MARIUS ROBINSON, A FORGOTTEN
ABOLITIONIST
LEADER
By RUSSEL B. NYE
Marius Racine Robinson, one of the more
important figures
of the antislavery movement in Ohio, has
been more or less lost
from public view. Neither the Dictionary
of American Biography,
the National Cyclopaedia of
Biography, nor any of the standard
biographical dictionaries list his name,
yet in the rise of abolition-
ism in Ohio he played a great part, as
agent, editor, organizer,
and propagandist -- a career perhaps not
equal to that of his friend
and mentor Theodore Weld, but a major
one nonetheless, and
one of longer duration. Like that of
Weld, Stanton, Thome,
Birney, and others prominent in the
antislavery controversy, Rob-
inson's work in the movement illustrates
and reinforces the thesis
that abolitionism, particularly beyond
the Alleghenies, was a
moral, religious crusade, closely
connected with and stemming
from the evangelistic revivalism of the
eighteen-thirties. Further,
a note on his life and work recalls once
more the turbulent days
when Ohio was becoming the fountainhead
of abolitionism in the
West.
Robinson was born in Dalton,
Massachusetts, July 29, 1806,1
Following the westward lines of
migration familiar to the early
nineteenth century, his parents moved to
Orville, Chautauqua
County, New York, ten years later. Both
parents were rigid Pres-
byterians, the "bluest of the
blue," and Marius' boyhood was
marked by stern Calvinistic training.
Doubts of his salvation and
thoughts of his damnation threw him
frequently, as a boy, into
protracted fits of gloom and depression.
His mother, an inflexible
and stern woman, held plans for his
entrance into the ministry,
and, possibly more than his father, left
an indelible stamp upon
his character. At fifteen, however, a
new force entered the boy's
1 Biographical data, unless otherwise
noted, is drawn from two incomplete sketches,
written by his wife Emily, among the Robinson
manuscripts in the Western Reserve
Historical Society collections,
Cleveland, and from a brief account by H. C. Boyle, the
Salem (Ohio) Daily News, July 31,
1897.
138
MARIUS ROBINSON, ABOLITIONIST 139
life--Charles Grandison Finney. The
great evangelistic revivals
inspired by Finney's preaching swept
across New York in the
eighteen-twenties,2 and with
thousands of others young Marius
experienced a conversion, a "change
of heart," that convinced
him that God had chosen him for a
special work. Since Finneyism
aimed at "being useful in the
highest degree possible," he con-
sidered the methods of usefulness and
thought of entering for-
eign missionary work, writing in his
journal: "Have been reading
this week past Brown's History of
Missions and reflecting on the
dignity and importance of the missionary
enterprise. My desire to
engage in it has, I think, increased. .
. . Did I but feel conscious of
possessing those traits of Christian
character in sufficient degree
. . ., I should have little hesitation in regard to my
duty."3
Definitely committed to usefulness in
the church, either as
missionary or as preacher, the young man
realized the need of an
education to provide a foundation for
his preparation. Since the
family finances were unable to provide
it, he resolved to educate
himself by his own earnings. In 1823 he apprenticed himself to
Merrill and Hastings, a firm of
bookbinders and printers in nearby
Utica, New York, for a four-year term,
and left home to begin
his duties. Like Franklin before him, he
learned much from the
books and pamphlets he helped to
publish, and when time per-
mitted, he engaged in private study with
his uncle, the Reverend
Arthur Darwin, of Rigo, New York.
Meanwhile he taught Sab-
bath school and attended Bible study
classes, until in 1827, his
apprenticeship ended, he planned to
leave Utica to attend a theo-
logical seminary.
Traveling agents had interested him
earlier in a manual labor
school at which a poor student might
work his way, Dr. Ander-
son's Seminary in Maryville, East
Tennessee. Immediately at the
close of his apprenticeship, Robinson
took his small savings and
journeyed to the Southwest. Maryville,
however, was not all that
he had expected; its library was sparse,
its instruction meager,
and its manners strange. One of but
three northerners at the
2 For a discussion of the Finney-inspired revivalism of the period, see G.
H. Barnes,
The Antislavery Impulse (New York, 1933), 3-13.
3 Undated entry, Journals, Robinson MSS.
140
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
seminary, Robinson found the southern
students, many of whom
brought slaves to do their "manual
labor," distant and unfriendly.
His first contact with the institution
of slavery shocked him, and
when an offer came to serve as an
assistant at the Creek Path
Mission in the Cherokee Nation, he
accepted it quickly, as partial
fulfilment of his youthful desire to be
a missionary and as a means
of carrying on his work at some other
place besides Maryville.
Most of the year 1829 he spent at the
mission, working with
Indian children and studying with the
resident missionary, the
Reverend Mr. Potter, a good Presbyterian
and a better-than-
average scholar. Soon he received an
opportunity to serve as as-
sistant in the Presbyterian church at
Florence, Alabama, which he
accepted. His stay in the Cherokee
Nation, however, gave him
not only a year of remunerative work and
hard study, but "an
impressive lesson," as his wife
phrased it, "in human rights and
human obligations," good
preparation for the antislavery struggle
to come.
