MY BONDAGE and MY FREEDOM by FREDERICK DOUGLASS

Could the kind reader have been quietly riding along the main
road to or from Easton, that morning, his eye would have met a
painful sight. He would have seen five young men, guilty of no
crime, save that of preferring _liberty_ to a life of _bondage_,
drawn along the public highway--firmly bound together--tramping
through dust and heat, bare-footed and bare-headed--fastened to
three strong horses, whose riders were armed to the teeth, with
pistols and daggers--on their way to prison, like felons, and
suffering every possible insult from the crowds of idle, vulgar
people, who clustered around, and heartlessly made their failure
the occasion for all manner of ribaldry and sport. As I looked
upon this crowd of vile persons, and saw myself and friends thus
assailed and persecuted, I could not help seeing the fulfillment
of Sandy's dream. I was in the hands of moral vultures, and
firmly held in their sharp talons, and was hurried away toward
Easton, in a south-easterly direction, amid the jeers of new
birds of the same feather, through every neighborhood we passed.
It seemed to me (and this shows the good understanding between
the slaveholders and their allies) that every body we met knew
<228>the cause of our arrest, and were out, awaiting our passing
by, to feast their vindictive eyes on our misery and to gloat
over our ruin. Some said, _I ought to be hanged_, and others, _I
ought to be burnt_, others, I ought to have the _"hide"_ taken
from my back; while no one gave us a kind word or sympathizing
look, except the poor slaves, who were lifting their heavy hoes,
and who cautiously glanced at us through the post-and-rail
fences, behind which they were at work. Our sufferings, that
morning, can be more easily imagined than described. Our hopes
were all blasted, at a blow. The cruel injustice, the victorious
crime, and the helplessness of innocence, led me to ask, in my
ignorance and weakness "Where now is the God of justice and
mercy? And why have these wicked men the power thus to trample
upon our rights, and to insult our feelings?" And yet, in the
next moment, came the consoling thought, _"The day of oppressor
will come at last."_ Of one thing I could be glad--not one of my
dear friends, upon whom I had brought this great calamity, either
by word or look, reproached me for having led them into it. We
were a band of brothers, and never dearer to each other than now.
The thought which gave us the most pain, was the probable
separation which would now take place, in case we were sold off
to the far south, as we were likely to be. While the constables
were looking forward, Henry and I, being fastened together, could
occasionally exchange a word, without being observed by the
kidnappers who had us in charge. "What shall I do with my pass?"
said Henry. "Eat it with your biscuit," said I; "it won't do to
tear it up." We were now near St. Michael's. The direction
concerning the passes was passed around, and executed. _"Own
nothing!"_ said I. _"Own nothing!"_ was passed around and
enjoined, and assented to. Our confidence in each other was
unshaken; and we were quite resolved to succeed or fail
together--as much after the calamity which had befallen us, as
before.
On reaching St. Michael's, we underwent a sort of examination at
my master's store, and it was evident to my mind, that Master
<229 THE DENIAL>Thomas suspected the truthfulness of the evidence
upon which they had acted in arresting us; and that he only
affected, to some extent, the positiveness with which he asserted
our guilt. There was nothing said by any of our company, which
could, in any manner, prejudice our cause; and there was hope,
yet, that we should be able to return to our homes--if for
nothing else, at least to find out the guilty man or woman who
had betrayed us.
To this end, we all denied that we had been guilty of intended
flight. Master Thomas said that the evidence he had of our
intention to run away, was strong enough to hang us, in a case of
murder. "But," said I, "the cases are not equal. If murder were
committed, some one must have committed it--the thing is done!
In our case, nothing has been done! We have not run away. Where
is the evidence against us? We were quietly at our work." I
talked thus, with unusual freedom, to bring out the evidence
against us, for we all wanted, above all things, to know the
guilty wretch who had betrayed us, that we might have something
tangible upon which to pour the execrations. From something
which dropped, in the course of the talk, it appeared that there
was but one witness against us--and that that witness could not
be produced. Master Thomas would not tell us _who_ his informant
was; but we suspected, and suspected _one_ person _only_.
Several circumstances seemed to point SANDY out, as our betrayer.
His entire knowledge of our plans his participation in them--his
withdrawal from us--his dream, and his simultaneous presentiment
that we were betrayed--the taking us, and the leaving him--were
calculated to turn suspicion toward him; and yet, we could not
suspect him. We all loved him too well to think it _possible_
that he could have betrayed us. So we rolled the guilt on other
shoulders.
We were literally dragged, that morning, behind horses, a
distance of fifteen miles, and placed in the Easton jail. We
were glad to reach the end of our journey, for our pathway had
been the scene of insult and mortification. Such is the power of
public <230>opinion, that it is hard, even for the innocent, to
feel the happy consolations of innocence, when they fall under
the maledictions of this power. How could we regard ourselves as
in the right, when all about us denounced us as criminals, and
had the power and the disposition to treat us as such.
In jail, we were placed under the care of Mr. Joseph Graham, the
sheriff of the county. Henry, and John, and myself, were placed
in one room, and Henry Baily and Charles Roberts, in another, by
themselves. This separation was intended to deprive us of the
advantage of concert, and to prevent trouble in jail.
Once shut up, a new set of tormentors came upon us. A swarm of
imps, in human shape the slave-traders, deputy slave-traders, and
agents of slave-traders--that gather in every country town of the
state, watching for chances to buy human flesh (as buzzards to
eat carrion) flocked in upon us, to ascertain if our masters had
placed us in jail to be sold. Such a set of debased and
villainous creatures, I never saw before, and hope never to see
again. I felt myself surrounded as by a pack of _fiends_, fresh
from _perdition_. They laughed, leered, and grinned at us;
saying, "Ah! boys, we've got you, havn't we? So you were about
to make your escape? Where were you going to?" After taunting
us, and peering at us, as long as they liked, they one by one
subjected us to an examination, with a view to ascertain our
value; feeling our arms and legs, and shaking us by the shoulders
to see if we were sound and healthy; impudently asking us, "how
we would like to have them for masters?" To such questions, we
were, very much to their annoyance, quite dumb, disdaining to
answer them. For one, I detested the whisky-bloated gamblers in
human flesh; and I believe I was as much detested by them in
turn. One fellow told me, "if he had me, he would cut the devil
out of me pretty quick."
These Negro buyers are very offensive to the genteel southern
Christian public. They are looked upon, in respectable Maryland
society, as necessary, but detestable characters. As a class,
they <231 SLAVE-TRADERS>are hardened ruffians, made such by
nature and by occupation. Their ears are made quite familiar
with the agonizing cry of outraged and woe-smitted humanity.
Their eyes are forever open to human misery. They walk amid
desecrated affections, insulted virtue, and blasted hopes. They
have grown intimate with vice and blood; they gloat over the
wildest illustrations of their soul-damning and earth-polluting
business, and are moral pests. Yes; they are a legitimate fruit
of slavery; and it is a puzzle to make out a case of greater
villainy for them, than for the slaveholders, who make such a
class _possible_. They are mere hucksters of the surplus slave
produce of Maryland and Virginia coarse, cruel, and swaggering
bullies, whose very breathing is of blasphemy and blood.
Aside from these slave-buyers, who infested the prison, from time
to time, our quarters were much more comfortable than we had any
right to expect they would be. Our allowance of food was small
and coarse, but our room was the best in the jail--neat and
spacious, and with nothing about it necessarily reminding us of
being in prison, but its heavy locks and bolts and the black,
iron lattice-work at the windows. We were prisoners of state,
compared with most slaves who are put into that Easton jail. But
the place was not one of contentment. Bolts, bars and grated
windows are not acceptable to freedom-loving people of any color.
The suspense, too, was painful. Every step on the stairway was
listened to, in the hope that the comer would cast a ray of light
on our fate. We would have given the hair off our heads for half
a dozen words with one of the waiters in Sol. Lowe's hotel. Such
waiters were in the way of hearing, at the table, the probable
course of things. We could see them flitting about in their
white jackets in front of this hotel, but could speak to none of
them.
Soon after the holidays were over, contrary to all our
expectations, Messrs. Hamilton and Freeland came up to Easton;
not to make a bargain with the "Georgia traders," nor to send us
up to Austin Woldfolk, as is usual in the case of run-away
salves, <232>but to release Charles, Henry Harris, Henry Baily
and John Harris, from prison, and this, too, without the
infliction of a single blow. I was now left entirely alone in
prison. The innocent had been taken, and the guilty left. My
friends were separated from me, and apparently forever. This
circumstance caused me more pain than any other incident
connected with our capture and imprisonment. Thirty-nine lashes
on my naked and bleeding back, would have been joyfully borne, in
preference to this separation from these, the friends of my
youth. And yet, I could not but feel that I was the victim of
something like justice. Why should these young men, who were led
into this scheme by me, suffer as much as the instigator? I felt
glad that they were leased from prison, and from the dread
prospect of a life (or death I should rather say) in the rice
swamps. It is due to the noble Henry, to say, that he seemed
almost as reluctant to leave the prison with me in it, as he was
to be tied and dragged to prison. But he and the rest knew that
we should, in all the likelihoods of the case, be separated, in
the event of being sold; and since we were now completely in the
hands of our owners, we all concluded it would be best to go
peaceably home.
Not until this last separation, dear reader, had I touched those
profounder depths of desolation, which it is the lot of slaves
often to reach. I was solitary in the world, and alone within
the walls of a stone prison, left to a fate of life-long misery.
I had hoped and expected much, for months before, but my hopes
and expectations were now withered and blasted. The ever dreaded
slave life in Georgia, Louisiana and Alabama--from which escape
is next to impossible now, in my loneliness, stared me in the
face. The possibility of ever becoming anything but an abject
slave, a mere machine in the hands of an owner, had now fled, and
it seemed to me it had fled forever. A life of living death,
beset with the innumerable horrors of the cotton field, and the
sugar plantation, seemed to be my doom. The fiends, who rushed
into the prison when we were first put there, continued to visit
me, <233 LEFT ALONE IN PRISON>and to ply me with questions and
with their tantalizing remarks. I was insulted, but helpless;
keenly alive to the demands of justice and liberty, but with no
means of asserting them. To talk to those imps about justice and
mercy, would have been as absurd as to reason with bears and
tigers. Lead and steel are the only arguments that they
understand.
After remaining in this life of misery and despair about a week,
which, by the way, seemed a month, Master Thomas, very much to my
surprise, and greatly to my relief, came to the prison, and took
me out, for the purpose, as he said, of sending me to Alabama,
with a friend of his, who would emancipate me at the end of eight
years. I was glad enough to get out of prison; but I had no
faith in the story that this friend of Capt. Auld would
emancipate me, at the end of the time indicated. Besides, I
never had heard of his having a friend in Alabama, and I took the
announcement, simply as an easy and comfortable method of
shipping me off to the far south. There was a little scandal,
too, connected with the idea of one Christian selling another to
the Georgia traders, while it was deemed every way proper for
them to sell to others. I thought this friend in Alabama was an
invention, to meet this difficulty, for Master Thomas was quite
jealous of his Christian reputation, however unconcerned he might
be about his real Christian character. In these remarks,
however, it is possible that I do Master Thomas Auld injustice.
He certainly did not exhaust his power upon me, in the case, but
acted, upon the whole, very generously, considering the nature of
my offense. He had the power and the provocation to send me,
without reserve, into the very everglades of Florida, beyond the
remotest hope of emancipation; and his refusal to exercise that
power, must be set down to his credit.
After lingering about St. Michael's a few days, and no friend
from Alabama making his appearance, to take me there, Master
Thomas decided to send me back again to Baltimore, to live with
his brother Hugh, with whom he was now at peace; possibly he
<234>became so by his profession of religion, at the camp-meeting
in the Bay Side. Master Thomas told me that he wished me to go
to Baltimore, and learn a trade; and that, if I behaved myself
properly, he would _emancipate me at twenty-five!_ Thanks for
this one beam of hope in the future. The promise had but one
fault; it seemed too good to be true.
CHAPTER XX
_Apprenticeship Life_
NOTHING LOST BY THE ATTEMPT TO RUN AWAY--COMRADES IN THEIR OLD
HOMES--REASONS FOR SENDING ME AWAY--RETURN TO BALTIMORE--
CONTRAST
BETWEEN TOMMY AND THAT OF HIS COLORED COMPANION--TRIALS IN
GARDINER'S SHIP YARD--DESPERATE FIGHT--ITS CAUSES--CONFLICT
BETWEEN WHITE AND BLACK LABOR--DESCRIPTION OF THE OUTRAGE--
COLORED TESTIMONY NOTHING--CONDUCT OF MASTER HUGH--SPIRIT OF
SLAVERY IN BALTIMORE--MY CONDITION IMPROVES--NEW ASSOCIATIONS--
SLAVEHOLDER'S RIGHT TO TAKE HIS WAGES--HOW TO MAKE A CONTENTED
SLAVE.
Well! dear reader, I am not, as you may have already inferred, a
loser by the general upstir, described in the foregoing chapter.
The little domestic revolution, notwithstanding the sudden snub
it got by the treachery of somebody--I dare not say or think
who--did not, after all, end so disastrously, as when in the iron
cage at Easton, I conceived it would. The prospect, from that
point, did look about as dark as any that ever cast its gloom
over the vision of the anxious, out-looking, human spirit. "All
is well that ends well." My affectionate comrades, Henry and
John Harris, are still with Mr. William Freeland. Charles
Roberts and Henry Baily are safe at their homes. I have not,
therefore, any thing to regret on their account. Their masters
have mercifully forgiven them, probably on the ground suggested
in the spirited little speech of Mrs. Freeland, made to me just
before leaving for the jail--namely: that they had been allured
into the wicked scheme of making their escape, by me; and that,
but for me, they would never have dreamed of a thing so shocking!
My <236>friends had nothing to regret, either; for while they
were watched more closely on account of what had happened, they
were, doubtless, treated more kindly than before, and got new
assurances that they would be legally emancipated, some day,
provided their behavior should make them deserving, from that
time forward. Not a blow, as I learned, was struck any one of
them. As for Master William Freeland, good, unsuspecting soul,
he did not believe that we were intending to run away at all.
Having given--as he thought--no occasion to his boys to leave
him, he could not think it probable that they had entertained a
design so grievous. This, however, was not the view taken of the
matter by "Mas' Billy," as we used to call the soft spoken, but
crafty and resolute Mr. William Hamilton. He had no doubt that
the crime had been meditated; and regarding me as the instigator
of it, he frankly told Master Thomas that he must remove me from
that neighborhood, or he would shoot me down. He would not have
one so dangerous as "Frederick" tampering with his slaves.
William Hamilton was not a man whose threat might be safely
disregarded. I have no doubt that he would have proved as good
as his word, had the warning given not been promptly taken. He
was furious at the thought of such a piece of high-handed
_theft_, as we were about to perpetrate the stealing of our own
bodies and souls! The feasibility of the plan, too, could the
first steps have been taken, was marvelously plain. Besides,
this was a _new_ idea, this use of the bay. Slaves escaping,
until now, had taken to the woods; they had never dreamed of
profaning and abusing the waters of the noble Chesapeake, by
making them the highway from slavery to freedom. Here was a
broad road of destruction to slavery, which, before, had been
looked upon as a wall of security by slaveholders. But Master
Billy could not get Mr. Freeland to see matters precisely as he
did; nor could he get Master Thomas so excited as he was himself.
The latter--I must say it to his credit--showed much humane
feeling in his part of the transaction, and atoned for much that
had been harsh, cruel <237 CHANGE IN LITTLE TOMMY>and
unreasonable in his former treatment of me and others. His
clemency was quite unusual and unlooked for. "Cousin Tom" told
me that while I was in jail, Master Thomas was very unhappy; and
that the night before his going up to release me, he had walked
the floor nearly all night, evincing great distress; that very
tempting offers had been made to him, by the Negro-traders, but
he had rejected them all, saying that _money could not tempt him
to sell me to the far south_. All this I can easily believe, for
he seemed quite reluctant to send me away, at all. He told me
that he only consented to do so, because of the very strong
prejudice against me in the neighborhood, and that he feared for
my safety if I remained there.
Thus, after three years spent in the country, roughing it in the
field, and experiencing all sorts of hardships, I was again
permitted to return to Baltimore, the very place, of all others,
short of a free state, where I most desired to live. The three
years spent in the country, had made some difference in me, and
in the household of Master Hugh. "Little Tommy" was no longer
_little_ Tommy; and I was not the slender lad who had left for
the Eastern Shore just three years before. The loving relations
between me and Mas' Tommy were broken up. He was no longer
dependent on me for protection, but felt himself a _man_, with
other and more suitable associates. In childhood, he scarcely
considered me inferior to himself certainly, as good as any other
boy with whom he played; but the time had come when his _friend_
must become his _slave_. So we were cold, and we parted. It was
a sad thing to me, that, loving each other as we had done, we
must now take different roads. To him, a thousand avenues were
open. Education had made him acquainted with all the treasures
of the world, and liberty had flung open the gates thereunto; but
I, who had attended him seven years, and had watched over him
with the care of a big brother, fighting his battles in the
street, and shielding him from harm, to an extent which had
induced his mother to say, "Oh! Tommy is always safe, when he is
with <238>Freddy," must be confined to a single condition. He
could grow, and become a MAN; I could grow, though I could _not_
become a man, but must remain, all my life, a minor--a mere boy.
Thomas Auld, Junior, obtained a situation on board the brig
"Tweed," and went to sea. I know not what has become of him; he
certainly has my good wishes for his welfare and prosperity.
There were few persons to whom I was more sincerely attached than
to him, and there are few in the world I would be more pleased to
meet.
Very soon after I went to Baltimore to live, Master Hugh
succeeded in getting me hired to Mr. William Gardiner, an
extensive ship builder on Fell's Point. I was placed here to
learn to calk, a trade of which I already had some knowledge,
gained while in Mr. Hugh Auld's ship-yard, when he was a master
builder. Gardiner's, however, proved a very unfavorable place
for the accomplishment of that object. Mr. Gardiner was, that
season, engaged in building two large man-of-war vessels,
professedly for the Mexican government. These vessels were to be
launched in the month of July, of that year, and, in failure
thereof, Mr. G. would forfeit a very considerable sum of money.
So, when I entered the ship-yard, all was hurry and driving.
There were in the yard about one hundred men; of these about
seventy or eighty were regular carpenters--privileged men.
Speaking of my condition here I wrote, years ago--and I have now
no reason to vary the picture as follows:
There was no time to learn any thing. Every man had to do that
which he knew how to do. In entering the ship-yard, my orders
from Mr. Gardiner were, to do whatever the carpenters commanded
me to do. This was placing me at the beck and call of about
seventy-five men. I was to regard all these as masters. Their
word was to be my law. My situation was a most trying one. At
times I needed a dozen pair of hands. I was called a dozen ways
in the space of a single minute. Three or four voices would
strike my ear at the same moment. It was--"Fred., come help me
to cant this timber here." "Fred., come carry this timber
yonder."--"Fred., bring that roller here."--"Fred., go get a
fresh can of water."--"Fred., come help saw off the end of this
timber."--"Fred., go quick and get the crow bar."--"Fred., hold
on the end of this fall."--"Fred., go to the blacksmith's shop,
and get a new punch."--<239 DESPERATE FIGHT>
"Hurra, Fred.! run and bring me a cold chisel."--"I say, Fred.,
bear a hand, and get up a fire as quick as lightning under that
steam-box."--"Halloo, nigger! come, turn this grindstone."--
"Come, come! move, move! and _bowse_ this timber forward."--"I
say, darkey, blast your eyes, why don't you heat up some
pitch?"--"Halloo! halloo! halloo!" (Three voices at the same
time.) "Come here!--Go there!--Hold on where you are! D--n you,
if you move, I'll knock your brains out!"
Such, dear reader, is a glance at the school which was mine,
during, the first eight months of my stay at Baltimore. At the
end of the eight months, Master Hugh refused longer to allow me
to remain with Mr. Gardiner. The circumstance which led to his
taking me away, was a brutal outrage, committed upon me by the
white apprentices of the ship-yard. The fight was a desperate
one, and I came out of it most shockingly mangled. I was cut and
bruised in sundry places, and my left eye was nearly knocked out
of its socket. The facts, leading to this barbarous outrage upon
me, illustrate a phase of slavery destined to become an important
element in the overthrow of the slave system, and I may,
therefore state them with some minuteness. That phase is this:
_the conflict of slavery with the interests of the white
mechanics and laborers of the south_. In the country, this
conflict is not so apparent; but, in cities, such as Baltimore,
Richmond, New Orleans, Mobile, &c., it is seen pretty clearly.
The slaveholders, with a craftiness peculiar to themselves, by
encouraging the enmity of the poor, laboring white man against
the blacks, succeeds in making the said white man almost as much
a slave as the black slave himself. The difference between the
white slave, and the black slave, is this: the latter belongs to
_one_ slaveholder, and the former belongs to _all_ the
slaveholders, collectively. The white slave has taken from him,
by indirection, what the black slave has taken from him,
directly, and without ceremony. Both are plundered, and by the
same plunderers. The slave is robbed, by his master, of all his
earnings, above what is required for his bare physical
necessities; and the white man is robbed by the slave system, of
the just results of his labor, because he is flung into
<240>competition with a class of laborers who work without wages.
The competition, and its injurious consequences, will, one day,
array the nonslaveholding white people of the slave states,
against the slave system, and make them the most effective
workers against the great evil. At present, the slaveholders
blind them to this competition, by keeping alive their prejudice
against the slaves, _as men_--not against them _as slaves_. They
appeal to their pride, often denouncing emancipation, as tending
to place the white man, on an equality with Negroes, and, by this
means, they succeed in drawing off the minds of the poor whites
from the real fact, that, by the rich slave-master, they are
already regarded as but a single remove from equality with the
slave. The impression is cunningly made, that slavery is the
only power that can prevent the laboring white man from falling
to the level of the slave's poverty and degradation. To make
this enmity deep and broad, between the slave and the poor white
man, the latter is allowed to abuse and whip the former, without
hinderance. But--as I have suggested--this state of facts
prevails _mostly_ in the country. In the city of Baltimore,
there are not unfrequent murmurs, that educating the slaves to be
mechanics may, in the end, give slavemasters power to dispense
with the services of the poor white man altogether. But, with
characteristic dread of offending the slaveholders, these poor,
white mechanics in Mr. Gardiner's ship-yard--instead of applying
the natural, honest remedy for the apprehended evil, and
objecting at once to work there by the side of slaves--made a
cowardly attack upon the free colored mechanics, saying _they_
were eating the bread which should be eaten by American freemen,
and swearing that they would not work with them. The feeling
was, _really_, against having their labor brought into
competition with that of the colored people at all; but it was
too much to strike directly at the interest of the slaveholders;
and, therefore proving their servility and cowardice they dealt
their blows on the poor, colored freeman, and aimed to prevent
_him_ from serving himself, in the evening of life, with the
trade <241 CONFLICT BETWEEN WHITE AND BLACK LABOR>with which he
had served his master, during the more vigorous portion of his
days. Had they succeeded in driving the black freemen out of the
ship-yard, they would have determined also upon the removal of
the black slaves. The feeling was very bitter toward all colored
people in Baltimore, about this time (1836), and they--free and
slave suffered all manner of insult and wrong.
Until a very little before I went there, white and black ship
carpenters worked side by side, in the ship yards of Mr.
Gardiner, Mr. Duncan, Mr. Walter Price, and Mr. Robb. Nobody
seemed to see any impropriety in it. To outward seeming, all
hands were well satisfied. Some of the blacks were first rate
workmen, and were given jobs requiring highest skill. All at
once, however, the white carpenters knocked off, and swore that
they would no longer work on the same stage with free Negroes.
Taking advantage of the heavy contract resting upon Mr. Gardiner,
to have the war vessels for Mexico ready to launch in July, and
of the difficulty of getting other hands at that season of the
year, they swore they would not strike another blow for him,
unless he would discharge his free colored workmen.
Now, although this movement did not extend to me, _in form_, it
did reach me, _in fact_. The spirit which it awakened was one of
malice and bitterness, toward colored people _generally_, and I
suffered with the rest, and suffered severely. My fellow
apprentices very soon began to feel it to be degrading to work
with me. They began to put on high looks, and to talk
contemptuously and maliciously of _"the Niggers;"_ saying, that
"they would take the country," that "they ought to be killed."
