‘For a long time he had been a professor of religion, but had not, till the doctrines of abolition were embraced by his son on the discussion of the subject at Lane Seminary, given to the subject more attention than was usual among slaveholding professors at the time. At first he thought his son was deranged—and that his intended trip to New York, to speak at the anniversary of the American Anti-Slavery Society, was evidence of it. He sought him (as we have heard,) on the steamboat, which was to convey him up the Ohio river, that he might stop him from going. Something, however, prevented his seeing his son before his departure, and there was no detention.
The truth bore on the mind of Mr. T. till it produced its proper fruit—and he now says, that he is confident no other doctrine but that of the SIN of slaveholding, connected with an immediate breaking off from it, will influence the slaveholder to do justice.’
I see by the late Washington papers, that one of my South Carolina cousins, Robert Barnwell Rhett, the late Attorney General of the State, has come up to my help on this point, with his characteristic chivalry; [howbeit ‘he meaneth not so, neither doth his heart think so.’] In his late address to his Congressional Constituents, he says:—
‘Who that knows anything of human affairs, but must be sensible that the subject of abolition may be approached in a thousand ways, without direct legislation? By perpetual discussion, agitation and threats, accompanied with the real or imaginary power to perform, there will be need of no other action than words to shake the confidence of men in the safety and continuance of the institution of slavery, and its value and existence will be destroyed. These are all the weapons the abolitionist desires to be allowed to use to accomplish his purpose. When Congress moves, it will be the last act in the drama; and it will be prepared to enforce its legislation. To acknowledge the right, or to tolerate the act of interference at all with this institution, is to give it up—to abandon it entirely; and, as this must be the consummation of any interference, the sooner it is reached the better. The South must hold this institution, not amidst alarm and molestation, but in peace—perfect peace, from the interference or agitation of others; or, I repeat it, she will—she can—hold it not at all. … There is no one so weak, but he must perceive that, whilst the spirit of abolition in the North is increasing, slavery in the South, in all the frontier States, is decreasing.’
Farther, I may add the names of J. G. Birney of Alabama, John Thompson and a person named Meux, Jassamine County, Kentucky, J. M. Buchanan, Professor in Center College, Kentucky, Andrew Shannon, a Presbyterian minister in Shelbyville, Kentucky, Samuel Taylor, a Presbyterian minister of Nicholasville, Kentucky, Peter Dunn of Mercer County, Kentucky, a person named Doake in Tennessee, another named Carr in North Carolina, another named Harndon in Virginia—with a number of others, the particulars of whose cases I have not now by me, all of whom were slaveholders four years since, and were induced to emancipate their slaves through the influence of Anti-Slavery discussions and periodicals.
The Democrat, a political paper published at Rochester, New York, contained the following in the summer of 1835.
‘On Saturday last, many of our citizens had an opportunity of witnessing a noble scene. On board the boat William Henry, then lying at the Exchange street wharf, were TEN SLAVES, or those who had recently been such, and several free persons of color. The master, a gentleman of more than seventy years of age, accompanied them. His residence was in Powhattan County, seventy miles below Richmond, Virginia. He was on his way to Buffalo, near which place he intends purchasing a large farm, where his ‘people,’ as he calls them, are to be settled. The above named gentleman was led to sacrifice much of this world’s lucre, besides some $5000 of human ‘property,’ by becoming convinced of the sinfulness of his practice while reading Anti-Slavery publications.’
A letter now lies before me from an elder of a religious denomination in the far South-West, who was converted to Abolition sentiments by Anti-Slavery publications sent to him from the city of New York, and who has already emancipated his slaves, ten in number. The writer says, ‘my hopes are revived when I read of the progress of the cause in the Eastern States, and of the increase of Anti-Slavery Societies. My soul glows with gratitude to God for his mercy to the down-trodden slaves, in raising up for them in these days of savage cruelty, hundreds who, fearless of consequences, are standing up for the entire abolition of slavery, whom, though unseen, I dearly love. O! how it would delight me to listen to the public addresses of some of these dear friends.’