Title: “How Can I Help to Abolish Slavery?” or, Counsels to the Newly Converted: Anti-Slavery Tracts No. 14
Author: Chapman, Maria Weston
Language: English
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SLAVERY?” OR, COUNSELS TO THE NEWLY CONVERTED ***


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                     _ANTI-SLAVERY TRACTS. No. 14._

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                  “HOW CAN I HELP TO ABOLISH SLAVERY?”


                    COUNSELS TO THE NEWLY CONVERTED.

                        BY MARIA WESTON CHAPMAN.

Yes, my friend, I can resolve your question. Twenty years of actual
experience qualify one to reply. I have stood, as you now stand, on the
threshold of this grandest undertaking of any age—this effort to elevate
a whole people in the scale of moral being—with my head full of plans,
and my heart of devotedness, asking the same question. I really longed
for this coming of millennial glory, and therefore soon found the road
on which to go forth to meet it. My disgust was unutterable, as yours,
too, will be, if you desire the abolition of slavery more than the
temporary triumph of sect or party, at the stupid schemes by which
selfish men were then, as now, trying to make capital for themselves out
of the sacred cause of human rights—seeking to sell the gift of the Holy
Ghost for money. Hear them clamorously and meanly taking advantage of
ignorance, for the promotion of self-interest.

First, hear the agents of slavery presenting the colonization scheme as
the instrument of abolition.

“Aid the Colonization Society.” Yes; to make slavery stronger by
exalting prejudice as an ordination of divine Providence; to make
slavery safer by eliminating that dangerous element, the free black; to
make its term longer by stultifying national conscience. See that
society making the laws of slave States more cruel, the men of the free
States more obdurate, the situation of the free men of color more
difficult and insupportable, as a part of its plan. It could not, if it
would, transport three millions of souls to Africa; the navies and
revenues of the world would be insufficient. It would not, if it could;
for slavery has no intention of parting with its three millions of
victims; unless induced to free them out of generosity, it will keep
them on speculation. Its forty years of colonization labor, and its
million of gold and silver, have exiled fewer to Liberia than have
escaped into Canada in spite of it—less in that period than the monthly
increase of the slaves! It can do nothing for Christianizing Africa, for
it sends a slaveholding gospel, which is anti-Christ. Be not deceived,
then, by a tyrannical mockery like this, working to perpetuate slavery,
and not to abolish it. Aid the American Anti-Slavery Society, which
deals with the heart and conscience of this slaveholding nation,
demanding immediate, unconditional emancipation, without expatriation;
the abolition of slavery by the spirit of repentance, in conformity with
all your own principles and traditions, whether religious or political.

Hear another cry, (coming, not like the first, from the enemies of
abolition, but from friends, generally those of more pretension than
devotedness:) “Form a political party, free soil or other, to vote down
slavery.”