Encouraged by the cowardly workmen, who, knowing me to be a
slave, made no issue with Mr. Gardiner about my being there,
these young men did their utmost to make it impossible for me to
stay. They seldom called me to do any thing, without coupling
the call with a curse, and Edward North, the biggest in every
thing, rascality included, ventured to strike me, whereupon I
picked him up, and threw <242>him into the dock. Whenever any of
them struck me, I struck back again, regardless of consequences.
I could manage any of them _singly_, and, while I could keep them
from combining, I succeeded very well. In the conflict which
ended my stay at Mr. Gardiner's, I was beset by four of them at
once--Ned North, Ned Hays, Bill Stewart, and Tom Humphreys. Two
of them were as large as myself, and they came near killing me,
in broad day light. The attack was made suddenly, and
simultaneously. One came in front, armed with a brick; there was
one at each side, and one behind, and they closed up around me.
I was struck on all sides; and, while I was attending to those in
front, I received a blow on my head, from behind, dealt with a
heavy hand-spike. I was completely stunned by the blow, and
fell, heavily, on the ground, among the timbers. Taking
advantage of my fall, they rushed upon me, and began to pound me
with their fists. I let them lay on, for a while, after I came
to myself, with a view of gaining strength. They did me little
damage, so far; but, finally, getting tired of that sport, I gave
a sudden surge, and, despite their weight, I rose to my hands and
knees. Just as I did this, one of their number (I know not
which) planted a blow with his boot in my left eye, which, for a
time, seemed to have burst my eyeball. When they saw my eye
completely closed, my face covered with blood, and I staggering
under the stunning blows they had given me, they left me. As
soon as I gathered sufficient strength, I picked up the handspike,
and, madly enough, attempted to pursue them; but here the
carpenters interfered, and compelled me to give up my frenzied
pursuit. It was impossible to stand against so many.
Dear reader, you can hardly believe the statement, but it is
true, and, therefore, I write it down: not fewer than fifty white
men stood by, and saw this brutal and shameless outrage
committed, and not a man of them all interposed a single word of
mercy. There were four against one, and that one's face was
beaten and battered most horribly, and no one said, "that is
enough;" but some cried out, "Kill him--kill him--kill the d--d
<243 CONDUCT OF MASTER HUGH>nigger! knock his brains out--he
struck a white person." I mention this inhuman outcry, to show
the character of the men, and the spirit of the times, at
Gardiner's ship yard, and, indeed, in Baltimore generally, in
1836. As I look back to this period, I am almost amazed that I
was not murdered outright, in that ship yard, so murderous was
the spirit which prevailed there. On two occasions, while there,
I came near losing my life. I was driving bolts in the hold,
through the keelson, with Hays. In its course, the bolt bent.
Hays cursed me, and said that it was my blow which bent the bolt.
I denied this, and charged it upon him. In a fit of rage he
seized an adze, and darted toward me. I met him with a maul, and
parried his blow, or I should have then lost my life. A son of
old Tom Lanman (the latter's double murder I have elsewhere
charged upon him), in the spirit of his miserable father, made an
assault upon me, but the blow with his maul missed me. After the
united assault of North, Stewart, Hays and Humphreys, finding
that the carpenters were as bitter toward me as the apprentices,
and that the latter were probably set on by the former, I found
my only chances for life was in flight. I succeeded in getting
away, without an additional blow. To strike a white man, was
death, by Lynch law, in Gardiner's ship yard; nor was there much
of any other law toward colored people, at that time, in any
other part of Maryland. The whole sentiment of Baltimore was
murderous.
After making my escape from the ship yard, I went straight home,
and related the story of the outrage to Master Hugh Auld; and it
is due to him to say, that his conduct--though he was not a
religious man--was every way more humane than that of his
brother, Thomas, when I went to the latter in a somewhat similar
plight, from the hands of _"Brother Edward Covey."_ He listened
attentively to my narration of the circumstances leading to the
ruffianly outrage, and gave many proofs of his strong indignation
at what was done. Hugh was a rough, but manly-hearted fellow,
and, at this time, his best nature showed itself.
<244>
The heart of my once almost over-kind mistress, Sophia, was again
melted in pity toward me. My puffed-out eye, and my scarred and
blood-covered face, moved the dear lady to tears. She kindly
drew a chair by me, and with friendly, consoling words, she took
water, and washed the blood from my face. No mother's hand could
have been more tender than hers. She bound up my head, and
covered my wounded eye with a lean piece of fresh beef. It was
almost compensation for the murderous assault, and my suffering,
that it furnished and occasion for the manifestation, once more,
of the orignally{sic} characteristic kindness of my mistress.
Her affectionate heart was not yet dead, though much hardened by
time and by circumstances.
As for Master Hugh's part, as I have said, he was furious about
it; and he gave expression to his fury in the usual forms of
speech in that locality. He poured curses on the heads of the
whole ship yard company, and swore that he would have
satisfaction for the outrage. His indignation was really strong
and healthy; but, unfortunately, it resulted from the thought
that his rights of property, in my person, had not been
respected, more than from any sense of the outrage committed on
me _as a man_. I inferred as much as this, from the fact that he
could, himself, beat and mangle when it suited him to do so.
Bent on having satisfaction, as he said, just as soon as I got a
little the better of my bruises, Master Hugh took me to Esquire
Watson's office, on Bond street, Fell's Point, with a view to
procuring the arrest of those who had assaulted me. He related
the outrage to the magistrate, as I had related it to him, and
seemed to expect that a warrant would, at once, be issued for the
arrest of the lawless ruffians.
Mr. Watson heard it all, and instead of drawing up his warrant,
he inquired.--
"Mr. Auld, who saw this assault of which you speak?"
"It was done, sir, in the presence of a ship yard full of hands."
"Sir," said Watson, "I am sorry, but I cannot move in this matter
except upon the oath of white witnesses."
<245 COLORED TESTIMONY NOTHING>
"But here's the boy; look at his head and face," said the excited
Master Hugh; _"they_ show _what_ has been done."
But Watson insisted that he was not authorized to do anything,
unless _white_ witnesses of the transaction would come forward,
and testify to what had taken place. He could issue no warrant
on my word, against white persons; and, if I had been killed in
the presence of a _thousand blacks_, their testimony, combined
would have been insufficient to arrest a single murderer. Master
Hugh, for once, was compelled to say, that this state of things
was _too bad;_ and he left the office of the magistrate,
disgusted.
Of course, it was impossible to get any white man to testify
against my assailants. The carpenters saw what was done; but the
actors were but the agents of their malice, and only what the
carpenters sanctioned. They had cried, with one accord, _"Kill
the nigger!" "Kill the nigger!"_ Even those who may have pitied
me, if any such were among them, lacked the moral courage to come
and volunteer their evidence. The slightest manifestation of
sympathy or justice toward a person of color, was denounced as
abolitionism; and the name of abolitionist, subjected its bearer
to frightful liabilities. "D--n _abolitionists,"_ and _"Kill the
niggers,"_ were the watch-words of the foul-mouthed ruffians of
those days. Nothing was done, and probably there would not have
been any thing done, had I been killed in the affray. The laws
and the morals of the Christian city of Baltimore, afforded no
protection to the sable denizens of that city.
Master Hugh, on finding he could get no redress for the cruel
wrong, withdrew me from the employment of Mr. Gardiner, and took
me into his own family, Mrs. Auld kindly taking care of me, and
dressing my wounds, until they were healed, and I was ready to go
again to work.
While I was on the Eastern Shore, Master Hugh had met with
reverses, which overthrew his business; and he had given up ship
building in his own yard, on the City Block, and was now acting
as foreman of Mr. Walter Price. The best he could now do for me,
<246>was to take me into Mr. Price's yard, and afford me the
facilities there, for completing the trade which I had began to
learn at Gardiner's. Here I rapidly became expert in the use of
my calking tools; and, in the course of a single year, I was able
to command the highest wages paid to journeymen calkers in
Baltimore.
The reader will observe that I was now of some pecuniary value to
my master. During the busy season, I was bringing six and seven
dollars per week. I have, sometimes, brought him as much as nine
dollars a week, for the wages were a dollar and a half per day.
After learning to calk, I sought my own employment, made my own
contracts, and collected my own earnings; giving Master Hugh no
trouble in any part of the transactions to which I was a party.
Here, then, were better days for the Eastern Shore _slave_. I
was now free from the vexatious assalts{sic} of the apprentices
at Mr. Gardiner's; and free from the perils of plantation life,
and once more in a favorable condition to increase my little
stock of education, which had been at a dead stand since my
removal from Baltimore. I had, on the Eastern Shore, been only a
teacher, when in company with other slaves, but now there were
colored persons who could instruct me. Many of the young calkers
could read, write and cipher. Some of them had high notions
about mental improvement; and the free ones, on Fell's Point,
organized what they called the _"East Baltimore Mental
Improvement Society."_ To this society, notwithstanding it was
intended that only free persons should attach themselves, I was
admitted, and was, several times, assigned a prominent part in
its debates. I owe much to the society of these young men.
The reader already knows enough of the _ill_ effects of good
treatment on a slave, to anticipate what was now the case in my
improved condition. It was not long before I began to show signs
of disquiet with slavery, and to look around for means to get out
of that condition by the shortest route. I was living among
_free_<247 MY CONDITION IMPROVES>_men;_ and was, in all respects,
equal to them by nature and by attainments. _Why should I be a
slave?_ There was _no_ reason why I should be the thrall of any
man.
Besides, I was now getting--as I have said--a dollar and fifty
cents per day. I contracted for it, worked for it, earned it,
collected it; it was paid to me, and it was _rightfully_ my own;
and yet, upon every returning Saturday night, this money--my own
hard earnings, every cent of it--was demanded of me, and taken
from me by Master Hugh. He did not earn it; he had no hand in
earning it; why, then, should he have it? I owed him nothing.
He had given me no schooling, and I had received from him only my
food and raiment; and for these, my services were supposed to
pay, from the first. The right to take my earnings, was the
right of the robber. He had the power to compel me to give him
the fruits of my labor, and this power was his only right in the
case. I became more and more dissatisfied with this state of
things; and, in so becoming, I only gave proof of the same human
nature which every reader of this chapter in my life--
slaveholder, or nonslaveholder--is conscious of possessing.
To make a contented slave, you must make a thoughtless one. It
is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and, as far
as possible, to annihilate his power of reason. He must be able
to detect no inconsistencies in slavery. The man that takes his
earnings, must be able to convince him that he has a perfect
right to do so. It must not depend upon mere force; the slave
must know no Higher Law than his master's will. The whole
relationship must not only demonstrate, to his mind, its
necessity, but its absolute rightfulness. If there be one
crevice through which a single drop can fall, it will certainly
rust off the slave's chain.
CHAPTER XXI
_My Escape from Slavery_
CLOSING INCIDENTS OF "MY LIFE AS A SLAVE"--REASONS WHY FULL
PARTICULARS OF THE MANNER OF MY ESCAPE WILL NOT BE GIVEN--
CRAFTINESS AND MALICE OF SLAVEHOLDERS--SUSPICION OF AIDING A
SLAVE'S ESCAPE ABOUT AS DANGEROUS AS POSITIVE EVIDENCE--WANT
OF
WISDOM SHOWN IN PUBLISHING DETAILS OF THE ESCAPE OF THE
FUGITIVES--PUBLISHED ACCOUNTS REACH THE MASTERS, NOT THE
SLAVES--
SLAVEHOLDERS STIMULATED TO GREATER WATCHFULNESS--MY
CONDITION--
DISCONTENT--SUSPICIONS IMPLIED BY MASTER HUGH'S MANNER, WHEN
RECEIVING MY WAGES--HIS OCCASIONAL GENEROSITY!--DIFFICULTIES IN
THE WAY OF ESCAPE--EVERY AVENUE GUARDED--PLAN TO OBTAIN
MONEY--I
AM ALLOWED TO HIRE MY TIME--A GLEAM OF HOPE--ATTENDS CAMPMEETING,
WITHOUT PERMISSION--ANGER OF MASTER HUGH THEREAT--THE
RESULT--MY PLANS OF ESCAPE ACCELERATED THERBY--THE DAY FOR MY
DEPARTURE FIXED--HARASSED BY DOUBTS AND FEARS--PAINFUL
THOUGHTS
OF SEPARATION FROM FRIENDS--THE ATTEMPT MADE--ITS SUCCESS.
I will now make the kind reader acquainted with the closing
incidents of my "Life as a Slave," having already trenched upon
the limit allotted to my "Life as a Freeman." Before, however,
proceeding with this narration, it is, perhaps, proper that I
should frankly state, in advance, my intention to withhold a part
of the{sic} connected with my escape from slavery. There are
reasons for this suppression, which I trust the reader will deem
altogether valid. It may be easily conceived, that a full and
complete statement of all facts pertaining to the flight of a
bondman, might implicate and embarrass some who may have,
wittingly or unwittingly, assisted him; and no one can wish me to
involve any man or <249 MANNER OF MY ESCAPE NOT GIVEN>woman who
has befriended me, even in the liability of embarrassment or
trouble.
Keen is the scent of the slaveholder; like the fangs of the
rattlesnake, his malice retains its poison long; and, although it
is now nearly seventeen years since I made my escape, it is well
to be careful, in dealing with the circumstances relating to it.
Were I to give but a shadowy outline of the process adopted, with
characteristic aptitude, the crafty and malicious among the
slaveholders might, possibly, hit upon the track I pursued, and
involve some one in suspicion which, in a slave state, is about
as bad as positive evidence. The colored man, there, must not
only shun evil, but shun the very _appearance_ of evil, or be
condemned as a criminal. A slaveholding community has a peculiar
taste for ferreting out offenses against the slave system,
justice there being more sensitive in its regard for the peculiar
rights of this system, than for any other interest or
institution. By stringing together a train of events and
circumstances, even if I were not very explicit, the means of
escape might be ascertained, and, possibly, those means be
rendered, thereafter, no longer available to the liberty-seeking
children of bondage I have left behind me. No antislavery man
can wish me to do anything favoring such results, and no
slaveholding reader has any right to expect the impartment of
such information.
While, therefore, it would afford me pleasure, and perhaps would
materially add to the interest of my story, were I at liberty to
gratify a curiosity which I know to exist in the minds of many,
as to the manner of my escape, I must deprive myself of this
pleasure, and the curious of the gratification, which such a
statement of facts would afford. I would allow myself to suffer
under the greatest imputations that evil minded men might
suggest, rather than exculpate myself by explanation, and thereby
run the hazards of closing the slightest avenue by which a
brother in suffering might clear himself of the chains and
fetters of slavery.
The practice of publishing every new invention by which a
<250>slave is known to have escaped from slavery, has neither
wisdom nor necessity to sustain it. Had not Henry Box Brown and
his friends attracted slaveholding attention to the manner of his
escape, we might have had a thousand _Box Browns_ per annum. The
singularly original plan adopted by William and Ellen Crafts,
perished with the first using, because every slaveholder in the
land was apprised of it. The _salt water slave_ who hung in the
guards of a steamer, being washed three days and three nights--
like another Jonah--by the waves of the sea, has, by the
publicity given to the circumstance, set a spy on the guards of
every steamer departing from southern ports.
I have never approved of the very public manner, in which some of
our western friends have conducted what _they_ call the _"Underground
Railroad,"_ but which, I think, by their open
declarations, has been made, most emphatically, the _"Upper_-
ground Railroad." Its stations are far better known to the
slaveholders than to the slaves. I honor those good men and
women for their noble daring, in willingly subjecting themselves
to persecution, by openly avowing their participation in the
escape of slaves; nevertheless, the good resulting from such
avowals, is of a very questionable character. It may kindle an
enthusiasm, very pleasant to inhale; but that is of no practical
benefit to themselves, nor to the slaves escaping. Nothing is
more evident, than that such disclosures are a positive evil to
the slaves remaining, and seeking to escape. In publishing such
accounts, the anti-slavery man addresses the slaveholder, _not
the slave;_ he stimulates the former to greater watchfulness, and
adds to his facilities for capturing his slave. We owe something
to the slaves, south of Mason and Dixon's line, as well as to
those north of it; and, in discharging the duty of aiding the
latter, on their way to freedom, we should be careful to do
nothing which would be likely to hinder the former, in making
their escape from slavery. Such is my detestation of slavery,
that I would keep the merciless slaveholder profoundly ignorant
of the means of flight adopted by the slave. He <251 CRAFTINESS
OF SLAVEHOLDERS>should be left to imagine himself surrounded by
myriads of invisible tormentors, ever ready to snatch, from his
infernal grasp, his trembling prey. In pursuing his victim, let
him be left to feel his way in the dark; let shades of darkness,
commensurate with his crime, shut every ray of light from his
pathway; and let him be made to feel, that, at every step he
takes, with the hellish purpose of reducing a brother man to
slavery, he is running the frightful risk of having his hot
brains dashed out by an invisible hand.
But, enough of this. I will now proceed to the statement of
those facts, connected with my escape, for which I am alone
responsible, and for which no one can be made to suffer but
myself.
My condition in the year (1838) of my escape, was, comparatively,
a free and easy one, so far, at least, as the wants of the
physical man were concerned; but the reader will bear in mind,
that my troubles from the beginning, have been less physical than
mental, and he will thus be prepared to find, after what is
narrated in the previous chapters, that slave life was adding
nothing to its charms for me, as I grew older, and became better
acquainted with it. The practice, from week to week, of openly
robbing me of all my earnings, kept the nature and character of
slavery constantly before me. I could be robbed by
_indirection_, but this was _too_ open and barefaced to be
endured. I could see no reason why I should, at the end of each
week, pour the reward of my honest toil into the purse of any
man. The thought itself vexed me, and the manner in which Master
Hugh received my wages, vexed me more than the original wrong.
Carefully counting the money and rolling it out, dollar by
dollar, he would look me in the face, as if he would search my
heart as well as my pocket, and reproachfully ask me, "_Is that
all_?"--implying that I had, perhaps, kept back part of my wages;
or, if not so, the demand was made, possibly, to make me feel,
that, after all, I was an "unprofitable servant." Draining me of
the last cent of my hard earnings, he would, however,
occasionally--when I brought <252>home an extra large sum--dole
out to me a sixpence or a shilling, with a view, perhaps, of
kindling up my gratitude; but this practice had the opposite
effect--it was an admission of _my right to the whole sum_. The
fact, that he gave me any part of my wages, was proof that he
suspected that I had a right _to the whole of them_. I always
felt uncomfortable, after having received anything in this way,
for I feared that the giving me a few cents, might, possibly,
ease his conscience, and make him feel himself a pretty honorable
robber, after all!
Held to a strict account, and kept under a close watch--the old
suspicion of my running away not having been entirely removed--
escape from slavery, even in Baltimore, was very difficult. The
railroad from Baltimore to Philadelphia was under regulations so
stringent, that even _free_ colored travelers were almost
excluded. They must have _free_ papers; they must be measured
and carefully examined, before they were allowed to enter the
cars; they only went in the day time, even when so examined. The
steamboats were under regulations equally stringent. All the
great turnpikes, leading northward, were beset with kidnappers, a
class of men who watched the newspapers for advertisements for
runaway slaves, making their living by the accursed reward of
slave hunting.
My discontent grew upon me, and I was on the look-out for means
of escape. With money, I could easily have managed the matter,
and, therefore, I hit upon the plan of soliciting the privilege
of hiring my time. It is quite common, in Baltimore, to allow
slaves this privilege, and it is the practice, also, in New
Orleans. A slave who is considered trustworthy, can, by paying
his master a definite sum regularly, at the end of each week,
dispose of his time as he likes. It so happened that I was not
in very good odor, and I was far from being a trustworthy slave.
Nevertheless, I watched my opportunity when Master Thomas came to
Baltimore (for I was still his property, Hugh only acted as his
agent) in the spring of 1838, to purchase his spring supply of
goods, <253 ALLOWED TO HIRE MY TIME>and applied to him, directly,
for the much-coveted privilege of hiring my time. This request
Master Thomas unhesitatingly refused to grant; and he charged me,
with some sternness, with inventing this stratagem to make my
escape. He told me, "I could go _nowhere_ but he could catch me;
and, in the event of my running away, I might be assured he
should spare no pains in his efforts to recapture me. He
recounted, with a good deal of eloquence, the many kind offices
he had done me, and exhorted me to be contented and obedient.
"Lay out no plans for the future," said he. "If you behave
yourself properly, I will take care of you." Now, kind and
considerate as this offer was, it failed to soothe me into
repose. In spite of Master Thomas, and, I may say, in spite of
myself, also, I continued to think, and worse still, to think
almost exclusively about the injustice and wickedness of slavery.
No effort of mine or of his could silence this trouble-giving
thought, or change my purpose to run away.
About two months after applying to Master Thomas for the
privilege of hiring my time, I applied to Master Hugh for the
same liberty, supposing him to be unacquainted with the fact that
I had made a similar application to Master Thomas, and had been
refused. My boldness in making this request, fairly astounded
him at the first. He gazed at me in amazement. But I had many
good reasons for pressing the matter; and, after listening to
them awhile, he did not absolutely refuse, but told me he would
think of it. Here, then, was a gleam of hope. Once master of my
own time, I felt sure that I could make, over and above my
obligation to him, a dollar or two every week. Some slaves have
made enough, in this way, to purchase their freedom. It is a
sharp spur to industry; and some of the most enterprising colored
men in Baltimore hire themselves in this way. After mature
reflection--as I must suppose it was Master Hugh granted me the
privilege in question, on the following terms: I was to be
allowed all my time; to make all bargains for work; to find my
own employment, and to collect my own wages; and, <254>in return
for this liberty, I was required, or obliged, to pay him three
dollars at the end of each week, and to board and clothe myself,
and buy my own calking tools. A failure in any of these
particulars would put an end to my privilege. This was a hard
bargain. The wear and tear of clothing, the losing and breaking
of tools, and the expense of board, made it necessary for me to
earn at least six dollars per week, to keep even with the world.
All who are acquainted with calking, know how uncertain and
irregular that employment is. It can be done to advantage only
in dry weather, for it is useless to put wet oakum into a seam.
Rain or shine, however, work or no work, at the end of each week
the money must be forthcoming.
Master Hugh seemed to be very much pleased, for a time, with this
arrangement; and well he might be, for it was decidedly in his
favor. It relieved him of all anxiety concerning me. His money
was sure. He had armed my love of liberty with a lash and a
driver, far more efficient than any I had before known; and,
while he derived all the benefits of slaveholding by the
arrangement, without its evils, I endured all the evils of being
a slave, and yet suffered all the care and anxiety of a
responsible freeman. "Nevertheless," thought I, "it is a
valuable privilege another step in my career toward freedom." It
was something even to be permitted to stagger under the
disadvantages of liberty, and I was determined to hold on to the
newly gained footing, by all proper industry. I was ready to
work by night as well as by day; and being in the enjoyment of
excellent health, I was able not only to meet my current
expenses, but also to lay by a small sum at the end of each week.
All went on thus, from the month of May till August; then--for
reasons which will become apparent as I proceed--my much valued
liberty was wrested from me.
During the week previous to this (to me) calamitous event, I had
made arrangements with a few young friends, to accompany them, on
Saturday night, to a camp-meeting, held about twelve miles from
Baltimore. On the evening of our intended start for <255 I
ATTEND CAMP-MEETING>the camp-ground, something occurred in the
ship yard where I was at work, which detained me unusually late,
and compelled me either to disappoint my young friends, or to
neglect carrying my weekly dues to Master Hugh. Knowing that I
had the money, and could hand it to him on another day, I decided
to go to camp-meeting, and to pay him the three dollars, for the
past week, on my return. Once on the camp-ground, I was induced
to remain one day longer than I had intended, when I left home.
But, as soon as I returned, I went straight to his house on Fell
street, to hand him his (my) money. Unhappily, the fatal mistake
had been committed. I found him exceedingly angry. He exhibited
all the signs of apprehension and wrath, which a slaveholder may
be surmised to exhibit on the supposed escape of a favorite
slave. "You rascal! I have a great mind to give you a severe
whipping. How dare you go out of the city without first asking
and obtaining my permission?" "Sir," said I, "I hired my time and
paid you the price you asked for it. I did not know that it was
any part of the bargain that I should ask you when or where I
should go."
