It is perfectly well understood at the south, that to educate a slave

is to make him discontened(sic) with slavery, and to invest him with a

power which shall open to him the treasures of freedom; and since the

object of the slaveholder is to maintain complete authority over his

slave, his constant vigilance is exercised to prevent everything which

militates against, or endangers, the stability of his authority.

Education being among the menacing influences, and, perhaps, the most

dangerous, is, therefore, the most cautiously guarded against.

It is true that we do not often hear of the enforcement of the law,

punishing as a crime the teaching of slaves to read, but this is not

because of a want of disposition to enforce it. The true reason or

explanation of the matter is this: there is the greatest unanimity of

opinion among the white population in the south in favor of the policy

of keeping the slave in ignorance. There is, perhaps, another reason

why the law against education is so seldom violated. The slave is too

poor to be able to offer a temptation sufficiently strong to induce a

white man to violate it; and it is not to be supposed that in a

community where the moral and religious sentiment is in favor of

slavery, many martyrs will be found sacrificing their liberty and lives

by violating those prohibitory enactments.

As a general rule, then, darkness reigns over the abodes of the

enslaved, and “how great is that darkness!”

We are sometimes told of the contentment of the slaves, and are

entertained with vivid pictures of their happiness. We are told that

they often dance and sing; that their masters frequently give them

wherewith to make merry; in fine, that they have little of which to

complain. I admit that the slave does sometimes sing, dance, and appear

to be merry. But what does this prove? It only proves to my mind, that

though slavery is armed with a thousand stings, it is not able entirely

to kill the elastic spirit of the bondman. That spirit will rise and

walk abroad, despite of whips and chains, and extract from the cup of

nature occasional drops of joy and gladness. No thanks to the

slaveholder, nor to slavery, that the vivacious captive may sometimes

dance in his chains; his very mirth in such circumstances stands before

God as an accusing angel against his enslaver.

It is often said, by the opponents of the anti-slavery cause, that the

condition of the people of Ireland is more deplorable than that of the

American slaves. Far be it from me to underrate the sufferings of the

Irish people. They have been long oppressed; and the same heart that

prompts me to plead the cause of the American bondman, makes it

impossible for me not to sympathize with the oppressed of all lands.

Yet I must say that there is no analogy between the two cases. The

Irishman is poor, but he is not a slave. He may be in rags, but he is

not a slave. He is still the master of his own body, and can say with

the poet, “The hand of Douglass is his own.” “The world is all before

him, where to choose;” and poor as may be my opinion of the British

parliament, I cannot believe that it will ever sink to such a depth of

infamy as to pass a law for the recapture of fugitive Irishmen! The

shame and scandal of kidnapping will long remain wholly monopolized by

the American congress. The Irishman has not only the liberty to

emigrate from his country, but he has liberty at home. He can write,

and speak, and cooperate for the attainment of his rights and the

redress of his wrongs.

The multitude can assemble upon all the green hills and fertile plains

of the Emerald Isle; they can pour out their grievances, and proclaim

their wants without molestation; and the press, that “swift-winged

messenger,” can bear the tidings of their doings to the extreme bounds

of the civilized world. They have their “Conciliation Hall,” on the

banks of the Liffey, their reform clubs, and their newspapers; they

pass resolutions, send forth addresses, and enjoy the right of

petition. But how is it with the American slave? Where may he assemble?

Where is his Conciliation Hall? Where are his newspapers? Where is his

right of petition? Where is his freedom of speech? his liberty of the

press? and his right of locomotion? He is said to be happy; happy men

can speak. But ask the slave what is his condition—what his state of

mind—what he thinks of enslavement? and you had as well address your

inquiries to the _silent dead_. There comes no _voice_ from the

enslaved. We are left to gather his feelings by imagining what ours

would be, were our souls in his soul’s stead.

If there were no other fact descriptive of slavery, than that the slave

is dumb, this alone would be sufficient to mark the slave system as a

grand aggregation of human horrors.

Most who are present, will have observed that leading men in this

country have been putting forth their skill to secure quiet to the

nation. A system of measures to promote this object was adopted a few

months ago in congress. The result of those measures is known. Instead

of quiet, they have produced alarm; instead of peace, they have brought

us war; and so it must ever be.

While this nation is guilty of the enslavement of three millions of

innocent men and women, it is as idle to think of having a sound and

lasting peace, as it is to think there is no God to take cognizance of

the affairs of men. There can be no peace to the wicked while slavery

continues in the land. It will be condemned; and while it is condemned

there will be agitation. Nature must cease to be nature; men must

become monsters; humanity must be transformed; Christianity must be

exterminated; all ideas of justice and the laws of eternal goodness

must be utterly blotted out from the human soul—ere a system so foul

and infernal can escape condemnation, or this guilty republic can have

a sound, enduring peace.

INHUMANITY OF SLAVERY. Extract from A Lecture on Slavery, at Rochester,

December 8, 1850

The relation of master and slave has been called patriarchal, and only

second in benignity and tenderness to that of the parent and child.

This representation is doubtless believed by many northern people; and

this may account, in part, for the lack of interest which we find among

persons whom we are bound to believe to be honest and humane. What,

then, are the facts? Here I will not quote my own experience in

slavery; for this you might call one-sided testimony. I will not cite

the declarations of abolitionists; for these you might pronounce

exaggerations. I will not rely upon advertisements cut from newspapers;

for these you might call isolated cases. But I will refer you to the

laws adopted by the legislatures of the slave states. I give you such

evidence, because it cannot be invalidated nor denied. I hold in my

hand sundry extracts from the slave codes of our country, from which I

will quote. * * *

Now, if the foregoing be an indication of kindness, _what is cruelty_?

If this be parental affection, _what is bitter malignity_? A more

atrocious and blood-thirsty string of laws could not well be conceived

of. And yet I am bound to say that they fall short of indicating the

horrible cruelties constantly practiced in the slave states.

I admit that there are individual slaveholders less cruel and barbarous

than is allowed by law; but these form the exception. The majority of

slaveholders find it necessary, to insure obedience, at times, to avail

themselves of the utmost extent of the law, and many go beyond it. If

kindness were the rule, we should not see advertisements filling the

columns of almost every southern newspaper, offering large rewards for

fugitive slaves, and describing them as being branded with irons,

loaded with chains, and scarred by the whip. One of the most telling

testimonies against the pretended kindness of slaveholders, is the fact

that uncounted numbers of fugitives are now inhabiting the Dismal

Swamp, preferring the untamed wilderness to their cultivated

homes—choosing rather to encounter hunger and thirst, and to roam with

the wild beasts of the forest, running the hazard of being hunted and

shot down, than to submit to the authority of _kind_ masters.

I tell you, my friends, humanity is never driven to such an unnatural

course of life, without great wrong. The slave finds more of the milk

of human kindness in the bosom of the savage Indian, than in the heart

of his _Christian_ master. He leaves the man of the _bible_, and takes

refuge with the man of the _tomahawk_. He rushes from the praying

slaveholder into the paws of the bear. He quits the homes of men for

the haunts of wolves. He prefers to encounter a life of trial, however

bitter, or death, however terrible, to dragging out his existence under

the dominion of these _kind_ masters.

The apologists for slavery often speak of the abuses of slavery; and

they tell us that they are as much opposed to those abuses as we are;

and that they would go as far to correct those abuses and to ameliorate

the condition of the slave as anybody. The answer to that view is, that

slavery is itself an abuse; that it lives by abuse; and dies by the

absence of abuse. Grant that slavery is right; grant that the relations

of master and slave may innocently exist; and there is not a single

outrage which was ever committed against the slave but what finds an

apology in the very necessity of the case. As we said by a slaveholder

(the Rev. A. G. Few) to the Methodist conference, “If the relation be

right, the means to maintain it are also right;” for without those

means slavery could not exist. Remove the dreadful scourge—the plaited

thong—the galling fetter—the accursed chain—and let the slaveholder

rely solely upon moral and religious power, by which to secure

obedience to his orders, and how long do you suppose a slave would

remain on his plantation? The case only needs to be stated; it carries

its own refutation with it.

