James G. Birney

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James G. Birney
Mayor of Huntsville
In office
1829–1830
Preceded byJohn H. Lewis
Succeeded byJohn Martin
Personal details
Born
James Gillespie Birney

(1792-02-04)February 4, 1792
Danville, Virginia (now Kentucky), U.S.
DiedNovember 18, 1857(1857-11-18) (aged 65)
Perth Amboy, New Jersey, U.S.
Political partyDemocratic-Republican (before 1825)
Liberty (1840–1848)
Spouse(s)Agatha McDowell
Elizabeth Potts Fitzhugh
ChildrenFive including
Parent(s)James G. Birney
Martha Reed
EducationTransylvania University
Princeton University (BA)
Signature

James Gillespie Birney (February 4, 1792 – November 18, 1857)[2] was an American abolitionist, politician, and attorney born in Danville, Kentucky. He changed from being a planter and slave owner to abolitionism, publishing the abolitionist weekly The Philanthropist. He twice served as the presidential nominee for the anti-slavery Liberty Party.

Birney pursued a legal career in Danville after graduating from the

College of New Jersey (later Princeton) and studying under Alexander J. Dallas. He volunteered for the campaigns of Henry Clay, served on the town council, and became a Freemason. In 1816, he won election to the Kentucky House of Representatives as a member of the Democratic-Republican Party. In 1818, he established a cotton plantation in Madison County, Alabama, and he won election to the Alabama House of Representatives the following year. Birney eventually sold the plantation and established a legal practice in Huntsville, Alabama
, becoming one of the most successful lawyers in the region.

During the 1820s, Birney became increasingly troubled by the issue of slavery. He became a member of the American Colonization Society, which advocated for the migration of African Americans to the continent of Africa. After serving in various roles for the organization, Birney began calling for the immediate abolition of slavery. In 1835, he moved to Cincinnati, founding The Philanthropist the following year. He also became a member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, but resigned from that group due to his opposition to connecting the anti-slavery struggle to the movement for equal rights for women, although Birney endorsed the cause of women's suffrage. Birney accepted the Liberty Party's nomination in 1840 and received 0.3% of the popular vote. He accepted the Liberty Party nomination again in 1844 and received 2.3% of the popular vote, finishing behind James K. Polk and Clay. Birney moved to Michigan in 1841 and helped establish the town of Bay City, Michigan.

Youth

Mercer County, Kentucky
Birney's Father

Born to an affluent Irish

Baptist abolitionist by the name of David Barrow in his youth, which he later recalled with fondness.[citation needed
]

Schooling

Samuel Stanhope Smith

When Birney turned eleven he was sent to

logician and an author who was somewhat anti-slavery. He was also exposed to the anti-slavery thinking of John McLean.[2]
Birney graduated from Princeton on September 26, 1810.

When he returned to Danville following graduation, he worked for the campaign of Henry Clay for one month. After this, he began to study law in Philadelphia, at the office of

practice law
.

Law practice

In May 1814 Birney returned to his hometown and took up the practice of law there, becoming the acting attorney for the local bank. He handled both

claims adjuster
.

Following in the footsteps of his father, Birney became a

slaves
from his father and father-in-law. As Birney had yet to fully develop his abolitionist views, he accepted them kindly. It should be said that later in life Birney was known to say on many occasions that he does not recall ever believing that slavery was right.

Kentucky politics

Henry Clay
John McKinley

In 1815, he again worked for the successful campaign of Henry Clay, who was running for

runaway slaves
from Kentucky.

Birney staunchly opposed this resolution and it was defeated, though a new resolution was soon after drafted and passed, despite Birney's opposition yet again. As he saw very little future for himself in Kentucky politics, Birney decided to move to Alabama with the hope of starting a political career.

Alabama

Madison County, Alabama

In February 1818, he moved his family to Madison County, Alabama, where he purchased a

executed
two men personally.

In 1823, after experiencing many troubles with his cotton plantation, Birney moved to

horse race
gambling, which he gave up eventually after many losses. Most of his slaves stayed on at the plantation, though he did bring with him to Huntsville his servant Michael, as well as Michael's wife and three children.

At this time there were a number of other practicing lawyers in that area, including one

social elite
in this new town. In addition to his duties as a public prosecutor, his private law office proved quite lucrative.

