Minutes of the Proceedings of the Second Convention of Delegates from the Abolition Societies Established in Different Parts of the United States / Assembled at Philadelphia, on the seventh day of January, / one thousand seven hundred and ninety-five, and continued, / by adjournments, until the fourteenth day of the same / month, inclusive

by Unknown

Adjourned till to-morrow afternoon at five o'clock.

January 9th. 1795.

The Convention met.

Present—Jonathan Edwards, Uriah Tracy, Zephaniah Swift, William Johnson, Lawrence Embree, William Dunlap, William Walton Woolsey, William Coxe, junior, James Sloan, Franklin Davenport, William Rawle, Robert Patterson, Benjamin Rush, Samuel Coates, Caspar Wistar, James Todd, Benjamin Say, Richard Bassett, Caleb Boyer, Cyrus Newlin, Joseph Warner, Samuel Sterett, Joseph Townsend, Joseph Thornburgh, John Bankson, Philip Moore, Edward Scott, James Houston.

A letter, from the President of the Providence Abolition Society, was read; by which it appeared, that Theodore Foster and George Benson were appointed to represent that Society in this Convention.

A letter, from the Washington Abolition Society in Pennsylvania, was, also, read, notifying the appointment of Thomas Scott, Absalom Baird, and Samuel Clark, as Representatives of the said Society, in this Convention.

The Secretary was directed to inform such of those gentlemen as are now in this city, of the receipt and purport of the above letters.

The Convention being informed, that the absence of Joseph Bloomfield, of New Jersey, was occasioned by sickness, mention thereof was ordered to be made on the Minutes.

The committee, appointed to consider of, and report, the objects proper for the consideration of the Convention, and the most suitable means of attaining the same, made report, which, after amendment, was adopted as follows, viz.

First, That an address be made, by this Convention, to the several Abolition Societies in the United States, recommending to them, to send Deputies to a Convention, similar to the present, to be holden in Philadelphia the first day of January, in the year 1796; also, that it be recommended to those Societies, who have not sent, to this Convention, complete copies of the laws of their several states, relative to slavery, to send, to the next Convention, copies of all such laws, both those which are now in force, and those which have been repealed; and to send, to the next, and every succeeding, Convention, an accurate list of their officers for the time being, together with an account of the place of their abode, and of the offices, civil, military, or ecclesiastic, which they may sustain, with the number of members of which they consist: that it be further recommended, to the several Societies, to send, annually, to the Convention, an accurate list of all those persons who have been relieved and liberated by their agency; and, also, an account of such trials and decisions of courts, the general knowledge of which they shall judge subservient to the cause of abolition: that it be recommended to the several Societies, to institute public periodical discourses, or orations, on the subject of slavery, and the means of its abolition; also, to continue, without remission, and in such ways as they shall, respectively, judge most likely to be successful, their exertions to procure an amelioration of the laws of their respective states, relative to the Blacks; and, at the same time, to give particular attention to the education of the black children: and, as an historical review of the legislative provisions, relative to slavery, in the several states of the Union, from their respective settlements to the present time, would be conducive to the general benefit,—that it be further recommended, to the several Abolition Societies, to take measures for procuring the materials, and promoting the publication, of such a work; and that a communication of the steps taken, in pursuance of this recommendation, be made to the ensuing Convention.