The American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society split off from the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1840. The key issue was whether women could participate in abolitionist organizations; this Society was opposed.
The origin of the split, according to Lewis Tappan, was William Lloyd Garrison's goals of "'making an experiment upon the public' by foisting a host of radical issues upon the society." Lewis Tappan and his brother, Arthur, aimed to create "a new organization that, in his draft, would foreswear any effort 'to break up existing organizations in church or state' and would only 'give impetus to the usual forms of social action.'" Tappan renounced Garrisonian efforts to reveal the federal Constitution as a "slave compact" that should be replaced.
Within two years of the 1840 Society schism over the appointment of Abby Kelley to the Society business committee and efforts to wed abolition with first-wave feminism (and, to a lesser extent, over the roles of African-American leaders), the Tappan brothers, Henry Highland Garnet, Samuel Cornish, Edward Beecher, John Greenleaf Whittier, James G. Birney, Theodore S. Wright, Amos A. Phelps, and their adherents seceded from the American Anti-Slavery Society to form their "new organization". [1] [2]
Members of the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society held, first, that feminism had diverted attention from the abolitionist cause; and, second, derivative topics on gender and sexuality should remain distinct from that cause. This Society soon developed its own factionalism between those for (such as Birney), and those against, a national abolitionist political party.
Six African-American men also joined the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, principally due to a potential conflation of female leadership with white feminism in the American Anti-Slavery Society. [3] The formation in 1869 of the National Woman Suffrage Association and ethno-racial arguments by Elizabeth Cady Stanton in her weekly The Revolution substantiated these fears, to a certain degree, for a number of these men. Six black women became NWSA members, but only after Reconstruction. [4]
William Lloyd Garrison was an American abolitionist, journalist, and social reformer. He is best known for his widely read anti-slavery newspaper The Liberator, which Garrison founded in 1831 and published in Boston until slavery in the United States was abolished by the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865.
The American Anti-Slavery Society was an abolitionist society founded by William Lloyd Garrison and Arthur Tappan. Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave, had become a prominent abolitionist and was a key leader of this society, who often spoke at its meetings. William Wells Brown, also a freedman, also often spoke at meetings. By 1838, the society had 1,350 local chapters with around 250,000 members.
Arthur Tappan was an American businessman, philanthropist and abolitionist. He was the brother of Ohio Senator Benjamin Tappan and abolitionist Lewis Tappan, and nephew of Harvard Divinity School theologian Rev. Dr. David Tappan.
Theodore Dwight Weld was one of the architects of the American abolitionist movement during its formative years from 1830 to 1844, playing a role as writer, editor, speaker, and organizer. He is best known for his co-authorship of the authoritative compendium American Slavery as It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses, published in 1839. Harriet Beecher Stowe partly based Uncle Tom’s Cabin on Weld's text; the latter is regarded as second only to the former in its influence on the antislavery movement. Weld remained dedicated to the abolitionist movement until slavery was ended by the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1865.
The Liberator (1831–1865) was a weekly abolitionist newspaper, printed and published in Boston by William Lloyd Garrison and, through 1839, by Isaac Knapp. Religious rather than political, it appealed to the moral conscience of its readers, urging them to demand immediate freeing of the slaves ("immediatism"). It also promoted women's rights, an issue that split the American abolitionist movement. Despite its modest circulation of 3,000, it had prominent and influential readers, including all the abolitionist leaders, among them Frederick Douglass, Beriah Green, Arthur and Lewis Tappan, and Alfred Niger. It frequently printed or reprinted letters, reports, sermons, and news stories relating to American slavery, becoming a sort of community bulletin board for the new abolitionist movement that Garrison helped foster.
Parker Pillsbury was an American minister and advocate for abolition and women's rights.
Abby Kelley Foster was an American abolitionist and radical social reformer active from the 1830s to 1870s. She became a fundraiser, lecturer and committee organizer for the influential American Anti-Slavery Society, where she worked closely with William Lloyd Garrison and other radicals. She married fellow abolitionist and lecturer Stephen Symonds Foster in 1845, and they both worked for equal rights for women and for Africans enslaved in the Americas.
