JAMES G. BIRNEY 
 AND HIS TIMES 
 
 THE GENESIS OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY 
 
 WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF 
 ABOLITION MOVEMENTS IN THE SOUTH BEFORE 1823 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM BIRNEY 
 
 EX-BBEVET MAJOR-GENERAL, UNITED STATES VOLUNTEERS 
 
 The abolition of slavery in the United States 
 was neither an accident nor a miracle ; it was a 
 result of evolution. 
 
 V 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
 1890 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1889, 
 BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. 
 
TO 
 
 THE STUDEXTS OF AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 THIS CONTRIBUTION TO ITS MATERIAL 
 
 IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 SLAVERY agitation in the United States may be con 
 sidered in two great periods. The first begins with the 
 judicial abolition of slavery in Massachusetts in 1783, and 
 the anti-slavery Ordinance of 1787 for the government of 
 the Territory northwest of the Ohio River,, and ends with 
 the abolition of slavery in Xew York on the 4th of July, 
 1827. In its course the number of free States increased 
 from one to twelve, and the number of freedmen nearly 
 three hundred fold. It may be called the abolition era. 
 It was a part of the larger movement which began in 
 1794 with the abolition of slavery in the French West 
 Indies, extinguished it in numerous European colonies 
 and several South American republics, and ended with 
 its abolition in Mexico in 1829, and in the British West 
 Indies in 1833 by act of Parliament. 
 
 The second period begins with the accession of General 
 Jackson to the presidency in 1829, and ends with the abo 
 lition of slavery in the War of the Rebellion. 
 
 In the first period freedom was the assailant of slavery, 
 seeking to extinguish it by moral and religious influences. 
 In the second, the slave-power was the assailant, seeking 
 to overthrow the freedom of speech, of the press, and of 
 the mails, the right of trial by jury, the right of petition, 
 and every other bulwark of civil liberty tp extend slavery 
 over the Territories of the United States and gain undis 
 puted political supremacy in the nation. 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 It was JAMES G. BIRXEY who first called abolitionists 
 away from obsolete issues to the true one. In the summer 
 of 1835 he abandoned his Southern home and removed to 
 Ohio, declaring that the slavery of the blacks had ceased 
 to be the question before the country, and that the liber 
 ties of all American citizens and the safety of the republic 
 were in danger. During the following ten years he was 
 recognized by the opponents of the slave-power as their 
 leader. In 1840, and again in 1844, he was made their 
 candidate for the presidency by unanimous national con 
 ventions. No other name seems to have been thought of 
 in connection with the nomination. His cordial admirer, 
 ex-Representative George W. Julian, of Indiana, writes of 
 him and his co-workers : 
 
 Abolitionism, as a working force in our politics, had to have 
 a beginning, and no man who cherishes the memory of the old 
 Free- Soil party, and of the larger one to which it gave birth, 
 will withhold the meed of his praise from the heroic little band 
 of sappers and miners who blazed the way for the armies which 
 were to follow, and whose voices, though but faintly heard in the 
 whirlwind of 1840, were made distinctly audible in 1844. . . . 
 Their political creed was substantially that of the Free-Soilers of 
 1848 and the Republicans of 1856 and I860. They were any 
 thing but political fanatics, and history will record that their 
 sole offense was the espousal of the truth in advance of the mul 
 titude, which slowly and finally followed in their footsteps. 
 
 James G. Birney was respected even by the enemies 
 of his cause. He was universally regarded as without 
 fear and without stain. The only charge ever made 
 against him by any reputable person was of faithlessness 
 to Henry Clay, in the campaign of 1844 ; and that was 
 made by Horace Greeley in the white heat of his disap 
 pointment at the failure of the Whig campaign. Mr. 
 Greeley afterward retracted it. Mr. Julian says of those 
 who voted for Mr. Birnev : 
 
PREFACE. vii 
 
 Now, in the clear perspective of history, they -stand vindi 
 cated against their Whig assailants, whose fevered brains and 
 party intolerance blinded their eyes to the truth ("Political 
 Recollections," 1884,_p. 43)^ 
 
 Hon. Carl Schurz is eminently fair in his treatment 
 of this subject. He says, in his admirable biography of , 
 Jlenry ClajjV 
 
 The Liberty party consisted of earnest anti-slavery men who 
 pursued their objects by political action. They were not in sym 
 pathy with those abolitionists who lost themselves in " no- 
 government " theories, who denounced the Union and the Con 
 stitution as a "covenant with death and agreement with hell," 
 and who abhorred the exercise of the suffrage under the ConstiX ] 
 tution as a participation in sin. In the language of Birney, they Y 
 "regarded the national Constitution with unabated affection"/ 
 /voL i 
 
 And again : 
 
 Birney, its candidate for the presidency, was a native of Ken 
 tucky. A slaveholder by inheritance, he liberated his slaves 
 and provided generously for them. He was a lawyer of ability, 
 a gentleman of culture, and a vigorous and graceful speaker. 
 Obeying a high sense of duty, he sacrificed the comforts of 
 wealth, home, and position to the cause of universal freedom 
 not as a wild enthusiast or unreasoning fanatic, but as a calm 
 thinker, ..temperate in language, and firm in maintaining his con 
 clusions. His principal conclusion was that slavery and free in 
 stitutions could not exist together. He has been charged with com 
 mitting an act of personal faithlessness in opposing Clay in 1844. 
 This charge was utterly unjust. He had never given Clay or 
 Clay s friends any promise of support. It is true, Clay and Bir 
 ney had maintained a friendly intercourse until 1834 ; but in 
 June of that year they had a conference on the subject of slavery 
 which produced upon Birney a discouraging effect. From that 
 time their friendly .intercourse ceased, and Clay found in Bir 
 ney only a severe critic (Scburz a " Henry Clay," vol. ii, 
 254). 
 
viii PREFACE. 
 
 And again : 
 
 The object of Henry Clay s highest ambition escaped him 
 because, at the decisive moment, he was untrue to himself (ib., 
 page 265). 
 
 For forty years after the sudden close of his political 
 career the fame of James G. Birney escaped detraction. 
 Numerous biographical sketches of him were published 
 in magazines, cyclopaedias, and newspapers; and to the 
 tone of none of them could the most sensitive of his 
 friends take exception. The unfriendly feeling of Mr. 
 Garrison toward him was no secret in the anti-slavery 
 world; but the most devoted of Mr. Garrison s friends 
 did not appear to share it. Xo praise of Mr. Birney was 
 more cordial or appreciative than that bestowed on him 
 by Samuel J. May, Oliver Johnson, and Parker Pillsbury. 
 The first devotes to eulogistic narrative of him more than 
 eight pages of his " Recollections of the Anti-Slavery Con 
 flict" (pages 203-211) ; the second indorses Mr. May s 
 most eulogistic language, and adds that he was " a calm, 
 dignified, and cultured gentleman and Christian " ; and 
 the third, in his curious volume, " Acts of the Anti- 
 Slavery Apostles," mentions him many times and always 
 in the most kindly temper. With such a consensus of 
 favorable appreciation, there seemed to be no special need 
 of a biography of James G. Birney. It transpired, IIOAV- 
 ever, about 1883, that the sons of Mr. Garrison Avere pre 
 paring an ample memoir of their father a work which, 
 from a filial standpoint, involved the reproduction and 
 expression of Mr. Garrison s theories and prejudices. The 
 first two volumes of the memoir appeared in 1885. They 
 were noticed as folloAvs by Hon. A. G. Kiddle, of Ohio, 
 ex-Representative in Congress, in his book " The Life of 
 Benjamin F. AVade," ex-United States Senator, published 
 at Cleveland in 1880 : 
 
PREFACE. i x 
 
 To claim the arousing and marshaling of the force of the 
 mind and conscience of the men of the North against slavery, as 
 pre-eminently the work of one man, is a totally unwarranted as 
 sumption. There is a way of writing history lately attempted 
 which, if accepted without protest, would for the time seem to 
 accomplish this thing. The writers of the biography of the late 
 W. L. Garrison rely quite extensively upon his "Liberator" for 
 authority, and, thus sustained, there really was but one champion 
 of God and freedom in the North. Should the sons of the late 
 J. G. Birney accept the challenge, work as largely and as nar 
 rowly, drawing their authority from a similar source, they would 
 for him make a case every whit as strong. Neither work would 
 be accepted finally as history ; both w r ould be great contributions 
 to it, of value beyond estimation. This last work should be 
 at once set about. It would have this unequaled advantage 
 slavery was overthrown ~by political means. Mr. Garrison refused 
 their use, opposed with the might of his trenchant pen and re 
 sounding voice their employment and the men who used them. 
 
 Mr. Birney was among the first to see that the most effective 
 single thing was the employment of political power, backed of 
 course by all the moral forces. He was the first to employ it. 
 He, too, was a candidate for the presidency in 1840. 
 
 He was hewn from the mountains, rejected of politicians, to 
 become But I am not to anticipate. He was placed in the field 
 largely by the clear -seeing Myron Holley, . . . and received 
 but 7,059 votes, provoking gibes and sneers from the Whigs, de 
 rision and sarcasm from Garrison. They w r ere allies against Bir 
 ney ("Life oTWade/^ageJjS). 
 
 The " Life of William Lloyd Garrison " by his sons is 
 in four large octavo volumes, the last two -having been 
 published in October last. They are the product of the 
 labor of years, and, in the numerous notes and painfully 
 minute references to authorities, most of them to the 
 "Liberator," indicate that they were intended for students 
 of history in public libraries rather than for the general 
 reader. They may be regarded as in the nature of a legal 
 brief, filed for posterity, in behalf of William Lloyd Gar- 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 rison, against the American people, the South, the West, 
 the Union, the Church, the clergy, the press, Benjamin 
 Lundy, James G-. Birney, and all other political abolition 
 ists. 
 
 As the sons of Mr. Garrison have unequaled facilities 
 for " sifting " their theories and filial claims into the pub 
 lic mind, being literary men by profession and connected 
 as editors, contributors, readers, and managers, with pub 
 lishing houses, magazines, and metropolitan newspapers, 
 surviving political abolitionists can not afford to let their 
 brief go without answer or protest. In the present vol 
 ume, written in moments taken from the cares of an ex 
 acting profession, the writer has sought to correct their 
 mistakes and errors, and to substitute a true for a false 
 theory of the anti-slavery and slavery movements. Upon 
 the issues made he invokes the impartial judgment of the 
 men who write American history. If he shall not have 
 the good fortune to win their attention and verdict, he 
 trusts that the general reader will rise from the perusal of 
 this book with clearer views of the strong currents of 
 political opinion that preceded the Great Rebellion, and 
 with increased respect and admiration for the men who 
 dared for the liberties of this people to begin the battle 
 with the Slave -Power, but who died before the victory 
 was won. 
 
 Speak, History, who are Life s victors ? Unroll thy long annals 
 
 and say 
 Are they those whom the world called the victors who won the 
 
 success of a day ? 
 The martyrs or Nero ? The Spartans who fell at Thermopylae s 
 
 tryst, 
 Or the Persians and Xerxes ? His judges or Socrates ? Pilate or 
 
 Christ ? 
 
 WASHINGTON, D. C., December 15, 1SSO. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. THE ANCESTORS . - . 1 
 
 II. THE FATHER . . . . . 8 
 
 III.-: INFANCY AND YOUTH, 1792-1808 9 
 
 IV. ANTI-SLAVERY INFLUENCES IN YOUTH. . 
 
 V. LIFE AT PRINCETON, 1808-1810 . . . . .25 
 
 VI. BETWEEN COLLEGE AND THE BAR, 1810-1814 . . .29 
 
 VII. His LIFE IN KENTUCKY, 1814-1818 . . . .81 
 
 VIII. LAWYER PLANTER POLITICIAN, IN ALABAMA, 1S18-1823 36 
 
 IX. LIFE AT HUNTSVILLE, ALABAMA, 1823-1826 . . .44 
 
 X. LIFE AT HUNTSVILLE, 1826-1827 , . . . 55 
 
 XI. THE POLITICAL CAMPAIGN OF 1828 63 
 
 XII. ABOLITION IN THE SOUTH BEFORE 1828 . . . 
 XIII. LONG VISIT TO THE FREE STATES, 1830 . . . .87 
 XIV. ABANDONS PARTY POLITICS INTENDED REMOVAL TO ILLI 
 NOISVISIT OF T. D. WELD, 1830-1832 ... 96 
 XV. EXPERIENCE AS AN AGENT OF THE COLONIZATION SOCIETY, 
 
 1832-1833 Ill 
 
 XVI. FROM COLONIZATION, THROUGH GRADUAL EMANCIPATION, TO 
 
 IMMEDIATE ABOLITION, 1833-1334 . . . . 131 
 
 XVIL ANTI-SLAVERY WORK IN KENTUCKY, 1834-1835 . . 143 
 
 XVIII. A WIDER SPHERE OF ACTION, 1835 . . . . . 160 
 
 XIX. HE IS OSTRACIZED IN KENTUCKY AND GOES TO OHIO, 1835 . 180 
 
 XX. THE GENESIS OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, 1835-1836 . 188 
 XXL THE CINCINNATI MOB OF JANUARY, 1836 . . . . 204 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 XXII. THE EDITOR, 1836, 1837 220 
 
 XXII I. THE MOB AT CINCINNATI, JULY, 183G PRO-SLAVERY 
 
 MOBS 240 
 
 XXIV. LIFE IN CINCINNATI, 1SSG-1S37 256 
 
 XXV. THE XO-GOVERNMENT VAGARY 269 
 
 XXVI. THE PHILOSOPHY OF BOSTON VAGARIES . . . .281 
 XXVII. THE SCHISM OF THE GARRISONIANS, 1837-1840 . . 2C5 V 
 
 XXVIII." THE SMALL EXTREME WING " 314 
 
 XXIX. THE LIBERTY FREE SOIL REPUBLICAN PARTY . 332 ]/ 
 
 XXX. TRAITS OF CHARACTER y5 ? 
 
 XXXI. TWELVE YEARS AN INVALID CONCLUSION . . .373 
 
 APPENDIX A. ANTI-SLAVERY BOOKS BEFORE 1831 
 
 " B. SKETCH OF BENJAMIN LUNDY S LIFE . 
 
 " C. NATIONAL ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETIES . . . 407 
 
 D. JAMES G. BIRNEY S LETTER TO W. L. STONE . . 423 
 
 E. IMMEDIATE ABOLITIONISTS IN OHIO BEFORE 1830 . 430 
 
 " F. WRITINGS OF JAMES G. BIRNEY . . . .435 
 
 INDEX . .... 437 
 
JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE ANCESTORS. 
 
 THE subject of this sketch was of pure Protestant 
 Scotch- Irish descent. His ancestors on both sides be 
 longed to that distinct type of mankind created by two 
 centuries of civil wars and exclusive intermarriages out of 
 the native Irishmen who had followed Henry VIII into 
 the Church of England and the Scotch colonists of James 
 I, with some intermixture of Englishmen and Huguenot 
 exiles. It was confined to the nine counties in the north 
 eastern part of Ireland which are known as the province 
 of Ulster ; and, by its intelligence, thrift, industry, and in 
 ventive talent, has made that province one of the great 
 manufacturing centers of the world. It has furnished to 
 the United States many of the strong men who have 
 helped to shape republican institutions. Among these 
 may be named Andrew Jackson, John C. Calhoun, the 
 Shelbys, the Logans, the McDowells, A. T. Stewart, and 
 Horace Greeley all distinguished for ability, energy, 
 moral courage, and tenacity of purpose. With the aid of 
 Hart s elaborate work on Irish pedigrees, the author 
 might trace the genealogy of James Gillespie Birney to a 
 remote period, finding some historical characters among 
 his progenitors ; but the facts, even if established, possess 
 no anthropological value. Although it is true that each 
 man is the result of converging hereditary forces, these 
 2 
 
2 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 are too numerous for examination, the ancestors within 
 ten generations exceeding two thousand. It will be 
 enough for the purposes of this book to give a few authen 
 tic data respecting the grandparents and parents. 
 
 The paternal grandfather owned the old family home 
 stead near Cootehill, County Cavan. He was a prosper 
 ous farmer and miller, a church vestryman, a magistrate, 
 and influential in local affairs. His wife was a member of 
 the Church of England, and a woman of strongly marked 
 character. There were several children. 
 
 The maternal grandfather was John Read, a native of 
 Londonderry. Inheriting wealth and high social position, 
 he had been liberally educated, and had traveled in for 
 eign countries. His tall and graceful person, handsome 
 features, ruddy complexion, blond hair, culture, and court 
 ly manners made him a remarkable individual. For his 
 grandson James he always had a strong affection, and, 
 for several years, he made the boy his companion and 
 pupil. His migration to the United States was a conse 
 quence of the discovery of some political intrigue of his 
 against the British Government. He was in Kentucky as 
 early as 1779. In that year he built a fort, about two miles 
 from Danville, and a mansion which remains to this day. 
 He married Lettice Wilcox. Their youngest son, Thomas 
 B. Read, was, in 1826, United States Senator from Missis- 
 sipi. Their daughters were carefully educated ; they were 
 all well married, and among their descendants are found 
 many of the distinguished men of Kentucky, including 
 Judge John Green, Judge Thomas Green, Rev. Lewis W. 
 Green, D. D., Dr. Willis G. Craig, Dr. Edwards, of St. 
 Louis, and General Humphrey Marshall. Mr. Read was 
 remarkable for conversational talent, and some of the most 
 able men of Kentucky were often his guests. It was in his 
 parlors that his grandson received much of the kind of 
 education given to youth by the conversation of the wise. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 THE FATHER. 
 
 JAMES GILLESPIE BIRNEY was an only son. When 
 he was three years old his mother died, leaving him and 
 an infant sister to the care of the father. The surviving 
 parent did all a strong and rugged man could do to sup 
 ply the place of maternal tenderness. The bright and 
 sturdy boy awakened a strong paternal pride ; and before 
 he had learned his letters the father had marked out for 
 him a course of training and studies with a well-formed 
 intention to make of him a lawyer and statesman ; and this 
 course, with unimportant modifications, was afterwards per 
 sistently adhered to. This singular devotion was an im 
 portant factor in the formation of the character of the 
 son, and justifies an account of the father which in most 
 biographies would be too minute. 
 
 In September, 1783, an adventurous Irish lad of six 
 teen, whose imagination was aglow with the glories of the 
 young American republic, left secretly his father s com 
 fortable home in the County Cavan, and embarked at 
 Dublin for Philadelphia. He had little baggage and less 
 money, but he was broad-shouldered and active, with a 
 manly bearing and pleasing address. On the day of his 
 arrival in Philadelphia, with no recommendation except 
 intelligence and a clerkly handwriting, he obtained em 
 ployment in a wholesale and retail dry-goods house. There 
 he remained until he was twenty-one years of age, working 
 his way up until he was the leading employe of the firm. 
 
4 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 Choosing the frontier settlement of Kentucky as his future 
 home, he obtained a stock of goods in Philadelphia on 
 credit, and, in the autumn of 1788, opened a store at 
 Danville, which was then the leading town in Kentucky 
 trade, politics, religion, and social life. Each year there 
 after, until the Pennsylvania Canal was ready for use and 
 steamboat navigation on the Ohio had facilitated the 
 transportation of merchandise from the East to Ken 
 tucky, the young merchant traversed the great wilderness 
 with an armed party, camping out at night and sleeping 
 on his rifle, purchased his stock in Philadelphia, and con 
 veyed it to Danville, using for part of the route covered 
 wagons drawn by Conestoga horses, but for the roadless 
 mountains and forests pack-horses and mules. The diffi 
 culties and dangers of this mode of transportation at that 
 time required courage and energy on the part of the fron 
 tier merchant. As he prospered he established a branch 
 store at Stamford and a bagging factory, with ropewalk, 
 at Danville. He organized and became president of the 
 local bank, and conducted it successfully for a great many 
 years, turning it over to his successor in thrifty and sound 
 condition. During the War of 1812 he was a contractor 
 on a large scale for furnishing supplies to the Western 
 army. All his business engagements were promptly met. 
 A note with his name on it w r as never protested. His 
 business enterprises were uniformly successful. For many 
 years he was reputed to be the richest man in Kentucky, 
 and one of the most cordial in his hospitality. His estate 
 of Woodlawn, the front gate of which was but a short 
 half-mile from Danville, was as beautiful as blue-grass 
 slopes, noble forest trees, and good taste in landscape could 
 make it. The view from the house was through the 
 glades and avenues of a noble park. In the march of 
 improvement railroads have so intersected this property, 
 and houses have been so built upon it, that the original 
 
THE FATHER. 5 
 
 landmarks have disappeared. His winter residence was a 
 large brick mansion in Danville. 
 
 In his day, James Birney was one of the noted men of 
 Kentucky. From one end of the State to the other his 
 name was familiar in every household. His sayings were 
 quoted where he was not personally known. His char 
 acter was strongly marked. Any old citizen of that State 
 will remember him as a very positive man. He had no 
 quality of a trimmer. One knew always where to find 
 him. No one ever doubted that he would be true to his 
 friends, or imagined that he would give back a hair s- 
 breadth before his enemies. His courage, both moral and 
 physical, had been proved in the numerous emergencies 
 of frontier life. He was full of generous impulses ; easily 
 excited by meanness or disingenuousness ; strong in his 
 personal attachments ; quick in his resentments ; and 
 frank, bold, and vehement in asserting a right or declar 
 ing an opinion. He took great interest in studying theo 
 ries of government and the causes of the rise and fall of 
 nations. The " Federalist " was his favorite book, and 
 next to it, Gibbon s " Rome." In politics he was a Con 
 servative, with Federalist tendencies. Washington was his 
 beau ideal of a patriot and statesman, and Chief Justice 
 Marshall of a judge. He dissected Jefferson and his opin 
 ions with a rough-edged scalpel. He believed cordially in 
 a protective tariff, and cherished the warmest friendship, 
 political and personal, for its advocate, " Harry Clay," re 
 ceiving him as an honored guest on his frequent visits 
 to Danville, and reading all his speeches, or, worse still 
 (horresco referens), making the writer of this sketch read 
 them to him. He admired Calhoun for his intellect, but 
 detested his theories. For General Jackson he cherished 
 an antipathy that amounted to rancor, and the feeling 
 prepossessed him against the general s personal and po 
 litical friends. 
 
JAMES G. BIKN T EY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 Into the shaping and direction of local affairs, includ 
 ing politics, he threw himself with ardor, firmly refusing, 
 however, to seek or hold office. He was the main-stay of 
 the Clay party in Mercer County up to about 1828, when 
 his active business life was suddenly interrupted. The 
 rustling of a dry corn-blade in a puff of wind caused a 
 spirited horse to spring from him as he was mounting ; 
 the fall fractured his thigh-bone, and condemned him to 
 his bed for a year and to crutches for life. 
 
 In religion he was a zealous rather than orthodox Epis 
 copalian. The support of that Church was with him a 
 matter of traditional family honor, and when his son 
 joined the Presbyterians his pride was deeply wounded. 
 This always remained a tender spot with him. To his 
 efforts and liberality were chiefly due the erection of the 
 Danville Episcopal Church building, about 1828, and the 
 maintenance of a regular ministry. Every Sunday morn 
 ing he occupied his large front pew at the left of the chan 
 cel and joined in the responses ; and, generally, he had the 
 minister home with him to a good dinner with friends. 
 All this did not prevent his discussing Church history 
 with striking disrespect for priestly rule and handling 
 some of the Old Testament worthies without gloves. He 
 was the first man the writer ever heard descant upon cer 
 tain weaknesses in the characters of David and Solomon. 
 It was a pleasure to him to engage theological students or 
 ministers in controversy upon points of ecclesiastical his 
 tory or doctrinal differences, and puzzle them with his 
 irony, raillery, and thorough acquaintance with the au 
 thorities. His reading had been extensive chiefly in poli 
 tics, biography, history, and travels and he used his 
 knowledge with shrewd common sense, expressing himself 
 with spirit, force, and often with wit. He knew little 
 Latin and no Greek, but his conversation was bright 
 enough to interest men of learning. Students, tutors, and 
 
THE FATHER, 7 
 
 professors from Center College were his frequent visitors, 
 and few intelligent travelers passed through Danville with 
 out calling on the invalid. He received all with a boun 
 tiful hospitality that characterized Kentucky in the first 
 half of the century. Though his sarcasm and frankness 
 made him a terror to hypocrites and time-servers, he was 
 respectful to the sincere and civil to strangers. To women 
 he was gentle as summer, and to children, tender and in 
 dulgent. To his poor neighbors he was kind; of poor 
 tenants he exacted no rent ; and though one or two stu 
 dents were always members of his family, they were such 
 on the footing of friends only. He invited those he liked 
 and admired. In money matters he was liberal, refusing, 
 however, to indorse notes for any except a few intimate 
 friends. Woodlawn was the home of twenty-odd slaves. 
 These were never punished or sold, being regarded as held 
 for their protection as well as his convenience. All the 
 harsh features of slavery were toned down. The overseer 
 was obliged to manage without the whip, and got along 
 peacefully with the slaves if not profitably for the owner. 
 Most of the negroes had been born on the estate, and they 
 looked upon their master with mingled fear and affection. 
 It must be admitted, however, that they took the farming 
 and rope-spinning life easily; they were almost as lazy 
 as the fifteen to twenty pure- bred mares and colts that 
 roamed through the rich pastures, costly pets of the 
 owner. 
 
 It was the custom among the farmers in the neighbor 
 hood of Danville to visit town every Saturday. That was 
 the great day for seeing each other on business, pleasure, 
 or politics. Early in the morning of that day, during the 
 years after his accident, when the weather permitted, 
 James Birney was driven to town. His usual seat was in 
 the store belonging to David Bell, his former clerk, his 
 successor and life-long friend, and there he held a grand 
 
8 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 levee until late in the afternoon. It seemed to the writer, 
 who was often his grandfather s attendant on such occa 
 sions, that hardly any tradesman, professional man, or 
 farmer failed to pay his respects to the venerable cripple. 
 He had a kind word or inquiry or jest for each one, and 
 his chair was often surrounded by a group amused at his 
 repartees, wit, and rollicking humor ; in all which, how 
 ever, he maintained a certain personal dignity, never utter 
 ing a coarse word. The man who forgot himself so far as 
 to utter one in his presence never escaped without an 
 effective rebuke. 
 
 About two years after James Birney opened his store 
 at Danville he married Miss Read, one of the daughters 
 of the political exile mentioned in the first chapter. Tra 
 dition makes her beautiful and intellectual. Her parents 
 did not think the handsome and energetic young merchant 
 a suitable mate for her, and the young people were obliged 
 to make a Gretna Green affair of the marriage. Her home 
 was a happy one, but she died in 1795, leaving a son and 
 infant daughter, James Gillespie and Anna Maria. The 
 latter married John J. Marshall, well known in Kentucky 
 annals as a law reporter and judge. She was the mother 
 of James Birney Marshall, who earned distinction as an 
 editor, and of Humphrey Marshall, who was successively 
 Representative in Congress, Minister to China, and Con 
 federate major-general. For many years she was a leader 
 in society at Frankfort, the State capital. Her reputation 
 for conversational talent and general ability is one of the 
 social traditions of Kentucky. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 INFANCY AND YOUTH. 
 
 JAMES GILLESPIE BIRXEY was born, February 4, 
 1792, at Danville. After the death of his mother, he and 
 his sister were placed under the care of Mrs. Doyle, the 
 oldest sister of his father. She was a widow and childless, 
 and, at the request of her brother, came from Ireland to 
 take charge of his two children and preside over his house 
 hold duties for which an affectionate nature, sound 
 sense, good education, agreeable manners, and fervent 
 piety peculiarly qualified her. She continued to perform 
 them until the children were grown and until the second 
 marriage of her brother. His house was her home until 
 her decease, about the year 1834. Her nephew could not 
 have been dearer to her if he had been her own son ; and 
 he returned her affection. Whenever he was at Wood- 
 lawn, he passed much of his time with her. During his 
 residence in Alabama he wrote to her regularly and fre 
 quently ; and when the writer was sent, in 1828, to 
 Woodlawn on a long visit it was strictly enjoined on 
 him to do all in his power to amuse and make her 
 happy. Dear old lady ! how vividly I remember her ven 
 erable figure, with the shawl, spectacles, knitting, and 
 prayer-book ! 
 
 The boy grew up among numerous relatives and con 
 nections. His father s married sisters, Mrs. Gillespie and 
 
10 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 Mrs. Whelan, with their husbands and children, migrated 
 from Ireland and settled near Danville, about 1795. 
 These families were intelligent and in good circumstances. 
 Mr. Gillespie bought a valuable farm about a mile from 
 Danville, and Mr. Whelan another, four miles distant, 
 and extending to the precipitous bluffs and romantic 
 scenery of Dick s River. 
 
 The relatives on the mother s side greatly exceeded in 
 numbers those on the father s. There were two uncles 
 and five aunts, all of whom had married, and, up to 1808, 
 had their homes in Mercer County. There was no lack of 
 cousins ; the motherless child had many companions and 
 playmates among them. The attachments formed then 
 were generally strong enough to survive the political dif 
 ferences of mature years. 
 
 The boy was not timid, shy, or dreamy ; he was sturdy, 
 self-possessed, and gifted with strong common sense. He 
 had inherited a healthful and robust constitution. He 
 was not only vigorous, but active and bright. He took 
 pleasure in athletic exercises ; at an early age he learned 
 to ride, shoot, swim, skate, and dance. He was fond of 
 the companionship of girls. His father was proud of his 
 beauty and promise. In his treatment of him the father 
 was governed by the maxim of the ancient sage, " Respect 
 youth." The intercourse between father and son was 
 marked during their lives by affection, confidence, and the 
 deferential manner of the old school. It is needless to 
 say that the rod was not used. The father s pride and the 
 aunt s gentleness alike forbade it. The boy grew up frank, 
 truthful, manly, self-respecting, and courageous. In those 
 days brutality was tolerated in schools; the teacher was 
 called the " master," . and the emblem of his authority, 
 the rod, lay on his desk. James did not escape discipline ; 
 when he had committed a fault he scorned to shelter him 
 self by evasion, but most of his troubles at school were due 
 
INFANCY AND YOUTH. H 
 
 to the fact that he was always ready with his fists to aid a 
 comrade against heavy odds. 
 
 At eleven years of age he was sent to Transylvania 
 University, at Lexington. His companions were a son of 
 ex-Governor Isaac Shelby and George Eobertson, who 
 afterward became a famous judge and was honored by hav 
 ing a Kentucky county named after him. He remained 
 at that institution, vacations excepted, until the New 
 Year s holidays of 1805- 6, when he returned home to en 
 ter a " seminary " which had been opened at Danville by 
 Dr. Priestly. During his summer-vacation visit, when 
 he was thirteen, there occurred an incident that illustrates 
 his character. He went with two other boys, one a cousin, 
 to a piece of deep water, to swim. He was a good swim 
 mer, his cousin a beginner. At a distance from the shore 
 a rail was driven into the bottom of the pond. Its place 
 was marked by a float. On its top, a foot or two below 
 the surface, one might pause and rest. On this James 
 stood and encouraged his cousin to swim out to him. The 
 attempt was a failure. The boy sank. James swam to 
 him, and was trying to help him when he was clasped and 
 pulled under the water ; but he extricated himself and 
 succeeded in placing the boy upon the rail. He then 
 swam ashore, rested, and returning brought his comrade 
 out in safety. While the danger was at its greatest, the 
 companion, who was on the shore, shouted to James to 
 save himself. Eeferring to this just after his escape, he 
 said, quietly, " It never entered my mind to leave him." 
 Many anecdotes of his unselfishness and courage were cur 
 rent among his relatives in the days of my boyhood. I 
 give this one because I heard it from the cousin. It is 
 given in Green s " Life of Birney," published in 1844. 
 
 The next two years were spent in studies preparatory 
 to an intended course in the College of New Jersey. What 
 these studies were and what his teacher thought of his 
 
12 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 character at the close of this period, and what, nearly a 
 half-century later, he thought of his teacher may be gath 
 ered from the following documents : 
 
 On the first page of a large scrap-book made up by 
 James G. Birney is this entry in his own handwriting, in 
 1850: 
 
 February 4th. For my grandson and namesake (James G. 
 Birney, Jr., oldest son of James Birney) at Cincinnati: 
 
 This book, unlike most other things, will be more valuable as 
 it advances in age. When you come to be a half-century old, or 
 as old as I am, it will be to you a remembrancer of old times. I 
 also send you with it a letter which you can keep. You will see 
 it was written by a preceptor of mine who, I need hardly tell after 
 such evidence as his letter affords, was a learned man. He was 
 considerably advanced in age, and had had great experience in 
 teaching. He had married, some twenty or five and twenty years 
 before, a Miss McBride, whose family lived in or near Harrods- 
 burg, and about that time had taught a school, I think, in Bairds- 
 town, which was attended by many young men who afterward 
 became distinguished in Kentucky Felix Grundy, John Rowan, 
 John Pope, and, I believe, Joseph V. Davis were among them. 
 He then removed, if I mistake not, to Baltimore, where he had a 
 school. Then he returned to Kentucky and settled at Danville. 
 He was probably fickle and unsteady as to his residence; for, 
 although he had a numerous school when I left it to go to 
 Princeton, he had gone away before my return in about two years 
 and a half. I have never heard of him since. He was a member, 
 though by no means an active one, of the Presbyterian Church, 
 and doubtless quite a learned man of those times. 
 
 Letter from James Priestly to James Birney, Esq., father of James 
 G. Birney. 
 
 DANTILLE, March, 30, 1808 
 
 DEAR Sm: As you have determined rightly, I think, in the 
 present state of the Western country, to send your son to a dis. 
 tant seat of learning, I will recount to you before he goes, as far 
 as I can recollect, the studies he has pursued and the text-books 
 he has used under my direction for the last two years. He gave 
 
INFANCY AND YOUTH. 13 
 
 but little of his time to the learned languages and none to geog 
 raphy, as I understood he had studied these as far as is common 
 before he came to me. Part of Euclid, too, he had learned before. 
 With me he studied the fifth and sixth books of Euclid, Simson s 
 "Plane Trigonometry," the greater part of common arithmetic 
 and algebra, as far as the solution of simple equations, Murray s 
 " Grammar " without the exercises, Watts s " Logic " and "Im 
 provement of the Mind," Ferguson s "Lectures" and "Astrono 
 my," Blair s "Lectures," Adams and Rennet s "Roman An 
 tiquities," Paley s "Moral Philosophy " and "Natural Theology," 
 Blackstone s "Commentaries," and part of St. Pierre s "Studies 
 of Nature." In the second year, a little time was employed in 
 classical learning, and he read three comedies of Terence, one 
 book of Tacitus s "Annals, "and went hastily over the critical 
 epistles of Horace, and three books of his odes, and read a book 
 or two of Homer. A number of these studies have not been re 
 viewed, as I entertained for a while the hope of resuming them 
 in a course of lectures, of adding the many important ones that 
 have not been touched, of referring to the best authors on each 
 subject, and thoroughly investigating the whole. But this I 
 found to be, in my situation, impossible. One person is not 
 equal to the task of preparing good lectures on every subject ; 
 nor, if he even adopts the matured works of the best professors, 
 can he study them all and make a proper use of them while he 
 must at the same time superintend the conduct of all the classes 
 in a seminary from the lowest to the highest, and instruct them 
 all. 
 
 It is proper, therefore, that James should reside some years at 
 a college, where there are many professors, with a good library 
 and apparatus. If the rules of the place will allow him to live 
 in a private house and to attend the lectures of several professors 
 w T ith different classes, as in the universities of Britain, he may 
 pass those years with great profit. What he has already done 
 will render some studies lighter and more pleasant, and leave him 
 time and spirits for others that will be quite new to him, so that 
 he may keep way with more than one class. I profited most 
 when I began again with those who had never studied the same 
 things before. 
 
 I mention a private family, because I think he does not need 
 
14 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 the discipline of academic rules to keep him to proper hours and 
 from bad company ; and because it would keep him from those 
 intrusions which can not be avoided if he lodges in a college. 
 
 As far as I have had an opportunity of observing, his conduct 
 has been perfectly correct, and has appeared to proceed from right 
 disposition ; so that I have reason to hope he will derive from an 
 advantageous situation all the benefit it is capable of yielding to 
 the most prudent. 
 
 With the best wishes for his good and your satisfaction, 
 I am sir, your obedient humble servant, 
 
 JAMES PRIESTLY. 
 
 JAMES BIRNEY, Esq. 
 
 The character of this youth, who was held in such 
 high respect by his instructor, had been molded under 
 uncommon influences. The follies, errors, and bad habits 
 so often found in only sons of rich parents had been in 
 great part prevented by the strong common sense of his 
 father, the watchful love of his pious aunt, the constant 
 moral pressure of a respectable family connection, and, 
 better than all, by his well-balanced faculties and fortu 
 nate temperament. The social life about him was not that 
 of an ordinary frontier settlement. Danville was in the 
 very heart of that marvelously fertile region known to 
 Americans generally as the " blue-grass country," and to 
 Kentuckians as the "garden of the world." Its soil, 
 constantly renewed by the decay of the abundant lime 
 stone ingredients, is inexhaustible ; even the Shenandoah 
 Valley of Virginia does not reward so richly the labor of 
 the farmer. And its pasturage has given to Kentucky 
 acknowledged pre-eminence for race-horses and fine beeves. 
 To this land of milk and honey the intelligent and advent 
 urous classes of Virginia, North Carolina, and Maryland 
 began to migrate about the close of the Eevolutionary 
 "War. Many of the immigrants had been officers in the 
 army. Some of them were men of means and substance. 
 Not a few had held civil office and took a live interest in 
 
INFANCY AND YOUTH. 15 
 
 public affairs. They were hardy and courageous men, able 
 to bear the severe trials of life in the forest, and to meas 
 ure strength and cunning with the Indian foe. Their 
 descendants inherit from them thews, sinews, tall stature, 
 and fighting qualities. At an early day the control of the 
 site of Danville and its vicinity fell into the hands of men 
 of means, who took pains to attract to it a good class 
 of settlers. Among them were Isaac Shelby, the hero of 
 King s Mountain, afterward governor of the State and 
 secretary of war ; Benjamin Sebastian, long a judge of the 
 Court of Appeals ; and many others who became promi 
 nent in national or State affairs, including Joshua Barbee 
 and the members of the political debating club of which 
 an account is given in the next chapter. Some of these 
 men were members of the learned professions ; all of them 
 had been educated by the sharp experiences of frontier 
 life. They were men of thought and action, qualified to 
 lay the foundations of a State. 
 
 For a great many years Danville was the thought cen 
 ter of Kentucky. The numerous constitutional conven 
 tions were held there, also the synods. It was the perma 
 nent headquarters of Kentucky Presbyterianism. In 1808 
 it had only begun to feel the competition for leadership 
 by Lexington and Louisville. 
 
 The social tone of Danville was not favorable to the 
 ordinary vices of frontier life. Theology and politics were 
 more in favor than the race-course and gaming-table. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ANTI-SLAVERY INFLUENCES IN YOUTH. 
 
 WHEN" James G. Birncy left home for college he was 
 in his seventeenth year. Every advantage that wealth and 
 a father s love could procure had been his ; his literary 
 and scientific education had been the best to be had in 
 Kentucky, and his social opportunities and immediate 
 surroundings left little to be desired. There are no in 
 dications that he had been spoiled ; he appears to have 
 been a robust, intelligent, and ambitious youth of good 
 habits. 
 
 As the interest of his countrymen in his biography is 
 due chiefly to his subsequent anti-slavery career, it is im 
 portant to note the influences in which this had its origin. 
 The foundations of his abolitionism were doubtless laid in 
 his early youth. 
 
 Though his grandfather Read and his father had be 
 come slaveholders, they always professed a willingness to 
 emancipate, if Kentucky could be made a free State. In 
 1792 they had taken an active part in promoting the elec 
 tion of the Rev. David Rice, a noted abolitionist, to the 
 Constitutional Convention, and in 1709 they voted for 
 delegates to a similar convention, who were pledged to 
 support a constitutional provision in favor of abolition. 
 The pious aunt who reared him had always refused, on 
 religious principles, to own slaves or to accept their per 
 sonal services without compensation. 
 
ANTI-SLAVERY INFLUENCES IN YOUTH. 17 
 
 The home influences were powerfully re-enforced and 
 directed by the Eev. David Rice. He was pastor of the 
 Danville Presbyterian church for many years during the 
 youth of James G. Birney, and there being no Episcopa 
 lian services in the town, the boy and his aunt generally 
 attended that church. Mr. Rice was a friend and a fre 
 quent guest of the family, and paid much attention to the 
 son, who conceived an affection for him, and in after life 
 gratefully remembered and spoke of him. In the State 
 Constitutional Convention of 1792 Mr. Rice was the leader 
 of the members who favored immediate abolition. His 
 speech was clear and able, his conclusion being in the fol 
 lowing words : " Therefore, I give it as my opinion that 
 the FIRST thing to be done is to resolve UNCOXDITIOX- 
 ALLY to put an end to slavery in this State." 
 
 The speech was reprinted many times. I have before 
 me a copy of an edition published in X ew York in 1812. 
 It makes an octavo pamphlet, large size, twelve pages, in 
 small type, and double columns. Its reasoning through 
 out classes Mr. Rice with the uncompromising immediate 
 abolitionists of his day, and refutes the charge of gradu 
 alism brought against him by Mr. Davidson, the historian 
 of Kentucky Presbyteriauism. Mr. Rice was an earnest 
 man of definite convictions and an eloquent speaker, and 
 he frequently preached against the sin of slavery, thus 
 sowing the seed which was to yield a harvest many years 
 after. 
 
 The Rev. David Barrow, of Mount Sterling, preached 
 before 1808 several anti-slavery sermons at Danville, which 
 were always favorably remembered by my father. He was 
 the author of a widely distributed pamphlet, entitled " In 
 voluntary, Unmerited, Perpetual, Absolute, Hereditary 
 Slavery examined on the Principles of Kature, Reason, 
 Justice, Policy, and Scripture," which advocated imme 
 diate abolition ; and in 1808 he was generally regarded as 
 
18 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND V ||IS TIMES. 
 
 the most influential and able leader of the anti-slavery 
 Baptists in Kentucky. 
 
 The Baptist Church was the first one organized in the 
 State ; it dates from 1781. From that year until the 
 War of 1812 it was the most numerous and powerful re 
 ligious organization in Kentucky. About 1787 Joshua 
 Carman, a Baptist elder from Virginia, began a movement 
 for the abolition of slavery, which f|pmany years agitated 
 both the Church and State. It wasi doubtless the leading 
 cause of the political excitements of 1792 and 1799. 
 
 In 1787 Elder Carman was organizing church socie 
 ties in Kentucky, chiefly in Hardin, La Rue, and Nelson 
 Counties. Between that year and 1801, when he emi 
 grated to Ohio, he was pastor of several leading Baptist 
 churches. For fourteen years he preached immediate 
 abolition and no Christian fellowship with slave-holders. 
 In 1789 his church sent up to Salem Association the 
 query : " Is it lawful in the sight of God for a member of 
 Christ s Church to keep his fellow-creatures in perpetual 
 slavery?" In 1797 he was present at the General Con 
 ference in Ohio, at which the Miami Association was or 
 ganized, " with a view," Dunlevy says in his history of that 
 association (page 133), "to prevent the newly organized 
 body from holding any correspondence with slave-hold 
 ers " ; and he succeeded in his object. 
 
 Elder Carman was an able man and " an easy, fluent, 
 and pleasant speaker," and he made numerous converts 
 to abolitionism among the most zealous and efficient 
 preachers of his denomination. The first was Josiah 
 Dodge ; and the movement started by Carman spread 
 until, before 1808, the following leading Baptist preachers 
 were among its adherents : Carter Tarrant, John Sutton, 
 Donald Holmes, Jacob Gregg, George Smith, George 
 Stokes Smith, Cornelius Duese, John H. Owen, Thomas 
 Whitman, John Murphy, Elijah Davidson, William Buck- 
 
ANTI-SLAVERY INFLUENCES IN YOUTH. 19 
 
 ley, David Barrow, William Hickman, James Garrard, and 
 Ambrose Dudley. All of these, except the last three, 
 maintained the high standard of immediatism during . 
 their continuance in the pulpit. C-^LLJIlPj ^ his " T^V^ry * 
 of KenJukxIL(page. 419),, states their position as follows : 
 They " declared for the abolition of slavery, alleging that 
 no friendship should be extended to slave-holders, as slav 
 ery in every branch of it, both in principle and practice, 
 was a sinful and abominable system, fraught with peculiar 
 evils and miseries, which every good man ought to aban 
 don and bear testimony against." 
 
 It does not enter into the plan of this work to describe 
 the schisms in the Baptist Church of Kentucky caused 
 by dissensions in regard to the course to be pursued in 
 the treatment of slavery. This was acknowledged to be 
 a sin, but the majority of church-members were unwilling 
 to make it a cause of exclusion from the Church. In the 
 evasive language of a church body in 1789 : " The asso 
 ciation judge it improper to enter into so important and 
 critical matter at present." The Baptists were divided 
 into " regulars " and " separatists." An " Emancipation 
 Association" was formed in Nelson County, and the 
 "Licking Locust Association," abolitionist, contained a 
 large number of churches. For details the reader is re 
 ferred to Sgencer s " History of the Kentucky Baptists," / 
 to the histories "oTKentucky by Collins and by Shaler, and 
 to Benedict s " History of the Baptists." " Biographical 
 Sketches of the Kentucky Emancipationists " were pub 
 lished by the Eev. Carter Tarrant, and short ones may be 
 found in the works above referred to. 
 
 The popular sentiment at Danville had been decidedly 
 anti-slavery from the first. For many years the town, to 
 use Sh^ler s expression (page 121), "was the center of 
 the State life." From 1786 to 1790 a political club ex 
 isted there which " was composed of about thirty of the 
 
20 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 brightest spirits of the time who were resident in and 
 about this little town. On its roll we find the names 
 of many of those who had already or were afterward to 
 lead the State in the paths of peace and war " (Shaler, 
 page 113). Among its members were William McDowell 
 (lawyer and afterward judge of the United States District 
 Court), Samuel McDowell (who presided at eight State 
 constitutional conventions), Henry limes, Christopher 
 Greenup, Robert Craddock, Thomas Todd, George Mutor, 
 Peyton Short, James Speed, Abe Buford, Benjamin Se 
 bastian, Willis Green, and William McClung, whose names 
 are identified with the history of Kentucky. The record 
 >^ the club shows that their debates were confined to" 
 great questions of polity. They discussed the proposed 
 Constitution of the United States, article by article, and 
 voted to strike out the clause prohibiting Congress from 
 preventing the importation of slaves until 1808. It was 
 probably owing to the influence of the members of this 
 club that the Rev. David Rice was elected delegate to the 
 Constitutional Convention of 1792. The question whether 
 Kentucky should be a free State does not appear to have 
 been made a distinct issue in the election. For several 
 years the people had been greatly disturbed by questions 
 of independence growing out of the strong opposition 
 made to their separation from Virginia. There were not 
 more than fifteen thousand slaves in Kentucky, and the 
 settlers did not appreciate the paramount importance of 
 the slavery question. George Nicholas, an able lawyer 
 and politician from Virginia and a slaye^liolder, was the 
 controlling spirit of the convention and drafted the Con 
 stitution. This instrument forbade the importation of 
 slaves into the State for sale, or of any imported into 
 America since 1789, and empowered the Legislature to 
 enact laws permitting emancipation. 
 
 The Constitution of 1792 was not submitted to the 
 
ANTI-SLAVERY INFLUENCES IN YOUTH. 21 
 
 people. It had hardly gone into operation when a strong 
 free-State sentiment declared itself. This was general 
 among the Baptists, and also among the Presbyterians, the 
 next sect in numerical force and influence. It was shared 
 by many of the leading men in and about Danville. Pat 
 rick Brown and his brother William, of Nelson County, 
 were especially active in extending it. The Constitution 
 had provided that the people might vote for or against 
 a convention to revise that instrument. A firsLioie was 
 tcf betaken in May, IT!) 7, and a second in May, 1798. If 
 both these should be in favor of a convention, the Legis 
 lature meeting in the winter of 1798- 99 was to order an 
 election of delegates to be held in May, 1799 ; and the 
 convention was to meet within three months thereafter 
 (see Article .XI. of Constitution of 1792). The Constitu 
 tion needed amendment in several particulars ; but the 
 abolition of slavery was undoubtedly the dominant issue 
 at the polls in 1797 and 1798. The vote in the latter 
 year stood 8,804 for the convention, 3,049 against. The 
 issue had been fairly made up ; the State had been thor 
 oughly canvassed ; and the result showed that the free- 
 Slate party had a majority of nearly three to one. If the 
 convention could have been held in May, 1798, immedi 
 ately after the election, Kentucky would have been made 
 a free State and the causes of the civil war destroyed in 
 the germ. 
 
 On the 25th of June, 1798, the Alien and Sedition Law 
 was passed by Congress. The wave of instantaneous re 
 action against it became a tidal one in Kentucky. George 
 Nicholas and John Breckenridge, the defeated leaders of 
 the pro-slavery faction, promptly availed themselves of 
 the excitement to recover their control of affairs. Public 
 meetings were called to denounce the Federalists. At 
 these, Henry Clay, then a few months over twenty-one 
 years of age, was first revealed as a popular orator. In 
 
22 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 November, when the Legislature met, John Breckenridge 
 offered what history knows as " tha_Jentuky resolu 
 tions of 1798." They were passed by both Houses, ap 
 proved on the 16th of the month, and forwarded to Con 
 gress and the Legislatures of other States. A hot answer 
 was returned by Massachusetts. Before -the election in 
 May, 1799, Kentucky was ablaze with political excitement 
 against the Alien and Sedition Law, and John Brecken 
 ridge, Benjamin Logan, John Eowan, Felix Grundy, and 
 other pro-slavery men who were advocates of the Ken 
 tucky resolutions, were elected delegates to the conven 
 tion called to revise the Constitution. The all-important 
 measure of making Kentucky a free State had been blown 
 out of sight by a gusty side-wind. 
 
 As Henry Clay and his relation to slavery will neces 
 sarily be adverted to more than once in subsequent pages, 
 it may be well to ascertain here the extent of his co-opera 
 tion in the political movement beginning in 1796 to make 
 Kentucky a free State. Mr. Clay arrived in Lexington in 
 November, 1797 (Collins s "History"), about six months 
 after the first victory of the free-State party at the polls. 
 He was admitted to the bar in April, 1798, a few days after 
 he became of age. The second victory of the free-State 
 party was in the May following. Between the date of his 
 arrival and the vote in May, 1798, a period of six months, 
 Mr. Clay had, from time to time, co-operated with the free- 
 State party by advocating its objects in a debating society 
 of which he was a member, and by writing some favorable 
 articles for a local newspaper. There is no proof that he 
 made any " stump speech " on the subject, and it is im 
 probable that he did so. In the early summer of 1798 he 
 was conspicuous as a speaker at the large field meetings 
 held near Lexington to denounce the alien and sedition 
 laws, working side by side with John Breckenridge and 
 George Nicholas, the leaders of the pro-slavery faction. 
 
ANTI-SLAVERY INFLUENCES IN YOUTH. 23 
 
 On one occasion of this kind, he and Kicholas " were put 
 in a carriage and drawn by the people through the streets 
 of the town arnid great shouting and huzzaing" (Schurtz, 
 " Life of Clay "). During the Legislative excitements of 
 the ensuing winter, and for many years thereafter, he con 
 tinued to be identified with the Jefferson party. In April, 
 1799, he married Miss Hart, the daughter of a wealthy 
 slave-holder, and became the owner of several slaves. The 
 election for delegates to the Constitutional Convention took 
 place in the following May and there is no reason to doubt 
 that Mr. Clay voted the pro-slavery ticket headed by his 
 friend John Breckenridge, the pro-slavery leader, or that he 
 was from that time identified politically with the anti-free- 
 State men, and owed his rapid success to their friendship. 
 He had become a slave-owner, and found an easy road to 
 success through the excitement caused by the passage of 
 the Alien and Sedition Law. In his famous Frankfort 
 speech in 1829, intended to open his campaign for the 
 presidency, Mr. Clay conciliated Korthern sentiment by an 
 apology for his course in 1799, which, with studied euphe 
 mism, he described as submitting with grace to the decis 
 ion of the majority. But if during the thirty years pre 
 ceding this apology Mr. Clay did an act evidencing his 
 desire for a practical effort to make Kentucky a free State, 
 no biographer has found it. 
 
 TJie free-State sentiment in Kentucky did not die out 
 after 1799. Agitation continued. In 1807, a Baptist as 
 sociation that refused Christian fellowship to slave-holders 
 numbered twelve churches (I, Spencer, 186). Manumis 
 sions for religious reasons became frequent. In the dec 
 ade ending with 1810, as compared with the one preced 
 ing it, the increase in the number of freedmen in Ken 
 tucky was one hundred and fifty per cent. In September, 
 1807, a State convention was held in Woodford County 
 to form the " Kentucky Abolition Society " ; a committee 
 
24: JAMES G. BIRXEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 was appointed to draft a constitution,* and the society 
 was formed and constitution adopted in a similar conven 
 tion, held September 27, 1808, at the same place. The 
 members pledged themselves: "First, to pursue such 
 measures as may tend to the abolition of slavery in a way 
 which will consist with the Constitution and laws of the 
 Commonwealth." 
 
 This society existed many years, and may appear again 
 in this narrative. 
 
 The facts already given will suffice to show that the 
 boyhood of James G. Birney was passed under influences 
 which were distinctly anti-slavery. In his after life, he 
 was accustomed to say he could not remember a time 
 when he believed slavery to be right. It is not improb 
 able that he had never heard, before he went to Prince 
 ton, such a belief expressed by any respectable person. 
 He may not have heard it at Princeton, for the time had 
 not then come when slavery was defended on its merits or 
 on Biblical ground. 
 
 * The entire constitution of the " Kentucky Abolition Society " was 
 republished October 9, 1822, in the " Abolition Intelligencer," a monthly 
 paper, published at Shelbyville, Ky., by the Rev. John Finley Crowe, 
 under the auspices of the society. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 LIFE AT PRINCETON. 
 
 1808. 
 
 JAMES Gr. BIRXEY entered the sophomore class in the 
 College of New Jersey, in April, 1808, and was graduated, 
 in due course, September 26, 1810. At the time of his 
 admission the class numbered eighteen ; in the junior 
 year, forty ; and at graduation, twenty-five. Several of 
 his classmates became famous in after life as lawyers and 
 statesmen : among them were Eichard Stockton, of Mis 
 sissippi, Oliver S. Halstead, of New Jersey, Kensey Johns, 
 of Delaware, A. De "Witt Bruyn, of New York, Joseph 
 Cabell Breckenridge, of Kentucky, and George M. Dallas, 
 of Pennsylvania. His room-mate at Nassau Hall was 
 young Breckenridge, and the intimacy thus formed rip 
 ened into a life-long friendship. His pleasant relations 
 with Dallas led to his studying law in the office of Alex 
 ander J. Dallas, the father, and to a correspondence which 
 extended over many years. He was popular with his class 
 mates and fellow-students. Some of these expressed their 
 indignation when it was announced that the first honor 
 of the class had been given to another, but he calmed 
 them by his declaration that the faculty had decided fair 
 ly, because he had always been inferior in mathematics to 
 his successful competitor. For the abstractions of science 
 he had no taste and a talent not more than respectable, 
 but he greatly excelled in history, moral and political phi- 
 
26 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 losophy, general literature, and the classics. He was espe 
 cially proficient in Latin, and read it easily without a dic 
 tionary a practice he kept up during life. Much of his 
 time in college was given to preparation for debates and 
 to his studies in logic and moral and political philosophy, 
 pursued under the direction and instruction of Samuel 
 Stanhope Smith, Doctor of Laws, Doctor of Divinity, and 
 president of the college. Dr. Smith was a man of strong 
 character, extensive learning, and captivating eloquence ; 
 he was an expert logician and a most plausible casuist. 
 His qualities gave him great influence over his pupil, an 
 influence perceptible for many years in the latter s course 
 in life.. The doctor was a Princeton graduate ; he had 
 been president of a Virginia college four years, had re 
 turned to Princeton in 1779 as professor, and had been 
 made president in 1795. He took a deep interest in all 
 questions touching slavery and the African race. In 1787 
 he published an elaborate work, " An Essay on the Causes 
 of the Variety of Complexion and Figure in the Human 
 Species," etc. In 1810 he published, at New Brunswick, 
 a second and enlarged edition of this work, with an ap 
 pendix. It is remarkable for the ingenuity and varied 
 learning displayed by the author in defense of his theory 
 of the unity of the race ; and it is still an interesting book 
 for the general reader. During the stay of James G. 
 ney at the college, Dr. Smith was preparing for the press 
 the great work of his life, " Lectures on Moral and Political 
 Philosophy." They were published in 1812, at Trenton, 
 in two volumes. Both the " Essay " and the " Lectures " 
 formed part of my father s library in Alabama, being kept 
 on the same shelf with " An Essay on the Treatment and 
 Conversion of African Slaves in the British Sugar Colo 
 nies," by the Rev. James Eamsay, M. A. (London, 1784) ; 
 " The History of the Rise, Progress, and Accomplishment 
 of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the Brit- 
 
LIFE AT PRINCETON. 27 
 
 ish Parliament," by Thomas Clarkson, M. A. (2 vols., first 
 American edition, Philadelphia, 1808). The " Lectures " 
 were mementos, and the other works relics of his college 
 life. 
 
 Dr. Smith taught his pupils that men are of one blood, 
 and that slavery is wrong morally and an evil politically ; 
 but that there is no remedy except in voluntary manumis 
 sion by masters ; that citizens acquire slave property under 
 the sanction of the laws, and can not equitably be com 
 pelled to sacrifice it ; that property rights of all kinds 
 should be held sacred, etc. " What free people," he asks, 
 in his " Lectures," " would allow their legislature to dispose 
 in the same manner of any other portion of their prop 
 erty ? " This sophistry appears to the modern reader 
 wretchedly bald ; but it had its effect in 1810. Imagine 
 a youth saturated with it for two years and a half by a 
 venerated preceptor ! 
 
 During his college life the discussion of slavery in the 
 country wenLon without intermission. In 1804 the State 
 of New Jersey had passed a gradual emancipation act, fol 
 lowing the example set by New York three years before 
 and by Pennsylvania at an earlier date. In those three 
 States slavery was in process of extinction under a settled 
 policy. The institution had been condemned by public 
 opinion. LnJL&O&r after several years of exciting debates, 
 Congress had prohibited the importation of African slaves 
 and declared it piracy, and the year., before it had refused 
 to consider the suspension for ten years of the free-soil 
 clause in the ordinance of 1787, for the purpose of legal 
 izing the temporary introduction of slaves into the terri 
 tory northwest of the Ohio. The subject of slavery was 
 the frequent topic of debate in the college literary soci 
 eties. It was in the political atmosphere and was daily 
 suggested by the presence of, the slaves who swept the cor 
 ridors of the dormitories. Professor MacLean was an out- 
 
28 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 spoken friend of abolition, and some of the leaders of the 
 free-soil movement in the State" resided at Princeton. 
 Many of the students were from the Southern States, and 
 it may be supposed that the slavery discussions were spir 
 ited. What part was taken in them by James G. Birney 
 is not known. That he did not defend slavery we know 
 by his repeated statements in his manhood that he had 
 never done so ; but as to the remedy for it, his judgment 
 may have been warped and his generous ardor chilled by 
 the plausible fallacies of President Smith. 
 
 In his college career there was little to interest the 
 general reader. His few breaches of discipline were not 
 serious, and he was in good standing with the faculty. 
 With the Rev. Philip Lindsley, tutor in languages, he con 
 tracted a friendship which continued through life. Dr. 
 Lindsley became afterward president of the University of 
 Tennessee, at Nashville, and was my father s guest on sev 
 eral visits to Huntsville, Alabama. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 BETWEEN COLLEGE AND THE BAR. 
 
 1810-1814. 
 
 RETURNING to Kentucky immediately after taking his 
 diploma, he passed a few days at home, and then joined 
 the party of Mr. Clay s friends who were escorting him 
 during his canvass of the district for a seat in Congress. 
 On this excursion, which lasted about a month, he became 
 acquainted with many of the men who were prominent 
 in Kentucky politics. His heart was quite won by the 
 tact and kindness of Mr. Clay, and he remained for many 
 years thereafter an admirer and friend of that eminent 
 orator and statesman. He had expected to study law at 
 Danville, but had hardly read a chapter in Blackstone 
 before his father made the necessary arrangements for him 
 to become a student in the office of Alexander J. Dallas, 
 then a celebrated lawyer and the United States District 
 Attorney at Philadelphia. The next three years and a 
 half were spent in that city, except the time taken for a 
 tour through New England, two visits to Washington 
 city, and a yearly visit home. 
 
 Mr. Dallas was an able, but not an attentive instructor, 
 his time being much absorbed by his professional duties ; 
 but there were in the office several well-educated and zeal 
 ous fellow-students, with whom legal doctrines and cases 
 were discussed ; and Mr. Dallas was ever ready to answer 
 questions and solve difficulties. Attendance on interest- 
 
30 JAMES G. JBIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 ing trials and hearings was required, with a full report on 
 the points involved. The office library was large and the 
 books well chosen. Mr. Birney made good use of his 
 opportunities, and was admitted to the Philadelphia bar, 
 passing a creditable examination. 
 
 The social advantages he enjoyed during his long resi 
 dence in Philadelphia were very great. His purse was 
 liberally supplied by a generous father, who insisted that 
 he should live in all respects as a man of fashion. His 
 dress was costly, and he drove tandem a pair of blooded 
 bays sent him from the Woodlawn pastures. After the 
 fashion of the day, he wore high, fair-topped, tassel ed 
 boots when he drove. He had no vices or habits of dis 
 sipation, but he cultivated esthetic tastes, and was accus 
 tomed to making liberal expenditures to gratify them. 
 During life he was noted for his rich and tasteful garb, 
 love of fine furniture, beautiful table services, and good 
 horses. He frequented the society of people of culture, 
 finding them both among the Quakers and the fashiona 
 bles, lie made numerous acquaintances among men emi 
 nent for talent. It was then his life-long friendship with 
 Abraham L. Pennock, the Quaker merchant, was formed, 
 and that he made the acquaintance of Mr. Forten, the 
 colored sail-maker. For this excellent man he conceived 
 a high regard, showing it by calling on him in after years 
 whenever he visited Philadelphia. Mr. Forten was intel 
 ligent, thoughtful, and full of sympathy for his race, and 
 was just the man to discuss slavery with his young Ken 
 tucky friend. We have no proof that he did so, or that 
 during the residence of James Gr. Birney in Pennsylvania 
 his attention was especially attracted to the institution of 
 slavery, then dying out in that State. In May, 1814, he 
 returned to Danville and began the practice of law. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 HIS LIFE IN KENTUCKY. 
 
 1814-1818. 
 
 IlE did not have to wait long for business. The Dan 
 ville Bank made him its regular attorney, and his popular 
 manners, thorough preparation, carefulness in details, dili 
 gence, and energy soon secured for him a good clientage. 
 He traveled the circuit, which included several counties, 
 and practiced in both civil and criminal cases, gaining a 
 valuable professional experience. The condition of affairs 
 in the State, however, prevented his court practice from 
 being lucrative. The war had unsettled trade. The sus 
 pension of the exportation of products by the Mississippi 
 River had been calamitous ; money was scarce ; the Bank 
 of Kentucky was discredited, and its paper was refused in 
 payment of debts. " Relief laws," staying executions on 
 judgments, were passed in aid of the debtor class ; and 
 they were in force from January, 1816, to February, 1818. 
 The young lawyer derived his chief income from the 
 amicable adjustment of claims- 
 
 He identified himself with the community in which 
 he lived. Soon after his return to Danville he was made 
 a Freemason in the local lodge Franklin, ]S T o. 28 his 
 father, a passed master of that order, performing the cere 
 monies of the initiation. At the fall elections in 1814 he 
 was elected to the town council, and as a member of that 
 body was active in founding the Danville Academy. He 
 
32 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 mixed freely in social life, attending balls and parties and 
 renewing the acquaintanceships of his youth. 
 
 Among the girls he had known from childhood was 
 Agatha, the fifth daughter of William McDowell, United 
 States District Judge, and niece of George Madison, Gov 
 ernor of Kentucky, and of Bishop Madison, of Virginia. 
 The admiration he had felt for the pretty and vivacious 
 school-girl was changed into love for the accomplished, 
 intelligent, and charming woman. His wooing was suc 
 cessful. Kelatives and friends were all pleased. The 
 groom s father quite forgot that the lady belonged to a 
 family noted for its stanch Presbyterian ism. The mar 
 riage took place on the 1st of February, 1816. It proved 
 to be a happy one until the decease of the wife in 1838. 
 The husband was always loving, considerate, and respect 
 ful ; and the wife was happy in her husband, her children, 
 and her home, over which she presided with the love of a 
 mother, the grace of a tactful hostess, and the skill of a 
 model housewife. She clung to her husband with un 
 wavering faith through his varying fortunes. In the last 
 years of her life, while suffering from infirm health, she 
 felt keenly the alienation of her kindred and former 
 friends from her husband. The plan of this sketch does 
 not permit more than the above brief mention of the do 
 mestic life of its subject. 
 
 Among his wedding gifts were several household slaves, 
 presented by his father and father-in-law. His acceptance 
 of them is logically inconsistent with the anti-slavery 
 principles and opinions attributed to him in the previous 
 chapters of this narrative. It may be palliated, however, 
 by the fact that in his day such inconsistency was com 
 mon. Patrick Henry said of slave-holders : " Every think 
 ing honest man rejects it in speculation, but how few in 
 practice from conscientious motives ! Would any one be 
 lieve that I am master of slaves of my own purchase ? I 
 
HIS LIFE IN KENTUCKY. 33 
 
 am drawn along by the general inconvenience of living 
 without them. I will not, can not, justify it." 
 
 Washington did not free his slaves except by will ; and 
 the Rev. Stanhope Smith, logician, had persuaded himself 
 that, though slavery was wrong in principle, it was right 
 in practice. It must be admitted that in the James G. 
 Birney of 1816 there was no outward indication of the 
 future aggressive abolitionist; but the principles were 
 latent in him, and were to be made visible in the fierce 
 political heats of the future. In the summer and autumn 
 of 1815 he took an active part in the political campaign, 
 making stump speeches in favor of Henry Clay for Con 
 gress, and of George Madison for Governor. Both of 
 these candidates were elected. 
 
 In August, 1816, at the first election after he became 
 twenty-four years of age, and thus eligible under the Con 
 stitution, he was elected member of the Lower House of V, 
 the General Assembly of Kentucky, virtually without op- 
 position. He took his seat on the second day of the fol 
 lowing December. There were one hundred and fifty-one 
 statutes passed at the session, and in shaping them he 
 rendered valuable service. Standing committees w r ere not 
 then known in the legislative practice of the State, but 
 he was appointed on several special committees to which 
 important bills were referred, and repeatedly on privileges 
 and elections. He procured the enactment of a law to in 
 corporate the Danville Academy and to appropriate the 
 proceeds of certain lands for its endowment ; and of an 
 other to prohibit the circulation of private notes as cur 
 rency. He voted for Martin D. Hardin and John Adair 
 for the United States Senate ; but Mr. Adair was defeated 
 by John J. Crittenden. He supported a joint resolution 
 "commemorating" Jackson s victory at New Orleans; 
 and another relating to the free navigation of the river 
 Mississippi, protesting against the seizure by the Louisi- 
 
34: JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 ana authorities of the " steamboat Enterprise," under 
 " the pretended authority of a law enacted by the Legis 
 lature of the late Territory of New Orleans," declaring 
 that Kentucky will maintain inviolate, by all legitimate 
 means, the right of her citizens to navigate said river and 
 its tributary streams, and requesting the co-operation of 
 Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, and Louisiana. 
 
 It was at this session he gave the first sign, so far as 
 v known, of his unwillingness to be used as a tool by the 
 slave-holding interest. The Senate had passed without 
 opposition a joint resolution requesting the acting Gov 
 ernor to open a correspondence with the Governors of 
 Indiana and Ohio, respectively, with a view to procure in 
 each of those States the enactment of laws for the recap 
 tion and delivery of fugitive slaves. In demanding this 
 measure, the slave-holders stood upon their alleged legal 
 rights as embodied in the United States fugitive slave act 
 of 1793. When it came to the House it was vigorously___^ 
 opposed by James G. Birney, and defeated. " What ! " he 
 asked, " shall the State of Kentucky do what no gentle 
 man would turn slave-catcher?" After the vote the 
 pro-slavery men rallied, and, under the able leadership of 
 Judge Rowan, succeeded in passing a substitute, which 
 omitted the most objectionable language and softened the 
 tone of the original resolution. Mr. Birney did not vote 
 for the substitute. About twenty years later, he said he did 
 not believe his opposition to the measure would have cost 
 him a single vote in Mercer County, that cotton was not 
 king in 1817, and he was not aware that any unfavorable 
 comment on his course had been made by the press. In 
 fact, he attached no special importance to it at the time. 
 
 He was already sighing for a wider sphere for his am 
 bition. The Kentucky paths to high political place were 
 already crowded by distinguished and able aspirants. Clay, 
 Crittenden, Adair, Hardin, and others of the generation 
 
HIS LIFE IN KENTUCKY. 35 
 
 before him would be his competitors for many years to 
 come, with fearful odds in their favor. A Mr. Love, a 
 friend and fellow-member of the Legislature, was intend 
 ing to go to Alabama after the adjournment of the ses 
 sion, and pressed him to visit that Territory with him. 
 He did so, and was so much pleased with its fertile soil 
 and the political and professional prospects open to him in 
 the embryo State, that he decided to close up his affairs in 
 Kentucky and make his future home in Alabama. His 
 plan was to practice law in the Huntsville circuit, and re 
 side on a plantation near that growing town. _At that 
 day, in the far South every lawyer was a politician, and, 
 if he was rich enough, a planter. Clement C. Clay, Arthur 
 F. Hopkins, and Reuben Chapman, all of Huntsville, fol 
 lowed the three occupations. James G. Birney bought a 
 plantation in Madison County, near Triana and the Ten 
 nessee River, and within two hours ride of Huntsville. To 
 this place he removed with his family in February, 1818. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 LA W YERPL A NTERP LITICIA N. 
 1818-1823. 
 
 1^" 1818 the roads between Danville and Huntsville 
 
 were such as are commonly found in new and heavily 
 wooded countries. Railroads and even turnpikes were 
 then unknown in Kentucky and Tennessee. Rough pas 
 sage-ways were chopped through the forests by the pioneers. 
 The small trees were cut away ; stumps and large trees 
 were left, and about these the wagon-tracks wound in the 
 most convenient curves. There were no ditches, no grad 
 ing the roads on higher levels ; the drainage was as Na 
 ture made it. The favorite tool of the pioneers was the 
 axe, not the spade. There were long stretches of flat lands, 
 where the water lay a foot deep several months in the 
 year. These were made passable by " corduroy causeways," 
 constructed of small logs, cut into twelve-foot lengths 
 and covered with small branches, the leaves still on. 
 Rude bridges of heavy timbers were thrown over narrow 
 creeks which were too deep to be forded. The broader 
 streams were crossed on flat-boats, pulled over by means of 
 strong ropes which were stretched from one bank to the 
 other and fastened at each end. The transportation of 
 goods was effected in covered wagons, each drawn by four 
 or six mules or horses. For mutual aid of drivers in case 
 of miring, these wagons were driven in trains. When they 
 met each other on a causeway, one train was driven as close 
 
LAWYER PLANTER POLITICIAN. 7 
 
 as practicable to the left side of the road and halted, 
 allowing scant room for the other to pass. When the driv 
 ers met citizens in vehicles, they would often refuse to 
 give room, compelling them to turn, drive back, some 
 times for miles, and leave the road until the wagon teams 
 had passed by. When a citizen in a light vehicle caught 
 up on a causeway with a wagon-train, it was a delicious 
 practical joke for the wagoners to keep him from pass 
 ing them. The roads from Kentucky to Alabama were 
 crowded with immigrants in February, 1818. 
 
 James G. Birney accomplished safely the removal of 
 his family and property, and at once threw himself with 
 energy into his new duties. The plantation was in good 
 order, and most of the fields intended for crops had been 
 plowed ; but there were many cares to absorb his atten 
 tion. Plantation duties did not prevent him from culti 
 vating social relations with the planters of the county, 
 the lawyers at Huntsville, and the leaders in State poli- 
 itics. The Territorial Legislature in 1818 was a small 
 body. The Senate consisted of a single member, who 
 united in himself all its offices. His name was Titus, 
 and it was his humor to go purfctiliously through all the 
 forms of legislation, discussing bills sent up from the 
 House, putting them to vote, signing them as Speaker, 
 countersigning them as clerk, and forwarding them with 
 due formality to the Governor. The Legislature met at 
 St. Stephens, a town on the Tombigbee Eiver, about eighty 
 miles from Mobile. It was regarded by the leading men 
 in north Alabama as important that the Constitutional 
 Convention should be held at Huntsville, and this place 
 was designated in the " Enabling Act," passed by Congress 
 in March, 1819, partly through the intervention of James 
 G. Birney with John J. Crittenden, L T nited States Senator, 
 and Henry Clay, then Speaker of the House of Representa 
 tives. In Madison County two tickets were elected one 
 
38 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 of members of the Convention ; the other of members of 
 the first General Assembly. Clement C. Clay headed the 
 first; James G. Birney, the second.* The Convention was 
 in session from the 5th of July to the 2d of August, 1819, 
 during which time James G. Birney was present almost 
 as regularly as if he had been a member. That he was a 
 valuable aid, both because of his literary training (which 
 was uncommon at that time in Alabama) and his sound 
 sense and knowledge of the law, is certain. His liberality 
 and humanity, too, have left their traces in the sections of 
 the Constitution which relate to slavery. In the Missis 
 sippi Constitution of 1817 the model had been the one^ 
 framed for Kentucky in 1799 ; but the sections relating 
 to slavery had been made more harsh. The Kentucky 
 model, empowered the Legislature to emancipate slaves, 
 with or without consent of owners, on making previous 
 compensation, and secured an impartial trial by petit 
 jury to any slave charged with felony. The Mississippi 
 copy limited the legislative power of emancipation with 
 out consent of owners to cases in which the slaves had 
 rendered distinguished services to the State, in which cases 
 full compensation was t<f be made ; and it secured an im 
 partial trial by petit jury to slaves in capital cases only. 
 On the first point the Alabama Constitution, which, in most 
 parts was copied from that of Mississippi, rejected the 
 harsh and narrow Mississippi provision, and empowered 
 the Legislature to abolish slavery on making compensa 
 tion to owners, as in Kentucky ; and on the second it was 
 more, liberal than either the Kentucky or Mississippi in 
 strument, as it secured to slaves the petit- jury trial in all 
 prosecutions for crimes above the grade of petty larceny. 
 It adopted from Kentucky the clause so ominous of future 
 emancipation : " So long as any person of the same age or 
 description shall be continued in slavery by the laws of 
 
 * See Pickett s " History of Alabama." 
 
LAWYER PLANTER POLITICIAN. 39 
 
 this State." And it added the following section which, it 
 is believed, was the first of the kind ever inserted in the 
 constitution of a slave State : 
 
 SECTION 3. Any person who shall maliciously dismember or ! 
 deprive a slave of life shall suffer such punishment as would 
 be inflicted in case the like offense had been committed on a 
 free white person, and on the like proof ; except in case of in 
 surrection of said slave. 
 
 It is true that these words are found in the Georgia 
 Constitution of 1798 ; but they are rendered nugatory by 
 the addition of a second exception : " And unless such death 
 should happen by accident in giving such slave moderate 
 correction." Such deaths were not uncommon in Georgia ; 
 but, as no master was ever tried, convicted, and hanged for 
 the murder of his slave, all the deaths, to use the consti 
 tutional phrase, must have " happened by accident." 
 
 It may be well to note here that the General Assembly 
 of Alabama for many years exercised its power to eman 
 cipate slaves. The statute books of the State show the 
 number freed at each session for the first eleven years of 
 its existence to have been as follows : 
 
 Session. Slaves freed. 
 
 1819 16 
 
 1820 4 
 
 1821 13 
 
 1822 21 
 
 1823 11 
 
 1824 18 
 
 1825 6 
 
 1826 12 
 
 1827 10 
 
 1828 37 
 
 1829 55 
 
 Total ~ 203 
 
 or, an average of more than eighteen for each year. 
 
40 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 In October, 1819, James G. Birney took his seat as a 
 representative in the first General Assembly of Alabama, 
 and devoted several months to the task of legislation. Of 
 the large number of organic acts passed at this session, we 
 know that he aided in the preparation of the elaborate 
 "act to regulate the proceedings in courts of law and 
 equity " ; and that he was the author of the " act con 
 cerning the trial of slaves," which allowed paid counsel to 
 all slaves tried by jury, and which excluded from the jury 
 .both the master and the prosecuting witness and the rela 
 tives of both. This law made effective the constitutional 
 provision on the subject ; it was the outcome of a sentiment 
 of justice and humanity toward a class that had few friends. 
 
 At this session circumstances occurred which closed 
 the promising political career of James G. Birney. 
 
 The fall races took place in November on the Hunts- 
 ville course ; and under the pretext of attending them 
 with several fine horses, General Andrew Jackson remained 
 two or three weeks in the town, becoming meanwhile inti 
 mate with many of the members of the Assembly. After 
 his victory at New Orleans he had been generally regarded 
 at the Southwest as a future President. In November, 
 1815, Aaron Burr had suggested him as an available can 
 didate ; and in 1819 the idea had assumed a certain force 
 in politics. In January and February of that year Gen 
 eral Jackson had passed several weeks at Washington ; in 
 February he had accepted public receptions at New York, 
 Philadelphia, and Baltimore ; and in March his journey 
 from Knoxville to Nashville, on his return home, was a 
 continuous and magnificent ovation, military and civil. 
 Though he denied it on several occasions, the presidential 
 bee was already buzzing in his bonnet. 
 
 In Alabama the enthusiasm for Jackson was probably 
 greater than in any other State of the Union ; he had 
 fought battles and won victories on its soil, he had protect- 
 
LAWYER-PLANTER-POLITICIAN, 41 
 
 ed the men, women, and children of the State from massacre 
 by the Indians, and he was the hero of Xew Orleans ! He 
 was almost a fellow-citizen, too, for he owned a farm near 
 Tuscumbia, on the Alabama bend of the Tennessee River. 
 In the midst of the festivities incidental to Jackson s visit, 
 a Colonel Rose, of Autauga County, a member of the As 
 sembly, offered for adoption a joint resolution of the most 
 complimentary character to the general, and indorsing him 
 as a nominee for the presidency. Mr. Birney had no per 
 sonal hostility to the general. For a resolution of com 
 pliment to Jackson as a military chieftain he would prob 
 ably have voted he had done as much in the Kentucky 
 Legislature but his deepest convictions made it impos 
 sible for him to pledge himself to Jackson s political for 
 tunes. To him the general appeared a contemner of the 
 law, a headstrong and violent man, who, in hanging Ar- 
 buthnot and shooting Ambrister, in April, 1818, had dis 
 regarded evidence and crowned the long series of brutal 
 deeds which proved his unfitness to wield power. He not 
 only voted against Colonel Rose s resolution, but gave his 
 reasons in a calm and forcible speech. From that date 
 his election to political office in Alabama was impossible, 
 and he did not again become a candidate. In the August 
 following, and at several annual elections thereafter, there 
 was no opposition in Madison County to the ticket nomi 
 nated by Jackson s friends. 
 
 During the years 1820, 1821, and 1822, Mr. Birney be 
 came embarrassed in his financial affairs. Owing to his 
 frequent absences from home, the inexperience of his 
 slaves in the methods of cotton culture, and his repug 
 nance to severities in plantation management, his cotton 
 crops had not proved profitable. Cotton culture requires 
 skilled labor unceasingly applied in some form for at least 
 eleven months in the year. It admits of no awkwardness 
 in the use of the hoe, no negligence in keeping the weeds 
 
4:2 JAMES G. BIKNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 from the plants, no clumsiness in picking, no ignorance 
 of the processes of ginning and baling. Kentucky farm 
 hands who had never seen a cotton field could not at once 
 be made profitable operatives in one. 
 
 The idea of buying a few slaves thoroughly trained 
 in cotton culture, and using them to train those he had 
 brought from Kentucky farms, does not appear to have 
 occurred to him during the five years of his experience as 
 a planter. It may be stated here that, although James Gr. 
 Birney was a slave-holder for sixteen years in Alabama, he 
 never bought a slave in the market. Those taken with 
 him from Kentucky had all been obtained from near rela 
 tives of himself or wife most of them by gift. Before 
 1832 he had no thought of interfering with slavery fur 
 ther than to restrain importation of slaves into the State, 
 to make public slave-markets illegal, and to punish mas 
 ters for cruelties inflicted. These measures were the 
 natural result of his early impressions, patriotism, train 
 ing for public life, and generosity of temperament ; and 
 in none of them did he go beyond what was approved by 
 the leaders of public sentiment of that day in Alabama. 
 This is proved by the adoption of his measures by the 
 Constitutional Convention and the Legislature of the 
 State. In 1822 his feelings in regard to buying slaves of 
 a professional slave-trader were such that if it had been 
 proposed to him he would have answered, " Is thy servant 
 a dog, that he should do this thing ? " 
 
 His manner of living at this time was not economical. 
 He did not deny himself the luxuries to which he had 
 been accustomed from his youth. A carriage, fine driv 
 ing and saddle horses, expensive furniture, and a lavish 
 hospitality, he regarded as indispensable. In Kentucky 
 he had fallen into the fashion, universal in those days 
 among Southern gentlemen, of playing for stakes and lay 
 ing wagers on horse-races. 
 
LAWYER PLANTER POLITICIAN. 43 
 
 Henry Clay and Daniel Webster were noted examples 
 of devotion to the gaming-table, and they did not differ 
 in this respect from other public men of their day, espe 
 cially of the South, who were not members of the Church. 
 This fashion is still prevalent in some parts of the South 
 among gentlemen. That it is not yet looked on in Ar 
 kansas as a vice may be inferred from the testimony re 
 cently volunteered by Attorney- General Garland, before a 
 congressional committee, that he had always "lost at 
 poker." For several years Mr. Birney had been so for 
 tunate as neither to lose nor to win ; but a man of his 
 generous disposition could not escape the common fate of 
 all who tempt chance. Several heavy losses in the period 
 now under review, added to his failures as a planter, com 
 pelled him to borrow money on mortgage security given 
 upon his plantation and slaves. His slaves had all been 
 reared in either his own or his wife s family ; and it would 
 have cut him to the heart to see them sold separately un 
 der the hammer to such masters as chance might provide. 
 He made then two resolves : One, never to bet again, 
 which was sacredly kept ; the other, to pay off the mort 
 gage upon his property by the more active practice of the 
 law. To carry out the latter, he determined to remove to 
 Huntsville, leaving in charge of an overseer until better 
 times his plantation and slaves, with the exception of 
 Michael, Michael s wife, and three children, whom he 
 would take with him as house-servants. 
 
 In January, 1823, he had taken up his residence at 
 Huntsville. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 LIFE AT HUNTSV1LLE. 
 
 1823-1826. 
 
 MADISON COUNTY, Alabama, bounded on the north 
 by Tennessee and on the south by the Tennessee River, is 
 remarkable for the depth and fertility of its soil. Its cli 
 mate is genial and healthful, being redeemed from the 
 sultriness and blazing heats of the " cotton belt " to the 
 southward, by heavily wooded spurs from the mountain- 
 ranges of the Alleghanies. Cheap transportation for 
 heavy products to New Orleans is afforded by the Tennes 
 see and Mississippi Rivers. The access to it is easy from 
 Tennessee, Virginia, and North Georgia. Owing to these 
 favoring causes, the stream of immigrants, chiefly from the 
 last-mentioned States, began to set into it as early in the 
 century as the county was comparatively safe from the 
 murderous incursions of the Indians. In 1822, Madison 
 was the most thickly populated county in Alabama. 
 
 Huntsville, the county-seat, was one of the prettiest 
 towns in the Southern country. Within two or three 
 miles to the south and east a mountainous range, dark 
 with cedars, hickories, walnuts, oaks, and other forest 
 trees of large growth, ran up into a lofty peak, which at 
 tracted visitors by its picturesque ruggedness and sandy 
 sea-beaches, shells, and other signs of ancient deluge ; and 
 at its northern extremity, flattened into a broad forest- 
 covered plateau, which ended in an abrupt precipice sev- 
 
LIFE AT HUXTSVILLE. 45 
 
 eral hundred feet in height. This plateau, shady, cool, 
 and commanding a view of the distant hills of Tennessee, 
 was the summer retreat of the wealthy citizens of Hunts- 
 ville ; it was called Montesano. The site chosen for 
 Huntsville was on high and rolling ground, easily drained. 
 It was a high bluff, from the base of which burst one of 
 the wonderful springs of the world. At its very source, 
 the volume of water was enough to float a vessel of four 
 feet draught in a channel forty feet in width ; it was 
 transparent as crystal, cool, and pure. On rolling hills, 
 falling by gentle slopes to the fertile plains of the neigh 
 borhood, the town was laid out. The streets were parallel 
 and cross ; and the public square, for the court-house and 
 county offices, was in the center. The sides of the public 
 square were built up in stores and shops. The beauty and 
 healthfulness of Huntsville had attracted a number of 
 men of fortune and leisure. General Walker lived in a 
 house resembling the Parthenon ; it looked down on the 
 town from a height on the east. Ex-Governor Bibb and 
 other planters occupied costly mansions. In January, 
 1823, the population exceeded two thousand and was in 
 creasing rapidly. 
 
 The sudden growth and many advantages of north 
 Alabama had attracted to Huntsville a large number of 
 lawyers. Among them were John McKinley, afterward 
 Eepresentative in Congress, United States Senator, and 
 Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States ; Clem 
 ent C. Clay, Sr., afterward United States Senator ; Arthur 
 F. Hopkins, William Kelly, Harry I. Thornton, James 
 McClung, Jeremiah Clements, and Caswell E. Clifton, all 
 of whom became distinguished in public life. The bar 
 was both brilliant and able. It gave a warm welcome to 
 James G. Birney, who had already gained a high standing 
 as a lawyer by his occasional practice on the circuit. 
 
 McKinley, a Virginian, who had practiced law at Louis- 
 
46 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 ville and known Mr. Birney at Frankfort, and the genial 
 Thornton, a Kentuckian, started a movement which re 
 sulted in the almost unanimous election of Mr. Birney by 
 the two Houses of the Alabama General Assembly as so 
 licitor for the Fifth Circuit. This embraced five of the 
 most populous counties in the State. The solicitor prose 
 cuted all criminal cases, and acted as attorney or counsel 
 for the State in all civil cases to which it was a party. 
 For each service rendered a fee was paid from the State 
 treasury. In the hands of an energetic lawyer the office 
 was lucrative. It led, too, to practice in other cases. 
 
 When it is remembered that Mr. Birney was then 
 known throughout the State as an Anti- Jackson man, that 
 every member of the Assembly was a Jackson Democrat, 
 and that every member of the Hunts ville bar, except one, 
 belonged to the same party, the compliment of Mr. Bir- 
 ney s election will be appreciated. He accepted the posi 
 tion, and entered at once upon the performance of its 
 duties. 
 
 At the end of the first year of his residence in Hunts- 
 ville Mr. Birney concluded not to continue his ownership 
 of a plantation which he had learned by experience he could 
 not in person conduct with profit. 
 
 As to employing again an overseer, he would not do 
 that, for during the year of his absence he had been un 
 able to prevent the exercise of brutalities toward the slaves, 
 the overseer insisting that he could not manage without 
 using the lash. The complaints of these poor creatures 
 when he visited the plantation and their appeals to him 
 affected him deeply. Mentioning his difficulties to his 
 friend and neighbor, Mr. William Love, the Kentuckian 
 who had served with him in the Kentucky Legislature and 
 migrated with him to Alabama, that gentleman offered to 
 buy from him all the slaves, at a low price, to be paid one 
 fourth in cash and the rest in installments at long date. 
 
LIFE AT HUNTSVILLE. 47 
 
 Mr. Love was known as a kind-hearted man and humane 
 master who did his own management. The slaves were 
 satisfied with the change, and rejoiced that they were not 
 to he separated. The arrangement was carried into effect 
 at once, the mortgagee accepting part in cash and Mr. 
 Love s notes in satisfaction of the balance. A subsequent 
 sale of the plantation enabled Mr. Birney to satisfy the 
 claim secured upon it, and left him free from debts and in 
 easy circumstances. About the same time he bought a 
 valuable half-acre corner lot in Huntsville, two squares 
 from the head of the Big Spring. 
 
 In 1824 and 1825 Mr. Birney had become so prosper 
 ous in worldly affairs that he erected a large brick house 
 as a family residence. With successive additions and im 
 provements it became one of the handsomest and most 
 convenient dwellings in Huntsville. It was on the corner 
 of two streets. A broad, paved sidewalk, bordered with 
 China trees, extended along the street sides of the prop 
 erty, and a high wall sheltered from view a beautiful gar 
 den. This was both ornamental and useful, and was kept 
 in excellent order under the supervision of the master and 
 mistress, both of whom had a decided taste for horti 
 culture. 
 
 It was his custom to spend about half an hour after 
 tea on spring and summer evenings among the roses, 
 vines, and vegetables, giving a touch here and there with 
 the hoe or pruning-knife, tying up vines, and trimming 
 the young trees. This was his favorite recreation, though 
 once in a great while he went out fishing or hunting. 
 
 He and his wife were both fond of social life. Friendly 
 relations were cultivated with the best families in the 
 town and country. Calls were returned, and dinners and 
 parties given. The large double parlors of the house were 
 frequently filled with company. Members of the bar from 
 abroad were hospitably entertained. At the evening par- 
 
48 JAMES G. BIRXEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 ties there were often music and dancing. It was the fashion 
 in those days for very nice people, even clergymen, to 
 drink in moderation ; at dinner parties cut-glass decanters 
 glittered on the sideboard, and wine-glasses of varied hue 
 and thickness were placed near the plate of each guest. 
 James G. Birney followed the fashion in this respect. He 
 no longer followed it in having card-tables. These were 
 not to be seen in his house ; and, as time rolled on, his 
 social circle gradually assumed a more grave and quiet 
 tone. 
 
 His professional practice rapidly increased. He had 
 the qualities which attract clients. He was always in con 
 dition for business, and always prepared on his case. He 
 was methodical. Letters received were promptly an 
 swered, indorsed, and filed. Papers in the same case were 
 kept together in properly marked jackets ; he neither lost 
 nor mislaid them. He knew how to use files, drawers, and 
 pigeon-holes, and could lay his hand without hesitation 
 on any paper in the office. His memorandum-book was 
 kept and consulted ; he forgot nothing. If he rejected 
 business, he did so plainly ; if he accepted it, he attended 
 to it and thoroughly. He studied each case until he had 
 mastered both the facts and the law, and he never, proba 
 bly, continued one because he was not ready. He was 
 courteous to other attorneys and to witnesses ; he never 
 browbeat, but his cross-examinations brought out the 
 truth, or exposed the equivocations or perjury of the wit 
 ness. He excelled in the statement of his case and in 
 arguments addressed to the court. In addressing juries 
 he was unaffected and simple, rising to eloquence in none 
 but extraordinary cases. But no man at the bar won 
 cases more surely. This was partly because he never know 
 ingly took an unjust one. A son who wished to sue his 
 father for a board bill was ordered out of Mr. Birney s 
 office. Men went to him with good cases, or with those 
 
LIFE AT HUNTSVILLE. 49 
 
 that were marked with strong equities. He compromised 
 often, and it was generally understood that a case could 
 be settled with him on its merits. 
 
 Asa public prosecutor he was fearless, but he would not 
 knowingly convict an innocent man. He would not sacri 
 fice an accused party to professional vanity. He neither 
 overstated nor misrepresented the testimony. He repre 
 sented public justice, and not private passions. AVhen the 
 proof was clear that the accused was guilty, he rarely es 
 caped, for juries came to believe that James G. Birney 
 would not ask a conviction if it were not due. 
 
 In such cases his eloquence rose to the occasion, and 
 he was a match for the best counsel. It is probable, how 
 ever, that his remarkable success at the bar was chiefly 
 due to his well-established reputation for moral courage, 
 integrity, justness, and moderation of thought, candor, and 
 perfect truthfulness. He became the most successful 
 practitioner in North Alabama, with the largest profes 
 sional income. As early as 1825, his practice had become 
 so large that Arthur F. Hopkins, an able lawyer and elo 
 quent speaker, and greatly respected in the State, returned 
 to Huntsville from Autauga County to accept the position 
 of his junior partner. In 1826 he resigned the office of 
 solicitor for the purpose of devoting his attention exclu 
 sively to civil business. 
 
 In a book published long after Mr. Birney s death, 
 Henry S. Foote, ex-United States Senator, who visited 
 Huntsville in 1825, testified as follows : 
 
 The famous James G. Birney was also, at the time mentioned 
 (1825), a member of the Huntsville Bar, where he was exceed 
 ingly loved and respected. When he afterward became the zeal 
 ous advocate of African emancipation, though his friends in 
 Alabama could not approve this part of his public career, he 
 still retained much of their respect and kindness, and his integ 
 rity as a man was never called in question by them ; nor were 
 4 
 
50 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 his learning and eloquence as a forensic advocate. Mr. Birnev 
 was a singularly fluent and polished speaker, and was known to 
 have given much more attention to the niceties of orthoepy than 
 was then customary among the lawyers of this newly settled 
 region. (See "Bench and Bar of the Southwest," by H. S. Foote, 
 of Mississippi.) 
 
 His practice in the local and appellate courts of Ala 
 bama and Tennessee continued to grow until the date in 
 1831, when he began to reduce it, with a view of remov 
 ing to Illinois. As his professional career is of minor in 
 terest only in this biography, it may be dismissed with the 
 following extract from pages 7 and 8 of the sketch of his 
 life by the Rev. Beriah Green, and a fact stated by a towns 
 man : 
 
 A single fact from the history of Mr. Birney s professional 
 career in Alabama, illustrating his integrity, courage, magna 
 nimity, and generosity, may be as acceptable to our readers as it is 
 refreshing to us. The following statement, from authority on 
 which the fullest reliance may be placed, we give in the language, 
 slightly altered, of our informant. Jackson County lay in his 
 circuit. Three years practice there as solicitor had made him 
 acquainted with nearly all the people of the county. Pie was 
 personally popular, though as prosecutor he had acted rigorously. 
 The making of counterfeit coin had become quite a business in 
 that county, after he had resigned his office as solicitor. One 
 day a young man of very humble and rough appearance applied 
 to him at Huntsville, where his office was, to bring a suit for 
 him against some of the most respectable men in the county, for 
 having lynched him on suspicion of his having aided his father, 
 who was a notorious coiner, and who as such had also been 
 lynched. Between eight and nine hundred of the people of the 
 county, embracing most of the influential men, had associated 
 together as a lynch club; and such was their power, that they 
 inflicted punishments openly knowing that no verdict could be 
 had against them in Jackson County, where they would be sure 
 to get some of their own friends upon the jury, if they failed to 
 intimidate those whom they had injured. It was hinted to him 
 
LIFE AT HUNTSVILLE. 51 
 
 that unless his cause was just and himself free from the stains 
 of a bad character, it must be far from desirable to engage for 
 him in a struggle with such an influential corps. Satisfied in this 
 respect, Mr. Birney undertook for him, and issued his writs 
 against the wealthiest and most responsible men in the band, all 
 of whom were personally his friends. It had been his custom, 
 in order to avoid traveling on Sunday to the court-house, as was 
 the custom of his brother lawyers, to go to the village where the 
 court was held the Saturday before. He had, of course, to 
 travel alone. It was given out that he durst not go to the court 
 house that he would be lynched, and so on. He proceeded, 
 however, as if nothing unusual had happened. "Within a few 
 miles of the village he met a man who was very anxious that he 
 should return and stay with him till Monday, when the judge 
 and the officers of the court would be in the village. His ex 
 posure, then, would be less fearful. He went on, however, and 
 put up at the tavern where he usually boarded. On the Sabbath 
 he was at church, and on Monday went about his business as 
 usual, saluted even those whom he had sued, quietly and in full 
 self-possession, as if nothing had happened. Each wondered 
 that all except himself did not insult him. But they were confi 
 dent that no jury could be found in that county from which he 
 could obtain a verdict. This he understood as well as they. He 
 had, therefore, made provision through which the cause was to 
 be tried in due season at Huntsville, the place of his residence. 
 Be/ore he left, however, he brought the defendants to terms agreeable 
 to his client; pecuniary remuneration was made for the trespass, 
 and an agreement was entered into by them never more to molest 
 him. The lynching business was broken up for that time, AKD THE 
 
 ASSOCIATION DISSOLVED. 
 
 Eev. William T. Alten^ who was brought up at Hunts 
 ville, mentions~tHe following fact in " Slavery as it_is_^_ 
 (1838) : " While I lived in Huntsville, a slave was~killed" 
 in the mountain near by. The circumstances were these : 
 A white man, James Helton, hunting in the woods came 
 upon a black man and commanded him to stop. The 
 slave kept on running ; Helton fired his rifle, and the 
 negro was killed " (page 46). 
 
J 
 
 52 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 Mr. Birney, then prosecuting attorney, drew up an in 
 dictment and procured the finding of a true bill against 
 Helton. The murderer escaped and fled the State. 
 
 In the newly populated State of Alabama, as in the 
 young States of the West and Southwest, the moral and 
 physical courage of every prominent man was put to fre 
 quent severe tests. Until communities became settled 
 and regular, what is called in the Far West " sand " is a 
 prime requisite of character. On many occasions of dan 
 ger occuring during the first six years of his Alabama 
 residence he met every requirement in this respect. So 
 well was his reputation for coolness and nerve established 
 that the inhabitants of Huntsville, a year after he became 
 a resident of the town, elected him mayor for the purpose 
 of securing the suppression of the bloody brawls and af 
 frays which had become of almost daily occurrence in the 
 streets and public square. Stabbing and shooting affairs 
 were making the name of Huntsville a by-word in the 
 South The officers of the law were helpless and discour 
 aged. The new mayor reorganized the force, headed it 
 when necessary, making some arrests of disorderly persons 
 with his own hands, and succeeded in establishing the 
 supremacy of the law. He served two years as mayor, 
 refusing the salary attached to the office. 
 
 James G. Birney was not of a nature to allow his pro 
 fessional pursuits to engross his attention to the injury of 
 the interests of the community in which he lived. What 
 concerned the public, concerned him. From the time he 
 began practice in Kentucky as a lawyer, he had shown 
 the liveliest sympathy with educational movements. He 
 had aided in founding and endowing the Danville Acad 
 emy. He had become so identified with this kind of 
 public service that, in 1819, he had been appointed one 
 of the trustees of Centre College, at Danville, the new 
 institution which was expected to grow into the leading 
 
LIFE AT HUXTSVILLE. 53 
 
 university of the West ; and each year afterward he timed 
 his visits to Kentucky so as to attend the meetings of the 
 trustees. Soon after his removal to Alabama he had been 
 appointed trustee of Greene Academy, a classical school at 
 Huntsville, and he performed the duties of that position 
 through the entire period of his residence in the State. 
 In 1823, one of his first acts after his removal to town 
 was to organize the Huntsville Library Company. In 
 December, he procured a charter in which he was named 
 corporator with Dr. Thomas Fearn, Samuel Hazard, John 
 Boardman, Miles S. Watkins, and other leading citizens. 
 He joined cordially in movements for the improvement 
 of the city. Among these were throwing a strong dam 
 across the head of the Big Spring ; creating a water- 
 power and erecting works which forced the water through 
 wooden pipes for the supply of each building with pure 
 water for drinking and all domestic purposes; and dig 
 ging a canal from the Big Spring, a distance of eleven 
 miles, to the Tennessee River, for the transportation of 
 cotton and other heavy products. 
 
