1846 ELIHU BURRITT. Manuscript Poem on the Irresistibility of God's Power to Free the Slaves.

A fine original MSs by abolitionist, Elihu Burritt [1810-1879]. This rather daring poem would be published a few months later in the November 6, 1846 issue of the Anti-Slavery Bugle. In it, Burritt makes a rather bold argument, that the Divine and moral force of the right of the enslaved to be free has simply unleashed something too powerful for any government, law, or legislature to resist. God Himself is exerting himself against them. 

The subtext of the poem is no less forceful. It proposes the Gospel itself is the "Archimedean point," which implies any Christian who does not align with the "holy lever" is not locating themselves in the Gospel. 

In full.  

He Shall Arise

The Gospel has revealed an Archimedean point
of rest, and we have got a lever under the slave - 
a lever whose longer arm reaches into Heaven
and is now descending beneath the weight
of God's eternal throne and all his angels of 
light. O, we shall raise him! we shall raise
him, without the aid or consent of human
legislation.

Elihu Burritt. 
Worcester, July 23d. 1846.

A very good copy.

Elihu Burritt is a fascianting character. He was editor of the Christian Citizen, a work focused on what it looked like for a Christian to function in the imitation of Jesus in American Society. He was a radical pacifiist and abolitionist, close friend of Frederick Douglass, etc., 

Measures: 7.25" x 9.875"