Why all this terror at the distant roar of free discussion, if they feel not the earth quaking beneath them?
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
I will just add, that as to the committee saying that abolitionists are building up a body of public opinion at the North ‘by the grossest misrepresentations and falsehoods,’ I think it was due to their character for veracity, to have…
Until they do, we must believe them; and as a Southerner, I can bear the most decided testimony against slavery as the mother of all abominations.
They deserve all thou hast said in their favor; and I will now endeavor to vindicate those ‘men of pure morals, of great honesty of purpose, of real benevolence and piety,’ from some objections thou hast urged against their measures.
Why, then, protest against our measures as unchristian, because they do not smooth the pillow of the poor sinner, and lull his conscience into fatal security?
The truth is, the efforts of abolitionists have stirred up the very same spirit which the efforts of all thorough-going reformers have ever done; we consider it a certain proof that the truths we utter are sharper than any two edged sword…
I consider it pre-eminently aggressive; it waits not to be assaulted, but moves on in all the majesty of Truth to attack the strong holds of the kingdom of darkness, carries the war into the enemy’s camp, and throws its fiery darts into…
Thou seemest to think, on the contrary, that Christianity is just such a weak, dependent, puerile creature as thou hast described woman to be.
In my opinion, thou hast robbed both the one and the other of all their true dignity and glory.
Thy descriptions may suit the prevailing christianity of this age, and the general character of woman; and if so, we have great cause for shame and confusion of face.
Channing exactly portrayed the character of brother Garrison’s writings when he said, ‘That deep feeling of evils, which is necessary to effectual conflict with them, which marks God’s most powerful messengers to mankind, cannot breathe…
The great fundamental principle of Abolitionists is, that man cannot rightfully hold his fellow man as property.