Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who could address this
audience without a quailing sensation, has stronger nerves than I have.
I do not remember ever to have appeared as a speaker before any assembly
more shrinkingly, nor with greater distrust of my ability, than I do
this day. A feeling has crept over me, quite unfavorable to the exercise
of my limited powers of speech. The task before me is one which requires
much previous thought and study for its proper performance. I know that
apologies of this sort are generally considered flat and unmeaning. I
trust, however, that mine will not be so considered. Should I seem at
ease, my appearance would much misrepresent me. The little experience I
have had in addressing public meetings, in country school houses, avails
me nothing on the present occasion.
The papers and placards say, that I am to deliver a 4th [of] July
oration. This certainly sounds large, and out of the common way, for it
is true that I have often had the privilege to speak in this beautiful
Hall, and to address many who now honor me with their presence. But
neither their familiar faces, nor the perfect gage I think I have of
Corinthian Hall, seems to free me from embarrassment.
The fact is, ladies and gentlemen, the distance between this
platform and the slave plantation, from which I escaped, is considerable
- and the difficulties to be overcome in getting from the latter to the
former, are by no means slight. That I am here to-day is, to me, a
matter of astonishment as well as of gratitude. You will not, therefore,
be surprised, if in what I have to say. I evince no elaborate
preparation, nor grace my speech with any high sounding exordium. With
little experience and with less learning, I have been able to throw my
thoughts hastily and imperfectly together; and trusting to your patient
and generous indulgence, I will proceed to lay them before you.
This, for the purpose of this celebration, is the 4th of July. It
is the birthday of your National Independence, and of your political
freedom. This, to you, is what the Passover was to the emancipated
people of God. It carries your minds back to the day, and to the act of
your great deliverance; and to the signs, and to the wonders, associated
with that act, and that day. This celebration also marks the beginning
of another year of your national life; and reminds you that the Republic
of America is now 76 years old. I am glad, fellow-citizens, that your
nation is so young. Seventy-six years, though a good old age for a man,
is but a mere speck in the life of a nation. Three score years and ten
is the allotted time for individual men; but nations number their years
by thousands. According to this fact, you are, even now, only in the
beginning of your national career, still lingering in the period of
childhood. I repeat, I am glad this is so. There is hope in the thought,
and hope is much needed, under the dark clouds which lower above the
horizon. The eye of the reformer is met with angry flashes, portending
disastrous times; but his heart may well beat lighter at the thought
that America is young, and that she is still in the impressible stage of
her existence. May he not hope that high lessons of wisdom, of justice
and of truth, will yet give direction to her destiny? Were the nation
older, the patriot's heart might be sadder, and the reformer's brow
heavier. Its future might be shrouded in gloom, and the hope of its
prophets go out in sorrow. There is consolation in the thought that
America is young. Great streams are not easily turned from channels,
worn deep in the course of ages. They may sometimes rise in quiet and
stately majesty, and inundate the land, refreshing and fertilizing the
earth with their mysterious properties. They may also rise in wrath and
fury, and bear away, on their angry waves, the accumulated wealth of
years of toil and hardship. They, however, gradually flow back to the
same old channel, and flow on as serenely as ever. But, while the river
may not be turned aside, it may dry up, and leave nothing behind but the
withered branch, and the unsightly rock, to howl in the abyss-sweeping
wind, the sad tale of departed glory. As with rivers so with nations.
Fellow-citizens, I shall not presume to dwell at length on the
associations that cluster about this day. The simple story of it is
that, 76 years ago, the people of this country were British subjects.
The style and title of your "sovereign people" (in which you now glory)
was not then born. You were under the British Crown . Your fathers
esteemed the English Government as the home government; and England as
the fatherland. This home government, you know, although a considerable
distance from your home, did, in the exercise of its parental
prerogatives, impose upon its colonial children, such restraints,
burdens and limitations, as, in its mature judgement, it deemed wise,
right and proper.
