Homepage
Login
Profile
BookClubs
dmBox
Read this ebook for free! No credit card needed, absolutely nothing to pay.
Words: 15326 in 3 pages
This is an ebook sharing website. You can read the uploaded ebooks for free here. No credit cards needed, nothing to pay. If you want to own a digital copy of the ebook, or want to read offline with your favorite ebook-reader, then you can choose to buy and download the ebook.
AN ADDRESS
TO
FREE COLORED AMERICANS.
ISSUED BY AN ANTI-SLAVERY CONVENTION OF AMERICAN WOMEN,
Held in the City of New-York, by adjournments from 9th to 12th May, 1837.
NEW-YORK: PRINTED BY WILLIAM S. DORR, 123 FULTON STREET.
AN ADDRESS
TO
FREE COLORED AMERICANS.
BELOVED BRETHREN AND SISTERS--
The sympathy we feel for our oppressed fellow-citizens who are enslaved in these United States, has called us together, to devise by mutual conference the best means for bringing our guilty country to a sense of her transgressions; and to implore the God of the oppressed to guide and bless our labors on behalf of our "countrymen in chains."
We can readily believe this testimony to the physical sufferings of the slave: we apprehend these most easily, because all of us are alive to bodily pain, whilst few comparatively appreciate the mental and spiritual degradation to which our oppressed brethren are subjected; yet this is the most appalling feature of American bondage. Slavery seizes a rational and immortal being crowned by Jehovah with glory and honor, and drags him down to a level with the beasts that perish. It makes him a thing, a chattel personal, a machine to be used to all intents and purposes for the benefit of another, without reference to the good, the happiness, or the wishes of the man himself. It introduces violence and disorder, where God established harmony and peace. It would annihilate the individual worth and responsibility conferred upon man by his Creator. It deprives him of the power of self-improvement, to which he is bound by the unchangeable laws of his Maker. It prevents him from laboring in a sphere to which his capacities are adapted. It abrogates the seventh commandment, by annulling the obligations of marriage, and obliging the slaves to live in a state of promiscuous intercourse, concubinage, and adultery; thus setting at nought an institution established by Jehovah himself, and designed to promote the happiness and virtue of his creatures. It dooms its victims to ignorance, and consequently to vice. "I think I may safely assert," says Mr. Moore, "that ignorance is the inseparable companion of slavery, and that the desire of freedom is the inevitable consequence of implanting in the human mind any useful degree of intelligence: it is therefore the policy of the master that the ignorance of his slaves should be as profound as possible; and such a state of ignorance is wholly incompatible with the existence of any moral principles or exalted feeling in the breast of the slave.
Free books android app tbrJar TBR JAR Read Free books online gutenberg
(0)More posts by @FreeBooks
