785).

^^Betty Fladeland, Men and Brothers: Anglo-American Antislavery Cooperation (Urbana, 111.; University of Illinois Press, 1972), 257-58. 43 NYMS Papers, 6 : 35, 79, 111, 114 (8 February 1786; 15 November 1787; 21 August 1788).

^ N Y M S Papers, 6 : 125 (20 November 1788); Eberly, "The Pennsylvania Abolition Society," 30; Robert Pleasants and Gressitt Davis to James Pem­ berton, 4 January 1791, PAS Collection, Reel 11.

^^Davis, The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 313.

^^NYMS Papers, vol. 5 (11 August 1785).

^^PAS to London Society, 28 February 1790, PAS Letterbook, 1789- 94, PAS Collection, Reel 11. 48 Jeremy Belknap to BenjaminBe..j Rush,--- , 7. April, ,6 _ August,______8 September 1788, Benjamin Rush Papers, 30: 2, 5-6, Library Company of Philadelphia in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. 49 49 John Murray, Jr. to James Pemberton, 4 February 1790, Ic, PAS Collection, Reel 11.

^^William Pinkney to James Pemberton, 16 January 1790, Ic, PAS Collection, Reel 11. Sllbid.

Providence, Rhode Island Society to PAS, 23 August 1788, Ic, PAS Collection, Reel 11. 53 Thomas Arnold to James Pemberton, 5 December 1789, Ic, PAS Col­ lection, Reel 11.

^^Samuel Hopkins to PAS, 22 September 1788, Ic, PAS Collection, Reel 11.

^^NYMS Papers, vol. 5 (20 November 1788); 6 : 114 (21 August 1788). See Appendix for more on Granville Sharp and Thomas Clarkson and their interaction with American abolitionists.

^^NYMS Papers, 6 : 164, 166-67 (15 May 1792).

^^See Fladeland, Men and Brothers, 46-47. 58 Darold D. Wax, "Reform and Revolution: The Movement Against Slavery and the Slave Trade in Revolutionary Pennsylvania," Western Penn­ sylvania Historical Magazine 57 (October 1974): 425-26.

^^NYMS Papers, 6 : 72-74 (16, 17 August 1787); Clinton Rossiter, 1787: The Grand Convention (New York: The New American Library, Mentor Books, 1968), 140, 185-87.

^^Davis, The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 326.

^^Jeremy Belknap to Benjamin Rush, 12 February, 7 April 1788, Benjamin Rush Papers, 30; 2. Not all abolition society members favored ratifying the Constitution, either. The active participation of Melanc- ton Smith, the leading New York Antifederalist, in the New York Manu­ mission Society is clear evidence that antislavery crossed political boundaries. On Smith and the Constitution, see Robin Brooks, "Alexander Hamilton, Melancton Smith, and the Ratification of the Constitution in New York," William and Mary Quarterly 24 (July 1967): 339-58.

^^A reprint of the 1783 petition, signed on 4 October 1783 by over five hundred Quakers and read before Congress on 8 October, is in Bruns, ed., Am I Not A Man And A Brother, 493-502.

^^Sir James Stephens, Essays in Ecclesiastical Biography 1834, vol. 2, p. 234, quoted in Roger Anstey, Slavery and the Protestant Ethic," Historical Reflections 6 (1979): 165. 50

Letter from Granville Sharp, Esq. of London to the Maryland Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, etc. (Baltimore; Yundt and Patton, 1793J, frontispiece.

^^Alexander Addison to PAS, 6 December 1790, Ic, PAS Collection, Reel 11.

^^NYMS Papers, vol. 5 (March 1797).

^^For a helpful distinction between the idea of progress that soothed individual consciences and the faith of the abolitionists in progress which prompted individual action against slavery, see David Brion Davis, Slavery and Human Progress (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), 154-68. The notion of progress held by the abo­ litionists recognized the strength of the opposition, including those opponents vÆiose naive faith in progress precluded social action.

^^Wamer Mifflin, The Defence of Warner Mifflin Against Aspersions cast on him on Account of his endeavours to promote Righteousness, Mercy and Peace, among Mankind (.Philadelphia: Samuel Sansom, 1796), 17-18.

^^NYMS Papers, 6 : 165 (15 May 1792).

^^PAS (by James Pemberton) to the Society of the Friends of Blacks at Paris, 30 August 1790, PAS Letterbook, 1789-94, PAS Collection, Reel 11.

^^Joseph Townsend to James Pemberton, 28 November 1790, Ic, PAS Collection, Reel 11. 72 The Delaware Society at Dover was formed in 1788. The Rhode Island Society was formed in Providence in early 1789. Samuel Hopkins notified the PAS from Newport on 7 January that a society was likely to be instituted at Providence, but indicated that there were few at Newport who would join such a society, or vAio would be much help if they did. The society at Baltimore was organized in September 1789, followed by Connecticut, Richmond, Virginia, and Washington, Pennsylvania in 1790. Samuel Hopkins to William Rogers, James Pemberton, and Richard Wells, 7 January 1789, Ic, PAS Collection, Reel 11; Baltimore, Md., Society to PAS, 3 November 1789, ibid.; PAS to Samuel Hopkins, 9 March 1789, PAS Letterbook, 1789-94, PAS Collection, Reel 11; William Frederick Poole, ^ti-Slavery Opinions Befor.;^ 1800 (Cincinnati: Robert Clark and Co., 1873; reprint ed., Westport, Conn.: Negro Universities Press, 1970), 49- 51. The intention of persons in Augusta, Georgia to form a society is stated in PAS to London Society, 25 October 1790, PAS Letterbook, 1789- 94, PAS Collction, Reel 11. 73 PAS (by James Pemberton) to the Society of Friends of Blacks at Paris, 30 August 1790, PAS Letterbook, 1789-94, PAS Collection, Reel 11. 51

to the various abolition societies, 25 October 1790, PAS Let­ terbook, 1789-94, PAS Collection, Reel 11. Howard Ohline concluded that a large p ^ t of the failure of the petitioning effort of 1790 was due to the petitioners' being "psychologically vulnerable because they had not developed a political mentality vdiich prepared them for secular interest politics of a m o d e m nation." Ohline, "Slavery, Economics, and Congres­ sional Politics," 358-59. Ohline based this conclusion on the religious nature of the 1790 petitions. The PAS petition of 1790 was an attempt to move away from the religious rationale, and the petitioning effort of 1791 demonstrates that the abolitionists had learned much about the language, if not the practice, of politics. 7S NYMS Papers, vol. 5 (14 December 1790); Rhode Island Society to PAS, 3 May 1791, Ic, PAS Collection, Reel 11; Thomas Arnold to James Pemberton, 11 December 1790, ibid.; Ezra Stiles to PAS, 25 January 1791, ibid.

^Washington, Pa. Society to PAS, 6 December 1790, Ic, PAS Collec­ tion, Reel 11. 77, NYMS Papers, 6 : 153 (15 February 1791).

^^NYMS Papers, 6 ; 150-51 (14 December 1790). 79, In Memorials presented to the Congress of the United States of America by the Different Societies instituted for promoting the Abolition of Slavery, etc., in the States of Rhode-Island, Connecticut, New-York, Pennsylv^ia, Maryland, and Virginia (Philadelphia; Francis Bailey,

8 0 Memorials presented to the Congress, 9. 81 Annals of Congress, 2 Cong. 1 sess., 241 (8 December 1791). QO Annals of Congress, ibid.: 2 Cong. 2 sess., 728, 730-31 (26, 28 November 17'92). ------8 3 Jeremy Belknap thanked Benjamin Rush in 1788 for sending a peti­ tion that served as a model for abolitionists in Massachusetts in successfully addressing the legislature there on the subject of equip­ ping, owning, or insuring vessels -for the African trade. Belknap to Rush, 7 April 1788, Benjamin Rush Papers, 30: 3, HSP.

®Warner Mifflin to John Pemberton, 4 April 1790, Cox-Parrish- Wharton Papers, 8 : 34, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; James Pemberton to Granville Sharp, 1791, PAS Letterbook, 1789-94, PAS Collection, Reel 11.

®^NYMS to London Society, NYMS Papers, 6 : 95 (21 February 1788; PAS to William Livingston, 30 April 1789, PAS Letterbook, 1789-94, PAS Collection, Reel 11. 52 Of Thomas Benedict to Jared Ingersoll, 1 August 1791; Benedict to James Pemberton 10 November 1791, 22 August 1792, 10 December 1792; William Brett to Thomas Pearsall, 11 February 1793; Benedict to James Pemberton, 28 May 1793; Brett to Pearsall, 21 February 1793, Ic, PAS Collection, Reel 11. 87 John Murray, Jr. to James Pemberton, 18 March 1793, Ic, PAS Collection, Reel 11. QO American Convention for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery and Improving the Condition of the African Race, Minutes of Proceedings, 1794; 7 (1: 7). I have used, unless otherwise noted, the printed collec­ tion of the American Convention recorded minutes: The ^erican Convention for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery and Improving the Condition of the African Race: Minutes, Constitution, Addresses, Memorials, Resolutions, Reports, Committees, and Anti-Slavery Tracts, 3 vols. (.New York: Bergpian Publishers, 1969). Prior to the publication of the collected minutes, references to the proceedings of the Convention were given either by noting the year of the Convention session (e.g., 1794) or the number of the Convention session (e.g., for 1794, the first convention) along with the page number of the printed minutes. To assist the reader and re­ searcher, this author will employ the double reference system used above, giving first the year of the convention session and the page num­ ber of the minutes as originally printed, followed in parentheses by the volume and page number of Bergman s published collection of the minutes. ÛQ NYMS Papers, 6 : 172 (20 November 1792).

^®NYMS Papers, 6 : 164-67 (15 May 1792); PAS to PAS members in New Jersey, n.d., PAS Letterbook, 1789-94, PAS Collection, Reel 11; Minutes of the New Jersey Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, p. 1 (27 February 1793), Quaker Collection, Haver ford College Library, Haverford, Pennsylvania. (Hereafter referred to as NJAS Minutes.) See Chapter II for more on the formation of the New Jersey society.

^^John Rodgers for NYMS to PAS, 14 March 1793, Ic, PAS Collection, Reel 11. The call for a convention by the New York society was the logi­ cal outcome of John Murray, Jr.'s insistence in 1790 that the abolition societies could make a greater impact on legislators by acting in concert. go PAS to NYMS, n.d., PAS Letterbook, 1789-94, PAS Collection, Reel 11. QQ NYMS Papers, 6 : 178 (22 May 1793). There was no abolition so­ ciety in Massachusetts, but prominent persons there were associated with the Rhode Island society.

^^NYMS Papers, 6 : 184 (19 November 1793). CHAPTER II

THE CONVENTION'S BEGINNINGS:

THE ORGANIZATION OF ANTISLAVERY IN THE ENLIGHTENED CENTURY

As has been seen, the New York's Manumission Society's call for delegates to a national abolition convention achieved its aim of pres­ suring abolitionists in New Jersey to organize. A committee from the

Pennsylvania Abolition Society visited New Jersey in January 1793 to persuade Quakers and others who shared their sentiments about abolition to organize. In response, delegates from ten New Jersey counties met at the Burlington County Court House on 27 February 1793 to form the

New Jersey Abolition Society. At the new society's second meeting in

May the delegates agreed unanimously to send a representation to the proposed national convention. In September the society named Joseph

Bloomfield, William Coxe, Jr., John Wistar, Robert Pearson, and Franklin

Davenport to attend the Philadelphia gathering, which, it understood, was being convened

for the purpose of deliberating and considering the great cause of the African race and others holden in bondage, and to pursue such measures as their united wisdom, may devise, for the furtherance of the Objects which the said Societys have respectively in view.

Not every society was as enthusiastic about the proposed conven­ tion. Robert Pleasants, the illustrious Virginia Quaker who was presi­ dent of the Virginia Abolition Society at Richmond, coirenunicated to

James Pemberton in November 1793 that he was not well-disposed to New

53 54

York’s suggestion, but said Virginia would probably attend "in case it

should appear necessary, and members can be procured to accept the nomi­ nation."^ Less than two weeks before the 1 January convening date,

Pleasants wrote that no delegates from Virginia were willing to make the

trip in the winter season. He asked that Samuel and Israel Pleasants,

two former Virginians resident in Philadelphia, be permitted to repre­ sent Virginia. He also requested that, should Virginia be unable to send representatives in the future, the convention name two members to •3 represent the society.

The delegates selected by their respective state and local soci­ eties gathered on Wednesday, 1 January 1794 at City Hall in Philadelphia.

Thirty-one delegates were named to the convention. They represented eight societies: Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, arid Pennsylvania, the Dover and Wilmington societies in Delaware, and societies in Mary­ land at Baltimore and Chester town. On 2 January the arrival of a delegate from the Washington, Pennsylvania society brought to nine the number of societies represented, and raised the delegate count to thirty-two. Of this number, twenty-five attended at some time during the six days of sessions. The sizes of the delegations varied. Connec­ ticut was represented only by Federalist Congressman Uriah Tracy, while the Pennsylvania society had the largest delegation with six members.^

The delegates acted first to choose a president. How much deliberation accompanied the selection we do not know, but the election of Joseph Bloomfield of New Jersey suggests that the convention intended to shake off the identification of abolitionism with Quakerism. Bloom­ field, a noted lawyer and Revolutionary War veteran from Burlington vÆio 55 had celebrated the Fourth of July in 1783 by freeing his slaves in a pub­

lic ceremony at Woodbridge, New Jersey, gave the convention a presiding

officer vdio was both prominent and not formally aligned with the Quakers.

Choosing a New Jerseyite was probably intended also to encourage the nascent abolition movement in the state. John McCree, a secretary of the

PAS but not a convention delegate, was appointed convention secretary.^

After deciding that all issues in the convention would be decided

by majority vote of the members present and not by delegation vote, the

delegates concluded the first day's business with the important choice

of a committee on agenda. Two prominent Philadelphians, Dr. Benjamin

Rush and attorney William Pawle, were chosen, along with Warner Mifflin

of Delaware and Samuel Sterett of Maryland, both Quakers. William Dun­

lap, the New York City historian playwright, was the fifth member.^

The makeup of the committee provided a balance of respectability and

zeal. Warner Mifflin brought his customary fervor. Rush his broad ex­

perience, and Rawle the reputation for legal circumspection so important

to the abolitionists.

The question of representation in the convention was raised by the

introduction of the Pleasants letter on the morning of 2 January. The delegates voted not to allow Samuel and Israel Pleasants to be seated as

representatives of the Virginia society, as they were neither citizens

of Virginia nor members of the Virginia society. The convention members

reasoned that the receipt of information from the various societies and

the comparison of their sentiments regarding abolition rendered it

"highly improper" to admit delegates not vitally involved in the work of

the society they were to represent.^ 56

Benjamin Rush then presented the report of the committee selected to determine the proper objects for the consideration of the convention.

The Rush report was amended by the body of delegates, but there is no record of how or why changes were made. The records of the meetings of the conventions seldom gave details on the debates held, because the minutes were subsequently printed and the abolitionists wished to pre­ sent a picture of harmony to the public. This lack of detail in the records is especially frustrating in this case, for the Rush comnittee report had a seminal effect on future conventions. The concerns addressed by the committee and the methods adopted at the first conven­ tion to deal with these concerns remained central to the activities of the American Convention in the years that followed.

The report as adopted called for presenting a memorial to Congress praying for the prohibition of both the slave trade by United States citizens, and the fitting out in U.S. ports of foreign ships for use in the slave trade. Memorials and petitions calling for the end of slave importation were also to be presented to legislatures in states that had not yet cut off imports. The abolition convention was also to memorialize legislatures in the states in vÆiich slavery existed, urging them to stop the abduction of slaves, and to grant such "civil privi­ leges" to emancipated slaves "as, by the diffusion of knowledge among O them, they may, from time to Wime, be qualified to enjoy."

The report called for sending addresses to the various abolition

societies urging them to continue their work on behalf of blacks still

enslaved, and to do their part in assisting blacks to become useful citi­

zens by instructing black children, both slave and free, in "common 57 literature— in the principles of virtue and religion, and afterwards in

useful mechanical arts." The comnittee asked the Convention to prepare

an address to the citizens of the United States stressing the citizens'

"obligations of justice, humanity and benevolence towards our African

brethren," and requesting their concurrence in the objects of the Con­ vention. Finally, the committee recommended that the abolition societies be encouraged to send delegates to the Convention "on the first Wednes­

day of January, 1795, and on the same day, in every year afterwards,

until the great objects of their original association be accomplished."^

The Rush committee's report formalized on a national level the in­

formal tactics employed by the state and local societies in their

petitioning efforts of 1790 and 1791. It paid no attention to political

organization. A conservative document, its implicit assumption was that

men of good will in the Congress and state legislatures would respond to

logical pleas from other men of good will who represented a cross-section

of religious bodies.

The document also revealed the ccxnmittee's understanding of the

role and function of the Convention. The Convention stood as an inter­

mediary between the abolition societies and the national government.

This was an accurate understanding of what it was the societies thought

they were creating in coming together. But the Rush report also made

clear that the Convention would not see itself merely as the creature of

the abolition societies. The Convention would address, advise, and, if

necessary, direct the societies, although such direction would have only

the power of moral suasion. The document also demonstrates that the

delegates dared to think of the Convention as an intermediary between 58 the citizenry and their government. In this role, the Convention, through its memorials, would presume to speak for the same citizens it spoke in its addresses.

The delegates concluded Thursday’s activities by appointing small­ er coranittees to work on the various memorials and addresses they had authorized. On Friday, Samuel Sterett presented the memorials intended for the state legislatures, but these were tabled, and the body ad­ journed until Saturday morning to allow the committees time to do their work. On Saturday, the address to the abolition societies was brought forward by Dr. Samuel Powell Griffitts of the PAS, and Rush gave the first reading of the address to citizens. The memorial to legislatures in states not ha\d.ng acted against importation was then read, amended, and approved.

This mildly-worded memorial avoided argumentation. Directed to moderates in these states, it implicitly assumed they would share its conclusions. The abolition societies, the writers explained, were

"actuated by a desire to vindicate the honour of the United States, the rights of man, and the dignity of human nature," and had appointed the

Convention to adopt policies designed to reduce the number of slaves in the United States, "meliorate their situation, and eventually eradi­ cate an evil, entailed upon us by our ancestors," an evil they termed a

"dishonourable stain" upon the country. According to the memorialists, states abolishing the importation of slaves had benefited by the act.

In the final paragraph of the memorial as adapted for South Carolina, they acknowledged South Carolina's temporarily having stopped importa­ tion and prayed the ban might be made permanent. 59

More forceful in its tone, the memorial to the states that had not abolished slavery called attention to vdiat was described as the miserable condition of slaves and asked that "absolute prohibitions, and . . . adequate penalties" be enacted for their protection. The drafters com­ plained that blacks were treated as "objects of plunder," carried off from "their dearest connections," and thus plunged into complete despair.

They urged legal protection for blacks, "until a radical abolition of slavery itself, by exploding the general opinion, that the colour of a man is evidence of his deprivation of the rights of man, shall afford 12 more effectual security. . . ."

The seeds of the gradualism repeatedly invoked by the Convention in the years that followed lay in this memorial. While they might look forward to a day vhen a "radical" abolition would end the subjugation of blacks, the memorialists realized that such an event, demanded by the

"voice of reason, and the impulse of humanity," would be a long time in coming. In the meantime, they called for gradual measures that they believed would slowly erode the foundations of slavery. The memorial urged the slaveholding states to enact laws that, if they did not pro­ mote manumission, at least would not penalize the granting of freedom.

It also called for the granting of "civil privileges" to free blacks as an initial step in promoting them to a useful position in society.

Having seen first-hand the plight of free blacks in their cities and

towns, the abolitionists argued that even emancipation meant little if slaves were freed from the power of an individual only to be convinced of their "hopeless inferiority to all." The memorialists were not bold enough, or foolish enough, to tell those in slaveholding states that 60 education, moral improvement, and vocational preparation would need

to be provided for blacks before any progress could be made in ending 13 racial prejudice.

The portion of the memorial regarding societal participation by blacks was omitted from the memorials to the legislatures of Delaware,

New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. In its place were paragraphs commending each state for "the liberality of its constitution, and the humanity of its laws" regarding free blacks. A closing paragraph in the memorial to the Pennsylvania legislature praised the legislators' record on behalf of blacks.

The address to the abolition societies called on them to join with

the Convention in urging compliance with the gradual emancipation laws already enacted in Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. Socie­ ties also were urged to make application to legislatures in states vAiere the laws were deficient, most notably New Jersey and New York, even if

such memorializing proved unsuccessful. The Convention delegates be­

lieved that such "good effort" would not be in vain. They were convinced

that "the fundamental principles of our government, as well as the pro­ gressive and rapid influence of reason and religion," evidenced in the

success of abolition efforts in several states, were in their favor.

Two practical admonitions to the societies set out in the address

remained emphases of the Convention throughout its existence. Convinced

that inadequate evidence of public support frequently led to abolition­

ist defeats, the Convention strongly encouraged the formation of

abolition societies in areas where they did not exist. In an effort to 61

counter charges that the ignorance and criminality of blacks ill suited

them for freedom, the Convention adopted the language of the Rush com­ mittee report to call for training the children of free blacks and slaves

in "common literature" and in "principles of virtue and religion."

Training in the mechanical arts, "which will keep the blacks constantly

employed, and, of course, will less subject them to idleness and de­

bauchery," was also encouraged.

Finally, in an attempt to fulfill the information-gathering func­

tion envisioned for the Convention, the address called on the societies

to submit a variety of documents to the 1795 convention. Each society

was requested to send with its delegates copies of the constitution and

laws of the society and of state laws relative to slavery, and any use- 17 ful information on the status of slavery and blacks in their state.

The address to the citizens of the United States issued from a

committee whose members included Rush and Mifflin. The address showed

evidence of their forcefulness. It pronounced abolition sentiment "the

glory of our country," and cited numerous reasons for abolishing domes­

tic slavery, the chief being its inconsistency "with the safety of the

liberties of the United States." The committee invoked the frightening,

contemporary image of the slave rebellion led by Toussaint L'Ouverture

in Saint Domingue as a reminder that such insurrection, the logical

outgrowth of the slave system, could happen in the United States.

Slavery and freedom, the drafters argued, could not long co-exist. The

slaveowners' "unlimited power" over their slaves not only made rebellion

inevitable, the abuse of this power made slaveowners unfit for citizenry 18 in a republic. 62

This paradoxical existence of slavery in the land of freedom was a

concept dear to the abolitionists of the Revolutionary generation. The

committee assailed the American hypocrisy of overturning a king only to

permit a vile "domestic despotism," and lamented the discouraging example

it gave to Europeans striving to gain their freedom. Slavery endangered

not only political liberty, it implied, but threatened the social fabric

as well. The institution had lowered slaveholders to the place vhere they

_ must begin to "use reason and social affections for the purpose for which 19 they were given, or cease to boast a pre-eminence over animals ....

The earlier religious rationale for opposing slavery also surfaced

in the committee's address. Not only was slavery philosophically incon­

sistent and practically dangerous, it constituted, the committee charged,

a denial of Christianity. Warner Mifflin's strong hand was apparent as

the committee counted the ways slavery transgressed the faith.

Domestic slavery is repugnant to the principles of Christianity. It prostrates every benevolent and just principle of action in the human heart. It is rebellion against the authority of a common FATHER. It is a practical denial of the extent and efficacy of the death of a common SAVIOUR. It is an usurpation of the GREAT SOVE­ REIGN of the universe, vdio has solemnly claimed an exclusive property in the souls of men.^0

Slavery violated "a divine precept of universal justice." This

violation, the comnittee members concluded, merited special attention at

this juncture in America's life. Indian massacres and the attacks on

American commerce by pirates in Algiers were evidence, they argued, of a

divine justice descending on America, a justice constituted of "the 21 measure of evils, vdiich we have meted out to others." They implied

that in order to escape divine retribution the American citizenry needed

to take the radical cure the committee was prescribing. They needed 63 to stop immediately the African trade, vdiich the writers termed "a species of rapine and murder . . . Indian cruelty, and Algerine piracy, 29 no in another form," and to form abolition societies in every state.

The memorial to Congress, judiciously drafted by Rawle, Dunlap, and William Rogers, addressed the one aspect of the slave trade that

Congress in 1790 had left open for petitioning. The memorial called for restoring the reputation of the United States, the first country in modem times "to assert and defend the equal rights of man," by elimina­ ting the blot of supplying slaves to foreign nations. It stressed the negative effects of the slave trade on American cmmerce, drawing heavily on the situation in Algiers, where American seamen had been kid­ napped and enslaved. Retaliation was unthinkable, the memorial asserted.

Slavery had rendered retaliation ". . . unjust; for those vdio deprive others of their liberty, for the benefit of foreign countries, cannot reasonably murmur, if, by other foreign nations, they are deprived of their own." Wise enough to know that there were those in Congress un­ likely to be moved by such arguments, the writers also noted that foreigners using American ports to outfit for the trade did not share their profits with Americans.

The Convention adjourned after arranging to transmit the memorials and addresses, and to publish the address to the citizenry in at least one newspaper in each state. The delegates ordered that 1,500 copies of the Convention minutes be printed, one-hundred copies to be distri- 25 buted to each abolition society.

Joseph Bloomfield was authorized to submit the Convention's memorial to Congress. He acted quickly. The memorial was put before 64 the House and Senate on 28 January 1794. It was read in the Senate as

"The memorial of Joseph Bloomfield, President of, and in behalf of the

Convention of Delegates from the Abolition Societies within the United 26 States ..." and undoubtedly received greater attention because of

Bloomfield's sponsorship. The memorial was referred to committees in both houses without debate, and was reported out of House committee on

11 February, along with a 1793 Quaker petition and a memorial from the

Rhode Island society at Providence. The committee, chaired by Jonathan

Trumbull of Connecticut, was authorized to draft a bill, which they 27 presented on 28 February.

The bill outlawed the building, fitting, equipping, or loading in

any American port of vessels destined for the slave trade, under penalty

of forfeiture of the vessel. A fine of two thousand dollars was to be

levied against offenders, with the party suing and prosecuting the of­

fenders receiving half the fine. The bill also required owners of ships

suspected of being used for slave trading to post a bond upon leaving

American ports guaranteeing they would not engage in the slave trade for

nine months. American citizens convicted of slave trading were to be 28 fined two hundred dollars for each slave transported and/or sold.

The prompt and positive response by Congress to the Convention

memorial suggested to the abolitionists that their strategy in banding

together had been successful. Clearly, the forwarding of the Convention

memorial, unlike the 1791 petitions and the 1793 Quaker and Providence

petitions, did precipitate Congressional action. Other factors, however,

were important in inducing Congress to act against the slave trade. 65

Historian W. E. B. DuBois contended that the Act of 1794 resulted more from fears prompted by the slave rebellion in Saint Domingue, fears vdiich the Convention was willing to play upon, than from the abolition- 30 ists’ petitions. Also important to the Congressional action, however, was American concern with neutrality and the establishment of American commerce in the face of British, Spanish, and Portuguese assaults on

American shipping. Debate about the need of the United States to re­ strict commerce in order to, in James Madison's words, "make her enemies 31_ feel the extent of her power," dominated debate in the House of Repre- 32 sentatives from January to March 1794. The Convention memorial arrived at a propitious time. Its combination of humanitarian concern with appeal to American commercial interest fit the mood of Congress, as

summarized by Madison, in a way the 1790 and 1791 memorials had not.

Congress passed the act against the slave trade at the same time it im­

posed a one-month embargo against all foreign shipping, an action 33 directed primarily at the British. These actions gave the young nation

in search of identity rare opportunities to flex its small muscle in the

international arena by restricting foreign commerce. At the same time,

the slave trade act made the restrictions appear even-handed by osten­

sibly limiting American trade. Even better, action against the trade

could be clothed in humanitarianism.

The news of the passage of the law limiting the slave trade was

greeted with exultation by abolitionists in England. Granville Sharp

expressed to William Wilberforce his satisfaction with the first meeting

of the Convention, then wrote, "I have the pleasure to add, that the

Courier Evening paper of yesterday contains a paragraph asserting that 66 the American Congress have agreed to the petition of the Convention of

Delegates.The London society saw the Congressional action as evi­ dence of the American public's enlightenment on the subject of emancipa­ tion. They also expressed gratification at the number of abolition societies present in the Convention and took satisfaction "from their apparent Harmony and Conduct, and from the very steady, judicious, sys­ tematical, and zealous Behaviour, idiich their Convention has lately 35 displayed. ..." They encouraged continued vigilance on the part of the constituent societies in America, and their sending delegates to the

Convention until its goals were accomplished.

Indeed if the Friends of the Africans in America do continue to go on in the regular and harmonious Manner in vdiich they have begun, cooperating with one another at the same time through the vÆiole Union, holding annual Conventions, persevering to awaken Men's Minds by the Principles they profess and the Rights and Blessings they enjoy, and calling publickly on one State to follow the beneficent Example of another . . . We cannot but believe that the Dawn of that Day is not far off, when Skin shall no longer afford a handle for Injury and a seat for prejudice, but that black and \diite then shall be seen living together throughout the united States as Friends and Brethren. . . .^°

A final vote of confidence, reminiscent of the transatlantic words of encouragement that had bolstered abolitionists in pre-Convention days , strengthened the resolve of the Americans to continue convening delegates of the societies.

Indeed we know of no measure likely to be productive of more Good than that of annual Conventions. For, from a number of enlightened Men, sitting in Council and knowing their Variety of Talents and Information together, much good must necessarily be expected to arise; while the Circumstances of their coming purposely from distant Parts to meet on their great Subject must give a Dignity and an Importance to the Cause in the Eyes of the Country \diich no other Circumstance seems calculated equally to produce.3' 67

The success of their memorializing and the glowing tributes from

England gave the American abolitionists renewed confidence. They were encouraged to believe that their success in limiting the slave trade fore­ told an early victory in the campaign against slavery itself. John Rodgers, chairman of the committee of correspondence of the New York society, wrote to James Pemberton in June 1794 that "we have hitherto been able only to lop off some of the branches of Slavery, but we hope soon to lay the axe to the roots of the tree itself." Rodgers expressed the satisfaction of the NYMS with the Convention, announced their intention to attend the session in 1795, and invited the PAS to join them in issuing the call to 38 convention.

The satisfaction expressed at the successes of "the Abolition on Society" and the readiness of the individual societies again to appoint delegations served to mask the Convention's organizational problems, ones vÆiich would continually haunt its progress.Committee and individual responsibilities assigned by the Convention frequently were neglected, or the intentions of the Convention not pursued. Sometimes the Convention failed to assign responsibilities for important functions. The delegates had authorized Joseph Bloomfield to forward the manorials from the 1794 gathering, but gave no instructions for the call of the 1795 convention.

The responsibility was assumed late by the Pennsylvania and New York societies, which continued to provide the leadership for concerted action.

When problems arose, often centering around late information, the consti­ tuent societies relied on the older established network and contacted the

PAS. When the Wilmington society had not received the 1794 Convention minutes by November, they wrote to Pemberton in a second attempt to acquire them.42 68

The meager results forthcoming from the memorials to state legisla­ tures also revealed that the success of the Congressional memorial was not reflective of the true health of antislavery. Connecticut's House of

Representatives did pass a bill to abolish slavery, a process already begun gradually by an act of 1784, but the bill was narrowly defeated in the upper house.The society in Baltimore twice forwarded the memorial to

the Maryland legislature, but the legislators to whom it was entrusted in each instance thought it not "a suitable time to deliver it" and returned it to the society.This unsuitability was a plaint the abolitionists would grow accustomed to hearing. The memorials for New York, Virginia, and North Carolina were not introduced, nor was Delaware's, the petition having arrived too late in the session. The memorials to Pennsylvania and Rhode Island were not presented, the Convention was informed, because the condition of slavery in the two states made their introduction seem unnecessary. The outcome of the South Carolina and Georgia memorials was unknown, but the delegates vho gathered for the 1795 convention were characteristically, if naively, hopeful regarding their fate.^^

Twenty-five delegates presented credentials on Wednesday 7 January

1795 as the second convention gathered in Philadelphia. Seven societies were represented on the first day, with only New Jersey and Washington,

Pennsylvania missing from the group that had made up the previous year's

gathering. Three members from the New Jersey delegation appeared the

following day, and U.S. Senator Theodore Foster later arrived to repre­

sent the Providence society. The Washington society sent notification of

their representatives, among them Congressman Thomas Scott, but none at­

tended. Noticeably absent again were any representatives from states

south of Maryland. 69

The procedure fixed at the first convention prevailed again in 1795.

With Joseph Bloomfield absent due to illness, Benjamin Rush was elected

president ; Walter Franklin, a non-delegate PAS member, served as secretary.

A committee was again appointed to lay before the convention the items to

be considered, and Jonathan Edwards, Jr. of Connecticut, a first-time

delegate, was chosen its chairman.

The report of Edwards's committee fixed the agenda of the Conven­ tion. ' It contained few surprises, but entailed a heavy workload for

the constituent societies. They were encouraged to send delegates to a

third convention in January 1796, and asked tp forward to the Convention

lists of laws relative to slavery, both those in force and those repealed,

if they had not already been sent. The societies were also to send lists

of blacks liberated by their efforts, and records of trials with decisions

favorable to the abolitionist cause.

Societies were requested to forward accurate lists of their offi­

cers, and the number of members of each society. These officer lists

were designed to enhance the prestige of the abolitionist cause. The

committee specifically asked for the inclusion of "civil, military, or

ecclesiastic" offices held by abolition society officers. The consnittee

further encouraged each society to initiate.public orations on slavery,

a practice already begun in several- societies, and stressed again the

need for work on behalf of blacks, especially in educating children.

Finally, it asked the societies to gather material for a history of the

legislative provisions regarding blacks in each state from settlement to 1795.49 70

Hie committee presented only two items for Convention consideration.

It asked the Convention to examine the case of blacks freed by French decree in Saint Domingue (Haiti) \dio had since been brought into the United

States as slaves, and to consider means for improving the lot of free blacks. As in 1794, the ranainder of the Convention's time was spent primarily in preparing memorials and addresses as directed by the committee on pro­ per considerations. A ccMimittee assigned to report on the outcome of the memorials sent in 1794 joyfully announced the passage of the act banning involvement of U.S. citizens in the slave trade. A committee formed to determine the need for amendments to the law later reported that the act seemed satisfactory, and that only time would point out defects.

This committee's report of the uncertain outcome of the Georgia and South Carolina memorials of 1794 prompted the Convention to draft new petitions. The South Carolina memorial, the first draft of which was penned by Edwards, was prompted by the near expiration of the state's ban on slave importation. It called for ending all traffic in slaves and suggested "an amelioration of their condition and a diffusion of know- 52 ledge among them." The Georgia memorial made similar pleas, pointing to the better treatment likely to result to slaves in Georgia vhen fresh 53 replacements were no longer available.

The concern for the moral improvement of blacks evidenced in the first convention was apparent again. The abolition societies were asked to report not only the numbers of blacks being freed by their agency, noting especially "those who may be considered as signal instances of the relief you have afforded," but also the number of free blacks in their 71 states and "their property, employments, and moral conduct.So great was the concern with the conduct of free blacks and with the "calumny CC so unjustly lavished upon [the abolition societies]" vdien the conduct of blacks was untoward, that a committee was appointed to prepare an ad­ dress to free blacks to counsel circumspection. Although the committee's report was tabled until 1796, advising free blacks through such addresses became a standard procedure of the Convention.

The address to the societies and the Georgia and South Carolina memorials were the only items of consequence drafted at the 1795 conven­ tion. The body adjourned after directing the printing and distribution of the memorials. Quantities of the documents were left to the discretion of the PAS, which was paying the Convention bills in the absence of a Con­ vention treasury. As in 1794, the president was entrusted with the task of submitting the memorials. A committee composed of three members of the

PAS and Theodore Foster of Rhode Island, resident in Philadelphia when

Congress was in session, was to have the proceedings published and distri­ buted.^^

The first two gatherings of delegates from the abolition societies had determined that one of their chief purposes was to counsel the state and local societies. The local societies, having created the Convention in the hope of benefiting from its corporate wisdom, tried to follow the national body's counsel. They found it a difficult chore. The societies were often overwhelmed with local pleas for assistance, and their members usually counted abolition as only one of several benevolent concerns.

They dealt with the Convention's agenda as they found time. Often their action was postponed due to failures in the committees of the Convention. 72

The NYMS delegates complained they were unable to lay any of the docu­ ments of the 1795 convention before the New York society on 17 February because of "a failure of the Committee in Philadelphia. ..."

By 17 May the minutes of the 1795 convention and the address to the

societies were presented before the quarterly meeting of the NYMS. A

speciaî. meeting was then called to deal with the address. Twenty-three members, a large turnout, examined the document paragraph by paragraph at 59 the special meeting, and assigned its various requests to committees.

The society's progress in dealing with the address reveals much about the response of the constituent abolition societies to Convention promptings.

No report from any of the ccxisnittees formed was forthcoming at the

August or November quarterly meetings of the NYMS, partially because of an epidemic that dispersed the city's inhabitants and made meeting diffi­ cult. At a special meeting to elect delegates to the 1796 convention held on 26 November, John Murray, Jr. reported that a committee named to deal with repeal or amelioration of existing slavery laws recommended applying to the New York legislature for gradual abolition in the state. The com­ mittee was enlarged, and directed to draw up a petition to be circulated throughout the state.

Only a few committees of the NYMS, however, showed such progress or faithfulness to the Convention's promptings. One year's Convention re­ quests merged into the next, and tasks went unfinished. At the February

1796 quarterly meeting, a special meeting was called to consider the Con­ vention's 1796 address to the societies, vÆiile committees still meeting on three paragraphs of the 1795 address were ordered continued.

None of these committees brought any reports to the May meeting. The 73 remaining committees on the 1795 address were discontinued in March 1797, having produced only a list of officers for the Convention's use. The committee on the 1796 report also had issued no report by March 1797,

and a new chairman and new committee had been named as replacements.^^

As is evident in the case of the NYMS, the Convention's pronounce­

ments increased the tasks required of the abolition societies, all of

which were small and overburdened. The NYMS, one of the largest socie­

ties, reported to the 1795 convention that it had 239 members, fewer than

200 of them active. Of that number, an average of only thirty attended

quarterly and special meetings in 1794; the average was nineteen in 1795.

Gathering the kind of documentation requested by the Convention was time

consuming, as the less formal sharing of information had been in the

1780s. The Pennsylvania society probably spoke for many when it adr

dressed the Convention in 1798 on the impracticality of submitting the go names of blacks freed by their agency.

Compliance by the societies with Convention requests was uneven in

the national body's early years. The requests of the Convention in 1795

for information and action had by 1797 produced laws relating to slavery

from all the constituent societies but Rhode Island and Delaware. Infor­

mation about free blacks, however, was received only from New York, New

Jersey, Pennsylvania, the Maryland societies, and the newly-formed so­

ciety at Alexandria in the District of Columbia. A majority of societies

had sent no response to a more recent request for information regarding

the education of blacks.

Black education was a key element in the address to free blacks

adopted at the 1796 convention. Tabled at the 1795 session, the address 74 was the main item of business vÆien the delegates gathered in Philadel­ phia for the third time in January 1796. Benjamin Rush and Samuel

Coates of the PAS and the abolition veteran John Murray, Jr. of New

York drafted the report, vAiich served as a model for a number of subse­ quent addresses to blacks.

The address assured blacks that the authors were motivated "by the purest regard for your welfare, for we view you as Friends and Breth­ ren." The Convention urged these brothers to learn reading, writing, arithmetic, and Bible reading, and to see that their children were taught useful trades or agriculture. They counseled attendance at pub­ lic worship, faithfulness in family duties, simplicity, frugality, and abstinence from liquor. Blacks were caution^ against "frolicking, and amusements which lead to expense and idleness," activities which could result only in "deserved reproach amongst your \diite neighbors." The

Convention laid on blacks the "moral and religious necessity" of proper­ ly performed marriages and exact registers of births and deaths.

The address concluded with an admonition to behave in "a civil and respectful manner," cautioning that only by circumspect behavior could blacks "refute the objections which have been made against you as rational and moral creatures . . . ."The writers did not say that this was also the best way to reduce the criticism leveled at abolitionists.

The delegates approved printing three thousand copies of the address in handbill form for the societies to use in instructing blacks.

Attendance at the 1796 gathering was poor. Of twenty-nine delegates appointed by their societies, eight never attended, and two attended only one session each. Only twelve delegates attended all of the six sessions 75 held. Maryland's record was worst; three of five delegates appointed never 68 appeared. Connecticut for the first time sent no delegates.

The Convention admonished the societies regarding the meager atten­ dance and proposed holding the next convention in May 1797 in an effort to increase participation. The Fifth United States Congress was to convene in May 1797, abandoning the practice of gathering in December. By changing its session to May, the Convention could continue to lay necessary items before Congress early in the Congressional sessions. The spring meeting would also eliminate the weather-related "inconveniences” of January meeetings.^^ The Convention implored the societies to appoint delegates vho would "be punctually attentive to the duties of their appointment" in 1797.70

The poor attendance at the 1796 convention resulted in part from a spate of local problems that also served to dampen the enthusiasm of the

Convention delegates. The Delaware society reported low attendance at its own meetings and indicated that various difficulties had nearly forced its dissolution. The Washington, Pennsylvania society had collapsed in 1795 after several legal judgments went against them. News from London also brought discouragement, as enthusiasm there flagged following the defeat in 1795 of Wilberforce*s resolution for abolishing the slave trade.

Worst of all, reports coming back to the Convention indicated a grow­ ing discouragement with the efforts to influence legislatures. In the address to the societies the Convention acknowledged the "odious nature and immense magnitude of the evil vhich you have associated to oppose," but 79 offered hope that the work of the societies would prove beneficial.

The address advised a shift in antislavery tactics made necessary by the 76

recalcitrance of legislators.

Although you cannot controul Legislatures; and though, vdien you plead the cause of humanity, they will not, at all times, listen to you; yet there are other means to be used, perhaps, more effectual— You can do much, by directing your efforts to the conviction of in­ dividuals— by diffusing proper publications amongst them, and by^g presenting the evils of slavery in various forms to their minds.

More bad news was soon to follow, proof that in some areas censure

would come no matter vdiat the tactics. The Alexandria society, formed

in the District of Columbia in 1795, reported difficulties almost from

its inception.At an early meeting of the society an opponent. Dr. Eli­

sha Dick, had delivered a "lengthy harangue" on the potential danger of

such a body, concluding that its activity was sure to incite slaves to

insurrection and rebellion. Dr. David Stuart, friend of George Washing­

ton and a former District of Columbia commissioner, then drew up a for­

mal remonstrance against the society. Members of the society were con­

vinced that Stuart's opposition led to the enactment of the December 1795

Virginia law that tightened procedures governing suits for freedom.

In a direct assault on abolitionists, this law prescribed a one

hundred dollar fine on persons who aided slaves in unsuccessful freedom

suits.The act forced plaintiffs to sue as paupers; if sufficient

grounds were found for trial, lawyers were required to plead the case for

no fee. It was hard to find able lawyers to take such cases, and \dien

trials were pursued they were often held before slaveholding judges.

Archibald McClean, president of the Alexandria society, said the law was

enacted "for the purpose, of abolishing the abolition of Slavery through- 78 out the state of Virginia." The society petitioned against the

law, but its harsh restrictions stood, and the society was forced to give up most of its activities on behalf of blacks. McClean averred that 77 members were willing to risk their property in defense of blacks, but 79 noted in 1796 that since learning of the law they had not met.

The Alexandria society did send representatives to the 1797 con­ vention, but the call of the 1796 convention for improved attendance produced otherwise discouraging results. Only seventeen delegates repre­ senting seven societies took their places in the Pennsylvania Senate

Chamber for the fourth convention on 3 May. The Providence and Delaware societies sent no representatives, and New York and Pennsylvania had dis­ appointing first-day turnouts. With the initial appearance of delegates

from the Choptank society on Maryland's eastern shore and the Alexandria

society, societies from Maryland southward outnumbered northern so­ cieties. The southern societies sent only token representation, however,

accounting for just six of the seventeen first-day delegates. The PAS 80 alone named more delegates than the four southern societies.

Joseph Bloomfield was once more elected president of the Conven­

tion, and a committee was named to present objects proper for considéra- 81 tion. It became customary to appoint to this committee one represen­

tative from each of the societies present. In 1797 this gave dispropor­

tionate representation to the newer societies, but nothing suggests that

the established societies were anything but glad for their participation.

The committee's charge in 1797 was to examine the written reports

of the societies, to decide vdiat items in the reports the Convention

needs to consider, and to determine what action was called for. Increas­

ingly the Convention came to depend on the local societies to determine

its agenda, and attempted to be responsive to their suggestions. For this

to work, however, the societies needed to be represented, and perplexity 78 increased over how to involve more societies. The Convention instructed societies failing to send delegations to the next year’s convention to 82 give their reasons in writing.

Reports of evasions of the 1794 law against slave trading resul­ ted in the Convention drafting letters of protest to Secretary of the

Treasury Oliver Wolcott and Secretary of State Timothy Pickering seeking executive action against the violators. The Alexandria society had sent news of ships not equipped for the slave trade being used to transport slaves to the West Indies. Word had also come that American citizens go were using Danish ship registry to sidestep the law.

The address to the societies adopted ■?n 1797 again emphasized the importance of black education, calling it "the greatest and perhaps the only important service we can render to them and to our country. It praised cooperative action by the Pennsylvania, New York, and Providence societies in prosecuting slave traders, and called attention to a de­ cree of the National Convention of France. A copy of the decree, designed to assist the societies in aiding any former West Indian slaves 85 re-enslaved in the United States, was attached to the address.

The closing paragraph of the address gave clear evidence of vÆiat the comments on black education had hinted at, that the early enthusiasm of the abolitionists had waned. Philosophizing about the purpose of the

Convention, the writers, Samuel Powell Griffitts and Caspar Wistar of

the PAS, Richard Hartshorne of New Jersey, and Joseph Anthony of Vir­ ginia, concluded that it could "assume no other powers than those of persuasion and convincement . . . Although the Convention had never

expected otherwise, its members had been certain that in banding 79 together their powers to persuade had been strengthened. They came to see that governments were slow to hear appeals to conscience. When they turned to the abolition societies for information, to petition legisla­ tures, or to institute programs for blacks, they found the societies too often no more cooperative than governments. With no formal organization, the Convention found it had no power even over its allies.

The tactic of "persuasion and convincement" led to repeated frus­ tration. The Convention's apparent success in securing passage of the

1794 law against the slave trade was soon regarded as an aberration.

James Pemberton, recalling the history of antislavery petitioning in

1795,' complained that applications to Congress usually were met with

"discouraging Objections," which included charges of inappropriate timing and the excuse of Congressmen that "they were too closely engaged in matters of so great importance as would prevent anything being done in favor of our cause. . . The requests of the Convention in 1797 for assistance from Oliver Wolcott and Timothy Pickering went unanswered for nearly a year, then were answered simultaneously in the negative.

Wolcott refused participation in the case of illegal slaving in the West

Indies, claiming it was a judicial matter. Pickering cited John Adams's unwillingness to interfere with the Danes in declining to act on the go ship registry matter.

By 1798 feelings of frustration and defeat dominated the Conven­ tion. New York and New Jersey remained slaveholding states with no abolition laws passed. The Washington, Pennsylvania society had dis­ solved in 1795, followed in 1797 by the society at Dover, Delaware.

The societies in Rhode Island and Connecticut showed few signs of life. 80

Abolitionists in Virginia were hampered in their work by legal restric­

tions. The national government seemed to turn a deaf ear to the pleas

of the Convention and the local societies. When the Convention delegates

convened at Philadelphia City Hall on 1 June, attendance problems con­

tinued. Only ten representatives were present, six of these from the

PAS, to elect Bloomfield president. Late-arriving delegates from New

York and Wilmington, Delaware brought the attendance to only fourteen

for the second session on 4 June. The presence of Caesar Rodney from

Wilmington afforded some consolation, Delaware not having been represen­

ted in 1797, but several of the societies not represented failed to

respond to the previous year's request for explanations of their absence.

In an effort to boost attendance, one of the delegates' first actions was to permit any member of an established society to sit in the ses- 89 sions as a non-voting participant.

The committee on proper considerations deduced that poor atten­ dance at the sessions was only symptomatic of a deeper malaise in the

land. Rhode Island Federalist Senator Theodore Foster, who had been

Convention president in 1796 and now was New England's only delegate, wrote the committee's report which cast in stone the cautious style the abolitionists were adopting.

The situation of public affairs . . . renders the present time unsuitable for the adoption of any new measures of importance. In many of the United States a peculiar degree of caution in the man­ agement of this business becomes necessary; and on this ground it is deemed more prudent to persevere in the steps which have already been so judiciously taken, than to attempt, at this juncture, any material variation or extension of them."®

A pall seemed to rest over the 1798 sessions. Not only was the

Convention troubled over its difficulties, it was meeting in a troubled 81 city. Rumors of impending war with France filled the air. Public con­ sternation at the French for the attempted bribery of American diplomats in the XYZ affair was pervasive. Tensions between Federalists and

Republicans ran high. In the spring riots had broken out in the city between Federalist sympathizers vÆio wore the black cockade and the red-cockaded Republicans. Federalists were convinced that all opposi­ tion to their policies emanated from a French conspiracy with the

Republicans. Even as the American Convention met in City Hall, Congress was sitting in Congress Hall considering viiat actions to take against

French sympathizers, considerations that issued forth in June and July as the Alien and Sedition Acts. In its initial form in the Senate, the

Sedition Act called the French govemnment and the French people enemies, and prescribed the death penalty for Americans giving aid and comfort to the French in the United States or else-idiere.^^

In the midst of this public and Congressional frenzy the abolition­ ists had to question vÆiat their friendship with French abolitionists might mean. The abolition societies in New York and Philadelphia had corresponded with the Société'’ des Amis des Noirs in Paris from the time of its formation in 1788. The Convention itself had formally corres­ ponded with the French society in 1797. Both Federalists and

Republicans in the abolitionist ranks had praised the French National

Government's decree of 1794 abolishing slavery in its colonies, and

Several American societies had honored Frenchmen with honorary member­

ships. In 1797 the PAS named the Jacobin lawyer Léger-Félicité Sontho-

nax, the mulatto Julien Raimond, Secretary General Pascal, and Benjamin

Giraud, all French commissioners to Saint Domingue, as honorary members. 82

Giraud, a mining engineer and financial adviser, visited Philadelphia in

1797. There he urged Philadelphia philanthropists to buy land in revolt-torn Saint Domingue and take their virtues to the island. If the abolitionists ever considered such a plan, they abandoned all thought of it in 1798. Such relations with the French could now be viewed as treason by the High Federalists. Any action by the abolitionists that 92 might appear subversive seemed unwise.

If any action of the abolition societies could be labeled seditious, it was advising blacks. Rumors circulating in 1798 included those of a possible French-sponsored invasion of the South employing blacks from

Saint Domingue. Fears were, of course, that such an invasion would touch off wide-scale slave insurrections in the South. In its address to the abolition societies in 1798 the Convention steered a wide course away from possible charges of incitement. It called for the societies to counsel slaves in "quiet submission" to the wills of their masters.

Blacks would thereby "likely" experience better treatment and "perhaps" convince their oppressors of the injustice of slavery. Societies were encouraged to be "firm and sincere" in their efforts to aid blacks, but also to be "prudent and cautious," doing "nothing which may justly draw forth the censure of our country, . . . acting in all things, with that moderation and propriety vdiich have heretofore distinguished the Aboli­

tion Societies.

In the midst of the national hysteria prompted by the Quasi-War with

France, the abolitionists tried to see beyond the gloom. They harked back to a time when their hopes had been high. 83

We confidently trust, that vdien the storms, by which the world is at present agitated, shall have subsided, the light of truth will break through the dark gloom of oppression— cruelty and injustice will not only hear, but obey, the voice of reason and religion and in these United States the practice of the people will be conform­ able to the declaration— 'ihat all men are b o m equally free, and have an unalienable right to Liberty.

The Convention took few decisive actions in 1798, and made no plans to gather in 1799, due to "the peculiar situation of our country" and the low state of the abolitionist cause. Hoping that the new cen­

tury would see the storms subside, the delegates agreed to meet again

in 1800.95

The report of the Alexandria society prompted the most extended debate of the 1798 gathering, and the first to deal with fiscal matters.

Alexandria requested that the Convention establish a fund to assist

small, struggling societies, the fund to consist of monies provided by

the larger societies. The Convention had no structure to honor such a request, from its beginnings having lived off the largesse of the Penn­

sylvania society and never having elected a treasurer. Even had the

structure existed, the larger societies were reticent to deal with the request. Their own financial situations were always precarious, and in

1798 they entertained doubts about the viability of the Convention. The delegates declined to take any action on the proposal, declaring it

"inexpedient."9^

The 1798 meeting also marked the first resolution by the Conven­

tion on the internal governance of societies. A Richmond delegate asked

the opinion of the Convention on slaveholding by abolition society mem­

bers, a practice permitted in the Virginia society. The various soci­

eties had different policies on the question. Most, like the PAS, did 84

not admit slaveholding members. The New York Manumission Society, how­

ever, had admitted slaveholders from its inception, and had early failed

to adopt a "line of conduct" that would have stopped the practice.

The southern societies, struggling to survive in hostile territory, con­

tained majorities that were willing to embrace slaveholders vAio espoused

abolition principles and v^o were committed to manumission. Many in

the memberships of the? - societies had been in similar situations them- go selves, having held slaves and since repented. The Convention determined that slaveholders could be admitted as members vÆien it was

apparent "that the candidates are really attached to the cause of abo­

lition."^^ With the approval of the Convention, the southern societies

could in good conscience admit slaveholders. It was an action they would come to regret in the aftermath of Gabriel's conspiracy in 1800.

By the time the Convention convened in 1800, the new beginning

the abolitionists had hoped for in 1798 seemed a reality. In the in­

terim between Convention sessions New York had passed its first gradual

abolition act. The Adams administration had abandoned the High Federal­

ist excesses, and in doing so avoided war with France. There was less danger in dissent in 1800 than had been the case in 1798. The Conven­

tion met in a more relaxed atmosphere, and the sessions of 1800 were possessed of an energy lacking two years earlier. But the positive

attitude fostered by the turn in affairs and the success of abolition­

ist efforts in New York could not hide the deepening warning signs of weak participation by the societies. Only nine delegates appeared at

the opening session of the sixth convention on 4 June 1800. They repre­

sented only four societies: Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Virginia, and 85 New York, the last two with only one delegate each.^^*^

The Virginia society again made its presence felt, this time by

taking up Alexandria's call for pecuniary aid. Since the last conven­

tion, the Virginia society had, in the face of Virginia law, prosecuted

for the freedom of thirteen blacks illegally enslaved. Prior to the

society's obtaining judgment, the blacks were carried off to South Car­

olina and Georgia by their owners. The society had been unable to

pursue the case due to lack of funds. Lack of funds also prevented the

society from assisting one hundred more blacks illegally held. Where

logic had failed to move the Convention to establish an assistance fund

in 1798, the example of persons condemned to lives of slavery now suc­

ceeded. The Convention's appointment of Micajah Davis, Virginia's lone

delegate, to chair the committee on proper considerations resulted,

predictably, in a favorable verdict on the fund.^^^

Creation of this fund for assisting the weaker societies made even more glaring the Convention's lack of a formal structure. The Conven­

tion not only had no treasurer and no funds, it had no method for

soliciting and receiving monies. Form followed function; the creation of the fund prompted a resolution to seek authorization from the consti- 109 tuent societies for the Convention to draft a constitution.

The assistance fund and a constitution, the latter implying the ongoing existence of the Convention, had a symbiotic relationship. Be­

set by problems and uncertain of its future in 1798, the Convention had been in no mood to create such a fund. In 1800, the delegates, six of vhom were attending for the first time and only three of vdiora had been delegates in 1798, could countenance the fund because they believed the 86 103 permanence of the Convention likely. They envisioned a Convention

that would serve as a "rallying point of information, idience useful

knowledge should diverge to each society, communicating life, energy,

and consistency to the whole.In 1800 the Convention seemed once

more to have life and energy to bestow.

The delegates' optimism was tempered, however, vdien they reflected

on the precarious state of abolitionism in American society. In order

to survive, the delegates declared, the Convention would need to be even

more circumspect and the societies more cooperative. In the address to the societies. Convention members cautioned that the work of abolition

had only begun, and could be accomplished only by concerted action. A

new beginning in a new century called for judicious action and the

avoidance of "incongruous measures" by individual societies. An even

more practical note of realism was struck at convention's end, when the

delegates ordered only 800 copies of the minutes printed for distribu­

tion, down from the 1,500 previously printed.

Delegates to the 1800 convention, for all their good will, did not

let the opportunity pass to express regret over the scant number of del­

egations present.New England was not represented at all. The Provi­

dence society had been sending delegates who were members of the Rhode

Island delegation in Congress, but with the removal of the national

government to Washington, D.C. this practice was no longer an option.

The exodus of the national government from Philadelphia was a blow

to the Convention, both practically and psychologically. The ability of

the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, the Convention's strongest constitu­

ent body, to lobby Congress locally and to disseminate information about 87

Congressional activity was invaluable. Undoubtedly, the presence of the national government in the city most identified with antislavery gave hope in the dark seasons. The government's movanent into territory where slavery had long been entrenched and vdiere slave trading was open­ ly practiced cast a shadow on the Convention's work throughout the rest of its existence. With the drawing power of Philadelphia as a meeting place diminished, the abolition societies saw less reason to trek there for annual conventions. The distant abolition societies had always been sparsely represented in the Convention; after 1800, they ceased atten­ dance.

From 1800 until the resurgence of southern antislavery in the

1820s the American Convention could liardly pretend to be a representa­ tive national body. The states represented in the Convention from 1801 108 to 1823 were, with few exceptions, middle states only. Representa­ tion from New England ceased. The accomplishment of local antislavery aims made participation in the Convention by northeastern abolitionists seem less urgent. Then in 1801, reports of new difficulties for the southern societies reached Philadelphia.

John Fairlamb of Virginia, the only delegate in 1801 from outside the middle states, brought bad news from Richmond. James Wood, presi­ dent of the Virginia society and a former Virginia governor, wrote that the aborted slave uprising led by Gabriel, slave of Thomas Prosser, in

Henrico County near Richmond in late August 1800 had put the societies there on the defensive again. At least thirty-five blacks had been hanged as a result of the conspiracy. Already struggling with legal restrictions and financial hardships, the societies at Richmond and 88

Alexandria now turned their attention to protecting the rights of blacks against encroachments by angry \diites. Wood wrote that the emancipation cause in Virginia had been sorely hurt, as many vÆio "taking a retrospect view of the recent plot which threatened our internal tranquility with a revolutionary convulsion, have now thought it proper to abandon it [the abolition cause] as dangerous to the well-being of society.The

Alexandria society said that although "men of weak nerves or apathetick constitutions" had withdrawn frcsn their society, they believed the soci­ ety was stronger for their removal.

Although they may have been made stronger in resolve, the societies in Virginia were dealt a grievous blow by Gabriel’s conspiracy. They did not collapse immediately, but their already limited effectiveness ended. By 1804 the society at Alexandria dissolved. George Drinker, who had represented the society at the 1797 convention, listed the fac­ tors in the demise of the society as their initial admission of slave­ holders (who rapidly quit in the wake of Gabriel’s conspiracy, vÆiich they considered rebellion), the 1795 law restricting aid to blacks in lawsuits, and Gabriel’s plot. The society at Richmond continued to sur­ vive late in 1804, Drinker said, but he indicated it was "quite lifeless, in fact it appears little better than a mear mishion for manufacturing addresses to the Convention, a fungus lump growing out of

Society at large that only serves to show its extream bad health. . . The Pennsylvania society remarked in 1806 that "indi­ vidual interference, as particular urgencies require" had replaced united action in the South. ..It concluded this was best, being less

likely to arouse public "clamour." 89

The Convention delegates in 1801 felt the need to distance them­ selves from the Gabriel insurrection in much the same way the delegates of 1798 had sought to avoid being linked to subversive activity. They chose to issue an address to the citizens of the United States, the first since the initial citizens' address of 1794, denying Convention approval of the clandestine activities in Virginia. In the address the Convention members expressed sympathy for vdiites endangered by

Gabriel's plot, rejected the contravention of law, and expressed their abhorrence of insurrection. The plot did give the abolitionists an ex­ cellent platform from \diich to repeat that ameliorating the condition of slaves and instituting a system of gradual emancipation constituted the best safeguards against revolt. They warned that "there is a certain state of degradation and misery to which they [slaves] may be reduced, a certain point of desperation to which the human mind may be brought, 1 1 O and beyond which it cannot be driven."

