Farewell for the present.
I remain thy friend,
A. E. GRIMKÉ.
LETTER V.
CHRISTIAN CHARACTER OF ABOLITIONISM.
Newburyport, 7th mo. 8th, 1837.
Dear Friend: As an Abolitionist, I thank thee for the portrait thou hast drawn of the character of those with whom I am associated. They deserve all thou hast said in their favor; and I will now endeavor to vindicate those ‘men of pure morals, of great honesty of purpose, of real benevolence and piety,’ from some objections thou hast urged against their measures.
‘Much evidence,’ thou sayest, ‘can be brought to prove that the character and measures of the Abolition Society are not either peaceful or christian in tendency, but that they are in their nature calculated to generate party spirit, denunciation, recrimination, and angry passion.’ Now I solemnly ask thee, whether the character and measures of our holy Redeemer did not produce exactly the same effects? Why did the Jews lead him to the brow of the hill, that they might cast him down headlong; why did they go about to kill him; why did they seek to lay hands on him, if the tendency of his measures was so very pacific? Listen, too, to his own declaration: ‘I came not to send peace on earth, but a sword;’ the effects of which, he expressly said, would be to set the mother against her daughter, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. The rebukes which he uttered against sin were eminently calculated to produce ‘recriminations and angry passions,’ in all who were determined to cleave to their sins; and they did produce them even against ‘him who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth.’ He was called a wine-bibber, and a glutton, and Beelzebub, and was accused of casting out devils by the prince of the devils. Why, then, protest against our measures as unchristian, because they do not smooth the pillow of the poor sinner, and lull his conscience into fatal security? The truth is, the efforts of abolitionists have stirred up the very same spirit which the efforts of all thorough-going reformers have ever done; we consider it a certain proof that the truths we utter are sharper than any two edged sword, and that they are doing the work of conviction in the hearts of our enemies. If it be not so, I have greatly mistaken the character of Christianity. I consider it pre-eminently aggressive; it waits not to be assaulted, but moves on in all the majesty of Truth to attack the strong holds of the kingdom of darkness, carries the war into the enemy’s camp, and throws its fiery darts into the midst of its embattled hosts. Thou seemest to think, on the contrary, that Christianity is just such a weak, dependent, puerile creature as thou hast described woman to be. In my opinion, thou hast robbed both the one and the other of all their true dignity and glory. Thy descriptions may suit the prevailing christianity of this age, and the general character of woman; and if so, we have great cause for shame and confusion of face.
I feel sorry that thy unkind insinuations against the christian character of Wm. Lloyd Garrison, have rendered it necessary for me to speak of him individually, because what I shall feel bound to say of him may, to some like thyself, appear like flattery; but I must do what justice seems so clearly to call for at my hands. Thou sayest that ‘though he professes a belief in the christian religion, he is an avowed opponent of most of its institutions.’ I presume thou art here alluding to his views of the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s supper, and the Sabbath. Permit me to remind thee, that in all these opinions, he coincides entirely with the Society of Friends, whose views of the Sabbath never were so ably vindicated as by his pen: and the insinuations of hypocrisy which thou hast thrown out against him, may with just as much truth be cast upon them. The Quakers think that these are not christian institutions, but thou hast assumed it without any proof at all. Thou sayest farther, ‘The character and spirit of this man have for years been exhibited in the Liberator.’ I have taken that paper for two years, and therefore understand its character, and am compelled to acknowledge, that harsh and severe as is the language often used, I have never seen any expressions which truth did not warrant. The abominations of slavery cannot be otherwise described. I think Dr. Channing exactly portrayed the character of brother Garrison’s writings when he said, ‘That deep feeling of evils, which is necessary to effectual conflict with them, which marks God’s most powerful messengers to mankind, cannot breathe itself in soft and tender accents. The deeply moved soul will speak strongly, and ought to speak strongly, so as to move and shake nations.’ It is well for the slave, and well for this country, that such a man was sent to sound the tocsin of alarm before slavery had completed its work of moral death in this ‘hypocritical nation.’ Garrison began that discussion of the subject of slavery, which J. Q. Adams declared in his oration, delivered in this town on the 4th inst. ‘to be the only safety-valve by which the high pressure boiler of slavery could be prevented from a most fatal explosion in this country;’ and as a Southerner, I feel truly grateful for all his efforts to redeem not the slave only, but the slaveholder, from the polluting influences of such a system of crime.