I admit that there are individual slaveholders less cruel and
barbarous than is allowed by law; but these form the exception.
The majority of slaveholders find it necessary, to insure
obedience, at times, to avail themselves of the utmost extent of
the law, and many go beyond it. If kindness were the rule, we
should not see advertisements filling the columns of almost every
southern newspaper, offering large rewards for fugitive slaves,
and describing them as being branded with irons, loaded with
chains, and scarred by the whip. One of the most telling
testimonies against the pretended kindness of slaveholders, is
the fact that uncounted numbers of fugitives are now inhabiting
the Dismal Swamp, preferring the untamed wilderness to their
cultivated homes–choosing rather to encounter hunger and thirst,
and to roam with the wild beasts of the forest, running the
hazard of being hunted and shot down, than to submit to the
authority of _kind_ masters.
I tell you, my friends, humanity is never driven to such an
unnatural course of life, without great wrong. The slave finds
more of the milk of human kindness in the bosom of the savage
Indian, than in the heart of his _Christian_ master. He leaves
the man of the _bible_, and takes refuge with the man of the
_tomahawk_. He rushes from the praying slaveholder into the paws
of the bear. He quits the homes of men for the haunts of wolves.
He prefers to encounter a life of trial, however bitter, or
death, however terrible, to dragging out his existence under the
dominion of these _kind_ masters.
The apologists for slavery often speak of the abuses of slavery;
and they tell us that they are as much opposed to those abuses as
we are; and that they would go as far to correct those abuses and
to ameliorate the condition of the slave as anybody. The answer
to that view is, that slavery is itself an abuse; that it lives
by abuse; and dies by the absence of abuse. Grant that slavery
is right; grant that the relations of master and slave may
innocently exist; and there is not a single outrage which was
ever committed against the slave but what finds an apology in the
very necessity of the case. As we said by a slaveholder (the
Rev. A. G. Few) to the Methodist conference, “If the relation be
right, the means to maintain it are also right;” for without
those means slavery could not exist. Remove the dreadful
scourge–the plaited thong–the galling fetter–the accursed
chain–and let the slaveholder rely solely upon moral and
religious power, by which to secure obedience to his orders, and
how long do you suppose a slave would remain on his plantation?
The case only needs to be stated; it carries its own refutation
with it.
Absolute and arbitrary power can never be maintained by one man
over the body and soul of another man, without brutal
chastisement and enormous cruelty.
To talk of _kindness_ entering into a relation in which one party
is robbed of wife, of children, of his hard earnings, of home, of
friends, of society, of knowledge, and of all that makes this
life desirable, is most absurd, wicked, and preposterous.
I have shown that slavery is wicked–wicked, in that it violates
the great law of liberty, written on every human heart–wicked,
in that it violates the first command of the decalogue–wicked,
in that it fosters the most disgusting licentiousness–wicked, in
that it mars and defaces the image of God by cruel and
barbarous inflictions–wicked, in that it contravenes the laws of
eternal justice, and tramples in the dust all the humane and
heavenly precepts of the New Testament.
The evils resulting from this huge system of iniquity are not
confined to the states south of Mason and Dixon’s line. Its
noxious influence can easily be traced throughout our northern
borders. It comes even as far north as the state of New York.
Traces of it may be seen even in Rochester; and travelers have
told me it casts its gloomy shadows across the lake, approaching
the very shores of Queen Victoria’s dominions.
The presence of slavery may be explained by–as it is the
explanation of–the mobocratic violence which lately disgraced
New York, and which still more recently disgraced the city of
Boston. These violent demonstrations, these outrageous invasions
of human rights, faintly indicate the presence and power of
slavery here. It is a significant fact, that while meetings for
almost any purpose under heaven may be held unmolested in the
city of Boston, that in the same city, a meeting cannot be
peaceably held for the purpose of preaching the doctrine of the
American Declaration of Independence, “that all men are created
equal.” The pestiferous breath of slavery taints the whole moral
atmosphere of the north, and enervates the moral energies of the
whole people.
The moment a foreigner ventures upon our soil, and utters a
natural repugnance to oppression, that moment he is made to feel
that there is little sympathy in this land for him. If he were
greeted with smiles before, he meets with frowns now; and it
shall go well with him if he be not subjected to that peculiarly
fining method of showing fealty to slavery, the assaults of a
mob.
Now, will any man tell me that such a state of things is natural,
and that such conduct on the part of the people of the north,
springs from a consciousness of rectitude? No! every fibre of
the human heart unites in detestation of tyranny, and it is only
when the human mind has become familiarized with slavery, is
accustomed to its injustice, and corrupted by its selfishness,
that it fails to record its abhorrence of slavery, and does not
exult in the triumphs of liberty.
The northern people have been long connected with slavery; they
have been linked to a decaying corpse, which has destroyed the
moral health. The union of the government; the union of the
north and south, in the political parties; the union in the
religious organizations of the land, have all served to deaden
the moral sense of the northern people, and to impregnate them
with sentiments and ideas forever in conflict with what as a
nation we call _genius of American institutions_. Rightly
viewed, this is an alarming fact, and ought to rally all
that is pure, just, and holy in one determined effort to crush
the monster of corruption, and to scatter “its guilty profits” to
the winds. In a high moral sense, as well as in a national
sense, the whole American people are responsible for slavery, and
must share, in its guilt and shame, with the most obdurate men-
stealers of the south.
While slavery exists, and the union of these states endures,
every American citizen must bear the chagrin of hearing his
country branded before the world as a nation of liars and
hypocrites; and behold his cherished flag pointed at with the
utmost scorn and derision. Even now an American _abroad_ is
pointed out in the crowd, as coming from a land where men gain
their fortunes by “the blood of souls,” from a land of slave
markets, of blood-hounds, and slave-hunters; and, in some
circles, such a man is shunned altogether, as a moral pest. Is
it not time, then, for every American to awake, and inquire into
his duty with respect to this subject?
Wendell Phillips–the eloquent New England orator–on his return
from Europe, in 1842, said, “As I stood upon the shores of Genoa,
and saw floating on the placid waters of the Mediterranean, the
beautiful American war ship Ohio, with her masts tapering
proportionately aloft, and an eastern sun reflecting her noble
form upon the sparkling waters, attracting the gaze of the
multitude, my first impulse was of pride, to think myself an
American; but when I thought that the first time that gallant
ship would gird on her gorgeous apparel, and wake from beneath
her sides her dormant thunders, it would be in defense of the
African slave trade, I blushed in utter _shame_ for my country.”
