South; the distinguished great politicians in the Congress of the
nation, and the distinguished little politicians in the Congresses of
the several States.
3. It has likewise the greater portion of the wealthy and educated men
in many large towns of the North; with their dependents and the servile
men who take their opinions from the prominent class about them. And
here, I am sorry to say, I must reckon the greater portion of the
prominent and wealthy clergy, the clergy in the large cities. Once this
class of men were masters of the rich and educated; and very terrible
masters they were in Madrid and in Rome. Now their successors are doing
penance for those old sins. "It is a long lane," they say, "which has no
turn," and the clerical has had a very short and complete turn. When I
say the majority of the clergy in prominent situations in the large
cities, are to be numbered among the allies of the despotic idea, and
are a part of the great pro-slavery army, I know there are some noble
and honorable exceptions, men who do not fear the face of gold, but
reverence the face of God.
Then on the side of the democratic idea there are:
1. The great mass of the people at the North; farmers, mechanics, and
the humbler clergy. This does not appear so at first sight, because
these men have not much confidence in themselves, and require to be
shaken many times before they are thoroughly waked up.
2. Beside that there are a few politicians at the North who are on this
side; some distinguished ones in Congress, some less distinguished ones
in the various legislatures of the North.
3. Next there are men, North and South, who look at the great causes of
the welfare of nations, and make up their minds historically, from the
facts of human history, against despotism. Then there are such as study
the great principles of justice and truth, and judge from human nature,
and decide against despotism. And then such as look at the law of God,
and believe Christianity is sense and not nonsense; that Christianity is
the ideal for earnest men, not a pretence for a frivolous hypocrite.
Some of these men are at the South; the greater number are in the North;
and here again you see the difference between the son of the Planter and
the son of the Puritan.
Here are the allies, the threefold armies of Despotism on the one side,
and of Democracy on the other.
* * * * *
Now it is not possible for these two ideas to continue to live in peace.
For a long time each knew not the other, and they were quiet. The men
who clearly knew the despotic idea, thought, in 1787, it would die "of a
rapid consumption:" they said so; but the culture of cotton has healed
its deadly wound, at least for the present. After the brief state of
quiet, there came a state of armed neutrality. They were hostile, but
under bonds to keep the peace. Each bit his thumb, but neither dared say
he bit it at the other. Now the neutrality is over; attempts are made to
compromise, to compose the difficulty. Various peace measures were
introduced to the Senate last summer; but they all turned out war
measures, every one of them. Now there is a trial of strength between
the two. Which shall recede? which be extended? Freedom or Slavery? That
is the question; refuse to look at it as we will,--refrain or refrain
not from "political agitation," that is the question.
In the last Congress it is plain the democratic idea was beaten.
Congress said to California, "You may come in, and you need not keep
slaves unless you please." It said, "You shall not bring slaves to
Washington for sale, you may do that at Norfolk, Alexandria, and
Georgetown, it is just as well, and this 'will pacify the North.'" Utah
and New Mexico were left open to slavery, and fifty thousand or seventy
thousand square miles and ten million dollars were given to Texas lest
she should "dissolve the Union,"--without money or men! To crown all,
the Fugitive Slave Bill became a law.
I think it is very plain that the democratic idea was defeated, and it
is easy to see why. The three powers which are the allies of the
despotic idea, were ready, and could act in concert--the Southern
slaveholders, the leading politicians, the rich and educated men of the
Northern cities, with their appendages and servile adherents. But since
then, the conduct of the people in the North, and especially in this
State, shows that the nation has not gone that way yet. I think the
nation never will; that the idea of freedom will never be turned back in
this blessed North. I feel sure it will at last overcome the idea of
slavery.
I come to this conclusion, firstly, from the character of the tribe:
this Anglo-Norman-Saxon tribe loves law, deliberation, order, method; it
is the most methodical race that ever lived. But it loves liberty, and
while it loves law, it loves law chiefly because it keeps liberty; and
without that it would trample law under foot.
See the conduct of England. She spent one hundred millions of dollars in
the attempt to wipe slavery from the West Indies. She keeps a fleet on
the coast of Africa to put down the slave-trade there--where we also
have, I think, a sloop-of-war. She has just concluded a treaty with
Brazil for the suppression of the slave-trade in that country, one of
her greatest achievements in that work for many years.
See how the sons of the Puritans, as soon as they came to a
consciousness of what the despotic idea was, took their charters and
wiped slavery clean out, first from Massachusetts, and then from the
other States, one after another. See how every Northern State, in
revising its Constitution, or in making a new one, declares all men are
created equal, that all have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit
of happiness.
