What to slave is the Fourth of July 反奴隶制 道格拉斯

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What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?

Frederick Douglass

July 5, 1852

Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who could address this

audience without a quailing nsation, has stronger nerves than I have.

I do not remember ever to have appeared as a speaker before any asmbly

more shrinkingly, nor with greater distrust of my ability, than I do this

day. A feeling has crept over me, quite unfavorable to the exerci of

my limited powers of speech. The task before me is one which requires much

previous thought and study for its proper performance. I know that

apologies of this sort are generally considered flat and unmeaning. I

trust, however, that mine will not be so considered. Should I em at ea,

my appearance would much misreprent me. The little experience I have

had in addressing public meetings, in country schoolhous, avails me

nothing on the prent occasion.

The papers and placards say, that I am to deliver a 4th [of] July oration.

This certainly sounds large, and out of the common way, for it is true

that I have often had the privilege to speak in this beautiful Hall, and

to address many who now honor me with their prence. But neither their

familiar faces, nor the perfect gage I think I have of Corinthian Hall,

ems to free me from embarrassment.

The fact is, ladies and gentlemen, the distance between this platform and

the slave plantation, from which I escaped, is considerable—and the

difficulties to be overcome in getting from the latter to the former, are

by no means slight. That I am here to-day is, to me, a matter of

astonishment as well as of gratitude. You will not, therefore, be

surprid, if in what I have to say. I evince no elaborate preparation,

nor grace my speech with any high sounding exordium. With little

experience and with less learning, I have been able to throw my thoughts

hastily and imperfectly together; and trusting to your patient and

generous indulgence, I will proceed to lay them before you.

This, for the purpo of this celebration, is the 4th of July. It is the

birthday of your National Independence, and of your political freedom.

This, to you, is what the Passover was to the emancipated people of God.

It carries your minds back to the day, and to the act of your great

deliverance; and to the signs, and to the wonders, associated with that

act, and that day. This celebration also marks the beginning of another

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year of your national life; and reminds you that the Republic of America

is now 76 years old. I am glad, fellow-citizens, that your nation is so

young. Seventy-six years, though a good old age for a man, is but a mere

speck in the life of a nation. Three score years and ten is the allotted

time for individual men; but nations number their years by thousands.

According to this fact, you are, even now, only in the beginning of your

national career, still lingering in the period of childhood. I repeat,

I am glad this is so. There is hope in the thought, and hope is much needed,

under the dark clouds which lower above the horizon. The eye of the

reformer is met with angry flashes, portending disastrous times; but his

heart may well beat lighter at the thought that America is young, and that

she is still in the impressible stage of her existence. May he not hope

that high lessons of wisdom, of justice and of truth, will yet give

direction to her destiny? Were the nation older, the patriot’s heart

might be sadder, and the reformer’s brow heavier. Its future might be

shrouded in gloom, and the hope of its prophets go out in sorrow. There

is consolation in the thought that America is young. Great streams are

not easily turned from channels, worn deep in the cour of ages. They

may sometimes ri in quiet and stately majesty, and inundate the land,

refreshing and fertilizing the earth with their mysterious properties.

They may also ri in wrath and fury, and bear away, on their angry waves,

the accumulated wealth of years of toil and hardship. They, however,

gradually flow back to the same old channel, and flow on as renely as

ever. But, while the river may not be turned aside, it may dry up, and

leave nothing behind but the withered branch, and the unsightly rock, to

howl in the abyss-sweeping wind, the sad tale of departed glory. As with

rivers so with nations.

Fellow-citizens, I shall not presume to dwell at length on the

associations that cluster about this day. The simple story of it is that,

76 years ago, the people of this country were British subjects. The style

and title of your "sovereign people" (in which you now glory) was not then

born. You were under the British Crown . Your fathers esteemed the English

Government as the home government; and England as the fatherland. This

home government, you know, although a considerable distance from your home,

did, in the exerci of its parental prerogatives, impo upon its

colonial children, such restraints, burdens and limitations, as, in its

mature judgment, it deemed wi, right and proper.

But, your fathers, who had not adopted the fashionable idea of this day,

of the infallibility of government, and the absolute character of its acts,

presumed to differ from the home government in respect to the wisdom and

the justice of some of tho burdens and restraints. They went so far in

their excitement as to pronounce the measures of government unjust,

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unreasonable, and oppressive, and altogether such as ought not to be

quietly submitted to. I scarcely need say, fellow-citizens, that my

opinion of tho measures fully accords with that of your fathers. Such

a declaration of agreement on my part would not be worth much to anybody.

It would, certainly, prove nothing, as to what part I might have taken,

had I lived during the great controversy of 1776. To say now that America

was right, and England wrong, is exceedingly easy. Everybody can say it;

the dastard, not less than the noble brave, can flippantly discant on the

tyranny of England towards the American Colonies. It is fashionable to

do so; but there was a time when to pronounce against England, and in favor

of the cau of the colonies, tried men’s souls. They who did so were

accounted in their day, plotters of mischief, agitators and rebels,

dangerous men. To side with the right, against the wrong, with the weak

against the strong, and with the oppresd against the oppressor! here

lies the merit, and the one which, of all others, ems unfashionable in

our day. The cau of liberty may be stabbed by the men who glory in the

deeds of your fathers. But, to proceed.