Let me say again, _slavery is alike the sin and the shame of the
American people;_ it is a blot upon the American name, and the
only national reproach which need make an American hang his head
in shame, in the presence of monarchical governments.
With this gigantic evil in the land, we are constantly told to
look _at home;_ if we say ought against crowned heads, we are
pointed to our enslaved millions; if we talk of sending
missionaries and bibles abroad, we are pointed to three millions
now lying in worse than heathen darkness; if we express a word of
sympathy for Kossuth and his Hungarian fugitive brethren, we are
pointed to that horrible and hell-black enactment, “the fugitive
slave bill.”
Slavery blunts the edge of all our rebukes of tyranny abroad–the
criticisms that we make upon other nations, only call forth
ridicule, contempt, and scorn. In a word, we are made a reproach
and a by-word to a mocking earth, and we must continue to be
so made, so long as slavery continues to pollute our soil.
We have heard much of late of the virtue of patriotism, the love
of country, &c., and this sentiment, so natural and so strong,
has been impiously appealed to, by all the powers of human
selfishness, to cherish the viper which is stinging our national
life away. In its name, we have been called upon to deepen our
infamy before the world, to rivet the fetter more firmly on the
limbs of the enslaved, and to become utterly insensible to the
voice of human woe that is wafted to us on every southern gale.
We have been called upon, in its name, to desecrate our whole
land by the footprints of slave-hunters, and even to engage
ourselves in the horrible business of kidnapping.
I, too, would invoke the spirit of patriotism; not in a narrow
and restricted sense, but, I trust, with a broad and manly
signification; not to cover up our national sins, but to inspire
us with sincere repentance; not to hide our shame from the
the{sic} world’s gaze, but utterly to abolish the cause of that
shame; not to explain away our gross inconsistencies as a nation,
but to remove the hateful, jarring, and incongruous elements from
the land; not to sustain an egregious wrong, but to unite all our
energies in the grand effort to remedy that wrong.
I would invoke the spirit of patriotism, in the name of the law
of the living God, natural and revealed, and in the full belief
that “righteousness exalteth a nation, while sin is a reproach to
any people.” “He that walketh righteously, and speaketh
uprightly; he that despiseth the gain of oppressions, that
shaketh his hands from the holding of bribes, he shall dwell on
high, his place of defense shall be the munitions of rocks, bread
shall be given him, his water shall be sure.”
We have not only heard much lately of patriotism, and of its aid
being invoked on the side of slavery and injustice, but the very
prosperity of this people has been called in to deafen them to
the voice of duty, and to lead them onward in the pathway of sin.
Thus has the blessing of God been converted into a curse. In the
spirit of genuine patriotism, I warn the American people, by all
that is just and honorable, to BEWARE!
I warn them that, strong, proud, and prosperous though we be,
there is a power above us that can “bring down high looks; at the
breath of whose mouth our wealth may take wings; and before whom
every knee shall bow;” and who can tell how soon the avenging
angel may pass over our land, and the sable bondmen now in
chains, may become the instruments of our nation’s chastisement!
Without appealing to any higher feeling, I would warn the
American people, and the American government, to be wise in
their day and generation. I exhort them to remember the history
of other nations; and I remind them that America cannot always
sit “as a queen,” in peace and repose; that prouder and stronger
governments than this have been shattered by the bolts of a just
God; that the time may come when those they now despise and hate,
may be needed; when those whom they now compel by oppression to
be enemies, may be wanted as friends. What has been, may be
again. There is a point beyond which human endurance cannot go.
The crushed worm may yet turn under the heel of the oppressor. I
warn them, then, with all solemnity, and in the name of
retributive justice, _to look to their ways;_ for in an evil
hour, those sable arms that have, for the last two centuries,
been engaged in cultivating and adorning the fair fields of our
country, may yet become the instruments of terror, desolation,
and death, throughout our borders.
It was the sage of the Old Dominion that said–while speaking of
the possibility of a conflict between the slaves and the
slaveholders–“God has no attribute that could take sides with
the oppressor in such a contest. I tremble for my country when I
reflect that God _is just_, and that his justice cannot sleep
forever.” Such is the warning voice of Thomas Jefferson; and
every day’s experience since its utterance until now, confirms
its wisdom, and commends its truth.
WHAT TO THE SLAVE IS THE
FOURTH OF JULY?
_Extract from an Oration, at Rochester, July 5, 1852_
Fellow-Citizens–Pardon me, and allow me to ask, why am I called
upon to speak here to-day? What have I, or those I represent, to
do with your national independence? Are the great principles of
political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that
Declaration of Independence, extended to us? and am I, therefore,
called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar,
and to confess the benefits, and express devout gratitude for the
blessings, resulting from your independence to us?
Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative
answer could be truthfully returned to these questions! Then
would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful. For
who is there so cold that a nation’s sympathy could not warm him?
Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude, that would
not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? Who so
stolid and selfish, that would not give his voice to swell the
hallelujahs of a nation’s jubilee, when the chains of servitude
had been torn from his limbs? I am not that man. In a case like
that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the “lame man leap as
an hart.”
But, such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad
sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the
pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only
reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in
which you this day rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich
inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence,
bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The
sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought
stripes and death to me. This Fourth of July is _yours_, not
mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters
into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon
him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and
sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking
me to speak to-day? If so, there is a parallel to your conduct.
And let me warn you that it is dangerous to copy the example of a
nation whose crimes, towering up to heaven, were thrown down by
the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrecoverable
ruin! I can to-day take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and
woe-smitten people.
“By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. Yea! we wept when
we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the
midst thereof. For there, they that carried us away captive,
required of us a song; and they who wasted us required of us
mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How can we sing
the Lord’s song in a strange land? If I forget thee, O
Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not
remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.”
Fellow-citizens, above your national, tumultous joy, I hear the
mournful wail of millions, whose chains, heavy and grievous
yesterday, are to-day rendered more intolerable by the jubilant
shouts that reach them. If I do forget, if I do not faithfully
remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day, “may my
right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the
roof of my mouth!” To forget them, to pass lightly over their
wrongs, and to chime in with the popular theme, would be treason
most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before
God and the world. My subject, then, fellow-citizens, is
AMERICAN SLAVERY. I shall see this day and its popular
characteristics from the slave’s point of view. Standing there,
identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I
do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character
and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on
this Fourth of July. Whether we turn to the declarations of the
past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the
nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America is false to
the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be
false to the future. Standing with God and the crushed and
bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity
which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in
the name of the constitution and the bible, which are disregarded
and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with
all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to
perpetuate slavery–the great sin and shame of America! “I will
not equivocate; I will not excuse;” I will use the severest
language I can command; and yet not one word shall escape me that
any man, whose judgment is not blinded by prejudice, or who is
not at heart a slaveholder, shall not confess to be right and
just.