Then the religion of the North demands the same thing. Professors may
try to prove that the Old Testament establishes slavery; that the New
Testament justifies the existence of slavery; that Paul's epistle to
Philemon was nothing more than another fugitive slave law, that Paul
himself sent back a runaway; but it does not touch the religion of the
North. We know better. We say if the Old Testament does that and the New
Testament, so much the worse for them both. We say, "Let us look and see
if Paul was so benighted," and we can judge for ourselves that the
professor was mistaken more than the apostle.
Again, the spirit of the age, which is the public opinion of the
nations, is against slavery. It was broken down in England, France,
Italy, and Spain; it cannot stand long against civilization and good
sense; against the political economy and the religious economy of the
civilized world. The genius of freedom stands there, year out, year in,
and hurls firebrands into the owl's nest of the prince of darkness,
continually,--and is all this with no effect?
Besides that, it is against the law of God. That guides this universe,
treating with even-handed justice the great geographical parties,
Austrian, Roman, British, or American, with the same justice wherewith
it dispenses its blessings to the little local factions that divide the
village for a day, marshalling mankind forward in its mighty progress
towards wisdom, freedom, goodness towards men, and piety towards God.
Of the final issue I have no doubt; but no man can tell what shall come
to pass in the mean time. We see that political parties in the State are
snapped asunder: whether the national party shall not be broken up, no
man can say. In 1750, on the 28th day of November, no man in Old England
or New England could tell what 1780 would bring forth. No man, North or
South, can tell to-day what 1880 will bring to pass. He must be a bold
man who declares to the nation that no new political machinery shall be
introduced, in the next thirty years, to our national mill. We know not
what a day shall bring forth, but we know that God is on the side of
right and justice, and that they will prevail so long as God is God.
* * * * *
Now, then, to let alone details, and generalize into one all the causes
of our condition, this is the result: We have found welfare just so far
as we have followed the democratic idea, and enacted justice into law.
We have lost welfare just so far as we have followed the despotic idea,
and made iniquity into a statute. So far as we have reaffirmed the
ordinance of nature and reenacted the will of God, we have succeeded. So
far as we have refused to do that, we have failed. Of old it was
written, "Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any
people."
* * * * *
And now a word of our dangers. There seems no danger from abroad; from
any foreign State, unless we begin the quarrel; none from famine. The
real danger, in one word, is this--That we shall try to enact injustice
into a law, and with the force of the nation to make iniquity obeyed.
See some of the special forms of injustice which threaten us, or are
already here. I shall put them into the form of ideas.
1. One, common among politicians is, that the State is for a portion of
the people, not the whole. Thus it has been declared that the
Constitution of the United States did not recognize the three million
slaves as citizens, or extend to them any right which it guarantees to
other men. It would be a sad thing for the State to declare there was a
single child in the whole land to whom it owed no protection. What,
then, if it attempts to take three millions from under its shield? In
obedience to this false idea, the counsel has been given, that we must
abstain from all "Political agitation" of the most important matter
before the people. We must leave that to our masters, for the State is
for them, it is not for you and me. They must say whether we shall
"agitate" and "discuss" these things or not. The politicians are our
masters, and may lay their fingers on our lips when they will.
2. The next false idea is,--That government is chiefly for the
protection of property. This has long been the idea on which some men
legislated, but on the 19th day of this month, the distinguished
Secretary of State, in a speech at New York, used these words: "The
great object of government is the protection of property at home and
respect and renown abroad." You see what the policy must be where the
government is for the protection of the hat, and only takes care of the
head so far as it serves to wear a hat. Here the man is the accident,
and the dollar is the substance for which the man is to be protected. I
think a notion very much like this prevails extensively in the great
cities of America, North and South. I think the chief politicians of the
two parties are agreed in this--That government is for the protection of
property, and every thing else is subsidiary. With many persons politics
are a part of their business; the state-house and the custom-house are
only valued for their relation to trade. This idea is fatal to a good
government.
Think of this, that "The great object of government is the protection of
property." Tell that to Samuel Adams, and John Hancock, and Washington,
and the older Winthrops, and the Bradfords and Carvers! Why! it seems as
if the buried majesty of Massachusetts would start out of the ground,
and with its Bible in its hand say--This is false!
3. The third false idea is this--That you are morally bound to obey the
statute, let it be never so plainly wrong and opposed to your
conscience. This is the most dangerous of all the false ideas yet named.
