1


u narud erhed
messo amor .
with the regards of Hon. Fobhanning
XSM
AN ADDRESS
DELIVERED AT LENOX,
ON THE
FIRST OF AUGUST, 1842,
THE
ANNIVERSARY OF EMANCIPATION,
IN THE
BRITISH WEST INDIÉ S.
BY WILLIAM É, CHANNING.
LENOX, MASS.:
PUBLISHED BY J. G. STANLY.
1842.


326.9729
( 362 a
1
Elikrary
UNIVERSITY
ΤΗ,
Charles Montague,
PRINTER,
PITTSFIELN, MASS.


INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.
I have been encouraged to publish the following address by the
strong expressions of sympathy with which it was received, I do
not indeed suppose, that those, who listened to it with interest and
who have requested its publication, accorded with me in every
opinion which it contains. Such entire agreement is not to be ex-
pected among intelligent men, who judge for themselves. But I
am sure, that the spirit and substance of the address met a hearty
response. Several paragraphs, which 'I wanted strength to de-
liver, are now published, and for these of course I am alone
respon-
sible.
I dedicate this address to the Men and Women of Berkshire. I
have found so much to delight me in the magnificent scenery of
this region, in its peaceful and prosperous villages and in the rare
intelligence and virtues of the friends whose hospitality I have here
enjoyed, that I desire to eonnect this little work with this spot. I
cannot soon forget the beautiful nature and the generous spirits,
with which I have been privileged to commune in the Valley of the
Housạtonick.
Lenox, Mass., Aug. 9, 1842,
428187


1
1


A D D RE .
This day is the anniversary of one of the great events of
modern times, the Emancipation of the Slaves in the British
West India islands. This Emancipation began Aug. 1st. 1834,
but it was not completed until Aug. 21st. 1838. The event
indeed has excited little attention in our country, partly be-
cause we are too much absorbed in private interests and local
excitements to be alive to the triumphs of humanity at a dis-
tance, partly because a moral contagion has spread from the
South through the North and deadened our sympathies with
the oppressed. But West India emancipation, though received
here so coldly, is yet an era in the annals of philanthropy.
The greatest events do not always draw most attention at the
moment. When the May flower, in the dead of winter, lan-
ded a few pilgrims, on the ice-bound, snow-buried rocks of
Plymouth, the occurrence made no noise. ' Nobody took note.
of it, and yet how much has that landing done to change the
face of the civilized world! Our fathers came to establish a
pure church; they little thought of revolutionizing nations.
The emancipation in the West Indies, whether viewed in it-
self, or in its immediate results, or in the spirit from which
it grew, or in the light of hope which it sheds on the future,
deserves to be commemorated. In some respects it stands alone
in human history. I therefore invite to it your serious atten-
tion.
Perhaps I ought to begin with some apology for my appear-
ance in this place; for I stand here unasked, uninvited. I
can plead no earnest solicitation from few or many for the ser-
vice I now render. I come to you simply from an impulse in
my own breast; and in truth had I been solicited, I prob-
ably should not have consented to speak. Had I found


6
here a general desire to celebrate this day, I, should have felt,
that another speaker might be enlisted in the cause, and I
should have held my peace. But finding that no other voice
would be raised, I was impelled to lift up my own, though too
feeble for any great exertion. I trust you will accept with can-
dor what I have been obliged to prepare in haste,and what may
have little merit but that of pure intention.
I have said that I speak only from the impulse of my own
mind. I am the organ of no association, the representative of
ao feelings but my own But I wish it to be understood, that I
speak from no sudden impulse; from no passionate zeal of a new
convert; but from deliberate and long cherished conviction. In
truth my attention was directed to Slavery fifty years ago,
that
is, before most of you were born; and the first impulse came
from a venerable man, formerly of great reputation in this part
of our country and in all our churches,the Rev. Dr. Hopkins,
who removed more than a century ago from Great Barrington
to my native town, and there bore open and strong testimony
against the Slave Trade, a principal branch of the traffic of the
place. I am reminded by the spot where I now stand, of
another incident which may show how long I have taken an
interest in this subject. More than twenty years ago, I had an
earnest conversation with that noble-minded man and ſervent
philanthropist, Henry Sedgwick, so well and honorably known
to most who hear me, on which occasion we deplored the in-
sensibility of the North to the evils of Slavery and enquired
by what means it might be removed. The circumstance which
particularly gave my mind a direction to this subject, was a win-
ter's residence in a West Indian Island more than eleven years
ago. I lived there on a plantation. The piazza in which I
sat and walked almost from morning to night, overlooked the
negro village belonging to the estate. A few steps placed me
in the midst of their huts. Here was a volume on Slavery
opened always before my eyes, and how could I help learning
some of its lessons. The gang on this estate, (for such is the
name given to a company of slaves,) was the best on the island,


7
and among the best in the West Indies. The proprietor had
laboured to collect the best materials for it. His gang had been
his pride and boast. The fine proportions, the graceful and
sometimes dignified bearing of these people, could hardly be
overlooked. Unhappily misfortune had reduced the owner to
bankruptcy. The estate had been mortgaged to a stranger who
could not personally superintend it, and I found it under the
care of a passionate and licentious manager, in whom the
poor slaves found a sad contrast to the kindness of former
days. They sometimes came to the house where I resided, with
their mournful or indignant complaints; but were told that no
redress could be found from the hands of their late master. In
this case of a plantation passing into strange hands, I saw that
the mildest form of slavery might at any time be changed in-
to the worst. On returning to this country I delivered a dis-
course on Slavery, giving the main views which I have since
communicated; and this was done, before the cry of Abolition-
ism was heard among us. I seem then to have a peculiar
warrant for now addressing you. I am giving you not the
ebullitions of new vehement feelings, but the results of long and
patient reflection; not the thoughts of others, but my own inde-
pendent judgments. I stand alone, I speak in the name of no
party. I have no connection, but that of friendship and respect,
with the opposers of Slavery in this country or abroad. Do
not mix me up with other men good or bad; but listen to me
as a separate witness, standing on my own ground, and desi-
rous to express with all plainness what seems to be the truth.
On this day a few years ago, Eight Hundred Thousand hu-
man beings were set free from slavery; and to comprehend the
greatness of of the deliverance, a few words must first be said
of the evil from which they were rescued. You must know
Slavery to know Emancipation. But in a single discourse,
how can I set before you the wrongs and abominations of this
detestable institution ? I must pass over many of its features,
and will select one, which is at present vividly impressed on
my mind. Different minds are impressed with different evils.


