Hovey Fund

Last updated April 07, 2019

The Hovey Fund was created by a bequest from Charles Fox Hovey (1807-1859), a Boston merchant who supported a variety of social reform movements. Hovey left $50,000 to support abolitionism and other types of social reform, including "women's rights, non-resistance, free trade and temperance."^[1] Hovey appointed a committee of trustees to administer the fund, headed by abolitionist Wendell Phillips. Hovey specified that the funds should be spent at the rate of $8,000 per year to meet immediate needs.^[2]

Charles Fox Hovey (1807–1859) was a businessman in Boston, Massachusetts who established C.F. Hovey and Co., a department store on Summer Street. Through the years Hovey's business partners included Washington Williams, James H. Bryden, Richard C. Greenleaf and John Chandler. In 1947 Jordan Marsh absorbed Hovey's.

Abolitionism in the United States was the movement before and during the American Civil War to end slavery in the United States. In the Americas and western Europe, abolitionism was a movement to end the Atlantic slave trade and set slaves free. In the 17th century, enlightenment thinkers condemned slavery on humanistic grounds and English Quakers and some Evangelical denominations condemned slavery as un-Christian. At that time, most slaves were Africans, but thousands of Native Americans were also enslaved. In the 18th century, as many as six million Africans were transported to the Americas as slaves, at least a third of them on British ships to North America. The colony of Georgia originally abolished slavery within its territory, and thereafter, abolition was part of the message of the First Great Awakening of the 1730s and 1740s in the Thirteen Colonies.

Wendell Phillips was an American abolitionist, advocate for Native Americans, orator, and attorney.

The fund paid Susan B. Anthony's salary ($12 per week) while she coordinated the Women's Loyal National League's massive petition drive asking Congress to approve an amendment that would abolish slavery.^[3] With 400,000 signatures, it was the largest petition drive in the nation's history up to that time, gathering signatures from approximately one out every twenty-four adults in the Northern states and significantly contributing to the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.^[4]

Susan B. Anthony was an American social reformer and women's rights activist who played a pivotal role in the women's suffrage movement. Born into a Quaker family committed to social equality, she collected anti-slavery petitions at the age of 17. In 1856, she became the New York state agent for the American Anti-Slavery Society.

The Women's Loyal National League, also known as the Woman's National Loyal League and other variations of that name, was formed on May 14, 1863, to campaign for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would abolish slavery. It was organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, its president, and Susan B. Anthony, its secretary. In the largest petition drive in the nation's history up to that time, the League collected nearly 400,000 signatures on petitions to abolish slavery and presented them to Congress. Its petition drive significantly assisted the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, which ended slavery in the U.S. The League disbanded in August 1864 after it became clear that the amendment would be approved.

The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. In Congress, it was passed by the Senate on April 8, 1864, and by the House on January 31, 1865. The amendment was ratified by the required number of states on December 6, 1865. On December 18, 1865, Secretary of State William H. Seward proclaimed its adoption. It was the first of the three Reconstruction Amendments adopted following the American Civil War.

Hovey was one of a group of Boston businessmen who had provided most of the funding for the American Anti-Slavery Society in the years prior to the American Civil War.^[5] During and after the war the Hovey fund helped to sustain the Anti-Slavery Society as fund-raising became more difficult and the cost of publishing abolitionist newspapers increased sharply. After slavery in the U.S. was abolished by the Thirteenth Amendment, the fund's continued support assisted the Anti-Slavery Society's campaign for the political rights of the newly freed slaves, playing a crucial role in the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment and Fifteenth Amendments, which secured citizenship and voting rights for African Americans.^[6]^[7]

The American Anti-Slavery Society was an abolitionist society founded by William Lloyd Garrison and Arthur Tappan. Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave, was a key leader of this society who often spoke at its meetings. William Wells Brown was also a freed slave who often spoke at meetings. By 1838, the society had 1,350 local charters with around 250,000 members.

