Fellow-citizens, pardon me, enable me to ask, why am I known as upon to talk right here at the moment? What have I, or these I characterize, to do together with your nationwide independence? Are the good ideas of political freedom and of pure justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, prolonged to us? and am I, subsequently, known as upon to deliver our humble providing to the nationwide altar, and to admit the advantages and specific religious gratitude for the blessings ensuing out of your independence to us?
Would to God, each to your sakes and ours, that an affirmative reply might be honestly returned to those questions! Then would my activity be mild, and my burden straightforward and pleasant. For who’s there so chilly, {that a} nation’s sympathy couldn’t heat him? Who so stubborn and useless to the claims of gratitude, that may not fortunately acknowledge such priceless advantages? Who so stolid and egocentric, that may 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’m not that man. In a case like that, the dumb may eloquently communicate, and the “lame man leap as an hart.”
However, such just isn’t the state of the case. I say it with a tragic sense of the disparity between us. I’m not included inside the pale of this wonderful anniversary!
Your excessive independence solely reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings during which you, this present day, rejoice, are usually not loved in frequent. The wealthy inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The daylight that introduced life and therapeutic to you, has introduced stripes and loss of life to me. This Fourth [of] July is yours, not mine. Chances are you’ll rejoice, I have to mourn. To tug a person in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and name upon him to affix you in joyous anthems, had been inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you imply, residents, to mock me, by asking me to talk to-day? If that’s the case, there’s a parallel to your conduct. And let me warn you that it’s harmful to repeat the instance of a nation whose crimes, decreasing as much as heaven, had been thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrecoverable spoil! I can to-day take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and woe-smitten folks!
“By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. Yea! we wept once we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows within the midst thereof. For there, they that carried us away captive, required of us a music; and so they who wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of many songs of Zion. How can we sing the Lord’s music in a wierd land? If I overlook thee, O Jerusalem, let my proper hand overlook her crafty. If I don’t keep in mind thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.”
Fellow-citizens; above your nationwide, tumultuous pleasure, I hear the mournful wail of thousands and thousands! whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, at the moment, rendered extra insupportable by the jubilee shouts that attain them. If I do overlook, if I don’t faithfully keep in mind these bleeding kids of sorrow this present day, “might my proper hand overlook her crafty, and will my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!” To overlook them, to move evenly over their wrongs, and to chime in with the favored theme, can be treason most scandalous and surprising, and would make me a reproach earlier than God and the world.
My topic, then fellow-citizens, is AMERICAN SLAVERY. I shall see, this present day, and its standard traits, from the slave’s viewpoint. Standing, there, recognized with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I don’t hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation by no means seemed blacker to me than on this 4th of July! Whether or not we flip to the declarations of the previous, or to the professions of the current, the conduct of the nation appears equally hideous and revolting. America is fake to the previous, false to the current, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the longer term. Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this event, I’ll, within the identify of humanity which is outraged, within the identify of liberty which is fettered, within the identify of the structure and the Bible, that are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to name in query and to denounce, with all of the emphasis I can command, every thing that serves to perpetuate slavery-the nice sin and disgrace of America! “I cannot equivocate; I cannot excuse;” I’ll use the severest language I can command; and but not one phrase shall escape me that any man, whose judgment just isn’t blinded by prejudice, or who just isn’t at coronary heart a slaveholder, shall not confess to be proper and simply.
