perfectly understood by those to whom it was addressed. It says,
without enigma or riddle, surrender the territories to the incursions
of the slave states, pacify the slave power, give up blood-bought
rights for this life, and Savior-bought hopes for another, and you can
have your pay in a cent a yard on calico, and a cent a pound on iron.
And, as a means of accomplishing this object, it says the discussion of
the slavery question must be “_suppressed_.”
From that time until the close of the last session of Congress, in
every form in which so intrinsically wicked an idea could be set forth
without shocking not only all principle, but all decency, this idea
was inculcated upon the public mind of the north, especially upon the
cities. In unofficial speeches and letters, Mr. Webster urged this
seduction more and more pointedly and earnestly, until, on the 17th
of July, 1850, in the last speech which he ever made in Congress, he
appealed to the senators of the north, and to the people of the north,
in language as explicit as he could make it, to adopt the compromise
measures, to take even the abhorred Fugitive Slave bill itself, for
the sake of the money to be made out of them. Throughout that speech
he held out the apple of temptation before their eyes, he jingled
the thirty pieces of silver in their ears, to seduce them into the
surrender of liberty for pelf.
I appeal to the common knowledge of the citizens of Boston, if, during
the last summer, it was not an expression as familiar to their lips as
the salutations of the day, that they had Mr. Webster’s authority for
saying, that if they would surrender the great questions involved in
the compromise, they could have a tariff.
Now, on this state of facts, I have two observations to make,--
1st. That a proposition to barter or to jeopard the liberty of our
fellow-beings for any amount of money, however great, was intrinsically
inhuman and wicked.
2d. That every new concession we made to the south on the subject of
slavery, for the sake of getting protection for our manufactures and
other industrial interests, only impaired and postponed our chance of
getting that protection.
For the correctness of the first of these propositions, I appeal to
every man who has a conscience, or even any elementary ideas of right
or wrong, which are not smothered by his interests or his passions.
And for the second, I appeal to the case of Texas which defeated the
tariff of ’42, and to the fact that, though we did consent to all the
detestable provisions of the compromise,--slave territories, slave
states, ten millions of dollars for Texas, Fugitive Slave bill, and
all,--yet we get no tariff, and have now no rational prospect of one.
That the surrender of all our glorious patrimony of free principles
should help to make some northern man President, I can readily
understand. That is intelligible. Before the 7th of March speech,
it was announced, from high southern sources, that they would take
the northern man for the next presidential term who would do the
most for slavery; and since that time, the same declaration has been
reiterated. [See, among others, Mr. Toombs’s speech before the Georgia
Union meeting.] But I state it as a fact within my own personal
knowledge, that there was not an intelligent man in Congress who was
not implicated, on the one side, in the manufacture of goods, or, on
the other, in the manufacture of presidents, who did not then foresee
and predict that every forward step we took towards the compromise was
a step backwards from protection. And we now have this stubborn fact
to show for the soundness of that opinion,--the event has ratified it.
They have not obtained the tariff they were promised, though they have
given for it the price of blood.
Now I wish to ask the manufacturers and commercial men of the north,
whether, if they had seen,--as it was seen by every unbiased man at
the seat of government,--that upholding the compromise would put down
protection, they would have consented to the compromise? And a further
question which I wish to put to all Massachusetts and all New England
is, if, during the last year, we had had the tariff of 1842 in full
operation, and if the current of prosperity had filled the deepest
channels that enterprise and industry had cut for it, whether then
Massachusetts citizens would have unsaid and retracted all the noble
things they have been saying in favor of liberty for the last ten
years; whether then the Massachusetts press, or so large a portion of
it, would be found openly advocating doctrines which they have always
heretofore professed to hold in utter detestation and abhorrence? No
man will pretend it. If we had had the tariff of ’42 last year, the
compromise measures never could have passed, and it would have been
impossible for any presidential aspirant, or all of them together, to
have subdued the northern mind to their acceptance.
