Abolition of Slavery.
IMMEDIATE EMANCIPATION.
"Long has thy night of sorrow been,
Without a star to cheer the scene.
Nay; there was One that watched and wept,
When thou didst think all mercy slept;
That eye which beams with love divine
Where all celestial glories shine.
Justice shall soon the sceptre take;
The scourge shall fall, the tyrant quake.
Hark! 'tis the voice of One from heaven;
The word, the high command is given,
'Break every yoke, loose every chain,
To usher in the Savior's reign.'"
Many persons, who appear to be sensible of the evils of slavery, seem
utterly at a loss for some feasible method of abolishing it. "It is
here in our midst," say they, "and how are we to get rid of it?"
To this question we have a plain scriptural answer. "LOOSE THE BANDS
OF WICKEDNESS,"--"UNDO THE HEAVY BURDENS,"--"LET THE OPPRESSED GO
FREE,"--"BREAK EVERY YOKE,"--"PROCLAIM LIBERTY THROUGHOUT ALL THE LAND,
UNTO ALL THE INHABITANTS THEREOF."
Immediate, unconditional, universal emancipation is the only just, the
only reasonable and the only possible method of adjusting the slavery
question. To this measure the people of the United States _must_ come.
A general Jubilee is inevitable. Slavery is an unmitigated wrong.
Every element of it is at variance with the happiness of man and the
law of God. It is without a single redeeming principle, and hence its
destruction--its total annihilation is necessary.
Since the gigantic wrongs of slavery have been so generally made known
as somewhat to arouse the public conscience from its long sleep, some
writers, anxious to preserve the system, have proposed to _reform_ it.
They say, "Slavery, of itself, is a very innocent relation, but its
evils are horrible. Let us correct the evils and preserve the system."
But slavery cannot be reformed, so as to make it a tolerable
institution because its essential feature--viz, _property in a human
being_, is, wherever imposed, an outrageous, an insufferable wrong. Who
would think of reforming robbery--of making laws to regulate robbers
in their trade--and to prevent brutal men from engaging in it? What if
it should be enacted by grave senators that none but gentlemen should
rob, and that they must do it genteelly--using no _unnecessary_ cruelty
or coercion? All the world would laugh such senators to scorn. But
slavery is from beginning to end a system of robbery, which it is as
impossible to reform, so as to take away its "evils," as it is to so
reform piracy as to destroy its evils, and make it a humane, just and
christian trade.
But the American slaves, it is maintained, are _not prepared for
freedom_. This objection is without foundation. God _creates_ men free,
and sends them forth into the world with such endowments as are needed
in a state of freedom, and as are suited to _no other_ state. To say
that a race, which God has _created_ free, is unprepared for freedom is
to reproach the Maker. Freedom is the native element of man. And
"The heavens, the earth, man's heart and sea,
Forever cry, _let all be free_!"
"Not prepared for freedom?" This has been the watchword of oppressors
in all ages. The "people," the uninformed "masses," have, in the
estimation of tyrants, always been prepared for slavery and injustice
of every kind, but never for freedom. And it has ever been their policy
to render them less fit for any station or any responsibility in life.
They never put forth an effort to prepare their victims for any higher
business than obsequious submission to usurped authority. True to this
spirit, those who are most noisy about the unfitness of slaves for
freedom, are most zealous for the maintenance of those odious laws and
usages which shut them out from all chance of mental and moral culture.
And if the slaves are unprepared for freedom, what is to prepare them
for it? Their present degradation is owing to slavery, and it is not
likely that the continuance of the _cause_ of their degradation will
elevate them. Remove the cause, and the effect will cease. Emancipate
the colored man, open to him our schools and colleges, place before him
motives for action such as animate freemen, and swell the hearts of
Christians, give him an _opportunity_ and he will prove himself every
whit a MAN. How mean and hypocritical the objection, that slaves are
not prepared for freedom, when we employ the whole weight of our laws
and prejudices to crush out their manhood, and as far as possible unfit
them for any condition except that of working animals.
But thousands of slaves have fled from their oppressors, and, in the
midst of the greatest difficulties and embarrassments, have not only
proved themselves prepared for freedom, but also to take a position
amongst the most cultivated and honored freemen.
The half-free colored people of the United States _prove_ themselves
worthy of all the rights of American citizens.
