Page 82 - Swann Galleries - Printed & Manuscript African Americana- Sale 2308 - March 21, 2013

123 ● (SLAVERY AND ABOLITION—PERIODICALS.) RUSSELL, GEORGE,
Owner, WRIGHT, ELIZUR, editor The Massachusetts Abolitionist, Volume I,
Number 1, February 7, 1839 through Volume I, number 52 for February 13,
1840. [Description.] Boston, 1840. [4,000/6,000]
THE COMPLETE FIRST YEAR OF THIS IMPORTANT NEWSPAPER. The Massachusetts
Abolitionist was founded by George Russell and edited by Elizur Wright. Dedicated to the
total erasure of slavery, the Abolitionist broke with the Garrisonians over policy issues, and held
a more rigid stance, that included emancipation with no compensation for slaveholders. The
Abolitionist was probably a little too radical for most and could not compete with the better
backed Liberator and the Anti-Slavery Standard.After 1841,Wright changed the name of the
paper to The Free American, but to no avail. It was finally absorbed by the Emancipator. Like
most anti-slavery periodicals, the Abolitionist printed a good deal of poetry. A lot of the verse
generated in opposition to slavery, was truly little more than well-meaning doggerel. However
some of the verse found in the pages of the Massachusetts Abolitionist is truly striking.That of
Richard Robert Madden is a prime example. The October 21 issue carries a 48 verse poem
titled “The Slave Trade Merchant,” an attack on S.B. Trist, the American Consul to Cuba
who defended the slave traders. Madden (1798-1886) was employed in the British civil service
from 1833, first as a justice of the peace in Jamaica, where he was one of six Special
Magistrates sent to oversee the eventual liberation of Jamaica’s slave population, according to the
terms of the Slavery Abolition Act 1833. From 1835 he was Superintendent of the freed
Africans in Havana and in 1839 became the investigating officer into the slave trade on the
west coast of Africa.
124 ● (SLAVERY AND ABOLITION.) PETERS, RICHARD, Reporter of the
Decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States. Report of the Case of Edward
Prigg against The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Argued and Adjudged in
The Supreme Court of the United States at January Term, 1842. In which it was
decided that All the Laws of the Several States Relative to Fugitive Slaves Are
Unconstitutional and Void; and That Congress Have the Exclusive Power of
Legislation on the Subject of Fugitive Slaves Escaping into Other States. 140
pages. Tall 8vo, original ribbed black publisher’s cloth with title in gilt up the spine; small
chip to front joint; spine extremities with minor wear.
Philadelphia: L. Johnson, 1842 [1,500/2,500]
FIRST EDITION OF THE STENOGRAPHIC REPORT ON ONE OF THE TWO MOST IMPOR-
TANT SLAVERY CASES ARGUED BEFORE THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES.
In 1837, Margaret Morgan, a Maryland slave who had escaped into Pennsylvania five years
earlier, was apprehended by her master’s agent, Edward Prigg. However, after taking Margaret
and her children back to the “Old Line State,” Prigg was himself jailed for violating an 1826
Pennsylvania personal liberty law. Now, even though the local lower level court had charged and
found Prigg guilty of kidnapping; conflicting state and federal legislation forced the case up the
line to the Supreme Court. “Few questions which have ever come before this Court involve
more delicate and important considerations,” cautioned Chief Justice Joseph Story in his opinion
early in 1842. . . . and few upon which the public at large may be presumed to feel a more pro-
found and pervading interest.”
In the end, the Court ruled to uphold the constitutionality of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793,
and deemed unconstitutional the personal liberty law under which Prigg was convicted.And by
empowering the federal government with sole responsibility for enforcing the fugitive clause of
the Constitution, released state authorities from any obligation to assist in recovering runaway
slaves. Prigg v. Pennsylvania was “an outrage on justice and humanity,” said Wendell Phillips
in the “Liberator.” “The decision in Prigg ultimately became an anti-slavery weapon, and it
also led to increased demands for a new fugitive slave law.Those demands were satisfied with
the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.” Finkelman, (Slavery in the Courtroom, pp.
60-66.)