The commercial and manufacturing interests of the north, then, have
been deceived, grossly deceived and imposed upon. When their real
interests were all on the side of freedom, they have been made to
believe that it would promote those interests to unsay all they had
ever said, and undo all they had ever done adverse to slavery. Their
chance for a tariff lay in standing to their principles like men, and
not in abandoning them like cowards. President-making has been the
agency, and Cotton has been the instrument, of this deception. It has
been said that the Press is the fourth estate in the realm; but I say
Cotton is the fourth estate, for Cotton subdues the Press. The eyes and
ears and nose and mouth of a portion of our people have been so filled
with cotton, that they have come to consider cotton not only as their
daily bread, but their bread of life.
Gentlemen, whatever convictions or doubts there may be on the subject
of Animal Magnetism, I am a firm believer in Cotton Magnetism. The
southern planter seems to possess some wizard art, unknown to the
demonology of former times, by which he impregnates his bales of cotton
with a spirit of inhumanity, with a contempt for all the dearest,
tenderest, holiest ties that bind man to man and heart to heart; he
fills them with this spirit as an electrician fills a Leyden jar, and
then he sends them here; and if the man who comes within the circle of
their influence is not himself filled with the strong, counteracting,
disinfecting magnetism of duty and truth, of love to God and love to
man, he is overcome and subdued by the infernal spell; he is brought
into “communication” with the southern sorcerer, and into subjection to
his will; and then he seems bereft of reason and conscience, he belies
his Pilgrim parentage, talks gibberish about the dissolution of the
Union, kneels, lies down, eats dirt, and says to his southern master,
as Balaam’s beast said to him, “_Am I not thine ass upon which thou
hast ridden ever since I was thine?_”
Still worse is it, when this cotton, so diabolically impregnated,
gets beneath the rich velvet seats and embossed cushions of the
pulpit;--unless, indeed, a double measure of the spirit of the Lord
shall descend upon the preacher and exorcise both him and it, of the
evil spirit it contains. When the soul of the clergyman is struck with
this cotton magnetism, he grows delirious over his Bible, ignores
the new dispensation, seeks out all the pro-slavery parts of the
old, discards Jesus Christ as his example, and the precepts of Jesus
Christ as the law of his ministrations, and proves himself a pagan,
discoursing paganism in a Christian pulpit.
God grant that this kind of cotton may never stuff the cushions of
our judges! I fear we are not wholly out of danger of so unspeakable
a calamity. Give us the old English woolsack for them, within whose
magic presence the chains of the slave drop from his limbs, and he is
gloriously transfigured into a man.
Compare the newspapers of our cities now with what they were only one
short twelvemonth ago, and see what demoralization cotton can work when
it gets into editorial chairs.
As for those slave-catching commissioners who assume to exercise the
functions of judges, to abolish human liberty, and to find property
in the bodies and souls of men, but are no more a judge than an image
“made after supper of a cheese-paring” is a man,--as for them, I
say, they seem to have this virus the natural way; and if all moral
diagnosis does not fail, it would be found, on an anatomical dissection
of their hearts, that their right and left auricle and their right and
left ventricle were only four cotton bolls.
But I believe that the reign of Cotton is to be short-lived.
Improvements in the arts give confident promise that some new textile
substance will soon be discovered which will supersede this slave-made
and slave-making material. Even should this hope fail, every body sees
what an unnatural attitude of power and strength the cotton-producing
states now occupy. Extending over only a small area of territory, which
you can cover on the map with your hand, they raise a staple which
clothes, more or less, a great part of the world; while there are
Brazil, Egypt, India, and regions of unknown vastness in Africa, to all
of which, or nearly all of which, the plant is indigenous. Either then
by the progress of the arts, or by an extension of cultivation, the
majesty of Cotton will soon be dethroned; and then, _then_, how will
these men appear, historically, who are now willing to trample upon
human rights, and to send men, women, and children into all the horrors
of southern bondage for the temporary profits which cotton can bestow?
