My Bondage and My Freedom
contribute to one or all of the grand objects aimed at by that party.
We see here the black man attacked in his vital interests; prejudice
and hate are excited against him; enmity is stirred up between him and
other laborers. The Irish people, warm-hearted, generous, and
sympathizing with the oppressed everywhere, when they stand upon their
own green island, are instantly taught, on arriving in this Christian
country, to hate and despise the colored people. They are taught to
believe that we eat the bread which of right belongs to them. The cruel
lie is told the Irish, that our adversity is essential to their
prosperity. Sir, the Irish-American will find out his mistake one day.
He will find that in assuming our avocation he also has assumed our
degradation. But for the present we are sufferers. The old employments
by which we have heretofore gained our livelihood, are gradually, and
it may be inevitably, passing into other hands. Every hour sees us
elbowed out of some employment to make room perhaps for some
newly-arrived emigrants, whose hunger and color are thought to give
them a title to especial favor. White men are becoming house-servants,
cooks, and stewards, common laborers, and flunkeys to our gentry, and,
for aught I see, they adjust themselves to their stations with all
becoming obsequiousness. This fact proves that if we cannot rise to the
whites, the whites can fall to us. Now, sir, look once more. While the
colored people are thus elbowed out of employment; while the enmity of
emigrants is being excited against us; while state after state enacts
laws against us; while we are hunted down, like wild game, and
oppressed with a general feeling of insecurity—the American
colonization society—that old offender against the best interests and
slanderer of the colored people—awakens to new life, and vigorously
presses its scheme upon the consideration of the people and the
government. New papers are started—some for the north and some for the
south—and each in its tone adapting itself to its latitude. Government,
state and national, is called upon for appropriations to enable the
society to send us out of the country by steam! They want steamers to
carry letters and Negroes to Africa. Evidently, this society looks upon
our “extremity as its opportunity,” and we may expect that it will use
the occasion well. They do not deplore, but glory, in our misfortunes.
But, sir, I must hasten. I have thus briefly given my view of one
aspect of the present condition and future prospects of the colored
people of the United States. And what I have said is far from
encouraging to my afflicted people. I have seen the cloud gather upon
the sable brows of some who hear me. I confess the case looks black
enough. Sir, I am not a hopeful man. I think I am apt even to
undercalculate the benefits of the future. Yet, sir, in this seemingly
desperate case, I do not despair for my people. There is a bright side
to almost every picture of this kind; and ours is no exception to the
general rule. If the influences against us are strong, those for us are
also strong. To the inquiry, will our enemies prevail in the execution
of their designs. In my God and in my soul, I believe they _will not_.
Let us look at the first object sought for by the slavery party of the
country, viz: the suppression of anti slavery discussion. They desire
to suppress discussion on this subject, with a view to the peace of the
slaveholder and the security of slavery. Now, sir, neither the
principle nor the subordinate objects here declared, can be at all
gained by the slave power, and for this reason: It involves the
proposition to padlock the lips of the whites, in order to secure the
fetters on the limbs of the blacks. The right of speech, precious and
priceless, _cannot, will not_, be surrendered to slavery. Its
suppression is asked for, as I have said, to give peace and security to
slaveholders. Sir, that thing cannot be done. God has interposed an
insuperable obstacle to any such result. “There can be _no peace_,
saith my God, to the wicked.” Suppose it were possible to put down this
discussion, what would it avail the guilty slaveholder, pillowed as he
is upon heaving bosoms of ruined souls? He could not have a peaceful
spirit. If every anti-slavery tongue in the nation were silent—every
anti-slavery organization dissolved—every anti-slavery press
demolished—every anti slavery periodical, paper, book, pamphlet, or
what not, were searched out, gathered, deliberately burned to ashes,
and their ashes given to the four winds of heaven, still, still the
slaveholder could have _“no peace_.” In every pulsation of his heart,
in every throb of his life, in every glance of his eye, in the breeze
that soothes, and in the thunder that startles, would be waked up an
accuser, whose cause is, “Thou art, verily, guilty concerning thy
brother.”
THE ANTI-SLAVERY MOVEMENT. Extracts from a Lecture before Various
Anti-Slavery Bodies, in the Winter of 1855.
A grand movement on the part of mankind, in any direction, or for any
purpose, moral or political, is an interesting fact, fit and proper to
be studied. It is such, not only for those who eagerly participate in
it, but also for those who stand aloof from it—even for those by whom
it is opposed. I take the anti-slavery movement to be such an one, and
a movement as sublime and glorious in its character, as it is holy and
beneficent in the ends it aims to accomplish. At this moment, I deem it
safe to say, it is properly engrossing more minds in this country than
any other subject now before the American people. The late John C.
