REMARKS 
 
 ON THE 
 
 SLAVERY QUESTION, 
 
 IN A LETTER 
 
 TO JONATHAN PHILLIPS, ESQ. 
 
 By WIUJAiV: E. CHANNING. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 JAMES MUNROE AND COMPANY. 
 
 1839. 
 
Book . O^S' 
 
R E IM A R K S 
 
 Lf 
 
 ON THE 
 
 f 7 ¥ 
 SLAVERY QUESTION, 
 
 IN A LETTER 
 
 TO JONATHAN PHILLIPS, ESQ 
 
 By WILLIAM E. CHANNING. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 JAMES MUNROE AND COMPANY. 
 
 18 3 9. 
 
 .# 
 
^w 
 
 ^B^//' 
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1839, by 
 
 James Munroe and Company, 
 
 in the Clerk's office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 
 
 In Bxioli ttf« 
 Oors«ll Uwr. 
 
 9 VMi 00 
 
 CAMBRIDGE : 
 
 STEREOTTPED AND PRINTED BY 
 
 POLSOM, WELLS, AND THURSTON, 
 

 ^ v-. LETTER. 
 
 .r ^ 
 
 My dear Sir, 
 
 On reading Mr. Clay's speech on Slavery, 
 many thoughts were suggested to me which I wished to 
 communicate ; and our conversation of last evening con- 
 firmed me in the purpose of laying them before the public. 
 I have resolved to give my views in the form of a letter, 
 because I can do my work more easily and' rapidly in this 
 way than in any other. A general, methodical discussion 
 of the subject would be more agreeable to me ; but we 
 must do what we can. I must write in haste, or not at 
 all. If others would take the subject in hand, I should 
 gladly be silent. Something ought to be spoken on the 
 occasion ; but who will speak ^ My range of topics will 
 be somewhat large, nor, if good can be done, shall I hes- 
 itate to stray beyond the document which first suggested 
 this communication. 
 
 I shall often be obliged to introduce the name of Mr. Clay; 
 but, as you will see, I regard him in this discussion, simply 
 as the representative of a body of men, simply as having 
 given wide circulation to a set of opinions. I have nothing 
 to do with his motives. It is common to ascribe the efforts 
 of politicians to selfish aims. But why mix up the man 
 with the cause ? In general, we do well to let an oppo- 
 nent's motives alone. We are seldom just to them. Our 
 own motives on such occasions, are often worse than those 
 we assail. Besides, our business is with the arguments, not 
 the character, of an adversary. A speech is not refuted 
 
by imputations, true or false, on the speaker. There is in- 
 deed a general presumption against a politician's purity of 
 purpose ; but public men differ in character as much as 
 private ; and when a statesman holds an honorable place 
 in his class, and brings high gifts to a discussion, he ought 
 to be listened to with impartiality and respect. For one, I 
 desire that slavery should be defended by the ablest men 
 among its upholders. In the long run, truth is aided by 
 nothing so much as by opposition, and by the opposition of 
 those who can give the full strength of the argument on 
 the side of error. In an age of authority and spiritual 
 bondage, the opinions of an individual are often important, 
 sometimes decisive. One voice may determine the judg- 
 ment of a country. But in an age of free discussion, little 
 is to be feared from great names, on whatever side arrayed. 
 When I hear a man complaining, that some cause, which 
 he has at heart, will be put back for years by a speech or 
 a book, I suspect that his attachment to it is a prejudice, 
 that he has no consciousness of standing on a rock. The 
 more discussion the better, if passion and personality be 
 eschewed ; and discussion, even if stormy, often winnows 
 truth from error, a good never to be expected in an un- 
 inquiring age. 
 
 I have said, that my concern is wholly with Mr. Clay's 
 speech, not with the author; and I would add, that in the 
 greater part of the discussion which is to follow, my con- 
 cern will be with slavery and not with the slaveholder. 
 Principles, not men, are what I wish to examine and judge. 
 For the sake of truth and good temper, personalities are to 
 be shunned as far as they may. I shall speak strongly of 
 slavery, for we serve neither truth nor virtue by pruning 
 discourse into tameness ; but a criminal institution does 
 not necessarily imply any singular criminality in those who 
 uphold it. An institution, the growth of barbarous times, 
 transmitted from distant ages, and " sanctified " by the 
 
laws, is a very different thing, as far as the character of its 
 friends is concerned, from what it would be, were it delib- 
 erately adopted at the present day. I must indeed ascribe 
 much culpableness to the body of slaveholders, just as I 
 see much to blame in political parties ; but do I therefore 
 set down all the members of these classes as unprincipled 
 men ? The injustice, criminality, inhumanity of a practice 
 we can judge. The guilt of our neighbour we can never 
 weigh with exactness ; and in most cases must refer him to 
 a higher tribunal. This I say, that I may separate the 
 subject from personalities. To me, the slaveholder is very 
 much an abstraction. The word as here used expresses 
 a general relation. The individual seldom or never enters 
 my thoughts. 
 
 The principal part of Mr. Clay's speech is an attack 
 on the Abolitionists. These I have no thought of de- 
 fending. They must fight their own battle. I am not 
 of them, and nothing would induce me to become re- 
 sponsible for their movements. And this I say from no 
 desire to shift from myself an unpopular name. It will 
 be seen in the course of these remarks, that I am not 
 studying to soothe prejudice or to make a compromise 
 with error. I separate myself from the Abolitionists from 
 no sensitiveness to reproach. A man, who has studied 
 Christianity and history as long as you and myself, will 
 not be very anxious to shelter himself from what has 
 been the common lot of the friends of truth. However 
 the Abolitionists may have erred, I honor^them as ad- 
 vocates^ of the principles of freedom, justice, and hu- 
 manity, and ~f^f having clung to these amidst threats, 
 perils, and violence. In declining all connexion with 
 them, I am influenced by no desire to make over to others 
 all the censures and invectives of the community ; but I 
 simply wish to take my . true position, to appear what 
 
 I am. 
 
 1 # 
 
6 
 
 Mr. Clay's speech, however intended for the Abolitionists, 
 contains passages at which every man interested in the 
 removal of slavery must take offence ; and to these my 
 remarks will be confined. The most important part of 
 it, indeed, has no special bearing on the Abolitionists, 
 but concerns equally all the free States. I refer to that, 
 in which we are told, that slavery is to be perpetual, 
 that we have nothing to hope in this respect from the 
 South. Every other part of the speech sinks into insig- 
 nificance in comparison with this. Coming from any 
 other man, this document would be less important. But 
 Mr. Clay is no rash talker. His legislative course has 
 been distinguished by nothing so much as by his skill in 
 compromising discordant opinions. His speech was meant 
 to be a compromise, to exert a healing power. He does 
 not, in a fit of transient, blinding anger, dash to the 
 ground our hopes of relief from the intolerable evils of 
 slavery. He states deliberately the grand obstacle to 
 emancipation, and it is one which can only be removed 
 by the dying out of the slaves. He takes the ground, 
 that if the two races are to live together, one must be 
 hopelessly subjugated to the other, so as to prevent col- 
 lision. Emancipation, he gives us to understand, would 
 be a signal for civil war, to end only in extermination. 
 And as this peril, if real, increases with the increase of 
 the servile class, of consequence every year's continu- 
 ance of the evil, makes freedom, if possible, more and 
 more impossible. We lament and abhor this doctrine, 
 but are truly glad that it is brought out distinctly, that 
 the free States may know what they are to expect. A 
 vague hope has floated before many minds, that this im- 
 mense evil was in some way or other to cease. On this 
 ground, such of us in the free States as have written 
 against slavery, have been rebuked. Our friends as well 
 as foes have said, "Be quiet ; Let the South alone ; it 
 
will firtd for itself the way of emancipation. You throw 
 back the good work a century." We have all along known 
 better. We have known that long use, the love of proper- 
 ty, and the love of power, had bound this evil on the South, 
 with a triple adamantine chain. We have known, that the 
 increasing culture of cotton was spreading slavery with 
 immense rapidity through new regions, and, by rendering it 
 more gainful, was strengthening the obstinacy with which 
 it is grasped by the owner. We have known, that in con- 
 sequence of this culture, the northern slave States, whose 
 soil the system had exhausted, have acquired a new inter- 
 est in it, by humbling themselves to the condition of slave- 
 breeding and slave-trading communities. We have seen, 
 that the institution, if to be shaken or subverted, was to 
 be stormed from abroad, not by " carnal weapons," not 
 by physical force, but by those moral influences, which, 
 if steadily poured in upon a civilized people, must grad- 
 ually prevail. It is now seen, that we were right. It is 
 now plain, that the South has deliberately wedded itself 
 to slavery. We are glad to have it known. The speech 
 publishing this doctrine was meant to be a herald of peace, 
 but it is in truth a summons to new conflict. It calls 
 those who regard slavery as a grievous outrage on hu- 
 man nature, to spread their convictions with unremitting 
 energy. I take the ground, that no communities, unless 
 cutting themselves ofl* from the civilized world, can withstand 
 just, enlightened, earnest opinion ; and this power must 
 be brought to bear on slavery more zealously than ever. 
 
 I observe, in passing, that Mr. Clay, in giving us no 
 hope for the extinction of slavery but in the extinction 
 of the colored race, puts an end to all expectation of aid 
 in this respect from the Colonization Society, an institu- 
 tion of which he is an ardent friend, and, for aught I 
 know, is now the President ; and I trust his frankness 
 will open the eyes of those, who dream of removing slav- 
 
8 
 
 ery by the process of draining it off to another country ; 
 a process about as reasonable as that of draining the 
 Atlantic. Colonization may do good in Africa. It does 
 only harm among ourselves. It has confirmed the preju- 
 dice, to which slavery owes much of its strength, that 
 the colored man cannot live and prosper as a freeman on 
 these shores. It indeed sends out to the public now and 
 then accounts of planters, who have freed a greater 
 or less number of slaves to be shipped to Africa. But 
 these very operations strengthen slavery at home. Could 
 the master send his plantation to Africa with his slaves, 
 he would serve the cause of freedom. But the land re- 
 mains here, and remains to be tilled ; and by whom must 
 the cultivation go on ? by slaves. Of course new slaves 
 must be bought. Of course the demand for slaves is 
 increased ; and the price of a man rises \ and a new mo- 
 tive is given to the slave-breeding States to stock the 
 market with human cattle. Thus the barbarous trade in 
 men strikes deeper root. No. Colonization darkens the 
 prospects of humanity at home, however it may brighten 
 them abroad. It has done much to harden the slave- 
 holder in his purpose of holding fast his victim, and thus 
 increases the necessity of more earnest remonstrance 
 against slavery. 
 
 Mr. Clay of course will not allow, that the resolution 
 of making slavery perpetual at the South, is a reason for 
 new assaults on the system. He insists, on the contrary, 
 with the whole South, that we, in this region, have nothing 
 to do with the matter ; that it is no concern of ours ; and 
 that to labor here for the subversion of an institution in 
 other States, is a criminal interference. Interference is 
 the word which has been applied to all agitation of this 
 subject at the North ; and the censure implied in the 
 term has misled the unthinking into a vague notion, that 
 to touch the subject here is doing wrong to the South. 
 
But I maintain, that there is a moral interference with 
 our fellow-creatures at home and abroad, not only to be 
 asserted as a right, but binding as a duty. This is the 
 first topic of discussion, and its importance will induce 
 me to treat it at large. 
 