Feeling themlves harshly and unjustly treated by the home government,

your fathers, like men of honesty, and men of spirit, earnestly sought

redress. They petitioned and remonstrated; they did so in a decorous,

respectful, and loyal manner. Their conduct was wholly unexceptionable.

This, however, did not answer the purpo. They saw themlves treated

with sovereign indifference, coldness and scorn. Yet they pervered.

They were not the men to look back.

As the sheet anchor takes a firmer hold, when the ship is tosd by the

storm, so did the cau of your fathers grow stronger, as it breasted the

chilling blasts of kingly displeasure. The greatest and best of British

statesmen admitted its justice, and the loftiest eloquence of the British

Senate came to its support. But, with that blindness which ems to be

the unvarying characteristic of tyrants, since Pharaoh and his hosts were

drowned in the Red Sea, the British Government persisted in the exactions

complained of.

The madness of this cour, we believe, is admitted now, even by England;

but we fear the lesson is wholly lost on our prent ruler.

Oppression makes a wi man mad. Your fathers were wi men, and if they

did not go mad, they became restive under this treatment. They felt

themlves the victims of grievous wrongs, wholly incurable in their

colonial capacity. With brave men there is always a remedy for oppression.

Just here, the idea of a total paration of the colonies from the crown

was born! It was a startling idea, much more so, than we, at this distance

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of time, regard it. The timid and the prudent (as has been intimated) of

that day, were, of cour, shocked and alarmed by it.

Such people lived then, had lived before, and will, probably, ever have

a place on this planet; and their cour, in respect to any great change,

(no matter how great the good to be attained, or the wrong to be redresd

by it), may be calculated with as much precision as can be the cour of

the stars. They hate all changes, but silver, gold and copper change! Of

this sort of change they are always strongly in favor.

The people were called Tories in the days of your fathers; and the

appellation, probably, conveyed the same idea that is meant by a more

modern, though a somewhat less euphonious term, which we often find in

our papers, applied to some of our old politicians.

Their opposition to the then dangerous thought was earnest and powerful;

but, amid all their terror and affrighted vociferations against it, the

alarming and revolutionary idea moved on, and the country with it.

On the 2d of July, 1776, the old Continental Congress, to the dismay of

the lovers of ea, and the worshipers of property, clothed that dreadful

idea with all the authority of national sanction. They did so in the form

of a resolution; and as we ldom hit upon resolutions, drawn up in our

day who transparency is at all equal to this, it may refresh your minds

and help my story if I read it. "Resolved, That the united colonies are,

and of right, ought to be free and Independent States; that they are

absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown; and that all political

connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to

be, dissolved."

Citizens, your fathers made good that resolution. They succeeded; and

to-day you reap the fruits of their success. The freedom gained is yours;

and you, therefore, may properly celebrate this anniversary. The 4th of

July is the first great fact in your nation’s history—the very ring-bolt

in the chain of your yet undeveloped destiny.

Pride and patriotism, not less than gratitude, prompt you to celebrate

and to hold it in perpetual remembrance. I have said that the Declaration

of Independence is the ring-bolt to the chain of your nation’s destiny;

so, indeed, I regard it. The principles contained in that instrument are

saving principles. Stand by tho principles, be true to them on all

occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost.

From the round top of your ship of state, dark and threatening clouds may

be en. Heavy billows, like mountains in the distance, disclo to the

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leeward huge forms of flinty rocks! That bolt drawn, that chain broken,

and all is lost. Cling to this day—cling to it, and to its principles,

with the grasp of a storm-tosd mariner to a spar at midnight.

The coming into being of a nation, in any circumstances, is an interesting

event. But, besides general considerations, there were peculiar

circumstances which make the advent of this republic an event of special

attractiveness.

The whole scene, as I look back to it, was simple, dignified and sublime.

The population of the country, at the time, stood at the insignificant

number of three millions. The country was poor in the munitions of war.

The population was weak and scattered, and the country a wilderness

unsubdued. There were then no means of concert and combination, such as

exist now. Neither steam nor lightning had then been reduced to order and

discipline. From the Potomac to the Delaware was a journey of many days.

Under the, and innumerable other disadvantages, your fathers declared

for liberty and independence and triumphed.

Fellow Citizens, I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this

republic. The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men.

They were great men too—great enough to give fame to a great age. It does

not often happen to a nation to rai, at one time, such a number of truly

great men. The point from which I am compelled to view them is not,

certainly, the most favorable; and yet I cannot contemplate their great

deeds with less than admiration. They were statesmen, patriots and heroes,

and for the good they did, and the principles they contended for, I will

unite with you to honor their memory.

They loved their country better than their own private interests; and,

though this is not the highest form of human excellence, all will concede

that it is a rare virtue, and that when it is exhibited, it ought to command

respect. He who will, intelligently, lay down his life for his country,

is a man whom it is not in human nature to despi. Your fathers staked

their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, on the cau of their

country. In their admiration of liberty, they lost sight of all other

interests.

