[66] "Letters of Elias Hicks," p. 9.
While the arguments presented in this document are of general value, it is probable that the pamphlet was in the main intended for circulation among Friends, with a view to stimulating them to such action as would forward the cause of freedom. This essay by Elias Hicks antedated by five years the address by Benjamin Lundy, already referred to, and was probably one of the first publications in the nineteenth century actually advocating the abolition of slavery.
In studying the slavery question it is necessary to remember that before the invention of the cotton gin, about 1793, a considerable but unorganized and ineffective anti-slavery sentiment existed in the country. But after that invention, which rendered slave labor very remunerative, sentiment of this sort subsided so that the Friends, who, like Elias Hicks, advocated abolition during the first quarter of the nineteenth century, were really pioneers in the attempt which resulted in the freedom of a race.
At one time church organizations, even in the South, especially the Baptists, passed resolutions favorable to the abolition of slavery. Churches North and South in the decade between 1780 and 1790 were well abreast of Friends in this particular. Touching this matter Horace Greeley remarked: "But no similar declaration has been made by any Southern Baptist Convention since field-hands rose to $1,000 each, and black infants at birth were accounted worth $100."[67]
[67] "The American Conflict," by Horace Greeley, Vol. I, p. 120.
We could make copious extracts from the anti-slavery utterances of Elias Hicks, but our object is simply to give the scope of his thinking and purpose in regard to this matter. Few men at certain points were more altruistic than he, and as an altruist he could not do other than oppose the great social and economic iniquity of his time. From his standpoint slavery was utterly and irretrievably bad, and to bear testimony constant and consistent against it was part of the high calling of the Christian.
CHAPTER XII.
Various Opinions.