When Marius Robinson arrived in Alabama
in August of
1829, the pattern of his later life had
nearly set. The influence of
the Finney revivals, which had first
converted him, had committed
him to a life of humanitarian
usefulness. The doctrines of Fin-
ney, in conjunction with his own years
of study, had also begun
to raise doubts in his mind concerning
the orthodox, traditional
Presbyterianism in which he had been
reared. In Alabama his
change from an "Old School" to
a "New School" Presbyterian
thinker became complete--he began to
place emphasis upon good
works, upon inner compulsions, and to
break loose from the shackles
of the old into a freer faith. His
suspicion of slavery, initiated by
his contact with it in Tennessee, grew
in Alabama. Though Gar-
rison had not yet begun his work in the
East with his ringing
challenge to slavery, and though
abolitionism had not yet entered
its aggressive phase, Robinson was
already receptive to its doc-
trines. So were others in the South,
such as James G. Birney,
another Alabamian, and colonization and
other schemes for the
emancipation of Negroes were finding
increased support -- the
Presbyterian church in Florence soon
organized an auxiliary to
the American Colonization Society.
Robinson found little encour-
MARIUS ROBINSON, ABOLITIONIST 141
agement in colonization as a remedy,
however;4 he looked further
ahead, and when abolition came in full
force, he found in it the
means for which he had been searching to
make himself useful.
His Florence stay was pleasant. He made
numerous friends
and his study with the local minister,
the Reverend Mr. Sloss, was
highly profitable. Seeing in him the
makings of a good theologian,
Sloss and others advised Robinson to
complete his theological
studies at the earliest moment, and
offered to finance his way
through Princeton. Robinson preferred to
make his own way, but
recognized the need for continuing his
studies. Less than a year
after his arrival, he left Florence to
enter the University of Nash-
ville for his final preparation for the
ministry. His work with
competent men such as Potter and Sloss,
in addition to his own
efforts at self-education and his
naturally quick mind, led the
faculty of Nashville to admit him as a
student in the five-year
course. He entered the university in the
fall of 1830, and by hard
work, paying much of his way by private
tutoring, graduated with
high honors in 1832. But his obvious
liberalism in theological mat-
ters aroused some suspicion among his
teachers, and they delayed
bestowing his diploma until he had
delivered a lecture on a test
question and had submitted it to his
North Alabama Presbytery
for approval.5
Though Robinson evidently intended to
return to Alabama,
events were shaping at the moment of his
graduation that were to
change radically the course of his
career. Theodore Weld, chief
among Finney's young leaders, had chosen
Lane Seminary in Cin-
cinnati as the western location for a
new school to train and com-
mission revivalists in the Finney
tradition, and, financed by the
wealthy Arthur Tappan of New York, the
revitalized seminary
was about to open its doors. Robinson
had already met Weld in
Nashville, and had fallen under the
spell of his magnetic person-
ality.6 Lane Seminary, founded on New
School principles and to
4 Henry Tutwhiler of Tuscaloosa,
Alabama, to J. G. Birney, in D. L. Dumond, ed.,
The Letters of James G. Birney (New York, 1938), I, 36-7.
5 One oration, though probably not the
test lecture, survives in the Robinson MSS.,
"True
Greatness," delivered at Nashville before the faculty in 1832. In it
Robinson
chose as his theme the differences between fame and
greatness, contrasting Napoleon
and Washington as examples; Franklin, his brother
printer, he cited as a man who had
successfully attained both.
6 Barnes, Antislavery Impulse, 39.
142
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
be headed by the great Lyman Beecher
from the East, appealed to
him greatly. He immediately enrolled,
remained in Nashville until
arrangements for the school had been
completed, and was among
the first students to greet Dr. Beecher
as he arrived at Lane. The
new seminary, thought Robinson, would
give him the opportuni-
ties he most desired, to study with
great men, and to carry the
Gospel through the as yet unawakened
West.
Though Lane was established as a
theological school, Theo-
dore Weld, one of its originators and
certainly one of its most
influential characters, had promised
Tappan that the subject of
slavery would there be "prayerfully
investigated."7 Through men
from the "burned-over" areas
of the Finney revivals in New York
State, such as Robinson, Weld, H. B.
Stanton and others, the con-
nection between religious evangelism and
antislavery was already
strong, and also among the Lane students
were some who had
had direct experience with slavery, men
such as Robinson, James
Thome, and the Allans, who had lost
faith in colonization and
gradualism as solutions to it. Dedicated
to the Finney ideal, and
guided by Weld, it is not surprising
that the young men of Lane
turned more and more toward abolitionism
as a religious crusade.
