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.
1837.
Beloved Brethren and Sisters—
The sympathy we feel for our oppressed fellow-citizenswho are enslaved in these United States, has called ustogether, to devise by mutual conference the best meansfor bringing our guilty country to a sense of her transgressions;and to implore the God of the oppressed toguide and bless our labors on behalf of our "countrymenin chains."
All of us have some idea what slavery is: we haveformed some faint conceptions of the horrors of a systembased on irresponsible power, violence, and injustice; butto know what slavery is, we must see it worked out inpractice—we must see the heart-strings severed one byone, and witness all the refinement of cruelty which isexercised on the body, soul, and mind of the enslaved."Let any man of feeling," says a Southern gentleman,"cast his thoughts over this land of slavery, think ofthe nakedness of some, the hungry yearnings of others,the wailings and wo, the bloody cut of the keen lash, andthe frightful scream that rends the very skies—and allthis to gratify lust, pride, avarice, and other depravedfeelings of the human heart. THE WORST IS NOTGENERALLY KNOWN. Were all the miseries andhorrors of slavery to burst at once into view, a peal ofseven-fold thunder could scarce strike greater alarm."(Swain's Address, 1830.)
We can readily believe this testimony to the physicalsufferings of the slave: we apprehend these most easily,because all of us are alive to bodily pain, whilst few comparativelyappreciate the mental and spiritual degradation[pg 4]to which our oppressed brethren are subjected; yet this isthe most appalling feature of American bondage. Slaveryseizes a rational and immortal being crowned by Jehovahwith glory and honor, and drags him down to a level withthe beasts that perish. It makes him a thing, a chattelpersonal, a machine to be used to all intents and purposesfor the benefit of another, without reference to the good,the happiness, or the wishes of the man himself. It introducesviolence and disorder, where God establishedharmony and peace. It would annihilate the individualworth 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 hisMaker. It prevents him from laboring in a sphere towhich his capacities are adapted. It abrogates the seventhcommandment, by annulling the obligations of marriage,and obliging the slaves to live in a state of promiscuousintercourse, concubinage, and adultery; thus settingat nought an institution established by Jehovah himself,and designed to promote the happiness and virtue ofhis creatures. It dooms its victims to ignorance, and consequentlyto vice. "I think I may safely assert," saysMr. Moore, "that ignorance is the inseparable companionof slavery, and that the desire of freedom is the inevitableconsequence of implanting in the human mind any usefuldegree of intelligence: it is therefore the policy of themaster that the ignorance of his slaves should be as profoundas possible; and such a state of ignorance is whollyincompatible with the existence of any moral principlesor exalted feeling in the breast of the slave. (Speech ofMr. Moore, House of Delegate