8
Were I asked, what strikes me as the greatest evil inflicted by
this system, I should say, it is the outrage offered by slavery
to human nature. Slavery does all that lies in human power to
unmake men, to rob them of their humanity, to degrade men
into brutes; and this it does by declaring them to be Property.
Here is the master evil. Declare a man a chattel, something
which you may own, and may turn to your use, as a horse or a
tool; strip him of all right over himself, of all right to use his
own powers, except what you concede to him as a favor and
deem consistent with your owni profit; and you cease to look
on him as a Man. You may call him such; but he is not to you
a brother, a fellow being, a partaker of your nature, and your
equal in the sight of God. You view him, you treat him, you
speak to him, as infinitely beneath you, as belonging to anoth-
er race. You have a tone and a look towards him, which you
never use towards a man. Your relation to him demands that
you treat him as an inferior créature. You cannot if
you
would
treat hi.n as a man. That he may answer your end, that he
may consent to be a slave, his spirit must be broken, his cour-
age crushed; he must fear you. A feeling of his deep inferiority
must be burnt into his soul. The idea of his rights must be
quenched in him, by the blood of his lashed and lacerated body.
Here is the damning evil of slavery. It destroys the spirit, the
consciousness of a man. I care little in comparison for his
hard outward lot, his poverty, his unfurnished house, his coarse
fare; the terrible thing in slavery is the spirit of a slave, the ex-
tinction of the spirit of a man. He feels himself owned, a chat-
tel, a thing bought and sold, and held to sweat for another's
pleasure, at another's will, under another's lash, just as an
ox or horse. Treated thus as a brute, can he take a place
among men? A slave! Is there a name so degraded on earth, a
name which so separates a man from his kind ? and to this
condition millions of our race are condemned in this land of
liberty.
In what is the slave treated as a Man ? The great right of
a Man is to use, improve, expand his powers, for his own and


9
other's good. The slave's powers belong to another, and are
hemmed in, kept down, not cherished, or suffered to unfold. If
there be an infernal system, one especially hostile to humanity,
it is that which deliberately wars against the expansion of
men's faculties; and this enters into the essence of slavery.
The slave cannot be kept a slaye, if helped or allowed to im-
prove his intellect and higher nature. He must not be taught
to read. The benevolent christian, who tries, by giving him
the use of letters, to open to him the word of God and other
good books, is punished as a criminal. The slave is hedged
round, so that philanthropy cannot approach him to awaken in
him the intelligence and feelings of a man.
Thus his humani-
ty is trodden under foot.
Again, a Man has the right to form and enjoy the relations
of domestic life. The tie between the brute and his young en-
dures but a few months. Man was made to have a home,
to have a wife and children, to cleave to them for life, to sus-
tain the domestic relations in constancy and purity, and through
these holy ties to refine and exalt his nature. Such is the
distinction of a man. But slavery violates the sanctity of home.
It makes the young woman property, and gives her no protec-
tion from licentiousness. It either disallows marriage or makes
it a vain show. It sunders husband and wife, sells them
into distant regions, and then compels them to break the sacred
tie and contract new alliances, in order to stock the plantation
with human slaves. Scripture and nature say,“What God hath
joined, let not man put asunder;'' but slavery scorns God's
voice in his word and in the human heart. Even the Christian
church dares not remonstrate against the wrong, but sanctions
it, and encourages the poor ignorant slave to form a new, adul-
terous connexion, that he may minister to his master's gain.
The slave-holder enters the hut of his bondsman, to do the
work which belongs only to death, and to do it with nothing of
the consolatory, healing influences, which christianity sheds
round death. He goes to tear the wife from the husband, the
child from the mother, to exile them from one another, and to
B


10
convey them to unknown masters. Is this to see a man, in a
slave? Is not this to place him beneath humanity ?
Again, it is the right, privilege and distinction of a Man, nok
only to be connected with a family, but with his race. He is
made for free communion with his fellow creatures. One of the
sorest evils of life is to be cut off from the mass of men,
from the social body; to be treated by the multitude of our fellow
creatures as outcasts, as Pariahs, as a fallen race, unworthy to
be approached, unworthy of the deference due to men; and
this infinite wrong is done to the slave. A slave! that name
severs all his ties except with beings as degraded as himself.
He has no country, no pride or love of nation, no sympathy
with the weal or woe of the land which gave him birth, no joy
in its triumphs, no generous sorrow for its humiliation, no feel-
ing of that strong unity with those around him which common
laws, a common government, and a common history create.
He is not allowed to go forth, as other men are, and to connect
himself with strangers, to form new alliances by means of trade,
business, conversation. Society is every where barred against
him. An iron wall forbids his access to his race. The mis-
cellaneous intercourse of man with man, which strengthens the
feeling of our common humanity, and perhaps does more than
all things to enlarge the intellect, is denied him. The world
is nothing to him; he does not hear of it. The plantation is his
world. To him the universe is narrowed down almost wholly
to the hut where sleeps, and the fields where he sweats for
another's gain. Beyond these he must not step without leave;
and even if allowed to wander, who has a respectful look or
word for the slave? In that name he carries with him an at-
mosphere of repulsion. It drives men from him as if he were
a leper. However gifted by God, however thirsting for some
higher use of his powers, he must hope for no friend beyond
the ignorant, half-brutalized caste with which bondage has
united him. To him there is no race, as there is no country,
In truth, so fallen is he beneath sympathy, that multitudes will
smile at hearing him compassionated for being bereſt of these


11
man ?
ties. Still he suffers great wrong. Just in proportion as you
sever a man from his country and race, he ceases to be a man.
The rudest savage, who has a tribe with which he sympathises,
and for which he is ready to die, is far exalted above the slave.
How much more exalted is the poorest freeman, in a civilized
land, who feels his relation to a wide community; who lives
under equal laws to which the greatest bow; whose social ties
change and enlarge with the vicissitudes of life; whose mind
and heart are open to the quickening, stirring influences of this
various world. Poor slave!. humanity's out-cast and orphan !
to whom no door is open, but that of the naked hut of thy de-
graded caste! art thou indeed a
Dost thou belong to
the human brotherhood ? What is thy whole life but contin-
ued insult ? Thou meetest no look, which does not express
thy hopeless exclusion from human sympathies. Thou mayest
indeed be pitied in sickness and pain, and so is the animal. The
deference due to a man, and which keeps alive a man's spirit,
is unknown to thee. The intercourse, which makes the hum-
blest individual in other spheres partaker more or less in the
improvements of his race, thou must never hope for. May I
not say, then, that nothing extinguishes humanity like slavery.
In reply to these and other representations of the wrongs and
evils of this institution, we are told that slaves are well fed,
well clothed; at least better than the peasantry and ope-
ratives in many other countries; and this is gravely addu-
ced as a vindication of slavery. A man capable of offering it,
ought, if any one ought, to be reduced to bondage. A man,
who thinks food and raiment a compensation for liberty, who
would counset men to sell themselves, to become property, to
give up all rights and power over themselves, for a daily mess
of pottage, however savory, is a slave in heart. He has lost the
spirit of a man, and would be less wronged than other men, if
a slave's collar were welded round his neck.
The domestic slave is well fed, we are told, and so are the
domestic animals. A nobleman's horse in England is better
lodged and more pampered than the operatives in Manchester,


