National Anti-Slavery Standard

January 7, 1841 edition

The National Anti-Slavery Standard was the official weekly newspaper of the American Anti-Slavery Society, established in 1840 under the editorship of Lydia Maria Child and David Lee Child. The paper published continuously until the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1870. Its motto was “Without Concealment—Without Compromise.” It not only implies suffrage rights for colored males, but also women’s suffrage as well. It contained Volume I, number 1, June 11, 1840 through volume XXX, number 50, April 16, 1870.^[1]

History

The Standard was a weekly newspaper that was published concurrently in New York City, New York, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (1854–1865). It published the essays, debates, speeches, events, reports, and anything newsworthy that related to the question of slavery in the United States and other parts of the world. Its audience were the members of the American Anti-Slavery Society and abolitionists in the north. Its two key focuses in the elimination of slavery were religion and politics, which considered slavery as an evil institution. Its strong religious appeal asserted that God was the only being that could end slavery. However, they did assign value to political action. The paper only contained six columns, but its personal accounts of slavery helped express the feelings and moods surrounding the controversy for thirty years. It began being published during a time that the American Anti-Slavery Society was torn over tactics of how to go about emancipation.^[2]

American Anti-Slavery Society

Slavery

Contemporary Child labour Conscription Debt Forced marriage Bride-buying Wife selling Forced prostitution Human trafficking Peonage Penal labour Sexual slavery
Historical Antiquity Ancient Rome Babylonia Ancient Greece Topics and practices Atlantic slave trade Middle Passage Arab slave trade Ghilman Mamluk Saqaliba Aztec Blackbirding Byzantine Empire Coolie Corvée labor Field slaves in the United States House slaves Kholop Medieval Europe Panyarring Thrall Serfs History Russia Slave raiding Naval Galley slave Impressment Pirates Shanghaiing Slave ship
By country or region Africa Contemporary Africa Slavery on the Barbary Coast Barbary slave trade Slave Coast Angola Chad Ethiopia Mali Mauritania Niger Somalia South Africa Sudan Seychelles Americas Americas indigenous U.S. Natives Brazil Lei Áurea Canada Caribbean Barbados Code Noir Cuba Haiti revolt Restavec Latin America Puerto Rico Trinidad United States colonial maps female partus penal labor Slave codes interregional Human Trafficking Virgin Islands Asia Bhutan China Booi Aha Laogai India Debt bondage Chukri System Japan comfort women South Korea Yankee princess North Korea Vietnam Yemen Australia and Oceania Blackbirding in Australia Human trafficking in Australia Slave raiding in Easter Island Human trafficking in Papua New Guinea Blackbirding in Polynesia Europe Sex trafficking in Europe British Isles Denmark Dutch Republic Germany in World War II Poland Portugal Romania Russia Spain colonies Sweden Middle East and North Africa Iran Libya Ottoman Empire
Religion Bible Christianity Islam 21st century Judaism
Opposition and resistance Timeline Abolitionism U.K. U.S. Anti-Slavery International Blockade of Africa U.K. U.S. Compensated emancipation Freedman manumission Freedom suit Abolitionists Slave Power Underground Railroad songs Slave rebellion Slave Trade Acts International law 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution
Related Common law Indentured servant Unfree labour Fugitive slaves laws Great Dismal Swamp maroons List of slaves owners Slave narrative films songs Slave name Slave Route Project Treatment in U.S. breeding court cases Washington Jefferson Adams Lincoln 40 acres Freedmen's Bureau bit Wage slavery Emancipation Day

The newspaper’s founder, the American Anti-Slavery Society, was founded in 1833 to spread their movement across the nation with printed materials. The National Anti-Slavery Standard and The Liberator^[3] became the official newspapers of the society. The paper featured writings from influential abolitionists fighting for suffrage, equality, and most of all emancipation.^[4] One activist that was featured most was Charles Lenox Redmond, a free elite African American minister who travelled the country speaking out against slavery.^[5] Other abolitionists included Frederick Douglass who gave powerful antislavery testimonies.

Editors

The paper had various editors: N. P. Rogers, 1840–1841; Lydia M. Child, 1841–1843; D. L. Child, 1843–1844; S. H. Gay, 1844–1854; Oliver Johnson, 1863–1865; A. M. Powell, 1866-1870.^[6] One of the paper’s editor, Lydia Maria Child, published a book entitled Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, written by a colored woman, Harriet Jacobs, under the pseudonym, Linda Brent.^[7] This book was written to the northerners to reveal the horrors and tragedies that enslaved colored people had to face. A letter from the author, “Linda Brent,” was published in the paper to stress the validity of her non-fiction novel. She gave the paper a literary flare that educated readers were drawn to.

Related Papers

From May–July 1870, the paper’s title changed to Standard: A Journal of Reform and Literature. Then from July 30, 1870, to December 23, 1871, it ran as the National Standard: An Independent Reform and Literary Journal. After the ratification of the fifteenth amendment, the paper changed its title from The National Anti-Slavery Standard to The National Standard: A Temperance and Literary Journal from January to December in 1872.^[8] The motto changed to An Independent, Reform and Literary Journal Justice and Equal Rights for All.

References