Introduction
The Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of
Slavery
April 14th marks the anniversary of the founding of the Pennsylvania Abolition
Society, the first organization anywhere dedicated to the abolition of
slavery. The Pennsylvania Abolition Society (PAS) was originally formed
in 1775 in Philadelphia, although its activities were suspended for the
duration of the Revolutionary War. Because of its proximity to Congress
in the 1790s, when Philadelphia was the capital of the United States,
the PAS often took the lead on the question of abolition on the national
stage, and was a model for abolition societies formed in other states.
Among the many prominent Pennsylvanians included in its membership were
Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Paine.
The Constitution of the Pennsylvania Society, for Promoting the Abolition
of Slavery (GLC 07485.02), printed in 1787, served as a public announcement
of the organization’s purpose, and inaugurated several decades of
legal activism. Between 1787 and 1830 the PAS drafted more than twenty
petitions to Congress and more than forty to the Pennsylvania legislature,
and gave direct legal aid to hundreds of African Americans in Pennsylvania.
Item Description and Credits
GLC 07485.02: The Constitution of the Pennsylvania Society,
for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, Pamphlet, 1787.
For more information or to obtain copies, contact Alyson Barrett at
reference@gilderlehrman.com
or call (212) 787-6616 ext. 209.
Suggested Reading
Books:
Basker, James G., Ed. Early American Abolitionists: A Collection
of Anti-Slavery Writings, 1760 - 1820. New York: The Gilder Lehrman
Institute of American History, 2007.
Berlin, Ira. Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery
in North America. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998.
Davis, David Brion. Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery
in the New World. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.
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