Absolute and arbitrary power can never be maintained by one man over

the body and soul of another man, without brutal chastisement and

enormous cruelty.

To talk of _kindness_ entering into a relation in which one party is

robbed of wife, of children, of his hard earnings, of home, of friends,

of society, of knowledge, and of all that makes this life desirable, is

most absurd, wicked, and preposterous.

I have shown that slavery is wicked—wicked, in that it violates the

great law of liberty, written on every human heart—wicked, in that it

violates the first command of the decalogue—wicked, in that it fosters

the most disgusting licentiousness—wicked, in that it mars and defaces

the image of God by cruel and barbarous inflictions—wicked, in that it

contravenes the laws of eternal justice, and tramples in the dust all

the humane and heavenly precepts of the New Testament.

The evils resulting from this huge system of iniquity are not confined

to the states south of Mason and Dixon’s line. Its noxious influence

can easily be traced throughout our northern borders. It comes even as

far north as the state of New York. Traces of it may be seen even in

Rochester; and travelers have told me it casts its gloomy shadows

across the lake, approaching the very shores of Queen Victoria’s

dominions.

The presence of slavery may be explained by—as it is the explanation

of—the mobocratic violence which lately disgraced New York, and which

still more recently disgraced the city of Boston. These violent

demonstrations, these outrageous invasions of human rights, faintly

indicate the presence and power of slavery here. It is a significant

fact, that while meetings for almost any purpose under heaven may be

held unmolested in the city of Boston, that in the same city, a meeting

cannot be peaceably held for the purpose of preaching the doctrine of

the American Declaration of Independence, “that all men are created

equal.” The pestiferous breath of slavery taints the whole moral

atmosphere of the north, and enervates the moral energies of the whole

people.

The moment a foreigner ventures upon our soil, and utters a natural

repugnance to oppression, that moment he is made to feel that there is

little sympathy in this land for him. If he were greeted with smiles

before, he meets with frowns now; and it shall go well with him if he

be not subjected to that peculiarly fining method of showing fealty to

slavery, the assaults of a mob.

Now, will any man tell me that such a state of things is natural, and

that such conduct on the part of the people of the north, springs from

a consciousness of rectitude? No! every fibre of the human heart unites

in detestation of tyranny, and it is only when the human mind has

become familiarized with slavery, is accustomed to its injustice, and

corrupted by its selfishness, that it fails to record its abhorrence of

slavery, and does not exult in the triumphs of liberty.

The northern people have been long connected with slavery; they have

been linked to a decaying corpse, which has destroyed the moral health.

The union of the government; the union of the north and south, in the

political parties; the union in the religious organizations of the

land, have all served to deaden the moral sense of the northern people,

and to impregnate them with sentiments and ideas forever in conflict

with what as a nation we call _genius of American institutions_.

Rightly viewed, this is an alarming fact, and ought to rally all that

is pure, just, and holy in one determined effort to crush the monster

of corruption, and to scatter “its guilty profits” to the winds. In a

high moral sense, as well as in a national sense, the whole American

people are responsible for slavery, and must share, in its guilt and

shame, with the most obdurate men-stealers of the south.

While slavery exists, and the union of these states endures, every

American citizen must bear the chagrin of hearing his country branded

before the world as a nation of liars and hypocrites; and behold his

cherished flag pointed at with the utmost scorn and derision. Even now

an American _abroad_ is pointed out in the crowd, as coming from a land

where men gain their fortunes by “the blood of souls,” from a land of

slave markets, of blood-hounds, and slave-hunters; and, in some

circles, such a man is shunned altogether, as a moral pest. Is it not

time, then, for every American to awake, and inquire into his duty with

respect to this subject?

Wendell Phillips—the eloquent New England orator—on his return from

Europe, in 1842, said, “As I stood upon the shores of Genoa, and saw

floating on the placid waters of the Mediterranean, the beautiful

American war ship Ohio, with her masts tapering proportionately aloft,

and an eastern sun reflecting her noble form upon the sparkling waters,

attracting the gaze of the multitude, my first impulse was of pride, to

think myself an American; but when I thought that the first time that

gallant ship would gird on her gorgeous apparel, and wake from beneath

her sides her dormant thunders, it would be in defense of the African

slave trade, I blushed in utter _shame_ for my country.”

Let me say again, _slavery is alike the sin and the shame of the

American people;_ it is a blot upon the American name, and the only

national reproach which need make an American hang his head in shame,

in the presence of monarchical governments.

With this gigantic evil in the land, we are constantly told to look _at

home;_ if we say ought against crowned heads, we are pointed to our

enslaved millions; if we talk of sending missionaries and bibles

abroad, we are pointed to three millions now lying in worse than

heathen darkness; if we express a word of sympathy for Kossuth and his

Hungarian fugitive brethren, we are pointed to that horrible and

hell-black enactment, “the fugitive slave bill.”

Slavery blunts the edge of all our rebukes of tyranny abroad—the

criticisms that we make upon other nations, only call forth ridicule,

contempt, and scorn. In a word, we are made a reproach and a by-word to

a mocking earth, and we must continue to be so made, so long as slavery

continues to pollute our soil.

We have heard much of late of the virtue of patriotism, the love of

country, &c., and this sentiment, so natural and so strong, has been

impiously appealed to, by all the powers of human selfishness, to

cherish the viper which is stinging our national life away. In its

name, we have been called upon to deepen our infamy before the world,

to rivet the fetter more firmly on the limbs of the enslaved, and to

become utterly insensible to the voice of human woe that is wafted to

us on every southern gale. We have been called upon, in its name, to

desecrate our whole land by the footprints of slave-hunters, and even

to engage ourselves in the horrible business of kidnapping.

I, too, would invoke the spirit of patriotism; not in a narrow and

restricted sense, but, I trust, with a broad and manly signification;

not to cover up our national sins, but to inspire us with sincere

repentance; not to hide our shame from the the(sic) world’s gaze, but

utterly to abolish the cause of that shame; not to explain away our

gross inconsistencies as a nation, but to remove the hateful, jarring,

and incongruous elements from the land; not to sustain an egregious

wrong, but to unite all our energies in the grand effort to remedy that

wrong.

I would invoke the spirit of patriotism, in the name of the law of the

living God, natural and revealed, and in the full belief that

“righteousness exalteth a nation, while sin is a reproach to any

people.” “He that walketh righteously, and speaketh uprightly; he that

despiseth the gain of oppressions, that shaketh his hands from the

holding of bribes, he shall dwell on high, his place of defense shall

be the munitions of rocks, bread shall be given him, his water shall be

sure.”

We have not only heard much lately of patriotism, and of its aid being

invoked on the side of slavery and injustice, but the very prosperity

of this people has been called in to deafen them to the voice of duty,

and to lead them onward in the pathway of sin. Thus has the blessing of

God been converted into a curse. In the spirit of genuine patriotism, I

warn the American people, by all that is just and honorable, to BEWARE!

