- The Slavery Collection contains correspondence and legal and financial documents related to the North American slave trade, slave ownership, abolition, and political issues pertinent to slavery. The Slavery Collection is called an "artificial" collection because unrelated items with different provenance have been grouped together according to subject matter. Highlights of the collection include the records of Samuel and William Vernon, business partners involved in the triangular trade, 1756-1799; the Rhode Island slave trading firm of Gardner and Dean, 1771-1787; material relating to slavery in Kentucky, 1785-1864; the records of E.H. Stokes, slave trader in Richmond, Va., 1859-1862; manifests of slave ships, 1812-1855; and birth certificates of children born into slavery in New York, 1800-1818.
- Charles Sumner (1811-1874) was a United States senator from Massachusetts and a campaigner against slavery. This is a draft of a version of the speech delivered in New York on May 9, 1855, and published that year under the title "The anti-slavery enterprise." Internal evidence indicates that it was to be delivered to a Boston audience, probably on May 15, 1855. The digital collection includes the draft along with the published version (Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1855).