Description

Holograph, signed.Title devised by cataloger.James C. Jackson writes to Maria Weston Chapman in regards to developments in New York state, specifically the West Bloomfield and Waterloo Conventions. He writes, "I have told you and many other friends in Boston that Western New York was ours. I am able to say that I am most disappointed and as it may be a week or two before the proceedings may appear in the public journal." He writes that he has helped manage the conventions through two friends, [Joseph C.] Hathaway and W.R. Smith. He quotes several paragraphs from a letter by J.C. Hathaway describing the convention and the forming of a new society with three women on the committee to report a constitution and offices for the new society. He writes, "we have incorporated in one constitution in room of the word 'persons,' or rather in addition to it the words 'male or female' and I suppose we shall be set down as a womans rights (if not a Non Resistance) society." They also voted on defeated resolutions on the third party issue. Jackson fears that William Lawrence Chaplin, the Western New York agent, may prove "treacherous." Gerrit Smith's influence as president of the state society is at an end. His conversion to a third party may make many abolitionists doubt him. Jackson says he will not attend the Albany convention due to his sickness. He believes the convention will be "thinly represented by Western New York...and Massachusetts will not be generally...

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Boston Public Library

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Digital Commonwealth