With its riches all sure and told:
And scorning the beauties, that calmly in strife
Truth fashions, it longs for the things all rife
With glitter, and color, and gold.
It buildeth its home 'neath an ever calm sky,
Near streams wherein crown-jewels sleep,--
And there it reposeth: while soothingly nigh,
Some loved one, perchance, doth most wooingly sigh,
As the zephyrs all full-laden creep.
Thus it musingly wasteth its strength, in dreams
Of bliss, that can never prove true:
And ever it revels amid what seems,
A paradise smiling with Hope's warm beams,
And flowers all spangled with dew.
But, even as flowers are broken and fade,
And yield up their perfumes--their souls,--
So vanish the colors of which dreams are made,--
So perish the structures on which Hope is staid,
And the treasures to which the heart holds.
In vain does it follow the wandering forms
That promise, yet always recede:--
Too briefly the sunshine is darken'd by storms:
Hope minstrels it onward, yet never informs
Of the dangers unseen, that impede.
The Heart trusts the outward: "Of man 'tis the whole."
Thus Confidence clings to decay!
It feels the sweet homage that riches control,--
And laughs in contempt at the wealth of the soul:
And behold! now, friends wait for their prey.
It trusteth in glory, and beauty, and youth,--
In love-vows that ne'er are to die:
But soon the Death-king, in whose heart is no ruth,
Enfolds it,--and mounting aloft, of Truth
Thus sings, as turns glassy the eye.
"There's nothing so lovely and bright below,
As the shapes of the purified mind!
Nought surer to which the weak heart can grow,
On which it can rest, as it onward doth go,
Than that Truth which its own tendrils bind.
"Yes! Truth opes within a pure sun-tide of bliss,
And shows in its ever calm flood,
A transcript of regions, where no darkness is,
Where HOPE its conceptions may realize,
And CONFIDENCE sleep in 'The Good.'"
[Illustration: (signature) Chas. L. Reason.]
A Letter that Speaks for Itself.
To T---- M----.
Disinterested benevolence, my dear sir, has nothing at all to do with
abolitionism. Nay, I doubt very much if there is such a thing as
disinterested benevolence; but be this as it may, there is no occasion
for it in the anti-slavery ranks.
It is selfishness,--sheer selfishness, that has thus far carried on
the war with slavery and wrong in all times; and selfishness must
break the chains of the American slave.
Self-love has fixed the chain around the arm of every leader and every
soldier in the American anti-slavery army. Where would William Lloyd
Garrison have been to-day, if any combination of circumstances could
have shut in his soul's deep hatred of oppression, and prevented its
finding utterance in burning words? He would have been dead and
rotten. It is necessary to his own existence that he should
work,--work for the slave; and in his work he gratifies all the
strongest instincts of his nature, more completely than even the
grossest sensualist can gratify _his_, by unlimited indulgence.
Gerritt Smith, too. Suppose he was compelled to hoard his princely
fortune, or spend it as most others do! O dear! what a dyspeptic we
should have in six months; and all the hydropathic institutes in the
country could never keep him alive five years.
John P. Hale would soon be done with his rotund person and jovial
face, if he could no longer send the sharp arrows of his wit and
sarcasm into the consciences of his human-whipping neighbors.
It is a necessity of all great nations to hate meanness, and nothing
under God's heaven ever was so mean as American slavery. Think of it.
_Men_ who swagger around with pistols and bowie-knifes to avenge their
insulted honor, if any one should question it,--imagine one turning up
his sleeves to horsewhip an old woman for burning his steak, or
pocketing her wages, earned at the wash-tub!
No one with a soul above that of a pig-louse, could help loathing the
system, the instant he saw it in its native meanness. Then, in order
to keep his own self-respect,--to gratify the love of the good and
true in his own soul, he _must_ express that loathing.
No disinterestedness about doing right, for nobody can be so much
interested in the act as the doer of it.
Wrong-doing is the only possible self-abnegation, of which the whole
range of thought admits.
All the humiliation and agony of the Saviour himself, were necessary
to himself. Nothing less could have expressed the infinite love of the
Divine nature; and in working out a most perfect righteousness for
those he loved, he also wrought out a most perfect happiness for
himself.
