Speech of Gerrit Smith, referred to on page 169. I have omitted a few
passages for want of room.
“On returning home from Utica last night, my mind was so much excited
with the horrid scenes of the day, and the frightful encroachments made
on the right of free discussion, that I could not sleep, and at three
o’clock I left my bed and drafted this resolution:--
“‘_Resolved_, That the right of free discussion, given to us by God,
and asserted and guarded by the laws of our country, is a right so
vital to man’s freedom and dignity and usefulness, that we can never be
guilty of its surrender, without consenting to exchange that freedom
for slavery, and that dignity and usefulness for debasement and
worthlessness.’
“I love our free and happy government, but not because it confers any
new rights upon us. Our rights spring from a nobler source than human
constitutions and governments,--from the favor of Almighty God.
“We are not indebted to the Constitution of the United States, or of
this State, for the right of free discussion. We are thankful that they
have hedged it about with so noble a defence. We are thankful, I say,
that they have neither restrained nor abridged it; but we owe them no
thanks for our possession of rights which God gave us. And the proof
that he gave them is in the fact that he requires us to exercise them.
“When, then, this right of free discussion is invaded, this home-bred
right, which is yours, and is mine, and belongs to every member of the
human family, it is an invasion of something which was not obtained by
human concession, something as old as our own being, a part of the
original man, a component portion of our own identity, something which
we cannot be deprived of without dismemberment, something which we
never can deprive ourselves of without ceasing to be MEN.
“This right, so sacred and essential, is now sought to be trammelled,
and is in fact virtually denied.... Men in denying this right are not
only guilty of violating the Constitution, and destroying the blessings
bought by the blood and toil of our fathers, but guilty of making war
with God himself. I want to see this right placed on this true, this
infinitely high ground, as a DIVINE right. I want to see men defend
it and exercise it with that belief. I want to see men determined to
maintain, to their extremest boundaries, all the rights which God has
given them for their enjoyment, their dignity, and their usefulness.
* * * * *
“We are even now threatened with legislative restrictions on this
right. Let us tell our legislators, in advance, that we cannot bear
any. The man who attempts to interpose such restrictions does a
grievous wrong to God and man, which we cannot bear. Submit to this,
and we are no longer what God made us to be,--MEN. Laws to gag men’s
mouths, to seal up their lips, to freeze up the warm gushings of the
heart, are laws which the free spirit cannot brook; they are laws
contrary alike to the nature of man and the commands of God; laws
destructive of human happiness and the divine constitution; and before
God and man they are null and void. They defeat the very purposes for
which God made man, and throw him mindless, helpless, and worthless at
the feet of the oppressor.
“And for what purpose are we called to throw down our pens, and seal up
our lips, and sacrifice our influence over our fellow-men by the use of
free discussion? If it were for an object of benevolence that we are
called to renounce that freedom of speech with which God made us, there
would be some color of fitness in the demand; but such a sacrifice the
cause of truth and mercy never calls us to make. That cause requires
the exertion, not the suppression, of our noblest powers. But here we
are called on to degrade and unman ourselves, and to withhold from our
fellow-men that influence which we ought to exercise for their good.
And for what? I will tell you for what. That the oppressed may lie more
passive at the feet of the oppressor; that one sixth of our American
people may never know their rights; that two and a half millions of our
countrymen, crushed in the cruel folds of slavery, may remain in all
their misery and despair, without pity and without hope.
“For such a purpose, so wicked, so inexpressibly mean, the Southern
slaveholder calls on us to lie down like whipped and trembling spaniels
at his feet. Our reply is this: Our republican spirits cannot submit to
such conditions. God did not make us, Jesus did not redeem us, for such
vile and sinful uses.
“I knew before that slavery would not survive free discussion. But
the demands recently put forth by the South for our surrender of the
right of discussion, and the avowed reasons of that demand, involve
a full concession of this fact, that free discussion is incompatible
with slavery. The South, by her own showing, admits that slavery cannot
live unless the North is tongue-tied. Now you, and I, and all these
Abolitionists, have two objections to this: One is, we desire and
purpose to employ all our influence lawfully and kindly and temperately
to deliver our Southern brethren from bondage, and never to give rest
to our lips or our pens till it is accomplished. The other objection
is that we are not willing to be slaves ourselves. The enormous and
insolent demands put forth by the South show us that the question is
now, not only whether the blacks shall continue to be slaves, but
whether our necks shall come under the yoke. While we are trying to
break it off from others, we are called to see to it that it is not
fastened on our own necks also.
“It is said: ‘The South will not molest our liberty if we will not
molest their slavery; they do not wish to restrict us if we will cease
to speak of their peculiar institution.’ Our liberty is not our _ex
gratia_ privilege, conceded to us by the South, and which we are to
have more or less, as they please to allow. No, sir! The liberty which
the South proffers us, to speak and write and print, if we do not touch
that subject, is a liberty we do not ask, a liberty which we do not
accept, but which we scornfully reject.
“It is not to be disguised, sir, that war has broken out between
the South and the North, not easily to be terminated. Political and
commercial men, for their own purposes, are industriously striving
to restore peace; but the peace which they may accomplish will be
superficial and hollow. True and permanent peace can only be restored
by removing the cause of the war,--that is, _slavery_. It can never
be established on any other terms. The sword now drawn will not be
sheathed until that deep and damning stain is washed out from our
nation. It is idle, criminal, to speak of peace on any other terms.
* * * * *
“Whom shall we muster on our side in this great battle between liberty
and slavery? The many never will muster in such a cause, until they
first see unequivocal signs of its triumph. We don’t want the many, but
the true-hearted, who are not skilled in the weapons of carnal warfare.
We don’t want the politicians, who, to secure the votes of the South,
care not if slavery is perpetual. We don’t want the merchant, who, to
secure the custom of the South, is willing to applaud slavery, and
leave his countrymen, and their children, and their children’s children
to the tender mercies of slavery forever.
“We want only one class of men for this warfare. Be that class ever
so small, we want only those who will stand on the rock of Christian
principle. We want men who can defend the right of free discussion on
the ground that God gave it. We want men who will act with unyielding
honesty and firmness. We have room for all such, but no room for the
time-serving and selfish.”