Yes, don’t _kill_ the growing monster—call to him to stop growing; merge
immediatism, which always succeeds, in gradualism, which never does.
Substitute a secondary object for the primary one. Strive in the first
place not to abolish slavery, but to get one set of men out of office
and another in, to learn by the event that the last are as incapable to
turn back the whirlpool that masters the government as the first were.
Make an appeal to force of numbers in a case where you know it is
against you; in a case, too, where, having sworn assistance, you must
lose influence by such an appeal. Spend your time and money, not in
making new abolitionists, but in counting the old ones, that at every
count diminish. Politics, in the common, small sense of the term, merely
takes the circumstances it finds, and does its best with them. But the
present circumstances are unfavorable. THEN CREATE NEW ONES. This is
true politics, in the enlarged, real meaning of the word. Here is a
building to be erected, and no sufficient materials. A _little_
untempered mortar, a _few_ unbaked bricks—that is all. Go to the deep
quarries of the human heart, and make of your sons and daughters
polished stones to build the temple of the Lord. It is this cleaving
into the living rock the AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY girds itself to
do. Under its operations men become better and better abolitionists.
Under the labors of political partisanship they necessarily grow worse
and worse. They must ever ask themselves how _little_ anti-slavery
feeling and principle they can make serve the temporary turn; because
the less of either, the greater the chance. They must always be
sacrificing the end to the means. Call them to the witness box in their
capacity of philosophical observers, and out of their little
circumventing political characters, and themselves will tell you that
the effect of electioneering on anti-slavery is most unfavorable, adding
to the existing opposition to right the fury of party antagonism,
throwing away the balance of power, lowering the tone of moral and
religious feeling and action, and thus letting a sacred enterprise
degenerate into a scramble for office. But labor with the AMERICAN
ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY _directly_ to the great end, and even Franklin
Pierce and Co., pro-slavery as they are, will grovel to do your bidding.
The administration now _on_ the throne is as good for your bidding as
any other. In a republican land the power behind the throne is _the_
power. Save yourself the trouble of calling caucuses, printing party
journals, distributing ballots, and the like. Let men who are fit for
nothing of more consequence do this little work, which is best done by
mere nobodies. _More_ than enough of them are always ready for it. You,
who are smitten by the sacred beauty of the great cause, should serve it
greatly. Don’t drag the engine, like an ignoramus, but bring wood and
water and flame, like an engineer. The AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY has
laid the track.

“Buy slaves and set them free.” Yes; lop the branches and strengthen the
root; make the destruction of the system more difficult by practising
upon it; create a demand for the slave breeder to supply; compromise
with crime; raise the market price, when you ought to stop the market;
put a philanthropic mark upon the slave trade; spend money enough in
buying one man to free fifty gratis, and convert a thousand. But there
is a _wholesale_ way, cries one. “Sell the public lands, and set every
means in motion, from the merely mercantile donation of a million to the
infant cent society, and thus raise two thousand millions of dollars,
and beg the slaveholders to take it, (not as compensation, but as a
token of good will,) and let their bondmen go.” I marvel at this
insufficient notion of the heart of a slaveholder. I wonder exceedingly
at such a want of imagination. “Not as compensation” is well put; for
what sum can compensate a monarch for his throne? This system of slavery
makes the south the parent of long lines of princes. It gives to her
diabolical dominions

    “Kingdoms, and sway, and strength, and length of days.”

I am strangely divided in sympathy. I feel at once the generosity of the
proposal, and have the feeling of contempt with which its insufficient
inappropriateness is received.

“Organize vigilance committees, and establish underground railroads.”
Yes; hide from tyranny, instead of defying it; _whisper_ a testimony;
form a bad habit of mind in regard to despotism; try to keep out the sea
with a mop, when you ought to build a dike; flatter your sense of
compassion by taking private retail measures to have suffering
ameliorated, when you might, with the AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY, be
taking public wholesale measures to have _wrong_ (the cause of
suffering) _righted_. You may safely leave with the half and quarter
converted, with the slaveholders, nay, even with the Curtises, the
charge of all these things, which without the American Anti-Slavery
Society are but as hydrogen and nitrogen without oxygen, however good
with it, as the natural fruits of its labors. What I would discourage
is, not mercy and compassion in an individual case, but a disgraceful
mistake in the economy of well doing; spending in salving a sore finger
what would buy the elixir vitæ; preferring the less, which _ex_cludes
the greater, to the greater, which _in_cludes the less. Slavery can only
be abolished by raising the character of the people who compose the
nation; and _that_ can be done only by showing them a higher one. Now,
there is _one_ thing that can’t be done in _secret_; you can’t _set a
good example under a bushel_.

