In 1806, the Report of the Pennsylvania Society says—‘We believe the true reason, why ostensible and public measures are not pursued by the advocates of abolition in the southern states, will be found in the pretty general impression, that it would not, under existing circumstances, and in the present temper of the public mind, be expedient and useful.’ The Wilmington Report ‘laments that the people of South Carolina continue opposed to our cause’—and in 1809, the Report of this same Society says, ‘We regret most sincerely the difficulty we labor under in establishing corresponding agents in the southern states, on whose fidelity and integrity we can firmly rely.’ In 1816, the Delaware Society makes the following confession—‘When we look back at the bright prospects which opened on this cause within the last 20 years, and recur to the joyful feelings excited by the just anticipations of speedy success in this conflict with cruelty and wrong, we cannot but feel the pressure of that gloom which is the consequence of disappointment and defeat.’ In 1826, we find the North Carolina Report acknowledging that ‘the gentlest attempt to agitate the subject, or the slightest hint at the work of emancipation, is sufficient to call forth their indignant resentment, as if their dearest rights were invaded.’
How, then, can our opponents say, that the cause of emancipation has been rolled back by us? We ask, when was it ever forward? As a southerner, I repeat my solemn conviction, from my own experience, and from all I can learn from historical facts, and the reports of the Gradual Emancipation Societies of this country, and the scope of the debates which took place in the Kentucky, Virginia and Maryland Legislatures, that it never was forward. If the tendencies of the age are towards emancipation, they are tendencies peculiar to this age in the United States, and have been brought about by free discussion, and in accordance, too, with the known laws of mind; for collision of mind as naturally produces light, as the striking of the flint and the steel produces fire. Free discussion is this collision, and the results are visible in the light which is breaking forth in every city, town and village, and spreading over the hills and valleys, through the whole length and breadth of our land. Yes! it has already reached ‘the dark valley of the shadow of death’ in the South; and in a few brief years, He who said, ‘Let there be light,’ will gather this moral effulgence into a focal point, and beneath its burning rays, the heart of the slaveholder, and the chains of the slave, will melt like wax before the orb of day.
Let us, then, take heed lest we be found fighting against God while standing idle in the market place, or endeavoring to keep other laborers out of the field now already white to the harvest.
Thy Friend,
A. E. GRIMKÉ.
LETTER XI.
THE SPHERE OF WOMAN AND MAN AS MORAL BEINGS THE SAME.
Brookline, Mass., 8th month, 28th, 1837.