In spite of the difficulties engendered by the plot, the delegates once more found reason for optimism. The NYMS report indicated that clauses suggested by the society prohibiting importation and exportation of slaves had been incorporated into a revised slave code recently en­ acted in New York. Joseph Bloomfield's New Jersey report revealed a continuing decline in the already low numbers of slaves in West Jersey.

In East Jersey, where slavery was more firmly entrenched and antislavery condemned, Bloomfield said slaveholders were more willing than previous­ ly to allow slaves to purchase their freedom. Most encouraging of all was news of the resumption of antislavery activity in Delaware by the

Delaware Society for promoting the Abolition of Slavery, established at 90

Wilmington in December 1800. Although the society reported few accom­ plishments, its two delegates were greeted with enthusiasm. The committee on proper considerations concluded after reviewing the society reports that both the state of public affairs and public sentiment were more favorable to the cause than at any time in recent memory. The committee did caution, however, that the society in Richmond was in dire difficulty, and urged establishment of a permanent fund to help socie­ ties in financial need.^^^

All the optimism was perhaps wishful chinking on the part of the delegates, but those gathered, fifteen in number from five societies, were sufficiently confident of the future viability of abolition to craft a constitution for the Convention. In it they took the name "The

American Convention for promoting the Abolition of Slavery, and improv­ ing the condition of the African race." The document, "of as general a nature" as they could design, called for delegations of up to ten mem­ bers from each society, and for the annual election of a president, secretary, and treasurer. Annual meetings were prescribed, to convene in Philadelphia on the second Monday in January. Three societies con­ vening were to constitute a quorum.

The constitution created an acting committee to be named annually by the body of delegates to care for Convention business between meet­ ings. This committee, vÆîich became so important to the functioning of the Convention, was to arrange for the publication of minutes and books, transmit the various addresses of the Convention, and handle all corres­ pondence. The secretary was responsible only for recording minutes.

The president and the acting committee were authorized to call a special 91 meeting of the Convention upon request of two societies.

The assistance fund authorized at the 1800 session and requested again by the committee on proper considerations in 1801 was not included in the constitution. Instead, the document called for the funds of the

Convention, however raised, to be at its sole disposal, "special atten­ tion being at all times had to the exigencies of individual Socie­ ties. Significantly missing from the constitution was any reference to how the Convention would procure such funds, the body giving itself no power to requisition the societies.

The seventh convention adjourned on 6 June 1801, the delegates having committed their societies to sending representatives to convene

10 January 1803 in accordance with the new constitution. No explanation was given for the return to January meetings. With the federal govern­ ment removed to Washington, Convention delegates probably felt there was no longer any reason to schedule spring sessions to coincide with the

Congressional calendar. Also, meeting in January eliminated the fear of yellow fever, vÆiich had been particularly virulent during Philadelphia summers in the 1790s. Attendance at Convention sessions had certainly not improved by meeting in May and June. The distant societies that were to have been accommodated by the late spring dates had seldom been repre­ sented. When the Convention gathered in 1803, delegates were present only from New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware.These four societies were to constitute the "American" Convention until 1817.

While the Convention, by 1801 appeared viable enought for the dele­ gates to draft a constitution, it is clear that it was a weak institution.

In the seven years since its founding it had developed a rudimentary 92 organization, and come to some understanding of its role in petitioning the national government, advising its constituent societies, and coun­ seling blacks. But its apparent initial success in obtaining the slave trade law of 1794 was followed by a series of defeats and discourage­ ments that culminated in reduced activity due to fear of suspected dis­ loyalty during the Quasi-War with France and in the demise of southern antislavery in the aftermath of Gabriel's insurrection. The Convention faced the uncertainties of the Jeffersonian years as a regional body chastened by the hard lessons of the 1790s. No longer located at the center of national government, the Convention was forced to recognize that its philosophy and its action on behalf of blacks also were not central to the purposes of a nation rapidly abandoning its revolutionary roots as it rushed to expand and to take its place in the councils of nations. 93

CHAPTER II FOOTNOTES

^NJAS Minutes, 27 February 1793, p. 2; 2 May 1793, p. 6.

Virginia Abolition Society to James Pemberton, 15 November 1793, Ic, PAS Collection, Reel 11.

Robert Pleasants to James Pemberton, 20 December 1793, Ic, PAS Collection, Reel 11.

^American Convention Minutes, 1794: 3-6 (1: 3-6).

^Locke, Anti-Slavery in America, 8 6 ; American Convention Minutes, 1794: 5-6 (1: 5-6). Bloomfield was twice Democratic-Republican gover­ nor of New Jersey, 1801-1802 and 1803-1812. A friend of Quakers in Burlington, he was an ideal compromise candidate for leading the Convention.

^American Convention Minutes, 1794: 6 (1: 6 ).

^American Convention Minutes, 1794: 7 (1: 7). g American Convention Minutes, 1794: 8 (1: 8 ).

^American Convention Minutes, 1794: 8-9 (1: 8-9). Beginning at this point and throughout this work the author will use "convention to refer to the individual annual meetings of the abolition societies gathered in convention, and "Convention" to refer to the body of dele­ gates acting as a corporate unit.

^*^American Convention Minutes, 1794: 9-11 (1: 9-11).

^^American Convention Minutes, 1794: 11-13 (1: 11-13). South Carolina repealed its law against slave importation on 17 December 1803.

^^American Convention Minutes, 1794: 14-15 (1: 14-15). 1 3 American Convention Minutes, 1794: 14-16 (1: 14-16).

^^American Convention Minutes, 1794: 16-18 (1: 16-18). This address was to be sent to all states where slaves were still held, whether or not they had passed emancipation laws.

^^American Convention Minutes, 1794: 19 (1: 19). Slavery was ended by gradual abolition laws in Pennsylvania in 1780, Rhode Island in 1784, and Connecticut in 1784 and 1797. New York passed its first gradual abolition law in 1799, followed by a more extensive act in 1817. New Jersey enacted gradual abolition in 1804. See Leon F. Litwack, North of Slavery; The Negro in the Free States, 1790-1860 (Chicago; The University of Chicago Press, 1961), 3-15. 94 ^^American Convention Minutes, 1794: 20-21 (I: 20-21).

^^American Convention Minutes, 1794: 21 (1: 21). 18 American Convention Minutes, 1794: 22-23 (1: 22-23). 19 American Convention Minutes, 1794: 23 (1: 23). 20 American Convention Minutes, 1794: 24 (1: 24). 21 American Convention Minutes, 1794: 24-25 (1: 24-25). Quote on p. 24. 22 American Convention Minutes, 1794: 25 (1: 25). Mifflin used similar language in both his A Serious Expostulation with the Members of the House of Representatives of the United States ÇPhiladelphiâ^ n.d.; reprint ed., Poughkeepsie, N.Y.: Nicholas Power, 1794) in William Frost, ed., % e Quaker Origins of Antislavery (Norwood, Pa.: Norwood Editions, I960) and The Defence of Warner Mifflin. The Philadelphian Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson accused Mifflin of exhibiting^'zeal without taowledge" in his petition to Congress, likening him to a cow that 'gives a good pail of milk and T[hen] kicks it down with her heels." Fergusson to Benjamin Rush, 10 January 1793, Benjamin Rush MSS, Histori­ cal Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. 23 American Convention Minutes, 1794: 25 (1: 25).

^^American Convention Minutes, 1794: 26-28 (1: 26-28). 25 American Convention Minutes, 1794; 29 (1: 29).

Annals of Congress, 3 Cong. 1 sess. 38-39 (28 Jan. 1794).

Annals of Congress, 3 Cong. 1 sess. 349 (28 Jan. 1794); 448 (11 Feb. 1794); 469 128 Feb. 1794).

Annals of Congress, 3 Cong. 1 sess. 469 (28 Feb. 1794). The bill in its final form is in Annals, 3 Cong. Appendix, 1425-26.

Annals of Congress, 3 Cong. 1 sess. 70 (17 March 1794); 72 (19 March 1794); 483 (6 , 1 March 1794). The act was reprinted in American Convention Minutes, 1795: 14-17 (1: 44-47). on W. E. B. DuBois, The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America, 1638-1870 (New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1896; reprint ed.. New York: Russell and Russell, 1965), 80-81.

Annals of Congress, 3 Cong. 1 sess. 157 (3 January 1794).

^^Annals of Congress, 3 Cong. 1 sess. 352-410, 412-31. 95 33 See Alexander DeConde, A History of American Foreign Policy, 3rd ed. (New York; Charles Scribner's Sons, 1978), 53.

^^Granville Sharp to William Wilberforce, 29 March 1794, Charles Roberts Autograph Letters Collection, Haverford College Library, Haver- ford, Pennsylvania. 35 Samuel Hoare (for the London society) to PAS, 10 July 1794, Cox-Parrish-Wharton Papers, 11: 97. ^^Ibid. 37 Ibid. See Chapter I and Appendix on the importance of inter­ national support to the abolitionists. 38 John Rodgers to James Pemberton, 24 June 1794, Ic, PAS Collec­ tion, Reel 11. 39 Taken from the somewhat confusing title of the 1794 address to the citizenry. Address of a Convention of Delegates from the Abolition Society to the Citizens of the United States (New York: W. Pareil, 1794). Although the Convention did not shy away from association with abolition, it was not usually referred to as 'the abolition society." The title probably represents a printer's mistake, the abolition society probably referring to the NYMS.

^^The Wilmington society and the New Jersey society both assured James Pemberton in the summer that they would be represented. Wilmington Society to James Pemberton, 6 September 1794, Ic, PAS Collection, Reel 11; Joseph Blocsnfield to Pemberton, 13 August 1794, ibid.

^^American Convention Minutes, 1794: 29 (1: 29).

^^ilmington Soceity to James Pemberton, 3 November 1794, PAS Letterbook, 1794-1809, PAS Collection, Reel 11.

^^Bemard C. Steiner, History of Slavery in Connecticut, Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science, ed. Herbert B. Adams, vols. 9-10 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1893), 30; Locke, Anti-Slavery in America, 123; American Convention Minutes, 1795: 17 (1; 47).

^^In miscellaneous American Convention of 1794 materials, PAS Collection, Reel 28.

“^^Ibid.; American Convention Minutes, 1795: 17-18 (1: 47-48). These two accounts vary in some of the particulars about the fate of the memorials.

^^American Convention Minutes, 1795; 3-9 (1: 33-39); Providence Society to PAS, 10 December 1794, Ic, PAS Collection, Reel 11; Washing­ ton, Pa. Society to "Philadelphia Society," 25 December 1794, ibid. 96 ^^American Convention Minutes, 1795: 6, 9 (I: 36, 39).

^^American Convention Minutes, 1795: 9 (1: 39).

^^American Convention Minutes, 1795: 10 (1: 40).

^^American Convention Minutes, 1795: 11 (l: 41).

^^American Convention Minutes, 1795: 14-17, 23 (1: 44-47, 53). 52 American Convention Minutes, 1795: 21 (1: 51).

^^American Convention Minutes, 1795: 24-25 (1: 54-55).

^^American Convention Minutes, 1795: 28 (1: 58).

^^American Convention Minutes, 1795: 30 (1; 60).

^^American Convention Minutes, 1795: 23, 31 (1; 53, 61). See Chapter IV of this work for more on the addresses to free blacks.

^^American Convention Minutes, 1795: 31-32 (1: 61-62).

^®NYMS Papers, 6 : 201 (17 February 1795).

^^NYMS Papers, 6 : 205 (19 May 1795), 207-8 (2 June 1795).

^^NYMS Papers, 6 ; 213-14 (17 November 1795), 217-18 (26 November 1795). Alexander Hamilton was a member of the original committee of seven appointed to develop the application for an abolition law. He was not appointed to the expanded committee.

^^NYMS Papers, 6 ; 222 (16 February 1796), 224 (15 March 1796), 228 (17 May 1796). 234 (16 August 1796), 235 (li October 1796), 239 (15 November 1796), 242-43 (17 January 1797), 250-51 (21 March 1797).

Miscellaneous American Convention of 1795 materials, PAS Collection, Reel 28.

PAS Address to American Convention of 1798, 2 April 1798, PAS Collection, Reel 29.

^^American Convention Minutes, 1797: 37-42 (1: 131-36).

^^Amarican Convention Minutes, 1796: 8 (1: 70).

^^American Convention Minutes, 1796: 12-14 (1: 74-76).

^^American Convention Minutes, 1796: 15 (1: 77). 97 68 American Convention Minutes, 1796: 3-4 (1: 65-66 and 65-84 passim.

^^American Convention Minutes, 1796: 24 (1: 8 6 ).

^^American Convention Minutes, 1796: 28 (1: 90).

^^Miscellaneous American Convention of 1796 materials, PAS Col­ lection, Reel 28; David Redick to James Pemberton, 27 May 1795, Cox-Par- rish-Wharton Papers, 11: 107, HSP; Samuel Hoare (for the London Society) to PAS, 14 August 1795, PAS Letterbook, 1794-1809, PAS Collection, Reel 11; Granville Sharp to James Pemberton, 20 March 1795, ibid.

^^American Convention Minutes, 1796: 27 (1: 89). ^^Ibid.

^^Archibald McClean to William Rogers, 23 February 1795, Cox- Parrish-Wharton Papers, 11: 105, HSP. Alexandria was part of the area ceded by Virginia to the federal government in 1791 for the creation of the District of Columbia. Although a part of the District from 1791 to 1846, Alexandria remained under Virginia laws until the creation of local government in the District in 1802.

^^Archibald McClean to William Rogers, 15 February 1796, Ic, PAS Collection, Reel 12 (also in PAS Letterbook, 1794-1809, PAS Collection, Reel 11.

^^Ibid.; Robert McColley, Slavery and Jeffersonian Virginia, (Urbana, 111.: University of Illinois ftress, 1964), 159-61. "

^^George Drinker to Joseph Bringhurst, 10 December 1804, Ic, PAS Collection, Reel 12. 78 Archibald McClean to William Rogers, 6 June 1796, Cox-Parrish- Wharton Papers, 11: 112, HSP; Virginia Report to the 1797 Convention, miscellaneous American Convention of 1797 materials, PAS Collection, Reel 28. 79 Miscellaneous American Convention of 1796 materials, PAS Col­ lection, Reel 28; McClean to Rogers, 15 February 1796, Ic, PAS Collec­ tion, Reel 12. 80 - American Convention Minutes, 1797: 3-4 (1: 97-98). The Chop- tank society iiad twenty-five members in 1797. It was composed primarily of Nicholites (primitive Quakers) with some Quaker and Methodist mem­ bers. The society lasted until at least 1799. See Kenneth L. Carroll, "Nicholites and Slavery in Eighteenth-Century Maryland," Maryland His­ torical Magazine 79 (Spring 1984): 130-32. 81 American Convention Minutes, 1797: 4-6 (1: 98-100). go American Convention Minutes, 1797: 5-6, 22-23 (99-100, 116-17). 98 03 American Convention Minutes, 1797: 7-8, 18-20 (101-102, 112-14).

^^American Convention Minutes, 1797: 23 (1: 117). OC American Convention Minutes, 1797: 24-25 (1: 118-19). Rfi American Convention Minutes, 26 (1: 120). 87 James Pemberton to London Society, 2 March 1795, Cox-Parrish- Wharton Papers, 11: 106, HSP. go Timothy Pickering to Joseph Bloomfield, 1 June 1798, American Convention incoming correspondence, PAS Collection, Reel 29; Oliver Wol­ cott to Bloomfield, ibid. 89 William Poole to Samuel Coates, 5 July 1797, American Convention incoming correspondence, PAS Collection, Reel 29; American Convention Minutes, 1798: 3-6 (1: 157-60).

^^American Convention Minutes, 1798: 11 (1: 165). 91 Esmond Wright, Fabric of Freedom, 1763-1800, The Making of America series, ed. David Donald (New York: Hill and Wang, 1961), 222-27; Manning J. Dauer, The Adams Federalists (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1953; Johns Hopkins Paperbacks Edition, 1968), 131-51; Alexander DeConde, The Quasi-War; % e Politics and Diplomacy of the Undeclared War with France, 1797-1801 (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1966). 3-108. 92 Benjamin Giraud to 'Society of the Friends of humanity meeting at Philadelphia for the abolition of slavery and the amelioration of the blacks," 17 January 1797, Ic, PAS Collection, Reel 12: Sonthonax to PAS, 10 April 1797, ibid. A vestry report from St. Peter s Parish in Talbot County, Maryland in 1797 attacked Warner Mifflin for his involvement with the French abolitionist Brissot de Warville and linked Mifflin to the French Revolution. The Episcopalians suggested tarring and feather­ ing Mifflin for his "mischievous interference on behalf of slaves. Kenneth Carroll, "An Eighteenth-Century Episcopalian Attack on Quaker and Methodist Manumission of Slaves," Maryland Historical Magazine 80 (Summer 1985): 143, 145 (quote). 93 American Convention Minutes, 1798: 19 (1: 173); DeConde, The Quasi-War, 84.

^^American Convention Minutes, 1798: 19 (1: 173).

^^American Convention Minutes, 1798: 16 (1: 170).

^^American Convention Minutes, 1798: 12-13 (1: 166-67). 97 The New York Manumission Society members resolved on 10 Novem­ ber 1785 gradually to manumit any slaves they held, but postponed 99 consideration of the resolution to adopt this line of conduct. The com­ mittee originally appointed to consider the subject opposed the resolu­ tion because of its financial implications and the recognition that it would be violated. A new group was formed to examine the line of con­ duct at the 8 February 1786 meeting, but the society remained divided on the question and no action was taken. The NYMS did not bar slave­ holders from membership until 1809. NYMS Papers, vol. 5 (10 February 1785); 6 : 29-30, 36 (10 November 1785, 8 February 1786); 9: 212, 216-17 (11 April, 11 July 1809). 98 Robert Pleasants, the eminent Virginia Quaker abolitionist, had held the slaves left by his father and brother upon their deaths. In 1790 he freed the 215 willed to him, plus their increase (from 1771 in the case of his father). In doing so, he honored the requests of his father and brother, and incurred the anger of some of his other rela­ tion. Pleasants to James Pemberton, 13 November 1790, Ic, PAS Collec­ tion, Reel 11. go American Convention Minutes, 1798: 15 (1: 169).

^^^American Convention Minutes, 1800: 3-4, 12 (1: 177-78, 186).

^^^American Convention Minutes, 1800: 9-10, 12, 18 (1: 183-84, 186, 192). 1 0 9 American Convention Minutes, 1800: 18-19 (1: 192-93). 103 Timothy Paxson of the PAS had been secretary of the 1798 con­ vention, but had not been a voting member. In all, twelve delegates attended the 1800 sessions.

^^^American Convention Minutes, 1800: 21 (1: 195).

^^^There is no evidence vÆiat measures were alluded to. Abolition societies and society members were often warned against instituting law suits that were not well prepared and could lead to embarrassment for the abolition movement. This may be \diat was intended.

^^^American Convention Minutes, 1800: 23 (1: 197); 1798: 20 (1: 174); 1797: 27 (1: 121).

American Convention Minutes, 1800: 20 (1: 194). 108 The Virginia society was represented in 1801 and a society at Easton, Maryland had a single delegate in attendance in 1817. The 1823 convention marked the first appearance of Benjamin Lundy, representing the Tennessee society. See Qiapters V and VI.

American Convention Minutes, 1801: 21-23 (1: 231-33); Herbert Aptheker, American Negro Slave Revolts (New York: International Pub­ lishers, 1963), 219-22. 100

^^^American Convention Minutes, 1801: 33 (1: 243).

^^^George Drinker to Joseph Bringhurst, 10 December 1804, Ic, PAS Collection, Reel 11. 112 PAS to American Convention, 6 January 1806, Ic, PAS Collection, Reel 12. ' 113 American Convention Minutes, 1801: 37-38 (1: 247-48).

^^^American Convention Minutes, 1801: 7-25 (1: 217-35); Calvert, 'The Abolition Society of Delaware," 300.

^^^American Convention Minutes, 1801: 4, 34-36, 44 (1: 214, 244-46, 254). The quote, taken from the address to the societies, is on p. 44.

^^^American Convention Minutes, 1801: 35-36 (1: 245-46).

^^^American Convention Minutes, 1801: 36 (1: 246). 118 American Convention Minutes, 1803: 3-4 (1: 269-70). CHAPTER III

FROM CONSTITUTION TO TRIENNIAL CONVENTIONS;

DARK YEARS FOR THE MOVEMENT

The gathering that ratified the constitution of the American Con­

vention in 1803 was the first in a series of regional conventions that

militated against the very concept of an "American" Convention of aboli­

tion societies. Only Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and Delaware

sent representatives in 1803, and these four societies continued to con­

stitute the convention until 1817.^ The demise of southern and north­

eastern societies coupled with difficulties within the four societies

that continued to meet in convention led to an increasing preoccupation

with local concerns during the years from 1803 to 1817. This parochial

preoccupation in tura led to a severe weakening of the American Conven­

tion as it experienced a growing discontinuity in representation and

administration from convention to convention and the abandonment of

annual conventions. What had been envisioned as a representative nation­

al body increasingly came to be controlled by Philadelphians.

The urban societies in Philadelphia and New York had been the Con­ vention's strongest constituents since its inception. From 1803 to 1817

these two societies, with support from the weaker and less effectual

societies in New Jersey and Delaware, maintained the work and witness

of the Convention. With Philadelphia firmly established as the seat of

101 102 the Convention, increasingly the responsibility for directing the Con­ vention came to rest with the Pennsylvania Abolition Society. From 1803 to 1817 the presidency of the Convention went to a Philadelphian in five of the eight elections held. All but two secretaries during this time 2 were from the PAS, and the treasury never left Philadelphia.

The creation of the acting committee called for in the constitu­ tion of 1801 served to cement Philadelphia's control of the Convention.

Adapted from the Quaker acting committees of the Meetings for Sufferings and created to care for the business of the Convention between the stated conventions, the acting committees came to replace the officers as the directors of the Convention. The first acting committee was com­ posed of three PAS members and one person each frcrni the offshoots of the

PAS in New Jersey and Delaware. In the years 1803-1817 the PAS produced thirty-one members of the acting committee; the other three societies together produced only twenty-two members. Frcxn 1805 to 1815 the only members to serve more than two terms were PAS members Thomas Pym Cope and Timothy Paxson, who served the entire time. At the 1817 convention, five of nine members of the acting committee were named from the PAS, and the delegates agreed that three members meeting together would con­ stitute a quorum, a move designed to allow the Philadelphia members 3 to take actions after conferring with their more distant counterparts.

As the Convention became increasingly a creature of the Pennsyl­ vania Abolition Society, Philadelphia became identified even more as the center of abolitionism. The meetings of the Convention continued to be held in Philadelphia during this period, despite the reduced effective­ ness of the city as a center for lobbying the national government after 103

1800. Hie New York delegates to the 1801 convention received instruc­ tions to request moving the Convention’s meeting place to Washington,

D.C. to be close to the seat of government, but just prior to the con­ vention the NYMS recalled the action and resolved to ask only for a return to January meetings.^ Their logic seems impeccable. If atten­ dance at the Philadelphia meetings was scant, it does not take much imagination to picture what an assembly in rustic Washington in the dead of winter would have been like. The subject of changing the site of the

Convention meetings did not come up again until the 1820s when concern for re-establishing southern antislavery and for lobbying Congress on the slave trade in the District of Columbia prompted the Convention to move its meetings to Baltimore in 1826 and 1828 and to Washington in

1829.

The increasingly central role of Philadelphia in the Convention should not be understood as the result of a play for power on the part of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society. The prestige of being identified as the center of abolitionism undoubtedly did carry its psychological rewards, and control of the abolition movement from Philadelphia did ensure that the conservative brand of abolitionism employed there would prevail nationally. But in this period any abolitionism was regarded as radical, and the threat to the movement from unbridled enthusiasm seemed nearly as great as tliat posed by slaveholders and kidnappers. Abolition­ ists elsewhere looked to Philadelphia and the Quaker leadership of the

PAS for the pragmatism and circumspection that helped to make their own work credible. Location, history, and the willingness of the PAS mem­ bers to give long hours to maintaining the correspondence of the 104

Convention and to serving as liaisons for information on Congressional activity, kidnappings, and manumissions, made Philadelphia seem the natural seat of the Convention.^

More crucial to Convention delegates than concern over Philadel­ phia's dominance of abolitionism was their fear that the national vehi­ cle for abolition was becoming merely a regional expression. Not only were the societies in Maryland and Virginia in deep trouble, but the

New England societies were no longer sending delegates to the Conven­

tion. Worse, they made no contributions to the assistance fund.

Established in 1800 in an attempt both to shore up the foundering

southern societies and to establish the precedent of a national trea­

sury, the fund was to Convention leaders a test of support for inter­

state cooperation and aid. The societies in Rhode Island and Connec­

ticut, "domestic exertions [having] become almost unnecessary by the disappearance of slavery amongst them," were expected to make signifi­ cant contributions.^

Ihe New England societies did not, however, contribute. David

Howell of the Rhode Island society communicated in 1805 that his soci­

ety had no funds for education locally, leaving the Convention to ex­

trapolate that no assistance funds would be forthcoming from that quar­

ter, He thanked the Convention for its "Brotherly information and Co­

operation," but added that Rhode Island delegates could not attend the

Convention, citing "the severity of the season and the length of the

journey," a complaint that became all too familiar to the Convention

members.^ Rhode Island only reflected a larger pattern, the tendency

noted by historian William Wiecek for the first generation of 105

abolitionists to think in terms of their own states and to fail to con­

sider national solutions to slavery. Local problems and local solutions

dominated the thinking of the abolition societies. Ironically, local

successes in ccxnbating slavery and the slave trade led not to greater

confidence and the freeing of the societies' time for national pursuits,

but to reduced activity. Historian Arthur Zilversmit observed this

reduced activity in the Pennsylvania Abolition Society as a result of

Pennsylvania's abolition law of 1780, although the PAS compensated by O taking on greater responsibilities nationally. The New Jersey Aboli­

tion Society declined rapidly after the passage of the gradual abolition

law there in 1804. Historian James F. Reilly posited that "the princi­ pal reason for the decline of the Providence Abolition Society [after

1800] seems to have been the lack of local slavery issues with which to concern itself."^ The relative strength of the New York Manumission So­ ciety during the first quarter of the nineteenth century owes much to

the state's being slow to act on abolition, giving the NYMS much to accomplish locally.

In the matter of the assistance fund the Convention demonstrated both its lack of any real power to unite the local societies in serving a national purpose, and its inability to act with dispatch in crucial

situations. By the time the assistance fund was operative, the southern

societies were beyond help. Although technically discontinued in 1803, assistance to local societies was left to the prerogative of the acting committee, vÆiich said that no funds were requested or disbursed in 1803.

By 1805 the Convention, recognizing that the southern societies could not be propped up, instructed the acting committee to solicit money from 106

the societies to create a fund for prosecuting slave traders. It

was to use the fund to employ an investigator to track down violations.

This plan was never implemented, and in 1806 the Convention retreated

from the idea of a national fund. It encouraged the individual soci­

eties to aid the southern societies in any way they could, especially

by employing agents in the southern states to gather evidence against

slave traders.

The Convention's new constitution did little, then, to increase

the accountability of the local societies. Neither did it introduce

any change in vÆiat had become the predictable pattern of conducting the

annual conventions. The addresses to the Convention from the individ­

ual societies were read, and a committee examined them to determine the

objects proper for consideration by the delegates. Committees were then

appointed to address the items raised by the society reports and any

other matters brought by delegates. The Convention continued its prac­

tice of issuing an annual address to the societies, and frequently is­

sued addresses to the citizenry and to free blacks. The Convention

also continued to memorialize Congress whenever an issue arose that delegates felt required their intervention.

What was not predictable about the conventions was vÆio would con­

stitute the delegations, or vdiether delegates would feel any sense of

relationship to previous delegations and continue actions previously

taken. The consnittee of arrangement^^ at the 1804 convention recog­ nized the problem of lack of continuity in the American Convention,

and proposed permanent officers for the Convention, with members of any

of the societies eligible for office. The proposal was designed to 107 enable the Convention to identify members in the societies who were particularly interested in abolitionism in the national arena and vdao would be faithful in performing their duties under the new constitution.

Ihe Idea was defeated in committee, and the convention continued its practice of electing officers at each convention for service until the 12 next convention. In the years 1803-1817, only Gershom Craft of New

Jersey repeated as president, being elected in 1805 and 1806. Othniel

Alsop of the PAS served as secretary from 1804 to 1806, and John Bacon of the PAS served two non-consecutive terms as secretary. Otherwise the leadership of the Convention came from a changing cast of charac­ ters, never establishing the continuity so much needed in a national body that met as infrequently as did the Convention. The only excep­ tions to this lack of continuity were in the acting committee and the treasury. The acting committee, as has been seen, was dominated by

Philadelphians. PAS members Thomas Pym Cope and Timothy Paxson, for example, both served on the committee from 1805 to 1815, a period when only one other member, Joseph Bringhurst, Jr. of Delaware, served more than one term. The acting committee, however, served only to implement policy and could not by itself provide continuity in policy-making.

The treasury remained firmly in the hands of Cope, a prominent Philadel­ phia Quaker merchant, from 1803 until Joseph Lea of the PAS replaced him in 1817.

Not only did the officers change with each convention, problem enough, but the delegates were a revolving cast, too. The deleterious effect on the Convention of this ever-changing makeup of the various delegations was evident in the consideration given to a general plan 108

for abolition in 1804 and 1805. The delegates at the 1804 gathering

appointed eight members to explore the possibility of adopting a general

plan of gradual emancipation for the nation. They were instructed to

examine whether colonization might be the best means to accomplish eman­ cipation, and, with the Convention's customary caution, to determine whether this was a proper time for the Convention to consider the matter 13 at all. Two delegates from each of the four societies present, in­ cluding Delaware's entire delegation of Dr. John Vaughan and Joseph

Bringhurst, Jr., were named to consider the proposal.

The committee's report at the next convention in 1805 was an ex­ ercise in futility. Only two of the committee members, Bringhurst and

Cope, were present as delegates. They reported feeling ill-suited to

speak for the committee, not having fully exchanged sentiments with

their colleagues. They further observed that they found the whole ques­

tion of emancipation "so complex, and affecting so great a variety of

interests and passions," and felt they needed such a detailed knowledge

of "customs, laws, and conditions of the people of the southern states,"

that they could not present any plan for gradual abolition. Later

abolitionists would struggle against the enormity of what they objecti­

fied as the slave power. Gradual emancipationists in the Jeffersonian period had not yet made this objectification. They felt enervated not by slavery's power but by its complexity. The Cope-Bringhurst remarks

reveal the tendency of the philanthropist-abolitionists, mostly Quakers

as were Cope and Bringhurst, to see slavery in the nation as a legal

reality, composed of an impenetrable jungle of laws and codes, as well

as a moral blight. Holding this view of slavery. Cope and Bringhurst, 109 in the absence of support from their fellow comnittee members, under­ standably shrank from attempting a full report of vdiat general emanci­ pation would entail. They also rightly perceived that this country of states, each with its own laws and customs regarding slavery, was not ready for such a plan. But had the country been ready, and had a simple plan seemed feasible, the Convention was not strong enough to act. It had made a constitution, but its organization under that constitution was a weak reed, so weak that by 1806 the Convention’s very existence was called into question.

In 1806 the Pennsylvania Abolition Society questioned the viabili­ ty of the American Convention. In its address to the Convention that year, the society, while acknowledging the efforts of the Convention to stir up abolitionist sentiment in the South, lamented that those efforts had been unavailing. Ihe PAS argued that corporate, public measures, the very measures for vhich the Convention had been created and vhich it had from its inception encouraged, had proved both unpopular and un­ workable in the South. It had proved necessary, the society pointed out, to adopt in the South the alternative tactic of "individual inter­ ference as particular urgencies require." PAS members, as usual, be­ lieved this less confrontational route best, indicating it would prob­ ably lead to a "gradual change in public sentiment." They added that it most certainly would be "unopposed by the clamour \diich a more system­ atic course may invite." All this being true, they queried, might not the expenses incurred in the Convention's sessions be spent better in other ways?^^ 110

The clear message in Pennsylvania's abrupt proposal was that the society viewed southern abolitionism as the linchpin for the abolition­ ist endeavor nationally. The failure of the Convention substantially to assist the southern societies, or to develop any workable plan of gradual emancipation that would affect the South left little reason for its existence in the eyes of the PAS.

This move to disband the Convention represented both an emotional response to the series of failures in expanding antislavery from its

Middle Atlantic, Quaker-dominated base, and a pragmatic decision on the part of the PAS to stop playing host to, and paying the bills for, a re­ gional convention composed of societies that could find less formal and perhaps more effective ways to cooperate. The other societies, however, needed the alliance with the PAS, and in this instance demonstrated that they could act independently of the Philadelphians. They refused to join the PAS in dissolving the Convention. The delegates did unani­ mously approve amending the constitution to provide for triennial con­ ventions, the next one to convene in Philadelphia in 1809.^^ In doing so, they reinforced the tendency evidenced in Pennsylvania's request to withdraw into local concerns and solutions in the wake of the demise of southern abolitionism, and to allow the South to go its own way.

The movement to triennial conventions was a move certain to de­ crease the strength and visibility of the American Convention and to place more responsibility for national action on the state and local societies. Pennsylvania'a action in seeking the end of the Convention demonstrated anew that the Convention was, as historian Thomas Robert

Moseley said, "almost wholly dependent upon the state and local Ill 18 societies for any effective translation of desire into fact." As the agent of the abolition societies, the Convention was dependent on their good will for its very existence, and effective only \dien they carried out its directions. This was nowhere more true than in the instance of

the Congressional debate on the slave trade.

The decision of the Convention to postpone its next gathering un­

til 1809 represented a conscious choice by the delegates to abandon any

Convention role in reopening the national debate on slavery and to place

the responsibility on the local societies. The delegates were aware

that in the interim between conventions Congress would debate article

I, section 9 of the United States Constitution, prohibiting Congress

from interfering in the slave trade prior to 1808. The 1806 convention did adopt a resolution urging state societies to memorialize Congress

to prohibit the foreign slave trade after 1807. Missing, however, was

any provision by the Convention for coordinating the memorials, or for

actively lobbying Congress. The Convention did not even prepare a memo- 19 rial on the subject.

In thus handing back to their state and local societies the re­

sponsibility for memorializing Congress on ending the slave trade, the

delegates tacitly accepted that those states where societies were ac­

tive, only a handful in 1806, would be heard from, vhile states vhere

societies were inactive or non-existent would remain silent. Certainly

no national voice, the establishment of which was the primary reason

for the founding of the Convention twelve years previous, would be

heard. The delegates in 1806 probably realized that even were they to

organize a national petitioning campaign, it would have little effect. 112

They would get only as much cooperation as abolition societies were willing to give. The Convention had no power to effect anything greater, and so the delegates chose in 1806 to meet less frequently and

to adopt a less forceful role. They made no mention of the domestic

slave trade as a logical target for their attention once the interna­

tional trade was extinguished. Their forays into attempting to assist

southern abolition societies and their sense of the overwhelming com­ plexity of the institution they were committed to eradicate sobered the

Convention delegates and left them ready to pursue achievable victo-

ries.20

Ironically, the ending of the foreign slave trade proved to be

just such an achievable victory. For this victory, however, unlike the

slave trade act of 1794, the Convention could take no share of the

credit. Congress began consideration of abolishing the importation of

slaves in December 1806. Bills arising out of President Jefferson's

recommendation to end the trade moved steadily through both houses, be­

ing passed in the House on 13 February 1807 and formally enacted as 21 law on 2 March. Had the Convention not acted to institute triennial

conventions, its annual session would have fallen at the time of the

Congressional debate on the trade.

The Convention, at the request of the Rhode Island society, had

memorialized Congress in 1806 asking for improvement of an 1800 law

that gave a ship confiscated in illegal trade to the informer who ini­

tiated the action against the trader. Originally seen as having poten­

tial financial benefits for the abolition societies, vhich often were

the informers, the intent of the law had been frustrated by friends 113

indicting friends when seizure was near so as not to lose the ship.

The Convention requested that at least part of the condemned article go

to the United States government, thus ensuring a financial loss to the illegal traders. The law of 1807 provided for forfeiture of the entire vessel and cargo to the United States. The difficult question of vhat

to do with confiscated slaves was resolved with a compromise that pro­ vided for their disposal according to local law. On this question, on vhich northern opinion was strong that forfeiture to the United States for disposal would place the country in the role of slaveholder, the 22 Convention and the abolition societies were silent.

The forfeiture question was not the only subject on \diich the abolition societies failed to come forward. The societies did not mem­ orialize Congress on the slave trade at all, the swift Congressional action precluding their submitting petitions. A committee of the New

York society charged wLtii memorializing Congress on the subject reported

in January 1807 that since Congress was already acting to end the slave

trade it was unnecessary to send a memorial. The New Jersey society's 23 intention to petition was similarly pre-empted. The swift Congress­ ional action against the slave trade gave the abolitionists reason to rejoice. They saw in it confirmation of their willingness to trust in gradual legal improvements as the path to eventual abolition. The New

York society praised the "promptitude" of Congress in acting against

the slave trade, calling it "unequivocal proof of the justice and be­ nevolence of our government.

Not everything about the ending of the slave trade gave the NYMS cause for joy, however. National victory led to local trouble in New 114

York, as public celebration by New York blacks of the ending of the slave trade caused embarrassment for the abolitionists. As self- appointed caretakers of free blacks, abolitionists felt rewarded when blacks showed enterprise and exhibited virtue. When blacks misbehaved, without fail the abolitionists received censure. When New York blacks took to the streets in orchestrated celebrations of the trade's ending in 1808, public wrath was vented on the abolitionists.

A committee on black morals of the NYMS proposed in April 1808 calling together "a number of the most serious and influential characters among the People of Color" to meet with the ccxnmittee to discuss "dis- or orderly and riotous conduct of some of their Colour." There is nothing to indicate the source of the abolitionists' displeasure, as any untoward action by blacks called forth this kind of reaction. In this instance it appears that it was the public celebration that prompted the commit­ tee action. The picture is clearer in 1809. A committee of six NYMS members was given the specific task of informing blacks in the city

"that their method of celebrating the abolition of the Slave Trade was improper, in as much as it tended in injure themselves and cause re­ flections to be made on this Society." [Italics mine] The society urged discontinuing both "their processions and Politicks in their Ora­ tions. The committee reported in January 1810 that it had met with the organizers of the public demonstration and other influential black leaders, but had failed to dissuade them. The organizers told the com­ mittee they had incurred considerable expense in providing standards for the procession and "could not think of relinquishing their proposed 27 method of celebrating the day." There is no further record on the 115 subject. The society apparently backed down, as early abolitionists often did \dien faced with black intransigence, and awaited more of the calumny it received whenever blacks went public.

This affair was symbolic of an increasing preoccupation by the abolition societies in New York and Philadelphia with problems caused by growing numbers of free blacks, runaways, and illegally-released slaves inhabiting their cities. Blacks in early nineteenth-century

American cities were undoubtedly invisible in the ways Ralph Ellison would later describe, but their increasing numbers made them all-to- OO visible to the white populations of Philadelphia and New York.

The Pennsylvania society found that as news spread of its work on behalf of blacks, especially in gaining freedom for slaves illegally held, freed blacks flocked to Philadelphia. But the Philadelphia abolitionists complained that too many of the new arrivals "served only to swell the list of our criminals and augment the catalogue of our pau- 2Q pers." The NYMS described cases of slaves of diminished economic value being illegally brought into New York, there "to become the sub­ jects of our charitable institutions. ..." New York was, in the words of the NYMS, becoming "crowded with People of Color," something aboli­ tionists, for all their concern for the plight of blacks, did not wish 30 to see.

The free black population in New York and Philadelphia grew dra­ matically from 1800 to 1820. In New York City and County the free black population tripled . during these years, growing from 3,499 in 1800 to

8,137 in 1810 and to 10,568 in 1820.^^ In Philadelphia free blacks ir creased from 4,210 in 1800 to 6,352 in 1810 and 7,579 by 1820. This 116 growth was not uniform throughout the cities. The influx of blacks into the southern wards of Philadelphia led to ' greater concentrations

there than in other city sections. Cedar Ward was in 1800 the fourth

largest ward in the city, with 3,578 residents, 833 of idicm were free blacks. By 1810 Cedar was the largest ward, its population having in­ creased by 86% to 6,664. In the same ten years free blacks in the ward

increased by 108% to 1,779. By 1820 free blacks, who had constituted

23% of the ward's population in 1800, made up 27% of vhat continued as

the city's largest ward. They had accounted for nearly 30% of the

growth since 1800. In Locust Ward similar increases in free black pop­

ulation had by 1820 helped it become the city's second largest ward.

The free black population had been 16% of the ward's total in 1800. By

1820 the figure was 24% and blacks had accounted for 27% of Locust

Ward's population growth in the twenty years. By comparison, free

blacks were 10% of the Philadelphia city population in 1800, rose to

12% in 1810, and remained at 12% in 1820.^^

Others besides the abolitionists noticed the growing numbers of free blacks. In 1813 a complaint registered in the Pennsylvania House claimed that blacks were becoming nuisances and asked the sale of blacks convicted of crimes and a tax on blacks for the support of their own poor. The complaint gave the number of "people of colour" resident in

Philadelphia as 9,762, an exaggerated figure that the Pennsylvania Abo­

lition Society contested. The complaint further charged that there were

4,000 additional runaway blacks in the city. The PAS responded with a

letter in defense of blacks, and in a memorial to the legislature de­

plored any legislation aimed at one group as contrary to republican aims. 117

The society reported to the American Convention in 1815 that to its re- 33 lief this proposed legislation had not passed.

The PAS memorial of 1813 had acknowledged, however, the presence of crime in the black population of Philadelphia. As the numbers of blacks increased in Philadelphia and New York, abolitionists worried about their conduct, as the episode of the slave trade demonstration shows. The abolitionists, realizing they could not become the legal de­ fenders for this growing population, stepped up their efforts in educa­ tion and instruction in moral improvement in the hope of forestalling

\diat they feared was impending disaster. One reason for the less fre­ quent meetings of the American Convention during the period of the tri­ ennial conventions was this increased concentration by the abolition societies in New York and Philadelphia on education for blacks. As the

Pennsylvania society intimated in 1806 in calling for an end to Conven­ tion sessions, it had limited financial resources. As concern for black education, vhich the society was coming to regard as its most important enterprise, grew, interest in the less visible need for interstate co­ operation and national action decreased.

This emphasis on education for blacks grew out of the traditional

Quaker concern for education, a concern furthered by the Convention's continued urgings for the state and local societies to institute schools for blacks and to counsel them on morals. Also important, however, in the intensified interest in education in these years was the desire of the abolitionists to protect the reputations of their societies, reputa­ tions endangered both by the growing numbers of blacks and by the bad behavior of some. As the Pennsylvania society observed, "as the 118 burthen of caring for blacks increased, the reputation of our institu­ tion diminished.

Faced, then, with the decline of southern antislavery, the neces­ sity of educating and providing moral training for growing numbers of blacks in the urban areas, the declining interest in the question of slavery in the nation coupled with declining activity in some of the oldest abolition societies, and the apparent victory in ending the slave trade, the societies turned inward. The New York Manumission Society, after expressing graditude for the abolition of the foreign slave trade in its 1809 address, indicated that a more immediate concern was melio­ rating the laws of the state of New York, where slavery had not been fully abolished and where infringements on black rights persisted. The society announced a victory in a law enacted in the New York legislature in 1808 providing stiff penalties for kidnapping free blacks, and de­ clared "the first object is to give perfection to our statutes regula­ ting slavery, and the next to see their emancipating provisions strictly and equitably enforced."

Attention to these local and state agendas and to preserving the local influence of the societies took precedence over national action in the years of the triennial conventions. The abolition societies did not escape the influence of the Jeffersonian emphasis on local sovereignty and the accompanying turning away from the national solutions favored by the Federalists. What national interest there was centered on the con­ flicts with the French and the British. Preoccupation with these con­ flicts and the resultant War of 1812 further reduced interest in slavery as a national issue and reinforced the abolitionists' tending of home 119

fires.

Neither the 1809 nor the 1812 conventions took action of a nation­

al nature. One aborted action of the 1809 convention is noteworthy.

Near the end of the session a Democratic delegate from the Delaware so­ ciety proposed sending a complimentary address to Thomas Jefferson.

The address was intended to request Jefferson, upon leaving the Presi­ dency, to 'use his influence among his fellow citizens to promote a grad­ ual abolition of slavery.' Thomas Pym Cope, a staunch Federalist vdio was suffering financially from Jefferson's embargo, moved to amend the resolution by adding, 'and that he set them a laudable example by manu­ mitting his oivn slaves. ' Cope said this provoked a heated discussion, which ended with his amendment being approved. The proponents of the address then voted against the entire resolution and asked that the vhole matter be struck from the minutes. As this episode, vdiich was not published due to the request and to the Convention's ongoing desire to demonstrate unanimity to the public, suggests, political divisions with- in the Convention undoubtedly hampered its effectiveness as well.

The Convention's directives to the societies in 1809 and 1812 en­ couraged primarily local activities. In 1809 the Convention advised vigilance on kidnapping and the publication of works advocating gradual and general emancipation. Their eusternary counsel to promote education, based on the best charity school theory of the day, stressed teaching blacks to read so they would leam the Scriptures for "moral and divine truth" and to do arithmetic for the "common concerns of life." In 1812

New York did request that the Convention draft a memorial to Congress requesting that complainants in slave trading cases receive a greater 120 share of the forfeiture amounts than the 1807 law had allowed, but no 37 action was taken.

Poor attendance at the conventions of 1809, 1812, and 1815-16, coupled with the reports from the participating societies of weakness in their ranks, gives evidence of the lack of vitality in the entire abolition movement in these years of national unrest. In both 1809 and

1812 the first day of the convention was lost due to lack of a quorum to conduct business. In 1815 only Pennsylvania's hometown delegation appeared, and they postponed the Convention's meeting until January

1816. The start of the postponed session in 1816 was delayed two days until a quorum arrived. When delegates were in place, customarily at­ tendance was low. Only fifteen delegates from the four active societies in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware were present in

1809. Eleven delegates were present in 1812, with Delaware not repre­ sented. Fourteen delegates from New York, Pennsylvania, and Delaware attended the 1816 sessions. The four societies that maintained the

Convention were struggling themselves, and the Delaware and New Jersey

00 societies experienced severe difficulties during these years.

The Delaware Abolition Society at Wilmington had always represen­ ted the northern section of the state, efforts at establishing an abo­ litionist witness in the lower counties of Kent and Sussex having proved failures following Kent resident Warner Mifflin's death in 1798. These counties were dominated by Methodists who after an initial antislavery response in the 1780s had settled into an uneasy alliance with slave- holding. Between 1804 and 1807 society members cooperated whenever the

American Convention solicited their help, contributing to the assistance 121 fund, convening blacks to hear the Convention'*s addresses, and attempt­ ing to educate blacks. In 1806 they not only sent delegates to the Con­ vention but enjoined them to be punctual in attendance during the vdiole 39 meeting.

After 1807, however, as historian Monte Calvert noted, enthusiasm waned. It would be easy to link this decline to a relaxation resulting from the end of the international slave trade. Signs of trouble in the

Delaware society began late in 1804, however, vdien society members began to absent themselves from regularly scheduled quarterly meetings, result­ ing in increasingly frequent calls for special meetings. By early 1806 complaints about these irregular meetings were voiced at a stated meet­ ing. When attendance did not improve, the society considered incorpora­ tion as a means to enact stricter rules on attendance. The Delaware society's hastily prepared address to the 1809 American Convention com­ plained of little success in education or in acquiring agents in the

South to pursue kidnapping cases. That year the society discontinued the first-day school for blacks it had operated since 1804. For most of

1810 meetings could not be held due to lack of attendance.

The society held several meetings in 1811, almost all of them called to consider the testimony of George Hand, Jr., owner of the ship

Pennsylvania, vÆio was accused of illegally transporting blacks from New

Castle, Delaware to Charleston, S.C. The society originally supported its acting committee in action taken against Hand, but after hearing his voluntary testimony, decided he was innocent. Hand's acquittal repre­ sented a blow to the acting committee, and the entire case was a great waste of time for the society. After the final meeting to consider 122

Hand's testimony, the society did not meet again for three years, and

then only in special session to determine not to send representatives to

the American Convention in 1815.^^

At a stated meeting held on 21 January 1815 the society decided to

dissolve.

The existence of the Association is not of sufficient benefit to induce the further continuance thereof; but on the contrary, rather hurtful to the cause of general emancipation by holding up the idea that there is an organized body idiich will see that the laws in favor of Liberty, as far as they go, will be executed. . . .

ïhe members avowed such was not the case, "it being out of our power in

the existing state of the public mind to do anything effectual," and

decided dissolving was the only honest thing to do.^^

Having agreed to dissolve, DAS members then exhibited their split

mind by proceeding to elect officers. The society, dead by its own ad­

mission, did not disband, and in 1815 sent delegates to the American

Convention, agreeing to pay stage fare to permit them to attend. The

society's address to the Convention in 1816 announced that some younger

men had joined with the older leaders in reactivating the society and

that the society had opened a school for blacks. The society continued

to function, ‘operating a school for blacks and sending delegates to the

Convention until its dissolution in 1828.^^

The New Jersey Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery had

from its beginnings in 1793 been the only society that could pretend to

represent the state vdiose name it bore. Ten societies had met to form

the state society and for most of its existence its county organizations were the strongest of the four active societies in the American Conven­

tion. Until its activity effectively ended in 1809, however, its most 123 active branches were those located in a line from Wilmington, Delaware to New York City in areas where slavery was not firmly entrenched; in

Gloucester and Salem counties between Wilmington and Philadelphia; at

Burlington and Trenton, near Philadelphia; and in Middlesex and Essex counties near New York. The Burlington society, closely related to the

Pennsylvania Abolition Society, had been the chief society in the foun­ ding of the NJAS, and remained its strongest constituent. After the formation of a society in Trenton in 1802, Friends meeting houses there and in Burlington became alternating sites for the annual meeting of the 44 state society.

The society experienced success in 1804 vdien its memorial to the

New Jersey state legislature resulted in the act that provided for gra­ dual abolition in New Jersey.By 1806, however, only four societies

(Burlington, Trenton, Gloucester, and Rahway) of the original ten that formed the state association continued to be represented at the annual meeting. Important items that the society once had considered such as education for blacks and proposed incorporation for the society were dropped from the agenda because of the "general state of the society."

For the same reason, the society declined to act on the American Conven­ tion's suggestion to procure southern agents.

The New Jersey society was a microcosm of the American Convention, in that the weakness of the parent body resulted from the weakness of its members. The Burlington County Society could not even appoint offi­ cers in 1807, complaining of "such indifference which, if continued, must result in a dissolution of the Society.Their representatives at the state meeting that year were volunteers who did not want to see 124 the society go unrepresented.

Financial difficulties resulting from costs involved in prosecuting freedom cases and from internal mismanagement depleted the state treasury ty 1808.^® The delegates at the 1808 annual meeting submitted a terse report to the American Convention, indicating little progress in any area, and remarking, not very helpfully, that vdiile "several persons" had been freed by their agency since 1806, they could not give the num- 49 her. The NJAS annual meeting of 1808 also voted to change the annual meetings to the same triennial pattern adopted by the American Conven­ tion, and in 1809 this was written into the society's constitution.^^

With this change, the minutes of the society end, as did the society for all practical purposes. The Burlington society fulfilled its woeful prophecy of two years earlier by also dissolving.

The New Jersey society was represented at the 1812 American Con­ vention only because the Trenton society sent two last-minute delegates.

The Trenton society lamented that zeal among the county societies had

"so far abated" that no regular meeting of the state society had been held and no special meeting could be called because of the late notice of the American Convention meeting. The Trenton group expressed

"strong hope our state Society will be reanimated," a hope never real­

ized.

Not all was discouragement for the abolitionists in these years, however dreary the picture became in New Jersey and Delaware, and however parochial were the concerns of the societies in New York and Philadel­

phia. Word came to the Pennsylvania Abolition Society in 1809 that the

Kentucky Abolition Society had formed at Frankfort in May 1808. 125

Carter Tarrant, the president of the fledgling society, the first state society created since the 1790s, observed it would need help in per­ severing in slave territory. Acknowledging that "we vdio have been brought up among the horrors of slavery have made but poor proficency

[sic] in the princables (sic] of humanity," he requested the encourage- 53 ment of the PAS via correspondence.

The formation of an abolition society in Kentucky gave abolition­ ists in the East hope for the renascence of southern antislavery. The

Pennsylvania Abolition Society had hoped for the formation of a Kentucky society for some time, and had, in fact, believed one formed in the

1790s. David Rice, the prominent Presbyterian minister and antislavery advocate, had expressed hope in 1794 that an abolition society might be formed in his state. Rice, who had forcefully urged the Kentucky state­ hood convention not to allow slavery, recognized the difficulties en­ tailed in such a proposal and knew that something more than Enlighten­ ment rationality would be needed to sway Kentuckians.^^

We have been endeavouring to form a society in this state for the purpose of cotranunicating light, spreading information, on the subject; but find it difficult to get any number of weighty influ­ ential characters to engage in this business. The methodists, I believe, are generally friends to freedom; the Presbyterian minis­ ters, and I believe a large majority of the people are on the same side: the Baptists have a number among them \dio possess many slaves; and they are too great politions [politicians] to see with moral eyes: On this subject I- apprehend they have reasoned them­ selves in a kind of belief that black is vdiite. But on the vdiole we stand in more need of something to awaken the conscience than to inform the understanding.

Rice indicated he hoped to have a society formed in a few weeks, composed of persons of "low or . . . middling circumstances."^^

In 1797 Rice communicated to the PAS that his hope had proved

"abortive" due to opposition and limited interest. He said that 126

antislavei^ advocates in Kentucky had postponed forming an abolition

society lest it alarm slaveholders and weaken abolitionist influence in

a hoped-for state convention on the slavery issue.By 1799, the

second Kentucky constitutional convention having re-adopted the consti­

tutional article on slavery, Rice again was ready to consider such a so­ ciety. He described vhat a successful society in Kentucky would look

like, and in doing so fairly described the societies then in existence.

An abolition society established upon good principles, & conducted with prudence; it's [sic] main object being the communication of information on the subject of Slavery, and the redressing of the grievances of those \dio are held in illegal bondage, I should think might answer valuable purposes. Great care however should be taken never to interfere with civil government.

When the Kentucky Abolition Society was formed in 1808, it met most of Rice's criteria, adopting a program similar to those of the eastern

societies. The constitution called for the pursuit of measures tending

to the abolition of slavery in a manner consistent with the Kentucky con­ stitution and laws, memorializing and petitioning vÆiere appropriate. It called for instruction of free Negroes designed "to inculate morality,

industry, and economy among them," and protection of the rights of free blacks.It also spoke out against the domestic slave trade, something the established societies had been quiet about.

Ironically, although the KAS fulfilled Rice's vision of \diat an abolition society should be, it was founded by Baptists, the group he had found least supportive of abolition in the 1790s. The society, vdiich numbered about fifty members at its inception, was composed in large part of members of the Baptized Licking Locust Association, Friends of Humanity, and had in the Reverend David Barrow, a prominent Baptist 127 59 minister, one of its leading figures. As might be expected, the rules of decorum needed to keep these Kentucky Baptists at their task differed

from those required by the more refined eastern societies. KAS members were enjoined from laughing during meetings and from vAiispering vdiile others were talking.

The PAS wrote to the Kentucky society to express satisfaction at

the announcement of the society's formation, and to give the main aims of the Pennsylvania society since its inception, undoubtedly meaning

these to serve as a model for the new society. In its role as semi­ official correspondent for the American Convention, the PAS also invited a Kentucky delegation to attend the next convention in 1812. But the distance to Philadelphia, a factor that had limited attendance of soci­ eties closer than Kentucky's, was an absolute hindrance to societies formed beyond the Appalachians. Although the Convention took heart at the formation of the Kentucky society, the society never sent delegates to the Convention. It did, however, periodically report its activities through 1821. The society dissolved in 1827.^^

Although the American Convention did not reap any direct benefit from the Kentucky society, its creation did provide one of the few bright spots in vAiat were dreary years for the abolitionists. The Delaware society, just barely alive in 1816, could find little to rejoice about in looking back over the preceding twenty years of abolitionism in Dela­ ware. The members described a feeling of "gloom vdiich is the consequence of disappointment and defeat," and reflected ironically on the "just anticipation of speedy success" they once had held. What they saw around them in 1816 gave them little hope for a better future. Their members 128 had deserted, and slave traffic and violations had increased because there was no opposition to stop them. Even judges and lawyers formerly associated with the society had "accepted fees to plead against the in- nocent, and to advocate the cause of the oppressor." How widespread this desertion was is not known. Even if minor, however, its effect on the sensitive abolitionists would have been, as the DAS complaint sug­ gests, extremely demoralizing.

Not all vjho attended the postponed session of the American Conven­ tion in 1816 were as gloomy as the Delaware contingent, however. The end of the War of 1812 marked a resurgence in American pride that even the sometimes pessimistic abolitionists could share. This renewed na­ tionalism was a hopeful omen that the "dark age" of the young abolition movement was ending. The American pledge in the Treaty of Ghent to co­ operate with the European powers in extinguishing the international slave trade buoyed the spirits of the delegates. Requests that came to the abolition societies from southern slaveholders for assistance in emancipating their slaves gave the abolitionists hope that they were seeing the beginning of a genuine desire, if not to end slavery, at least to meliorate the condition of the slaves.

The Treaty of Ghent also reopened the possibility of westward migration, and if this was to prove of greatest interest to northern and southern farmers and to southern slaveholders, it was not without importance to the eastern abolitionists as well. In the frontier they saw a potential solution to the problems arising from vdiat they believed was a too-rapid growth of the black population in the eastern cities.

Rather than continue to flock to northern cities, blacks freed in the 129 future could migrate to their own western territory, thus preventing

"the injury of the mixture of too large a proportion of such persons a- mongst the white people of our country," vhile at the same time providing

"undera suitable government, for the civilization, improvement and hap­ piness of them, and their posterity/' In a memorial to Congress in which the Convention complained of violations of the slave trade act of 1807 and urged stiffer penalties for kidnappers of slaves, it requested that land be set aside "for the colonization of legally emancipated blacks."

Such a measure would, the memorial claimed, "redound no less to the r g honour than to the security and welfare of the community."

