THE SLAVE AS ABOLITIONIST: HENRY HIGHLAND GARNET'S "ADDRESS TO THE SLAVES

OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA"

Author(s): Harry Reed
Source: The Centennial Review , FALL 1976, Vol. 20, No. 4 (FALL 1976), pp. 385-394
Published by: Michigan State University Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23740345

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 THE SLAVE AS ABOLITIONIST: HENRY

HIGHLAND GARNET'S ADDRESS TO THE

SLAVES OF THE UNITED STATES OF

AMERICA

Harry Reed

henry highland garnet was born 12 December 1815 on William

Spencer's plantation in Kent County, Maryland. At age nine he and
his family escaped slavery and resided for a year in New Hope,
Pennsylvania. In 1825, Mr. Garnet Sr. removed the family to New
York City. It was here that Garnet acquired his early education at the
African Free Schools and the High School for Colored Youth. In 1835,
Henry, admitted to Noyes Academy, Canaan, New Hampshire, was
forced, by mob action, to pursue other educational plans. By 1840 he
had completed his education at Oneida Institute, Whitesboro, New
York, under the tutelage of Reverend Beriah Green. Prior to the Civil
War, Garnet's life was active and varied; in 1839-1840 he was a leading
supporter of the newly founded Liberty Party; during the 1840's he co
edited a number of newspapers including The National Watchman; in
1848 Garnet was honored by the Daughters of Temperence and he
published David Walker's Appeal with his own speech, An Address to the
Slaves of the United States of America1; and, later in 1850, he attended a
Peace Congress in London. Before the end of his life he served as a
missionary in Jamaica, as a volunteer chaplain to black troops in the
Union Army and as President of Avery College in Pittsburgh, Penn
sylvania.
On 4 May 1882, the Rev. Alexander Crummell, speaking before the
Union Literary and Historical Association of Washington, D.C., eulo
gized, in glowing terms, his late friend and associate the Rev. Henry
Highland Garnet, American Minister to Liberia. Garnet, who had
expired in Monrovia on 13 February, was, Crummell said, "A man of

1 William Loren Katz, ed., Walker's Appeal and An Address to the Slaves of the United States of
America (New York: Arno Press, 1969). Garnet's speech was delivered at the Convention of
Colored Men, Buffalo, New York, 16 August 1843.

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 THE CENTENNIAL REVIEW

wonder [ous] qualities, of astonishing eloquence, of st

and commanding character of long-continued and p
bors, of great virtue, a true genius, a most illustrious
capacity of the Negro race and the dignity of man."2 Cr
have added that Garnet was also one of the most controversial of the
American abolitionists.
Garnet's controversial nature is beyond the scope of this essay.
Instead it will be argued here that his major speech, An Address to the
Slaves of the United States of America, contains two elements that mark
him as one of the most original American anti-slavery thinkers.
First, an analysis of the address will demonstrate that Henry High
land Garnet utilized and reflected, to an astonishing degree, the
general concepts of antebellum reform thought in the 1830's and 40's.
And, more particularly, Garnet used the ideas of the Garrisonian
perfectionists. These included the propositions that slavery and slave
holding were a moral sin; that the entire nation shared the guilt for
their continued existence; that the perfectibility of man was desirable
and possible; that a moral attack would bring about the destruction of
slavery; and that individualistic moral argument had to have a con
sensus in order to be effective.
And, second, from Garnet's discourse will be constructed a program
of emancipation, the first of its kind from the abolitionists' rostrum,
that advocated use of the slave as an active agent in his own liberation.
The final act in this three-step plan does envision a blood bath in the
South. But Garnet's perception of this final phase is fundamentally a
scheme of militant self-defense. His contemporaries responded nega
tively to the use of rhetorical violence. Simultaneously they missed the
uniqueness of his offering and misrepresented his ideas.
Two circumstances probably account for the misinterpretations.
One, documentation of the event was incredibly thin, and, two, the
emotional reaction to the address and Garnet's impassioned responses
to criticism obscured the real thrust of his offering. Benjamin Quarles
has offered a plausible reason for the lack of documentation.
The antebellum White media, especially the Southern press, had to ignore
Black abolitionists or they would have unhinged a cardinal tenet of the
Southern faith—the concept of the contented slave and impassive Black,3

Not even The Liberator, which had a reporter in attendance, published

2 Alexander Crummell, Africa and America: Addresses and Discourses (New York: Negro Univer
sities Press, 1969), p. 272.
3 Benjamin Quarles, Black Abolitionists (New York: Oxford University Press, 1969), p. ix.

