Transcriber’s Note:

The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

AUTOGRAPHS
FOR
FREEDOM.

BY MRS. HARRIET BEECHER STOWE,

AND

Thirty-five other Eminent Writers.

LONDON:

SAMPSON LOW, SON & CO.; AND JOHN CASSELL,

LUDGATE HILL:

AND ALL BOOKSELLERS.

1853.

PREFACE
TO THE
American Edition.

There is, perhaps, little need of detaining the kind reader, even for one moment, in this the vestibule of our Temple of Liberty, to state the motives and reasons for the publication of this collection of Anti-slavery testimonies.

The good cause to which the volume is devoted;—the influence which must ever be exerted by persons of exalted character, and high mental endowments;—the fact that society is slow to accept any cause that has not the baptism of the acknowledged noble and good;—the happiness arising from making any exertion to ameliorate the condition of the injured race amongst us, will at once suggest reasons and motives for sending forth this offering, which, while it shall prove acceptable as a Gift Book, may help to swell the tide of that sentiment that, by the Divine blessing, will sweep away from this otherwise happy land the great sin of SLAVERY.

Should this publication be instrumental in casting one ray of hope on the heart of one poor slave, or should it draw the attention of one person, hitherto uninterested, to the deep wrongs of the bondman, or cause one sincere and earnest effort to promote emancipation, we believe that the kind contributors, who have generously responded to our call, not less than the members of our Society, will feel themselves gratified and compensated.

The proceeds of the sale of the “Autographs for Freedom” will be devoted to the dissemination of light and truth on the subject of slavery throughout the country.

On behalf of “The Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society,”

JULIA GRIFFITHS, Secretary.

Preface to the English Edition.

Few better evidences of the deep interest which most of the leading minds in America take in the question of slavery can be afforded than are contained in this book. The ablest men and women of the country have here set their hands to a solemn protest against its enormities. Mrs. Stowe, who has achieved a reputation as widely extended as it is well earned,—who has, both in this country and in the United States, aroused thousands to a sense of the guilt and wrong of slavery who never spent a thought upon it before,—has her name side by side with that of Horace Mann, one of the most brilliant orators in the Union. Whittier, whose sweet strains have delighted thousands wherever the English language is spoken, finds himself in company with Frederick Douglass, who has experienced all those horrors whose bare recital has made us shudder; and with the Earl of Carlisle, who is setting an example full of promise to the men of his order; and with the son of the immortal Wilberforce. Widely differing as these do upon the majority of public questions, there is not a shade of difference in their opinions as to the iniquity of slavery.

Linked as we are with America by the ties of kindred, commerce, language, literature, and political sympathies, upon nothing which affects the destiny and progress of the Union can the English people help looking with the deepest interest. There is not a man of intellect or judgment on either side of the Atlantic who does not acknowledge the fearful importance of the slavery question, even if it be considered in a political point of view only, and laying aside all thoughts of its guilt and immorality. It already threatens to cause the disruption of the great American confederation, upon which we all look with so much hope and pride; and there exists not a doubt, that, sooner or later, all the wrongs it has caused will be atoned for by a terrible social convulsion, if not remedied by the timely and peaceful concession of the rights of the negro race. We can hardly wonder, then, that the whole subject should possess such momentous importance in the eyes of all earnest-thinking, patriotic men and women in America. Assuredly, if in the face of the tremendous difficulties, deeply rooted prejudice, self-interest, and a host of base passions, which beset them in arguing the cause of the slave, they occasionally commit errors of judgment, or make use of means which we, farther removed from the scene of action, may deem inexpedient or ill-timed,—no Englishman should regard their self-denying efforts with any other feeling than one of deep sympathy. Nay, we should look upon their struggle with the greater admiration, when we know that the church in America has abandoned its post, and is unfaithful to its mission; that the clergy, who, of all others, should be the last to recognise any inequality in men as men, have sought to hide the abominations of slave-holding under the cloak of Divine sanction. We all know the vast moral power which England possesses in the United States, and we may readily conjecture how comforting it must be for those who are battling for the rights of a down-trodden race, in the face of a hostile senate, a hostile press, and a hostile aristocracy of slave-holders, to hear a cheer of encouragement from those across the water who feel that the position of the Anglo-Saxon race in the future of the world, depends upon the respect it now shews for the sacred rights, and the inherent nobility of humanity.

CONTENTS.

AUTOGRAPHS FOR FREEDOM.

BE UP AND DOING.

Can nothing be done for Freedom? Yes, much can be done. Everything can be done. Slavery can be confined within its present bounds. It can be meliorated. It can be, and it must be abolished. The task is as simple as its performance would be beneficent and as its rewards would be glorious. It requires only that we follow this plain rule of conduct and course of activity, namely, to do, everywhere, and on every occasion what we can, and not to neglect nor refuse to do what we can at any time, because at that precise time and on that particular occasion we cannot do more. Circumstances define possibilities. When we have done our best to shape them and to make them propitious, we may rest satisfied that superior wisdom has, nevertheless, controlled them and us, and that it will be satisfied with us if we do all the good that shall then be found possible.

