THE OBERLIN EVANGELIST Lectures by Charles G. Finney- The official publication 9- Blessed Pure In Heart-No.2 .. Lord willing, to address to you through the columns of "The Oberlin Evangelist" from time . Index New Window.
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Not only should the slaves be freed, they should be armed and allowed to fight: When armed and disciplined, let them sweep the Gulf States, take possession, and hold the country. It is legitimately theirs. But it would be more than a year later before Lincoln was finally ready to act. But in Oberlin it was generally cheered. The Proclamation in fact freed thousands of slaves immediately, some of them right in Oberlin, who had escaped from the rebel states and had ever since lived in constant apprehension of recapture and return to slavery.
And so the Oberlin Evangelist jubilantly proclaimed: It fixes a policy. It is a mighty word for freedom. Its echoes will gladden four millions of hearts where little joy has found place for many generations. We hope the watchword as the tidings flash from one plantation to another all the way from the Potomac to the Rio Grande, will be Pray and wait. The God of the oppressed is surely coming! As Union armed forces made their slow but steady advance into the Confederate interior, the tidings did indeed flash from one plantation to another.
See my Battle of New Market Heights blog. Hundreds of miles away the tidings flashed to Eliza Wallace, in Natchez, Mississippi, who with her three children was helped on the road to Oberlin and freedom by Oberlin resident and alumnus, Chaplain Sela Wright of the 70th United States Colored Infantry. And ultimately, after much praying and waiting, the tidings did indeed make it all the way to the Rio Grande, but not until weeks after Robert E.
Lee had surrendered at Appomattox, President Lincoln had been assassinated, and many considered the war to be over. The promise of the Emancipation Proclamation was now complete. We seem to be forgetting something. What about the hundreds of thousands of slaves held in regions where the rebellion had already been suppressed, or slaveholding states which had remained loyal right from the start, like Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland and Delaware? In fact it employed a carrot and stick approach to entice these regions to abolish slavery voluntarily, which most of them did by the time General Granger landed in Galveston.
the oberlin evangelist no 4 Manual
And for the last stubborn holdouts — Kentucky and Delaware — the Lincoln Administration had also been using a carrot and stick approach to pass a Constitutional Amendment, originally introduced into Congress by none other than Representative James Ashley mentioned above , that would ban slavery nationwide and forever. Constitution, making institutional, legalized slavery extinct everywhere in the United States of America. So why do we celebrate June 19, , a date that really only affected the slaves in Galveston, Texas?
Probably for the simple reason that they and their descendants kept the memory alive, year after year after year. Today we might be more inclined to see January 1 the date the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect or December 18 the date the 13th Amendment was ratified as more appropriate for a national celebration.
But the vast majority of slaves were freed between those two events, and with a bloody Civil War and a strife-filled Reconstruction in progress, the freed men and women had all they could do to make the difficult transition to freedom, without trying to organize a national day of commemoration.
So please join us in celebrating the th anniversary of Juneteenth this Saturday, June 13th, in Oberlin. And remember too that while institutional slavery is indeed extinct, the racial prejudices and mistrust that propagated it and were perpetuated by it are not. His Connection with the Monroe Doctrine General catalogue of Oberlin college, [-] , Oberlin College Archives.
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The basic premise of Mr. Grinspan is indeed correct that the abolitionist Liberty Party, which existed in the s, only garnered a paltry number of votes 6, in the Presidential election. This position was explained in in the Anti-Slavery Record , published by the American Anti-Slavery Society which by would have almost , members: The reformation has commenced, both at the North and at the South.
The more the subject is discussed, by the pulpit, by the press, at the bar, in the legislative hall and in private conversation, the faster will the change proceed. When any individual slave holder is brought to believe that slavery is sinful, he will immediately emancipate his own slaves. When a majority of the nation are brought to believe in immediate emancipation, Congress will, of course, pass a law abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia.
