Item #3817 [A sammelband of abolitionist tracts]. H. W. Longfellow, Amasa Walker, Esq., Alvin Stewart, James Appleton, Daniel O’Connell, Thomas Clarkson.
[A sammelband of abolitionist tracts].
[A sammelband of abolitionist tracts].
[A sammelband of abolitionist tracts].

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[A sammelband of abolitionist tracts].

Boston: New England Anti-Slavery Tract Association; J.W. Alden, n.d. [circa 1843]. 12mo, plain brown wrappers. 1–28, 65–80, [1]–4, [1]–4, [1]–4, [1]–4, [1]–4 pp. CONDITION: Spine partially perished, front wrapper re-stitched, lower wrapper detached, a few damp-stains to first page, contents otherwise clean.

A sammelband of 12 anti-slavery tracts from a variety of authors and sources, attempting to catch wavering minds and elucidate the many moral, patriotic, and financial disadvantages of slavery.

Tract No. 1, Poems on Slavery by H. W. Longfellow, includes seven poems, among them To William E. Channing, The Slave’s Dream, and The Slave in the Dismal Swamp. Also included is prominent British abolitionist Thomas Clarkson’s Letter to a Friend (Tract No. 10). Clarkson, who was instrumental in ending Britain’s slave trade, describes the abhorrence of slavery and its blatant contradiction of American values and concludes his piece with a gentle but firm nudge to action:

I cannot doubt that there are many…who, having not yet considered the subject so seriously as they ought to have done, and having been therefore apparently lukewarm, if they were to read this letter, and really to believe that the present laxity of morals in the United States was produced by slavery, and that such laxity, if spread farther, would in process of time ruin their character as a civilized nation, would, no doubt, from patriotic motives, join the noble bands now being formed for the eradication of such a monstrous evil from their country.

Another tract, Daniel O’Connell’s Loyal National Repeal Association (Tract No. 2), condemns the Irish-American support of slavery based on a poorly-founded judgment of uneducated slaves as naturally inferior, while another attempts to galvanize northern voters on the basis of economic self-interest:

So long as we will not care for the slave, and will vote for pro-slavery rulers, and thus uphold slavery at the South, it is a just retribution of Providence to make us, unpaid, supply from our labor at the North that deficiency which the slave-holder cannot extort by his lash…

Most pieces were originally published elsewhere, and some are anonymously written newspaper articles. The other tracts included are: General James Appleton’s The Missouri Compromise (Tract No. 3); Alan Stewart’s The Cause of the Hard Times (Tract No. 4); The Liberty Press Extra’s The Lawlessness of Slavery (Tract No. 11); Amasa Walker’s Two Cents Postage (Tract No. 12); and five “Liberty Tracts”: The Right Sort of Politics (No. 2); The Influence of the Slave Power (No. 3); The Tyrant Paupers” (No. 6); Bible Politics (No. 7); and The Compact (No. 9).

Item #3817

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