Declaration of the Anti-Slavery Convention, December 4, 1833.
Previously Unacknowledged Key Abolition Document
By Lucretia Mott
Rare Issue Printed On Silk
[Mott, Lucretia et al.]. Declaration of the Anti-Slavery Convention. Assembled in Philadelphia December 4, 1833. [Philadelphia:] Merrihew & Gunn, Printers, No. 7 Carter’s Alley, [1833].
Broadside, printed on silk, 19 x 12 1/8”; printed double columns, about 1,200 words; large anti-slavery allegorical woodcut of a man wrestling with a lion (4½ x 6½”) at top; highly ornate 1 1/8” composite border of various fancy ornaments; some wear to top margin (outside or the border, crease in center); several lateral splits in fabric but generally very good; text fresh and dark. Matted and in custom-made black quarter morocco clamshell box.
First Edition. Lucretia Mott (1793-1880), feminist, abolitionist, minister, advocate for peace and social justice, is now widely recognized as one of the major figures behind every major reform movement of the 19th century. Born Lucretia Coffin to a Nantucket Quaker family, she married James Mott, a like-minded Quaker and reformer in 1811. In 1833 she founded the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society, and in 1840 sailed to England with her husband to attend the World’s Anti-Slavery Convention as a delegate. Debate on the role of women within the abolitionist movement in the United States and elsewhere intensified during the 1830s as women increasingly spearheaded independent initiatives. William Lloyd Garrison, for one, saw the issues of abolitionism and women’s rights as intertwined. When the World’s Anti-Slavery Convention met, delegates quickly addressed the question of whether seven women delegates from America (including Elizabeth Cady Stanton) would be seated. The convention deemed that women delegates would distract from the great issue at hand and refused to seat them. The refusal fired Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton; their spirited exchange of views would lead to the first women’s rights convention 15 years later. As Garrison later wrote the convention stood ironically “rather as a landmark in the history of the woman question than in that of abolition.”
Although the text of this 1833 “Declaration” is well known and was reprinted many times, there is only one other known copy of this broadside printed on silk and that is in the collection of the American Antiquarian Society. There are two known copies of this broadside printed on paper, although the paper copies do not have the illustration or the fancy border, and are, consequently, far less dramatic. This, then, is one of only four known copies of the text, and one of two on silk, illustrated.
In December, male anti-slavery advocates from New England and New York joined their colleagues in Philadelphia for a three-day meeting at which the American Anti-Slavery Society was organized. On the second day, apparently as an afterthought, an invitation was sent to the Philadelphia antislavery women. Lucretia Mott, accompanied by her mother, her daughter, and two sisters, joined the group of men. All the women were Quakers – as were seventeen of the men – and were accustomed to speaking in mixed assemblages. This 1833 Declaration of the American Anti-Slavery Society is signed in type by John Greenleaf Whitter, William Lloyd Garrison, Samuel J. May and 57 other men. However, a number of women were present at this formative meeting, including Lucretia Mott who helped to draft the Declaration (as perhaps did other women) and they were NOT asked to sign the Declaration. “When the first crucial session of the day was delayed because two prominent men failed to appear, causing doubt and confusion, Mrs. Mott rallied the group by reminding them that ‘right principles are stronger than great names.’” When a Declaration of Sentiments and Purposes was drafted, she suggested that it would sound better if key sentences were transposed. Though Lucretia Mott helped to draft this historic document, it did not occur to her, or to any o
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