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 garnet's address

the text. In 1848, five years after the event, Garnet published h
his own expense. But during that five-year hiatus Garnet and s
his contemporaries engaged in acrimonious argument abou
tentions.

The minutes of the Convention proceedings offer the first example

of the emotionalism of the moment. Garnet had asked for and had
received a special ruling which allowed him to speak for almost one
and one-half hours. He concluded amidst great applause with the
whole convention literally in tears.4 Several days of heated debate
followed and ended with the rejection of the address by a margin of
one vote. Much of the conflict centered around the phrase "then to
strike for liberty, ready for war to the knife and knife to the hilt. "5 E.A.
Marsh of the Liberator reported the intensity of the discussions.6 This
reporter described threats to the chairman, name-calling and an
inflammatory, but unrecorded, second speech by Garnet. Garnet later
repudiated Marsh and his coverage of the Convention.7
On the Convention floor Frederick Douglass said "there was too
much physical in the speaker and the speech,"8 and that he was for
trying moral means a while longer. Douglass grasped a fundamental
idea about Garnet's offering that escaped the attention of contempo
raries and later historians: Garnet did not specifically propose an
insurrection, but he advised pursuing a plan that would precipitate
revolt. Maria Weston Chapman did not make the Douglass dis
tinction. She asked, instead, if Garnet had "ever found Christ calling
for a war to the knife: or if he, Garnet, thought the gospel was in
harmony with his address."9 Mrs. Chapman applauded the rejection
of the address because it indicated that black men could be exponents
of love, freedom, and forgiveness.
Both Mrs. Chapman and Douglass received Garnet's indignant
criticism for their opposition. He did not respond to the substantive
criticism, but argued his right to speak on the question of slave
liberation. To Douglass he retorted that he "had only advised slaves
4 Minutes of the National Convention of Colored Citizens: Held at Buffalo on the 15th, 16th, tyth, 18th, and
lyth of August, 1843 (New York: Piercy and Reed, 1843), P- '3- 'n Minutes of the Proceedings of the
National Negro Conventions 1840-1864, edited by Howard Holman Bell (New York: Arno Press and
the New York Times, 1969).
5 This phrase reported by Marsh was deleted from the later published account by Garnet.
6 E.A. Marsh, "The Colored Convention," The Liberator (Friday, September 8, 1843), p. 142.
7 Henry Highland Garnet, "A Letter to Mrs. Maria W. Chapman" (written 11/17/43), The
Liberator (Friday, December 8, 1843), p. 193.
8 Minutes of the National Convention, p. 13.
9 Maria Weston Chapman, "The Buffalo Convention of Men of Color," The Liberator (Friday,
September 22, 1843), p. 151.

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 THE CENTENNIAL REVIEW

to go to their masters and tell them they wanted th

come to ask for it; and if the master refused it, to t
shall take it, let the consequence be what it may."
Mrs. Chapman "that there is one black American
boldly on the subject of universal liberty."11 His
Chapman's maternalism was understandable, but d
what Garnet's speeach actually advised.
Much of the speech's significance stems from i
assertion of a Black point of view. It is the most fre
and consistently distorted characteristic of the a
rians have singled out the phrase, "you had far b
immediately, than live [as] slaves," as an illustration
arms. That phrase, however, is lifted out of a co
important in clarifying Garnet's assertion.
Think how many tears you have poured out upon s
cultivated with unrequited toil, and enriched with your
to your lordly enslavers and tell them plainly, that you
be free. Appeal to their sense of justice and tell them
more right to oppress you, than you have to enslave the
remove the grievous burdens which they have impose
remunerate you for your labor. Promise them renew
cultivation of the soil, if they will render to you an
services . . . tell them in language which they cannot
the exceeding sinfulness of slavery, and of a future jud
righteous retributions of an indignant God. Inform
desire is freedom, and that nothing else will suffice. Do
after cease to toil for the heartless tyrants, who give y
but stripes and abuse. If they then commence the work
not you, will be responsible for the consequences. Yo
die—die immediately, than live slaves, and entail your w
your posterity.12