Thus, prior to Robert Finley's launching of the American Coloniza­ tion Society late in 1816, the American Convention had gone on record as favoring the colonization of blacks.The Convention memorial speci­ fied establishment of a colony in the western territory of the United

States, but the delegates demonstrated an openness to exploring other locations vhen they authorized the acting committee to open a correspon­ dence with the African Institution in London "on the interesting subject of providing some asylum for emancipated people of colour.Their motives in pursuing colonization were mixed. As the Delaware society demonstrated, the abolitionists were frustrated with the inability of the national and state governments to enforce the ban on the foreign slave trade and to protect blacks from kidnapping. The unwillingness of southern states to allow freed blacks to remain within their boundaries meant that, even if the abolitionists were successful in promoting manu­ missions, increasing numbers of blacks migrating northward would cause a greater drain on the abolition societies' already oversubscribed 130 services. Given the hostility of their fellow-citizens to an increased presence of blacks, the abolitionists could predict the censure that, with emancipation, awaited blacks and those who proclaimed themselves friends of blacks. And, the abolitionists were uncomfortable, just as were other vdiites, with the prospect of large numbers of blacks living as their near neighbors. Colonization on the frontier or abroad seemed a ready-made solution to an increasingly complex conundrum, and the Ameri­ can Convention seized on it, as would many other vhite Americans and not a few blacks. It was a decision the Convention came to regret. Coloni­ zation turned out to be a Pandora's box for the abolition movement— full of premise, but once opened, a nightmare that would divide the movement and end hope for the success of gradual abolition. 131

CHAPTER III FOOTNOTES

le New Jersey society effectively ended in 1809 and was not represented in the American Convention after 1812. 2 Presidents of the Convention elected from the PAS included Wal­ ter Franklin, 1803-4; Timothy Paxson, 1809-12; John Sergeant, 1811-16; James Milnor, 1816-17; Richard Peters, Jr., 1817-21. Other presidents included Matthew Franklin of the NYMS, 1804-5, and Gershom Craft of the New Jersey society, 1805-9. Beginning in 1809, PAS members held the presidency until the dissolution of the Convention. 3 American Convention Minutes, 1803; 25 (1: 291); 1805-17 passim; 1817: 34 (2: 598). New York Manumission Society members, although occasionally appointed to the acting ccxranittee, were effectively ruled out of participation by their distance from Philadelphia.

^NYMS Papers, 9: 57 (17 March 1801 and 19 May 1801).

^In addition, although the PAS sought the dissolution of the Con­ vention in 1806, effective control of the American Convention gave the a raison d'etre in the years vdien its own activities lacked direc­ tion. See Zilversmit, The First Bnancipation, 206.

^American Convention Minutes, 1803: 30 (1: 296).

^American Convention Minutes, 1805: 43 (1: 393). The printed minutes incorrectly identified Judge David Howell, a founder of the Rhode Island society, as Daniel Howel. g Wiecek, The Sources of^tislavery Constitutionalism, 85; Zilver­ smit, The First Emancipation, 206. g James F. Reilly, "The Providence Abolition Society," Rhode Island History 21 (April 1962): 48. ------

^^American Convention Minutes, 1804:28 (1: 328): 1805 : 40 (1: 390); 1806: 25 (2: 425). ------

^^A formal name given to the committee to consider the objects proper for the consideration of the Convention. 12 American Convention Minutes, 1804: 1824 (1: 318-24). 13 This marks the first mention by the Convention of colonization as a means of dealing with freed blacks. See Chapter V for a full treatment of the Convention and colonization.

^^American Convention Minutes, 1804: 21 (1: 321).

^^American Convention Minutes, 1805: 31 (1: 381). 132

^^American Convention Minutes, 1806: 12 (2: 412).

^^American Convention Minutes, 1806: 25-26 (2: 425-26). 18 Thomas Robert Moseley, "A History of the New-York Manumission Society, 1785-1849" (Ph.D. dissertation. New York University, 1963), 301.

^^American Convention Minutes, 1806 : 26 (2: 426). The Convention did send a memorial to Congress urging alterations in a law of 1800 re­ garding penalties for slave trading. Minutes, 1806: 29-33 (2: 429-33). 20 It is possible the societies hesitated to act on the slave trade partially out of fear of British interference. The London society was pressuring the American abolitionists to advocate British aid in enforc­ ing the law of 1794 banning use of U.S. ports for slave trading. London Society to PAS, 4 June 1806, PAS Collection, Reel 12. 21 Annals of Congress, 9 Cong. 2 sess., esp. 19, 45, 68, 87, 113, 151, 190, 2±8, 486-87V The act is at 1266-70. 22 Annals of Congress, 9 Cong. 2 sess., 992-93. American Conven­ tion Minutes, l806: 29-33 (2: 429-33). The House amendment that would have done away with forfeiture to the United States was lost 28 December 1806. Annals, 9 Cong. 2 sess., 228.

^^NYMS Papers, 9: 162, 164 (11 November 1806, 13 January 1807); American Convention Minutes, 1809: 13 (2: 455). There is reason to ques­ tion New Jersey's report; severe local problems dominated the society's attention in this period. There is no record in the minutes of the so­ ciety of its intention to memorialize Congress. ^^American Convention Minutes, 1809: 8 (2; 450).

^^NYMS Papers, 9: 181 (12 April 1808).

^^NYMS Papers, 9: 223 (14 November 1809).

^^NYMS Papers, 9: 231 (9 January 1810). 28 The novel Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (New York: Random House, 1948) is a story of a young black man's search for identity in the United States of the twentieth century. 9Q American Convention Minutes, 1809: 16 (2: 458).

^^NYMS Papers, 9; 201 (10 January 1809).

^"hhe census records do not differentiate free blacks from other unidentified free persons until 1820. Therefore, the numbers of free blacks given here may be slightly inflated. However, free blacks made 133 up the vast majority of unidentified free persons in 1800 and 1810, and the impact of the increase remains the same. If in fact there were somewhat fewer free blacks in 1800 and 1810 than listed here, the in­ crease to the figures of 1820 would have been even more dramatic. 32 Return of the Whole Number of Persons within the Several Dis­ tricts of the United States (Washington, D.C.; Duane, 1801); Aggregate Amount of Persons Within the United States in the Year 1810 (W^hington, b.c.; 1811); Census for 1820 (Washington, D.C.; Gales and Seaton. 1821). The growth of the black population in Philadelphia and New York from 1800 to 1820 was a continuation of a trend that saw the black proportion of the population in both cities double in the period from the early 1770s to 1800. Gary B. Nash, "Forging Freedom: The Emancipation Exper­ ience in the Northern Seaport Cities, 1775-1820," in Ira Berlin and Ron­ ald Hoffman, eds.. Slavery and Freedom in the Age of the American Revolu­ tion, Perspectives on the American Revolution Series, eds. Ronald Hoffman and Peter J. Albert (Charlottesville, Va.: University Press of Virginia for the United States Capitol Historical Society, 1983), 6 . 33 Pennsylvania Abolition Society Minute book, vol. 2, 1800-1824, pp. 181-84 (13 Harch 1813), PAS Collection, Reel 1; American Convention Minutes, 1816; 7 (2: 531). For amore detailed account, see Zilversmit, The First Emancipation, 207.

^^American Convention Minutes, 1809: 16 (2: 458). 35 American Convention Minutes, 1809: 7-8 (2; 449-50). James Wil­ son told Roberts Vaux in 1813 that there was little hope that antislavery petitioning in the Congress would meet with any success, because "the table of each House is covered with an immense load of business arising out of the unfortunate situation of our country [War of 1812] that will unquestionably claim and receive a preference. Wilson to Vaux, 18 February 1813, Roberts Vaux Papers, HSP.

Thomas P. Cope, Philadelphia MercMnt: The Diary of Thomas P. Cope, 1800-1851, ed. Eliza Cope Harrison (South Bend, Indiana: Gateway Editions, 1978), 234. On Cope and the embargo, see ibid., p. 36.

^^American Convention Minutes, 1809: 29 (2: 471); 1812: 9-10 (2: 485-86). On the charity schools, see Ellwood P. Cubberley, A Brief History of Mucation: A History of the Practice and Progress and Organi­ zation of Education (Cambridge, Mass.: Riverside Press. Houghton Mifflin Co., 1922;, 356-38. 38 American Convention Minutes, 1809, 1812, 1815, 1816 passim. 39 Abolition Society of Delaware Minute Book 1801-1819, PAS Collec­ tion, Reel 30: 5-6 (18 July 1801); 29 (28 April 1804); 31 (7 July 1804); 38 (27 April 1805); 41-42 (30 December 1805); 43 (8 January 1806). The Delaware society had been willing to do its part earlier, but lacked financial resources. Hereafter the Delaware society will be frequently 134 designated DAS in footnotes and in the text. On the Methodist adaptation to slavery in the early ninettnth century, see Donald G. Mathews, Slavery and Methodism; A Chapter in American Morality, 1780-1845 (Princeton, N.J.; Princeton University Press, 1^65), '7-29.

^^Calvert, "The Abolition Society of Delaware," 317; DAS Minutes, 34 (6 October 1804); 40 (17 August 1805).

^^DAS Minutes, 78-81 (3, 5, 7, 8 June 1811); 83 (24 December 1814).

^^DAS Minutes, 84 (21 January 1815).

^^DAS Minutes, 85-86 (1, 4 January 1816); American Convention Minutes, 1816: 19-20 (2: 543-44). The extant records of the Abolition Society of Delaware end with 1819. On the DAS school, see Chapter IV.

^^^NJAS Minutes, 63-64 (6 September 1802); 74-75 (28 September 1803).

^^NJAS Minutes, 74 (28 September 1803); American Convention Minutes, 1805; 10 (1: 360); Cooley, Slavery in New Jersey, 26/436. The memorial of the NJAS is reprinted in Clement Alexander Price, ed., Free­ dom Not Far Distant: A Documentary History of Afro-Americans in New Jersey INewark, N.J.: New Jersey Historical Societv. 1980). 77-79. The legislation, enacted 15 February 1804, is reprinted in American Conven­ tion Minutes, 1805: 45-47 (1: 395-97). See also Price, 79 ff.

^^NJAS Minutes, 103-4 (24 September 1806). Quote is on p. 103.

^^New Jersey Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, Bur­ lington County Branch Minutes 1793-1809: 58 (22 September 1807), Quaker Collection, Haverford College.

^^NJAS Minutes, 109-10 (28 September 1808). The Burlington County Branch also had no funds at this time. Burlington County Branch Minutes, 59 (19 September 1808). 49 American Convention Minutes, 1809: 15 (2: 455).

^^NJAS Minutes, 111 (28 September 1808); 113 (29 September 1809).

^^Samuel Paxson and James J. Wilson to American Convention, 6 June 1812, PAS Collection, Reel 29; American Convention Minutes, 1812: 12-13 (2: 488-89). ------52 Kentucky Abolition Society to PAS, 27 May 1809, PAS Collection, Reel 29; PAS Minute book, 2: 138 (2 October 1809), PAS Collection, Reel 1. Hereafter the Kentucky Abolition Society will be designated KAS in the footnotes and frequently in the text.

^^KAS to PAS, 27 May 1809, PAS Collection, Reel 29. 135

^^See David Rice, Slavery Inconsistent with Justice and Good Poli­ cy; Proved at a Speech Delivered in the Convention held at Danville, Kentucky (Philadelphia; Parry Hall, 1792), one of the most radical and widely-read antislavery pieces of its time. See Fladeland, Men and Brothers, 58-59.

^^David Rice to William Rogers, 4 November 1794, Cox-Parrish- Wharton Papers, 11: 99. The PAS reply to Rice is in William Rogers to Rice, 1795, Lyman Draper Mss. Hist. Miscel., 1, Wisconsin State Histori­ cal Library, partially reprinted in Asa Earl Martin, The Anti-Slavery Movement in Kentucky Prior to 1850, Filson Club Publications, No. 29 (Louisville, Ky. : Standard Publishing Co., 1918; reprint ed., Westport, Conn.: Negro Universities Press, 1970), 43.

^^David Rice to James Todd, 26 April 1797, PAS Collection, Reel 12.

^^"Letter of David Rice to Pennsylvania Abolition Society,” 11 De­ cember 1799, Shane Collection, Record Group 196, Box 1, Folder 12, Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia. For Rice’s role in early Kentucky antislavery, see Martin, The Anti-Slavery Movement in Kentucky, 12-42 and Wallace B. Turner, "Abolitionism in Kentucky,Register of the Kentucky Historical Society 69 (October 1971): 319. 58 Constitution of the Kentucky Abolition Society, PAS Collection, Reel 30; Martin, The Anti-Slavery Movement in Kentucky, 43. 59 Martin, The Anti-Slavery Movement in Kentucky, 42-46. Martin indicated the membership of the KAS in 1808 and after was unknown. Car­ ter Tarrant, KAS president, gave the membership as fifty in KAS to PAS, 27 May 1809, PAS Collection, Reel 29. Benjamin Lundy said the KAS had 250 members in five or six branches in 1822. He said the society was composed of Methodists, Presbyterians, Baptists, and New Lights (Church of Christ). Genius of Universal Bnancipation 1, no. 10 (April 1822), 150.

^^KAS Constitution, PAS Collection, Reel 30.

^^PAS to KAS, 30 October 1809, PAS Letterbook 1794-1809, PAS Col­ lection, Reel 11; American Convention Minutes, 1812: 16-17 (2: 492-93); 1818: 41-42 (2: 643-44); 1819: 29-30 (2: 703-4); American Convention acting committee minutes, 30 August 1821, p. 84, PAS Collection, Reel 27.

^^American Convention Minutes, 1816: 17-18 (2: 541-42).

^^American Convention Minutes, 1816: 32-33 (2: 556-57).

^^David Rice had foreseen the need for a western state for the colonization of blacks in 1794 and had encouraged the PAS to petition Congress for the creation of such a state. Rice to William Rogers, 4 November 1794, Cox-Parrish-Wharton Papers, 11: 99. Benjamin Rush had donated land in Cambria County in western Pennsylvania in 1804 for the 135 potential resettlement of blacks there. Benjamin Rush to PAS, 1 June 1804, Benjamin Rush Papers, 39: 64, HSP; this letter is also in PAS Collection, Reel 12.

^^American Convention Minutes, 1816: 33 (2: 557).

^^See Chapter V for a full treatment of the Convention's relation­ ship to colonization. .CHAPTER IV

'TO UNTIE THE GORDIAN KNOT' :

ABOLITIONIST EFFORTS TO PROTECT AND EDUCATE BLACKS

The American Convention from its inception held that gradual aboli­ tion was the best method to end slavery. Gradualism was at base an opti­ mistic philosophy, anchored in reason and a belief in human progress.

Often in the face of conflicting evidence, the early abolitionists clung to the conviction that with proper information and with time slaveholders would see the light and, at the least, facilitate manumissions. If abo­ litionists were convinced that slavery was wrong, they were equally con­ vinced that to end slavery precipitously would be only a lesser evil.

Abolition was necessary, but it must be gradual.

Gradualism came to be a tactic as well as a philosophy. The goal of the abolitionists became to prompt the enactment of gradual abolition laws, then to use the time between the initiation of gradual abolition and slavery's ultimate demise within a state as a gift, precious time to engage in moral and intellectual instruction of blacks. The resulting advancement of blacks in the states vdiere slavery was being abolished would then convince slaveholders elseWiere that blacks were indeed capa­ ble of freedom.

When in 1803 the convention of delegates from the abolition socie­

ties took the name "The American Convention for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery and Improving the Condition of the African Race," it was

137 138 advertising the conviction that these two emphases were ccmplementary and essential. To rid American society of the blight of slavery was the

Convention's first aim. But the abolitionists feared an America where slaves were given liberty without requisite training in how to conduct themselves in their newfound freedom. Gradual abolition offered the time for improving the race; with this improvement would fall the last redoubt of the slaveholders' argument, that blacks were not prepared for freedom.^

The Convention had not, however, been formed to improve the con­ dition of blacks except as such improvement logically resulted from slav­ ery's abolition. But the business of the abolition societies became the Convention's business, and as the local societies spent more of their energies in working with free blacks in education, protection, and moral improvement, the Convention came to serve the same function for black improvement as it did in abolition matters, that of a "rallying point of information." The Convention solicited from the societies and pub­ lished in its annual minutes reports on the condition of free blacks and

slaves, copies of the laws affecting their lives, and statistical infor­ mation on manumissions and the education of blacks. In doing so, the

Convention believed it aided the work of local societies, educated the populace in the enormity of slavery, race prejudice, and assaults on

black freedoms, and chronicled progress toward slavery's ultimate demise.

Questions raised by the Convention and submitted to the abolition

societies demonstrated a concern in the Convention for information about

the living conditions of free blacks and slaves. The 1796 state meeting 139

of the New Jersey Abolition Society asked the county societies in New Jersey

to submit accounts of relief extended to blacks and others unlawfully held in slavery, along with descriptions of the condition of slaves and

free blacks and of the property held by freed men. They were also to

report on the employment and moral conduct of blacks and on the education­

al benefits they had extended to blacks in their counties. All of this

was to be placed finally in the hands of the New Jersey delegates to the

American Convention. When the county societies failed to deliver the re­

quested information, the state society in 1800 reiterated its need for 3 the material so it could forward it to the Convention.

Such Convention calls for information gathering served to enable

the sharing of information between societies, crucial when the societies

knew so little of the laws and social customs in other states, and to

encourage societies to assume tasks they might not otherwise have attempted.

If a society had done little in education, in compiling state laws, or in

documenting its work in liberating blacks, requests from the Convention

served as prods to activity. The requests also represented a form of con­

trol by the larger and older societies in New York and Philadelphia over

new societies, which were expected to follow the lead of the urban societies

in meticulously documenting their activities. The gathering that called

for the Convention's becoming a "rallying point of information" urged

such a role lest the societies "be found in the pursuit of incongruous 4 measures. The Convention served to keep the societies in communication

and fostered a remarkable consistency in the activities of the various

societies. These very activities, however, placed such demands in time

and energy on the societies that they had little vitality left for the 140 pursuit for v M c h the Convention was established, the extinction of slavery nationally.

I

The inclusion of "Improving the Condition of the African Race" in the Convention's name was an important statement. The societies that formed the Convention had from their beginnings taken seriously their responsibilities for elevating blacks and protecting their rights. So great was the concern for guarding the liberties of blacks that historian

Dwight Dumond wrote that the early abolition societies could almost be C * called "antikidnapping societies." The range of activities undertaken by the societies was broader than Dumond's classification, but the Con­ vention did urge the societies to work to protect black liberties, and huge amounts of the time of the abolition societies' acting/standing committees were devoted to efforts to liberate blacks.

Anger at attempts to kidnap and sell free blacks in New York in 1785 was the reason for the formation of the New York Manumission Society.

Complaining that kidnappers traded in free blacks with impunity, the mem­ bers early determined to exact penalties from the guilty, and kept records of manumitted slaves in New York City in an effort to track designs on their liberty. The acting committee of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society was so weighed down with requests for assistance in education and protec­ tion that in 1790 the society formed its committee of twenty-four to care for education and indenturing of blacks, freeing the acting committee to concentrate on kidnapping cases. When the Delaware Abolition Society was formed in 1801, the FAS expressed its hope that the new society would 141 recruit as many members frœn southern Delaware as possible to stop the excessive kidnapping there.^

Black freedom cases usually were given to the standing or acting committee of a society to oversee. In the New York society the standing committee met monthly, as well as in numerous special meetings,-to care for the load of cases of blacks vdio had been kidnapped or of slaves who were held illegally. Members of standing committees took additional time in correspondence, travel, or visitations to secure evidence. The NYMS standing cotranittee reported in November 1796 that since August they had had forty-nine cases under their care, twenty-four of which remained in litigation. Nine persons had been liberated, seven cases dismissed, and one suit had concluded unsuccessfully. The Choptank society in Maryland boasted in 1797 that it had succeeded in every case’ but one for the free­ dom of Africans in the past seven years, and that case had been lost only because of the misconduct of the principal witness.^

Year upon year of such reports in the various societies gives evi­ dence of the faithfulness and dogged determination of the members of the acting committees, vho put their reputations in jeopardy in taking on some cases. The successful completion of one case was usually followed by the introduction of several more. Every standing committee had a perpetually g unfinished list of cases under its care.

Ihe American Convention itself established no organization to aid blacks kidnapped or illegally enslaved. Prior to 1807 the Convention sought to assist local societies by opposing the slave trade and encourag­ ing societies to employ southern agents to assist in tracking down viola­ tors. The Convention believed ending the trade would destroy the most 142 efficient tool of kidnappers and cripple the practice. But the end of the international trade did rot stop the kidnapping of free blacks. The provision in the law of 1807 that permitted the transport of blacks in vessels on the rivers and bays of the United States left the kidnappers' system intact.

Reports to the Convention from the state societies continued to identify kidnapping as one of their main problems. The 1812 convention urged "renewed vigilance" to kidnapping. In 1816 the Convention memorial­ ized Congress on the issue, asking if it was not possible to enact stiff penalties to stop the practice "without in any manner weakening the means of legal claimants in the recovery of their slaves." It also protested the failure to enforce the international slave trade provisions of the law of 1807. In 1817 the Convention resolved that U.S. laws on both the slave trade and kidnapping were inadequate, and in an unprecedented act authorized the acting committee to employ an agent to lobby Congress on the subject in the next Congress. The Convention also asked the abolition societies to promote better anti-kidnapping legislation in their own 9 states.

In 1818 a special meeting of the Convention, called by its acting committee to consider colonization and the illegal sale of blacks in southern states, again memorialized Congress on violations of the slave trade act and on transgressions of the fugitive slave law, vÆiereby slave­ holders had illegally claimed free blacks and transported them to slavery.

By 1821 the NYMS, losing its energy after the Missouri struggle, said that kidnapping was dying out in New York, but the Pennsylvania society argued that it was actually increasing. How, the PAS implored, could the 143 international trade and kidnapping be stopped vAien the interstate trade,

"as demoralizing in its effects" was permitted "with impunity"? A com­

mittee appointed to look into the question suggested heavy fines, solitary

imprisonment, and disfranchisement for kidnappers as the best punishments

it could imagine, but offered no advice on ending the domestic trade, a

subject the Convention regularly avoided.

Reports to subsequent conventions continued to carry accounts and

rumors of kidnappings, but the Convention in the 1820s became occupied

with debates on colonization, the Missouri question, general emancipation,

and ending slavery in the District of Columbia and backed away from re­

peating its complaints about kidnapping. The Convention had, in its view,

done as much as possible by memorializing Congress and in 1819 appealing

to southern legislatures to protect the rights of free blacks. The Con­

vention concluded at that time that it did not have the necessary specific

facts at hand to convince state legislatures, and that local abolition

societies could do a better job of opposing kidnapping.

The American Convention's inability to offer assistance in individual

kidnapping cases caused a heavy burden for giving aid in interstate cases

to fall to the Pennsylvania Abolition Society. This role of the PAS

resulted from its reputation for defending blacks, its established Quaker

network of contacts in various states, the volume of kidnapping traffic

from Philadelphia to the Chesapeake Bay, and its location as the urban

center most accessible to blacks fleeing the southern states.

The role of the PAS as surrogate for the Convention in aiding blacks kid­ napped or illegally enslaved also resulted from the heavy concentration of

Convention officers and acting committee members in the PAS. Through its 144 work in interstate cases, the PAS actually became better known in the

South than did the American Convention.

The PAS employed a variety of methods in aiding blacks illegally

enslaved, including spotting legal technicalities, producing documentary proof of manumissions and indentures, proving violations of Pennsylvania or another state's laws, introducing litigation, and keeping records of 12 persons kidnapped. Frequently lawyers in the PAS gave advice to other 13 societies on litigation entered into elsevdiere. Letters soliciting help from the PAS came to Philadelphia from many locations, often from places to the south, seeking legal aid, documentation, and, not infrequent­

ly, persons to testify or money to pay court or jail costs. Many persons

freed ty PAS agency then ended up in Philadelphia as virtual wards of the

society. In the case of a nine-year-old with a man-sized name, Peter

Reubin Francis Johnson, rescued in Baltimore after having been kidnapped

in Philadelphia in 1811, the PAS was requested to send documents "as

speedily as possible." Later, when it was discovered the boy's buyer in

Baltimore was a dealer in illegal slaves, the PAS was requested to fur­ nish witnesses from Philadelphia or Delaware, without vhich four addition­

al illegally-held blacks could not be freed, nor the man convicted. When

these four were freed with PAS assistance, they were sent to Philadelphia with a letter for the PAS which said that "any little assistance afforded

them will be very grateful and an act of Christian benevolence."^^

The Johnson case was a typical case for the PAS, and ones like it were familiar to every abolition society. Because of the high incidence

of kidnappings from Philadelphia, the PAS was often requested to furnish documentation and witnesses for persons stolen from Philadelphia and 145 taken south. Most of these, such as the case of two Philadelphia boys

kidnapped after being hired to pick peaches down the Chesapeake Bay,

required the PAS only to locate the family and through them get either

freedom papers or a vdiite witness vdio would go to testify. Occasionally, however, when a kidnapper escaped northward, the PAS got involved in his

apprehension. Joseph Bringhurst, Jr., postmaster at Wilmington, Delaware

and a frequent delegate to the American Convention, wrote to prominent

PAS member Thomas Shipley in 1816 requesting that the PAS take action

against Joshua Harris, a kidnapper who had escaped to Philadelphia with

$250 he received for illegally selling a young girl. Bringhurst urged

that Harris not be returned to Delaware, where, he contended, the "penal code cannot be supported ty any Christian, or rational man," but be charged

in Philadelphia. There he hoped they could strip Harris of his money for

the benefit of the abolition society, a practice that helped to sustain

the societies' always burdened treasuries.

Captain John Kollock, an agent for the PAS in Georgetown, Delaware advised the society in 1815 to search for John Smith who had tricked

Henry Vanmeter, a free black Philadelphia sailor, out of his prize money and wages and tried to sell him in Maryland. Kollock's description of

Smith is reminiscent in its detail of descriptions of fugitive slaves, and conjures up the image of the quintessential kidnapper;

The said John Smith is about 5 feet 7 or 8 inches high, dark com­ plected, darkish hair, Sandy whiskers, his two upper fore teeth is out, had on a black Hat well worn with a large crape around it, a Blue Coat, light Cassamere pantaletts, long Cossack Boots with Tassels, said to live in fourth Street just below Shippin Street. . . .

Many of the requests coming to the PAS had, however, no Philadel­ phia connection. The society served as a clearing house for requests 146 that covered the gamut from simple information on a slave's nativity on

Long Island, New York to pleas so complex as to border on the imnossible.

Such a request came in 1818 from lawyer Seth Ferris of Natchez, Mississi­

ppi, asking the help of the PAS in suing for the freedom of eighteen slaves

entitled to be free because they were descendants of an Indian woman

\dio had been transported from South Carolina to Virginia and illegally

enslaved there. The woman's great-granddaughter had sued for her freedom

in Virginia and had won in 1797, By then, however, she had been carried

off to South Carolina. Later she was removed to Georgia, and now with

her own children and grandchildren, three of whom remained in South Caro­

lina, she was renewing her suit for freedom in Mississippi. Ferris naively

asked the PAS for help in gaining depositions from Virginia and South

Carolina needed to prosecute the case.^^

Pleas came too from blacks illegally enslaved. Some wrote to the

society directly, others wrote to relatives or friends vdio sought out the

PAS for assistance. Moody Jackson, a sailor cast ashore after the British

burned his ship off Charleston, South Carolina in the War of 1812, wrote

to his daughter in 1814 asking for money and papers proving his freedom.

While working his way north from Charleston, Jackson had been jailed by

traveling companions in Salisbury, North Carolina on suspicion of being

a slave. The daughter turned his request over to the PAS. Levina

Johnson's letter to her father-in-law in Baltimore found its way to the

PAS as well. Kidnapped with her two children frcxn the Delaware-Maryland

border, she was in 1824 enslaved to a Mr. Filpot in Augusta, Georgia.

She asked only that her relatives be told, "I once was Free, but now am

a slave. I wish to inform you all that I am still striving to get to 147

Heaven and if I should not see you all in this world I hope to meet you 18 all in Heaven there to part no more."

The poignancy of appeals such as that of young W. F. Burschall must have placed a special burden on the abolitionists. Burschall had moved

from the North to Columbia, South Carolina, \diere he had fallen ill. A young mulatto woman had nursed him back to health, and had, he said, cared for him "with the united solicitude and affection of a mother and wife." Although he could not bring himself to say so directly, he had

fallen in love with the young woman, vho had since been sold, apparently

legally, to Natchez, Mississippi, leaving behind a young daughter and, in

Burschall, a disconsolate lover. Burschall pleaded that the woman was in no way fitted for slavery, having been kindly raised by a widow, and said

that if the PAS would advance him the money to buy her back, he would gladly repay the society. Thomas Shipley, to vdiom Burschall directed his plea, was not quick to reply, and a month later Burschall wrote a grief-crazed letter in which he railed at Shipley for not answering. He complained that he was enduring anxiety such as he hoped Shipley would never experience, "however you might deserve it,"^^

The correspondence of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society is replete with such soul-wrenching requests. One woman, Santo Domingo-bom Cité

Oilier, twenty-four years old in 1808, sought protection and aid from

the PAS for herself and her husband, a free black silversmith. He was

imprisoned in New Orleans, from \diere she recently had fled after her

father’s widow had tried to enslave her. "All their hopes in this miser­

able situation," she wrote, "rest now with the Society. 148

Frequently the cases called for financial outlay by the society.

When the PAS acting committee indicated it could not justify the expense of sending a witness to a trial in Augusta, Georgia in 1822, South Caro­ lina lawyer Eldred Simkins made it clear to the PAS that it had a choice; spend the money to produce a witness or lose the case. The society com­ plained that the case, that of Thomas Fitzgerald, vdio had been kidnapped in 1812, had "already produced a heavy draft upon our funds." The PAS finally agreed to continue with the case, but cautioned it wanted to keep the expense as low as possible. In agreeing, the society continued on one of its most complicated and costly cases. Having acquired a witness,

John Barger, the PAS had difficulty arranging his passage to Savannah.

He arrived in Augusta too late for the trial, but was permitted to give a deposition vMch freed Fitzgerald. Barger was not so fortunate. He fell ill with a fever and died. Soon after the PAS was billed for his expenses: $18.22 for nursing, board, a burial shirt, coffin, horse, and grave. The case finally cost the PAS $116.25, vMc h included the law­ yers' fees, doctor bills, the funeral expenses, the return of Barger's effects, Fitzgerald's transportation north, and a payment to Barger's widow. When Mrs. Barger attempted to maintain her husband's cedar coopering business and failed, she fell into serious debt. In 1829 she informed the PAS that she was $200 behind in her mortgage payments.

Could the PAS help?^^

Widow Barger's was the question constantly before the abolition societies— could they afford the requests made of them? Expenses incur­ red in prosecuting freedom cases frequently threatened, and at times created, financial difficulties for the abolition societies. One case 149 could rapidly diminish a treasury. The New York society was quick to realize this. In 1789 the society ordered its standing committee to assist a black woman, Juda, and her children only if there was no cost to the society. One man freed in Norfolk, Virginia by the Burlington Coun­ ty, New Jersey society in 1801 cost the society $60 in expenses, for vÆiich he would have been sold without the society's interposition. The entire New Jersey society numbered only 172 members in 1801, each member paying $1.00 a year in dues. Since annual dues seldom met the costs of prosecutions in the county societies in New Jersey, the state society attempted to supplement their treasuries from its obviously not-too-ample resources. In 1803 and 1804 the Burlington County society was forced to appeal to the NJAS for extra funds because of out-of-county expenses ac­ cumulated by its acting comnittee. Other societies had no higher body to vhich to appeal; vhen in debt, they dunned their members. When the

New York society lost the case of Morton and the Negro vs. Petersburgh in

1827, a cmmittee was appointed to solicit the members for the $59 ex­ pended in prosecuting the case. Costs such as these incurred by the

NYMS led to conflict between standing committee members and trustees of the African Free School over vdiich group best used the funds of the 22 society.

At times, worthy cases were not prosecuted at all because funds were lacking. The Virginia society at Richmond had sued for the freedom of thirteen slaves there in 1800, but before the case could be tried the owners carried them to South Carolina and Georgia. The society's funds were not adequate to pursue the case further. The society had one hun­ dred other cases to prosecute, but said it could not proceed with any 150 due to its'financial situation. Joseph Bringhurst, Jr., distressed after a lengthy meeting of the Delaware society's acting committee in 1815, said that even if a number of DAS members could donate $50 a year, it would not be enough to prosecute the cases before the committee. "Our cases are so multiplied and the demands for money to conduct them so heavy," he indicated, that if the society did not win some cases and re­ ceive the penalty money often awarded to successful litigants they would have to "abandon the business."

Sometimes the societies devoted entire meetings to discussing the financing of liberation ventures. A special meeting of the Delaware society in 1817 was called to establish a method of raising funds to trans­ port David Pennock, a black kidnapped in Delaware, back from Columbia,

South Carolina. Ihe society raised $140 on its own and got $250 from other sources to pay an agent vÆio went to South Carolina in the winter to bring back to Philadelphia Pennock and three other blacks freed through the agency of a Columbia lawyer. In 1818 another entire meeting of the society was given to consideration of how to raise money to send a person to Georgia to testify in the case of an indentured servant girl kidnapped from Delaware. Expensive as these cases were to the Delaware society, they gave the small, struggling body a reason to continue. When the society decided late in 1818 not to dissolve, it cited as its reason the need not to abandon "the protection of our African brethren from violence and injustice.

Sometimes it was not enough to send money or to line up witnesses.

Society manbers also gave time to procuring testimony and serving papers.

Trips to secure a black's freedom could occupy days and create consideraole 151 expense and inconvenience for society members. In October 1804, William

Allinson, Josiah Reeve, and Gershorn Craft, Quaker members of the New

Jersey society, were assigned by the society to go to Sussex County in northern New Jersey to serve writs of habeas corpus in an effort to gain the release of two families' children illegally enslaved there. John

Maxwell, who held the children of Quash and Hetty, mocked the abolitionists' coming, saying they would not find their task as easy in Sussex as among

Quakers in Burlington County. The three men persevered, however, served the writs and successfully concluded the trip, vdiich occupied over a week.

The next year they traveled again, this time to Fleming ton for a trial for the freedom of Flora, one of Quash and Hetty's children whom Maxwell had sold. The trial ended in Flora's freedom, at considerable expense to the 25 society.

These tasks were difficult everywhere, but were particularly time consuming for members of the societies in New Jersey and Delaware. Evan

Lewis, the Quaker abolitionist from Wilmington, Delaware, who was later prominent in New York and Philadelphia, indicated in March 1816 that he and others from the Delaware society would go south within the state over a Sunday and Monday to gather evidence on a kidnapping, then depart

Wednesday for Philadelphia ifith the information. If the evidence proved insufficient, Lewis indicated he would bring his notes on the kidnapper to Philadelphia so the man could not be released vdiile the committee gathered more evidence, l^.ter in 1816, Joseph Bringhurst, Jr. noted that several DAS members were on a trip of 150 miles to obtain evidence. He observed that abolitionists in Delaware were by location "in the front of the battle [for assisting kidnapping victims] and our personal toils 152 and expenses are frequent and heavy.” The society advised the Convention

in 1817 that in Delaware "great watchfulness, much loss of time, and heavy expenses are the lot of those vdio advocate the rights of the black

people.

Ihe often meager participation by abolition societies in the sessions

and the financing of the American Convention must be seen against the

backdrop of the societies' intense commitment of time and money to

liberating blacks. The Alexandria society wrote to the Convention in 1801

indicating money that might have gone for sending delegates would instead

be used to offset expenses arising from a suit against a society member

for interfering in vdiat the society charged was a sale of free blacks.

The Delaware society failed to forward money for the Convention's assist­

ance fund in 1802 because it was engaged in raising funds to help blacks

clandestinely taken out of state. The DAS had itself lodged a request

with the PAS for assistance with its costs. Faced with such choices

between participation in the Convention and the immediate needs presented

by blacks locally, abolitionists chose to stay at home and spend their

money on concerns close at hand. And kidnapping was but one of these 27 concerns.

II

Abolitionists' efforts to protect the liberties of blacks seemed to

avail little as long as blacks persisted in vice and ignorance. Next to

the need for gradual emancipation, the most consistent witness of the

American Convention throughout its existence was to the need for moral and

intellectual instruction for blacks. The rationale, indeed, for gradual 153 emancipation rested in large part on the necessity of preparing blacks

for freedom through education. Intellectual preparation would equip blacks with the ability to earn a living, but, just as importantly to the white philanthropists, moral preparation would teach blacks how to live.

The abolitionists saw little to convince them that blacks were pre- 28 pared for freedom. Reports coming to the American Convention voiced concern over the low state of morals among many free blacks. The PAS

lamented in 1800 that in spite of attempts to convince free blacks "of

the evil tendency of their conduct, [too many] spend much of their time

and money in frolic and intemperance." The Burlington County, New Jersey acting committee reported in 1797 that of 430 "free Africans and raulattoes'

in the country, too many were given to "Idleness, Frolicking, Drunkenness,

. . . Dishonesty." In 1801 the New Jersey Abolition Society complained

that too many free blacks in Burlington and Gloucester counties remained

"loose in their morals, too fond of unprofitable company, idling away

their time, and wasting their substance." They did allow, however, that

the behavior of free blacks was as good as or better than the poorer 29 classes of vÆiites.

Particularly upsetting to the devout philanthropists were accounts

of bad conduct on the Sabbath. The 1804 convention strongly encouraged

attention to first-day schools as a remedy for the tendency of blacks

to devote the day to "dissipation." The address to free blacks urged

them to remove reproaches to their character, especially charges that

instead of attending worship on the Sabbath, they engaged in "frolicking,

drinking, or other evil practices, vAiich destroy your own comfort, give

cause of offence to your neighbours, and above all displease that 154 all-seeing God, before vihom you must appear to give an account for all your conduct." The Delaware society reported in 1806 that they hoped a spacious stone house erected for black worship in Wilmington would improve the social and moral duties of blacks in the city.

Repugnant as much black behavior was to the socially correct and morally circumspect abolitionists, they refused to lay the blame totally on the blacks. Having excoriated blacks for misconduct in one breath, abolitionists could excuse them in the next. The abolitionists did not assume an innate inferiority in blacks, but rather stressed the debilita­ ting nature of their environment. Their bad actions only reinforced the abolitionist argument that they were products of a dehumanizing system.

The failure of blacks to live correctly proved the evil of slavery, and the slaveholders' failure to instill morality demonstrated the moral superiority of the abolitionists. David Rice had pointed to the paradox of the slave's being a free moral agent in the eyes of God vhile legally deprived of his free agency and of instruction in religion and morality.

The "cruel arm of the taskmaster" had "debased" the faculties of blacks, and "the generous hand of education," a hand offered by their white pro­ tectors, "must humanize and improve them." An account of blacks in East

Jersey in 1801 elucidated this continuing legacy of slavery. Slaves exhibited "low and debaced [sic]" minds, poor conduct, and, by being sub­ jected to daily evil and reports of mistreatment of others, became dejected and sour. "Their Social and improvable Faculties degenerate and those more inclinable to Evil follow it and gain an ascendancy."

When emancipated from Rice's paradox, the freed black continued shackled by ignorance and moral degradation, the account charged, because of 155 0*1 "habits and propensities" acquired under slavery.

This lack of instruction served the abolitionists as both an indict­ ment of slavery and a prod to their own labors. As free blacks began

flocking to northern cities after 1800, abolitionists felt an urgent need

to instruct them in morality. Any progress realized was, however, condi­

tional, the abolitionists concluded. The PAS said in 1806 that when one

group of blacks demonstrated moral achievement, a new influx of freed 32 slaves appeared, and the process started over again.

The abolitionists constantly confronted the perceived irony that the

very freedom they were seeking to ensure for blacks became, in many cases,

an evil to its possessors. Consequently, the abolitionists believed that

paternalistic care of blacks was needed not only to keep them from the

grasp of the kidnapper and the slaveholder, but to prevent them from

falling prey to their own vices. Already given the responsibility to pro­

tect black freedoms, the standing committee of the New York Manumission

Society in its first year was also assigned to watch for misconduct in

blacks being liberated, "to prevent them from running into practices of

immorality or sinking into habits of indolence." In an attempt to spur

the abolition societies to sponsor schools for blacks in 1805, the Con­

vention made the choice before the societies seem crystal clear: "Let us

decide, by a vote of our societies, whether we will continue our parental

care over them, or leave them friendless and abandoned to their own weak­

ness and ignorance." This paternalism, objectionable as it may seem today,

represented to the abolitionists the second clause in a social covenant

they had developed, however unilaterally, with blacks. This covenant

required the abolitionists first to prepare blacks for freedom, then to 156 continue tx). care for them after liberty was established. The Pennsylvania society announced to the Convention in 1805 that due to "the rapid decline of slavery" in Philadelphia, its attention would henceforth be turned more to improving black morals and providing education than to seeking libera­ tion. The PAS said its members would never want it thought that they had been enthusiastic for liberty but careless "of their [blacks'] subsequent advancement in the qualifications requisite to the proper enjoyment of the

OO blessing of freedom"

To ensure that blacks properly enjoyed their freedom the abolition societies often closely monitored their activities. The 1785 decision of the NYMS to keep a watchful eye on black conduct led in 1788 to the formation of "the Committee for preventing irregular conduct in free

Negroes" and in 1790 to a decision to visit black homes to inquire about conduct. The committee formed in 1788 recommended that all blacks under the care of the society be registered and be required to report changes in abode or numbers of children to the trustees of the recently formed

African Free School, viho were to have permission to deny admission to un­ registered blacks. The society's benefits were to be afforded only to those who maintained "good Characters for Sobriety and Honesty and peace­ able and orderly living." Free blacks were to be cautioned against admit­ ting servants or slaves into their houses and against "allowing Fiddling,

Dancing, or any noisy Entertainment in their Houses; whereby the tran­ quility of the Neighborhood may be disturbed." Any black who failed to abide by the society's strictures and thus forfeited its patronage was to have his name conspicuously posted "that a stigma may be fixed on him" and others "deterred from following his bad example." The social control 157 over blacks this registration afforded was limited, however. In 1793 the NYMS ggain found it necessary to appoint a committee on black conduct, this time to look into reports that some free blacks were keeping "houses of ill fame."^^

The societies reported: regularly to the Convention on vdiat they were finding in their investigations. The reports were often despairing, but occasionally they supplied evidence of black progress. The Burlington

County, New Jersey committee that reported excessive idleness and frolick­ ing among free blacks in 1797 also forwarded to the Convention an extensive list of industrious free blacks who were "sober," "trustworthy," "reputa­ ble," and "exemplary." The report revealed an extensive knowledge of their circumstances, including that of a single man, Quomane, vtio "for fidelity.

Industry, frugality and sobriety, [is] surpassed but by few whites."

Quomane*s chief claim to recognition was that, having been free only a few years, he had saved out of his wages and placed at.interest "upwards of $100."35

There were, however, all too few Quomanes. Observed vice, whether real or colored by prejudice, led the abolitionists to conclude that years of preparation would be needed to overcome slavery's debilitating legacy.

The American Convention's continued support for^gradual emancipation re­ sulted in part from this consistently reinforced opinion that blacks were not prepared for freedom. To promote a too-hasty emancipation would break the covenant the abolitionists felt they had with blacks. In 1821 the

Convention, in adopting a general plan for emancipation, said that imme­ diate emancipation "would fall short of simple justice." To free blacks too soon would be "to cut, rather than untie the Gordian knot." "The 158

slave must be made to pass through a state of pupilage and minority, to

fit him for the enjoyment and exercise of rational liberty.

Ihis concern for moral and intellectual improvement antecedent to

full participation in society was one of the factors that led the American

Convention finally to oppose the colonization of freed blacks. The Con­

vention in 1821 expressed belief that blacks would not receive the same

instructional benefits if they were colonized, and concluded that it

would be best for blacks to remain in "permanent residence in a Christian

country and under suitable moral and religious instruction." The effect

of colonization, the Convention feared, would be "to draw from our country

the most industrious, moral, and respectable of the coloured population

and thus deprive others, less improved, of the benefit of their example

and advice.

Residence in a Christian country under the tutelage of philantropie vÆiites could only do so much, however. Ultimately vdiite abolitionists placed the responsibility on blacks for the good "example and advice" necessary to elevate their own race. The Trenton, New Jersey delegates

to the 1812 convention, \dnile voicing the usual complaints about the lack

of industry and temperance in many blacks, lauded others whose conduct, they

said, many vdiites would do well to emulate. This good behavior strengthen­

ed confidence "that the vhole race wi U one day rise to a place in society

which they are now deemed incompetent and unworthy to occupy." Bound by

prejudice themselves, ^diite abolitionists never fully grasped the depth

of prejudice that finally would not let blacks rise no matter how good

their behavior. The abolitionists naively but sincerely believed, as the

Choptank, Maryland Abolition Society said in 1797, that regulating the 159 conduct of free blacks would serve to "Stop the Mouths of those that In- Op d i n e to Discredit that \diich operates against their Selfish views."

Historians Emma Jones Lapsansky and Julie Winch have shown that black leaders in Philadelphia also stressed respectability as a means to

overcome vAiite prejudice and hostility and sometimes cooperated with the

PAS in efforts at moral improvement. Winch documented Free African Soci­

ety support for ending revelries as a means to stop white accusations

that blacks were unprepared for freedom. Founded as a mutual aid society

by black Methodist leaders Richard Allen and Absalom Jones in 1787, the

Free African Society collaborated with the PAS on projects aimed at pro­

moting morality as well as education and employment in the black communi­

ty. Allen was also instrumental in forming the Society for the Suppres­

sion of Vice and Inmorality in 1809. Black community leaders, recogni­

zing that blacks were put at risk from vdiites because of the actions of

lawless blacks, cooperated with the mayor and law enforcement officials

in creating a Committee of Vigilance in 1822. Black and idiite leaders

shared a similar aim to suppress black misbehavior in order to win white

favor. Black abolitionist Robert Purvis said that the best cooperation

blacks could give in the work of abolition would be an improvement in

morals. Eulogizing Thomas Shipley in 1835, Purvis said that by temper­

ance and virtue blacks could revere Shipley's memory and help his aboli­

tion principles prevail. Historian Gary Nash has pointed out, however,

that vihites, abolitionists included, seldom acknowledged black efforts,

preferring to disparage black morality for their own purposes.

White abolitionists carried this argument for black respectability

to its furthest extreme, placing responsibility for ending oppression on 160 the oppressed. In sane measure, the Convention frequently posited, the liberation of slaves and their good treatment depended on the good con­ duct of free blacks. Likewise, free blacks should counsel slaves to prepare for freedon by patiently enduring their bonds and waiting with

"manly resignation for the coming of that day, in vdiich liberty shall be proclaimed to the captive." By 1823, however, even the Convention de­ cided that virtue and education by themselves were probably not enough to influence white sentiment. Just as abolitionists had earlier been im­ pressed by the ability of the New Jerseyite Quomane to achieve a sizeable bank account, now, the Convention proclaimed, more blacks needed to be given mechanical educations and placed in positions where they could accumulate wealth. Since wealth and moral virtue were what prompted

"respect and distinction" in American society, reasoned the abolition­ ists, one "wealthy, intelligent and virtuous coloured man in any neigh­ borhood," was a " more powerful influence to obliterate idle prejudices, than volumes of abstract reasoning." Lapsansky amply demonstrated the irony inherent in such a proposal. The presence of "a highly visible group of upwardly mobile black people" in Philadelphia, their lives giving every evidence of the values black and white abolitionists there had long promoted, were the main targets of the anti-black rioting that shook the city in the 1830s. In Burlington County, New Jersey in 1797 there had not been enough Quomanes to please the lAite population.

Across the Delaware River in Philadelphia by the 1830s there were too 40 many.

The Convention periodically issued or re-issued addresses to free blacks when it felt the need to say something new to blacks about their 161

behavior, or to reiterate advice it felt had not been heeded. Typical

advice was to avoid liquor, gambling, dancing, frolicking, and noisy con­

duct, and to devote time to learning to read, especially the Bible, write, and do arithmetic. Blacks were encouraged in worship attendance,

sobriety, honesty, frugality, courtesy, and continency in marriage. Edu­

cation was stressed, with parents encouraged to enroll their children in

school and vAien possible to support the schools financially. Parents were counseled also to apprentice their children in useful trades, vhich were believed to foster health and virtue, placing them always with masters who would teach them to be industrious and trustworthy. The ad­ dress of 1798 appealed to blacks' own experience to tell them vhether it was not true that industry and economy led to independence, temperance promoted wealth, and the cultivation of the faculties led to an enlarged capacity for discharging duties and enjoying their benefits. Conversely, was it not true that idleness, gambling, and dissipation resulted in poverty and disgrace, and intemperance in loathsome disease and premature death?^^

These Convention addresses to blacks represented a gift of the

societies to themselves. Needing ways to influence black conduct, the

societies went to the Convention and, in concert, provided themselves with an impressive document from a-national body with vhich to awe blacks

into better behavior. The addresses were, of course, warmly received by

the societies. Society members willingly gave time to distributing the

addresses, often reading them to blacks vhom they convened for the

purpose. 162

Ihe Salem County, New Jersey society convened blacks in three sep­ arate locations on consecutive Sunday afternoons in December 1797 and

January 1798 to hear the Convention's address. Such meetings gave the abolitionists opportunities to admonish the blacks gathered, to observe their conduct, and to gauge their reaction to the Convention's guidance.

The PAS in 1797 praised the deportment of blacks at a meeting held to read the 1796 address, and added, "They seemed justly to appreciate the wise and salutary admonitions conveyed to them . . . and we trust they will retain a lasting impression upon their minds." The Delaware society said that about seventy blacks who came together to hear the address in

1804 "behaved in an orderly manner, and appeared to give very respectful attentions to subjects presented to them." Perhaps on the basis of this meeting the DAS could report in 1805 that free blacks in Wilmington had been improving in the past year.^^

At times the societies held meetings in black churches. Delaware society members convened blacks in the newly constructed Ezion Church in

Wilmington in 1805 to read the 1804 and 1805 Convention addresses. A committee of the PAS in 1801 attended several black churches to read the

Convention address and also read it to three black benevolent societies.

The Convention addresses to free blacks also gave the abolition societies further reason to enter the homes of blacks to observe their conduct firsthand. The PAS members charged with reading the 1801 address to blacks announced that following their church and benevolent society readings they had carried it into the homes of blacks, reading it to 659 families with 2,313 members. The New Jersey society in 1804 strongly promoted visits to black families "to enquire into their manner of life" 163 and to "admonish them in righteous living." The county societies in New

Jersey were encouraged "to descant upon the folly and miserable conse­ quences of Vice, and the charms of Virtue." The Burlington County soci­ ety within two days of this state meeting called a special meeting to form a committee of nine for promoting black morality and education. Although delayed by a large snowstorm and weak participation by some committee members, the committee proceeded to visit twenty homes to read the Con­ vention address.

The addresses to free blacks served not only to communicate the

Convention's admonishments to its primary audiences but also served a propagandistic function aimed at the larger society. Published in large numbers and often reprinted by the local societies, the addresses were intended to convince skeptics that the abolitionists were men of modera­ tion vÆîo gave proper counsel to blacks. As the abolitionists carried forward the eighteenth-century desire for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness into the nineteenth century, they increasingly sought to convince blacks and to reassure their critics that these conditions had meaning only vdien grounded in religion, virtue, and social conformity.

Ill

Just as consistent as the Convention's appeal for moral improvement was its repeated counsel to the abolition societies to educate blacks.

Gradual elevation of blacks to their proper place in society— and aboli­

tionists seem to have had no clear vision of what that place was— rested on both their moral improvement and educational attainment. Liberty was not enough, the Convention boldly announced to the liberty-loving Société des Amis des Noirs at Paris in 1797. Without knowledge and "regular and 164 economic habits,” liberty and the rights of man were hollow.^^ The first convention of delegates from the abolition societies in 1794 admonished the societies to educate black children so that they might be constantly employed, be less inclined to "idleness and debauchery,” and become good citizens. The fourth convention, it will be recalled, termed education

"the greatest and perhaps the only important service we can render to them and to our country.” The sixteenth convention in 1819 implored the societies to promote education, lest the "benighted African” be "poorly qualified to acta consistent part as a rational being in society,” and remain "a slave to ignorance and error.” At the last formal Convention session in 1829 the acting conmittee stated matter-of-factly that "the education of the children of the free people of colour has always been a prominent object of the Convention.

The Convention encouraged the societies to reverse the cycle of ignorance and depravity enforced by a slave society by educating blacks in conmon literature, mathematics, mechanical arts, domestic skills, and

Bible reading. The education they sought to instill was intensely practi­ cal, designed to help blacks become useful workers and citizens.It was also value-laden, intended to cultivate good habits early in life so that the younger generation of blacks would be spared the vices of their parents. The children would, in effect, instruct their elders in

"the importance of religion and the beauty and excellence of moral deport­ ment.” To so educate blacks, the Convention stressed in 1818, would be not only to remove one of the primary arguments against emancipation, but also would enable blacks to make a moral plea for themselves to individuals and to the nation. When John Russwurm and Samuel Cornish established 165 Freedom’s Journal in New York in 1827 to begin to make such a black appeal

they expressed to the Convention their thanks for "real friends" vdio saw

the need of education for blacks and who had helped bring blacks to the

point of advancement where "the absurd doctrines of African inferiority,

etc., are now exploded; compelling slaveholders and others to resort to

other arguments to support their tottering systems.

From the time of the first Quaker schools for blacks in the

eighteenth century, black educability had been an important argument for

emancipation. Benjamin Banneker's calculations for his almanac had

prompted David Rittenhouse to conclude in 1791 that "Every Instance of

Genius amongst the Negroes is worthy of attention, because their oppressors

seem to lay great stress on their supposed inferior mental abilities." The

Convention urged societies to seize every opportunity to document the

accomplishments of blacks, and gladly acknowledged such accounts sent

to the Convention. Benjamin Rush submitted his "Account of a wonderful

Talent for Arithmetical Calculations, in an African Slave, living in

Virginia" to the Convention in 1809. The account, which was widely circu­

lated, told of Thomas Tuller, a seventy-year-old slave living near

Alexandria vho could, as the title implied, do complex mathematical com- 49 putation.

Examples of accomplishments by students in the Clarkson schools of

the Pennsylvania Abolition Society and the African Free Schools, operated

under the auspices of the New York Manumission Society, frequently were

employed as evidence that blacks were as capable of improvement as vdiites.

In 1797 the NYMS proudly announced that the usher of the African Free

School, second in command to the school's master, was of African descent. 166 Examples of work by African Free School students exhibited at the 1828 convention in Baltimore so impressed the delegates that they ordered them noted in the Convention's address to the societies. Several of the pieces, including poems on slavery and freedom, were printed as an appendix to the 1828 convention minutes and the originals were displayed in the Capi­ tol rotunda in Washington. NYMS members did feel it necessary, however, to assure the Convention that all the work was legitimate. Ihey testified that an essay on the blessings of liberty was the "genuine, unaided pro­ duction" of twelve-year-old George R. Allen, "a very black boy of pure

African descent.

The Convention fostered education, but made clear that in providing education as in prosecuting kidnapping cases the primary responsibility still rested with the state societies. The Convention's strong urgings to the societies to sponsor at least first-day (Sunday) schools for black children met with varied responses. The New York Manumission Society and the Pennsylvania Abolition Society had educational programs in place when the Convention was begun. The Convention's strong advocacy of educational programs continued the Quaker and Episcopalian interest in black education.

It also demonstrated the desire of the urban societies that their efforts be duplicated elsevdiere. But, faced with the demands made on their time and resources by kidnapping cases and suits for freedom, and with many of their fellow citizens opposed to education' for blacks, most societies achieved little in this area.

A school begun in 1796 in Alexandria, D.C. was forced to disband following the Gabriel Prosser conspiracy. The abolition society in Alex­ andria had developed an ambitious plan for Sunday schools teaching spelling. 167 reading, writing, and practical arithmetic, and opened one such school to seventeen students in December 1796. By May 108 students had been regis­

tered. The society reported that vdiile only four of the students could write, read the Scriptures, and do simple arithmetic, twenty-seven others had in five months learned the alphabet and moved beyond monosyllabic

spelling. A committee of twelve society members appointed to oversee

the school had employed a teacher, and themselves helped to teach at

times. Following the Gabriel conspiracy, however, the society's school committee was warned that, virtuous as their motives were, no black assemblies could be allowed. By 1804 the Alexandria society was vir­

tually dead and the school, "the brightest ornament that ever attracted

our attention," was without "hope of réanimation."^^

Other southern societies could not equal even the limited efforts

of the Alexandria group. In 1800 the Virginia society at Richmond com­

plained it had no funds with vAiich to foster education, and by 1801 its

president James Wood said the Gabriel conspiracy had created such heavy

demands for protecting black freedom that education had become an after­

thought. The Kentucky society lamented in 1819 that few masters allowed

slaves to read, and even if blacks could be taught to read, they would

not be admitted to white schools. The society had no funds to educate

free blacks but was considering trying to persuade some slaveholders to

permit it to hold Sunday schools. The North Carolina Manumission Soci­

ety had funds, and in 1821 put them at interest for the education of

black children after being challenged by prominent Quaker Aaron Coffin

to found a school. But, as in Kentucky, masters were reluctant to allow

education for their slaves. The NCMS remonstrated in 1826 that Christian 168 philanthropists could go around the world to enlighten the heathen, only to be confronted by two million black souls in the United States to idiom

"benevolent exertions can never extend." Anti-education acts in North

Carolina in 1831 stopped the feeble efforts in education that had been made there. In 1825, the Manumission Society of Tennessee, in v M c h slaveholders with abolitionist principles were welcome as members, voted to exconsnunicate any society member who refused or neglected to educate his slaves. The outcome of this action is unknown but the fact the ac­ tion was taken at all gives evidence that the southern societies were on the defensive in matters of education, and were forced to issue noble 52 statements in lieu of any significant educational ventures.

Outside of Philadelphia and New York, little was done in education by abolition societies in the northeastern or middle states. The Provi­ dence Abolition Society cited lack of funds for its failure to institute a school, although Judge David Howell noted in 1805 that individual so­ ciety members had helped to sponsor schools. The New Jersey Abolition

Society recognized repeatedly that something needed to be done in educa­ tion, yet achieved nothing substantial. In education as in other mat­ ters, the New Jersey society duplicated the style of the American Con­ vention in delegating responsibility to its several constituent socie­ ties. In 1795 the state society referred to the county branches the

Convention's admonition to foster education. The county societies, how­ ever, made feeble responses. The Burlington society had already formed an auxiliary society for the Free Instruction of the Black People in

1794, and in 1795 organized a committee to fund it. But by 1796 the society, with no explanation, judged it inexpedient to pursue the 169

proposals on black education. Individuals in Burlington had taken up the

cause by 1798 and established a school, but it failed soon after, as did

schools begun at Salem and Trenton. Joseph Bloomfield indicated that in

1801 blacks were being educated in general schools for the poor in Bur­

lington and in Gloucester County, and there received, he said, an

education on a par with poor whites. These schools were Quaker-inspired

and undoubtedly abolition society members were involved, but the socie- 53 ties attempted nothing more in education.

The failure of its county societies to promote education put the

onus back on the NJAS. In a long philosophical paragraph in its report

to the Convention in 1804, the society described the role of education in

instilling virtue and promised greater attention to black education in

New Jersey at its state convention. At this time the society established

a Fund for the Education of Africans and People of Colour and initiated

incorporation proceedings as a first step to seeking support for educa­

tional ventures. The society named a committee to plan for black educa­

tion and instructed it to hire black teachers in the schools. Little

resulted from the action, however. In 1806 the NJAS reported to the Con­ vention that it was still forming its plan for education, but with the 54 society's decline in the next few years nothing was implemented.

The Delaware Abolition Society, after inauspicious beginnings, was

the one society outside New York and Philadelphia to sustain an educa­

tional program. The society reported to the Convention in 1801 and 1803

that one of its members had organized a free first-day school at which he

taught reading, writing, and arithmetic to about twenty children. This

school was expanded several times over the next few years, and in 1807 170 the teacher, John Thelwell, a Methodist, offered to open an evening school. The next year the society was instrumental in helping start a school under black teacher John Powell. This school was short-lived, however. By 1809 the society expressed frustration with its lack of progress in education. In a paternalists' lament, society members blamed the failures in part on lack of participation by blacks: "We are sorry to find so little disposition on their part to aid us in our friendly en­ deavours to promote their happiness..^^

In 1810 some DAS members associated with others in Wilmington to form an African School Society in an effort, they said, to repay some of the immense debt they felt they owed to blacks, who "wore out the vigour of their lives to acquire wealth for our fathers." This society, vbich operated as an adjunct of the DAS, purchased a house for the school, and boasted that the building was superior to those in which members’ ances­ tors had been educated and better than many rural schools for vdiites.

