Review of a First Rate Cotton Plantation (1845), Frederick Law Olmstead - Document Overview
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Southerners certainly wrote about their world, extolling their culture and defending their peculiar institution, but many other people, such as Northerners and foreign visitors, journeyed to the South to see and comment on it for themselves. To them such a trip was a combination of exotic adventure and reformist crusade, for southern lands and ways fascinated, confused, and in some instances, repelled them. The South embodied such powerful dichotomies under its strong sun and shielding shade trees—beauty versus ugliness, good against evil—that the stories about it, fictional and factual, could not help but reflect that.
The tales were many and varied as the witnesses to the society and slavery of the South each saw or experienced different aspects of the culture. Slaves, and many free blacks, looked at southern society from the bottom up: from the bottom of the cotton and tobacco rows, the receiving end of the whip, and the rough floors of their quarters. Slaveowners saw it from quite a different perspective as they surveyed their fields from horseback or carriage, labored over the financial equation of provisions versus profits, and tried to establish or maintain comfortable, if not always gentile lifestyles. Their non-slaveowner neighbors wrestled with desire and distress: many desired to own their own laborers and thereupon build their estates, but some were distressed at the cost—both financial and moral. Visiting diarists and reporters often brought with them preconceived notions by which to interpret this southern scene, while the readers of their publications added their own interpretations. Thus, whether from different regions of America or from Europe, observers added their stories to that of the South.
That observers came from abroad, and that their accounts and those of Americans were published overseas as well as in the United States, indicates that southern society and the growing conflict between North and South, captivated and concerned foreign as well as domestic audiences. Slavery was an international issue. As the British and Foreign Anti-slavery Society noted in 1839, slavery existed in "British India, in the colonies of several of the nations of Europe, in the United States of America, in Texas, and in the Empire of Brazil." Anti-slavery organizations reached out to one another in attempts to end it in all of these places. Such international agitation and cooperation did serve to contain, though not eradicate, the trans-Atlantic slave trade in the early nineteenth century, but such activism faced greater resistance within nations. Although England abolished slavery in the British isles by the late eighteenth century, outlawed its slave trade in 1807, and then used its navy to police against illegal slaving on the oceans, some in England did not want the issue to interfere with other strategic and economic interests. Across the ocean, in accordance with a constitutional provision, Congress abolished the external slave trade in America in 1808, but smuggling, often via Cuban traders, continued. Furthermore, when foreign reformers condemned the institution as it existed within the states, slavery proponents and even some abolitionists decried outside intervention in the country's internal affairs.
Antislavery sentiment had appeared with the introduction of slavery in the colonial era, but the creation of a formal organization against the institution did not occur until the Revolution. As Americans debated and fought for liberty and freedom, some saw the inherent contradiction of slavery. That perception, especially when added to certain religious beliefs, led to antislavery activism. Quakers founded the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery in 1775. The society was essentially inactive during the war years, but in 1785 and especially 1787 when constitutional debate led to hopes of reform, the society vigorously pushed for abolition. It did not get what it wanted in the new Constitution, but at that time, even in the South, many agreed that slavery's days were numbered; the fact that manumission was on the rise seemed to give proof to that. Due to no sense of urgency, abolitionism languished. But when planters moved out into the rich lands of the Old Southwest, and after the cotton gin made the processing of that crop easier, slavery grew—and that growth spurred the development of a new abolitionist movement.
Advocates on both sides of this great struggle presented their basic premises in the 1830s and then rehashed them again and again throughout the 1840s and 1850s until they threw away the words to pick up arms. Slavery may not have been the only cause of the Civil War, but as a physical presence and ideological issue it helped dig the grave of, if not bury, the early union. Attacked and defended culturally, socially, politically, and religiously, the South's peculiar institution became America's particular problem.