There are now in Canada about 35,000 fugitive slaves; and no
people have ever entered upon the possession of freedom under more
embarrassing circumstances. They were born in chains. The iron yoke
had galled their necks. Their backs had felt the keen lash. In their
flight they were pursued by hungry blood-hounds and more hungry
marshals.--Naked, broken in spirit, impoverished and uneducated, they
reached a cold, ungenial clime. But they were free! And those 35,000
escaped slaves are rapidly improving in wealth, intelligence, and in
every social virtue. In the town of Buxton 130 families reside who own
a body of 9,000 acres of land. The fugitive slaves of Canada West now
own 25,000 acres of land. Were they not prepared for freedom?
Immediate emancipation worked admirably in the British West Indies. The
masters were not murdered by the emancipated slaves, as was predicted,
but good order reigned everywhere. The liberated people have been
rapidly improving in intelligence and wealth.--The terrible wrongs and
miseries of slavery are no more. Rev. Mr. Richardson, a missionary in
Jamaica, speaking of the moral condition of those islands, says:
"Marriage is much more common than formerly, and the blessings of
the family and social relations are much more extensively enjoyed.
The Sabbath is also more generally observed. The means of education
and religious instruction are better enjoyed, although but little
appreciated and improved by the great mass of the people. It is
also true, that the moral sense of the people is becoming somewhat
enlightened. But while this is true, yet their moral condition is very
far from being what it ought to be.
"Our brightest hopes and fondest anticipations must and will centre
around the YOUTH of this island. I see the hand of Providence steadily
urging onward, with resistless might, the car of Progress. Gaunt
Prejudice and grim Superstition gradually give way; Darkness and Error
recede before the sunlight of Truth; and even the demon of Lust and
the giant Intemperance (twin brothers in Satan's family) are bereft of
their power, and chained for a season. I see intelligence, purity, and
piety supplanting ignorance, licentiousness, and irreligion, and this
moral waste becoming transformed until it blooms and flourishes as the
garden of God."
"Immediate emancipation?" exclaims a fearful friend, "that will never
do! Murder, amalgamation, and many other evils will be inevitable
consequences of such a measure. Let us colonize the slaves. Send them
back to their own country." To these objections it may be answered,
1. Colored men are not more inclined to murder than are white men.
Africans have the same natural dispositions which distinguish other
races.
2. Many masters have emancipated their slaves, and thereby secured
their undying affection. Liberated slaves have never turned with bloody
hands upon their liberators.
3. In the West India Islands 800,000 slaves were emancipated in one
day, and although sixteen years have since elapsed, none of the
terrible massacres which were predicted by the opponents of the measure
have occurred.
4. This fear of the vengeance of emancipated slaves arises, doubtless,
from a guilty conscience--or a feeling that it is richly deserved. A
highwayman robs a man, and then says, if I let him go he may have me
arrested and punished, therefore I will kill him. Americans say, on the
same principle, we have most terribly abused our slaves, and hence, if
we let them go they will retaliate, therefore, we must continue the
wrong for self preservation!
5. As to amalgamation we have only to say that slavery is an extensive
system of forced amalgamation. In the free States this much dreaded
evil is of rare occurrence. Immediate emancipation would speedily
arrest the very thing here deprecated.
_a._ The colonization scheme is impracticable. Between three and
four millions of people can never be shipped off to Africa. It is
impracticable to send even the annual increase of the free colored
population. There are in America now about twelve millions of colored
people, and there is no power, civil or ecclesiastical, which can carry
them away to Africa.[24] A few will go and ought to go as missionaries,
but the great and rapidly increasing masses are firmly planted on this
continent and here they must remain.
_b._ Forcible colonization is wrong. Colored people have the same
right to live in America that white people have. The Creator made the
earth for the habitation of man, and He has never surrendered his
ownership of it to any government. The colored man has a right to
live in any country on the globe--a right derived from the Creator.
Has God said that every race under heaven may have a home in America
but the African? Never. It is impertinent as well as wicked for one
people to say to another, "you shall not live in this State, nor on
this continent." Such people arrogate to themselves a prerogative which
Jehovah only possesses.