 As he grew older, Mr. Birney lost all interest in frivoli 
 ties, and was gradually becoming disinclined to the amuse 
 ments common in the South. His relinquishment of play 
 had separated him from many former companions. He 
 had never been a profane man or joined in drinking- 
 bouts. His views of life were becoming more serious, 
 more earnest. In 1825 his children were five in number. 
 Under the responsibilities of domestic, social, and profes 
 sional life, he had grown into the conservative citizen and 
 exemplary head of a family. His wife was a faithful 
 member of the Presbyterian Church, and for three years 
 he had been her companion at the Sunday services. The 
 two oldest children sat in the pew with their parents. 
 They attended the Sunday-school, and the father sometimes 
 went with them. Under the quiet influence of the mother, 
 
54 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 social ties had been formed with many church-members-, 
 also, with the pastor, Dr. Allen, who was an able, learned 
 man, and a gentleman who recommended religion in his 
 conduct. From his youth up, James Gr. Birney had rev 
 erenced religion ; he had never been a skeptic, and he 
 felt a profound respect for the Church and the duties of 
 its ministers. His deep and sincere nature and love of 
 truth predisposed him to the acceptance of religious prin 
 ciple as the guide of his life, and his heart had been won 
 by the beauty of piety as exemplified in his beloved wife. 
 If she had been an Episcopalian, he might have been 
 better content ; but it probably never occurred to him to 
 prefer the Church of his fathers to hers. His nature was 
 too broad for sectarianism. For two or three years his 
 tendencies to a religious life had been so marked that 
 when, in the spring of J826, he made a public profession 
 and connected himself with Dr. Allen s church his friends 
 and the public were not surprised. 
 
 From that event dates his new and better life, his per 
 formance of duty as he saw it, his increasingly intelligent 
 conscience. From that time he began that slow moral and 
 intellectual growth which, in a few years, brought him to 
 the full stature of a philanthropist and statesman. In 
 future chapters will be traced the almost imperceptible 
 degrees by which he rose from measures designed to 
 benefit his locality to those for the good of his State, the 
 South, and, finally, the country. His growth was organic, 
 not spasmodic. In all he did he was clearly the product 
 of the best elements of Southern society, and his move 
 ments in advance were on the prolongation of the lines 
 on which he started. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 LIFE AT HUNTSVILLE. 
 
 1826, 1827. 
 
 of the first effects of his conversion to the doc 
 trine of doing as you would be done by was the revocation 
 of his refusal, made in 1824, to act as attorney or legal 
 protector of the Cherokee nation, which occupied the 
 northeastern corner of the State. The position was not 
 desirable, popular prejudice running high against the 
 Indians and manifesting itself in frequent depredations, 
 outrages, and crimes against their property and persons. 
 To protect them in their legal rights was not easy ; and it 
 exposed the protector to the hatred of ruffians. Mr. Bir- 
 ney had refused to act in this capacity, but the reasons 
 he had offered did not satisfy his sense of duty, and he 
 notified the chiefs that he would accept, if they had made 
 no other arrangement. They closed joyfully with his 
 offer. The plan of this volume will not permit me to re 
 count his acts in behalf of this harrassed and oppressed 
 people in the six years beginning with 1826. He caused 
 missionaries to be sent and schools to be established 
 among them; he encouraged them to cultivate farms, 
 build houses, and open roads ; he aided an educated In 
 dian, who had invented an alphabet for the language, to 
 start a Cherokee paper ; he defended them in their prop 
 erty rights, and brought to punishment some of t}s au 
 thors of the outrages upon their persons ; he counseled 
 
56 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 them to peace and good behavior ; and, most surprising 
 of all, he succeeded in introducing, quietly and without 
 opposition, several Indian girls as pupils into the Hunts- 
 ville Female Seminary. It was said they were daughters 
 of chiefs. They attended the Presbyterian Ohurch, and 
 were reputed to be wards of Mr. Birney. Two of them I 
 remember as beautiful. The Indians visited Huntsville 
 from time to time for the sale of pelts, nuts, blow-guns, 
 bows and arrows, and game, and they never failed to pass 
 by my father s house, and leave for him some token of 
 their gratitude. 
 
 Early in 1826 he began to take an interest in the 
 American Colonization Society, which he regarded " as a 
 scheme of benevolence to the whole colored population, 
 and as a germ of effort capable of expansion adequate to 
 the largest necessities in the extermination of slavery." 
 (See his letter on colonization, 1834.) He aided in get 
 ting up a contribution to the funds of the society. This 
 is the first indication in his career of sympathy with the 
 slave, and -a consciousness of his personal duty in regard 
 to the evil of slavery. Every year thereafter he and some 
 of his neighbors united in making a similar contribution. 
 
 In December, 1826, when he went to the Capitol of 
 Alabama to attend the session of the Supreme Court, he 
 took with him the rough draught of a bill " to prohibit 
 the importation of slaves into this State for sale or hire." 
 This was intended to give effect to a clause in the Consti 
 tution of 1819, which gave power to the General Assem 
 bly "to prevent slaves from being brought into this State 
 as merchandise" a clause which had remained a dead 
 letter. The bill was passed, with little opposition, Janu 
 ary 12, 1827. The prohibition was to take effect on the 
 first day of the following August. The penalty was 
 
 To forfeit and pay the sum of one thousand dollars for each 
 negro so brought in one half thereof to the person suing for the 
 
LIFE AT HUNTSVILLE. 57 
 
 same, and the other half to the use of the State. . . . And, 
 moreover, any person thus offending shall be subject to mdict- 
 ment, and, on conviction, shall be liable to be fined in a sum not 
 exceeding five hundred dollars for each offense, and sLall be im 
 prisoned not exceeding three months, at the discretion of the 
 jury trying said offense. (Alabama Statutes, 1826- 27.) 
 
 This law was not favored by some of the large planters, 
 who desired unlimited facilities for buying field hands ; 
 but it pleased those who desired to limit the introduction 
 of slaves into the State, and those who despised slave- 
 traders. That this last class was numerous at the South 
 is testified to by Henry Clay in his compromise speech in 
 January, 1850, as follows : " Sir, it is a great mistake at 
 the North, if they suppose that gentlemen living in the 
 slave States look upon one who is a regular trader in slaves 
 with any particular favor or kindness." 
 
 In February, 1827, Mr. Birney revisited Danville, 
 Ky., and spent two weeks with his father and friends. 
 He attended the regular meeting of his Masonic lodge 
 Franklin, No. 28 and met the brethren in a social 
 reunion. We may fairly attribute to his efforts the re 
 markable resolution and circular adopted by that lodge, 
 and seni to the Masonic lodges in Kentucky. The reso 
 lution was : 
 
 FRANKLIN LODGE, No. 28, 
 DANVILLE, March 3, 1827. 
 
 Whereas the commerce in slaves carried on by importation to 
 this State from the other slave-holding States conflicts with 
 those feelings of benevolence and philanthropy which it is the 
 duty of every Mason to cherish and inculcate, and is also in di 
 rect violation of the laws of the State in which we live, which 
 every worthy Mason is bound to respect and obey ; 
 
 Therefore, Resolved, as the opinion of this lodge, that said 
 commerce is inconsistent with the principles. of Free and Accept 
 ed Ancient York Masonry and ought to be discountenanced by 
 every member of the fraternity. 
 
58 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 The circular was temperate and forcible. It closed 
 with these words : 
 
 We feel it to be the duty of the craft to warn its members 
 from, and to mark with pointed reprobation, all participation in 
 that commerce which, under the influence of a degraded cupid 
 ity, imports from other States hundreds of slaves every year to 
 be sold as merchandise in this country, in violation of an express 
 law of the land and the best feelings of our nature, and, as we 
 believe, against the permanent interest of our country. 
 
 By order, respectfully and fraternally, your brother, 
 
 D. G. COWAN, Master. 
 
 This document is the companion-piece of the Alabama 
 law passed in the preceding January, and is evidently 
 from the same hand. It was first published, and with 
 praise, in the " Western Luminary " (Lexington, Ky.,) and 
 may be found in full in Lundy s " Genius," etc. (Balti 
 more, Md.,), of November 24, 1827. For many years 
 James G. Birney entertained the idea of getting slavery 
 into a manageable condition in each State by stopping the 
 interstate slave trade. As in 1827 the slave population 
 was less than one hundred thousand in Alabama and 
 about one hundred and fifty thousand in Kentucky, the 
 idea was not, at the first blush, a chimerical one. 
 
 It was during this February visit to Kentucky that the 
 first alienation of any of James G. Birney s relatives or 
 connections from him took place. He was now thirty- 
 five years of age, and had enjoyed their love and friend 
 ship without interruption ; but in one or more of his con 
 versations on slavery perhaps among the Masons he 
 had commented with severity, it was alleged, on the con 
 duct of a cousin by marriage, Ninian Edwards, then Gov 
 ernor of Illinois, contrasting him, much to his disadvan 
 tage, with ex-Governor Coles, of the same State. Edwards 
 was born in Maryland, but moved to Kentucky about 
 1793, before he was of age; he was a lawyer, judge, and 
 
LIFE AT HUXTSVILLE. 59 
 
 finally Chief Justice of the State, when, in 1809, he was 
 appointed Governor of the new Territory of Illinois. In 
 1792 he had been a zealous advocate of a free constitution 
 for the State of Kentucky ; and from 1809 to 1818, the 
 whole term of his service as Territorial Governor, he had 
 resisted the introduction into Illinois of slaves as property, 
 and recommended a free constitution for the future State ; 
 but when that constitution was adopted and he was made 
 United States Senator, he voted for the admission of Mis 
 souri as a slave State, and the consequent extension of 
 slavery being one of the renegades among Senators from 
 the Northern States. In the struggle in Illinois, between 
 1822 and 1824, to prevent the establishment of slavery in 
 that State, Senator Edwards had stood aloof, not appearing 
 to care whether freedom or slavery should triumph. And 
 when a majority of the population, being immigrants from 
 slave States, had voted that Illinois should remain a free 
 State, Edwards had maintained silence and indifference. 
 
 On the other hand, Edward Coles, a Virginian, heir to 
 several hundred slaves, a man of education and talent, 
 who had been for six years private secretary to Presi 
 dent Madison, had taken his slaves from Virginia, where 
 he could not free them, to Illinois, given them deeds of 
 emancipation, bought lands and built cabins for them, 
 given them stock and farming-tools, and watched over 
 their interests until the freed men were able to take care 
 of themselves without aid. In each deed of emancipation 
 Mr. Coles had said : 
 
 And whereas I do not believe that man can have a right of prop 
 erty in his fellow -man, . . . I do, therefore, . . . restore to the 
 said . . . that inalienable liberty of which they have leen deprived. 
 (Deed of July 19, 1819.) 
 
 From that time Edward Coles* had thrown himself, 
 * See E. B. Washburne s " Sketch of Governor Coles," p. 202. 
 
60 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 with all his weight, into the work of defeating the schemes 
 of certain Southern politicians to make Illinois a slave 
 State, and in August, 1824, had won victory at the polls.* 
 
 Mr. Birney censured Ninian Edwards as a renegade 
 to his own principles, and eulogized Edward Coles as a 
 patriot and statesman. His remarks gave great offense 
 to some of the connections common to him and Governor 
 Edwards, and the rupture was never wholly healed. The 
 incident is important in this biography, as, in the absence 
 of contemporaneous proofs, it shows conclusively that his 
 sympathies had been with the free-soil men in the Mis 
 souri controversy. 
 
 In 1827, two of his Democratic friends in Madison 
 County, Eobert Chambers and Jeremiah Clemens, both 
 lawyers and planters and men of wealth, died, the former 
 leaving him co-guardian of an only son and executor of 
 his estate, and the latter leaving him sole executor of his 
 estate and guardian of his two sons and daughter. These 
 sacred trusts were faithfully performed. One of the sons 
 of Mr. Clemens, Jeremiah, was elected United States Sen 
 ator in 1849. He wrote several novels of some merit. 
 During his life he cherished a warm regard for his former 
 guardian, never failing to call on him when in the same 
 city. He did what he could to keep Alabama and Tennes 
 see from going out of the Union, but finally adhered to 
 the Confederate Government. 
 
 In 1827 Mr. Birney joined, with his usual vigor, in the 
 project to establish in Huntsville a free school on the 
 Lancastrian plan, then in great vogue ; but protested 
 against raising the necessary funds by lottery a plan au 
 thorized by the Legislature in January, 1828. 
 
 In the same year he sold his handsome residence to A. 
 F. Hopkins, Esq., his partner, and bought, in the northeast 
 
 * See Brown s " Early Movements in Illinois for the Legalization of 
 Slavery." 
 
LIFE AT HUNTSVILLE. 61 
 
 part of the city, a handsome lot of more than two acres in 
 area, with good but not fine buildings. On the opposite 
 side of the street he bought a ten-acre grass lot. Here 
 his taste for building, beautifying, and gardening had full 
 scope. He drained, leveled, graded, planted shade trees, 
 sowed grass seed, built additions, laid out walks, intro 
 duced new varieties of grapes, plums, damsons, figs, pears, 
 peaches, melons, etc., made fences, both for fancy and 
 utility, painted and arranged, until the place was as beau 
 tiful and attractive as good soil, a genial climate, a south 
 ern sun, aesthetic taste, and liberal expenditure of money 
 could make it. In the broad, smooth walks and vine-cov 
 ered arbors of the garden, the young people of Hunts- 
 ville found pleasant promenades in the long evenings of 
 summer. 
 
 At a later period he bought between three and four 
 hundred acres of fertile land on the Flint River, about ten 
 miles east of Huntsville. It was a romantic spot, on the 
 road to Bellefonte, and he had often passed it on his way 
 to court. A sugar-loaf mountain, with clear springs near 
 its base, the stream from which rippled across the road, 
 and rich bottom-land stretching to the small forest-shaded 
 river half a mile away. Intending it for a stock-farm, he 
 built cabins near the springs, and placed on it a manager 
 and a few hired hands. To this place it was his pleasure 
 to retire when he needed recuperation from professional 
 work. He would join in the labor of clearing up the new 
 fields, burning brush and logs, building fences, and put 
 ting in crops. His muscular pow r er was greater than that 
 of ordinary men, and the exercise improved his health ; 
 but his highest gratification in farming was in bringing 
 order and beauty out of chaos and ugliness. He was an 
 artist in making homes. 
 
 The manager of this farm chafed a good deal under 
 the prohibition of the use of the lash on the servants. On 
 
62 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 one occasion he sent by the writer, who had been at the 
 farm hunting ducks and squirrels, which were numerous, 
 a note stating that Jack, a negro, must be whipped. My 
 father was much troubled by this note, but sent me back 
 to tell the manager that if Jack would not behave him 
 self he should send him at once to his master. In speak 
 ing with me about the matter, he said : " It is hard to tell 
 what one s duty is toward these poor creatures ; but I have 
 made up my mind to one thing I will not allow them to 
 be treated brutally." 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 THE POLITICAL CAMPAIGN. 
 
 1828. 
 
 FROM the date of his anti-Jackson speech in the 
 Alabama Legislature of 1819, Mr. Birney had been identi 
 fied with the national party that favored a protective tariff, 
 internal improvements, and a liberal construction gener 
 ally of the Constitution. His high reputation, socially 
 and professionally, gave him influence and prominence in 
 the party councils, and in 1828 he was nominated as one 
 of the electors on the Adams and Bush ticket for Ala 
 bama. He immediately took the field, and spoke during 
 the summer and autumn at numerous political meetings 
 held in the chief towns of the State, eulogizing the Con 
 servatism of Adams and attacking the politics of Jackson 
 and Calhoun as fatally dangerous to the maintenance of 
 the Union. 
 
 To understand his course and motives, the reader must 
 comprehend the then existing condition of Southern poli 
 tics and sentiment in relation to slavery and its extension. 
 The truth on this subject has seldom, if at all, been fairly 
 and fully stated. 
 
 The friends of Crawford, Jackson, and Calhoun are 
 unwilling to admit inferences unfavorable to them in the 
 present state of public opinion ; writers with pro-slavery 
 sympathies reject the idea that there were Union men and 
 
64: JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 abolitionists at the South ; and anti-slavery authors, espe 
 cially most of the Massachusetts ones, concur in this rejec 
 tion, their bias being to exaggerate the importance of the 
 Northern movement against slavery. The average belief 
 at the North, owing to these errors of superficial or biased 
 writers, is that, after the Missouri struggle of 1820- 21, the 
 nation went fast asleep on the slavery question ; that the 
 subject was not discussed at the South because of danger 
 to life, or at the North because of apathy; that the 
 Southern politicians who had achieved the admission of 
 Missouri had at once abandoned their schemes to extend 
 the area of slavery ; in short, that, for a decade of years, 
 " thick darkness " and ignorance and acquiescence in 
 wrong enveloped the nation. This erroneous belief, which 
 has become general, has amazing vitality and persistency ; 
 I can hardly expect to shake it, but I must do so or fail 
 to make intelligible the public career of James G. Birney, 
 which began to move on well-defined lines in his anti- 
 Jackson campaign in 1828. The reader will indulge me, 
 therefore, in a statement of facts that reflects light on the 
 Southern politics and sentiment of that period. 
 
 The " Solid South " took its definite form for the first 
 time in the Missouri struggle. As John Quincy Adams 
 says (diary, March 3, 1820) : " In this instance the slave 
 States have clung together in one unbroken phalanx, and 
 have been victorious by means of accomplices and deserters 
 from the ranks of freedom." 
 
 The admission of Missouri as a slave State was but a 
 small part of the plan of the slavery extensionists, of 
 whom Crawford was the most able and intriguing. 
 Another part was the restoration of slavery in Illinois, 
 Indiana, and Ohio. John Q. Adams (diary, March 3, 
 1820) says : " I have had information from the Governor 
 of the State of Indiana that there is in that State a party 
 countenanced and supported by Crawford, whose purpose 
 
THE POLITICAL CAMPAIGN. 65 
 
 it is to introduce slavery into that State ; and there is 
 reason to believe that the same project exists in Ohio and 
 Illinois." This project had been on foot for many years 
 in the three States above named. 
 
 The close of the Missouri controversy was the signal 
 for renewing with energy the struggle to establish slavery 
 in Illinois. A large majority of the voters in the State 
 were immigrants from the South, and the pro-slavery 
 men expected an easy victory. The contest awakened a 
 national interest. Money was contributed freely by 
 Southern slave-holders to one party, and by Philadelphia 
 Quakers to the other. Pamphlets, some of which were 
 written in other States, were circulated broadcast and 
 newspapers were established to discuss slavery. In his 
 interesting " Sketch of Governor Coles," E. B, Washburne 
 has traced this battle from its open beginning to its close. 
 On page 191, he says : " It was on the first Monday of 
 August, 1824, that the election was to take place. The 
 hand-to-hand struggle had continued eighteen months, and 
 superhuman exertions had been made on both sides. Both 
 parties welcomed the arrival of the moment that was fi 
 nally to end a struggle that had evoked so much feeling 
 and passion, involved so much labor, and absorbed such 
 intense interest." 
 
 The friends of slavery were defeated by a large majority. 
 The vote was a deliberate verdict against the institution 
 by men who knew all about it. Even " Egypt " decided 
 against it. This disaster greatly perplexed the leaders of 
 the political South, coming as it did in the midst of a 
 campaign for the presidency. The " Southron " and the 
 " Telescope," two South Carolina papers of the fire-eating 
 class, advised the immediate calling of a convention of 
 the planting States, under pretext of opposition to the 
 moderate tariff law, which had been passed on the pre 
 ceding 16th of April. But the wiser heads counseled 
 
66 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 delay and the election in November of a slave-holder to 
 the presidency. 
 
 The unexpected defeat of Jackson and election of John 
 Quincy Adams by the House of Eepresentatives caused an 
 immediate change in slave-holding tactics. 
 
 Previous to that event, four favorite sons of the South, 
 Clay, Calhoun, Crawford, and Jackson, had disputed for 
 her favor. Clay was popular among Northern manufact 
 urers and in Virginia and Kentucky ; and, to capture 
 Southern support, he could refer to his early champion 
 ship of the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions of 1798; 
 to his advocacy, in 1820, of setting aside the Florida 
 treaty and seizing Texas by force of arms ; and to his suc 
 cessful efforts to effect the admission of Missouri into the 
 Union as a slave State. 
 
 Calhoun, by his free-trade, pro-slavery, and ultra 
 State-rights doctrines, had alienated the support of the 
 North for the presidency. His tendencies were generally 
 believed to be toward separation of the South from the 
 North. "With professions of personal preference for the 
 Union, he generally coupled declarations of his belief that 
 the South would be forced out of the Union and compelled 
 to form an alliance with Great Britain (Adams s diary, 
 February 24, 1820). Any refusal to let the South have 
 its way in anything was, in his eyes, an application of 
 force to that section. All his subtly conceived but illogi 
 cal theories were based upon the right of each State to 
 nullify the laws of the nation ; but, with diplomatic cau 
 tion, he expressed the hope that no occasion might be 
 presented for the exercise of this right. He was earnestly 
 in favor of the acquisition of Texas and the extension of 
 slavery westward, and is generally credited with being 
 the first to suggest the brilliant scheme afterward incor 
 porated in the creed of the " Knights of the Golden 
 Circle " the creation of a slave-holding empire, includ- 
 
THE POLITICAL CAMPAIGN. 67 
 
 ing the Southern States, Texas, Mexico, and Central 
 America. 
 
 Crawford had been for a long time Secretary of the 
 Treasury, and had great capacity for intrigue. He was a 
 strict constructionist, and could rely upon the support of 
 Virginia and Georgia, and of Jeffersonian Democrats 
 generally. His devotion to slavery extension was un 
 doubted. 
 
 Jackson was not identified w r ith any theory of politics ; 
 he was a man of the people, and had received a majority 
 of the popular vote at the election of 1824. Besides, he 
 was an illustrious general, and had gained the most brill 
 iant victory in the annals of his country. While his de 
 votion to the extension of slavery was undoubted and 
 unquestionable, he was opposed to nullification, believing 
 that the slave States should remain in the Union and 
 rule it. 
 
 Immediately after the election of Adams a coalition 
 appears to have been formed by the Southern friends of 
 Crawford, Calhoun, and Jackson. The general, as the 
 most available candidate, was to be made President in 
 1828 ; Calhoun was to be Vice- President ; and Crawford, 
 who was in ill-health, was to be suitably provided for in 
 case of success of the coalition. Adams appears to have 
 been aware of this scheme soon after it was formed. Janu 
 ary 27, 1825, he enters in his diary that Calhoun said " his 
 personal wish was for my election. This contrasts sin 
 gularly with the conduct of all his electioneering parti 
 sans." And February llth, of the same year, he mentions 
 Calhoun s plan " to bring in General Jackson as the next 
 President." 
 
 On Clay s confirmation as Secretary of State, fourteen 
 Senators, most of them Southern, including one from Vir 
 ginia, and all from North Carolina and Georgia, voted in 
 the negative, which votes, Mr. Adams thought, indicated 
 
68 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 " the rallying of the Southern interests and prejudices to 
 the men of the South." 
 
 Another indication of the coalition is thus noted by 
 Mr. Adams : " Thomas H. Benton, who, from being a furi 
 ous personal and political enemy of General Jackson, be 
 came, about the time of the recommendation, a furious 
 partisan in his favor " (diary, March 5th). 
 
 It was in the same year (1825) that Mr. Calhoun said 
 to Nathan Sargent that it (the Adams administration) 
 " must be defeated at all hazards, regardless of its meas 
 ures." (See Van Hoist s " Life of Calhoun." page 65.) 
 
 From the election of Adams to that of his successor, in 
 1828, all means were employed "to fire the Southern 
 heart." Public meetings were held in every part of the 
 Carolinas and the Gulf States, and inflammatory harangues 
 were made, until the South was ablaze with excitement. 
 The tariff of 1824 was the pretext until the passage of the 
 Tariff Act of April, 1828 ; and this was denounced as an 
 aggravation of the evils of the first. It was assumed by 
 the free-trade orators that manufacturing industries were 
 impossible at the South, which could be only agricultural ; 
 that Europe was the only market for cotton ; and that the 
 tariff was a Northern measure, calculated to impose upon 
 the cotton-planters the whole burden of the expenditures 
 of the National Government. The citizens of Columbia 
 and Richland, in a memorial to the South Carolina Legis 
 lature, said, " The Northern and Middle States are to be 
 enriched by the plunder of the South." 
 
 In an address to the people of South Carolina, the citi 
 zens of Colleton District said of the tariff : " It lifts them " 
 (the North and West) " to prosperity, while it sinks us into 
 ruin. We have done by words all that words can do. To 
 talk more must be a dastard s refuge." 
 
 They advised " an attitude of open resistance to the 
 laws of the Union." 
 
THE POLITICAL CAMPAIGN. 69 
 
 It was recommended in a South Carolina paper that 
 the Southern States should prohibit the introduction into 
 them from the Northern States of horses, mules, hogs, 
 beef, cattle, bacon, bagging, and other products; and 
 should impose a municipal tax, large enough to be pro 
 hibitory, on all goods, wares, and merchandise, the produce 
 of those States. 
 
 A Georgia paper addressed to the North the words of 
 Abraham to Lot : " Separate thyself, I pray thee, from 
 me," etc. 
 
 A congress was suggested to devise means of protec 
 tion " from the operation of the tariff bill, and prevent 
 the introduction and use of the tariffed articles in their 
 respective States." (See Young s ." American Statesman.") 
 
 At a meeting in Columbia, S. C., in 1827, Dr. Thomas 
 Cooper, president of the State college, made a speech 
 which contained the following passages : " A drilled and 
 managed majority has determined at all hazards to sup 
 port the claims of the Northern manufacturers and to 
 offer up the planting interest on the altar of monopoly." 
 Protection " a system by which the earnings of the South 
 are to be transferred to the North. . . . We of the South 
 hold our plantations under this system as the serfs and 
 operatives of the North." " Is it worth our while to con 
 tinue this union of States, where the North demands to 
 be our masters and we are required to be their tribu 
 taries ? " 
 
 At a grand tariff banquet in Richmond, Ya., in 1827, 
 William B. Giles, a free-trade leader, proposed and the 
 guests drank a toast " to the Tariff Schemer ! The South 
 will not long pay tribute." (See Logan s " Great Con 
 spiracy.") 
 
 January 15, 1828, the Legislature of Alabama passed 
 " A joint remonstrance to the Congress of the L^nited 
 States against the power assumed to protect certain 
 
70 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 brandies of industry," and denounced the proposed wool 
 en bill " as a species of aggression little less than legal 
 ized pillage on her property, to which she can never sub 
 mit until the constitutional means of resistance shall be 
 exhausted." 
 
 The enactment in April, 1828, of another tariff, en 
 abled the political leaders at the South to heap fresh fuel 
 on the fire. Soon after this a public meeting, held at 
 Walterborough, S. C., issued an address calling upon the 
 people " to resist," repeating in different paragraphs " We 
 must resist," and ending with : " Does timidity ask when? 
 We answer, now ! " 
 
 About the same time the anonymous nullification 
 pamphlet of fifty-six pages, known in political history as 
 " The South Carolina Exposition," was printed. Before 
 the end of summer it was in the hands of all the promi 
 nent pro-slavery politicians of the South. It was a man 
 ual of the arguments for nullification, presented with all 
 the ability of its author, John C. Calhoun ; and its influ 
 ence in shaping pro-slavery policy was very great. This 
 candidate for the Vice-Presidency, on the Jackson ticket, 
 was actively and secretly engaged in undermining the 
 Union ! 
 
 The outcry against the tariff had its minor-key accom 
 paniment in charges against President Adams of hostility 
 to the South. He was not a slave-holder, refused to em 
 ploy slaves at the White House, had appointed abolition 
 ists to office, had recommended sending delegates to the 
 Panama Congress, and was opposed to the acquisition of 
 Texas and to the extension of slavery. 
 
 Henry Clay did what he could to allay apprehensions 
 of danger from Adams, and to dissuade the political South 
 from forming a pro-slavery party. In his speech at Lew- 
 isburg, Va., August 30, 1826 (see page 380, volume of his 
 speeches, published in 1827), he said : 
 
THE POLITICAL CAMPAIGN. 71 
 
 There are persons who would impress on the Southern States 
 the belief that they have just cause of apprehending danger to a 
 certain portion of their property from the present Administra 
 tion. It is not difficult to comprehend the object and the motive 
 of these idle alarms. Suppose an object of these alarmists were 
 accomplished, and the slave-holding States were united in the 
 sentiment that the policy of this Government, in all time to 
 come, should be regulated on the basis of the fact of slavery, 
 would not union on the one side lead to union on the other. The 
 slave-holding States can not forget that they are now in a mi 
 nority, which is in a constant relative diminution, and should 
 certainly not be the first to put forth a principle of action l>y which 
 they would be the greatest losers. 
 
 There were not wanting eminent and able men at the 
 South who advocated the tariff. Among these were James 
 Madison, of Virginia. His two tariff letters to Joseph C. 
 Cabell, printed in 1828, still hold an honorable place in 
 political literature. James G. Birney went further he 
 not only advocated the tariff, but took issue with the 
 South Carolina nullifiers and the slavery extensionists. 
 In numerous speeches delivered in different parts of the 
 State, he exposed the sophistries of the resolutions of 
 1798, pointed out the dangers of attempting to control 
 national politics in the interest of a single pecuniary inter 
 est, and warned the slave-holders not to invite a national 
 discussion of slavery by attempting to extend it over new 
 States in Texas, thus destroying the balance of power be 
 tween the K"orth and the South. He appealed to them 
 not to repeat the agitations of the Missouri controversy ; 
 not to awaken the sleeping lion ; and he developed and 
 illustrated the suggestions made by Henry Clay in his 
 Lewisburg speech, in 1826. 
 
 If the reader believes in the prevalent error, that, in 
 the decade ending with 1830, any and every discussion 
 at the South of slavery or its extension, was promptly 
 punished with death at the hands of a mob, he will be 
 
72 JAMES G. BIRXEY AND II1S TIMES. 
 
 incredulous in regard to the character of Mr. Birney s 
 speeches in 1828. To remove skepticism on this subject, 
 I propose to devote the twelfth chapter to stating a few 
 of the many facts tending to prove that freedom of speech 
 was not unknown at the South during and before the 
 period in question. It is believed that careful historical 
 research will establish the truth of the following proposi 
 tions in regard to the mobbing of abolitionists in the 
 South : 
 
 1. In the border slave States, with the exception of 
 Missouri, during the agitations of 1820- 21, it had been 
 almost unknown before the election of General Jackson 
 to the presidency ; and in the Gulf States, it was local, 
 occasional, and rare before that event. 
 
 2. After the election of Jackson the toleration of 
 slavery discussion was rapidly narrowed in its limits ; and 
 the prejudice against Yankees led to an increase in the 
 number of cases of mob violence. 
 
 3. The horrible slave insurrection of August, 1831, at 
 Southampton, Va., caused a panic that resulted in mobs 
 and the expulsion from the South of a number of persons 
 suspected of tampering with the slaves, and in the gen 
 eral strengthening of " the patrol system," organized un 
 der law to keep the slaves in subjection. 
 
 4. The defeat of the milliners, in the winter of 1832- 33, 
 turned all their activities into the agitation of slavery, for 
 the purpose of creating a sectional feeling as a basis for a 
 future separation of the States. Hostility to Northerners 
 was fomented, and vigilance committees were formed, 
 the chief duty of which was " to hang abolitionists " on 
 short shrift. In this work the Jackson and Clay men vied 
 with the milliners; and before the end of 1835 the South 
 was terrorized into silence, and thoroughly organized to 
 support the claims of the slave power. 
 
 That this was the view taken by Thomas H. Benton 
 
THE POLITICAL CAMPAIGN. 73 
 
 may be inferred from the following passage from the sec- 
 oncLYolume of his " Thirty Years in the Senate " : 
 
 Mr. Callioun, when he went home from Congress in the spring 
 of that year (1833), told his friends that "The South could never 
 be united against the North on the tariff question that the sugar 
 interests of Louisiana would keep her out, and that the basis of 
 the Southern union must be shifted to the slave question." Then 
 all the papers in his interest, and especially the one at Washing 
 ton, published by Mr. Duff Green, dropped tariff agitation and 
 commenced upon slavery, and in two years had the agitation ripe 
 for inauguration upon the slavery question. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 ABOLITION IN THE SOUTH BEFORE 1828. 
 
 THERE were many portions of the South which were 
 not under the control of any one of the three schools of 
 slavery extensionists. In East Tennessee, before 1828, the 
 stream of anti-slavery opinion was full and strong. It 
 was formed of two confluents the Presbyterian and the 
 Quaker both from North Carolina. 
 
 The most prominent Presbyterian abolitionist in that 
 region between 1800 and 1830 was the Rev. Samuel Doak, 
 D. D. He was born and brought up in Virginia. His 
 parents being unable to bear the expense of giving him a 
 liberal education, he built for himself a cabin near the 
 college at Lexington, Va., supported himself as a stu 
 dent by working and teaching, graduated with honor, 
 went to Princeton, and took his theological degree in 
 1775 ; taught as tutor in Hampden Sydney College for 
 two years; was licensed as preacher, and migrated in 1777 
 to the Holston Valley, in Tennessee. He fought the In 
 dians, taking his rifle and leading his congregation ; was 
 member of the Constitutional Convention held in 1784; 
 established an academy which grew into Washington Col 
 lege, and was president of it from 1795 to 1818. He then 
 resigned in favor of his son, the Rev. John M. Doak, D. D., 
 and established the " Tusculum Academy " at Bethel, 
 Tenn., which also developed into a college, in the presi 
 dency of which he was succeeded by another son, the 
 
ABOLITION IX THE SOUTH BEFORE 1828. 75 
 
 Kev. Samuel "W. Doak, D. D. During his whole career he 
 taught theology and prepared a large number of students 
 for the ministry. He died in 1830. (See Sprague s "An 
 nals," page 303.) 
 
 He was a large and strong man, healthy, and both able 
 and willing to do a great amount of work. His striking 
 characteristics were manly good sense, calm dignity, in 
 domitable firmness, and powerful intellect ; and his moral 
 influence over those brought in contact with him, espe 
 cially the young, was very great. He was commonly 
 called the Presbyterian bishop. Though he had been for 
 many years opposed to slavery, he did not take the step of 
 emancipating his own slaves until about 1818. Eleven of 
 his freedmen removed to Brown County, Ohio, and their 
 descendants are there at present. From about that time 
 he inculcated upon all his students, theological and liter 
 ary, the principles of immediate abolition. It was prob 
 ably due to his teachings that the noted Sam Houston, 
 one of his pupils, gave his vote many years later against 
 the Kansas-Nebraska bill, and vetoed the Texas ordinance 
 of secession ; and that his step-son, Robert McEwen, kept 
 the national flag flying over his house at Nashville during 
 the whole course of the rebellion. It was through his in 
 fluence chiefly that the Presbyterians of his own and the 
 neighboring county bought two promising young men of 
 color, John Gloucester and George Erskine, freed and 
 educated them for the ministry of their Church, and that 
 the Union Presbytery of East Tennessee licensed and or 
 dained them. They were eloquent preachers. Gloucester 
 became pastor of a colored congregation in Philadelphia, 
 and Erskine had charge for a time of a white congrega 
 tion. (See A. T. Rankin s " Truth Vindicated," page 5.) 
 
 The presbytery just named was formed in part of min 
 isters whose ethics had been fashioned in their youth by 
 the strong hands of the venerable Dr. Doak, and it was 
 
76 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 always distinguished by liberality on the slavery question. 
 Some of his graduates were members of the Abingdon 
 Presbytery. The famous abolitionist Rev. John Rankin 
 was his pupil for three years (1813-1816). The Rev. Jesse 
 Lockhart, who from about 1820 preached immediate 
 abolition, and lectured on it in southern Ohio, was taught 
 by him. 
 
 For half a century Dr. Doak was recognized as the 
 principal column on which rested the Presbyterian Church 
 of East Tennessee, and as his influence was always thrown 
 against slavery, public opinion was liberal on that subject. 
 
 It was principally under Quaker influence that the 
 Manumission Society of Tennessee was formed in 1814. 
 Membership was not limited, however, to that sect. 
 Charles Osborn, Quaker, sat in it side by side with John 
 Rankin and Jesse Lockhart, Presbyterians. The State 
 legislation urged for compulsory emancipation was that a 
 day should be fixed, on and after which every child born 
 in the State should be free. Most of the members be 
 lieved in preparing the slaves for liberty ; some, among 
 whom were Charles Osborn, John Rankin, and Jesse 
 Lockhart, believed in immediate abolition. This society 
 held annual conventions and issued annual addresses _tct 
 the people with great regularity; and several times before 
 1829 was represented in the American Convention to pro 
 mote the Abolition of Slavery. The minutes of its eleventh 
 annual convention, held August 15, 1825 (see Lundy s 
 " Genius " for September of that year), show an attendance 
 of delegates from twelve auxiliary societies with a mem 
 bership of five hundred and seventy persons, three of 
 which societies were county organizations, and that ten 
 auxiliaries were not represented. It was resolved by that 
 body to establish at Greenville a quarterly paper to be en 
 titled " The Manumission Journal." 
 
 In 1820, at Jonesborough, Tenn., Elihu Embree, a 
 
ABOLITION IN THE SOUTH BEFORE 1828. 77 
 
 Friend, had established an octavo monthly paper called 
 " The Emancipator," probably the first newspaper in the 
 United States whose avowed object was the abolition of 
 slavery. Mr. Embree was a manufacturer on a large 
 scale, belonged to a numerous family, and was a man of 
 influence in his county. He died a few months after 
 starting his journal, and Benjamin Lundy, of Mount 
 Pleasant, Ohio, who had already published at that place 
 eight numbers of the " Genius of Universal Emancipa 
 tion," removed to Tennessee and continued its publica 
 tion, first at Jonesborough and afterward at Greenville, in 
 the adjoining county, until October, 1824, when it was 
 issued at Baltimore. (Appendix B.) 
 
 A Greene County, Tenn., correspondent of the " Gen 
 ius" (Xo. 9, October 16, 1829) announces the re-elec 
 tion in that county of John Magaughy to the Assembly, 
 and adds : " Mr. Magaughy did more in the last Assembly 
 on the subject of slavery, in behalf of the Manumission So 
 ciety, than any one ever did at any previous session." 
 
 The fertile flat breadths of land in West Tennessee 
 were favorable to large plantations and working numerous 
 gangs of slaves ; but the American sentiment of inalien 
 able and equal rights found advocates there also. In De 
 cember, 1824, a number of persons convened at Columbia, 
 Maury County, and formed " The Moral, Religious Manu 
 mission Society of West Tennessee." The preamble to 
 the constitution* declares that slavery " exceeds any other 
 crime in magnitude " ; that instrument declares it " the 
 greatest act of practical infidelity," and that " the Gospel 
 of Christ, if believed, would remove personal slavery at 
 once by destroying the will in the tyrant to enslave," and 
 prescribes as follows : 
 
 AKT. 8. None that own or hold slaves can be admitted as 
 members of this society. 
 
 * Published in full in the " Genius " of February, 1825. 
 
78 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 That the movement in Tennessee was not an isolated 
 one will be demonstrated by a few facts taken almost at 
 random from those occurring in other slave States.* 
 
 The Manumission Society of North Carolina was_ 
 formed ^n~T8 16. Ten years later, the number of its 
 auxiliaries was forty-five, and . its cause was advocated by 
 the " Patriot," a newspaper edited with marked ability. 
 The most active men in the membership were probably 
 the Mendenhalls, the Coffins, and the Swains William 
 and Moses. There were several auxiliary societies of la 
 dies not counted in the number above given. 
 
 In the proceedings of this State Society, there is one 
 document which establishes conclusively the existence in 
 North Carolina of many "immediate abolitionists" in 
 1825. It is printed at length in the number of the " Gen 
 ius " for September, 1825. The heading is as follows : 
 " Queries proposed by the Board of Managers of the Manu 
 mission Society of North Carolina, to be answered sepa 
 rately by the branches, and forwarded to the next meeting 
 of the General Association." 
 
 This " next meeting " was held September 9, 1825. It 
 is presumed the answers were all in. A committee was 
 appointed to collate them and " prepare general answers." 
 The fifth query was in these words : 
 
 5th. Is a majority of the citizens of North Carolina opposed 
 to slavery ? 
 
 The general answer to this was as follows : 
 
 5th. We suppose the popular sentiment of North Carolina 
 may be estimated according to the following view, viz., one tkir- \ 
 tieth of the people are crying out for immediate emancipation among . 
 us; one twentieth are for gradual emancipation ; one fifteenth 
 are supporting schemes of emigration and colonization ; three 
 
 * The "Abolition Intelligencer" was published in 1822 and 1823 by 
 the Rev. John Fiuley Crowe, D.D., of Shelbyvillc, Kentucky. 
 
ABOLITION IN THE SOUTH BEFORE 1828. 79 
 
 fifths are ready to support emancipation by paying their money 
 and otherwise, provided masters would cheerfully give up their 
 slaves and Government would undertake the work on a plan that 
 would operate with justice, and insure the safety of all parties ; 
 one twentieth have never thought of the subject, and neither 
 know nor care anything about it ; three twentieths are moder 
 ately opposed to emancipation, merely because they think it im 
 practicable ; and one twentieth are bitterly opposed to it in al 
 most every shape, not because they expect to sustain a material 
 loss in property by the emancipation of slaves, but because they 
 are ignorant enough to think that heaping senseless execrations 
 on manumission societies, etc., is an excellent way of flattering 
 the rich or avaricious. According to this view, it appears that 
 three fifths of the people, or sixty in every hundred, are favor 
 ably disposed toward the principle of emancipation, but are sit 
 ting at ease, waiting for some exciting cause to shake off the pre 
 vailing apathy and give impulse to that course of policy which 
 they know already is just and expedient. We believe about 
 three twentieths, or fifteen in every hundred, are at this time 
 active supporters of universal emancipation in some way or 
 other. 
 
 This is the whole answer to the query. In its estimate 
 of the proportion of " immediate abolitionists " it must be 
 taken to be impartial ; for in the answer to the sixth query 
 the opinion of the society as to the best means of abolish 
 ing slavery is in effect formulated thus : 1. Non-impor 
 tation of slaves into the State ; 2. Prohibition of all sales 
 of slaves ; 3. Freedom of all born after a fixed date ; and 4. 
 Emigration and colonization of the blacks. The queries 
 and answers were signed by Richard Mendenhall, Presi 
 dent, and Aaron Coffin, Secretary, and were forwarded 
 by order of the society to Benjamin Lundy for publi 
 cation. 
 
 As the above is the only deliberate census of Southern 
 opinions on slavery, taken in forty-five different localities 
 in a State, made and published before 1828, and as it was 
 sanctioned by intelligent and conscientious men, citizens 
 
80 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 and knowing the facts, it may be safely taken as a sure 
 guide to public sentiment at its date, not only in North 
 Carolina, but in Tennessee and Virginia. The proportion 
 of abolitionists, immediate and gradual, in Maryland and 
 Kentucky was, for obvious reasons, much larger. With 
 the mention of the single fact that in the years 1834, 1825, 
 and 1826, about two thousand slaves were freed in North 
 Carolina, and 726 in one body were removed from the 
 State as required by law, by the Society of Friends, we 
 will pass to the State of Maryland. 
 
 At the time (October, 1824) Benjamin Lundy began 
 the publication, at Baltimore, of the fourth volume of his 
 paper,* it was generally expected that Maryland would 
 soon take her place among the free States. Only four 
 years had elapsed since the people of the city of Balti 
 more, at a public meeting, the mayor, Edward Johnson, 
 presiding, had denounced the admission of Missouri into 
 the Union as a slave State, and two thousand of her citi 
 zens had signed a petition to Congress to the same effect ; 
 and only eight months since Elisha Tyson, the philanthro 
 pist and emancipator, had fallen at the ripe age of seventy- 
 five, after a life whose deeds of heroism entitle him to rank 
 among the great souls of our race. He was born of a 
 family of Philadelphia Quakers, but removed to Harford 
 County, and afterward to Baltimore, in early manhood. 
 When he witnessed the sufferings of the enslaved and per 
 secuted Africans, his soul was seized with a mighty love 
 and pity for those wretched people, and he consecrated the 
 best energies of his life to their service. If any one was 
 illegally held in slavery, he hunted up the proofs and ap 
 pealed to the courts. To this class belonged all those 
 brought into the State. Some were freedmen who had 
 lost their papers ; others were descended from Indians or 
 other free persons; some had mothers who were freed- 
 
 *" Life of Tyson," p. 103. 
 
ABOLITION IN THE SOUTH BEFORE 1828. 81 
 
 women. He was indefatigable in bringing these cases 
 before the judge of the county court, who, to his honor 
 be it said, enforced the law. From his biography, pub 
 lished by Lundy in 1825, and written by John S. Tyson, 
 his nephew, I extract the following passage : 
 
 The labors of JIjL. Tyson were not confined to a single dis 
 trict, they extended over the whole of Maryland. There is not 
 a county in it which has not felt his influence, or a court of jus 
 tice whose records do not bear proud testimonials of his triumphs 
 over tyranny. Throwing out of calculation the many liberations 
 indirectly resulting from his efforts, we speak more than barely 
 within bounds when we say that he has been the means, under 
 Providence, of rescuing at least two thousand human beings from 
 this galling yoke of a slavery which, but for him, would have 
 been perpetual. 
 
 He exerted himself to put down the traders in slaves 
 and turned the business into disgrace. His biographer 
 says : 
 
 The traffic in human flesh, once so common, and carried on by 
 persons looked upon as respectable, came to be of very limited 
 extent, and conducted by the lowest and basest of mankind. 
 Dungeons for the reception of slaves about to be exported 
 dwindled down to two or three. . . . All this happy revolution 
 w r as the work of one man . . . (p. 12). 
 
 He procured the passage of several laws ameliorating 
 the condition of the slaves and facilitating emancipation, 
 persuaded many masters to give deeds of manumission, 
 and aided in the erection of churches and schools for the 
 freedmen. 
 
 Mr. Tyson s whole life proves that he regarded slavery 
 as a sin, to be repented of and abandoned instantly by the 
 slave-holder. It is probable, however, that when there was 
 question of general abolition by compulsory statutes, he 
 thought it wiser to follow the example of the States which 
 
82 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 had become free. It must be borne in mind that, in 1824, 
 New York was still a slave State, and there were slaves 
 held in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Illinois. / 
 
 Another efficient anti-slavery worker in Maryland was~f~ 
 Daniel Raymond, a lawyer of high standing and a mem 
 ber of the Baltimore bar. Of liberal education, he had 
 devoted much time to the study of political economy. In 
 1820 he published the first, and in 1823 the second edition 
 of an elaborate work on that subject in two octavo vol 
 umes containing eight hundred and fifty-six pages. All 
 the implications of the work are against systems of forced 
 labor, and he devotes the thirteenth chapter of the second 
 volume to the discussion of " The Influence of Slavery 
 on National Wealth." A few extracts will show its char 
 acter : 
 
 The mass of human suffering which has been already caused 
 by negro slavery. . . . The most ardent philanthropists and the 
 most splendid talents have, during the last thirty years, been 
 employed in portraying the horrors of slavery. . . . The man 
 who should now justify the slave-trade would be looked upon 
 as a monster of human depravity. ... It behooves a Christian 
 people to use all diligence in purifying itself from this abomina 
 tion. . . . The current of popular opinion is against slavery. . . . 
 Slavery, a hackneyed, worn-out subject. ... A very little reflec 
 tion, however, will satisfy any man that the scheme [colonization] 
 is utterly hopeless, so far as it proposes to rid our country of the 
 black population or abolish slavery. ... If the Gordian knot of 
 slavery is not untied within a century from this day it will be 
 cut. . . . They are here, and have as much right to remain here 
 as the whites. . . . There are people enough who would set 
 their slaves free provided the law allowed it. 
 
 Comparing slavery to a noose about the neck of the 
 slave States, he says : 
 
 The only way of getting out of the noose is by forcing the 
 slave-owners to let go their hold upon the slaves and set them 
 free. . . . Diffusion [through new slave States] is about as effect- 
 
ABOLITION IN THE SOUTH BEFORE 1828. 83 
 
 ual a remedy for slavery as it would be for the small-pox or the 
 plague. . . . By procrastinating the day of manumission we in 
 crease the difficulty of manumitting. . . . All that is required 
 is a general permission in all the States for masters to manumit 
 their slaves whenever they see fit. Such a law would promote 
 manumission fast enough for the present ... no great and sud 
 den changes would be produced in society. 
 
 Mr. Kaymond had been a colaborer with Elisha Tyson, 
 and he gave a cordial welcome to Benjamin Lundy. On 
 the formation of the Maryland Anti-Slavery Society, Au 
 gust 25, 1825, he was elected its president. He was three 
 times the candidate nominated by that society on the 
 abolition platform for the House of Delegates of Mary 
 land. In 1825 he received six hundred and twenty-four 
 votes. In 1826 he was again brought forward. On the 
 2d of September the officers of the State Anti-Slavery So 
 ciety published an address " to the independent voters of 
 the city of Baltimore (see " Genius " of that date) recom 
 mending Daniel Eaymond for their suffrages. It is four 
 columns in length. The gist of it is in the following 
 extracts : 
 
 A period must be fixed by law for the termination of slavery. 
 . . . Nothing will be adequately effectual [against kidnapping] 
 but the total abolition of slavery, nothing but the annihilation of 
 the market for slaves. 
 
 The following is valuable historically : 
 
 In our sister State of North Carolina the advocates of general 
 emancipation are increasing with a rapidity unparalleled in the 
 annals of this nation. It is believed that nearly three thousand 
 citizens of that State have enrolled themselves as members of 
 anti-slavery societies within a period of two years. . . . 
 
 The Anti -Slavery Society of Maryland consists at this time of 
 four respectable branches with several hundred members, although 
 thirteen months have not yet elapsed since the first proposition 
 was made for its organization. 
 
JAMES G. BIRXEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 In the States of Virginia and Delaware, societies for the abo 
 lition of slavery have also recently been formed, and many in 
 fluential individuals therein are actively engaged in promoting 
 the doctrines of universal emancipation.* 
 
 There were nine candidates, 
 lows : 
 
 The result was as fol- 
 
 J. S. Tyson 3,898 
 
 J. Strieker 2,507 
 
 G. H. Steuart 2,420 
 
 R. Purviance. . 1,319 
 
 C. C. Harper 1,011 
 
 D. Raymond 974 
 
 C. R. Richardson 616 
 
 C. S. Walsh 528 
 
 M. A. Dysart 39 
 
 The two gentlemen elected were on the National Re 
 publican or Adams ticket. The next two were Jackson 
 Democrats. 
 
 Among other comments the " Genius " says : 
 
 Walsh, the most violent antagonist we had, was completely 
 prostrated, receiving but about half the number of votes that he 
 did last year. . . . It is admitted by many that Strieker 
 owes his election entirely to the favorable views he took of the 
 anti-slavery principle. And Tyson has always been known to be 
 zealously opposed to the system of slavery, though he has never 
 consented to pledge himself to advocate its abolition upon the 
 plan of the Anti-Slavery Society.! 
 
 The abolition party was so encouraged by the result 
 of the election that, two days afterward, October 4, 1826, 
 it put Raymond in nomination for the next year s elec 
 tion, and issued an address to the voters of Baltimore. 
 But, alas, for human expectations ! Before the October 
 elections of 1827 the storm blew fiercely for General Jack 
 son, the military hero, who was secretly pledged to the 
 
 * " Genius," October 7, 1826. 
 f " Genius," October 13, 1827. 
 of Elisha Tyson. 
 
 This gentleman was the biographer 
 
ABOLITION IN THE SOUTH BEFORE 1828. 85 
 
 extension and national ascendancy of slavery; and Mr. 
 Eaymond was obliged to withdraw from the canvass. 
 
 Lundy wrote : " There are, it is true, a few advocates 
 of emancipation in the Jackson party ; but the number of 
 substantial, reflecting men among them is small, compared 
 with those favorable to the Administration." 
 
 The Jackson party elected its candidates in Baltimore, 
 both city and county. Its victory, however, was a mortal 
 blow to the Maryland Anti-Slavery party which languished 
 from that time. It did not feel strong enough to nomi 
 nate a candidate in 1828, but it brought forward Mr. 
 Raymond again in 1829. He came in at the foot of the 
 poll, receiving only one hundred and eighty-six votes. 
 That was the last political effort of the abolition party in 
 Maryland. After the inauguration of Jackson, blandish 
 ments, honors, and offices were used freely to win the 
 State ; and gradually a free press and an ti- slavery men 
 were put under the ban, disappearing almost altogether 
 after the Southampton insurrection. It has been argued 
 that if the Baltimore abolitionists had nominated and 
 voted for their ticket in 1827, they would have increased 
 their vote from year to year. But this argument leaves 
 out of view the fact that the movement in Maryland was 
 subject to the same general causes which impeded and 
 finally arrested similar movements in all the more northern 
 slave States. The retardation of anti-slavery efforts in 
 the South kept even pace with the advance of the slave- 
 holding Democracy. Abolitionism lost as Jacksonism 
 gained. 
 
 One more fact must end this chapter. Between the 
 close of the war in 1815 and the end of 1828 the follow 
 ing journals which avowed the extinction of slavery as 
 one, if not the chief one, of their objects, were published 
 in the Southern States : </ . 
 
 I. " The Emancipator " (Tennessee), 1819. v 
 
86 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 2. " The Abolition Intelligencer " (Kentucky), 1822. 
 
 3. " The Genius of Universal Emancipation " (Ten 
 nessee and Maryland), 1821. 
 
 4. " The Liberalist " (Louisiana), 1828. 
 
 The " Genius," Lundy s paper, was the best of the 
 four, and had the largest circulation. It was published 
 more than twelve years in the South. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 LONG VISIT TO THE FREE STATES. 
 1830. 
 
 THE manner of conducting in the North the canvass 
 of the Adams party in 1828 had not met the approval 
 of Mr. Birney. During its progress, he had repeatedly 
 written to the leading men and managers, urging that 
 personalities against Jackson should be dropped and 
 prominence given in the press and on the platform, to the 
 real issues " Texas annexation and nullification." For 
 unexplained reasons his views did not prevail ; Clay was 
 irresponsive, and Adams stood coldly aloof. The contest 
 was waged mainly on such immaterial issues as the alleged 
 bargain for office between Clay and Adams, the degree of 
 social polish and literary education of General Jackson, 
 his marriage, his execution of Ambrister, Arbuthnot, and 
 others, and his military qualifications, in all which the 
 popular prejudices were against the Adams party. Coffin 
 handbills increased the vote for Jackson. The people 
 elected the military hero, without inquiring into, or know 
 ing his probable policy in regard to the extension of slave 
 territory, or his views touching the right of a State to 
 nullify the laws of the Union. 
 
 At this result, Mr. Birney was surprised as well as 
 grieved. HeJiad. expected better things from the North 
 ern and Middle States. Having done his political duty 
 with energy in a State in which his party was in a hope- 
 
88 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 less minority, he wasted no time in idle regrets. Resum- 
 ing his practice in Alabama and Tennessee, he again 
 devoted himself to his professional duties. 
 
 One of the first effects in Alabama of Jackson s elec 
 tion was the repeal, January 22, 1829, of the law of 1827, 
 which prohibited the introduction of slaves into the State 
 for sale or hire. 
 
 The inauguration was promptly followed by measures 
 calculated to bring about the acquisition of Texas. 
 
 Soon after the close of the war with Great Britain 
 (1815), the emigration of slave-holders to Texas had been 
 encouraged by Southern politicians, with a view to the 
 ultimate seizure of the country. In 1819, an armed in 
 vasion of Texas from the Southwest had been prevented 
 by the United States Government. Between 1825 and 
 1829, five insurrections had been attempted by colonists, 
 who were acting, the Mexican Government believed, with 
 the connivance of Joel R. Poinsett, of South Carolina, the 
 United States Minister to Mexico. After the accession of 
 Jackson, the demonstrations of Mr. Poinsett became so 
 marked that in August, Mexico demanded his recall be 
 cause of his intermeddling with her internal affairs. 
 
 During the same period, it became generally accepted 
 by intelligent men in Tennessee and North Alabama that 
 the well-known Sam Houston, always a confidential friend 
 and political protege of General Jackson s, was actively 
 employed in plans for another insurrection in Texas, 
 though ostensibly acting as an Indian chief. 
 
 In the summer of 1829 a series of able essays, over the 
 signature " Americanus," urging the immediate purchase 
 of the province of Texas, were published in the " Rich 
 mond Enquirer," and copied into many of the other 
 Democratic papers of the South. The author was under 
 stood to be Thomas H. Benton, who was then in the 
 President s secret councils. (Ldind^a." Genius," Septem- 
 
LOXG VISIT TO THE FREE STATES. 89 
 
 It was claimed by him that " five or six 
 more slave-holding States may thus be added to the Union" 
 which would give the South " a preponderating influence 
 in the councils of the nation." The comment of the 
 " Enquirer " was : " The statesmen who are at the head of 
 our affairs are not the men we take them to be if they 
 have not already pursued the proper steps for obtaining 
 the cession of Texas, even before the able numbers of 
 Americanus saw the light." 
 
 August 25, 1829, President Jackson, through the Sec 
 retary of State, authorized the United States Minister at 
 Mexico to offer four million, and, if necessary, five mill 
 ion dollars for the purchase of Texas. One of the argu 
 ments to be used for the sale was the insurgent dispo 
 sition of " the present inhabitants of Texas (not Span 
 ish), which has," says Van Buren s letter, " in the short 
 space of five years, displayed itself in not less than four 
 revolts, one of them having for its avowed object the in 
 dependence of the country." * 
 
 The offer to buy was indignantly refused by the Mexi 
 can Government, and for the purpose of preventing fur 
 ther efforts by President Jackson to extend slave territory 
 by dismembering Mexico, a decree was published by Presi 
 dent Guerrero in the September following abolishing slav 
 ery in that country. This was a heroic remedy for slave- 
 holding encroachment. It had the effect of arresting for 
 a time open measures by Jackson to effect annexation, 
 but it stimulated emigration from the South to Texas. 
 The emigrants went armed, and many of them took slaves 
 with them in defiance of Mexican law. Another effect 
 was greatly to strengthen the influence of the nullifiers or 
 separatists over the cotton-planters of the South, always 
 
 * See correspondence in full in Dr. Mayo s " Eight Years in "Wash 
 ington." 
 
90 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 eager to exchange worn-out fields for fertile ones farther 
 west. 
 
 Mr. Birney regarded the political situation as growing 
 worse instead of better, and frequently made it the topic 
 of conversation with his visitors, especially with Nicholas 
 Davis and Arthur F. Hopkins, who were Union men, and 
 had been his coadjutors in the campaign of the preceding 
 year. 
 
 In December, 1829, he received from Henry Clay a 
 letter introducing Josiah F. Polk, Esq., an agent of the 
 Colonization Society, and inclosing a copy of the very able 
 colonization speech recently made by Mr. Clay in Ken 
 tucky. 
 
 Mr. Polk was a man of ability. He was Mr. Birney s 
 guest for several days, and no doubt developed to him 
 fully, as he understood them, the views of Mr. Clay. Up 
 to this time Mr. Birney does not appear to have connected 
 himself with any colonization society, but, in January, 
 he aided Mr. Polk to form one at Huntsville (Dr. Watkins, 
 president), and became a subscriber to the " African Re 
 pository," the monthly published by the national organi 
 zation. Not long after he joined in the formation of the 
 Madison County Colonization Society, of which he acted 
 as treasurer for about two years. 
 
 In the same month, in the Senate of the United States, 
 occurred the bitter attack upon the New England States 
 by Colonel Hayne, of South Carolina, and the masterly 
 answers by Daniel Webster. These speeches brought out 
 strongly at the South the lines of demarkation between 
 the Union and the secession elements. On which side the 
 sympathies of James G. Birney lay was shown in the fact 
 that he caused one of his sons to memorize and declaim at 
 Greene Academy one of the finest passages in Webster s 
 speech. At no time in his life did he ever admit the 
 thought of disunion. In looking forward to the future he ; 
 
 1 
 
LONG VISIT TO THE FREE STATES. 91 
 
 saw no divided country. In his patriotism he knew no 
 North, no South, no East, no West. For the first time in 
 the history of American oratory had the. grand idea of 
 " the nation " been adequately expressed. He looked 
 upon Webster s speech as affording a basis for the organi 
 zation of all good men, North and South, into a party for 
 the defense of the Union and the prevention of slavery 
 extension. He determined to visit the free States, confer 
 with leading Union men, and judge for himself the con 
 dition of public opinion. It was only a few months be 
 fore the opportunity to visit the North on a highly honor 
 able mission was extended to him. In the summer of 
 1830 the board of trustees of the University of Alabama, 
 having received a more liberal endowment, resolved to 
 add to the faculty of the institution a president and four 
 professors. They unanimously requested Mr. Birney to 
 visit the Atlantic States on their behalf, make selections 
 of such persons as he should think suitable, and recom 
 mend them for appointment. The request was communi 
 cated by Governor Moore with a private letter urging him 
 to accept. Such a tribute from political opponents was 
 grateful. He accepted. As soon as this was known his 
 co-trustees of the Huntsville Female Seminary requested 
 him to select three teachers for it. In the performance of 
 this double duty he left home about the first of August 
 and was absent until the end of October, visiting Virginia, 
 Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Mas 
 sachusetts, and Ohio. He bore letters of introduction 
 from Governor Moore, C. C. Clay, Henry Clay, and 
 soTnetrfcher men of note, and appears to have visited 
 many prominent educators and statesmen in the East. 
 11 is daily memoranda from August 31st to October 1st 
 have been preserved. They are very brief and were evi 
 dently intended simply to remind him of dates of 
 visits : 
 
92 JAMES G. BIRXEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 August 31st. Went this morning and delivered a note writ 
 ten by Mr. John Sergeant to his brother Thomas. 
 
 Delivered my letter from Governor Moore to the Hon. Mr. 
 Hemphill. He received me very kindly. 
 
 Delivered my letter to Dr. Chapman. It was from Mr. H. 
 Clay. Received very kindly. Soon felt as if I were conversing 
 with an old acquaintance or confidential friend ; and yet there is 
 at first something very courtier-like in his address. 
 
 Delivered a letter of introduction from President Woods, of 
 Lexington, to the Rev. W. T. B. . . . He conversed with great 
 ease as a scholar of good taste. 
 
 In the afternoon Mr. Dallas (Geo. M.) went with me to the 
 house of Joseph R. Ingersoll. ... I felt much pleased at the 
 frank and polite manners of Mr. Ingersoll. 
 
 Dr. McAuley, who, all men with whom I have conversed who 
 know him say, is qualified in a remarkable manner for such a 
 presidency, declines being considered as a candidate. He recom 
 mends Dr. Wisner, of Boston, or Mr. Spencer, of North 
 ampton. 
 
 He went from Philadelphia to Princeton, and saw Drs. 
 Miller and Alexander ; then to New Brunswick, where lie 
 called on his old college friend, George Wood, " the most 
 distinguished lawyer in the State," and made the acquaint 
 ance of the President and professors of Rutgers College ; 
 then to New York, where he saw Profs. Charles Antlion, 
 Henry Vethake, Renwick, Griscom, and others ; then to 
 New Haven, where he saw President Day, Drs. Taylor 
 and Fitch, Judge Daggett, Mr. Ingersoll, and others. 
 There, and in the neighborhood, lie made the acquaint 
 ance of Messrs. Andrews and Stoddart, afterward distin 
 guished as authors of a Latin grammar. 
 
 In the afternoon, heard Mr. Bacon (Leonard G.), a Congrega 
 tional preacher, a very superior man. 
 
 At Middletown he saw Wilbur Fisk, president of the 
 Methodist college. At Hartford he called on Henry 
 Hudson, whose wife 
 
LONG VISIT TO THE FREE STATES. 93 
 
 a very sensible and polite woman, on my expressing a desire to 
 see Miss Beecher (Catherine), accompanied me to her home and 
 introduced me to her. She is good-looking not handsome 
 good figure. I informed her of my wish to engage teachers for 
 a female academy at Huntsville. She recommended three young 
 ladies in her school, and desired until to-morrow to consult with 
 them in relation to the matter. Before I left her lodgings she 
 presented me with a copy of her work on education. Retired to 
 my room and read it through before bedtime. 
 
 The result of several visits to Miss Beecher and the 
 three young ladies was the employment of the latter to 
 teach at Huntsville. They were Misses Brown, South- 
 may d, and Baldwin. They remained several years at 
 Huntsville, and were eminently successful. Mr. Birney 
 was so much pleased with Miss Emmons s infant school, 
 a sort of " kindergarten " affair, that he induced her to go 
 to Huntsville with the other ladies and establish her school 
 there, guaranteeing a certain pecuniary success. Such a 
 school was a novelty in Alabama, and, under the able 
 management of Miss Emmons, nourished for many years. 
 
 Mr. Birney visited the famous Round Hill School, then 
 kept by Mr. Cogswell and George Bancroft, now famous 
 as a historian ; and he recorded his pleasure in the con 
 versation of Mr. Bancroft, who, among other things, " gave 
 me some history of the management of German universi 
 ties, showing a very excellent plan." 
 
 He reached Boston September 17th, the second cen 
 tennial anniversary of that city. There he saw many emi 
 nent men. He notes Mr. Evarts as " one of the most 
 unostentatious and sensible men I have met," and Dr. 
 Wisner as " all he had been represented fine appearance, 
 easy and flowing in language," etc. 
 
 Went to deliver my letter from Dr. Chapman to Daniel Web 
 ster. Received me in his office very courteously. He concluded 
 by referring me to Mr. Ticknor, a learned professor of Harvard, 
 
94 JAMES G. BIRKEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 to whom he addressed a note, and sent a servant to show me 
 the house. 
 
 He dined with Dr. Wisner. Among the guests invited 
 to meet him was Dr. Bacon, of New Haven. 
 
 Sept. 19th. Heard Dr. Channing in the morning. He fell 
 below my expectations in everything but in the finish of his es 
 say, for it could scarcely be called a sermon. Heard Dr. Beecher 
 (Lyman) in the afternoon. His manner not good, though some 
 times impressive. 
 
 Sept. 20th. Went to Cambridge this morning and delivered 
 my letter from Mr. Clay to President Quincy. . . . Went after 
 dinner again to Charlestown to see Mr. Everett (Edward). Found 
 huii a most polite and affable gentleman, etc. 
 
 Sept. 21st. Went in company with Mr. Evarts, Dr. Beecher, 
 and others to Andover, this being the "commencement." 
 
 He revisited Middletown, Hartford, and New Haven, 
 and entered into negotiations at New York with Theodore 
 D. Woolsey, afterward professor and president at Yale. 
 
 After seeing hundreds of persons, including many pub 
 lic men, and finding that most of those he would have 
 preferred as professors were unavailable, either because of 
 previous engagements or disinclination to make homes in 
 the South, he returned home by way of Ohio and Ken 
 tucky. One of the results of his Northern tour was the 
 following recommendations to the trustees of the Univer 
 sity of Alabama : 
 
 Rev. Alva Woods, D. D., President ; Gordon Salston- 
 stall and William W. Hudson, Professors of Mathematics, 
 Natural Philosophy, and Astronomy; John F. Wallis, 
 Professor of Chemistry, Mineralogy, and Geology ; Henry 
 Tutwiler, of the University of Virginia, Professor of An 
 cient Languages ; and Rev. Henry W. Hilliard, of English 
 Literature. All these entered upon the duties of their re 
 spective posts in 1831. The trustees of the university 
 
LONG VISIT TO THE FREE STATES. 95 
 
 unanimously voted a letter of thanks to Mr. Birney for 
 his services in the selection. 
 
 The most marked effect of his long visit to the North 
 was to freshen and strengthen his convictions of the su 
 periority of free over slave institutions. He started on his 
 return journey, thinking seriously of the problem of add 
 ing Kentucky and Virginia to the list of free States, but 
 greatly disappointed at the apparent unconsciousness 
 among Northern public men of any imminent danger in 
 the political situation. He returned through Ohio, in 
 order to observe for himself the condition of a free State 
 in the West. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 ABANDONS PARTY POLITICS INTENDED REMOVAL 
 TO ILLINOIS VISIT OF T. D. WELD. 
 
 1830-1832. 
 
 BEFORE returning to Alabama Mr. Birney spent two 
 weeks in Kentucky. The special purpose of this delay 
 was to confer with Mr. Clay in relation to the movement 
 in behalf of gradual emancipation which had been fore 
 shadowed arid outlined in the latter s speech of the pre 
 vious December. Mr. Birney went to Lexington, and made 
 several visits to Ashland. What passed between him and 
 Mr. Clay was never stated by either of them. The result, 
 however, was that the two never again traveled on the 
 same political path. In October, 1830, James G. Birney s 
 practical connection with the national Republican party 
 ceased. He took no part either in the political prepara 
 tions for the candidacy of Henry Clay in 1832, or in the 
 campaign; and he did not vote at the election in that 
 year. It may be added that when the Whig party was 
 formed he did not join it, or act, or vote with it ; he never 
 cast a Whig ballot. The contrary has been so often as 
 serted as to have become a conventional statement in 
 sketches of his life written by Whigs ; the only foundation 
 for it being his political friendship for Henry Clay up to 
 the month of October, 1830. 
 
 The personal friendship between them remained un 
 broken. Mr. Birney maintained ever afterward a guarded 
 
ABANDONS PARTY POLITICS. 97 
 
 reticence in reference to Mr. Clay, and the latter, it is 
 believed, never uttered an unkind or disrespectful word 
 about his former friend, even under the provocations and 
 mortification of his defeat in 1844 a defeat falsely attrib 
 uted by many of his friends to Mr. Birney. In truth, 
 they never saw each other again, except once in 1834 ; 
 and the previous correspondence between them, in which 
 Mr. Clay had repeatedly spoken of him as " one of his 
 most esteemed friends," shrunk into a few letters on profes 
 sional business written at long intervals. For several years 
 immediately preceding these visits Mr. Birney had not 
 seen Mr. Clay, and his idea of the man had been formed 
 of youth s illusions crowned with a halo of Mr. Clay s 
 fame as an orator and statesman. In these years Mr. Bir 
 ney himself had greatly changed ; his character had been 
 purified and strengthened by his religious faith ; his knowl 
 edge of men was without selfishness. The interviews at 
 Ashland dispelled his illusions in regard to Mr. Clay ; in 
 stead of a statesman, he found a rhetorician and politician. 
 He left Ashland deeply disappointed, and, it may be added, 
 perplexed and discouraged. 
 
 In October, 1830, the times were propitious for a polit 
 ical movement against the menaced annexation of Texas 
 and consequent permanent domination of the slave-hold 
 ing interest, and in favor of a reduction in the number of 
 slave-holding States by emancipation in Kentucky and Vir 
 ginia. In such a movement, alone, could the issues tend 
 ered by the Jackson Democrats be fairly met, or a suc 
 cessful appeal be made to that national sentiment which 
 had united the North in 1820 against the admission of 
 Missouri, excluded slavery from Illinois in 1824, and abol 
 ished it in New York in 1827. The North, which had 
 never listened to the cry of oppressed humanity, might be 
 depended upon to resist its own subjugation to the South. 
 As to the two principal border States, an influential por- 
 6 
 
98 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 tion of the slave-holders themselves favored freedom. At 
 its first annual meeting, held in 1830, the Kentucky Colo 
 nization Society had adopted the following statement in 
 the manager s report : " The late disposition to voluntary 
 emancipation is so increasing that no law is necessary to 
 free us from slavery, provided there was an asylum acces 
 sible to all liberated. (See "African Kepository," May, 
 1830.) 
 
 Such a movement was contemplated in 1821, under 
 the leadership of Kuf us King ; but it was defeated by the 
 non-concurrence of the friends of John Quincy Adams, 
 who hoped to be made President in 182-4, with a Southern 
 man as Vice-President General Jackson being the one 
 considered as available. 
 
 Everything pointed to Henry Clay as the leader of 
 such a movement in 1830. He was the favorite son of 
 Kentucky, a popular man in his native State of Virginia, 
 and the champion of the capitalists and manufacturers of 
 the Northern and Eastern States. For his disastrous er 
 rors on the Arkansas and Missouri questions he had apolo 
 gized in declarations, often repeated, against the " curse 
 of slavery " ; and, in his December speech in 1829, he had 
 sketched a programme of operations for the final extinc 
 tion of slavery w r hich authorized all thinking men to be 
 lieve him ready to join in them. 
 
 But Mr. Clay took a different view. For his expected 
 candidacy in 1832 he was trimming his sails to catch the 
 winds from both North and South, hoping to win General 
 Jackson s friends, and work his way to the presidential 
 chair by concessions to enemies, glittering but equivocal 
 phrases, and waivers of his professed principles, which 
 gained for him repeated defeats and the unenviable title 
 of " the compromiser." He not only refused to participate 
 personally in a gradual emancipation movement in Ken 
 tucky, but advised his friends not to do so ; and it was 
 
ABANDONS PARTY POLITICS. 99 
 
 chiefly through his influence that the efforts to set one on 
 foot were chilled. 
 
 Before calling on Mr. Clay Mr. Birney had talked over 
 the gradual emancipation project with the Rev. John C. 
 Young, the eloquent President of Centre College ; with 
 Rev. J. D. Paxton, Judge John Green, Daniel Yeiser, P. 
 G. Rice, Michael G. Yonce, and William Armstrong all 
 of Danville ; with his wife s uncle James McDowell, and 
 his long-time friends Thomas T. Skillman, bookseller and 
 publisher, and the Rev. Robert J. Breckenridge all of 
 Lexington. 
 
 All these were ready to act, and thought many others 
 would join them. The following paper was circulated for 
 signatures. Fourteen respectable citizens subscribed their 
 names. At this point^eJLojrt ceased until, at the instance 
 of Mr. Birney, who wrote from Alabama, Mr. Skillman, 
 the proprietor of the " Western Luminary," of Lexington, 
 published the paper in that journal. 
 
 GRADUAL AXD SAFE EMANCIPATION. 
 
 We, the undersigned, slave-holders, under a full conviction 
 that there are insurmountable obstacles to the general emancipa 
 tion of the present generation of slaves, but equally convinced 
 of the necessity and practicability of emancipating their future 
 offspring, have determined to form ourselves into a society for 
 the purpose of investigating and impressing these truths upon 
 the public mind, as well by example as by precept ; by adopting 
 among ourselves such a system for the gradual emancipation of 
 our slaves as we would recommend to our fellow-citizens for their 
 adoption as the law of the land ; and by dispersing such writings 
 as may be likely to contribute to so good an end. The society 
 will not be called together until fifty subscribers are obtained. 
 
 Wm. R. Hines, Bardstown ; Samuel K. Snead, Jefferson Co. ; 
 J. M. C. Irving R. J. Breckenridge, of Fayette Co. ; A. J. Alex 
 ander, Charles Alexander, J. R. Alexander, Woodford Co. ; James 
 McCall, Rockcastle Co. ; John Wallace, Fayette Co. ; Norman 
 Porter, Thomas T. Skillman, Lexington ; George Clarke, Fay- 
 
100 JAMES a. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 ette Co. ; James Blythe, Lexington ; George "W. Anderson, Fay- 
 ette Co. ; James G. McKinney, Lexington ; James H. Allen, 
 James McDowell, Fayette Co. 
 
 These gentlemen were among the most respected citi 
 zens of Kentucky. Within a few weeks thirty-four more 
 slave-holders sent in their names as members, and, as re 
 ceived, they were published in the " Luminary." They 
 were as follows : 
 
 Fayette Co. : J. S. Berryman, Rowland Chambers, Geo. M. 
 Chambers, John C. Richardson, Hugh Foster, J. C. Harrison, 
 Rev. Robert Stuart, James C. Todd, and John H. Bell ; Mercer 
 Co. : Thomas Cleland, Michael G. Yonce, P. G. Rice, President 
 John C. Y"oung, William Armstrong, Rev. John D. Paxton, and 
 Daniel Yeiser ; Lincoln Co. : Judge John Green, John L. Yantis, 
 and Samuel Warren ; Woodford Co. : William E. Ashmore, Samuel 
 Wingfield, Samuel V. Marshall, Robert Moffett, Dr. Louis Mar 
 shall, Colonel John Steele, and Dr. C. Wallace ; Franklin Co. : 
 C. P. Bacon and Rev. j: T. Edgar ; Hardin Co. : David Weller ; 
 and Jefferson Co. : Warrick Miller. 
 
 Any native Kentuckian familiar with the old families 
 of the State will recognize the above list as remarkable 
 for the intelligence, wealth, and influence of the persons 
 named in it. Most of them were Presbyterians, and at 
 least six of them were Presbyterian preachers, three of 
 these Reverends Robert J. Breckenridge, John C. Young, 
 and John D. Paxton being men of national reputation. 
 Mr. Birney, not being a resident of the State did not sign 
 the paper ; but he was alluded to as follows by his friend 
 Mr. Skillman, of the " Luminary " : 
 
 In reply to a correspondent in Illinois, who wishes to know 
 what Presbyterians are doing in this cause, we remark that the 
 first projector of this emancipation scheme, as published in sev 
 eral of our last numbers, is a Presbyterian ; and that, so far as 
 we are informed, Presbyterians generally have taken a prominent 
 part in promoting these benevolent schemes, whose object is the 
 amelioration of the condition of our colored population. 
 
ABANDONS PARTY POLITICS. 101 
 
 But tliis well-considered scheme came to naught, for 
 want of a leader in Kentucky. Among its friends, this 
 role might have been taken by Judge Green, E. J. Breck- 
 enridge, or John 0. Young ; but the Judge was absorbed 
 in business, Mr. Breckenridge about that time quit law 
 for theology and had his hands full of controversies, and 
 Mr. Young was the president of a college. Mr. Clay s 
 friends were begging for postponement, until after the 
 next presidential election, of a movement likely to com 
 promise him either with the South or the North; and 
 they were full of promises. The opportune moment was 
 lost, and the Gradual Emancipation Society was not organ 
 ized when it might have accomplished something. It was 
 postponed to a more convenient season. 
 
 \ Mr. Birney had now experienced three disappoint 
 ments : The trade in slaves between Alabama and the 
 slave-breeding States of Kentucky and Virginia had been 
 again legalized ; he had been forced to dismiss Henry Clay 
 out of his life and hopes ; and his native State appeared 
 to be on the downward road to the abyss. His letters to 
 his father in 1831 were decidedly pessimistic so far as the 
 South was concerned, and that, with his estrangement 
 from Clay, caused his father much concern. The writer 
 was under his grandfather s care at the time, heard these 
 letters read as they were received, and has never forgotten 
 the impression made by them. The worst elements of 
 Southern society seemed to Mr. Birney to be rapidly gain 
 ing the mastery ; and neither the Church nor the state 
 indicated any power of resistance. What distressed him 
 more than anything else was that circumstances were 
 forcing him to bring up his children amid the corrupting 
 influences of slavery. He was apparently tied down to 
 .Alabama) by his established profession, his friends, his 
 home, his church, his large property, and his usefulness 
 in the educational interests of the State. From all these 
 
102 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 lie began to think of separating himself, in order to flee 
 from the Sodom of slavery with his large family. It was 
 not possible, without heavy pecuniary sacrifices. He had 
 under advisement the project of closing up his business, 
 selling out his property, and finding a home for his family 
 in a free State, when the startling news of the Southamp 
 ton, Va., insurrection, in August, 1831, burst upon the 
 South, with its train of bloody horrors. It may have been 
 this that turned the trembling balance in favor of removal. 
 In the months of October and November following Mr. 
 Birney visited Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, with a view to 
 the selection of a place in which to rear and educate his 
 children. After seeing the principal cities and towns in 
 those States, he made choice of Jacksonville, 111. Aside 
 from its beautiful site and the fertility of the adjacent 
 country, the chief attraction was the intelligence of the 
 population and the imminent establishment of a college, 
 of which the Rev. Edward Beecher was to be the presi 
 dent. When he returned to Hunts ville, it was with the 
 definite intention to wind up his law business, sell his 
 landed property, and make all other necessary adjustments 
 of his affairs, so that he might remove his family, includ 
 ing his servants, to Jacksonville. This, he thought, would 
 require from eighteen months to two years. He began at 
 once, by declining new law business and making sale of 
 half his largest piece of real estate in Huntsville. 
 
 On his journey homeward through Tennessee an inci 
 dent occurred which illustrates his benevolence. After 
 supper, one evening, he was sitting on the front porch of 
 the tavern at which he was stopping for the night when 
 he was startled by piercing shrieks and the sound of blows 
 of a whip from an outhouse. The voice was that of a 
 woman. Such sounds were not uncommon in the South, 
 but Mr. Birney could not bear them ; he interfered. The 
 person wielding the cowhide was a large and powerful white 
 
INTENDED REMOVAL TO ILLINOIS. 103 
 
 woman ; the victim was a negro woman about twenty-five 
 years old, who was tied by her wrists to a joist of the up 
 per floor in such a manner that she stood on tiptoe. Her 
 clothing was stripped from her shoulders to the waist, 
 and her bared back was interlaced with bluish welts, old 
 and new. A mulatto girl child of about five years old 
 cowered in a corner of the room, terrified and silent. The 
 cause of the punishment was explained at once ; the slave- 
 woman was the mistress of the tavern-keeper ; the child 
 was theirs ; and the wronged wife was wreaking her venge 
 ance upon her rival. The voice of sympathy was to the 
 poor slave as the voice of an angel of God. She watched 
 her opportunity, found Mr. Birney alone, and implored 
 him to save her and her child from the hell on earth in 
 which they had lived for five years. In short, Mr. Birney 
 bought the woman and child from his host, who, to do 
 him justice, was glad to send them out of reach of his 
 wife, put them into the stage-coach, and took them with 
 him to Huntsville. The writer well remembers the 
 wretched plight of the woman and child when they ar 
 rived, and that for a year or two afterward the child did 
 not entirely lose the nervous, frightened look of a timid 
 and hunted creature. 
 
 At the time of this purchase, Mr. Birney was not an 
 abolitionist; no cavils as to the propriety of his action 
 perplexed him. Indeed, after he became one, he was not 
 given to those subtle quiddities of doctrine which prevent 
 ed some abolitionists from contributing funds to buy the 
 freedom of Frederick Douglass, because, forsooth, the pur 
 chase would be a recognition of the right of the master. 
 He always, in proper cases, contributed his share of the 
 ransom. Like the sisters Grimke, who also were Southern 
 abolitionists,* Mr. Birney never reached that sublimation 
 
 * See "The Sisters Grimke," pages 41, 133, 233, 250, and 314. 
 
104: JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 of doctrine which made some turn away from the slave 
 when he besought aid in the anguish of his soul. 
 
 Early in January, 1832, the news of a bloody slave in 
 surrection in Jamaica, involving the burning of many 
 sugar plantations and the loss of many lives, reached Tus- 
 caloosa, where the Alabama General Assembly was in ses 
 sion. From day to day the wildest rumors spread through 
 the State of arson and massacre ; it was said that all the 
 slaves of that island had revolted, and were devastating the 
 country and massacring the women and children. The 
 truth was that the whites were murdering the blacks, kill 
 ing in January more than two thousand, and the blacks 
 were making feeble defense and reprisals. 
 
 Occurring within a few months after the insurrection 
 in Virginia, the event caused a general panic through the 
 slave-holding States. At Tuscaloosa, the effect was a 
 strong reaction in favor of re-enacting the law of 1827, 
 which had been repealed in 1829. Mr. Birney was at 
 Tuscaloosa in attendance on the courts. He and others 
 prepared an elaborate bill in more than twenty sections, 
 entitled " An Act to prevent the introduction of slaves 
 into Alabama, and for other purposes " ; and this, with a 
 few amendments, was passed and approved by the Govern 
 or on the 16th of January, 1832. It was the expiring 
 throb of the free- soil sentiment in Alabama, for the reac 
 tion died out within a few months, and the ten most im 
 portant sections of the law were repealed by the next 
 General Assembly on the 4th day of December, immedi 
 ately after the beginning of the session. It is believed 
 that no subsequent effort was made to check the importa 
 tion of slaves into the State. Cotton was king, and ruled 
 until its crown was torn off by the bloody hand of war. 
 
 Before Mr. Birney left Tucaloosa, he had informed Mr. 
 Clay s friends of his intention to take no part in the pend 
 ing presidential campaign ; and during the year 1832 he 
 
VISIT OP THEODORE D. WELD. 105 
 
 was not present at any meeting held for political purposes, 
 nor did he contribute to any party fund. He simply held 
 himself aloof, and devoted his energies to closing up his 
 business and making sale of his real estate, preparatory to 
 removing to Illinois. This intention, however, was not 
 yet publicly declared. 
 
 Since his early manhood, his liberalism in regard to 
 slavery had been generally recognized ; but during the 
 five years preceding 1832 he had become widely known in 
 Kentucky, Tennessee, and Alabama, as a friend of gradual 
 emancipation. Among the Presbyterians his reputation 
 in this respect was well established. His wife and older 
 children were well aware of his intention to take his slaves 
 to Illinois and free them there ; and his sons had been 
 carefully taught habits of self-reliance, and forbidden to 
 avail themselves of the services of the slaves. 
 
 It is not strange, therefore, that when the famous plat 
 form orator, Theodore D. Weld, was making his arrange 
 ments in Ohio, in the spring of 1832, for a lecturing tour 
 on temperance and manual-labor education through Ken 
 tucky, Tennessee, and Alabama, he heard of James G. Bir- 
 ney as a Union man and emancipationist, and obtained 
 letters of introduction to him. The commendations be 
 stowed on him by the writers of these letters inspired 
 Mr. Weld with a strong desire to make his acquaintance. 
 How he did so is best told by himself. In 1882 the author 
 wrote Mr. Weld for the details of his conversation with 
 Mr. Birney. Under date of September 10th of that year, 
 Mr. Weld answered : 
 
 Your honored father s bearing and spirit in those conversa 
 tions so strongly moved me that now that I write that aspect of 
 serene right-mindedness is all undimmed, although I look at it 
 through the mists of half a century. It seems just as fresh and 
 vivid as when, in 1832, it first won my love and reverence at Hunts- 
 ville, whither I went with a letter of introduction to him from 
 
106 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES, 
 
 Prof. Larrabee, of Jackson College, Tennessee, afterward for 
 some twenty-five years president of Middlebury College, Ver 
 mont. As Prof. Larrabee handed me the letter, he said : "Mr. 
 Birney is one of the noblest men I ve ever met. Though a slave- 
 holder 3 he has nothing of the slave-holding spirit." How true to 
 the letter I found that testimony during the close intimacy of 
 years that followed. When I called at his house to deliver the 
 letter, he was away on his judicial circuit, and not to be at home 
 for a week.* 
 
 Mr. Weld became the guest of Dr. Allen, the Presby 
 terian preacher. He says : 
 
 I found the doctor the holder of two families of slaves, fifteen 
 in number the oldest ones the marriage portion of his wife, the 
 younger their children. He said that one of his slaves was a 
 Baptist elder, and generally preached on Sunday to the slaves on 
 the neighboring plantations. The doctor was quite free to talk 
 of slavery. 
 
 Nothing could have suited Mr. Weld better. He had 
 been an immediate abolitionist from early boyhood, was 
 versed in the philosophy of human rights, familiar with 
 all the aspects of slavery, was full of fire and eloquence, 
 and a match for the doctor in argument, although the 
 latter was distinguished for his ability. At that time the 
 padlock had not become the normal attachment to the 
 lips of men in the South. Mr. Weld says : 
 
 In previous years, while yet in my teens, and just out of them, 
 say from eighteen to twenty-one, I had often talked with slave 
 holders about the system when slavery was not a contraband 
 topic. My travels and sojourn were mainly in Maryland, Dela 
 ware, Virginia, North Carolina, and District of Columbia, and 
 those with whom my introductions brought me in contact, and 
 who often made me their guest, talked about slavery with entire 
 freedom, not only tolerating my dissent, but even encouraging it 
 
 * This fact fixes the date of this visit in June. During May the ses 
 sion of the court was in Iluntsville. 
 
VISIT OF THEODORE D. WELD. 
 
 by never showing irritation or impatience ; and always (indeed, 
 I can recall no exception) condemning it as a system, but gener 
 ally were hopeless of deliverance ; and here and there I found a 
 slave-holder saying, "I agree with you," and one who pooh- 
 poohed at the prophecy that if the slaves were emancipated they 
 would cut their masters throats. "Nonsense ! they might do it 
 to get their liberty, but never bemuse they had it." But though 
 I had thus much talk with slave-holders previously, Dr. Allen 
 was the only one with whom I had in such length and minute 
 detail discussed the question. 
 
 The discussion between Mr. Weld and Dr. Allen lasted 
 a week, much of it turning on the nature of the right 
 under which one man could claim another as a slave. 
 When Mr. Birney returned, Dr. Allen invited him to meet 
 Mr. Weld at dinner, advising him of the discussion on 
 slavery, and informing him that he should now turn Mr. 
 Weld over to him. Mr. Birney called in acknowledgment 
 of the invitation. The impression he made is thus de 
 scribed by Mr. Weld : 
 
 At this first sight of him, that blended dignity, courtesy, and 
 amenity, so characteristic of his uniform bearing, was its own 
 interpretation. 
 
 The same day, when the three withdrew to the parlor after 
 dinner, your father said in substance : "Gentlemen, I learn you 
 have been having a week s discussion on slavery, and that I, be 
 ing a slave-holder, am expected to take up the cudgel upon the 
 side of slavery." He then said that, before declaring his side, he 
 " must know how both sides stand in the discussion thus far ; so 
 I must depend upon you to tell me what points have been made, 
 how supported, how refuted in a word, the process you have 
 gone through together and brought the question up to its present 
 
 So it was agreed that Mr. Weld should restate the 
 arguments ; which he doubtless did in his own bright and 
 interesting style. Before he had finished, the summons 
 came to tea. 
 
108 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 Meanwhile [says Mr. Weld], the only part taken by your 
 father during the afternoon was to ask a variety of questions 
 touching different points made in the discussion. The manner 
 and spirit in which these questions were put greatly attracted 
 me. They bespoke the utmost candor, a simple, earnest intent 
 in pursuit of truth, a quick conscience, perfect fairness the 
 traits of a mind that could not l)e partisan. Indeed, during 
 the whole afternoon, as I went on in the rehearsal from one point 
 to another, I felt assured that he was with me, head and heart, 
 in the positions which I had taken throughout. 
 
 Mr. Weld judged rightly. He had given eloquent ex 
 pression to the deepest convictions of his hearer. But 
 Mr. Birney said nothing that evening. He excused him 
 self from tea and retired, after inviting Mr. W T eld to dine 
 with him next day. At that time he fully indorsed all 
 Mr. Weld had said, and declared that the legal right of 
 the slave holder was a " monstrous moral wrong." 
 
 In a conversation with Mr. Weld a few days later he 
 said to him : " I shall not live a legal slave-holder any 
 longer than till I can devise the wisest and safest way of 
 putting my slaves in legal possession of themselves, and 
 making such provision for them in liberty as justice and 
 benevolence require." 
 
 This is the testimony of the only surviving witness to 
 these conversations. Taken in connection with the facts 
 heretofore narrated it throws a flood of light upon the 
 motives which had influenced Mr. Birney for several 
 years. One other fact if it had been known to Mr. Weld 
 at the time would have accounted for Mr. Birney s guarded 
 language as to the time he would take to emancipate his 
 slaves. Michael, the husband and father of the family 
 legally owned by Mr. Birney and who had been brought 
 up with him from boyhood, had been unable to conquer 
 his appetite for strong liquors, and needed the constant 
 watchful care of his master and friend. For some years 
 
VISIT OF THEODORE D. WELD. 1Q9 
 
 the probability was that if free he would become a con 
 firmed drunkard and beggar his family. The children 
 were nearly grown, but had little mental capacity. For 
 years Michael had understood that his freedom would be 
 restored to him as soon as he could control his love of 
 ardent spirits. My father s intention, well understood by 
 his family, was to take Michael and his children to Illinois; 
 but his habitual reticence did not permit him to speak of 
 those matters to a stranger. 
 
 Henry "Wilson, in his "Rise and Fall of the Slave 
 Power in America," attributes to Mr. Weld the " conver 
 sion of James Gr. Birney to anti-slavery principles." This 
 is flatly contradicted by Mr. Weld in a letter to the author, 
 and is inconsistent with the facts of Mr. Birney s life. 
 The error, however, has been repeated until it is accepted 
 by many as the truth. The effect of the profound discus 
 sions by Mr. Weld was to give Mr. Birney a deeper in 
 terest in the subject of slavery and a conviction in regard 
 to its removal. If he had not seen Mr. Weld, he would 
 probably have removed to Illinois before the end of the 
 year 1832. Having seen him, he was in a state of mind 
 favorable to the acceptance of the mission offered him in 
 July to operate against slavery and which will be the 
 subject of our next chapter. Mr. Weld s visit was im 
 portant in its collateral results, and as laying the founda 
 tion of a life-long friendship, but it " converted " Mr. 
 Birney to nothing. His anti-slavery principles were the 
 organic growth of a lifetime, not a sudden revelation. 
 
 A second accredited theory of this supposed " conver 
 sion," the conventional sudden change of heart being as 
 sumed as indispensable, is that Mr. Birney happened to 
 read a stray copy of the " Liberator," and that the random 
 shaft went home. With reference to this, the author 
 inquired of Mr. Weld whether, in his conversations in 
 Alabama with Mr. Birney, any allusion was made by 
 
110 JAMES G. ,BIRNEY AM) HIS TIMES. 
 
 either party to Mr. (Garrison s paper. The following pas 
 sage in J\lr. Weld s letter quoted from above is, I presume, 
 his answer to the inquiry : " The news of Mr. Garrison s 
 " Liberator," though started some months before, had not 
 yet reached Alabama. Indeed / did not myself hear of it 
 until my return o New York some months later."* 
 
 While it is certain that Mr. Birney had never seen the 
 little Boston paper, it is not at all improbable that he had 
 seen the " Emancipator," published in 1820, at Jonesbor- 
 ough, Tenn., by Elihu Embree ; the " Genius of Universal 
 Emancipation," published from 1821 to 1824, at Green 
 ville, Tenn., by Benjamin Lundy; and the "Abolition 
 Intelligencer," published in 1822 and 1823. But his very 
 accurate knowledge of slavery was the fruit of personal 
 observation and experience ; and his repugnance to it 
 grew out of an enlightened conscience, early impressions, 
 education in free States, a strong sentiment of justice, 
 and his conviction that it was undermining the free in 
 stitutions of the country and endangering the Union of 
 the States. 
 
 * Seventeen months ; the first number was issued January 1, 1831. 
 Mr. Weld did not hear of the " Liberator " until it was nearly two years 
 old. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 EXPERIENCE AS AN AGENT OF THE COLONIZATION 
 SOCIETY. 
 
 1832-1833. 
 
 IF any reader has taken up this memoir with the idea 
 that Mr. Birney s inspiration to work against slavery was 
 instantaneous or even hurried, that he had the divine 
 afflatus of one of the Hebrew prophets, or even imagined 
 himself specially commissioned of God for any purpose, 
 he has probably been stripped of his illusions by this nar 
 rative. Mr. Birney was a man of his time and place ; not 
 superior to the limitations that restrain men generally, 
 susceptible to social influences, bound to the South by 
 the ties of birth and kindred, and devoted to his native 
 and adopted States. In his early liberalism on the subject 
 of slavery he did not differ from very many of the lead 
 ing men of Kentucky or from many of the most intelli 
 gent citizens of Alabama prior to the reign of Jackson. 
 That he always desired the extinction of slavery is prob 
 able ; that he did so in 1826 rests on his own testimony.* 
 
 It would be interesting to know the names of the Ala- 
 bamians who shared his anti-slavery views and who co 
 operated with him in obtaining the restrictions on slavery 
 enacted in 1819, 1827, and 1832 ; but, in the lapse of time, 
 the materials for the statement of them have perished or 
 
 * See his letter on Colonization. 
 
112 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 are inaccessible. Mr. Birney was a ver^-practical .man-as 
 well as a sincere Christian. He was prudent as well as 
 bold, having regard to possibilities as well as to theories, 
 and never forgetting common sense in favor of radical 
 abstractions. At^the time we have reached his abhorrence 
 of slavery was banishing him from his native South, but 
 he shuddered at the thought of the horrors he thought 
 would follow the general immediate abolition of slavery. 
 To him, as to most Southerners, it appeared to involve 
 social convulsions, the overthrow of civilization in the 
 South, and the substitution of immorality and barbarism. 
 His sentiment on these subjects is the key to his course 
 in 1832. 
 
 His preparations for removal to Illinois had occasioned 
 very vigorous protests from his friends at Huntsville, 
 which, however, did not cause him to hesitate. Early in 
 July he was greatly surprised at receiving an appointment 
 as an agent of the Colonization Society. His district was 
 to include Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, 
 and Arkansas. His acceptance was urged in a highly 
 complimentary letter from Rev. R. R. Gurley, who, among 
 other kind expressions, had termed him " one of the most 
 distinguished lawyers in the South." Mr. Birney answered 
 it in a long letter,* dated Huntsville, Ala., July 12, 1832. 
 Some extracts will interest the reader : 
 
 The call given by your society, to all appearance providential, 
 added to the earnest resistance of my most esteemed religious 
 friends to my project of removing from among them, has really 
 staggered me not a little. 
 
 The above passage contains perhaps the only indica 
 tion of a belief on Mr. Birney s part in the doctrine of 
 special providences. Such an offer, coming unsolicited 
 
 * The originals of this, and several other letters from J. G. Birney to 
 the Rev. Dr. Gurley, have been kindly placed in my hands. 
 
AGENT OF THE COLONIZATION SOCIETY. H3 
 
 and unexpected at the only time in his life when he would 
 have considered it, would have shaken the unbelief of the 
 most incredulous. He had delayed his answer several 
 days, for two reasons : First, to receive a pamphlet which 
 Mr. Gurley had promised to send 
 
 the last annual report of the society, after the perusal of which I 
 would be better informed as to its true condition and the pos 
 sibility of my being able to render essential service as an agent. 
 
 He tells Mr. Gurley he has not yet decided to accept, 
 and that there is one obstacle to his doing so 
 
 which I fear will be almost insurmountable. I mean the ne 
 cessity which will be imposed upon me as agent to be absent 
 from home, and, of course, prevented from giving any attention 
 to the education of my children for such long periods. I appre 
 hend that if I neglect the duty of educating my children, . . . 
 as I must necessarily do by annual absences from home of five or 
 six consecutive months, the taking upon myself of the agency 
 offered would no longer be a duty. 
 
 He writes of his having advertised his property for sale, 
 " with a determination to leave the State," and gives the 
 reason as follows : 
 
 I had become so fully convinced of the corrupting influences 
 of slavery on the character of the young among us, especially 
 those of our sex (and six of my seven children are boys), that al 
 though born in Kentucky and always commanding the services 
 of slaves, I had visited Illinois and decided to remove there. 
 
 Of the salary offered him, he says : 
 
 The compensation proposed, though very far inferior to my 
 professional gains, is liberal. No one who would in the present 
 circumstances of the society ask more would be morally qualified 
 for so great a work as would devolve upon your agent. His com 
 manding motive must be to do good, because it is the will of God, 
 or he will be comparatively unsuccessful. 
 
 As his acceptance will be a matter of great moment to 
 
114: JAMES a. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 him and his family, he wishes to have a clear understand 
 ing of all that will be expected of him ; and he, therefore, 
 asks full answers to ten questions. Most of these are not 
 now of interest. The first is as follows : 
 
 1. Say, I spend each year from three to four months continu 
 ously in the Southern and Southwestern portions of the district, 
 attending Legislatures, conferences, synods, etc., of ecclesiastical 
 bodies, the rest of the year in the northern part of the State and 
 in the Tennessee Valley, where I think much may he done ; and in 
 the State of Tennessee, say within one hundred miles of this 
 place, the excursions to be for ten, fifteen, and twenty days, with 
 opportunities for frequently being at home for short periods 
 would this be a compliance, etc., with the society s rules respect 
 ing its agents ? 
 