But I fancy I hear some one of my audience say, it is just in
this circumstance that you and your brother abolitionists fail to
make a favorable impression on the public mind. Would you argue
more, and denounce less, would you persuade more and rebuke less,
your cause would be much more likely to succeed. But, I submit,
where all is plain there is nothing to be argued. What point in
the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? On what branch
of the subject do the people of this country need light? Must I
undertake to prove that the slave is a man? That point is
conceded already. Nobody doubts it. The slaveholders themselves
acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government.
They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of
the slave. There are seventy-two crimes in the state of
Virginia, which, if committed by a black man (no matter how
ignorant he be), subject him to the punishment of death; while
only two of these same crimes will subject a white man to the
like punishment. What is this but the acknowledgement that the
slave is a moral, intellectual, and responsible being. The
manhood of the slave is conceded. It is admitted in the fact
that southern statute books are covered with enactments
forbidding, under severe fines and penalties, the teaching of the
slave to read or write. When you can point to any such laws, in
reference to the beasts of the field, then I may consent to argue
the manhood of the slave. When the dogs in your streets, when
the fowls of the air, when the cattle on your hills, when the
fish of the sea, and the reptiles that crawl, shall be unable to
distinguish the slave from a brute, then will I argue with you
that the slave is a man!
For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the
Negro race. Is it not astonishing that, while we are plowing,
planting, and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools,
erecting houses, constructing bridges, building ships, working in
metals of brass, iron, copper, silver, and gold; that, while we
are reading, writing, and cyphering, acting as clerks, merchants,
and secretaries, having among us lawyers, doctors, ministers,
poets, authors, editors, orators, and teachers; that, while we
are engaged in all manner of enterprises common to other men–
digging gold in California, capturing the whale in the Pacific,
feeding sheep and cattle on the hillside, living, moving, acting,
thinking, planning, living in families as husbands, wives, and
children, and, above all, confessing and worshiping the
Christian’s God, and looking hopefully for life and immortality
beyond the grave–we are called upon to prove that we are men!
Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? that he
is the rightful owner of his own body? You have already declared
it. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? Is that a
question for republicans? Is it to be settled by the rules
of logic and argumentation, as a matter beset with great
difficulty, involving a doubtful application of the principle of
justice, hard to be understood? How should I look to-day in the
presence of Americans, dividing and subdividing a discourse, to
show that men have a natural right to freedom, speaking of it
relatively and positively, negatively and affirmatively? To do
so, would be to make myself ridiculous, and to offer an insult to
your understanding. There is not a man beneath the canopy of
heaven that does not know that slavery is wrong for _him_.
What! am I to argue that it is wrong to make men brutes, to rob
them of their liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them
ignorant of their relations to their fellow-men, to beat them
with sticks, to flay their flesh with the lash, to load their
limbs with irons, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at
auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to
burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to
their masters? Must I argue that a system, thus marked with
blood and stained with pollution, is wrong? No; I will not. I
have better employment for my time and strength than such
arguments would imply.
What, then, remains to be argued? Is it that slavery is not
divine; that God did not establish it; that our doctors of
divinity are mistaken? There is blasphemy in the thought. That
which is inhuman cannot be divine. Who can reason on such a
proposition! They that can, may! I cannot. The time for such
argument is past.
At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is
needed. Oh! had I the ability, and could I reach the nation’s
ear, I would to-day pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule,
blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it
is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle
shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the
earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the
conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the
nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be
exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed
and denounced.
What to the American slave is your Fourth of July? I answer, a
day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year,
the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant
victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted
liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling
vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your
denunciations of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of
liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns,
your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade
and solemnity, are to him mere bombast, fraud, deception,
impiety, and hypocrisy–a thin veil to cover up crimes which
would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the
earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody, than are the
people of these United States, at this very hour.
Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the
monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through South
America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the
last, lay your facts by the side of the every-day practices of
this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting
barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a
rival.
THE INTERNAL SLAVE TRADE.
_Extract from an Oration, at Rochester, July 5, 1852_
Take the American slave trade, which, we are told by the papers,
is especially prosperous just now. Ex-senator Benton tells us
that the price of men was never higher than now. He mentions the
fact to show that slavery is in no danger. This trade is one of
the peculiarities of American institutions. It is carried on in
all the large towns and cities in one-half of this confederacy;
and millions are pocketed every year by dealers in this horrid
traffic. In several states this trade is a chief source of
wealth. It is called (in contradistinction to the foreign slave
trade) _”the internal slave trade_.” It is, probably, called so,
too, in order to divert from it the horror with which the foreign
slave trade is contemplated. That trade has long since been
denounced by this government as piracy. It has been denounced
with burning words, from the high places of the nation, as an
execrable traffic. To arrest it, to put an end to it, this
nation keeps a squadron, at immense cost, on the coast of Africa.
Everywhere in this country, it is safe to speak of this foreign
slave trade as a most inhuman traffic, opposed alike to the laws
of God and of man. The duty to extirpate and destroy it is
admitted even by our _doctors of divinity_. In order to put an
end to it, some of these last have consented that their colored
brethren (nominally free) should leave this country, and
establish themselves on the western coast of Africa. It is,
however, a notable fact, that, while so much execration is poured
out by Americans, upon those engaged in the foreign slave trade,
the men engaged in the slave trade between the states pass
without condemnation, and their business is deemed honorable.
Behold the practical operation of this internal slave trade–the
American slave trade sustained by American politics and American
religion! Here you will see men and women reared like swine for
the market. You know what is a swine-drover? I will show you a
man-drover. They inhabit all our southern states. They
perambulate the country, and crowd the highways of the
nation with droves of human stock. You will see one of these
human-flesh-jobbers, armed with pistol, whip, and bowie-knife,
driving a company of a hundred men, women, and children, from the
Potomac to the slave market at New Orleans. These wretched
people are to be sold singly, or in lots, to suit purchasers.
They are food for the cotton-field and the deadly sugar-mill.
Mark the sad procession as it moves wearily along, and the
inhuman wretch who drives them. Hear his savage yells and his
blood-chilling oaths, as he hurries on his affrighted captives.
