The following resolution, passed at the close of the third day, without dissent, or a word to qualify or limit its application, shows that no one then thought it improper for women to speak in public:
Resolved, That the thanks of the Convention be presented to our female friends for the deep interest they have manifested in the cause of anti-slavery, during the long and fatiguing sessions of this Convention.
Samuel J. May, in writing of this occasion many years after, says: "It is one of the proudest recollections of my life that I was a member of the Convention in Philadelphia, in December, 1833, that formed the American Anti-Slavery Society. And I well remember the auspicious sequel to it, the formation of the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society. Nor shall I ever forget the wise, the impressive, the animating words spoken in our Convention by dear Lucretia Mott and two or three other excellent women who came to that meeting by divine appointment. But with this last recollection will be forever associated the mortifying fact, that we men were then so blind, so obtuse, that we did not recognize those women as members of our Convention, and insist upon their subscribing their names to our 'Declaration of Sentiments and Purposes.'"
PHILADELPHIA ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY.
No sooner did the National Society adjourn, than the women who had listened to the discussions with such deep interest, assembled to organize themselves for action. A few extracts from Mary Grew's final report of the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society in 1870 show that—
A meeting convened at the school-room of Catherine McDermott, 12th mo. 9th, 1833, to take into consideration the propriety of forming a Female Anti-Slavery Society; addresses were made by Samuel J. May, of Brooklyn, Conn., and Nathaniel Southard, of Boston, who pointed out the important assistance that might be rendered by our sex in removing the great evil of slavery. After some discussion upon this interesting subject, it was concluded to form a Society, in the belief that our combined efforts would more effectually aid in relieving the oppression of our suffering fellow-creatures. For this purpose a Committee was appointed to draft a Constitution, and to propose such measures as would be likely to promote the Abolition of Slavery, and to elevate the people of color from their present degraded situation to the full enjoyment of their rights, and to increased usefulness in society.
At a meeting held 12th mo. 14th, the Committee appointed on the 9th submitted a form of Constitution, which was read and adopted. After its adoption, the following persons signed their names: Lucretia Mott, Esther Moore, Mary Ann Jackson, Margaretta Forten, Sarah Louisa Forten, Grace Douglass, Mary Sleeper, Rebecca Hitchins, Mary Clement, A. C. Eckstein, Mary Wood, Leah Fell, Sidney Ann Lewis, Catherine McDermott, Susan M. Shaw, Lydia White, Sarah McCrummell, Hetty Burr. The Society then proceeded to the choice of officers for the ensuing year; when the following persons were elected: Esther Moore, Presiding Officer; Margaretta Forten, Recording Secretary; Lucretia Mott, Corresponding Secretary; Anna Bunting, Treasurer; Lydia White, Librarian.
The Annual Reports of the first two years of this Society are not extant; but from its third, we learn that in each of those years the Society memorialized Congress, praying for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia and the Territories of the United States. In the second year of its existence, it appointed a Standing Committee for the purpose of visiting the schools for colored children in this city, and aiding them in any practicable way. In the third year it appointed a Committee "to make arrangements for the establishment of a course of scientific lectures, which our colored friends were particularly invited to attend." The phraseology of this statement implies that white persons were not to be excluded from these lectures, and indicates a clear-sighted purpose, on the part of the Society, to bear its testimony against distinctions founded on color. In this year it published an Address to the Women of Pennsylvania, calling their attention to the claims of the slave, and urging them to sign petitions for his emancipation. Mrs. Elizabeth Heyrick's well-known pamphlet, entitled "Immediate, not Gradual Emancipation," was during the same year republished by the "Anti-Slavery Sewing Society," a body composed of some of the members of this Association, but not identical with it, which met weekly at the house of our Vice-President, Sidney Ann Lewis. Another event, important and far-reaching beyond our power then to foresee, had marked the year. A member of this Society[60] had received and accepted a commission to labor as an agent of the American Anti-Slavery Society. It is evident, from the language of the Report, that the newly-appointed agent and her fellow-members regarded the mission as one fraught with peculiar trial of patience and faith, and anticipated the opposition which such an innovation on the usages of the times would elicit. Her appointed field of labor was among her own sex, in public or in private; but in the next year's Report it is announced that she had enlarged her sphere. The fact should never be forgotten by us that it was a member of this Society who first broke the soil in that field where so many women have since labored abundantly, and are now reaping so rich a harvest.
