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Speech in Pennsylvania Hall
May 16, 1838
by Angelina Grimke Weld
Note: references to a mob occur in her speech because an angry crowd
surrounded the building and pelted windows with rocks while Angelina delivered
her anti-slavery speech.
Men, brethren and fathers -- mothers, daughters and sisters, what came
ye out for to see? A reed shaken with the wind? Is it curiosity merely,
or a deep sympathy with the perishing slave, that has brought this large
audience together? Those voices without ought to awaken and call out our
warmest sympathies. Deluded beings! "they know not what they do."
They know not that they are undermining their own rights and their own
happiness, temporal and eternal. Do you ask, "what has the North to
do with slavery?" Hear it - hear it. Those voices without tell us
that the spirit of slavery is here, and has been roused to wrath
by our abolition speeches and conventions: for surely liberty would not
foam and tear herself with rage, because her friends are multiplied daily,
and meetings are held in quick succession to set forth her virtues and
extend her peaceful kingdom. This opposition shows that slavery has done
its deadliest work in the hearts of our citizens. Do you ask, then, "what
has the North to do?" I answer, cast out first the spirit of slavery
from your own hearts, and then lend your aid to convert the South. Each
one present has a work to do, be his or her situation what it may, however
limited their means, or insignificant their supposed influence. The great
men of this country will not do this work; the church will never do it.
A desire to please the world, to keep the favor of all parties and of all
conditions, makes them dumb on this and every other unpopular subject.
They have become worldly-wise, and therefore God, in his wisdom, employs
them not to carry on his plans of reformation and salvation. He hath chosen
the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and the weak to overcome
the mighty.
As a Southerner I feel that it is my duty to stand up here tonight and
bear testimony against slavery. I have seen it - I have seen it. I know
it has horrors that can never be described. I was brought up under its
wing: I witnessed for many years its demoralizing influences, and its destructiveness
to human happiness. It is admitted by some that the slave is not happy
under the worst forms of slavery. But I have never seen a happy slave.
I have seen him dance in his chains, it is true; but he was not happy.
There is a wide difference between happiness and mirth. Man cannot enjoy
the former while his manhood is destroyed, and that part of the being which
is necessary to the making, and to the enjoyment of happiness, is completely
blotted out. The slaves, however, may be, and sometimes are, mirthful.
When hope is extinguished, they say, "let us eat and drink, for to-morrow
we die."
What is a mob? What would the breaking of every window be? What would
the levelling of this Hall be? Any evidence that we are wrong, or that
slavery is a good and wholesome institution? What if the mob should now
burst in upon us, break up our meeting and commit violence upon our persons
- would this be anything compared with what the slaves endure? No, no:
and we do not remember them "as bound with them," if we shrink
in the time of peril, or feel unwilling to sacrifice ourselves, if need
be, for their sake. I thank the Lord that there is yet left life enough
to feel the truth, even though it rages at it - that conscience is not
so completely seared as to be unmoved by the truth of the living God.
Many persons go to the South for a season, and are hospitably entertained
in the parlor and at the table of the slaveholder. They never enter the
huts of the slaves; they know nothing of the dark side of the picture,
and they return home with praises on their lips of the generous character
of those with whom they bad tarried. Or if they have witnessed the cruelties
of slavery, by remaining silent spectators they have naturally become callous
- an insensibility has ensued which prepares them to apologize even for
barbarity. Nothing but the corrupting influence of slavery on the hearts
of the Northern people can induce them to apologize for it; and much will
have been done for the destruction of Southern slavery when we have so
reformed the North that no one here will be willing to risk his reputation
by advocating or even excusing the holding of men as property. The South
know it, and acknowledge that as fast as our principles prevail, the hold
of the master must be relaxed.
How wonderfully constituted is the human mind! How it resists, as long
as it can, all efforts made to reclaim from error! I feel that all this
disturbance is but an evidence that our efforts are the best that could
have been adopted, or else the friends of slavery, would not care for what
we say and do. The South know what we do. I am thankful that they are reached
by our efforts. Many times have I wept in the land of my birth over the
system of slavery. I knew of none who sympathized in my feelings - I was
unaware that any efforts were made to deliver the oppressed - no voice
in the wilderness was heard calling on the people to repent and do works
meet for repentance - and my heart sickened within me. Oh, how should I
have rejoiced to know that such efforts as these were being made. I only
wonder that I had such feelings. I wonder when I reflect under what influence
I was brought up, that my heart is not harder than the nether millstone.
But in the midst of temptation I was preserved, and my sympathy grew warmer,
and my hatred of slavery more inveterate, until at last I have exiled myself
from my native land because I could no longer endure to bear the wailing
of the slave. I fled to the land of Penn; for here, thought I, sympathy
for the slave will surely be found. But I found it not. The people were
kind and hospitable, but the slave had no place in their thoughts. Whenever
questions were put to me as to his condition, I felt that they were dictated
by an idle curiosity, rather than by that deep feeling which would lead
to effort for his rescue. I therefore shut up my grief in my own heart.
