Edward Bettle

“ When we contemplate our abhorrence of that condition to which the arms and tyranny of Great Britain were exerted to reduce us, when we look back on the variety of dangers to which we have been exposed, and how miraculously our wants in many instances have been supplied and our deliverances wrought, when even hope and human fortitude have become unequal to the conflict, we are unavoidably led to a serious and grateful sense of the manifold blessings which we have undeservedly received from the hand of that Being from whom every good and perfect gift cometh. ”

“ Do not all our vaunts of republicanism and free government amount to sheer mockery and insult to the name of religion, justice, and liberty, so long as a large number of the States of our confederacy continue the American slavery and slave-trade. ”

“ Contemporary with Woolman was that pious and excellent friend of the human race, Anthony Benezet,—a man who combined, in an eminent degree, shining virtues, excellent talents, and indefatigable industry; who lived and labored with the most well-directed assiduity for the good of all mankind, and who died regretted by those, and they were not few in number, who had seen and known and admired his long career of useful practical benevolence. ”

“ In divesting the State of slaves you will equally serve the cause of humanity and policy, and offer to God one of the most proper and best returns of gratitude for his great deliverance of us and our posterity from thraldom: you will also set your
character for justice and benevolence in the true point of view to all Europe, who are astonished to see a people eager for liberty holding negroes in bondage. ”

“ Upon a comprehensive view of the subject, we think it may be asserted boldly, and without fear of contradiction, that the worst slavery, the most total prostration of the rights of man, and the most entire degradation of the image of God, are exhibited in the bondage of the negroes. This is the slavery which is not only practiced and tolerated, on the plea that it is an entailed and unavoidable evil, but is absolutely defended in the House of Representatives of the freemen of the United States, as being consistent with Holy Scripture, and with the mild religion of our Redeemer. ”

“ A century and a half have now nearly elapsed since the great sage and lawgiver of Pennsylvania landed on her shores, and gave the first impulse to that spirit of Christian philanthropy which has ever since continued, amid the wars and miseries of the old world, to shed its light and diffuse its warmth from the sanctuary of our native soil ”

“ But to bring men hither, or to rob and sell them against their will, we stand against. In Europe there are many oppressed for conscience sake; and here there are those oppressed which are of a black colour. And we who know that men must not commit adultery,—some do commit adultery in others, separating wives from their husbands and giving them to others; and some sell the children of these poor creatures to other men. ”

“ The axiom, that the object of all good government is the freedom, order, and happiness of the governed, is now considered so self-evident and undeniable, that we may hardly be able sufficiently to appreciate the great merit of William Penn in proclaiming the sound and comprehensive doctrines contained in his charter, bill of rights, and great law, at a period when the most profound statesmen held and promulgated far different ideas of the true and proper constitution of government. ”

“ We trust we shall not indulge hopes too sanguine, if we should now anticipate, that by the united labors of our Society, Pennsylvania will receive that illustration of her annals, character, and resources, which has so long been due to a State whose history in many important features is unique, and whose moral conduct exhibits lessons the most instructive, and examples the most encouraging, of active practical benevolence, and the positive application of the principles of Christianity to the administration of human affairs. ”

“ To hear such arguments as these proceeding from the source whence they have emanated, is a bad omen; it looks like a deliberate design not to meliorate, and finally by degrees to abolish the evil, but rather, in the face of former professions, to perpetuate forever this open and palpable infringement of the very unction and spirit of our free institutions. We affect great sympathy for enslaved Spain, we profess much commiseration for degraded Italy ”

“ Impressed with these ideas, we conceive that it is our duty, and we rejoice that it is in our power, to extend a portion of that freedom to others which hath been extended to us, and release from that state of thraldom, to which we ourselves were tyrannically doomed, and from which we have now every prospect of being delivered. It is not for us to inquire why, in the creation of mankind, the inhabitants of the several parts of the earth were distinguished by a difference in feature or complexion. ”

“ It is, however, beside our object at this time to expatiate upon the conduct of Penn and his coadjutors, in the prosecution of the ennobling designs to which we have alluded; our view is simply to show that from a government and people recognizing such principles and doctrines, and, in the midst of darkness and ignorance, displaying such vivifying light and knowledge, we might rightfully expect to see a cordial and active support of all measures calculated to relieve the miseries of mankind. ”

“ He appears very early in life to have had his mind engaged in reflection upon the subject of slavery. Soon after he attained the age of twenty-one years, being hired as an accountant, he was directed by his employer to write a bill of sale for a negro, which, in obedience to his instructions, he did, though, as he himself says, not without great uneasiness of mind, and that he afterwards found it to be his duty to inform his master and the purchaser of the slave that "he believed slavekeeping to be a practice inconsistent with the Christian religion;" ”

“ We esteem it a peculiar blessing granted to us that we are enabled this day to add one more step to universal civilization, by removing, as much as possible, the sorrows of those who have lived on under cruel bondage, and upon which, by the assumed authority of the Kings of Great Britain, no effectual legal relief could be obtained. ”

“ Honored will that State be, in the annals of history, which shall first abolish this violation of the rights of mankind, and the memories of those will be held in grateful and everlasting remembrance, who shall pass the law to restore and establish the rights of human nature in Pennsylvania. ”

“ In 1754 the Yearly Meeting of Pennsylvania printed and circulated a letter of advice to its members, reminding them of its often expressed and well known will upon the subject of buying slaves, and urging some cogent arguments to show the anti-christian nature of the traffic, and the awful responsibility that those masters were under who neglected to guard the morals of their slaves, and to imbue their minds with religion and virtue. ”