Many nations of the Atlantic world and beyond contended with the issue of slavery in the nineteenth century. As part of their internal reforms and international relations, these countries sometimes struggled to define and implement notions of citizenship and universal human rights. Yet although slavery was an international problem, it was a distinct American tragedy. In the United States, it contributed to a particularly bloody internal war and illuminated discrepancies between ideology and practice in the republic that was supposed to stand as an enlightened example to the rest of the world.
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Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe
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Long after dusk, the whole weary
train, with their baskets on their
heads, defiled up to the building appropriated to the storing and weighing
the cotton. Legree was there, busily conversing with the two drivers.
"Dat ar Tom's gwine to make a powerful deal o'trouble; kept a
puttin' into Lucy's basket.—One o'these yer dat will get all der niggers
to feelin' 'bused, if Mas'r don't watch him!" said Sambo.
"Hey-dey! The black cuss!" said Legree. "He'll have
to get a breakin' in, won't he boys?"
Both negroes grinned a horrid grin at this intimation.
"Ay, ay! Let Mas'r Legree alone, for breakin in! De debil heself
couldn't beat Mas'r at that!" said quimbo.
"Wal, boys the best way is to give him the flogging to do, till
he gets over his notions. Break him in!"
"It'll have to come out of him, though!" said Legree, as
he rolled his tobacco in his mouth.
"Now, dar's Lucy,—de aggravatinest, ugliest wench on de place!" pursued Sambo.
"Take care, Sam; I shall begin to think what's the resaon for
your spit agin Lucy."
"Well, Mas'r knows she sot herself up agin Mas'r and wouldn't
have me, when he telled her to."
"Id a flogged her into 't," said Legree, spitting, "only
there's such a press o' work, it don't seem wuth a while to upset her jist
now. She's slender; but these yer slender gals with bear half killin' to
get their own way!"
"Wal, Lucy was real aggravatin' and lazy, sulkin' round; wouldn't
do nothin',—and Tom he tuck up for her."
"He did eh! Wal, then, Tom shall have the pleasure of floggin her.
It'll be a good practice for him, and he won't put it on to the gal like
you devils, neither."
"Ho, ho! haw! haw! haw!" laughed both to the sooty wretches;
and the diabolical sounds seemed, in truth, a not unapt expression of the
fiendish character which Legree gave them.
"Wal, but, Mas'r, Tom and Misse Cassy, and dey among 'em, filled
Lucy's basket. I ruther guess der weight's in it, Mas'r!"
"I do the weighing!" said Legree, emphatically.
Both the drivers laughed again their diabolical laugh.
"So!" he added, "Misse Cassy did her day's work."
"She picks like de debil and all his angels!"
She's got 'em all in her, I believe!" said Legree; and growling
a brutal oath, he proceeded to the weighing room.
Slowly, the weary dispirited creatures wound their way into the room,
and, with crouching reluctance, presented their baskets to be weighed.
Legree noted on a slate, on the side of which was pasted a list of
names, the amount.
Tom's basket was weighed and approved; and he looked, with an anxious
glance, for the success of the woman he had befriended. Tottering with
weakness, she came forward, and delivered her basket. It was of full weight,
as Legree well perceived; but, affecting anger, her said,—
"What, you lazy beast! short again! stand aside, you'll catch
it pretty soon!"
The woman gave a groan of utter despair, and sat sown on a board.
The person who had been called Misse Cassy now came forward, and, with
a haughty, negligent air, delivered her basket. As she delivered it, Legree
looked in her eyes with a sneering yet inquiring glance.
She fixed her black eyes steadily on him, her lips moved slightly, and
she said something in French. What it was, no one know, but Legree's face
became perfectly demoniacal in its expression as she spoke; he half raised
his hand as if to strike,—a gesture which she regarded with fierce disdain,
as she turned and walked away.
"And now: said Legree, "come here, you Tom. You see I telled
ye I didn't buy ye jest for the common work; I mean to promote ye, and
make a driver of ye; and tonight ye may jest as well begin to get yer hand
in. Now, ye jest take this yer gal and flog her; ye've seen enough on't
to now how."
