FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78  
79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   >>   >|  
eat, 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. With regard to those white men, who, it was said, did try to raise an insurrection in Mississippi a year ago, and who were stated to be Abolitionists, none of them were proved to be members of Anti-Slavery Societies, and it must remain a matter of great doubt whether, even they were guilty of the crimes alledged against them, because when any community is thrown into such a panic as to inflict Lynch law upon accused persons, they cannot be supposed to be capable of judging with calmness and impartiality. _We know_ that the papers of which the Charleston mail was robbed, were _not_ insurrectionary, and that they were _not_ sent to the colored people as was reported. _We know_ that Amos Dresser was _no insurrectionist_ though he was accused of being so, and on this false accusation was publicly whipped in Nashville in the midst of a crowd of infuriated _slaveholders_. Was that young man disgraced by t
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78  
79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

accused

 
Societies
 
Slavery
 

Abolitionists

 
slavery
 
employed
 
insurrection
 

remain

 

matter

 

members


proved
 
stated
 

Mississippi

 
longer
 
appeals
 

invariably

 
designed
 

powerful

 

consent

 

regard


abandon

 

realities

 

accusation

 

insurrectionist

 

Dresser

 

colored

 

people

 
reported
 
publicly
 

whipped


disgraced

 

slaveholders

 
Nashville
 

infuriated

 

insurrectionary

 

thrown

 

inflict

 

English

 

community

 
crimes

alledged

 

papers

 

Charleston

 

robbed

 
impartiality
 

calmness

 

persons

 

supposed

 

capable

 

judging