The board members employed a black teacher, vdio was instructing about thirty students by 1816. The society also began acquiring a school li­ brary of "religious and moral publications." In 1817 a report to the

DAS said that five hundred scholars had learned to read and about three hundred to write since 1810. The numbers seem inflated, since the society claimed only forty students in 1817. Even if accurate, it is impossible to know the students' levels of achievement in reading and writing. The

African School Society was incorporated by an act of the legislature in

1824 and continued as one of the few avenues for black education in Dela­ ware until the state began providing funds for black education in 1875.^^ 171

Although convention after convention most of the scattered aboli­ tion societies reported little or no progress in education, their gloomy reports were balanced by accounts of successes from the New York and

Pennsylvania societies. The schools established at Philadelphia and New

York served as models for the other abolition societies, and discouraging models they must have been at times, for no other societies could match the urban societies in funds or in the availability of a trainable black population.

The Pennsylvania Abolition Society was unique among the abolition societies in offering training to older men and women as well as children.

The society's first involvement with education was in a night school for black men begun in 1788. The school was established by a society adjunct to the PAS at the Friends School in Willing's Alley, between Third and

Fourth streets below Walnut. Young abolition society members ran the school, employing a master and assisting him in teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic. The first school actually established by the PAS was a boys' day school in Cherry Alley between Sixth and Seventh streets, started in 1793 and taught by Eleanor Harris, a black woman. The PAS reported in 1797 that the school had about thirty students

The PAS report to the Convention in 1797 also listed other schools operating for blacks in the city, including two Friends schools, a night school run by wcxnen for teaching women and girls reading and writing, and a Sunday school recently begun at Bethel Church on Sixth Street. The

Bethel school was staffed in part by abolition society members. The highest estimate was that 290 persons had received instruction in these . , 58 schools. 172

In 1799 the PAS encouraged Absalom Jones, an associate of black

leader Richard Allen, to teach a school on Fifth Street near Walnut in

the South Ward. This school grew rapidly. Jones went from instructing

sixteen students at its opening to having 142 students in day and eve~

ning classes by 1805. By that year Jones's school was one of eight

schools for blacks in Philadelphia, educating a total of 566 students.

Half the schools had black teachers, including three head teachers and

two assistants. Neither of the original PAS-related schools had black

teachers in 1805, even though the American Convention had encouraged the use of black instructors in its address to the abolition societies that 59 year.

The PAS had hoped in 1797 to be able to build two more schools in

the northern and southern parts of Philadelphia, but their support for

Absalom Jones so taxed their resources that they abandoned the plan. As

the numbers of blacks in Philadelphia multiplied and the demands on the society for aid in kidnapping cases increased, the society centered its educational efforts on the Cherry Street school. In 1809 the education committee voiced the need for a new building on the society's property there, and by 1812 subscriptions raised were sufficient to proceed with construction. The school house was completed in February 1813 and in

March a day school for boys was opened, followed in November with the opening of an evening school for girls. The society exhausted its funds in building the school and was forced to seek subscriptions to operate it. Not being able to afford a teacher for the evening school, the soci­ ety gave it over to a woman to operate on a tuition basis. The society then paid for fourteen of the fifty students she enrolled in 1814. The 173.

day teacher was allowed to hold his own evening school elsev.iiere to sup­ plement vÆiat the education committee acknowledged was a low salary of

$300 a yeat*^*^

To differentiate its schools from other schools for blacks in Phil­

adelphia, the PAS in 1815 named the schools The Clarkson Schools in honor

of the English abolitionist Thomas Clarkson. The PAS realized that its

schools, \diich had educated 303 children since their inception and had

120 students on their rosters in 1815, were reaching but a small segment

of the black population, but given the society's financial situation, it said it could do no better. The education committee in 1818 investigated having

its own girls' school, but recommended against it. That year the society

allowed the newly formed Union Adult Society, vdiich educated both blacks and vÆiites in segregated classrooms, to begin an evening adult school for blacks in the building. A first-day school was also opened in Clarkson

Hall under the independent Clarkson First Day School Association. The

evening school was apparently shortrlived, as the education committee

announced late in 1819 that a girls' school had been organized by the

society on the same basis as the boys' school.

Reported incidents of bad behavior by blacks in the city in 1819

led to a reduction in school subscriptions from the vdiite community and

the near loss of the Clarkson schools. The society responded to the in­

cidents by sending a committee to black houses of worship to remonstrate with the black community and by reaffirming its position that the only means to improve black deportment were the schools. Members of the edu­

cation committee wished those vAiites \Avo declaimed against black behavior were more generous in contributing their vÆierewithal to the "antidote." 174

But the contributions did not come. A rash of kidnappings and cases of slaves being manumitted into PAS care put an extraordinary financial burden on the society in 1819. In the same year, the PAS incurred heavy printing costs in lobbying on the Missouri question, and controversy over Missouri led to an exodus of some society members. Its treasury depleted, the society was forced to look to the Philadelphia public school system for assistance with the Clarkson schools. The education committee met with the public school controllers in 1820 to seek public funds, but the directors responded that black education, while legal, was not expedient in Philadelphia at the time. In January 1821 the society sought to put pressure on the directors by conveying the use of the Clarkson building to the public school system. The school board re­ jected the offer, but did open a school for blacks elsewhere in the city in 1822.62

The school board decision was not as traumatic in 1821 as it would have been even a year earlier, for the PAS was well enough recovered financially to continue its operation of Clarkson Hall. But the society gave over the operation of the evening school to The Association of

Friends for the education of poor children, and every evidence is that the zeal for education that marked the society prior to 1820 abated in the next decade. This is only partially explained by the initiation of some education for blacks by the city. Also important was the gravita­ tion of responsibility for black education to blacks themselves in the

1820s, a process that historian Carter Woodson explained was slower in

Philadelphia and New York because of the presence of the benevolent societies, but vdiich was moving rapidly even in conservative 175

Philadelphia by 1822. Woodson noted that by 1822 eleven of sixteen black schools in the city were taught by black teachers and that by 1830 blacks controlled most of their own education. The decline in zeal evident in the PAS is also explained by the society's greater attention to national issues in the 1820s. From the Missouri struggle on, the PAS reports to the American Convention dealt increasingly with national concerns and gave little mention to education. In 1829 PAS and American Convention president William Rawle, the prominent Philadelphia attorney, reported that the society could boast of little success in education but consid­ ered it now a "duty not to be relinquished." Rawle added that the society hoped to establish at Philadelphia a school to train potential black teachers, and in his address to the abortive 1832 convention he indicated such a school had been started.

The only other attempt to educate blacks in Pennsylvania reported to the Convention was by the Columbia Society for the Abolition of Slav­ ery. Located on the Susquehanna River between York and Lancaster, twenty-five miles north of the Maryland border, Columbia had been the scene of attempts to kidnap free blacks. The acting committee of a society for abolition and protection formed there in March 1818 under­ took to collect the names of black children vÆio were eligible to receive education under Pennsylvania law. In 1819 the influx of fifty-five man­ umitted slaves from Virginia swelled the black population of Columbia, forcing the society to hasten implementation of an educational program.

The Columbia society notified the Convention that it was about to insti­ tute a school for black children, and said there was a Sunday School already established in Columbia superintended by a society member. 176

According to society president William Wright, this school had eighty-

five students. Forty of these attended regularly and twenty-six could read the Bible. The society also reported schools for blacks in York

and Lancaster.^^

No society paid more attention to education than did the New York

Manumission Society. The New York African Free School under its aegis was in full operation before the American Convention ever met, and -vdien

Convention delegates issued calls in the 1790s for the abolition socie­

ties to foster education, they had in mind that the societies should

emulate \diat the New York society had done. A school for boys was au­

thorized in May 1786 and opened in November 1787. The Negro School

Committee of the NYMS hired Cornelius Davis, a vdiite man vdio had dis­

missed a school of white children in New York and gone to Philadelphia

to study Quaker schooling of blacks, as the first teacher. Although

originally conceived as a school for children of both slaves and free

blacks, the need for social control of the free black population pre­

vailed, and the society gave preference in admission to children of free

blacks who were "most regular and orderly in their deportment." Educa­

tional privilege, once granted, could be withdrawn if the child's family

strayed from proper conduct. Each family of a prospective scholar was

subject to a visitation by the society's school committee, and no child

could be admitted without the committee's formal permission. Children,

generally aged seven to fifteen, were to attend from nine to twelve and

from two to five daily, to come "decently washed and combed," enter

school, take their seats, be quiet, "tell no untruths, say no bad words:

nor use our Great Maker's awful name vainly or irreverently 177

The New York Manumission Society reported to the Convention on success after success at the school. Early reports of good attendance and exemplary deportment by the students were followed by the society’s boasting in 1797 that with sixty-three male and fifty-nine female schol­ ars vho were regular in attendance and able in accomplishment, the school was on "a more flourishing and respectable foothold” than ever, and was

"exceeded by none in the city." When other societies were incapable of proceeding with education in 1800 for lack of funding, the New York so­ ciety announced it had received $517 in financial support for its school from the city of New York. In 1801 the society reported that even par­ ents of students were helping to support the school and said this bound parents and children even closer to the school. Where other societies often wrote of past successes in order to preface jeremiads about more recent downturns in their fortunes, the NYMS found in the African Free

School an ever-new reason to rejoice, noting in 1805 that vAiile it had frequently told the Convention of the prosperous state of its school, the AFS was now, if anything, in even better condition.

In 1809 the school's trustees hired Charles C. Andrews, an English­ man, to perfect the Lancastrian system of education that the school had recently introduced. Under his leadership the school continued to pros­ per. A new building was constructed on William Street in 1814, and by

1820 overcrowding there forced the construction of another new school on

Mulberry Street below Grand. This school accommodated five hundred stu­ dents on two stories. In 1821 the NYMS reported it now educated about seven hundred students. By the next year registration reached a high of eight hundred. 178

Enactment of abolition in New York in 1827 allowed the NYMS to turn

its attention almost exclusively to education. But a growing rift be­

tween Andrews and New York blacks over the quality of education offered

in the African schools coupled with black frustration over the poor

economic prospects of the schools* graduates led to declining enrollments

and finally to the NYMS abandoning its schools. One writer in Freedom's

Journal argued that the education offered by the NYMS was faulty, com­

plaining that students were coached to enable them to impress the school

trustees in their annual visit, but were not developing marketable

skills. By 1829 average attendance at the African Free Schools had

dropped to three hundred students, and even this represented a slight

increase from 1828. Approximately 1080 of 1800 black children of school

age were not in school at all. Blacks began to boycott the schools, com­

plaining that education did little good \dien prejudice would not permit

their employment.

Historian John Rury has described the increasing desire of blacks

in New York for more control of their own education, a desire the New

York Manumission Society recognized too late. Attendance had started to

decline in 1823, but not until 1828 did the NYMS face its failure to

adequately inform the black population about the schools and to keep

informed of opinion in the black community. That year the NYMS persuaded

Samuel Cornish to leave the editorship of Freedom's Journal to become an

agent of the society in taking a census of blacks in New York, A brief

resurgence in attendance at the schools resulted from Cornish's work, but

vhen word reached black leaders that Charles Andrews supported coloniza­

tion, which most blacks opposed, the situation worsened. Andrews was 179 forced to resign in January 1832, and was replaced by James Adams, a black teacher. Attendance rapidly increased, but by this time blacks, frustrated with NYMS leadership, supported a public school takeover of

the African schools. The NYMS felt the pressure and, undoubtedly hurt by v ^ t must have been seen as black failure to appreciate their bene­ volence, consented to transfer the schools in 1833.^^ 180

The American Convention until its demise continued to espouse gradual abolition. But the gradualism of its old age was a different philosophy from the gradualism of its youth. Gradualism b o m of optimism in a revolutionary era gave way to a gradualism weighted with pessimism, sustained only by the lingering conviction that precipitous action against slavery was worse than no action at all. For nearly forty years the Con­ vention and its constituent societies sought to improve the condition of blacks, and thereby to prove to slaveholders and the country that blacks were capable of citizenship, only to find that their basic assumptions had been flawed.

Slaveholders had not been much enlightened by all the information provided by the Convention nor convinced that blacks were capable of im­ provement. Kidnappers had not responded to moral pleas. Slaveholders had refused to educate their slaves, leaving education, so desirable in

the abstract and so full of promise at the Convention's outset, in the hands of the societies. There it became a responsibility to be borne,

or abandoned when blacks announced they preferred to control their own

education. Moral improvement proved chimerical, for blacks refused to be

molded into ebcxy copies of their vÆiite benefactors. And when everything

apparently succeeded and educated and virtuous blacks stepped forward for

full admission into the society, the doors to civil rights, employment,

higher education, and social intercourse were barred by prejudice. 181 Most of all, it was the numbers of blacks and the complexity of their problems that overwhelmed the abolitionists, and caused their crusade for black improvement to disintegrate into a holding action against a deluge of black ignorance and despair. White paternalists craved order and consistency to work their plan of improvement leading to acceptance leading to final abolition. What they got was an ever-growing number of blacks to care for and a continuous round of emergencies to attend to.

They had not foreseen that their successes, few as they seemed at times, would lead only to greater problems. When slaveholders did free their slaves, it was not to become citizens in the comnunities of the slave­ holders, but refugees from slavery in alien cities. When a society successfully sued for the freedom of a black illegally enslaved, it only began its responsibility for his welfare and heightened the hopes of others that the society would help them too.

At first abolitionists delighted in successive proofs that slavery was an evil system that failed to prepare slaves morally or intellectual­ ly for freedom. Their idiite paternalism thrived on caring for blacks, protecting them, educating them, correcting them. But when the black population increased to numbers too great for the abolition societies to handle, paternalism lost the personal dimension so necessary to per­ sons who acted out of religious conviction. As the problems loomed larger, and the costs greater, the philanthropists realized they could not indefinitely carry on the social services they had undertaken so willingly. At the same time, blacks came to see that paternalism led only to dependence on a new set of vdiite overseers. The American Convention 182 came to an end in part because many from the first generations of vAiite abolitionists no longer were confident that improving blacks as a means to abolition worked, or that private philanthropy could ever bring blacks to social equality. And they believed this partly because many blacks no longer wanted to be the subjects of vhite philanthropic attempts at improvement.^^ ,183

CHAPTER IV FOOTNOTES

constitution appears in American Convention Minutes, 1801: 34-36 (1: 244-46). 2 American Convention Minutes, 1800: 21 (1: 195).

&JAS Minutes, 5 September 1796, p. 26; 1 September 1800, p. 44.

^American Convention Minutes, 1800: 21 (1: 195).

^Dwight Lowell Dumond, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America (Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 1961), 47.

^NYMS Papers, 5 (4 February 1795); E. H. Smith, "History of the New York Manumission Society" (1794), PAS Collection, Reel 28; James Milnor to Delaware Abolition Society, 29 January 1801, PAS Letterbook 1794-1809, PAS Collection, Reel 11.

^NYMS Papers, 6: 237-38 (15 November 1796); Choptank Abolition Society to American Convention, 26 April 1797, PAS Collection, Reel 29. g The Burlington County, New Jersey acting committee reported in 1802 that it had successfully concluded three cases, had had three dis­ missed, and said eleven cases continued on the books. Faithfulness was not, however, a mark of this acting committee's members. Chairman William Newbold, complaining of the weak participation of a few members of his committee, entreated the Burlington society to "make a more judi­ cious selection of its members for this arduous and momentous task." Burlington County Branch Minutes, 37 (27 April 1802).

^American Convention Minutes, 1812: 27 (2: 503); 1816: 31-32 (2: 555-56); 1817: 28-29 (2: 592-93).

^*^American Convention Minutes, 1818: 56-59 (2; 658-61); 1821: 6, 14, 30 (2: 746, 754, 770). New York passed a law in 1808 that carried stiff penalties for kidnapping. See American Convention Minutes, 1809: 9 (2: 451).

^^American Convention Minutes, 1819: 64 (2: 738).

^^Eberly, "The Pennsylvania Abolition Society," 57-62. 13 In one instance James Ross, prior to his election to the United States Senate, represented the PAS in arguing for the release of slaves held illegally in Washington County, Pennsylvania. His "masterly and prevailing" argument helped to win the release of the slaves, and helped the reputation of the Washington Abolition Society. David Redick to PAS, 15 March 1798, Cox-Parrish-Wharton Papers, 3: 8. 184

^^Elisha Tyson to Isaac T. Hopper, 24 June 1811, 10 July 1811; lyson to William Master, 24 September 1811, 4 September 1812; lyson to James Cammerbn and William Master, 11 November 1812, PAS Collection, Reel 12.

^Joseph Bringhurst, Jr. to Thomas Shipley, August 1816, PAS Col­ lection, Reel 12.

^^John Kollock to William Master, 19 October 1815, PAS Collection, Reel 12.

^^Edwin Lorrain, New Orleans, to Humane Society, Philadelphia, October 1813; Seth Ferris to PAS, 20 April 1808, PAS Collection, Reel 12. 18 Moody Jackson to his daughter, 27 March 1814, PAS Collection, Reel 12; Levina Johnson to Isaac Johnson, 7 July 1824, PAS Collection, Reel 13. 19 W, F. Burschall to Thomas Shipley, 8 February 1820, 11 March 1820, PAS Collection, Reel 13. 90 Cité Oilier to PAS, 25 March 1808, PAS Collection, Reel 12. 21 Joseph Rowland and Isaac Barton for PAS to Eldred Simkins and George McDuffie, 25 July 1822; Simkins to Rowland and Barton, 9 August 1822; Rowland and Barton to Simkins, 7 September 1822; William Stuard to Rowland, 12 January 1823; Simkins to PAS, 6 March 1823; Christina Barger to President, PAS, 8 February 1829, PAS Collection, Reel 13; Simkins to Rowland and Barton, 3 December 1822, PAS Acting Committee Minutes, 5 (1822-1842), p. 11, PAS Collection, Reel 5; Simkins to PAS, 12 March 1823, ibid., 18-20; PAS Acting Committee Minutes, 5: 20-22; PAS Minute book, 1800-1824, pp. 359, 437 (4 September 1822, 24 June 1824); Joseph Rowland to Simkins and McDuffie, 16 June 1823, Barton to Benjamin Valen­ tine, 5 July 1823, PAS Collection, Reel 15.

^^NYMS Papers, 6: 137 (19 November 1789); NJAS Report to American Convention, 1801, PAS Collection, Reel 28; Burlington County Branch Minutes, 43 (24 April 1804); NJAS Minutes, September 1803, p. 75, and 26 September 1804, pp. 85-86; NYMS Papers, 4 (21 March 1827). Henry Cooley said that courts in New Jersey did not require abolition soci­ eties to pay court costs vdien suing for a slave's freedom, based on New Jersey vs. Frees. The court refused to compel the Salem Abolition So­ ciety to pay court costs, saying 'it was a laudable and humane thing in any man or set of men to bring up the claims of those unfortunate people before the court for consideration. ' New Jersey Law Report 1: 299, quoted in Cooley, Slavery in New Jersey, 24/434. A jud^ent against the New York society for $1500 in 1810 because of improper prosecution by the acting committee ushered in some very dark years for the society. By 1815 an evident rift developed between the standing committee and those who wanted to curtail its expensive activities and apply the money 185 ■ to education. Ihe standing committee said it could not find members to serve because people knew the responsibility entailed and knew the society did not pay its debts, leaving standing committee members to pay from their own pockets to aid blacks. NYMS Papers, 9; 249-56, 320-21, 330 , 344 (20 April, 2 May, 8 May, 1810: 12 January, 13 April, 22 Novem­ ber, 1813); 10: 371-74 (22 August 1815). 23 American Convention Minutes, 1800: 9-10 (1: 183-84). It was the funding problem in the Virginia society in 1800 that prompted the Convention to create an assistance fund to aid struggling societies. Joseph Bringhurst, Jr. to Thomas Shipley, 12 August 1816, PAS Collection, Reel 12.

^^DAS Minutes, 29 November 1816, 14 January 1817, 9 April 1818, 2 October 1818, yp., 102, 107, 149, 152.

^^illiam Allinson, "Notes on a Tour into Sussex," Allinson Col­ lection, Quaker Collection, Haverford College. 26 Evan Lewis to William Wayne, Jr. and Thcxnas Shipley, 9 March 1816; Joseph Bringhurst, Jr. to Shipley, 12 August 1816, PAS Collection, Reel 12; American Convention Minutes, 1817; 17 (2; 581). The PAS had agents in counties throughout Pennsylvania who acted for the society, making it unnecessary for PAS members to leave Philadelphia on state business. See, e.g., Adams Co., Pa. Society to PAS, 15 January, 3 June 1817, PAS Collection, Reel 12.

^^American Convention Minutes, 1801: 31-32 (1: 241-42); DAS Minutes, 19 June, 17 July, 16 October 1802, 15 January 1803, pp. 12-14, 16. The PAS did not respond to the Delaware request, and the committee appointed to make the appeal was discontinued. 28 The special meeting of the Convention called in 1818 to consi­ der, among other things, colonization said as much. In registering its opposition to colonization, the Convention concluded, "they must there [Africa], as well as here, be subjected to vdiite rulers." American Convention Minutes, 1818; 66 (2; 668).

OQ American Convention Minutes, 1800; 6 (1: 180) ; NJAS Report to the American Convention of 1797, PAS Collection, Reel 28; American Con­ vention Minutes, 1801: 12 (1: 222). OA American Convention Minutes, 1804: 17, 31 (1: 317, 331); 1806: 17 (2; 417). 31 Rice, Slavey Inconsistent, 7; American Convention Minutes, 1812: 14 (2: 49Û); "An Account of the state of Negroes in East Jersey" to the American Convention of 1801, PAS Collection, Reel 28.

^^American Convention Minutes, 1806; 13 (2: 413). 186 33 NYMS Papers, 5 (11 August 1785); American Convention Minutes, 1805; 33, 13 (1: 383, 363).

^"^NYMS Papers, 5 (21 July 1788, 18 February 1790); 6: 179 (22 May 1793). 35 NJAS Report to the American Convention of 1797, PAS Collection, Reel 28.

^^American Convention Minutes, 1821: 51-52 (2: 791-92). 37 American Convention Minutes, 1821; 57 (2: 797). See Chapter 5. 38 Samuel Paxson and James J. Wilson to American Convention, 6 June 1812, PAS Collection, Reel 29; American Convention Minutes, 1812: 13 (2: 489); Choptank Abolition Society to American Convention, 26 April 1797, PAS Collection, Reel 29. 39 Emma Jones Lapsansky, "Since They Got Those Separate Churches: Afro-Americans and Racism in Jacksonian Philadelphia," American Quarterly 32 (Spring 1980): 71, 75; Julie Winch, "The Leaders of Philadelphia s Black Community, 1787-1848" (Ph.D. dissertation, Bryn Mawr College, 1982), 8, 117-19, 146-53; Robert Purvis, A 'pribute to the Memory of Thomas Shipley, the Philanthropist (Philadelphia: Merrihew and Gunn, J836; reprint ed., with bibliographical note by Maxwell Whiteman, Phila­ delphia: Rhistoric Publications, 1969), 17; Nash, "Forging Freedom," 48.

^^For examples of the argument that the freedom of slaves ulti­ mately depended on the good behavior of free blacks, see American Convention Minutes, 1797: 17 (1: 111); 1804: 17 (1: 317); 1805: 38 (1: 388; 1818: 47 (2: 649). American Convention Minutes, 1804: 17-18 (1: 317-18); 1823: 40-41 (3: 840-41); Lapsansky, "Since They Got Those Separate Churches," 61, 71.

'^^Address of the American Convention "To The Free Africans and other free People of color in the United States," 1798, PAS Collection, Reel 29. This address was not authorized by the 1798 convention, \dnich suggested only that the abolition societies reprint the addresses of 1796 and 1797. Its origination is unknown.

^^Salem, New Jersey, Branch Minutes, 6 December 1797, Allinson Collection; PAS Report to the American Convention of 1797, PAS Collec­ tion, Reel 29; DAS Minutes, 28 April 1804, pp. 27-28; American Conven­ tion Minutes, 1805; 17 (1; 367).

^^American Convention Minutes, 1806: 17-18 (2: 417-18); Pennsyl­ vania Abolition Society Minute book, 2; 24-25 (6 April 1801), PAS Col­ lection, Reel 1. On the Ezion Church, see Essah, Slavery and Freedom in the First State," 202-3. 187

Minute book, 2; 24-25 (6 April 1801); NJAS Minutes, 26 Sep­ tember 1804, p. 91; Burlington County Branch Minutes, 48-49 (28 Septem­ ber 1804), and loose minutes of committee on black education and morality, pp. 49-50.

^^American Convention to Société des Amis des Noirs à Paris, 9 May 1797, PAS Collection, Reel 29.

^^American Convention Minutes, 1794; 21 (1: 21); 1797: 13 (1: 117); 1819: 42 (2: 716); 1829: 8 (3: 1088).

^^Granville Sharp assured James Pemberton that instruction for black children, vdiich he called "true Christian Charity," would "be no hindrance to their diligence as Labourers in future life. ..." Sharp to Pemberton, 20 August 1794, Cox-Parrish-Wharton Papers, 11: 97.

^®NYMS Papers, 6: 97 (21 February 1788); American Convention Minutes, 1798: 27 (1: 181) (quote); 1818: 64 (2: 666); Samuel Cornish and John Russwurm to Isaac Barton, 2 October 1827, PAS Collection, Reel 29. A Freedom* s Journal article reprinted in the Genius of Universal Emancipation in 1827 defended white abolitionists as friends of blacks and lauded their educational efforts on behalf of free blacks. ’More insensible than marble, must be that man of colour's heart, who does not feel the great obligation we are all under to their societies.' Genius, 1, no. 6, n.s. (11 August 1827), 47.

^%ichael Kraus, "Slavery Reform in the Eighteenth Century: An Aspect of Transatlantic Intellectual Cooperation," Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 60 (1936): 62; David Rittenhouse to Willian Pemberton, 6 August 1/91, Ic, PAS Collection, Reel 11; Benjamin Rush, M.D., "Account of a Wonderful Talent for Arithmetical Calculations, in an African Slave, living in Virginia," American Convention of 1809 loose material, PAS Collection, Reel 28; Edward Needles, Ai Historical Memoir of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery; the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage, and for Improving the Condition of the African Race (Philadelphia; Merrihew and Thompson^ 1848; reprint ed., New York: A m o Press and The New York Times, 1969), 32.

^^American Convention Minutes, 1797: 31 (1: 125); 1828: 5, 20-21, 62-68 (3: 1017, 1032-33, 1074-80); NYMS to American Convention, 21 Octo­ ber 1828, PAS Collection, Reel 29; NYMS Papers, 8 (13 January 1829). For an example of the praise of the NYMS for its school, see American Convention Minutes, 1818: 9 (2: 611).

^^Araerican Convention Minutes, 1797: 34-36 (1: 128-30); George Drinker to Joseph Bringhurst, Jr., 10 December 1804, PAS Collection, Reel 12. This letter is printed in American Convention Minutes, 1805: 21-24 (1: 371-74). Additional comment about the effect of the Gabriel conspiracy on the Alexandria society and its Sunday school, is in American Convention Minutes, 1801: 32 (1: 242). A benevolent society 188 for the protection of blacks was formed at Alexandria in 1827 and shortly thereafter began an African Sabbath School. Its school was the fourth begun in Alexandria in the 1820s; one in the AME Church was led by black teachers. Samuel Janney to Edwin P. Atlee, 28 September 1827, PAS Collection, Reel 29.

^^American Convention Minutes, 1800: 10 (1: 184); 1801: 22 1: 232); 1819: 29 (2: 703); H. M. Wagstaff, ed., Minutes of the North Carolina Manumission Society, 1816-1834, The James Sprunt Historical Studies, 22: 1-2, gen. eds., R. D. W. Connor, William Whatley Pierson, Jr., and Mitchell B. Garrett (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1934), 59-60; American Convention Minutes, 1826: 35-36 (3: 937-38); Genius of Universal Emancipation, 4,no. lO (July 1825), 157; Paul M. Sherrill, ^'Quakers and the North Carolina Manumission Soci­ ety," Historical Papers of the Trinity College Historical Society, 10 (1914): 50; Asa Earl Martin, "The Anti-Slavery Societies of Tennessee," Tennessee Historical Magazine, 1, no. 4 (December 1915): 270. 53 David Howell to James Milnor, 7 January 1805, Cox-Parrish- Wharton Papers, vol. 3; Minutes of the New Jersey Abolition Society gen­ eral meeting of 7 September 1795, PAS Collection, Reel 28; Burlington County Branch Minutes, 29 April 1794, 6 October 1795, 4 October 1796; American Convention Minutes, 1798: 9 (1: 163); 1801: 12-13 (1: 222-23).

^'^American Convention Minutes, 1804: 9-10 (1: 309-10); NJAS Minutes, 26 September 1804, p. 93; American Convention Minutes, 1806: 10 (2: 410).

^^American Convention Minutes, 1801: 20 (1: 230); 1803: 17 (1: 283); 1809: 20 (2: 462); Essah, 'Slavery and Freedom in the First State," 146-48.

^^American Convention Minutes, 1817: 16 (2: 580); 1816: 20 (2: 544); DAS Minutes, 4 July 18l7, p. 129; Essah, "Slavery and Freedom in the First State," 148-50.

^^American Convention Minutes, 1797: 32-33 (1: 126-27). CO American Convention Minutes, 1797: 33-34 (1: 127-28). 59 Absalom Jones to the Committee of Twenty-four of the PAS, 11 March 1799, PAS Collection, Reel 12; Joseph Clark to John Parish, Cox- Parrish-Wharton Papers, 14: 70; American Convention Minutes, 1805: 34 (1: 384). ------

^^PAS Minute book, 2: 140 (4 December 1809) ; 154 (6 January 1812); 162 (8 February 1812); 194-97 (3 January 1814).

^^PAS Minute book. 2: 217 (30 March 1815); American Convention Minutes, 1816: 8 (2: 532); PAS Minute book, 2: 284-85 (24 September 1818); 299-300 (7 January 1819); 319 (30 December 1819). 189

^^PAS Minute book, 2: 319 (30 December 1819); 323 (30 March 1820); 337 (4 January 1821); 360 (24 September 1822); American Convention Minutes, 1823: 13 (3: 813). Blacks had been entitled to public school education since 1802 by numerous school laws, but prejudice was too strong against their admission. Harry C. Silcox, Delay and Neglect: Negro Public Education in Antebellum Philadelphia, 1800-1860," Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 97 (October 1973): 444, 446-50. Silcox explained the willingness of the public school control­ lers to open public education to blacks by noting a decline in public school enrollment among whites, the settlement of the Missouri question leading to reduced fear of racial strife, and an increase in black crime that made education for blacks seem urgent to the controllers. The pre­ sence of Roberts Vaux, at this time an inactive PAS member, at the head of the controllers also was an important factor. Roderick Naylor Ryon, "Roberts Vaux: A Biography of a Reformer" (Ph.D. dissertation, The Pennsylvania State University, 1966), 78.

American Convention Minutes, 1825: 13 (3: 879); Carter G. Wood­ son, The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861: A History of the Educa­ tion oE the Colored People of the United States from the Beginning of slavery to the Civil War (Washington, D.C.: Associated PublishersT 1919; reprint ed., New York: A m o Press and The New York Times, 1968), 144-46. The 1827 address of the PAS to the Convention is a good example of its increased concentration on national issues. See American Convention Minutes, 1827: 35-38 (3: 987-90). American Convention Minutes, 1829: 55 (3: 1135); PAS Address to the American Convention of 1832, PAS Col­ lection, Reel 29.

^^American Convention Minutes, 1818: 20-24 (2: 622-26); 1819: 13-14 (2: 687-88); William Frederic Womer, "The Columbia Race Riots," Papers Read before the Lancaster County Historical Society 26 (6 October 1922):

^^NYMS Papers, 6: 43, 81-82, 87 (11 May 1786 and 15 November 1787); 5 (11 May 1786).

^^American Convention Minutes, 1797: 29-30 (1: 123-24); 1800: 14 (1: 188); 1801: 6-7 (1: 216-17); 1805: 6-7 (1: 356-57).

^^The Lancastrian system of education, named for the English Quaker Joseph Lancaster who developed it, "used student monitors to supervise large classes under the direction of a single master, providing an in­ expensive means for schooling large numbers of children." John L. Rury, "The New York African Free School, 1827-1836: Conflict Over Community Control of Black Education," Phylon 44, no. 3 (September 1983): 188. The system was introduced into the United States in 1806 and the African Free School was the second school to use it. Andrews was not the first to implement the Lancastrian method at the school; its use was begun under the black teacher who preceded him. In 1818 the city of Phila­ delphia adopted Lancaster's system, employing it for thirteen years. 190.

Rury, "The New York African Free School, 188-89; Moseley, "A History of the New-York Manumission Society,” 217; Sam Bass Warner, Jr., The Private City; Philadelphia in Three Periods of Its Growth (Philadelphia: Univer- sity of Pennsylvania Press, 1968), 114-16. See also Charles C. Andrews, History of the New York African Free Schools from 1787 to the Present (New York: 1830) for Andrews's own account.

^®Rury, "The New York African Free School," 190-94; Freedom*s Journal, 1 June 1827, quoted in Enid Vivian Barnett, "Educational Activi­ ties by and in Behalf of the Negroes in New York, 1800-1830," The Negro History Bulletin 14 (February 1951): 101; Barnett, 100-102.

^^Rury, "The New York African Free School," 190-94; Moseley, "A History of the New-York Manumission Society," 211-13, 218-20.

^^Merton Dillon showed that the young abolitionists of the 1830s launched their movement believing that slaveholders could be convicted of their sin, that race prejudice could be overcome, and that vdiites could be convinced blacks were not inferior. The American Anti-Slavery Society stressed education and moral reform of blacks. Dillon demon­ strated that due to the intractability of the problem by 1844 work for moral reform gave way to attempted politicals solutions to slavery. The abolitionists of the 1830s learned in practice what their forebears had discovered, that moral reasoning about slavery in the public arena bore little fruit. Dillon, "The Failure of the Abolitionists,*' Journal of Southern History 25 (May 1959): 165-73. CHAPTER V

COLONIZATION; AN ATTRACTIVE

OPTION DIVIDES THE MOVEMENT

In supporting colonization in 1816, the American Convention favor­ ed a solution to America's racial puzzle that periodically had attracted the attention of abolitionists. The Reverend Samuel Hopkins, called the first American colonizationist by historian John Bodo, had encouraged voluntary emigration by blacks to Africa as a missionary venture before the American Revolution. In 1788 Hopkins remarked on the voluntary re­ moval of a group of blacks from Boston to Africa and questioned whether this might not be the solution to ending the slave trade and finally slavery. He followed up on this idea by appending a plan for colonizing blacks in Africa to a speech he delivered before the Providence Society for Abolishing the Slave Trade in 1793.^

Some abolitionists could, like Hopkins, support colonization as an initial step to ending slavery, as Philadelphia Quaker John Parrish did in 1806 when he urged Congress to create a western territory for black emigration. As vdiite Americans observed the increasing numbers of slaves and free blacks, however, motives became mixed. Some oppo­ nents of slavery sought anxiously to find a way both to attack slavery and the slave trade and to avoid a racial crisis. In 1805, Micajah

Davis of the Virginia abolition society advocated removing blacks from

191 192

the country by colonization. Davis expressed the fear that the numbers

of blacks will before long equal those of vÆiites.” This fear would be­

come a primary impetus to colonization.^

Convention members were made aware of the popularity of coloniza­

tion in England through correspondence with the London society and with

the African Institution of London after its creation in 1807. They fol­

lowed with interest the progress of the colony established by the Sierra

Leone Company in 1791, but regarded it either as a solution to a West

Indian problem or at best a step toward abolishing the slave trade. The

abolition societies in New York and Philadelphia knew of the activities

of Paul Cuffee, the Quaker black man who served as an American agent of

the African Institution in transporting free blacks to Africa, and many

Quakers supported him, but the American Convention passed no judgment on

his work. The societies represented in the Convention paid little atten­

tion to colonization before 1816, having adopted other methods to oppose

slavery and to deal with the burgeoning numbers of free blacks. Coloni­

zation seemed a solution remote both physically and spiritually, as the abolition societies found immediate satisfaction in promoting manumis­ sions, liberating blacks illegally enslaved, aiding free blacks in find­ ing homes and employment in the North, and clinging to a vision of an integrated American society.^

Ironically, it was the success of the abolition societies in pro­ moting manumissions that brought colonization home as a potential Ameri­ can solution. When a request came to the Pennsylvania society through

Thomas Pym Cope in 1816 for assistance in resettling three hundred slaves freed at the death of Samuel Guest of Virginia, PAS members were 193 overvÆielmed at the numbers, and Cuffee's name wns mentioned as a possible agent for colonizing them.^

The Guest will and other such requests coming from the South and

West caused the American Convention to seriously examine colonization for ■ 5 the first time in 1816. The result was the beginning of formal corres­ pondence with Thomas Clarkson of the African Institution on the question of an asylum for blacks, and the preparation of a memorial to Congress on a western refuge for manumitted slaves. Evan Lewis of Delaware, writing to Clarkson for the acting committee, expressed the Convention's favorable attitude toward colonization as long as it truly recompensed blacks. Lewis documented the mixed mind of the Convention \dien he also indicated that southern sentiment favored colonization as a means of relieving vdiites from the pressure they felt from the increasing black population.^

The creation of the American Colonization Society in 1816 intro­ duced a rival society that also claimed to have the best interests of blacks at heart. Organized to transport free blacks to Africa, the colo­ nization society counted notable politicians and prominent slaveholders among its founders and officers. For this reason, the society purposely avoided any linking of colonization with emancipation. Faced with this new development, the American Convention renewed its consideration of colonization in 1817. A committee headed by Richard Peters, Jr., prom­

inent Philadelphia attorney and newly-elected president of the Conven­

tion, was appointed to consider the subject. The committee said that it recognized the union of "a large portion of talent and virtue" in the newly-formed ACS, but refused its blessing to ACS plans. It issued the 194 unrealistic expectation that the society's illustrious members should support no colonization plan that was not prefaced with a pledge from southern states to initiate gradual emancipation.^

The committee's report made it apparent that abolitionists har­ bored doubts about the motives of the American Colonization Society, primarily because of the society's inclusion of prominent slaveholders among its national directors. John Cox, a Quaker frcxn Burlington, New

Jersey, complained that little good could be expected from an agency that included Henry Clay and Andrew Jackson as vice-presidents. Cox feared that

their object is rather to rivet more firmly the chains of the poor Slaves, by decreasing the number and force of the black population in the United States, than to promote the real welfare of those vÆio are intended to be sent away. When I see the slaveholders in the Southern States, by passing Laws for the gradual abolition of Slavery, evince a real disposition to put an end to this crying evil, and to do justice to this long oppressed and injured race of men, I shall be more ready to give them credit for motives of phil­ anthropy in a plan of this kind, than I am disposed to do at present.B

Skepticism about the American Colonization Society never abated within the Convention. Coupled with the suspicion that ACS members were inter­ ested not in abolition or aiding free blacks but in protecting white society was a resentment of the society's immediate popularity by estab­ lished philanthropists vÆio had seen their own efforts to defend blacks met with calumny.

Added to the abolitionists' misgivings was the strong denunciation of colonization by blacks in Philadelphia. Free blacks there had met early in 1817 in response to rumors of their impending colonization. No sooner had the Convention adjourned in 1817 than free blacks met again on 10 August to discuss colonization. James Forten, the Philadelphia 195 sailmaker and acknowledged black leader vdio had assisted Paul Cuffee in his colonization efforts, was elected chairman of the meeting. The blacks let it bi known that colonization designed by southern slavehold­ ers was not to be equated with Cuffee's benevolent work. In no uncer­

tain terms they informed the vAiite community by way of a formal address

that they had neither requested nor desired a plan of African coloniza­

tion, and they urged its rejection. Opposition to colonization by white abolitionists was to remain strongest in Philadelphia, not least because of a continuing intransigence of Philadelphia blacks on the subject.^

Concern over colonization was one of the primary reasons that led the Delaware society to request the Pennsylvania society to join it in a call for a special meeting of the Convention in 1818. Although the meet­ ing was organized hastily, twenty-one delegates representing four socie­ ties appeared in Philadelphia on 10 December. It was the largest atten­ dance since 1795.^^

The Convention met as a committee of the whole on the evening of

11 December to consider colonization. After discussion the delegates put the matter in the hands of a committee composed of Richard Peters,

Jr. and Abraham Pennock of the PAS, Peter A. Jay and Nathan Comstock of the NYMS, and Joseph Bringhurst, Jr. of Delaware. The next morning

Prince Saunders, a black American supporter of Henri Christophe sent by the Haitian leader to observe Lancastrian education in England and the

United States, appeared before the Convention to urge consideration of

Haiti as an asylum for freed slaves. Saunders pleaded with Convention members to promote the pacification of Haiti, which in 1818 was divided into warring factions led by Christophe and Jean-Pierre Boyer, and then 196

to send blacks from the United States to people the ravaged land and re­

build its devastated economy. Saunders assured his Convention listeners

that assistance by American philanthropists in such a pacification would

bring English philanthropists to their side in sponsoring a monumental

colonization effort. This would result, he said, in Haiti's beccxning a

land of harmony for blacks and vÆiites and eventually in the elevation of

the entire black race.^^

Saunders's plea came at a propitious time. It enabled the Peters

committee to keep alive a colonization option within the Convention by

advocating investigation of Haiti as a potential asylum for blacks de­

siring to emigrate while heeding free black opinion in Philadelphia and

the qualms of its own members by condemning the work of the American

Colonization Society. In its report, the Peters committee concluded

that it found nothing in the ACS plan for African colonization that was

"friendly to the abolition of slavery in the United States" and pro­

nounced the plan impracticable. The committee cited the opposition of

Philadelphia blacks to colonization, and mockingly argued that when vhites were prepared to abandon America for Europe and relinquish the

land to native Americans, then would blacks be ready to return to Africa.

Even if blacks wished to go, the committee contended that the cost of resettling the black population would be prohibitive. On the subject of

expense the delegates gathered in the Convention considered themselves

expert. The committee estimated transportation costs alone for re­

settling the entire free black population at $18,644,000. Food, cloth­

ing, housing, and work implements would drive the cost to in excess of

$54,000,000. Even if a plan for partial colonization as advocated by 197 some won out and only one-sixth of the free blacks emigrated, the cost would be nearly $10,000,000.^^

The committee went on enumerating reasons colonization in Africa was not feasible, listing previous European failures at African coloni­ zation, poor land quality, the fierceness of the native Africans, and the unwillingness of the chiefs to recognize territorial claims. But the reason for opposing colonization dearest to the hearts of the com­ mittee members lay closer to home. They concluded that the ACS plan, formed "in the bosom of the slaveholding states," held a dangerous por­ tent. Colonization was, they contended, a means to "eternize the bond­ age" of blacks not colonized, and would be the death of universal emanci­ pation. In an almost prescient paragraph the committee described the potential fate of freed blacks in slaveholding states. Slaveholders, vdio already treated free blacks as "objects of jealousy, fear and ha­ tred," would "exercise on all occasions the power, with \diich they are invested, to regulate their situation, and legislate over them." A poll tax would be levied on free blacks as a means of forcing them to emi­ grate. Voluntary emigration would be a chimera; free blacks would be so legislated against that they would be "driven to adopt, as a refuge 1 ? frcxn suffering and oppression, transportation to a grave in Africa."

The Convention's 1818 address to the abolition societies enjoined them to oppose the colonization "scheme.This address went beyond the rationale provided in the Peters committee report to renew the pater­ nalistic insistence that blacks were not yet prepared for governing themselves and needed to remain under vÆiite tutelage. The address stopped short of saying that, this being the case, it was better for 198 blacks to remain under the care of their proven benefactors in the abo­ lition societies and to avoid whites \dxo did not have their best inter­ ests at heart. It is not stretching the point, however, to conclude this is what the Convention members intended. The address also sugges­ ted that colonization cut at the heart of the abolitionists' work by fostering the argument that emancipation must wait until a colony could be established. The Convention members reversed this argument, contend­ ing that blacks must be educated and gradually and totally emancipated before colonization would be considered.

Aware of Convention opinion opposing African colonization, Ameri­ can Colonization Society representatives sought to convince abolitionists that colonization on the ACS plan was compatible with a program of grad­ ual emancipation. In May 1819 officers of the Pennsylvania Abolition

Society and the Philadelphia members of the Convention's acting commit­ tee met with members of the colonization society at William Rawles's home to listen to them advocate their program. The Philadelphians re­ mained unmoved. Under their strong leadership, the Convention in 1819 reaffirmed the 1818 positions on African colonization.^^

Opposing the American Colonization Society provided no answers to

the quandary of what to do with increasing numbers of what the aboli­

tionists feared were unassimilable free blacks, however. In response to

this continuing dilemma, the Convention in 1819 moved closer to initi­ ating correspondence with the two governments of Haiti regarding pos­

sible colonization there and sketched a preliminary plan for coloniza­

tion in the American West. This plan called for voluntary emigration

to an area west of the Missouri River between the fortieth and 199 forty-fourth parallels (present-day Nebraska and South Dakota). There a territorial government would be formed and free land offered to blacks on vÆiich they could engage in agriculture and domestic manufacturing.

Slavery, of course, was to be prohibited. In a concession to southern fears that the existence of such a colony would promote slave flight and accompanying conems about potential race conflict, the introduction of fugitive slaves was also to be banned. The territory's proposed loca­ tion far from a major river and at a considerable distance from the

South was meant to ensure that fugitives would not gain entrance.

Creation of a western territory seemed to the abolitionists to answer objections raised by blacks to African colonization: intemperate climate, loss of the Christian religion, and separation from the United

States by ocean. The expense was manageable, the members said, and to the objection that such a territory introduced a potential fifth column on the western frontier, they responded that this would be no more true of blacks than of the Indians then residing there. The committee held out the hope that, unlike African colonization, vAûch was frequently promoted in the South as a means of making remaining slaves more docile, western colonization would give blacks reason to believe emancipation possible. A western colony would prove a boon to the United States by fostering Christianity and by retaining the most industrious and upright 18 blacks within the country.

Having proposed an alternative to the African colonization so forcefully condemned by the 1818 convention, the 1819 committee on colo­ nization decided its proposals outstripped the constitutional ability of the delegates to approve it and stopped short of encouraging its 200

adoption. More than legal niceties, however, lay behind the committe's

reticence to embrace a plan of its own creation. Chaired by William

Rawle, the cautious, deliberate president of the PAS, the commit ,ee re­ vealed in its hesitancy the divided mind of Rawle, of the PAS, and of the

Convention on the subject of colonization. Distrust of the American Colo­

nization Society and respect for free black sentiment made the staunchest

of abolitionists, especially the Philadelphia vanguard that Rawle guided, uncomfortable with the entire concept of colonization. Yet they better than any understood the problems being created by a growing free black population, unwanted in the South and increasingly difficult to assimilate in the North, and the consequent attraction of colonization.

They also recognized that the future of the abolition movement depended on the growth of southern societies. Convention leaders faced a diffi­ cult choice: to embrace a solution they did not favor, or to oppose col­ onization and endanger the development of southern abolitionism.

Reports coming to the Convention from the abolition societies in

1819 helped create this confusion over vÆiat to do regarding coloniza­ tion. Ihe reports made clear that the views of some northern abolition­ ists and those of members of abolition societies in southern states were widely divergent, and that any action on colonization by the Convention would be problematic because of this incipient rift. Thomas H. Genin, president of the Union Humane Societies in southeastern Ohio and an ar­ dent foe of colonization, appeared as a delegate to present his soci­ ety's report. Genin said money spent in colonization ought to be applied to other humanitarian purposes, and charged that no master would ever manumit for emigration slaves useful to him. The report from the 201

Kentucky Abolition Society demonstrated that more than geography separa­ ted abolitionists in the neighboring states. The authors of the Kentuclqr report, Rev. David Barrow and Henry Damall, focused not on slaves but on free blacks. They indicated the KAS looked favorably on colonization as a way of alleviating blacks' "contracted, degraded situation," and

Damall said free blacks in Kentucky approved colonization. They con­ ceded that it was a complex situation and "should not be gone into with- 19 out due deliberation.

The Convention continued to give the recommended due deliberation to colonization, trying to find a way to support the concept while con­ tinuing to oppose the American Colonization Society. The options be­ came more limited. In November 1821 at an adjourned session held pri­ marily to consider a general plan of emancipation, a committee appointed to reconsider colonization again spumed African colonization, but also rejected the western colony envisioned two years earlier. The Congress­ ional debate on Missouri, with its revelation of how strong proslavery sentiment was, had chastened the abolitionists. They abandoned any optimism about westward emigration of blacks now that slavery was to exist west of the Mississippi. Always repelled by violence, real or an­ ticipated, the abolitionists, especially the Convention's Quaker contin­ gent, revived the fear that a western colony would become a haven for

■runaway slaves and a trigger to hostility and servile insurrection. As vdiite men they feared black insurrection, and as friends of blacks they believed the survival of the abolition movement depended on avoiding such hostile action. A committee headed by the Delaware Quaker Evan

Lewis concluded that blacks were not ready for self-government in the 202

West, and predicted war between blacks and \diites living ini close proxi­ mity on the frontier. It advised forgetting western colonization and returning to the Convention's more familiar emphases of mitigating sla­ very and working for emancipation. The Lewis committee report effec­ tively doomed western colonization within the Convention. Two years later the Manumission Society of Tennessee, represented in the Conven­ tion for the first time, failed to inspire a debate vÆien it advocated 20 western colonization.

Having rejected African colonization and abandoned western emigra­ tion, Convention leaders felt the need to develop some colonization plan, if only to counteract the ACS and its popularity. They continued to con­

sider the Haitian option. The Convention hoped that Spain might cede

Santo Domingo to the United States as a refuge for free blacks. In 1819

Richard Peters, Jr. urged Alexander I of Russia to intercede with Spain

to give up rights to her part of the island to speed pacification.

Thomas Clarkson noted in 1820 that with Spain's cession of the Floridas

she was now unlikely to give up Santo Domingo. He encouraged the

"triennial convention" to take on Haitian colonization as a private pro­

ject and to send a representative to Haiti to examine the situation. In

a three-way communication between Clarkson, Henri Christophe, and Evan

Lewis, Christophe agreed to negotiations on forming a Haitian colony.

Lewis contemplated visiting the island in 1820, but Christophe's over­

throw and sudden suicide prevented his going. At the Convention session

in 1823 Lewis announced further plans to visit the island, and the Con- 21 vention requested he report back any information he obtained there. 203

On 18 June 1824 prominent members of the New York Manumission So­ ciety met to hear Jonathan Granville, an agent of President Boyer of now-unified Haiti, explain the provisions of a colonization plan pro­ moted by Boyer. The plan called for division of emigrants into three classes composed of agriculturalists, laborers, and mechanics/trades­ people/ teachers. Boyer offered to pay for transportation and to give land and the right to practice trades to blacks willing to emigrate.

Granville, working with Loring D. Dewey, an agent of the American Coloni­ zation Society acting unofficially, convinced the NYMS members that

Haitian colonization would be beneficial to free blacks. Influenced by Granville, New York Quaker abolitionist and NYMS member Thomas Eddy said that although black leaders were hesitant to leave the United

States, they could in Haiti exercise political leadership and attain social distinction. Eddy was convinced that due to societal prejudice these things would never be possible in America. Convinced they were doing vÆiat was best for blacks, the members formed The Society for pro­ moting the Ehiigration of Free Persons of Colour to Hayti. After the

NYMS initiated conversations with New York black leaders Samuel Cornish and Peter Williams, the latter an Episcopal priest and a graduate of the society's African Free School, to determine black attitudes about the project, the blacks agreed to form an auxiliary society. Granville, with assistance from the NYMS, gained additional support for his plan in

Baltimore, and by November 280 emigrants had left New York and Baltimore.

OO Sixty persons also sailed from Philadelphia.

Unlike their fellows in New York and Baltimore, the Philadelphia abolitionists did not receive the Granville-Dewey plan with enthusiasm. 204 After hearing Granville, they adopted a neutral stance, determining neither to encourage nor discourage free blacks from going to Haiti.

In effect, however, they damned the plan, concluding they could not en­ dorse Haitian emigration because the Haitian government had not been acknowledged by either the United States or France. Religion was a factor as well, the heavily Quaker PAS complaining of Haiti's official

Catholicism and questioning the government's toleration of other be­ liefs.

The strongest support for the Haitian option came from Benjamin

Lundy. The peripatetic editor of the antislavery newspaper The Genius of Universal Dnancipation and the first abolitionist to give his entire career to combating slavery had in his paper consistently favored coloni­ zation as one means to end slavery. Like the abolitionists in the Con­ vention, however, he had become disenchanted with the African plans of the American Colonization Society and that society's lack of interest in abolition. Lundy first attended the American Convention in 1823 as dele­ gate of the Manumission Society of Tennessee, having shortly before been elected president of the Greeneville branch. In Philadelphia he heard the positive report on Haiti and soon became the country's strongest advocate within the Convention. In Loring Dewey's Haitian project, initiated in 1824 just as Lundy was moving the Genius to Baltimore to be nearer the seats of the abolitionist establishment, Lundy found a fo­ cused program to support, and he supported it with elan.^^

In Baltimore Lundy backed Haitian emigration in lengthy articles in the Genius. He argued, among other things, that removing freed blacks to Haiti would enable United States agriculture to replace slave 205

labor with more productive free vdiite labor and would increase the safe­

ty of vhites. He consistently defended the Haitian project against all

detractors. He charged the American Colonization Society with misrepre­

senting the project, countered suggestions the Boyer Government was des­

potic, and asserted that dissatisfied emigrants in Haiti who sought re­

turn to the United States were "dandies" vho had been schooled in lazi­

ness by their former owners. Lundy also cooperated with the Haitian

Emigration Society in Baltimore in giving out information about the pro- 25 ject and registering names of blacks vho wished to emigrate.

When in 1825 the Haitian government, upset over the number of col­

onists who wished to return to the United States, ended its policy of

paying to transport emigrants, Lundy journeyed to Haiti in an attempt

to change the minds of government officials. He was able to work out

only a restrictive agreement with the Philanthropic Society of Haiti un­ der which the society would pay to transport emigrants from Baltimore on

the conditions they be bound to the society for three years, during which they were to give the society one-half of their produce and pay off

the cost of their transportation. This plan never gained approval among blacks. Lundy was forced to abandon hope that Haitian emigration would play a major role in ending slavery, although he continued to support

the concept and to deny rumors of problems in Haiti.

The ground swell of support in the abolition societies for colo­ nization fostered by Granville's visit and Lundy's publicity resulted

in a proposal in 1825 that the Convention support a federal colonization plan. Thomas Earle, a young Philadelphia lawyer and member of the

Pennsylvania society, presented a resolution favoring a proposition 206 presented to Congress by Senator Rufus King of New York in February 1825.

King's resolution, presented to the Senate for future consideration,

called for revenues from the sale of public lands to be applied to pur­

chasing slaves for emancipation and removing them and other free blacks

to foreign countries. Daniel Raymond, Lundy's close associate in Balti­

more, rose to offer a counter-proposal; that the Convention affirm that

"the only effectual means of abolishing slavery in the U. States" was to

fix a date "after vMch, all persons b o m in the respective states shall

be free at a certain age." Raymond, although an officer of the emigra­

tion society in Baltimore, had been an early opponent of colonization,

and he and many others in the Convention were not ready to see the body

espouse a hazy colonization proposal without again stressing that the

great object of the Convention remained abolition. When the body passed

Raymond's resolution and tabled Earle's, Earle proposed that surely the

Convention did not mean by this action "to discourage perseverance in

all other possible methods of pranoting the emancipation of slaves,

whether by individuals or by governments." The Convention agreed. The

delegates desired to embrace all with antislavery opinions. Although

the majority could not unequivocally approve foreign colonization, 27 neither did they reject it as a possible adjunct to emancipation.

At the 1826 session, held for the first time in Baltimore, Earle's

tabled resolution was joined by a resolution on colonization and appro­

priation of public land revenues presented by newspaper publisher Wil­

liam Leete Stone of the New York Manumission Society. Stone's was a

conciliatory proposal that acknowledged both northern participation in

the slave trade and the desire of many southern slaveholders to end the 207 problems and dangers associated with slavery. In his desire to appease southerners, however, Stone offended those abolitionists who had worked for years to persuade vhites to accept blacks as fellow citizens. He assumed the popular colonizationist stance that northern opponents of slavery and southern slaveholders shared a conmon bond. Both recognized the need to "rid the country, by a safe and gradual process, of a popu­ lation, whose continuance among us is so unnatural, and vhose multipli­ cation is so alarming." Stone recommended proposing to Congress the gradual extinguishing of slavery, with slaveholders to be reimbursed for their losses out of a Congressionally-appropriated fund of three million dollars per year, part of vhich would come from the sale of public lands.

The "vhole coloured population" was then to be transported to Africa or

Santo Domingo. Stone also called for ending slavery in the District of

Columbia and transporting all persons freed there to Haiti or the west- 28 e m coast of Africa according to their preference.

Stone's proposal also contained provisions to petition Congress to prohibit the separation of families, and to request state legislatures to make slave marriages legal and to end prohibitions on the instruction of slaves, all in Stone's mind designed to facilitate manumissions and prepare blacks for emigration. The Convention endorsed these proposals, but chose to ignore the colonization portion of Stone's expansive plan.

Instead, delegates concentrated on Thomas Earle's less ambitious propos- 29 al in support of Rufus King s 1825 plan for use of public land funds.

The Earle resolution for purchasing blacks and removing them from the country was weakened by the Convention to provide only for the vol­ untary removal of emancipated slaves to countries of their choice. Even 208

this feeble expression of support smacked too much of colonization for some of the delegates. In a divided vote,, one of the few transcribed in

Convention records, Earle's amended proposal was approved 12-7. Since

the Convention delegates consistently sought to demonstrate consensus on the subjects before them, the recording of a divided vote evidenced a significant split between those vÆio could countenance emigration as a tool of abolition and those who deemed it a threat. Only Earle among

PAS delegates voted aye. Delaware's three delegates were unanimously opposed. Support of the measure by Stone and Earle, by representatives of the Manumission and Emigration Society of Loudon, Virginia, and by pro-colonizationist Benjamin Swaim of the North Carolina Manumission

Society indicates that colonization supporters were satisfied with this partial victory. Those opposed got their way vAien the address to the abolition societies made no mention of the Convention's advocating using public funds for emigration, nor did it encourage the societies to en- 30 gage in such advocacy.

Although opponents of colonization in the Convention had success­ fully bottled up William L. Stone's emigration proposal and diluted

Thomas Earle's motion, the Convention in 1826 for the first time had favored the foreign emigration of free blacks. This occurred in the first Convention session held in a southern slaveholding state. Had the session been held in Philadelphia, it is doubtful the Convention would have supported even Earle's weakened proposal. His was a minority opinion iù the PAS, as historian Wayne Eberly has indicated and as the opposition of the remainder of the Pennsylvania delegation in 1826 demonstrated. The PAS was not, however, represented by its usual large 209 contingent; only four Philadelphians made the trek to Baltimore. The

host Maryland society had the largest delegation, six, plus Benjamin

Lundy, vdio although technically representing the Manumission Society of

Tennessee was a Maryland resident. Representatives from Maryland, Vir­

ginia, and North Carolina outnumbered those from Pennsylvania, New York,

and Delaware 10-9. Joined by Earle of the PAS and Stone, the only dele­

gate present from the NYI'IS, the southern representatives voted unanimous- 31 ly in support of the emigration proposal.