"You did not know, you rascal! You are bound to show yourself
here every Saturday night." After reflecting, a few moments, he
became somewhat cooled down; but, evidently greatly troubled, he
said, "Now, you scoundrel! you have done for yourself; you shall
hire your time no longer. The next thing I shall hear of, will
be your running away. Bring home your tools and your clothes, at
once. I'll teach you how to go off in this way."
Thus ended my partial freedom. I could hire my time no longer;
and I obeyed my master's orders at once. The little taste of
liberty which I had had--although as the reader will have seen,
it was far from being unalloyed--by no means enhanced my
contentment with slavery. Punished thus by Master Hugh, it was
now my turn to punish him. "Since," thought I, "you _will_ make
a slave of me, I will await your orders in all things;" and,
instead of going to look for work on Monday morning, as I had
<256>formerly done, I remained at home during the entire week,
without the performance of a single stroke of work. Saturday
night came, and he called upon me, as usual, for my wages. I, of
course, told him I had done no work, and had no wages. Here we
were at the point of coming to blows. His wrath had been
accumulating during the whole week; for he evidently saw that I
was making no effort to get work, but was most aggravatingly
awaiting his orders, in all things. As I look back to this
behavior of mine, I scarcely know what possessed me, thus to
trifle with those who had such unlimited power to bless or to
blast me. Master Hugh raved and swore his determination to _"get
hold of me;"_ but, wisely for _him_, and happily for _me_, his
wrath only employed those very harmless, impalpable missiles,
which roll from a limber tongue. In my desperation, I had fully
made up my mind to measure strength with Master Hugh, in case he
should undertake to execute his threats. I am glad there was no
necessity for this; for resistance to him could not have ended so
happily for me, as it did in the case of Covey. He was not a man
to be safely resisted by a slave; and I freely own, that in my
conduct toward him, in this instance, there was more folly than
wisdom. Master Hugh closed his reproofs, by telling me that,
hereafter, I need give myself no uneasiness about getting work;
that he "would, himself, see to getting work for me, and enough
of it, at that." This threat I confess had some terror in it;
and, on thinking the matter over, during the Sunday, I resolved,
not only to save him the trouble of getting me work, but that,
upon the third day of September, I would attempt to make my
escape from slavery. The refusal to allow me to hire my time,
therefore, hastened the period of flight. I had three weeks,
now, in which to prepare for my journey.
Once resolved, I felt a certain degree of repose, and on Monday,
instead of waiting for Master Hugh to seek employment for me, I
was up by break of day, and off to the ship yard of Mr. Butler,
on the City Block, near the draw-bridge. I was a favorite <257
PAINFUL THOUGHTS OF SEPARATION>with Mr. B., and, young as I was,
I had served as his foreman on the float stage, at calking. Of
course, I easily obtained work, and, at the end of the week--
which by the way was exceedingly fine I brought Master Hugh
nearly nine dollars. The effect of this mark of returning good
sense, on my part, was excellent. He was very much pleased; he
took the money, commended me, and told me I might have done the
same thing the week before. It is a blessed thing that the
tyrant may not always know the thoughts and purposes of his
victim. Master Hugh little knew what my plans were. The going
to camp-meeting without asking his permission--the insolent
answers made to his reproaches--the sulky deportment the week
after being deprived of the privilege of hiring my time--had
awakened in him the suspicion that I might be cherishing disloyal
purposes. My object, therefore, in working steadily, was to
remove suspicion, and in this I succeeded admirably. He probably
thought I was never better satisfied with my condition, than at
the very time I was planning my escape. The second week passed,
and again I carried him my full week's wages--_nine dollars;_ and
so well pleased was he, that he gave me TWENTY-FIVE CENTS! and
"bade me make good use of it!" I told him I would, for one of
the uses to which I meant to put it, was to pay my fare on the
underground railroad.
Things without went on as usual; but I was passing through the
same internal excitement and anxiety which I had experienced two
years and a half before. The failure, in that instance, was not
calculated to increase my confidence in the success of this, my
second attempt; and I knew that a second failure could not leave
me where my first did--I must either get to the _far north_, or
be sent to the _far south_. Besides the exercise of mind from
this state of facts, I had the painful sensation of being about
to separate from a circle of honest and warm hearted friends, in
Baltimore. The thought of such a separation, where the hope of
ever meeting again is excluded, and where there can be no
correspondence, is very painful. It is my opinion, that
thousands would escape from <258>slavery who now remain there,
but for the strong cords of affection that bind them to their
families, relatives and friends. The daughter is hindered from
escaping, by the love she bears her mother, and the father, by
the love he bears his children; and so, to the end of the
chapter. I had no relations in Baltimore, and I saw no
probability of ever living in the neighborhood of sisters and
brothers; but the thought of leaving my friends, was among the
strongest obstacles to my running away. The last two days of the
week--Friday and Saturday--were spent mostly in collecting my
things together, for my journey. Having worked four days that
week, for my master, I handed him six dollars, on Saturday night.
I seldom spent my Sundays at home; and, for fear that something
might be discovered in my conduct, I kept up my custom, and
absented myself all day. On Monday, the third day of September,
1838, in accordance with my resolution, I bade farewell to the
city of Baltimore, and to that slavery which had been my
abhorrence from childhood.
How I got away--in what direction I traveled--whether by land or
by water; whether with or without assistance--must, for reasons
already mentioned, remain unexplained.
LIFE
_as a_
FREEMAN
CHAPTER XXII
_Liberty Attained_
TRANSITION FROM SLAVERY TO FREEDOM--A WANDERER IN NEW YORK--
FEELINGS ON REACHING THAT CITY--AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE MET--
UNFAVORABLE IMPRESSIONS--LONELINESS AND INSECURITY--APOLOGY
FOR
SLAVES WHO RETURN TO THEIR MASTERS--COMPELLED TO TELL MY
CONDITION--SUCCORED BY A SAILOR--DAVID RUGGLES--THE
UNDERGROUND
RAILROAD--MARRIAGE--BAGGAGE TAKEN FROM ME--KINDNESS OF NATHAN
JOHNSON--MY CHANGE OF NAME--DARK NOTIONS OF NORTHERN
CIVILIZATION--THE CONTRAST--COLORED PEOPLE IN NEW BEDFORD--AN
INCIDENT ILLUSTRATING THEIR SPIRIT--A COMMON LABORER--DENIED
WORK
AT MY TRADE--THE FIRST WINTER AT THE NORTH--REPULSE AT THE DOORS
OF THE CHURCH--SANCTIFIED HATE--THE _Liberator_ AND ITS EDITOR.
There is no necessity for any extended notice of the incidents of
this part of my life. There is nothing very striking or peculiar
about my career as a freeman, when viewed apart from my life as a
slave. The relation subsisting between my early experience and
that which I am now about to narrate, is, perhaps, my best
apology for adding another chapter to this book.
Disappearing from the kind reader, in a flying cloud or balloon
(pardon the figure), driven by the wind, and knowing not where I
should land--whether in slavery or in freedom--it is proper that
I should remove, at once, all anxiety, by frankly making known
where I alighted. The flight was a bold and perilous one; but
here I am, in the great city of New York, safe and sound, without
loss of blood or bone. In less than a week after leaving
Baltimore, I was walking amid the hurrying throng, and gazing
upon the dazzling wonders of Broadway. The dreams <262>of my
childhood and the purposes of my manhood were now fulfilled. A
free state around me, and a free earth under my feet! What a
moment was this to me! A whole year was pressed into a single
day. A new world burst upon my agitated vision. I have often
been asked, by kind friends to whom I have told my story, how I
felt when first I found myself beyond the limits of slavery; and
I must say here, as I have often said to them, there is scarcely
anything about which I could not give a more satisfactory answer.
It was a moment of joyous excitement, which no words can
describe. In a letter to a friend, written soon after reaching
New York. I said I felt as one might be supposed to feel, on
escaping from a den of hungry lions. But, in a moment like that,
sensations are too intense and too rapid for words. Anguish and
grief, like darkness and rain, may be described, but joy and
gladness, like the rainbow of promise, defy alike the pen and
pencil.
For ten or fifteen years I had been dragging a heavy chain, with
a huge block attached to it, cumbering my every motion. I had
felt myself doomed to drag this chain and this block through
life. All efforts, before, to separate myself from the hateful
encumbrance, had only seemed to rivet me the more firmly to it.
Baffled and discouraged at times, I had asked myself the
question, May not this, after all, be God's work? May He not,
for wise ends, have doomed me to this lot? A contest had been
going on in my mind for years, between the clear consciousness of
right and the plausible errors of superstition; between the
wisdom of manly courage, and the foolish weakness of timidity.
The contest was now ended; the chain was severed; God and right
stood vindicated. I was A FREEMAN, and the voice of peace and
joy thrilled my heart.
Free and joyous, however, as I was, joy was not the only
sensation I experienced. It was like the quick blaze, beautiful
at the first, but which subsiding, leaves the building charred
and desolate. I was soon taught that I was still in an enemy's
land. A sense of loneliness and insecurity oppressed me sadly.
I had <263 MEET WITH A FUGITIVE SLAVE>been but a few hours in New
York, before I was met in the streets by a fugitive slave, well
known to me, and the information I got from him respecting New
York, did nothing to lessen my apprehension of danger. The
fugitive in question was "Allender's Jake," in Baltimore; but,
said he, I am "WILLIAM DIXON," in New York! I knew Jake well,
and knew when Tolly Allender and Mr. Price (for the latter
employed Master Hugh as his foreman, in his shipyard on Fell's
Point) made an attempt to recapture Jake, and failed. Jake told
me all about his circumstances, and how narrowly he escaped being
taken back to slavery; that the city was now full of southerners,
returning from the springs; that the black people in New York
were not to be trusted; that there were hired men on the lookout
for fugitives from slavery, and who, for a few dollars, would
betray me into the hands of the slave-catchers; that I must trust
no man with my secret; that I must not think of going either on
the wharves to work, or to a boarding-house to board; and, worse
still, this same Jake told me it was not in his power to help me.
He seemed, even while cautioning me, to be fearing lest, after
all, I might be a party to a second attempt to recapture him.
Under the inspiration of this thought, I must suppose it was, he
gave signs of a wish to get rid of me, and soon left me his
whitewash brush in hand--as he said, for his work. He was soon
lost to sight among the throng, and I was alone again, an easy
prey to the kidnappers, if any should happen to be on my track.
New York, seventeen years ago, was less a place of safety for a
runaway slave than now, and all know how unsafe it now is, under
the new fugitive slave bill. I was much troubled. I had very
little money enough to buy me a few loaves of bread, but not
enough to pay board, outside a lumber yard. I saw the wisdom of
keeping away from the ship yards, for if Master Hugh pursued me,
he would naturally expect to find me looking for work among the
calkers. For a time, every door seemed closed against me. A
sense of my loneliness and helplessness crept over me, <264>and
covered me with something bordering on despair. In the midst of
thousands of my fellowmen, and yet a perfect stranger! In the
midst of human brothers, and yet more fearful of them than of
hungry wolves! I was without home, without friends, without
work, without money, and without any definite knowledge of which
way to go, or where to look for succor.
Some apology can easily be made for the few slaves who have,
after making good their escape, turned back to slavery,
preferring the actual rule of their masters, to the life of
loneliness, apprehension, hunger, and anxiety, which meets them
on their first arrival in a free state. It is difficult for a
freeman to enter into the feelings of such fugitives. He cannot
see things in the same light with the slave, because he does not,
and cannot, look from the same point from which the slave does.
"Why do you tremble," he says to the slave "you are in a free
state;" but the difficulty is, in realizing that he is in a free
state, the slave might reply. A freeman cannot understand why
the slave-master's shadow is bigger, to the slave, than the might
and majesty of a free state; but when he reflects that the slave
knows more about the slavery of his master than he does of the
might and majesty of the free state, he has the explanation. The
slave has been all his life learning the power of his master--
being trained to dread his approach--and only a few hours
learning the power of the state. The master is to him a stern
and flinty reality, but the state is little more than a dream.
He has been accustomed to regard every white man as the friend of
his master, and every colored man as more or less under the
control of his master's friends--the white people. It takes
stout nerves to stand up, in such circumstances. A man,
homeless, shelterless, breadless, friendless, and moneyless, is
not in a condition to assume a very proud or joyous tone; and in
just this condition was I, while wandering about the streets of
New York city and lodging, at least one night, among the barrels
on one of its wharves. I was not only free from slavery, but I
was free from home, as well. The reader <265 MARRIAGE>will
easily see that I had something more than the simple fact of
being free to think of, in this extremity.
I kept my secret as long as I could, and at last was forced to go
in search of an honest man--a man sufficiently _human_ not to
betray me into the hands of slave-catchers. I was not a bad
reader of the human face, nor long in selecting the right man,
when once compelled to disclose the facts of my condition to some
one.
I found my man in the person of one who said his name was
Stewart. He was a sailor, warm-hearted and generous, and he
listened to my story with a brother's interest. I told him I was
running for my freedom--knew not where to go--money almost gone--
was hungry--thought it unsafe to go the shipyards for work, and
needed a friend. Stewart promptly put me in the way of getting
out of my trouble. He took me to his house, and went in search
of the late David Ruggles, who was then the secretary of the New
York Vigilance Committee, and a very active man in all antislavery
works. Once in the hands of Mr. Ruggles, I was
comparatively safe. I was hidden with Mr. Ruggles several days.
In the meantime, my intended wife, Anna, came on from Baltimore--
to whom I had written, informing her of my safe arrival at New
York--and, in the presence of Mrs. Mitchell and Mr. Ruggles, we
were married, by Rev. James W. C. Pennington.
Mr. Ruggles[7] was the first officer on the under-ground railroad
with whom I met after reaching the north, and, indeed, the first
of whom I ever heard anything. Learning that I was a calker by
trade, he promptly decided that New Bedford was the proper
[7] 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.
<266>place to send me. "Many ships," said he, "are there fitted
out for the whaling business, and you may there find work at your
trade, and make a good living." Thus, in one fortnight after my
flight from Maryland, I was safe in New Bedford, regularly
entered upon the exercise of the rights, responsibilities, and
duties of a freeman.
I may mention a little circumstance which annoyed me on reaching
New Bedford. I had not a cent of money, and lacked two dollars
toward paying our fare from Newport, and our baggage not very
costly--was taken by the stage driver, and held until I could
raise the money to redeem it. This difficulty was soon
surmounted. Mr. Nathan Johnson, to whom we had a line from Mr.
Ruggles, not only received us kindly and hospitably, but, on
being informed about our baggage, promptly loaned me two dollars
with which to redeem my little property. I shall ever be deeply
grateful, both to Mr. and Mrs. Nathan Johnson, for the lively
interest they were pleased to take in me, in this hour of my
extremest need. They not only gave myself and wife bread and
shelter, but taught us how to begin to secure those benefits for
ourselves. Long may they live, and may blessings attend them in
this life and in that which is to come!
Once initiated into the new life of freedom, and assured by Mr.
Johnson that New Bedford was a safe place, the comparatively
unimportant matter, as to what should be my name, came up for
considertion{sic}. It was necessary to have a name in my new
relations. The name given me by my beloved mother was no less
pretentious than "Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey." I had,
however, before leaving Maryland, dispensed with the _Augustus
Washington_, and retained the name _Frederick Bailey_. Between
Baltimore and New Bedford, however, I had several different
names, the better to avoid being overhauled by the hunters, which
I had good reason to believe would be put on my track. Among
honest men an honest man may well be content with one name, and
to acknowledge it at all times and in all <267 CHANGE OF
NAME>places; but toward fugitives, Americans are not honest.
When I arrived at New Bedford, my name was Johnson; and finding
that the Johnson family in New Bedford were already quite
numerous--sufficiently so to produce some confusion in attempts
to distinguish one from another--there was the more reason for
making another change in my name. In fact, "Johnson" had been
assumed by nearly every slave who had arrived in New Bedford from
Maryland, and this, much to the annoyance of the original
"Johnsons" (of whom there were many) in that place. Mine host,
unwilling to have another of his own name added to the community
in this unauthorized way, after I spent a night and a day at his
house, gave me my present name. He had been reading the "Lady of
the Lake," and was pleased to regard me as a suitable person to
wear this, one of Scotland's many famous names. Considering the
noble hospitality and manly character of Nathan Johnson, I have
felt that he, better than I, illustrated the virtues of the great
Scottish chief. Sure I am, that had any slave-catcher entered
his domicile, with a view to molest any one of his household, he
would have shown himself like him of the "stalwart hand."
The reader will be amused at my ignorance, when I tell the
notions I had of the state of northern wealth, enterprise, and
civilization. Of wealth and refinement, I supposed the north had
none. My _Columbian Orator_, which was almost my only book, had
not done much to enlighten me concerning northern society. The
impressions I had received were all wide of the truth. New
Bedford, especially, took me by surprise, in the solid wealth and
grandeur there exhibited. I had formed my notions respecting the
social condition of the free states, by what I had seen and known
of free, white, non-slaveholding people in the slave states.
Regarding slavery as the basis of wealth, I fancied that no
people could become very wealthy without slavery. A free white
man, holding no slaves, in the country, I had known to be the
most ignorant and poverty-stricken of men, and the laugh<268>ing
stock even of slaves themselves--called generally by them, in
derision, _"poor white trash_." Like the non-slaveholders at the
south, in holding no slaves, I suppose the northern people like
them, also, in poverty and degradation. Judge, then, of my
amazement and joy, when I found--as I did find--the very laboring
population of New Bedford living in better houses, more elegantly
furnished--surrounded by more comfort and refinement--than a
majority of the slaveholders on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.
There was my friend, Mr. Johnson, himself a colored man (who at
the south would have been regarded as a proper marketable
commodity), who lived in a better house--dined at a richer
board--was the owner of more books--the reader of more
newspapers--was more conversant with the political and social
condition of this nation and the world--than nine-tenths of all
the slaveholders of Talbot county, Maryland. Yet Mr. Johnson was
a working man, and his hands were hardened by honest toil. Here,
then, was something for observation and study. Whence the
difference? The explanation was soon furnished, in the
superiority of mind over simple brute force. Many pages might be
given to the contrast, and in explanation of its causes. But an
incident or two will suffice to show the reader as to how the
mystery gradually vanished before me.
My first afternoon, on reaching New Bedford, was spent in
visiting the wharves and viewing the shipping. The sight of the
broad brim and the plain, Quaker dress, which met me at every
turn, greatly increased my sense of freedom and security. "I am
among the Quakers," thought I, "and am safe." Lying at the
wharves and riding in the stream, were full-rigged ships of
finest model, ready to start on whaling voyages. Upon the right
and the left, I was walled in by large granite-fronted
warehouses, crowded with the good things of this world. On the
wharves, I saw industry without bustle, labor without noise, and
heavy toil without the whip. There was no loud singing, as in
southern ports, where ships are loading or unloading--no loud
cursing or swear<269 THE CONTRAST>ing--but everything went on as
smoothly as the works of a well adjusted machine. How different
was all this from the nosily fierce and clumsily absurd manner of
labor-life in Baltimore and St. Michael's! One of the first
incidents which illustrated the superior mental character of
northern labor over that of the south, was the manner of
unloading a ship's cargo of oil. In a southern port, twenty or
thirty hands would have been employed to do what five or six did
here, with the aid of a single ox attached to the end of a fall.
Main strength, unassisted by skill, is slavery's method of labor.
An old ox, worth eighty dollars, was doing, in New Bedford, what
would have required fifteen thousand dollars worth of human bones
and muscles to have performed in a southern port. I found that
everything was done here with a scrupulous regard to economy,
both in regard to men and things, time and strength. The maid
servant, instead of spending at least a tenth part of her time in
bringing and carrying water, as in Baltimore, had the pump at her
elbow. The wood was dry, and snugly piled away for winter.
Woodhouses, in-door pumps, sinks, drains, self-shutting gates,
washing machines, pounding barrels, were all new things, and told
me that I was among a thoughtful and sensible people. To the
ship-repairing dock I went, and saw the same wise prudence. The
carpenters struck where they aimed, and the calkers wasted no
blows in idle flourishes of the mallet. I learned that men went
from New Bedford to Baltimore, and bought old ships, and brought
them here to repair, and made them better and more valuable than
they ever were before. Men talked here of going whaling on a
four _years'_ voyage with more coolness than sailors where I came
from talked of going a four _months'_ voyage.
I now find that I could have landed in no part of the United
States, where I should have found a more striking and gratifying
contrast to the condition of the free people of color in
Baltimore, than I found here in New Bedford. No colored man is
really free in a slaveholding state. He wears the badge of
bondage while <270>nominally free, and is often subjected to
hardships to which the slave is a stranger; but here in New
Bedford, it was my good fortune to see a pretty near approach to
freedom on the part of the colored people. I was taken all aback
when Mr. Johnson--who lost no time in making me acquainted with
the fact--told me that there was nothing in the constitution of
Massachusetts to prevent a colored man from holding any office in
the state. There, in New Bedford, the black man's children--
although anti-slavery was then far from popular--went to school
side by side with the white children, and apparently without
objection from any quarter. To make me at home, Mr. Johnson
assured me that no slaveholder could take a slave from New
Bedford; that there were men there who would lay down their
lives, before such an outrage could be perpetrated. The colored
people themselves were of the best metal, and would fight for
liberty to the death.
Soon after my arrival in New Bedford, I was told the following
story, which was said to illustrate the spirit of the colored
people in that goodly town: A colored man and a fugitive slave
happened to have a little quarrel, and the former was heard to
threaten the latter with informing his master of his whereabouts.
As soon as this threat became known, a notice was read from the
desk of what was then the only colored church in the place,
stating that business of importance was to be then and there
transacted. Special measures had been taken to secure the
attendance of the would-be Judas, and had proved successful.
Accordingly, at the hour appointed, the people came, and the
betrayer also. All the usual formalities of public meetings were
scrupulously gone through, even to the offering prayer for Divine
direction in the duties of the occasion. The president himself
performed this part of the ceremony, and I was told that he was
unusually fervent. Yet, at the close of his prayer, the old man
(one of the numerous family of Johnsons) rose from his knees,
deliberately surveyed his audience, and then said, in a tone of
solemn resolution, _"Well, friends, we have got him here, and I
would now_ <271 COLORED PEOPLE IN NEW BEDFORD>_recommend that you
young men should just take him outside the door and kill him."_
With this, a large body of the congregation, who well understood
the business they had come there to transact, made a rush at the
villain, and doubtless would have killed him, had he not availed
himself of an open sash, and made good his escape. He has never
shown his head in New Bedford since that time. This little
incident is perfectly characteristic of the spirit of the colored
people in New Bedford. A slave could not be taken from that town
seventeen years ago, any more than he could be so taken away now.
The reason is, that the colored people in that city are educated
up to the point of fighting for their freedom, as well as
speaking for it.
Once assured of my safety in New Bedford, I put on the
habiliments of a common laborer, and went on the wharf in search
of work. I had no notion of living on the honest and generous
sympathy of my colored brother, Johnson, or that of the
abolitionists. My cry was like that of Hood's laborer, "Oh! only
give me work." Happily for me, I was not long in searching. I
found employment, the third day after my arrival in New Bedford,
in stowing a sloop with a load of oil for the New York market.
It was new, hard, and dirty work, even for a calker, but I went
at it with a glad heart and a willing hand. I was now my own
master--a tremendous fact--and the rapturous excitement with
which I seized the job, may not easily be understood, except by
some one with an experience like mine. The thoughts--"I can
work! I can work for a living; I am not afraid of work; I have
no Master Hugh to rob me of my earnings"--placed me in a state of
independence, beyond seeking friendship or support of any man.
That day's work I considered the real starting point of something
like a new existence. Having finished this job and got my pay
for the same, I went next in pursuit of a job at calking. It so
happened that Mr. Rodney French, late mayor of the city of New
Bedford, had a ship fitting out for sea, and to which there was a
large job of calking and coppering to be done. I applied to that
<272>noblehearted man for employment, and he promptly told me to
go to work; but going on the float-stage for the purpose, I was
informed that every white man would leave the ship if I struck a
blow upon her. "Well, well," thought I, "this is a hardship, but
yet not a very serious one for me." The difference between the
wages of a calker and that of a common day laborer, was an
hundred per cent in favor of the former; but then I was free, and
free to work, though not at my trade. I now prepared myself to
do anything which came to hand in the way of turning an honest
penny; sawed wood--dug cellars--shoveled coal--swept chimneys
with Uncle Lucas Debuty--rolled oil casks on the wharves--helped
to load and unload vessels--worked in Ricketson's candle works--
in Richmond's brass foundery, and elsewhere; and thus supported
myself and family for three years.