12
The grain which the horse consumes, might support a starving
family. How sleek and shining his coat! How gay and rich
his caparison! But why is he thus curried, and pampered, and
bedecked ? To be bitted and curbed; and then to be mounted
by his master, who arms hiinself with whip and spur to put
the animal to his speed; and if any accident mar his strength
or swiftness, he is sold from his luxuriant stall to be flayed,
overworked, and hastened out of life by the merciless drayman.
Suppose the nobleman should say to the half-starved, ragged
operative of Manchester, 'I will give up my horse, and feed and
clothe you with like sumptuousness, on condition that I may
mount you daily with lash and spurs, and sell you when I can
make a profitable bargain.” Would you have the operative,
for the sake of good fare and clothes, take the lot of the brute ?
or, in other words, become a slave? What reply would the
heart of an Old England or New England laborer make to such
a proposal ? and yet if there be any soundness in the argument.
drawn from the slave's comforts, he ought to accept it thank-
fully and greedily.
Such arguments for slavery are insults. The man capable
of using them ought to be rebuked as mean in spirit, hard of
heart, and wanting all true sympathy with his race. I might
reply, if I thought fit, to this account of the slave's blessings,
that there is nothing very enviable in his food and wardrobe,
that his comforts make no approach to those of the nobleman's
horse, and that a laborer of New England would prefer the
fare of many an alms-house at home. But I cannot stoop to
such reasoning. Be the comforts of the slave what they may,
they are no compensation for the degradation insolence, indige
nities, ignorance, servility, scars, and violations of domestic
rights to which he is exposed.
I have spoken of what seems to me the grand evil of slavery,
the outrage it offers to human nature. It would be easy to
enlarge on other fatal tendencies and effects of this institution.
But I forbear not only for want of time, but because I feel no
need of a minute exposition of its wrongs and miseries to make


13
it odious. I cannot endure to go through a labored proof of
its iniquitous and injurious nature. No man wants such proof.
He carries the evidence in his own heart. I need nothing but
the most general view of slavery, to move my indignation tow-
ards it. I am more and more accustomed to throw out of sight its
particular evils, its details of wrong and suffering, and to see
in it simply an institution which deprives men of Freedom; and
when I thus view it, I am taught immediately, by an unerring
instinct, that slavery is an intolerable wrong. Nature cries
aloud for Freedom as our proper good, our birthright and
our end, and resents nothing so much as its loss.
It is true,
that we are placed at first, in subjection to others' wills;
and spend childhood and youth under restraint. But we are
governed at first that we may learn to govern ourselves; we
begin with leading strings that we may learn to go alone. The
discipline of the parent is designed to train up his children to
act for themselves, and from a principle of duty in their own
breasts. The child is not subjected to his father to be a slave,
but to grow up to the energy, responsibility, relations and au-
thority of a man. Freedom, courage, moral force, efficiency,
independence, the large, generous action of the soul, these are
the blessings in store for us, the grand ends to which the re-
straints of education, of family, of school and college are di-
rected. Nature knows no such thing as a perpetual yoke. Na-
ture bends no head to the dust, to look forever downward.
Nature makes no man a chattel. Nature has implanted in
all souls the thirst, the passion for liberty. Nature stirs
the heart of the child, and prompts it to throw out its little
limbs in restlessness and joy and to struggle against restraint.
Nature impels the youth to leap, to run, to put forth all his
powers, to look with impatience on prescribed bounds, to climb
the steep, to dive into the ocean, to court danger, to spread him-
self through the new world which he was born to inherit. Na-
ture's life, nature's impulse, nature's joy is Freedom. A great-
er violence to nature cannot be conceived, than to rob man of
liberty.


14
us.
What is the end and essence of life? It is to expand all our
faculties and affections. It is to grow, to gain by exercise new
energy, new intellect, new love. It is to hope, to strive, to
bring out what is within us, to press towards what is above
In other words, it is to be Free. Slavery is thus at war
with the true life of human nature. Undoubtedly there is a
power in the soul, which the loss of freedom cannot always
subdue. There have been men, doomed to perpetual bondage,
who have still thought and felt nobly, looked up to God with
trust, and learned by experience, that even bondage, like all
other evils, may be made the occasion of high virtue. But these
are exceptions. In the main,our nature is too weak to grow
under the weight of chains.
To illustrate the supreme importance of Freedom, I would
offer a remark, which may sound like a paradox, but will be
found to be true. It is this, that even Despotism is endurable,
only because it bestows a degree of freedom. Despotism, bad as
it is, supplants a greater evil, and that is anarchy; and anarchy
is worse, chiefly because it is more enslaving. In anarchy all
restraint is plucked from the strong, who make a prey of the
weak; subduing them by terror, seizing on their property, and
treading every right under foot. When the laws are prostra-
ted, arbitrary, passionate, lawless will, the will of the strongest,
exasperated by opposition, must prevail; and under this the
rights of person, as well as property are cast down, and a
palsying fear imposes on men's spirits a heavier chain, than was
ever forged by an organized despotism. In the whole his-
tory of tyranny in France, liberty was never so crushed as in
the reign of terror in the revolution; when mobs and lawless
combinations usurped the power of the State. A despot to be
safe must establish a degree of order, and this implies laws,
tribunals, and some administration of justice, however rude;
and still more, he has an interest in protecting industry and
property to some degree, in order that he may extort the
more from his people's earnings under the name of revenue.
Thus despotism is an advance towards liberty; and in this


