Benjamin Franklin's Anti-Slavery Petitions to Congress

During his life, Franklin had many careers... In his later years he became vocal as an abolitionist and in 1787 began to serve as President of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery. The Society was originally formed in Philadelphia, as The Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage... As a young man he owned slaves, and he carried advertisements for the sale of slaves in his newspaper, the Pennsylvania Gazette. At the same time, however, he published numerous Quaker pamphlets against slavery and condemned the practice of slavery in his private correspondence. It...