A Southern Quaker's Plan to Abolish Slavery

NOTES d? DOCUMENTS A SOUTHERN QUAKER'S PLAN TO ABOLISH SLAVERY1 Edited by Larry'Gara* In the fall of 1816 James Jones, a member of New Hope Monthly Meeting in Greene County, Tennessee, wrote his brother-in-law, John Ellis, who had moved to Ohio a decade earlier, telling him of the progress of antislavery sentiment and organization in Tennessee. Among other things Jones revealed a plan to attack slavery by persuading Congress to legislate against the interstate domestic slave trade, as it had previously outlawed the international slave trade. He hoped to use the recently-signed Treaty of Ghent as a partial basis for the legislative move. This aspect of his plan was eventually dropped but sentiment in favor of a sustained attack on the interstate slave trade grew among antislavery advocates. The slave trade provided the most visible example of the brutality of American slavery. Its slave pens, the cruel separation of families, and its auctions with human merchandise shocked nearly every visitor to the southern states. For many years James Jones was president of the Manumission Society of Tennessee and in that capacity he continued to recommend Federal action against the slave trade. Several memorials from the annual conventions petitioned Congress to prohibit the interstate slave trade. In 1828 Jones sent a communication from the Tennessee Society to the American Convention for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery and Improving the Condition of the African Race, in which he argued, "If Congress have power to regulate commerce between the * Professor of History and Government, Wilmington College. 1 The letter published here, James Jones to John Ellis, was not dated but someone, presumably ElUs, wrote on it "rec'd 10 mo 6 1816." The original is in the possession of the great-great-grandson of John Ellis, Dr. S. C. Ellis of Xenia, Ohio, who has kindly consented to its publication. Research for this article was made possible by a T. Wistar Brown Fellowship from Haverford College. 104 Notes and Documents105 several states, &c. let all friends of man solicit the Congress to pass laws to prohibit . . . the Internal Slave Trade." He suggested that it was "time for the people to be roused to their duty, and ask their rulers to abolish such things in plain, explicit terms."2 The American Convention, as well as numerous local antislavery societies, included ending the internal slave trade among its proposals for bringing about gradual emancipation. Congress, however, paid little heed to memorials recommending such highly controversial action. Probably because of the dubious constitutionality of the proposal, the abolitionists in the decades to follow turned to a more vulnerable aspect of slavery and demanded abolition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia, where congressional jurisdiction was unquestioned. Yet the proposal of James Jones and others had its effect. By suggesting Federal government action to end the domestic slave trade they educated many to the enormity of the trade's horror and stimulated discussion of the use of political power to deal with slavery itself. The raising of these issues also evoked a strong defensive response from the South, whose interests always seemed threatened by such discussions. In time, Southerners came to regard Federal interference with the internal slave trade as a justification for secession. In 1849 Richard W. Thompson, a frightened Indiana congressman, warned his colleagues against tampering with the trade. "If Congress shall attempt to interfere with the slave trade between the States," he predicted, "the inevitable, positive, direct result will be a dissolution of the Union."3 ... I hereby inform thee a little of the progress of the Manumission Society of Tennessee, in these parts, in order to Bring about a gradual abolition of Slavery in this State.4 I took an active part therein at the Commencement of Said Society which were but a few persons in number, which are increased now— upwards of 200 members that make Seven meetings, or Branches, of said Society of Tennessee.5 There is one branch in Jefferson County, called the Jefferson branch of above forty members, one branch in Sulivin County of near sixty members, called the Sulivin branch, three branches of Said Society in Green 2 Alice Dana Adams, TL· Neglected...