strength of a free people to sustain by physical force a measure
urged with the criminal purpose of perpetuating a system of slavery
at war with the fundamental principle of our institutions.
"_Resolved_, That a committee be appointed by the chair to present
copies of these Resolutions to the Senators and Representatives
from Massachusetts, and also to send them to every Senator and
Representative in Congress from the Free States."
Mr. Chairman,--I could not listen to the appropriate remarks of my
friend, the Secretary of the Commonwealth,[118] without recalling an
important act in his life, and feeling anew what all must feel, the
beauty of his example in the fraternal treatment of slaves descended
to him by inheritance, manumitting them as he has done, and conducting
them far away from Slavery into these more cheerful precincts of
Freedom. In offering him this humble tribute, I am sure that I awaken
a response in every heart that has not ceased to throb at the recital
of an act of self-sacrifice and humanity. He has done as a citizen what
Massachusetts is now called to do as a State. He has divested himself
of all responsibility for any accession of slave property, and the
State must do likewise.
[118] Hon. John G. Palfrey.
There are occasions, in the progress of affairs, when persons, though
ordinarily opposed to each other, come together, and even the lukewarm,
the listless, the indifferent unite heartily in a common object.
Such is the case in great calamities, when the efforts of all are
needed to avert a fatal blow. If the fire-bell startles us from our
slumbers, we do not ask of what faith in politics or religion is the
unfortunate brother whose house is exposed to conflagration; it is
enough that there is misfortune to be averted. In this spirit we have
assembled on this inclement evening,--putting aside all distinctions of
party,--forgetting all disagreements of opinion, to remember one thing
only, on which all are agreed,--renouncing all discords, to stand firm
on one ground only, where we all meet in concord: I mean opposition to
Texas as a Slave State.
The scheme for the annexation of Texas, begun in stealth and fraud,
in order to extend and strengthen Slavery, has not yet received the
final sanction of Congress. According to the course proposed by
these machinators, it is necessary that Texas should be formally
admitted into the family of States by a vote of Congress, and that
her Constitution should be approved by Congress. The question will be
presented this winter, and we would, if we could, strengthen the hearts
and words of those by whom the measure will be opposed.
Ours is no factious or irregular course. It has the sanction of the
best examples on a kindred occasion. The very question before us
occurred in 1819, on the admission of Missouri as a Slave State. I need
not remind you of the ardor and constancy with which this was opposed
at the North, by men of all parties, with scarcely a dissenting voice.
One universal chorus of protest thundered from the North against the
formation of what was called another _black State_. Meetings were
convened in all the considerable towns,--Philadelphia, Trenton, New
York, New Haven, and everywhere throughout Massachusetts,--to make this
opposition audible on the floor of Congress. At Boston, December the
3d, 1819, a meeting without distinction of party, and embracing the
leaders of both sides, was held in the State-House. That meeting, in
its object, was precisely like the present. A numerous committee to
prepare resolutions was appointed, of which William Eustis, afterwards
Governor of Massachusetts, was chairman. With him were associated John
Phillips, at that time President of the Senate of Massachusetts,--a
name dear to every friend of the slave, as father of him to whose
eloquent voice we hope to listen to-night,[119]--Timothy Bigelow,
Speaker of the House of Representatives, William Gray, Henry Dearborn,
Josiah Quincy, Daniel Webster, William Ward, William Prescott, Thomas
H. Perkins, Stephen White, Benjamin Pickman, William Sullivan, George
Blake, David Cummins, James Savage, John Gallison, James T. Austin, and
Henry Orne. No committee could have been appointed better fitted to
inspire the confidence of all sides. Numerous as were its members, they
were all men of mark and consideration in our community. This committee
reported the following resolutions, which were adopted by the meeting.
"_Resolved_, as the opinion of this meeting, that the Congress
of the United States possesses the constitutional power, upon
the admission of any new State created beyond the limits of the
original territory of the United States, to make the prohibition of
the further extension of slavery or involuntary servitude in such
new State a condition of its admission.
"_Resolved_, That, in the opinion of this meeting, it is just and
expedient that this power should be exercised by Congress upon the
admission of all new States created beyond the original limits of
the United States."
[119] Wendell Phillips Esq.