 We are told, that the slaveholding States, in relation 
 to this point, stand on the same ground with foreign 
 countries, and are consequently to be treated with equal 
 delicacy and reserve. This position I deny ; but grant 
 it ; I maintain the right of acting on foreign countries 
 by moral means for moral ends. Suppose that there were 
 in contact with us a foreign state, which should ordain by 
 law, that every child, born with black hair or a darkly- 
 shaded face, should be put to death ; and suppose that 
 every sixth child should be slaughtered by this barbarous 
 decree. Or take the case of a community at our door, 
 which should restore the old gladiatorial shows, and suppose 
 that a large part of the population should perish in these 
 execrable games. Who of us would feel himself bound to 
 hold his peace, because these atrocities were committed 
 beyond our boundaries ? Who would say, that the tor- 
 tures of the slain were no concern of ours, because not of 
 our own parish or country ? Is humanity a local feeling ? 
 Does sympathy stop at a frontier ? Does the heart shrink 
 and harden as it approximates an imaginary line on the 
 earth's surface ? Is moral indignation moved only by- 
 crimes perpetrated under our own eyes? Has duty no 
 work to do beyond our native land ? Does a man cease 
 to be a brother by living in another state ? Is liberty 
 nothing to us, if cloven down at a little distance ? Chris- 
 tianity teaches different lessons. Its spirit is unconfined 
 love. One of its grandest truths is human brotherhood. 
 Under its impulses. Christians send the preacher of the 
 cross to distant countries, to war with deep-rooted insti- 
 tutions. The spiritual ties, which bind all men together, 
 
10 
 
 were not woven hy human policy, nor can statesmen sun- 
 der them. 
 
 Suppose that one of the States of the Union should be- 
 come pledged by its institutions to intemperance, that its 
 laws should be framed to encourage the production and 
 consumption of ardent spirits. Would not every other State 
 be bound to give utterance to its detestation of this hor- 
 rible system } Suppose that temperance societies, in their 
 anxiety to purify this sink of corruption, should make its 
 excesses and crimes their standing themes. Who of us 
 would recognise the right of the intemperate State to re- 
 pel this interference as an assault on its sovereignty ? 
 What should we think, were this community to insist, that 
 it would not suffer its character to be traduced, or the 
 product, on which its wealth and revenues depended, to 
 be diminished, and that it would recede from the Union 
 unless permitted to manufacture and drink alcohol unre- 
 proved ? These questions answer themselves. But I 
 shall undoubtedly be asked, whether intemperance and 
 slavery be parallel cases. They are parallel as viewed in 
 relation to my object, which is, not to weigh the guilt of 
 different crimes, but to establish a general principle, to 
 establish the right and duty of men to oppose the force 
 of moral reprobation to prevalent moral evils, whether 
 in our own or other countries. In regard to the com- 
 parative guilt of intemperance and slavery, I will only 
 say, that the last involves the worst evil of the first ; 
 that is, it does much to degrade men into brutes. There 
 is, however, this difference ; the intemperate man de- 
 grades himself; the slaveholder degrades his fellow- 
 creatures. Which of the two is most culpable in the 
 sight of God, let every man judge. 
 
 The position is false, that nation has no right to interfere 
 morally with nation. Every community is responsible to 
 other communities for its laws, habits, character ; not re- 
 
11 
 
 sponsible in the sense of being liable to physical punish- 
 ment and force, but in the sense of just exposure to 
 reprobation and scorn; and this moral control communities 
 are bound to exercise over each other, and must exer- 
 cise over each other, and exercise it more and more in 
 proportion to the spread of intelligence and civilization. 
 The world is governed much more by opinion than by laws. 
 It is riot the judgment of courts, but the moral judgment of 
 individuals and masses of men, which is the chief wall of 
 defence round property and life. With the progress of so- 
 ciety, this power of opinion is taking the place of arms. 
 Rulers are more and more anxious to stand acquitted before 
 their peers and the human race. National honor, once in 
 the keeping of the soldier, is understood more and more to 
 rest on the character of nations. In this state of the world, 
 all attempts of the slaveholder to put to silence the con- 
 demning voice of men, whether far or near, are vain. 
 
 I claim the right of pleading the cause of the oppressed, 
 whether he suffer in this country or another. I utterly 
 deny, that a people can screen themselves behind their 
 nationality from the moral judgment of the world. Be- 
 cause they form themselves into a state, and forbid within 
 their bounds a single voice to rise in behalf of the injured; 
 because they crush the weak under the forms of law, do 
 they hereby put a seal on the lips of foreigners .'* Do they 
 disarm the moral sentiment of other states ? Is this among 
 the rights of sovereignty, that a people, however criminal, 
 shall stand unreproved ? 
 
 In consequence of the increasing intercourse and intelli- 
 gence of modern times, there is now erected in the civil- 
 ized world, a grand moral tribunal, before which all com- 
 munities stand, and must be judged. As yet, its authority 
 is feeble compared with what it is to be, but still strong 
 enough to lay restraint, to inspire fear. Before this, slave- 
 holding communities are arraigned, and must answer. The 
 
12 
 
 friends of justice, liberty, and humanity, accuse them of 
 grievous wrongs. It is vain to talk of the prescription of 
 two hundred years. Within this space of time, great 
 changes have taken place in the code, by which the com- 
 monwealth of nations passes sentence. The doctrine of 
 human rights has been expounded. The right of the la- 
 borer to wages, the right of every innocent man to his 
 own person, the right of all to equality before the laws, 
 these are no longer abstractions of speculative visionaries, 
 no longer innovations, but the established rights of human- 
 ity. Before^ the^ tribunal of th«~ civilized .worldj^ and the 
 high^f'tribunal of Christianity and of God, the slaveholder 
 has to answer for stripping his brother of these recognised 
 privileges and immunities of a man. Multitudes, on both 
 sides of the ocean, looking above the distinction of nations, 
 standing on the broad ground of a common nature, protest 
 in the face of heaven and earth against the wrong inflicted 
 on their enslaved brother. Let the South understand, that 
 it is not your voice, or mine, or that of a small knot of 
 enthusiasts, which they have to silence. You and I are 
 nothing, but as we represent those great principles of jus- 
 tice and charity, with which the human heart is everywhere 
 beginning to beat. Everywhere the slaveholder is ac- 
 cused; everywhere he is judged. 
 
 It is strange, that the South should tell us, that the in- 
 creasing protest at the North against slavery, is the greater 
 wrong, because slavery is one of their institutions. As if 
 an evil lost its deformity, by becoming an institution, that is, 
 an established thing, held up by laws and public force. 
 One would think, that the circumstance of its being so 
 rooted, of its having gained this fearful strength, were the 
 very reason for vigorous opposition. A few straggling in- 
 dividuals, given to a bad course, might be overlooked for 
 their insignificance. But when a community, openly, by 
 statutes, by arms, adopts and upholds an enormous wrong, 
 
13 
 
 then good men, through the earth, are bound to unite 
 against it, in stern, solemn remonstrance. The greater the 
 force combined to support an evil, the greater the force 
 needed for its subversion. Crime is comparatively weak, 
 until it embodies and "sanctifies " itself in institutions. In- 
 dividuals, seizing on and enslaving their brethren, would be 
 put down by the spontaneous, immediate reprobation of 
 society. It is the perpetration of this wrong by communi- 
 ties, which makes it formidable ; and, I confess, that here, 
 if anywhere, a justification may be found for organized as- 
 sociations against slavery. This evil rests on associated 
 strength, on the prostitution of the powers of the state. 
 Regarded as an institution, which combined millions uphold, 
 it seems to have a strength, a permanence, against which 
 individual power can avail nothing ; and hence, it may be 
 said, strength is to be sought in associations. The argu- 
 ment does not satisfy me ; for I believe, that, to produce 
 moral changes of judgment and feeling, the individual, in 
 the long run, is stronger than combinations ; but I do 
 feel, that slavery, entrenched behind institutions, is, on that 
 very account, to be assailed with all the weapons of rea- 
 son, of moral suasion, of moral reprobation, which good 
 men can wield. Less mercy should be shown it, because it 
 is an institution. 
 
 The notion, which I have combated, that slavery is to be 
 treated with respect because it is a public ordinance, is 
 one of many proofs, that, even yet, there is but a faint con- 
 sciousness of the existence of an everlasting and immuta- 
 ble rule of right. Multitudes, even now, know no higher 
 authority than human government. They think, that a 
 number of men, perhaps little honored as individuals for 
 intelligence and virtue, are yet competent, when collected 
 into a legislature, to create right and wrong. The most 
 immoral institutions thus gain a sanctity from law. To the 
 laws we are indeed bound to submit, in the sense of ab- 
 
 
14 
 
 stoop from its supremacy .^d o becom ^^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^ 
 human magistra^ Is the la ^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^ ^ ^^ 
 
 the heart, placed at Je me^cy o ^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^ ^^^^ 
 
 "^'yoJ and I Sir, observe the golden rule, concerning 
 SolZrTLtry. We do to our neighbour, what we .vish 
 our neighbour to do to us. We expose, as we can, the 
 crimes and cruelties of other States, and we ask of other 
 States the same freedom towards our own. If, m the opm- 
 ion of the civilized world, or of any portion of it, we of 
 this Commonwealth are robbing men of their dearest rights 
 and treading them in the dust, let the wrong be proclaimed 
 far and wide. If good men anywhere beheve, that here 
 the weak are at the mercy of the strong, and the poor are 
 denied the protection of the laws, then let them make every 
 State of the Union ring with indignant rebuke. Especially 
 if a giant evil is here incorporated with our civil institu- 
 tions upheld by the public force, so that the sufferers are 
 made dumb, so that they endure the last wrong in being 
 forbidden to speak of their wrongs, then, we say, let hu- 
 manity beyottd our borders take hold of their cause. If 
 the oppressed are muzzled here, let the lips of the free 
 elsewhere give voice to their wrongs.. 
 
 In the preceding remarks, I have gone on the supposi- 
 tion, that the slaveholding States, as far as slavery is con- 
 cerned, stand to the other States on the footing of foreign 
 countries, and have shown, that if we make them this con- 
 cession, our right of remonstrance against this institution is 
 
15 
 
 untouched. But this concession is ungrounded, unjust. 
 The free and slave States are one nation, and have a very 
 different connexion with one another from their connexion 
 with foreign communities. Slavery is not the affair of a 
 part only, but of the whole. The free States are con- 
 cerned in it, and of necessity act on it and are acted on 
 by it. We of the North sustain intimate relations to 
 slavery, which make us partakers of its guilt, and which, 
 of course, bind us to use every lawful means for its subver- 
 sion. This I shall attempt to establish. 
 
 If we look first at the District of Columbia, we have a 
 proof, how deeply the free States are implicated by their 
 contact with the slaveholding. I do not refer now to the 
 reproach fixed on the whole people, by the open, allowed 
 existence of bondage at the seat of government. This is 
 evil enough, especially if we add, that the District of Col- 
 umbia, besides this contamination, is one of the chief slave- 
 markets in the country; so that strangers, foreign ministers, 
 men whose reports of us determine our rank in the civil- 
 ized world, associate with us the enormities of the slave- 
 trade and of slave auctions as among our chief distinctions. 
 This is bad enough for a community which has any respect 
 for character. But there is a greater evil. The District of 
 Columbia fastens on the whole nation the guilt of slavehold- 
 ing. We at the North uphold it as truly as the South. That 
 district belongs to no state, but to the nation. It is governed 
 by the nation, and with as ample powers as are possessed by 
 any State government. Its laws and institutions exist 
 through the national will. Every legal act owes its au- 
 thority to Congress. Of consequence, the slavery of the 
 District is upheld by the nation. Not a slave is sold or 
 whipped there, but by the sanction of the whole people. 
 The slave code of the District admits of mitigations ; and 
 this code remains unmodified through the national will. 
 The guilt of the institution thus lies at the door of every 
 
16 
 
 man in the United States, unless he purge himself of it by 
 solemn petition and remonstrance against the evil. What ! 
 have the free States nothing to do with slavery ! This mo- 
 ment they are giving it active support. 
 
