An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South
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Angelina Emily Grimke >> An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South
Well may the poet exclaim in bitter sarcasm,
"The fustian flag that proudly waves
In solemn mockery o'er _a land of slaves_."
Can you not, my friends, understand the signs of the times; do you not
see the sword of retributive justice hanging over the South, or are
you still slumbering at your posts?--Are there no Shiphrahs, no Puahs
among you, who will dare in Christian firmness and Christian meekness,
to refuse to obey the _wicked laws_ which require _woman to enslave,
to degrade and to brutalize woman_? Are there no Miriams, who would
rejoice to lead out the captive daughters of the Southern States to
liberty and light? Are there no Huldahs there who will dare to _speak
the truth_ concerning the sins of the people and those judgments,
which it requires no prophet's eye to see, must follow if repentance
is not speedily sought? Is there no Esther among you who will plead
for the poor devoted slave? Read the history of this Persian queen, it
is full of instruction; she at first refused to plead for the Jews;
but, hear the words of Mordecai, "Think not within thyself, that
_thou_ shalt escape in the king's house more than all the Jews, for
_if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time_, then shall there
enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place: but
_thou and thy father's house shall be destroyed_." Listen, too, to her
magnanimous reply to this powerful appeal; "_I will_ go in, unto the
king, which is _not_ according to law, and if I perish, I perish."
Yes! if there were but _one_ Esther at the South, she _might_ save her
country from ruin; but let the Christian women there arise, at the
Christian women of Great Britain did, in the majesty of moral
power, and that salvation is certain. Let them embody themselves in
societies, and send petitions up to their different legislatures,
entreating their husbands, fathers, brothers and sons, to abolish the
institution! of slavery; no longer to subject _woman_ to the scourge
and the chain, to mental darkness and moral degradation; no longer to
tear husbands from their wives, and children from their parents; no
longer to make men, women, and children, work _without wages_; no
longer to make their lives bitter in hard bondage; no longer to reduce
_American citizens_ to the abject condition of _slaves,_ of "chattels
personal;" no longer to barter the _image of God_ in human shambles
for corruptible things such as silver and gold.
The _women of the South can overthrow_ this horrible system of
oppression and cruelty, licentiousness and wrong. Such appeals to your
legislatures would be irresistible, for there is something in the
heart of man which _will bend under moral suasion_. There is a swift
witness for truth in his bosom, _which will respond to truth_ when
it is uttered with calmness and dignity. If you could obtain but six
signatures to such a petition in only one state, I would say, send up
that petition, and be not in the least discouraged by the scoffs and
jeers of the heartless, or the resolution of the house to lay it on
the table. It will be a great thing if the subject can be introduced
into your legislatures in any way, even by _women_, and _they_ will be
the most likely to introduce it there in the best possible manner, as
a matter of _morals_ and _religion_, not of expediency or politics.
You may petition, too, the different ecclesiastical bodies of the
slave states. Slavery must be attacked with the whole power of truth
and the sword of the spirit. You must take it up on _Christian_
ground, and fight against it with Christian weapons, whilst your feet
are shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. And _you are
now_ loudly called upon by the cries of the widow and the orphan, to
arise and gird yourselves for this great moral conflict, with the
whole armour of righteousness upon the right hand and on the left.
There is every encouragement for you to labor and pray, my friends,
because the abolition of slavery as well as its existence, has been
the theme of prophecy. "Ethiopia (says the Psalmist) shall stretch
forth her hands unto God." And is she not now doing so? Are not the
Christian negroes of the south lifting their hands in prayer for
deliverance, just as the Israelites did when their redemption was
drawing nigh? Are they not sighing and crying by reason of the hard
bondage? And think you, that He, of whom it was said, "and God heard
their groaning, and their cry came up unto him by reason of the hard
bondage," think you that his ear is heavy that he cannot _now_ hear
the cries of his suffering children? Or that He who raised up a Moses,
an Aaron, and a Miriam, to bring them up out of the land of Egypt from
the house of bondage, cannot now, with a high hand and a stretched out
arm, rid the poor negroes out of the hands of their masters? Surely
you believe that his aim is _not_ shortened that he cannot save. And
would not such a work of mercy redound to his glory? But another
string of the harp of prophecy vibrates to the song of deliverance:
"But they shall sit every man under his vine, and under his fig-tree,
and _none shall make them afraid;_ for the mouth of the Lord of Hosts
hath spoken it." The _slave_ never can do this as long as he is a
_slave_; whilst he is a "chattel personal" he can own _no_ property;
but the time _is to come_ when _every_ man is to sit under _his
own_ vine and _his own_ fig-tree, and no domineering driver, or
irresponsible master, or irascible mistress, shall make him afraid of
the chain or the whip. Hear, too, the sweet tones of another string:
"Many shall run to and fro, and _knowledge_ shall be _increased_."