I warn them that, strong, proud, and prosperous though we be, there is

a power above us that can “bring down high looks; at the breath of

whose mouth our wealth may take wings; and before whom every knee shall

bow;” and who can tell how soon the avenging angel may pass over our

land, and the sable bondmen now in chains, may become the instruments

of our nation’s chastisement! Without appealing to any higher feeling,

I would warn the American people, and the American government, to be

wise in their day and generation. I exhort them to remember the history

of other nations; and I remind them that America cannot always sit “as

a queen,” in peace and repose; that prouder and stronger governments

than this have been shattered by the bolts of a just God; that the time

may come when those they now despise and hate, may be needed; when

those whom they now compel by oppression to be enemies, may be wanted

as friends. What has been, may be again. There is a point beyond which

human endurance cannot go. The crushed worm may yet turn under the heel

of the oppressor. I warn them, then, with all solemnity, and in the

name of retributive justice, _to look to their ways;_ for in an evil

hour, those sable arms that have, for the last two centuries, been

engaged in cultivating and adorning the fair fields of our country, may

yet become the instruments of terror, desolation, and death, throughout

our borders.

It was the sage of the Old Dominion that said—while speaking of the

possibility of a conflict between the slaves and the slaveholders—“God

has no attribute that could take sides with the oppressor in such a

contest. I tremble for my country when I reflect that God _is just_,

and that his justice cannot sleep forever.” Such is the warning voice

of Thomas Jefferson; and every day’s experience since its utterance

until now, confirms its wisdom, and commends its truth.

WHAT TO THE SLAVE IS THE FOURTH OF JULY?. Extract from an Oration, at

Rochester, July 5, 1852

Fellow-Citizens—Pardon me, and allow me to ask, why am I called upon to

speak here to-day? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your

national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom

and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence,

extended to us? and am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble

offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits, and

express devout gratitude for the blessings, resulting from your

independence to us?

Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer

could be truthfully returned to these questions! Then would my task be

light, and my burden easy and delightful. For who is there so cold that

a nation’s sympathy could not warm him? Who so obdurate and dead to the

claims of gratitude, that would not thankfully acknowledge such

priceless benefits? Who so stolid and selfish, that would not give his

voice to swell the hallelujahs of a nation’s jubilee, when the chains

of servitude had been torn from his limbs? I am not that man. In a case

like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the “lame man leap as

an hart.”

But, such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of

the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of this

glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the

immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you this day

rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice,

liberty, prosperity, and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is

shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to

you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth of July is

_yours_, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in

fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him

to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious

irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day?

If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. And let me warn you that it

is dangerous to copy the example of a nation whose crimes, towering up

to heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that

nation in irrecoverable ruin! I can to-day take up the plaintive lament

of a peeled and woe-smitten people.

“By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. Yea! we wept when we

remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst

thereof. For there, they that carried us away captive, required of us a

song; and they who wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one

of the songs of Zion. How can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange

land? If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her

cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of

my mouth.”

Fellow-citizens, above your national, tumultous joy, I hear the

mournful wail of millions, whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday,

are to-day rendered more intolerable by the jubilant shouts that reach

them. If I do forget, if I do not faithfully remember those bleeding

children of sorrow this day, “may my right hand forget her cunning, and

may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!” To forget them, to pass

lightly over their wrongs, and to chime in with the popular theme,

would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a

reproach before God and the world. My subject, then, fellow-citizens,

is AMERICAN SLAVERY. I shall see this day and its popular

characteristics from the slave’s point of view. Standing there,

identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do not

hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct

of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this Fourth of July.

Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions

of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and

revolting. America is false to the past, false to the present, and

solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Standing with God and

the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of

humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered,

in the name of the constitution and the bible, which are disregarded

and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all

the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate

slavery—the great sin and shame of America! “I will not equivocate; I

will not excuse;” I will use the severest language I can command; and

yet not one word shall escape me that any man, whose judgment is not

blinded by prejudice, or who is not at heart a slaveholder, shall not

confess to be right and just.

But I fancy I hear some one of my audience say, it is just in this

circumstance that you and your brother abolitionists fail to make a

favorable impression on the public mind. Would you argue more, and

denounce less, would you persuade more and rebuke less, your cause

would be much more likely to succeed. But, I submit, where all is plain

there is nothing to be argued. What point in the anti-slavery creed

would you have me argue? On what branch of the subject do the people of

this country need light? Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a

man? That point is conceded already. Nobody doubts it. The slaveholders

themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their

government. They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the

part of the slave. There are seventy-two crimes in the state of

Virginia, which, if committed by a black man (no matter how ignorant he

be), subject him to the punishment of death; while only two of these

same crimes will subject a white man to the like punishment. What is

this but the acknowledgement that the slave is a moral, intellectual,

and responsible being. The manhood of the slave is conceded. It is

admitted in the fact that southern statute books are covered with

enactments forbidding, under severe fines and penalties, the teaching

of the slave to read or write. When you can point to any such laws, in

reference to the beasts of the field, then I may consent to argue the

manhood of the slave. When the dogs in your streets, when the fowls of

the air, when the cattle on your hills, when the fish of the sea, and

the reptiles that crawl, shall be unable to distinguish the slave from

a brute, then will I argue with you that the slave is a man!

For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro

race. Is it not astonishing that, while we are plowing, planting, and

reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses,

constructing bridges, building ships, working in metals of brass, iron,

copper, silver, and gold; that, while we are reading, writing, and

cyphering, acting as clerks, merchants, and secretaries, having among

us lawyers, doctors, ministers, poets, authors, editors, orators, and

teachers; that, while we are engaged in all manner of enterprises

common to other men—digging gold in California, capturing the whale in

the Pacific, feeding sheep and cattle on the hillside, living, moving,

acting, thinking, planning, living in families as husbands, wives, and

children, and, above all, confessing and worshiping the Christian’s

God, and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave—we

are called upon to prove that we are men!

Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? that he is the

rightful owner of his own body? You have already declared it. Must I

argue the wrongfulness of slavery? Is that a question for republicans?

Is it to be settled by the rules of logic and argumentation, as a

matter beset with great difficulty, involving a doubtful application of

the principle of justice, hard to be understood? How should I look

to-day in the presence of Americans, dividing and subdividing a

discourse, to show that men have a natural right to freedom, speaking

of it relatively and positively, negatively and affirmatively? To do

so, would be to make myself ridiculous, and to offer an insult to your

understanding. There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven that

does not know that slavery is wrong for _him_.

What! am I to argue that it is wrong to make men brutes, to rob them of

their liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them ignorant of

their relations to their fellow-men, to beat them with sticks, to flay

their flesh with the lash, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them

with dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock

out their teeth, to burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience and

submission to their masters? Must I argue that a system, thus marked

with blood and stained with pollution, is wrong? No; I will not. I have

better employment for my time and strength than such arguments would

imply.

What, then, remains to be argued? Is it that slavery is not divine;

that God did not establish it; that our doctors of divinity are

mistaken? There is blasphemy in the thought. That which is inhuman

cannot be divine. Who can reason on such a proposition! They that can,

may! I cannot. The time for such argument is past.

At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is

needed. Oh! had I the ability, and could I reach the nation’s ear, I

would to-day pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting

reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that

is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need

the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation

must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the

propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation

must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed

and denounced.

What to the American slave is your Fourth of July? I answer, a day that

reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross

injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your

celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your

national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty

and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence;

your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and

hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade

and solemnity, are to him mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and

hypocrisy—a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation

of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more

shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at

this very hour.

Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the

monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through South

America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay

your facts by the side of the every-day practices of this nation, and

you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless

hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.

