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Who Is Birney?

Who Is Birney? image
Parent Issue
Day
22
Month
July
Year
1844
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

. James Gillespie Birney, the Liberty Candidate for the Presidency, is a native of Kentucky. He was born February 4, 1792, and is now fifty one years of age. Hís father, the late James Birney, Esq. of Danville, was a native of Ireland, but cmigated to Kentucky in early life, where ïhe become a wealthy planter, and the holder ofa large number of slaves. - The son was educated at Princeton College, N. J. and studied law in Philadelphia, we believe with the Hon. Alexander J. Dallas. Returning to Kentucky, he married a lady of great worth, the worthy partner of his eventful fortunes, and a help meet of his useful life, and then devoted himself to his profession, sharing largely in the respect of his fellow citizens until 1818, when he removed to Alabama and engnged in planting. in the neighborhood of Huntsville. He afterwards rèsumed his labors in Huntsville, and, in addition to a large and lucrative practice, held for severnl years the office of solicitar' general of North Alabama, and was looked toas one of the most rising men of his age in the State. He was elected by the legislature one oí' the Trustees of the State University, and by the Board was commissiotied to visii the North and procure officers and teachers for the college. He was also candidate for presidential elector, in. 1828, along with the Hon. Mr. Dellet, now memberof Congress from Alabama. He erved also, onO year in the Legislature of Alabarna and: aided in éiecting Col. King to the United States Senate. He bad before been a member of the Legislature of h3 native State.In 1826 a great change took place in his religious views, and he united with the Presbyterian cburch, of which he has ever since been an exemplary member. In humility, placableness, benevolence and conscientious unrightness, he has eminently adorned his profession. His religiouá feelings soon directed his thoughts to the evil of slavery, and he embraced the colonization scheme, looking on it na "a germ of eftbrt capable of expansión adequate to our largest necessities in the exterraination of slavery." In Id32 his zeal in the cause led him to give up his profession and become an agent for the American Colonization Society, & great expectations were formed by the managers, from his talents and fidelity. But his hope of enlisting the philanthropy of slaveholders in favor of the slaves was. taken away by bitter experience, and after a y.ear's labor, with little success, he left the work, and removed his family back to Kentucky, with a delibérate resol ut ion there to make a stand against slavery. - In December, 1833, he, witheightothers, all slaveholders, formed a society at Lexington for the relief of the State from slavery by adopting the post nali principie., i. e., to ñ-ee the children of slavesas soon as they were of oge. Of this scheme he became the ardent and active advocate, uotil experience taught him its inefficacy.In January, 1834, he was cliosen one oflheVice Presidents of the Kentucky Colonization Society. His mind was incessantly occupied with the subject of slavery, reading every woik he could la y his hands on, nnd talking of it in all circles. About this time, he was elected one of the trustees of the Presbytcrian college nt Danville, and au anvmgement was made for his permanent engagement in the college ns a professor; but sorae timid friends becoming alanned lest his opinioiis on slavery should injure the institution. he at onc-e, uilh characteristic disintereatciiness submitted the matter to the discretion. of the iacuJty. Their decisión thut it was not expedient for him to iiold the office, mnde no aíteration in his friendly feelings towardslhem or the college; for, at a subsequent period of excitement, when it was feared the college would suiTer frorn the abolitionism of Professor Munsill and Buchanan, he offered to pay fifty dollars each, to ten young men of goodcharacter who desired an education and were unable to meet the expense.We now come to the commencement of bis new .ca ree r, wiiich lias made him, in the sight of this nation and of the wörld, the foremost practical laborer in the cause of immediate emancipatiox. - Early in the summer of 1834, his mind becnme fully settled on the great truths of thesinfulness of slavery, and the duty of immediate emancipation. He forthwith emancipated all his own slavcs, and on the 15th of July addressed a long letter to the Rev. Thernton J. Mills, sec.retary of the Kentucky Colonization Society, resigning his office in that society, and giving the reasons of his new position.This letter had a very wide circulation. and produced a powerful impression. - The Huntsville (Ala.) Advocate, August 14, says ofit: "Mr. Bir.neyvas fora long time a citizen of our tovvn, and hi$ talents, his attainments as a scholar, his happy and fluent pen, his pure and unexceptionable moráis, ,had won a high degvee of respect and esteem Trom all classes of society." Mr. Garrison, in the Liborator, spoke of it as "one of the most important documents that the antislavery cause had yet produced