"I beg Mas'r's pardon," said Tom; "hopes Mas'r won't
set me at that. It's what I an't used to,—never did,—and can't do, no way
possible."
"Ye'll larn a pretty smart chance of things ye never did know,
before I've done with ye!" said Legree, taking up a cowhide and striking
Tom a heavy blow across the cheek, and following up the infliction by a
shower of blows.
"There" he said, as he stopped to rest, "now will ye
tell me ye can't do it?"
"Yes Mas'r,: said Tom, putting up his hand to wipe the blood that
trickled down his face. "I'm willin' to work night and day, and work
while there's life and breath in me; but this yer thing I can't feel it
right to do; and, Mas'r I never shall do it,—never!"
Tom had a remarkably smooth, soft voice, and a habitually respectful manner
that had given Legree an idea that he would be cowardly, and easily subdued.
When he spoke these last words, a thrill of amazement went through everyone,
the poor woman clasped her hands and said, "O Lord!" and everyone
involuntarily looked at each other and drew in their breath, as if to prepare
for the storm that was about to burst.
Legree looked stupefied and confounded, but at last burst forth,—
"What! Ye blasted black beast ! tell me ye don't think
it right to do what I tell ye! What have any of you cussed cattle
to do with thinking what's right? I'll put a stop to it! Why, what do ye
think ye are? May be ye think ye're a gentleman, master Tom, to be a telling
your master what's right and what an't! So you pretend it's wrong to flog
the gal!"
"I think so, Mas'r," said Tom, "the poor crittur's sick
and feeble; 't would be downright cruel, and it's what I never will do,
nor begin to. Mas'r if you mean to kill me, kill me, but as to my raising
my hand agin anyone here, I never shall,—I'll die first!"
Tom spoke in a mild voice but with a decision that could not be mistaken.
Legree shook with anger; his greenish eyes glared fiercely and his very
whiskers seemed to curl with passion; but, like some ferocious beast that
plays with its victim before he devours it, he kept back his strong impulse
to proceed to immediate violence and broke out into bitter raillery.
"Well, here's a pious dog, at last, let down among us sinners!—a
saint, a gentleman, and no less, to talk to us sinners about our sins!
Powerful, holy crittur, he must be! Here, you rascal, you make believe
to be so pious,—didn't you never hear out of yer Bible, 'Servants, obey
yer masters'? An't I yer master? Didn't I pay down twelve hundred dollars,
cash, for all there is inside yer old cussed black shell? An't yer mine,
now body and soul?" he said, giving Tom a violent kick with his heavy
boot. "Tell me!"
In the very depth of physical suffering, bowed by brutal oppression,
this question shot a gleam of joy and triumph through Tom's soul. He suddenly
stretched himself up, and, looking earnestly to heaven, while the tears
and blood that flowed down his face mingled, he exclaimed—
"No! no! no! my soul an't yours, Mas'r! You haven't bought it,—ye
can't buy it. It's been bought and paid for by open that is able to keep
it—no matter, no matter, you can't harm me!"
"I can't!" said Legree, with a sneer, "we'll see,—we'll
see! Here Sambo, Quimbo, give this dog such a breakin' in as he won't get
over this month!"
The two gigantic negroes that now laid hold of Tom, with fiendish exultation
in their faces, might have formed no unapt personification of the powers
of darkness. The poor woman screamed with apprehension, and all rose, as
by a general impulse, while they dragged him unresisting from the place.
[From Harriet Beecher Stowe,
Uncle Tom's Cabin, Or Life Among the
Lowly (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1886), pp. 396–99.]
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Thomas R. Dew Defends Slavery (1852)
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It is said slavery is wrong, in the abstract at least, and contrary to the spirit of Christianity. To this we answer . . . that any question must be determined by its circumstances, and if, as really is the case, we cannot get rid of slavery without producing a greater injury to both the masters and slaves, there is no rule of conscience or revealed law of God which can condemn us. The physician will not order the spreading cancer to be extirpated although it will eventually cause the death of his patient, because he would thereby hasten the fatal issue.
