American Anti-Slavery Society

“ Dear brother, if you or any other friend to down trodden humanity, have any lingering fear that the blaze of light which is now going forth from the islands will ever be quenched, even for a moment, dismiss that fear. The light, instead of growing dim, will continue to brighten. Your prayers for the safe and happy introduction of freedom, upon a soil long trodden by the foot of slavery, may be turned into praises--for the event has come to pass. When shall we be able to rejoice in such a consummation in our beloved America? ”

“ The slave-mother's joy begins, not like that of other mothers, when "a man is born into the world," but when her infant is hurried out of existence, and its first faint cry is hushed in the silence of death! Why this perversion of nature? Ah, that mother knows the agonies, the torments, the wasting woes, of a life of slavery, and by the bowels of a mother's love, and the yearnings of a mother's pity, she resolves that her babe shall never know the same. ”

“ Stuart assure himself that Christianity will destroy slavery? Are we, as American citizens, under the sceptre of a Nero? When, as integral parts of this republic--as living members of this community, did we forfeit the prerogatives of freemen? Have we not the right to speak and act as wielding the powers which the principle of self-government has put in our possession? And without asking leave of priest or statesman, of the North or the South, may we not make the most of the freedom which we enjoy under the guaranty of the ordinances of Heaven and the Constitution of our country? ”

“ Let its cry of wo, coming up from the plantations of the South, suppress every feeling of selfishness in our hearts. Let our regret and indignation at the denial of the right of petition, be felt only because we are thereby prevented from pleading in the Halls of Congress for the "suffering and the dumb." And let the fact, that we are shut out from half the territory of our country, be lamented only because it prevents us from bearing personally to the land of Slavery, the messages of hope for the slave, and of rebuke and warning for the oppressor. ”

“ In the name and on the behalf of our churches, for the sacred cause of freedom throughout the world, we unitedly implore your lordship to throw the shield of Britain's protection over those who are just made her loyal subjects. All they want, and all they ask, is, that, as they are raised to the dignity, so they may receive all the rights of man, and that the nation who purchased them from bondage may fully secure to them that civil and religious liberty, to which both their unparalleled sufferings and their unexampled patience so richly entitle them. ”

“ What in the name of conscience, can be the use of steam-vessels when Jamaica's ruin is so fast approaching? What are the planters and merchants to ship in steamers when the apprentices will not work, and there is nothing doing? How is the bank expected to advance money to the planters, when their total destruction has been accomplished by the abolition of slavery? What, in the name of reason, can be the use of railroads, when commerce and agriculture have been nipped in the bud, by that baneful weed, Freedom? ”

“ Oh, if the miserable men and women, now toiling on the plantations of Alabama, could know that thousands in the free states are praying and striving for their deliverance, how would the glad tidings be whispered from cabin to cabin, and how would the slave-mother as she watches over her infant, bless God, on her knees, for the hope that this child of her day of sorrow, might never realize in stripes, and toil, and grief unspeakable, what it is to be a slave? ”

“ When the competency of the law-making power to abolish slavery has thus been recognized every where and for ages, when it has been embodied in the highest precedents, and celebrated in the thousand jubilees of regenerated liberty, is it an achievement of modern discovery, that such a power is a nullity?--that all these acts of abolition are void, and that the millions disenthralled by them, are, either themselves or their posterity, still legally in bondage? ”

“ Does he in principle require us, abstaining from every form of theft, to employ our powers in useful labor, not only to provide for ourselves but also to relieve the indigence of others; and permit us in practice, abstaining from every form of labor, to enrich and aggrandize ourselves with the fruits of man-stealing? Does he require us in principle to regard "the laborer as worthy of his hire;" and permit us in practice to defraud him of his wages? Does he require us in principle "to honor ALL men;" and permit us in practice to treat multitudes like cattle? ”

“ The African slave trade has become such a mere technic, in common parlance, that the fact of its being proper slavery is overlooked. The buying and selling, the transportation, and the horrors of the middle passage, were mere incidents of the slavery in which the victims were held. Let things be called by their own names. When Congress abolished the African slave trade, it abolished SLAVERY--supreme slavery--power frantic with license, trampling a whole hemisphere scathed with its fires, and running down with blood. ”

“ Is the slaveholder, the most absolute and shameless of all despots, to be intrusted with the discipline of the injured men whom he himself has reduced to cattle?--with the discipline by which they are to be prepared to wield the powers and enjoy the privileges of freemen? Alas, of such discipline as he can furnish, in the relation of owner to property, they have had enough. From this sprang the vary ignorance and vice, which in the view of many lie in the way of their immediate enfranchisement. He it is, who has darkened their eyes and crippled their powers. ”

“ Domestic slavery is repugnant to the principles of Christianity. It prostrates every benevolent and just principle of action in the human heart. It is rebellion against the authority of a common Father. It is a practical denial of the extent and efficacy of the death of a common Saviour. It is an usurpation of the prerogative of the great Sovereign of the universe, who has solemnly claimed an exclusive property in the souls of men. ”

