THE UNION, SLAVERY, AND ABOLITIONIST PETITIONS: ADDRESSES DELIVERED IN HINGHAM, MASSACHUSETTS, ON 4 NOVEMBER 1841, at the First Baptist ChurchFirst Baptist Church, Hingham, Mass.

Hingham , 13 November 1841. Other texts in , 26 November, 3 December, 10 December 1841.

On 4 November 1841, Frederick Douglass attended a quarterly meeting of the Plymouth County Anti-Slavery SocietyPlymouth County Anti-Slavery Society

in Hingham, Massachusetts. Present in the crowded church building were the prominent abolitionists William Lloyd GarrisonGarrison, William Lloyd

William Lloyd Garrison (1805-79) was the foremost white abolitionist of the nineteenth century and was credited with the discovery of Douglass as a speaker at an antislavery meeting in Nantucket in 1841. He began his career as an apprentice printer on the Newburyport (Mass.) Herald at the age of thirteen. Garrison became editor of the Newburyport Free Press in 1826, but the paper closed within a year. He was then associated with a series of periodicals in Boston that advocated reform before Benjamin Lundy offered the young journalist the opportunity to write for his antislavery newspaper. Garrison joined Lundy in editing the Genius of Universal Emancipation in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1829, during the last year of the paper's 1821-1830 run. In 1830 a libel suit against the editors forced the paper to close and landed Garrison in jail. After his release, he courted the wealthy merchants of New York and Boston in order to start the Liberator (1831-65), a weekly journal based in Boston in which he advocated an immediate end to slavery. Garrison's brand of abolition condemned any institution that would tolerate the existence of slavery, including churches, political parties. and even the United States itself and any scheme aimed at removing black people from the country. Instead, Garrison hoped to raise the public's awareness that slavery was morally wrong and thereby force its end in an almost millennial moment of emancipation. His approach appealed to both white and black antislavery advocates but earned him many enemies among those only moderately opposed to slavery and slaveholders alike. Seeing the need for greater action and organization beyond the pages of the Liberator; Garrison joined with other abolitionists to form the New England Anti-Slavery Society in 1831. Two years later he helped found the larger American Anti-Slavery Society. In 1833 he established ties with English abolitionists after a trip to Great Britain, and he later brought the noted and notorious speaker George Thompson to the United States for a tour. Garrison also dedicated himself to women's rights, encouraging women to enter the public sphere by inviting them, via the Liberator, to form female antislavery societies. In addition to the thirty-three women's antislavery societies that flourished by 1838, Garrison's American Anti-Slavery Society welcomed women as well as blacks into its ranks. However, female delegates were excluded from the World's Anti-Slavery Convention of 1840 in London. The issue of women's participation in the antislavery movement and Garrison's absolute refusal to turn to politics to end slavery caused a division in the American Anti-Slavery Society. Brothers Lewis and Arthur Tappan, who opposed women's acting as speakers and who hoped to use politics toward abolition, broke with Garrison's American Anti-Slavery Society, forming the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, or the "New Organization" in 1841. Garrison's ideas were so closely associated with the "Old Organization" that the American Anti-Slavery Society became known simply as the "Garrisonians." With the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865, Garrison believed that he had accomplished his life's work and that of the antislavery movement. He then resigned from the presidency of the American Anti-Slavery Society and closed the Liberator. Wendell Phillips Garrison and Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879: The Story of His Life Told by His Children, 4 vols. (New York, 188589); Henry Mayer, All on Fire: William Lloyd Garrison and the Abolition of Slavery (New York, 1998); James Brewer Stewart, William Lloyd Garrison and the Challenge of Emancipation (Arlington Heights, Ill., 1992); John L. Thomas, The Liberator: William Lloyd Garrison (Boston, 1963); Dictionary of American Biography, 20 vols. (New York, 1928-36), 7:168-72. , John A. Collins,Collins, John Anderson

