A Social History of the American Negro - Being a History of the Negro Problem in the United States. Including - A History and Study of the Republic of Liberia by Benjamin Brawley
page 199 of 545 (36%)
page 199 of 545 (36%)
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doubt--they think they have us so well secured in wretchedness, to them
and their children, that it is impossible for such things to occur. So did the antediluvians doubt Noah, until the day in which the flood came and swept them away. So did the Sodomites doubt, until Lot had got out of the city, and God rained down fire and brimstone from heaven upon them and burnt them up. So did the king of Egypt doubt the very existence of God, saying, 'Who is the Lord, that I should let Israel go?' ... So did the Romans doubt.... But they got dreadfully deceived." This document created the greatest consternation in the South. The Mayor of Savannah wrote to Mayor Otis of Boston, demanding that Walker be punished. Otis, in a widely published letter, replied expressing his disapproval of the pamphlet, but saying that the author had done nothing that made him "amenable" to the laws. In Virginia the legislature considered passing an "extraordinary bill," not only forbidding the circulation of such seditious publications but forbidding the education of free Negroes. The bill passed the House of Delegates, but failed in the Senate. The _Appeal_ even found its way to Louisiana, where there were already rumors of an insurrection, and immediately a law was passed expelling all free Negroes who had come to the state since 1825. _2. The Convention Movement_ As may be inferred from Walker's attitude, the representative men of the race were almost a unit in their opposition to colonization. They were not always opposed to colonization itself, for some looked favorably upon settlement in Canada, and a few hundred made their way to the West Indies. They did object, however, to the plan offered by the American Colonization Society, which more and more impressed them as a device on |
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