ABSTRACT
On 3 February 1790, the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage, and the Improvement of the Conditions of the African Race addressed a public letter to the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States arguing on religious and humanitarian grounds for the abolition of slavery, ‘this Inconsistency from the Character of the American People’. 1 This ‘Public Address’ was a crucial moment for the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, which was making its first public step in the federal arena since its foundation in 1775. Before the late 1780s, the Society acted as a restricted network predominantly composed of Quakers who sought to abolish slavery in a gradual manner — the Society facilitated the exchange of ideas between individuals and provided help with individual manumission cases. 2 With this public address and the inclusion of non-Quaker members, it was becoming the organ of public promotion of abolitionism it intended to be. The signature of its president, Benjamin Franklin, at the bottom of the first memorandum petitioning the newly born American Congress added decisive social, political and intellectual credit to this public message.
