THERE IS DEATH IN THE POT - The University of Texas at Arlington

purification, which would reform the Society of Friends and, in turn, American society. 8
In the 1830s, as the Society of Friends attempted to define the proper approach to
abolitionism, free produce became for some Quakers the preferred abolitionist tactic.
In the immediate aftermath of division, American Friends on either side of the
Orthodox-Hicksite divide asserted their claim as the true Society of Friends. Slavery did
not figure prominently in these early statements as each side attempted to receive a
thorough hearing of their views, particularly from members of the London Yearly
Meeting. Nonetheless, these early pronouncements shaped American Quakers’ responses
to abolitionism and, in turn, British Friends’ response to American Quakers.
In June 1827, two months after the Philadelphia separation, Hicksite Friends
gathered at Green Street Meeting to review the state of the Society of Friends within the
Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. 9 Members of the Green Street Conference appointed a
committee, including John Comly and Thomas McClintock, to draft an epistle to Friends
in the quarterly and monthly meetings of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. 10 The subsequent
8 See also Faulkner, “Lucretia Mott and the Problem of Moral Suasion.” In challenging
traditional descriptions of Mott as a “quiet Quaker,” Faulkner interprets Mott’s commitment to moral
suasion as evidence of her radicalism. For Mott and other members of the PFASS, moral suasion served as
the foundation of a radical statement of racial equality. Rejecting all connections to slavery, including the
products of slave labor, prompted members of the PFASS to examine their own lives and to use free
produce as an opportunity to imagine an alternative society based on individual sacrifice for the benefit of
the community.
9 Minutes, Green Street conference, June 4, 1827, Minutes of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of
Friends (Hicksite), FHL. Hicksite power was concentrated in Green Street Meeting. After the separation,
Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (Orthodox) laid down (or dissolved) Green Street Meeting. However, Green
Street continued as a Hicksite meeting within Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (Hicksite). See The Friend,
October 13, 1827; Foster, Authentic Report, I: 224, 378-379, 436-437; II: 318.
10 Minutes, Green Street conference, June 4, 1827, Minutes of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of
Friends (Hicksite), FHL. In response to support from Abington, Bucks, and Southern Quarterly Meetings
as well as members in Philadelphia, Hicksites planned to establish a new yearly meeting. As Ingle notes,
“In essence, the group requested that Friends favorable to the views in the epistle [issued by Hicksites]
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