Year: 1875

On wednesday last was observed in the
city of Philadelphia the centennial anniver-
sary OF the formation of '"The Pennsylvania
Society for Promoting the abolition of Slavery
and for the Relief of Free Negroes unlawfully
held in Bondage, and for Improving'the Con-
dition of the African Race'' The Society
had a cumhrous name, but it had cumbrous
work to perform; for it was brought in con-
fiict with the claims of expediency, with estab-
lished policy, with vested rights, with inher-
tied prejudice, with immemorial usage. 1t
was formed in the year 1775, and its founda-
tion stone was the logical sequence of JEFF
ferson's famous dogma, published to the
world year later as the declaration of the
cause of being of a new nation. The quiet
Quakers who met at the Sun tavern on the
fourteenth of April, 1775, and chose John
Baldwin president of the first anti-savery
society on this continent, comprehended the
great truth which the American people were
scarcely ready to acknowledge ninety years
later, the truth that all men, black or white,
are created free and equal. The promulga-
ton of this doctrine not only entailed social
unpopularity and political ostracism, but loss
of property as well; for the founders OF
the society freed their Slaves, educated
them as freemen, and gave them vantage
positions from which to fight their way
through the world.


Certainly no mightier work was ever ac-
complished within hundred years, in face of
so great obstacles, by any body of men so
small in numbers and having so little adVan-
tage at the start. Their struggles and tri-
dmphs form one of the most dramatic epi-
sodes in the worlds history. The work of
emancipation at first was confined to single
State. Its field gradually became larger. 1t
excited the alarm of a large and powerful in
terest, entered as an element into politics,
distracted the country for forty years, rent
the nation in twain, and was consummated
amid the turmoil and strife of great civil
war. Its advocates, few in number at first,
increased to mighty host, which expended
treasure and lavished blood in its accomplish
ment. The anti-slavery society grew from
handful of men to nation. Its hundredth
anniversary witnesses the freedom and en-
franchisement of the slave, and finds him i'll
possession of the civil and political tights of a
freeman.


But its work is not yet all done. One of
che objects of the formation of the Society
was "the improvement of the condition of the
African race" The moral and political ele-
vation of the negro is but just begun, and it
devolves upon the society which is now in ef-
feet the nation to see to it that this result is
accomplished. The negro must be protected
In lis newly acquired rights, must be guarded
against violence and intimidation, must be
provided with facilities for education and i'm
provement. The great political contest from
1850 TO 1850. the conflict of arms for five years
following, and the struggle of the last decade
to confirm the rights won by the cannon and
the ballot, have made the Republican party
the legitimate successor of the little Phiadel-
phia Society of 1775. To that party we
must look for the accomplishment of the
work that remains to be done.