Ambitious men, in an act of passion, make iniquity into a law, and then
demand that you and I, in our act of prayer, shall submit to it and make
it our daily life; that we shall not try to repeal and discuss and
agitate it! This false idea lies at the basis of every despot's throne,
the idea that men can make right wrong, and wrong right. It has come to
be taught in New England, to be taught in our churches--though seldom
there, to their honor be it spoken, except in the churches of commerce
in large towns--that if wrong is law, you and I must do what it demands,
though conscience declares it is treason against man and treason against
God. The worst doctrines of Hobbes and Filmer are thus revived.
I have sometimes been amazed at the talk of men who call on us to keep
the fugitive slave law, one of the most odious laws in a world of odious
laws--a law not fit to be made or kept. I have been amazed that they
should dare to tell us the law of God, writ on the heavens and our
hearts, never demanded we should disobey the laws of men! Well, suppose
it were so. Then it was old Daniel's duty at Darius's command to give up
his prayer; but he prayed three times a day, with his windows up. Then
it was John's and Peter's duty to forbear to preach of Christianity; but
they said, "Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you
more than unto God, judge ye." Then it was the duty of Amram and
Jochebed to take up their new-born Moses and cast him into the Nile, for
the law of king Pharaoh, commanding it, was "constitutional," and
"political agitation" was discountenanced as much in Goshen as in
Boston. But Daniel did not obey; John and Peter did not fail to preach
Christianity; and Amram and Jochebed refused "passive obedience" to the
king's decree! I think it will take a strong man all this winter to
reverse the judgment which the world has passed on these three cases.
But it is "innocent" to try.
However, there is another ancient case, mentioned in the Bible, in which
the laws commanded one thing and conscience just the opposite. Here is
the record of the law:--"Now both the chief priests and the Pharisees
had given a commandment, that if any one knew where he [Jesus] were, he
should show it, that they might take him." Of course, it became the
official and legal business of each disciple who knew where Christ was,
to make it known to the authorities. No doubt James and John could
leave all and follow him, with others of the people who knew not the law
of Moses, and were accursed; nay the women, Martha and Mary, could
minister unto him of their substance, could wash his feet with tears,
and wipe them with the hairs of their head. They did it gladly, of their
own free will, and took pleasure therein, I make no doubt. There was no
merit in that--"Any man can perform an agreeable duty." But there was
found one disciple who could "perform a disagreeable duty." He went,
perhaps "with alacrity," and betrayed his Saviour to the marshal of the
district of Jerusalem, who was called a centurion. Had he no affection
for Jesus? No doubt; but he could conquer his prejudices, while Mary and
John could not.
Judas Iscariot has rather a bad name in the Christian world: he is
called "The son of perdition," in the New Testament, and his conduct is
reckoned a "transgression;" nay, it is said the devil "entered into
him," to cause this hideous sin. But all this it seems was a mistake;
certainly, if we are to believe our "republican" lawyers and statesmen,
Iscariot only fulfilled his "constitutional obligations." It was only
"on that point," of betraying his Saviour, that the constitutional law
required him to have any thing to do with Jesus. He took his "thirty
pieces of silver"--about fifteen dollars; a yankee is to do it for ten,
having fewer prejudices to conquer--it was his legal fee, for value
received. True, the Christians thought it was "the wages of iniquity,"
and even the Pharisees--who commonly made the commandment of God of none
effect by their traditions--dared not defile the temple with this "price
of blood;" but it was honest money. It was as honest a fee as any
American commissioner or deputy will ever get for a similar service. How
mistaken we are! Judas Iscariot is not a traitor; he was a great
patriot; he conquered his "prejudices," performed "a disagreeable duty"
as an office of "high morals and high principle;" he kept the "law" and
the "Constitution," and did all he could to "save the Union;" nay, he
was a saint, "not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles." "The law of
God never commands us to disobey the law of man." _Sancte Iscariote ora
pro nobis._
It is a little strange to hear this talk in Boston, and hear the
doctrine of passive obedience to a law which sets Christianity at
defiance, taught here in the face of the Adamses, and Hancock, and
Washington! It is amazing to hear this talk, respecting such a law,
amongst merchants. Do they keep the usury laws? I never heard of but one
money-lender who kept them,[18] and he has been a long time dead, and I
think he left no kith nor kin! The temperance law,--is that kept? The
fifteen gallon law,--were men so very passive in their obedience to
that, that they could not even "agitate?" yet it violated no law of
God--was not unchristian. When the government interferes with the
rumsellers' property, the law must be trod under foot; but when the law
insists that a man shall be made a slave, I must give up conscience in
my act of prayer, and stoop to the vile law men have made in their act
of passion!