John Anderson Collins (1810-c. 1879) of Manchester, Vermont, trained for the Congregational ministry at Middlebury College and Andover Theological Seminary before becoming a general agent for the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society in 1837. In 1840 he toured England, where he became interested in the utopian economic reform plans of Charles Fourier and Robert Owen, which included the abolition of all private property. From 1840 to 1841 Collins edited the Monthly Garland and compiled a book of antislavery songs, Anti-Slavery Pic-Nic. After leading the One Hundred Conventions tour in 1843, he resigned from the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society and founded a short-lived communal farm near Skaneateles, New York. During the 1849 gold rush, Collins migrated to California, where he attempted journalistic and mining enterprises but found little success. Carleton Mabee, Black Freedom: The Nonviolent Abolitionists from 1830 through the Civil War (London, 1970), 76, 80- 82, 88, 112-25, 212, 264, 394; Dorothy Sterling, Ahead of Her Time: Abby Kelley and the Politics of Antislavery (New York, 1991), 103, 136, 158, 177-79; Merrill and Ruchames, Garrison Letters, 2:453-54n; DAB, 4:307-08. George Foster,Foster, George

George Foster (c . 1811-?), a Quaker, lived in Andover, Massachusetts, and often worked in New England in the 1830s and 1840s as a traveling agent for the National Anti-Slavery Standard and the Liberator, promoting abolitionism and seeking subscribers to the newspapers. In the early 1840s Frederick Douglass often accompanied him and gave lectures. Foster was with Douglass in December 1841 when he was forced to ride a Jim Crow railroad car in Rhode Island. Lib., 12 November 1841, 3 June 1842; NASS, 6 January, 23 June, 7 July 1842; 1850 U.S. Census, Massachusetts, Essex County, 236. Edmund Quincy,Quincy, Edmund

Son of Josiah Quincy, a Boston Federalist leader and president of Harvard University, Edmund Quincy (1807-77) joined the abolitionists in reaction to the murder of Elijah Lovejoy in 1837. A close associate of William Lloyd Garrison, Quincy was the corresponding secretary of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society from 1844 to 1853. He served on many other abolitionist committees, contributed frequently to Garrisonian publications, and often edited the Liberator during Garrison's absences. NS, 21 January 1848; Tribute of the Massachusetts Historical Society to the Memory of Edmund Quincy and John Lothrop Motley (Boston, 1877), 6; NCAB, 6:93-94; DAB, 15:306-07. and escaped slave Lunsford LaneLane, Lunsford

Born a slave in Raleigh, North Carolina, Lunsford Lane (1803—?) grew up a house servant owned by Sherwood Haywood, who allowed Lane to begin to purchase his freedom. After Haywood‘s death, Lane hired his own time, ultimately saving the $1000 necessary for self-purchase. Unable to make contracts while a slave, Lane persuaded his wife's owner Benjamin B. Smith to purchase and then emancipate him. Failing to obtain permission to free Lane in North Carolina for “meritorious conduct," Smith executed a deed of manumission in New York state early in the 18305. Lane returned to Raleigh and entered the tobacco trade. In January 1839, he contracted to purchase his wife and six children for $2500, payable to Smith in five annual installments. The next year local authorities declared Lane and other Raleigh free Negroes illegal immigrants and ordered them to leave the state. Failing to secure an exemption from the North Carolina legislature, Lane spent much of 1841 at abolitionist gatherings in New England soliciting the money to purchase his enslaved family. In April 1842 he returned to Raleigh to buy his relatives but was arrested for having delivered abolitionist lectures in Massachusetts. Released by the mayor, Lane narrowly escaped lynching at the hands of an enraged mob. Upon returning north with his wife, children, and aged mother, Lane settled in Massachusetts where he remained active in the antislavery cause. Lunsford Lane. The Narrative of Lunsford Lane (Boston, 1842); William G. Hawkins, Lumford Lane: Another Helper From North Carolina (1863; Miami, Fla., 1969); John Spencer Bassett, Anti Slavery Leaders ofNorth Carolina, Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science, set. 16, no, 6 (Baltimore, 1898). 60774; W. Sherman Savage, “The Influence of John Chavis and Lunsford Lane on the History of North Carolina,” JNH, 25 : 20—24 (January 1940). . The presiding officer, Samuel J. MayMay, Samuel Joseph