But, your fathers, who had not adopted the fashionable idea of
this day, of the infallibility of government, and the absolute character
of its acts, presumed to differ from the home government in respect to
the wisdom and the justice of some of those burdens and restraints. They
went so far in their excitement as to pronounce the measures of
government unjust, unreasonable, and oppressive, and altogether such as
ought not to be quietly submitted to. I scarcely need say,
fellow-citizens, that my opinion of those measures fully accords with
that of your fathers. Such a declaration of agreement on my part would
not be worth much to anybody. It would, certainly, prove nothing, as to
what part I might have taken, had I lived during the great controversy
of 1776. To say now that America was right, and England wrong, is
exceedingly easy. Everybody can say it; the dastard, not less than the
noble brave, can flippantly discant on the tyranny of England towards
the American Colonies. It is fashionable to do so; but there was a time
when to pronounce against England, and in favor of the cause of the
colonies, tried men's souls. They who did so were accounted in their
day, plotters of mischief, agitators and rebels, dangerous men. To side
with the right, against the wrong, with the weak against the strong, and
with the oppressed against the oppressor! here lies the merit, and the
one which, of all others, seems unfashionable in our day. The cause of
liberty may be stabbed by the men who glory in the deeds of your
fathers. But, to proceed.
Feeling themselves harshly and unjustly treated by the home
government, your fathers, like men of honesty, and men of spirit,
earnestly sought redress. They petitioned and remonstrated; they did so
in a decorous, respectful, and loyal manner. Their conduct was wholly
unexceptionable. This, however, did not answer the purpose. They saw
themselves treated with sovereign indifference, coldness and scorn. Yet
they persevered. They were not the men to look back.
As the sheet anchor takes a firmer hold, when the ship is tossed
by the storm, so did the cause of your fathers grow stronger, as it
breasted the chilling blasts of kingly displeasure. The greatest and
best of British statesmen admitted its justice, and the loftiest
eloquence of the British Senate came to its support. But, with that
blindness which seems to be the unvarying characteristic of tyrants,
since Pharaoh and his hosts were drowned in the Red Sea, the British
Government persisted in the exactions complained of.
The madness of this course, we believe, is admitted now, even by
England; but we fear the lesson is wholly lost on our present rulers.
Oppression makes a wise man mad. Your fathers were wise men, and
if they did not go mad, they became restive under this treatment. They
felt themselves the victims of grievous wrongs, wholly incurable in
their colonial capacity. With brave men there is always a remedy for
oppression. Just here, the idea of a total separation of the colonies
from the crown was born! It was a startling idea, much more so, than we,
at this distance of time, regard it. The timid and the prudent (as has
been intimated) of that day, were, of course, shocked and alarmed by it.
Such people lived then, had lived before, and will, probably, ever
have a place on this planet; and their course, in respect to any great
change, (no matter how great the good to be attained, or the wrong to be
redressed by it), may be calculated with as much precision as can be the
course of the stars. They hate all changes, but silver, gold and copper
change! Of this sort of change they are always strongly in favor.
These people were called tories in the days of your fathers; and
the appellation, probably, conveyed the same idea that is meant by a
more modern, though a somewhat less euphonious term, which we often find
in our papers, applied to some of our old politicians.
Their opposition to the then dangerous thought was earnest and
powerful; but, amid all their terror and affrighted vociferations
against it, the alarming and revolutionary idea moved on, and the
country with it.
On the 2d of July, 1776, the old Continental Congress, to the
dismay of the lovers of ease, and the worshipers of property, clothed
that dreadful idea with all the authority of national sanction. They did
so in the form of a resolution; and as we seldom hit upon resolutions,
drawn up in our day, whose transparency is at all equal to this, it may
refresh your minds and help my story if I read it.
"Resolved, That these united colonies are, and of right, ought to
be free and Independent States; that they are absolved from all
allegiance to the British Crown; and that all political connection
between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be,
dissolved."
Citizens, your fathers made good that resolution. They succeeded;
and to-day you reap the fruits of their success. The freedom gained is
yours; and you, therefore, may properly celebrate this anniversary. The
4th of July is the first great fact in your nation's history - the very
ring-bolt in the chain of your yet undeveloped destiny.
