The Pennsylvania Society for Promoting
the Abolition of Slavery
April 14th marks the anniversary of the founding of
the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, the first organization
anywhere dedicated to the abolition of slavery. The
Pennsylvania Abolition Society (PAS) was originally
formed in 1775 in Philadelphia, although its activities
were suspended for the duration of the Revolutionary
War. Because of its proximity to Congress in the 1790s,
when Philadelphia was the capital of the United States,
the PAS often took the lead on the question of abolition
on the national stage, and was a model for abolition
societies formed in other states. Among the many prominent
Pennsylvanians included in its membership were Benjamin
Rush, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Paine.
The Constitution of the Pennsylvania Society, for
Promoting the Abolition of Slavery (GLC 07485.02),
printed in 1787, served as a public announcement of
the organization's purpose, and inaugurated several
decades of legal activism. Between 1787 and 1830 the
PAS drafted more than twenty petitions to Congress and
more than forty to the Pennsylvania legislature, and
gave direct legal aid to hundreds of African Americans
in Pennsylvania.
GLC 07485.02: The Constitution of the Pennsylvania
Society, for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery,
Pamphlet, 1787.
For more information or to obtain copies, contact Alyson
Barrett at reference@gilderlehrman.com or call (212) 787-6616 ext. 209.
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Basker, James G., Ed. Early American Abolitionists:
A Collection of Anti-Slavery Writings, 1760 - 1820.
New York: The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History,
2007.
Berlin, Ira. Many Thousands Gone: The First Two
Centuries of Slavery in North America. Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1998.
Davis, David Brion. Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and
Fall of Slavery in the New World. New York: Oxford
University Press, 2006.
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