in this country; it contains nothingsuperfluous, nothing tame; as a composition, it is chaste, vi-orousand eloquent; its logic isclear, compact, invincible." F rom. the eloquent conclusión we may copy a sentence admirably expressing the two great classes of conaijerations by which he was moved:" When I recur to my own observolion, through a life of inore than forty years, of the anti-republican tendency of slavery, and take up our most solemn State paper, and there see that "all meu are created eqtial and have a right that is in alienable, to lite, liberty, and the pursuit Pf happiness," 1 feel a settlcd conviction ol mind that slavery. as it exists omo.ng us, isopposed to the very essence o!' oui government, and thoi, by proloningit, we are living doion the foundation principie of our happy institutinijs. Wlien I take up the bo-.k of God's Jovc, and there read, :- Wh.-Usocvnr ye would ihut mn, should do unto yon, do yo even so to them," my conviction is not less thorough that slavery now is sinful in bis sight." The Rev. Dr. Cox, of New York,said of the transaction: "A Birney has shaken the continent by putting down his foot; and his farae will be envied before his argument8 are answered or their forcé íbrgottcn." The Rev. Thomas Brainnrd.nowof Philadelphia, then of Cincinnati, i said,- '-Mr. Birney is a man of superior talents and education, and enjoys, to an unusual extent, the confidence and afiections of his fellow citizens; his piety we have never heard questioned." In April following, a Kentucky AntiSlavery Society was formed, and measures were taken lo establish a paper in Kentucky, called the Philanthropist, with Mr. Birney as editor. The paper was defeated by the timidity andtreachery of its printer, who sold the materials to the slaveholders. and refused to fulfi] his contract. Mr. B. thereupon removed to Cincinnati, but beforc lie had settled his family there, he was waited on by an officia) gentleman, who assured hira that his paper "would produce an explosión of Mobocratic elements, more violent than was ever known before," and that "respectable& influential gentlemen would encour-age it by theirsilenceand acquiescence." Anxious to avoid the imputation of a wil-' lingness to trifie with the public peace, Mr.Birney concluded to have the paper issued at New Richmond, about twentv miles fromCincinnati, but he h mself remained in the city. The first paper was issued on the lst of Januaiy, 1836. On the 23d, the mob spirit carne to a head, & a great meeting was sommoned totakc into consideration what should be done with the Philanthropist, but Mr. Birney calmly met the storm, attended the meeting, and amid threats to take his life, addressed them with such power of persuasión and such cogency of argument, that no violence was attempted. The mayo? of the city presided at this meeting, assisted by Judge Burnet, and oiher disliiiguished citizens. In April, he removed his press to thecityi, In July, vvhen the place was filled with the usual summer influx oí' slaveholders, the printingoffice was burglnriously broken open rn the night. and the press and types damiged. On tlie 23d. a meeting was calledin the market house, hended bv Judge Büi-ke, the postmaner and a minister oí' the gospel, .whereit was resolved to insist on the immediate discontinuance of the Philarithropist. The Committee to take charge of the business was composëd of JACOB BURNET, Robert Buchaxan, William Green, D. T. Disney, N. Longworth, and other men of standing, a majority of them members of different churches. The daily press (exceptHammond's Gazette) was filled with inflamatory articles. For weeks, Mr. Birney's life was considered in danger, yet he never left liis post, unless to encounter ncw dangers in lecturing about the State. The publishers firnily but temperately told the committee from the market house tfaat the paper could notstop. In the evening a large body of people assembled and demolished the types and press, tore down some houses occupied by unoffending persons of color, visited the houses of Mr. Birney, andseveral abpljtionists, and ihen proceeded down Main street, wbere they were complimented by the mayor for their good intentions "to punishtheguilty and leave the innocent," and thenadvised to "go home, as they had done enough for one night." On the 27th of September the paper reappeared, its editorials bi-eathing the same calm and unawedtermination as ever. In the first "editorial arricie on resuming, he says: "Shaílit be said that Life, Fortune and Honor, should not be hazarded - thal the Constitution and Law, and Liberty, may be re-I stored to their lost thrones, and sway their mild sceptre without a rival! No! this must be done by those who would rather themselves die freemen than live slaves; or our country, glorious as has been her hope, is gone forever."This conscientious, prayerful, calm, self-sncrificing and undaunted spirit, buoyed up with the justice of his cause and the warm hopes of yet being instrumental in the sal vat ion of his-country, carried him tbrough ttU the persecutions 'which servile and slaveholding malice could deviso, and gradually won his way 1o the confidence and respect of the wise and gooj sothat hé ent? red upon the