An apology for abolitionists / addressed by the anti-slavery society of Meriden, Conn., to their fellow citizens
Author: Philo Pratt; Isaac I. Tibbals; Walter Webb
Date: 2022-11-16T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Slavery -- United States; Slavery -- United States -- Societies; etc.; Abolitionists -- Connecticut -- Meriden

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Title: An apology for abolitionists

Creator: Conn. Anti-slavery Society of Meriden

Author: Philo Pratt

Isaac I. Tibbals

Walter Webb

Release date: November 16, 2022 [eBook #69367]
Most recently updated: October 19, 2024

Language: English

Original publication: United States: Anti-Slavery Society of Meriden, Conn

Credits: John Campbell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN APOLOGY FOR ABOLITIONISTS ***

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

There is one Footnote in this book. Its anchor is denoted by [1], and the Footnote has been placed at the end of the book.

Some minor changes to the text are also noted at the end of the book. These are indicated by a dashed blue underline.

AN
APOLOGY
FOR
ABOLITIONISTS:
ADDRESSED
BY THE
ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY
OF
MERIDEN, CONN.,
TO THEIR
FELLOW-CITIZENS.

SECOND EDITION.

MIDDLETOWN:

C. H. PELTON .... PRINT.

1837.

Fellow-Citizens:

A regard for your good opinion, and a wish to promote the cause, which, as Abolitionists, lies near our hearts, is our motive for addressing you. We think the opposition to our enterprise arises either from commercial, political or domestic connections with Slavery, or from misapprehensions respecting our principles, measures and prospects. We desire no better means of overcoming these obstacles than a fair statement of facts; and to this we now solicit your attention.

DECLARATION OF SENTIMENTS.

We believe that all men are born free and equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

We believe Slavery is an infraction of these rights, a violation of the principles of christianity, and under all circumstances sinful.

We believe that Slavery is a great national evil, political as well as moral, opposed to the genius of a republican government, highly dangerous to the peace and permanency of the Union, and if persisted in, destined to bring upon us the severest judgments of Heaven.

We believe the immediate abolition of slavery would be safe and wise, and that it is the duty of every friend of humanity to use all fair and just means for its accomplishment.

We believe we have a right to express and publish our opinions respecting the customs and institutions of the people of this and every other country; and if we think them in any degree immoral, unequal, or oppressive, we are under the highest obligations, in the exercise of all honest and lawful means, to change them.

We believe that Slavery in the several states can be lawfully abolished only by the legislatures of the states in which it prevails, and that the exercise of any other than moral means to induce such abolition, is unconstitutional.

We believe that Congress has a right to abolish Slavery in the District of Columbia, and in the Territories, and to prohibit the slave trade between the states, and that the exercise of this right is required by the divine law, and by the interests of our country.

We believe that no class of men can rightfully be denied, on account of their color, the enjoyment of equal rights with others, in the protection, immunities and administration of the government under which they live.

UTILITY OF THESE SENTIMENTS.

These are our sentiments. We regret to say they are not collectively the sentiments of our countrymen. It is for our zeal in propagating them, that we have been assailed with unmeasured abuse and lawless violence. We think it of high importance to our country and the world that they should be received by all the people. What the effect of their general reception in the free states would be, is very apparent.

We should abolish Slavery in the District of Columbia. There Congress has exclusive jurisdiction on all subjects whatsoever, including of course the subject of Slavery.—This is admitted by Martin Van Buren, Henry Clay, and an overwhelming majority of the present Congress. The Abolitionists are to a man in favor of the exercise of this right. If, therefore, the free states were thoroughly abolitionized, their Senators and Representatives, who yet compose a majority in Congress, would at once bow to the supremacy of their constituents, and abolish Slavery.

We should prohibit the inter state Slave-Trade. This trade has recently been carried on to a greater extent than ever was the foreign slave trade; it being estimated that not less than 120,000 slaves were exported from Virginia alone, within little more than a year, and removed for the most part to the southwestern states. Four of these states are said by their own papers, to have received within the same period, about 250,000 slaves from the old states. How many tender ties have in one short year been broken by this detestable business! How much bodily suffering has been endured! How much guilt has been contracted! This cruel and wicked traffic is at the foundation of a system of breeding slaves for market, which is prosecuted on a large scale, corrupting all concerned, by its licentiousness and barbarity. Congress has a right to prohibit and suppress this trade, under that article of the Constitution which empowers Congress to regulate commerce with foreign nations and between the several states. Were a majority of the citizens of the free states decided Abolitionists, this right could be exercised. We should insist upon it. Why then do not they, who profess to regard the slave trade as the worst feature of Slavery, join with us against it?

We should prevent the annexation of Texas to the United States. The South has long had her eye on that fine and extensive country, intending to get it by purchase or stratagem, for the purpose of opening a market for her redundant slave population, and of securing the balance of power in the general government to the slave-holding interest. Every enemy of Slavery and friend of free labor, ought to oppose this design. We apprehend that if the annexation of Texas to our country should not involve us in war with Mexico and Great Britain, it would either lead to a dissolution of the union, or indefinitely prolong the existence of Slavery. The Abolitionists are now preparing petitions to Congress, protesting against this insane measure; and were the citizens of the free states generally to join them, and load the tables of Congress with several millions of signatures to these protests, the danger would be averted. But they will not do it, because they are not Abolitionists; and we must, therefore, in all probability take Texas.

We should admit no new slave states to the Union. Had our sentiments prevailed when the Missouri question was decided, the fine soil of that state would not now be cursed with Slavery. She was admitted to the union by northern men. They legalized the sin. It is a sad proof of the corruption of our public sentiment that several of these traitors to liberty, have, since that disgraceful vote was given, been elevated to the first offices in the gift of New England; and this without any signs of their repentance. Arkansas has also been lately admitted to the Union by northern votes, with the singular provision in her constitution, that her legislature shall have no power to abolish Slavery; so that the “peculiar institution” may last until the greatest knave in the state is heartily weary and ashamed of it. Northern men thus voted for perpetual Slavery; and this they did in the confident expectation of being re-elected to Congress. Had they known a majority of their constituents to be Abolitionists, they would have voted differently. Should Florida be next admitted to the Union as a slave state, the south will have a majority in the Senate. Who can predict the consequences? But were the free states thoroughly abolitionized, Florida would never come into the Union as a slave State; for Abolitionists are in principle opposed to it.

We should also prohibit the slave trade between the United States and Texas. In the constitution of Texas, whose independence has already been acknowledged by our government, Slavery is established as a permanent institution of the country, and a monopoly of the slave trade granted to the United States. Already thousands of slaves have been sent there, and unless something is done to prevent it, vessels will soon be fitted out in northern ports, to carry slaves from Virginia to Texas, as well as to New Orleans; and this, whether Texas is annexed to the United States, or remains independent. Were the citizens of the free states generally Abolitionists, they would not allow a legal commerce in slaves from our Republic to a foreign nation.

