Discerning Truth in
Abolitionist Activities Centered in
Westbury Quarterly
Meeting 1830-1860
By
Gretchen Haynes
Almost
from the inception, there has been conflict within the Society of Friends over
claims of authority for personal action: individual leading versus corporate
discernment. On the one hand is the
fundamental opening of George Fox that “there is that of God in everyone.” The
“God in each” leads to the concept of the direct, unmediated relationship to
God through the Inner Light or Holy Spirit.
On
the other hand is the need to test one’s leading with others before proceeding
to action. The possibility of direct revelation of God’s Will has posed a
problem to Friends going right back to Fox and James Naylor. It played out
again in the Hicksite-Orthodox Separation and Friends
response to anti-slavery activity. And it arises today when we try to apply the
Peace Testimony to contemporary world conflicts.
Are
the individual members ultimately responsible for discerning the Will of God,
and their own conduct? Or is the Meeting ultimately responsible for discerning
the Will of God and, therefore, the conduct of its members? What happens when
two people hear the Will of God in diametrically opposed messages? How shall
such issues be tested and resolved?
It
may be instructive to study Friends’ responses to the issues of slavery to
better understand the contradictions inherent in discerning whose will the
individual is hearing. This article focuses on
The
slavery issue came to the forefront with John Woolman
[1720-1772] who
traveled under the concern of slave-owning Friends, calling the
Society to labor with the paradox of Friends’ owning human beings as
property. Woolman’s
way was to visit Meetings and individual Friends to preach and pray with them towards
releasing their slaves. He acted from his own leading to persuade others to
witness to the testimony of equality. He refused to use any product produced by
slave labor and this became an article of faith for many Friends. Elias Hicks
(1748-1830), the fiery preacher from
Hicks’s view of
slavery grew directly from his views on where authority lay, which eventually
led to the 1828 Separation that took place in New York Yearly Meeting and
other, but not all, yearly meetings among the American Society of Friends. He
believed in holy obedience to the “manifestation of the will of God by his own
spirit in the soul,” (Barbour 119) rather than the authority of moral laws,
scripture, or elders. The “Hicksite Friends” separated themselves from the turmoil of
the “World” and called themselves “Quietists.”
Designated
as “radical” in ethics, the Quietist Quakers tended “to polarize good and evil,
to reject compromise. They may see good and evil in terms of social structures
and oppression…. They will work to change human motives, for instance by
education, but are more likely to try to persuade good people to isolate
themselves out of society into pure groups…. Over slavery, then the quietist
Elias Hicks was a radical: he distrusted equally self-will and slave owners. He
was also a separatist, seeing the Society of Friends as a pure community
against the corrupt world.” (Barbour, 192-3)
Elias
Hicks wrote in Observations on the
Slavery of Africans and Their Descendents, (1811) “I think it is self
evident….the slavery of the Africans is the product of mere power, without any
possible pleas of right….Every child of an African, born in America or
elsewhere…is born free, and therefore suffers the same cruel force of fraud and
power….Slaves, being taken by violence…are taken prisoners of war, prize
goods.” (Barbour, 74) By linking slaves
to war booty, Hicks tied freeing slaves to the Peace Testimony. He preached to
Friends to manumit their slaves as a matter of faith. Like Woolman, he
acted alone to challenge individuals and the Society to live up to Friends’
testimonies.
To
put the period in perspective, Shane White, a researcher into slavery in
However,
as early as 1759, New York Yearly Meeting “decided that Friends could not
import slaves.” (Barbour 66). In 1771 the Yearly Meeting ordered members not to
sell their slaves if they wished to remain in good standing with their Meeting
and in 1774, that all slaves had majority (age 21) (67). In 1776 the Yearly Meeting “mandated the
freeing of their slaves if members wished to remain in good standing. By 1776,
Long Island Friends from Manhasset to
Thus Friends acted well ahead of the
society in general and
During
the early period, individual actions to oppose slavery seem to be the norm.