I rejoice that this reference to the demoralizing power of interest
gives me an opportunity to bestow well-deserved honor and praise upon
a class of men who have nobly withstood its temptations. Not every man
engaged in manufactures or in commerce has yielded to the seductions of
this tempter. There are many noble exceptions. I have in my mind one
of my own constituents largely interested in manufactures, who told me
last summer that half his spindles were lying idle, and property that
should have yielded income was incurring cost; “but,” said he, “do you
see them _all_ stop, and the mills decay and go down stream, before you
vote for that compromise.” Another of my constituents told me he was
largely interested in three ships, then at sea; but declared he would
see them all sink to its bottom before he would disgrace the country by
passing the Fugitive Slave bill. These are but specimens of that noble
spirit which was expressed with such Spartan terseness and vigor by
Bowen & McNamee, of New York, when the foul panders to southern slavery
threatened them with a loss of custom. Said they, “Our goods, and not
our principles, are in the market.”
O, how these declarations contrast with what a manufacturer in a
neighboring county is reported to have said,--that if he could work
his mills any cheaper with slave labor than with free, he would
employ slaves! And what, also, as I am credibly informed, another has
said,--“The south want slaves to raise cotton to sell; we want slaves
to raise cotton to manufacture; therefore, we must unite with the south
to uphold slavery.” Now, I believe these things to have been _said_;
but it is of no consequence whether they were said or not; we know they
have been _acted_. Every man who upholds this Fugitive Slave law _acts_
them, whatever his language may be.
The compromise was forced through Congress partly by government
interference, and partly by the delusive hope of a tariff. An appeal is
now made, in behalf of the Fugitive Slave law, to the same mercenary
motives. It is said, if opposition be made to this law, however legal
or constitutional such opposition may be, we shall lose southern
custom. Base and infamous appeal! Such men are made of the stuff of
the tories of the revolution. Even if this appeal were true, it would
be one that no honorable man could hear without indignation. But it
is not true. The south must have their goods from somewhere, and our
industrious artisans will make them, whoever the go-betweens may be.
Will the south go bare-headed and bare-footed and unkilted, because
they cannot have a law to catch freemen and slaves promiscuously?
But it is said the south will abandon their slothful habits, become
industrious, and manufacture for themselves. I wish they would. It
would be most fortunate for us. They would then have the means of
buying more from the north, and paying us better for what they do buy.
Instead of spending only the money which their slaves earn, they would
then have money to spend earned by the whites, and would become better
customers for those ever new forms of commodities which our industry
and inventive skill, while we keep our schoolhouses in operation, will
always be able to supply.
Now, fellow-citizens, I have gone into these considerations for the
purpose of ascertaining and of measuring the extent and the efficacy
of the motives brought by our opponents to bear against us. You see
they are mercenary, almost exclusively so. As for that bugbear of a
dissolution of the Union, I say, without fear of contradiction, that no
practical man has ever believed in it for a day. United States stocks
at a hundred and sixteen, on the eve of a dissolution of the Union!
