The Liberator (newspaper)/September 18, 1857/Giddings on Compensated Emancipation

Giddings on Compensated Emancipation.

Joshua R. Giddings, in the Ashtabula (O.) Sentinel, thus expresses his sentiments in relation to the project for abolishing slavery by compensating the slaveholders for their chattels:—

We have felt no disposition to throw obstacles in the way of any class of men seeking to do good. The formation of this Society is now a matter of history, and its success or failure will soon become a fact, and we are willing to leave the result for time to disclose. But as political journalists, we may state some of the difficulties which we apprehend will never be surmounted:

We do not believe the Constitution of the United States will be so amended as to authorize Congress to appropriate money for this extensive purchase of slaves.

Secondly, The slaveholders and slave States will never sell their slaves until constrained to do so by actual necessity.

Thirdly, The people of the free States, in our opinion, will never acknowledge the right of any class of men to hold God’s image in degrading servitude, or to sell or buy immortal beings. Nor will they willingly consent to pay their money to men who deserve the halter far more than a pecuniary compensation for their crimes. Nor have the corruption and tyranny of the Slave Power in Kansas, or in Congress, or in the Executive or Judicial departments of Government, tended to conciliate the people of the free States.

This redemption of captives from slavery was practised in the darker ages; but all civilized nations abandoned it as barbarous and heathenish as early as the sixteenth century. The Turks, being a semi-barbarous people, continued to seize and enslave Christians, under pretence of doing so in order to convert them to Mahometanism; but would consent to their ransom precisely as our slaveholders now do, by the payment of money. The Barbary States, from their local position, had great advantages for seizing and enslaving Christians.

In 1270, Philip the Bold, with a combined force of English and French, attacked Tunis with fire and sword, and released all the slaves. This was right and just. They refused to pay $325 per slave for their redemption, as it is now proposed to pay our slaveholders, who are far more worthy of the sword and bayonet than the slaveholders of Tunis were.

In the latter part of the last century, the Algerines seized and enslaved the citizens of the United States. Many friends were desirous of redeeming their relations held in Algerine slavery. Old men will recollect the time when they were called on for donations to redeem native-born Americans from servitude in Algiers, precisely as Mr. Burritt now calls on the free States to contribute for the redemption of Southern slaves from a slavery worse than that of Algiers.

But the American Government denied that the Algerines had any right whatever to those slaves. We proclaimed them pirates. The civilized world pronounced them pirates, enemies of mankind, and worthy of death. Before God and our country, we declare them to have been less guilty than the slaveholders of the United States now are, inasmuch as they were more ignorant. Our Government sent a navy to Algiers, and the slaveholders of that Government were put to the sword; they were butchered for their insolent piracies, and the slaves were released. This was just and right. It was manly—becoming an enlightened people. Have the sons of freedom in the Northern States now become so degenerate, so destitute of manly courage and self-respect, as to consent to be made tributaries to the petty despots of the South?

We have ourselves paid money to redeem Southern slaves until we have become disgusted with the practice, and prefer that our future donations shall be made in powder and ball, delivered to the slaves, to be used as they may deem proper. G.