The Conflict with Slavery: Part 1 from The Works of John Greenleaf Whittier, Volume VIIWhittier, John Greenleaf
Philosophy
The Conflict with Slavery: Part 1 from The Works of John Greenleaf Whittier, Volume VII
Whittier, John Greenleaf
Antislavery movements -- United States; Slavery -- United States
thousand of the descendants of these stolen natives, born in this
country, is considered altogether excusable and proper! For my own part,
I know no difference between robbery in Africa and robbery at home. I
could with as quiet a conscience engage in the one as the other.
"There is not one general principle," justly remarks Lord Nugent, "on
which the slave-trade is to be stigmatized which does not impeach slavery
itself." Kindred in iniquity, both must fall speedily, fall together,
and be consigned to the same dishonorable grave. The spirit which is
thrilling through every nerve of England is awakening America from her
sleep of death. Who, among our statesmen, would not shrink from the
baneful reputation of having supported by his legislative influence the
slave-trade, the traffic in human flesh? Let them then beware; for the
time is near at hand when the present defenders of slavery will sink
under the same fatal reputation, and leave to posterity a memory which
will blacken through all future time, a legacy of infamy.
"Let us not betake us to the common arts and stratagems of nations, but
fear God, and put away the evil which provokes Him; and trust not in man,
but in the living God; and it shall go well for England!" This counsel,
given by the purehearted William Penn, in a former age, is about to be
followed in the present. An intense and powerful feeling is working in
the mighty heart of England; it is speaking through the lips of Brougham
and Buxton and O'Connell, and demanding justice in the name of humanity
and according to the righteous law of God. The immediate emancipation of
eight hundred thousand slaves is demanded with an authority which cannot
much longer be disputed or trifled with. That demand will be obeyed;
justice will be done; the heavy burdens will be unloosed; the oppressed
set free. It shall go well for England.
And when the stain on our own escutcheon shall be seen no more; when the
Declaration of our Independence and the practice of our people shall
agree; when truth shall be exalted among us; when love shall take the
place of wrong; when all the baneful pride and prejudice of caste and
color shall fall forever; when under one common sun of political liberty
the slave-holding portions of our republic shall no longer sit, like the
Egyptians of old, themselves mantled in thick darkness, while all around
them is glowing with the blessed light of freedom and equality, then, and
not till then, shall it go well for America!
THE ABOLITIONISTS.
THEIR SENTIMENTS AND OBJECTS.
Two letters to the 'Jeffersonian and Times', Richmond, Va.
I.
A FRIEND has banded me a late number of your paper, containing a brief
notice of a pamphlet, which I have recently published on the subject of
slavery.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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