A book that scares the south.

1829 Two weeks before Christmas, 60 books slipped from a ship in Savannah Port and found a local black missionary. Seeing the contents, he immediately handed them over to the police. They confiscated every book. The writer is an educated free black man named David Walker, an activist and second-hand clothing dealer in Boston.

As the title shows, this book is an "appeal" to "citizens of color in the world", but it is especially clear to people in the United States of America. However, "appeal" is a mild word to describe the smoldering prophecy between its covers, which is obviously aimed at the enslaved workers in this country. The policeman may turn to page 28: "You killed a man who tried to kill you, which did you no more harm than drinking water when you were thirsty." Page 35 thinks that slave owners refuse to accept slave education because it will expose their right to "cut their repressed throat", and slave owners are well aware of this.

Maybe after 42 pages, the police closed the book. When it directly targeted at whites, the police were surprised: "Unless you change your route quickly, you and your country will leave!" " ! ! ! ! ! Because almighty god will tear up the surface of the earth! ! !

Shortly after the seizure, another 20 copies appeared in the capital of Georgia, and then another 30 copies appeared in Virginia. Two months later, more appeared in New Orleans and Charleston. Before the end of the year, more than 200 people broke into Carolina. The police acted hastily, but failed to confiscate most copies, although in some cases, secret agents were sent to black communities. In some areas in the south, there is evidence that this book is actually spread through the fugitive network. White people began to panic. Frederick Douglas later reflected that this appeal "shocked the whole country, like a trump card judgment."

In order to stop the circulation of books, state officials held an emergency meeting and passed legislation at an alarming rate. In the words of the historian Lacey K. Ford Jr, "There is no precedent for the safety upsurge caused by the appearance of David Walker pamphlets." In Georgia, legislators met on February 2 1 65438 and passed new laws before the end of the year. Georgia and North Carolina banned black sailors from entering their ports and banned the publication of questionable literary works. The former will be sentenced to death. Louisiana and Virginia have strengthened laws and regulations prohibiting free blacks from entering the state or prohibiting slave literacy education.

On the second day after the first appeal in the South, Mayor Savannah wrote to Boston Mayor harrison gray otis. Otis demanded that the publication of Mr. Walker's "inflammatory works" be punished. He admitted that the book was "very bad", but it was not strictly illegal according to any law in Massachusetts. He can neither confiscate nor punish Walker according to law.

This is not just a problem of disharmony between North and South laws; This is a symptom of what abraham lincoln later called "the house that kills each other" on the basic definitions of property rights and human rights. In response to this appeal, a reporter from Georgia wrote: "The right to tamper with this property does not belong to anyone, nor to anyone's body, but to their owners-this is the viewpoint of Delicious Food and the refuge of southern feelings. "

Otis did send someone to ask Walker, perhaps hoping that coming out of the mayor's office would make him feel uneasy. To their surprise, Walker not only publicly declared that the appeal was his work, but also made it clear that he intended to distribute more copies at his own expense, which was completely legal in Massachusetts. Otis could do little except to warn the captain of New England about the book and urge his southern compatriots to remain calm. Otis pointed out that "the writer's smallness, his bloody and fanatical profligacy" is evidence. If everyone keeps calm, everything will end.

But in fact, not only that, this appeal even encouraged some efforts to reduce slavery in the South. For example, Georgia imposed a partial ban on the import of slaves, and its governor promoted a total ban, thus reviving the colonial movement in Mississippi after Nat Turner's rebellion.

This brief outbreak of anti-slavery hostility gradually faded, just as defenders such as john caldwell calhoun and George Fitzgerald tried their best to defend slavery. Then Walker died in August 1830, just one year after the appeal. Some people suspect that it is a parish assassination plot, but it is probably tuberculosis. )

If Walker didn't directly scare the United States, his prediction would come true in another sense. He believes that God, as a "just and sacred existence", will "one day fully represent the oppressed"-through the resistance of the oppressed or the self-destruction of the oppressor, "urge them to confront each other." If he had lived to witness the outbreak of civil war 30 years later, Walker might have found that both these predictions had come true.