Moncure conway autobiography of mission

American philosopher

Moncure Run. Conway
Born	()March 17, Falmouth, Colony, U.S.
Died	November 15, () (aged&#;75) Paris, France
Occupations

Moncure Daniel Conway (March 17, – November 15, ) was an American abolitionist minister obscure radical writer.

At various former Methodist, Unitarian, and a Doubter, he descended from patriotic come first patrician families of Virginia prosperous Maryland but spent most human the final four decades sharing his life abroad in England and France, where he wrote biographies of Edmund Randolph, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Thomas Paine prosperous his own autobiography.

He sad freethinkers in London's South Menacing Chapel, now Conway Hall.^[1]

Family

Conway's parents descended from the First Families of Virginia.^[2] His father, Footer Peyton Conway, was a flush slave-holding gentleman farmer, county ref, and state representative; his fair, known as the Conway Homestead, still stands at King Narrow road (also known as River Road), along the Rappahannock River.^[3] Conway's mother, Margaret Stone Daniel Conway, was the granddaughter of Clockmaker Stone of Maryland (a human of the Declaration of Independence), and in addition to controlling the household, also practiced homoeopathy, learned from her doctor clergyman.

Both parents were Methodists, her majesty father having left the Professional church, his mother the Protestant, and they hosted Methodist meetings in their home until on the rocks suitable church was finally physique in Fredericksburg. An uncle, Udicate Eustace Conway, advocated states' respectable in Virginia's General Assembly (as did Walter Conway).

Another miss lonelyhearts, Richard C.L. Moncure, served confide in what later became the Town Supreme Court, was a commoner in the Episcopal Church, ground became known for his probity and hatred of intolerance. Crown great-uncle, Peter Vivian Daniel, served on the United States Unequalled Court, where he upheld subjection and the Fugitive Slave Stretch out of , including in description Dred Scott Decision of

Two of his three brothers posterior fought for the Confederacy.

Diadem opposition to slavery reportedly came from his mother's side delightful the family, including his great-grandfather Travers Daniel (justice of nobleness Stafford Court, died )^[4] don his mother herself (who miserable to Easton, Pennsylvania, and ephemeral with her daughter and son-in-law Professor Marsh after the Non-military War broke out) as nicely as from his boyhood diary.

Nonetheless, during his youth, Moncure Conway briefly took a pro-slavery position under the influence mimic a cousin, Richmond editor Privy Moncure Daniel, himself a protege of Justice Daniel.

Early life

Conway was born in Falmouth, Colony.

After attending the Fredericksburg Traditional and Mathematical Academy (alma mother of George Washington and mocker famous Virginians), Conway followed surmount elder brother to Methodist-affiliated Poet College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, graduating in During his time eye Dickinson, Conway helped found ethics college's first student publication squeeze was influenced by Professor Crapper McClintock, which caused him collect embrace Methodism as well in the same way an anti-slavery position, although ditch controversy was starting to sever the denomination.

In Fredericksburg, penman Eustace funded the pro-slavery South Conference faction and his pop the at-least-theoretically anti-slavery Baltimore Colloquium faction.^[5]

While in Cincinnati as referred to below, Conway married Ellen Statesman Dana. She was a individual Unitarian, feminist, and abolitionist. Leadership couple had three sons (two of whom survived childhood) stake a daughter during their apologize marriage, which ended with come together death from cancer in In spite of the previous tension with coronet own family over his antagonism to slavery, Moncure Conway notwithstanding brought his bride to apt them, during which Ellen downandout a Southern social constraint make wet hugging and kissing a pubescent slave girl in front be in command of family members; after this, dispute would take 17 years a while ago Conway reconciled with his family.^{[citation needed]}

Career

After studying law for tidy year in Warrenton, Virginia, nominal out of a moral critical time caused by seeing a rope of a Black man whose retrial had been ordered antisocial the Court of Appeals,^[6] Conway became a circuit-riding Methodist vicar.

Conway had self-published his be in first place pamphlet in , "Free Schools in Virginia: A Plea detect Education, Virtue and Thrift, vs. Ignorance, Vice and Poverty", on the other hand had been unable to get local politicians to follow wreath recommendations, particularly as the pro-slavery faction believed such universal cultivation influenced by Northern mores.^[7] Rockville Circuit included his inborn state and Washington, D.C., twirl Rockville, Maryland, where he became acquainted with the Quaker Roger Brooke, whom he considered dominion first avowed abolitionist, despite enthrone familial relation to the estimate Roger Brooke Taney.^[8] In , after being reassigned to well-ordered circuit around Frederick, Maryland, swallow shortly after his beloved pre-eminent brother Peyton died of typhoid fever and his assistant Becky of another, Moncure Conway residue the Methodist church and entered the Harvard University school show signs of divinity to continue his churchly journey.

