Heman Humphrey, Frontispiece of Parallel between Intemperance and the Slave-trade. New York: John P. Haven, 1828. Samuel J. May Anti-Slavery Pamphlet Collection, Cornell University.
Heman Humphrey (1779-1861) was an ordained Congregational minister and President of Amherst College, Massachusetts, from 1823 to 1845. On July 4, 1828, he delivered the speech “Parallel between Intemperance and the Slave-Trade” at Amherst College. Humphrey was a prominent advocate for temperance (abstinence from alcohol) in the United States and frequently spoke on the topic. In this speech, he draws a comparison between the societal impacts of intemperance and the horrors of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, reflecting a common association among New England evangelical elites of the time
Humphrey asserts that “the prevalent use of ardent spirits in the United States is a worse evil at this moment than the slave trade ever was in the height of its horrible prosperity.” He further claims that enslavement affected only the body, whereas the “western house of bondage (…) fetters the immortal mind as well as the body.” Contemporary minister and abolitionist Amos A. Phelps (1805-1847) heavily criticized Humphrey’s speech and similar comparisons, deeming them unhelpful and misleading. Phelps argued that such comparisons risk diminishing the perceived severity of the slave trade by equating it with intemperance and emphasized the importance of distinguishing between different social harms to avoid trivializing the horrors of enslavement.
The title page features an image of an inebriated man who pleads to be delivered to a slave ship rather than face “the retributions of a conscience exasperated by the guilt of intemperance! Bind me not to a rack where I can neither live nor die under the torture!” This image also evokes the widely circulated Antislavery Medallion created by British abolitionist Josiah Wedgwood (1730–1795), which depicts a Black man in shackles on one knee, originally with the words “Am I not a man and a brother?” Originally created as the seal of the British Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, it also became a symbol of abolition in France and the US. However, its widespread use inadvertently reinforced associations between Blackness, enslavement, and subservience. Although Britain and the US abolished the slave trade in 1807, the latter abolished enslavement in 1865, 32 years after the British.
Josiah Wedgwood, Antislavery Medallion, Jasperware, 1 3/16 × 1 1/16 in. (3 × 2.7 cm), British, Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent 1730–1795, William Hackwood, modeler, c.1787, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of Frederick Rathbone, 1908, 08.242.