This vote was the first evidence in the Convention's printed pro­

ceedings of a rift between the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, joined

in varying degrees by the other northern and middle state societies, and

the societies to the south, whose abolition witness the PAS craved, but whose devotion to colonization as a complement to manumission the PAS

feared. This rift, at the outset a gentlemen's disagreement over means

to abolition, had been incipient since 1819 but emerged full-blown in

1826. This weakened the Convention as the multiplying southern socie­

ties embraced colonization and counted the American Convention suspect because of its opposition, or at best its muted support for, the vehicle

they deemed essential to promoting abolition and preventing racial con­ flict in the South.

Colonization was responsible for a resurgence of Southern aboli­ tionism. New societies sprang up, most founded on the dual principles of emancipation and colonization. Benjamin Lundy declared to a repre­ sentative of the Philanthropic Society of Haiti in 1826 that since Haiti had become a place of asylum for free blacks over fifty abolition socie­ ties had been founded in the South. This was understandable, Lundy 210 explained, because "men in general will not take the trouble to think upon any subject ^diatever, unless it presents itself to them in a shape that appears interesting, either favorably or unfavorably." In April

1827 Lundy announced to the readers of the Genius that he did not have space to print all the announcements of new abolition societies that were forming. The introduction of colonization into the antislavery argument also helped established but beleaguered southern manumission societies take on new life. The Manumission Society of Tennessee advo­ cated western colonization in 1823, as has been seen, and in 1825 public­ ly endorsed Haitian emigration. By 1826 the society proclaimed that the opposition to antislavery that had hindered the society's work from its formation in 1815 had largely disappeared due to the rapid spread of 32 colonization sentiment.

Because of the American Convention’s refusal actively to promote colonization, this growing antislavery movement in the southern and western states brought little new strength to abolition nationally. The division evidenced in the Convention in 1826 gradually worsened. Hie southern societies continued to multiply and to embrace colonization vÆiile members of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, vdio dominated the acting ccmmittee of the American Convention, refused to sanction a move­ ment they faulted for the same reason Lundy trumpeted, that men were drawn to it out of self-interest. Those attracted to abolitionism by such motives were no comrades of the Philadelphia abolitionists. As colonization foe Thomas Shipley explained with the tact characteristic of the Philadelphians, the PAS had never seen fit to engage in colonization, but wished success to "every truly benevolent and disinterested scheme 211 33 for improving the African race." The new southern antislavery did not meet the PAS criteria. United in a ccusîîunity of interests that subjuga­ ted individualism and promoted the commonweal as they defined it, the

Philadelphia philanthropists could not accept the individualism they believed inherent in appeals to self-protection. They were only begin­ ning to understand that these appeals emerged from a complex community of racial and class interests struggling for survival and directly at odds with their own.

One of the reasons this growing rift was not more evident in Con­ vention sessions was that few members from the newer societies attended.

Attendance at Convention sessions had often been a problem for the oft- recited reasons of time, distance, and expense. After the introduction of colonization into the antislavery debate, however, the Convention's position on the ACS made southern societies wary of associating with the

Convention.

The North Carolina Manumission Society, a Quaker-dominated society made up of numerous branches gathered around Greensboro in the central counties of the state, was represented only at the Convention's 1826 session in Baltimore. Formed in 1816, the society in its first year al­ tered its name to include "colonizing" in its title, and opened corres­ pondence with the American Colonization Society. This action caused

Levi Coffin, later a well-known Ohio abolitionist, and others of the New

Garden branch to withdraw from the society in protest. Division then arose between those vdio favored association with the ACS and those vdio favored the American Convention. The colonizationists prevailed and were successful in delaying and then indefinitely postponing sending a 212 delegate to the Convention.

In 1819 the Springfield branch moved to strike "manumission” from the society's name, but those Quakers devoted to abolition successfully resisted the attempt. In an apparent compromise, the society that year elected neither to send a representative to the American Convention nor to become an auxiliary of the colonization society. In 1820 the remnant of the New Garden branch made a futile attempt to eliminate colonization from the society's title. The society stumbled on, riven by dissension between anti-colonizationists and colonizationists. The colonizationists in turn were divided between those vho supported African colonization and proponents of western colonization. The society could not produce a quorum at two meetings in 1822, and by late 1823 a debate on dissolution resulted in a committee of the vhole vote to terminate the society.

Gathered as a vhole house, however, the delegates could not bring them­ selves to concur. In 1824 President Aaron Coffin argued that, with abo­ lition societies prospering in Tennessee and Kentucky and new societies forming in Massachusetts, now was not the time to abandon the cause. A

Coffin-led committee appointed to discuss dissolution instead returned a revised constitution that called for striking colonization from the society's title. This alteration of title enabled merger vrith the North

Carolina Abolition Society at Newberry, which had refused to merge with a society terming itself "colonization.” This union increased the size of the NCMS and soothed those in both societies vho wanted to avoid OC identification with African colonization.

Paradoxically, the purging of colonization from the society's title was concurrent with renewed interest in the subject by way of the 213 the Haitian option. Benjamin Lundy, visiting North Carolina on his way

to take up residency in Baltimore in the summer of 1824, was instrumen­

tal in starting fourteen new manumission society branches and in garner­ ing their support for Haitian emigration. Advocacy of the Haitian op­

tion by a man like Lundy with solid abolitionist credentials eased the consciences of North Carolina Quakers vÆio wanted to support colonization but who could not favor the ACS. In Haitian colonization they found the answer to a long-standing concern over vhat to do with slaves freed to their trusteeship. Aaron Coffin, vdiose interest in keeping the society alive can be credited to the resurgence prompted by Lundy, went on record in favor of Haitian emigration in September 1824. He noted, under

Lundy's influence, that the abolition societies "with the single excep­ tion of the colonization Society" were promoting emigration of willing blacks to Haiti. Moses Swaim in a letter written upon his election as president of the society in 1826 also backed colonization in Haiti.

Swaim stressed the antislavery dimension of colonization, arguing that opposition to the Haitian option arose not from anti-colonizationists but from those vdio feared Haiti would grow strong and endanger the southern slave system.

The introduction of the Haitian solution combined with the vigor derived from the fourteen new branches and the Newberry merger tempor­ arily revived the North Carolina society. In November 1825 Lundy cred­ ited North Carolina with forty-one of the 101 abolition societies in the United States. That year the NCMS named a committee on emigration vdiich worked closely with the Friends Meeting for Sufferings in promoting emigration. Haiti was their first choice, but the American Colonization 214

Society's settlement in Liberia was held out as an alternative. When the NOMS sent Benjamin Swaim as a delegate to the American Convention in

1826, he carried the society's address, vdiich stressed that its funda­ mental principles included gradual, universal eirancipation accompanied by foreign colonization. When bad experiences with Haitian emigration soured the society on colonization there, it turned to Liberia and to 37 closer cooperation with the American Colonization Society.

This attraction to colonization as a panacea for the southern di­ lemma led the NCMS to an even more tenuous relationship with the Ameri­ can Convention. Those in the NCMS opposed to the American Colonization

Society continued to be favorably disposed to the Convention, but re­ mained in a minority position. As Benjamin Swaim indicated to Isaac

Barton, secretary of the Convention acting committee, "a large majority of Manuraissionists in this State are favorable to colonizing," viewing it as the only "practicable and safe means to effect Emancipation."

After Swaim returned from the Convention session in Baltimore in 1826 and reported that "desultory remarks" about colonization had been made by some delegates during Convention deliberations, controversy erupted in the society. The Convention's failure to endorse colonization was viewed in the South as an outright rejection. North Carolinians now believed, Swaim said, that the Convention was aligned with "Northern

Free States" in abolition plans vdiich would work only in states with very few slaves. Swaim implied that Convention delegates did not under­ stand the Southern reality, that manumission without emigration was suicide. "I am sure that the public mind in this State, will not soon, if ever, be brought to risk the consequences of liberating amongst us 215 such swarms of Ignorant and Vicious Negroes as we have in the Southern

States." The North Carolina society did not send a delegate to the

Convention again. The official records cited lack of funds, but Swaim indicated that the real reason was objection to the Convention's coloni- 38 zation stance.

The dialogue with the Convention forced the North Carolina society to clarify its stand on the American Colonization Society. In a resolu­ tion on the colonization society adopted in September 1827 the society acknowledged its division between those vho thought the ACS had nothing in common with abolition principles and those so enamored of the ACS that they favored merging with it. In a fashion not unfamiliar to the

American Convention, the society sought middle ground, concluding that colonization constrained the society more forcefully to endorse gradual emancipation, which, it said, must precede colonization. Once emanci­ pated, blacks were to be put in the hands of the ACS, which in the eyes of the NCÏ-ÎS ’nad proven itself best equipped to handle emigration. The society announced it would continue to urge national support for the

ACS, and petitioned Congress to patronize the colonization society,

"That the Government of the United States may exist unshaken by faction or insurrection." The delegates also approved a donation of twenty 3Q dollars to the ACS.

Other southern abolition societies shared the belief that with

Haiti no longer an option, the American Colonization Society represented their best hope. By the October 1827 Convention session in Philadelphia these societies began to apply pressure on the Convention to relent in its opposition to the ACS. The Maryland society proposed that the 216

Convention initiate correspondence to ascertain if the ACS would cooper­ ate with emancipation efforts. The Alexandria society expressed its preference for Liberian colonization, and expressed regret that northern abolitionists were suspicious of ACS motives. In a veiled threat to northern opponents of colonization, the society cautioned that abolition in Virginia was retarded by opposition, "however well intentioned," to colonization.^®

The Alexandria address revealed that the southern societies had adopted the position advanced by the American Colonization Society that only by conciliating slaveholders could anything be accomplished toward emancipation in the South. General emancipation could only work, the

Alexandria group said, if it was accompanied by colonization, for

"southern slaveholders are not willing that the slaves shall be liber­ ated to remain among us." The nervousness Benjamin Swaim detected in

North Carolina was pervasive. Southerners feared the concentration of the "most dangerous population in the weakest part of the Union.

Convention and northern abolition society leaders recognized the potential danger to the well-being of the Convention posed by the south­ ern distrust of northern motives. They sought to play down the section­ al nature of the colonization debate. Isaac Barton, expressing regret that the North Carolina society would consider boycotting the Convention because of the disagreement, assured Benjamin Swaim that colonization was not a North-South issue in the Convention. "I have not observed the smallest tendency toward sectional measures, on the contrary they have been uniformly . . . deprecated, as tending to the greatest evil." Bar­ ton attempted to reconcile the North Carolina society by noting that 217 abolition societies in western Pennsylvania favored colonization, and that it was difficult to detect the sentiments of Pennsylvanians overall.

Barton emphasized that the PAS had taken no official position on coloni­ zation. Although many members of the Philadelphia society maintained doubts about the outcome of ACS plans and even about Haitian emigration,

Barton stressed that P/\S delegates to the American Convention were free agents. He assured North Carolinians that the majority in the PAS were not anti-colonizationists but moderates who favored a middle path of gradual emancipation and voluntary colonization. The New York society rejoiced in 1827 at the number of abolition societies forming in the

South, and voiced its hope that delegates from these societies would appear at the Convention to l e a m first-hand that it was not composed of

"wild enthusiasts" promoting "sudden emancipation of all the slaves in the country.

As Barton suggested, southern societies were not alone in advo­ cating colonization. Protestations of abolition's conservative nature like the one from the New York society were aimed at northern audiences as well. A society in Andover, Massachusetts, in expressing support for the American Colonization Society in 1826, credited the colonizationists with renewing interest there in the plight of blacks. The ACS was also popular with students and some faculty at Williams College vho believed its program would preserve domestic tranquility in the South. Some of the college's abolition society members suggested that Massachusetts penitentiaries could be emptied of a substantial percentage of their populations by sending imprisoned blacks to Africa. The Centreville

Abolition Society in western Pennsylvania in 1827 called for Congress to 218 encourage colonization and renewed the call for a western territory for blacks \dio would not emigrate to Haiti or Liberia.

Increasingly, the Pennsylvania Abolition Society leaders who domi­ nated the American Convention acting committee became isolated from these fellow abolitionists who believed that only by linking emancipa­ tion to colonization could any antislavery progress be made. As Haiti faded as a potential haven for blacks, the American Colonization Society came to represent not only, as a committee of the Maryland legislature put it, "the great and last hope of the slave holding states," but the best hope of many northern gradualists as w e l l . ^ In 1826 the Wilming- tonian announced that the Society of Friends in Philadelphia was cooper­ ating with the colonization society. The report said that zealous mem­ bers of the PAS were also helping "in wafting those who wish to go, to a happier clime.Lured by overtures from R. R. Gurley of the ACS that stressed colonization's links to emancipation, the respected Quaker philanthropist Roberts Vaux, vho had represented the PAS in the American

Convention and had once been a formidable opponent of the ACS, became a vice-president and secretary of the colonization society. Richard

Peters, Jr., prominent Episcopalian lawyer, president of the Convention from 1819 to 1821, and author of the Convention report condemning the

American Colonization Society in 1818, also aligned with the ACS. When the abolition society at West Chester, Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia, disbanded in 1827, its members became active in the colonization socie-

The key leadership in the PAS and the American Convention acting committee refused, however, to listen to their lapsed comrades or to 219 the pleas coming from the newly-formed societies that the ACS was a

"powerful auxilliary."^^ They remained attuned to free blacks vÆio con­ tinued to execrate colonization. Samuel Cornish and John Russwurm, editors of Freedom's Journal, reminded the Convention that not all \diites

\dio claimed to be their benefactors were true friends. Because they would not endorse colonization, they said, the colonizationists had launched a persecution against them, "denouncing our career as one of madness, and ourselves, everything but respectable." In response to a memorial from free blacks in Baltimore endorsing American Colonization Society plans, blacks in Philadelphia met at Bethel AME Church in January 1827 and re­ iterated their opposition. While pronouncing Haiti preferable to Africa, they observed that many emigrants to Haiti had returned and more would come back if they had sufficient resources. Liberia they termed a grave­ yard. In Baltimore, blacks wrote to Lundy's Genius to complain that the memorial drafted there favoring colonization had been acquired by dupli­ city. Two-thirds of Baltimore's free blacks, according to "Africanus," had not known of the meeting called to consider colonization, and many present did not understand the manorial's intent.

The Philadelphia abolitionists often found such support for their position in the pages of Lundy's paper. As could be expected, much that

Lundy wrote was favorable to colonization, although he personally op­ posed African colonization. He continued to count the colonizationists as allies even after his protégé William Lloyd Garrison openly attacked

them. But Lundy never viewed colonization as a panacea. Ever the ec­

lectic where antislavery was concerned, he also carried the views of

anti-colonizationists in the Genius. These views reinforced the 220 determination of the Philadelphia abolitionists to stay their course, and, as anti-colonizationist positions became more extreme, convinced the Convention leaders that they constituted the middle group between the self-serving colonizationists and the advocates of a more radical emancipation policy. At times Lundy also occupied this position. In

1827 he published an account of the strong opposition to colonization by the Abolition Society of Stark County, Ohio. The society had formed a committee to compare the likely consequences of radical emancipation with those of continuing slavery to 1850 or 1860. Gradual emancipation­ ists could not favor either alternative, and undoubtedly the Philadel­ phians were pleased with Lundy's comments in response to the society.

On one hand he ignored radical emancipation; on the other he stated that colonization, although helpful in concert with other methods, was trusted by too many as a panacea and had actually reduced abolition efforts.

Lundy continued to participate in the Convention, remained on good terms with the Philadelphia leadership and the southern colonizationists, and did his part in subduing divisiveness in the Convention. Too astute to bring full-blown colonization before the Convention, he advocated only acceptable, partial solutions.

The colonization issue became increasingly threatening to the ever-more-fragile coalition of abolition societies. Although it was in - the Convention's best interests to keep discussion of colonization off the floor, this proved difficult to do. Ironically, in 1829 staid Con­ vention president William Rawle nearly ignited the Convention over the issue. Rawle, who was also president of the PAS and of the Philadelphia

Free Produce Society in 1829, had consistently opposed the involvement 221 of the PAS or the Convention in any colonization efforts, arguing that colonization was outside the realm of objects proper for consideration by the abolition societies. In 1828 he commented on the "division among us [p a s members] as to the notice taken of the Colonization societies— which I think as a society we ought not to meddle with." Rawle said a majority of a committee appointed to prepare the PAS address to the Con­ vention shared his opinion. But in 1829, while reaffirming that coloni­ zation lay outside the scope of the PAS, and acknowledging the society's refusal either to cooperate with or oppose the colonization society,

Rawle proceeded to denounce colonization in his first draft of the PAS address to the Convention. A man honored for his dignity (Lundy called him "venerable"), Rawle uncharacteristically injected his own opinion, charging that there was no evidence a general emancipation would result from sending a few liberated slaves to Africa. "But however beneficial the removal may prove to those \dio are sent off, we fear that the lot of those \dîO are left will receive no alleviation from it."^^

Rawle's comments never reached the Convention floor, as the PAS struck his remarks from the society's address. As adopted, the address said the PAS would "not presume to suggest to the Convention any course for them to pursue" on colonization. Rawle did not preside over the 52 1829 convention session, and no explanation of his absence was offered.

The Convention's acting committee followed the lead of the PAS, its de facto parent body, in refusing to make an official pronouncement on colonization in 1829. The committee said that its members viewed colonization as "entirely separate and distinct" from their general du­ ties and "one vAiich they have never seen it proper to engage in." Yet 222

the committee admitted that colonization had been introduced frequently

for discussion, probably by Benjamin Lundy, who was a frequent committee

member, and by the pro-colonization minority in the PAS. The strong

influence of the anti-colonizationists in the PAS and the circumspect

correctness of the committee members did not, however, permit any un­

sanctioned action between Convention sessions. The acting committee was

adamant that any decision on colonization, indeed any mention of it, had 53 to be made on the Convention floor.

Even the concerted efforts of the PAS and the Convention's acting

committee failed to keep colonization off the Convention floor in 1829.

Ironically, a PAS member introduced the subject. Thomas Earle again was

determined that colonization would be debated. He and the Reverend

William Kesley of the National Anti-Slavery Tract Society of Maryland,

both 1826 supporters of the use of government funds for voluntary emi­

gration, secured late appointments to the committee of arrangement,

probably in an effort to introduce colonization through that committee's

prepared agenda. Failing to persuade the committee to give a place to

examining the various methods for eradicating slavery, Earle rose to

complain of emancipation's slow progress and to request that a committee

of five examine "\diat are the principal schemes that have been suggested

for effecting the abolition of slavery in the United States" and what

the likely outcome of each method might be.^^

The committee named by Convention vice-president Joseph Parker of

the PAS, sitting in Rawle's conspicuous absence, was headed by Earle and

included James 0. Grim of the NYMS, John McCleeland, president of the

Washington, D.C. Abolition Society, and two members of the Benevolent 223

Society of Alexandria, Tovmshend Waugh and Samuel M. Janney. Parker's willingness to appoint a majority of members from the southernmost soci­ eties to a committee chaired by Earle, a known colonizationist, indi­ cates how far the Convention was willing to go in attempting to regain the southern support it had lost in the prolonged colonization debate.

Earle had come to the Convention armed with census and treasury reports, ready to make his case for colonization. He penned a committee report that not only was positive about his pet project, but negative about every other antislavery choice, to the point of alienating advocates of some of the alternatives. He dismissed as either impracticable or un­ sound immediate emancipation, boycotting the products of slave labor, promoting the use of free labor, attaching slaves to the soil as serfs, and even fixing a future date after which all persons b o m would be free. Colonization, Earle and his committee concluded, was the only feasible hope of accelerating emancipation and ending slavery.

The report identified white fears prompted by the high percentage of slaves and free blacks in the slave states as the chief hindrance to emancipation. Emigration was proposed to reduce this percentage to a more acceptable level. The committee said it did not expect the \diole black population ever to be removed, and expressed the belief that eman­ cipation would eventually occur without such vdiolesale removal. Coloni­ zation would, however, expedite the process and aid the abolitionist cause by opening the way to a repeal of laws against voluntary emanci­ pation and the education of blacks.

Earle's report, delivered late on a December night, was greeted with little enthusiasm. Having demonstrated a reluctant willingness to 224 hear the colonization argument, the Convention once again refused to

approve it. Earle's committee was continued and given leave to make a

further report at the next biennial session.This procrastination

sent a forceful message, for the entire theme of Earle's report had been

that to hasten colonization was to speed emancipation.

Earle refused to accept being put off two years. With support

from Samuel Sheppard of the PAS, he proposed an adjourned session of the

Convention for 1830, but his motion failed. Earle's attempt to gain en­

dorsement for colonization had yielded nothing except the patronizing

agreement of the Convention to hear an opinion to which it would never

consent. Benjamin Lundy's draft of the Convention's address to the pub­

lic made no mention of colonization, and even William Kesley's report

from a committee established to examine the state of slavery in the

United States said nothing of promoting colonization as a means of miti- 58 gating the effects of slavery.

The Convention did not meet again until a series of abortive

sessions in Washington and Philadelphia early in 1832. By then much on

the antislavery landscape had changed. The publication of David Walk­

er's Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World, the emergence of

William Lloyd Garrison as a major voice advocating immediatism, and the

slave revolt in Virginia led by Nat Turner each in its way altered the

colonization debate. While Walker, a black Boston clothes merchant,

shocked whites of every persuasion with the publication in 1829 of his

strident Appeal, which called for black resistance to \diite oppression,

his treatise confirmed the frequently stated opinion of white aboli­

tionists that slavery unrelieved would lead to black rebellion. 225

Walker's harsh rejection of "the colonizing trick" also demonstrated once and for all to vAiite opponents of colonization that free blacks would not be colonized willingly.Similar confirmation came from the opprobrium blacks heaped on John Russwurm vdien he gave up editorship of Freedom's Journal, endorsed the American Colonization Society, and emigrated to Liberia in 1829.^^

Anti-colonization became a primary tenet of William Lloyd Garri­ son, the most caustic white antislavery advocate. Garrison in 1829 left his post as editor of the antislavery Journal of the Times in Vermont to join Benjamin Lundy in publishing the Genius in Baltimore. At first

Garrison shared his mentor's position on the American Colonization So­ ciety, pronouncing it valuable as an ally but its program useless as a remedy. Even at the time of his association with Lundy, however. Gar­ rison was abandoning gradualism to embrace immediatism. Conversations with Baltimore free blacks convinced him that colonization also was wrong. Following an amicable parting with Lundy, Garrison took up a campaign against the ACS in 1830. On 1 January 1831 he began publish­ ing the Liberator in Boston, taking an anti-colonization stance in its pages, and reprinting much of David Walker's work.^^

At the same time that anti-colonization as promoted by Garrison was gaining strength among northern abolitionists, the slave revolt led by Nat Turner in Southampton County, Virginia in August 1831 revived support for colonization in the Old Dominion, where the ACS argument had foundered on states' rights objections to any national emigration plan. This support, sparked as it was by vhites' fear of insurrection, was tied to proscription of blacks' freedoms. It held little hope for 226 those ;Aio viewed colonization as a means of exorcising slavery, and only reinforced the arguments of those already opposed to colonization. Pro- colonization abolitionists in Virginia were never able to wed emigration

to emancipation with any political success, and were forced to give up

talk of emancipation in order to keep colonization alive. Southern abolitionism, sustainable only when joined to colonization, col­ lapsed as the mood of the South came to require colonization proponents to emancipate themselves from abolitionist principles. With this second demise of southern abolitionism vanished \diat little hope remained of a truly American convention for abolishing slavery.

Even had southern colonizationists developed a workable plan to unite colonization with enancipation, any chance for coalition with mod­ erates in the American Convention had disappeared by 1832. The ground for conflict in the Convention had shifted, as division developed be­ tween those who continued to hold to gradualism and those who were aban­ doning it to join Garrison in calling for immediate emancipation. The immediatists held contempt for both colonization and gradualism. Those gradualists vdio had favored colonization in Convention sessions only to be put off and appeased now found their position openly attacked. They were forced to align themselves with the colonization society or be si­ lent. Struggling in the middle, a position they had become adept at maintaining but which now they found eroding, were those gradualists who had consistently opposed colonization. They had, however, appeased colonizationists vho held abolitionist principles in an effort to keep alive the Convention's delicate coalition. In doing so, they had unwittingly permitted colonization to determine the nature of the 227 antislavery movement by allowing its adherents to define the limits be­ yond which gradualism could not go. Unwilling in the 1820s to denounce

colonization and purge its adherents from the Convention for fear of

losing southern support, by 1831 they found they had lost the support of

a new generation of northern abolitionists. The immediatists associated

gradualism with colonization, eschewed both, and it was now the immedia­

tists who came to set the limits of the antislavery debate. To cling to

gradualism was to be linked to colonization, its most suspect enciin-

brance, and finally to be tarred with the same brush that coated the col­

onizationists.

Many older Philadelphia mainstays of the Convention could not,

however, adopt immediatism any more than they could support colonization.

If colonization deprived blacks of hard-won rights as Americans— as

William Rawle and his colleagues believed— immediate emancipation forced

blacks to plunge unprepared and unaided into a white society unwilling

to receive them. As immediate emancipationists and defenders of the

South's right to set its own course on slavery moved to ever more ex­

treme positions, the Convention leaders sought to hold a rapidly eroding

middle ground. 228 CHAPTER V FOOTOOTES

^John R. Bodo, The Protestant Clergy and Public Issues, 1812- 1848, Perspectives in American History Series, no. 45 (Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University"Press, 1954; reprint ed., Philadelphia, Porcupine Press, 1980), 115-17; P. J. Staudenraus, The African Colonization Move­ ment^ 1816-1865 (New York; Columbia University Press, 1961), 4-5; Samuel Hopkins to William Rogers, 22 September 1788, Ic, PAS Collection, Reel 11; Samuel Hopkins, A Discourse upon the slave trade, and the slavery of the Africans. Delivered in the Baptist Meeting House at Providence, before the Providence Society for a^lishing the slave-trade, etc. At their annual meeting on Mav 17. 1793 (Providence, R.I.: J. Carter, iWrappendix. ^---- ^ *------2 Staudenraus, The M r i c a n Colonization Movement, 4; Mica j ah Davis to American Convention, 29 January 1Ô05, American Convention acting com­ mittee minutes, 1: 14-15, PAS Collection, Reel 27. 3 Early word of intended settlement of free blacks in Sieirra Leone is in London Society to NYMS, 7 March 1787, Cox-Parrish-Wharton Papers, 19; 36, HSP. John Murray, Jr. looked favorably on Sierra Leone not for its colonizing potential but for the evidence he felt it would provide of blacks living in harmony in Africa. This would then help sway public opinion toward abolishing the slave trade. Murray to James Bringhurst, 18 July 1792, in Letters of John Murray, Jr. to James Bringhurst of Philadelphia, Penna. from May 8 , 1787 to November 26, 1806, typescript copy translated and indexed by C. Marshall Taylor, 1942. in Friends Historical Library, Swarthmore College. Warner Mifflin s widow Ann was among Quakers who backed Cuffee's work. She advocated "Returning Soci­ eties" to restore blacks to the place on earth allotted them by God. Ann Mifflin to unknown, 8 February 1811, Cuffe Papers, New Bedford Pub­ lic Library, New Bedford, Mass. Typescript copy in Misc. MSS, Friends Historical Library, Swarthmore College. The Convention committee on ar­ rangement said in 1812 that it viewed the work of the African Institu­ tion very favorably, but added, "we cannot but feel our attention more sensibly called to similar objects within the reach of our more immedi­ ate duty." American Convention Minutes, 1812: 20 (2; 496). These "objects" are dealt with in Chapter IV.

‘^American Convention Minutes, 1816; 25-26 (2; 549-50).

^As early as 1814 forty blacks were sent to Pennsylvania by North Carolina Quakers. Paul M. Sherrill, "Quakers and the North Carolina Manumission Society," Historical Papers of the Trinity College Histori­ cal Society, 10 (1914); 35.

^American Convention Minutes, 1816; 32-33 (2; 556-57); Evan Lewis to Thomas Clarkson, 15 July l8l7, American Convention acting committee minutes, 1; 44, PAS Collection, Reel 27. The Convention's memorial urged Congress to act to "prevent the injury of the mixture of too large a proportion of such persons amongst the vÆiite people of our country." Lewis told Clarkson he hoped this feeling grew among southerners until 229

something was done toward emancipation.

^Staudenraus* The African Colonization Movement, 26-30; American Convention Minutes, 1817; 26-27. 30-31 (2; 590-91. 594-95). Bushrod Washington of Mount Vernon was national president of the ACS. Vice- presidents included Secretary of the Treasury William Crawford, John Taylor of Caroline, Colonel Henry Rutgers of New York, Henry Clay, and General Andrew Jackson. g John Cox to Joseph Parrish, 26 September 1817, Cox-Parrish- Wharton Papers, 15: 107, HSP. 9 Benjamin Quarles, Black Abolitionists (New York: Oxford Univer­ sity Press, 1969 ), 4-5; Staudenraus, The African Colonization Movement, 32; Winch, "The Leaders of Philadelphia’s Black Community," 172-91. The address that issued from the August 10 meeting, "An Address to the Hu­ mane and Benevolent Inhabitants of the City and County of Philadelphia," was appended to the printed minutes of the 1818 American Convention, 2: 671-74. Julie Winch s work has made it clear that the relationship be­ tween blacks and white abolitionists in Philadelphia was reciprocal. She concluded that one reason for black opposition to colonization was the feeling among blacks that they had a future in America, a feeling engendered by the support they received from the PAS. Winch, 169.

^^Richard Peters, Jr., Joseph M. Paul, Abraham L. Pennock, Roberts Vaux, Benjamin Tucker, and Thomas Shipley to William Rawle, 2 November 1818; Richard Peters, Jr. to Abolition Societies, 7 November 1818, PAS Collection, Reel 12, also in American Convention Minutes, 2: 605-6; PAS Minute book, 2: 286-87j- 290 Q6 , 19 November 1818), PAS Collection, Reel 1 . The other reasons for convening the special meeting of 1818 were to act on reports of blacks captured under the law of 1807 being sold as slaves, and to petition Congress on slavery in the District of Columbia. Late arrivals at the sessions made the total attendance twenty-three.

^^American Convention Minutes, 1818: 38-39 (2: 640-41); Fladeland, Men and Brothers, 100-101; Prince Saunders, A Memoir presented to the American Convention for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, etc. Dec. 11, 1818 (Philadelphia: Dennis Heartt, 1818). Saunders had been asso- ciated with William Wilberforce and Thomas Clarkson in England and Wll- berforce referred Saunders to Christophe. In Haiti Saunders became ac­ quainted with the New York Quaker Stephen Grellet, vdio visited there under Clarkson’s sponsorship. Saunders gained entrée to the PAS and the Convention through Grellet and Roberts Vaux. Saunders and a Dr. Wil­ liamson had presented the situation in Haiti before a meeting of aboli­ tion society members from Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland in the fall of 1818, inspiring the abolitionists to think about the island as a site for colonization. Hubert Cole, Christophe: King of Haiti (New York: Viking Press, 1967; Viking Ccxnpass Edition, 1970), 229-31, 239- 40, 242-43; Richard Peters, Jr. to Joshua Underhill and Joseph Curtis, NYMS Papers 5 (11 September 1818). 230

^^American Convention Minutes, 1818: 48-50, 55, 68 (2: 650-52, 657, 670), Ihis was not the first time that the island of Santo Domingo was proposed as a site for colonization. The Frenchman Benjamin Giraud wrote to the PAS about the possibility in 1797. See Chapter II. 13 American Convention Minutes, 1818: 53-54 (2: 655-56). Roberts Vaux used the same phrasing in writing to Thomas Clarkson in 1819, telling him that the colonization movement "originated in the bosom of the Slave States," and calling its leaders, other than Francis Scott Key and Elias Boudinot Caldwell, a "mass of unfeeling men." Quoted in Staudenraus, The African Colonization Movement, 33.

^'The abolitionists used "scheme" to apply both to a detailed plan and to a plot or intrigue, depending on the context. In referring to colonization it was generally used pejoratively, as in this case.

^^American Convention Minutes, 1818: 65-68 (2: 667-70).

^^FAS to Benjamin Williams, 22 May 1819, PAS Collection, Reel 12. The Convention met twice in 1819, in October and in adjourned session in November. Colonization was one of the primary items considered in the adjourned session.

American Convention Minutes, 1819: 50-51 (2: 724-25). The committee presenting the plan was composed of three PAS members, William Rawle, chairman, George Boyd, and Richard Peters, Jr., Hiram Ketchura of New York, and Joseph Bringhurst, Jr. of Delaware. 18 American Convention Minutes, 1819: 51-56 (2: 725-30). This western plan was one the abolitionists could have engaged in with clear consciences. Some sincerely believed that, given the prejudice of white Americans toward blacks, colonization could benefit blacks as well as vhites. See, e.g., William Maxwell to Isaac Barton, 10 November 1826, American Convention incoming correspondence, PAS Collection, Reel 29. Conversely, Benjamin Lundy wrote in 1828 that much of the support for African colonization in the South arose from the belief "that by remov­ ing the free negroes from among their slaves they will be able to hold the latter more securely in endless bondage!" Genius of Universal Eman­ cipation, 3, no. 9, n.s. (22 November 1828), 63.

American Convention Minutes, 1819: 28-32 (2: 702-6); Randall M. Miller, "The Union Humane Society," Quaker History 61 (Autumn 1972): 97-98; Merton L. Dillon, Benjamin lundy and the Stru^le for Negro Free­ dom (Urbana, 111.: University of Illinois Press, 1966), 31; Henry Damall to American Convention, American Convention acting committee minutes, 1: 84 (30 August 1821), PAS Collection, Reel 27. on American Convention Minutes, 1821; 26-27, 32-33, 43-45 (2: 766- 67, 772-73, 783-85); 1823: 18 (3: 618). 231 21 Richard Peters, Jr. to Emperor of Russia, 15 May 1819, Rawle Family Papers, 5: 165, HSP; Ihomas Clarkson to Roberts Vaux, 31 January 1820, ibid., 5: 167; Evan Lewis to Elias Hicks, 20 May 1820, Hicks MSS, Friends Historical Library, Swarthmore College; American Convention Minutes, 1823: 39 (3: 839). Evan lewis was not present at the 1825 con­ vention and the report was never given. I have found no evidence that Lewis visited Haiti. " One reason abolitionists felt the heed to develop a colonization plan was to overcome the practice of employing coloniza­ tion to impede emancipation. James Jones, president of the Manumission Society of Tennessee reported in 1819 that rumors of colonization in his state had frsutrated his society's efforts at emancipation. Elihu Em- bree indicated that the Tennessee society had contemplated memorializing Congress on gradual emancipation, but had been dissuaded by people in Washington and Baltimore v^o said emancipation must await formation of of a colony for the exportation of blacks. Jones to American Conven­ tion, American Convention acting cormiittee minutes, 1 February 1819, PAS Collection, Reel 27; Embree to Joseph M. Paul, 23 November 1818, Joseph Paul Papers, HSP. 22 Genius of Universal Emancipation, 4, no. 2 (November 1824), 23- 24; [boring D. Dewey and Jean-Pierre Boyer], Correspondence Relative to the Emigration to Hayti of the Free People of Colour in the United States, together with the Instructions of the Agent sent out by Presi­ dent Boyer (New York: Mahlon Day, 1824), 8-10, 14, 17, 29-31; Thomas Eddy to Thomas Pym Cope, 29 July 1824, Roberts Autograph Letters Collec­ tion, Haverford College Library. Eddy's letter reveals his ethical rea­ soning in favor of Haitian colonization. Because, he said, of the hard­ ships that blacks had suffered from "professors of Christianity" friends of the blacks needed to "put away all selfish considerations, and simply . . . adopt such means as will most actually be for their benefit." Eddy reasoned that although it would be to the abolitionists ' benefit to retain blacks of high character in the United States while shipping undesirables to Haiti, they could not expect President Boyer to pay the debt of instruction and improvement owed to blacks by white Ameri­ cans. Rather, he argued, those of low character should be retained in the United States and educated. Blacks of high character and those of low character who benefited from instruction should be encouraged to emigrate, so they might possess in Haiti the "advantages . . . they can never enjoy in this country."

^^PAS Minute book, 2: 439-40 (30 August 1824), PAS Collection, Reel 1. Clarkson (see note 20 above) strongly encouraged the American abolitionists not to proceed with Haitian colonization unless full reli­ gious and civil rights were guaranteed to immigrants. The PAS relaxed its opposition to Haiti when the French court recognized the country in 1824, but still refused to give its blessing to plans for colonization there. American Convention Minutes, 1825: 13 (3: 879).

^^Genius of Universal Emancipation, 1, no. 4 (October 1821), 50- 52; 3, no. 5 (September 1823), 33; 3, no. 6 (October 1823), 61; Dillon, Benjamin Lundy, 87-88. 232 25 Genius of Universal Emancipation, 4, no. 2 (November 1824), 19- 22; 4, no. 9 (18 June 1825), l30-33; 4, no. 7 (May 1825), 100. See Dillon, Benjamin Lundy, 76-77.

Dillon, Benjamin Lundy, 94, 99-101; Genius of Universal Emanci- -bion and Baltimore Courier, 1, no. 40 (3 June 1826), 314-15; 2, no. 28 ,19 May 1827), 223; 2, no. 33 (23 June 1827), 261-62. See Dillon, 87- 103, for a fuller account of Lundy's dealings with the Haitians. 27 American Convention Minutes, 1825: 16 (3: 882); Register of Debates in Congress, 18 Cong. 2 sess., 623 (18 February 1825); Genius of Universal Bnancl^tion, 4, no. 2 (November 1824), 27; American Con- vention Minutes, 1825: 25 (3: 889). Thomas Earle (1796-1849) was b o m in Massachusetts and moved to Philadelphia in 1817. He took up a mer­ cantile career, but business failures led to anbarrassment and to his being disowned by the Friends meeting in 1824. He then took up law, studying with John Sergeant and attaining attorney's status in 1825. Much of his legal practice was spent in aiding kidnapped blacks. Earle first attended the Convention in 1821 as a PAS delegate, was named to the Convention acting committee, and served as its secretary from 1821 to 1823. He was not a Convention delegate after 1827. Although he later came to oppose colonization, he was slow to reunite with the antislavery movement. In 1839 he represented eastern Pennsylvania at the meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society. A Democrat most of his career, in 1840 he was the initial nominee for vice-president on the Liberty Party ticket. In 1847 he published The Life, Travels and Opinions of Benjamin Lundy. Dictionary of American Biography, eds. Allen Johnson and Dumas Malone QNew York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1930), s.v. "Earle, Thomas," by H. W. Howard Knott, 5: 597; Edwin B. Bronner, Thomas Earle as Reformer (Philadelphia: International Printing Company, 1948), 17, 20-21, 34, 44. 28 American Convention Minutes, 1826; 6 (3: 903). An undated copy of Stone's proposal is in PAS Collection, Reel 30. It is unclear wheth­ er Stone's resolution represented the position of the New York Manumis­ sion Society. Stone, an ardent foe of slavery expansion during the Missouri controversy, in the 1830s became an executive of the coloniza­ tion society in New York. 2Q American Convention Minutes, 1826: 7-8, 11, 47 (3: 909-10. 913, 949). 30 American Convention Minutes, 1826: 44-47 (946-49). Benjamin Ferris of Delaware, chair of the committee to prepare the addresss to the abolition societies, opposed the Earle motion.

^^Eberly, "The Pennsylvania Abolition Society," 103-4. Philadel­ phian Hector Coffin, representing Rhode Island, did not vote on the Earle resolution. The practice of a nonresident representing a society in the Convention had W e n ruled out at the first convention in 1794. See Chapter II. The desire for representation from the Northeast and 233

the South apparently led to an informal relaxation of the rule. Benja­ min Lundy continued to represent the Manumission Society of Tennessee following his removal to Baltimore. 32 Genius of Universal Emancipation and Baltimore Courier, 1, no. 40 (3 June 1826), 313; 2, no. 23 (14 April 1827), 182; American Conven­ tion Minutes, 1823: 18 (3: 818); Genius of Universal Emancipation, 4, no. 5 (February 1825), 66-67; Genius of Universal Emancipation and Bal- timore Courier. 2, no. 22 (31 March 1827), 171. 33 American Convention Minutes, 1827: 38 (3: 990).

■^\jagstaff. Minutes of the North Carolina Manumission Society, 20-22, 27-28, 33, 35 (28 April, 22 July m ? ; 27 Aprin^l'8T"16"Âpril, 27 August 1819); Levi Coffin, Reminiscences of Levi Coffin (Cincinnati: 1876; reprint ed.. New York: AMS Press, 19/1), 75-76. Coffin indicated that the New Garden exiles continued to meet separately until the major­ ity of members, himself included, moved to western free states. 35 Gordon E. Finnie, "The Antislavery Movement in the South," 125; Wagstaff, Minutes of the North Carolina Manumission Society, 35-38, 45, 59, 6 6 , 68-69, 78-79, 89-93 (27 August, 18 October 1819; 30 October 1820j 26 March 1821; 1 December 1823; 9 February, 19 April, 16 October

Thomas Earle, ed. ._The Life, Travels and Opinions of Benjamin Lundy, including his Journeys' to Texas and Mexico; with a Sketch of Contemporary Events, and a Notice of the Revolution in Hayti (.Philadel­ phia: William D. Parrish, 1847), 22; Patrick Sowle, "The North Carolina Manumission Society, 1816-1834, ' North Carolina Historical Review, 42 (January 1965): 55; Wagstaff, Minutes of the North Carolina Manumission Society, 81-88, 124-33 (27 September 1824, September 1826). Wagstaff concluded that the decision to drop colonization from the society's title nearly caused the dissolution of the society, and forced the Friends Yearly Meeting to establish a meeting for sufferings to take up Haitian emigration (pp. 4-5). Gordon Finnie in "The Antislavery Move­ ment in the South" contended that by 1824 the two factions he designated "colonizationists" and "radicals" had become reconciled by agreeing on the Haitian option (p. 126). Sowle shared Finnie's conclusion, pointing out that Lundy's presentation of Haitian emigration succeeded in recon­ ciling the disputing factions. John Michael Shay concurred. He des­ ignated 1824-1829 as an "era of rapid growth, prosperity, [and a] high level of activity" for the NCM3 as a consequence of this healing of the worst part of the factionalism. He also credited Lundy's North Carolina visit with attracting non-Quakers to antislavery. Shay, "The Antislav­ ery Movement in North Carolina," 370-74, 441-42. Aaron Coffin's leader­ ship of the committee that called for eliding colonization from the society's title indicates that the move was not meant to alienate colonizationists. 234 37 Genius of Universal Emancipation and Baltimore Courier, 1, no. 11 (5 November 1825), 82; American Convention Minutes, 1826; 37 (3; 939); Sowle, "The North Carolina Manumission Society," 55-50. 38 Benjamin Swaim to Isaac Barton, 13 June 1827, American Conven­ tion incoming correspondence, PAS Collection, Reel 29; Wagstaff, Minutes of the North Carolina Manumission Society, 144, 146, 151 (9 March, l4 September 1827). The Swaim-Barton correspondence clearly refutes P. M. Sherrill's position that NCMS-Convention relations were 'friendly" and "close after 1825." Sherrill, "Quakers and the North Carolina Manumis­ sion Society," 43-44. 39 Wagstaff, Minutes of the North Carolia Manumission Society, 153- 57 (14 September 1827). "

^^American Convention Minutes, 1827: 51-52, 55-56 (3: 1003-4, 1007-8).

^^American Convention Minutes, 1827: 55-56 (3: 1007-8); Samuel Janney to Edwin P. Atlee, 28 September 1827, American Convention incom­ ing correspondence, PAS Collection, Reel 29. Elias Caldwell of the American Colonization Society, in writing to the North Carolina society in 1818,. said he knew the NCMS would understand the need of the ACS for delicacy: "... your Residence in the Southern country will enable you to apriciate [sic] this in its full extent, persons of opposite oppinions [sic] on certain subjects are to be conciliated, and unless we can move with the assent of Slave holders nothing of Importance can be done by this Society." Wagstaff, Minutes, 215.

^^Isaac Barton to Benjamin Swaim, 12 July 1827, American Conven­ tion outgoing correspondence, PAS Collection, Reel 29; American Conven­ tion Minutes, 1827: 33 (3: 985). Only two months later the PAS called colonization "unconnected" with the objects of the society, and insisted "this Society will take no part in the measures of the colonization society." PAS Minute book, 3: 62 (27 September 1827), PAS Collection, Reel 2.

^^American Convention Minutes, 1826: 20-24 (3: 922-26); Genius of Universal Emancipation and Baltimore Courier, 2, no. 17 (27 January 1827), 131.------— ------

^Genius of Universal Emancipation, 2, no. 12, n.s. (25 April 1828), 41:------

^^Quoted in Genius of Universal Emancipation and Baltimore Cour­ ier, 2, no. 9 (18 November 1826), 69.

^^Staudenraus, The African Colonization Movement, 125-26; Genius of Universal Emancipation, 4, no. 8 , n.s. (30 October 1829). 59. 235 ^^The Virginia Abolition Society described the ACS in this manner in Genius of Universal Emancipation, 2, no. 13, n.s. (3 May 1828), 104. 48 Samuel Cornish and John Russwurm to Isaac Barton, 2 October 1827, American Convention incoming correspondence, PAS Collection, Reel 29; Genius of Universal Emancipation and Baltimore Courier, 2, no. 12 (16 December 1826), 94-93; 2, no. 18 (.24 February 1027), 141-42, 148. 49 Genius of Universal Ennancipation, 1, no. 23, n.s. (8 December 1827), 1ÏÏÔ-82:

^^American Convention Minutes, 1828: 30-31 (3: 1042-43).

^^William Rawle Journals, 2: 34 (24 November 1828), Historical Society of Pennsylvania; Genius of Universal Emancipation, 1, no. 15, n.s. (13 October 1827), 119.

^^American Convention Minutes, 1829: 56 (3: 1136). 53 American Convention acting committee minutes, 3 December 1829, PAS Collection, Reel 27.

^^American Convention Minutes, 1829: 5, 12 (3: 1085, 1092). Kesley's name is also found in Convention records spelled Kelsey and Kesly.

^^American Convention Minutes, 1829: 28-30 (3: 1108-10). What this committee would produce on colonization could be foreseen. Janney, Grim, and McClelland had already opposed concurring on a resolution condemning the internal slave trade, and Earle's position on coloniza­ tion was a matter of record.

^^American Convention Minutes, 1829: 30-35 (3: 1110-15).

^^Biennial conventions were called for in the constitutional re­ vision of 1818, adopted at the special meeting called to consider colo­ nization. American Convention Minutes, 1818: 34 (2: 636).

^^American Convention Minutes, 1829: 36-48 (3: 1116-28).

^^David Walker, David Walker's Appeal in Four Articles; Together with a Preamble, to the Coloured Citizens of the World, but in particu­ lar, and v e ^ expressly, to those of The United States of America (Boston: 1829; reprint éd., Charles M. Wiltse, ed., American Century Series, New York: Hill and Wang, 1965), 67. See chapter four of the Appeal, "Our Wretchedness in Consequence of the Colonizing Scheme," 45-^8. It is unclear what effect Walker's Appeal had on the 1829 Con­ vention vote on the Earle report, if any. The actions of all involved in the 1829 convention seem consistent with stances long adopted. The effect of Walker's work on the Convention would appear to have been more evolutionary and cumulative than immediate. 236

^^Staudenraus, The African Colonization Movement, 191-93.

^^Genius of Universal Emancipation, 4, no. 1, n.s. (2 September 1829), 5; Dillon, Benjamin Lundy, 144-51; Walker, Appeal, xi.

^^Staudenraus, The African Colonization Movement, 178-80; Herbert Aptheker, Nat Turner's Slave RebellionF"Together with the Full Text of the So-Called 'Confessions' of Nat Turner Made in Prison in l831 (.New York; Humanities Press, 1966), 74; Gordon E, Finnie, "The Antislavery Movement in the Upper South Before 1840," Journal of Southern History 35 (August 1969): 324-27. Finnie* s work was seminal in pointing to the weakness of abolitionism in the South. CHAPTER VI

THE MISSOURI YEARS: RESURGENCE AND REBUFF

The American Convention sessions of 1817 and 1818 served in many ways to bridge the past and future of both the Convention and abolition­ ism. The 1817 convention could be termed the last of the old conven­ tions. It was the last held on the triennial pattern introduced in

1805. The excitement engendered by the discussion of colonization in

1816 prompted the delegates to accelerate the dilatory pace imposed on

Convention action by the triennial pattern. The adjourned session of the fourteenth convention in 1816 amended the Convention constitution moving the triennial sessions to August with the next convention to commence 5 August 1817.^ The August date was probably selected in the hope that distant societies would attend better in the summer.

Issues old to the Convention dominated the agenda in 1817. The delegates discussed financial aid to struggling societies, voting once again to appeal to the more established societies for contributions.

They deplored continuing instances of kidnapping and of American in­ volvement in the foreign slave trade. News from the societies focused on such well-worn issues as education, abolition in the states, and the formation of new abolition societies. There was cause to rejoice here.

The New York legislature had passed a stronger gradual abolition law that fixed the end of slavery in the state in 1827. Societies recently formed at Easton, Maryland and Kent County, Delaware were represented at

257 238 2 the convention for the first time. The address to the abolition so­ cieties, the only formal correspondence from the Convention in 1817, lauded the progress in New York and urged action on a familiar catalog of issues: memorializing state legislatures on kidnapping, forming new abolition societies, and providing moral and religious instruction for blacks.^

The only items acted on in 1817 that had not been frequently dis­ cussed previously were colonization and the distribution of a version of Thomas Clarkson's History of the Abolition of the Slave Trade a- bridged by Evan Lewis in 1816. The Convention heard a perfunctory treasurer's report from Thomas Pym Cope, in his last Convention appear­ ance, vtiich showed the Convention having $149.23 plus $800 in bank stock. With its usual orders for printing the minutes, as well as a new directive to the acting committee to collect, bind, and forward to each society a copy of the Convention minutes from 1794 on, the Conven­ tion adjourned on 8 August. The delegates had no intention of meeting again until August 1820.^

Little more than a year later, however, the Delaware Abolition

Society requested the Convention acting committee to call a special meeting of the Convention. Delaware's appeal was prompted by reports of the sale into slavery at New Orleans and at Milledgeville, Georgia of illegally-imported blacks, with the proceeds having gone into the

United States treasury. The society also felt It imperative that the

Convention petition Congress to abolish slavery in the District of

Columbia, and that the Convention declare itself more fully on coloniza­ tion. The Convention constitution required another society to second 239 a request for a special session. The PAS in November agreed to join

with Delaware in calling for the meeting and authorized $50 to offset

meeting expenses. Richard Peters, Jr. then issued a call for the abo­

lition societies to meet on 10 December.^

If much of the 1817 convention had been perfunctory and tied to past Convention policies, the 1818 special session was anything but business as usual. The attractive agenda and the novelty of the hastily- called session helped produce a larger-than-usual gathering of twenty-

two delegates from six societies. For five days they debated coloniza­ tion, South American involvement in the slave trade, and slavery in the

District of Columbia, revised the constitution of 1803, and drafted an address to free blacks. They also prepared a memorial to Congress that addressed the illegal sale of blacks, slavery in the District of Colum­ bia, and kidnapping, and crafted another memorial on American recognition of South American republics.^

If this flurry of activity signaled the revival of antislavery after its long winter, as the delegates believed, then more frequent meetings would be necessary in the future. The delegates revised the constitution to provide for biennial sessions. Since the 1818 gather­ ing was a special session, the first convention under the biennial pat­ tern was fixed for 5 October 1819 in Philadelphia. This pattern of meeting biennially in October continued until 1829. Adjourned sessions in 1826 and 1828 made Convention meetings annual affairs from 1825 to 1829.7

Other constitutional revisions in 1818 added a vice-president and a second secretary, one of the secretaries to be a Philadelphia 240 resident who would take charge of Convention records. Significantly, the acting committee, vÆiich had been forced by the infrequency of conven­

tions from 1806 to 1817 to assume a larger role in Convention governance and following the 1818 resurgence was to act on a wider range of issues, was required to name a chairman and secretary and to begin keeping

Q minutes of its activities.

The introduction for discussion in 1818 of South American inde­ pendence and the proper United States response to it signaled a subtle

swing to new issues that were to dominate the Convention agenda in the

years that followed. From 1794 to 1818, the business of the Convention had been largely predictable. Education, kidnapping, the formation of new abolition societies or the bolstering of foundering ones, and the

status of the slave trade were, with variations, continually rehashed.

Beginning in 1818, however, a series of incidents forced the Convention

to expand its agenda. Revolution in South America was followed by the

Missouri question and the acquisition of Florida. These issues combined

with the recently-initiated colonization debate to shake abolitionism

out of the lethargy of its triennial convention years. The parochial

preoccupations of those years gave way to a renewed awareness of the

Convention's role as a vehicle for national action against slavery.

The revolts in the Spanish colonies in South America raised aboli­

tionist hopes that the slave trade to South America might be halted.

In November 1818 the New York Manumission Society prepared a memorial

to Congress calling for elimination of the slave trade as a basis for

United States relations with any newly-free South American countries or

with Spain itself. The New York society urged that the Convention 241 9 support its action by also forwarding a memorial.

The matter was referred to a committee chaired by prominent New

York Federalist Peter Augustus Jay, the son of John Jay and a counselor of the New York society, who was attending his first convention. Under

Jay's leadership the committee predictably produced a memorial suppor­

tive of the New York position on South American recognition. The dele­ gates resolved to send it separately from the memorial decrying the il­

legal importation of slaves and advocating gradual abolition in the

District of Columbia. Pennsylvanians John Sergeant in the House and

Jonathan Roberts in the Senate simultaneously introduced the domestic memorial on 28 December. There is no record that the Convention's

South America memorial was introduced, although it may have been pre­

sented with the New York memorial introduced in Congress the same day.

The New York memorial was referred to the committee on foreign affairs,

and was not reported out. The Monroe administration, anxious to court

new allies in the Western Hemisphere \diile not alienating Spain, main­

tained neutrality on the revolutions until they were secure and the

treaty for United States acquisition of Florida was completed. In 1822

the administration recognized Chile, the United Provinces of the Plata

(Argentina), Peru, Colombia, and Mexico without restriction.^^

The most significant action connecting the 1818 session to the

future of the American Convention was the creation of a special commit­

tee to memorialize Congress to prohibit slavery in United States terri­

tories created in the future and in any states formed from these terri­

tories. This action was prompted by requests for statehood directed to

Congress from the people of the Missouri and Illinois territories. 242

Missouri permitted slavery and the Illinois constitution, abolitionists believed, did not adequately prohibit the institution. The memorial was designed to carry the signatures of American citizens rather than

the imprimatur of the Convention. The acting committee apparently did not obtain the signatures and did not submit the memorial. Two months later, in February 1819, Congressman James Tallmadge, Jr. took the anti-extension high ground for the Convention. He proposed adding a prohibition on further introduction of slaves into Missouri to a bill authorizing the territory to form a state government. The Tallmadge amendment also provided for freedom at age twenty-five of children b o m of slaves following Missouri's admission as a state.

For a brief moment the abolitionists applauded this evidence that reason and justice finally were to prevail "over Interest Prejudice Op- 19 pression & Power.'.' The PAS forwarded commendations to Congressmen \dio supported Tallmadge's victory in the House. Rejection of the amendment in the slave state-dominated Senate, however, left the issue undecided and led to apprehension among abolitionists about the Sixteenth Congress to convene in December 1819. When the Convention delegates gathered in

October 1819 for their first biennial session, they could not hide their fears that slavery might soon be extended west of the Mississippi

River into Missouri. The Delaware, society forecast the future political strength of the western territories, and in a premonition b o m of experience predicted abolition's fate if the "slave holding interest" gained majority status in Congress by way of the western territories.

"What ground have we to hope," the Delawareans pleaded, "that any representations which the friends of emancipation may think 243 1 ^ proper to make . . . will be tolerated? none! ..." So important

were the decisions to be made on slavery's extension in the Sixteenth

Congress that the New York society encouraged the Convention to appoint

a delegation to lobby Congress. Failure by the abolitionists to oppose

extension, according to NYMS president Cadwallader Colden, would allow

slavery to cross the continent, finally to fix itself "on the shores of "14 the Pacific ocean.

The Delaware society submitted a lengthy report containing an

analysis of Congressional power to restrict slavery in Missouri and

"Arkansaw." It called for serious debate on the subject by the

public and in state legislatures, debate of a higher tone than the emo­

tional outpouring in response to the Tallmadge amendment during the 1819

Congressional debates. The report's anonymous writer offered evidence

of legislative authority to restrict slavery in the Continental Congress

action of 5 April 1776 barring slave importation and in the North­ west Ordinance of 1787, vÆiich disallowed slavery in the Northwest Terri­

tory. He argued further that the Constitution gave even greater powers

to the national government than had the Articles of Confederation under

\Aich the Northwest Ordinances had been approved. Congress, he said, had power under Article 4, Section 3 to regulate slavery in terri­

tories and new states, including those formed from the Louisiana cession.

The author also said that the right of states guaranteed in Article

1, Section 9 to admit any persons they wished prior to 1808 had applied only to the original states. Even if the language of the section could be twisted to permit the internal slave trade after 1808, it applied only to the original states; states formed subsequently possessed no 244

such rights. The author departed from his well-ordered legal argument

to declare that slavery ought to be barred from the western territories

on the basis of the Constitution's preamble. How could slavery, he

questioned, help to establish justice or promote domestic tranquility?

In doing so he took one step further the abolitionists' familiar position

that slavery contributed to societal instability. He wondered vAiat the

final impact of the sectional animosities aroused by the Missouri con­

flict would be on the "more perfect union" announced in the pre­ amble.

The 1819 session was so packed with business, due in part to the

Missouri question, that delegates for the first time agreed to meet in

adjourned session the next month. At this Novenber session the dele­

gates decided against organizing a Congressional lobbying delegation,

choosing instead to prepare a remonstrance to Congress on slavery's ex­

tension. A distinguished committee composed of William Rawle, Joseph

Bringhurst, Jr., and Joseph Parrish was named to draft a document de­

claring the Convention's position against "the enactment or toleration

of slavery" in any new state. Written by Rawle, the "Memorial and

Remonstrance," as strong a title as the Convention was likely to pro­

duce, pleaded that permitting slavery in the western states would great­

ly increase the number of slaves, drive up their prices, and perpetuate

the suffering of the black race. What was permitted in Missouri would

be demanded as a right in state after state, Rawle said in reiterating

Cadwallader Colden's concern, until "the hydra of slavery will . . . ex­

tend in its reprobated form from the Atlantic to the Pacific." In a

turn of phrase, Rawle, vbo frequently judged proposed antislavery action 245

"inexpedient,” complained that slavery's expansion into Missouri was truly inexpedient, there being no political urgency exhibited. Rawle gave a concise interpretation of what opponents of slavery in his gener­ ation believed the framers of the Constitution had done regarding slav­ ery.

Principles of plain and acknowledged justice may sometimes have been suspended or overruled, from a belief of State necessity. In the origin of political.associations, mutual concessions are sometimes required, and an overruling public urgency suggests, while it regrets, the adoption of measures, the danger of vAiich is even partially anticipated.

Of this nature was the toleration of slavery in the formation of our present constitution.

Rawle painted a stark contrast between the opposing sides in the debates over Missouri. He called the conflict one of the "convenience and cupidity of the western settler" driven by "motives of mistaken local interest" versus the "high consideration of national character, public stability, and acknowledged justice." Rawle exhibited his lofty ideals, his eastern assuredness, and his Federalist unwillingness to acknowledge political urgency vÆien rooted in local interest in concluding that Congress should have no difficulty making the right decision.

Usually content with the tactic of memorializing and waiting, the

Convention was unwilling in 1819 to trust what Rawle hoped would be

Congress's good judgment. The acting committee was ordered to gather documents pertinent to restricting slavery in new states and forward

them to sympathetic members of Congress. The acting committee complied by compiling the 1819 Congressional speeches of Tallmadge, John Taylor,

and Rufus King, a letter from John Jay to Elias Boudinot, and the 1819 246

DAS report on Congressional powers over slavery, printing 1,000 of these documents in pamphlet form, and distributing them to monbers of Congress and state legislators. Tennessee abolitionist Elihu Embree urged in

December that the eastern abolitionists express thanks to New York

Senator Rufus King and other Congressional leaders who had championed restriction. Convention president Richard Peters, Jr. had already done so, having thanked King on behalf of the Convention for his work and 18 requested a copy of his speech for the Convention's publication.