 And here it is interesting and instructive to observe, how 
 soon and naturally, retribution follows crime. We uphold 
 slavery in the District of Columbia ; and this is beginning 
 to trench on our own freedom. It is making of no effect 
 the right of petition, a right founded not on convention and 
 charters, but on nature, and granted even by despots to 
 their subjects. The pretext, on which the petitions for the 
 Abolition of Slavery in Columbia have been denied the 
 common attention by Congress, is not even specious. The 
 right of Congress to perform the act for which the petition- 
 ers pray is undoubted. It may be said to have been 
 demonstrated. * Why, then, are the memorials of a free 
 people on this subject treated with a scorn, to which no 
 others are subjected .'' It is pretended, that the petitioners 
 are aiming at an object which the constitution places be- 
 yond the power of Congress, that they are seeking, through 
 this action in the District, to abohsh slavery in the States. 
 To this, two replies at once occur. The first is, that 
 among the petitioners, who hope by acting on the Dis- 
 trict to reach slavery everywhere, there is not one who has 
 not also another object, which is the well-being of the 
 District, or the abolition of slavery in it for its own sake. 
 Allowing one of their ends to be unwarrantable, they dis- 
 tinctly propose another end, which the constitution sanc- 
 tions, A second reply is, that it is not true of all who have 
 petitioned for the abolition of slavery in the District, that 
 they have aimed, in this way, at the abolition of it in the 
 States. I have signed these petitions, I know not how 
 often, and, in so doing, was in no degree moved by this 
 
 * See a pamphlet on the Abolition of Slavery in the District of Col- 
 umbia, by Wythe. This is one of the ablest pamphlets from the Ameri- 
 can press. It is ascribed to Theodore Weld. 
 
17 
 
 consideration. I was governed by other motives. I wished 
 the District to be purified from a great evil. I wished the 
 nation to be freed from the responsibility of ordaining and 
 upholding slavery. I wished also by some public act to 
 wash my own hands of this guilt. I felt myself bound to 
 declare, that, if this nation uphold slavery, I am clear of 
 it. And I hold it the duty of every man in the free States, 
 who regards this institution as I do, to bear the same testi- 
 mony against it, and, by solemn remonstrance to Congress, 
 to purge his conscience of the nation's crime. As for my- 
 self, I could not petition against slavery in the District as a 
 means of abolishing it in the States; for, as I have again 
 and again declared, I can see but little connexion between 
 these measures. Be this as it may, by sanctioning an ac- 
 knowledged wrong at the seat of government, we have 
 provoked a blow at our own privileges. In the original 
 draught of the constitution, the right of petition was not 
 referred to, for no one dreamed of its ever being questioned. 
 Massachusetts, however, not satisfied with its foundation in 
 nature and reason, chose to place it under the protection of 
 the constitution. What this right is, we must judge from 
 usage, and from its own nature and end. Thus interpret- 
 ed, has it not been infi-inged by the power of slavery ?* 
 
 I have now considered one important relation of the free 
 States to slavery, that which grows out of the District of 
 Columbia. I now proceed to another. The constitution 
 requires the free States to send back to bondage the fugi- 
 tive slave. Does this show that we have no concern with 
 the domestic institutions of the South ? that the guilt of 
 them, if such there be, is wholly theirs, and in no degree 
 ours ? This clause, makes us direct partakers of the guilt; 
 and, of consequence, we have a vital interest in the 
 matter of slavery. I know no provision of the constitution 
 at which my moral feelings revolt, but this. Has not the 
 
 * See note A. 
 2* 
 
18 
 
 slav-e a right to fly from bondage ? Who among us doubts 
 it ? Let any man ask himself, how he should construe his 
 rights, were he made a slave ; and does he not receive an 
 answer from his own moral nature, as bright, immediate, 
 and resistless, as lightning ? And yet we of the free States 
 stop the flying slave, and give him back to bondage ! It 
 does not satisfy me to be told, that this is a part of that 
 sacred instrument, the constitution, which all are solemnly 
 bound to uphold. No charter of man's writing can sancti- 
 fy injustice, or repeal God's Eternal Law. I cannot escape 
 the conviction, that every man, who aids the restoration of 
 the flying slave, is a wrong-doer, though this is 'done by 
 our best and wisest men with no self-reproach. To send 
 him from a free State into bondage, seems to me much 
 the same thing as to transport him from Africa to the West 
 Indies or this country. I shall undoubtedly be told, that 
 the fugitive is a slave by the laws of territory from which 
 he escapes. But when laws are acknowledged violations 
 of the most sacred rights, we cannot innocently be active 
 in replacing men under their cruel power. The slave goes 
 back not merely to toil and sweat for his master as before. 
 He goes to be lacerated for the offence of flying from op- 
 pression. For hardly any crime is the slave so scored and 
 scarred as for running away; and for every lash that enters 
 his flesh, we of the free States, who have given him back, 
 must answer. 
 
 I know perfectly how these views will be received at the 
 North and South. Some will call me a visionary, while 
 more will fix on me a harder name. But I look above 
 scoffers and denouncers to that pure, serene, almighty 
 Justice, which is enthroned in Heaven, and inquire of God, 
 the Father of us all, whether he approves the surrender of 
 the flying slave. I shall be charged with irreverence 
 towards the fathers of the Revolution, the framers of our 
 glorious national charter. But I reply, that, great as they 
 
19 
 
 were, they were fallible, and that the progress of opinion 
 since their day, seems to me to have convicted them of 
 error in the matter now in hand. I am aware too, that 
 good and wise men, friends who are dear to me, will disap- 
 prove my free, strong language. But I must be faithful to 
 the strong moral conviction which I cannot escape on this 
 subject. If I am right, the truth which I speak, however 
 questioned now, will not have been spoken in vain. To- 
 day is not Forever. The men who now scorn or condemn, 
 are not to live forever. Let a few years pass, and we shall 
 all have vanished, and other actors will fill the stage, and 
 the despised and neglected truths of this generation will 
 become the honored ones of the next. 
 
 Before quitting this topic, it may be well just to glance 
 at the reasoning, by which my views will be assailed. To 
 the exposition of duty now given it will be objected, that 
 the morality of the closet is not the morality of real life; 
 that there is danger of pushing principles to extremes; that 
 difficulties are to be grappled with in the conduct of public 
 affairs, which retired men cannot understand ; that there 
 must be a compromise between the Ideal and the Actual ; 
 and that our rigid rules must be softened or bend, when 
 consequences, unusually serious, will attend their observ- 
 ance. These common-places are not wholly without truth. 
 Morality is sometimes turned, by inexperienced men, into 
 rant and romance. Solitary dreamers, exalting imagination 
 above reason and conscience, make life a stage for playing 
 showy, dazzling parts, which pass with them for beautiful 
 or heroic. I have little more sympathy with these over- 
 refined, sublimated moralists, than with the common run of 
 coarse, low-minded politicians. Duty is something prac- 
 ticable, something within reach, and which approves it- 
 self to us, not in moments of feverish excitement, but of 
 deliberate thought. Good sense, which is another name for 
 that calm, comprehensive reason, which sees things as they 
 
20 
 
 are, and looks at all the circumstances and consequences 
 of actions, is as essential to the moral direction of life, as 
 in merely prudential concerns. Still more, there is a large 
 class of actions, the relations of which are so complicated, 
 and the consequences so obscure, that individual judgment 
 is at fault, and we are bound to acquiesce in usage, espe- 
 cially if long-established, because this represents to us the 
 collective experience of the race. All this is true. But it 
 is also true, that there are grand, fundamental, moral princi- 
 ples, which shine with their own light, which approve them- 
 selves to the reason, conscience, and heart, and which have 
 gathered strength and sanctity from the experience of na- 
 tions and individuals through all ages. These are never to 
 be surrendered to the urgency of the moment however 
 pressing, or to imagined interests of individuals or states. 
 Let these be sacrificed to hope or fear, and our foundation 
 is gone, our anchor slipped. We have no fixtures in our 
 own souls, nothing to rely on. No ground of faith in man 
 is left us. Selfish, staggering policy, becomes the standard 
 of duty, the guide of life, the law of nations. Now the 
 question as to surrendering fugitive slaves, seems to me to 
 fall plainly, immediately, under these great primitive truths 
 of morality. It has no complexity about it, no mysterious 
 elements, no obscure consequences. To send back the 
 slave is to treat the innocent as guilty. It is to violate a 
 plain natural right. It is to enforce a criminal claim. It 
 is to take the side of the strong and oppressive against the 
 weak and poor. It is to give up an unoffending fellow- 
 creature to a degrading bondage, and to horrible laceration. 
 The fixed universal consequence of this act is, the severe 
 punishment, not of the injurious, but of the injured man. 
 On this point, my moral nature speaks strongly, and I ought 
 to give it utterance. If I err, there are enough to refute 
 me. My authority is nothing, where a people are against 
 me. I ask no authority ; but simply that what I say may 
 be calmly, impartially weighed. 
 
21 
 
 It will be said, that the South will insist on this stipulation, 
 because it is necessary to the support of her institutions. 
 This necessity may be questioned, because, if I may judge 
 from a rough estimate, comparatively few fugitives are re- 
 covered from other States ; and yet slavery lives and 
 thrives. But if the necessity be real, then it follows, that 
 the free States are the guardians, and essential supports of 
 slavery. We are the jailors and constables of the institu- 
 tion; and yet, we are told, that we sustain no relation to 
 slavery, that it is in no degree our concern ! 
 
 I know it will be asked, what ought to be done, if the 
 constitution bind us to an unlawful act. I reply ; the indi- 
 vidual, convinced of the unlawfulness, can have no diffi- 
 culty. He must abstain from what he deems wrong. As 
 to the community, should it ever come to the same convic- 
 tion, it must take counsel from circumstances and from its 
 wisest minds, as to the course, by which its peace and pros- 
 perity and the interest of the whole land may be reconciled 
 with duty. Happily, the constitution may be amended, and 
 this power is never so needed, as when the conscience of 
 the citizen comes in collision with the government. I trust, 
 that an amendment, reaching the present case, and de- 
 manded, not by the passions, but by the deliberate moral 
 judgment of a large portion of the community, will not fail. 
 1 appeal to the generosity and honor of the South, and 
 would ask, whether we, with our views of slavery, ought to 
 be required to give it active support .'' I would ask, 
 whether, in the present state of opinion in the civilized 
 world, a slave country ought not to protect its own institu- 
 tion, without looking for aid to others ? I v/ould ask, too, 
 whether a citizen, who views the government which he sus- 
 tains, as pledged to wrong, deserves reproach for laboring 
 to bring it into harmony with truth and rectitude ? Does 
 not the constitution, in making provision for its own 
 amendment, imply the possibility of defect, and warrant 
 
jfree discussion of its various clauses ? What avails our 
 liberty of speech, if, on a grave question of duty, we 
 must hold our peace ? If the citizen believes, that our 
 very constitutional charter sanctions wrong, is he not 
 bound by his participation of the national sovereignty, by 
 the fact of his forming a portion of the body politic, to utter 
 his honest thought ? 
 
 I proceed to consider another important relation which 
 the North bear to slavery. We are bound, in case of an 
 insurrection of the slaves against their masters, to put it 
 down by force. This we ought to do, for such an insur- 
 rection would involve all the woes and crimes of civ/' 
 war in the most aggravated forms, with no possibility of 
 a beneficial result. It would be cruelty, massacre, with- 
 out compensation or hope. The slaves are incapable of 
 substituting free institutions for their bondage ; and ex- 
 termination or a heavier yoke would end their struggles 
 We ought to disarm them ; but ought we to replace their 
 chains ? Ought we to put them without protection under 
 exasperated oppressors .'' Ought we not to feel, that both 
 parties in this fearful conflict have rights ? and ought we 
 not to act as friends of both .'* Is there nothing at which 
 our minds revolt, in the thought of restoring unmitigated 
 slavery ; of giving back the victim to the unrestrained 
 power, which, under a spasmodic sense of wrong, he has 
 struggled to throw off ? Should not every effort, short of 
 physical force, be employed to obtain for him a better, a 
 more righteous lot } But the South, as we well know, 
 would reject such mediation with scorn. Have we not, 
 then, painful relations to slavery ? Have we not a deep 
 interest in its abolition .'' 
 