We should save our own youth from the pollution and guilt of Slavery. They would not directly participate in it. When they go to the South they would neither buy nor hire slaves. Hitherto nothing has been more common than for our best and most intelligent young men, the sons of our ministers and church members, to become slave-holders. At home they were not taught the inherent and necessary sinfulness of Slavery; at the South the practice was recommended to them by the example and plausible pretexts of the best men. They were accustomed from their childhood to see slave-holders treated with respect because they were rich in human chattels, without hearing a word respecting the extortion by which their wealth comes. Hence many of the merchants, physicians, lawyers, planters, teachers and clergymen of the South, though northern men by birth, are either slave-holders or abettors of the system. This would not be the case, had our declaration of sentiments been taught from the first by our parents and teachers, and been made the cherished creed of the free states. Then the combined instructions of the nursery, of the school, and of the pulpit, together with the impressive power of a sound public sentiment, would have established our youth in the love and veneration of human rights; in sympathy for the colored man; in hatred of oppression. Thus would the general reception of our sentiments withdraw from Slavery one of its main supports, and at the same time rescue our sons and daughters from the unutterable calamity of becoming rich by the spoiling of the poor.

We should establish the liberties of the free states on a firm foundation. We are not so connected with the slave-states that we must necessarily perish in their ruin. If the judgments of heaven should overtake them, we may be spared; should their liberties be prostrated, ours may survive. It depends on our character and conduct. A people who respect the rights of others, will have their own rights respected. Regarding man, of whatever color and condition, as entitled to the sacred rights of liberty, of property, and of personal security, they will neither forge chains for others, nor suffer chains to be imposed on themselves. Nor will God forsake them. Such are the character and security of Abolitionists. Read our declaration of sentiments. We go for human nature. We protest against Slavery, because it is an infraction of the rights of MAN. We know that our entire country has forfeited her freedom, by oppressing the colored man; still we believe we may, by hearty repentance and the adoption of just and humane sentiments, appease the wrath of heaven, and should our nation be rent in two, preserve our own liberties. But if we continue to connive at this wickedness, nothing is more certain than our ruin in the common destruction of the country.

The free people of color would rapidly improve in their moral and physical condition. A load of prejudice now crushes them in the dust. They cannot rise because they are deprived of the motives and facilities for self-improvement. They are a proscribed people. It is a calamity in this Christian country to be born with a colored skin. It shuts out human beings from schools and colleges, from the mechanical arts, from the house of God, from a share in the government of the nation, from social intercourse with their fellow-creatures, from the best incitements to virtue and enterprise. We freely confess, that the Abolitionists, if a majority, would correct all these evils, and cause men in this so called christian and democratic country, to be treated, according to the bible without distinction of color.

We should do much to vindicate the honor and truth of christianity. Slavery is the strongest hold of infidelity at the South, and a strong hold at the North. It is so because, while natural religion declares Slavery to be sinful, the ministers and professors of christianity practice it, and defend their conduct from the bible. Such a religion, says the infidel cannot be from God. It is thus that the church is bringing into contempt and doubt our blessed religion. It would greatly counteract this prolific cause of infidelity, were all our churches, ministers, and theological professors, to embrace and advocate the true doctrine of human rights as it is set forth in the word of God. We should then hold up to the world, this internal evidence of the divine origin of the bible, that, being written in ages of darkness and despotism, it notwithstanding clearly recognizes and protects MAN as the possessor of natural, inalienable, sacred rights. Instead of doing this, many northern preachers of the gospel, are now blaspheming their religion, by saying that both Moses and Christ tolerated Slavery.

We should no longer uphold Slavery by recognizing slave-holders as brethren in good and regular standing in the Church. We now receive to the table of the Redeemer, without one word of admonition, men, who at the South, make merchandize of the image of God, of their fellow-christians. What is still more astonishing if not more wicked, we receive slave-holders to our pulpits, to preach to us about loving God and Man! Thus we practically say, that Slavery is consistent both with morality and the gospel of Christ. Were we Abolitionists, it would be far otherwise; for they do not think it right to lend the sanction of the church to such outrageous wickedness.

Such would be some of the happy results of the general adoption of our sentiments in the free states, if nothing more could be effected. But we doubt not it would issue in the peaceable abolition of Slavery by the several slave states. This is the principal object of our enterprise; and on a strong probability of success, we are willing to rest its character.

The constitutional action of Congress in the ways above named, would do much to induce the South to abolish Slavery. Its abolition in the District of Columbia by the assembled wisdom of the country, would exert a powerful influence on the southern mind. It would be the testimony of the nation, corroborating the testimony of every truly civilized and christian people, to the impolicy and wickedness of Slavery. The prohibition of the inter state slave-trade, and the confinement of Slavery to its present local limits would render it unprofitable to the old states, which depend on this trade as the chief source of profit; and also drive the new states to the necessity of introducing free labor; for how could they otherwise cultivate their immense tracts of virgin land, or supply the deficit occasioned by the rapid consumption of life on their cotton and sugar plantations?

We should make a still more direct appeal to her interests, by saying: You may keep your cotton, rice, and sugar, until you have abolished Slavery. We shall no longer use the products of unrequited labor. It would then be a question of dollars and cents with her, whether or not she would give liberty to her captives. We should not be obliged to deny ourselves the use of her productions one year; for her states would vie with each other to see which could obtain a monopoly of northern patronage by first abolishing Slavery. Many northern men have been bought by southern patronage to do wrong; is it not equally possible to buy the south with northern patronage to do right; Human nature is every where the same. We should indeed regret to have Slavery abandoned from an exclusive regard to self-interest. We would rather it should be destroyed by the spirit of repentance; for then the emancipated slave would still be treated with justice and humanity. But no means of bringing the South to repentance can be more promising, than the conscientious refusal, by northern men, of all sects and parties, to sustain Slavery, by consuming its produce. At present this cannot be done on a scale sufficiently large to secure, certainly and immediately, the abolition of Slavery; but were the North completely abolitionized, no doubt she would do it with the most triumphant success.

We should move the South to abandon Slavery, by appealing to her love of reputation. The South shows herself sensitive on this point. Said Mr. Calhoun in the United States Senate, “do they, [his southern opponents,] expect the Abolitionists will resort to arms, and commence a crusade to liberate our slaves by force? Is this what they mean when they speak of the attempt to abolish Slavery? If so let me tell our friends of the South who differ from us, that the war which the Abolitionists wage against us is of a very different character and far more effective—it is waged not against our lives, but our character.” Had he said our reputations and consciences, he would have told the truth. We do intend to make Slavery disgraceful. Sin ought to be esteemed a reproach to any people. Were all northern men of our way of thinking, this sin would be as infamous as any other kind of fraud and villainy. The world is now pointing the finger of scorn at slave-holding America. The free states bear a merited portion of the shame, because we share largely in the responsibility. As we have taken Slavery under our patronage, and consented to stand godfather to it, what little respectability we have, is thrown around it, to the great relief and joy of its southern parents. Let us retire from the relation. Instead of defending Slavery, let us reiterate the just and indignant censures of the civilized world, until all shall feel, that so great an enormity cannot be practiced or connived at, without a forfeiture of character. This would be the state of feeling, were the citizens of the north generally Abolitionists; and he knows little of human nature, who doubts that such a state of feeling, would render the condition of a slave-holder, the last to be sought, the first to be abandoned.

In these ways, if in no others, we could reach and influence the South. Although she should attempt to shut out the light by a strict censorship of the press and post-office; though she should make the utterance of our sentiments on southern soil an offence against her laws; she could not prevent the constitutional action of the general government; she could not compel us to consume her produce; she could not escape the withering contempt and indignant frown of our virtuous public sentiment. We could reach her heart in these ways, in spite of herself, and as we think to the certain overthrow of Slavery. We could do more.