Convention leaders also joined with others who opposed the exten­ sion of slavery into Missouri in organizing a series of public rallies.

A rally at Trenton, New Jersey on 29 October 1819 organized by Elias

Boudinot and Quaker William Newbold, a former officer of the New Jersey

Abolition Society, was followed by public meetings in New York on 16

November and one a week later in Philadelphia. Convention members Peter

A. Jay, Theodore Dwight, Thomas Eddy, and IsaacEly in New York, and

William Rawle and Roberts Vaux in Philadelphia played prominent roles in these rallies, \diich touched off a series of anti-extension meetings across the country. Dwight, vÆio had chaired the committee charged with drawing up the Convention's 1818 manorial opposing slavery expansion, led the Federalist anti-extension forces in New York City through his

New York Daily Advertiser, and Isaac Ely wrote articles for the paper.

These rallies, the most visible and wide-spread effort yet organ­ ized by abolitionists, failed to produce their desired result. Under threats of disunion, the Congress in March 1820 agreed to the compromise permitting Missouri to draft a constitution that did not restrict slav­ ery. At the same time, slavery was prohibited in the unorganized 247

territory north of 36'30°, Maine was permitted to enter as a free state, and Arkansas and Oklahoma wereLleft open to settlement by slave­ holders.^^

The Missouri Compromise was naturally a deep disappointment to the abolitionists. Particularly devastating was the support given to proslavery forces in the House of Representatives by former abolition allies Joseph Bloomfield of New Jersey, vdio had been the first president 21 of the American Convention, and William Pinkney of Maryland. Almost as upsetting as the outcome was the vitriolic language of the Missouri debates, in which southerners had openly advocated disunion if slavery was restricted in Missouri. The members of the Pennsylvania Abolition

Society were as determined that disunion and bloodshed should be avoid­ ed as they were that slavery not be extended. Flattered by Henry Clay's appeal to them for aid in solving the Missouri conundrum, they joined their allies in Congress in avoiding a frontal assault on slavery, and attempted to find victory in the Compromise's exclusion of slavery in the unorganized Louisiana Purchase north of 36'30°. It is noteworthy that neither the PAS nor any other of the Convention's constituent soci­ eties requested a special meeting of the Convention to discuss Missouri.

The Convention delegates, with Missouri on their minds, in 1819 had authorized Richard Peters, Jr. to call the Convention into special session without heeding the constitutional requirement that two soci- 22 eties request such a session. Peters, receiving no requests, issued no call.

The Pennsylvania Abolition Society walked a fine line in the Mis­ souri controversy. Unwilling to stir the Missouri fires for fear of 248

disunion, the society made known its displeasure at the Compromise vÆiile

expressing loyalty to the government that was prepared to sanction

slavery's expansion. The PAS adopted a strong resolution in April 1820

decrying the Compromise. The resolution implied that the Congressional

action would justify a move for disunion by northern states, but

stressed that PAS members would not endorse such a move. The society

would unwillingly suffer the continuance of slavery rather than see the

Union dissolved. Its members would be among the last to abandon the

union of states, "and we shall wait until the heavy pressure of the

evils [introduced by the Compromise] vdiich might have been prevented or

remedied, by the due and proper exercise of these [Congressional] pow- no ers, shall compel us to submit to its termination." This willling-

ness of a majority in the PAS to accept the Compromise led to a minority

reaction. Roberts Vaux and others were forced to go outside the aboli­

tion society to press the opposition to the Compromise, and Vaux for

one reduced his activity in the society.

The Convention's acting committee mirrored the reticence of the

PAS to antagonize southerners. Chaired by Dr. Edwin A. Atlee of the

PAS, the committee failed to comply with an 1819 Convention directive

to urge legislatures in slaveholding states to halt the introduction

of slaves into their states in order to curtail kidnapping and the

slave trade. Atlee, apologizing for the miserable performance of his

committee from 1819 to 1821, blamed the committee's failure on the

"awful" crisis over slavery's extension through vdiich the country had passed. He said the committee had decided it was "consistent with a

sound discretion" not to further antagonize southern states during the 249 25 Missouri struggle.

Grudging acceptance of the Compromise did not prevent PAS and Con­ vention leaders from lobbying on the conditions for Missouri statehood.

Anticipating the Congressional debate over Missouri's proposed consti­ tution when the second session of the Sixteenth Congress convened, the

Convention acting committee urged Pennsylvania legislators to oppose

Missouri's admission unless gradual emancipation was enacted. In Decem­ ber 1821, the committee named Dr. Edwin A. Atlee, Dr. Jonas Preston,

Thomas Shipley, and William Rawle's young legal associate David Paul

Brown to draft a memorial to Congress on Missouri statehood. They revamped the Tallmadge amendment, urging that no more slaves be in­ troduced into Missouri, that an age for freedom be designated for slaves already there, and that no provision be permitted disallowing free blacks from entering the state. Realizing that these provisions could again ignite southern rage, they gave assurance that a Saint-Domingue revolt would not be repeated in Missouri and that no "Civil War" would result from these stipulations. The memorial was forwarded to John

Sergeant, leader of the anti-extension forces in the House, on 5 Decem­

ber during the second Missouri debate. Sergeant was directed to with­ hold its introduction if he thought it best. Probably not wishing to

tread on ground already traversed in the Tallmadge amendment debates.

Sergeant did not introduce the memorial. When word reached Philadelphia

in December 1820 that Missouri was admitted to the Union with slavery

intact, the PAS sponsored a public oration at which the speaker called

for total abolition in Pennsylvania as a response to the regrettable

action in Congress. 250

At the 1821 American Convention the PAS sought to put in the best

light possible the severe defeat of Missouri's having been admitted as a slave state with a constitution that effectively bamred free blacks from entering the state. The society sought to justify its unwillingness further to oppose the Compromise by praising its own actions in helping

to limit slavery's further extension in the Northwest. The debates over

Missouri, the society said, had aroused public sentiment against slavery 27 and actually led to an increase in PAS membership.

The attendance at the 1821 session gave the lie to Pennsylvania's self-serving optimism. In a return to the pattern of the triennial 28 meetings, only New York and Delaware joined the PAS in Philadelphia.

These two societies were not nearly so complacent about recent events.

The Delaware society called Missouri a clear victory for the slave inter­

ests. It alluded to the divided front that antislavery forces had pre­

sented in the struggle, a divisiveness vÆiich had permitted "the moral pestilence of Slavery . . . [to] spread over the virgin soil of the

West . . . ." The NYMS attempted to wrest Pyrrhic consolation out of

the setback by claiming that anti slavery forces had advanced the better 2Q arguments in the debates.

The historian Alice Dana Adams called the 1821 convention "a turn­

ing point toward more radical measures" in the Convention, and said the

Convention that year "seemed more wide awake." As evidence she offered

the Convention's call for education as part of any plan for emancipation,

and Convention discussions on mistreatment of blacks in free states, kid­ napping, "the interstate slave trade as affected by the acquisition of

Florida," voluntary emigration to Haiti, and a plan for gradual 251 30 emancipation. This full agenda, however, provides evidence only that in the aftermath of Missouri the abolitionists were forced once more to survey this wide range of issues. When they did so, the optimism of 1818 about antislavery's resurgence gave way to a recognition that in most of the areas Adams mentioned antislavery was suffering severe setbacks.

The Missouri struggle had offered political evidence that many states were "deeply immersed in the turpitude of slave-holding." It had also provided a climate for an assault on black freedom. Kidnapping was reported on the increase in Philadelphia. The District of Columbia, long a scourge to abolitionists because of federally-sanctioned slavery there, in 1820 had enacted with Congressional approval a stringent code for all slaves and free blacks in the district. Massachusetts also re­ cently had considered a ban on free blacks entering the state. The New

York Manumission Society detected in the District of Columbia law an opportunity for a judicial challenge both to its restrictions and to the ban on free blacks in Missouri. The NYMS, however, found it had problems closer to home when the New York constitutional convention of 31 1821 stripped the right to vote from free blacks.

What appeared to Adams as a new offensive against slavery was in reality another of the Convention's serial attempts to guard black rights against encroachment. The 1821 convention broke little new anti­ slavery ground. Rather, it was marked by the frantic attempt of aboli­ tionists to keep ahead of national events, such as Missouri and the aquisition of Florida, events that were threatening to confound their program. 252

The acquisition of Florida from Spain in 1819 added another item

to the Convention agenda, one filled with both promise and threat. Some

abolitionists believed that Florida offered another chance to arrest

the spread of slavery, a chance, in the case of the PAS, to atone for

its perceived poor performance in the Missouri defeat. Others antici­ pated increased use of the new territory in the illegal international

slave trade, and were reminded of their inability to affect it or the equally troublesome legal internal trade. A special conmittee authorized by the 1821 convention to propose measures for combating both the ex­ ternal and internal trades failed to issue a report. The item was re­ ferred to the acting committee, \diich did little better. Its report, given at the Convention's adjourned session in New York in November 1821, dealt only tangentially with the slave trade, calling for Congress to prohibit further introduction of slaves into Florida. Congress should, the report said, leave Florida open to settlement by free laborers. The acting conmittee memorialized Congress by way of New York representative

Cadwallader Colden, vdio was president of the NYMS, but the memorial had no effect.

The reluctance of the two Convention committees seriously to con­ front the internal slave trade in 1821 was typical of the ongoing reti­ cence of abolitionists on the issue, a reticence intensified by the

Missouri defeat. The recognition that slavery's expansion west of the

Mississippi would result in a greater demand for slaves was coupled after the Missouri Compromise with the somber realization that in Flor­ ida the United States had acquired a known slave traders' entrepot that 253 potentially could supply the slaves needed for westward expansion.

Abolitionists must have wanted to cry out of the dangers they saw, but for fear of further arousing southern animosity they felt forced to a- bandon any action that smacked of radicalism. It was this discretion that led the acting committee in 1821 to refrain from mention of the internal trade in its memorial on Florida.

Even before the Missouri debates had revealed the depth of south­ ern sensitivity on slavery, the abolitionists recognized the dangers involved in appealing directly to southerners about any aspect of their sacrosanct institution. Abolitionists preferred to memorialize on sub­ jects under Congressional jurisdiction rather than deal with southern legislatures on a matter like the internal trade, recognized by all as legal. As Convention concern over the acquisition of Florida testified, however, the internal trade was never far from abolitionists* thoughts.

The federally-sanctioned buying and selling of human beings not only was morally repugnant to the abolitionists, it greatly added to their burdens by facilitating kidnapping and providing a domestic pipeline for the illicit foreign trade. Alarmed over reported increases in ille­ gal importations, the Convention in 1819 authorized the acting commit­ tee to appeal to southern legislators for help in stemming the flow of slaves from outside their states. A bold action for the Convention, it too fell victim to the desire not to offend southerners during the 33 Missouri controversy.

Unwilling by an assault on the internal trade to endanger the delicate ties holding together the Union, abolitionists continued to seek better enforcement of the law of 1807, hoping that by cutting off 254

the external supply of slaves the internal trade could be weakened.

Their fears that these efforts would be defeated by the acquisition of

Florida had a solid basis in fact. Amelia Island off the coast of

Florida was a notorious haven for illegal slavers; following the War of

1812 few could deny that illegalities there were worsening. Increased

British pressure for action against the illegal trade together with

the concerns of some southerners about an overabundance of blacks in

their states resulted in efforts to curtail the trade.

The 1816 Convention memorial that tentatively favored creation of a western territory for blacks also urged Congress to consider inflic­

ting harsher penalties on illegal slave traders. The memorial, intro­ duced in the Senate by Jonathan Roberts and in the House by John Ser­ geant in February 1816, was referred to a Senate select committee headed by Roberts. In April this committee asked to discharged, and OC nothing resulted directly from the Convention's effort.

Ironically, as in 1794 when the Convention's first memorial on the

slave trade was discussed in Congress, it was James Madison vdio came to

the Convention's rescue. In his final State of the Union message in

1816, Madison, feeling pressure from the English for joint action

against the trade, called for Congress to act on the matter. The

Fourteenth Congress in 1817 authorized President James Monroe to 36 negotiate for an effective end to the slave trade.

The disposition of a petition on the slave trade from the Balti­

more Yearly Meeting of Friends, one of many foinvarded by Quakers, pre­

cipitated lengthy Senate debates on 2 and 12 January 1818 in vÆiich David

Morrill of New Hampshire strongly attacked the slave trade and slavery 255 on moral grounds. The Senate demonstrated its intention to act against the trade vÆien it defeated by a single vote a motion to prevent the

United States from joining other countries in suppressing the trade be­ cause it would involve "entangling alliances.

The resulting legislation, adopted 20 April 1818, provided for fines of $1,000-5,000, prison terms of 3-7 years, and forfeiture of the vessel for persons convicted of slave trading. Penalties for buyers were harsher. The historian Betty Fladeland stressed that this act was an attempt to curtail the trade by ‘emphasizing penalties against importers

(buyers) rather than on traders or sellers.Anyone illegally import­ ing slaves could receive a similar sentence and a fine of up to $1 0 ,0 0 0 , with lesser fines but equal prison terms for those fitting out ships for the trade. Anyone illegally buying slaves was to pay $1,000 for each slave imported. Penalty monies were to be divided equally between the

United States government and the prosecuting party, a stipulation always attractive to the abolition societies, even though few ever received any 39 money from such prosecutions. Not to the liking of abolitionists was the provision that blacks illegally imported were to be disposed of according to the laws of the state or territory where they were intro­ duced.

The inadequacy of this legislation quickly became apparent. The reports of slaves illegally imported being confiscated and sold into slavery in Georgia and Louisiana helped to prompt the Delaware society's call for the special Convention session in 1818. At the session the

Convention requested Congress to free these slaves, and received unex­ pected support from Representative Charles F. Mercer of Virginia, a 256 colonizationist. Mercer termed the practice of condemning blacks il­

legally imported "to hereditary slavery" an "iniquity." He demanded

that Secretary of the Treasury William H. Crawford produce names and

numbers of slave ships seized and condemned and reveal how their human

cargoes had been disposed of. The House members were informed later in

January that no ships had been forfeited; vdiether slaves had been dis­

posed of was not revealed.^^

Presented with this clear evidence of failure to enforce the slave

trade laws, the Congress acted in March 1819 to strengthen the legisla­

tion. It added provisions to the 1818 law authorizing President Monroe

to direct U.S. ships to patrol the coasts of Africa and the United

States in search of slavers. Congress also offered financial incentives

to sailors to sharpen their lookout. One-half of the proceeds from

confiscated vessels were to be given to the men making the seizure, and

$25 bounty paid to the captors for each black safely delivered to a

U.S. marshal. Fladeland pointed out that this act signaled a shift in

enforcing slave trade laws from state to federal jurisdiction, including

the disposition of the human cargoes. Congress authorized the President

to remove from the United States blacks captured in this manner, and authorized $100,000 to put the program into effect

In 1820 Mercer succeeded in having participation in the slave

trade termed piracy, making it punishable by death. As a colonization­

ist, Mercer's motives were at variance with Convention positions. Fear­ ful of increases in the black population for reasons of safety, Mercer was anxious to see the trade stopped, the black population stablilized, and emigration begun. To this end he was willing that the United 257

States take the step that Convention leaders had suggested to James

Monroe in an 1819 letter: entering into full cooperation with the

English in abolishing the trade. Mercer continued to press for tighter

enforcement of slave trade legislation, as did the abolition societies, which continued to memorialize Congress. In 1823 he gained strong

House concurrence for asking Monroe to enter into international negoti­

ations on ending the slave trade, for terming the trade "piracy" inter­

nationally, and for making recognition of Brazil contingent on its

abolishing the slave trade. The next year he unsuccessfully attempted

to gain Congressional approval for a slave trade convention with the

English that would have allowed mutual search of vessels suspected of

use in the trade.

Extinction of the external slave trade was the only cause sup­

porters of the American Colonization Society and gradual abolitionists

within the Convention could cooperate on. It was certainly the only

issue related to antislavery capable of gaining widespread Congression­

al support. For all the support the issue garnered, however, the re­

sults were most unsatisfying. The successive slave trade acts of 1818,

1819, and 1820 did not significantly diminish slave trading, and the

Convention was forced to recognize that the end of slavery would not

come by cutting off the supply of-slaves.

What abolitionists received from the slave trade legislation was

an additional argument for ending the internal trade. The PAS in 1825

asked how a nation that had pronounced itself willing to punish slave

traders with death could contrive to permit the internal slave trade to

thrive. It went on to question vhether the Congressional action had not 258 undermined slavery itself. "When we pronounced the slave trade to be piracy, did we not forever extinguish our titles to a slave?"^3 it was an argument that they used to bolster their own sense of righteousness, but were wary of directing at southerners.

The plan for gradual emancipation adopted at the 1821 convention was as much a product of the Missouri-Florida issue as was the renewed effort to interdict the slave trade. Never before had Convention dele­ gates advanced a comprehensive program to end slavery, nor, with the ex­ ception of Thomas Earle's self-serving colonization report of 1829, would they again. At the 1818 special session delegates said that if slaveholders would only fix "a period for the final termination of sla­ very" consistent with public safety and prepare the slaves for their freedom, the Convention, "in behalf of abolition," would ask no more of 44 them. In the aftermath of Missouri it was clear this would not happen. Missouri convinced abolitionists as nothing had since the 1790s that slavery was not only the product of faulty legal and moral deci- . sions over centuries, but was a unified political-economic system with hegemonic intentions. Having easily turned aside efforts to fix its limits at the Missouri border, the monolith now threatened to claim territory to the Pacific coast. Most sobering of all to the abolition­ ists was the recognition that their arguments based in morality, jus­

tice, and natural rights, which they had thought were couched in a common American parlance, were wasted on radical southerners who in the

Missouri debates had spumed even the Declaration of Independence as

irrelevant to slavery.The plan for gradual emancipation was b o m of

the Convention's desire to find its own compromise, a politically 259

feasible plan that would unite opponents of slavery and moderate slave­ holders in gradually untying the Gordian knot of slavery. The language of the plan was intended to appease slaveholders and convince them that ending slavery was in their interest. In 1821 it represented the new direction Alice Dana Adams thought she detected in the session.

The development of an emancipation plan was such a new departure

that the delegates dealt with it as a committee of the whole. Failing

to agree on a plan, they appointed a committee of five to draft one for

the next Convention session. This committee, chaired by Evan Lewis, in­ cluded four PAS delegates: James Murray, Drs. Edwin A. Atlee and Jonas

Preston, and young Thomas Earle, attending his first convention. Ex­ pectation that they would present a plan, along with other unfinished business, led to the delegates’ agreement to meet in adjourned session in New York in November.

The Lewis committee prefaced its November report with the portion of the Declaration of Independence on self-evident truths, equality, and unalienable rights. Having thus exhibited that abolitionists did not find the Declaration irrelevant, the Committee members demonstrated

their recognition that after Missouri a new idiom was needed to con­ verse with the South. They abandoned Jefferson’s language of natural rights to explore a new common ground shared by all whites, the threat

of black reprisal. They extracted from Jefferson’s Notes on Virginia his statements on the inherent hostility between master and slave, which Jefferson had said could result in ”a revolution of the wheel of

fortune” in vdiich the Almighty could not take the slaveowners’ side.

Jefferson had trembled to ’’reflect that God is just: that his justice 250

cannot sleep forever." But v^en he turned to appeasing the divine

justice, he could only conclude weakly that "it is impossible to be

temperate and to pursue this subject through the various considerations

of policy, of morals, of history natural and civil." Ihis left him to hope, in a fit of Enlightenment optimism, that these "various considera­

tions" would "force their way into every one's mind." The Lewis commit­

tee attempted to complete and make concrete Jefferson's thought by addressing these "various considerations."^^

The committee members termed slavery a generally-accepted evil, a "deep-rooted disease" pulling down those caught in its "vortex." In an attempt to curry favor with southern moderates, they relieved slave­ holders of responsibility for the monstrous system in vdiich they were enveloped. Slaveholders had been placed in their undesirable position by "the conduct of their ancestors"; few, the committee said, vho had grown up far from slavery could appreciate slaveholders' "difficulties, vexations, and . . . anxieties." The committee enjoined devising a rem­ edy for the slaveholders' plight instead of heaping reproaches on them.^®

The solution offered by Lewis's committee was based on a program purportedly successful in Barbados. Similar to the program implemented hapgazardly during Reconstruction— universally to free slaves, then at­ tach them to the soil as tenant farmers— it was still closer to medieval villeinage or Russian peasantry than to the later sharecropping and crop- lien systems. The proposed system betrayed the abolitionists' tendency to envision large plantations as the base of southern agriculture. It called for ex-slaves to work for the mas ter-landlord on the plantation for a wage, with "comfortable maintenance" deducted, and to hold 261 a rented piece of ground with adequate time off to cultivate it. Humane laws were envisioned that would prepare blacks for this quasi-freedom.

As initial steps, the interstate slave trade was to be prohibited, and a slave's consent required for intrastate sale. After emancipation, universal education for black children was to be implemented, and arbi­

trary Negro codes revoked. The committee held out the promise that en­ acting its program would produce results similar to those purportedly realized in Barbados; improved character and productivity on the part of blacks with increased profits for the master-landlords. To set the program in motion, the Convention called on each slaveholding state to fix a date after which all persons b o m to slaves would be free.^^

The plan was the Convention's most notable attempt to deal prag­ matically with slaveholding, but was, however, never introduced formally to any legislative body, even though most of the Convention's constitu­ ent societies favored it. The Delaware society approved it unanimously, calling it the "most eligible" plan yet proposed. The Chester County,

Pennsylvania society both supported the plan and went beyond it, tenta­ tively advocating immediate emancipation in Delaware, Maryland, and the

District of Columbia. The Chester group did not cloak its support in excessive humanitarianism. It assumed that blacks, because of their be­ ing the lowest grade of society would when freed reproduce more slowly

"than superior Classes" and finally "cease to exist within our bor­ ders. The NYMS also approved the plan, but maintained reservations about attaching slaves exclusively to the soil. In a report that demon­ strated the NYMS had been exhausted by the Missouri setback, the society implied that the work of abolition was nearly done as southern slavery 252 was growing less harsh. It went so far as to suggest that vÆiite south­ erners were the most competent judges of the best means of eradicating slavery.

It is evident that the Pennsylvania Abolition Society killed the general emancipation plan, so well_received by most of the other socie­ ties. Novdiere was the strong hand the PAS maintained over Convention policies more apparent. The PAS report to the Convention in 1823 was ominously silent on the emancipation plan, and \dien the plan was re­ ferred to the acting committee at the 1823 session, its fate was sealed.

The acting committee was composed, as always, of at least one represen­

tative from each abolition society present in the convention. In 1823

twelve members were named, one each from Rhode Island, New York, Chester

County, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Tennessee, and seven from the PAS.

The committee did not deal with the emancipation plan until 6 December,

two months after the Convention's adjournment. By then only the

Philadelphia members of the committee remained to examine it.

Assigned to a committee of Thomas Shipley, Abraham Pennock, Isaac Bar­

ton, and Joseph Rowland, who moved away from Philadelphia in January,

the plan was not reported on until shortly before the 1825 Convention cn session, \dien its adoption was pronounced "inexpedient." The acting

committee refused to endorse any emancipation plan, but expressed the

ambiguous hope that soon problems iiüierent in the slave system and the

structure "of government and society in the United States" could be 53 overcome and a plan agreed upon."

It is possible committee members shared New York's reservations

about binding slaves to the soil, favoring a plan that would have held 263 out a place for blacks in vocations other than farming. More probable, however, is that they decided any emancipation plan was precipitous.

So attractive as a quick solution in the aftermath of Missouri, by 1825 the plan conceivably would have represented a threat to the new aboli­ tion societies springing up in the South in the wake of colonizationist fervor, Benjamin Lundy's organizing efforts, and the previous acting conmittee's efforts to promote southern antislavery. In May 1823 Edwin

P. Atlee of the PAS, writing for the Convention acting committee, ad­ dressed those of abolitionist persuasion in southern states. He urged the formation of abolition societies, and stated that the Convention had no desire to meddle improperly with individual slaveholders or the rights of states. The acting committee in 1825 apparently was willing to trade a less-than-perfect abolition plan for precious time to allow southern abolitionism to grow. The committee's position was supported by delegate action in 1825 that postponed most, resolutions that would have affected the South.Convention leaders had believed Lundy's presence in the 1823 convention representing Tennessee was a fruit of their efforts and a harbinger of a rebirth of southern antislavery.

And as much as ever, southern antislavery was the linchpin of any hoped for national movement.

It would be difficult to overemphasize the importance of Benjamin

Lundy's attendance at the 1823 session and his subsequent role in Con­ vention activities. Only William Rawle, Thomas Shipley, Isaac Barton,

Edwin P. Atlee, and Evan Lewis played more substantial roles in the

Convention in the 1820s, primarily because of their greater longevity in the Convention and their location at or near Philadelphia. As the 264

1818 convention had marked a return to greater activity on national

issues, so Lundy's presence began a renewed consideration of the role

of southern antislavery, culminating in his persuading the Convention

tion to move an adjourned session to Baltimore in 1826.

Initial evidence of a modest revival of antislavery in the South

had come to the Convention in 1817 when a single delegate from the

Philanthropic Society of Easton, Maryland broke the pattern of middle

states representation that had plagued the Convention since 1803. The

Easton society had been formed not as an abolition society but as a pro­

tection society to combat kidnapping. In 1818 it informed the Conven­

tion that a similar society had formed at Centerville, like Easton on

Maryland's Eastern Shore. Aware of a budding movement in North Carolina

the Convention acting committee in 1818 identified a new society in

Guilford County, North Carolina. The Kentucky society continued to correspond with the Convention during this period, and Convention mem- 55 bers were elated that a society had been formed in Tennessee.

The Convention was aware of the Tennessee group through the cor­

respondence of Joseph M. Paul, a Quaker merchant in Philadelphia %ho was

also a PAS officer and frequent Convention delegate, with Elihu Embree, the Quaker iron manufacturer and abolitionist newspaper editor in Ten­ nessee. Begun primarily by Quakers representing seven counties of East

Tennessee in 1815, the Manumission Society of Tennessee was from the beginning organized in the same manner as the American Convention with county and local societies sending delegates to a state convention. It

seems doubtful that the Tennessee society was modeled directly after

the Convention, however, for in its earliest years the society took 265 scant notice of Convention work.

In 1817 the Convention voted to purchase one hundred copies of Evan

Lewis's abridgement of Clarkson's History of the Abolition of the Slave

Trade for distribution among the societies of Tennessee and Kentucky.

The next year the PAS donated additional copies for Tennessee.The

Convention invited the Tennessee society to attend its sessions, but due to the distance no delegate attempted the trip prior to Lundy's ambitious journey to Philadelphia. Embree, vÆio visited Philadelphia on other oc­ casions and was acquainted with PAS members, assured Joseph Paul in 1819 that it was "not on account of any difference in sentiment or plans" that

Tennessee was unrepresented. In fact, he said, he hoped to meet with the abolitionists in convention "to sharpen each other like Man sharpeneth

Man."^^ Embree's unexpected death in 1820 ended the immediate hope for

Tennessee's representation.

Had it not been for Benjamin Lundy's personal desire to relate to antislavery nationally, it is doubtful the Tennessee society would have been represented in the Convention. Lundy had moved to Tennessee from

Ohio in 1822 to be near the Quaker antislavery movement there and in

North Carolina. He published his Genius of Universal Emancipation on the press Embree had used to put out his short-lived abolition news­ papers, the Manumission Intelligencer and the Emancipator. Embree had had difficulty with the manumission society over his publishing, and

Lundy did not join the society because he wished to remain independent as an editor. A month before the 1823 American Convention session, how­ ever, Lundy held a meeting in his home in Greeneville to establish a branch of the manumission society. Lundy was elected president, and as such 266 was named a week later to represent the Tennessee society as its dele­ gate to the Convention. There he presented the report of Tennessee

society president James Jones, \dio boasted that the Tennessee society was composed of twenty branches and counted over six hundred members.

In spite of its size, however, the society did not exert much influence.

Recent historians, notably Gordon Finnie and Lawrence Goodheart, have agreed that the antislavery movement in Tennessee was weak

and largely ineffective. Lundy was its strongest representative;

even after his removal to Baltimore in 1824, the Tennessee society con­

tinued to name him as its delegate to the American Convention through

1826. Other than a communication from Jones in 1828, in \diich he in­

dicated that the distance even to Baltimore for Convention sessions was too great for his society to send a representative. Convention re- cp lations with the Tennessee society were through Lundy.

Lundy knew something about the Convention's work prior to his

1823 excursion. Under the influence of Charles Osborn of Tennessee,

Lundy had been instrumental in forming the Union Humane Society in

southeastern Ohio, vdiich was represented at the Convention in 1819 by

its young president, lawyer Thomas Hedges Genin. In January 1822,

Lundy's Genius carried a report of the Convention's aim to develop a

plan for general emancipation, and in February he noted the Convention

memorial on Florida. In the last issue of the paper that Lundy pub­

lished before leaving Ohio in 1822, he included the Convention's re­

vised 1818 constitution.^^

Lundy immediately made his presence felt in the Convention. He

proposed that the Convention consider establishing a newspaper devoted 267 to emancipation, hoping that the Convention would see fit to endorse his

Genius of Universal Emancipation. He was named to chair a committee to examine his own motion, but he could not convert committee members to his position. He was forced to report back that due to the Convention's dependence on the abolition societies for funding and because the long intervals between Convention sessions would not permit "due superinten­ dence of the press" the committee could not support the proposal

Lundy was extremely disappointed by the Convention's unwillingness to sponsor the Genius, as his biographer Merton Dillon emphasized. The long trip from Tennessee represented his gamble that the Convention might support his paper financially and ease the money woes that perpetually plagued his operation. As Dillon also observed, however, the Convention did support Lundy's work within its means. The body voted to subscribe for ten copies of the Genius and urged abolition society members to pro­ mote the paper.

Lundy undoubtedly believed that the eastern philanthropists were as generous in supporting their abolition societies and the Convention as their wealth and social position would have allowed. Such was never the case. Lundy could have not have known that, given the meager funds of the Convention and its haphazard fundraising methods, its action constituted surprisingly strong support for him. Only once be­ fore had the Convention subscribed to any publication; the acting com­ mittee in 1818 had taken out one subscription for Elihu Embree ' s first newspaper, the Manumission Intelligencer. With the financial struggles many of the societies had gone through during the Panic of 1819 and the

Missouri crisis vivid in delegates' memories, the support given Lundy 268

in 1823 was an acknowledgment that the Convention viewed his work as a welcome addition to antislavery and wished his paper to flourish. The

Convention continued to subscribe to the paper, and the Pennsylvania

Abolition Society responded favorably to Lundy's later requests for fi­ nancial assistance.

Lundy was more successful in another ambition he held for the

Convention: moving its meetings southward. Although he represented the

Tennessee society again at the 1825 convention and presented a report on antislavery in the state, he had taken up residence in Baltimore in

1824. There he had helped to organize the Anti-Slavery Society of

Maryland along with Daniel Raymond, vdio went to Philadelphia with Lundy in 1825 to represent the Maryland society. Encouraged by this success, and by the growth of the societies he had fostered in Tennessee and

North Carolina, Lundy proposed moving the site of an adjourned session of the Convention to Baltimore in 1826. Lundy recognized, better than

his northern colleagues, that the reason distant societies did not at­

tend Convention sessions was due more to their location than to the

time of meetings. His expressed motive in making the motion was to

make the Convention more accessible to southern abolitionists. Prob­

ably he also hoped by such a move gradually to disperse the power held

by the Philadelphia faction. Lundy's motion was approved the next day,

and the Convention for the first time was committed to meet in southern

slaveholding territory.

Joseph W. Rowland, no longer a PhiladelpMa resident, took Lundy's

proposal one step further in 1825 by suggesting that the constitution

be altered to permit each convention to name the next place of meeting. 269

This motion attracted support, but failed to receive a two-thirds vote

at the 1826 adjourned session. Since the Pennsylvania society was poor­

ly represented at this session, apparently more than the PAS delegation

were hesitant to alter the long-established habit of meeting in Phila­

delphia. At the 1827 convention in Philadelphia, Lundy served on a

committee that recommended making Washington, D.C. the permanent site

of the Convention. Delegates agreed to this in 1828, thus returning to

the Convention's original policy of meeting at the seat of the national

government.

As important as any proposals Lundy made in the Convention was

the renewed energy he brought to the abolition movement. Although Con­

vention minutes do not directly reveal his impact, there is little doubt

that following Lundy's arrival the Convention became a more active and

a more confident body. Having barely emerged from the lethargy of the

triennial convention years only to suffer an almost fatal blow from the

Missouri defeat, the movement was at a nadir of confidence when Lundy

appeared. Lundy's gadfly-like presence, together with the promise he

represented of the renewal of southern antislavery, was lifegiving for

the Convention. Through his Genius and through his insistence that the

Convention move into slaveholding territory to make its witness, he

helped to end the parochialism that had crippled the movement's effec­

tiveness- Without Lundy's encouragement, it is unlikely the Convention

would have broken its attachment to Philadelphia to take its activities

once more to the national capital.

Still, movement south was fraught with danger for the Convention.

The Missouri conflict had demonstrated not only that the nation was 270 sorely divided over slavery, but that abolitionism was susceptible to division. As has been seen, the colonization struggle exposed this susceptibility. It was a conflict that Lundy's contributions helped to exacerbate, and it intensified as southern delegates and their northeim allies friendly to colonization became more prominent in the Convention.

The move to Baltimore for the adjourned session of 1826 represen­ ted far more than a change of scenery for the Convention. Like the

1818 convention it was a bridge to the future. It signaled an openness to explore what abolitionism might become away from the comforting and confining climate of Philadelphia. 271

CHAPTER VI FOOTNOTES

^American Convention Minutes, 1816: 34 (2:558).

^American Convention Minutes, 1817: 5-6, 22-23, 28-29, 33-34 (2: 569-70, 586-87, 592-93, 597-98). Alice Dana Adams incorrectly in­ dicated that the Kent County society sent correspondence but was un­ represented at the 1817 convention. Adams, The Neglected Period of Anti-Slavery in America, 156.

^American Convention Minutes. 1817: 35-37 (2: 599-601).

^American Convention Minutes, 1817: 20, 31, 37-38 (2: 584, 595, 601-2).

^American Convention acting committee minutes, 7 September 1818, p. 56, PAS Collection, Reel 27; DAS Minutes, 151 (24 September 1818); Richard Peters, Jr., ^ aJ, to William Rawle, 2 November 1818, and Peters to abolition societies, 7 November 1818, PAS Collection, Reel 12; PAS Minute book, 2: 286-87, 290 (6 , 19 November 1818), PAS Collection, Reel 1; American Convention Minutes, 1818: 605-06; ibid., 25-26, 56-59 (627-28, 658-61). This session met in the U.S. Circuit Court room, the old Congress Hall, at Sixth and Chestnut streets.

^American Convention Minutes, 1818: 6 , 30, 36 (2: 608, 632, 638). Kent County, Delaware and Easton, Maryland appointed delegates, none of whom attended. Represented were the PAS, NYMS, DAS, and the Columbia, Pa. society.

^American Convention Minutes, 1818: 34 (2: 636).

^American Convention Minutes, 1818: 33-35 (635-37). 9 NYMS Papers, 5: Memorial to U. S. Senate and House on slave trade in South America, 16 November 1818; NYMS Papers, 5: 10 November 1818; American Convention Minutes, 1818: 15-17 (2: 617-19).

^^American Convention Minutes, 1818: 30-33, 37-41 (2: 632-35, 639-43); Annals of Congress, l5 Cone:. 2 sess., 85, 430 (28 December 1818), 540 (13 January 1819) ; Samuel Flagg Bemis, The Latin American Policy of the United States: An Historical Interpretation (.New York; Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1943), 46. Senator James Burrill of Rhode Island argued this position on the recognition of Latin American coun­ tries, Annals, 15 Cong. 2 sess., 430 (2F December 1818).

^^American Convention Minutes, 1818: 42-43 (2: 644-45); Annals of Congress, 15 Cong. 2 sess., 1166, 1170 (13 February 1819); Glover Moore, The Missouri Controversy, 1819-1821 (Lexington, Ky.: University of Ken- tucky Press, 1953; reprint ed., Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1967), 35-41. 272

^^PAS Minute book, 2; 305, 310 (25 March, 8 April 1819), PAS Col­ lection, Reel 1.

^'^Arnerican Convention Minutes, 1819; 16-17 (2: 690-91).

^‘^American Convention Minutes, 1819: 5 (2: 679).

^^American Convention Minutes, 1819: 18-27 (2: 692-701). Conven­ tion leaders continued to use Missouri as an example of how slavery promoted sectional jealousies. See American Convention acting committee minutes, 6 December 1824, p. Ill, PAS Collection, Reel 27;

^^American Convention Minutes, 1818: 60 (2: 734).

^^American Convention Minutes, 1819: 61-62 (2: 735-36). 18 American Convention Minutes, 1819: 62 (2: 736); American Con­ vention acting committee minutes, 15 November, 2, 12 December 1819, pp. PAS Collection, Reel 27; American Convention Minutes, 1821; 24 (2: 764); Elihu Embree to Joseph M. Paul, 19 December l8l9, Joseph M. Paul Papers, HSP; Richard Peters, Jr. to Rufus King, 23 November 1819, King to Peters, 30 November 1819, in Rufus King, The Life and Correspon­ dence of Rufus King, ed. Charles R. King, 6 vols. (New York: Da Capo Press, 1971), 6 : 234-38. King insisted that the Convention had "overrated my poor efforts," then went on to outline for Peters his op­ position to slavery’s extension based on its unfairness to states that had outlawed slavery. On King's position, see George Dangerfield. The Era of Good Feelings (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1952), 224- 27 and Moore, The Missouri Controversy, 55-59. 19 Moore, The Missouri Controversy, 65-80. 20 Moore, The Misoouri Controversy, 84-100. 21 Bloomfield may have been swayed by the same concern for the sur­ vival of the Union that motivated PAS members. On Bloomfield and the Missouri Compromise, see Moore, The Missouri Controversy, 212-13. 22 Moore, The Missouri Controversy, 95; American Convention Min- utes, 1819: 65 '(T: 739). ------^ ---

^^PAS Minute book, 2: 324 (13 April 1820), PAS Collection, Reel 1.

^^oderick Naylor Ryon,"Roberts Vaux: A Biography of a Reformer" (Ph.D. dissertation. The Pennsylvania State University, 1956), 95-97; Silcox, "Negro Education in Pennsylvania," 446-47. Ryon stated that the Missouri conflict strengthened Robert Vaux's ties with the national antislavery movement and weakened his relationship with the PAS. While Vaux did aid Edward Coles's effort to oppose proslavery forces in Illi­ nois, it is anachronistic to speak of an antislavery "movement" in 1820 that did not include the PAS. Vaux did not permanently withdraw from 273

the society, nor did John Sergeant, the leader of anti-extension forces in the Sixteenth Congress. Vaux represented the PAS in the Convention in 1823, and Sergeant was elected Convention president in 1825, undoubt­ edly in recognition of his service in the Missouri period. The PAS's problem was the reduced activity, and probably contributions, of some significant members rather than the loss of a significant number of members. The PAS reported it actually gained members as a result of the Missouri struggle. American Convention Minutes, 1821: 10 (2: 750). The society did experience acute financial difficulties in 1821, but it is difficult to know if these resulted from dissension over Missouri or were a product of the Panic of 1819. PAS Minute book, 2: 341 (14 May 1821), PAS Collection, Reel 1.

^^American Convention Minutes, 1819: 43-44 (2: 717-18), 1821: 24:25 (2: 764-55). 26 American Convention acting committee minutes, 5 December 1820, pp. 75-78; Adams, The Neglected Period of Anti-Slavery in America, 156- 57; American Convention Minutes, 1821: 25 (2: 765); PAS Minute book, 2: 332-33 (13 December l820), PAS Collection, Reel 1. 9 7 American Convention Minutes, 1821: 10 (2: 750). 28 New York had only one delegate at the 1821 session in Philadel­ phia, Goold Brown. The society's poor attendance may have led to the decision to hold the adjourned session of the Convention in New York City in November. Nine NYMS delegates were present for the ad­ journed session, and delegates were also present from the Chester Coun­ ty, Pa. society and from Providence, Rhode Island. This was the first New England representation since 1798. 9Q American Convention Minutes, 1821: 8 , 17 (2: 748, 757). William Newbold, the Burlington County, New Jersey Quaker vdio was a leader in the anti-extension rallies of 1819, showed this same hardy impulse of finding victory in defeat when he wrote to his brother George, an ac­ tive NYMS member, that Missouri had shown "that we can act from the impulse of a special occasion & act with energy too." Newbold, perhaps still angry over the Convention's failure to act more aggressively on Missouri, wondered whether the time liad arrived to form a national as­ sociation to work for gradual emancipation. William Newbold to George Newbold, 6 May 1823, Donald Gay Baker Collection in the Quaker Collec­ tion, Haverford College.

^^Adams, The Neglected Period of Anti-Slavery in America, 159, 166. Voluntary emigration to Haiti was explored in large part because of the abandonment of the plan for western colonization due to the Missouri defeat. See Chapter V.

^*NYMS to PAS, 13 July 1821, PAS Collection, Reel 13; NYMS Papers, 5: 10 July 1821; Litwack, North of Slavery, 31, 6 8 , 80-82. The NYMS letter indicated the unwillingness of its leadership to accept the 274

Missouri Compromise. The letter came from, among others, Theodore Dwight, Isaac M. Ely, and George Newbold. Noting that they detected similarities between the District of Columbia legislation and the Mis­ souri constitution, they indicated they believed the D.C. act had been "almost providentially permitted to be passed" so this vital question, important "to our character as a nation, to our moral and political in­ terests, and, above all, to our reputation as a Christian country" could be determined by the courts.

^^American Convention Minutes, 1821; 11, 30-31, 46-48 (2: 751, 770-71, 786-88), 1823: 23 (2: 823); American Convention acting commit­ tee minutes, 1 January 1822, p. 93, PAS Collection, Reel 27. The Annals of Congress make no mention of Colden having introduced the memorial on Florida. Florida's potential as a trial site for free white labor in the South continued to have an attraction for abolitionists and coloni- zationists during the 1820s. The colonizationist Elliott Cresson nego­ tiated with the Marquis de Lafayette to use Lafayette's property near Tallahassee for a free labor experiment, and urged the Convention to intercede with Lafayette. Cresson indicated he wished to attract Euro­ pean Protestant iimigrants for such an experiment, since he believed Catholics with their "many feasts and fasts would tend materially to defeat a fair comparison of their labor with the unremitted toil of the neighbouring Blacks." Elliott Cresson to American Convention, 4 Octo­ ber 1827, William Rawle Papers, vol. 5, HSP.

^^American Convention Minutes, 1819: 43-44 (2: 717-18)j 1821: 24 (2: 764). The acting committee in 1821 said that "sound discretion" had prevented it from memorializing the southern state legislatures vdiile the Missouri debates raged.

^^See the chapter "Slave-Trade Diplomacy, 1808-1820" in Fladeland, Men and Brothers, 106-24. 35 American Convention Minutes, 1816; 31 (2: 555); Annals of Con- gress, 14 Cong. 1 sess., 147 (26 February 1816), 1068 (27 February ISI5T, 325-26 (17 April 1816).

i^nals of Congress, 14 Cong. 2 sess., 11-17 ( December 1816), 939-41 (11 February 1817T. Betty Fladeland incorrectly attributed Madison's speech to James Monroe in Men and Brothers, 113. 37 Annals of Congress, 15 Cong. 1 sess., 71 (31 December 1817), 73-78 (2 January l8 l8), 93-109 (12 January 1818). 38 Annals: of Congress, 15 Cong. 1 sess.. Appendix, 2571-74; Flade­ land, Men and Brothers, 117. 39 Annals of Congress, 15 Cong. 1 sess.. Appendix, 2571-74.

^^American Convention Minutes, 1818: 56-59 (2: 658-61); Annals of Congress, 15 Cong. 2 sess., 430 (28 December 1818). The Convention 275 memorial was introduced in the House on 28 December.

^^Annals of Congress. 15 Cong. 2 sess., 442 (4 January 1819), 662 (21 January 1819); DuBois, The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade, 117, 120-23; Fladeland, Men and Brothers, 120-21% As Fladeland docu- men ted, the Convention manorial was only one of many that flooded Con­ gress on the slave trade. She also pointed out that James Monroe made use of the resulting legislation to promote colonization. 42 Moore, The Missouri Controversy, 290; Fladeland, Men and Bro­ thers , 123-44; American Convention Minutes, 1819; 56-57 (2: 730-31); Annals of Congress. 17 Cong. 2 sess., ll47-55 (28 February 1823), 18 Cong. 2 sess. , 697 (28 February 1825). On memorials sent by the abo­ lition societies, see PAS memorial in Annals, 17 Cong. 2 sess., 747 (24 January 1822;, and NYMS memorial, ibid., 1150 (28 February 1822).

^^American Convention Minutes, 1825: 11-12 (3: 877-78).

/l/c American Convention Minutes, 1818: 63 (2: 665).

^^See Moore, The Missouri Controversy, 307-9; Dangerfield, The Era of Good Feelings, 235. One of those who minimized the importance of the Declaration was William Pinkney of Maryland, the former ally of the abolitionists in contests over slavery in the Maryland legislature in the 1790s. On Pinkney, see Chapter I and Moore, 97-99.

^^American Convention Minutes, 1821: 26-28, 33 (2: 766-68, 773).

^^American Convention Minutes, 1821; 50 (2: 790); Paul Leicester Ford, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, 10 vols. (New York; G. P. Putnam, 1892-99;, 3: 268. 48 American Convention Minutes, 1821: 51 (2; 791).

^^American Convention Minutes, 1821: 53-55, 58 (2; 793-95, 798).

^^American Convention Minutes, 1823; 15, 32, 42-43 (3; 815: 832, 842-43). Formed in 1820 as an anti-kidnapping society, the Chester County society was represented in the Convention only in 1821 and 1823. It dissolved in 1826. American Convention Minutes, 1821: 37 (2: 777); Adams, The Neglected Period of Anti-Slavery in America, 147; Abraham Marshall to Isaac Barton, 2 August 1826, American Convention incoming correspondence, PAS Collection, Reel 29.

^^American Convention Minutes, 1823; 8-9 (3: 808-9). That this report came from the New York society, which of all the societies had most opposed the Missouri Compromise, is both ironic and a reflection of the depression, masked as complacent optimism, that beset the abo­ litionists following Missouri. 276

^^American Convention Minutes, 1823: 11-14, 28 (3: 811-14, 828); American Convention acting committee minutes, 16 December 1823, 6 Janu­ ary 1824, 3 October 1825, pp. 106, 110, 116-18. The way the determi­ nation of a quorum of the acting committee was arrived at is indicative of the operation of th^a committee. With twelve committee members in 1823, the quorum was set not at seven, but at four, a majority of the PAS members on the committee. As in other instances cited in this dis­ sertation, this should not necessaril.y be regarded as a power play by the PAS. Without this practice, the acting committee would have been unable to carry out any of the responsibilities assigned it by the Con­ vention.

^^American Convention Minutes, 1825: 30 (3: 896).

^^"American Convention acting Committee to those in Southern states; regarding formation of abolition societies, 7 May 1823," in American Convention folder. Friends Historical Library, Swarthmore Col­ lege (quote). Items tabled or carried over to the 1826 adjourned ses­ sion included abolition in the District of Columbia, the illegal intro­ duction of slaves, and the education of blacks. Delegates in 1825, in adopting Daniel Raymond’s proposition that fixing a date after vdiich all children b o m to slaves would be free was the most practicable means of abolishing slavery (American Convention Minutes, 1825: 16 (3: 882; see Chapter V), did direct the acting committee to address pastors, teach­ ers, and others of public influence in slaveholding states to procure their assistance in supporting such legislation. This was a compromise method of addressing southerners, and the acting committee was slow to follow through on even this moderate way of addressing the South.. Not written until nearly a year after the 1825 session adjourned and only shortly before the convening of the 1826 meeting in Baltimore, it was issued under the presumptuous title, "To the Intelligent and Philan­ thropic in the United States." Copy in Pamphlets vol. 191, item 11, Friends Historical Library, Swarthmore College.

^^American Convention Minutes, 1817: 13, 21 (2: 577, 585), 1818: 29, 31 (2: 631, 633).

^^Finnie, "The Antislavery Movement in the South," 218-19; Asa Earl Martin, "The Anti-Slavery Societies of Tennessee," Tennessee His­ torical Magazine , 1 (December 1915): 264; Emancipator, 1, no. 1 (30 April 1820;; Lawrence B. Goodheart, "Tennessee's Antislavery Movement Reconsidered: The Example of Elihu Embree," Tennessee Historical Quar­ terly 41 (Fall 1982): 227, 229; American Convention Minutes, 1817: 32 (2: 596); Elihu Embree to John Lynn, 10 May 1818, Joseph M. Paul Papers, HSP. 57 Elihu Embree to Joseph M. Paul, 19 December 1819, Joseph M. Paul Papers, HSP. 58 Dillon, Beniamin Lundy, 47-48, 79; American Convention Minutes, 1823: 17-18 (3: 817-18), 1828: 57 (3: 1069). On Finnie's and 277

Goodheart's work, see note 56 above.

^^Miller, "The Union Humane Society," 93, 97; Genius of Universal Em^cipation, 1, no. 7 (January 1822), 115; ibid., 1, no. 10 (April 1822), 155-56. In his presidential address to the Greeneville branch of the Tennessee society shortly after his election in 1823, Lundy made no mention of the Convention’s work, however. Genius, 3, no. 5 (September 1823), 34-37.

^^Genius of Universal Enancipation, 3, no. 13 (May 1824). 165, 171-72; American Convention Minutes, lSY3: 33, 38 (3: 833, 838). Quote is on p. 38 (838).

^^Dillon, Beniamin Lundy, 83; American Convention Minutes, 1823: 42 (3: 842). ' CO American Convention Minutes, 1818: 32 (2: 634), 1826: 44 (3: 946). The Manumission Intelligencer was published by Embree at Jonesborough beginning in March 1819 as a weekly paper. In April 1820 he changed the paper to a monthly and named it the Emancipator. Asa Earl Martin, "Pioneer Anti-Slavery Press," Mississippi Valley Histori­ cal Review, 2 (1916): 515. On support for Lundy by the PAS, see Benja­ min Lundy to Isaac Barton, 10 January and 23 January 1826, American Convention incoming correspondence, PAS Collection, Reel 29.

^^Dillon, Beniamin Lundy, 110; American Convention Minutes, 1825: 19-20 (3 : 885-867'.

^^American Convention Minutes, 1825: 29 (3: 895), 1826: 43 (3: 945), 1827: 27 (3: 979), 1828: 6 (3: 1016). CHAPTER VII

TO THE SQÎJTH AND BACK AGAIN:

THE THROES OF GRADUALISM

In moving its adjourned session to Baltimore in 1826 the American

Convention reaffirmed its commitment to be what Benjamin Lundy had be­

lieved the Convention was vdrien he sought its validation and support

for his publication in 1823: the national antislavery movement.

The Convention had not met this description during its triennial years,

but in the years following the Missouri controversy it necessarily re­

sumed the role of national antislavery vehicle for vhich it had been

created.

Benjamin Lundy's activity in turn helped to validate the Conven­

tion. Under Lundy's continual prodding the delegates vho attended Con­ vention sessions from 1825 to 1828 rose to the challenge of being nation­

al antislavery leaders, and the Convention assumed a more aggressive

style. Morale was boosted by the presence of John Quincy Adams in the

White House, with the accompanying hope that a northern president might assist the antislavery cause. Also important in the Convention resur­ gence were the contributions of a new generation of abolition leaders,

including Thomas Shipley, Thomas Earle, Edwin P. Atlee, Isaac Barton,

Jonas Preston, and James Mott of the PAS, Daniel Raymond and Willliam

278 279

Kesley of the Maryland Anti-Slavery Society, and Mahlon Day of the NYMS,

\dio were willing to lead the Convention out of its provincialism and dependence on local initiative to become a national voice for freedom.

Indicative of this new confidence was the Convention’s handling of the addresses from local societies in 1825. For the first time these addresses were referred to a committee for examination and comnent after

their initial reading vÆiile the body of delegates dealt with an agenda

that they dictated. The New York society suggested this, having decided

that the Convention was the best judge of what issues should be dis­

cussed. From 1826 on these issues included the abolition of slavery in

the District of Columbia, the internal slave trade, the use of the prod­

ucts of free labor, and the permanent establishment of the Convention's

sessions in the South, as well as the more familiar topics of coloniza­

tion and education.^

Slavery in the District of Columbia had been a thorn in the side

of abolitionists since the national government took up residence in

Washington in 1800. With the downturn in abolitionist fortunes follow­

ing Gabriel's conspiracy and the domination of the national government

by Republicans, antislavery men had harbored little hope for eradicating

slavery there. During the Convention's short-lived resurgence in the

midst of nationalist fervor following the War of 1812 the abolitionists,

encouraged by Congressional action against slave traders and alarmed

over the sale of slaves illegally imported in 1818, asked the Congress

to consider the gradual abolition of slavery in the District in addition

to strengthening slave trade legislation. A committee appointed to con­

sider the subject at the 1821 convention rather embarrassedly uncovered 280 a draft of this 1818 memorial that had never been presented to the Con­ gress. The Convention reapproved the memorial, but those responsible

for its presentation apparently reconsidered this action and again it 2 was not presented.

The Congressional action of 1820 authorizing Washington, D.C. to restrict black settlement in the city renewed abolitionist alarm about 3 the situation there. As had been seen in Chapter VI this led to the abolitionists' combining the Missouri, Arkansas, and District of Colum­ bia issues in the hope that the defeat over Missouri might be reversed, or at least assuaged, by a victory on the D.C. issue. Benjamin Lundy in 1821 called for the immediate elimination of slavery in all the ter­ ritories and districts under Congressional jurisdiction, and the Chester

County, Pennsylvania abolition society in 1823 included the District of

Columbia among the areas it judged suitable for immediate emancipation.^

Convention delegates in 1823 were reluctant to antagonize the

South once more by memorializing Congress, but did agree to prepar­ ing a memorial to state legislatures in the northern and middle

states asking their cooperation in seeking abolition in the federal dis­

trict. The acting committee failed to prepare this memorial until early

in 1825. William Rawle, who signed the memorial as Convention president, believed that the memorial was too little and too late; he complained

that slavery in the District would have been ended if its opponents had

been more faithful in addressing Congress. Thomas Earle supported Rawle

at the 1825 convention by proposing that the Convention prepare a Con­

gressional memorial, but a committee headed by Daniel Raymond determined

that the best means to accomplish Rawle's desire was to urge local 281

societies to work toward electing Congressmen \Aio would promote a aboli­

tion in the District. That this conclusion was reached by a committee under Raymond's direction is not surprising, since Raymond had recently been an antislavery candidate for the Maryland legislature, finishing last out of seven candidates. The Convention refused to follow Raymond's lead into politicking, tabling enactment of the committee’s suggestion.^

The special sessions of the Convention in Baltimore in 1826 and

1828 brought the northern delegates into direct contact with the legal internal slave trade and a slavery that, unlike slavery in their own states, was not vestigial. Edmund Haviland of the New York society said in 1828 that delegates could not possibly maintain apathy when they could "almost see from the windows of the room in which [they were] de­ liberating [in the Athenaeum], a receptacle for slaves, in which they are thrust, manacled, and bound. . . .^ This inmersion of northerners in the southern reality, together with the Maryland society's producing seven of the twenty delegates, led the Convention in 1826 to follow the

Maryland society in taking stronger action on slavery in the District of

Columbia.

The Maryland society soon after its formation in 1825 had regis­ tered its disgust with slavery in the District in a memorial to Congress.

In the sunmer of 1826 the society-expressed strong support for the ini­ tial effort of Pennsylvania Federalist Representative Charles Miner, the

West Chester newspaper editor, to touch off House debate on the subject.

When the Convention met in its city in 1826, the Maryland society took advantage of the opportunity to obtain national support for its position on slavery in the District. On the opening evening of the session. 282

Maryland delegate William Kesley proposed that the Convention urge its

member societies to petition to end slavery in the District. Kesley's

motion was approved and incorporated in the address to the societies,

along with Thomas Earle's motion resurrected from 1825 that called for

the Convention to send a memorial. The Convention refused again, how­ ever, to endorse supporting political candidates running on the single issue of ending slavery in the District.^

The Convention's 1826 memorial lamented that fifty years after the Declaration of Independence the Congress had not ended slavery in the one area over vhich it held unrestricted power. This area, a

"natural repository of Freedom," remained, the memorial charged, "a depot for Slaves." The Convention asked that a date be fixed "after vdiich every child b o m of a Slave, in the District of Columbia, shall be free." There is no record of vhat happened to the memorial in Con­ gress, but it is likely that it helped reinforce Charles Miner's attempt late in 1826 to insert gradual abolition in the District into a debate on the illegal imprisonment of free blacks there.

Just prior to Miner's action on the floor of Congress, Benjamin

Lundy, with assistance from Daniel Raymond, prepared a memorial that not only called for ending slavery in the District but was an indictment of slavery everywhere. The petition was circulated in Baltimore, to the great dismay of colonizationists, and Lundy's friends garnered about

1300 signatures. Presented in Congress in February, the memorial was quickly attacked. George McDuffie of South Carolina, whose law firm had assisted the PAS in protection cases, led the Congressional opposition to printing the Baltimore memorial. He was joined by Clement Dorsey 283 of Maryland, vÆio had accused Miner of attempting to interfere in the internal trade by advocating abolition in the District and vdio now said the Baltimore memorial "breathed the spirit of general emancipation."

The House voted by a large majority not to print the memorial.^

Georgs McDuffie remarked during the debate on the Baltimore mem­ orial that if the residents of the District of Columbia were to petition for abolition in their area the Congress might pay heed. Soon after­ ward an abolition society formed in Washington to take up McDuffie's challenge. Represented in the Convention in 1827, the society asked for petitions in support of ending slavery in the District and requested that the Convention consider meeting in Washington to lobby the Con­ gress. Benjamin Lundy supported the Washington society by pressing the

Convention both to produce its own memorial and to encourage the aboli­ tion societies to petition, and chaired the committee selected to enact his proposal. Following the Convention, the Washington society, in concert with another newly-formed society in neighboring Alexandria, forwarded a memorial signed by over 1,000 residents of the District. It asked that slaves b o m after 4 July 1828 be free at age twenty-five and

that no more slaves be brought into the District for sale. Contrary to

McDuffie's self-serving advice, the memorial produced neither debate nor action in Congress.

The Washington-Alexandria memorial was essential, however, in

initiating a widespread campaign to flood Congress with petitions on the

D.C. issue. In the pages of the Genius Lundy entreated abolition socie­

ties and others to forward petitions in support of Charles Miner’s re­ newed campaign in Congress to end slavery in the District. In response 284 to questions from PAS members about the political wisdom of such a peti-, tion campaign, Lundy questioned \dien such action would be politic, and urged abandonment of "popular-calculating policy." Demonstrating that he had grown tired of temporizing and of pleas of inexpediency, Lundy argued that no "squeamish doubts as to the proper time" should delay action. The best policy, he contended, was to "do justly; and the most suitable time to put it in pratice [sic] is now, NOW." In February 1828 he entreated abolitionists to "Let petitions flow into the Hall of Con­ gress . . . Load their tables . . . Teaze the members with importuni­ ties, until they are provoked to deeds of justice.So anxious was the Convention's acting committee' to heed Lundy's call that its Phila­ delphia members, in a rare between-sessions action in April 1828, not only forwarded the 1827 Convention memorial on the District of Columbia but asked Daniel Raymond to write another for Lundy to circulate for 12 signatures.

