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
You need not be surprised, then, at all, at what is said _against_
Abolitionists by the North, for they are wielding a two-edged sword,
which even here, cuts through the _cords of caste_, on the one side,
and the _bonds of interest_ on the other. They are only sharing the
fate of other reformers, abused and reviled whilst they are in the
minority; but they are neither angry nor discouraged by the invective
which has been heaped upon them by slaveholders at the South and their
apologists at the North. They know that when George Fox and William
Edmundson were laboring in behalf of the negroes in the West Indies in
1671 that the very _same_ slanders were propogated against them, which
are _now_ circulated against Abolitionists. Although it was well known
that Fox was the founder of a religious sect which repudiated _all_
war, and _all_ violence, yet _even he_ was accused of "endeavoring to
excite the slaves to insurrection and of teaching the negroes to cut
their master's throats." And these two men who had their feet shod
with the preparation of the Gospel of Peace, were actually compelled
to draw up a formal declaration that _they were not_ trying to raise
a rebellion in Barbadoes. It is also worthy of remark that these
Reformers did not at this time see the necessity of emancipation under
seven years, and their principal efforts were exerted to persuade
the planters of the necessity of instructing their slaves; but the
slaveholder saw then, just what the slaveholder sees now, that an
_enlightened_ population never can be a _slave_ population, and
therefore they passed a law that negroes should not even attend the
meetings of Friends. Abolitionists know that the life of Clarkson was
sought by slavetraders, and that even Wilberforce was denounced on the
floor of Parliament as a fanatic and a hypocrite by the present King
of England, the very man who, in 1834 set his seal to that instrument
which burst the fetters of eight hundred thousand slaves in his West
India colonies. They know that the first Quaker who bore a _faithful_
testimony against the sin of slavery was cut off from religious
fellowship with that society. That Quaker was a _woman_. On her
deathbed she sent for the committe who dealt with her--she told them,
the near approach of death had not altered her sentiments on the
subject of slavery and waving her hand towards a very fertile and
beautiful portion of country which lay stretched before her window,
she said with great solemnity, "Friends, the time will come when there
will not be friends enough in all this district to hold one meeting
for worship, and this garden will be turned into a wilderness."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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