We could convert the South to the practical adoption of our sentiments by enlightening her conscience. This is the principal ground of our confidence. If Slavery is sinful, we can prove it to be such; and this proof, made plain to the understanding of the South, cannot fail to awaken her conscience. Such is human nature. Some would have us think that none but christians have consciences, and therefore the first step to be taken for the removal of Slavery is to send missionaries to convert the masters to christianity, thus laying a foundation for successful appeals to the conscience. But it seems to us the work of centuries, if not an impracticable work, to convert the masters, or a majority of them, to true holiness, while Slavery lasts, especially if they have no consciences; and we think also, if all were converted to such a christianity as consists with a hearty belief that Slavery is not condemned by the Bible, it would not much facilitate our enterprise. Nor have we so much contempt for that word, which is mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds, as to doubt that our doctrines will commend themselves to the reason of our southern brethren, and receive a fruitful response from their consciences.

Some would have the world believe, if every person in the free states were an Abolitionist, it would not hasten the emancipation of the slaves; for, say they, we could not then get a hearing at the south, and if we could, she is too much exasperated at our interference to do any thing on the subject. In our opinion, they are entirely mistaken.

We believe we can get a hearing at the South, or convey a knowledge of our sentiments to the southern mind, and that these sentiments are more potent than her prejudices and passions. In proof of it—

She is now constantly receiving numerous publications containing our views. There were, the last year, about five hundred regular southern subscribers to the publications of the American Anti-Slavery Society. The Cincinnati Philanthropist, the Alton Observer, the New York Evangelist, and scores of other papers, religious and political, have subscribers at the South, with whom from week to week they advocate this cause. Many valuable anti-slavery books are also doing a good work in the very midst of the evil. Several thousands of Miss Grimke’s Appeal, together with the writings of Jay, Child, Channing and others, are daily tearing off the mask from Slavery, and awakening the slumbering conscience of the South. Not unfrequently slave-holders themselves come to the anti-slavery office in New York and buy whole sets of our publications. The speeches of her Senators, and the messages of her Governors evince a better acquaintance with our writings and movements than the great men of the North can boast. Her own press is doing much to disseminate our sentiments. The United States Telegraph of February 18, 1837, edited by Duff Green, Washington, D. C., was nearly half filled with extracts from our prints. Her clergy by publishing apologies for slavery in refutation of our views, are also making these views known and waking up a spirit of inquiry. Indeed, such is human nature, and such is the course of the south, that we have come to believe she will not allow us at the north to think aloud on the subject of Slavery without knowing what we think and why we think so. She will not allow us to form and express opinions on this subject WITHOUT KNOWING OUR OPINIONS AND THE GROUNDS OF THEM. She is too much interested, and knows that we have too much power, to pass our sentiments by in utter contempt without even ascertaining them.

But were the free states completely abolitionized, not only the presses of the Anti-Slavery Societies, assisted by a few others, would carry our doctrines to the South; but all the religious, political and commercial papers of the North, indeed the whole body of our literature, would breathe the same spirit, would speak the same language. Were she, therefore, ever so much averse to the truth, these numberless publications, aided by the English press and by private correspondence, would force upon her a knowledge of our faith.

The social intercourse of the North and South would also afford us ample opportunities for publishing our sentiments. The citizens of every state in the Union are daily meeting in the steam-boats, coaches, rail-road cars and hotels of our country. We are constantly walking arm in arm with the South, so that she cannot fail to learn what we think of Slavery, and of the duty and pre-eminent safety of immediate emancipation. If we are decided Abolitionists, we shall certainly talk enough to let her know what we think and why we think so.

Many of the youth of the South must continue, as in times past, to be educated in the free states. Mr. Calhoun was educated at Yale College. Who can doubt that an influence might have been exerted on his mind, in relation to Slavery, of the most happy character, if the officers of that institution, if the surrounding community, if the literature of the day, had all breathed the spirit of Arthur Tappan and Gerritt Smith? There are now hundreds of southern youth in our schools, and hundreds will succeed them, whose minds would be set in deadly and deathless hostility to the robbery of God’s poor, were their teachers Abolitionists. Some think that in such an event, they would be kept at home. A few might be, but not all. The salubrity of our climate, the excellence of our institutions, the comparative purity of our morals, give us an advantage, that the more virtuous and intelligent of southern parents, would not relinquish, for fear that their sons should embrace views, which in their own hearts they must approve.

It should also be remembered, that we not only educate the most precious youth of the South, but we supply many of her pulpits, professorships, and shops with our own sons. The great body of southern merchants are northern men. Such is the genius of Slavery that this will continue to be the case. The result would be, were we all Abolitionists, that the adopted sons of the South would soon form a strong body of opposition to Slavery, laboring to overthrow it, by their votes, their arguments and their example. Some may think that lynch law would then drive us all from the South; or that we should be received there only on condition of letting Slavery alone. They are mistaken. Were we all Abolitionists, we should be defended. The national government would protect us. The constitution guarantees the rights of a citizen in all the states to the citizens of each state; and had the North been thoroughly abolitionized, she would have demanded and obtained redress for the blood of her innocent citizens, who have been hung without color of law, by southern ruffians. Be assured when we all become Abolitionists, an end will be put to the reign of terror in every part of the country. Men of all creeds and colors, will then go where they please, speak what they please, and do what they please, with perfect safety, so long as they commit no offence against just and impartial law.

The interests of a large class at the South must predispose them to favor our enterprise. Probably not more than half of the whites are directly interested in the continuance of Slavery. Many hire Slaves, who could on equally eligible terms, and with more peace of conscience, hire them as free laborers, were they emancipated. Some own land without slaves; and it is admitted, that immediately on the abolition of Slavery, the soil would rise in value, and continue to appreciate with the general improvement of the country. A multitude of the whites are too poor to own slaves, and too ignorant to obtain a living, except by manual labor, and Slavery makes that disreputable, and comparatively unprofitable. All these classes need only open their eyes, to see that Slavery is subversive of their interests: and we may therefore rationally calculate on having their attention and sympathy.

What we have already effected at the South, is a pledge of entire success, the moment the leading influences at the North shall second our efforts instead of counteracting them. Several hundred slaves have been set at liberty through the labors of those two distinguished Abolitionists, David Nelson and James G. Birney. We have heard of various other instances in which our doctrines have had such successful access to the southern mind. We will mention one. Some time since, in New York, a gentleman rose in a monthly concert of prayer for the slaves, and said: “I am a slave-holder from Virginia. I came to the North with violent prejudices against the Abolitionists, in consequence of what I read in northern papers; but I was determined to investigate the matter for myself. Accordingly I sought lodgings in the family of an Abolitionist, obtained and read your publications, and attended this monthly concert; and I am now convinced that not only your doctrines but your measures are righteous.” And he added, turning to two gentlemen who sat beside him, “these gentlemen are also slave-holders from Virginia, and my first converts to abolitionism; and I know a thousand men in Virginia, who if they could have the truth stated to them, would agree with us.” He then exhorted the Abolitionists present to go on, saying “you have only to correct the public sentiment of the North so that their papers shall not misrepresent you at the South, and THE WORK IS DONE.” Besides many such facts evincive of the power of truth over the southern mind, and proving that the leaven is working there, we have frequent admissions from the lips and pens of the defenders of Slavery at the South, that the Abolitionists are disturbing the conscience of her people, that there is more sympathy with them there than it would be prudent to acknowledge; that if the fanatics are suffered to go on they will succeed; that they may build up a body of public sentiment which the South cannot resist. These facts, these admissions, and the very nature of man, convince us that we have many allies at the South. The violence of the friends of Slavery, has forced them to a temporary silence; but no doubt many of them long to unburden their hearts, and are only waiting to be sustained by a healthy public sentiment among us.—Were we all Abolitionists, it would be less odious and less hazardous to avow our sentiments at the South; and she would find a body of Abolitionists on her own soil, too respectable to be despised—too strong to be resisted.

