Rose Macaulay Quotes
You point out that war is only a symptom of the whole horrid business of human behavior, and cannot be isolated. And that, even if we abolish war, we shall not abolish hate and greed. So might it have been argued about slave emancipation, that slavery was but one aspect of human disgustingness, and that to abolish it would not end the barbarity that causes it. But did the abolitionists therefore waste their breath? And do we waste ours now in protesting against war?
Macaulay, Rose. Letters to a Friend 1950-1952. Collins, 1961.
The king was making his judgment that the English whites did not have the “gut” to kill the number of people and perpetuate the other cruelties to forcibly convert Black Africans to Christianity, and even if they did, it would be inconsistent with the moral tenets of the religion. He was not familiar with the Reformation persecutions of previous generations, nor did he anticipate the effect of colonialism by which large parts of Africa were culturally and religiously converted.
The issue is whether Kansas would enter the Union as a slave state of a free state. If a free state, the free states would be able to block further slavery. If Kansas were to become a slave state, the slave states would have a sufficient majority to make all future expansion hospitable to slavery. The slavery forces started sending men and families into Kansas so that they could vote; the abolitionists did the same. Both sides armed and a war began with each faction trying to kill or drive the other faction out of Kansas before the vote. See {612516} for the anti-slavery perspective.
This prophecy written in the later years of Jefferson’s life turned out to be all too true. St. Domingo was an Island in the Caribbean where slavery produced a bloody war. The American Civil War would be far worse.
The critic observed that the South would not give up their slaves voluntarily and that and that vigorous abolition pressure on the South would lead to war and asked Angelina if she would want a civil war. Grimke’s response was predictive of what happened—the most terrible was in U. S. History to end the most terrible cruelty and persecution in American history. Note that she herself was willing to die to end slavery. See {629094}.
Dame Emilie Rose Macaulay, DBE was an English writer, most noted for her award-winning novel The Towers of Trebizond, about a small Anglo-Catholic group crossing Turkey by camel. The story is seen as a spiritual autobiography, reflecting her own changing and conflicting beliefs. Macaulay's novels were partly influenced by Virginia Woolf; she also wrote biographies and travelogues.