When the time for decision came in 1834,
Robinson was ready,
and he resolved to devote himself to
religion and slavery reform,
to Christianity and abolition, "the
field of labor for which he
devoutly believed God had raised him
up." In the early months
of 1834 Weld organized the famous series
of debates, covering
nine evenings, on the subject of
abolitionism versus colonization,
and Marius Robinson, speaking from five
years of first-hand ex-
perience, took an active part in
swinging Lane to an almost unani-
uous
vote for abolition.8
Committed to abolitionism, many Lane
students immediately
put their principles into practice,
working among the free Negroes
of Cincinnati, organizing "freedom
bureaus," clubs, employment
bureaus, and speaking in Negro churches.9
Augustus Wattles was
7 Ibid., 65.
8 For accounts of the Lane debates, see
R. S. Fletcher, A History of Oberlin Col-
lege (Oberlin, Ohio, 1943), I, 150 ff., and H. B.
Stanton, Debate at Lane Seminary,
Cincinnati, with the Speech of James A. Thome . . . (Boston, 1834).
9 Barnes,
Antislavery Impulse, 68-9.
MARIUS ROBINSON, ABOLITIONIST 143
the moving spirit in establishing a
school for Negroes, and Rob-
inson took an honorable dismissal from
the seminary to assist him,
expecting to remain away from his
studies for a year. With the
assistance of some young women who
volunteered, the Lane stu-
dents taught geography, grammar,
arithmetic, natural philosophy,
and Bible study, and instituted a series
of lectures for both Negro
children and adults.10
Cincinnati, a city of strong southern sym-
pathies, took note of the activities and
some critical feeling began
to develop. Warned to cease their abolitionist and educational
projects, and finally ordered to do so
by the seminary's Board of
Trustees, some forty of the students, Robinson
among them, pro-
tested the denial of free speech and
action, and eventually, in the
winter of 1834, withdrew from
the school to become the famous
"Lane Rebels," the most
influential group of abolitionists in the
West.11
The majority of the "rebels,"
after leaving Lane, organized
a seminar in a house at nearby
Cumminsville, Ohio, lent to them
by a brother-in-law of Salmon P. Chase,
then a Cincinnati lawyer.
Here they pursued their studies,
traveled into Cincinnati to keep
up their work at the colored clubs and
schools, and preached at
adjacent Negro churches.12 Robinson continued his teaching and
expressed an increasing interest in
revivalistic preaching, aimed
at abolition conversions.13 In addition
he seems to have investi-
10 For reports of these schools, see G.
H. Barnes and D. L. Dumond, eds., The
Letters of Theodore Dwight Weld,
Angelina Grimke Weld, and Sarah Grimke (New
York, 1934), II, 133-4, 178-84, 189-92,
218-20, and 251-3.
11 For accounts of the Lane controversy,
see R. S. Fletcher, Oberlin College, I,
150-78; G. H. Barnes, Antislavery
Impulse, 65-77; Sidney Strong, "The Exodus of Stu-
dents from Lane Seminary to Oberlin in
1834," Papers of the Ohio Church History So-
ciety (Oberlin, O., 1890-1901), IV (1893), 1-16; Charles
Beecher, ed., The Autobi-
ography and Correspondence of Lyman
Beecher (New York, 1865), II, 320-7;
and A
Statement of the Reasons Which
Induced the Students of Lane Seminary to Dissolve
Their Connection with that
Institution (Cincinnati, 1834).
Robinson never forgave
President Beecher for his part in the
dispute; see his accounts in the Salem (Ohio)
Antislavery Bugle, "The Beecher Family," December 11, 1852, and
his attack on Calvin
E. Stowe, Harriet Beecher's husband, ibid.,
June 25, 1853.
12 Dumond, Letters of Birney, I,
182n. Robinson's notes on the discussions en-
gaged in by the Lane students at
Cumminsville, included in the Robinson MSS., give
an invaluable insight into their theology,
and are highly important as a record of their
ideas on fundamental theological
problems. Robinson took fairly full notes on lectures
by Weld, Streeter, Wells, Alvord, Pierce
and Weed, on topics such as "Can Reason
Alone Teach the Knowledge of God,"
"How Do You Prove the Existence of God?"
"Attributes Ascribable to
God," "Moral Attributes of God," and "Does Reason Teach
that the Soul Is Immortal?"
Robinson's own lecture, "The Sonship of Christ," is listed
by title only. Notes for his sermons
preached between November, 1834, and January.
1835, are included in the collection.
13 Ibid., I,
218-20, letter to Weld, May 6, 1835.
144
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
gated the possibility of establishing
the Cumminsville group as a
sort of communal society, economically
based on silk production.14
But the Cumminsville period lasted less
than six months before
the group scattered, some, such as Weld,
Stanton, and Wilson
going directly into antislavery work;
sone, such as Thome, Al-
vord, Allan and Streeter, going to
Oberlin to continue study; and
others, Wattles, Robinson, Weed, and
Hopkins, returning to Cin-
cinnati to keep the schools and clubs in
operation.
In 1836 Robinson was in Cincinnati,
working in the Negro
schools and doing missionary work in the
free colored population.
