James G. Birney
James Gillespie Birney (born February 4, 1792 in Danville , Kentucky , † November 25, 1857 in Perth Amboy , Middlesex County , New Jersey ) was an American abolitionist , politician and lawyer.
youth
James Gillespie Birney was the son of a wealthy, Irish , Episcopal slave owner with the same name. He was born in Danville, Kentucky. He lost his mother in his youth. He and his sister grew up with their aunt, who, at her father's request, came over from Scotland to look after them. In 1795, his father's second sister had immigrated with her family from Ireland and settled on farms near his home. Most of his mother's relatives had immigrated as well and settled in other areas of Mercer County, Kentucky. As he grew up, he saw the issue of slavery from a variety of perspectives. Although his father fought for their state not to join the Union as a slave state , he failed and declared that as long as slavery was not abolished as a whole by the legislature , a person could have slaves as long as he treated them humanely. Other members of Birney's family felt personally and morally responsible that they turned down their own slaves. In particular, the aunt they grew up with did not have their own slaves and paid them when they worked for her. Birney himself agreed with his father and received his first slave at the age of six. However, for most of his youth and upbringing, he was influenced by teachers and friends with strong anti-slavery views. For example, in his youth he attended some sermons by David Barrow, a Baptist and abolitionist, which he later fondly remembered.
Education
When Birney was eleven, he was sent to Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky, where he stayed for two years. On his return he attended a school that had just opened in Dansville and was run by a Presbyterian . He made very good progress there in his studies, which mainly dealt with natural sciences. From 1808, at the age of 17, he attended the College of New Jersey , which later became Princeton University . There he studied political philosophy , logic and ethics . He was also known as an accomplished debater. Among his classmates, he was particularly good friends with George M. Dallas . He studied under the Dean, Samuel Stanhope Smith , who was both a logician and a source of weak anti-slavery views. He believed that slavery was morally wrong, but upheld the property rights of citizens. Birney graduated from Princeton on September 26, 1810.
When he returned to Danville, he campaigned for Henry Clay for a month . He then began to study law in the legal practice of Alexander J. Dallas , the father of his Princeton friend and classmate, in Philadelphia . He had good financial means, had a horse-drawn carriage for transportation, and was always well dressed. He was also friends with members of the local Quaker community . He stayed in Philadelphia with Dallas for the next three years until he passed his licensing exam and was inducted into the bar.
Legal practice
In May 1814 Birney returned to his hometown, opened a law firm there and became the deputy in-house counsel of the local bank. He has handled both civil and criminal litigation in Danville, as well as other outlying counties of Kentucky. Kentucky's economy was in dire straits at the time as the British-American War , also known as the "War of 1812" , caused a split within the state. Until the situation normalized, Birney lived primarily as a claims adjuster.
Following in his father's footsteps, Birney returned to Danville and became a Freemason and a member of Danville's city council, making him one of the city's social elite . He fell in love with Agatha McDowell and married her on February 1, 1816 in a Presbyterian church. Among the young couple's wedding favors were slaves from their father and father-in-law. Since Birney had not yet developed his abolitionist views, he accepted them. It should be mentioned here that he had said on many occasions in later life that he could not recall ever having believed that slavery was right.
Kentucky's politics
In 1815 he took part again in the election campaign of Henry Clay, who ran for the US Congress and was ultimately elected. Birney also campaigned for George Madison , who ran for and won the governorship of Kentucky. However, Madison passed away a few months later. His political views at the time coincided with those of the Democratic Republican Party . In 1816 Birney won a seat in the Kentucky General Assembly , where he represented Mercer County. He became a member of the Kentucky House of Representatives at the age of 24 . In 1817, the Kentucky Senate drafted a resolution proposing the opening of a dialogue between the newly-in-office of Kentucky Governor Gabriel Slaughter and the Ohio and Indiana governors with the aim of passing laws in these states that allow apprehension and repatriation of runaway slaves from Kentucky.
Birney was steadfast against this resolution and was defeated, but a new resolution was drafted and passed soon after, which also happened against Birney's resistance. When he saw little future for himself in Kentucky's politics, Birney decided to move to Alabama , where he hoped to start a political career.
Alabama
In February 1818, he moved his family to Madison County, Alabama, where he bought a cotton plantation and slaves, most of whom came with him from Kentucky. In 1819 he was elected to the Alabama House of Representatives, where he represented Madison County. During this time, he helped draft a law that would allow slaves on trial to be a jury paid attorney, except in the case of the master and a prosecutor's witness or their relatives who would be members of the jury. This, along with his opposition to Andrew Jackson's nomination for US president , long hampered his political ambitions in Alabama. He turned down Jackson's nomination primarily on the grounds that he was ill-tempered and previously personally executed two men .