THE INTERNAL SLAVE TRADE. Extract from an Oration, at Rochester, July

5, 1852

Take the American slave trade, which, we are told by the papers, is

especially prosperous just now. Ex-senator Benton tells us that the

price of men was never higher than now. He mentions the fact to show

that slavery is in no danger. This trade is one of the peculiarities of

American institutions. It is carried on in all the large towns and

cities in one-half of this confederacy; and millions are pocketed every

year by dealers in this horrid traffic. In several states this trade is

a chief source of wealth. It is called (in contradistinction to the

foreign slave trade) _“the internal slave trade_.” It is, probably,

called so, too, in order to divert from it the horror with which the

foreign slave trade is contemplated. That trade has long since been

denounced by this government as piracy. It has been denounced with

burning words, from the high places of the nation, as an execrable

traffic. To arrest it, to put an end to it, this nation keeps a

squadron, at immense cost, on the coast of Africa. Everywhere in this

country, it is safe to speak of this foreign slave trade as a most

inhuman traffic, opposed alike to the laws of God and of man. The duty

to extirpate and destroy it is admitted even by our _doctors of

divinity_. In order to put an end to it, some of these last have

consented that their colored brethren (nominally free) should leave

this country, and establish themselves on the western coast of Africa.

It is, however, a notable fact, that, while so much execration is

poured out by Americans, upon those engaged in the foreign slave trade,

the men engaged in the slave trade between the states pass without

condemnation, and their business is deemed honorable.

Behold the practical operation of this internal slave trade—the

American slave trade sustained by American politics and American

religion! Here you will see men and women reared like swine for the

market. You know what is a swine-drover? I will show you a man-drover.

They inhabit all our southern states. They perambulate the country, and

crowd the highways of the nation with droves of human stock. You will

see one of these human-flesh-jobbers, armed with pistol, whip, and

bowie-knife, driving a company of a hundred men, women, and children,

from the Potomac to the slave market at New Orleans. These wretched

people are to be sold singly, or in lots, to suit purchasers. They are

food for the cotton-field and the deadly sugar-mill. Mark the sad

procession as it moves wearily along, and the inhuman wretch who drives

them. Hear his savage yells and his blood-chilling oaths, as he hurries

on his affrighted captives. There, see the old man, with locks thinned

and gray. Cast one glance, if you please, upon that young mother, whose

shoulders are bare to the scorching sun, her briny tears falling on the

brow of the babe in her arms. See, too, that girl of thirteen, weeping,

yes, weeping, as she thinks of the mother from whom she has been torn.

The drove moves tardily. Heat and sorrow have nearly consumed their

strength. Suddenly you hear a quick snap, like the discharge of a

rifle; the fetters clank, and the chain rattles simultaneously; your

ears are saluted with a scream that seems to have torn its way to the

center of your soul. The crack you heard was the sound of the slave

whip; the scream you heard was from the woman you saw with the babe.

Her speed had faltered under the weight of her child and her chains;

that gash on her shoulder tells her to move on. Follow this drove to

New Orleans. Attend the auction; see men examined like horses; see the

forms of women rudely and brutally exposed to the shocking gaze of

American slave-buyers. See this drove sold and separated forever; and

never forget the deep, sad sobs that arose from that scattered

multitude. Tell me, citizens, where, under the sun, can you witness a

spectacle more fiendish and shocking. Yet this is but a glance at the

American slave trade, as it exists at this moment, in the ruling part

of the United States.

I was born amid such sights and scenes. To me the American slave trade

is a terrible reality. When a child, my soul was often pierced with a

sense of its horrors. I lived on Philpot street, Fell’s Point,

Baltimore, and have watched from the wharves the slave ships in the

basin, anchored from the shore, with their cargoes of human flesh,

waiting for favorable winds to waft them down the Chesapeake. There

was, at that time, a grand slave mart kept at the head of Pratt street,

by Austin Woldfolk. His agents were sent into every town and county in

Maryland, announcing their arrival through the papers, and on flaming

hand-bills, headed, “cash for negroes.” These men were generally well

dressed, and very captivating in their manners; ever ready to drink, to

treat, and to gamble. The fate of many a slave has depended upon the

turn of a single card; and many a child has been snatched from the arms

of its mothers by bargains arranged in a state of brutal drunkenness.

The flesh-mongers gather up their victims by dozens, and drive them,

chained, to the general depot at Baltimore. When a sufficient number

have been collected here, a ship is chartered, for the purpose of

conveying the forlorn crew to Mobile or to New Orleans. From the

slave-prison to the ship, they are usually driven in the darkness of

night; for since the anti-slavery agitation a certain caution is

observed.

In the deep, still darkness of midnight, I have been often aroused by

the dead, heavy footsteps and the piteous cries of the chained gangs

that passed our door. The anguish of my boyish heart was intense; and I

was often consoled, when speaking to my mistress in the morning, to

hear her say that the custom was very wicked; that she hated to hear

the rattle of the chains, and the heart-rending cries. I was glad to

find one who sympathized with me in my horror.

Fellow citizens, this murderous traffic is to-day in active operation

in this boasted republic. In the solitude of my spirit, I see clouds of

dust raised on the highways of the south; I see the bleeding footsteps;

I hear the doleful wail of fettered humanity, on the way to the slave

markets, where the victims are to be sold like horses, sheep, and

swine, knocked off to the highest bidder. There I see the tenderest

ties ruthlessly broken, to gratify the lust, caprice, and rapacity of

the buyers and sellers of men. My soul sickens at the sight.

Is this the land your fathers loved?

The freedom which they toiled to win?

Is this the earth whereon they moved?

Are these the graves they slumber in?

But a still more inhuman, disgraceful, and scandalous state of things

remains to be presented. By an act of the American congress, not yet

two years old, slavery has been nationalized in its most horrible and

revolting form. By that act, Mason and Dixon’s line has been

obliterated; New York has become as Virginia; and the power to hold,

hunt, and sell men, women, and children as slaves, remains no longer a

mere state institution, but is now an institution of the whole United

States. The power is coextensive with the star-spangled banner and

American christianity. Where these go, may also go the merciless

slave-hunter. Where these are, man is not sacred. He is a bird for the

sportsman’s gun. By that most foul and fiendish of all human decrees,

the liberty and person of every man are put in peril. Your broad

republican domain is a hunting-ground for _men_. Not for thieves and

robbers, enemies of society, merely, but for men guilty of no crime.

Your law-makers have commanded all good citizens to engage in this

hellish sport. Your president, your secretary of state, your lords,

nobles, and ecclesiastics, enforce as a duty you owe to your free and

glorious country and to your God, that you do this accursed thing. Not

fewer than forty Americans have within the past two years been hunted

down, and without a moment’s warning, hurried away in chains, and

consigned to slavery and excruciating torture. Some of these have had

wives and children dependent on them for bread; but of this no account

was made. The right of the hunter to his prey, stands superior to the

right of marriage, and to _all_ rights in this republic, the rights of

God included! For black men there are neither law, justice, humanity,

nor religion. The fugitive slave law makes MERCY TO THEM A CRIME; and

bribes the judge who tries them. An American judge GETS TEN DOLLARS FOR

EVERY VICTIM HE CONSIGNS to slavery, and five, when he fails to do so.

The oath of an(sic) two villains is sufficient, under this hell-black

enactment, to send the most pious and exemplary black man into the

remorseless jaws of slavery! His own testimony is nothing. He can bring

no witnesses for himself. The minister of American justice is bound by

the law to hear but _one side_, and that side is the side of the

oppressor. Let this damning fact be perpetually told. Let it be

thundered around the world, that, in tyrant-killing, king hating,

people-loving, democratic, Christian America, the seats of justice are

filled with judges, who hold their office under an open and palpable

_bribe_, and are bound, in deciding in the case of a man’s liberty, _to

hear only his accusers!_

In glaring violation of justice, in shameless disregard of the forms of

administering law, in cunning arrangement to entrap the defenseless,

and in diabolical intent, this fugitive slave law stands alone in the

annals of tyrannical legislation. I doubt if there be another nation on

the globe having the brass and the baseness to put such a law on the

statute-book. If any man in this assembly thinks differently from me in

this matter, and feels able to disprove my statements, I will gladly

confront him at any suitable time and place he may select.