He entertained for a time the idea of
leaving for Oberlin, to com-
plete his theological work, enter the
ministry, and repay debts con-
tracted at Lane, but was dissuaded by
Wattles and others, who
deemed him one of their most valuable
teachers.15 James G. Bir-
ney had appeared in Cincinnati after his
ejection from Kentucky,
and was arranging for the publication of
an antislavery paper
under the auspices of the newly-formed
Ohio Antislavery Society.
The newspaper, named the Philanthropist,
needed expert assist-
ance, and Robinson was a natural choice
by reason of his knowl-
edge of printing and publishing.
Published for the first four
months from New Richmond, Ohio, the Philanthropist
moved its
offices to Cincinnati, where Robinson
joined its staff. Before so
doing, however, he returned to New York
for a brief visit in
March, to be ordained as an evangelist
by the New York Central
Evangelical Association of Jamestown,
New York. Made a min-
ister without pastoral charge, he was
commissioned "to labor in
and with the churches to arouse them to
a sense of their responsi-
bility in the institution of American
slavery."16 like Weld, Stan-
ton, and most of the Lane group,
Robinson saw slavery as a moral
and religious issue, and like them he
believed the crusade against
it best prosecuted by working through
the church. "The church
14 MS. notes from the Cumminsville
period, in the Robinson MSS., show calcula-
tions on silk production from given
numbers of cocoons, numbers of mulberry trees
needed per acre, and notes on the
possibility of raising silkworms in Ohio.
15 Letter of Phebe Mathews and Emeline
Bishop to Weld, Barnes and Dumond,
Letters of T. D. Weld, et al. I, 251-4. The Negro schools continued to operate for
some years under the guidance of the
Ohio Antislavery Society, and had increased in
number to twenty in Ohio by 1837; see
Wattles' report, the Philanthropist, Sept. 15,
1837, and Wattles' letter to Robinson,
November 1, 1837, Robinson MSS.
16 The original document, signed by
Luther Myrick for the association, is ibid.
MARIUS ROBINSON, ABOLITIONIST 145
should and would do this work of divine
charity," he declared, "of
patriotic necessity--she held the
balance."
Returning to Cincinnati, Robinson threw
himself into the
publication of the Philanthropist. It
was not popular in the city.
Strong southern connections and a
general dislike of agitation,
coupled with the suspicion of racial
equality, led to public disap-
proval of the Ohio society's activities,
and Birney was warned to
discontinue his publication on threat of
drastic civic action. Pre-
ceded by threats and mass-meetings, a
mob formed on July 30,
1836, and attacked the Philanthropist
offices. Editor Birney was
absent, speaking in Lebanon, Ohio, and
Robinson, who was work-
ing in the office, disguised himself
slightly and mingled with the
mob. The forms of the paper were
spirited from the office by the
two Bushnell brothers and hidden in the
garret of a nearby car-
penter shop. Failing to find Birney, the
mob sacked the offices,
tossing Robinson's books into two
barrels and breaking an oil
lamp over them, all the time hunting for
the "little brown devil"
(as they called Robinson) who was
"at the bottom of the trouble."
When the mob moved to Birney's home
Robinson, still unrecog-
nized, moved with them. William Birney,
then seventeen, met the
mob at his father's door and in his
famous artless "little boy"
speech dissuaded it from wrecking
Birney's home. As the group
departed, Robinson rescued the forms,
took them to Wilmington
by horseback, and had the next issue of
the Philanthropist printed
for distribution at the regular time.17
Neither he nor the elder
Birney appeared in public for several
days, though both returned
shortly to the city, and the Philanthropist
experienced no more
significant difficulty.
The experiment in Negro education
initiated by the Lane stu-
dents had attracted the interest of
several girls, from Oberlin, Cin-
cinnati, and other Ohio towns, who came
to the city to assist in
instruction. One of these, Emily Rakestraw,
converted to abolition
by Garrison's Liberator, had come
to the city in 1835 from New
17 For accounts of the Cincinnati riots
see A Narrative of the Late Riotous Proceed-
ings against the Liberty of the Press
in Cincinnati (Cincinnati, 1836), and William
Birney, James G. Birney and His Times
(New York, 1890), 246-50. William recog-
nized Robinson in the crowd, standing
almost directly beside him, but did not betray
him.