The first winter was unusually severe, in consequence of the high
prices of food; but even during that winter we probably suffered
less than many who had been free all their lives. During the
hardest of the winter, I hired out for nine dolars{sic} a month;
and out of this rented two rooms for nine dollars per quarter,
and supplied my wife--who was unable to work--with food and some
necessary articles of furniture. We were closely pinched to
bring our wants within our means; but the jail stood over the
way, and I had a wholesome dread of the consequences of running
in debt. This winter past, and I was up with the times--got
plenty of work--got well paid for it--and felt that I had not
done a foolish thing to leave Master Hugh and Master Thomas. I
was now living in a new world, and was wide awake to its
advantages. I early began to attend the meetings of the colored
people of New Bedford, and to take part in them. I was somewhat
amazed to see colored men drawing up resolutions and offering
them for consideration. Several colored young men of New
Bedford, at that period, gave promise of great usefulness. They
were educated, and possessed what seemed to me, at the time, very
superior talents. Some of them have been cut down by death, and
<273 THE CHURCH>others have removed to different parts of the
world, and some remain there now, and justify, in their present
activities, my early impressions of them.
Among my first concerns on reaching New Bedford, was to become
united with the church, for I had never given up, in reality, my
religious faith. I had become lukewarm and in a backslidden
state, but I was still convinced that it was my duty to join the
Methodist church. I was not then aware of the powerful influence
of that religious body in favor of the enslavement of my race,
nor did I see how the northern churches could be responsible for
the conduct of southern churches; neither did I fully understand
how it could be my duty to remain separate from the church,
because bad men were connected with it. The slaveholding church,
with its Coveys, Weedens, Aulds, and Hopkins, I could see through
at once, but I could not see how Elm Street church, in New
Bedford, could be regarded as sanctioning the Christianity of
these characters in the church at St. Michael's. I therefore
resolved to join the Methodist church in New Bedford, and to
enjoy the spiritual advantage of public worship. The minister of
the Elm Street Methodist church, was the Rev. Mr. Bonney; and
although I was not allowed a seat in the body of the house, and
was proscribed on account of my color, regarding this
proscription simply as an accommodation of the uncoverted
congregation who had not yet been won to Christ and his
brotherhood, I was willing thus to be proscribed, lest sinners
should be driven away form the saving power of the gospel. Once
converted, I thought they would be sure to treat me as a man and
a brother. "Surely," thought I, "these Christian people have
none of this feeling against color. They, at least, have
renounced this unholy feeling." Judge, then, dear reader, of my
astonishment and mortification, when I found, as soon I did find,
all my charitable assumptions at fault.
An opportunity was soon afforded me for ascertaining the exact
position of Elm Street church on that subject. I had a chance of
seeing the religious part of the congregation by themselves; and
<274>although they disowned, in effect, their black brothers and
sisters, before the world, I did think that where none but the
saints were assembled, and no offense could be given to the
wicked, and the gospel could not be "blamed," they would
certainly recognize us as children of the same Father, and heirs
of the same salvation, on equal terms with themselves.
The occasion to which I refer, was the sacrament of the Lord's
Supper, that most sacred and most solemn of all the ordinances of
the Christian church. Mr. Bonney had preached a very solemn and
searching discourse, which really proved him to be acquainted
with the inmost secerts{sic} of the human heart. At the close of
his discourse, the congregation was dismissed, and the church
remained to partake of the sacrament. I remained to see, as I
thought, this holy sacrament celebrated in the spirit of its
great Founder.
There were only about a half dozen colored members attached to
the Elm Street church, at this time. After the congregation was
dismissed, these descended from the gallery, and took a seat
against the wall most distant from the altar. Brother Bonney was
very animated, and sung very sweetly, "Salvation 'tis a joyful
sound," and soon began to administer the sacrament. I was
anxious to observe the bearing of the colored members, and the
result was most humiliating. During the whole ceremony, they
looked like sheep without a shepherd. The white members went
forward to the altar by the bench full; and when it was evident
that all the whites had been served with the bread and wine,
Brother Bonney--pious Brother Bonney--after a long pause, as if
inquiring whether all the whites members had been served, and
fully assuring himself on that important point, then raised his
voice to an unnatural pitch, and looking to the corner where his
black sheep seemed penned, beckoned with his hand, exclaiming,
"Come forward, colored friends! come forward! You, too, have an
interest in the blood of Christ. God is no respecter of persons.
Come forward, and take this holy sacrament to your <275 THE
SACRAMENT>comfort." The colored members poor, slavish souls went
forward, as invited. I went out, and have never been in that
church since, although I honestly went there with a view to
joining that body. I found it impossible to respect the
religious profession of any who were under the dominion of this
wicked prejudice, and I could not, therefore, feel that in
joining them, I was joining a Christian church, at all. I tried
other churches in New Bedford, with the same result, and finally,
I attached myself to a small body of colored Methodists, known as
the Zion Methodists. Favored with the affection and confidence
of the members of this humble communion, I was soon made a
classleader and a local preacher among them. Many seasons of
peace and joy I experienced among them, the remembrance of which
is still precious, although I could not see it to be my duty to
remain with that body, when I found that it consented to the same
spirit which held my brethren in chains.
In four or five months after reaching New Bedford, there came a
young man to me, with a copy of the _Liberator_, the paper edited
by WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON, and published by ISAAC KNAPP, and
asked me to subscribe for it. I told him I had but just escaped
from slavery, and was of course very poor, and remarked further,
that I was unable to pay for it then; the agent, however, very
willingly took me as a subscriber, and appeared to be much
pleased with securing my name to his list. From this time I was
brought in contact with the mind of William Lloyd Garrison. His
paper took its place with me next to the bible.
The _Liberator_ was a paper after my own heart. It detested
slavery exposed hypocrisy and wickedness in high places--made no
truce with the traffickers in the bodies and souls of men; it
preached human brotherhood, denounced oppression, and, with all
the solemnity of God's word, demanded the complete emancipation
of my race. I not only liked--I _loved_ this paper, and its
editor. He seemed a match for all the oponents{sic} of
emancipation, whether they spoke in the name of the law, or the
gospel. <276>His words were few, full of holy fire, and straight
to the point. Learning to love him, through his paper, I was
prepared to be pleased with his presence. Something of a hero
worshiper, by nature, here was one, on first sight, to excite my
love and reverence.
Seventeen years ago, few men possessed a more heavenly
countenance than William Lloyd Garrison, and few men evinced a
more genuine or a more exalted piety. The bible was his text
book--held sacred, as the word of the Eternal Father--sinless
perfection--complete submission to insults and injuries--literal
obedience to the injunction, if smitten on one side to turn the
other also. Not only was Sunday a Sabbath, but all days were
Sabbaths, and to be kept holy. All sectarism false and
mischievous--the regenerated, throughout the world, members of
one body, and the HEAD Christ Jesus. Prejudice against color was
rebellion against God. Of all men beneath the sky, the slaves,
because most neglected and despised, were nearest and dearest to
his great heart. Those ministers who defended slavery from the
bible, were of their "father the devil"; and those churches which
fellowshiped slaveholders as Christians, were synagogues of
Satan, and our nation was a nation of liars. Never loud or
noisy--calm and serene as a summer sky, and as pure. "You are
the man, the Moses, raised up by God, to deliver his modern
Israel from bondage," was the spontaneous feeling of my heart, as
I sat away back in the hall and listened to his mighty words;
mighty in truth--mighty in their simple earnestness.
I had not long been a reader of the _Liberator_, and listener to
its editor, before I got a clear apprehension of the principles
of the anti-slavery movement. I had already the spirit of the
movement, and only needed to understand its principles and
measures. These I got from the _Liberator_, and from those who
believed in that paper. My acquaintance with the movement
increased my hope for the ultimate freedom of my race, and I
united with it from a sense of delight, as well as duty.
<277 THE _Liberator_>
Every week the _Liberator_ came, and every week I made myself
master of its contents. All the anti-slavery meetings held in
New Bedford I promptly attended, my heart burning at every true
utterance against the slave system, and every rebuke of its
friends and supporters. Thus passed the first three years of my
residence in New Bedford. I had not then dreamed of the
posibility{sic} of my becoming a public advocate of the cause so
deeply imbedded in my heart. It was enough for me to listen--to
receive and applaud the great words of others, and only whisper
in private, among the white laborers on the wharves, and
elsewhere, the truths which burned in my breast.
CHAPTER XXIII
_Introduced to the Abolitionists_
FIRST SPEECH AT NANTUCKET--MUCH SENSATION--EXTRAORDINARY
SPEECH
OF MR. GARRISON--AUTHOR BECOMES A PUBLIC LECTURER--FOURTEEN
YEARS
EXPERIENCE--YOUTHFUL ENTHUSIASM--A BRAND NEW FACT--MATTER OF
MY
AUTHOR'S SPEECH--COULD NOT FOLLOW THE PROGRAMME--FUGITIVE
SLAVESHIP DOUBTED--TO SETTLE ALL DOUBT I WRITE MY EXPERIENCE OF
SLAVERY--DANGER OF RECAPTURE INCREASED.
In the summer of 1841, a grand anti-slavery convention was held
in Nantucket, under the auspices of Mr. Garrison and his friends.
Until now, I had taken no holiday since my escape from slavery.
Having worked very hard that spring and summer, in Richmond's
brass foundery--sometimes working all night as well as all day--
and needing a day or two of rest, I attended this convention,
never supposing that I should take part in the proceedings.
Indeed, I was not aware that any one connected with the
convention even so much as knew my name. I was, however, quite
mistaken. Mr. William C. Coffin, a prominent abolitionst{sic} in
those days of trial, had heard me speaking to my colored friends,
in the little school house on Second street, New Bedford, where
we worshiped. He sought me out in the crowd, and invited me to
say a few words to the convention. Thus sought out, and thus
invited, I was induced to speak out the feelings inspired by the
occasion, and the fresh recollection of the scenes through which
I had passed as a slave. My speech on this occasion is about the
only one I ever made, of which I do not remember a single
connected sentence. It was <279 EXTRAORDINARY SPEECH OF MR.
GARRISON>with the utmost difficulty that I could stand erect, or
that I could command and articulate two words without hesitation
and stammering. I trembled in every limb. I am not sure that my
embarrassment was not the most effective part of my speech, if
speech it could be called. At any rate, this is about the only
part of my performance that I now distinctly remember. But
excited and convulsed as I was, the audience, though remarkably
quiet before, became as much excited as myself. Mr. Garrison
followed me, taking me as his text; and now, whether I had made
an eloquent speech in behalf of freedom or not, his was one never
to be forgotten by those who heard it. Those who had heard Mr.
Garrison oftenest, and had known him longest, were astonished.
It was an effort of unequaled power, sweeping down, like a very
tornado, every opposing barrier, whether of sentiment or opinion.
For a moment, he possessed that almost fabulous inspiration,
often referred to but seldom attained, in which a public meeting
is transformed, as it were, into a single individuality--the
orator wielding a thousand heads and hearts at once, and by the
simple majesty of his all controlling thought, converting his
hearers into the express image of his own soul. That night there
were at least one thousand Garrisonians in Nantucket! A{sic} the
close of this great meeting, I was duly waited on by Mr. John A.
Collins--then the general agent of the Massachusetts anti-slavery
society--and urgently solicited by him to become an agent of that
society, and to publicly advocate its anti-slavery principles. I
was reluctant to take the proffered position. I had not been
quite three years from slavery--was honestly distrustful of my
ability--wished to be excused; publicity exposed me to discovery
and arrest by my master; and other objections came up, but Mr.
Collins was not to be put off, and I finally consented to go out
for three months, for I supposed that I should have got to the
end of my story and my usefulness, in that length of time.
Here opened upon me a new life a life for which I had had no
preparation. I was a "graduate from the peculiar institution,"
<280>Mr. Collins used to say, when introducing me, _"with my
diploma written on my back!"_ The three years of my freedom had
been spent in the hard school of adversity. My hands had been
furnished by nature with something like a solid leather coating,
and I had bravely marked out for myself a life of rough labor,
suited to the hardness of my hands, as a means of supporting
myself and rearing my children.
Now what shall I say of this fourteen years' experience as a
public advocate of the cause of my enslaved brothers and sisters?
The time is but as a speck, yet large enough to justify a pause
for retrospection--and a pause it must only be.
Young, ardent, and hopeful, I entered upon this new life in the
full gush of unsuspecting enthusiasm. The cause was good; the
men engaged in it were good; the means to attain its triumph,
good; Heaven's blessing must attend all, and freedom must soon be
given to the pining millions under a ruthless bondage. My whole
heart went with the holy cause, and my most fervent prayer to the
Almighty Disposer of the hearts of men, were continually offered
for its early triumph. "Who or what," thought I, "can withstand
a cause so good, so holy, so indescribably glorious. The God of
Israel is with us. The might of the Eternal is on our side. Now
let but the truth be spoken, and a nation will start forth at the
sound!" In this enthusiastic spirit, I dropped into the ranks of
freedom's friends, and went forth to the battle. For a time I
was made to forget that my skin was dark and my hair crisped.
For a time I regretted that I could not have shared the hardships
and dangers endured by the earlier workers for the slave's
release. I soon, however, found that my enthusiasm had been
extravagant; that hardships and dangers were not yet passed; and
that the life now before me, had shadows as well as sunbeams.
Among the first duties assigned me, on entering the ranks, was to
travel, in company with Mr. George Foster, to secure subscribers
to the _Anti-slavery Standard_ and the _Liberator_. With <281
MATTER OF THE SPEECH>him I traveled and lectured through the
eastern counties of Massachusetts. Much interest was awakened--
large meetings assembled. Many came, no doubt, from curiosity to
hear what a Negro could say in his own cause. I was generally
introduced as a _"chattel"--_a_"thing"_--a piece of southern
_"property"_--the chairman assuring the audience that _it_ could
speak. Fugitive slaves, at that time, were not so plentiful as
now; and as a fugitive slave lecturer, I had the advantage of
being a _"brand new fact"_--the first one out. Up to that time,
a colored man was deemed a fool who confessed himself a runaway
slave, not only because of the danger to which he exposed himself
of being retaken, but because it was a confession of a very _low_
origin! Some of my colored friends in New Bedford thought very
badly of my wisdom for thus exposing and degrading myself. The
only precaution I took, at the beginning, to prevent Master
Thomas from knowing where I was, and what I was about, was the
withholding my former name, my master's name, and the name of the
state and county from which I came. During the first three or
four months, my speeches were almost exclusively made up of
narrations of my own personal experience as a slave. "Let us
have the facts," said the people. So also said Friend George
Foster, who always wished to pin me down to my simple narrative.
"Give us the facts," said Collins, "we will take care of the
philosophy." Just here arose some embarrassment. It was
impossible for me to repeat the same old story month after month,
and to keep up my interest in it. It was new to the people, it
is true, but it was an old story to me; and to go through with it
night after night, was a task altogether too mechanical for my
nature. "Tell your story, Frederick," would whisper my then
revered friend, William Lloyd Garrison, as I stepped upon the
platform. I could not always obey, for I was now reading and
thinking. New views of the subject were presented to my mind.
It did not entirely satisfy me to _narrate_ wrongs; I felt like
_denouncing_ them. I could not always curb my moral indignation
<282>for the perpetrators of slaveholding villainy, long enough
for a circumstantial statement of the facts which I felt almost
everybody must know. Besides, I was growing, and needed room.
"People won't believe you ever was a slave, Frederick, if you
keep on this way," said Friend Foster. "Be yourself," said
Collins, "and tell your story." It was said to me, "Better have
a _little_ of the plantation manner of speech than not; 'tis not
best that you seem too learned." These excellent friends were
actuated by the best of motives, and were not altogether wrong in
their advice; and still I must speak just the word that seemed to
_me_ the word to be spoken _by_ me.
At last the apprehended trouble came. People doubted if I had
ever been a slave. They said I did not talk like a slave, look
like a slave, nor act like a slave, and that they believed I had
never been south of Mason and Dixon's line. "He don't tell us
where he came from--what his master's name was--how he got away--
nor the story of his experience. Besides, he is educated, and
is, in this, a contradiction of all the facts we have concerning
the ignorance of the slaves." Thus, I was in a pretty fair way
to be denounced as an impostor. The committee of the
Massachusetts anti-slavery society knew all the facts in my case,
and agreed with me in the prudence of keeping them private.
They, therefore, never doubted my being a genuine fugitive; but
going down the aisles of the churches in which I spoke, and
hearing the free spoken Yankees saying, repeatedly, _"He's never
been a slave, I'll warrant ye_," I resolved to dispel all doubt,
at no distant day, by such a revelation of facts as could not be
made by any other than a genuine fugitive.
In a little less than four years, therefore, after becoming a
public lecturer, I was induced to write out the leading facts
connected with my experience in slavery, giving names of persons,
places, and dates--thus putting it in the power of any who
doubted, to ascertain the truth or falsehood of my story of being
a fugitive slave. This statement soon became known in Maryland,
<283 DANGER OF RECAPTURE>and I had reason to believe that an
effort would be made to recapture me.
It is not probable that any open attempt to secure me as a slave
could have succeeded, further than the obtainment, by my master,
of the money value of my bones and sinews. Fortunately for me,
in the four years of my labors in the abolition cause, I had
gained many friends, who would have suffered themselves to be
taxed to almost any extent to save me from slavery. It was felt
that I had committed the double offense of running away, and
exposing the secrets and crimes of slavery and slaveholders.
There was a double motive for seeking my reenslavement--avarice
and vengeance; and while, as I have said, there was little
probability of successful recapture, if attempted openly, I was
constantly in danger of being spirited away, at a moment when my
friends could render me no assistance. In traveling about from
place to place--often alone I was much exposed to this sort of
attack. Any one cherishing the design to betray me, could easily
do so, by simply tracing my whereabouts through the anti-slavery
journals, for my meetings and movements were promptly made known
in advance. My true friends, Mr. Garrison and Mr. Phillips, had
no faith in the power of Massachusetts to protect me in my right
to liberty. Public sentiment and the law, in their opinion,
would hand me over to the tormentors. Mr. Phillips, especially,
considered me in danger, and said, when I showed him the
manuscript of my story, if in my place, he would throw it into
the fire. Thus, the reader will observe, the settling of one
difficulty only opened the way for another; and that though I had
reached a free state, and had attained position for public
usefulness, I ws{sic} still tormented with the liability of
losing my liberty. How this liability was dispelled, will be
related, with other incidents, in the next chapter.
CHAPTER XXIV
_Twenty-One Months in Great Britain_
GOOD ARISING OUT OF UNPROPITIOUS EVENTS--DENIED CABIN PASSAGE--
PROSCRIPTION TURNED TO GOOD ACCOUNT--THE HUTCHINSON FAMILY--
THE
MOB ON BOARD THE "CAMBRIA"--HAPPY INTRODUCTION TO THE BRITISH
PUBLIC--LETTER ADDRESSED TO WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON--TIME AND
LABORS WHILE ABROAD--FREEDOM PURCHASED--MRS. HENRY
RICHARDSON--
FREE PAPERS--ABOLITIONISTS DISPLEASED WITH THE RANSOM--HOW MY
ENERGIES WERE DIRECTED--RECEPTION SPEECH IN LONDON--CHARACTER
OF
THE SPEECH DEFENDED--CIRCUMSTANCES EXPLAINED--CAUSES
CONTRIBUTING
TO THE SUCCESS OF MY MISSION--FREE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND--
TESTIMONIAL.
The allotments of Providence, when coupled with trouble and
anxiety, often conceal from finite vision the wisdom and goodness
in which they are sent; and, frequently, what seemed a harsh and
invidious dispensation, is converted by after experience into a
happy and beneficial arrangement. Thus, the painful liability to
be returned again to slavery, which haunted me by day, and
troubled my dreams by night, proved to be a necessary step in the
path of knowledge and usefulness. The writing of my pamphlet, in
the spring of 1845, endangered my liberty, and led me to seek a
refuge from republican slavery in monarchical England. A rude,
uncultivated fugitive slave was driven, by stern necessity, to
that country to which young American gentlemen go to increase
their stock of knowledge, to seek pleasure, to have their rough,
democratic manners softened by contact with English aristocratic
refinement. On applying for a passage to England, on board the
"Cambria", of the Cunard line, my friend, James N. Buffum, of
<285 PROSCRIPTION TURNED TO GOOD ACCOUNT>Lynn, Massachusetts, was
informed that I could not be received on board as a cabin
passenger. American prejudice against color triumphed over
British liberality and civilization, and erected a color test and
condition for crossing the sea in the cabin of a British vessel.
The insult was keenly felt by my white friends, but to me, it was
common, expected, and therefore, a thing of no great consequence,
whether I went in the cabin or in the steerage. Moreover, I felt
that if I could not go into the first cabin, first-cabin
passengers could come into the second cabin, and the result
justified my anticipations to the fullest extent. Indeed, I soon
found myself an object of more general interest than I wished to
be; and so far from being degraded by being placed in the second
cabin, that part of the ship became the scene of as much pleasure
and refinement, during the voyage, as the cabin itself. The
Hutchinson Family, celebrated vocalists--fellow-passengers--often
came to my rude forecastle deck, and sung their sweetest songs,
enlivening the place with eloquent music, as well as spirited
conversation, during the voyage. In two days after leaving
Boston, one part of the ship was about as free to me as another.
My fellow-passengers not only visited me, but invited me to visit
them, on the saloon deck. My visits there, however, were but
seldom. I preferred to live within my privileges, and keep upon
my own premises. I found this quite as much in accordance with
good policy, as with my own feelings. The effect was, that with
the majority of the passengers, all color distinctions were flung
to the winds, and I found myself treated with every mark of
respect, from the beginning to the end of the voyage, except in a
single instance; and in that, I came near being mobbed, for
complying with an invitation given me by the passengers, and the
captain of the "Cambria," to deliver a lecture on slavery. Our
New Orleans and Georgia passengers were pleased to regard my
lecture as an insult offered to them, and swore I should not
speak. They went so far as to threaten to throw me overboard,
and but for the firmness of Captain Judkins, prob<286>ably would
have (under the inspiration of _slavery_ and _brandy_) attempted
to put their threats into execution. I have no space to describe
this scene, although its tragic and comic peculiarities are well
worth describing. An end was put to the _melee_, by the
captain's calling the ship's company to put the salt water
mobocrats in irons. At this determined order, the gentlemen of
the lash scampered, and for the rest of the voyage conducted
themselves very decorously.
This incident of the voyage, in two days after landing at
Liverpool, brought me at once before the British public, and that
by no act of my own. The gentlemen so promptly snubbed in their
meditated violence, flew to the press to justify their conduct,
and to denounce me as a worthless and insolent Negro. This
course was even less wise than the conduct it was intended to
sustain; for, besides awakening something like a national
interest in me, and securing me an audience, it brought out
counter statements, and threw the blame upon themselves, which
they had sought to fasten upon me and the gallant captain of the
ship.
Some notion may be formed of the difference in my feelings and
circumstances, while abroad, from the following extract from one
of a series of letters addressed by me to Mr. Garrison, and
published in the _Liberator_. It was written on the first day of
January, 1846:
MY DEAR FRIEND GARRISON: Up to this time, I have given no direct
expression of the views, feelings, and opinions which I have
formed, respecting the character and condition of the people of
this land. I have refrained thus, purposely. I wish to speak
advisedly, and in order to do this, I have waited till, I trust,
experience has brought my opinions to an intelligent maturity. I
have been thus careful, not because I think what I say will have
much effect in shaping the opinions of the world, but because
whatever of influence I may possess, whether little or much, I
wish it to go in the right direction, and according to truth. I
hardly need say that, in speaking of Ireland, I shall be
influenced by no prejudices in favor of America. I think my
circumstances all forbid that. I have no end to serve, no creed
to uphold, no government to defend; and as to nation, I belong to
none. I have no protection at home, or resting-place abroad.
