The Passing of Grandison

“Richard Owens, Esq.” (64), one of the story’s main characters, is colloquially known as Dick. He is described as “a youth of about twenty-two, intelligent, handsome, and amiable, but extremely indolent” (59). Charity Lomax confirms this when she tells Dick, “You’re too lazy for any use. You’ll never do anything harder than playing cards or fox-hunting” (60). Dick is aware of his reputation, and when queried about it tells people that he doesn’t need to apply himself with any seriousness because he is rich and will inherit his father’s plantation. The narrator says, “Wealth or social position he did not need to seek, for he was born to both” (59). Subtly, this characterization sets up questions about who holds power and by what means. A lazy white man like Dick can inherit great wealth and power by virtue of his birth, while a Black man like Grandison must cleverly plan and evade the law just to win basic freedom for himself and his family.

Dick is irresponsible regarding the power he holds in society. He does not seem to believe in the abolitionist cause or care about Grandison’s freedom; he wants to free a slave, any slave, for the selfish goal of winning Charity’s hand in marriage. Dick’s own racial prejudice prevents him from seeing Grandison’s larger plan. When Grandison fails to flee, Dick “inwardly cursed the stupidity of a slave who could be free and would not” (66). He vows that should he fail to lose Grandison, he would give Grandison “a taste of an article of slavery that would make him regret his wasted opportunities” (66). He does not believe in the abolitionist cause, or in the equality and dignity of Black people. Grandison is merely a tool to win over Charity.

Charity Lomax is a key secondary character and Dick’s love interest. She constantly tries to get Dick to better himself. Even before Dick’s plan to win her love, Charity had “shamed him into studying law” (59), although he did not apply himself and her efforts appear to be for naught. Unlike Dick, Charity (as her name implies) has more sympathy toward the abolitionist cause. The action of the story kicks off because of Charity’s interest in the trial of the Ohio abolitionist who attempted to free an enslaved person only to be sentenced to prison. When Dick tells Charity this story, Charity’s first sympathies are for the enslaved people, unlike Dick, whose sympathies are for the convicted man and his “good family” (59). Charity states that she always hated the slave owner whom the Ohioan attempted to steal from because she witnessed him break an enslaved person’s “leg with a piece of cordwood” (60). Not only does she wish the abolitionist had succeeded in liberating the man, but she wishes that “all Sam Briggs’s negroes would run away” (60).

Charity cites the origin of these sympathies in the “Quaker blood that came from [her] grandmother” (60). The Quakers, also known as the Religious Society of Friends, were a religious group that spread throughout the American colonies and then the United States from the 1600s to the 1800s. American Quakers were key advocates of abolition in the 19th century, helping to lead the movement to abolish slavery. They also assisted activists such as Harriet Tubman in organizing the Underground Railroad, which helped free enslaved people and provided them shelter and safety as they moved north, toward the free states or Canada. Charity proudly claims her grandmother’s “Quaker blood,” but does not actively participate in abolition, making her commitments unclear.