16
its strength very much lies; for the people have a secret
consciousness, that their rights suffer less, under one, than
under many tyrants, under an organized absolutism, than un-
der wild, lawless, passionate force; and on this conviction, as
truly as on armies, rests the despot's throne. Thus freedom and
rights are ever cherished goods of human nature. Man keeps
them in sight even when most crushed; and just in proportion
as civilization and intelligence advance, he secures them more
and more. This is infallibly true notwithstanding oppo-
site appearances.
The old forms of despotism may indeed
continue in a progressive civilization, but their force declines;
and public opinion, the will of the community, silently establish-
es a sway over what seems and is denominated, absolute power.
We have a striking example of this truth in Prussia, where the
King seems unchecked, but where a code of wise and equal
laws ensures to every man his rights to a degree experienced
in few other countries, and where the administration of justice
cannot safely be obstructed by the will of the sovereign. Thus
freedom, man's dearest birthright, is the good towards which
civil institutions tend. It is at once the sign and the means,
the cause and the effect of human progress. It exists in a
measure under tyrannical governments, and gives them their
strength. No where is it wholly broken down, but under do-
mestic slavery. Under this, man is made Property. Here lies
the damning taint, the accursed blighting power, the infinite
evil of bondage.
On this day, four years ago, Eight Hundred Thousand human
beings were set free from the terrible evil of which I have
given a faint sketch. Eight hundred thousand of our brethren,
who had lived in darkness and the shadow of death, were vis-
ited with the light of liberty. Instead of the tones of absolute,
debasing command, a new voice broke on their ears, calling
them to come forth, to be free. They were, undoubtedly,
too rude, too ignorant, to comprehend the greatness of the
blessing conferred on them this day. Freedom to them un.
doubtedly seemed much what it is not. Children in intellect,


16
Can you
they seized on it as a child on a holiday. But slavery had not
wholly stifled in them the instincts, feelings, judgments of men.
They felt on this day, that the whip of the brutal overseer was
broken; and was that no cause for exulting joy? They felt,
that wife and child could no longer be insulted or scourged in
their sight, and they be denied the privilege of lifting up a voice
in their behalf. Was that no boon? They felt that henceforth they
were to work from their own wills, for their own good, that
they might earn perhaps a hut, which they might call their own,
and which the foot of a master could not profane, nor a mas-
ter's interest lay waste. Can you not conceive how they
stretched out their limbs, and looked on them with a new joy,
saying, These are our own. Can you not conceive how they
leaped with a new animation, exulting to put forth powers,
which were from that day to be "their own ?"
not conceive how they looked round them on the fields
and hills, and said to themselves, We can go now where we
will; and how they continued to live in their huts withnew
content, because they could leave them if they would ? Can
you not conceive, how dim ideas of a better lot dawned on their
long dormant minds; how the future, once a blank, began to
brighten before them; how hope began to spread her unused
pinions; how the faculties and feelings of men came to a new
birth within them? The father and mother took their child to
their arms and said, Nobody can sell you from us now.
not that enough to give them a new life? The husband and
wiſe began to feel, that there was an inviolable sanctity in
marriage; and a glimpse, however faint, of a moral, spiritual
bond, began to take place of the loose sensual tie, which had
held them together. Still more, and what deserves special
note, the colored man raised his eyes, on this day, to the white
man,
and saw the infinite chasm between himself and the white
race growing narrower; saw and felt that he too was a Man,
that he too had rights; that he belonged to the common father,
not to a frail, selfish creature; that under God he was his own
master. A rude feeling of dignity, in strange contrast with
Was


17
the abjectness of the slave, gave new courage to that look,
gave a firmer tone, a manlier tread. This, had I been there,
would have interested me especially. The tumult of joyful
feeling bursting forth in the broken language which slavery had
taught, I should have sympathized with. But the sight of the
slave rising into a man, looking on the white race with a steady
eye, with the secret consciousness of a common nature, and be-
ginning to comprehend his heaven-descended, inalienable rights,
would have been the crowning joy.
It was natural to expect that the slaves, on the first of Au-
gust, receiving the vast, incomprehensible giſt of freedom, would
have rushed into excess. It would not have surprised me, had
I heard of intemperance, tumult, violence. Liberty, that mighty
boon, for which nations have shed rivers of their best blood,
for which they have toiled and suffered for years, perhaps for
ages, was given to these poor, ignorant creatures in a day, and
given to them after lives of cruel bondage, immeasurably more
cruel than any political oppression. Would it have been won-
derful, if they had been intoxicated by the sudden, vast trans-
ition, if they had put to shame the authors of their freedom, by
an immediate abuse of it ? Happily, the poor negroes had en-
joyed one privilege in their bondage. They had learned some-
thing of Christianity, very little indeed, yet enough to teach
them that liberty was the gift of God. That mighty power, re-
ligion, had begun a work within them. The African nature,
seems singularly susceptible of this principle. Benevolent
missionaries, whom the anti-slavery spirit of England had sent
into the colonies, had for some time been working on the de-
graded mind of the bondmen, and not wholly in vain. The
slaves, whilst denied the rank of men by their race, had caught
the idea of their relation to the Infinite Father. That great
doctrine of the Universal, Impartial Love of God, embracing
the most obscure, dishonored, oppressed, had dawned on them.
Their new freedom thus became associated with religion, the
mightiest principle on earth, and by this it was not merely sav-
ed from excess, but made the spring of immediate elevation.


18
Little did I imagine, that the emancipation of the Slaves, was
to be invested with holiness and moral sublimity. Little did
I expect, that my heart was to be touched by it, as by few events
in history. But the emotions, with which I first read the narra-
tive of the great gift of liberty in Antigua, are still fresh in my
mind. Let me read to you the story; none I think, can hear
it unmoved. It is the testimony of trust-worthy men, who
visited the West Indies to observe the effects of Emancipa
tion.
66 To
convey to the reader some account of the way in which
the great crisis passed, we here give the substance of several
accounts which were related to us in different parts of the is-
land, by those who witnessed them.
“ The Wesleyans kept watch-night in all their chapels, on
the night of the 31st of July. One
of the Wesleyan missiona-
ries gave us an account of the watch meeting at the chapel in
St. Johns. The capacious house was filled with the candidates
for liberty. All was animation and eagerness. A mighty chorus
of voices swelled the song of expectation and joy, and as they
united in prayer, the voice of the leader was drowned in the
universal acclamation of thanksgiving, and praise, and blessing,
and honor, and glory to God who had come down for their de-
liverance. In such exercises the evening was spent until the
hour of twelve approached. The missionary then proposed, that
when the clock on the cathedral should begin to strike, the
whole congregation should fall upon their knees, and receive
the boon of freedom in silence. Accordingly as the loud bell
tolled its first notes, the crowded assembly prostrated them-
selves on their knees. All was silent, save the quivering, half
stifled breath of the struggling spirit. The slow notes of the
clock fell upon the multitude; peal on peal, peal on peal, rol-
led over the prostrate throng, in tones of angels' voices, thrill-
ing among the desolate chords and weary heart strings. Scarce
had the clock sounded its last note, when the lightning flashed
vividly around, and a loud peal of thunder roared along the
sky; God's pillar of fire, and trump of jubilee! A moment
of profoundest silence passed; then came the burst; they broke
forth in prayer; they shouted, they sung, “Glory Alleluia;">
they clapped their hands, leaped up, fell down, clasped each
other in their free arms, cried, laughed, and went to and fro,
tossing upward their unfettered hands; but high above the whole
there was a mighty sound which erer and anon swelled up; it