Pride and patriotism, not less than gratitude, prompt you to
celebrate and to hold it in perpetual remembrance. I have said that the
Declaration of Independence is the ring-bolt to the chain of your
nation's destiny; so, indeed, I regard it. The principles contained in
that instrument are saving principles. Stand by those principles, be
true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at
whatever cost.
From the round top of your ship of state, dark and threatening
clouds may be seen. Heavy billows, like mountains in the distance,
disclose to the leeward huge forms of flinty rocks! That bolt drawn,
that chain broken, and all is lost. Cling to this day - cling to it, and
to its principles, with the grasp of a storm-tossed mariner to a spar at
midnight.
The coming into being of a nation, in any circumstances, is an
interesting event. But, besides general considerations, there were
peculiar circumstances which make the advent of this republic an event
of special attractiveness.
The whole scene, as I look back to it, was simple, dignified and
sublime.
The population of the country, at the time, stood at the
insignificant number of three millions. The country was poor in the
munitions of war. The population was weak and scattered, and the country
a wilderness unsubdued. There were then no means of concert and
combination, such as exist now. Neither steam nor lightning had then
been reduced to order and discipline. From the Potomac to the Delaware
was a journey of many days. Under these, and innumerable other
disadvantages, your fathers declared for liberty and independence and
triumphed.
Fellow Citizens, I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of
this republic. The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave
men. They were great men too - great enough to give fame to a great age.
It does not often happen to a nation to raise, at one time, such a
number of truly great men. The point from which I am compelled to view
them is not, certainly, the most favorable; and yet I cannot contemplate
their great deeds with less than admiration. They were statesmen,
patriots and heroes, and for the good they did, and the principles they
contended for, I will unite with you to honor their memory.
They loved their country better than their own private interests;
and, though this is not the highest form of human excellence, all will
concede that it is a rare virtue, and that when it is exhibited, it
ought to command respect. He who will, intelligently, lay down his life
for his country, is a man whom it is not in human nature to despise.
Your fathers staked their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor,
on the cause of their country. In their admiration of liberty, they lost
sight of all other interests.
They were peace men; but they preferred revolution to peaceful
submission to bondage. They were quiet men; but they did not shrink from
agitating against oppression. They showed forbearance; but that they
knew its limits. They believed in order; but not in the order of
tyranny. With them, nothing was "settled" that was not right. With them,
justice, liberty and humanity were "final;" not slavery and oppression.
You may well cherish the memory of such men. They were great in their
day and generation. Their solid manhood stands out the more as we
contrast it with these degenerate times.
How circumspect, exact and proportionate were all their movements!
How unlike the politicians of an hour! Their statesmanship looked beyond
the passing moment, and stretched away in strength into the distant
future. They seized upon eternal principles, and set a glorious example
in their defence. Mark them!
Fully appreciating the hardship to be encountered, firmly
believing in the right of their cause, honorably inviting the scrutiny
of an on-looking world, reverently appealing to heaven to attest their
sincerity, soundly comprehending the solemn responsibility they were
about to assume, wisely measuring the terrible odds against them, your
fathers, the fathers of this republic, did, most deliberately, under the
inspiration of a glorious patriotism, and with a sublime faith in the
great principles of justice and freedom, lay deep the corner-stone of
the national superstructure, which has risen and still rises in grandeur
around you.
Of this fundamental work, this day is the anniversary. Our eyes
are met with demonstrations of joyous enthusiasm. Banners and pennants
wave exultingly on the breeze. The din of business, too, is hushed. Even
Mammon seems to have quitted his grasp on this day. The ear-piercing
fife and the stirring drum unite their accents with the ascending peal
of a thousand church bells. Prayers are made, hymns are sung, and
sermons are preached in honor of this day; while the quick martial tramp
of a great and multitudinous nation, echoed back by all the hills,
valleys and mountains of a vast continent, bespeak the occasion one of
thrilling and universal interests nation's jubilee.
Friends and citizens, I need not enter further into the causes
which led to this anniversary. Many of you understand them better than I
do. You could instruct me in regard to them. That is a branch of
knowledge in which you feel, perhaps, a much deeper interest than your
speaker. The causes which led to the separation of the colonies from the
British crown have never lacked for a tongue. They have all been taught
in your common schools, narrated at your firesides, unfolded from your
pulpits, and thundered from your legislative halls, and are as familiar
to you as household words. They form the staple of your national poetry
and eloquence.