There, see the old man, with locks thinned and gray. Cast one
glance, if you please, upon that young mother, whose shoulders
are bare to the scorching sun, her briny tears falling on the
brow of the babe in her arms. See, too, that girl of thirteen,
weeping, yes, weeping, as she thinks of the mother from whom she
has been torn. The drove moves tardily. Heat and sorrow have
nearly consumed their strength. Suddenly you hear a quick snap,
like the discharge of a rifle; the fetters clank, and the chain
rattles simultaneously; your ears are saluted with a scream that
seems to have torn its way to the center of your soul. The crack
you heard was the sound of the slave whip; the scream you heard
was from the woman you saw with the babe. Her speed had faltered
under the weight of her child and her chains; that gash on her
shoulder tells her to move on. Follow this drove to New Orleans.
Attend the auction; see men examined like horses; see the forms
of women rudely and brutally exposed to the shocking gaze of
American slave-buyers. See this drove sold and separated
forever; and never forget the deep, sad sobs that arose from that
scattered multitude. Tell me, citizens, where, under the sun,
can you witness a spectacle more fiendish and shocking. Yet this
is but a glance at the American slave trade, as it exists at this
moment, in the ruling part of the United States.
I was born amid such sights and scenes. To me the American slave
trade is a terrible reality. When a child, my soul was often
pierced with a sense of its horrors. I lived on Philpot street,
Fell’s Point, Baltimore, and have watched from the wharves the
slave ships in the basin, anchored from the shore, with their
cargoes of human flesh, waiting for favorable winds to waft them
down the Chesapeake. There was, at that time, a grand slave mart
kept at the head of Pratt street, by Austin Woldfolk. His agents
were sent into every town and county in Maryland, announcing
their arrival through the papers, and on flaming hand-bills,
headed, “cash for negroes.” These men were generally well
dressed, and very captivating in their manners; ever ready to
drink, to treat, and to gamble. The fate of many a slave
has depended upon the turn of a single card; and many a child has
been snatched from the arms of its mothers by bargains arranged
in a state of brutal drunkenness.
The flesh-mongers gather up their victims by dozens, and drive
them, chained, to the general depot at Baltimore. When a
sufficient number have been collected here, a ship is chartered,
for the purpose of conveying the forlorn crew to Mobile or to New
Orleans. From the slave-prison to the ship, they are usually
driven in the darkness of night; for since the anti-slavery
agitation a certain caution is observed.
In the deep, still darkness of midnight, I have been often
aroused by the dead, heavy footsteps and the piteous cries of the
chained gangs that passed our door. The anguish of my boyish
heart was intense; and I was often consoled, when speaking to my
mistress in the morning, to hear her say that the custom was very
wicked; that she hated to hear the rattle of the chains, and the
heart-rending cries. I was glad to find one who sympathized with
me in my horror.
Fellow citizens, this murderous traffic is to-day in active
operation in this boasted republic. In the solitude of my
spirit, I see clouds of dust raised on the highways of the south;
I see the bleeding footsteps; I hear the doleful wail of fettered
humanity, on the way to the slave markets, where the victims are
to be sold like horses, sheep, and swine, knocked off to the
highest bidder. There I see the tenderest ties ruthlessly
broken, to gratify the lust, caprice, and rapacity of the buyers
and sellers of men. My soul sickens at the sight.
_Is this the land your fathers loved?
The freedom which they toiled to win?
Is this the earth whereon they moved?
Are these the graves they slumber in?_
But a still more inhuman, disgraceful, and scandalous state of
things remains to be presented. By an act of the American
congress, not yet two years old, slavery has been nationalized in
its most horrible and revolting form. By that act, Mason and
Dixon’s line has been obliterated; New York has become as
Virginia; and the power to hold, hunt, and sell men, women, and
children as slaves, remains no longer a mere state institution,
but is now an institution of the whole United States. The power
is coextensive with the star-spangled banner and American
christianity. Where these go, may also go the merciless slave-
hunter. Where these are, man is not sacred. He is a bird for
the sportsman’s gun. By that most foul and fiendish of all human
decrees, the liberty and person of every man are put in
peril. Your broad republican domain is a hunting-ground for
_men_. Not for thieves and robbers, enemies of society, merely,
but for men guilty of no crime. Your law-makers have commanded
all good citizens to engage in this hellish sport. Your
president, your secretary of state, your lords, nobles, and
ecclesiastics, enforce as a duty you owe to your free and
glorious country and to your God, that you do this accursed
thing. Not fewer than forty Americans have within the past two
years been hunted down, and without a moment’s warning, hurried
away in chains, and consigned to slavery and excruciating
torture. Some of these have had wives and children dependent on
them for bread; but of this no account was made. The right of
the hunter to his prey, stands superior to the right of marriage,
and to _all_ rights in this republic, the rights of God included!
For black men there are neither law, justice, humanity, nor
religion. The fugitive slave law makes MERCY TO THEM A CRIME;
and bribes the judge who tries them. An American judge GETS TEN
DOLLARS FOR EVERY VICTIM HE CONSIGNS to slavery, and five, when
he fails to do so. The oath of an{sic} two villains is
sufficient, under this hell-black enactment, to send the most
pious and exemplary black man into the remorseless jaws of
slavery! His own testimony is nothing. He can bring no
witnesses for himself. The minister of American justice is bound
by the law to hear but _one side_, and that side is the side of
the oppressor. Let this damning fact be perpetually told. Let
it be thundered around the world, that, in tyrant-killing, king
hating, people-loving, democratic, Christian America, the seats
of justice are filled with judges, who hold their office under an
open and palpable _bribe_, and are bound, in deciding in the case
of a man’s liberty, _to hear only his accusers!_
In glaring violation of justice, in shameless disregard of the
forms of administering law, in cunning arrangement to entrap the
defenseless, and in diabolical intent, this fugitive slave law
stands alone in the annals of tyrannical legislation. I doubt if
there be another nation on the globe having the brass and the
baseness to put such a law on the statute-book. If any man in
this assembly thinks differently from me in this matter, and
feels able to disprove my statements, I will gladly confront him
at any suitable time and place he may select.
THE SLAVERY PARTY
_Extract from a Speech Delivered before the A. A. S. Society, in
New York, May, 1853_
Sir, it is evident that there is in this country a purely slavery
party–a party which exists for no other earthly purpose but to
promote the interests of slavery. The presence of this party is
felt everywhere in the republic. It is known by no particular
name, and has assumed no definite shape; but its branches reach
far and wide in the church and in the state. This shapeless and
nameless party is not intangible in other and more important
respects. That party, sir, has determined upon a fixed,
definite, and comprehensive policy toward the whole colored
population of the United States. What that policy is, it becomes
us as abolitionists, and especially does it become the colored
people themselves, to consider and to understand fully. We ought
to know who our enemies are, where they are, and what are their
objects and measures. Well, sir, here is my version of it–not
original with me–but mine because I hold it to be true.
