HISTORICAL SOCIETY NOTES AND DOCUMENTS
A FOOTNOTE TO WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA HISTORY
A FREE SOILERS THOUGHTS ON ABOLITION AND
THE ELECTION OF 1848
Edited by James C. Duram
Mary Home Ewing Work was born in July 1799 and received
only three months of formal schooling. 1 Despite her lack of formal
education, she proved herself to be a remarkably articulate woman
when she admonished a friend about the dangers of remaining in the
Whig party in a letter written shortly before the Presidential election
of 1848. In this direct, sincere letter, Mary Work lays before us the
spirit and the rationale of a dedicated abolitionist. Just as significantly,
she characterises the growing conviction of many abolitionists in the
1840 's that participation in party politics would unable them to accomplish the elimination of slavery in the United States.
—
Mahoning, Pa. 2
October 24, 1848
a friend whom I
have long
My dear and Much Respected Friend
had much reason to esteem :
I
have received yours of Sept. 25th and was pleased to hear that
you were all well. I
feel grateful for respects sent, and hope these lines
willfind you all well.
There are this morning about starting from our house three good
looking, smart, unlettered young colored men aged respectively 22, 20
and 18 years of age, in pursuit of light and liberty. May the Lord
prosper them. 3
Mr. Duram is
Holland, Michigan.
Instructor in the Department
—Editor
an
of History at Hope College,
1 Letter in the possession of the editor dated March 2, 1931, to Mary Work
Hogg from Miss Jennie Briggs Mayo, the great-granddaughter of Mary
Home Ewing Work.
2 Gordon's 1832 Gazetteer of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: Thomas Belknap,
1832), lists the Mahoning post office in Mahoning Township in the northwest corner of Indiana County.
3 Mary Work's home in Mahoning was one of the stops on the Underground
Railroad used to smuggle runaway fugitive slaves from Clearfield to Erie,
Pennsylvania, on the way to Canada. See the excellent map of the Underground Railroad routes in the American Heritage Pictorial Atlas of
American History (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966), 204.
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HISTORICAL SOCIETY NOTES AND DOCUMENTS
JANUARY
Let none of us say, "We have nothing to do with slavery," while
so many heathen are in our land ;while so many of our neighbors have
"fallen among thieves/' and the "Priest and Levite" have "passed by
on the other side." Let the North act the part of the "Good Samaritan"
— by protecting them by our laws, —
by "binding up their wounds,"
by pouring in the wine and oilof grace and supplication, enabling them
to read and hear the Word, that they may be prepared to be brought
into the Church of God. The people of the North have this power by
their majority, if they had the will.And let not us who are wives and
mothers say, "We have no influence," but let us use it morally and
politically.4
In yours of Sept. 25th, I
was not gratified to hear that you still
cling to the shadow of the old name "Whig," while the substance or
reality is gone to or embraced in the platform of the Buffalo Convention, and which is called free democracy or the democracy of Jefferson, or of 76 which is for equal rights to all, or the genuine Whig of
76 in opposition to Tory. A true Northern Whig will despise
oppression, he willby every honorable means help to set the slaves free
— free from the curse, degredation and sin of slavery, which is a sin of
the deepest dye, and which is becoming a burden intolerable to bear,
with its high
tax on
the North
rulers, postoffice departments,
to support Southern demagogues,
etc. This is easy to account for.
Southern men have the ruling power — the President and Cabinet. 5
At a Democratic or Loco meeting held recently in the South,
they stated their want of confidence in Cass because he is a Northern
man and a "turn-about," but said, "We can trust Taylor to carry on
our peculiar institutions, for we know he is with us, he is of us, and
what is our interest is his." Taylor says, "If the 'Wilmot Proviso'
carries it willruin the South." Now what have the Whigs of the North
to expect from a man that has never pledged himself to do anything
for them and self-interest forbids that he should ? 6
2,008,000 enslaved bodies and souls are proof enough that the
talk of tariff and other pecuniary, or dollar and cent matters is of small
4 Abolitionists made frequent use of the Scriptures and "Christian" arguments
to justify their condemnation of slavery. For an interesting characterization
of this aspect of the abolitionist mind, see Louis Filler, The Crusade
Against Slavery, 1830-1860 (New York: Harper and Row, 1960), 276.
5 Frequent repetitions of the slave power conspiracy theme can be found in the
Annual Reports of the Executive Committee of the American Anti-Slavery
Society published in New York in the 1840's and 1850's.
6 References here are to Lewis Cass, Senator from Michigan, and General
Zachary Taylor, a Mexican War hero and southern slaveholder, who were
the Democratic and Whig Presidential contenders in 1848.
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HISTORICAL SOCIETY NOTES AND DOCUMENTS
moment ; for what is
79
the world to the immortal soul or souls of so
many millions of our fellow beings ?
Now what is a Christian's duty in this matter? Choose out
from among yourselves men fearing God and hating covetousness —
righteous rulers — and pray God to give us such men to rule over us
— and then go to the polls and vote for men — thieves, covetous
men, enslavers of body and soul ? We should vote as we pray. Let us
be consistent.
—
I
was glad to hear of your "Free Soil" meeting in Brookville
—
I
hope you were there. They had a good address
it is likely you
saw it. The principles of the Revolution of 76 and more, I
think, are
embraced in the platform, and I
hope Van Buren and Adams will
carry them out according to promise if elected. 7 I
think the principles
of the Reformation and the framers of our Confession of Faith are
still adhered to by the Secession, and if others have left them, the
Scripture rule is: "Let them return unto you and return not thou
unto
them."
My best respects
me to be
to
Jane and
the rest of the family, and believe
Your sincere friend,
Mary H. Work
The editor wishes to thank Miss Susan Stoeckley
the letter used in this editorialization.
for providing
7 Martin Van Buren and John Quincy Adams were the Free Soil Presidential
and Vice-Presidential candidates in 1848. Ironically, the Free Soil party took
enough votes away from Cass to elect Taylor, the southerner most feared
by the Free Soilers. See Historical Statistics of the United States (Washington :U.S. Government Printing Office, 1963), 683.