The land of my birth welcomes me to her shores only as a slave,
and spurns with contempt the idea of treating me differently; so
that I am an outcast from the society of my childhood, and an
outlaw in the <287 LETTER TO GARRISON>land of my birth. "I am a
stranger with thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were."
That men should be patriotic, is to me perfectly natural; and as
a philosophical fact, I am able to give it an _intellectual_
recognition. But no further can I go. If ever I had any
patriotism, or any capacity for the feeling, it was whipped out
of me long since, by the lash of the American soul-drivers.
In thinking of America, I sometimes find myself admiring her
bright blue sky, her grand old woods, her fertile fields, her
beautiful rivers, her mighty lakes, and star-crowned mountains.
But my rapture is soon checked, my joy is soon turned to
mourning. When I remember that all is cursed with the infernal
spirit of slaveholding, robbery, and wrong; when I remember that
with the waters of her noblest rivers, the tears of my brethren
are borne to the ocean, disregarded and forgotten, and that her
most fertile fields drink daily of the warm blood of my outraged
sisters; I am filled with unutterable loathing, and led to
reproach myself that anything could fall from my lips in praise
of such a land. America will not allow her children to love her.
She seems bent on compelling those who would be her warmest
friends, to be her worst enemies. May God give her repentance,
before it is too late, is the ardent prayer of my heart. I will
continue to pray, labor, and wait, believing that she cannot
always be insensible to the dictates of justice, or deaf to the
voice of humanity.
My opportunities for learning the character and condition of the
people of this land have been very great. I have traveled alm@@
@@om the Hill of Howth to the Giant's Causeway, and from the
Giant's Causway, to Cape Clear. During these travels, I have met
with much in the chara@@ and condition of the people to approve,
and much to condemn; much that @@thrilled me with pleasure, and
very much that has filled me with pain. I @@ @@t, in this
letter, attempt to give any description of those scenes which
have given me pain. This I will do hereafter. I have enough,
and more than your subscribers will be disposed to read at one
time, of the bright side of the picture. I can truly say, I have
spent some of the happiest moments of my life since landing in
this country. I seem to have undergone a transformation. I live
a new life. The warm and generous cooperation extended to me by
the friends of my despised race; the prompt and liberal manner
with which the press has rendered me its aid; the glorious
enthusiasm with which thousands have flocked to hear the cruel
wrongs of my down-trodden and long-enslaved fellow-countrymen
portrayed; the deep sympathy for the slave, and the strong
abhorrence of the slaveholder, everywhere evinced; the cordiality
with which members and ministers of various religious bodies, and
of various shades of religious opinion, have embraced me, and
lent me their aid; the kind of hospitality constantly proffered
to me by persons of the highest rank in society; the spirit of
freedom that seems to animate all with whom I come in contact,
and the entire absence of everything that looked like prejudice
against me, on account of the color of my skin--contrasted so
strongly with my long and bitter experience in the United States,
that I look with wonder and amazement on the transition. In the
southern part of the United States, I was a slave, thought of
<288>and spoken of as property; in the language of the LAW,
"_held, taken, reputed, and adjudged to be a chattel in the hands
of my owners and possessors, and their executors, administrators,
and assigns, to all intents, constructions, and purposes
whatsoever_." (Brev. Digest, 224). In the northern states, a
fugitive slave, liable to be hunted at any moment, like a felon,
and to be hurled into the terrible jaws of slavery--doomed by an
inveterate prejudice against color to insult and outrage on every
hand (Massachusetts out of the question)--denied the privileges
and courtesies common to others in the use of the most humble
means of conveyance--shut out from the cabins on steamboats--
refused admission to respectable hotels--caricatured, scorned,
scoffed, mocked, and maltreated with impunity by any one (no
matter how black his heart), so he has a white skin. But now
behold the change! Eleven days and a half gone, and I have
crossed three thousand miles of the perilous deep. Instead of a
democratic government, I am under a monarchical government.
Instead of the bright, blue sky of America, I am covered with the
soft, grey fog of the Emerald Isle. I breathe, and lo! the
chattel becomes a man. I gaze around in vain for one who will
question my equal humanity, claim me as his slave, or offer me an
insult. I employ a cab--I am seated beside white people--I reach
the hotel--I enter the same door--I am shown into the same
parlor--I dine at the same table and no one is offended. No
delicate nose grows deformed in my presence. I find no
difficulty here in obtaining admission into any place of worship,
instruction, or amusement, on equal terms with people as white as
any I ever saw in the United States. I meet nothing to remind me
of my complexion. I find myself regarded and treated at every
turn with the kindness and deference paid to white people. When
I go to church, I am met by no upturned nose and scornful lip to
tell me, "_We don't allow niggers in here_!"
I remember, about two years ago, there was in Boston, near the
south-west corner of Boston Common, a menagerie. I had long
desired to see such a collection as I understood was being
exhibited there. Never having had an opportunity while a slave,
I resolved to seize this, my first, since my escape. I went, and
as I approached the entrance to gain admission, I was met and
told by the door-keeper, in a harsh and contemptuous tone, "_We
don't allow niggers in here_." I also remember attending a
revival meeting in the Rev. Henry Jackson's meeting-house, at New
Bedford, and going up the broad aisle to find a seat, I was met
by a good deacon, who told me, in a pious tone, "_We don't allow
niggers in here_!" Soon after my arrival in New Bedford, from
the south, I had a strong desire to attend the Lyceum, but was
told, "_They don't allow niggers in here_!" While passing from
New York to Boston, on the steamer Massachusetts, on the night of
the 9th of December, 1843, when chilled almost through with the
cold, I went into the cabin to get a little warm. I was soon
touched upon the shoulder, and told, "_We don't allow niggers in
here_!" On arriving in Boston, from an anti-slavery tour, hungry
and tired, I went into an eating-house, near my friend, Mr.
Campbell's to get some refreshments. I was met by a lad in a
white apron, "_We don't allow niggers in here_!" <289 TIME AND
LABORS ABROAD>A week or two before leaving the United States, I
had a meeting appointed at Weymouth, the home of that glorious
band of true abolitionists, the Weston family, and others. On
attempting to take a seat in the omnibus to that place, I was
told by the driver (and I never shall forget his fiendish hate).
"_I don't allow niggers in here_!" Thank heaven for the respite
I now enjoy! I had been in Dublin but a few days, when a
gentleman of great respectability kindly offered to conduct me
through all the public buildings of that beautiful city; and a
little afterward, I found myself dining with the lord mayor of
Dublin. What a pity there was not some American democratic
Christian at the door of his splendid mansion, to bark out at my
approach, "_They don't allow niggers in here_!" The truth is,
the people here know nothing of the republican Negro hate
prevalent in our glorious land. They measure and esteem men
according to their moral and intellectual worth, and not
according to the color of their skin. Whatever may be said of
the aristocracies here, there is none based on the color of a
man's skin. This species of aristocracy belongs preeminently to
"the land of the free, and the home of the brave." I have never
found it abroad, in any but Americans. It sticks to them
wherever they go. They find it almost as hard to get rid of, as
to get rid of their skins.
The second day after my arrival at Liverpool, in company with my
friend, Buffum, and several other friends, I went to Eaton Hall,
the residence of the Marquis of Westminster, one of the most
splendid buildings in England. On approaching the door, I found
several of our American passengers, who came out with us in the
"Cambria," waiting for admission, as but one party was allowed in
the house at a time. We all had to wait till the company within
came out. And of all the faces, expressive of chagrin, those of
the Americans were preeminent. They looked as sour as vinegar,
and as bitter as gall, when they found I was to be admitted on
equal terms with themselves. When the door was opened, I walked
in, on an equal footing with my white fellow-citizens, and from
all I could see, I had as much attention paid me by the servants
that showed us through the house, as any with a paler skin. As I
walked through the building, the statuary did not fall down, the
pictures did not leap from their places, the doors did not refuse
to open, and the servants did not say, "_We don't allow niggers
in here_!"
A happy new-year to you, and all the friends of freedom.
My time and labors, while abroad were divided between England,
Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Upon this experience alone, I
might write a book twice the size of this, _My Bondage and My
Freedom_. I visited and lectured in nearly all the large towns
and cities in the United Kingdom, and enjoyed many favorable
opportunities for observation and information. But books on
England are abundant, and the public may, therefore, dismiss any
fear that I am meditating another infliction in that line;
<290>though, in truth, I should like much to write a book on
those countries, if for nothing else, to make grateful mention of
the many dear friends, whose benevolent actions toward me are
ineffaceably stamped upon my memory, and warmly treasured in my
heart. To these friends I owe my freedom in the United States.
On their own motion, without any solicitation from me (Mrs. Henry
Richardson, a clever lady, remarkable for her devotion to every
good work, taking the lead), they raised a fund sufficient to
purchase my freedom, and actually paid it over, and placed the
papers[8] of my manumission in my hands, before
[8] 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 twentyeight
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"
<291 FREEDOM PURCHASED>they would tolerate the idea of my
returning to this, my native country. To this commercial
transaction I owe my exemption from the democratic operation of
the Fugitive Slave Bill of 1850. But for this, I might at any
time become a victim of this most cruel and scandalous enactment,
and be doomed to end my life, as I began it, a slave. The sum
paid for my freedom was one hundred and fifty pounds sterling.
Some of my uncompromising anti-slavery friends in this country
failed to see the wisdom of this arrangement, and were not
pleased that I consented to it, even by my silence. They thought
it a violation of anti-slavery principles--conceding a right of
property in man--and a wasteful expenditure of money. On the
other hand, viewing it simply in the light of a ransom, or as
money extorted by a robber, and my liberty of more value than one
hundred and fifty pounds sterling, I could not see either a
violation of the laws of morality, or those of economy, in the
transaction.
It is true, I was not in the possession of my claimants, and
could have easily remained in England, for the same friends who
had so generously purchased my freedom, would have assisted me in
establishing myself in that country. To this, however, I could
not consent. I felt that I had a duty to perform--and that was,
to labor and suffer with the oppressed in my native land.
Considering, therefore, all the circumstances--the fugitive slave
bill included--I think the very best thing was done in letting
Master Hugh have the hundred and fifty pounds sterling, and
leaving me free to return to my appropriate field of labor. Had
I been a private person, having no other relations or duties than
those of a personal and family nature, I should never have
consented to the payment of so large a sum for the privilege of
living securely under our glorious republican form of government.
I could have remained in England, or have gone to some other
country; and perhaps I could even have lived unobserved in this.
But to this I could not consent. I had already become
some<292>what notorious, and withal quite as unpopular as
notorious; and I was, therefore, much exposed to arrest and
recapture.
The main object to which my labors in Great Britain were
directed, was the concentration of the moral and religious
sentiment of its people against American slavery. England is
often charged with having established slavery in the United
States, and if there were no other justification than this, for
appealing to her people to lend their moral aid for the abolition
of slavery, I should be justified. My speeches in Great Britain
were wholly extemporaneous, and I may not always have been so
guarded in my expressions, as I otherwise should have been. I
was ten years younger then than now, and only seven years from
slavery. I cannot give the reader a better idea of the nature of
my discourses, than by republishing one of them, delivered in
Finsbury chapel, London, to an audience of about two thousand
persons, and which was published in the _London Universe_, at the
time.[9]
Those in the United States who may regard this speech as being
harsh in its spirit and unjust in its statements, because
delivered before an audience supposed to be anti-republican in
their principles and feelings, may view the matter differently,
when they learn that the case supposed did not exist. It so
happened that the great mass of the people in England who
attended and patronized my anti-slavery meetings, were, in truth,
about as good republicans as the mass of Americans, and with this
decided advantage over the latter--they are lovers of
republicanism for all men, for black men as well as for white
men. They are the people who sympathize with Louis Kossuth and
Mazzini, and with the oppressed and enslaved, of every color and
nation, the world over. They constitute the democratic element
in British politics, and are as much opposed to the union of
church and state as we, in America, are to such an union. At the
meeting where this speech was delivered, Joseph Sturge--a worldwide
philan
[9] See Appendix to this volume, page 317.
<293 ENGLISH REPUBLICANS>thropist, and a member of the society of
Friends--presided, and addressed the meeting. George William
Alexander, another Friend, who has spent more than an
Ameriacn{sic} fortune in promoting the anti-slavery cause in
different sections of the world, was on the platform; and also
Dr. Campbell (now of the _British Banner_) who combines all the
humane tenderness of Melanchthon, with the directness and
boldness of Luther. He is in the very front ranks of nonconformists,
and looks with no unfriendly eye upon America.
George Thompson, too, was there; and America will yet own that he
did a true man's work in relighting the rapidly dying-out fire of
true republicanism in the American heart, and be ashamed of the
treatment he met at her hands. Coming generations in this
country will applaud the spirit of this much abused republican
friend of freedom. There were others of note seated on the
platform, who would gladly ingraft upon English institutions all
that is purely republican in the institutions of America.
Nothing, therefore, must be set down against this speech on the
score that it was delivered in the presence of those who cannot
appreciate the many excellent things belonging to our system of
government, and with a view to stir up prejudice against
republican institutions.
Again, let it also be remembered--for it is the simple truth--
that neither in this speech, nor in any other which I delivered
in England, did I ever allow myself to address Englishmen as
against Americans. I took my stand on the high ground of human
brotherhood, and spoke to Englishmen as men, in behalf of men.
Slavery is a crime, not against Englishmen, but against God, and
all the members of the human family; and it belongs to the whole
human family to seek its suppression. In a letter to Mr.
Greeley, of the New York Tribune, written while abroad, I said:
I am, nevertheless aware that the wisdom of exposing the sins of
one nation in the ear of another, has been seriously questioned
by good and clear-sighted people, both on this and on your side
of the Atlantic. And the <294>thought is not without weight on
my own mind. I am satisfied that there are many evils which can
be best removed by confining our efforts to the immediate
locality where such evils exist. This, however, is by no means
the case with the system of slavery. It is such a giant sin--
such a monstrous aggregation of iniquity--so hardening to the
human heart--so destructive to the moral sense, and so well
calculated to beget a character, in every one around it,
favorable to its own continuance,--that I feel not only at
liberty, but abundantly justified, in appealing to the whole
world to aid in its removal.
But, even if I had--as has been often charged--labored to bring
American institutions generally into disrepute, and had not
confined my labors strictly within the limits of humanity and
morality, I should not have been without illustrious examples to
support me. Driven into semi-exile by civil and barbarous laws,
and by a system which cannot be thought of without a shudder, I
was fully justified in turning, if possible, the tide of the
moral universe against the heaven-daring outrage.
Four circumstances greatly assisted me in getting the question of
American slavery before the British public. First, the mob on
board the "Cambria," already referred to, which was a sort of
national announcement of my arrival in England. Secondly, the
highly reprehensible course pursued by the Free Church of
Scotland, in soliciting, receiving, and retaining money in its
sustentation fund for supporting the gospel in Scotland, which
was evidently the ill-gotten gain of slaveholders and slavetraders.
Third, the great Evangelical Alliance--or rather the
attempt to form such an alliance, which should include
slaveholders of a certain description--added immensely to the
interest felt in the slavery question. About the same time,
there was the World's Temperance Convention, where I had the
misfortune to come in collision with sundry American doctors of
divinity--Dr. Cox among the number--with whom I had a small
controversy.
It has happened to me--as it has happened to most other men
engaged in a good cause--often to be more indebted to my enemies
than to my own skill or to the assistance of my friends, for
whatever success has attended my labors. Great surprise was <295
FREE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND>expressed by American newspapers, north
and south, during my stay in Great Britain, that a person so
illiterate and insignificant as myself could awaken an interest
so marked in England. These papers were not the only parties
surprised. I was myself not far behind them in surprise. But
the very contempt and scorn, the systematic and extravagant
disparagement of which I was the object, served, perhaps, to
magnify my few merits, and to render me of some account, whether
deserving or not. A man is sometimes made great, by the
greatness of the abuse a portion of mankind may think proper to
heap upon him. Whether I was of as much consequence as the
English papers made me out to be, or not, it was easily seen, in
England, that I could not be the ignorant and worthless creature,
some of the American papers would have them believe I was. Men,
in their senses, do not take bowie-knives to kill mosquitoes, nor
pistols to shoot flies; and the American passengers who thought
proper to get up a mob to silence me, on board the "Cambria,"
took the most effective method of telling the British public that
I had something to say.
But to the second circumstance, namely, the position of the Free
Church of Scotland, with the great Doctors Chalmers, Cunningham,
and Candlish at its head. That church, with its leaders, put it
out of the power of the Scotch people to ask the old question,
which we in the north have often most wickedly asked--"_What have
we to do with slavery_?" That church had taken the price of
blood into its treasury, with which to build _free_ churches, and
to pay _free_ church ministers for preaching the gospel; and,
worse still, when honest John Murray, of Bowlien Bay--now gone to
his reward in heaven--with William Smeal, Andrew Paton, Frederick
Card, and other sterling anti-slavery men in Glasgow, denounced
the transaction as disgraceful and shocking to the religious
sentiment of Scotland, this church, through its leading divines,
instead of repenting and seeking to mend the mistake into which
it had fallen, made it a flagrant sin, by undertaking to defend,
in the name of God and the bible, the principle not only <296>of
taking the money of slave-dealers to build churches, but of
holding fellowship with the holders and traffickers in human
flesh. This, the reader will see, brought up the whole question
of slavery, and opened the way to its full discussion, without
any agency of mine. I have never seen a people more deeply moved
than were the people of Scotland, on this very question. Public
meeting succeeded public meeting. Speech after speech, pamphlet
after pamphlet, editorial after editorial, sermon after sermon,
soon lashed the conscientious Scotch people into a perfect
_furore_. "SEND BACK THE MONEY!" was indignantly cried out, from
Greenock to Edinburgh, and from Edinburgh to Aberdeen. George
Thompson, of London, Henry C. Wright, of the United States, James
N. Buffum, of Lynn, Massachusetts, and myself were on the antislavery
side; and Doctors Chalmers, Cunningham, and Candlish on
the other. In a conflict where the latter could have had even
the show of right, the truth, in our hands as against them, must
have been driven to the wall; and while I believe we were able to
carry the conscience of the country against the action of the
Free Church, the battle, it must be confessed, was a hard-fought
one. Abler defenders of the doctrine of fellowshiping
slaveholders as christians, have not been met with. In defending
this doctrine, it was necessary to deny that slavery is a sin.
If driven from this position, they were compelled to deny that
slaveholders were responsible for the sin; and if driven from
both these positions, they must deny that it is a sin in such a
sense, and that slaveholders are sinners in such a sense, as to
make it wrong, in the circumstances in which they were placed, to
recognize them as Christians. Dr. Cunningham was the most
powerful debater on the slavery side of the question; Mr.
Thompson was the ablest on the anti-slavery side. A scene
occurred between these two men, a parallel to which I think I
never witnessed before, and I know I never have since. The scene
was caused by a single exclamation on the part of Mr. Thompson.
The general assembly of the Free Church was in progress at <297
THE DEBATE>Cannon Mills, Edinburgh. The building would hold
about twenty-five hundred persons; and on this occasion it was
densely packed, notice having been given that Doctors Cunningham
and Candlish would speak, that day, in defense of the relations
of the Free Church of Scotland to slavery in America. Messrs.
Thompson, Buffum, myself, and a few anti-slavery friends,
attended, but sat at such a distance, and in such a position,
that, perhaps we were not observed from the platform. The
excitement was intense, having been greatly increased by a series
of meetings held by Messrs. Thompson, Wright, Buffum, and myself,
in the most splendid hall in that most beautiful city, just
previous to the meetings of the general assembly. "SEND BACK THE
MONEY!" stared at us from every street corner; "SEND BACK THE
MONEY!" in large capitals, adorned the broad flags of the
pavement; "SEND BACK THE MONEY!" was the chorus of the popular
street songs; "SEND BACK THE MONEY!" was the heading of leading
editorials in the daily newspapers. This day, at Cannon Mills,
the great doctors of the church were to give an answer to this
loud and stern demand. Men of all parties and all sects were
most eager to hear. Something great was expected. The occasion
was great, the men great, and great speeches were expected from
them.
In addition to the outside pressure upon Doctors Cunningham and
Candlish, there was wavering in their own ranks. The conscience
of the church itself was not at ease. A dissatisfaction with the
position of the church touching slavery, was sensibly manifest
among the members, and something must be done to counteract this
untoward influence. The great Dr. Chalmers was in feeble health,
at the time. His most potent eloquence could not now be summoned
to Cannon Mills, as formerly. He whose voice was able to rend
asunder and dash down the granite walls of the established church
of Scotland, and to lead a host in solemn procession from it, as
from a doomed city, was now old and enfeebled. Besides, he had
said his word on this very question; and his word had not
silenced the clamor without, nor stilled <298>the anxious
heavings within. The occasion was momentous, and felt to be so.
The church was in a perilous condition. A change of some sort
must take place in her condition, or she must go to pieces. To
stand where she did, was impossible. The whole weight of the
matter fell on Cunningham and Candlish. No shoulders in the
church were broader than theirs; and I must say, badly as I
detest the principles laid down and defended by them, I was
compelled to acknowledge the vast mental endowments of the men.
Cunningham rose; and his rising was the signal for almost
tumultous applause. You will say this was scarcely in keeping
with the solemnity of the occasion, but to me it served to
increase its grandeur and gravity. The applause, though
tumultuous, was not joyous. It seemed to me, as it thundered up
from the vast audience, like the fall of an immense shaft, flung
from shoulders already galled by its crushing weight. It was
like saying, "Doctor, we have borne this burden long enough, and
willingly fling it upon you. Since it was you who brought it
upon us, take it now, and do what you will with it, for we are
too weary to bear it.{no close "}
Doctor Cunningham proceeded with his speech, abounding in logic,
learning, and eloquence, and apparently bearing down all
opposition; but at the moment--the fatal moment--when he was just
bringing all his arguments to a point, and that point being, that
neither Jesus Christ nor his holy apostles regarded slaveholding
as a sin, George Thompson, in a clear, sonorous, but rebuking
voice, broke the deep stillness of the audience, exclaiming,
HEAR! HEAR! HEAR! The effect of this simple and common
exclamation is almost incredible. It was as if a granite wall
had been suddenly flung up against the advancing current of a
mighty river. For a moment, speaker and audience were brought to
a dead silence. Both the doctor and his hearers seemed appalled
by the audacity, as well as the fitness of the rebuke. At length
a shout went up to the cry of "_Put him out_!" Happily, no one
attempted to execute this cowardly order, and the doctor
proceeded with his discourse. Not, however, as before, did the
<299 COLLISION WITH DR. COX>learned doctor proceed. The
exclamation of Thompson must have reechoed itself a thousand
times in his memory, during the remainder of his speech, for the
doctor never recovered from the blow.
The deed was done, however; the pillars of the church--_the
proud, Free Church of Scotland_--were committed and the humility
of repentance was absent. The Free Church held on to the bloodstained
money, and continued to justify itself in its position--
and of course to apologize for slavery--and does so till this
day. She lost a glorious opportunity for giving her voice, her
vote, and her example to the cause of humanity; and to-day she is
staggering under the curse of the enslaved, whose blood is in her
skirts. The people of Scotland are, to this day, deeply grieved
at the course pursued by the Free Church, and would hail, as a
relief from a deep and blighting shame, the "sending back the
money" to the slaveholders from whom it was gathered.
One good result followed the conduct of the Free Church; it
furnished an occasion for making the people of Scotland
thoroughly acquainted with the character of slavery, and for
arraying against the system the moral and religious sentiment of
that country. Therefore, while we did not succeed in
accomplishing the specific object of our mission, namely--procure
the sending back of the money--we were amply justified by the
good which really did result from our labors.
Next comes the Evangelical Alliance. This was an attempt to form
a union of all evangelical Christians throughout the world.
Sixty or seventy American divines attended, and some of them went
there merely to weave a world-wide garment with which to clothe
evangelical slaveholders. Foremost among these divines, was the
Rev. Samuel Hanson Cox, moderator of the New School Presbyterian
General Assembly. He and his friends spared no pains to secure a
platform broad enough to hold American slaveholders, and in this
partly succeeded. But the question of slavery is too large a
question to be finally disposed of, even by the <300>Evangelical
Alliance. We appealed from the judgment of the Alliance, to the
judgment of the people of Great Britain, and with the happiest
effect. This controversy with the Alliance might be made the
subject of extended remark, but I must forbear, except to say,
that this effort to shield the Christian character of
slaveholders greatly served to open a way to the British ear for
anti-slavery discussion, and that it was well improved.
