"Ye Knew Your Duty, But Ye Did It Not": The Epistolary Rhetoric of Sarah Grimke

Abstract

"An Epistle to the Clergy of the Southern States" represents a largely overlooked but significant rhetorical effort by one of the earliest and most uncompromising (white) abolitionists in antebellum America, Sarah Moore Grimke. I argue in this essay that Grimke's missive deserves the kind of scholarly attention that her more-recognized Letters on the Equality of the Sexes has been given and in particular that we pay close attention to her ability to rhetorically reframe her opponents' arguments in the service of her own.