Gradual abolitionism

“ It is because slavery has been excluded and driven from a large proportion of our country, that we are a prosperous and happy people. But its late attempts to force its influence and power into the free States, and deprive our citizens of their unquestionable rights, has been the moving cause of all the riots, burnings, and murders that have taken place on account of abolitionism ”

“ But the effects of Abolitionism on the condition and prospects of the slaves, is even and far worse than on the free colored people. It has rivetted the chains of slavery with a manifold firmness and strength; it has greatly abridged the privileges before allowed them for intellectual and moral culture; it has barred the door, in the slave States, against all open and free discussion of the subject of emancipation, which before was tolerated ”

“ It is not a little singular that, while slavery has been for nearly eighty years the one root of bitterness in our politics, the general knowledge of its history should be so superficial. Abolitionism has been so persistently represented as the disturbing element which threatened the permanence of our Union, that mere repetition has at last become conviction with that large class of minds with which a conclusion is valuable exactly in proportion as it saves mental labor. ”

“ And this the North could not well yield. While the slave-holding States were clamoring for the suppression of Abolitionism in the free States, Abolitionism was giving evidences of extraordinary expansion, and activity. It had risen well above the zero point in politics. It was gaining numbers and it was gaining votes. A new element had appeared at the polls and both of the old parties began to exhibit a certain degree of impressibility to the latest attraction. The slave-power with quick instinct recognized in the new comer a dangerous rival, and schemed for its destruction. ”

“ Abolitionism, till within a year or two, was the despised heresy of a few earnest persons, without political weight enough to carry the election of a parish constable; and their cardinal principle was disunion, because they were convinced that within the Union the position of slavery was impregnable. In spite of the proverb, great effects do not follow from small causes,—that is, disproportionately small,—but from adequate causes acting under certain required conditions. ”

“ There will nevertheless remain some stubborn Abolitionists, even all who "hate prudence, caution, and judiciousness," who will still exclaim "the slaves are now fit for instantaneous and unconditional emancipation!" ”

“ Reared amidst the institution of slavery, believing it to be wrong both in principle and in practice, and having seen and felt its evil influences upon individuals, communities and states, we deem it a duty, no less than a privilege, to enter our protest against it, and to use our most strenuous efforts to overturn and abolish it! Then we are an abolitionist? ”

“ Where didst thou get thy statement of what Abolitionists mean by immediate emancipation? I assure thee, it is a novelty. I never heard any abolitionist say that slaveholders ‘were physically unable to emancipate their slaves, and of course are not bound to do it,’ because in some States there are laws which forbid emancipation. This is truly what our opponents affirm; but we say that all the laws which sustain the system of slavery are unjust and oppressive—contrary to the fundamental principles of morality, and, therefore, null and void. ”

“ So much has this been the character of Abolition movements, that many have supposed it to be a deliberate and systematized plan of the leaders to do nothing but what was strictly a right guaranteed by law, and yet, in such a manner, as to provoke men to anger, so that unjust and illegal acts might ensue, knowing, that as a consequence, the opposers of Abolition would be thrown into the wrong, and sympathy be aroused for Abolitionists as injured and persecuted men. ”

“ Business and political interests, social influences and religious affiliations concerted in the crushing of abolitionism. Success might have crowned their effort had prudence been their companion, but they mobbed, maltreated, and even murdered the champions of the new movement. Had madness confounded them, they could not have acted more unwisely. This, more than all the agitation of abolition leaders, quickened the moral vitality of the people. ”

“ Were he not convinced that the best interests of this country, that the real interests of the coloured population, bond and free, and that common humanity itself, are involved in the question of Abolitionism, he would not presume to obtrude himself on the notice of the Public, on a topic more or less now connected with politics, from which he has hitherto carefully refrained. ”

“ And they think themselves able to give unanswerable reasons for the bitterness with which they note everything which is expressed by the word 'abolitionism.' They assume it for a fact, which admits no contradiction, that the natural increase of the negro race in this country is more rapid than that of the white man. ”

“ Instead of this, the wise and good who opposed Abolition measures, have been treated as though they were the friends and defenders of slavery, or as those who, from a guilty, timid, time-serving policy, refused to take the course which duty demanded. They have been addressed either as if it were necessary to convince them that slavery is wrong and ought to be abandoned, or else, as if they needed to be exhorted to give up their timidity and selfish interest, and to perform a manifest duty, which they were knowingly neglecting. ”

“ Who cavilled more at Anti-Slavery measures, and who more ready now to acknowledge his former blindness? Real Abolitionists know full well, that the slave never has been, and never can be, a whit the better for mere abstractions, floating in the head of any man; and they also know, that principles, fixed in the heart, are things of another sort. ”

“ On the other hand, suppose that, in such a rebellion throughout the South, the whites were to conquer—this could not be accomplished without the destruction of vast numbers of the people of colour—nor without the loss of the lives of many whites. What then would be the condition of the surviving blacks? Common justice, and prudence, would oblige the white population to deprive the slaves of many of those privileges which they now enjoy, and to rivet their fetters more securely—whom would they have to thank for all this? Abolitionists! ”

“ The professed object of the Abolition Society is to procure the immediate, instantaneous, and unconditional emancipation of all the slaves in America.—And the means adopted by this Society to accomplish this object are the publication and circulation of vast numbers of papers and pamphlets, by way of enlightening the slave, and the slaveholder—but which consist, for the most part, of exhortations, and encouragement, to the slave, to disobedience, insubordination, and rebellion. ”