146
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
Garden, Ohio, much against her parents'
wishes. An intelligent
and strong-minded girl, with strong
feminist leanings, Emily at-
tracted the notice of Robinson during
his work in the schools, and
on November 19, 1836, they were married
at Delhi, near Cincin-
nati. In need of a more regular income
than that provided by the
Philanthropist, Robinson thought of attempting to find a church,
but Theodore Weld and the unpopularity
of abolition ministers in
Ohio changed his plans. The American
Antislavery Society, plan-
ning a new abolition campaign in the
West, had empowered Weld
to choose and train a group of agents to
carry the doctrines to the
people, and Robinson, one of the
original "Lane Rebels," was one
of Weld's choices. Provided with the
opportunity to do the very
work for which he felt both fitted and
destined, Robinson ac-
cepted, went East for a period of
intensive training under Weld's
direction, and returned as one of the
famous "Seventy," com-
missioned by the society to work in
Ohio.18
Ohio, though it had already been worked
over by Weld and
Birney, and though it possessed a
potentially powerful state-wide
antislavery society, was far from
abolitionized. Antislavery agents
found certain areas receptive to their
doctrines and others defi-
nitely hostile. Robinson's commission,
which gave him the State
from south to north, touched upon both,
and his experiences illus-
trate the problems confronting an agent
in Ohio of the eighteen-
thirties. The paramount problem was
travel. His first trip, made
during the period from December, 1836,
to February, 1837, with
Weed, another ex-Lane student, entailed
engagements at Xenia,
Wilmington, Concord, Circleville,
Columbus, Putnam, Greenville,
Mount Vernon, Granville, Roscoe,
Coshocton, Mount Pleasant,
Cadiz, New Lisbon, Salem, New Garden,
Guilford, Atwater, and
Cleveland, as well as side trips into
the country surrounding such
towns, and represented a fairly complete
coverage of central and
eastern Ohio.19 By winter,
traveling by horseback, wagon, and
sleigh, the trip approached heroic
proportions, and Robinson spoke
of the cold rides and of his distaste at
collecting funds, $25 at a
18 For
an account of the "Seventy," see Barnes, Antislavery Impulse, 104-5.
19 Letters to Emily Robinson, December,
1836, to February, 1837, Robinson MSS.
MARIUS ROBINSON, ABOLITIONIST 147
time, "rather a lean business,
begging."20 Funds collected were
paid to Elizur Wright, Jr., the national
society's secretary, and
for such trips married agents received
$600 a year and carefully
restricted expenses.
Some trouble from mobs, the chief
inconvenience of the anti-
slavery agent's job, was reported. Near
Granville Robinson was
disturbed three times in ten lectures,
and at Granville on January
26, 1837, his speech was drowned out by
a mob with drums and
horns.21 At another
engagement he saw stones in the hands of
many in his audience, though none were
thrown, and again at
Hartford he was threatened by a mob
armed with rocks and clubs,
but persuaded the mob to avoid violence.22
Summarizing his ex-
periences near the close of his first
tour as an agent, Robinson
found it hard but stimulating work.
Licking County he judged
to have the most dangerous mobs;
Hamilton County was difficult
for abolition speakers, but not
dangerous; Harrison, Muskingum,
and Jefferson counties were the most
cooperative and favorable
to abolition; and the other counties he
believed to be in a state of
indecision.23 Though
admitting apprehension at times, Robinson
and Weed concluded that mobs constituted
a minor danger to
abolition agents. "These mobocrats
are all great cowards," wrote
weed, "and seldom do anything but
make great swelling threats.
. . . They always further the
cause."24 Ending the trip in late
February of 1837, Robinson took
advantage of the opportunity by
visiting his wife's home at New Garden
to effect a reconciliation
with her parents before returning to
Cincinnati.25
Weed's brave words were too hastily
written, as Robinson's
second agency tour, taken in the spring
of 1837, confirmed. Near
the close of a trip covering
substantially the same territory as that
of the previous winter, he was seriously
mobbed at Berlin, Trum-
bull County, Ohio, in June. Arriving in
the town some time be-
fore his lecture, he was taken by a mob
of a dozen men from the
20 Letter to Emily Robinson, January 14, 1837, from
Putnam, Ohio, ibid.
21 Letter to Emily Robinson, January 25,
1837, from Granville, Ohio, ibid.
22 Letter to Emily Robinson, January 29,
1837, from Roscoe, Ohio, ibid.
23 Letters
to Emily Robinson, January 14, January 29, 1837, ibid.
24 Postscript, letter to Emily
Robinson, February 16, 1837, from Guilford, Ohio.
ibid.
25 Letter to Emily Robinson, February 21, 1837, New Garden, Ohio, ibid.
148 OHIO
ARCHEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
house of his host, William Garretson, a
Quaker, tarred, beaten,
and transported in a wagon ten miles
away to Canfield. Borrowing
a suit of clothes from a friendly
farmer, he walked back to Berlin
and held his lecture, but the
mistreatment and exertion left him
weak and ill.26 The experience confirmed
a thesis that Robinson
and other abolitionists had long held,
that slavery was a threat to
the basic civil liberties of the white
man--to free speech, thought,
and discussion--as well as to those of
the black man. The mob-
bing made it manifest to him. He wrote,
"that the spirit of slavery
is not confined to the South, and that
the spirit is identical in char-
acter wherever found. . . . This spirit
of slavery must be crushed
by the resistless power of truth, or we
shall all become its victims.
It long since decreed the death of
liberty, and now with all the
effrontery of augmented power demands
that she be her own
executioner, by requiring a voluntary cessation
of discussion upon
those elementary principles of truth on
which all human rights
are based, and if this be refused,
'power' stands ready to compel
acquiescence."27
Undaunted by his difficulties, Robinson,
after spending the
month of July in recuperation, embarked
again in August of 1837
for a third trip, lasting until
December, and concentrated upon the
eastern and southeastern belt of
counties along the Ohio River.
