The following letter was written by an intelligent gentleman in the interior of Alabama, to Arthur Tappan, of New York, who had sent him some Anti-Slavery publications. The date is March 21, 1834.
‘Dear Sir—Your letter of Dec. last, I read with much interest. The numbers of the Anti-Slavery Reporter, also, which you were so kind as to send me, I carefully examined, and put them in circulation.
Your operations have produced considerable excitement in some sections of this country, but humanity has lost nothing. The more the subject of slavery is agitated, the better. A distinguished gentleman remarked to me a day or two since, that ‘there was a great change going on in public sentiment.’ Few would acknowledge that it was to be ascribed to the influence of your Society. There can be no doubt, however, that this is directly and indirectly the principal cause.’
During the same year, the Editor of the New York Evangelist received a letter from a christian friend in North Carolina, from which I give thee an extract.
To the Editor of the Evangelist—
‘The subject of slavery, recently brought up and discussed in your paper, is the one which elicits the following remarks.
In the first place I will state, that I entertain very different views now, to what I did six months ago. I was among those who thought (and honestly too) that there was no more moral guilt attached to the holding our fellow beings in bondage, regarding them as property, than to the holding of a mule or an ox. It was natural enough for me to think so, for I had been trained from my very infancy to view the subject in no other light. I shall never forget my feelings when the subject was first hit upon in the Evangelist. I became angry, and was disposed to attribute sinister motives to all who were concerned in the matter. With some others, I determined to stop the paper forthwith.
Though I made every effort to turn my mind away from the subject, my conscience in spite of me began to awake, and to be troubled. The word of God was resorted to, with the hope of finding something to bring peace and quietude, but all in vain. It was but adding fuel to the flame. I determined, let others do as they would, to meet the subject, to examine it in all its bearings, and to abide the result; and if it should be found that God regards slavery as an evil, and incompatible with the gospel, I would give it up. If not, I should be made wiser without incurring any harm by the investigation.
In the very nature of God’s dealings with men, this subject must and will be agitated, until conviction shall be brought home to the heart and conscience of every man, and slavery shall be banished from our land. And woe be to him who wilfully closes his eyes, and stops his ears against the light of God’s truth.’