An Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism: With reference to the duty of American femalesBeecher, Catharine Esther
Philosophy
An Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism: With reference to the duty of American females
Beecher, Catharine Esther
Abolitionists -- United States; Antislavery movements -- United States; Slavery -- United States
What agitation will ensue in individual States, when it is to be decided
by majorities which State shall go to the North and which to the South,
and when the discontented minority must either give up or fight! Who
shall divide our public lands between contending factions? What shall be
done with our navy and all the various items of the nation's property?
What shall be done when the post-office stops its steady movement to
divide its efforts among contending parties? What shall be done when
public credit staggers, when commerce furls her slackened sail, when
property all over the nation changes its owners and relations? What
shall be done with our canals and railways, now the bands of love to
bind us, then the causes of contention and jealousy? What umpire will
appear to settle all these questions of interest and strife, between
communities thrown asunder by passion, pride, and mutual injury?
It is said that the American people, though heedless and sometimes
reckless at the approach of danger, are endowed with a strong and
latent principle of common sense, which, when they fairly approach the
precipice, always brings them to a stand, and makes them as wise to
devise a remedy as they were rash in hastening to the danger. Are we not
approaching the very verge of the precipice? Can we not already hear the
roar of the waters below? Is not now the time, if ever, when our stern
principles and sound common sense must wake to the rescue?
Cannot the South be a little more patient under the injurious action
that she feels she has suffered, and cease demanding those concessions
from the North, that never will be made? For the North, though slower to
manifest feeling, is as sensitive to her right of freedom of speech, as
the South can be to her rights of property.
Cannot the North bear with some unreasonable action from the South, when
it is remembered that, as the provocation came from the North, it is
wise and Christian that the aggressive party should not so strictly
hold their tempted brethren to the rules of right and reason?
Cannot the South bear in mind that at the North the colour of the skin
does not take away the feeling of brotherhood, and though it is a badge
of degradation in station and intellect, yet it is oftener regarded with
pity and sympathy than with contempt? Cannot the South remember their
generous feelings for the Greeks and Poles, and imagine that some such
feelings may be awakened for the African race, among a people who do not
believe either in the policy or the right of slavery?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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