Our expectations of success in making known our sentiments to our southern brethren, are rendered still more sanguine, by the history of emancipation in the West Indies. It will be impossible for our countrymen, to close their eyes against the light, which the working of the British abolition act, will constantly throw on the duty and safety of immediate emancipation.

We are nevertheless told, with surprising assurance, by men great and small, that we have postponed the abolition of Slavery, at least half a century; that our ultra doctrines and violent measures have so incensed the South, that she has settled down in the inflexible determination to keep her slaves. Is this human nature? They who think so, seem to imagine that the work of reform must be carried on solely by coaxing and flattering the sinner: that a declaration of his guilt and of his duty, sufficiently plain and unequivocal to excite his displeasure, is the last way to bring him to repentance. We think otherwise. We take the anger of the South as a precious omen of success. The hit bird flutters. She shows herself conscious of the truth of our charges. Accuse a consistent temperance man of drunkenness, he will smile in your face; accuse the drunkard himself and he will be ready to fight you. The faithful reproof of sin always irritates the sinner, and his irritation continues until he either repents or forgets the admonition. Had our efforts produced no such sensation among slave-holders, we should be far more ready to despair. She believes unless this discussion is stopped, Slavery must cease, or else she will be disgraced in the eyes of the world, and exceedingly embarrassed and trammeled in the possession of her slaves. We do not, however, attribute all the wrath of the South against us, to awakened conscience, and the anticipation of our success. We have been shamefully misrepresented by northern papers and mobs, which have not hesitated to charge us with the worst of motives and the most hostile feelings towards the South; as if we would gladly involve her in a servile war. The belief of these calumnies has doubtless excited her worst passions; and the moment she learns the truth, it will create a re-action in our favor. Nor should it be overlooked that many of her own citizens have no sympathy for Slavery, and no strong prejudices against us. Facts also show that argument can appease this very wrath, to which our opponents attribute such indomitable energy. When the students of Lane Seminary, under the Presidency of the Rev. Dr. Beecher, commenced a discussion of the subject of Slavery, about fifteen young men from the South, all of them slave-holders or sons of slave-holders, were not a little incensed at the faithful exposure of Slavery by their fellow-students; but at the close of the discussion, all these young men, save one, were thorough going Abolitionists; and several of them are now lecturing in the free states for the purpose of correcting our public sentiment, as a necessary and infallible means of rectifying that of the South.

We believe, therefore, that if we succeed in abolitionizing the North, we shall the South. Were the North already abolitionized, we should do all the good specified above. We should preserve our own liberties, virtue and religion, and save the South from man’s greatest curse, his own voluntary wickedness. Is it not, then, desirable that our sentiments should prevail? Do they not carry with them the clearest credentials of truth—the very best practical tendencies? Is it not the grossest hypocrisy in the North to pretend hostility to Slavery, when she refuses to do the good which she would rejoice to do, were she a convert to abolitionism? Is it not a crime in her to fight against the diffusion of these sentiments? In one word—ought not the Abolitionists to do all they can, in a constitutional and christian manner, to propagate their views?

Success at the North is certain; for she has an interest in destroying Slavery: her political principles are opposed to it; and the great mass of her citizens are intelligent and virtuous, unbought by southern patronage, and accustomed to abhor cruelty and injustice. Our success is also written in the desperate, but ineffectual endeavors of the opposition, to prevent the agitation of the subject. By their own showing, Slavery cannot endure the light of free inquiry. If northern abettors of Slavery were not convinced, that the discussion will inevitably abolitionize the mass of the people, they would rely on argument rather than on lawless violence. Our progress too, has already been astonishing. In the course of three years nearly a thousand Anti-Slavery Societies have been organized; many enemies have become friends, and many opposers, the able advocates of our cause. The prejudices of the people have been softened, and thousands are now on the eve of joining us, who lately were our most bitter antagonists. We have made all this progress notwithstanding the abuse of the political and commercial press has been heaped upon us without measure, and no man could join us but at the peril of his reputation, if not also his life and property. We are, therefore, encouraged to persevere. What have we to accomplish, which we have not in part achieved, while our powers and facilities are constantly augmenting.

VINDICATION OF MEASURES.

We propose to convert the country to our views by measures which some of our opponents, (ashamed to deny our doctrines,) allege to be the principal ground of their dissent. We think they have failed to make a proper distinction between our measures and the abuse of these measures. The constitutional action of Congress, the pulpit, the press, public debate, private conversation, anti-slavery societies, these are our measures. If any of our associates, through human infirmity, prosecute any of these measures in ill-temper or with indiscretion, we regret and condemn it. The measures themselves, and the prosecution of them we approve, and shall now attempt to vindicate.

Some object to our organizing Anti-Slavery Societies, which in our opinion they would not do, if they wished well to our enterprise. For it is manifest that union gives us strength, influence, courage, money and other facilities for carrying on the work; it lays a foundation for concentrated, permanent, economical effort. Societies have their stated and occasional meetings, without giving offence and provoking popular violence. They animate each other by friendly correspondence, and prosecute their work systematically and vigorously, by the gratuitous labors of their most enlightened members. A general organization will enable us to petition the various legislative bodies in behalf of human rights, with unanimity and regularity, until our objects are gained. We see other ends to be secured by it. There is no disputing our constitutional right to adopt this measure; which we believe any men of common sense would adopt in our circumstances. Even the wisdom of Christ sanctions the measure, for what is his church but a society formed for the purpose of converting men to the truth and progressively sanctifying them? Nor do we see how we can testify to the South our abhorrence of Slavery unless we form societies for the purpose. Had none been formed, it might be doubted whether there are a thousand decided Abolitionists in the country. It would be said in Congress and believed at the South, that we are few in numbers, and constantly becoming fewer and more contemptible. The existence and rapidly increasing number of our societies precludes the possibility of such misrepresentations and mistakes. As soon as our plan is completed, in the formation of a flourishing society in each village of the free states, embodying a majority of the people, the South will know what our public sentiment is. It will be concentrated upon her. She will feel it. We learn from intelligent sources, that the general opinion at the South now is, that all the citizens of the North who are not Abolitionists, sympathize with the slave-holders. It is natural they should think so. We must, therefore, rank ourselves with the Abolitionists, by joining an Anti-Slavery Society, if we would give our decided testimony against the GREAT SOUTHERN SIN.