However I fancy I hear some one in all my viewers say, it’s simply on this circumstance that you just and your brother abolitionists fail to make a good impression on the general public thoughts. Would you argue extra, and denounce much less, would you persuade extra, and rebuke much less, your trigger can be more likely to succeed. However, I submit, the place all is apparent there’s nothing to be argued. What level within the anti-slavery creed would you’ve me argue? On what department of the topic do the folks of this nation want mild? Should I undertake to show that the slave is a person? That time is conceded already. No person doubts it. The slaveholders themselves acknowledge it within the enactment of legal guidelines for his or her authorities. They acknowledge it after they punish disobedience on the a part of the slave. There are seventy-two crimes within the State of Virginia, which, if dedicated by a black man, (regardless of how ignorant he be), topic him to the punishment of loss of life; whereas solely two of the identical crimes will topic a white man to the like punishment. What is that this however the acknowledgement that the slave is an ethical, mental and accountable being? The manhood of the slave is conceded. It’s admitted in the truth that Southern statute books are coated with enactments forbidding, beneath extreme fines and penalties, the instructing of the slave to learn or to jot down. When you may level to any such legal guidelines, in reference to the beasts of the sector, then I could consent to argue the manhood of the slave. When the canines in your streets, when the fowls of the air, when the cattle in your hills, when the fish of the ocean, and the reptiles that crawl, shall be unable to differentiate the slave from a brute, their will I argue with you that the slave is a person!
For the current, it is sufficient to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. Is it not astonishing that, whereas we’re ploughing, planting and reaping, utilizing every kind of mechanical instruments, erecting homes, developing bridges, constructing ships, working in metals of brass, iron, copper, silver and gold; that, whereas we’re studying, writing and cyphering, appearing as clerks, retailers and secretaries, having amongst us attorneys, docs, ministers, poets, authors, editors, orators and lecturers; that, whereas we’re engaged in all method of enterprises frequent to different males, digging gold in California, capturing the whale within the Pacific, feeding sheep and cattle on the hill-side, dwelling, transferring, appearing, considering, planning, dwelling in households as husbands, wives and youngsters, and, above all, confessing and worshipping the Christian’s God, and looking out hopefully for all times and immortality past the grave, we’re known as upon to show that we’re males!
Would you’ve me argue that man is entitled to liberty? That he’s the rightful proprietor of his personal physique? You’ve already declared it. Should I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? Is {that a} query for Republicans? Is it to be settled by the foundations of logic and argumentation, as a matter beset with nice problem, involving a uncertain utility of the precept of justice, laborious to be understood? How ought to I look at the moment, within the presence of People, dividing, and subdividing a discourse, to point out that males have a pure proper to freedom? Talking of it comparatively, and positively, negatively, and affirmatively. To take action, can be to make myself ridiculous, and to supply an insult to your understanding. There may be not a person beneath the cover of heaven, that doesn’t know that slavery is mistaken for him.
What, am I to argue that it’s mistaken to make males brutes, to rob them of their liberty, to work them with out wages, to maintain them blind to their relations to their fellow males, to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh with the lash, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them with canines, to promote them at public sale, to sunder their households, to knock out their tooth, to bum their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters? Should I argue {that a} system thus marked with blood, and stained with air pollution, is mistaken? No! I cannot. I’ve higher employments for my time and energy than such arguments would indicate.
What, then, stays to be argued? Is it that slavery just isn’t divine; that God didn’t set up it; that our docs of divinity are mistaken? There may be blasphemy within the thought. That which is inhuman, can’t be divine! Who can cause on such a proposition? They that may, might; I can’t. The time for such argument is previous.
At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is required. O! had I the flexibility, and will I attain the nation’s ear, I might, to-day, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it’s not mild that’s wanted, however fireplace; it’s not the light bathe, however thunder. We want the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The sensation of the nation have to be quickened; the conscience of the nation have to be roused; the propriety of the nation have to be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation have to be uncovered; and its crimes towards God and man have to be proclaimed and denounced.
What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I reply: a day that reveals to him, greater than all different days within the 12 months, the gross injustice and cruelly to which he’s the fixed sufferer. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your nationwide greatness, swelling vainness; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hole mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all of your non secular parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy—a skinny veil to cowl up crimes which might shame a nation of savages. There may be not a nation on the earth responsible of practices, extra surprising and bloody, than are the folks of those United States, at this very hour.