But we can, and we must begin deeper and lower than the composition and combination of factions. Wherein do the security and strength of slavery consist? You answer, in the constitution of the United States, and in the constitutions and laws of the slave-holding States. Not at all. It is in the erroneous sentiments of the American people. Constitutions and laws can no more rise above the virtue of the people than the limpid stream can climb above its native spring. Inculcate the love of freedom and the sacredness of the rights of man under the paternal roof. See to it, that they are taught in the schools and in the churches. Reform your own codes and expurgate the vestiges of slavery. Reform your own manners and customs and rise above the prejudices of caste. Receive the fugitive who lays his weary limbs at your door, and defend him as you would your household gods, for he, not they, has power to bring down blessings on your hearth. Correct your error that slavery has any constitutional guarantee that may not be released, and that ought not to be relinquished. Say to slavery, when it shows its bond and demands its pound of flesh, that if it draws one drop of blood its life shall pay the forfeit. Inculcate that the free States can exercise the rights of hospitality and humanity, that Congress knows no finality and can debate, that Congress can at least mediate with the slave-holding States, that at least future generations may be bought and given up to freedom. Do all this, and inculcate all this, in the spirit of moderation and benevolence, and not of retaliation and fanaticism, and you will ultimately bring the parties of this country into a common condemnation, and even the slave-holding States themselves into a renunciation of slavery, which is not less necessary for them than for the common security and welfare. Whenever the public mind shall be prepared, and the public conscience shall demand the abolition of slavery, the way to do it will open before us, and then mankind will be surprised at the ease with which the greatest of social and political evils can be removed.

CASTE AND CHRIST.

“He is not ashamed to call them brethren.”

Ho! thou dark and weary stranger

From the tropic’s palmy strand,

Bowed with toil, with mind benighted,

What wouldst thou upon our land?

Am I not, O man, thy brother?

Spake the stranger, patiently,

All that makes thee, man, immortal,

Tell me, dwells it not in me?

I, like thee, have joy, have sorrow;

I, like thee, have love and fear;

I, like thee, have hopes and longings

Far beyond this earthly sphere.

Thou art happy,—I am sorrowing;

Thou art rich, and I am poor;

In the name of our one Father,

Do not spurn me from your door.

Thus the dark one spake, imploring,

To each stranger passing nigh;

But each child and man and woman,

Priest and Levite passed him by.

Spurned of men,—despised, rejected,

Spurned from school and church and hall,

Spurned from business and from pleasure,

Sad he stood, apart from all.

Then I saw a form all glorious,

Spotless as the dazzling light,

As He passed, men veiled their faces,

And the earth, as heaven, grew bright.

Spake he to the dusky stranger,

Awe-struck there on bended knee,

Rise! for I have called thee brother,

I am not ashamed of thee.

When I wedded mortal nature

To my Godhead and my throne,

Then I made all mankind sacred,

Sealed all human for mine own.

By Myself, the Lord of ages,

I have sworn to right the wrong;

I have pledged my word, unbroken,

For the weak against the strong.

And upon my Gospel banner

I have blazed in light the sign—

He who scorns his lowliest brother,

Never shall have hand of mine.

Hear the word!—who fight for freedom!

Shout it in the battle’s van!

Hope! for bleeding human nature!

Christ the God, is Christ the man!

Andover, July 22, 1852.

LETTER FROM THE EARL OF CARLISLE TO THE SECRETARY OF THE SOCIETY.

London, July 8, 1852.

Madam,—I should be very sorry indeed to refuse any request addressed to me from the “Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Association.”

At the same time I really should feel at a loss what to send, but as I am on the point of sending off a letter to the authoress of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, I venture to submit a copy of it to those who I feel sure must be fond of such a countrywoman.

Your very faithful Servant,

London, July 8, 1852.

Madam,—I have allowed some time to elapse before I thanked you for the great honour and kindness you did me in sending to me, from yourself, a copy of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. I thought it due to the subject of which I perceived that it treated, not to send a mere acknowledgment, as I confess from a motive of policy I am apt to do, upon the first arrival of the book. I therefore determined to read, before I wrote.

Having thus read, it is not in the stiff and conventional form of compliment, still less in the technical language of criticism, that I am about to speak of your work. I return my deep and solemn thanks to Almighty God, who has led and enabled you to write such a book.

I do feel, indeed, the most thorough assurance that in His good providence such a book cannot have been written in vain. I have long felt that slavery is by far the topping question of the world and age we live in, involving all that is most thrilling in heroism, and most touching in distress,—in short, the real epic of the universe. The self-interest of the parties most nearly concerned on the one hand, the apathy and ignorance of unconcerned observers on the other, have left these august pretensions to drop very much out of sight, and hence my rejoicing that a writer has appeared who will be read, and must be felt, and that happen what may to the transactions of slavery, they will no longer be suppressed, “carent quia vate sacrâ.”

