Recording Secretary—Rev. Chas. W. Dennison.
Managers—Joshua Leavitt, Isaac T. Hopper, Abraham Cox, M.D., Lewis Tappan, William Goodell.
The proceedings of the night appear to have terminated in a broad farce, for after the breaking up of the citizens’ meeting, the crowd proceeded to Chatham street Chapel to see what was going on there. They found the doors open and the lights burning, but the meeting had suddenly dispersed. The dignified philosophers, unable to “stand fire,” had retreated “bag and baggage,” through the back windows. To have the frolic out, a black man was put upon the stage, a series of humorous resolutions were passed, good-natured speeches on the burlesque order were made, and, instead of the angry frowns with which the evening was commenced, the whole affair terminated amid the broad grins of a numerous multitude. Precisely one week after the above occurrence, another meeting of the citizens was held, over which the Mayor of the city presided. Among the orators was Hon. Theodore Frelinghuysen, then United States Senator from New Jersey, afterwards a candidate for Vice-President of the United States on the ticket with Henry Clay, and he directly charged the abolitionists with “seeking to dissolve the Union;” declared that nine-tenths of the horrors of slavery were imaginary, and that “the crusade of abolition was merely the poetry of philanthropy.” Chancellor Walworth was likewise in attendance, and denounced their efforts as unconstitutional, and the individuals instigating them as “reckless incendiaries.”
THE AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY.—1833.
On the 4th, 5th and 6th of December, 1833, a National Anti-Slavery Convention was held in the city of Philadelphia, when, pursuant to previous notice, sixty delegates from ten States assembled, viz:—Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Ohio. Beriah Green, President of Oneida Institute, was chosen President, and Lewis Tappan and John G. Whittier, Secretaries. The resolutions were prepared in committee by William Lloyd Garrison. This convention organized the American Anti-Slavery Society, of which Arthur Tappan was chosen President; Elizur Wright, Jr., Secretary of Domestic Correspondence; William L. Garrison, Secretary of the Foreign Correspondence; A. L. Cox, Recording Secretary, and William Green, Jr., Treasurer. The Executive Committee was located in New York city, the seat of the society’s operations, which were now prosecuted with vigor. The Emancipator became the organ of the society. Tracts, pamphlets and books were published and circulated; a large number of agents were employed in different guises to promote the work throughout the country, North and South; State, county and local anti-slavery societies were organized throughout the free States; funds were collected; the New England Anti-Slavery Society became the Massachusetts State Society, and the whole machinery of agitation was put in thorough working order.
Among the earliest principles adopted by the abolition societies was the following:—
“Immediate and unconditional emancipation is eminently prudent, safe and beneficial to all parties concerned.
“No compensation is due to the slaveholder for emancipating his slaves; and emancipation creates no necessity for such compensation, because it is of itself a pecuniary benefit, not only to the slave, but to the master.”
So perfect was this system of operations, that in 1836 the society numbered two hundred and fifty auxiliaries in thirteen States. In eighteen months afterwards it had increased to one thousand and six. In one week alone, $6,000 were raised in Boston and $20,000 in the city of New York. To such an extent was the abolition furor carried at this time, that many prominent individuals had their dinner service, plates, cups, saucers, &c., embellished with figures of slaves in chains, and other emblems of the same character.
Similar prints, or pictorial illustrations of the natural equality before God of all men, without distinction of color, and setting forth the happy fruits of a universal acknowledgment of this truth by the exhibition of a white woman in no equivocal relations to a black man, were circulated in the South. The infection also broke out on Northern pocket handkerchiefs made for Southern children, candy wrappers, fans and anti-slavery seals, all being made to represent the prevailing idea. The reaction shortly took place. Laws were passed forbidding the reception or circulation of these incendiary articles in the Southern States. Mobs broke into the post-offices and burned all abolition prints that could be found, and rewards were offered for the detection and punishment of any person found tampering with the slave population. Nor was this reaction confined to the Southern section of the country; it was largely developed in the North. Churches soon began to be the theatres of discussions on the subject, and a conservative spirit sprang into life among all the principal religious sects. Merchants began to suffer in their business; manufacturers found their wares of no avail for the Southern market; and, in short, a strong spirit of opposition to the revolutionary doctrines of the abolitionists was manifested throughout the Northern States.