The Anti Slavery Examiner, Part 2 of 4 by American Anti Slavery Society

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"8. _What has been for three years past, the annual income of your
societies? And how has it been raised?_"

ANSWER.--The annual income of the societies at large, it would be
impossible to ascertain. The total receipts of this society, for the
year ending 9th of May, 1835--leaving out odd numbers--was $10,000; for
the year ending 9th of May, 1837, $25,000; and for the year ending 11th
of May, 1836, $38,000. From the last date, up to this--not quite ten
months--there has been paid into the treasury the sum of $36,000.[A]
These sums are independent of what is raised by state and auxiliary
societies, for expenditure within their own particular bounds, and for
their own particular exigencies. Also, of the sums paid in subscriptions
for the support of newspapers, and for the printing (by auxiliaries,) of
periodicals, pamphlets, and essays, either for sale at low prices, or
for gratuitous distribution. The moneys contributed in these various
modes would make an aggregate greater, perhaps, than is paid into the
treasury of any one of the Benevolent societies of the country. Most of
the wealthy contributors of former years suffered so severely in the
money-pressure of this, that they have been unable to contribute much to
our funds. This has made it necessary to call for aid on the great body
of abolitionists--persons, generally, in moderate circumstances. They
have well responded to the call, considering the hardness of the times.
To show you the extremes that meet at our treasury,--General Sewall, of
Maine, a revolutionary officer, eighty-five years old--William
Philbrick, a little boy near Boston, not four years old--and a colored
woman, who makes her subsistence by selling apples in the streets in
this city, lately sent in their respective sums to assist in promoting
the emancipation of the "poor slave."

[Footnote A: The report for May states the sum received during the
previous year at $44,000.]

All contributions of whatever kind are _voluntary_.

"9. _In what way, and to what purposes do you apply these funds!_"

ANSWER.--They are used in sustaining the society's office in this
city--in paying lecturers and agents of various kinds--in upholding the
press--in printing books, pamphlets, tracts, &c, containing expositions
of our principles--accounts of our progress--refutations of
objections--and disquisitions on points, scriptural, constitutional,
political, legal, economical, as they chance to arise and become
important. In this office three secretaries are employed in different
departments of duty; one editor; one publishing agent, with an
assistant, and two or three young men and boys, for folding, directing,
and despatching papers, executing errands, &c. The business of the
society has increased so much of late, as to make it necessary, in order
to ensure the proper despatch of it, to employ additional clerks for the
particular exigency. Last year, the society had in its service about
sixty "permanent agents." This year, the number is considerably
diminished. The deficiency has been more than made up by creating a
large number of "Local" agents--so called, from the fact, that being
generally Professional men, lawyers or physicians in good practice, or
Ministers with congregations, they are confined, for the most part, to
their respective neighborhoods. Some of the best minds in our country
are thus engaged. Their labors have not only been eminently successful,
but have been rendered at but small charge to the society; they
receiving only their travelling expenses, whilst employed in lecturing
and forming societies. In the case of a minister, there is the
additional expense of supplying his pulpit while absent on the business
of his agency, However, in many instances, these agents, being in easy
circumstances, make no charge, even for their expenses.

In making appointments, the executive committee have no regard to party
discrimination. This will be fully understood, when it is stated, that
on a late occasion, two of our local agents were the candidates of their
respective political parties for the office of Secretary of State for
the state of Vermont.

It ought to be stated here, that two of the most effective advocates of
the anti-slavery cause are females--the Misses Grimke--natives of South
Carolina--brought up in the midst of the usages of slavery--most
intelligently acquainted with the merits of the system, and qualified,
in an eminent degree, to communicate their views to others in public
addresses. They are not only the advocates of the slave at their own
charge, but they actually contribute to the funds of the societies. So
successfully have they recommended the cause of emancipation to the
crowds that attended their lectures during the last year, that they were
permitted on three several occasions publicly to address the joint
committee (on slavery) of the Massachusetts Legislature, now in session,
on the interesting matters that occupy their attention.

