On the record
Our garb should be sack-cloth--our heads bowed in the dust--our supplications for the pardon and assistance of Heaven.
Said by
Archibald Henry Grimké
Source
gutenberg.orgArchibald Henry Grimké: “Our garb should be sack-cloth--our heads bowed in the dust--our supplications for the pardon and assistance of Heaven.”
Editor's note · Context
Grimké suggests that the appropriate response to national sins should be one of humility and penitence.
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It is true examples of disinterested benevolence and individual sacrifices are numerous, particularly in the Southern States; but no systematic, vigorous, and successful measures have been made to overthrow this fabric of oppression.
Perhaps the common people would hearken to what the wise and powerful had rejected.
It is a gangrene preying upon our vitals--an earthquake rumbling under our feet--a mine accumulating material for a national catastrophe.
It should make this a day of fasting and prayer, not of boisterous merriment and idle pageantry--a day of great lamentation, not of congratulatory joy.