“ I dare not, in view of such a system, tell the slaveholder, that ‘he is physically unable to emancipate his slaves.’ I say he is able to let the oppressed go free, and that such heaven-daring atrocities ought to cease now, henceforth and forever. ”

“ A large majority of the philanthropic and pious, who hold common views with the Abolitionists, as to the sin and evils of slavery, and the duty of using all appropriate means to bring it to an end, have opposed their measures, because they have believed them not calculated to promote, but rather to retard the end proposed to be accomplished by them. ”

“ Instead of lessening the evils of slavery, they will increase them. The [91] more they are goaded by a sense of aggressive wrong without, or by fears of dangers within, the more they will restrain their slaves, and diminish their liberty, and increase their disabilities. They will make laws so unjust and oppressive, not only to slaves, but to their Abolitionist advocates, that by degrees such men will withdraw from their bounds. ”

“ In two years, abolitionism will be as prostrate as anti-masonry is now. It may, meanwhile, spread fast and boldly: it may create disturbances and alarms: it may prevail so far, in some districts, as to have representatives in Congress, who will there bring forward some scheme of emancipation: but triumph finally, or even extensively, in the north, it never can." And all that I saw, or heard, convinced me that Mr. G—— was not widely mistaken.
At Worcester, last year, an apostle of abolition from "some where away down east," delivered a lecture, in the Baptist Church, against slavery ”

“ If Abolitionists will only cease to teach that all slave-holding is a sin which ought to be immediately abolished; if they will cease to urge their plan as one of immediate emancipation, and teach simply and exactly that which they do mean, much strife and misunderstanding will cease. But so long as they persevere in using these terms in a new and peculiar sense, which will always be misunderstood, they are guilty of a species of deception and accountable for the evils that follow. ”

“ It is a fact, that Abolitionists have taken the course most [36] calculated to awaken illegal acts of violence, and that when they have ensued, they have seemed to rejoice in them, as calculated to advance and strengthen their cause. The violence of mobs, the denunciations and unreasonable requirements of the South, the denial of the right of petition, the restrictions attempted to be laid upon freedom of speech, and freedom of the press, are generally spoken of with exultation by Abolitionists, as what are among the chief means of promoting their cause. ”

“ By perpetual discussion, agitation and [85] threats, accompanied with the real or imaginary power to perform, there will be need of no other action than words to shake the confidence of men in the safety and continuance of the institution of slavery, and its value and existence will be destroyed. These are all the weapons the abolitionist desires to be allowed to use to accomplish his purpose. When Congress moves, it will be the last act in the drama ”

“ And they claim that they shall succeed in making that city break off its sins, by these measures, because other men succeeded in banishing intemperance by labouring among their own friends and fellow citizens. Is not this example exactly parallel with the exertions of the Abolitionists? Are not the northern and southern sections of our country distinct communities, with different feelings and interests? ”

“ I confess that I am wholly indebted to the Abolition cause for arousing me from apathy and indifference, and shedding light into a mind which has been too long wrapt in selfish darkness.’ The Abolition cause has exerted a powerful and healthful influence over this class of our population, and it has been done by quietly going into the midst of them, and identifying ourselves with them. ”

“ When the competency of the law-making power to abolish slavery, has thus been recognised 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? ”

“ Now let it be borne in mind, that abolitionism requires not only instant freedom for the slave, but also instant treatment of him, in every civil and political, as well as every social and religious respect, as if he were white, that is, in plain terms—if we should follow the dogmas you sent Mr. ”

“ But 'Abolition' of the most one-sided and suicidal description is less insulting to those who are lavishing blood and treasure on the great cause of freedom, than is the conduct, at this time, of those men who are now, through their traitorous organs, urging the cry that the hour is at hand when we must place slavery firmly on a constitutional basis; this being, as they assert, the only means whereby the Union can ever be harmoniously restored. ”

“ So in communities, the propriety and rectitude of measures can be decided, not by the rules of duty that should govern those who are to renounce sin, but by the probabilities of good or evil consequence.
The Abolitionists seem to lose sight of this distinction. They form voluntary associations in free States, to convince their fellow citizens of the sins of other men in other communities. They are blamed and opposed, because their measures are deemed inexpedient, and calculated to increase, rather than diminish the evils to be cured. ”

“ Slavery is abolished. The cause of antagonism is removed; and you must see that it is altogether illogical—‘putting new wine into old bottles, mending new garments with old clothes’—to legislate from slave-holding and slave-driving premises for a people whom you have repeatedly declared your purpose to maintain in freedom. ”

“ That the Abolitionists have not held the second of these positions, must be obvious to all who have read their documents. It would therefore be unwise and wrong to join an association which sustains a principle false in itself, and one which, if acted out, would tend to wrath and strife and every evil word and work.
Another reason, and the most important of all, against promoting the plans of the Abolitionists, is involved in the main question—what are the probabilities as to the results of their movements? ”

“ The great mistake of Abolitionists is in using terms which inculcate the immediate annihilation of the relation, when they only intend to urge the Christian duty of treating slaves according to the gospel rules of justice and benevolence, and using all lawful and appropriate means for bringing a most pernicious system to a speedy end. ”