This was the title of Dr. Channing’s book. It rendered the antislavery
cause services so important that I am impelled to give a further
account of it. It seemed to me at the time, it seems to me now, one
of the most inconsistent books I have ever read. It showed how, all
unconsciously to himself, the judgment of that wise man had been
warped and his prejudices influenced by the deference, which had come
to be paid pretty generally throughout our country, to the Southern
slaveholding oligarchy; and by the denunciations which their admirers,
sympathizers, abettors, and minions in the free States, poured without
measure upon Mr. Garrison and his comparatively few fellow-laborers.
Dr. Channing’s profound respect for human nature and the rights of man,
and his heartfelt compassion for the oppressed, suffering, despised,
were such that he could not but see clearly the essential, inevitable,
terrible wrongs and evils of slavery to the master as well as to his
subject. He portrayed these cruelties and vices so clearly and forcibly
that the pages of his book contain as utter condemnations of the
domestic servitude in our Southern States, and as awful exposures of
the consequent corruption, pollution of families and the community in
those States,--condemnations as utter and exposures as awful as could
be found in _The Liberator_. To his chapters on “Property in Man,”
“Rights,” and “Evils of Slavery,” we could take no exceptions. But his
chapter entitled “Explanations” seems to us, as Mr. Garrison called it,
a chapter in _recantation_,--a disastrous attempt to make it appear as
if there could be sin without a sinner. He says that the character of
the master and the wrong done to the slave are distinct points, having
little or no relation to each other. He therefore did not “intend to
pass sentence on the character of the slaveholder.” Jesus Christ taught
that “by their fruits ye shall know men.” But the Doctor said in this
chapter, “Men are not always to be interpreted by their acts or their
institutions.” “Our ancestors,” he continued, “committed a deed now
branded as piracy,” i. e. the slave-trade. “Were they, therefore,
the offscouring of the earth?” No,--but they were _pirates_, their
good qualities in other respects notwithstanding. They were guilty of
kidnapping the Africans, and made themselves rich by selling their
victims into slavery. Piracy was too mild a term for such atrocious
acts. They were just as wicked before they were denounced by law as
afterwards. And it was by bringing the people of England and of this
country to see the enormity of the crimes inseparable from that trade
in human beings, that they were persuaded to repent of it, to renounce
and abhor it. Again Dr. Channing says under this head, “How many sects
have persecuted and shed blood! Were their members, therefore, monsters
of depravity?” I answer, their spirit was cruel and devilish, utterly
unlike the spirit of Jesus. They were none of his, whatever may have
been their professions. As well might we deny that David was a gross
adulterer and mean murderer, because he wrote some very devotional
psalms.
A more marvellous inconsistency in the book before us is this. The
Doctor declares “that cruelty is not the habit of the slave States
in this country.” “He might have affirmed just as truly,” said Mr.
Garrison, “that idolatry is not the habit of pagan countries.” What
is cruelty? The extremest is the reducing of a human being to the
condition of a domesticated brute, a piece of mere property. The Doctor
himself has said as much in another part of this volume, see the 26th
page in his excellent chapter on “Property.” Having described what man
is by nature, he adds, “The sacrifice of such a being to another’s
will, to another’s present, outward, ill-comprehended good, _is the
greatest violence which can be offered to any creature of God_. It is
to cast him out from God’s spiritual family into the brutal herd.”
“No robbery is _so great_ as that to which the slave is _habitually_
subjected.” “The slave _must_ meet cruel _treatment_ either inwardly
or outwardly. Either the soul or the body must receive the blow.
Either the flesh must be tortured or the spirit be struck down.” No
Abolitionist, not even Mr. Garrison, has set forth more clearly the
extreme cruelty, inseparable from holding a fellow-man in slavery one
hour.
Still Dr. Channing objected to our primal doctrine,--“immediate
emancipation.” But could there have been a more obvious inference than
this, which an upright mind would unavoidably draw from a consideration
of the rights of man, the evils of slavery, and the unparalleled
iniquity of subjecting a human being to such degradation. I ask, could
there have been a more obvious inference than that any, every human
being held in such a condition ought to be _immediately released_ from
it? It is plain to me that Dr. Channing himself drew the same inference
that Elizabeth Heyrick,[H] of England, and Mr. Garrison had drawn,
although he rejected the trenchant phrase in which they declared that
inference. Having exhibited so faithfully and feelingly the wrongs and
the evils of slavery, he says, on the 119th page of this book: “What,
then, is to be done for the removal of slavery? _In the first place_,
the slaveholder should solemnly disclaim the right of property in human
beings. The great principle that man cannot belong to man should be
distinctly recognized. The slave should be acknowledged as a partaker
of a common nature, as having the essential rights of humanity.
