The Transformation of American Abolitionism

Fighting Slavery in the Early Republic

Richard S. Newman

• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Year: 2003
• ISBN:
  9780807860458
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Early American History
• Index: History

Most accounts date the birth of American abolitionism to 1831, when William Lloyd Garrison began publishing his radical antislavery newspaper, The Liberator. In fact, however, the abolition movement had been born with the American Republic. In the decades following the Revolution, abolitionists worked steadily to eliminate slavery and racial injustice, and their tactics and strategies constantly evolved. Tracing the development of the abolitionist movement from the 1770s to the 1830s, Richard Newman focuses particularly on its transformation from a conservative lobbying effort into a fiery grassroots reform cause. What began in late-eighteenth-century Pennsylvania as an elite movement espousing gradual legal reform began to change in the 1820s as black activists, female reformers, and nonelite whites pushed their way into the antislavery movement. Located primarily in Massachusetts, these new reformers demanded immediate emancipation, and they revolutionized abolitionist strategies and tactics--lecturing extensively, publishing gripping accounts of life in bondage, and organizing on a grassroots level. Their attitudes and actions made the abolition movement the radical cause we view it as today.

CHAPTER ONE

Republican Strategists
The Pennsylvania Abolition Society

The sentiment of Thomas Jefferson was very fine in theory, but it would have been enhanced a thousand fold if Jefferson had practiced what he preached. Precept without example is like faith without works—it is dead.

—Genius of Universal Emancipation, July 1834

ALTHOUGH THE YEAR 1775 is remembered for the shot at Lexington, Massachusetts, that started the American Revolution, it also marked the beginning of another auspicious battle. With Revolutionary events swirling around them, a handful of reformers met at Philadelphia’s Sun Tavern to form the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery, the world’s first organization dedicated to securing slavery’s end. Dominated by the state’s legal and political elites, this exclusive group set the standard for abolitionist activity during the early republic. But more than merely the inaugural abolitionist group, the Pennsylvania Abolition Society (PAS) became famous for its distinctly conservative style of activism. Elite patronage, refined legal and political strategy, and careful tactics guided the group’s work for over fifty years.¹ In a republican world dominated by the “exertions of great and good men,” the PAS believed that only its exclusive strategy and tactics would halt slavery.²

THE PAS GREW from Quaker roots. Quaker antislavery theory dated to 1688, when a Philadelphia-area group issued the Germantown Protest criticizing the institution of bondage. With its high concentration of Quakers, who adopted George Fox’s belief that all human beings were equal before God, Pennsylvania became the epicenter of American antislavery thought. By the 1750s, the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting formulated its own abolitionist policy: Quaker slaveholders must relinquish either their chattels or their ties to the religious society. Over the next several decades, Friends in New York and New England adopted similar schemes, and Quakers became a critical base of abolitionist organizations from Rhode Island to Virginia.³

A host of Pennsylvania Quakers gained national and international fame for their early tactics as well, among them John Woolman, Anthony Benezet, Benjamin Lay, Warner Mifflin, and John Parrish. These celebrated activists preached or published their antislavery beliefs in the years leading up to the American Revolution. Most early Quaker reformers favored a “privatist” strategy: individual emancipation by masters. One privatist tactic was group coercion: members of the society would pressure recalcitrant Friends until they either manumitted their bondsmen or were banished from monthly meetings. The New Jersey Quaker Meeting provides one of the best examples of Pennsylvania-style privatism in action. The group spent what one member recalled as a “considerable deal of labor” trying to convince John Corlis of Monmouth County to stop “keeping Negroes.” Because Corlis “continues to decline complying with the yearly meeting’s [slave-holding] ban,” the New Jersey group expelled him. Corlis kept his four slaves but lost his place among Friends.⁴

John Woolman and Warner Mifflin tried to expand privatist tactics among other religious sects. By undertaking extensive travels through Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, and Virginia, they hoped to persuade other groups to weed out slaveholders. Less-well-known Quakers emulated this itinerant activity. In 1789 one Maryland Friend began a preaching mission to free “200–300 slaves,” according to his hopeful estimate.⁵ Philadelphia schoolteacher Anthony Benezet preferred a pen to preaching missions. Before his death in the 1780s, Benezet published nine influential antislavery treatises. The PAS held these forebears in the highest esteem, frequently punctuating its messages and reports with allusions to the “spirit of Benezet” or a similar motto. Benjamin Lundy, a PAS member, editor of the influential abolitionist newspaper the Genius of Universal Emancipation during the 1820s, and a Quaker himself, ran a series of biographical sketches on these noble men in the early 1830s to invigorate a new generation of activists. To him, as to countless others, they had been the first antislavery activists in American culture.⁶

DESPITE THEIR theoretical work, Quaker activists lacked a coherent plan to systematically attack slavery throughout American society. Some Pennsylvania Friends abhorred broader political attacks on bondage. Quakers, they asserted, should focus only on their own transgressions, not on trans-Quaker political debates over slavery.⁷ A group of Philadelphians disagreed: reformers needed to expand their political tactics to end the evil institution. This faction founded the world’s inaugural “abolition society” in 1775. The first Pennsylvania Abolition Society was a loosely formed group of twelve men who met sporadically at the beginning of the Revolution, disbanded while the War of Independence raged, and then reorganized in 1784. The latter year also saw the establishment of the New York Manumission Society (NYMS), and soon other groups organized in New Jersey, Connecticut, and Rhode Island and abortively in Maryland, Virginia, and Kentucky. Abroad, groups with varying commitments (from abolishing the slave trade to slavery itself) formed in Great Britain and France.

