The Quakers, who, from the early colonial days, had been strongest in their expressions against slavery, formed the first Anti-Slavery Society in the United States at Philadelphia in 1775. The Revolution interrupted their work, but at its conclusion they resumed their efforts patiently and incessantly, year after year, in their attempts to arouse the public mind to the enormity and dangerousness of the slave evil. Although other States organized anti-slavery societies immediately after the Revolution, the Pennsylvania Society took the leading part, and was comparatively alone for many years in the work. In the First Congress this Society presented a Memorial, asking Congress to exercise its utmost powers for the abolition of slavery. The subject was the occasion of a heated debate, and Congress decided that under the Constitution it could not, prior to 1808, abolish the slave trade; but that it had authority to prevent citizens of the United States from carrying on the African slave trade with other nations (a law to this effect was subsequently passed); and that it had no authority to interfere with the emancipation of slaves or their treatment in any of the States. The Pennsylvania Society watched Congress closely and worked along patiently year after year, meeting with failure after failure. This early Abolition movement had among its supporters the foremost men of the day —Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Hamilton, Jay and Henry are some of the illustrious names connected with the movement, just as in England the names of Burke, Fox and Pitt are recorded against the iniquity. When the purchase of the Louisiana Territory came before Congress, the Pennsylvania Society petitioned that measures should be taken to prevent slavery in the new territory, but the Federalists were more engrossed with a discussion of Constitutional questions, and the opportune moment went by without any action on the matter.
The agitation connected with the Missouri question brought about the formation of a stronger anti-slavery sentiment in the North, and a group of fearless men sprang up to devote their lives and energies to an Abolition movement. They were radical in their views, progressive in their methods and absolutely fearless in their denunciations. Benjamin Lundy, a Quaker, may be said to be the father of the Abolition movement. In 1821 he began the publication of The Genius of Universal Emancipation, the first Abolition paper; he was joined at Baltimore in 1829 by William Lloyd Garrison, henceforth to be the most zealous, unceasing and uncompromising of all the Abolitionists. Garrison, extreme in his views, left Lundy, and in January, 1831, at Boston, without capital and with little help, started The Liberator, and placed at its head, "The Constitution of the United States is a covenant with death and an agreement with Hell," which declaration was printed in every edition of the paper until President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation went into effect, when it was changed to "Proclaim liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants thereof."
As a result of Mr. Garrison's activity many new abolition societies were formed, and on December 4, 1833, a National Convention of them was held at Philadelphia, and the American Anti-Slavery Society was organized, with Beriah Green as President and Lewis Tappan and John G. Whittier as Secretaries. This Convention decided to petition Congress to suppress the domestic slave trade between the States, and to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia and in every place over which Congress had exclusive jurisdiction. It admitted that Congress had no right to interfere with slavery in any State, but its plan was to circulate extensively anti-slavery tracts and periodicals, not only in the North but throughout all of the slave-holding States, and to organize anti-slavery societies in every city and village where possible, and to send forth its agents to lift their voices against slavery. It frowned on the work of the American Colonization Society, which had been organized in 1816, for the purpose of colonizing parts of Africa with American negroes, as tending to deaden the public conscience on the question.
With this energetic organization the anti-slavery movement now gained rapidly in strength, but its political work for many years was confined to a fruitless interrogation of candidates and to sending hundreds of petitions and memorials to Congress. Anti-slavery pamphlets and papers were also sent broadcast North and South. On seeing The Liberator, with its extreme views, and on reading the anti-slavery pamphlets, the South was enraged beyond all bounds. A North Carolina Grand Jury indicted Garrison, and Georgia offered a large reward for his arrest and conviction. On July 29, 1835, all anti-slavery papers were taken from the postoffice at Charleston, S. C., by a mob and destroyed. The following year Mr. Calhoun, in the Senate, demanded the suppression of the right of petition on any matter connected with slavery, and in 1838 the House adopted the infamous Atherton Gag-Rule, "Every Petition, Memorial, Resolution, Proposition or Paper touching or relating in any way or to any extent whatever to slavery or the abolition thereof, shall, on presentation and without further action thereon, be laid upon the table without being debated, printed or referred." This remarkable rule was adopted year after year in the House until 1844, when it was repealed through the efforts of John Quincy Adams, who for ten years fought nobly for the Right of Petition, although he was not entirely in sympathy with the Abolitionists.
During this period the sentiment against the Abolitionists was very strong in the North. In many places mobs seized upon and destroyed their papers and printing presses, and broke up their meetings and mobbed the speakers. James G. Birney's paper, The Philanthropist, was twice mobbed in Cincinnati. On November 7, 1837, the Abolition cause was baptized in blood by the murder of Elijah P. Lovejoy, who was shot while defending his paper and press from the attack of a pro-slavery mob at Alton, Illinois. The following month Wendell Phillips delivered his first abolition speech against the aggressions of the Slave Power and the murder of Lovejoy. The continued despotism of the Slave Power, its attempts to muzzle the freedom of speech and press, to deny the Right of Petition, to obstruct the mails, and to obtain an Extradition Law for the trial of citizens in slave States on charges of circulating anti-slavery documents, and the use of violence against all who dared raise their voices against the slavery dogmas, aroused the abolition societies to more radical action, and a group of Abolitionists now formed, determined on political action. This was one of the causes of the disruption of the American Anti-Slavery Society and the withdrawal of Garrison and his followers, who refused to take part in any election held under the pro-slavery Constitution.
The great leaders of the Whigs and Democrats in the North, who were aspirants to the presidency, dared not take any active stand against the growing demands of the Slave Power, and both parties bowed abjectly to the monster and passed in silence these gross violations of constitutional rights. Both parties deprecated the slavery agitation, especially the Whigs, who were highly incensed because it jeopardized their candidates more than it did those of the Democrats. The failure of the two great political parties to act led to the first political organization of the anti-slavery sentiment. At Warsaw, New York, on November 13, 1839, the Abolitionists held a convention and nominated James G. Birney, of New York, for President, and Thomas Earl, of Pennsylvania, for Vice-President. This was subsequently called the "Liberty Party," and was the first of the three anti-slavery parties to appear in national politics. Its platform demanded the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia and in the territories; stoppage of the interstate slave trade, and opposition to slavery to the fullest extent of Constitutional powers. Mr. Birney did not desire the nomination, and in the election of 1840, that resulted in the defeat of Van Buren by Harrison, the Abolitionists received only 7069 votes out of a total of two and one-half millions. The membership of the abolition societies at this time was about 200,000; the failure to show strength at the polls may be accounted for by reason of the refusal of many to vote at any election held under the Constitution, and also that many feared the dissolution of the Union, and preferred, if they voted at all, to remain with the Democratic or Whig Parties in the hope that their party would take some decisive action on the question.
While the Slave Power in the United States was making violent efforts to perpetuate itself and stifle all opposition, all the other civilized countries of the world were abolishing slavery. Great Britain abolished it in all her colonies in the year 1833 at a cost of one hundred millions of dollars; but the United States, already showing itself to be the most progressive nation in the world, could not throw off the evil, and it remained a cause of bitter distraction until overthrown politically by the success of the Republican Party and removed by Secession, War, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the amendments to the Constitution.
Although the Abolition cause seemed hopeless after the election of 1840, they persisted in their work, and soon a series of events happened— Texas Annexation, the Mexican War, and the Wilmot Proviso, which, independent of their efforts, brought about a direct issue between the North and South on the great question—an issue to be finally decided only by the Civil War. The work of the early Abolitionists, however, had an influence of inestimable value and weight on the immediate success of the Republican Party when it was organized.