The next year, 1837, was made memorable by a still greater innovation upon established usage—the first National Convention of American Anti-Slavery Women. It is interesting and profitable to notice, as the years passed, that new duties and new responsibilities educated woman for larger spheres of action. Each year brought new revelations, presented new aspects of the cause, and made new demands. Our early Reports mention these Conventions of Women, which were held during three consecutive years in New York and this city, as a novel measure, which would, of course, excite opposition; and they also record the fact that "the editorial rebukes, sarcasm, and ridicule" which they elicited, did not exceed the anticipations of the Abolitionists.
The second of these Conventions was held in this city, in the midst of those scenes of riot when infuriated Southern slaveholders and cowardly Northern tradesmen combined for purposes of robbery and arson, and surrounded Pennsylvania Hall with their representatives, the mob which plundered and burnt it, while the City Government looked on consenting to these crimes. That Convention was the last assembly gathered in that Hall, then just dedicated to the service of Freedom. Its fifth session, on the 17th of May, 1838, was held, calmly and deliberately, while the shouts of an infuriated mob rose around the building, mingling with the speakers' voices, and sometimes overwhelming them; while stones and other missiles crashing through the windows imperilled the persons of many of the audience. The presence of an assembly of women was supposed to be a partial protection against the fury of the rioters; and believing that the mob would not fire the building while it was thus filled, a committee of anti-slavery men sent a request to the Convention to remain in session during the usual interval between the afternoon and evening meetings, if, with their knowledge of their perilous surroundings, they felt willing to do so. The President laid the request before the Convention, and asked, Will you remain? A few minutes of solemn deliberation; a few moments' listening to the loud madness surging against the outer walls; a moment's unvoiced prayer for wisdom and strength, and the answer came: We will; and the business of the meeting proceeded. But before the usual hour of adjournment arrived, another message came from the committee, withdrawing their request, and stating that further developments of the spirit pervading the mob and the city, convinced them that it would be unwise for the Convention to attempt to hold possession of the Hall for the evening. The meeting adjourned at the usual hour, and, on the next morning, the burnt and crumbling remains of Pennsylvania Hall told the story of Philadelphia's disgrace, and the temporary triumph of the spirit of slavery.
The experience of that morning is very briefly mentioned in the published "Proceedings," which state that "the Convention met, pursuant to adjournment, at Temperance Hall, but found the doors closed by order of the managers"; that they were offered the use of a school-room, in which they assembled; and there the Convention held its closing session of six hours. But they who made a part of the thrilling history of those times well remember how the women of that Convention walked through the streets of this city, from the Hall on Third Street, closed against them, to the school-room on Cherry Street, hospitably opened to them by Sarah Pugh and Sarah Lewis, and were assailed by the insults of the populace as they went. It was a meeting memorable to those who composed it; and was one of many interesting associations of our early anti-slavery history which cluster around the school-house, which in those days was always open to the advocacy of the slave's cause.[61]
An incident in connection with the last of these Conventions, shows how readily and hopefully, in the beginning of our work, we turned for help to the churches and religious societies of the land; and how slowly and painfully we learned their real character. It is long since we ceased to expect efficient help from them; but in those first years of our warfare against slavery, we had not learned that the ecclesiastical standard of morals in a nation can not be higher than the standard of the populace generally.
A committee of arrangements appointed to obtain a house in which the Convention should be held, reported: "That in compliance with a resolution passed at a meeting of this Society, an application was made to each of the seven Monthly Meetings of Friends, in this city, for one of their meeting-houses, in which to hold the Convention." Two returned respectful answers, declining the application; three refused to hear it read; one appointed two persons to examine it, and then decided "that it should be returned without being read," though a few members urged "that it should be treated more respectfully"; and that from one meeting no answer was received.
As to other denominations of professed Christians, similar applications had been frequently refused by them, although there was one exception which should be ever held in honorable remembrance by the Abolitionists of Philadelphia. The use of the church of the Covenanters, in Cherry street, of which Rev. James M. Wilson was for many years the pastor, was never refused for an anti-slavery meeting, even in the most perilous days of our enterprise. Another fact in connection with the Convention of 1839 it is pleasant to remember now, when the faithful friend whose name it recalls has gone from among us. The Committee of Arrangements reported that their difficulties and perplexities "were relieved by a voluntary offer from that devoted friend of the slave, John H. Cavender, who, with kindness at once unexpected and gratifying, offered the use of a large unfurnished building in Filbert Street, which had been used as a riding school; which was satisfactorily and gratefully occupied by the Convention."