The meeting in Boston was followed by another in Salem, called,
according to the terms of the notice, to consider "whether the immense
region of country extending from the Mississippi to the Pacific Ocean
is destined to be the abode of happiness, independence, and freedom,
_or the wide prison of misery and slavery_." Resolutions were passed
against the admission of any Slave State, being supported by Benjamin
T. Pickman, Andrew Dunlap, and Joseph Story, a name of authority
wherever found. In the meeting at Worcester, Solomon Strong and
Levi Lincoln took a prominent part. Resolutions were adopted here,
"earnestly requesting their representatives in Congress to use their
unremitted exertions to prevent the sanction of that honorable body to
any further introduction of slavery within the extending limits of the
United States." By these assemblies the Commonwealth was aroused. To
Slavery it presented an unbroken front.
Since these efforts in the cause of Freedom twenty-five years have
passed. Some of the partakers in them are still spared to us,--I
need not add, full of years and honors. The larger part have been
called from the duty of opposing slavery on earth. The same question
which aroused their energies presents itself to us. Shall we be less
faithful than they? Will Massachusetts oppose a less unbroken front
now than then? In the lapse of these few years has the love of freedom
diminished? Has sensibility to human suffering lost any of the keenness
of its edge?
Let us regard the question more closely. Congress is asked to
sanction the Constitution of Texas, which not only supports slavery,
but contains a clause prohibiting the Legislature of the State from
abolishing slavery. In doing this, it will give a fresh stamp of
legislative approbation to an unrighteous system; it will assume a
new and active responsibility for the system; it will again become
a dealer in human flesh, and on a gigantic scale. At this moment,
when the conscience of mankind is at last aroused to the enormity of
holding a fellow-man in bondage, when, throughout the civilized world,
a slave-dealer is a by-word and a reproach, we as a nation are about
to become proprietors of a large population of slaves. Such an act, at
this time, is removed from the reach of that palliation often extended
to slavery. Slavery, we are speciously told by those who defend it,
is not our original sin. It was entailed upon us by our ancestors, so
we are instructed; and the responsibility is often, with exultation,
thrown upon the mother country. Now, without stopping to inquire into
the truth of this allegation, it is sufficient for the present purpose
to know that by welcoming Texas as a Slave State we make slavery our
own original sin. Here is a new case of actual transgression, which we
cannot cast upon the shoulders of any progenitors, nor upon any mother
country, distant in time or place. The Congress of the United States,
the people of the United States, at this day, in this vaunted period of
light, will be responsible for it; so that it will be said hereafter,
so long as the dreadful history of Slavery is read, that in the present
year of Christ a new and deliberate act was passed to confirm and
extend it.
By the present movement we propose no measure of change. We do not
offer to interfere with any institution of the Southern States,
nor to modify any law on the subject of Slavery anywhere under
the Constitution. Our movement is conservative. It is to preserve
existing supports of Freedom; it is to prevent the violation of free
institutions in their vital principles.
Such a movement should unite in its support all but those few in
whose distorted or unnatural vision slavery seems to be a great good.
Most clearly should it unite the freemen of the North, by all the
considerations of self-interest, and by those higher considerations
founded on the rights of man. I cannot dwell now upon the controlling
political influence in the councils of the country which the annexation
of Texas will secure to slaveholders. This topic is of importance;
but it yields to the supreme requirements of religion, morals, and
humanity. I cannot banish from my view the great shame and wrong of
slavery. Judges of our courts have declared it contrary to the Law of
Nature, finding its support only in positive enactments of men. Its
horrors who can tell? Language utterly fails to depict them.
By the proposed measure, we not only become parties to the acquisition
of a large population of slaves, with all the crime of slavery, but we
open a new market for the slaves of Virginia and the Carolinas, and
_legalize a new slave-trade_. A new slave-trade! Consider this well.