In 1823, after experiencing much trouble with his cotton plantation, Birney moved to Huntsville, Alabama, where he practiced as a lawyer. His financial troubles also stemmed in part from his horse betting habit , which he gave up after many losses. Most of his slaves remained on the plantation, although he brought his servant Michael to Huntsville, as well as his wife and three children.
There were a number of other practicing lawyers in the area at the time, including John McKinley . This helped him to be admitted to the Alabama Bar Association. McKinley made along with several other prominent members of society successfully campaigned for a Birney, he that Attorney General ( Engl. Solicitor General ) was from Alabama. At the end of the year he decided to give up his plantation and sold the slaves there to a friend who was known for his good temperament and loving treatment of the slaves. After the plantation and the slaves were sold, he achieved financial stability, bought a cheap piece of land in the country and built a large brick house in Huntsville. It was like his first return to Danville years ago that he wanted him back to join the social elite. In addition to his duties as a public prosecutor, his private legal practice has proven to be very lucrative.
In 1825 he was the richest attorney in northern Alabama and was a partner of Arthur F. Hopkins. The following year he resigned as attorney general and pursued his own career with more tenacity. Over the next several years he worked, often defending black people, was appointed curator for a private school, and joined the Presbyterian Church. In 1828 he became an elector on the ballot of John Quincy Adams and Richard Rush . He strongly supported Adams for his conservatism and viewed the policies of Andrew Jackson and John C. Calhoun as a threat to the Union. To Birney's great disappointment, Jackson won the election. However, he found other ways to represent his beliefs. In 1829, his fellow citizens elected him mayor of Huntsville, Alabama. This allowed him to act on his new found beliefs so that he worked on reforms for public education and temperance.
American Colonization Society
Birney's religious zeal also encouraged him to reassess his views on slavery. Increasingly alienated from the politics of Jackson's administration, he discovered the American Colonization Society in 1826 . He was introduced to ACS by Henry Clay Josiah Polk in 1829 and became an early supporter of the Society. He was fascinated by the possibility of solving the problem of free blacks by establishing a colony of them in Liberia , Africa . In January 1830 he helped establish a local chapter in Huntsville, Alabama, and signed the relevant papers.
He was sent on a short trip to the east coast for the University of Alabama to find new professors for the college, which came after receiving a generous foundation for the school. From August to October 1830 he visited Philadelphia, New Brunswick , New York , New Haven , Boston , Ohio and Kentucky. He returned with a number of recommendations and was thanked for his service. While he was in these areas, with the exception of Kentucky, he had been profoundly encouraged by the free states found in the Union. In the same year he had had such a falling out with Henry Clay that he stopped campaigning for the Democratic Republican Party. In 1831 Birney considered moving to Illinois because he was troubled by the idea that his children would grow up in a slave state.
He often mentioned moving to Illinois, testifying that he would release his remaining slave Michael, his wife, and his three children there. However, this never happened. In 1832 the American Colonization Society offered him a position as a representative traveling the south to promote their cause, and he accepted. He had some success, including organizing settlers' departure to Liberia and writing essays defending colonization. However, he failed to convince his audience of the colonization, so that he began to doubt its effectiveness and the acceptance of slavery. In 1832 he decided to return to Danville, Kentucky.
Gradual emancipation
Danville
A year before his return to Danville, Birney wrote letters to slave owners in Kentucky who had previously expressed their support for emancipation , suggesting that a convention be held on the matter. The meeting was held on December 6, 1832, with only nine slave owners present. Most of them said they would not release their current slaves, but they agreed to release their descendants at the age of 21. This small group managed to recruit non-slave owners for the idea of “gradual” emancipation.
Abolitionist
In 1833 he read a document signed by some Christian organizations that opposed the teachings of the American Colonization Society and instead called for the immediate abolition of slavery. This, together with his life experiences and upbringing, made Birney realize that slavery must be abolished once and for all. Inspired by the Lane Seminary debates, he released his remaining slaves and declared himself an abolitionist in 1834.
Cincinnati
In August 1835 Birney visited Cincinnati , where he made treaties with friends and members of the abolitionist movement. He published an anti-slavery newspaper to gain more support. There were four newspapers in the city at the time, and all but the Cincinnati Daily Gazette published critical editorials the next day, attacking the errors of abolitionism in general. One newspaper, The Daily Post , not to be confused with the Cincinnati Post , even asked to lynch those who initiated anti-slavery literature in their city.
