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

In a similar struggle to ascertain the proper adherence to authority and social
order, Quakers on either side of the divide attempted to identify the appropriate
individual and communal response to Garrisonian abolitionism. Most Quakers of liberal
views — often though not always Hicksites — were active in forming anti-slavery
societies. Organized in 1832, the Clarkson Anti-Slavery Society was one of several anti-
slavery societies in Chester County, Pennsylvania. Chester County had a reputation for
anti-slavery as well as participation in the Underground Railroad. 17 The Quaker men and
women of the Clarkson Anti-Slavery Society were among the most radical members of
the Society of Friends. 18 As a community, some Quaker meetings —usually Hicksite —
openly endorsed immediatism and petitioned Congress for the abolition of slavery in the
District of Columbia. The reaction to Friends’ communal anti-slavery statements,
however, highlighted the difficulty of balancing traditional Quaker beliefs with radical
abolitionism in the 1830s. 19
In November 1835, members of the Caln Quarterly Meeting (Hicksite) in Chester
County drew up a petition to the United States Senate praying for the abolition of slavery
in the District of Columbia. The Caln petition arrived in January 1836 as the Senate was
debating two anti-slavery petitions from Ohio. Senator James Buchanan of Pennsylvania
presented the Caln petition asking that the Senate accept the petition but reject the
attached prayer. South Carolina Senator John C. Calhoun reacted strongly against the
17 Densmore, “‘Be Ye Therefore Perfect,’” 30, 43-44.
18 Nuermberger, The Free Produce Movement, 23.
19 The Friend, November 12, 1836; Drake, Quakers and Slavery, 146.
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