New York, August 18, 1836. Bifolium, 10 x 8 in. (254 x 203 mm). Partially-printed Anti-Slavery Society Executive Committee commission for Rev. Samuel J. May, accomplished and signed by secretary Elizur Wright, Jr., and by chairman Arthur Tappan, dated September 1, 1836. With a one-page autograph letter, signed by Wright to Rev. May on second page, informing May of appointments to the Society as well as his salary as an Executive Committee member; further accomplished by Wright on the third page within the "Particular Instructions"; addressed by Wright on verso of integral leaf, docketed on same. Creasing from old folds; remnants of red wax seal, loss in fore-edge from when opened.

Reformer, leading abolitionist, and founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, Rev. Samuel J. May's 1836 commission to the Executive Committee of the American Anti-Slavery Society.

Formed in Philadelphia in 1833 by 60 prominent abolitionists, the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS) was a nationwide organization committed to the immediate emancipation of all enslaved people. The group employed a wide range of tactics, including the publication of pamphlets, broadsides, and circulars, the sponsoring of lectures, the encouragement of acts of civil disobedience, and the boycotting of goods produced by enslaved labor, to compel a national moral reckoning with slavery. Among the society's founding figures was the Rev. Samuel J. May (1797–1871). Though initially drawn to colonization as a young man, May underwent a shift in conviction around 1830 when William Lloyd Garrison persuaded him to embrace immediate abolitionism. From that point forward, May dedicated himself to the cause, even in the face of mob violence. Together with Garrison, he helped establish both the New England Anti-Slavery Society (NEASS) and the AASS itself, where he sat on the executive committee alongside Lewis Tappan and worked as a paid agent.

May's activism extended beyond the organization's leadership. He publicly supported Prudence Crandall's efforts to operate a school for Black girls in Canterbury, Connecticut, and he published The Unionist, an abolitionist newspaper, beginning in 1833. He also lent his assistance to the formation of the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society in 1834. Deeply committed to racial equality, May consistently advocated for racial and gender-integrated meetings at a time when many reformers favored segregation based on race and sex. He actively aided people escaping from bondage and was an acquaintance with Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, and Frederick Douglass. He served as president of the Syracuse Fugitive Aid Society, and on behalf of the AASS, he traveled to Canada to visit communities of formerly enslaved people who had settled there. With the outbreak of the Civil War, he founded one of the earliest Freedmen's Relief Associations, in 1862. During the postwar period he became a vocal proponent of Radical Reconstruction, and championed voting rights, education, and land redistribution for the newly freed population.

Elizur Wright, Jr., was born in Connecticut, raised in Ohio, educated at Yale, and taught at Western Reserve College, in Ohio. Influenced by William Lloyd Garrison, Wright joined the New York Anti-Slavery Society, and helped form the American Anti-Slavery Society, serving as its corresponding secretary. In this role, he edited the Anti-Slavery Record and the Quarterly Anti-Slavery Magazine while performing administrative duties in the organization. In the 1840s, while living in Boston, he split with the Garrisonians, and worked for rival papers of Garrison's The Liberator. As a member of the Boston Vigilance Committee, he assisted in the rescue of freedom seeker Shadrach Minkins in 1851, and was subsequently arrested but not convicted. He continued to support abolitionism and other causes, including insurance reform, up until his death.