In the year 1840, our Society sent delegates to the assembly called "The World's Anti-Slavery Convention," which was held in London, in the month of May of that year. As is well known, that body refused to admit any delegates excepting those of the male sex, though the invitation was not thus limited; consequently, this Society was not represented there.
The year 1850 was an epoch in the history of the anti-slavery cause. The guilt and disgrace of the nation was then intensified by that infamous statute known by the name of "The Fugitive Slave Law." Its enactment by the Thirty-first Congress, and its ratification by Millard Fillmore's signature, was the signal for an extensive and cruel raid upon the colored people of the North. Probably no statute was ever written, in the code of a civilized nation, so carefully and cunningly devised for the purpose of depriving men of liberty. It put in imminent peril the personal freedom of every colored man and woman in the land. It furnished the kidnapper all possible facilities, and bribed the judge on the bench to aid him in his infamous work. The terrible scenes that followed; the cruel apathy of the popular heart and conscience; the degradation of the pulpit, which sealed the deed with its loud Amen! the mortal terror of a helpless and innocent race; the fierce assaults on peaceful homes; the stealthy capture, by day and by night, of unsuspecting free-born people; the blood shed on Northern soil; the mockeries of justice acted in United States courts; are they not all written in our country's history, and indelibly engraven on the memories of Abolitionists?
The case of Adam Gibson, captured in this city by the notorious kidnapper, Alberti, and tried before the scarcely less notorious Ingraham, in the year 1850, and which was succeeded in the next year by the Christiana tragedy, are instances of many similar outrages committed in Pennsylvania. No pen can record, no human power can estimate, the aggregate of woe and guilt which was the legitimate result of that Fugitive Slave Bill.
The year 1855 was marked by a series of events unique in our history. A citizen of Philadelphia, whose name will always be associated with the cause of American liberty, in the legal performance of his duty, quietly informed three slaves who had been brought into this State by their master, a Virginia slaveholder, that by the laws of Pennsylvania they were free. The legally emancipated mother, Jane Johnson, availing herself of this knowledge, took possession of her own person and her own children; and their astonished master suddenly discovered that his power to hold them was gone forever. No judge, commissioner, or lawyer, however willing, could help him to recapture his prey. But a judge of the United States District Court could assist him in obtaining a mean revenge upon the brave man who had enlightened an ignorant woman respecting her legal right to freedom. Judge Kane, usurping jurisdiction in the case, and exercising great ingenuity to frame a charge of contempt of Court, succeeded in his purpose of imprisoning Passmore Williamson in our County jail. The baffled slaveholder also found sympathizers in the Grand Jury, who enabled him to indict for riot and assault and battery, Passmore Williamson, William Still, and five other persons. During the trial which ensued, the prosecutor and his allies were confounded by the sudden appearance of a witness whose testimony that she was not forcibly taken from her master's custody, but had left him freely, disconcerted all their schemes, and defeated the prosecution. The presence of Jane Johnson in that court room jeoparded her newly-acquired freedom; for though Pennsylvania was pledged to her protection, it was questionable whether the slave power, in the person of United States officers and their ever ready minions, would not forcibly overpower State authority and obtain possession of the woman. It was an intensely trying hour for her and for all who sympathized with her. Among those who attended her through that perilous scene, were the president of this Society, Sarah Pugh, and several of its members. All those ladies will testify to the calm bearing and firm courage of this emancipated slave-mother, in the hour of jeopardy to her newly-found freedom. Protected by the energy and skill of the presiding Judge, William D. Kelley, and of the State officers, her safe egress from the court-room was accomplished; and she was soon placed beyond the reach of her pursuers.
In 1859 we reaped a rich harvest from long years of sowing, in the result of the trial of the alleged fugitive slave, Daniel Webster. This trial will never be forgotten by those of us who witnessed it. The arrest was made in Harrisburg, in the month of April, and the trial was in this city before United States Commissioner John C. Longstreth. We do not, at this distance of time, need the records of that year, to remind us that "it was with heavy and hopeless hearts that the Abolitionists of this city gathered around that innocent and outraged man, and attended him through the solemn hours of his trial." The night which many of the members of this Society passed in that court, keeping vigils with the unhappy man whose fate hung tremulous on the decision of the young commissioner, was dark with despair; and the dawn of morning brought no hope to our souls. We confidently expected to witness again, as we had often witnessed before, the triumph of the kidnapper and his legal allies over law and justice and human liberty. In the afternoon of that day we re-assembled to hear the judicial decision which should consign the wretched man to slavery, and add another page to the record of Pennsylvania's disgrace. But a far different experience awaited us. Commissioner Longstreth obeyed the moral sentiment around him, and doubtless the voice of his conscience, and pronounced the captive free. "The closing scenes of this trial; the breathless silence with which the crowded assembly in the court-room waited to hear the death-knell of the innocent prisoner; the painfully sudden transition from despair to hope and thence to certainty of joy; the burst of deep emotion; the fervent thanksgiving, wherein was revealed that sense of the brotherhood of man which God has made a part of every human soul; the exultant shout which went up from the multitude who thronged the streets waiting for the decision"; these no language can portray, but they are life-long memories for those who shared in them. This event proved the great change wrought in the popular feeling, the result of twenty-five years of earnest effort to impress upon the heart of this community anti-slavery doctrines and sentiments. Then for the first time the Abolitionists of Philadelphia found their right of free speech protected by city authorities. Alexander Henry was the first Mayor of this city who ever quelled a pro-slavery mob.