The New York society joined its Pennsylvania counterpart as one of the most visible first-generation abolitionist organizations. Inaugurated in New York City in January 1784, the NYMS advocated the gradual abolition of slavery, established schools for free blacks, aided African Americans in courts of law, and fought to end the overseas and domestic slave trades. Like the PAS, the New York group received official incorporation from the state government and welcomed prominent statesmen into its ranks, including John Jay and Alexander Hamilton. Quaker and Anglican members stood out as well; in fact, during its first three decades of operation the Society of Friends contributed over 50 percent of its membership. In many ways, the New York Manumission Society faced a more daunting task than reformers in Pennsylvania. New York remained the largest slave-holding polity north of Maryland and Virginia, with 21,000 enslaved people during the 1790s. The NYMS petitioned the New York legislature to pass gradual abolitionist statutes but was rebuffed several times. Even John Jay’s gubernatorial administration in the mid-1790s failed to win passage of such legislation. Just before the century ended, however, New York adopted a statute similar to that of Pennsylvania. According to the new law, all slaves born after July 4, 1799, must be registered at a state office; men were to be liberated at age twenty-five and women at age twenty-eight.⁸ In 1827 the legislature would issue a final emancipation decree.

The New York society earned a reputation for assisting distressed blacks in both New York City and New Jersey. It confronted sea captains who brought slaves into port in violation of federal statutes and established a legal aid system to help kidnapped blacks secure their freedom. New York City masters often evaded the state’s gradual abolition act by selling slaves South before they were to be freed. This domestic slave trade also ensnared free blacks, as slave traders unscrupulously captured black men and women who could not prove their freedom. Perhaps as important, the New Yorkers helped abolish a local law that allowed masters to bring unruly slaves to city prisons for punishment as well as the slave catchers’ practice of using local jails to hold fugitives captured in surrounding states.

The Manumission Society’s sponsorship of free African schools proved to be one of its most enduring legacies. Between 1787, when the NYMS established its first school in New York City, and the 1820s, when it administered nearly a half-dozen schools, over two thousand black pupils received an education at NYMS-sponsored schools. Graduates included such future luminaries in black protest as Henry Highland Garnet, Alexander Crummel, and Samuel Ringgold Ward. Although New York abolitionists utilized black teachers, some of the city’s leading African American figures began criticizing the paternalistic attitudes of the society. This development revealed tensions inherent in early abolitionism, in both New York and Pennsylvania. The New York Manumission Society did not encourage black members to join, and black activists were often treated as less-than-equal participants in the broader struggle against slavery. When Freedom’s Journal began publication in New York City in 1827, it highlighted the protests of activists such as William Hamilton, who sought more autonomy in black education. By the early 1830s black reformers had gained more control of the schools.⁹

The American Convention of Abolition Societies was the third main abolitionist organization during the early national era. Formed in 1794 to give the movement national scope, the convention became a clearinghouse for abolitionist tactics. Although it met biennially between the 1790s and early 1830s (when it disbanded), and although it attracted abolitionists from the South and West, the group never became a potent national protest organization. In fact, it was dominated by the Pennsylvania and New York groups. Nevertheless, the American Convention did have prominent moments, such as spearheading a petition drive in the early 1790s to urge Congress to ban the slave trade. This effort produced petitions from several abolitionist groups. Congress responded in 1794 by passing a measure that somewhat limited American participation in the Middle Passage. According to the new law, ship captains could not use foreign ports for their human cargo. (The PAS prosecuted several captains who violated the statute.) The American Convention was interesting for one final reason: it did not prohibit any state abolitionist society from admitting slaveholders. Although the Pennsylvania Abolition Society in particular encouraged southern abolitionist groups to expel slaveholders, even it realized that northern abolitionists could not dictate terms to their would-be brethren. Abolitionist groups in Kentucky, Maryland, and Virginia appreciated the PAS’S understanding position. Still, it quickly became clear to Pennsylvania and New York abolitionists that the American Convention would never build a united front against bondage.