_c._ The present popular scheme of colonization leaves unquestioned
the title of the slaveholder, encourages the doctrine that the Bible
sanctions the institution, appeals to the basest prejudices of
the American people to induce them to countenance the scheme, and
encourages the enactment of such laws as now disgrace the statutes of
several of the free States, in order, it would seem, to harrass the
free colored man until he shall be compelled to flee from the land of
his birth to a distant shore for refuge. One who speaks what he knows,
says,
"I speak the words of soberness and truth when I say that the most
inveterate, the most formidable, the deadliest enemy of the peace,
prosperity, and happiness of the colored population of the United
States, is that system of African colonization which originated in and
is perpetuated by a worldly, Pharaoh-like policy beneath the dignity
of a magnanimous and Christian people;--a system which receives much
of its vitality from _ad captandum_ appeals to popular prejudices,
and to the unholy, groveling passions of the canaille;--a system that
interposes every possible obstacle in the way of the improvement and
elevation of the colored man in the land of his birth;--that instigates
the enactment of laws whose design and tendency are obviously to annoy
him, to make him feel, while at home, that he is a stranger and a
pilgrim--nay more,--to make him 'wretched, and miserable, and poor, and
blind, and naked;'--to make him 'a hissing and a by-word,' 'a fugitive
and a vagabond' throughout the American Union;--a system that is so
irreconcilably opposed to the purpose of God in making 'of _one_ blood
all nations for to dwell on _all_ the face of the earth,' that when
the dying slaveholder, under the lashes of a guilty conscience, would
give to his slaves unqualified freedom, it wickedly interposes, and
persuades him that 'to do justly and love mercy' would be to inflict an
irreparable injury upon the community, and that to do his duty to God
and his fellow-creatures, under the circumstances, he should bequeath
to his surviving slaves the cruel alternative of _either expatriation
to a far-off, pestilential clime, with the prospect of a premature
death, or perpetual slavery, with its untold horrors, in his native
land_."--_Watkins._
Many objections are offered against immediate emancipation, but they
are evidently mere _excuses_. This may be laid down as a safe rule:
_Offer no objection to the manumission of slaves which would not
satisfy you were you yourselves the slaves to be manumitted._ Tried
by this reasonable and scriptural rule all apologies, objections and
excuses offered for the perpetuation of human bondage, vanish away.
There can be no good reason advanced for the continuance of this curse
a single year longer. Too long already has it dishonored our churches
and our country. Too many souls have been already involved by it in
hopeless ruin. Too many generations of slaves have already gone in
sorrow and despair down to their graves. Too long has the public
conscience been debauched. Justice, humanity and religion with united
voice call for immediate emancipation.
If our free institutions are to be preserved they must be released from
the folds and the deadly charm of this monster serpent. Freedom cannot
flourish in its coils nor survive in its slimy embrace.
Individual and national repentance and reformation only can avert the
terrible judgments of an offended God. The cries of the oppressed have
gone up into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth, and he will be avenged
speedily.
"We have offended. O! my countrymen!
We have offended very grievously;
And been most tyrannous. From east to west
A groan of accusation pierces heaven!"
There are not more than one hundred and twenty thousand slaveholders in
the United States, and it would be easy for them to settle this whole
question in one year or even in a day. Let them simply be honest, be
just, obey the Bible, overcome their pride, avarice, prejudices and
lusts, and the work will be done. The example of _Freeborn Garretson_
is commended to the special attention of all slaveholders, and
especially of those who profess religion. This good man says:
"As I stood with a book in my hand, in the act of giving out a hymn,
this thought powerfully struck my mind: 'It is not right for you to
keep your fellow-creatures in bondage; you must let the oppressed
go free.' I knew it to be that same blessed voice which had spoken
to me before. Till then I had not suspected that the practice of
slave-keeping was wrong; I had not read a book on the subject, nor
been told so by any. I paused a minute, and then replied, 'Lord, the
oppressed shall go free.' And I was as clear of them in my mind, as if
I had never owned one. I told them they did not belong to me, and that
I did not desire their services without making them a compensation. I
was now at liberty to proceed in worship. After singing, I kneeled to
pray. Had I the tongue of an angel, I could not fully describe what I
felt: all my dejection, and that melancholy gloom which preyed upon me,
vanished in a moment, and a divine sweetness ran through my whole frame.
"It was God, not man, that taught me the impropriety of holding slaves:
and I shall never be able to praise him enough for it. My very heart
has bled, since that, for slaveholders, especially those who made a
profession of religion; for I believe it to be a crying sin."