The whole South Carolina, and Mississippi, and Texas delegations in
Congress contending for every local advantage, for the establishment
of new United States courts, for the increase of salaries, for
appointments at home and abroad, as though the Union had been just
insured for a thousand years! Show me one intelligent man in the whole
country who has sold his stocks or his farm, or changed his residence,
or altered his course of life in any respect, through fear that the
Union was about to be dissolved. I think some persons may have left
South Carolina, to get rid of the clamor about dissolving it. Why,
what would the English national debt be worth under any well-founded
apprehension that the British monarchy was crumbling to pieces? There
would not be a pound of government securities that could not be bought
for a penny. Confidence in the stability of our Union has not only
pervaded this country, but other countries. The great bankers abroad
who deal in our stocks have never changed their terms one mill in a
million of dollars, through any such idle fear. They are the men whose
barometers presage political storms. With such facts before us, to
say that the Union has been in danger is as absurd as to say that a
whirlwind is raging when the leaf of the aspen is pendulous, and cannot
be seen to move. If the south wishes to dissolve the Union, let them do
it, and at the end of thirty years there will be no slave in all their
borders. The slaves will have made a new Jamaica or a new St. Domingo
of it, as the masters shall behave themselves. No, this is nothing
but a clumsy trick of the politicians; and if any one of them could
be nominated for the presidency, we should hear nothing more from him
about any deluge which threatens to submerge the Union. They profess
peculiar love for the Union. Their clamorous notes bring to mind what
Dr. Franklin remarked of self-righteous people. He said they always
reminded him of scarcity of provisions;--those who had enough said
nothing about it; it was the destitute who made all the clamor.
I say, then, the only remaining motive with which our adversaries
can work is the loss of southern trade. This interests but few of
our people. The farmers are not interested in it. The mechanics
and artisans are not. The operatives in our mills are not. All our
substantial, industrious classes are above this temptation, and would
spurn it if they were not above it. The Fugitive Slave law champions,
then, can make no more converts among them. Let us, then, continue
to oppose this law in all constitutional modes. Let us explain its
religious and moral bearings to the Christian. Let us tell the
patriot of the disgrace it brings upon our country. Let us show
to the working-man that those who are ready to make slaves of his
fellow-beings for lucre will be equally ready to make a slave of him
whenever interest shall supply the temptation.
Fellow-citizens, it has been asked why we are assembled here to-day,
and not in the Hall consecrated to liberty. It is because the doors
of that hall have been closed to Liberty knocking for admission. But
there is a melancholy propriety in this. When the court house is in
chains, Faneuil Hall may well be dumb. Those chains which girt the
courts of justice are but typical of the chains which tyrannous men are
striving to put upon our lips. This is not the first temple that has
been unrighteously invaded and taken possession of by money changers
and those who sold doves,--doves! _doves_!! No, not doves,--but men,
women, and children. But I trust the time is not far distant when a
better spirit shall enter their doors, and shall scourge out their
invaders with cords, smaller or larger, as the exigencies of the case
may require.
FOOTNOTES:
[24] This meeting was held pending the trial, before Mr. Commissioner
Curtis, of Thomas Sims, an alleged fugitive slave from Georgia. During
the trial, the Boston court house was surrounded by a large police
force, and was enclosed in chains, beneath which the judges of the
supreme court of Massachusetts bowed as they entered and retired.
SPEECH
DELIVERED AT WORCESTER, SEPTEMBER 16, 1851, ON TAKING THE CHAIR AS
PRESIDENT OF THE FREE SOIL STATE CONVENTION.
GENTLEMEN OF THE CONVENTION;
Accept my thanks. It would be an honor at any time to stand in
this position before a body of men so large in their number and so
influential by their respectability. But, gentlemen, at this hour of
trial, at this time of peril to great principles, when the lights
upon earth seem to be going out around us, and we must look for
guidance to the lights above,--at this hour, I say, of trial and of
peril, it is an especial honor to be called to a post of duty. The
position of the friends of freedom at the present time reminds me of a
beautiful sentiment expressed by one of the noblest of the old Roman
philosophers, who said that those who were called to fill stations
of danger and self-sacrifice should thank God for the honor of being
deemed worthy of such a trust.[25]
Gentlemen, it was not until this morning, and since sunrise, that I was
waited upon by a delegation from your state committee, requesting my
presence on this occasion. They knew, and you all know, how strongly my
heart throbs, even at the mention of the great principles for which you
contend. They knew, as you all know, how happy I should be if I could
do any thing to deepen or to diffuse a feeling of devotion to human
freedom.