THE SLAVERY PARTY. Extract from a Speech Delivered before the A. A. S.

Society, in New York, May, 1853.

Sir, it is evident that there is in this country a purely slavery

party—a party which exists for no other earthly purpose but to promote

the interests of slavery. The presence of this party is felt everywhere

in the republic. It is known by no particular name, and has assumed no

definite shape; but its branches reach far and wide in the church and

in the state. This shapeless and nameless party is not intangible in

other and more important respects. That party, sir, has determined upon

a fixed, definite, and comprehensive policy toward the whole colored

population of the United States. What that policy is, it becomes us as

abolitionists, and especially does it become the colored people

themselves, to consider and to understand fully. We ought to know who

our enemies are, where they are, and what are their objects and

measures. Well, sir, here is my version of it—not original with me—but

mine because I hold it to be true.

I understand this policy to comprehend five cardinal objects. They are

these: 1st. The complete suppression of all anti-slavery discussion.

2d. The expatriation of the entire free people of color from the United

States. 3d. The unending perpetuation of slavery in this republic. 4th.

The nationalization of slavery to the extent of making slavery

respected in every state of the Union. 5th. The extension of slavery

over Mexico and the entire South American states.

Sir, these objects are forcibly presented to us in the stern logic of

passing events; in the facts which are and have been passing around us

during the last three years. The country has been and is now dividing

on these grand issues. In their magnitude, these issues cast all others

into the shade, depriving them of all life and vitality. Old party ties

are broken. Like is finding its like on either side of these great

issues, and the great battle is at hand. For the present, the best

representative of the slavery party in politics is the democratic

party. Its great head for the present is President Pierce, whose boast

it was, before his election, that his whole life had been consistent

with the interests of slavery, that he is above reproach on that score.

In his inaugural address, he reassures the south on this point. Well,

the head of the slave power being in power, it is natural that the pro

slavery elements should cluster around the administration, and this is

rapidly being done. A fraternization is going on. The stringent

protectionists and the free-traders strike hands. The supporters of

Fillmore are becoming the supporters of Pierce. The silver-gray whig

shakes hands with the hunker democrat; the former only differing from

the latter in name. They are of one heart, one mind, and the union is

natural and perhaps inevitable. Both hate Negroes; both hate progress;

both hate the “higher law;” both hate William H. Seward; both hate the

free democratic party; and upon this hateful basis they are forming a

union of hatred. “Pilate and Herod are thus made friends.” Even the

central organ of the whig party is extending its beggar hand for a

morsel from the table of slavery democracy, and when spurned from the

feast by the more deserving, it pockets the insult; when kicked on one

side it turns the other, and preseveres in its importunities. The fact

is, that paper comprehends the demands of the times; it understands the

age and its issues; it wisely sees that slavery and freedom are the

great antagonistic forces in the country, and it goes to its own side.

Silver grays and hunkers all understand this. They are, therefore,

rapidly sinking all other questions to nothing, compared with the

increasing demands of slavery. They are collecting, arranging, and

consolidating their forces for the accomplishment of their appointed

work.

The keystone to the arch of this grand union of the slavery party of

the United States, is the compromise of 1850. In that compromise we

have all the objects of our slaveholding policy specified. It is, sir,

favorable to this view of the designs of the slave power, that both the

whig and the democratic party bent lower, sunk deeper, and strained

harder, in their conventions, preparatory to the late presidential

election, to meet the demands of the slavery party than at any previous

time in their history. Never did parties come before the northern

people with propositions of such undisguised contempt for the moral

sentiment and the religious ideas of that people. They virtually asked

them to unite in a war upon free speech, and upon conscience, and to

drive the Almighty presence from the councils of the nation. Resting

their platforms upon the fugitive slave bill, they boldly asked the

people for political power to execute the horrible and hell-black

provisions of that bill. The history of that election reveals, with

great clearness, the extent to which slavery has shot its leprous

distillment through the life-blood of the nation. The party most

thoroughly opposed to the cause of justice and humanity, triumphed;

while the party suspected of a leaning toward liberty, was

overwhelmingly defeated, some say annihilated.

But here is a still more important fact, illustrating the designs of

the slave power. It is a fact full of meaning, that no sooner did the

democratic slavery party come into power, than a system of legislation

was presented to the legislatures of the northern states, designed to

put the states in harmony with the fugitive slave law, and the

malignant bearing of the national government toward the colored

inhabitants of the country. This whole movement on the part of the

states, bears the evidence of having one origin, emanating from one

head, and urged forward by one power. It was simultaneous, uniform, and

general, and looked to one end. It was intended to put thorns under

feet already bleeding; to crush a people already bowed down; to enslave

a people already but half free; in a word, it was intended to

discourage, dishearten, and drive the free colored people out of the

country. In looking at the recent black law of Illinois, one is struck

dumb with its enormity. It would seem that the men who enacted that

law, had not only banished from their minds all sense of justice, but

all sense of shame. It coolly proposes to sell the bodies and souls of

the blacks to increase the intelligence and refinement of the whites;

to rob every black stranger who ventures among them, to increase their

literary fund.

While this is going on in the states, a pro-slavery, political board of

health is established at Washington. Senators Hale, Chase, and Sumner

are robbed of a part of their senatorial dignity and consequence as

representing sovereign states, because they have refused to be

inoculated with the slavery virus. Among the services which a senator

is expected by his state to perform, are many that can only be done

efficiently on committees; and, in saying to these honorable senators,

you shall not serve on the committees of this body, the slavery party

took the responsibility of robbing and insulting the states that sent

them. It is an attempt at Washington to decide for the states who shall

be sent to the senate. Sir, it strikes me that this aggression on the

part of the slave power did not meet at the hands of the proscribed

senators the rebuke which we had a right to expect would be

administered. It seems to me that an opportunity was lost, that the

great principle of senatorial equality was left undefended, at a time

when its vindication was sternly demanded. But it is not to the purpose

of my present statement to criticise the conduct of our friends. I am

persuaded that much ought to be left to the discretion of anti slavery

men in congress, and charges of recreancy should never be made but on

the most sufficient grounds. For, of all the places in the world where

an anti-slavery man needs the confidence and encouragement of friends,

I take Washington to be that place.

Let me now call attention to the social influences which are operating

and cooperating with the slavery party of the country, designed to

contribute to one or all of the grand objects aimed at by that party.

We see here the black man attacked in his vital interests; prejudice

and hate are excited against him; enmity is stirred up between him and

other laborers. The Irish people, warm-hearted, generous, and

sympathizing with the oppressed everywhere, when they stand upon their

own green island, are instantly taught, on arriving in this Christian

country, to hate and despise the colored people. They are taught to

believe that we eat the bread which of right belongs to them. The cruel

lie is told the Irish, that our adversity is essential to their

prosperity. Sir, the Irish-American will find out his mistake one day.

He will find that in assuming our avocation he also has assumed our

degradation. But for the present we are sufferers. The old employments

by which we have heretofore gained our livelihood, are gradually, and

it may be inevitably, passing into other hands. Every hour sees us

elbowed out of some employment to make room perhaps for some

newly-arrived emigrants, whose hunger and color are thought to give

them a title to especial favor. White men are becoming house-servants,

cooks, and stewards, common laborers, and flunkeys to our gentry, and,

for aught I see, they adjust themselves to their stations with all

becoming obsequiousness. This fact proves that if we cannot rise to the

whites, the whites can fall to us. Now, sir, look once more. While the

colored people are thus elbowed out of employment; while the enmity of

emigrants is being excited against us; while state after state enacts

laws against us; while we are hunted down, like wild game, and

oppressed with a general feeling of insecurity—the American

colonization society—that old offender against the best interests and

slanderer of the colored people—awakens to new life, and vigorously

presses its scheme upon the consideration of the people and the

government. New papers are started—some for the north and some for the

south—and each in its tone adapting itself to its latitude. Government,

state and national, is called upon for appropriations to enable the

society to send us out of the country by steam! They want steamers to

carry letters and Negroes to Africa. Evidently, this society looks upon

our “extremity as its opportunity,” and we may expect that it will use

the occasion well. They do not deplore, but glory, in our misfortunes.