I trust that what I have just said was not required to show the entire sympathy I entertain with respect to the main truth and leading scope of your high argument, but we live in a world only too apt to regard the accessories and accidents of a subject above its real and vital essence; no one can know so well as you how much the external appearance of the negro detracts from the romance and sentimentality which undoubtedly might attach to his position and his wrongs, and on this account it does seem to me proportionately important that you should have brought to your portraiture great grace of style, great power of language, a play of humour which relieves and brightens even the dark depth of the back-ground which you were called upon to reveal, a force of pathos which, to give it the highest praise, does not lay behind even all the dread reality, and, above all, a variety, a discrimination, and a truth in the delineation of character, which even to my own scanty and limited experience of the society you describe accredits itself instantaneously and irresistibly. Seldom, indeed, could I more forcibly apply the line of a very favourite poet,—

“And truths divine came mended from that tongue.”

I have been told, that in an English periodical the quality of genius has been denied to your book. The motives which must have guided its composition will probably have made you supremely indifferent to mere criticism, especially to any which argues so much obfuscation both of head and heart. Your work has genius of the highest order, and it is the lowest of its merits.

There is one point which, in face of all that your book has aimed at and achieved, I think of extremely slight importance, but which I will nevertheless just mention, if only to show that I have not been bribed into this fervour of admiration. I think, then, that whenever you speak of England and her institutions, it is in a tone which fails to do them fair justice. I do not know what distinct charges you think could be established against our aristocracy and capitalists, but you generally convey the impression that the same oppressions in degree, though not in kind, might be brought home to them which are now laid to the charge of Southern slave-holders. Exposed to the same ordeal, they might very probably not stand the test better. All I contend for is, that the circumstances in which they are placed, and the institutions by which they are surrounded, make the parallel wholly inapplicable. I cannot but suspect that your view has been in many respects derived from composers of fiction and others among ourselves who, writing with distinguished ability, have been more successful in delineating and dissecting the morbid features of our modern society, than in detecting the principle which is at fault, or suggesting the appropriate remedy. My own belief is, liable, if you please, to national bias, that our capitalists are very much the same sort of persons as your own in the Northern States, with the same mixtures and inequalities of motive and action. With respect to our aristocracy, I should really be tempted to say that, tried by their conduct on the question of Free Trade, they do not sustain an unfavourable comparison with your uppermost classes. Allow me to add, that when in one place you refer to those who have already emancipated their slaves, I think a case more directly in point than the proceedings of the Hungarian nobles might have been selected: such, at least, I feel sure would have been the case, if the passages in question had been written by one who certainly was keenly alive to the faults of England, but who did justice to her good qualities and deeds with a heartiness exceeding that of most of her own sons,—your great and good Dr. Channing.

I need not repeat how irrelevant, after all, I feel what I have said upon this head to be to the main issues involved in your work; there is little doubt, too, that as a nation we have our special failings, and one of them probably is that we care too little about what other nations think of them.

Nor can I wish my countrymen ever to forget that their own past history should prevent them from being forward in casting accusations on their transatlantic brethren on the subject of slavery. With great ignorance of its actual miseries and horrors, there is also among us great ignorance of the fearful perplexities and difficulties with which its solution could not fail to be attended. I feel, however, that there is a considerable difference between reluctant acquiescence in what you inherit from the past, and voluntary fresh enlargements and reinforcements of the system. For instance, I should not say that the mode in which such an enactment as the Fugitive Slave Law has been considered in this country has at all erred upon the side of overmuch indignation.

I need not detain you longer; I began my letter with returning thanks to Almighty God for the appearance of your work, and I offer my humble and ardent prayer to the same Supreme Source that it may have a marked agency in hastening the great consummation, which I should feel it a practical atheism not to believe must be among the unfulfilled purposes of the Divine power and love.

I have the honour to be, Madam,

Your sincere admirer and well-wisher,

CARLISLE.

Mrs. Beecher Stowe.

MOMMA CHARLOTTE.

“Slavery is merely an idea!” said Mr. S——; “the slaves are, in reality, better off than we are, if they had sense enough to know it. They are taken care of—(they must be, you know, because it is the master’s interest to keep them in good condition, and a man will always do what is for his interest). They get rid of all responsibility,—which is what we are groaning under; and if they were only let alone, they would be happy enough,—happier than their masters, I dare say.”

“You think it, then, anything but kindness to urge their emancipation?”

“To be sure I do! and I would have every one that teaches them to be discontented hung up without judge or jury.”

“You seem particularly interested for the slave,—”

“Interested! I would have every one of them sent beyond the Rocky Mountains, if I could,—or into ‘kingdom come,’ for that matter. They are the curse of the country; but as long as they are property, I would shoot any man that put bad ideas in their heads or that interfered with my management of them, as I would shoot a dog that killed my sheep.”

“But do they never get what you call ‘bad ideas’ from any but white people?”

“O, there is no knowing where they get them,—but they are full of ’em. No matter how kind you are to them, they are never satisfied!”

“I can tell you where they get some of their ideas of slavery, if you will allow me.”

