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“the anti-slavery question is the great, moral and social question now before the American people.”

In his 1855 lecture on the anti-slavery movement, Frederick Douglass delivered a powerful call to action by underscoring the deep contradiction between American ideals and the reality of slavery, demonstrating how this hypocrisy tainted the nation’s morality and urging all Americans to advocate for universal liberty. Douglass not only argued that the nation’s founding documents inherently opposed slavery, but also framed abolitionism as a cause accessible to all Americans, regardless of education or class.

FREDERICK DOUGLASS. Printed Pamphlet, The Anti-Slavery Movement. A Lecture by Frederick Douglass, Before the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society. Rochester, New York: Lee, Mann & Co., 1855. 44 pp., 5½ x 8-5/8 in.

Inventory #27686       Price: $25,000

On March 19, 1855, Frederick Douglass delivered this lecture before the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society at the Corinthian Hall in Rochester. He was originally scheduled to deliver the lecture on February 16 but was delayed in Albany and prevented from speaking that night. He also delivered a similar lecture in Albany, Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Portland, Bangor, and other cities in the spring of 1855. Douglass published the entire lecture in the March 23, 1855, issue of Frederick Douglass’ Paper, which he published in Rochester.[1]

When Douglass delivered the lecture at Music Hall in Philadelphia, Judson J. Hutchinson, who sang at the meeting, afterward wrote a message to William Lloyd Garrison, explaining that he did “not endorse the sentiments uttered by Frederick Douglass” in his lecture. Others criticized Douglass for misrepresenting Garrisonian abolitionism. Douglass reprinted many of the criticisms in his own newspaper.[2]

Excerpts
“When I speak of the anti-slavery movement, I mean to refer to that combination of moral, religious and political forces which has long been, and is now, operating and co-operating for the abolition of slavery in this country, and throughout the world.” (p4)

“Of the existence and power of the anti-slavery movement, as a fact, you need no evidence.... One of the most powerful religious organizations (I allude to the Methodists) of this country, has been rent asunder, and its strongest bolts of denominational brotherhood started at a single surge. It has changed the tone of the Northern pulpit, and modified that of the press.... Party ties are loosened by it; and men are compelled to take sides for or against it, whether they will or not.” (p6-7)

“First, then, let us consider its history. About this there is much error, and little truth in many minds. Some who write and speak on the subject, seem to regard the anti-slavery movement as a recent discovery, brought out for the first time less than a quarter of a century ago. I cannot consent to view it thus. This movement is older and weightier than that. I would deprive William Lloyd Garrison of no honor justly his. All credit must forever redound to him as the man to whose earnest eloquence—more than to that of any other living man—we owe the revival of the anti-slavery movement in this country....” (p8)

“The patriots of the American Revolution clearly saw, and with all their inconsistency, they had the grace to confess the abhorrent character of slavery, and to hopefully predict its overthrow and complete extirpation.” (p10)

“It is hardly necessary, in this connection, to refer to the Society of Friends, in these early times. All who know anything of them, know that they were emancipationists. That venerable Society had made Abolitionism a fundamental religious duty, long before the oldest Abolitionist, now living, was on the stage.” (p16)

“This brings me to notice the revival of the anti-slavery movement twenty-five years ago.... Immediate and unconditional emancipation was proclaimed, as the right of the slave, and as the duty of the slave-holder. This demand was enforced in the name, and according to the law of the living God.” (p18)

“Speaking and writing on the subject of slavery became dangerous. Mob violence menaced the persons and property of the Abolitionists, and their very homes became unsafe for themselves and their families. Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, Cincinnati, and Utica, were under mob law.” (p19-20)

“The Methodist Church which, in its infancy and purity held so high a position, forgot her ancient testimonies; and led off, in a grand crusade, to put down the anti-slavery movement. It undertook to censure and silence such of its members as believed with John Wesley; that slavery is the sum of all villainies.” (p23)

“Let us now turn away from the Church, and examine the anti-slavery movement in its branches, for divisions are here, as well as elsewhere....There are four principal divisions.

“1st. The Garrisonians, or the American Anti-Slavery Society.

“2d. The Anti-Garrisonians, or the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society.

“3d. The Free Soil Party, or Political Abolitionists.