I remember, also, that, as a people, Americans are remarkably
familiar with all facts which make in their own favor. This is esteemed
by some as a national trait - perhaps a national weakness. It is a fact,
that whatever makes for the wealth or for the reputation of Americans,
and can be had cheap! will be found by Americans. I shall not be charged
with slandering Americans, if I say I think the American side of any
question may be safely left in American hands.
I leave, therefore, the great deeds of your fathers to other
gentlemen whose claim to have been regularly descended will be less
likely to be disputed than mine!
My business, if I have any here to-day, is with the present. The
accepted time with God and his cause is the ever-living now.
"Trust no future, however pleasant,
Let the dead past bury its dead;
Act, act in the living present,
Heart within, and God overhead."
We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the
present and to the future. To all inspiring motives, to noble deeds
which can be gained from the past, we are welcome. But now is the time,
the important time. Your fathers have lived, died, and have done their
work, and have done much of it well. You live and must die, and you must
do your work. You have no right to enjoy a child's share in the labor of
your fathers, unless your children are to be blest by your labors. You
have no right to wear out and waste the hard-earned fame of your fathers
to cover your indolence. Sydney Smith tells us that men seldom eulogize
the wisdom and virtues of their fathers, but to excuse some folly or
wickedness of their own. This truth is not a doubtful one. There are
illustrations of it near and remote, ancient and modern. It was
fashionable, hundreds of years ago, for the children of Jacob to boast,
we have "Abraham to our father," when they had long lost Abraham's faith
and spirit. That people contented themselves under the shadow of
Abraham's great name, while they repudiated the deeds which made his
name great. Need I remind you that a similar thing is being done all
over this country to-day? Need I tell you that the Jews are not the only
people who built the tombs of the prophets, and garnished the sepulchres
of the righteous? Washington could not die fill he had broken the chains
of his slaves. Yet his monument is built up by the price of human blood,
and the traders in the bodies and souls of men, shout - "We have
Washington to our father." Alas! that it should be so; yet so it is.
"The evil that men do, lives after them,
The good is oft' interred with their bones."
Fellow-citizens, pardon me, 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 tom 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, lowering 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 jubilee 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 4th 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 judgement is not blinded by prejudice, or who is
not at heart a slaveholder, shall not confess to be fight 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 the 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 to
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, their 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 ploughing, 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 hill-side, living, moving,
acting, thinking, planning, living in families as husbands, wives and
children, and, above all, confessing and worshipping 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 lo
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 bum 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 employments 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. O! 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 4th of July? I answer: a day
that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross
injustice and cruelly 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 everyday practices of this nation, and you
will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy,
America reigns without a rival.
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 centre 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, you can 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 men, 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 mother 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 antislavery 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 sympathised 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 & 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 co-extensive 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 hunting ground for men. Not for thieves
and robbers, enemies of society, merely, but for men guilty of no crime.
Your lawmakers have commanded all good citizens to engage in this
hellish sport. Your President, your Secretary of State, your lords,
nobles, and ecciesiastics, 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, not
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 any 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 offices under an open and palpable
bribe, and are bound, in deciding in the case of a man's liberty, hear
only his accusers!
In glaring violation of justice, in shameless disregard of the
forms of administering law, in cunning arrangement to entrap the
defenceless, 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.
I take this law to be one of the grossest infringements of
Christian Liberty, and, if the churches and ministers of our country
were not stupidly blind, or most wickedly indifferent, they, too, would
so regard it.
