An Excerpt from Letters on American Slavery

In this excerpt from Letter IX of John Rankin’s Letters on American Slavery, Rankin argues that slavery is incompatible with the American republican ideals shared in the Declaration of Independence.

John Rankin

Born in Dandridge, Tennessee, John Rankin was an American Presbyterian minister and abolitionist who moved to Ripley, Ohio in 1822 and became the state’s first and most active “conductor” on the Underground Railroad.

Editor’s Note
P

Paul Meany

Intellectual History Editor

Born in Dandridge, Tennessee, John Rankin was an American Presbyterian minister and abolitionist who moved to Ripley, Ohio in 1822 and became the state’s first and most active “conductor” on the Underground Railroad.

He built his home atop a 300-​foot-​high hill overlooking the Ohio River. Using a lantern or candle in his window at night, Rankin would signal to fugitives of slavery when it was safe to cross the river and evade slavecatchers. He provided refuge for 2,000 people throughout his life. For his efforts, the hill on which his home rested became known as “Liberty Hill.”

Rankin rose to national prominence in 1824 when he began publishing Letters on American Slavery. Originally, Rankin intended to write a series of letters to his brother Thomas, who had recently purchased slaves. Rankin published his Letters in the local Ripley newspaper, The Castigator, to save postage and reach a wider audience.

John Rankin successfully convinced his brother; in 1827, Thomas relocated to Ohio and freed his slaves. Rankin’s Letters was published as a book in that same year, offering one of the earliest accessible and systematic anti-​slavery arguments in America. Throughout the 1830s, Letters on American Slavery circulated widely among abolitionists. William Lloyd Garrison credited Rankin with inspiring his own commitment to the cause.

Below is an excerpt from Letter IX. After making the theological and moral argument against slavery, Rankin turns his attention to the political aspect of abolitionism. In this chapter, he argues that slavery is incompatible with the American republic. America was founded on the principles of the Declaration of Independence, which states that all people have equal rights. In contrast, monarchies are founded upon the idea that some are born to rule and others to serve. Slavery operates on a similar principle to monarchy: that some have an absolute right to the obedience of others.

In Rankin’s view, abolitionism was a Christian imperative and constitutional necessity. Slavery, he argues, is not just a moral evil but a betrayal of America’s republican foundation.

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Slavery tends to tyranny.* It is directly opposed to the fundamental principles of republicanism, maintained in that part of the Declaration of Independence, which declares: ‘That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.’ These principles are absolutely denied by the slaveholding states. They practically declare that all men are not created equal, that liberty is not an inalienable right, and that a certain class of people have not a right to pursue their own happiness. They do in their constitutions create distinctions among men; some they forever consign to the service of others. They tell us, ‘That no freeman ought to be taken, or imprisoned, or deprived of his freehold, liberties, or privileges, or outlawed, or exiled, or in any manner destroyed, or deprived of his life, liberty, or property, but by the judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land.’ See the constitutions of Maryland, N. and S. Carolina, and Tennessee. This plainly implies that the slave ought to be taken, imprisoned, and destroyed, without either judgment or law. The constitution of Kentucky tells us, ‘That all freemen, when they form a social compact, are equal.’—See the constitution of Kentucky, Art. X. Sec. I. Kentucky cannot admit ‘That all men are created equal,’ nor that even freemen are equal until they become so by social compact. Thus she plainly denies a fundamental principle of the Declaration of Independence. And how widely does she differ from the free states, which declare in their constitutions—‘That all men are born equally free and independent.’ There is no state in the Union that makes stronger pretensions to republicanism than does Kentucky, and yet she both theoretically and practically denies the fundamental principle upon which the whole republican system rests. The truth is, all the slaveholding states do practically maintain the fundamental principles of absolute monarchy—which are, that all men are not equal, and that all men are not born equally free and independent. Every slaveholder is an absolute monarch to his slaves, and they are bound to approach him with all the sensibilities of inferiority which absolute monarchy can require. And many slaveholders do manifest by their conduct, that they feel the same superiority over their poor slaves that absolute monarchs do over their miserable and abject subjects.

It is well known that the slaveholding states have, ever since the declaration of independence, manifested a propensity for the unjust acquisition of power. They have ever had an unequitable representation in Congress. They consider slaves to be mere property, and yet for every seventy thousand of them they claim the right of sending one representative to Congress. This is decidedly a representation of property. The slave representation is as unjust and unreasonable as a cattle representation would be. Did they permit the poor slaves to choose for themselves a representation which might contend for their rights in the national legislature, none would have reason to reproach them for injustice with respect to such representation. But alas! the slave representation is for a far different purpose. It is to strengthen the yoke and tighten the chains of cruel oppression. But the slave representation appears to me still more unjust, when I consider that the states which hold the greatest number of slaves, and of course have the greatest slave representation, must be of the least service for the defence of the nation in time of war. They have many voices, and of course, are immensely powerful in the national legislature, but are perfect weakness in the field of battle—perhaps it requires all their strength to keep their slaves in subjection.

The tenacity with which the slaveholding states retain this unjust principle manifests a strong propensity for the usurpation of power. And this circumstance shows that they have in them the spirit of tyranny.

Now brother, I think it must be evident to you that slavery, in the several particulars to which I have invited your attention, has a pernicious tendency upon the free inhabitants of the slaveholding states; and hence you have another conclusive proof that slavery is opposed to the natural principles and feelings of our nature, and that of course, as we said before, it forms a relation for which the Creator, in the organization of the human system, has made no provision. From the plain principles of nature as well as from its dreadful tendency, it evidently appears that involuntary slavery is both unnatural and unjust.

*The children of slaveholders are, in many instances, habituated to tyrannizing over slaves. This cultivates in them the spirit of tyranny. In this respect slavery has a most direct tendency to make tyrants.