Abolitionists differed in their approach; nowhere could this be better illustrated than in the contrast between the old-school, pre-1830 reformers and their more strident successors. A deriptive glance at the earlier school will provide a sharpening of focus. American antislavery sentiment can be traced back to such colonial figures as Judge Samuel Sewall in Calvinist Massachusetts and the tailor-scrivener John Woolman among the Quakers. The first formally organized society against slavery was founded in Philadelphia in 1775, and it was incorporated fourteen years later under the kind of long title that became characteristic of the early groups, The Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage, and for Improving the Condition of the African Race. An antislavery society was or- ganized in New York in 1785, and soon after in New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Virginia. Early in 1794 delegates from five of these groups met in Philadelphia to form a national organization, The American Convention for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery and Improving the Condition of the African Race, a loose federation of state societies.
These earlier abolitionists had a religious orientation, a moderate and conciliatory tone, and, as previously noted, a colonizationist outlook. With branches in the slaveholding South, these reformers counted in their ranks an imposing roster of men of means and high public position. No Negroes or women held membership in their societies, and no attempt was made to form children's auxiliary chapter.
The religious impulse that guided these early reformers was the belief that slavery was a sin for which God would eventually exact retribution. The Friends were prominent in the movement. In Pennsylvania they were its backbone; in- deed, only Quakers were admitted to the first two conventions of the Pennsylvania abolitionists. Quakers had good precedents for the work; out of their number had come John Woolman and his close friend and successor, Anthony Benzet, the leading antislavery propagandist in late-eighteenth-century America. Quaker reformers were active in Maryland and Virginia before the 1700's drew to a close. Other religious groups adopted official resolutions condemning slavery, Virginia Baptists taking such a step in 1789, the Presbyterian General Assembly in 1795, and the Methodists during a series of four conferences from 1780 to 1796.
Early abolitionism had a certain Southern flavor. In 1827 the free states had 24 societies with a membership of 1500, but this hardly compared with the 130 societies in the slave states with a membership of 6625.13 One of the more zealous of the Southern organizers was a Quaker, Charles Osborne, who in 1814 organized the Tennessee Society for Promoting the Manumission of Slaves, thus advancing a reformist out- look in East Tennessee.
Elihu Burritt: Towering Figure of American Pacifism
