Joshua Coffin

An Account of Some of the Principal Slave Insurrections Joshua Coffin

Joshua Coffin (1792 - 1864) was an American antiquary and abolitionist. He graduated at Dartmouth in 1817, and taught school for many years. Coffin helped found the New-England anti-slavery society in 1832. An Account of Some of the Principal Slave Insurrections, and Others, Which Have Occurred, or Been Attempted, in the United States and Elsewhere, During the Last Two Centuries was published in 1860. Coffin gives the moral and legal reasons why slavery is wrong. He says the slave owner should repent his sins and the slave be emancipated which is his given right. Coffin ends by saying, "Therefore, gentle reader in the "irrepressible conflict" that is now agitating the country, and will continue to agitate it till slavery is abolished, which side have you chosen, or do you intend to choose? Will you take the "higher law," which is in harmony with God's providence and his word, or act in favor of the "lower law," which opposes both? If slavery is right, sustain, defend and justify it; but if it is a crime, do all in your power, by moral means, to overthrow the execrable system."