The eternal law of God links the happiness of all the creatures made
in His image in an electric chain, united in the Divine love; and He,
who has "a fellow-feeling for our infirmities," has given us a
fellow-feeling with the sufferings of each other. So that no soul in
which the Divine image is not totally obscured, can know of the misery
of another, without a sympathetic throb of sorrow.
The true heart in Maine _cannot_ know that the slave-mother in Georgia
is weeping for her children, torn from her arms by avarice, without
feeling her anguish palpitating in its inmost core.
It is the pulsations of the sympathetic heart which stretches out the
hand to interfere between her and her aggressor; and abolitionists are
just seeking a soft pillow that they may "sleep o' nights."
It is selfishness, I tell you, all selfishness! The great whale when
she gives up her own large life to protect her young one, and the
little wren when she carries all the nice tit bits to her babies, are
as true to themselves as the old pig when she shoulders all her little
family out of the trough.
The whale enjoys death, and the wren her little fellows' supper, with
a better zest than an old grunter does her corn, and Wm. Gildersten in
spending money and laboring to prevent any more scenes of brutal
violence in his State, by punishing the one past, gratifies his own
loves and longings quite as much as Judge Grier in grunting out his
wrath against all lovers of liberty.
The one would enjoy being hanged for the cause of God and Humanity,
more than the other would the luxury of hanging him, even if he could
have _all_ the pleasure to himself,--be not only judge and
persecutor, as he prefers, but marshal, jailor, and hangman to boot.
More than this, every creature, so far as other creatures are
concerned, has a right to be happy in his own way. Nero had as much
right to wish for power to cut off all the heads in Italy at one blow,
as an innocent pig to wish for capacity to eat all the corn in the
world. Mankind has no right to punish either for the desire or its
manifestation. They should only make fences to prevent the
accomplishment of the wish.
Americans have no right to punish Judge Grier for wishing to persecute
everybody who attempts to enforce State laws against murderous
assaults by _his_ officers. They should content themselves with
fencing his Honor in, or, if necessary, putting a ring in his nose. He
has as much right to be Judge Grier as George Washington had to be
George Washington, and is no more selfish in following the instincts
of his nature, than Washington was in following his.
Without any great respect,
I am your friend,
[Illustration: (signature) Jane G. Swisshelm]
On Freedom.
Once I wished I might rehearse
Freedom's pæan in my verse,
That the slave who caught the strain
Should throb until he snapt his chain.
But the Spirit said, "Not so;
Speak it not, or speak it low;
Name not lightly to be said,
Gift too precious to be prayed,
Passion not to be exprest
But by heaving of the breast;
Yet,--would'st thou the mountain find
Where this deity is shrined,
Who gives the seas and sunset-skies
Their unspent beauty of surprise,
And, when it lists him, waken can
Brute and savage into man;
Or, if in thy heart he shine,
Blends the starry fates with thine,
Draws angels nigh to dwell with thee,
And makes thy thoughts archangels be;
Freedom's secret would'st thou know?--
Right thou feelest rashly do.
[Illustration: (signature) R. W. Emerson.]
Mary Smith,
AN ANTI-SLAVERY REMINISCENCE.
Some years ago a free colored woman, who was born in New England, and
had gone to the south to attend upon some family, was shipwrecked, as
she was returning northwards, on the coast of North Carolina. She,
however, as well as some of the crew of the vessel, was saved. The
half-civilized people of that region rendered some assistance to the
shipwrecked party; but Mary Smith was detained by one of the natives
as a slave.
The poor woman succeeded in getting a letter written to some person in
Boston, in which the particulars of her story were narrated. Either
this letter, or one afterwards written, contained references to people
in Boston who were acquainted with her.
It was not very easy, even with these references, to get sufficient
evidence to prove the freedom and identity of an obscure person, who
had been away from Boston for some years. A strong interest, however,
was felt in the case wherever it became known. And Rev. Samuel
Snowden, well-remembered by the name of Father Snowden, with his usual
indomitable energy and perseverance in aiding persons of his own color
in distress, succeeded in finding people in Boston who were well
acquainted with Mary Smith, and recollected her having left that place
to go to the south. Pursuing his inquiries with great diligence, he
ascertained the place of her birth, which was somewhere in New
Hampshire. I forget the name of the town.
Affidavits were now procured, which established the place of Mary
Smith's birth, her residence in Boston, and the time of her departure
for the south, and other circumstances to corroborate her story.