The fourth and last circumstance that assisted me in getting
before the British public, was an attempt on the part of certain
doctors of divinity to silence me on the platform of the World's
Temperance Convention. Here I was brought into point blank
collison with Rev. Dr. Cox, who made me the subject not only of
bitter remark in the convention, but also of a long denunciatory
letter published in the New York Evangelist and other American
papers. I replied to the doctor as well as I could, and was
successful in getting a respectful hearing before the British
public, who are by nature and practice ardent lovers of fair
play, especially in a conflict between the weak and the strong.
Thus did circumstances favor me, and favor the cause of which I
strove to be the advocate. After such distinguished notice, the
public in both countries was compelled to attach some importance
to my labors. By the very ill usage I received at the hands of
Dr. Cox and his party, by the mob on board the "Cambria," by the
attacks made upon me in the American newspapers, and by the
aspersions cast upon me through the organs of the Free Church of
Scotland, I became one of that class of men, who, for the moment,
at least, "have greatness forced upon them." People became the
more anxious to hear for themselves, and to judge for themselves,
of the truth which I had to unfold. While, therefore, it is by
no means easy for a stranger to get fairly before the British
public, it was my lot to accomplish it in the easiest manner
possible.
Having continued in Great Britain and Ireland nearly two years,
and being about to return to America--not as I left it, a <301
THE PRESS A MEANS OF REMOVING PREJUDICES>slave, but a freeman--
leading friends of the cause of emancipation in that country
intimated their intention to make me a testimonial, not only on
grounds of personal regard to myself, but also to the cause to
which they were so ardently devoted. How far any such thing
could have succeeded, I do not know; but many reasons led me to
prefer that my friends should simply give me the means of
obtaining a printing press and printing materials, to enable me
to start a paper, devoted to the interests of my enslaved and
oppressed people. I told them that perhaps the greatest
hinderance to the adoption of abolition principles by the people
of the United States, was the low estimate, everywhere in that
country, placed upon the Negro, as a man; that because of his
assumed natural inferiority, people reconciled themselves to his
enslavement and oppression, as things inevitable, if not
desirable. The grand thing to be done, therefore, was to change
the estimation in which the colored people of the United States
were held; to remove the prejudice which depreciated and
depressed them; to prove them worthy of a higher consideration;
to disprove their alleged inferiority, and demonstrate their
capacity for a more exalted civilization than slavery and
prejudice had assigned to them. I further stated, that, in my
judgment, a tolerably well conducted press, in the hands of
persons of the despised race, by calling out the mental energies
of the race itself; by making them acquainted with their own
latent powers; by enkindling among them the hope that for them
there is a future; by developing their moral power; by combining
and reflecting their talents--would prove a most powerful means
of removing prejudice, and of awakening an interest in them. I
further informed them--and at that time the statement was true--
that there was not, in the United States, a single newspaper
regularly published by the colored people; that many attempts had
been made to establish such papers; but that, up to that time,
they had all failed. These views I laid before my friends. The
result was, nearly two thousand five hundred dollars were
speed<302>ily raised toward starting my paper. For this prompt
and generous assistance, rendered upon my bare suggestion,
without any personal efforts on my part, I shall never cease to
feel deeply grateful; and the thought of fulfilling the noble
expectations of the dear friends who gave me this evidence of
their confidence, will never cease to be a motive for persevering
exertion.
Proposing to leave England, and turning my face toward America,
in the spring of 1847, I was met, on the threshold, with
something which painfully reminded me of the kind of life which
awaited me in my native land. For the first time in the many
months spent abroad, I was met with proscription on account of my
color. A few weeks before departing from England, while in
London, I was careful to purchase a ticket, and secure a berth
for returning home, in the "Cambria"--the steamer in which I left
the United States--paying therefor the round sum of forty pounds
and nineteen shillings sterling. This was first cabin fare. But
on going aboard the Cambria, I found that the Liverpool agent had
ordered my berth to be given to another, and had forbidden my
entering the saloon! This contemptible conduct met with stern
rebuke from the British press. For, upon the point of leaving
England, I took occasion to expose the disgusting tyranny, in the
columns of the London _Times_. That journal, and other leading
journals throughout the United Kingdom, held up the outrage to
unmitigated condemnation. So good an opportunity for calling out
a full expression of British sentiment on the subject, had not
before occurred, and it was most fully embraced. The result was,
that Mr. Cunard came out in a letter to the public journals,
assuring them of his regret at the outrage, and promising that
the like should never occur again on board his steamers; and the
like, we believe, has never since occurred on board the
steamships of the Cunard line.
It is not very pleasant to be made the subject of such insults;
but if all such necessarily resulted as this one did, I should be
very happy to bear, patiently, many more than I have borne, of
<303 THE STING OF INSULT>the same sort. Albeit, the lash of
proscription, to a man accustomed to equal social position, even
for a time, as I was, has a sting for the soul hardly less severe
than that which bites the flesh and draws the blood from the back
of the plantation slave. It was rather hard, after having
enjoyed nearly two years of equal social privileges in England,
often dining with gentlemen of great literary, social, political,
and religious eminence never, during the whole time, having met
with a single word, look, or gesture, which gave me the slightest
reason to think my color was an offense to anybody--now to be
cooped up in the stern of the "Cambria," and denied the right to
enter the saloon, lest my dark presence should be deemed an
offense to some of my democratic fellow-passengers. The reader
will easily imagine what must have been my feelings.
CHAPTER XXV
_Various Incidents_
NEWSPAPER ENTERPRISE--UNEXPECTED OPPOSITION--THE OBJECTIONS
TO
IT--THEIR PLAUSIBILITY ADMITTED--MOTIVES FOR COMING TO
ROCHESTER--DISCIPLE OF MR. GARRISON--CHANGE OF OPINION--CAUSES
LEADING TO IT--THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CHANGE--PREJUDICE
AGAINST
COLOR--AMUSING CONDESCENSION--"JIM CROW CARS"--COLLISIONS
WITH
CONDUCTORS AND BRAKEMEN--TRAINS ORDERED NOT TO STOP AT LYNN--
AMUSING DOMESTIC SCENE--SEPARATE TABLES FOR MASTER AND MAN--
PREJUDICE UNNATURAL--ILLUSTRATIONS--IN HIGH COMPANY--ELEVATION
OF
THE FREE PEOPLE OF COLOR--PLEDGE FOR THE FUTURE.
I have now given the reader an imperfect sketch of nine years'
experience in freedom--three years as a common laborer on the
wharves of New Bedford, four years as a lecturer in New England,
and two years of semi-exile in Great Britain and Ireland. A
single ray of light remains to be flung upon my life during the
last eight years, and my story will be done.
A trial awaited me on my return from England to the United
States, for which I was but very imperfectly prepared. My plans
for my then future usefulness as an anti-slavery advocate were
all settled. My friends in England had resolved to raise a given
sum to purchase for me a press and printing materials; and I
already saw myself wielding my pen, as well as my voice, in the
great work of renovating the public mind, and building up a
public sentiment which should, at least, send slavery and
oppression to the grave, and restore to "liberty and the pursuit
of happiness" the people with whom I had suffered, both as a <305
OBJECTIONS TO MY NEWSPAPER ENTERPRISE>slave and as a freeman.
Intimation had reached my friends in Boston of what I intended to
do, before my arrival, and I was prepared to find them favorably
disposed toward my much cherished enterprise. In this I was
mistaken. I found them very earnestly opposed to the idea of my
starting a paper, and for several reasons. First, the paper was
not needed; secondly, it would interfere with my usefulness as a
lecturer; thirdly, I was better fitted to speak than to write;
fourthly, the paper could not succeed. This opposition, from a
quarter so highly esteemed, and to which I had been accustomed to
look for advice and direction, caused me not only to hesitate,
but inclined me to abandon the enterprise. All previous attempts
to establish such a journal having failed, I felt that probably I
should but add another to the list of failures, and thus
contribute another proof of the mental and moral deficiencies of
my race. Very much that was said to me in respect to my
imperfect literary acquirements, I felt to be most painfully
true. The unsuccessful projectors of all the previous colored
newspapers were my superiors in point of education, and if they
failed, how could I hope for success? Yet I did hope for
success, and persisted in the undertaking. Some of my English
friends greatly encouraged me to go forward, and I shall never
cease to be grateful for their words of cheer and generous deeds.
I can easily pardon those who have denounced me as ambitious and
presumptuous, in view of my persistence in this enterprise. I
was but nine years from slavery. In point of mental experience,
I was but nine years old. That one, in such circumstances,
should aspire to establish a printing press, among an educated
people, might well be considered, if not ambitious, quite silly.
My American friends looked at me with astonishment! "A woodsawyer"
offering himself to the public as an editor! A slave,
brought up in the very depths of ignorance, assuming to instruct
the highly civilized people of the north in the principles of
liberty, justice, and humanity! The thing looked absurd.
Nevertheless, I per<306>severed. I felt that the want of
education, great as it was, could be overcome by study, and that
knowledge would come by experience; and further (which was
perhaps the most controlling consideration). I thought that an
intelligent public, knowing my early history, would easily pardon
a large share of the deficiencies which I was sure that my paper
would exhibit. The most distressing thing, however, was the
offense which I was about to give my Boston friends, by what
seemed to them a reckless disregard of their sage advice. I am
not sure that I was not under the influence of something like a
slavish adoration of my Boston friends, and I labored hard to
convince them of the wisdom of my undertaking, but without
success. Indeed, I never expect to succeed, although time has
answered all their original objections. The paper has been
successful. It is a large sheet, costing eighty dollars per
week--has three thousand subscribers--has been published
regularly nearly eight years--and bids fair to stand eight years
longer. At any rate, the eight years to come are as full of
promise as were the eight that are past.
It is not to be concealed, however, that the maintenance of such
a journal, under the circumstances, has been a work of much
difficulty; and could all the perplexity, anxiety, and trouble
attending it, have been clearly foreseen, I might have shrunk
from the undertaking. As it is, I rejoice in having engaged in
the enterprise, and count it joy to have been able to suffer, in
many ways, for its success, and for the success of the cause to
which it has been faithfully devoted. I look upon the time,
money, and labor bestowed upon it, as being amply rewarded, in
the development of my own mental and moral energies, and in the
corresponding development of my deeply injured and oppressed
people.
From motives of peace, instead of issuing my paper in Boston,
among my New England friends, I came to Rochester, western New
York, among strangers, where the circulation of my paper could
not interfere with the local circulation of the _Liberator_ and
the _Standard;_ for at that time I was, on the anti-slavery
question, <307 CHANGE OF VIEWS>a faithful disciple of William
Lloyd Garrison, and fully committed to his doctrine touching the
pro-slavery character of the constitution of the United States,
and the _non-voting principle_, of which he is the known and
distinguished advocate. With Mr. Garrison, I held it to be the
first duty of the non-slaveholding states to dissolve the union
with the slaveholding states; and hence my cry, like his, was,
"No union with slaveholders." With these views, I came into
western New York; and during the first four years of my labor
here, I advocated them with pen and tongue, according to the best
of my ability.
About four years ago, upon a reconsideration of the whole
subject, I became convinced that there was no necessity for
dissolving the "union between the northern and southern states;"
that to seek this dissolution was no part of my duty as an
abolitionist; that to abstain from voting, was to refuse to
exercise a legitimate and powerful means for abolishing slavery;
and that the constitution of the United States not only contained
no guarantees in favor of slavery, but, on the contrary, it is,
in its letter and spirit, an anti-slavery instrument, demanding
the abolition of slavery as a condition of its own existence, as
the supreme law of the land.
Here was a radical change in my opinions, and in the action
logically resulting from that change. To those with whom I had
been in agreement and in sympathy, I was now in opposition. What
they held to be a great and important truth, I now looked upon as
a dangerous error. A very painful, and yet a very natural, thing
now happened. Those who could not see any honest reasons for
changing their views, as I had done, could not easily see any
such reasons for my change, and the common punishment of
apostates was mine.
The opinions first entertained were naturally derived and
honestly entertained, and I trust that my present opinions have
the same claims to respect. Brought directly, when I escaped
from slavery, into contact with a class of abolitionists
regarding the <308>constitution as a slaveholding instrument, and
finding their views supported by the united and entire history of
every department of the government, it is not strange that I
assumed the constitution to be just what their interpretation
made it. I was bound, not only by their superior knowledge, to
take their opinions as the true ones, in respect to the subject,
but also because I had no means of showing their unsoundness.
But for the responsibility of conducting a public journal, and
the necessity imposed upon me of meeting opposite views from
abolitionists in this state, I should in all probability have
remained as firm in my disunion views as any other disciple of
William Lloyd Garrison.
My new circumstances compelled me to re-think the whole subject,
and to study, with some care, not only the just and proper rules
of legal interpretation, but the origin, design, nature, rights,
powers, and duties of civil government, and also the relations
which human beings sustain to it. By such a course of thought
and reading, I was conducted to the conclusion that the
constitution of the United States--inaugurated "to form a more
perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity,
provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and
secure the blessing of liberty"--could not well have been
designed at the same time to maintain and perpetuate a system of
rapine and murder, like slavery; especially, as not one word can
be found in the constitution to authorize such a belief. Then,
again, if the declared purposes of an instrument are to govern
the meaning of all its parts and details, as they clearly should,
the constitution of our country is our warrant for the abolition
of slavery in every state in the American Union. I mean,
however, not to argue, but simply to state my views. It would
require very many pages of a volume like this, to set forth the
arguments demonstrating the unconstitutionality and the complete
illegality of slavery in our land; and as my experience, and not
my arguments, is within the scope and contemplation of this
volume, I omit the latter and proceed with the former.
<309 THE JIM CROW CAR>
I will now ask the kind reader to go back a little in my story,
while I bring up a thread left behind for convenience sake, but
which, small as it is, cannot be properly omitted altogether; and
that thread is American prejudice against color, and its varied
illustrations in my own experience.
When I first went among the abolitionists of New England, and
began to travel, I found this prejudice very strong and very
annoying. The abolitionists themselves were not entirely free
from it, and I could see that they were nobly struggling against
it. In their eagerness, sometimes, to show their contempt for
the feeling, they proved that they had not entirely recovered
from it; often illustrating the saying, in their conduct, that a
man may "stand up so straight as to lean backward." When it was
said to me, "Mr. Douglass, I will walk to meeting with you; I am
not afraid of a black man," I could not help thinking--seeing
nothing very frightful in my appearance--"And why should you be?"
The children at the north had all been educated to believe that
if they were bad, the old _black_ man--not the old _devil_--would
get them; and it was evidence of some courage, for any so
educated to get the better of their fears.
The custom of providing separate cars for the accommodation of
colored travelers, was established on nearly all the railroads of
New England, a dozen years ago. Regarding this custom as
fostering the spirit of caste, I made it a rule to seat myself in
the cars for the accommodation of passengers generally. Thus
seated, I was sure to be called upon to betake myself to the
"_Jim Crow car_." Refusing to obey, I was often dragged out of
my seat, beaten, and severely bruised, by conductors and
brakemen. Attempting to start from Lynn, one day, for
Newburyport, on the Eastern railroad, I went, as my custom was,
into one of the best railroad carriages on the road. The seats
were very luxuriant and beautiful. I was soon waited upon by the
conductor, and ordered out; whereupon I demanded the reason for
my invidious removal. After a good deal of parleying, I was told
that it was because I <310>was black. This I denied, and
appealed to the company to sustain my denial; but they were
evidently unwilling to commit themselves, on a point so delicate,
and requiring such nice powers of discrimination, for they
remained as dumb as death. I was soon waited on by half a dozen
fellows of the baser sort (just such as would volunteer to take a
bull-dog out of a meeting-house in time of public worship), and
told that I must move out of that seat, and if I did not, they
would drag me out. I refused to move, and they clutched me,
head, neck, and shoulders. But, in anticipation of the
stretching to which I was about to be subjected, I had interwoven
myself among the seats. In dragging me out, on this occasion, it
must have cost the company twenty-five or thirty dollars, for I
tore up seats and all. So great was the excitement in Lynn, on
the subject, that the superintendent, Mr. Stephen A. Chase,
ordered the trains to run through Lynn without stopping, while I
remained in that town; and this ridiculous farce was enacted.
For several days the trains went dashing through Lynn without
stopping. At the same time that they excluded a free colored man
from their cars, this same company allowed slaves, in company
with their masters and mistresses, to ride unmolested.
After many battles with the railroad conductors, and being
roughly handled in not a few instances, proscription was at last
abandoned; and the "Jim Crow car"--set up for the degradation of
colored people--is nowhere found in New England. This result was
not brought about without the intervention of the people, and the
threatened enactment of a law compelling railroad companies to
respect the rights of travelers. Hon. Charles Francis Adams
performed signal service in the Massachusetts legislature, in
bringing this reformation; and to him the colored citizens of
that state are deeply indebted.
Although often annoyed, and sometimes outraged, by this prejudice
against color, I am indebted to it for many passages of quiet
amusement. A half-cured subject of it is sometimes driven into
awkward straits, especially if he happens to get a genuine
specimen of the race into his house.
<311 AMUSING SCENE>
In the summer of 1843, I was traveling and lecturing, in company
with William A. White, Esq., through the state of Indiana. Antislavery
friends were not very abundant in Indiana, at that time,
and beds were not more plentiful than friends. We often slept
out, in preference to sleeping in the houses, at some points. At
the close of one of our meetings, we were invited home with a
kindly-disposed old farmer, who, in the generous enthusiasm of
the moment, seemed to have forgotten that he had but one spare
bed, and that his guests were an ill-matched pair. All went on
pretty well, till near bed time, when signs of uneasiness began
to show themselves, among the unsophisticated sons and daughters.
White is remarkably fine looking, and very evidently a born
gentleman; the idea of putting us in the same bed was hardly to
be tolerated; and yet, there we were, and but the one bed for us,
and that, by the way, was in the same room occupied by the other
members of the family. White, as well as I, perceived the
difficulty, for yonder slept the old folks, there the sons, and a
little farther along slept the daughters; and but one other bed
remained. Who should have this bed, was the puzzling question.
There was some whispering between the old folks, some confused
looks among the young, as the time for going to bed approached.
After witnessing the confusion as long as I liked, I relieved the
kindly-disposed family by playfully saying, "Friend White, having
got entirely rid of my prejudice against color, I think, as a
proof of it, I must allow you to sleep with me to-night." White
kept up the joke, by seeming to esteem himself the favored party,
and thus the difficulty was removed. If we went to a hotel, and
called for dinner, the landlord was sure to set one table for
White and another for me, always taking him to be master, and me
the servant. Large eyes were generally made when the order was
given to remove the dishes from my table to that of White's. In
those days, it was thought strange that a white man and a colored
man could dine peaceably at the same table, and in some parts the
strangeness of such a sight has not entirely subsided.
Some people will have it that there is a natural, an inherent,
and <312>an invincible repugnance in the breast of the white race
toward dark-colored people; and some very intelligent colored men
think that their proscription is owing solely to the color which
nature has given them. They hold that they are rated according
to their color, and that it is impossible for white people ever
to look upon dark races of men, or men belonging to the African
race, with other than feelings of aversion. My experience, both
serious and mirthful, combats this conclusion. Leaving out of
sight, for a moment, grave facts, to this point, I will state one
or two, which illustrate a very interesting feature of American
character as well as American prejudice. Riding from Boston to
Albany, a few years ago, I found myself in a large car, well
filled with passengers. The seat next to me was about the only
vacant one. At every stopping place we took in new passengers,
all of whom, on reaching the seat next to me, cast a disdainful
glance upon it, and passed to another car, leaving me in the full
enjoyment of a hole form. For a time, I did not know but that my
riding there was prejudicial to the interest of the railroad
company. A circumstance occurred, however, which gave me an
elevated position at once. Among the passengers on this train
was Gov. George N. Briggs. I was not acquainted with him, and
had no idea that I was known to him, however, I was, for upon
observing me, the governor left his place, and making his way
toward me, respectfully asked the privilege of a seat by my side;
and upon introducing himself, we entered into a conversation very
pleasant and instructive to me. The despised seat now became
honored. His excellency had removed all the prejudice against
sitting by the side of a Negro; and upon his leaving it, as he
did, on reaching Pittsfield, there were at least one dozen
applicants for the place. The governor had, without changing my
skin a single shade, made the place respectable which before was
despicable.
A similar incident happened to me once on the Boston and New
Bedford railroad, and the leading party to it has since been
governor of the state of Massachusetts. I allude to Col. John
Henry <313 AN INCIDENT>Clifford. Lest the reader may fancy I am
aiming to elevate myself, by claiming too much intimacy with
great men, I must state that my only acquaintance with Col.
Clifford was formed while I was _his hired servant_, during the
first winter of my escape from slavery. I owe it him to say,
that in that relation I found him always kind and gentlemanly.
But to the incident. I entered a car at Boston, for New Bedford,
which, with the exception of a single seat was full, and found I
must occupy this, or stand up, during the journey. Having no
mind to do this, I stepped up to the man having the next seat,
and who had a few parcels on the seat, and gently asked leave to
take a seat by his side. My fellow-passenger gave me a look made
up of reproach and indignation, and asked me why I should come to
that particular seat. I assured him, in the gentlest manner,
that of all others this was the seat for me. Finding that I was
actually about to sit down, he sang out, "O! stop, stop! and let
me get out!" Suiting the action to the word, up the agitated man
got, and sauntered to the other end of the car, and was compelled
to stand for most of the way thereafter. Halfway to New Bedford,
or more, Col. Clifford, recognizing me, left his seat, and not
having seen me before since I had ceased to wait on him (in
everything except hard arguments against his pro-slavery
position), apparently forgetful of his rank, manifested, in
greeting me, something of the feeling of an old friend. This
demonstration was not lost on the gentleman whose dignity I had,
an hour before, most seriously offended. Col. Clifford was known
to be about the most aristocratic gentleman in Bristol county;
and it was evidently thought that I must be somebody, else I
should not have been thus noticed, by a person so distinguished.
Sure enough, after Col. Clifford left me, I found myself
surrounded with friends; and among the number, my offended friend
stood nearest, and with an apology for his rudeness, which I
could not resist, although it was one of the lamest ever offered.
With such facts as these before me--and I have many of them--I am
inclined to think that pride and fashion have much to do with
<314>the treatment commonly extended to colored people in the
United States. I once heard a very plain man say (and he was
cross-eyed, and awkwardly flung together in other respects) that
he should be a handsome man when public opinion shall be changed.
Since I have been editing and publishing a journal devoted to the
cause of liberty and progress, I have had my mind more directed
to the condition and circumstances of the free colored people
than when I was the agent of an abolition society. The result
has been a corresponding change in the disposition of my time and
labors. I have felt it to be a part of my mission--under a
gracious Providence to impress my sable brothers in this country
with the conviction that, notwithstanding the ten thousand
discouragements and the powerful hinderances, which beset their
existence in this country--notwithstanding the blood-written
history of Africa, and her children, from whom we have descended,
or the clouds and darkness (whose stillness and gloom are made
only more awful by wrathful thunder and lightning) now
overshadowing them--progress is yet possible, and bright skies
shall yet shine upon their pathway; and that "Ethiopia shall yet
reach forth her hand unto God."
Believing that one of the best means of emancipating the slaves
of the south is to improve and elevate the character of the free
colored people of the north I shall labor in the future, as I
have labored in the past, to promote the moral, social,
religious, and intellectual elevation of the free colored people;
never forgetting my own humble orgin{sic}, nor refusing, while
Heaven lends me ability, to use my voice, my pen, or my vote, to
advocate the great and primary work of the universal and
unconditional emancipation of my entire race.