You cannot forget the horrors of that too famous "middle passage,"
where crowds of human beings, stolen, and borne by sea far from their
warm African homes, are pressed on shipboard into spaces of smaller
dimensions for each than a coffin. And yet the deadly consequences
of this middle passage are believed to fall short of those sometimes
undergone by the wretched coffles driven from the exhausted lands
of the Northern Slave States to the sugar plantations nearer the
sun of the South. One quarter part are said often to perish in
these removals. I see them, in imagination, on their fatal journey,
chained in bands, and driven like cattle, leaving behind what has
become to them a home and a country, (alas! what a home, and what a
country!)--husband torn from wife, and parent from child, to be sold
anew into more direful captivity. Can this take place with our consent,
nay, without our most determined opposition? If the slave-trade is to
receive new adoption from our country, let us have no part or lot in
it. Let us wash our hands of this great guilt. As we read its horrors,
may each of us be able to exclaim, with conscience void of offence,
"Thou canst not say I did it." God forbid that the votes and voices of
Northern freemen should help to bind anew the fetters of the slave!
God forbid that the lash of the slave-dealer should descend by any
sanction from New England! God forbid that the blood which spurts from
the lacerated, quivering flesh of the slave should soil the hem of the
white garments of Massachusetts!
Voices of discouragement reach us from other parts of the country, and
even from our own friends in this bracing air. We are told that all
exertion will be vain, and that the admission of a new Slave State is
"a foregone conclusion." But this is no reason why we should shrink
from duty. "I will try," was the response of an American officer on
the field of battle. "England expects every man to do his duty," was
the signal of the British admiral. Ours is a contest holier than those
which aroused these stirring words. Let _us_ try. Let every man among
_us_ do his duty.
And suppose New England stands alone in these efforts; suppose
Massachusetts stands alone: is it not a noble isolation? Is it not
the post of honor? Is it not the position where she will find
companionship with all that is great and generous in the past,--with
all the disciples of truth, of right, of liberty? It has not been her
wont on former occasions to inquire whether she should stand alone.
Your honored ancestor, Mr. Chairman, who from these walls regards our
proceedings to-night, did not ask whether Massachusetts would be alone,
when she commenced that opposition which ended in the independence of
the Thirteen Colonies.
But we cannot fail to accomplish great good. It is in obedience
to a prevailing law of Providence, that no act of self-sacrifice,
of devotion to duty, of humanity can fail. It stands forever as a
landmark, from which at least to make a new effort. Future champions of
equal rights and human brotherhood will derive new strength from these
exertions.
Let Massachusetts, then, be aroused. Let all her children be summoned
to this holy cause. There are questions of ordinary politics in which
men may remain neutral; but neutrality now is treason to liberty, to
humanity, and to the fundamental principles of free institutions. Let
her united voice, with the accumulated echoes of freedom that fill
this ancient hall, go forth with comfort and cheer to all who labor in
the same cause everywhere throughout the land. Let it help to confirm
the wavering, and to reclaim those who have erred from the right
path. Especially may it exert a proper influence in Congress upon the
representatives of the Free States. May it serve to make them as firm
in the defence of Freedom as their opponents are pertinacious in the
cause of Slavery.
Massachusetts must continue foremost in the cause of Freedom; nor can
her children yield to deadly dalliance with Slavery. They must resist
at all times, and be forearmed against the fatal influence. There is a
story of the magnetic mountain which drew out the iron bolts of a ship,
though at a great distance. Slavery is such a mountain, and too often
draws out the iron bolts of representatives. There is another story of
the Norwegian maelström, which, after sucking a ship into its vortex,
whirls the victim round and round until it is dashed in pieces. Slavery
is such a maelström. Representatives must continue safe and firm,
notwithstanding magnetic mountain or maelström. But this can be only by
following those principles for which Massachusetts is renowned.
A precious incident in the life of one whom our country has delighted
to honor furnishes an example for imitation. When Napoleon, already
at the pinnacle of military honor, but lusting for perpetuity of
power, caused a vote to be taken on the question, whether he should
be First Consul for life, Lafayette, at that time in retirement, and
only recently, by his intervention, liberated from the dungeons of
Olmütz, deliberately registered his _No_. Afterwards revisiting our
shores, the scene of his youthful devotion to freedom, and receiving
on all sides that beautiful homage of thanksgiving which is of itself
an all-sufficient answer to the sarcasm that republics are ungrateful,
here in Boston, this illustrious Frenchman listened with especial pride
to the felicitation addressed to him as "the man who knew so well how
to say _No_." Be this the example for Massachusetts; and may it be
among her praises hereafter, that on this occasion she knew so well how
to say NO!