By 1825, he was the wealthiest lawyer in northern Alabama, partnering up with Arthur F. Hopkins. The next year, he resigned as solicitor general to pursue his own career with more tenacity. Over the next several years, he worked, often defending blacks, was appointed a trustee of a private school and joined the

elector on the John Quincy Adams and Richard Rush ticket. He strongly supported Adams for his conservatism, viewing the politics of Andrew Jackson and John C. Calhoun as a threat to the Union
. To Birney's great disappointment, Jackson won. However, he found other ways to champion his beliefs. In 1829, his fellow citizens elected him mayor of Huntsville, Alabama, where he distinguished himself as a reformist, campaigning for free public education and temperance.

American Colonization Society

Birney's religious fervor also encouraged him to reevaluate his views on slavery. Increasingly alienated by the politics of the Jackson administration, he discovered the American Colonization Society in 1826. In 1829, he was introduced to Josiah Polk of the ACS by Henry Clay and became an early supporter of the society. He was intrigued by the possibility of solving the supposed problem constituted by free blacks by starting a colony for them in Liberia, Africa. In January 1830 he helped begin a chapter in Huntsville, Alabama, and subscribed to its literature.

He was then sent on a trip to the

New Haven, Boston
, Ohio, and Kentucky. He returned home with numerous recommendations, and was thanked for his services. While in these areas, with the exception of Kentucky, he was greatly encouraged by the presence of free states in the Union. This same year, he had some sort of falling out with Henry Clay and also ceased further campaigning for the Democratic-Republican Party.

In 1831, Birney began considering moving to

slave state
. He mentioned a move to Illinois frequently, stating he would free his remaining slave Michael, Michael's wife, and three children there. However, this never came to pass. In 1832, the American Colonization Society offered him a position as an agent to travel around the South promoting their cause and he accepted. He met with some success, including organizing the departure of settlers to Liberia and writing essays in defense of colonization. However, in failing to convert his audience to colonization, he began to doubt its effectiveness and the acceptability of slavery. By 1832, he had decided to return to Danville, Kentucky.

Gradual emancipation

A year before returning to Danville, Birney wrote letters to slaveholders in Kentucky who had previously expressed their support for emancipation, suggesting they soon hold a convention on the matter. On December 6, 1832, the gathering was held,[where?] with only nine slave owners in attendance. Most of these pledged not to emancipate their current slaves, but to emancipate their slave's offspring at age twenty-one. This small group also aimed to bring in non-slaveholders to promote this idea of "gradual emancipation".

Abolitionist

James G. Birney, abolitionist publisher whose press was twice destroyed during the Cincinnati riots of 1836.

Birney's repudiation of the American Colonization Society and its projects was enormously influential; Gerrit Smith called it "celebrated".[3] He was the society's employee, one of its agents. "No man has a better knowledge of colonization and its practical effects at the South."[4]: 3 

In 1833, he read a paper signed by several Christian organizations that repudiated the tenets of the American Colonization Society and, instead, called for the immediate abolition of slavery. Almost the entirety of the following number of the society's magazine,

Lane Seminary debates,[9][full citation needed
] he freed his remaining slaves and declared himself an abolitionist in 1834.

Birney's abolitionist writings

Abolitionist newspaper

"What ought to be done with them?" asked the Post. "We would say: Send them back to the place from whence they came, and if any of their authors, or the agents of them, should be found here, lynch them."[10][full citation needed]

Cincinnati Daily Post, August 1835

Birney decided to make Cincinnati his base, and made contacts with friends and fellow members of the abolitionist movement there. He worked to gain support in publishing an anti-slavery newspaper. At this time, there were four newspapers in the city, and all but the

Cincinnati Post), even called for lynching those who set out to author anti-slavery literature in their city.[10]

The Gazette, which was owned by editor

slaveholding in the North.[citation needed
]

Birney's original plan was to publish his abolitionist newspaper in Danville. In August 1835, a meeting of "4 or 500 persons, has met at Danville, K., to warn James G. Birney against publication of his Abolition paper. A Committee of 5 was selected to wait on [meet with] Birney, and serve him with a copy of their Resolutions. He must be a daft man to persevere! It will be at his own peril. He will rue the consequences, as sure as he persists."[11] In September we find that he "has abandoned the project of publishing an Abolition paper in Danville, Ky., and has removed to Cincinnati. A very good idea."[12]

We have little doubt that his office will be torn down, but we trust that Mr. Birney will receive no personal harm. Notwithstanding his mad notions, we consider him an honest and benevolent man. He is resolute, too. Not having been permitted to open his battery in this State, he is determined to cannonade us from across the river. Isn't it rather too long a shot for execution, Mr. Birney?[10][full citation needed]

—Louisville Journal, January 1836

When Birney began publication of his abolitionist weekly,

Louisville Journal
wrote a scathing editorial that all but directly threatened his paper.(quoted at left).

