A major debate among Friends at the time was how much of a "hedge" they needed against "the world." Should Quakers be a removed society concerned with its own affairs or actively involved in the world? Philadelphia and Baltimore Friends had split into two bodies in 1827 and 1828, based on questions of theology and class and attitudes toward the Bible. That Earle was a political candidate seeking the vice presidency clearly shows which side of that debate he was on.
Fearing a contagion of the abolitionist movement that took hold in Pennsylvania would spread across the Mason Dixon line down to Maryland is why many like Johns Hopkins supported the Maryland Colonization Society. How hard is it really to accept that Maryland's historical prominence as a border state would be conducive to so many feigning allegiance to competing ideologies?
A major debate among Friends at the time was how much of a "hedge" they needed against "the world." Should Quakers be a removed society concerned with its own affairs or actively involved in the world? Philadelphia and Baltimore Friends had split into two bodies in 1827 and 1828, based on questions of theology and class and attitudes toward the Bible. That Earle was a political candidate seeking the vice presidency clearly shows which side of that debate he was on.
Fearing a contagion of the abolitionist movement that took hold in Pennsylvania would spread across the Mason Dixon line down to Maryland is why many like Johns Hopkins supported the Maryland Colonization Society. How hard is it really to accept that Maryland's historical prominence as a border state would be conducive to so many feigning allegiance to competing ideologies?