EQUAL RIGHTS IN THE LECTURE-ROOM.
LETTER TO THE COMMITTEE OF THE NEW BEDFORD LYCEUM, NOVEMBER 29, 1845.
After accepting an invitation to lecture before the Lyceum at New
Bedford, Mr. Sumner, learning that colored persons were denied
membership and equal opportunities with white persons, refused to
lecture, as appears in the following Letter, which was published in
the papers of the time.
Shortly afterwards the obnoxious rule was rescinded, and Mr. Sumner
lectured.
BOSTON, November 29, 1845.
My Dear Sir,--I have received your favor of November 24, asking me
to appoint an evening in February or March to lecture before the
New Bedford Lyceum, in pursuance of my promise.
On receiving the invitation of your Lyceum, I felt flattered, and,
in undertaking to deliver a lecture at some time, to be appointed
afterwards, I promised myself peculiar pleasure in an occasion
of visiting a town which I had never seen, but whose refined
hospitality and liberal spirit, as described to me, awakened my
warmest interest.
Since then I have read in the public prints a protest, purporting
to be by gentlemen well known to me by reputation, who are members
of the Lyceum, and some of them part of its government, from
which it appears that in former years tickets of admission were
freely sold to colored persons, as to white persons, and that no
objection was made to them as members, but that at the present
time tickets are refused to colored persons, and membership is also
refused practically, though, by special vote recently adopted, they
are allowed to attend the lectures without expense, provided they
will sit in the north gallery.
From these facts it appears that the New Bedford Lyceum has
undertaken within its jurisdiction to establish a distinction of
_Caste_ not recognized before.
One of the cardinal truths of religion and freedom is the _Equality
and Brotherhood of Man_. In the sight of God and of all just
institutions the white man can claim no precedence or exclusive
privilege from his color. It is the accident of an accident
that places a human soul beneath the dark shelter of an African
countenance, rather than beneath our colder complexion. Nor can I
conceive any application of the divine injunction, Do unto others
as you would have them do unto you, more pertinent than to the man
who founds a discrimination between his fellow-men on difference of
skin.
It is well known that the prejudice of color, which is akin to
the stern and selfish spirit that holds a fellow-man in slavery,
is peculiar to our country. It does not exist in other civilized
countries. In France colored youths at college have gained the
highest honors, and been welcomed as if they were white. At the Law
School there I have sat with them on the same benches. In Italy
I have seen an Abyssinian mingling with monks, and there was no
apparent suspicion on either side of anything open to question. All
this was Christian: so it seemed to me.
In lecturing before a Lyceum which has introduced the prejudice of
color among its laws, and thus formally reversed an injunction of
highest morals and politics, I might seem to sanction what is most
alien to my soul, and join in disobedience to that command which
teaches that the children of earth are all of one blood. I cannot
do this.
I beg, therefore, to be excused at present from appointing a day
to lecture before your Lyceum; and I pray you to lay this letter
before the Lyceum, that the ground may be understood on which I
deem it my duty to decline the honor of appearing before them.
I hope you will pardon the frankness of this communication, and
believe me, my dear Sir,
Very faithfully yours,
CHARLES SUMNER.
_To the Chairman of the Committee }
of the New Bedford Lyceum._ }
PRISONS AND PRISON DISCIPLINE.[120]
ARTICLE FROM THE CHRISTIAN EXAMINER, JANUARY, 1846.
It is with a feeling of deference that we welcome Miss Dix's "Remarks
on Prisons and Prison Discipline." Her peculiar labors for humanity,
and her renunciation of the refined repose which has such attractions
for her sex, to go about doing good, enduring the hardships of travel,
the vicissitudes of the changing season, and, more trying still, the
coldness of the world, awaken towards her a sense of gratitude, and
invest her name with an interest which must attach to anything from her
pen.
[120] 1. _Remarks on Prisons and Prison Discipline in the United
States._ By D.L. DIX. Second Edition. Philadelphia. 1845. 8vo. pp. 108.
2. _Nineteenth Annual Report of the Board of Managers of the Prison
Discipline Society._ Boston. 1844. 8vo. pp. 116.