But, gentlemen, there were certain circumstances connected with my
position which seemed to make it necessary for me to say to your
delegation, that, if I should appear here to-day, it should be with an
entire privilege to speak out my mind fully on any political subject,
and to say in what relation I stand to the present condition of public
affairs, both state and national.
I say, then, gentlemen, that I stand where I have always stood, holding
the principles of human freedom first and foremost in my regards, and,
after these, our pecuniary, or merely worldly interests; holding,
according to the order in which they are mentioned in the constitution
of the United States, “life and liberty” to be before “property.” I
stand where I stood in 1848, when I was first elected to Congress; and
where my recorded votes and speeches show me to have stood through
all the struggles of 1849 and ’50. I stand on the same principles
yet. If other men have seen fit to go off to the right hand or to the
left, I remain where I was. And if any individual of any party,--Whig,
Democrat, or by whatever other appellation he may be known,--shall ever
return from his wanderings to the good old homestead of Massachusetts
principles,--Free Soil, Free Speech, and Free Men,--there, in that
immortal birthplace of human liberty, he will find me, early in the
morning and late at night, hard at work, to maintain the honor of the
Pilgrims and the principles of our revolutionary sires.
Gentlemen, the perusal of the address and resolutions put forth by the
Whig State Convention at Springfield, last week, brought me here. It
seems to me that no true lover of human freedom can read that address
and those resolutions intelligently, and understand their full scope
and bearing, without being struck down by conviction, as suddenly as
was St. Paul,--though the light and the voice come from an opposite
quarter. Whatever the design of those papers may have been, their
whole argument and office are to wheel the Whig party into line, to
fight the battles of slavery.
Under these circumstances, I do not ask with a certain distinguished
individual, on the prospective breaking up of parties, “Where am I to
_go_?” I believe I do but echo the sentiments of thousands of as good
and true Whigs as can be found in this commonwealth, (and there are
none better any where,) when I say that, let others go where they will,
here, _here_, on the old Whig platform of opposition to the extension
of slavery, either into New Mexico _or into New England_; of freedom
for the District of Columbia; and in favor of the old guaranties of
_habeas corpus_ and trial by jury,--_here I remain_.
Gentlemen, the Free Soil party, as the name imports, is the party of
freedom. The cardinal principle of their _creed_ is, that “all men are
created free and equal,” and that they have an inalienable right to
“life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness.” Their _faith_
consists in the assurance that, in the good providence of God, the day
will yet come when the blessedness of their creed will be realized
among men; and by their _works_ they seek to hasten the advent of that
glorious day.
A party of Freedom has existed in all ages of the world, but a mightier
party of oppression has been arrayed against it. And though the lovers
of human liberty have consisted of the greatest and best men who have
ever lived, yet they have been overborne by violence, crushed and
trampled upon by power, buried in dungeons, gibbeted on scaffolds,
burnt at the stake! God, like the householder who sent servants to
his vineyard from a far country, has, from age to age, sent great and
mighty souls into the world to redeem it from oppression; but the
oppressor has seized and mutilated and martyred them, with every form
of ignominy towards the messengers themselves, and of impiety towards
the Lord who sent them. The possessors of power and wealth seek to
perpetuate these advantages in their families, their clan, or their
caste; and over almost all the earth they have established dynasties
for governments, landed or moneyed feudalisms for lords, and entails
for individual families.
That we may see how fearful a thing this spirit of oppression is, not
only for its cruelties, but for the tenacity of its malignant life, let
it be remembered that the world had existed almost six thousand years
before the principles of human liberty, civil and ecclesiastical, were
clearly and fully set forth even on paper. This was first done by Mr.
Jefferson, in 1776, in the Declaration of American Independence; and
every body knows how intensely the same partisans who are now summoning
their forces against the party of Freedom have hated him for his
glorious efforts in favor of the freedom of man; how they pursued him
with maledictions to his grave, and still break through the sanctity of
the tomb to blacken his memory.