History of American Abolitionism: Its four great epochs, embracing narratives of the ordinance of 1787, compromise of 1820, annexation of Texas, Mexican war, Wilmot proviso, negro insurrections, abolition riots, slave rescues, compromise of 1850, Kansas bill of 1854, John Brown insurrection, 1859, valuable statistics, &c., &c., &c., together with a history of the Southern Confederacy.De Fontaine, F. G. (Felix Gregory)
History
History of American Abolitionism: Its four great epochs, embracing narratives of the ordinance of 1787, compromise of 1820, annexation of Texas, Mexican war, Wilmot proviso, negro insurrections, abolition riots, slave rescues, compromise of 1850, Kansas bill of 1854, John Brown insurrection, 1859, valuable statistics, &c., &c., &c., together with a history of the Southern Confederacy.
De Fontaine, F. G. (Felix Gregory)
Antislavery movements -- United States
There are two classes of persons opposed to the continued existence of
slavery in the United States. The first are those who are actuated by
sentiments of philanthropy and humanity, but are at the same time no less
opposed to any disturbance of the peace or tranquility of the Union, or to
any infringement of the powers of the States composing the confederacy.
Among these may be classed the society of "Friends," one of whose
established principles is an abhorrence of war in all its forms, and the
cultivation of peace and good will amongst mankind. As far back as 1670,
the ancient records of their society refer to the peaceful and exemplary
efforts of the sect to prevent the holding of slaves by any of their
number; and a quaint incident is related of an eccentric "Friend," who, at
one of their monthly meetings, "seated himself among the audience with a
bladder of bullock's blood secreted under his mantle, and at length broke
the quiet stillness of the worship by rising in full view of the
congregation, piercing the bladder, spilling the blood upon the floor and
seats, and exclaiming with all the solemnity of an inspired prophet, 'Thus
shall the Lord spill the blood of those that traffic in the blood of their
fellow men.'"
The second class are the real ultra abolitionists--the "reformers" who, in
the language of Henry Clay, are "resolved to persevere at all hazards, and
without regard to any consequences, however calamitous they may be. With
them the rights of property are nothing; the deficiency of the powers of
the general government is nothing; the acknowledged and incontestible
powers of the State are nothing; civil war, a dissolution of the Union,
and the overthrow of a government in which are concentrated the fondest
hopes of the civilized world, are nothing. They are for the immediate
abolition of slavery, the prohibition of the removal of slaves from State
to State, and the refusal to admit any new State comprising within its
limits the institution of domestic slavery--all these being but so many
means conducive to the accomplishment of the ultimate but perilous end at
which they avowedly and boldly aim--so many short stages, as it were, in
the long and bloody road to the distant goal at which they would
ultimately arrive. Their purpose is abolition, 'peaceably if it can,
forcibly if it must.'"
Utterly destitute of Constitutional or other rightful power; living in
totally distinct communities, as alien to the communities in which the
subject on which they would operate resides, as far as concerns political
power over that subject, as if they lived in Asia or Africa, they
nevertheless promulgate to the world their purpose to immediately convert
without compensation four millions of profitable and contented slaves into
four millions of burdensome and discontented negroes.
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