“4. The Liberty Party, or Gerrit Smith School of Abolitionists.” (p28-30)

“Its chief energies are expended in confirming the opinion, that the United States Constitution is, and was, intended to be a slave-holding instrument—thus piling up, between the slave and his freedom, the huge work of the abolition of the Government, as an indispensable condition to emancipation. My point here is, first, the Constitution is, according to its reading, an anti-slavery document; and, secondly, to dissolve the Union, as a means to abolish slavery, is about as wise as it would be to burn up this city, in order to get the thieves out of it. But again, we hear the motto, ‘no union with slave-holders;’ and I answer it, as that noble champion of liberty, N. P. Rogers, answered it with a more sensible motto, namely—'No union with slave-holding.’ I would unite with anybody to do right; and with nobody to do wrong.” (p33)

“The fourth division of the anti-slavery movement is the ‘Liberty Party’—a small body of citizens, chiefly in the State of New York, but having sympathizers all over the North. It is the radical, and to my thinking, the only abolition organization in the country, except a few local associations. It makes a clean sweep of slavery everywhere. It denies that slavery is, or can be legalized. It denies that the Constitution of the United States is a pro-slavery instrument, and asserts the power and duty of the Federal Government to abolish slavery in every State of the Union.” (p34-35)

“I am not gloomy. Present organizations may perish, but the cause will go on. That cause has a life, distinct and independent of the organizations patched up from time to time to carry it forward.” (p36)

“I have taken a sober view of the present anti-slavery movement. I am sober, but not hopeless. There is no denying, for it is everywhere admitted, that the anti-slavery question is the great, moral and social question now before the American people.” (p39)

“It is, therefore, upon the goodness of our cause, more than upon all other auxiliaries, that we depend for its final triumph.” (p41)

Frederick Douglass (1817-1895) was an orator, journalist, abolitionist, and distinguished African-American leader. Born a slave in Tuckahoe, Maryland, as Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, he assumed the name Douglass after he escaped from slavery in 1838. That year, he married Anna Murray (1813-1882), and they had five children. In 1841, Douglass successfully addressed a Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society convention and was employed as its agent. He wrote Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass in 1845 to document his experiences and sufferings and to silence those who contended that a man of his abilities could not have been a slave. Douglass soon became a noted anti-slavery orator and supporter of women’s rights, lecturing in both the United States and England. He attended the Seneca Falls Convention on women’s rights and signed its Declaration of Sentiments. Douglass edited his own newspaper, The North Star, for several years. In 1855, he published his second autobiography, My Bondage and My Freedom. During the Civil War, he was instrumental in advocating for African-American combat units, and in raising troops. He fought for passage of the Thirteenth (Abolition), Fourteenth (Equal Protection), and Fifteenth (Voting Rights) Amendments, through testimony to Congress, reports to the President, and regular appearances on the lecture circuit. In 1872, Douglass was nominated for vice-president by the Equal Rights Party on a ticket headed by Victoria Woodhull. Douglass was the first African American to serve in important federal posts, including Marshal of the District of Columbia (1877-1881), Recorder of Deeds for Washington D.C. (1881-1886), and Minister-General to Haiti (1889-1891). In 1881, he published Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, his third and final autobiography, which he revised in 1892. After the death of his wife Anna, Douglass married white suffragist Helen Pitts (1838-1903) in 1884, a marriage his children opposed.

Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society (1851-1868) was organized in August 1851 as the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Sewing Society by six women in Rochester, New York. Susan Farley Porter served as the first president, Julia Griffiths as secretary, and Maria G. Porter as treasurer. The Society (which dropped “Sewing” from its name before 1855devoted to the immediate abolition of slavery, but its members were also involved in the education of freedpeople and women’s rights. It maintained contact with several national leaders of the antislavery movement and provided important financial support to Frederick Douglass for the publication of his newspaper. In the late 1850s, British support helped maintain the viability of the organization. During the war, the organization helped freedpeople, but after the war and the establishment of the Freedmen’s Bureau, the Society rapidly declined and issued its last annual report in 1868.

Condition: Lacking both wrappers; pencil ownership name (“Geo Emmons”) and notations on title page and occasionally throughout.