Theodore Dwight Weld

Theodore Dwight Weld was one of the most effective organizers of the abolitionist movement in the United States, though he was often overshadowed in his own time. And, partly due to his own aversion to publicity, he has often been overlooked by history. For three decades Weld guided many efforts of the abolitionists. And a book he published in 1839, American Slavery As It Is, influenced Harriet Beecher Stowe as she wrote Uncle Toms Cabin. In the early 1830s Weld organized a highly influential series of debates at Lane Seminary in Ohio and trained abolitionist agents who would spread the word throughout the North. He later became involved on Capitol Hill in advising John Quincy Adams and others in promoting anti-slavery agitation in the House of Representatives. Weld married Angelina Grimkà ©, a South Carolina native who had, along with her sister, become a devoted abolitionist. The couple was very well-known in abolitionist circles, yet Weld exhibited an aversion to public notice.  He generally published his writings anonymously and preferred to exert his influence behind the scenes. In the decades after the Civil War Weld avoided discussions of the proper place of the abolitionists in history. He outlived most of his contemporaries, and when he died at the age of 91 in 1895, he was nearly forgotten. Newspapers mentioned his death in passing, noting that he had known and worked with William Lloyd Garrison, John Brown, and other noted abolitionists. Early Life Theodore Dwight Weld was born November 23, 1803, in Hampton, Connecticut. His father was a minister, and the family was descended from a long line of clergymen. During Welds childhood the family moved to western New York State. In the 1820s the traveling evangelist Charles Grandison Finney passed through the countryside, and Weld became a devoted follower of his religious message. Weld entered the Oneida Institute to study to become a minister. He also became very involved in the temperance movement, which at the time was a burgeoning reform movement. A reformist mentor of Weld, Charles Stuart, traveled to England and became involved with the British anti-slavery movement. He wrote back to America, and brought Weld to the anti-slavery cause. Organizing the Abolitionists During this period Weld met Arthur and Lewis Tappan, wealthy New York City merchants who were financing a number of reform movements, including the early abolitionist movement. The Tappans were impressed with Welds intellect and energy, and recruited him to work with them. Weld influenced the Tappan brothers to get involved in the fight against slavery. And in 1831 the philanthropist brothers founded the American Anti-Slavery Society. The Tappan brothers, at Welds urging, also financed the founding a seminary which would train ministers for settlements in the expanding American West. The new institution, Lane Seminary in Cincinnati, Ohio, became the site of a highly influential gathering of anti-slavery activists in February 1834. In two weeks of seminars organized by Weld, activists debated the cause of ending slavery. The meetings would resonate for years, as attendees came away deeply committed to the cause. Weld embarked on a program of training abolitionists who could bring converts to the cause in the style of revivalist preachers. And when a campaign of sending abolitionist pamphlets into the South was thwarted, the Tappan Brothers began to see that Welds idea of educating human agents who would carry the abolitionist message. On Capitol Hill In the early 1840s Weld became involved in the political system, which was not the usual course of action for abolitionists. William Lloyd Garrison, for instance, purposely avoided mainstream politics, as the United States Constitution allowed slavery. The strategy pursued by abolitionists was to use the right to petition in the Constitution to send petitions seeking the end of enslavement to the U.S. Congress. Working with former president John Quincy Adams, who was serving as a congressman from Massachusetts, Weld worked as a critical adviser during the petition campaign.   By the mid-1840s, Weld had essentially withdrawn from an active role in the abolitionist movement, yet he continued to write and advise. He had married Angelina Grimke in 1838, and they had three children. The couple taught at a school they founded in New Jersey. Following the Civil War, when memoirs were written and the rightful place of the abolitionists in history was being debated, Weld chose to remain silent. When he died he was mentioned briefly in newspapers, and was remembered as one of the great abolitionists.