The quote contains enough equivocations . . . app

of justice . . . entreat them to remove . . . prom
diligence ... to severely compromise any revoluti
initiators of violence would be the masters, not
maintaining that it was better to die as freemen tha
Garnet never encouraged slaves to begin an armed
contrary, Garnet warned slaves that a revolt woul
"because the spirit of the age and the gospel were

10 Minutes of the National Convention, p. 13.

11 Henry Highland Garnet, "A letter to Mrs. Maria W. Chapman
12 Garnet, Address, p. 94.

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 garnet's address

bloodshed."13 And, finally, "we do not advise you,"

"14
attempt revolution by the sword, because it would be inexp

II

Even without the disclaimers of violence Garnet indicated that he had

been exposed to and influenced by the ideals of antebellum reform
that permeated American society in the years 1830-1865. His address
manifested an overwhelming belief in the sinfulness of the peculiar
institution. It was, in Garnet's case, a logical, rational belief, one that
he had nurtured for many years. It had to be more than coincidental
that Garnet used precisely the same words in his oration that he had
written in his first abolition statement. In the speech Garnet advised
slaves to "tell them [slaveholders] in language which they cannot
misunderstand, of the exceeding sinfulness of slavery."16 Nine years
earlier as a founder and Secretary of the Garrison Literary and
Benevolent Society in New York City, Garnet had corresponded with
the editor of The Liberator. There Garnet explained that the Society's
name was a small token of respect for Garrison's person and services
on behalf of the oppressed. In Garnet's opinion, Garrison's most
important service was "showing slaveholders the exceeding sinfulness
of slavery."18
Garnet's adherence to this idea remained very strong, and was
reinforced in 1835, when he became a student at Oneida Institute in
Whitesboro, New York. There he was influenced by Beriah Green,
President of Oneida and a leading clergyman, biblical scholar, educa
tor, and abolitionist. Green may have been the most important in
fluence in Garnet's early years.17 During Garnet's first year at Oneida,
Green wrote a scathing review of a proslavery article by a Professor of
Christian Theology at Union Theological Seminary. Green character
ized slavery as "one of the greatest sins which disgraces and afflicts
our country."18 Garnet struck out against the slave master in much
the same vein.

13 Ibid., p. 96.
14 Ibid.
13 Ibid., p. 94.
16 Henry Highland Garnet, "Meeting of the Garrison Society," The Liberator (Saturday, April
19. 1834)> P- 63
17 Alexander Crummell, "Eulogium on Rev. Henry Highland Garnet," Africa and America:
Addresses and Discourses (New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969), p. 281.
18 Rev. Beriah Green, The Church Carried Along, or Opinions of a Doctor of Divinity on American
Slavery (New York: W.S. Dorr, 1836), p. 44.

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 THE CENTENNIAL REVIEW

Closely associated with the idea of slavery as

pervasive theme in Garrisonian abolitionism,
guilt. The intellectual roots of this concept came
old Protestant sense of public morality and th
bility for maintaining the public welfare. It follo
Northerners who were not actively calling fo
slavery were as guilty as owners.
Speaking before the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery
Charles Folien reminded the entire nation of it
The guilt of the existence of slavery within the
legislation, rests upon every citizen who is not ex
utmost, by free discussion and petitions to Congr
disgraceful inconsistency may be removed.19

The logical but simplistic conclusion that all we

slavery to exist without working for its demi
gued by Angelina Grimke. "We hold," she said
guilty of the crime of slaveholding—we asser
sin. "20

Whether Garnet ever heard the pronouncements of Miss Grimke or

Dr. Folien is not important. What is important is the currency of the
idea and the fact that Garnet espoused it. Speaking in poetically
religious terms in the address, Garnet indicted the church for its
complicity:
The bleeding captive pled his innocence and pointed to Christianity who
stood weeping at the cross. Jehovah frowned upon the nefarious in
stitution, and thunderbolts, red with vengeance, struggled to leap forth to
blast the guilty wretches who maintained it. But all was vain. Slavery had
stretched its dark wings of death over the the land, the Church stood
silently by—the priests prophesied falsely, and, the people loved to have it
so. Its [slavery's] throne is established and now it reigns triumphantly.21

In their struggle for human betterment abolitionists were reinforced

by their conviction that there was an infinite worthiness in man. Most
antebellum reformers worked in some way to implement the teachings
of Christianity and thereby prepare for the state of perfection. Some,
like John A. Collins, George Benson and Adin Ballou, organized their
own "perfect" practical Christian communities. Most abolitionists,
19 Elizabeth L. Folien, The Life of Charles Folien (Boston: Thomas Webb and Company, 1844),
p. xxxii.
20 Angelina E. Grimke, letters to Catherine E. Beecher in Reply to an Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism
Addressed to A. E. Grimke (Boston: Isaac Knapp, 1838), p. 7.
21 Garnet, Address, p. 91.

