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Contents:
"Call to Abolitionism" from The Autobiography of Adin Ballou
"The Evils of Slavery and Racism" from Discourse on the Subject of American Slavery
July 4, 1837
"Strange as it may seem to most of my readers, I was more than thirty
years of age before the thought entered my mind that I was in any way
responsible for chattel slavery in my country... The wrongs, abominations,
and outrages of slavery were out of my sight and so out of my mind."
In this excerpt from his autobiography, Ballou
tells how he was converted to the abolitionist cause,
and how his life changed when he began to preach against slavery.
Once his eyes were opened to the evils of slavery, Ballou became an
eloquent and passionate voice not only against slavery,
but against the racism that
allowed so many Americans to accept it with equanimity.
In his Fourth of July address in 1837, he described the horrors of slavery,
proposed specific steps to be taken to admit African Americans to full
citizenship, and answered some common objections to immediate emancipation.
To those who would send free blacks to "colonize" Africa, he retorted,
"They are as much in their own country as we are.
Their ancestors came from Africa, ours from Europe;
and here we are in the red man's country.
If there is to be any shipping off without consent,
we had better let the Indian say who shall be sent home."
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