They were peace men; but they preferred revolution to peaceful submission

to bondage. They were quiet men; but they did not shrink from agitating

against oppression. They showed forbearance; but that they knew its limits.

They believed in order; but not in the order of tyranny. With them, nothing

was "ttled" that was not right. With them, justice, liberty and humanity

were "final;" not slavery and oppression. You may well cherish the memory

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of such men. They were great in their day and generation. Their solid

manhood stands out the more as we contrast it with the degenerate times.

How circumspect, exact and proportionate were all their movements! How

unlike the politicians of an hour! Their statesmanship looked beyond the

passing moment, and stretched away in strength into the distant future.

They ized upon eternal principles, and t a glorious example in their

defen. Mark them!

Fully appreciating the hardship to be encountered, firmly believing in

the right of their cau, honorably inviting the scrutiny of an on-looking

world, reverently appealing to heaven to attest their sincerity, soundly

comprehending the solemn responsibility they were about to assume, wily

measuring the terrible odds against them, your fathers, the fathers of

this republic, did, most deliberately, under the inspiration of a glorious

patriotism, and with a sublime faith in the great principles of justice

and freedom, lay deep the corner-stone of the national superstructure,

which has rin and still ris in grandeur around you.

Of this fundamental work, this day is the anniversary. Our eyes are met

with demonstrations of joyous enthusiasm. Banners and pennants wave

exultingly on the breeze. The din of business, too, is hushed. Even Mammon

ems to have quitted his grasp on this day. The ear-piercing fife and

the stirring drum unite their accents with the ascending peal of a thousand

church bells. Prayers are made, hymns are sung, and rmons are preached

in honor of this day; while the quick martial tramp of a great and

multitudinous nation, echoed back by all the hills, valleys and mountains

of a vast continent, bespeak the occasion one of thrilling and universal

interests nation’s jubilee.

Friends and citizens, I need not enter further into the caus which led

to this anniversary. Many of you understand them better than I do. You

could instruct me in regard to them. That is a branch of knowledge in which

you feel, perhaps, a much deeper interest than your speaker. The caus

which led to the paration of the colonies from the British crown have

never lacked for a tongue. They have all been taught in your common schools,

narrated at your firesides, unfolded from your pulpits, and thundered from

your legislative halls, and are as familiar to you as houhold words.

They form the staple of your national poetry and eloquence.

I remember, also, that, as a people, Americans are remarkably familiar

with all facts which make in their own favor. This is esteemed by some

as a national trait - perhaps a national weakness. It is a fact, that

whatever makes for the wealth or for the reputation of Americans, and can

be had cheap! will be found by Americans. I shall not be charged with

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slandering Americans, if I say I think the American side of any question

may be safely left in American hands.

I leave, therefore, the great deeds of your fathers to other gentlemen

who claim to have been regularly descended will be less likely to be

disputed than mine!

THE PRESENT.

My business, if I have any here to-day, is with the prent. The accepted

time with God and his cau is the ever-living now.

"Trust no future, however pleasant,

Let the dead past bury its dead;

Act, act in the living prent,

Heart within, and God overhead."

We have to do with the past only as we can make it uful to the prent

and to the future. To all inspiring motives, to noble deeds which can be

gained from the past, we are welcome. But now is the time, the important

time. Your fathers have lived, died, and have done their work, and have

done much of it well. You live and must die, and you must do your work.

You have no right to enjoy a child’s share in the labor of your fathers,

unless your children are to be blest by your labors. You have no right

to wear out and waste the hard-earned fame of your fathers to cover your

indolence. Sydney Smith tells us that men ldom eulogize the wisdom and

virtues of their fathers, but to excu some folly or wickedness of their

own. This truth is not a doubtful one. There are illustrations of it near

and remote, ancient and modern. It was fashionable, hundreds of years ago,

for the children of Jacob to boast, we have "Abraham to our father," when

they had long lost Abraham’s faith and spirit. That people contented

themlves under the shadow of Abraham’s great name, while they

repudiated the deeds which made his name great. Need I remind you that

a similar thing is being done all over this country to-day? Need I tell

you that the Jews are not the only people who built the tombs of the

prophets, and garnished the pulchres of the righteous? Washington could

not die till he had broken the chains of his slaves. Yet his monument is

built up by the price of human blood, and the traders in the bodies and

souls of men, shout - "We have Washington to our father." Alas! that it

should be so; yet so it is.

"The evil that men do, lives after them,

The good is oft-interred with their bones."

"What have I, or tho I reprent, to do with your national independence?"

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Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak

here to-day? What have I, or tho I reprent, to do with your national

independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural

justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us?

and am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the

national altar, and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude

for the blessings resulting from your independence to us?

Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer

could be truthfully returned to the questions! Then would my task be

light, and my burden easy and delightful. For who is there so cold, that

a nation’s sympathy could not warm him? Who so obdurate and dead to the

claims of gratitude, that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless

benefits? Who so stolid and lfish, that would not give his voice to swell

the hallelujahs of a nation’s jubilee, when the chains of rvitude had

been torn from his limbs? I am not that man. In a ca like that, the dumb

might eloquently speak, and the "lame man leap as an hart."

