My Bondage and My Freedom
slaveholder, nor to slavery, that the vivacious captive may sometimes
dance in his chains; his very mirth in such circumstances stands before
God as an accusing angel against his enslaver.
It is often said, by the opponents of the anti-slavery cause, that the
condition of the people of Ireland is more deplorable than that of the
American slaves. Far be it from me to underrate the sufferings of the
Irish people. They have been long oppressed; and the same heart that
prompts me to plead the cause of the American bondman, makes it
impossible for me not to sympathize with the oppressed of all lands.
Yet I must say that there is no analogy between the two cases. The
Irishman is poor, but he is not a slave. He may be in rags, but he is
not a slave. He is still the master of his own body, and can say with
the poet, “The hand of Douglass is his own.” “The world is all before
him, where to choose;” and poor as may be my opinion of the British
parliament, I cannot believe that it will ever sink to such a depth of
infamy as to pass a law for the recapture of fugitive Irishmen! The
shame and scandal of kidnapping will long remain wholly monopolized by
the American congress. The Irishman has not only the liberty to
emigrate from his country, but he has liberty at home. He can write,
and speak, and cooperate for the attainment of his rights and the
redress of his wrongs.
The multitude can assemble upon all the green hills and fertile plains
of the Emerald Isle; they can pour out their grievances, and proclaim
their wants without molestation; and the press, that “swift-winged
messenger,” can bear the tidings of their doings to the extreme bounds
of the civilized world. They have their “Conciliation Hall,” on the
banks of the Liffey, their reform clubs, and their newspapers; they
pass resolutions, send forth addresses, and enjoy the right of
petition. But how is it with the American slave? Where may he assemble?
Where is his Conciliation Hall? Where are his newspapers? Where is his
right of petition? Where is his freedom of speech? his liberty of the
press? and his right of locomotion? He is said to be happy; happy men
can speak. But ask the slave what is his condition—what his state of
mind—what he thinks of enslavement? and you had as well address your
inquiries to the _silent dead_. There comes no _voice_ from the
enslaved. We are left to gather his feelings by imagining what ours
would be, were our souls in his soul’s stead.
If there were no other fact descriptive of slavery, than that the slave
is dumb, this alone would be sufficient to mark the slave system as a
grand aggregation of human horrors.
Most who are present, will have observed that leading men in this
country have been putting forth their skill to secure quiet to the
nation. A system of measures to promote this object was adopted a few
months ago in congress. The result of those measures is known. Instead
of quiet, they have produced alarm; instead of peace, they have brought
us war; and so it must ever be.
While this nation is guilty of the enslavement of three millions of
innocent men and women, it is as idle to think of having a sound and
lasting peace, as it is to think there is no God to take cognizance of
the affairs of men. There can be no peace to the wicked while slavery
continues in the land. It will be condemned; and while it is condemned
there will be agitation. Nature must cease to be nature; men must
become monsters; humanity must be transformed; Christianity must be
exterminated; all ideas of justice and the laws of eternal goodness
must be utterly blotted out from the human soul—ere a system so foul
and infernal can escape condemnation, or this guilty republic can have
a sound, enduring peace.
INHUMANITY OF SLAVERY. Extract from A Lecture on Slavery, at Rochester,
December 8, 1850
The relation of master and slave has been called patriarchal, and only
second in benignity and tenderness to that of the parent and child.
This representation is doubtless believed by many northern people; and
this may account, in part, for the lack of interest which we find among
persons whom we are bound to believe to be honest and humane. What,
then, are the facts? Here I will not quote my own experience in
slavery; for this you might call one-sided testimony. I will not cite
the declarations of abolitionists; for these you might pronounce
exaggerations. I will not rely upon advertisements cut from newspapers;
for these you might call isolated cases. But I will refer you to the
laws adopted by the legislatures of the slave states. I give you such
evidence, because it cannot be invalidated nor denied. I hold in my
hand sundry extracts from the slave codes of our country, from which I
will quote. * * *
Now, if the foregoing be an indication of kindness, _what is cruelty_?
If this be parental affection, _what is bitter malignity_? A more
atrocious and blood-thirsty string of laws could not well be conceived
of. And yet I am bound to say that they fall short of indicating the
horrible cruelties constantly practiced in the slave states.
I admit that there are individual slaveholders less cruel and barbarous
than is allowed by law; but these form the exception. The majority of
slaveholders find it necessary, to insure obedience, at times, to avail
themselves of the utmost extent of the law, and many go beyond it. If
kindness were the rule, we should not see advertisements filling the
columns of almost every southern newspaper, offering large rewards for
fugitive slaves, and describing them as being branded with irons,
loaded with chains, and scarred by the whip. One of the most telling
testimonies against the pretended kindness of slaveholders, is the fact
that uncounted numbers of fugitives are now inhabiting the Dismal
Swamp, preferring the untamed wilderness to their cultivated
homes—choosing rather to encounter hunger and thirst, and to roam with
the wild beasts of the forest, running the hazard of being hunted and
shot down, than to submit to the authority of _kind_ masters.