In July 1828 Lundy decried the lack of Congressional action on the memorials sent to Miner, vÆiich, he said, had emanated from thousands of citizens. He blamed the delay on some intennal Congressional politick­ ing calculated to save Andrew Jackson embarrassment, then complained that the Congressional agenda was being dictated by the South and the

"mad-house meritting John Randolph" of Roanoke. Undeterred by the dila­ tory Congress, abolitionists continued to forward memorials throughout

1828 and 1829. The Convention at its November 1828 session not only prepared a memorial but had 3,'000 copies printed and ordered its printing in newspapers in every state and territory, one of the most optimistic, albeit unrealistic, actions the Convention ever took. The 285 memorial was handed to the Senate Judiciary Committee without being ready an action vÆiich enraged Benjamin Lundy. He accused Pennsylvania

Democrat Isaac D. Barnard of being dough-faced in yielding to Tennessee

Senator John Eaton's desire to bottle up the memorial in Judiciary rather than submit it to the Committee on the District of Columbia.

Lundy predicted that such maneuvers could not suppress the citizens' campaign, because

The moral eyes of the nation are opening. The might and majesty of public opinion is concentrating. The Young Lion of American Republicanism is rousing from his lair and the Tiger of oppression vTill, ultimately, flee before him.^^

The tiger did not flee. When Charles Miner called attention to

the Washington-Alexandria petition and presented details of abuses of free blacks in the District of Columbia as a preamble to asking for investigation of the need for gradual abolition and amendment of slave trade laws in the District, he elicited a strong proslavery response.

John C. Weems of Maryland, a member of the House Committee on the Dis­

trict of Columbia, gave a long defense of slavery, including a Biblical

justification based on slavery's being a curse on the descendants of

Canaan, the fourth son of Ham. The tiger and the lion gave blow for blow, Miner's opponents demanding that he withdraw his controversial preamble, Miner refusing to budge. His preamble finally was defeated, with his resolutions being referred to the committee on the District, where Weems and his allies were able to suppress them.^^

With Miner's campaign collapsed, Benjamin Lundy's best remaining hope for the petitioning campaign was the 1829 Convention session

scheduled to convene in Washington for the first time in December.

In 1827 Lundy had seized on the Washington Abolition Society's request 285 for the Convention to meet in the nation's capital. He believed that the permanent site of the Convention should be moved farther south to accommodate the abolition societies forming in southern states, and that the Convention could better "assume a national character" by meeting in

Washington. In requesting that the Convention move its sessions to

Washington, Lundy also was hoping to do what the Washington society was asking for, to bring the national antislavery movement to Washington to confront the Congress.

Not everyone, however, looked forward to the 1829 convention with

Lundy's degree of anticipation. In October 1829 an anonymous Genius subscriber from Philadelphia asked Lundy and his new associate William

Lloyd Garrison if they knew that the American Convention was planning to meet in Washington to petition the Congress. The writer went on with this rhetorical line of questioning to inquire if they also knew that the

Jacksonians had a large majority in Congress. In an oblique reference to this assault on the Democrats on their own turf and to Lundy's past editorial attacks on Jackson, he then lashed out at the editors. "Do you believe that the right way to obtain the grant of a request, is to abuse the party from vhom it is to be obtained?" Lundy denied that he had abused the administration, then, unfazed, called on the societies to "be up and doing" and appoint delegates to the Convention.

Lundy hoped that the 1829 convention would mark a decisive turning point in the contest over slavery in the District of Columbia, with abo­ lition society representatives from all over the nation descending on

Washington. In October Lundy and Garrison noted that the various Mary­ land societies had named twenty delegates, and the Washington and 287

Alexandria societies had chosen seventeen. With these figures in hand,

Garrison predicted in November that there would be a large turnout for the sessions. Able to be more objective than Lundy, Garrison also pre­ dicted a few days before the Convention convened that the new, heavily

Jacksonian Congress would not give the least attention to abolishing slavery in the District.

Although by Convention standards attendance at the 1829 session was good, it did not live up to Lundy's lofty expectations. Over twenty delegates attended representing the New York and Pennsylvania societies, the Free Produce Society of Pennsylvania, the National Anti-Slavery

Tract Society of Maryland, and the Washington and Alexandria societies.

To Lundy's dismay, no state south of the District of Columbia was repre­ sented; only the North Carolina society sent a communication. Most noticeably absent were societies from three slaveholding states, the

Maryland Anti-Slavery Society, the Delaware Abolition Society, and the

Virginia Convention of Abolition Societies. Organized as a political action group, the Maryland society had fallen victim to the Jackson landslide in the state in 1828, as had the foundling societies which had formed in Virginia since the mid-1820s. The Delaware society, after 18 years of clinging to existence, also had succumbed in 1828.

The five days of sessions in 1829 left Lundy to conclude that "No business of unusual importance was transacted." In a dour mood over the attendance and over Thomas Earle's denigration of free labor as a method of eradicating slavery, Lundy hardly qualified as an objective judge.

He had also taken a defeat vhen the delegates, apparently convinced that the petitioning campaign could not be resuscitated, voted 13-7 not to 288 send a memorial on slavery in the District of Columbia. Townshend Waugh of the Alexandria society proposed instead that the memorial be referred to the acting committee for forwarding at their discretion. It is dif­ ficult to be certain whether Waugh's action represented his desire to quash the memorial or to delay its introduction until Congress was more likely to consider it. All the persons voting vÆio earlier in the session had resisted entirely sending a D.C. memorial voted for its referral, vdiile a 4-1 majority of Washington Abolition Society members favored the memorial. These figures, together with Lundy's support for forwarding the memorial, would suggest that the proponents regarded Waugh's move as a stalling tactic. It is possible, however, that some, including lawyer James 0. Grim of New York, believed that memorializing state legislatures to secure their endorsements, a method that had proved 19 successful in Pennsylvania, was a superior route politically.

In successfully luring the Convention to Washington in 1829,

Lundy had partially realized his goals for the Convention. The dele­ gates had seen vdiat he undoubtedly wanted them to see— the 1829 memorial described the private jails near the Capitol where "the agonizing cries

of those [slaves and incarcerated free blacks] separated from kindred

and friends" could be heard— but they did not draw the same political 20 conclusion that Lundy did from these sights and sounds. The Conven­

tion's part in the campaign to force Congress to act on slavery in the

District died, symbolically, at the Washington City Hall where the Con­

vention delegates met and where the policy they loathed but could not

decide how to counteract was administered. The presence of Andrew

Jackson in the White House with his party ruling in Congress led many 289 in the Convention to believe the petition campaign was beyond resusci­ tating.

Jackson's election led predictably to a movement away from the national goals espoused by John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay. The Jack­ sonian party protected, in historian William J. Cooper's words, "not only Republican [states' rights] ideology, but also southern guardian­ ship of slavery" by "shackling the central government." This Democratic dominance erased hopes for the success of the petition campaign. The

Convention's acting committee memorialized state legislatures on D.C. slavery in 1830, but ruled "inexpedient" the sending of the Congress­ ional memorial of 1829. Edwin P. Atlee, later one of the PAS members to join the American Anti-Slavery Society, resigned from the committee, 21 probably in protest over this temporizing. Others, too, refused to let the issue rest. The Washington Abolition Society prepared a memor­ ial in 1831, part of vÆiat William Lloyd Garrison termed "one last, best effort" on D.C. slavery.Benjamin Lundy reported in 1831 the intro­ duction by John Quincy Adams in the House of Representatives of fifteen memorials on the subject from Pennsylvania Friends. But, he said, since the Nat Turner event in the summer of 1831, "some of our friends have 23 evinced a disposition to let the subject rest."

There is little question that the "excited state," as the acting committee described the southern situation following Turner's revolt, dissuaded many abolitionists from addressing Congress on slavery-related matters. There also is little question that in the Convention these reservations preceded Turner's action and were rooted in a belief that slavery petitioning at the national level could not be productive in 290

the Jacksonian period, and that to press the case in Congress could lead

to a Missouri-like conflict or worse. Not until the introduction in the

mid-1830s of the "gag rule," by \diich all antislavery petitions were re­

ceived and automatically tabled in Congress, did the Convention and its

constituents again memorialize on the District of Columbia question.

Benjamin Lundy's fervent call for joining Charles Miner in pres­

sure tactics represented a new direction in abolitionist memorializing.

Under Lundy's influence, the Convention's role in antislavery in the

late 1820s shifted from that of a representative voice for the abolition

societies in addressing the national government to that of a sponsor of a widespread, popular campaign against slavery. That this should have happened as Jackson was winning the presidency hardly seems coinciden­

tal. Jackson, at least in popular lore, represented the triumph of the common man in American politics. The new direction in antislavery

was to popularize the movement in a way the Convention had never accomplished or, under the domination of the Pennsylvania Abolition So­ ciety, desired. If Jacksonianism in its localism represented a threat to Lundy's hope of the Convention's becoming a successful national anti­ slavery pressure group, its elevation of the common man confirmed the direction in vdiich Lundy was attempting to lead abolitionism. It seems appropriate that it was in 1828 that Lundy persuaded the Convention to 25 open the doors of its sessions to any spectator.

The formation of the Maryland Anti-Slavery Society in Baltimore in 1825 marked the beginning of Lundy's formal efforts to bring the com­ mon man into the battle against slavery. Organized, as historian Mer­ ton Dillon pointed out, as the first society to foster political 291 antislavery action, it was also the first society launched with the intention of involving all classes in its activities. From the outset it intended to popularize antislavery, to do with numbers of people \diat abolition societies previously had attempted to do with dollars and the testimonials of society's elite. Its constitution stressed that, unlike the older abolition societies vhich had depended on membership dues to fund their work, no money would be required to become a member. Its victories would be won not by one segment of society's leaders convin­ cing another segment that change was needed, but by the weight of public opinion and the might of Lundy's "Young Lion of Republicanism." Short­ ly after its formation, the society announced that it was composed of

"plain and unaspiring republicans." One duty of society members was to inculcate that freedom was the right of all men, and one suspects that

this was meant to apply to poor whites as well as blacks. One of the reasons for ending slavery in the District of Columbia cited in Lundy's

1826 memorial was the financial hardships it put on poor vdiites. It was 27 an argument that never before had occurred to Convention leaders.

To the Maryland society's dismay, it discovered that while slav­

ery might be bad for poor vhites, most whites, poor and affluent, were more afraid of upsetting the social order by ending slavery. The Mary­

land society's political efforts foundered as aroused civic leaders and

other whites who feared the loss of white supremacy and an increase in competition from free black labor led a reaction that swamped anti­

slavery at the polls. Daniel Raymond, the first president of the soci­

ety and its candidate for the Maryland legislature, suffered crushing defeats in 1825 and 1826, then chose not to run in 1827 and 1828 so 292 as not to divide the pro-Adams vote. The Maryland society and its poli­ tical dreams died with the ascendancy of the Jacksonians in Baltimore politics.

Parallel to the Maryland society's political efforts was its spon­ sorship of kindred abolition societies. With Lundy leading the way as corresponding secretary, the society promoted the formation of similar societies in Maryland and other states, tried to institute an auxiliary society composed of young men 17-25, and favored the formation of women's antislavery auxiliaries such as those begun in North Carolina in the 1820s. Abolition societies on the Maryland model, open to any man at no cost and organized for education, emancipation, and coloni­ zation with the hope of electing antislavery political candidates, on sprang up in the years 1825-1827.

The Manumission and Emigration Society of Loudoun County, Virgin­ ia, on the Maryland border, actually preceded the Maryland society in

1824 and sent representation to the American Convention in 1826. Lundy mistakenly assumed that it was the first abolition society ever in Vir­ ginia. As such, he believed it to be an omen of a stirring in southern antislavery. The Loudoun County society announced that it was open to any person vAio was a "friend to our country and of good moral charac­ ter," signifying both the inclusiveness that would mark the Maryland model and the society's willingness, necessary and deemed desirable in

Virginia, to accept slaveholders into membership. A month after the

Maryland society first met, an offshoot was formed at New Market in

Frederick County, Maryland, about thirty miles west of Baltimore. Quick to follow were the Gunpowder Branch east of Baltimore, the Deer Creek 293

Branch near the Pennsylvania border in Harford County, the Pipe Creek

Branch in Frederick County, the Union Factory Branch near Ellicott's

Mills, branches at Poplar Springs and Belle Air in northern Maryland,

and the Jefferson Branch in Baltimore County.

By March 1827 Lundy rejoiced that twelve new societies in Washing­

ton and Alexandria, in Virginia, Maryland, and Ohio had recently

been formed on the Maryland model. "People are rousing frcxn their

lethargy . . . [there] never was a period in the history of the United

States, vhen the tenth part was done . . . relative to the investigation

of slavery, that is now doing." The next month he said that he could not print all the notices of the new societies being formed. He re­ ported that happily these societies were being organized on the volun­

tary contribution basis pioneered in Maryland and combined emancipation and colonization. By July his vision of popular success seemed to be coming true; the Maryland society had grown to ten branches with nearly five hundred members. Following the American Convention session in

1827, Lundy requested and received a certificate enabling him to repre­ sent the Convention in organizing more new societies in states surround- 32 ing Pennsylvania.

Most encouraging of all this new growth to Lundy was his apparent success in reinvigorating the North Carolina society in the mid-1820s, followed by the coming together of new abolition societies in Virginia to form the Virginia Convention for Promoting the Abolition of Slav- 33 ery. Seven societies of the ten that were established in Virginia between 1824 and 1827 met August 21-23, 1827 at Goose Creek in Loudoun

County, resolved to hold annual meetings, and appointed five delegates 294

to attend the American Convention. Lundy prefaced his Genius report

on the formation of the Virginia Convention with "GOOD NEWS F R Œ VIR­

GINIA," predicting that "statesmen and patriots of future times" would

mark the gathering as having inaugurated "an era in the history of

Virginia . . . second to none in importance.

The era proved to be short-lived. Only one of the Virginia dele­

gates appointed appeared in Philadelphia in 1827. In an attempt to im­

prove its attendance the Virginia Convention in 1828 named the maximum

allowable delegates, ten. Again, only one made the trip. The editor

of the Winchester, Virginia Republican wrote that the society there was

frequently referred to as a "collection of zealots and enthusiasts,

laboring to pervert the spirit of our laws." The societies could not

withstand these "scoffings of . . . prejudiced and interested persons,

\diose avarice obscures the sunshine of reason and benevolence," and

collapsed with the triumph of Jacksonian politics. Loudoun society member William Holmes's attendance at the 1828 American Convention ses­

sion bearing the address of the Virginia Convention is the last evidence

0 7 of the body's existence.

The collapse of the abolition networks in Maryland and Virginia

just as the Convention was moving its meetings south to accommodate them hurt the Convention just as had the demise of southern antislavery

at the turn of the century. Although the Maryland society and Benjamin

Lundy had wanted to believe that these societies, many of them products of Lundy's organizing efforts, were vanguards in the rebirth of southern antislavery, this was never the case. All of the societies formed in

Maryland and Virginia were located at the northern edges of these states 295 38 and most were small. The close association of many of them with colo­ nization, some with the American Colonization Society, limited their potential usefulness to the American Convention. Their collapse and the unwillingness of the North Carolina society to associate closely with the American Convention meant that in 1829 the Convention was regressing toward the regionalization that had crippled it from 1803 to 1817.

Lundy estimated that over one hundred abolition societies formed during the 1820s, but the American Convention reaped benefits from very few of these societies. Those that formed after 1824 and that sent a delegate to at least one convention from 1826 to 1829 included only the

Salem, Ohio Abolition and Colonization Society, the Western Pennsylvania societies, the Baltimore Society for the Protection of Free People of

Color, the National Anti-Slavery Tract Society of Baltimore, the Wash­ ington City Abolition Society, the Benevolent Society of Alexandria, the Virginia Convention, the Free Produce Society of Pennsylvania, and 39 the Free Labor Society of Wilmington, Delaware.

The variety of these societies gives an indication of the furtive search during the decade following the Missouri controversy for effec­ tive vehicles to arrest slavery's spread, protect blacks, and in the case of those organized for colonization to protect vMtes from the in­ creasing numbers of free blacks. The formation of the Baltimore pro­ tection society in 1827 is evidence that concern over kidnapping had not diminished. The Salem, Ohio society, in Quaker territory in Columbiana

County, was organized as a voluntary contribution manumission and colo­ nization society on the Maryland model in 1827. Its title showed that its leaders took to heart Lundy's counsel to meld emancipation with 296 colonization. When its representative, David Scholfield, attended the

1827 convention, he probably was shocked to find that the Convention was not enamored of the combination. His society was not heard from again in the Convention. The National Anti-Slavery Tract Society was organized at Baltimore in 1827 to assist Lundy in publishing the Genius and to encourage petitions on slavery in the District of Columbia. The southwestern Pennsylvania societies, \diich numbered about fifteen in

Washington, Fayette, and Westmoreland counties by 1827, began as early as 1824. Generally formed on the Maryland model, they favored gradual emancipation, and counted antislavery politics as their only potentially radical activity.*^*^

The initiation of free produce societies at Philadelphia and

Wilmington revived an idea abolitionists had long believed to have poten­ tial for crippling slavery. In the eighteenth century J. P. Brissot de

Warville, Benjamin Rush, and John Murray, Jr. favored the use of maple syrup to reduce dependency on slave-produced sugar. In 1796 the Con­ vention asked abolition society members to agree to choose the pro­ ducts of free labor. The concept received little further attention to the Convention until the middle 1820s. In 1825 Isaac Barton urged the

Convention to go on record favoring preferential treatment and moderate premiums for certain products of free labor. Tabled until 1826, his proposal for preference prevailed, but :premiums for free-produced sugar, rice, cotton, and tabacco were ignored. The 1826 address of the Aiding

Abolition Society of Ohio also called for restraint from using slave-

produced products. 297

Following the 1826 convention, Benjamin Lundy, who was involved

in an abortive attempt to open a free produce store in Baltimore in

1826, set to work to spread the free labor gospel. Journeying to Wil­

mington, Delaware in December he persuaded Quaker leaders there to make

good their intention to form a free labor society. Whether he was in­

strumental in the formation of a similar society at Philadelphia is not

clear. A preliminary meeting there in September 1826 led to the organ­

ization in January 1827 of a society with William Rawle as its president

and other prominent PAS and Convention members, including Barton, Benja­

min Tucker, James Mott, Edwin P. Atlee, Evan Lewis, and Thomas Shipley,

among its members.

With these new societies in attendance in 1827, the Convention

repeated its counsel on free produce. Benjamin Lundy pressed for a

study of experiments in free labor and of its relative advantages over

slave labor. Named chairman of a committee to prepare a report, he in­

dicated in 1828 that West Indian and Haitian sugar and coffee produced

by free labor could be obtained in New York, Philadelphia, and Wilming­

ton. He also detailed free labor experiments with sugar in Florida and

Louisiana, cotton in North Carolina and Alabama, and praised the pro­

ductivity of free Mexican sugar workers.

The Convention corresponded on the free produce issue with anti­

slavery societies in Great Britain in 1827. Thomas Shipley outlined the

economic and philosophical realism that lay behind the philanthropists'

plea for self-denial. Perceiving an increase of interest in abolition

in the southern states, he feared that it would be consumed in self-

_i%S6rest as slavery strengthened its economic grip. The problem was not 298 wholly a southern one. Since, he said, the South's and the nation's

primary exports— cotton, rice, tobacco, and naval stores— were increas­

ingly becoming the subjects of manufactures and the employment of free

labor in the northern and middle states, "there seems a danger that

this Traffic will in some measure blind those interested to the evil of

its origin." Adding to his concern was the beginning of the use of slaves in southern manufacturing, a situation he was sure would post- 44 pone abolition.

Thomas Earle's 1829 report on the various methods of abolition, mentioned in Chapter V, was a painful blow to the free produce and free labor advocates in the Convention. Earle and his committee argued that it would be easier to gain support for immediate abolition than for abstinence from slave-produced goods. They did accept that the example set by those abstaining might call public attention to the enormity of the evil that prompted their action. But, they said, no proof had been presented in support of a cardinal tenet of the free produce argument, the unprofitability of slave labor. Exhibiting that idealism was not the province of free labor advocates alone, they contended that better arguments against slavery were those stressing its pernicious effects on society, its cultivation of "idleness and extravagance," and its depleting the land.^^

Earle clearly was at odds with the PAS leadership on free produce just as he was on colonization, and in this case he was on the wrong side of Benjamin Lundy as well. Lundy was irate, and in the Genius com­ plained that Earle's committee had "labored to extenuate, by more than dubious insinuation, the value of free labor, in the South, when 299,

compared with that of slaves!" Without naming Earle, he said the re­

port’s author was a long-time member of the PAS and acquainted with the

value of free labor. Lundy said a member of the Maryland society

(probably himself) had opposed Earle, but others "from Pennsylvania and

New York" had sustained him. The absence of Convention and Pennsylvania

Free Produce society president William Rawle, perhaps caused by his pique over the colonization struggle within the PAS, was undoubtedly

felt on this issue. Earle, in writing Lundy's biography, reported that

in 1829 the "American Anti-Slavery Convention" accepted the report that

there was no proof "that it was more profitable to employ slave than

free labour," then noted Lundy's complaint about the action. He did not reveal that he had written the report.

More radical in their approach to antislavery than the protection, colonization, or free produce societies were two abolition societies that formed in Ohio at this time and corresponded with the Convention.

Organized in 1826, the Aiding Abolition Society, vdiich met in the Suns- bury Quaker meeting house in Monroe County, required its members to ex­ press opposition to every form of slavery and to work for its immediate abolition. The society's address to the Convention in 1826 was so un­ settling in its call for immediatism that it :was ordered examined and, in effect, censored before publication in the Convention minutes. The so­ ciety also favored full citizenship rights for blacks, something eastern societies disregarded in their paternalistic desire simply to protect blacks frcxn outrages. The Columbiana County Abolition Society, formed at New Lisbon on 6 January 1827, had as its guiding principle 'abolition, without condition or qualification. ' Members refused to vote for 300 candidates not pledged to work for abolition, and participated in the

1828 District of Columbia petitioning campaign.

One immediatist society's address to the Convention presented in­ superable problems. Although the Convention normally was elated to hear of the establishment of southern abolition societies, in 1826 the acting committee refused to publish any part of the address of the Moral,

Religious, Manumission Society of West Tennessee. Organized at Columbia in Maury County, south of Nashville, in 1824, the society adopted a radical Christian stance on slavery. It claimed slaveholding was incon­ sistent with professing Christ, called for proclaiming the Fourth of July

"a Christian American Jubilee" for releasing slaves, and urged missionary activity to slaveholders. A resurrected Warner Mifflin might have ap­ plauded the address, but to have published these positions would have opened the Convention to charges of incendiarism and harmed vdiat seemed in 1826 promising attempts in the southern states to build an antislavery alliance with moderate slaveholders.^®

The desire of the Convention to nurture this southern gradualism led it to mute its opposition to colonization and to spurn the immedi­ atism emerging in this period. As the Ohio and Tennessee examples indi­ cate, a few of the new societies forming in the mid-1820s were not con­

tent with the gradualism endorsed by the Convention. Located in rural areas without the large concentrations of blacks present in Philadelphia,

New York, Wilmington, and many sections of the South, they felt neither

the responsibility to prepare blacks for freedom nor were they fearful of

the consequences of sudden emancipation. These were isolated examples,

to be sure, but even in Alexandria, where blacks were numerous and \driite 301 fears were pronounced, frustrated benevolent society members decided in

1827 that, while they could not favor immediate emancipation, it posed fewer dangers than did continuation of the existing system.

There were moments when the gradualists could survey "the present system" and believe their labors had been worthwhile. On the twentieth anniversary of the 1807 law abolishing the slave trade, Benjamin Lundy observed the accomplishments of the intervening years and predicted

"THE SYSTEM OF SLAVERY WILL, ERE LONG, BE ABOLISHED IN THE UNITED STATES."

In an address probably written by Lundy, the National Anti-Slavery Tract

Society in 1828 chronicled the progress on which gradualists hung their hopes: the slave trade had been declared piracy, eight nations in the

Americas and numerous states of the Union had outlawed slavery, more than 140 abolition societies..had been formed in the United States, the institution was interdicted north of 36'30", and England was disman­ tling West Indian slavery.

The curse of gradualism, however, was that whatever had been ac­ complished quickly paled in the face of what remained to be done. Still to be ended were the internal slave trade and slavery in the District of

Columbia; in these the best efforts of the abolitionists had produced notable failures. Lundy, who had assumed Warner Mifflin's mantle as the

"indefatigable" antislavery leader, early in 1829 poured out his soul wondering vdiat good all his miles traveled on foot, sleeping on the ground, had accomplished. He concluded that he had, perhaps, been the agent of some good. Abolition societies had increased in number from about twenty idnen he began to 125 by his own count, and their membership had risen from 1,200 to nearly 7,000.^^ But in 1829 the health of these 302 societies was in real question, and the numbers seemed insignificant vdien compared with the increasing size of the slave population.

At the 1829 convention William Kesley of Maryland, chairman of the committee on the state of slavery in the United States, one of five standing committees established in 1828, documented this growth in the 52 slave population. He lamented that 694,280 slaves in 1790 had become

1,538,178 by 1820, and his committee correctly estimated that the 1830 census would show over 2,000,000 slaves. Doubly alarming was the fact that during the years of the Convention's existence slave territory had nearly tripled in size to almost 600,000 square miles. The members' response to their own calculations is illuminating. "Your committee have been surprised at the results of their own enquiries, for they had fondly hoped that the dreadful evil was if not diminishing, at least ad- CO vancing with less rapidity."

The committee members proceeded to explode other sanguine concep­ tions held by their peers. They said they had been of the opinion that slaves were better treated than formerly, but could find no evidence that this was true. On the contrary, slaves were subject to harsh laws, de­ prived of mental improvement, kept from religious instruction, their families were broken at will, and they were required to do unhealthy work. The committee held out little hope that slaveholders were willing gradually to prepare slaves for emancipation. The committee concluded that slaves had little recourse but to exact retribution. As to vhat abolitionists should do, the committee unconvincingly offered the usual catalog of gradualistic measures: protect free blacks, instruct their children, enlighten the public mind, forward memorials, "&c. &c." They 303 also suggested that abolitionists could do vÆïat Thomas Earle had tried so to debunk earlier in the session, use free labor products.

The Kesley committee report revealed the depths of the abolition­ ists* despair in 1829. Andrew Jackson was president, southern aboli­ tionism was once more in eclipse, the District of Columbia campaign was in shambles, the value of free labor and plans for gradual emancipation were denigrated by Thomas Earle's committee, vhich could offer only colonization as an alternative, gradualism itself was regarded as out­ moded by some abolitionists, slavery was by the admission of another

Convention committee thriving, and this committee could offer as solu­ tions only the choice between slave rebellion and more of the same tac­ tics attempted during the forty years of slavery's expansion. When the

Convention adjourned to meet again in 1832, it was bringing down the gavel on gradual abolitionism.

The events of the ensuing years sealed the fate of gradualism.

David Walker's Appeal, the emergence of Garrisonian immediatism, the Nat

Turner revolt and the frenzied southern response to it, the southern

Nullification crisis, and the triumph of colonization over abolition in the South, ensured that the Convention would not be able to resuscitate the gradual abolition movement. The acting committee in 1832 noted the disastrous occurrences since the last convention and confessed that "no suitable opportunity of forwarding the cause of abolition has presented itself during the last two years.There was little life remaining in the movement, and as it turned out, scant enthusiasm for convening another session of the Convention. 304

William Lloyd Garrison's Liberator carried a notice of the 1832 convention inviting all "Abolition, Manumission, Anti-Slavery, and Free

Produce" societies to attend. The Genius also announced the 1832 session

scheduled for 9 January in Washington, but Lundy was departing on a trip

to Canada to inspect an emigration site and indicated he would not at­

tend. After the 1829 session, it is doubtful he continued to hold any real hope for the Convention. Without its gadfly of nearly a decade,

and with so few societies of the varied types invited actually function­

ing, the 1832 gathering premised little. On 9 January only small dele­

gations from Washington and Alexandria, plus one delegate each from the

PAS and the Pipe Creek Branch of the defunct Maryland society gathered.

They adjourned to meet in Philadelphia on 20 March, but only the PAS

and the Free Produce Society of Pennsylvania produced delegates then

and again the next day. The Philadelphians determined to try once more

in April. The PAS acting committee wrote to the abolition societies

asking that they send delegates at least to decide "the continuance of

the Convention" and the distribution of funds.

On 11 April ten delegates from the NYMS, the PAS, the Free Produce

Society of Pennsylvania, and the Benevolent and Protection Society of

Alexandria gathered at PAS-owned Clarkson Hall. Eight of the delegates

were from Philadelphia. The Alexandria society officially declared the

demise of southern antislavery, pointing out that although Nat Turner's

revolt had convinced those in power that for their own safety something

had to be done about slavery, slaveholders would not permit any inter­

ference "with what they call their own affairs." For one of the last

times the Convention heard that any active measures by abolitionists 305 in southern states was "inexpedient." Ihe acting committee announced that similar reasoning had prompted it, after consulting with allies in

Congress, to withhold the 1829 memorial on the District of Columbia.

The Convention's only actions in 1832 were to order the purchase of copies of the debates on slavery in the Virginia legislature prompted by the Nat Turner revolt, to appoint a committee to consider essays on the effect of slavery on slaveholders v M c h had been forwarded in a premium contest sponsored by a New Englander, and, in an act of surren­ der on southern abolitionism, to move future Convention sessions back to Philadelphia. The acting committee named was composed entirely of 58 Philadelphians. Whatever future the Convention had would rest in the hands of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society.

A letter to the Liberator from L.S. in November 1831 commented on the approaching American Convention, saying that antislavery required better organization than the Convention offered. The writer called for annual meetings, auxiliary state societies, a board of directors to care for matters between meetings, and the publication of a newspaper.

The week prior to the Convention's scheduled meeting date in January

1832, abolitionists brought together by William Lloyd Garrison met in

Boston to erect just such a society on an immediatist platform, calling

it the New England Anti-Slavery Society. Arnold Buff urn, the Rhode

Island Quaker hat manufacturer who had represented the Providence Soci­

ety at the Convention in 1823 and whose father had been active in the

Providence society before him, was elected president with Garrison named

corresponding secretary. This body made no attempt, as Benjamin Lundy

had in 1823, to gain the approval of the American Convention. To the 306 contrary, members did not formally acknowledge the Convention, and set

the new society's annual meeting dates in direct conflict with the Con­ vention's biennial dates.

In April the Genius carried announcement of the New England soci­ ety's formation. In vdiat amounted to the preamble of an epitaph for the

Convention Lundy said he hoped the new society would have a more success­ ful life "than the thousand and one associations, formed for similar purposes, in various parts of the United States, within the last thirty or forty years." In an analysis conditioned in part, perhaps, by the

Convention's 1823 refusal to support him in publishing a periodical, but perceptive nonetheless, Lundy said previous societies failed because they had no permanent means of funding. He predicted success for the

New Englanders if they established auxiliaries, filled their coffers, and went "to work in good earnest." Ever mindful of the need to influ­ ence the South, he cautioned that the society's center should not remain in Boston. Indicating that he judged the Convention's days finished as the national antislavery institution, Lundy said that after the new society established 'national feelings' it should locate in Washington

Lundy was not the only abolitionist to envision the need for a new national antislavery society south of Boston. Arthur Tappan, the New

York merchant whom Lundy had met on his walking tour to the Northeast

in 1828, asked Thomas Shipley if he had launched such a society in Phil­ adelphia in 1831. Tappan indicated he viewed PhiladeljAiia as the natur­ al seat of his contemplated national society "because the subject is better understood with you than it is here and I hoped you could bring up to the effort a body of warmhearted philanthropists."^^ 307

But Philadelphia abolitionists were hesitant to link their pre­ vious work with that of the new abolitionism emerging in Boston and

New York. Conscious of the "phrenzy" about antislavery in the South in

1833, Shipley, Edwin P. Atlee, and other PAS members cautioned Tappan that abolitionists must proceed slowly lest proslavery politicians use precipitous abolitionist actions to cement their power. They urged gradual dissemination of immediatist principles through state societies until a sufficient understanding of their work could breed public sym­ pathy. They strongly warned against developing a "national movement vdiich shall supply materials for diverting the country from a correct estimation of the objects of universal emancipation," and made it clear that they could not support Philadelphia's becoming the seat of a na­ tional movement that could thus sully the reputation of abolitionism.^^

Although protective of the PAS and of Philadelphia's good name, many of the PAS members vere willing to devote their own energies to new abolitionist endeavors. Entreated by New Englanders to join in an

"unbroken phalanx" of abolitionism "unintimidated by calumny or threats, and undisturbed by minor differences of opinion," and fully aware that their alliances to the South were irretrievably lost, prominent members of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society joined the American Anti-Slavery

Society that resulted from the organizing efforts of Garrison and the

Tappan brothers. Arthur Tappan's dream was partially realized then the

Philadelphians consented to their city's hosting the new society's or­ ganizational meeting in December 1833. Twenty-one of the sixty-two people vho composed the organizing convention were Quakers, including such prominent PAS and Convention members as Evan Lewis, Thomas Shipley, 308

Edwin P. Atlee, and James Mott. Lewis presided at the opening of the

convention after Roberts Vaux had refused the honor. Atlee was named to chair the convention's committee on principles. Following the conven­

tion, Shipley, Isaac Barton, and Joseph Parker announced to the PAS

their readiness to follow Franklin, Sharpe, Rush, Clarkson, Wilberforce, and [Caspar] Wistar, who "were willing to risk being called Disorgani-

zers. Fanatics and enthusiasts, in disregarding "the Slander of the

interested and the wicked.

Others of what Garrison called the "old school" of abolitionists

in Philadelphia refused to proffer any blessing on the new movement.

Roberts Vaux's unwillingness to convene the AA-SS convention resulted

from his belief that Garrison and his allies were not legitimate de­

scendants of the Quaker reformers. Vaux, however, for all his public association with abolitionism, had by his flirtation with colonization and his spotty performance in the Pennsylvania society lost much of his

influence over any course the American Convention might take on immedi­ atism. Tt was William Rawle, the long-time PAS and American Convention president, vAo refused to allow the Pennsylvania society and the Conven­

tion to align with the Tappans and Garrison.

When in 1833 Evan Lewis and Edwin P. Atlee were pondering associ­ ating with the movement proposed by the Tappans, and had actually dis­

tributed a circular suggesting Philadelphia as its center, Rawle private­

ly recorded the message he wished to relay to them. Rawle understood

that the proposed society would heighten the attack on slaveholders and

slavery, denounce colonization, and seek to enlighten the public mind and provide for black education. He opposed all three measures. To 309 attack slaveholders at a time When their defenses were high following the Nat Turner episode could hurt the very blacks abolitionists pro­ fessed they were trying to help. It would be better, he decided, to encourage genuine acts of philanthropy, including his old bite noire, colonization. Education, he argued, was better left to local soci­

eties.^^ Rawle flatly rejected immediatism, joining his young colleague

David Paul Brown in judging that AA-SS members were "activated by a blind and injudicious zeal."^^

Over Rawle's objections, Thomas Shipley led in the formation of

the Philadelphia Anti-Slavery Society in 1835. Shipley, who after his

initial reservations about the new abolitionism became a good friend

to Garrison, was tiie white Philadelphia abolitionist best loved by

blacks because of his unstinting work in protection cases and his al­

legiance to inmediatism.^^ Late in December Shipley pressed the PAS for

a declaration in favor of immediate emancipation. Discussed, then de­

ferred, the proposal finally was postponed indefinitely. Shipley's

only hope for obtaining such a declaration came with his election to the

PAS presidency following Rawle's death in June 1836. Elected in July,

Shipley lived only until September.

This ongoing struggle in the PAS over immediate abolition and the

American Anti-Slavery Society was one of the reasons that the American

Convention did not meet in 1834 and 1836. With the majority of the

Convention acting committee busy with AA-SS as well as PAS activity, and

Rawle unwilling to call a meeting of the Convention lest its name be

compromised by imraediatists, there was no compulsion to meet. The Con­

vention acting committee did meet after 1832, but took few actions. In 310

March 1833 it loaned Benjamin Lundy $100 to have the Genius published while he traveled to Mexico to explore establishing a colony for blacks

in Texas. Evan Lev/is, in \diose care Lundy left the paper, moved it from

Washington vdiere Lundy had been publishing it to Philadelphia, vdiere

Lewis was teaching at the Clarkson School. When Lewis died in 1834,

Edwin P. Atlee assumed the editorship and the acting committee consider­

ed publishing the paper, but rejected the idea. Following Lewis's death,

the acting committee's work continued to decline as from 1834 to 1836

Jonas Preston, Shipley, and Atlee also died, in addition to Convention president Rawle. By 1837 only Joseph Parker, James Mott, Isaac Barton,

and Abraham Pennock constituted the acting committee.

In that year Benjamin Lundy, returned from his trek to Mexico,

offered a series of resolutions to the PAS regarding the American Con­ vention. No record was made of these resolutions, but since Lundy was

strapped for funds during the Panic of 1837, they may well have contained

a request for Convention funds to publish the National Enquirer vdiich he launched in 1836. Too, he may have wished to merge the Convention

with the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society vhich he had helped to found

at Harrisburg in January 1837. A PAS committee appointed to deal with

Lundy's suggestions asked for a special meeting to decide the future of

the Convention and the distribution of its funds. Arnold Buffum, Garri­

son's ally now a Philadelphia resident and a member of the committee,

apparently wanted to see the use of the Convention's name and its assets

opened to all abolition societies. The majority, however, judged the

"only safe course" to be to limit attendance to societies previously part of the Convention. Isaac Barton found New York Manumission Society 311

members in agreement with the majority in the PAS that there should be

no union of the old abolition societies with newer antislavery organi­

zations, and that the new groups should not have the use of Convention

funds or of "its old and respected name."^®

The New York society acceded to the PAS call for a convention on

11 August 1837, although the Convention minutes of 1837 made it appear

that, as with the first convention in 1794, the NYMS had initiated the

call. Isaac T. Hopper, the noted Quaker formerly from Philadelphia and now president pro-tem of the NYMS, made clear that no new societies would touch Convention funds. The priorities for the meeting were to dispose of the Convention assets first, then decide if provisions should be made for future conventions. On 28 September the PAS set the Con­ vention meeting for 21 November.

Fourteen delegates from four societies were present at the final

Convention session: the NYMS, the PAS, the Pennsylvania Free Produce

Society, and for the first time since 1819 the Columbia, Pennsylvania society. Unshakable in their routine, the delegates elected officers

to preside over the anticipated dismantling, naming Abraham Pennock of the PAS as president to replace Joseph Parker, \dio had occupied the seat since Rawle's death. The acting committee announced, not quite truth­ fully, that no opportunities for its action had presented themselves since 1832, and lamented the deaths of Lewis, Preston, Shipley, and 72 Atlee since last the Convention met.

An arrangement committee headed by New York publisher Mahlon Day submitted its list of recommendations, vÆiich included cancelling the

$100 debt owed the Convention by Benjamin Lundy and dividing Convention 312 assets between the PAS and the NYMS. To the historian's dismay, the ccmmittee said it would not detail the deliberations that led it to determine that the Convention's continued existence would serve no pur­ pose and that the Convention should adjourn sine die. With provision for disbursing the funds, the Convention adjourned its one-day 73 meeting.

In April 1838 Convention treasurer Isaac Barton sent the New York

Manumission Society $470.89 as its part of the Convention's funds. With that act, the American Convention passed out of existence. 313

CHAPTER VII FOOTNOTES

^American Convention Minutes, 1826: 5, 13 (3: 907, 915).

^American Convention Minutes, 1818: 58-59 (2: 660-61); 1821: 41-42 (2: 781-82); Genius of Universal Emancipation, 3, no. 8 (December 1823), 83.

^See Litwack, North of Slavery, 31.

^Genius of Universal Emancipation, 1, no. 5 (November 1821), 65- 6 6 ; American Convention Minutes, 1823: 21 (3: 821).

^American Convention Minutes, 1823: 32, 35 (3: 832, 835); 1825: 13, 16, 26 (3: 879, 882, 892); Ænerican Convention acting committee minutes, 14 January 1825, p. 112, PAS Collection, Reel 27; Genius of Universal Emancipation and Baltimore Courier, 1, no. 7 (8 October 1825), 33:

^American Convention Minutes, 1828: 28 (3: 1040).

^Genius of Universal Emancipation and Baltimore Courier, 1, nos. 3, 42 (12 September 1825, 10 June 1826), 20, 322; Adams, liiii~Neglected Period of Anti-Slavery in America, 220-21; American Convention Minutes, 1826: 5, 10-12, 45, 47 (3: 907, 912-14, 947, 949). Q American Convention Minutes, 1826: 40 (3: 942); Register of Debates, 19 Cong. 2 sess., 535, 558, 563-64, 654 (26, 27 December 1826, 11 January 1827).

^Dillon, Benjamin Lundy, 122-24; American Convention Minutes, 1827: 51 (3: 1003); Genius oFUniversal Emancipation and Baltimore Courier, 2, no. 13 (23 December 1826), 103: Register of Debates, 19 Cong. 2 sess., 1099-1101 (12 February 1827). Dillon suggested”that the printing of this memorial may have been part of the motive for an as­ sault on Lundy by slave dealer Austin Woolfoik. See Dillon, Benjamin Lundy, 118-20.

American Convention Minutes, 1827: 57 (3: 1009); Genius of Uni­ versal Emancipation, 2, nos. 3, 4, 11, n.s. (26 January, 2 February, 12 April 1828), 2l-22, 28, 8 6 ; American Convention Minutes, 1827: 53- 56 (3: 1005-8); ibid., 1828: 60 (3: 1072). On McDuffie's remarks, see note 9, Register of Debates, above. The Alexandria society was not willing at first to join in memorializing, fearing the opposition of prominent persons in the District of Columbia. See American Convention Minutes, 1827: 54 (3: 1006).

^^Dillon, Benjamin Lundy, 125-26; Benjamin Lundy to Isaac Barton, 30 January 1828, American Convention incoming correspondence, PAS Col­ lection, Reel 29; Genius of Universal Emancipation, 1, no. 20, n.s. (17 November 1827), 158-59; ibid., 2, no. 4, n.s. (2 February 1828), 31. 314 12 American Convention acting committee minutes, 8 April 1828, PAS Collection, Reel 27. 13 Genius of Universal Ehiancipation, 2, no. 20. n.s. (4 July 1828), 158; American Convention Minutes, 1828: 20 (3: 1032) ; Genius of Univer­ sal Bnancipation, 3, nos. il, 13, 14, n.s. (13, 27 December 1828, 3 January 1829), 79, 87, 94). John Barkley Jentz calculated that between 1825 and 1833 petitions to Congress on the District of Columbia numbered 217 with 24,405 signatures. By the end of 1829 only six percent of 9,575 signers were from the South. Jentz's statistics indicate that more signatures were accumulated after 1829 than through the end of that year, leading one to conclude that the Convention in its caution may have been premature in abandoning its role in the project. John Barkley Jentz, "Artisans, Evangelicals, and the City: A Social History of Abolition and Labor Reform in Jacksonian New York," (Ph.D. disserta­ tion, City University of New York, 1977), 465-56.

^^egister of Debates, 20 Cong. 2 sess., 167-68, 175-87, 191-92 (6 , 7, 8 January 1829). ïîîe District comnittee recommended stiffening of penalties on abuses in private jails, defended the use of public jails, and said slavery in Maryland and Virginia made unwise any move to eliminate slavery in the District. The committee found residents bothered more by the excessive numbers of slaves and free blacks in the District than by any abuses. The New American State Papers: La^r and Slavery, 7 vols. (Wilmington, Delaware: Scholarly Resources, 1973), vol. 4: Slavery in Territories, 50-53.

^^American Convention Minutes, 1827: 15-16 (3: 967-68); Genius of Universal Emancipation, 1, no. 15, n.s. (14 October 1827), 1191 Lundy believed attendance would increase if the Convention was held in Wash­ ington, as more delegates would relish the chance to lobby their Con­ gressmen. He also believed southerners would support philanthropic efforts that emanated from a southern city. The Convention agreed.i.n 1828 to make Washington the site of future Convention meetings. Ameri­ can Convention Minutes, 1828: 6-7 (3: 1018-19).

^^Genius of Universal Emancipation, 4, no. 6 , n.s. (16 October 1829), 42, 46. On Lundy s view of Jackson, see Genius, 3, no. 1, n.s. (6 September 1828), 6 .

^^Genius of Universal Emancipation, 4, nos. 8 , 11, 13, n.s. (30 October, 20 November, 4 December 1829), 62, 81, 101. 1 Q American Convention Minutes, 1829: 3, 4 (3: 1083-84); Genius of Universal Emancipation, 4, no. 16, n.s. (25 December 1829), 210; Dillon, B e n j o i n Lundy, Tl7; Finnie, "The Antislavery Movement in the Upper South," 324; Finnie, "The Antislavery Movement in the South," 53-54; Essah, "Slavery and Freedom in the First State," 157.

^^American Convention Minutes, 1829: 13-14, 24-28 (3: 1093-94, 1104-8). The New York Manumission Society had requested action from 315

the Convention on the District of Columbia issue in 1829. NYMS Papers, 8 : 2 December 1829; American Convention Minutes, 1829; 51 (3: 1131). Its delegates, however, voted against sending the Convention memorial to Congress (Edmund Haviland abstaining), and voted unanimously for its referral to the acting committee. Grim's position may have been influ­ enced by there having appeared hope earlier in 1829 that the New York legislature might ask Congress to pass a law for abolition in the Dis­ trict. See William Jay, An Inquiry into the Character and Tendency of the American Colonization and American Anti-Slavery Societies, 3rd ed. (New York: Leavitt, Lord and Co., 1835), 161. Ihe divisiveness of the District of Columbia issue is evidenced by its producing two recorded votes in 1829. 20 American Convention Minutes, 1829: 23 (3: 1103).

^^Milliam J. Cooper, The South and the Politics of Slavery, 1828- 1856 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1978), 9; American Convention acting committee minutes, 18 March 1830, PAS Collection, Reel 27.

^^Liberator, 1, no. 37 (10 September 1831), 147. 23 Genius of Universal Emancipation, 2, nos. 1, 7, third series (l^y, December 1831), 1-2, 97-98).

American Convention acting committee minutes, 23 March 1832, PAS Collection, Reel 27; Merton L. Dillon, The Abolitionists; % e Growth of a Dissenting Minority (De Kalb, Illinois: Northern Illinois University Press, 1974J, 101-2. Benjamin Lundy forwarded a memorial under the Convention's imprimatur in 1836. Lundy to American Conven­ tion, 26 October 1836, PAS Collection, Reel 30. Ihe NYMS called a special meeting early in 1838 to consider slavery in the District and the right to petition Congress on slavery. NYMS Papers, 8 : 25 January 1838. 25 American Convention Minutes, 1828: 5 (3: 1017). Jonas Preston had asked in 1827 that Convention sessions be opened to "fellow citi­ zens, friendly to antislavery"; Lundy's motion was more inclusive. American Convention Minutes, 1827: 5 (3: 957). John Barkley Jentz showed that the New York Manumission Society used the memorial campaign of 1829 as a vehicle to enlist the support of a broader segment of the public. The NYMS forwarded two memorials on the District of Columbia question, one a traditional memorial from its membership that carried forty-one signatures; the other signed by the citizenry, a high per­ centage of vdiom were shopkeepers and artisans, had 1,462 signatures. Jentz, "Artisans, Evangelicals, and the City," 39-40, 51-54.

^^Dillon, Benjamin Lundy, 110; Genius of Universal Emancipation, 4, no. 2 (August 1825), 164-65. 316 27 Genius of Universal Bnancipation and Baltimore Courier, 1, no. 11 (5 November 1825), 82; ibid., 2, no. 13 (23 December 1826), 103.

^®Dillon, Benjamin Lundy, 110-17. 29 Genius of Universal Emancipation and Baltimore Courier, 1, nos. 4, 25 (l7 Septonber 1825, l8 February 1326), 25-26, 197. On the female auxiliaries in North Carolina, see Wagstaff, Minutes of the North Caro­ lina Manumission Society, 122-24, 144-45; Weeks, Southern Quakers and Slavery, 241; Shay, "The Antislavery Movement in North Carolina," 401. 30 Genius of Universal Emancipation, 4, nos. 1, 12 (October 1824, September 1825J, 7-8, 189 (quote at 189); Genius of Universal Emancipa­ tion and Baltimore Courier, 1, nos. 7, 10, 35 (8 , 29 October 1825, 29 April 1826), 53, 74-75, 273-75; ibid., 2, nos. 13, 22 (23 December 1826, 31 March 1827), 97, 174; Freedom's Journal, 1, no. 3 (21 July 1827), 21; Address of the Deer Creek Anti-Slavery Society to the Citi­ zens of Harford County (n.p., 1829j. 31 Genius of Universal Emancipation and Baltimore Courier, 2, no. 22 (31 Mi-rch“I8T7),"T74. ------32 Genius of Universal Emancipation and Baltimore Courier, 2, no. 23 (14 April 1827), 182; Genius of Universal Emancipation, 1, no. 2, n.s. (14 July 1827), 14; American Convention acting committee minutes, 25 October 1827, PAS Collection, Reel 27. Gould Johnson of Brucetown, Virginia had proposed that the Convention appoint such an agent. John­ son to Isaac Barton, 26 September 1826, American Convention incoming correspondence, PAS Collection, Reel 29. 33 The Virginia Convention was the only group to adopt the same form for its official title as the American Convention.

^^Finnie, "The Antislavery Movement in the South," 52-54; Genius of Universal Emancipation, 1, no. 13, n.s. (29 September 1827), 102; ibid., 2, no. 12, n.s. (26 April 1828), 92. The seven societies in­ cluded the Manumission and Emigration Society of Loudoun and the Water­ ford Abolition Society from Loudoun County, the Winchester, Brucetown, Applepie Ridge, and Uniontown societies from Frederick County, and the Alexandria society.

American Convention Minutes, 1827: 3 (3: 955); ibid., 1828: 5-6 (3: 1017-18); quote from Genius of Universal Emancipation, 2, no. 26, n.s. (30 August 1828), 202-3.

^^American Convention Minutes, 1828: 55 (3: 1067). 37 Holmes's attendance at the Convention session in November 1828 qualifies historian Gordon Finnie's statement that there is no record of the Virginia Convention's existence beyond August 1828. Finnie, "The Antislavery Movement in the South," 53-54. 317 38 Genius of Universal Emancipation and Baltimore Courier « 1, no. 37 (13 May 1826), 292. Only twenty members from seven societies at­ tended the Virginia Convention in 1827. Genius of Universal Emancipa­ tion, 1, no. 13, n.s. (29 September 1827), 1Û2. 39 American Convention Minutes, 1826, 1827, 1828, 1829, passim.

^^American Convention Minutes, 1828; 53 (3: 1065) ; Genius of Universal Emancipation and Baltimore Courier, 2, no. 23 (14 April 1827), 1&2; American Convention Minutes, 1827: 59-60 (3: 1011-12); ibid., 33 (3: 985); ibid., 1828: 47-52 (3: 1059-64); Dillon, Benjamin Lundy, 141; American Convention Minutes, 1826: 15-17 (3: 917-18); ibid., 182/: 58- 59 (3: 1011-11); Robert Wallace Brewster, "The Rise of the Antislavery Movement in Southwestern Pennsylvania," The Western Pennsylvania His­ torical ^ g a z i n e 22 (March 1939): 6-7. On the Franklin Manumission Society in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, see Genius of Universal Eman­ cipation and Baltûnore Courier, 2, nos. 16, 19 (20 January, 3 March 1827), 1 2 6 , 145-46). The NYMS hailed the formation of the Anti-Slavery Tract Society in 1827, but said it believed only persons in slaveholding states should join and help in underwriting the Genius. American Con­ vention Minutes, 1827: 33 (3; 985).

^^uth Ketring Nuemberger, The Free Produce Movement: A Quaker Protest Against Slavery, Historical Papers of Trinity College Historical Society, 25 (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1942; reprint ed., New York: AMS Press, 1970), 10-11; John biirray, Jr. to James Bringhurst, 20 April 1790, 9 February 1792, Letters of John Murray, Jr. to James Bringhurst, Friends Historical Library, Swarthmore College; American Convention Minutes, 1796: 18, 28 (1: 80, 90); ibid., 1825: 17 (3: 883); ibid., 1826: 42, 48 (3: 944, 950).

^^Dillon, Benjoin Lundy, 98-99; Essah, "Slavery and Freedom in the First State," 155; Nuerriberger, The Free Produce Movement, 13-14; Genius of Universal Emancipation ^ d Baltimore Courier, 2, nos. 12, 14 (16 December 1826, 2 January 1827), 94, 111; Lea Pusey to Isaac Barton, 26 September 1827, American Convention incoming correspondence, PAS Collection, Reel 29; Free Produce Society of Pennsylvania, Constitution of the Free Produce Society of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: D. and S. Neall, 1827). The constitution of the Wilmington society is in Genius of Universal Emancipation and Baltimore Courier, 2, no. 17 (27 Januarv T5277,"T29".------:----

^^American Convention Minutes, 1827: 4-5, 10 (3: 956-57, 962); 1828: 25-27 (3: 1038-40). The 1827 addresses of the Pennsylvania and Wilmington free labor/free produce societies are in American Convention Minutes, 1827: 40-43, 46-47 (3: 992-95, 998-99). 44 American Convention to Anti-Slavery Associations in Great Brit­ ain, 1827, PAS Collection, Reel 29; American Convention acting commit­ tee minutes, 10 November 1827, PAS Collection, Reel 27. Convention also corresponded with the Marquis de Lafayette concerning 318 the possible use of free labor on lands he owned in Florida. See Lafayette to William Rawle, James Mott, and Daniel Raymond, 13 April 1829, PAS Collection, Reel 13.

^^American Convention Minutes, 1829: 28-29 (3: 1108-9).

‘^^Genius of Universal Emancipation, 4, no. 16, n.s. (25 December 1829), l20; Earle, The Life, Travels, and Opinions of Benjamin Lundy, 236.

^^American Convention Minutes, 1826: 48-49 (3: 950-51); ibid., 1827: 60 (3: 1012); Genius of Universal Emancipation and Baltimore Courier, 1, no. 43 (17 June 1&26), 338; ibid., 2, nos. 16, 23 (20 Janu­ ary, l4 April 1827), 126, 182; Genius of Universal Emancipation, 1, no. 4, n.s. (28 July 1827), 29; ibid., 2, no. 20 (4 July 1828), 156.

American Convention Minutes, 1826: 4, 13, 48 (3: 906, 915, 950); Finnie, "The Antislavery Movement in the South," 233-34. 49 Genius of Universal Emancipation, 1, no. 4, n.s. (28 July 1827), 28.

^^Genius of Universal Bnancipation and Baltimore Courier, 2, no. 26 (5 May 1827, 206-7; American Convention Minutes, 1828: 41-52 (3: 1053-64).

^^Benjamin Lundy to Isaac Barton, 21 January 1829, American Con­ vention incoming correspondence, PAS Collection, Reel 29. John Murray, Jr. referred to Mifflin as "indefatigable" when Mifflin was in New York lobbying the Congress in 1790. Murray to James Bringhurst, 1 March 1790, Letters of John Murray, Jr. to James Bringhurst, Friends Histori­ cal Library, Swarthmore College. For an example of how far the abo­ litionists felt they had to go in their battle, see Thomas Shipley's report on the internal slave trade, American Convention Minutes, 1828: 21-24 (3: 1033-36). 52 These committees included ones on the African slave trade, the internal slave trade, the state of slavery in the United States, and the laws of the United States in relation to slaves and free blacks, and one for preparing the address to the societies. American Conven­ tion Minutes, 1828: 8 (3: 1020).

^^American Convention Minutes, 1829: 41 (3: 1121). Kesley's fig­ ures vary slightly from those of the censuses. The actual number of slaves in 1830 was 2,009,043. Adams, The Neglected Period of Anti-Slav­ ery in America, lists data relative to slave% free black, and %hite population in each census from 1790 to 1830 on pp. 3-7.

^^American Convention Minutes, 1829: 41-48 (3: 1121-1128).

/ 319 55 American Convention acting committee minutes, 23 March 1832, PAS Collection, Reel 27.

^^Liberator, 1, no. 44 (29 October 1831), 174; Genius of Univer­ sal Emancipation7 2, nos. 5, 7, third series (September, December 1831), 79, 97; American Convention for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery and Improving the Condition of the African Race, Minutes of the Twenty Second Session of the American Convention for Promoting the Abolition of slavery and Improving the Condition of the African Race Convened at the City of Washington Jan. 9th, 1832, and Continued by Adjournment in the City of Philadelphia. Alsol of a Special Session, Held in the City of Philadelphia, November 21, 1837 (Philadelphia; Merrihew and Thompson, 1839), 3-4; American Convention acting coiranittee minutes, 23 March 1832, PAS Collection, Reel 27; NYMS Papers, 8 : 6 April 1832.

^^American Convention, Minutes of the Twenty Second Session, 12-13. ------58 American Convention, Minutes of the Twenty Second Session, 15- 15. William Lloyd Garrison wrote in 1830 that there was no society in existence bearing the title of the "American Abolition Society." He suggested that tracts on slavery should be published under the name of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, and said that William Rawle, Jonas Preston, and Thomas Shipley, "thorough-going reformers," were well qual­ ified to judge such tracts. He probably used the same reasoning in promoting the essay contest in 1831. See Garrison to the Rev. George Shepard, 13 September 1830, in William Lloyd Garrison, The Letters of William Lloyd Garrison, 6 vols. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press, 1971), vol. 1: I Will Be Heard, ed. Walter McIntosh Merrill, 109; Liberator, 1, no. 50 (10 December 1831), 198.

^^Liberator, 1, no. 48 (26 November 1831), 191; 2, no. 7 (18 Feb­ ruary 1832), 25.

^^Genius of Universal Emancipation, 2, no. 11, third series (April 1832), 173:------

^^Arthur Tappan to Thomas Shipley, 6 August 1831, Charles Roberts Autograph Collection, Haverford College Library.

Edwin P. Atlee, D. Mandville, Thomas Shipley, and George Griscom to Arthur Tappan et al, 7 October 1833, PAS Collection, Reel 15.

B. Hall for the New Haven Anti-Slavery Society to Secre­ taries of PAS, 17 June 1833, PAS Collection, Reel 13; Drake, Quakers and Slavery, 140; Fladeland, Men and Brothers, 221; Ryon, "Roberts Vaux, 159; Genius of Universal Emancipation, 1, no. 1, fourth series (January 1834), 9, 11; PAS Minute book, 3: 200 (26 December 1833), Reel 2. This relationship of the PAS members with Garrisonianism was not without its rough moments. Within a week in the summer of 1835, Edwin P. Atlee wrote twice to complain of the practices of the American 320

Anti-Slavery Society and, in writing to Garrison, to urge the use of less violent language. Atlee was dissatisfied with vÆiat he believed was the society's counterproductive harshness on colonization and with the alleged surreptitious shipment of copies of the Liberator into the South. Atlee to Garrison, 21 August 1835, and Atlee to Elizur Wright, Jr., 28 August 1835, PAS Collection, Reel 29.

^^Garrison called Shipley an "abolitionist of the old school" in writing his obituary in the Liberator, 6 , no. 40 (1 October 1836), 159; Ryon, Roberts Vaux," 24.

^^William Rawle, "Thoughts," 20 May 1833, in Rawle Family Papers, 5: 183, HSP; see also Rawle Family Papers, 5: 175, HSP for a note by Rawle on his objections to immediatism.