Many Friends followed the leading of John Woolman and
instituted a boycott of slave-made goods, known as the Free Produce movement.
New York Yearly Meeting endorsed the idea in 1811 by publishing Hicks’s Observations (Densmore 82). As
anti-slavery sentiment mounted in the 1830’s and 40’s, some Friends went even
further. James Mott, husband of Lucretia Mott,
“abandoned the cotton trade in protest” over slavery (Day 46). Thomas Willis helped Henry Highland Garnet,
the black abolitionist, to escape a slave catcher and Capt. Epenetus
Smith, another L. I. Quaker, provided endentured
employment for Garnet. (Driscoll, 17-18) Many, but not all, Friends were active
in the Underground Railroad network. [For a thorough discussion of Quakers’
role, see Driscoll et al., Angels of
Deliverance: The Underground Railroad.]
After
the Separation, most Friends in both Hicksite and
Orthodox meetings
frowned upon participation with those “not in unity with the
Society”; they found other, less fractious activities. In addition to Free
Produce, this included the petition campaign to the U. S. Congress to end
slavery in the
In
the pre-Civil War era, some Friends were wary of involvement in what they saw
as social action rather than religious concerns. They saw the gathering storm
and sought to remove Friends from aggravating the tendencies toward war. From about 1840,
Similarly
in western
It is, to me, absurd that, at this day
and age, Friends should talk about keeping to the quiet. Have they not, since
the first rise of the society, been agitating the public? Their testimonies
were calculated to do so, and, I believe, the agitation has been productive of
great good to the world. (Densmore 84-5)
As
in other instances in Friends’ history, the tensions grew over how to resolve
conflicts that arose within the Society.
In Genesee Yearly Meeting, some Friends, such as Amy and Isaac Post, asked
to be released from membership while about 200 others withdrew to form their
own Yearly Meeting in 1848 (Densmore 86).
Individual
Quakers continued their involvement in various organizations that included
non-Friends. In 1785 the N.Y. Society
for Promoting the Manumission of Slaves was founded by 12 Friends and 6 other
men. Their focus was on securing legislation, monitoring compliance, educating
the freed slaves, and later cooperation with other abolitionist societies. In
the first 40 years, of 454 members, 251 were Friends, showing that at that
time, Friends were free to associate with non-Friends in anti-slavery
activities. That society was dissolved
in 1849. The Charity Society was founded by Elias Hicks in 1794 “for the relief
of the Poor among the black people, more especially for the education of their
children.” (Gaines 1). This society
still promotes education for minority children. [For a list of Westbury-Jericho
contributors to the Anti-Slavery Society, see appendix.]
To
better understand the paradox arising when Friends have diametrically opposed
understandings of the Will of God, we can see how slavery affected the
The
New York Association of Friends for the Relief of Those Held in Slavery was
organized in 1839 by Hicksite Friends to publish
pamphlets on slavery, endorse the free produce movement, and help educate free
blacks in
Tension
grew between these activists and those Friends who, while abhorring slavery,
did not believe in direct intervention to end it. George F. White, for example,
a recorded minister of New York Monthly Meeting (Hicksite),
spoke “against societies for popular reform, a category that included
missionary and temperance societies and the abolitionist organizations.”
…. An article highly critical of White
was published in the
The
charges brought against the three illustrate the paradox and the conflict between
personal witness and corporate discipline.
According to the Monthly Meeting minutes:
1. The Will of
Man, not the Will of God, prompted the activity; therefore it was wrong and
sinful because it was not under divine Guidance.
2. Such activity
was a mixing in the world, with the “low and the vile, the just and the
unjust”; therefore it could not have a good outcome.
3. Friends in
such activities came into contact with ministers of other faiths, in violation
of the testimony against being “corrupted by the hireling ministry” and
constituted a “slippery slope” leading to leaving the Society of Friends.
4. If there were
anything wrong with slavery, or any other situation, God would correct it. Such
activity implied that abolitionists thought they were wiser than God.
