Some Recollections of Our Antislavery ConflictMay, Samuel J. (Samuel Joseph)
History
Some Recollections of Our Antislavery Conflict
May, Samuel J. (Samuel Joseph)
Antislavery movements -- United States
been their professions. As well might we deny that David was a gross
adulterer and mean murderer, because he wrote some very devotional
psalms.
A more marvellous inconsistency in the book before us is this. The
Doctor declares “that cruelty is not the habit of the slave States
in this country.” “He might have affirmed just as truly,” said Mr.
Garrison, “that idolatry is not the habit of pagan countries.” What
is cruelty? The extremest is the reducing of a human being to the
condition of a domesticated brute, a piece of mere property. The Doctor
himself has said as much in another part of this volume, see the 26th
page in his excellent chapter on “Property.” Having described what man
is by nature, he adds, “The sacrifice of such a being to another’s
will, to another’s present, outward, ill-comprehended good, _is the
greatest violence which can be offered to any creature of God_. It is
to cast him out from God’s spiritual family into the brutal herd.”
“No robbery is _so great_ as that to which the slave is _habitually_
subjected.” “The slave _must_ meet cruel _treatment_ either inwardly
or outwardly. Either the soul or the body must receive the blow.
Either the flesh must be tortured or the spirit be struck down.” No
Abolitionist, not even Mr. Garrison, has set forth more clearly the
extreme cruelty, inseparable from holding a fellow-man in slavery one
hour.
Still Dr. Channing objected to our primal doctrine,--“immediate
emancipation.” But could there have been a more obvious inference than
this, which an upright mind would unavoidably draw from a consideration
of the rights of man, the evils of slavery, and the unparalleled
iniquity of subjecting a human being to such degradation. I ask, could
there have been a more obvious inference than that any, every human
being held in such a condition ought to be _immediately released_ from
it? It is plain to me that Dr. Channing himself drew the same inference
that Elizabeth Heyrick,[H] of England, and Mr. Garrison had drawn,
although he rejected the trenchant phrase in which they declared that
inference. Having exhibited so faithfully and feelingly the wrongs and
the evils of slavery, he says, on the 119th page of this book: “What,
then, is to be done for the removal of slavery? _In the first place_,
the slaveholder should solemnly disclaim the right of property in human
beings. The great principle that man cannot belong to man should be
distinctly recognized. The slave should be acknowledged as a partaker
of a common nature, as having the essential rights of humanity.
This great truth lies at the foundation of every wise plan for his
relief.” Would not any one suppose, if he had not been forbidden the
supposition, that the writer of these lines intended to enjoin the
_immediate_ emancipation of the enslaved? Surely, he would have _the
first thing_ that is to be done for their relief done immediately.
Surely, he would have the foot of the oppressor taken from their necks
_at once_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account