“Certainly,—I am always glad of information.”

“Well,—I will take up your time with nothing but actual facts, for the truth of which I will be answerable. In a Western tour, not many years since, I saw one day a young lady, fair as a lily, and with a sweet expression of countenance, walking in the street with a little black girl whom she held by the hand. The little girl was about six years old, neatly dressed and very clean; and on her neck she had a little gauze shawl that somebody had given her, the border of which was composed of the figure of the American Eagle many times repeated, each impression accompanied by the word ‘Liberty,’ woven into the fabric.

“This curious decoration, together with the wistful look of the child’s face, and the benevolent air of the young lady, with whom I was slightly acquainted, led me to ask some questions, which were answered with an air in which modesty and sensibility were blended. I learned that the young lady had undertaken the trying task of accompanying the little girl through the place—which was a considerable village—for the purpose of collecting the sum of fifty dollars, with which to purchase the freedom of the child.

“‘And how,’ said I, ‘did you become interested in the poor little thing?’

“‘She belongs to a member of my family,’ said Miss C——, with a blush; ‘to my aunt, Mrs. Jones.’

“‘And how did she find her way to the north?’

“‘Her mother, who is the servant of my aunt, got leave to bring Violet along with her, when her mistress came here for the summer.’

“‘But both mother and child are free by the mere circumstance of being brought here,—’

“‘O, but Momma Charlotte promised her mistress that she would not leave her, nor let Violet do so, if she might bring the child with her, and beg money to buy her. She says she does not care for freedom for herself.’

“I could not do less than go with the good girl for awhile, to assist a little in her labour of love, which in the end, and with a good deal of difficulty, was finally accomplished. It was not until after this that I became acquainted with Momma Charlotte, the mother of Violet, and learned a few of the particulars of a story which had made her ‘not care for freedom.’

“Momma Charlotte was the mother of ten children,—six daughters and four sons. Her husband had been a free black,—a carpenter, able to keep a comfortable home for his family, hiring his wife of her master. At the time of the Southampton insurrection, this man was among the suspected, and, on suspicion, not proof, he was taken up, tried after the fashion of that time, and hung, with several others, all between sunset and sunrise of a single day.

“‘He was innocent,—he had had no hand in the matter, as God is my judge!’ said poor Momma Charlotte.

“This was but the beginning of troubles. A sense of insecurity made the sale of slaves more vigorous than ever. Charlotte’s children were sold, one by one—no two together—the boys for the sugar country,—the girls for ‘the New Orleans market,’ whence they were dispersed, she never knew where.

“‘All gone!’ she said; ‘where I could never see ’em nor hear from ’em. I don’t even know where one of ’em is!’

“‘And Violet?’

“‘O yes,—I mean all but Violet. She’s all I’ve got in the world, and I want to keep her. I begged Missus to let me keep jist one! and she said if I could get any body to buy her for me, I might have her,—for you know I couldn’t own her myself, ’cause I’m a slave.’

“‘But you are no longer a slave, Momma Charlotte; your mistress by bringing you here voluntarily has freed you,—’

“‘Yes,—I know,—but I promised, you see! And I don’t care to be free. I’m old, and my children’s gone, and my heart’s broke. I ha’n’t no more courage. If I can keep Violet, it’s all I expect. My mistress is good enough to me,—I live pretty easy.’

“Such was Momma Charlotte’s philosophy, but her face told through what sufferings such philosophy had been acquired. A fixed grief sat on her brow; since the judicial murder of her husband she had never been known to laugh,—hardly to smile. Her eyes were habitually cast on the ground, and her voice seemed always on the brink of tears. She was what you call ‘dissatisfied,’ I think, Mr. S——.”

“O, you have selected an extreme case! those things very seldom happen.” (Seldom!) “After all, you see the poor old thing knew what was right; she showed the right spirit,—”

“Yes,—she,—but her owners?”

Here Mr. S—— was sure he saw a friend at a distance to whom it was necessary he should speak immediately; so he darted off, and I lost the benefit of his defence of the peculiarities of the peculiar institution.

A NAME,
ON BEING ASKED FOR HIS AUTOGRAPH.

Why ask a Name? Small is the good it brings;

Names are but breath; deeds, DEEDS alone are Things.

West Newton, Oct. 23, 1852.

TO THE SECRETARY OF THE SOCIETY.

In compliance with the request that I would send a few lines for insertion in “The Anti-Slavery Autograph,” I may say that I cannot express too strongly my conviction that, if there be truth in Revelation, it is the duty of every Christian to promote, by all legitimate means, not only the universal and total, but the immediate abolition of any system under which man can hold property in his fellow man. Perhaps few of those who take this view of the subject are sufficiently careful to avoid, as far as possible, any participation in, or encouragement of slavery, by refusing to use the produce of the unrequited toil of the slave. Yet until we do this, I think we have little right to expect the Divine blessing upon our efforts to promote the abolition of slavery and of the slave trade.