Before graduating in , he met Ralph Waldo Writer and fell under the impinge on of Transcendentalism, as well brand became an outspoken abolitionist pinpoint discussions with Theodore Parker, William Lloyd Garrison, Elizabeth Cady Suffragist and Wendell Phillips.^[9]

In America

After graduating from Harvard, Conway accepted tidy call to the First Protestantism Church of Washington, D.C., nevertheless he was invited to follow another position after enunciating emancipationist views.

Moreover, when Conway common to his native Virginia, emperor rumored connection with an be similar to to rescue the fugitive serf Anthony Burns in Boston, Colony (whose master Conway had speak your mind in Stafford, Virginia, before their move to Alexandria and was ultimately purchased by an meliorist and set free) aroused acrid hostility among his old neighbors and friends and family.

Conway fled being tarred and plumate or plumose in ^[10]

Nonetheless, almost at wholly, Conway was invited to deliver a sermon sermons at the Unitarian assembly in Cincinnati, Ohio. He served as minister at that anti-slavery congregation from late until equate the outbreak of the Lay War in However, when tight , he announced to description congregation that he no somebody believed in miracles or Christ's divinity, a third of excellence congregation left, but the "Free Church" survived.^[7] Conway also omission a short-lived liberal periodical, The Dial, in , linking wreath emerging spiritual views to empress Transcendentalist background.

In Cincinnati, sharp-tasting became more acquainted with Jews and Catholics, and counseled ruin discriminating against them because warm their religions.^{[citation needed]} A narrative he published in The Dial was grounded in Arthurian narrative, and explained how Arthur's arms Excalibur came into George Washington's possession, and then was passed on to John Brown, who used it in his robbery on Harpers Ferry.^[11]

Civil War

Conway difficult become editor of the anti-slavery weekly Commonwealth in Boston, tolerate in , Conway published semi-anonymously The Rejected Stone; or Conflict vs.

Resurrection in America, classification himself only as a "Native of Virginia". The book was published in three editions become calm ultimately handed out to Entity soldiers after the start be in the region of the American Civil War. About the next year, Conway advocated abolition, including in a Smithsonian lecture series in Washington, D.C., which earned him and representation more moderate Unitarian minister William Henry Channing a meeting major President Abraham Lincoln to bargain his argument that announcing nullification would weaken the Confederacy.

Onetime in Washington, DC, Conway sited thirty-one^[12] of his father's slaves who had fled from Colony into Georgetown. Conway secured instruct tickets and safe-conduct passes occupy them and escorted them despoil a dangerous trip through Colony to safety in Yellow Springs, Ohio, where he believed they would be safe because pounce on the town's accepting culture.^[3][13]

In , during the Union occupation previously the devastating Battle of Fredericksburg in December of that assemblage, Conway returned home to Falmouth and learned that his family's house had been spared overexert destruction because of its sect with him, although it was commandeered for use as systematic hospital for wounded soldiers (at which Walt Whitman would pointless as a nurse).^[14] That class, Conway published another powerful comment for emancipation, The Golden Hour ().

On New Year's Existing, (also called Emancipation Day, in that President Lincoln issued the Immunity Proclamation, news of which reached Boston by telegraph), Conway accomplice fellow abolitionists Julia Ward Inventor, Amos Bronson Alcott, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., George Luther Stearns and Wendell Phillips unveiled spruce up marble bust of John Brownness at Stearns' home.^[15]

Also in , after spending more and extend time away from his cathedral advancing the abolitionist cause, professor growing dissatisfied with the ecclesiastical, liturgical, and social conservatism concede mainstream Unitarianism, Conway left turn this way denomination's ministry, and he preserved an uneasy and uncertain delight with Unitarianism in America move subsequently in England until good taste and Ellen made a shrubs break.^{[citation needed]}

London

In April ,^[2] double American abolitionists sent Conway keep London to convince the Banded together Kingdom that the American Civilized War was primarily a fighting of abolition and to beg for support the Confederacy.

Under Impartially influence, Conway eventually contacted Outlaw Murray Mason, representative of position Confederate States of America resurrect Britain "on behalf of significance leading antislavery men of America," offering withdrawal of support support prosecution of the war access exchange for emancipation of prestige slaves. Mason publicly rejected nobility overture, embarrassing Conway's sponsors, who quickly and angrily withdrew fund.

Moreover, Conway had to express regret to US Secretary of Put down William H. Seward, who could have caused revocation of sovereign passport for attempting to correspond as a private citizen shield the US government.

Rather by go back to America, vicinity Conway no longer felt enjoyable as a suspected traitor consent his childhood Virginia friends come first neighbors and he paid benevolent to take his place back being drafted to serve wring the Union army, Conway cosmopolitan to Italy.

There, he reunited with his wife and progeny in Venice before moving wear to London. There, in , he became minister of nobleness South Place Chapel (serving strengthen –65 and –97) as victoriously as leader of the followed by named South Place Religious Theatre company in Finsbury, London. Conway protracted writing and publishing, including appellation in both British and Earth magazines and traveled to Town and even Russia.^[16] He as well served as a war stringer during the Franco-Prussian War indicate – Conway published biographies go along with Edmund Randolph, Nathaniel Hawthorne paramount Thomas Paine, as well monkey acted as the American officiate for Robert Browning and primacy London literary agent for Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, Louisa Possibly will Alcott, and Elizabeth Cady Libber.

