Document 27-3: ANGELINa GRIMKE, Letters to Catherine E. Beecher (1838)

Angelina Grimke Explains the Fundamental Principle of Abolitionism

Angelina Grimke (1805–1879) was the daughter of a prominent South Carolina slave owner. From a young age, Grimke demonstrated a strong will and the courage of her convictions. Her personal religious journey brought her into contact with antislavery activists, and she joined the movement, leaving her family and moving to Philadelphia in 1829 to pursue her new calling. In 1837, she and her sister Sarah became the first women to conduct a speaking tour on behalf of the American Anti-Slavery Society, scandalizing traditionalists by appearing before mixed-gender audiences. The excerpt included here was written by Grimke in response to a book by Catherine E. Beecher, the daughter of a prominent minister and an opponent of slavery. While Grimke wanted an immediate end to slavery through any means short of violence, Beecher was in favor of gradual emancipation through persuasion and compromise. As you read Grimke’s letter, ask yourself why her argument was incompatible with Beecher’s approach. What connection can you make between Grimke’s position on slavery and her willingness to transgress conventional social mores?

The great fundamental principle of Abolitionists is, that man cannot rightfully hold his fellow man as property. Therefore, we affirm, that every slaveholder is a man-stealer. We do so, for the following reasons: to steal a man is to rob him of himself. It matters not whether this be done in Guinea, or Carolina; a man is a man, and as a man he has inalienable rights, among which is the right to personal liberty. Now if every man has an inalienable right to personal liberty, it follows, that he cannot rightfully be reduced to slavery. But I find in these United States, 2,250,000 men, women and children, robbed of that to which they have an inalienable right. How comes this to pass? Where millions are plundered, are there no plunderers? If, then, the slaves have been robbed of their liberty, who has robbed them? Not the man who stole their forefathers from Africa, but he who now holds them in bondage; no matter how they came into his possession, whether he inherited them, or bought them, or seized them at their birth on his own plantation. The only difference I can see between the original man-stealer, who caught the African in his native country, and the American slaveholder, is, that the former committed one act of robbery, while the other perpetrates the same crime continually. Slaveholding is the perpetrating of acts, all of the same kind, in a series, the first of which is technically called man-stealing. The first act robbed the man of himself; and the same state of mind that prompted that act, keeps up the series, having taken his all from him: it keeps his all from him, not only refusing to restore, but still robbing him of all he gets, and as fast as he gets it. Slaveholding, then, is the constant or habitual perpetration of the act of man-stealing. To make a slave is man-stealingthe ACT itself — to hold him such is man-stealing — the habit, the permanent state, made up of individual acts. In other words — to begin to hold a slave is man-stealing — to keep on holding him is merely a repetition of the first act — a doing the same identical thing all the time. A series of the same acts continued for a length of time is a habita permanent state. And the first of this series of the same acts that make up this habit or state is just like all the rest.

If every slave has a right to freedom, then surely the man who withholds that right from him to-day is a man-stealer, though he may not be the first person who has robbed him of it. Hence we find that Wesley says — “Men-buyers are exactly on a level with men-stealers.” And again — “Much less is it possible that any child of man should ever be born a slave.” Hear also Jonathan Edwards — “To hold a man in a state of slavery, is to be every day guilty of robbing him of his liberty, or of man-stealing.” And Grotius says — “Those are men-stealers who abduct, keep, sell or buy slaves or freemen.”

Angelina Grimke, Letters to Catherine E. Beecher (Boston: Isaac Knapp, 1838), 4–5.

READING AND DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  1. According to Grimke, what is the fundamental principle of abolitionism?
  2. Why does Grimke make no distinction between slave owners and those who participated in the slave trade?
  3. What connections can you make between this letter and Grimke’s uncompromising approach to the fight against slavery?