Go the place you could, search the place you’ll, roam by all of the monarchies and despotisms of the outdated world, journey by South America, get hold of each abuse, and when you’ve discovered the final, lay your details by the facet of the on a regular basis practices of this nation, and you’ll say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns with no rival.
SLAVE TRADE
Take the American slave-trade, which, we’re advised by the papers, is very affluent simply now. Ex-Senator Benton tells us that the value of males was by no means greater than now. He mentions the actual fact to point out that slavery is in no hazard. This commerce is without doubt one of the peculiarities of American establishments. It’s carried on in all the massive cities and cities in one-half of this confederacy; and thousands and thousands are pocketed yearly, by sellers on this horrid site visitors. In a number of states, this commerce is a chief supply of wealth. It’s known as (in contradistinction to the international slave-trade) “the inner slave commerce.” It’s, in all probability, known as so, too, as a way to divert from it the horror with which the international slave-trade is contemplated. That commerce has lengthy since been denounced by this authorities, as piracy. It has been denounced with burning phrases, from the excessive locations of the nation, as an execrable site visitors. To arrest it, to place an finish to it, this nation retains a squadron, at immense price, on the coast of Africa. In all places, on this nation, it’s protected to talk of this international slave-trade, as a most inhuman site visitors, opposed alike to the legal guidelines of God and of man. The obligation to extirpate and destroy it, is admitted even by our DOCTORS OF DIVINITY. With a purpose to put an finish to it, a few of these final have consented that their coloured brethren (nominally free) ought to depart this nation, and set up themselves on the western coast of Africa! It’s, nonetheless, a notable incontrovertible fact that, whereas a lot execration is poured out by People upon these engaged within the international slave-trade, the lads engaged within the slave-trade between the states move with out condemnation, and their enterprise is deemed honorable.
Behold the sensible operation of this inner slave-trade, the American slave-trade, sustained by American politics and America faith. Right here you will note women and men reared like swine for the market. You already know what’s a swine-drover? I’ll present you a man-drover. They inhabit all our Southern States. They perambulate the nation, and crowd the highways of the nation, with droves of human inventory. You will notice one in all these human flesh-jobbers, armed with pistol, whip and bowie-knife, driving an organization of 100 males, ladies, and youngsters, from the Potomac to the slave market at New Orleans. These wretched persons are to be bought singly, or in tons, to swimsuit purchasers. They’re meals for the cotton-field, and the lethal sugar-mill. Mark the unhappy procession, because it strikes wearily alongside, 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 outdated man, with locks thinned and grey. Forged one look, for those who please, upon that younger mom, whose shoulders are naked to the scorching solar, her briny tears falling on the forehead of the babe in her arms. See, too, that woman of 13, weeping, sure! Weeping, as she thinks of the mom from whom she has been torn! The drove strikes tardily. Warmth and sorrow have almost consumed their energy; all of a sudden you hear a fast snap, just like the discharge of a rifle; the fetters clank, and the chain rattles concurrently; your ears are saluted with a scream, that appears to have torn its technique to the middle of your soul! The crack you heard, was the sound of the slave-whip; the scream you heard, was from the lady you noticed with the babe. Her pace had faltered beneath the load of her little one and her chains! that gash on her shoulder tells her to maneuver on. Comply with the drove to New Orleans. Attend the public sale; see males examined like horses; see the types of ladies rudely and brutally uncovered to the surprising gaze of American slave-buyers. See this drove bought and separated endlessly; and always remember the deep, unhappy sobs that arose from that scattered multitude. Inform me residents, WHERE, beneath the solar, you may witness a spectacle extra fiendish and surprising. But that is however a look on the American slave-trade, because it exists, at this second, within the ruling a part of the USA.