Samuel Joseph May (1797-1871) mixed abolitionism with a variety of other humanitarian concerns during his long career as a Unitarian clergyman. Boston-born and Harvard-educated, May studied theology at Harvard Divinity School and was ordained in 1822. During his forty-year ministry he championed such causes as temperance, women's rights, pacifism, universal education, and abolitionism. Originally a supporter of African colonization, May joined the abolitionist ranks in 1830, supported Prudence Crandall's efforts to establish a school for black youths in 1833, and enjoyed a long tenure as an agent of the New England Anti-Slavery Society. During the 1840s and 1850s he helped many fugitive slaves reach Canada; in 1851 he helped rescue Jerry McHenry from slave catchers inSyracuse, New York. After the Civil War he worked with black colleagues such as Jermain W. Loguen and Douglass to fight racial segregation in New York schools. Donald Yacovone, Samuel Joseph May and the Dilemmas of the Liberal Persuasion, 1797-1871 (Philadelphia, 1991); Pease and Pease, Bound with Them in Chains, 276-307; NCAB, 2:313; DAB, 12:447-48. , introduced Douglass as a runaway slave whose personal history it would not be expedient to publicize. An active participant in the floor debates, Douglass supported a resolution that it was slavery and not abolitionism which threatened to destroy the Union, urged the Plymouth County Society to help Lunsford Lane purchase his family from bondage, and described the encouragement slaves derived from abolitionist petitions to Congress. According to the of 12 November 1841, Douglass‘s

speeches produced a “very powerful effect.” The editor of the Hingham , struck by Douglass’s “forcible” and “very sarcastic" oratory, saw in Douglass a nineteenth-century counterpart of “Spartacus the Gladiator.” “A man of his shrewdness, and his power, both intellectually and physically,” the editor mused, “must be poor stuff . . to make a slave of.” Lib., 12 November 1841.

Mr. Douglass—“I want to say a word about this Union. It is the fact that the Northern people stand pledged by this union to return runaway slaves, that constitutes the bulwark of slavery; the slaves are told that if they escape to the North, they will be sent back; and this discourages very many from making any attempts to gain their freedom. This is the union whose “desolation” we want to accomplish; and he is no true abolitionist, who does not go against this union. The South care not how much you talk and act against slavery as an evil in the abstract; they will agree with you; yet they cling to it as to life; and it is this pledge binding the North to the South, on which they rely for its support.” He then alluded, and with considerable wit, to the union between the churches of the North and those of the South.

The Resolution was then passed.¹The Business Committee’s resolution on abolitionism which prompted Douglass's remarks read: “Resolved, That the cry raised—‘that the measures of the Abolitionists tend to a dissolution of the Union,’—is without foundation; that the institution of Slavery is the stone of stumbling and rock of offence, which is dashing in pieces our liberties; and those only are the true friends of our country who are seeking its speedy and peaceful abolition." Hingham , 13 November 1841.

Lunsford Lane’sLane, Lunsford

Born a slave in Raleigh, North Carolina, Lunsford Lane (1803—?) grew up a house servant owned by Sherwood Haywood, who allowed Lane to begin to purchase his freedom. After Haywood‘s death, Lane hired his own time, ultimately saving the $1000 necessary for self-purchase. Unable to make contracts while a slave, Lane persuaded his wife's owner Benjamin B. Smith to purchase and then emancipate him. Failing to obtain permission to free Lane in North Carolina for “meritorious conduct," Smith executed a deed of manumission in New York state early in the 18305. Lane returned to Raleigh and entered the tobacco trade. In January 1839, he contracted to purchase his wife and six children for $2500, payable to Smith in five annual installments. The next year local authorities declared Lane and other Raleigh free Negroes illegal immigrants and ordered them to leave the state. Failing to secure an exemption from the North Carolina legislature, Lane spent much of 1841 at abolitionist gatherings in New England soliciting the money to purchase his enslaved family. In April 1842 he returned to Raleigh to buy his relatives but was arrested for having delivered abolitionist lectures in Massachusetts. Released by the mayor, Lane narrowly escaped lynching at the hands of an enraged mob. Upon returning north with his wife, children, and aged mother, Lane settled in Massachusetts where he remained active in the antislavery cause. Lunsford Lane. The Narrative of Lunsford Lane (Boston, 1842); William G. Hawkins, Lumford Lane: Another Helper From North Carolina (1863; Miami, Fla., 1969); John Spencer Bassett, Anti Slavery Leaders ofNorth Carolina, Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science, set. 16, no, 6 (Baltimore, 1898). 60774; W. Sherman Savage, “The Influence of John Chavis and Lunsford Lane on the History of North Carolina,” JNH, 25 : 20—24 (January 1940). case was now discussed. Messrs. J. A. CollinsCollins, John Anderson