At the very moment that they are thanking God for the enjoyment of
civil and religious liberty, and for the right to worship God according
to the dictates of their own consciences, they are utterly silent in
respect to a law which robs religion of its chief significance, and
makes it utterly worthless to a world lying in wickedness. Did this law
concern the "mint, anise and cummin" - abridge the fight to sing psalms,
to partake of the sacrament, or to engage in any of the ceremonies of
religion, it would be smitten by the thunder of a thousand pulpits. A
general shout would go up from the church, demanding repeal, repeal,
instant repeal! And it would go hard with that politician who presumed
to solicit the votes of the people without inscribing this motto on his
banner. Further, if this demand were not complied with, another Scotland
would be added to the history of religious liberty, and the stern old
Covenanters would be thrown into the shade. A John Knox would be seen at
every church door, and heard from every pulpit, and Fillmore would have
no more quarter than was shown by Knox, to the beautiful, but
treacherous queen Mary of Scotland. The fact that the church of our
country, (with fractional exceptions), does not esteem "the Fugitive
Slave Law" as a declaration of war against religious liberty, implies
that that church regards religion simply as a form of worship, an empty
ceremony, and not a vital principle, requiring active benevolence,
justice, love and good will towards man. It esteems sacrifice above
mercy; psalm-singing above right doing; solemn meetings above practical
righteousness. A worship that can be conducted by persons who refuse to
give shelter to the houseless, to give bread to the hungry, clothing to
the naked, and who enjoin obedience to a law forbidding these acts of
mercy, is a curse, not a blessing to mankind. The Bible addresses all
such persons as "scribes, pharisees, hypocrites, who pay tithe of mint,
anise, and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law,
judgement, mercy and faith."
But the church of this country is not only indifferent to the
wrongs of die slave, it actually takes sides with the oppressors. It has
made itself the bulwark of American slavery, and the shield of American
slave-hunters. Many of its most eloquent Divines. who stand as the very
lights of the church, have shamelessly given the sanction of religion
and the Bible to the whole slave system. They have taught that man may,
properly, be a slave; that the relation of master and slave is ordained
of God; that to send back an escaped bondman to his master is clearly
the duty of all the followers of the Lord Jesus Christ; and this
horrible blasphemy is palmed off upon the world for Christianity.
For my part, I would say, welcome infidelity! welcome atheism!
welcome anything! in preference to the gospel, as preached by those
Divines! They convert the very name of religion into an engine of
tyranny, and barbarous cruelty, and serve to confirm more infidels, in
this age, than all the infidel writings of Thomas Paine, Voltaire, and
Bolingbroke, put together, have done! These ministers make religion a
cold and flinty-hearted thing, having neither principles of right
action, nor bowels of compassion. They strip the love of God of its
beauty, and leave the throne of religion a huge, horrible, repulsive
form. It is a religion for oppressors, tyrants, man-stealers, and thugs.
It is not that "pure and undefiled religion" which is from above, and
which is "first pure, then peaceable, easy to be entreated, full of
mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy." But a
religion which favors the rich against the poor; which exalts the proud
above the humble; which divides mankind into two classes, tyrants and
slaves; which says to the man in chains, stay there; and to the
oppressor, oppress on; it is a religion which may be professed and
enjoyed by all the robbers and enslavers of mankind; it makes God a
respecter of persons, denies his fatherhood of the race, and tramples in
the dust the great truth of the brotherhood of man. All this we affirm
to be true of the popular church, and the popular worship of our land
and nation - a religion, a church, and a worship which, on the authority
of inspired wisdom, we pronounce to be an abomination in the sight of
God. In the language of Isaiah, the American church might be well
addressed, "Bring no more vain ablations; incense is an abomination unto
me: the new moons and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away
with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your
appointed feasts my soul hateth. They are a trouble to me; I am weary to
bear them; and when ye spread forth your hands I will hide mine eyes
from you. Yea! when ye make many prayers, I will not hear. YOUR HANDS
ARE FULL OF BLOOD; cease to do evil, learn to do well; seek judgement;
relieve the oppressed; judge for the fatherless; plead for the widow."
The American church is guilty, when viewed in connection with what
it is doing to uphold slavery; but it is superlatively guilty when
viewed in connection with its ability to abolish slavery. The sin of
which it is guilty is one of omission as well as of commission. Albert
Barnes but uttered what the common sense of every man at all observant
of the actual state of the case will receive as truth, when he declared
that "There is no power out of the church that could sustain slavery an
hour, if it were not sustained in it."