“But instruction! instruction! found schools and churches for the
blacks, and thus _prepare_ for the abolition of slavery.” O, shallow and
shortsighted! the _demand_ is the _preparation_; nothing can supply the
place of _that_. And _exclusive_ instruction, teaching for _blacks_, a
school founded on color, a church in which men are herded ignominiously,
apart from the refining influence of association with the more highly
educated and accomplished,—what are they? A direct way of fitting white
men for tyrants, and black men for slaves. No; if you would teach and
Christianize the nation, strengthen the AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY,
the _only_ American institution founded on the Christian and republican
idea of the equal brotherhood of man, and in opposition to a church and
state which deny human brotherhood by sanctioning slavery, and pull down
Christ to their own level. The American Anti-Slavery Society is church
and university, high school and common school to all who need real
instruction and true religion. Of it what a throng of authors, editors,
lawyers, orators, and accomplished gentlemen of color have taken their
degree! It has equally implanted hopes and aspirations, noble thoughts
and sublime purposes in the hearts of both races. It has prepared the
white man for the freedom of the black man, and it has made the black
man scorn the thought of enslavement, as does a white man, as far as its
influence has extended. _Strengthen that noble influence._ Before its
organization, the country only saw here and there in slavery some
“faithful Cudjoe or Dinah,” whose strong natures blossomed even in
bondage, like a fine plant beneath a heavy stone. Now, under the
elevating and cherishing influence of the American Anti-Slavery Society,
the colored race, like the white, furnishes Corinthian capitals for the
noblest temples. Aroused by the American Anti-Slavery Society, the very
white men who had forgotten and denied the claim of the black man to the
rights of humanity now thunder that claim at every gate, from cottage to
capital, from school house to university, from the railroad carriage to
the house of God. He has a place at their firesides, a place in their
hearts—the man whom they once cruelly hated for his color. So feeling,
they _cannot_ send him to Coventry with a horn-book in his hand, and
call it _instruction_! They inspire him to climb to their side by a
visible acted gospel of freedom. Thus, instead of bowing to prejudice,
they conquer it.

“Establish free-labor warehouses.” Indeed! is that a good business
calculation that leads to expend in search of the products of free labor
the time and money that would make all labor free? While wrong exists in
the world, you cannot (short of suicide) but draw your every life breath
in involuntary connection with it; nor is conscience to be satisfied
with any thing short of a complete devotion to the anti-slavery cause of
the life that is sustained by slavery. We _may_ draw good out of evil:
we _must not_ do evil, that good may come. Yet I counsel you to honor
those who eat no sugar, as _you_ ask no questions for conscience’s sake;
while you despise those who thrust forward such a call upon conscience,
_impossible_, in the nature of things, to be obeyed, and therefore not
binding, as if it were the end of the law for righteousness, in order to
injure Garrison, the great and good founder of the American Anti-Slavery
Society. I have seen men stand drawing bills of exchange between England
and the United States, while uttering maledictions against the American
Anti-Slavery Society, because it does not, as such, occupy itself with
the free produce question. This I brand as pro-slavery in disguise—sheer
hypocrisy.