 In another view the North sustains relations to slavery. 
 Slavery is our near neighbour ; and not a few among us 
 grow hardened to it by familiarity. It perverts our moral 
 sense. We cannot hold intimate connexion, national 
 
23 
 
 union, with a region where so great an abuse is legaUzed, 
 and yet escape contamination. To say nothing of friendly, 
 domestic intercourse, our commercial relations with the 
 slave States give to not a few a pecuniary interest in the 
 institution. The slave is mortgaged to the northern mer- 
 chant. The slaves' toil is the northern merchant's wealth, 
 for it produces the great staple on which all the commer- 
 cial dealings of the country turn. As our merchants and 
 manufacturers cast their eyes southward, what do they 
 see .'' Cotton, Cotton, nothing but Cotton. This fills the 
 whole horizon of the South. What care they for the poor 
 human tools by whom it is reared .'* Their sympathies are 
 with the man with whom they deal, who trusts them and is 
 trusted by them, and not with the bondmen, by whose 
 sweat they thrive. What change do they desire in a sys- 
 tem so gainful .^ Under these various influences, the moral 
 feeling of the North in regard to slavery is more or less 
 palsied. Men call it in vague language an evil, just as 
 they call religion a good ; in both cases giving assent to 
 a lifeless form of words, which they forget whilst they utter 
 them, and which have no power over their lives. 
 
 There is another way in which Southern slavery bears 
 seriously on the North. It blends itself intimately with 
 the whole political action of the country, determines its 
 parties, decides important measures of government, is a 
 brand of discord, a fountain of bitter strifes, and, whilst it 
 lasts, will never suffer us to become truly one people. 
 We call ourselves one, but slavery makes us two. National 
 unity implies a general unity of character; but slave States 
 cind free States are severed by deep, indelible differences 
 of mind and feeling. In the former, where one half of 
 the population are semibarbarous or semibrutal, and the 
 other half trained to mastery, to lordship, there can be 
 little comprehension of, and little sympathy with, the latter, 
 where the recognition of the equal rights of all is the 
 
24 
 
 pervading principle of government and of common life. 
 The South, counting labor degradation, must look vi^ith 
 contempt on the most important and influential portions of 
 the North, that is, our great mechanic and agricultural 
 classes. From these fundamental differences in the very 
 constitution of society, must grow up jealousies, real and 
 imaginary collisions of interests, mutual dislike, mutual 
 fear. Congress must be an arena, in which Northern and 
 Southern parties will be arrayed against each other ; and 
 that portion of the Union, which has the strongest bond of 
 union within itself, will, on the whole, master the other. 
 A Northern man thinks it no hard thing to show, that 
 slavery has chiefly ruled the country, has deeply influenced 
 Northern commerce and manufactures, has played off* 
 Northern parties against each other, whilst a Southern man 
 undoubtedly can produce a list of grievances in return. 
 Thus slavery is the bane of our Union. Nothing else can 
 separate us. Without this element of war and woe in our 
 institutions, our nation would be more indissolubly bound 
 together by mutual benefits, than any other nation is by 
 habit and tradition. Have we, then, nothing to do with 
 slavery .'' Is it the concern of the South alone ? Are we 
 bound to keep silence on it, because it nowhere touches 
 us, because it is as foreign to us as the slavery of Turkey 
 and Russia ? Oh no. It more than touches us. We 
 feel its grasp. We owe it to ourselves, as well as to hu- 
 manity, to do what we lawfully and peacefully may to pro- 
 cure its abolition. 
 
 I have thus considered at length the right and fitness of 
 discussing freely the subject of slavery. Why is it that 
 this right is questioned .'' What lies at the bottom of the 
 charge against us, of unwarrantable interference with what 
 is not our proper concern? The real cause of the com- 
 plaint, though not suspected at the South, is the insensi- 
 
25 
 
 bility which prevails there in regard to this evil. Could 
 the slaveholder look on it from our point of view, could he 
 see it as we do, he would no longer blame our remon- 
 strances against it. He would himself join the cry. But 
 here lies his unhappiness. Long habit has hardened him 
 to slavery. Perhaps he calls it an evil, but this word on 
 his lips means something very different from what it means 
 on ours. Habit is as powerful over the understanding and 
 conscience as over the will. An institution handed down 
 from our fathers, sanctioned by laws, and under which we 
 have grown up, be it ever so criminal, cannot shock us 
 as it does a stranger, and we naturally count the stranger's 
 rebuke an insult and wrong. Here lies the vice of Mr. 
 Clay's speech. He silently assumes the innocence of 
 slavery. He does not dream of the need of apologizing 
 for himself as a slaveholder. He cannot realize, that, in 
 the view of the civilized world, this is a brand, which 
 shows through all the brightness of his talents and fame. 
 He approaches the subject with a tone of confidence, and, 
 though the advocate of flagrant injustice, takes the ground 
 of an injured man. We, who speak and write against 
 slavery, find our vindication and our duty in the enormity of 
 the evil. How natural that those, who have lived in fellow- 
 ship with the evil from their birth, should look on us as rash 
 unwarrantable meddlers with what is their business alone ! 
 I have said, that we rest the justice and obligation of 
 our moral efforts against slavery, on the greatness of the 
 evil. It might then be expected, that to make out our case 
 more fully, I should enlarge on this topic, and show that 
 slavery is not an imaginary monster, but a combination of 
 wrongs, and crimes, and woes, not only justifying, but 
 demanding, the opposition of all good men. But I have, 
 in a former publication, travelled this ground, and I can- 
 not unnecessarily renew the pain which I then suffered. 
 There is, however, one topic on which something should 
 3 
 
26 
 
 be said. I refer to the common apology for slavery, by 
 which the whole South, and not a few at the North, con- 
 ceal from themselves the true character of this evil, and 
 repel as unwarrantable our efforts for its destruction. 
 Whenever .the subject is discussed, we are told, that 
 through the lenity of the master, the slave suffers less than 
 the laborer in most other countries. He has more com- 
 forts, we hear. He is happier. To this refuge the slave- 
 holder always flies. My next object, therefore, and one 
 intimately connected with the preceding, will be to examine 
 this position. 
 
 I begin with observing, that it is honorable to our times, 
 that such a defence as this is urged and required. It 
 shows the progress of civilization and Christianity, that the 
 master holds himself bound to maintain, that his victim is 
 happier for his bondage. An ancient Roman never thought 
 of seeking a justification of slavery in its blessings, never 
 took the ground of his being a benefactor to those whom 
 he oppressed. We have here a sign of the great moral 
 revolution which is making its way through society ; and 
 we may be assured, that, when slavery can only stand on 
 the footing of its beneficence, it is not far from its fall. 
 
 I have never been disposed to deny, that at the South 
 slavery wore a milder aspect than in other countries, 
 though by some this is strenuously denied. I concede the 
 fact ; and still more, I cannot doubt, that the condition 
 of the slave continues to improve. The cry, that the 
 slave is treated more severely on account of the abolition 
 movement at the North, cannot be true on the whole, 
 though particular restraints may be increased. He is 
 and must be treated more kindly. We have here better 
 evidence than rumor. A master was never made more 
 severe, by having the eyes of the world turned upon him, 
 especially when the world, as at present, is more than 
 ever penetrated with the spirit of humanity. Slavery 
 
27 
 
 exists at this moment under the broad light of Heaven. 
 The sound of the lash resounds through the free States, 
 and through all nations. The master is held responsible to 
 his race for his power. Can this make him more severe ? 
 The defences which we hear from the South, set us at ease 
 on this point. The anxiety of the planter to show the 
 northern visiter the comforts of his slaves, sets us at ease. 
 Within a short time, more than one gentle voice of woman 
 from the South has spoken to me of the happiness of the 
 slave. The master feels, that he can only keep himself 
 within the pale of civilized society, by practising kindness 
 to a certain extent. All his defenders at the North plead 
 his kindness. Who does not see, that, under these influ- 
 ences, the severities of the system must be mitigated, and 
 that the advocates of freedom are doing immediate good to 
 the poor creatures whose cause they espouse ? 
 
 I believe, too, that not only is the general treatment of 
 the slaves improved, but that their religious means are in- 
 creased, in consequence of the Agitation at the North, 
 We are told, that they are now denied instruction in read- 
 ing. But ministers, churches, masters, are waked up, as 
 never before, to the obligation of giving to the slaves the 
 blessings of Christianity, and have a new anxiety to roll 
 away the reproach of bringing up hordes of heathens within 
 their borders. I must say, however, that whilst we must 
 give credit to the South for increased religious attention to 
 the slave, I expect little good from it. And I thus speak, 
 not merely from the reports of intelligent witnesses, but 
 from immutable moral principles. It is hard to graft good 
 on what is essentially evil and corrupt; hard for the man 
 who oppresses to exalt his victim. There is always a 
 tendency to unity in the various influences which a man 
 exerts. To enslave a human being, is to war against his 
 religious, as truly as his social and physical nature. The 
 African is, indeed, very susceptible, and easily puts on the 
 
28 
 
 show of piety. Nothing is easier than to draw forth groans 
 or shouts from a colored congregation. Nothing easier 
 than to gather this people by crowds into churches. But 
 the slave is incapable of a nobler reverence towards God 
 than towards his master. He is equally, I fear, a slave 
 before both. This is one of the evils of slavery, that it 
 perverts, turns into an instrument of degradation, that 
 highest sentiment of our nature, reverence. In truth, it 
 is hard to comprehend, how the slaveholder can preach 
 the grand principles of Christianity; how he can set forth 
 God as the Universal Father, who looks on all men with an 
 equally tender love, and watches, with an equal severity of 
 justice, over the rights of all. Indeed, how difficult must it 
 be for either masters or slaves to get into the heart of this 
 religion, to understand its deep purpose, when the chief el- 
 ement of such a community is in direct hostility to its spirit. 
 I speak not from report, but from the general principles of 
 human nature; and these would lead me to fear, that, in such 
 a community, the religion of the higher classes as well as of 
 the lowest, must be, to an unusual extent, one or another 
 form of superstition, that is, a substitution of dogmas, cer- 
 emonies, or feelings, for the manly and enlightened piety 
 which Jesus taught, and which makes the worship of God 
 to consist chiefly in the imitation of his Universal Justice 
 and Universal Love. 
 
 This is somewhat of a digression, though not exceeding 
 the freedom of epistolary communication. I return to the 
 subject. I acknowledge, and rejoice to acknowledge, that 
 slavery is mitigated by kindness at the South, though, as 
 we shall see, it necessarily includes much cruelty. I will 
 allow to the full extent what is urged in favor of the com- 
 forts of a state of bondage, though the concession is not 
 warranted by facts. I still say, that the apology fails of its 
 end; that it does not touch the essential, fundamental evil 
 of slavery, which is, the Injustice it does to a human being. 
 
39 
 
 It is no excuse for wronging a man, that you make him as 
 comfortable as is consistent with the wrong, A man, shut- 
 ting me up in prison, would poorly atone for his violation 
 of my rights, by feeding and clothing me to my heart's 
 content. I claim from my oppressor, not food and clothes, 
 but freedom. I insist, that he leave to me, unrestrained, 
 the right of using my limbs and powers for my own and 
 others' good. A deep instinct of my soul, founded at once 
 in my spiritual and physical nature, calls out for personal 
 liberty. No matter, that our chains are woven of silk. 
 They are as iron, because they are chains. Let a master 
 draw round us a line, which may not be passed without our 
 being driven back by a whip ; and for this very reason we 
 should burn to escape. Such is the thirst for freedom, 
 breathed by God into the human spirit. Slavery is a vio- 
 lence to our nature, to which nothing but abjectness can 
 reconcile a man, and which we honor him for repelling. 
 