5. Such activity
implied that something was wrong with Friends testimonies. Faith should be
sufficient to cause change; therefore, it was not necessary to form or
participate in man-made organizations.
6. Such activity
ignored the slaveholders, many of whom were performing a moral good by making
slaves morally good and happy; it also ignored the problems that abolition
would bring to slaveholders.
7. Such activity
employed strong language and harsh activities unbefitting to Friends.
8. Quakers belong
to a religious society, not a benevolent society; therefore, slavery was not a
proper issue for the care of the Society of Friends. (Hourahan)
In three separate actions the three
men were disowned in 1842: first by the New York Monthly Meeting, then by
Westbury Quarterly Meeting to which N.Y. Monthly belonged, and finally
confirmed by the New York Yearly Meeting. The 1842 Minutes of the Yearly
Meeting read as follows:
The following minute was received from
Westbury Quarterly Meeting.
“The Committee to inform Isaac T.
Hopper of the judgment of this meeting, and of his right to appeal, responded
that he informed them he intended to appeal from the judgment of this to the
Yearly Meeting. John C. Merritt, Sam’l Underhill, Nathaniel
S. Merritt, John Leggett, and Richard Field are appointed to attend the Yearly
Meeting, with copies of this and of New York Yearly Meeting’s minutes relative
thereto, and to give such explanations as may be necessary.
“Isaac T. Hopper
being present, and informing the meeting that he intends to prosecute his
appeal. The following Friends are appointed to hear the Appelant and the Committee of Westbury Quarterly meeting
and report their sense to [unclear] sitting of this meeting viz [list includes
Friends from] Purchase, Nine Partners, Easten,
Stanford, Ferrisburgh, Duanesburgh,
Saratoga, Cornwell, Shrewsbury & Rahway.”
[The Minutes continue]
“James S. Gibbons being present, in
reply to the question whether he intended to prosecute his appeal, Said, he had no intention of doing so, but retired from it.
This information is directed to Westbury Quarterly Meeting.”
Following
the deliberations, the Yearly Meeting Minutes read:
“The Committee appointed in the case of
Isaac T. Hopper on his appeal against the judgement
of Westbury Quarterly meeting made the following report:
“To the Yearly Meeting
“The Committee on Isaac T. Hopper’s
appeal report, that, after patient deliberation, we find that eighteen
of our members are in favor of confirming the judgement
of the quarterly meeting, fifteen for reversing it, and three
decline giving judgement in the case. [Emphasis in the original.]
“On behalf of the Committee”
Jacob
Willetts
“On consideration, and after a general
expression of sentiment theron, this meeting
concluded to confirm the judgement of Westbury
quarterly meeting, Eleazar Haviland and Simon Brown are appointed to give this conclusion
to Isaac T. Hopper and direct similar information to the quarterly meeting of
Westbury.”
The
Yearly Meeting action is highly unusual in Quaker decision-making. Voting, or taking a poll, is not a part of
Friends’ right order. But even by
non-Quaker standards, there was not a majority in favor of the judgement, but an even tie when the abstentions are
counted. One can only imagine the
turmoil this “case” must have caused among Friends.
Lucretia Mott wrote to
the Yearly Meeting in support of Hopper and angry at the actions of George T.
White, who she accused of provocative actions.
She may be considered partisan, however, since her daughter, Anna,
married the Gibbon’s son, Edward.
Following disownment, Hopper continued to sit on the facing bench at his
meeting,
In
personal terms, Isaac Hopper lived until 1852 and continued his abolitionist
activities, continuing to attend Meeting. Following the Civil War, his
daughter, Abigail H. Gibbons, became active in another reform movement, the
Women’s Prison Association. She presented
her letter of withdrawal from the Society of Friends personally to Rose Street
Meeting, at which Sally Hicks of Westbury spoke against her actions. In 1870, members of New York Yearly Meeting approached
her to return to Friends. She agreed, if the Yearly Meeting would approve a
minute retracting her father’s disownment.