Let the religious press, the pulpit, the Sunday school, the
conference meeting, the great ecclesiastical, missionary, Bible and
tract associations of the land array their immense powers against
slavery and slave-holding; and the whole system of crime and blood would
be scattered to the winds; and that they do not do this involves them in
the most awful responsibility of which the mind can conceive.
In prosecuting the anti-slavery enterprise, we have been asked to
spare the church, to spare the ministry; but how, we ask, could such a
thing be done? We are met on the threshold of our efforts for the
redemption of the slave, by the church and ministry of the country, in
battle arrayed against us; and we are compelled to fight or flee. From
what quarter, I beg to know, has proceeded a fire so deadly upon our
ranks, during the last two years, as from the Northern pulpit? As the
champions of oppressors, the chosen men of American theology have
appeared-men, honored for their so-called piety, and their real
learning. The LORDS of Buffalo, the SPRINGS of New York, the LATHROPS of
Auburn, the COXES and SPENCERS of Brooklyn, the GANNETS and SHARPS of
Boston, the DEWEYS of Washington, and other great religious lights of
the land, have, in utter denial of the authority of Him, by whom they
professed to he called to the ministry, deliberately taught us, against
the example or the Hebrews and against the remonstrance of the Apostles,
they teach "that we ought to obey man's law before the law of God."
My spirit wearies of such blasphemy; and how such men can be
supported, as the "standing types and representatives of Jesus Christ,"
is a mystery which I leave others to penetrate. In speaking of the
American church, however, let it be distinctly understood that I mean
the great mass of the religious organizations of our land. There are
exceptions, and I thank God that there are. Noble men may be found,
scattered all over these Northern States, of whom Henry Ward Beecher of
Brooklyn, Samuel J. May of Syracuse, and my esteemed friend* on the
platform, are shining examples; and let me say further, that upon these
men lies the duty to inspire our ranks with high religious faith and
zeal, and to cheer us on in the great mission of the slave's redemption
from his chains. [*Rev. R. R. Raymond]
One is struck with the difference between the attitude of the
American church towards the anti-slavery movement, and that occupied by
the churches in England towards a similar movement in that country.
There, the church, true to its mission of ameliorating, elevating, and
improving the condition of mankind, came forward promptly, bound up the
wounds of the West Indian slave, and restored him to his liberty. There,
the question of emancipation was a high[ly] religious question. It was
demanded, in the name of humanity, and according to the law of the
living God. The Sharps, the Clarksons, the Wilberforces, the Buxtons,
and Burchells and the Knibbs, were alike famous for their piety, and for
their philanthropy. The anti-slavery movement there was not an
anti-church movement, for the reason that the church took its full share
in prosecuting that movement: and the anti-slavery movement in this
country will cease to be an anti-church movement, when the church of
this country shall assume a favorable, instead or a hostile position
towards that movement. Americans! your republican politics, not less
than your republican religion, are flagrantly inconsistent. You boast of
your love of liberty, your superior civilization, and your pure
Christianity, while the whole political power of the nation (as embodied
in the two great political parties), is solemnly pledged to support and
perpetuate the enslavement of three millions of your countrymen. You
hurl your anathemas at the crowned headed tyrants of Russia and Austria,
and pride yourselves on your Democratic institutions, while you
yourselves consent to be the mere tools and bodyguards of the tyrants of
Virginia and Carolina. You invite to your shores fugitives of oppression
from abroad, honor them with banquets, greet them with ovations, cheer
them, toast them, salute them, protect them, and pour out your money to
them like water; but the fugitives from your own land you advertise,
hunt, arrest, shoot and kill. You glory in your refinement and your
universal education; yet you maintain a system as barbarous and dreadful
as ever stained the character of a nation - a system begun in avarice,
supported in pride, and perpetuated in cruelty. You shed tears over
fallen Hungary, and make the sad story of her wrongs the theme of your
poets, statesmen and orators, till your gallant sons are ready to fly to
arms to vindicate her cause against her oppressors; but, in regard to
the ten thousand wrongs of the American slave, you would enforce the
strictest silence, and would hail him as an enemy of the nation who
dares to make those wrongs the subject of public discourse! You are all
on fire at the mention of liberty for France or for Ireland; but are as
cold as an iceberg at the thought of liberty for the enslaved of
America. You discourse eloquently on the dignity of labor; yet, you
sustain a system which, in its very essence, casts a stigma upon labor.