Edward Everett, who was at this time Governor of Massachusetts, at the
request of Mary Smith's friends, forwarded the documents they had
obtained, accompanied with an urgent letter from himself, demanding
her release from captivity, on the ground of her being a free citizen
of Massachusetts.
The Governor of North Carolina replied very courteously to Governor
Everett. He admitted the right of the woman to her freedom, and
acknowledged that no person in North Carolina could lawfully detain
her as a slave. But, at the same time he said, that as Governor, he
had no power to interfere with the person who held her in custody. The
decision on her right to freedom, depended on another department of
the government. He promised, however, to write to the man who held
her, and solicit her release.
The remonstrances of the Governor of North Carolina proved successful.
Mary Smith soon arrived in Boston. And some of her old acquaintances
who had given the evidence which led to her release, hastened to meet
her and congratulate her on her escape from bondage. At the meeting
they looked on her for some moments with astonishment, for they could
trace in her features no resemblance to their former companion. A
speedy explanation took place, from which it appeared that all the
documents sent to North Carolina related to one Mary Smith; but the
woman whose liberty they procured, was another Mary Smith.
Governor Everett had a hearty laugh when Father Snowden told him the
happy result of his letter to the Governor of North Carolina.
The moral of this story is, that a plain, common name, is sometimes
more useful to its owner, than a more brilliant one.
[Illustration: (signature) S. E. Sewall]
NOTE.--I have endeavored to give the facts of Mary Smith's
story with exact accuracy, writing from memory only, without
the aid of anything written. It is possible I may be
mistaken in some immaterial circumstance.
Freedom--Liberty.
Freedom and Liberty are synonymes. Freedom is an essence; Liberty, an
accident. Freedom is born with a man; Liberty may be conferred on him.
Freedom is progressive; Liberty is circumscribed. Freedom is the gift
of God; Liberty, the creature of society. Liberty may be taken away
from a man; but, on whatsoever soul Freedom may alight, the course of
that soul is thenceforth onward and upward; society, customs, laws,
armies, are but as wythes in its giant grasp, if they oppose,
instruments to work its will, if they assent. Human kind welcome the
birth of a free soul with reverence and shoutings, rejoicing in the
advent of a fresh off-shoot of the Divine Whole, of which this is but
a part.
[Illustration: (signature) James McCune Smith]
NEW-YORK, Nov. 22d, 1853.
An Aspiration.
You want my autograph. Permit me, then, to sign myself the friend of
every effort for human emancipation in our own country, and throughout
the world. God speed the day when all chains shall fall from the limbs
and from the soul, and universal liberty co-exist with universal
righteousness and universal peace. In this work I am
Yours truly,
[Illustration: (signature) E. H. Chapin.]
NEW YORK, Nov. 22d.
[Illustration: E. H. Chapin (Engraved by J. C. Buttre)]
The Dying Soliloquy of the Victim of the Wilkesbarre Tragedy.
He was approached from behind by Deputy Marshal Wyncoop and his
assistants, knocked down with a mace and partially shackled. The
fugitive, who had unsuspectingly waited upon them during their
breakfast at the Phenix Hotel, was a tall, noble-looking, remarkably
intelligent, and a nearly white mulatto; after a desperate effort and
severe struggle, he shook off his _five_ assailants, and with the loss
of everything but a remnant of his shirt, rushed from the house and
plunged into the water, exclaiming: "I will drown rather than be taken
alive." He was pursued and fired upon several times, the last ball
taking effect in his head, his face being instantly covered with
blood. He sprang up and shrieked in great agony, and no doubt would
have sunk at once, but for the buoyancy of the water. Seeing his
condition, the slave-catchers retreated, coolly remarking that "dead
niggers were not worth taking South."
Than be a slave,
Dread death I'll brave,
And hail the moment near,
When the soul mid pain,
Shall burst the chain
That long has bound it here.
Earth's thrilling pulse,
Man's stern repulse,
This weary heart no longer feels;
Its beating hushed
Its vain hopes crushed,
It craves that life which death reveals.
That moment great
My soul would wait,
In awe and peace sublime;
Nor bitter tears,
Nor slave-born fears,
As I pass from earth to time.
The angry past,
Like phantoms vast,
Glides by like the rushing wave;
So soon shall I,
Forgotten lie,
In the depths of my briny grave.
