A Visit to the United States in 1841 eBook

Joseph Sturge
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 371 pages of information about A Visit to the United States in 1841.

A Visit to the United States in 1841 eBook

Joseph Sturge
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 371 pages of information about A Visit to the United States in 1841.
own inactivity, and that of the Society at large, on this subject, that “Friends” living within the slave States, urged their brethren at the North not to unite with the Anti-slavery Societies.  It appears, however, that “Friends” of North Carolina do not, at all events, object to uniting or co-operating with those of other denominations, in promoting an object which they approve.  Their objection to abolition societies evidently rests on quite different grounds.

I must here be permitted to say a few words, respecting the character and objects of the society, thus officially patronized by the Friends of North Carolina.

The greatest objection to this society, is its representing slavery, and the prejudice against color, as necessary and incurable evils, for which its own mockery of a remedy is the only palliative; and thus administering an opiate to the consciences, not only of slave-holders, but of others who are unwilling to part with their sinful prejudices, and to enter into that fellowship of suffering with the enslaved, without which no efforts for the removal of slavery will be effectual.

The following extracts, elucidating this subject, are from a printed letter written by a friend of high station and extensive influence, then residing in North Carolina, but now of the State of Indiana, in defence of the Colonization Society.  It is dated “Third Month 4th, 1834,” and I suppress his name, because time and reflection have, I believe, in some degree modified his views.

Speaking of the opposition of Friends in England to the Colonization Society, he says, “I have supposed that they would think it more consistent with Christian principles to emancipate them in the Southern States, and let them remain there, as they have done in the Northern States.  I apprehend that Friends in England are not fully apprised of some important circumstances, which place the Southern States in a very different situation from the Northern.  In the first place, there never were so many people of color in the Northern States, as there are in the Southern; and another circumstance that diminished them there, and increased them greatly here, was while the Northern States were legislating on the subject of gradual emancipation, avaricious masters sent them by thousands to the Southern markets, before the emancipating laws were actually passed, which left a small proportion in those States, in comparison to the whites; not many more, perhaps, than they were willing to have for laborers, waiting men, waiting women, et cet.  And notwithstanding they have freed their slaves, for which they are entitled to applause, yet they never dreamed of raising them to equal citizenship and privileges with the white people.  No, my friend, they can no more reconcile to themselves the idea of sitting down by the side of a colored African, (American?) in any legislative or judiciary department, than the high spirited Southern slaveholder; and not only so, they never intend

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
A Visit to the United States in 1841 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.