Slavery is an insurmountable barrier to the increase of knowledge in
every community where it exists; _slavery, then, must be abolished
before this prediction can be fulfiled_. The last chord I shall
touch, will be this, "They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy
mountain."
_Slavery, then, must be overthrown before_ the prophecies can be
accomplished, but how are they to be fulfiled? Will the wheels of the
millennial car be rolled onward by miraculous power? No! God designs
to confer this holy privilege upon _man_; it is through _his_
instrumentality that the great and glorious work of reforming the
world is to be done. And see you not how the mighty engine of _moral
power_ is dragging in its rear the Bible and peace societies,
anti-slavery and temperance, sabbath schools, moral reform, and
missions? or to adopt another figure, do not these seven philanthropic
associations compose the beautiful tints in that bow of promise which
spans the arch of our moral heaven? Who does not believe, that if
these societies were broken up, their constitutions burnt, and the
vast machinery with which they are laboring to regenerate mankind was
stopped, that the black clouds of vengeance would soon burst over our
world, and every city would witness the fate of the devoted cities of
the plain? Each one of these societies is walking abroad through the
earth scattering the seeds of truth over the wide field of our world,
not with the hundred hands of a Briareus, but with a hundred thousand.
Another encouragement for you to labor, my friends, is, that you
will have the prayers and co-operation of English and Northern
philanthropists. You will never bend your knees in supplication at the
throne of grace for the overthrow of slavery, without meeting there
the spirits of other Christians, who will mingle their voices with
yours, as the morning or evening sacrifice ascends to God. Yes, the
spirit of prayer and of supplication has been poured out upon many,
many hearts; there are wrestling Jacobs who will not let go of the
prophetic promises of deliverance for the captive, and the opening of
prison doors to them that are bound. There are Pauls who are saying,
in reference to this subject, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?"
There are Marys sitting in the house now, who are ready to arise and
go forth in this work as soon as the message is brought, "the master
is come and calleth for thee." And there are Marthas, too, who have
already gone out to meet Jesus, as he bends his footsteps to their
brother's grave, and weeps, _not_ over the lifeless body of Lazarus
bound hand and foot in grave-clothes, but over the politically and
intellectually lifeless slave, bound hand and foot in the iron chains
of oppression and ignorance. Some may be ready to say, as Martha did,
who seemed to expect nothing but sympathy from Jesus, "Lord, by this
time he stinketh, for he hath been dead four days." She thought it
useless to remove the stone and expose the loathsome body of her
brother; she could not believe that so great a miracle could be
wrought, as to raise _that putrefied body_ into life; but "Jesus said,
take _ye_ away too stone;" and when _they_ had taken away the stone
where the dead was laid, and uncovered the body of Lazarus, then it
was that "Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, Father, I thank thee that
thou hast heard me," &c. "And when he had thus spoken, he cried with a
loud voice, Lazarus, come forth." Yes, some may be ready to say of
the colored race, how can _they_ ever be raised politically and
intellectually, they have been dead four hundred years? But _we_ have
_nothing_ to do with _how_ this is to be done; _our business_ is to
take away the stone which has covered up the dead body of our brother,
to expose the putrid carcass, to show _how_ that body has been bound
with the grave-clothes of heathen ignorance, and his face with the
napkin of prejudice, and having done all it was our duty to do, to
stand by the negro's grave, in humble faith and holy hope, waiting to
hear the life-giving command of "Lazarus, come forth." This is just
what Anti-Slavery Societies are doing; they are taking away the stone
from the mouth of the tomb of slavery, where lies the putrid carcass
of our brother. They want the pure light of heaven to shine into that
dark and gloomy cave; they want all men to see _how_ that dead body
has been bound, _how_ that face has been wrapped in the _napkin of
prejudice_; and shall they wait beside that grave in vain? Is not
Jesus still the resurrection and the life? Did he come to proclaim
liberty to the captive, and the opening of prison doors to them that
are bound, in vain? Did He promise to give beauty for ashes, the oil
of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of
heaviness unto them that mourn in Zion, and will He refuse to beautify
the mind, anoint the head, and throw around the captive negro the
mantle of praise for that spirit of heaviness which has so long bound
him down to the ground? Or shall we not rather say with the prophet,
"the zeal of the Lord of Hosts _will_ perform this?" Yes, his promises
are sure, and amen in Christ Jesus, that he will assemble her that
halteth, and gather her that is driven out, and her that is afflicted.
