An Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism / With reference to the duty of American females

by Catharine Esther Beecher

They have not approached them with the spirit of love, courtesy, and forbearance.

They are not the persons who would be regarded by the South, as having any right to interfere; and therefore, whether they have such right or not, the probabilities of good are removed. For it is not only demanded for the benefit of the offender, that there should really be a right, but it is necessary that he should feel that there is such a right.

In dealing with their brethren, too, they have not tried silent, retired, private measures. It has been public denunciation of crime and shame in newspapers, addressed as it were to by-standers, in order to arouse the guilty.

In reply to this, it has been urged, that men could not go to the South—that they would be murdered there—that the only way was, to convince the North, and excite public odium against the sins of the South, and thus gradually conviction, repentance, and reformation would ensue.

Here is another case where men are to judge of their duty, by estimating probabilities of future results; and it may first be observed, that it involves the principle of expediency, in just that form to which Abolitionists object.

It is allowed that the immediate abolition of slavery is to be produced by means of "light and love," and yet it is maintained as right to withdraw personally from the field of operation, because of consequences; because of the probable danger of approaching. "If we go to the South, and present truth, argument, and entreaty, we shall be slain, and therefore we are not under obligation to go." If this justifies Abolitionists in their neglect of their offending brethren, because they fear evil results to themselves, it also justifies those who refuse to act with Abolitionists in their measures, because they fear other evil results.

But what proof is there, that if the Abolitionists had taken another method, the one more in accordance with the laws of mind and the dictates of experience, that there would have been at the South all this violence? Before the abolition movement commenced, both northern and southern men, expressed their views freely at the South. The dangers, evils, and mischiefs of slavery were exhibited and discussed even in the legislative halls of more than one of the Southern States, and many minds were anxiously devising measures, to bring this evil to an end.

Now let us look at some of the records of past experience. Clarkson was the first person who devoted himself to the cause of Abolition in England. His object was to convince the people of England that they were guilty of a great impolicy, and great sin, in permitting the slave-trade. He was to meet the force of public sentiment, and power, and selfishness, and wealth, which sustained this traffic, in that nation. What were his measures? He did not go to Sweden, or Russia, or France, to awaken public sentiment against the sins of the English.—He began by first publishing an inquiry in England whether it was right to seize men, and make them slaves. He went unostentatiously to some of the best and most pious men there, and endeavoured to interest them in the inquiry.

Then he published an article on the impolicy of the slave-trade, showing its disadvantages. Then he collected information of the evils and enormities involved in the traffic, and went quietly around among those most likely to be moved by motives of humanity and Christianity. In this manner he toiled for more than fourteen years, slowly implanting the leaven among the good men, until he gained a noble band of patriots and Christians, with Wilberforce at their head.

The following extract from a memoir of Clarkson discloses the manner and spirit in which he commenced his enterprise, and toiled through to its accomplishment.