Coleridge, Samuel Taylor (1772-1834) to Thomas Pringle
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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC00496.148 Author/Creator: Coleridge, Samuel Taylor (1772-1834) Place Written: s.l. Type: Autograph letter signed Date: 1832 Pagination: 4 p. ; 20 x 13 cm. Order a Copy
Discusses abolition debates in Parliament. Preaches about moral freedoms in regard to reason and conscience.
Thomas Pringle was a Scottish abolitionist and poet. Coleridge was a British lyrical poet, critic, philosopher, and abolitionist.
[excerpt:]
I [felt] this in the pain inflicted on me by what I cannot but consider a rash, unnecessary, and more than questionable assertion of Mr. Buxton; that if the emancipated Blacks should prove inaccessible to all the motives, which high wages & the prospect of bettering their situation can present, such [2] a result would make no difference - for that they would only do what every man, as a free agent, has a right to do. Now I ask - would it be right in the Free-agent so to do? Or is our moral freedom, so absolute, as to give a right to do wrong? ... must not Mr. Buxton see, that [this] refusal to work for the Land-owners involves the probable seizure of the Lands for [3] themselves for provision grounds? And could this be done, without a Guadaloupe & St Domingo massacre of the whites? ... It is the characteristic Civilizability of the Negro Race, as contrasted with the Savage Hunter-tribes of N. America which deepens the guilt of the Colonial [4] Slave-holder hitherto....
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