Fanny Mlawer

I chose to set the video to an anthem of the abolition movement from 1844, “Get Off the Track!” by Jesse Hutchinson, Jr[1]. The lyrics that are heard in the excerpt included in my video are as follows:

Ho! the car, Emancipation,

Rides majestic thro’ our nation

Bearing on its train, the story

Liberty! a nation’s glory.

Roll it along! Roll it along!

Roll it along! thro’ the nation

Freedom’s car, Emancipation

First of all the train, and greater,

Speeds the dauntless Liberator

Onward cheered amid hosannas,

And the waving of free banners.

Roll it along! Roll it along!

Roll it along! spread your banners

While the people shout hosannas.

The first image is a music cover for the song, published in 1844[2]. I zoom in on the train car in the image to highlight the phrases inscribed in the train. On the main car we see the phrase “Immediate Emancipation” which I highlighted in blue and red to emphasize the patriotism behind the idea of immediate emancipation. The locomotive pulling the railroad car is labeled “Liberator,” and there are two flags on top of the railroad car, labeled “Herald of Freedom and “American Standard.” These were the names of popular abolitionist publications at the time.

The next three slides are excerpts from the Liberty Party Platform as approved at the Liberty Party convention in August of 1843[3]. The first one is a clear condemnation of slavery as against the principles of both democracy and Christianity, stating that political parties and political systems that are based on slavery are, by definition, non-democratic. Because this first resolution asserts that “human brotherhood” is at the core of both democracy and Christianity, I chose to accompany the quote with a picture of a bowed slave, who is pleading, “Am I not a man and a brother?”[4]

The second resolution that I included from the Liberty Party Platform in 1844, again condemns slavery as un-American and un-Christian. However, it also asserts that the States were promised that slavery would never be extended beyond its “then existing limits.”  Because this shows a clear disapproval of the annexation of Texas, one of the major issues of the election, I decided to pair this quote with a map of Texas from 1841.[5]

The third resolution that I included argues that the Declaration of Independence included the “fundamental truths” of “certain unalienable rights,” and because those rights were assured by the constitution slavery is unconstitutional. This argument is substantiated by the claim that under the constitution, no person can be imprisoned and deprived of life, liberty and property without due process of law. I paired this quote with an image depicting the loss of liberty inherent in slavery.[6] By using this image, I wanted the viewers to ask themselves how a person can have liberty if they are shackled and constantly under the threat of being whipped.

For the next slides, I chose to scroll over a compilation of illustrations from the American Anti-Slavery Almanac of 1840[7]. I chose to highlight the illustrations that I thought would cause the strongest moral and emotional responses in the target audience. The images that I chose were “Selling a Mother from her Child,” “Cutting up a Slave in Kentucky,” “Paid. Unpaid,” and “A Woman chained to a Girl, and a <an in irons at work in the field.” Because these images depicted practices of slavery that would be morally objectionable to individuals operating under the moralities of Christianity, I hoped that they would elicit an emotional, anti-slavery reaction, swaying people toward the side of the abolitionists.

I conclude the campaign video with an image of James G. Birney[8] and a quote from The Pittsfield Sun announcing his nomination for the presidency by the Liberty Party[9]. I decided not to introduce Birney until this very last slide because he ran on the platform of the Liberty Party, not on his own merits. I focused my video on the sole purpose of the Liberty Party – abolition. Although it is important that the electorate knows which candidate to vote for (the reason I included this slide), Birney was such an inconsequential part of the actual campaign and mission of the Liberty Party that I decided to embrace the spirit of the age by not mentioning him until the very last moment.