I will now say something of slavery. I shall say nothing but what I
know to be true. Slavery is a cruel system. The effects of it are
scattered abroad throughout the land. It is the reigning evil of the
country; yea, the mother of all evil. Why is it the mother of all evil?
I answer in the language of Holy Writ, which saith, “Do unto all men
as you would have them do unto you.” It is not done. Again: “Love thy
neighbor as thyself. This is the law and the prophets.” It is not done.
Reader,--where is the slaveholder who would wish his slaves to do to
him as he does to them? There are none. Hence, then, the enormity of
the evil.
Dear reader: understand one thing. The slaves are taught ignorance
as we teach our children knowledge. They are kept in darkness, and
are borne down under a cruel, cruel oppression! All human rights are
denied them as citizens! They are not recognized as men! My old master
frequently said, “he did not believe a d----d nigger had any soul!”
They are made to undergo everything as a beast. Having a full, perfect,
undeniable right to stand out before God as MEN, the cruel, God-defying
white man, without semblance of right, with no pretence but might, has
prostituted them to the base purpose of his cupidity, and his baser
beastly passions, reducing them to mere things, mere chattels, to be
bought and sold like hogs and sheep! Born, like the white man, to an
individual responsibility to the Father of mercies, the treatment of
the white man to the poor African, unmixed with mercy, has curtained
his mind to all knowledge, aye, even to the knowledge of the God of
heaven and earth, and thus removed from him the accountability!
But, where does this terrible accountability rest? Let the hardened
slave-tyrant, when he stands quivering before the Almighty bar of
retribution, answer this question! Well might Thomas Jefferson remark,
when his deep, penetrating mind was reflecting upon the stupendous
wrongs of slavery, “I tremble for my country, when I remember that God
is just, and that his justice cannot slumber forever?” I appeal, then,
to every rational, intelligent mind, if slavery be not an abomination
in the sight of the Lord.
It has been said that slaves have no intellect. I deny it. God has
given them minds capable of cultivation. Uncultivated ground will not
bring forth fruit. All the slave requires is cultivation, for he is
possessed of all the qualities of the white man.
Reader: we have heard of the wisdom of King Solomon, son of David, the
grandson of ancient Jesse. The Queen of Basheba has declared that half
had never been told her. History informs us that Solomon was as black
as black satin, with handsome features and smooth skin.
I could refer to many of the colored race whose mental endowments are
superior to many of those arrogant white men who abhor a colored man
and pretend to be his superior in knowledge.
The language of Jesus Christ to his apostles should teach us not to
despise the workmanship of God. “He that despiseth you, despiseth me.”
Do men, I ask, realize the awful evil of slavery? Are they aware of
its terrible calamities? Has it not become so familiar, from its long
existence, as almost to reconcile the tender conscience to its infamous
enormities? It must be so. There is no other mode of accounting for the
fact, that men, good christians in other respects, quietly hold slaves
at the south, while their equally guilty brethren of the north assent
to it, and participate in its profits.
Should we not remember them that are in bondage as bound with them? Say
not only slaves be obedient to your masters according to the flesh, but
also say, masters, render unto your servants that which is right; and
if that principle were carried out, slavery would be abolished.
How do the masters teach the slaves ignorance? Having been a slave,
I answer the question. When the master asks the slave, Tom, Harry,
Dick or Bill, “Do you love your master?” he answers, “Yes, massa, I
lub you.” “Come here and get a dram; drink us a treat, you son of a
b...h.” Why does the slave say “Yes, sir?” Because he is afraid to say
any thing else. He is crushed under the iron heel of the slave-tyrant!
The time is coming when the wrongs of the slave will be redressed.
Yes, the time is coming when their blood will cry unto the Lord for
deliverance.
It is very customary to magnify the evils of emancipation. It is said
by very many persons that the slaves, if liberated, would become an
idle, vagabond set. This remark, doubtless, is sometimes made in
sincerity; but no doubt it is frequently used as a sort of salve to
quiet the conscience for inaction. It is most unquestionably true that
here and there a case would exist of improvidence, just as they exist
among the white population; but such cases would form the exception,
not the rule. Persons who indulge in such remarks seem entirely
unacquainted with the views and feelings of slaves, and to suppose that
they are utterly incapable of appreciating, even to a small extent,
the blessings and enjoyments of freedom. But this is a mistake, and
operates powerfully on some minds to prevent wholesome action in favor
of the liberation of the slave. It is to be hoped that all true men
and women who are held back from engaging in the cause of the slave
by this consideration, will take pains to examine the subject with
care, ere they yield to this pernicious opinion. As to those who have
better knowledge, and make use of this assumed fact as a scape-goat for
their lethargy, not having independence enough to confess the truth,
I commend them, together with their meanness, to such particles of
conscience as are yet left unscathed by the searing iron of hypocrisy.
