My Bondage and My Freedom
part of the slave. There are seventy-two crimes in the state of
Virginia, which, if committed by a black man (no matter how ignorant he
be), subject him to the punishment of death; while only two of these
same crimes will subject a white man to the like punishment. What is
this but the acknowledgement that the slave is a moral, intellectual,
and responsible being. The manhood of the slave is conceded. It is
admitted in the fact that southern statute books are covered with
enactments forbidding, under severe fines and penalties, the teaching
of the slave to read or write. When you can point to any such laws, in
reference to the beasts of the field, then I may consent to argue the
manhood of the slave. When the dogs in your streets, when the fowls of
the air, when the cattle on your hills, when the fish of the sea, and
the reptiles that crawl, shall be unable to distinguish the slave from
a brute, then will I argue with you that the slave is a man!
For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro
race. Is it not astonishing that, while we are plowing, planting, and
reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses,
constructing bridges, building ships, working in metals of brass, iron,
copper, silver, and gold; that, while we are reading, writing, and
cyphering, acting as clerks, merchants, and secretaries, having among
us lawyers, doctors, ministers, poets, authors, editors, orators, and
teachers; that, while we are engaged in all manner of enterprises
common to other men—digging gold in California, capturing the whale in
the Pacific, feeding sheep and cattle on the hillside, living, moving,
acting, thinking, planning, living in families as husbands, wives, and
children, and, above all, confessing and worshiping the Christian’s
God, and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave—we
are called upon to prove that we are men!
Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? that he is the
rightful owner of his own body? You have already declared it. Must I
argue the wrongfulness of slavery? Is that a question for republicans?
Is it to be settled by the rules of logic and argumentation, as a
matter beset with great difficulty, involving a doubtful application of
the principle of justice, hard to be understood? How should I look
to-day in the presence of Americans, dividing and subdividing a
discourse, to show that men have a natural right to freedom, speaking
of it relatively and positively, negatively and affirmatively? To do
so, would be to make myself ridiculous, and to offer an insult to your
understanding. There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven that
does not know that slavery is wrong for _him_.
What! am I to argue that it is wrong to make men brutes, to rob them of
their liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them ignorant of
their relations to their fellow-men, to beat them with sticks, to flay
their flesh with the lash, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them
with dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock
out their teeth, to burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience and
submission to their masters? Must I argue that a system, thus marked
with blood and stained with pollution, is wrong? No; I will not. I have
better employment for my time and strength than such arguments would
imply.
What, then, remains to be argued? Is it that slavery is not divine;
that God did not establish it; that our doctors of divinity are
mistaken? There is blasphemy in the thought. That which is inhuman
cannot be divine. Who can reason on such a proposition! They that can,
may! I cannot. The time for such argument is past.
At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is
needed. Oh! had I the ability, and could I reach the nation’s ear, I
would to-day pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting
reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that
is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need
the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation
must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the
propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation
must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed
and denounced.
What to the American slave is your Fourth of July? I answer, a day that
reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross
injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your
celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your
national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty
and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence;
your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and
hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade
and solemnity, are to him mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and
hypocrisy—a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation
of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more
shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at
this very hour.
Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the
monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through South
America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay
your facts by the side of the every-day practices of this nation, and
you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless
hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.
THE INTERNAL SLAVE TRADE. Extract from an Oration, at Rochester, July
5, 1852
Take the American slave trade, which, we are told by the papers, is
especially prosperous just now. Ex-senator Benton tells us that the
price of men was never higher than now. He mentions the fact to show
that slavery is in no danger. This trade is one of the peculiarities of
American institutions. It is carried on in all the large towns and
cities in one-half of this confederacy; and millions are pocketed every
year by dealers in this horrid traffic. In several states this trade is
a chief source of wealth. It is called (in contradistinction to the
foreign slave trade) _“the internal slave trade_.” It is, probably,
called so, too, in order to divert from it the horror with which the
foreign slave trade is contemplated. That trade has long since been
denounced by this government as piracy. It has been denounced with
burning words, from the high places of the nation, as an execrable
traffic. To arrest it, to put an end to it, this nation keeps a
squadron, at immense cost, on the coast of Africa. Everywhere in this
country, it is safe to speak of this foreign slave trade as a most
inhuman traffic, opposed alike to the laws of God and of man. The duty
to extirpate and destroy it is admitted even by our _doctors of
divinity_. In order to put an end to it, some of these last have
consented that their colored brethren (nominally free) should leave
this country, and establish themselves on the western coast of Africa.