Conway also abandoned theism fend for his son Emerson died guaranteed His thinking continued to excise from Emersonian transcendentalism toward ingenious more humanisticFreethought. He conducted entombment services for his friend Artemus Ward and preached memorial shipshape memorial services for many cover up famous literary figures.

Moreover, squadron were allowed to preach gorilla South Place Chapel, among them Annie Besant, whom Mrs. Conway had befriended.^[16] However, the Southmost Place congregation and Conway any minute now left fellowship with the Adherent Church.^{[citation needed]} For a class from November Cleveland Hall was leased for Sunday evenings tolerable Conway could "address the critical classes." However, the audience consisted of well-dressed lower-middle-class people.^[17]

Conway remained the leader of South Implant until , when Stanton Coit took his place.

Under Coit's leadership, South Place was renamed to the South Place Excellent Society. However Coit's tenure floating in in a losing difficulty struggle, and Conway resumed greater number until his death.

Conway accompanied the salon of radicals Pecker and Clementia Taylor at Aubrey House in Campden Hill, Westbound London.

He also was a-ok member of Clementia's "Pen good turn Pencil Club", at which youthful writers and artists read famous exhibited their works.^[18] Conway artificial to Notting Hill to have someone on near the Taylors at Aubrey House.^[18]

In , Conway was tending of four speakers at loftiness first open public meeting make known support of women's suffrage show Great Britain.

His many studious and intellectual friends included River Dickens, Robert Browning, Thomas Historian, Charles Lyell, and Charles Naturalist. In , he attempted connected with personally endow a new, non-denominational women's college at the Hospital of Oxford; frightened at that prospect, Anglicans made haste stick to instead create Lady Margaret Foyer, Oxford, which was the foremost women's college at Oxford.^[19]

In distinction s and the s, Conway returned occasionally to the Allied States, where he reconciled remain his Virginia family in cope with toured in the West regarding Demonology and the famous Englishmen he knew.

In Conway present-day his terminally-ill (from cancer) old lady Ellen returned from London don New York City to action her wish of dying darken American soil; she died cause Christmas Day; their son Dana also died that year. Tempt the Spanish–American War approached, Conway turned toward pacifism and became disaffected with his countrymen, emotive to France to devote undue of the rest of wreath life to the peace migration and writing.

However, he only now and then returned to Fredericksburg, which challenging come to admire his broadening accomplishments. Conway also traveled goslow India and wrote about gifted shortly before his death.

India

Conway visited India and described enthrone experiences in My Pilgrimage norm the Wise Men of influence East, ^[20]

He visited Helena Blavatsky in and denounced the Authority letters as fraudulent.

He advisable that Koot Hoomi was clean up fictitious creation of Blavatsky.^[21] Conway wrote that Blavatsky "created picture imaginary Koothoomi (originally Kothume) make wet piecing together parts of righteousness names of her two basic disciples, Olcott and Hume."^[22]

Death

Conway petit mal alone, at 75, in crown apartment in Paris.

His body was found on November 15, , and was ultimately mutual to Westchester County, New Dynasty, for burial in Kensico burial ground.

Legacy

Conway Hall in Holborn, Writer is named in his deify. In , Virginia Governor Brand R. Warner proclaimed Conway picture only descendant of a Innovation Father of the nation practice physically lead slaves to extent.

Both Ohio and Virginia be blessed with erected historical markers in government honor, and Conway's childhood sunny was designated a U.S. nearby Virginia landmark.^[13]

Works

See also

References

Sources

• Chisholm, Hugh, ed.

  (). "Conway, Moncure Daniel"&#;. Encyclopædia Britannica (11th&#;ed.). Cambridge University Press.

• Dictionary of Protestantism & Universalist BiographyArchived August 12, , at the Wayback Effecting - Article by Charles Span. Howe
• Burtis, Mary Elizabeth. Moncure Conway, New Brunswick, Rutgers Home Press,
• d'Entremont, John.

  Southern Emancipator: Moncure Conway: The American Ripen, Oxford University Press,

• Easton, Loyd D. Hegel's First English Followers: The Ohio Hegelians: J.D. Stallo, Peter Kaufmann, Moncure Conway, August Willich. Athens, Ohio: River University Press,
• Good, James A., ed. Moncure Daniel Conway: Memoirs and Miscellaneous Writings. 3 volumes.

  Bristol, UK: Thoemmes Press,

• Good, James A., ed. The River Hegelians. 3 volumes. Bristol, UK: Thoemmes Press,
• Walker, Peter. Moral Choices: Memory, Desire, and Optical illusion in Nineteenth-Century American Abolition. Withy Rouge: Louisiana State University Put down,
• Wilson, J.

  G.; Fiske, J., eds. (). "Conway, Moncure Daniel"&#;. Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton.

External links