Case Study: Theodore Dwight Weld
"Weld's influence among his fellows was so overwhelming that anything which he sponsored would be likely to be unanimously accepted."
-Robert S. Fletcher (A History of Oberlin College From Its Foundation Through the Civil War, vol. 1, 1943)
BeginningsConnecticut-born Theodore Dwight Weld became a student of evangelist Charles Finney. Weld saw slavery's evils firsthand through his journeys and became a leading lecturer for the American Anti-Slavery Society.
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"It is no marvel that slaveholders are always talking of their kind treatment of their slaves. The only marvel is, that men of sense can be gulled by such professions. Despots always insist that they are merciful." |
"Even as a child Weld had a concept of racial interaction that differed from mainstream white society. When Weld was six he asked to sit by his black classmate, Jerry, who the teacher had made sit by himself apart from the white students. The class teased Weld for his action, but even at that young age societal pressure did not sway his beliefs."
-Thomas Free Albright (From Pulpit to the Streets: The Impact of the Second Great Awakening on Race Relations in Ohio)
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Lane Debates
Lane Theological Seminary
From these circumstances, Weld led the Lane debates. The student rebellion catalyzed discussion among philanthropist thinkers and the American public, increasing Weld's notoriety.
Afterwards, he became an editor of The Emancipator, an abolitionist newspaper, attempting change via petitions to Congress.
Afterwards, he became an editor of The Emancipator, an abolitionist newspaper, attempting change via petitions to Congress.
"[Weld's] appeal was the intimate challenge of the evangelist: 'If your hearts ache and bleed, we want you, you will help us; but if you merely adopt our principles as dry theories, do let us alone: we have millstones enough swinging at our necks already."
-Gilbert Hobbs Barnes (The Anti-Slavery Impulse 1830-1844, 1933)
Gary Kornblith, Ph.D, Emeritus Professor of History at Oberlin College
"After Lane, abolitionists like Theodore Dwight Weld saw how entrenched slavery, anti-abolition and colonization were even in the North and they rethought some of their principles."
-Richard Newman, Professor of History, Rochester Institute of Technology
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A Lasting Influence in Advancing Racial Equality
Weld married Angelina Grimké in 1838 and wrote many works on emancipation (see slideshow, below). His final legacy was establishing co-educational Raritan Bay Union School in New Jersey in 1854, which accepted students of all races.
"We repeat it,--public opinion made them slaves, and keeps them slaves; in other words, it sunk them from men to chattels, and now, forsooth, this same public opinion will see to it, that these chattels are treated like men!"
-Weld and the Grimké sisters (American Slavery As It Is, 1839)