The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 2 of 4American Anti-Slavery Society
History
The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 2 of 4
American Anti-Slavery Society
Antislavery movements -- United States -- Periodicals; Slavery -- United States -- Periodicals
2d. That the repeated efforts of the home Government and the local
Legislature, for several successive years previous to 1834, to
_ameliorate_ the system of slavery, seconded by the labors of clergymen
and missionaries, teachers and catechists, to improve the character of
the slaves, failed to arrest the current of vice and profligacy. What
few reformations were effected were very partial, leaving the more
enormous immoralities as shameless and defiant as ever, up to the very
day of abolition; demonstrating the utter impotence of all attempts to
purify the _streams_ while the _fountain_ is poison.
3d. That the abolition of slavery gave the death blow to open vice,
overgrown and emboldened as it had become. Immediate emancipation,
instead of lifting the flood-gates, was the only power strong enough to
shut them down! It restored the proper restraints upon vice, and
supplied the incentives to virtue. Those great controllers of moral
action, _self-respect, attachment to law, and veneration for God_, which
slavery annihilated, _freedom has resuscitated_, and now they stand
round about the emancipated with flaming swords deterring from evil, and
with cheering voices exhorting to good. It is explicitly affirmed that
the grosser forms of immorality, which in every country attend upon
slavery, have in Antigua either shrunk into concealment or
become extinct.
BENEVOLENT INSTITUTIONS.
We insert here a brief account of the benevolent institutions of
Antigua. Our design in giving it, is to show the effect of freedom in
bringing into play those charities of social life, which slavery
uniformly stifles. Antigua abounds in benevolent societies, all of which
have been _materially revived_ since emancipation, and some of them have
been formed since that event.
THE BIBLE SOCIETY.
This is the oldest society in the island. It was organized in 1815. All
denominations in the island cordially unite in this cause. The principal
design of this society is to promote the Circulation of the Scriptures
among the laboring population of the island. To secure this object
numerous branch associations--amounting to nearly fifty--have been
organized throughout the island _among the negroes themselves._ The
society has been enabled not only to circulate the Scriptures among the
people of Antigua, but to send them extensively to the neighboring
islands.
The following table, drawn up at our request by the Secretary of the
Society, will show the extent of foreign operations:
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