Recovering a Heritage

A few contemporary stereotypes may be shaken by the realization that the major financial backing and organizational leadership behind the abolitionist movement were derived from the man who founded Dun and Bradstreet (the New York "credit-rating" firm) and his silk merchant brother, founder of the Journal of Commerce (a daily business newspaper). Lewis and Arthur Tappan were two of the most prominent and wealthy businessmen in pre-Civil War New York. Yet these two men so threw themselves into the reforms of the era that one tribute after Arthur's death affirmed that "in the slavery agitation, its beginning, its extent, its power, its results, it may bet said, without a question that Arthur Tappan was the pivotal centre of the whole movement."

The Tappan brothers were born in the late 1780s into a large and pious family in Northampton, Massachusetts. The Tappans lived for a time in the old house of Jonathan Edwards—not inappropriate in view of the Edwardsean piety that permeated the home under the influence of their profoundly Christian mother Sarah Tappan. Later, as apprenticed clerks in Boston, the brothers sat for a while under the preaching of Unitarian William Ellery Channing. Lewis embraced Unitarianism, serving in 1825 as treasurer of the American Unitarian Association. But in 1828 he created a sensation in Massachusetts by returning to the evangelical faith, explaining his action in a Letter From a Gentleman in Boston to a Unitarian Clergyman of that City.

The Tappan brothers became later in New York the major supporters of evangelist Charles G. Finney, supervising the building of his church and funding other pet projects. Lewis and Arthur Tappan were consistent advocates and practitioners of a form of evangelical religion that like the Wesleyan Revival of the preceding century found a positive role for "good works."

It is difficult to over-estimate the impact of the Tappans upon both the business community and the reform movements. Their fortunes were made in Arthur's silk company (the largest silk jobber in the country) where their success was a result of absolute honesty, a preference for "cash sales," and a new system of "fixed prices."

Their business survived a devastating fire only to go under in the financial collapse of 1837. Arthur Tappan had to suspend payments owing more than a million dollars. But within eighteen months he was back on his feet, having paid back all his obligations including interest. Arthur was also the founder of the Journal of Commerce in 1827 a new daily to “exert a wholesome moral influence" by “abstaining particularly from publishing immoral advertisements” for such things as "spirituous liquors, circuses, and theatres.”

Lewis Tappan set out on his own in 1841 by founding the Mercantile Agency (the antecedent of today's Dun and Bradstreet). This agency set up a network of contacts throughout the country to provide credit ratings for businessmen. In an increasingly mobile and widespread economy this new idea helped provide a necessary stability to the American economy in a crucial period in its development when personal knowledge of the moral character of businessmen was no longer immediately available.

In spite of the wealth the Tappan brothers gained in these projects, they preferred in unostentatious lifestyle. They considered themselves “stewards” of the money that God had given them. Lewis Tappan authored late in his life a pamphlet entitled Is It Right to be Rich? (1869) answering the question largely in the negative in an effort to combat the irresponsible accumulation of wealth in the post-war era. All of their lives the Tappans plowed most of their wealth back into various philanthropies, benevolent societies, and social reform movements.

Arthur Tappan, for example, made major contributions to these groups and served as officer or board member of most. He made a major anonymous gift to the American Bible Society to “supply every family in the United States with a Bible.” He supported the American Sunday School Union, encouraging it to “have a Sabbath School formed within two years in every town” in the newly settled Mississippi Valley.

But more interesting was the Tappan support for the "free church"' movement in New York City. This little known aspect of American church history was a protest against the selling and renting of pews to support the building and maintenance of church buildings. Opponents of this practice argued that the result was the exclusion of the poor and a seating pattern according to wealth that could not be squared with biblical teachings about "being a respecter of persons." Such sentiments led a number of Presbyterian ministers to found in 1830 in New York City a "Third Presbytery” consisting of “free churches" where pews were open to all regardless of class or wealth. Within, two years these missions boasted a membership of nearly 4000.

The Tappan brothers put up much of the money for these churches. The second of six churches founded was a remodeled theatre called the Chatham Street Chapel prepared especially for evangelist Charles G. Finney when he was finally convinced to take a settled pastorate in New York City. The pastors of the "free churches" were practitioners of Finney's "new measure" revivalism and the congregations consisted largely of converts from Finney's campaigns. These churches were closely identified with the reform movements, providing finances, hosting abolitionist conventions and other rallies.

Such concerns, of course, found major outlet in the abolitionist struggles. This reform increasingly absorbed the time and wealth of the Tappan brothers. They had long been concerned about the slavery issue in a general way. They supported for a time the American Colonization Society—though in part it must be admitted because of their interest in opening up new areas of trade among the freed slaves attempting to establish Liberia. But the Tappans gradually withdrew from this movement. Arthur disapproved of the "rum trade" that had become an essential part of the Liberian economy, but Lewis Tappan felt that such a program was basically an escape from the deeper issues of race and equality. When the school of “immediate abolitionism” arose, the Tappans soon transferred their allegiance to this more radical approach to the slavery issue.