But, sir, I must hasten. I have thus briefly given my view of one

aspect of the present condition and future prospects of the colored

people of the United States. And what I have said is far from

encouraging to my afflicted people. I have seen the cloud gather upon

the sable brows of some who hear me. I confess the case looks black

enough. Sir, I am not a hopeful man. I think I am apt even to

undercalculate the benefits of the future. Yet, sir, in this seemingly

desperate case, I do not despair for my people. There is a bright side

to almost every picture of this kind; and ours is no exception to the

general rule. If the influences against us are strong, those for us are

also strong. To the inquiry, will our enemies prevail in the execution

of their designs. In my God and in my soul, I believe they _will not_.

Let us look at the first object sought for by the slavery party of the

country, viz: the suppression of anti slavery discussion. They desire

to suppress discussion on this subject, with a view to the peace of the

slaveholder and the security of slavery. Now, sir, neither the

principle nor the subordinate objects here declared, can be at all

gained by the slave power, and for this reason: It involves the

proposition to padlock the lips of the whites, in order to secure the

fetters on the limbs of the blacks. The right of speech, precious and

priceless, _cannot, will not_, be surrendered to slavery. Its

suppression is asked for, as I have said, to give peace and security to

slaveholders. Sir, that thing cannot be done. God has interposed an

insuperable obstacle to any such result. “There can be _no peace_,

saith my God, to the wicked.” Suppose it were possible to put down this

discussion, what would it avail the guilty slaveholder, pillowed as he

is upon heaving bosoms of ruined souls? He could not have a peaceful

spirit. If every anti-slavery tongue in the nation were silent—every

anti-slavery organization dissolved—every anti-slavery press

demolished—every anti slavery periodical, paper, book, pamphlet, or

what not, were searched out, gathered, deliberately burned to ashes,

and their ashes given to the four winds of heaven, still, still the

slaveholder could have _“no peace_.” In every pulsation of his heart,

in every throb of his life, in every glance of his eye, in the breeze

that soothes, and in the thunder that startles, would be waked up an

accuser, whose cause is, “Thou art, verily, guilty concerning thy

brother.”

THE ANTI-SLAVERY MOVEMENT. Extracts from a Lecture before Various

Anti-Slavery Bodies, in the Winter of 1855.

A grand movement on the part of mankind, in any direction, or for any

purpose, moral or political, is an interesting fact, fit and proper to

be studied. It is such, not only for those who eagerly participate in

it, but also for those who stand aloof from it—even for those by whom

it is opposed. I take the anti-slavery movement to be such an one, and

a movement as sublime and glorious in its character, as it is holy and

beneficent in the ends it aims to accomplish. At this moment, I deem it

safe to say, it is properly engrossing more minds in this country than

any other subject now before the American people. The late John C.

Calhoun—one of the mightiest men that ever stood up in the American

senate—did not deem it beneath him; and he probably studied it as

deeply, though not as honestly, as Gerrit Smith, or William Lloyd

Garrison. He evinced the greatest familiarity with the subject; and the

greatest efforts of his last years in the senate had direct reference

to this movement. His eagle eye watched every new development connected

with it; and he was ever prompt to inform the south of every important

step in its progress. He never allowed himself to make light of it; but

always spoke of it and treated it as a matter of grave import; and in

this he showed himself a master of the mental, moral, and religious

constitution of human society. Daniel Webster, too, in the better days

of his life, before he gave his assent to the fugitive slave bill, and

trampled upon all his earlier and better convictions—when his eye was

yet single—he clearly comprehended the nature of the elements involved

in this movement; and in his own majestic eloquence, warned the south,

and the country, to have a care how they attempted to put it down. He

is an illustration that it is easier to give, than to take, good

advice. To these two men—the greatest men to whom the nation has yet

given birth—may be traced the two great facts of the present—the south

triumphant, and the north humbled. Their names may stand thus—Calhoun

and domination—Webster and degradation. Yet again. If to the enemies of

liberty this subject is one of engrossing interest, vastly more so

should it be such to freedom’s friends. The latter, it leads to the

gates of all valuable knowledge—philanthropic, ethical, and religious;

for it brings them to the study of man, wonderfully and fearfully

made—the proper study of man through all time—the open book, in which

are the records of time and eternity.

Of the existence and power of the anti-slavery movement, as a fact, you

need no evidence. The nation has seen its face, and felt the

controlling pressure of its hand. You have seen it moving in all

directions, and in all weathers, and in all places, appearing most

where desired least, and pressing hardest where most resisted. No place

is exempt. The quiet prayer meeting, and the stormy halls of national

debate, share its presence alike. It is a common intruder, and of

course has the name of being ungentlemanly. Brethren who had long sung,

in the most affectionate fervor, and with the greatest sense of

security,

Together let us sweetly live—together let us die,

have been suddenly and violently separated by it, and ranged in hostile

attitude toward each other. The Methodist, one of the most powerful

religious organizations of this country, has been rent asunder, and its

strongest bolts of denominational brotherhood started at a single

surge. It has changed the tone of the northern pulpit, and modified

that of the press. A celebrated divine, who, four years ago, was for

flinging his own mother, or brother, into the remorseless jaws of the

monster slavery, lest he should swallow up the Union, now recognizes

anti-slavery as a characteristic of future civilization. Signs and

wonders follow this movement; and the fact just stated is one of them.

Party ties are loosened by it; and men are compelled to take sides for

or against it, whether they will or not. Come from where he may, or

come for what he may, he is compelled to show his hand. What is this

mighty force? What is its history? and what is its destiny? Is it

ancient or modern, transient or permanent? Has it turned aside, like a

stranger and a sojourner, to tarry for a night? or has it come to rest

with us forever? Excellent chances are here for speculation; and some

of them are quite profound. We might, for instance, proceed to inquire

not only into the philosophy of the anti-slavery movement, but into the

philosophy of the law, in obedience to which that movement started into

existence. We might demand to know what is that law or power, which, at

different times, disposes the minds of men to this or that particular

object—now for peace, and now for war—now for freedom, and now for

slavery; but this profound question I leave to the abolitionists of the

superior class to answer. The speculations which must precede such

answer, would afford, perhaps, about the same satisfaction as the

learned theories which have rained down upon the world, from time to

time, as to the origin of evil. I shall, therefore, avoid water in

which I cannot swim, and deal with anti-slavery as a fact, like any

other fact in the history of mankind, capable of being described and

understood, both as to its internal forces, and its external phases and

relations.

[After an eloquent, a full, and highly interesting exposition of the

nature, character, and history of the anti-slavery movement, from the

insertion of which want of space precludes us, he concluded in the

following happy manner.]