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 garnet's address

however, like Garnet, were satisfied with simpler efforts

would harmonize man with God and Nature. Garnet's attachment to
this third characteristic was, perhaps, less strong than his attachment
to other principles of reform ideology. It may have been that since he
was black, and a fugitive slave, he understood more clearly than
others that man had a longer way to go to achieve perfection. Never
theless, he utilized the perfectibility idea, and worked to make slaves
aware of their status within the concept. He attempted to show that
they were part of the process of creating a heavenly kingdom on earth.
"Mankind," he informed slaves, "are becoming wiser, and better—
the oppressor's power is fading, and you, every day are becoming
better informed and more numerous."22
The Garrisonian formulation of this progress toward a heavenly
state caused considerable controversy. Garrisonian perfectionists
repudiated the church government and other institutions that prohib
ited movement toward perfectibility by tacit or open support of
slavery. Garnet's criticism of the church has been cited. He did,
however, try to appeal to the slave to live according to the gospel, Mrs.
Chapman's criticism notwithstanding.
The divine commandments you are in duty bound to reverence, and obey.
If you do not obey them you will surely meet with the displeasure of the
Almighty. He requires you to love him supremely, and your neighbor as
yourself—to keep Sabbath Day holy—to search the Scriptures—and bring
up your children with respect for his laws, and to worship no other God
but him.23

Man, Garnet seemed to be saying to the slave, was responsible only to

God.

The drive toward perfectibility dictated to a considerable extent a

fourth characteristic of Garrisonism—a dedication to moral reforma
tion. Abolitionists acted on the premise that the cure for America's ills
lay in appeals to conscience, opportunities for conversion, and the
cleansing quality of repentance. Lack of a coordinated program was
compensated for by moral fervor which permeated the declaration of
sentiments of the American Anti-Slavery Society.
Our trust for victory is solely in God. We may be personally defeated, but
our principles never! Truth, Justice, Reason, Humanity must and will
gloriously triumph.24
22 Ibid., p. 90.
23 Ibid., p. 92.
24 William Lloyd Garrison, Selections from the Writings and Speeches of William Lloyd Garrison
(Boston: R. F. Walcutt, 1852), p. 71.

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 THE CENTENNIAL REVIEW

At every point in his address Garnet's initial tac

the slave owner's sense of morality. Speaking
Garnet, a moderate Garrisonian abolitionist sh
outrage.
"The abolitionists," he declared, "seek to impres
human heart the true doctrines of the rights of ma
forever this great and fundamental truth of hum
cannot hold property in his brother; for they be
admission of this truth will utterly destroy the sys
that system is upon a denial or disregard of it."25

Garnet like most antislavery crusaders accepte

moral approach and felt that the Great Moral
be demonstrated to produce the desired result.
Like most Black abolitionists, however, he m
skepticism about total reliance on the philosop
As will be demonstrated below, Garnet had an
method fail. That Garnet held to the moral a
attributed to three factors. First, he was a
advocate. Second, he knew that the intellectua
would not sanction revolution. Third, and extr
most American reformers, Garnet placed great c
progress. Whether speaking in political, econ
terms, abolitionists implicitly or explicitly und
ideology with the concept of progress; it was t
running throughout.
The final characteristic of antebellum reform to be considered here

is the individualistic nature of most reformers, although they sought to

validate their ideas by acquiring a consensus. They utilized such
organizational devices as local, state, national, and international asso
ciations.26 Abolitionists also seemed possessed by a need to hold
annual conventions and to disseminate news through a variety of
newspapers or a central bureau controlled by the societies. There
seemed to be a constant stream of activity, speeches, threats, declara
tions, exposes, gestures, and ideas waiting to be claimed or supported
as universal observations or cures. The imagery of violence in Henry
Highland Garnet's words was partly a rhetorical device, but it also
25 John Greenleaf Whittier, "Justice and Expedience," American Issues: The Social Record, edited
by Merle Curti, Carlos Baker and Willard Thorp (Chicago: J. B. Lippincott Company, i960),
4th edition.
26 Louis Ruchantes, editor, The Abolitionists: A Collection of Their Writings (New York: Capricorn
Books, 1963).