You see, my friend, that I have replied to your question in the
conviction that you desire the abolition of slavery above all other
things in this world; as one assured that it is the great work of
Christianity in our age and country, as the conflict with idolatry was
in other times and climes. Thus you see the salvation of the souls, the
maintenance of the rights, the fulfilment of the duties, and the
preservation of the free institutions of Americans, to depend upon the
extirpation of this accursed and disgraceful disease which is destroying
them. If I had reason to think you merely desirous to make sectarian and
political capital out of a holy thought and a sacred purpose originated
by others—if you were merely contriving defences for what is
indefensible, and trying to save the credit of what is disgraceful,
trying to throw dust, and change the issue, and pay tithes of cumin to
delay justice, in order to spare your own insignificant self in this
greatest conflict of light and darkness, good and evil, which the world
has now to show—if you had been trying how to _seem_ creditably
interested in what ought to be an American’s first business, and
calculating _how little_ instead of _how much_ you might sacrifice to
the soul-exalting cause of freedom—if you were but trying to get
yourself or some friend into office by the judicious use of ideas which,
as a republican and a Christian, you ought to give yourself wholly to be
used by—if you were the hired agent of some demisemiquaver of a movement
which tacked anti-slavery to its other titles, in order to establish a
claim on the purses of abolitionists—in any of these cases I would not
have stopped to talk with you. Your interest being the thing you had at
heart, I should not _counsel_; I should be called, in the name of all
that is holy, to _condemn_ you, in order that blame might awaken
conscience. But the case, I trust, is different. I may, then, say to
you, with all the confidence, nay, certainty, which is inseparable from
experience, knowledge, and utter self-abnegation in the matter, WORK
WITH THE AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. Lavish your time, your money,
your labors, your prayers, in that field, which is the world, and you
will reap a thousand fold, now and hereafter. This movement _moves_. It
is alive. Hear how every thing mean and selfish struggles, hisses, and
dies under its influence. Never, since the world was, has any effort
been so clear, so strong, so uncompromising, so ennobling, so holy, and,
let me add, so successful. It is “the bright consummate flower” of the
Christianity of the nineteenth century. Look at those who “have not
resisted the heavenly vision” it presented them of a nation overcoming
its evil propensities, and doing right at all risks; ask _them_ whether
it has not saved their souls alive; ask _them_ if it has not made them
worshippers of the beauty and sublimity of high character, till they are
ready to “know nothing on earth but Jesus Christ and him crucified.” For
this they give all—wealth, youth, health, strength, life. Worldly
success, obtained by slackening their labors against slavery, (and it is
easy to have it on those terms at any moment, so placable a monster is
the world,) strikes them like failure and disgrace. They have “scorned
delights, and lived laborious days,” till at length they feel it no
sacrifice, but the highest joy. All this the American Anti-Slavery
Society demands of _you_. DO IT! and be most grateful for the
opportunity of fulfilling a work which is its own exceeding great
reward. DO IT, and find yourself the chosen of God, to keep alive in
this nation, degraded and corrupted by slavery, the noble flame of
Christian faith, the sentiment of honor and fidelity, the instinct of
high-mindedness, the sense of absolute, immutable duty, the charm of
chivalrous and poetic feeling, which would make of the poorest Americans
the Christian gentlemen of the world.

              “Cherish all these high feelings that become
              A giver of the gift of liberty.”

You will find yourself under the necessity of doing it in _this_ noble
company, or _alone_. Try it. Strive to be perfect, as God is perfect—to
act up to your own highest idea, in connection with church or state in
this land corrupted by slavery, and see if you are helped or hindered.
Be not dragged along by them protesting. It is graceing as a slave the
chariot wheels of a triumph. But flee from them, as one flees out of
Babylon. Secure the blessing of union for good, and be delivered from
the curse of union in evil, by acting with the AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY
SOCIETY, its members and friends.

I use this mode of expression advisedly, for I am not speaking of a mere
form of association. Many are in harmonious coöperation with it who have
neither signed the constitution nor subscribed the annual half dollar.
Hence it is neither a formality nor a ceremony, but a united,
onward-flowing current of noble lives.

If, then, you feel that devotedness of heart which I verily think your
question indicates, I feel free to counsel you to go _immediately_ to
the nearest office of the American Anti-Slavery Society,[1] by letter,
if not in person, subscribe what money you can afford—the first fruits
of a life-long liberality, and _study_ the cause like a science, while
promoting it like a gospel, under the cheering and helpful sympathy of
some of the best company on earth; _but not unless_; for _this_ company
despises what politicians, ecclesiastical and other, call “getting
people committed.” They have a horror of this selfish invasion of
another’s freedom, as of the encumbrance of selfish help. They warn you
not to touch the ark with unhallowed hands.