Lewis Tappan was a New York abolitionist who dedicated his life efforts to securing freedom for the enslaved Africans aboard the Amistad. He was born in Northampton, Massachusetts, into a Calvinist household.
The Liberty Party was an abolitionist political party in the United States before the American Civil War. The party experienced its greatest activity during the 1840s, while remnants persisted as late as 1860. It supported James G. Birney in the presidential elections of 1840 and 1844. Others who attained prominence as leaders of the Liberty Party included Gerrit Smith, Salmon P. Chase, Henry Highland Garnet, Henry Bibb, and William Goodell. They attempted to work within the federal system created by the United States Constitution to diminish the political influence of the Slave Power and advance the cause of universal emancipation and an integrated, egalitarian society.
Come-outer is a phrase coined in the 1830s which denotes a person who withdraws from an established organization or who advocates political reform. It originally referred to abolitionist Christians in America who left their churches due to opposing views on slavery.
Lucretia Mott was an American Quaker, abolitionist, women's rights activist, and social reformer. She had formed the idea of reforming the position of women in society when she was amongst the women excluded from the World Anti-Slavery Convention held in London in 1840. In 1848, she was invited by Jane Hunt to a meeting that led to the first public gathering about women's rights, the Seneca Falls Convention, during which the Declaration of Sentiments was written.
The Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society (1833–1840) was an abolitionist, interracial organization in Boston, Massachusetts, in the mid-19th century. "During its brief history ... it orchestrated three national women's conventions, organized a multistate petition campaign, sued southerners who brought slaves into Boston, and sponsored elaborate, profitable fundraisers."
The Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society (PFASS) was founded in December 1833, a few days after the first meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society, and dissolved in March 1870 following the ratification of the 14th and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. It was founded by eighteen women, including Lucretia Mott, Mary Ann M'Clintock, Margaretta Forten, her mother Charlotte, and Forten's sisters Sarah and Harriet.
Charles Turner Torrey was a leading American abolitionist. Although largely lost to historians until recently, Torrey pushed the abolitionist movement to more political and aggressive strategies, including setting up one of the first highly organized lines for the Underground Railroad and personally freeing approximately 400 slaves. Torrey also worked closely with free blacks, thus becoming one of the first to consider them partners. John Brown cited Torrey as one of the three abolitionists he looked to as models for his own efforts.
The World Anti-Slavery Convention met for the first time at Exeter Hall in London, on 12–23 June 1840. It was organised by the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, largely on the initiative of the English Quaker Joseph Sturge. The exclusion of women from the convention gave a great impetus to the women's suffrage movement in the United States.
In the United States, abolitionism, the movement that sought to end slavery in the country, was active from the colonial era until the American Civil War, the end of which brought about the abolition of American slavery, except as punishment for a crime, through the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
James George Barbadoes was an African-American, community leader, and abolitionist in Boston, Massachusetts in the early 19th century. Dedicated to improving the lives of people of color at the local level, as well as the national level.
The Massachusetts Abolition Society was an abolitionist organization founded by a group of individuals who disagreed with the progressive, and often radical, politics of William Lloyd Garrison and his followers of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. The former group particularly took issue with Garrison's non-government sentiments and advocacy of women’s rights.
Thankful Southwick was an affluent Quaker abolitionist and women's rights activist in Boston, Massachusetts. Thankful was lifelong abolitionist who joined the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society in 1835 with her three daughters. She was present at both the 1835 Boston Mob and the Abolition Riot of 1836. During the 1840 schism in the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society, Thankful sided with the Westons, Chapmans, Childs, Sergeants, and other radical Garrisonians to reestablish the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society. She also later joined the New England Non Resistance Society.
A symbolic day in the history of the American abolitionist movement was May 14, 1838. On that date two related events occurred: the inauguration in Philadelphia of Pennsylvania Hall, built to symbolize and facilitate the abolitionist movement, and the wedding of Theodore Weld and Angelina Grimké, "the wedding that ignited Philadelphia." The wedding was held that day because of the many out-of-town abolitionists present for the inauguration of the Hall.