rned with
the attitude of the Negro himself toward the problem that seemed to
present itself to America and for which such different solutions were
proposed. So far as slavery was concerned, we have seen that the remedy
suggested by Denmark Vesey and Nat Turner was insurrection. It is only
to state an historical fact, however, to say that the great heart of the
Negro people in the South did not believe in violence, but rather hoped
and prayed for a better day to come by some other means. But what was
the attitude of those people, progressive citizens and thinking leaders,
who were not satisfied with the condition of the race and who had to
take a stand on the issues that confronted them? If we study the matter
from this point of view, we shall find an amount of ferment and unrest
and honest difference of opinion that is sometimes overlooked or
completely forgotten in the questions of a later day.

1. _Walker's "Appeal_"

The most widely discussed book written by a Negro in the period was one
that appeared in Boston in 1829. David Walker, the author, had been born
in North Carolina in 1785, of a free mother and a slave father, and he
was therefore free.[1] He received a fair education, traveled widely
over the United States, and by 1827 was living in Boston as the
proprietor of a second-hand clothing store on Brattle Street. He felt
very strongly on the subject of slavery and actually seems to have
contemplated leading an insurrection. In 1828 he addressed various
audiences of Negroes in Boston and elsewhere, and in 1829 he published
his _Appeal, in four articles; together with a Preamble to the Coloured
Citizens of the World, but in particular, and very expressly, to those
of the United States of America_. The book was remarkably successful.
Appearing in September, by March of the following year it had reached
its third edition; and in each successive edition the language was more
bold and vigorous. Walker's projected insurrection did not take place,
and he himself died in 1830. While there was no real proof of the fact,
among the Negro people there was a strong belief that he met with foul
play.

[Footnote 1: Adams: _Neglected Period of Anti-Slavery_, 93.]

Article I Walker headed "Our Wretchedness in Consequence of Slavery." A
trip over the United States had convinced him that the Negroes of the
country were "the most degraded, wretched and abject set of beings that
ever lived since the world began." He quoted a