Henry Highland Garnet's "Address to the Slaves"

Abolitionist Debate

(Moral Suasion)

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Photographs and Prints Division, The New York Public Library. "Wm. Lloyd Garrison." New York Public Library Digital Collections.

(Radical Abolition)

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, The New York Public Library. "Gerit Smith" New York Public Library Digital Collections.

Henry Highland Garnett, abolitionist and editor.

(Black Self-Assertion)

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Photographs and Prints Division, The New York Public Library. "Henry Highland Garnett, abolitionist and editor." New York Public Library Digital Collections.

During the 1840s, there were growing debates due to the different points of view regarding abolitionist strategies. William Lloyd Garrison, a proponent for moral suasion (Garrisonian abolition), encouraged white Northerners to live up to their moral Christian Duty to abolish slavery. He denounced any form of violence as a means of accomplishing abolition. This method centered white actors, or white subjectivity, while Blacks were objectified and rendered passive.

In contrast, Gerritt Smith, a radical abolitionist, did not view violence as immoral, but as inexpedient for the abolition of slavery. He advocated for slaves to runaway from the plantation, along with white abolitionists actively facilitating these escapes. Although radically different from Garrison, Smith’s strategy of abolition still conceptualizes Blacks as objects. When a slave escapes, he or she is still considered property and the white enslavers are not held accountable for the physical, social and spiritual cost of enslavement. Due to the climate of the 1840s, Garrison was losing traction within abolitionist communities where Smith’s methods were becoming more popularly accepted.