This collection is comprised of various petitions against slavery signed by citizens of Essex County, Massachusetts and Cornish, Maine. These petitions, signed by men and women, are against: the admittance of Florida to the Union; the abolition of slavery in Washington D.C. and other United States territories; new states being admitted to the Union whose constitutions allow for slavery; the abolition of slavery and the slave trade; and for an alteration to the constitution to abolish slavery or deliver the people of the free states from the obligation to maintain slavery.