On July 14, 1836, a mob destroyed Birney's press. On July 30 the press was attacked again; the printing press was broken into pieces and the largest piece dragged through the streets and dumped in the river. The mob attempted to

tar and feather Birney but could not find him. They went on to destroy houses of Blacks; the whole constitutes the Cincinnati riots of 1836.[13][14]

However, writing for his newspaper helped him develop ideas for fighting slavery legislatively. He used them as he worked with Salmon P. Chase to protect slaves who escaped to Ohio. In 1837, he was fined $50 (equivalent to $1,346 in 2023) for harboring a slave.[15] That same year, the American Anti-Slavery Society recruited him as an officer and corresponding secretary, and he moved his family to New York.

Liberty Party

Birney is pictured here at the conference in 1840 in a large group painting. The figure to the left is John Beaumont (another abolitionist delegate).[16]

With the American Anti-Slavery Society's schism in 1840, he resigned his position over disagreements on the role of women's rights to the anti-slavery campaign. Also in that year, the

Liberty Party, a newly formed political party whose only aim was abolition, nominated Birney for president. Accurately predicting he would not win, he instead went as a delegate to the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London.[16] The convention named him a vice-president and spread his writings throughout the United Kingdom. When he came back, the Liberty Party made use of his legal expertise in their efforts to defend blacks and fugitive slaves. They chose him as their candidate again in the 1844 presidential election with a campaign designed to draw votes away from the Whig Party candidate Henry Clay. In the New York election, Birney achieved 15,812 votes after Clay lost to the Democrat James K. Polk by only 5,106 votes; if Clay had won this state he would have achieved a majority in the Electoral College and won the election.[17]

Michigan

In 1841, Birney moved to Saginaw, Michigan, with his new wife and family. He lived at the Webster House in Saginaw for a few months until his home in Bay City, Michigan, was ready. Birney was in the land development business in Bay City. He was a trustee of the reorganized Saginaw Bay Company and was deeply involved in the planning of Bay City, Michigan, where Birney Park is named after him. Birney and the other developers supported churches in their community and set aside money for their construction. In addition to running for the presidency in 1840 and 1844, Birney received 3023 votes for Governor of Michigan in 1845. Birney remained in Michigan until 1855, when his health drove him to move to the East Coast.

While in Bay City, Birney led a life of farming and agricultural pursuits in addition to his legal work, land development, and national anti-slavery involvement. He commented on the lack of help available in the city and was found working on his own fence.[citation needed]

His son, James Birney, came to Bay City, then called Lower Saginaw, to take care of his father's business interests in the city. James remained in Bay City and followed his father's tradition of public service. He is buried in Pine Ridge Cemetery on the East side of town.[18]

Paralysis

In August 1845, Birney suffered from bouts of

Mexican-American War and a decrease in immigration, arguing that European immigrants diluted the influence of America's free people of color.[19]

He died in New Jersey in 1857 in the

Sarah Grimké, convinced that war would be necessary to end slavery.[20] He was buried at the Williamsburg Cemetery[21] in Groveland, New York
, the home of his second wife's family.

Honors

In 1889, an all-black school in the Hillsdale neighborhood of Washington, D.C., was named the Birney School in his honor.[22] It later became an elementary school and in 1962 it was renamed Nichols Avenue Elementary School.[23]

Family

Birney married Agatha McDowell in 1816. Agatha was the daughter of U.S. district judge for Kentucky William McDowell and Margaret Madison, a distant relatative of James Madison.[24] James and Agatha's marriage produced eleven children, only six of whom survived early childhood: James, William, Dion, David Bell, George, and Florence.[25] Agatha died in October 1838.[26]

On 25 March 1841, Birney married Elizabeth Potts Fitzhugh (sister of Henry Fitzhugh and of Ann Carroll Fitzhugh, wife of Gerrit Smith).[26] Their two children were Ann Hughes Birney (1844–1846) and Fitzhugh Birney (1842–1864).[27][28]

Birney's oldest son

U.S. Minister to the Netherlands
.

