Quotation by Angelina Grimké

Dost thou ask what I mean by emancipation?... 1. It is "to reject with indignation, the wile and guilty phantasy, that man can hold property in man." 2. To pay the laborer his hire, for he is worthy of it. 3. No longer to deny him the right of marriage, but to "let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband," as saith the apostle. 4. To let parents have their own children, for they are the gift of the Lord to them, and no one else has any right to them. 5. No longer to withhold the advantages of education and the privilege of reading the bible. 6. To put the slave under the protection of equitable laws. Now, why should not all this be done immediately? Which of these things is to be done next year, and which the year after? and so on. Our immediate emancipation means, doing justice and loving mercy to-day—and this is what we call upon every slaveholder to do. I have seen too much of slavery to be a gradualist.