It is curious to hear men talk of law and order in Boston, when the
other day one or two hundred smooth-faced boys, and youths beardless as
girls, could disturb a meeting of three or four thousand men, for two
hours long; and the chief of the police, and the mayor of the city stood
and looked on, when a single word from their lips might have stilled the
tumult and given honest men a hearing.[19]
Talk of keeping the fugitive slave law! Come, come, we know better. Men
in New England know better than this. We know that we ought not to keep
a wicked law, and that it must not be kept when the law of God forbids!
But the effect of a law which men cannot keep without violating
conscience, is always demoralizing. There are men who know no higher law
than the statute of the State. When good men cannot keep a law that is
base, some bad ones will say, "Let us keep no law at all,"--then where
does the blame lie? On him that enacts the outrageous law.
The idea that a statute of man frees us from obligation to the law of
God, is a dreadful thing. When that becomes the deliberate conviction of
the great mass of the people, North or South, then I shall despair of
human nature; then I shall despair of justice, and despair of God. But
this time will never come.
One of the most awful spectacles I ever saw, was this: A vast multitude
attempting, at an orator's suggestion, to howl down the "Higher law,"
and when he said, "Will you have this to rule over you?" they answered,
"Never!" and treated the "Higher law" to a laugh and a howl! It was done
in Faneuil Hall;[20] under the eyes of the three Adamses, Hancock, and
Washington; and the howl rung round the venerable arches of that hall! I
could not but ask, "Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a
vain thing? the rulers of the earth set themselves, and kings take
counsel against the Lord and say, 'Let us break his bands asunder, and
cast off his yoke from us.'" Then I could not but remember that it was
written, "He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall
have them in derision. He taketh up the isles as a very little thing,
and the inhabitants of the earth are as grasshoppers before Him." Howl
down the law of God at a magistrate's command! Do this in Boston! Let us
remember this--but with charity.
Men say there is danger of disunion, of our losing fealty for the
Constitution. I do not believe it yet! Suppose it be so. The
Constitution is the machinery of the national mill; and suppose we agree
to take it out and put in new; we might get worse, very true, but we
might get better. There have been some modern improvements; we might
introduce them to the State as well as the mill. But I do not believe
there is this danger. I do not believe the people of Massachusetts think
so. I think they are strongly attached to the Union yet, and if they
thought "the Union was in peril--this day," and every thing the nation
prizes was likely to be destroyed, we should not have had a meeting of a
few thousands in Faneuil Hall, but the people would have filled up the
city of Worcester with a hundred thousand men, if need be; and they
would have come with the cartridge-box at their side, and the firelock
on their shoulder. That is the way the people of Massachusetts would
assemble if they thought there was real danger.
I do not believe the South will withdraw from the Union, with five
million free men, and three million slaves. I think Massachusetts would
be no loser, I think the North would be no loser; but I doubt if the
North will yet allow them to go if so disposed. Do you think the South
is so mad as to wish it?
But I think I know of one cause which may dissolve the Union--one which
ought to dissolve it, if put in action: that is, a serious attempt to
execute the fugitive slave law, here and in all the North. I mean an
attempt to recover and take back all the fugitive slaves in the North,
and to punish, with fine and imprisonment, all who aid or conceal them.
The South has browbeat us again and again. She has smitten us on the one
cheek with "Protection," and we have turned the other, kissing the rod;
she has smitten that with "Free trade." She has imprisoned our citizens;
driven off, with scorn and loathing, our officers sent to ask
constitutional justice. She has spit upon us. Let her come to take back
the fugitives--and, trust me, she "will wake up the lion."
In my humble opinion, this law is a wedge--sharp at one end, but wide at
the other--put in between the lower planks of our Ship of State. If it
be driven home, we go to pieces. But I have no thought that that will be
done quite yet. I believe the great politicians, who threatened to drive
it through the gaping seams of our argosy, will think twice before they
strike again. Nay, that they will soon be very glad to bury the wedge
"Where the tide ebbs and flows four times a day." I do not expect this
of their courage, but of their fears; not of their justice--I am too old
for that--but of their concern for property, which it is the "great
object of government" to protect.
I know how some men talk in public, and how they act at home. I heard a
man the other day, at Faneuil Hall, declare the law must be kept, and
denounce, not very gently, all who preached or prayed against it, as
enemies of "all law." But that was all talk, for this very man, on that
very day, had violated the law; had furnished the golden wheels on which
fugitives rode out of the reach of the arms which the marshal would have
been sorry to lift. I could tell things more surprising--but it is not
wise just now![21]