This did not occur, and even as late as 1900, the sides were still
adamant. (Hourahan)
In
one sense, Friends could participate in individual actions such as support of
the free produce movement. Similarly,
Friends could respond to a fleeing slave by giving sanctuary and passing the
person on to safety, as Valentine Hicks is reported doing. These actions grew
out of the personal witness to Friends’ testimonies. They did not violate any
of the precepts laid out in the charges against Isaac Hopper. On the other
hand, these individual actions did not urge any one else to follow, but left it
up to each person. It seems that
advocacy, agitation, and overt action, particularly in cooperation with
non-Friends were frowned upon. Just as abolitionists acted outside of monthly
meetings’ approval, today peace activists are forming alliances to alleviate
Meeting dissent around their actions, such as civil disobedience.
The
dilemma of holy obedience in a world of war and social injustice can be further
examined in the life and work of a Westbury woman who became a noted Quaker
minister. Rachel Seaman Hicks
[1789-1878] was the daughter of
Gideon Seaman, a long-time clerk of Westbury Monthly Meeting. At the time of
the Separation, he remained clerk of the Westbury Orthodox Friends while his
daughter went with the followers of Elias Hicks, her uncle by marriage.
She
was a shy, deeply spiritual woman who felt called by God. At the age of 18,
(1808) she writes in her Memoir,
“when the language was sounded intelligibly to my mental ear, ’If faithful to My requirings, thou wilt have to
speak in My name to the assemblies of the people, and travel extensively in the
ministry.’ This was an unexpected and unwelcome message. My nature revolted, and
I said in my heart, ‘This is a service I cannot perform.’ …Any other service I
thought I could perform, or make any sacrifice in lieu of so great a work for
which I felt unfit and unworthy.” (R. Hicks, 7-8) She
resisted the leading, married, had five children, lost her husband and her
father. In 1831, she “made a surrender of my will to my Divine Master to speak
in the assemblies of the people.” Shortly thereafter, her son Gideon aged 8
died and in 1833 her oldest son William died at the age of 18. In 1836 she
reluctantly answered the persistent call she felt to become a traveling
minister.
Although
plagued by self-doubt and homesickness, she traveled widely in New York Yearly
Meeting, along the East Coast from
She
saw her mission as calling Hicksite meetings back
into faithfulness to the Quietist path. “The same spirit of departure from
faith in, and obedience to, the Divine principle in the soul which was the root
and ground-work of the sad Separation in 1828, was still at work in the minds
of many bearing our name” (R. Hicks
43). She labored with meetings and
individuals in an “earnest appeal for obedience to the voice within,” which she
had so abundantly found sufficient to guide her through life (62). She died at the age of 89, out-living all her
children.
Rachel
Hicks, like so many Friends, lamented the institution of slavery and its bitter
fruits. She wrote in her Memoir in
1856, “In the course of this journey I had afresh to mourn over the deplorable
system of human slavery that exists in our land, not only on account of the
injustice and cruelty exercised toward the African race, but also for its
demoralizing influence on the white people who claim them as their property.”
(74)
She
foresaw the day of retribution “not only to the slaveholder, but also to those
who sustain the system by using and trafficking in the articles produced by the
labor of slaves…. In view of the power and majesty of Deity my soul bows reverently
before Him. He will work, and none can hinder; therefore I fear that, ere long,
the soil that has received the tears and sweat of the oppressed in our land
will be moistened by the blood of the white man – the inevitable consequence
and just retribution for his unrighteous doings” (74).
No
one can doubt the sincerity of her feelings against slavery and her steadfast
belief in the hand of God working in history. Her life and ministry were based
on the “Hicksite belief that ‘perfection’ or
salvation came though an individual’s faithful obedience to the Inner Light.”
(West 11) Nevertheless, she could not
condone the efforts of the Quaker abolitionists, who also believed they were being
faithful to their own Inner Light to overturn slavery. She was a strong supporter
of George F. White, and in her ministry she warned of failing to “keep in the
quiet” and wait upon God to make things right.