^^David Paul Brown to William Rawle, 27 June 1834, Rawle Family Papers, 5: 189, HSP. Edward Raymond Turner credited this to Rawle in "The First Abolition Society in the United States," Pennsylvania Maga­ zine of History and Biography 36 (1912); 105-6. It did capture Rawle's feelings, and it is possible Brown was simply reworking vdiat he had received from Rawle on immediatism. Louis Filler believed that the Philadelphians bowed to the New Yorkers' resourcefulness in allowing the Tappans to take the lead in organizing a national movement. It is more likely that Rawle's outright opposition and the reticence of Shipley, Atlee et al led Evan Lewis to request that the Tappans go ahead with organization. See Louis Filler, The Crusade Against Slavery, 1830-1860, The New American Nation Series, eds. Henry Steele Commager and Richard B. Morris (New York: Harper and Row, I960), 65-66.

^^Isaac Parrish, Brief Memoirs of Thomas Shipley and Edwin P. Atlee read before the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Al^lition of Slavery, etc. Tenth Month, 1837 (Philadelphia; Merrihew and Gunn, 1838), 23; Purvis, A Tribute to the Memory of Thomas Shipley, 7, 13. Purvis said that blacks were indebted to Shipley next to Benjamin Lundy "for the existence of abolition principles," p. 13. Garrison wrote to Shipley that although Garrison was "young in the service" and Shipley a veteran of abolitionism and in spite of their not always favoring the same course for the movement, "yet our principles have run pari passu, and our hearts beat spontaneously together." Garrison to Shipley, 17 December 1835, Charles Roberts Autograph Collection, Haverford College Library.

^®PAS Minute book, 3: 245-50, 256-62 (31 December 1835, 15 Febru­ ary, 31 March, 30 June, 7 July, 30 September 1836). Joseph Parrish in­ dicated that the reason the PAS refused to associate as a body with "modern" antislavery societies was its desire to retain the political power and influence the society felt it had under its state charter. He assured Thomas Clarkson that "old Abolitionists" differed with imme- diatists only on tactics and had not lost their fervor for the cause. Parrish to Clarkson, 13 July 1839, Cox-Parrish-Wharton Papers, 9; 7, HSP. 321

^^American Convention acting committee minutes, 15, 21 March 1833, 9 August, September 1834, PAS Collection, Reel 27; Dillon, Benja­ min Lundy, 190, 212; Genius of Universal Ehiancipation, 1, no. 4, third series (April 1834), 53-54; Parrish, Brief Memoirs of Thomas Shipley and Edwin P. Atlee, 37-38.

^^Dillon, Benjamin Lundy, 239, 248; PAS Minute book, 3; 297-99 (29 June, 13 July 1837), PAS Collection, Reel 2; Isaac Barton to Dr. Joseph Parrish, 27 July 1837, Cox-Parrish-Wharton Papers, 18: 95, HSP.

^^Joseph Parrish to Peter Augustus Jay, 27 July 1837, PAS Collec­ tion, Reel 15; Jay to Parrish, 29 July 1837, PAS Collection, Reel 13; Isaac T. Hopper for the NYMS to PAS, 11 August 1837, PAS Collection, Reel 13. Ihe NYMS suffered from declining activity by its members after the gradual abolition law of 1827 and the assumption of its free school by the public school system in 1833. There was little life left in the society in 1837. 72 American Convention, Minutes of the Twenty Second Session, 22- 23. In vdiat was at least a breach of manners and perhaps an intentional oversight, no mention was made of the death of long-time Convention and PAS president William Rawle. 73 American Convention, Minutes of the Twenty Second Session, 27- 28.

^‘^NYMS Papers, 4: 10 April 1838. The PAS received $487.35 as its part of the settlement. PAS Treasurer's Accounts, 1812-1840, p. 80 (10 February 1838), PAS Collection, Reel 16. The PAS printed the min­ utes of the 1832 and 1837 sessions in 1839. PAS Minute book, 3: 367 (26 Decanber 1839), PAS Collection, Reel 2. CONCLUSION

In an article in The Historian, Lawrence J. Friedman suggested the development of a new paradigm for the study of antislavery that would help historians move away frcxn the "growth" model and begin to account for the evolution of abolitionism. This dissertation is not an attempt to provide such a paradigm, but is an effort to demonstrate how gradual abolitionism evolved from its beginnings in Quaker opposition to slave- holding, through vÆiat historian William Wiecek has described as the con­ version of the "religio-moral impulse into a secular legal activity" by the founding of abolition societies and the American Convention, to its demise.^

In doing so I have described the coalition formed by Quakers and others who opposed slavery out of religious concern or respect for nat­ ural rights, a coalition necessitated by the Quakers' loss of reputation following the American Revolution and the need of early abolitionists to find support for their upopular positions. Of particular importance in this evolution was the response the abolition societies made to the frequently severe opposition they faced. The caution and temporizing that marked their efforts must be understood as resulting not only from a Quaker distaste for conflict, which in part they did, but as a natural reaction of those holding a minority opinion vhen faced with public and private rebuke. Public hostility directed at the abolitionists severely curtailed the activities of the American Convention in its early years. 322 323

The decline of abolitionist activity during the Quasi-War with

France, the demise of southern antislavery following Gabriel's conspir­

acy, and the near collapse of the American Convention as a result of

this southern decline, reveal that Betty Fladeland*s description of the

period from 1794 to 1808 as one of "steady, unyielding pressure by the

antislavery minority on national and state governments and also one of practical projects aimed at helping free Negroes" is inaccurate. The

"practical projects" to help blacks, important to the societies in their own right, also gave them fruitful work to do when it was clear that

they could have little influence on the national government through the

Convention. This refusal of the national government and state govern­ ments to deal with kidnapping or educating blacks made these activities on the part of the abolition societies necessary.

Fostering these activities for blacks helped the American Conven­

tion to compensate for its failure to become a truly national antislav­

ery vehicle. As a result of the pulling away of the Northeastern socie­

ties following the success of abolition there, the movement of the na­

tional government away from Philadelphia, and the decline of southern antislavery, the Convention became a regional expression during the years from 1803 to 1817. Abolitionism became closely identified with

Philadelphia, and the Pennsylvania, New York, and Delaware societies composed the Convention's membership. With the Pennsylvania and New

York societies essentially urban societies, abolitionism became more out of touch with a nation that was rural in character, emphasized individ­ ualism over social cohesion, and was expanding ever westward. 324.

Ihe demand for slaves in the western territories following the

War of 1812, coupled with evidence of increased abuses of slave trade legislation to meet this increased demand, led the American Convention to take a more forceful role in antislavery nationally. The Convention and its constituent societies sought to maintain their commitments grad­ ually to prepare blacks for freedom while fighting battles at the na­ tional level to ensure that the day of freedom would arrive. The aboli­ tionists opposed expansion of slavery into Missouri, Arkansas, and

Florida, sought legislation to end abuses in the foreign slave trade and stop the internal trade, and joined in the national petitioning cam­ paign to end slavery in the District of Columbia. The colonization movement, with its promise to eliminate the American race problem by re­ moving blacks, was an attractive option, especially in the South, and a constant source of tension within the Convention. The Convention was reluctant to support colonization, largely because of opposition by blacks to being deported.

During the 1820s the Convention, at Benjamin Lundy's strong in­ sistence, moved away from what had been an almost exclusive dependence on memorials to Congress as its chosen vehicle for seeking change. It supported Limdy's attempt to popularize antislavery by garnering large numbers of signatures on petitions to Congress, and favored atteiipts to coerce the South economically through the free labor and free produce movements. By 1829, however, with the petitioning campaign apparently collapsed and with signs abounding that slavery's growth had not been slowed by gradual methods, the Convention membership was divided among those vho favored colonization, those who clung to gradualism without 325 colonization, and those vÆio believed a more radical approach was needed • if slavery was to be ended.

The American Convention accomplished little of consequence after

1829, and, it could be argued, precious little before. The American

Convention and its constituent societies did as William Wiecek observed, keep alive "an administrative vehicle for the antislavery movement that

O might otherwise have dissipated geographically and ideologically."

This in itself was no small feat, given the orientation in the country to states’ rights and the emphasis put on local activités by the aboli­ tion societies. Mary Stoughton Locke wrote perhaps the kindest epitaph for early abolitionism, in describing the debt that the iiranediatist abolitionists owed to the gradualists.

. . . The soil had been prepared for them by the quiet but persis­ tent labors of their predecessors, the chief points of attack had been noted, the chief lines of action marked out, precedents had been set, arguments and examples furnished, conditions ameliorated, and public opinion considerably educated.

But Locke also pointed out that the organization the early aboli­ tionists achieved through the American Convention for accomplishing these things was woefully inadequate. Alice Dana Adams compared the

Convention's organization to that of the United States under the Articles of Confederation, an apt analogy.^ In both situations loose organiza­ tion led to financial difficulty. The failure of the abolition socie­ ties adequately to fund the Convention led to its inability to assist the fledgling southern societies in the 1790s or Benjamin Lundy's publi­ cation efforts in the 1820s. These failures we know about; we can only imagine how many other projects were never considered because of the meager financing. The other key administrative flaws, recognized by the 326 immediatists who formed the New England and American Anti-Slavery socie­ ties, were the infrequency of meetings, and the lack of permanent offi­ cers and of an acting committee with authority to act between conven­ tions. One of the chief differences between the gradualists and the immediatists in their national organizations was the immediatists* ability to act promptly through a permanent board of directors, while the Convention, able to act only on proposals made in regular sessions, was limited to reacting to situations as they developed.

More crucial than its organizational shortcomings, however, was the Convention’s inability to achieve a truly national organization.

To succeed, gradualism and the Convention had to involve the South.

With Philadelphia as its center, the Convention had little hope of ex­ erting influence there. The crumbling of southern antislavery in the early 1800s led the Convention to conclude that it could not move south with the national government. For gradualism to have any chance for success, the abolitionists had to form a coalition nationally in the same way that they had formed coalitions in the abolition societies and in the Convention. Located away from the center of decision-making, the Convention could only watch, propose, and criticize from afar v M l e

slavery's grip on the South strengthened. Furthermore, as Americans moved south and west the eastern philanthropists vdio in large part com­ posed the Convention came to seem, especially during the Panic of 1819,

a threat to the well-being of western progress.

Benjamin Lundy quickly identified as problems the presence of the

Convention in Philadelphia and abolitionism's dominance by an eastern

elite. He fought to move the Convention to Washington and to increase 327 the participation of the common man in abolitionism.

Of course, these common men did not include blacks. It is proba­ bly too harsh to say that due to their paternalism the possibility of black inclusion did not occur to v M t e abolitionists. Especially in

Philadelphia abolitionists did work closely with blacks, and in the case of colonization they listened to black opinion. They were, however, alarmed by the growing black presence in the cities, just as were other whites. While their beliefs demanded that they assist blacks, they were bound by their own racist assumptions, and well aware, by virtue of the frequent criticism they received, of the boundaries their society placed on blacks and on their work with blacks.

Ihe demise of the second manifestation of southern abolitionism in the late 1820s, forecast by the southern devotion to colonization, precipitated by the triumph of Jacksonianism, and made permanent by the

Nat Turner revolt, was one of the most important factors leading to the

Convention's effective cessation of operations after 1829. Coincident with this final failure of the Convention to nationalize antislavery was the crisis of gradualism also provoked by Jackson's victory and the sub­ sequent failure of the District of Columbia petitioning campaign. By

1830 gradualists were forced to ponder \diether attempts to organize in the South were failures, not because they could have done something dif­ ferently, but because their very philosophy had been flawed.

Gradualists had believed that a national body like the Convention advocating progressive steps to end slavery would be successful. Ending the foreign slave trade, stopping slavery's expansion, curtailing the internal trade, abolishing slavery in the northern states and the 328

District of Columbia, vAiile the abolition societies were preparing blacks for freedom through education and moral instruction— all seemed

so logical. But as the Kesley committee report to the Convention in

1829 detailed, gradualism had failed.^

T. Robert Moseley said that the Convention failed because the gradual emancipation that worked in the North did not work in the South.

But as efforts to suppress blacks' rights increased and violence against blacks broke out in the North in the 1830s, it became clear that gradu­ alism as a method not only of ending slavery but securing political liberties for blacks worked nowhere. English abolitionist Thomas Clark­ son wrote in 1830 of the hopes gradualists had entertained, all of which had been exploded. Abolitionists had not taken into account, he said,

"the Effect of unlimited Power on the human mind," and the unwillingness of slaveowners to part with power. More than the lust of slaveowners, though, had doomed gradualism, according to Clarkson. Abolitionists also had not considered sufficiently "the Ignominy attached to a black skin as the Badge of Slavery, and how difficult it would be to make men look with a favourable Eye upon vÆiat they had looked formerly with dis­ grace."^

The American abolitionists had seen at closer hand than had Clark­ son these failures of gradualism. The projected evolution toward abol­ ishing slavery that had seemed so logical by 1829 had produced only southern intransigence, the expansion of slavery across the Mississippi

River, Congressional refusal to act on slavery in the District of Colum­ bia, and Andrew Jackson in the White House. 329

For some of the gradual abolitionists vÆio united with the immedia-

tist movement, immediatism represented a natural evolution in their be­

liefs. Historian David Brion Davis’s conclusion that immediatist anti­

slavery "represented a shift in total outlook from a detached, rational­

istic perspective on human history and progress" perhaps was true for Q most immediatists. But others recognized, as Betty Fladeland noted,

that the "failure of piecemeal reforms" from the 1790s through the 1820s 9 demanded more radical action. Ihomas Clarkson indicated that because

the English abolitionists recognized the failures of gradualism they

began in 1822 to press for abolition of West Indian slavery entirely.

Those who entered the immediatist movement from having served in the

American abolition societies and the Convention were conditioned by

their involvement in protection cases and antislavery petitioning. By

1833, Edwin P. Atlee was forced to conclude that southerners had become

"the enemy of human rights and happiness," and almost Satanic in their

use of states’ rights doctrine to continue to enslave their fellow human , . 10 beings.

Others of the Convention leaders reacted to immediatism in ways

that show Davis’s conclusion to be proper. William Rawle and those like him, vho sustained the witness of their abolition societies and the

American Convention through many years and who could not countenance

iirenediatism, could not make the leap to believe that all evil resided in

the South. It is likely that Rawle took to heart Lafayette’s counsel to him in 1829 that southerners were "more awake to the inconsistencies and

inconveniencies [sic] of the System than you believe them to be in the

North," but "very irritable vdienever they suppose their Northern fellow 330

Citizens to trifle with their embarrassments, or to be actuated by sel­ fish political considerations."^^ To men like Rawle, steeped in respect for the law, immediatists must have seemed overcome by the same individ­ ualism without reference to social consequence that appeared to plague their southern opposition.

In fairness to gradualists of this sort, it trust be said that they would have found no consolation in any evolution from gradualism to im­ mediatism that we may detect. The resistance of prominent gradualists in the 1830s to seeing the name and the funds of the American Convention used by imnediatists indicates that they spumed the idea of such an evolution. They would have counted their work a total failure if its chief contribution was to prepare the soil and keep alive an administra­

tive vehicle for the immediatists. What the gradualists had to offer to

the immediatists were the lessons they had learned, lessons \diich in the end the immediatists had to l e a m for themselves. As historian Merton

Dillon demonstrated, the new generation of abolitionists learned that

slaveholders did not repent vdien their sin was laid before them, that, no matter how much blacks conformed to vhite standards, whites in their

racism would not accept that blacks were not inferior, and that fostering

a national determination to grant blacks equality was a near impossible

task.

Historians of abolitionism writing in the 1950s, Aileen Kraditor

foremost among them, restored the reputation of Garrisonian immediatism.

This was an important correction to Gilbert Hobbs Barnes's assessment of

Garrison's relative unimportance to the movement vdien compared with the

western Evangelicals. But B a m e s had made another troubling assertion... 331 that also needed to be challenged vdien he stated that in publishing

The Antislavery Impulse, 1830-1844 in 1933 he was helping to observe the "centennial year of antislavery history." Thankfully, much has been written on early antislavery since 1933 to demonstrate the inac- 13 curacy of that particular bit of hybris. This dissertation is an addition to these efforts to understand antislavery prior to 1830. As such, it is an attempt to examine the gradualists in their own times and places, vdien possible without reference to the immediatists.

It seems appropriate that the history of the American Convention should be written in the 1980s. As the 1960s provided a climate of rapid social change in vÆiich the virtues of the Garrisonian immediatists could be appreciated, so the 1980s provide a social climate in which, perhaps, we can better appreciate the gradualists who composed the

Convention. If we are troubled by their paternalism and at times their outright racism, and by their temporizing, we would do well to recall the times in which they lived. I can recall college classes in "Negro" history in the 1960s when to make such a plea for understanding a his­ torical figure's milieu was viewed as the ultimate "cop-out" and, if the subject in question was his racial attitudes, a badge of one's own racism. But we have now lived through the decline of the civil rights movement and of the peace movement and can perhaps look through the short-sightedness of the abolitionists on race to appreciate their perseverance in keeping an unpopular movement alive for over forty years. Like them, those who choose activism today do so in a climate unfriendly to social change and obsessed with individualism to the detriment of the greater social good. Racism is resurgent and 332 militarism an economic way of life. The society complacently accepts the status quo and even regression. Activists face the real possibili­ ty that they will donate their time and energy to causes that will be ignored and in the end prove failures. It is a chastening thought, and may tell us that we have something to l e a m from those vdio learned by experience that real change comes slowly and with pain, and sometimes seemingly not at all. 333

CONCLUSION FOOTNOTES

LLawrence J. Friedman, '"Historical Topics Sometimes Run Dry*: The State of Abolitionist Studies," The Historian 43 (1981): 185; Wiecek, The Sources of Antislavery ConstitutioniTism, 88. 2 Fladeland, Men and Brothers, 68.

Wiecek, The Sources of Antislavery Constitutionalism, 170.

^*Locke, Anti-Slavery in America, 111.

^Locke, Anti-Slavery in America, 102; Adams, The Neglected Period of Anti-Slavery in America, l ^TI

^See Chapter VII of this dissertation.

^Moseley, "A History of the New-York Manumission Society," 365- 66; Thomas Clarkson to Edward Willcox, 28 January 1830, Charles Francis Jenkins Autograph Collection, Friends Historical Library, Swarthmore College. Q David Brion Davis, "The Emergence of Immediatism in British and American Antislaverv Thought," Mississippi Valley Historical Review 49 (1962): 228. 9 Fladeland, Men and Brothers, 167.

^^Edwin P. Atlee to the Conference of Abolitionists, to assemble in the city of New York, on the 25th inst., 23 October 1833, PAS Collec­ tion, Reel 29.

^^Lafayette to William Rawle et al, 13 April 1829, PAS Collection, Reel 13.

^^Dillon, "The Failure of the American Abolitionists," 164-67. ]3 ■ See Aileen S. Kraditor, Means and Ends in ^ e r i c a n Atolitionism: Garrison and His Critics on Strategy and Tactics, 1834-1850 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1967); Gilbert Hobbs B a m e s , The Antislavery Impulse, 1830-1844 (New York, London: D. Apple ton-Century Co., 1933; reprint ed., Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1967), vii. APPENDIX

A HISTORIOGRAPHICAL ANALYSIS OF IHE

QUAKER ROOTS OF ABOLITIONISM

To understand the formation of the abolition societies and, in

turn, the American Convention, it is necessary to examine the antislav­

ery activities of the Society of Friends. As was seen in Chapter I, it was the need of Friends to broaden their antislavery appeal that pro­ vided the impetus for starting the first abolition societies. Much has been written of the importance of the Society of Friends in early anti­

slavery efforts in the United States. Historians have accounted for

the Quaker abolition of slaveholding in their own ranks in the eight­

eenth century and their advocacy of the ending of slavery in American

society in a variety of ways.

Herbert Aptheker regarded Quaker antislavery as a logical out­

growth of the radical philosophy of the Friends, their sensitivity to

persecution, and the minority character of the original Quaker move­

ment.^

Frederick Tolies believed, too, that antislavery among Quakers was

a logical outgrowth, but stressed the importance of Quaker religious

beliefs in this development. Tolies deemed crucial the crisis of con­

science among Pennsylvania Quakers in the mid-1750s regarding their

role in the colony's government. The resulting Quaker "reformation"

334 335 produced, he argued, a sect-like mentality. Tolies contended that after

1754 Friends erected '"barriers against the 'world'," isolating them­

selves "frcm the main currents of American life." Separated from their

surrounding culture, Quakers were able to hold antislavery positions 2 and advocate other unpopular reforms.

Ihomas Drake saw the renunciation by Quakers of their role in

Pennsylvania government in 1754 as the beginning of a period of collec­

tive soul-searching about the proper role of the Friends in society,

leading by 1776 to the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting's rejection of slave-

holding, and an antislavery stand, a stand based in "moral and religious

idealism." J. William Frost has more recently argued that while a

variety of things might account for Quaker antislavery, "the origins of

antislavery lie embedded in Quaker religious practices and ideas."

David Brion Davis, although never totally discounting the impor­

tance of religious beliefs in the development of Quaker antislavery,

contended that Quaker opposition to slavery was not necessarily a

natural outgrowth of the beliefs of George Fox. Davis demonstrated that

many Friends were able to follow Fox's tenets without coming to anti­

slavery conclusions. In The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture

Davis argued that the Quakers were deviant personality types engaged in

antislavery out of their own deep inner needs. But in his subsequent

extensive research into the makeup of the abolition societies in The

Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, Davis altered his thesis.

Faced with the presence of the "men of wealth, influence, and political

power" vho peopled these societies, he broadened his frame of reference,

concluding that the Quakers were "representatives of the emerging 336

capitalist order," imposing structure on society through their philan­

thropic pursuits, and at the same time restoring their reputatiore

damaged in the Revolution. In his later work, Davis has given greater

attention to the religious content of the Quaker protests against

slavery. He has also synthesized his earlier theses, noting the push

given to the Society of Friends by the "visionary 'deviants'" in their

number vÆio first challenged slavery, a push vdiich prodded men of in­

fluence to join the antislavery ranks.^

Richard Bauman enhanced our understanding of how opposition to

slavery by a small group within Quaker ranks was converted into a move­

ment for reordering the attitude of the larger society toward slavery

through the abolition societies. In For the Reputation of Truth Bauman

made the important distinction between the apolitical activities of

the Quakers prior to the Revolution and the increasingly political tone

of their activities directed to the outward society after the Revolu­

tion. He emphasized that Friends, having cleared up the problem of

slavery in their own ranks by 1783, could turn to addressing slavery in

the outside world following the Revolution. Of crucial importance in

this transition were vdiat Bauman termed the "politiques," a group less

concerned with the religious testimony of the society as such than with

"the reputation of the Society in the world and the integrity of the C Quakers as a special people." While Bauman drew too fine a line be­

tween religious witness and witness in the world, a distinction his

"politiques" would have found superficial, his is a very helpful

analysis. Politique Quakers such as James Pemberton in Philadelphia, vdio headed the Pennsylvania Abolition Society following the death of 337

Benjamin Franklin and arguably even before, provided the leadership for the movement of Quaker antislavery action from the Quaker Meetings for

Sufferings to the abolition societies following the failure of the petitioning effort of 1790.^

Jean Ruth Soderlund has written more recently that Quaker opposi­

tion to slavery developed gradually from the first written protest against slavery by four Germantown, Pennsylvania Quakers in 1688 to the prohibition of slaveholding by the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting in 1776.

She contended that emphasis by Tolies, Drake, and Sydney James on the

Philadelphia Quaker elite rather than on Friends in rural, less sophis­

ticated settings created an inadequate picture of the total development of Quaker antislavery in the Delaware Valley. Soderlund analyzed month­

ly and quarterly meeting records to conclude that Quaker abandonment of

slaveholding resulted from religious, economic, and ideological impulses coming to bear in the 1750s and after, and that no single hypothesis

suffices to explain the development of Quaker antislavery.^

Soderlund's is a strong case, but it is important to note that

\dien antislavery was carried beyond the meeting house into the larger

society by the founding of antislavery societies, it was largely members of the Quaker elite in Philadelphia and elsewhere who translated Quaker beliefs into attempts to influence public policy. Bauman's insight

that by 1783 the management of the antislavery campaign among Philadel­ phia Yearly Meeting Friends had passed to the Meeting for Sufferings,

and that it was the Philadelphians, and they primarily politiques, vdio dominated the Meeting for Sufferings is important here. Although the historian cannot account for Quaker antislavery solely by examining the 338 elite, it was the elite, Davis’s men of wealth and power, vho carried

Quaker antislavery principles into the larger society through the aboli­ tion societies. The committee of Quakers vho bore the petitions of the

Friends and the PAS to New York in 1790— Nicholas Wain, James and John

Pemberton, Henry Drinker, and Samuel Emlen, joined there by Warner

Mifflin— typify the prominent Quakers who sought to expand the Quaker 8 witness. After 1790 it was these Quaker leaders, an antislavery van­ guard in their own right, vho were instrumental in forging a national coalition of abolitionists, attempting to carry out in a larger arena vhat the Delaware Valley Quakers had begun.

His emphasis on the Philadelphia Quaker elite makes the work of

Sydney V. James valuable for understanding the origins of the early abolition societies. The strong influence in the Pennsylvania Abolition

Society exerted by this prominent Quaker element, and the preponderant influence of the PAS in the American Convention, make James's work on the development of Quaker benevolence in the eighteenth century parti­ cularly useful.

James emphasized in A People Among Peoples; Quaker Benevolence in

Eighteenth-Century America that by the mid-1750s Quakers, generally unsuccessful in incorporating slaves into Quaker life and worship, changed focus under the influence of John Woolraan and began to prepare slaves for civil freedom. With their vrithdrawal from the Pennsylvania government at the time of the Seven Years' War, James stressed that the

Quakers were forced to find alternative ways to influence government policies for the aid of freed blacks and for their other benevolent g enterprises. Friends dweloped voluntary organizations such as the 339 abolition societies as a means to work their will on a society they had previously controlled.

Friends could influence public affairs as private citizens through voluntary organizations, which were at first strictly separate from the religious Society, though some ultimately became its subsi- daries. . . . As Pennsylvania Quakers acquired scruples against holding public office they found in lobby-like groups and bene­ volent institutions satisfactory alternative means to impress their views on governmental affairs.

Many of the organizational forms and methods. developed by Quakers for benevolent action on behalf of blacks came to have their secular equivalents in the abolition societies and in the American Convention.

Following the American Revolution the Meetings for Sufferings, original­ ly organized by Friends to aid their fellow congregants in need, came to provide legal protection for re-enslaved Negroes, and "served as the 11 voice of the church to the various governments." Local abolition so­ cieties were organized to accomplish the same purpose. The American

Convention was formed vhen the need for an interstate "meeting for suf­

ferings" devoid of direct association with the Society of Friends became apparent. The acting committees formed in the abolition societies to conduct necessary business between meetings of the societies operated in ways very similar to the Quaker Overseers of the Poor. The overseers

discovered needy persons, aided them, then received reimbursement by the

monthly meeting. The acting committees fulfilled similar functions re­

lated to legal activities on behalf of blacks. Quakers, as part of

their aid to widows, became experienced in apprenticing children. This

experience was frequently put to good use by the abolition societies in

apprenticing children of freed slaves. The Quaker emphasis on education

and moral instruction was also duplicated in the abolition societies. 340

As was seen in Chapter IV, the memorials of the American Convention di­ rected to free blacks customarily stressed the need for morality and abstinence from riotous living. The frequent encouragement by the

American Convention of visitation of black homes by abolition society members to give moral instruction, and the persistent counsel of the

Convention that local societies educate blacks demonstrated the same need to serve in loco parentis for blacks that James observed in his 12 study of Quaker benevolence.

At the same time that Quakers in Philadelphia were perfecting within their meetings the organizational means for benevolent work,

they were gaining experience in working with people of other religious and ideological persuasions through the voluntary societies and benevo­

lent institutions, such as the Union Fire Company and the Pennsylvania 13 Hospital. In the latter half of the eighteenth century such contacts by the Quakers increased. Carl and Jessica Bridenbaugh observed that after 1735 Philadelphia was no longer predominantly a Quaker city, Pres­ byterians forming by that time the largest religious body in the city.^^

Quakers learned to cooperate with other groups and to relish the inter­ est of these groups in concerns important to Quakers. The Philadelphia

Meeting for Sufferings rejoiced in 1783 that members of "various reli­ gious denominations" were joining in the opposition to slavery.

Quakers remained until the 1830s the group in the United States most

identified with abolition. Increasingly, however, their witness was refined by interaction with persons of different religious persuasions.

Also important in this refining process was their interaction with their

Quaker counterparts across the Atlantic, and the contact it provided 341 with the ideological currents of their time.

Quaker antislavery literature in America in the first part of the

eighteenth century, in the works of Ralph Sandiford, Benjamin Lay, and

John Woolman, had stressed almost entirely religious arguments for eman­

cipation.^^ Sydney James contended, however, that by the 1760s some

Quaker leaders, as a result of their experience in Indian land dispute

cases and of their own practical sense of justice emerging from those

disputes, came to advance natural rights arguments against slaveholding.

He further contended it was this grafting of natural rights philosophy

onto religious principle that gave the extra push needed to move the

Philadelphia Yearly Meeting to its outlawing of slaveholding. In­ creasingly, he said, Quaker antislavery rhetoric combined the arguments

from religious principle with natural rights and revolutionary rhetoric,

in the process minimizing "sectarian peculiarities" and emphasizing the participation of Quakers in the body politic.

Winthrop Jordan summarized the beginnings of this melding of re­

ligious principle with belief in the rights of all men when he observed

that "early antislavery was an application of a religious idea to social practice, an application made possible by the unrecognized gradual weakening of old ideas about natural and inevitable social hierarachy."

In the period of the American Revolution, the argument against slavery was expanded from its earlier religious rationale to include human hap­ piness and liberty. As Jordan has shown, slavery came to be seen as

(1) a standing contradiction to age-old presuppositions about the equal­ ity of men, (2) an inward sin in need of expurgation, and (3) a viola- 18 tion of the ideology of equal rights. Added to direct philosophical 342

attacks on slavery was the linkage of slavery to political bondage in

the period of the American Revolution. The perceived loss of American

freedoms to persistent English encroachments came to be likened to

slavery. The sacrifice of the rights of free Englishmen came to be com­

pared, in the northern and middle colonies more than in the South, to

the loss of rights by slaves.For some advocates of liberty this was

a convenient political argument and nothing more, the "all men" of the

Declaration of Independence never being understood to include blacks.

But other Americans, James Otis early and noteworthy among them, came to

make the connection between political slavery and chattel slavery, and were prepared at the end of the Revolution to work toward abolishing the

"American inconsistency."^®

It would be a mistake, however, to assume the Quakers arrived at

this synthesis easily, or that most Quakers came to be comfortable with natural rights rhetoric. The works of Tolies, Davis, and lately Soder-

lund remind us of the complexity of the Quaker responses and of the

frequent sectarian responses to outside influences. James's contention

that Quakers were able to minimize their sectarian tendencies must be

tempered with goderlund's and Davis's emphasis on the variety of Quaker responses, and with Bauman's recognition of the role of the politiques.

Those Quakers who chose to exercise their antislavery beliefs through

the abolition societies were more comfortable with the parlance of the world than their brethren, more ready for the most part to resist using religious language vdien addressing the larger society. A comparison of the Philadelphia Quaker petition to Congress in 1790 with the Pennsyl­ vania Abolition Society petition presented at the same time illustrates 343 the differences in their philosophies of approaching the government, differences reflective of divergent attitudes within Quakerism toward the ideological currents of the time. The Quakers introduced themselves as "professors of faith in that ever blessed, all-perfect Lawgiver" and cited the Golden Rule as the basis of their opposition to slavery. They expressed the duty incumbent upon them as a religious body to oppose slavery, recognizing, they said, that both the "true temporal interest of nations, and the eternal well-being of individuals, depend on doing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly before God." Finally, they asked "the infinite Father of Spirits" to guide the Congress, emphasiz­ ing that their reason for bringing a petition was out of "compliance 21 with a sense of Christian duty."

The duty of the PAS to oppose slavery, it said in its petition, arose out of experiences in "attending to the distresses arising from slavery." The society urged attention to the problems of slavery be­ cause equal liberty belonged to all people and because "strong ties of humanity" bound abolitionists to the slaves. The Christian religion prompted them, too, but this religion was consistent with the principles 99 of the late Revolution. " The Quakers who formed the backbone of the early abolition societies were comfortable in combining the language of religion and revolution in this way. How they came to be at ease with this synthesis is a chapter in transatlantic communication and coopera­ tion.

Frederick Tolies stressed in Quakers and the Atlantic Culture the importance of Quaker participation in the "Atlantic community," a 344 variation on Michael Kraus’s term "Atlantic civilization."^^ Pre­ occupied prior to 1700 with their own sufferings, Quakers in the first half of the eighteenth century extended tiieir humanitarian impulse, pri­ marily through the Meetings for Sufferings, "into the wider Atlantic

Community beyond the Society of Friends.Important in this broad­ ening of Quaker benevolence was the interaction of "public Friends" in both England and the American colonies. These traveling Friends visit­ ed other meetings, bringing greetings and admonitions from their fellow

Quakers. John Woolman stirred Quakers in America to antislavery action as a public Friend, as did Warner Mifflin after him. But crucial to the development of a broader, more ecumenical approach to antislavery on the part of Quakers was the transatlantic correspondence and visits that brought American Quakers into contact with the thought of their English counterparts vdio also were beginning to struggle with the issues of slavery. Through them, American Quakers were introduced to contemporary

European moral philosophies \Æiich advanced principles of natural rights in condemning slavery. This transoceanic intercourse expedited the development of antislavery on both sides of the Atlantic, strengthening the force of the American Quakers' remonstrances, while bringing English

Quaker visitors to America into first-hand contact with slavery. These contacts were important to the development of the program of the early abolitionists in a manner similar to the importance of the contacts be­ tween radical Whig polemicists in England and American malcontents in 95 the development of American Revolutionary fervor.

Roger Anstey enhanced our understanding of this transatlantic connection. He identified three groups important to the creation of 345

British antislavery. The coming together of representatives of these strands of antislavery opinion in the London Society marked the effec­ tive beginning of British opposition to the slave trade. Some opposed slavery on grounds of natural rights philosophy, finding in the con­ cepts of liberty and happiness grounds for denouncing the institution and inspiring duty to aid its victims. Members of the Evangelical Clap- ham sect, most notably Wilberforce and to a lesser degree Granville

Sharp, constituted a second group. They came to antislavery out of an evangelical theology emphasizing love of brother, a heightened con­ sciousness of Providence, and the need for benevolence. This group deemed it their Christian calling to abolish the slave trade. The

Quakers, vdio by their visits to America had experienced the horrors of slavery that many others only theorized about, formed the third body.

The Quakers* contribution to this cosmopolitan confluence, Anstey be­ lieved, included not only their bringing immediate knowledge of slavery, but also the gentle pressure applied by the Philadelphia Quakers on their English counterparts for British abolition of the trade. By the writings of the tireless Quaker antislavery advocate Anthony Benezet,

and by the visits, correspondence, and Yearly Meeting epistles from the

Friends in Philadelphia, English Quakers were spurred to action on the

slave trade. Darold Wax also presented evidence in correspondence from

William Dillwyn that encouragement from the Meeting for Sufferings in

Philadelphia led to English Quakers taking up the subject of the slave

trade in 1783.^^

Anstey somewhat revised his attribution of influence in a later article, coming to see a give-and-take relationship between the English 346

and American Friends, where previously he came closer to joining Michael

Kraus in crediting Americans with providing the impetus for antislavery 27 action. Consistently, however, Anstey credited the Quakers with re­

laying moral insights which due to the relatively small size of the

Quaker constituency were "translated into effective action within the

Society, and an agitation commenced against slavery in the wider w o r l d . " 2 8

The London Society formed in May 1787 was composed of an old

Quaker committee plus Granville Sharp, Thomas Clarkson, and Philip San- som. Sharp, vho was elected chairman, emphasized that they had put aside the plain language of the Friends in letter writing because of their desire to include "all denominations of Christians in the Soci­ ety." Within two months of its founding, the society had correspondents in 35 of 40 English counties, undoubtedly most of them products of the

Quaker network. The Quakers did the brunt of the work in the society, as their co-religionists in America frequently did. Also like their

American counterparts, they successfully attracted noteworthy others to the cause. Wilberforce, vdiose name became synonymous with British anti­ slavery, was an early adviser, but did not join the society until 1791.29

The impetus from America was important in arousing Friends in Eng­ land to take leadership in the creation of an expanded movement to abolish the slave trade. Quakers in America facilitated the British antislavery union by initiating correspondence with Granville Sharp.

The counter impulse from England that Anstey described involved making

American Friends aware of European moral philosophy which could serve to 347 enhance the Quaker antislavery argument by making it acceptable in wider circles. The inclusion of natural rights theory that Sydney James as­ cribed to native influences resulted, according to Anstey, frcan the sharing of European moral philosophy with the American Quakers by their

English counterparts. The writings first of Montesquieu, and later of

Burke, Blacks tone, Adam Smith, and others who, dissimilar as they were, extolled liberty and in doing so condemned slavery, gave to the American

Quakers the basis for an antislavery argument broader than religious sentiment. More important, in a period when Quaker values were denigra­ ted by a large portion of Americans, these writings provided a common language in which those Quakers vho were comfortable in moving in the world beyond the meeting house could converse with others vho were 31 taking up the abolition cause. That the number of Quakers who were at ease in making such conversation was small and that this small group failed to attract many others to its cause was the bain of abolitionism throughout the existence of the American Convention. 348 APPENDIX FOOTNOTES

^Herbert Aptheker, "The Quakers and Negro Slavery," Journal of Negro History 25 (1940); 362. 2 Frederick Tolies, Meeting House and Counting House: The Quaker Merchants of Colonial Philadelphia, 1602-1753 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1948), Ô, 239-43. 3 Drake, Quakers and Slavery, 55-56, 77; J. William Frost, ed., The Quaker Origins of Antislaverv (Norwood, Pa.: Norwood Editions, jmuTy-w.— ^

^David Brion Davis, The Problem of Slavey in Western Culture (Ithaca and London: ComellTUniversity Press, 1966), ch. 10; Davis, Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 213-14, 240, 253, ch. 5 passim; Davis, Slavery and Hunan Progress (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984),

^Bauman, For the Reputation of Truth, 61.

^Bauman, For the Reputation of Truth, 198-99.

^Jean Ruth Soderlund, "Conscience, Interest, and Power: The De­ velopment of Quaker Opposition to Slavery in the Delaware Valley, 1688- 1780' (Ph.D. dissertation. Temple University, 1982), 1-8, 24-37. Soderlund's revised dissertation has been published as Quakers and Slav- merv's sj:— A Divided ---- Sprit— (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, o Bauman, For the Reputation of Truth, 198-99. 9 Sydney V. James, A People ^ o n g Peoples, Quaker Benevolence in Eighteenth-Century America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963), ■ni-13, 133-34. ^

^*^James, A People Among Peoples, 194, 197.

^^James, A People Among Peoples, 15. 12 James, A People Among Peoples, 47 , 231. 13 James, A People Among Peoples, ch. 11.

^^Carl and Jessica Bridenbaugh, Rebels and Gentlemen: Philadel­ phia in the Age of Franklin (London: Oxford, 1942; reprint ed., 1968),

^^Quoted in Bauman, For the Reputation of Truth, 197.

^^Locke, Anti-Slavery in America, 27. 349 17 James, A People Among Peoples, 216-22, 282-83.

^®Winthrop D, Jordan, White Over Black; American Attitudes Toward the Negro, 1550-1812 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1568;, 194 (quote), 310-11. 19 Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolu­ tion (Cambridge, Mass.; Belknap Press, 1967;, ch. 4. 20 James Otis, 'Hie Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved (Boston: 1754;, 438-41 in Bruns, ed., Am I Not A Man And A Broth­ er, 103-5. 21 Annals of Congress, 1 Cong. 2 sess. 1183 (11 Feb. 1790).

^^Annals, 1 Cong. 2 sess. 1197-98 (12 Feb. 1790). 23 Tolies, Quakers and the Atlantic Culture (New York: Macmillan, 1960), 3, 8 , 13-14; Michael Kraus, ^’Slavery Reform in the Eighteenth Century: An Aspect of Transatlantic Intellectual Cooperation," Pennsyl­ vania Magazine of History and Biography 60 (1936).

^^olles, Quakers and the Atlantic Culture, 31. 25 Tolies, Quakers and the Atlantic' Culture, 16; Davis, The Prob­ lem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 218-32; Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, ch. 4; John Derry, English Politics" and the American Revolution ÇLonSôh: J. M. Dent and Sons, Ltd., 1976); Pauline Maier, "John Wilkes and the American Disillusionment with Brit­ ain," William and Mary Quarterly 20 (1963): 373-95. For one example of the influence of public Friends, see Kenneth L. Carroll, "Maryland Quakers and Slavery, Quaker History 72 (1983): 32-33.

Roger Anstey, The Atlantic Slave Trade and British Abolition, 1760-1810 CAtlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1975), 119, 142- 153, 153-64, 175, 202-3, 220, 224-25, 232; Fladeland, Men and Brothers, 14-18; David Brion Davis, "New Sidelights on Early Antislavery Radical- ism," William and Man^ Quarterly 28 (1971): 585-94; Wax, "The Movement Against Slavery," 423. Significant publications and correspondence of Anthony Benezet are in Bruns, ed., Am I Not A Man And A Brother. 27 Roger Anstey, "Slavery and the Protestant Ethic," Historical Re­ flections 6 (1979): 162; Kraus, "Slavery Reform in the Eighteenth Cen- tury," 56-59.

^^Anstey, "Slavery and the Protestant Ethic," 162. 29 Earl Leslie Griggs, Thomas Clarkson: The Friend of Slaves (1935: reprint ed., Westport, Conn.: Negro Universities Press, 1570), 35;Gran­ ville Sharp to Rev. Dr. Sharp, 3 November 1787, Sharp Transcripts (J. A. W. ), quoted in Anstey, The Atlantic Slave Trade, 247; London 350 Society to NYMS, NYMS Papers 6 ; 78 (17 July 1787); Anstey, The Atlantic Slave Trade, 261-62. 3 0 Kraus, "Slavery Reform in the Eighteenth Century," 59; "Anthony Benezet to Granville Sharp, May 14, 1772," in Bruns, ed., Am I Not A Man And A Brother, 193-96.

^^Anstey, The Atlantic Slave Trade, 102-6, 119, 213-14. BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Presbyterian Historical Society. Shane Collection.

Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. Swarthmore College. Friends Historical Library.

Hicks Manuscripts. Charles Francis Jenkins Autograph Collection. Miscellaneous Manuscripts. Letters of John Murray, Jr. to James Bringhurst (typewritten, translated, and indexed by C. Marshall Taylor). Sarah Hopper Palmer Papers. Wood Manuscripts.

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Aggregate ^ount of Itersons Within the United States in the Year 1810. Washington, D.C., n.p., 18ll.

Census for 1820. Washington, D.C.: Gales and Seaton, 1821.

Return of the Whole Number of Persons within the Several Districts of the United States. Washington; D.C.: Duane, 1801.

Newspapers

Emancipator. Jonesborough, Tennessee. 1820.

Freedom's Journal. New York. 1827.

Genius of Universal Emancipation. Mt. Pleasant, Ohio, 1821. Greene- ville, Tennessee, 182^-1824. Baltimore, Maryland, 1824, 1827- 1830. Washington, D.C., 1830-1834. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1834.

Genius of Universal Emancipation and Baltimore Courier. Baltimore, Maryland. 1825-1827.

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Clarkson, Thomas. The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parlia­ ment. Abridged by Evan Lewis. Wilmington, Delaware: E. Porter. THU.

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Edwards, Jonathan, Jr. The Injustice and Impolicy of the Slave Trade and of the Slavery of the Africans illustrated in A Semon Preached before the Connecticut Society for the Promotion of Freedom, and for fhe Relief of Persons Unlawfully Held in Bondage, at their Annual Meeting in New Haven, September 15, 1791. Provi­ dence, Rhode Island; John Carter, 1792. 354

Embree, Elihu. The Emancipator (complete) published by Elihu Bnbree, Jonesborough, Tennessee 1820. A Reprint 'of the Emancipator, to vhich are added a biographical sketch o F Elihu Ehibree, author and publisher of the Emancipator, and two hitherto unpublished anti- slavery memorials bearing the signature of Elihu Embree. Nash­ ville, Tennessee: B. H. Murphy, 1932.

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Jay, William. An Inquiry into the Character and Tendency of the Ameri­ can Colonizatin and Americyi Anti-Slavery Societies. 3rd ed. New York: Leavitt, Lord and Co., 1835. I

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Memorials Presented to the Congress of the United States of ^erica by the Different Societies instituted for promoting the Abolition of Slavery, etc., in the States of % o d e Island, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. Philadelphia; Francis Bailey, 1792.

Mifflin, Warner. The Defence of Warner Mifflin Against Aspersions cast on him on Account of his endeavours To promote Righteousness, Mercy and Peace, among Mankind. Philadelphia: Samuel Sansora,

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Needles, Edward. An Historical Memoir of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavey; the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage, and for Improving the Condition of the African Race~ Philadelphia: Merrihew and Thompson, 1848; reprint ed.. New York: A m o Press and New York Times, 1969. 355

Ihe New ^erican State Papers; I.a.bor Slavey. 7 vols. Wilmington, Delaware; Scholarly Resources, 1973. Vol. 4: Slavery in Terri­ tories.

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Parrish, Isaac. Brief Memoirs of Ihomas Shipley and Edwin P. Atlee read before the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, etc. Tenth Month 1837. Philadelphia; Merrihew and Gunn, 1638.

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Dumond, Dwight Lowell. Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 1961.

Earle, Thomas. The Life , Travels, and Opinions of B e n j o i n Lundy, in­ cluding his Journeys to Texas and Mexico; with a Sketch of Con­ temporary Events, and a Notice of the Revolution in Hayti. Philadelphia: William D. Parish, 1847.

Filler, Louis. The Crusade Against Slavery, 1830-1860. The New Ameri­ can Nation Series, eds. Henry Steele Commager and Richard B. Morris. New York: Harper and Row, 1960.

Fladeland, Betty. Men and Brothers: Anglo-American Antislavery Co-oper­ ation. Urbana, Chicago, London: University of Illinois Press, WTT.

Frost, J. William, ed. Ihe Quaker Origins of Antislavery. Norwood, Pennsylvania: Norwood Editions, 1980.

Griffin, Clifford S. Their Brothers' Keepers: Moral Stewardship in the in the United States, 1800-1865. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, I960.

Griggs, Earl Leslie. Thomas Clarion: The Friend of Slaves. London: G. Allen and Unwin, ltd.: 1936; reprint ed., Westport, Connec­ ticut: Negro Universities Press, 1970.

Harrison, Lowell H. The Antislave^ Movement in Kentucky. (Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 1978.

Hawke, David Freeman. Benjamin Rush; Revolutionary Gadfly. Indiana­ polis and New York: The Bobbs Merrill Co., 1971.

James, Sydney V. A People Among Peoples: Quaker Benevolence in Eight­ eenth-Century ^erica . Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard Univer- sity Press, 1963.

Jordan, Winthrop D. White Over Black: American Attitudes Toward the Negro, 1550-1812. Chapel Hill, North Carolina; The University of North Carolina Press, 1968. 359

Klein, Philip Shriver. Pennsylvania Politics, 1817-1832; A G ^ e Without Rules. Philadelphia: The Historical Society of Pennsylvania,

Klingberg, Frank J. The Anti-Slavery Movement in England: A Study in English Humanitarianisiiü New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1926; reprint ed., Hamden, Connecticut: Archon Books, 1968.

Litwack, Leon F. North of Slavery: The Negro in the Free States, 1790- 1860. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961.

Locke, Mary Stoughton. Anti-Slavery in America: From the Introduction of M r i c a n Slaves to the Prohibition of the Slave Trade (1619- 1808). Radcliffe College Monographs, no. 11. Boston: Radcliffe College Press, 1901; reprint ed., Gloucester, Massachusetts, 1965.

Mabee, Carleton. Black Education in New York State: From Colonial to M ^ e m Times" Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press,

IfcManus, Edgar J. A History of Negro Slavey in New York. Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 1966.

Mannix, Daniel P. Black Cargoes: A History of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1518-1865. In collaboration with Malcolm Cowley. New York: Viking Press, 1962.

Martin, Asa Earl. The Anti-Slavery Movement in Kentucky Prior to 1850. Filson Club Publication, no. 29. Louisville, Kentucky: Standard Publishing Co., 1918; reprint ed., Westport, Connec­ ticut: Negro Universities Press, 1970.

Moore, Glover. The Missouri Controversy, 1819-1821. Lexington, Ken­ tucky: University Press of Kentucky, 1953; reprint ed., Glouces­ ter, Massachusetts: Peter Smith, 1967.

Nuemberger, Ruth Ketring. The Free Produce Movement: A Quaker Protest Against Slavey. Historical Papers of Trinity College Historical Society, no. 25. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1942; reprint ed., New York: AMS Press, 1970.

Poole, William Frederick. Anti-Slavery Opinions Before the Year 1800. Cincinnati: Robert Clark and Co., 1873; reprint ed., Westport, Connecticut: Negro- Universities Press, 1970.

Price, Clement Alexander, ed. Freedom Not Far Distant: A Documentary History of Afro-Americans in New Jersey. Newark, New Jersey: New Jersey Historical Society, 1980. 360

Quarles, Benjamin. Black Abolitionists. New York: Oxford University Press, 1969.

Rawley, James A. The Transatlantic Slave Trade: A History. New York: W. W. Norton, 1981.

Rossiter, Clinton. 1787: The Grand Convention. New York: The New American Library, Mentor Books, 1968.

Scarborough, Ruth. The (^position to Slavery in Georgia Prior to 1860. Contributions to Education of George Peabody College for Teachers, no. 97. Nashville: George Peabody College for Teachers, 1.933; reprint ed., New York: Negro Universities Press, 1968.

Soderlund, Jean R. Quakers and Slavery: A Divid^ Spirit. Princeton, New Jersey; Princeton University Press, 19Ô5.

Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York; Columbia University Press, 1961.

Steiner, Bernard C. History of Slavery in Connecticut. Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science. Herbert B. Adams, ed. Eleventh Series, nos. 9-10. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1893.

Taylor, Clare. British and American Abolitionists: An Episode in Transatlantic Understanding. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1 9 7 4 . ------

Tolies, Frederick B. Quakers and the Atlantic Culture. New York: The Macmillan Co. , 1960.

Turner, Edward Raymond. The Negro in Pennsylvania: Slavery— Servitude— Freedom, 1639-1861. Washington, B.C.: American Historical Asso- ciation, 1911; reprint ed., New York: A m o Press and the New York Times, 1969.

Warner, Sam Bass, Jr. The Private City: Philadelphia in Three Periods of^Its Growth. Philadelphia; University of Pennsylvania Press,

Weeks, Stephen B. Southern Quakers and Slavery. Johns Hopkins Univer­ sity Studies in History and Political Science. Herbert B. Adams, ed. Vol. 15. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1896; reprint ed., New York: Bergman Publishers, 1968.

Wiecek, William. % e Sources of Antislavery Constitutionalism in Ameri­ ca, 1760-18431 Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1977.

Wood, Gordon S. The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787. Cha­ pel Hill, North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press for 351

the Institute of Early American Studies, 1969; W. W. Norton and Co., 1972.

Woodson, Carter G. The ^ucation of the Negro Prior to 1861; A History cf the Education of the Colored People of the United States from the Beginning of Slavery to the Civil WirT Washington,^ D.C. : Associated Publishers, 1919; reprint ed., New York; A m o Press and the New York Times, 1968.

Zilversmit, Arthur. The First Emancipation: the abolition of slavery in the North. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967.

Bibliographies and Reference Books

Afro-Americma, 1553-1906: Author Catalogue of the Library Company of Philadelphia and the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Boston: g : k . Hall, 1973.------

Brown, Ira V. The Negro in Pennsylvania History. Pennsylvania History Studies, no. llT University Park, Pennsylvania: Ihe Pennsylvania Historical Association, 1970.

Dumond, Dwight L. A Bibliography of Antislavery in America. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 1961.

Simpson, Henry. The Lives of Eminent Philadelphians Now Deceased. Philadelphia: William Brotherhead, 1859.

Smith, John David, comp. Black Slavery in the Americas: An Interdisci­ plinary Bibliography. 1865-198Ù. 2 vols. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1982.

Articles

Allen, Jeffrey Brooke. "Means and Ends in Kentucky Abolitionism, 1792- 1823." The Filson Club Historical Quarterly 57 (1983): 365-81.

______. "The Racial Thought of White North Carolina Opponents of Slavery, 1789-1876." North Carolina Historical Review 59 (Janu­ ary 1982): 49-66.

Anstey, Roger T. "Slavery and the Protestant Ethic." Historical Re- flections 6 (1979): 157-72.

Aptheker, Herbert. "An Unpublished Benjamin Rush Manuscript." Pennsyl­ vania Magazine of History and Biography 71 (January 1947): 68-69.

Bennett, Enid Vivian. "Educational Activities by and in Be^lf of the Negroes in New York, 1800-1830." The Negro History Bulletin 14 (February 1951): 99-102, 113-14. 352

Boiler, Paul F., Jr. "Washington, The Quakers, and Slavery." Journal of Negro History 46 (April 1961): 83-88.

Brewster, Robert Wallace. "The Rise of the Antislavery Movement in Southwestern Pennsylvania." The Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine 22 (March 1939): 1-18.

Brooks, Robin. "Alexander Hamilton, Melancton Smith, and the Ratifica­ tion of the Constitution in New York." William and Mary Quarter­ ly. 24 (July 1967): 339-58.

Calvert, Monte A. "The Abolition Society of Delaware, 1801-1807." Delaware History 10 (April 1963): 295-320.

Carroll, Kenneth L. "An Eighteenth Century Episcopalian Attack on Qua­ ker and Methodist Manumission of Slaves." Maryland Historical Magazine 80 (Sunmer 1985): 139-50.

. "Maryland Quakers and Slavery." Quaker History 72 (Spring 1983): 27-42.

"Nicholites and Slavery in Eighteenth Century Maryland." Maryland Historical Magazine 79 (Spring 1984): 126-33.

Davis, David Brion. "The Emergence of Tmmediatism in British and Ameri­ can Antislavery Thought. Mississippi Valley Historical Review 49 (1962): 209-230.

______. "New Sidelights on Early Antislavery Radicalism." William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd series, 28..(197i): ,585-94.

Dillon, Merton L. "The Failure of the American Abolitionists." Jour­ nal of Southern History 25 (May 1959): 159-77.

Finnie, Gordon E. "The Antislavery Movement in the Upper South Before 1840." Journal of Southern History 35 (August 1969): 319-42.

Friedman, Lawrence J. " 'Historical Topics Sometimes Run Dry': The State of Abolitionist Studies." The Historian 43 (1981): 177-94.

Galbreath, C. B. "Anti-Slavery Movement in Columbiana County." Ohio Archeological and Historical Quarterly 30 (January 1921): 355-95.

Goodheart, Lawrence B. "Tennessee's Antislavery Movement Reconsidered: The Example of Elihu Embree." Tennessee Historical Quarterly 41 (Fall 1982): 224-38.

Kates, Don B., Jr. "Abolition, Deportation, Integration; Attitudes Toward Slavery in the Early Republic." Journal of Negro History 53 (1968): 33-47. 363

Kraus, Michaél. "Slavery Reform in the Eighteenth Century: An Aspect of Transatlantic Intellectual Cooperation." Pennysylvania Maga­ zine of History and Biography 60 (1936): 53-6W}

Lapsansky, Emma Jones. "Since They Got Those Separate Churches": Afro-Americans and Racism in Jacksonian Philadelphia." American Quarterly 32 (Spring 1980): 54-78.

Martin, Asa Earl. "Ihe Anti-Slavery Societies of Tennessee." Tennes­ see Historical Magazine 1 (December 1915): 261-81. -

. "Pioneer Anti-Slavery Press." Mississippi Valley Historical Review 2 (1916): 509-28.

Miller, Randall M. "The Union Humane Society." Quaker History 61 tAutumn 1972): 91-106.

Ohline, Howard A. "Slavery, Economics, and Congressional Politics, 1790." Journal of Southern History 46 (August 1980): 335-60.

Price, Edward. "The Black Voting Rights Issue in Pennsylvania, 1780- 1900." Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 100 (July 1976): 3 3 ' 6 ^

Reilly, James F. "The Providence Abolition Society." Rhode Island History 21 (April 1962): 33-48.

Rury, John L. "The New York African Free School, 1827-1836: Conflict over Community Control of Black Education. ' Phylon 44 (September 1983): 187-97.

Seaton, Douglas P. "Colonizers and Reluctant Colonists: The New Jersey Colonization Society and the Black Community, 1815-1848." New Jersey History 96 (1978): 7-22.

Sherrill, Paul M. "Quakers and the North Carolina Manumission Society." Historical Papers of the Trinity Historical Society, 10 (1914):

Silcox, Harry C. "Delay and Neglect: Negro Publ. Education in Ante­ bellum Philadelphia, 1800-1860." Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 97 (October 1973): 444-64.

Sowle, Patrick. "The North Carolina Manumission Society, 1816-1834." North Carolina Historical Review 42 (January 1965): 47-69.

Stampp, Kenneth M. "The Fate of the Southern Antislavery Movement." Journal of Negro History 28 (1943): 10-22.

Turner, Edward Raymond. "The Abolition of Slavery in Pennsylvania." Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 36 (1912): 129-42. 364

~ . "The First Abolition Society in the United States." Penn- sylvania Magazine of History and Biography 36 (1912): 92-109.

______. "Slavery in Colonial Pennsylvania." Pennsylvania Magazine Ô F History and Biography 35 (1911): 141-51.

Turner, Wallace B. "Abolitionism in Kentucky." Register of the Ken­ tucky Historical Society 69 (October 1971): 519-338.

Wax, Darold D. "Reform and Revolution: The Movement Agaisnt Slavery and the Slave Trade in Revolutionary Pennsylvania." Western Pennsyl­ vania Histrical Magazine 57 (October 1974); 403-291

Wesley, Charles H. "Negro Suffrage in the Period of Constitution- Making, 1787-1865." Journal of Negro History 32 (April 1947): 143-68.

Womer, William Frederic. "The Columbia Race Riots." Papers of the Lancaster County Historical Society 36 (6 October 1§22); 175-87.

Zilversmit, Arthur. "Liberty and Property: New Jersey and the Abolition of Slavery." New Jersey History 88 (Winter 1970); 215-26.

Dissertations

Auping, John. "The Relative Efficiency of Evangelical Nonviolence: The Influence of a Revival of Religion on the Abolition of Slavery in North America, 1740-1865." Doctor in SciehtisSocial- ibus dissertation, Pontifica Universitatis Gregoriana, 1977.

Eberly, Wayne J. "The Pennsylvania Abolition Society, 1775-1830." Ph.D. dissertation, Pennsylvania State University, 1973.

Essah, Patience. "Slaveiry and Freedom in the First State: The History of Blacks in Delaware from the Colonial Period to 1865." Ph.D. dissertation. University of California at Los Angeles, 1985.

Finnie, Gordon Esley. "The Antislavery Movement in the South, 1787- 1836: Its Rise and Decline and Its Contribution to Abolitionism in the West." Ph.D. dissertation, Duke University, 1962.

Jentz, John Barkley. "Artisans, Evangelicals, and the City: A Social History of Abolition and Labor Reform in Jacksonian New York." Ph.D. dissertation, City University of New York, 1977.

Moseley, Thomas Robert. "A History of the New-York Manumission Society, 1785-1849." Ph.D. dissertation. New York University, 1963.

Ryon, Roderick Naylor. "Roberts Vaux: A Biography of a Reformer." Ph.D. dissertation. The Pennsylvania State University, 1956. 365 Shay, John Michael. "The Antislavery Movement in North Carolina." Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University, 1971.

Soderlund, Jean Ruth. "Conscience, Interest, and Power; The Develop­ ment of Quaker Opposition to Slavery in the Delaware Valley, 1688-1780." Ph.D. dissertation. Temple University, 1982.

Winch, Julie. "The Leaders of Philadelphia's Black Community, 1787- 1848." Ph.D. dissertation, Bryn Mawr College, 1982.