Letters to Catherine E. Beecher, in reply to an essay on slavery and abolitionism, addressed to A. E. Grimké — Reading Companion

eading out the horrors of slavery before Northerners, in order to show them _their own sin_ in sustaining such a system of complicated wrong and suffering. It is because we are politically, commercially, and socially connected with our southern brethren, that we urge our doctrines upon those of the free States. We have begun our work _here_, because pro-slavery men of the North are to the system of slavery just what temperate drinkers were to the vice of intemperance. Temperance reformers did not _begin_ their labors among drunkards, but among temperate drinkers: so Anti-Slavery reformers did not _begin_ their labors among slaveholders, but among those who were making their fortunes out of the unrequited toil of the slave, and receiving large mortgages on southern plantations and slaves, and trading occasionally in ‘slaves and the souls of men,’ and sending men to Congress to buy up southern land to be converted into slave States, such as Louisiana and Florida, which cost _this nation_ $20,000,000--men who have admitted seven slave States into the Union--men who boast on the floor of Congress, that ‘there is no cause in which they would sooner buckle a knapsack on their backs and shoulder a musket, than that of putting down a servile insurrection at the South,’ as said the present Governor of Massachusetts, which odious sentiment was repeated by Governor Lincoln only last winter--men who, trained up on Freedom’s soil, yet go down to the South and marry slaveholders, and become slaveholders, and then return to our northern cities with slaves in their train. This is the case with a native of this town, who is now here with his southern wife and southern _slave_. And as soon as we reform the recreant sons and daughters of the North,--as soon as we rectify public opinion at the North,--then I, for one, will promise to go down into the midst of slaveholders themselves, to promulgate our doctrines in the land of the slave. But how can we go now, when northern pulpits and meeting-houses are closed, and northern ministers are dumb, and northern Governors are declaring that ‘the discussion of the subject of slavery ought to be made an offence indictable at common law,’ and northern women are writing books to paralyze the efforts of southern women, who have come up from the South, to entreat their northern sisters to exert their influence in behalf of the slave, and in behalf of the slaveholder, who is as deeply corrupted, though not equally degraded, with the slave. No! No! the taunts of a New England woman will induce no abolitionist to cease his rebuke of _northern slaveholders_ and apologists for slavery. Southerners see the wisdom of _this_, if _thou_ canst not; and over against thy opinion, I will place that of a Louisiana planter, who, whilst on a visit to his relatives at Uxbridge, Mass. this summer, unhesitatingly admitted that the _North was the right place to begin Anti-Slavery efforts_. Had I not been convinced of this before, surely thy book would have been all-sufficient to satisfy me of it; for a more subtle defence of the slaveholder’s right to property in his helpless victims, I never saw. It is just such a defence as the hidden enemies of Liberty will rejoice to see, because, like thyself, they earnestly desire to ‘avoid the _appearance of evil_;’ they are as much opposed to slavery as we are, only they are as much opposed to Anti-Slavery as the slaveholders themselves. Is there any middle path in this reformation? Or may we not fairly conclude, that he or _she_ that is not for the slave, in deed and in truth, is _against_ him, no matter how specious their professions of pity for his condition?

In haste, I remain thy friend,

[1] And in ‘Laird’s Expedition to Africa, &c.’ a work recently published in England, this assertion of the slave trader is fully sustained. Laird relates that ‘there is _proof_ of the horrid fact, that several of the wretches engaged in this traffic, when hotly pursued, consigned _whole cargoes_ to the deep.’ He then goes on to state several such instances, from which I select the following: ‘In 1833, the Black Joke and Fair Rosamond fell in with the Hercule and Regule, two slave vessels off the Bonny River. On perceiving the cruisers, they attempted to regain the port, and pitched overboard upwards of 500 human beings, chained together, before they were captured; from the abundance of sharks in the river, their track was literally a blood-stained one. The slaver not only does this, but _glories in it_: the first words uttered by the captain of the Maria Isabelle, seized by captain Rose, were, ‘that if he had seen the man of war in chase an hour sooner, he would have thrown _every_ slave in his vessel overboard, as _he was fully insured_.’

CONNECTION BETWEEN THE NORTH AND SOUTH.

DANVERS, Mass., _7th mo., 1837_.

DEAR FRIEND:--I thank thee for having furnished me with just such a simile as I needed to illustrate the connection which exists between the North and the South. Thou sayest, ‘Suppose two rival cities, one of which becomes convinced that certain practices in trade and business in the other are dishonest, and have an oppressive bearing on certain classes in that city. Suppose, also, that these are practices, which, by those who allow them, are considered as honorable and right. Those who are convinced of this immorality wish to alter the opinions and the practices of the citizens of their rival city, and to do this they commence the collection of facts, that exhibit the tendencies of these practices and the evils they have engendered. But, instead of going among the community in which the evil exists, and endeavoring to convince them, they proceed to form voluntary associations among their neighbors at home, and spend their time, money, and efforts to convince their fellow citizens that the inhabitants of their rival city are guilty of a great sin.’ Now I will take up the comparison here, and suppose a few other things about these two cities. Suppose that the people in one city were _known never_ to pay the laborer his wages, but to be in the constant habit of keeping back the hire of those who reaped down their fields; and that, on examination, it was found that the people in the other city were continually going over to live with these gentlemen oppressors, and instead of rebuking them, were joining hands in wickedness with them, and were actually _more_ oppressive to the poor than the native inhabitants. Suppose, too, it was found that many of the merchants in the city of Fairdealing, as it was called, were known to hold mortgages, not only upon the property which ought to belong to the unpaid laborers, but mortgages, too, on the _laborers themselves_, ay, and _their wives and children also_, a thing altogether contrary to the laws of their city, and the customs of their people, and the principles of fundamental morality. Suppose, too, it was found that the people in the city of Oppression were in the constant practice of sending over to the city of Fairdealing, and bribing their citizens to seize the poorest, most defenceless of their people for them, because they were so lazy they would not do their own work, and so mean they would not pay others for doing it, and chose thus to supply themselves with laborers, who, when they once got into the city, were placed under such severe laws, that it was almost impossible for them ever to return to their afflicted wives and children. Suppose, too, that whenever any of these oppressed, unpaid laborers happened to escape from the city of Oppression, and after lying out in the woods and fastnesses which lay between the two cities, for many weeks, ‘in weariness and painfulness, in watchings, in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness,’ that, as soon as they reached the city of Fairdealing, they were most unmercifully hunted out and sent back to their cruel oppressors, who it was well known generally treated such laborers with great cruelty, ‘_stern necessity_’ demanding that they should be punished and ‘rebuked before all, that others might fear’ the consequences of such elopement. In short, suppose that the city of Fairdealing was so completely connected with the city of Oppression, that the golden strands of their interests were twisted together so as to form a bond of Union stronger than death, and that by the intermarriages which were constantly taking place, there was also a silken cord of love tying up and binding together the tender feelings of their hearts with all the intricacies of the Gordian knot; and then, again, that the identity of the political interests of these cities were wound round and round them like bands of iron and brass, altogether forming an union so complicated and powerful, that it was impossible even to _speak_ in the most solemn manner, in the city of Fairdealing, of the enormous crimes which were common in the city of Oppression, without having brickbats and rotten eggs hurled at the speaker’s head. Suppose, too, that although it was perfectly manifest to every reflecting mind, that a most guilty copartnership existed between these two cities, yet that the ‘gentlemen of property and standing’ of the city of Fairdealing were continually taunting the people who were trying to represent _their_ iniquitous league with the city of Oppression in its true and sinful bearings, with the query of ‘Why don’t you go to the city of Oppression, and tell the people there, not to rob the poor?’ Might not these reformers very justly remark, we cannot go there _until_ we have persuaded _our own_ citizens to cease _their unholy co-operation with them_, for they will certainly turn upon us in bitter irony and say--‘Physician, heal thyself;’ go back to your own city, and tell your own citizens ‘to break off _their_ sins by righteousness, and _their_ transgressions by showing mercy to the poor,’ who fly from our city into the gates of theirs for protection, but receive it not. Would not common sense bear them out in refusing to go there, until they had _first_ converted _their own_ people from the error of their ways? I will leave thee and my other readers to make the application of this comparison; and if thou dost not acknowledge that abolitionists have been governed by the soundest common sense in the course they have pursued at the North with regard to slavery, then I am very much disappointed in thy professions of _candor_. With regard to the parallel thou hast drawn (p. 16,) between abolitionists, and the ‘men (who) are daily going into the streets, and calling all bystanders around them’ and pointing out certain men, some as liars, some as dishonest, some as licentious, and then bringing proofs of their guilt and rebuking them before all; at the same time exhorting all around to point at them the finger of scorn; thou sayest, ‘they persevere in this course till the whole community is thrown into an uproar; and assaults and even bloodshed ensue.’ But why, I should like to know, if these people are themselves _guiltless_ of the crimes alleged against the others? I cannot understand why they should be so angry, unless, like the Jews of old, they perceived that the parable had been spoken ‘_against them_.’ To my own mind, the exasperation of the North at the discussion of slavery is an undeniable proof of _her guilt_, a certain evidence of the necessity of her plucking the beam out of her own eye, _before_ she goes to the South to rebuke sin there. To thee, and to all who are continually crying out, ‘Why don’t you go to the South?’ I retort the question by asking, why don’t YOU go to the South? _We_ conscientiously believe that this work must be commenced _here_ at the North; this is an all-sufficient answer for US; but YOU, who are ‘as much anti-slavery as we are,’ and differ _only_ as to the modus operandi, believing that the South and _not_ the North ought to be the field of Anti-Slavery labors--YOU, I say, have no excuse to offer, and are bound to go there now.

But there is another view to be taken of this subject. By all our printing and talking at the North, we _have actually reached the very heart of the disease at the South_. They acknowledge it themselves. Read the following confession in the Southern Literary Review. ‘There are _many good men even among us, who have begun to grow timid_. They think that what the virtuous and high-minded men of the North look upon as a crime and a plague-spot, _cannot_ be perfectly innocent or quite harmless in a slaveholding community.’ James Smylie, of Mississippi, a minister of the gospel, _so called_, tells us on the very first page of his essay, written to uphold the doctrines of Governor McDuffie, ‘that the abolition maxim, viz. that slavery is _in itself sinful_, had gained on and entwined itself among the _religious_ and _conscientious_ scruples of _many_ in the community, so far as to render them _unhappy_.’ I could quote other southern testimony to the same effect, but will pass on to another fact just published in the New England Spectator; a proposition from a minister in Missouri ‘to have separate organizations for slavery and anti-slavery professors,’ and indeed ‘all over the _slaveholding States_.’ Has our labor then been in vain in the Lord? Have we failed to rouse the slumbering consciences of the South?

Thou inquirest--‘Have the northern States power to rectify evils at the South, as they have to remove their own moral deformities?’ I answer unhesitatingly, certainly they have, for _moral_ evils can be removed only by _moral_ power; and the close connection which exists between these two portions of our country, affords the greatest possible facilities for exerting a _moral_ influence on it. Only let the North exert as much moral influence over the South, as the South has exerted demoralizing influence over the North, and slavery would die amid the flame of Christian remonstrance, and faithful rebuke, and holy indignation. The South has told us so. In the report of the committee on federal relations in the Legislature of South Carolina last winter, we find the following acknowledgement: ‘Let it be admitted, that by reason of an efficient police and judicious internal legislation, we may render abortive the designs of the fanatic and incendiary within our limits, and that the torrent of pamphlets and tracts which the abolition presses of the North are pouring forth with an inexhaustible copiousness, is arrested the moment it reaches our frontier. Are we to wait until our enemies have built up, by the grossest misrepresentations and falsehoods, a _body of public opinion, which it would be impossible to resist_, without separating ourselves from the social system of the rest of the civilized world?’ Here is the acknowledgement of a southern legislature, that it will be _impossible for the South to resist the influence_ of that body of _public opinion_, which abolitionists are building up against them at the North. If further evidence is needed, that anti-slavery societies are producing a powerful influence at the South, look at the efforts made there to vilify and crush them. Why all this turmoil, and passion, and rage in the slaveholder, if we have indeed rolled back the cause of emancipation 200 years, as thy father has asserted? Why all this terror at the distant roar of free discussion, if they feel not the earth quaking beneath them? Does not the _South_ understand what really will affect her interests and break down her domestic institution? Has _she_ no subtle politicians, no far-sighted men in her borders, who can scan the practical bearings of these troublous times? Believe me, she has; and did they not know that we are springing a mine beneath the great bastile of slavery, and laying a train which will soon whelm it in ruin, she would not be quite so eager ‘to cut out our tongues, and hang us as high as Haman.’

I will just add, that as to the committee saying that abolitionists are building up a body of public opinion at the North ‘by the grossest misrepresentations and falsehoods,’ I think it was due to _their_ character for veracity, to have cited and refuted some of these calumnies. Until they do, we must believe them; and as a Southerner, I can bear the most decided testimony against slavery as the mother of _all_ abominations.

Farewell for the present.

CHRISTIAN CHARACTER OF ABOLITIONISM.

NEWBURYPORT, _7th mo. 8th, 1837_.

DEAR FRIEND: As an Abolitionist, I thank thee for the portrait thou hast drawn of the character of those with whom I am associated. They deserve all thou hast said in their favor; and I will now endeavor to vindicate those ‘men of pure morals, of great honesty of purpose, of real benevolence and piety,’ from some objections thou hast urged against their measures.

‘Much evidence,’ thou sayest, ‘can be brought to prove that the character and measures of the Abolition Society are not either peaceful or christian in tendency, but that they are in their nature calculated to generate party spirit, denunciation, recrimination, and angry passion.’ Now I solemnly ask thee, whether the character and measures of our holy Redeemer did not produce exactly the same effects? Why did the Jews lead him to the brow of the hill, that they might cast him down headlong; why did they go about to kill him; why did they seek to lay hands on him, if the tendency of _his_ measures was so very _pacific_? Listen, too, to his own declaration: ‘I came not to send peace on earth, but a sword;’ the effects of which, he expressly said, would be to set the mother against her daughter, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. The rebukes which he uttered against sin were eminently calculated to produce ‘recriminations and angry passions,’ in all who were determined to _cleave_ to their sins; and they did produce them even against ‘him who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth.’ He was called a wine-bibber, and a glutton, and Beelzebub, and was accused of casting out devils by the prince of the devils. Why, then, protest against our measures as _unchristian_, because they do not smooth the pillow of the poor sinner, and lull his conscience into fatal security? The truth is, the efforts of abolitionists have stirred up the _very same spirit_ which the efforts of _all thorough-going_ reformers have ever done; we consider it a certain proof that the truths we utter are sharper than any two edged sword, and that they are doing the work of conviction in the hearts of our enemies. If it be not so, I have greatly mistaken the character of Christianity. I consider it pre-eminently aggressive; it waits not to be assaulted, but moves on in all the majesty of Truth to _attack_ the strong holds of the kingdom of darkness, carries the war into the enemy’s camp, and throws its fiery darts into the midst of its embattled hosts. Thou seemest to think, on the contrary, that Christianity is just such a weak, dependent, puerile creature as thou hast described woman to be. In my opinion, thou hast robbed both the one and the other of all their true dignity and glory. Thy descriptions may suit the prevailing christianity of this age, and the general character of woman; and if so, we have great cause for shame and confusion of face.