James Gillespie Birney, leader of the Conservative Abolitionists,
opposed to the radicalism of William Lloyd Garrison and all his ilk,
yet as earnest and sincere in his hatred of slavery, was born at
Danville, Kentucky, February 4, 1792. He was at Transylvania
University for a short time, then proceeded to Princeton, from which
institution he was graduated in 1810. In 1814 he became a lawyer in
his native town of Danville. In 1816 Birney was in the Kentucky
legislature; but two years later he removed to Alabama, settling upon
a plantation near Huntsville. The slavery question was appealing to
him more and more, and he finally became an agent for the American
Colonization Society. In the fall of 1833 Birney returned to Kentucky,
and went to Danville, where he freed his own slaves, and organized the
Kentucky Anti-Slavery Society. On January 1, 1836, the first issue of
his anti-slavery sheet, _The Philanthropist_, appeared from his
Cincinnati office. This soon became the Bible of the Conservative
Abolitionists, who opposed the drastic methods of Garrison and his
followers. In his speeches Birney denounced all violence and
fanaticism in the handling of the slavery problem, though he himself
received much violence at the hands of mobs and almost insane
partisans. His strong addresses through the North won him the
secretaryship of the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1837. In this
capacity he was soon recognized as the real leader of the
"Constitutional Abolitionists," who said they stood upon the
Constitution, fought against secession, and desired to wipe slavery
from the face of the American continent with decency and in order. In
1840 and again in 1844 Birney was the candidate of the Liberty party
for president of the United States. In the second campaign he
multiplied his very small vote received in the first race by nine. He
was thrown from his horse, in 1845, and the final twelve years of his
life were passed as an invalid. Birney died at Perth Amboy, New
Jersey, November 25, 1857. Besides numerous contributions to the
press, his principal writings are _Letter on Colonization_ (1834);
_Addresses and Speeches_ (1835); _American Churches the Bulwarks of
American Slavery_ (1840); _Speeches in England_(1840); and _An
Examination of the Decision of the_ _United States Supreme Court in
the Case of Strader et al. v. Graham_ (1850).
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _History of Kentucky_, by R. H. Collins (Covington,
Kentucky, 1882); _James G. Birney and His Times_, by his son,
William Birney (New York, 1890).