This great truth lies at the foundation of every wise plan for his
relief.” Would not any one suppose, if he had not been forbidden the
supposition, that the writer of these lines intended to enjoin the
_immediate_ emancipation of the enslaved? Surely, he would have _the
first thing_ that is to be done for their relief done immediately.
Surely, he would have the foot of the oppressor taken from their necks
_at once_. He would have the heavy yoke that crushes them broken
without delay. Surely, he would have the _foundation_ of the plan for
the removal of slavery laid _immediately_. He would not, could not
counsel the slaveholder to postpone a day, nor an hour, the recognition
of the right of his slave to be treated as a fellow-man. There is a
remarkable resemblance between what Dr. Channing here says ought to
be done _in the first place_, and what the Abolitionists had from the
beginning insisted ought to be done _immediately_.
One of the Doctor’s objections to our chosen phrase was that it was
liable to be misunderstood. But, as we said at the time, “if _immediate
emancipation_ expresses our leading doctrine exactly, it ought to be
used and explanations of it be patiently given until the true doctrine
has come to be generally understood, received, and obeyed.” Now,
_immediate emancipation_ was the comprehensive phrase that did best
express the right of the slave and the duty of the master. In whatever
sense we used the word _immediate_, whether in regard to time or order,
the word expressed just what we Abolitionists meant. We insisted upon
it in opposition to those who were teaching slaveholders to defer to
another generation, or to some future time an act of common humanity
that was due to their fellow-men _at once_; and would be due every
minute until it should be done. We insisted upon it in opposition
to the popular but deceptive, impracticable, and cruel scheme which
proposed to liberate the slaves on condition of their removal to Africa.
Dr. Channing further objected that “the use of the phrase _immediate
emancipation_ had contributed much to spread far and wide the belief,
that the Abolitionists wished immediately to free the slave from _all_
his restraints.” But ought we to have been held responsible for such a
senseless, wanton misconstruction of words that had been explained a
thousand times by our appointed lecturers, in our tracts, and in the
“Declaration of the Sentiments, Purposes, and Plans of the American
Antislavery Society,” which was published three years before Dr.
Channing’s book appeared? Freemen,--Republican freemen were, are, and
ever ought to be subject to the restraints of civil government, equal
and righteous laws. From the commencement of our enterprise, our only
demand for our enslaved countrymen has been that they should forthwith
be admitted to all the rights and privileges of freemen upon the same
conditions as others, after they shall have acquired (those of them who
do not now possess) the qualifications demanded of others.
Still further the Doctor accused us Abolitionists of having “fallen
into the common error of enthusiasts,--that of exaggerating their
object, of feeling as if no evil existed but that which they opposed,
and as if no guilt could be compared with that of countenancing or
upholding it.” We grieved especially that he suffered this censure
to drop from his pen, as, coming from him, it would repress in many
bosoms the concern which was beginning to be felt more than ever
before for the slaves and the slaveholders. There was no danger that
we should esteem or lead others to esteem the evils of their condition
to be greater than they were. All about us there was still an alarming
insensibility or indifference to the subject. This could not have been
made to appear more glaring than by the Doctor himself, on the 137th
page of his book. “Suppose,” he there said, “suppose that millions of
_white_ men were enslaved, robbed of all their rights in a neighboring
country, and enslaved by a black race who had torn their ancestors from
the shores on which our fathers had lived. How deeply should we feel
their wrongs!” Ay, how much more deeply would even the Abolitionists
feel for them! Yet why should we not all feel as much, in the case that
actually existed in our country as in the one supposed? We are unable
to find a reason of which we ought not to be ashamed, because it must
be one based upon a cruel prejudice, the offspring of the degradation
into which we had forced the black men. I really wish if there are any
who think with Dr. Channing that the Abolitionists did _exaggerate_ the
guilt of holding men in slavery, or consenting with slaveholders,--I
really wish such persons would read Dr. Channing’s chapter on the
“Evils of Slavery,” and then show us, if he can, wherein we exaggerated
them.