So, if slavery had commenced even contrary to the laws of God and man, and the sin of its introduction rested upon our heads, and it was even carrying forward the nation by slow degrees to final ruin—yet if it were certain that an attempt to remove it would only hasten and heighten the final catastrophe . . . then we would only be found to attempt the extirpation but we would stand guilty of a high offense in the sight of both God and man if we should rashly made the effort. But the original sin of introduction rest[s] not on our heads, and we shall soon see that all those dreadful calamities which the false prophets of our day are pointing to will never, in all probability, occur.
With regard to the assertion that slavery is against the spirit of Christianity, we are ready to admit the general assertion, but deny most positively that there is anything in the Old or New Testament which would go to show that slavery, when once introduced, ought at all events to be abrogated, or that the master commits any offense in holding slaves. The children of Israel themselves were slaveholders wand were not condemned for it. All the patriarchs themselves were slaveholders; Abraham had more than three hundred, Isaac had a "great store" of them; and even the patient and meek Job himself had "a very great household." When the children of Israel conquered the land of Canaan, they made one whole tribe "hewers of wood and drawers of water," and they were at that very time under the special guidance of Jehovah; they were permitted expressly to purchase slaves of the heathen and keep them as an inheritance for their posterity; and even the children of Israel might be enslaved for six years.
When we turn to the New Testament, we find hot one single passage at all calculated to disturb the conscience of an honest slaveholder. No one can read it without seeing and admiring that the meek and humble Saviour of the world in no instance meddled with the established institutions of mankind; he came to save a fallen work, and not to excite the black passions of man and array them in deadly hostility against each other. From no one did he turn away; his plan was offered alike to all—to the monarch and the subject, the rich and the poor, the master and the slave. He was born in the Roman world, a world in which the most galling slavery existed, a thousand times more cruel than the slavery in our own country; and yet he nowhere encourages insurrection, he nowhere fosters discontent; but exhorts always to implicit obedience and fidelity.
What a rebuke does the practice of the Redeemer of mankind imply upon the conduct of some of his nominal disciples of the day, who seek to destroy the contentment of the slave, to rouse their most deadly passions, to break up the deep foundations of society, and to lead on to a night of darkness and confusion! "Let every man," (says Paul) "abide in the same calling wherein he is called. Art thou called being a servant? Care not for it; but if thou mayest be made free, use it rather" (I Corinth. vii. 20,21). . . . Servants are even commanded in Scripture to be faithful and obedient to unkind masters. "Servants," (says Peter) "be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle but to the froward. For what glory is it if when ye shall be buffeted for your faults ye take it patiently; but if when ye do will and suffer for it, yet take it patiently, this is acceptable with God" (I Peter ii. 18,20). These and many other passages in the New Testament most convincingly prove that slavery in the Roman world was nowhere charged as a fault or crime upon the holder, and everywhere is the most implicit obedience enjoined.
We beg leave . . . to address a few remarks to those who have conscienctious scruples about the holding of slaves, and therefore consider themsleves under an obligation to break all the ties of friendship and kindred—dissolve all the associations of happier days to flee to a land where this evil does not exist. We cannot condemn the conscientious actions of mankind, but we must be permitted to say that if the assumption even of these pious gentelmen be correct, we do consider their conduct as very unphilosophical; and we will go further still: we look upon it as even immoral upon their own principles.
Let us admit that slavery is an evil; and what then? Why, it has been entailed upon us by no fault of ours, and must we shrink from the charges which devolves upon us, and throw the slave, in consequence, unto those hands of those who have no scruples of conscience—those who will not perhaps treat him so kindly? No! This is not philosophy, it is not morality; . . .
