The American Peace Society is a pacifist group founded upon the initiative of William Ladd

William Ladd

William Ladd was one of the earliest American anti-war activists, and the first president of the American Peace Society.Ladd was born in Exeter, New Hampshire as a direct lineal descendant of Daniel Ladd, Sr....

, in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, May 8, 1828. It was formed by the merging of many state and local societies, from New York, Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts, of which the oldest, the New York Peace Society

New York Peace Society

The New York Peace Society was the first peace society to be established in the United States. It has had several different incarnations, as it has merged into other organizations or dissolved and then been re-created.- First incarnation :...

, dated from 1815. Ladd was an advocate of a "Congress and High Court of Nations." It was the first nationally based secular peace organization in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 history. The society organized peace conferences and regularly published a periodical entitled Advocate of Peace. Its most famous leader was Benjamin Franklin Trueblood (1847–1916), a Quaker who in his book The Federation of the World (1899) called for the establishment of an international state to bring about lasting peace in the world. In 1834 the headquarters of the society were removed to Hartford

Hartford, Connecticut

Hartford is the capital of the U.S. state of Connecticut. The seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960, it is the second most populous city on New England's largest river, the Connecticut River. As of the 2010 Census, Hartford's population was 124,775, making...

, in 1834 to Boston, Massachusetts, in 1911 to Washington, D.C. The group is now based in Washington

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

. Its official journal is World Affairs.
The American Peace Society house

American Peace Society house

American Peace Society House is a Late Victorian house that was the headquarters of the American Peace Society from 1911 to 1948.It is included in the Lafayette Square Historic District, a district that is a National Historic Landmark. It is a three story brick house with a hexagonal bay.The Peace...

, its headquarters from 1911 to 1948 near the White House

White House

The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...

, is a U.S. National Historic Landmark

National Historic Landmark

A National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance...

.
The American Peace Society was opposed to Zionism

Zionism

Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...

.

History

In Boston the society worked from offices on Cornhill

Cornhill, Boston

Cornhill was a street in Boston, Massachusetts, in the 19th-20th centuries, located on the site of the current City Hall Plaza in Government Center. It was named in 1829; previously it was known as Market Street . In its time, it comprised a busy part of the city near Brattle Street, Court Street...

 (ca.1840s-1850s); Chauncey Street (ca.1864); Winter Street

Winter Street (Boston)

Winter Street in Boston, Massachusetts is located between Tremont Street and Washington Street, near the Common. It is currently a pedestrian zone. Prior to 1708, it was called Blott's Lane and then Bannister's Lane.-See also:* Downtown Crossing...

 (ca.1868-1869); and Somerset Street (ca.1870s-1890s). Annual meetings took place in various venues around town, including Park Street Church

Park Street Church

The Park Street Church in Boston, Massachusetts is an active Conservative Congregational Church at the corner of Tremont Street and Park Street. The church is currently pastored by Gordon P. Hugenberger.-History:...

 (1851). Officers included George C. Beckwith, William Jay

William Jay (jurist)

William Jay was an American reformer and jurist, the son of John Jay .-Biography:He was born in New York City, graduated at Yale in 1808, and then studied law at Albany, though poor eyesight soon compelled him to give up the profession...

, Howard Malcom, John Field, William C. Brown.

See also

• Massachusetts Peace Society
  Massachusetts Peace Society
  The Massachusetts Peace Society was an anti-war organization in Boston, Massachusetts, established to "diffuse light on the subject of war, and to cultivate the principles and spirit of peace." Founding officers included Thomas Dawes, William Phillips, Elisha Ticknor, Thomas Wallcut and Noah...
  
   (1815-1828), one of the predecessors to the American Peace Society

Footnotes

• Oxford Dictionary of the U.S. Military. Oxford University Press, 2001
• Dictionary of American History by James Truslow Adams, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1940

Issued by the society

• Advocate of Peace. Published in Hartford: v.1-2 (1834–1836). Published in Boston: v.3-4 (1839–1842); v.11 (1854). New series v.7-9 (1876–1878). Published in Washington, DC: v.84 (1922). Also called Advocate of Peace Through Justice
• Thomas Hancock. The principles of peace: exemplified in the conduct of the Society of Friends in Ireland, during the rebellion of the year 1798, with some preliminary and concluding observations. 1843
• Walter Channing. Thoughts on peace and war: An address delivered before the American Peace Society at its annual meeting, May 27, 1844.
• The Book of Peace. Boston: George Beckwith, 1845.
• William Jay. An address delivered before the American Peace Society at its annual meeting, May 26, 1845.
• Charles Sumner
  Charles Sumner
  Charles Sumner was an American politician and senator from Massachusetts. An academic lawyer and a powerful orator, Sumner was the leader of the antislavery forces in Massachusetts and a leader of the Radical Republicans in the United States Senate during the American Civil War and Reconstruction,...
  
  . The war system of the commonwealth of nations: an address before the American Peace Society, at its anniversary in Boston, May 28, 1849. 1854. Google books
• Rufus W. Clark. An address delivered before the American Peace Society at its annual meeting, May 26, 1851.
• Angel of Peace. v.5-8 (1876–1878). Childrens' magazine.

About the society

• The Calumet. v.2 (1834–1835)
• James L. Tryon. The Rise of the Peace Movement. Yale Law Journal, Vol. 20, No. 5 (Mar., 1911), pp. 358–371
• The American Peace Society: A Centennial History by Edson L. Whitney (1928)

External links

• The records of the American Peace Society, housed at the Swarthmore College Peace Collection
• Library of Congress. Photo of Philip Marshall Brown of the American Peace Society, Washington, D.C., May 1, 1939. Harris & Ewing, photographer
• Literature from the antebellum American peace movement