[18] This memorial was as follows:
“The Manumission Society of Tennessee wish to address you again on the important subject of slavery. In calling your attention to this subject, in which we feel a most serious concern, we wish to use that sincerity and candor which become friends travelling through a world of error and sin, in which they are to make preparation for eternity. We therefore beg you to pause a moment, and let us compare the principles of slavery, as it exists among us, with the holy religion we profess, and the divine precepts of our common Lord. What is our religion? Our Divine Master has told us, that the most prominent features were, to love the Lord our God, with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. And it is also written in His holy book, as a rule of duty, to honor all and to abound in love one to another. We are also there taught to consider the whole human race as one family, descended from the same original parent; and that God made of one blood all nations who dwell upon the earth. We are also taught, that as all mankind are equally free, for one man to deprive another of liberty and to keep him in that condition, is an enormous crime. And he that stealeth a man and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death. Exodus, XXI, 16. The man stealer is enrolled by the apostle amongst the other notorious criminals. Tim., I, 10.
“Now let us ask what slavery is, as it stands between Africa, America, and the Supreme Judge of Nations. Is it not injustice, cruelty, robbery, and murder, reduced to a practical system? The dreadful answer is, that hosts of the disembodied spirits of unoffending Africans have taken their flight to eternity from the dark holds of American slave ships, and their last quivering groans have descended on high to call for vengeance on the murderous deed, that stained the earth and ocean with their blood. When we ask what slavery is, we are answered by the civil wars existing in Africa—by the thousands slain by the bands of their brethren—by the captive’s last look of anguish at his native shore—and by the blood and groans of the sufferers on the seas—by the sighs of men driven like herds of cattle to market—by the tears that furrow the woe-worn cheek of sorrow, as oppression moulders down the African’s system.” The Genius, IV, 73-4.
[19] The branches were: The Greene Branch, Maryville, Bethesda, Hickory Valley, Nolachucky, Washington, French Broad, Dumplin Creek, Jefferson Creek, Holston, Sullivan, Powell Valley, Knoxville, Colter’s Station, Turkey Creek, Chestoody. The Genius, IV, 204.
[20] The Genius, IV, 185.
[21] Ibid., VI, 160.
[22] Ibid., VII, 194.
[23] The Genius, VIII, 93.
[24] Minutes of American Convention for 1828, p. 27.
[25] The Genius, XI, 3.