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

IN REPLY TO AN ESSAY ON SLAVERY AND ABOLITIONISM, ADDRESSED TO A. E. GRIMKÉ.
REVISED BY THE AUTHOR.
BOSTON: PRINTED BY ISAAC KNAPP, 25, CORNHILL. 1838.

Entered according to the Act of Congress in the year 1838, by Isaac Knapp, in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of Massachusetts.

Brookline, Mass., 6 month, 12th, 1837 .
My Dear Friend: Thy book has appeared just at a time, when, from the nature of my engagements, it will be impossible for me to give it that attention which so weighty a subject demands. Incessantly occupied in prosecuting a mission, the responsibilities of which task all my powers, I can reply to it only by desultory letters, thrown from my pen as I travel from place to place. I prefer this mode to that of taking as long a time to answer it, as thou didst to determine upon the best method by which to counteract the effect of my testimony at the north—which, as the preface of thy book informs me, was thy main design.
Thou thinkest I have not been ‘sufficiently informed in regard to the feelings and opinions of Christian females at the North’ on the subject of slavery; for that in fact they hold the same principles with Abolitionists, although they condemn their measures. Wilt thou permit me to receive their principles from thy pen? Thus instructed, however misinformed I may heretofore have been, I can hardly fail of attaining to accurate knowledge. Let us examine them, to see how far they correspond with the principles held by Abolitionists.
The great fundamental principle of Abolitionists is, that man cannot rightfully hold his fellow man as property. Therefore, we affirm, that every slaveholder is a man-stealer . We do so, for the following reasons: to steal a man is to rob him of himself. It matters not whether this be done in Guinea, or Carolina; a man is a man , and as a man he has inalienable rights, among which is the right to personal liberty . Now if every man has an inalienable right to personal liberty, it follows, that he cannot rightfully be reduced to slavery. But I find in these United States, 2,250,000 men, women and children, robbed of that to which they have an inalienable right. How comes this to pass? Where millions are plundered, are there no plunderers ? If, then, the slaves have been robbed of their liberty, who has robbed them? Not the man who stole their forefathers from Africa, but he who now holds them in bondage; no matter how they came into his possession, whether he inherited them, or bought them, or seized them at their birth on his own plantation. The only difference I can see between the original man-stealer, who caught the African in his native country, and the American slaveholder, is, that the former committed one act of robbery, while the other perpetrates the same crime continually . Slaveholding is the perpetrating of acts, all of the same kind, in a series , the first of which is technically called man-stealing. The first act robbed the man of himself; and the same state of mind that prompted that act, keeps up the series , having taken his all from him: it keeps his all from him, not only refusing to restore , but still robbing him of all he gets, and as fast as he gets it. Slaveholding, then, is the constant or habitual perpetration of the act of man-stealing. To make a slave is man-stealing — the ACT itself —to hold him such is man-stealing—the habit , the permanent state, made up of individual acts. In other words—to begin to hold a slave is man-stealing—to keep on holding him is merely a repetition of the first act—a doing the same identical thing all the time . A series of the same acts continued for a length of time is a habit — a permanent state . And the first of this series of the same acts that make up this habit or state is just like all the rest.