Archibald H. Grimke, William Lloyd Garrison the Abolitionist

[183] to interfere and suppress the traffic in human flesh. It was the duty of Congress, inasmuch as it possessed the power, to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, the National Territories, along the coast and between the States. The free States are the particeps criminis of the slave States. They are living under a pledge of their tremendous physical force to rivet the manacles of chattel slavery upon millions in the South; they are liable at any instant to be called on under the Constitution to suppress a general insurrection of the slaves. This relationship is criminal, “is full of danger, it must be broken up.”

So much for the views and principles of the declaration, now for the designs and measures as enumerated therein:

We shall organize anti-slavery societies, if possible, in every city, town and village in our land.

We shall send forth agents to lift up the voice of remonstrance, of warning, of entreaty, and of rebuke.

We shall circulate, unsparingly and extensively, anti-slavery tracts and periodicals.

We shall enlist the pulpit and the press in the cause of the suffering and the dumb.

We shall aim at a purification of the churches from all participation in the guilt of slavery.

We shall encourage the labor of freemen rather than that of slaves, by giving a preference to their productions; and

We shall spare no exertions nor means to bring the whole nation to speedy repentance.

The instrument closes by pledging the utmost of its signers to the overthrow of slavery-“come what may to our persons, our interests, or our reputations ”