Some object to our employing itinerant lecturers. We think they would not object, if they had considered the matter with friendly feelings. The subject of Slavery has so many relations in this country, and involves so many questions in morals, in biblical literature, in constitutional law, in political economy, in history, and other departments of learning, that our stated clergy, have not sufficient time for its thorough investigation, were they disposed to make it. We ought not to expect of them more than a faithful exposition of the testimony of God against Slavery, and in favor of immediate emancipation. As a general rule, they can do no more. We need an extensive and thorough discussion of the whole subject. Nor are all our clergymen yet Abolitionists. Some are with us; others are against us. This was to be expected. The subject has but just come before the public mind. It found almost all our ministers colonizationists. It would have been surprising, if they had all embraced our views at the first blush, without discussion. We don’t do things so in Connecticut. Hereafter we doubt not they will all join us; but in the interim, we must employ itinerant lecturers, if we would disseminate what we believe to be the truth. And who will be harmed by it? The truth will hurt no one; and even “error,” we quote the words of Jefferson, “may safely be tolerated, so long as reason is left free to combat it.” Some think it an interference with the rights of the stated ministry to introduce an itinerant lecturer, without the advice and consent of the settled pastor. How so? Suppose there are several clergymen in the same village. One of them being an Abolitionist does all he can, by conversation, the distribution of papers, and public lectures, to make the people Abolitionists, without distinction of sect or party. Is that an interference with the rights of the other pastors? No; such a course has never been thought so. Nor is there the least difference in the two cases. The several churches introduce these pastors to be their teachers. We, the Abolitionists, another body of people, introduce a man to teach on a particular subject. We have the right; he has a right to come; therefore no right is violated.[1]

Some object to our employing severe epithets in speaking of Slavery and slave-holders. They say our condemnation is too hard, denunciatory and indiscriminate. We wish all who allege this against us would illustrate their meaning and sustain their charge by quoting the offensive expressions. It would put them to great inconvenience. They may think the language “hard” and “too hard,” when it barely expresses what ought to be said, and cannot be better said. We do indeed tell slave-holders their sins plainly, calling things by their right names; but it is only in the conclusion of an argument to prove the charge, that we justify making it. Nor is our language any harder than the sober language of moral philosophers, and of the most eminent fathers of the church. Wesley says: “You, [the slave-holder,] first acted the villain in making them slaves, whether you stole them or bought them.” “This equally concerns all slave-holders, of whatever rank and degree: seeing men-buyers are exactly on a level with men-stealers.” The younger President Edwards says: “To hold a man in a state of Slavery is to be every day guilty of robbing him of his liberty, or of man-stealing.” Grotius says: “Those are men-stealers, who abduct, keep, sell or buy slaves or freemen. To steal a man is the highest kind of theft.” Adam Clarke says: “Among the heathen Slavery was in some sort excusable; among christians it is AN ENORMITY AND A CRIME FOR WHICH PERDITION HAS SCARCELY AN ADEQUATE STATE OF PUNISHMENT.” We use no language more hard, more true, or more indiscriminate. We think these great men understood how to do good, at least as well as our critics. We are also fully persuaded, that the South is far less incensed at our language than at our sentiments. She is indignant at what we say, not the manner of saying it. Dr. Channing had this vulgar prejudice, that we were injuring our cause by using abusive language. And Mr. Leigh of Virginia, took the very book, in which he reproves us, and quoted passages which he declared in the United States Senate, rivalled the most insulting language of Garrison. So difficult is it to tell the truth about Slavery in palatable terms.

We are also censured for sending pictures to the South illustrative of the horrors of Slavery. We do indeed employ the art of painting, as well as the arts of printing and speaking, to awaken sympathy for the Slave; but our pictures are designed for the North, not the South. Though some of them may find their way there, they are never sent to the slaves, are not apt to fall into their hands, and not adapted to make them uneasy and turbulent. Were they painted as large as life, and set up at the corner of every street and on every plantation, the sole effect would be to awe the slaves into subjection, by reminding them of the consequences of disobedience.

We are accused of sending papers to the slaves. The charge is false. Our publications are sent exclusively to the free white population. Were it in our power to send to the slaves, we should indeed rejoice at it. If they could read and the mails would carry them papers, we would prepare tracts on purpose for them, explaining the doctrines and duties of christianity, inculcating the forgiveness of injuries, the patient endurance of wrong, the faithful service of their masters, until such time as they can be made free. We would even send them the Bible, which says: “Woe unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness and his chambers by wrong; that useth his neighbor’s service without wages and giveth him not for his work.” Jer. xxii, 13.

The foregoing are current objections to specific measures of the Abolitionists. There are other objections of a more general and sweeping character, which go to condemn all our measures, calling upon us to disband our societies, to dismiss our agents, to break up our printing presses, and interfere in no way with Southern Slavery. We can give these only a brief notice.

It is a current objection to our enterprise, that Slavery is no concern of ours: that the South alone is interested in the subject, and we have no right to interfere. Interference is a very indefinite term. We acknowledge we have no right to interfere by force of arms; and have ever disclaimed the intention of interfering, except by the constitutional and peaceable action of Congress, and the application of truth to the hearts and consciences of our southern brethren. As to our having no right to interfere in this manner, because Slavery is no concern of ours, it is a strange doctrine to be promulgated in the nineteenth century by republicans and christians. What interest had we in the struggle of Greece and Poland with Turkish and Russian despotism? What concern have we in the moral and political degradation of the Hindoo, Hottentot and Chinese? We have the answer in the motto of the christian church: Our country is the world, our countrymen mankind. As christians we are concerned for the spiritual welfare of all classes at the South; the great mass of whom are now sunk in infidelity and vice. Their alarming destitution of the means of religion, and the general corruption of their morals, are justly attributed to Slavery. What would become of the virtue, intelligence and religious institutions of Meriden, if all the real estate and all the inhabitants of the town, were held as property by one man? He might be an infidel; and if he were a christian, what dependence could be placed on him to support the gospel, or what confidence would the oppressed people have in his religion? Such is the state of things at the South. Slavery not only creates a distaste for true religion, but withdraws from its support the laboring class, which in every free country, embodies a great proportion of the most devoted and liberal christians. There is also much in the habits which Slavery fosters, to indispose pious youth to enter the ministry and to disqualify them for its laborious duties; while many who enter upon the work, abandon it for secular pursuits, or remove to the free states, where they can preach the whole gospel with more security and success. Not only must a slave-holding community be destitute of men and means to make known the way of salvation, but the preaching of the gospel will generally be inefficacious with all classes; with the masters, for Slavery fosters in them the worst passions of human nature, affords them facilities for the unbounded indulgence of their appetites, and relieves them from the necessity of personal exertion for a livelihood; with the poor white population, for Slavery accumulates the wealth of the community in a few hands, renders free labor disreputable, and multiplies temptations to low and degrading vices; with the free people of color, for Slavery holds most of them in a state of abject poverty, ignorance and sin; with the slaves, for Slavery robs them of the bible, of self-control, of hope, of parent, wife and child, of the best motives to be virtuous, and of the best evidences of christianity; it makes them vicious; it makes them sceptics. We are concerned for these perishing millions.

