Constitution of the Pennsylvania Society, for Promoting the Abolition Of Slavery

Constitution of the Pennsylvania Society, for Promoting the Abolition Of Slavery, and the Relief of Free Negroes, Unlawfully Held in Bondage. Begun in the Year 1774, and Enlarged on the Twenty-Third of April, 1787. To which Are Added, the Acts of the General Assembly of Pennsylvania, for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery. Phila.: Printed by Francis Bailey, 1788. 29pp. Evans 21381. NAIP w030522. Dumond, p.91. This edition follows and enlarges upon the constitution of the Society as published in 1787. The Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, and the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage was founded in 1774 by Anthony Benezet. and most of its members were Quakers. The officers of the Society included Benjamin Franklin as president, Benjamin Rush and Tench Coxe as secretaries, and Thomas Paine serving as clerk of the General Assembly. Franklin and Rush helped write the Society's constitution. Following the society's constitution and list of officers, the remainder of the present pamphlet reprints a series of acts governing slavery in Pennsylvania. These include "An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery. "An Act to give Relief to certain Persons taking Refuge in this State, with respect to their slaves," and an additional act of March 1788 amending the original act for gradual abolition. This last act is prefixed by a report of the committee of the General Assembly of Pennsylvania. In 1788, as a result of petitions from the Society, the Pennsylvania legislature amended the gradual abolition act of 1780, prohibiting the transportation of slave children or pregnant women out of Pennsylvania, making it illegal to build, outfit, or issue slave ships from Philadelphia, and imposing heavier fines for the kidnapping of slaves.

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