One consideration more—the thought of what you owe to your forerunners
in what you feel to be the truth. It is, to follow meekly after, and be
baptized with the baptism that they are baptized with. “Thus it
_becometh_ us to fulfil all righteousness;” and the more your talents,
gifts, and graces may, in your own judgment, be superior to theirs, the
more _becoming_ it will be to seek their fellowship; for in the whole
land they, and _they alone_, _are right_. It is not eulogy, but fact,
that theirs is the path of the just, shining more and more unto the
perfect day—denied only by the besotted with injustice, the committed to
crime. Consider, then, not only what you owe to your slavery-cursed
country, your enslaving as well as enslaved countrymen, your fathers’
memory, your remotest posterity, the Christian religion, which forbids
the sacrifice of one man’s rights to another man’s interests, and which
knows no distinction of caste, color, or condition,—but consider, also,
what you owe to those individuals and to that brotherhood who have
battled twenty years in the breach for _your_ freedom, involved with
that of the meanest slave.

Imagine how the case stood with those who perished by suffocation in the
Black Hole at Calcutta. Suppose that some of their number had felt the
sublime impulse to place their bodies in the door, and the high devoted
hearts to stand the crushing till dawn awoke the tyrant; the _rest_ of
that doomed band might have passed out alive. This is what the American
Anti-Slavery Society has been unflinchingly doing for you, and for the
rest of the nation, amid torture, insult, and curses, through a long
night of terror and despair. The life of the land, its precious moral
sense, has been thus kept from suffocation. The free agitating air of
faithful speech has saved it. The soul of the United States is not dead,
thanks, under Providence, to that noble fellowship of resolute souls, to
find whom the nation has been winnowed. Do your duty by them, in the
name of self-respect. Such companionship is an honor accorded to but
few, and of that worthy few I would fain count you one. Strike, then,
with them at the existence of slavery, and you will see individual
slaves made free, anti-slavery leaven introduced into parties and
churches, instruction diffused, the products of free labor multiplied,
and fugitives protected, in exact proportion to the energy of the grand
onset against the civil system.

                  *       *       *       *       *

NOTE. The work of the American Anti-Slavery Society is carried on by
newspapers, books, tracts, agents, meetings, and conventions. The donor
is requested to specify to what department, and in what section of
country, he wishes his contribution applied.

-----

Footnote 1:

  For the local offices, see bottom of page 12.

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           CONSTITUTION OF THE AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY.

               FORMED IN PHILADELPHIA, DECEMBER 4, 1833.

Whereas the Most High God “hath made of one blood all nations of men to
dwell on all the face of the earth,” and hath commanded them to love
their neighbors as themselves; and whereas our national existence is
based upon this principle, as recognized in the Declaration of
Independence, “that all mankind are created equal, and that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which
are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;” and whereas, after the
lapse of nearly sixty years, since the faith and honor of the American
people were pledged to this avowal before Almighty God and the world,
nearly one sixth part of the nation are held in bondage by their
fellow-citizens; and whereas slavery is contrary to the principles of
natural justice, of our republican form of government, and of the
Christian religion, and is destructive of the prosperity of the country,
while it is endangering the peace, union, and liberties of the States;
and whereas we believe it the duty and interest of the masters
immediately to emancipate their slaves, and that no scheme of
expatriation, either voluntary or by compulsion, can remove this great
and increasing evil; and whereas we believe that it is practicable, by
appeals to the consciences, hearts, and interests of the people, to
awaken a public sentiment throughout the nation that will be opposed to
the continuance of slavery in any part of the republic, and by effecting
the speedy abolition of slavery, prevent a general convulsion; and
whereas we believe we owe it to the oppressed, to our fellow-citizens
who hold slaves, to our whole country, to posterity, and to God, to do
all that is lawfully in our power to bring about the extinction of
slavery, we do hereby agree, with a prayerful reliance on the divine
aid, to form ourselves into a society to be governed by the following
constitution:—

ARTICLE I.—This society shall be called the AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY
SOCIETY.