Look to the slaveholding population of our country and you everywhere find them characterized by noble and elevated sentiments, by humane and virtuous feelings. We do not find among them that cold, contracted, calculating selfishness, which withers and repels everything around it, and lessens or destroys all the multiplied enjoyments of social intercourse. Go into our national councils and ask for the most generous, the most disinterested, the most conscientious, and the least unjust and oppressive in their principles, and see whether the slaveholder will be passed by in the selection. . . .
Is it not a fact known to every man in the South that the most cruel masters are those who have been unaccustomed to slavery. It is well known that Northern gentleman who marry Southern heiresses are much severer masters than Southern gentlemen. . . . There may be many cruel masters, and there are unkind and cruel fathers too; but both the one and the other make all those around them shudder with horror. We are disposed to think that their example in society tends rather to strengthen than weaken the principle of benevolence and humanity.
Every one acquainted with Southern slaves knows that the slave rejoices in the elevation and prosperity of his master; and the heart of no one is more gladdened at the successful debut of the young master or miss on the great theater of the world than that of either the young slave who has grown up with them and shared in all their sports, and even partaken of all their delicacies, or the aged one who has looked on and watched them from birth to manhood, with the kindest and most affectionate solicitude, and has ever met from them all the kind treatment and generous sympathies of feeling, tender hearts. . . .
We have often heard slaveholders affirm that they would sooner rely upon their slaves' fidelity and attachment in the hour of danger and severe trial than on any other equal number of individuals; and we all know that the son or daughter who has been long absent from the parental roof, on returning to the scenes of infancy, never fails to be greeted with the kindest welcome and the most sincere and heartfelt congratulations from those slaves among whom he has been reared to manhood. . . .
A merrier being does not exist on the face of the globe than the Negro slave of the United States. . . . Why, then, since the slave if happy, and happiness is the great object of all animated creation, should we endeavor to disturb his contentment by infusing into his mind a vain and indefinite desire for liberty—a something which he cannot comprehend, and which must inevitably dry up the very sources of his happiness.
The fact is that all of us, . . are too prone to judge of the happiness of others by ourselves—we make self the standard and endeavor to draw down everyone to its dimensions—not recollecting that the benevolence of the Omnipotent has made the mind of man pliant and susceptible of happiness in almost every situation and employment. We might rather die than be the obscure slave that waits at our back—our education and our habits generate an ambition that makes us aspire at something loftier, and disposes us to look upon the slave as unsusceptible of happiness in his humble sphere, when he may indeed be much happier than we are, and have his ambition too; but his ambition is to excel all this other slaves in the performance of his servile duties, to please and to gratify his master, and to command the praise of all who witness his exertions.
It has been contended that slavery is unfavorable to a republican spirit; but the whole history of the world proves that this is far from being the case. In the ancient republics of Greece and Rome, where the spirit of liberty glowed with the most intensity, the slaves were more numerous than the freemen. Aristotle and the great men of antiquity believed slavery necessary to keep alive the spirit of freedom. In Sparta the freeman were even forbidden to perform the offices of slaves, lest [they] might lose the spirit of independence. In modern times, too, liberty has always been more ardently desired by slaveholding communities
. . . The menial and low offices being all performed by the blacks, there is at once taken away the greatest cause of distinction and separation of the ranks of society. The man to the north will not shake hands familiarly with his servant, and converse and laugh and dine with him, no matter how honest and respectable he may be. But go to the south, and you will find that no white man feels such inferiority of rank as to be unworthy of association with those around him. Color alone here is the badge of distinction, the true mark of aristocracy, and all who are white are equal in spite of the variety of occupation. . . . And it is this spirit of equality which is both the generator and preserver of the genuine spirit of liberty.
[From
The Pro-Slavery Argument: As Maintained by the most Distinguished Writers of the Southern States, Containing the Several Essays, on the Subject, of Chancellor Harper, Governor Hammond, Dr. Simms, and Professor Dew. (Charleston: Walker, Richards, 1852) pp. 451–62. Some paragraphing has been added to the original.]