19
was the uttering in negro broken dialect, of gratitude to God,
" After this gush of excitement had spent itself, and the con-
gregation became calm, the religious exercises were resumed,
and the remainder of the night was occupied in singing and
prayer, in reading the Bible, and in addresses from the mis-
sionaries, explaining the nature of the freedom just received,
and exhorting the freed people to be industrious, steady, obedi-
ent to the laws, and to shew themselves in all things worthy of
the high boon which God had conferred upon them.
“The first of August came on Friday, and a release was
proclaimed from all work until the next Monday. The day was
chiefly spent, by the great mass of negroes, in the churches and
chapels. Thither they flocked as clouds, and as doves to their
windows. The clergy and missionaries throughout the island
were actively engaged, seizing the opportunity, in order to en-
lighten the people on all the duties and responsibilities of their
new situation, and above all, urging them to the attainment of
that higher liberty with which Christ maketh his children free.
In every quarter we were assured that the day was like a Sab-
bath. Work had ceased; the hum of business was still, and
noise and tumult were unheard in the streets. Tranquility
pervaded the towns and country. A Sabbath indeed! when
the wicked ceased from troubling, and the weary were at rest,
and the slave was freed from the master! The planters inform-
ed us, that they went to the chapels where their own people
were assembled, greeted them, shook hands with them, and ex-
changed most hearty good wishes."**
Such is the power of true religion, or the rudest minds. Such,
the deep fountain of feeling in the African soul. Such, the
race of men, whom we are trampling in the dust. How few of
our assemblies, with all our intelligence and refinement, offer
to God this overflowing gratitude, this profound, tender, rap-
turous homage! True, the Slaves poured out their joy with
a child-like violence ; but we see a childhood full of promise.
And why do we place this race beneath us? Because nature
has burnt on them a darker hue. But does the essence of hu-
manity live in color? Is the black man less a man than the
white? Has he not human powers, human rights? Does his
color reach to his soul? Is reason in him a whit blacker than
See Emancipation in the West Indies, by Thorne and Kimball


20
in us? Have his conscience and affections been dipped in an
inky flood? To the eye of God, are his pure thoughts and kind
feelings less fair than our own? We are apt to think this
prejudice of color founded in nature. But in the most enlight-
ened countries in Europe, the man of African descent is re-
ceived into the society of the great and good, as an equal and
friend. It is here only that this prejudice reigns; and to thiş
prejudice, strengthened by our subjection to southern influence,
must be ascribed our indifference to the progress of liberty in
the West Indies. Ought not the emancipation of nearly a million
of human beings, so capable of progress as the African race,
to have sent a thrill of joy, through a nation of freemen? But
this great event was received in our country with indifference.
Humanity, justice, Christian sympathy, the love of liberty, found
but few voices here. Nearly a million of men, at no great dis-
tance from our land, passed from the most degrading bon-
dage into the ranks of freedom, with hardly a welcome, from
these shores.
Perhaps you will say, that we are bound to wait for the
fruits of emancipation," before we celebrate it as a great event
in history. I think not so. We ought to rejoice immediately,
without delay, whenever an act of justice is done, especially
a grand public act, subverting the oppression of ages. We
ought to triumph, when the right prospers, without waiting for
consequences. We ought not to doubt about consequences,
when men, in obedience to conscience, and in the exercise of
their best wisdom, redress a mighty wrong. If God reigns,
then the subversion of a vast crime, then the breaking of an
unrightous yoke, must in its final results be good. Undoubted-
ly an old abuse, which has sent its roots through society, can-
not be removed without inconvenience or suffering.
Indeed no
great social change, however beneficial, can occur without par-
tial, temporary pain. But must abuses be sheltered without
end, and human progress, given up in despair, because some,
who have fattened on wrongs, will cease to prosper at the ex-
pense of their brethren. Undoubtedly Slavery cannot be broken


21
up without deranging in a measure the old social order. Must,
therefore, slavery be perpetual? Has the Creator laid on any
portion of his children the necessity of everlasting bondage ?
Must wrong know no end? Has oppression a charter from
God, which is never to grow old ? What a libel on God, as
well as on man, is the supposition, that society cannot subsist
without perpetuating the degradation of a large portion of the
race! Is this indeed the law of the creation, that multitudes
must be oppressed? That states can subsist and prosper only
through crime? Then there is no God. Then an evil spirit
reigns over the universe. It is an impious error to believe, that
injustice is a necessity under the government of the Most High.
It is disloyalty to principle, treachery to virtue, to suppose that
a righteous, generous work, conceived in a sense of duty and
carried on with deliberate forethought, can issue in misery, in
ruin. To this want of faith in rectitude, society owes its woes,
owes the licensed frauds and crimes of statesmen, the licensed
frauds of trade, the continuance of slavery. Once let men
put faith in rectitude, let them feel that justice is strength, that
disinterestedness is a sun and a shield, that selfishness and
crime are weak and miserable, and the face of the earth would
be changed. The groans
of
ages
would cease. We ought to
shont for joy, not shrink like cowards, when justice and humani-
ty triumph over established wrongs.
The emancipation of the British Islands, ought then to have
called forth acclamation at its birth. Much more should we
rejoice in it now, when time has taught us the folly of the fears
and the suspicions which it awakened, and taught us the safety
of doing right. Emancipation has worked well. By this I do
not mean, that is has worked miracles. I have no glowing pic-
tures to exhibit to you of the West Indian Islands. An act of
the British parliament, declaring them free, has not changed
them into a paradise. A few strokes of the pen, cannot reverse
the laws of nature, or conquer the almost omnipotent power
of early and long continued habit. Even in this country, where
we breath the air of freedom from our birth, and where we have


