American Anti-Slavery Society

AASS formed in 1833 in response to the nullification crisis and the failures of existing anti-slavery organizations, such as the American Colonization Society.

Prominent members included Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Theodore Dwight Weld, Lewis Tappan, James G. Birney, Lydia Maria Child, Maria Weston Chapman, Nathan Lord, Augustine Clarke, Samuel Cornish, George T. Downing, James Forten, Abby Kelley Foster, Stephen Symonds Foster, Henry Highland Garnet, Beriah Green, Lucretia Mott, Wendell Phillips, Robert Purvis, Charles Lenox Remond, Sarah Parker Remond, Lucy Stone, and John Greenleaf Whittier, among others.

In the North, discussion began about the possibility of freeing slaves and "resettling" them in Africa (a proposal that, under the auspices of the American Colonization Society, led to the founding of Liberia).

Agitation increased with the publication of David Walker's Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World in 1829, Nat Turner's slave rebellion in 1831, and Andrew Jackson's handling of the nullification crisis that same year.

According to Louis Ruchame,[1][page needed] The Turner rebellion was only one of about 200 slave uprisings between 1776 and 1860, but it was one of the bloodiest, and thus struck fear in the hearts of many white southerners.

Nat Turner and more than 70 enslaved and free blacks spontaneously launched a rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia, in August 1831.

President Andrew Jackson swept aside the states' rights arguments and threatened to use the army to enforce federal laws.

In the face of Jackson's determination, the state backed down, but the episode raised fears throughout the South that it was only a matter of time before Congress would begin to tamper with slavery.

Beginning in 1816, the American Colonization Society became the early antebellum locus of anti-slavery activity, presided over by James Madison in his last three years of life (until 1836).

The correspondence belied arguments that Madison completely capitulated to Virginia Antifederalist demands for an individual and state "right" to organize militias, in what would become the Second Amendment.

The scope of the Amendment potentially included slave patrols, stemming from Madison's attempts to ameliorate Antifederal proponents of state police powers in the Virginia ratification convention.

Another principal concern is the dismissal of additional intentions and considerations, including finalization of Second Amendment semantics by federal Senators, not Madison in the House of Representatives.

"[7] In perusing the correspondence with Pleasants, later ACS members heeded Madison's warning that immediate abolition proposals could lead to protracted Congressional debates.

Lengthy deliberations and Congressional sessions, in turn, allowed proslavery delegates sufficient time to propose the repeal of individual manumission codes in the several states, ostensibly in anticipation of federal abolition.

A corollary to this concern was that proslavery delegates, in the context of individual manumission codes, had hitherto demanded "a condition that the persons freed should be removed from the Country."

Between December 4–6, 1833, sixty delegates from New England, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York, and New Jersey convened a National Anti-Slavery Convention in Philadelphia.

[11]: 72 Beginning in January 1834 and ending in August of the same year, the society published the American Anti-Slavery Reporter, a monthly periodical containing professional essays regarding the subject of slavery.

According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, "The society's antislavery activities frequently met with violent public opposition, with mobs invading meetings, attacking speakers, and burning presses.

"[17] In July 1834 the aims of the society appear to have been misrepresented in the prelude to the Farren Riots in New York, which resulted in attacks on the homes and properties of abolitionists.

We disclaim and entirely disapprove the language of a handbill recently circulated in this city, the tendency of which is thought to be to excite resistance to the laws.

JOHN RANKINThe black clergyman Theodore S. Wright was a significant founding member and served on the executive committee until 1840.

A Presbyterian minister, Wright, together with well-known spokesmen such as Tappan and Garrison, agitated for temperance, education, black suffrage, and land reform.

These things meet us and weigh down our spirits....Many founding members used a practical approach to slavery, saying economically it did not make sense.

The ruling to exclude female abolitionists caused feminists Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton to form a group for women's rights, though it garnered little success initially.

Lucretia Mott, Lydia White, Esther Moore, and Sidney Ann Lewis attended on December 4, 1833, but none were able to sign the Constitution that day.

In contrast, women's participation in the American Anti-slavery Society became a quite contentious issue in the eastern United States.

Because women in the West had a more fluid approach to their political involvement, particularly when it came to Garrison's staunch disagreement with the Constitution, they were drawn to supporting the Liberty Party.

Lewis Tappan, Amos A. Phelps, and Charles W. Denison successively asked to be excused from serving on the committee, for reasons assigned; having reference to the appointment of Miss Kelly as a member.

[33] The formation of the National Woman Suffrage Association and ethno-racial "lower orders" arguments by Elizabeth Cady Stanton in her weekly The Revolution substantiated these fears, to a certain degree, for a number of these men.