I understand this policy to comprehend five cardinal objects.
They are these: 1st. The complete suppression of all anti-slavery
discussion. 2d. The expatriation of the entire free people of
color from the United States. 3d. The unending perpetuation of
slavery in this republic. 4th. The nationalization of slavery to
the extent of making slavery respected in every state of the
Union. 5th. The extension of slavery over Mexico and the entire
South American states.
Sir, these objects are forcibly presented to us in the stern
logic of passing events; in the facts which are and have been
passing around us during the last three years. The country has
been and is now dividing on these grand issues. In their
magnitude, these issues cast all others into the shade, depriving
them of all life and vitality. Old party ties are broken. Like
is finding its like on either side of these great issues, and the
great battle is at hand. For the present, the best
representative of the slavery party in politics is the democratic
party. Its great head for the present is President Pierce,
whose boast it was, before his election, that his whole life had
been consistent with the interests of slavery, that he is above
reproach on that score. In his inaugural address, he reassures
the south on this point. Well, the head of the slave power being
in power, it is natural that the pro slavery elements should
cluster around the administration, and this is rapidly being
done. A fraternization is going on. The stringent
protectionists and the free-traders strike hands. The supporters
of Fillmore are becoming the supporters of Pierce. The silver-
gray whig shakes hands with the hunker democrat; the former only
differing from the latter in name. They are of one heart, one
mind, and the union is natural and perhaps inevitable. Both hate
Negroes; both hate progress; both hate the “higher law;” both
hate William H. Seward; both hate the free democratic party; and
upon this hateful basis they are forming a union of hatred.
“Pilate and Herod are thus made friends.” Even the central organ
of the whig party is extending its beggar hand for a morsel from
the table of slavery democracy, and when spurned from the feast
by the more deserving, it pockets the insult; when kicked on one
side it turns the other, and preseveres in its importunities.
The fact is, that paper comprehends the demands of the times; it
understands the age and its issues; it wisely sees that slavery
and freedom are the great antagonistic forces in the country, and
it goes to its own side. Silver grays and hunkers all understand
this. They are, therefore, rapidly sinking all other questions
to nothing, compared with the increasing demands of slavery.
They are collecting, arranging, and consolidating their forces
for the accomplishment of their appointed work.
The keystone to the arch of this grand union of the slavery party
of the United States, is the compromise of 1850. In that
compromise we have all the objects of our slaveholding policy
specified. It is, sir, favorable to this view of the designs of
the slave power, that both the whig and the democratic party bent
lower, sunk deeper, and strained harder, in their conventions,
preparatory to the late presidential election, to meet the
demands of the slavery party than at any previous time in their
history. Never did parties come before the northern people with
propositions of such undisguised contempt for the moral sentiment
and the religious ideas of that people. They virtually asked
them to unite in a war upon free speech, and upon conscience, and
to drive the Almighty presence from the councils of the nation.
Resting their platforms upon the fugitive slave bill, they boldly
asked the people for political power to execute the horrible and
hell-black provisions of that bill. The history of that election
reveals, with great clearness, the extent to which slavery
has shot its leprous distillment through the life-blood of the
nation. The party most thoroughly opposed to the cause of
justice and humanity, triumphed; while the party suspected of a
leaning toward liberty, was overwhelmingly defeated, some say
annihilated.
But here is a still more important fact, illustrating the designs
of the slave power. It is a fact full of meaning, that no sooner
did the democratic slavery party come into power, than a system
of legislation was presented to the legislatures of the northern
states, designed to put the states in harmony with the fugitive
slave law, and the malignant bearing of the national government
toward the colored inhabitants of the country. This whole
movement on the part of the states, bears the evidence of having
one origin, emanating from one head, and urged forward by one
power. It was simultaneous, uniform, and general, and looked to
one end. It was intended to put thorns under feet already
bleeding; to crush a people already bowed down; to enslave a
people already but half free; in a word, it was intended to
discourage, dishearten, and drive the free colored people out of
the country. In looking at the recent black law of Illinois, one
is struck dumb with its enormity. It would seem that the men who
enacted that law, had not only banished from their minds all
sense of justice, but all sense of shame. It coolly proposes to
sell the bodies and souls of the blacks to increase the
intelligence and refinement of the whites; to rob every black
stranger who ventures among them, to increase their literary
fund.
While this is going on in the states, a pro-slavery, political
board of health is established at Washington. Senators Hale,
Chase, and Sumner are robbed of a part of their senatorial
dignity and consequence as representing sovereign states, because
they have refused to be inoculated with the slavery virus. Among
the services which a senator is expected by his state to perform,
are many that can only be done efficiently on committees; and, in
saying to these honorable senators, you shall not serve on the
committees of this body, the slavery party took the
responsibility of robbing and insulting the states that sent
them. It is an attempt at Washington to decide for the states
who shall be sent to the senate. Sir, it strikes me that this
aggression on the part of the slave power did not meet at the
hands of the proscribed senators the rebuke which we had a right
to expect would be administered. It seems to me that an
opportunity was lost, that the great principle of senatorial
equality was left undefended, at a time when its vindication was
sternly demanded. But it is not to the purpose of my present
statement to criticise the conduct of our friends. I am
persuaded that much ought to be left to the discretion of
anti slavery men in congress, and charges of recreancy
should never be made but on the most sufficient grounds. For, of
all the places in the world where an anti-slavery man needs the
confidence and encouragement of friends, I take Washington to be
that place.
Let me now call attention to the social influences which are
operating and cooperating with the slavery party of the country,
designed to contribute to one or all of the grand objects aimed
at by that party. We see here the black man attacked in his
vital interests; prejudice and hate are excited against him;
enmity is stirred up between him and other laborers. The Irish
people, warm-hearted, generous, and sympathizing with the
oppressed everywhere, when they stand upon their own green
island, are instantly taught, on arriving in this Christian
country, to hate and despise the colored people. They are taught
to believe that we eat the bread which of right belongs to them.