It is further averred, both honestly and for selfish purposes, as in
the case just stated, that the slaves, if liberated, would rush for
the north, overwhelming the workingmen in this region with misery and
despair. This I know to be untrue, both from observation and my own
experience. The climate of the balmy south is much better adapted to
the nature of the colored man, than the more rigorous one of greater
northern latitude. It is not the _south_ we abhor. It is _slavery_ we
abhor. God has made the south and blessed it. Man, in his selfishness,
has cursed it. Remove slavery, and we join hearts and hands with the
south. Give us equal rights. Give us justice. Make us MEN. Give us pay
for our toil, and we will work at the south.
It is a matter of astonishment that slavery has so long existed,
and yet that its enormities have taken so little hold on a people
professing to be Christians. In a country whose inhabitants dipped
their hands in blood to establish FREEDOM, there are over _two and a
half millions_ of human beings, entitled to all the rights of white
men, held in absolute bondage. Are the people of this nation aware of
this fact? Thousands of times has this awful truth been reiterated in
the ears of American Christians, and yet from the profound indifference
which yet generally exists on the subject, we are led to ask, Do the
people of this nation realize the fact? More than any other nation
on earth we boast of our liberty, our refinement, our advancement
in the arts and sciences, our railroads, our various facilities for
intercommunication, and all the outward appliances to render life
comfortable. We have seized upon the very lightning of Heaven, and
commanded it to bear our messages from one distant point to another
without the intervention of time, literally annihilating all space:
and we not only boast of these things, but we aver in the face of the
abhorrent fact of slavery, that we are the most virtuous nation on
earth! To the enormity of slavery we are, indeed, spiritually dead.
Were slavery about to commence, were we to summon the voters of this
nation to the polls to decide whether two and a half millions of human
beings should be subjected to this bondage, what think you, reader,
would be the result? Can there be a man found who would vote for the
measure, unless indeed the love of money had so blunted all humanity as
to render his better feelings entirely inactive?
It is in vain for apologists of slavery to defend it by such arguments
as this: They will tell you that the slaves of the south are better
fed and clothed than the colored people of the north. The fact is not
admitted. But, suppose it were a fact. Is man to be considered as a
mere ox, to be bowed up and stall fed? Is he a mere victuals grinder
and clothes horse? Or, has he a higher nature? Has he not a mind
capable of rising higher and higher in all that is expansive, pure and
holy? Has he not within him a spark of pure Divinity, which, when he is
surrounded with high and ennobling influences, is fanned into a light
so bright as to lead us to respond to the glorious truth, Man is indeed
made in the image of his God?
Do you talk of _selling a man_? You might as well talk of selling
immortality or sunshine! You might as well talk of your right to
monopolise the atmosphere, to determine how much air a man should
breathe, and to retail it out to him by the jaw-full!
Again, it is said the slave has a maintenance guaranteed to him in old
age, and is thus rendered free from those corroding cares in reference
to his support which wear upon the poor free man. Is this provision of
so high a consequence that men voluntarily submit to slavery? Are the
masters willing to exchange the advantages derived from the unrequited
labor of the slave for a freedom from this guarantee? The slave-holders
of the south cannot make us believe they are so verdant as thus to
have mistaken their interest. Away, then, with the argument that a
God-created MAN should be made a man-created thing!
American fathers, let me ask _you_, are the _advantages_ of slavery
sufficient to induce _you_ to submit to the terrible wrong of being
separated from _your_ wives and children, and sold to a distant owner?
American mothers, do _you_ desire that _your_ husbands should be torn
from the hearth-stone, and sold from your presence forever? Do you wish
your children snatched from your cradles, knocked off at auction to
the highest bidder, to go away from you forever? If not, then let your
apologies for slavery cease.
Reader, I take my leave of you, with the fond hope, that the
recuperative moral energies both of the north and the south will soon
herald the dawn of that glorious day when the sweat and blood of the
unfortunate African shall no longer be struck into coin for the use of
the cruel, unrelenting white man.
ERRATA.--On page 13, second line from the bottom, for “writing” read
writhing.
THE TRAVELLING PILGRIM.
I have no friends, no helper nigh,
But He who heard the raven’s cry;
My father’s house I’ve bid adieu,
And on my journey I pursue.
My sister wonders where I am,
But I shall not return again;
My sisters, brothers, think it strange
That I should leave my nearest friends.
But my kind friends I now must leave,
And on my journey I proceed,
To attend an appointment I have made,
To find a place to lay my head.
And if poor sinners did but know
How much for them I undergo,
They would not treat me with contempt,
Nor curse me when I say “repent.”
But O! the trials of my heart,
Through rain, through snow, I have to go,
And when I’m called to leave this flesh,
I trust with Jesus Christ to rest.