But, such is not the state of the ca. I say it with a sad n of the

disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of this glorious

anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable

distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are

not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty,

prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you,

not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought

stripes and death to me. This Fourth [of] July is yours, not mine. You

may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand

illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous

anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean,

citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? If so, there is a

parallel to your conduct. And let me warn you that it is dangerous to copy

the example of a nation who crimes, lowering up to heaven, were thrown

down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrecoverable

ruin! I can to-day take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and woe-smitten

people!

"By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. Yea! we wept when we

remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.

For there, they that carried us away captive, required of us a song; and

they who wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs

of Zion. How can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land? If I forget

thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not

remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth."

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Fellow-citizens; above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful

wail of millions! who chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, to-day,

rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. If I do

forget, if I do not faithfully remember tho bleeding children of sorrow

this day, "may my right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave

to the roof of my mouth!" To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs,

and to chime in with the popular theme, would be treason most scandalous

and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world. My

subject, then fellow-citizens, is AMERICAN SLAVERY. I shall e, this day,

and its popular characteristics, from the slave’s point of view. Standing,

there, identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I

do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and

conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this 4th of July!

Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions

of the prent, the conduct of the nation ems equally hideous and

revolting. America is fal to the past, fal to the prent, and solemnly

binds herlf to be fal to the future. Standing with God and the crushed

and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity which

is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in the name of the

constitution and the Bible, which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare

to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command,

everything that rves to perpetuate slavery-the great sin and shame of

America! "I will not equivocate; I will not excu;" I will u the

verest language I can command; and yet not one word shall escape me that

any man, who judgment is not blinded by prejudice, or who is not at heart

a slaveholder, shall not confess to be right and just.

But I fancy I hear some one of my audience say, it is just in this

circumstance that you and your brother abolitionists fail to make a

favorable impression on the public mind. Would you argue more, and

denounce less, would you persuade more, and rebuke less, your cau would

be much more likely to succeed. But, I submit, where all is plain there

is nothing to be argued. What point in the anti-slavery creed would you

have me argue? On what branch of the subject do the people of this country

need light? Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? That point

is conceded already. Nobody doubts it. The slaveholders themlves

acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. They

acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave.

There are venty-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 the 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

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are covered with enactments forbidding, under vere fines and penalties,

the teaching of the slave to read or to write. When you can point to any

such laws, in reference to the beasts of the field, then I may connt

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

a, and the reptiles that crawl, shall be unable to distinguish the slave

from a brute, their will I argue with you that the slave is a man!

For the prent, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro

race. Is it not astonishing that, while we are ploughing, planting and

reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting hous,

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 cretaries, having among us lawyers,

doctors, ministers, poets, authors, editors, orators and teachers; that,

while we are engaged in all manner of enterpris common to other men,

digging gold in California, capturing the whale in the Pacific, feeding

sheep and cattle on the hill-side, living, moving, acting, thinking,

planning, living in families as husbands, wives and children, and, above

all, confessing and worshipping 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 ttled by the rules of logic and argumentation, as a matter bet

with great difficulty, involving a doubtful application of the principle

of justice, hard to be understood? How should I look to-day, in the

prence of Americans, dividing, and subdividing a discour, 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

mylf 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 ll them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their

teeth, to bum 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 employments

for my time and strength than such arguments would imply.

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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.

O! 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 roud; the propriety of the nation must

be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be expod; and its crimes

against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.

What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that

reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice

and cruelly to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration

is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy licen; 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 rmons 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 the United States, at this

very hour.

Go where you may, arch where you will, roam through all the monarchies

and despotisms of the old world, travel through South America, arch out

every abu, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side

of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that,

for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without

a rival.

INTERNAL SLAVE TRADE.

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

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dealers in this horrid traffic. In veral 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 immen 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, oppod 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 the last have

connted that their colored brethren (nominally free) should leave this

country, and establish themlves on the western coast of Africa! It is,

however, a notable fact that, while so much execration is poured out by

Americans upon tho 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 America religion. Here

you will e 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 e one of the 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. The wretched people are to be sold singly, or in lots,

to suit purchars. 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,

e the old man, with locks thinned and gray. Cast one glance, if you plea,

upon that young mother, who 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 ems 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 the drove

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to New Orleans. Attend the auction; e men examined like hors; e the

forms of women rudely and brutally expod to the shocking gaze of American

slave-buyers. See this drove sold and parated forever; and never forget

the deep, sad sobs that aro from that scattered multitude. Tell me

citizens, WHERE, under the sun, you can 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 n

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

nt into every town and county in Maryland, announcing their arrival,

through the papers, and on flaming "hand-bills," headed CASH FOR NEGROES.

The men were generally well dresd men, 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 mother 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 purpo 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

antislavery agitation, a certain caution is obrved.

In the deep still darkness of midnight, I have been often aroud by the

dead heavy footsteps, and the piteous cries of the chained gangs that

pasd our door. The anguish of my boyish heart was inten; 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 e clouds of

dust raid on the highways of the South; I e the bleeding footsteps;

I hear the doleful wail of fettered humanity, on the way to the

slave-markets, where the victims are to be sold like hors, sheep, and

swine, knocked off to the highest bidder. There I e the tenderest ties

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ruthlessly broken, to gratify the lust, caprice and rapacity of the buyers

and llers of men. My soul sickens at the sight.

