Anti-slavery movement

“ There never was a more formidable combination of interests and influences than that which confronted the anti-slavery movement in its earlier stages. And what was its answer? "Whether all you say be true or false, it matters not, but slavery is wrong." ”

“ A celebrated divine who, four years ago, was for flinging his own mother or brother into the remorseless jaws of the monster slavery, lest he should swallow up the Union, now recognizes anti-slavery as a characteristic of future civilization. Signs and wonders follow this movement; and the fact just stated is one of them. Party ties are loosened by it, and men are compelled to take sides for or against it, whether they will or not. Come from where he may, or come for what he may, he is compelled to show his hand. ”

“ In the very heart of humanity are garnered up, as from everlasting to everlasting, all those elementary principles whose vital action constitutes what we now term the anti-slavery movement. They are the treasure of our common storehouse. The humblest may approach, enter, and be supplied with arms to meet the ills that flesh is heir to. A thousand moral battles have been fought with them, and they are as good as ever. . Ages of oppression and iron hearted selfishness have rolled over them, and covered them with their blinding dust ”

“ In doing so I have one consolation, and that is, as I apprehend it, the anti-slavery movement is, after all, no cold abstraction, requiring a sharp and flinty intellect to analyze it. While it is a subject of surpassing dignity, and one upon which the wisest and best minds may be employed, it is, nevertheless, a subject upon which the humblest may venture to think and speak without justly being exposed to the reproach of treading upon ground which should be trodden only by men of the "superior race." ”

“ It has revealed the arrogant and overbearing spirit of Slave States towards the Free States---despising their principles, shocking their feelings of humanity, not only by bringing before them the abominations of slavery, but by attempting to make them parties to the crime. has called into exercise among the coloured people--the hunted ones - a spirit of resistance, well calculated to surround them with a bulwark of sympathy and respect hitherto unknown; for men are always disposed to respect and defend rights when the victims of oppression stand up manfully for themselves. ”

“ As the anti-slavery movement developed, the call for immediate liberation became more insistent and imperative. The colonization method lost credit. Slavery was coming to be regarded by its opponents not merely as a social evil to be eradicated, but as a personal sin of the slave-holder, to be renounced as promptly as any other sin. ”

“ The result of the anti-slavery movement should convince all that any God-ordained progressive movement, though it may be stayed [Pg 260] for a time, cannot be killed and buried because men will it so. ”

“ No slavery for man under the whole heavens.' The slave, as a man and a brother, must be the vital and animating thought and impulse of any movement which is to effect the abolition of slavery in this country. Our anti-slavery organizations must be brought back to this doctrine, or they will be scattered, and left to wander and die in the wilderness, like God's ancient people, till another generation shall come up, more worthy to go up and possess the land. ”

“ If there be but one such man in the land, no matter what becomes of abolition societies and parties, there will be an antislavery cause and an anti-slavery movement. Fortunately for that cause, and fortunately for him by whom it is espoused, it requires no extraordinary amount of talent to preach it, or to receive it when preached. The grand secret of its power is, that each of its principles is easily rendered appreciable to the faculty of reason in man, and that the most unenlightened conscience has no difficulty in deciding on which side to register its testimony. ”

“ If the information it communicates be important for southern Representatives in Congress, it is not less so for their Constituents. The Anti-slavery movement has become so important in a National point of view, that no statesman can innocently remain ignorant of its progress and tendencies. ”

“ But what was the condition of the anti-slavery movement twenty years ago, and how came it in that condition? It is much easier to answer the first than to answer the last question. There were witnesses for freedom in the church, but the church had become comparatively dead on the subject. ”

“ Nevertheless, I have somewhat against this society, as well as against the American Anti-slavery Society. It has almost dropped the main and most potent weapon with which slavery is to be assailed and overthrown, and that is speech. At this moment, when every nerve should be strained to prevent a reaction, that society has not a single lecturing agent in the field. ”

“ Let us trust that arm-let us confide in that intelligence, in conducting this movement; and whether it shall be ours to witness the fulfilment of our hopes—the end of American slavery--or not, we shall have the tranquil satisfaction of having faithfully adhered to eternal principles of rectitude and duty, and may lay down life in the triumphant faith that those principles will ultimately prevail. ”

“ And those are the men who will expose themselves to the chances of a pro-slavery war with an anti-slavery people! Will they not look upon every captain as a John Brown, and every sergeant and private as a Coppoc or a Stevens? They will hardly have men enough to quiet their fears at home. What will they have to oppose to the enemy? If they want to protect slavery then, every township will want its home regiment, every plantation its garrison. No sooner will a movement of concentration be attempted, than the merest panic may undo and frustrate it. ”

“ The slave power must go on in its career of exactions. Give, give, will be its cry, till the timidity which concedes shall give place to courage, which shall resist. Such is the voice of experience; such has been the past, such is the present, and such will be that future, which, so sure as man is man, will come. Here I leave the subject; and I leave off where I began, consoling myself and congratulating the friends of freedom upon the fact that the anti-slavery cause is not a new thing under the sun - not some moral delusion which a few years' experience may dispel. ”