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 garnet's address

suggested the tendency of abolitionist energy to organiz

worldly struggle.

Ill

The obvious similarities between Garrison's abolitionism and Gar

net's ideas have been demonstrated, as have the distorted historica
evaluations of his work, giving an overemphasis to its militant factors
It remains to deduce the actual program of emancipation that Garn
advocated in his speech.
To achieve liberation, Garnet outlined a three-step program. Firs
slaves must approach the master as men and remonstrate with him
"You can," Garnet reminded the slave, "plead your own cause and d
the work of emanicipation better than any others."27 The slave a
abolitionist and agent of change is an idea clearly originated b
Garnet. He realized that the movement toward liberation would

provide an opportunity for slaves to assume a variety of roles

viously denied by their bondage, and that this broadening of r
would be excellent preparation for freedom. An additional role
gested by Garnet was that of labor agitator. "Promise them renew
diligence in the cultivation of the soil, if they will render to you
equivalent for your services."28 The priorities for action were revers
by Garnet; formerly the slaveholder had been appealed to by ab
tionists to remove the yoke of slavery, but Garnet's program called
the transformation of the slave from chattel to catalyst.
The justifications for the change in role were many, but they
tially followed the rational moral approach. If, however, slaves co
not be activated by the beatitude of perfection or the abstraction
God-given liberty, they had, in Garnet's eyes, more concrete reas
to pursue freedom. He felt the continued disregard of the slave
humanity could provide the spark. They could not, if they were men
continue to allow their daughters to pamper the lusts of masters
overseers.29

Phase two of Garnet's plan entailed militant but non-violent ci

disobedience. He advised slaves to "cease to toil for heartless tyra
who give you no other reward than stripes and abuse."30 The gen
strike was for Garnet a device that could be utilized by slaves. Th
' Garnet, Address, p. 93.
' Ibid., p. 94.
'Ibid., p. 96.
J Ibid., p. 94.

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 THE CENTENNIAL REVIEW

million men refusing to work could completely d

that the God-cursed slaveholders would be
Garnet's suggested tactics anticipated later idea
particularly those of a contemporary, Henry D
posited that a group of men in pursuit of honest
coercive operations of a government by refusing
the problem of slavery, however, Garnet anticipa
a white backlash.
Step three advocated militant self-defense. By calling to mind Den
mark Vesey, Nat Turner, Joseph Cinque, and Madison Washington,
Garnet hoped to instill pride in the slaves, to strike terror in the
masters and serve notice that Blacks could and would defend them
selves.32 Of the choices available, Garnet leaves little doubt that self
defense is his means. Resistance was a necessity because no oppressed
people have secured their liberty without it. But revolution was em
phatically ruled out.33 Garnet's address, then, must be viewed not as a
call to arms but as a plan of activity that could escalate into blood
shed.

Militant self-defense was a brilliant insight. The prophetic warning,

however, was not original with Garnet. In 1834, John Greenleaf Whit
tier wrote:

The slave will become conscious sooner or later of his strength—his

physical superiority, and will exert it. His torch will be at the threshold
and his knife at the throat of his planter. Horrible and indiscriminate will
be his vengeance.34

The principal influence on Garnet's thoughts concerning a prophetic

warning to the South had to be David Walker. When Garnet pub
lished his own address in 1848 he combined it with a reissue of
Walker's 1829 Appeal. The gesture was more than symbolic: it further
indicated Garnet's tremendous grasp of contemporary intellectual
currents and his ability to mold them into his own coherent per
sonalized statement.

31 Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience, in Waiden and Other Writings of Henry David Thoreau,
Brooks Atkinson, editor, (New York: The Modern Library, 1950).
32 Garnet was disingenuous in citing Vesey, Turner, Cinque and Washington, as they had all
taken or anticipated taking violent offensive action to escape slavery.
33 Garnet, Address, p. 96.
34 Whittier, "Justice and Experience," American Issues, p. 456.

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