When William Lloyd Garrison was imprisoned for libel for his attack on a nearby shipmaster in the Genius of Universal Emancipation, it was Arthur Tappan who bailed him out. The resulting contact with Garrison drew him toward abolitionism and triggered a small contribution toward the founding of The Liberator. Lewis was drawn into the movement by Theodore Weld. Finney had suggested that Tappan send his sons to the Oneida Institute in western New York. Oneida was operated by Finney’s theological mentor, George Washington Gale, and the Tappan boys were converted there under the influence of Theodore Weld, a one-time assistant of Finney destined to become one of the greatest abolitionist activists of the era. When Lewis Tappan came up for commencement exercises, he met Weld, and the two men became close friends.

These growing convictions and influences climaxed in the 1833 founding of the New York Anti-Slavery Society by the Tappans, Garrison, and a number of other revival and reform leaders. Though Arthur had been a major contributor to its construction, the Trustees of Clinton Hall objected to his leasing the building for an abolitionist meeting, forcing a last minute move to Finney's Chatham St. Chapel. While a mob gathered outside Clinton Hall to prevent the announced meeting, the abolitionists in the church quickly adopted a constitution and elected Arthur Tappan president before quickly dispersing into the night.

By the end of the year there was interest in founding a national society. Sixty delegates gathered in Philadelphia to promulgate a “Declaration of Sentiments” authored by Garrison that included these words:

We will, do all that in us lies, consistently with this Declaration of our principles, to overthrow the most execrable system of slavery that has ever been witnessed upon earth...and to secure to the colored population of the United States all the rights and privileges which belong to them as men, and as Americans—come what may to our persons, our interests or our reputations.

Meanwhile the Tappans had been supporting Theodore Weld and a new seminary in Cincinnati that they had hoped would become a citadel in the West of their revivalist and reform ideals. But when the Lane Seminary Trustees forbade discussion of slavery and Weld and most of the students withdrew rather than submit, Arthur Tappan shifted his support to the “Lane Rebels” and reneged on his commitment to the seminary. When Oberlin College came into the picture as a refuge for the radical students, it was Tappan that convinced Finney to accept a professorship of theology that he vowed to underwrite. It was Tappan, too, who laid down the condition that Oberlin remain committed to “the broad ground of moral reform, in all its departments” and admit blacks on an equal basis with whites.

Oberlin was very important to Tappan. He pledged his entire income (about $100,000 year) to the project holding back only enough to provide modestly for his family. Unfortunately the business collapse of 1837 prevented Arthur from fulfilling his pledge. But by the time the school had been launched, and as Finney later put it, “Although Arthur Tappan failed to do for Oberlin all that he intended, yet his promise was the condition of the existence of Oberlin as it has been.” It is difficult to over-estimate the significance of Oberlin. Finney concluded that in the anti-slavery movement it was Oberlin that “turned the scale in all of the Northwest.”

The Tappans had already come to expect resistance to their work. A mob had earlier ransacked Lewis’s home, burning his furniture in the streets. (Mrs. Tappan was reported to have found a bright spot in the event: the mob had destroyed some expensive looking items that Lewis had always felt were too ostentatious for the frequent prayer meetings held in the home.) Tappan had left his home unrepaired all summer as a “silent Anti-Slavery preacher to the crowds who will flock to see it.” But this was nothing compared to the opposition to the postal campaign.

Southern officials insisted on the extradition of Arthur Tappan to face charges of fomenting slave rebellion. One Southern minister offered $100 000 for the deliverance to New Orleans of Arthur Tappan and abolitionist editor La Roy Sunderland (a later founder of the abolitionist Wesleyan Methodist Church). Tappan responded to this offer with a rare burst of humor, “If that sum is placed in a New York bank, I may possibly think of giving myself up." The Tappans lived in fear of assassination or destruction of their property. They had to seek insurance in Boston at an “abolitionist premium." When the South began to boycott the Tappans’s business and threaten the broadening of economic sanctions, the New York business community panicked and sent delegations to plead with the Tappans to give up their anti-slavery work. To one party of this steady procession of visitors Arthur Tappan replied, “You demand that I shall cease my anti-slavery labors...I will be hung first." Opposition seemed only to steel the Tappan brothers in their convictions, propelling them into ever more controversial involvements.

Lewis Tappan, for example, became a major figure in the "Amistad Case.” The Amistad (Spanish for "friendship”) was a ship that had been built especially for the slave trade. While being transported from Cuba to Granaja, nearly 50 slaves had mutinied, killing the captain and the cook and imprisoning the Cuban crew. Under the leadership of Joseph Cinque (apparently the source of the name adopted by “General Field Marshall Cinque” of the Patty Hearst kidnappers), the Africans tried to sail to Africa while the Cubans tried to alter course toward a sympathetic state in the south The shipped ended up near Long Island where the U.S. seized the ship.