John Anderson Collins (1810-c. 1879) of Manchester, Vermont, trained for the Congregational ministry at Middlebury College and Andover Theological Seminary before becoming a general agent for the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society in 1837. In 1840 he toured England, where he became interested in the utopian economic reform plans of Charles Fourier and Robert Owen, which included the abolition of all private property. From 1840 to 1841 Collins edited the Monthly Garland and compiled a book of antislavery songs, Anti-Slavery Pic-Nic. After leading the One Hundred Conventions tour in 1843, he resigned from the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society and founded a short-lived communal farm near Skaneateles, New York. During the 1849 gold rush, Collins migrated to California, where he attempted journalistic and mining enterprises but found little success. Carleton Mabee, Black Freedom: The Nonviolent Abolitionists from 1830 through the Civil War (London, 1970), 76, 80- 82, 88, 112-25, 212, 264, 394; Dorothy Sterling, Ahead of Her Time: Abby Kelley and the Politics of Antislavery (New York, 1991), 103, 136, 158, 177-79; Merrill and Ruchames, Garrison Letters, 2:453-54n; DAB, 4:307-08.

and S. J. MayMay, Samuel Joseph

Samuel Joseph May (1797-1871) mixed abolitionism with a variety of other humanitarian concerns during his long career as a Unitarian clergyman. Boston-born and Harvard-educated, May studied theology at Harvard Divinity School and was ordained in 1822. During his forty-year ministry he championed such causes as temperance, women's rights, pacifism, universal education, and abolitionism. Originally a supporter of African colonization, May joined the abolitionist ranks in 1830, supported Prudence Crandall's efforts to establish a school for black youths in 1833, and enjoyed a long tenure as an agent of the New England Anti-Slavery Society. During the 1840s and 1850s he helped many fugitive slaves reach Canada; in 1851 he helped rescue Jerry McHenry from slave catchers inSyracuse, New York. After the Civil War he worked with black colleagues such as Jermain W. Loguen and Douglass to fight racial segregation in New York schools. Donald Yacovone, Samuel Joseph May and the Dilemmas of the Liberal Persuasion, 1797-1871 (Philadelphia, 1991); Pease and Pease, Bound with Them in Chains, 276-307; NCAB, 2:313; DAB, 12:447-48. were opposed, as a matter of principle, to abolitionists contributing for the release of individuals.—Douglass made a brief appeal in behalf of LaneLane, Lunsford