"Is this the land your Fathers loved,

The freedom which they toiled to win?

Is this the earth whereon they moved?

Are the the graves they slumber in?"

But a still more inhuman, disgraceful, and scandalous state of things

remains to be prented.

By an act of the American Congress, not yet two years old, slavery has

been nationalized in its most horrible and revolting form. By that act,

Mason & Dixon’s line has been obliterated; New York has become as Virginia;

and the power to hold, hunt, and ll men, women, and children as slaves

remains no longer a mere state institution, but is now an institution of

the whole United States. The power is co-extensive with the Star-Spangled

Banner and American Christianity. Where the go, may also go the

merciless slave-hunter. Where the are, man is not sacred. He is a bird

for the sportsman’s gun. By that most foul and fiendish of all human

decrees, the liberty and person of every man are put in peril. Your broad

republican domain is hunting ground for men. Not for thieves and robbers,

enemies of society, merely, but for men guilty of no crime. Your lawmakers

have commanded all good citizens to engage in this hellish sport. Your

President, your Secretary of State, your lords, nobles, and ecclesiastics,

enforce, as a duty you owe to your free and glorious country, and to your

God, that you do this accurd thing. Not fewer than forty Americans have,

within the past two years, been hunted down and, without a moment’s

warning, hurried away in chains, and consigned to slavery and excruciating

torture. Some of the have had wives and children, dependent on them for

bread; but of this, no account was made. The right of the hunter to his

prey stands superior to the right of marriage, and to all rights in this

republic, the rights of God included! For black men there are neither law,

justice, humanity, not religion. The Fugitive Slave Law makes MERCY TO

THEM, A CRIME; and bribes the judge who tries them. An American JUDGE GETS

TEN DOLLARS FOR EVERY VICTIM HE CONSIGNS to slavery, and five, when he

fails to do so. The oath of any two villains is sufficient, under this

hell-black enactment, to nd the most pious and exemplary black man into

the remorless jaws of slavery! His own testimony is nothing. He can bring

no witness for himlf. The minister of American justice is bound by

the law to hear but one side; and that side, is the side of the oppressor.

Let this damning fact be perpetually told. Let it be thundered around the

world, that, in tyrant-killing, king-hating, people-loving, democratic,

Christian America, the ats of justice are filled with judges, who hold

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their offices under an open and palpable bribe, and are bound, in deciding

in the ca of a man’s liberty, hear only his accurs!

In glaring violation of justice, in shameless disregard of the forms of

administering law, in cunning arrangement to entrap the defenless, and

in diabolical intent, this Fugitive Slave Law stands alone in the annals

of tyrannical legislation. I doubt if there be another nation on the globe,

having the brass and the baness to put such a law on the statute-book.

If any man in this asmbly thinks differently from me in this matter,

and feels able to disprove my statements, I will gladly confront him at

any suitable time and place he may lect.

RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.

I take this law to be one of the grosst infringements of Christian

Liberty, and, if the churches and ministers of our country were not

stupidly blind, or most wickedly indifferent, they, too, would so regard

it.

At the very moment that they are thanking God for the enjoyment of civil

and religious liberty, and for the right to worship God according to the

dictates of their own consciences, they are utterly silent in respect to

a law which robs religion of its chief significance, and makes it utterly

worthless to a world lying in wickedness. Did this law concern the "mint,

ani and cummin"—abridge the fight to sing psalms, to partake of the

sacrament, or to engage in any of the ceremonies of religion, it would

be smitten by the thunder of a thousand pulpits. A general shout would

go up from the church, demanding repeal, repeal, instant repeal! And it

would go hard with that politician who presumed to solicit the votes of

the people without inscribing this motto on his banner. Further, if this

demand were not complied with, another Scotland would be added to the

history of religious liberty, and the stern old Covenanters would be

thrown into the shade. A John Knox would be en at every church door,

and heard from every pulpit, and Fillmore would have no more quarter than

was shown by Knox, to the beautiful, but treacherous queen Mary of Scotland.

The fact that the church of our country, (with fractional exceptions),

does not esteem "the Fugitive Slave Law" as a declaration of war against

religious liberty, implies that that church regards religion simply as

a form of worship, an empty ceremony, and not a vital principle, requiring

active benevolence, justice, love and good will towards man. It esteems

sacrifice above mercy; psalm-singing above right doing; solemn meetings

above practical righteousness. A worship that can be conducted by persons

who refu to give shelter to the houless, to give bread to the hungry,

clothing to the naked, and who enjoin obedience to a law forbidding the

acts of mercy, is a cur, not a blessing to mankind. The Bible address

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all such persons as "scribes, Pharies, hypocrites, who pay tithe of mint,

ani, and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law,

judgment, mercy and faith."

THE CHURCH RESPONSIBLE.