 The fifth is as follows : 
 
 5. How will the society expect its agents to travel ? In the 
 cheapest practicable manner, or by the ordinary modes of con 
 veyance, such as steamboats, stages, etc. ? My own opinion is 
 that in the South he must travel as any gentleman in good cir 
 cumstances would do not employed on an agency. He must not 
 be placed in the attitude of one rendering thanks for what the 
 community may do favorable to the society, but rather to receive 
 thanks from the community. 
 
 He asks to have sent to him all the annual reports, the 
 proposed history of the society, the names of its members, 
 the opinions of distinguished men about it, some missing 
 numbers of his set of the " African Depository," and other 
 documents. He wants time at the next two or three terms 
 of court to wind up such law business as he could not 
 transfer ; and time to study his subject fully. He wishes 
 to make complete preparation, believing that an agent 
 " should be possessed of all the material facts in relation 
 to the whole scheme of colonization, and have them so 
 authenticated as to place their genuineness beyond all man 
 ner of doubt in the minds of those upon whom he is to act." 
 
V AGENT OF THE COLONIZATION SOCIETY. H5 
 
 He is evidently inclined to accept, but wishes to have 
 all the light possible on the subject ; and he reserves his 
 decision. Toward the close he mentions difficulties, but 
 adds, in his great-hearted sanguineness : " And yet I can 
 not but believe that, with prudence and diligence, the 
 public mind in the South may be awakened to some 
 mighty effort." 
 
 He touches again upon the bright outlook in a part of 
 the district : 
 
 In the Valley of the Tennessee [he says] there is, among many 
 professors of Christianity, no small feeling as to their duty to put 
 their slaves in a way of final emancipation, with a view of send 
 ing them to Liberia. Their consciences are too much awakened 
 again to sleep without some action. 
 
 On the 26th of July Mr. Gurley wrote to Mr. Birney 
 an answer to his inquiries of the 12th, and inclosing a 
 commission to him as agent of the American Colonization 
 Society for the Southwestern District. This letter was 
 held under advisement until the 23d of August, Mr. Bir 
 ney wishing to consider " the matter calmly, dispassion 
 ately, and in all its aspects," before making a decision 
 which would involve so great a change to himself and his 
 large family. He^thenjiccepted. He writes : 
 
 I am now engaged in preparing myself for active operations 
 by a careful study of the whole subject. . . . Facts are the strong 
 
 weapons, and they will, if properly presented, command success 
 
 Fine speeches, embracing generalities only, may do well enough 
 for an anniversary meeting, to attract admiration to the speaker, 
 but, in my humble judgment, there must be facts, the whole in 
 the cause, authenticated beyond all controversy, and exhibited 
 in such a manner as to show the entire practicability of the 
 scheme and its good effects upon all parties concerned, before 
 men will be moved in masses to intelligent and persevering action 
 in its favor. 
 
 The first step that should be taken in this district, where 
 
116 JAMES G. B1KNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 jealousy of the society exists, from an apprehension that its ob 
 ject is an interference with the rights of property, is to gain the 
 good-will, at least, of the Legislatures. This being done, the 
 agent will not be looked upon in the country as "raw head and 
 bloody bones," and all undue fear of his influence upon the slaves 
 will be removed. 
 
 It must be borne in mind that, although the Coloniza 
 tion Sqciety had been welcomed by many of the leading 
 men in the border slave States, it was viewed with sus 
 picion and alarm by the planters in the " cotton belt," 
 and had gained no substantial foothold in the States of 
 the " far South." The letter continues : 
 
 I have sketched out for myself the following plan : Attend 
 the meeting of the Legislature of Mississippi, at Jackson, early 
 in November ; thence to New Orleans, for the purpose of address 
 ing the Legislature of Louisiana, ... to superintend there the 
 contemplated expedition to Liberia ; thence to Tuscaloosa, to 
 operate, if possible, upon the Legislature of this State. 
 
 I deem it altogether important that the subject be first fully 
 discussed before these bodies before it is introduced elsewhere 
 among the people, unless very peculiar and favorable circum 
 stances should call for a different course. To make a favorable 
 impression upon the Legislature of Louisiana and upon the popu 
 lation of New Orleans, in which I include the planters upon the 
 coast of the Mississippi, I consider a matter of prime importance. 
 ****** 
 
 The chief points in the lower part of this State are Tusca 
 loosa, Montgomery, Claiborne, and Mobile. The State society, 
 established in 1829-30 by Mr. Polk, has gone entirely to decay -, 
 but I doubt not it can be revived. In the other places mentioned 
 I shall endeavor to establish societies on my first visit. It is my 
 intention, at present, to return to Huntsville, after visiting these 
 several points in this State, and visit all the points on and near 
 the Mississippi River, in January, February, and March. I will 
 leave for summer operations East Tennessee and that portion of 
 West Tennessee which can not be conveniently penetrated by 
 steamboats. . . . The society in this place, considered by me one 
 
AGENT OF THE COLONIZATION SOCIETY. H7 
 
 of the most important in the whole region, has been recently in 
 rather a languid condition. ... I received all the pamphlets you 
 sent me, except Mr. Carey s; it had doubtless miscarried. . . . 
 Is not Mr. Carey a Roman Catholic ? also Mr. Walsh, of the 
 American Quarterly " ? Tell me the names of any other distin 
 guished Catholics who are friendly to the society. . . . Where 
 will I find any approving resolutions of the Protestant Episcopal, 
 of the Baptist, the Unitarian, the Roman Catholic Churches ? I 
 want, if there be any such, the time, place, and very words of them. 
 
 He asks for information about opinion in Charleston 
 for the latest publications on the subject, and for facts 
 with which to answer objections commonly made in the 
 South. 
 
 The letter next in order of time which has been pre 
 served bears date October 13, 1832. Mr. Birney had vis 
 ited Tennessee and lectured in three different towns. The 
 chief object of the letter appears to have been to ask an 
 explanation of a discrepancy in the statements of an im 
 portant fact. Mathew Carey, whose pamphlet, published 
 by the society, he had just received, stated the number of 
 colonists sent to Liberia as two thousand, and the mana 
 ger, in a recent address to the people of the United States, 
 had stated it at a much larger figure. He says : 
 
 Statements on important points varying so essentially and 
 made in publications favorable to the society, produce much em 
 barrassment in the mind of one desirous to impart precise infor 
 mation. In the estimates which I have made in some addresses 
 which I have lately delivered, taking for their basis the docu 
 ments above mentioned, the whole number of the colonists, in 
 clusive of those sent out by the society, those restored to Africa 
 by the Government, the natural increase, and those sent out in 
 the expeditions since June, has been set down at three thousand. 
 Is this within the bounds of the truth ? If it be not, I desire to 
 correct it, believing that our cause will, in the long run, be in 
 jured just in proportion as the statements made in its favor are 
 unsupported by facts. 
 
118 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 He remits moneys collected, states that the Coloniza 
 tion Society of Huntsville had appointed a committee to 
 draught a memorial to our Legislature on the subject of 
 the emancipation laws of the State, and adds : 
 
 The weight of responsibility which the society at Washing 
 ton, by leaving almost everything to my own discretion, has 
 thrown upon me, I feel to be very great. ... I will within this 
 month visit the principal places in the Tennessee Valley. 
 
 The reader will have noticed that between the dates of 
 his letters of August and October Mr. Birney has modi 
 fied his plan of operations. He had intended to go south 
 ward in the first place, reserving Tennessee for his work 
 during the next summer ; but, on more full information, 
 he has already lectured in several towns in Tennessee, and 
 now proposes to visit the valley before any other part of 
 his district. In the States north of Alabama a good re 
 ception had been generally given to the advocates of col 
 onization ; but sixteen years of effort had failed to remove 
 the coldness or allay the irritable jealousy toward them in 
 the States of the " Cotton Belt." To employ a native of 
 the South, a man of good reputation and social standing 
 to present the cause was the last, the only resort. If that 
 failed the cause was desperate. To influence the South it 
 was important to ship many emigrants from New Orleans 
 in the spring expedition. Mr. Birney thought he could 
 secure them in Tennessee. 
 
 The letters written by him from Tennessee on his 
 visit to that State in the autumn of 1832 have not been 
 preserved. That he was successful in securing a num 
 ber of emigrants for the intended expedition from New 
 Orleans in April will appear hereafter. From Tennessee 
 he returned to Huntsville. Thence he went to Tusca- 
 loosa and Montgomery. His letters from those places 
 are missing, but from a statement in one of December 
 
AGENT OF THE COLONIZATION SOCIETY. H9 
 
 21st, from Mobile, we learn that at each of the three 
 places he answered objections made to the society, particu 
 larly " the SoutJiern objections, that the American Coloni 
 zation Society is a Northern institution, set on foot by 
 fanatics, etc. ; that the subject ought not to be discussed 
 in the slave States ; and that it has a tendency to produce 
 a restless and agitated state of feeling among the slaves, 
 etc." But the subject was one the discussion of which 
 was not favored by the public. He writes that at his first 
 meeting, Mobile, December 18th : " Quite a small audi 
 ence collected at the appointed time in one of the 
 churches." 
 
 He was heard respectfully. At the close of the lecture 
 some intelligent persons expressed their "great satisfac 
 tion at my manner of treating the subject." The subject 
 itself, however, seemed to have no friends. A second 
 meeting, appointed at the same place for the next evening, 
 was attended by so very few that he did not speak. A 
 third meeting was also a failure, and he abandoned his 
 intention to take up a collection and form an auxiliary to 
 the State society. In his letter he admits that " appear 
 ances here and all through the southern portions of this 
 State 3re gloomy." 
 
 I shall leave this place to-day on my return to Tuscaloosa and 
 Huntsville. I scarcely know what opinion I could give on the 
 subject of keeping up an agency in this district, or of making 
 far the present any additional effort. Should Virginia act with 
 efficiency at the session of her Legislature now holding, it would - 
 be a fact strongly tending to excite this State to some similar 
 course. There is, however, a deadness to the subject of African 
 colonization in this portion of Alabama which is altogether dis 
 couraging. I think something beneficial may be done in Ten 
 nessee. ... In counties where slave labor is valuable, it requires 
 benevolence to keep up our cause Christian benevolence, the 
 stock of which is exceedingly small all through this region. It 
 was my intention to be in New Orleans during the session of the 
 
120 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 Louisiana Legislature this winter, but I am now doubtful whether 
 such a visit would be useful. 
 
 The next letter is under date of " Huntsville, January, 
 24, 1833." He details the steps he has taken to have em 
 igrants for Liberia aided to reach New Orleans in time 
 for the April expedition ; * and continues : 
 
 I have read with much satisfaction the article written by Mr. 
 Harrison on the slavery question in Virginia. (See 3 Afric. Repos. , t 
 193.) It will, I apprehend, have a strong tendency to counteract 
 the one-sided statements and the very unfair arguments of Mr. 
 Dew. I am pleased to see the whole question concerning the 
 black population of our country exciting so strong an interest 
 and provoking such learned discussion. It will eventuate, I 
 trust, in something favorable to the cause of humanity, and, of 
 course, to the true honor and strength of our country. 
 
 He announces his intention to leave next week for New 
 Orleans, taking steamboat at Florence, and going via the 
 Tennessee, Ohio, and Mississippi Rivers. He expresses a 
 wish to visit St. Louis, and Jacksonville, Illinois, stating 
 that he has not abandoned his intention " to remove to 
 Illinois, that I might rid myself and my posterity of the 
 curse of slavery." 
 
 My mind is ill at ease on the subject of retaining my fellow- 
 creatures in servitude. I can not, nor do I believe any honest 
 mind, can reconcile the precept "Love thy neighbor as thyself " 
 
 * Before he left for New Orleans, he did propose to his slaves to 
 send them with the expedition ; but they all refused absolutely, being 
 much frightened at the proposition. 
 
 f An able defense of the Colonization Society, delivered at Lynch- 
 burg, July, 1827. One passage is noteworthy: 
 
 " The scope of the society is large enough ; but it is in no wise 
 mingled or confounded with the broad, sweeping views of a few fanatics 
 in America who would urge us on to the sudden and total abolition of 
 slavery" This arrow is aimed at Osborn, Lundy, Duncan, Rankin, 
 Bourne, ct al. 
 
AGENT OF THE COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 121 
 
 with the purchase of the body of that neighbor and consigning 
 him and his unoffending posterity to slavery, a perpetual bond 
 age, degrading and debasing him in this world, and almost ex 
 cluding him from the happiness of that which is to come. Should 
 I remove from this State, I shall send all the slaves I own to 
 Liberia. 
 
 He proceeds to suggest the discussion of the " duty of 
 Christians in regard to slavery," before the ecclesiastical 
 bodies of Kentucky and Tennessee. He says : 
 
 Could the Christian community, or even a respectable part of 
 it, be aroused to what, I believe nay, to what I know to be 
 their duty in this matter, one might almost say of this great 
 work of humanity, "It is finished." 
 
 He adds : 
 
 If I do [visit Illinois this spring] my object will be to make 
 preparations for a removal perhaps, within a year. ... I 
 am anxious to have an opportunity of discussing it [colonization] 
 before the Legislature [of Louisiana]. 
 
 His next letter is from New Orleans, under date of 
 March 18, 1833. His proposition to call a public meeting 
 was discouraged as injudicious by the president of the 
 State Colonization Society, who represented the state of 
 public sentiment as unfavorable. The society had held 
 no meeting since its first organization, had appointed no 
 executive committee, and collected no funds. He suc 
 ceeded at length in holding a meeting, Sunday evening, in 
 Mr. Clapp s church. A large congregation assembled, and 
 listened in a respectful and attentive manner. 
 
 The blacks, both free and slave, were permitted to be present. 
 But I could not rouse the society into action, although there 
 seemed to be, without exception, individual approbation of what 
 had been said. . . . The president of the society was present 
 at neither of the addresses. ... I am much afraid that our 
 cause will languish unto death here. I know not what to do to 
 
122 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 revive it. ... They are most deplorably inert. ... I 
 shall leave to-morrow for Natchez, where also, I fear, things are 
 in a languishing state, as I have been informed an unsuccessful 
 attempt has been made to secure [a hall for] the regular annual 
 meeting of the society at that place. 
 
 Of the prospect at New Orleans, he says : " It is 
 gloomy enough, yet not so much so as to unnerve us alto 
 gether." 
 
 Under date of " New Orleans, April 8, 1833," he gives 
 an account of his trip to Natchez and Port Gibson, and of 
 his lectures at those places. The Natchez society was in 
 good hands and prosperous ; it had sixteen hundred dollars 
 in its treasury. He spoke twice on Sunday in the after 
 noon, in the Presbyterian church, to a good audience; 
 and in the evening, in the Methodist church, to a very 
 large one. The result was collections amounting to four 
 teen hundred dollars. The meeting at Port Gibson was 
 not large, owing to heavy rains. The collections amounted 
 to about sixty dollars. He then hastened to New Orleans, 
 met there one hundred and forty-eight emigrants bound 
 to Liberia, and chartered a vessel for their transportation. 
 He writes : " I am making great exertions to attract public 
 attention to the sailing of this expedition ; but the apathy 
 here upon the subject of colonization is almost discourag- 
 ing." 
 
 In a long letter of April 13, 1833, full of suggestions 
 and business details, he writes : 
 
 I have determined on returning to Huntsville immediately 
 after dispatching the pending expedition, and on publishing in 
 our "Gazette," in weekly numbers of a column or two thirds of 
 a column each, the views I have generally presented in my public 
 addresses. I trust that arrangements can be made for their re- 
 publication throughout all my district. 
 
 These essays he expects to issue in pamphlet form for 
 circulation among members of the different State Legis- 
 
AGENT OP THE COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 123 
 
 latnres, " bodies from which alone in the South any effect 
 ual aid can be expected." 
 
 It is evident he has already given up all hope of suc 
 cess from the action of societies formed at the South. 
 Under date of April 15, 1833, he expresses the opinion 
 
 that the remarks contained in the latter part of Mr. Finley s 
 address at the last anniversary will do injury to our cause at the 
 South. ... To call the slave-holders even that class of them 
 who are willing to perpetuate the odious relation which my soul 
 hates indeed, to call any description of persons who may be 
 opposed to us enemies, to treat them as such by hard names, to 
 push them into the ranks of an unrelenting opposition, is not, in 
 my judgment, calculated to promote our success. Rather let us, 
 as those are wont to do who are conscious of having a good cause, 
 try to convince opposers by forbearance and kindness and sober 
 argument that they are wrong, and thus persuade them to be 
 come our friends and co-operators. 
 
 April 20th* The brig Ajax, with one hundred and 
 fifty emigrants, dropped down the river. She sailed April 
 22d. On the day last named, Sunday, an afternoon meet 
 ing at Mr. Clapp s church, for which Mr. Birney had made 
 all the necessary arrangements, gaining the promise of 
 three distinguished gentlemen to speak, advertising it by 
 placards and in the newspapers, " failed utterly." " The 
 gentleman who was to submit the first resolution " was 
 absent. " The other two who were to introduce the sec 
 ond and third resolutions declined going on with the ad 
 dresses." He thinks that " but little must be asked in the 
 way of personal effort " from professed colonizationists at 
 New Orleans. There is no popularity to be obtained by 
 openly espousing the cause of colonization." But " in the 
 older parts of Mississippi there is a better spirit in all 
 benevolent things than in this region." 
 
 The cholera broke out on the steamboat on which he 
 took passage to the mouth of the Tennessee. " The boat," 
 
124: JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 he says, " was like a hospital for cholera patients." Reach 
 ing Huntsville early in May, he began the preparation of 
 his essays on colonization, intended for republication in 
 the Southern newspapers. This work was interrupted by 
 a trip to Kentucky between the 5th and 2Gth of June, 
 intended to establish " entire co-operation " between the 
 Kentucky Colonization Society and those of his district. 
 All public meetings in that State were prevented by the 
 sudden prevalence of cholera. Returning through Xash- 
 ville, he took steps there to secure the circulation by all 
 the colonization societies in Tennessee of petitions to the 
 State Legislature for pecuniary aid, and engaged to attend 
 the anniversary of the State society to be held in October 
 at Xashville during the meeting of the Legislature. On 
 this trip he made a short visit to his father, and for this 
 reason declined to charge to the society any part of his 
 traveling expenses.* 
 
 In a letter of June 29, 1833, he makes a suggestion for 
 the consideration of the board of managers. The follow 
 ing extracts will show its character : 
 
 o 
 
 Proposition : Our great object is to call into effect the pmrers of 
 the nation. How can this most surely le done ? We have been try 
 ing it since the first institution of the Colonization Society with 
 out success, by appealing directly to Congress. . . . We have 
 always met with defeat, and we have always roused Southern 
 prejudice. Shall we go on in the same way ? 
 
 The chief cause of the defeat, he thinks, is that the 
 method pursued has excited " jealousy and suspicions of a 
 settled intention to force Congress to legislate upon a sub 
 ject which the South has declared must remain untouched 
 by national legislation." lie advises ceasing the direct 
 application to Congress : 
 
 * Though he passed through Lexington, his letters make no mention 
 of any visit to Henry Clay. 
 
AGENT OF THE COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 125 
 
 We may then press upon the individual States to make appro 
 priations. We may, when we have their full confidence, excite 
 them to exertion singly ; and having their good will, if their own 
 resources should be insufficient, they will be the very organs of 
 carrying their and our wishes before Congress, and of pressing 
 upon it for assistance to accomplish them. ... I verily believe 
 this is the speediest way of reaching Congress successfully, and 
 the best for doing service to our country whose safety is now 
 jeoparded, if I mistake not, by the indiscretion and fury of 
 Northern abolitionists and the (plots) of Southern nuttifiers. . . . 
 I have been heretofore always in favor of applications to Con 
 gress ; I am now satisfied I was wrong. Sir, this Union is 
 precious to me. If it be destroyed the world may mourn, for its 
 liberty is lost. 
 
 On the oth of August he writes to Mr. Gurley : 
 Yet sometimes I fear that the South will do nothing until it 
 is too late, as it will be in ten years from this. 
 
 About the same date he began the publication in the 
 " Huntsville Democrat " of a series of 
 
 on! The editor of that sheet said in intro 
 ducing them : " We give place to the communications of 
 our respected fellow-citizen James G. Birney, Esq., with 
 great pleasure. It is a subject upon which it becomes 
 every man to form an opinion, and the materials for 
 forming a correct one can nowhere be found in a more 
 agreeable form than they will be made to assume in the 
 short essays of Mr. Birney." 
 
 The general drift of these essays is apparent in the fol 
 lowing extracts : 
 
 They saw their countrv suffering under an evil proved by in 
 disputable testimony coming from all parts of it to be great. . . . 
 Our country, especially that portion known as the slave-holding 
 States, is laboring under a great and growing moral and po 
 litical disease." 
 
 To the objection that the plan originated in the free 
 States, he answers : 
 
126 AMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 Shall prejudice so narrow as this persuade us to lay aside a 
 scheme salutary and profitable in itself because its inventors have, 
 by the providence of God, their places of residence in the North 
 or East ? Heretofore we have acted a wiser part ; we did not 
 say to Whitney, the ingenious inventor of the cotton-gin, " You 
 are from the laud of steady habits." 
 
 lie admits that the abolitionists are " found almost 
 exclusively in the free States," but claims that the leading 
 ones are hostile to colonization. In proof he cites the 
 charges made by Mr. Garrison against the society in his 
 " Thoughts on Colonization," and quotes from the review 
 of that pamphlet in the June number, 1832, of the quar 
 terly " Christian Spectator." 
 
 In his fourth number he refers to "a more recent 
 review " in the " Spectator " " of the rhapsodies of Mr. 
 Garrison," etc., and makes a quotation from it.* 
 
 In his fifth he says : 
 
 If, on the other hand, to furnish the owner, in the good con 
 duct of the slave, every motive to feel benevolently toward him, 
 
 * In the number for January, 18:->3, of the "African Repository," 
 which paper Mr. Birney read, Rev. Mr. Gurley replies to an article in the 
 " Liberator." We make a few extracts : 
 
 "lie" (Mr. Garrison) "states that, in June last, in Philadelphia, he 
 put a copy of his Thoughts into my hand, and that a review of it was 
 then promised a triumphant, destructive review and exclaims : 
 After six months, behold the result ! It is true that Mr. Garrison very 
 obligingly presented me with his book ; but in regard to the other part 
 of the statement, I apprehend he has been indebted (as I fear he is in 
 some other cases) to his imagination for his fact. . . . Mr. Garrison pro 
 nounces the charge that he vilifies the South totally false." Mr. Gurley 
 says : " Having selected certain passages from the writings of such men 
 as Messrs. Clay, Harper, Mercer, Harrison, of Virginia, Rev. Dr. Cald- 
 wcll, of Xorth Carolina, and others, he exclaims : Ye crafty calculators ! 
 Ye hard-hearted, incorrigible sinners ! Ye greedy and relentless rob 
 bers ! Ye contemners of justice and mercy ! Ye trembling, pitiful, pale- 
 faced usurpers, my soul spurns you with unspeakable disgust ! " 
 (" Thoughts," p. 107.) 
 
AGENT OF THE COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 127 
 
 to treat him kindly, and at last to let him go free, bestowing 
 upon him a share of that "wherewith the Lord his God has 
 blessed " the master if, I say, this be to favor emancipation, the 
 society can offer no plea but that of "guilty" to the charge. So 
 fully do I trust to the efficacy of this process in the States of 
 Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee that all that is 
 wanting, in my judgment, to disburden them of slavery in a 
 reasonable tune, is means to defray the cost of a comfortable 
 conveyance to a safe and pleasant home of all slaves who may be 
 offered by their owners for removal. ... I would not venture 
 the opinion that there would, in this way, be any sudden extin 
 guishment of slavery in those States, but it would not be hazard 
 ing my reputation for forecast to say that it would be continually 
 approaching its termination. 
 
 He proceeds to combat the idea of trying the experi 
 ment of abolition before every other feasible plan is tried ; 
 and lie lays down a general proposition, " that there is in 
 society an inherent power for self-preservation, which it is 
 authorized to use for the removal of any evil that in its na 
 ture tends to produce social dissolution, although it may 
 be unavoidable that another evil be introduced, instead of 
 the one removed, provided it be of less magnitude." 
 
 This was a two-edged sword, and it gave great offense, 
 as asserting the legislative right to remove slavery. 
 
 In his seventh number he assents to the proposition 
 that " the evil of a settled, self -perpetuating system, by 
 which a large and increasing number of our race are, 
 through all ages, to be debarred of rights declared to be 
 indestructible is greater than any evil affecting the gen 
 eral welfare to be produced by their liberation among us " ; 
 thinks the South is in a situation " which it is desirable 
 to change ; and examines the duty of a slave-holder uneasy 
 under the operation of conscientious scruples and desirous 
 of releasing himself from the relation of master." He re 
 fers to slavery as " that hydra which, with bloody crest, 
 has been well-nigh crushing to death, in its horrid folds, 
 
128 JAMES G. BIRNBY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 the ripening manhood of our country " ; and expresses the 
 opinion that " benevolence and wisdom, if properly led on, 
 will, at length, enable every part of this enlightened land 
 to see that to her greatest strength and highest happiness 
 slavery must, in the nature of things, be ever opposed 
 and to throw off the foul clog by which she has been en 
 cumbered as the leader of the nations in their march to 
 freedom." 
 
 It may be easily imagined what a stir and excitement 
 these articles caused among Southern politicians. They 
 were without precedent in the annals of the press of the 
 Gulf States. Though opposed to instantaneous, they 
 strongly advocated gradual abolition. And they were 
 written by a native Southerner! A man of standing! 
 The first two or three were copied from the Huntsville 
 " Democrat " by a great many slave-State papers ; but, as 
 the series went on, the number of copying papers fell off ; 
 at the seventh number there were none ; and the " Demo 
 crat " itself refused the eighth, for prudential reasons ! ! 
 The Alabama press was closed to Mr. Birney. The Gulf 
 States had refused to hear his appeal. He was forced 1 to 
 the conclusion that if he wished to pry up slavery f tfohi 
 its deep foundations, he must seek farther north for a 
 place to plant his lever. 
 
 In a letter to Mr. Gurley, under the date of September 
 14th, 1833, Mr. Birney writes : 
 
 How greatly shall I be pleased to see you personally, that 
 I might communicate to you more fully than I can in a letter the 
 results of my observations in the South. The truth is appalling 
 to every friend of the Union. . . . Yet I fear I should have noth 
 ing to communicate that would encourage the friends of coloni 
 zation and humanity. I have been greatly disappointed in the 
 insensibility of the religious community on the subject of slavery. 
 So far from sending their slaves to Liberia, the greater part are 
 not slow to justify slavery in our circumstances. ... I must 
 give you my opinion candidly as to our prospects in the 
 
AGENT OF THE COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 129 
 
 South. I fear nothing effectual will be done here for getting rid 
 of slavery until the evil shall cure itself. The only effectual way 
 that seems open to my view is the withdrawal of Virginia (or 
 Maryland or Kentucky) from the slave States, ~by the adoption of 
 some scheme of emancipation. Should this be done, the whole 
 system of slavery in the United States would, from the very 
 pressure of public opinion, be brought and that in a few years 
 in shivers to the ground. In proportion as the slave-holding 
 territory is weakened in political influence, it will be weakened 
 in the power of withstanding the force of public sentiment ; and 
 the last State in which slavery shall exist although its slaves, as 
 property, may be hedged around by laws and constitutions, and 
 absolutely intangible yet will it be perfectly odious. ... I 
 assure you, sir, I have no hope for the South. . . . There is no 
 escape but in doing that which I am almost certain will not be 
 done. 
 
 What I would now suggest would be, to press with every 
 energy upon Maryland, Virginia, and Kentucky for emancipation 
 and colonization. If one of those States be not detached from 
 the number of slave-holding States, the slave question must inevi 
 tably dissolve the Union, and that before very long. Should Vir 
 ginia (or Maryland or Kentucky) leave them, the Union will be 
 safe, though the sufferings of the South will be almost unto 
 death. Indeed, I am by no means certain but that Lower Mis 
 sissippi and the country bordering on the Gulf of Mexico will 
 ultimately be peopled almost entirely by blacks. 
 
 In the same letter he gives notice that the official con 
 nection between him and the Colonization Society will 
 cease on the loth of the following November. 
 
 On the 14th of the following October he was present 
 at a meeting at Nashville of the Tennessee Colonization 
 Society. He writes : 
 
 Many members of the Legislature, then in session, were pres 
 ent. The meeting was held in the Representatives Hall, which 
 was so crowded that many who came to hear were unable to get 
 into the room. I spoke for about an hour and a half, and, going 
 beyond what I had done or could with propriety do south of 
 
130 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 Tennessee, I assumed the position that slavery must not be re 
 garded as a permanent condition among us ; and I attempted to 
 show that there are causes now in very active operation to bring 
 it to a termination. . . . My propositions were so much bolder 
 than they had ever been elsewhere that I was prepared to expect 
 some complaint from the timid and indolent lovers of slavery. 
 But there was none at all. 
 
 He spoke also to crowded houses at Gallatin, Franklin, 
 and Elkton. He writes : 
 
 It is my sincere belief that the South, at least that part of it 
 in which I have been operating, has within the last year become 
 very manifestly more and more indurated on the subject of 
 slavery. . . . They (the planters) are as blind to the natural 
 rights of their slaves as the whites of the West Indies ever were. 
 
 With his Tennessee trip, and the promotion of peti 
 tions from all parts of his district to the State Legislatures 
 for pecuniary aid to the Colonization Society, his official 
 relations to it came to an end. In a letter written about 
 this time to Mr. Gurley he says : 
 
 I am pleased to see all engines at work for the extirpation of 
 slavery from our land. I believe the condition of slavery to be 
 altogether unchristian, and that therefore its tendency is to our 
 ruin as a people. 
 
 About the 15th of November, 1832, he removed from 
 Alabama to his native county in Kentucky, and estab 
 lished his home a mile and a half from Danville, on a pur 
 chased farm of one hundred and thirty acres, immediately 
 adjoining his father s. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 FROM COLONIZATION, THROUGH GRADUAL EMANCI 
 PATION, TO IMMEDIATE ABOLITION. 
 
 His reasons for removing to Kentucky are best given 
 in the following extract from a letter, dated November 27, 
 1833, to a friend, Gerrit Smith, of New York : 
 
 Two years and a half ago, while residing in the State of Ala 
 bama, my mind became greatly aroused to the sin of slave- hold 
 ing. This, aided by the malignant influence that I saw slavery 
 exerting upon my children, determined me to visit Illinois for 
 the purpose of removing thither, of there pursuing my profession, 
 and of liberating the few slaves that I had. I authorized a friend 
 of mine to purchase property for me in Jacksonville. The owner 
 of it refused to sell. Mrs. Birney, whose health has always been 
 delicate, was somewhat averse, after residing so long at the 
 South, to try so high a latitude and to fall in with habits and 
 modes of life so different from those to which she had been ac 
 customed. My father, who is considerably advanced in age and 
 a cripple, too, was anxious for me, his only son, to return to 
 Kentucky and reside in this neighborhood near him. To all 
 these considerations, which I will not say would have been insuffi 
 cient in themselves, another was added of commanding impor 
 tance I looked upon it as the lest site in our whole country for , 
 taking a stand against slavery. 
 
 He and his family were received with open arms by 
 their numerous relatives and connections and the people 
 of Mercer County. If he had desired preferment in the 
 political world, he was at that time in a position to ob- 
 
132 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 tain it easily. He was in good circumstances, an only 
 son, and the prospective heir to half of a large estate ; his 
 experience in public business and legal practice had been 
 varied ; he was always a good speaker, often an eloquent 
 one ; he was personally popular ; he belonged to an influ 
 ential family which ramified into all parts of Kentucky ; 
 and no act of public notoriety had as yet separated him 
 from the dominant party in the State. His entry into 
 politics would have much gratified his father. 
 
 Before he left Alabama he had written to the slave 
 holders in Kentucky, who in 1830- 31 had pledged them 
 selves to gradual emancipation, urging them to issue a call 
 for a convention at Lexington to form a State society. 
 The call was issued. The time named was the Gth of De 
 cember. Hardly had he reached his new home when he 
 saw in person or wrote to every Kentucky slave-holder 
 likely to join in the movement. At that time he was san 
 guine of success. The whole number of slaves of all ages 
 in the State did not exceed one hundred and sixty-eight 
 thousand. Under the unceasing agitation of abolition, 
 since the formation, about 1807, of the Kentucky Aboli 
 tion Society by Presbyterian and Baptist preachers by 
 James Duncan, John Rankin, John Finley Crowe, E. J. 
 Breckenridge, and others; by the "Abolition Intelligencer," 
 the " Western Luminary," and " Eussellville Messenger " ; 
 and by the advocates of the convention to change the Con 
 stitution, the per cent of increase of slaves, which had been 
 99 between 1800 and 1810 and 57 in the next decade, had 
 been lowered to 20-J in the decade ending with 1830 ; and 
 forty-eight slave-holders of influence and standing had in 
 1831 publicly declared their intention to accomplish grad 
 ual emancipation in the State. The hour to strike the 
 final blow at the decaying institution of slavery seemed to 
 Mr. Birney to have arrived. 
 
 That the blow had been too long deferred soon became 
 
FROM COLONIZATION TO ABOLITION. 133 
 
 evident to him. The answers by the reformers of 1831 to 
 his letter were generally unsatisfactory. Some of these 
 gentlemen avowed a change of opinion, and others de 
 clined to attend or had doubts or thought the convention 
 ill timed. A few were willing to attend, but hoped the 
 proceedings would be marked with great prudence. Only / 
 nine persons, all slave-holders, were present at the conven 
 tion. A prolonged discussion elicited many facts which 
 were new to Mr. Birney. It appeared that, w4thin the 
 two preceding years, a number of secret societies, com 
 posed of members of both political parties, had been 
 formed in different parts of the State for the ostensible 
 object of protecting the constitutional rights of the slave 
 States from the encroachments of the Korth ; that, in the 
 newspapers and in debates and political speeches, the ex 
 istence in the national Constitution of guarantees for 
 slavery was widely asserted ; that a jealous sectional feel 
 ing was in process of formation ; that many persons were 
 justifying slavery from the Bible as well as on political 
 grounds ; that -the acquisition of Texas, " peaceably if we 
 can, forcibly if we must," was gaining friends ; and that, 
 because of the closer organization and aggressive position 
 of the large slave-holders, freedom of discussion and action 
 in regard to slavery was greatly narrowed down every 
 where in the State and that emancipationists were sub 
 jected to social ostracism more or less severe. The result 
 of the deliberations was the formation of a society upon 
 the principle of emancipating the future offspring of 
 slaves at the age of twenty-one. This fell very far short 
 of Mr. Birney s expectations ; but he succeeded in obtain 
 ing the adoption of a clause admitting to membership non- 
 slave-holders who would pledge themselves to promote 
 gradual emancipation. The meetings of the convention 
 were public, and were continued through two days with 
 out interference. The mob period had not then begun in 
 
134: JAMES G. BIRXEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 Kentucky. After its adjournment Mr. Birney devoted 
 himself for a short time to obtaining members and organ 
 izing auxiliaries. Lectures, private correspondence, essays 
 for several Kentucky newspapers whose columns were 
 open to him, and reading the abundant literature of the 
 subject, absorbed his attention and energies. 
 
 From the time of his removal from Alabama he en 
 tered upon the most thorough study of the history of 
 slavery, of the institution as it existed in the West Indies 
 and the United States, and of all the efforts to ameliorate 
 or abolish it. For this purpose he obtained a large num 
 ber of British, American, and French books and pam 
 phlets on the subject, both anti-slavery and pro-slavery, 
 both for and against gradualism. He gave special atten 
 tion to the results of British legislation for the regulation 
 of slavery in the West India islands, reading carefully not 
 only the parliamentary debates and reports relating to 
 them, but the essays, treatises, and books of travels by 
 private persons who had visited the islands, and several 
 volumes of the " Anti-Slavery Monthly Reporter," which 
 he sent for to London. Among the works kept on his 
 table were " Four Essays on Colonial Slavery," by John 
 Jeremy, Esq. ; " An Outline for Immediate Emancipa 
 tion," by Charles Stuart ; Clarkson s " Thoughts " ; George 
 Thompson s " Three Lectures on Colonial Slavery " ; 
 " Facts proving the Good Conduct and Prosperity of 
 Emancipated Negroes " ; " The Abolitionist s Catechism," 
 abridged, published at Bristol, England, in 1830. Wilber- 
 f orce s " Appeal," Clarkson s " History," and several others 
 had been in his library many years. (See Appendix A.) 
 
 Though he had been prepossessed by the " rhapsodies 
 of Garrison " against Northern abolitionism as unfair in 
 argument and malevolent in feeling, he was too liberal 
 and just not to hear that side. He accordingly subscribed 
 for the " New York Evangelist," a Presbyterian or Con- 
 
FROM COLONIZATION TO ABOLITION. 135 
 
 gregationalist weekly, and, being pleased with its tone, 
 temper, and ability, he added to it the " Emancipator " 
 (New York), the organ of the American Anti-Slavery 
 Society. It was not long before he subscribed to the dif 
 ferent publications of that society, and learned to appre 
 ciate the moderation, candor, Christian spirit, liberality, 
 firmness, and devotion to truth with which they were 
 conducted. He received and read the poet Whittier s 
 admirable tract entitled "Justice and Expediency; or 
 Slavery considered with a View to its Rightful and Effect 
 ual Remedy, Abolition " ; Elizur Wright s " Sin of Slav 
 ery and its Remedy " ; Beriah Green s " Four Sermons," 
 preached at Western Reserve College in 1832 ; and sundry 
 other anti-slavery tracts of the day. Of American anti- 
 slavery books, he procured those of Bourne (1816), Ken- 
 rick (1816), Torrey (1817), Duncan (1824), Rankin (1824), 
 Stroud (1827), and Phelps (1833). For Whittier, as a 
 man and reasoner, he conceived a high esteem, which 
 ripened into friendship during their intimacy in later 
 years ; of Rankin, he always spoke with respect ; and to 
 the Rev. A. A. Phelps, pastor of the Pine Street Church, 
 Boston, and author of " Lectures on Slavery and its Rem 
 edy," he gave the praise of having produced the most full 
 and satisfactory argument contained in American works 
 on the subject. A paper that had great weight with him 
 was the one signed in 1833 by one hundred and twenty- 
 four clergymen of different denominations, stating reasons 
 for repudiating colonizationism, and indorsing immediate 
 abolition ; it was reprinted as a preface to Phelps s lect 
 ures. He made also an exhaustive study of legal decisions 
 in England and the United States and of the national 
 and State Constitutions on questions touching slavery, 
 and framed his argument that freedom is national, and 
 slavery local only. 
 
 In February, 1834, the famous debate at Lane Semi- 
 
136 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 on slavery began, having been suggested and pro 
 moted by Arthur Tappan, who was the most generous 
 benefactor of the seminary, and who, in the preceding 
 December, had become president of the newly organized 
 American Anti-Slavery Society (Appendix C). It was 
 continued through eighteen sittings, held at intervals, and 
 closing in April. It was the most able and thorough dis 
 cussion of the subject ever held in this country. The 
 participants were eighty students of theology. In age 
 they ranged from twenty-one to thirty-five. Some of 
 them had been lecturers for religious and benevolent so 
 cieties. A few were noted as platform-speakers. Of 
 these, Henry B. Stanton was one of the best. The leader, 
 however, was Theodore D. Weld. He had already gained 
 a reputation throughout the West and Southwest for ef 
 fective oratory. As a speaker on temperance and educa 
 tion, he had no equal. Profoundly religious in tempera 
 ment, sympathetic with all human emotion, nobly simple 
 in manner, free from thought of self, he touched the 
 springs of the human heart with a sure hand. No revival 
 ist not even Finney or Moody could bear his hearers 
 to such heights of passion or through such a wide range of 
 feeling. They wept or laughed with him, and did not sus 
 pect that they had listened to one of Nature s greatest ora 
 tors until they remembered that no one had ever before so 
 moved them, and felt a consciousness of living on a higher 
 plane than before they had heard him. His diction was 
 copious, and his language so apt that every thought found 
 natural expression. Poetry, pathos, and humor gave va 
 riety to his eloquence, and purity and love were its atmos 
 phere. He catered to no prurient taste ; uttered no mal 
 ice ; sharpened no phrase so that its venomed point might 
 rankle in another s breast. He was incapable of hate; 
 his great soul was full of compassion for the oppressor 
 and oppressed. Secretary Stanton and Wendell Phillips 
 
FROM COLONIZATION TO ABOLITION. 137 
 
 pronounced him the foremost orator of his t time; they 
 might have added, " and one of the greatest men." He 
 had none of the vanity of leadership, no egotism, no pre 
 tentiousness. He had heen an abolitionist from boyhood, 
 had traveled through the South, and was well informed 
 in regard to the nature and effects of slavery. His knowl 
 edge and pervasive influence informed the Lane Seminary 
 debate, lifting it to the height of its subject. As it pro 
 gressed, its results were published in the "Journal," a 
 Cincinnati religious weekly, to which Mr. Birney was a 
 subscriber. When in May the Lane Seminary students, 
 burning with enthusiasm and well equipped with argu 
 ments, set out to abolitionize the Xorthwest, they carried 
 with them the sympathies of the leading emancipationist 
 in Kentucky. 
 
 It is impossible to trace with accuracy each step of the 
 slow advance of Mr. Birney to immediatism. All the 
 prejudices of his youth and early manhood, gained in 
 K^ew Jersey and Pennsylvania, were in favor of gradual 
 emancipation, if. effected by compulsory legislation. That 
 method of reaching ultimate abolition had been successful 
 in the Middle and Eastern States, and had seemed to him 
 the most expedient one for the border slave States. Such 
 a measure could be made effective by State legislation 
 only ; and he appears to have regarded it as a political 
 result to be accomplished under a changed state of public 
 opinion. After a public advocacy of gradualism extending 
 through a few weeks only, he became convinced that the 
 political classes were deaf to all appeals on the subject, 
 and that the active men of both national parties were for 
 the first time united in opposition to any discussion of it. 
 Kor could he make any impression on slave-holders by 
 arguments addressed to the selfish principle. In a letter 
 of this date to Gerrit Smith, then a gradualist and coloni- 
 zationist, he says : 
 
138 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 We may take the Kentucky slave-holder, having, say, fifty 
 slaves ; show him from the undisputed statistics of our country 
 the advantages enjoyed by Ohio over his own State ; prove to 
 him that it is owing to free labor and nothing else ; you may 
 further, by comparing his number of slaves with their aggregate 
 in the whole State, demonstrate to him what is his individual 
 loss ; and it will, I apprehend, all amount to nothing. He will 
 admit all your facts, that your calculations are correct and your 
 " answers " undeniable. Yet he will reply to you, "Sir, I am 
 willing, for the sake of my ease and the indulgence of those 
 habits in which I have been educated, to pay the sum that you 
 have so satisfactorily shown I shall lose by remaining a slave 
 holder." With such a man, using such a weapon, you can not 
 proceed a step further ; he fails you completely. 
 
 On more thorough study of the subject, lie became 
 convinced that a gradual emancipation law in Kentucky 
 would result not in the increase of the number of freed- 
 men, but in the sales to the cotton-raising States of nearly 
 all the prospective freedmen ; that immediate abolition 
 would be less dangerous to society and the labor supply 
 in the Gulf States than freeing the slaves in classes, say, 
 of ten thousand each, and attempting to maintain the 
 free and slave labor systems side by side ; and, in short, 
 that gradual emancipation would not work in practice as 
 well as immediate abolition. To do justice was the high 
 est expediency. 
 
 As his speeches were generally made in Presbyterian 
 churches, they were naturally addressed rather to religious 
 than political motives. 
 
 His arguments to public audiences became more and 
 more based on the sin fulness of slavery. lie was too 
 clear a reasoner not to be conscious of the discrepancy 
 between this premise and the conclusion that slavery 
 might be continued. The more he thought and spoke on 
 gradualism, the more sensible he became of his entangle 
 ment in what was not only bad logic, but false theology. 
 
FROM COLONIZATION TO ABOLITION. 139 
 
 IJis_powerf ul appeals led several slave-holders to give deeds 
 of manumission to their slaves, and each act of this kind 
 tended to convince him of the hollowness of gradualism, 
 and to encourage him to have more faith in the might of 
 the truth. In a letter to Gerrit Smith, written just after 
 he had embraced immediatisrn, he says : 
 
 The only means of succeeding at all is to apply the whole truth 
 to the conscience. If less be done, it will be as inefficient as 
 would be the preaching of gradual and partial repentance toward 
 God. Let there be set up a principle false or unsound in any of 
 its parts ; under the false or unsound part slave-holders as well 
 as sinners will take refuge. ... If gradual emancipation be in 
 sisted on, the conscience of the slave-holder is left undisturbed, 
 and you gain nothing. 
 
 Aljout^the first of June, having complied with the 
 Kentucky law requiring a bond with sureties, to indem 
 nify the State and county against bad conduct or pauper 
 ism on the part of persons manumitted, he gave a deed of 
 emancipation to e urh of his six slaves. Kach papi-i- was 
 witnessed by his two oldest sons, and delivered in the 
 presence of the assembled family. 
 
 His freed people were strongly attached to him. 
 They remained with him on wages until he left Kentucky. 
 They were a family of five Michael, his wife, son, and 
 two daughters. Also a mulatto child of six years of age. 
 The son he apprenticed to an Ohio blacksmith, and for 
 one of the -^daughters he obtained the place of housemaid 
 in a respectable family. The little mulatto girl was ap 
 prenticed to him until her majority. He took her, in 1835, 
 with the family to Cincinnati, gave her a good common- 
 school education, and had her taught to be a seamstress. 
 All of them became respectable working people. To 
 Michael he gave for his life work as a slave the wages of 
 a free laborer, with interest on the amount for each year. 
 With Michael s consent, this sum was invested for him in 
 
140 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 stocking a livery stable at Louisville. In this new busi 
 ness Michael was skillful, kept his temperance pledge faith 
 fully, and prospered. 
 
 Two years after this act of justice he was cruelly slan 
 dered by AY. L. Stone, Esq., editor of a New York paper. 
 Mr. Stone had been, up to 1828, a prominent member of 
 the Biennial Conventions to Promote the Abolition of 
 Slavery. On the election of General Jackson, he aban 
 doned that organization, and distinguished himself by his 
 hostility to his former associates and their coadjutors. So 
 long as he confined himself to general invective he was 
 not noticed, but when he made a specific charge Mr. Bir- 
 ney wrote him a letter. Mr. Stone refused to publish it, 
 and it appeared in the " Emancipator." It is reprinted 
 here as the only authentic statement of the matter in ques 
 tion. (See Appendix D.) 
 
 At the time of his removal from Alabama he had lost 
 all faith in colonization as a means for the extinction of 
 slavery. He did not attend the anniversary meeting of 
 the National Colonization Society or the annual meeting, 
 in January, of the Kentucky auxiliary. In his absence he 
 was elected one of the vice-presidents of the latter, an 
 honor of which he was not officially notified. As he did 
 not hesitate in his public addresses to allude to the ineffi- 
 cacy of colonizationism to meet the exigencies then press 
 ing upon the State and country, the change in his opin 
 ions became noised abroad, and inspired no little anxiety 
 among the friends of that cause. One of these, Mr. Peers, 
 formerly president of Transylvania University, published 
 early in 1834 a prospectus for a colonization paper to be 
 issued at Lexington. Having relied in some degree on 
 Mr. Birney s influence to support it, he was disturbed by 
 the reports of his change of opinion, and went to Danville 
 for the purpose of ascertaining the truth in a personal con 
 ference. He was treated with frankness and, being at 
 
FROM COLONIZATION TO ABOLITION. 
 
 heart opposed to slavery, was so shaken by Mr. Birney s 
 arguments that on returning home he recalled his pro 
 spectus and abandoned his project. The reasons for his 
 course becoming known, some of the Kentucky papers 
 mentioned the fact that Mr. Birney was one of the vice- 
 presidents of the Kentucky Colonization Society. To re 
 lieve himself from this false position, he wrote out, early in 
 May, his resignation. As first written, it was expressed 
 in about twenty lines. He had not mailed it when he 
 received a letter from a friend at Paris, Ky., suggest 
 ing that a full statement of his reasons was due to his 
 former associates. This was followed by a paragraph in 
 the " Luminary," expressing the desire of many Presby 
 terians to know his objections to colonization ; and this 
 was copied and approved by several religious journals in 
 the North. Yielding to these requests, he threw aside his 
 first letter and wrote a second and longer one. This, too, 
 was nothing but a resignation of office, with reasons as 
 signed. It fell short of what was wanted, and went into 
 the waste basket. As he wrote, the fire within him 
 burned ; and he took up his pen again and wrote the well- 
 known pamphlet which, under the unpretending title of 
 "Letter on Colonization," is a most touching, cogently 
 reasoned, and powerful appeal to the American people for 
 suffering millions and an imperiled Republic. It first .ap 
 peared in the. " Western Luminary," was copied into a 
 large number of Northern journals, including all the larg 
 er anti-slavery papers proper, and was immediately repub- 
 lished in a large edition in pamphlet form by the Ameri 
 can Anti-Slavery Society.* 
 
 It appeared July 15, 1834, in Lexington, Ky. The 
 time was opportune. Public attention throughout the 
 
 * Many subsequent editions were issued in New York and elsewhere, 
 and the pamphlet kept its place in anti-slavery bookstores up to 1861. 
 
142 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 country had been drawn to the slavery question by the 
 Lane Seminary debate and the subsequent lectures in the 
 Western States by more than fifty of the students ; by the 
 imminence of the emancipation of 800,000 slaves in the 
 West Indies (it was fixed by law for the 1st of August) ; 
 by the riotous proceedings, July 4th, to prevent David 
 Paul Brown from delivering an abolition speech in New 
 York city; and by the Chatham Street riots, the sacking 
 of Lewis Tappan s house, and the mobs against the col 
 ored people, all of which had kept New York City in tur 
 moil from the 4th to the 12th of July. These mobs were 
 fomented by politicians and led by slave-holders, and they 
 had stirred the nation to its depths. The Tappans and 
 their co-laborers at New York were in danger of their, 
 lives. They issued, July 17th, a circular, correcting the 
 common misrepresentation of their principles ; but their 
 houses and persons were still under guard when the " Let 
 ter on Colonization " was republished in the Eastern cities, 
 including New York. Its effect on public opinion was al 
 most marvelous. To .the Tappans, the calm, fearless 
 voice from Kentucky was as welcome as the sound of the 
 Scotch slogan in the distance was to the beleaguered garri 
 son of Lucknow. It was an appeal by a Christian states 
 man ; it was the first of the kind by a native Southerner ! 
 The enthusiasm it excited may be imagined, when a rev 
 erend doctor of divinity, Samuel H. Coxe, of Brooklyn, 
 N. Y., could say of it : "A Birney has shaken the conti 
 nent by putting down his foot ; and his fame will be en 
 vied before his arguments are answered or their force for 
 gotten." From this date James G. Birney had a national 
 reputation, and was regarded as the leading representative 
 of conservative anti-slavery statesmanship. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 ANTI-SLAVERY WORK IN KENTUCKY. 
 JULY, 1834, TO APRIL, 1835. 
 
 AT the time of writing the " Letter," Mr. Birney was 
 not a member of any anti-slavery society or in correspond 
 ence with Northern abolitionists. It was not long, how 
 ever, before they sought him out. The first to visit him 
 was Henry B. Stanton, of Ohio. Then came Prof. 
 Mahan from the same State ; and, after him, Charles 
 Stuart, of England. Each of these spent from one to 
 three days under his roof. About the -same time, he made 
 a very short visit to Cincinnati, where he saw Weld, Wat 
 tles, Thome, Morgan, Robinson, and a few others of the 
 Lane Seminary lecturers, encouraged them in their work, 
 and exchanged views with them. Some of them urged 
 him to take the platform in Ohio; but he declined, 
 thinking his proper field of action was in Kentucky. 
 One of the objects of his visit was to renew his personal 
 friendship with Theodore.X>.-Weld, whom he had learned 
 in Alabama to admire and esteem. From the date of this 
 reunion at Cincinnati, until his decease, these two men 
 were united in an intimate friendship. 
 
 The following extracts from his letters to Mr. Weld 
 will enable us to follow part of his course in Kentucky : 
 
 While I was in Cincinnati an attempt was made in our 
 lyceum to have the " immediate abolition of slavery " discussed. 
 It was voted out on the ground, as I understood, that it was im- 
 
144 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 proper to discuss it here. The evening before last I presided in 
 the lyceum, when, altogether without my knowledge beforehand, 
 the utility of colonization was proposed for the subject of dis 
 cussion at our next meeting. 
 
 With a view to liis permanent appointment as Profess 
 or of Ancient Languages, the trustees of Centre College 
 had engaged him to fill the place of Prof. Breckenridge 
 during a short absence. All parties were satisfied with his 
 manner of filling the chair. The result, however, is thus 
 noticed by him : 
 
 To make a short story of it, everything else was acceptable to 
 the trustees save my alwlition views. On this ground alone, as I 
 was informed by President Young, they passed me by. . . . The 
 result of this has added greatly to the pressure upon me at 
 home ; my nearest friends, though hating slavery in the abstract, 
 and wishing there was none of it, think it very silly in me to run 
 against the world in a matter that can not in any icay do me any 
 good. ... I do not believe I can remain in Kentucky. ... I 
 shall (probably) be compelled to become a citizen of Illinois, 
 scuffle along in my profession, and do what good I can, as occa 
 sions may arise. ... I discover that my father would be much 
 opposed to my removal ; but how can I stay here at the cost of 
 having fetters put upon every attempt that I make ? . . . My 
 nearest friends here are of the sort that are always crying out : 
 " Take care of yourself don t meddle with other people s affairs 
 do nothing, say nothing, get along quietly, make money." 
 . . . I glanced over a pamphlet entitled; "Hints on Coloniza 
 tion and Abolition," ascribed to the Rev. R. J. Breckenridge. It 
 is a farrago of incongruities. He thinks slavery a sin, but when 
 it should cease is questionable. We want a paper in the West to 
 dissect and hold up for public condemnation all such wretched 
 conditions. . . . 
 
 [July 26, 1834.] What effect upon our cause will be pro 
 duced by the New York riots ? Good, I trust. They will not 
 deter a single friend worth having ; and, if I mistake not, they 
 will alarm the considerate who have not been our friends, when 
 they are thus brought to see in what danger the very principles 
 
ANTI-SLAVERY WORK IN KENTUCKY. 145 
 
 of our Government stand, when brought into opposition with the 
 principle of slavery, even at its present growth. 
 
 He discourages the discussion of the social equality of 
 blacks and whites as ill timed, and expresses the opinion 
 that the first thing to be looked to is the freedom of the 
 slaves. Adverting to a suggestion in a former letter of his 
 removal to Illinois, he says : 
 
 I might possibly do more good by remaining here some time, 
 provided the state of public sentiment should justify it. This, I 
 trust, I shall ascertain in a short time. Should a good effect be 
 produced by my publication and any friends appear to be rising 
 up, I have thought it would be well for me to visit all those who 
 would be willing to come out openly, and such others of the same 
 temper as I might hear of in my trip, and try to effect an em 
 bodying of ourselves for joint action. . . . To remove now would 
 look like surrendering the cause in Kentucky without having 
 made any effort for success and taking refuge, as it were, among 
 strangers. I could see many of our friends before the meeting of 
 the Kentucky Synod in October. I am now preparing an address 
 to the ministers and elders in this synod on the subject of slav 
 ery. ... I desire to publish this before I go out to see such 
 as may be our friends. . . . Slavery, emancipation, etc., are 
 more and more talked of here, and I am looked upon by many 
 pretty much as a disturber of the peace. All begin to complain 
 of their slaves that they are getting worse and worse. 
 
 August 19, 188 Jf. He writes that he has finished his 
 address to the " elders and ministers," and will publish it 
 the next week in the Lexington " Luminary." He con 
 tinues : 
 
 Immediately afterward I will go out in quest of abolitionists 
 among the Presbyterians, to rally for the meeting of the synod 
 on the 2nd Wednesday in October. ... An onset must be made 
 at that time with whatever numbers, few or many, can be 
 brought up to the right point. I have no small hope in the 
 course that will be taken by the remote and younger members of 
 the synod. . . . [About August 7.] There was a discussion of 
 
14:6 JAMES tt. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 abolition before the societies in the college. President Young 
 and I were the principal debaters. At the conclusion of the ar 
 gument. . . . the vote was twenty for and twenty-two against 
 abolition. . . . I am much vilified and abused about Danville. 
 I hear none of it myself. . . . Notwithstanding, I begin to think 
 it not at all unlikely that I can sustain myself in Kentucky and 
 even publish a paper here if the effort in the synod prove at all 
 successful. ... On my trip South, I found two abolitionists 
 preachers in our Church one at Glasgow, the other at Greens- 
 burg, both highly respectable in every way. [They had been 
 converted by his "Letter."] 
 
 A diary kept by Mr. Birney between September 1 and 
 October 23, 1834, has been preserved. From it we glean 
 a few facts and make a few extracts. 
 
 Sept. 1st. A clergyman, from Talladega County, Alabama, 
 owning four slaves, and greatly troubled about his duty to 
 them, came to ask my advice, and decided to set them free. 
 The clergyman s wife is opposed to slavery, yet she wishes as I 
 discover is the case with nearly all wives who are opposed to it 
 to escape from it by migrating to a free State. 
 
 Sept. 1st. I started on my tour among the Presbyterian clergy 
 men, visiting them at their homes. The first was , a 
 
 doctor of divinity, a suitable person, if he were sound on the ques 
 tion of slavery, to introduce it in the synod. He claimed to have 
 always been opposed to slavery, so much so from early man 
 hood that his father had left him by will no part of his slaves, 
 but had left him in lieu other property." However, it had so 
 turned out that he then owned two women and three children. 
 He objected to synods declaring slavery a sin, "because there 
 were many female members of the Church whose husbands were 
 not members and who would still retain slaves ; many persons 
 who held them as guardians for minors, etc. ; and that, as there- 
 could not be a uniform operation of a rule against slavery, it 
 would, on the whole, be well enough to do nothing about 
 it." 
 
 These objections were repeated by several other clergy 
 men who were visited. 
 
ANTI-SLAVERY WORK IX KENTUCKY. 147 
 
 Sept. 13ih. Received a letter from Mr. Weld, accepting my 
 invitation to meet me near Georgetown, Ky., and informing 
 me that the "Address to the Kentucky Ministers and Elders" 
 will be published entire in the Cincinnati "Journal." 
 
 Sept. 14th. Conversed with Rev. Mr. Taylor. He has one 
 slave according to law, though he has never so regarded her 
 in fact. She came to him by his wife, and he agreed to receive 
 her on condition that she should consider herself free. He has 
 been in the habit of rewarding her for her services. Talked 
 also with Rev. John Blackburn.* He did not own slaves; he 
 hired them. Thought immediate emancipation of all slaves 
 worse than a continuance of slavery. I had several conversa 
 tions with Rev. Robert Davidson, of Lexington [afterward the 
 historian of the Presbyterian Church in Kentucky], and found 
 him greatly prejudiced against the Eastern abolitionists, and 
 this, in no small degree, from the fact that they are the very new 
 est of the "new school-men." (Meaning the Tappans, Beriah 
 Green, Joshua Leavitt, etc.) He has never owned a slave, in 
 tends never to own one, though he has one hired. He has also 
 two girls who are free, hired as servants. He w T ill vote in the 
 synod, I think, for a declaration that slavery is sinful. 
 
 Here I also saw Henry Thompson, lately a student of Lane 
 Seminary, who turned abolitionist and manumitted his two 
 slaves upon whose hire he was educating himself. He has been 
 greatly tormented and persecuted in Jessamine County, where 
 he lives. 
 
 From this time until his removal from Kentucky Mr. 
 Birney had Mr. Thompson as an inmate of his family, 
 while the latter pursued his studies under Dr. Young, of 
 Centre College. 
 
 Sept. 15th. Reached Lexington in the afternoon, wrote a 
 note to Mr. Clay, requesting a short . interview with him on the 
 
 * A relative of Rev. Gideon Blackburn, D. D., once president of Cen 
 tre College, who had advised a dying and penitent slave-trader to make a 
 will freeing all his slaves and giving all his blood-stained money to 
 trustees to be used for benevolent purposes. The will was made. (See 
 Davidson s " History of the Presbyterian Church in Kentucky.") 
 
148 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 subject of slavery, etc. He did not come home until near sun 
 set too late for me to see him this evening ; but he sent me a 
 note inviting me to breakfast with him to-morrow morning. 
 
 Sept. 16th. Breakfasted this morning with Mr. and Mrs. 
 Clay and one of their sons. Afterward Mr. Clay invited me into 
 the parlor, where we conversed, he being the chief speaker, for 
 about an hour. He seems never to have gone beyond the outer 
 bark of the subject ; his views " vulgar," not "deep." He said 
 that slavery in Kentucky was in so mitigated a form as not to de 
 serve the consideration of a very great evil ; that men s interest 
 in property had been found an insurmountable barrier to gradual 
 emancipation then (in 1799) ; that now they w T ere-more formida 
 ble. The case was hopeless by any direct effort, and was to be 
 left to the influence of liberal principles, as they should pervade 
 our land. He spoke of Mr. Robert J. Breckenridge having put 
 himself down in popular estimation by his having advocated 
 emancipation, and that he and Mr. John Green two gentlemen 
 of great worth had disqualified themselves for political useful 
 ness by the part they had taken in reference to slavery. He 
 related to me two facts, that I have recorded elsewhere, to show 
 that the opinion expressed in his speech before the" Kentucky 
 Colonization Society in 1829, that the South (Louisiana) main 
 tained her stock of slaves from their natural increase was incorrect. 
 He had become satisfied of his error. The impression made upon 
 me by this interview w r as that Mr. Clay had no conscience about 
 this matter, and therefore that he would swim with the popular 
 current. 
 
 As this was the last personal interview that ever took 
 place between Mr. Birney and Mr. Clay, the former s 
 memorandum of the conversation, made on the same day, 
 is given above verbatim et literatim. It will be remem 
 bered that in October, 1830, Mr. Birney had called on Mr. 
 Clay to urge him to place himself at the head of a na 
 tional free-soil, gradual emancipation movement, and had 
 then, in consequence of what passed between them, lost 
 confidence in Mr. Clay as a political leader. From Sep 
 tember 16, 1834, Mr. Birney knew that Mr. Clay would 
 
ANTI-SLAVERY WORK IN KENTUCKY. 149 
 
 antagonize his movements in Kentucky. From that date, 
 though their personal relations remained on a friendly 
 footing, they were foemen in political measures. Keither 
 misunderstood the other on this point. 
 
 The entry for September 16th in the diary continues : 
 
 After this interview I proceeded to the place, twenty miles 
 north of Georgetown, where I was to meet my dear friend Weld. 
 We had appointed 3 o clock p. M., and were not more than five 
 minutes apart in arriving at the spot. 
 
 A quiet house of private entertainment was near at hand. 
 Here we remained until four o clock in the afternoon of the next 
 day, talking over the whole matter, what course it would be best 
 to pursue, etc. We parted, greatly refreshed, as I trust, on both 
 sides. I have seen in no man such a rare combination of great 
 intellectual powers with Christian simplicity. He must make 
 a powerful impression on the public mind of this country if he 
 lives ten years.* 
 
 Sept. 17th. Saw the Rev. Simeon Salisbury, of Georgetown. 
 He has never hired nor owned a slave. Is greatly in favor of the 
 Church acting in condemnation of slavery. 
 
 Sept. 18th. Saw Rev. John T. Johnson (Campbellite). Found 
 him very favorably disposed, going so far as to say that he did 
 not think the approaching winter would pass over without his 
 having set his slaves, some eight or nine as I understood him, 
 free. 
 
 Sept. 19th. Dined at Lexington. In the evening called upon 
 the Rev. Win. W. Hall, who, I had understood, was very favor 
 ably disposed to the slaves of that city, teaching a negro Sunday- 
 school and lecturing the blacks on religious truth. . . . Never 
 have I seen one who seemed more willingly to open his heart to 
 the truth. Mr. Hall took me to see Mr. James Weir, a Presby 
 terian, who had recently inherited eighty slaves. Mr. Weir had 
 thought much about his religious duty to them. He said this 
 
 * In 1832, in the winter, Mr. Weld had been swept away in the icy 
 current of Alum River in an attempt to cross, and had been taken out 
 apparently drowned and frozen. His voice was never so strong after 
 ward, and he could not use it freely for public speaking after 1836. 
 
150 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 much: if he were satisfied it would benefit his slaves to manumit 
 them he would not hesitate a moment to do so. I think he was 
 sincere. Mrs. Weir is willing to give up slavery on conditkn 
 of removing to a free State. 
 
 Sept. 2M. Saw again the Eev. Mr. Taylor, who requested 
 me to write for him a deed of manumission for his negro woman 
 Pleasants, as he wished to be able unhesitatingly to say he w;is 
 not a slave-holder. 
 
 Of another lie writes : 
 
 The doctor proposes to send by the next Western expedition 
 to Liberia a negro woman with five small children and having no 
 husband. He thinks she can support them all there. 
 
 Sept. 25th. Greatly to my mortification, my father, after hav 
 ing appeared enlightened on the Christian duty of emancipation, 
 has promised to give a negro woman (Maria) and her four chil 
 dren (girls) to Mrs. Polk in Danville. I lament much that he 
 has thought proper to leave such a memorial behind him. 
 
 Sept. 30th. I this day wrote to my father [he had gone to re 
 side with his daughter, the wife of Judge Marshall, at Louisville] 
 requesting the privilege of paying out of my own means what ho 
 would say ought to satisfy Mrs. Polk instead of the negroes he 
 promised to give her. . . . About the close of last session there 
 were said to be in Centre College about fourteen young men who 
 were firm abolitionists. Dr. Luke Munsell is so decidedly. . . . 
 He is superintendent of the Deaf and Dumb Asylum. 
 
 ... I have heard that old Mr. Humphrey Marshall is an abo 
 litionist and that he has liberated all his slaves, hiring their serv 
 ices. Abram T. Skillman, bookseller at Lexington, is said to 
 be an abolitionist. 
 
 Of the members of the synod he says : 
 
 The Rev. Messrs. Calvert, of Bowling Green, Woods, of Glas 
 gow, Salisbury, of Georgetown, Sawtell, of Louisville, and Cole, 
 of Augusta, are all that I know who are favorable to immediate, 
 and total emancipation. . . . There may be others of whom I 
 am uninformed. And this is the whole number ... to do this 
 mighty work in which we have to meet the strongest interests 
 and talents. 
 
ANTI-SLAVERY WORK IX KENTUCKY. 151 
 
 Oct. 1st. A very prominent and wealthy citizen, a 
 widower, called on Mr. Birney, told him his suit to a Phila 
 delphia lady had been rejected, and, as he understood, be 
 cause of his being a slave-holder, and requested Mr. Birney 
 to write the lady and inform her she might manumit his 
 slaves as fast as she pleased if she would marry him. As 
 Mr. Birney was a kinsman of the suitor and a friend of 
 the lady, he wrote the letter as desired. 
 
 Oct. 6th. Had an interview with Dr. Munsell and disclosed 
 to him my plan of operations prior to commencing a paper. 
 Much approved by him. 
 
 Oct. 7th. Attended as a spectator the Presbytery now sitting 
 in Danville. Saw Professor Buchanan, who told me that the 
 Rev. Mr. Shannon, of Shelbyville, had read my letter to the 
 ministers and elders of the Presbyterian Church of Kentucky, 
 and had determined to come up to the synod after having disen 
 tangled himself from slavery. 
 
 Oct. 8th. Synod of Kentucky organized. I conversed with 
 several members on the subject of slavery. 
 
 After a discussion of three days, a resolution was 
 adopted declaring slavery a sin and to favor all proper 
 measures for voluntary, gradual emancipation. The vote 
 stood : Yeas, 56 ; nays, 8 ; non-liqiiet, 7. The year be 
 fore a weaker resolution, substituting " moral evil " for 
 " sin," had been postponed indefinitely by a vote of ) T eas, 
 41 ; nays, 36 ; non-liqnet, 1. The evident advance in 
 opinion was very encouraging to Mr. Birney, who on the 
 evening of the llth addressed the public, including many 
 members of the synod, at the Danville Presbyterian 
 Church in favor of abolition. Among the converts at 
 this meeting was the Eev. Mr. Stamper, the local Meth 
 odist preacher, who recanted in 1836. 
 
 Oct. 23d. Received a letter from T. D. Weld, informing me 
 of his appointment as agent in Ohio.* He is a man of great 
 
 * The Pittsburg " Times," in noticing the rapidly increasing audiences 
 flocking to hear a course of lectures by Mr. Weld in that city on free 
 
152 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 mental powers and the most simple-hearted and earnest follower 
 of Christ that I have known. . . . Prepared to-day to set off to 
 Cincinnati in the morning to attend the anniversaries to be held 
 there next week. 
 
 At Cincinnati he made many acquaintances among 
 men prominent in the various benevolent movements of 
 the day, and was much gratified by the numerous indica 
 tions of the general and deep interest taken at the J^orth 
 in his movement against slavery in Kentucky. He then 
 returned home to continue his work, and especially to 
 prepare for the publication at Danville of an anti-slavery 
 weekly paper. 
 
 J. G. Birney to Oerrit Smith. 
 
 Nov. 20, 1834. . . . I do, indeed, thank God and take cour 
 age. Not that I approve of what the synod has done in toto, for 
 it has declared the system to be sinful and the continuance of it 
 not so, but because it has been moved at all toward the proper 
 point. There is no room for despair, for if God continue so to 
 prosper the cause of human liberty as he has done here during 
 the last year, the next synod will witness, if not the absolute 
 death of slavery, at least its convulsive an/d dying throes in the 
 Church of which it has supervision. . . -^Whatever may have 
 been the errors of Northern abolitionists and I do not say 
 they have been exempt from them, though surely with liberal 
 minds the persecution and abuse they have suffered furnish no 
 small palliation they have beyond all doubt the right principle, 
 and, if I do not greatly mistake, they are now using it with mucli 
 discretion and effect. Do you not think it probable that very 
 
 discussion and slavery, says " Mr. Weld is one of Nature s orators not 
 a declaimer, but a logician of great tact and power. His inexhaustible 
 fund of anecdote and general information, with the power of being in 
 tensely pathetic, enables him to give the greatest imaginable interest to 
 the subject. His powers of teaching are of the first order that is, his 
 facility for generalizing broadly and regularly, for passing into profound 
 abstractions and bringing his wealth of ideas into beautiful light by clear, 
 striking, and familiar illustrations." 
 
ANTI-SLAVERY WORK IN KENTUCKY. 153 
 
 gentle and calm measures would not have been sufficient to rouse 
 up from its torpor the public sentiment of this nation ? t / 
 
 ... In the present state of things surely nothing more is 
 wanting than the kindest and most Christian course. Why not, 
 then, if we think so, act upon their principle gently correct by 
 our example their indiscretions whenever they may appear, and 
 thus be instrumental in bringing patriots, philanthropists, and 
 Christians into one noble and dignified and swelling stream of 
 action for God and our country ? . . . Should you desire, . . . 
 I will present to you fully all my views. I have no secret as to 
 my anti-slavery operations. There is no item in my contemplated 
 action on the public mind that is concealed. I am at present 
 identified with no free- State anti-slavery association. I think it 
 probable that for some time to come I may remain so. My ef 
 forts are now directed to an organization for this State. I am 
 not without hope that one may be gotten up by next spring. 
 Should this turn out to be the case, the next movement will be 
 to get up a paper that will in the main speak the sentiments of 
 the society and serve as a point of concentration for all the im 
 mediate emancipation material lying scattered throughout the 
 State. 
 
 Same to Same. 
 
 Danville, Ey., Dec. 30, 1834.. I shall look with much 
 interest for the essays about to be published (by G. S.) in the 
 " Journal of Freedom " the more because you say that on the 
 immediate emancipation" doctrine and on the subject of anti- 
 slavery "there will in all probability be but little difference in 
 our views." . . . There is an aspect in which colonization has 
 been presented to my mind that I have never yet discussed, ex 
 cept in conversation. ... It is this : The best way to promote 
 the kind of colonization that will eventuate in Christianizing 
 Africa and, of course, in civilizing it is to grant immediate 
 emancipation here from Christian principle. 
 
 He develops the idea that intelligent converted negroes 
 would go as missionaries : 
 
 Let colonization become strictly missionary in its character. 
 . *. . One thought more on this subject : Emancipation, to be 
 
JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 blessed of God and safe, must proceed from love love to God 
 and man and must be so conducted that it shall excite in the 
 bosoms of the emancipated love for our principle and love for us. 
 
 To a request from Gerrit Smith for leave to publish 
 one of his letters, he says : 
 
 Of the letter to you, I have no copy. I have so much writing 
 to do that really I have not time, if I deemed it necessary, to copy 
 my letters. Another reason why I do not : I express no opinion 
 that I do not honestly entertain. If I have said anything that is 
 erroneous, I am always willing, when convinced of the error, to 
 retract it. The only doubt I have about the propriety of pub 
 lishing it is that I wrote it without expectation of such a 
 thing. . . . 
 
 There is yet among even some clever and firm abolitionists 
 here a little fearfulness of what has been called the fanaticism 
 of Northern abolitionists." However, I think it will in no very 
 long time disappear, and there will be a full fraternization. . . . 
 I think it not improbable, my dear friend, that I may have the 
 pleasure of seeing you in the city of New York next spring. . . . 
 How heartily and thankfully would I enjoy the pleasure of a 
 long, long conversation with you on the great subject to which 
 God, 1 trust, has called us both ! ... Ah ! if I were to quarrel 
 with all who differ from me here on the subject that now so fully 
 occupies my mind and interests my feelings, or were I to feel 
 uncharitably toward them, I might always be unhappy and 
 cheerless ! 
 
 Of Mr. Smith s " Essays," he says : 
 
 I do not know of any paper in Kentucky that would pub 
 lish them. 
 
 Jan. 31, 1835. Of the sixty-four-page pamphlet, " Re 
 port of the Synod Committee on Slavery," written by 
 President Young, and recommending a plan of gradual 
 emancipation,* he writes to Gerrit Smith : 
 
 * For this plan, see Davidson s " History of the Kentucky Presby- 
 byterian Church," p. 339, and Stanton s " The Church and the Rebellion," 
 
ANTI-SLAVERY WORK IX KENTUCKY. 155 
 
 I am now almost daily contemplating the injury it has done 
 to the cause of emancipation in the Presbyterian Church. I 
 know of several instances of brethren whose minds were earnestly 
 inquiring for the truth in relation to the sin of slavery who have 
 to all appearance sunk to sleep from the anodyne he has admin 
 istered. Young showed me his manuscript before he sent it to 
 Cincinnati to be published. I thought, as an argument, it was 
 grossly sophistical and unworthy of his mind. I besought him, 
 as a brother, to abstain from its publication. ... I was anxious 
 that he should not commit himself before the nation on the side 
 of the slave-holder. He did refrain for a week. ... I have just 
 come from his house, after a conversation of an hour or two con 
 taining nothing encouraging as to his entertainment of more cor 
 rect views. I do very much lament his course ; I wanted to see 
 him eminently useful. . . . 
 
 While I was at Frankfort, Judge Underwood delivered the 
 annual colonization address. It was intended as an answer to 
 the abolitionist and to demonstrate the practicability of ex 
 terminating Kentucky slavery by African colonization. His 
 knowledge of abolitionism was very crude. In a few instances 
 he was illiberal ; in the main, he is a liberal man. 
 
 Underwood s plan was for Kentucky to expend one 
 hundred and forty thousand dollars yearly in the trans 
 portation of four thousand negroes girls and youths from 
 seventeeen to twenty years of age. This, continued for 
 fifty years, would rid the State of slaves. Mr. Birney V 
 asks: 
 
 Will the people of the State give up this year, for the purpose 
 of colonization, four thousand slaves, at the ages when they are 
 most valuable, when human flesh is selling in the Kentucky 
 market for about four to five dollars a pound ? And will they 
 
 p. 423. The pamphlet was a powerful and faithful exposure of slavery, 
 with the lame conclusion of gradualism. John C. Young, D. D., Presi 
 dent of Centre College, was always acute, ingenious, and eloquent. His 
 wife was the daughter of J. Cabell Breckenridge. That fact and his 
 many amiable traits had endeared him greatly to Mr. Birney as a friend. 
 
156 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 give from the State coffers one hundred and forty thousand dol 
 lars for their transportation to Africa ? ... It is by holding up 
 such schemes as this, by exhibiting such arithmetical benevolence, 
 that the Northern professed friends of freedom are beguiling the 
 slave States from that repentance which would save them. . . . 
 I do not think it probable that I shall review your essays. I read 
 the first (published in the "Emancipator") with great pleasure. 
 . . . Would that our excellent Brother Bacon [Dr. Leonard G. 
 Bacon] could see his error ! He does us great damage. The 
 slave-holder lays hold of any doctrine that furnishes the least 
 shadow of excuse, and holds to it with the tenacity of a drown 
 ing man. Notwithstanding the declaration and resolutions of 
 the synod, which sat here, since that time slaves have been sold 
 to the Southern slaver by a member of the Danville Church. 
 
 J. G. Birney to Lewis Tappan. 
 
 \ 
 
 Danville, Feb. 3, 1835. I returned a few days since from 
 Frankfort. ... I heard while there most of the debates on the 
 " Convention Bill," into which the subject of slavery and eman 
 cipation always entered. I conversed on these subjects with 
 many of the members of the Legislature as well as with other 
 intelligent gentlemen from different parts of the State. The 
 conclusion to which my mind has been brought is this, that 
 emancipation in some form or another in most instances, in the 
 crudest form imaginable occupies the mind of this community ; 
 and that the feeling in favor of it is growing. ... I am not 
 without hope that the subject of emancipation will be taken up 
 in many parts of the State by the candidates for the next Gen 
 eral Assembly. . . . With the political action of political men 
 and the holy action of religious men there is no inconsistency 
 that is irreconcilable. That the oppressor s reign should end 
 from any principle should cause us to rejoice. 
 
 On the 19th of March, 1835, the Kentucky Anti-Slav 
 ery Society was organized at Danville. It numbered forty 
 members, most of them intelligent men, and all respecta 
 ble. Some of them had been slave-holders. Before May, 
 the number was increased to forty- five. To effect this 
 
x ANTI-SLAVERY WORK IX KENTUCKY. 157 
 
 organization, Mr. Birney had devoted much time and 
 energy. , 
 
 J. G. Birney to Gerrit Smith. 
 
 Danville, March 21, 1835. . . . I have been very much en 
 gaged for the last month, not only in preparing for the organiza : 
 tion of our State Anti- Slavery Society, but in actually discussing 
 publicly the merits of " immediate emancipation." Within that 
 time, I have had two debates some distance from home, in which 
 my chief adversary was a minister of the Gospel, an aged and 
 influential minister. . . . Between two and three weeks since 
 I undertook to review in our Danville Lyceum, in the w r ay of 
 lecture, the letter of President Young on slavery. I gave no 
 tice in the newspapers of the village, that all who felt an interest 
 in the subject of it should read and understand the letter that 
 they might come prepared to appreciate the arguments with 
 which the principles would be met and to detect any fallacy or 
 sophistry more easily, if any should be attempted by me. I was 
 a long time in exposing, as I thought it was easy to do, the falla 
 cies of his letter. He was present and so stung that he asked 
 an adjournment of the lyceum till the next evening, when he 
 would undertake to reply. He did so. I think his effort was 
 not considered a successful one in vindication of his cause. . . . 
 He greatly abused abolitionism, and, in speaking of Mr. Gar 
 rison, he out- Garrisoned Garrison himself. He went so far as to 
 say he would not be an abolitionist because Mr. Garrison 
 was one. L . . 
 
 Although I am in the midst of enemies (though I must say, 
 not personal, unless they have transferred their malignant feel 
 ings from the cause of freedom to its advocate), and am often 
 much perplexed, yet, altogether, I have never had so much 
 peace. . . . The day before yesterday was organized the "Ken 
 tucky State Anti- Slavery Society, auxiliary to the American Anti- 
 Slavery Society," with Prof. Buchanan,* of Centre College, as its 
 president. Our proceedings were very harmonious among our 
 selves and uninterrupted f from without. The fifty dollars which 
 
 * lie had just manumitted his three slaves. 
 
 f There would have been few mobs if it had not been for the wire- 
 working of politicians. 
 
158 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 you thought proper to confide to my discretion for the advance 
 ment of the cause of immediate emancipation, I have devoted to 
 paying the expenses of printing and distributing our proceed 
 ings. . . . Immediate emancipation will have to be sustained 
 here by the comparatively poor and humble. The aristocracy, 
 created and sustained by slavery, will be ugly enemies aye, and 
 they will be so almost to our extermination. . . . I do not think 
 there is good reason for your refusing to give your name and in 
 fluence to the American Anti- Slavery Society. 
 
 He refers to his wife s bad health as making it doubt 
 ful whether he could attend the anti-slavery anniversary 
 in New York, on May 13th, but " should her situation 
 allow of my leaving her, it is my intention to be at Zanes- 
 ville, Ohio, at a meeting of the convention " (April 22nd, 
 to form a State anti-slavery society). 
 
 The state of public opinion in Kentucky in the spring 
 of 1835 has some light thrown upon it by the following 
 report, in the " New England Spectator," of statements 
 by Mr. Birney, at Boston, in May : 
 
 Mr. Birney stated that he had recently received a letter from 
 Kentucky, which stated that the subject of immediate emanci 
 pation is greatly talked about. A discussion of the subject has 
 recently been had in the Young Men s Institute of Louisville. He 
 (Mr. Birney) had been written to to take a part in the debate, it 
 not being known that he had left [for the East]. Dr. Marshall, 
 brother of the Chief Justice, stated that so strong is the impres 
 sion against slavery in Louisville, that when a slave-holder re 
 cently wished to lay claim to a colored man in Louisville, the 
 affair was so unpopular that he wished the privilege of prose 
 cuting his claim in another place. 
 
 No hinderance whatever is thrown in the way of our meetings. 
 The church in Danville was freely given to me for the convention 
 (to form a State anti-slavery society). The pastor of the church, 
 although opposed to me on this subject, yet gave notice of my 
 lectures held in that place. No church in that State has ever 
 been refused me. (Appendix to " American Report, 1835," of the 
 American Anti-Slavery Society, p. 78.) 
 
ANTI-SLAVERY WORK IX KENTUCKY. 159 
 
 On the same occasion he said of the race prejudice 
 against the negro : 
 
 There is less negro hatred in the slave than in the free States. 
 They are subject to more insult in the latter than in the former.* 
 
 * At that time a colored person could travel in the stage-coaches of 
 the South, but was excluded from public conveyances in the North. As 
 late as 1864, colored servants in attendance on ladies and carrying white 
 children were driven from street-cars in Philadelphia a brutality with 
 out example in the South. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 A WIDER SPHERE OF ACTION. 
 
 * 
 APRIL, 1835. 
 
 EVENTS not foreseen by Mr. Birney attracted the atten 
 tion of the whole country to him and his operations in 
 Kentucky after the general publication of his letter on 
 colonization, in July, 1834. The emancipation of eight 
 hundred thousand slaves in the British West Indies, on 
 the first of August in that year, had made the abolition 
 of slavery the topic of universal discussion in the United 
 States. That measure revived the memories of the eman 
 cipation of half a million in those islands by the first re 
 public of France ; of the abolition of slavery by Chili, in 
 1811 ; by Buenos Ayres, in 1813 ; by Columbia, in 1821 ; 
 at the Cape of Good Hope, in 1823 ; by New York, in 
 1827; and by Mexico, in 1829. There were rumors of 
 prospective abolition in Brazil and of the emancipation of 
 the serfs in Russia. The outlook was that the states of 
 this republic and the monarchy of Spain would be the 
 last governments to maintain slavery. In the contem 
 poraneous language of a frank South Carolina member 
 of Congress, " The sentiment of the Christian world is 
 against slavery." That the great majority of the Ameri 
 can people shared this sentiment is also true. Every State 
 Constitution contained bills of rights and guarantees of 
 personal freedom. Every court administered justice gen- 
 
A WIDER SPHERE OF ACTION. Id 
 
 erally on the principle of equality of rights before the law. 
 The orator, the teacher, and the preacher insisted alike 
 upon justice between individuals. Slavery was the one 
 horrible exception to American law and the American 
 sense of right. 
 
 This exception was maintained by a small minority of 
 the people of the South. De Bow, a pro- slavery writer, 
 makes the following admissions : 
 
 " I am satisfied that the non-slave-holders far outnum 
 ber the slave-holders perhaps by three to one." * 
 
 According to the same author, there were, in 1850, 
 only 7,929 slave-holders owning each more than fifty 
 slaves. In 1833 the whole number of slave-holders did 
 not exceed two hundred and eighty thousand. But they 
 possessed the rich lands and the wealth of the Southern 
 States ; and their intelligence, social position, and identity 
 of interest enabled them when united to control nomina 
 tions to office and the use of the political power of the 
 South. The machinations of Calhoun and his friends, 
 after the defeat of nullification, to bring slavery to the 
 front as a political question, were powerfully aided by the 
 emancipation legislation of Great Britain. The slave 
 holders drew together under this double pressure. Brave 
 and self-reliant, they defied the moral power of Christen 
 dom ; and, determined to present an unbroken front, they 
 tolerated neither criticism nor debate nor the non-com- 
 mittalism of silence. Between 1833 and the summer of 
 1835, the ordinary lines of political parties were effaced in 
 the South, so far as slavery was concerned; Whigs and 
 Democrats vied with each other in professions of loyalty 
 to the slave-power ; and_jiavotion to slavery became the 
 test of Southern-patriotism. The obliteration of all anti- .. 
 slavery societies, in the slave States, which had begun with 
 
 * 2 " Resources of the South and West," p. 106. See also Van Hoist, 
 " State Sovereignty," p. 342 and note. 
 
1G2 JAMES G. BIRXEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 tli__election of Jackson, became an accomplished. ..fact. 
 Fcee_speech .had perished at the South in 1835. 
 
 But there was one exception Kentucky. Tongue and 
 pen were still free in many parts of that State. Many of 
 the churches were open to anti-slavery speakers ; crowds 
 listened to discussions of abolition ; several newspapers 
 admitted able anti-slavery essays to their columns. The 
 synod of the Presbyterian Church had published the most 
 eloquent arraignment of slavery ever issued by an ecclesi 
 astical body and a recommendation of emancipation hardly 
 falling short of immediate abolition ; and forty respectable 
 men, most of them ex-slave-holders, ha.d formed a State 
 society auxiliary to the American Anti-Slavery Society ! ! 
 
 This formidable movement, menacing the labor system 
 of the South, had for its soul and leader a native South 
 erner, a man of conscience and courage, an ex-slave 
 holder, a lawyer, and statesman. In 1834- 35 the Morde- 
 cai in the king s gate for the slave power was James G. 
 Birney. 
 
 For the Northern States, he was the observed of all ob 
 servers. He was the^only abolitionist who was grappling 
 with slavery in a slave State ; and the imagination of the 
 masses attributed to him all the qualities of a heroic soul, 
 while the intelligent admired his firmness, moderation, 
 freedom from exaggeration, and thorough knowledge of 
 his subject. 
 
 His famous " Letter " had brought him numerous mes 
 sages and assurances of sympathy, encouragement, and 
 admiration from all parts of the North. Friendly travelers 
 had called on him at his home ; several prominent aboli 
 tionists had visited him there, and he received from many 
 residents of Northern cities invitations to speak on slavery 
 in those places, with assurances of good halls and large 
 audiences. Among these correspondents were Mr. Gazzam, 
 of Pittsburg ; David Paul Brown, of Philadelphia ; Judge 
 
A WIDER SPHERE OF ACTION. 163 
 
 William Jay, of New York ; and William Ellery Charming, 
 of Boston. The prominent abolitionists of Ohio were 
 anxious that he should be present at the formation in 
 April of the State Anti-Slavery Society ; and the Tappans 
 and Joshua Leavitt were urgent for his attendance at the 
 May anniversary of the American Anti-Slavery Society, to 
 which he had been appointed delegate from Kentucky. 
 
 Yielding to these requests, he left home for Cincinnati, 
 reaching that city April 17, 1835, and taking lodgings at 
 the Henry House, which was situated on Third near Main 
 Street, in the central part of the city. His arrival was 
 announced in the daily papers. He was met at the hotel 
 by several prominent anti-slavery lecturers, and he re 
 mained there more than two days, during which time he 
 received a large number of visitors, among whom were 
 Salmon P. Chase and Dr. Gr. Bailey. His presence in the 
 city excited curiosity and interest, but there was no indi 
 cation of a mob spirit. He was pressed to lecture in 
 one of the churches, but refused because of want of time 
 to give the notices required ; and then, in company with 
 the Hamilton County delegation, he journeyed by stage 
 coach to Zanesville to aid in the formation of a State 
 society which should be auxiliary to the American Anti- 
 Slavery Society. The local societies in Ohio had generally 
 been independent, each acting on its own plan. 
 
 The convention consisted of one hundred and ten dele 
 gates, representing Anti- Slavery societies in twenty-five 
 counties. Among the societies not represented were some 
 of the oldest in the State. They had been established 
 without concert, at different times, under different names, 
 and with constitutions framed on no common model ; and 
 never having affiliated with each other for concerted 
 action, they were now reluctant to place themselves under 
 the control of State and national societies of recent origin, 
 a step that would apparently compel them to change their 
 
164 JAMES G. BIRXEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 names and constitutions and take date from the change. 
 This last concession was not made, even in subsequent 
 years, by such old societies as the Mount Pleasant, the 
 West Union, the Monroe County, or the Ripley, which 
 was the oldest of all ; and when these became auxiliary, 
 they stood without date of origin on the records of the 
 American Anti-Slavery Society. (See its "Annual Re 
 ports " for 1836- 3S.) The date of the organization of the 
 first abolition society at Bethel is unknown. It was not 
 later than the Missouri Controversy. The town was laid 
 out in 1797, by Obed Denham, from Kentucky, a Baptist 
 abolitionist. In his deed of dedication and plat of the 
 village (see Clermont County Records) occurs this sen 
 tence : 
 
 I also give two in-lots, Nos. 80 and 108, for the use of the 
 regular Baptist Church, who do not hold slaves, nor commune at 
 the Lord s table with those that do practice such tyranny over 
 their fellow-creatures. 
 
 The men who migrated from Kentucky with Obed 
 Denham the Becks, Frazees, Burkes, and others were 
 as stanch Baptists and abolitionists as he was ; and their 
 first preachers, the Rev. Moses Hutchins, and his successor, 
 the Rev. Moses Edwards,* always kept the banners well ad 
 vanced. When the Bethel Society was reorganized in 1836, 
 James Denham, a grandson of Obed, was the secretary. 
 
 Lundy had organized the Mount Pleasant Society in 
 1815 ; and Rev. Dyer Burgess that of West Union about 
 1818. We do not know when the Aiding Abolition So 
 ciety of Monroe County was formed ; but, on the 24th of 
 June, 1826, its chairman and secretary published in 
 Lundy s paper a two-column " Memorial " beginning with 
 these words : 
 
 * He officiated as clergyman at the marriage of Gen. Grant s father 
 to Hannah Simpson, June 22, 1821. 
 
A WIDER SPHERE OF ACTION. 165 
 
 " Convinced of the iniquity of slavery in all its bear 
 ings, as attached to the colored race, and having associated 
 together for the purpose of aiding in the immediate aboli 
 tion thereof " etc. 
 
 The Ripley Society, which had been formed early in the 
 century, set the good example to the older societies of 
 sending delegates. 
 
 The society at Zanesville had been formed in 1826 
 as the Emancipation Society, its expressed object being 
 " the total extinction of slavery in the United States at .the 
 earliest practicable period " (MS.). It had been reformed 
 July 4, 1833, as the United States Constitution Society. * 
 with the expression of the object strengthened by substi 
 tuting " abolition " for " extinction," and "possible " for 
 " practicable." This society had called the convention. 
 
 The Columbiana Abolition Society had been organ 
 ized January 6, 1827, and in the first three months num 
 bered five hundred members. Its doctrine was abolition, 
 without condition or qualification. (See "Genius" of 
 April 14, 1827.) It sent delegates. When it became 
 auxiliary to the American Society, it refused to take a 
 date and stood on its old record. A few persons took 
 seats, not as delegates, but as recognized abolitionists. 
 Two of them were members of the Methodist Reformed 
 Church, which, in 1826, had adopted the following 
 rule : 
 
 Article 8th. No person holding a slave shall be admitted into 
 this society on any condition. Any member of the society buy 
 ing a slave shall be immediately expelled from it. All persons 
 receiving money as heirs, in consequence of the sale of slaves, 
 shall be immediately expelled from the society. f 
 
 * In 1836 it became the Putnam Anti-Slavery Society, and dates 
 from that year on the records of the American Society. 
 
 f " London Anti-Slavery, Reporter," for July, 1827, which copies it 
 from Lundv a " Genius." 
 
166 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 Three of them were members of the Associate Keformed 
 Presbyterian Church, which, in 1831, had settled the form 
 of its rule against slavery as follows : 
 
 No member shall, from and after this date, be allowed to 
 hold a human being in the character and condition of a slave. 
 ("Life of Dr. Crothers," p. 181). 
 
 Of the veterans who had fought the battles of imme 
 diate abolition in Ohio for more than ten years, there 
 were present one farmer, John B. Mahan, of Brown 
 County; two business men, Col. Eobert Stewart, of Eoss 
 County, and Col. William Keys, of Highland; and five 
 clergymen, John Rankin, Samuel Crothers, William 
 Dickey, James II. Dickey, and John Wallace, all members 
 of the Chillicothe Presbytery, * and all immigrants from 
 slave States. Levi Whipple, Horace Nye, and Henry C. 
 Howell had been in the ranks more than five years. Elizur 
 Wright had been publicly active in the cause since 1831. 
 The Lane Seminary group present was composed of Theo 
 dore D. Weld, Henry B. Stanton, James A. Thome, Horace 
 Bushnell, Augustus Wattles, and William T. Allan (Ala 
 bama). Morgan County sent Hiram Wilson, who was so wide 
 ly known in after years as the devoted missionary to the 
 colored refugees in Canada ; and Cincinnati sent Augustus 
 Wattles, who, as superintendent of the colored schools in 
 that city, had, with his self-denying coadjutors, achieved 
 a great work of elevation and reform for the negro popu 
 lation. John B. Mahan, a tall, muscular, raw-boned, stal 
 wart, and swarthy man of middle age, had long been one 
 of the most active friends of fugitive negroes. He was a 
 farmer and local Methodist preacher. He had not been 
 in a slave State since childhood ; but, from about 1820, 
 any man fleeing from bondage could rely upon his hospi- 
 
 * In 1826 this Presbytery issued a pamphlet on the evils of slavery 
 and the duty of masters to free their slaves. 
 
A WIDER SPHERE OF ACTION. 167 
 
 tality and protection. His strength and courage, tested 
 in sundry conflicts with slave-catchers, had given them a 
 salutary respect for him. He knew reliable friends in the 
 counties adjoining his own to whom he could confide fugi 
 tives. In 1826 a close connection was formed by him and 
 his associates with Levi Coffin (see " Coffin s Reminis 
 cences," page 108) and other Quakers in Wayne County, 
 Indiana. An earlier one had been established with West 
 ern Xew York in order to baffle the slave-catchers who 
 were stationed at Detroit ; and, after 1826, the recapture 
 of a fugitive negro who could cross the Ohio River and 
 get five miles north of it, was a rare occurrence. In emer 
 gencies the house of any Quaker was a refuge ; no questions 
 were asked, food and lodging were quietly given, and the 
 traveler was speeded on his way in the safest manner. * 
 Mahan was a taciturn man ; he was no boaster, but his 
 somber piety and bravery would have endeared him to 
 Oliver Cromwell. Before the convention was over he was 
 appreciated by his fellow-members, f 
 
 Rev. Samuel Cr others was a Presbyterian preacher. 
 He had been brought up in Kentucky, and left that State 
 in 1810, when he was twenty-eight years of age. For ten 
 years he was a pastor in Ross County. In 1820 he took 
 charge of the church at Greenfield, Highland County, and 
 kept it for thirty-six years. His moral and political, as 
 well as his religious influence was very great in that part 
 of Ohio. From his entrance into the State (we have no 
 
 * Friend Butterworth, a Warren County Quaker, who had come with 
 a covered wagon to Cincinnati, was asked in my hearing in 1838, "Can 
 you take a poor man as passenger ? " " Yea, I have room." The place 
 was named for taking him. " I will call for him at eight." This was all. 
 But it saved a man who was hard beset. 
 
 f September 17, 1838, he was kidnapped and taken to Kentucky to 
 be tried on a charge of stealing slaves. Acquitted on the criminal charge, 
 his friends paid the amount of the bond in a civil suit, rather than risk 
 Kentucky justice. 
 
168 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 record of his life in Kentucky) he was known as an im 
 mediate abolitionist, in full sympathy with Gilliland, 
 Burgess, Rankin, and the Dickeys. His sermons on the 
 subject have not been preserved, but we have from his 
 pen fifteen letters published between 1827 and 1831 and 
 republished in 1831, entitled "An Appeal to Patriots and 
 Christians in Behalf of the Enslaved Africans." The 
 sturdiness and thoroughness of his abolitionism is mani 
 fested in his striking answer to the apology, " It is neces 
 sary to keep the Africans in slavery to avoid the evils of 
 emancipation." He tolerated no instant of sin. He likens 
 it to the fabled apology of a certain Scotch clan for steal 
 ing : " We are an honest race of people ; we never steal 
 except a little now and then, for a living." When Presi 
 dent Young, of Centre College, published his plea for 
 gradualism, Dr. Crothers answered in five letters, pub 
 lished early in 1835. Those letters were logical, witty, 
 and sarcastic ; they utterly riddled Dr. Young s house of 
 cards. There was no speaker or writer in the anti- 
 slavery ranks between 1825 and 1835 who dug down 
 quicker or with surer stroke to the primal granite than 
 Dr. Crothers.* 
 
 The most noted abolitionist in the convention was- 
 doubtless John Rankin. W T hen Henry Ward Beecher 
 was asked after the war, " Who abolished slavery ? " he is 
 said to have answered, " Rev. John Rankin and his sons 
 did it." 
 
 .The humor of the answer lies in its quaint exaggera 
 tion of the effects of the services rendered to the cause by 
 Rankin. These were very great. Many Western men 
 have called him " the father of abolitionism," and it was 
 not an uncommon thing in the thirties to hear him called 
 " the Martin Luther" of the cause. In 1827, the year in 
 
 * Ritchie s " Life of Dr. Crothers." 
 
A WIDER SPHERE OF ACTION. 169 
 
 which New York abolished slavery within her limits, John 
 Rankin was one of the five most prominent advocates in 
 this country of immediate abolition. He was also one of 
 the earliest. Charles Osborn and Rev. George Bourne 
 date as abolitionists from 1814, John Rankin and Benja 
 min Lundy from 1815, and Rev. James Duncan from 
 about 1820. Of the many thousands who joined the 
 modern anti - slavery movement within the first twelve 
 years after its revival at the close of the War of 1812, 
 these five names have been most familiar to abolitionists, 
 and the two brightest are those of Lundy and Rankin. 
 
 John Rankin, born Feb. 4, 1793 ; died March 18, 1886, 
 a native of East Tennessee, was graduated at Washington 
 College in 1816, and licensed to preach in 1817. Having 
 become an immediate abolitionist in 1815, he persuaded 
 Dr. Doak, whose daughter . he married soon after, to manu 
 mit his slaves. In November, 1817, he left Tennessee, 
 intending to go to Ohio, but, being unable to get farther 
 than Carlisle, Nicholas County, Ky., he preached there 
 during the winter and became pastor of the church in 
 April, 1818. 
 
