And I am free to express my belief, that all who really and heartily approve our principles, will also approve our measures; and that, too, just as certainly as a good tree will bring forth good fruit.
Angelina Emily Grimké
The Public Record
Angelina Emily Grimké Weld was an American abolitionist, political activist, women's rights advocate, and supporter of the women's suffrage movement. At one point she was the best known, or "most notorious," woman in the country. She and her sister Sarah Moore Grimké were considered the only notable examples of white Southern women abolitionists. The sisters lived together as adults, while Angelina was the wife of abolitionist leader Theodore Dwight Weld.
gutenberg.org
Our principle is, that no circumstances can ever justify a man in holding his fellow man as property; it matters not what motive he may give for such a monstrous violation of the laws of God.
The claim to him as property is an annihilation of his right to himself, which is the foundation upon which all his other rights are built.
This is truly what our opponents affirm; but we say that all the laws which sustain the system of slavery are unjust and oppressive--contrary to the fundamental principles of morality, and, therefore, null and void.
We hold, that all the slaveholding laws violate the fundamental principles of the Constitution of the United States.
In the preamble of that instrument, the great objects for which it was framed are declared to be ‘to establish justice, to promote the general welfare, and to secure the blessings of liberty to us and to our posterity.’ The slave laws are…
Slavery subverts justice, promotes the welfare of the few to the manifest injury of the many, and robs thousands of the posterity of our forefathers of the blessings of liberty.
When we talk of immediate emancipation, we speak that we do mean, and the slaveholders understand us, if thou dost not.
My Dictionary is the Bible; my standard authors, prophets and apostles.
When Jehovah commanded Pharaoh to ‘let the people go,’ he meant that they should be immediately emancipated.
When the prophet Isaiah commanded the Jews ‘to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke,’ he taught no gradual or partial emancipation, but immediate…
The great fundamental principle of Abolitionists is, that man cannot rightfully hold his fellow man as property.