I used to be born amid such sights and scenes. To me the American slave-trade is a horrible actuality. When a baby, my soul was usually pierced with a way of its horrors. I lived on Philpot Avenue, Fell’s Level, Baltimore, and have watched from the wharves, the slave ships within the Basin, anchored from the shore, with their cargoes of human flesh, ready for favorable winds to waft them down the Chesapeake. There was, at the moment, a grand slave mart saved on the head of Pratt Avenue, by Austin Woldfolk. His brokers had been despatched into each city and county in Maryland, asserting their arrival, by the papers, and on flaming “hand-bills,” headed CASH FOR NEGROES. These males had been typically nicely dressed males, and really fascinating of their manners. Ever able to drink, to deal with, and to gamble. The destiny of many a slave has depended upon the flip of a single card; and lots of a baby has been snatched from the arms of its mom by bargains organized in a state of brutal drunkenness.
The flesh-mongers collect up their victims by dozens, and drive them, chained, to the final depot at Baltimore. When a ample quantity have been collected right here, a ship is chartered, for the aim of conveying the forlorn crew to Cell, or to New Orleans. From the slave jail to the ship, they’re often pushed within the darkness of evening; for because the antislavery agitation, a sure warning is noticed.
Within the deep nonetheless darkness of midnight, I’ve been usually aroused by the useless heavy footsteps, and the piteous cries of the chained gangs that handed our door. The anguish of my boyish coronary heart was intense; and I used to be usually consoled, when talking to my mistress within the morning, to listen to her say that the customized was very depraved; that she hated to listen to the rattle of the chains, and the heart-rending cries. I used to be glad to seek out one who sympathized with me in my horror.
Fellow-citizens, this murderous site visitors is, to-day, in energetic operation on this boasted republic. Within the solitude of my spirit, I see clouds of mud raised on the highways of the South; I see the bleeding footsteps; I hear the doleful wail of fettered humanity, on the way in which to the slave-markets, the place the victims are to be bought like horses, sheep, and swine, knocked off to the very best bidder. There I see the tenderest ties ruthlessly damaged, to gratify the lust, caprice and rapacity of the patrons and sellers of males. My soul sickens on the sight.
“Is that this the land your Fathers beloved,
The liberty which they toiled to win?
Is that this the earth whereon they moved?
Are these the graves they slumber in?”
However a nonetheless extra inhuman, disgraceful, and scandalous state of issues stays to be offered.
By an act of the American Congress, not but two years outdated, slavery has been nationalized in its most horrible and revolting kind. By that act, Mason & Dixon’s line has been obliterated; New York has grow to be as Virginia; and the ability to carry, hunt, and promote males, ladies, and youngsters as slaves stays not a mere state establishment, however is now an establishment of the entire United States. The facility is co-extensive with the Star-Spangled Banner and American Christianity. The place these go, may go the cruel slave-hunter. The place these are, man just isn’t sacred. He’s a hen for the sportsman’s gun. By that the majority foul and fiendish of all human decrees, the freedom and individual of each man are put in peril. Your broad republican area is looking floor for males. Not for thieves and robbers, enemies of society, merely, however for males responsible of no crime. Your lawmakers have commanded all good residents to interact on this hellish sport. Your President, your Secretary of State, your lords, nobles, and ecclesiastics, implement, as an obligation you owe to your free and wonderful nation, and to your God, that you just do that accursed factor. Not fewer than forty People have, inside the previous two years, been hunted down and, with no second’s warning, hurried away in chains, and consigned to slavery and excruciating torture. A few of these have had wives and youngsters, depending on them for bread; however of this, no account was made. The suitable of the hunter to his prey stands superior to the correct of marriage, and to all rights on this republic, the rights of God included! For black males there are neither legislation, justice, humanity, not faith. The Fugitive Slave Regulation makes MERCY TO THEM, A CRIME; and bribes the choose who tries them. An American JUDGE GETS TEN DOLLARS FOR EVERY VICTIM HE CONSIGNS to slavery, and 5, when he fails to take action. The oath of any two villains is ample, beneath this hell-black enactment, to ship probably the most pious and exemplary black man into the remorseless jaws of slavery! His personal testimony is nothing. He can deliver no witnesses for himself. The minister of American justice is sure by the legislation to listen to however one facet; and that facet, is the facet of the oppressor. Let this damning truth be perpetually advised. Let it’s thundered all over the world, that, in tyrant-killing, king-hating, people-loving, democratic, Christian America, the seats of justice are full of judges, who maintain their workplaces beneath an open and palpable bribe, and are sure, in deciding within the case of a person’s liberty, hear solely his accusers!