 In the next three years he organized at Carlisle and 
 other places in Kentucky societies auxiliary to the " Ken 
 tucky Abolition Society," * which had been established in 
 1807. In a speech at the anniversary meeting, May, 1839, 
 of the American Anti-Slavery Society, Mr. Rankin said : 
 
 * R. M. Johnson, of Kentucky, afterward Vice President, may have 
 been a member. In his speech on the Missouri question, Feb. 1, 1820, 
 reported in the "National Intelligencer" of April 29, 1820, he advises: 
 " Encourage Sunday-schools, multiply Bible societies, increase missionary 
 exertions, animate to deeds of benevolence abolition societies, . . . and 
 you will perform the duties of Christians and patriots," etc. 
 
 In Lundy s "Genius," of October, 1822, is printed a circular "sent 
 down by the Abolition Society of Kentucky at their late convention to 
 the several branches." It is dated Maysville, Sept. 12, 1822, and signed 
 by Hugh Wiley, President, and E. Duncan, Jr., Secretary. 
 9 
 
170 JAMES G. BIRXEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 " I rejoice in the triumph of the principles of immediate 
 emancipation because," etc. ..." I was a member of an 
 anti-slavery society in Kentucky twenty years ago on the 
 same principle as this. The doctrine of immediate eman 
 cipation is said to be new, but societies were formed all 
 over the country twenty years ago, and many members of 
 these societies advocated this same doctrine." In January, 
 1822, Mr. Rankin became pastor of the Presbyterian 
 Church at Eipley, Ohio, and held the place thirty-three 
 years. Most of the members of his church in Kentucky 
 removed before 1830 to Decatur County, Indiana, to es 
 cape the evil of slavery, and these formed a church of 
 which one of his sons has been pastor for more than 
 twenty-five years. Between 1822 and 1830 he preached 
 and lectured against slavery. In 1823 he published a 
 series of letters on slavery in the " Castigator," Eipley, 
 Ohio. They were republished in book-form in 1824, and 
 passed through many editions, several of which were is 
 sued by the American Anti-Slavery Society. In 1830 
 and several previous years, the abolition books of largest 
 circulation in the United States were those by Rankin, 
 Bourne, Duncan, and Stroud. During the year 1836 Mr. 
 Rankin was a traveling lecturer in the employ of the na 
 tional society, and at a later date he was made one of its 
 managers for Ohio. His house at Ripley was situated 
 near the town on a hill about three hundred feet high, 
 and was visible at a great distance from the Kentucky 
 side of the river, especially at night when lighted up. 
 Many fugitives reached it, and not one was ever turned 
 away. They were always conducted to friends by one or 
 more of Mr. Rankin s seven sons. These young men all 
 volunteered in the Union army and served through the 
 war, thus demonstrating the soundness of their anti-slav 
 ery education. Mr. Rankin was a man of judgment, per 
 severance, piety, and strong character. His influence in 
 
A WIDER SPHERE OF ACTION. 171 
 
 Ohio and Kentucky was powerful. Henry Ward Beecher 
 knew him intimately, and both he and Mrs. Stowe visited 
 him several times at his home and learned to respect him. 
 Mr. Eankin would have disclaimed Mr. Beecher s compli 
 ment, for he was free from vanity and his modesty was 
 equal to his great merit. 
 
 Our space will not permit us to sketch others of the 
 noteworthy men present, though some of them for in 
 stance, Elizur Wright, H. B. Stanton, and James A. 
 Thome afterward became men of national reputation. 
 The impression made upon Mr. Birney by the men pres- 
 e,nt_was favorable. They were probably all members of 
 the Church. They were temperate. The extremely small 
 number of tobacco-chewers among them attracted his 
 notice. The discussions were able, moderate in language, 
 and to the point. At that stage of the cause speakers 
 aiming at personal notoriety only had not sought in any 
 large number the anti-slavery platform in Ohio. Sincerity 
 and earnestness were in the atmosphere. The visitor from 
 geniucky was^ of course^ the central obj ect of attention. 
 He was invited to a seat as member, and to address the 
 convention, and lie was made chairman of the principal 
 committee the one charged with the duty of preparing 
 and bringing forward business. To Mr. Birney the most 
 significant part of the action of the convention was an 
 amendment to his reported resolution against the " Black 
 Laws." To a denunciation of them as " cruel, impious, 
 and disgraceful to a Christian State " was added a pledge 
 to vote for such candidates only for legislative office as 
 were pledged to repeal them. The latter clause was 
 stricken out a change which appeared in the minutes as 
 an adoption of the report " after being slightly amended." 
 The " Declaration of Sentiment " was subjected to a simi 
 lar emasculation ; under the head of " Plan of Operations " 
 the committee, among other things, had reported : " We 
 
172 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 shall absolve ourselves from the political responsibility of 
 national slave-holding by petitioning Congress," etc., and 
 had added a clause, equivalent to a pledge, to vote for such 
 candidates as would grant the petitions. The clause was 
 stricken out, leaving in the "declaration" the absurd 
 proposition that a citizen could avoid responsibility for 
 bad laws by petitioning for their repeal! As Mr. Birney 
 expressed it, they had loaded with powder, but forgotten 
 to ram down a bullet 1 He could not easily comprehend 
 how men could have political principles and not vote on 
 them. It was represented, on the other hand, that a 
 pledge to vote would alienate a certain sect which regarded 
 voting as a sin. The strongest reason probably was that 
 the clergymen and religious men generally belonged to 
 the class, then rapidly increasing in the country, of men 
 who do not go to the polls. In his letter to Lewis Tap- 
 pan of February 3d, he had claimed that the political 
 action of political men and the holy action of religious 
 men should be reconciled, and that the " elevated princi 
 ples of holiness " should be brought to bear so as to effect 
 legal abolition. He left the Ohio Convention content 
 with the character of his coadjutors, but satisfied that a 
 vast amount of work would be necessary to make them 
 effective for the practical work of abolition by law. 
 
 The fifteen days following the adjournment of . the 
 convention were devoted to filling the engagements which 
 had been made for him to speak at Columbus, Pittsburg, 
 Harrisburg, and Philadelphia. At every one of these 
 places he was welcomed by crowded and enthusiastic audi 
 ences, and the notices in the press were all favorable to 
 him personally, and most of them to his cause. ^^Phila 
 delphia he spoke three times. In none of the four cities 
 were there indications of mob violence. His reception by 
 the people was in the nature of an ovation, and" lie reached 
 New York greatly encouraged. 
 
A WIDER SPHERE OF ACTION. 173 
 
 The " anniversary week " of May, 1835, at New York, 
 of th~e national benevolent and religious societies elicited 
 unusual interest. Much of this was due to the peculiar 
 circumstances in which the second anniversary of the 
 American Anti-Slavery Society was to be held. The pre 
 ceding year had been marked in New York city by mobs, 
 which had destroyed the property and sought the lives of 
 the Tappans, and it was probable that the assembly of 
 anti-slavery men would be dispersed by a rabble, excited 
 by inflammatory appeals of political newspapers, encour 
 aged by the immunity promised by politicians, and led by 
 custom-house officials, merchants clerks, kidnappers, and 
 slave-holders. It had been marked also by manifestations 
 in every part of the North and in one part of the South 
 of the national sentiment against slavery. The toleration 
 in Kentucky of free discussion, the formation there of a 
 State anti-slavery society, the prospect of the early estab 
 lishment at Danville of an uncompromising immediate- 
 abolition newspaper, had turned all eyes to that State and 
 to the movements of James G. Birney. His speeches on 
 h^way eastward had been favorably reported by the press. 
 His^appearance on the New York platform was therefore 
 eagerly awaited by friends, enemies, and the public gen 
 erally. _ On the 9th of May, Mr. Garrison wrote from New 
 York to the " Liberator " : " Of course, Mr. Birney will 
 be the observed of all observers." 
 
 When the anniversary meeting was called to order on 
 the 12th, the large church was crowded even in the aisles 
 and galleries. Elizur Wright, the secretary, read parts of 
 the "Annual Report." One of the first passages was in 
 the following words, and was received with applause : 
 
 Soon after the last anniversary the anti-slavery cause received 
 efficient aid from the accession of Mr. Birney, of Kentucky. The 
 The fact of his being a Southern man, a distinguished agent of 
 the Colonization Society, and of his proving his sincerity by 
 
174 JAMES G. BIRXEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 emancipating his own slaves, gave great weight to his letters, 
 which of themselves were unanswerable arguments for the futility 
 of colonization and the truth and efficiency of the doctrine of 
 immediate emancipation. If he has not brought all good men 
 openly to renounce colonization, he has at least placed the scheme 
 in such a light that comparatively few such choose to defend it, 
 and fewer still to give it practical support. 
 
 The president, Mr. Arthur Tappan, then introduced 
 Mr. Birney to the audience. 
 
 A moment s silence as the speaker stepped forward on 
 the platform, and then he was greeted with thunders of 
 applause. A dignified, imposing presence, a noble coun 
 tenance, self-possession, a handsome, strongly built, and 
 graceful figure above middle height,* and the florid com 
 plexion of healthy middle age were the first impression. 
 The second was of finely cut and regular features, soft, 
 prematurely gray brown hair, blue eyes, broad and high 
 forehead, and a mouth expressive of both gentleness and 
 firmness. His manner conciliated opponents and awak 
 ened curiosity and interest to hear him. The first round 
 of applause was followed by approving murmurs, and the 
 managers felt that the meeting was in no danger of inter 
 ruption by mob violence. Mr. Birney read the first reso 
 lution : 
 
 That, for the permanent safety of the Union, it is indispensable 
 that the whole moral power of the free States should be concen 
 trated and brought into action for the extermination of slavery 
 among us. 
 
 No verbatim report of this speech was made ; the only 
 report was the imperfect one furnished to the " New York 
 Observer "and the " New York Evangelist." This is to 
 be regretted, for the speech struck the key-note of his 
 future anti-slavery career. It was a well-considered argu- 
 
 * He was five feet nine inches in height. 
 
A WIDER SPHERE OF ACTION. 175 
 
 merit and a patriotic appeal for the preservation of the 
 Union a demonstration that free discussion would not 
 rend it, but that ki shivery, if it continues many years 
 longer, must itself dissolve the Union, and that inevita 
 bly" He pointed to the tendency of slavery to create 
 large landed estates ; to drive the poorer whites, mechan 
 ics, and laborers to the Nortii ; to build up a class of non 
 resident proprietors and another of overseers managing 
 thlTcotton and sugar plantations ; to increase the demands 
 of the South for protection by the United States through 
 standing armies against slave insurrections ; and to cause 
 demands by the South for legal restrictions on the right 
 of petition, the freedom of speech and of the press, lead 
 ing to the destruction of all the safeguards of personal 
 liberty in the free States. These demands can not and 
 will not be conceded ; hence strife and disunion. " If 
 you wish to preserve the union of these States," said the 
 orator, " slavery must go down ! " He was faithful in 
 portraying the gathering of the storm-clouds which, if 
 not averted, " will burst over the land with tremendous 
 and desolating violence." The reniedy he proposed was 
 that " the moral power of the free States should be con 
 centrated and brought into action " for the abolition of 
 slavery. It was not enough to " concentrate " it ; the 
 Further step must be taken of bringing it into effective 
 "notion." The political power of the free States should 
 be exerted to put an end to slavery in the District of 
 Columbia and the Territories and to the interstate slave- 
 trade, legislation being the only method known in this 
 republic of bringing moral poicer into action. In his 
 view a principle held was a principle to be acted upon ; 
 an abolitionist who refused to vote on principle was not 
 worthy of respect. From the first of his anti-slavery ca 
 reer to the last he regarded the non-voting abolitionists 
 as tinkling cymbals. His nature was too sincere, practical, 
 
176 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 and logical to bear patiently such inconsistency between 
 professions and practice. That he did not go into detail 
 on this point was wise ; a good deal of work was still to 
 be done before many abolitionists could be converted to 
 the doctrine of " political action " as laid down in the 
 constitution of the National Society. In this speechjttr. 
 Birney declared his fidelity to the national Constitution : 
 " I trust in God that it may ever live ! " At its close he was 
 applauded, and the resolution was adopted " unanimously^ 
 ^ His stay in New YOJJL was prolonged about ten days. 
 During this time he was the guest .o the Tappans and of 
 Judge William Jay, spending several evenings at the 
 country residence of the latter. In the judge he found a 
 congenial spirit, and for him he formed a friendship that 
 was never clouded. Mr. Jay was a son of John Jay, for 
 mer Chief Justice of the United States, and one of the 
 most active promoters of abolition in New York. The 
 son had been an immediate abolitionist from his youth 
 up. At the request of the Tappans, Judge Jay had pre 
 pared and they had published his " Inquiry," a compara 
 tive view of the Anti-Slavery and Colonization Societies an 
 admirable work which held its place for many years. In 
 the conversations between Mr. Birney and Judge Jay, the 
 general plan was suggested of a book on the action "of the 
 National Government in behalf of slavery. The necessary 
 investigations of the facts were subsequently made by the 
 judge, and the book was finished and published in 1838, 
 under the name of " Jay s View," etc. As a contribution 
 to the political literature of the anti-slavery cause, it took 
 the leading place. An edition of five thousand was ex 
 hausted in 1838, and a second was published in 1839. The 
 book was a vade mecum of the lecturers appointed by the 
 National Society, and contributed greatly to turn the cur 
 rent* of anti-slavery thought to political action. It ar 
 rested the attention of many public men, and did much 
 
A WIDER SPHERE OF ACTION. 177 
 
 to give dignity and weight to the abolition movement as 
 one touching practical statesmanship. Jay s writings on 
 slavery continued until 1853 (he died in 1858, at the age 
 of sixty-nine), and were always forcible as well as timely. 
 They fill a closely printed octavo volume of six hundred 
 and seventy pages, and will give him name and fame long 
 after most of his anti-slavery coadjutors shall have been 
 forgotten. He was founder of the Bible Society in 1815, 
 and became a member, about that time, of the New York 
 Manumission Society. As first judge of AVestchester 
 County (which office he held from 1820 to 1842, when he 
 was superseded because of his anti-slavery writings), he 
 charged the Grand Jury in 1835 that it would be the duty 
 of every citizen to resist the enforcement of any statute 
 that might be passed to restrict the free discussion of slav 
 ery. His manly stand, it is thought, prevented the pas 
 sage of such a statute by the New York Legislature. He 
 was a wise, conservative, and statesmanlike abolitionist. 
 As a member of the Executive Committee of the Ameri 
 can Anti-Slavery Society, and author of its constitution, 
 his services were most valuable. lie and Mr. Birney were 
 not only personal friends, but stood shoulder to shoulder 
 in all the exigencies of the anti-slavery movement. They 
 had many qualities in common ; Mr. Jay was at his best as 
 counselor and essayist ; Mr. Birney excelled also as a 
 speaker and in the practical and executive management of 
 the reform. It is safe to say, that after May, 1835, no 
 important step was taken or important document issued 
 by the Executive Committee, without the previous sanc 
 tion of both of them. In the month last named, Mr. Bir 
 ney was elected a vice-president, and Mr. Jay, foreign 
 corresponding secretary for the society. 
 
 During the anniversary week, invitations to lecture in 
 different parts of the North were showered upojn Mr. 
 Birney. He accepted enough to occupy his time for sev- 
 
178 JAMES G. BIRXEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 era! weeks, and visited Connecticut, Khode Island, Massa 
 chusetts, and New Hampshire. His reception everywhere 
 was gratifying. His audiences were large and undis 
 turbed, there being no little curiosity among the people 
 to see him and hear his opinions. At Boston, Dr. Chan- 
 ning was one of his hearers. The impression he made was 
 reflected in the press. One newspaper called him 
 
 One of the most candid, temperate, and urbane speakers that 
 ever addressed a popular assembly. 
 
 Another said of him : 
 
 Mr. Birney s manner of speaking is pleasant, his statements 
 candid, his language persuasive. His mind is of a high or 
 der. . . . Such a man. . . in the cause he is engaged in will be 
 the means of executing much good. 
 
 As a lecturer, Mr. Birney was not habitually emo 
 tional. By nature, he was intellectual and judicial ; and, 
 being free from affectation, he exhibited these qualities in 
 his ordinary speeches. He was creative, but not imitative. 
 To seekers after truth he was a safe guide, leading them 
 on a path luminous with fact. He gained the implicit 
 confidence of his hearers ; and without any demonstra 
 tions of oratorical art he carried them, by faultless logic, 
 with him to his conclusions. No one ever called him a 
 " silver-tongued orator," but he made as many converts as 
 any of his brother agitators. Lewis Tappan is reported 
 to have said that no other reform movement or church 
 could produce five platform orators equal in effectiveness 
 to Birney, Weld, Stanton, Gerrit Smith, and Alvan Stew 
 art, each differing from the others in method. As a 
 speaker, Mr. Birney suggested great power in reserve. 
 This he had. The passionate depths, the intense earnest 
 ness of his natures-were only revealed in the heat of debate 
 or the pressure of some great exigency. The great 
 speeches of his life were in defending a client indicted for 
 murder ; in debating the slavery question against President 
 
A WIDER SPHERE OF ACTION. 179 
 
 John C. Young, before a Kentucky audience ; in vindi 
 cating the anti-slavery character of the Constitution of 
 Ohio, in the Matilda slave case, before the Common Pleas 
 Criminal Court at Cincinnati; and in pleading for the 
 right of free discussion before the mob assembled in mass 
 meeting at the Cincinnati court-house, in 1836, with the 
 intention to destroy his press and take his life. On those 
 occasions his reticence and reserve were swept away ; 
 every mental faculty was alert ; every nerve tense with 
 life ; and the audience was moved to tears and laughter 
 and shame at the will of the speaker. No man who heard 
 him on any of those occasions ever thought of him again 
 except as a consummate orator. But he did not fire_up 
 
 YeSUVlUS to COOJf ft fHtmpr 
 
 An episode in his Eastern tour was his offering a reso 
 lution at the New England Anti- Slavery Convention, at 
 Boston, against the use of " personalities " by abolitionists. 
 In that locality, and under all the circumstances, this was 
 a noteworthy thing to do. It implied a censure of the 
 violent language commonly used by the " Liberator," and 
 was so understood generally, though H. C. AY right affected 
 not to perceive its application. The convention passed 
 the resolution. 
 
 But while he was lecturing to the New Englanders, a 
 storm was brewing against him in Kentucky. Letters 
 from Danville summoned him to return home to meet the 
 machinations of emissaries who had come from other places 
 and were busy in organizing a movement to prevent the 
 publication of his paper, the " Philanthropist," which 
 was announced for the 1st of August. With reluctance, 
 he canceled appointments to speak in Albany, Utica, and 
 other cities in Central New York, and relinquished the 
 long-expected pleasure of visiting his friend Gerrit Smith 
 at Peterboro. When he reached home, about the 10th of 
 July, he found the county in commotion. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 HE IS OSTRACIZED IN KENTUCKY AND GOES 
 TO OHIO. 
 
 1835. 
 
 DURING his absence from home, which had been pro 
 longed nearly three months, nothing had been left un 
 done to turn public sentiment against him in Mercer 
 County. Several local meetings in different parts of the 
 county were followed by a mass meeting at Danville. 
 These were addressed in inflammatory speeches by orators 
 from other parts of the State. Resolutions were passed 
 pledging the citizens present to prevent the publication 
 of the "Philanthropist," "peaceably if we can, forcibly if 
 we must" Threats of personal violence were made against 
 any and all men who should countenance the paper or aid 
 in its circulation. Rumors of intended slave insurrections 
 were spread, and many women and some timid men were 
 excited or frightened by them. The mass meeting at 
 Danville was composed in large part of persons from other 
 counties than Mercer. It appointed an executive com 
 mittee of thirty-three persons to address to Mr. Birney a 
 letter of remonstrance and "take such other steps as 
 might be necessary." 
 
 From their letter, prepared by a Whig member of 
 Congress from another district, we quote the most im 
 portant passages : 
 
OSTRACIZED IX KENTUCKY AND GOES TO OHIO. 181 
 
 We address you now in the calmness and candor that should 
 characterize law-abiding men, as willing to avoid violence as they 
 are determined to meet extremity, and advise you of the peril 
 that must and inevitably will attend the execution of your pur 
 pose. We propose to you to postpone the setting up of your press 
 and the publication of your paper until application can be had to 
 the Legislature, who will by a positive law set rules for your ob 
 servance, or, by a refusal to act, admonish us of our duty. We 
 admonish you, sir, as citizens of the same neighborhood, as mem 
 bers of the same society in which you live and move, and for 
 whose harmony and quiet we feel the most sincere solicitude, to 
 "beware how you make an experiment here which no American 
 slave-holding community has found itself able to bear. 
 
 To this communication, dated July 12th and deliv 
 ered in the evening of that day, Mr. Birney promptly 
 answered, suggesting that it would have been more in the 
 character of " law-abiding citizens, which they professed 
 to be, had the signers abstained entirely from the threat 
 that a resort might be had to violence to prevent the 
 exercise of one of the most precious rights of an Ameri 
 can a right which can never for a moment be surren 
 dered." 
 
 He concluded his answer with : " However desirous I 
 may be of obliging you as citizens and neighbors, I can 
 not accede to your proposition." 
 
 The gauntlet flung down by the committee of thirty- 
 three had been lifted, and the next move, according to 
 their programme, was to mob Mr. Birney when he should 
 ride into town next morning as it was his habit to do. 
 They were busily engaged in marshaling on the main 
 street " lewd fellows of the baser sort," when a young 
 Kentuckian mounted a store-box, and, reminding the 
 crowd that he had opposed Mr. Birney s views, declared 
 that he honored him for his sincerity and goodness, and 
 no harm should be done him by one or many assailants 
 unless they were numerous enough to march over the 
 
182 JAMES G. BIRXEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 dead bodies of the speaker and many others. The brave 
 orator now enjoys an honored old age. He is widely 
 known as ex-chaplain of the United States Senate and 
 Moderator of the last General Assembly of the Presby 
 terian Church, South, the Rev. Joseph J. Bullock, of 
 Washington city. Friends of law and order rallied on 
 his appeal, and when Mr. Birney, half an hour later, rode 
 through the street and dismounted at the post-office, he 
 was not molested. 
 
 The next day he wrote to Gerrit Smith : 
 
 Circumstances have occurred since my return that lead me to 
 fear that my projected newspaper will be forcibly suppressed and 
 that all open discussion of the subject of slavery will be inhib 
 ited in Kentucky. ... I am making preparation for the publi 
 cation of the k Philanthropist, " a notice of which you have 
 doubtless seen. If I am permitted to go on with it I will send 
 it to you. It will probably be out by the 15th of August. 
 
 Neither his fear nor his expectation was verified. 
 Money effected more than threats. The committee quietly 
 bought out the printer. Mr. Birney s arrangements for 
 printing his paper had been made with one Dismukes, the 
 owner of the " Olive Branch," the Danville weekly news 
 paper, and he had given him a bond of indemnity against 
 all damages from mobs. Mr. Birney had seen Dismukes 
 on the 14th of July and found him apparently resolute. 
 
 Next morning, about eleven, he rode into town. A 
 group of people were gathered about the printing-office, 
 waiting and curious. Dismukes, with his family, had dis 
 appeared about midnight. His office with all its materi 
 als was in the hands of another person, who showed a bill 
 of sale in due form, and his dwelling with its furniture 
 was held by the same party under a deed properly signed, 
 attested, and acknowledged. Dismukes was said to have 
 been bought out at a high price and to have gone to Mis 
 souri. The slave-holding party enjoyed its triumph with- 
 
OSTRACIZED IX KENTUCKY AND GOES TO OHIO. 183 
 
 out open exultation, publishing widely, however, the 
 threat that any man who should attempt to print the 
 " Philanthropist " at Danville would do so at the risk of 
 his life. 
 
 For nearly two months he endeavored, through cor 
 respondence and personal visits to Lexington, Frankfort, 
 and Louisville, to procure a practical printer to issue the 
 proposed newspaper. 
 
 He did not extend his negotiations outside of Ken 
 tucky. A citizen of the State might join him without 
 peril of life ; no man from a free State could. Before the 
 middle of September he relinquished the effort as useless. 
 It had become manifest that an anti-slavery paper could 
 not be published at Danville. 
 
 In July, 1835, Prentice, editor of the Louisville " Jour 
 nal," published the following squib : 
 
 Mr. James G. Birney has issued proposals for publishing a 
 paper at Danville, in this State, to be called " The Investigator." 
 His object is to effect the emancipation of the slave population. 
 He is an enthusiastic, but, in our opinion, a visionary philan 
 thropist, whose efforts, though well intended, are likely to be of 
 no real service to the cause of humanity. He at least shows, 
 however, that he has the courage to reside among the people 
 whose institutions he assails. He is not like William Lloyd 
 Garrison living in Massachusetts and opening the battery upon 
 the States five hundred or a thousand miles off. He is not such 
 a coward or fool as to think of cannonading the South and West 
 from the steeple of a New England meeting-house. 
 
 During the excitement in July, wishing to speak to 
 the people, he tried to rent for that purpose the old Pres 
 byterian church, which was commonly used as a lecture 
 hall and in which he had delivered many anti-slavery ad 
 dresses, but it was refused him. Similar applications for 
 halls and churches in other towns were also rejected. 
 From the time of his return from the East he was unable 
 
184: JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 to procure any public building in which to defend him 
 self before the the people. Free speech was brought 
 within very narrow limits in Kentucky. 
 
 In the last half of July the irregularity in the delivery 
 of his mails led him to suspect that his letters were tam 
 pered with and his papers destroyed. The explanations 
 of the postmaster were not satisfactory. Early in August 
 Mr. Birney wrote Gerrit Smith : " I have just been in 
 formed that our Danville postmaster has determined to 
 become my intellectual caterer ! He is beginning to with 
 hold my papers." 
 
 A sharp remonstrance elicited the answer that the 
 postmaster would cheerfully obey any order that might 
 be given on the subject by Postmaster-General Kendall, 
 to whom Mr. Birney was referred for redress. Repeated 
 letters to Mr. Kendall remained unanswered. On the 22d 
 of August, however, Amos Kendall wrote as follows to 
 the New York city postmaster, who had excluded anti- 
 slavery papers from the mails, and reported the fact with 
 a request for instructions as to his duty : 
 
 I am deterred from giving an order to exclude the whole 
 series of abolition publications from the Southern mails only by 
 the want of legal power, and if I was situated as you are I would 
 do as you have done. 
 
 This letter signed by the Postmaster-General was ex 
 hibited to Mr. Birney by the village postmaster as his 
 authority for a course which personally he disapproved. 
 The signal for a general refusal by Southern postmasters 
 to deliver anti-slavery papers was given July 29, 1835, by 
 the leading citizens of Charleston, S. C., who broke into 
 the post-office of that city, seized all Northern papers sus 
 pected of anti-slavery leanings, and burned them on the 
 public square. For some two months before his removal 
 from Kentucky Mr. Birney did not receive any anti-slav- 
 
OSTRACIZED IX KENTUCKY AND GOES TO OHIO. 185 
 
 ery papers through, the mails. Letters addressed to him 
 were delivered. 
 
 He was sorely tried, too, by the estrangement of many 
 of his friends and relatives and by the genuine grief of 
 many who adhered to him socially. He felt that he was 
 regarded by many as an enemy to the peace of the com 
 munity and that he was the occasion of discord among 
 kindred. The younger members of his family were ex 
 posed to rude speeches and unpleasant incidents. His 
 usefulness and happiness in Kentucky were at an end. 
 
 On the 13th of September he wrote to Gerrit Smith a 
 letter, from which we make a few extracts : 
 
 I have determined to remove to Cincinnati. I am now mak 
 ing preparations for doing so, and expect to have my family there 
 by the 10th of next month. 
 
 In this letter he speaks of " the exorbitant claims of 
 the South on the liberties of the free States, demanding 
 that everything that has been heretofore deemed precious 
 to them shall be surrendered, in order that the slave-holder 
 may be perfectly at his ease in his iniquity." 
 
 And he adds a passage which was widely published at 
 the time, and was the forerunner of Seward s "irrepressi 
 ble conflict " and Lincoln s 4 This country can not exist 
 half free and half slave." It is as follows : 
 
 The contest is becoming has become one not alone of free 
 dom for the blacks, but of freedom for the whites. It has now 
 become absolutely necessary that slavery shall cease, in order 
 that freedom may be preserved to any portion of our land. The 
 antagonist principles of liberty and slavery have been roused into 
 action, and one or the other must be victorious. There will be 
 no cessation of the strife until slavery shall l)e exterminated or lib- 
 
 Several false reports have gained a certain credence in 
 regard to the manner in which Mr. Birney left Kentucky. 
 
186 JAMES G. BIRXEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 One has it that he escaped at night, taking his family 
 with him ; another, that he fled for his life, leaving his 
 family behind him ; and the third, that he narrowly 
 avoided falling into the hands of a mob. In fact, the 
 removal involved no dramatic situations whatever. For 
 about a month his preparations for changing his residence 
 to Cincinnati were made without secrecy. He bought a 
 dwelling-house in that city, sold his farm near Danville, 
 wound up his affairs there, made and received parting calls 
 from relatives, connections, and friends, a few of whom 
 sought by courtesies to make amends for past estrange 
 ment, and, when everything was in readiness, accompanied 
 on horseback the carriage that contained his family, pass 
 ing through the main street of the town, and halting there 
 to say " Good-by " to some friends who were awaiting 
 him. It is true he was going into exile from his native 
 State, but there were few respectable men in Danville 
 who would not even then have stood between him and 
 personal danger. 
 
 The feeling cherished toward James G. Birney by the 
 best of his Kentucky townsmen is expressed by one of 
 them, Hon. Thomas Green, of Maysville, in his "Sketch 
 of the McDowells and their Connections : an Historical 
 Family" (1879). He describes him as "a man of whom 
 his relatives, State, and country have good reason to be 
 proud." 
 
 The following passage is an extract from a speech 
 made by Robert J. Breckenridge, of Kentucky, in his 
 famous discussion, in June, 1836, in Glasgow, Scotland, 
 with George Thompson, the English abolitionist : 
 
 Nor can he who traduces my brethren, my kindred, my home 
 all that I most venerate and re\ 7 ere honor me so much as by 
 traducing me They had been told that Mr. J. G. Birney had 
 fled from Kentucky, and left his wife and children behind him 
 in great danger, he being obliged to flee for his life ! It was 
 
OSTRACIZED IN KENTUCKY AND GOES TO OHIO. 187 
 
 true, he believed, that Mr. Birney, excellent and beloved as he 
 was, had found it best to emigrate from that State. But that he 
 had fad rested, he believed, on Mr. Thompson s naked assertion. 
 That he had left his wife and children behind, believing them to 
 be in personal danger, was a thing which it would require amaz 
 ingly dear proof to establish against the gentleman in question (page 
 107 of printed report). 
 
 Mr. Breckenridge had known Mr. Birney from boy 
 hood. 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 THE GENESIS OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 
 
 1835-1836. 
 
 THE bonfires of Korthern newspapers, in the evening 
 of July 29, 1835, on the public square of Charleston, S. C., 
 were lighted by an orderly assemblage of gentlemen of 
 both political parties, the postmaster being present and 
 aiding. In the morning of that day he had written to 
 Postmaster- General Kendall for his instructions ; but he 
 probably knew in advance what they would be, and that 
 he risked nothing by prompt action. Mr. Kendall an 
 swered, August 4th : 
 
 . . . Upon a careful examination of the law, I am satisfied 
 that the Postmaster-General has no legal authority to exclude 
 newspapers from the mail nor prohibit their carriage or delivery 
 on account of their character or tendency, real or supposed. . . . 
 But I am not prepared to direct you t6 forward or deliver the 
 papers of which you speak. The Post-Office Department was 
 created to serve the people of each and all of the United States, 
 and not to be used as the instrument of their destruction. None 
 of the papers detained have been forwarded to me ; . . . but 
 you inform me they are in character "the most inflammatory and 
 incendiary and insurrectionary in the highest degree." 
 
 By no act or direction of mine, official or private, could I be 
 induced to aid knowingly in giving circulation to papers of this 
 description, directly or indirectly. We owe an obligation to the 
 laws, but a higher one to the communities in which we live ; 
 
THE GENESIS OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 189 
 
 and if the former be perverted to destroy the latter, it is patriot 
 ism to disregard them. Entertaining these views, I can not 
 sanction and will not condemn the step you have taken. . . . 
 I am, etc., AMOS KENDALL. 
 
 This letter was generally published in the newspaper 
 organs of the Administration. On the 20th of the same 
 month the Postmaster- General published a second letter, 
 which purported to be in answer to a request made by 
 some citizens of Petersburg, Va., that he should adopt a 
 department regulation to prevent the transmission by mail 
 of anti-slavery papers and documents. In it he said it 
 was not in his power to obviate the evil by regulation, but 
 he regarded such transmission " from one State to another 
 as a violation of the spirit, if not the letter, of the Federal 
 compact, which would justify on the part of the injured 
 States any measure necessary to effect their exclusion." 
 For the present the only means of relief was in responsi 
 bilities voluntarily assumed by the postmasters. He hoped 
 Congress would at the next session put a stop to the evil, 
 and pledged his exertions to promote the adoption of a 
 measure for that purpose. 
 
 On the 24th of the same month he wrote to the post 
 master of New York city, advising him to detain anti- 
 slavery papers, and making an argument for the propriety 
 of such action. 
 
 If [wrote he] in time of war a postmaster should detect the 
 letter of an enemy, a spy, passing through the mail, which, if it 
 reached its destination, would expose his country to invasion 
 and her armies to destruction, ought he not to arrest it ? Yet 
 vrhere is his legal power to do so ? 
 
 Mr. Kendall s three letters were doubtless intended to 
 prepare the public mind for the demands of the slave 
 States and of President Jackson for a law of Congress ex 
 cluding anti-slavery papers and documents from the mails, 
 
190 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 and for a law in each free State making the publication of 
 any anti-slavery article a misdemeanor, and providing for 
 the delivery of any person in a free State indicted in a 
 slave State for circulating there an anti-slavery paper, to 
 the agent of such slave State for trial in its courts. A few 
 of these demands by Southern Legislatures may be given 
 as specimens of all. They were passed early in the winter 
 of 1835- 36, most of them in December : 
 
 Resolved, That the Legislature of South Carolina, having every 
 confidence in the justice and friendship of the non-slave-holding 
 States, announces her confident expectation, and she earnestly 
 requests that the governments of these States will promptly and 
 effectually suppress all those associations within their respective 
 limits purporting to be abolition societies. (South Carolina). 
 
 The General Assembly of North Carolina : 
 Resolved, That our sister States are respectively requested to 
 enact penal laws prohibiting the printing within their respective 
 limits all such publications as may have a tendency to make our 
 slaves discontented. 
 
 The Alabama Legislature resolved : 
 
 That we call upon our sister States and respectfully request 
 them to enact such penal laws as will finally put an end to the 
 malignant deeds of the abolitionists. 
 
 The Virginia Legislature : 
 
 Resolved, That the non-slave-holding States of the Union are 
 respectfully requested promptly to enact penal enactments or take 
 such other measures as will effectually suppress all associations 
 within their respective limits, purporting to be or having the 
 character of abolition societies. 
 
 The Georgia Legislature : 
 
 Resolved, That it is deeply incumbent on the people of the 
 North to crush the traitorous designs of the abolitionists. 
 
 The resolutions of the legislative bodies of the slave 
 States were officially communicated to the governors of 
 
THE GENESIS OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 191 
 
 the Northern States, and by them laid before their respect 
 ive Legislatures. 
 
 President Jackson, in his annual message to Congress, 
 in December, 1835, covered so precisely the two grounds 
 taken by the slave- State Legislatures as to demonstrate 
 concerted action. He said : 
 
 I must also invite your attention to the painful excitement 
 produced in the South by attempts to circulate through the mails 
 inflammatory appeals addressed to the passions of the slaves in 
 prints and in various sorts of publications calculated to stimulate 
 them to insurrection and to produce all the horrors of a ser 
 vile war. 
 
 If " the misguided persons who had engaged in these 
 unconstitutional and wicked attempts " should persist, he 
 did 
 
 not doubt that the non-slave-holding States would exercise their 
 authority in suppressing this interference with the Constitutional 
 rights of the South. 
 
 He recommended to Congress the passage of a law that 
 would 
 
 prohibit under severe penalties the circulation in the Southern 
 States, through the mail, of incendiary publications intended to 
 instigate the slaves to insurrection. 
 
 This part of the message, on motion of Mr. Calhoun, 
 was referred to a select committee of five, of whom four 
 were from the slave States. The bill reported was as fol 
 lows : 
 
 Be it enacted, etc., that it shall not be lawful for any deputy 
 postmaster in any State, Territory, or district of the United 
 States knowingly to deliver to any person whatsoever any pam 
 phlet, newspaper, handbill, or other paper, or pictorial represen 
 tation touching the subject of slavery, where, by the laws of said 
 State, Territory, or district, their circulation is prohibited ; and 
 any deputy postmaster who shall be guilty thereof shall be forth 
 with removed from office. 
 
192 JAMES G. BIKNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 This bill was ordered to a third reading in the Senate 
 by a tie vote of Senators and Vice- President Van Buren s 
 casting vote in the affirmative. 
 
 In his report on the Senate bill, Mr. Calhoun spoke of 
 the obligation of the States within which 
 the danger [from abolitionism] originates, to arrest its further 
 progress, a duty they owe not only to the States whose institu 
 tions are assailed, but to the Union and Constitution . . . and, 
 it may be added, to themselves. 
 
 Early in the winter of 1835- 3G an effort was made in 
 every free- State Legislature then in session to pass bills 
 against the freedom of the press. These bills were sub 
 stantially the same, and were so nearly alike in form as to 
 indicate that they were drawn by the same hand. As a 
 specimen of them I give in the note * the text of the one 
 urged in New York. I copy it from the " Philanthropist " 
 of June 17, 1836, which copied it from the " New York 
 Evening Star," then one of the organs of the Administra 
 tion and edited by a Federal office-holder. 
 
 * An act to secure to the several States a more effectual control over 
 their slaves. 
 
 Whereas, the Government of the United States was formed in the 
 spirit of harmony and good will, for mutual protection and benefit, and 
 by the sacrifice of various sectional interests ; and ivhereas the relation 
 of master and slave exists in many of the States, the regulation of which 
 constitutes an important part of their domestic policy, and that relation 
 is liable to be disturbed, and the peace and security of their citizens to 
 be put in jeopardy by the agency of individuals beyond their respective 
 jurisdictions ; 
 
 Now, therefore, be it enacted by the people of the State of New York, 
 represented in the Senate and Assembly, and they do enact as follows : 
 
 SECTION 1. All writings or pictures, made, printed, or published with 
 in this State, with a design or intent, or the manifest tendency whereof 
 shall be, to excite to, or cause insurrection, rebellion, riot, civil commo 
 tion, or breach of the peace among the slaves in any part of the United 
 States of America, or with the design or intent, or the manifest tendency 
 whereof shall be, to create on the part of the slaves an abandonment of 
 
THE GENESIS OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 193 
 
 In his message of January, 1836, TV. L. Marcy, Gov 
 ernor of New York, wrote on this subject : 
 
 Without the power to pass such laws, the States would not 
 possess all the necessary means for preserving their external rela 
 tions of peace among themselves. 
 
 The New York Legislature responded to the senti 
 ments of the Governor by adopting a report which pledged 
 the faith of the State to enact such laws whenever they 
 shall be requisite. February 2, 1836, a similar bill was 
 reported to the Legislature of Rhode Island. 
 
 the service, or a violation of the duty which the master has a legal right 
 to claim, shall be deemed a misdemeanor ; all persons who shall make, 
 print, publish, or circulate, or shall subscribe or contribute money or 
 other means to enable any other person to make, print, publish, or circu 
 late any such writing or picture, shall be deemed guilty of the offense, 
 and shall be punished by fine or imprisonment, or both, in the discretion 
 of the court. 
 
 SEC. 2. It shall be the duty of the Executive of this State, when 
 ever a communication shall be made to him by the Executive of any other 
 of the United States setting forth that a citizen of this State has been 
 engaged in publishing or circulating in any such State any writing or 
 picture, the manifest tendency whereof shall be to cause or excite to 
 insurrection, rebellion, riot, or civil commotion among the slaves of such 
 State, to transmit such communication, with all proofs accompanying the 
 same, to the district attorney of the county where such citizen shall 
 reside ; and it shall be the duty of said district attorney to lay such com 
 munication before the grand jury, which shall next be summoned in said 
 county, and it shall be the duty of said grand jury to examine such com 
 munication and proofs, and if they shall find thereupon, or upon addi 
 tional evidence, that such citizen has been engaged since the passing of 
 this act in publishing or circulating, either personally or by an agent, 
 within such other State, any such writing or picture, they shall so return 
 to the court before which such grand jury was summoned, and thereupon 
 such court shall take order for the arrest, safe custody, or forthcoming 
 of said citizen ; and the Executive of this State is authorized, upon the 
 demand of the Executive making such communication, to cause such 
 citizen to be surrendered and delivered up, in like manner as is provided 
 in case of fugitives from justice, from any other State." 
 10 
 
194 JAMES G. BIENEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 Edward Everett, the Whig Governor of Massachusetts, 
 recommended the passage of a bill. He said : 
 
 Whatever by direct and necessary operation is calculated to 
 excite an insurrection among the States has been held by highly 
 respectable and legal authority an offense against the peace of 
 the Commonwealth, which may be presented as a misdemeanor at 
 common law. 
 
 About the same time, the Hon. William Sullivan of 
 Boston, an eminent lawyer and orator and a leading Whig, 
 issued a pamphlet on the subject. In this he wrote : 
 
 It is to be hoped and expected that Massachusetts will enact 
 laws declaring the printing, publishing, and circulating papers 
 and pamphlets on slavery, and also the holding of meetings to 
 discuss slavery and abolition, to be public indictable offenses. 
 
 Before and during the efforts in the free States by 
 politicians to effect the passage of laws against freedom of 
 speech and of the press, fraternal appeals and threats of 
 disunion came in rapid alternation from public meetings 
 in slave States. The Southern newspapers clamored in 
 cessantly for action by the free-State Legislatures. " Up 
 to the mark the North must come if it would restore 
 tranquillity and preserve the Union," said the " Richmond 
 Whig." The Governor of Alabama made a requisition in 
 September, 1835, on Governor Marcy, of New York, for 
 the delivery of R. G. Williams, publisher of the " New 
 York Emancipator," to be tried under the laws of Ala 
 bama. 
 
 On the 7th of January, 1836, in the United States 
 Senate, Mr. Calhoun made another demand on behalf of 
 the slave power. This was the suppression of the right of 
 petition in any matter touching slavery. He said of the 
 petitions : " Nothing will stop them but a stern refusal, 
 by closing the doors to them and refusing to receive 
 them." 
 
THE GENESIS OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 195 
 
 In the House, Mr. Pinkney, of South Carolina, ob 
 tained February 8, 1836, the appointment of a select com 
 mittee on anti-slavery petitions, and, at a later date, the 
 passage of a resolution that all such petitions should be 
 laid on the table without being either printed or referred, 
 and that no further action shall be had thereon. 
 
 In the summer of 1835, President Jackson sent a mili 
 tary force to compel the Seminole Indians to remove be 
 yond the Mississippi from Florida, without taking with 
 them the colored or half-breed members of the tribe. The 
 Seminoles refused. On the 21st of January, 1836, by or 
 der of President Jackson, the Secretary of War wrote to 
 the general commanding in Florida : 
 
 I have to ask your particular attention to the measures indi 
 cated to prevent the removal of those negroes, and to insure their 
 restoration. You will allow no terms to the Indians until every 
 living slave in their possession belonging to a white man is 
 given up. 
 
 As the Indians were most of them of mixed blood, half 
 and quarter breeds, descendants in part of fugitive slaves, 
 the claims could not be accepted by the Seminoles. The 
 result was a seven years war, at a cost to the United 
 States of some thirty millions of dollars, brought on by 
 President Jackson on his own responsibility. The politi 
 cal object was to place slavery on the footing of a national 
 institution, to be protected by the National Government 
 with all its power.* 
 
 The next measure on the programme of the slave power 
 for 1835 was an insurrection in Texas. This broke out 
 in the summer. " Committees of safety " were formed, 
 and the organization of rebel troops pushed with great 
 activity. Armed bodies of adventurers assembled in dif- 
 
 * For all the facts of the Seminole War, see speeches and works of 
 Hon. J. II. Giddings. 
 
196 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 ferent parts of the Southwest and crossed the border into 
 Mexico without any hindrance by the authorities of the 
 United States. From that time hostilities continued until 
 Texas was wrested from our sister republic. No one 
 doubts now that the movement was fomented and organ 
 ized by secret emissaries from the Administration of the 
 United States Government, with the distinct intention on 
 the part of the political South to annex Texas to this 
 Union as slave territory, to be divided in time into from 
 five to ten States. 
 
 Mob violence wherever practicable was also a part of 
 the system of operations. The mobs of July in Philadel 
 phia and New York city were instigated and led by 
 slave-holders who, by arrangement, had met there in large 
 numbers. It was a meeting of this class in New York 
 city, on July 10th, that called by advertisement and plac 
 ards a general meeting of Southerners, to be held on the 
 20th of the month, in Tammany Hall. A reporter who 
 was taking notes of the proceedings was promptly ejected. 
 July 25th, Amos Dresser, an inoffensive Bible agent from 
 the North, was publicly whipped on the bare back by a 
 mob of leading citizens on the public square of Nashville, 
 Tenn. July 29th was the date of burning the Northern 
 newspapers by the first citizens of Charleston, S. C. Au 
 gust 11, Dr. Crandall, a respectable physician, was thrown 
 into jail in the District of Columbia, and detained there 
 eight months on the charge of having an anti-slavery 
 newspaper in his trunk. September 6th, five Northern 
 men were hung by a mob of gentlemen at Vicksburg, and 
 a rumor was spread of an insurrection plotted among the 
 slaves. In the resulting panic, twenty-six men, most of 
 them Northern, were hung or shot by mobs in different 
 parts of Mississippi. The Vicksburg murders were 
 apologized for on the ground that the victims were gam 
 blers, and the others were never investigated, the Missis- 
 
THE GENESIS OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 197 
 
 sippi press passing them without remark. The rumor was 
 afterward admitted to have had no foundation in fact ; 
 and it was doubtless started as a pretext for the murder 
 ous raid on Northern residents and as a means of driving 
 the slave-holders generally into a frenzied excitement 
 against Northern men. 
 
 September 5th, a town-meeting held at Clinton, Miss., 
 passed a resolution which was aimed at Mr. Birney s pro 
 posed paper. It was : 
 
 Resolved that we would regard the establishment of an aboli 
 tion newspaper among us as a direct attempt to peril the lives 
 and fortunes of the whole population, and that it will be the duty 
 of every good citizen to break up, by any means that may be 
 necessary, any such nefarious design. ( u Philanthropist," June 
 10, 1836). 
 
 September 17th, the grand jury of Oneida County, 
 N. Y., under the promptings of a law officer of the United 
 States, presented abolition publications as nuisances. Oc 
 tober 15th, the Committee of Vigilance of Feliciana Par 
 ish, La., offered a reward of fifty thousand dollars for the 
 delivery to it of Arthur Tappan. October 21st, the New 
 York Anti-Slavery Convention at Utica was broken up by 
 a body of men headed by Samuel Beardsly, a Democratic 
 member of Congress, and two Federal office-holders. On 
 the invitation of Gerrit Smith, of Peterboro, the delegates 
 adjourned to that village, and organized there the New 
 York State Anti-Slavery Society, with a membership of 
 nearly a thousand persons. The object of the Utica rioters 
 was to prevent the sitting of the convention in that city ; 
 and not to maltreat any of its members. On the same day, 
 at Boston, a mob of " gentlemen of property and stand 
 ing " assembled for the purpose of tarring and feathering 
 George Thompson, of England, the eloquent lecturer on 
 abolition. This gentleman had come to New England in 
 
198 JAMES G. BIRXEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 September, 1834, on the invitation of Mr. Garrison, and 
 had been extremely active as a speaker on slavery as it 
 existed in the Southern States. This intervention of a 
 foreigner in what was regarded by most Americans as a 
 purely domestic question excited a strong prejudice 
 against Mr. Thompson. He was followed with persistent 
 misrepresentation in the newspapers ; and an unguarded 
 hypothetical argument of his, making logical deductions 
 from the Declaration of Independence, exposed him to the 
 plausible charge of advising slaves to cut their master s 
 throats. The excitement caused by this imprudent speech 
 offered the pro-slavery managers a good occasion to foment 
 a mob in Boston a thing up to that time deemed to be 
 an impossibility in that city of law and order, free speech, 
 and anti-slavery sentiment. The announcement that Mr. 
 Thompson would address a meeting of Boston ladies in 
 the afternoon of the 21st of October caused a hue and cry 
 to be raised by the city newspapers against " the foreign 
 incendiary," the " English cut-throat, etc. Placards were 
 posted over the city naming the time and place, and stir 
 ring up the mob to " snake him out," and " tar and 
 feather " him. Mr. Thompson abandoned his intention 
 to speak, and in the forenoon the mayor was notified of 
 the fact. Under the supposition that Mr. Thompson s 
 absence would be generally known, and would prevent the 
 assemblage of the mob, the ladies met in a room adjoining 
 the anti-slavery rooms. The doings of this mob have 
 been celebrated in anniversary meetings of abolitionists 
 and have been the subject of more controversy than those 
 of any other of that period. Ko lives were lost, however, 
 and very little property. It is memorable as being the 
 only mob in Boston in the decennium ending with 1840; 
 and as being the only one of any note in the Northern 
 States during that period that was not caused mainly by 
 the intrigues of politicians. An incidental good result of 
 
THE GENESIS OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 199 
 
 it was to open the eyes of thoughtful anti-slavery men to 
 the unwisdom, of inviting public speakers from England 
 to take an active part in the agitations of our domestic 
 politics. Mr. Thompson went back to England imme 
 diately ; but, good and eloquent though he was, his visit 
 exposed the American abolitionists for many years to the 
 damaging charge of receiving English gold for promoting 
 English policy. The charge appealed strongly to what 
 was in that day a powerful popular prejudice. 
 
 The foregoing part of this chapter is a rapid and neces 
 sarily imperfect sketch of the programme devised by the 
 slave power for its operations beginning in the early sum 
 mer of 1835. Every measure was aggressive. The cru 
 sade against free mails, freedom of speech and of the 
 press, the right of petition and trial by jury ; the costly 
 war to enslave the majority of the Seminoles, undertaken 
 without authority of Congress ; the connivance of the Ad 
 ministration with the organization within the United 
 States of armed parties which avowed the purpose to con 
 quer a province from a republic with which we were at 
 peace and add it as slave States to the Union ; the at 
 tempted ostracism, social and political, of every American 
 citizen who would not bow the knee at the new altar 
 erected to the dark spirit of slavery ; the reign of terror 
 at the South, with its inquisition into opinion, lynchings, 
 expulsions, and murders of men from the free States ; the 
 mobs excited at the North by the inflammatory appeals 
 of the political press and the active exertions of party 
 wire- workers these were war measures in a time of peace 
 precipitated upon the country by an oligarchy led by able 
 and brave men determined to rule or ruin, wielding all 
 the powers and patronage of the Administration with the 
 influence of the Federal judiciary, and apparently control 
 ling the majority of each House in the Congress of the 
 United States. They were re-enforced by pathetic appeals 
 
200 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 addressed to the humanity, fraternal affection, and gener 
 osity of Northern men and women to save Southern wives, 
 mothers, and children from the bloody horrors of servile 
 insurrection ; by arguments to prove slavery a patriarchal 
 and biblical institution, the beneficent result of which 
 would be to elevate the barbarians of Africa to the high 
 plane of Christian civilization ; by new theories of the 
 national Constitution which interpolated in that instru 
 ment guarantees for the existence and protection of slav 
 ery and stamped as misprision of treason any opposition 
 to that institution. Quiet submission to the demands of 
 the slave power was represented as the only means of 
 averting the dissolution of the Union ! 
 
 At the time the first of the above great measures 
 the destruction of the freedom of the mails was an 
 nounced, there was no organization which represented the 
 national sentiment. The leaders of the two political par 
 ties were either involved in the great conspiracy or were 
 "dumb dogs that did not bark." Aspirants for presi 
 dential honors dared not risk the loss of the Southern 
 vote. The national conventions of the Democratic and 
 Whig parties in 1836 passed in silence the pending as 
 saults by the Executive on the liberties of the people ; the 
 party press uttered no warning ; and the leading churches 
 deprecated agitation as the forerunner of schism, and 
 cried " Peace ! Peace ! " 
 
 The outlook was gloomy. Until the spring of 1830 
 there was hardly a rift in the dark clouds that overhung 
 the future of this republic. 
 
 Fortunately for the progress of civilization, the sober 
 second thought of the people is stronger under democratic 
 institutions than any other force. Before the end of the 
 winter the reaction had become strong enough to satisfy 
 members of Congress of the imprudence of establishing a 
 despotism over the mails, and to satisfy members of the 
 
THE GENESIS OF THE REPUBLICAN PAETY. 201 
 
 Legislatures of the free States that popular opinion would 
 not sustain any law to muzzle the press or to make extra 
 dition of citizens for trial in slave States on charges of 
 circulating anti-slavery documents. Mr. Calhoun s bill in 
 relation to the United States mails was defeated on its 
 final passage, though the Senate had voted its third read 
 ing. Not a single free State enacted the law against the 
 press as demanded. The slave power had underestimated 
 the strength of the attachment of the people to its liber 
 ties, and its first combined assault upon them, intended 
 and expected to be overwhelming, had failed at the most 
 important point. 
 
 The tidal wave of the slave power had broken into 
 foam on the solid rock of public opinion, and receded 
 never again to rise so high until the rebellion. 
 
 In this reaction of 1835- 36 lay the germ of the Na 
 tional Eepublican party. It was of slow but of sure 
 growth, extending unseen its fibrous roots to all parts of 
 the North. It first showed itself in politics with the 
 motto, " Vote for no man who votes against freedom," 
 and in asserting the right of petition and of trial by 
 jury, and of freedom of the press and of speech; next 
 in balance-of -power combinations to carry nominations in 
 the conventions of the dominant parties, State and na 
 tional ; then in independent nominations for Congress 
 and State offices ; afterward in the nomination of candi 
 dates for President and Vice-President and the formation 
 of a national party independent of any other which acted 
 in 1840 without official name, but under the popular des 
 ignations of " Free Democratic," " Abolition," " National 
 Republican," and " Freedom " party ; in 1844 giving itself 
 the name of " Liberty party " ; in 1848 and 1852 of the 
 Free-Soil party ; and in 1856, after the beginning of the 
 Kansas-Nebraska struggle for freedom, of the " National 
 Republican" party maintaining under all changes of 
 
202 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 name the same principles and substantially the same plat 
 form. 
 
 The gradual growth of such a party was a necessary 
 result of the formation in 1820 of the " Solid South," of 
 the determined effort of the slave power in 1835- 36 to 
 overthrow the strongest bulwarks of individual liberty, of 
 its subsequent persistent and arrogant encroachments on 
 the Constitution, and of its repeated attempts to extend 
 slavery to the Territories, to establish the right of slave 
 holders to hold their alleged property in free States in de 
 fiance of the local law, and to make the protection, pres 
 ervation, and extension of slavery the chief object of what 
 they were pleased to call the confederacy of States. John 
 C. Calhoun foresaw and predicted the formation of such 
 a party. In his report to the Senate accompanying the 
 bill to destroy the freedom of the mails, he predicts that, 
 if the abolitionists should be allowed to persist, " the art 
 ful and profligate " would in time " unite with the fanat 
 ics and make their movements the basis of a powerful 
 political party that will seek advancement by diffusing 
 as widely as possible hatred against the slave - holding 
 States." 
 
 One of the clearest teachings of the history of the 
 United States is that the formation of a " powerful polit 
 ical party " to extend and perpetuate slavery and make 
 cotton the absolute king, preceded the formation of the 
 party of resistance. The moral reprobation of slavery by 
 the North and the Christian world generally had never 
 abolished that curse or seemed to affect it. Milton, Cow- 
 per, Clarkson, Jonathan Edwards, Wesley, Lundy, Bourne, 
 Kenrick, Torrey, Eankin, Duncan, Doak, Crowe, and 
 thousands of faithful ministers of the Gospel, had for cent 
 uries hurled against it the thunders of Divine truth and 
 the human sense of wrong, but no man stirred to organize 
 a national political party against it. 
 
THE GENESIS OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 203 
 
 If the slave power had been content to maintain slav 
 ery without extending it, had treated it as local and not 
 national, and had kept hands off the liberties of indi 
 vidual citizens and of the free States, no political party 
 would have been formed against it. In its inception 
 and growth the Republican party was one for defense 
 only. 
 
CHAPTER XXL 
 
 THE CINCINNATI MOB OF JANUARY, 1836. 
 
 THE removal of Mr. Birney from Kentucky to the 
 leading commercial city of Ohio was generally understood 
 to have been made for the purpose of publishing there a 
 weekly anti-slavery paper. He had hardly established 
 himself in his new domicile before the leading political 
 Southern dailies opened fire on him and his project. The 
 most moderate article was the following by Mr. Prentice, 
 of the Louisville " Journal " : 
 
 We have little doubt that his office will be torn down, but we 
 trust that Mr. Birney will receive no personal harm. Notwith 
 standing his mad notions, we consider him an honest and benevo 
 lent man. He is resolute, too. Not having been permitted to 
 open his battery in this State, he is determined to cannonade us 
 from across the river. Isn t it rather too long a shot for execu 
 tion, Mr. Birney ? 
 
 On the 18th of October the slave-holders of Limestone 
 County, Alabama, at a public meeting denounced him by 
 name, printing it in capital letters, as one of the heads 
 " of an organized band of abolition fanatics of the North 
 ern States," and appointed a vigilance committee of twenty 
 persons, among whose duties was that of detecting any per 
 son that may attempt to circulate among the community 
 " any seditious publications of any kind whatever," and 
 " upon proof of such fact to inflict upon such person or 
 persons death" etc. 
 
THE CINCINNATI MOB OF JANUARY, 1836. 205 
 
 His visit to Cincinnati in August, 1835, for the pur 
 pose of conferring with friends there, was an occasion for 
 the publication of unfriendly paragraphs in three of the 
 four city dailies the " Poet, 1 the " Whig," and the " Re 
 publican." In these the abolitionists were termed " fanat 
 ical," " miserable," and " misguided," and their papers 
 " vile incendiary publications." " What ought to be done 
 with them ? " asked the " Post." " We would say : Send 
 them back to the place from whence they came, and if 
 any of their authors, or the agents of them, should be 
 found here, lynch them." 
 
 The " Whig " was the recognized organ of the party 
 whose name it bore, and the two other dailies named sus 
 tained the same relation to the Democratic party. Mr. 
 Birney s arrival in Cincinnati in October was the signal 
 for broadsides of malignant abuse in these political sheets, 
 whose common object seemed to be to mark Mr. Birney 
 as an outlaw and proper object of violence at the hands of 
 the rabble. 
 
 It is not improbable that the united efforts of the three 
 papers and of the politicians who supported them would 
 have resulted in a mob in October if it had not been for 
 the powerful intervention of Charles Hammond, the vet 
 eran editor of the " Gazette," which was the leading com 
 mercial daily in the city. Hammond was an able lawyer, 
 a forcible writer, an old citizen, and a man of influence. 
 He was noted for his personal independence, which exhib 
 ited itself in his refusal to wear a party yoke without 
 trimming it to fit his neck, in wearing a long queue, and 
 in contempt for many social usages. In the presidential 
 campaign of 1824 he had denounced Jackson as a slave 
 holder and the Southern politicians as aiming at the mo 
 nopoly of political power. He approved the Ohio laws 
 that oppressed the blacks, believed in giving up fugitive 
 slaves, and thought abolitionists mistaken and fanatical. 
 
206 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 Per contra, he was a decided advocate of free speech, a 
 free press, the right of petition, and resistance to the en 
 croachments of the slave power on the rights of the free 
 States. In many points of character and doctrine he 
 resembled John Quincy Adams. Unfortunately for his 
 permanent fame, he had not taken the temperance pledge. 
 In 1835 he rose to the highest point of his career. He 
 rebuked with dignity and force his fellow-editors for their 
 course, censured the attempt to excite mob violence, and 
 vindicated the rights of freedom of speech and of the 
 press. He denounced the lynching at Nashville as a 
 crime, published Dresser s narrative, and notified the 
 South not to ask its Northern friends to justify or even 
 palliate such an outrage. As to Mr. Birney, who was a 
 gentleman of character, intelligence, and property, if he 
 should choose to publish a paper at Cincinnati and discuss 
 slavery, that was his right ; to deny it to him, or to molest 
 him for its exercise, would be the act of men recreant to 
 the foundation principle of American institutions. This 
 vigorous attack from an expected ally caused a temporary 
 halt of the mobocratic forces. 
 
 For some weeks after reaching Cincinnati Mr. Birney 
 was busy in furnishing his house and calling on his ac 
 quaintances. He presented his letters of membership to 
 the Sixth Street Presbyterian Church, then under the pas 
 toral charge of the Rev. Heman Norton. His affability 
 and pleasing address extended rapidly his circle of ac 
 quaintances and friends, and his intelligence and social 
 tact commended him to the best citizens. Before the end 
 of the year he numbered among his visitors Salmon P. 
 Chase, Samuel Eells, William D. Gallagher, the poet, 
 Charles Hammond, Henry Starr, United States Senator 
 Thomas Morris, Alexander Kinmont, the teacher, Dr. 
 Drake, Dr. Nash McDowell, and other men of distinction. 
 In October he wrote an " Address to the Women of Ohio," 
 
THE CINCINNATI MOB OF JANUARY, 1836. 207 
 
 a pamphlet of sixteen pages, asking their participation in 
 the anti-slavery work. This was in development of a reso 
 lution he had offered at the April meeting of the State 
 society. On the 9th of December he published a pam 
 phlet of forty pages, ostensibly as an answer to the denun 
 ciatory resolutions of the slave-holders of Limestone 
 County, Alabama. This is known as his "Vindication 
 of Abolitionists," and was generally regarded as an answer 
 to the abusive epithets in the message of President Jack 
 son. It went through several editions, and was republished 
 in Boston in 1836 in a collection called " Valuable Docu 
 ments." Meanwhile the political leaders were restless with 
 anxiety to find some cause of complaint against him. 
 Several of them made pretexts to call on him and talk of 
 abolition, hoping to entrap him into some unguarded ex 
 pression ; but his habitual reticence about himself and his 
 plans baffled while his courtesy disarmed them. On the 
 1st of November the city mayor, the city marshal, and the 
 county sheriff, called on him as guardians of the peace, to 
 complain of the publication of " a very exciting handbill " 
 alleged to have been issued by the City Anti- Slavery So 
 ciety. They assured him that it had caused great popular 
 excitement, and that on that very night his house and the 
 office, where the handbill had been printed, would prob 
 ably be destroyed. 
 
 He answered good-naturedly, thanking them for the 
 personal interest they had expressed for him. He took 
 pleasure, he said, in assuring them that no handbill had 
 been published, but that the city society had, in accord 
 ance with usage, printed its constitution. He thought 
 that a contradiction by them of the rumor would allay 
 any excitement, and their power was quite sufficient to 
 suppress any mob. Then, passing to another subject, he 
 detained them in friendly conversation, giving them no 
 opportunity to utter the menace they had evidently come 
 
208 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 with the purpose of giving. They retired foiled and dis 
 concerted. There was no mob that night ; and Mr. Birney 
 had expected none, but he was not surprised when, a few 
 days later, he was notified by the mayor, that, in the event 
 of his persisting in his design to publish an anti-slavery 
 paper in the city, the authorities would not be able to pro 
 tect either his property or his person from the fury of the 
 mob. 
 
 This pretense of fright did not impose upon Mr. 
 Birney. During his month s residence in the city, he had 
 come into contact with many people of all classes ; he had 
 visited the shops and manufacturing districts, had trav 
 ersed the streets in every direction, his person was well 
 known to thousands, and he had been always treated with 
 respectful politeness. His inference from the mayor s noti 
 fication was, not that there was a strong popular feeling 
 against him, but that the mayor would connive at violence 
 and withhold from him and his property the protection of 
 the police force. In this event, he would be helpless. 
 
 He began to think, therefore, that it might be expedi 
 ent for him to begin the publication of the " Philanthro 
 pist " at some point outside of the jurisdiction of Mayor 
 Davies. He was confirmed in this view by his recognition 
 of the fact that public opinion had been affected by the 
 constantly repeated newspaper charges against him of dis 
 loyalty to the Constitution of the United States and inten 
 tion to excite the slaves to insurrection. He believed that 
 a few numbers of the paper would vindicate him in both 
 these respects. 
 
 On the 25th of November Mr. Birney wrote to Gerrit 
 Smith : 
 
 The solicitations from various quarters that my paper should 
 be published have become so importunate that I have determined 
 to go on with such resources as I myself can command. ... I 
 shall commence the paper in a small village (New Richmond) 
 
THE CINCINNATI MOB OF JANUARY, 1836. 209 
 
 about twenty miles up the river from this place ; or, if not there, 
 at one (Ripley) about fifty miles above, where I can print without 
 being mobbed, but with the expectation of making way for the 
 introduction of the press in a few months into this city. . . . All 
 I expect is to keep from losing anything by the paper; but a 
 paper out here we must have. 
 
 Having selected New Richmond as the place of publi 
 cation, he issued his prospectus early in December, and 
 spent the rest of the month in equipping a printing-office, 
 engaging printers, writing editorials, and making a flying 
 visit to the capital of the State. There he addressed a 
 committee of the Legislature in opposition to the Jackson 
 bill against the freedom of the press. 
 
 Meanwhile his enemies kept all his movements under 
 the closest espionage. A running fire of newspaper para 
 graphs was kept up against him in Cincinnati during De 
 cember. The following is a specimen : 
 
 Abolition Paper. We perceive by a notice in the u Chris 
 tian Journal " that James G. Birney is about to commence his 
 abolition paper at New Richmond, Clermont County. Finding 
 that his fanatical project would not be tolerated at Danville, 
 Ky., nor in this city, he has at length settled himself on the 
 border of Kentucky, and so near Cincinnati as to make the 
 pestiferous breath of his paper spread contagion among our cit 
 izens. We deem this new effort an insult to our slave-holding 
 neighbors and an attempt to browbeat public opinion in this quarter. 
 We do, therefore, hope, notwithstanding the alleged respectabil 
 ity of the editor, that he will find the public so inexorably averse 
 to his mad scheme that he will deem it his interest to abandon it. 
 ("Cincinnati Whig," December 21.) 
 
 On the 31st December he wrote to Gerrit Smith : 
 
 The proceedings in Congress show to my judgment that the 
 cause of freedom to the slave, as well as to the white, is working 
 well. When your Northern folks have their ears pulled a little 
 longer by the Southern aristocrats their pluck will doubtless 
 begin to rise. I am glad the subject of abolition has been intro- 
 
210 JAMES G. BIRXEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 duced in Congress in any way. It can not lose, no matter how 
 it comes into debate. . . . My paper will probably be issued to 
 morrow. It will be received here the next day after publication. 
 I know not how our friends in the West will support it not well 
 enough, I fear, to keep me from losing ... about $1,000 or 
 $1,200 (to which I have made up my mind) for one year s experi 
 ment. 
 
 The publication of this first number was eagerly await 
 ed by his enemies, who hoped to find in it some passage 
 that might be quoted to inflame the passions of the popu 
 lace. 
 
 No such passage could be found. In his leading arti 
 cle, the editor maintained that " such publications as the 
 4 Philanthropist purposes to be, have become absolutely 
 necessary for the preservation of liberty in what are called 
 the free States. . . . The truth is, liberty and slavery can 
 not both live in juxtaposition. 
 
 That the first number of the " Philanthropist " was 
 unexceptionable did not prevent the renewal of the at 
 tempts to excite a mob against the editor. The Cincinnati 
 dailies, except the " Gazette," quoted paragraphs from the 
 Kentucky, Mississippi, and Louisiana papers, calling upon 
 the merchants and manufacturers of Cincinnati to prevent 
 the publication of the " incendiary " sheet. The proofs 
 that the plot against him was confined to a few party 
 wire- workers and their tools were so abundant that, in the 
 second number of his paper (issued Jan. 8, 1836) he said : 
 
 It is remarkable that no mob has ever attacked the abolition 
 ists except after special training by politicians who had some 
 thing to hope from the favor of the South. The people of whom 
 mobs are composed . . . care not a rush for the abolition of 
 slavery, and, if left to themselves, would as soon think of attack 
 ing the phrenologists as the abolitionists. It is to the editors of 
 a venal press, to the expectants of office, in the shape of Congress 
 men, judges, postmasters, etc., that we are to look for the cause 
 of these frequent and shameful outrages. 
 
THE CINCINNATI MOB OF JANUARY, 1836. 211 
 
 This article will be found by the student of history to 
 be the key to the motives of the instigators of mobs in the 
 free States during the Jackson and Van Buren Admin 
 istrations, except a few caused directly by slave-holders. 
 
 In the warfare on Mr. Birney, the Democratic and 
 Whig newspaper organs worked in concert to inflame the 
 populace. 
 
 January 16th, the " Cincinnati Republican," the Demo 
 cratic organ, devoted an article a column long to Mr. 
 Birney. The following is a specimen of its style : 
 
 This new laborer in the unholy and unpatriotic cause of aboli 
 tion goes even beyond Garrison or Thompson in his uncompro 
 mising hostility to slavery, and in his zeal for unqualified and 
 immediate emancipation, and, we doubt not, the editor, if en 
 couraged to promulgate his abolition firebrands among our citizens 
 in the spirit in which he has commenced, will win for himself as 
 notorious and infamous a character as that which now distin 
 guishes the two individuals above mentioned. . . . But the 
 editor of the "Philanthropist " has not the plea of ignorance; he 
 is a man of education and talents. . . . The editor rings the 
 changes upon "incendiary missiles" and "the dissolution of 
 the Union." 
 
 This false and inflammatory article was republished 
 next day in the " Whig," and the suggestion made " that 
 a meeting of our citizens be called to take this matter into 
 consideration." On the 22d the " Republican " appealed 
 to the capitalists, merchants, and tradesmen to suppress 
 the City Abolition Society ; the street corners were posted 
 with a placard, and each daily newspaper advertised a call 
 for a public meeting, to be held that evening at the court 
 house, of citizens opposed " to the course now pursuing by 
 those individuals composing abolition and anti-slavery 
 societies." The most prominent signatures to the call 
 were James F. Conover, editor of the " Whig " ; Charles 
 R. Ramsey, editor of the "Republican"; and W. R. 
 
212 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 Thomas, editor of the " Post," a Democratic organ ; William 
 Burke, city postmaster ; Robert T. Lytle, ex-member of 
 Congress and Surveyor of the Land Office ; John C. 
 Wright, ex-member of Congress ; Richard Fosdick, candi 
 date for sheriff; Elam P. Langdon, Whig expectant of 
 the post-office ; Morgan Neville, Receiver of the Land 
 Office; E. Hulse, candidate for sheriff; J. S. Benham, 
 standing candidate for Congress all office-holders or candi 
 dates for office, and a few merchants and property owners. 
 The men who did not sign, but who were busy in making 
 arrangements for the mob were N. C. Read, prosecuting 
 attorney and Democratic aspirant to judicial office, and 
 Timothy Walker, Whig aspirant to judicial or congres 
 sional honors. 
 
 During the day runners were sent through the foun 
 dries, machine-shops, and manufactories to secure the 
 attendance of working men at the meeting. The towns 
 of Newport and Covington, on the Kentucky side of the 
 river, were beaten up for recruits. The principal managers 
 met at the office of an ex- Representative in Congress and 
 prepared resolutions to be passed by the assembly at the 
 court-house. One of them was as follows : " That this 
 meeting will exert every lawful effort to suppress the publi 
 cation of any abolition paper in this city or neighborhood." 
 It was given out that the meeting would be addressed by 
 a Whig and two Democrats John C. Wright, N. Gr. Pendle- 
 ton, and that fiery declaimer Gen. Robert T. Lytle ; and 
 understood that, after its adjournment, the mob should 
 visit the anti-slavery printing-office, the book store where 
 anti-slavery pamphlets were sold, and the house of Mr. 
 Birney. The colored people feared that an attack would 
 be made upon their dwellings ; some of them left the city 
 with their wives and children, others concealed themselves, 
 and a few barricaded the doors and windows of their 
 houses. One or two of the abolitionists, more obnoxious 
 
THE CINCINNATI MOB OF JANUARY, 1836. 213 
 
 than the rest because of their English birth, betook them 
 selves to the country ; many of the others circulated among 
 the leaders and runners of the mob and learned their pro 
 gramme for the violence of the evening. The mayor, 
 city marshal, and sheriff, being fully informed as to the 
 facts, refused to take any precautions whatever. A night 
 of horrors was anticipated. 
 
 In the afternoon Mr. Birney wrote to the correspond 
 ing secretary of the Rhode Island Anti-Slavery Society : 
 
 ... An anti-abolition meeting is to be held this evening, called 
 by gentlemen of property and standing." The hand of the 
 South has almost benumbed the spirit of freedom. ... I can not 
 print my paper here. I lectured here one evening (January 5th) 
 to a small audience in a private manner, no notice having been 
 given of it in the papers. This is the exciting cause of the meet 
 ing this evening. It was but yesterday that a wealthy slave 
 holder of Kentucky called to let me know that my press in Ohio 
 would be destroyed by a band of his fellow-citizens, who had 
 determined upon it, that almost the whole county would be 
 summoned to the service, and that my life was in continual dan 
 ger. A few days before a citizen of Cincinnati, a high commis 
 sioned officer of the militia, called to inform me that I would be 
 disgracefully punished and abused and my property destroyed if 
 I persisted in my anti-slavery movements. ... I pray you press 
 on. It is not a time to be indolent. If we are our children may 
 wear the livery of the slave. H I fall in this cause I trust it will 
 bring hundreds to supply my place. (See appendix to Proceed 
 ings of Rhode Island Convention.") 
 
 About 6 o clock p. if., a meeting of the men employed 
 to do the active work of the mob was held in a store in 
 Front Street. It was a rough crowd, composed of wharf 
 laborers, workers in the Fulton foundries and machine- 
 shops, and men from the towns on the Kentucky side of 
 the river. They were divided into squads, each under a 
 leader, whose orders were to be obeyed. The proceedings 
 of this meeting were promptly reported to my father by a 
 
214: JAMES GK BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 friend who came with a carriage to take him to a house 
 in the country. His offer was gratefully declined. Other 
 friends called to offer the shelter of their houses to him 
 and his family. He thanked them cordially, but would 
 not detain them. He took tea as usual, talking pleasant 
 ly with me and my mother, but making no allusion to the 
 probable events of the evening. I knew the danger, ant 
 was suffering under painful apprehensions. After tea J 
 followed him to his study, intending to beg him to go into 
 the country. He anticipated me by saying, " My son. I am 
 going to the meeting." His tone forbade me to utter my 
 request. Waiting for him at the front door while he bade 
 my mother good-evening, I passed out with him and 
 walked by his side to the court-house. An immense! 
 crowd of people was already there. The approaches were 
 thronged ; men stood on the window - sills and looked 
 through and talked in groups in the yard. Inside every 
 place was filled, from the judge s bench to the gallery. 
 We made our way with difficulty to the foot of the steps 
 leading to the bench. The recreant Mayor Davies was in 
 the chair; four politicians, two Whigs and two Demo 
 crats, including Postmaster Burke, were acting as vice- 
 presidents, and, as we were getting through the crowd, a 
 committee of fifteen, Surveyor-General Lytle, chairman, 
 was appointed to report resolutions. During its supposed 
 absence the floor was given, evidently by prearrangement, 
 to Colonel Hale of the militia, a livery stable-keeper and 
 ward politician. This man was an illiterate but fluent 
 and passionate declaimer, full of bitter prejudices and 
 proud of his selection as the orator who was to stir the 
 people to acts of violence. He made a most inflammatory 
 harangue against Mr. Birney, charging him with amalga 
 mation, incendiarism, and treason to the Constitution of 
 his country. To prove the last charge, he flourished be 
 fore his audience what he called a copy of the Boston 
 
THE CINCINNATI MOB OF JANUARY, 1836. 215 
 
 " Liberator," and read, or pretended to read, from it one 
 or two passages denouncing the national Constitution and 
 advocating disunion.* In the name of all that is sacred 
 in love of country, he called upon his hearers to prevent 
 the "miscreant Birney" from making Cincinnati the 
 place of his intrigues to overthrow the Constitution and 
 plunge the South into the blood-reeking massacres of a 
 servile insurrection. The roughs cheered him wildly, and, 
 at the close of his peroration, were ready to rush to the 
 work of destruction. 
 
 As the vociferous applause subsided, my father spoke 
 in a distinct and clear voice : " Mr. President, my name 
 is Birney. May I be heard ? " The crowd was silent as 
 he added, "My personal character and my cause have 
 been unjustly attacked. May I defend them?" The 
 president s answer was lost in the wild clamor and tumult 
 that followed. Cries of " Kill him," " Down with him," 
 " Drag him out," " Tar and feather him," drowned those 
 of " Hear him." A few, among them the zealous livery 
 stableman, tried to force their way toward him ; but those 
 near him resisted them, calling out " Fair play." In the 
 height of this tumult, Survey or- General Lytle, a man of 
 generous and chivalrous temperament, sprang to the 
 judge s bench and by gesture demanded silence. As he 
 was the recognized chief of the anti-abolition movement, 
 quiet was restored. " My friends," said he, " hear before 
 
 * For many years I thought the colonel must have read passages that 
 were spurious, but on pages 307 and 309 of Garrison s " Life," by his 
 sons, I find extracts from the "Liberator" of 1832 which sound like 
 those read by the fiery speaker to goad the mob to take vengeance on 
 Mr. Birney. In these Mr. Garrison concedes the unfounded claim of the 
 slave-holders that there is a "compact" in the Constitution to continue 
 and protect slavery, and calls it "a most bloody and heaven-daring ar 
 rangement, ... a high-handed villainy," etc. He says, too, " So long as 
 we continue one body, a union, a nation, the compact involves us in the 
 guilt and danger of slavery." 
 
216 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 } 7 ou strike. Don t disgrace our city and our cause before 
 the nation. I oppose abolitionism, but I honor a brave 
 man, and Mr. Birney has to-night shown himself the brav 
 est man I have ever seen." Then, addressing my father 
 politely, he asked him to defer his remarks until the reso 
 lutions should be read, and pledged the audience to hear 
 him. After the report of the committee was read and 
 Judge Wright had spoken a few minutes, General Lytle 
 moved that Mr. Birney be invited to defend abolition. 
 The motion was carried by a large majority. 
 
 For three quarters of an hour Mr. Birney held the at 
 tention of the audience. The turbulent interruptions of 
 a few were hushed. Point after point was made with 
 telling effect. Pathos, wit, argument, and eloquent ap 
 peals followed each other in rapid succession. To the 
 charge of amalgamation brought against him by Colonel 
 Hale, he answered by giving a statement of the fact on 
 which it was based. He had found, he said, Colonel Hale, 
 a venerable person with flowing white hair, at the door of 
 his house with a colored man. Both were strangers to 
 him, and, supposing they came together, he had invited 
 them to enter. The man applied for employment and 
 was dismissed. He left it to the gallant colonel to ex 
 plain why he came with such a companion. The tables 
 were turned on the colonel, and the crowd laughed at his 
 discomfiture and would not hear his explanation. To the 
 charge of hostility to the national Constitution, he an 
 swered by a noble vindication of that instrument. He 
 denied that it contained any compact with slavery or any 
 guarantee or even any mention of it ; claimed that the 
 nearest approach to a recognition of it was the stigma 
 placed upon it in the denial of congressional representa 
 tion to two fifths of a certain class of population, and that 
 the South would gain and not lose in the number of its 
 members of Congress by emancipation; and in a magnificent 
 
THE CINCINNATI MOB OF JANUARY, 1836. 217 
 
 appeal he developed the grand object of the Constitution 
 to " secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our 
 posterity." He was proceeding to arraign General Jack 
 son, Amos Kendall, Van Buren, and Calhoun for their 
 attempts upon the liberties of citizens, when the mayor 
 interrupted him to say that the invitation given him ex 
 tended to a personal explanation only. Mr. Birney ap 
 pealed to the audience, and on vote was sustained ; but 
 the presiding officer s example was followed by the unruly, 
 and the uproar made by the minority was so great that 
 the speaker expressed his thanks for having been permit 
 ted to address the meeting and stepped from the stand. 
 
 His triumph, however, was complete. The subsequent 
 efforts of orators to excite the crowd were fruitless. The 
 meeting passed the resolutions and adjourned sine die. 
 As my father left the court-room, which he did a few 
 minutes before the adjournment, the crowd made way 
 respectfully for him, and he was neither followed nor mo 
 lested on his way home. After locking the front door 
 behind us, we inspected each one of about forty muskets 
 and double-barreled shot-guns that were kept on the front 
 staircase landing and in other parts of the house, getting 
 them ready for use, for, said he, " Though nearly all of 
 that crowd will go home quietly, the little band led by 
 Hale means mischief and may be down on us to-night." 
 Then, leaving me at a front window up-stairs on the look 
 out, he went into my mother s room and sat chatting with 
 and reassuring her. He was not a non-resistant. There 
 was never a time when he would have refused or neglected 
 to defend his wife and children. 
 
 The night passed quietly. The city papers of next 
 morning had lost somewhat of their truculent tone. The 
 "Whig "said: 
 
 The incidents of the meeting were exceedingly interesting and 
 somewhat peculiar. The celebrated and fanatical abolitionist 
 11 
 
218 JAMES G. BIRNEY AXD HIS TIMES. 
 
 James G. Birney had the boldness and fatuity to attend. Some 
 observations were made by Colonel Hale of a severe character 
 touching Mr. Birney s abolition proceedings and which were cal 
 culated to produce a very unfavorable impression toward hhr 
 and to render him and his course still more odious. Mr. Birne} 
 rose to reply. Inflammable symptoms of hostility toward hiir. 
 were instantly manifest, and a good deal of confusion ensued 
 Some were for turning him out, some for compelling his silence 
 and others for hearing what he had to say. A vote was then 
 taken whether he should be permitted to speak, and was decided 
 in the affirmative by a large majority. 
 
 The " Gazette " gave a short report as follows : 
 
 A good-looking man, past the meridian of life, with hair 
 somewhat gray, here rose and said: "My name is Birney; May I 
 be heard ? " The audience appeared confounded by such a re 
 quest coming from such a source. Recovering from their sur 
 prise at the calm fearlessness of the man who dared stand un 
 armed in the midst of his enemies, one cried out "Down with 
 him! " others cried, "Kill him! " others cried, " Tar and feather 
 him, 1 For a time there was confusion worse confounded. Mr. 
 Birney, with entire self-possession, remarked that he would not 
 proceed if he could not have the ear of the assembly. To go on 
 under such circumstances would justify the charge of obstinacy 
 that had been laid at the door of abolitionists. 
 
 At this stage, Gen. Lytle, who had great influence with the 
 mob, rose and, at the top of his voice, cried : 
 
 "Hear before you strike." The meeting then resolved to 
 hear. 
 
 Mr. Birney, thanking them for the unexpected favor, said 
 that his sentiments had been misunderstood. It was no part of 
 the design of the abolitionists to interfere with the Constitution 
 of the country. . . . Emancipation was a work that could lie 
 carried on and consummated without touching the Constitu 
 tion. . . . 
 
 He was not indifferent to the safety of his fellow-citizens of 
 the South. He was from the South. He was born in the South. 
 He had spent his life there. He had numerous beloved kindn d 
 who held slaves. To their safety he was not indifferent, and he 
 
THE CINCINNATI MOB OF JANUARY, 1836. 219 
 
 certainly should pursue no course which he thought likely to put 
 them in peril. He considered that the ultimate safety of the 
 South was more in danger from perpetual slavery than from its 
 abolition. See how the blacks increase upon the whites ! This 
 disproportionate increase of blacks will finally bring the very 
 catastrophe which is now dreaded. It may be slow, but it will 
 come if slavery is perpetuated. He desired to save his fellow- 
 citizens of the South and his country from the horrors of that 
 day. He had reason to believe that such appeals to his fellow- 
 citizens on this subject would not be in vain. 
 
 When Mr. Birney concluded, he mingled among the crowd, 
 and retired upon adjournment without further molestation. His 
 conduct had disarmed the madness of the multitude. 
 
 For several months following the " Great Mob Meet 
 ing " held at the court-house, January 22, 1836, all was 
 quiet at Cincinnati. 
 
 None of the dailies suggested again a resort to violence. 
 It was quite evident that the threatened storm had blown 
 over for a time. After this date anti-slavery publications 
 were openly sold in Cincinnati ; the City Anti-Slavery So 
 ciety held frequent meetings ; Mr. Birney lectured in the 
 city and its suburbs ; his well-known figure still attracted 
 attention in his daily walks in the streets, but respect and 
 curiosity were more marked than ill-will. To outward 
 seeming, the enslavement of the press in the Queen City 
 of the West had been defeated. But the snake was only 
 scotched, not killed ; it was to regain its venom and vigor 
 in the heats of the following July. Then the excitement 
 of the presidential campaign would be at its height and 
 the city hotels and boarding houses would be full of so 
 journing slave-holders. 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 THE EDITOR. 
 
 THE " Philanthropist " was named after an anti-slav 
 ery religious paper which had been published in 1817- ! 8 
 at Mount Pleasant, Ohio, by Charles Osborn, a preaching 
 member of the Society of Friends. It was a folio weekly, 
 and was well printed on good paper. At the date of its 
 first issue, the whole number in the United States of peri 
 odical publications of all kinds, from dailies to quarterlies, 
 was in round numbers twelve hundred, and of these about 
 one hundred and twenty, most of them local county pa 
 pers, were published in the States formed out of the 
 Northwestern Territory. Cincinnati was the newspaper 
 center for the West, issuing three dailies and about twelve 
 weeklies, several of which were of a religious character. 
 The era of steam-power printing had not then begun ; all 
 press-work was done by striking off one impression at n 
 time on a press worked by hand. Subscription-lists were; 
 necessarily small. The average circulation of the eleven 
 six-cent dailies then published in Xew York city was sev 
 enteen hundred each, their profits coming from advertis 
 ing patronage. Telegraphic news was not known. 
 
 The standing of the press was not high. De Tocque- 
 ville, writing in 1835, says : 
 
 The journalists of the United States are usually placed in a 
 very humble position with a scanty education and a vulgar turn 
 of mind. . . . The characteristics of the American journalist 
 
THE EDITOR. 221 
 
 consist in an open and coarse appeal to the passions of the popu 
 lace, and he habitually abandons the principles of political sci 
 ence to assail the characters of individuals, to track them into 
 private life and disclose all their weaknesses and errors. . . . The 
 personal opinions of the editors have no kind of weight in the 
 eyes of the public. 
 
 To this there were numerous exceptions, not numerous 
 enough, however, to diminish the public expectation that 
 the new paper would take high rank. Admiration of 
 James G. Birney was not confined to the friends of his 
 cause. The incidents at the mob meeting in January had 
 brought into general notice his personal courage and his 
 qualities as a leader. People began to believe that he 
 would continue to publish his paper notwithstanding the< 
 opposition. The friends of a free press regarded him as 
 their representative, and so did the anti-slavery men. The 
 subscription-list, small in January, grew rapidly in Febru 
 ary, and in three months numbered more than seventeen 
 hundred. There were a few from the South; the rest 
 were from all the free States, but chiefly from Ohio. 
 Many distinguished men were on it. Among them were 
 William Ellery Channing and Charles Sunnier, Thaddeus 
 Stevens and Governor Ritner, Joshua Giddings and Sal 
 mon P. Chase. A few wealthy men of public spirit made 
 up a fund to pay the cost of sending three hundred copies 
 of each number to as many influential men in State and 
 Church for their information. Some of these were sent 
 regularly to the same persons, but the greater number 
 were sent to different addresses from week to week. High 
 officials of the National Government, congressmen, gov 
 ernors of States, prominent members of legislatures, bish 
 ops, and eminent divines, were recipients of papers paid 
 for out of this fund. The intention was to reach all the 
 men who shaped public opinion and awaken them to the 
 imminent danger of the subjugation of the National Gov- 
 
222 JAMES G. BIRXEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 eminent by the slave power. To this work Mr. Birney 
 devoted himself with characteristic energy. 
 
 As neither the limits of this biography nor the interest 
 of the narrative permit a detailed account of his editorial 
 labors, their nature will be best suggested by a statement 
 of the political situation in regard to slavery at the open 
 ing of the year 183G. 
 
 The unfavorable features of it were as follows : 
 
 1. The slave power was in possession of the patronage 
 and power of the National Government. 
 
 On his accession in 1829, President Jackson had 
 promptly removed from office every official known to hold 
 anti-slavery views, and he had appointed none whose 
 fealty to slavery was questionable. If a Northern poli 
 tician was known to have become unpopular because he had 
 voted to increase slave territory he was rewarded. Bald 
 win, of Pennsylvania, had voted to admit Missouri. His 
 constituents burned him in effigy and sent him into pri 
 vate life. Jackson placed him in the United States Su 
 preme Court. In 1819 Roger B. Taney, in a speech in 
 Gruber s case, had said of slavery, " -While it continues it 
 is a blot on our national character." In 1824 he turned 
 a somersault into the Democratic party and became the 
 zealous advocate of the political schemes of the slave 
 power. In 1831 Jackson made him Attorney-General of 
 the United States, and in December, 1835, nominated him 
 as Chief Justice. That nomination was pending until 
 the following March. Its confirmation gave to the slavo 
 power the majority in the highest tribunal of the nation. 
 A not unimportant part of the policy of the Jackson Ad 
 ministration was the corruption of the press by appoint 
 ments of editors to office. More than sixty of this class 
 were thus favored. The selections were made among 
 those who had been most active in propagating the pro- 
 slavery dogmas that the Constitution guaranteed the ex- 
 
THE EDITOR. 223 
 
 istence of slavery and authorized all legal measures neces 
 sary to its perpetuation. It was well understood that any 
 editor or publisher who favored free discussion would not 
 be favored by the Administration. 
 
 Means were found to give preference to friends of the 
 South in awarding Government contracts for labor or 
 supplies, and, as the Seminole War was being actively 
 pushed, opportunities to do this were not wanting. This 
 substitution of sectional politics for business principles 
 had its natural result in the numerous defalcations under 
 Van Buren s administration. 
 
 The military and naval academies were placed under 
 pro-slavery administrators, and with such effect that an 
 anti-slavery officer in either army or navy was unknown. 
 The constitutional doctrines taught in them were pro- 
 slavery and loyalty to State Governments. 
 
 Many of the most active and enterprising young men 
 in the Northern States were led by money and promises 
 to engage in forming bands of recruits for the insurgent 
 forces in Texas. 
 
 In short, the whole influence of the National Admin 
 istration was thrown aggressively on the side of the exten 
 sion and nationalization of slavery. 
 
 2. The two political parties were bound hand and foot 
 to the slave power. 
 
 In profession the Democratic party was the friend of 
 the laboring classes, the advocate of the equality of rights 
 of all men before the law, and the opponent of sectional 
 ism and centralization in politics. In practice it held that 
 two millions and a half of the laboring classes had no 
 right to wages, or any rights whatever, sustained the only 
 purely sectional party ever known in the United States, 
 and was always eager to overthrow the rights of the States 
 and vest the National G overnment with the power to legis 
 late on the personal relations of inhabitants of States to 
 
JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 each other and to authorize the seizure and transportation 
 for trial to a distant State of a man charged with owing 
 service to another. The Democratic party was thus a com 
 plex solecism of national extent. Its leaders were Jackson, 
 Caihoun, Taney, and Van Buren ; and it relied for success 
 upon the slave power at the South and the Irish Catholics, 
 free traders, and rabble at the North. 
 
 The Whig party represented the banking, manufactur 
 ing, and moneyed interests of the country. It was the 
 political expression of the era of business enterprise and 
 material prosperity which opened soon after the close of 
 the War of 1812- 15. Unacceptable, because of its pro 
 tective tariff views, to the cotton planters, it sought to 
 conciliate them through its leaders. Henry Clay had been 
 in 1819 a zealous advocate of Texas annexation, had, by 
 his casting vote as Speaker, fastened slavery on the Terri 
 tory of Arkansas, and, by his zeal and tact, effected the 
 admission of Missouri into the Union as a slave State 
 against the public sentiment of the North. Gen. Harri 
 son, the candidate of the party for the presidency, was a 
 native Virginian, and had distinguished himself as Gov 
 ernor in the Northwestern Territory by favoring efforts 
 to legalize slavery in Indiana. The choice of the Whig 
 party fell on him because of his pro-slavery record, no less 
 than because of the simplicity and integrity of his private 
 life and popularity as a military hero. 
 
 The common desire of both parties not to antagonize 
 the slave power caused them to vie with each other in 
 eager and unlimited indorsement of its most indefensible 
 views of the national Constitution. 
 
 These views, though unsupported by history or the 
 text of the Constitution, had spread from the politicians 
 to the lawyers, and, in a few instances, had extended their 
 poison to the courts. The American people are essentially 
 law-abiding, and the corrupting influence of the false 
 
THE EDITOR. 225 
 
 constitutional doctrines constantly inculcated upon them 
 by men high in power, by political speakers, and a partisan 
 press can hardly be estimated at this day. In 1836 it was 
 no uncommon belief, even among the intelligent, that 
 resistance to the demands of the slave power was unlawful 
 and akin to treason. 
 
 3. Many church organizations embraced both free and 
 slave territory and most of the good men in their member 
 ship honestly believed it of vast importance to preserve 
 them unbroken. All the conservative influences in the 
 national religious bodies were arrayed against a discussion 
 which was likely to result in schism. This was true also 
 of the large secret orders. 
 
 4. The commercial and manufacturing classes were 
 generally hostile to agitation. The enormous development 
 within the ten preceding years of steamboat and railroad 
 transportation had greatly extended internal commerce; 
 and the control of this was rapidly falling into the hands 
 of the merchants in a few cities. With peace and quiet, 
 large fortunes were in their grasp. They wished to be let 
 alone. 
 
 5. The prejudice among the Northern people against 
 negroes indisposed them to resist the slave power. It was 
 partly racial and partly due to the ignorance and utter 
 destitution of fugitives from slavery. They were black, 
 fugitive, and beggared. To betray them was dishonorable ; 
 to feed, shelter for a night, and speed them on their way 
 to Canada was a Christian duty ; but to give them employ 
 ment and homes was regarded as the act of a bad citizen. 
 In all, or nearly all the free States there were laws in 
 tended to prevent the settlement of blacks within their 
 boundaries. 
 
 These laws were disgraceful in their inhumanity. The 
 pro-slavery advocates maintained that if emancipation 
 should take place at the South the negroes would migrate 
 
226 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 en masse to the North ; and this absurdity obtained gen 
 eral credence among the unthinking and prejudiced them 
 against the abolitionists. 
 
 6. The prevalent aversion among moral and religious 
 people to take part in political action greatly increased 
 the difficulty of organizing resistance to the slave power. 
 This was the natural result of the almost purely material 
 character of public questions after the war, the general 
 absence of ethical elements in them, the coarseness and 
 scurrility of the partisan press, the widely known personal 
 vices of men prominent in public affairs, the trickiness in 
 the presentation of party issues, and the shameless incon 
 gruity between party professions and practice. A consci 
 entious man was out of place in a caucus or primary meeting. 
 The number of good men who would not go to the polls 
 was increasing. Several small religious sects forbade their 
 members to vote. Politics, in the language of the non- 
 voting class, was " a dirty mire " ; and, by a perverse logic, 
 the country was to be saved by permitting all its political 
 machinery to be controlled by bad men. The non-voters 
 in politics were generally " Gome-outers " in religion, and 
 for all purposes of progress, were useless both in State and 
 Church. Most of them were anti- slavery in profession, 
 because of their habit of unstinted censure of things ex 
 isting ; they attended abolition meetings, but were chiefly 
 earnest in trying to prevent anti-slavery men from voting. 
 They were as noted for the violence of their tirades against 
 slavery as for their stubborn refusal to go to the polls. 
 This class, imprudent of speech and useless in action, was 
 a hindrance to the abolition cause. They pretended to be 
 soldiers, but refused to bear arms. 
 
 7. The incongruous and widely divergent opinions 
 among anti-slavery men were an element of weakness in 
 their cause. They had no coherent body of doctrine ; no 
 accepted plan of action. In regard to the national Con- 
 
THE EDITOR. 227 
 
 stitution, opinions ranged from conservative to revolu 
 tionary ; and discussion had not yet been general enough 
 to separate anti-slavery men into the distinct classes which 
 were evolved at a later period. In 1836, constitutionalists, 
 consolidationists, and disunionists, met on the same plat 
 form. Those who believed that freedom was national but 
 that the rights of States to self-government was guaran 
 teed ; those who believed that Congress could and should, 
 without delay, abolish slavery in the States ; and those 
 who accepted the creed of the slave power that the 
 Constitution guaranteed the perpetuity of slavery had not 
 yet crystallized into antagonistic groups. The sensational 
 declamations of zealots of the two classes last named 
 were of a nature to array patriotic feeling against aboli 
 tionists generally and were freely used for this purpose 
 by pro-slavery speakers and editors. 
 
 8. In July, 1836, there were twenty-four States, and 
 the only ones in which slavery did not exist practically 
 were Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, and Vermont. The 
 census of 1840 reports slaves in all the rest, not excepting 
 the States formed out of the Xorthwestern Territory. This 
 practical survival reminded the people of the free States 
 that they had abolished the institution without interfer 
 ence and gave point to the argument that the people of 
 the slave States would soon follow their example, if not 
 exasperated by intermeddlers. This had weight with the 
 timid, the easy-going, and those uninformed of the politi 
 cal encroachments of the slave power. 
 
 Against the formidable influences tending to promote 
 the designs of the slave power to gain permanent ascend 
 ency in the Union there were working powerful ones 
 making for freedom. The tendency of all modern civ 
 ilization to the recognition of human rights and the eman 
 cipation of the individual in both Church and state had 
 been marked in the decay of serfdom and feudalism ; in 
 
228 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 the outburst and growth of Protestantism ; the decadence 
 of absolute monarchies ; the French revolution ; the legis 
 lation against the African slave trade ; the abolition of 
 slavery in the French West Indies, the Cape Colony, Mex 
 ico, and all large civilized countries except Brazil and the 
 Southern States of the Union. Equality of civil rights 
 and the blessings of liberty had been recognized in the 
 Declaration of Independence, the national Constitution, 
 and the Constitution of each State. Every legal tribunal 
 administered the law on the basis of the equal rights of 
 individuals. Every church preached justice and human 
 brotherhood. Every orator lauded the United States as 
 the home of the free and refuge of the oppressed of all 
 nations. Twelve States had broken the shackles of slavery 
 by law. The institutions, traditions, and instincts of the 
 people of this country were inconsistent with anything 
 that antagonized freedom of speech, of the press, of or 
 ganization, of locomotion, and of industry. Even in the 
 far South, slavery had not been formally established by 
 statute in any State. It was a tolerated anomaly, an in 
 congruity, which had grown up, since 1793, under the 
 invention of the cotton-gin and the vast development of 
 cotton culture, into a gigantic moneyed interest, and then 
 been transformed into a political power. The united po 
 litical South did not exist before the Missouri controversy 
 of 1820, after which its existence as a factor in national 
 politics was masked until 1835, when it appeared openly 
 as the slave power, aiming at the complete subjugation of 
 the republic. It was sectional and aristocratic ; conse 
 quently hostile to the genius of American institutions and 
 repugnant to Americans generally. 
 
 Although merchants and manufacturers, intent on 
 present gain, deprecated agitation, the influences of in 
 ternal commerce worked quietly but surely for freedom. 
 Planters neither farmed nor spun ; they were not me- 
 
THE EDITOR. 229 
 
 chanics; they imported horses, mules, provisions, cloth, 
 whips, shackles, and furniture from the North. Northern 
 railroads traversed the South, and the steam whistles of 
 Northern steamboats were heard on every Southern stream. 
 Car-hands, boatmen, contractors, free laborers, merchants, 
 drummers, and peddlers from the North were seen in 
 every Southern village. Yankees set up shops in the 
 Southern towns. Instead of the isolation of plantation 
 life necessary to the slave system, there were frequent vis 
 itors canvassing for business ; and these visitors were men 
 accustomed to the wages system. 
 