APPENDIX
_Containing Extracts from
Speeches, etc._
RECEPTION SPEECH[10]
_At Finsbury Chapel, Moorfields, England, May 12, 1846_
Mr. Douglass rose amid loud cheers, and said: I feel exceedingly
glad of the opportunity now afforded me of presenting the claims
of my brethren in bonds in the United States, to so many in
London and from various parts of Britain, who have assembled here
on the present occasion. I have nothing to commend me to your
consideration in the way of learning, nothing in the way of
education, to entitle me to your attention; and you are aware
that slavery is a very bad school for rearing teachers of
morality and religion. Twenty-one years of my life have been
spent in slavery--personal slavery--surrounded by degrading
influences, such as can exist nowhere beyond the pale of slavery;
and it will not be strange, if under such circumstances, I should
betray, in what I have to say to you, a deficiency of that
refinement which is seldom or ever found, except among persons
that have experienced superior advantages to those which I have
enjoyed. But I will take it for granted that you know something
about the degrading influences of slavery, and that you will not
expect great things from me this evening, but simply such facts
as I may be able to advance immediately in connection with my own
experience of slavery.
Now, what is this system of slavery? This is the subject of my
lecture this evening--what is the character of this institution?
I am about to answer the inquiry, what is American slavery? I do
this the more readily, since I have found persons in this country
who have identified the term slavery with that which I think it
is not, and in some instances, I have feared, in so doing, have
rather (unwittingly, I know) detracted much from the horror with
which the term slavery is contemplated. It is com-
[10] 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.
<318>mon in this country to distinguish every bad thing by the
name of slavery. Intemperance is slavery; to be deprived of the
right to vote is slavery, says one; to have to work hard is
slavery, says another; and I do not know but that if we should
let them go on, they would say that to eat when we are hungry, to
walk when we desire to have exercise, or to minister to our
necessities, or have necessities at all, is slavery. I do not
wish for a moment to detract from the horror with which the evil
of intemperance is contemplated--not at all; nor do I wish to
throw the slightest obstruction in the way of any political
freedom that any class of persons in this country may desire to
obtain. But I am here to say that I think the term slavery is
sometimes abused by identifying it with that which it is not.
Slavery in the United States is the granting of that power by
which one man exercises and enforces a right of property in the
body and soul of another. The condition of a slave is simply
that of the brute beast. He is a piece of property--a marketable
commodity, in the language of the law, to be bought or sold at
the will and caprice of the master who claims him to be his
property; he is spoken of, thought of, and treated as property.
His own good, his conscience, his intellect, his affections, are
all set aside by the master. The will and the wishes of the
master are the law of the slave. He is as much a piece of
property as a horse. If he is fed, he is fed because he is
property. If he is clothed, it is with a view to the increase of
his value as property. Whatever of comfort is necessary to him
for his body or soul that is inconsistent with his being
property, is carefully wrested from him, not only by public
opinion, but by the law of the country. He is carefully deprived
of everything that tends in the slightest degree to detract from
his value as property. He is deprived of education. God has
given him an intellect; the slaveholder declares it shall not be
cultivated. If his moral perception leads him in a course
contrary to his value as property, the slaveholder declares he
shall not exercise it. The marriage institution cannot exist
among slaves, and one-sixth of the population of democratic
America is denied its privileges by the law of the land. What is
to be thought of a nation boasting of its liberty, boasting of
its humanity, boasting of its Christianity, boasting of its love
of justice and purity, and yet having within its own borders
three millions of persons denied by law the right of marriage?--
what must be the condition of that people? I need not lift up
the veil by giving you any experience of my own. Every one that
can put two ideas together, must see the most fearful results
from such a state of things as I have just mentioned. If any of
these three millions find for themselves companions, and prove
themselves honest, upright, virtuous persons to each other, yet
in these <319>cases--few as I am bound to confess they are--the
virtuous live in constant apprehension of being torn asunder by
the merciless men-stealers that claim them as their property.
This is American slavery; no marriage--no education--the light of
the gospel shut out from the dark mind of the bondman--and he
forbidden by law to learn to read. If a mother shall teach her
children to read, the law in Louisiana proclaims that she may be
hanged by the neck. If the father attempt to give his son a
knowledge of letters, he may be punished by the whip in one
instance, and in another be killed, at the discretion of the
court. Three millions of people shut out from the light of
knowledge! It is easy for you to conceive the evil that must
result from such a state of things.
I now come to the physical evils of slavery. I do not wish to
dwell at length upon these, but it seems right to speak of them,
not so much to influence your minds on this question, as to let
the slaveholders of America know that the curtain which conceals
their crimes is being lifted abroad; that we are opening the dark
cell, and leading the people into the horrible recesses of what
they are pleased to call their domestic institution. We want
them to know that a knowledge of their whippings, their
scourgings, their brandings, their chainings, is not confined to
their plantations, but that some Negro of theirs has broken loose
from his chains--has burst through the dark incrustation of
slavery, and is now exposing their deeds of deep damnation to the
gaze of the christian people of England.
The slaveholders resort to all kinds of cruelty. If I were
disposed, I have matter enough to interest you on this question
for five or six evenings, but I will not dwell at length upon
these cruelties. Suffice it to say, that all of the peculiar
modes of torture that were resorted to in the West India islands,
are resorted to, I believe, even more frequently, in the United
States of America. Starvation, the bloody whip, the chain, the
gag, the thumb-screw, cat-hauling, the cat-o'-nine-tails, the
dungeon, the blood-hound, are all in requisition to keep the
slave in his condition as a slave in the United States. If any
one has a doubt upon this point, I would ask him to read the
chapter on slavery in Dickens's _Notes on America_. If any man
has a doubt upon it, I have here the "testimony of a thousand
witnesses," which I can give at any length, all going to prove
the truth of my statement. The blood-hound is regularly trained
in the United States, and advertisements are to be found in the
southern papers of the Union, from persons advertising themselves
as blood-hound trainers, and offering to hunt down slaves at
fifteen dollars a piece, recommending their hounds as the
fleetest in the neighborhood, never known to fail.
Adver<320>tisements are from time to time inserted, stating that
slaves have escaped with iron collars about their necks, with
bands of iron about their feet, marked with the lash, branded
with red-hot irons, the initials of their master's name burned
into their flesh; and the masters advertise the fact of their
being thus branded with their own signature, thereby proving to
the world, that, however damning it may appear to non-slavers,
such practices are not regarded discreditable among the
slaveholders themselves. Why, I believe if a man should brand
his horse in this country--burn the initials of his name into any
of his cattle, and publish the ferocious deed here--that the
united execrations of Christians in Britain would descend upon
him. Yet in the United States, human beings are thus branded.
As Whittier says--
. . . _Our countrymen in chains,
The whip on woman's shrinking flesh,
Our soil yet reddening with the stains
Caught from her scourgings warm and fresh_.
The slave-dealer boldly publishes his infamous acts to the world.
Of all things that have been said of slavery to which exception
has been taken by slaveholders, this, the charge of cruelty,
stands foremost, and yet there is no charge capable of clearer
demonstration, than that of the most barbarous inhumanity on the
part of the slaveholders toward their slaves. And all this is
necessary; it is necessary to resort to these cruelties, in order
to _make the slave a slave_, and to _keep him a slave_. Why, my
experience all goes to prove the truth of what you will call a
marvelous proposition, that the better you treat a slave, the
more you destroy his value _as a slave_, and enhance the
probability of his eluding the grasp of the slaveholder; the more
kindly you treat him, the more wretched you make him, while you
keep him in the condition of a slave. My experience, I say,
confirms the truth of this proposition. When I was treated
exceedingly ill; when my back was being scourged daily; when I
was whipped within an inch of my life--_life_ was all I cared
for. "Spare my life," was my continual prayer. When I was
looking for the blow about to be inflicted upon my head, I was
not thinking of my liberty; it was my life. But, as soon as the
blow was not to be feared, then came the longing for liberty. If
a slave has a bad master, his ambition is to get a better; when
he gets a better, he aspires to have the best; and when he gets
the best, he aspires to be his own master. But the slave must be
brutalized to keep him as a slave. The slaveholder feels this
necessity. I admit this necessity. If it be right to hold
slaves at all, it is right to hold <321>them in the only way in
which they can be held; and this can be done only by shutting out
the light of education from their minds, and brutalizing their
persons. The whip, the chain, the gag, the thumb-screw, the
blood-hound, the stocks, and all the other bloody paraphernalia
of the slave system, are indispensably necessary to the relation
of master and slave. The slave must be subjected to these, or he
ceases to be a slave. Let him know that the whip is burned; that
the fetters have been turned to some useful and profitable
employment; that the chain is no longer for his limbs; that the
blood-hound is no longer to be put upon his track; that his
master's authority over him is no longer to be enforced by taking
his life--and immediately he walks out from the house of bondage
and asserts his freedom as a man. The slaveholder finds it
necessary to have these implements to keep the slave in bondage;
finds it necessary to be able to say, "Unless you do so and so;
unless you do as I bid you--I will take away your life!"
Some of the most awful scenes of cruelty are constantly taking
place in the middle states of the Union. We have in those states
what are called the slave-breeding states. Allow me to speak
plainly. Although it is harrowing to your feelings, it is
necessary that the facts of the case should be stated. We have
in the United States slave-breeding states. The very state from
which the minister from our court to yours comes, is one of these
states--Maryland, where men, women, and children are reared for
the market, just as horses, sheep, and swine are raised for the
market. Slave-rearing is there looked upon as a legitimate
trade; the law sanctions it, public opinion upholds it, the
church does not condemn it. It goes on in all its bloody
horrors, sustained by the auctioneer's block. If you would see
the cruelties of this system, hear the following narrative. Not
long since the following scene occurred. A slave-woman and a
slaveman had united themselves as man and wife in the absence of
any law to protect them as man and wife. They had lived together
by the permission, not by right, of their master, and they had
reared a family. The master found it expedient, and for his
interest, to sell them. He did not ask them their wishes in
regard to the matter at all; they were not consulted. The man
and woman were brought to the auctioneer's block, under the sound
of the hammer. The cry was raised, "Here goes; who bids cash?"
Think of it--a man and wife to be sold! The woman was placed on
the auctioneer's block; her limbs, as is customary, were brutally
exposed to the purchasers, who examined her with all the freedom
with which they would examine a horse. There stood the husband,
powerless; no right to his wife; the master's right preeminent.
She was sold. He was next <322>brought to the auctioneer's
block. His eyes followed his wife in the distance; and he looked
beseechingly, imploringly, to the man that had bought his wife,
to buy him also. But he was at length bid off to another person.
He was about to be separated forever from her he loved. No word
of his, no work of his, could save him from this separation. He
asked permission of his new master to go and take the hand of his
wife at parting. It was denied him. In the agony of his soul he
rushed from the man who had just bought him, that he might take a
farewell of his wife; but his way was obstructed, he was struck
over the head with a loaded whip, and was held for a moment; but
his agony was too great. When he was let go, he fell a corpse at
the feet of his master. His heart was broken. Such scenes are
the everyday fruits of American slavery. Some two years since,
the Hon. Seth. M. Gates, an anti-slavery gentleman of the state
of New York, a representative in the congress of the United
States, told me he saw with his own eyes the following
circumstances. In the national District of Columbia, over which
the star-spangled emblem is constantly waving, where orators are
ever holding forth on the subject of American liberty, American
democracy, American republicanism, there are two slave prisons.
When going across a bridge, leading to one of these prisons, he
saw a young woman run out, bare-footed and bare-headed, and with
very little clothing on. She was running with all speed to the
bridge he was approaching. His eye was fixed upon her, and he
stopped to see what was the matter. He had not paused long
before he saw three men run out after her. He now knew what the
nature of the case was; a slave escaping from her chains--a young
woman, a sister--escaping from the bondage in which she had been
held. She made her way to the bridge, but had not reached, ere
from the Virginia side there came two slaveholders. As soon as
they saw them, her pursuers called out, "Stop her!" True to
their Virginian instincts, they came to the rescue of their
brother kidnappers, across the bridge. The poor girl now saw
that there was no chance for her. It was a trying time. She
knew if she went back, she must be a slave forever--she must be
dragged down to the scenes of pollution which the slaveholders
continually provide for most of the poor, sinking, wretched young
women, whom they call their property. She formed her resolution;
and just as those who were about to take her, were going to put
hands upon her, to drag her back, she leaped over the balustrades
of the bridge, and down she went to rise no more. She chose
death, rather than to go back into the hands of those christian
slaveholders from whom she had escaped.
Can it be possible that such things as these exist in the United
States? <323>Are not these the exceptions? Are any such scenes
as this general? Are not such deeds condemned by the law and
denounced by public opinion? Let me read to you a few of the
laws of the slaveholding states of America. I think no better
exposure of slavery can be made than is made by the laws of the
states in which slavery exists. I prefer reading the laws to
making any statement in confirmation of what I have said myself;
for the slaveholders cannot object to this testimony, since it is
the calm, the cool, the deliberate enactment of their wisest
heads, of their most clear-sighted, their own constituted
representatives. "If more than seven slaves together are found
in any road without a white person, twenty lashes a piece; for
visiting a plantation without a written pass, ten lashes; for
letting loose a boat from where it is made fast, thirty-nine
lashes for the first offense; and for the second, shall have cut
off from his head one ear; for keeping or carrying a club,
thirty-nine lashes; for having any article for sale, without a
ticket from his master, ten lashes; for traveling in any other
than the most usual and accustomed road, when going alone to any
place, forty lashes; for traveling in the night without a pass,
forty lashes." I am afraid you do not understand the awful
character of these lashes. You must bring it before your mind.
A human being in a perfect state of nudity, tied hand and foot to
a stake, and a strong man standing behind with a heavy whip,
knotted at the end, each blow cutting into the flesh, and leaving
the warm blood dripping to the feet; and for these trifles. "For
being found in another person's negro-quarters, forty lashes; for
hunting with dogs in the woods, thirty lashes; for being on
horseback without the written permission of his master, twentyfive
lashes; for riding or going abroad in the night, or riding
horses in the day time, without leave, a slave may be whipped,
cropped, or branded in the cheek with the letter R. or otherwise
punished, such punishment not extending to life, or so as to
render him unfit for labor." The laws referred to, may be found
by consulting _Brevard's Digest; Haywood's Manual; Virginia
Revised Code; Prince's Digest; Missouri Laws; Mississippi Revised
Code_. A man, for going to visit his brethren, without the
permission of his master--and in many instances he may not have
that permission; his master, from caprice or other reasons, may
not be willing to allow it--may be caught on his way, dragged to
a post, the branding-iron heated, and the name of his master or
the letter R branded into his cheek or on his forehead. They
treat slaves thus, on the principle that they must punish for
light offenses, in order to prevent the commission of larger
ones. I wish you to mark that in the single state of Virginia
there are seventy-one crimes for which a colored man may be
executed; while there are only three of <324>these crimes, which,
when committed by a white man, will subject him to that
punishment. There are many of these crimes which if the white
man did not commit, he would be regarded as a scoundrel and a
coward. In the state of Maryland, there is a law to this effect:
that if a slave shall strike his master, he may be hanged, his
head severed from his body, his body quartered, and his head and
quarters set up in the most prominent places in the neighborhood.
If a colored woman, in the defense of her own virtue, in defense
of her own person, should shield herself from the brutal attacks
of her tyrannical master, or make the slightest resistance, she
may be killed on the spot. No law whatever will bring the guilty
man to justice for the crime.
But you will ask me, can these things be possible in a land
professing Christianity? Yes, they are so; and this is not the
worst. No; a darker feature is yet to be presented than the mere
existence of these facts. I have to inform you that the religion
of the southern states, at this time, is the great supporter, the
great sanctioner of the bloody atrocities to which I have
referred. While America is printing tracts and bibles; sending
missionaries abroad to convert the heathen; expending her money
in various ways for the promotion of the gospel in foreign
lands--the slave not only lies forgotten, uncared for, but is
trampled under foot by the very churches of the land. What have
we in America? Why, we have slavery made part of the religion of
the land. Yes, the pulpit there stands up as the great defender
of this cursed _institution_, as it is called. Ministers of
religion come forward and torture the hallowed pages of inspired
wisdom to sanction the bloody deed. They stand forth as the
foremost, the strongest defenders of this "institution." As a
proof of this, I need not do more than state the general fact,
that slavery has existed under the droppings of the sanctuary of
the south for the last two hundred years, and there has not been
any war between the _religion_ and the _slavery_ of the south.
Whips, chains, gags, and thumb-screws have all lain under the
droppings of the sanctuary, and instead of rusting from off the
limbs of the bondman, those droppings have served to preserve
them in all their strength. Instead of preaching the gospel
against this tyranny, rebuke, and wrong, ministers of religion
have sought, by all and every means, to throw in the back-ground
whatever in the bible could be construed into opposition to
slavery, and to bring forward that which they could torture into
its support. This I conceive to be the darkest feature of
slavery, and the most difficult to attack, because it is
identified with religion, and exposes those who denounce it to
the charge of infidelity. Yes, those with whom I have been
laboring, namely, the old <325>organization anti-slavery society
of America, have been again and again stigmatized as infidels,
and for what reason? Why, solely in consequence of the
faithfulness of their attacks upon the slaveholding religion of
the southern states, and the northern religion that sympathizes
with it. I have found it difficult to speak on this matter
without persons coming forward and saying, "Douglass, are you not
afraid of injuring the cause of Christ? You do not desire to do
so, we know; but are you not undermining religion?" This has
been said to me again and again, even since I came to this
country, but I cannot be induced to leave off these exposures. I
love the religion of our blessed Savior. I love that religion
that comes from above, in the "wisdom of God, which is first
pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of
mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy.
I love that religion that sends its votaries to bind up the
wounds of him that has fallen among thieves. I love that
religion that makes it the duty of its disciples to visit the
father less and the widow in their affliction. I love that
religion that is based upon the glorious principle, of love to
God and love to man; which makes its followers do unto others as
they themselves would be done by. If you demand liberty to
yourself, it says, grant it to your neighbors. If you claim a
right to think for yourself, it says, allow your neighbors the
same right. If you claim to act for yourself, it says, allow
your neighbors the same right. It is because I love this
religion that I hate the slaveholding, the woman-whipping, the
mind-darkening, the soul-destroying religion that exists in the
southern states of America. It is because I regard the one as
good, and pure, and holy, that I cannot but regard the other as
bad, corrupt, and wicked. Loving the one I must hate the other;
holding to the one I must reject the other.
I may be asked, why I am so anxious to bring this subject before
the British public--why I do not confine my efforts to the United
States? My answer is, first, that slavery is the common enemy of
mankind, and all mankind should be made acquainted with its
abominable character. My next answer is, that the slave is a
man, and, as such, is entitled to your sympathy as a brother.
All the feelings, all the susceptibilities, all the capacities,
which you have, he has. He is a part of the human family. He
has been the prey--the common prey--of Christendom for the last
three hundred years, and it is but right, it is but just, it is
but proper, that his wrongs should be known throughout the world.
I have another reason for bringing this matter before the British
public, and it is this: slavery is a system of wrong, so blinding
to all around, so hardening to the heart, so corrupting to the
morals, so deleterious to religion, so <326>sapping to all the
principles of justice in its immediate vicinity, that the
community surrounding it lack the moral stamina necessary to its
removal. It is a system of such gigantic evil, so strong, so
overwhelming in its power, that no one nation is equal to its
removal. It requires the humanity of Christianity, the morality
of the world to remove it. Hence, I call upon the people of
Britain to look at this matter, and to exert the influence I am
about to show they possess, for the removal of slavery from
America. I can appeal to them, as strongly by their regard for
the slaveholder as for the slave, to labor in this cause. I am
here, because you have an influence on America that no other
nation can have. You have been drawn together by the power of
steam to a marvelous extent; the distance between London and
Boston is now reduced to some twelve or fourteen days, so that
the denunciations against slavery, uttered in London this week,
may be heard in a fortnight in the streets of Boston, and
reverberating amidst the hills of Massachusetts. There is
nothing said here against slavery that will not be recorded in
the United States. I am here, also, because the slaveholders do
not want me to be here; they would rather that I were not here.
I have adopted a maxim laid down by Napoleon, never to occupy
ground which the enemy would like me to occupy. The slaveholders
would much rather have me, if I will denounce slavery, denounce
it in the northern states, where their friends and supporters
are, who will stand by and mob me for denouncing it. They feel
something as the man felt, when he uttered his prayer, in which
he made out a most horrible case for himself, and one of his
neighbors touched him and said, "My friend, I always had the
opinion of you that you have now expressed for yourself--that you
are a very great sinner." Coming from himself, it was all very
well, but coming from a stranger it was rather cutting. The
slaveholders felt that when slavery was denounced among
themselves, it was not so bad; but let one of the slaves get
loose, let him summon the people of Britain, and make known to
them the conduct of the slaveholders toward their slaves, and it
cuts them to the quick, and produces a sensation such as would be
produced by nothing else. The power I exert now is something
like the power that is exerted by the man at the end of the
lever; my influence now is just in proportion to the distance
that I am from the United States. My exposure of slavery abroad
will tell more upon the hearts and consciences of slaveholders,
than if I was attacking them in America; for almost every paper
that I now receive from the United States, comes teeming with
statements about this fugitive Negro, calling him a "glib-tongued
scoundrel," and saying that he is running out against the
institutions and people of America. I deny the charge that I am
saying a word against the institutions of America, <327>or the
people, as such. What I have to say is against slavery and
slaveholders. I feel at liberty to speak on this subject. I
have on my back the marks of the lash; I have four sisters and
one brother now under the galling chain. I feel it my duty to
cry aloud and spare not. I am not averse to having the good
opinion of my fellow creatures. I am not averse to being kindly
regarded by all men; but I am bound, even at the hazard of making
a large class of religionists in this country hate me, oppose me,
and malign me as they have done--I am bound by the prayers, and
tears, and entreaties of three millions of kneeling bondsmen, to
have no compromise with men who are in any shape or form
connected with the slaveholders of America. I expose slavery in
this country, because to expose it is to kill it. Slavery is one
of those monsters of darkness to whom the light of truth is
death. Expose slavery, and it dies. Light is to slavery what
the heat of the sun is to the root of a tree; it must die under
it. All the slaveholder asks of me is silence. He does not ask
me to go abroad and preach _in favor_ of slavery; he does not ask
any one to do that. He would not say that slavery is a good
thing, but the best under the circumstances. The slaveholders
want total darkness on the subject. They want the hatchway shut
down, that the monster may crawl in his den of darkness, crushing
human hopes and happiness, destroying the bondman at will, and
having no one to reprove or rebuke him. Slavery shrinks from the
light; it hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest its
deeds should be reproved. To tear off the mask from this
abominable system, to expose it to the light of heaven, aye, to
the heat of the sun, that it may burn and wither it out of
existence, is my object in coming to this country. I want the
slaveholder surrounded, as by a wall of anti-slavery fire, so
that he may see the condemnation of himself and his system
glaring down in letters of light. I want him to feel that he has
no sympathy in England, Scotland, or Ireland; that he has none in
Canada, none in Mexico, none among the poor wild Indians; that
the voice of the civilized, aye, and savage world is against him.
I would have condemnation blaze down upon him in every direction,
till, stunned and overwhelmed with shame and confusion, he is
compelled to let go the grasp he holds upon the persons of his
victims, and restore them to their long-lost rights.
_Dr. Campbell's Reply_
From Rev. Dr. Campbell's brilliant reply we extract the
following: FREDERICK DOUGLASS, the beast of burden," the portion
of "goods and chattels," the representative of three millions of
men, has been raised <328>up! Shall I say the _man?_ If there
is a man on earth, he is a man. My blood boiled within me when I
heard his address tonight, and thought that he had left behind
him three millions of such men.
We must see more of this man; we must have more of this man. One
would have taken a voyage round the globe some forty years back--
especially since the introduction of steam--to have heard such an
exposure of slavery from the lips of a slave. It will be an era
in the individual history of the present assembly. Our
children--our boys and girls--I have tonight seen the delightful
sympathy of their hearts evinced by their heaving breasts, while
their eyes sparkled with wonder and admiration, that this black
man--this slave--had so much logic, so much wit, so much fancy,
so much eloquence. He was something more than a man, according
to their little notions. Then, I say, we must hear him again.
We have got a purpose to accomplish. He has appealed to the
pulpit of England. The English pulpit is with him. He has
appealed to the press of England; the press of England is
conducted by English hearts, and that press will do him justice.
About ten days hence, and his second master, who may well prize
"such a piece of goods," will have the pleasure of reading his
burning words, and his first master will bless himself that he
has got quit of him. We have to create public opinion, or
rather, not to create it, for it is created already; but we have
to foster it; and when tonight I heard those magnificent words--
the words of Curran, by which my heart, from boyhood, has
ofttimes been deeply moved--I rejoice to think that they embody
an instinct of an Englishman's nature. I heard, with
inexpressible delight, how they told on this mighty mass of the
citizens of the metropolis.