Dr. Channing repelled with great emphasis the charge often brought
against Abolitionists, that we were endeavoring to incite the slaves
to violence, bloodshed, insurrection. He said, page 131: “It is a
remarkable fact, that though the South and the North have been leagued
to crush them, though they have been watched by a million of eyes,
and though prejudice has been prepared to detect the slightest sign
of corrupt communication with the slave, yet this crime has not been
fastened on a single member of this body.” No, not one of our number,
that I was acquainted with, ever suggested the resort to insurrection
and murder by the enslaved as the means of delivering them from
bondage. And in our Declaration at Philadelphia we solemnly disclaimed
any such intention.
We knew that slavery could be _peaceably_ abolished only by the consent
of the slaveholders and the legislators of their States. We knew
that they could not fail to be affected, moved by the right action
of our Federal Government, touching the enslavement of the colored
population in the District of Columbia, and in the territories that
were entirely under the jurisdiction of Congress. And we knew that
the members of Congress could not be reached and impelled to act as
we wished them to, but by the known sentiments and expressed wishes
of their constituents,--the people of the nation North and South. It
was needful, therefore, to press the subject upon the consideration of
the people throughout the land. Accordingly, we did all in our power
to awaken the public attention, to agitate the public mind, to touch
the public heart. We sent able lecturers to speak wherever there were
ears to hear them, and we sent newspapers and tracts wherever the mails
would carry them.
Dr. Channing reproached us for this, especially for sending our
publications to the slaveholders. But we know not how else we could
have made them sensible of the horror with which their system of
domestic servitude was viewed by thousands in the Northern States; and
inform them correctly of our determination to effect the liberation of
their bondmen; and the peaceful means and legal measures by which we
intended, if possible, to accomplish our purpose. We wondered greatly
at the Doctor’s objection to our course in this direction. To whom
should we have sent our publications, if not to those whose cherished
institution we were aiming by them to undermine and overthrow? Would it
have been open, manly, honorable not to have done so?
One more objection Dr. Channing made, which seemed to us as
unreasonable as the last. It was to our _manner_ of forming our
Antislavery Associations. He said: “The Abolitionists might have formed
an association, but it should have been an elective one. Men of strong
principles, judiciousness, sobriety, should have been carefully sought
as members. Much good might have been accomplished by the co-operation
of such philanthropists.” Alas! such philanthropists, the wise and
prudent men, to whom he probably alluded, seemed to have made up
their minds to acquiesce in the continuance of slavery, so long as
our white brethren at the South saw fit to retain the institution; or
to help them take it down very gradually, by removing the victims of
it to the shores of Africa. Nearly fifty years had passed, and such
philanthropists as he indicated had done little or nothing for the
enslaved, and seemed to be growing more indifferent to their wrongs.
If we had elected them, would they have associated with us? Are they
the men to bear the brunt of a moral conflict? “Not many wise,”--as
this world counts wisdom,--“not many rich, not many mighty,” were ever
found among the leaders of reform. God has always chosen the foolish to
confound the wise. It is left for imprudent men, enthusiasts, fanatics,
to begin all difficult enterprises. They have usually been the pioneers
of reform. Else why was not the abolition of slavery attempted and
accomplished long before by that “better class”?
I have not dwelt so long upon this book, and criticised parts of it so
seriously, in order to throw any shade upon the memory of that great
man, whom I have so much reason to revere and love. But I have done
this in order to reveal more fully to the present generation, and to
those who may come after us, the sad state of the public mind and heart
in New England thirty-five years ago. All the objections Dr. Channing
alleged against us in this book were the common current objections
of that day, hurled at us in less seemly phrases from the press, the
platform, and the pulpit. They would not have been thought of, if we
had been laboring for the emancipation of white men. It was sad that a
man of such a mind and heart as Dr. Channing’s could have thought them
of sufficient importance to press them upon us as he did. Nevertheless,
his book contained so many of the vital principles for which we were
contesting, set forth so luminously and urged so fervently, that it
proved to be, as I have already said, a far greater help to our cause
than we at first expected. And we look back with no little admiration
upon one who, enjoying as he did, in the utmost serenity, the highest
reputation as a writer and a divine, put at hazard the repose of the
rest of his life, and sacrificed hundreds of the admirers of his
genius, eloquence, and piety, by espousing the cause of the oppressed,
which most of the eminent men in the land would not touch with one of
their fingers.