Four of Birney's sons fought in the American Civil War. David was a Union Army major-general who died of disease in October 1864. William was a U.S. inspector-general of U.S. Colored Troops who later became a U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. Dion was a U.S. lieutenant who died during the Peninsula campaign in 1862. Fitzhugh was a U.S. major at the time of his death by pneumonia in June 1864.[28]

Archival material

Birney's archive is at the

Ann Arbor, MI.[29]

References

  1. ^ Before 1916, the office was known as "President."
  2. ^
    ISBN 978-0-19-860669-7. Archived
    from the original on November 8, 2019. Retrieved February 17, 2020.
  3. newspapers.com
    .
  4. ^ Birney, James G. (1838). Letter on colonization, addressed to the Rev. Thornton J. Mills, corresponding secretary of the Kentucky colonization society. New York: American Anti-Slavery Society.
  5. newspapers.com
    .
  6. newspapers.com
    .
  7. newspapers.com
    .
  8. newspapers.com
    .
  9. ^ Letters of James G. Birney, I, 115.
  10. ^ a b c Birney, William (1890). James G. Birney and His Times. D. Appleton & Company.
  11. Richmond Enquirer. August 11, 1835. p. 3. Archived
    from the original on July 11, 2021. Retrieved February 13, 2020.
  12. Richmond Enquirer. September 29, 1835. p. 4. Archived
    from the original on July 11, 2021. Retrieved February 13, 2020.
  13. newspapers.com
    .
  14. ISBN 0-8142-0570-4. Archived
    from the original on January 13, 2016. Retrieved October 24, 2010.
  15. ^ "Law. State of Ohio vs. James G. Birney". Maumee Express (Maumee City, Ohio). April 22, 1837. p. 2. Archived from the original on July 11, 2021. Retrieved February 13, 2020.
  16. ^ a b "National Portrait Gallery – Portrait – NPG 599; The Anti-Slavery Society Convention, 1840". Archived from the original on May 29, 2003. Retrieved October 6, 2014.
  17. ISBN 978-0-7627-6378-8
    .
  18. ^ History of Bay County, Michigan: And Representative Citizens By Augustus H Gansser
  19. ^ Manisha Sinha. The Slave's Cause.
  20. The New American Cyclopaedia
    : A Popular Dictionary of General Knowledge By George Ripley, Charles Anderson Dana, page 287
  21. ^ "Livingston County Cemeteries". Archived from the original on September 29, 2014. Retrieved October 6, 2014.
  22. ^ "Names of Public School Buildings" (PDF). Evening Star. December 6, 1889. Archived (PDF) from the original on November 11, 2016. Retrieved July 8, 2016.
  23. ^ What's in a Name: Profiles of the Trailblazers (PDF). Women of the Dove Foundation. 2011. Archived (PDF) from the original on March 20, 2016. Retrieved April 22, 2016.
  24. ^ Railey, William (1917). "The Strothers". Register of the Kentucky State Historical Society. 15 (45): 94–95 – via JSTOR.
  25. ^ Library, William L. Clements. "James G. Birney papers 1816–1884, 1820–1856". quod.lib.umich.edu. Retrieved August 12, 2021.
  26. ^ a b Fladeland, Betty (1955). James Gillespie Birney: Slaveholder to Abolitionist. Cornell University Press. pp. 165, 207–210.
  27. ^ "Williamsburg Cemetery, Groveland". Livingston County. Retrieved August 12, 2021.
  28. ^ a b Higginson, Thomas Wentworth (1867). Harvard memorial biographies [ed. by T.W. Higginson]. [With] Supplementary biographies. pp. 415–424.
  29. ^ Heslip, Philip (2020), James G. Birney papers (1816-1884, bulk 1820-1856) [finding aid

Further reading

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article "Birney, James Gillespie".

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to James Gillespie Birney.
Party political offices
New political party Liberty nominee for Vice President of the United States
1840, 1844 		Succeeded by
John P. Hale
Withdrew
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