John L. Carey

John L. Carey was a member of the General Assembly of Maryland in 1843 and a newspaper editor in Maryland in the years leading up to the American Civil War.^[1] He was much preoccupied with the vexed question of slavery>about which he wrote a number of letters and books. He was editor of the American and Commercial Daily Advertiser,^[2] and in 1845, he entered into a correspondence with the physician and planter Richard Sprigg Steuart on slavery.^[3]

He wrote a number of letters, books and essays on the subject, including "Slavery in Maryland - Briefly Considered", published in Baltimore in 1845.^[4]

Carey's position on slavery was essentially conflicted, reflecting the wider division of feeling in Maryland prior to the Civil War. On one hand, Carey could not imagine a world in which the two races coexisted peacefully in liberty, and like many other Southerners, he deeply resented the pressure from Northern Abolitionists. On the other hand, he sought a solution to the problem of slavery through peaceful resettlement of former by in Africa.^[5] Carey was a member of the Maryland State Colonization Society, an organization to return free black Americans to the west coast in Africa, in what is today Liberia.^[6]

He was editor of the Baltimore American & Commercial Daily Advertiser for 12 years prior to his death in December 1852. He died from cholera in New Orleans, where he had gone to assume the editorship of the Crescent.^[7]

Published works

• Some Thoughts Concerning Domestic Slavery, Baltimore (1838) Retrieved July 2012
• Slavery in Maryland - Briefly Considered, Baltimore (1845) Retrieved July 2012
• Slavery and the Wilmot Proviso; With Some Suggestions for a Compromise (c1846) Retrieved July 2012

References

• Clark, Susan E., The Work of Cities Retrieved July 2012
• Grivno, Max L., p.118, "There Slavery Cannot Dwell": Agriculture and Labor in Northern Maryland Retrieved July 2012

Notes