Abolitionist David Walker turns Fire into Radical Revolution against Slaveholding Republic

David Walker turns ancient philosophy of Fire into radical revolutionary action against the slaveholding Republic

DAVID WALKER’S APPEAL AS THE FULLEST AMERICAN EMBODIMENT OF THE ARCHAIC PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE

David Walker’s Appeal (1829) is indeed the fullest and single most American embodiment of the ancient tradition of FIRE come down to us through the philosophy of the natives of Persia, of African traditions, the ancient Hebrews, the Indian and pre-Socratic philosophers in the 19th century. He was one of the first of the abolitionists to turn the political and Biblical contradictions and hypocrisies in the arguments of the slaveholding American Republic into a philosophical weapon against them, and he directly embodied the concept of the “divine spark” (rational principle or intellect is connected to the Logos), e.g., as in the philosophy of Heraclitus, in his revolutionary and emancipatory vision for Black people. Walker undeniably proves this widely-divergent dissemination, inspiration and lineage of concepts of cosmic elements on pre-Marxist radical Black American Thought.

Some have since this time been willing to even abandon the heritage of Democracy and Republicanism before they accept these historical facts, particularly when brought to their ear by Black intellect and demand Americans truly live and embody its principles. The pretenders to this ancient philosophy shift their feet and veil their tactics and intentions when Black luminaries like Walker light the flame of their people.

WHO WAS DAVID WALKER

David Walker (1796–1830) was an African American abolitionist born free in Wilmington, North Carolina, to a free mother and an enslaved father, who later moved to Boston where he ran a used-clothing business and became active in the Black community’s anti-slavery efforts. His Appeal vehemently denounced slavery, urged enslaved people to resist and fight for their freedom if necessary, and criticized racial injustice in America. The pamphlet frightened Southern states, leading to bans on abolitionist literature, and Walker died suddenly in 1830, likely from tuberculosis, though poisoning was rumored, leaving a lasting legacy that inspired later abolitionists and figures in the fight for Black rights, inspiring Black people to assert their rights.

Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World (fully titled 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) is the single most radical, complete, and uncompromising application of the ancient divine-spark doctrine ever published on American soil.He did not merely quote the Founders—he out-argued them using their own philosophical weapons, and then carried those weapons to their logical, revolutionary conclusion.The Key Divine-Spark Passages (verbatim)

From David Walker’s Preamble (1829 edition, pp. 2–3):

“We are men—and Americans—and children of the same God who made the sun to shine alike upon the white and the black…God Almighty has made us of one blood… and has given us the same intellectual powers that he has given to the white man.”

From Article I:

“Do they believe that the spark of the Eternal which is in us is of less value than the spark in them? …
The soul of the black man is as precious in the sight of God as the soul of the white man.”

From Article IV:

“Remember…that the same God who gave to the white man the Declaration of Independence, gave to you the same right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness…If you do not rise up and assert those rights, you are worse than the brute creation.”

FOUNDERS VERSUS DAVID WALKER

Ancient / Enlightenment Source	Founders’ Partial Application	David Walker’s Application
Acts 17:26–28 (“of one blood…in him we live and move”), or the biblical version of logos spermatikos	Jefferson cut this from the Declaration’s anti-slavery clause; Washington quoted it privately but never publicly against slavery.	Walker opens the Appeal with it and repeats it four times: the one-blood doctrine is the proof that slavery is blasphemy.
Cicero and Seneca — all humans share the same divine reason (apospasma)	Jefferson said “all men are created equal,” but Blacks are “inferior in reason” (Notes on Virginia).	Walker taught that Blacks have the same intellectual powers and the same spark of the Eternal, therefore any denial of rights is not just unjust, it is theological heresy.
Epictetus taught that “Some things are up to us, some are not”	Franklin and Adams used this for personal resilience.	For Walker, slavery is not up to us, it is imposed; but resistance is up to us, therefore violent resistance, if necessary, is a Stoic duty.
Jefferson’s Declaration on Creator-endowed rights	Applied only to white men; Jefferson feared Black emancipation would lead to “convulsions.”	Walker taught that the same Creator who endowed white Americans endowed Black Americans, therefore the Declaration is a divine indictment against every slaveholder.

TRUEST HEIR OF THE SACRED FIRE IN WALKER’S RADICALISM

The Founders logic, though based on espousing a universal principle had limited application, primarily to white men only, which led to gradual development out of this logic. However, for Walker universal principles made no exceptions, and required immediate revolutionary action to correct the system. Where Jefferson also espoused the doctrine of the spark and chose tranquility through Epicurean withdrawal, Walker saw the spark and chose holy fire, in revoluti action, stating:

“Throw off your fear and your sloth, and rise up like men who know that God is your Father and that your souls are immortal.”