Britain has now no slaves; we can therefore talk to the other
nations now, as we could not have talked a dozen years ago. I
want the whole of the London ministry to meet Douglass. For as
his appeal is to England, and throughout England, I should
rejoice in the idea of churchmen and dissenters merging all
sectional distinctions in this cause. Let us have a public
breakfast. Let the ministers meet him; let them hear him; let
them grasp his hand; and let him enlist their sympathies on
behalf of the slave. Let him inspire them with abhorrence of the
man-stealer--the slaveholder. No slaveholding American shall
ever my cross my door. No slaveholding or slavery-supporting
minister shall ever pollute my pulpit. While I have a tongue to
speak, or a hand to write, I will, to the utmost of my power,
oppose these slaveholding men. We must have Douglass amongst us
to aid in fostering public opinion.
The great conflict with slavery must now take place in America;
and <329>while they are adding other slave states to the Union,
our business is to step forward and help the abolitionists there.
It is a pleasing circumstance that such a body of men has risen
in America, and whilst we hurl our thunders against her slavers,
let us make a distinction between those who advocate slavery and
those who oppose it. George Thompson has been there. This man,
Frederick Douglass, has been there, and has been compelled to
flee. I wish, when he first set foot on our shores, he had made
a solemn vow, and said, "Now that I am free, and in the sanctuary
of freedom, I will never return till I have seen the emancipation
of my country completed." He wants to surround these men, the
slaveholders, as by a wall of fire; and he himself may do much
toward kindling it. Let him travel over the island--east, west,
north, and south--everywhere diffusing knowledge and awakening
principle, till the whole nation become a body of petitioners to
America. He will, he must, do it. He must for a season make
England his home. He must send for his wife. He must send for
his children. I want to see the sons and daughters of such a
sire. We, too, must do something for him and them worthy of the
English name. I do not like the idea of a man of such mental
dimensions, such moral courage, and all but incomparable talent,
having his own small wants, and the wants of a distant wife and
children, supplied by the poor profits of his publication, the
sketch of his life. Let the pamphlet be bought by tens of
thousands. But we will do something more for him, shall we not?
It only remains that we pass a resolution of thanks to Frederick
Douglass, the slave that was, the man that is! He that was
covered with chains, and that is now being covered with glory,
and whom we will send back a gentleman.
LETTER TO HIS OLD MASTER.[11]
_To My Old Master, Thomas Auld_
SIR--The long and intimate, though by no means friendly, relation
which unhappily subsisted between you and myself, leads me to
hope that you will easily account for the great liberty which I
now take in addressing you in this open and public manner. The
same fact may remove any disagreeable surprise which you may
experience on again finding your name coupled with mine, in any
other way than in an advertisement, accurately describing my
person, and offering a large sum for my arrest. In thus dragging
you again before the public, I am aware that I shall subject
myself to no inconsiderable amount of censure. I shall probably
be charged with an unwarrantable, if not a wanton and reckless
disregard of the rights and properties of private life. There
are those north as well as south who entertain a much higher
respect for rights which are merely conventional, than they do
for rights which are personal and essential. Not a few there are
in our country, who, while they have no scruples against robbing
the laborer of the hard earned results of his patient industry,
will be shocked by the extremely indelicate manner of bringing
your name before the public. Believing this to be the case, and
wishing to meet every reasonable or plausible objection to my
conduct, I will frankly state the ground upon which I justfy{sic}
myself in this instance, as well as on former occasions when I
have thought proper to mention your name in public. All will
agree that a man guilty of theft, robbery, or murder, has
forfeited the right to concealment and private life; that the
community have a right to subject such persons to the most
complete exposure. However much they may desire retirement, and
aim to conceal themselves and their movements from the popular
gaze, the public have a right to ferret them out, and bring their
conduct before
[11] 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.
<331>the proper tribunals of the country for investigation. Sir,
you will undoubtedly make the proper application of these
generally admitted principles, and will easily see the light in
which you are regarded by me; I will not therefore manifest ill
temper, by calling you hard names. I know you to be a man of
some intelligence, and can readily determine the precise estimate
which I entertain of your character. I may therefore indulge in
language which may seem to others indirect and ambiguous, and yet
be quite well understood by yourself.
I have selected this day on which to address you, because it is
the anniversary of my emancipation; and knowing no better way, I
am led to this as the best mode of celebrating that truly
important events. Just ten years ago this beautiful September
morning, yon bright sun beheld me a slave--a poor degraded
chattel--trembling at the sound of your voice, lamenting that I
was a man, and wishing myself a brute. The hopes which I had
treasured up for weeks of a safe and successful escape from your
grasp, were powerfully confronted at this last hour by dark
clouds of doubt and fear, making my person shake and my bosom to
heave with the heavy contest between hope and fear. I have no
words to describe to you the deep agony of soul which I
experienced on that never-to-be-forgotten morning--for I left by
daylight. I was making a leap in the dark. The probabilities,
so far as I could by reason determine them, were stoutly against
the undertaking. The preliminaries and precautions I had adopted
previously, all worked badly. I was like one going to war
without weapons--ten chances of defeat to one of victory. One in
whom I had confided, and one who had promised me assistance,
appalled by fear at the trial hour, deserted me, thus leaving the
responsibility of success or failure solely with myself. You,
sir, can never know my feelings. As I look back to them, I can
scarcely realize that I have passed through a scene so trying.
Trying, however, as they were, and gloomy as was the prospect,
thanks be to the Most High, who is ever the God of the oppressed,
at the moment which was to determine my whole earthly career, His
grace was sufficient; my mind was made up. I embraced the golden
opportunity, took the morning tide at the flood, and a free man,
young, active, and strong, is the result.
I have often thought I should like to explain to you the grounds
upon which I have justified myself in running away from you. I
am almost ashamed to do so now, for by this time you may have
discovered them yourself. I will, however, glance at them. When
yet but a child about six years old, I imbibed the determination
to run away. The very first mental <332>effort that I now
remember on my part, was an attempt to solve the mystery--why am
I a slave? and with this question my youthful mind was troubled
for many days, pressing upon me more heavily at times than
others. When I saw the slave-driver whip a slave-woman, cut the
blood out of her neck, and heard her piteous cries, I went away
into the corner of the fence, wept and pondered over the mystery.
I had, through some medium, I know not what, got some idea of
God, the Creator of all mankind, the black and the white, and
that he had made the blacks to serve the whites as slaves. How
he could do this and be _good_, I could not tell. I was not
satisfied with this theory, which made God responsible for
slavery, for it pained me greatly, and I have wept over it long
and often. At one time, your first wife, Mrs. Lucretia, heard me
sighing and saw me shedding tears, and asked of me the matter,
but I was afraid to tell her. I was puzzled with this question,
till one night while sitting in the kitchen, I heard some of the
old slaves talking of their parents having been stolen from
Africa by white men, and were sold here as slaves. The whole
mystery was solved at once. Very soon after this, my Aunt Jinny
and Uncle Noah ran away, and the great noise made about it by
your father-in-law, made me for the first time acquainted with
the fact, that there were free states as well as slave states.
From that time, I resolved that I would some day run away. The
morality of the act I dispose of as follows: I am myself; you
are yourself; we are two distinct persons, equal persons. What
you are, I am. You are a man, and so am I. God created both,
and made us separate beings. I am not by nature bond to you, or
you to me. Nature does not make your existence depend upon me,
or mine to depend upon yours. I cannot walk upon your legs, or
you upon mine. I cannot breathe for you, or you for me; I must
breathe for myself, and you for yourself. We are distinct
persons, and are each equally provided with faculties necessary
to our individual existence. In leaving you, I took nothing but
what belonged to me, and in no way lessened your means for
obtaining an _honest_ living. Your faculties remained yours, and
mine became useful to their rightful owner. I therefore see no
wrong in any part of the transaction. It is true, I went off
secretly; but that was more your fault than mine. Had I let you
into the secret, you would have defeated the enterprise entirely;
but for this, I should have been really glad to have made you
acquainted with my intentions to leave.
You may perhaps want to know how I like my present condition. I
am free to say, I greatly prefer it to that which I occupied in
Maryland. I am, however, by no means prejudiced against the
state as such. Its geography, climate, fertility, and products,
are such as to make it a very <333>desirable abode for any man;
and but for the existence of slavery there, it is not impossible
that I might again take up my abode in that state. It is not
that I love Maryland less, but freedom more. You will be
surprised to learn that people at the north labor under the
strange delusion that if the slaves were emancipated at the
south, they would flock to the north. So far from this being the
case, in that event, you would see many old and familiar faces
back again to the south. The fact is, there are few here who
would not return to the south in the event of emancipation. We
want to live in the land of our birth, and to lay our bones by
the side of our fathers; and nothing short of an intense love of
personal freedom keeps us from the south. For the sake of this,
most of us would live on a crust of bread and a cup of cold
water.
Since I left you, I have had a rich experience. I have occupied
stations which I never dreamed of when a slave. Three out of the
ten years since I left you, I spent as a common laborer on the
wharves of New Bedford, Massachusetts. It was there I earned my
first free dollar. It was mine. I could spend it as I pleased.
I could buy hams or herring with it, without asking any odds of
anybody. That was a precious dollar to me. You remember when I
used to make seven, or eight, or even nine dollars a week in
Baltimore, you would take every cent of it from me every Saturday
night, saying that I belonged to you, and my earnings also. I
never liked this conduct on your part--to say the best, I thought
it a little mean. I would not have served you so. But let that
pass. I was a little awkward about counting money in New England
fashion when I first landed in New Bedford. I came near
betraying myself several times. I caught myself saying phip, for
fourpence; and at one time a man actually charged me with being a
runaway, whereupon I was silly enough to become one by running
away from him, for I was greatly afraid he might adopt measures
to get me again into slavery, a condition I then dreaded more
than death.
I soon learned, however, to count money, as well as to make it,
and got on swimmingly. I married soon after leaving you; in
fact, I was engaged to be married before I left you; and instead
of finding my companion a burden, she was truly a helpmate. She
went to live at service, and I to work on the wharf, and though
we toiled hard the first winter, we never lived more happily.
After remaining in New Bedford for three years, I met with
William Lloyd Garrison, a person of whom you have _possibly_
heard, as he is pretty generally known among slaveholders. He
put it into my head that I might make myself serviceable to the
cause of the slave, by devoting a portion of my time to telling
my own sorrows, and those of other slaves, which had come under
my observation. This <334>was the commencement of a higher state
of existence than any to which I had ever aspired. I was thrown
into society the most pure, enlightened, and benevolent, that the
country affords. Among these I have never forgotten you, but
have invariably made you the topic of conversation--thus giving
you all the notoriety I could do. I need not tell you that the
opinion formed of you in these circles is far from being
favorable. They have little respect for your honesty, and less
for your religion.
But I was going on to relate to you something of my interesting
experience. I had not long enjoyed the excellent society to
which I have referred, before the light of its excellence exerted
a beneficial influence on my mind and heart. Much of my early
dislike of white persons was removed, and their manners, habits,
and customs, so entirely unlike what I had been used to in the
kitchen-quarters on the plantations of the south, fairly charmed
me, and gave me a strong disrelish for the coarse and degrading
customs of my former condition. I therefore made an effort so to
improve my mind and deportment, as to be somewhat fitted to the
station to which I seemed almost providentially called. The
transition from degradation to respectability was indeed great,
and to get from one to the other without carrying some marks of
one's former condition, is truly a difficult matter. I would not
have you think that I am now entirely clear of all plantation
peculiarities, but my friends here, while they entertain the
strongest dislike to them, regard me with that charity to which
my past life somewhat entitles me, so that my condition in this
respect is exceedingly pleasant. So far as my domestic affairs
are concerned, I can boast of as comfortable a dwelling as your
own. I have an industrious and neat companion, and four dear
children--the oldest a girl of nine years, and three fine boys,
the oldest eight, the next six, and the youngest four years old.
The three oldest are now going regularly to school--two can read
and write, and the other can spell, with tolerable correctness,
words of two syllables. Dear fellows! they are all in
comfortable beds, and are sound asleep, perfectly secure under my
own roof. There are no slaveholders here to rend my heart by
snatching them from my arms, or blast a mother's dearest hopes by
tearing them from her bosom. These dear children are ours--not
to work up into rice, sugar, and tobacco, but to watch over,
regard, and protect, and to rear them up in the nurture and
admonition of the gospel--to train them up in the paths of wisdom
and virtue, and, as far as we can, to make them useful to the
world and to themselves. Oh! sir, a slaveholder never appears to
me so completely an agent of hell, as when I think of and look
upon my dear children. It is then that my feelings rise above my
control. I meant to have said more with respect to my own
prosperity and happiness, but thoughts and feel<335>ings which
this recital has quickened, unfit me to proceed further in that
direction. The grim horrors of slavery rise in all their ghastly
terror before me; the wails of millions pierce my heart and chill
my blood. I remember the chain, the gag, the bloody whip; the
death-like gloom overshadowing the broken spirit of the fettered
bondman; the appalling liability of his being torn away from wife
and children, and sold like a beast in the market. Say not that
this is a picture of fancy. You well know that I wear stripes on
my back, inflicted by your direction; and that you, while we were
brothers in the same church, caused this right hand, with which I
am now penning this letter, to be closely tied to my left, and my
person dragged, at the pistol's mouth, fifteen miles, from the
Bay Side to Easton, to be sold like a beast in the market, for
the alleged crime of intending to escape from your possession.
All this, and more, you remember, and know to be perfectly true,
not only of yourself, but of nearly all of the slaveholders
around you.
At this moment, you are probably the guilty holder of at least
three of my own dear sisters, and my only brother, in bondage.
These you regard as your property. They are recorded on your
ledger, or perhaps have been sold to human flesh-mongers, with a
view to filling our own ever-hungry purse. Sir, I desire to know
how and where these dear sisters are. Have you sold them? or are
they still in your possession? What has become of them? are they
living or dead? And my dear old grandmother, whom you turned out
like an old horse to die in the woods--is she still alive? Write
and let me know all about them. If my grandmother be still
alive, she is of no service to you, for by this time she must be
nearly eighty years old--too old to be cared for by one to whom
she has ceased to be of service; send her to me at Rochester, or
bring her to Philadelphia, and it shall be the crowning happiness
of my life to take care of her in her old age. Oh! she was to me
a mother and a father, so far as hard toil for my comfort could
make her such. Send me my grandmother! that I may watch over and
take care of her in her old age. And my sisters--let me know all
about them. I would write to them, and learn all I want to know
of them, without disturbing you in any way, but that, through
your unrighteous conduct, they have been entirely deprived of the
power to read and write. You have kept them in utter ignorance,
and have therefore robbed them of the sweet enjoyments of writing
or receiving letters from absent friends and relatives. Your
wickedness and cruelty, committed in this respect on your fellowcreatures,
are greater than all the stripes you have laid upon my
back or theirs. It is an outrage upon the soul, a war upon the
immortal spirit, and one for which you must give account at the
bar of our common Father and Creator.
<336>
The responsibility which you have assumed in this regard is truly
awful, and how you could stagger under it these many years is
marvelous. Your mind must have become darkened, your heart
hardened, your conscience seared and petrified, or you would have
long since thrown off the accursed load, and sought relief at the
hands of a sin-forgiving God. How, let me ask, would you look
upon me, were I, some dark night, in company with a band of
hardened villains, to enter the precincts of your elegant
dwelling, and seize the person of your own lovely daughter,
Amanda, and carry her off from your family, friends, and all the
loved ones of her youth--make her my slave--compel her to work,
and I take her wages--place her name on my ledger as property--
disregard her personal rights--fetter the powers of her immortal
soul by denying her the right and privilege of learning to read
and write--feed her coarsely--clothe her scantily, and whip her
on the naked back occasionally; more, and still more horrible,
leave her unprotected--a degraded victim to the brutal lust of
fiendish overseers, who would pollute, blight, and blast her fair
soul--rob her of all dignity--destroy her virtue, and annihilate
in her person all the graces that adorn the character of virtuous
womanhood? I ask, how would you regard me, if such were my
conduct? Oh! the vocabulary of the damned would not afford a
word sufficiently infernal to express your idea of my Godprovoking
wickedness. Yet, sir, your treatment of my beloved
sisters is in all essential points precisely like the case I have
now supposed. Damning as would be such a deed on my part, it
would be no more so than that which you have committed against me
and my sisters.
I will now bring this letter to a close; you shall hear from me
again unless you let me hear from you. I intend to make use of
you as a weapon with which to assail the system of slavery--as a
means of concentrating public attention on the system, and
deepening the horror of trafficking in the souls and bodies of
men. I shall make use of you as a means of exposing the
character of the American church and clergy--and as a means of
bringing this guilty nation, with yourself, to repentance. In
doing this, I entertain no malice toward you personally. There
is no roof under which you would be more safe than mine, and
there is nothing in my house which you might need for your
comfort, which I would not readily grant. Indeed, I should
esteem it a privilege to set you an example as to how mankind
ought to treat each other.
_I am your fellow-man, but not your slave_.
THE NATURE OF SLAVERY
_Extract from a Lecture on Slavery, at Rochester,
December 1, 1850_
More than twenty years of my life were consumed in a state of
slavery. My childhood was environed by the baneful peculiarities
of the slave system. I grew up to manhood in the presence of
this hydra headed monster--not as a master--not as an idle
spectator--not as the guest of the slaveholder--but as A SLAVE,
eating the bread and drinking the cup of slavery with the most
degraded of my brother-bondmen, and sharing with them all the
painful conditions of their wretched lot. In consideration of
these facts, I feel that I have a right to speak, and to speak
_strongly_. Yet, my friends, I feel bound to speak truly.
Goading as have been the cruelties to which I have been
subjected--bitter as have been the trials through which I have
passed--exasperating as have been, and still are, the indignities
offered to my manhood--I find in them no excuse for the slightest
departure from truth in dealing with any branch of this subject.
First of all, I will state, as well as I can, the legal and
social relation of master and slave. A master is one--to speak
in the vocabulary of the southern states--who claims and
exercises a right of property in the person of a fellow-man.
This he does with the force of the law and the sanction of
southern religion. The law gives the master absolute power over
the slave. He may work him, flog him, hire him out, sell him,
and, in certain contingencies, _kill_ him, with perfect impunity.
The slave is a human being, divested of all rights--reduced to
the level of a brute--a mere "chattel" in the eye of the law--
placed beyond the circle of human brotherhood--cut off from his
kind--his name, which the "recording angel" may have enrolled in
heaven, among the blest, is impiously inserted in a _master's
ledger_, with horses, sheep, and swine. In law, the slave has no
wife, no children, no country, and no home. He can own nothing,
possess nothing, acquire nothing, but what must belong to
another. To <338>eat the fruit of his own toil, to clothe his
person with the work of his own hands, is considered stealing.
He toils that another may reap the fruit; he is industrious that
another may live in idleness; he eats unbolted meal that another
may eat the bread of fine flour; he labors in chains at home,
under a burning sun and biting lash, that another may ride in
ease and splendor abroad; he lives in ignorance that another may
be educated; he is abused that another may be exalted; he rests
his toil-worn limbs on the cold, damp ground that another may
repose on the softest pillow; he is clad in coarse and tattered
raiment that another may be arrayed in purple and fine linen; he
is sheltered only by the wretched hovel that a master may dwell
in a magnificent mansion; and to this condition he is bound down
as by an arm of iron.
From this monstrous relation there springs an unceasing stream of
most revolting cruelties. The very accompaniments of the slave
system stamp it as the offspring of hell itself. To ensure good
behavior, the slaveholder relies on the whip; to induce proper
humility, he relies on the whip; to rebuke what he is pleased to
term insolence, he relies on the whip; to supply the place of
wages as an incentive to toil, he relies on the whip; to bind
down the spirit of the slave, to imbrute and destroy his manhood,
he relies on the whip, the chain, the gag, the thumb-screw, the
pillory, the bowie knife the pistol, and the blood-hound. These
are the necessary and unvarying accompaniments of the system.
Wherever slavery is found, these horrid instruments are also
found. Whether on the coast of Africa, among the savage tribes,
or in South Carolina, among the refined and civilized, slavery is
the same, and its accompaniments one and the same. It makes no
difference whether the slaveholder worships the God of the
Christians, or is a follower of Mahomet, he is the minister of
the same cruelty, and the author of the same misery. _Slavery_
is always _slavery;_ always the same foul, haggard, and damning
scourge, whether found in the eastern or in the western
hemisphere.
There is a still deeper shade to be given to this picture. The
physical cruelties are indeed sufficiently harassing and
revolting; but they are as a few grains of sand on the sea shore,
or a few drops of water in the great ocean, compared with the
stupendous wrongs which it inflicts upon the mental, moral, and
religious nature of its hapless victims. It is only when we
contemplate the slave as a moral and intellectual being, that we
can adequately comprehend the unparalleled enormity of slavery,
and the intense criminality of the slaveholder. I have said that
the slave was a man. "What a piece of work is man! How noble in
reason! How infinite in faculties! In form and moving how
express and admirable! In action <339>how like an angel! In
apprehension how like a God! The beauty of the world! The
paragon of animals!"
The slave is a man, "the image of God," but "a little lower than
the angels;" possessing a soul, eternal and indestructible;
capable of endless happiness, or immeasurable woe; a creature of
hopes and fears, of affections and passions, of joys and sorrows,
and he is endowed with those mysterious powers by which man soars
above the things of time and sense, and grasps, with undying
tenacity, the elevating and sublimely glorious idea of a God. It
is _such_ a being that is smitten and blasted. The first work of
slavery is to mar and deface those characteristics of its victims
which distinguish _men_ from _things_, and _persons_ from
_property_. Its first aim is to destroy all sense of high moral
and religious responsibility. It reduces man to a mere machine.
It cuts him off from his Maker, it hides from him the laws of
God, and leaves him to grope his way from time to eternity in the
dark, under the arbitrary and despotic control of a frail,
depraved, and sinful fellow-man. As the serpent-charmer of India
is compelled to extract the deadly teeth of his venomous prey
before he is able to handle him with impunity, so the slaveholder
must strike down the conscience of the slave before he can obtain
the entire mastery over his victim.
It is, then, the first business of the enslaver of men to blunt,
deaden, and destroy the central principle of human
responsibility. Conscience is, to the individual soul, and to
society, what the law of gravitation is to the universe. It
holds society together; it is the basis of all trust and
confidence; it is the pillar of all moral rectitude. Without it,
suspicion would take the place of trust; vice would be more than
a match for virtue; men would prey upon each other, like the wild
beasts of the desert; and earth would become a _hell_.
Nor is slavery more adverse to the conscience than it is to the
mind. This is shown by the fact, that in every state of the
American Union, where slavery exists, except the state of
Kentucky, there are laws absolutely prohibitory of education
among the slaves. The crime of teaching a slave to read is
punishable with severe fines and imprisonment, and, in some
instances, with _death itself_.
Nor are the laws respecting this matter a dead letter. Cases may
occur in which they are disregarded, and a few instances may be
found where slaves may have learned to read; but such are
isolated cases, and only prove the rule. The great mass of
slaveholders look upon education among the slaves as utterly
subversive of the slave system. I well remember when my mistress
first announced to my master that she had dis<340>covered that I
could read. His face colored at once with surprise and chagrin.
He said that "I was ruined, and my value as a slave destroyed;
that a slave should know nothing but to obey his master; that to
give a negro an inch would lead him to take an ell; that having
learned how to read, I would soon want to know how to write; and
that by-and-by I would be running away." I think my audience
will bear witness to the correctness of this philosophy, and to
the literal fulfillment of this prophecy.
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 <341>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
<342>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 <344>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 <345>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, <346>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 menstealers
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 <347>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 govern<348>ment, 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 <350>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.
<351>
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? <352>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, <353>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 <355>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 <356>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 slavehunter.
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 <357>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 <359>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 silvergray
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 <360>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
<361>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.
<362>
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. <364>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 free<365>dom, 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, enforeing, with all his
power, their acknowledgment and practical adoption. If there be
but _one_ <366>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 antiabolitionist.
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 <367>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 antislavery
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 <368>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 movment, 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 <369>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 proslavery
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 slaveholder
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. <370>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.
[The end]