In obvious violation of justice, in shameless disregard of the types of administering legislation, in crafty association to entrap the defenseless, and in diabolical intent, this Fugitive Slave Regulation stands alone within the annals of tyrannical laws. I doubt if there be one other nation on the globe, having the brass and the baseness to place such a legislation on the statute-book. If any man on this meeting thinks otherwise from me on this matter, and feels in a position to disprove my statements, I’ll gladly confront him at any appropriate time and place he might choose.
RELIGIOUS LIBERTY
I take this legislation to be one of many grossest infringements of Christian Liberty, and, if the church buildings and ministers of our nation weren’t stupidly blind, or most wickedly detached, they, too, would so regard it.
On the very second that they’re thanking God for the enjoyment of civil and spiritual liberty, and for the correct to worship God in response to the dictates of their very own consciences, they’re totally silent in respect to a legislation which robs faith of its chief significance, and makes it totally nugatory to a world mendacity in wickedness. Did this legislation concern the “mint, anise and cummin”—abridge the struggle to sing psalms, to partake of the sacrament, or to interact in any of the ceremonies of faith, it might be keen about the thunder of a thousand pulpits. A basic shout would go up from the church, demanding repeal, repeal, immediate repeal! And it might go laborious with that politician who presumed to solicit the votes of the folks with out inscribing this motto on his banner. Additional, if this demand weren’t complied with, one other Scotland can be added to the historical past of non secular liberty, and the strict outdated Covenanters can be thrown into the shade. A John Knox can be seen at each church door, and heard from each pulpit, and Fillmore would don’t have any extra quarter than was proven by Knox, to the attractive, however treacherous queen Mary of Scotland. The truth that the church of our nation, (with fractional exceptions), doesn’t esteem “the Fugitive Slave Regulation” as a declaration of conflict towards non secular liberty, implies that that church regards faith merely as a type of worship, an empty ceremony, and never a significant precept, requiring energetic benevolence, justice, love and good will in direction of man. It esteems sacrifice above mercy; psalm-singing above proper doing; solemn conferences above sensible righteousness. A worship that may be carried out by individuals who refuse to provide shelter to the houseless, to provide bread to the hungry, clothes to the bare, and who enjoin obedience to a legislation forbidding these acts of mercy, is a curse, not a blessing to mankind. The Bible addresses all such individuals as “scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites, who pay tithe of mint, anise, and cummin, and have omitted the weightier issues of the legislation, judgment, mercy and religion.”
THE CHURCH RESPONSIBLE.
However the church of this nation just isn’t solely detached to the wrongs of the slave, it really takes sides with the oppressors. It has made itself the bulwark of American slavery, and the protect of American slave-hunters. Lots of its most eloquent Divines. who stand because the very lights of the church, have shamelessly given the sanction of faith and the Bible to the entire slave system. They’ve taught that man might, correctly, be a slave; that the relation of grasp and slave is ordained of God; that to ship again an escaped bondman to his grasp is clearly the obligation of all of the followers of the Lord Jesus Christ; and this horrible blasphemy is palmed off upon the world for Christianity.
