Immediate, Not Gradual Abolition;
Item #81010
HEYRICK, Elizabeth. Immediate, Not Gradual Abolition; or, an Inquiry into the Shortest, Safest, and Most Effectual Means of Getting Rid of West Indian Slavery. London: Published 1824. New-York: Republished by James V. Seaman, 1825. 24pp. Dbd. Foxing and staining, particularly to outer leaves.Good. A scarce early American edition of English Quaker and abolitionist Elizabeth Heyrick's influential pamphlet. First published in London in 1824 and quickly reprinted several times in Britain and across the Atlantic, Heyrick's call for immediate, personal action against the evils of slavery found a wide audience and influenced a generation of future abolitionists. As the title suggests, Heyrick fought against the arguments for gradual abolition, citing the success of immediate abolition on St. Domingo, outlining how ending the slave trade did nothing to curtail actual slavery, and arguing that "a gradual emancipation would beget a gradual indifference to emancipation itself." On the topic of economic injury done to slaveholders, Heyrick emphasizes that emancipation and the profits of planters are entirely separate questions: "The West Indian planters have occupied much too prominent a place in the discussion of this great question...abolitionists have shown a great deal too much politeness and accommodation towards these gentlemen." The best and only way to effect immediate emancipation, she claims, is a public boycott of West Indies sugar, as only direct action against the profits of planters could break down their resistance. She writes: "It is high time, then, to resort to other measures, - to ways and means more summary and effectual. Too much time has already been lost in declamation and argument, in petitions and remonstrances against British slavery. The cause of emancipation calls for something more decisive, more efficient than words. It calls upon real friends of the poor, degraded and oppressed African to bind themselves by a solemn engagement, an irrevocable vow, to participate no longer in the crime of keeping him in bondage." This edition, one of the first printed in America, was published in New York the year after the original and is prefaced by a comment "To the Reader." It states that "The following pages, (said to be the production of a female in England,) were recently received in this country; and being foun.
Price: $2,000.00