But I will now say a few words on the subject of Abolitionism.
Doubtless you have all heard Anti-Slavery Societies denounced as
insurrectionary and mischievous, fanatical and dangerous. It has been
said they publish the most abominable untruths, and that they are
endeavoring to excite rebellions at the South. Have you believed these
reports, my friends? have _you_ also been deceived by these false
assertions? Listen to me, then, whilst I endeavor to wipe from the
fair character of Abolitionism such unfounded accusations. You know
that _I_ am a Southerner; you know that my dearest relatives are
now in a slave Slate. Can you for a moment believe I would prove so
recreant to the feelings of a daughter and a sister, as to join a
society which was seeking to overthrow slavery by falsehood, bloodshed
and murder? I appeal to you who have known and loved me in days that
are passed, can _you_ believe it? No! my friends. As a Carolinian I
was peculiarly jealous of any movements on this subject; and before I
would join an Anti-Slavery Society, I took the precaution of becoming
acquainted with some of the leading Abolitionists, of reading their
publications and attending their meetings, at which I heard addresses
both from colored and white men; and it was not until I was fully
convicted that their principles were _entirely pacific_, and their
efforts _only moral_, that I gave my name as a member to the Female
Anti-Slavery Society of Philadelphia. Since that time, I have
regularly taken the Liberator, and read many Anti-Slavery pamphlets
and papers and books, and can assure you I never have seen a single
insurrectionary paragraph, and never read any account of cruelty which
I could not believe. Southerners may deny the truth of these
accounts, but why do they not _prove_ them to be false? Their violent
expressions of horror at such accounts being believed _may_ deceive
some, but they cannot deceive _me_, for I lived too long in the midst
of slavery, not to know what slavery is. When I speak of this system,
"I speak that I do know," and I am not at all afraid to assert, that
Anti-Slavery publications have _not_ overdrawn the monstrous features
of slavery at all. And many a Southerner _knows_ this as well as I do.
A lady in North Carolina remarked to a friend of mine, about eighteen
months since, "Northerners know nothing at all about slavery; they
think it is perpetual bondage only; but of the _depth of degradation_
that word involves, they have no conception; if they had, _they
would never cease_ their efforts until so _horrible_ a system was
overthrown." She did not know how faithfully some Northern men and
Northern women had studied this subject; how diligently they had
searched out the cause of "him who had none to help him," and how
fearlessly they had told the story of the negro's wrongs. Yes,
Northerners know _every_ thing about slavery now. This monster of
iniquity has been unveiled to the world, her frightful features
unmasked, and soon, very soon will she be regarded with no more
complacency by the American republic than is the idol of Juggernaut,
rolling its bloody wheels over the crushed bodies of its prostrate
victims.
But you will probably ask, if Anti-Slavery societies are not
insurrectionary, why do Northerners tell us they are? Why, I would ask
you in return, did Northern senators and Northern representatives give
their votes, at the last sitting of congress, to the admission of
Arkansas Territory as a state? Take those men, one by one, and ask
them in their parlours, do you _approve of slavery?_ ask them on
_Northern_ ground, where they will speak the truth, and I doubt not
_every man_ of them will tell you, _no!_ Why then, I ask, did they
give their votes to enlarge the mouth of that grave which has already
destroyed its tens of thousands? All our enemies tell us they are
as much anti-slavery as we are. Yes, my friends, thousands who are
helping you to bind the fetters of slavery on the negro, despise you
in their hearts for doing it; they rejoice that such an institution
has not been entailed upon, them. Why then, I would ask, do they lend
you their help? I will tell you, "they love _the praise of men more_
than the praise of God." The Abolition cause has not yet become
so popular as to induce them to believe, that by advocating it in
congress, they shall sit still more securely in their seats there,
and like the _chief rulers_ in the days of our Saviour, though _many_
believed on him, yet they did _not_ confess him, lest they should _be
put out of the synagogue_; John xii, 42, 43. Or perhaps like Pilate,
thinking they could prevail nothing, and fearing a tumult, they
determined to release Barabbas and surrender the just man, the poor
innocent slave to be stripped of his rights and scourged. In vain will
such men try to wash their hands, and say, with the Roman governor,
"I am innocent of the blood of this just person." Northern American
statesmen are no more innocent of the crime of slavery, than Pilate
was of the murder of Jesus, or Saul of that of Stephen. These are high
charges, but I appeal to _their hearts_; I appeal to public opinion
ten years from now. Slavery then is a national sin.