I remembered that I was a Carolinian, from a state which framed this iniquity
by law. I knew that throughout her territory was continued suffering, on
the one part, and continual brutality and sin on the other. Every Southern
breeze wafted to me the discordant tones of weeping and wailing, shrieks
and groans, mingled with prayers and blasphemous curses. I thought there
was no hope; that the wicked would go on in his wickedness, until he had
destroyed both himself and his country. My heart sunk within me at the
abominations in the midst of which I had been born and educated. What will
it avail, cried I in bitterness of spirit, to expose to the gaze of strangers
the horrors and pollutions of slavery, when there is no ear to hear nor
heart to feel and pray for the slave. The language of my soul was, "Oh
tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askelon." But
how different do I feel now! Animated with hope, nay, with an assurance
of the triumph of liberty and good will to man, I will lift up my voice
like a trumpet, and show this people their transgression, their sins of
omission towards the slave, and what they can do towards affecting Southern
mind, and overthrowing Southern oppression.
We may talk of occupying neutral ground, but on this subject, in its
present attitude, there is no such thing as neutral ground. He that is
not for us is against us, and he that gathereth not with us, scattereth
abroad. If you are on what you suppose to be neutral ground, the South
look upon you as on the side of the oppressor. And is there one who loves
his country willing to give his influence, even indirectly, in favor of
slavery -- that curse of nations? God swept Egypt with the besom of destruction,
and punished Judea also with a sore punishment, because of slavery. And
have we any reason to believe that be is less just now? - or that be will
be more favorable to us than to his own "peculiar people?"
There is nothing to be feared from those who would stop our mouths,
but they themselves should fear and tremble. The current is even now setting
fast against them. If the arm of the North had not caused the Bastille
of slavery to totter to its foundation, you would not hear those cries.
A few years ago, and the South felt secure, and with a contemptuous sneer
asked, "Who are the abolitionists? The abolitionists are nothing?"
-- Ay, in one sense they were nothing, and they are nothing still. But
in this we rejoice, that "God has chosen things that are not to bring
to nought things that are."
We often hear the question asked, "What shall we do?" Here
is an opportunity for doing something now. Every man and every woman present
may do something by showing that we fear not a mob, and, in the midst of
threatenings and revilings, by opening our mouths for the dumb and pleading
the cause of those who are ready to perish. To work as we should in this
cause, we must know what Slavery is. Let me urge you then to buy the books
which have been written on this subject and read them, and then lend them
to your neighbors. Give your money no longer for things which pander to
pride and lust, but aid in scattering "the living coals of truth"
upon the naked heart of this nation, - in circulating appeals to the sympathies
of Christians in behalf of the outraged and suffering slave. But, it is
said by some, our "books and papers do not speak the truth."
Why, then, do they not contradict what we say? They can not. Moreover the
South has entreated, nay commanded us to be silent; and what greater evidence
of the truth of our publications could be desired?
Women of Philadelphia! allow me as a Southern woman, with much attachment
to the land of my birth, to entreat you to come up to this work. Especially
let me urge you to petition. Men may settle this and other questions at
the ballot-box, but you have no such right; it is only through petitions
that you can reach the Legislature. It is therefore peculiarly your duty
to petition. Do you say, "It does no good?" The South already
turns pale at the number sent. They have read the reports of the proceedings
of Congress, and there have seen that among other petitions were very many
from the women of the North on the subject of slavery. This fact has called
the attention of the South to the subject. How could we expect to have
done more as yet? Men who hold the rod over slaves, rule in the councils
of the nation: and they deny our right to petition and to remonstrate against
abuses of our sex and of our kind. We have these rights, however, from
our God. Only let us exercise them: and though often turned away unanswered,
let us remember the influence of importunity upon the unjust judge, and
act accordingly. The fact that the South look with jealousy upon our measures
shows that they are effectual. There is, therefore, no cause for doubting
or despair, but rather for rejoicing.
It was remarked in England that women did much to abolish Slavery in
her colonies. Nor are they now idle. Numerous petitions from them have
recently been presented to the Queen, to abolish the apprenticeship with
its cruelties nearly equal to those of the system whose place it supplies.
One petition two miles and a quarter long has been presented. And do you
think these labors will be in vain? Let the history of the past answer.
When the women of these States send up to Congress such a petition, our
legislators will arise as did those of England, and say, "When all
the maids and matrons of the land are knocking at our doors we must legislate."
Let the zeal and love, the faith and works of our English sisters quicken
ours - that while the slaves continue to suffer, and when they shout deliverance,
we may feel the satisfaction of having done what we could.
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