[23] Comptroller’s Report for 1855-6, p. 527. [24] Ibid., p. 431. [25] Howard, Rev. Arthur, History of the Church in the Diocese of Tennessee, p. 177. [26] Pendleton, J. N., Reminiscences of a Long Life, p. 127. [27] Statistical Abstract of U. S., 1906, p. 32. [28] Comptroller’s Report for 1857-8, p. 165. [29] Comptroller’s Report for 1859-60, p. 22. [30] Stirling, James, Letters from the Slave States, p. 305. [31] Political Science Quarterly, XX, p. 267. [32] Thwaites, III, 257. [33] Ibid., 277. [34] Ibid., 278. [35] Thwaites, VIII, 73. [36] American Historical Review, October, 1897 (Letter of Phineas Miller to Eli Whitney, July 21, 1797). [37] Aurora and General Advertiser, September 3, 1802. [38] Hammond, M. B., The Cotton Industry, p. 70. [39] Publications of the North Carolina Historical Commission, I, p. 245. [40] Nashville Banner, November 16, 1833. [41] Comptroller’s Report for 1855-6, p. 432. [42] Ibid., p. 433. [43] Comptroller’s Report for 1855-6, p. 434. [44] Comptroller’s Report for 1855-6, p. 435. [45] Memorial from the Colonization Society of Tennessee, 1832 (State Archives). [46] Comptroller’s Report for 1855-6, p. 439. CHAPTER IV ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETIES The attitude of the people of Tennessee toward the negro expressed itself not only in legislation and judicial decision, but also in organized societies, such as manumission and colonization societies, in the churches and in an abolition literature that is unique in American history. It is the purpose of this chapter to give the organization and work of the manumission and colonization societies. The abolition forces made a determined effort to abolish slavery in the constitutional convention of 1796, and, failing in this, they straightway decided to establish anti-slavery societies. There is some doubt as to when the first manumission society was organized in Tennessee. It is clear that an effort was made to organize such a society in 1797. The Knoxville Gazette of January 23, 1797, published a letter from Thomas Embree in which it is stated that a number of the citizens of Washington and Greene counties were to meet in March, 1797 and organize abolition societies patterned after those of Philadelphia, Baltimore, Richmond, and Winchester.[1] The purpose of the society was to work for a more liberal basis of emancipation and for complete abolition as soon as the slaves by education could be prepared for it. Joshua W. Caldwell, author of The Constitutional History of Tennessee, claims that either a Tennessee Manumission Society was organized in 1809, or that the one mentioned above was still in existence.[2] It is not corroborated by historical evidence that there was organized a manumission society in Tennessee in either 1797 or 1809.