When the people of the several slave states are brought upon the same ground, they will severally abolish slavery within their respective limits. The old Liberty Party was dissolved and was supplanted by the Free Soil Party, which received exponentially more votes, and which in turn was supplanted by the Republican Party, which took control of the Presidency, the House of Representatives, and most Northern governorships by The Republican Party platform contained 7 out of 17 planks that directly advocated anti-slavery principles and policies.
The Liberator , published in Boston and edited by William Lloyd Garrison, was arguably the premier antislavery newspaper in when it was first published. Thus by the start of the Civil War hundreds of thousands of Northerners were subscribing to unabashedly anti-slavery newspapers.
The opinions of a vast multitude have been essentially changed, and secured to the side of freedom. But even in the lean years of the s and early s, abolitionists had enough clout to make a significant impact. In they launched a mass mailing campaign, sending hundreds of thousands of anti-slavery publications to clergymen and prominent leaders nationwide.
Southern slaveholders felt so threatened by this campaign that they began a program of postal censorship, with South Carolina Senator John C. Although the leaders of the South did indeed manage to squelch the abolitionists in the southern states, their assault on free speech and constitutional rights only served to strengthen the abolitionist message in the North, where many Southern-born abolitionists emigrated and added their voices to the chorus.
See my William T. Allan — Lane Rebel from the South blog. Here are some excerpts: The achievements of the American anti -slavery movement since that time have been such as to impart hope and courage to every heart. Of course, I do not refer to the achievements of any separate and distinct organization. I refer to the achievements of that complicated and stupendous organization composed of persons from all parts of this country, whose aim is the abolition of slavery and the enfranchisement of the colored American.
What, then, are some of its accomplishments? In the first place, it has brought the subject of slavery itself distinctly and prominently before the public mind. Indeed, in every nook and corner of American society this matter now presents itself, demanding, and in many instances receiving, respectful consideration. There is no gathering of the people, whether political or religious, which is not now forced to give a place in its deliberations to this subject. Like the air we breathe, it is all-pervasive.
Through this widespread consideration the effects of slavery upon the slave, the slaveholder, and society generally, have been very thoroughly demonstrated ; and as the people have understood these effects they have loathed and hated their foul cause. Thus the public conscience has been aroused, and a broad and deep and growing interest has been created in behalf of the slave. In the next place, it has vindicated, beyond decent cavil even, the claim of the slave to manhood and its dignities. No one of sense and decency now thinks that the African slave of this country is not a man….
More than this, the anti-slavery movement has brought to the colored people of the North the opportunities of developing themselves intellectually and morally. It has unbarred and thrown open to them the doors of colleges, academies, law schools, theological seminaries and commercial institutions, to say nothing of the incomparable district school. Animated by the same spirit of liberty that nerved their fathers, who fought in the Revolutionary war and war of , to free this land from British tyranny, they are the inveterate and uncompromising enemies of oppression, and are willing to sacrifice all that they have, both life and property, to secure its overthrow.
But they have more than moral and pecuniary strength. In some of the States of this Union all of their colored inhabitants, and in others a very large class of them, enjoy the privileges and benefits of citizens. This is a source of very great power…. Another achievement of the American anti-slavery movement is the emancipation of forty or fifty thousand fugitive slaves, who stand to-day as so many living, glowing refutations of the brainless charge that nothing has, as yet, been accomplished….
But the crowning achievement of the anti-slavery movement of this country is the establishment, full and complete, of the fact that its great aim and mission is not merely the liberation of four millions of American slaves, and the enfranchisement of six hundred thousand half freemen, but the preservation of the American Government, the preservation of American liberty itself. It has been discovered, at last, that slavery is no respecter of persons, that in its far reaching and broad sweep it strikes down alike the freedom of the black man and the freedom of the white one. This movement can no longer be regarded as a sectional one.