But you will say, a great many other Northerners tell us so, who can
have no political motives. The interests of the North, you must know,
my friends, are very closely combined with those of the South. The
Northern merchants and manufacturers are making _their_ fortunes out
of the _produce of slave labor_; the grocer is selling your rice and
sugar; how then can these men bear a testimony against slavery without
condemning themselves? But there is another reason, the North is most
dreadfully afraid of Amalgamation. She is alarmed at the very idea of
a thing so monstrous, as she thinks. And lest this consequence _might_
flow from emancipation, she is determined to resist all efforts at
emancipation without expatriation. It is not because _she approves of
slavery_, or believes it to be "the corner stone of our republic,"
for she is as much _anti-slavery_ as we are; but amalgamation is
too horrible to think of. Now I would ask _you_, is it right, is it
generous, to refuse the colored people in this country the advantages
of education and the privilege, or rather the _right_, to follow
honest trades and callings merely because they are colored? The same
prejudice exists here against our colored brethren that existed
against the Gentiles in Judea. Great numbers cannot bear the idea of
equality, and fearing lest, if they had the same advantages we enjoy,
they would become as intelligent, as moral, as religious, and as
respectable and wealthy, they are determined to keep them as low as
they possibly can. Is this doing as they would be done by? Is this
loving their neighbor _as themselves?_ Oh! that _such_ opposers of
Abolitionism would put their souls in the stead of the free colored
man's and obey the apostolic injunction, to "remember them that are
in bonds _as bound with them_." I will leave you to judge whether
the fear of amalgamation ought to induce men to oppose anti-slavery
efforts, when _they_ believe _slavery_ to be _sinful_. Prejudice
against color, is the most powerful enemy we have to fight with at the
North.
You need not be surprised, then, at all, at what is said _against_
Abolitionists by the North, for they are wielding a two-edged sword,
which even here, cuts through the _cords of caste_, on the one side,
and the _bonds of interest_ on the other. They are only sharing the
fate of other reformers, abused and reviled whilst they are in the
minority; but they are neither angry nor discouraged by the invective
which has been heaped upon them by slaveholders at the South and their
apologists at the North. They know that when George Fox and William
Edmundson were laboring in behalf of the negroes in the West Indies in
1671 that the very _same_ slanders were propogated against them, which
are _now_ circulated against Abolitionists. Although it was well known
that Fox was the founder of a religious sect which repudiated _all_
war, and _all_ violence, yet _even he_ was accused of "endeavoring to
excite the slaves to insurrection and of teaching the negroes to cut
their master's throats." And these two men who had their feet shod
with the preparation of the Gospel of Peace, were actually compelled
to draw up a formal declaration that _they were not_ trying to raise
a rebellion in Barbadoes. It is also worthy of remark that these
Reformers did not at this time see the necessity of emancipation under
seven years, and their principal efforts were exerted to persuade
the planters of the necessity of instructing their slaves; but the
slaveholder saw then, just what the slaveholder sees now, that an
_enlightened_ population never can be a _slave_ population, and
therefore they passed a law that negroes should not even attend the
meetings of Friends. Abolitionists know that the life of Clarkson was
sought by slavetraders, and that even Wilberforce was denounced on the
floor of Parliament as a fanatic and a hypocrite by the present King
of England, the very man who, in 1834 set his seal to that instrument
which burst the fetters of eight hundred thousand slaves in his West
India colonies. They know that the first Quaker who bore a _faithful_
testimony against the sin of slavery was cut off from religious
fellowship with that society. That Quaker was a _woman_. On her
deathbed she sent for the committe who dealt with her--she told them,
the near approach of death had not altered her sentiments on the
subject of slavery and waving her hand towards a very fertile and
beautiful portion of country which lay stretched before her window,
she said with great solemnity, "Friends, the time will come when there
will not be friends enough in all this district to hold one meeting
for worship, and this garden will be turned into a wilderness."