"10. _How many printing presses and periodical publications have you?_"

ANSWER.--We own no press. Our publications are all printed by contract.
The EMANCIPATOR and HUMAN RIGHTS are the organs of the Executive
Committee. The first (which you have seen,) is a large sheet, is
published weekly, and employs almost exclusively the time of the
gentleman who edits it. Human Rights is a monthly sheet of smaller size,
and is edited by one of the secretaries. The increasing interest that is
fast manifesting itself in the cause of emancipation and its kindred
subjects will, in all probability, before long, call for the more
frequent publication of one or both of these papers.--The ANTI-SLAVERY
MAGAZINE, a quarterly, was commenced in October, 1835, and continued
through two years. It has been intermitted, only to make the necessary
arrangements for issuing it on a more extended scale.--It is proposed to
give it size enough to admit the amplest discussions that we or our
opponents may desire, and to give _them_ a full share of its room--in
fine, to make it, in form and merit, what the importance of the subject
calls for. I send you a copy of the Prospectus for the new series.--The
ANTI-SLAVERY RECORD, published for three years as a monthly, has been
discontinued _as such_, and it will be issued hereafter, only as
occasion may require:--THE SLAVE'S FRIEND, a small monthly tract, of
neat appearance, intended principally for children and young persons,
has been issued for several years. It is replete with facts relating to
slavery, and with accounts of the hair-breadth escapes of slaves from
their masters and pursuers that rarely fail to impart the most thrilling
interest to its little readers.--Besides these, there is the
ANTI-SLAVERY EXAMINER, in which are published, as the times call for
them, our larger essays partaking of a controversial character, such as
Smith's reply to the Rev. Mr. Smylie--Grimke's letter and "Wythe." By
turning to page 32 of our Fourth Report (included in your order for
books, &c,) you will find, that in the year ending 11th May, the issues
from the press were--bound volumes, 7,877--Tracts and Pamphlets,
47,250--Circulars, &c, 4,100--Prints, 10,490--Anti-Slavery Magazine,
9000--Slave's Friend, 131,050--Human Rights, 189,400--Emancipator,
217,000. These are the issues of the American Anti-Slavery Society, from
their office in this city. Other publications of similar character are
issued by State Societies or individuals--the LIBERATOR, in Boston;
HERALD OF FREEDOM, in Concord, N.H.; ZION'S WATCHMAN and the COLORED
AMERICAN in this city. The latter is conducted in the editorial, and
other departments, by colored citizens. You can judge of its character,
by a few numbers that I send to you. Then, there is the FRIEND of MAN,
in Utica, in this state. The NATIONAL ENQUIRER, in Philadelphia;[A] the
CHRISTIAN WITNESS, in Pittsburgh; the PHILANTHROPIST, in
Cincinnati.--All these are sustained by the friends, and devoted almost
exclusively to the cause, of emancipation. Many of the Religious
journals that do not make emancipation their main object have adopted
the sentiments of abolitionists, and aid in promoting them. The Alton
Observer, edited by the late Mr. Lovejoy, was one of these.

[Footnote A: The NATIONAL ENQUIRER, edited by Benjamin Lundy, has been
converted into the PENNSYLVANIA FREEMAN, edited by John G. Whittier. Mr.
Lundy proposes to issue the GENIUS OF UNIVERSAL EMANCIPATION, in
Illinois.]

From the data I have, I set down the newspapers, as classed above, at
upwards of one hundred. Here it may also be stated, that the presses
which print the abolition journals above named, throw off besides, a
great variety of other anti-slavery matter, in the form of books,
pamphlets, single sheets, &c, &c, and that, at many of the principal
commercial points throughout the free states, DEPOSITORIES are
established, at which our publications of every sort are kept for sale.
A large and fast increasing number of the Political journals of the
country have become, within the last two years, if not the avowed
supporters of our cause, well inclined to it. Formerly, it was a common
thing for most of the leading _party_-papers, especially in the large
cities, to speak of the abolitionists in terms signally disrespectful
and offensive. Except in rare instances, and these, it is thought, only
where they are largely subsidized by southern patronage, it is not so
now. The desertions that are taking place from their ranks will, in a
short time, render their position undesirable for any, who aspire to
gain, or influence, or reputation in the North.

"11. _To what class of persons do you address your publications--and are
they addressed to the judgment, the imagination, or the feelings_?"

ANSWER.--They are intended for the great mass of intelligent mind, both
in the free and in the slave states. They partake, of course, of the
intellectual peculiarities of the different authors. Jay's "INQUIRY" and
Mrs. Child's "APPEAL" abound in facts--are dispassionate, ingenious,
argumentative. The "BIBLE AGAINST SLAVERY," by the most careful and
laborious research, has struck from slavery the prop, which careless
Annotators, (writing, unconscious of the influence, the prevailing
system of slavery throughout the Christian world exercised on their own
minds,) have admitted was furnished for it in the Scriptures. "Wythe" by
a pains-taking and lucid adjustment of facts in the history of the
Government, both before and after the adoption of the Constitution, and
with a rigor of logic, that cannot, it is thought, be successfully
encountered, has put to flight forever with unbiased minds, every doubt
as to the "Power of Congress over the District of Columbia."