Beginning in the vicinity of Salem, he
worked his way as far as
Marietta, with excursions into the
adjacent Virginia panhandle.
Through most of his tour he noted strong
antislavery sentiment,
even in Virginia. The Steubenville
society, he reported, had estab-
lished a school for Negro children which
was flourishing, though
its teacher, a local abolitionist, was
shunned by the townspeople.28
Wheeling he found quite receptive,
though during his stay there
he was depressed and disturbed by the
news of Elijah Lovejoy's
death in Illinois, writing
prophetically: "I fear we are not yet at
the worst in our conflict with slavery.
Blood I fear must yet flow
and persecution more bitter and
rancourous succeed. . . . But the
apathy, coldhearted indifference,
prejudice, sordid avarice, and
26 Robinson wrote out a full account of
the mob, an undated MS., ibid; see also
Birney's report. Dumond, Letters of
Birney, I, 387-8.
27 Letter to Emily Robinson, June
13, 1837, from Guilford, Ohio, Robinson MSS.
28 Letter to Emily Robinson,
November ?, 1837, from Steubenville, Ohio, ibid.
MARIUS ROBINSON, ABOLITIONIST 149
meansouled selfishness in all its varied
forms, so predominate that
there seems but little hope."29
At Marietta and nearby he found
opposition increasing; the opposite
Virginia territory was "flaming
hot," he wrote, and Washington
County not yet ready for aboli-
tionizing.30
Returning home in 1838, Robinson found
his health so poor
that he was forced to forego another
agency trip. His voice was
nearly ruined, and for eight months he
remained at home, six of
them in bed, subsisting on scant funds,
chafing at inactivity, and
depressed in spirit. On December 12 his daughter
Cornelia was
born,31 and his health seemed enough
improved to warrant re-
sumption of his work. Beginning the
now-familiar itinerary, he
completed less than a third of his
engagements before his voice
gave out and he again fell ill. He
resigned his agency, severed his
connection with the church, and for all
practical purposes retired
from the antislavery movement until his
health allowed resumption
of his duties.
Abolition was too great a part of Marius
Robinson's life for
him to divorce himself completely from
it. His first move was to
attempt to found a "community"
at Marlboro, Ohio, which failed
even before it had been fully
established. Moving to a farm near
Putnam, Ohio, he lived quietly for
nearly ten years, during which
time his second daughter, Gertrude, was
born on June 2, 1842.32
Sporadic entries in a journal, kept
during this period, show both
Robinson and his wife lonely and
restless, searching for some
work to occupy mind and hand. Both, he
wrote, were "tired of
days blank of benevolent effort and
almost of benevolent de-
sires," and Marius again toyed with
the idea of raising silkworms,
"making myself," he said
bitterly, "a sort of laughing stock for
those who are ignorant of the business
or who do not like it be-
cause it is new or
unfashionable."33 Yet neither he nor his wife
was out of touch with the antislavery
movement, rapidly gaining
strength in Ohio in the forties. The
agents of State and national
29 Letter to Emily Robinson, November
19, 1837, from Wheeling, Virginia, ibid.
30 Letter to Emily Robinson, December 30, 1837, from
Marietta, Ohio, ibid.
31 Cornelia Robinson died May 5, 1854.
32 Gertrude Robinson died February 6,
1863.
33 Undated entry, Putnam journal,
Robinson MSS.
150
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
societies often stopped at his home when
on tour; J. G. Birney
came as a visitor several times, and
Robinson kept up a wide cor-
respondence with abolitionist leaders.
As his health improved his
desire to return to active duty became
stronger, but it was not until
1850 that the proper opportunity came,
at which time he was
elected president of the Western
Antislavery Society.
By 1845 the main portion of antislavery
activity in Ohio had
been taken over by the newly-organized
Western Antislavery So-
ciety, which covered Ohio, western
Pennsylvania, Indiana, and
southern Michigan, and which was
centered in Salem, Ohio. Rob-
inson, despite his retirement, had been
closely connected with the
group since its founding and with the
establishment of its official
organ, the Salem Antislavery Bugle.34
Edited by a Quaker couple
Benjamin S. and J. Elizabeth Jones, from
1846 to 1849, and from
June, 1849, by Oliver Johnson, a
Garrisonian from the East, the
Bugle had developed into one of the most powerful
abolitionist
organs in the West. Johnson, however,
accepted an invitation in
1851 to join the staff of the New York Tribune,
and the executive
committee of the society, mindful of his
printing experience and
his connection with the Cincinnati Philanthropist,
offered the post
to Robinson. Though he would have
preferred a more active role,
he accepted, saying, "My past
habits and inclinations quite dis-
qualify me for this position. Greatly
should I prefer the life and
spirit of an antislavery meeting to the
quiet drudgery of the
editor's closet. But I will not
refuse."35
James Barnaby, who had served as the Bugle's
publishing
agent for several years, edited the
paper from Johnson's depar-
ture on April 26, 1851, until Robinson,
who wished to make a brief
lecture tour, took over on May 24. As
soon as she had familiar-
ized herself with the duties of the
position, Emily Robinson be-
came publishing agent in Barnaby's
place, and the two spent many
hours together, with their children, in
the Bugle office behind
Trescott's bookstore in Salem.36
34 The first six numbers were edited
from New Lisbon, Ohio.