Present organizations may perish, but the cause will go on. That cause

has a life, distinct and independent of the organizations patched up

from time to time to carry it forward. Looked at, apart from the bones

and sinews and body, it is a thing immortal. It is the very essence of

justice, liberty, and love. The moral life of human society, it cannot

die while conscience, honor, and humanity remain. If but one be filled

with it, the cause lives. Its incarnation in any one individual man,

leaves the whole world a priesthood, occupying the highest moral

eminence even that of disinterested benevolence. Whoso has ascended his

height, and has the grace to stand there, has the world at his feet,

and is the world’s teacher, as of divine right. He may set in judgment

on the age, upon the civilization of the age, and upon the religion of

the age; for he has a test, a sure and certain test, by which to try

all institutions, and to measure all men. I say, he may do this, but

this is not the chief business for which he is qualified. The great

work to which he is called is not that of judgment. Like the Prince of

Peace, he may say, if I judge, I judge righteous judgment; still

mainly, like him, he may say, this is not his work. The man who has

thoroughly embraced the principles of justice, love, and liberty, like

the true preacher of Christianity, is less anxious to reproach the

world of its sins, than to win it to repentance. His great work on

earth is to exemplify, and to illustrate, and to ingraft those

principles upon the living and practical understandings of all men

within the reach of his influence. This is his work; long or short his

years, many or few his adherents, powerful or weak his

instrumentalities, through good report, or through bad report, this is

his work. It is to snatch from the bosom of nature the latent facts of

each individual man’s experience, and with steady hand to hold them up

fresh and glowing, enforcing, with all his power, their acknowledgment

and practical adoption. If there be but _one_ such man in the land, no

matter what becomes of abolition societies and parties, there will be

an anti-slavery cause, and an anti-slavery movement. Fortunately for

that cause, and fortunately for him by whom it is espoused, it requires

no extraordinary amount of talent to preach it or to receive it when

preached. The grand secret of its power is, that each of its principles

is easily rendered appreciable to the faculty of reason in man, and

that the most unenlightened conscience has no difficulty in deciding on

which side to register its testimony. It can call its preachers from

among the fishermen, and raise them to power. In every human breast, it

has an advocate which can be silent only when the heart is dead. It

comes home to every man’s understanding, and appeals directly to every

man’s conscience. A man that does not recognize and approve for himself

the rights and privileges contended for, in behalf of the American

slave, has not yet been found. In whatever else men may differ, they

are alike in the apprehension of their natural and personal rights. The

difference between abolitionists and those by whom they are opposed, is

not as to principles. All are agreed in respect to these. The manner of

applying them is the point of difference.

The slaveholder himself, the daily robber of his equal brother,

discourses eloquently as to the excellency of justice, and the man who

employs a brutal driver to flay the flesh of his negroes, is not

offended when kindness and humanity are commended. Every time the

abolitionist speaks of justice, the anti-abolitionist assents says,

yes, I wish the world were filled with a disposition to render to every

man what is rightfully due him; I should then get what is due me.

That’s right; let us have justice. By all means, let us have justice.

Every time the abolitionist speaks in honor of human liberty, he

touches a chord in the heart of the anti-abolitionist, which responds

in harmonious vibrations. Liberty—yes, that is evidently my right, and

let him beware who attempts to invade or abridge that right. Every time

he speaks of love, of human brotherhood, and the reciprocal duties of

man and man, the anti-abolitionist assents—says, yes, all right—all

true—we cannot have such ideas too often, or too fully expressed. So he

says, and so he feels, and only shows thereby that he is a man as well

as an anti-abolitionist. You have only to keep out of sight the manner

of applying your principles, to get them endorsed every time.

Contemplating himself, he sees truth with absolute clearness and

distinctness. He only blunders when asked to lose sight of himself. In

his own cause he can beat a Boston lawyer, but he is dumb when asked to

plead the cause of others. He knows very well whatsoever he would have

done unto himself, but is quite in doubt as to having the same thing

done unto others. It is just here, that lions spring up in the path of

duty, and the battle once fought in heaven is refought on the earth. So

it is, so hath it ever been, and so must it ever be, when the claims of

justice and mercy make their demand at the door of human selfishness.

Nevertheless, there is that within which ever pleads for the right and

the just.

In conclusion, I have taken a sober view of the present anti-slavery

movement. I am sober, but not hopeless. There is no denying, for it is

everywhere admitted, that the anti-slavery question is the great moral

and social question now before the American people. A state of things

has gradually been developed, by which that question has become the

first thing in order. It must be met. Herein is my hope. The great idea

of impartial liberty is now fairly before the American people.

Anti-slavery is no longer a thing to be prevented. The time for

prevention is past. This is great gain. When the movement was younger

and weaker—when it wrought in a Boston garret to human apprehension, it

might have been silently put out of the way. Things are different now.

It has grown too large—its friends are too numerous—its facilities too

abundant—its ramifications too extended—its power too omnipotent, to be

snuffed out by the contingencies of infancy. A thousand strong men

might be struck down, and its ranks still be invincible. One flash from

the heart-supplied intellect of Harriet Beecher Stowe could light a

million camp fires in front of the embattled host of slavery, which not

all the waters of the Mississippi, mingled as they are with blood,

could extinguish. The present will be looked to by after coming

generations, as the age of anti-slavery literature—when supply on the

gallop could not keep pace with the ever growing demand—when a picture

of a Negro on the cover was a help to the sale of a book—when

conservative lyceums and other American literary associations began

first to select their orators for distinguished occasions from the

ranks of the previously despised abolitionists. If the anti-slavery

movement shall fail now, it will not be from outward opposition, but

from inward decay. Its auxiliaries are everywhere. Scholars, authors,

orators, poets, and statesmen give it their aid. The most brilliant of

American poets volunteer in its service. Whittier speaks in burning

verse to more than thirty thousand, in the National Era. Your own

Longfellow whispers, in every hour of trial and disappointment, “labor

and wait.” James Russell Lowell is reminding us that “men are more than

institutions.” Pierpont cheers the heart of the pilgrim in search of

liberty, by singing the praises of “the north star.” Bryant, too, is

with us; and though chained to the car of party, and dragged on amidst

a whirl of political excitement, he snatches a moment for letting drop

a smiling verse of sympathy for the man in chains. The poets are with

us. It would seem almost absurd to say it, considering the use that has

been made of them, that we have allies in the Ethiopian songs; those

songs that constitute our national music, and without which we have no

national music. They are heart songs, and the finest feelings of human

nature are expressed in them. “Lucy Neal,” “Old Kentucky Home,” and

“Uncle Ned,” can make the heart sad as well as merry, and can call

forth a tear as well as a smile. They awaken the sympathies for the

slave, in which antislavery principles take root, grow, and flourish.

In addition to authors, poets, and scholars at home, the moral sense of

the civilized world is with us. England, France, and Germany, the three

great lights of modern civilization, are with us, and every American

traveler learns to regret the existence of slavery in his country. The

growth of intelligence, the influence of commerce, steam, wind, and

lightning are our allies. It would be easy to amplify this summary, and

to swell the vast conglomeration of our material forces; but there is a

deeper and truer method of measuring the power of our cause, and of

comprehending its vitality. This is to be found in its accordance with

the best elements of human nature. It is beyond the power of slavery to

annihilate affinities recognized and established by the Almighty. The

slave is bound to mankind by the powerful and inextricable net-work of

human brotherhood. His voice is the voice of a man, and his cry is the

cry of a man in distress, and man must cease to be man before he can

become insensible to that cry. It is the righteous of the cause—the

humanity of the cause—which constitutes its potency. As one genuine

bankbill is worth more than a thousand counterfeits, so is one man,

with right on his side, worth more than a thousand in the wrong. “One

may chase a thousand, and put ten thousand to flight.” It is,

therefore, upon the goodness of our cause, more than upon all other

auxiliaries, that we depend for its final triumph.