 It is vain to say, that the slave suffers less than other 
 laborers. We have no right to inflict a suffering, greater 
 or less, on an innocent fellow-creature. Injustice is injus- 
 tice, be the extent of its influence ever so confined. Were 
 one of our governments, by an act of usurpation, to abridge 
 the free motions and the rights of the laboring class, would 
 it be a mitigation of the wrong, that the laborer still ex- 
 ceeded in privileges and means of pleasure the serfs of 
 Russia ? It is no excuse for keeping a man in the dust, 
 that you throw him better food than he can earn by his free 
 industry. Be just before you are generous. The lenity, 
 which quiets you in wrong doing, becomes a crime. Do 
 not boast of your humanity to those whom you own, when 
 it is a cruel wrong to be their owner. Some highwaymen 
 have taken pride in the gentlemanly, courteous style, in 
 which they have eased the traveller of his purse. They 
 have given him back a part of the spoils, that he might 
 travel comfortably home. But they were robbers stilL 
 3* 
 
30 
 
 A criminal relation cannot be made virtuous by the mode 
 of sustaining it. Ca3sar was a clement dictator, but usur- 
 pation did not therefore cease to be a vice. 
 
 It is no excuse for taking possession of a man, that we 
 can make him happier. We are poor judges of another's 
 happiness. He was made to work it out for himself Our 
 opinion of his best interests is particularly to be distrusted, 
 when our own interest is to be advanced by making him 
 our tool. Especially if, to make him happy, we must drive 
 him as a brute, subject him to the lash, it is plainly time to 
 give up our philanthropic efforts, and to let him seek his 
 good in his own way. 
 
 Allow that the sufferings of the slave are less than those 
 of the free laborer. But these sufferings are Wrongs, and 
 this changes their nature. Pain as pain, is nothing com- 
 pared with pain when it is a wrong. A blow, given me by 
 accident, may fell me to the earth ; but, after all it is a 
 trifle. A slight blow, inflicted in scorn or with injurious in- 
 tent, is an evil, which, without aid from my principles, I could 
 not bear. Let God's providence confine me to my room by 
 disease, and I more than submit, for in his dispensations I 
 see parental goodness seeking ray purity and peace. But 
 let man imprison me, without inflicting disease, and how 
 intolerable my narrow bounds. So if the elements take 
 away our property, we resign it without a murmur; but if 
 man rob us of our fortune, poverty weighs on us as a moun- 
 tain. Any thing can be borne, but the will and the power 
 of the selfish, unrighteous man. There is also this differ- 
 ence between sufferings from God or nature, and sufferings 
 from human injustice. The former we are almost always 
 able to soften or remove by industry and skill, by studying 
 the laws of nature, or by seeking aid and sympathy from 
 men. These sufferings are intended to awaken our powers, 
 and to strengthen social dependencies. Nature opposes us 
 that we may resist her, and, by resistance, may grow strong. 
 
31 
 
 But the owner of his fellow-creatures resents the resistance 
 as a wrong, and cuts them off from help from their kind. 
 
 It will be said, that the slave has nothing of this con- 
 sciousness of his wrongs, which adds such weight to suffer- 
 ings. He has no self-respect, we hear, to be wounded 
 when he is lashed. To him, as to the ox, a blow is but a 
 blow. And is this an apology for slavery, that it destroys 
 all sense of wrongs, blunts the common sensibilities of 
 human nature, makes man tamer than the nobler animals 
 under inflicted pain ? It is this prostration of self-respect, 
 and of just indignation for wrongs, which sets an additional 
 seal on slavery as an outrage on humanity. But it is not 
 true, that the spirit of a man is wholly killed in the slave. 
 The moral nature never dies. He often feels a wrong in 
 the violence which he cannot resist. He has often bitter 
 hatred towards the cruel overseer. He ponders in secret 
 over his oppressed lot. There are deep groans of con- 
 scious injury and revenge, which, though smothered by 
 fear, do not less agonize the soul. 
 
 In these remarks, we have seen how much the slave may 
 suffer, though little of what is called cruelty enters into his 
 lot. My hostility to the system does not rest primarily on 
 the physical agonies it inflicts, but on a deeper foundation; 
 on its flagrant injustice, and on the misery necessarily in- 
 volv^ed in a system of wrong. Slavery, however, is not to 
 be absolved from the guilt of cruelty. However tempered 
 with kindness, it does and must bear this brand. Who 
 that knows human nature, can question whether irresponsi- 
 ble power will be abused } Such power breeds the very 
 passions which make abuse sure. Besides, it is exposed to 
 great temptation. Slaves are necessarily irritating. Their 
 laziness, thievishness, lying propensities, sulkiness, the 
 natural fruits of their condition, are sore trials to those 
 placed over them. Slavery necessarily generates in its 
 victims the very vices, which are most fitted to fret and 
 
32 
 
 exasperate the owner or overseer. Under such circum- 
 stances more cruelty might be expected than exists. After 
 all the instances of barbarity we hear from the South, the 
 patience of the slaveholder is more to be wondered at than 
 his severity. The relation he sustains is the last for a good 
 man to covet. It is, of all others, most fitted to nourish 
 the passions, against which, religion calls us to watch. He 
 who would not be " led into temptation," should cast away 
 with dread irresponsible power over his fellow-creatures. 
 That, under such circumstances, selfishness, the passion 
 for dominion, avarice, anger, impatience, lust, should break 
 out into fearful excesses, is as necessary, as that the stone 
 should fall, or the fire destroy. 
 
 One instance of cruelty at the South has lately found its 
 way into some of our papers, and that is, the employment 
 of blood-hounds in parts of the new States, for the recov- 
 ery, or, if this be resisted, for the destruction, of the fugi- 
 tive slaves. This statement has been questioned or denied, 
 by those who incline to favorable views of the whole sub- 
 ject, as an atrocity too monstrous for belief I have not 
 inquired into its authenticity. But that one breed of blood- 
 hounds exists at the South, we know ; a breed, not armed 
 with fangs, but rifles, and who shoot down the fugitive 
 when no other way is left for arresting his flight. And 
 where lies the difference between tearing his flesh by teeth, 
 or sending bullets through his heart, skull, or bowels. My 
 humanity can draw no lines between these infernal modes 
 of despatching a fellow-creature, guilty of no offence, but 
 that of asserting one of the primary, inalienable rights of 
 his nature. It is bad enough to oppress a man; but, when 
 he escapes from oppression, to pursue him with mortal 
 weapons, to shatter his bones, to mutilate him, and thus 
 send him from a weary life with an agonizing, bloody 
 death, is murder in an aggravated form. The laws which 
 sanction the shooting of the flying slave, are, to my mind, 
 
33 
 
 attempts to legalize murder. They who uphold them do, 
 however unconsciously, uphold murder. It is vain to say, 
 that this is an accompaniment of slavery, which cannot be 
 avoided. The accompaniment proves the character of the 
 system. It is a fearful law of our condition, that crimes 
 cannot stand alone. Slavery and murder go hand in hand. 
 Having taken the first step in a system of cruelty and 
 wrong, we can set no bounds to our career. 
 
 Still I do not charge cruelty on slavery as its worst evil. 
 The great evil is, the contempt and violation of human 
 rights, the injustice which treats a man as a brute, and 
 which breaks his spirit to make him a human tool. It is 
 the injustice, which denies him the means of improvement, 
 which denies him scope for his powers, which dooms him 
 to an unchangeable lot, which robs him of the primitive 
 right of human nature, that of bettering his outward and 
 inward state. It is the injustice, which converts his social 
 connexions into a curse. Here, perhaps, the influence of 
 slavery is most blighting. Our social connexions are in- 
 tended by God to be among our chief means of improve- 
 ment and happiness ; and a system, which wars with these, 
 is the most cruel outrage on our nature. Other men's 
 chief relations are to wife and children, to brother and sis- 
 ter, to beings endeared by nature, and who awaken the 
 heart to tenderness and faithful love. The slave's chief 
 relation is to his owner, to the man who wrongs him. 
 This it is, which above all things determines his lot, and 
 this infuses poison into all his other social connexions. 
 This destroys the foundation of domestic happiness by 
 sullying female purity, by extinguishing in woman the 
 sense of honor. This violates the sanctity of the marriage 
 bond. This tears the wife from the husband, or condemns 
 her to insult, perhaps, laceration in his sight. This takes 
 from the parent his children. His children belong to 
 another, and are disposed of for another's gain. Thus 
 
34 
 
 God's great provisions for softening, refining, elevating 
 human nature are thwarted. Thus social ties are liable 
 to be turned into bitterness and wrong. 
 
 An ecclesiastical document, which appeared not long 
 ago in some of our papers, is a strong illustration of the 
 influence of slavery on the relations of domestic life. It 
 confirms, what we have often heard, that the slaves are 
 commanded to marry or live together, for the purpose of 
 keeping up the stock of the estate. It shows us, too, that 
 when slaves are sold at a distance from their original 
 homes, they are commanded to give up the wives or hus- 
 bands whom they have left, and to serve the estate by 
 forming new connexions. Against this tyranny one would 
 think, that the slave would find some protection in his 
 religious teachers. One would think, that the Christian 
 minister would interpose, to save the colored member of 
 the church from being forced to renounce the wife from 
 whom he had been torn ; that he would struggle to rescue 
 him from an adulterous union, against which his affections 
 as well as sense of duty may revolt. But, according to 
 this document, an association of ministers decreed, that the 
 slave, sold at a distance from his home, was to be regarded 
 as dead to his former wife ; that he was not to be treated 
 in this concern as a free agent ; that he was not to be 
 countenanced by the church in resisting his master's will. 
 The document is given below.* What a comment on 
 
 * The following extract is made from the Antislavery record of 
 February 9, 183G. 
 
 " The following query was, not long since, presented to the Savan- 
 nah River Baptist Association of Ministers. ' Whether, in case of 
 involuntary separation, of such a character as to preclude all prospect 
 of future intercourse, the parties ought to be allowed to marry again .'' ' 
 This query was put in regard to husband and wife separated by sale j 
 an every-day result of the great internal slave-trade. They answered; 
 
 " * That such separation, among persons situated as our slaves are, 
 is civilly a separation by death ; and they believe, that in the sight of 
 
35 
 
 Southern institutions ! It shows, how rehgion is made their 
 tool, how Christianity is used to do violence to the most 
 sacred feelings and ties, that the breed of slaves may be 
 kept up. It shows us, that this iniquitous system pollutes 
 by its touch, the divinest, the holiest provision of God for 
 human happiness and virtue. 
 