It is a great national one. It is not confined in its benevolent, its charitable offices, to any particular class; its broad philanthropy knows no complexional bounds. It cares for the freedom, the rights of us all… [7]. Of course Langston would be among the first to tell you that race relations in the North were far from perfect in , but they had clearly come a long way since the advent of The Liberator and the Liberty Party.
As a gauge of just how far they had come, consider this: Two decades later, in October , an Illinois lawyer named Abraham Lincoln took the podium in that same town and said this:. I have said, and I repeat it here, that if there be a man amongst us who does not think that the institution of slavery is wrong in any one of the aspects of which I have spoken, he is misplaced, and ought not to be with us…. Has anything ever threatened the existence of this Union save and except this very institution of slavery? What is it that we hold most dear amongst us? Our own liberty and prosperity. What has ever threatened our liberty and prosperity, save and except this institution of slavery?
If this is true, how do you propose to improve the condition of things by enlarging slavery,-by spreading it out and making it bigger? You may have a wen or cancer upon your person, and not be able to cut it out, lest you bleed to death; but surely it is no way to cure it, to engraft it and spread it over your whole body.
That is no proper way of treating what you regard a wrong. You see this peaceful way of dealing with it as a wrong,-restricting the spread of it, and not allowing it to go into new countries where it has not already existed…. It is the eternal struggle between these two principles — right and wrong — throughout the world.
They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time, and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity, and the other the divine right of kings. It is the same principle in whatever shape it develops itself. But far from being lynched, Lincoln was applauded for these words in , and this and similar speeches gained for him the national recognition that would help elect him to the Presidency two years later. It was the heroic efforts of people like Elijah Lovejoy, John Mercer Langston, William Lloyd Garrison, Lucy Stone, and thousands of other abolitionist teachers, preachers, lecturers, authors, journalists, politicians, Underground Railroad agents, and parents many of them educated at Oberlin College that made that possible.
Elijah Lovejoy monument — Alton, Illinois. As it turns out, it was.
The attempt to avoid that reality via secession only served to hasten its demise. From disunionism to the brink of war, Calhoun, Speeches of John C.
- Operation Kronstadt;
- "THE OBERLIN EVANGELIST" Lectures Index by Charles G. Finney?
- Ajour, Lace ... und ganz viele Perlen (German Edition);
- Only the Beginning (Warrior Chronicles).
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Delivered in the Congress of the United States from to the present time. It was February 4, , and the United States of America was coming unglued. On this date Oberlin residents gathered together to pray and discuss their response. He was Abraham Lincoln, and he ran on a platform that opposed the expansion of slavery into the national territories the majority of land west of the Mississippi River. Altogether there were 15 slaveholding states. If they all followed the lead of the Deep South states, it would likely be the end of the American Union.
What to do about it was a question that vexed the nation, Ohio, and Oberlin. Variations of these demands were considered by numerous committees and conventions, called together to attempt to coax the seceded states back into the Union, or at least discourage more slaveholding states from joining them.
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- Heavens Dynasty;
- Morgaine and Asmodeus [The Morgaine Chronicles #5];
The Oberlin Evangelist also editorialized its own sentiments: To make one new concession now to the demands of the Slave Power, be it ever so small, would practically break down the Federal Government. They exist as the demand of our times. While that act remains in force, no Free State ought to repeal the personal liberty laws. That act provides facilities for kidnapping free men, and utterly fails to provide due safeguards for determining the great question of personal freedom. The Lorain County News agreed: James Monroe courtesy Oberlin College Archives.
So it would sound as if Oberlin was united against any compromises or concessions, right? On January 12, , Monroe addressed the Ohio Senate and said:. But another resolution was even more dramatic, although it might not appear so at first sight. And Monroe took it even further.
