Author: Andrew P. Peabody

Publisher:

Published: 2015-07-10

Total Pages: 32

ISBN-13: 9781331089148

Excerpt from Position and Duties of the North With Regard to Slavery It has been common, both at the South and the North, to deny not only the duty, but the right of Northern men to discuss the subject of slavery. The attempt has been made to draw around the Africans in bondage a line of circumvallation, which philanthropy, sympathy, nay, not even calm, dispassionate investigation can cross with impunity. This line, however, we cannot hold sacred. For the Africans are within the pale of human brotherhood, which Christianity has marked for us; and the fact, that they are part and parcel of our own body politic, certainly cannot render them less our brethren. Nor, on the other hand, can the fact, that they belong to States which wield some of the attributes of independent sovereignty, rightfully exclude them from our sympathy, unless we have been wrong in sympathizing with the Greeks and Poles, and with the Asiatic tributaries of Great Britain, with whose oppressors we surely have as little political connection as with the Southern States of our own Confederacy. Is it said that the Constitution and laws of the Union preclude our action in the premises, and therefore should suppress our sympathy, or at least the free utterance of it? We deny that the Constitution or fundamental laws of the Union put this subject beyond the reach of our political action; and, if they did, and it should still appear that God had placed us under religious obligations to the enslaved, we cannot for a moment admit that human compacts or enactments are valid against the divine law. Is it peremptorily asserted, that we at the North have no responsibilities or duties with reference to slavery? We still will contend for the right of trying this question ourselves, inasmuch as the question of responsibility or of duty can never be answered by others in our stead. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.