Back to index of Nerve 11 - Winter 2007 | Merseyside Resistance Calendar February

19th February 1863: 3,000-4,000 in Royal Amphitheatre condemn slavery in support for North in American civil war (see also 17th Jan 1863)

At a public meeting on 17th January 1863, in Liverpool’s Clarendon rooms, the following motion was considered:

“That in the opinion of this meeting, the war now raging in the United States of America originated in the institution of slavery and in the antagonism which that system inevitably presents to the institutions of freedom…. [that] the Federal Government is entitled to the generous sympathy of every Englishman and to the moral support which such sympathy always affords, that to ensure these from the inhabitants of Liverpool and Birkenhead, it is now deemed advisable, by means of lectures and public discussions, to fully instruct the public mind on the American question….” (Daily Post 19th January 1863)

19th February 1863
A ‘great meeting’ held in Liverpool’s Royal Amphitheatre in February attracted between 3.000 and 4,000 persons... and everyclass of the community was represented’. Resolutions condemning slavery and supporting Lincoln were declared carried — although Southern hecklers made energetic attempts to break up the proceedings. (Daily Post 20 Feb 1863)

Taken from: Tony Barley, Myths of the Slave Power, Confederate Slavery, Lancashire Workers and the Alabama (1992)

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