The time shall be,
"When no more sea"
Shall hide its treasures lone;
Then my soul shall rise,
Clothed for the skies,
To find its blissful home.
Foul deeds laid wrong
The whip and thong,
Have scored my manhood's heart,
But ne'er again
Shall fiends constrain
My body to the slave's vile mart.
The 'whelming wave,
This corpse shall lave;
Let the winds still pipe aloud,
Let the waters lash,
The white foam dash,
O'er mangled brow and bloody shroud.
Roll on, thou free,
Unfettered sea,
Thy restless moan, my dirge,
My cradle deep
In my last lone sleep,
Is the scoop of thy hollow surge.
Would I might live,
_One_ glance to give,
To those whose hearts would bless,
Each word of love,
All price above,
As mine to theirs I press.
The wish is vain;
My frenzied brain,
Is dark'ning even now;
Above, above,
Is Heaven's love,
And mercy's wide arched bow.
Glad free-born soul
With grateful hold,
Now grasp the gift from Heav'n--
Thy freedom won,
New life begun,
Forgive, thou'rt there forgiv'n.
[Illustration: (signature) H. H. Greenough]
Let all be Free.
Unbounded in thy expanse--far reaching
From shore to shore--ever beautiful
Are thy crystal waters--O sea.
Beautiful--when thy waves, the white pebbles lave,
When the weary sea-birds sleep, upon the bosom of the deep.
But when thy storm-pressed billows burst,
The grasp which man would "lay upon thy mane,"
Then do I most love thee, sea,
Thou emblem of the _Free_.
When above me beam the stars,
How beautiful in their infinitude of light,
O'er the blue heavens spread, like gems
Upon the brow of youth!
Far, far away, beyond the paths of day,
More glorious yet, as suns which never set,
In darkness never! but shining forever!
You are more loved by me--
Ye emblems of the _Free_.
All earth of the beautiful is full.
Beautiful the streams which leave the rural vales,
Fringed with scarlet berries and leafy green!
O world of colors infinite, and lines of ever-varying grace,
How by sea and shore art thou ever beautiful!
But the torrent rushing by, and the eagle in the sky,
The Alpine heights of snow where man does never go,
More lovely are to me,
For they are _Free_.
Beautiful is man, and yet more beautiful
Woman: coupled by bare circumstance
Of place or gold, still beautiful.
But this must fade!
Only the soul, grows never old:
They most agree, who most are free:
Liberty is the food of love!
The heavens, the earth, man's heart, and sea,
Forever cry, _let all be Free_!
[Illustration: (signature) C. M. Clay.]
KENTUCKY, 1853.
[Illustration: Frederick Douglass (Engraved by J. C. Buttre)]
_To the Editor of the "Autographs for Freedom."_
DEAR MADAM,--
If the enclosed paragraph from a speech of mine delivered in
May last, at the anniversary meeting of the American and
Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, shall be deemed suited to the
pages of the forthcoming annual, please accept it as my
contribution.
With great respect,
[Illustration: (signature) Frederick Douglass]
ROCHESTER, November, 1853.
Extract.
No colored man, with any nervous sensibility, can stand before an
American audience without an intense and painful sense of the
disadvantages imposed by his color. He feels little borne up by that
brotherly sympathy and generous enthusiasm, which give wings to the
eloquence, and strength to the hearts of other men, who advocate other
and more popular causes. The ground which a colored man occupies in
this country is, every inch of it, sternly disputed. Sir, were I a
white man, speaking for the right of white men, I should in this
country have a smooth sea and a fair wind. It is, perhaps, creditable
to the American people (and I am not the man to detract from their
credit) that they listen eagerly to the report of wrongs endured by
distant nations. The Hungarian, the Italian, the Irishman, the Jew and
the Gentile, all find in this goodly land a home; and when any of
them, or all of them, desire to speak, they find willing ears, warm
hearts, and open hands. For these people, the Americans have
principles of justice, maxims of mercy, sentiments of religion, and
feelings of brotherhood in abundance. But for _my_ poor people, (alas,
how poor!)--enslaved, scourged, blasted, overwhelmed, and ruined, it
would appear that America had neither justice, mercy, nor religion.
