Report of the Twentieth National Anti-Slavery BazaarWeston, A. W.
History
Report of the Twentieth National Anti-Slavery Bazaar
Weston, A. W.
Antislavery movements -- Massachusetts; Bazaars (Charities) -- Massachusetts -- Boston
It is not exactly thus with our coadjutors in Great Britain. Private
correspondence assures us that there, the position of the Society with
which the Bazaar stands identified, is not wholly apprehended, or even
when apprehended, accepted without much reservation and distrust. By
incessant pains and promulgation, we have at length made men
understand, partially, at least, the catholicity and breadth of our
platform; that on it, men and women of all nations, and conditions,
and creeds, and politics, can meet in harmonious action, ignoring, for
the time, all other differences of opinion, and united, so far as
their Anti-Slavery life is concerned, by the recognition of the sin of
Slavery, _under all circumstances_, and the duty, consequently, of its
immediate abolition. Charges, grossly injurious and untrue, have been
alleged against us. It has been said that, on this platform, we have
brought irrelevant and extraneous topics, and have endeavored to make
use of the time and instrumentalities of the Society, for the
inculcation of opinions foreign to the objects of our association.
These charges have their foundation either in enmity to the great
principles that we represent, or in the strangest misapprehension. The
dominant sects of the country can hardly understand that certain
great, and, in their eyes, all-important doctrines, are no more to be
asserted as truths on our platform, except incidentally, than are the
converse propositions. Their members can enforce and illustrate
Anti-Slavery truth in whatever way they please; but if smaller and
more heretical bodies, represented in our councils, choose to use the
same liberty, by speaking in their own theological tongue, the Society
holds itself responsible for neither. It does not forbid the believer
in endless punishment to urge repentance on slaveholders and
pro-slavery men, by all the motives drawn from his own tremendous
creed; neither has it aught to object when the preacher of a universal
salvation enforces the same repentance, by alluding to the mercies
that will, as he thinks, be extended to all. It is vulgarly said, “It
takes all sorts of people to make a world.” It takes all sorts of
sects, and creeds, and parties, to make up a _pro-slavery_ world; and
hence, when we rally for the slave’s liberation, common sense calls on
us to unite all sects, and creeds, and parties in an Anti-Slavery
fellowship. To make their arguments and appeals effective, people must
necessarily use such as are real and influential to their own
convictions; but if the slave’s redemption be not their end, but
simply the inculcation of their own theories on other subjects, be
such theories right or wrong, then are the parties thus offending
guilty of great and highly blameable dishonesty. Against such, the
Society guards itself as effectually as a liberal interpretation of
parliamentary rules will admit. We believe no Society, of so entirely
popular a character, ever sinned less in respect to extraneous topics.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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