 There is a short method of palliating these and all the 
 enormities of slavery, which is more and more resorted to 
 at the South. The slaveholder looks abroad on the world, 
 and, finding in other countries a great amount of hardship, 
 crime, prostitution, penury, woe, he proceeds to say, that 
 these are the lot of humanity, and that they are not borne 
 more extensively or painfully in slave countries than in 
 others, perhaps even less. Why, then, is slavery so great 
 an evil ? Without stopping to examine these alleged facts, 
 I see an important difference in the cases brought into 
 comparison. In other civilized countries, the evils charged 
 on them are seen and deplored, and it is acknowledged 
 that earnest efforts should be made for their removal. 
 Religion and philanthropy, though still half slumbering, 
 are waking up to a sense of great responsibility, and to 
 new struggles with the giant evils of society. It is ac- 
 knowledged, that, as far as institutions entail on the great 
 laboring class, poverty, vice, prostitution, domestic infi- 
 delity, and brutal debasement of intellect and heart, they 
 ought to be changed. Nowhere but in slave countries are 
 the civil power, the sword, the laws, the wealth, the re- 
 ligion, of a community deliberately pledged to the support 
 
 God it would be so viewed. To forbid second marriages in such case, 
 would be to expose the parties, not only to stronger hardships and 
 strong temptations, but to church censure for acting in obedience to 
 their masters, who cannot be expected to acquiesce in a regulation at 
 variance with justice to the slaves, and to the spirit of that command 
 which regulates marriage among Christians. The slaves are not free 
 agents ; and a dissolution by death is not more entirely without their 
 consent and beyond their control, than by such separation.' " 
 
36 
 
 of a system, which is known and acknowledged to deprive 
 one half of the people of property and civil rights, known 
 to doom them to perpetual ignorance and licentiousness, 
 known to rob the individual of the means of progress, and 
 to poison the sources of domestic well-being. To slave 
 countries belongs the presumptuousness of ordaining the 
 perpetual debasement of half the community, on no better 
 ground, than that from the laws of nature a large amount 
 of evil must adhere to the social state. What ! Does 
 Providence intend no progress in human affairs ^ Does 
 Christianity encourage and enjoin no efforts for a happier 
 condition of humanity ? Is man to take his rules of con- 
 duct towards his fellow-creatures from the corruptions 
 which barbarous times have transmitted to the present ? 
 May man, sheltering himself under Divine providence, per- 
 petuate evils, which God, through the conscience and by 
 his Son, commands us, to the extent of our power, to di- 
 minish, and to expel from the social state ? 
 
 To return to the kindness, which is said to be practised 
 at the South towards the slaves. I wish not to disparage 
 it. Let us open our eyes to whatever is beautiful or 
 promising in human life. I could laud this kindness as 
 heartily as any man, did I not find it used, both here and 
 at the South, as a buttress to the tottering cause of slavery. 
 I am bound, therefore, to inquire into its real value, to 
 give it its due, but nothing more than its due. One ob- 
 vious remark is, that kindness without justice is of little 
 moral worth. It is a feeling rather than a principle. 
 Principle enjoins justice, and will not offer favors as an 
 atonement for wrongs. — Again, the kindness at the South, 
 of which we hear, finds its occasion in a dependence and 
 helplessness, which the kind agent has himself created. 
 Is there much merit in taking care of those, whom we 
 have stripped of all property, of self-help, of all the means 
 of taking care of themselves ? — There is another subtrac- 
 
37 
 
 tion from kindness to the slave, inasmuch as it is a matter 
 of interest. The human machine cannot work without 
 food, raiment, and health ; and, in times like the present, 
 when slave-labor is more than usually profitable, there 
 cannot be a better investment of money, than in comforts 
 which keep the slave in a working state. — A more im- 
 portant consideration is, that the kindness to the slaves 
 is not of the right stamp. It wants a moral character. 
 The master is kind to them because they are his own, 
 not because they are fellow-creatures. The true, grand 
 foundation of love is wanting. How kind are men to dogs 
 and horses, which they have long owned ! They feed 
 them, caress them, admit them to their familiarity. But 
 the sort of kindness, which is shown to the brute, becomes 
 a wrong and insult when extended to the man. He must 
 be loved and respected as a man. This is his due ; and, 
 had he the feelings of a man, nothing less would content 
 him. The slave is treated kindly, because he is a slave, 
 and has the spirit of a slave. Once let the spirit of a man 
 wake in him, once let him know his rights, and show his 
 knowledge in words, looks, and bearing, and immediately 
 he falls under suspicion and dislike, and a severity, de- 
 signed to break him down, is substituted for kindness. 
 He is less liked, in proportion as he acts from a principle 
 in his own breast, and not from his master's will. And 
 what is the worth of such kindness ? The slave, were he 
 not so degraded, would regard it as a cruel mockery. — 
 Again, I cannot but think, that a good deal of the kindness 
 at the South has for its object to quiet the self-reproach, 
 which, at this age, can hardly but exist in a latent state, in 
 the slaveholder's breast. Men must, in some way or other, 
 strike up a peace with their own consciences. He who 
 holds his fellow-creatures in bondage, must reconcile him- 
 self to himself ; and nowhere is the task so difficult as in a 
 free country, where the master claims liberty as an in- 
 4 
 
38 
 
 alienable right, and clings to it more than to life. In such 
 a country, he can only escape the consciousness of wrong, 
 by flattering himself, that he is the benefactor of the slave. 
 But kindness, when thus made an opiate to conscience, is 
 more a crime than a virtue. — As a conclusion to this 
 head, I am willing and happy to acknowledge, that the 
 kindness of the South to the slave is to be ascribed, in part, 
 to the religious and moral improvements of the times. We 
 live under brighter lights than former generations ; and 
 these influences penetrate into all the relations of life. 
 But the lights, which induce the master to use his power 
 more mercifully, do not finish their mission by this teach- 
 ing. They command him to renounce his power altogether. 
 They convict him of usurpation. The principles, which 
 persuade him to be a lenient owner, if carried out, forbid 
 him to be an owner at all. That state of civilization, which 
 dictates mercy towards the slave, makes slavery a greater 
 crime. Oppression is to be measured, not by its weight, 
 but by the light under which it is practised. To rob men 
 of liberty in an age, which recognises human rights, and 
 God^s equal love to all his human creatures, is a very 
 different thing from enslaving men in ages of darkness and 
 despotism. A slight cruelty now is a more heinous crime, 
 than an atrocity in barbarous times. Must we not feel, 
 then, that slavery among us, however mild, has a guilt in 
 the sight of God unknown before ? Its very kindnesses, 
 extorted from it by the clear lights of religion and freedom, 
 become testimonies to its guilt. This may seem severe. 
 But God knows, that my desire is, not to give pain, but 
 to set forth what seems to me great moral truth, for the 
 benefit of my fellow-creatures. 
 
 I have thus attempted to show, that there is nothing in the 
 mitigating circumstances of slavery to diminish the repro- 
 bation with which it is regarded by the civilized world, and 
 
39 
 
 nothing to justify the charge brought against its opposers 
 of unwarrantable interference. Having finished this part 
 of my task, I shall now pass to those portions of Mr. Clay's 
 speech, in which he meets the arguments against slavery 
 by attempting to show, that emancipation is impossible. 
 The arguments on which he rests are chiefly these, the 
 amount of property which would be sacrificed by emanci- 
 pation, next, the amalgamation of the races, and, lastly, 
 the civil wars, ending in extermination of one or the other 
 race, which would follow the measure. I shall consider 
 these in their order. 
 
 Mr. Clay maintains, that " the total value of the slave 
 property in the United States is twelve hundred millions of 
 dollars," and considers this "immense amount" as putting 
 the freedom of the slave out of the question. Who can 
 be expected to make such a sacrifice ? The accuracy of 
 this valuation of the slaves I have nothing to do with. I 
 admit it without dispute. But the impression made on my 
 mind by the vastness of the sum, is directly the reverse of 
 the effect on Mr. Clay. Regarding slavery as throughout 
 a wrong, I see, in the immenseness of the value of the 
 slaves, the enormous amount of the robbery committed on 
 them. I see "twelve hundred millions of dollars " seized, 
 extorted by unrighteous force. I know not on the face of 
 the earth a system of such enormous spoliation. I know 
 nowhere injustice on such a giant scale. And yet, the 
 vast amount of this wrong is, in the view of many, a reason 
 for its continuance ! If I strip my neighbour of a few 
 dollars, I ought to restore them ; but if I have spoiled him 
 of his All, and grown rich on the spoils, I must not be ex- 
 pected to make restitution ! Justice, when it will cost 
 much, loses its binding power ! What makes the present 
 case more startling is, that this vast amount of property 
 consists not of the goods of injured men, but of the men 
 themselves. Here are human nerves, living men, worth at 
 
40 
 
 the market price, "twelve hundred millions of dollars." 
 That this enormous wrong should be perpetuated in the 
 bosom of a Christian and civilized community, is a sad 
 comment on our times. Sad and strange, that a distin- 
 guished man, in the face of a great people and of the world, 
 should talk with entire indifference of fellow-creatures, held 
 and labelled as property, to this " immense amount." 
 
 But this property, we are told, is not to be questioned, on 
 account of its long duration. " Two hundred years of 
 legislation have sanctioned and sanctified negro slaves as 
 property." Nothing but respect for the speaker could re- 
 press criticism on this unhappy phraseology. We will trust 
 it escaped him without thought. But to confine ourselves 
 to the argument from duration ; how obvious the reply ! 
 Is injustice changed into justice by the practice of ages ? 
 Is my victim made a righteous prey, because I have bowed 
 him to the earth till he cannot rise ? For more than two 
 hundred years heretics were burned, and not by mobs, not 
 by Lynch law, but by the decrees of councils, at the insti- 
 gation of theologians, and with the sanction of the laws 
 and religions of nations ; and was this a reason for keeping 
 up the fires, that they had burned two hundred years ? In 
 the Eastern world, successive despots, not for two hundred 
 years, but for twice two thousand, have claimed the right 
 of life and death over millions, and with no law but their 
 own will, have beheaded, bowstrung, starved, tortured 
 unhappy men without number, who have incurred their 
 wrath ; and does the lapse of so many centuries sanctify 
 murder and ferocious power ? 
 
 But the great argument remains. It is said that this 
 property must not be questioned, because it is established 
 by law. "That is property, which the law declares to be 
 property."* Thus, human law is made supreme, deci- 
 sive, in a grave question of morals. Thus, the idea of an 
 
 * The italics are by Mr. Clay. 
 
41 
 
 eternal, immutable justice is set at nought. Thus, the 
 great rule of human life is made to be the ordinance of 
 interested men. But there is a higher tribunal, a throne of 
 equal justice, immovable by the conspiracy of all human 
 legislatures. " That is property, which the law declares to 
 be property." Then the laws have only to declare you, or 
 me, or Mr. Clay, to be property, and we become chattels 
 and are bound to bear the yoke ! Does not every man's 
 moral nature repel this doctrine too intuitively to leave 
 time or need for argument .'' 
 