22
grown up amidst churches and school-houses and under wise
and equal laws, even here we find no paradise.
Here are
crime and poverty and wo; and can you expect a poor igno-
rant race, born to bondage, scarred with the lash, uneducated,
and unused to all the motives which stimulate industry, can you
expect these to unlearn in a day the lessons of years, and to
furnish all at once themes for eloquent description. Were you
to visit those islands, you would find a slovenly agriculture,
much ignorance, and more sloth than you see at home; and yet
Emancipation works well, far better than could have been an-
ticipated. To me it could hardly have worked otherwise than
well. It banished slavery, that wrong and curse not to be
borne. It gave freedom, the dear birthright of humanity ; and
had it done nothing more, I should have found in it cause for
joy. Freedom, simple Freedom is in my estimation just, far
prized above all price”. I do not stop to ask, if the emanci-
pated are better fed and clothed than formerly. They are Free,
and that one word contains a world of good unknown to the
most pampered slave.
But emancipation has brought more than naked liberty. The
emancipated are making progress in intelligence, comforts,
purity; and progress is the great good of life. No matter
where men are at any given moment; the great question about
them, is, are they going forward? Do they improve? Slavery
was immoveable, hopeless degradation. It is the glory of lib-
erty to favor progress, and this great blessing, emancipation
has bestowed. We were told indeed, that Emancipation was
to turn the green islands of the West Indies into deserts ; but
they still rise from the tropical sea as blooming and verdant as
before. We were told, that the slaves, if set free, would break
out in universal massacre ; but since that event, not a report
has reached us of murder perpetrated by a colored man on the
white population. We were told, that crimes would multiply ;
but they are diminished in every emancipated island, and very
greatly in most We were told that the freed slave, would
abandon himself to idleness, and this I did anticipate, to a


23
considerable degree, as the first result. Men, on whom induse
try had been forced by the lash, and who had been taught to
regard sloth as their master's chief good, were strongly tempted
to surrender the first days of freedom to indolent indulgence.
But in this respect the evil has been so small, as to fill a re-
flecting man with admiration. In truth, no race but the Afri-
can could have made the great transition with so little harm to
themselves and others. In general, they resumed their work
after a short burst of joy. The desire of property, of bettering
their lot, at once sprang up within them in sufficient strength
to counterbalance the love of ease. Some of them have become
proprietors of the soil. New villages have grown up under
their hands; their huts are more comfortable; their dress more
decent, sometimes too expensive. When I tell you that the
price of real estate in these islands has risen, and that the im-
ports from the mother country, especially those for the labor-
er's use, have increased, you will judge whether the libera-
ted slaves, are living as drones. Undoubtedly the planter has
sometimes wanted workmen, and the staple product of the
island, sugar, has decreased. But this can be explained
without much reproach to the emancipated. The laborer,
who in slavery was over-tasked in the cane-field and sugar
mill, is anxious to buy or hire land sufficient for his support,
and to work for himself, instead of hiring himself to another. A
planter from British Guiana, informed me a few weeks ago,
that a company of colored men had paid down seventy thou-
sand dollars for a tract of land in the most valuable part of that
colony It is not sloth, so much as a spirit of manly indepen-
dence, which has withdrawn the laborer from the plantation;
and this evil, if so it must be called, has been increased by his
unwillingness to subject his wife and daughter to the toils of
the field, which they used to bear in the days of Slavery. Un-
doubtedly the colored population might do more, but they do
enough to earn a better lot than they ever enjoyed, and the
work of improvement goes on among them.
I pass to a still brighter view. The spirit of education has


24
sprung up among the people to an extent worthy of ad-
miration. We despise them; and yet there is reason to be.
lieve, that a more general desire to educate their children is to
be found among them, than exists among large portions of the
white population in the slave States of the South. They have
learned, that their ignorance is the great barrier between them
and the white men, and this they are in earnest to prostrate.
It has been stated, that in one island, not a child above ten
years of age was unable to read. Human history probably
furnishes no parallel of an equal progress, in a half civilized
community
To this must be added their interest in religious institutions.
Their expenditures for the support of these are such, as should
put to shame the backwardness of multitudes in countries call-
ing themselves civilized. They do more than we, in propor-
tion to their means. Some of them have even subscribed
funds for the diffusion of the gospel in Africa, an instance of
their zeal, rather than their wisdom; for they undoubtedly need
all they can spare for their own instruction. Their conceptions
of religion, are of course narrow and rude, but their hearts
have been touched by its simpler truths; and love is the key to
higher knowledge.-- To this let me add, that marriage is ac-
quiring sanctity in their eyes, that domestic life is putting on a
new refinement, and you will see that this people have all the
elements of social progress. Property, marriage and religion,
have been called the pillars of society, and of these the libe-
rated slave has learned the value,
The result of all these various improvements, is what every
wise friend of humanity must rejoice in. Their social position
is changed. They have taken rank among men. They are no
longer degraded by being looked on as degraded. They no
longer live under that withering curse, the contempt of their
fellow beings. The tone in which they are spoken to, no
longer expresses their infinite and hopeless depression. They
are treated as men; some of them engage in lucrative pursuits;
all the paths of honor as well as of gain are open to them; they


25
are found in the legislatures; they fill civil offices, they have
military appointments, and in all these conditions acquit them-
selves honorably. Their humanity is recognized, and without
this recognition men pine and had better be left to perish.
I have no thought of painting these islands as Edens. That
great ignorance prevails among the emancipated people, that
they want our energy, that the degradation of slavory has not
vanished all at once with the name, this I need not tell you.
No miracle has been wrought on them. But their present lot
compared with slavery, is an immense good; and when we con-
sider, that as yet we have seen comparatively nothing of the
blessed influences of freedom, we ought to thank God with
something of their own fervor for the vast deliverance which he
hath vouchsafed them.
We commemorate with transport the redemption of a nation
from political bondage; but this is a light burden compared
with personal slavery. The oppression which these United
States threw off by our revolutionary struggle, was the perfec-
tion of freedom, when placed by the side of the galling, crush-
ing, intolerable yoke which bowed the African to the dust.
Thank God, it is broken. Thank God, our most injured breth-
ren have risen to the rank of men. Thank God, Eight Hun-
dred Thousand human beings have been made free.
These are the natural topics suggested by this day, but there
are still higher views to which I invite your attention. There
are other grounds on which this first of August should be hailed
with gratitude by the Christian. If I saw in the Emancipation
which we celebrate, only the redemption of Eight Hundred
Thousand fellow creatures from the greatest wrong on earth, I
should indeed rejoice; but I know not that I should commemo-
rate it by public solemnities. This particular result moves me
less than other views, which, though less obvious, are far more
significant and full of promise.
When I look at West Indian emancipation, what strikes
me most forcibly and most joyfully, is the Spirt in which it had