You can bare your bosom to the storm of British artillery to throw off a
threepenny tax on tea; and yet wring the last hard-earned farthing from
the grasp of the black laborers of your country. You profess to believe
"that, of one blood, God made all nations of men to dwell on the face of
all the earth," and hath commanded all men, everywhere to love one
another; yet you notoriously hate, (and glory in your hatred), all men
whose skins are not colored like your own. You declare, before the
world, and are understood by the world to declare, that you "hotel these
truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal; and are
endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; and that,
among these are, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;" and yet,
you hold securely, in a bondage which, according to your own Thomas
Jefferson, "is worse than ages of that which your fathers rose in
rebellion to oppose," a seventh part of the inhabitants of your country.
Fellow-citizens! I will not enlarge further on your national
inconsistencies. The existence of slavery in this country brands your
republicanism as a sham, your humanity as a base pretence, and your
Christianity as a lie. It destroys your moral power abroad; it corrupts
your politicians at home. It saps the foundation of religion; it makes
your name a hissing, and a by word to a mocking earth. It is the
antagonistic force in your government, the only thing that seriously
disturbs and endangers your Union. It fetters your progress; it is the
enemy of improvement, the deadly foe of education; it fosters pride; it
breeds insolence; it promotes vice; it shelters crime; it is a curse to
the earth that supports it; and yet, you cling to it, as if it were the
sheet anchor of all your hopes. Oh! be warned! be warned! a horrible
reptile is coiled up in your nation's bosom; the venomous creature is
nursing at the tender breast of your youthful republic; for the love of
God, tear away, and fling from you the hideous monster, and let the
weight of twenty millions crush and destroy it forever!
But it is answered in reply to all this, that precisely what I
have now denounced is, in fact, guaranteed and sanctioned by the
Constitution of the United States; that the right to hold and to hunt
slaves is a part of that Constitution framed by the illustrious Fathers
of this Republic.
Then, I dare to affirm, notwithstanding all I have said before,
your fathers stooped, basely stooped
"To palter with us in a double sense:
And keep the word of promise to the ear,
But break it to the heart."
And instead of being the honest men I have before declared them to
be, they were the veriest imposters that ever practised on mankind. This
is the inevitable conclusion, and from it there is no escape. But I
differ from those who charge this baseness on the framers of the
Constitution of the United States. It is a slander upon their memory, at
least, so I believe. There is not time now to argue the constitutional
question at length - nor have I the ability to discuss it as it ought to
be discussed. The subject has been handled with masterly power by
Lysander Spooner, Esq., by William Goodell, by Samuel E. Sewall, Esq.,
and last, though not least, by Gerritt Smith, Esq. These gentlemen have,
as I think, fully and clearly vindicated the Constitution from any
design to support slavery for an hour.
Fellow-citizens! there is no matter in respect to which, the
people of the North have allowed themselves to be so ruinously imposed
upon, as that of the pro-slavery character of the Constitution. In that
instrument I hold there is neither warrant, license, nor sanction of the
hateful thing; but, interpreted as it ought to be interpreted, the
Constitution is a GLORIOUS LIBERTY DOCUMENT. Read its preamble, consider
its purposes. Is slavery among them? Is it at the gateway? or is it in
the temple? It is neither. While I do not intend to argue this question
on the present occasion, let me ask, if it be not somewhat singular
that, if the Constitution were intended to be, by its framers and
adopters, a slave-holding instrument, why neither slavery, slaveholding,
nor slave can anywhere be found in it. What would be thought of an
instrument, drawn up, legally drawn up, for the purpose of entitling the
city of Rochester to a track of land, in which no mention of land was
made? Now, there are certain rules of interpretation, for the proper
understanding of all legal instruments. These rules are well
established. They are plain, common-sense rules, such as you and I, and
all of us, can understand and apply, without having passed years in the
study of law. I scout the idea that the question of the
constitutionality or unconstitutionality of slavery is not a question
for the people. I hold that every American citizen has a fight to form
an opinion of the constitution, and to propagate that opinion, and to
use all honorable means to make his opinion the prevailing one. Without
this fight, the liberty of an American citizen would be as insecure as
that of a Frenchman. Ex-Vice-President Dallas tells us that the
constitution is an object to which no American mind can be too
attentive, and no American heart too devoted. He further says, the
constitution, in its words, is plain and intelligible, and is meant for
the home-bred, unsophisticated understandings of our fellow-citizens.