3. _Prisons and Prisoners._ By JOSEPH ADSHEAD. With Illustrations.
London. 1845. 8vo. pp. 320.
4. _Report of the Surveyor-General of Prisons on the Construction,
Ventilation, and Details of the Pentonville Prison._ London. 1844. fol.
pp. 30.
5. _Revue Pénitentiaire des Institutions Préventives_, sous la
Direction de M. MOREAU-CHRISTOPHE. Tom. II. Paris. 1845. 8vo. pp. 659.
6. _Du Projet de Loi sur la Réforme des Prisons._ Par M. LÉON FAUCHER.
Paris. 1844. 8vo.
7. _Considerations sur la Réclusion Individuelle des Détenus._ Par W.H.
SURINGAR. Traduit du Hollandais sur la seconde Édition. Précédées d'une
Préface, et suivies du Résumé de la Question Pénitentiaire, par L.M.
MOREAU-CHRISTOPHE. Paris et Amsterdam. 1843. 8vo. pp. 131.
8. _Nordamerikas Sittliche Zustände._ (The Moral Condition of North
America.) Von Dr. N.H. JULIUS. 2 Bände. Leipzig. 1839. 8vo.
9. _Archiv des Criminalrechts, herausgegeben_ von den Professoren
ABEGG, BIRNBAUM, HEFFTER, MITTERMAIER, WÄCHTER, ZACHARIÄ. (Archives of
Criminal Law, edited by Professors ABEGG, etc.) Halle. 1843. 12mo. pp.
597.
The chosen and almost exclusive sphere of woman is home, in the warmth
of the family hearth. Rarely is she able to mingle with effect in the
active labors which influence mankind. With incredulity we admire the
feminine expounder of the Roman law, illustrating by her lectures the
Universities of Padua and Bologna,--and the charities of St. Elizabeth
of Hungary are legendary in the dim distance; though, in our own day,
the classical productions of the widow of Wyttenbach, crowned Doctor
of Philosophy by the University of Marburg, and most especially the
beautiful labors of Mrs. Fry, recently closed by death, are examples
of the sway exerted by the gentler sex beyond the charmed circle of
domestic life. Among these Miss Dix will receive a place which her
modesty would forbid her to claim. Her name will be enrolled among
benefactors. It will be pronounced with gratitude, when heroes in the
strifes of politics and of war are disregarded or forgotten.
"Can we forget the generous few
Who, touched with human woe, redressive sought
Into the horrors of the gloomy jail,
Unpitied and unheard, where misery moans,
Where sickness pines?"
Miss Dix's labors embrace penitentiaries, jails, alms-houses,
poor-houses, and asylums for the insane, throughout the Northern
and Middle States,--all of which she has visited, turning a face of
gentleness towards crime, comforting the unfortunate, softening a hard
lot, sweetening a bitter cup, while she obtained information of their
condition calculated to awaken the attention of the public. This labor
of love she has pursued earnestly, devotedly, sparing neither time
nor strength, neglecting no person, abject or lowly, frequenting the
cells of all, and by word and deed seeking to strengthen their hearts.
The melody of her voice still sounds in our ears, as, standing in the
long corridor of the Philadelphia Penitentiary, she read a Psalm of
consolation; nor will that scene be effaced quickly from the memory
of any then present. Her Memorials, addressed to the Legislatures of
different States, have divulged a mass of facts, derived from personal
and most minute observation, particularly with regard to the treatment
of the insane, which must arouse the sensibilities of a humane people.
In herself alone she is a whole Prison Discipline Society. To her
various efforts may be applied, without exaggeration, those magical
words in which Burke commemorated the kindred charity of Howard, when
he says that he travelled, "not to survey the sumptuousness of palaces
or the stateliness of temples, not to make accurate measurements of
the remains of ancient grandeur nor to form a scale of the curiosity
of modern art, not to collect medals or collate manuscripts, but to
dive into the depths of dungeons, to plunge into the infection of
hospitals, to survey the mansions of sorrow and pain, to take the gauge
and dimensions of misery, depression, and contempt, to remember the
forgotten, to attend to the neglected, to visit the forsaken, and to
compare and collate the distresses of all men."