This incident gripped the interest of not only the American public, but also the whole Western world. American prejudices against the Africans were strong (were they not murderers and perhaps even cannibals?), and major questions about the future of the slave trade would depend on how the United States government handled the case. Lewis Tappan immediately formed a committee for the defense of the blacks and took upon himself their physical and spiritual care. Lewis Tappan took the case all the way up through the Supreme Court and then raised money to send the blacks back to their homes in Africa—along with a few missionaries from Oberlin!

The Amistad case led directly into another great philanthropy of Lewis Tappan. For some time the Tappan Brothers had been increasingly enchanted with the normal benevolent societies. The American Bible Society had refused to make the slaves and freed men particular objects of their Scripture distribution. The American Tract Society had not only refused to issue abolitionist tracts, but had edited out offending passages from materials reprinted from Britain. The missionary societies refused to face the slavery question and did not hesitate to send out pro-slavery missionaries. After failing in his efforts to change such practices, Lewis Tappan finally moved in the direction of founding a separate anti-slavery missionary society. The Amistad Committee was merged into a few other organizations to form the American Missionary Association, “a living protest” against the other societies.

Lewis Tappan said of the AMA that “its single object is to send out a pure gospel free from any compromise.” The AMA supported as many as 200 missionaries (including a number sent to the South) and expended a million dollars in its first decade. Though not always able to break completely out of paternalistic practices, the AMA was far in advance of its time in understanding. Tappan asked abolitionist Amos Phelps for advice in running the West Indian mission. Among the principles enumerated in Phelps’ report were “dealing with the people in all things as men and not as serviles.” This included enabling them to find economic self-sufficiency, encouraging the missionaries to avoid the expensive comfortable quarters “to identify themselves with the people,” etc.

The American Missionary Association attempted to express the goals of equality to which the Tappans had long been committed (often in advance of other abolitionists who wished to rid the country of the sin of slavery but had no interest in “social intercourse”). For the Tappans the abolitionist struggle was not just against slavery but explicitly against “prejudice” and “the hateful cast feeling that so extensively prevailed in the country.” Lewis Tappan was especially concerned that children be raised sensitive to the issue of race so that as adults they would “be able to meet at the polls, sit on juries, attend political meetings, practice at the bar, unite in processions, and mingle with their fellow-men in the various walks of life, on equal terms, as the religion of Jesus, and the laws of the land require.”

These sentiments were expressed by Lewis Tappan at age 75 during an “emancipation Jubilee” in 1863. After reviewing with some nostalgia the anti-slavery struggle, Lewis commented that some claimed that blacks were superior to whites in intelligence and strength. But Tappan wasn't so sure and believed that “a white man was just as good as a black man, if he behaved himself.” After the cheers and laughter subsided, Tappan closed with a verse of poetry:

Judge not of virtue by the name,

or think to read it on the skin;

Honor in white and black the same—

The stamp of glory is within.

Donald Dayton was a contributing editor to the Post-American, director of Mellander Library, and assistant professor of theology at North Park Seminary when this article appeared.

For further reading:

Annie Heloise Abel and Frank J. Klingberg, A Side-light on Anglo-American Relations 1839-1858 (Washington D.C.: The Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, 1927. Reprinted in 1970 by Augustus Kelley of New York). This volume contains the correspondence of Lewis Tappan and others with the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society.

William Owens, Black Mutiny: The Revolt on the Schooner Amistad (Philadelphia and Boston: Pilgrim Press, 1968).

Lewis Tappan, The Life of Arthur Tappan (New York: Hurd and Houghton, 1870. Reprinted in 1970 by Arno Press and the New York Times).

For the rest of the series, see below: 

Recovering a Heritage, Part I: Wheaton College and Jonathan Blanchard, by Donald W. Dayton. June-July 1974. 

Recovering a Heritage, Part II: Evangelical Feminism, by Donald W. Dayton and Lucille Sider Dayton. August-September 1974. 

Recovering a Heritage, Part III: The Lane Rebellion and the Founding of Oberlin College, by Donald W. Dayton. October 1974. 

Recovering a Heritage, Part IV: The "Christian Radicalism" of Oberlin College, by Donald W. Dayton. November 1974.

Recovering a Heritage, Part V: The Rescue Case, by Donald W. Dayton. December 1974.

Recovering a Heritage, Part VI: Orange Scott and the Wesleyan Methodist, by Donald W. Dayton. January 1975.

Recovering a Heritage, Part VII: The Sermons of Luther Lee, by Donald W. Dayton. February 1975.

Recovering a Heritage, Part VIII: Theodore Weld, evangelical reformer, by Donald W. Dayton. March 1975.

Recovering a Heritage, Part IX: The Tappan Brothers: businessmen and reform, by Donald W. Dayton. April 1975.

Recovering a Heritage, Part X: Anointed to Preach the Gospel to the Poor, by Donald W. Dayton. May 1975.