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Declaration of Sentiments of the American Anti-Slavery Society, William Lloyd Garrison (1833)
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In 1833, the same year that Lydia Maria Child published her appeal, a group of abolitionists gathered together to found the American Anti-Slavery Society. A number of the representatives had been involved in the creation of the New England Anti-Slavery Society in 1832 and the New York society that followed, but they believed that there should be a national organization. Prominent among them was William Lloyd Garrison (1805–1879). Garrison gave his first public address against slavery in 1829, and soon thereafter, in 1831, began publishing the Boston Liberator. Over the next three decades he vigorously fought slavery with words even as he opposed violence to free the slaves. Besides his public speeches and Liberator editorials, Garrison helped to draft the New England society's constitution as well as the Declaration of Sentiments of the American Anti-Slavery Society. He also served as president of the latter society from 1843 to 1865.
The Convention assembled in the city of Philadelphia, to organize a National Anti-Slavery Society, promptly seize the opportunity to promulgate the following Declaration of Sentiments, as cherished by them in relation to the enslavement of one-sixth portion of the American people.
More than fifty-seven years have elapsed, since a band of patriots convened in this place, to devise measures for the deliverance of this country from a foreign yoke. The corner-stone upon which they founded the Temple of Freedom was broadly this—'that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, LIBERTY, and the pursuit of happiness.' . . .
We have met together for the achievement of an enterprise, without which that of our fathers is incomplete; and which, for its magnitude, solemnity, and probable results upon the destiny of the world, as far transcends theirs as moral truth does physical force.
* * *
Their principles led them to wage war against their oppressors, and to spill human blood like water, in order to be free. Ours forbid the doing of evil that good may come, and lead us to reject, and to entreat the oppressed to reject, the use of all carnal weapons for deliverance from bondage; relying solely upon those which are spiritual, and mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds.
Their measures were physical resistance—the marshalling in arms—the hostile array—the mortal encounter. Ours shall be such only as the opposition of moral purity to moral corruption—the destruction of error by the potency of truth—the overthrow of prejudice by the power of love—and the abolition of slavery by the spirit of repentance.
Their grievances, great as they were, were trifling in comparison with the wrongs and sufferings of those for whom we plead. Our fathers were never slaves—never bought and sold like cattle—never shut out from the light of knowledge and religion—never subjected to the lash of brutal taskmasters.
But those, for whose emancipation we are striving—constituting at the present time at least one-sixth part of our countrymen—are recognized by law, and treated by their fellow-beings, as marketable commodities, as goods and chattels, as brute beasts; . . . For the crime of having a dark complexion, they suffer the pangs of hunger, the infliction of stripes, the ignominy of brutal servitude. They are kept in heathenish darkness by laws expressly enacted to make their instruction a criminal offence.
These are the prominent circumstances in the condition of more than two millions of our people, the proof of which may be found in thousands of indisputable facts, and in the laws of the slave-holding States.
Hence we maintain—that, in view of the civil and religious privileges of this nation, the guilt of its oppression is unequalled by any other on the face of the earth; and, therefore, that it is bound to repent instantly, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free.
We further maintain—that no man has a right to enslave or imbrute his brother—to hold or acknowledge him, for one moment, as a piece of merchandize—to keep back his hire by fraud—or to brutalize his mind, by denying him the means of intellectual, social and moral improvement.
The right to enjoy liberty is inalienable. To invade it is to usurp the prerogative of Jehovah. Every man has a right to his own body—to the products of his own labor—to the protection of law—and to the common advantages of society. It is piracy to buy or steal a native African, and subject him to servitude. Surely, the sin is as great to enslave an American as an African.
