Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery |The first United States abolition society, directed by Franklin

Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery

An Address to the Public, from the Pennsylvania Society for promoting the Abolition of Slavery, and the Relief of Free Negroes, unlawfully held in Bondage. … Signed by order of the Society, B. Franklin, President. Philadelphia, 9th of November, 1789. [printed with:] Philadelphia, 26 October, 1789. At a meeting of the Pennsylvania Society for promoting the Abolition of Slavery, &c. An essay of a Plan for improving the condition of Free Negroes, was presented by the committee appointed to prepare it, which after deliberate consideration was adopted as follows, A Plan for improving the condition of the Free Blacks. Philadelphia: Printed by Francis Bailey, (1789)

2 letterpress handbills (348 x 210 mm) printed on the first and third pages of a full-sheet bifolium of laid paper (unwatermarked; preserving deckle on all edges), docketed on verso of second leaf “Address for the Abolition of Slavery; Also a plan for improving free Negroes”; central vertical fold nearly fully separated, but still conjunct at top, a number of short marginal separations at horizontal folds.

Two vital manifestos of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery issued under the presidency of Benjamin Franklin. While the two statements were issued together and were actually printed on the same sheet of paper, they are each individually very rare and almost never found together, let alone still conjunct, as is the Snider set. We find only two instances in Rare Book Hub of the two texts being sold together, and in both cases they were disjunct: in the Ira Lipman library sold by us in 2021 and as part of a group of abolition publications sold by our London colleagues in 2016. We find no other copies of A Plan for improving the condition of the Free Blacks in the auction records at all and only two others of An Address to the Public, in 1978 and 1962. The two works were seemingly produced to be distributed together, however, since the first text, An Address, refers to “the annexed plan, which we have adopted, and which we conceive will essentially promote the public good, and the happiness of these our hitherto too much neglected fellow creatures.” The joint distribution of the two handbills is further demonstrated by the contemporary docket on the present copy, which references both texts.

The Address to the Public provides an overview of the Society’s work and makes a solicitation for financial support: “It is with peculiar satisfaction we assure the friends of humanity, that in prosecuting the design of our association, our endeavours have proved successful, far beyond most sanguine expectations. … [W]e have ventured to make an important addition to our original plan, and do therefore, earnestly solicit the support and assistance, of all who can feel the tender emotions of sympathy and compassion, or relish the exalted pleasure of beneficence.

“Slavery is such an atrocious debasement of human nature, that its very extirpation, if not performed with solicitous care, may sometimes open a source of serious evils. … To instruct; to advise; to qualify those who have been restored to freedom, for the exercise and enjoyment of civil liberty. To promote in them habits of industry; to furnish them with employments suited to their age, sex, talents, and other circumstances, and to procure their children an education calculated for their future situation in life. These are the great outlines of the annexed plan, which we have adopted, and which we conceive will essentially promote the public good, and the happiness of these our hitherto too much neglected fellow creatures.

“A Plan so extensive cannot be carried into execution, without considerable pecuniary resources, beyond the present ordinary funds of the society. We hope much from the generosity of enlightened and benevolent freemen, and will gratefully receive any donations or Subscriptions for this purpose, which may be made to our treasurer, James Starr, or to James Pemberton, chairman, of our committee of correspondence.”

The “annexed plan” describes the specific steps the Society will take to achieve its goals. “The business relative to Free Blacks, shall be transacted by a committee of twenty-four persons, annually elected by ballot, at the meeting of this society in the month called April, and in order to perform the different services, with expedition, regularity and energy; this committee shall resolve itself into the following sub-committees, viz.”: a committee of Inspection, a committee of Guardians, a committee of Education, and a committee of Employ.

ESTC locates copies in six United States institutions, but it is unclear whether they are all actually complete with the second leaf of text; the Library of Congress copy, for example, appears to comprise An Address to the Public only.

REFERENCES

ESTC W4578; Bristol B7029; Lipman/Celebration 119; not in Evans