The cruel lie is told the Irish, that our adversity is essential
to their prosperity. Sir, the Irish-American will find out his
mistake one day. He will find that in assuming our avocation he
also has assumed our degradation. But for the present we are
sufferers. The old employments by which we have heretofore
gained our livelihood, are gradually, and it may be inevitably,
passing into other hands. Every hour sees us elbowed out of some
employment to make room perhaps for some newly-arrived emigrants,
whose hunger and color are thought to give them a title to
especial favor. White men are becoming house-servants, cooks,
and stewards, common laborers, and flunkeys to our gentry, and,
for aught I see, they adjust themselves to their stations with
all becoming obsequiousness. This fact proves that if we cannot
rise to the whites, the whites can fall to us. Now, sir, look
once more. While the colored people are thus elbowed out of
employment; while the enmity of emigrants is being excited
against us; while state after state enacts laws against us; while
we are hunted down, like wild game, and oppressed with a general
feeling of insecurity–the American colonization society–that
old offender against the best interests and slanderer of the
colored people–awakens to new life, and vigorously presses its
scheme upon the consideration of the people and the government.
New papers are started–some for the north and some for the
south–and each in its tone adapting itself to its latitude.
Government, state and national, is called upon for appropriations
to enable the society to send us out of the country by steam!
They want steamers to carry letters and Negroes to Africa.
Evidently, this society looks upon our “extremity as its
opportunity,” and we may expect that it will use the occasion
well. They do not deplore, but glory, in our misfortunes.
But, sir, I must hasten. I have thus briefly given my view of
one aspect of the present condition and future prospects of the
colored people of the United States. And what I have said is far
from encouraging to my afflicted people. I have seen the cloud
gather upon the sable brows of some who hear me. I confess the
case looks black enough. Sir, I am not a hopeful man. I think I
am apt even to undercalculate the benefits of the future. Yet,
sir, in this seemingly desperate case, I do not despair for my
people. There is a bright side to almost every picture of this
kind; and ours is no exception to the general rule. If the
influences against us are strong, those for us are also strong.
To the inquiry, will our enemies prevail in the execution of
their designs. In my God and in my soul, I believe they _will
not_. Let us look at the first object sought for by the slavery
party of the country, viz: the suppression of anti slavery
discussion. They desire to suppress discussion on this subject,
with a view to the peace of the slaveholder and the security of
slavery. Now, sir, neither the principle nor the subordinate
objects here declared, can be at all gained by the slave power,
and for this reason: It involves the proposition to padlock the
lips of the whites, in order to secure the fetters on the limbs
of the blacks. The right of speech, precious and priceless,
_cannot, will not_, be surrendered to slavery. Its suppression
is asked for, as I have said, to give peace and security to
slaveholders. Sir, that thing cannot be done. God has
interposed an insuperable obstacle to any such result. “There
can be _no peace_, saith my God, to the wicked.” Suppose it were
possible to put down this discussion, what would it avail the
guilty slaveholder, pillowed as he is upon heaving bosoms of
ruined souls? He could not have a peaceful spirit. If every
anti-slavery tongue in the nation were silent–every anti-slavery
organization dissolved–every anti-slavery press demolished–
every anti slavery periodical, paper, book, pamphlet, or what
not, were searched out, gathered, deliberately burned to ashes,
and their ashes given to the four winds of heaven, still, still
the slaveholder could have _”no peace_.” In every pulsation of
his heart, in every throb of his life, in every glance of his
eye, in the breeze that soothes, and in the thunder that
startles, would be waked up an accuser, whose cause is, “Thou
art, verily, guilty concerning thy brother.”
THE ANTI-SLAVERY MOVEMENT
_Extracts from a Lecture before Various Anti-Slavery Bodies, in
the Winter of 1855_
A grand movement on the part of mankind, in any direction, or for
any purpose, moral or political, is an interesting fact, fit and
proper to be studied. It is such, not only for those who eagerly
participate in it, but also for those who stand aloof from it–
even for those by whom it is opposed. I take the anti-slavery
movement to be such an one, and a movement as sublime and
glorious in its character, as it is holy and beneficent in the
ends it aims to accomplish. At this moment, I deem it safe to
say, it is properly engrossing more minds in this country than
any other subject now before the American people. The late John
C. Calhoun–one of the mightiest men that ever stood up in the
American senate–did not deem it beneath him; and he probably
studied it as deeply, though not as honestly, as Gerrit Smith, or
William Lloyd Garrison. He evinced the greatest familiarity with
the subject; and the greatest efforts of his last years in the
senate had direct reference to this movement. His eagle eye
watched every new development connected with it; and he was ever
prompt to inform the south of every important step in its
progress. He never allowed himself to make light of it; but
always spoke of it and treated it as a matter of grave import;
and in this he showed himself a master of the mental, moral, and
religious constitution of human society. Daniel Webster, too, in
the better days of his life, before he gave his assent to the
fugitive slave bill, and trampled upon all his earlier and better
convictions–when his eye was yet single–he clearly comprehended
the nature of the elements involved in this movement; and in his
own majestic eloquence, warned the south, and the country, to
have a care how they attempted to put it down. He is an
illustration that it is easier to give, than to take, good
advice. To these two men–the greatest men to whom the nation
has yet given birth–may be traced the two great facts of the
present–the south triumphant, and the north humbled. Their
names may stand thus–Calhoun and domination–Webster and
degradation. Yet again. If to the enemies of liberty this
subject is one of engrossing interest, vastly more so should it
be such to freedom’s friends. The latter, it leads to the gates
of all valuable knowledge–philanthropic, ethical, and religious;
for it brings them to the study of man, wonderfully and fearfully
made–the proper study of man through all time–the open book, in
which are the records of time and eternity.
Of the existence and power of the anti-slavery movement, as a
fact, you need no evidence. The nation has seen its face, and
felt the controlling pressure of its hand. You have seen it
moving in all directions, and in all weathers, and in all places,
appearing most where desired least, and pressing hardest where
most resisted. No place is exempt. The quiet prayer meeting,
and the stormy halls of national debate, share its presence
alike. It is a common intruder, and of course has the name of
being ungentlemanly. Brethren who had long sung, in the most
affectionate fervor, and with the greatest sense of security,
_Together let us sweetly live–together let us die,_
have been suddenly and violently separated by it, and ranged in
hostile attitude toward each other. The Methodist, one of the
most powerful religious organizations of this country, has been
rent asunder, and its strongest bolts of denominational
brotherhood started at a single surge. It has changed the tone
of the northern pulpit, and modified that of the press. A
celebrated divine, who, four years ago, was for flinging his own
mother, or brother, into the remorseless jaws of the monster
slavery, lest he should swallow up the Union, now recognizes
anti-slavery as a characteristic of future civilization. Signs
and wonders follow this movement; and the fact just stated is one
of them. Party ties are loosened by it; and men are compelled to
take sides for or against it, whether they will or not. Come
from where he may, or come for what he may, he is compelled to
show his hand. What is this mighty force? What is its history?
and what is its destiny? Is it ancient or modern, transient or
permanent? Has it turned aside, like a stranger and a sojourner,
to tarry for a night? or has it come to rest with us forever?