Therefore we believe and affirm—that there is no difference, in principle, between the African slave trade and American slavery:
That every American citizen, who detains a human being in involuntary bondage as his property, is, according to Scripture, (Ex. xxi. 16,) a man-stealer:
That the slaves ought instantly to be set free, and brought under the protection of law:
That if they had lived from the time of Pharaoh down to the present period, and had been entailed through successive generations, their right to be free could never have been alienated, but their claims would have constantly risen in solemnity:
That all those laws which are now in force, admitting the right of slavery, are therefore, before God, utterly null and void; being an audacious usurpation of the Divine prerogative, a daring infringement on the law of nature, a base overthrow of the very foundations of the social compact, a complete extinction of all the relations, endearments and obligations of mankind, and a presumptuous transgression of all the holy commandments; and that therefore they ought instantly to be abrogated.
We further believe and affirm—that all persons of color, who possess the qualifications which are demanded of others, ought to be admitted forthwith to the enjoyment of the same privileges, and the exercise of the same prerogatives, as others; and that the paths of preferment, of wealth, and of intelligence, should be opened as widely to them as to persons of a white complexion.
We maintain that no compensation should be given to the planters emancipating their slaves:
Because it would be a surrender of the great fundamental principle, that man cannot hold property in man:
Because slavery is a crime, and therefore is not an article to be sold:
Because the holders of slaves are not the just proprietors of what they claim; freeing the slave is not depriving them of property, but restoring it to its rightful owner; it is not wronging the master, but righting the slave—restoring him to himself:
Because immediate and general emancipation would only destroy nominal, not real property; it would not amputate a limb or break a bone of the slaves, but by infusing motives into their breasts, would make them doubly valuable to the masters as free laborers; and
Because, if compensation is to be given at all, it should be given to the outraged and guiltless slaves, and not to those who have plundered and abused them.
We regard as delusive, cruel and dangerous, any scheme of expatriation which pretends to aid, either directly or indirectly, in the emancipation of the slaves, or to be a substitute for the immediate and total abolition of slavery.
We fully and unanimously recognise the sovereignty of each State, to legislate exclusively on the subject of the slavery which is tolerated within its limits; we concede that Congress, under the present national compact, has no right to interfere with any of the slave States, in relation to this momentous subject:
But we maintain that Congress has a right, and is solemnly bound, to suppress the domestic slave trade between the several States, and to abolish slavery in those portions of our territory which the Constitution has placed under its exclusive jurisdiction.
We also maintain that there are, at the present time, the highest obligations resting upon the people of the free States to remove slavery by moral and political action, as prescribed in the Constitution of the United States. They are now living under a pledge of their tremendous physical force, to fasten the galling fetters of tyranny upon the limbs of millions in the Southern States; they are liable to be called at any moment to suppress a general insurrection of the slaves; they authorize the slave owner to vote for three-fifths of his slaves as property, and thus enable him to perpetuate his oppression; they support a standing army at the South for its protection; and they seize the slave, who has escaped into their territories, and send him back to be tortured by an enraged master or a brutal driver. This relation to slavery is criminal, and full of danger: IT MUST BE BROKEN UP.
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We shall organize Anti-Slavery Societies, if possible, in every city, town and village in our land.
We shall send forth agents to lift up the voice of remonstrance, of warning, of entreaty, and of rebuke.
We shall circulate, unsparingly and extensively, antislavery tracts and periodicals.
We shall enlist the pulpit and the press in the cause of the suffering and the dumb.
We shall aim at a purification of the churches from all participation in the guilt of slavery.
We shall encourage the labor of freemen rather than that of slaves, by giving a preference to their productions: and
We shall spare no exertions nor means to bring the whole nation to speedy repentance.
Our trust for victory is solely in God. We may be personally defeated, but our principles never. Truth, Justice, Reason, Humanity, must and will gloriously triumph. . . .
* * *
Done at Philadelphia, December 6th, A.D.1833
[From
Selections from the Writings and Speeches of William Lloyd Garrison. Orig. publ. in 1852 by R. F. Wallcut. (New York: Negro Universities Press, 1968), pp. 66–71.]
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