As a leader of the American Moral Reform Society, Whipper was strongly dedicated to interracial organizing and opposed the establishment of separate black organizations.

During the mid-1830s Columbia was plagued by a series of racially motivated riots directed mainly against the business establishments of wealthy black Columbians, particularly Stephen Smith and likely Whipper's investments as well.^[vi]  Perhaps reflecting a sense of disillusionment with the factionalized abolitionist movement and the limits of interracial organizing, in 1839 William Whipper reversed his attribution of white prejudice from the condition of African Americans to their complexion. It was "not a lack of elevation, but complexion that deprived the man of color equal treatment."^[vii]  Despite this apparent revelation for a man who had previously held the opposite to be true, Whipper maintained his dedication to the cause of moral reform although doubting its effectiveness as an anti-slavery tool.

This shifting perspective served as the basis for a reversal on the debate over racially separate versus interracial organizing. In a series of letters published in The Colored American entitled "William Whipper's Letters," a writer under the pseudonym Sidney (believed to be Henry Highland Garnet) issued a treatise on the necessity for self-representation of oppressed peoples. His appeal for independent black initiatives was argued against Whipperís well-known opposition to the issue. However, a decade later, William Whipper's participation in the black convention of 1853 and involvement in planning the National Council of Colored People signaled a softening of his initial insistence on integrated forums. He had come to understand, if not embrace, Sidneys argument for "the essentially peculiar ability of the oppressed, and the necessary incapability of all others."^[viii]

Linked to Whipper's ideas of temperance, the restraint of what he viewed as the "base" instincts of human nature, was a commitment to the principles of non-resistance. In "An Address on Non-Resistance to Offensive Aggression," published in four consecutive issues of The Colored American during September of 1937, Whipper outlined his commitment to a strictly non-violent response to the evils of slavery. The contentious nature of this debate among black abolitionists is made clear by an editorial note inserted at the head of the first article. While clearly intending to provide a forum for discussion among black abolitionist perspectives, the editor of The Colored American, Samuel Cornish,could not refrain from inserting the following note:

We publish this address with pleasure, hoping our readers will make the most of all the principles and arguments presented in favor of universal Peace.  But we honestly confess that we have yet to learn what virtue there would be in using moral weapons, in defence against a kidnapper or a midnight incendiary with a lighted torch in his hand.[ix]

In the article(s) that followed, Whipper cites Biblical texts and appeals to natural law in arguing that "the practice of non-resistance to physical aggression, is not only consistent with reason, but the surest method of obtaining a speedy triumph of the principles of universal peace."^[x]  Keeping with the latter pragmatic tone, Whipper ended his address by stating: "Had they [the abolitionists] set out in this glorious undertaking of freeing 2,500,000 human beings, with the war-cry of 'liberty or death,' they would have been long since demolished."^[xi]  WW

With the escalating threat of physical danger in the form of kidnappings and racial violence, those holding to non-resistance became the dissenting view by mid-century.^[xii]  The idea of moral suasion and the employment of "moral weapons" in response to southern slavery were no longer adequate in the face of "a kidnapper or a midnight incendiary with a lighted torch in his hand."^[xiii]  As black abolitionists retrenched within separate black organizations, they sounded a growingly militant tone of direct action against the agents of slavery. In a controversial address before the 1843 black convention in Buffalo, New York, Henry Highland Garnet reversed the religious reasoning of non-resistance by asserting: "TO SUCH DEGRADATION [of slavery] IT IS SINFUL IN THE EXTREME FOR YOU TO MAKE VOLUNTARY SUBMISSION. The divine commandments, you are in duty bound to reverence, and obey."^[xiv]

In May of 1852, a William Smith was shot dead in Columbia during an attempted kidnapping by an officer from Baltimore. In a letter to Frederick Douglass regarding the incident, Whipper suggested that the incident was resolved in a manner that was "in favor of the slave, and against the interest of the master."

