Moncure D. Conway | |
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| Born | (1832-03-17)March 17, 1832 Falmouth, Virginia, U.S. |
| Died | November 15, 1907(1907-11-15) (aged 75) Paris, France |
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Moncure Daniel Conway (March 17, 1832 – November 15, 1907) was an Americanabolitionist minister and radical writer. At various timesMethodist,Unitarian, and aFreethinker, he descended from patriotic and patrician families of Virginia and Maryland but spent most of the final four decades of his life abroad in England and France, where he wrote biographies ofEdmund Randolph,Nathaniel Hawthorne andThomas Paine and his own autobiography. He led freethinkers in London's South Place Chapel, nowConway Hall.[1]
Conway's parents descended from theFirst Families of Virginia.[2] His father, Walker Peyton Conway, was a wealthy slave-holding gentleman farmer, county judge, and state representative; his home, known as theConway House, still stands at 305 King Street (also known as River Road), along theRappahannock River.[3] Conway's mother, Margaret Stone Daniel Conway, was the granddaughter ofThomas Stone of Maryland (a signer of theDeclaration of Independence), and in addition to running the household, also practicedhomeopathy, learned from her doctor father. Both parents wereMethodists, his father having left theEpiscopal church, his mother thePresbyterian, and they hosted Methodist meetings in their home until a suitable church was finally built in Fredericksburg. An uncle, Judge Eustace Conway, advocated states' rights in Virginia's General Assembly (as did Walter Conway). Another uncle,Richard C.L. Moncure, served on what later became theVirginia Supreme Court, was a layman in the Episcopal Church, and became known for his integrity and hatred of intolerance. His great-uncle,Peter Vivian Daniel, served on the United States Supreme Court, where he upheld slavery and theFugitive Slave Act of 1850, including in theDred Scott Decision of 1857.
Two of his three brothers later fought for the Confederacy. His opposition to slavery reportedly came from his mother's side of the family, including his great-grandfather Travers Daniel (justice of the Stafford Court, died 1824)[4] and his mother herself (who fled toEaston, Pennsylvania, and lived with her daughter and son-in-law Professor Marsh after the Civil War broke out) as well as from his boyhood experiences. Nonetheless, during his youth, Moncure Conway briefly took a pro-slavery position under the influence of a cousin, Richmond editorJohn Moncure Daniel, himself a protege of Justice Daniel.
Conway was born inFalmouth, Virginia.
After attending theFredericksburg Classical and Mathematical Academy (alma mater ofGeorge Washington and other famous Virginians), Conway followed his elder brother to Methodist-affiliatedDickinson College inCarlisle, Pennsylvania, graduating in 1849. During his time at Dickinson, Conway helped found the college's first student publication and was influenced by ProfessorJohn McClintock, which caused him to embrace Methodism as well as an anti-slavery position, although that controversy was starting to split the denomination. In Fredericksburg, uncle Eustace funded the pro-slavery Southern Conference faction and his father the at-least-theoretically anti-slavery Baltimore Conference faction.[5]
While inCincinnati as discussed below, Conway marriedEllen Davis Dana. She was a fellow Unitarian,feminist, and abolitionist. The couple had three sons (two of whom survived childhood) and a daughter during their long marriage, which ended with her death from cancer in 1898. Despite the previous tension with his own family over his opposition to slavery, Moncure Conway nevertheless brought his bride to meet them, during which Ellen broke a Southern social constraint by hugging and kissing a young slave girl in front of family members; after this, it would take 17 years before Conway reconciled with his family.[citation needed]
After studying law for a year inWarrenton, Virginia, partly out of a moral crisis caused by seeing a lynching of a Black man whose retrial had been ordered by the Court of Appeals,[6] Conway became a circuit-ridingMethodist minister. Conway had self-published his first pamphlet in 1850, "Free Schools in Virginia: A Plea of Education, Virtue and Thrift, vs. Ignorance, Vice and Poverty", but had been unable to convince local politicians to follow his recommendations, particularly as the pro-slavery faction believed such universal education influenced by Northern mores.[7] His Rockville Circuit included his native state andWashington, D.C., throughRockville, Maryland, where he became acquainted with the QuakerRoger Brooke, whom he considered his first avowed abolitionist, despite his familial relation to the juristRoger Brooke Taney.[8] In 1853, after being reassigned to a circuit aroundFrederick, Maryland, and shortly after his beloved elder brother Peyton died oftyphoid fever and his assistant Becky of another, Moncure Conway left the Methodist church and entered theHarvard University school of divinity to continue his spiritual journey. Before graduating in 1854, he metRalph Waldo Emerson and fell under the influence ofTranscendentalism, as well as became an outspoken abolitionist after discussions withTheodore Parker,William Lloyd Garrison,Elizabeth Cady Stanton andWendell Phillips.[9]