I tell you, my friends, humanity is never driven to such an unnatural
course of life, without great wrong. The slave finds more of the milk
of human kindness in the bosom of the savage Indian, than in the heart
of his _Christian_ master. He leaves the man of the _bible_, and takes
refuge with the man of the _tomahawk_. He rushes from the praying
slaveholder into the paws of the bear. He quits the homes of men for
the haunts of wolves. He prefers to encounter a life of trial, however
bitter, or death, however terrible, to dragging out his existence under
the dominion of these _kind_ masters.
The apologists for slavery often speak of the abuses of slavery; and
they tell us that they are as much opposed to those abuses as we are;
and that they would go as far to correct those abuses and to ameliorate
the condition of the slave as anybody. The answer to that view is, that
slavery is itself an abuse; that it lives by abuse; and dies by the
absence of abuse. Grant that slavery is right; grant that the relations
of master and slave may innocently exist; and there is not a single
outrage which was ever committed against the slave but what finds an
apology in the very necessity of the case. As we said by a slaveholder
(the Rev. A. G. Few) to the Methodist conference, “If the relation be
right, the means to maintain it are also right;” for without those
means slavery could not exist. Remove the dreadful scourge—the plaited
thong—the galling fetter—the accursed chain—and let the slaveholder
rely solely upon moral and religious power, by which to secure
obedience to his orders, and how long do you suppose a slave would
remain on his plantation? The case only needs to be stated; it carries
its own refutation with it.
Absolute and arbitrary power can never be maintained by one man over
the body and soul of another man, without brutal chastisement and
enormous cruelty.
To talk of _kindness_ entering into a relation in which one party is
robbed of wife, of children, of his hard earnings, of home, of friends,
of society, of knowledge, and of all that makes this life desirable, is
most absurd, wicked, and preposterous.
I have shown that slavery is wicked—wicked, in that it violates the
great law of liberty, written on every human heart—wicked, in that it
violates the first command of the decalogue—wicked, in that it fosters
the most disgusting licentiousness—wicked, in that it mars and defaces
the image of God by cruel and barbarous inflictions—wicked, in that it
contravenes the laws of eternal justice, and tramples in the dust all
the humane and heavenly precepts of the New Testament.
The evils resulting from this huge system of iniquity are not confined
to the states south of Mason and Dixon’s line. Its noxious influence
can easily be traced throughout our northern borders. It comes even as
far north as the state of New York. Traces of it may be seen even in
Rochester; and travelers have told me it casts its gloomy shadows
across the lake, approaching the very shores of Queen Victoria’s
dominions.
The presence of slavery may be explained by—as it is the explanation
of—the mobocratic violence which lately disgraced New York, and which
still more recently disgraced the city of Boston. These violent
demonstrations, these outrageous invasions of human rights, faintly
indicate the presence and power of slavery here. It is a significant
fact, that while meetings for almost any purpose under heaven may be
held unmolested in the city of Boston, that in the same city, a meeting
cannot be peaceably held for the purpose of preaching the doctrine of
the American Declaration of Independence, “that all men are created
equal.” The pestiferous breath of slavery taints the whole moral
atmosphere of the north, and enervates the moral energies of the whole
people.
The moment a foreigner ventures upon our soil, and utters a natural
repugnance to oppression, that moment he is made to feel that there is
little sympathy in this land for him. If he were greeted with smiles
before, he meets with frowns now; and it shall go well with him if he
be not subjected to that peculiarly fining method of showing fealty to
slavery, the assaults of a mob.
Now, will any man tell me that such a state of things is natural, and
that such conduct on the part of the people of the north, springs from
a consciousness of rectitude? No! every fibre of the human heart unites
in detestation of tyranny, and it is only when the human mind has
become familiarized with slavery, is accustomed to its injustice, and
corrupted by its selfishness, that it fails to record its abhorrence of
slavery, and does not exult in the triumphs of liberty.
The northern people have been long connected with slavery; they have
been linked to a decaying corpse, which has destroyed the moral health.
The union of the government; the union of the north and south, in the
political parties; the union in the religious organizations of the
land, have all served to deaden the moral sense of the northern people,
and to impregnate them with sentiments and ideas forever in conflict
with what as a nation we call _genius of American institutions_.
Rightly viewed, this is an alarming fact, and ought to rally all that
is pure, just, and holy in one determined effort to crush the monster
of corruption, and to scatter “its guilty profits” to the winds. In a
high moral sense, as well as in a national sense, the whole American
people are responsible for slavery, and must share, in its guilt and
shame, with the most obdurate men-stealers of the south.
While slavery exists, and the union of these states endures, every
American citizen must bear the chagrin of hearing his country branded