 Travel of Southern men to the North had decupled 
 within ten years. Merchants went North to buy goods ; 
 planters, to buy provisions, to take their families to water 
 ing places, and leave their sons at college and their daugh 
 ters at boarding-schools ; preachers to attend anniver 
 saries, synods, and conferences ; and educators to engage 
 teachers. Interstate marriages were numerous. Commer 
 cial and social intercourse with communities enjoying the 
 advantages of varied industries and the wealth gained in 
 them tended to break up the provincialism of Southern 
 life. 
 
 The marked revival of religious feeling beginning with 
 1815 was national. This had given a strong impulse to 
 the formation of philanthropic societies. Among these, 
 were the Colonization, Tract, Bible, Foreign Mission, 
 Home Mission, Sailors Friends, and Peace Societies. To 
 the same cause may be attributed the foundation of nu 
 merous asylums, hospitals, libraries, and the large exten 
 sion of the public-school system. All these organizations 
 and methods for the good of mankind were the expres 
 sions of a widely prevailing quickened conscience to which 
 the friends of freedom might appeal with hope. Prob 
 ably nine tenths of the abolitionists were church-members. 
 
 Thus the battle was set. On the one side, a compact 
 
230 JAMES G. BIRXEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 phalanx, disciplined to obedience, trained in all the arts 
 of political warfare, all-powerful in half the States, and 
 wielding all the power and influence of the National Ad 
 ministration and tribunals. On the other, a people with 
 out recognized leaders, without unity of belief or plan, 
 taken by surprise and sudden onslaught, wielding no 
 weapon but the ballot, strong only in the national instincts 
 and traditions of freedom ; in the letter of national and 
 State Constitutions ; in the Declaration of Independence ; 
 in bills of rights ; in the cosmopolitan influences of travel 
 and commerce ; in the industrial superiority of the wages 
 to the slave-labor system ; in the moral sense of the civ 
 ilized world and the teachings of Christianity ; and, more 
 than all, in the complex and slow-moving machinery of 
 our political institutions. The advantages of the slave 
 power, in January, 1836, were so preponderating, that if 
 government had been centralized at Washington, the lib 
 erties of the people would have been trampled down and 
 the republic transformed into a slave-holding oligarchy. 
 It was the great crisis of American freedom. 
 
 Mr. Birney placed his paper at once in the forefront 
 of the conflict. The " Philanthropist " was a special 
 journal ; it had no room for literary or miscellaneous arti 
 cles. Every line in it was devoted to the vital questions 
 before the people and was alive with earnestness. Vitu 
 peration and declamation were excluded. His methods 
 were fair. In exposing the designs of the slave power he 
 made no loose charges. He allowed its representatives to 
 speak for it. He published the text of the messages of 
 the Governors of Georgia, South Carolina, and other 
 Southern States ; of the speeches of Calhoun, Pickens, 
 Bellinger, and other pro-slavery congressmen ; of the edi 
 torials of leading papers in the slave States ; and of the 
 laws passed in slave-State Legislatures against freedom of 
 speech and of the press. He obtained, principally through 
 
THE EDITOR. 231 
 
 Hammond, editor of the Cincinnati " Gazette," a large 
 supply of Southern newspapers, and copied from them 
 accounts of the brandings, whippings, and hangings of 
 Northern men at the South. He published the text of 
 the demands made by Southern governors and Legislatures 
 upon the free States and of the bill to muzzle the North 
 ern press and deliver to Southern governors for trial be 
 fore Southern juries every abolition editor and publisher. 
 He printed Jackson s message on the United States mails, 
 with Kendall s letters and Calhoun s report and speech on 
 the same subject. Having laid the original documents 
 before his readers he analyzed them, exposing the designs 
 of the slave power. 
 
 He showed the spirit of slavery to be essentially and 
 of necessity aggressive, " pushing its victories and extend 
 ing its conquests." In his first number he declared, 
 " Liberty and slavery can not both live long in juxtaposi 
 tion," and he constantly insisted that the designs of the 
 slave power were such as not to admit the existence of 
 liberty in any part of the L T nion, and that the real ques 
 tion of the times was not the abolition of negro slavery, 
 but the " preservation of liberty in what were called the 
 free States." 
 
 He exposed the narrowness and inadequacy of the two 
 great political parties, their avoidance of the real and 
 vital questions in politics, their subserviency to the slave 
 pow r er, and their drifting w r ith a current that led to rocks 
 and whirlpools. His criticisms of leading party men were 
 as severe as truth. Of Henry Clay, the great compro 
 miser, he said, " He has done more for slavery and said 
 more against it than any man in public life " ; and in an 
 article of January 8, 1836, commenting on Clay s argu 
 ment that the Northern people had no right to discuss 
 slavery because they had no right to decide upon it, he 
 wrote : " Mr. Clay has deliberately enrolled himself among 
 
232 JAMES G. BTRXEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 the opponents of free discussion, and consequently of the 
 liberty of the press and of speech." He examined the 
 records of Van Buren, White, and Harrison. Mr. Van 
 Buren had voted in 1820 for freedom in Missouri, in 1821 
 for giving the suffrage to colored citizens in New York, 
 and in 1822 to prohibit the slave trade with Florida ; but 
 he had become a parasite of the political South. Neither 
 of the other candidates had done anything to commend 
 him to any opponent of the slave power. One department 
 of the paper was headed " Political," and was opened 
 " that our anti-slavery friends may have such information 
 on this subject as they ought to have to enable them to 
 vote understandingly. . . . Abolitionists ought to desire to 
 see in office men who go for right first, for expediency 
 next, no matter in what party they may be found." (June 
 10.) He could not understand a man s not voting or 
 believing one way and voting another. " Virtuous prin 
 ciple can not exist without correspondent action. The 
 sun can not be separated from its light and warmth." 
 Sept. 23, 1836, he wrote: "Neither of the candidates (for 
 the presidency) will turn to the cause of freedom until the 
 people turn, and either of them will when they do. . . . 
 If abolitionists unite themselves to either of the existing 
 parties they will weaken their influence in the great revo 
 lution that has begun. ... In all the elections the 
 safest rule would be to vote for those who are honest and 
 capable and who show the most independent and unwav 
 ering regard for our laws and common liberties." 
 
 October 28th he writes : " We can not forbear making 
 a remark as to the inconsistency of many of our abolition 
 friends when, in the late congressional elections, they voted 
 for Mr. Storer. How can they one day sign petitions to 
 Congress to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia 
 and on the next vote for one who had declared Congress 
 ought to have nothing to do in the matter?" He warns 
 
THE EDITOR. 233 
 
 them that such inconsistency will retard their success and 
 possibly prevent it. Owing to the active efforts of Mr. 
 Birney and the trifling difference in the numerical strength 
 of parties Mr. Storer was defeated. 
 
 In Appleton s " Cyclopaedia of American Biography " 
 Mr. Storer is said to have declined a renomination. He 
 ran and was beaten. 
 
 December 30th he tells abolitionists that under certain 
 circumstances " it became their religious duty to resort to 
 political action." At this period of his career there is 
 nothing tending to prove that he contemplated the forma 
 tion of an independent party. Public opinion, even among 
 professed anti-slavery men, was not yet ripe for such a 
 movement. Xor was it yet a necessity. It seemed prac 
 ticable at that time to influence the action of existing 
 parties by using the abolition vote as a balance of power. 
 Taking as texts the series of resolutions passed by the 
 Cincinnati mob meeting of January, he published a series 
 of articles in defense of the liberty of the press. They 
 were in the form of letters addressed to Judge John C. 
 Wright, the author of the resolutions. The judge read 
 them and never attended a mob meeting afterward. The 
 articles were widely copied by the press, and their argu 
 ments contributed largely to open the eyes of publishers 
 and editors to their own danger and to bring a sound 
 public opinion to bear on Congress. 
 
 His most powerful editorials were given to the demon 
 stration of the harmony of abolition measures with inter 
 state law and the national Constitution, a demonstration 
 never before attempted. They ran through a series of 
 numbers, were carefully prepared, and, after revision, 
 were reprinted in pamphlet form and distributed among 
 anti-slavery lecturers and speakers. Partly historical and 
 partly legal, they vindicated the founders of the Constitu 
 tion from the charge of having entered into a compact to 
 
JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 perpetuate slavery, proving by their membership of aboli 
 tion societies and the early abolition laws in several of the 
 States and by other facts that the general understanding 
 or implied compact among the framers of the Constitu 
 tion was that slavery should be abolished in all the States 
 before or soon after 1808. Then, in an analysis of the 
 instrument itself, he vindicated it from the charge of 
 guaranteeing slavery. The argument in these articles 
 was, in its main lines, identical with that so ably elabo 
 rated and published in 1845 in book-form by Lysander 
 Spooner, of Boston. It was generally adopted by anti- 
 slavery lecturers and writers, and it contributed greatty to 
 keep the current of anti-slavery effort within constitu 
 tional channels. The rejection of it by a few professional 
 reformers of the Boston school led them by easy grada 
 tions into the heresy of " the Constitution a covenant with 
 hell " and its corollary, disunionism. 
 
 The power of Congress to abolish slavery in the Dis 
 trict of Columbia, the freedom of a slave brought, and not 
 escaping, into a free State, the necessity of enacting per 
 sonal-liberty laws in the free States, the necessity of pre 
 cautions against the annexation of Texas, and all the 
 means of resisting the encroachments of the slave power 
 were vigorously and frequently discussed. 
 
 The proceedings in Congress were closely watched and 
 reported, and praise bestowed upon the members of Con 
 gress who were defending the right of petition and the 
 freedom of the mails ; among w r hom were Senator Thomas 
 Morris, and Kepresentatives Adams, Evans, and Slade. 
 Every member of a State Legislature who stood for the 
 right was honorably mentioned ; Leicester King s speech 
 against the " Black Laws " of Ohio was published and 
 specially commended. The action of each church on 
 slavery was duly noticed. The Michigan Synod, in 183G, 
 declared itself for " immediate abolition," as also the Re- 
 
THE EDITOR. 235 
 
 formed Presbyterian Church which had admitted no slave 
 holder to membership since the year 1800. It was noted 
 that the majority of preachers belonging to the New Eng 
 land and New Hampshire Conferences of the Methodist 
 Church were abolitionists. The discussion of slavery in 
 the Methodist General Conference at Cincinnati in May 
 was reported with hearty appreciation of the noble efforts 
 of Rev. Orange Scott and Rev. George Storrs in behalf of 
 the right. All anti-slavery movements were chronicled. 
 In short, the "Philanthropist," within its scope, was a 
 well-edited paper ; and, in all that related to the Constitu 
 tion and laws it was the leader and representative of the 
 conservative anti-slavery sentiment of the country. In 
 the Northwestern States its influence was without a rival 
 in the anti-slavery press. There were numerous laudatory 
 notices, both in prose and verse, of the editor in the news 
 papers of the day, but these were never copied into the 
 " Philanthropist " while he had charge of it. He had not 
 the infirmity of vanity. 
 
 The judgment of intelligent contemporaries on the 
 paper and its editor may be inferred from the following 
 extracts taken from a pamplet letter of twenty- three pages 
 dated November 1, 1836, written to Mr. Birney by Dr. Will 
 iam Ellery Channing, the celebrated Boston theologian. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR : I have not the pleasure of knowing you person 
 ally, but your history and writings have given me an interest in 
 you which induces and encourages me to address you with some 
 thing of the freedom of acquaintance. I feel myself attracted to 
 the friends of humanity and freedom, however distant ; and when 
 such are exposed by their principles to peril and loss, and stand 
 firm in the evil day, I take pleasure in expressing to them my 
 sympathy and admiration. . . . Liberty suffers from nothing 
 more than from licentiousness, and I fear that abolitionists are 
 not to be absolved from the abuse of it. It seems to me that 
 they are particularly open to one reproach their writings have 
 been blemished by a spirit of intolerance, sweeping censure, and 
 
236 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 rash, injurious judgment. I do not mean to bring this charge 
 against all their publications. Yours, as far as I have seen them, 
 are honorable exceptions ; and others, I know, deserve the same 
 praise. But abolitionism, in the main, has spoken in an intoler 
 ant tone, and in this way has repelled many good minds, given 
 advantage to its opponents, and diminished the energy and effect 
 of its appeals. I should rejoice to see it purified from this stain * 
 (P- 8). 
 
 The above letter appeared in the second volume of 
 Channing s complete works. The preface, dated Decem 
 ber 20, 1836, begins : 
 
 The following letter was prepared for the "Philanthropist," 
 an anti-slavery paper, published at Cincinnati, and edited by 
 James G. Birney, a gentleman highly respected for his intellect 
 ual and moral endowments. 
 
 The first campaign of the slave-power against the liber 
 ties of the country began with the opening of Congress in 
 December, 1835, and ended with the presidential election 
 in November, 1836. The results may be summed up as 
 follows : 
 
 Victories The adoption by the House of Representa 
 tives of the rule known as the gag-law and the admission 
 of Arkansas as a slave State. 
 
 . Defeats Failure to pass any -law prohibiting anti- 
 slavery publications or their transmission through the 
 mails or investing the States (Calhoun s plan) with the 
 legal right to prescribe what publications might be deliv 
 ered from the post-offices within their respective limits ; 
 failure to induce any free State to pass laws for the sup- 
 
 * Dr. Channing s criticism was intended, no doubt, to apply to the 
 " Liberator," published in Boston. It does not apply to the writings of 
 Judge William Jay, or to those of Joshua Leavitt, or of Theodore I). 
 Weld, or of William Goodell. The publications issued at New York by 
 the American Anti-Slavery Society were marked by candor and freedom 
 from the exaggeration of fanaticism. 
 
THE EDITOR. 237 
 
 pression of anti-slavery papers or for the delivery of abo 
 litionists to slave-State governors on demand ; failure to 
 suppress any anti-slavery paper by mob violence ; and fail 
 ure to get Congress to vote that it had no power to abolish 
 slavery in the District of Columbia. 
 
 The reaction at the North against the demands of the 
 slave power indicated a state of public sentiment which 
 made politicians afraid to vote for them ; it was a very un 
 certain factor in the pending political elections. 
 
 The Legislature of Vermont voted that " neither Con 
 gress nor the State governments have any Constitutional 
 right to abridge the free expression of opinions or the 
 transmission of them through the public mails," and that 
 Congress do possess the power to abolish slavery in the 
 District of Columbia. 
 
 The Legislature of Massachusetts sustained by strong 
 resolutions the right to petition, and the right of Congress 
 to abolish slavery in the District, and declared slavery " a 
 great social, moral, and political evil." These were voted 
 in the House by a majority of 378 to 16. 
 
 The Judiciary Committee of the lower branch of the 
 Pennsylvania Legislature reported (Thaddeus Stevens, 
 chairman) the following resolution : " That Congress does 
 possess the constitutional power, and it is expedient to 
 abolish slavery and the slave trade within the District of 
 Columbia." 
 
 Governor Ritner, of that State, in his annual message, 
 reprimanded " the base bowing of the knee to the dark 
 spirit of slavery." 
 
 There were numerous other indications of a rising 
 spirit of resistance at the North, and the leaders of the 
 slave power thought it wiser to postpone effort until after 
 the presidential election. Their storming party had failed, 
 and they proposed to proceed more cautiously. 
 
 Mr. Birney was greatly encouraged by the result. " The 
 
238 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 people," he wrote, " are sound at heart. They love liberty 
 at home more than slavery in the South." In a letter, 
 published October 28th, "To the Slave-holders of the 
 South," he says : 
 
 If it [slavery] must be relinquished, as I now believe it will 
 be in a very few years, I pray you that you so act in the South 
 and so control the zeal of your friends in the North that it may 
 be relinquished bloodlessly, peaceably, happily. 
 
 In his public speeches about that date, he expressed 
 his conviction that slavery would not endure more than 
 about twenty-five years; that the encroachments of the 
 slave power would be resisted step by step by a constantly 
 increasing force ; that it would gain no more clean victo 
 ries, and would finally be overwhelmed ; that the struggle 
 would be prolonged if Florida and Texas should be ad 
 mitted as slave States ; and that it might end in war unless 
 public opinion in the free States should speedily be re 
 formed so as to exclude " dough faces " from Congress and 
 place the National Government firmly on the side of free 
 dom. To restrict slavery to its existing limits, add free 
 States as the growth of population might require, and en 
 force the law of freedom in the Territories and District of 
 Columbia, was sufficient in his view to lead to the abolition 
 of slavery by the voluntary action of the slave States them 
 selves. 
 
 For the first ten months of 183G Mr. Birney s labors 
 were chiefly editorial. His duties, however, in connection 
 with the executive committees of the State and national 
 anti-slavery societies and as a public speaker became so 
 imperative that, in the summer, the minor duties of the 
 editorial department were devolved upon Dr. Gamaliel 
 Bailey. In October, Dr. Bailey was announced as assistant 
 editor ; and although Mr. Birney retained the control of 
 the course of the paper until he removed to New York in 
 
THE EDITOR. 239 
 
 the last week of September, 1837, his contributions grad 
 ually became limited to the leaders only. On his removal 
 Dr. Bailey * succeeded to the editorship. 
 
 * The doctor had been reared by pious parents. They were members of 
 the Methodist Protestant Church, which had never admitted slave-holders 
 to membership or the communion. From boyhood he had been an im 
 mediate abolitionist. In 1834 he had fraternized with the Lane Seminary 
 students. In 1847 he transferred his paper to Washington city, changed 
 its name to the " National Era," and managed it with great ability as the 
 organ of the political abolitionists. " Uncle Tom s Cabin " was first pub 
 lished in his paper in chapters. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 THE MOB AT CINCINNATI, JULY, IS 36 PRO- SLAVERY 
 MOBS. 
 
 SOO:N" after the mob meeting at the court-house in 
 January, the editor of the " Philanthropist " announced 
 in its columns that after the month of March the paper 
 would be printed and published at Cincinnati. It had 
 been found impracticable to rent a building in the city at 
 an earlier date. At the appointed time the office was 
 opened in the upper stories of the building on the north 
 east corner of Main and Seventh Streets. The situation 
 was central and on the chief business street. The re 
 moval of the press and types was effected by daylight and 
 without concealment. It excited little interest. A po 
 liceman looked on from the opposite side of the street. 
 Passers-by asked a few questions, but there was no inter 
 ference. 
 
 From that time until the 12th of July following the 
 paper was published without molestation. A sign about 
 eighteen feet long and bearing the words " Anti-Slavery 
 Office " was conspicuous on the Main Street front of the 
 building. Abolition pamphlets and books were kept for 
 sale, and buyers and subscribers were constantly passing 
 in and out. Mr. Birney was there almost daily. His 
 figure was a familiar one on Main Street and in the cen 
 tral part of the city. He resided on the west side of Race 
 Street, the second door above Eighth. He lectured in the 
 
PRO-SLAVERY MOBS. 
 
 city and the suburbs, attended the Sixth Street Presby 
 terian Church regularly, and was known by sight to thou 
 sands of the inhabitants. He was uniformly treated with 
 respect, though he could not but be aware that he was 
 often pointed out to strangers as a person to be looked at. 
 For two months and twelve days not a single paragraph 
 appeared against him in any city newspaper and no move 
 ment was made against his press. July 12th (we quote 
 from the " Narrative of Eiotous Proceedings ") : 
 
 At midnight a band of thirty or forty men, including those 
 who stood as sentries at different points on the street, made an 
 assault on the premises of Mr. Pugh, the printer, scaled a high 
 wall by which the lot was inclosed, and with the aid of a ladder 
 and plank mounted the roof of the press-office. They then made 
 their way through a window on the roof into the room below, 
 intimidated into silence by threats of bodily violence a boy who 
 was asleep there, covered his head with the bed-clothes to pre 
 vent him from seeing who were the perpetrators, tore up the 
 paper that was prepared for that week s number of the "Philan 
 thropist," as well as a large part of the impression of a number 
 that had not been mailed, destroyed the ink, dismantled the 
 press, and carried away many of its principal parts. 
 
 Although about two hours were occupied in this vio 
 lence and the premises were on one of the principal streets 
 of the city and the noise made was great, no policeman 
 made his appearance. Three of the operatives in this 
 raid on property came from Covington, Ky., and a large 
 number of the band was made up of slave-holders who 
 were temporarily stopping at the city hotels. Joseph 
 Graham, a city salesman in the Southern trade and mem 
 ber of the Texas Aid Committee, was an active partici 
 pator. 
 
 On the morning of the 14th, a handbill headed " Abo 
 litionists beware ! " and menacing the abolitionists if they 
 should "re-establish their press," was placarded on the 
 12 
 
242 JAMES G. BIKXEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 street corners. It transpired afterward that this was writ 
 ten by Joseph Graham and printed in Covington. In the 
 afternoon the "Evening Post," edited by South Caro 
 linians, published an inflammatory article repeating the 
 threats of the handbill. On the 15th the " Philanthro 
 pist " appeared at its usual hour. In the afternoon Mr. 
 Birney and two friends called on Mayor Davies, and, on 
 his promise to issue- a suitable proclamation, deposited one 
 hundred dollars with him as a reward for the detection of 
 the rioters. The proclamation appeared next day and 
 contained the following paragraph : 
 
 And I do earnestly entreat those persons whose proceedings, 
 it is alleged, have prompted to the commission of the riot com 
 plained of, as they value the quiet of the city, to abstain from 
 the further prosecution of such measures as may have a tendency 
 to inflame the public mind and lead to acts of violence and dis 
 order, in contempt of the laws and disgraceful to the city. 
 
 This manifesto, so well calculated to assure the rioters 
 of his sympathy, reminded abolitionists that Mayor Davies 
 had presided at the mob meeting in January and had done 
 his best at that time to excite to violence. It appeared 
 also that in private conversations he had frequently de 
 clared his hopes that Mr. Birney would be mobbed, and 
 that on the night of the 12th instant the policeman on 
 the beat including the Anti-Slavery Office had been sent, 
 by the mayor s orders, to another part of the city. An in 
 terview with Mayor Davies to protest against his proclama 
 tion left the conviction on Mr. Birney s mind that no in 
 terference with the mob could be expected from that 
 official. On the 17th a handbill signed " Old Kentucky 
 was posted up in the streets, offering a reward for the de 
 livery of " one James G. Birney." That, too, was after 
 ward shown to have been the literary work of young 
 Graham. On the 18th the executive committee published 
 
PRO-SLAVERY MOBS. 243 
 
 a vigorous address to the people of Cincinnati. Its closing 
 words were : 
 
 We have now in some degree, from the force of circum 
 stances, committed to our custody the rights of every freeman in 
 Ohio, of their offspring, of our own. Shall we as cravens volun 
 tarily offer them up, sacrifices to the spirit of misrule and op 
 pression, or as American citizens contend for them till a force 
 which we can not withstand shall wrest them from our hands ? 
 The latter part of the alternative we have embraced with a full 
 determination by the help of God to maintain unimpaired the 
 freedom of speech and the liberty of the press, the palladium 
 of our rights. 
 
 The interpretation put upon this address was that it 
 meant resistance by force. The little band of mobocrats 
 halted and called for recruits. The politicians came to 
 their aid. The "Whig," the "Republican" and the 
 " Post " published inflammatory articles daily. The " Ga 
 zette," Charles Hammond, editor, said nothing editorially, 
 but published anonymous cards as advertisements. One 
 of the articles in the " Whig " suggested " dangling from 
 a bough " and a " dress of tar and feathers." An anony 
 mous advertisement appeared in the papers calling a meet 
 ing of citizens at six o clock, Saturday evening, the 23d, at 
 the Lower Market, " to decide whether they will permit the 
 publication or distribution of abolition papers in this city," 
 and naming forty-two* respectable citizens to prepare 
 resolutions to be voted on. The place and time indicated 
 an intention to get together a crowd of workingmen and 
 Kentuckians and have the mob after the adjournment. 
 Xo public meeting had ever been held at the Lower 
 Market. The meeting was not more than one third part 
 as large as was expected by its projectors not more than 
 
 * Of those named, twenty-nine took no part in preparing the reso 
 lutions or in the meeting or in the mob proceedings. 
 
244 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 one thousand persons were present, including boys, market- 
 dealers, passers-by, drawn by the music of a band, the idly 
 curious and a goodly number of abolitionists ; the mob 
 party, including Kentuckians, numbered between two and 
 three hundred. The respectable merchants who had been 
 expected to act as officers were not present. A change 
 of programme was, therefore, made ; William Burke, the 
 Democratic city postmaster, Morgan Neville, the Demo 
 cratic receiver, and Timothy Walker, a prominent Whig 
 and expectant office-holder, were elected president, vice- 
 president, and secretary. 
 
 After passing resolutions prepared, it was said, by Mr. 
 Neville, including one pledging the persons present to 
 " use all lawful means to discountenance and suppress 
 every publication in this city which advocates the modern 
 doctrines of abolitionism," it was thought best to post 
 pone the suppression. An impromptu resolution was ac 
 cordingly passed, authorizing the chair to appoint a com 
 mittee of twelve, which, with the officers of the meeting, 
 should " wait upon James G. Birney and his associates 
 ... to remonstrate with him," etc. 
 
 This unexpected move was designed, no doubt, by 
 Burke, Neville, and Walker, to force prominent Whigs 
 to come to the front and take their part of the responsi 
 bility. The chair appointed twelve citizens, nine of them 
 Whigs. Two of the twelve did not act. The other ten 
 were Jacob Burnet, Josiah Lawrence, Robert Buchanan, 
 Nicholas Longworth, 0. M. Spencer, David Loring, David 
 T. Disney, Thomas W. Bakewell, John P. Foote, and 
 William Greene. Most of these were wealthy men, iden 
 tified with politics and contributors to the funds of their 
 respective parties. Having been forced by Burke s adroit 
 ness into a false position, the Whigs had not the manhood 
 to refuse to stand in it. David T. Disney was a Demo 
 cratic politician, and both he and William Greene, with 
 
PRO-SLAVERY MOBS. 245 
 
 Joseph Graham, were then actively engaged in forwarding 
 arms and men to aid the Texans. The committee began 
 its remonstrances, every member of it knowing that Mr. 
 Birney would not lay down his rights at their bidding. 
 A week followed of correspondence and interviews, with a 
 running accompaniment of daily incendiary articles in the 
 " Whig," " Republican," and " Post," ending in a peremp 
 tory demand by the committee of discontinuance, and a 
 firm negative answer by the executive committee of the 
 Anti- Slavery Society. A part only of this answer was 
 published by the Market House Committee. The follow 
 ing is one of the omitted paragraphs : 
 
 We believe that a large portion of the people of Cincinnati 
 are utterly opposed to the prostration of the liberty of the press, 
 and that there is among us, whatever may be said to the con 
 trary, enough of correct and sober feeling to uphold the laws, if 
 our puNic officers faithfully discharge their duty. 
 
 On the morning of July 30th, it being Saturday, and the 
 night the best of the week to get up a mob, the Market- 
 House Committee published in every city daily (except the 
 " Gazette," which refused to publish it before Monday) the 
 failure of its "remonstrances." With the conventional 
 hypocrisy of the mobocrats of the period, they closed their 
 announcement in the following words : 
 
 They owe it to themselves and those whom they represent to 
 express the utmost abhorrence of everything like violence ; and 
 earnestly to implore their fellow-citizens to abstain therefrom. 
 
 How slyly these Tartuffes must have smiled together 
 when they signed that passage ! 
 
 After tendering to the mayor, on Friday, the services 
 of themselves and friends for the preservation of order as 
 special policemen, and being unable to obtain from him 
 any assurance that he would take any steps whatever 
 against the mob party, the majority of the executive com- 
 
246 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 mittee decided to leave to him the entire responsibility. 
 Mr. Pugh, the owner of the printing-press and type, was 
 a Quaker, and he absolutely refused to have any armed 
 resistance made to the expected mob. 
 
 At six o clock P. M., a preparatory meeting of the mob 
 operators was held, Joseph Graham presiding. It was re 
 solved : 1, that the press should be destroyed and types 
 thrown in the street ; and, 2, that Mr. Birney should be 
 notified to leave the city in twenty-four hours. About 
 fifty persons were present, mostly clerks and Kentuckians. 
 Of these, ten or twelve were stout workmen, who took no 
 part in the proceedings, and had the air of men receiving 
 orders to do work for which they were paid. The follow 
 ing account of the mob was given in the " Gazette " of 
 the following Monday : 
 
 DESTRUCTION OF PROPERTY. 
 
 On Saturday night, July 30th, very soon after dark, a concourse 
 of citizens assembled at the corner of Main and Seventh Streets 
 in this city, and, upon a short consultation, broke open the 
 printing-office of the "Philanthropist," the abolition paper, scat 
 tered the type into the streets, tore down the presses, and com 
 pletely dismantled the office. It was owned by A. Pugh, a 
 peaceable and orderly printer, who published the " Philanthro 
 pist " for the Anti-Slavery Society of Ohio. From the printing- 
 office, the crowd went to the house of A. Pugh, where they sup 
 posed there were other printing materials, but found none nor 
 offered any violence. Then to the Messrs Donaldson s, where 
 ladies only were at home. The residence of Mr. Birney, tin- 
 editor, was then visited. No person w r as at home but a youth,* 
 
 * I was the youth and seventeen years of age at that time. I was 
 alone, my mother with the younger children being then on a two months 
 visit to relatives in Kentucky, and my father having gone to Lebanon, 
 Ohio, to deliver the third of a series of Saturday evening anti-slavery 
 lectures. On seeing the crowd approaching, which it did without outcry, 
 and quietly as if under control of leaders, I stepped out of the front 
 door, closing it behind me and remaining on the door-sill. Joseph Gra- 
 
PRO-SLAVERY MOBS. 217 
 
 upon whose explanations the house was left undisturbed. A 
 shout was raised for Dr. Colby s, and the concourse returned to 
 Main Street, proposing to pile up the contents of the office in the 
 street and make a bonfire of them. Joseph Graham mounted 
 the pile and advised against burning it, lest the houses near 
 might take fire. A portion of the press was then dragged down 
 the Main Street, broken up, and thrown into the river. The Ex 
 change was then visited and refreshments taken. . . . An attack 
 was then made upon the residence of some blacks in Church 
 Alley ; two guns were fired upon the assailants and they re 
 coiled. ... It was some time before a rally could be again made, 
 several voices declaring that they did not wish to endanger them 
 selves. A second attack was made, the houses were found empty 
 and their interior contents destroyed. It was now about mid 
 night, when the party parading down Main Street was addressed 
 by the mayor, who had leen a silent spectator of the destruction of 
 the printing-office. He told them they might as well now dis 
 perse. A dispersion to a considerable extent followed. 
 
 The mayor s speech was reported in full. It was short. 
 The most striking passage was : 
 
 We have done enough for one night. . . . The abolitionists 
 themselves must be convinced by this time what public sentiment 
 is, and that it will not do any longer to disregard or set it at 
 naught. ... As you can not punish the guilty without endan 
 gering the innocent, I advise you all to go home. 
 
 Sunday evening, a small crowd of persons collected on 
 Main Street, opposite the Franklin boarding-house. It 
 was rumored that Mr. Birney was there. The " Gazette " 
 
 ham, who appeared to bo in command, asked me: "Who are you?" I 
 gave him my name. " Where is your fat ier?" " In Warren County." 
 " Is anybody else in the house ? " " Xo." He turned to consult with his 
 friends, and I stepped quickly inside, turned the key in the door-lock, and 
 took my stand on the first stair platform, to give a due reception to the 
 expected intruders. I had within reach about forty rounds. After con 
 sulting several minutes, the crowd moved away quietly. From beginning 
 to end, there was in its manner no indication of popular excitement. 
 
248 JAMES G. BIRXEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 of August 4 reported the following most extraordinary 
 act on the part of Mayor Davies : The mayor, with one or 
 two citizens, " officiated as a domiciliary committee to 
 examine the house, and reported that the object of search 
 was not there.* Mr. Birney returned to the city on Mon 
 day, and remained there without molestation. 
 
 The extraordinary conduct of the mayor illustrates the 
 folly of placing in command of a city police force a person 
 of neither social standing nor pecuniary responsibility nor 
 regard for law. Davies was a servile parasite of the poli 
 ticians who had placed him in office. On Monday, how 
 ever, public opinion declared itself strongly against his 
 course. Several volunteer companies organized to preserve 
 order, and the mayor reluctantly swore them in as special 
 policemen. Disorder ceased at once. Forty leading citi 
 zens, including Charles Hammond, Salmon P. Chase, 
 William D. Gallagher, Thomas II. Shreve, E. Hulse, M. 
 Lyon, E. W. Chester, James Calhoun, and J. M. McCul- 
 lough, and not including a single political wire-worker, 
 signed the following call : 
 
 PUBLIC MEETING. 
 
 The friends of order, of law and the Constitution, having no 
 connection with the Anti- Slavery Society, and who are opposed 
 to the action of a mob under any possible circumstances, are re 
 quested to meet this afternoon (Tuesday) at three o clock at the 
 court-house. 
 
 It is useless for our purpose to enter into further de 
 tails relating to this mob. A " Narrative of the late Riot 
 ous Proceedings," etc. (forty-six octavo pages) was written 
 and published soon after by Mr. Birney, and was widely 
 circulated throughout the country. 
 
 Several facts must be evident to every careful reader of 
 the foregoing statements : 1, that the movement was be 
 gun by Southern visitors and a few irresponsible and 
 
PRO-SLAVERY MOBS. 249 
 
 obscure persons in trade and would have failed if it had 
 not been countenanced by three political daily newspapers 
 and by persons prominent both in trade and politics ; 2, 
 that the operatives were men hired to do the work and 
 not men who volunteered for the purpose under a strong 
 popular excitement ; and, 3, that the success of the 
 mob was assured in advance by the countenance and co 
 operation of the mayor. 
 
 In the leading editorial of the first number of the 
 " Philanthropist " issued after the mob, it is stated : 
 
 A good-looking young man, while the mob were in the office, 
 proclaimed from a conspicuous place if six others would join 
 him, he would put a stop to the violence. But it was known the 
 mayor was there, that he was a quiet spectator of what was doing. 
 This discouraged all. Had he summoned aid he would have 
 been instantly joined by hundreds. 
 
 In the same article Mr. Birney stated that no Irish 
 Catholic,* or Englishman, or German was concerned in 
 the mob. At that time about half the population of Cin 
 cinnati were foreigners. The Germans alone numbered 
 about ten thousand. He estimated the adult American 
 male population of the city at five thousand, and of this 
 number that not more than two hundred and fifty could be 
 found willing to join in destroying an anti-slavery print 
 ing press. This was a dispassionate view of the facts. 
 And yet Cincinnati, by its proximity to Kentucky and 
 its large Southern trade and great number of Southern 
 visitors, especially in the summer, was more liable to 
 mob violence than any other city in the free States. 
 That city and Alton, 111., were the only two Xorthern 
 cities in which a prominent abolitionist could reasonably 
 
 * Bishop Purcell, afterward archbishop, was an Irish Catholic and 
 favored anti-slavery opinions. His younger brother, a priest and an able 
 man, was an abolitionist of the O Connell type. 
 
250 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 entertain apprehensions of any attempt upon his life or 
 person. 
 
 And here, in the interest of historical truth, I wish to 
 enter a protest against the customary conventional exag 
 gerations of ( the Northern mobs in " abolition times." 
 Having lived in Cincinnati eleven of the years between 
 1835 and 1848, and having seen every mob in that city 
 and a good many in the other parts of Ohio, and heard the 
 facts touching those in other States during that period, I 
 must say they were, as a general thing, not dangerous 
 either to life or limb, or beyond the power of the police to 
 suppress. Meetings were assailed by missiles thrown by 
 thoughtless boys, prompted secretly by their elders. The 
 smashing a few panes of glass in a church or town-hall 
 was not uncommon. It was a good practical joke to throw 
 eggs into a congregation and run away to escape punish 
 ment. Speakers were rudely interrupted. But these 
 minor forms of mobocratic annoyance were in a ratio prob 
 ably of less than one to a hundred anti-slavery meetings. 
 More serious ones, though much talked of, were very rare. 
 " Tar and feathers " figured largely in newspaper articles 
 and pro-slavery speeches ; but of the thousands of anti- 
 slavery lecturers one only was subjected to that indignity, 
 and that was as early as 1834. Not a man was hurt seri 
 ously in New England. The profuse rhetoric of certain 
 Massachusetts writers about "abolition martyrs" might 
 lead a careless reader to imagine that hecatombs of men 
 were slaughtered on the altar of slavery ; but I remember 
 no abolitionist but Love joy who lost his life. The mobs 
 were misdemeanors at law and political crimes, being aimed 
 at the freedom of the press and of speech, but very few 
 persons were hurt. The famous Utica mob of 1835 did 
 no physical damage to anybody. Pennsylvania Hall was 
 burned in 1838, and the houses of the Tappans were sacked 
 in 1834 ; but these mobs were especially dangerous because 
 
PRO-SLAVERY MOBS. 251 
 
 they consisted chiefly of slave-holders and their hirelings, 
 aided by the idle rabble always ready for any excitement 
 which is without danger. 
 
 Though homicidal in intent, they in fact made no 
 martyrs. In the dangerous class of mobs must be placed 
 those excited against Englishmen where traditional patriotic 
 hatred whetted to keenness pro-slavery zeal. If the Boston 
 mob of October, 1835, had seized George Thompson, he 
 would probably not have escaped alive; but no Boston 
 pro-slavery mob from 1830 to 1850 ever harmed any one 
 personally. The most dangerous mob at Cincinnati was 
 the one in 1841, against the English confectioner, Burnett. 
 He was a zealous abolitionist, bold as a lion, and had a 
 sharp tongue which he used freely against slave-holders 
 and their abettors. He was generous and genial, and had 
 warm friends. Having rescued a slave girl and sent her 
 safely to Canada, he jeered at the masters and some con 
 stables w r ho were seeking for the fugitive. The anti- 
 English mania was aroused. A mob collected on three 
 successive evenings to take Burnett from his house and 
 hang him. He disdained to run ; besides, his person was 
 so generally known that he could hardly have escaped. 
 Twelve friends helped him and his two sons to defend his 
 house. The numerous assaults were repulsed by throwing 
 lumps of stove coal from the upper windows. A large 
 quantity was daily transferred from the cellar to the upper 
 floors. Firearms were reserved for the last resort. Donn 
 Piatt, late editor of " Belford s Magazine," was one of the 
 garrison, and the writer personally knows he did his duty. 
 Many of the assailants were severely injured ; but the 
 assailed, owing to the adjustment of slanting barricades in 
 front of the windows and the great strength of the lower 
 door and window blinds, escaped with a few bruises. On 
 the third night, at a very late hour, the mayor interfered ; 
 but not until the garrison had threatened to use its fire- 
 
252 JAMES G. BIRXEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 arms. Such a conflict never took place, it is believed, in 
 any other city. Mayor Spencer was a brother of 0. M. 
 Spencer. He was a bitter anti-abolitionist, and probably 
 thought it desirable that Burnett and his friends should 
 be worsted. At any rate, he let the mob run for three 
 nights, and the " anti-Burnett mob " took rank with the 
 " anti-bank mob " of a previous date.* 
 
 In several accepted accounts of the early struggle 
 against the slave power, James G. Birney is represented as 
 having often suffered from mob-violence ; this is not true. 
 No man ever laid an unfriendly hand upon him during 
 his public career. A few of his meetings were interrupted 
 or disturbed; and, on one occasion some missiles were 
 thrown at him from a distance as he rode out of a town, 
 but he was untouched. He used to say that, notwith 
 standing statements of the great number of anti-abolition 
 mobs, not a single abolitionist had been mobbed half as 
 often as John Wesley, the preacher of Methodism a com 
 parison which he thought was honorable to the American 
 people. He published a list of more than thirty mobs 
 against Wesley. If he had survived until the present time, 
 he might have proved that the saloon interest has quad 
 rupled the mobs excited in the North by the slave power 
 and its parasites ; and that the prohibitionists number 
 three martyrs among their prominent men to one on the 
 roll of abolitionists. While he exposed the persecutions 
 directed against himself and other abolitionists, he did not 
 exaggerate them or celebrate them in anniversary meet 
 ings ; and he checked a certain tendency among his friends 
 to place him on the pedestal of a martyr. He refused to 
 pose in that way. The numerous rewards offered in the 
 South for the abduction of leading abolitionists caused 
 
 * In the mobs against negroes in Northern cities many lives were 
 sacrificed. The remarks in the text are not intended to apply to them or 
 to the fighting in Kansas. 
 
PRO-SLAVERY MOBS. 253 
 
 him no apprehension. He regarded them as attempts at 
 intimidation made by weak men. An abduction, he argued, 
 would be a serious blunder on the part of the slave power, 
 and the leaders would not permit it ; nothing would have 
 been easier than to seize him by night and take him into 
 Kentucky, but such an act would rouse the whole North 
 as one man. All he could possibly apprehend was assassi 
 nation, perpetrated by some slave-holding zealot, crazed by 
 drink or under cover of some mob disturbance an act 
 that would be promptly disclaimed by the pro-slavery 
 leaders with suitable expressions of abhorrence. 
 
 For a short time after the re-establishment of his 
 paper in September, 1836, he exercised some caution in 
 exposing himself at night ; but this soon ceased. His 
 temperament did not make him susceptible to panic 
 terrors. 
 
 After the destruction of his paper in July, the notices 
 of the leading papers of the country were generally kindly. 
 We have room for two only. The New York " Evening 
 Post " said : 
 
 He is a man of great ardor and resolution of character, and is 
 not likely to give up his design but with his life. . . . His ene 
 mies will probably find that nothing short of murder will effect 
 their object. 
 
 The New York " Journal of Commerce " said : 
 
 Judge Birney s paper was ably conducted, and, although an 
 advocate of abolition, was managed with far greater moderation 
 than several papers at the East we could mention engaged in the 
 same cause. Judge Birney himself is a man of very estimable 
 character and possesses talents of a high order. 
 
 Webb, of the " Courier and Enquirer," was character 
 istically truculent and coarse : 
 
 They are a poor miserable set of driveling dastards who are 
 as bold as so many Parolles at a distance from danger, but who 
 
254: JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 always run into the shavings * like William Lloyd Garrison when 
 their own poor pates are in danger. 
 
 The popular reaction against the mob was general 
 through the North. Mr. Birney wrote in November, 
 " The great majority of the people are sound on free dis 
 cussion and a free press." 
 
 After the October elections, the Dayton " Republican," 
 a Whig paper, rejoiced that " the Whig mobocrats " of Cin 
 cinnati had been rebuked " at the polls. Not a mother s 
 son of the whole batch of Whig candidates in Hamilton 
 County is elected." It expressed the hope that " leading 
 and influential Whigs " would not again act as " mobbers." 
 
 The estimate of Mr. Birney in 1836 by his anti-slavery 
 contemporaries may be inferred from the following ex 
 tracts from important documents. In the next annual 
 report of the American Aiiti- Slavery Society six pages 
 were given to the mobbing of the " Philanthropist." Of 
 that paper it was said : 
 
 Though fully and unflinchingly advocating the doctrines of 
 this society, it could never be reproached for want of forbearance 
 or courtesy in its language. Even its enemies were obliged to 
 concede that its mode of conducting the discussion was unexcep 
 tionable. 
 
 The New England Anti-Slavery Convention of that 
 year, in a formal resolution, mentioned Mr. Birney as one 
 
 * This allusion to Mr. Garrison s concealment of himself in a car 
 penter s shop from the Boston mob in 1835 is inaccurate. Mr. Garrison, 
 in his account of the mob, says : " We then went up-stairs, and, finding 
 a vacancy in one corner of the room, I got into it and he and a young 
 lad piled up some boards in front of me to shield me from observation." 
 (See his "Life," ii, 20.) In 1833 Mr. Garrison had written an article 
 beginning: "To the charge made against me by the cowardly ruffian 
 who conducts the * Courier and Enquirer, and by the miserable liar and 
 murderous hypocrite of the New York Commercial Advertiser, " etc. 
 (Garrison s " Life," ii, 387.) 
 
PRO-SLAVERY MOBS. 255 
 
 " who so nobly volunteers to jeopard his life in the midst 
 of dangers and persecutions," and declared " That the 
 convention give their unqualified approbation to that dis 
 tinguished friend of the slave, James G. Birney," etc. 
 
 The New York Anti-Slavery Society, through its ex 
 ecutive committee, published an address of sympathy with 
 its Ohio coadjutors. In this it said : 
 
 The well-known character of the press and editor, . . . the 
 universal meed of approbation for candor, courtesy, and kindness 
 that have been awarded them from all parties from opponents 
 as w r ell as friends enhances in no small degree the moral force 
 and virtue of the demonstration that has been made. . . . You 
 are in the forefront of the battle. . . . Your brethren are looking 
 anxiously toward you. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 LIFE IN CINCINNATI. 
 
 183G-1837. 
 
 Soox after Mr. Birney s removal to Cincinnati he had 
 been made a member of the executive committee of the 
 State Anti-Slavery Society. As he possessed the entire 
 confidence of his associates and was the only member who 
 gave his time and attention to the common cause, the 
 management of the business naturally fell into his hands. 
 It is no easy matter at this day to appreciate the delicacy 
 of his varied duties. One of them was to select lecturers 
 and give them the stamp of official approval, thus indi 
 rectly discrediting numerous volunteer speakers who were 
 working without good results or who did not properly 
 represent the anti-slavery cause. In the preceding ten years 
 certain zealous anti-slavery clergymen had wasted much 
 precious time in expounding the true meaning of doulos 
 in the Bible, and expended much learning on slavery 
 among the Jews in the time of Moses and much energy 
 in arguing against race prejudice as a sin, as if such a 
 prejudice had ever yielded to argument. A few of the 
 speakers were eccentrics. In that era of religious and 
 reformatory excitement and new ideas of progress, mate 
 rial and moral, the natural drift of highly emotional per 
 sons of ascetic temperament and defective logical power 
 was into abolitionism, and beyond it into fads and whim- 
 seys without end. 
 
LIFE IN CINCINNATI. 257 
 
 When fluency of declamation and the vanity of notori 
 ety were added to their other qualities it was very difficult 
 to keep them from the abolition platform. Lacking 
 knowledge of history, politics, law, and the Constitution, 
 they resorted to personalities, abusive epithets against 
 slave-holders, the Church, and the national Constitution, 
 and to logical inferences from the Declaration of Inde 
 pendence and the Ee volution of 1776 of the right of 
 slaves to rise and cut their masters throats, thus exasper 
 ating public sentiment against the abolition cause by giv 
 ing prominence to false or collateral and unimportant 
 issues which were offensive to good taste, humanity, and 
 patriotism. These men did great harm to the abolition 
 cause. Some of them were eccentric in their personal 
 appearance. One believed he resembled Christ, and wore 
 long hair parted in the middle and flowing in curls over 
 his shoulders ; another sported a sombrero hat and a long 
 beard like a Mexican bandit ; and a third wore no hat at 
 all. Some had adopted Dr. Sylvester Graham s recently 
 advanced theories of living. They ate coarse bread and 
 fruits but no meat, drank no stimulants, not even tea and 
 coffee, and, even if delicate, took cold shower-baths every 
 morning, winter and summer. Some abjured marriage ; 
 others thought it wrong to punish or even restrain chil 
 dren. One anticipated the Christian Scientists of the 
 present day. He was becoming perfect like Christ, and 
 expected to be able in time to cure disease and work 
 miracles. He was as abstemious as an Oriental hermit. 
 All these well-meaning persons, who were bringing aboli 
 tion into discredit with people of common sense, were 
 quietly and tactfully laid aside by Mr. Birney. They 
 were not invited to meetings or conventions, and if they 
 appeared at them were ignored. He believed the staff of 
 accomplishment was in other hands. The men he select 
 ed to represent the cause to the public were men esteemed 
 
258 JAMES G. BIKNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 for practical ability, integrity, and knowledge of public 
 affairs. They were Messrs. Thome, Streeter, William T. 
 Allen, of Alabama, Lyman, "Weed, Barber, Timothy Hud 
 son, and Kev. John Rankin. These were the paid lectur 
 ers. All of them were able speakers and did much to lay 
 deep and broad foundations for future anti-slavery action. 
 He adopted a system of appointing as local lecturers with 
 out pay good men in the different counties of the State. 
 On this list w r ere such men as Hon. Thomas Morris, Rev. 
 Henry Cowles, Albert A. Guthrie, Rev. James H. Dickey, 
 Rev. Dyer Burgess, and Dr. \V. W. Bancroft. These names 
 are given from memory. There were many others. 
 
 As a result of this systematic effort in Ohio, eighty 
 anti-slavery societies were formed in that State in the 
 twelve months beginning with May, 183 G. In Indiana, 
 where no such effort was made, one society only was 
 formed in the same period. 
 
 One of the most active lecturers in Ohio was Mr. Bir- 
 ney himself. 
 
 The " Philanthropist " contains almost weekly an 
 nouncements of his engagements. He lectured in almost 
 every town of southwestern Ohio without giving occasion 
 for any hostile demonstrations worthy of special notice. 
 At Cummingsville and Fulton, suburbs of Cincinnati, he 
 had good audiences. At Fulton he delivered a series of 
 lectures in the Presbyterian church of which the Rev. 
 John Dudley, father of Colonel W. W. Dudley, of Indi 
 ana, was pastor. Ko other church in Cincinnati opened 
 its doors to him. 
 
 Mr. Birney made it a point to form the acquaintance 
 of editors in Ohio whenever occasion served. He had 
 personal friends among them in all parts of the State, 
 and was sure of a kind reception in their respective locali 
 ties if they could secure it for him. His social relations 
 embraced a great variety of persons. Among the guests 
 
LIFE IX CINCINNATI. 259 
 
 who enjoyed his hospitality at Cincinnati were Benjamin 
 Lundy, Elijah P. Lovejoy, and Rev. Alexander Campbell, 
 an extremely able controversialist and the founder of the 
 " Church of the Disciples." Mr. Campbell had a public 
 debate with Bishop Purcell on the interpretation of the 
 prophecies, in which he attempted to prove that the Ro 
 man Catholic Church was the " scarlet woman," and also, 
 as well as I recollect, the little horn of the beast in Daniel. 
 I had the honor of accompanying Mr. Campbell and my 
 father to the debate on one of the evenings. Mr. Camp 
 bell and Bishop Purcell were very learned theologians, 
 but my father was much amused with the debate, and 
 expressed to me his wonder that such men should spend 
 time on such trivialities. He did his best to interest Mr. 
 Campbell in the anti-slavery cause, but with little success. 
 He accomplished more with Bishop Purcell, whom he vis 
 ited repeatedly. 
 
 About this time a learned Jewish rabbi sought to in 
 terest Mr. Birney in the " testimony of the targums " in 
 relation to slavery, but failed to impress him with the 
 practical importance of that branch of curious learning. 
 To young men of good morals, ability, and promise, Mr. 
 Birney made himself agreeable, seeking to win them to 
 his cause. Among these were the lawyers Samuel Eells, 
 John Jolliffe, and Salmon P. Chase. Mr. Eells died in 
 early manhood ; Mr. Jolliffe became and remained through 
 a long life a thorough political-action abolitionist ; Mr. 
 Chase, afterward Chief Justice of the United States Su 
 preme Court, did not connect himself publicly and formal 
 ly with the anti-slavery movement until he joined the 
 Liberty party in 1841, but he adopted Mr. Birney s legal 
 and constitutional opinions on slavery in 1836. His con 
 version was not rapid. The acquaintance growing out of 
 the ordinary relation of lawyer and client became one of 
 personal friendship and intimacy in the autumn of 1835, 
 
260 JAMES G. BIHNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 and continued on that footing. Mr. Chase spent many of 
 his evenings in my father s library, and I was present on 
 most of these occasions. As I remember the conversa 
 tions, they turned chiefly on the legal aspects of slavery. 
 Mr. Chase was my father s junior by sixteen years, and, 
 although a good practitioner, had made no special study 
 of slavery. He was a most attentive listener. I have a 
 vivid remembrance of my father s vindication of a de 
 cision by Justice Hornblower, of New Jersey, that a per 
 son claimed in one State as a fugitive slave from another 
 had a right to a trial by jury ; and of one by Justice Shaw, 
 of Massachusetts, that a slave taken into a free State by 
 the master becomes free. His arguments were as elabo 
 rate as if made to a court, and were illustrated by cases 
 read from books taken from the library shelves.* They 
 were impressed upon my memory by the reproduction of 
 them by Mr. Chase in his argument, in March, 1837, in 
 what is known as the case of the girl Matilda Lawrence, 
 claimed as a slave, and the elaboration of them in my 
 father s subsequent defense of himself when indicted un 
 der the " Ohio black laws " for harboring her. It was my 
 good fortune to hear both of these arguments, so noted in 
 their day ; and it derogates nothing from the future Chief 
 Justice that James G. Birney was his first and only in 
 structor in anti-slavery law. Mr. Chase did not abandon 
 the Whig party until 1841, but from that time cordially 
 
 * In his eloquent funeral oration on Chief-Justice Chase, Judge Iload- 
 ley dates the beginning of Mr. Chase s anti-slavery action in 1829- 30, 
 while he was teaching school in Washington city. This is a mistake. 
 I knew Mr. Chase intimately from 1841 to 1848, and he never alluded to 
 such early action. I have also inquired closely into his life in Washing 
 ton in 1829- 30, and find no evidence tending to sustain Judge Iloadley. 
 The facts that he spent a vacation in Virginia as a guest of slave 
 holders, and that his pupils were nearly all sons of slave-holders, are 
 inconsistent with the assertion that at that time he was an active abo 
 litionist. 
 
LIFE IN CINCINNATI. 261 
 
 supported Mr. Birney as a candidate for the presidency, 
 taking a very active part in the campaign of 1844. 
 
 The case of Matilda Lawrence illustrates the extent to 
 which the great property interest of slavery, though alien 
 to the spirit of republican institutions was able to over 
 bear the common sentiments of humanity and chivalry, 
 the principles of law, and the Constitutions of Ohio and 
 of the United States. Her father, a resident of southern 
 Missouri, was a rich planter. He was an elderly man, un 
 married, and a testy invalid. His daughter, an octoroon, 
 had been brought up in his house as his servant and de 
 pendent. At sixteen she lost her mother and succeeded 
 her as housekeeper. At twenty she was a beautiful bru 
 nette. There was nothing in her personal appearance to 
 excite suspicion of the fatal taint in her blood, but her 
 origin was known in the county of her residence, and she 
 was not admitted to the society of the white people in the 
 neighborhood. Her father forbade her to associate with 
 the blacks. She belonged to neither race. For four years 
 she lived in isolation. She had learned to read, and her 
 chief solace was in poring over the few books in her 
 father s library. In the winter of 1836 he decided to spend 
 a year in New York for the purpose of consulting eminent 
 physicians. Being unwilling to lose her services as his 
 nurse and attendant, or to meet the many inconveniences 
 inseparable from her going with him as his servant, he 
 determined to take her with him and represent her as his 
 daughter. He was rich enough to disregard the additional 
 expense, and cynical enough to enjoy the mystification. 
 Her neat apparel, quiet manners, and apparent intelligence 
 caused his representations to pass without question ; she 
 was received at hotels with the respect due to the daughter 
 of a wealthy Southern gentleman. Her remarkable beauty 
 attracted admirers, her pensiveness and modesty being 
 additional charms. In these unusual circumstances her 
 
262 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 intelligence developed rapidly. She availed herself of 
 opportunities to learn what she might about the rights of 
 individuals at the North. She was a woman, and no doubt 
 conscious of the newly discovered power of her beauty. 
 She began to chafe at her servile condition and false posi 
 tion, and to importune her father to set her free. She 
 begged not to be taken back to Missouri and the isolation 
 of plantation life, with the dreary prospect of the auction 
 block at her father s death. Mr. Lawrence, alarmed at 
 this unexpected result cf his freak, and unwilling to grant 
 her request, lost no time in starting for Missouri. Arriv 
 ing in Cincinnati, he stopped at a hotel near the wharf, 
 intending to take passage on the first steamboat bound for 
 St. Louis. After a vain effort to persuade him to give her 
 " free papers," in which case she promised to go with him 
 and serve him faithfully, she left the hotel and found a 
 refuge in the house of a colored barber who was well 
 known as a friend of the unfortunate of his race. This 
 was in May, 1836. A few days later Mr. Lawrence left 
 for St. Louis. It is quite doubtful whether he authorized 
 the proceedings for seizure taken in the following March 
 in his name by one John W. Riley, a notorious negro 
 hunter and kidnapper, no proof of authority having been 
 submitted, except the affidavit of Riley himself. 
 
 After remaining a few days in concealment, Matilda 
 Lawrence obtained employment as a servant in a white 
 family and, in the following October, was engaged by my 
 mother as chambermaid and nurse. She was a modest, 
 industrious girl, of respectful manners and affectionate 
 disposition, and in a short time became a favorite with my 
 mother and the children. . We thought her white. She 
 was reticent in regard to her past life. She told us that 
 she was born in Missouri, that her family and relatives 
 lived there but were too poor to help her, that her mother 
 was dead, and she did not wish to live with her father and 
 
LIFE IN CINCINNATI. 263 
 
 would rather not say why, and was happy to be able to gain 
 her own living. During the five months of her stay with us 
 she gained the esteem of all the members of the family. 
 
 Early in March, having gone into the street on some 
 errand, she came rushing back, pale and trembling with 
 fright, and begged my mother to save her from being seized 
 as a slave. A man she had never seen had spoken to her 
 roughly, charging her with being a runaway negro slave. 
 Then came the pitiful story in all its details, the story of 
 a friendless woman hunted to her hiding place. My father 
 was absent from home at the time of the above occurrence, 
 but was told all the facts on his return next day. They gave 
 him great concern. While he knew she was free, having 
 been taken by her master into a free State, he had little 
 faith in the even poise of the scales of justice when they 
 were held by appointees of the slave power.* He therefore 
 advised that Matilda Lawrence should secrete herself from 
 pursuit for the present and until she could reach the home 
 of one of his friends in western New York. The house 
 was watched constantly, however, by Riley and his men. 
 Matilda was seized, March 10th, on a warrant issued 
 by one Doty;, a justice, acting under color of the law 
 of 1793, since pronounced unconstitutional by the Su 
 preme Court of the United States. Mr. Chase, who had 
 been retained by Mr. Birney for the purpose, applied 
 to Judge D. K. Este for a writ of habeas corpus. The 
 writ was issued by William Henry Harrison, then clerk of 
 the Common Pleas Court. Judge Este was a silver-gray 
 Whig, whose strongest sentiments were consciousness of 
 his own supreme respectability and veneration for the 
 
 * That slavery can have no legal existence outside of the territory of 
 the State that sanctions it or in the territory of the State that interdicts 
 it had been decided in England (Somerset s case), in Massachusetts, in 
 Louisiana (Lunsford s case, 14 Martin), and in Kentucky (Rankin s case, 
 3 Marshall). 
 
264: JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 claims of slave-holders. The attorneys for Riley were three 
 leading Democrats M. N. McLean, Gen. Lytle, and N. 
 C. Read. The learned and able argument of Mr. Chase 
 was heard by Este with the ostentatious courtesy of a 
 judge who had already made up his mind. The refusal 
 to discharge was from the first a foregone conclusion. As 
 soon as it was pronounced by the judge, the young girl, 
 sobbing in her terror, was seized by three stout hired 
 ruffians, hurried through the crowd, placed in a carriage 
 in waiting, driven rapidly to the wharf, and taken by ferry 
 boat to Covington, where she was put in jail for safe keep 
 ing. The same night she was transferred to a steamboat 
 bound to New Orleans. There she was sold at public auc 
 tion to the highest bidder. What became of her afterward 
 was never known. The price she brought was large, and, 
 rumor said, was divided equally between the kidnapper 
 and his three attorneys. None of the blood money was 
 offered to Judge Este, who performed his part of this 
 crime against humanity and law without fee or reward 
 and with perfect decorum ; and, probably, none of it went 
 into the hands of the father. In sending this hapless girl 
 to a fate worse than death, the judge disregarded all laws 
 human and divine. He presumed that she was a colored 
 person when the law of Ohio declared white all persons of 
 more white blood than a mulatto ; that she was a slave, 
 though the Ohio Constitution and the Ordinance of 1787 
 prohibited the existence of slavery within the State limits ; 
 that she was a slave who had escaped from Missouri into 
 Ohio, though the evidence proved the contrary ; and that 
 Riley represented her former owner, though there was no 
 proof of this except Riley s own oath.* But in that era 
 
 * Judge Caldwcll, the Democratic successor of Judge Este, admin 
 istered the law as it was. In several cases, brought before him between 
 1842 and 1848, he did not hesitate to issue certificates of freedom to 
 slaves brought into Ohio by their masters. 
 
LIFE IN CINCINNATI. 265 
 
 of political subserviency to the slave power it was not un 
 common that a judge should facilitate the operations of 
 professional kidnappers. 
 
 Matilda Lawrence having been judicially declared a 
 slave, the next step of Mr. Birney s political enemies, 
 headed by Lytle and Eead, was to procure an indictment 
 against him for harboring her. This was tried before 
 Judge Este. The writer was subpoenaed and examined 
 as a witness against his father, proving the facts sub 
 stantially as above narrated. The court-house was 
 crowded. The accused spoke about three hours in his 
 own defense, admitting the facts, and maintaining that 
 Matilda Lawrence was in law a free woman. His argu 
 ment made many converts, especially among the younger 
 members of the bar. Judge Este attempted to answer it in 
 his charge, and came as nearly as possible to directing the 
 verdict of guilty. On appeal, the Supreme Court of Ohio 
 quashed the indictment as defective. The majority of the 
 judges would have decided the case for the defendant^on 
 his exceptions, if that course had been necessary. Chief- 
 Justice Hitchcock was well known to indorse cordially the 
 propositions of law made by Mr. Birney in the case. He was 
 an old-time abolitionist and a good lawyer, and possessed 
 uncommon independence of character. 
 
 Thus failed the last great effort of the politicians to 
 crush Mr. Birney at Cincinnati. It was noticeable that 
 the political dailies of the city, except the " Gazette," 
 set on and incited the persecution against him, but not 
 one of them was shameless enough to approve the seiz 
 ure of the unfortunate woman. The sympathy excited 
 by this case throughout the Korth was one of the potent 
 causes of the passage by free- State legislatures of " per 
 sonal-liberty laws," designed to secure the right of trial 
 by jury to every person claimed as a slave, and to punish 
 as kidnappers all persons aiding or abetting in delivering 
 
 13 
 
266 JAMES G. BIRXEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 as a slave any person not proved to have escaped from a 
 slave into a free State. To aid in procuring such laws, 
 Mr. Birney printed a large edition of a pamphlet contain 
 ing Mr. Chase s argument, and distributed it among law 
 yers and members of legislatures. 
 
 About the 1st of May, 1837, he went to Xew York to 
 attend the fourth anniversary of the American Anti- 
 Slavery Society, and to seek to harmonize leading anti- 
 slavery men on important doctrines and methods of work. 
 From the outset of hi? public career, he had been in favoi 
 of using " all lawful means " to accomplish the restriction 
 and final extinction of slavery. In the first number of hit 
 paper he had spoken slightingly of those non-voting abo 
 litionists " who think to accomplish the end without using 
 the means." He had steadily maintained the duty of po 
 litical action. December 30, 183G, he wrote as editor : 
 
 Slavery in the District and Territories and the domestic slave 
 trade are under the control of political action; by political act ion 
 alone can they be terminated. . . . non-interference would be 
 criminal. 
 
 His patience was severely tried by men who professed 
 to be abolitionists but continued to vote for their old par 
 ties, or who refused to vote at all, preferring to " entreat v 
 Whigs and Democrats for abolition measures, or to peti 
 tion Congress for them, or to indulge in wordy denunci 
 ations of men and things. Such abolitionists, he thought, 
 were brambles without fruit; a million of them would 
 effect nothing. They fought like a Chinese army, rattling 
 tin pans to frighten the enemy. He regarded diffusion of 
 information, promotion of discussion, and formation oC 
 public opinion against slavery as the proper functions oL 
 voluntary anti-slavery societies ; while, from their very na 
 ture, they were not adapted to organize practical political 
 movements. It was wrong in such societies to throw their 
 
LIFE IX CINCINNATI. 267 
 
 influence against any lawful means of resisting the slave 
 power. To obtain for some of his views on kindred sub 
 jects the indorsement of the executive committee, he 
 wrote for the "Annual Report of 1837 " the first para 
 graph of the part of that report headed " Political Ac 
 tion " (see page 113). The following sentences condense 
 his views : 
 
 Our immediatism has led us to appeal to that religion which 
 will go immediately to work by all lawful and right means, trust 
 ing that it will enlarge and deepen itself by its own action. . . . 
 The opinions and feelings of the people will not be felt in their 
 legislatures till some effort is made to carry them them there. . . . 
 That sympathy for the oppressed which does not, from the in 
 stant of its birth, operate to reform and purify the abused and 
 perverted law is thrown away, etc. . . . Political action there 
 must be. ... That religion which makes a man shrink from his 
 political responsibilities when the foundation principles of justice 
 are to be brought to their position in the structure of human so 
 ciety when the liberties of millions are at stake will not, we 
 are constrained to believe, prove a support to the soul when God 
 shall ask, Where is thy brother ? 
 
 This was too strong a stroke at the non- voting abo 
 litionists. The executive committee dulled its edge by 
 inserting after the above passage the advice to abolition 
 ists : " While they firmly refuse to vote for a man who 
 will not support abolition measures to avoid setting up 
 candidates of their own." This solecism in the reports 
 reveals the want of harmony then existing among anti- 
 slavery leaders. 
 
 The weak advice of the committee implied that no 
 abolitionist was fit to hold office, and was based upon an 
 opinion widely prevalent among religious men of that day 
 of the inherent depravity of all attempts by citizens to 
 elect to office men who agreed with them in politics. 
 
 Administration of government was to be abandoned to 
 
JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 political enemies in the hope that they would not act and 
 legislate on their own views ! 
 
 Mr. Birney was treated with great respect by his fellow- 
 members. He presided at three of the seven business 
 meetings, Gerrit Smith presiding at two others, and made 
 the leading speech at the public anniversary meeting. He 
 availed himself of the occasion to place himself publicly 
 on record as in favor of " all lawful means." He said : 
 
 There is now a large and rapidly increasing number of the 
 most estimable, patriotic, and intelligent of our countrymen who. 
 agreeing on the evils of slavery, on ... the danger with which 
 they threaten all that is valuable and worthy to be cherished 
 among us freedom of speech and of the press, the right to in 
 vestigate truth, to publish its results, and to act consistently with 
 them aye, the Government, liberty, and religion itself who, 
 thus agreeing, are resolved, before it be too late, to act ty all 
 lawful means, for the removal of these evils. 
 
 In this speech he declared that the Colonization Soci 
 ety, though wrong in principle, had been a step in the 
 necessary evolution of anti-slavery opinion. He demon 
 strated also the impolicy of gradual emancipation of slaves 
 in the Gulf States by showing that freedmen in large 
 numbers could not be employed as laborers by the side of 
 slaves. 
 
 He was elected the Ohio vice-president of the society. 
 After a short lecturing tour in Xew York and the Xew 
 England States he returned home. 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 THE NO-GOVERNMENT VAGARY. 
 
 IN his visit to New York and New England, in May 
 and June, 1837, Mr. Birney s chief object had been to 
 restore harmony among anti-slavery leaders on doctrines 
 and measures and especially to check a tendency, already 
 marked in Massachusetts, to burden the cause with irrele 
 vant reforms, real or supposed. "With this view he had 
 attended the New England Anti-Slavery Convention held 
 at Boston, May 30 to June 2, inclusive, accepted the posi 
 tion of one of its vice-presidents and acted as a member of 
 its committee on business. Rev. Henry C. Wright, the 
 leader of the No Human Government, Woman s Rights, 
 and Moral Reform factions, was a member of the conven 
 tion, but received no appointment on any committee. Mr. 
 Garrison, who had adopted the new theories of Mr. Wright, 
 was a member of the committee on business.* But neither 
 of these gentlemen brought their peculiar views before the 
 convention in any offensive manner. Mr. Garrison, to 
 whom the duty had been assigned by the business com 
 mittee, advocated resolutions calling upon statesmen, 
 political parties, and legislatures to oppose the admission 
 of Texas to the Union, and recommending measures to 
 secure the votes of Congressmen against such admission. 
 In his speech he advised the people of the non-slave-hold- 
 
 * This was the first and only time Mr. Birney was ever brought into 
 any personal intimacy with Mr. Garrison. 
 
270 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 ing States to " unite tlieir entire political strength " in 
 opposition to Texas annexation. This language was incon 
 sistent with the " no human government " notions then 
 held by Mr. Garrison, and created the belief on the part 
 of Mr. Birney that Mr. Garrison would not use his 
 newly adopted vagaries to the injury of the abolition cause. 
 He returned to Cincinnati confident that harmony in Ke\v 
 England would be maintained. His confidence was, how 
 ever, of brief duration. 
 
 Exciting events occurred in New England in rapid suc 
 cession. June 23, the " Liberator " denounced human 
 governments. July 4, Mr. Garrison, in a speech at Prov 
 idence, spoke, as if approvingly, of the overthrow of the 
 nation, the dismemberment of the Union, and the dashing 
 in pieces of the Church. July 15, an association of Con 
 gregational ministers issued a "pastoral letter" against 
 the new doctrines. August 2, five clergymen, claiming to 
 represent nine tenths of the abolitionists of Massachusetts, 
 published an " appeal " which was directed more especially 
 against the course of the "Liberator." August 3, the 
 abolitionists of the Andover Theological Seminary issued 
 a similar appeal. Among the complaints were some against 
 "speculations which lead inevitably to disorganization, 
 anarchy, unsettling the domestic economy, removing the 
 landmarks of society, and unhinging the machinery of 
 Government." About the same time a new anti-slavery 
 society at Bangor passed the following : 
 
 Resolved, That while we admit and maintain the right of free 
 and full discussion of all subjects, yet, in our judgment, indi 
 viduals rejecting the authority of civil and parental governments 
 ought not to be employed as agents and lecturers in promoting 
 the cause of emancipation. 
 
 August 17th, the Eev. J. T. Woodbury, of Acton, pub 
 lished a letter in which he said : 
 
THE NO-GOVERNMENT VAGARY. 271 
 
 I am an abolitionist and I am so in the strictest sense of the 
 term, but I never swallowed William Lloyd Garrison and I never 
 tried to swallow him. ... I have seen, as I think, in Mr. Gar 
 rison a decided wish, nay, a firm resolve, in laboring to overthrow 
 slavery to overthrow the Christian Sabbath and the Christian 
 ministry. His doctrine is that every day is a Sabbath and every 
 man his own minister. There are no Christian ordinances, there 
 is no visible Church. Here I would add also the notion of his 
 that the people have no right under God to frame a government 
 of laws to protect themselves against those who would injure 
 them, and that man can apply physical force to man rightfully 
 under no circumstances, and not even the parent can apply the 
 rod to the child and not be in the sight of God a trespasser and 
 a tyrant. . . . Good men say we are abolitionists and would go 
 with you most heartily if your lecturers and writers did not at 
 tack the Sabbath and the Christian ministry and the churches 
 and all civil and family government. . . . We are not willing, 
 for the sake of killing the rats, to burn down the house with all 
 it contains. 
 
 August 14th, the Quaker poet Whittier wrote to the 
 sisters Grimke : 
 
 I am anxious, too, to hold a long conversation with you on 
 the subject of war, human government, and church and family 
 government. The more I reflect upon the subject the more diffi 
 culty I find and the more decidedly am I of opinion that we 
 ought to hold all these matters aloof from the cause of abolition. 
 Our good friend H. C. Wright, with the best intentions in the 
 world, is doing great injury by a different course. He is making 
 the anti-slavery party responsible in a great degree for his, to 
 say the least, startling opinions. . . . But let him keep them dis 
 tinct from the cause of emancipation. This is his duty. . . . To 
 employ an agent who devotes half his time and talents to the 
 propagation of "no human or no family government" doctrines 
 in connection intimate connection with the doctrines of aboli 
 tion is a fraud upon the patrons of the cause. Brother Garrison 
 errs, I think, in this respect. He takes the a no church and no 
 human government " ground, as, for instance, in his Providence 
 speech. Xow in his prospectus he engaged to give his subscrib- 
 
272 JAMES G. BIRXEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 ers an anti-slavery paper, and his subscribers made their contract 
 with him on that ground. If he fills his paper with Grahamism 
 and no govermnentism he defrauds his subscribers.* 
 
 To the vigorous protests against the course of the 
 " Liberator," Oliver Johnson, the temporary editor, made 
 a caustic answer, and Mr. Garrison treated them as " sedi 
 tion," and " rebuked " and " chastised " the authors. In 
 his efforts to suppress the " sedition," Mr. Garrison wrote to 
 New York, demanding the aid of the executive commit 
 tee of the American Anti-Slavery Society. He wanted a 
 manifesto from that body crushing the dissenters, thought 
 it could not fairly stand aloof, and that silence on its part 
 was not magnanimous. His devoted follower, Maria AV. 
 Chapman, was aggressive and menacing. She wrote to a 
 friend in New York in the peculiar style affected by her : 
 
 If the executive of the National should yield! I pray God 
 that I may "not be unduly suspicious; but, I beseech you, call it 
 a virtuous sin if I do say that I suspect them. . . . Why will 
 they think they can cut away from Garrison without becoming 
 an abomination ? . . . I pray they may not fall to confessing 
 Garrison s sins. ... If this defection should drink the cup and 
 end all, we of Massachusetts will turn and abolish them as readily 
 as we would the Colonization Society. 
 
 The National Committee refused to take part in the 
 Massachusetts quarrel. Its reasons for this course arc- 
 given in a letter from Lewis Tappan, published in full in 
 Garrison s " Life " by his sons. (See Garrison, i, 1(5,3.) In 
 the kindest language, Mr. Tappan expressed his disappro 
 bation of the " appeal " and of the spirit in which it had 
 been met by Oliver Johnson and Mr. Garrison, and the 
 opinion that " principles and feelings are at work in Mas 
 sachusetts in the abolition ranks that are unknown else 
 where," that the discussion of the Sabbath question was 
 
 * Sec " Grimke Sisters," p. 203. 
 
THE XO-GOVERXMEXT VAGARY. 273 
 
 injudicious, and the doctrines on national and family gov 
 ernment wrong. 
 
 Other members of the National Committee expressed 
 themselves with equal frankness. Elizur Wright wrote to 
 Garrison : 
 
 I could have wished, yes, I have wished from the bottom of 
 my soul, that you could conduct that dear paper, the Libera 
 tor, " in the singleness of purpose of its first years. . . . without 
 broaching sentiments which are novel and shocking to the com 
 munity. ... I can not but regard the taking hold of one great 
 moral enterprise while another is in hand and but half achieved 
 as an outrage upon common sense, somewhat like that of the 
 dog crossing the river with his meat. ... To tell the plain 
 truth, I look upon your notions of government and religious per 
 fection as downright fanaticism, as harmless as they are absurd. 
 . . . My heart sickens over your letter to Woodbury. . . . You 
 meet him in a way which my whole soul tells me is sinful. You 
 exalt yourself too much. . . . I am as confident as of my exist 
 ence that a few more such letters would open a bottomless gulf 
 of distrust between you and the abolitionists. . . . Let the Sabbath 
 and the theoretic theology of the priesthood alone for the pres 
 ent. . . . Let the Government alone till, such as it is, all are 
 equally protected by it. ... But, if all this can not be done, 
 why come out plainly and say you have left the old track and 
 are started on a new one, or rather two or three new ones at 
 once. 
 
 At a later date Elizur Wright wrote to Mr. Phelps : 
 
 I have just received a letter from Garrison which confirms my 
 fears that he has finished his course for the slave. At any rate, 
 his plan of rescuing the slave by the destruction of human laws 
 is fatally conflictive with ours. (Garrison, ii, 169.) 
 
 Theodore D. Weld uttered his protest against the new 
 doctrines : 
 
 If you adopt the views of H. C. Wright . . . why, then, we 
 are in one point of doctrine just as wide asunder as extremes can 
 be. ... When the devil is hard pushed and likely to be run 
 
274 JAMES G. BI11NEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 down in the chase, it is an old trick of his to start some smaller 
 game, and thus cause his pursuers to strike off from his own track 
 on to that of one of his imps. 
 
 And again : 
 
 Every reform that ever foundered in mid-sea was capsized 
 by one of these gusty side winds. (Grirnke Sisters, p. 209-212.) 
 
 August 24, Gerrit Smith wrote to William Goodell : 
 
 I am glad to see, by the "Friend of Man," that you have laid 
 your hand on one of H. C. Wright s extravagances. ... I see no 
 way for quitting the old team. 
 
 September 1, II. B. Stanton wrote to the same 
 editor : 
 
 I am glad to see that you have criticised Brother II. C. Wright. 
 I have just returned from a month s tour in eastern Massachusetts, 
 and he has done immense hurt there. Plain, yet kind reproofs 
 from your pen will do great good. . . . And such remarks and 
 disclaimers are much needed now, and we owe them to the com 
 munity and the cause. You see that everybody Tray, Sweetheart, 
 etc. is seizing hold of II. C. Wright s notions to injure our pre 
 cious cause. . . . No harm, I think, will come out of the Eastern 
 schism, though the defection is widespread. 
 
 The apprehensions felt by A. A. Phelps, the able gen 
 eral agent of the Massachusetts A. S. Society, were ex 
 pressed in several letters written in August and September, 
 and also in one from Boston, dated October 20. I quote 
 from the last : 
 
 I write you this in great grief and yet I feel constrained to do 
 it. The cause of abolition here was never in so dangerous and 
 critical a position before. Mutual jealousies on the part of the laity 
 and clergy are rampant ; indeed, so much so on the part of some of 
 our lay brethren that, let a clerical brother do what he will, it is 
 resolved as a matter of course into some sinister motive. If he- 
 goes with us it is because it is popular, or something of the kind ; 
 if he opposes us, his salary or something of the kind is the reason : 
 
THE NO-GO VERXMENT VAGARY. 275 
 
 and if he opposes any practical measure, it is clerical jealousy or 
 sectarianism. Such a thing as a good motive does not seem, in 
 the judgment of some of our friends, to be capable of dwelling 
 beneath a black coat. 
 
 Of this stamp, more than ever before, is friend Garrison. And 
 Mrs. Chapman remarked to me the other day that she sometimes 
 doubted which needed abolition most slavery or the black 
 hearted ministry. 
 
 For this cause alone we are on the brink of a general split in 
 our ranks. . . . And as if to make a bad matter worse, Garrison 
 insists, notwithstanding repeated remonstrances, on yoking per 
 fectionism, no governmentism, and woman preaching with abo 
 lition, as part and parcel of the same lump. See the last two 
 "Liberators." Now, for one, I can not stand this. I can not 
 merge everything in my abolition ; and if he insists on thrusting 
 his peculiar views across mine, mine will and must stand on the 
 defensive. . . . The whole question is fast becoming a question 
 of persons ; and that, not whether we will sustain W. L. Garrison, 
 the abolitionist, but whether we will sustain him in the other 
 things named. . . . The danger is, and it is by no means small, 
 that the quarrel will go through the whole country. Garrison 
 threatened some time since to come out upon the American So 
 ciety for their silence. ... I should not be surprised if the 
 matter comes up at the annual meeting in New York in the 
 spring. We have not seen the end of it yet. (MS.) 
 
 At the outbreak, in July, of the storm in Massachu 
 setts, the executive committee of the American Anti-Slav 
 ery Committee consisted of five clergymen, four merchants, 
 a college professor, an editor, and Elizur Wright, Jr., an 
 ex-professor of mathematics, a writer of keen wit, and, in 
 after days, a famous insurance actuary. John G. W r hittier 
 was the secretary. Judge William Jay, the corresponding 
 secretary of the society, was the only statesman and lawyer 
 connected with the New York management; and his 
 judicial duties and out-of-town residence prevented him 
 from devoting his time to the business of the society. In 
 the new turn of affairs Judge Jay wrote to Mr. Birney, 
 
276 JAMES G. BIRXEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 urging him to come to New York and take the helm, and 
 offering to resign in his favor the office of corresponding 
 secretary. This letter was followed by others of similar 
 tenor from members of the executive committee. Mr. 
 I3irney was loath to assume the responsibilities of the posi 
 tion offered him ; his relations with Western abolitionists 
 were exceedingly pleasant, and he was established in a 
 comfortable home of his own at Cincinnati. After several 
 weeks of consideration, the Eastern troubles growing mean 
 while, he finally decided to go. Under his advice the Na 
 tional Committee cautioned the public " not to confound 
 their doctrines with such as individual members may occa 
 sionally advance," and acknowledged their "obligation 
 not to permit the funds of the society to be used for the 
 promotion of any principles or objects whatever, except 
 those specified in the constitution," and declared their 
 determination to avoid any just censure " in regard to the 
 agents they employ and the publications they issue." It 
 is probable that this important paper was drawn up by 
 Mr. Birney. It was a notice to Mr. H. C. Wright that he 
 could no longer act as agent and a disclaimer of the novel 
 doctrines " sifted into " the " Liberator." In the " Phi 
 lanthropist " of September 15, Mr. Birney published an 
 editorial on " The Boston Controversy." In this he pointed 
 out indiscretions on both sides. The article was just and 
 conciliatory ; the language of Messrs. Fitch and Towne, 
 though unjustly inculpatory of Oliver Johnson, did not 
 justify the language and style of Mr. Johnson s retort. An 
 editor should rule his spirit and be a peace-maker. " With 
 the spirit that breathes through Mr. Garrison s reply we 
 have no sympathy." Neither Mr. Garrison nor any 
 other abolitionist is authorized to judge and rebuke as 
 Christ did. 
 
 We are much disappointed in the course Mr. Garrison has 
 pursued on the present occasion and we are grieved because we 
 
THE NO-GOVERNMENT VAGARY. 277 
 
 are disappointed. ... At New York, in 1835, when Charles Stu 
 art introduced the subject of abstaining from the products of 
 slave labor, and in Boston, last spring, when the Peace Question 
 was brought up before the convention, we had evidence of Mr. 
 Garrison s considerateness and self-control that inspired us with 
 high confidence in the course he would pursue should he ever be 
 placed in circumstances where much was placed at hazard. By 
 his reply to Messrs Fitch and others, we have been much disap 
 pointed and our confidence in his prudence much weakened.* 
 
 September 22, Dr. Bailey announced at the head of his 
 editorial columns, that Mr. Birney with his family was on 
 his way to New York. "A conviction that his efforts 
 will be more influential there than here in behalf of abo 
 lition reconciles us in a degree to the loss of his society, 
 counsel, and aid." 
 
 It is not probable that at that time Mr. Birney com 
 prehended the nature of the difficulties which were to be 
 thorns in his path. His social environment in Kentucky, 
 New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Alabama, and Ohio, differed 
 widely from that existing in Boston, and his acquaint 
 ance with professional reformers of all mundane evils had 
 not been intimate. His visits to New England had been 
 hurried and his mind had been fully occupied with the 
 great end he had in view the abolition of slavery with 
 very little regard, it must be admitted, to the metaphysics 
 of reform movements generally. He was eminently of a 
 practical turn of mind. For the next few years he was 
 to be brought into close contact with the New England 
 reformers, a class exceedingly numerous between 1815 and 
 
 * The two instances in which Mr. Garrison, in Mr. Birney s presence, 
 had refrained from disturbing conventions with irrelevant subjects, are 
 here specified as the reasons for confidence that he would be equally con 
 siderate in the future. The passage does not justify the inuendo that Mr. 
 Birney had former confidence in his judgment and prudence (Garrison, 
 ii, 166). 
 
278 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 1840 and noticed by Emerson, in his Amory Hall lecture, 
 as follows : 
 
 The Church or religious party, is falling from the Church 
 nominal, and is appearing in temperance and non-resistant soci 
 eties, in movements of abolitionists and of socialists, and in very 
 significant assemblies called Sabbath and Bible conventions, com 
 posed of ultraists, of seekers, of all the soul of the soldiery of 
 dissent, and meeting to call in question the authority of the Sab 
 bath, of the priesthood, and of the Church. In these movements, 
 nothing was more remarkable than the discontent they begot in 
 the movers. The spirit of protest and of detachment drove the 
 members of these conventions to bear testimony against the 
 Church, and, immediately afterward, to declare their discontent 
 with these conventions, their independence of their colleagues, 
 and their impatience of the methods whereby they were working. 
 They defied each other, like a congress of kings, each of whom 
 had a realm to rule, and way of his own that made concert un 
 profitable. What a fertility of projects for the salvation of the 
 world ! One apostle thought all men should go to farming ; and 
 another, that no man should buy or sell ; that the use of money 
 was the cardinal evil ; another, that the mischief was in our diet, 
 that we cat and drink damnation. These made unleavened 
 bread and were foes to the death to fermentation. It was in 
 vain urged by the housewife that God made yeast as well as 
 dough, and loves fermentation just as dearly as lie loves vegeta 
 tion ; that fermentation develops the saccharine element in the 
 grain and makes it more palatable and more digestible. No; 
 they wish the pure wheat and will die, but it shall not fer 
 ment. . . . Others attacked the system of agriculture, the use of 
 animal manures in farming, and the tyranny of man over brute 
 nature ; these abuses polluted his food. The ox must be taken 
 from the plow, and the horse from the cart, the hundred acres 
 of the farm must be spaded and the man must walk wherever 
 boats and locomotives will not carry him. Even the insect world 
 was to be defended; that had been too long neglected, and a 
 society for the protection of ground worms, slugs, and mos 
 quitoes, was to be incorporated without delay. With these ap 
 peared the adepts of homoeopathy, of hydropathy, of mesmerism, 
 
THE NO-GO VERXMEXT VAGARY. 279 
 
 of phrenology, and their wonderful theories of the Christian 
 miracles! Others assailed particular vocations, as that of the 
 lawyer, that of the merchant, of the manufacturer, of the clergy 
 man, of the scholar. Others attacked the institution of marriage 
 as the fountain of social evils. Others devoted themselves to the 
 worrying of churches and meetings for public worship. 
 
 Mr. Emerson notes in the movement a tendency 
 to 
 on assertion of the sufficiency of the private man. Thus it was 
 directly in the spirit and genius of the age, what happened in 
 one instance, when a church censured and threatened to excom 
 municate one of its members on account of the somewhat hostile 
 part to the Church which his conscience led him to take in the 
 anti-slavery business ; the threatened individual immediately ex 
 communicated the church in a published and formal process. . . . 
 Many a reformer perishes in his removal of rubbish and that 
 makes the offensiveness of the class. They are partial ; they are 
 not equal to the work they pretend. Thej 7 lose their way; in 
 the assault on the kingdom of darkness, they expend all their 
 energy on some accidental evil, and lose their sanity and power 
 of benefit. It is of little moment that one or two or twenty er 
 rors of our social system be corrected, but of much that the man 
 be in his senses. The criticism and attack on institutions which 
 we have witnessed has made one thing plain, that society gains 
 nothing while a man, not himself renovated, attempts to renovate 
 things around him ; he has become tediously good in some par 
 ticular, but negligent or narrow in the rest ; and hypocrisy and 
 vanity are often the disgusting result. . . . The reason why any 
 one refuses his assent to your opinion, or his aid to your benevo 
 lent design, is in you ; he refuses t6 accept you as a bringer of 
 truth, because, though you think you have it, he feels that you 
 have it not. 
 
 Another writer, adopting the style of a medical formula, 
 describes the character of the representative reformer of 
 the period under treatment : 
 
 Add to his blood a drop of malignity, to his disposition a 
 tinge of melancholy, to his self-worship vanity, to his love of re- 
 
280 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 form a prominent desire for notoriety, and you have an irre 
 pressible "crank," the curse to any reform he may select for 
 his sphere of action, a stumbling block to the timid and con 
 servative. 
 
 When the seed was sown for the crop of New England 
 reformers, and how it grew and yielded a plentiful harvest, 
 will be the subject of the next chapter. 
 
CHAPTER XXVI. 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF BOSTON VAGARIES. 
 
 DURING the eighteenth century the psychological phi 
 losophy commonly known as Locke s governed the thought 
 of the English-speaking world. Its accepted doctrines 
 were that the world external to man has a substantive ex 
 istence ; that knowledge is derived from the senses ; that 
 true ideas originate in experience and are, not innate ; and 
 that the hest traditions of the human race are more trust 
 worthy for guidance than the intuitions, imaginary and 
 illusory for the most part, of individual minds. Its abuses 
 were to honor inductive reasoning overmuch and restrain 
 progress by its slow processes ; to exaggerate the value, in 
 social and political life, of expediency, conventionalism, 
 and conservatism ; and to elevate dogmas, rites, and 
 church organizations above the spiritual part of religion. 
 
 About the close of the last century a reaction against 
 this sensual system began in New England under the in 
 fluences of the new doctrines taught by Kant and other 
 German philosophers, and it gradually extended until in 
 the next forty years it embraced the leading thinkers of 
 Boston and affected every form of social life in New Eng 
 land. 
 
 The new school reversed the doctrines of its predeces 
 sors. It held that the only reality is subjective, or, in 
 plain words, that objects commonly thought to be exter 
 nal to man exist only in his consciousness ; that all ideas 
 
282 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 are intuitions, that the soul is the only creator, being di 
 vine, receiving inspiration immediately from God and ac 
 cepting truth from the moral necessity of its own nature ; 
 that the true man should look to intuitive and inspired 
 principles without the aid of facts, and, if necessary, in 
 disregard of them ; that he should be a law unto himself 
 and obedient to his own heart, mind, and conscience with 
 out regard to the intuitions or desires of other men ; that 
 his primary duty is self-culture, by means of which he 
 could " unfold " himself to perfection according to his 
 inward nature ; that the human soul, being divine in its 
 essence, is allied to omnipotence, and " the simplest per 
 son who in his integrity worships God becomes God." 
 
 This philosophy asserting so strongly the dignity of 
 human nature, the inherent worth of the individual man, 
 his supremacy over his surroundings, and his natural right 
 to think and act independently of all other men, appealed 
 with power to the leading minds of a country fresh from 
 the formation of State and National Governments and 
 the creation of the only great republic. In 1800 an 
 American was conscious of his immense superiority, in 
 achieved privileges and possibilities of eminence, to the 
 inhabitant of any other country, and an educated citizen 
 of Massachusetts was conscious of his advantages over all 
 other Americans. Hence the rapid spread in that State 
 of the new ideas. 
 
 Their workings were soon visible in the increase of 
 dissent. The belief that religion is the " soul s own sense 
 of tilings divine" discredited the orthodox Church and 
 the received dogmas of Bible interpretation. Some of the 
 churches discontinued the worship of Christ. Afterward, 
 in 1805, the Divinity chair in Harvard University passed 
 into the hands of a Unitarian professor, and in 1815 the 
 Congregationalist Church was split in twain by the seces 
 sion of the Unitarian congregations. 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OP BOSTON VAGARIES. 283 
 
 Other churches lost members by the growth of anti- 
 nomianism, resulting in schisms more or less important. 
 The most striking illustration of the effect upon churches 
 of the new sentiment of the supreme dignity of the indi 
 vidual man and his right to express without restraint his 
 aspirations, no matter how changeable, is found in the 
 men who separated themselves from the Church and were 
 known as " Gome-outers." They " had no distinguishing 
 tenets, but held opinions of every radical type, taking their 
 name from the mere circumstances of their having come 
 out from the regular churches." Frothingham, in the* 
 seventh chapter of his life of Theodore Parker, describes 
 some of them. " Brother Jones was to hold forth . . . 
 on the second coming of Christ in 1843." " There was 
 Joseph Palmer, a man with a meek face and a fine gray 
 beard six or eight inches long, clad in fustian trousers and 
 a clean white jacket. He had been a butcher, but had re 
 nounced that calling, partly from the convictions of the 
 wrongf ulness of eating flesh. Alcott found him full of 
 divine thoughts. He wore his beard because God gave 
 it to him, doubtless for some good end." He thought a 
 man got into the Church by giving to the poor, and no 
 man but himself could put him out. " Xickerson and 
 Davis were two preachers among the Come-outers, two as 
 rough-looking men as you would like to meet on a sum 
 mer s day ; but their countenances were full of the divine. 
 Their hands, their dress, their general air, showed that 
 they belonged to the humblest class in society." " Mr. 
 Bearse was a plain Cape Cod fisherman, a skipper prob 
 ably, of bright, ruddy, cheerful countenance." He was 
 opposed to all sects and to the Church universal, calling 
 them " little Babels " and it " one great Babel." 
 
 These men thought little of rites. Said Mr. Bearse : 
 " Sometimes a brother wishes to be baptized, and, if the 
 spirit moves me, I baptize him, . . . any one into whom 
 
JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 God puts the desire may do it." The Lord s Supper they 
 held in light estimation. " All our meals are the Lord s 
 Supper if we eat with a right heart. . . . Whoever wished 
 to join their company did so without ceremony. No 
 questions were asked about his creed. He subscribed to 
 no confession, set his name to no paper, was free to come 
 and go." Should an unbeliever offer to speak in meeting, 
 they heard what he had to say, and if he could convince 
 them they were ready to be convinced. They had no 
 rules for worship ; each spoke as moved. They had no 
 church edifices and their ministers received no salary. 
 They did not consider the Bible inspired, but used it as a 
 help. " Men worshiped the Bible just as the old pagans 
 worshiped their idols. . . . The Bible is a scripture of the 
 Word, not the Word itself. . . . They held that men were 
 inspired in proportion as they had received the truth, and 
 they received the truth through obedience." In all this 
 the new philosophy appears in a religious garb put upon 
 it by uncultured men. 
 
 But the most intellectual men were not free from the 
 spirit of " comeouterism." Emerson would not vail his 
 bonnet to circumstance or violate his own moral intuitions ; 
 and he resigned his pastorate and abandoned the pulpit 
 rather than administer the communion to members of the 
 church. Eev. George Ripley, after preaching for fifteen 
 years, threw off his clerical frock in order that his soul 
 might not be hampered by possible misunderstandings on 
 the part of his parishioners. Nothing would content him 
 but freedom to embrace the absolute right as he should 
 see it. Both these gentlemen believed that the inviolate 
 soul is in perpetual communication with the source of 
 events. Eev. W. H. Furness is said to have believed that 
 the man perfected by obedience is capable of working 
 miracles. 
 
 After the close of the war in 1815, the new philosophy 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF BOSTON VAGARIES. 285 
 
 was taught in Harvard, with limitations, of course, as to 
 its logical results. But the generation growing up at that 
 time showed many converts in after days. Among them 
 was A. Bronson Alcott, who was the first to apply the 
 spiritual views to the practical work of education. His 
 first school was established in 1825. Having faith in the 
 soul and believing that the soul of a child antedates its 
 body, and that its ideas are inspired by God, his object as 
 a teacher was to entice the indwelling deity in the child 
 forth by sympathy. Instead of being taught, the pupils 
 were to evolve all knowledge out of their own conscious 
 ness. All, even the youngest, were required to keep diaries. 
 To maintain the free development of the individual soul, 
 no punishment was inflicted ; but, if absolutely necessary, 
 Mr. Alcott suffered it vicariously a method that proved 
 satisfactory to the pupils. Becoming convinced that eat 
 ing beef encourages bovine qualities in man, he, renounced 
 flesh diet, and thereafter confined himself to a food com 
 posed of fruits, vegetables, and bran bread. His strong 
 anti-slavery sentiments led him to study the condition of 
 laboring men, including slaves, and having arrived at the 
 conclusion that the wages system is but a modification of 
 chattel slavery, and that the root of the evil in servitude 
 is the divorce of labor and culture, he determined to unite 
 these in his own person and preach abolition by his per 
 sonal example. Thenceforth he supported himself by 
 manual labor, chopping wood in winter and working in 
 the fields and gardens in summer. In his view the alle 
 giance of the free soul was due to God alone ; he was un 
 willing that any human government should intervene be 
 tween him and God ; he asked nothing from the State 
 and thought the State had no right to ask anything from 
 him ; he therefore refused to pay his taxes and went to 
 jail in the serenity of spirit worthy of a philosopher. To 
 make actual his ideal of a perfect social life he estab- 
 
286 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 lished a community. This lasted during one summer and 
 autumn. 
 
 He was one of the best talkers ever produced in Massa 
 chusetts ; could hold forth for hours after the style of 
 Coleridge ; was the soul of several Boston and Concord 
 clubs, formal and informal, for two generations, and a 
 brilliant and plausible lecturer. His mystic sayings were 
 puzzles in his own age and are hardly yet understood. 
 " The poles of things are not integrated," and " Love 
 globes, wisdom orbs all things," are examples. He had 
 many admiring friends and hearers, among whom were 
 Samuel J. May, Edmund Quincy, and Willliam L. Gar 
 rison. 
 
 A very able man of the same class, but not so well 
 known as Alcott, was Rev. Samuel Johnson. Among his 
 sayings was the following, " Man is divinely prescient of 
 his infinity of mind as soon as he begins to meditate and 
 respire." 
 
 Between 1832 and 1844 Orestes A. Brownson ran at 
 Boston the brilliant part of his career. He had been a 
 Presbyterian, a Universalist, and a labor reformer. He 
 was then a Unitarian, and passed from that through in 
 fidelity, and finally, in 1844, into the bosom of the Roman 
 Catholic Church. lie was editor of the Boston " Quarterly," 
 and for several years an apostle of the intuitive school. 
 He gained great notoriety by his extravagant phrases and 
 incisive style, which he studied to make startling and para 
 doxical ; but he had generally the good taste to shun 
 personalities. His manner of writing was imitated by 
 many feebler men who were anxious to attract public 
 notice to themselves. As intuitions may change with 
 lightning-like rapidity, Brownson never took the trouble 
 to apologize for inconsistencies. One of his admirers says 
 of him : " That others thought as lie did was enough to 
 make him think otherwise ; that he thought as he had six 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF BOSTON VAGARIES. 287 
 
 months before was a signal that it was time for him to 
 strike his tent and move on." 
 
 Brownson was a forcible speaker. It was said, in the 
 height of his celebrity, that if one wished to become a per 
 fect orator, he should unite Brownson s strength with 
 Edward Everett s diction and delivery. He was an icono 
 clast, and sympathized with the most advanced advocates 
 of destructive reforms. 
 
 While all who had drunk the new wine were filled with 
 a supreme disgust of the actual, the action of each was modi 
 fied by his personal qualities. The sensitive, fastidious, and 
 dreamy Thoreau, averse to contact with abuses, cultivated 
 the divine in himself ; he built a hut in a wood on the edge 
 of a lake, and communed with Xature and his own soul at 
 an annual outlay of some fifteen dollars. George Ripley 
 ,and his associates, benevolent, abhorring oppression, desir 
 ous of superseding the actual and establishing an ideal 
 society in which there should be no slaves, no menials, and 
 no drudges, dazzled by the day-dreams of St. Simon and 
 Fourier, and having boundless confidence in their own 
 intuitions of the practical and a corresponding contempt 
 for the teachings of human experience, established the 
 famous community of " Brook Farm." This attempt to 
 reconstruct the social order, with a view to the symmetrical 
 development of men as rational beings, exhibited so much 
 self-denial, perseverance, and hopefulness on the part of 
 the men who made it that it holds the first place in the 
 long list of American Utopias. 
 