At the same time, first-generation abolitionists believed that their movement would slowly but surely destroy American slavery. The backdrop of Revolutionary events had much to do with this optimism. The American Revolution spawned the first consistent secular challenge to slavery in the Western world, reversing, in essence, the institution’s centuries-long normative standing among philosophers and statesmen. By focusing attention on natural rights theory and self-determination, the Revolution unleashed a utopian vision of human freedom and possibility. Utilizing the works of European philosophers, from Jean-Jacques Rousseau to Adam Smith, American colonists battling Britain began rigorously defining the meaning of freedom, liberty, and equality in human society. These libertarian trends soon affected slavery, as guilt-ridden American masters manumitted thousands of slaves following the Revolution. A transatlantic spirit had clearly taken shape by the 1770s, making slavery anathema to emerging republican governmental systems. Indeed, slavery became one of the dirtiest words in the English language.¹⁰

The Pennsylvania Abolition Society hoped to make these antislavery trends the basis for firm abolitionist policies in government and law. “The sentiment of Thomas Jefferson was very fine in theory,” one Pennsylvania abolitionist subsequently remarked about the difference between mere antislavery philosophies and abolitionist action, “but it would have been enhanced a thousand fold if Jefferson had practiced what he preached. Precept without example is like faith without works—it is dead.¹¹ Calling for less antislavery talk and more abolitionist laws and court decisions, the PAS dedicated itself to crafting concrete solutions for governments and statesmen now conscious of slavery’s evil.

Founding an abolitionist society to formulate abolitionist action had several virtues, PAS members asserted. First, it allowed abolitionists to coordinate specific activities aimed at eradicating slavery. The PAS devised a Quarterly Meeting schedule to plan various tactics, such as representing blacks in court and drafting legislative petitions. Four times a year, the society convened a general meeting to hear reports from a host of specialized committees. For instance, the aptly named Acting Committee summarized recent PAS work (particularly the group’s ever-expanding docket of court cases) and set the agenda for future political action. The Corresponding Committee communicated PAS plans to members and allies in America and Europe. Other committees dealt with concerns ranging from membership to black educational institutions.

The PAS worked rigidly within the committee model to achieve its goals. If it was no longer just a religious trend or secular spirit, the group argued, then abolition itself needed to be a highly structured and efficient movement. The PAS committee system, like its Quarterly Meeting schedule, bylaws, and official constitution, established firm guidelines for abolitionist procedures. Pennsylvania reformers never improvised tactics or transcended the society’s rules. For instance, to attack the domestic slave trade during the 1810s, the PAS formed several committees with specialized tasks. A preliminary committee interviewed black kidnapping victims, white eyewitnesses, and legal officials to obtain statistics and depositions on the domestic slave trade. Another committee drafted petitions asking state and federal governments to take appropriate steps to curtail the domestic trade in blacks. A third committee corresponded with various statesmen (and haunted legislative chambers) until an anti-slave-trading bill had been crafted. On any number of other issues—the overseas slave trade, slavery’s constitutional existence in the District of Columbia, legal action of all kinds—Pennsylvania abolitionists carefully proceeded through their maze of committees.

Forming an abolitionist society offered more than mere structure: it brought together elite activists who could better promote abolitionist action among political and legal officials. A lone antislavery preacher might be easily ignored or discounted, but an organized group of “weighty and influential” abolitionists would have an impact in legislative halls, courtrooms, and the private chambers of statesmen. Although the PAS attracted nearly four hundred dues-paying members in its first twenty-five years, it prized the elite above all. Potential activists had to be nominated by PAS members and, if elected to the society, pay annual dues. The support of figures such as Benjamin Franklin (the group’s first president) or Nicholas Waln (a prominent Pennsylvania lawyer and congressman) provided access to other statesmen and civic leaders, thereby magnifying abolition’s impact on governing elites.¹² The PAS bragged when personages like Benjamin Rush, Tench Coxe, and Albert Gallatin joined the group. In addition, some of America’s most distinguished statesmen and philanthropists counted themselves corresponding members—among them, Noah Webster, Theodore Sedgewick, and Elbridge Gerry. General Lafayette became a corresponding member from France, as did William Wilberforce, Grenville Sharpe, and other celebrities from Britain.¹³

To further enhance its credentials in the government sector, the PAS gained official incorporation from the Pennsylvania General Assembly in 1789. This formal sanction provided “force and stability,” as one PAS correspondent put it, to organized abolition, for it put political representatives, judges, and even slaveholders on notice that the legally recognized body of activists could sue individuals in court, bargain with slaveholders for blacks’ freedom, and request civil authorities (sheriffs, jailers, justices of the peace) to support abolitionist activities.¹⁴ Far from a band of ad hoc preachers or well-intentioned philanthropists, the PAS now claimed the same official standing as a chartered bank or business enterprise.

Members emphasized this fact. James Pemberton, who succeeded Benjamin Franklin as PAS president in 1790, took every opportunity to tell statesmen around the country about the Pennsylvania Abolition Society. “You have heard that an association has been formed in this city to advocate the cause of the oppressed blacks,” Pemberton wrote to New Jersey governor William Livingston in the late 1780s, “under the name of the Society for the abolition of slavery.” To buttress its systematic legal and political “exertions,” he explained, the PAS was writing to governors throughout the United States for information on slave laws and to inform them about this exclusive abolitionist organization. Pemberton asked Livingston to help him, as one prominent official to another, to “obtain authenticated copies of . . . those laws lately enacted by the Legislature of New Jersey” relating to blacks and slavery. Pemberton found a fast friend in Livingston, who became a correspondent with, and advocate for, the PAS before his death in 1790.¹⁵ Pemberton remained convinced that his success with Livingston and other luminaries stemmed directly from the PAS’S incorporation by the state legislature.

Again and again, the PAS used its official standing to penetr...