But the church of this country is not only indifferent to the wrongs of

the slave, it actually takes sides with the oppressors. It has made itlf

the bulwark of American slavery, and the shield of American slave-hunters.

Many of its most eloquent Divines. who stand as the very lights of the

church, have shamelessly given the sanction of religion and the Bible to

the whole slave system. They have taught that man may, properly, be a slave;

that the relation of master and slave is ordained of God; that to nd

back an escaped bondman to his master is clearly the duty of all the

followers of the Lord Jesus Christ; and this horrible blasphemy is palmed

off upon the world for Christianity.

For my part, I would say, welcome infidelity! welcome atheism! welcome

anything! in preference to the gospel, as preached by tho Divines! They

convert the very name of religion into an engine of tyranny, and barbarous

cruelty, and rve to confirm more infidels, in this age, than all the

infidel writings of Thomas Paine, Voltaire, and Bolingbroke, put together,

have done! The ministers make religion a cold and flinty-hearted thing,

having neither principles of right action, nor bowels of compassion. They

strip the love of God of its beauty, and leave the throng of religion a

huge, horrible, repulsive form. It is a religion for oppressors, tyrants,

man-stealers, and thugs. It is not that "pure and undefiled religion"

which is from above, and which is "first pure, then peaceable, easy to

be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and

without hypocrisy." But a religion which favors the rich against the poor;

which exalts the proud above the humble; which divides mankind into two

class, tyrants and slaves; which says to the man in chains, stay there;

and to the oppressor, oppress on; it is a religion which may be profesd

and enjoyed by all the robbers and enslavers of mankind; it makes God a

respecter of persons, denies his fatherhood of the race, and tramples in

the dust the great truth of the brotherhood of man. All this we affirm

to be true of the popular church, and the popular worship of our land and

nation - a religion, a church, and a worship which, on the authority of

inspired wisdom, we pronounce to be an abomination in the sight of God.

In the language of Isaiah, the American church might be well addresd,

"Bring no more vain ablations; incen is an abomination unto me: the new

moons and Sabbaths, the calling of asmblies, I cannot away with; it is

iniquity even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts

my soul hateth. They are a trouble to me; I am weary to bear them; and

when ye spread forth your hands I will hide mine eyes from you. Yea! when

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ye make many prayers, I will not hear. YOUR HANDS ARE FULL OF BLOOD; cea

to do evil, learn to do well; ek judgment; relieve the oppresd; judge

for the fatherless; plead for the widow."

The American church is guilty, when viewed in connection with what it is

doing to uphold slavery; but it is superlatively guilty when viewed in

connection with its ability to abolish slavery. The sin of which it is

guilty is one of omission as well as of commission. Albert Barnes but

uttered what the common n of every man at all obrvant of the actual

state of the ca will receive as truth, when he declared that "There is

no power out of the church that could sustain slavery an hour, if it were

not sustained in it."

Let the religious press, the pulpit, the Sunday school, the conference

meeting, the great ecclesiastical, missionary, Bible and tract

associations of the land array their immen powers against slavery and

slave-holding; and the whole system of crime and blood would be scattered

to the winds; and that they do not do this involves them in the most awful

responsibility of which the mind can conceive.

In procuting the anti-slavery enterpri, we have been asked to spare

the church, to spare the ministry; but how, we ask, could such a thing

be done? We are met on the threshold of our efforts for the redemption

of the slave, by the church and ministry of the country, in battle arrayed

against us; and we are compelled to fight or flee. From what quarter, I

beg to know, has proceeded a fire so deadly upon our ranks, during the

last two years, as from the Northern pulpit? As the champions of oppressors,

the chon men of American theology have appeared-men, honored for their

so-called piety, and their real learning. 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

other great religious lights of the land, have, in utter denial of the

authority of Him, by whom the profesd to he called to the ministry,

deliberately taught us, against the example or the Hebrews and against

the remonstrance of the Apostles, they teach "that we ought to obey man’s

law before the law of God."

My spirit wearies of such blasphemy; and how such men can be supported,

as the "standing types and reprentatives of Jesus Christ," is a mystery

which I leave others to penetrate. In speaking of the American church,

however, let it be distinctly understood that I mean the great mass of

the religious organizations of our land. There are exceptions, and I thank

God that there are. Noble men may be found, scattered all over the

Northern States, of whom Henry Ward Beecher of Brooklyn, Samuel J. May

of Syracu, and my esteemed friend on the platform, are shining examples;

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and let me say further, that upon the men lies the duty to inspire our

ranks with high religious faith and zeal, and to cheer us on in the great

mission of the slave’s redemption from his chains.

RELIGION IN ENGLAND AND RELIGION IN AMERICA.

