Birney, James Gillespie

Birney, James Gillespie

(1792–1857) abolitionist, lawyer, author; born in Danville, Ky. Son of rich slaveholders, he started out as a lawyer and state legislator in Kentucky and then Alabama. Opposition to slavery led him to sell his plantation and most of its slaves; by 1832 he was an agent in the American Colonization Society, but he soon moved from advocating resettlement of slaves to abolitionism. After freeing his last slaves he helped found the Kentucky Anti-Slavery Society (1835) and he attacked slavery as coeditor (with Gamaliel Bailey), of the Cincinnati Philanthropist (1836–37). Often harassed for his views, he was indicted for harboring a fugitive slave (1837) but was acquitted. He moved to New York City in 1837 to serve as executive secretary of the Anti-Slavery Society. Birney ran twice for president as a candidate of antislavery parties (1840, 1844). In 1842 he moved to Michigan, attracted by the cheap land; after being severely injured in a riding accident (1845), he settled in an abolitionists' compound in New Jersey.

The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, by John S. Bowman. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995. Reproduced with permission.