In favor of the slave, because it was better to deprive him of his life, than his liberty. It was against the interest of the claimant, because it was an act of emancipation without compensation. All the former theories of freeing the slaves, has met with but little favor from the North; I wonder if "bullet emancipation" will be less objectionable.[xv]  WW

Such reasoning could well have been met with dismay by Douglass whose own definition of a ìbullet emancipationî was very concisely stated in an editorial entitled "The True Remedy for the Fugitive Slave Bill": "A good revolver, a steady hand, and a determination to shoot down any man attempting to kidnap."^[xvi]
 
 

Whipper's elevated economic standing no doubt resulted in a more protected position in relation to the threat of kidnappings which allowed for detached pronouncements on the immorality of physical resistance. According to Norrence Jones, the issue of kidnappings in the north reveals the beginnings of a social hierarchy in the black community, "Those blacks who were economically secure, were best protected."^[xvii]  Children were the most susceptible to kidnapping, but those of affluent blacks were educated in private schools "uunder a kind of supervision that would have made it more difficult for kidnappers to take [them]." Wealth certainly did not protect northern blacks from white racism as the case of the Columbia race riots demonstrated; however, on the issue of kidnapping (which was the focal point of debates over the use of physical resistance), Whipper was clearly not exposed to immediate danger as a result of his prominence.  For William Whipper and Stephen Smith, a politics of conciliation reflected their entrenchment in the economic fabric of the dominant society.^[xviii]

Having successfully repelled the colonization schemes of the 1830s,^[xix] African Americans reconsidered the idea of emigration during the National Crisis. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, further strengthening of the 1793 Slave Act,^[xx] the Dred Scott decision, and the mounting influence of "slave power" on the federal government all translated into an increasingly perilous position occupied by northern blacks, one in which the distinctions between free and fugitive were being erased.

Black proponents reconceptualized emigration as an empowering move enabling the establishment of independent black communitiesóand possibly a nationóoutside the boundaries of the United States. Remaining a disputed issue among black abolitionists, emigration was no longer perceived as a forced abandonment of America at the hand of white society, but a potential strategy for strengthening the anti-slavery struggle from an autonomous land base abroad. For many, however, the choice of emigration was a pragmatic decision forced by dismal circumstances.

In Columbia, the black population rallied in opposition to the work of the Colombia Auxiliary Colonization Society, which gained increasing support among white residents following outbreaks of racial unrest. Yet, this position likewise changed as a result of the proscribed legal and social standing of northern blacks. Following the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law in 1851, Columbiaís black population drastically decreased as residents sought refuge to the north.

For several decades, William Whipper operated an active station of the Underground Railroad in Columbia. From his review of William Still's Underground Railroad (1872), Leroy Hopkins writes the following of Whipper's involvement.

Once in Columbia the fugitives were sent by Whipper in one of two directions: either west by boat to Pittsburgh or east in his train cars to Philadelphia. In this way, by his own account, between 1847-1859 Whipper "passed hundreds to the land of freedom, while others, induced by high wages, and the feeling that they were safe in Columbia, worked in the lumber and coalyards of that place." The "land of freedom" Whipper alludes to was not the North. He states quite baldly "I always persuaded them to go to Canada, as I had no faith in their being able to elude the grasp of the slave-hunters."[xxi]

According to Whipper, between the years of 1950-55 he organized migrations to Canada that lowered the black population of Columbia from 943 to 487.^[xxii]  Whipper entertained personal plans for resettlement in Canada West as well; however, they were interrupted by the outbreak of the Civil War and were never enacted.

The tactical shifts that characterized William Whipper's thought are not simply personal inconsistencies but are symbolic of the evolving strategies which were a necessary result of the changing political and judicial landscape in the United States. The black population in Columbia and across the nation evaluated local and national events as they affected their lives. Strategies of resistance were reformulated over time in order to remain relevant to the varying conditions of African Americans. While bearing the mark of his own class standing, William Whipper's dedication to the abolitionist cause reflects the complex ties that existed even between the wealthiest of free northern blacks and enslaved southern compatriots.
 
 

Notes

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If you have questions or comments, please contact Tracey Weis or Trish Haverstick at NMCRegionalCenter@millersville.edu.

Or contact in more traditional means by writing to Tracey Weis, Dept. of History, Millersville University, P.O. Box 1002, Millersville, PA, 17551 or calling 717.871.2025.