35 The Salem Antislavery Bugle, May
24, 1851.
36 Barnaby was a tailor, and also
co-owner of the Salem book-firm of Barnaby and
Whinery. Emily Robinson relinquished the
position, after her daughter Cornelia's death
in 1854, to Ann Pearson of Salem.
MARIUS
ROBINSON, ABOLITIONIST
151
When Robinson became its editor, the Bugle
possessed a cir-
culation of more than 1400, through
Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan.
Under Robinson's direction it continued
to be one of the best-
edited of the antislavery publications,
and remained until its last
issue probably the best in the West.
Four pages, folio size, with a
six-column page, the Bugle cost
$1.50 a year, and in its policy
made a clear attempt to be a family
newspaper as well as to give
its readers complete national, state,
and local coverage of all mat-
ters related to slavery. The first page
usually contained a long
lead article, often a speech, the news
of various antislavery con-
ventions, and exchange items from other
abolitionist papers. The
second and third pages carried the
reports of the local and state
societies, the correspondence of the
Western Antislavery Society
agents in the field,37 letters
to the editor and editorials on current
slavery questions, and brief reports or
exchange items. The back
page carried a serialized story, heavily
sentimental verse, or "lit-
erary" essays and discussions. From
three to six columns of
advertising were divided between the
third and fourth pages.
Robinson's editorial policies followed
fairly closely the lines
laid down by the eastern radical group
of abolitionists, Garrison,
Edmund Quincy, Wendell Phillips, and
others from the American
Antislavery Society, avoiding the
doctrines of the political-action
wing of the movement led by Birney,
Giddings, Bailey, and the
rest. The causes espoused by the Bugle
during the eight years of
Robinson's direction reflected
Garrisonian principles.38 Like Gar-
rison, Robinson opposed capital
punishment and war; like him he
sponsored temperance and women's rights.
The latter, a question
that had split the abolition movement
into pro- and anti-feminist
divisions in 1840, found great support
from Emily Robinson, who
was one of the earlier antislavery
feminists in the West and later
37 In 1851 these agents were
Henry C. Wright (Ohio and Indiana), James Walker
and Joseph Treat (Ohio and Michigan), C.
S. S. Griffin (northwestern Ohio), John
Selby (western Pennsylvania), and Allan
Hisey (unassigned). Oliver Johnson, Parker
Pillsbury, C. C. Burleigh, and others
from the East served occasionally as special agents.
See "Report of the Ninth Annual
Meeting of the Western Antislavery Society," Anti-
slavery Bugle, August 30, 1851.
38 See, for example, "The Garrisonians," ibid., September
6, 1851.
152
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND
HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
a figure of national prominence in the
women's rights movement.39
The strong disunionism favored in the
fifties by Garrison, Phillips,
Quincy, and others, resulting in the
American Antislavery So-
ciety's slogan of "No Union with
Slaveholders," was adopted by
the Bugle and wide publicity given the principle.40 Robinson
joined the Liberator's call for a
national disunion convention in
1857, attended it when it met in
Cleveland on October 28, and re-
ported it fully in his paper.41 In
the same fashion he espoused the
Garrisonian "no-voting"
theory, though with less enthusiasm.42
The "higher law" doctrine,
used by the abolitionists to com-
bat the legal defenses of slavery, found
great support in the
Bugle during Robinson's editorship. "Every compromise
the
North has made with slavery," he
wrote, "has been a concession
of justice to injustice, and by virtue
of the higher law, inoperative
and void."43 The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 and the Dred Scott
ruling he attacked as not only
violations of higher law, but as
evidences of a plot to nationalize
slavery.44 More so
than Garri-
son, Robinson was aware of the dangers
to civil liberties involved
in the slavery controversy. His own
lecturing experiences, no
doubt, made him acutely sensitive to
infringements of free speech,
free press, and personal liberty, and
the Bugle constantly warned
of a "slavepower conspiracy"
to rob the North of its civil rights.45
"The wealth of the South," he
said, defining his terms, "is in its
slaves. The wealth of the South and the
wealth of the North are
39 See her letter to Susan B.
Anthony, January 9, 1882, from Salem, Ohio, and an
undated letter to Mrs. Talbot, in the
Robinson MSS. The list of feminists connected
with the antislavery group bears witness
to the vital link between the two movements,
encompassing Abby Kelly Foster, Lucretia
Mott, the Grimke sisters, Lucy Stone, An-
toinette Blackwell, Elizabeth Cady
Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Maria Weston Chap-
man, Eliza Lee Follen, Anne Greene
Phillips, Josephine Griffing, Maria Giddings, Mary
Grew, and Sarah Peirce.