The Gazette, owned by publisher Charles Hammond, was something of an ally of Birney and his newspaper. While Hammond himself did not advocate equal rights for African Americans , he supported the idea of freedom of the press and freedom of expression . He resented the south for making efforts to legalize slavery in the north.
In October 1835, Birney and his family moved to Cincinnati, where he prepared the weekly publication of his abolitionist newspaper, The Philanthropist . From his arrival, he and the newspaper were an object of contention; the majority of the local newspapers and others did everything to make him feel undesirable. The Louisville Journal wrote a hurtful editorial that threatened its newspaper almost directly. However, writing for the newspaper helped him come up with ideas for combating slavery before the legislature. He used this when he was working with Salmon P. Chase to protect slaves who escaped to Ohio. In 1837 the American Anti-Slavery Society recruited him as a civil servant with a corresponding secretary, so that he and his family moved to New York.
Liberty Party
With the split in the American Anti-Slavery Society in the 1840s, he resigned from his post because he opposed equal rights for women. In the same year nominated the Freedom Party ( English. Liberty Party ), a newly formed political party whose sole aim was the abolition of slavery, Birney as a presidential candidate. Precisely predicting that he would not win, he instead went as a delegate to the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London . The convention named him Vice-President and distributed his letters throughout England. When he returned to the United States, the Liberty Party used his legal expertise in their efforts to defend blacks and fugitive slaves. She also elected him as her candidate for the presidential election of 1844 .
Michigan
1841 Birney moved with his new wife and family to Saginaw ( Michigan ). There he lived in the weaving house for a few months until his house in Bay City was finished. Birney worked in the Bay City real estate development business. He was also a trustee of the reorganized Saginaw Bay Company and was heavily involved in the planning of Bay City. Birney Park was named after him. Birney and the other city developers supported churches in their parish by putting money aside for church building. He also ran in the presidential elections of 1840 and 1844. Then in 1845 he got 3,023 votes for governor of Michigan. Birney stayed in Michigan until 1855 when health problems forced him to move to the east coast.
While living in Bay City, he ran a farm where he did agricultural work, worked as a lawyer and property developer, and in national anti-slavery engagements. He reported on the scarce work in the city, so that he was mostly at home.
His son, James Birney , came to Bay City, then Lower Saginaw , to look after his father's business interests in the city. James stayed in Bay City and continued his father's work in the civil service. He was buried in Pine Ridge Cemetery on the east side of town.
Paralysis
In August 1845, Birney had a riding accident from which he was supposed to withhold paralysis that recurred at irregular intervals for the rest of his life. His speech was compromised as his condition worsened until he was finally able to communicate using only gestures and writing, the last of which was made difficult by violent tremors. As a result, he ended his public career and his direct involvement in the abolitionist movement, but was kept informed of the latest developments. He died in New Jersey in 1857 in a community settlement surrounded by abolitionist friends, convinced that war would be necessary to end slavery. He was buried in Williamsburg Cemetery in Groveland, New York, home of his wife's family. In 1840 he had married Elizabeth Potts Fitzhugh, sister of Henry Fitzhugh and Ann Carroll Fitzhugh, who was the wife of Gerrit Smith .
Web links
- American National Biography Online: Birney, James Gillespie. 26 Jan 2008.
- Books on Birney and the Anti-Slave Movement on the Internet Archive - online
literature
- Fladeland, Betty: James Gillespie Birney: Slaveholder to Abolitionist . Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York 1955.
- Encyclopedia of Kentucky . Somerset Publishers, New York, New York 1987, ISBN 0-403-09981-1 , pp. 112-116.
Individual notes
- ^ National Portrait Gallery
- ^ History of Bay County, Michigan: And Representative Citizens By Augustus H Gansser
- ^ The New American Cyclopaedia: A Popular Dictionary of General Knowledge By George Ripley, Charles Anderson Dana page 287
- ^ Transcriptions from Gravestones, at RootsWeb
- ^ Descendants of George Mason, 1629–1686 ( January 15, 2009 memento on the Internet Archive ), Fitzhugh genealogy.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Birney, James G. |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Birney, James Gillespie |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American lawyer, politician, and abolitionist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 4, 1792 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Danville , Kentucky |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 25, 1857 |
| Place of death | Perth Amboy , Middlesex County , New Jersey |