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From his hilltop home in Ripley, Ohio, Rankin established a safe haven for enslaved people crossing the Ohio River.
An episode interviewing Caleb Franz covering the life of the abolitionist minister John Rankin. From his hilltop home in Ripley, Ohio, Rankin established a safe haven for enslaved people crossing the Ohio River. Over the course of his life, he became one of the most active conductors on the Underground Railroad, helping hundreds of enslaved people escape to freedom. Rankin was a powerful voice for individual liberty. His Letters on American Slavery, published in the 1820s, were among the earliest and most forceful arguments for the immediate abolition of slavery.
Born in Dandridge, Tennessee, John Rankin was an American Presbyterian minister and abolitionist who moved to Ripley, Ohio in 1822 and became the state’s first and most active “conductor” on the Underground Railroad.
Author of The Conductor: The Story of Rev. John Rankin, Abolitionism’s Essential Founding Father.
Paul Meany is the editor for intellectual history at Libertarianism.org, a project of the Cato Institute. Most of his work focuses on examining thinkers who predate classical liberalism but still articulate broadly liberal attitudes and principles. He is the host of Portraits of Liberty, a podcast about uncovering and exploring underrated figures throughout history who have argued for a freer world. His writing covers a broad range of topics, including proto-feminist writers, Classical Greece and Rome’s influence on the American Founding, ancient Chinese philosophy, tyrannicide, and the first argument for basic income.