SLAVERY AND POLYGAMY: DOCTORS OF DIVINITY IN A DILEMMA.

An argument is derived from the Jewish Scriptures in favour of slave-holding, very plausible and weighty with that large class of persons so poorly gifted with hearts as to find it difficult to discriminate between the letter that killeth and the spirit that maketh alive. The Old Testament shows clearly enough, that slave-holding was tolerated among the Jews; and it being assumed that the system of Jewish society, or, at all events, that the Mosaic code, was framed after a Divine model, it is alleged to be at least supererogatory, if not actually impious, to denounce as inconsistent with Christianity that which God permitted to his chosen and selected people. Are we to pretend to be better and wiser than Abraham and Moses, David and Solomon?

A recent application of this same argument can hardly fail to operate with many, as what the mathematicians call a reductio ad absurdum; a proof, that is, of the falsity of a proposition assumed, by exhibiting its operation in other cases.

The famous Mormon doctrine of the plurality of wives, now at length openly avowed by the heads and apostles of that new sect, is upheld and justified by this very same argument. It plainly appears from the Old Testament, that polygamy, equally with slavery, was one of the social institutions of the Jews, recognised and sanctioned by their laws. And borrowing the tone, and indeed the very words of our pro-slavery theologians,—“Do you pretend,” asks Orson Hyde, one of the Mormon apostles, addressing himself to those who question this new privilege of the saints,—“Do you pretend to set yourselves above the teaching of God, and the example of his chosen people?”

Nor does the analogy between the two cases stop here. According to the pro-slavery biblical argument, slave-holding is only to be justified in Christian slave-holders, who, in holding slaves, have in view not only selfish benefit or advantage, but the good of the slaves, (who are not able to take care of themselves,) and the glory of God. According to the Mormon biblical argument, polygamy is to be allowed only to the saints; and that, not for any sensual gratification, but only for the benefit of the women (who, according to the Mormon doctrine, cannot get to heaven without some holy husband to introduce them), and for the raising up of a righteous seed to God’s glory.

Their favourite biblical argument, urged with such a tone of triumph and self-satisfaction in all the southern presbyteries and consociations, and in some northern ones, being thus newly applied by the Mormons, our pro-slavery friends are placed in a somewhat delicate dilemma. For they must either abandon as invalid their dogma of slave-holding derived from Jewish practices, or, if they still hold on to the argument, and maintain its force, they must prepare to extend the right hand of fellowship to Brigham Young and his five and forty wives. It is, indeed, very natural, in fact inevitable, that slavery and polygamy, avowed or disavowed, should go together; nor does any good reason appear why those who find justification for the one in the Jewish Scriptures should hesitate about accepting the other.

THE WAY.

Believe me still, as I have ever been,

The steadfast lover of my fellow men;

My weakness,—love of holy Liberty!

My crime,—the wish that all mankind were free!

Free, not by blood; redeemed, but not by crime;

Each fetter broken, but in God’s good time!

Amesbury, 10th MO. 16, 1852.

THE SLAVE AND SLAVE-OWNER.

“I would rather be anything than a slave,—except a slave-owner!” said a wise and good man. The slave-owner inflicts wrongs,—the slave but suffers it. He has friends and champions by thousands. Some men live only to defend and save him. Many are willing to fight for him. Some even to die for him.

The most effective romance of our times has been written for slaves. The genius of more than one of our best poets has been consecrated to them. They divide the hearts and councils of our great nation. They are daily remembered in the prayers of the faithful. They are the most earnest topic of the Christian world.

But the slave-owner! who weeps, who prays, who lives, who dies for him! True, he is of the boasted Saxon race, or descended from the brilliant Gaul, or gifted Celt. He is enriched by the transmitted civilisation of all ages. He has been nurtured by Christian institutions. To him have been opened the fountains of Divine truth. But from this elevation he is to be dragged down by the mill-stone of slavery.

If he be a rural landlord, he looks around upon his ancestral possessions, and sees the curse of slave-ownership upon them,—he knows the time must come when “the field shall yield no meat, the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stall.” To him the onward tendencies of the age are reversed. His movement is steadily backward.

To the slave are held out the rewards of fortitude, of long suffering, of meekness, of patience in tribulation. What and where are the promises to the slave-owner?

Thousands among them are in a false position. They are the involuntary maintainers of wrong, and transmitters of evil. Hundreds among them have scrupulous consciences and tender feelings. They use power gently. They feed their servants bountifully. They nurse the sick kindly,—and devote weary days to their instruction. But alas! they live under the laws of slave-owners. They are forbidden to teach the slave to read, write, or cipher, to give them the means of independent progress and increasing light. Their teaching is as bootless as the labour of Sisyphus! most wearisome and disheartening.

The great eras of domestic life, bright to the thoughtless slave, are dark with forecasting shadows to the slave-owner. The mother cannot forget her sorrows, because a man-child is born. If she dare contemplate his future, she sees that the activities of his nature must be repressed, his faculties but half developed, his passions stimulated by irresponsible power, inflamed by temptation, and solicited by convenient opportunity. She knows that his path in life must be more and more entangled as he goes onward,—darker and darker with the ever-deepening misery of this cruel institution.