 It was preceded by the more distinctly anti-slavery com 
 munity of Hopedale, Mass. This was formed by abolition 
 ists who were also Universalists. In an account of it, 
 written by Adin Ballou, its principal founder and repub- 
 lished in the " History of American Socialisms," by J. H. 
 Koj^es, himself a Communistic Socialist, we find the fol 
 lowing : " Xo precise theological dogmas, ordinances, or 
 
288 JAMES G. BIRXEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 ceremonies are prescribed. ... It enjoins total abstinence 
 from . . . all intoxicating beverages ; ... all slave-holding 
 and proslavery compromises ; all war and preparations for 
 war ; all capital and other vindictive punishments ; . . . 
 all voluntary participations in any anti-Christian govern 
 ment, . . . whether by doing military service, commenc 
 ing actions at law, holding office, voting, petitioning for 
 penal laws, aiding a legal posse by force, or asking for pub 
 lic interference for protection which can be given only by 
 such force. . . . It is a moral suasion temperance society 
 on a teetotal basis. It is a moral-power anti-slavery socie 
 ty, radical and without compromise. It is a peace society 
 on the only impregnable foundation of Christian non-re 
 sistance. It is a sound theoretical and practical woman s 
 rights association." 
 
 A similar community, omitting Universalism, was 
 formed about the same time at Northampton, Mass. 
 
 These organizations were outgrowths of the all-pervad 
 ing anti-slavery sentiment in Massachusetts, ripened into 
 rankness by the warmth of the new philosophy. For 
 proof read the following passage from a speech by Charles 
 A. Dana : 
 
 We have an association at Brook Farm, of which I now speak 
 from my own experience. We have there abolished domestic 
 servitude. This institution of domestic servitude was one of the 
 first considerations ; it gave one of the first impulses to the move 
 ment at Brook Farm. ... It was a deadly sin a thing to be 
 escaped from. (Noyes, p. 222.) 
 
 The communities were not organized until after 1840, 
 but they were crystallizations of opinions and aspirations 
 which had been growing into definite form since 1830. 
 One path to them began in anti-slavery Unitarianism and 
 passed through Fourierism ; the other began in anti-slav 
 ery orthodoxy and passed through perfectionism. This 
 was the one followed by Mr. Garrison. At the beginning 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF BOSTON VAGARIES. 289 
 
 of his career he was a Calyinistic Baptist in theory, though 
 not a church-member or professor of personal religion. 
 Having become hostile to the Sabbath and other Christian 
 ordinances and to all church organizations, he became an 
 easy convert to perfectionism. J. H. Noyes, afterward the 
 founder of the Oneida Community, but in 1837 the editor 
 of the " Perfectionist " (New Haven, Conn.), called on Mr. 
 Garrison on March 20th of that year. Of this interview 
 Mr. Noyes (see G. ii, 145) writes : 
 
 He spoke with interest of the perfectionist, said his mind was 
 heaving on the subject of holiness and the kingdom of heaven, 
 and he would devote himself to them as soon as he could get anti- 
 slavery off his hands. I spoke to him especially on the subject 
 of government, and found him, as I expected, ripe for the loyalty 
 of heaven.* 
 
 This last was the cant phrase of the period for disa 
 vowing all allegiance to human governments and declaring 
 one s allegiance to God alone. Human laws and institu 
 tions had no binding force on a man in whom " the God- 
 life was infolded." March 22d, Mr. Noyes developed his 
 views in a letter to Mr. Garrison abounding in delicate 
 strokes of flattery and betraying a reasoned hostility to the 
 Government of the United States. Among other things 
 he said : " My hope of the millennium begins where Dr. 
 Beecher s expires, viz., at the overthrow of this nation." 
 He claimed authority " to stand in readiness actively to 
 assist in the execution of God s purposes." (G. ii, 147.) 
 
 April 16th, Mr. Garrison, in a letter to H. C. Wright, 
 then in Xew York, avows his no-human government prin- 
 
 * That Mr. Garrison wished to abandon the anti-slavery cause about 
 this time, and to devote himself to his new hobby of no-human govern 
 ment, is proved by the concurrent testimony of Mr. Noyes, Angelina 
 Grimke, Lewis Tappan, II. B. Staaton, and others. It is probable that 
 nothing was lacking except money. Capital is shy of anarchical doc 
 trines. 
 
 14 
 
290 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 ciples and ultra-pacific views, and says of his " religious 
 views " : " My own are very simple, but they make havoc 
 of all sects and rites and ordinances of the priesthood ol! 
 every name and order." (G. ii, 149.) 
 
 August 26th, Mr. Garrison wrote to his brother-in-law : 
 " I feel somewhat at a loss to know what to do, whether to 
 go into all the principles of holy reform and make tho 
 abolition cause subordinate or whether still to persevere in 
 the one beaten track as hitherto." (G. ii, 160.) The next 
 day Angelina Grimke, having just received a visit from 
 Mr. Garrison, in w r hich she had gained his adhesion to 
 woman s rights, wrote to Mr. Weld : " What wouldst thou 
 think of the Liberator abandoning abolitionism as a 
 primary object and becoming the vehicle of all these 
 grand principles? " (G. ii, 161.) 
 
 Mr. Weld would doubtless have been much gratified 
 to have the abolition cause disburdened of the " Liber 
 ator," but the plan was impracticable, probably for want 
 of pecuniary means, the friends of the " grand principles 
 of Nihilism having no money to support another newspa 
 per organ. 
 
 It is a noteworthy fact in the evolution of ideas that 
 the men who favored sweeping away all human govern 
 ments and institutions generally ended by organizing on 
 a small scale governments and institutions of their own. 
 Mr. Noyes, it has been already said, became the founder 
 of the Oneida Community, but he was preceded several 
 years in this kind of work by a bosom friend of Mr. Gar 
 rison s. The Skaneateles Community had its tap-root in 
 the very office of the " Liberator." We quote from Koyes s 
 " History of Socialisms " the following : 
 
 It was time for anti-slavery, the last and most vigorous of 
 Massachusetts nurslings, to enter the socialistic field. . . . John 
 A. Collins, the founder of the Skaneateles Community, was a 
 Boston man, and had been a working abolitionist up to the sum- 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF BOSTON VAGARIES. 291 
 
 mer of 1843. He was, in fact, the general agent of the Massa 
 chusetts Anti- Slavery Society, and in that capacity had superin 
 tended the one hundred national conventions ordered by the 
 society for that year. During the latter part of this service he 
 had turned his own attention and that of the conventions he 
 managed so much toward his private schemes of association that 
 he had not the face to claim his salary as anti-slavery agent. His 
 way was to get up a rousing anti-slavery convention and conclude 
 it by calling a socialistic convention to be held on the spot im 
 mediately after it. At the close of the campaign he resigned, 
 and the Anti-Slavery Board gave him the following certificate of 
 character : 
 
 "Voted, That the board, in accepting the resignation of John 
 A. Collins, tender him their sincercest thanks and take this oc 
 casion to bear the most cordial testimony to the zeal and disin 
 terestedness with which at a great crisis he threw himself a will 
 ing offering on the altar of the anti-slavery cause as well as to 
 the energy and rare ability with which for four years he has dis 
 charged the duties of their general agent, and in parting offer 
 him their best wishes for his future happiness and success." 
 (P. 163.) 
 
 As Mr. Collins was leaving Mr. Garrison s board for 
 the purpose of establishing his community, and Mr. Gar 
 rison himself had attended the series of conventions, this 
 certificate must be regarded as an indorsement both of 
 Mr. Collins s proposed enterprise and of the bold fraud 
 upon the anti-slavery public by which he had sought to 
 identify abolitionism and communism. What the creed 
 of the new society was may be inferred from the following 
 passages copied from it as published in Noyes s " History 
 of Socialisms" (p. 163). After styling it a "community 
 of property and interest by which we may be brought into 
 love relations," the " fundamental principles " are stated : 
 
 1. Religion. A disbelief in any special revelation of God to 
 man touching his will and thereby binding upon man as authority 
 in any arbitrary sense ; that all forms of worship should cease ; 
 that all religions of every age and nation have their origin in the 
 
292 JAMES G. BIRXEY AXD HIS TIMES. 
 
 same great falsehood, viz., God s special providence. . . . We 
 regard the Sabbath as other days, the organized Church as 
 adapted to produce strife and contention rather than love and 
 peace, the clergy as an imposition, the Bible as no authority, 
 miracles as unphilosophical, and salvation from sin . . . through 
 a sacrificed God as a remnant of heathenism. 
 
 2. Governments. A disbelief in the rightful existence of al 
 governments based upon physical force, that they are organized 
 bands of banditti whose authority is to be disregarded. There 
 fore we will not vote under such governments or petition to 
 them, but demand them to disband; do no military duty, pay no 
 personal or property taxes, sit upon no juries, refuse to testify in 
 courts of so-called justice, and never appeal to the laws for a re 
 dress of grievances, but use all peaceful and moral means to 
 secure their complete destruction. 
 
 3. That there is to be no individual property, but all goods 
 shall be held in common. 
 
 The Chicago Anarchists of our day have never put 
 these doctrines in a clearer light. That Mr. Collins 
 learned them in the four years of his service in the Anti- 
 Slavery Office at Boston is certain. Before he became 
 agent there his friend Mr. Garrison had declared himself 
 as follows : 
 
 We can not acknowledge allegiance to any human govern 
 ment, neither can we oppose any such government by a resort to 
 physical force. . . . Our country is the world, our countrymen 
 are all mankind. We love the land of our nativity only as we 
 love all other lands. . . . We can allow T no appeal to patriotism 
 to revenge any national insult or injury. ... If a nation lias no 
 right to defend itself against foreign enemies, no individual pos 
 sesses that right in his own case. . . . We register our testimony 
 not only against all wars, whether offensive or defensive, but all 
 preparations for war, . . . we deem it unlawful to bear arms or 
 to hold a military office. ... As every human government is 
 upheld by physical strength, and its laws are enforced at the 
 point of the bayonet, W T C can not hold any office. . . . We there 
 fore voluntarily exclude ourselves from every legislative and 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF BOSTON VAGARIES. 293 
 
 judicial body and repudiate all human politics, worldly honors, 
 and stations of authority. If we can not occupy a seat in the 
 legislature or on the bench, neither can we elect others to act as 
 our substitutes in any such capacity. 
 
 It follows that w r e can not sue any man at law to compel him 
 by force to restore anything which he may have wrongfully taken 
 from us or others. . . . The triumphant progress of the cause of 
 temperance and of abolition in our land . . . encourages us to 
 combine our own means and efforts for the promotion of a still 
 greater cause. (See "Declaration of Sentiments of the Peace 
 Convention," September, 1838, Writings of Garrison, p. 72.) 
 
 Mr. Garrison had entered his " solemn protest against 
 every enactment " forbidding labor on Sunday (see " Writ 
 ings," p. 99), and declared against the clergy and the 
 Church. 
 
 The views of H. C. Wright, expressed in and after 1837, 
 are summed up in his book, entitled " Ballot - box and 
 Battle-field." A few extracts will show their character : 
 
 Suppose the abolition of slavery throughout the world de 
 pended on a presidential election, and that my vote would throw 
 the scale for abolition. Shall I vote ? . . . I may not vote for 
 the war system that is founded in guilt and blood and utterly 
 wrong in its origin, its principles and means, even to abolish 
 slavery. 
 
 The ranks of impracticables in Massachusetts were 
 swelled by Second Adventists, Mesmerists, Grahamites, 
 Fourierites, Spiritualists, and advocates of free love, and 
 of the substitution of barter for the use of money. All of 
 them were few in number compared with the whole popu 
 lation, and their extreme notions, tolerated at first, soon 
 grew offensive or ridiculous in the eyes of nine tenths of 
 the people of New England. Emerson shot at them a 
 few of his bolts of satire : 
 
 They withdraw themselves from the common labors and com 
 petitions of the market and the caucus. . . . They are striking 
 
291 JAMES G. BIRXEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 work and calling out for something worthy to do. . . . Thej 
 are not good citizens, not good members of society ; unwilling!} 
 they bear their part of the private and public burdens. They dc 
 not even like to vote. . . . They filled the world with long 
 words and long beards. . . . They began in words and ended ii: 
 words. 
 
 Frothingham says of their self -culture that they car 
 ried it " to the point of selfishness, sacrificing in its behalf 
 sympathy, brotherly love, patriotism, friendship, honor, 
 producing a mountainous me, fed at the expense of lif eV 
 sweetest humanities." 
 
 Their strongest aspiration was to express in stinging 
 epithets and vituperative language their infinite devotion 
 to the cause of the slave ; but they were serenely indifferent 
 to its success or failure. They would not cast a ballot if 
 the act would free three million slaves ! 
 
CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 THE SCHISM OF THE OARRISONIANS. 
 
 1837-1840. 
 
 AFTER his arrival in Xew York Mr. Birney devoted 
 his attention partly to checking the no-government defec 
 tion at Boston. The evil proved, however, to be much 
 more deeply seated than he had thought. Its progress 
 must be indicated here in a very cursory manner 
 
 November 16, 1837, A. A. Phelps wrote from Boston : 
 
 If I can get on without a public censure upon friend Garrison 
 I will do so ; if not, I shall give full and free expression to my 
 dissent. ... I had not noticed Garrison s omission of the para 
 graph you mentioned. I think he has omitted other things not 
 many of the same character. If I mistake not. Judge Jay sent 
 him a letter about his Providence speech, which has never yet 
 appeared. 
 
 About this time Lewis Tappan went to Boston on a 
 peace mission, to confer with the authors of the " Clerical 
 Appeal " and restore harmony. November 17th he wrote : 
 
 We kept the appeal out of the discussion until the last day. 
 Mr. Garrison and Mr. Oliver Johnson were violent against Fitch, 
 Towne & Co., calling them "hypocrites," " traitors," etc. . . . 
 At the last moment Mr. Garrison, at the instigation, it is said, of 
 his brother-in-law Benson, introduced a resolution condemning 
 the appeal. It was thought best not to oppose it. Think of his 
 introducing it ! a party concerned and not a member of the so 
 ciety ! Every one I heard speak of the matter, even O. Johnson, 
 regretted its introduction. 
 
296 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 In Mr. Garrison s remarks he was full of perfectionism doc 
 trines. It is evident that that is the absorbing thing with him at 
 present. In Boston Mr. Knapp told me that Garrison would, 
 after January, relinquish the "Liberator" or change its char 
 acter, unless the controversy should be continued, and then he 
 would think it his duty to continue the "Liberator" as now on 
 that account. . . . Messrs. Tow T ne and Fitch, so far as I could 
 learn, have no intention of lowering the abolition standard ; but 
 they say that Garrison is so much disliked by the orthodox in 
 Massachusetts on account of his views on the Sabbath, on gov 
 ernment, etc., that none of them will join the Anti- Slavery So 
 ciety while- he holds the reins here. . . . 
 
 I endeavored to show Towne, etc., that if Mr. Garrison is haul 
 ing off to engage in other hobbies as Tie will if they let him alone 
 a glorious opportunity presented itself of taking hold of the 
 old society with new vigor. ... I believe they (the appellants) 
 simply intended to show that the views and spirit of the "Lib 
 erator " were such that they could go no further with its editor 
 as the leader of the society in Massachusetts. . . . W. L. Garri 
 son attacks the clergy as such, when the fact is they have come 
 into the anti-slavery ranks ten to one compared with any other 
 class of men, A. A. Phelps says. . . . W. L. Garrison told me a 
 year since, that as soon as he saw the anti-slavery cause going on 
 without the need of his labors, he should attend to some other 
 objects he deemed paramount. He then opposed family prayer, a 
 regular clergy, etc. ; of late his views have been more developed. 
 As an abolitionist, therefore, his zeal is on the wane. . . . Oliver 
 Johnson, agent of the Rhode Island Society, will do well "if he 
 does not sympathize too much with the new isms of W. L. Gar 
 rison." 
 
 February 8, 1838, Judge William Jay writes from 
 Bedford : 
 
 Having sworn to support the Constitution of the United 
 States, I could not hold communion with any society that was 
 seeking to violate it. 
 
 What Mr. Garrison was doing about the same time is 
 pictured in a letter written nearly two years later by John 
 

 THE SCHISM OF THE GARRISONIANS. 297 
 
 E. Fuller, of Boston. Mr. Fuller was one of the original 
 members of the Xew England Anti-Slavery Society (1832), 
 had been counselor and treasurer of the Massachusetts 
 Anti- Slavery Society, one of the supporters of the " Lib 
 erator," and a friend of Mr. Garrison in time of need. 
 (G. ii, 12, 47, 69.) The accuracy of the statements in the 
 letter was never questioned by Mr. Garrison or his biog 
 raphers. November 25, 1839, Mr. Fuller writes to the 
 editor of the " Massachusetts Abolitionist " : 
 
 Satisfied that the present state of the anti-slavery cause de 
 mands a publication of the facts in the case, I do not feel at 
 liberty to shrink from the responsibility of giving them to the 
 public in answer to your inquiries. They are briefly these : 
 
 Some two years since Mr. Garrison received a letter from Mr. 
 James Boyle of Ohio,* which was subsequently published in the 
 Liberator" (March 23, 1838), under the caption of " A Letter 
 to William Lloyd Garrison touching the Clerical Appeal, Sec 
 tarianism, and True Holiness." 
 
 The character of the letter may be judged from the following 
 extracts : "For your independent expression of your sentiments 
 respecting human governments a pagan - originated Sabbath 
 (Sun s day) your wise refusal to receive the mark of the beast 
 either in your forehead or in your right hand, by practically 
 sanctioning the irreligious sects which corrupt and curse the 
 world, your merited denunciation of these sects, of the sordid, 
 dough-faced popish leaders ; but, above all, for your Christ- 
 exalting poetry, Christian Rest, you are in my heart. 
 
 It would seem from the sympathy manifested by clerical men 
 in this country toward the religion and priesthood that were 
 abolished in France that they would rather have a priesthood 
 from hell than none at all. 
 
 * Mr. Boyle was from New England. He was an ex-clergyman and 
 perfectionist. He afterward became a quack doctor in New York city, 
 and advertised himself by wearing on the streets a cocked hat, long black 
 frock coat, colored silk knee-breeches, large gold buckles on his shoes, 
 and gold-rimmed spectacles. A very long and large gold-headed cane 
 completed bis equipment. 
 
298 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 "I have observed of late that you have become satisfied that 
 moral influence will never abolish slavery in this country. [In a 
 note Mr. Fuller says : * This was Mr. Garrison s opinion at that 
 time."] Of this I have long been certain. The signs of the times 
 indicate clearly to my mind that God has given up the sects and 
 parties, political and religious, of this nation into the hands of a 
 perverse and lying spirit, and left them to fill up the measure of 
 their sins." 
 
 In publishing this letter Mr. Garrison said (editorially) : "It 
 is one of the most powerful epistles ever written by man. We 
 alone are responsible for its publication. It utters momentous 
 truths in solemn and thrilling language, and is a testimony for 
 God and his righteousness which can not be overthrown." 
 
 Mr. Garrison had the letter on hand some time previous to its 
 publication, and read it repeatedly to individual and particular 
 friends. On one occasion, before its appearance in the " Liber 
 ator," myself and several others were invited to meet at a room 
 in the Marlborough Hotel to hear it read. Mr. Garrison, having 
 read it, spoke of it in terms of the highest commendation, saying 
 in substance that, however unpopular its doctrines, they were true 
 and would yet be received by the people. That they were not 
 now prepared for them that if a new publication were started 
 for the purpose of promulgating them (a measure which he had 
 had under consideration some months before, and in respect to 
 which he consulted some of his most confidential friends), it 
 would not get sufficient circulation to sustain it ; that the abo 
 litionists, indeed, were the only class of the community that had 
 been so trained to free discussion as to bear their discussion, and, 
 therefore, said he, "as our enemies say," referring to the charge 
 of Mr. Woodbury some time previous, we must sift it into the 
 * Liberator. " This is the substance of what he said. 
 
 The impression I received from it at the time was that it was 
 then his deliberate design to take advantage of the abolition 
 character of his paper to "sift" his peculiar opinions on other 
 subjects into public favor . As I had never before believed that 
 Mr. Garrison had any such design, and had repelled the charge 
 as a slander upon him, I was of course surprised at this avowal 
 of it by himself. That he made what amounted to such an avowal 
 I am sure from three facts : 
 
THE SCHISM OF THE GARRISONIAXS. 299 
 
 1. I mentioned it to Mrs. Fuller the same evening. 
 
 2. My confidence up to that time in Mr. Garrison s integrity 
 was entire and implicit, and from that time it began to be 
 shaken. And 
 
 3. The columns of the Liberator " have since been in exact 
 keeping with such a design. ... I make these statements in no 
 ill-will to Mr. Garrison, but solely because I believe that the cause 
 of truth and freedom demand it. 
 
 Yours for the bondman, JOHN E. FULLER. 
 
 Mr. Fuller promptly refused to march under false 
 colors with Mr. Garrison. Many other abolitionists fol 
 lowed his example ; the people of Massachusetts held 
 aloof from the cause, and before the anniversary of the 
 American Anti-Slavery Society, held at New York, May 
 2-8 inclusive, it had become plain that the no-government 
 faction, though in possession of the " Liberator " and the 
 machinery of the State society, would not be able to con 
 trol the majority of the abolitionists of the State. Under 
 Mr. Birney s counsel the national society, after refusing 
 to renew H. C. Wright s commission as agent, forbore to 
 take part in what was still a purely local affair. The cause 
 was progressing so well in the other Northern States that 
 it was highly desirable to avoid dissension at the anniver 
 sary meeting. The no-government leaders attended in 
 force Henry C. Wright, Oliver Johnson, Edmund Quin- 
 cy, Samuel J. May, Orson S. Murray, W. L. Garrison, 
 George W. Benson, and A. Dresser, were all present. Their 
 only demonstrations were to offer a resolution expressing a 
 desire that agents and members should not defend them 
 selves by physical strength against violence, which was 
 defeated, receiving only nineteen votes ; and another to ap 
 point a committee which should " announce the judgment 
 of the American Anti - Slavery Society concerning the 
 common error that our enterprise is of a political and not 
 religious character." The explosion of this bomb-shell was 
 
300 JAMES G. BIRXEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 prevented by an adjournment. Oliver Johnson offered an 
 other deprecating the imposition by any anti-slavery society 
 of " a religious or political test for the purpose of render 
 ing the anti-slavery cause subservient to the interests of 
 a sect or party, or of opposing existing organizations." 
 \\ r hat this meant was not understood then and can not 
 be understood now ; it was ambiguous enough to satisfy 
 everybody, and was not voted against by anybody. Mr. 
 Garrison tendered the olive branch by moving the accept 
 ance and publication of the annual report, saying it 
 ought to be circulated through the length and breadth 
 of the land. Most of the report had been written by Mr. 
 Birney. It gave many facts to show that abolitionism 
 was " rapidly becoming a part of the religion of our 
 country," quoting the abolition resolutions of Methodist 
 and Free- Will Baptist conferences, of two Presbyterian 
 synods, and of five Congregational associations. The 
 Connecticut clergy were complimented. " The Methodist 
 Episcopal Church in the Northern States is rapidly com 
 ing upon abolition ground. In six out of sixteen confer 
 ences there is already a majority of abolitionists, and in 
 four a very large majority." Thirty-five pages were de 
 voted to the political aspects of the situation. The su 
 premacy of the laws and Constitution was implied in every 
 page. On " the right use of suffrage " the report said : 
 
 As honest and determined men abolitionists will not fail sea 
 sonably to exercise this right, and he is not worthy the name of 
 an abolitionist who docs not put the anti- slavery qualification 
 above any and all others in selecting the candidate to receive his 
 vote. The principle of using our suffrage in favor of emancipa 
 tion while we neither organize a distinct party nor attach our 
 selves to any already existing is vital to our cause. . . . Every 
 party predilection must be merged or the cause is lost. 
 
 That Mr. Garrison, with his declared views of the 
 clergy, the Church, the laws, the Constitution, and voting, 
 
THE SCHISM OF THE GARRTSOXIAXS. 301 
 
 should indorse the report without reservation, or indorse 
 it at all, was an inconsistency startling to persons of com 
 mon sense, but quite to be expected from a philosopher of 
 the intuitive school. Such a one acts from supposed 
 divine inspiration at the moment ; but whether Mr. Gar 
 rison did so or not, in this instance he did right. He r&- 
 lapsed after his return to Boston. 
 
 The " no-government " men made up in activity what 
 they lacked in numbers. While refusing for themselves 
 to vote at the ballot-box, they voted in conventions and 
 formed coalitions with women who wished to vote at the 
 ballot-box. January 25, 1839, H. B. Stanton wrote from 
 Boston : 
 
 An effort was made at the annual meeting of the Massachu 
 setts society, which adjourned to-day, to make its annual report 
 and its action subservient to the non-resistant movement, and, 
 through the votes of the women and of Lynn and Boston it suc 
 ceeded. 
 
 February 18th, Mr. Stanton wrote to William Goodell 
 from Haverhill, Mass. : 
 
 I have taken the liberty to show your letter to brothers Phelps, 
 George Allen, George Russell, O. Scott, N. Colver, and a large 
 number of others, and they highly approve its sentiments. They, 
 with you, are fully of the opinion that it is high time to take a 
 firm stand against the non-government doctrine. They are far 
 from regarding it merely as a humbug. 
 
 No ! coming out, as it does, attached to our glorious cause 
 and ushered into being under the sanction of Brother Garrison, 
 it will be subscribed to from that simply by hundreds without 
 examination. But though great evil will result from it, yet, 
 thank Heaven, the practice of these men will be much better 
 than their theory. 
 
 The non-government doctrine, stripped of its disguises, is 
 worse than Fanny Wrightism, and, under a Gospel garb, it is 
 Fanny Wrightism with a white frock on. It goes to the utter 
 overthrow of all order, yea, and of all purity. 
 
302 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 When carried out it goes not only for a community of goods 
 but a community of wives. 
 
 Strange that such an infidel theory should find votaries in New 
 England ! . . . And then the name and influence of the ( Libera 
 tor " and its editor have greatly forwarded its destructive ends. 
 
 I fully concur with your remarks as to the influence of praise 
 upon the mind of Brother Garrison. It has, indeed, bewildered 
 him. Had it not been for the self-confidence with which this 
 has inspired him he might have been held back from his wild 
 notions of government. . . . Brother Garrison is now using 
 weapons we have thoughtlessly placed in his hands, and the cause 
 we love is feeling the wounds. . . . How humiliating to his ad 
 miring friends that we are compelled to say he has departed from 
 the standards ! 
 
 Same to same : 
 
 BOSTON, April 8, 1839. 
 
 . . . You will see by the last "Liberator," containing the 
 letters of O. Scott, Birney, and myself, the state of things here. 
 We w r ere compelled to say thus much in self-defense. Brother 
 Garrison seems sometimes almost reckless of the truth of his 
 statements if so be he can excite prejudice against such as take 
 ground against him on his no-government doctrine. Our cause 
 in this region is in a sad plight. . . . Garrison told Whittier two 
 or three days since that, at the annual meeting of the American 
 Society, he should move to amend the Constitution by striking 
 out all which relates to the power of Congress, ... in a word, 
 all that relates to political and governmental action, etc. . . . 
 After this alteration who would remain in the society ? Birney 
 [Jay], Phelps, Scott, Colver, Allen, the Tappans, Leavitt, Whit- 
 tier, Weld, E. Wright, et id genus omne, would quit it instantly. 
 Not a member of the executive committee at New York would 
 remain, I presume. ... I beg you to notice the last clause in 
 Birney s letter in the "Liberator," . . . where he speaks of the 
 anti- slavery cause in New England being greatly embarrassed by 
 attaching to it other and irrelevant matters. He speaks what I 
 know to be true ; and as to separating our cause from these wild 
 ultraisms non - government, perfectionism, anti-clergy, anti- 
 church, anti-marriage, anti-money, etc. I agree with him fully. 
 
THE SCHISM OF THE GARRISOXIAXS. 303 
 
 And I wish I were not compelled to utter what I religiously 
 believe, viz., that W. L. Garrison, H. C. Wright, and others are 
 determined to rule or ruin, to make the anti-slavery cause, and 
 especially the associations, subservient to their ends or destroy 
 the latter. Of this I have not a shadow of doubt. . . . Some 
 men are fond of new theories simply because they are new. Some 
 have taken hold of abolitionism merely because it ministered to 
 their appetite for intense excitement. Mobs, etc., having passed 
 away, the present excitement on that subject is not strong enough 
 for them, and so they must get up something else. 
 
 In Massachusetts the breach between the no-govern 
 ment faction and the mass of the abolitionists was rapidly 
 widening. In December, 1838, Henry C. Wright pub 
 lished a characteristic document, intended no doubt as an 
 assault upon voting. In a letter of December 23d (G. ii, 
 253) Garrison wrote of him : 
 
 He has prepared a tract on human governments which when 
 published will doubtless stir up the feelings of community. It 
 shows in a simple and lucid manner that national organizations 
 as now constructed are essentially anti- Christian. 
 
 Edmund Quincy wrote to II. C. Wright, December 
 31st : 
 
 I received your missive, full of combustible matter enough to 
 set the whole United States mail on fire, in due course. I was 
 well content with the doctrine therein laid down. 
 
 The voting abolitionists were not idle. Some anti- 
 slavery conventions held in January resolved in favor of 
 going to the polls and voting, and recommended to the 
 State Anti-Slavery Society to establish a weekly paper to 
 sustain this policy. Garrison responded with his custom 
 ary arrogance and insinuations against persons. Charles 
 T. Torrey replied with anger, speaking of Garrison s 
 " brassy brow." Alanson St. Clair pronounced Garrison s 
 references to himself " an unprovoked and vile attack on 
 
304: JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 one you professed to regard as a friend," and said : " I 
 shall take the liberty to appeal from your imperial de 
 cision." 
 
 Amos A. Phelps replied, claiming a right to work for 
 the cause " without doing it through your paper and with 
 out coming and kneeling devoutly to ask your holiness * 
 whether I may do so or not." He said that Mr. Garrison s 
 charges were natural to " one whose overgrown self-con 
 ceit had brought him into the belief that his mighty self 
 was abolition incarnate." 
 
 In another letter to Mr. Garrison Mr. Phelps said : 
 " You seem still to be possessed with the old idea that you 
 and your paper are abolition incarnate, so that no man 
 can dislike or reject either without disliking and reject 
 ing abolition." (See G. ii, 270.) 
 
 John Le Bosquet thought Mr. Garrison might be " so 
 elated with his elevation as to think that he was monarch 
 of all he surveyed." Daniel Wise reported Mr. Garrison 
 to have spoken " as if he were whip-master-general and 
 supreme judge of all abolitionists, as though he wore the 
 triple crown and wielded an irresponsible scepter over all 
 the embattled hosts of anti-slavery troops." George Allen 
 declared Mr. Garrison resolved " to cripple the influence 
 of all who will not come under the yoke which he has 
 bent for their necks." Benjamin Lundy, who had for 
 several years lost his confidence in Mr. Garrison, wrote in 
 his paper of the course of the " Liberator " as " erratic 
 and dogmatical," " whimsical and unreflecting," and of 
 its editor as arrogant. Mr. Garrison answered by charg 
 ing Lundy with being " jealous and envious." 
 
 February 7, 1839, the first number of the " Massachu 
 setts Abolitionist," a paper " devoted exclusively to the 
 discussion of slavery," appeared. In the first three months 
 
 * This was an allusion to the nickname of Pope, commonly applied to 
 Mr. Garrison in derision of his ejroism. 
 
THE SCHISM OF THE GARRISOXIAXS. 305 
 
 the subscribers to it outnumbered those to the " Libera 
 tor." March 26th, the Massachusetts Society met in Bos 
 ton. Messrs. Birney and Lewis Tappan were present from 
 the National Committee. Mr. Tappan advised a division 
 of the society into two parts. Mr. Birney approved the 
 establishment of the newspaper, and declared that under 
 the constitution of the national society every member 
 who was a legal voter was morally bound to go to the 
 polls, and if he had conscientious scruples against so doing 
 ought to leave the society. He said also that the cause 
 ought to be relieved of all the extraneous questions which 
 had been connected with it during the past year or two. 
 Thejneeting settled no differences. 
 
 After his return to New York in April, Mr. Birney 
 prepared " A Letter on the Political Obligations of Abo 
 litionists." It appeared May 2d in the " Emancipator " 
 over his signature and afterward in a pamphlet of twelve 
 pages. This was generally regarded as an unofficial dec 
 laration by the National Committee, and excited the most 
 lively interest in the abolition world. Its sub-title was 
 " View of the Constitution of the American Anti-Slavery 
 Society as connected with the No- Government Ques 
 tion." It was an expansion of his views expressed at the 
 recent Boston meeting and which had been misrepre 
 sented in the " Liberator." A very brief statement of 
 points made, with a few extracts, must suffice for our 
 notice of this closely reasoned and powerful tract of the 
 times. " The object of the American Society was the en 
 tire abolition of slavery in the United States. The means 
 for effecting it were : " 
 
 1. The admission that each slave State has the exclu 
 sive right to legislate on its abolition. 
 
 2. Arguments against slavery. 
 
 3. "In a constitutional way to influence Congress to 
 put an end to the domestic slave trade ; and 
 
306 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 4. To abolish slavery in the Territories and in the Dis 
 trict of Columbia ; and 
 
 5. To prevent the extension of slavery to new States. 
 Under the terms of the constitution of the society no 
 
 person can be a member of it who does not consent to the 
 above principles. 
 
 Influencing the action of Congress " in a constitutional 
 way " implies of necessity the use of the elective franchise. 
 
 The declaration of sentiments, signed by the makers 
 of the constitution of the society, contains the following 
 passage : 
 
 "We also maintain that there are at the present time the high 
 est obligations resting upon the people of the free States to re 
 move slavery by moral and political action as prescribed in the 
 Constitution of the United States. 
 
 The constitution of the Massachusetts Society binds 
 the members "to endeavor by all means sanctioned by 
 law, humanity, and religion," etc. 
 
 In 1834 the editor of the " Liberator " voted in person 
 and strenuously upheld in his columns the propriety of 
 abolitionists carrying out their principles at the ballot- 
 box. The constitutions of none of the State societies are 
 inconsistent with political action. Xo opposition worthy 
 of mention was made to this means of furthering aboli 
 tion until recently. He says : 
 
 Within the last twelve or eighteen months, it is believed after 
 efforts, some successful some not, had been begun to affect the 
 elections, and while the most indefatigable exertions were being 
 made by many of our influential, intelligent, and liberal friends 
 to convince the great body of the abolitionists of the necessity 
 the indispensable necessity of breaking away from their old 
 " parties " and uniting in the use of the elective franchise for the 
 advancement of the cause of human freedom, ... at this very 
 time, and mainly, too, in that part of the country where political 
 action had been most successful, and whence from its promise of 
 
THE SCHISM OF THE GARRISONIANS. 3QT 
 
 soon "being wholly triumphant* great encouragement was de 
 rived by abolitionists everywhere, a sect has arisen in our midst 
 where members regard it as of religious obligation in no case to 
 exercise the elective franchise. 
 
 This persuasion is part and parcel of the tenet which it is be 
 lieved they have embraced, that as Christians have the precepts 
 of the Gospel to direct, and the spirit of God to guide them, all 
 human governments, as necessarily including the idea of force to 
 secure obedience, are not only superfluous, but unlawful encroach 
 ments on the Divine government as ascertained from the sources 
 above mentioned. 
 
 Therefore they refuse to do anything voluntarily by which 
 they would be considered as acknowledging the lawful existence 
 of human governments. Denying to civil governments the right 
 to use force, they easily deduce that family governments have no 
 such right. Thus they would withhold from parents any power 
 of personal chastisement or restraint for the correction of their 
 children. They carry out to tbe full extent the "non-resistance " 
 theory. To the first ruffian who would demand our purse or 
 oust us from our houses they are to be unconditionally surren 
 dered unless moral suasion be found sufficient to induce him to 
 decline from his purpose. Our wives, our daughters, our sisters, 
 our mothers, we are to see set upon by the most brutal without 
 any effort on our part except argument to defend them 1 And 
 even they themselves are forbidden to use in defense of their 
 purity such powers as God has endowed them with for its pro 
 tection if resistance should be attended with injury or destruction 
 to the assailant ! 
 
 In short, the "no-government" doctrines, as they are be 
 lieved now to be embraced, seem to strike at the root of the 
 social structure, and tend, so far as I am able to judge of their 
 tendency, to throw society into entire confusion and to renew, 
 under the sanction of religion, scenes of anarchy and license that 
 have generally heretofore been the offspring of the rankest infi 
 delity and irreligion ! 
 
 * John Quincy Adams and several other members of Congress owed 
 their election to abolition voters, who held the balance of power in their 
 respective districts. 
 
303 JAMES G. BIHXEY AND I11S TIMES. 
 
 To the supposed objection that non-voting persons 
 had joined the society and were still members of it, Mr. 
 Birney answered that, under the constitution, anybody 
 who chose might join and no method of expulsion had 
 been provided. In this state of things the honorable 
 course for no -government men was either to move to 
 amend the constitution or withdraw from membership. 
 To the claim that voters and no-government men could 
 get along together quietly he answered : 
 
 But is this really so ? Is the difference between those who 
 seek to abolish any and every government of human institution 
 and those who prefer any government to a state of things in 
 which every one may do what seemeth good in his own eyes . . . 
 so small that they can act harmoniously under the same organiza 
 tion ? When, in obedience to the principles of the society, I go 
 to the polls and there call on my neighbors to unite with me in 
 electing to Congress men who are in favor of human rights I am 
 met by a no-government abolitionist inculcating on them the 
 doctrine that Congress has no rightful authority at all to act in 
 the premises, how can we proceed together ? When I am ani 
 mating my fellow-citizens to aid me in infusing into the Govern 
 ment salutary influences which shall put an end to all oppression 
 my no-government brother calls out at the top of his lungs " All 
 governments are of the devil," where is our harmony ? 
 
 lie denied that no-government men could consistently 
 petition Congress or advise people, who believed in vot 
 ing how to vote, comparing this last to angels advising 
 devils how to sin for the glory of God. He concluded : 
 
 But it is high time that something was done to bring this 
 subject directly before the great body of the abolitionists, in 
 order that they may relieve their cause from an incubus that has 
 so mightily oppressed it in some parts of the country during the 
 last year. It is in vain to think of succeeding in emancipation 
 without the co-operation of the great mass of the intelligent 
 mind of the nation. This can be attracted only by the reason 
 ableness, the religion, of our enterprise. To multiply causes of 
 
THE SCHISM OF THE GARRISOXIAXS. 309 
 
 repulsion is but to drive it from us and insure our own defeat 
 to consign the slave to perdurable chains, our country to imper 
 ishable disgrace. JAMES G. BIRNEY. 
 
 Of this essay, the tone was judicial and dispassionate. 
 Mr. Garrison was not mentioned by name. The only 
 allusion to him was as " editor of the Liberator. " But 
 he answered in a pamphlet twice as long as Mr. Birney s. 
 The allusion to him was noticed as follows : 
 
 I am quoted by Mr. Birney as having set the example of 
 voting for a professed abolitionist and encouraging others to do 
 the same." As to this citation, cui lotw? I humbly conceive 
 that it concerns no man, or body of men, to know how many or 
 how few times I have voted since the adoption of the anti-slavery 
 constitution ; or whether I have, or have not, changed my views 
 of politics within a few years.* 
 
 Mr. Birney had carefully and fairly stated the tenets 
 of the new sect as to human and divine governments, but 
 in his sub-title had used the phrase " no-government ques 
 tion," and had applied the same hyphened adjective to the 
 words " scheme," " enterprise," and once only to the word 
 " party." Mr. Garrison answers in the following strain : 
 
 He calls us a " no-government " party. He might as honestly 
 style us a banditti. . . . We deny the accusation. We relig 
 iously hold to government a strong, a righteous, a perfect gov 
 ernment, a government which is indestructible, which is of 
 Heaven, not of men. . . . How monstrous, then, the representa 
 tion, that we are " for destroying all government ? 
 
 In such verbal cavils and simulated rage, Mr. Garrison 
 took pleasure. His want of logical power struck Von 
 Hoist, the German historian of this country, as " wonder- 
 
 * Up to 1835, Mr. Garrison had not only voted, but advocated the 
 formation of an anti-slavery political party. (See testimony of Whittier 
 and other proofs given in the " Second Annual Report of the Massachusetts 
 Abolition Society.") 
 
310 JAMES G. BIRXEY AXD HIS TIMES. 
 
 ful," nor did lie let slip the opportunity for writing about 
 himself. His answer bristles with capital Ps and my and 
 me. In the last four sentences of one paragraph there 
 are nine of these croppings-out of egotism. The last sen 
 tence is : " But how coldly, how invidiously, how like an 
 abhorred Samaritan, have I been treated by many in the 
 anti - slavery ranks, on account of my religious opin 
 ions ! " 
 
 The feelings of the New York leaders toward Mr. 
 Garrison were the natural result of his waywardness, un- 
 reliableness, splenetic temper, jealousy of others, schem 
 ing disposition, and arrogant vanity, and not at all of his 
 " religious opinions." Such misrepresentation mast have 
 sorely tried the Christian patience of the orthodox Lewis 
 Tappan, who had done all in his power to get the much 
 younger Garrison to work kindly in abolition traces ! 
 Again he writes : 
 
 It is quite remarkable that some of those who have been 
 foremost in protesting against being reckoned my followers, . . . 
 who have been unwilling that I should be regarded as the mouth 
 piece of the Anti- Slavery Society in any sense, who have repelled 
 the slightest intimation from the enemies of abolition, that the 
 society is responsible for the sayings and doings of the "Libera 
 tor " I say, it is quite remarkable that all at once, in the eyes 
 of those persons, I have become an official organ, an unerring 
 oracle, the magnus Apollo of the whole land. 
 
 To impute to Mr. Birney such an estimate of Mr. Gar 
 rison was an inference much too wide for the premises. 
 The same may be said of Mr. Garrison s argument for 
 " non-resistance," drawn from the advice given to slaves 
 by the national society, not to vindicate their rights by 
 physical force, meaning insurrection. If every man who 
 shudders at the massacres of a servile war, thinking peace 
 ful abolition attainable, or advises unarmed Ireland not to 
 declare war against the British Empire, may be held to be 
 
THE SCHISM OF THE GARRISOXIAXS. 31 1 
 
 a non-resistant in any and all circumstances, it is only in 
 that " wonderful " Garrisonian logic. 
 
 There are passages of plausible reasoning in the answer, 
 and Mr. Birney might have replied to them, but they were 
 seasoned with so many epithets, such as " unfair," " im 
 proper," "libelous," "absurd," "folly closely allied to 
 cool effrontery, "ridiculous," " a disorganizing spirit," 
 "untrue," that a reply was out of the question. Mr. 
 Birney never bandied epithets. Besides, Mr. Garrison s 
 admissions made a reply unnecessary for intelligent read 
 ers. He said : 
 
 As men, as citizens, as Christians, we confess that we have 
 advocated the heaven-originated cause of non-resistance, . . . 
 but not as abolitionists* . . . Non-resistance is destined to pour 
 new life blood into the veins of abolition . . . though not ne 
 cessarily connected with it. 
 
 An example of the peculiar boldness of Mr. Garrison 
 in controversy is his assertion (see page 35 of pamphlet) 
 that, at its annual meeting in 1838, the national society 
 had adopted a resolution appointing a committee of nine 
 to prepare a declaration of the judgment of the society 
 " concerning the common error that our enterprise is of a 
 political and not religions character." Mr. Garrison s 
 very positive assertion is not sustained by the published 
 minutes of the meeting (page 16). The resolution was 
 offered, but does not appear to have been adopted. No 
 such committee ever met ; and no such declaration was 
 ever prepared or presented. Mr. Garrison was one of the 
 nine members named to constitute the committee, and 
 should have known these facts. 
 
 * This subtle distinction between what Mr. Garrison did as an aboli 
 tionist and what as a private gentleman, reminds one of the distinction 
 made in the "Mikado" between Poohbah s action in the different capaci 
 ties of Lord High Treasurer and Lord Chief Justice, 
 
312 JAMES G. BIRXEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 The cliasm between the no-government faction and 
 the leaders of the constitutional movement was too broad 
 and deep to be bridged. Separation was inevitable. 
 When and how it should be effected were the only ques 
 tions. Instead of quietly withdrawing, the no-govern 
 ment men decided to seize upon the organization of the 
 national society. This was made easy by the provision 
 of its constitution, which in effect enabled any one to vote 
 as a member who would sign that instrument and con 
 tribute any sum, however small, to the funds of the so 
 ciety. All that was necessary was to get voters enough. 
 The no-government men decided to do this at the anni 
 versary meeting in May, 1840. The practical work of 
 this movement was placed in the hands of that active no- 
 government man and Communist John A. Collins, with 
 Oliver Johnson as his assistant. Mr. Collins raised a fund 
 and chartered a steamboat for the cheap or gratuitous 
 transportation of their voters from Boston to New York. 
 In regard to the number, the " Liberator " afterward said : 
 " On making an enumeration, it appeared there were about 
 four hundred and fifty anti-slavery men and women in our 
 company, of w T hom about four hundred were from Massa 
 chusetts. Probably one hundred went by other routes." 
 
 Goodell, in his history " Slavery and Anti-Slavery," 
 says of this : 
 
 This would make 550 in all. The proceedings afterward 
 showed only 1,008 recorded votes from all in attendance from 
 all the States. Of these, Mr. Garrison s rally of 550 would, if 
 unanimous, secure a majority of 92, without any votes from any 
 of the other States. Yet the business to be transacted was that 
 of a society scattered in all the free States, and numbering, per 
 haps, one- or two hundred thousand, the majority of whom antici 
 pated nothing of what was going forward; and if they had 
 known, could have had no opportunity of attending. 
 
 The character of the Garrison raid in 1840 can be in- 
 
THE SCHISM OF THE GARRISOXIANS. 313 
 
 ferred from the number of Massachusetts members of the 
 national society in the seven years of its existence. In 
 the respective years between 1834 and 1840 inclusive, the 
 delegations from that State numbered as follows : 6, 22, 
 26, 18, 22, 118, and 550. 
 
 It goes without saying that the no-government men 
 captured the machinery * of the national society. They 
 captured nothing else. The pro-government men retired 
 quietly. Some of them formed a new national society; 
 but the abolition cause had already outgrown the crude 
 methods of its earlier days and was becoming a part of 
 the political life of the nation. Outside of Massachusetts 
 and in New York and the great West, among men who 
 knew little and cared less about the dissensions in and 
 around Boston, who had never seen the " Liberator " or 
 its editor, there was rapidly extending a sentiment that 
 the existing political parties could not defend the republic 
 against the slave power and that a necessity existed for 
 laying the foundations of a party broad as the Constitu 
 tion itself and enduring as the republic. Before describ 
 ing the growth of this new party we will devote a chapter 
 to the non-government sect and its leader. 
 
 * This they accomplished by a coalition with women suffragists. 
 The real issue of Nihilism versus Government and Law was adroitly kept 
 in the background. 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 " THE SMALL EXTREME WING." 
 
 IN his remarkable work on the " Constitutional His 
 tory of the United States," Prof. Von Hoist, the German 
 historian, says : " The abolitionists generally were held 
 responsible for every word uttered by Garrison, who, after 
 all, was only the leader of the small extreme wing" 
 
 In its annual report (page 14) for 1851, the Glasgow 
 (Scotland) Female New Anti-Slavery Association, speak 
 ing of the relative number of the Garrisonians to the whole 
 number of American abolitionists, says : " Mr. Garnet 
 [Henry Highland Garnet, the eloquent colored preacher] 
 unhesitatingly declared that they do not amount to one 
 in one hundred and fifty." 
 
 The Rev. John Guthrie, of Scotland, in a pamphlet 
 (1851) on the subject, said: "We stated last week, in 
 order to keep thoroughly within bounds, that the Garri 
 sonians, as compared with the evangelical abolitionists in 
 America, are not one in ten" 
 
 In a letter of July, 1839, Lewis Tappan speaks of " "\V. 
 L. Garrison and his clique" and in August of the same 
 year Amos A. Phelps wrote from Boston : " Mrs. Chap 
 man s influence in this city is dead. At the last meeting 
 of the Boston Female Society, on a test vote, she could 
 muster but eighteen colored people in all, and six of the 
 eighteen were members of her own family. The same is 
 true to a considerable extent in regard to Garrison. The 
 
"THE SMALL EXTREME WING." 315 
 
 sober, serious, prayerful, and religious abolitionists are 
 mostly with us in the city. The weight of character is 
 with us in the country." (MSS.) 
 
 In 1839 the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society (old 
 organization) declared in a manifesto the doubt of its 
 managers " whether the one hundredth part of its mem 
 bers held the peculiar views of Mr. Garrison. 17 (Goodell, 
 page 462.) 
 
 The son of Samuel Lewis, the eloquent Ohio abolition 
 ist, in his biography of his father (1857) speaks of "that 
 largest portion of the abolitionists who acted with the 
 Liberty party." He says also : " The fact was that the 
 Garrison party formed the smallest segment of the aboli 
 tionists; but the opponents of the abolitionists, either 
 from ignorance or convenience, found it the easiest method 
 to confound the two and lay the opprobrious character of 
 disunionists upon all," etc. (page 339). 
 
 In a pamphlet entitled "Truth vindicated" (1883), 
 A. T. Rankin, of Ohio, an old abolitionist and brother of 
 John Rankin, says : " Mr. Garrison did some good in the 
 cause of anti-slavery, but it is a question whether he did 
 not do it more damage than good. . . . On page 119 of 
 his book of selections are recorded ten curses he hurled at 
 the Government of the L T nited States. For bitterness of 
 hate they are rarely equaled. Any lover of his country 
 who reads them will not wonder that good men fled from 
 him. . . . When the Anti-Slavery party divided, only a 
 fragment adhered to him." 
 
 If Mr. Garrison had not possessed a peculiar faculty 
 for gaining the personal friendship of the few whom 
 he wished to conciliate, he would have had no follow 
 ing whatever. Miss Martineau says of his conversa 
 tion : " It has none of the severity, the harshness, the 
 bad taste of his writing." Throughout his career a few 
 persons of wealth adhered to him, furnished him with 
 
316 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 money when necessary, and the poet Whittier, though 
 often obliged to dissent from and rebuke him, always con 
 tinued to him his friendship. The same may be said of 
 the gentle Quaker Lucretia Mott. To his friends he 
 knew not how to stint his praise. He wrote verses in 
 their honor and commended them in his speeches. Some 
 of them reciprocated, especially Quincy and Wendell 
 Phillips, and the clique became known as " the mutual 
 admiration society." 
 
 But Mr. Garrison had never been able to gain the con 
 fidence of the public or of abolitionists generally. His 
 first newspaper, the one at Xewburyport, had failed partly 
 because of his reckless personal attacks on eminent men in 
 the State. He had been rebuked in the newspapers of 
 Boston in 1827, because, although he had resided there 
 but six months and was an unknown and very young man, 
 he had had " the impudence " to appear in a Federal party 
 congressional caucus, composed of prominent citizens and 
 party leaders, and nominate before nominations were called 
 for a successor to Daniel Webster. At Bennington the 
 " Gazette " nicknamed him " Lloyd Garrulous " and said 
 of him : " He is withal a great egotist, and when talking 
 of himself displays the pert loquacity of a blue jay." 
 
 In 1829 he made a speech at Boston, and the " Trav 
 eler " of that city described him as " of quite a youthful 
 appearance and habited in a suit of black, with his neck 
 bare and a broad linen collar spread over that of his 
 coat." 
 
 When in Baltimore he wrote the libel on his townsman 
 and former acquaintance Francis Todd, for which he was 
 indicted and sentenced to pay fifty dollars and costs, he 
 incurred the blame of all judicious persons who knew the 
 facts. Mr. Allen, of Newburyport, under whom he had 
 served his apprenticeship and who knew Mr. Todd, 
 " thought that in assailing Todd he had stepped aside to 
 
"THE SMALL EXTREME WING." 317 
 
 wound those who were not and never would be guilty of 
 joining in the traffic, and that his charge had been based 
 on vague rumor, hasty conversation, and scattered facts." 
 (G. i, 185.) 
 
 Moses Sheppard, an anti-slavery Quaker, resident in 
 Baltimore, was still more severe. He said that Garrison 
 " had promulgated statements utterly destitute of the 
 slightest foundation in truth in relation to a transaction 
 of which, as it took place at his very door, the most care 
 less inquiry would have supplied him with the correct de 
 tails." (See his pamphlet, 1834.) 
 
 That the anti-slavery Quakers of Baltimore agreed with 
 Mr. Sheppard is proved by the fact that not one of them 
 came forward to relieve Mr. Garrison from imprisonment, 
 though he lay in jail forty-nine days and until Arthur 
 Tappan paid the small fine. 
 
 In the "Genius" for May, 1832, Benjamin Lundy, in 
 answering an attack made on him in the "Liberator," 
 gave his opinion of Garrison in the following language : 
 " His course is sometimes rather headlong and reckless. 
 When mounted on his favorite hobby, scorning to touch 
 the reins and leaning forward with his cap extended in 
 one hand and a barbed goad in the other (to say nothing 
 of the rowels at his heels), he thinks of neither rocks nor 
 quagmires, but rides as though he would distance the 
 winds. It is true he may be safe in pursuing the path 
 that others have beaten" 
 
 The pressing need of another anti-slavery newspaper 
 in 1831 would have made the " Liberator " a success from 
 the first if its editor had abstained from sensational per 
 sonalities and indiscriminate vituperation. Remonstrances 
 were unavailing, and the paper was obliged to depend for 
 its small circulation nearly altogether upon the colored 
 people. In 1842, eleven years after its first number, Mr. 
 Garrison, writing of the " Liberator " and its want of sue- 
 
318 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 cess, said that it had " sunk one or two thousand dollars 
 per annum over and above its receipts." (G. ii, 332.) 
 
 In its whole course the " Liberator," it is said, never 
 paid expenses. As early as 1832 Arthur Tappan wanted 
 Garrison to employ himself in promoting the education of 
 colored youth. (G. i, 313.) 
 
 In 1833 a proposition had been made to merge the 
 "Liberator" in the "Philadelphia World," and later the 
 national executive committee had suggested merging it in 
 the " Emancipator." In 1832, when Garrison was about 
 to sail for England, he made himself a laughing-stock by 
 having himself locked up for three days at New Haven 
 and as long at New York to prevent the colonizationists 
 from abducting and destroying him ! The role he played 
 in England was that of a reformer who had narrowly es 
 caped becoming the victim of a murderous plot. A pretty 
 full account of this pretended panic is given in the biog 
 raphy of him by his sons. Before December, 1833, be 
 tween twenty-five and thirty abolition newspapers had been 
 started in the Northern States, and none of them, it is 
 believed, imitated the style peculiar to the " Liberator." 
 That paper was regarded by abolitionists generally as a 
 fire-ship in the abolition fleet, unmanageable, and dan 
 gerous to its friends rather than to the enemy, and its 
 editor had the reputation of being erratic and without 
 judgment. This state of opinion is clearly indicated in 
 Lewis Tappan s speech before the convention that or 
 ganized the American Anti-Slavery Society in December, 
 1833. In it he said : " There is good evidence to believe 
 that many professed friends of abolition would have been 
 here had they not been afraid that the name of William 
 Lloyd Garrison would be inserted prominently in our pro 
 ceedings." (G. i, 402.) (See also G. i, 457, for Lewis 
 Tappan s letter of January 2, 1835.) 
 
 The formation of a national society had been called for 
 
"THE SMALL EXTREME WING." 319 
 
 since 1830 by the abolition sentiment of the country, and 
 Mr. Garrison had sought to take the initiative by making 
 a motion, at the meeting of the New England Anti- Slav 
 ery Society in January, 1833, to authorize the managers 
 to call a convention for the purpose ; but no call was is 
 sued, the managers becoming aware, probably, that it 
 would not be responded to. The call was issued in Octo 
 ber by the officers of the New York City Anti-Slavery So 
 ciety. It had not been shown to Mr. Garrison nor had 
 he been asked to sign it. Both Lewis Tappan, in his life 
 of his brother Arthur, and William Goodell in his history, 
 narrated the facts relating to the call for the convention, 
 and neither of them mentions or alludes to any connection 
 of Mr. Garrison therewith. Every precaution was taken 
 by the men who called the convention to prevent Mr. Gar 
 rison from obtaining undue prominence in its proceed 
 ings. He was not made one of the officers nor placed on 
 the committee on credentials nor made chairman of any 
 committee. His friend, E. B. Hall, was indignant when 
 he found that Garrison was not to be one of the per 
 manent officers of the society, and demanded that if there 
 was no office for Garrison to fill, " one ought to be and 
 must ~be made" (G. i, 415.) 
 
 Under this pressure the office of secretary of foreign 
 correspondence was created and Garrison elected to it; 
 but he was soon informed that his official " letters must 
 first be submitted to the executive committee." The pro 
 ject, too, of discontinuing the " Liberator " was again 
 suggested. ( G. i, 415.) 
 
 Mr. Garrison s feelings were deeply wounded, and he 
 promptly resigned the office. No one conversant with 
 anti-slavery history and familiar with the proceedings of 
 conventions can look over the minutes of the convention 
 of 1833 without rejecting the thesis so stoutly maintained 
 by the Garrisonian writers that Mr. Garrison was the 
 
320 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 founder of the American Anti- Slavery Society. A single 
 fact condemns it. The constitution formed was in direct 
 contradiction to Mr. Garrison s declared opinions on the 
 Federal Constitution. Our view is confirmed by the fact that 
 from 1833 to its disruption in 1840, the American Anti- 
 Slavery Society never elected Mr. Garrison either presi 
 dent or one of the many vice-presidents or secretary or 
 member of the executive committee. He rose no higher 
 than to be one of the managers for Massachusetts. At 
 the seven public anniversaries of the society held during 
 the same period, he appeared but twice on the platform, 
 once to make a speech of twelve lines, and once to make a 
 motion and a speech which is reported in four lines. (1st 
 Rep., 16 ; 5th Rep., 18.) In the hundreds of pamphlets, 
 newspapers, magazines, almanacs, records, and reports of 
 the society, it is barely possible to find Mr. Garrison s 
 name. In the annual report of 1836 it appears in neces 
 sary connection with the Boston mob of 1835, but without 
 commendation either of the " Liberator " or the methods 
 of its editor. In those days it was an open secret that 
 the leaders of the national society were averse from giving 
 to Mr. Garrison the prominence he sought while they 
 recognized him as a factor in the local movements in 
 Massachusetts. They were unwilling to be responsible 
 for his words or acts. As a boy writer he had taken Ju- 
 nius for his exemplar and libeled like his English proto 
 type. His earliest ambition was to be the American Ju- 
 nius without being anonymous. His vanity displayed his 
 name at its full length on all occasions. The same senti 
 ment caused him to multiply drawings, paintings, photo 
 graphs, sketches, and busts of himself. While he was a 
 printer s apprentice he spent part of his earnings in having 
 his portrait painted, representing him in fashionable garb 
 and ruffled shirt. During his flight and concealment in 
 1833 from the imaginary abductors and assassins hired by 
 
"THE SMALL EXTREME WING." 321 
 
 the Colonizationists, he sat twice for his portrait, once in 
 Philadelphia and once in New Haven. He was .then 
 twenty-seven years of age. It goes without saying that 
 he was a subject for English artists. He had his portrait 
 engraved and put on the market. Copies were placed in 
 every anti-slavery book-store for sale on commission. He 
 practiced all the arts of personal notoriety. To be talked 
 of, no matter how, seemed to be his aim in life. A 
 dramatic situation was his delight ; he posed at the grave 
 of Calhoun and in the gallery of the World s Convention. 
 At twenty-one he had published in a Boston paper, " If my 
 life be spared my name shall be known to the world," and 
 a year later he had repeated this gasconade. It seemed to 
 matter little to him whether his professions and practice 
 were in accord. In early manhood he quoted Scripture 
 and talked religion like a clergyman, but he was not then 
 and never became a communicant in any church. (GL i, 
 56.) He advocated immersion, but was never immersed. 
 Claiming to be a Christian, he denied the inspiration of 
 the Bible and the divinity of Christ, and said at the second 
 decade anti-slavery meeting in 1853 : " We are infidels, 
 are we ? Well, who would be recognized otherwise in a 
 land like this ? Who that is honest, manly, humane, who 
 that loves God and loves his race, would desire for one 
 moment to pass current in this blood-stained nation as a 
 religious man ? He who is willing to be popularly recog 
 nized as such ought to hang his head for shame and hide 
 himself until he is willing to come out and be branded as 
 an infidel. " (" Proceedings," page 90.) 
 
 His professions at one time were in conflict with those 
 at another. He called the Sabbath " our moral sun," and 
 apostrophized it as follows : " If thou wert blotted out . . . 
 earth would resemble hell." Afterward he did his best to 
 blot it out, denouncing it as fervently as he had praised it. 
 
 In a printed address in 1831 (page 15) he bursts into 
 
322 JAMES G. BIRXEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 ejaculations of enthusiasm for the Federal Constitution : 
 " Thanks be to God that we have such a Constitution ! " 
 He called it a " high refuge from oppression." In 1832 
 he called it " the most bloody and heaven-daring arrange 
 ment ever made by man " (G. i, 308) ; and later in his 
 career he flaunted at the head of his newspaper the gibe 
 that it was a " covenant with death and agreement with 
 hell." His inconsistencies in action and frequent changes 
 of doctrine gave an air of unreality and insincerity to his 
 professions as a reformer. This was added to by his num 
 berless whims and the facility of his adoption of novelties 
 in belief. 
 
 His sons speak of the " faith in advertised remedies 
 which was ever characteristic of him " (G. i, 37). Many 
 amusing stories were told of his use of quack medicines. 
 He was an easy convert to all the crotchets of his day, 
 among which were Grahamism and Spiritualism. It is 
 said, he was a firm believer in photo-spiritism and the ma 
 terialization of spirits, following in this the example of H. 
 C. Wright. We learn from Oliver Johnson s biography of 
 him that he was " thoroughly satisfied that he had re 
 ceived many communications from friends in the spirit 
 world " (page 376). 
 
 Von Hoist, in his " Constitutional History " (vol. i, 
 page 225), gives a carefully studied appreciation of Mr. 
 Garrison : 
 
 With a mind capable of logical thinking neither by natural 
 endowment nor from education, his judgment, in the hand of 
 his unbridled feeling, was lost in a labyrinth of senseless abstrac 
 tions. . . . Clambering upon the ladder of his wonderful logic 
 toward pure principles, without looking to the right or the left, 
 he soon completely lost the ground of the real world under 
 his feet. 
 
 After the separation of the Garrisonians from the main 
 body of the abolition army, the tendency of their doctrines 
 
"THE SMALL EXTREME WING." 323 
 
 became more marked. Senseless abstractions led to ex 
 travagances in language and conduct. The fine-spun 
 casuistries of " no-human government " unsettled some of 
 the finest intellects in New England. N. P. Kogers, the 
 poet-editor of New Hampshire, and who for years had 
 been an efficient worker in the anti-slavery cause, fell a 
 victim to the cloudy metaphysics of religious nihilism. 
 He would have no president, no secretary, no business 
 committee, no resolutions, at his meetings ; each man was 
 to act as he might think best, without being influenced by 
 others. Among the converts to the same doctrine was 
 the logical Palmer, who refused to touch coin or note or 
 bond, or to pay taxes or recognize human government in 
 any manner. Trade was to be conducted by barter. 
 There were enough like him to start a small paper as 
 their organ, but its existence was brief, there being trouble 
 in paying and collecting subscriptions. Some, of whom 
 Abby Folsom was the type, became crazed on free speech. 
 A meeting for humanity was everybody s meeting and, of 
 course, everybody had a right to speak. As Abby wanted 
 to speak all the time and others wanted a part of the 
 time, there was conflict. Meetings were broken up. This 
 becoming unbearable, the principle was suspended, and 
 Abby was lifted up gently and carried out of doors. On 
 one occasion, when she was being carried out by Oliver 
 Johnson, W. A. White, and Wendell Phillips, she cried 
 out : " I am more blessed than my lord ; he had but one 
 ass to carry him and I have three." 
 
 A favorite speaker of the sect was flattered into a con 
 ceit that his profile resembled Christ s. He parted his 
 hair in the middle, let it grow until it covered his shoul 
 ders, cultivated a rather scanty beard, and with liberal use 
 of crimping-irons, curling-tongs, and " thy incomparable 
 oil, Macassar!" effected a transformation of himself which 
 would hnve been creditable to a theatrical costumer. His 
 
324 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 audiences had the pleasure of frequent profile views of the 
 orator. At a later period, a blonde rival, equal to him in 
 every point except the curled and tufted beard, divided 
 with him the admiration of aesthetic souls. 
 
 " Father Lamson," who, in his better days, was noticed 
 by Theodore Parker as a " beautiful soul," went clean daft 
 under the pressure of the new ideas. He had long white 
 locks which he wore uncovered, and being deeply im 
 pressed with the necessity of mowing down this wicked 
 world and its ways, procured a large scythe with a long 
 handle to perfect his resemblance to Time. He was a fre 
 quent attendant at the Garrisonian meetings, where, if 
 permitted, he stood upon the platform, leaning on his 
 weapon and looking sadly at the audience. 
 
 If it had not been a principle of this sect of professional 
 reformers to say and do shocking things for the purpose 
 of attracting attention, the sanity of several of their leaders 
 might well be doubted. The language of H. C. Wright 
 increased in violence as he grew older. In the " Libera 
 tor " for October and November, 1849, were published 
 letters from him which savor of a disordered intellect. 
 Of the Christian s God, he says : " Such a being is to me 
 a devil," etc. . . . What they call God is but an almighty 
 convenience to slave-holders and warriors and their allies." 
 There is other language too indecently blasphemous for 
 reproduction here. At what was called a " Peace Meet 
 ing," he offered the following : " Resolved that fidelity . . . 
 demands that we should deny the existence and scorn the 
 worship of any being as God, who ever did, or ever can, 
 sanction war or authorize the destruction of human life at 
 the hand of man for any cause." 
 
 That was the kind of resolution passed by non-resis 
 tants at their meetings, in order, as they said, to create 
 " moral power " in behalf of their cause ! It was, how 
 ever, the expression of a sympathetic nervous excitement 
 
"THE SMALL EXTREME WING." 325 
 
 caused by an intense and narrow fanaticism of the same 
 generic class as the " jerks " prevalent in Kentucky, in a 
 single sect, in the early part of the century. Parker Pills- 
 bury was worse, if possible, than Wright ; he compared 
 churches to gambling houses and brothels ("Liberator," 
 November 2, 1848). Pillsbury s book, "Acts of the Anti- 
 Slavery Apostles" (1884, 503 pages), gives a very frank 
 and interesting, though confused, account of the doings of 
 himself and five or six other Garrisonian lecturers in New 
 England, beginning about 1839. They hit upon a new 
 plan of "creating moral power"; it was to go into 
 churches at the time of regular services and lecture the 
 congregations without leave and until put out by force ! 
 On this plan, they acted systematically, regardless of the 
 indignation excited among the persons whose rights they 
 so recklessly invaded. Indeed, they do not appear to have 
 imagined that other persons had any rights to be respected. 
 They were ejected, of course; sometimes gently, some 
 times roughly. Fines were inflicted upon them by magis 
 trates, and imprisonment on non-payment. This they 
 called persecution for righteousness sake. These cranks 
 must have been intolerable nuisances to the people ; and 
 it is wonderful that they escaped with little bodily injury. 
 One of these very aggressive non-resistants was S. S. Fos 
 ter, the author of a vigorous assault 011 the Church and 
 clergy entitled "The Brotherhood of Thieves." If 
 there had not been a strong anti-slavery sentiment among 
 the people, and a certain tenderness toward the trespassers 
 as persons supposed to be crazed by the abolition agitation, 
 Messrs. Pillsbury, Foster, and their colleagues would have 
 fared badly. 
 
 Before the end of 1843, the Garrisonians found they 
 were flailing thrice-thrashed straw. Perfectionism, non- 
 resistance, and no-human government theories had been 
 condemned by the common sense of the public. Ameri- 
 
326 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 cans rejected doctrines that left wives and daughters 
 without protection from ruffians and prevented the weak 
 from associating themselves to restrain the strong. That 
 shallow fallacy, " the world is my country " the motto of 
 the " Liberator," did not rouse the heart like the lines : 
 
 Breathes there a man with soul so dead 
 Who never to himself hath said 
 This is my own, my native land ! 
 
 " In 1841 or 1842 it was alleged that there were not, 
 probably, more than one or two hundred non-resistants in 
 all New England.* (Goodell s " History," page 462.) 
 
 The distinctive doctrines of the Garrisonian faction 
 would have caused its early extinction. It was kept in 
 existence by its continued professions of desire to abolish 
 slavery. As, however, every convert refused to vote, it 
 was plain that if two thirds of the people of Massachu 
 setts became Garrisonians the political power of the State 
 would be wielded by the pro-slavery minority and the 
 Legislature and members of Congress would be chosen 
 from among the most pliant tools of the slave power. 
 Discussion had laid bare the absurdity of denouncing the 
 national evil and refusing to take the only practical action 
 to get rid of it, and in 1843 it had become evident that a 
 change of programme was indispensable to the further vi 
 tality of the faction. Internal divisions also threatened 
 disaster. Wendell Phillips and his friends, possessing the 
 best ability and constituting the large majority of the 
 faction, had never accepted Mr. Garrison s peculiar notions 
 about government, and they reprobated the disorderly as 
 saults of Pillsbury, Foster, and others upon the churches. 
 A compromise between these conflicting elements was 
 effected. Secessionism was adopted as the future platform. 
 This lay half-way between the contracting parties. Phil 
 lips, it is evident from the result, waived his liberty of re- 
 
"THE SMALL EXTREME WING." 327 
 
 sorting to constitutional methods to gain abolition, and 
 Garrison waived his no-government and non-voting theo 
 ries and consented to advocate a political movement that 
 involved State action and much voting. This compromise 
 was a last and desperate struggle of a moribund faction 
 for life. Oliver Johnson, in " Garrison and his Times " 
 (page 337), describes what Garrison did in this matter : 
 
 He began with the Massachusetts society in January, 1844, 
 but even that society was not then quite ready to follow his lead. 
 He brought the subject before the American Society in May, and, 
 after a long and very exciting discussion, that society, by a vote 
 of 59 to 21.* put itself squarely on the ground of disunion. The 
 New England Convention followed two weeks later, voting the 
 same way, 250 to 24. Then the whole Garrisonian phalanx 
 swung solidly round to the same position, and the movement 
 thenceforth carried aloft the banner No Union with Slave-holders. 
 
 This was in May, 1844, and the campaign for the presi 
 dency was in progress. The Whig newspapers, from one 
 end of the North to the other, immediately charged seces- 
 sionism and disunionism upon the Liberty party as its 
 logical result if not its avowed doctrine, and the charge 
 was reiterated by the numerous speakers of that party. 
 The members of the Liberty party defended by denial 
 and by the countercharge that the passage of the secession 
 resolution in the American Anti- Slavery Society was an 
 electioneering trick concocted between Garrison, a former 
 Whig and ardent friend of Henry Clay, and Horace 
 Greeley, the Whig manager, to whom had been assigned 
 the task of defeating the Liberty party and winning the 
 an ti- slavery vote for Clay. They pointed also to the fact 
 that David Lee Child, an intimate friend of Garrison and 
 editor of his anti-slavery organ at New York, had aban- 
 
 * This falling off in the numbers reveals the decadence of the Ameri 
 can Anti-Slavery Society under Garrison s rule. It had lost its hold on 
 the country at large. 
 
328 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 doned his post in order to devote his whole time to pro 
 mote the success of Henry Clay and to the further fact 
 that the negroes of Boston and the non-resistants generally 
 were ranging themselves in the Whig phalanx. In after 
 years they regarded Mr. Greeley s frequent praise of Gar 
 rison and the appointments on the " Tribune " staff of 
 several sub-editors of the " Liberator " as so many recog 
 nitions by Mr. Greeley of his secret political obligations 
 to Mr. Garrison. Yon Hoist intimates obscurely his be 
 lief in such a bargain when he says of Mr. Garrison s 
 heresies : " These differences and heresies were, so to 
 speak, traded in open market from the very beginning " 
 (page 225). 
 
 If traded at any time it was in 1844. The result of 
 the move, however, was that the Liberty party was gen 
 erally held responsible for the treasonable declarations of 
 its bitterest enemy and was greatly damaged in public es 
 timation. 
 
 From this time to the breaking out of the rebellion 
 the true leader of the Boston secessionists was Wendell 
 Phillips. The humble role of his companion on lecturing 
 tours was filled by Garrison. 
 
 Nature had endowed him with wonderful gifts as an 
 orator, and his youthful aspiration was to excel Edward 
 Everett and win the fame of being the most eloquent 
 American. He found the needed theme in slavery and 
 identified himself with abolitionists before their separa 
 tion. Hereditary wealth gave him leisure, which he used 
 in the preparation of his speeches. He sharpened and 
 polished his phrases until they were keen as razors and 
 bright as diamonds. He would not speak before he was 
 quite ready, and his speech was an event. Though lack 
 ing the pathetic element he attracted as large crowds as 
 Ingersoll. He spoke seldom and generally in the large 
 cities. He had no talent or taste for organization. He 
 
"THE SMALL EXTREME WING." 329 
 
 was vox et prefer ea nihil. There was no disunionist party 
 at the North except, perhaps, Vallandigham and the 
 Knights of the Golden Circle, and Wendell Phillips ad 
 vocated secession from a standpoint which was not theirs. 
 He was the only prominent advocate of a withdrawal of 
 the Northern States from the Union, Garrison in this 
 matter being merely a foil to his brilliant companion. To 
 the people generally the proposition appeared unpatriotic 
 and treasonable, and the moral power of the North was 
 arrayed against the phrase-maker whose sole object in life 
 seemed to be to burn down the temple of liberty by shoot 
 ing blazing arrows upon its roof. "When the agitations of 
 the incipient rebellion began to shake the country, the 
 Northern people ceased to tolerate Phillips s set speeches 
 as innocuous oratorical displays. For the first time in 
 Boston he was in danger of mob violence. When he an 
 nounced his great disunion speech for Sunday, January 
 20, 1861, in the Boston Music Hall, a popular outbreak be 
 came imminent. The authorities took every precaution to 
 maintain the public peace and order. Police officers were 
 scattered through the crowded hall, and a large reserve 
 force was secretly held ready a few rods distant. The 
 Governor, the adjutant-general, the county sheriff, and 
 the mayor of the city, were stationed close by. Mr. Phil 
 lips was well protected from the fury of the populace. 
 He advocated letting " the erring sisters go in peace." He 
 exclaimed : 
 
 Sacrifice anything to keep the slave-holding States in the 
 Union ! God forbid ! We will rather build a bridge of gold 
 and pay their toll over it, accompany them out with glad noise 
 of trumpets and "speed the parting guests." Let them not stand 
 on the order of their going, but go at once ! Take the forts, 
 empty our arsenals and sub-treasuries, and we will lend them be 
 sides jewels of gold and jewels of silver, and Egypt be glad when 
 they are departed. 
 
330 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 The Union was termed a "monstrous nightmare." 
 For the first three years of the war Wendell Phillips 
 and his corporal s squad of secessionists gave "aid and 
 comfort " to the rebels by persistent efforts to undermine 
 the influence of Abraham Lincoln. Their choicest sneers 
 and epithets * of -ridicule were reserved for him. At the 
 last hour, when the doom of slavery had been sealed and 
 the triumph of the Government assured, they somer 
 saulted awkwardly into the Union camp, joined in the 
 national huzzas for Lincoln, stripped themselves of their 
 tattered non-resistant and secession garments, donned 
 hastily the Union uniform, and have ever since boldly 
 claimed that all their professions of disunion sentiments 
 for twenty years before the war were false, and they were 
 at heart loyal citizens, and ready to take arms for their 
 country ! 
 
 Not a single distinctive doctrine of the Garrisonian 
 " extreme wing " was ever accepted by the American people 
 or Government. It was the most utter abortion known in 
 the history of this country. It advocated the abolition of 
 the clergy, the overthrow of the Church, of the Union, of the 
 Government ; but the clergy are still numerous, the Church 
 stands firm, the Union is preserved, and the pillars of the 
 Government are as solid as those of the earth. It besought 
 men not to take up arms, but to abjure their manhood and 
 yield their rights to the violent. Free Americans responded 
 by defending with Sharp s rifles the free soil of Kansas and 
 stretching their line of battle against rebellion from ocean 
 to ocean. It opposed slavery as it opposed imprisonment 
 for crime or parental coercion of children because it was 
 one form of force which they held to be sinful per se. 
 The Government abolished it because it was a political 
 monster dangerous to the safety of the republic. The 
 
 * One of these was " bloodhound of slavery." 
 
"THE SMALL EXTREME WING." 331 
 
 only use Garrison found for the national Constitution was 
 to burn it at Framingham on a Fourth of July ; but Abra 
 ham Lincoln found in it the war powers under which he 
 put an end to slavery by military order. Garrison spent 
 the best years of his life in trying to transform American 
 citizens into political eunuchs, urging them not to vote or 
 organize a political party against slavery. The people 
 have answered by building up a political party based upon 
 the Constitution he burned. 
 
 Historians will follow the lead of Von Hoist in his es 
 timate of "the small extreme wing." They will assign to 
 it the same relation to the anti-slavery movement which 
 is borne by the dynamite faction of Donovan Rossa to 
 the legitimate movement for Irish home rule. They will 
 declare it to have been from its inception, about 1836, to 
 its final recantation and disappearance in the civil war 
 an unmitigated curse to the abolition cause, acting in its 
 name, but discrediting it by noisy crotchets and blatant 
 treason. They will adopt as true the saying of Charles 
 Sumner: "An omnibus load of Boston abolitionists has 
 done more harm to the anti-slavery cause than all its ene 
 mies." 
 
CHAPTER XXIX. 
 THE LIBERTY FREE SOIL REPUBLICAN PARTY. 
 
 A PERMAXE^T national party in a republic governed 
 by suffrage must be in harmony with the genius of the 
 institutions and laws of the country. In this essential 
 element the slave power was wanting. Unceasing struggle 
 was the condition of its existence, and from its birth, in 
 1820, it was doomed to perish soon or late peaceably or 
 in the struggles of civil war. 
 
 That its antagonist, the Constitutional Anti-Slavery 
 party, embodied all the elements of final success, is evi 
 dent from its record. It was a powerful national senti 
 ment which in the winter of 1835- 3j3_fprced a reluctant 
 Congress to defeat the attempt of President Jackson and 
 Senators Calhoun and Preston on the freedom of the 
 mails, and to enact a law punishing with fine and impris 
 onment any postmaster guilty of tampering with them ; 
 which brought an average of sixty-six representatives to 
 vote against each of the four " gag " rules passed by the 
 House in 1836, 1837, and 1838 ; which brought Vermont 
 and Massachusetts boldly to the front in 1830 and 1837, 
 as favoring abolition in the District of Columbia, the vote 
 in the Legislative Assembly of the latter standing 378 to 
 1G. Beginning in 1836 with efforts in some localities to 
 affect the choice of members of State Legislatures and to 
 punish pro-slavery candidates for re-election to Congress, 
 it grew stronger from year to year, acting first as a " bal- 
 
THE LIBERTY FREE SOIL REPUBLICAN PARTY. 333 
 
 a^nee-of-power " party, and voting for the best Whig or 
 Democratic candidate until the sycophancy of the two 
 great parties to the slave power compelled it to place its 
 own candidates in the field. From, that time it gained 
 steadily in influence, compelling the passage of personal- 
 liberty laws in all the Northern States, electing Governors, 
 United States Senators and Representatives, and casting 
 an increasing vote for its candidate at each presidential 
 election, until its success in 1860. 
 
 In round numbers, its presidential vote was as follows, 
 subject to allowance for votes not counted in the first four 
 elections : 
 
 1840 Birney 7,100 
 
 1844 .... Birney 62,300 
 
 Van Buren ) 
 
 1848 .... \ ~ ~ [ 300,000 
 
 I Gerrit Smith \ 
 
 1852 .... John P. Hale 155,900 
 
 1856 Fremont 1,341,000 
 
 1860 Lincoln 1,900,000 
 
 A party of such steady growth had its roots deep down 
 in national soil ; and it rapidly grew strong under the 
 fierce heat of Southern aggression. James G. Birney did 
 not plant it. Nor was he the first who unfurled the ban 
 ner of "political action." Rufus King, Talmadge, and 
 others, had unfurled it in 18.20 ; Governor Coles, in Illi 
 nois, in 1824 ; Lundy and Raymond, in Maryland, in 1826, 
 1827, 1828, and 1229 ; and William Jay, Joshua Leavitt, 
 and their coadjutors, in the constitution of the American 
 Anti-Slavery Society, in 1833. But when historians shall 
 have cleared away the rubbish heaped by vanity, ignorance, 
 and family pride upon the facts of the early opposition to 
 the slave power, they will award this honor to James G. 
 Birney ; that he saw more clearly than any other one man 
 of his times the true path, followed it more closely, kept 
 the end more steadily in view, and by common recognition 
 
334: JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 of friends and enemies, became, and remained until the 
 sudden close of his public career, the trusted and honored 
 leader of the party of constitutional resistance. 
 
 Some marked changes in the practical operations of 
 the national executive committee followed immediately 
 upon the removal of Mr. Birney to New York, in Septem 
 ber, 1837. The organization of auxiliary local societies 
 by means of agents was discontinued, the cause being 
 sufficiently advanced to leave this to the spontaneous 
 action of the people. The result was the voluntary for 
 mation of 644 auxiliaries in less than two years, in ad 
 dition to the 1,006 already existing, and of many other 
 societies, not auxiliary. All of these, without distinction, 
 were encouraged to be active in independent propa- 
 gandism, by means of the circulation of documents, plac 
 ing the best anti-slavery books in town and school libraries, 
 and causing their best talkers to take part in debates and 
 public discussions on topics relating to slavery. As a 
 part of the same policy, the committee resorted to the em 
 ployment of a large number of local agents (Annual Re 
 port, 1838, page 47). These were most of them profes 
 sional men who lectured in their respective neighborhoods. 
 Encouragement was given in the summer of 1837 and the 
 ensuing winter to .petitioning Congress, with a result of 
 414,571 signatures to petitions presented in the House in 
 the six months following the 1st of December. After 
 that session, it was regarded as safe to leave this means 
 also of influencing public opinion to the spontaneous action 
 of the people. 
 
 Increased care was given to the character of the publi 
 cations of the society. The year 1838 was remarkable 
 for the value and timeliness of the anti-slavery books. 
 Among them were the admirable argument of T. D. Weld, 
 on the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the Dis 
 trict of Columbia, and his famous book " Slavery as it is," 
 
THE LIBERTY FREE SOIL REBUBLICAN PARTY. 335 
 
 a collection of facts from Southern newspapers ; Thome 
 and Kimball s report of the results of emancipation in the 
 West Indies ; and Judge Jay s view of the " Action of the 
 Federal Government in behalf of Slavery." Each of 
 these ran through several editions. The number of issues 
 in the twelve months ending with April, 1838, was 646,- 
 502; and in the following year, 724,862. By unceasing 
 effort, these were distributed, through agents, friends, 
 and societies, into every nook and corner of the Northern 
 States. 
 
 One of the greatest dangers to the anti-slavery cause 
 was warded oif by Mr. Birney at the May anniversary of 
 the national society, in 1838. Alvan Stewart, Esq., of 
 T^tica, IS". Y., a devoted abolitionist and eloquent speaker, 
 had written him that he would offer a resolution to amend 
 the society constitution, by striking out the cause assert 
 ing that, by the Constitution of the United States, each 
 slave State had the exclusive right to legislate in regard 
 to the abolition of slavery in its own limits. lie. asserted 
 the right of Congress to abolish slavery in the South. Mr. 
 Birney, on the other hand, believed, with the consensus of 
 nearly all jurists, that Congress had no such power in 
 time of peace. For four years he had maintained, in 
 speech and in the press, that the Constitution had been 
 formed by States independent of one another, no one of 
 them having any right to legislate on slavery in any other, 
 and that such a right could be acquired only by express 
 grant; that while by the Constitution freedom was 
 stamped as law upon all territory under national jurisdic 
 tion, the States, all * of them being slave-holding in prac 
 tice, had entered in that instrument into no compact, in 
 
 * This has been denied in regard to Massachusetts ; but see " Xotes 
 on the History of Slavery in Massachusetts," by George H. Moore, pub 
 lished by D. Appleton & Co. ; also authorities cited by Mr. Moore in an 
 article in the " Historical Magazine," December, 1866. 
 
336 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 regard to slavery in the States, except to grant the power 
 to Congress to prohibit the importation of slaves and sus 
 pend its exercise until 1808 ; and that though what may 
 be done by a nation for self-preservation is practically un 
 limited, war powers are not to be regarded as ordinary 
 constitutional ones. He thought it revolutionary to hold 
 that Congress could establish or abolish slavery in a State, 
 and that the passage of Mr. Stewart s resolution would be 
 such a radical change in the anti-slavery constitution as 
 to amount to a breach of faith with members and would 
 greatly damage the cause ; and entreated him not to pre 
 sent it. Mr. Stewart persisted. An arrangement was 
 made by Mr. Birney with Judge Jay, under which both 
 of them made careful preparation to meet Mr. Stewart s 
 arguments. The question was debated for two days and 
 was finally decided affirmatively.* The vote stood 46 
 yeas to 38 nays. It fell short of the two- thirds vote 
 required by the constitution. This unexpected defeat 
 greatly shook the confidence of Mr. Birney in the good 
 judgment of many of the men who habitually attended 
 the annual meetings, not as delegates selected for their 
 sound sense, but as volunteers abounding in zeal. From 
 that date he redoubled his exertions to popularize the 
 movement and make it independent of the influences of a 
 central society whose membership and policy were alike 
 unstable. 
 
 The famous " Elmore Letter," though written by Mr. 
 Birney in March, 1838, was not published until nearly the 
 last of the following May. The correspondence is of his 
 torical value. Mr. Elmore was a member of the House 
 from South Carolina, and an intimate friend of John C. 
 Calhoun. In January Mr. Birney had sent an anti-slavery 
 
 * The writer had the good fortune to hear all this debate. It was 
 extremely able on both sides. Mr. Garrison was present but said 
 nothing. 
 
THE LIBERTY FREE SOIL REPUBLICAN PARTY. 337 
 
 publication to Mr. Calhoun with a note, stating that it 
 was sent because Mr. Calhoun had appeared more solicit 
 ous than most other Southern politicians to get accurate 
 information about anti-slavery movements, and adding : 
 " We have nothing to conceal, and should you desire any 
 information as to our procedure, it will be cheerfully com 
 municated on my being apprised of your wishes." 
 
 This note was handed to Mr. Elmore. Thereupon the 
 slave-power Representatives in Congress, after conferring 
 together, appointed a committee to obtain authentic infor 
 mation touching anti-slavery associations, and Mr. Elmore 
 was selected as the South Carolina member of the com 
 mittee. February 16th Mr. Elmore addressed Mr. Birney 
 a courteous letter, quoting from his note to Mr. Calhoun 
 and asking full information " as to the nature of yours 
 and similar associations." May oth, in a letter closing the 
 correspondence, Mr. Elmore refers as follows to his reasons 
 for soliciting the correspondence : 
 
 I heard of you as a man of intelligence, sincerity, and truth 
 who, although laboring in a bad cause, did it with ability and 
 from a mistaken conviction of its justice. ... I was induced to 
 enter into a correspondence with you, who, by your official station 
 and intelligence, were known to be well informed on these points, 
 and from your well-established character for candor and fairness 
 would make no statements of facts which were not known or be 
 lieved by you to be true. 
 
 This tribute of respect paid by a South Carolina Con 
 gressman to the leading abolitionist of the country, tends 
 to exonerate the public men of the South from the 
 common imputation of underestimating their opponents. 
 There is no doubt that Mr. Elmore expressed the senti 
 ment of Mr. Calhoun and the other slave-holding repre 
 sentatives. 
 
 In his first letter Mr. Elmore propounded fourteen 
 questions, searching and exhaustive in regard to the 
 16 
 
338 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 nature, object, numbers, methods of propagandism, print 
 ing-presses, funds, and hopes of the anti-slavery associa 
 tions. They were answered fully and in their order by 
 Mr. Birney. The lucid statements made by him have 
 passed into every history of the times ; they need not be 
 repeated here. We make an exception, however, of one or 
 two expressions in regard to the national Constitution : 
 
 The abolitionists regard the Constitution with unabated affec 
 tion. They hold in no common veneration the memory of those 
 who made it. They would be the last to brand Franklin * and 
 King and Morris and Wilson and Sherman and Hamilton with 
 the ineffaceable infamy of intending to ingraft upon the Consti 
 tution, and therefore to perpetuate, a system of oppression in 
 absolute antagonism to its high and professed objects (p. 28). 
 ... In the political aspect of the question they [the abolition 
 ists] have nothing to ask except what the Constitution authorizes 
 no change to desire but that the Constitution may be restored 
 to its pristine republican purity. 
 
 The distance between these sentiments and the motto 
 of the " Liberator," " The Federal Constitution a covenant 
 with Death and agreement with Hell," is the measure of 
 the chasm that already separated the abolitionists of the 
 country from the Garrisonian clique. 
 
 The number of members of anti-slavery societies was 
 estimated at one hundred and twelve thousand four hun 
 dred and eighty ; but it was added, that noiv societies are 
 "not deemed so necessary for the advancement of our 
 cause " (page 7). ... " Within the last ten months I have 
 traveled extensively in both these geographical divisions 
 
 * In a letter to a bosom friend Franklin apologized for consenting to 
 a Constitution which left the abolition of slavery in the control of the 
 States. He said : " It is a little sop to Cerberus, the best thing that can 
 be done at present. It (slavery) can not last long, there is too much 
 virtue in the country. As fast as men become honest they will drop 
 slavery." He was president of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society. 
 
THE LIBERTY-FREE SOIL-REPUBLICAN PARTY. 339 
 
 (the Northern and Middle free States). I have had what 
 ever advantage this, assisted by a strong interest in the 
 general cause and abundant conversations with the best 
 informed abolitionists, could give for making a fair esti 
 mate of their numbers. In the Northern States, I should 
 say, they are one in ten ; in New York, New Jersey, and 
 Pennsylvania, one in twenty, of the whole adult popu 
 lation." 
 
 The Elm ore correspondence was published in a neat 
 pamphlet of sixty-eight pages, in a very large edition, and 
 a copy of it was placed in the hands of every public man, 
 especially of every Southern member of Congress. 
 
 AJarge share of Mr. Birney s attention was devoted to 
 legislative bodies. In the winter of 1S37- 3S he visited 
 e_very State capital, from Maine to Ohio and Michigan, in 
 which the legislative body was in session, and he obtained 
 a hearing everywhere. The results of his labors and of 
 more general causes contributing to the rapid extension 
 among politicians of sound opinions on slavery and corre 
 lated political questions may be summed up as follows : 
 A> jury trial was secured in Massachusetts and Connecticut 
 to every person claimed as a slave ; Connecticut repealed 
 her black act ; and the Legislatures of Maine, Vermont, 
 Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, Ohio, and Michi 
 gan passed vigorous resolutions in favor of the right of 
 petition and against the admission of Texas, every Demo 
 cratic member except one of the Lower House in Ohio, 
 voting with the majority. Mr. Birney was encouraged by 
 these signs of the times. In the " Annual Report " made 
 in May, 1838, he said : " We have never for a moment de 
 spaired of republicanism or of our country" (page 97). 
 
 With characteristic energy and tact he applied himself 
 to political action to affect the result of the fall elections 
 in 1838. Agents lectured in Rhode Island creating a 
 popular sentiment that resulted in the election as Governor 
 
340 JAMES G. BIRXEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 of William Sprague, the only candidate who had placed 
 himself squarely on the anti-slavery platform. The earnest 
 support given to Luther Bradish, the Whig anti-slavery 
 candidate in Xew York for Lieutenant-Governor, hardly 
 sufficed to compensate for the loss of the votes of the pro- 
 slavery men of his party. A decided and successful effort 
 was made to defeat the re-election of Governor Vance, of 
 Ohio, who had hastily surrendered John B. Mahan to the 
 Governor of Kentucky, to be tried for abducting slaves. 
 It was considered very important to keep in the United 
 States Senate that noble abolition Democrat Thomas 
 Morris, of Ohio ; but this was not found feasible. The 
 election of Benjamin Tappan, brother of Arthur and 
 Lewis Tappan, as Morris s successor, was, however, a com 
 promise by the Democratic party with anti-slavery senti 
 ment. 
 
 TJie. main_effqrt of the campaign was to accomplish the 
 return to the House of Representatives of several anti- 
 slavery members. Mr. Birney was wont to say : 
 
 One good Congressman can do more for our cause than a hun 
 dred lecturers. He has almost daily occasions for agitation, and 
 he speaks to the whole people. We can reach the South through 
 no other means. The slave-holders gain their advantages in na 
 tional politics and legislation, and should be met in every move 
 they make. 
 
 With these views v he used freely the agencies under his 
 control to influence public opinion in the Congressional dis 
 tricts represented by John Quincy Adams and by William 
 Slade, of Vermont. The election of both these w r as re 
 garded as certain. It was desirable, however, to give them 
 able coadjutors. The nomination by Massachusetts W^higs 
 of James C. Alvord, who was distinguished as an anti- 
 slavery writer and orator, was arranged, and he was elected 
 by a large majority. Mr. Alvord died before taking his 
 seat. In the Genesee district (New York) the anti-slavery 
 
THE LIBERTY FREE SOIL REPUBLICAN PARTY. 341 
 
 voters holding the "balance of power," compelled the 
 nomination of Seth M. Gates, and carried his election tri 
 umphantly. Mr. Gates was re-elected in 1840. During 
 the four years of his service in Congress he was a tower of 
 strength to the abolition cause. In the Western Reserve 
 District, Ohio, settled chiefly by men from Connecticut 
 and other New England States, the people were opposed 
 to slavery by tradition and education. Abolition lecturers 
 from Lane Seminary had visited them in 1834 and 1835 
 and enlightened them on the religious aspects of the sub 
 ject. In 1836 and 1837 Mr. .Jiirney, under his^makired 
 policy of gaining representatives in legislative bodies by 
 gaining districts, had sent into the Western .Reserve the 
 best political lecturers in the employ of the Ohio Anti- 
 Slavery Society. He had himself lectured in the principal 
 towns. The eloquent T. D. Weld had traversed every part 
 of the district. When Elisha Whittlesey resigned his seat 
 in Congress, in 1838, it needed but a few letters to leading 
 abolitionists in the district to show them their opportu 
 nity. The Whig managers felt the political necessity of 
 nominating a candidate who would receive the anti-slavery 
 vote. Their convention nominated and the people elected 
 Joshua R. (Jidding-s, one of Mr. \Yeld s converts. From 
 the time Mr. Giddings took his seat in Congress he stood 
 shoulder to shoulder with William Slade, and both of 
 them were in advance of John Quincy Adams. In De 
 cember, 1839, the accession of Seth M. Gates completed 
 the " Big Four " of the early anti-slavery agitation in 
 Congress. While these successes were won by the anti- 
 slavery party by the judicious use of the " balance of 
 power," defeats and disappointments were the general 
 rule. The plan of questioning the candidates nominated 
 by Whigs and Democrats was proved by the experience of 
 three years to be a mistake. If both the opposing can 
 didates answered fairly, abolitionists voted each for his 
 
312 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 old party ticket ; if they answered defiantly, abolitionists 
 stayed at home on election day. In either case no special 
 anti-slavery influence was exerted in politics. In nearly 
 every instance of the election of a State Legislator or a 
 Congressman by an anti-slavery " balance-of-power " vote, 
 the office-holder regarded his obligations to his party as 
 paramount. And as the fixed policy of the Whig and 
 Democratic parties was to conciliate the favor of the slave 
 power and secure the vote of the South, members of those 
 parties could not redeem pledges made by them to abo 
 litionists. Beginning with 1836, the anti-slavery voters 
 were known as a party in politics. For the first three 
 years it worked on the radically vicious plan of having no 
 candidates of its own, and voting for the least hostile can 
 didates nominated by its enemies ; and in that time it had 
 luadi- liltic pi-ogives in gaining representatives in Congress 
 and the State Legislatures. The necessity of abandoning 
 that plan and adopting the more effective one of nomi 
 nating from its own body, was apparent to those leaders 
 who were in earnest to accomplish the proposed end. 
 Such a change, it was evident, would cause the falling 
 away of talkers who would not vote, and of that large 
 class of men who were manoeuvring for position between 
 the anti-slavery and pro-slavery parties ; but a Gideon s 
 band was likely to accomplish more than a discordant 
 crowd. 
 
 The occasion and one of the causes of Mr. Birney s 
 adoption of the plan of independent nominations was 
 the announcement, January 21st, in the House by John 
 Quincy Adams, that he was not prepared to favor the abo 
 lition of slavery in the District of Columbia ! He regarded 
 this as unfaithfulness. Mr. Adams s usefulness to the anti- 
 slavery cause he regarded as ended forever. This opinion 
 was justified by the subsequent course of that leading 
 Whig in regard to slavery. This was reviewed in 1843 
 
THE LIBERTY FREE SOIL REPUBLICAN PARTY. 343 
 
 by Mr. Birney over his own signature, with his accus 
 tomed candor, courage, and power ; and as Mr. Adams 
 will not reappear in these pages, we copy from the article 
 the following extracts : 
 
 His course, in my judgment, has been eccentric, whimsical, 
 inconsistent ; defended in part by weak and inconclusive, not to 
 say frivolous, arguments ; and taken as a whole thus far, is un 
 worthy of a statesman of large views and a right temper in a 
 great national conjuncture. 
 
 He cites facts to prove that, while Mr. Adams had pro 
 fessed sympathy with the abolitionists, he had opposed 
 each of their special measures, and that they, in violation 
 oFEKeir rule, had put confidence in his words, though flatly 
 contradicted by his deeds. 
 
 This departure in Mr. Adams s case from the rule has been 
 followed by the consequences that usually attend . . . depart 
 ures from rules which have been deliberately adjusted for the 
 management of large affairs. The abolitionists in electing Mr. 
 Adams made him their own witness, hoping, like an eager but 
 an inexperienced litigant, that his testimony would be favorable 
 to them, because he was heard to speak freely of the bad charac 
 ter of their adversary. But the upshot of the matter is that 
 everything substantial in his testimony is favorable to their ad 
 versary. To them he gives words words words. 
 
 Do the abolitionists assault slavery in Florida in the District 
 of Columbia ? There is Mr. Adams, the main reliance of their 
 adversary, placed in his position of power by abolitionists, play 
 ing "fast and loose " at pleasure between the contending parties 
 amusing the one with speeches and letters against slavery, all 
 very interesting and eloquent to be sure, but serving the other 
 day and night defending the citadel of their abominations. 
 
 Do the abolitionists labor so to correct public sentiment that 
 Congress, possessing unlimited discretionary power in the prem 
 ises, shall be persuaded to refuse Florida admission into the 
 Union as a slave State ? Mr. Adams is unceasingly impressing 
 on the public mind that this would be a breach of the national 
 faith. 
 
34:4: JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 Do they toil to produce the general conviction that slavery 
 can not long withstand the influence of a fast rising public senti 
 ment against it ? Mr. Adams, in his cold response to the warm 
 greetings of the colored population of Cincinnati, assures us that 
 * as long as Africa encourages slavery it is impossible to put an 
 end to it in America. . . . The abolitionists insist on immediate 
 emancipation as the most practicable and safest mode for all par 
 ties." Mr. Adams dispatches it as a "moral and physical impos 
 sibility." . . . 
 
 For the logic by which Mr. Adams, after asseverating in almost 
 every variety of form our language can supply that no law can 
 confer or sanction property in human beings, has arrived at the 
 conclusion that this barbarian, brutal usurpation ought to be 
 endured at the heart of the Government until the wrong-doers 
 voluntarily relinquish their hold on their victims ; that Florida 
 ought to be admitted into the iTnion with a slave-holding Consti 
 tution ; . . . that immediate emancipation is a moral and physi 
 cal impossibility ; that slavery must first be abolished among the 
 Mohammedan and pagan chiefs of Africa before it can be possible 
 to put an end to it in Christian America ; for such logic, I say, I 
 can entertain but little respect. . . . Mr. Adams owes much of 
 his present popularity may I not say nearly all to his connec 
 tion with the anti-slavery agitation. Abolitionists have contrib 
 uted more than any other class of persons to swell the tide of his 
 influence. That influence is now active in fortifying against 
 t hem every practicable point at which they have attacked slavery 
 in this country, and his quasi-sjmpaihy with them gives it an 
 independent and unusual force. There is no one who is doing 
 so much I assume not to say it is so intended to deaden the 
 awakening sensibilities of our countrymen against the private 
 iniquity and public disgrace of slavery, as Mr. Adams. 
 
