But One Race: The Life of Robert Purvis

5. “ We are Not Intruders Here”

C H A P T E R 5  “ We are Not Intruders Here ” T homas Shipley had been one of several members of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society with whom the Philadelphia black community had worked harmoniously on antislavery issues, and such practical matters as the rescue of kidnapped blacks. But the organization of the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1833, with its call for immediate abolition, had attracted the white radicals as well as blacks to the new society. The Pennsylvania Abolition Society remained all white, and was growing not only more conservative, but also dwindling in membership. In the fall of 1836, therefore, a number of Philadelphia black abolitionists joined with their white counterparts in organizing a statewide Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society, to be affiliated with the American Anti-Slavery Society. Among the signers of a petition calling for an organizing meeting were James Forten, his sons, and his son-in-law, Robert Purvis. When a convention was called in Harrisburg on January 31 and February 1–3, 1837, Robert Purvis accompanied his aging father-in-law as a delegate, along with James McCrummill, William Dorsey, and William Whipper. There were two hundred delegates in all, one-third of them from the western part of the state. The convention adopted a constitution and went on record as opposing the admission of Texas as a slave state, as condemning the Colonization movement, and as advocating the use of non-resistance in vindicating the rights of the oppressed.1 Although Robert Purvis was to play a prominent role in this organization in future years, his name does not appear in the minutes of this gathering. In general the Philadelphia delegates, both black and white, maintained a low profile, for they wanted to draw in antislavery advocates 59 from around the state. In this they were unsuccessful, for the western abolitionists distrusted their eastern brethren. In 1839, the organization was split into eastern and western branches; however, the western branch dwindled. The westerners objected to mixing Garrisonian issues such as the admission of women, the advocacy of nonviolence, and a distrust of the political process into the antislavery movement.2 The purpose of the new antislavery society was to work for the emancipation of slaves in the South. But a few months after the organizing convention, abolitionists learned that blacks in Pennsylvania faced a new threat; their voting rights were being threatened. In theory, black Pennsylvanians could vote if they had lived for two years within the state and if they had paid county taxes. In practice, very few blacks were assessed , and very few voted, especially in the eastern portion of the state. Several attempts by radical reformers to arouse black voters to test their voting rights came to nothing.3 In the western parts of Pennsylvania, blacks had been accustomed to voting. In 1835, a black citizen, William Fogg of Luzerne County, went to the polls to vote; he was turned away. He brought suit in the County Court of Common Pleas, which upheld his right as a freeman and a taxpayer . Political opponents of black suffrage appealed the case to the Pennsylvania State Supreme Court, which overturned the ruling in July 1837; the ruling stated that under the state constitution of 1790, the black man had no right of suffrage.4 In May 1837, Pennsylvania lawmakers gathered in Harrisburg for a Reform Convention, to rewrite portions of the State Constitution which had become outdated. One object was to lower the property requirement for voting, thus admitting more working men into the voting pool. This laudable democratic impulse, however, encountered racial prejudice. If the property requirement was lowered, it would make more blacks eligible to vote. Though a few Pennsylvania lawmakers supported preserving the franchise for blacks, most opposed it, fearing that blacks, particularly in Philadelphia County, might actually dominate in some districts. They were influenced also by the fact that other states had recently disenfranchised blacks, based on the same reasoning. The black community had a few friends among the delegates. One was Thomas Earle, a Philadelphia Quaker lawyer, and a member of the American Anti-Slavery Society. On the first day of the sessions, he proposed that the Constitution be amended to penalize anyone . . . “who shall by mob violence or otherwise interfere with the right of freedom of speech, of the press, and of public discussion . . . and that the Legislature 60 But One Race shall provide...