ARTICLE II.—The objects of this society are the entire abolition of
slavery in the United States. While it admits that each State in which
slavery exists has, by the constitution of the United States, the
exclusive right to _legislate_ in regard to its abolition in said State,
it shall aim to convince all our fellow-citizens, by arguments addressed
to their understandings and consciences, that slaveholding is a heinous
crime in the sight of God, and that the duty, safety, and best interests
of all concerned require its _immediate abandonment_, without
expatriation. The society will also endeavor, in a constitutional way,
to influence Congress to put an end to the domestic slave trade, and to
abolish slavery in all those portions of our common country which come
under its control, especially in the District of Columbia, and likewise
to prevent the extension of it to any State that may be hereafter
admitted to the Union.

ARTICLE III.—This society shall aim to elevate the character and
condition of the people of color, by encouraging their intellectual,
moral, and religious improvement, and by removing public prejudice, that
thus they may, according to their intellectual and moral worth, share an
equality with the whites of civil and religious privileges; but this
society will never, in any way, countenance the oppressed in vindicating
their rights by resorting to physical force.

ARTICLE IV.—Any person who consents to the principles of this
constitution, who contributes to the funds of this society, and is not a
slaveholder, may be a member of this society, and shall be entitled to
vote at the meetings.

ARTICLE V.—The officers of this society shall be a president,
vice-presidents, a recording secretary, corresponding secretaries, a
treasurer, and an executive committee of not less than five nor more
than twelve members.

ARTICLE VI.—The executive committee shall have power to enact their own
by-laws, fill any vacancy in their body, and in the offices of secretary
and treasurer, employ agents, determine what compensation shall be paid
to agents and to the corresponding secretaries, direct the treasurer in
the application of all moneys, and call special meetings of the society.
They shall make arrangements for all meetings of the society, make an
annual written report of their doings, the expenditures and funds of the
society, and shall hold stated meetings, and adopt the most energetic
measures in their power to advance the objects of the society. They may,
if they shall see fit, appoint a board of assistant managers, composed
of not less than three nor more than seven persons residing in New York
city, or its vicinity, whose duty it shall be to render such assistance
to the committee in conducting the affairs of the society as the
exigencies of the cause may require. To this board they may from time to
time confide such of their own powers as they may deem necessary to the
efficient conduct of the society’s business. The board shall keep a
record of its proceedings, and furnish a copy of the same for the
information of the committee, as often as may be required.

ARTICLE VII.—The president shall preside at all meetings of the society,
or, in his absence, one of the vice-presidents, or, in their absence, a
president pro tem. The corresponding secretaries shall conduct the
correspondence of the society. The recording secretary shall notify all
meetings of the society and of the executive committee, and shall keep
records of the same in separate books. The treasurer shall collect the
subscriptions, make payments at the direction of the executive
committee, and present a written and audited account to accompany the
annual report.

ARTICLE VIII.—The annual meeting of the society shall be held each year
at such time and place as the executive committee may direct, when the
accounts of the treasurer shall be presented, the annual report read,
appropriate addresses delivered, the officers chosen, and such other
business transacted as shall be deemed expedient.

ARTICLE IX.—Any anti-slavery society or association founded on the same
principles may become auxiliary to this society. The officers of each
auxiliary society shall be ex officio members of the parent institution,
and shall be entitled to deliberate and vote in the transactions of its
concerns.

ARTICLE X.—This constitution may be amended, at any annual meeting of
the society, by a vote of two thirds of the members present, provided
the amendments proposed have been previously submitted, in writing, to
the executive committee.

                  *       *       *       *       *

_Published for gratuitous distribution, at the Office of the_ AMERICAN
ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY, _No. 138 Nassau Street, New York_. _Also to be had
at the Anti-Slavery Offices, No. 21 Cornhill, Boston, and No. 31 North
Fifth Street, Philadelphia; and at the Anti-Slavery Depository, Salem,
Columbiana Co., Ohio._

                          Transcriber’s Notes

Some inconsistencies in spelling, hyphenation, punctuation, and
typography have been retained.

This file uses _underscores_ to indicate italic text.



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