 This arraignment of Mr. Adams was made by a man 
 who had supported him earnestly up to his sudden change 
 of front on the 21st of January, 1839. The surprising 
 declaration of Mr. Adams shook the confidence of many 
 thoughtful abolitionists in the wisdom of voting for can 
 didates nominated by the other political parties. He had 
 been regarded as the " faithful among the faithless." The 
 
THE LIBERTY FREE SOIL REBUBLICAN PARTY. 345 
 
 idea of independent nominations received another strong 
 impulse from Mr. Clay s speech on the ensuing 7th of 
 February. He said : 
 
 It is because these ultra-abolitionists have ceased to employ 
 the instruments of reason and persuasion, have made their cause 
 political, and have appealed to the ballot-box, that I am induced 
 upon this occasion to address you. . . . That is property which 
 the law declares to be property. Two hundred years of legisla 
 tion have sanctioned and sanctified negro slaves as property. 
 
 He was answered by that stout old abolition Democrat, 
 Thomas Morris, United States Senator from Ohio : 
 
 I have noticed for some time past that many of the public 
 prints in this city, as well as elsewhere, have been filled with es 
 says against abolitionists for exercising the right of freemen. 
 
 Both political parties, however, have courted them in private 
 and denounced them in public, and both have equally deceived 
 them. And who shall dare say that an abolitionist has no right 
 to carry his principles to the ballot-box ? . . . Let me then pro 
 claim here from this high arena to the citizens not only of my 
 own State, but to the country, to all sects and parties who are 
 entitled to the right of suffrage : To the ballot-box / . . . Fear 
 not the frowns of power. It trembles while it denounces you. 
 
 Mr. Clay s strong pro-slavery speech shocked the anti- 
 slavery AVhigs and was the chief cause of his losing the 
 party nomination in the folloAving December. Senator 
 Morris s " trumpet call " found the abolition leaders ready 
 to buckle on their armor for the battle. The system of 
 independent party nominations had already been discussed 
 in... New York. James G. Birney, Joshua Leavitt, Elizur 
 Wright, H. B. Stanton, and others, had declared in its 
 favor, and an active private correspondence to promote it 
 had already been entered upon with prominent anti-slavery 
 men in different parts of the country. In February Alvan 
 Stewart urged it upon the executive committee of the Xew 
 York Anti-Slavery Society. About the same time, in a 
 
346 JAMES G. BIRNEY AXD HIS TIMES. 
 
 private letter to a prominent abolitionist, Mr. Birney 
 wrote : 
 
 Our political movement heretofore may be compared to the 
 wake of a vessel at sea, never increasing in length no matter how 
 many thousands of miles she may sail. But the present move 
 ment shows that we have discovered our mistake ; that there is 
 enough life and spirit among us to attempt its correction ; that 
 we are willing to act as well as to talk, to overshadow with this 
 great question minor ones that have for a long time distracted 
 portions of our friends and alienated them from each other ; and 
 that, instead of resting satisfied with still longer committing our 
 sacred cause to the hands of its enemies or of mere partisans who 
 almost uniformly thus far have either baffled, befooled, or be 
 trayed us, we have confidence enough in it and in ourselves to 
 take the political as well as the other parts of it into our own 
 keeping and under our own management. I look on the inde 
 pendent party movement as proof not only of the greater force 
 and energy of the anti-slavery cause, but of its greater expansion, 
 and I am not more surprised at it than I would be at seeing the 
 young of a noble bird, grown too large for the nest and feeling 
 its strength and courage equal to the attempt, committing itself 
 to the bosom of the air and training its powers in the region of 
 thunders and lightnings and storms. 
 
 In this letter Mr. Birney expressed the conviction 
 which was felt by that small number of men who, regard 
 ing resistance to the slave power as the paramount politi 
 cal duty of the time, had been as individuals casting their 
 votes as the " balance-of-power " party. Having no sepa 
 rate organization they could not act in concert, and in 
 general anti-slavery meetings they were greatly outnum 
 bered by men who still adhered to the old political parties 
 or who for different reasons would not go to the polls. In 
 every political campaign the rumor was industriously cir 
 culated that the anti-slavery men would vote every man 
 for the candidates of his old party. The mutual distrust 
 excited by this prevented the increase of the abolition 
 
THE LIBERTY FREE SOIL REPUBLICAN PARTY. 34.7 
 
 vote. Its gains since 1836 were scarcely perceptible. The 
 necessity began to be felt strongly of cutting loose from 
 non-voting abolitionists and from those who voted with 
 their former parties. The policy of independent anti- 
 slavery nominations for State officers and congressmen 
 was readily and generally concurred in by voting aboli 
 tionists before the month of July, 1839, the responses to a 
 lithographed circular sent out from Xew York and urging 
 it having been for the most part favorable. 
 
 To the nomination of a candidate for the presidency, 
 the expenses incident to a national political campaign and 
 a thorough organization presented difficulties apparently 
 insurmountable. It was therefore not contemplated by 
 any respectable number of persons until after Mr. Clay s 
 pro-slavery speech in February and the resulting aliena 
 tion from him of anti-slavery Whigs. This apparent de 
 fection looked like a permanent one, and occasioned one 
 of equal or larger proportions from the ranks of the 
 Democrats. The propriety of national nominations began 
 to be talked of. With discussion the sectional policy of 
 the Whig and Democratic parties, their unlimited servility 
 to the slave power, endangering the republic by the ad 
 mission of new slave States and the erection of slavery 
 into the law of the nation, were impressed more deeply 
 upon the minds of leading abolitionists as making impera 
 tive the organization of a separate and permanent na 
 tional party upon the principle, " freedom national, slav 
 ery local." 
 
 This tendency of opinion was shown in the resolutions 
 passed at a national anti-slavery convention of some five 
 hundred delegates held at Albany, N. Y., July, 31, 1839, 
 to vote for no man who would not avow his immedia- 
 tism, entreating all abolitionists to vote and to adopt such 
 a course in respect to presidential nominations as seemed 
 best for the cause in each section. In the last proceed- 
 
348 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS. TIMES. 
 
 ings of the convention a resolution was passed looking to 
 independent nominations for President and Vice-Presi- 
 dent. On the 28th of September following the Monroe 
 County (N". Y.) convention adopted a series of resolutions 
 and an address in favor of nominating a national ticket 
 for abolition suffrages. These were prepared by Myron 
 Holley, who since the 1st of January of that year had 
 taken an active interest in the anti-slavery movement. 
 He was a public man who had earned the gratitude of the 
 people of his State by his devotion to its greatest internal 
 improvement, the Erie Canal. His public spirit, ardent 
 temperament, and moving eloquence designated him as a 
 proper person to advocate a movement which had already 
 been decided upon by Alvan Stewart, Gerrit Smith, Will 
 iam Goodell, Joshua Leavitt, Elizur Wright, and other 
 leading men. 
 
 October 23d, at a national anti-slavery convention of 
 four hundred delegates held at Cleveland, Ohio, the sub 
 ject was discussed on a resolution offered by Myron Holley 
 proposing a nominating committee; but, as it had not 
 been mentioned in the call and nearly all the delegates 
 were from Ohio, the convention being for special objects, 
 it was laid on the table, the friends of independent nomi 
 nations voting for this disposition of it. November 13th, 
 a State convention of about five hundred delegates met at 
 Warsaw, N. Y., and unanimously nominated James G. 
 Birney for President. 
 
 This action indicated the strength of the new move 
 ment, but it was not that of a national convention. On 
 that ground Mr. Birney declined the nomination. There 
 were two other grounds not mentioned the inexpediency 
 of nominating before the Whig party had done so and his 
 desire that Judge William Jay should be the anti-slavery 
 standard bearer if it should be necessary to choose one. 
 In the event of the nomination of Henry Clay or any 
 
THE LIBERTY FREE SOIL REPUBLICAN PARTY. 
 
 other slave-holder by the Whigs, he thought the Whig 
 abolitionists might be relied on ; but that if the Whig 
 party should nominate General Scott, who was known to 
 be opposed to the extension of slavery and admission of 
 Texas as a slave State, and to be willing to approve a bill 
 for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, 
 the Whig abolitionists would support the W^hig candidate. 
 This would cause a stampede of Democratic abolitionists 
 to their old party, and the independent ticket would fall 
 to the ground. 
 
 In view of this state of things, he would not have re 
 garded it as expedient to nominate an independent ticket 
 if General Scott had been the Whig candidate. 
 
 Matters remained therefore at a standstill until after 
 the Whig convention of December 4th at Harrisburg had 
 nominated General William Henry Harrison. It is con 
 ceded by Henry Clay s friends that he was dropped be 
 cause of his unpopularity at the North, caused by his pro- 
 slavery speech in February and his identification with the 
 cause of the United States Bank. There was in the free 
 States a strong repugnance among intelligent men to an 
 alliance through Clay between the great moneyed power of 
 the country and the slave power of the South. Abolition 
 ists especially feared Clay because he was plausible and 
 adroit and would be able not only to procure the admission 
 of Texas to the Union, but the division of the territory 
 into several slave States. General William H. Harrison 
 was nominated without a platform ; but he was a Virgin 
 ian by birth, had antecedents as favoring the re-establish 
 ment of slavery in the Indiana Territory while he was 
 Governor there, and had declared the discussion of slavery 
 unconstitutional and that " the schemes of the abolition 
 ists were fraught with horrors upon which an incarnate 
 devil only could look with approbation." 
 
 Nothing could be hoped for the anti-slavery cause 
 
350 JAMES G. BTRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 from either Harrison or Van Buren, and there was immi 
 nent danger that if an independent nomination were not 
 made the anti-slavery voters would disappear altogether. 
 The campaign promised to be one of extraordinary viru 
 lence and vigor on both sides. The Democrats were 
 struggling to retain power, but were weakened by the 
 numerous defalcations of office-holders and the "hard 
 times " caused by the bad condition of the banking system. 
 The Whigs w r ere emboldened by the distress of their 
 adversaries, and were already preparing to win by a cam 
 paign not of political principles, but of secret anti-slavery 
 promises made to be broken and of clamor, log-cabins, 
 hard cider, and coon-skins. To the abolitionists it had 
 become a vital necessity to keep together. If they were 
 swallowed up in the pro-slavery parties their cause was 
 lost. Independent nominations were the only means to 
 maintain the identity and perpetuation of the anti-slavery 
 party in politics. January 28, 1840, a State convention, 
 held at Arcade, N. Y., issued a call for a national conven 
 tion to be held April 1st at Albany, N. Y. ? for the purpose 
 of deciding whether nominations should be made for 
 President and Vice-President. In spite of a very inclem 
 ent season delegates from six States were present. After 
 a full discussion the convention decided to make the 
 nominations. In the selection of candidates no one was 
 mentioned for the presidency except James G. Birney. 
 He was unanimously nominated. Thomas Earle, of Phil 
 adelphia, was put on the ticket as nominee for the vice- 
 presidency. Xo name was given to the new party. For 
 several years it was known by sundry names, and in 1844 
 it was christened " Liberty," which was dropped in 1848 
 for "Free Soil." Its organization cleared the abolition 
 cause of do nothings, trading politicians, and false friends, 
 brought about concert of action, gave to every man some 
 thing practical to do, swelled local contributions, deepened 
 
THE LIBERTY FREE SOIL REPUBLICAN PARTY. 351 
 
 interest, put a stop to Northern mobs, and increased dis 
 cussion a hundred fold. Mere talkers gave way to work 
 ers. Under the new impulse the old anti-slavery societies 
 fell into decay and active local clubs sprang up over the 
 country. As an independent party opening a convenient 
 refuge for the dissatisfied it exerted a largely increased 
 influence over the nominations by the Whigs and Demo 
 crats. The appearance in politics of such men as Charles 
 Sumner, Henry Wilson, David Wilmot, and Thaddeus 
 Stevens, was due to it. At one time the New York Barn 
 burners, at another the Wilmot Proviso men came to it, 
 and at last, when all reasons for the further existence of 
 the Whig party had ceased, that party dissolved. Its pro- 
 slavery members found a congenial home in the Demo 
 cratic party, and its freedom-loving members went natu 
 rally into the party formed in 1840 to repel the aggressions 
 of the slave power. For many years the bad effects of the 
 " balance-of -power " policy in its embryonic days weakened 
 the general confidence in the stability of the new party, 
 and many looked to see it absorbed into one or the other 
 of the old organizations. New converts were not stead 
 fast ; but as time wore on it became clearer that the prin 
 ciples of the new party were the only broadly national 
 ones, the only ones strong enough to curb the slave power 
 and prevent the enslavement of the laboring classes and 
 the overthrow of the wages system and of the republic. 
 When the slave power attempted to seize upon Kansas, 
 the sentiment created by the Free-Soil party was strong 
 enough to resist and conquer it. This conflict caused the 
 reformation of political parties and the absorption of the 
 Whig into the two others. The election of Lincoln, prov 
 ing to the slave power that it could no longer dictate the 
 national policy, led to secession. The Government took 
 up arms to preserve the Union, and, as one of the means 
 to that end, the abolition of slavery in the States was ef- 
 
352 JAMES G. BIRXEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 fected chiefly by military power. Though slavery was the 
 cause of the war, the United States did not take up arms 
 for the purpose of abolishing it. If the controlling power 
 in the slave States had been willing in 1860 to accept re 
 striction of slavery to its existing limits, freedom in the 
 Territories, in all new States, and in the District of Colum 
 bia, it is probable that slavery would still exist in the 
 Southern States. The final abolition of it was a political 
 not a moral measure, adopted for national unity and 
 peace, not as benevolence to the negroes ; but it became 
 necessary, because the slave power would not submit to 
 the reasonable and constitutional policy declared in the 
 constitution of the American Anti - Slavery Society in 
 1833, by the Anti-Slavery party in 1840, the Liberty party 
 in 1844, the Free-Soil party in 1848 and 1852, and the 
 Eepublican party in 1856 and 18GO. 
 
 Many volumes have been written on the history of the 
 anti-slavery political movement between 1840 and 1862. 
 The plan of this sketch does not embrace that period. 
 
 A brief notice of the campaign of 1844 will close the 
 political portion of our task. 
 
 The three candidates for the presidency were James 
 K. Polk, Henry Clay, and for the abolitionists, James G. 
 Birney, who had again been unanimously nominated by a 
 national convention. Mr. Polk carried seven free, and 
 eight slave States and a popular majority of about 39,000 ; 
 Mr. Clay carried Jive free, and six slave States; and 62,300 
 votes were returned * for Mr. Birney. After the election 
 the claim was made by Horace Greeley that the abolition 
 ists ought all to have voted for Mr. Clay, and if they had 
 
 * A few thousand votes more were certainly given ; but the election 
 laws were weak, party spirit high, and the judges were all Whigs or 
 Democrats. From many precincts where abolitionists had voted no 
 votes were returned ; from Rhode Island, where many abolition votes 
 bad been cast, only five were returned. 
 
THE LIBERTY FREE SOIL REPUBLICAN PARTY. 353 
 
 doiie so Mr. Clay would have been elected. Mr. Greeley 
 had the manliness to retract this afterward and to attribute 
 Mr. Clay s defeat to the right cause* his pro-slavery 
 record and his several disingenuous letters on the Texas 
 question ; but the claim is still made by some superficial 
 politicians. It might be answered in the same spirit by 
 saying that if all who voted for Clay had voted for Birney 
 the latter would have been elected ; and that if the 874,534 
 Whigs who voted for Fillmore in 1856 had voted for 
 Fremont the latter would have been elected. Such hy 
 potheses are puerile. A better answer is that if the abo 
 litionists had all voted for Clay the strong probability is 
 that, with his tact and personal and official influence, he 
 would have probably secured the admission of Texas as 
 five or more slave States, and thus given the political pre- 
 ponderancy to the slave States. This would have been 
 the logical extension of his record in gaining the admission 
 of Missouri as a slave State and the congressional recogni 
 tion of slavery in Arkansas. The true and sufficient 
 answer is that the abolitionists were engaged in laying 
 the foundations of a permanent national party and ought 
 not to have abandoned that work for any transient reason 
 whatever. Their action has been fully justified by the 
 subsequent triumph of the Republican party. 
 
 The contest of 1844 was one of the most closely con 
 tested in the history of presidential elections. As the 
 campaign waxed hot and chances were seen to be about 
 
 * In I860 Mr. Greeley in a letter to Hiram Ketchum, published in the 
 "Tribune," referred to the Whig defeat of 1844 thus: " Unfortunate as 
 you and I thought because Mr. Clay interposed to derange our order of 
 battle and prevent our fighting it on the anti-slavery ground we had 
 chosen." In the " Tribune" of January 7, 1864, Mr. Greeley wrote: "It 
 has long been my decided conviction that but for Mr. Clay s own unfor 
 tunate and sadly perverted letters to Alabama, with regard to the annexa 
 tion of Texas, his election could not have been prevented." 
 
JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 equal, Democrats and Whigs alike appealed to the anti- 
 slavery men for votes. As the election drew near and Clay s 
 chances were seen to be growing less, the appeals of the 
 Whigs became almost frantic. Horace Greeley, then a 
 violent Whig partisan, but who had for years, in the New 
 York " Tribune," adopted a friendly tone toward the abo 
 litionists, and who had thought himself able to deliver 
 their votes to his chief, Mr. Clay, redoubled his entreaties, 
 arguments, and appeals. David Lee Child, editor of the 
 " Anti-Slavery Standard," the Garrisonian organ at New 
 York, threw his influence publicly for Clay. The Whig 
 papers abounded in false statements. Mr. Birney was 
 abused and cajoled by turns. The last resort of the 
 Whigs was the " Garland forgery," concocted by the Whig 
 Central Committee of Michigan. It purported to be a 
 letter from James G. Birney to one Garland, a resident of 
 his legislative district in Michigan, soliciting the Demo 
 cratic nomination for the Legislature, and declaring his 
 democracy and his intention to defeat Henry Clay. It 
 purported to be duly sworn to and to be printed on an 
 extra of the " Oakland Gazette." This infamous docu 
 ment was printed at New York by the Whigs in immense 
 quantities, and sent in packages to active Whigs in every 
 county in the Northern States, with instructions not to 
 circulate it until after the 1st of November. In western 
 New York it was withheld until the 3d, on which day it 
 was known that Mr. Birney, who had been in the State 
 for about a month, expected to leave Buffalo in a steam 
 boat for Detroit. Owing to the accidental detention of 
 the boat, he did not leave on that day, and a copy of the 
 forgery fell into his hands. As far as possible he contra 
 dicted it ; but it was too late to expose the political crime 
 fully. In those days railroads and telegraph lines were 
 few. The " National Intelligencer," " Portland Adver 
 tiser," and " Ohio State Journal " were among the papers 
 
THE LIBERTY FREE SOIL REPUBLICAN PARTY. 355 
 
 that published this forgery, and the Whig State Com 
 mittee of Indiana issued a public address containing it ; 
 but the original contrivers of the forgery were doubtless 
 at New York. The probable knowledge by Horace Gree- 
 ley of this electioneering trick and the evasiveness of his 
 disclaimer put an end to the friendly relations between 
 him and Mr. Birney. Mr. Greeley gave orders that Mr. 
 Birney s name should not be mentioned in the " Tribune " 
 thereafter,* and carefully avoided all mention of it in his 
 large work on the history of the anti-slavery conflict, ex 
 cept in the election returns. His malice ended only with 
 Mr. Birney s death. The effect of the " Garland forgery " 
 probably was to diminish Mr. Birney s vote at least half. 
 In Ohio, where it was not exposed except in one or two 
 counties of the northeastern part of the State, Mr. Birney 
 lost several thousand votes, most of which went to Mr. 
 Clay. The Whigs carried the State by a plurality of more 
 than six thousand. In New York the Whigs gained 
 largely, cutting down to 15,812 the Liberty party vote of 
 16,275 cast in 1843 at the State election. In spite of the 
 forgery the Liberty party polled 62,263 votes in all the 
 States. 
 
 This campaign was the last in Mr. Birney s public 
 career ; it left the party well organized, harmonious, hope 
 ful, and nearly nine hundred per cent stronger than in 
 1840. What it might have accomplished under his wise 
 and able leadership, if his health had been spared, how 
 many false moves and schisms it would have avoided, can 
 only be conjectured. In the summer of 1845 he was dis 
 abled by an accident. From that time to his death he 
 was an invalid. / He had given twelve years of his life to 
 save the country of his love from slavery, disunion, and 
 
 * This is stated on the authority of Mr. Robert Carter, then one of 
 the sub-editors of the " Tribune." 
 
356 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 civil war. Becoming aware in 1833 of the dreams of 
 political ascendency in the Union or of secession and a 
 Southern empire cherished by the leaders of the slave- 
 power, he had devoted himself to the task of transforming 
 Kentucky and Virginia into free States. Finding it too 
 late to accomplish this or to maintain a foothold in his 
 native State, and that liberty in the Northern States was 
 menaced, he addressed himself to the task of arousing the 
 country to a sense of its danger. After the freedom of 
 mails and of the press was made sure, he strove to rally 
 the North against the extension of slavery. The weak 
 ness shown by Northern Congressmen in the admission of 
 Arkansas, in 1836, w r as to him ominous of further disas 
 ters in the probable admission of Florida and Texas as 
 slave States. With each added slave State, he knew that 
 the aggressiveness of the slave pow r er would be increased 
 and the peaceable solution of the slavery question made 
 more improbable. He did not doubt that slavery would 
 go down, if the Union were dissolved ; but he knew it 
 would go down in blood. For his country, he feared the 
 horrors of civil war. Hence the intensity of his reproba 
 tion of John Quincy Adams for refusing to vote against 
 the admission of Florida as a slave State and for the 
 abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. Such 
 weakness he regarded as contributing to the chances of 
 civil war it was unstatesmanlike and unpatriotic. Mr. 
 Birney knew Southern men, their aspirations, plans, and 
 power, better than any other leading abolitionist. He 
 never depreciated them. If he had succeeded in the 
 movement to exclude Florida and Texas as slave States, 
 and to stamp freedom upon the national territory and 
 national policy, the civil war, with its horrors, might have 
 been averted. The last years of his life were saddened by 
 the thought that slavery would not be peaceably abol 
 ished. 
 
CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 TRAITS OF CHARACTER. 
 
 THE facts already narrated illustrate some of the quali 
 ties of James G. Birney. They do not show the whole 
 man. From the date of his first marriage to the death of 
 his wife in 1839, he lived with her in harmony and love. 
 His manner to her was always expressive of respect and 
 affection. The children were taught to honor and obey 
 her. There was no divided authority. Her orders were 
 never interfered with. She was his best friend, aiding 
 him with her counsel and encouraging him with her sym 
 pathy. In his moods of depression for he was human 
 and subject to discouragement she would sit by him, 
 clasping his hands in hers, and read to him softly from 
 the Psalms of David or the promises of Scripture. This 
 chased away the evil spirit. How much of his strength 
 and courage he owed to her brave heart the world can 
 never know. 
 
 In early manhood he spent much of his time with his 
 children. He joined them in their boyish sports, taught 
 them many games of manly exercise, and entered heartily 
 into their glee. His uncommon bodily activity made him 
 enjoy running, jumping, and the games at ball then in 
 vogue. He showed them how to ride and to row, to make 
 bows and arrows, snares and traps, to handle the shot-gun, 
 and to hunt game. A broad veranda in the rear of his 
 dwelling was used for play in rainy weather, being fur- 
 
358 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 nished with swings and trapezes, battledores and shuttle 
 cocks. He was fond of music and played the flute. In 
 every innocent way, home was made attractive to the 
 children. 
 
 After he began his career against slavery, his cheerful 
 religious faith gradually deepened into Puritan gravity, 
 the joyous companion gave way to the earnest man, and 
 the children pursued their sports without his guidance. 
 But to them he was always the object of love and venera 
 tion. His wishes were their law, the penalty of rare viola 
 tion being a look varying from grave to severe. The art of 
 command was to him a natural faculty. As he grew older 
 and years of conflict began to tell on him, he was less 
 demonstrative of affection, but the undercurrent ran 
 always deep and strong. To his only surviving daughter,* 
 he gave his whole heart. When she was ten years old, 
 the writer, passing through Detroit, where she was at 
 boarding-school, found her on the eve of an unexpected 
 holiday and took her with him to Bay City. She was not 
 expected. "We reached our father s house after dark, and 
 seeing a light in the study, tapped at the door. Florence 
 entered first. When her father saw her, he clasped her to 
 his breast and sobbed as if his heart would break with joy. 
 It was the only time the writer ever saw him lose utterly 
 his self-control. His love for the motherless little girl 
 was one of the deep passions of his strong nature. 
 
 In the spring of 1841, he married Miss Fitzhugh, the 
 sister of Mrs. Gerrit Smith, and reassembled his younger 
 children under his own roof-tree. This marriage, also, 
 was a happy one. The lady had a large property. This 
 was secured by Mr. Birney, against her expressed wishes, 
 to her separate use and control ; and he ever after re 
 frained from using any part of it, or doing anything in 
 
 * Now Mrs. Florence B. Jennison, of Bay City, Michigan. 
 
TRAITS OF CHARACTER. 359 
 
 regard to it, except advising as to investments and man 
 agement. 
 
 His own fortune, largely increased by judicious invest 
 ments after leaving Kentucky, was mostly spent in his 
 public career. When he returned from England in 
 November, 1840, he found his means so much reduced 
 that it was necessary for him to replenish. He effected 
 this by purchasing a large quantity of land on the Sagi- 
 naw River, Michigan. Part of it is now within the limits 
 of the flourishing Bay City. The rise in value of these 
 lands placed him in comfortable circumstances and en 
 abled him to convey, during his life, a moderate property 
 to each of his children, reserving enough for his own 
 ample support. He thought this much better than devis 
 ing it to them by will. In his business arrangements, he 
 was exact. His papers were drawn with legal skill, and 
 his bargains were made so clearly that differences were 
 avoided. So far as the writer knows, Mr. Birney was 
 never party to a civil suit, either as plaintiff or de 
 fendant. Between 1840 and 1845 he sold in small par 
 cels, partly for cash and partly on time, some fifteen thou 
 sand acres of land in western Ohio and eastern Indiana. 
 Many of the purchasers defaulted on the deferred pay 
 ments, and some had lost their bonds for title ; but he 
 had duplicates of the papers, and the whole business was 
 adjusted without complaint on the part of the debtors. 
 He was a generous creditor. 
 
 Very early in life he adopted the maxim, " Pay as 
 you go." He had no store accounts, no small debts, 
 except the grocer s bill, which was paid weekly or 
 monthly. He gave no notes, except on large transac 
 tions, and these were met punctually. So were the wages 
 of employes. 
 
 We copy from the " Life of Birney," published in 1844, 
 the following : 
 
360 JAMES G. BIRXEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 In August, 1839, Mr. Birney s father closed his earthly career. 
 A father and a son an only son seemed to have regarded each 
 other with a true and tender love. The great enterprise to 
 which the latter was devoted and which could not be endured in 
 Kentucky had for a long time withdrawn them from each other s 
 presence. Just before his father s death, Mr. Birney visited him 
 and was received by him, as well as by other friends, with all 
 cordiality. He was intent on making such arrangements as 
 would bring his son into the bosom of his old age, where he 
 might feel the soothing and sustaining influence of his many 
 virtues. But all such designs, however warmly cherished, death 
 defeated. In the division of his father s estate, his slaves twenty - 
 in number were, at Mr. Birney s request, all set off to him ; 
 and set off to him that to their benefit he might apply the prin 
 ciples by which he was controlled. Accordingly, he at once re 
 stored to them the freedom of which they had been robbed. The 
 deed through which their emancipation was effected a sub 
 stantial and ever enduring monument of his philanthropy, a de 
 cisive and emphatic proof of his wisdom and integrity can not 
 be read without the most grateful emotion and the most heathful 
 impressions. Here it is : 
 
 KNOW ALL MEN BY THESE PRESENTS, 
 
 That, /, James G. Birney, late of Kentucky, hit now having my 
 residence in the city of New York, believing that slave-holding is 
 inconsistent with natural justice, with the precepts and spirit of 
 the Christian religion, and with the Declaration of American In 
 dependence, and wishing to testify in favor of them all, do here 
 by emancipate, and forever set free, the following named slaves 
 which have come into my possession .as one of the heirs of my 
 father, the late James Birney, of Jefferson County, Kentucky, 
 they being all the slaves held by said James Birney, deceased, at 
 the time of his death. 
 
 Then follow their names and descriptions, and tlie 
 deed concludes : 
 
 In testimony of the above, I have hereunto set my name and 
 affixed my seal this third day of September, in the year of our 
 Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirty-nine. 
 
 [SEAL.] JAMES G. BIRNEY. 
 
TRAITS OF CHARACTER. 361 
 
 The only condition on which he could effect this ar 
 rangement with his co-heir was that twenty thousand dol 
 lars should be set off against the value of the slaves. This 
 was much in excess of their value in the market. He 
 knew them all well and that they expected freedom for 
 such of them as should be inherited by him, and he was 
 unwilling to abandon any of them to the chances of slav 
 ery. He did not leave Kentucky befora he had procured 
 employment and made a moderate pecuniary provision 
 for them all, and in after years he ever took a kindly in 
 terest in their welfare. 
 
 In manner, language, and action he was always natu 
 ral. There was no approach to affectation or eccentricity. 
 He had the refinement which comes from usage in society, 
 extensive knowledge, absence of selfishness, regard for 
 the rights of others, and a strong feeling of piety. He 
 had no egotism. Without appearing to avoid it he never 
 spoke of himself except when necessary. In all his public 
 life he never compared himself with his fellow-workers in 
 the anti-slavery cause. It is true that, in a report of re 
 marks made in 1837 by Mr. Walker at an anti-slavery 
 convention in Boston, Mr. Birney is represented as having 
 said that his " trumpet would never have roused the coun 
 try, Garrison alone could do it." Some statement of the 
 kind may have been made by Mr. Walker or it may have 
 been due to the zeal and imagination of the secretary, Mr. 
 Garrison, or the person who condensed his long speech 
 into a few lines. Mr. Walker s object was to obtain aid 
 and relief for the " Liberator," which was then in a mori 
 bund condition, and Mr. Birney s indorsement was a valu 
 able one. Mr. Walker must have spoken from hearsay 
 among the friends of Mr. Garrison, with whom trumpet 
 and trumpet call were pet phrases. He gave neither time 
 nor place nor occasion of the imputed remark, and Mr. 
 Birney was in the West when Mr. Walker made his speech. 
 17 
 
362 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 No one who knew Mr. Birney would believe that he ever 
 spoke of his " trumpet " or compared himself with any 
 other worker in the abolition cause. His modesty and 
 dignity both forbade it. 
 
 That he ever approved the peculiar methods of Mr. 
 Garrison is untrue. In 1833, in a published essay, he 
 had applied the term "rhapsodies" to Mr. Garrison s 
 " Thoughts " (see page 126). In 1835, in a speech at Bos 
 ton, he had deprecated the use of personalities by anti- 
 slavery writers, and the implied estimate of Mr. Garrison 
 was never modified in any of his letters, reports, speeches, 
 or pamphlets. If he had changed his opinion he was 
 magnanimous enough to say so, and there were numerous 
 occasions when he might have done so publicly ; but his 
 kindness of heart never led him to say or write what he 
 did not believe. 
 
 He took pleasure in speaking well of prominent anti- 
 slavery men and of their writings and labors. There was 
 no trace of jealousy in his nature. He was appreciative 
 of the talents of Bailey, Chase, Sumner, the Tappans, 
 Weld, Stanton, Phelps, Alvan Stewart, Samuel Lewis, 
 Goodell, and others. The fiery poetry of Whittier awak 
 ened all his enthusiasm, and the pathetic tenderness of 
 Mrs. Stowe touched his sensibilities. In regard to Mr. 
 Garrison, however, he was silent. The only departure 
 from this course remembered by the writer was in his 
 answer to an urgent demand by a friend for his opinion. 
 It was, in effect, that Mr. Garrison was sincere in his con 
 victions. 
 
 He cultivated social relations with anti-slavery leaders. 
 For them he kept open house after the fashion of old 
 Kentucky hospitality. Nearly all of them were his guests 
 during his residence in New York. Among the few ex 
 ceptions Mr. Garrison must be numbered. 
 
 A remarkable peculiarity in Mr. Birney s character 
 
TRAITS OF CHARACTER. 363 
 
 was his freedom from censoriousness. On religious prin 
 ciple he judged not. In his family he discountenanced 
 disparaging remarks about acquaintances. Gossip was 
 offensive to him. Thinking evil, he was wont to say, 
 grows on us by speaking of it. Avoid both.* 
 
 Mr. Birney had no quarrels with his coadjutors. He 
 had no slights to resent, no controversies to fight out, no 
 personal grievances to avenge. He was true to his 
 friends and they were true to him. To the enemies of 
 his cause he was urbane and just. In all his relations 
 with his fellow-men he well sustained "the grand old 
 name of gentleman." 
 
 He had no personal vanity. Though he kept himself 
 in vigorous physical condition and was always faultless in 
 his dress, he was shy of daguerreotypers, photographers, 
 portrait painters, and sculptors. The only two engravings 
 of him were both made without his knowledge or consent 
 the first from a replica surreptitiously made by the artist 
 of a portrait,f for which he sat at the request of a very 
 dear friend, a wealthy merchant of Cincinnati, who wanted 
 it for his parlor, and the second from a daguerreotype 
 taken for a friend in New York. While he esteemed 
 highly the appreciation of good men he was not accessible 
 to flattery, and his look of amused surprise was enough to 
 arrest at once the gushing language of a sycophant. In 
 the days of his celebrity he received many poems of praise, 
 printed and written, from enthusiastic admirers ; but he 
 
 * Garrison s sons (1 G., page 431) charge Mr. Birney with having been 
 active in " poisoning the English mind against Mr. Garrison " in 1840. No 
 proof is given, and the charge is absurd. Garrison had discredited him 
 self in England by refusing to sit in the World s Convention because it 
 declined to admit women as members and by taking at its daily meetings 
 a conspicuous position in the gallery with the rejected women around 
 him. This attitudinizing for notoriety was not pleasing to the English. 
 
 f See frontispiece. 
 
364: JAMES G. BI11NEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 published none of them and preserved none except Whit- 
 tier s. He used to say that a reformer was like an orator, 
 unable to do his best work unless he was wholly uncon 
 scious of the "little me." He assumed no honors not his 
 due and did not permit them to be thrust upon him. On 
 one occasion he entered the World s Convention while 
 O Connell was speaking. The Irish orator, who had con 
 ceived a high regard for him, welcomed him with, " I see 
 my friend Judge Birney coming in." The answer came 
 promptly, " I am not a judge." " You well deserve to be 
 one," replied O Connell amid the cheers of the audience. 
 
 Mr. Birney was one of the vice - presidents of the 
 W r orld s Convention of 1840, having been unanimously 
 designated for that honor by the American delegates. His 
 reputation as an honorable presiding officer had been al 
 ready established. He had in rare degree that combina 
 tion of dignity, firmness, courtesy, promptitude of de 
 cision, tact, and knowledge of parliamentary rules which 
 enables a man to guide the proceedings of large delibera 
 tive bodies, a combination which few speakers of the 
 American House of Representatives, except Henry Clay 
 and James Gillespie Blaine, have possessed. The last act 
 of his public life was to preside over the Southern and 
 Western Liberty Convention, held at Cincinnati, June llth 
 and 12th, 1845. Two thousand delegates were present 
 and as many more spectators. A stormy discussion was 
 anticipated over the proposed " Address to the People of 
 the United States." This important paper had been pre 
 pared mainly by the lion. S. P. Chase, and had been sub 
 mitted by him to the executive committee of the Ohio 
 Liberty party. Several members of that committee, the 
 writer included, had strongly disapproved certain passages 
 which they thought would be interpreted as overtures to 
 the Democratic party for coalition. Mr. Chase was well 
 known to favor such a movement. Under the counsel of 
 
TRAITS OF CHARACTER. 365 
 
 Mr. Birney, who had read Mr. Chase s paper, a motion 
 was passed to appoint a committee to prepare an address 
 to the people. That body promptly expurgated Mr. 
 Chase s production and reported it without mention of 
 the omitted passages. It was adopted by acclamation. 
 As published it is one of the best political essays of the 
 period.* 
 
 The convention, under the wise guidance of Mr. Bir 
 ney, was a gigantic and harmonious popular demonstra 
 tion. Arthur Tappan was accustomed to say of Mr. Bir 
 ney that he was the best presiding officer in the country 
 for large conventions. 
 
 An amusing account, somewhat colored by prejudices 
 contracted by the author in her after life, is given of 
 him by Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the leader of the 
 woman s suffrage movement, in her recently published 
 " Keminiscences." The reader should bear in mind that 
 Henry B. Stanton was one of Mr. Birney s most intimate 
 friends, that the two were on their way to a convention 
 composed chiefly of grave Englishmen, and that the young 
 wife was a spirited American girl, whose gay and frolic 
 some humor was not restrained by conventionalities. She 
 has forgotten to put into her " Reminiscences " the fact 
 that on a public occasion she had pinned papers to her 
 husband s coat and joined in the laugh at his expense. 
 Imagine her doing such a thing at the World s Conven 
 tion ! She certainly " needed considerable toning down 
 before reaching England." Mr. Birney enjoyed her pla} T - 
 f ul badinage very much, and ever after spoke of her with 
 high appreciation of her intellect and kind regard for her 
 personally. He gave her credit, too, for being the pink of 
 propriety while in England. Here is what Mrs. Stanton 
 says : 
 
 * See edition of 1867, published by Bancroft & Co., Philadelphia. 
 
366 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 James G. Birney, the anti-slavery nominee for the presidency, 
 joined us in New York, and was a fellow-passenger on the Mon 
 treal for England. He and my husband were alike delegates to 
 the World Anti-Slavery Convention, and alike interested them 
 selves in my anti-slavery education. They gave me books to 
 read, and as we paced the deck day by day it was the chief 
 theme of our conversation. 
 
 Mr. Birney was a polished gentleman of the old school, and 
 excessively proper and punctilious in manner and conversation. 
 I soon perceived that he thought I needed considerable toning 
 down before reaching England. I was quick to see and under 
 stand that his criticisms of others in a general way, and the drift 
 of his discourses on manners and conversation had a nearer appli 
 cation than he intended I should discover, though he hoped I 
 would profit by them. I was always grateful to any one who 
 took an interest in my improvement, so I laughingly told him 
 one day that he need not make his criticisms any longer in that 
 roundabout way, but take me squarely in hand and polish me 
 up as speedily as possible before the end of the voyage. Sitting 
 in the saloon at night, after a game of chess, in which per 
 chance I had been the victor, I felt complacent, and would 
 sometimes say : 
 
 " Well, what have I done or said to day open to criticism ? " 
 
 So, in the most gracious manner, he replied, on one occasion : 
 
 " You went to mast-head in a chair, which I think very 
 unladylike ; still worse, you rolled up a bread-ball at dinner and 
 hit Captain Montgomery square on the nose. I heard you call 
 your husband * Henry in the presence of strangers, which is not 
 permissible in polite society. You should always say Mr. Stan- 
 ton. You have taken three moves back in this game." 
 
 "Bless me," I replied, u what a catalogue in one day ! I 
 fear my mentor w r ill despair of my ultimate perfection." 
 
 "I should have more hope," he replied, "if you seemed to 
 feel my rebukes more deeply, but you evidently think them of too 
 little consequence to be much disturbed over them." . . . 
 
 As the voyage lasted eighteen days for we were in an old- 
 fashioned sailing-vessel we had time to make some improve 
 ment, or at least to consider all friendly suggestions. However, 
 as we traveled with Mr. Birney for nine months in England, 
 
TRAITS OF CHARACTER, 367 
 
 Scotland, and France, and had the advantage of his strict ideas 
 of etiquette at every turn, we really were improved in many minor 
 points of manner we had considered unimportant. Mr. Birney 
 often quoted Chesterfield s remarks. Being asked the secret of 
 success in life, he replied : " It depends, more than any one thing, 
 on manner, manner, manner." Hence I conjure all my young 
 readers to cultivate polite affable manners. . . . 
 
 When within sight of the distant shore a pilot -boat came 
 along and offered to take any one ashore in six hours. I was so 
 delighted at the thought of seeing land that after much per 
 suasion Mr. Stanton and Mr. Birney consented to go. Accord 
 ingly we were lowered into a boat in an arm-chair, with a lunch 
 eon consisting of cold chicken, a bottle of wine, and a few 
 pickles. Thus provisioned, w r e started with just wind enough for 
 that light craft in the direction we were going ; but instead of 
 six hours we were all day, and as the twilight deepened and the 
 last breeze died away the pilot said : "We are now only two 
 miles from shore, but the only way you can reach there to-night 
 is by a row-boat." 
 
 As we had no provisions left and nowhere to sleep, we were 
 glad to avail ourselves of the row-boat. It was a bright moonlight 
 night, the air balmy, the waters smooth, and with two good, 
 stout oarsmen we glided swiftly along. As Mr. Birney made the 
 last descent and seated himself, doubtful as to our ever reaching 
 the shore, turning to me, he said, " The woman tempted me and 
 I did leave the good ship." However, we did reach the shore 
 at midnight and landed at Torquay, one of the loveliest spots in 
 that country, and our journey to Exeter the next day lay through 
 the most beautiful scenery in England. 
 
 While in England Mr. Birney visited different parts of 
 the kingdom and addressed audiences under the auspices 
 of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society. In an 
 swer to a claim made in behalf of the American churches 
 that their influence was thrown against slavery, he pub 
 lished in a London daily paper authentic evidence of pro- 
 slavery acts of some of the leading churches. It is be 
 lieved that no error of diminution, exaggeration, or mis- 
 
368 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 statement was ever attributed to this document. He was 
 careful to give due credit to several sects for their anti- 
 slavery action. In conclusion he asked the reader to 
 
 bear in mind that the foregoing presents but one side of the 
 anti- slavery cause in the several churches whose proceedings have 
 been considered, and that in them all there are abolitionists 
 earnestly laboring to purify them from the defilements of slaver} 7 
 and that they have strong encouragement to proceed. . . . Last 
 ly, we take pleasure in assuring him that there are considerable 
 portions of the Methodist, Baptist, and Presbyterian Churches, as 
 well as the entire membership of some of the smaller religious 
 bodies in America, that maintain a commendable testimony 
 against slavery and its abominations. 
 
 This is the language of a friend of the Church, anxious 
 for purity first, then peace. The article made a sensa 
 tion. It was published in pamphlet-form in London, and 
 was subsequently republished in several editions in this 
 country. 
 
 When Parker Pillsbury, Garrison, S. S. Foster, and 
 others, made their onslaught on the Church itself, they 
 sought to cover themselves under the authority of Mr. 
 Birney and identify him with their cause. They made 
 some impression on the public mind by quoting the title 
 which had been given to the pamphlet, " The American 
 Churches the Bulwarks of American Slavery." This quo 
 tation was misleading. Mr. Birney had no sympathy with 
 Mr. Pillsbury and his associates. Up to 1840 it was prob 
 ably true that ninety-nine abolitionists out of a hundred 
 were church-members and that the clergy as a body con 
 tained more abolitionists than any other class in propor 
 tion to their number. This was recognized fully by Mr. 
 Birney. 
 
 After he left England, the executive committee of the 
 British and Foreign Anti- Slavery Society passed the fol 
 lowing resolution : 
 
TRAITS OF CHARACTER. 369 
 
 That this committee are deeply sensible of the services ren 
 dered to the anti-slavery cause by their esteemed friend and co 
 adjutor James Gillespie Birney, Esq., while in this country, in a 
 course of laborious efforts, in which his accurate and extensive 
 information, his wise and judicious counsels, and his power of 
 calm and convincing statement, have become eminently con 
 spicuous. 
 
 He shared the hospitalities of many of the eminent 
 men of England and became widely known. Two years 
 afterward President Kellogg, of Illinois, traveled through 
 England. On his return he described as follow s the im 
 pression left there by Mr. Birney : 
 
 It was truly refreshing to me while I was in Great Britain, 
 amid the many complaints against my countrymen to which I 
 was obliged to listen, to hear our excellent friend James G. Bir 
 ney so frequently spoken of and always in terms of unqualified 
 approbation and respect. The mention of his name in those cir 
 cles in which he was known, and they were both numerous and 
 extensive, invariably imparted pleasure, and many were the in 
 quiries which were made in respect to his welfare, i could not 
 but observe that intelligent men both in England and Scotland 
 very highly appreciated him for that trait in his character which 
 I have always from my first acquaintance with Mr. Birney re 
 garded as exhibited by him in a remarkable degree. You will 
 doubtless understand me as referring to his candor. He never 
 deals in exaggeration or sophistry. In his public addresses and 
 discussions, which were numerous in that country as well as in 
 his private conversations, by the sobriety of his own views, by 
 the fairness and fullness with which he stated the positions and 
 arguments of his opponents, and by the manliness with which he 
 met and refuted them, he ever impressed his auditors with a con 
 viction of the soundness of his sentiments and of the perfect re 
 liance which might be placed upon his statements. The visits of 
 such men to foreign lands are an honor to our country, and leave 
 behind them a savor which is grateful to an American citizen. 
 
 The quality of character which made such a lasting 
 impression on the English was recognized by his own 
 
370 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 countrymen. The Rev. Beriah Green, D. D., writing of 
 him in 1844, testified as follows : 
 
 He had access to great numbers of his fellow-citizens, upon 
 whom he was enabled to urge the claims of the enslaved. The 
 influence he exerted was as benign as it was powerful. His in 
 telligence, truthfulness, and candor, his magnanimity and fidel 
 ity, all who had the privilege of an acquaintance with him were 
 not a little struck with. They were admitted to be noteworthy 
 traits of his character. He was generally listened to with re 
 spectful attention. If his doctrines were not subscribed to his 
 character w r as admired. We well remember that an old lawyer 
 from New England, after a discussion with him on points on 
 which they were at variance, exclaimed, " He is the most candid 
 man I ever saw ! " On those who were often in his presence and 
 enjoyed his confidence his words and deeds made the impression 
 of great wisdom. They looked up to him for counsel. Wher 
 ever he applied his hand they expected well-advised plans and 
 valuable results. 
 
 In familiar conversation he was a sympathetic listener 
 and good talker. A delicate humor, inherited it may be 
 from his Irish ancestors, a gentle irony pointing a repartee 
 or suggesting an argument, a human interest in all sub 
 jects, and entire freedom from biting sarcasm, scandal, and 
 censoriousness made him a delightful companion. He 
 was not a man of one idea. Intelligent women liked to 
 talk with him. Sometimes he was epigrammatic, con 
 densing much wisdom in a few words. To one of his 
 sons he said : 
 
 When you are conscious that it will gratify you to say some 
 thing to the discredit of another don t say it. 
 
 To a man who asked him why he did not go South to 
 fight slavery, he answered : 
 
 If a man were hired to kill a den of venomous snakes it 
 would show that he was insane if he jumped into the den. 
 
 His opinion of good story-tellers was thus expressed : 
 
TRAITS OF CHARACTER. 371 
 
 One who can keep the whole company in a roar while the 
 muscles of his own face are entirely under his control ought not 
 to be sought as a friend. He will be found wanting in heart. 
 
 His views on the civil service were in advance of his 
 times : 
 
 Rotation in office is radically unsound as a dogma. Offices 
 are created for the public good, not for the incumbents. 
 
 He admired Daniel O Connell as a man, but thought he 
 failed because he had made the mistake of reMng on the 
 Roman Catholic Church as his main auxiliary. Said he : 
 
 O Connell has had his heels tripped up by the politicians, 
 Peel, and the Pope, and he must submit to it. 
 
 He criticised Daniel Webster for eulogizing the de 
 ceased General Jackson, and thought it inconsistent with 
 Webster s declaration in 1830 that " Jackson always looked 
 as if he were anxious to escape from the society of gentle 
 men," and also with Webster s published opinions respect 
 ing Jackson s Administration. 
 
 The following illustrates his shrewdness of observation : 
 
 An eccentric man, one affectedly so, is pleased with your no 
 tice of his peculiarities. One who is really so laments them and 
 is mortified when they are pointed out to him, looking on them, 
 as they truly are, as evidences of a want of good sense. 
 
 One or two other sayings of his must close our se 
 lection : 
 
 Working for the benefit of the human race is a surer path to 
 true fame than high office is. Jesus Christ is better known than 
 Pontius Pilate. . . . Moral suasion, as it is called, is about as in 
 effectual and ridiculous as any plan can be for putting down 
 slavery. It makes its advocates appear as if they were very ig 
 norant of men, of large affairs, or of the just powers of govern 
 ment. It is only fit for visionaries. . . . The Whig party in 
 Congress gives what men and money Mr. Polk calls for to carry 
 
372 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES, 
 
 on with Mexico a war which they say is unconstitutional. This 
 is a mistake. Mr. Polk will be as sure to conquer Mexico and 
 compel her to give a large portion of her territory to us as a re 
 muneration for our expenses as might prevails over right ; and in 
 final success the nation will condone his faults. 
 
 In endeavoring to present the leading traits of one so 
 dear we have deferred to the prejudices of general readers 
 against biographies written under the bias of filial affec 
 tion and relied upon facts and the representations of 
 friends who knew him. We close this part of our subject 
 with an extract from page 116 of the " Life of Birney," 
 written by Beriah Green, President of Oneida Institute, 
 New York : 
 
 An affectionate regard for the Divine authority cherished in a 
 manly soul is the root of every human virtue. It is the secret of 
 sound character. Wisdom, strength, and beauty these are the 
 natural fruits. Where this is, there you may find veracity, sim 
 plicity, modesty, candor, united with courage, decision, fidelity; 
 there you may find disinterestedness, generosity, and magna 
 nimity. And we demand of those who. are best acquainted with 
 him, for which of these qualities is not James G. Birney remark 
 able ? 
 
CHAPTER XXXI. 
 TWELVE YEARS AN INVALID CONCLUSION. 
 
 Ix August, 1845, on the invitation of my father, I 
 spent a few weeks with him at his home on the Saginaw 
 River, Michigan. He was in fine health and spirits, and 
 joined me in the sports of hunting and fishing. The rice 
 grass on the farther side of the river was a favorite feed 
 ing-ground for ducks. Through this we worked our way 
 in a light canoe, getting shots as the birds rose into the 
 air. He was generally successful in dropping them just 
 as they turned to a horizontal flight from an upward 
 movement to clear the tall grass. When we had bagged 
 game enough for next day s dinner he would take the 
 paddle and speed the frail vessel homeward. At other 
 times he would troll for large fish. In this sport a line 
 from fifty to a hundred feet long, with a strong triple 
 hook covered with bits of red and white flannel, is trailed 
 behind the canoe. To this the simple muskallonge rises, 
 seizing the deceptive bait and rushing away w T ith it. A 
 pull upon the line, strong enough if it were made at right 
 angles to upset the unstable bark, shows the game is 
 hooked. Then the battle begins. Skill and judgment 
 are on one side, desperation and strength on the other. 
 The man " plays " out his line and avoids all direct con 
 tests ; the great fish dashes to the bottom of the river and 
 exhausts its strength in vain efforts to free itself by flight 
 from the barbed torment in its mouth. Then it is brought 
 to the surface by a steady pull on the line. As it nears 
 
374 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 the canoe, its glaring eyes and great wide open red mouth 
 garnished with double rows of sharp teeth seen amid the 
 foam made by the flurries of its tail give it the aspect of a 
 monster. A scoop net passed adroitly under it aids in 
 getting it into the canoe, where it is quickly dispatched 
 with a hatchet. Into this sport my father entered with 
 great zest. lie generally took the line while I kept the 
 canoe in proper position, no easy task. The capture of 
 one or two fish ended the excursion for the day. He took 
 no more than enough for the supply of his own family. 
 If there was a surplus it was sent to some neighbor. 
 
 Part of each day was devoted to the cultivation of the 
 garden and the labor of burning the brush and logs from 
 a lot near the house. His tastes, expertness, and strength 
 made these employments pleasant to him. His evenings 
 were generally spent in his library, and were given to cor 
 respondence, study, and conversation. 
 
 A favorite amusement of his was riding on horseback. 
 He owned a pair of jet-black Canadian ponies. They were 
 swift and moved well under the saddle. Mounted on 
 these we galloped over the prairies, enjoying the bracing 
 air of early morning or the breezes of the evening. On 
 our last ride we were moving rapidly, side by side. My 
 father, with extended hand, was pointing out to me a ves 
 sel in the distant horizon making her way under full sail 
 when a prairie chicken rose with a whirr from under the 
 feet of his pony. The animal shied, springing to one side, 
 and my father was thrown heavily to the ground. I dis 
 mounted and ran to him. He was already on his feet. 
 To my inquiries he answered, " It was a bad jolt, my son, 
 but no bones are broken." He held my bridle while I 
 caught his pony. Declining my assistance he remounted. 
 The place of the accident was about two miles from 
 home. We rode back at an easy gallop, my father mak 
 ing no complaint. 
 
TWELVE YEARS AX INVALID CONCLUSION. 375 
 
 Two hours later he had a stroke of nervous paralysis. 
 This was the beginning of the end. For the rest of his 
 life, twelve years and three months, he was an invalid. 
 Partial recoveries alternated with relapses. All that medi 
 cal science could do for him was done. The best special 
 ists in nervous diseases were consulted but were unable to 
 effect more than partial and intermittent relief. While 
 for several years his general health was apparently unim 
 paired and his physical strength little diminished, he was 
 subject at long and irregular intervals to recurrences of 
 paralysis or to sudden and painful affections of the digest 
 ive organs. These were so violent that for years before 
 his death he predicted one of them would prove fatal, 
 and his prediction proved true. Another effect of the 
 disease was to deprive him of the power of articulate 
 speech. . His tongue refused its office. The man whose 
 enunciation had been so distinct that his every word could 
 be heard by thousands was unable in the more severe 
 states of his complaint to make himself intelligible to his 
 wife and children, or in his best condition to any except 
 to them and very intimate friends. His only medium, 
 except gesture, of communication with others was in 
 writing. Even this was impracticable much of the time 
 owing to the tremulousness of his hand, which he was un 
 able to hold steady except by grasping the wrist with his 
 left hand. This physical difficulty was greater or less ac 
 cording to the state of his nerves. In their best condition 
 writing was for him a slow and laborious process, and his 
 penmanship lacked the firm lines of former days ; in their 
 worst he could scarcely write his name legibly. 
 
 The news of his disability brought several of his old 
 personal friends and some of his political supporters to 
 his bedside. The mingled pleasure and pain to him of 
 these visits may be imagined by the reader. He grasped 
 each one by the hand and looked his grateful apprecia- 
 
376 JAMES G. BIRXEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 tion, but his answers to their kind speeches were con 
 veyed by a deprecatory wave of the hand or a look toward 
 one of the family which was a request to speak for him. 
 Gerrit Smith, who was a beloved friend, had not until his 
 visit comprehended the extent of the calamity and gave 
 way to his feelings. My father was much moved, but by a 
 simple gesture expressed his resignation to the Divine will. 
 Before the winter of 1845 he had visited the Eastern 
 cities for medical advice, and became convinced that he 
 would never be able to speak again in public and probably 
 never to articulate well enough for the purposes of con 
 versation. From that time by all practicable means he 
 made known to the members of the Anti-Slavery political 
 party that he had absolutely and permanently withdrawn 
 from public life, and of his friends he made the special 
 request to prevent the offering or passage by anti-slavery 
 conventions of resolutions of sympathy with him. He 
 gave this matter in charge to me for Ohio, and it was not 
 without difficulty that Salmon P. Chase, Samuel Lewis, 
 and other leaders, were persuaded to comply with his re 
 quest. From the time of his paralysis to his decease he 
 never made or attempted to make a speech in public or 
 attended or wrote a letter to any anti-slavery meeting or 
 convention or signed his name to any publication of a 
 nature to influence political action. Though often ur 
 gently requested to be present or to give his counsel in 
 writing, he thought it best not to interferfere with the 
 men who were actively engaged in the cause.* The clear- 
 
 * In the index to Garrison a^iLife by his sons, under the name of 
 James G. Birney, there are the following entries : " Secedes from Liberty 
 party." The passage referred to (vol. iii, p. 211) reads thus : 
 
 " In the second week in June [18471 a fourth party had gone out 
 from it [the Liberty party], forming a Liberty League at Macedon Lock, 
 N. Y., under the auspices of James G. Birney." 
 
 The next index entry is " neglected as nominee," with reference to a 
 passage on page 215 of the same volume: 
 
TWELVE YEARS AX INVALID CONCLUSION. 377 
 
 ness and vigor of his mind did not perceptibly diminish. 
 In his writing intervals he jotted down his thoughts in a 
 
 " Birncy s claims, too, whether for perpetual nomination or for in 
 cense or (now that he was physically disabled) for sympathy, were wholly 
 ignored by the convention (at Buffalo, January, 1847). All this fur- 
 nished food for conversation between Wright and Garrison as they jour 
 neyed eastward." 
 
 The next index entry is " favors colonization," vol. iii, p. 362, where 
 it is charged that Mr. Birney in 1852 "scandalized his old associates by 
 counseling expatriation. . . . Mr. Garrison felt it incumbent on him to 
 make a set speech against colonization." 
 
 The charges made and insinuated in the above extracts are that James 
 G. Birney made claims upon the Buffalo Convention for nomination, in 
 cense, or sympathy ; that, not getting what he wanted, he seceded from 
 the Liberty party and aided in the establishment of another party ; and 
 that he recanted his opposition to the Colonization Society as a proposed 
 remedy for slavery. It is hardly necessary to state that the above scan 
 dals, published twenty-two years after the death of James G. Birney, 
 have no foundation in fact. There were in the Buffalo Convention at 
 least a hundred of his warm friends, every one of whom knew that he 
 had permanently withdrawn from public life and desired that his name 
 should not be mentioned in that or any other convention. That he was 
 at Macedon Lock or took any part in the formation of a fourth party or 
 seceded from the Liberty party is untrue. With the exception of Martin 
 Tan Buren, in whose sincerity he lacked confidence, he voted the Free 
 Soil and Republican tickets, State and national, as long as he lived. The 
 charge touching colonization is a violent misrepresentation of a letter 
 written by him in answer to some colored men who wrote to ask his ad 
 vice as to their emigration to some other country. He thought that, in 
 view of the bitter prejudice in the United States against the blacks, each 
 one of them should act in that matter as he might think best for the in 
 terest of his family. Not one word was said in favor of the Colonization 
 Society or of colonization as a remedy for slavery. (See ante, p. 268.) 
 
 If it were not plain from the context that these scandals emanated 
 from William Lloyd Garrison, their insidious malice and blundering in 
 accuracy would indicate him as the author. Much of his life was spent 
 in misrepresenting the acts and blackening the character of his coadju 
 tors. He wronged Benjamin Lundy so deeply that an eager offer to 
 write his biography was indignantly rejected by Lundy s relatives. His 
 partner in the " Liberator " for eight or nine years was Isaac Knapp ; 
 
378 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 blank-book or wrote short articles, always anonymous, for 
 leading newspapers. In 1850 he managed to write, a few 
 
 but in a private letter in 1842 to a lady in London he brands Knapp 
 as a gambler and drunkard. (G., iii, p. 41.) Knapp had charged him 
 with " selfish and deceptive conduct." (G., iii, p. 38.) He professed 
 warm friendship for N. P. Rogers, but aided in depriving him of his 
 newspaper and broke his heart. (G., iii, p. 127.) He professed friend 
 ship for Frederick Douglass, but abused him without stint when Douglass 
 refused to follow him in his secession movement in 1814. He spoke 
 harshly of the sisters Grimke and provoked Sarah s retort : 
 
 " His spirit of intolerance toward those who did not draw in his traces 
 and his adulation of those who surrendered themselves to his guidance 
 have always been exceedingly repulsive to me." (" Tbe Sisters Grimke," 
 p. 220.) 
 
 Among those whom he libeled in the " Liberator " were Dr. William 
 E. Channing, Henry B. Stanton, Elizur Wright, Amos A. Phclps, Henry 
 Ward Beecher, Lewis Tappan, and Arthur Tappan. These were but a 
 few of the whole number. The jealousy with which he looked upon the 
 unprecedented success and influence of * Uncle Tom s Cabin " is reflected 
 in his biography. (G., iii, p. 364.) Of such a man the poet Churchill 
 drew the picture when he wrote : 
 
 " With that malignant envy which turns pale 
 And sickens even if a friend prevail, 
 Which merit and success pursues with hate, 
 And damns the worth it can not imitate." 
 
 Mr. Garrison had a peculiarity which his sons pass over wilh the fol 
 lowing euphemism : 
 
 " As he had a very poor memory for past events even in his own ex 
 perience, he seldom indulged in reminiscence." (G., iv, p. 334.) 
 
 Other writers have not been so lenient. Rev. Leonard G. Bacon, in a 
 review of his "Thoughts," charged him with garbling and false state 
 ments; Rev. R. R. Gurlcy with being indebted "to his imagination for 
 his fact" (ante, p. 126); and between him and Frederick Douglass there 
 was an issue of veracity (G., iii, p. 211). It would have been much bet 
 ter for Mr. Garrison s reputation if he had never " indulged in reminis 
 cence," for he was one of those unfortunate individuals in whose memory 
 facts have no fixity of outline ; especially should he have avoided in 
 dulging in it in relation to James G. Birr.ey, toward whom he bore a 
 deadly hatred which grew stronger with years, and which he appears to 
 have transmitted in all its venom to his descendants. 
 
TWELVE YEARS AN INVALID CONCLUSION. 379 
 
 sentences at a time, his u Examination of the Decision of 
 the United States Supreme Court in the Case of Strader 
 et al. vs. Graham." This was legibly copied and published 
 in pamphlet-form with his name on the title-page. It is 
 the argument of an able lawyer. The labor of its prepara 
 tion aggravated his malady, and he finally abandoned a 
 long cherished scheme of writing a historical work on 
 slavery in the United States. 
 
 His interest in the anti-slavery struggle was not abated. 
 He followed the proceedings in Congress and the course 
 of public men on the subject. His fears that civil war 
 would result were ripened into certainty by the outbreak 
 of the troubles in Kansas. Deploring this as a national 
 calamity which might have been averted by wisdom and 
 manly courage on the part of statesmen, he thought it 
 should be used for the suppression of the slave power and 
 the immediate abolition of slavery ; and he wrote his hope 
 that his descendants would all do their duty when the 
 conflict should come.* 
 
 The monotony of his isolated life at Bay City was 
 varied by frequent visits to his married sons, to Gerrit 
 Smith, and Theodore D. Weld. About 1853, he broke up 
 
 * When the rebellion broke out there were six of James G. Birney s 
 descendants who were of age to bear arms. James, the eldest son was 
 acting Governor of Michigan and was afterward actively employed in send 
 ing regiments to the field. His son, James Gillcspie, a youth of twenty, 
 went as cavalry lieutenant, became captain, and served as staff officer for 
 both Ouster and Sheridan. William enlisted, was elected captain and 
 rose to be brevet major-general, serving in all the intermediate grades. 
 David Bell entered as lieutenant-colonel, and rose by regular promotion 
 to be major-general (see his biography by 0. M. Davis). Dion, a phy 
 sician, was lieutenant and captain. FitzJmgh left Harvard University 
 to join the army. He served on McClellan s staff and rose from lieuten 
 ant to colonel (see his biography by Prof. Cutler). All these, ex 
 cept the writer, died, in or soon after the war, of wounds received or 
 diseases contracted in the service. Without exception, they were deeply 
 imbued with the principles and patriotic spirit of James G. Birney. 
 
380 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 housekeeping and removed to Eagleswood, near Perth 
 Amboy, N. J. At this place Mr. Weld had established 
 his celebrated school, or academy, occupying for that 
 purpose one end of an immense building. The other 
 end and the very long central part was built in " flats." 
 These were occupied by the families of patrons of the 
 school. Mr. Birney leased and furnished one of the best 
 suites of apartments in the building and occupied it dur 
 ing the rest of his life. His youngest son was a pupil in 
 the school. His surroundings in this place freshened up 
 his life. The daily visits of his friend Weld cheered him. 
 He attended the debates and literary exercises of the stu 
 dents, the Saturday evening lectures delivered by distin 
 guished strangers, and the eloquent Sunday morning 
 religious addresses by Mr. Weld. Occasionally he went 
 to the opera or visited other places of public amusement 
 or listened to some celebrated preacher at New York. In 
 this mode of living he was comparatively free from the 
 curiosity of the vulgar who wished to know to what de 
 gree his organs of speech were affected, a curiosity which 
 he was not disposed to gratify. His attempts to articulate 
 were reserved for his family and very intimate friends, and 
 with them were generally for the purpose of discovering 
 whether he was improving or not. 
 
 Under his affliction his temper became more genial. 
 The sternness which had been contracted in the latter 
 part of his active career disappeared altogether. He took 
 pleasure in listening to the conversation of the intelligent, 
 the lively talk of young ladies, and the prattle of children. 
 With these last, he was a great favorite. My children 
 liked nothing better than to have a romp with their 
 grandfather. He understood perfectly the rare art of 
 making himself an agreeable visitor for a long time, be 
 ing considerate of the feelings and circumstances of others 
 and with sure intuitions of the right thing to do. His 
 
TWELVE YEARS AX INVALID CONCLUSION. 381 
 
 daughters-in-law loved him as dearly as his sons did. He 
 was never morose or impatient or low spirited ; nor did he 
 complain of his affliction. He controlled himself so as 
 not to distress those who loved him. The only expression 
 during his long malady of his desire to die was made to 
 me as I sat by his bedside, holding his hand after one of 
 his excruciatingly painful attacks, " I had hoped this 
 would be the last." 
 
 His resignation was due to his piety. The Bible was 
 his constant companion and a part of each day was spent 
 by him in silent prayer. But God heard him. After 
 more than twelve years of bodily and mental suffering and 
 anguish, in which he showed how a sincere Christian 
 should bear affliction, his spirit was released from its 
 earthly prison. On the 25th of November, j.857, he died 
 at Eagleswood, New Jersey, surrounded by his wife, chil 
 dren, and friends. 
 
APPENDIX A. 
 
 As an answer to the claim that Mr. Garrison was the first to 
 reveal to Americans the nature of slavery, and that the reader 
 may have something like an adequate idea of the quantity and 
 comprehensiveness in 1830 of the American literature relating to 
 slavery, I subjoin an incomplete list of publications then extant 
 on the subject. A perfect list would probably comprise from ten 
 to twenty times as many. The rapidity with which pamphlets 
 and even books disappear is well known to every man who has 
 attempted to make a collection on any special subject ; they per 
 ish like autumn leaves. Important American works on slavery 
 published before 1830, such as those of George Bourne, John 
 Kcnrick, Jesse Torrcy, James Duncan, John Rankin, and George 
 M. Stroud, which expressed the best anti-slavery convictions of 
 the day and contributed greatly to purify public opinion and 
 sentiment, have become exceedingly rare. Many of the works 
 published in England circulated freely in this country. The 
 most important ones were republished here some in Philadel 
 phia, others in Kentucky, and Elizabeth Heyrick s in Baltimore 
 and Philadelphia. The following list, incomplete as it is, may 
 aid some bibliographer to make a perfect one. The one given 
 in the appendix to the "Proceedings of the Third American 
 Anti-Slavery Society Decade Meeting " contains twenty-three 
 items only; it was published under the auspices of Mr. Gar 
 rison. 
 
 Books and pamphlets on slavery, published or republished be 
 fore the year 1831 in the United States. No English works are 
 included unless they were republished or had large circulation in 
 this country. French ones are omitted. 
 
 Godwyn, Rev. Morgan. "The Kegoes and Indians Advo 
 cate," treatise, 1G50. 
 
APPENDIX A. 383 
 
 Baxter, Richard. "Friendly Advice to Planters," " Negroes 
 Complaint," etc., about 1651. 
 
 Southern. "Oronooko," a tragedy, 1696. 
 
 Sir Richard Steele s story of Inkle and Yarico " was pub 
 lished about 1715. 
 
 Sandiford, Ralph, Philadelphia. " The Mystery of Iniquity," 
 1729. 
 
 Atkins, Surgeon. " Voyage to Guinea and the West Indies," 
 1735. 
 
 Whitefield, George. "Address to the Inhabitants of Mary 
 land and Virginia," 1739. 
 
 Hughes, Rev. Griffith. "Natural History of Earbadoes," 
 1750. 
 
 Benezet. "Tracts on Slavery," 1750 to 1774. 
 
 Woolman, John. " Considerations on the keeping of Ne 
 groes," 1754 to 1762. 
 
 Jeffery, Thomas. "Account of a Part of North America," 
 1761. 
 
 Sharp, Granville. "Memoirs and Representation of the In 
 justice of Slavery," 1769. 
 
 Anthony Benezet s writings on slavery, with extracts from 
 the writings of several noted authors on the subject of slavery, 
 viz., George Wallace, Francis Hutcheson, James Foster, and 
 Granville Sharp, and from an address to the Assembly of Vir 
 ginia, Philadelphia, 1771. 
 
 Lay, Benjamin. "Treatise on Slave-keeping," 1773. 
 
 Rush, Benjamin. " Address to the Inhabitants of the British 
 Settlements on the Slavery of the Negroes," 1773. 
 
 Wesley, John. "Thoughts on Slavery," 1774. 
 
 Pennsylvania Abolition Society. Act of incorporation. In 
 stituted in 1775 ; incorporated in 1789; 1775 and 1789. 
 
 Day, Thomas. " Slavery of the Negroes," 1776. 
 
 Miller, Prof. "Origin of Ranks," 1777. 
 
 " A Serious Address to the Rulers of America on the Incon 
 sistency of their Conduct respecting Slavery," etc., by a farmer, 
 London, 1783. 
 
 Woods, Joseph. " Thoughts on the Slavery of the Negroes," 
 1784. 
 
 Gregory, Dr. "Essays, Historical and Moral," 1784. 
 
JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 Ramsay, James. "Essay on the Treatment and Conversion 
 of the African Slaves in the British Sugar Colonies," 1784. 
 
 Clarkson, Thomas. "Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of 
 the Human Species," 1786. 
 ^/Jefferson, Thomas. " Notes on Virginia," 1787. 
 
 Cowper, poet. 
 
 Sharp, Granville. "Law of Retribution," 1778. 
 
 Newton. "On the Slave Trade," 1788. 
 
 "Constitution of a Society for abolishing the Slave Trade," 
 Providence, 1789. 
 
 " Oration upon the Necessity of establishing at Paris a So 
 ciety for the Promotion of the Abolition of the Trade and Slav 
 ery of the Negroes." By J. P. Brissot de Warville, 1789. Re- 
 published in Philadelphia in 1791 (translation). 
 
 "Memorial Presented to Congress by the Different Societies 
 instituted for the Promotion of the Abolition of Slavery, etc., in 
 the States of Rhode Island, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New 
 York, Maryland, and Virginia," 1790 to 1791. 
 
 "Debates on the Slave Trade," 1791, 1792. 
 
 Buchanan, George. "Oration on Slavery," 1791, Baltimore, Md. 
 
 Edwards, Jonathan, Jr. "Injustice and Impolicy of the 
 Slave Trade," 1791. 
 
 Rice, David, Rev. "A Kentucky Protest against Slavery," 
 1792. (Immediate abolition.) 
 
 "Proceedings of Conventions of Delegates from the Abolition 
 Societies of the United States," 1794 to 1828. 
 
 "Memoirs of Waimbamma, an African Priest," 1799. 
 
 Collins. "Professional Planter," 1804. 
 
 "Congressional Debates on the Slave Trade," 18C6 and 1807. 
 
 Rev. Archibald Cameron s "Slavery justified by Scripture" 
 ("Monitor"), Lexington, Ky., 1806. 
 
 Branagan, Thomas. "The Penitential Tyrant, or Slave- 
 Trader Reformed." A pathetic poem in four cantos. 290 pp. 
 New York, 1807. (Immediate abolition.) 
 
 "Select Speeches" (including some of Wilberforce, Fox, 
 North, and Pitt, on slavery), published by N. Chapman, M. D., 
 Philadelphia, 1807. 
 
 Clarkson s "History of the Abolition of the Slave Trade," 
 republished, 2 vols., octavo, pp. 455, 468, Philadelphia, 1808. 
 
APPENDIX A. 385 
 
 Dickson s "Mitigation of Slavery," 1814. 
 
 Rev. David Barrow s pamphlet against slavery (out of print), 
 Paris, Ky., 1815. (Immediate abolition.) 
 
 Pinckard s "Notes on the West Indies," 1815. 
 
 Rev. George Bourne (Va). "The Book and Slavery Irrecon 
 cilable," Philadelphia, 1816. (Immediate abolition.) Also au 
 thor of Picture of Slavery in America. " 
 
 "Watson. "Defense of Methodist Missions in West Indies," 
 1816. 
 
 Coster "On the Amelioration of Slavery," 1816. 
 
 Kenrick, John. "Horrors of Slavery," Boston, 1816. 
 
 Thomas Clarkson s "Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of 
 the Human Species, particularly the African." Republished, 
 Georgetown, Ky., by J. N. Lyle, 1816. 
 
 Torrey, Jesse, physician. "A Portraiture of Domestic Slav 
 ery in the United States, etc., including Memoirs of Facts on the 
 Interior Traffic in Slaves and on Kidnapping," Philadelphia, 
 1817. 
 
 Thorpe, Robert, LL.D. " Present Increase of the Slave 
 Trade," 1818. 
 
 "The Exclusion of Slavery from the Territories and new 
 States," 1819. 
 
 "Memorial to Congress on Restraining the Increase of Slav 
 ery," 1819. 
 
 "The Bible justifies Slavery." By Duff Green, St. Louis, 1819. 
 
 Robert Walsh s Appeal from the Judgments of Great Britain 
 respecting the United States," etc. 512 pp. Philadelphia (pro- 
 slavery), 1819. 
 
 Dialogue on Slavery. " By the Rev. James Gilliland, Ripley, 
 Ohio, 1820. (Immediate abolition.) 
 
 Congressional speeches of Rufus King, J. Tallmadge, Jr., 
 and others on the admission of Missouri, with numerous pam 
 phlets on the subject (most of these have perished), 1818, 1819, 
 and 1820. 
 
 Sharp, Granville. "Memoirs," etc., reprint from 1769, 1820. 
 
 Raymond, Daniel. "Political Economy," 2 vols., octavo, 
 Baltimore, 1820 and 1823. 
 
 Learned, Joseph D. "View of the Policy of permitting 
 Slaves in the States West of the Mississippi," 1820. 
 18 
 
386 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 Plumer, M. C. " Speech on the Missouri Question," 1820. 
 
 " Achates," Charleston, S. C. "Reflections concerning Late 
 Disturbances in Charleston," 1822. 
 
 Cropper s "Letters to Wilberf orce, " 1822. 
 
 Singleton s "Report of the State of Sierre Leone," 1822. 
 
 Rev. John Rankin s "Letters on Slavery in America." (Im 
 mediate abolition.) 118pp., 1823- 24. 
 
 Hodgson. Letter to Say on the Comparative Expense of 
 Free and Slave Labor," 1823. 
 
 "Declaration of the Objects of the Liverpool Society for 
 abolishing Slavery," 1823. 
 
 Wilberf orce. "Appeal to the Religion, Justice, and Hu 
 manity of the Inhabitants of the British Empire in behalf of the 
 Negro Slaves in the West Indies," 1823. 
 
 Clarkson, Thomas. "Thoughts on the Necessity of improv 
 ing the Condition of Slaves in the British Colonies," etc., 
 1823. 
 
 Cooper. "Letter to R. Hibbert, Jr., Exposure of False 
 hood," etc., 1823. 
 
 Cooper. "Facts Illustrative of the Condition of the Negroes 
 in Jamaica," 1823. 
 
 Cropper, James. " Support of Slavery investigated," 1823. 
 
 "Impolicy of Slavery," illustrated, 1823. 
 
 "Pictures of Slavery in the West Indies, United States, and 
 especially in Jamaica." Published by the Anti-Slavery Society, 
 1823. 
 
 Gloucester, Jeremiah. Oration on the Abolition of the 
 Slave Trade," 1823. 
 
 Birkbeck, Morris. "An Appeal to the People of Illinois on 
 the Question of a Convention," 1823. 
 
 "Brief View of the Nature and Effects of Negro Slavery as it 
 exists in the Colonies of Great Britain." Committee of the 
 Methodist Wesleyan Conference. 
 
 "First Report of the Committee of the Society for the Miti 
 gation and Gradual Abolition of Slavery," June 25, 1824 and 
 1825. 
 
 Stephen, James. "The Slavery of the British West India 
 Colonies delineated," 1824. 
 
 "East India Free Labor Sugar," 1824. 
 
APPENDIX A. 38T 
 
 "Information concerning the Present Condition of Slave 
 Trade," 1824. 
 
 "Treatise on Slavery." By Rev. James Duncan, of Kentucky, 
 Yevay, Ind., 1824. (Immediate abolition.) 
 
 Remarks to Citizens of Illinois on the Proposed Introduction 
 of Slavery," 1824. 
 
 "An Impartial Appeal to the People of Illinois on the Injuri 
 ous Effects of Slave Labor," 1824. 
 
 " Hayti, Rural Code of," 1826. 
 
 Heyrick, Elizabeth. "Immediate not Gradual Emancipa 
 tion," London, 1824. Republished December 3 and 10, 1825, in 
 Lundy s "Genius"; first edition in Philadelphia in 1824, second 
 in 1836. (See preface to latter.) "Thoughts on the Extinction 
 of Colonial Slavery." By Miss Heyrick. 
 
 Quoted from by Miss Chandler and indorsed in "Genius" of 
 January 1, 1830. 
 
 Clarkson, Thomas. The argument "That the Colonial Slaves 
 are better off than the British Peasantry," 1825. 
 
 " Brief View of the Nature and Effects of Slavery," 
 1825. 
 
 "Impolicy of Slavery illustrated," 1825. 
 
 "Negroes Memorial or Abolitionist s Catechism," London, 
 1825. 
 
 Lundy, Benjamin. "Life of Elisha Tyson," a Maryland abo 
 litionist, 1825. 
 
 "Picture of Slavery, drawn by the Colonists themselves," 
 1825. 
 
 Stroud, George M. , Philadelphia. Sketch of the Laws re 
 lating to Slavery in the Several States of the United States of 
 America," 1827. 
 
 * Minutes of the Twentieth Session of the American Conven 
 tion for promoting the Abolition of Slavery," held in Philadel 
 phia, October 2, 1827. 
 
 "Remarks on Slavery in the United States," 1827. 
 
 Dyer Burgess s "Pamphlet against Slavery," Ripley, Ohio, 
 1827. (Immediate abolition.) 
 
 Wilson s "Thoughts on Slavery," 1827. 
 
 "Wilberforce s "Appeal." 
 
 Winn on "Emancipation," 1827. 
 
388 JAMES G. BIRXEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 " Sketches and Anecdotes of Persons of Color." By A. Mott, 
 York, England, 1828. 
 
 Scripture Evidence of the Sinfulness of Injustice and Op- 
 Wession," London, 1828. 
 \ < Anti- Slavery Petitions," 1828. 
 
 >^ "Anti-Slavery Monthly Reporter" from 1825 to 1827 and 
 1829. 
 
 " Investigator, " Providence, October 11, 1827. 
 
 1 Philanthropist and Investigator," Boston, January 10 to 
 August 26, 1829. 
 
 "Investigator and Genius of Temperance," October 28, De 
 cember 30, 1829. 
 
 "Treatise on the Patriarchal System of Slavery," 1829. 
 
 Walker. "Appeal," Boston, 1829. 
 
 Walsh, Rev. Dr. "Notes on the Brazils," 1830. 
 
 Godwin. "Lectures on Slavery," 1830. 
 
 Hicks, Elias. "Remarks on Character of," 1830. 
 
 Hodgson on "Free and Slave Labor," 1830. 
 
 New York. "Selections from the Revised Statutes of Laws 
 relative to Slaves and Kidnapping," 1830. 
 
 "Negro Slavery Tracts," Nos. 1 to 17, 1830. 
 
 "Address to the Churches," by the Chillicothe (Ohio) Presby 
 tery, excluding slaveholders from the communion, 1830. 
 
APPENDIX B. 
 
 BENJAMIN LUNDY. 
 
 BENJAMIN LUNDY (1789-1839), editor and publisher of the 
 "Genius of Universal Emancipation," was the most conspicuous 
 abolitionist in Maryland during the six years beginning with Oc 
 tober, 1824. His anti-slavery work began in 1815 in Ohio, and 
 ended in 1839 in Illinois, having been prosecuted in the mean 
 time in Tennessee, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. His prominent 
 anti-slavery contemporaries prior to 1830 were Dr. Doak, Charles 
 Osborn, John Rankin, and Jesse Lockhart, of Tennessee ; the Ken 
 tucky Presbyterians David Rice, James Duncan, and John Fin- 
 ley Crowe ; the Kentucky Baptists, "Friends of Humanity," 
 David Barrow, Carter Torrant, John Sutton, Donald Holmes, 
 Jacob Gregg, and George Smith; William Swaim and R. Men- 
 denhall, of North Carolina; James Gilliland, of South Carolina; 
 Edward Coles and George Bourne, of Virginia ; Elisha Tyson, 
 Daniel Raymond, John Needles, and Edward Needles, of Balti 
 more ; the ministers of the seventeen "emancipating Baptist 
 churches" of Illinois and of the Methodist Reformed Church ; 
 with Rufus King, J. Tallmadge, Jr., and the other opponents of 
 the admission of Missouri as a slave State. Lundy s place in 
 abolition history is unlike that of any other man. To understand 
 it his career must be studied. 
 
 He was born and reared a Quaker in New Jersey. His edu 
 cation was of the narrowest a little reading and ciphering and- 
 a great deal of hard work. Having injured his health and per 
 manently impaired his hearing by trying to do as much work as 
 any man on his father s farm, he left home in 1808. At Wheel 
 ing, Va., he remained four years, working at the saddler s trade 
 and reading diligently. Owing to the suppression of the African 
 
390 JAMES G. BIRXEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 slave trade the Southern demand for Virginia slaves was becom 
 ing active, and Lundy while apprentice and journeyman saw 
 many chained conies of slaves on their way to the Southern mar 
 ket. His pity for them made him an abolitionist. This was 
 about 1810. Having married and established himself in his trade 
 at St. Clairsville, Ohio, he called a few friends together at his 
 house, in 1815, and organized for anti-slavery purposes "The 
 Union Humane Society." It is significant of the liberal public 
 opinion of that day that in a few months the number of members 
 had increased to " nearly five hundred," among whom were 
 " most of the influential preachers and lawyers." * Under date of 
 January 4, 1816, he published an address to the philanthropists of 
 the United States, recommending the general formation of anti- 
 slavery societies under a common title and constitution, with co 
 operation and, for important business, a general convention. At 
 the close he stated that he "had had the subject long in contem 
 plation, and that he had now taken it up fully determined never to 
 lay it down while he breathed or until the end should be ob 
 tained."! 
 
 In 1817 he began his work as editor. On the 12th of Septem 
 ber in that year, Charles Osborn, the Quaker preacher from Ten 
 nessee, issued at Mount Pleasant, Chio, the first number of the 
 " Philanthropist," a weekly paper of a religious tone and intended 
 to aid in the warfare then waged by reformers generally against 
 the three great national evils war, slavery, and intemperance. 
 Two years before that date, Charles Osborn, John Underbill, 
 Jesse Willis, John Canaday, John Swain, Elibu Swain, David 
 Maulsby, and Thomas Morgan had formed the Tennessee Manu 
 mission Society. Either because of a difference of opinion on 
 the question between immcdiatism and gradualism or to leave all 
 members at liberty as to the manner of emancipation, the Consti 
 tution was silent on the subject. The three first named, how 
 ever, were in favor of immediate, uncompensated emancipation 
 on the soil. Osborn removed to Ohio in 1816, and Underbill 
 and Willis to Indiana at a later day. Osborn was a preacher, his 
 editing taking a minor place in his life. In his first number he 
 hopefully declares in regard to slavery that the time " is fast ap- 
 
 * Earle s " Life of Lundy," p. 16. f Ibid., p. 17. 
 
APPENDIX B. 391 
 
 preaching when the United States shall no longer be stained with 
 this foul pollution." In his sixth he thus speaks of the Coloniza 
 tion Society: 
 
 "The editor has great doubts of the justice of the plan pro 
 posed. It appears to him calculated to rivet closer the chains 
 that already gall the sons of Africa and to insure to the miserable 
 objects of American cruelty a perpetuity of bondage." 
 
 Osborn found in Lundy a kindred spirit and trustworthy 
 man, and encouraged him to send to the paper selected and 
 original articles on slavery. In 1818 he proposed a partnership 
 in the printing business. Lundy accepted, asking time to get 
 rid of his stock in trade. To effect this he made two trips to 
 St. Louis, reaching that city on the second trip late in the fall of 
 1819, when the Missouri controversy was at its height. He en 
 gaged in it with all his energy, writing numerous articles on the 
 evils of slavery for the newspapers of Missouri and Illinois. He 
 remained at St. Louis until about the 1st of December, 1820, at 
 which time, having lost nearly all his property and exhausted 
 the patience of Charles Osborn, who sold his paper before Lundy s 
 return, he set out on foot to return home. On the road he heard 
 of the death (December 4, 1820) of Elihu Embree, the editor of 
 the "Emancipator," of Jonesborough, East Tennessee. Osborn s 
 successor did not come up to Lundy s standard of anti-slavery 
 doctrine, and he decided to establish a monthly periodical at 
 Mount Pleasant, Ohio, under the title of "The Genius of Uni 
 versal Emancipation," a sounding name suggested by a passage 
 in one of Curran s speeches. The first number was issued in 
 January, 1821. "In four months," he says, "my subscription 
 list had become quite large." At that time he was well aware 
 that the best vantage ground for attacking slavery was the State 
 of Maryland. In his "proposals," published in the number for 
 July 29, 1824, of "The American Economist and East Tennessee 
 Statesman," he says : 
 
 I had fully determined on removing to Baltimore as soon 
 as necessary arrangements could be made. . . . But finding that 
 the Manumission Society of Tennessee had procured a press for 
 the purpose of exposing the pernicious effects of slavery and dis 
 seminating the principles of universal emancipation, and that 
 they were likely to fail in the attainment of their object for the 
 
392 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 want of assistance in conducting their printing establishment, I 
 concluded that, perhaps, it was a duty incumbent on me to ren 
 der them my feeble aid in so laudable an undertaking, especially 
 as I had received an invitation from them to that purport." 
 
 Lundy could not do as he would. He had no money and 
 owned neither press nor types ; his monthly edition was printed 
 ten miles off and he lugged it home on his back. He went, 
 September, 1821, to the press and types in East Tennessee, and 
 there he learned the practical part of a printer s business and es 
 tablished at Greenville a weekly local and a monthly agricult 
 ural paper besides the "Genius." In the winter of 1823- 24 he 
 attended the biennial convention of the American Abolition So 
 ciety at Philadelphia, and became acquainted with some of the 
 Eastern abolitionists. Encouraged by the increasing circulation 
 of his paper and disgusted with the irregularities of mail trans 
 portation* in the South, he resolved to carry out his original 
 design of publishing in Baltimore. Having issued at Greenville 
 his number for August, 1824, he started eastward on foot. En 
 route he delivered numerous anti-slavery lectures in North Caro 
 lina and Virginia, forming several abolition societies. One of 
 the places in which he spoke was Raleigh. He says : 
 
 "Before I left the State (North Carolina) there were some 
 twelve or fourteen anti-slavery societies organized." 
 
 Several others were formed in the middle section of Virginia. 
 The public impression that, prior to Jackson s first term, there 
 was in the South no freedom of speech on slavery is contradicted 
 by Lundy in these words : 
 
 "I afterward, during that visit to North Carolina, held some 
 fifteen or twenty anti-slavery meetings at different places. My 
 discourses were similar to all that I have since delivered in other 
 parts of the United States, and as ultra-orthodox in anti-slavery 
 sentiment as any of modern times." t 
 
 The establishment of the "Genius" caused no excitement in 
 Baltimore. The abolitionists received Lundy " civilly enough. 1 J 
 His personal presence was not imposing. He was of medium 
 height, plain in dress, hard of hearing, and not fluent in speech. 
 
 * Sec the " proposals " for publishing the " Genius " in Baltimore, 
 f " Life," p. 22. \ Ibid., p. 23. 
 
APPENDIX B. 393 
 
 It took time for the public to appreciate the scrupulous truth 
 fulness, good judgment, firmness, industry, and sledge-hammer 
 style of the unpretending Quaker. His initial article painted in 
 lively colors the impending dangers from the grievous curse " 
 of slavery, adding : 
 
 " Yea, all Nature cries aloud that something must "be done to 
 appease the kindling wrath of outraged humanity and violated 
 justice ere the fate of ancient Egypt or of modern St. Domingo 
 shall be ours." 
 
 He pledged himself to expose the vile management of those 
 who endeavor " to uphold and perpetuate the horrors of the sys 
 tem " that men might see " what manner of Christians or repub 
 licans are those who cherish the infamous practice of enslaving 
 their fellow-mortals." He declared that nothing less was con 
 templated than the " complete and final extinguishment" of 
 slavery. 
 
 The first number was an excellent paper. It contained the 
 editor s address, an article on Hayti, "Backing out," triumph of 
 principle in Illinois, accounts of the formation of six new eman 
 cipation societies, notices of General Lafayette, slavery in Brazil, 
 Rev. James Duncan s new work on slavery, Manumission Society 
 of North Carolina, letter from Illinois, revivals in North Carolina, 
 the constitutions of six abolition societies, "Mr. Adams and 
 Slave-holding," the black list, on kidnapping, etc., Hayti circu 
 lar, British anti-slavery meeting in London, poetry on Hayti and 
 Africa, and notices to patrons and correspondents. 
 
 To get out this number required all Lundy s pluck and spirit 
 of self-sacrifice. He had neither money nor type nor press. He 
 worked as journeyman for the printer in whose office the "Gen 
 ius " was set up and struck off ; lived cheaply, paid as he went, 
 and kept out of debt a rule which he always conscientiously 
 observed. The paper made a good impression ; subscriptions 
 came in rapidly ; the editor was a good canvasser ; the funds for 
 the publication of the following six numbers were easily ob 
 tained. Prospects were so bright that in the March number 
 proposals were published for a weekly edition of the paper. 
 The monthly was a sixteen page octavo, of which the printed 
 matter on each page was about 4^ by 7 inches. The weekly 
 was to be a sixteen page quarto, the size of the printed page to 
 
394 JAMES G. BIRXEY AXD HIS TIMES. 
 
 be 6| by 9| inches. The first and specimen number of the week 
 ly was issued July 4, 1825, and its regular publication began 
 September 5, 1825, and was continued until January 3, 1829, 
 having been enlarged July 4, 1827, to 8 by 11 inches printed 
 page. The monthly paper was not again published after Sep 
 tember, 1825, until April, 1830. The pecuniary success of the 
 paper was large enough in the first three years to encourage 
 Lundy greatly. He brought his family from Tennessee and went 
 to housekeeping, rented a good printing-office, furnished it with 
 cases, type, and press. He employed several journeymen printers, 
 did a fair job business, and published a book (the Life of Ty 
 son ") and sundry pamphlets. His income was from subscrip 
 tions and job-work. There is no trace of his having received 
 donations or pecuniary aid of any kind. His prosperity was 
 solid, being based upon a public sentiment represented in 1826 
 by 974 abolition votes at the Baltimore polls. It appears to 
 have steadily increased in 1825, 1826, and in 1827, until the Oc 
 tober election, which defeated the Adams candidates and placed 
 Jackson Democrats in the Legislature. 
 
 From that time the "Genius" was doomed. The signs of 
 the times indicated the overthrow of Adams, a non- slave-holder, 
 under whom free discussion had been the rule, and the incoming 
 of Jackson, the slave-holder, with the ascendency of the slave 
 power. Time-servers and trucklers were preparing to change 
 parties. Fence men descended on the Southern side. Timid 
 men did not like to have it known that they took Lundy s paper, 
 and business men who were abolitionists thought it prudent to 
 be so secretly. The subscription list fell off and old subscribers 
 did not pay up. 
 
 In March, 1828, Southern patronage had fallen off to such an 
 extent that it was necessary to do what Lundy had never before 
 done appeal to the North. In March, 1828, he visited Phila 
 delphia, New York, Providence, and Boston, seeing Arthur 
 Tappan, William Goodell, and other well-known friends of the 
 slave. March 17th he explained his views to eight Boston cler 
 gymen. They "cordially approved," and Mr. Garrison, "who 
 sat in the room, also expressed his approbation of my doctrines." 
 ( Life, " page 25, and Life of William Lloyd Garrison, " page 93.) 
 Having been successful in getting subscriptions he returned home. 
 
APPENDIX B. 395 
 
 In a few weeks he made a second * and last visit to the North. 
 His journal, the substance of which is published in his "Life" 
 by Earle (pages 26, 27, and 28) shows that he started May 1st 
 and returned to Baltimore October 25th, having held forty-three 
 public meetings, going as far as New Hampshire, Maine, and 
 New York," and having " considerably increased his subscrip 
 tion list." 
 
 The relief from Northern subscriptions was but temporary. 
 The heavy ground swell of the slave-power democracy in 1827 
 had become a tidal wave in 1828, and the little bark, the "Gen 
 ius," already loosed from its moorings, was driven high and 
 dry on shore, a hopeless wreck. The election of Jackson, a 
 slave-holder and cotton-planter, over Adams by a vote of 178 to 
 83 struck the chill of the grave into Maryland abolitionism. 
 Lundy found himself on the road to bankruptcy and suspension. 
 He was obliged to mortgage his press and type and to let the 
 press and part of the type go to his creditors. 
 
 * It was on this " second " visit that Mr. Lundy says he invited Mr. 
 Garrison to be his assistant editor, which invitation was declined. (See 
 Earle, p. 28.) Writing from memory, he errs in fixing the date of the 
 visit in " November " and saying that Mr. Garrison was then " conduct 
 ing a paper in Vermont from which he could not then disengage him 
 self." The second visit is shown by his published diary (Earle, p. 26) to 
 have continued until the 25th of October. As Lundy s public meetings 
 in Boston were held on the 7th and llth of August and were attended by 
 Mr. Garrison, the two meeting doubtless every day, and as Mr. Lundy 
 needed an assistant at that time, an offer was quite in the natural order 
 of things, as was also the refusal by Mr. Garrison because of his engage 
 ment to go to Bennington. (Compare Earle and Garrison s " Life " for 
 the dates.) 
 
 The story so often repeated by Mr. Garrison and his friends of Lundy s 
 traveling afoot, staff in hand and knapsack on back, to Bennington, Vt., 
 to invite Mr. Garrison to join him, is romantic and sensational, but it has 
 no foundation in fact. It was not told during his life and his relatives re 
 ject it. He was never in Bennington. That city was six hundred miles 
 from Baltimore by the nearest roads, and forty days of foot travel would 
 not have been undertaken by Lundy to accomplish what he could have 
 done as well by letter. The foot-trip was never mentioned in either of the 
 papers edited by the parties or by Mr. Garrison until after Lundv s death. 
 
396 JAMES G. BIRXEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 The last number of the "Genius," before its suspension, was 
 issued January 3, 1829. In it he shows his indomitable pluck 
 by declaring his intention to resume its publication at a future 
 day, and that "it shall never be abandoned while the labor of 
 his own hands will support life and produce a revenue sufficient 
 to print and publish one sheet per annum." 
 
 Such a cry of desperate failure was not of a nature to bring 
 in subscriptions. The next eight months were spent in prepara 
 tions to resume, with the exception of the time taken for a trip to 
 Hayti. He renewed, doubtless by letter, his invitation to Mr. 
 Garrison to join him, and gained his promise to do so. By dili 
 gent canvassing he managed to get a few new subscribers and 
 collect some arrears of old subscriptions, so that he was ready to 
 begin again on the 5th of September. It was, however, on a 
 reduced scale. Having no printing-office, he had the printing 
 done by contract in the office of Lucas & Deaver, who were 
 abolitionists. By the use of larger type he cut down the cost of 
 composition. By adding the space of fourteen lines to the length 
 of the column he gave the paper a better form, though it did 
 not contain as much printed matter as before the suspension. 
 The old subscription price was retained. 
 
 The Baltimore public did not respond to Lundy s appeal. 
 The wind was raw and chilly. The shadow of the incoming 
 slave-holding President darkened the sky. Money was scarce, 
 and in order to live Lundy was forced to sell the remains of his 
 former office. In the number of January 22d the assistant editor 
 wrote : 
 
 " The voluntary remittances of our subscribers for more than 
 four months do not exceed the sum of fifty dollars." 
 
 As the terms were "three dollars per annum, payable in ad 
 vance," the attempt to resuscitate the weekly* "Genius "was 
 
 * In a speech at the third decade meeting of the American Anti- 
 Slavery Society, Mr. Garrison, speaking of editing the "National Philan 
 thropist " at Boston, in 1827, says: 
 
 " Among my exchange papers I received a little, dingy monthly peri 
 odical called the Genius of Universal Emancipation, " etc. 
 
 And again, speaking of Lundy s invitation to join him in editing "the 
 little, dingy monthly," he says : 
 
 " The proposition upon his part was that we should convert the little 
 
APPENDIX B. 397 
 
 evidently a disastrous failure from the very first. It was aban 
 doned after a trial of six months. The octavo monthly was re 
 sumed by Lundy alone in April, 1830. 
 
 It was published in Baltimore until the end of that year, then 
 nominally for a few months and really after that time at Wash 
 ington city until October, 1833, when its further publication 
 there was to be effected only at the daily risk of life, and it was 
 removed to Philadelphia. 
 
 The historical value of Lundy s paper for the period begin 
 ning with 1821 and ending with 1830 can hardly be overesti 
 mated. It is the repository of all plans for the abolition of slav 
 ery, of all laws, opinions, arguments, essays, speeches, and views, 
 statistics, constitutions of societies, etc., manumissions, congres 
 sional proceedings, notices of books and pamphlets, colonization 
 efforts, political movements, in short, of everything relating to 
 slavery. To such a writer as Von Hoist it would be a rich mine 
 of suggestive information. 
 
 As a newspaper it is better than any reform journal of the 
 same period. The "Harbinger of Peace " compared with it is a 
 rush-light to the sun. It is interesting. The style of the editor 
 improves from year to year. So does his taste in making selec 
 tions. The reader becomes insensibly absorbed in gazing upon 
 the life-like panorama presented to him of the doings of a former 
 
 monthly into a large and handsome weekly paper. (See " Third Decade 
 Proceedings," p. 120.) 
 
 This authority is followed by Oliver Johnson and the sons of Mr. Gar 
 rison ("Life" of W. L. G., p. 120). It is incorrect in every particular. 
 At the time spoken of (1827 and 1828) there was no monthly in ex 
 istence, and had not been since September, 1825, and the weekly, 
 though the columns were a little longer, contained no more matter and 
 was not " handsome." / write icith the files of the " Genius " on the table 
 before me. 
 
 In the same speech Mr. Garrison claims that he ruined Lundy s paper 
 by advocating immediate emancipation. As Miss Heyrick s pamphlet 
 had been published in the " Genius " in December, 1825, and the doctrine 
 constantly presented in the paper from about that time, and as Miss 
 Chandler had devoted mote space to it than Mr. Garrison, his conscience 
 might well have been easy on that score. Mr. Lundy never attributed 
 his failure to Mr. Garrison. 
 
398 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 generation, and when he at last lays aside the paper it is with 
 genuine respect for the noble sincerity, unselfishness, and sure 
 judgment of Benjamin Lundy. His paper bears no trace of per 
 sonal quarrels, of envy or jealousy of co-workers. 
 "He did not find his sleep less sweet 
 For music in some neighboring street, 
 Nor rustling hear in every breeze 
 The laurels of Miltiades." 
 