Born a slave in Raleigh, North Carolina, Lunsford Lane (1803—?) grew up a house servant owned by Sherwood Haywood, who allowed Lane to begin to purchase his freedom. After Haywood‘s death, Lane hired his own time, ultimately saving the $1000 necessary for self-purchase. Unable to make contracts while a slave, Lane persuaded his wife's owner Benjamin B. Smith to purchase and then emancipate him. Failing to obtain permission to free Lane in North Carolina for “meritorious conduct," Smith executed a deed of manumission in New York state early in the 18305. Lane returned to Raleigh and entered the tobacco trade. In January 1839, he contracted to purchase his wife and six children for $2500, payable to Smith in five annual installments. The next year local authorities declared Lane and other Raleigh free Negroes illegal immigrants and ordered them to leave the state. Failing to secure an exemption from the North Carolina legislature, Lane spent much of 1841 at abolitionist gatherings in New England soliciting the money to purchase his enslaved family. In April 1842 he returned to Raleigh to buy his relatives but was arrested for having delivered abolitionist lectures in Massachusetts. Released by the mayor, Lane narrowly escaped lynching at the hands of an enraged mob. Upon returning north with his wife, children, and aged mother, Lane settled in Massachusetts where he remained active in the antislavery cause. Lunsford Lane. The Narrative of Lunsford Lane (Boston, 1842); William G. Hawkins, Lumford Lane: Another Helper From North Carolina (1863; Miami, Fla., 1969); John Spencer Bassett, Anti Slavery Leaders ofNorth Carolina, Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science, set. 16, no, 6 (Baltimore, 1898). 60774; W. Sherman Savage, “The Influence of John Chavis and Lunsford Lane on the History of North Carolina,” JNH, 25 : 20—24 (January 1940). : Though he had four brothers and a sister in bondage for whom he asked no such aid, yet he would be glad to see something done to cheer the heart of one who had been a brother bondman. He sympathised with his feelings—Those who called themselves the owners of these slaves were castigated unmercifully; “they ride about in their carriages,” said he, “with the finest of cloth on their backs, with rings upon their fingers, and in the enjoyment of every luxury that wealth can buy—but who earns it all? whose labor pays for it all? the poor slaves’! Their masters bend not a finger in labor, and then are mean enough in soul to pocket the hard earnings of the poor slave, without giving him anything but just bread enough to support life from day to day, that he may still toil on to enrich them."

The Resolutions on political action were postponed till evening.

7th Resolution, about petitions, was then read.⁵The Business Committee’s resolution on petitions read: "Resolved, That it is recommended to the several towns in this County. to take prompt and decided measures to circulate the petitions issued by the State Society. “Hingham Patriot, 13 November 1841. Mr. MayMay, Samuel Joseph

Samuel Joseph May (1797-1871) mixed abolitionism with a variety of other humanitarian concerns during his long career as a Unitarian clergyman. Boston-born and Harvard-educated, May studied theology at Harvard Divinity School and was ordained in 1822. During his forty-year ministry he championed such causes as temperance, women's rights, pacifism, universal education, and abolitionism. Originally a supporter of African colonization, May joined the abolitionist ranks in 1830, supported Prudence Crandall's efforts to establish a school for black youths in 1833, and enjoyed a long tenure as an agent of the New England Anti-Slavery Society. During the 1840s and 1850s he helped many fugitive slaves reach Canada; in 1851 he helped rescue Jerry McHenry from slave catchers inSyracuse, New York. After the Civil War he worked with black colleagues such as Jermain W. Loguen and Douglass to fight racial segregation in New York schools. Donald Yacovone, Samuel Joseph May and the Dilemmas of the Liberal Persuasion, 1797-1871 (Philadelphia, 1991); Pease and Pease, Bound with Them in Chains, 276-307; NCAB, 2:313; DAB, 12:447-48. gave an account of a conversation he had recently had with J. Q. AdamsAdams, John Quincy

The eldest son of John Adams, John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) served as the American ambassador to the Netherlands, Berlin, Russia, and England during the early years of the Republic. He also held office as U.S. senator from Massachusetts (1803-08), secretary of state in James Monroe's cabinet (1817-25), and president of the United States (1825-29). From 1831 until his death, Adams sat in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he opposed slavery and its extension and fought the gag rule on abolitionist petitions. In late 1831 he made his first anti-slavery speech on the floor of Congress when he introduced fifteen petitions from Pennsylvania Quakers praying for the abolition of slavery and the slave trade in the District of Columbia. Adams also defended a band of captured Africans before the Supreme Court in the Amistad case in 1841. Despite his association with the aboli-tionist cause, Adams said that he personally favored ending only the slave trade. Samuel F. Bemis, John Quincy Adams and the Union (New York, 1956); Leonard L. Richards, The Life and Times of Congressman John Quincy Adams (New York, 1986); Paul C. Nagel, John Quincy Adams: A Public Life, a Private Life (New York, 1997). as to the kind of petition which would probably be most effectual to present to Congress.⁶By 1841, American antislavery leaders had considerable experience in promoting abolitionism through petitions to Congress. In 1828 a national petition campaign had forced the House of Representatives to vote on abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia. After Congress adopted the “gag rule" requiring immediate and permanent tabling of all antislavery memorials, the American Anti-Slavery Society began to circulate printed petitions among its local affiliates. In May 1837, the parent organization launched a national petition campaign which deluged Congress with over 400,000 petitions during the next twelve months, Massachusetts congressman and former president John Quincy Adams linked the issues of abolitionism and free speech in the fight to force Congress to consider these petitions. Gilbert Hobbs Barnes, (New York, 1933), 109–45; Merton L. Dillon, The Abolitionists: The Growth of a Dissenting Minority [Dekalb, Ill., 1974), 100–06; Samuel Flagg Bemis, John Quincy Adams and the Union (New York, 1956), 326–83.

