Henry Highland Garnet’s ”Address to the Slaves of the United States of America” was delivered at the National Convention of Colored Citizens in Buffalo, New York, on August 16, 1843. A former slave, Garnet was pastor of the African American Liberty Street Presbyterian Church in Troy, New York, and editor of The Clarion, a weekly newspaper that published abolitionist and church-related articles. At age twenty-eight, he was a rising figure among young African American abolitionists, who were increasingly at odds with William Lloyd Garrison and the American Anti-Slavery Society. Garrison and his followers (both white and African American) had essentially abandoned politics in favor of nonviolent moral suasion in their fight against slavery.