 This was one of the causes of his success. His single purpose 
 made him see clearly. In Osborn s "Philanthropist" (1817) he 
 took ground against colonization, December 20, 1825, he says 
 of the Colonization Society : 
 
 " Its direct effect, even to remove the nominally free blacks, 
 is next to nothing ; ... as a means to do away the system of 
 slavery, ... it furnishes not the least hope." 
 
 The same year (vol. v, No. 5) he denounces it as aiming at 
 the " expatriation of the free people of color" and as "inade 
 quate to the object I have ever kept in view and the attainment 
 of which is the end and aim of all my exertions, viz., the total 
 abolition of slavery in the United States." 
 
 In this opinion he never wavered. His soundness on the 
 doctrine of immediate emancipation has been slurred by Mr. 
 Garrison and questioned on the same authority since his death ; 
 but a few remarks on this subject may aid to a more just con 
 clusion. 
 
 The doctrine was not new to him. Milton had asserted it : 
 
 "But man over man 
 
 He made not lord ; such title to himself reserving, 
 Human left from human free." 
 
 That "slavery is a sin," imposed, in theology, the duty of 
 immediate abandonment. Wesley had said, ll Instantly, at any 
 price, were it the half of your goods, deliver thyself from blood 
 guiltiness." 
 
 In 1789 Bishop Burgess had advocated immediate abolition 
 and denounced those who wished to "modify" and "amelio 
 rate " slavery. (See " Anti- Slavery Monthly Reporter," 1829.) 
 
 In 1792 David Rice had delivered an address to the Kentucky 
 Convention, urging it "to resolve unconditionally to put an end 
 to slavery in this State." 
 
APPENDIX B. 399 
 
 To his anti-slavery poem, "The Penitential Tyrant," pub 
 lished in New York in 1807, Branagan had added a note (page 
 280): 
 
 I deny that, in the sight of God, any human being can be 
 the property of another." 
 
 In 1816, Rev. George Bourne (Virginia), in " The Book and 
 Slavery Irreconcilable," had said : 
 
 " The system is so entirely corrupt that it admits of no cure 
 but by a total and immediate abolition. 1 1 
 
 From about 1824 immediatism was accepted by the majority 
 of English abolitionists. In 1824, Rev. James Duncan (Ken 
 tucky), in his " Treatise on Slavery," showed the fallacy of grad 
 ualism and advocated immediate abolition on the soil without 
 compensation to the master. (See G., i, p. 144.) 
 
 In the same year, Rev. John Rankin (Tennessee, Kentucky, 
 and Ohio), in his "Letters on Slavery," had argued that "less 
 inconvenience and danger would attend their liberation at the 
 present than at any future time " (page 25). 
 
 The same doctrine had been preached in Ohio many years by 
 the Revs. James Gilliland, Jesse Lockhart, J. Dunlavy, John 
 Rankin, the two Dickeys, and by Charles Osborn. It was, 
 therefore, a familiar one to Lundy ; but his intention was to ef 
 fect practical abolition through manumission by masters and 
 through legislation by slave-holding States, compelling masters 
 to emancipate, and he went into those States to accomplish his 
 object. His appeal to masters was always, Manumit at once, for 
 slave-holding is a sin. His appeal for compulsory statutes was, 
 Fix a time now. He recognized the fact that the States already 
 free had adopted the gradual plan, and that it would be imprac 
 ticable to obtain from any State unconditional and instantaneous 
 emancipation on the soil. He expressed this well in his "pro 
 posals " for issuing his paper at Baltimore. These appeared in 
 his Greenville weekly local paper of July 29, 1824. In them he 
 declares himself in favor of means whereby slavery may be 
 completely annihilated," and adds, "The editor is well aware 
 that this must be effected gradually. 
 
 In this he refers rather to what will be than to what ought to 
 be ; to what can be done rather than to what is lest to be done. 
 In all his writings, it is believed, he never pointed out any bad 
 
400 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 results likely to flow from unconditional emancipation by law, 
 but thought such a proposition to the Southern people was chi 
 merical. As time wore on, however, he modified his views on this 
 point. In the "Genius" for December 3 and 10, 1825, he re- 
 published the whole of Elizabeth Heyrick s pamphlet, "Immedi 
 ate, not Gradual Emancipation," and about the same time he 
 republished Rev. James Duncan s book and aided actively in 
 circulating it. In 1827 he proposed to issue in book-form a re 
 print of Miss Heyrick s second book, "The Prompt Extinction," 
 etc. (See "Genius" of September 11, 1827.) In the later pro 
 spectuses of his paper (see those of September 2, 1826, and June 
 16, 1827) he omits all mention of gradualism. In the number of 
 August 5, 1826, he publishes an article from a Presbyterian 
 preacher advocating immediate abolition. The following lines 
 show its tenor : 
 
 "What has God told you about crime or sin? To desist 
 from it or to persevere ? To desist, when ? Now ! now ! . . . 
 We are required to do it immediately." 
 
 In August and September, 1826, he copies six radical articles 
 from the (New York) "Recorder and Telegraph." They contain 
 such passages as these : "The point to be aimed at is the entire, 
 speedy abolition of slavery, for whether we choose it or not the 
 thing will be done. . . . Emancipation must take place on the 
 spot where slavery exists. . . . The slave has a right to immedi 
 ate liberty paramount to every claim of his master." 
 
 November 11, 1826, a North Carolina correspondent urges as 
 "the next step " to call on the legislatures " to make an immedi 
 ate, unconditional, and indiscriminate destruction of the slave 
 market." 
 
 Miss Elizabeth M. Chandler, who in 1825 had written " The 
 Slave Ship," a prize poem, and, after writing literary pieces for 
 the " Genius " in 1826, had become, early in 1827, a frequent con 
 tributor to it of articles on slavery, showing the tender heart of 
 woman and rare poetical genius, had never penned a line in favor 
 of gradualism. She was always in favor of immediate abolition. 
 In her second letter "to the ladies of Baltimore" she says: 
 "What is wanted, therefore, is not so much an acknowledge 
 ment of its wickedness as a general desire for its immediate ex 
 tinction," etc. ("Memoir," page 45.) 
 
APPENDIX B. 
 
 In his memoir of her, written in 1836, Lundy says : "She 
 was the first American female author that ever made this subject 
 the principal theme of her active exertions. . . . She ranked as 
 second to none among the female philanthropists of modern 
 times who have devoted their attention to it, if we except the 
 justly celebrated Elizabeth Heyrick, of England." 
 
 During the six months effort in 1829- 30 to re-establish the 
 "Genius," she freely advocated in her department of the paper 
 the doctrine of immediate abolition, devoting at least twice as 
 much space to it as Mr. Garrison did, and quoting freely from 
 the last and most able work of Miss Heyrick * on the subject. 
 
 Mr. Garrison announced the doctrine in his salutatory and ap 
 proved it in some half-dozen other articles, none of which were 
 elaborate. He qualified it, however, as follows : "Let me here 
 remark that I do not advocate total and instantaneous abolition 
 without at the same time urging the duty of the States to make 
 liberal provisions and suitable regulations Try law for the mainte 
 nance and government of the emancipated blacks. For every 
 imaginary or real evil I propose a safe antidote." 
 
 That Mr. Lundy not only acquiesced in but cordially approved 
 the doctrine is proved by his republication, in the " Genius" of 
 December, 1825, of Miss Heyrick s pamphlet, by his indorse 
 ment (September 11, 1827) of that lady s second work on the 
 same subject, and of Rev. James Duncan s book, by his con 
 tinued publication of Miss Chandler s articles, by numerous 
 " enunciations " of it by other writers, and by his special indorse 
 ment of Garrison s articles in the last number (March 5, 1830) of 
 the "Genius," which was edited by them jointly. In reference 
 to these articles he says : "I fully acquit him [Garrison] of in 
 tentionally inserting anything knowing that it would ~be thus dis 
 approved." 
 
 * In his speech at the " Third Decade Meeting " (p. 121) Mr. Garrison 
 says : " From the moment that the doctrine of immediate emancipation 
 was enunciated in the columns of the Genius, as it had not been up to 
 that hour, it was like a bombshell," etc. In comparison with the columns 
 themselves, with which Garrison was familiar, this statement is seen to 
 be without foundation in fact. These bombshells had been exploding 
 during the five years preceding Mr. Garrison s arrival in Baltimore. Had 
 Mr. Garrison never seen the files of the u Genius " ? 
 
402 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 As the doctrine had been fully discussed between them and 
 was of the first importance, as the "Genius" had advocated it 
 for four years and Lundy had acquiesced for six months in its 
 editorial advocacy by both Mr. Garrison and Miss Chandler and 
 continued for the rest of his life to advocate it himself, and as he 
 made an arrangement soon after with Garrison to join him in 
 editing the "Genius" at Washington, the above indorsement 
 fully covers Garrison s articles on immediate abolition. He knew 
 that Benjamin Lundy would approve them,* and that in all mat 
 ters regarding slavery they were united. In his parting editorial 
 notice Garrison says : "Although our partnership is at an end, 
 I trust we shall ever remain one in spirit and purpose and that the 
 cause of emancipation will suffer no detriment." 
 
 * The articles inserted in Mr. Lundy s absence and of which he dis 
 approved were on sundry political subjects, especially those favoring 
 Henry Clay for the presidency. He had no faith in Mr. Clay as a states 
 man, and had so stated in the " Genius." Mr. Garrison s faith in Clay 
 was ardent. In his prospectus of August, 1830, for a paper at Washing 
 ton, Mr. Garrison says : " I shall give a dignified support to Henry Clay 
 and the American system." (See vol. i of " Life," p. 201.) 
 
 - Mr. Lundy, on the contrary, regarded Mr. Clay as chiefly responsible 
 for the admission of Missouri as a slave State, the greatest error in 
 American statesmanship up to that time, and he treated him as an enemy 
 of the cause of the slave. 
 
 In his "Third Decade Speech" (1863) Mr. Garrison attributes his 
 signing his editorials in the " Genius " with his initials to the common 
 desire of himself and Mr. Lundy that the latter should be relieved from 
 responsibility for the doctrine of immediatism. At the time that speech 
 was delivered Mr. Lundy had been in his grave twenty-four years and 
 could file no caveat against Mr. Garrison s attempt at pre-emption. If 
 Mr. Garrison had signed his initials to no other editorials than the very 
 few on immediatism, his statement might be accepted ; but the fact that 
 he signed them to his numerous notices of books, magazines, newspapers, 
 and sermons, and to articles long or short on embezzlers, Indians, swift 
 steamboats, Mr. Clay, intemperance, popular bombast, his own birthday, 
 etc., indicates vanity of authorship and not a desire to assume exclusive 
 responsibility for unpopular views. The fact that in the same numbers 
 of the " Genius " immediatism was advocated in the ladies department 
 without initials, proves that Benjamin Lundy was not shirking responsi- 
 bilitv for that doctrine. 
 
APPENDIX B. 403 
 
 This contemporaneous, mutual recognition of their unity re 
 futes the insinuations made by Garrison against Lundy in his 
 life which have grown into definite charges since his death. 
 
 In 1831 he copied in full Garrison s explanation of the doctrine 
 and indorsed it as plainly as he could. To an imputation made in 
 1832 by Garrison against his soundness of doctrine he answered: 
 
 "My sentiments have ever been adverse to the principle that 
 tolerates the monstrous anomaly in our free institutions that man 
 can be viewed as the property of man. I deny its correctness in 
 toto. I have asserted, and the assertion has been recorded a 
 hundred times, that no man can in justice hold another as a slave 
 a single moment." (" Genius" for 1832, page 208.) 
 
 In Earle s Life of Lundy " (page 308) his half-sister writes : 
 
 "He was much grieved that the advocates of the cause of 
 emancipation seemed not to enter into the view of Elizabeth 
 Heyrick respecting immediate emancipation as he did. He 
 talked much to me about it and lamented it, for, said he, the 
 view was a sound one. ... He has sometimes been represented 
 as opposed to the measure of immediate emancipation. This, I 
 believe, icas not true." 
 
 That Lundy was sound to the core on all questions affecting 
 human liberty will not be doubted by any unbiased, intelligent 
 reader of the " Genius." In the matter of political action against 
 slavery he was in advance of most of his contemporaries. From 
 a very early date, even during his residence in Tennessee, he ad 
 vocated a resort to the ballot-box, and in Maryland he aided in 
 the most effective movement of the kind made before 1830 except 
 the exclusion of slavery from Illinois by popular vote in 1824. 
 He was one of the first in 1828 and 1829 to expose the designs of 
 the Jackson party managers to acquire Texas and to answer the 
 articles in which Thomas H. Benton, Duff Green, and the 
 "Richmond Inquirer " advocated the creation of six to nine new 
 slave States and the ascendency of the slave power. After his re 
 turn from Mexico his pamphlet against the annexation of Texas and 
 the abundant information on that subject given by him to John 
 Quincy Adams were among the strongest causes (after Guerrero s 
 abolition of slavery in Texas and his refusal in 1829 to sell that 
 Territory to the United States) of the temporary defeat of that 
 measure of the slave power. 
 
404: JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 In the prosecution of his reform he steadily invoked the active 
 aid of the women of the country. He established free labor 
 produce stores in several cities and accomplished a great deal, 
 particularly among the Friends, in the matter of abstention from 
 the products of slave labor. Though he was not an eloquent 
 public speaker, he lectured on slavery to more than two hundred 
 assemblies of people, moving them to action by his thorough 
 knowledge of his subject, his earnestness, and his array of facts ; 
 but his permanent reputation must rest on his journal, which is 
 the most valuable record of anti-slavery opinions and movements 
 in the times of which it treats. 
 
 Between the close of the war in 1815 and the year 1830 there 
 were published the following journals which avowed the extinc 
 tion of slavery as one, if not the chief one, of their objects : 
 . 1. The Philanthropist (Ohio), 1817. 
 
 & The Emancipator (Tennessee), 1819. 
 
 3. The Abolition Intelligencer (Kentucky), 1822. 
 
 4. The Genius of Universal Emancipation (Ohio, Tennessee, 
 and Maryland), 1821. 
 
 5. Edwardsville Spectator (Illinois),* 1822. 
 
 6. Illinois Intelligencer,* 1823. 
 
 7. The African Observer (Philadelphia), 1826. 
 
 8. Freedom s Journal (New York city), 1827. 
 
 9. The Investigator (Goodell s), 1827. 
 
 10. The National Philanthropist (Boston), f 1827. 
 
 11. The Journal of the Times (Vermont), 1828. 
 
 12. The Liberalist (New Orleans), 1828. 
 
 This list does not include the "African Repository 11 (1826) 
 and other distinctively colonization papers. Of the twelve, 
 "The Genius of Universal Emancipation 1 must be assigned to 
 the head of the column for substantial merit. 
 
 The only way to form an adequate idea of the extent and 
 
 * See Washburne s " Sketch of Edward Coles," p. 167. 
 
 f In "The Genius of Universal Emancipation" of March 3, 1827, 
 is the following extract from an editorial in the "National Philan 
 thropist " : 
 
 " We had in view when we adopted it (our title) the three great evils 
 with which the world is cursed war, slavery, and intemperance, especially 
 the latter." 
 
APPENDIX B, 405 
 
 depth of anti-slavery sentiment in the United States in the period 
 under consideration is to glean from these papers the articles ex 
 pressing it which are copied from other newspapers. Charles 
 Osborn republished in the "Philanthropist" anti-slavery articles 
 from the following papers : Chester and Delaware Federalist, 
 Federal Republican and Baltimore Telegraph, Alexandria (Va.) 
 Gazette, Providence Gazette, Westchester Record, and Freeman s 
 Journal. 
 
 Lundy copies similar articles from the following : Richmond 
 Whig, Alexandria Gazette, Winchester (Ya.) Republican, Vil 
 lage Record (Pennsylvania), Baltimore American, The Berean, 
 United States Gazette, Abolition Intelligencer, New York Re 
 corder, Christian Observer, Saturday Evening Post, New York 
 Observer, American Economist, Western Luminary (Kentucky), 
 Richmond Family Visitor, Freedom s Journal, American Farmer, 
 Ohio Repository, Saturday Evening Chronicle, Maryland Repub 
 lican, Zion s Herald, Greensborough (N. C.) Patriot, New Lisbon 
 Patriot, Frederick (Md.) Political Examiner, Washington (Pa.) 
 Examiner, National Advocate, Russellville (Ky.) Messenger, New 
 York Daily Advertiser, Pennsylvania Gazette, Baltimore Gazette, 
 Visitor and Telegraph, Genius of Temperance, Baltimore Patriot, 
 African Repository, American, National Philanthropist, Lebanon 
 Gazette, Democratic Press, Cincinnati Gazette (Hammond s), 
 Journal of the Times (Vermont), Vertical Press, and the New 
 England Enquirer. (43.) (For books, etc., during and before 
 this period on slavery, see Appendix A.) Considering that the 
 American press was then in its infancy, the era of the " Herald" 
 and the " Tribune " and other modern journals not having then 
 begun, that Lundy had few exchanges and probably did not 
 copy for want of space in his paper more than one tenth of the 
 anti-slavery articles published, it is clear that the sentiment of 
 the American press, except in the extreme South, was against 
 slavery between 1817 and 1830. This harmonizes with the fact 
 that within that period the legislatures of three States (Ohio, 
 Pennsylvania, and New Jersey) passed joint resolutions recom 
 mending the abolition of slavery by national compensation to the 
 masters and professing willingness to bear their proportion of 
 the expense. 
 
 It would be a departure from the plan of this book to enter 
 
406 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 into any biographical details in regard to Mr. Lundy except such 
 as illustrate the public opinion of his day. He richly merits a 
 revised and improved edition of the hastily written sketch by 
 Thomas Earle. We must part here with the heroic Quaker.* 
 
 * The confidence inspired by the personal character of Lundy was so 
 great that a large number of slaves, in one case eighty-eight, Avere manu 
 mitted and sent to suitable refuges under his advice. In that day nearly 
 all, if not all, the free States had what were called u Black laws," pro 
 hibiting under heavy penalties the bringing of negroes within their lim 
 its, while of the slave States that permitted manumission at all some re 
 quired heavy bonds, with sureties for their good behavior and support, 
 and others, for instance North Carolina, required them to leave the State 
 within ninety days under penalty of being sold again into slavery. The 
 freed negroes were left without a safe refuge from persecution except in 
 Canada. Lundy s heart was deeply touched by their wretched condition. 
 He went twice to Hayti in their behalf and made arrangements for their 
 reception. By his means, direct and indirect, about two thousand slaves 
 were manumitted and placed in security. These acts of noble devotion 
 to the oppressed have been tortured by jealousy into a foundation for 
 the charge against him of being a colonizationist, a charge refuted by the 
 " Genius," but necessary to Mr. Garrison s claim to pre-empt the doctrine 
 of anti-colonizationism. Let Lundy have his laurels ! Is there not glory 
 enough for all abolitionists ? It is noteworthy that the three individuals 
 who in the history of the struggle for abolition effected freedom for the 
 largest number of slaves were Elisha Tyson, Benjamin Lundy, and Lcvi 
 Coffin, the president of the Cincinnati Underground Kailroad Company. 
 Each wrought by his own methods, and not one of them probably ever 
 saw either of the two others. 
 
APPENDIX C. 
 
 ASSOCIATIONS OF A NATIONAL CHARACTER TO 
 PROMOTE THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY. 
 
 IN the first forty years after the formation of the national 
 Constitution abolition societies were active in nine of the original 
 thirteen States. There were none in Massachusetts and New 
 Hampshire because there was no need of them, or in Georgia and 
 South Carolina because those States were completely under the 
 control of the slave-holding interest. Either they or the influ 
 ences that created them abolished slavery in the five States of 
 Rhode Island, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New 
 York, ending with the last named on the 4th of July, 1827. 
 They failed in the four States of Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, 
 and North Carolina. 
 
 Originally each of these organizations acted in the State in 
 which it existed. Practically it did not need the co-operation of 
 the others for its special purposes. There was, therefore, no af 
 filiation between them until the common sentiment in favor of 
 putting an end to the African slave trade made them feel the ab 
 solute necessity of a closer union. In December, 1791, the abo 
 lition societies of Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Penn 
 sylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, sent separate memorials to 
 Congress praying for action against the slave trade. In the 
 House these papers were referred to a special committee. No 
 further action was had, a neglect which excited the indignation 
 of the memorialists. A correspondence between them ensued 
 which resulted in an agreement of the societies to send delegates 
 to meet in convention at Philadelphia on the first day of Janu 
 ary, 1794. The societies represented on this occasion were the 
 six above named and those of New Jersey, Delaware, Wilming- 
 
408 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 ton (Del.), and Chestertown (Md.). With the exception of 1799, 
 1802, 1805, and 1807, similar conventions of delegates were held 
 every year until 1808, after which, owing partly to the abolition 
 of the African slave trade in that year, but chiefly to the troubled 
 condition of the country the embargo and the war with Great 
 Britain they were not resumed until 1814. Beginning with 
 that year they were regularly held biennially until 1824. Though 
 the system of stated conferences of delegates of local societies, 
 without organization during the long intervals of adjournment, 
 without funds, newspaper presses, or lecturers, was the natural 
 one so long as the object of each society was to abolish slavery 
 in the State within which such society existed, that system was 
 altogether inadequate to meet the necessities of the situation 
 after the great upheaval of the North in the Missouri contro 
 versy. William Goodell, the historian of "Slavery and Anti- 
 Slavery," says : * 
 
 If Henry Clay could but have known how many were made 
 uncompromising abolitionists by their disgust with that unholy 
 compromise he would have found less occasion to congratulate 
 himself with the results. The present (1852) anti-slavery excite 
 ment may be distinctly traced in part to the earnest debates 
 among the people elicited by that same Missouri Compromise. 
 The settlement of the question by Congress was only the signal 
 for its agitation among their constituents." 
 
 Of Rhode Island, the State of his residence at that time, Mr. 
 Goodell says : 
 
 1 Party lines for the time being were well nigh erased and 
 the terms anti-slavery and pro-slavery took the place of Fed 
 eralist and Republican. The files of newspapers, particularly 
 the Providence Gazette, bear testimony that the discussion be 
 came as radical then as it is now, and that nearly the same ar 
 guments pro and con were then in use. Some who commenced 
 writing against slavery and compromise then^ have not ceased 
 
 * Page 384. 
 
 f William Goodell, Joshua Leavitt, Rev. James Duncan, and John 
 Rankin, began .to publish articles against slavery about that time. Ben 
 jamin Lundy issued his " Genius " in 1821, and John Finley Crowe " The 
 Abolition Intelligencer " (Kentucky) in 1822. 
 
APPENDIX C. 409 
 
 writing against them still. The author may be permitted to 
 record himself among these." (Page 384.) 
 
 The year 1824 was marked by the removal of Lundy s press 
 to Baltimore, the anti-slavery victory at the polls in Illinois, the 
 declaration of the Ohio and New Jersey Legislatures in favor of 
 abolition by national legislation, and the election of John Quincy 
 Adams to the presidency. Under the magnetic influence of these 
 favorable events the anti-slavery societies wakened into vigorous 
 activity. The annual conventions of delegates were resumed 
 and were held in each year of the Adams Administration. The 
 tendency in them to the assumption of the relation of parent so 
 ciety to auxiliaries became more and more marked ; but they 
 could not rid themselves of the original feature of the delegate 
 principle. Their operations were not openly indorsed by the 
 Administration nor were they discountenanced. To be an abo 
 litionist was no disqualification for office under the National 
 Government under Adams. Among the agents for Lundy s paper 
 there were nine postmasters, most of them in the South, and 
 their names were published in its columns. Among the officers 
 and delegates of the abolition conventions there were several men 
 of national reputation who were noted friends of the national 
 Administration. William Rawle (president), Horace Binney, and 
 John Sergeant, of Philadelphia ; William L. Stone, Hiram 
 Ketchum, and Cadwallader D. Golden, of New York, were of 
 this number, and they attended or were officers of the conven 
 tions in 1824, 1825, 1826, and 1827. When the political skies 
 began to darken over Adams in the disastrous presidential cam 
 paign of 1828, and it became manifest that Clay with his slave- 
 holding policy would succeed to the Whig leadership, the above- 
 named gentlemen with one accord abandoned the abolition 
 movement. Not one of them appeared at Baltimore in the dele 
 gate convention of 1828, and not one of their names is mentioned 
 in the proceedings of that body. The convention itself was a 
 failure. Both the president and vice-president were absent, and 
 of the thirteen delegates present six were residents of the city of 
 Baltimore. Evan Lewis was there from New York. Thomas 
 Shipley was elected president pro tern., and Edwin P. Atlee sec 
 retary. Both of these were from Philadelphia. This sudden 
 and unexpected defection of the Whig politicians must have 
 19 
 
410 JAMES Gr. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 been extremely discouraging to the societies. Its full meaning, 
 that Herod and Pilate were about to combine against Christ, 
 they may not have comprehended and measured in its probable 
 results. The hundred and six Southern auxiliaries still re 
 mained. These could not be deserted.* 
 
 Another convention (the twenty-first) was called to meet at 
 Washington city, December 3, 1829. This was the expiring ef 
 fort of the delegate system. Not only were the Whig politicians 
 absent, but there was not a single delegate present from any of 
 the societies formerly existing in the slave States south of the 
 District of Columbia. In 1827 there had been more than a hun 
 dred of these. Lundy was there. He was ashamed to own the 
 dismal failure of the convention. In the "Genius" of Decem 
 ber 25, 1829, he says the number present was "smaller than had 
 been anticipated." It must have been very small. The general 
 defection of the Southern societies, following upon that of the 
 Whig politicians, should have opened the eyes of the few who 
 remained faithful. Left without leaders or constituency, having 
 achieved the abolition of slavery in the Northern States, but 
 having no strength to lift the gage of battle for national suprem 
 acy through Texas annexation which had been thrown down by 
 the slave power in the election of Jackson, they should have 
 abdicated the leadership, terminated the delegate system, and 
 joined in an effort to unite all the abolitionists of the coun 
 try in an army strong enough to fight the national battle then 
 imminent. 
 
 But they did not see. Men cling long to outworn forms. 
 The old abolition societies which had supported the delegate 
 system for forty years could not give it up at once. They could 
 not believe that the prospects of emancipation in Maryland, Vir 
 ginia, and North Carolina which had been so bright in 1827 
 
 * These wore distributed in 1827 as follows: Delaware, 2; District 
 of Columbia, 2; Kentucky, 8 ; Virginia, 8; Maryland, 11; Tennessee, 
 25 ; and North Carolina, 60. The membership comprised 6,625 persons. 
 There were 12 auxiliaries in Illinois, and 12 more in Pennsylvania, New 
 York, and Ohio. All these were reported to the American Abolitionist 
 Convention in 1827. (See "Proceedings.") Of unreported anti-slavery 
 societies there were probably between 50 and 70. Consult Poole s pam 
 phlet, p. 72. 
 
APPENDIX C. 411 
 
 were utterly overclouded in 1828. Nor could they comprehend 
 that in electing General Jackson without previous discussion of 
 slavery extension and Texas annexation the country had practi 
 cally changed its policy, and the nation had without shout of 
 command or blare of trumpet executed a left wheel upon its cen 
 ter, marched into the camp of the slave power, and surrendered 
 at discretion ; and so, being blind, they issued a call for another 
 convention. But this never convened. The delegate system had 
 had its day ; it was dead. 
 
 From the time of the Missouri controversy, which had re 
 vealed the inherent weakness of the delegate system, the aboli 
 tion sentiment of the North was growing away from it. In the 
 exciting battle of 1822-24: for the rescue of Illinois, the conven 
 tion was not known in the leadership of the anti-slavery forces ; 
 nor was its primacy acknowledged by the greater number of the 
 societies which were organized between 1820 and 1830 under 
 the names of Abolition, Aiding Abolition, Manumission, Eman 
 cipation, Gradual Emancipation, Anti-Slavery, Constitution, Free 
 Labor, Free Produce, Union Humane, Benevolent, African Pro 
 tection, Friends of Humanity, Moral and Religious, and others 
 more or less expressive of their anti-slavery character. The as 
 sumption that the few societies which sent delegates to the con 
 vention were almost the only ones of the kind in existence before 
 1830 is an error into which many worthy writers have fallen. In 
 truth, from the time of the revival of anti-slavery action in 1814, 
 the discussion of slavery increased from year to year in geomet 
 rical progression, and until 1830 the formation of societies kept 
 pace with the discussion ; nor did the convention contribute in 
 any perceptible manner to the triumphs of anti-slavery sentiment 
 in the legislatures of the Northern States. Between 1824 and 
 1827 the General Assemblies of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New Jer 
 sey, had each passed resolutions in favor of the abolition of slav 
 ery by national legislation, and professed willingness that those 
 States should bear their respective proportions of the necessary 
 expenditure. In 1828 the Pennsylvania Legislature, by an almost 
 unanimous vote, "Resolved, That the Senators of this State, in 
 the Senate of the United States, are hereby requested to procure, 
 if practicable, the passage of a law to abolish slavery in the Dis 
 trict of Columbia in such a manner as they may consider consist- 
 
412 JAMES G. BIRXEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 ent with the rights of individuals and the Constitution of the 
 United States."* 
 
 On the 28th of January, 1829, the New York Assembly "Re 
 solved, If the Senate concur herein, that the Senators of this 
 State in the Congress of the United States be and are hereby in 
 structed, and the representatives of this State are requested to 
 make every possible exertion to effect the passage of a law for the 
 abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, "f 
 
 On the 9th of January, 1829, the House of Representatives, 
 United States, " Resolved, That the Committee of the District of 
 Columbia be instructed to inquire into the expediency (not the 
 right) of providing by law for the gradual abolition of slavery in 
 the District in such manner that no individual shall be injured 
 thereby. " J 
 
 The statement that " after the Missouri Compromise of 1820 
 a paralysis fell on the anti-slavery sentiment of the country " 
 (G., i, 90) is not justified by the facts. The truth is that for 
 substantial anti-slavery victories no subsequent decade up to 1850 
 can compare with the one ending in 1830. The final exclusion 
 of slavery from Illinois in 1824, its total abolition in New York 
 in 1827, the formation of more than a hundred abolition societies 
 in slave States, and the anti-slavery action of three Northern 
 legislatures in and before 1829, are facts which alone should 
 vindicate the healthy state of anti-slavery opinion in the North 
 during that decade. The old convention system did not expire 
 because anti-slavery sentiment was suffering " paralysis," but be 
 cause it was inadequate to meet the demands of the vigorous 
 sentiment which dated from 1820. The old shell was sloughed 
 off that the new life might have free play. The sickle gave 
 place to the mowing-machine ; the stage coach to the railroad 
 train. 
 
 The quotation in Appendix B from the "Genius" of July, 
 1831, proves that "men of wealth and influence are [were] about 
 to engage in forming an American Anti-Slavery Society." The 
 project w r as delayed in its execution by the Nat Turner insurrec 
 tion of August 21st, the expectation of a successful emancipation 
 movement in Virginia during the winter of 1831- 32, the intense 
 
 * Jay s Inquiry, p. 161. f Ibid., p. 1G1. % Ibid., p. 161. 
 
APPENDIX C. 413 
 
 activity infused into anti-slavery movements by the attempt of 
 President Jackson in March, 1829, to purchase Texas, the reluc 
 tance of the convention men to assume a leadership not recognized 
 by the recently formed societies, and the necessity of correspond 
 ence and interviews between the many persons interested. Mean 
 while, between 1829 and November, 1833, many new anti-slavery 
 societies* had been formed; about thirty newspapers f were 
 actively advocating the abolition cause ; in 1829 Mexico had 
 foiled President Jackson by abolishing slavery ; on the 1st of 
 August, 1833, the Parliament of Great Britain had passed the 
 act for emancipation the following year in the British West In 
 dies ; and the whole North was stirred to its depths on the slav 
 ery question. To bring all the societies and presses into effective 
 
 * The lists of auxiliaries published with the annual reports of the 
 American Anti-Slavery Society for 1836, 1837, and 1838, show by dates 
 that 36 had been organized before the national society, and enumerate 
 more than twice as many without date of organization. Of this last class 
 at least 50 were in existence before December, 1833. Not reckoning the 
 130 auxiliaries of the Abolition Convention, there were nearly if not 
 quite 100 anti-slavery societies whose organization antedates that of the 
 American Anti-Slavery Society. 
 
 f In the annual report of the managers of the New England Anti- 
 Slavery Society, read January 15, 1834, and probably written at an earlier 
 date, there is the following note : 
 
 " The following is an imperfect list of the newspapers and periodicals 
 in the United States which advocate the cause of abolition : Philanthro 
 pist, Brownsville, Pa. ; Observer, Lowell, Mass. ; State Journal, Mont- 
 pelier, Vt. ; Anti-Masonic Enquirer, Rochester, N. Y. ; Workingman s 
 Press, New Bedford, Mass. ; Rights of Man, Rochester, N. Y. ; Free 
 Press, Hallowell, Me. ; * Gazette, Haverhill, Mass. ; * Friend, Philadel 
 phia, Pa. ; Emancipator, New York city; Massachusetts Spy, Worces 
 ter, Mass. ; Unionist, Brooklyn, Conn. ; Record, Lynn, Mass. ; Evan 
 gelist, New York city ; Canonsburg Luminary, Pennsylvania ; New 
 England Telegraph, North Wrentham, Mass. ; Genius of Universal 
 Emancipation, Washington, D. C. ; Christian Watchman, Boston, Mass.; 
 Messenger, Indiana ; Liberator, Boston ; Palladium, Bethania, Pa. ; 
 * Freeman, Greenfield, Mass. ; Reporter, Watertown, N. Y. ; Philan 
 thropist, Providence, R. I. ; Christian Secretary, Hartford, Conn. ; We, 
 the People, Plymouth, Mass." 
 
414: JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 unity was the need of the hour. It is believed that every anti- 
 slavery society and press then in existence favored the formation 
 of a national society. Several resolutions to that effect had been 
 passed. On the 21st of January, 1833, about eighteen months 
 after the notice quoted in our thirteenth chapter from the " Gen 
 ius," the New England Anti-Slavery Society had authorized its 
 managers "to call a national meeting of the friends of abolition 
 for the purpose of organizing such a society [national] at such 
 time and place as they shall deem expedient." (Report of 1833, 
 page 8.) But as the managers, in their report for 1834 (page 12), 
 mention the formation of the American society without report 
 ing any action of their own contributing to it, the inference is 
 unavoidable that they took none. 
 
 During the summer of 1833, the general demand for a new 
 national organization suited to the wants of the times and con 
 trolling funds and presses became so urgent that meetings were 
 held among the abolitionists in Philadelphia to consider the sub 
 ject. Those of them who had figured prominently in the old 
 convention were Thomas Shipley, Dr. Edwin P. Atlee, James 
 Mott, David Paul Brown, Isaac Barton, Peter Wright, Thomas 
 Earle, Thomas Parker, Jr., Abram L. Pennock, Dr. Joseph Par- 
 rish, Isaac Fairish, Dilwyn Parrish, William S. Hallowell, Evan 
 Lewis, Enoch Lewis, and Charles S. Cope.* It was agreed in 
 their conferences that Evan Lewis, who had formerly resided in 
 New York city, should go to that city and urge the Tap- 
 pans to take the lead in the formation of a national society. 
 He went upon this mission in the summer of 1833, saw the Tap- 
 pans, and prevailed upon them to take the matter into consid 
 eration. 
 
 For many years Arthur Tappan had been known throughout 
 
 * All these favored immediate abolition and were identified with the 
 cause both before and after the formation of the new society. It is be 
 lieved, indeed, that, with the exception of the Southern delegates and the 
 six Whig politicians named in the text, all the able and energetic men 
 who had acted as delegates to the old conventions continued their anti- 
 slavery efforts in the new organization. Evan Lewis, Edwin P. Atlee, Ed 
 win A. Atlee, Thomas Shipley, Peter Wright, John Sharp, Jr., and Isaac 
 Barton, were among the men who formed it, and Edwin A. Atlee and 
 Evan Lewis were among its vice-presidents. 
 
APPENDIX C. 415 
 
 the country as a wealthy merchant, fervent Christian, and liberal 
 contributor to the Church and to the Bible, Tract, Missionary, Ed 
 ucation, and other religious and benevolent associations. He was 
 an officer in several of them. He was widely known, too, as opposed 
 to slavery. In the twenties he aided the Colonization Society. 
 He subscribed to Lundy s paper, and in 1828 he made a small 
 donation of money to help it out of its embarrassments. In 1830 
 he was elected a vice-president of the African Education Society 
 and paid Garrison s fine at Baltimore to release him from prison, 
 and in 1831 he endeavored to establish an African high school at 
 New Haven. In March, 1833, he and his brother Lewis estab 
 lished the "Emancipator" (Goodell s "Slavery and Anti-Slav 
 ery," p. 392), which soon gained an extensive circulation. He aided 
 the "New York Evangelist," which was both Presbyterian and 
 anti-slavery. About the same time he printed and circulated at 
 his own expense five thousand copies of Whittier s excellent pam 
 phlet against slavery. Goodell (page 392) says : "By co-opera 
 tion between the Messrs. Tappan and a few r others, very large issues 
 of anti-slavery tracts were circulated monthly during the greater 
 part of this year and sent by mail," etc. Lewis Tappan adopts 
 this statement in his brother s "Life " (page 168). It was chiefly 
 through the munificence, discretion, and activity of the Tappans, 
 aided by the counsel of William Jay and the editorial ability of 
 William Goodell, Joshua Leavitt, and Elizur Wright, that before 
 General Jackson s first presidential term had expired New York 
 had become the head center of abolition influence. By general 
 recognition of the public Arthur Tappan was the leader, and his 
 brother Lewis ranked next. Arthur s strength lay in his wisdom, 
 firmness, discretion, and liberality ; Lewis s in his ready tact, 
 will-power, strong convictions, and indefatigable activity. Ar 
 thur was not a public speaker ; Lewis was fluent, clear, and forci 
 ble. Arthur had no taste for public business ; Lewis, if he had 
 been elected representative in Congress, would have led the 
 house. There was no jealousy between the brothers, and the 
 two were strong enough to lead the strong men who composed 
 the abolition army between 1829 and 1834. 
 
 The visit of Evan Lewis to New York was the abdication of 
 the Philadelphia abolitionists who had led to the Tappans who 
 were to lead. The former capital ceded precedence to the new 
 
416 JAMES G. BIRXEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 metropolis. The project was discussed in August and Septem- 
 tember, but no definite action was taken before the New York 
 city Anti-Slavery Society was formed. How, when, and why 
 this occurred we will let Lewis Tappan tell. He says : 
 
 "The abolitionists of the city had made such progress in the 
 diffusion of their sentiments that they were encouraged in the 
 belief that the time had come to form a society and thus combine 
 and extend their influence. Accordingly a call was made for a 
 meeting of the friends of immediate emancipation, to be held at 
 Clinton Hall on the second day of October, 1833. The notice 
 was published in the papers of the day and by show-bills put up 
 in the streets and on public buildings. " * 
 
 He then gives an account of the mob, the manner in which it 
 was foiled in its purposes, the formation of the society at Chat 
 ham Street Chapel, and the names of its officers. These were 
 Arthur Tappan, "W. Green, John Rankin, Elizur Wright, Charles 
 W. Denison, Joshua Leavitt, Isaac T. Hopper, Abram L. Cox, 
 Lewis Tappan, and William Goodell. 
 
 In the last half of September brief intimations were made 
 through the anti-slavery papers that a convention was to be held 
 to form a national anti-slavery society and a future official notice 
 was promised. Referring to the formation of the New York city 
 Anti-Slavery Society, October 2, Lewis Tappan writes : 
 
 * " Life of Arthur Tappan," p. 168. The honor of causing the forma 
 tion of this society is claimed for Mr. Garrison by his sons on the ground 
 that, on the eve of sailing for England, May 2, he directed it. " It must 
 be organized, he said, and his words gave the needed resolution." (G., i, 
 346.) The authority for this claim is given in a foot-note, " Related by 
 William Green in 1880." As the supposed order lay five months with 
 out execution and forty seven years without being testified to, it can not 
 be taken against Lewis Tappan s plain statement ; nor was this claim 
 intimated at the time by Mr. Garrison, though in October, 1833, he no 
 ticed the formation of the New York city Anti-Slavery Society several 
 times in his paper and copied its constitution in part. The Tappans, 
 Leavitt, Isaac T. Hopper, Wright, Goodell, and others who did form that 
 society were men of undaunted courage, and the inuendo that in the pre 
 ceding May they were hesitating to act because " of a hostile and lawless 
 public sentiment" (G., 5, 346) is unjust to them. Imagine Isaac T. Hop 
 per, the lion-hearted, charged with timidity ! 
 
APPENDIX C. 
 
 " Shortly afterward Mr. Tappan met with a few friends to 
 consider the propriety of issuing a call for an anti-slavery con 
 vention to form a national society." ("Life of Arthur Tappan," 
 page 175.) 
 
 An unsigned circular, nearly a newspaper column in length, 
 written, it is said, by Joshua Leavitt and Lewis Tappan, and set 
 ting forth the reasons for such a step, was published in the first 
 week of October. It mentioned neither time nor place, being 
 intended to elicit expressions of opinion by societies, news 
 papers, and individuals. These were favorable. The time was 
 come. 
 
 The call was issued under the auspices of the New York city 
 Anti-Slavery Society on the 29th of October. It was signed by 
 Arthur Tappan, President, Joshua Leavitt, one of the managers, 
 and Elizur Wright, Jr. , Secretary, and was published in the anti- 
 slavery newspapers, while letters were addressed to friendly in 
 dividuals in different parts of the country inviting their attend 
 ance. 
 
 In the first paragraph of the official report of the proceedings 
 of the convention, made out by Lewis Tappan and John G. 
 Whittier, secretaries, the statement is made that the delegates 
 and other friends of emancipation had convened at Philadelphia 
 " on the fourth day of December, Anno Domini, 1833, for the 
 purpose of forming a national anti-slavery society pursuant to an 
 invitation from the New York city Anti- Slavery Society. 1 
 
 The official report of the "roll of the convention" shows 
 names * as follows : From Maine, 5 ; New Hampshire, 1 ; Ver 
 mont, 1 ; Massachusetts, 12 ; Rhode Island, 3 ; Connecticut, 5 ; 
 New York, 9 ; New Jersey, 3 ; Pennsylvania, 22 ; and Ohio, 3. 
 From ten States, total, 64. Of the members, three were colored 
 men Purvis, Barbadoes, and McCrummell. The religious ele 
 ment was largely predominant, if it did not absorb all others. 
 
 * Sixty-two names are signed to the Declaration of Sentiments, as 
 published in the "Proceedings of the Second Decade Meeting " (1853), 
 p. 169. Of these, three (Daniel S. Southmayd, George Bourne, and James 
 Mott) do not appear on the official roll, and six that do appear on the 
 roll are wanting, to wit, Thomas Shipley, Peter Wright, Isaac Barton, 
 Eclv.in Fussell, Sumner Stebbins, and W. II. Johnson. 
 
418 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 There were at least twenty-one Presbyterians or Congregational- 
 ists, of whom six were preachers (not counting George Bourne, 
 who was not present at the convention), nineteen Quakers, and 
 one Unitarian preacher (S. J. May). It is probable that every 
 person present was a member of some religious denomination 
 except Mr. Garrison. He w T as not. (G., i, 56.) Every one of 
 the seven preachers and a dozen or more of the others, it is be 
 lieved, were platform speakers, and some of them were distin 
 guished as such. There was not a single statesman or man of 
 experience in public affairs. There were merchants, theological 
 students, a college president, an ex-professor, and a poet. It 
 was an assembly of remarkably intelligent and sensible men who 
 were without experience in practical politics and whose bias was 
 to give undue prominence to the religious aspect of the anti- 
 slavery movement. 
 
 The dominating influence was that of the Tappans, John Ran- 
 kin, William Goodell, Beriah Green, and Elizur Wright. Ar 
 thur Tappan had counseled great discretion, and Judge William 
 Jay, the only statesman at that time identified with them, had 
 written urging them to make an explicit declaration of sound 
 political principles. (See page 134 of "Third Decade Proceed 
 ings.") The charges generally brought against the abolitionists 
 were that they advocated 
 
 1. Violation of the national Constitution ; 
 
 2. Dissolution of the Union ; 
 
 3. The right of Congress to abolish slavery in the States ; 
 and 
 
 4. Insurrection of the slaves. 
 
 To meet these charges three distinct propositions were incor 
 porated into the constitution of the American Anti-Slavery So 
 ciety, viz. : 
 
 1. That each State in which slavery exists has by the United 
 States Constitution the exclusive right to legislate in regard to 
 its abolition in said State. 
 
 2. That the society would endeavor in a constitutional way 
 to influence Congress to prohibit the interstate slave trade, to 
 abolish slavery in the Territories and the District of Columbia, 
 and to prevent the extension of it to any State that might be ad 
 mitted to the Union. 
 
APPENDIX C. 419 
 
 3. That it would not countenance any insurrection of slaves. 
 
 The constitution is an instrument in ten articles, preceded by 
 an elaborate preamble. It covers three and a quarter pages of 
 the official pamphlet report. The fact that it was reported at 
 the first session of the convention and promptly adopted without 
 amendment indicates previous and careful preparation. Tradi 
 tion says that it had been drafted by Judge Jay. The doctrine 
 of immediate * emancipation is contained in the preamble. 
 
 The criticism of more than half a century has failed to detect 
 a flaw in this admirable instrument. The doctrines of consti 
 tutional law embodied in it were reiterated by the anti-slavery 
 men in all the stages of their grand struggle as a Liberty party 
 in 1840 and 1844, a Free Soil party in 1848, and a Republican 
 
 * The expediency of taking this position is well set forth in the fol 
 lowing letter to Dr. E. P. Atlee, written twenty days after the convention 
 adjourned. The original lies before me : 
 
 "NEW YORK, 26 Dec., 1833. 
 
 " Mr DEAR SIR : Illness has prevented an earlier reply to your es 
 teemed favor of the 1 1th inst. I have read your letter once and again, 
 and it has been read in the executive committee. 
 
 " We differ with you in opinion that it is incumbent on us to present 
 a specific plan for the government of emancipated slaves or that it is ad 
 visable to recommend the separation of a territory exclusively for that 
 class of our fellow-citizens. The moment we offer a plan objections will 
 be made to it by those who are in favor of perpetual slavery (and they 
 are not a few), and the minds of the community will be turned off from 
 the great duty of emancipation to altercations about the mode in which 
 it shall take place and the measures to be taken in consequence. By 
 presenting any specific plan, we pledge ourselves to it when time might 
 unfold a better plan which we could not advocate without a charge of in 
 consistency. If we recommend a separate territory we admit that a re 
 moval of the colored (people) is expedient, a doctrine we have over and 
 again denied. Thus we aid the argument of colonization and introduce 
 division into our own ranks. 
 
 "By advocating simply the doctrine of emancipation we move on 
 with united hearts ; but whenever we propose plans of subsequent meas 
 ures we produce division. . . . These are the reasons, so far as I think 
 of them, that seem to oppose the design you have suggested. Perhaps 
 on further reflection they will have weight on your mind. . . . 
 
 " Very truly yours, LEWIS TAPPAN." 
 
420 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 party in 1856 ; and they were finally adopted by the nation in the 
 election of Abraham Lincoln to the presidency on a platform 
 containing them. 
 
 After the convention had adopted the constitution and elected 
 its officers, and at the close of its first day s session, a motion was 
 made to appoint a committee to draw up for the signature of 
 members a declaration of principles of the society. This had not 
 been in the regular programme of intended proceedings ; but as it 
 was understood that Mr. Garrison had prepared one a committee 
 of ten, including him, was appointed. Dr. Atlee was chairman, 
 and Elizur Wright, John G. Whittier, and William Goodell, were 
 members. The first draft was rejected. Another was prepared 
 during the night by Mr. Garrison. This was amended first by a 
 sub-committee, then by the committee of ten, and finally by the 
 convention in committee of the whole. Naturally enough it 
 bears traces of hasty preparation, and also of its mixed author 
 ship. In more than one instance the wrong word is used, or a 
 passage inserted out of its proper place. The recapitulation of 
 divers human measures to secure success is followed, oddly 
 enough, by our " trust for victory is solely in God." The style is 
 partly terse and partly turgid ; the imitation of the literary form 
 of the Declaration of Independence is in bad taste ; and the 
 statement of doctrines of constitutional law, though embracing 
 those already adopted by the society, is more rhetorical than pre 
 cise.* Why six members of the convention did not sign the dec 
 laration does not appear. With its obvious faults it was a noble 
 document as finally adopted. The following sentence, though 
 open to verbal criticism, was worthy of a place as a motto at the 
 head of every anti-slavery paper in the country : We also main 
 tain that there are, at the present time, the highest obligations 
 resting upon the people of the free States, to remove slavery by 
 moral and political action, as prescribed in the Constitution of 
 the United States." 
 
 Of this declaration Mr. Garrison said at the third decade 
 meeting ("Proceedings," etc., page 22), "It is a collection of 
 the merest truisms." Some of his friends, attributing to him 
 
 * The right of the National Government to suppress a slave insurrec 
 tion by proclaiming freedom might have been mentioned. 
 
APPENDIX C. 421 
 
 the exclusive authorship, exaggerate its merits, and the truth 
 seems to lie about half-way between the two. In the same 
 speech he says : " The result" (of the adoption and signing of 
 the declaration) was the immediate formation of the American 
 Anti-Slavery Society, which," etc. 
 
 This is a mistake ; the official record shows that the society 
 was formed and the officers elected Wednesday, and that the 
 declaration was not reported until Thursday, the 5th. S. J. 
 May, in his "Recollections," (page 88), says it was reported in 
 the afternoon of Thursday and signed on Friday. The American 
 Anti- Slavery Society had then been in existence two days. 
 
 The officers chosen were Arthur Tappan, President ; twenty- 
 six vice-presidents, representing ten States ; Elizur Wright (New 
 York), Secretary of Domestic Correspondence ; W. L. Garrison,* 
 Secretary of Foreign Correspondence ; Abraham L. Cox (New 
 York), Recording Secretary ; W. Green (New York), Treasurer ; 
 and seventy-two managers, representing ten States. 
 
 * Mr. Garrison was at once placed by the executive committee under 
 the "vexatious restriction " of submitting to it for approval all his official 
 letters before sending them. He resigned the same month or early in 
 January. His friend R. B. Hall, who was a member of the convention, 
 wrote to him January 21, 1634, upon hearing of his resignation : "I will 
 give you succinctly the history of that office. When the committee to 
 form a constitution at Mr. Sharpless s were about to retire, I had reason 
 to suppose that the form of constitution which they had in their hands 
 provided but one secretary to the society. I knew, too, what was to be 
 the management about that office, that Mr. Wright icas to fill it, and thus 
 be the mouth of all anti-slavery men in the United States. This did not 
 exactly suit me. I knew your claims. I knew, too, that you would be 
 placed on the board of managers or as vice-president in other words, 
 would be second fiddle and this did not suit me. I laid hold on the com 
 mittee, and urged and entreated them to create the office to which you 
 were subsequently appointed." . . . (G. i, 415). 
 
 Mr. Hall s testimony shows that the men who framed the constitution 
 and formed the society had no intention to put Mr. Garrison into any im 
 portant position. They yielded to Mr. Hall s insistence, but the "vexa 
 tious restriction" immediately imposed on him as secretary shows they 
 were determined that Mr. Garrison should not only play " second fiddle," 
 but no tunes except of their choosing. 
 
422 JAMES G. BIRXEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 The convention adjourned on December 6th, and the National 
 Society entered at once upon its wonderful career of agitation. 
 Arthur Tappan made an annual subscription of three thousand 
 dollars * ; John Rankin, the New York merchant, one of twelve 
 hundred ; and each paid in promptly the first installment. Other 
 parties subscribed and paid smaller amounts. Men like William 
 Jay were pleased with the conservative and law-abiding character 
 of the society, and gave it earnest support. Up to the date of its 
 disruption, in 1840, the activity of the American Anti-Slavery 
 Society was unparalleled among the reformatory associations of 
 the United States. 
 
 * This was increased in 1835 to five thousand dollars. 
 
APPENDIX D. 
 
 To COLONEL STONE 
 
 SIR : A few days since I was told by a friend that he had 
 read in the New York " Spectator," of which you are the editor, 
 this assertion : " Mr. Birney is not the only brawler who has sold 
 his slaves and turned abolitionist." He had not the paper with 
 him, but he assured me that I might rely on the substantial accu 
 racy of the words as above quoted. The accusation it involves 
 is a serious one to myself individually, and may, if unanswered, 
 have an injurious influence on the cause of human liberty, in 
 which, with many others much more distinguished than myself, 
 I am employing the humble powers with which it has pleased 
 God to endow me. It is only in the latter view for, as to my 
 self, I believe I could bear patiently the wrong you have incau 
 tiously inflicted that I have thought it proper to transmit to 
 you for publication the following statement, which I ought not 
 to doubt, from your Christian profession, you will take pleasure 
 in laying before the public through the same medium you used 
 in acquainting them with your accusation. 
 
 At the time (1818) I determined to remove from Kentucky to 
 Alabama. I was the holder of a few slaves, principally domes 
 tics or house-servants, given to me by my grandfather, my father, 
 and the father of Mrs. Birney. Intending to engage in planting, 
 I sold nearly all my property in Kentucky with the view of in 
 vesting the proceeds in slaves and land in the South. Including 
 those obtained by purchase and those already mentioned, I had 
 on my settlement in Alabama as a planter, as nearly as I can now 
 remember, about thirty. Two or three years afterward I received 
 from my father Jive more. 
 
 My habits at this period of my life tended more to the dissipa 
 tion than to the accumulation of wealth. In a few years my circum- 
 
424 JAMES G. BIRXEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 stances became embarrassed, though not insolvent, and I found 
 it necessary to resume the practice of the law, which from the 
 time of my removal to Alabama I had relinquished. It became 
 necessary, also, in order to meet my responsibilities and preserve 
 my credit, that I should sell my land and slaves. Before making 
 any contract for the sale of the slaves I informed them of my 
 situation, and consulted their wishes in their selection of a pur 
 chaser. They had less aversion to being sold than they would 
 formerly have had, because I had found it necessary to the prose 
 cution of my professional pursuits to remove from my plantation 
 to Huntsville, sixteen miles distant, thus leaving them for the 
 last year entirely in the charge of an overseer. In the sale I made 
 a short time afterward to a planter whose land adjoined mine, 
 and whose character as a humane master was w T ell known to my 
 slaves, I reserved my domestic servants, five in number, a man, 
 his wife, and their three children. This sale was made in 1824, 
 at a time when my opinions on the subject of slave-holding did 
 not materially differ from those which prevailed among the gen 
 erality of planters. My religious profession and connection with 
 the Church took place in the spring of 1826. 
 
 For several years I had no other slaves than the five I have 
 mentioned as domestics. In the autumn of 1829, an elderly man 
 and his wife, held by an innkeeper at whose house I usually 
 boarded while attending a neighboring court, became solicitous 
 that I should buy them. The innkeeper was addicted to fits of 
 "intemperance, and while they were on him he would compel the 
 old negro to amuse him by exercising his skill acquired in his 
 younger days in playing vulgar tunes on the fiddle. The old 
 man being a member of the Methodist Church, and an occasional 
 exhorter, considered his participation in such things as incon 
 sistent with his religious station, and felt the necessity under 
 which he was placed as a great grievance. This, in addition to 
 other reasons, induced me to purchase him and his wife at the 
 price set on them by the innkeeper. They were not very long 
 in my possession till the husband found in Huntsville an old ac 
 quaintance in a gentleman who was about removing from Hunts 
 ville to the neighborhood of Louisville in Kentucky. They 
 expressed a desire to remove with him, on account, as they 
 stated, of their being thus brought into the neighborhood of 
 
APPENDIX D. 425 
 
 some of their friends and relatives who resided near Louisville. 
 They persuaded the gentleman to offer for them the same price I 
 had given, though it was not all to be paid in cash, as I had paid 
 it. A part of it was to be paid in furniture, for which I had no 
 pressing necessity. However, this was made no impediment to 
 the accomplishment of their wishes, though they would doubt 
 less have brought much more had they been set up for sale to the 
 highest bidder. 
 
 Up to 1831 my professional business had been profitable, and 
 my pecuniary means had again begun to accumulate. I deter 
 mined to expend them, together with a gift of monej 7 1 had re 
 ceived from my father about this time, in the establishment of a 
 sfoc-farm, because it could be conducted with comparatively few 
 slaves. To this end I bought, partly from an individual and 
 partly from the Government, several hundred acres of cheap 
 land. In November of that year I bought from a Tennesseean 
 a negro woman with her child, a little girl about four years old. 
 Before I had made any other purchases of slaves, a lady in Hunts- 
 ville, who had secured to her several slaves, proposed to me, 
 through her husband, to pledge to me two of them for a sum of 
 money of which he stood in need. The sum to be advanced 
 was supposed to be their value, taking into the estimate the risk 
 of their lives during the time the money should be retained. I 
 acceded to the proposition, took into my use the two slaves, and 
 kept them on this contract till within a short time of my removal 
 to Kentucky, in the autumn of 1833. The money was then re 
 turned and the slaves redelivered to the lady. In the beginning 
 of 1833 I hired from an administrator for that year five slaves, a 
 man, his wife, and their three children. They remained on my 
 farm till I was about leaving Alabama, At the proper time they 
 were delivered up to the gentleman from whom they were hired. 
 These circumstances in relation to the pledged and hired slaves 
 are mentioned to correct misrepresentations that have been fre 
 quently made at the North by some of my Southern acquaint 
 ances as to the extent of my connection with slavery at the time 
 I prepared to remove from Alabama. They have represented me 
 as holding slaves to some considerable extent, and as selling all 
 or nearly all of them in order to avoid loss in my conversion to 
 abolitionism. These misstatements have doubtless been often 
 
426 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 made inconsiderately and ignorantly by those who would do 
 more to injure the cause of emancipation than they would to in 
 jure me. Yet in a few instances, if my information be correct, 
 they have been made by persons whose knowledge of my circum 
 stances at that time takes away every excuse which charity can 
 plead for them on the ground of ignorance. 
 
 At this time, the autumn of 1833, I held as slaves the woman 
 and child above mentioned and five house-servants. I was then, 
 and had been more than a year before, the agent and advocate of 
 the American Colonization Society. I do not now remember that 
 my views as to the right of the slave to his liberty and the duty 
 of the master to emancipate were much in advance of those usu 
 ally entertained by colonizationists. Certain it is I looked for 
 ward to no time, I anticipated no circumstances which would 
 ever bring me to consider them as I now do. I had then no ex 
 pectation that I should at any period of my life deserve the name 
 of an abolitionist or draw on me persecutions of sufficient rigor 
 to banish me from Kentucky, where I was born persecutions 
 from which the constitutional aegis of the free State of Ohio have 
 not yet availed to defend me. 
 
 Before breaking up my establishment in Alabama, I proposed 
 to the woman to send her and her child to Liberia, after she had, 
 by the services she had already performed and by her future hire, 
 returned me the price I had paid for her. She objected utterly 
 to going to Liberia. I then proposed to bring her with me to 
 Kentucky, where, after being remunerated by her services for 
 the sum I had paid for her, I would manumit her and her child 
 without any condition of removal, in the mean time giving to 
 the child such education as I could under existing circumstances. 
 To this, so far as she herself was concerned, to my great surprise, 
 she objected, urging that she was an entire stranger in Kentucky, 
 and that she did not wish to leave the acquaintances she had 
 made since her residence in Alabama. Believing her conduct to 
 be altogether injudicious, I said to her, that while I felt no de 
 sire to compel her to either of the courses I had proposed, I could 
 not permit her to make for the child the election of remaining 
 behind. So far from being displeased with this she expressed 
 her full concurrence, saying she knew her child would be well taken 
 care of, and every provision made for her that could he expected. 
 
APPENDIX D. 427 
 
 She preferred being sold to being hired, on account of the better 
 treatment she would receive from a master than from a hirer. I 
 permitted her to select her own master, and in order that she 
 might have no difficulty in inducing such a one as she might 
 select to purchase her, I put her price at eighty -five dollars less 
 than I had given for her and her child. The advance on the 
 price of negroes at this time would have enabled me to have sold 
 her alone at public sale for from seventy-five to one hundred dol 
 lars more than the sum I asked. The gentleman whom she se 
 lected, and of whose character for humanity to his slaves I had 
 received, on inquiry, satisfactory assurances, purchased her with 
 out hesitation. I was not informed of the reasons for her con 
 duct so singular, as it appeared to me till she had rejected 
 both my propositions leading to her ultimate manumission. I 
 was afterward told by my overseer, who was warmly attached to 
 my interests, and who, I believe, thought that I was already 
 somewhat fanatical in my desire to oblige the woman who 
 wanted me to sell her, believing if I took her to Kentucky I 
 would finally emancipate her, that her conduct proceeded from 
 an attachment she had formed for a negro man who, he sup 
 posed, had persuaded her to object to every proposition which 
 contemplated her removal from that part of the country. The 
 little girl, her child, I brought with me, together with the do 
 mestic servants already mentioned, to Kentucky in 1883. 
 
 I had already lost much of my first confidence in the efficacy 
 of colonization principles for the extirpation of slavery among 
 us. I assisted, in December, 1833, in the organization at Lexing 
 ton of a gradual emancipation society, thinking its principles 
 were somewhat stronger than those of colonization and would be 
 more effectual. I entered on this scheme with ardor and became 
 its active advocate. A short trial of it soon convinced me of its 
 inefficacy to move the hearts of men. During this winter and 
 the ensuing spring my mind was deeply interested in the whole 
 subject of slavery. I read almost every work I could lay my 
 hands on ; I talked much of it in public and in private. In the 
 month of May, 1834, I became so fully convinced of the right of 
 my slaves to their freedom and of my duty as a Christian to give 
 it to them that I prepared, as well as I now remember, on the 
 first day of June, a deed of emancipation for the six I brought 
 
428 JAMES G. BIRXEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 with me from Alabama and had it duly entered of record in the 
 office of the county court of the county in which I lived. They 
 all remained with me, receiving such wages, with the exception 
 of the little girl, as were customary in the country. 
 
 In the previous month of January or February, a young negro 
 man held by the executors of the late Judge Boyle, of Kentucky, 
 earnestly solicited me to buy him lest at the sale of the estate he 
 might be sold to some person of whose character and temper he 
 knew nothing. At first I objected on the ground that I intended 
 never again to purchase a slave to be held in the absolute sense. 
 lie left me, but returned again, bringing as an aid to his own 
 importunity the recommendation of the brother-in-law of Judge 
 Boyle, who held as slaves some other members of the family. 
 He prevailed on this second application, and I paid the price of 
 him to the executors. Before I consented to do so we had this 
 understanding, that, so soon as by the allowance of fair wages he 
 should return me the money I had advanced he should go free ; 
 that in the mean time I would have taught him to read, and, if 
 he proved apt to learn, writing and the elementary rules of arith 
 metic ; that I would ask of him no unreasonable services, but 
 that if he should fail to perform with fidelity what I required of 
 him I should return him to the state of absolute slavery from 
 which I considered I was taking him. It was but a short time 
 before I became satisfied that his character had been grossly, 
 though I will not suffer myself to think intentionally, misrepre 
 sented to me. He proved trifling, lazy, and troublesome among 
 the rest of my servants. Especially provoking to me was his re 
 iterated harsh treatment of the little girl above mentioned, for 
 whom, as she had no relative near her, I felt almost a parental 
 tenderness. After bearing with him for several months, and 
 often persuading and admonishing him, I found it was out of 
 the question to keep him about me any longer. In the month 
 of July, I think it was, I gave him a writing authorizing him to 
 obtain for his master any one who would give me within one 
 hundred dollars of the price I had paid for him, although I 
 think it probable had I offered him for the highest price without 
 regard to the character of the purchaser I might have received 
 for him one hundred dollars more than I gave. It turned out 
 that the gentleman who had unwarily recommended him to me 
 
APPENDIX D. 429 
 
 offered to become the purchaser if I would grant a longer credit 
 for part of the sum than I had proposed in my written note. To 
 this I assented. The same gentleman had a short time previous 
 become the owner by purchase of the farm belonging to the es 
 tate of Judge Boyle, so that the young man was returned to the 
 very place from which I had taken him. Before the last pay 
 ment fell due I became convinced, notwithstanding what I had 
 done was nothing more than a literal execution of the arrange 
 ment to which he had assented (if such a thing can be predicated 
 of a slave), that I had done wrong in selling him. I wrote to 
 the gentleman who had bought him that I wished to repurchase 
 the slave that I might give him his freedom. His reply informed 
 me that he was out of his power, as he had sent him down the 
 Mississippi with a Southern planter. This case has given me 
 more uneasiness of mind than any of the others. While most 
 persons under the same pressure of influences which was then 
 bearing on me would probably have acted as I did, yet do I not 
 seek to justify it. The influences which warped and obscured 
 my moral vision I ought to have resisted. 
 
 The above statement shows my connection with slavery for 
 nearly twenty years. There has been no concealment or sup 
 pression on my part of any of the facts since I have become an 
 abolitionist. I have often repeated them to friends who have in 
 quired concerning them. The enemies of abolition have often 
 perverted or misunderstood them and trumpeted them to the 
 world in a manner not unlike that which it has pleased you to 
 adopt. I should have published them in the journals of the 
 country had I not thought it would be impertinent to consider 
 such small matters as at .all affecting the magnificent and awful 
 cause which has brought in opposition the friends of liberty and 
 the upholders of slavery. At present I think differently. An 
 importance has been given to my conduct which renders an ex 
 position of it necessary. While God has granted me, as I trust, 
 repentance for its errors, he has not altogether withheld from 
 me the humility which can bear their exposure. 
 
 Had you been as careful as it seems to me you ought to have 
 been before venturing so deadly an assault on the reputation of 
 a Christian brother, you would either previously have asked of 
 me if the facts on ^syhich it was to proceed were true or you 
 
430 JAMES G. BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 would have given the authority on which you have made your 
 injurious accusation. Hereafter, sir, should you deem any part 
 of my private history worthy of publication through the journals 
 under your control, I will at your request, and on my own con 
 sent to its propriety, furnish you with statements which will 
 stand any test your friends or mine may choose to apply to them. 
 With due respect, JAMES G. BIRNEY. 
 
 CINCINNATI, May 2, 1836. 
 
APPENDIX E. 
 
 THE facts alluded to in the text, although well known to 
 many of the old inhabitants of Indiana and Ohio, have been ig 
 nored by most of the writers of abolition history. They possess 
 a value, however, that entitles them to permanent record. It is 
 to be hoped they will all be preserved in the local annals of the 
 counties of those States so that the future historian may trace 
 the strong currents of anti-slavery opinion early in the century. 
 The limits prescribed to this volume do not permit the author to 
 group any facts except a few of those relating to immediate abo 
 litionists in the adjoining counties of Adams, Brown, Clermont, 
 and Highland in Ohio. These will suffice, however, to throw 
 light on the times treated of in the text. An equally interesting 
 statement might perhaps be made in relation to the county of 
 Belmont, in which in 1815 Lundy organized the Union Humane 
 Society, an abolition organization that soon numbered five hun 
 dred members, to Jefferson County, in which in 1817 Charles 
 Osborn published his abolition paper the "Philanthropist," or 
 to Warren County or Wayne County (Indiana), the homes of 
 numerous Quakers, who in early days were stanch friends of 
 the slave. The author s selection is determined mainly by per 
 sonal knowledge gained during a long residence in Ohio of many 
 of the facts and the facility of ascertaining the others from reli 
 able persons and local publications. 
 
 Before 1805 the following families had migrated from slave 
 States into Brown County : The Ellisons, the Shepards, the 
 Campbells, the Dunlavys, and the Dunlops. All these were im 
 mediate abolitionists and Presbyterians, and with the exception 
 of two individuals remained such. Rev. Dyer Burgess, pne of 
 the most noted abolitionists in Ohio between 1800 and 1840, 
 married a Miss Ellison. He was for about forty years pastor of 
 the Presbyterian church at West Union, Adams County. His 
 
432 JAMES G, BIRNEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 sermons against slavery were uncompromising, and for years be 
 fore 1817 he had refused to admit slave-holders to the commun 
 ion-table. 
 
 The Shepards were numerous. The original settlers of that 
 name had three sons John, Abraham, and Jacob. The Rev. 
 J. Dunlavy from Virginia preached in Brown County against 
 slavery from 1790 to 1805. There were six Campbells who came 
 from Virginia in 1796. The sons were Joshua W., Charles, Jo 
 seph N. , and Samuel all men of standing. 
 
 William Dunlop migrated from Fayette County, Kentucky, 
 to Brown County in 1796, bringing a large number of slaves 
 with him. He set them free and established them on land about 
 three miles north of Ripley. When the Rev. John B. Mahan 
 was kidnapped and taken to Kentucky for trial on the charge of 
 abducting slaves, Mr. Dunlop went on his appearance bond for 
 $1,600 and paid the money rather than have Mahan go back to 
 sure condemnation. 
 
 Dr. Alexander Campbell (1769-1857) was a native of Vir 
 ginia ; began the practice of medicine at Cynthiana, Ky. ; served 
 as representative in the Kentucky General Assembly in 1799- 
 1800 ; favored a free Constitution ; removed to Ripley, Ohio, in 
 1803, taking with him several slaves and giving them their free 
 dom ; w r as a member of the Ohio Legislature in 1806, Senator of 
 the United States from 1810 to 1813, and State Senator for the 
 following ten years ; and was always an unwavering immediate 
 abolitionist. In 1835 he was made the first of twenty-one vice- 
 presidents of the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society. 
 
 Thomas Morris (1776-1844), a Virginian, removed to Ohio in 
 1795, resided in Clermont County from about 1800 to the time of 
 his death, was a member of the Ohio Legislature from 1806 to 
 1830, chief judge of Ohio from 1830 to 1833, Senator of the 
 United States from 1833 to 1839, and during his whole life a 
 sturdy, uncompromising immediate abolitionist. In 1838 he re 
 fused to follow his party in its subserviency to slavery and cut 
 loose from it, preferring to sacrifice his office to his principles. 
 His speech in 1839 in opposition to Clay s on abolition was man 
 ly and able. In 1840 he was nominated for Vice-President by 
 the Anti-Slavery, then called Liberty, party. Though a Virgin 
 ian he never owned a slave. 
 
APPENDIX E. 433 
 
 Rev. James Giililand (1769-1845) was born and brought up 
 in South Carolina. His teacher in boyhood was the Rev. Will 
 iam C. Davis of that State, and from him he learned to regard 
 slave-holding as a sin. He was graduated at Dickinson College, 
 Pennsylvania, in 1792, licensed to preach in 1794, and ordained 
 as pastor of the Broadway church in 1796. Twelve members of 
 the congregation presented to the presbytery a remonstrance 
 against his ordination, charging him with preaching "against 
 the Government." This he denied. He admitted, however, 
 that he had preached against the sin of slavery both before and 
 after his call to the Broadway church. The case was taken by 
 him to the synod on appeal. A minute of that body, at its ses 
 sion of November, 1796, is in these words : 
 
 "A memorial was brought forward and laid before the synod 
 by the Rev. James Giililand, stating his conscientious difficulties in 
 recognizing the advice of the Presbytery of South Carolina, which 
 has enjoined upon him to be silent in the pulpit on the subject of 
 the emancipation of the Africans, which injunction Mr. Giililand 
 declares to be in his apprehension contrary to the counsel of God. 
 Whereupon synod, after deliberation upon the matter, do concur 
 with the presbytery in advising Mr. Giililand to content himself 
 with using his utmost endeavors in private to open the way for 
 emancipation so as to secure our happiness as a people, preserve 
 the peace of the Church, and render them (the slaves) capable of 
 enjoying the blessings of liberty! Synod is of the opinion that 
 to preach publicly against slavery in present circumstances and 
 to lay down as the duty of every one to liberate those who are 
 under their care is that which would lead to disorder and open 
 the way to great confusion. " (See 4, Sprague s Annals of the 
 American Pulpit," page 137.) 
 
 Mr. Giililand obeyed the mandate of his Church until 1804, 
 not ceasing meanwhile his private teachings against slavery. 
 Unable to endure longer the restrictions placed upon him, he re 
 signed his pastorship, took his credentials to Washington Pres 
 bytery, and traveled West in search of a free pulpit. Hearing of 
 the state of opinion in Brow r n County, Ohio, he went there in 
 1805, and was the pastor of Red Oak church for thirty-nine 
 years. During all that time he preached the doctrine of immedi 
 ate abolition without dilution. About 1820 he published a pam- 
 20 
 
431 JAMES G. BIRXEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 phlet, setting it forth in the form of dialogue. His church, 
 made up in great part of ex-slave-holders and immigrants from 
 slave States, including South Carolina, adhered to him, and the 
 four Presbyterian churches of Ripley, Russellville, Decatur, and 
 Georgetown, known through Ohio for their stalwart abolition 
 ism, w^ere offshoots from the one at Red Oak. That the Rev. 
 Mr. Gilliland, during his whole term as the pastor of Red Oak, 
 often preached abolition and always " immediatism " is a Brown 
 County tradition, and the fact would be testified to by every old 
 resident. In a letter to me of May 2, 1884, one of his sons writes 
 that his father was preaching immediate abolition before Gar 
 rison was born. Of the thirteen children of Mr. Gilliland one is 
 a clergyman and two are lawyers. Like most abolitionists of 
 Southern origin Mr. Gilliland was an advocate of political action 
 against slavery and voted the Liberty party ticket. He was an 
 effective speaker and a good man and the membership of his 
 church was large. From 1805 to 1822 he was the recognized 
 abolition leader in southern Ohio. In 1835 he was placed second 
 on a list of twenty- one vice-presidents of the Ohio Anti- Slavery 
 Society. 
 
 In 1806 the Rev. William Williamson moved from South Caro 
 lina to Adams County, Ohio, bringing his slaves with him and 
 emancipating them. He sent the younger ones to school ; to two 
 of them he gave a liberal education. One of these, Benjamin 
 Templeton, studied theology and was licensed to preach by the 
 Chilicothe Presbytery. 
 
 In the same year Colonel Thomas Means moved from South 
 Carolina to Adams County. He was a man of wealth, had many 
 slaves, freed them all, taught them to read and write, and was 
 true as steel to the cause of liberty. 
 
 Thomas Kirker left Kentucky in 1806 to escape the evils of 
 slavery. He settled in Adams County, and in time became Gov 
 ernor of Ohio. He and Messrs. Williamson and Means were 
 members of Dyer Burgess s church. Colonel Means was an elder. 
 Governor Kirker had five sons : William, John, James, Thomas, 
 and George. All of them became respectable citizens. 
 
 Rev. Jesse Lockhart migrated from Tennessee to Brown 
 County, and was for forty years pastor of the Presbyterian church 
 at Russellville. He was a zealous coadjutor in the anti-slavery 
 
APPENDIX E. 435 
 
 work of Gilliland, Williamson, Dyer Burgess, Dr. Campbell, 
 and others, up to 1822, and after that date of those named and 
 of Messrs. Rankin and Gilmer. Under the pro-slavery violence 
 of Jackson s Administration he faced several mobs with courage. 
 
 In 1810 the four McCoys (John, William, George, and 
 James) were added to the Brown County list of heroes, and in 
 1811 Robert Miller came in from Kentucky with the Menaughs, 
 John and William. 
 
 At the very time Mr. Birney was opposing the Kentucky As 
 sembly joint resolutions for recaption of slaves, Samuel Grist, of 
 Virginia, was purchasing two large tracts of land in Brown 
 County, Ohio, with a view to making homes there for one thou 
 sand slaves. He brought them on a few months afterward, gave 
 them farms, farming implements, and stock, superintended their 
 settlement, and remained ever after their fast friend. He be 
 came poor for conscience sake. (See Harrison s "History of 
 Ohio," page 100.) 
 
 It would give me pleasure to add accounts of the Hopkinses, 
 Salsburys, Snedigers, Dickeys, and Kirkpatricks, who belonged 
 to this band of Christian workers, but my space and plan will 
 not permit. All whose names I have mentioned were immediate 
 abolitionists unmitigated, pure, zealous, and efficient. They 
 were ever ready to give food, shelter, and aid to fugitive slaves, 
 and before 1817 they had forwarded to Canada, through trust 
 worthy friends, more than one thousand of this wretched class, 
 besides finding elsewhere safe homes and work for many others. 
 They were all Presbyterians and nearly all emigrants from slave 
 States, and the record of their disinterested benevolence is one 
 of the noblest that belongs to the history of Southern society. 
 
APPENDIX F. 
 
 THE chief writings of Mr. Birney were as follows : 
 
 1. Ten letters on Slavery and Colonization, addressed to R. R. 
 Gurley, the first dated July 1Q, 1832, the last December 11, 1833. 
 
 2. Six essays on same, published in the Huntsville, Ala., Ad 
 vocate in May, June, and July, 1833. 
 
 3. Letter on Colonization, resigning vice-presidency of Ken 
 tucky Colonization Society, July 15, 1834. 
 
 4. Letter* to Presbyterian Church, 1834. 
 
 5. Addresses and Speeches, 1835. 
 
 6. Vindication of the Abolitionists, 1835. 
 
 7. The Philanthropist, a weekly newspaper, 183G, and to Sep 
 tember, 1837. 
 
 /*$. Letter to Colonel Stone, May, 1836. 
 
 9. Address to Slave-holders, October, 1836. 
 
 10. Argument on Fugitive Slave Case, 1837. 
 
 11. Letter to F. H. Elmorc, of South Carolina, 1838. 
 
 12. Political Obligations of Abolitionists, 1839. 
 
 13. Report on the Duty of Political Action, for Executive Com 
 mittee of the American Anti- Slavery Society, May, 1839. 
 
 14. American Churches the Bulwarks of American Slavery, 
 1840. 
 
 15. Speeches in England, 1840. 
 
 16. Letter of Acceptance. 
 
 17. Artide^_in Quarterly Anti- Slavery Magazine and in the 
 Emancipator, 1837-1844. 
 
 18. Examination of the Decision of the United States Supreme 
 Court in the case of Strader et al, vs. Graham, 1850. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Adams, John Q., 64 ; on Benton, 68, 
 340, 342; censured by Birney, 
 343. 
 
 Alabama, Senate, Constitutional 
 Convention, 37 ; Constitution, 
 38 ; slaves freed by Legislature, 
 39, 44; repeals non-importation 
 law, 88 ; professors, 94 ; non- 
 slave importation, 104. 
 
 Albany conventions, 347, 350. 
 
 Allen, Rev. William, 7, 51; Dr., 
 106. 
 
 Alien and sedition law, 21-23. 
 
 Anti-slavery books, 26, 334, Ap 
 pendix A. 
 
 Abolition by governments before 
 1830, 160, 228. 
 
 Abolition papers, 23, 76, 77, 78, 86, 
 318, Appendix C. 
 
 Abolition societies, Kentucky, 23 ; 
 Tennessee, West Tennessee, 76, 
 77 ; North Carolina, 78 ; perish 
 in South, 161; auxiliary, 334, 
 Appendix C. 
 
 Abolitionism in South before 1820, 
 74, 76, 78. 
 
 Abolitionists, Baptist, 18, 23, 338. 
 
 Abolitionists, immediate, before 
 1830: Rev. David Rice, David 
 Barrow, 17 ; Joshua Carman, 18 ; 
 
 Miami Association, 18; sixteen 
 Baptist preachers in Kentucky, 
 18, 19, 23; Samuel Doak, 75; 
 Charles Osborn, 76 ; John Ran- 
 kin, 76, 386, Appendix E ; Jesse 
 Lockhart, 76 ; one thirtieth of 
 people of Xorth Carolina, 78, 120, 
 note ; in Ohio, 164-166, 170, Ap 
 pendixes C and E ; Baptist, 164 ; 
 Crothers, Gilliland, Dyer Burgess, 
 Dickey, 168, 170; Associate 
 Reformed Presbyterian Church, 
 166 ; Anthony Benezet, John 
 Woolman, Benjamin Lay, Benja 
 min Rush, John Wesley, 383 ; 
 George Buchanan, Jonathan Ed 
 wards, Thomas Branagan, 384 ; 
 George Bourne, John Kenrick, 
 385; Morris Birkbeck, 386; James 
 Duncan, Edward Coles, Elizabeth 
 Heyrick, Miss Chandler, Benja 
 min Lundy, 387 ; Thomas God 
 win, William Goodell, Joshua 
 Leavitt, William Jay, and Chilli- 
 cothe Presbytery, 388. 
 
 Alvord, James C., 340. 
 
 Alcott, A. Bronson, 283-285. 
 
 Bacon, Dr. Leonard G., 92, 156, 
 
 378. 
 
438 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Blackburn, Hcv. Gideon, 147. 
 
 Bailey, Dr. Gamaliel, 238. 
 
 Blaine, James Gillespie, 364. 
 
 Balance-of-power party, 346. 
 
 Ballou, Adin, 287. 
 
 Baltimore, 80. 
 
 Bancroft, George, 93. 
 
 Baptists, anti-slavery, 18, 104. 
 
 Barrow, Rev. David, 17. 
 
 Beecher, Catherine, 93 ; Edward, 
 102. 
 
 Breckcnridge, John, 21, 22. 
 
 Breckenridge, Joseph Cabell, 25 ; 
 Robert J., 99, 101, 148, 186. 
 
 Benton, Thomas H., 73, 88. 
 
 Birncy, James G., birth, 9; rcla- 
 latives, boyhood, 10 ; saves com 
 rade, 1 1 ; studies, teacher, and 
 school-fellows, 12; early anti- 
 slavery influences, 16; college, 
 25; bar, 30; freemason, 31; 
 councilman, marriage, slaves, 32 ; 
 stump-speaker, 33 ; legislator, 
 33 ; votes, 33, 34 ; opposes slave- 
 catching, 34 ; removes to Ala 
 bama, 35 ; in Convention, 38 ; 
 member of Assembly, 40 ; gets 
 counsel for slaves, 40 ; speaks 
 against Gen. Jackson, 41 ; goes 
 out of politics, 41 ; embarrassed, 
 41 ; expensive habits, gaming, j 
 42 ; quits cards, removal to j 
 Iluntsville, 43; solicitor, elected 
 by Legislature, gives up cotton 
 planting, 46 ; builds house, gar 
 dening, social life, 47 ; law prac 
 tice, 48 ; mayor of Iluntsville, 
 52 ; public spirit, 53 ; joins 
 church, 54 ; attorney for Chcre- 
 kecs, 55 ; colonizationist, gets 
 bill passed to prohibit slave im 
 
 portation into State, 5G ; masonic 
 circular, 57 ; alieniates some rela 
 tives, 58 ; praises Governor Coles, 
 59 ; guardian of children, estab 
 lishes free school, sells home, 60 ; 
 buys town residence and farm, 61 ; 
 humanity to slaves, 62 ; opposes 
 disunion, presidential elector, 
 63 ; speaks against extension of 
 slavery, 71 ; joins Colonization 
 Society, 90 ; visits free States, 
 91; separates from Clay, politi 
 cally, 96 ; purposed removal to 
 Illinois, 102, 113, 120; benevo 
 lence, 103; emancipationist, 105- 
 110; Weld s visit, 105 ; coloni 
 zation agent, 112 ; work on legis 
 latures, 116; lectures in Ten 
 nessee and Alabama, 118, 119; 
 Louisiana, 120; Natchez and 
 Port Gibson, 122 ; disapproves 
 hard names and abuse of oppo 
 nents, 123 ; sends one hundred 
 and fifty negroes to Liberia, 123 ; 
 cholera on boat, 124 ; visits Ken 
 tucky, 124 ; political action, 124, 
 125; Union sentiments, 125; 
 anti-slavery essays in newspapers, 
 125-128; rhapsodies of Garri 
 son, 126; emancipation practi 
 cable in Maryland, Virginia, 
 Kentucky, and Tennessee, 127, 
 129; Union in danger, 128, 129; 
 resigns agency, 129; removes to 
 Kentucky, 130; gradual emanci 
 pation effort, 132-124; studies 
 of slavery, 134, 135; adopts im- 
 mediatism, 138; manumits slaves, 
 139 ; letter on colonization, 141 ; 
 visits Cincinnati, 143; address 
 to elders and ministers, 145; 
 
INDEX. 
 
 439 
 
 visits Kentucky ministers, 146 ; | 
 last visit to H. Clay, 147; Mrs. 
 Polk, 150; lyceum debate, 157; 
 visits Ohio, speaks in four cities, j 
 no mobs, 172 ; at American Anti- 
 Slavery Society, 1 74 ; lectures in 
 New England, 178; rebukes per- j 
 sonalities, 179; troubles at Dan 
 ville, 180; printer bought off, 
 182; mob threatened, 181; os 
 tracized in Kentucky, 184-186; 
 irrepressible conflict, 185 ; " Phi 
 lanthropist," 208 ; speaks to mob, 
 215; editor, 220; views, 238; 
 chooses lecturers, 256 ; editors, 
 258 ; removal to New York, 277 ; 
 letter against the no-government 
 vagaries, 305 ; controversy with 
 A. Stewart, 335; Elmore letter, 
 336 ; addresses legislatures, 339 ; 
 influences elections, 340 ; cen 
 sures J. Q. Adams, 343 ; favors 
 an independent party, 346 ; nomi 
 nated, 347, 350, 352 ; votes for, 
 352 ; the Garland forgery, 354 ; 
 his views, 356; traits, 357; sec- , 
 ond marriage, 358 ; emancipates ! 
 slaves, 360; relations to Garri- j 
 son, 361, 363 ; portraits, 363 ; I 
 presiding officer, 364 ; on pro- 
 slavery churches, 368 ; English [ 
 opinion of, 369 ; sayings, 370 ; \ 
 character, 372 ; hunting and fish 
 ing, 373, 374; fall from a horse, 
 374 ; paralysis, 375 ; withdrawal 
 from public life, 376; slanders 
 by the Garrisons, 376 ; sons and > 
 grandson in the Union army, 379 ; 
 death, 381. 
 
 Cooks, anti-slavery, 134, 135, Ap 
 pendix A. 
 
 Brownson, Orestes A., 286. 
 Boyle, James, 297. 
 
 Calhoun, John C., 5, 66, 70, 161; 
 
 bill against freedom of the mails, 
 
 191, 337. 
 
 Chapman, Mrs. Maria W., 275, 314. 
 Carolina, Xorth, 78. 
 Channing, William E., 94 ; letter to 
 
 James G. Birney, 235. 
 Chase, Salmon P., 259, 364, 377. 
 Classmates, 25. 
 Crawford, William H., 67. 
 Clay, Henry, 5, 21-23, 29, 33, 34, 
 
 57, 66 ; on " solid South," 71, 91, 
 96, 98 ; fastens slavery on Ar 
 kansas and Missouri, 224 ; slaves 
 are property speech, 345, 349, 
 353. 
 
 Clergy, 296, 300 ; anti-slavery senti 
 ment of, 368. 
 
 Christ, imitations of person of, 323. 
 Child, David Lee, 327, 328, 354. 
 CoflBn, Levi. 167. 
 College life, 25, 28. 
 Coles, Edward, Governor of Illinois, 
 
 58, 59. 
 
 Colonization, 112, 116; a step in 
 evolution, 268, 377. 
 
 Collins, John A., 291, 312. 
 
 Come-outers, 226, 283. 
 
 Communities, 287, 288, 290, 291. 
 
 Constitutional Conventions, Ken 
 tucky, 20, 21 ; Alabama, 37. 
 
 Constitutions on slavery, Kentucky, 
 Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, 
 38, 39. 
 
 Constitution, national, Garrison de 
 nounces, 215; Birney supports, 
 338. 
 
 Conventions, 347-350, 364. 
 
440 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Corduroy roads, 36. 
 
 Cotton, culture of, 41. 
 
 Crothers, Rev. Samuel, 1C7. 
 
 Cotton-gin, 228. 
 
 Coxc, Rev. Samuel II., 142. 
 
 Churches, Associate Reformed Pres 
 byterian, 166; Michigan Synod, 
 234 ; Methodist, 235 ; disturb 
 ance of, 325 ; tribute to, by 
 James G. Birney, 368. 
 
 Dallas, George M., 25 ; Alexander 
 
 J., 29. 
 
 Dana, Charles A., 288. 
 Danville, 4, 7, 14; anti-slavery, ;9; 
 
 bank, 4, 31. 
 
 District of Columbia, 332, 
 Disunion in 1827- 28, 68. 
 Doak, Samuel, 74. 
 Dudley, Rev. John, 258. 
 
 Earle, Thomas, 350. 
 Emancipation, New Jersey, New 
 
 York, Pennsylvania, 27. 
 "Emancipator" (Tennessee), 77. 
 Eccentrics, 257, 293, 323, 324. 
 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 278, 279, 
 
 284, 293. 
 
 Este, Judge David K., 2G3. 
 Everett, Governor Edward, 194. 
 Elmorc letter, 336. 
 
 Franklin, Benjamin, 338. 
 
 Freemason, ceased to be one after 
 1833, 31. 
 
 Folsom, Abby, 323. 
 
 Foote, ex United States Senator, 49. 
 
 Forten, 30. 
 
 Foster, S. S., 325, 368. 
 
 Fuller, John E., letter about Garri 
 son, 297. 
 
 "Gag" rules, 195, 332. 
 
 Garland forgery, 354. 
 
 Garrison, W. L., 126, 157, 182; on 
 national Constitution, 215; hides 
 from mob, 254 ; inconsistency, 
 269, 321 ; denounces the nation, 
 the Union, and the Church, 270- 
 273, 279; about to abandon the 
 abolition cause, 289, 293, 296; 
 no-government views, 292-297, 
 309, 311 ; "Liberator," 298; in 
 fluence of flattery upon, 302 ; 
 opinions of, by Stanton, Torrey, 
 St. Clair, Le Bosquet, Daniel 
 Wise, George Allen, and Amos A. 
 Phelps, 303, 304; egotism, 310; 
 bad memory, 311, 378; small 
 following, 314 ; opinions of, by 
 Lewis, A. T. Rankin, the Boston 
 and Bennington newspapers, etc., 
 315-317 ; by Lundy, 317 ; alleges 
 conspiracy of colonizationists to 
 kill him, 318-320 ; not the found 
 er, 318-320, Appendix C; Von 
 Hoist s opinion of, 322 ; morbid 
 vanity, 320, 321 ; not a church- 
 member, 321 ; claims to be an 
 infidel, 321 ; faith in quack medi 
 cines and spirit manifestations, 
 322 ; views and principles not 
 accepted, 330, 361 ; slanders 
 James G. Birney, 377; and lead 
 ing abolitionists, 378 ; treatment 
 of Lundy, Appendix B. 
 
 Gates, Seth M., 341. 
 
 "Genius of Universal Emancipation," 
 Lundy s, 76, 80, Appen dix B. 
 
 Greelcy, Horace, 327, 328 ; retracts, 
 353-355. 
 
 Green, Judge John, 148; Judge 
 Thomas, 186. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 441 
 
 Giddings, Joshua R., 341. 
 Gillespie, Mrs., 10. 
 Grimke, the sisters, 290. 
 Goodell, William, 312, 315, 348. 
 Gurley, Ralph Randolph, 112. 
 
 Hammond, Charles, 205, 245, 248. 
 Harrison, William Henry, 349. 
 Historical errors, 64. 
 Hitchcock, Chief Justice, 265. 
 Holley, Myron, 348. 
 Hopkins, Arthur F., 35, 49, 60. 
 Houston, Samuel, 75. 
 Huntsville, lawyers, 45 ; Big Spring, 
 45, 53. 
 
 Illinois, vote excluding slavery, 65. 
 Insurrections, Virginia, 72, 102; 
 Jamaica, 104. 
 
 Jackson, Andrew, 5 ; at races, presi 
 dential aspirant, 40 ; speech of 
 James G. Birney against, 41, 67 ; 
 coalition, 67 ; election, 87 ; mes 
 sage against freedom of the mails 
 and press, 191 ; policy of, 222. 
 
 Jacksonism, 85. 
 
 Jay, Judge William, 176, 177, 275, 
 296, 335, 336, 348. 
 
 Johnson, Oliver, 276, 312. 
 
 Johnson, Rev. Samuel, 286. 
 
 Kansas, 351. 
 
 Kendall, Amos, 188, 189. 
 
 Kentucky, hard times in, 31 ; eman 
 cipation, 99; Abolition Society, 
 156, 169; public opinion, 158; 
 free speech in, 162. 
 
 Knights of the Golden Circle, 66, 
 329. 
 
 Lamson, " Father," 324. 
 
 Lane Seminary debate, 135. 
 
 Law studies, 29 ; practice, 30, 135. 
 
 Law, proposed against the press, 
 192. 
 
 Lawrence, Matilda, 261. 
 ! Leavitt, Joshua, 345, Appendix C. 
 
 Lecturers, 256. 
 
 Legislatures, 339. 
 
 Lewis, Samuel, of Ohio, 315, 377. 
 
 "Liberator," 109; a failure finan 
 cially, 318. 
 
 Lincoln, Abraham, ?30. 
 
 Louisiana, Kentucky resolution 
 against, 33. 
 
 Love, William, 35, 46. 
 
 Lovejoy, Elisha P., 250, 259. 
 
 "Luminary, Western," of Lexing 
 ton, Ky., anti-slavery, 99, 141, 
 145. 
 
 Lundy, Benjamin, 76, 80, 83, 86, 
 Appendix B. 
 
 Madison, George, 32, 33 ; James, 70. 
 
 Mahan, John B., 166, 340, Ap 
 pendix E. 
 
 Marshall, Humphrey, 2, 8 ; Anna 
 Maria, 8. 
 
 Maryland laws, 81. 
 
 Massachusetts, 332, 335. 
 
 Missouri controversy, 64, 65. 
 
 Mobs, in South, before 1828, 72 ; in 
 New York city, 142 ; no mobs in 
 1835, in four cities, 172; at 
 Charleston, 188; systematized, 
 196; at Utica and Boston, 197; 
 Cincinnati, 204, 240; political 
 and commercial, 211, 244; con 
 siderations on, 250 ; against Wes 
 ley, 252 ; H. B. Stanton on, 303. 
 
 Morris, United States Senator 
 Thomas, 340, 345. 
 
442 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 New Jersey, emancipation in, 27. 
 
 Nicholas, George, of Kentucky, 
 20, 21. 
 
 No-government doctrines, 307 ; con 
 demned by public opinion, 325. 
 
 Nullification pamphlet, Calhoun s, 
 70. 
 
 O Counell, Daniel, 364. 
 Ohio, immediate abolitionists, 163- 
 170, Appendix E. 
 
 Parties, dumb, 200 ; description of, 
 223, 350. 
 
 Party name, 350. 
 
 " Patriot," a North Carolina aboli 
 tion weekly, 78. 
 
 Peers, Rev. Dr., 140. 
 
 Pcnnock, Abraham L., 30. 
 
 Phelps, Amos A., 135, 274, 295, 
 304, 314. 
 
 Presbytery, Union, East Tennessee, 
 75 ; Abingdon, 76 ; Chillicothe, 
 388. 
 
 Presbyterians, 100; Kentucky syn 
 od, 151 ; anti-slavery report, 154. 
 
 Press, freedom of, menaced, 192; 
 standing of, 220. 
 
 Petition, right of, 194, 334. 
 
 Philadelphia, trading with, 4; life 
 at, 29. 
 
 " Philanthropist," 230. 
 
 Pillsbury, Parker, 325, 368. 
 ^.Phillips, Wendell, 326, 328, 329. 
 
 Princeton, life at, 25. 
 
 Polk, James K., 352. 
 
 Power, moral, 325. 
 
 Political action, 71, 96, 116, 119, 
 124, 127-130, 148, 156, 171, 174, 
 175; "a dirty mire," 226; non- 
 voters, 266, 300, 305, 333, 342. 
 
 Purcell, Archbishop, 249, 259. 
 
 Rankin, Rev. John, 1C 8, 171, Ap 
 pendix E. 
 
 Raymond, Daniel, of Maryland, 82, 
 83 ; abolition candidate, 84. 
 
 Reaction of public opinion, 200. 
 
 Read, John, 2, 16 ; Thomas B., 2. 
 
 Republican party, genesis of, 188 
 201. 
 
 Rice, Rev. David, of Kentucky, 16, 
 17, 20. 
 
 Ripley, Rev. George, 284, 287. 
 
 Roads in the South, 36. 
 
 Rogers, N. P., 378. 
 
 Slade, William, 340, 341. 
 
 Stanton, Henry B., 136, 1-13, 274, 
 301, 302, 345. 
 
 Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, 365. 
 
 Slaves in Kentucky, 20; freed in 
 North Carolina, 80. 
 
 Slavery in Kentucky, movements 
 
 against, 20, 21. 
 
 Slave power, 190, 332. 
 
 Slave-holders, number of, 161. 
 
 States, slave, demands of, 190. 
 
 States, free, Vermont, Massachu 
 setts, and Pennsylvania, 237. 
 
 Secession, 66, 68-71 ; adopted as 
 Garrisonian platform, 326. 
 
 Seminole War, 195. 
 
 Stevens, Thaddeus, 351. 
 
 Stewart, Alvan, 335, 345, 3-18. 
 
 Smith, Gerrit, 151, 152, 154, 157, 
 348, 376, 379. 
 
 Smith, Dr. Samuel Stanhope, 26, 27. 
 
 Scotch-Irish, 1. 
 
 Scott, General Winfield, 849. 
 
 Schools, 91. 
 
 Solid South, 64, Chapter XL 
 
INDEX. 
 
 443 
 
 Southern opiuions on slavery, 78. 
 Southampton insurrection, 72, 102. 
 Stone, William L., 140, Appendixes 
 
 C and D, 
 Stroud, George M., on slavery laws, 
 
 135, 170. 
 
 Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 362. 
 Sumner, Charles, 331, 351. 
 
 Taney, Roger B., 222. 
 
 Tappan, Lewis, 142, 156, 295, 314, 
 318; Arthur, 136, 365; .Benja 
 min, 340. 
 
 Tennessee, abolition, 74-77, 115, 
 117-119. 
 
 Texas, insurrections in, 88 ; at 
 tempted purchase of, by Jackson, 
 89 ; insurrection fomented, 195. 
 
 "Tribune," New York, staff of, 328. 
 
 Titus, Alabama Senator, 37. 
 
 Thome and Kimball s book, 335. 
 
 Thompson, George, 197, 251. 
 
 Thoreau, 287. 
 
 Tyson, Elisha, of Maryland, anti- 
 slavery philanthropist, 80. 
 
 Underground railroad, in 1826, 
 Mahan and Ccffin, 167. 
 
 Vagaries, philosophy of Boston, 282. 
 Van Buren, 377. 
 
 Van Hoist, historian, 314 ; esti 
 mate of Garrison, 322, 328, 331. 
 Vote of Liberty party, 333. 
 
 Webster, Daniel, 90. 
 
 Weld, Theodore D., 105, 110, 136, 
 
 143, 149, 151, 334, 341, 379, 380. 
 Whittier, John G., 275, 316, 362. 
 Whig, defection, 347 ; campaign, 
 
 350, 351. 
 
 Wing, the small extreme, 314. 
 Wilmot, David, of Pennsylvania, 
 
 351. 
 
 Wilson, Henry, 351. 
 Writings of James G. Birney, 125, 
 
 141, 206, 207, Appendix F. 
 Wright, Henry C., 269, 276, 293, 
 
 299, 303 ; extravagant language, 
 
 324. 
 Wright, Elizur, 275, 348. 
 
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 1-year loans may be recharged by bringing 
 books to NRLF 
 
 Renewals and recharges may be made 4 
 days prior to due date. 
 
 DUE AS STAMPED BELOW 
 
 NOV012000 
 
 12,000(11/95) 
 
 LD 2lA-60m-2. 67 Umversity"of California 
 
 (H241slO)476B Berkeley 
 
ID HOOb7 
 
 GENERA L.BRARY-U.C. BERKELEY