There are among the abolitionists, Poets, and by the acknowledgment of
their opponents, poets of no mean name too--who, as the use of poets is,
do address themselves often--as John G. Whittier does _always_
--powerfully to the imagination and feelings of their readers.

Our publications cannot be classed according to any particular style or
quality of composition. They may characterized generally, as well suited
to affect the public mind--to rouse into healthful activity the
conscience of this nation, stupified, torpid, almost dead, in relation
to HUMAN RIGHTS, the high theme of which they treat!

It has often been alleged, that our writings appeal to the worst
passions of the slaves, and that they are placed in their hands with a
view to stir them to revolt. Neither charge has any foundation in truth
to rest upon. The first finds no support in the tenor of the writings
themselves; the last ought forever to be abandoned, in the absence of
any single well authenticated instance of their having been conveyed by
abolitionists to slaves, or of their having been even found in their
possession. To instigate the slaves to revolt, as the means of obtaining
their liberty, would prove a lack of wisdom and honesty that none would
impute to abolitionists, except such as are unacquainted with their
character. Revolt would be followed by the sure destruction, not only of
all the slaves who might be concerned in it, but of multitudes of the
innocent. Moreover, the abolitionists, as a class, are religious--they
favor peace, and stand pledged in their constitution, before the country
and heaven, to abide in peace, so far as a forcible vindication of the
right of the slaves to their freedom is concerned. Further still, no
small number of them deny the right of defence, either to individuals or
nations, even when forcibly and wrongfully attacked. This disagreement
among ourselves on this single point--of which our adversaries are by no
means ignorant, as they often throw it reproachfully in our teeth--would
forever prevent concert in any scheme that looked to instigating servile
revolt. If there be, in all our ranks, one, who--personal danger out of
the question--would excite the slaves to insurrection and massacre, or
who would not be swift to repeat the earliest attempt to concoct such an
iniquity--I say, on my obligations as a man, he is unknown to me.

Yet it ought not to be matter of surprise to abolitionists, that the
South should consider them "fanatics," "incendiaries," "cut-throats,"
and call them so too. The South has had their character reported to them
by the North, by those who are their neighbors, who, it was supposed,
knew, and would speak the truth, and the truth only, concerning them. It
would, I apprehend, be unavailing for abolitionists now to enter on any
formal vindication of their character from charges that can be so easily
repeated after every refutation. False and fraudulent as they knew them
to be, they must be content to live under them till the consummation of
the work of Freedom shall prove to the master that they have been _his_
friends, as well as the friends of the slave. The mischief of these
charges has fallen on the South--the malice is to be placed to the
credit of the North.

"12. _Do you propagate your doctrines by any other means than oral and
written discussions--for instance, by prints and pictures in
manufactures--say of pocket-handkerchiefs, calicoes, &c? Pray, state the
various modes?_"

ANSWER.--Two or three years ago, an abolitionist of this city procured
to be manufactured, at his own charge, a small lot of children's
pocket-handkerchiefs, impressed with anti-slavery pictures and mottoes.
I have no recollection of having seen any of them but once. None such, I
believe, are now to be found, or I would send you a sample. If any
manufactures of the kinds mentioned, or others similar to theta, are in
existence, they have been produced independently of the agency of this
society. It is thought that none such exist, unless the following should
be supposed to fall within the terms of the inquiry. Female
abolitionists often unite in sewing societies. They meet together,
usually once a week or fortnight, and labor through the afternoon, with
their own hands, to furnish means for advancing the cause of the slave.
One of the company reads passages from the Bible, or some religious
book, whilst the others are engaged at their work. The articles they
prepare, especially if they be of the "fancy" kind, are often ornamented
with handsomely executed emblems, underwritten with appropriate mottoes.
The picture of a slave kneeling (such as you will see impressed on one
of the sheets of this letter) and supplicating in the words, "AM I NOT A
MAN AND A BROTHER," is an example. The mottoes or sentences are,
however, most generally selected from the Scriptures; either appealing
to human sympathy in behalf of human suffering, or breathing forth God's
tender compassion for the oppressed, or proclaiming, in thunder tones,
his avenging justice on the oppressor. A few quotations will show their
general character:--

"Blessed is he that considereth the poor."

"Defend the poor and fatherless; do justice to the afflicted and needy.
Deliver the poor and the needy; rid him out of the hand of the wicked."

