FREE DEMOCRACY OF MONROE COUNTY.

Rochester, October 4th, 1852.

Sir:—The FREE DEMOCRACY of Monroe County, friendly to the election of JOHN P. HALEHale, John Parker

John Parker Hale (1806-73), U.S. congressman (1843-45) and senator (1843-53, 1855-65) from New Hampshire, and minister to Spain (1865-69), was the presidential nominee of the moribund Liberty party in 1847-48 and of the Free Soil party in 1852. Read out of the regular Democratic party in 1845 because of his opposition to Texas annexation, Hale helped forge an antislavery coalition of Whigs and Independent Democrats that gained control of the New Hampshire legislature in 1846 and elected him to the U.S. Senate. Unhampered by partisan ties, Hale emerged during the first two years of his term as virtually the sole antislavery spokesman in the upper chamber. His approach to abolitionism was often indirect and legalistic, however, as exemplified by his response to the 1848 Pearl incident. Though deeply moved by the plight of the recaptured fugitives, Hale did not openly attack slavery or the slave trade but instead raised the issue of proslavery mobs. On 20 April 1848, two days after the mob attack on the National Era office, he introduced a bill to make local communities in the District of Columbia liable for damage to private property by any "riotous or tumultuous assemblage of people." The bill contained no specific mention of slavery, yet it produced heated responses from several southern senators, including Henry S. Foote, who threatened to lynch Hale if the New Hampshireman ever ventured inside the state of Mississippi. The Pearl incident and its aftermath enhanced Hale's stature among most abolitionists and helped to solidify his antislavery convictions. Within two months, Hale introduced an unsuccessful resolution for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. Lib., 5 May 1848; Congressional Globe, 30th Cong., 1st sess., 1848, appendix, 500-10; Richard H. Sewell, John P. Hale and the Politics of Abolition (Cambridge, Mass., 1965). , as President of the United States, will meet at Irving Hall, in Rochester, on Thursday, October 14th, at 11 o'clock, A.M., to nominate a full County Ticket. This meeting is very important. Suitable and proper local candidates should be presented to the Free Democracy of Monroe, in order to bring out a full vote.

The Central County Committee address this Circular to you, in the hope that you will assist in circulating the notice of this meeting in your neighborhood, and to request you to attend, with a full delegation from your town.

Good speakers have been engaged to address the meeting.

HON. CHARLES SUMNERSumner, Charles

Best remembered as the victim of a vicious attack by a congressional colleague, Charles Sumner (1811-74), U.S. senator from Massachusetts (1851-74), was dedicated to the cause of emancipation. Born in Boston, Sumner attended and then taught at Harvard College. He engaged in a semi-successful law practice until his outspoken opposition to the United States war against Mexico thrust him into politics. He was a founder of the Free Soil Party in Massachusetts, and a coalition of Free Soilers and Democrats elected him to the U.S. Senate in 1850. Immediately embroiling himself in the heated topic of slavery, Sumner became an outspoken advocate of emancipation and repeatedly refuted compromises proposed by Henry Clay and others. After one particularly scathing speech in the Senate against slavery, Sumner was brutally beaten with a cane by a Southern representative, which necessitated years of recovery before Sumner was able to reenter the Senate. Sumner’s lasting legacy was to turn popular sentiment in the North toward emancipation, and after the Civil War, he continued to fight for the individual freedoms of blacks until his sudden death in 1874. Frederick J. Blue, Charles Sumner and the Conscience of the North (Arlington Heights, Ill., 1994); David Donald, Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War (New York, 1960); DAB, 18:208-14. 'S unanswerable Speech, recently made in the Senate of the United States, has been published by the Central Committee, for FREE CIRCULATION, and can be had by calling on J. P. FOGGFogg, James P.

, No. 29 Buffalo street, opposite the Arcade, Rochester.

ROSWELL HARTHart, Roswell

, Brighton,

JAMES SPERRYSperry, James

James Sperry (c. 1787-1867) was a farmer and surveyor living in Henrietta, New York in the mid-nineteenth century. He was one of the earliest settlers in Monroe County, New York, coming from Massachusetts as a young man. He was a proponent of education and helped with the creation of the Monroe Academy near Rochester. The high school in Henrietta was once named for James Sperry. Rochester (NY) Evening Post, 15 June 1866; 1850 and 1860 U. S. Census, Henrietta, Monroe, New York; Orsamus Turner, History of the Pioneer Settlement of Phelps & Gorham’s Purchase, and Morris’ Reserve (Rochester, N.Y.: William Alling, 1852), 191-94; Margaret Schmitt MacNab, Katherine W. Thompson, and Shirley Cox Husted, Northfield on the Genessee (Rochester, N.Y.: Monroe County Historian’s Office, 1981), 292-93. , Henrietta,

J. H. ROGERSRogers, James Henry

, Clarkson,

ALVIN WEBSTERWebster, Alvin H.

, Ogden,

J. P. FOGG, Rochester,

S. D. PORTER,Porter, Samuel D.

Samuel D. Porter (1808-81), a prosperous land agent, moved to Rochester, New York, from Waldoborough, Maine, in 1835. His wife, Susan Farley Porter, founded and belonged to several reform organizations, and he served as the first president of the Western New York Anti-Slavery Society. The Porters aided fugitive slaves in crossing the border into Canada, and their barn was reputed to be a common hiding place. In the 1840s Samuel joined the Liberty party and supported the Free Soil party while attempting to mediate between Garrisonian abolitionists and those who, like himself. sought the end of slavery through political agitation. Additionally, he was a perennial candidate for mayor, running on an antislavery plat-form. Although he became a Republican in the late 1850s, he broke with that party in the 1870s, charging that it had abandoned reform and the plight of the freedmen. 1850 U.S. Census, New York, Monroe County, 92; Nancy A. Hewitt, Women's Activism and Social Change: Rochester, New York, 1822-1872 (Ithaca, N.Y., 1984), 60, 120, 149, 180, 206; Dexter Perkins, "Rochester One Hundred Years Ago," RH, 1:1-24 (July 1939). "

HIRAM SMITHSmith, Hiram

, "

E. PANCOSTPancost, E.

, "

L. M. MOOREMoore, Lindley Murray

, "

County Central Committee.