Slavery is a concern of ours for it involves our personal interests. It throws back upon us a moral pestilence; it scatters the seeds of intemperance, licentiousness, and infidelity; it popularizes gambling, Sabbath breaking, profaneness and lawless violence; it casts an undeserved stigma on manual labor, it encourages idleness and prodigality. It disgraces us in the eyes of the whole world; it impairs our national strength; it encroaches on the spirit of liberty; it is constantly undermining our free institutions. The northern states have no greater enemy. Were Slavery abolished, her religion, her morals, her liberties, her general prosperity would be far more secure. The chief source of danger to the integrity of our union, and to our domestic tranquility would be removed; a greater market would be opened for our manufactures, and a wider field for our industry and enterprise; the emancipated slaves would purchase our goods, and our youth could enter into competition with the sons of the South in raising cotton, &c. without becoming slave-holders. Labor would soon cease to be disgraceful; property would accumulate in every part of the land; education would flourish; religion would revive; the entire country would rejoice in peace and plenty under the smiles of an approving providence. Tell us not, that we have no concern in removing the greatest sin, curse and shame of the nation, and in securing for ourselves and our posterity, a truly free and virtuous government.

It is said that Slavery is an agitating subject, which cannot be discussed without disturbing the peace and harmony of our churches. Why so? This subject can be discussed in the churches in Great Britain without discord and division. We think it could be here, were it not for the corruption of our public sentiment, which can be corrected only by free discussion. It is where the truth needs most to be heard, that it creates most opposition and variance. Primitive christianity was accused of turning the world upside down. The temperance cause has occasioned strife, and separated “very friends.” We hold to the Apostolic injunction: “first pure, then peaceable.” We love a virtuous peace. A truce with sin we abhor. If we must surrender our liberties, and connive at iniquity, to avoid a war, we say with Patrick Henry, “The war is inevitable, and let it come; I repeat it, sir, let it come.” Who does not see that if polygamy were common in our churches, it would create a terrible excitement to preach against it, and lead to the dismission of pastors? Yet any one would acknowledge, that religion could never prosper, while the church was so corrupt; and that she had better be torn into ten thousand fragments, than that polygamy should continue in vogue; for she would soon be re-organized in greater purity and strength. So it is with a slave-holding Church; and with a Church in which the spirit of Slavery is so rife, that she will not live in peace with her Anti-Slavery members, nor tolerate the exercise of their Constitutional rights. But we do not believe this of our Churches. We think the more this “delicate and agitating” subject is discussed among us, the less unpleasant excitement will prevail.

It is said that our measures to overthrow Slavery are unconstitutional. Our opponents may easily test this question by bringing it before the U. S. Court. We claim to be acting constitutionally. Our plan of operations is essentially the same as that pursued by the early Anti-Slavery Societies, of which such men as John Jay, Benj. Franklin, Benj. Rush, and Jonathan Edwards, were active members; some of whom were engaged in forming our federal Constitution. Did they not understand that instrument? Did their contemporaries ever dispute their right to discuss the merits of Slavery? Have not our citizens, from time immemorial and without restriction, exercised this right? Does not the Constitution, instead of guaranteeing Slavery against this moral influence, guarantee to us the right of employing it, by forbidding Congress to pass any law abridging the freedom of speech and of the press?

We are told our measures are an invasion of the rights of property. This objection assumes, what nature denies, that man may be rightfully held as property. Blackstone maintains in his Commentaries, that man cannot be reduced by any just process to a state of absolute Slavery; that he cannot be born in that state, nor sell himself into it, nor be placed there when taken captive in war, without flagrant injustice. We also hold it to be self-evident, that all men are born free and equal, and entitled to certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The Slave owns himself by grant of his Creator. Slavery is, therefore, an invasion of his rights of property. It is the slave-master who makes an aggression on the property of others, not we, who exhort him to relinquish that property. The Slaves being the rightful owners of themselves, the abolition of Slavery is merely an act declarative of this indisputable title. Nor do we seek the destruction of Slavery, except through the constitutional authorities. Even were the slaves the property of their masters, it would be lawful for us to persuade them to part with it. Would it not? The Legislatures of the several states have a right to abolish Slavery. Have they not? It has hitherto been conceded, that the law making power of every slave-holding country has this right. May we not then persuade the states to exercise it, by convincing them of the moral wrong and frightful impolicy of Slavery? Should it be said that the government encouraged its citizens to invest property under the protection of the slave code, and therefore ought not to abolish Slavery without indemnifying them, our answer is, that mankind are under a paramount obligation not to invest property under the protection of immoral laws; that all such laws are in their nature null and void from the beginning; that governments have always exercised the power of correcting abuses; and there is no greater abuse than Slavery; none more unjust and oppressive; none more pernicious and perilous to our national interests.

Some object, that the abolition of Slavery on our plan, without compensation to the masters, would be taking away the bread of poor widows and orphans. We have no plan. We say only, that Slavery is wrong, and ought forthwith to be abandoned. The South will adopt and prosecute her own plan. When her Legislatures abolish Slavery, they can, if they will, provide for widows and children, who are left destitute by that act. If they will not do it, we will raise contributions for their relief; for we deem the claims of charity, nearly as imperative as the claims of justice. But we can never sanction the principle of Slavery, by saying, that slave-holders have a right to compensation for restoring to the slaves their stolen rights. We must always consider it a greater hardship to be unjustly held as a slave, than to be made poor by freeing such slave. It is a sad blunder in morals, that this man may make that man, perhaps fifty other men, poor for life, lest he himself should be a pauper; that this man may make that man poor by dishonesty, lest he himself should become poor by being honest.

No objection to our measures is more senseless, or more common, than an alleged tendency to dissolve the Union. Which had we better surrender, the Union or our liberties? The Union is a curse instead of a blessing, if we must surrender for it, freedom of speech and personal protection in any part of the country. And if Slavery continues to be protected by public sentiment, and by popular violence, how long could the Union last, even were all the abolitionists this day laid in their graves? Slavery endangers the integrity of the Union, more than all other enemies; and unless soon destroyed, will be the destroyer both of it and us. If we love the Union, we should labor to overthrow Slavery. Wesley somewhere defines fanaticism, to be the expectation of accomplishing ends without the use of means. Let us not hope for the peaceable destruction of Slavery, by such a fanatical course. Let us do something; and if we do any thing, what can be done which the abolitionists are not attempting? In doing this we shall not peril the Union, but preserve it. The South will never venture on the mad experiment of secession, because the North is opposed to Slavery. Such an act would be suicidal. It would encourage the slaves to revolt. It would leave her defenceless against the invasion of a foreign foe. It would release us from the constitutional obligation to suppress domestic violence, and to restore fugitives from service. It would open several thousand miles of frontier, over which her slaves would escape into a land of liberty. It would make the south “a good country to emigrate from,” and she would find herself losing her best citizens, and her condition becoming more and more exposed and perilous. She would be ruined. She knows it. Were our legislators in Congress to retort her stereotyped threat to dissolve the Union, with a challenge to do it, if she dares, we should hear no more of this empty bravado.

It is said, if our measures should be successful, the slaves would resort to the North, and coming up upon our farms, and into our shops, like the frogs of Egypt, reduce the wages of our laborers. No apprehension is more groundless. The free colored people of the South are quite numerous, and very much oppressed; yet few of them leave that part of the country; though the whites would be very glad to have them do so, because they render the slaves uneasy, and come into competition with slave labor. But were slavery abolished, the whites would desire to retain all the colored people, in order to employ them in cultivating the soil; precisely as is now the case in the West Indies. Nor would the slaves be willing to leave the land of their nativity, and of their kindred, to reside in the cold regions of the north, to the business and climate of which they are uninured, and where they must labor more severely to obtain a comfortable living. But should they come, what then? Do you prefer perpetual slavery?