Senator Berrien tell us that the Constitution is the fundamental law,
that which controls all others. The charter of our liberties, which
every citizen has a personal interest in understanding thoroughly. The
testimony of Senator Breese, Lewis Cass, and many others that might be
named, who are everywhere esteemed as sound lawyers, so regard the
constitution. I take it, therefore, that it is not presumption in a
private citizen to form an opinion of that instrument.
Now, take the constitution according to its plain reading, and I
defy the presentation of a single pro-slavery clause in it. On the other
hand it will be found to contain principles and purposes, entirely
hostile to the existence of slavery.
I have detained my audience entirely too long already. At some
future period I will gladly avail myself of an opportunity to give this
subject a full and fair discussion.
Allow me to say, in conclusion, notwithstanding the dark picture I
have this day presented of the state of the nation, I do not despair of
this country. There are forces in operation, which must inevitably work
The downfall of slavery. "The arm of the Lord is not shortened," and the
doom of slavery is certain. I, therefore, leave off where I began, with
hope. While drawing encouragement from the Declaration of Independence,
the great principles it contains, and the genius of American
Institutions, my spirit is also cheered by the obvious tendencies of the
age. Nations do not now stand in the same relation to each other that
they did ages ago. No nation can now shut itself up from the surrounding
world, and trot round in the same old path of its fathers without
interference. The time was when such could be done. Long established
customs of hurtful character could formerly fence themselves in, and do
their evil work with social impunity. Knowledge was then confined and
enjoyed by the privileged few, and the multitude walked on in mental
darkness. But a change has now come over the affairs of mankind. Walled
cities and empires have become unfashionable. The arm of commerce has
borne away the gates of the strong city. Intelligence is penetrating the
darkest comers of the globe. It makes its pathway over and under the
sea, as well as on the earth. Wind, steam, and lightning are its
chartered agents. Oceans no longer divide, but link nations together.
From Boston to London is now a holiday excursion. Space is comparatively
annihilated. Thoughts expressed on one side of the Atlantic are,
distinctly heard on the other. The far off and almost fabulous Pacific
rolls in grandeur at our feet. The Celestial Empire, the mystery of
ages, is being solved. The fiat of the Almighty, "Let there be Light,"
has not yet spent its force. No abuse, no outrage whether in taste,
sport or avarice, can now hide itself from the all-pervading light. The
iron shoe, and crippled foot of China must be seen, in contrast with
nature. Africa must rise and put on her yet unwoven garment. "Ethiopia
shall stretch out her hand unto God." In the fervent aspirations of
William Lloyd Garrison, I say, and let every heart join in saying it:
God speed the year of jubilee
The wide world o'er!
When from their galling chains set free,
Th' oppress'd shall vilely bend the knee,
And wear the yoke of tyranny
Like brutes no more.
That year will come, and freedom's reign,
To man his plundered fights again
Restore.
God speed the day when human blood
Shall cease to flow!
In every clime be understood,
The claims of human brotherhood,
And each return for evil, good,
Not blow for blow;
That day will come all feuds to end
And change into a faithful friend
Each foe.
God speed the hour, the glorious hour,
When none on earth
Shall exercise a lordly power,
Nor in a tyrant's presence cower;
But all to manhood's stature tower,
By equal birth!
THAT HOUR WILL, COME, to each, to all,
And from his prison-house, the thrall
Go forth.
Until that year, day, hour, arrive,
With head, and heart, and hand I'll strive,
To break the rod, and rend the gyve,
The spoiler of his prey deprive-
So witness Heaven!
And never from my chosen post,
Whate'er the peril or the cost,
Be driven.
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