American Moral Reform Society 309means of gauging human virtue, regardless of race. By liv-
ing up to these standards of moral perfection, he argued,
those oppressed because of their skin color could disprove
American assumptions about racial diff erence and redeem
Americans from the corrupting infl uence of racism.
Th ough consistently supported by AMRS resolutions,
this highly theoretical strategy posed a number of practi-
cal problems and endured strong criticism throughout the
society’s existence. One of the most vocal critics was the
Rev. Samuel Cornish of New York, editor of the Colored
American and affi liate of the AMRS. Cornish emphasized
the impracticality of responding to racial discrimination
and race-based slavery without reference to the color-based
properties of that oppression. He also argued that racial
language should be used in a way that drew attention to
the specifi c circumstances of oppression, not biological dif-
ferences. William Whipper continued to defend the AMRS
position against such critiques, denying race on both reli-
gious and political grounds. Whipper argued that race was
an artifi cial distinction, one that prevented Christians from
realizing their spiritual unity and Americans from fulfi ll-
ing the ultimate objectives of their republican vision: equal
rights for every citizen.
Many African American reformers supported Cor-
nish’s critique and distanced themselves from the AMRS.
Th roughout the late 1830s, a renewed interest in coloniza-
tion, fallout from the society’s vocal condemnation of reli-
gious denominations that failed address the slavery issue,
and a state-level black convention movement won members
away from the AMRS. Ultimately, it was the unresponsive
racist order that brought an end to AMRS initiatives. In-
stead of proving their equality to the rest of America, “mor-
ally elevated” African Americans became special targets of
violent reprisals in Philadelphia, New York, and elsewhere.
Even William Whipper recognized the failure of AMRS
strategy, admitting that race was the primary factor that
deprived the man of color of equal treatment. AMRS mem-
bership began to wane in 1839, and the AMRS convened its
fi nal national meeting in 1841.
Th e end of the AMRS signifi ed a new direction in Af-
rican American activism. Reformers turned away from the
theoretical strategies of the AMRS and toward more partic-
ular and more political modes of addressing slavery and ra-
cial discrimination in the United States. Th e national black
conventions began meeting again in 1843, and such black
leaders as Frederick Douglass reinvigorated racial languageAmerican Moral Reform Society
Th e American Moral Reform Society (AMRS) was a na-
tional organization of 19th-century African American
leaders who gathered to advance the cause of moral im-
provement in the United States. Th e AMRS grew out of,
and temporarily replaced, the colored convention move-
ment. Chartered at the 1835 national black convention,
the AMRS sponsored a number of local auxiliaries and
convened six national meetings between 1837 and 1841.
Th ough the society offi cially rejected racial or geographic
distinctions, most of its leaders and members were from the
Philadelphia area, and most, if not all, of its membership
was African American.
During the early 1830s, many African American lead-
ers began to espouse more abstract strategies for combat-
ing racism and slavery in the United States, including a call
to reject racial language or distinctions of any kind. Th ose
who advocated such strategies also found fault with organi-
zations that identifi ed themselves according to race, such as
the black convention movement. According to these theo-
rists, the black conventions explicitly acknowledged racial
distinction and thereby potentially reinforced the racist as-
sumptions of a nation that typically equated racial diff erence
with racial inequality. Instead of fi ghting discrimination
from the other side of the color line through black conven-
tions, these strategists denied that the color line existed and
proposed race-less organizations such as the AMRS as the
proper means to combat American racism.
In its original language, the society’s Declaration of
Sentiments made it clear that their intent was to elevate the
character of African Americans by advocating education,
abstinence from intoxicating liquors, and the principles of
Christian morality. At the fi rst annual meeting of the AMRS,
however, the delegates voted to strike the racial limitations
from their resolutions, instead declaring their intention to
redeem the entire nation from the sins that had corrupted it.
Without any reference to the race of those who would ben-
efi t from these improvements, the AMRS resolved to create
institutes for mechanical education, to support lectures on
frugality and peace, and to promote moral improvement.
Th e AMRS considered racism and slavery to be moral
problems, properly resolved through their holistic agenda of
moral perfection. AMRS leaders such as William Whipper
argued that moral standards were the divinely sanctioned