Excellent chances are here for speculation; and some of them are
quite profound. We might, for instance, proceed to inquire not
only into the philosophy of the anti-slavery movement, but into
the philosophy of the law, in obedience to which that movement
started into existence. We might demand to know what is that law
or power, which, at different times, disposes the minds of men to
this or that particular object–now for peace, and now for war–
now for freedom, and now for slavery; but this profound
question I leave to the abolitionists of the superior class to
answer. The speculations which must precede such answer, would
afford, perhaps, about the same satisfaction as the learned
theories which have rained down upon the world, from time to
time, as to the origin of evil. I shall, therefore, avoid water
in which I cannot swim, and deal with anti-slavery as a fact,
like any other fact in the history of mankind, capable of being
described and understood, both as to its internal forces, and its
external phases and relations.
the nature, character, and history of the anti-slavery movement,
from the insertion of which want of space precludes us, he
concluded in the following happy manner.]
Present organizations may perish, but the cause will go on. That
cause has a life, distinct and independent of the organizations
patched up from time to time to carry it forward. Looked at,
apart from the bones and sinews and body, it is a thing immortal.
It is the very essence of justice, liberty, and love. The moral
life of human society, it cannot die while conscience, honor, and
humanity remain. If but one be filled with it, the cause lives.
Its incarnation in any one individual man, leaves the whole world
a priesthood, occupying the highest moral eminence even that of
disinterested benevolence. Whoso has ascended his height, and
has the grace to stand there, has the world at his feet, and is
the world’s teacher, as of divine right. He may set in judgment
on the age, upon the civilization of the age, and upon the
religion of the age; for he has a test, a sure and certain test,
by which to try all institutions, and to measure all men. I say,
he may do this, but this is not the chief business for which he
is qualified. The great work to which he is called is not that
of judgment. Like the Prince of Peace, he may say, if I judge, I
judge righteous judgment; still mainly, like him, he may say,
this is not his work. The man who has thoroughly embraced the
principles of justice, love, and liberty, like the true preacher
of Christianity, is less anxious to reproach the world of its
sins, than to win it to repentance. His great work on earth is
to exemplify, and to illustrate, and to ingraft those principles
upon the living and practical understandings of all men within
the reach of his influence. This is his work; long or short his
years, many or few his adherents, powerful or weak his
instrumentalities, through good report, or through bad report,
this is his work. It is to snatch from the bosom of nature the
latent facts of each individual man’s experience, and with steady
hand to hold them up fresh and glowing, enforeing, with all his
power, their acknowledgment and practical adoption. If there be
but _one_ such man in the land, no matter what becomes of
abolition societies and parties, there will be an anti-slavery
cause, and an anti-slavery movement. Fortunately for that cause,
and fortunately for him by whom it is espoused, it requires no
extraordinary amount of talent to preach it or to receive it when
preached. The grand secret of its power is, that each of its
principles is easily rendered appreciable to the faculty of
reason in man, and that the most unenlightened conscience has no
difficulty in deciding on which side to register its testimony.
It can call its preachers from among the fishermen, and raise
them to power. In every human breast, it has an advocate which
can be silent only when the heart is dead. It comes home to
every man’s understanding, and appeals directly to every man’s
conscience. A man that does not recognize and approve for
himself the rights and privileges contended for, in behalf of the
American slave, has not yet been found. In whatever else men may
differ, they are alike in the apprehension of their natural and
personal rights. The difference between abolitionists and those
by whom they are opposed, is not as to principles. All are
agreed in respect to these. The manner of applying them is the
point of difference.
The slaveholder himself, the daily robber of his equal brother,
discourses eloquently as to the excellency of justice, and the
man who employs a brutal driver to flay the flesh of his negroes,
is not offended when kindness and humanity are commended. Every
time the abolitionist speaks of justice, the anti-abolitionist
assents says, yes, I wish the world were filled with a
disposition to render to every man what is rightfully due him; I
should then get what is due me. That’s right; let us have
justice. By all means, let us have justice. Every time the
abolitionist speaks in honor of human liberty, he touches a chord
in the heart of the anti-abolitionist, which responds in
harmonious vibrations. Liberty–yes, that is evidently my right,
and let him beware who attempts to invade or abridge that right.
Every time he speaks of love, of human brotherhood, and the
reciprocal duties of man and man, the anti-abolitionist assents–
says, yes, all right–all true–we cannot have such ideas too
often, or too fully expressed. So he says, and so he feels, and
only shows thereby that he is a man as well as an anti-
abolitionist. You have only to keep out of sight the manner of
applying your principles, to get them endorsed every time.
Contemplating himself, he sees truth with absolute clearness and
distinctness. He only blunders when asked to lose sight of
himself. In his own cause he can beat a Boston lawyer, but he is
dumb when asked to plead the cause of others. He knows very well
whatsoever he would have done unto himself, but is quite in doubt
as to having the same thing done unto others. It is just
here, that lions spring up in the path of duty, and the battle
once fought in heaven is refought on the earth. So it is, so
hath it ever been, and so must it ever be, when the claims of
justice and mercy make their demand at the door of human
selfishness. Nevertheless, there is that within which ever
pleads for the right and the just.
In conclusion, I have taken a sober view of the present anti-
slavery movement. I am sober, but not hopeless. There is no
denying, for it is everywhere admitted, that the anti-slavery
question is the great moral and social question now before the
American people. A state of things has gradually been developed,
by which that question has become the first thing in order. It
must be met. Herein is my hope. The great idea of impartial
liberty is now fairly before the American people. Anti-slavery
is no longer a thing to be prevented. The time for prevention is
past. This is great gain. When the movement was younger and
weaker–when it wrought in a Boston garret to human apprehension,
it might have been silently put out of the way. Things are
different now. It has grown too large–its friends are too
numerous–its facilities too abundant–its ramifications too
extended–its power too omnipotent, to be snuffed out by the
contingencies of infancy. A thousand strong men might be struck
down, and its ranks still be invincible. One flash from the
heart-supplied intellect of Harriet Beecher Stowe could light a
million camp fires in front of the embattled host of slavery,
which not all the waters of the Mississippi, mingled as they are
with blood, could extinguish. The present will be looked to by
after coming generations, as the age of anti-slavery literature–
when supply on the gallop could not keep pace with the ever
growing demand–when a picture of a Negro on the cover was a help
to the sale of a book–when conservative lyceums and other
American literary associations began first to select their
orators for distinguished occasions from the ranks of the
previously despised abolitionists. If the anti-slavery movement
shall fail now, it will not be from outward opposition, but from
inward decay. Its auxiliaries are everywhere. Scholars,
authors, orators, poets, and statesmen give it their aid. The
most brilliant of American poets volunteer in its service.