Our last record of a victim sacrificed to this statute, is of the case of Moses Horner, who was kidnapped near Harrisburg in March, 1860, and doomed to slavery by United States Judge John Cadwallader, in this city. One more effort was made a few months later to capture in open day in the heart of this city a man alleged to be a fugitive slave, but it failed of ultimate success. The next year South Carolina's guns thundered forth the doom of the slave power. She aimed them at Fort Sumter and the United States Government. God guided their fiery death to the very heart of American slavery.
If the history of this Society were fully written, one of its most interesting chapters would be a faithful record of its series of annual fairs. Beginning in the year 1836, the series continued during twenty-six years, the last fair being held in December, 1861. The social attraction of these assemblies induced many young persons to mingle in them, besides those who labored from love of the cause. Brought thus within the circle of anti-slavery influence, many were naturally converted to our principles, and became earnest laborers in the enterprise which had so greatly enriched their own souls. The week of the fair was the annual Social Festival of the Abolitionists of the State. Though held under the immediate direction of this Society, it soon became a Pennsylvania institution. Hither our tribes came up to take counsel together, to recount our victories won, to be refreshed by social communion, and to renew our pledges of fidelity to the slave. There were years when these were very solemn festivals, when our skies were dark with gathering storms, and we knew not what peril the night or the morning might bring. But they were always seasons from which we derived strength and encouragement for future toil and endurance, and their value to our cause is beyond our power to estimate.
The pro-slavery spirit which always pervaded our city, and which sometimes manifested itself in the violence of mobs, never seriously disturbed our fair excepting in one instance. In the year 1859 our whole Southern country quaked with mortal fear in the presence of John Brown's great deed for Freedom. The coward North trembled in its turn lest its Southern trade should be imperilled, and in all its cities there went up a frantic cry that the Union must be saved and the Abolitionists suppressed. The usual time for holding our fair was at hand. Before it was opened a daily newspaper of this city informed its readers that notwithstanding the rebuke which the Abolitionists had received from a recent meeting of Union-savers, they had audaciously announced their intention of holding another fair, the avowed purpose of which was the dissemination of anti-slavery principles. The indignant journalist asked if Philadelphia would suffer such a fair to be held. This was doubtless intended as a summons to a mob, and a most deadly mob responded to the call. It did not expend its violence upon our fair, but against an assembly in National Hall, gathered to listen to a lecture by George W. Curtis, upon the Present Aspect of the Country.
The High Constable, Mayor, and Sheriff were the agents employed by the slave power to take and hold possession of Concert Hall, and in its behalf, if not in its name, to eject us and our property. The work was commenced by the Mayor, who sent the High Constable with an order that our flag should be removed from the street. Its offensiveness consisted in the fact that it presented to the view of all passers-by a picture of the Liberty Bell in Independence Hall, inscribed with the words, "Proclaim liberty throughout all the land, to all the inhabitants thereof." The next step was an attempt to induce the lessee to eject us from the hall. On his refusal to violate his contract with us, the trustees obtained legal authority to dispossess us on the plea that the hall had been rented for a purpose which tended to excite popular commotion. The sheriff entered, took possession, and informed the managers that our property must be removed within three hours. Then were the doors of this hall,[62] where we are now assembled, opened to us, and here our fair was held, with great success, during the remainder of the week. In the stormiest seasons of our enterprise these saloons have never been closed against anti-slavery meetings; and our fair of 1860 was welcomed to them amidst the loud threatenings of a mob which were seeking to appease the angry South, then just rising in open rebellion against the United States Government. The experience of those four days of December spent in these rooms will never be forgotten by us. It was a season of trial, of rejoicing, and of victory. The veterans of our cause, long accustomed to the threats and the presence of mobs, found reason for rejoicing in the courage and serenity with which the young recruits in our ranks faced the peril of scenes so new to them, and proved their faith in the principles of our cause and their devotion to the right. Our victory was complete, our right of peaceful assemblage maintained, without any active demonstration of hostility from the indignant citizens who had fiercely resolved that the Anti-Slavery Fair should be suppressed. Such demonstrations were, doubtless, restrained by a knowledge of the fact that they would be met by vigorous and effectual opposition by the Mayor of the city, who, upon that occasion, as upon many other similar ones, was faithful to the responsibility of his office.
