them good and happy citizens.”7 Many black Americans were outraged at those who seemed to prioritize Africa over their native country. “Mr. Russwurm tells us, he knows no other home for us than Africa,” one black Philadelphian noted. “As his usefulness is entirely lost to the people, I sincerely pray that he may have the honor to live and also die there.”8
Cornish often contested Russwurm’s arguments without printing his former colleague’s name. The editors of the Observer had overlooked Russwurm’s claims about citizenship and had thus misrepresented black Americans’ concerns. For Cornish, the Observer’s announcement of his paper was a “gratuitous censure” because it reduced black politics to a reactionary movement against the ACS and ignored the work of claiming and shaping citizenship in the United States. He demanded that those in power “do justice” for African Americans by offering opportunities for education and labor, and he called on black people to seize those opportunities in order to solidify their claims to citizen status. Together, individuals and governments would reshape the terms of African Americans’ lives. He surely hoped that the Observer would reprint his alternative portrait of African Americans’ concerns.
Cornish initiated a public correspondence with the editors of the Observer in the hope of broadening the readership of the Rights of All. The Observer was a weekly paper connected to the Presbyterian Church that did not typically cover black politics, but its editors were sympathetic to colonization and had earlier shown interest in Russwurm and Freedom’s Journal.9 By writing about that paper, Cornish spoke to white New Yorkers who were apparently uninterested in the work of changing black people’s lives in the country. Newspapers in places, including Baltimore, Boston, and Norwich, Connecticut, announced the launch of the Rights of All and encouraged Cornish to see the potential reach of his paper.10 Cornish printed letters from an array of black and white correspondents interested in legal change. Generally, he crafted the paper with a diverse readership in mind and with the goal of widening his subscriber base. He published columns advising African Americans on proper conduct, expecting that black people would read them. But he frequently addressed free black northerners in his calls for more subscribers. Cornish understood that people often read a single copy of a newspaper aloud to an audience of friends and acquaintances. He likely hoped that some of those friends and acquaintances might choose to become subscribers themselves.11 He also printed reasoned arguments against unjust laws, perhaps hoping his words would reach white voters and lawmakers who did not favor racial equality. And in the summer of 1829, Cornish may also have been writing to John Russwurm, who remained in New York making final arrangements for his move to Liberia. Perhaps Cornish held out hope that he might convince his former colleague of the error of emigration.
His work set the tone for later black editors who would similarly address an array of topics and target a range of black and white audiences.12 In general, black newspapers needed an interracial readership for financial stability. Editors and contributors also understood that, through print, they might change the minds of those in the power structure who remained prejudiced as well as shape conversations and policy regarding African Americans. And people like Cornish reached a far broader audience than a list of subscribers indicates because of the ways ideas circulated in antebellum print culture.13
Cornish subtly attacked Russwurm throughout the Rights of All, including in a message encouraging black Americans to follow the example of Jewish people in London who petitioned Parliament for legal equality. “Americans we truly are, by birth and feeling,” Cornish wrote. He urged black people to assert more forcefully their desire for legal protections in the United States. He commanded his readers, “Let no man talk of impossibility; with God, all things are possible.”14 Many black activists expressed similar optimism rooted in their Christian faith. To Cornish, the pessimistic Russwurm did not belong in a community of black Christian men and women. Cornish’s criticism was indirect, but his target was clear. In August 1829, with Russwurm making final preparations to leave the country, Cornish wrote, “Any coloured man, of common intelligence, who gives his countenance and influence, to [Liberia] … should be considered as a traitor to his brethren, and discarded by every respectable man of colour.”15 Protesting the ACS and, by implication, Russwurm, he offered an alternative vision of black Americans’ future and laid the foundation for black citizenship politics.
Colonization was part of a broader project of restricting black people’s unfettered movement and access to space in the United States.16 Pennsylvania lawmakers proposed two measures in 1832, one that would limit protections available to alleged fugitive slaves and the other to outlaw new black migration into the commonwealth.17 Activists turned again to print culture for their response, collecting signatures on a petition against those measures.18 James Forten delivered their message to the state legislature. Born free in 1766, Forten ran a profitable sail-making shop in Philadelphia, had served on a privateer during the American Revolution, and had previously organized in opposition to an effort by lawmakers to outlaw new black migrants in the 1810s. In 1832, Forten and his fellow activists delivered their petition to state lawmakers and had it published, convinced that their concerns were meaningful beyond the population of free black Pennsylvanians.
Forten reminded lawmakers that their state constitution declared that all men were “born equally free and independent” and that, under its terms, “every man shall have a remedy by due course of law.”19 The petitioners denied that free black people endangered the state and vehemently rejected the prevailing argument that they had “promoted[ed] servile insurrections.”20 The petitioners might have chosen Forten as their representative because he had made a specific, memorable contribution to the nation by fighting in the Revolutionary War. His personal history reflected African Americans’ emotional ties to the nation, the less tangible but no less powerful feelings that bound people to their home. “They feel themselves to be citizens of Pennsylvania [and] children of the state,” Forten explained.21 The phrase conjured an image of activists throwing themselves on the mercy of the legislature, asking that the state reciprocate their feelings. But it also charged the state for dereliction of its duties. They made an emotional appeal designed to change the law, arguing for a citizen status that imposed responsibilities on individuals as well as on the government. From the petitioners’ perspective, it was no more just for Pennsylvania to reject James Forten than it was for a mother to abandon her infant. Citizenship should bind American people and governments in a web of obligations. Perhaps the strength of that appeal pushed lawmakers to reconsider. Perhaps logic moved legislators, convinced that it would not benefit their state to exclude people like Forten who had fought to create the nation. Pennsylvania officials rejected the proposed law to bar black migration into the state.22 But white northerners would continue to promote similar exclusionary measures that threatened black people’s claims to rights as citizens.
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Forten’s military service was part of a history that refuted the idea that African Americans had little to offer society as prospective citizens. Colonizationists and those who wanted to bar black people from particular states argued that African Americans were disproportionately poor, violent, and immoral. The personal histories of people like Forten helped refute those ideas. Activists argued that people who offered useful contributions to their communities were entitled to citizen status. In 1832, the Pennsylvania petitioners presented data that denied charges of black poverty, including evidence that African Americans were only 4 percent of the 549 people who had received poor relief from the state in 1830, far less than their 8 percent of the state’s population. Forten estimated that African Americans paid more than enough in taxes to support poor black Pennsylvanians, and he noted that many black people turned to African American benevolent societies for relief rather than seeking state aid. The petitioners said black Pennsylvanians owned more than $100,000 in real property and that many worked in skilled mechanical trades despite prejudice that limited their opportunities for apprenticeships.23 Black self-sufficiency was a foundation for claims to legal protections.
Because African Americans were