The aged friend, who with tears in his eyes, related this interesting
circumstance to me, remarked, that at that time there were seven
meetings of friends in that part of Virginia, but that when he was
there ten years ago, not a single meeting was held, and the country
was literally a desolation. Soon after her decease, John Woolman began
his labors in our society, and instead of disowning a member for
testifying _against_ slavery, they have for fifty-two years positively
forbidden their members to hold slaves.
Abolitionists understand the slaveholding spirit too well to be
surprised at any thing that has yet happened at the South or the
North; they know that the greater the sin is, which is exposed, the
more violent will be the efforts to blacken the character and impugn
the motives of those who are engaged in bringing to light the hidden
things of darkness. They understand the work of Reform too well to be
driven back by the furious waves of opposition, which are only foaming
out their own shame. They have stood "the world's dread laugh," when
only twelve men formed the first Anti-Slavery Society in Boston in
1831. They have faced and refuted the calumnies at their enemies, and
proved themselves to be emphatically _peace men_ by _never resisting_
the violence of mobs, even when driven by them from the temple of God,
and dragged by an infuriated crowd through the Streets of the emporium
of New-England, or subjected by _slaveholders_ to the pain of corporal
punishment. "None of these things move them;" and, by the grace of
God, they are determined to persevere in this work of faith and labor
of love: they mean to pray, and preach, and write, and print, until
slavery is completely overthrown, until Babylon is taken up and cast
into the sea, to "be found no more at all." They mean to petition
Congress year after year, until the seat of our government is cleansed
from the sinful traffic of "slaves and the souls of men." Although
that august assembly may be like the unjust judge who "feared not God
neither regarded man," yet it _must_ yield just as he did, from the
power of importunity. Like the unjust judge, Congress _must_ redress
the wrongs of the widow, lest by the continual coming up of petitions,
it be wearied. This will be striking the dagger into the very heart of
the monster, and once 'tis done, he must soon expire.
Abolitionists have been accused of abusing their Southern brethren.
Did the prophet Isaiah _abuse_ the Jews when he addressed to them the
cutting reproofs contained in the first chapter of his prophecies and
ended by telling them, they would be _ashamed_ of the oaks they had
desired, and _confounded_ for the garden they had chosen? Did John
the Baptist _abuse_ the Jews when he called them "_a generation of
vipers_" and warned them "to bring forth fruits meet for repentance?"
Did Peter abuse the Jews when he told them they were the murderers of
the Lord of Glory? Did Paul abuse the Roman Governor when he reasoned
before him of righteousness, temperance, and judgment, so as to send
conviction home to his guilty heart, and cause him to tremble in view
of the crimes he was living in? Surely not. No man will _now_ accuse
the prophets and apostles of _abuse_, but what have Abolitionists done
more than they? No doubt the Jews thought the prophets and apostles in
their day, just as harsh and uncharitable as slaveholders now, think
Abolitionists; if they did not, why did they beat, and stone, and kill
them?
Great fault has been found with the prints which have been employed to
expose slavery at the North, but my friends, how could this be done
so effectually in any other way? Until the pictures of the slave's
sufferings were drawn and held up to public gaze, no Northerner had
any idea of the cruelty of the system, it never entered their minds
that such abominations could exist in Christian, Republican America;
they never suspected that many of the _gentlemen_ and _ladies_ who
came from the South to spend the summer months in travelling among
them, were petty tyrants at home. And those who had lived at the
South, and came to reside at the North, were too _ashamed of slavery_
even to speak of it; the language of their hearts was, "tell it _not_
in Gath, publish it _not_ in the streets of Askelon;" they saw no use
in uncovering the loathsome body to popular sight, and in hopeless
despair, wept in secret places over the sins of oppression. To such
hidden mourners the formation of Anti-Slavery Societies was as life
from the dead, the first beams of hope which gleamed through the dark
clouds of despondency and grief. Prints were made use of to effect the
abolition of the Inquisition in Spain, and Clarkson employed them when
he was laboring to break up the Slave trade, and English Abolitionists
used them just as we are now doing. They are powerful appeals and
have invariably done the work they were designed to do, and we cannot
consent to abandon the use of these until the _realities_ no longer
exist.