“ We declare that we are more than ever convinced of the great evil of African slavery, which still exists in these United States; and every member of the society who sells a slave, shall immediately, on full proof, be excluded from the society. The conferences are directed to draw up addresses for the gradual emancipation of the slaves to the legislatures. ”

“ It has given up the faith that the slave can be freed, short of the overthrow of the government; and then, as I understand that society, it leaves the slaves, as it must needs leave them, just where it leaves the slaves of Cuba or those of Brazil. The nation, as such, is given up as beyond the power of salvation by the foolishness of preaching; and hence the aim is now to save the North, so that the American Anti-slavery Society, which was inaugurated to convert the nation, after ten years' struggle, parts with its faith, and aims now to save the North. ”

“ The slaveholder is not satisfied to associate with men in the church or in the state, unless he can thereby stain them with the blood of his slaves. To be a slaveholder is to be a propagandist from necessity; for slavery can only live by keeping down the undergrowth morality which nature supplies. Every new-born white babe comes armed from the Eternal presence to make war on slavery. ”

“ They awaken the sympathies for the slave, in which anti-slavery principles take root, grow up, and flourish. In addition to authors, poets, and scholars at home, the moral sense of the civilized world is with us. England, France, and Germany, the three great lights of modern civilization are with us, and every American traveller learns to regret the existence of slavery in his country. The growth of intelligence, the influence of commerce, steam, wind, and lightning are our allies. ”

“ In whatever else men may differ, they are alike in the apprehension of their natural and personal rights. The difference between abolitionists and those by whom they are opposed, is not as to principles. All are agreed in respect to these. The manner of applying them is the point of difference.
The slaveholder himself-the daily robber of his equal brother-discourses eloquently as to the excellency of justice; and the man who employs a brutal driver to flay the flesh off his negroes, is not offended when kindness and humanity are commended. ”

“ Agreeably to a recommendation in the letter from the church at Baltimore, this association declare their high approbation of the several societies formed in the United States and Europe for the gradual abolition of the slavery of the Africans, and for guarding against their being detained or sent off as slaves, after having obtained their liberty ”

“ All our enemies tell us they are as much anti-slavery as we are. Yes, my friends, thousands who are helping you to bind the fetters of slavery on the negro, despise you in their hearts for doing it; they rejoice that such an institution has not been entailed upon, them. ”

“ If every anti-slavery tongue in the nation were silent—every anti-slavery organization dissolved—every anti-slavery periodical, paper, pamphlet, book, or what not, searched out, burned to ashes, and their ashes given to the four winds of heaven, still, still the slaveholder could have no peace. ”

“ The strongest reason why the Anti-Slavery Society wish for the emancipation of slaves, is because they think no other course can be pursued which does not, in its very nature, involve a constant violation of the laws of God. In the next place, they believe there is no other sure way of providing for the safety of the white population in the slave States. I know that many of the planters affect to laugh at the idea of fearing their slaves; but why are their laws framed with such cautious vigilance? Why must not negroes of different plantations communicate together? ”

“ Not until after the foreign slave-trade had been prohibited and the domestic trade had been developed, and not until there was a pro-slavery reaction in the South which banished from the slave States all anti-slavery propaganda, did the systematic assistance rendered to fugitive slaves assume any large proportions or arouse bitter resentment. ”

“ As the result of much reading and research, and at the expenditure of no inconsiderable amount of time, labor and money, we now proceed to make known the anti-slavery sentiments of those noble abolitionists, the Fathers of the Republic, whose liberal measures of public policy have been so criminally perverted by the treacherous advocates of slavery. ”

“ It is not necessary for our present purpose, to enter into a particular investigation of the condition of the free negroes in the slave States. We all know that they suffer every form of oppression which the laws can inflict upon persons not actually slaves. That unjust and cruel enactments should proceed from a people who keep two millions of their fellow men in abject bondage, and who believe such enactments essential to the maintenance of their despotism, certainly affords no cause for surprise. ”

“ If we would escape torture and death, on visiting any of the slave States, we must stifle our conscientious convictions, bear no testimony against cruelty and tyranny, suppress the struggling emotions of humanity, divest ourselves of all letters and papers of an anti-slavery character, and do homage to the slaveholding power—or run the risk of a cruel martyrdom! These are appalling and undeniable facts. Three millions of the American people are crushed under the American Union! They are held as slaves—trafficked as merchandise—registered as goods and chattels! ”

“ My life upon it, a safe remedy can be found for this evil, whenever we are sincerely desirous of doing justice for its own sake.
The Anti-Slavery Society is loudly accused of being seditious, fanatical, and likely to promote insurrections. It seems to be supposed, that they wish to send fire and sword into the South, and encourage the slaves to hunt down their masters. Slave owners wish to have it viewed in this light, because they know that the subject they have chosen, will not bear discussion ”