It is also objected to our enterprise, that the immediate abolition of slavery, would be “letting the slaves loose” to be idlers, vagabonds, thieves, and cut-throats. This objection is more forcible against gradual emancipation, which would throw upon society a multitude of freedmen, while the rest of their brethren still remained in bondage. The holders of slaves would not encourage the free by giving them labor; who would, therefore, be more apt to be idle and vicious; while their release would excite uneasiness in the minds of the unemancipated. The objection is also equally strong against prospective emancipation, according to which the slaves would all be set free at once; but not until some time after the passage of the act. Experience and human nature both teach us, that slaves under such circumstances are more apt to be overworked, than to be better prepared for the enjoyment of freedom. The objection is, therefore, good for perpetual slavery, or good for nothing. It is good for nothing. Immediate emancipation would indeed deliver the slave and his family at once from the hands of an irresponsible master, and empower him to go where he pleases and do what he pleases, so long as he breaks none of the laws which restrain other men. And why not? He could not otherwise rejoin his wife and children, whom the slave trade has torn from him, nor secure fair wages, nor be safe from oppression. But this is not letting him loose to do evil. The laws of slavery let the masters loose upon the slaves, instead of the abolition of slavery letting the slaves loose upon the masters. Were there a law authorizing the inhabitants of Meriden to seize the inhabitants of Berlin, to confine them to jail limits, and work them without wages, to separate husbands and wives, parents and children, and even to kill them by that very indefinite thing, called “moderate correction;” this law would let the inhabitants of Meriden loose upon the inhabitants of Berlin; for it would protect the former in the grossest outrages upon the latter. But the repeal of this law would not let the inhabitants of Berlin loose upon us. Extending them protection would not be letting them loose upon us. Had we the power of repealing the law; or if not, possessing the power of not enforcing it, we should find our security in doing so. The very way to make them respect our rights, would be to respect theirs. Immediate emancipation places the slaves under the control as well as protection of the laws of the State against idleness, vagrancy, theft, murder, and all other aggressions on the rights of men.

We are told that the Slaves are not fit to be free; and therefore our scheme of immediate emancipation, if adopted, would prove a curse to them and the country. Nothing is more false. The Slaves are men; and therefore they are more fit for freedom than for slavery; more fit to be treated as persons than as things; to be governed by appeals to the reason and conscience than by brute force. God made man to be free and adapted him to that condition. A state of Slavery is unnatural to him. Nor can his nature so change, that he shall be more fit to be treated as a brute, than as a free moral agent. Slaves have often been set at liberty, and have always proved their capacity for freedom, by their industry, frugality and ready obedience to the laws.

And why, we would ask, should they be thought unfit to be put under the control and protection of the same laws, which govern freemen? Do their vices or their ignorance, disqualify them? While Slavery lasts, they will remain equally degraded.

Are they Sabbath breakers? Slavery has taught them to desecrate the day of rest, by making it to them almost the only day of recreation, the only day for visiting, for trading and for tilling their gardens. Are they thieves? They consider stealing from their masters to be only making reprisals for the robbery of their just wages; while many of them are strongly tempted to steal by the desire of more or better food. Are they liars? They will continue such, while they are slaves. They will pretend sickness, to avoid labor; they will say they do not wish to be free, lest their masters should sell them into distant banishment; they will lie to conceal the unavoidable delinquences, for which slaves are daily upbraided and beaten. Are they idle? As slaves they have no hope of reward to stimulate their exertions. They will work much better, as one facetiously expresses it, for Mr. Cash than for Mr. Lash. Let their wives and children be dependent on their industry for support, a far more noble and efficient motive than the fear of violence, to call forth the energies of man. Are they improvident? They cannot learn to save property, until they are allowed to hold it in their own right. Make them free, and then that faculty of their nature, which the phrenologists call “acquisitiveness” will prompt them to save their earnings. Are they licentious? Then give them their liberty, that the husband and father may be the legal protector of his wife and daughters. Are they revengeful? Redress their wrongs, and they will forgive their oppressors. Are they heathen? Take your foot from their necks, before you disgrace christianity, by attempting to convert them. Are they ignorant of letters? So are a majority of the freemen of the world; nor is it to be expected that slave-holders will teach their slaves to read and write, until they repent of Slavery itself. The vices of the Slaves are inseparable from their condition. If they are not now fit for freedom, Slavery, which unfitted them, will perpetuate their unfitness. Nor is their degradation of mind and morals a disqualification for freedom. You may find its counterpart in the characters of a large class of citizens in every country.

While Slavery continues, what is the prospect of their becoming better fitted for freedom? Where are the men and the means? Who will teach them? Who will support the teachers? The south cannot supply her free population with instruction. Even with the aid of the north, she is very destitute of the means of religion. Nor would she be willing to adopt a general system of education for the improvement of the Slaves. Instead of giving her money to fit them for freedom, she would hunt from society any persons, who should seriously propose the measure. They know little of the spirit of Slavery, who imagine, that the south was disposed to prepare her Slaves for freedom, until the abolitionists roused her to resistance. Had she really wished to free her Slaves, she would have welcomed us as coadjutors, at least she would not have abandoned her own plan, because ours was offensive to her. She never intended to fit her Slaves for freedom. She does not intend it now. Her laws, in most of the States, are against it. The mass of her Slaves will, no doubt, be as unfit for freedom fifty years hence, if Slavery should continue so long, as they are to day. The British abolitionists were once deceived by this syren song of preparation, but now in allusion to the words of Paul; “the glorious gospel of the blessed God;” they exclaim, THE GLORIOUS DOCTRINE OF IMMEDIATE EMANCIPATION! They found it the power of God, to awaken the slumbering conscience of the nation; and the wisdom of God as a measure of relief to their Slaves. We shall find it so.

Our opponents also object to emancipation upon the soil. Not all, but some of them, are in favor of Colonization as a remedy for Slavery, and others execrate us for our opposition to it as a scheme for benefiting Africa. We are especially averse to the former class. When men say, that the Slaves ought not to be freed, until they can be colonized, we ought to make resistance, for the following reasons:

1. We ought to resist every wicked prejudice; and they who object to emancipation on the soil, do so, in obedience to such a prejudice. They say the colored people can never rise in this country. They maintain that our aversion to the race is instinctive and natural; though we find no one averse to associating with them as slaves. The two races are certainly on very intimate terms at the South. It is only when they come as freemen between the wind and our nobility, that they taint the air. We, therefore, say, this prejudice is unnatural and sinful; and instead of fostering it, we ought to rebuke, and check it in ourselves and others. Some of us recollect the time, when as Colonizationists we wished to get rid of the colored people, and were indignant at them for being unwilling to leave the country. May we not repent of such a feeling and condemn in it others, without being hunted from society?

2. By retaining the emancipated slaves on the soil, we can at less expense of men and means educate and christianize them. Were we to send them beyond the Mississippi or to Africa, it would take ten times the number of Missionaries and Teachers, that we are now supporting among the heathen, to save them from sinking into barbarism. But if they should be retained as free laborers in the service of their present masters, those masters would provide for their instruction, and without diverting means from other objects, the delightful spectacle would soon be witnessed of Schools and Churches springing up among them, through the voluntary efforts of the ministers and christians of the South.