Individually, I might say, welcome infidelity! welcome atheism! welcome something! as opposed to the gospel, as preached by these Divines! They convert the very identify of faith into an engine of tyranny, and barbarous cruelty, and serve to verify extra infidels, on this age, than all of the infidel writings of Thomas Paine, Voltaire, and Bolingbroke, put collectively, have performed! These ministers make faith a chilly and flinty-hearted factor, having neither ideas of proper motion, nor bowels of compassion. They strip the love of God of its magnificence, and depart the throng of faith an enormous, horrible, repulsive kind. It’s a faith for oppressors, tyrants, man-stealers, and thugs. It’s not that “pure and undefiled faith” which is from above, and which is “first pure, then peaceful, straightforward to be advised, stuffed with mercy and good fruits, with out partiality, and with out hypocrisy.” However a faith which favors the wealthy towards the poor; which exalts the proud above the standard; which divides mankind into two lessons, tyrants and slaves; which says to the person in chains, keep there; and to the oppressor, oppress on; it’s a faith which can be professed and loved by all of the robbers and enslavers of mankind; it makes God a respecter of individuals, denies his fatherhood of the race, and tramples within the mud the good reality of the brotherhood of man. All this we affirm to be true of the favored church, and the favored worship of our land and nation – a faith, a church, and a worship which, on the authority of impressed knowledge, we pronounce to be an abomination within the sight of God. Within the language of Isaiah, the American church could be nicely addressed, “Deliver no extra useless ablations; incense is an abomination unto me: the brand new moons and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I can’t away with; it’s iniquity even the solemn assembly. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth. They’re a hassle to me; I’m weary to bear them; and when ye unfold forth your palms I’ll disguise mine eyes from you. Yea! when ye make many prayers, I cannot hear. YOUR HANDS ARE FULL OF BLOOD; stop to do evil, study to do nicely; search judgment; relieve the oppressed; choose for the fatherless; plead for the widow.”
The American church is responsible, when seen in reference to what it’s doing to uphold slavery; however it’s superlatively responsible when seen in reference to its capability to abolish slavery. The sin of which it’s responsible is one in all omission in addition to of fee. Albert Barnes however uttered what the frequent sense of each man in any respect observant of the particular state of the case will obtain as reality, when he declared that “There isn’t a energy out of the church that might maintain slavery an hour, if it weren’t sustained in it.”
Let the non secular press, the pulpit, the Sunday faculty, the convention assembly, the good ecclesiastical, missionary, Bible and tract associations of the land array their immense powers towards slavery and slave-holding; and the entire system of crime and blood can be scattered to the winds; and that they don’t do that entails them in probably the most terrible duty of which the thoughts can conceive.
In prosecuting the anti-slavery enterprise, we’ve got been requested to spare the church, to spare the ministry; however how, we ask, might such a factor be performed? We’re met on the edge of our efforts for the redemption of the slave, by the church and ministry of the nation, in battle arrayed towards us; and we’re compelled to struggle or flee. From what quarter, I encourage to know, has proceeded a fireplace so lethal upon our ranks, over the past two years, as from the Northern pulpit? Because the champions of oppressors, the chosen males of American theology have appeared-men, honored for his or her so-called piety, and their actual studying. The LORDS of Buffalo, the SPRINGS of New York, the LATHROPS of Auburn, the COXES and SPENCERS of Brooklyn, the GANNETS and SHARPS of Boston, the DEWEYS of Washington, and different nice non secular lights of the land, have, in utter denial of the authority of Him, by whom the professed to he known as to the ministry, intentionally taught us, towards the instance or the Hebrews and towards the remonstrance of the Apostles, they educate “that we must obey man’s legislation earlier than the legislation of God.”
My spirit wearies of such blasphemy; and the way such males might be supported, because the “standing sorts and representatives of Jesus Christ,” is a thriller which I depart others to penetrate. In talking of the American church, nonetheless, let it’s distinctly understood that I imply the good mass of the non secular organizations of our land. There are exceptions, and I thank God that there are. Noble males could also be discovered, scattered throughout these Northern States, of whom Henry Ward Beecher of Brooklyn, Samuel J. Could of Syracuse, and my esteemed pal on the platform, are shining examples; and let me say additional, that upon these males lies the obligation to encourage our ranks with excessive non secular religion and zeal, and to cheer us on within the nice mission of the slave’s redemption from his chains.