The most devastating sentence Walker ever wrote in Article IV was in stating that “God will not suffer us…to be held in slavery any longer than He sees it best for His own glory and our own good…The day of our redemption draweth nigh.”

This is the divine spark turned into eschatological justice, something the founders never dared.

Walker is the truest heir of the secret doctrine of Fire in American Thought. The Founders wrote about the divine spark while holding human beings in chains, but Walker lived it, while knowing that any day a white mob could burn him alive for publishing his writings.

He published three editions in 1829–1830, sewed them into the linings of clothes, and had them smuggled into the South by Black sailors. Copies were found as far south as Savannah and New Orleans. Southern legislatures offered $10,000 (dead or alive) for him. He died suddenly in Boston on August 6, 1830 just weeks after the third edition appeared at the age of 44. The official cause was listed as “consumption” (tuberculosis), but most contemporaries, Black and White alike, believed he was poisoned. His death came only six months after Nat Turner received a copy of the Appeal in Virginia, and just one year before the Turner rebellion itself. Walker’s funeral was attended by thousands of free Black Bostonians, and his grave in the old South End burying ground was unmarked for decades, partly out of fear that even his tombstone would be seen as incendiary.

That is how completely David Walker embodied the doctrine of the primal fire, because he carried it to the point where the slave power was willing to pay the modern equivalent of more than a quarter-million dollars to silence one free Black man with a printing press and a conviction that every human soul is equally sacred.

The lineage of African primordial fire, the Greek logos, the Stoic apospasma to Ciceronian natural law and the Christian imago Dei is demonstrated, and Walker wielded it against the slave system.

Walker completes what the Founders only partially professed in the Preamble again on page 3 (1829 ed.):

“We are men—and Americans—and children of the same common Father who made the sun, moon, and stars… Are we MEN!!—I ask you, O my brethren! are we MEN? Did our Creator make us to be slaves to dust and ashes like ourselves? Are we not all one blood?”

Acts 17:26–28 is combined with Stoic cosmopolitanism and African primordial unity, fused into a single declaration in his words.

“The man who would not fight…ought to be kept with all of his children or family, in slavery, or in chains, to be butchered by his cruel enemies…For the spark of liberty is in every man’s bosom, white or black.”

Walker literally uses the word “spark,” the same scintilla and logos spermatikos term the Stoics used, and insists it burns just as fiercely in the enslaved African as in any Roman emperor.

He turned Jefferson’s declaration into a death warrant to slavery in Article II (p. 26–27):

“See your Declaration Americans!!! Do you understand your own language? Hear your language, proclaimed to the world, July 4th, 1776—‘We hold these truths to be self-evident—that ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL!! that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness!!’ Compare your own language above…with your cruelties and murders inflicted by your cruel and unmerciful fathers and yourselves on our fathers and on us…My colour will yet root some of you out of the very face of the earth!!!!!!”

Walker is not rejecting the Declaration, but claimed full ownership of its clause and pronouncing divine judgment on anyone who denies it to Black people.

The Stoic apatheia and revolutionary Fire is further expressed in Article IV (p. 70):

“I do not wish to see my brethren crouch like slaves…I would have them stand forth like men…I would have them fear God and nothing else.”

This is pure Epicureanism, which also influenced the founders, when Walker says, “Only fear what is in your power; everything else is indifferent.” Walker reflects Stoic fearlessness into a call for armed resistance if necessary.

DIVINE JUSTICE WILL ENFORCE THE FIRE OF REVOLUTION

“God will not suffer us, always to be oppressed. Our sufferings will come to an end, in spite of all the Americans this side of eternity. The day of our redemption is drawing nigh.” (Walker, 84)

Founder’s Ideals	Walker’s Ideals
Jefferson said that “All men are created equal”…but Black people are inferior and must be deported.	For Walker, “All men are created equal,” therefore any system that denies this is blasphemy against the Creator and will be destroyed.
For Washington and Adams, the divine spark exists, but slavery is a “necessary evil” for now.	For Walker, the divine spark demands immediate overthrow of the system that denies it.
Franklin’s gradualism — petition Congress politely.	Walker demands, that if petitions fail, the spark itself becomes revolutionary fire.

Walker was the living proof that the divine spark doctrine was never inherently racist or elitist. The moment it was fully believed, without the compromises of wealth and power, it became the most dangerous idea in America, and it still is, because it immediately disproves the entire framework of the racists who continue to use the founders and originalist fallacies. Having realized, this is in fact an unwinnable position, they have pivoted to “Post-Constitutionalism.” Thomas Jefferson wrote about the spark while owning six hundred human beings; but David Walker believed the same spark so completely that he was willing to die and cause others to die to see it honored. History has already rendered its verdict on who understood the doctrine more deeply.

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