38
TJ123-8-2009 LK VWD0011 Tradition Humanistic 6th Edition W:220mm x H:292mm 175L 115 Stora Enso M/A Magenta (V)QWith what arguments does Douglass justify
stealing?
Q Does moral responsibility alter according to the
status of an individual?READING 28.6
Q Why does Sojourner Truth claim that slavery is
“sanctioned by the religion of America”?38 CHAPTER 28 The Romantic Hero38
It was sometime before I arrived at this clear right. The
reader will get some idea of my train of reasoning, by a brief
statement of the case. “I am,” thought I, “not only the slave
of Master Thomas, but I am the slave of society at large.
Society at large has bound itself, in form and in fact, to assist 60
Master Thomas in robbing me of my rightful liberty, and of the
just reward of my labor; therefore, whatever rights I have
against Master Thomas, I have, equally, against those
confederated with him in robbing me of liberty. As society has
marked me out as privileged plunder, on the principle of self-
preservation I am justified in plundering in turn. Since each
slave belongs to all; all must, therefore, belong to each.”
I shall here make a profession of faith which may shock
some, offend others, and be dissented from by all. It is this:
Within the bounds of his just earnings, I hold that the slave is 70
fully justified in helping himself to the gold and silver, and the
best apparel of his master, or that of any other slaveholder;
and
that such taking is not stealing in any just sense of that word.
The morality of freesociety can have no application to slave
society. Slaveholders have made it almost impossible for the
slave to commit any crime, known either to the laws of God or
to the laws of man. If he steals, he takes his own; if he kills his
master, he imitates only the heroes of the revolution.
Slaveholders I hold to be individually and collectively
responsible for all the evils which grow out of the horrid 80
relation, and I believe they will be so held at the judgment, in
the sight of a just God. Make a man a slave, and you rob him of
moral responsibility....Sojourner Truth While Frederick Douglass was among the
first African-Americans to win international attention
through his skills at public speaking, his female contempo-
rary Sojourner Truth (ca. 1797–1883) brought wit and a
woman’s passion to the fight against slavery. Born to slave
parents in Ulster County, New York, Isabella Bomefree was
sold four times before the age of thirty, an inauspicious
beginning for a woman who would become one of
America’s most vocal abolitionists, an evangelist, and a
champion of women’s rights.
After being emancipated in 1828, Bomefree traveled
widely in the United States, changing her name to
Sojourner Truth in 1843, as she committed her life to
“sharing the truth” in matters of human dignity. Although
she never learned to read or write, she was determined to
have her voice heard across the nation and for future gen-
erations. To accomplish the latter, she dictated her story to
a friend, Olive Gilbert. The narrative, which was pub-
lished in 1850, recounts the major events of her life,
including the tale of how Isabella engaged in a heroic legal
battle to win back her five-year-old son, who was illegally
sold into slavery in New York State. Sojourner Truth used
her talents as an orator to voice her opposition to slavery,capital punishment, and the kidnapping and sale of black
children (a common practice in some parts of the country).
She also supported prison reform, helped to relocate former
slaves, and defended the rights of women. Sharp-tongued
and outspoken (and a lifelong pipe-smoker), Sojourner
Truth won popular notoriety for the short, impromptu
speech, “Ain’t I a Woman?,” delivered in 1851 to the
Woman’s Convention at Akron, Ohio. While scholars
question the authenticity of various versions of the speech
(which was published by abolitionists some twelve years
later), no such debate clouds Sojourner’s narrative, which,
even in this short excerpt, captures the spirit of her
straightforward rhetoric.From The Narrative of
Sojourner Truth(1850)
Isabella’s marriage
Subsequently, Isabella was married to a fellow-slave, named 1
Thomas, who had previously had two wives, one of whom, if
not both, had been torn from him and sold far away. And it is
more than probable, that he was not only allowed but
encouraged to take another at each successive sale. I say it is
probable, because the writer of this knows from personal
observation, that such is the custom among slaveholders at the
present day; and that in a twenty months’ residence among
them, we never knew any one to open the lip against the
practice; and when we severely censured it, the slaveholder 10
had nothing to say; and the slave pleaded that, under existing
circumstances, he could do no better.
Such an abominable state of things is silently tolerated, to
say the least, by slaveholders—deny it who may. And what is
that religion that sanctions, even by its silence, all that is
embraced in the “Peculiar Institution”? If there canbe any
thing more diametrically opposed to the religion of Jesus, than
the working of this soul-killing system—which is as truly
sanctioned by the religion of America as are her ministers and
churches—we wish to be shown where it can be found. 20
We have said, Isabella was married to Thomas—she was,
after the fashion of slavery, one of the slaves performing the
ceremony for them; as no true minister of Christ canperform,
asin the presence of God, what he knows to be a mere farce,
amockmarriage, unrecognised by any civil law, and liable to
be annulled at any moment, when the interest or caprice of the
master should dictate.
With what feelings must slaveholders expect us to listen to
their horror of amalgamation in prospect, while they are well
aware that we know how calmly and quietly they contemplate 30
the present state of licentiousness their own wicked laws have
created, not only as it regards the slave, but as it regards the
more privileged portion of the population of the South?
Slaveholders appear to me to take the same notice of the
vices of the slave, as one does of the vicious disposition of his
horse. They are often an inconvenience; further than that, they
care not to trouble themselves about the matter....