“ Was he at liberty so to honor the filial, conjugal, and paternal relations, as to find in them that spring of activity and that source of enjoyment, which they are capable of yielding? So were they. In every department of interest and exertion, they might use their capacities, and wield their powers, and improve their opportunities, and employ their resources, as freely as he, in glorifying God, in blessing mankind, and in laying up imperishable treasures for themselves! Give perfect religious equality to the American slave, and the most eager abolitionist must be satisfied. ”

“ Congress, by abolishing slavery, would say "private property shall not be taken; and those who have been robbed of it already, shall be kept out of it no longer; and every man's right to his own body shall be protected." True, Congress may not arbitrarily take property, as property, from one man and give it to another--and in the abolition of slavery no such thing is done. A legislative act changes the condition of the slave--makes him his own proprietor, instead of the property of another. ”

“ Could we have thrown into vivid forms a few only of the numberless incidents of rare beauty which thronged our path--could we have imparted to pages that freshness and glow, which invested the institutions of freedom, just bursting into bloom over the late wastes of slavery--could we, in fine, have carried our readers amid the scenes which we witnessed, and the sounds which we heard, and the things which we handled, we should not doubt the power and permanence of the impression produced. ”

“ Instead of the fires of rebellion, lit by a feeling of lawless revenge and resistance to oppression, the whole of those islands were, like an Arabian scene, illuminated by the light of contentment, joy, peace, and good-will towards all men. No civilized people, after gaining an unexpected victory, could have shown more delicacy and forbearance than was exhibited by the slaves at the great moral consummation which they had attained. ”

“ Were I writing for the favor, instead of the welfare of my fellow-men, I should praise rather than denounce patriotism. Were I writing in accordance with the maxims of a corrupt world, instead of the truth of Jesus Christ, I should defend and extol, rather than rebuke the doctrine, that we may prefer the interests of one section of the human family to those of another. If patriotism, in the ordinary acceptation of the word, be right, then the Bible is wrong--for that blessed book requires us to love all men, even as we love ourselves. ”

“ Their birth and complexion are the occasion of the insults and injuries which they can neither endure nor escape. It is for the work of God, and not them own deserts, that they are loaded with chains. This is persecution.
Can I regard the slave as another self--can I put myself in his place--and be indifferent to his wrongs? Especially, can I, thus affected, take sides with the oppressor? Could I, in such a state of mind as the gospel requires me to cherish, reduce him to slavery or keep him in bonds? Is not the precept under hand naturally subversive of every system and every form of slavery? ”

“ In the New Testament, we have, moreover, the general injunction, "Honor all men." Under this broad precept, every form of humanity may justly claim protection and respect. The invasion of any human right must do dishonor to humanity, and be a transgression of this command. How then, in the light of such obligations, must slavery be regarded? Are those men honored, who are rudely excluded from a place in the human family, and shut up to the deep degradation and nameless horrors of chattelship? Can they be held as slaves, and at the same time be honored as men? ”

“ But they need to feel no alarm at the progress of right who defend a limited monarchy and support their popular institutions--who place their chiefest pride not in ruling over slaves, be they white or be they black--not in protecting the oppressor, but in wearing a constitutional crown, in holding the sword of justice with the hand of mercy, in being the first citizen of a country whose air is too pure for slavery to breathe, and on whose shores, if the captive's foot but touch, his fetters of themselves fall off. ”

“ A Legislature should be imbued with a free, independent, fearless spirit. But it cannot be, where discussion is overawed and interdicted, or its boundaries at all contracted. Wherever slavery reigns, the freedom of discussion is not tolerated: and whenever slavery exists, there slavery reigns;--reigns too with that exclusive spirit of Turkish despotism, that, "bears no brother near the throne."
You agree with President Wayland, that it is as improper for Congress to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, as to create it in some place in the free States, over which it has jurisdiction. ”

“ After riding for miles, through a country which gradually swells into slight elevations, or sweeps away in rolling plains, covered with cane, yams, potatoes, eddoes, corn, and grass, alternately, and laid out with the regularity of a garden; after admiring the cultivation, beauty, and skill exhibited on every hand, until almost wearied with viewing the creations of art; the eye at once falls upon a scene in which is crowded all the wildness and abruptness of nature in one of her most freakish moods--a scene which seems to defy the hand of cultivation and the graces of art. ”

“ I am aware, that many take the ground, that we must keep the slaves in slavery to prevent the matrimonial "amalgamation," which, they apprehend, would be a fruit of freedom. But, however great a good, abolitionists might deem the separation of the white and black races, and however deeply they might be impressed with the power of slavery to promote this separation, they nevertheless, dare not "do evil, that good may come:"--they dare not seek to promote this separation, at the fearful expense of upholding, or in anywise, countenancing a humanity-crushing and God-defying system of oppression. ”

“ But, it is because he has seen that all which is thus beautiful and excellent in mind and heart, perishes in the atmosphere of slavery: it is because humanity in the slave sinks down to a level with the brute and in the master gives place to the attributes of a fiend--that he has not felt at liberty to decline the task. He cannot sympathize with that abstract and delicate philanthropy, which hesitates to bring itself in contact with the sufferer, and which shrinks from the effort of searching out the extent of his afflictions. ”