The American Anti-Slavery Society was an abolitionist society founded by William Lloyd Garrison and Arthur Tappan. Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave, had become a prominent abolitionist and was a key leader of this society, who often spoke at its meetings.
The society was considered controversial and its activities were sometimes met with violence. By the mid-1830s, slavery had become such an economically integral part of the U.S. economy that abolishing it would have major effects. Based on enslaved labor, the cultivation, processing and export of the commodity crop of cotton yielded great wealth for Southern planters, and Northern merchants, textile factory owners, and shipowners alike. In addition, enslaved labor worked throughout the economy, especially in the South. By the Civil War, New York City had so many ties to slavery that its mayor proposed the city secede.