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Champions of Freedom

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@ National Museum of American History

Greeley, Horace Sumner, Charles Seward, William Henry Whittier, John Greenleaf Kellogg, E. B. and E. C

Description

This anti-slavery print from around 1857 exhibits the portraits of four of the leading abolitionists of the 1850s. In the center of the portraits, an eagle sits atop an American crest, holding in its beak a banner that reads, “Liberty.” Below the portraits, another banner celebrates the men’s guiding principles of “Free Speech, Free Press, Free Soil, Free Men.” All of the men pictured in the print vehemently opposed the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act, which employed the doctrine of popular sovereignty to allow the people living in these territories to vote them into the Union as either slave or free states. Horace Greeley, at top, established the New York Tribune and played a leading role in the formation of the Republican Party. William H. Seward, a New York Senator, spoke out in Congress against pro-slavery elements in the Compromise of 1850, such as the Fugitive Slave Act. John Greenleaf Whittier was a Quaker poet and founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society. Charles Sumner became a hero of the abolition movement after he endured a life-threatening beating on the Senate floor after denouncing pro-slavery South Carolina Congressmen. Even before he had gained renown as the victim of “Bleeding Sumner,” the Senator had been a strong proponent of abolition and civil rights for African Americans. In 1848, the city of Boston denied Sarah Robert, a five-year-old black girl, enrollment at a white-only school. In an ensuing court case, Sumner challenged the constitutionality of racially segregated schools in Boston, although the Court ultimately...
Format:
Ink (Overall Material)Paper (Overall Material)
Rights:
Harry T. Peters "America on Stone" Lithography Collection
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Record Contributed By

National Museum of American History

Record Harvested From

Smithsonian Institution