Mr. CollinsCollins, John Anderson

John Anderson Collins (1810-c. 1879) of Manchester, Vermont, trained for the Congregational ministry at Middlebury College and Andover Theological Seminary before becoming a general agent for the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society in 1837. In 1840 he toured England, where he became interested in the utopian economic reform plans of Charles Fourier and Robert Owen, which included the abolition of all private property. From 1840 to 1841 Collins edited the Monthly Garland and compiled a book of antislavery songs, Anti-Slavery Pic-Nic. After leading the One Hundred Conventions tour in 1843, he resigned from the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society and founded a short-lived communal farm near Skaneateles, New York. During the 1849 gold rush, Collins migrated to California, where he attempted journalistic and mining enterprises but found little success. Carleton Mabee, Black Freedom: The Nonviolent Abolitionists from 1830 through the Civil War (London, 1970), 76, 80- 82, 88, 112-25, 212, 264, 394; Dorothy Sterling, Ahead of Her Time: Abby Kelley and the Politics of Antislavery (New York, 1991), 103, 136, 158, 177-79; Merrill and Ruchames, Garrison Letters, 2:453-54n; DAB, 4:307-08. opposed Mr. Adams’s recommendation on the subject.

Mr. Douglass was here requested to state what he knew in relation to the importance of petitioning. He said “My first knowlege of the abolition movements was through the petitions for the abolition of Slavery in the District of Columbia. These petitions delight the hearts of the slaves; they rejoice to know that something is going on in their favor. Waiters hear their masters talk at table, cursing the abolitionists, John Quincy AdamsAdams, John Quincy

The eldest son of John Adams, John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) served as the American ambassador to the Netherlands, Berlin, Russia, and England during the early years of the Republic. He also held office as U.S. senator from Massachusetts (1803-08), secretary of state in James Monroe's cabinet (1817-25), and president of the United States (1825-29). From 1831 until his death, Adams sat in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he opposed slavery and its extension and fought the gag rule on abolitionist petitions. In late 1831 he made his first anti-slavery speech on the floor of Congress when he introduced fifteen petitions from Pennsylvania Quakers praying for the abolition of slavery and the slave trade in the District of Columbia. Adams also defended a band of captured Africans before the Supreme Court in the Amistad case in 1841. Despite his association with the aboli-tionist cause, Adams said that he personally favored ending only the slave trade. Samuel F. Bemis, John Quincy Adams and the Union (New York, 1956); Leonard L. Richards, The Life and Times of Congressman John Quincy Adams (New York, 1986); Paul C. Nagel, John Quincy Adams: A Public Life, a Private Life (New York, 1997). , &c.; the masters imagine that their poor slaves are so ignorant that they don’t know the meaning of the language they are using; for the slaves always pretend to be very stupid, they commit all sorts of foolery and act like baboons and wild beasts in [the] presence of their masters; but every word is noted in the memory, and is told to their fellow-slaves; and when they get together, they talk over what they have heard—they talk about liberty, and about these petitions. They get a vague idea that somebody is doing something to ameliorate their condition. Thus these petitions hold the slave in check; thus they are good for the master as well as for the slave, for they have prevented many an assassination, many an insurrection. I was myself contemplating measures and making arrangements for my own emancipation, when hearing of these petitions stopped me. But, sit, the slaves are learning to read and to write, and the time is fast coming, when they will act in concert, and effect their own emancipation, if justice is not done by some other extraneous agency."