...So also Moritz Pinner, now of New York City, became an active abolitionist worker in Missouri as early as 1856. The idea of starting an abolitionist paper in the Southern district where he was living appealed so strongly to him that he repaired to Boston, the headquarters of the leading abolitionists of the day, for advice, and then formed personal acquaintanceship with Theodore Parker, Wendell Phillips, William Llyod Garrison and others. Here the plans for the proposed paper were perfected. Meanwhile he became member of a committee of thirty-nine, which distributed gratuitously in the South 100,000 copies of Helper's book on "The Impending Crisis", designed to show that slavery was, economically considered, an evil, as well as morally. Mr. Pinner induced a Philadelphia printer to remove to Kansas City, and here, on January 1st, 1859, the first issue of an abolitionist paper made its appearance under Mr. Pinner's editorship. The name chosen was the Kansas Post, and it appeared in two languages, in the very heart of the slavery region. He was bitterly attacked and reviled, and attempts were made to frighten him away, but he stood by his post and did good service to the cause. After the paper had appeared for about eight months, Mr. Pinner gave up the editorship, his arrangement with the printer having been that he was to establish the paper and take all risks attending this, and then turn it over to the printer when established. Under the arrangement with Mr. Pinner, it continued to be an abolitionist journal. Mr. Pinner was a delegate to the State Convention of Missouri in 1860, and joined with other German abolitionists to defeat certain overzealous pro-slavery men, and they also succeeded in breaking the unanimity of the Kansas delegation to the National Republican Convention for Bates. He was also a member of the National Republican Convention from Missouri in that year, and was a participator in a convention designed to secure concerted action among the Germans against slavery. This being secured, he did not attend the National Convention itself, but worked enthusiastically in favor of its candidate, and during the war in the field. ...
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