1 10 3 https://sc.concordlibrary.org/files/original/13cb923f0cd1c0367313a9bad323f90f.jpeg 8247ef990fb40d8550a1559bbe97ef42 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Emerson in Concord Subject The topic of the resource Ralph Waldo Emerson Description An account of the resource Materials for the exhibit Emerson in Concord Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Concord Free Public Library Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived CFPL web exhibit: Emerson in Concord Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020 Language A language of the resource English Middlesex Hotel A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Emerson on Lincoln Subject The topic of the resource Abraham Lincoln Description An account of the resource In the 1850s and 1860s, Emerson participated in the political process to the extent that his involvement forwarded the cause of abolition. Moreover, although he did not care for the hullabaloo of party politics and did not approve of making popular heroes out of politicians, he was willing to recognize the worth and importance of a politician who conducted himself morally. Emerson voted for Abraham Lincoln, but he remained for a time unsure of Lincoln’s motivations and effectiveness. The Civil War began in 1861. Like other abolitionists, Emerson felt that its true purpose was emancipation, not the preservation of the Union. He could not commit himself to supporting the war wholeheartedly until Lincoln freed the slaves. Lincoln won Emerson over completely with his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation in 1862. From this point on, Emerson—who devoted considerable thought to the subject of great men—respected Lincoln’s greatness. On October 12, 1862, he delivered an address on the Emancipation Proclamation at the Music Hall in Boston. The address was published in the Atlantic Monthly for November, 1862. Emerson also willingly participated in Union fundraising and morale-boosting efforts. Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth on April 14, 1865—a few days after the Civil War came to an end—and died the following morning. On April 19th (the anniversary of Concord’s role at the start of the Revolution), the town halted the business of ordinary life for three hours and held a funeral service for Lincoln at the First Parish. The order of services included an address by Emerson, who emphasized Lincoln’s particular fitness to the difficult role he had assumed: “This man grew according to the need. His mind mastered the problem of the day; and, as the problem grew, so did his comprehension of it. Rarely was man so fitted to the event.” In his address, Emerson also likened the power of Lincoln’s address at Gettysburg to that of speeches by John Brown and Kossuth. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Ralph Waldo Emerson Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Concord Free Public Library Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource April 29, 1865 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource All materials courtesy of the William Munroe Special Collections at the Concord Free Public Library Abolition Emerson Lincoln https://sc.concordlibrary.org/files/original/d676142b33ff25bb0bb5021c787f451f.jpeg af0dc9f4c63666727c60038582497e76 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Emerson in Concord Subject The topic of the resource Ralph Waldo Emerson Description An account of the resource Materials for the exhibit Emerson in Concord Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Concord Free Public Library Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived CFPL web exhibit: Emerson in Concord Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020 Language A language of the resource English Middlesex Hotel A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Address in Concord on the Fugitive Slave Law Subject The topic of the resource Fugitive Slave Law Description An account of the resource The addition of territory through war with Mexico (1846-1848) inflamed slavery/antislavery tensions, resulting in the Compromise of 1850, which was an attempt to delay impending national crisis. By the Compromise, California was admitted as a free state, the territories of New Mexico and Utah would decide the slavery question for themselves upon admission to the Union, the boundary between Texas and New Mexico was established, and the slave trade was abolished in Washington, D.C. The Compromise of 1850 also included the Fugitive Slave Law, which required the return of runaway slaves to their owners. Many Northerners were furious over and unwilling to obey the Fugitive Slave Law. Emerson was outraged by the Fugitive Slave Law and by early attempts to enforce it. His journal and letters after its passage were full of anger. He seethed, for example, in one entry in 1851, “And this filthy enactment was made in the 19th Century, by people who could read & write. I will not obey it, by God.” Edward Waldo Emerson wrote in Emerson in Concord of his father’s preoccupation with the detested law: “He woke in the mornings with a weight upon him … When his children told him that the subject given out for their next school composition was, The Building of a House, he said, ‘You must be sure to say that no house nowadays is perfect without having a nook where a fugitive slave can be safely hidden away.’ ” Edward recalled, too, that his father’s rage was channeled into legal research: “The national disgrace took Mr. Emerson’s mind from poetry and philosophy, and almost made him for a time a student of law and an advocate. He eagerly sought and welcomed all principles in law-books, or broad rulings of great jurists, that Right lay behind Statute to guide its application and that immoral laws are void.” On April 26, 1851, thirty-five of Emerson’s Concord townsmen signed a letter asking him publicly to present his views on the law. On May 3rd, he delivered an impassioned speech –his first of several in reaction to the Fugitive Slave Law. In the address, Emerson openly advocated breaking the law on the grounds that an immoral law carried no authority. (The year before, Henry Thoreau had offered a similar view in his “Resistance to Civil Government,” now known as “Civil Disobedience.”) The speech was well-received by the antislavery community. Although under normal circumstances not much inclined to political activism, Emerson repeated the speech a number of times in various Middlesex locations to support the campaign to elect Free Soil candidate John G. Palfrey to the United States Congress. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Ralph Waldo Emerson Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Concord Free Public Library Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1851 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource All materials courtesy of the William Munroe Special Collections at the Concord Free Public Library Abolition Emerson Fugitive Slave Law https://sc.concordlibrary.org/files/original/27c4a970e4d3f68d921a4fffc13cf29a.jpeg e9a96d277eac34d142399c2722536432 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Emerson in Concord Subject The topic of the resource Ralph Waldo Emerson Description An account of the resource Materials for the exhibit Emerson in Concord Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Concord Free Public Library Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived CFPL web exhibit: Emerson in Concord Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020 Language A language of the resource English Middlesex Hotel A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Address on the Anniversary of Emancipation in the British West Indies Subject The topic of the resource Abolition Description An account of the resource This, Emerson’s first powerful attack on slavery, was delivered at the request of radical abolitionist Mary Merrick Brooks, wife of Concord lawyer Nathan Brooks. Following initial delivery of the address, Emerson—now a recognized antislavery advocate—was asked several times to reread it at abolition gatherings. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Ralph Waldo Emerson Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Concord Free Public Library Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1844 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource All materials courtesy of the William Munroe Special Collections at the Concord Free Public Library Abolition Concord Emerson