Is it a “merry marriage-bell” that rings in the ear of a slave-owning mother for the bridal of her daughter? Does not her soul recoil from the possible (probable?) evils before her child; to be placed, perchance, on an isolated plantation, environed by natural enemies; to see, it may be, the brothers and sisters of her own children follow their slave-mother to the field, or severed from her to be sold at the slave-market?

Compared with these miseries of the slave-owner, what are the toils and stripes of the slave? what his labour without stimulus or requital? what his degradation to a chattel? what the deprivation of security to the ties of kindred, and the annulling of that relation which is their source and chiefest blessing?

The slave looks forward with ever-growing hope to the struggle that must come. He joyfully “smells the battle afar off.” The slave-owner folds his arms, and shuts his eyes in paralysing despair. He hears the fearful threatenings of the gathering storm. He knows it must come,—to him fatally. It is only a question of time!

Who would not “rather be a slave than a slave-owner?”

LETTER FROM THE BISHOP OF OXFORD[^[1]] TO THE SECRETARY OF THE SOCIETY.

Cuddesdon Palace, July 7, 1852.

Madam,—I readily comply with your desire. England taught her descendants in America to injure their African brethren. Every Englishman should aid the American to get rid of this cleaving wrong and deep injury to his race and nation.—I am ever yours,

“HIDE THE OUTCASTS.”

Hide the outcasts, and bewray not

Him that wand’reth to be free;

Haste!—deliver and delay not;—

Let my outcasts dwell with thee.[^[2]]

Shelter thou shalt not refuse him,

Lest, with him, his Lord ye slight;[^[3]]

When, at noon, the foe pursues him,

Make thy shadow dark as night.

With thee shall he dwell, protected,

Near thee, cherished by thy side;

Though degraded, scorned, neglected,—

Thrust him not away, in pride.[^[4]]

As, in truth, ye would that others

Unto you should succour lend,

So, to them, as equal brothers,

Equal love and help extend.[^[5]]

Thou shalt not the slave deliver

To his master, when he flees:—

Heritage, from God, the Giver,

Yield them freely, where they please.[^[6]]

As thyself,[^[7]]—thy babes,—their mother,—

Thou wouldst shield from murd’rous arm,

So the slave, thy equal brother,

And his household, shield from harm.

Hearken, ye that know and fear me,[^[8]]

Ye who in my law delight;

Ye that seek me, and revere me,

Hate the wrong and love the right.[^[9]]

Fear ye not, when men upbraid you,

Worms shall all their strength devour;

My salvation still shall aid you,

Coming ages learn my power.

Why forget the Lord thy Maker?

Why th’ oppressor’s fury dread?

Zion’s King shall ne’er forsake her;—

Where’s th’ oppressor’s fury fled?[^[10]]

Scorn the mandates of transgressors;[^[11]]

Fear thy God, and fear none other;

’Gainst thyself conspire oppressors,

When they bid thee bind thy brother.

Lo! the captive exile hasteth

To be loosed from thrall, forever;[^[12]]

Lo! the power of tyrants wasteth,

Perish soon,—recovered, never!

CAN SLAVES RIGHTFULLY RESIST AND FIGHT?

I do not answer this question. But the following facts are submitted as containing the materials for an answer.

About seventy years ago, three millions of people in America thought themselves wronged by the powers ordained of God. They resolved not to endure the wrong. They published to the world a statement of grievances which justified resistance to the powers ordained of God, and deliberately revolted against the king, though explicitly commanded by God to “honour the king.” In the process of revolt, about one hundred thousand men, Europeans and Americans,—were slaughtered in battle, or slowly butchered by the sickness, imprisonments, and hardships incident to a state of war.

It was distinctly maintained in 1776, that men may rightfully fight for liberty, and resist the powers ordained of God, if those powers destroyed liberty. Christian men, ministers in their pulpits, strenuously argued that it was men’s duty to fight for liberty, and to kill those who opposed them. Prayer was offered to God for success in this process of resistance and blood; and good men implored and obtained help from other nations, to complete the work of resistance to oppression, and death to the oppressors.

I do not say that these positions were right, or that the men of 1776 acted right. But I do say, that if they were right, we are necessarily led to some startling conclusions. For there are now three millions of people of America grievously wronged by the government they live under. If it was right in 1776 to resist, fight, and kill, to secure liberty,—it is right to do the same in 1852. If three millions of whites might rightfully resist the powers ordained of God, then three millions of blacks may rightfully do the same. If France was justified in aiding our band of revolutionists to fight for liberty, then a foreign nation may lawfully aid men now to vindicate their rights. If, as the men of 1776 declared, “when a long train of abuses evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government,”—then it is the duty of three millions of men in 1852 to throw off the government which reduces them to the frightful and absolute despotism of chattel slavery.