It is, however, a notable fact, that, while so much execration is
poured out by Americans, upon those engaged in the foreign slave trade,
the men engaged in the slave trade between the states pass without
condemnation, and their business is deemed honorable.
Behold the practical operation of this internal slave trade—the
American slave trade sustained by American politics and American
religion! Here you will see men and women reared like swine for the
market. You know what is a swine-drover? I will show you a man-drover.
They inhabit all our southern states. They perambulate the country, and
crowd the highways of the nation with droves of human stock. You will
see one of these human-flesh-jobbers, armed with pistol, whip, and
bowie-knife, driving a company of a hundred men, women, and children,
from the Potomac to the slave market at New Orleans. These wretched
people are to be sold singly, or in lots, to suit purchasers. They are
food for the cotton-field and the deadly sugar-mill. Mark the sad
procession as it moves wearily along, and the inhuman wretch who drives
them. Hear his savage yells and his blood-chilling oaths, as he hurries
on his affrighted captives. There, see the old man, with locks thinned
and gray. Cast one glance, if you please, upon that young mother, whose
shoulders are bare to the scorching sun, her briny tears falling on the
brow of the babe in her arms. See, too, that girl of thirteen, weeping,
yes, weeping, as she thinks of the mother from whom she has been torn.
The drove moves tardily. Heat and sorrow have nearly consumed their
strength. Suddenly you hear a quick snap, like the discharge of a
rifle; the fetters clank, and the chain rattles simultaneously; your
ears are saluted with a scream that seems to have torn its way to the
center of your soul. The crack you heard was the sound of the slave
whip; the scream you heard was from the woman you saw with the babe.
Her speed had faltered under the weight of her child and her chains;
that gash on her shoulder tells her to move on. Follow this drove to
New Orleans. Attend the auction; see men examined like horses; see the
forms of women rudely and brutally exposed to the shocking gaze of
American slave-buyers. See this drove sold and separated forever; and
never forget the deep, sad sobs that arose from that scattered
multitude. Tell me, citizens, where, under the sun, can you witness a
spectacle more fiendish and shocking. Yet this is but a glance at the
American slave trade, as it exists at this moment, in the ruling part
of the United States.
I was born amid such sights and scenes. To me the American slave trade
is a terrible reality. When a child, my soul was often pierced with a
sense of its horrors. I lived on Philpot street, Fell’s Point,
Baltimore, and have watched from the wharves the slave ships in the
basin, anchored from the shore, with their cargoes of human flesh,
waiting for favorable winds to waft them down the Chesapeake. There
was, at that time, a grand slave mart kept at the head of Pratt street,
by Austin Woldfolk. His agents were sent into every town and county in
Maryland, announcing their arrival through the papers, and on flaming
hand-bills, headed, “cash for negroes.” These men were generally well
dressed, and very captivating in their manners; ever ready to drink, to
treat, and to gamble. The fate of many a slave has depended upon the
turn of a single card; and many a child has been snatched from the arms
of its mothers by bargains arranged in a state of brutal drunkenness.
The flesh-mongers gather up their victims by dozens, and drive them,
chained, to the general depot at Baltimore. When a sufficient number
have been collected here, a ship is chartered, for the purpose of
conveying the forlorn crew to Mobile or to New Orleans. From the
slave-prison to the ship, they are usually driven in the darkness of
night; for since the anti-slavery agitation a certain caution is
observed.
In the deep, still darkness of midnight, I have been often aroused by
the dead, heavy footsteps and the piteous cries of the chained gangs
that passed our door. The anguish of my boyish heart was intense; and I
was often consoled, when speaking to my mistress in the morning, to
hear her say that the custom was very wicked; that she hated to hear
the rattle of the chains, and the heart-rending cries. I was glad to
find one who sympathized with me in my horror.
Fellow citizens, this murderous traffic is to-day in active operation
in this boasted republic. In the solitude of my spirit, I see clouds of
dust raised on the highways of the south; I see the bleeding footsteps;
I hear the doleful wail of fettered humanity, on the way to the slave