 I always hear with pain, the doctrine, too common among 
 lawyers, that property is the creature of the law ; as if it 
 had no natural foundation, as if it were not a natural right, 
 as if it did not precede all laws, and were not their ground, 
 instead of being their effect. Government is ordained, not 
 to create, so much as to protect and regulate property ; and 
 the chief strength of government lies in the sanction, which 
 the moral sense, the natural idea of right, gives to honestly 
 earned possessions. The notion which I am combating is 
 essentially revolutionary and destructive. We hear much 
 of Radicalism, of Agrarianism, at the present day. But of 
 all radicals, the most dangerous, perhaps, is he, who makes 
 property the " creature of law" ; because, what law creates, 
 it can destroy. If we of this Commonwealth have no right 
 in our persons, houses, ships, farms, but what a vote of the 
 legislature or the majority confers, then a vote of the same 
 masses may strip us of them all, and transfer them to 
 others ; and the right will go with the law. According to 
 this doctrine, I see not why the majority, who are always 
 comparatively poor, may not step into the mansions and 
 estates of the rich. I see not why the law cannot make 
 some idle neighbour the rightful owner of your fortune or 
 mine. What better support can Radicalism ask than this } 
 
 It may be objected, that legislation does, in fact, touch 
 and take a part of the citizens' property, and if a part, why 
 
42 
 
 not the whole. I reply, that the general end, for which 
 legislation touches property is, to make it more secure. It 
 levies taxes for the execution of laws, under which all prop- 
 erty is safe. I reply again, that a righteous legislature, in 
 touching property, still shows it respect, by equalizing, as 
 far as possible, the burdens it imposes, and by making com- 
 pensation, when it can, for what it alienates or destroys. 
 I am aware, indeed, that legislation may, in certain circum- 
 stances, make important changes in the tenure of property; 
 and the reason is, that property is not the only human right, 
 and consequently that it may sometimes come into collision 
 with other rights, in which case, all are to be reconciled 
 according to the highest moral law. Thus, a community 
 threatened with destruction, may appropriate to its use 
 what it cannot restore, or it may set bounds to the individu- 
 al accumulation of wealth, where this shall plainly menace 
 ruin to its institutions. The right of gaining property, 
 being universal, does itself require, that the individual shall 
 not be suffered so to accumulate, as to take from multitudes 
 the chance of earning means of support, or as to create a 
 power dangerous to the rights of any class of citizens. 
 According to these principles, entails may be forbidden, 
 and laws, relating to testaments, may be so framed as to 
 break up overgrown estates. But in all these cases, leg- 
 islation, in touching property, treats it with reverence, 
 and acknowledges its foundation in immutable justice. 
 There are, then, principles of property, w^hich no laws 
 can move. Man cannot make and unmake it at will. As 
 he is physically unable to turn the sun and air into private 
 possessions, so he is morally incompetent to turn his 
 fellow-creatures into chattels. Both cases are out of the 
 province of law. Even Mr. Clay, in urging the wrong 
 which would be done to slaveholders, should the law strip 
 them of their slaves, acknowledges that law is not the su- 
 preme rule of right ; for, if it were, with ^vhat face could 
 they complain of being wrongfully dispossessed .'* 
 
43 
 
 Mr. Clay, having thus summarily settled the validity of 
 the slaveholder's claim, goes on to affirm, that the opposite 
 doctrine, the doctrine that man cannot be rightfully seized 
 and held as property, is " a visionary dogma," "the wild 
 speculation of theorists and innovators." Does not Mr. 
 Clay know, that the English nation, from its highest to its 
 lowest ranks, with scarce an exception, pronounces the 
 pretended right of property in men, an aggravated wrong ? 
 Does he not know, that this same doctrine pervades the 
 continent ? that, indeed, it is the acknowledged senti- 
 ment of Europe, with the exception of Russia and Turkey ? 
 Does he not know, that it is the faith of the vast majority 
 of the free States .'* In truth, I know none, who, in their 
 hearts, believe, that man may rightfully be made property, 
 with the exception of some technical lawyers, a body too 
 much inclined to exalt precedents above principles, to make 
 the statute book the standard of truth and duty, and practi- 
 cally to recognise no higher law than that of a majority or 
 a king. 
 
 I maintain, then, that the slaveholder has no defence in 
 law, or in the opinion of the civilized world, for continuing 
 to hold slaves. He is bound to free them, and to do it the 
 sooner on account of their great value. He has held this 
 vast amount of others' property long enough, and the right- 
 ful owners have ground for urgency in proportion to the 
 extent and duration of their wrongs. 
 
 "But must the slaveholder make himself poor," says 
 many a man at the North, as well as at the South. I an- 
 swer, by asking those who put the question, what they 
 would deem to be their own duty, should they find them- 
 selves in possession of a large amount belonging to their 
 neighbour ? Would they go on to hold it, because honesty 
 would make them poor ? Then they are criminal, and de- 
 serve to join their partners in the State-prison. He who is 
 just, only as long as justice will secure him a warm home 
 and the comforts of life, should be called by his right name. 
 
44 
 
 an unprincipled man, I cannot doubt, that multitudes at the 
 South, if thoroughly convinced of holding what is not their 
 own, would renounce it in obedience to God and justice. 
 But a more important objection remains. Men of honor 
 and principle, who recognise immediately the obligation of 
 individuals to restore what is not their own, will tell me, 
 that, in the present case, not merely individuals, but states, 
 bodies politic, with their order and essential interests, are 
 concerned ; that when a particular kind of property be- 
 comes inwoven with all the possessions, transactions, and 
 habits of a community, sudden changes in it may induce 
 universal bankruptcy, and threaten society with dissolu- 
 tion ; and they may ask whether I am prepared, in such 
 cases, to insist punctiliously on giving every man his due ? 
 I answer, that this reasoning applies only to what may be 
 lawfully held as property, to material things, such as houses 
 and lands. It is acknowledged, that a man's right to these 
 is controlled and superseded in extreme cases, when the 
 assertion of it would bring great evils on the state. This is 
 a fundamental restriction on the right of property. But in 
 allowing this, I do not allow, that human beings, God's ra- 
 tional and moral creatures, who cannot be held as property 
 without unutterable wrong, may still be retained as chattels, 
 from apprehension of evils, which restoration of their rights 
 may bring on the state. No fear of consequences can au- 
 thorize us to violate an eternal, immutable law of justice. 
 I deny, however, that the dreaded consequences of doing 
 right, in the case before us, can occur. I deny, that 
 Providence has ordained, or can ever ordain, remediless 
 injustice, as an essential condition of social security. On 
 what ground is this wide-spreading ruin to be feared, from 
 destroying property in slaves ? Is emancipation an untried 
 thing ? Has it not been carried through again and again, 
 in countries where social order was less confirmed, and 
 ideas of property were looser, than among ourselves ? In 
 the West Indies, has not the revolution been suddenly 
 
45 
 
 accomplished without the least shock to property ? Have 
 we not reason to believe, that the price of real estate has 
 risen under the change ? The slave is a working machine ; 
 and is his power to work paralysed by liberty ? Does not 
 the master, possessing as he does the soil and capital, pos- 
 sess unfailing means of obtaining from the colored man, 
 whether bond or free, the labor required for the cultivation 
 of the earth? And with this grand original source of all 
 wealth untouched, is not society secured against universal 
 insolvency ? How apt are men to raise phantoms to terrify 
 themselves from an unwelcome duty ! 
 
 Mr. Clay insists, that the slaveholder has a right to full 
 compensation from those who call on him to surrender his 
 slaves. I utterly deny such a right in a man who surrenders 
 what is not his own. I cheerfully acknowledge, however, 
 that whilst, in strict justice, the slaveholder has no claim to 
 indemnity, he has a title to sympathy and equitable consid- 
 eration. A man, who, by conscientious and honorable 
 relinquishment of what he discovers to be another's, makes 
 himself comparatively poor, deserves respect and liberal 
 aid. There are few at the North, who would not joyfully 
 acquiesce in the plan of that distinguished statesman, 
 Rufus King, for large appropriations of the public land to 
 the indemnifying of sufferers under an act of universal 
 abolition. 
 
 It is believed, however, that compensation, even on the 
 most liberal scale, would not be a great amount ; for the 
 planters, in general, would suffer little, if at all, from eman- 
 cipation. This change would make them richer, rather 
 than poorer. One would think, indeed, from the common 
 language on the subject, that the negroes were to be anni- 
 hilated by being set free ; that the whole labor of the 
 South was to be destroyed by a single blow. But the 
 colored man, when freed, will not vanish from the soil. He 
 will stand there with the same muscles as before, only 
 
46 
 
 strung anew by liberty ; with the same limbs to toil, and 
 with stronger motives to toil than before. He will receive 
 wages, instead of a fixed allowance ; and wages are found 
 in many parts of the West Indies, to get from him nearly 
 twice the labor which he performed during bondage. He 
 will work from hope, not fear ; will work for himself, not 
 for others ; and, unless all the principles of human nature 
 are reversed under a black skin, he will work better than 
 before. For what mighty loss then does the slaveholder 
 need compensation ? We believe that agriculture will 
 revive, worn-out soils be renewed, and the whole country 
 assume a brighter aspect under free labor. The slaveholder, 
 in relinquishing what is another's, will add a new value 
 to what is unquestionably his own. 
 
 The next objection to Emancipation is, that it will pro- 
 duce an amalgamation of the white and colored races. 
 This objection is a strange one from a resident at the 
 South. Can any impartial man fear, that amalgamation 
 will, in any event, go on more rapidly than at the present 
 moment .'' Slavery tends directly to intermingle the races. 
 It robs the colored female of protection against licentious- 
 ness. Still worse, it robs her of self-respect. It dooms 
 her class to prostitution. Nothing, but freedom, can give 
 her the feelings of a woman, and can shield her from brutal 
 lust. Slavery does something worse than sell off her chil- 
 dren. It makes her a stranger to the delicacy of her sex. 
 Undoubtedly a smile will be provoked by expressions of 
 concern for the delicacy of a colored woman. But is this 
 a conventional, arbitrary accomplishment, appropriate only 
 to a white skin ? Is it not the fit, natural, beautiful adorn- 
 ing, which God designed for every woman ; and does not 
 a curse belong to an institution which blights it, not acci- 
 dentally, but by a necessary, fixed operation ? It is the 
 relation of property in human beings, which generates the 
 
47 
 
 impure connexions of the South, and which prevents the 
 natural repugnance, growing out of difference of color, 
 from exerting its power. As far as marriage is concerned, 
 there seems to be a natural repugnance between the races ; 
 and in saying this, no unfeeling contempt is expressed 
 towards either race. Marriage is an affair of taste. We 
 do not marry the old ; yet how profoundly we respect them. 
 How few women would a man of refinement consent to 
 marry ; yet he honors the sex. The barrier of color, as 
 far as this particular connexion is concerned, implies no 
 degradation of the African race. There seems, as I have 
 said, a repugnance in nature ; but if not natural, the preju- 
 dice is as strong as an innate feeling ; and how much it may 
 be relied on to prevent connexions, we may judge from the 
 whole experience of the North, There is another security 
 against this union in our country. I refer to the mark 
 which has been set on the colored race by their past 
 slavery ; a mark which generations will not efface, and in 
 which the whites will have no desire to participate. Even 
 were the slaves of the South of our own color, and were 
 slavery to fix on them and on their children some badge or 
 memorial, such as the impress of a lash on the forehead, 
 or of a chain on the cheek, how few among the class of 
 free descent would be anxious to ally themselves with this 
 separated portion of the race. The spirit of caste, which 
 almost seems the strongest in human nature, will certainly 
 postpone amalgamation long enough, to give the world 
 opportunity to understand and manage the subject much 
 better than ourselves. To continue a system of wrong from 
 dread of such evils, only shows the ingenuity of power in 
 defending itself. The fable of the wolf and the lamb 
 drinking at the same stream, comes spontaneously to our 
 thoughts. But allowing what I have contested, allowing 
 that amalgamation is to be anticipated, then, I maintain, 
 we have no right to resist it. Then, it is not unnatural. 
 
48 
 
 If the tendencies to it are so strong, that they can only be 
 resisted by a systematic degradation of a large portion of 
 our fellow-creatures, then God intended it to take place, 
 and resistance to it is opposition to his will. ^ What a 
 strange reason for oppressing a race of fellow-beings, that, 
 if we restore them to their rights, we shall marry them ! 
 