"Open thy mouth for the dumb, plead the cause of the poor and needy."

"Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy."

"First, be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift."

"Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."

"All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so
to them."

Again:--

"For he shall deliver the needy when he crieth; the poor also, and him
that hath no helper."

"The Lord looseth the prisoners; the Lord raiseth them that are bowed
down; the Lord preserveth the strangers."

"He hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to
the captives, to set at liberty them that are bruised."'

"For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy, now will
I arise, saith the Lord; I will set him in safety from him that
puffeth at him."

Again:--

"The Lord executeth righteousness and judgment for all that are
oppressed."

"Rob not the poor because he is poor, neither oppress the afflicted in
the gate; for the Lord will plead their cause, and spoil the soul of
those that spoiled them."

"And I will come near to you to judgment, and I will be a swift witness
against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow and the
fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear
not me, saith the Lord of hosts."

"Wo unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness, and his
chambers by wrong; that useth his neighbor's service without wages, and
giveth him not for his work."

Fairs, for the sale of articles fabricated by the hands of female
abolitionists, and recommended by such pictures and sentences as those
quoted above, are held in many of our cities and large towns. Crowds
frequent them to purchase; hundreds of dollars are thus realized, to be
appropriated to the anti-slavery cause; and, from the cheap rate at
which the articles are sold, vast numbers of them are scattered far and
wide over the country. Besides these, if we except various drawings or
pictures on _paper_, (samples of which were put up in the packages you
ordered a few days ago,) such as the Slave-market in the District of
Columbia, with Members of congress attending it--views of slavery in the
South--a Lynch court in the slave-states--the scourging of Mr. Dresser
by a vigilance committee in the public square of Nashville--the
plundering of the post-office in Charleston, S.C., and the conflagration
of part of its contents, &c, &c, I am apprised of no other means of
propagating our doctrines than by oral and written discussions.

"13. _Are your hopes and expectations of success increased or lessened
by the events of the last year, and especially by the action of this
Congress? And will your exertions be relaxed or increased?_"

ANSWER.--The events of the last year, including the action of the
present Congress, are of the same character with the events of the
eighteen months which immediately preceded it. In the question before
us, they may be regarded as one series. I would say, answering your
interrogatory generally, that none of them, however unpropitious to the
cause of the abolitionists they may appear, to those who look at the
subject from an opposite point to the one _they_ occupy, seem, thus far,
in any degree to have lessened their hopes and expectations. The events
alluded to have not come altogether unexpected. They are regarded as the
legitimate manifestations of slavery--necessary, perhaps, in the present
dull and unapprehensive state of the public mind as to human rights, to
be brought out and spread before the people, before they will
sufficiently revolt against slavery itself.

1. They are seen in the CHURCH, and in the practice of its individual
members. The southern portion of the American church may now be regarded
as having admitted the dogma, that _slavery is a Divine institution_.
She has been forced by the anti-slavery discussion into this
position--either to cease from slaveholding, or formally to adopt the
only alternative, that slaveholding is right. She has chosen the
alternative--reluctantly, to be sure, but substantially, and, within the
last year, almost unequivocally. In defending what was dear to her, she
has been forced to cast away her garments, and thus to reveal a
deformity, of which she herself, before, was scarcely aware, and the
existence of which others did not credit. So much for the action of the
southern church as a body.--On the part of her MEMBERS, the revelation
of a time-serving spirit, that not only yielded to the ferocity of the
multitude, but fell in with it, may be reckoned among the events of the
last three years. Instances of this may be found in the attendance of
the "clergy of all denominations," at a tumultuous meeting of the
citizens of Charleston, S.C., held in August, 1835, for the purpose of
reducing to _system_ their unlawful surveillance and control of the
post-office and mail; and in the alacrity with which they obeyed the
popular call to dissolve the Sunday-schools for the instruction of the
colored people. Also in the fact, that, throughout the whole South,
church members are not only found on the Vigilance Committees,
(tribunals organized in opposition to the laws of the states where they
exist,) but uniting with the merciless and the profligate in passing
sentence consigning to infamous and excruciating, if not extreme
punishment, persons, by their own acknowledgment, innocent of any
unlawful act. Out of sixty persons that composed the vigilance committee
which condemned Mr. Dresser to be scourged in the public square of
Nashville, TWENTY-SEVEN were members of churches, and one of them a
professed Teachers of Christianity. A member of the committee stated
afterward, in a newspaper of which he was the editor, that Mr. D. _had
not laid himself liable to any punishment known to the laws_. Another
instance is to be found in the conduct of the Rev. Wm. S. Plumer, of
Virginia. Having been absent from Richmond, when the ministers of the
gospel assembled together formally to testify their abhorrence of the
abolitionists, he addressed the chairman of the committee of
correspondence a note, in which he uses this language:--"If
abolitionists will set the country in a blaze, it is but fair that they
should have the first warming at the fire."--"Let them understand, that
they will be caught, if they come among us, and they will take good heed
to keep out of our way." Mr. P. has no doubtful standing in the
Presbyterian church with which he is connected. He has been regarded as
one of its brightest ornaments.[A] To drive the slaveholding church and
its members from the equivocal, the neutral position, from which they
had so long successfully defended slavery--to compel them to elevate
their practice to an even height with their avowed principles, or to
degrade their principles to the level of their known practice, was a
preliminary, necessary in the view of abolitionists, either for bringing
that part of the church into the common action against slavery, or as a
ground for treating it as confederate with oppressors. So far, then, as
the action of the church, or of its individual members, is to be
reckoned among the events of the last two or three years, the
abolitionists find in it nothing to lessen their hopes or expectations.

