I come now to the subject of slavery as exhibited in New Orleans,
Louisiana, and Mississippi. And as an American citizen, in view of the
Declaration of Independence, and the boasted genius of the institutions
of my country, I would gladly crush every thought and banish every
feeling of shame and disgrace that comes over me, while contemplating
this blighting and damning curse of humiliation to every man who feels
a pride in the glory and prosperity of his country. But when in the
spirit of pride for FREEDOM and EQUALITY, to contemplate the horrors,
the miseries, the cold blooded murders, that are the accumulated wrongs
of man upon his fellow man in this land of LIBERTY, it banishes every
aspiration of the human soul. Every noble impulse of love of country
is buried in shame and deep humiliation. I have seen too much, and I
have learned what I know, not from the idle tales of the demagogue,
nor the preaching of wild fanaticism, nor from what have been charged
as the _embellished_ stories of runaway slaves, but from having been
an eye-witness, and having heard the groans and shrieks of the mangled
and bleeding slave, while being murdered under the lash and blows
of the most inhuman of all monsters, the drivers and traffickers in
human flesh. That such things can be done and be tolerated in this
enlightened age, and among a people claiming to be moral, _civilized_,
and _christian_ too, is a mystery that will remain unexplained until
the attributes of the human heart shall change. That fathers and
mothers in this christian land can look around them and know what is
the conduct and character of their sons, (in almost every instance
pursuing a life of indolence and licentiousness,) and witness growing
up around them _grand children_, sons and daughters of their slave
women, and then see those same children of their own kindred blood
sold as slaves and chattels in the market. And there are fathers too
who will take their own children bearing the impress of themselves,
and throw them into market like beasts of the stall. I know it will be
said that such are few and far between and isolated cases. But such
are not the facts. They are the scenes of every-day life, and they
are the sons and daughters, and grandsons and grand-daughters of your
Governors, your Judges, your Senators, and members of Congress; and
also men in every condition of life. Ah, and more too--your Presidents
and Vice Presidents of this _christian_ and _civilized_ land, this
land of FREEDOM. And yet these distinguished men are the recipients of
the tolerance and favor of LIBERTY-loving men, and voted for to be the
guardians of our institutions. They are held up as _honest_ men, as
patterns of piety, whose oblations are daily offered upon the altars of
christianity!!
Of the impulses of such men I know nothing, and I cannot form any
conception of the feelings of an American, of a Christian--of the
one who gets his lessons from the Declaration of Independence, and
of the other who learns his duty from him who taught the inspired
precepts of the Gospel. That persons can thus act is an anomaly that
cannot be explained by any principle that governs the human heart. But
in this view, with the slaveholder, I know the force of habit--the
influence of circumstances--the power of avarice--the desire of ease,
all combined with custom, will sheath the heart in a bond harder and
less impenetrable than the unyielding adamant. But while I know this I
cannot offer an excuse for them; and there is no apology at this day
and age which they can plead, that will screen an American citizen
or a christian in sustaining these outrages upon the genius of our
institutions--upon the spirit of the age--against morality, humanity,
upon kindred ties, christianity and nature itself.