Another source of congratulations is the fact that, amid all the

efforts made by the church, the government, and the people at large, to

stay the onward progress of this movement, its course has been onward,

steady, straight, unshaken, and unchecked from the beginning. Slavery

has gained victories large and numerous; but never as against this

movement—against a temporizing policy, and against northern timidity,

the slave power has been victorious; but against the spread and

prevalence in the country, of a spirit of resistance to its aggression,

and of sentiments favorable to its entire overthrow, it has yet

accomplished nothing. Every measure, yet devised and executed, having

for its object the suppression of anti-slavery, has been as idle and

fruitless as pouring oil to extinguish fire. A general rejoicing took

place on the passage of “the compromise measures” of 1850. Those

measures were called peace measures, and were afterward termed by both

the great parties of the country, as well as by leading statesmen, a

final settlement of the whole question of slavery; but experience has

laughed to scorn the wisdom of pro-slavery statesmen; and their final

settlement of agitation seems to be the final revival, on a broader and

grander scale than ever before, of the question which they vainly

attempted to suppress forever. The fugitive slave bill has especially

been of positive service to the anti-slavery movement. It has

illustrated before all the people the horrible character of slavery

toward the slave, in hunting him down in a free state, and tearing him

away from wife and children, thus setting its claims higher than

marriage or parental claims. It has revealed the arrogant and

overbearing spirit of the slave states toward the free states;

despising their principles—shocking their feelings of humanity, not

only by bringing before them the abominations of slavery, but by

attempting to make them parties to the crime. It has called into

exercise among the colored people, the hunted ones, a spirit of manly

resistance well calculated to surround them with a bulwark of sympathy

and respect hitherto unknown. For men are always disposed to respect

and defend rights, when the victims of oppression stand up manfully for

themselves.

There is another element of power added to the anti-slavery movement,

of great importance; it is the conviction, becoming every day more

general and universal, that slavery must be abolished at the south, or

it will demoralize and destroy liberty at the north. It is the nature

of slavery to beget a state of things all around it favorable to its

own continuance. This fact, connected with the system of bondage, is

beginning to be more fully realized. The slave-holder is not satisfied

to associate with men in the church or in the state, unless he can

thereby stain them with the blood of his slaves. To be a slave-holder

is to be a propagandist from necessity; for slavery can only live by

keeping down the under-growth morality which nature supplies. Every

new-born white babe comes armed from the Eternal presence, to make war

on slavery. The heart of pity, which would melt in due time over the

brutal chastisements it sees inflicted on the helpless, must be

hardened. And this work goes on every day in the year, and every hour

in the day.

What is done at home is being done also abroad here in the north. And

even now the question may be asked, have we at this moment a single

free state in the Union? The alarm at this point will become more

general. The slave power must go on in its career of exactions. Give,

give, will be its cry, till the timidity which concedes shall give

place to courage, which shall resist. Such is the voice of experience,

such has been the past, such is the present, and such will be that

future, which, so sure as man is man, will come. Here I leave the

subject; and I leave off where I began, consoling myself and

congratulating the friends of freedom upon the fact that the

anti-slavery cause is not a new thing under the sun; not some moral

delusion which a few years’ experience may dispel. It has appeared

among men in all ages, and summoned its advocates from all ranks. Its

foundations are laid in the deepest and holiest convictions, and from

whatever soul the demon, selfishness, is expelled, there will this

cause take up its abode. Old as the everlasting hills; immovable as the

throne of God; and certain as the purposes of eternal power, against

all hinderances, and against all delays, and despite all the mutations

of human instrumentalities, it is the faith of my soul, that this

anti-slavery cause will triumph.

FOOTNOTES

1 (return) [ Letter, Introduction to _Life of Frederick Douglass_,

Boston, 1841.]

2 (return) [ One of these ladies, impelled by the same noble spirit

which carried Miss Nightingale to Scutari, has devoted her time, her

untiring energies, to a great extent her means, and her high literary

abilities, to the advancement and support of Frederick Douglass’ Paper,

the only organ of the downtrodden, edited and published by one of

themselves, in the United States.]

3 (return) [ Mr. Stephen Myers, of Albany, deserves mention as one of

the most persevering among the colored editorial fraternity.]

4 (return) [ The German physiologists have even discovered vegetable

matter—starch—in the human body. See _Med. Chirurgical Rev_., Oct.,

1854, p. 339.]

5 (return) [ Mr. Wm. H. Topp, of Albany.]

6 (return) [ This is the same man who gave me the roots to prevent my

being whipped by Mr. Covey. He was “a clever soul.” We used frequently

to talk about the fight with Covey, and as often as we did so, he would

claim my success as the result of the roots which he gave me. This

superstition is very common among the more ignorant slaves. A slave

seldom dies, but that his death is attributed to trickery.]

7 (return) [ He was a whole-souled man, fully imbued with a love of his

afflicted and hunted people, and took pleasure in being to me, as was

his wont, “Eyes to the blind, and legs to the lame.” This brave and

devoted man suffered much from the persecutions common to all who have

been prominent benefactors. He at last became blind, and needed a

friend to guide him, even as he had been a guide to others. Even in his

blindness, he exhibited his manly character. In search of health, he

became a physician. When hope of gaining is(sic) own was gone, he had

hope for others. Believing in hydropathy, he established, at

Northampton, Massachusetts, a large _“Water Cure,”_ and became one of

the most successful of all engaged in that mode of treatment.]

8 (return) [ The following is a copy of these curious papers, both of

my transfer from Thomas to Hugh Auld, and from Hugh to myself:

“Know all men by these Presents, That I, Thomas Auld, of Talbot county,

and state of Maryland, for and in consideration of the sum of one

hundred dollars, current money, to me paid by Hugh Auld, of the city of

Baltimore, in the said state, at and before the sealing and delivery of

these presents, the receipt whereof, I, the said Thomas Auld, do hereby

acknowledge, have granted, bargained, and sold, and by these presents

do grant, bargain, and sell unto the said Hugh Auld, his executors,

administrators, and assigns, ONE NEGRO MAN, by the name of FREDERICK

BAILY, or DOUGLASS, as he callls(sic) himself—he is now about

twenty-eight years of age—to have and to hold the said negro man for

life. And I, the said Thomas Auld, for myself my heirs, executors, and

administrators, all and singular, the said FREDERICK BAILY _alias_

DOUGLASS, unto the said Hugh Auld, his executors, administrators, and

assigns against me, the said Thomas Auld, my executors, and

administrators, and against ali and every other person or persons

whatsoever, shall and will warrant and forever defend by these

presents. In witness whereof, I set my hand and seal, this thirteenth

day of November, eighteen hundred and forty-six.

THOMAS AULD

“Signed, sealed, and delivered in presence of Wrightson Jones.

“JOHN C. LEAS.

The authenticity of this bill of sale is attested by N. Harrington, a

justice of the peace of the state of Maryland, and for the county of

Talbot, dated same day as above.

“To all whom it may concern: Be it known, that I, Hugh Auld, of the

city of Baltimore, in Baltimore county, in the state of Maryland, for

divers good causes and considerations, me thereunto moving, have

released from slavery, liberated, manumitted, and set free, and by

these presents do hereby release from slavery, liberate, manumit, and

set free, MY NEGRO MAN, named FREDERICK BAILY, otherwise called

DOUGLASS, being of the age of twenty-eight years, or thereabouts, and

able to work and gain a sufficient livelihood and maintenance; and him

the said negro man named FREDERICK BAILY, otherwise called FREDERICK

DOUGLASS, I do declare to be henceforth free, manumitted, and

discharged from all manner of servitude to me, my executors, and

administrators forever.

“In witness whereof, I, the said Hugh Auld, have hereunto set my hand

and seal the fifth of December, in the year one thousand eight hundred

and forty-six.

Hugh Auld

“Sealed and delivered in presence of T. Hanson Belt.

“JAMES N. S. T. WRIGHT”]

9 (return) [ See Appendix to this volume, page 317.]

10 (return) [ Mr. Douglass’ published speeches alone, would fill two

volumes of the size of this. Our space will only permit the insertion

of the extracts which follow; and which, for originality of thought,

beauty and force of expression, and for impassioned, indignatory

eloquence, have seldom been equaled.]

11 (return) [ It is not often that chattels address their owners. The

following letter is unique; and probably the only specimen of the kind

extant. It was written while in England.]