second ytuv of the pubücation of his paper in comparative peace. Before the close of 1S37, he removed his family to New York, where he entered upon the office of Secretary of the American Anti-Slavery society.His labors in that office, during three yenrs that lie occupied the station, are extensivo]}- known. Coming os he did. tVom the midst of slavery, himself a refonned slnveholder, a philanthropic obsei-ver ot things, his enntious statements, manifest sincerily, enndid method of arguing. and persuasiva earnestriéss of manner, give a peculiar chann and power to his public addresses, and did much to give stability and dignity to the anti-slavery enterprise. The exigencies of the canse during those years called for the considemtion of many great q.uestions of' muniGipal,stitutional and international law, in their hearings -npon slavery; and in the discussion of these points, Mr. Birney showed himself truly great as a jurist and a statesman. Ilis correspondence with Col. Elmore, of South Carolina, solicited by the lattor, bis essay on E.xtradition, on the Ordinance of '87, on the guaranty of Slavery, &c, published in the New York American and the Cincinnati Gazette, generally over the signature of B., have developcd the principies on which the Government of this country ought to be administered, for the support of Liberty and the protection of the rights of individuals - principies which must prevail unless we are prepared íor a general substitution of fprce for law, and to abandon the weak to the oppressions of the powerful. ín the year 1839, Mr. Birney visited bis aged falher. from whom he had been severa] years separated by the excitementsofthe times. His reception was very cordial frorn all his friends, including the late Governor Clarke and many other leading men of Kentucky. His father was anxious to make arrangements for his only soh to return and live with him in his oíd age, but all calculations of this kind were terminated by the death of Mr. Birney, Senior, soon after he had enjoycd this gratifying visit of bis son. His father havingdied without a will, he and a brolher-in-law were the onlv persons lgaliy interested in the estáte. - At his requesí, ii a división öf the estáte, the slaves, twenty-one in number, were all set off to him; and as soon as the necessary documents could be executed, he setthemall free. He was thus enablnd to executea jiurpose forined long before, of freeing all his father's slaves at his own expense. The deed of emancipation is ns follows:"KNOW ALL J!EX BY THESE mESKNTS, That L Jumes G. IJirney, ate of Ken. tucky. butnoic having my reside.ncc in the city of New York, believing tlial slaveiiolding is inconsistent wi:h natural justice. witli the precepts and spirit of the Ch ripian religión, and with the deolaralion of American indepcndence, and wishïng to testify in favor of them al), do hercby emancipate. and forever set free, the following named slaves, which have come into my possession, ns one of the heirs of my father,' the late James Birney, of Jefterson county. Kentucky, they being all the slaves held by said James Birney, deceased, at the time of his death." Then follow their names and descriptions, and the deed concludes: !:In testimony of the above I have hereunto. set my name and affixed my seal, this third day of Semptember, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirty nine.James G. Birxey." (Seal.) And this, Christian reader, is the man tbr whom, as candidate for the Presidency of the United Stotes, the slave solicits your support. Shall he have it? In 1840, Mr. Birney attended the first "World's Convention," in London, and was one of the vice presidents of that august body. He spent some months in England, travelling and attending public meetings. He also visited the green island, and the place of his fatlier's nativity. At Dublin he was intröducéd by O'Counell upon the platform of the Corn Exchange, as hisdistinguished friend from America, and a man worlhy of the highest honors his country could bestovv. - Since his return, he has retired upon the shaltered remnant of a fortune which emancipation and surety-ship and seven years' devotion to the laborsof philanthropy, have left consisting of a tract of new land on the Saginaw river in Michigan, where he has hardened his hands by literal toil, such as his distinguished slaveholdingcompetitors would thinkonly belonged to slaves, either white or black.Mr. Birney abandoned the pursuit of political distinction when he yielded to what he believed to be the dictates of religión, in withdrawing from all other labórs to devote his Ule to the deliverance of his country from the curse of slavery. But when, in 1839, sound philosophy and bitter ex perience had together taught the wisest of nbolitionists the folly of hoping for any grent good from parlies, aluays and rTecessanly subject to the dictation of slaveholders, their minds were at once lurneil upon Birney, as the proper representative of their principies and objects, and worthy to be the first man elevated to the Presidency, for the glorious pur pose ofoverthrowing the political power of slavery.

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Subjects
Signal of Liberty
Old News