Whittier speaks in burning verse to more than thirty thousand, in
the National Era. Your own Longfellow whispers, in every hour of
trial and disappointment, “labor and wait.” James Russell Lowell
is reminding us that “men are more than institutions.” Pierpont
cheers the heart of the pilgrim in search of liberty, by singing
the praises of “the north star.” Bryant, too, is with us; and
though chained to the car of party, and dragged on amidst a whirl
of political excitement, he snatches a moment for letting
drop a smiling verse of sympathy for the man in chains. The
poets are with us. It would seem almost absurd to say it,
considering the use that has been made of them, that we have
allies in the Ethiopian songs; those songs that constitute our
national music, and without which we have no national music.
They are heart songs, and the finest feelings of human nature are
expressed in them. “Lucy Neal,” “Old Kentucky Home,” and “Uncle
Ned,” can make the heart sad as well as merry, and can call forth
a tear as well as a smile. They awaken the sympathies for the
slave, in which antislavery principles take root, grow, and
flourish. In addition to authors, poets, and scholars at home,
the moral sense of the civilized world is with us. England,
France, and Germany, the three great lights of modern
civilization, are with us, and every American traveler learns to
regret the existence of slavery in his country. The growth of
intelligence, the influence of commerce, steam, wind, and
lightning are our allies. It would be easy to amplify this
summary, and to swell the vast conglomeration of our material
forces; but there is a deeper and truer method of measuring the
power of our cause, and of comprehending its vitality. This is
to be found in its accordance with the best elements of human
nature. It is beyond the power of slavery to annihilate
affinities recognized and established by the Almighty. The slave
is bound to mankind by the powerful and inextricable net-work of
human brotherhood. His voice is the voice of a man, and his cry
is the cry of a man in distress, and man must cease to be man
before he can become insensible to that cry. It is the righteous
of the cause–the humanity of the cause–which constitutes its
potency. As one genuine bankbill is worth more than a thousand
counterfeits, so is one man, with right on his side, worth more
than a thousand in the wrong. “One may chase a thousand, and put
ten thousand to flight.” It is, therefore, upon the goodness of
our cause, more than upon all other auxiliaries, that we depend
for its final triumph.
Another source of congratulations is the fact that, amid all the
efforts made by the church, the government, and the people at
large, to stay the onward progress of this movment, its course
has been onward, steady, straight, unshaken, and unchecked from
the beginning. Slavery has gained victories large and numerous;
but never as against this movement–against a temporizing policy,
and against northern timidity, the slave power has been
victorious; but against the spread and prevalence in the country,
of a spirit of resistance to its aggression, and of sentiments
favorable to its entire overthrow, it has yet accomplished
nothing. Every measure, yet devised and executed, having for its
object the suppression of anti-slavery, has been as idle and
fruitless as pouring oil to extinguish fire. A general rejoicing
took place on the passage of “the compromise measures” of 1850.
Those measures were called peace measures, and were afterward
termed by both the great parties of the country, as well as by
leading statesmen, a final settlement of the whole question of
slavery; but experience has laughed to scorn the wisdom of pro-
slavery statesmen; and their final settlement of agitation seems
to be the final revival, on a broader and grander scale than ever
before, of the question which they vainly attempted to suppress
forever. The fugitive slave bill has especially been of positive
service to the anti-slavery movement. It has illustrated before
all the people the horrible character of slavery toward the
slave, in hunting him down in a free state, and tearing him away
from wife and children, thus setting its claims higher than
marriage or parental claims. It has revealed the arrogant and
overbearing spirit of the slave states toward the free states;
despising their principles–shocking their feelings of humanity,
not only by bringing before them the abominations of slavery, but
by attempting to make them parties to the crime. It has called
into exercise among the colored people, the hunted ones, a spirit
of manly resistance well calculated to surround them with a
bulwark of sympathy and respect hitherto unknown. For men are
always disposed to respect and defend rights, when the victims of
oppression stand up manfully for themselves.
There is another element of power added to the anti-slavery
movement, of great importance; it is the conviction, becoming
every day more general and universal, that slavery must be
abolished at the south, or it will demoralize and destroy liberty
at the north. It is the nature of slavery to beget a state of
things all around it favorable to its own continuance. This
fact, connected with the system of bondage, is beginning to be
more fully realized. The slave-holder is not satisfied to
associate with men in the church or in the state, unless he can
thereby stain them with the blood of his slaves. To be a slave-
holder is to be a propagandist from necessity; for slavery can
only live by keeping down the under-growth morality which nature
supplies. Every new-born white babe comes armed from the Eternal
presence, to make war on slavery. The heart of pity, which would
melt in due time over the brutal chastisements it sees inflicted
on the helpless, must be hardened. And this work goes on every
day in the year, and every hour in the day.
What is done at home is being done also abroad here in the north.
And even now the question may be asked, have we at this moment a
single free state in the Union? The alarm at this point will
become more general. The slave power must go on in its
career of exactions. Give, give, will be its cry, till the
timidity which concedes shall give place to courage, which shall
resist. Such is the voice of experience, such has been the past,
such is the present, and such will be that future, which, so sure
as man is man, will come. Here I leave the subject; and I leave
off where I began, consoling myself and congratulating the
friends of freedom upon the fact that the anti-slavery cause is
not a new thing under the sun; not some moral delusion which a
few years’ experience may dispel. It has appeared among men in
all ages, and summoned its advocates from all ranks. Its
foundations are laid in the deepest and holiest convictions, and
from whatever soul the demon, selfishness, is expelled, there
will this cause take up its abode. Old as the everlasting hills;
immovable as the throne of God; and certain as the purposes of
eternal power, against all hinderances, and against all delays,
and despite all the mutations of human instrumentalities, it is
the faith of my soul, that this anti-slavery cause will triumph.
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