After graduating from Harvard, Conway accepted a call to theFirst Unitarian Church ofWashington, D.C., but he was invited to seek another position after enunciating abolitionist views. Moreover, when Conway returned to his native Virginia, his rumored connection with an attempt to rescue the fugitive slaveAnthony Burns inBoston, Massachusetts (whose master Conway had known in Stafford, Virginia, before their move to Alexandria and was ultimately purchased by an abolitionist and set free) aroused bitter hostility among his old neighbors and friends and family. Conway fled being tarred and feathered in 1854.[10]
Nonetheless, almost at once, Conway was invited to preach sermons at theUnitarian congregation inCincinnati, Ohio. He served as minister at that anti-slavery congregation from late 1855 until after the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861. However, when in 1859, he announced to the congregation that he no longer believed in miracles or Christ's divinity, a third of the congregation left, but the "Free Church" survived.[7] Conway also edited a short-lived liberal periodical,The Dial, in 1860-1861, linking his emerging spiritual views to his Transcendentalist background. In Cincinnati, he became more acquainted with Jews and Catholics, and counseled against discriminating against them because of their religions.[citation needed] A story he published inThe Dial was grounded inArthurian legend, and explained how Arthur's swordExcalibur came intoGeorge Washington's possession, and then was passed on to John Brown, who used it in hisraid on Harpers Ferry.[11]
Conway had become editor of the anti-slavery weeklyCommonwealth inBoston, and in 1861, Conway published semi-anonymouslyThe Rejected Stone; or Insurrection vs. Resurrection in America, identifying himself only as a "Native of Virginia". The book was published in three editions and ultimately handed out to Union soldiers after the start of theAmerican Civil War. During the next year, Conway advocated abolition, including in a Smithsonian lecture series in Washington, D.C., which earned him and the more moderate Unitarian ministerWilliam Henry Channing a meeting with PresidentAbraham Lincoln to discuss his argument that announcing abolition would weaken the Confederacy. While in Washington, DC, Conway located thirty-one[12] of his father's slaves who had fled from Virginia into Georgetown. Conway secured train tickets and safe-conduct passes for them and escorted them on a dangerous trip through Maryland to safety inYellow Springs, Ohio, where he believed they would be safe because of the town's accepting culture.[3][13]
In 1862, during the Union occupation before the devastatingBattle of Fredericksburg in December of that year, Conway returned home to Falmouth and learned that his family's house had been spared from destruction because of its association with him, although it was commandeered for use as a hospital for wounded soldiers (at whichWalt Whitman would work as a nurse).[14] That year, Conway published another powerful plea for emancipation,The Golden Hour (1862). On New Year's Day, 1863 (also called Emancipation Day, because President Lincoln issued theEmancipation Proclamation, news of which reached Boston by telegraph), Conway with fellow abolitionistsJulia Ward Howe,Amos Bronson Alcott,Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.,George Luther Stearns andWendell Phillips unveiled a marble bust ofJohn Brown at Stearns' home.[15]
Also in 1862, after spending more and more time away from his church advancing the abolitionist cause, and growing dissatisfied with the theological, liturgical, andsocial conservatism of mainstream Unitarianism, Conway left that denomination's ministry, and he maintained an uneasy and uncertain relationship with Unitarianism in America and subsequently in England until he and Ellen made a clean break.[citation needed]
In April 1863,[2] fellow American abolitionists sent Conway to London to convince theUnited Kingdom that theAmerican Civil War was primarily a war of abolition and to not support theConfederacy. Under English influence, Conway eventually contactedJames Murray Mason, representative of theConfederate States of America to Britain "on behalf of the leading antislavery men of America," offering withdrawal of support for prosecution of the war in exchange for emancipation of the slaves. Mason publicly rejected the overture, embarrassing Conway's sponsors, who quickly and angrily withdrew support. Moreover, Conway had to apologize to US Secretary of StateWilliam H. Seward, who could have caused revocation of his passport for attempting to speak as a private citizen for the US government.