40 See the disunionist proceedings of
the Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts
Antislavery societies, Antislavery
Bugle, November 13, 1852, and February 13, 1853;
the Horace Mann-Wendell Phillips debate,
ibid., March 1 to May 30, 1853; Phillips'
speeches to the American and New England
Antislavery societies, ibid., June 3, 1854;
and June 30, 1855; and the speeches of
Phillips, Garrison, Quincy, and others at the
American Antislavery Society's
Anniversary, ibid., May 23, May 30, and June 6, 1857.
41 Ibid., October 24 and 28,
November 7 and 14, 1857.
42 See "No
Voting and Disunion," ibid., September 6, 1851; "The No-Voting
Theory," ibid., September
13, 1851; and William Hick's refutation, "Reasons Against
Non-Voting," ibid., November
1, 1851.
43 Ibid., February 25, 1854; see also "The Higher Law,"
in the issue of March
4, 1854.
44 Ibid., May 31, 1851, March 14 and 20, and November 5, 1857.
45 See the speeches of Horace Mann, Joshua Giddings, John Rankin, George W.
Julian, Charles Sumner, and Francis P.
Blair, ibid., April 12, 1851; June 26, 1852;
July 10, 1852; December 4, 1852;
November 17, 1855, and October 11, 1856.
MARIUS ROBINSON, ABOLITIONIST 153
combined to crush the liberal, free,
progressive spirit of the age.
The cottonocracy of the North and the
slaveocracy of the South
are in combination, wielding the powers
of the National Govern-
ment for their own aggrandizement."46
Strangely enough for an
ordained minister, Robinson followed
Garrison in his attack upon
established churches, feeling as
Garrison did that church organiza-
tions which refused to take a definite
stand against slavery were
in effect supporting the system. He
himself wrote no editorials
condemning the churches as pro-slavery
instruments, but gave
circulation to a great body of
anti-church material in the Bugle's
columns.47
Ill health forced Robinson's retirement from the editor's
chair in February of 1859. Turning the
paper over once more to
Benjamin Jones, one of its original
editors, he purchased a hat
store and settled down to retirement.
The Civil War, however,
found him lending vigorous assistance to
the cause he had fol-
lowed through life. He gave talks to the
volunteers, gathered sup-
plies for the relief of the ill and
wounded, and served as chairman
and coordinator of groups raising money
and volunteers for the
war effort. At the close of the war he
sold his business to become
president of the Ohio Mutual Fire
Insurance Company, and lived
out his life in Salem as a respected
citizen and elder statesman.
He was much in demand during his later
years as a speaker, at
schools, political meetings, clubs, and
churches, giving talks on his
memories of the abolitionist conflict in
Ohio, on local and State
history, the Indian, and contemporary
politics.48 That his mind
had lost none of its keenness and his
crusade against wrong none
of its old fire, is evinced by his
thoughts on the reconstruction
of the South, given in one of these
talks:
46 Ibid., November 9, 1851.
47 See "The Voice of the
Pulpit," ibid., July 19 and August 2, 1851; Blanchard's
and Boynton's reports on the Convention
of American Churches, ibid, August 9, 1851;
the speech of Parker Pillsbury, ibid.,
September 27, 1851; and the Michigan and Massa-
chusetts Society resolutions, ibid., October
30, 1852, February 19, 1853, and October
28, 1854. Probably the best explanation
of the abolitionist stand on the church is found
in William Goodell's Christian
Investigator (Whitesboro, N. Y., 1842-48), I (1842/3),
July, September, Lectures VI and VIII.
48 Four manuscripts of such talks
survive in the Robinson MSS., "Salem History,"
"The American Indian," and
untitled lectures on the abolition movement and recon-
struction.
154 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND
HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
Our safety out of the war as in it is in
giving self-government to the
people. We must recognize the toilers --
the workers in whatever depart-
ment as the nobility in this land. The
old slaveholders are trying by every
possible means to restore the prestige
of their aristocracy by keeping in
ignorance and disfranchisement the labor
of the south and thus degrade the
labor of the north. They hope to effect
this by appeals to old party spirit
and to personal prejudices against the
complex[ion] of laborers in the south.
He who would degrade and rob labor
anywhere would degrade all labor;
he is the enemy of mankind. We want the
right to soil left open for fair
competition in occupancy by those who
have the muscle to till it. We want
fair wages offered in the south as well
as in the north, which shall invite
muscle and skill, to machinery, which is
to develope the unimagined wealth
of this continent. With labor thus
honored with its just reward, give to
these sons of labor the right of
self-protection and self-government in the
ballot, and all classes are alike
interested in the peace, union, and perpetua-
tion of the nation. Justice is done and
we are safe. This is the true method
of reconstruction and the people will
fill the land with free schools and free
churches.49
When he died in 1870, Marius Robinson's
epitaphs, spoken
by Garrison and Weld, summarized the
significance of his long
and useful career. Said Weld, his friend
and teacher, "Our cause
had few such workers, few who
wrought with such heart and
soul"; and Garrison, "He
combined with unfeigned humility a
sublime moral heroism."
49 Undated, untitled lecture on
reconstruction, ibid.