26
its origin. What broke the slaves' chain? Did a foreign in-
vader summon them to his standard, and reward them with free-
dom for their help in conquering their masters ? Or did they owe
liberty to their own exasperated vałor; to courage maddened
by despair; to massacre and unsparing revenge? Or did cal-
culations of the superior profit of free labor, persuade the
owner to emancipation as a means of superior gain? No. West
Indian emancipation was the fruit of Christian principle acting
on the mind and heart of a great people. The liberator of
those slaves was Jesus Christ. That voice, which rebuked dis-
ease and death and set their victims free, broke the heavier
chain of slavery. The conflict against slavery began in Eng-
land, about fifty years ago. It began with Christians. It was
at its birth a christian, enterprise. Its power was in the con-
sciences and generous sympathy of men, who had been trained
in the school of Christ. It was resisted by prejudice, custom,
interest, opulence, pride and the civil power. Almost the whole
weight of the commercial class, was at first thrown into the
opposite scale. The politician dreaded the effects of abolition
on the wealth and revenue of the ration. The King did not
disguise his hostility; and I need not tell you that it found lit-
tle favor with the aristocracy. The titled and proud are not
the first to sympathize with the abject. The cause had nothing
to rely on, but the spirit of the English people; and that peo-
ple did respond to the reasonings, pleadings, rebukes of chris-
tian philanthropy, as nation never did before. The history of
this warfare cannot be read without seeing, that, once at least, a
great nation was swayed by high and disinterested principles.
Men of the world deride the notion of influencing human af-
fairs by any but selfish motives; and it is a melancholy truth,
that the movements of nations have done much to confirm the
darkest views of human nature. What a track of crime, des-
olation, war, we are called by history to travel over! Still
history is lighted up by great names, by noble deeds, by patri-
ots and martyrs; and especially in Emancipation we see a great
nation, putting forth its power and making great sacrifices, for


28
blind as not to see? But that a new principle, derived from
Christianity and destined to renovate the earth, is at 'work
among these various elements; that silently a new spirit of hu-
manity, a new respect for human nature, a new comprehension of
human rights, a new feeling of brotherhood, and new ideas of a
higher social state, have been and are unfolding themselves,
under the influences of christian truth and christian civiliza-
tion, who can deny? Society is not what it once was. Amidst
all the stir of selfish passion, the still voice of Christianity is
heard;a diviner spirit mixes however imperfectly, with the work-
ings of worldliness; and we are beginning to learn the mighty
revolution which a heavenly faith is to accomplish here on earth.
Christianity is the hope of the world, and we ought to regard
every conspicuous manifestation of its spirit and power, as an
era in human history. We are dazzled by revolutions of em-
pires; we hope much from the rise or fall of Governments. But
nothing but christianity can regenerate the earth; and accord-
ingly we should hail with joy every sign of a clearer compre-
hension, and a deeper feeling of its truths. Christianity tru-
ly understood, has a direct tendency to that renovation of the
world which it foretells. It is not an abstract system, secluding
the disciple from his kind; but it makes him one with his race,
breaks down all barriers between him and his brethren, arms
him with a martyr's spirit in the cause of humanity, sends him
forth to be a saviour of the lost; and just as far as Christianity
is thus viewed and felt by its followers, the redemption of the
world draws nigh. These views of religion are making their
way. They dawn upon us not only in emancipation, but in
many other movements of our age; not that they have ever
been wholly obscured; but the rank which they hold in the
Christian system, and the vast social changes which they in-
volve, have not, until the present day, been dreamed of.
All the doctrines of Christianity are more and more seen to
be bonds of close, spiritual, reverential union between man and
man, and this is the most chcering view of our time. Chris-
tianity is a revelation of the infinite, universal, parental love of


29
God towards his human family, comprehending the most sinful,
descending to the most fallen, and its aim is to breathe the same
love into its disciples. It shows us Christ tasting death, for
every man, and it summons us to take his cross, or to partici-
pate of his sufferings in the sa.ne cause. Its doctrine of Im-
mortality gives infinite worth to every human being; for every
one is destined to this endless life. The doctrine of the “Word
made ftesh,” shows us God uniting himself most intimately
with our nature, manifesting himself in a human form, for the
very end of making us partakers of his own perfection. The
doctrine of Grace, as it is termed, reveals the Infinite Father
imparting his Holy Spirit, the best gift he can impart, to the
humblest human being who emplores it. Thus love and rever-
ence for human nature, a love for man stronger than death, is
the very spirit of Christianity. Undoubtedly this spirit is faintly
comprehended by the best of us. Some of its most striking
expressions, are still derided in society. Society still rests on
selfish principles. Men sympathise still with the prosperous
and great, not the abject and down-trodden. But amidst this
degradation, brighter glimpses of Christianity are caught then
before. There are deeper, wider sympathies with mankind.
The idea of raising up the mass of human beings to intellectu-
al, moral, and spiritual dignity, is penetrating many minds.
Among the signs of a brighter day, perhaps the West Indian
emancipation is the most conspicuous; for in this the rights of
the most despised men have been revered.
There are some among us at the present moment, who are
waiting for the speedy coming of Christ. They expect, before
another year closes, to see him in the clouds, to hear his voice,
to stand before his judgement seat. These illusions spring
from misinterpretation of Scripture language. Christ in the
New Testament, is said to come, whenever his religion breaks
out in new glory, or gains new triumphs. Ile came in the
the Holy Spirit in the day of Pentecost. He came in the de-
struction of Jerusalem, which, by subverting the old ritual law,
and breaking the power of the worst enemies of his religion,


