Birney, James Gillespie

Life Span
to
    Full name
    James Gillespie Birney
    Place of Birth
    Burial Place
    Birth Date Certainty
    Exact
    Death Date Certainty
    Exact
    Gender
    Male
    Race
    White
    Origins
    Slave State
    No. of Siblings
    2
    No. of Children
    12
    Family
    James Birney (father), Martha Reed (mother), Agatha McDowell (wife, 1816), Elizabeth Fitzhugh (second wife, 1840)
    Education
    Princeton (College of New Jersey)
    Transylvania
    Occupation
    Politician
    Attorney or Judge
    Farmer or Planter
    Writer or Artist
    Relation to Slavery
    Slaveholder who freed slaves
    Church or Religious Denomination
    Presbyterian
    Political Parties
    Liberty
    Other Affiliations
    Abolitionists (Anti-Slavery Society)
    Colonizationists
    Masons
    Government
    State legislature

    James Gillespie Birney (American National Biography)

    Scholarship
    In 1842 Birney ran on an antislavery ticket for the governorship of Michigan. Just prior to the 1844 presidential election, in which he was again the Liberty party candidate, he was on a speaking tour in the East when a letter purporting to be written by him was published, which "proved" him to be a secret Democrat. This "Garland Forgery," named for Jerome B. Garland of Michigan, the purported author of the letter, was later attributed to the Whigs, and may or may not have cost him votes. His vote total, though considerably higher than in 1840, was still only 2 percent of the national popular vote. His political career was ended and his antislavery activities were severely curtailed the following year when a horse-riding accident left him partially paralyzed. Nevertheless, he continued writing on political and constitutional issues regarding slavery….

    As a former slaveholder Birney spoke with the voice of authority on race and slavery; as a lawyer he spoke as a moderate on constitutional issues. For him politics was a means to an end, never an end in itself. He died realizing that moderation on the race issue would not prevail but that civil war would tear the nation apart before emancipation could be proclaimed.
    Betty Fladeland, "Birney, James Gillespie," American National Biography Online, February 2000, http://www.anb.org/articles/15/15-00061.html.
    Chicago Style Entry Link
    Birney, James G. Sinfulness of Slaveholding in All Circumstances: Test by Reason and Scripture. Detroit: Charles Willcox, 1846. view record
    Fladeland, Betty. James Gillespie Birney: Slaveholder to Abolitionist. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1955. view record
    Franklin, Cathy Rogers. “James Gillespie Birney, the Revival Spirit, and 'The Philanthropist'.” American Journalism 17, no. 2 (2000): 31-51. view record
    How to Cite This Page: "Birney, James Gillespie," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/5106.