She has no scales in which to weigh our wrongs, and no standard by
which to measure our rights. Just here lies the grand difficulty of
the colored man's cause. It is found in the fact, that we may not
avail ourselves of the just force of admitted American principles. If
I do not misinterpret the feelings and philosophy of my white
fellow-countrymen generally, they wish us to understand distinctly and
fully that they have no other use for us whatever, than to coin
dollars out of our blood.
Our position here is anomalous, unequal, and extraordinary. It is a
position to which the most courageous of our race cannot look without
deep concern. Sir, we are a hopeful people, and in this we are
fortunate; but for this trait of our character, we should have, long
before this seemingly unpropitious hour, sunk down under a sense of
utter despair.
Look at it, sir. Here, upon the soil of our birth, in a country which
has known us for two centuries, among a people who did not wait for us
to seek them, but who sought us, found us, and brought us to their own
chosen land,--a people for whom we have performed the humblest
services, and whose greatest comforts and luxuries have been won from
the soil by our sable and sinewy arms,--I say, sir, among such a
people, and with such obvious recommendations to favor, we are far
less esteemed than the veriest stranger and sojourner.
Aliens are we in our native land. The fundamental principles of the
republic, to which the humblest white man, whether born here or
elsewhere, may appeal with confidence in the hope of awakening a
favorable response, are held to be inapplicable to us. The glorious
doctrines of your revolutionary fathers, and the more glorious
teachings of the Son of God, are construed and applied against us. We
are literally scourged beyond the beneficent range of both
authorities,--human and divine. We plead for our rights, in the name
of the immortal declaration of independence, and of the written
constitution of government, and we are answered with imprecations and
curses. In the sacred name of Jesus we beg for mercy, and the
slave-whip, red with blood, cracks over us in mockery. We invoke the
aid of the ministers of Him who came "to preach deliverance to the
captive," and to set at liberty them that are bound, and from the
loftiest summits of this ministry comes the inhuman and blasphemous
response, saying: if one prayer would move the Almighty arm in mercy
to break your galling chains, that prayer would be withheld. We cry
for help to humanity--a common humanity, and here too we are repulsed.
American humanity hates us, scorns us, disowns and denies, in a
thousand ways, our very personality. The outspread wing of American
Christianity, apparently broad enough to give shelter to a perishing
world, refuses to cover us. To us, its bones are brass, and its
feathers iron. In running thither for shelter and succor, we have only
fled from the hungry bloodhound to the devouring wolf,--from a corrupt
and selfish world to a hollow and hypocritical church.
Extract from an unpublished Poem on Freedom.
Oh, Freedom! when thy morning march began,
Coëval with the birth and breath of man;
Who that could view thee in that Asian clime,
God-born, soul-nursed, the infant heir of time--
Who that could see thee in that Asian court,
Flit with the sparrow, with the lion sport,
Talk with the murmur of the babbling rill
And sing thy summer song upon the hill--
Who that could know thee as thou wast inwrought
The all in all of nature's primal thought,
And see thee given by Omniscient mind,
A native boon to lord, and brute, and wind,
Could e'er have dreamed with fate's prophetic sleep,
The darker lines thy horoscope would keep,
Or trembling read, thro' tones with horror thrilled,
The damned deeds thy future name would gild?
Lo! The swart chief of Afric's vergeless plains,
Poor Heaven-wept child of nature's joys and pains,
Mounts his fleet steed with wind-directed course,
Nor checks again his free unbridled horse,
But lordless, wanders where his will inclines
From Tuats heats to Zegzeg's stunted pines!
View him, ye craven few, ye living-dead!
Wrecks of a being whence the soul has fled!
Ye Goths and Vandals of his plundered coast!
Ye _Christian_ Bondous, who of feeling boast,[7]
Who quickly kindling to historic fire
Contemn a Marius' or a Scylla's ire,[8]
Or kindly lulled to sympathetic glow,
Lament the martyrs of some far-off woe,
And tender grown, with sorrow hugely great
Weep o'er an Agis' or Jugurtha's fate![9]
View him, ye hollow heartlings as he stalks
The dauntless monarch of his native walks
Breathes the warm odor which the girgir bears,[10]
Shouts the fierce music of his savage airs,
Or madly brave in hottest chase pursues
The tawny monster of the desert dews;
Eager, erect, persistent as the storm,
Soul in his mien, God's image in his form!
Yes, view him thus, from Kaffir to Soudan,
And tell me, worldlings, is the black a man?