Rare, the original correspondence as it appeared in the Republican newspaper, Recorder & Telegraph, edited and published by the congregationalist, Nathaniel Willis. It subsequently appeared in pamphlet form under the title Essays on Slavery: republished from the Boston Telegraph & Recorder for 1825 (Amherst, 1826 - see Sabin, 99610).
The correspondence broadly concerns solutions to immediate emancipation, with many agreeing with the American Colonization Society that Liberia was the only viable option.
David Brion Davis supplies an overview of the correspondence: “In 1825 the Boston Recorder and Telegraph published a long correspondence that further clarifies the origins of immediatism. After arguing that slavery was unlawful and suggesting that slaves might have a right to revolt, “Vigornius” [Samuel M. Worcester] asserted that ‘the slave-holding system must be abolished; and in order to the accomplishment of this end, immediate, determined measures must be adopted for the ultimate emancipation over every slave within our territories.’ This was the position of the later Kentucky and New York abolitonists, but Vigornius combined it with strong faith in the American Colonization Society. He was bitterly attacked by ‘A Carolinian,’ who accused him of believing in ‘an entire and immediate abolition of slavery.’ ‘Philo,’ the next contributor, said he opposed immediate emancipation on grounds of expediency, but recognized the right of slaves to immediate freedom […]’ A Southerner, who called himself ‘Hieronymus,’ defended Vigornius and tried to avoid the ambiguities that were later to cloud discussions of immediate abolition. Vigornius, he wrote, pleads, it is true, for speedy emancipation, and immediate preparatory steps …’ Hieronymous, who had read and been impressed by Elizabeth Heyrick’s pamphlet [Immediate, Not Gradual Abolition (London, 1824)] agreed with Vigornius that colonization was the only practicable solution to the nation’s most critical problem.”
Davis, David B., “The Emergence of Immediatism in British and American Antislavery Thought” in McKivigan, John, Abolitionism and American Reform. New York, 1999, p.16.