“ Now, though they are black, we cannot conceive there is more liberty to have them slaves, as [than] it is to have other white ones. There is a saying, that we shall do to all men like as we will be done ourselves; making no difference of what generation, descent or color they are. And those who steal or robb men, and those who buy or purchase them, are they not all alike? Here is liberty of conscience, which is right and reasonable; here ought to be likewise liberty of the body, except of evil-doers, which is another case. ”

“ We frequently hear from those engaged in slavery strong expressions of abhorrence of the practice, and great desires for the abolition of the evil. It is believed that in many instances these professions are true and sincere, and we rejoice in the existence of such feelings ”

“ In the midst then of mitigating circumstances, did these worthy men, taking the abstract principles of right and wrong for their guide, and possessing a manly sense of the rights of their fellow creatures, proclaim to the world that, while they emigrated to enjoy their own liberty, they were willing to extend its blessings universally. ”

“ They asserted that the negroes were men, the common objects, with the rest of mankind, of redeeming love; that they had been taken by violence from their native land, and were unjustly detained in bondage; and finally, that the whole institution of slavery was contrary to the religion of Christ, the rights of man, and sound reason and policy. ”

“ Among the Romans, if a slave exhibited talents and became distinguished for his mental powers, he generally obtained his freedom; and many of the most illustrious poets, statesmen, and warriors of Rome were freedmen. ”

“ Another cause, as stated by the committee, was that "negroes of all ages are brought in considerable numbers into the southwestern counties, bordering on Virginia, and emancipated on condition of serving a certain number of years, seldom exceeding seven, unless they happen to be mere children. About half the usual price of a slave is paid for this limited assignment; at the expiration of which the individual obtains entire freedom, both for himself and such of his children as may be born in Pennsylvania." ”

“ In contemplating the character of Penn and his noble views and plans of melioration, we perceive for the first time an attempt to found a government upon the basis of practical Christianity, desiring no other end than the welfare of those who might live under its happy influence ”

“ In 1696, several papers from the subordinate meetings having been read, the Yearly Meeting, after deliberation, issued this advice,—"That Friends be careful not to encourage the bringing in of any more negroes; and that such as have negroes be careful of them, bring them to meeting, and have meetings with them in their families, and restrain them from loose and lewd living, as much as in them lies, and from rambling abroad on first days." ”

“ In 1746, he travelled as a minister of the Society of Friends, through the provinces of Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina, where it appears that his mind was again engaged and his feelings excited, and that he took occasion during the journey to communicate his convictions on this deeply-interesting subject to many of the inhabitants. He says, he "saw in these southern provinces so many vices and corruptions increased by this trade and this way of life [viz., the whites living idly and luxuriously on the labor of the blacks] , that it appeared to him as a erloom over the land." ”

“ With the information now so generally diffused in regard to the total hostility of slavery to religion and the rights of man, we cannot perhaps fully appreciate the enlightened views and clear discernment, which enabled these humble individuals to proclaim doctrines and principles so much in advance of the received opinions of the age ”

“ We find him who was educated in a country where a sanguinary code of laws made the awful doom of death the indiscriminate punishment for the petty thief and the deliberate murderer, and at a time too when such a change was certain to be pronounced a visionary innovation, advocating and adopting that system of graduated and mitigated punishments which has since received the sanction of the wisest and best of his successors. ”

“ We may here take occasion to observe, that all the designs of the early legislators of Pennsylvania to improve the condition of her citizens, and to substitute, for the oppressive policy of the old world, a more free, humane, and happy condition of things in the new, were rendered void through the repeal, by English orders of council, of all such laws as had these noble and excellent designs in view. ”

“ Soon after the first settlement of Pennsylvania, a few slaves were introduced from the West Indies; and the practice was in some degree tolerated by Friends, as well as the other early settlers of the province, on the pretence of a scarcity of laborers. The number imported, or the precise manner in which they were introduced, we have not been able to learn; the evil, however, soon became so obvious and increasing, as to excite the attention of the Society of Friends ”

“ Even by many philanthropists it was esteemed rather a blessing than a curse, and was encouraged on the plausible pretence of meliorating the condition of the Africans themselves, by imbuing them with Christianity, and dispelling their mental darkness and gloom ”

“ That it was a good thing to bring them to the knowledge of God and Christ Jesus, and to believe in him who died for them and all men, and that this would keep them from rebelling and cutting any person's throat; but if they did rebel and cut their throats, as the Governor insinuated they would, it would be their own doing in keeping them in ignorance and under oppression, in giving them liberty to be common with women like brutes, and on the other hand in starving them for want of meat and clothes convenient ”

“ We have now closed our notice of the efforts of Pennsylvania in behalf of the negroes, antecedent to the year 1770; and have shown, we trust, that our forefathers were active and ardent laborers in the righteous cause of human freedom and happiness. We propose, in a future essay, to exhibit the further history of our State, as connected with this subject, up to the present time. ”

“ We shall next notice that early, honest, but over-zealous opponent of the bondage of men, Benjamin Lay. [22] He was an Englishman by birth, brought up as a seaman, and after pursuing that occupation for several years, settled in Barbadoes; but the wretchedness and misery which he there witnessed, and the heart-rending scenes of cruelty and oppression, of which he was a daily observer, so affected his sensitive mind as to induce him, a few years afterwards, to quit the Island and emigrate to Pennsylvania. ”