Produced by Bryan Ness and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive.) AMERICAN ABOLITIONISM, FROM 1787 TO 1861. A COMPENDIUM OF HISTORICAL FACTS, EMBRACING LEGISLATION IN CONGRESS AND AGITATION WITHOUT. (ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE NEW YORK HERALD.) BY F. G. DE FONTAINE. NEW YORK: D. APPLETON & CO. 1861. PRICE, TWENTY-FIVE CENTS. HISTORY OF AMERICAN ABOLITIONISM; Its Four Great Epochs, EMBRACING NARRATIVES OF THE ORDINANCE OF 1787, COMPROMISE OF 1820, ANNEXATION OF TEXAS, MEXICAN WAR, WILMOT PROVISO, NEGRO INSURRECTIONS, ABOLITION RIOTS, SLAVE RESCUES, COMPROMISE OF 1850, KANSAS BILL OF 1854, JOHN BROWN INSURRECTION, 1859, VALUABLE STATISTICS, &c., &c., &c. TOGETHER WITH A HISTORY OF THE SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY. (ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE NEW YORK HERALD.) BY F. G. DE FONTAINE. _NEW YORK_: D. APPLETON & Co. 1861. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, BY F. G. DE FONTAINE, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New York. CHAS. CRASKE, STEREOTYPER. BARTON & SON, PRINTERS, 111 Fulton Street, N. Y. INTRODUCTION. The following pages originally appeared in the NEW YORK HERALD, of February 2d, 1861. By request, they have been reproduced in their present shape, with the view of preserving, in a form more compact than that of a newspaper, the valuable facts embraced. Without an extensive range of research it is almost impossible to acquire the information which is thus compiled, and, at the present time, especially, it is believed that the publication of these facts will be desirable to the reading community. F. G. DE F. HISTORY OF AMERICAN ABOLITIONISM. CHAPTER I. The Spirit of the Age--Two Classes of Abolitionists--Their Objects--The Sources of their Inspiration--Influences upon Church and State--Proposed Invasions upon the Constitution--Effect upon the Slave States, &c., &c.