We
learn, not from Rachel Hicks but from Lucretia Mott,
that Hicks strongly criticized Mott’s abolitionist and women’s rights
activities. Hicks’s reasons are summed up in the
charges against Isaac Hopper – with the added charge that Lucretia
thrust herself upon Meetings uninvited and would refuse to keep silent. (West, conversation) When Mott became an
embarrassment, she was urged to resign from her Meeting and George F. White
threatened her with disownment in Philadelphia Y.M., neither of which took
place.
During
Hicks’s life, Westbury Meeting supported her
ministry, and various Friends accompanied her on her travels. Although she may have doubted her
persuasiveness, she never doubted the call to faithfulness, and the hand of God
in history. She does not mention Hopper’s disownment in her Memoirs, nor is there any mention in
Westbury’s Minutes of any dissention between her views and those of the active
abolitionists. We are left to wonder how the evident tensions might have been
addressed.
Hopper
and Hicks each followed their understanding of the Will of God, although the
messages were diametrically opposite.
For Hicks, salvation lay in faithfulness to the Inner Light but not,
apparently, when it contradicted the Will of the Meeting, as it did with Hopper
and Mott. Discernment in Hopper’s case
lead to disownment by a process far removed from Friends’ right order. Neither the Monthly, the
Quarterly, nor the Yearly Meetings were willing to continue testing for
as long as it might take to find the sense of the Meeting. The outcome, a poll
or vote, reflected more the emotional state of those involved than the
spiritual commitment to finding “Truth” in the conflict.
Of
approximately 50 members of the Anti-Slavery Society in 1840, the following
were from Westbury and Jericho Meetings:
A
further indication of Westbury’s support for abolitionist activities comes from
lists of those who gave financial support. Among them, Elizabeth Hicks donated
to this project; her correspondence contains letters from both Abigail Hopper
Gibbons and Rachel Seaman Hicks. While
full lists are not available to this writer, the treasurer’s report for
Anti-Slavery Society, for example in the week of 9th Mo. 9, 1843,
shows Phebe Ketcham, and
Margaret Ketcham, both of Jericho M.M. gave $1.00
each; in 1844, John Ketcham gave $1.; for the week of
Feb. 9, 1845, Mathew F. Robbins and Stephen Robbins, both of Jericho gave $1.50
and $2.00 respectively and E. Levi of Hempstead Harbor gave $1.00. In March 1849 for “Donations to be
appropriated for labour in
Barbour,
Hugh, Christopher Densmore, Elizabeth H. Moger, Nancy C. Sorel, Alson D. Van Wagner & Arthur J. Worral,
Eds. Quaker Cross Currents: Three Hundred
Years of Friends in the New York Yearly Meeting.
Day,
Lynda R. Making a Way to Freedom: A
History of African Americans on
Densmore, Christopher.
“The Dilemma of Quaker Anti-Slavery: The Case of
Driscoll,
James, Derek M. Gray, Richard J. Hourahan, Kathleen
G. Velsor. Angels
of Deliverance: The Underground Railroad in
Forbush, Bliss. Elias Hicks: Quaker Liberal.
Gaines,
Edith. The Charity Society 1794-1994. Charity Society, 1994.
Hicks,
Hicks,
Rachel. Correspondence, 1855. Website of westburyquakers.org Archive,
Hicks, Rachel.
Hicks,
Rachel. Memoir. G.P. Putnam’s
Sons. 1880.
Minutes of
Moger, Elizabeth H.
“Quakers as Abolitionists: The Robinsons of Rokeby and Charles Marriott.” Quaker History, Fall, 2004, v. 92, No. 2.
Personal conversations with Richard Hourahan,
and James Driscoll of Queens Historical Society.
West,
Rachel OSF. “Rachel Hicks: To Tell Unto Others What Thou Hast Done For My
Soul,” Pendle Hill Lecture.
West,
Rachel. “What I Learned from Rachel Hicks,” Friends
Journal, 10-12, July, 2001. Personal conversations with
Rachel West.