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
Without delay, he acted in accordance with this conviction. He
addressed an admirable letter to Rev. Mr. Mills, Corresponding
Secretary of the Kentucky Colonization Society, announcing that
he must no longer be considered a member of that association, and
stating, in a very lucid and impressive manner, his weighty reasons
for disapproving of, and feeling impelled to oppose, an enterprise
in which he had taken so much interest, and to which he had devoted
so much time and labor. Better than this, he summoned all his slaves
into his presence, acknowledged that he had been guilty of great wrong
in holding them as his property, informed them that he had executed
deeds of manumission for each and all of them, and that henceforth
they were free men, free women, free children. He offered to retain
in his service all who preferred to remain with him, and to pay them
fair wages for their labor. None left him, and, as he himself told me,
they afterwards toiled not only more cheerfully than before, but more
effectively, and for a greater number of hours. In several instances
he had been impelled to go to them in person, and insist upon their
“hanging up the shovel and the hoe.” In the fall of 1834 he addressed
a letter to the members of the Presbyterian Synod, in the vicinity of
Danville, in which he pressed upon them the sinfulness of holding their
fellow-beings as property, and showed them the true Scripture doctrine
respecting slavery. He also visited the seat of government during the
session of the Kentucky Legislature, and conversed with many members.
He found that most of them regarded slavery as an evil which could not
be perpetual, but most of them recoiled from the plan of immediate
emancipation.
Convinced that this was the vital doctrine, he determined to do all
in his power to disseminate it among the people. For this purpose he
purchased a printing-press and types, and engaged a man to print for
him at Danville a paper to be called _The Philanthropist_. So soon as
his intention became known, his neighbors roused themselves to prevent
the execution of it. While he continued a slaveholder and in favor of
Colonization, it was proper and safe enough for him to express freely
his opinions. But when he became an immediate emancipationist, and
liberated his slaves, he was regarded as a dangerous man. And now that
he was preparing to disseminate his doctrines through the press, he was
to be denounced and silenced.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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