30
ensured to it new victories. He came in the Reformation of
the church. He came on this day four years ago, when, through
kis religion, Eight Hundred Thousand men were raised from
the lowest degradation, to the rights, and dignity, and fellow-
ship of men. Christ's outward appearance is of little moment,
compared with the brighter manifestation of his spirit. The
Christian, whose inward eyes and ears are touched by God, dis-
cerns the coming of Christ, hears the sound of his chariot
wheels and the voice of his trumpet, when no other perceives
them. He discerns the Saviour's advent in the dawning of high-
er truth on the world, in new aspirations of the church after per-
fection, in the prostration of prejudice and error, in brighter ex-
pressions of Christian love, in more enlightened and intense
consecration of the Christian to the cause of humanity, free-
dom, and religion. Christ comes in the conversion, the re-
generation, the emancipation of the world.
You here see, why it is that I rejoice in the great event which
this day commemorates. To me this event does not stand
It is a sign of the triumph of Christianity, and a pre-
sage and herald of grander victories of truth and humanity.
Christianity did not do its last work when it broke the slave's
chain. No; this was but a type of what it is to achieve. Since
the African was emancipated, the drunkard has been set free.
We may count the disenthralled from intemperance by hun-
dreds of thousands, almost by millions, and this work has been
achieved by Christian truth and Christian love. In this, we
have a new proof of the coming of Christ in his kingdom; and
the grand result of these and other kindred movements of our
times, should be, to give us a new faith in what Christianity is to
accomplish. We need this faith. We are miserably wanting
in it. We scarcely believe what we see of the triumphs of the
This is the most disastrous unbelief of our times. I
am pointed now and then to an infidel, as he is called, a man who
denies Christianity. But there is a sadder sight. It is that of
thousands and millions who profess Christianity, but have no
faith in its power to accomplish the work to which it is ordain
cross.


of liberty? Not in crowded cities, where, amidst men's works
and luxuries, and wild speculations, and eager competitions for
gain, the spirit of liberty often languishes; but amidst tower-
ing mountains, embosoming peaceful vales. Amidst these vast
works of God, the soul naturally goes forth and cannot endure
the thought of a chain. Your free air, which we come to in-
hale for health, breathes into us something better than health,
even a freer spirit. Mountains have always been famed for
nourishing brave souls and the love of liberty. At Ther-
mopylæ, in many a fastness of Switzerland, in the gorges of
mountains, the grand battles of liberty have been fought. Even
in this country, slavery hardly sets foot on the mountains. She
curses the plain; but as soon as you begin to ascend the high-
lands of the South, slavery begins to disappear. West Vir-
ginia and East Tennessee are cultivated chiefly by the mus-
cles of freemen; and could these districts be erected into States,
they would soon clear themselves of the guilt and shame of
enslaving their brethren. Men of Berkshire! whose nerves
and souls the mountain air has braced, You surely will respond
to him, who speaks of the blessings of freedom and the misery
of bondage. I feel, as if the feeble voice, which now addresses
you, must find an echo amidst these forest-crowned heights.
Do they not impart something of their own power and loftiness
to men's souls ? Should our Commonwealth ever be invaded
by victorious armies, freedom's last asylum would be here.
Here may a free spirit, may reverence for all human rights,
may sympathy for all the oppressed, may a stern, solemn pur-
pose to give no sanction to oppression, take stronger and
stronger possession of men's minds, and from these mountains
may generous impulses spread far and wide.
The joy of this occasion is damped by one thought. Our
own country is in part the land of slavery; and slavery be-
comes more hideous here than any where else, by its contrast
with our free institutions. It is deformity married to beauty.
It is, as if a flame from Hell were to burst forth in the regions
of the blessed. No other evil in our country, but this, should
}
11
!
1


36
stored by wise kindness; that it was only maddened and made
more desperate by the chains imposed to keep it from outrage
and murder. Treat men as men, and they will not prove wild
beasts. We first rob them of their humanity and then chain
them because they are not human. What a picture of slavery is
given by the common argument for its continuance! The
slaves, we are told must be kept under the lash, or they will
turn murderers. Two millions and a half of our fellow crea-
tures at the South, we are assured, have the seeds of murder in
their hearts, and must be stripped of all human rights, for the
safety of their neighbors. If such be a slave country, the soon-
er it is depopulated the better. But it is not true. A more
innocent raco than the African does not exist on the earth.
They are less given to violence and murder, than we Anglo-
Saxons. But when did wrong' ever want excuse? When did
oppression ever fail to make out a good cause in its own eyes?
The truth is, that slavery is perpetuated at the South not
from the fear of massacre, but from a stronger principle. A
respected slaveholder said to me not long ago, “The question
of slavery is a question of Property, and Property is dearer to
a man than life.” The master holds fast his slave, because he
sees in him, not a wild beast, but a profitable chattel. Mr.
Clay has told us, that the slaves are worth in the market, I think,
twelve hundred millions of dollars, and smiles at the thought of
calling men to surrender such a mass of property.
It is not
because they are so fierce, but so profitable, that they are kept
in chains. Were they meek angels from God's throne, im-
prisoned for a while in human frames, and were they at the
same time worth Twelve Hundred Millions of dollars in the
market, comparatively few, I fear, would be suffered to return
to their native skies, as long as the chain could fetter them to
the plantation. I know, that there are generous exceptions to
the spirit of slavery as now portrayed; but this spirit in the main
is mercenary. I know, that other considerations than this of
property,that considerations of prudence and benevolence, help
19 confirm the slaveholder in his aversion to emancipation.


37
CIRCULATES
There are mixed motives for perpetuating slavery, as for alınost
all human actions. But the grand motive is Gain, the love of
Money, the unwillingness to part with Property, and were this
to:yield to justice and humanity, the dread of massacre would
not long retard emancipation.
My friends, your compassion is often called forth by pre-
dictions of massacre, of butchered children, of violated women,
in case of emancipation. But do not waste your sympathies
on possible evils, which wisdom and kindness may avert. Keep
some of your tears and tenderness for what exists; for the poor
girl whose innocence has no protection; for the wife aud mother
who may be widowed and made childless before night by a stroke
of the auctioneer's hammer; for the man subjected to the whip
of a brutal overseer, and hunted, if he flies, by blood-hounds,
and shot down if he outstrips his pursuers. For the universe,
I would not let loose massacre on the Southern states, or on any
population. Sooner would I have all the slaves perish, than
achieve their freedom by promiscuous carnage. But I see no
necessity of carnage. I am sure, that to treat men with justice
and humanity is not the way to turn them into robbers or assas-
sins. Undoubtedly wisdom is to be used in conferring this
great good. We ask no precipitate action at the South; we
dictate no mode of conferring freedom. We ask only a settled
purpose to bring slavery to an end, and we are sure that this
will devise a safe and happy way of exercising justice and love.
Am I asked what is the duty of the North in regard to
slavery ? On this subject I have lately written; I will only
say, I recommend no crusade against slavery, 10 use of physi-
cal or legislative power for its destruction, no irruption into the
South to tamper with the slave, or to repeal or resist the laws.
Our duties on this subject are plain. First, we must free
ourselves, as I have said, from all constitutional or legal obli-
gations to uphold slavery. In the next place, we must give
free and strong expression to our reprobation of slavery. The
North has but one weapon, moral force, the utterance of moral
judgment, moral feeling and religious conviction. I do not say