Calhoun—one of the mightiest men that ever stood up in the American
senate—did not deem it beneath him; and he probably studied it as
deeply, though not as honestly, as Gerrit Smith, or William Lloyd
Garrison. He evinced the greatest familiarity with the subject; and the
greatest efforts of his last years in the senate had direct reference
to this movement. His eagle eye watched every new development connected
with it; and he was ever prompt to inform the south of every important
step in its progress. He never allowed himself to make light of it; but
always spoke of it and treated it as a matter of grave import; and in
this he showed himself a master of the mental, moral, and religious
constitution of human society. Daniel Webster, too, in the better days
of his life, before he gave his assent to the fugitive slave bill, and
trampled upon all his earlier and better convictions—when his eye was
yet single—he clearly comprehended the nature of the elements involved
in this movement; and in his own majestic eloquence, warned the south,
and the country, to have a care how they attempted to put it down. He
is an illustration that it is easier to give, than to take, good
advice. To these two men—the greatest men to whom the nation has yet
given birth—may be traced the two great facts of the present—the south
triumphant, and the north humbled. Their names may stand thus—Calhoun
and domination—Webster and degradation. Yet again. If to the enemies of
liberty this subject is one of engrossing interest, vastly more so
should it be such to freedom’s friends. The latter, it leads to the
gates of all valuable knowledge—philanthropic, ethical, and religious;
for it brings them to the study of man, wonderfully and fearfully
made—the proper study of man through all time—the open book, in which
are the records of time and eternity.
Of the existence and power of the anti-slavery movement, as a fact, you
need no evidence. The nation has seen its face, and felt the
controlling pressure of its hand. You have seen it moving in all
directions, and in all weathers, and in all places, appearing most
where desired least, and pressing hardest where most resisted. No place
is exempt. The quiet prayer meeting, and the stormy halls of national
debate, share its presence alike. It is a common intruder, and of
course has the name of being ungentlemanly. Brethren who had long sung,
in the most affectionate fervor, and with the greatest sense of
security,
Together let us sweetly live—together let us die,
have been suddenly and violently separated by it, and ranged in hostile
attitude toward each other. The Methodist, one of the most powerful
religious organizations of this country, has been rent asunder, and its
strongest bolts of denominational brotherhood started at a single
surge. It has changed the tone of the northern pulpit, and modified
that of the press. A celebrated divine, who, four years ago, was for
flinging his own mother, or brother, into the remorseless jaws of the
monster slavery, lest he should swallow up the Union, now recognizes
anti-slavery as a characteristic of future civilization. Signs and
wonders follow this movement; and the fact just stated is one of them.
Party ties are loosened by it; and men are compelled to take sides for
or against it, whether they will or not. Come from where he may, or
come for what he may, he is compelled to show his hand. What is this
mighty force? What is its history? and what is its destiny? Is it
ancient or modern, transient or permanent? Has it turned aside, like a
stranger and a sojourner, to tarry for a night? or has it come to rest
with us forever? Excellent chances are here for speculation; and some
of them are quite profound. We might, for instance, proceed to inquire
not only into the philosophy of the anti-slavery movement, but into the
philosophy of the law, in obedience to which that movement started into
existence. We might demand to know what is that law or power, which, at
different times, disposes the minds of men to this or that particular
object—now for peace, and now for war—now for freedom, and now for
slavery; but this profound question I leave to the abolitionists of the
superior class to answer. The speculations which must precede such
answer, would afford, perhaps, about the same satisfaction as the
learned theories which have rained down upon the world, from time to
time, as to the origin of evil. I shall, therefore, avoid water in
which I cannot swim, and deal with anti-slavery as a fact, like any
other fact in the history of mankind, capable of being described and
understood, both as to its internal forces, and its external phases and
relations.
[After an eloquent, a full, and highly interesting exposition of the
nature, character, and history of the anti-slavery movement, from the
insertion of which want of space precludes us, he concluded in the
following happy manner.]
Present organizations may perish, but the cause will go on. That cause
has a life, distinct and independent of the organizations patched up
from time to time to carry it forward. Looked at, apart from the bones
and sinews and body, it is a thing immortal. It is the very essence of
justice, liberty, and love. The moral life of human society, it cannot
die while conscience, honor, and humanity remain. If but one be filled
with it, the cause lives. Its incarnation in any one individual man,
leaves the whole world a priesthood, occupying the highest moral
eminence even that of disinterested benevolence. Whoso has ascended his
height, and has the grace to stand there, has the world at his feet,
and is the world’s teacher, as of divine right. He may set in judgment
on the age, upon the civilization of the age, and upon the religion of
the age; for he has a test, a sure and certain test, by which to try
all institutions, and to measure all men. I say, he may do this, but
this is not the chief business for which he is qualified. The great
work to which he is called is not that of judgment. Like the Prince of
Peace, he may say, if I judge, I judge righteous judgment; still
mainly, like him, he may say, this is not his work. The man who has