Spooner, Lysander A Plan for the Abolition of Slavery
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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC09235 Author/Creator: Spooner, Lysander Place Written: s.l. Type: Broadside Date: July 1858 Pagination: 2 p. Order a Copy
"A Plan for the Abolition of Slavery," imploring non-slaveholding whites in the South to combine with slaves to overthrow plantation owners. "Your numbers, combined with those of the Slaves, will give you all power. You have but to use it, and the work is done. The following self-evident principles of justice and humanity will serve as guides. … 1. That the Slaves have a natural right to their liberty. 2. That they have a natural right to compensation (so far as the property of the Slaveholders and their abettors can compensate them) for the wrongs they have suffered. 3. That so long as the governments, under which they live, refuse to give them liberty or compensation, they have the right to take it by stratagem or force. 4. That it is the duty of all, who can, to assist them in such an enterprise..." On verso at bottom is blank space for recipients to affix their names in forming "an Association to be called the League of Freedom." Fewer than 200 copies of this incendiary broadsheet were printed before their suppression by Spooner-at the behest of John Brown, who believed it could tip off authorities of his planned raid on Harper's Ferry.
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