In the year 1862 the nation was convulsed with the war consequent upon the Southern Rebellion; our soldiers, wounded and dying in hospitals and on battle-fields; claimed all possible aid from the community; anti-slavery sentiments were spreading widely through the North, and it was believed to be feasible and expedient to obtain the funds needful for our enterprise by direct appeal to the old and new friends of the cause. Therefore, our series of fairs closed with the twenty-sixth, in December, 1861.
The money raised by this Society in various ways amounted to about $35,000. Nearly the whole of this revenue has been expended in disseminating the principles of our cause, by means of printed documents and public lectures and discussions. In the earlier years of this Society, a school for colored children, established and taught by Sarah M. Douglass, was partially sustained from our treasury. We occasionally contributed, from our treasury, small sums for the use of the Vigilance Committees, organized to assist fugitive slaves who passed through this State on their way to a land where their right to liberty would be protected. But these enterprises were always regarded as of secondary importance to our great work of direct appeal to the conscience of the nation, in behalf of the slave's claim to immediate, unconditional emancipation. To this end a large number of tracts and pamphlets have been circulated by this Society; but its chief agencies have been the anti-slavery newspapers of the country. Regarding these as the most powerful instrumentalities in the creation of that public sentiment which was essential to the overthrow of slavery, we expended a considerable portion of our funds in the direct circulation of The Liberator, The Pennsylvania Freeman, and The National Anti-Slavery Standard, and a small amount in the circulation of other anti-slavery papers. Our largest appropriations of money have been made to the Pennsylvania and American Anti-Slavery Societies, and by those Societies to the support of their organs and lecturing agents.
The financial statistics of this Society are easily recorded. Certain great and thrilling events which marked its history are easily told and written. But the life which it lived through all its thirty-six years; the influence which flowed from it, directly and indirectly, to the nation's heart; the work quietly done by its members, individually, through the word spoken in season, the brave, self-sacrificing deed, the example of fidelity in a critical hour, the calm endurance unto the end; these can be written in no earthly book of remembrance. Its life is lived; its work is done; its memorial is sealed. It assembles to-day to take one parting look across its years; to breathe in silence its unutterable thanksgiving; to disband its membership, and cease to be. Reviewing its experience of labor and endurance, the united voices of its members testify that it has been a service whose reward was in itself; and contemplating the grandeur of the work accomplished (in which it has been permitted to bear a humble part), the overthrow of American slavery, the uplifting from chattelhood to citizenship of four millions of human souls; with one heart and one voice we cry, "Not unto us, O Lord! not unto us, but unto Thy name" be the glory; for Thy right hand and Thy holy arm "hath gotten the victory."
In 1838, Philadelphia was the scene of one of the most disgraceful mobs that marked those eventful days. The lovers of free speech had found great difficulty in procuring churches or halls in which to preach the anti-slavery gospel. Accordingly, a number of individuals of all sects and no sect, of all parties and no party, erected a building wherein the principles of Liberty and Equality could be freely discussed.
David Paul Brown, one of Pennsylvania's most distinguished lawyers, was invited to give the oration dedicating this hall to "Freedom and the Rights of Man." In accepting the invitation, he said:
For some time past I have invariably declined applications that might be calculated to take any portion of my time from my profession. But I always said, and now say again, that I will fight the battle of liberty as long as I have a shot in the locker. Of course, I will do what you require.
David Paul Brown.
Yours truly,
S. Webb and Wm. H. Scott, Esqs.
Whenever fugitives were arrested on the soil of Pennsylvania, this lawyer stood ready, free of charge, to use in their behalf his skill and every fair interpretation of the letter and spirit of the law, and availing himself of every quirk for postponements, thus adding to the expense and anxiety of the pursuer, and giving the engineers of the underground railroad added opportunities to run the fugitive to Canada.