3. The labor of the Slaves is wanted on the plantations at the South. To withdraw such an amount of labor would bankrupt the entire country. Nor could their places be supplied, except by the worst population of the old world; by men, whose religion, whose morals, whose politics are all, in the highest degree, hostile to our national interests. The emancipated Slaves, on the contrary, would be prejudiced in favor of the protestant faith, and prove the staunchest friends of our free institutions.

4. The South will not consent to the colonization of the Slaves. She is willing we should contribute to carry off the free people of color, “the nuisances,” “the disturbing force,” as she terms them; and also those Slaves, whom the more conscientious of her citizens, who dare not die Slave-holders, may emancipate for the purpose. But she is unwilling we should go a step further. She does not believe we can get the means of doing more. We think, if a place were provided in Africa, and we had the means necessary to transport every Slave there, and were to go and tell the south, about the sinfulness of holding Slaves, when they can be colonized, and call upon her in good earnest, to give them up, she would denounce us as fanatics, and pass no more resolutions in favor of colonization. She is now at peace with it, because she does not fear it, and hopes to find it of use in repelling the abolitionists, in letting off, as by a safety valve, the pious feeling of her own citizens, and in expelling the free people of color.

5. The Slaves are unwilling to leave the country; and will never consent to do it, but on such a dread alternative as no christian people should impose. First give them their liberty, put them under the protection of impartial law, and treat them with kindness, and then if they ask our aid to remove their families to Africa, their determination to leave this country will evidently be spontaneous.

6. It is better for them to remain in the employment of southern capitalists, who are able to pay them wages for their labor than to go out into the wilderness as paupers, where there is no capital, and the very necessaries of life, are to be created.

7. They cannot be colonized without an appalling expense of money, life and comfort.

8. To colonize the Slaves of this country on account of their color, would be in the highest degree dishonorable to christianity. Were Christ on earth, he would associate with the despised colored man in preference to many who think themselves the best society. Can we act, as he would not and yet exemplify his religion? What, too, would be the effect on the minds of the heathen, nearly all of whom are colored men, were they to learn, that that nation, which makes the loudest professions of attachment to christianity, had banished more than two millions of her citizens to a land of pagan darkness, being offended at the color of their skin?

9. To send all the slaves to Africa would be fatal to the natives of that Continent. Said Mr. Pinney, agent of the Colonization Society, and once Gov. of Liberia, ‘the colony must be kept pure, or it will either enslave or exterminate the African tribes.’ Send 2,500,000 of people to Africa, four-fifths of whom are in heathenish darkness, and all of whom have been taught, by the example of their masters, that slavery is morally right, and labor disgraceful, would they hesitate to buy Slaves of the native Princes, or to reduce their captives to a state of servitude? It is said, there is as strong a line of demarkation between the colonists, and the heathen, though of the same color, as there is between the white and colored people in this country. But if they should not become slave-holders, would they not gradually exterminate the native tribes for the sake of revenging injuries, and possessing themselves of their lands? Said Mr. Pinney, the colony must be kept pure, or such a result is inevitable; and it cannot be kept pure, unless it is conducted on a very small scale. We doubt whether a commercial and military colony can be so far controlled by moral principle, as to avoid these results. For if the emigrants were all pious persons, and few in number, their posterity might become both vicious and powerful. We are not, therefore, without our objections to African colonization, even if it should be distinctly abandoned as a remedy for slavery, and conducted with caution, and on a small scale. We know not to what it may grow. We like better, the good, old, apostolic plan of sending missionaries to the heathen—men, who have no commercial and selfish interests to subserve, and who bear no hostile weapons. There is danger that a colony, however carefully guarded, will misrepresent christianity and fatally prejudice the native mind against it. The fact, that not a native has yet been converted to christianity, in connection with the colony of Liberia, justifies the inquiry, whether the scheme is a good one for Africa. The transportation of all our Slaves would confessedly form a colony too large and corrupt for the safety of the native tribes; and we tremble for the result of the present experiment.

In this argument we have not denied the practicability of colonizing two millions and a half of people, at an expense of $125,000,000. We think it enough to show the thing ought not to be done.

CONCLUSION.

With this view of our sentiments, of their practical value, and of the propriety and wisdom of our measures, we leave you to judge whether abolitionists deserve to be out-lawed in their own country; to be loaded with abuse and contumely; to be denied a right, conceded to all other decent men, of advocating their cause in our public halls and churches; and to be left, unprotected, to the violence of ill-minded men? We beg you also to consider, how terrific would be the prospects of our country, were we in obedience to popular clamor, to disband our societies, and retire from the field. Who would ever again venture to raise his voice in behalf of the down-trodden slave? Should any one have the temerity to do it, how soon would he be overwhelmed by the violence of the pro-slavery party, encouraged by past success, and maddened by the remembrance of the formidable array of talent, wealth, and piety, which they once encountered. We verily believe, that the peaceable abolition of Slavery depends, under God, on our perseverance. Moral means must continue to be used by us until they issue in success, or slavery will terminate in a bloody revolution. We anticipate such an event, as a possibility, with painful emotions; and feel disposed to look, in the use of all lawful means, to that God, who has promised to do for us, exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or think, that so dire a catastrophe may be averted. We earnestly solicit your co-operation.

We might have said much more to correct misapprehensions, refute calumnies, and fortify our positions; but our limits forbid it. We may have said some things, which you will disapprove; for we have ingenuously confessed our most obnoxious sentiments; but if you will give us credit for sincerity and weigh our arguments, we shall expect to stand better in your opinion, than our calumniators would have us.

With much respect,

In behalf of the Meriden
Anti-Slavery Society,

}

PHILO PRATT,

} | WALTER WEBB,
} | ISAAC I. TIBBALS.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] As our enterprise is not sectarian but national and catholic, it is the highest pitch of arrogance for any sect to denounce this measure as a violation of ecclesiastical order. Religious freedom demands that all such claims should be at once and steadfastly resisted.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within the text and consultation of external sources.

Some hyphens in words have been silently removed, some added, when a predominant preference was found in the original book.

Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the text, and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained.

Pg 9: ‘fraud and villany’ replaced by ‘fraud and villainy’.
Pg 11: ‘the emancipatton of’ replaced by ‘the emancipation of’.
Pg 11: ‘they abvocate this’ replaced by ‘they advocate this’.
Pg 17: ‘until onr objects’ replaced by ‘until our objects’.
Pg 17: ‘is his chnrch’ replaced by ‘is his church’.
Pg 18: ‘intinerant lecturers’ replaced by ‘itinerant lecturers’.
Pg 21: ‘Their is also’ replaced by ‘There is also’.
Pg 22: ‘and enterprize; the’ replaced by ‘and enterprise; the’.
Pg 25: ‘the constistutional’ replaced by ‘the constitutional’.
Pg 26: ‘not lettting him’ replaced by ‘not letting him’.
Pg 27: ‘for while slaves’ replaced by ‘for which slaves’.
Pg 30: ‘the best soeiety’ replaced by ‘the best society’.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN APOLOGY FOR ABOLITIONISTS ***

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Table of Contents

- AN APOLOGY FOR ABOLITIONISTS: ADDRESSED BY THE ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY OF MERIDEN, CONN., TO THEIR FELLOW-CITIZENS.

- DECLARATION OF SENTIMENTS.

- UTILITY OF THESE SENTIMENTS.

- VINDICATION OF MEASURES.

- CONCLUSION.

- FOOTNOTE:

- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE