AMERICAN SLAVERY, &c.INTRODUCTION.
AMERICAN SLAVERY, &c.
Morethan forty years ago the writer of the following pages read Wilberforce’s publications on the slave trade, in which were described the various methods of procuring the slaves in Africa, the horrors of the “middle passage,” and their cruel treatment in the West Indies. In perusing these statements of that great philanthropist and friend of the injured African race, his feelings became, in some measure, enlisted in favor of the colored people of our land, and in opposition to the slavery upheld by our nation.
He was never sensible of feeling the prejudice against color, so often manifested; but, in his intercourse with colored persons, treated them, as he would others. And having them for many years as neighbors, and, not unfrequently, as hired help, they were admitted to eat with the family at the same table.
In 1824 he was invited to attend a political celebration on the 4th of July. In declining the invitation, he noticed the inconsistency of our conduct in celebrating our liberty, founded upon the principle that all men are created free and equal, and proclaiming this “self-evident truth,” and yet holding hundreds of thousands of our fellow men in degrading bondage.
The next year, he was requested to preach on the 4th of July. The sermon was, by request, printed. The following extract will show the writer’s views respecting American slavery. “Our conduct in relation to the Africans has been most inconsistent, absurd, and criminal. While earnestly contending for the principle, that all men ought to be free and equal, and risking every thing inopposing the claims of Great Britain totax us, we were, at the same time, holding in abject slavery hundreds of thousands of our fellow beings, who, upon our own principles, had an equal right with ourselves to enjoy the sweets of liberty. How great guilt then has been contracted by enslaving, and holding in bondage, and maltreating the poor negroes. And what efforts ought to be made for their intellectual, moral and religious improvement, and their emancipation, and their enjoyment of the rights of freemen.”
Such being the feelings of the writer, he rejoiced to see attention turned to the subject of slavery, and combined efforts making for its removal. And, though he deeply regretted the harshness and severity with which opposers of abolition movements, and even those who did not engage in them, were treated, yet he was willing to countenance the cause of abolition, hoping that this, in his view, very exceptionable manner, would be gradually corrected. But, as it respects many of the Abolitionists, he is sorry to say, his hopes have been disappointed.
Being, therefore, fully persuaded that the course alluded to is injuring the cause both of religion and abolition, he ventures to point out what he believes the word of God teaches to be “a more excellent way.” And he will endeavor to do it kindly, and not needlessly to wound the feelings of any, hoping to be guided by that wisdom which is from above, and “is profitable to direct,” and which “is pure, and peaceable, and gentle, and is without partiality, and without hypocrisy,” and to present the subject as it will appear in the light of the great day. And he requests the reader impartially to weigh what is offered in “the balances of the sanctuary,” and to regard it so far only as it corresponds with the teachings of the divine oracles.