Oberlin Heritage Center Blog
This is no time for cowardice. So what was up with Monroe, anyway? This was a proposition that was vehemently rejected by President-elect Lincoln, who had won election on a non-expansion platform. So Monroe appeared willing to make concessions on the Fugitive Slave Law and the personal liberty laws, but like the Oberlin residents and newspapers, he was unwilling to concede on allowing slavery to expand into the territories. And Monroe also appeared to be taking a firm stance against secession. How did the Oberlin newspapers feel about that issue?
We do not expect concession enough from the free States to satisfy the demands of the slave States… They have in imagination a glorious ideal of the blessings of independence. They must try it in the reality…. They will have opportunity to learn how much it costs to carry on and out the system of forced labor with no help from the free States in footing their bills.
This will be a new experience — we hope, instructive. The Lorain County News struck a similar chord:. We question whether the country would ever be compensated for the mutual hate, the pecuniary expenses and the rivers of blood which coercion would be likely to cost. We begin to see, too, that the worst punishment which could possibly be inflicted on the rampant treason would be a good letting alone, and that if the southern forts and arsenals should be given up to the traitors and their political existence should be distinctly recognized, they would soon plunge into a ruin which would be a standing warning against the danger of basing a State on injustice and cruelty.
To this sentiment, the Oberlin Evangelist replied:. It has no power for self-preservation. It is true that our government has its limitations — it can do some things, and others it cannot do. It was designed for a free, self-governing people, intelligent in regard to their real interests and ready to accord to others what they ask for themselves. It cannot hold, by the hand of power, States or provinces of unwilling subjects.
If a State refuses to be governed, our government cannot help it, and was never intended to do so. It is not adapted to a people where the barbarism of slavery exists and extends itself. Coercion might succeed, if a single insignificant State, like South Carolina, were affected with the mania of secession, with a division of sentiment within itself; but when vast sections of the Union move with a common impulse, however unjustifiable or unconstitutional the movement, we must let them go, and adjust ourselves to the new condition as we can….
Our first great danger is in compromise — our next in coercion. Clearly there was a divide between Monroe and at least a sizable portion of his Oberlin constituency. The James Monroe of would have been more in sync with them, at least on the issue of the Fugitive Slave Law and the personal liberty laws.
In fact, he was now echoing the more conservative policies of President-elect Lincoln, who he actively campaigned for in the general election and would tour the state with in the following month. If secession was to be resisted, it was wise to make some concessions and compromises to achieve as much unity as possible for prosecuting the civil war that might result.
And on April 12, , when the Confederates bombarded Fort Sumter, these men were all united behind the United States soldiers who would fight to put down the rebellion. War Spirit at Oberlin!!! But as they took their leave of Oberlin to spread that hope through Ohio and the nation, they could little imagine the disappointment and disillusion they would suffer over the next several years. In the long run they would see their efforts rewarded, but only after a temporary separation from their country and a permanent separation from each other. William Howard Day came to Oberlin in at the age of 17, where he enrolled in the collegiate program at Oberlin College.
He brought with him a strong disdain for slavery and racial injustice, learned from his mother, who had escaped from slavery in upstate New York and settled in Manhattan. It was there, as a nine year old boy, that William witnessed the terrible race riots that wreaked havoc on Reverend Charles G. But now, attending the college that Finney and Tappan had done so much to turn into an abolitionist stronghold, William wasted no time in making his mark. Working closely with Vashon and Cox, William became a leading orator and organizer of the Oberlin black community.
Be not despondent, we shall at last conquer. During the long winter recesses between semesters, William would travel to Canada and teach in the many black settlements founded there by refugees from American slavery. He also found employment in Oberlin during the school months as a typesetter for the Oberlin Evangelist. For guidance about compiling full citations consult Citing Primary Sources.
Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate. Cowles, Henry, and Asa Mahan. Skip to main content. Newspaper The Oberlin evangelist. Contributor Names Cowles, Henry, No issues were published in Apr. Library of Congress Online Catalog , More about Copyright and other Restrictions For guidance about compiling full citations consult Citing Primary Sources. Cite This Item Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.
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