An Appeal to the Christian Women of the SouthGrimké, Angelina Emily
Religion
An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South
Grimké, Angelina Emily
Slavery -- United States
The _women of the South can overthrow_ this horrible system of
oppression and cruelty, licentiousness and wrong. Such appeals to your
legislatures would be irresistible, for there is something in the
heart of man which _will bend under moral suasion_. There is a swift
witness for truth in his bosom, _which will respond to truth_ when
it is uttered with calmness and dignity. If you could obtain but six
signatures to such a petition in only one state, I would say, send up
that petition, and be not in the least discouraged by the scoffs and
jeers of the heartless, or the resolution of the house to lay it on
the table. It will be a great thing if the subject can be introduced
into your legislatures in any way, even by _women_, and _they_ will be
the most likely to introduce it there in the best possible manner, as
a matter of _morals_ and _religion_, not of expediency or politics.
You may petition, too, the different ecclesiastical bodies of the
slave states. Slavery must be attacked with the whole power of truth
and the sword of the spirit. You must take it up on _Christian_
ground, and fight against it with Christian weapons, whilst your feet
are shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. And _you are
now_ loudly called upon by the cries of the widow and the orphan, to
arise and gird yourselves for this great moral conflict, with the
whole armour of righteousness upon the right hand and on the left.
There is every encouragement for you to labor and pray, my friends,
because the abolition of slavery as well as its existence, has been
the theme of prophecy. "Ethiopia (says the Psalmist) shall stretch
forth her hands unto God." And is she not now doing so? Are not the
Christian negroes of the south lifting their hands in prayer for
deliverance, just as the Israelites did when their redemption was
drawing nigh? Are they not sighing and crying by reason of the hard
bondage? And think you, that He, of whom it was said, "and God heard
their groaning, and their cry came up unto him by reason of the hard
bondage," think you that his ear is heavy that he cannot _now_ hear
the cries of his suffering children? Or that He who raised up a Moses,
an Aaron, and a Miriam, to bring them up out of the land of Egypt from
the house of bondage, cannot now, with a high hand and a stretched out
arm, rid the poor negroes out of the hands of their masters? Surely
you believe that his aim is _not_ shortened that he cannot save. And
would not such a work of mercy redound to his glory? But another
string of the harp of prophecy vibrates to the song of deliverance:
"But they shall sit every man under his vine, and under his fig-tree,
and _none shall make them afraid;_ for the mouth of the Lord of Hosts
hath spoken it." The _slave_ never can do this as long as he is a
_slave_; whilst he is a "chattel personal" he can own _no_ property;
but the time _is to come_ when _every_ man is to sit under _his
own_ vine and _his own_ fig-tree, and no domineering driver, or
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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