Rather than go back to America, where Conway no longer felt welcome as a suspected traitor to his childhood Virginia friends and neighbors and he paid someone to take his place after being drafted to serve in the Union army, Conway traveled to Italy. There, he reunited with his wife and children inVenice before moving back to London. There, in 1864, he became minister of the South Place Chapel (serving in 1864–65 and 1893–97) as well as leader of the then namedSouth Place Religious Society inFinsbury, London. Conway continued writing and publishing, including articles in both British and American magazines and traveled to Paris and even Russia.[16] He also served as a war correspondent during theFranco-Prussian War of 1870–71. Conway published biographies ofEdmund Randolph,Nathaniel Hawthorne andThomas Paine, as well as acted as the American agent forRobert Browning and the London literary agent forWalt Whitman,Mark Twain,Louisa May Alcott, andElizabeth Cady Stanton.
Conway also abandonedtheism after his son Emerson died in 1864. His thinking continued to move from Emersoniantranscendentalism toward a morehumanisticFreethought. He conducted funeral services for his friendArtemus Ward and preached memorial at memorial services for many other famous literary figures. Moreover, women were allowed to preach at South Place Chapel, among themAnnie Besant, whom Mrs. Conway had befriended.[16] However, the South Place congregation and Conway soon left fellowship with the Unitarian Church.[citation needed] For a year from November 1865Cleveland Hall was leased for Sunday evenings so Conway could "address the working classes." However, the audience consisted of well-dressed lower-middle-class people.[17]
Conway remained the leader of South Place until 1886, whenStanton Coit took his place. Under Coit's leadership, South Place was renamed to theSouth Place Ethical Society. However Coit's tenure ended in 1892 in a losing power struggle, and Conway resumed leadership until his death.
Conway attended thesalon of radicalsPeter andClementia Taylor atAubrey House inCampden Hill, West London. He also was a member of Clementia's "Pen and Pencil Club", at which young writers and artists read and exhibited their works.[18] Conway moved to Notting Hill to be near the Taylors at Aubrey House.[18]
In 1868, Conway was one of four speakers at the first open public meeting in support ofwomen's suffrage inGreat Britain. His many literary and intellectual friends includedCharles Dickens,Robert Browning,Thomas Carlyle,Charles Lyell, andCharles Darwin. In 1878, he attempted to personally endow a new, non-denominational women's college at theUniversity of Oxford; frightened at this prospect, Anglicans made haste to instead createLady Margaret Hall, Oxford, which was the first women's college at Oxford.[19]
In the 1870s and the 1880s, Conway returned occasionally to the United States, where he reconciled with his Virginia family in 1875 and toured in the West about Demonology and the famous Englishmen he knew. In 1897 Conway and his terminally-ill (from cancer) wife Ellen returned from London toNew York City to fulfill her wish of dying on American soil; she died on Christmas Day; their son Dana also died that year. As theSpanish–American War approached, Conway turned toward pacifism and became disaffected with his countrymen, moving to France to devote much of the rest of his life to the peace movement and writing. However, he occasionally returned to Fredericksburg, which had come to admire his cultural accomplishments. Conway also traveled to India and wrote about it shortly before his death.
Conway visitedIndia and described his experiences inMy Pilgrimage to the Wise Men of the East, 1906.[20]
He visitedHelena Blavatsky in 1884 and denounced theMahatma letters as fraudulent. He suggested thatKoot Hoomi was a fictitious creation of Blavatsky.[21] Conway wrote that Blavatsky "created the imaginary Koothoomi (originally Kothume) by piecing together parts of the names of her two chief disciples,Olcott andHume."[22]
Conway died alone, at 75, in his apartment inParis. His corpse was found on November 15, 1907, and was ultimately returned toWestchester County, New York, for burial in Kensico cemetery.
Conway Hall inHolborn, London is named in his honor. In 2004, Virginia GovernorMark R. Warner proclaimed Conway the only descendant of a Founding Father of the nation to physically lead slaves to freedom. Both Ohio and Virginia have erected historical markers in his honor, and Conway's childhood home was designated a U.S. and Virginia landmark.[13]