But what were the oppressions, which, in 1776, justified revolt, battle, and one hundred thousand deaths? They are stated in the “Declaration of Independence,” are familiar to all, and will therefore only be abridged here. The powers ordained of God over the men of 1776,—“restrained their trade,”—“refused assent to laws enacted by the local legislature,”—“kept soldiers to overawe them,”—“did not punish soldiers for killing a few colonists,”—“imposed taxes without their consent,”—“in some cases, did not allow them trial by jury,”—“abolished good laws,”—“made war on them in case of disobedience.”

These were the wrongs they complained of. But nearly all their rights were untouched. They had schools and colleges, and could educate their children; they could become intelligent and learned themselves; they could acquire property, and large numbers of them had become rich; they could emigrate without hindrance to any other country, when weary of the oppressions of their own; they could elect their own town and state officers; they could keep swords, muskets, powder and ball in their own houses; they could not be lashed and sold like brutes; they were never compelled to work without wages; they could appeal to courts of justice for protection.

Let us now hear a statement of the wrongs inflicted on three millions of Americans in 1852.

We have no rights left to us.

Laws forbid us to be taught even to read, and severe penalties are inflicted on those who teach us.

The natural right of the parent over the child is wholly taken away; our children are systematically kept in profound ignorance, and are worked or sold like brutes, at the will of slave-holders.

We can acquire no property, and are kept in utter and perpetual pauperism, dependent on the mere caprice or selfishness of other men for subsistence.

If we attempt peaceably to emigrate from this land of oppression, we are hunted by bull-dogs, or shot down like beasts,—dragged back to perpetual slavery without trial by jury.

We are exposed to the most degrading and revolting punishments, without judge or trial, at the passion, caprice, or cruelty of the basest overseers.

When our wives and daughters are seduced or ravished, we are forbidden to appeal to the courts of justice.

Whatever outrage may be perpetrated on ourselves or our families, we have no redress.

We are compelled to work without wages; the fruits of our labour are systematically extorted from us.

Many thousands of our people are annually collected by slave-traders, and sold to distant States; by which means families are broken up, and the most frightful debasement, anguish, and outrage is inflicted on us.

We have no access to courts of justice, no voice in the election of rulers, no agency in making the laws,—not even the miserable remnant of liberty, in choosing the despot who may have absolute power over us.

We are hopelessly consigned to that condition most revolting and loathsome to one in whom the least vestige of manly or womanly feeling is left,—that of absolute slavery.

The laws treat us not as human beings, but “as chattels personal, to all intents, constructions, and purposes whatsoever.”

Great numbers of our people, in addition to all these enormities, endure unutterable bodily sufferings, from the cruelty and torturing punishments inflicted on us.

I do not assert that three millions of people, suffering such intolerable wrongs and outrages, ought to throttle their oppressors, and kill fifty thousand of them. I only say, that if it was right to do so in 1776, it is also right to do the same in 1852. If the light oppressions which the men of the last century endured justified war and bloodshed, then oppressions ten thousand times worse would surely justify revolt and blood. If the colonists might rightfully refuse to “remain in the calling wherein they were called,” as subjects of the English government, then slaves may rightfully refuse to continue in the calling wherein they were called. If three millions of men might lawfully disregard the text, “honour the king,” on the ground that the king oppressed them, then three millions of men may lawfully disregard the text, “servants obey your masters,” on the ground that those masters grievously oppress them. If the prospect of success justified the war of 1776, then as soon as three millions of slaves feel able and determined to vindicate their rights, they may justly demand them at the point of the sword; and any black Washington who shall lead his countrymen to victory and liberty, even through carnage, will merit our veneration. If “liberty or death” was a noble and Christian war-cry in 1776 for the oppressed, then it would be noble and Christian-like for the oppressed men of 1852 practically to adopt the same.

If these inferences appear startling and even horrible, why do they so appear? Is there any reason except that inveterate prejudice, which applies very different principles to the coloured man and the white man? If three millions of white men were in slavery in Algiers now, should we not urge them, as soon as there was hope of success, to imitate the men of 1776, rise and fight for liberty? Therefore, until we are prepared to condemn our ancestors as guilty rebels, and abhor their insurrection as a wicked resistance to the ordinance of God, can we blame any class of people for successful revolt against an oppressive government?

Let this further question be pondered. Who were to blame for the destruction of one hundred thousand lives in the war of 1776? The oppressors or the oppressed? The men who fought for liberty or the men who would not let them have it without fighting? Who then would be responsible for the death of one hundred thousand men, if the oppressed men of 1852 should kill so many, in fighting for liberty?