One is struck with the difference between the attitude of the American

church towards the anti-slavery movement, and that occupied by the

churches in England towards a similar movement in that country. There,

the church, true to its mission of ameliorating, elevating, and improving

the condition of mankind, came forward promptly, bound up the wounds of

the West Indian slave, and restored him to his liberty. There, the question

of emancipation was a high[ly] religious question. It was demanded, in

the name of humanity, and according to the law of the living God. The Sharps,

the Clarksons, the Wilberforces, the Buxtons, and Burchells and the Knibbs,

were alike famous for their piety, and for their philanthropy. The

anti-slavery movement there was not an anti-church movement, for the

reason that the church took its full share in procuting that movement:

and the anti-slavery movement in this country will cea to be an

anti-church movement, when the church of this country shall assume a

favorable, instead or a hostile position towards that movement. Americans!

your republican politics, not less than your republican religion, are

flagrantly inconsistent. You boast of your love of liberty, your superior

civilization, and your pure Christianity, while the whole political power

of the nation (as embodied in the two great political parties), is solemnly

pledged to support and perpetuate the enslavement of three millions of

your countrymen. You hurl your anathemas at the crowned headed tyrants

of Russia and Austria, and pride yourlves on your Democratic

institutions, while you yourlves connt to be the mere tools and

bodyguards of the tyrants of Virginia and Carolina. You invite to your

shores fugitives of oppression from abroad, honor them with banquets,

greet them with ovations, cheer them, toast them, salute them, protect

them, and pour out your money to them like water; but the fugitives from

your own land you adverti, hunt, arrest, shoot and kill. You glory in

your refinement and your universal education yet you maintain a system

as barbarous and dreadful as ever stained the character of a nation—a

system begun in avarice, supported in pride, and perpetuated in cruelty.

You shed tears over fallen Hungary, and make the sad story of her wrongs

the theme of your poets, statesmen and orators, till your gallant sons

are ready to fly to arms to vindicate her cau against her oppressors;

but, in regard to the ten thousand wrongs of the American slave, you would

enforce the strictest silence, and would hail him as an enemy of the nation

who dares to make tho wrongs the subject of public discour! You are

all on fire at the mention of liberty for France or for Ireland; but are

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as cold as an iceberg at the thought of liberty for the enslaved of America.

You discour eloquently on the dignity of labor; yet, you sustain a system

which, in its very esnce, casts a stigma upon labor. You can bare your

bosom to the storm of British artillery to throw off a threepenny tax on

tea; and yet wring the last hard-earned farthing from the grasp of the

black laborers of your country. You profess to believe "that, of one blood,

God made all nations of men to dwell on the face of all the earth," and

hath commanded all men, everywhere to love one another; yet you

notoriously hate, (and glory in your hatred), all men who skins are not

colored like your own. You declare, before the world, and are understood

by the world to declare, that you "hotel the truths to be lf evident,

that all men are created equal; and are endowed by their Creator with

certain inalienable rights; and that, among the are, life, liberty, and

the pursuit of happiness;" and yet, you hold curely, in a bondage which,

according to your own Thomas Jefferson, "is wor than ages of that which

your fathers ro in rebellion to oppo," a venth part of the

inhabitants of your country.

Fellow-citizens! I will not enlarge further on your national

inconsistencies. The existence of slavery in this country brands your

republicanism as a sham, your humanity as a ba pretence, and your

Christianity as a lie. It destroys your moral power abroad; it corrupts

your politicians at home. It saps the foundation of religion; it makes

your name a hissing, and a by word to a mocking earth. It is the

antagonistic force in your government, the only thing that riously

disturbs and endangers your Union. It fetters your progress; it is the

enemy of improvement, the deadly foe of education; it fosters pride; it

breeds insolence; it promotes vice; it shelters crime; it is a cur to

the earth that supports it; and yet, you cling to it, as if it were the

sheet anchor of all your hopes. Oh! be warned! be warned! a horrible

reptile is coiled up in your nation’s bosom; the venomous creature is

nursing at the tender breast of your youthful republic; for the love of

God, tear away, and fling from you the hideous monster, and let the weight

of twenty millions crush and destroy it forever!

THE CONSTITUTION.

But it is answered in reply to all this, that precily what I have now

denounced is, in fact, guaranteed and sanctioned by the Constitution of

the United States; that the right to hold and to hunt slaves is a part

of that Constitution framed by the illustrious Fathers of this Republic.

Then, I dare to affirm, notwithstanding all I have said before, your

fathers stooped, baly stooped "To palter with us in a double n: And

keep the word of promi to the ear, But break it to the heart."

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And instead of being the honest men I have before declared them to be,

they were the veriest imposters that ever practiced on mankind. This is

the inevitable conclusion, and from it there is no escape. But I differ

from tho who charge this baness on the framers of the Constitution

of the United States. It is a slander upon their memory, at least, so I

believe. There is not time now to argue the constitutional question at

length - nor have I the ability to discuss it as it ought to be discusd.

The subject has been handled with masterly power by Lysander Spooner, Esq.,

by William Goodell, by Samuel E. Sewall, Esq., and last, though not least,

by Gerritt Smith, Esq. The gentlemen have, as I think, fully and clearly

vindicated the Constitution from any design to support slavery for an

hour.

"[L]et me ask, if it be not somewhat singular that, if the Constitution

were intended to be, by its framers and adopters, a slave-holding

instrument, why neither slavery, slaveholding, nor slave can anywhere be

found in it."