[Footnote A: In the division of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian
church, that has just taken place, Mr. Plumer has been elected Moderator
of the "Old School" portion.]

2. The abolitionists believed, from the beginning, that the slaves of
the South were (as slaves are everywhere) unhappy, _because of their
condition_. Their adversaries denied it, averring that, as a class, they
were "contented and happy." The abolitionists thought that the argument
against slavery could be made good, so far as this point was concerned,
by either _admitting_ or _denying_ the assertion.

_Admitting_ it, they insisted, that, nothing could demonstrate the
turpitude of any system more surely than the fact, that MAN--made in the
image of God--but a little lower than the angels--crowned with glory and
honor, and set over the works of God's hands--his mind sweeping in an
instant from planet to planet, from the sun of one system to the sun of
another, even to the great centre sun of them all--contemplating the
machinery of the universe "wheeling unshaken" in the awful and
mysterious grandeur of its movements "through the void immense"--with a
spirit delighting in upward aspiration--bounding from earth to
heaven--that seats itself fast by the throne of God, to drink in the
instructions of Infinite Wisdom, or flies to execute the commands of
Infinite Goodness;--that such a being could be made "contented and
happy" with "enough to eat, and drink, and wear," and shelter from the
weather--with the base provision that satisfies the brutes, is (say the
abolitionists) enough to render superfluous all other arguments for the
_instant_ abandonment of a system whose appropriate work is such
infinite wrong.

_Denying_ that "the slaves are contented and happy," the abolitionists
have argued, that, from the structure of his moral nature--the laws of
his mind--man cannot be happy in the fact, that he is _enslaved_. True,
he may be happy in slavery, but it is not slavery that makes him so--it
is virtue and faith, elevating him above the afflictions of his lot. The
slave has a will, leading him to seek those things which the Author of
his nature has made conducive to its happiness. In these things, the
will of the master comes in collision with his will. The slave desires
to receive the rewards of his own labor; the power of the master wrests
them from him. The slave desires to possess his wife, to whom God has
joined him, in affection, to have the superintendence, and enjoy the
services, of the children whom God has confided to him as a parent to
train them, by the habits of the filial relation, for the yet higher
relation that they may sustain to him as their heavenly Father. But here
he is met by the opposing will of the master, pressing _his_ claims with
irresistible power. The ties that heaven has sanctioned and blessed--of
husband and wife, of parent and child--are all sundered in a moment by
the master, at the prompting of avarice or luxury or lust; and there is
none that can stay his ruthless hand, or say unto him, "What doest
thou?" The slave thirsts for the pleasures of refined and elevated
intellect--the master denies to him the humblest literary acquisition.
The slave pants to know something of that still higher nature that he
feels burning within him--of his present state, his future destiny, of
the Being who made him, to whose judgment-seat he is going. The master's
interests cry, "No!" "Such knowledge is too wonderful for you; it is
high, you cannot attain unto it." To predicate _happiness_ of a class of
beings, placed in circumstances where their will is everlastingly
defeated by an irresistible power--the abolitionists say, is to prove
them destitute of the sympathies of _our_ nature--not _human_. It is to
declare with the Atheist, that man is independent of the goodness of his
Creator for his enjoyments--that human happiness calls not for any of
the appliances of his bounty--that God's throne is a nullity, himself a
superfluity.