Letters to Catherine E. Beecher, in reply to an essay on slavery and abolitionism, addressed to A. E. GrimkéGrimké, Angelina Emily
History
Letters to Catherine E. Beecher, in reply to an essay on slavery and abolitionism, addressed to A. E. Grimké
Grimké, Angelina Emily
Beecher, Catharine Esther, 1800-1878. Essay on slavery and abolitionism; Slavery -- United States
A correspondent of the Union Herald, a clergyman, and a graduate of one of
the colleges of Kentucky, says, ‘I find in this State _many_ who are
decidedly opposed to slavery--but few indeed take the ground that it is
right. I trust the cause of human rights is onward--_weekly, I receive two
copies of the Emancipator_, which I send out as battering rams, to beat
down the citadel of oppression.’ In a letter to James G. Birney, from a
gentleman in a slave State, we find this declaration: ‘Your paper, the
Philanthropist, is regularly distributed here, and as yet works no
incendiary results; and indeed, so far as I can learn, general
satisfaction is here expressed, both as to the temper and spirit of the
paper, and no disapprobation as to the results.’ At an Anti-Slavery
meeting last fall in Philadelphia, a gentleman from Delaware was present,
who rose and encouraged Abolitionists to go on, and said that he could
assure them the influence of their measures was felt there, and their
principles were gaining ground secretly and silently. The subject, he
informed them, was discussed there, and he believed Anti-Slavery lectures
could be delivered there with safety, and would produce important results.
Since that time, a lecturer has been into that State, and a State Society
has been formed, the secretary of which was the first editor of the
Emancipator, and is now pastor of the Baptist church in the capital of the
State. The North Carolina Watchman, published at Salisbury, in an article
on the subject of Abolition, has the following remarks of the editor: ‘It
[the abolition party] is the growing party at the North: we are inclined
to believe, that there is even _more of it at the South_, than prudence
will permit to be openly avowed.’ It rejoices our hearts to find that
there are some southerners who feel and acknowledge the infatuation of the
politicians of the South, and the philanthropy of abolitionists. The
Maryville Intelligencer of 1836, exclaims, ‘What sort of madness, produced
by a jaundiced and distorted conception of the feelings and motives by
which northern abolitionists are actuated, can induce the southern
political press to urge a severance of the tie that binds our Union
together? To offer rewards for those very individuals who stand as
_mediators_ between masters and slaves, urging the one to be obedient, and
the other to do justice?’
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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