American Civil War Civil war in the United States from 1861 to 1865

The American Civil War was a war fought in the United States from 1861 to 1865, between the North and the South. The Civil War is the most studied and written about episode in U.S. history. Primarily as a result of the long-standing controversy over the enslavement of black people, war broke out in April 1861 when secessionist forces attacked Fort Sumter in South Carolina shortly after Abraham Lincoln had been inaugurated as the President of the United States. The loyalists of the Union in the North proclaimed support for the Constitution. They faced secessionists of the Confederate States in the South, who advocated for states' rights to uphold slavery.

The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments. Arguably one of the most consequential amendments to this day, the amendment addresses citizenship rights and equal protection of the laws and was proposed in response to issues related to former slaves following the American Civil War. The amendment was bitterly contested, particularly by the states of the defeated Confederacy, which were forced to ratify it in order to regain representation in Congress. The amendment, particularly its first section, is one of the most litigated parts of the Constitution, forming the basis for landmark decisions such as Brown v. Board of Education (1954) regarding racial segregation, Roe v. Wade (1973) regarding abortion, Bush v. Gore (2000) regarding the 2000 presidential election, and Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) regarding same-sex marriage. The amendment limits the actions of all state and local officials, including those acting on behalf of such an official.

A controversy over the fund developed after the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified. Hovey's will stipulated that if slavery was abolished before the fund's money was exhausted, the remainder was to be channeled to other specified reform movements, including the women's rights movement. Despite the fact that the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery in 1865, Phillips declared that slavery would not truly be abolished until African Americans secured the right to vote, and he continued to channel much of the fund's money to that cause.^[8] Leaders of the women's movement were furious at being denied money that rightfully belonged to them, especially when they desperately needed it to finance what they had hoped would be a pivotal campaign in Kansas by the American Equal Rights Association to achieve suffrage for all state citizens regardless of race or sex.^[9]

Kansas is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka and its largest city is Wichita, with its most populated county being Johnson County. Kansas is bordered by Nebraska on the north; Missouri on the east; Oklahoma on the south; and Colorado on the west. Kansas is named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the (south) wind" although this was probably not the term's original meaning. For thousands of years, what is now Kansas was home to numerous and diverse Native American tribes. Tribes in the eastern part of the state generally lived in villages along the river valleys. Tribes in the western part of the state were semi-nomadic and hunted large herds of bison.

The American Equal Rights Association (AERA) was formed in 1866 in the United States. According to its constitution, its purpose was "to secure Equal Rights to all American citizens, especially the right of suffrage, irrespective of race, color or sex." Some of the more prominent reform activists of that time were members, including women and men, blacks and whites.

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References

↑ Dudden (2011), p. 23
↑ Dudden (2011), p. 23
↑ Venet (1991), pp. 110-111
↑ Venet (1991), p. 148
↑ Abbott (1991) p. 20
↑ Dudden (2011), pp. 52-53, 105
↑ DuBois (1978), p. 56
↑ Dudden (2011), p. 68
↑ Dudden (2011), pp. 105, 108

Abbott, Richard. Cotton and Capital: Boston Businessmen and Antislavery Reform, 1854-1868. University of Massachusetts Press, 1991. ISBN 978-0870237492
DuBois, Ellen Carol. Feminism and Suffrage: The Emergence of an Independent Women's Movement in America, 1848-1869. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1978. ISBN 0-8014-8641-6
Dudden, Faye E. Fighting Chance: The Struggle over Woman Suffrage and Black Suffrage in Reconstruction America. Oxford University Press, New York, 2011. ISBN 978-0-19-977263-6
Venet, Wendy Hamand. Neither Ballots nor Bullets: Women Abolitionists and the Civil War, University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, 1991. ISBN 978-0813913421.

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[1] Dudden (2011), p. 23

[2] Dudden (2011), p. 23

[3] Venet (1991), pp. 110-111

[4] Venet (1991), p. 148

[5] Abbott (1991) p. 20

[6] Dudden (2011), pp. 52-53, 105

[7] DuBois (1978), p. 56

[8] Dudden (2011), p. 68

[9] Dudden (2011), pp. 105, 108