How History Unfolds on Paper: Important Americana from the Eric C. Caren Collection, Part X

"In pursuance of public notice, a very large meeting of the citizens of Shell Point took place on the 19th inst. to express themselves upon the question which has created such universal excitement throughout the slave holding States..."

The Shell Point Meeting
(Shell Point, Florida Territory, ca. 1835.) Printed broadside, 19 1/4 x 11 1/4 in. (489 x 287 mm). Text in three columns. Signed in type by Chairman N.W. Walker. Reads in part: “Resolved, that we ever look upon this as the great Splitting question among the States; that most political questions are subordinate, and many others owe their existence to it; all of which has ever appeared to us a political absurdity. For, why should this interest create opposition from any quarter, when it is known the products of the ‘slave labor’ balances the trade of the whole Republic, and squares accounts with all other nations...we disapprove the passage of any law by our Legislature, making it an indictable case in an Abolitionist to circulate incendiary books or papers among our slaves...” Accompanied by original transmittal envelope, addressed "To His Excellency the Govr. of New Jersey." Creasing from old folds; contemporary manuscript corrections in margins; scattered foxing and offsetting. Not in Sabin, Evans, or Servies (A Bibliography of Florida...)

Excessively rare printed broadside of a passionate pro-slavery statement issued by the inhabitants of Shell Point, Florida in reaction to the American Anti-Slavery Society's famous postal campaign.

During the summer of 1835, the American Anti-Slavery Society undertook a massive postal campaign, sending thousands of circulars or other publications of abolitionist literature to towns and cities across the slave-holding states of the South. The reaction in many cases, as seen in this broadside, was swift and hostile. President Andrew Jackson implored Congress to pass legislation against unsolicited circulation of "incendiary" material as he termed it, but was unsuccessful. Nonetheless, his Postmaster General, Amos Kendall, authorized southern post offices to seize and destroy any abolitionist mail.

The citizens of Shell Point, located just south of Tallahassee, directly call out the leaders of the American Anti-Slavery Society, even advocating the capture of its President Arthur Tappan, stating "That such is our pity, scorn and contempt of Arthur Tappan and his coadjutors, we can neither think, speak nor write of them with any thing like decent forbearance; that we heartily approve of the conduct of the citizens of New Orleans, Charleston, S.C. ...and elsewhere, in offering a premium for said Tappan, and we will be pleased to pay a pro-rato amount for his delivery. "
Very rare. We have not been able to locate another copy in the available auction record, and found only one reference of another example coming to market.

A fascinating example of the high tensions surrounding the subject of slavery in the antebellum South.