Fellow-citizens! there is no matter in respect to which, the people of

the North have allowed themlves to be so ruinously impod upon, as that

of the pro-slavery character of the Constitution. In that instrument I

hold there is neither warrant, licen, nor sanction of the hateful thing;

but, interpreted as it ought to be interpreted, the Constitution is a

GLORIOUS LIBERTY DOCUMENT. Read its preamble, consider its purpos. Is

slavery among them? Is it at the gateway? or is it in the temple? It is

neither. While I do not intend to argue this question on the prent

occasion, let me ask, if it be not somewhat singular that, if the

Constitution were intended to be, by its framers and adopters, a

slave-holding instrument, why neither slavery, slaveholding, nor slave

can anywhere be found in it. What would be thought of an instrument, drawn

up, legally drawn up, for the purpo of entitling the city of Rochester

to a track of land, in which no mention of land was made? Now, there are

certain rules of interpretation, for the proper understanding of all legal

instruments. The rules are well established. They are plain,

common-n rules, such as you and I, and all of us, can understand and

apply, without having pasd years in the study of law. I scout the idea

that the question of the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of

slavery is not a question for the people. I hold that every American

citizen has a fight to form an opinion of the constitution, and to

propagate that opinion, and to u all honorable means to make his opinion

the prevailing one. Without this fight, the liberty of an American citizen

would be as incure as that of a Frenchman. Ex-Vice-President Dallas

tells us that the constitution is an object to which no American mind can

be too attentive, and no American heart too devoted. He further says, the

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constitution, in its words, is plain and intelligible, and is meant for

the home-bred, unsophisticated understandings of our fellow-citizens.

Senator Berrien tell us that the Constitution is the fundamental law, that

which controls all others. The charter of our liberties, which every

citizen has a personal interest in understanding thoroughly. The

testimony of Senator Bree, Lewis Cass, and many others that might be

named, who are everywhere esteemed as sound lawyers, so regard the

constitution. I take it, therefore, that it is not presumption in a private

citizen to form an opinion of that instrument.

Now, take the constitution according to its plain reading, and I defy the

prentation of a single pro-slavery clau in it. On the other hand it

will be found to contain principles and purpos, entirely hostile to the

existence of slavery.

I have detained my audience entirely too long already. At some future

period I will gladly avail mylf of an opportunity to give this subject

a full and fair discussion.

"Allow me to say, in conclusion, notwithstanding the dark picture I have

this day prented of the state of the nation, I do not despair of this

country."

Allow me to say, in conclusion, notwithstanding the dark picture I have

this day prented of the state of the nation, I do not despair of this

country. There are forces in operation, which must inevitably work The

downfall of slavery. "The arm of the Lord is not shortened," and the doom

of slavery is certain. I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope.

While drawing encouragement from the Declaration of Independence, the

great principles it contains, and the genius of American Institutions,

my spirit is also cheered by the obvious tendencies of the age. Nations

do not now stand in the same relation to each other that they did ages

ago. No nation can now shut itlf up from the surrounding world, and trot

round in the same old path of its fathers without interference. The time

was when such could be done. Long established customs of hurtful character

could formerly fence themlves in, and do their evil work with social

impunity. Knowledge was then confined and enjoyed by the privileged few,

and the multitude walked on in mental darkness. But a change has now come

over the affairs of mankind. Walled cities and empires have become

unfashionable. The arm of commerce has borne away the gates of the strong

city. Intelligence is penetrating the darkest corners of the globe. It

makes its pathway over and under the a, as well as on the earth. Wind,

steam, and lightning are its chartered agents. Oceans no longer divide,

but link nations together. From Boston to London is now a holiday excursion.

Space is comparatively annihilated. Thoughts expresd on one side of the

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Atlantic are, distinctly heard on the other. The far off and almost

fabulous Pacific rolls in grandeur at our feet. The Celestial Empire, the

mystery of ages, is being solved. The fiat of the Almighty, "Let there

be Light," has not yet spent its force. No abu, no outrage whether in

taste, sport or avarice, can now hide itlf from the all-pervading light.

The iron shoe, and crippled foot of China must be en, in contrast with

nature. Africa must ri and put on her yet unwoven garment. "Ethiopia

shall stretch out her hand unto God." In the fervent aspirations of William

Lloyd Garrison, I say, and let every heart join in saying it:

God speed the year of jubilee

The wide world o’er

When from their galling chains t free,

Th’ oppress’d shall vilely bend the knee,

And wear the yoke of tyranny

Like brutes no more.

That year will come, and freedom’s reign,

To man his plundered fights again

Restore.

God speed the day when human blood

Shall cea to flow!

In every clime be understood,

The claims of human brotherhood,

And each return for evil, good,

Not blow for blow;

That day will come all feuds to end.

And change into a faithful friend

Each foe.

God speed the hour, the glorious hour,

When none on earth

Shall exerci a lordly power,

Nor in a tyrant’s prence cower;

But all to manhood’s stature tower,

By equal birth!

THAT HOUR WILL, COME, to each, to all,

And from his prison-hou, the thrall

Go forth.

Until that year, day, hour, arrive,

With head, and heart, and hand I’ll strive,

To break the rod, and rend the gyve,

The spoiler of his prey deprive-

So witness Heaven!

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And never from my chon post,

Whate’er the peril or the cost,

Be driven.

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