RELIGION IN ENGLAND AND RELIGION IN AMERICA.
…Fellow-citizens! I cannot enlarge additional in your nationwide inconsistencies. The existence of slavery on this nation manufacturers your republicanism as a sham, your humanity as a base pretence, and your Christianity as a lie. It destroys your ethical energy overseas; it corrupts your politicians at dwelling. It saps the muse of faith; it makes your identify a hissing, and a by phrase to a mocking earth. It’s the antagonistic drive in your authorities, the one factor that critically disturbs and endangers your Union. It fetters your progress; it’s the enemy of enchancment, the lethal foe of schooling; it fosters satisfaction; it breeds insolence; it promotes vice; it shelters crime; it’s a curse to the earth that helps it; and but, you cling to it, as if it had been the sheet anchor of all of your hopes. Oh! be warned! be warned! a horrible reptile is coiled up in your nation’s bosom; the venomous creature is nursing on the tender breast of your youthful republic; for the love of God, tear away, and fling from you the hideous monster, and let the load of twenty thousands and thousands crush and destroy it endlessly!
THE CONSTITUTION.
However it’s answered in reply to all this, that exactly what I’ve now denounced is, in actual fact, assured and sanctioned by the Structure of the USA; that the correct to carry and to hunt slaves is part of that Structure framed by the illustrious Fathers of this Republic.
Then, I dare to affirm, however all I’ve mentioned earlier than, your fathers stooped, basely stooped “To palter with us in a double sense: And maintain the phrase of promise to the ear, However break it to the center.”
And as a substitute of being the sincere males I’ve earlier than declared them to be, they had been the veriest imposters that ever practiced on mankind. That is the inevitable conclusion, and from it there isn’t any escape. However I differ from those that cost this baseness on the framers of the Structure of the USA. It’s a slander upon their reminiscence, a minimum of, so I consider. There may be not time now to argue the constitutional query at size – nor have I the flexibility to debate it because it must be mentioned. The topic has been dealt with with masterly energy by Lysander Spooner, Esq., by William Goodell, by Samuel E. Sewall, Esq., and final, although not least, by Gerritt Smith, Esq. These gents have, as I believe, totally and clearly vindicated the Structure from any design to assist slavery for an hour.
“[L]et me ask, if it’s not considerably singular that, if the Structure had been meant to be, by its framers and adopters, a slave-holding instrument, why neither slavery, slaveholding, nor slave can wherever be present in it.”
Fellow-citizens! there isn’t any matter in respect to which, the folks of the North have allowed themselves to be so ruinously imposed upon, as that of the pro-slavery character of the Structure. In that instrument I maintain there’s neither warrant, license, nor sanction of the hateful factor; however, interpreted because it must be interpreted, the Structure is a GLORIOUS LIBERTY DOCUMENT. Learn its preamble, take into account its functions. Is slavery amongst them? Is it on the gateway? or is it within the temple? It’s neither. Whereas I don’t intend to argue this query on the current event, let me ask, if it’s not considerably singular that, if the Structure had been meant to be, by its framers and adopters, a slave-holding instrument, why neither slavery, slaveholding, nor slave can wherever be present in it. What can be considered an instrument, drawn up, legally drawn up, for the aim of entitling town of Rochester to a monitor of land, during which no point out of land was made? Now, there are particular guidelines of interpretation, for the correct understanding of all authorized devices. These guidelines are nicely established. They’re plain, common sense guidelines, comparable to you and I, and all of us, can perceive and apply, with out having handed years within the research of legislation. I scout the concept that the query of the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of slavery just isn’t a query for the folks. I maintain that each American citizen has a struggle to kind an opinion of the structure, and to propagate that opinion, and to make use of all honorable means to make his opinion the prevailing one. With out this struggle, the freedom of an American citizen can be as insecure as that of a Frenchman. Ex-Vice-President Dallas tells us that the structure is an object to which no American thoughts might be too attentive, and no American coronary heart too devoted. He additional says, the structure, in its phrases, is apparent and intelligible, and is supposed for the home-bred, unsophisticated understandings of our fellow-citizens. Senator Berrien inform us that the Structure is the elemental legislation, that which controls all others. The constitution of our liberties, which each and every citizen has a private curiosity in understanding completely. The testimony of Senator Breese, Lewis Cass, and lots of others that could be named, who’re all over the place esteemed as sound attorneys, so regard the structure. I take it, subsequently, that it’s not presumption in a personal citizen to kind an opinion of that instrument.
