May Revolution
The May Revolution was not the product of the actions of a single political party with a clear and defined agenda, but a convergence of sectors with varying interests. Thus, there are a number of conflicting perspectives about it, because different authors highlight different aspects. Mitre, for example, referred to "The Representation of the Landowners" (an 1809 economic report by Mariano Moreno) and the role of the merchants to support the view that the May Revolution intended to obtain free trade and economic integration with Europe; right-wing revisionists center around Saavedra and the social customs of the time to describe the revolution under conservative principles; and left-wing revisionists use the example of Moreno, Castelli and the rioters led by French and Beruti to describe it as a radical revolution.
Samuel Joseph May
May began a biweekly publication, "The Liberal Christian", in January 1823; its main goal was to explain the Unitarian Theology. He helped in the formation of Windham County Peace Society in 1826; in 1827, May organized a statewide convention for school reform in Connecticut, and he started a series of lectures in 1828. Meanwhile, he also belonged to the American Colonization Society whose purpose was to send the slaves back to Africa. May's belief in perfectionism through imitating the life of Jesus Christ strongly influenced his involvement in reform movements. A pacifist, he actively participated in establishing peace societies, speaking out against the death penalty, and advocating nonresistance. He practiced this last belief to the extent of rejecting self-defense. He became a leader in the temperance movement, believing it to be a form of abolitionism since he saw men as slaves to drink. He was perhaps most renowned for his work in education reform as he sought to improve facilities, teachers, and curriculum in public elementary schools. May believed schools should be racially integrated and coeducational, and he advocated the philosophy of Swiss theorist Johann Pestalozzi. He spent time tutoring his sister Abigail May in philosophy and the humanities and wrote in a letter to her, "What you say relative to the need for universal education is certainly true. Nothing is of unimportance in the formation of the mind."