If the reader is shocked by such inquiries and inferences, and as directly and intentionally designed to encourage servile insurrection and civil war, he may be assured that my aim is entirely different. It is my wish to secure timely precautions against danger. For we are to remember, that our slave and coloured population is advancing with the same gigantic rate of increase characteristic of our country. In twenty-five years, we shall have six millions of slaves; in fifty years, twelve millions; in seventy-five years, twenty-four millions. Can any one dream of the possibility of retaining twenty-four millions, or twelve millions, of human beings in slavery? Long before that number is reached, will not vast multitudes of them learn the simple lessons of liberty and right, which our books, orations, and politicians inculcate day by day? Will there not arise among them men of courage, genius, enthusiasm, who will, at all hazards, lead them on to that glorious liberty which we have taught them is cheaply purchased at any peril, or war, or bloodshed? When that day comes, as sure it must, will there not be horrors such as civil war has never yet produced? Is it not wise, then, to begin measures for averting so fearful a catastrophe? Is it not madness to slumber over such a frightful future? Should not the talent and energies of the country be directed to the momentous inquiry, How can slavery now be peacefully and rightfully removed? Does not every attempt to hush agitation, and insist on the finality of anti-slavery measures, make more sure the awful fact that slavery is to work out its own emancipation in fighting and blood?

DEATH IN LIFE.

SUPPOSED INSCRIPTION UPON THE SEPULCHRE OF A NEGRO SLAVE, WHO, FOR SOME IMAGINED CRIME, HAD BEEN IMMURED HALF A CENTURY IN A DUNGEON.

Ope, jealous portal! ope thy cavern womb,

Thy pris’ner will not flee its close embrace;

He lived and moved too long within a tomb,

Beyond its narrow bounds to dream of space.

To eat his crust and muse, unvarying lot!

Thus, like his beard, his life slow length’ning grew;

So long shut out, the world the wretch forgot,

His cell his universe,—’twas all he knew.

For Memory soon with loving pinions wheeled

In circles narrowing each successive flight;

Her sickly wings at length enfeebled yield,

Too weak to scale the walls that bound his sight.

But Hope sat with him once, and cheered his day;

And raised his limbs, and kept his lamp alight;

Scared by his groans, at length she fled away;

And left him lone,—to spend one endless night.

What change to him, then, is the vault below,

From that where late the captive was confined?

But this,—a worm here eats his BODY now;

Whilst there it gnawed his slow decaying MIND.

London, 1852.

TRUE REFORM.

I have received your appeal, my friends, and am not sorry to find myself remembered by you. Every moment of the ages is pregnant with the fate of humanity, but we are inclined to imagine that in which we live to have a peculiar significance. At this hour, it seems to us as if the great balance of justice swayed to and fro, in most disheartening uncertainty; but this moment, like all others, lies in the hollow of God’s hand, and his infinite love will not fail to justify to men and angels its terrible discipline.

I have departed on this occasion from the plan of action once laid down to myself. I have not presented you in these pages with the revolting facts of slavery; for to deal with the subject at this moment in a fitting manner, demands a prudence and tact not likely to be possessed by one absent from the scene of action, and ignorant of the passing moment. I wish to convey to you the assurance of my deep sympathy in all Christ-like opposition to sin; my deep sorrow for every loss of manly self-control, and failure of faith in God, among reformers; my conviction that the Constitution of the United States, in so far as it is not in harmony with the law of God, can be no sure foundation for the law of man; that until it gives place to a higher ground of union, or until the nation consent to give it a higher interpretation, it will depress the national industry, corrupt the national morals, and palsy the national strength. It is my firm faith, that man owes his first allegiance to God, and that it is the duty of every citizen who disobeys the law of a land, to bear its penalties with a patience and firmness which shall show him adequate to the hour, and neither unwilling nor unfit to complete the sacrifice he has begun. Above all, O my friends! I pray that God may fill the hearts of the reformers in this cause with the deepest devotion to his absolute truth, the truest perception of the humility of Christ; that He may show them how, as its exigencies press, they must not only be men full of anti-slavery zeal, but filled with Divine prudence, sincere desirers of that peace which is founded on purity,—possessors of that temperance which is its own best pledge. In the consciousness of the martyrdom of the affections, which his position involves, the reformer feels oftentimes secure of his eternal compensation. But I have wondered, of late, whether martyrdom may not be as dangerous to his spiritual life as worldly renown, or pecuniary prosperity.

Stretched upon the rack, I may still be puffed up with pride, or an unhealthy spirit of self-dependence; and sacrificing my last copper on the altar of a great truth, I may still refuse to offer there my personal vanity, my wilful self-esteem, or my bitterness of temper.

Let us be willing, O my friends! to lay these also at the feet of Christ.

Toronto, Canada, July 22, 1852.

HOW LONG?

How long, O gracious God! how long,

Shall power lord it over right?

The feeble, trampled by the strong,

Remain in slavery’s gloomy night?

In every region of the earth,

Oppression rules with iron power;

And every man of sterling worth,

Whose soul disdains to cringe or cower

Beneath a haughty tyrant’s nod,

And, supplicating, kiss the rod

That, wielded by oppression’s might,

Smites to the earth his dearest right,—

The right to speak, and think, and feel,

And spread his uttered thoughts abroad,

To labour for the common weal,

Responsible to none but God,—

Is threatened with the dungeon’s gloom,

The felon’s cell, the traitor’s doom,

And treacherous politicians league

With hireling priests, to crush and ban