Now, take the structure in response to its plain studying, and I defy the presentation of a single pro-slavery clause in it. Alternatively will probably be discovered to comprise ideas and functions, solely hostile to the existence of slavery.
I’ve detained my viewers solely too lengthy already. At some future interval I’ll gladly avail myself of a chance to provide this topic a full and truthful dialogue.
Enable me to say, in conclusion, however the darkish image I’ve this present day offered of the state of the nation, I don’t despair of this nation. There are forces in operation, which should inevitably work The downfall of slavery. “The arm of the Lord just isn’t shortened,” and the doom of slavery is for certain. I, subsequently, depart off the place I started, with hope. Whereas drawing encouragement from the Declaration of Independence, the good ideas it comprises, and the genius of American Establishments, my spirit can also be cheered by the apparent tendencies of the age. Nations don’t now stand in the identical relation to one another that they did ages in the past. No nation can now shut itself up from the encircling world, and trot spherical in the identical outdated path of its fathers with out interference. The time was when such might be performed. Lengthy established customs of hurtful character might previously fence themselves in, and do their evil work with social impunity. Information was then confined and loved by the privileged few, and the multitude walked on in psychological darkness. However a change has now come over the affairs of mankind. Walled cities and empires have grow to be retro. The arm of commerce has borne away the gates of the sturdy metropolis. Intelligence is penetrating the darkest corners of the globe. It makes its pathway over and beneath the ocean, in addition to on the earth. Wind, steam, and lightning are its chartered brokers. Oceans not divide, however hyperlink nations collectively. From Boston to London is now a vacation tour. Area is relatively annihilated. Ideas expressed on one facet of the Atlantic are, distinctly heard on the opposite. The far off and virtually fabulous Pacific rolls in grandeur at our toes. The Celestial Empire, the thriller of ages, is being solved. The fiat of the Almighty, “Let there be Mild,” has not but spent its drive. No abuse, no outrage whether or not in style, sport or avarice, can now disguise itself from the all-pervading mild. The iron shoe, and crippled foot of China have to be seen, in distinction with nature. Africa should rise and placed on her but unwoven garment. “Ethiopia shall stretch out her hand unto God.” Within the fervent aspirations of William Lloyd Garrison, I say, and let each coronary heart take part saying it:
God pace the 12 months of jubilee
The vast world o’er
When from their galling chains let out,
Th’ oppress’d shall vilely bend the knee,
And put on the yoke of tyranny
Like brutes no extra.
That 12 months will come, and freedom’s reign,
To man his plundered fights once more
Restore.
God pace the day when human blood
Shall stop to circulate!
In each clime be understood,
The claims of human brotherhood,
And every return for evil, good,
Not blow for blow;
That day will come all feuds to finish.
And alter right into a devoted pal
Every foe.
God pace the hour, the fantastic hour,
When none on earth
Shall train a lordly energy,
Nor in a tyrant’s presence cower;
However all to manhood’s stature tower,
By equal delivery!
THAT HOUR WILL, COME, to every, to all,
And from his prison-house, the thrall
Go forth.
Till that 12 months, day, hour, arrive,
With head, and coronary heart, and hand I’ll try,
To interrupt the rod, and rend the gyve,
The spoiler of his prey deprive-
So witness Heaven!
And by no means from my chosen publish,
Whate’er the peril or the fee,
Be pushed.