Anti-Abolitionists in Lowell
Document 42

Document 42: “Anti-Abolition Meeting,” Lowell Patriot, August 28, 1835

In the mid-1830s, most Whigs and Democrats, despite their strong disagreements over such issues as the tariff (see Document 5) and the role of the federal government in subsidizing industry, agreed that Garrisonian abolitionists posed a grave threat to the union. As seen below in its reporting of the anti-abolitionist meeting in Lowell, the Democratically controlled Lowell Patriot attacked Garrison and supported the constitutional right of Southerners to maintain the system of slavery. Interestingly, while denouncing the extremist position of abolitionists, they made it clear that they did not approve of slavery in any form. The meeting the author refers to in this article was the “public meeting” that Document #3 addresses.

Vocabulary

Whigs and Democrats: The two major political parties in the United States in 1835. “Democrats stood for the 'sovereignty of the people' as expressed in popular demonstrations, constitutional conventions, and majority rule as a general principle of governing, whereas Whigs advocated the rule of law, written and unchanging constitutions, and protections for minority interests against majority tyranny.”[i]
Tariff: Payment placed upon the import, export, manufacture, or sale of certain goods
Thompson/Garrison: Referring to George Thompson and William Lloyd Garrison, both radical abolitionists
Intermeddling: Interference
Lynch-Law: The punishment of presumed crimes usually by death without due process of law
Abridge: To curtail, lessen, or diminish (a right, privilege, etc.); to reduce the extent or scope of (authority, power, etc.)

For President
MARTIN VAN BUREN, of New York
For Vice President
Richard M. Johnson, of Kentucky

ANTI-ABOLITION MEETING

A very large meeting of the citizens of Low-
ell assembled at the Town Hall on Saturday evening to express the sense of the town upon the conduct of Northern Abolitionists, and our duty to the slave-holding States, as set forth in the Constitution. . . .

We hope that the citizens of Lowell, on Sat-
urday evening, while they shall express their determination to let the Southern States alone, and to adhere rigidly to the letter of the con-
tract entered into by the States respectively, in the adoption of the Federal Constitution--will neither say nor do anything that can . . .
be construed into an ap-
proval of slavery, in any form . . .

We are no advocates of immediate abolition;
or of the course pursued by such meddlers and fanatics as Thompson and Garrison. We are decidedly opposed to every species of unasked intermeddling or advice to the Slave States, or
to individual slave-holders. . . .

While we go for Southern rights, we go a-
gainst Southern Lynch-Law, and Southern mobs, and Southern threats,--and while we go against the course of Northern Abolitionists, we will
be careful not to abridge their rights as citizens.
. . .

Every true democrat, every lover of his country, is a friend of order and justice, and will maintain all the rights, in their integrity, guaranteed to
the States respectively, as well as to individu-
als by the Laws and the Constitution.

Text-Depended Questions

Note the words the author used to describe Garrison and Thompson. What does the word choice reveal about the writers of the opinion of the two men?
What Southern practices does the author approve of and what practices does he “go against”?

Discussion Questions

Note the presence of an endorsement for Martin Van Buren for president at the top of the article. What might Van Buren’s stance on slavery tell you about the biased nature of this newspaper’s coverage of the antislavery movement?

Print document and transcript

Citation
“Anti-Abolition Meeting,” Lowell Patriot, August 28, 1835Pollard Memorial Library, Lowell.[i] Frank Towers, "Mobtown's Impact on the Study of Urban Politics in the Early Republic." Maryland Historical Magazine 107 (Winter 2012) pp. 469–75, p. 472, citing Robert E, Shalhope, The Baltimore Bank Riot: Political Upheaval in Antebellum Maryland (2009) p. 147.

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