 I proceed to the last objection to Emancipation. We 
 are told, that it will stir up the two races to a war, which 
 nothing but the slavery or extermination of one or the other 
 will end. We have often heard of the " fears of the 
 brave," so that we ought not, perhaps, to wonder at the 
 alarm here expressed. And yet, we are somewhat sur- 
 prised, that "the chivalry of the South," should see in the 
 colored man a formidable foe, and should be willing to put 
 forth their fears as a defence of their injustice. Superior 
 as the slaveholders are in number, holding all the property 
 and civil power, distinguished by education, by skill in 
 arms, and by singular daring, and backed by the whole 
 power of the free States, can they seriously dread collis- 
 ions ? All our fear here is, that the colored man, though 
 freed, will remain a slave, will be crushed by the lordly 
 spirit, the high bearing of the white race ; that he will not 
 for a long time rise to a just self-respect. We fear, that, 
 in a country, where the law of honor and Lynch law are 
 rife, he cannot enjoy that equality before the civil laws, to 
 which freedom will give him a nominal claim. We fear, 
 that, among a people, who take the protection of their per- 
 sons and character into their own hands, and shoot down 
 the man who offers an insult, the poor colored race, whose 
 assertion of rights will easily be construed into insolence, 
 will be very slow to insist on their due. That they should 
 gain the ascendency, without some miraculous combination 
 of circumstances, is impossible. Were they a fierce, sav- 
 age, indomitable race, they might be looked on with 
 apprehension ; but they are the most inoffensive people on 
 
49 
 
 earth ; and their mildness has undoubtedly perpetuated 
 their chains. With emancipation their present rapid increase 
 will be checked, for the motives to breed them will cease. 
 With liberty of motion, the desire of change of place will 
 spring up ; they will naturally be more or less dispersed ; 
 the danger of concentration on a few spots will diminish ; 
 and when we think of the vast extent of our country, we 
 may expect them to become a sprinkling through our 
 population, incapable, even if desirous, of disturbing the 
 public peace. Especially the discontented, bold, and ad- 
 venturous, the very spirits from which turbulence might be 
 feared, will be attracted by hope and novelty, as well as 
 driven by inward restlessness, to new scenes. In truth, 
 can we conceive of a country, which has so little to dread 
 from emancipation as this, reaching as it does from ocean 
 to ocean, and destined to receive increasing accessions to 
 its numbers from the old world ? It is also worthy of note, 
 that the characteristics of the colored race are particularly 
 fitted to keep them harmless. I refer to their passion for 
 imitation of their superiors, and to their love of show and 
 fashion, which tend to attach them more to the white race 
 than to their own, and to break them up into different ranks 
 or castes among themselves. 
 
 The groundlessness of fears from Emancipation is be- 
 coming more apparent from the experiment of the West 
 Indies. I do not speak of this as decided ; but its first 
 fruits surpass all expectation. The slaves in those islands 
 were to their masters in the proportion of eight or ten to 
 one, and they are shut up in narrow islands, which prevent 
 dispersion ; and yet, the gift of freedom has not provoked 
 an act of violence. Their new liberty has been followed 
 by a degree of order unknown before ; and, what makes 
 this peaceful transition more striking is, that emancipation 
 took place under every possible disadvantage. It was not 
 the free gift of the master, not an act of justice and kind- 
 
 5 
 
50 
 
 ness, not accompanied with appeals to the gratitude and 
 better nature of the slave. It was conferred by a distant 
 benefactor ; it was forced on the planter. It was submitted to 
 with predictions of its ruinous results. The generous hope, 
 which so often creates the good it pants for, was wanting. 
 In Jamaica, it would seem, that the furious opposition of 
 the planting interest to the measure, broke out, in some in- 
 stances, into a desire of its defeat. Yet under all these 
 disadvantages, which can never occur here, because eman- 
 cipation here must be a free gift, the prospects of a suc- 
 cessful issue are brighter than had dawned on any but the 
 most ardent spirits. The failure of such an experiment 
 would not have discouraged me. What ought not to be 
 hoped from its success .'' 
 
 Mr. Clay seems particularly to dread immediate emanci- 
 pation. But this, in the common acceptation of the words, 
 is not the only way of giving freedom. Let the wisdom of 
 the South engage in this cause heartily, and in good faith, 
 and it is reasonable to expect, that means of a safe tran- 
 sition to freedom, not dreamed of now, would he devised. 
 This work we have no desire to take out of the master's 
 hands, nor would we thrust on him our plans for adoption. 
 I indeed think, that emancipation, in one sense of the 
 phrase, should be immediate ; that is, the right of property 
 in a human being should be immediately disclaimed. But 
 though private ownership should cease, the State would 
 be authorized and bound to provide for its own safety. 
 The legislature may place the colored race under guardian- 
 ship, may impose such restraints as the public order shall 
 require, and may postpone the full enjoyment of personal 
 liberty even to the next generation. There was a time, 
 when these safeguards seemed to me needful. Happily 
 the West Indies are teaching, and, I trust, will continue 
 to teach, that immediate emancipation, in the full sense of 
 the words, is safer than a gradual loosening of the chain. 
 
51 
 
 Let me close this head with one remark. Allow what 
 is not true ; allow emancipation to be dangerous. Will 
 it be safer hereafter, than at the present moment ? Will 
 it be safer when the slaves shall have doubled, trebled, or 
 still more increased } And must it not at length come ? 
 Can any man, who considers the chances of war, and the 
 direction which opinion is taking in the civilized world, 
 believe, that slavery is to be perpetual ? Is it wise to 
 wink out of sight a continually increasing peril ? At this 
 moment, what possible danger is to be feared from eman- 
 cipation in the northern slave States ? Does not every 
 Kentuckian knotv, that slavery can be ended now, without 
 the slightest hazard to social order .'* Does not the whole 
 danger, as to that State, lie in delay ? How, then, can 
 danger be an excuse for refusing emancipation ? 
 
 Having thus reviewed the common objections to eman- 
 cipation, I pass to one more topic, which is referred to in 
 Mr. Clay's speech, and which is the burden of many pas- 
 sionate appeals from the South. I have in view the objec- 
 tions, which are made to the agitation of the question of 
 slavery at the North. These are chiefly two, that such 
 discussion may excite insurrection among the slaves ; and, 
 that it threatens to dissolve the Union. 
 
 In regard to the first, the danger of insurrection, I have 
 shown how I view it by continuing to write on the subject 
 of slavery. Could I discover even a slight ground for 
 apprehending such a result, I would not write. Nothing 
 would tempt me to take the hazard of stirring up a ser- 
 vile war. Bad as slavery is, massacre is far worse. 
 In the present case, words of truth and good will are the 
 only weapons for a Christian to fight with. A mysterious 
 and adorable providence permits and controls massacre, 
 war, and the rage of savage men, for the subversion of 
 corrupt institutions, just as it purifies the tainted atmos- 
 
52 
 
 phere by storms and lightnings. But man is not trusted 
 with these awful powers ; and let not philanthropy be dis- 
 heartened, because not permitted to reform the world by 
 the sudden processes of violence and bloodshed. Moral 
 influences are the surest and most enduring, and good 
 men part with their strength in resorting to other means. 
 
 I have known too much of slavery, of the spirit of its 
 victims, of the restraints under which they live, and of the 
 master's power, to dread the stirring up of insurrections. 
 On this point, persons, who have not visited slave countries 
 fall into great errors. Not long ago, a speech was made 
 in Boston, in which the slaves were compared to wild 
 beasts, thirsting for blood ; and the good people were told, 
 that the master locks his doors at night, not knowing, but 
 that in the morning he shall find the throats of wife and 
 children cut from ear to ear ; and there were found among 
 us some, who, in the simplicity of their hearts, believed 
 the tale. One would have thought, that, in hearing the 
 fearful story, they would have asked themselves, how it 
 happens, that our Southern brethren give five hundred or 
 a thousand dollars for one of these beasts of prey ; how it 
 is, that they are anxious to fill their houses and planta- 
 tions, and surround their wives and children with assassins. 
 Human nature, if this account be true, is a different thing 
 at the South from what it is at the North. Here we should 
 go mad, and should lose life as well as reason, if the mur- 
 derous blade were glaring before our eyes night and day ; 
 and still more, we should be most grateful to our neigh- 
 bours, who should be anxious to free us from the curse, 
 instead of rejecting their "meddling interference" with 
 threats and execrations. But among the hearers of the 
 speech referred to, there seemed not a few, to whom these 
 difficulties did not recur. They even forgot to inquire, 
 how the fearful account was to be reconciled with the 
 assurances from the South of the happiness of the slave 
 
53 
 
 and the blessings of the institution ; and, in their sympathy 
 with the South, they frowned fiercely enough on such of 
 us, as, by our writings, are stirring up the colored race 
 to murder. To tranquillize these compassionate people, 
 I will tell them, that the picture, which terrified them, was 
 a work of fancy. There is no such terror in slaveholding 
 countries. In my long residences among slaves, I have used 
 fewer precautions at night than in this good city. I have 
 slept in one place with open doors, and in another have given 
 to a slave the key to lock the house at the hour of retiring 
 and to reopen it in the morning, when I have been the sole 
 tenant of the dwelling. Undoubtedly the slaveholder wears 
 arms, just as we bolt our doors and appoint patrols of watch- 
 men in the streets; but in both cases, these and other means 
 of defence bring such security, that sleep is undisturbed by 
 fear. The slaves, broken from birth to submission, brought 
 up in ignorance, confined to the plantation, having no means 
 of external concert, wanting mutual confidence, because 
 wanting principle, and separated by the distinction of house 
 servants and field laborers, cower before their instructed, 
 armed, united, organized masters, and feel resistance to 
 be vain. Add to this the strong attachment, by which some 
 on almost every estate are bound to their owners, stronger 
 than what they bear to their own race ; and we shall see, 
 that the danger of a servile war is not great enough to 
 embitter life, or deserve much sympathy. 
 
 Rome had servile wars ; but her slaves had been free- 
 men. Among them were fierce barbarians, whose native 
 wildernesses had infused an indomitable love of liberty ; 
 and there were civilized men, who groaned in spirit and 
 gnashed their teeth at the degrading, intolerable yoke, 
 which was crushing them. But in this country there are 
 no materials for servile war, at least in times of peace. 
 In war, indeed, whether civil or foreign, an army march- 
 ing with " Emancipation " on its banner might stir up the 
 5* 
 
54 
 
 palsied spirit of the oppressed to terrible retribution for 
 their wrongs. But very little is to be feared in ordinary 
 times. Were the slave more dangerous, I should feel less 
 for his yoke. Were a greater portion of the spirit of a 
 man left him, I should not think him so wronged. But 
 what is to be feared from a man, who stands by and sees 
 wite and child lacerated without cause, and is driven by 
 no impulse to interpose for their defence. The strongest 
 sensibilities of nature cannot sting him, to do for his child 
 what the hen does for her chicken, or the trembling hare 
 for her young. 
 
 The slave, as far as I have known him, is not a being to 
 be feared. The iron has eaten into his soul, and this is 
 worse than eating into the flesh. The tidings, that there 
 are people here who would set him free, will do little harm. 
 He withstands a far greater temptation than this ; I mean, 
 the presence of the free negro. One would think, that 
 the sight of his own race enjoying liberty, would, if any 
 thing, stir him up to the assertion of his rights ; but it fails. 
 Liberty is a word, not indeed to be heard without awaken- 
 ing desire ; but it rouses no resistance. The coloniza- 
 tionist holds out to the slaves an elysium, where they are 
 to be free, and rich, and happy, and a great people ; thus 
 teaching them, that there is nothing in their nature, which 
 forbids them the enjoyment of all human rights ; and the 
 master, so far from dreading the doctrines of this society, 
 will become its President. No. Slavery has done its 
 work ; has broken the spirit. So little is the slave in- 
 clined to violence, that it is affirmed, and I presume truly, 
 that there are fewer murders by their hands, than by an 
 equal number of white men at the North. We hear, in- 
 deed, of atrocious deeds, assassinations, bloody combats at 
 the South. But these are the deeds of white men. Pistols 
 and Bowie knives are not worn by the colored race. 
 Slavery produces horrible, multiplied murders at the South, 
 
55 
 
 not by infusing rage, revenge into the man who bears the 
 yoke, but by nursing proud, unforgiving, bloodthirsty pro- 
 pensities in the master. 
 
 Undoubtedly there are exposures to massacre in slave 
 countries, as there are to mobs, partial insurrections in all 
 countries. But outbreaks at the South will be found, per- 
 haps always, to have their cause in local circumstances, 
 not in influences from abroad. I do not say, that there 
 is no danger in slavery. Systems founded in wrong want 
 stability, and are every day growing more and more in- 
 secure, with the progress of intelligence and moral senti- 
 ment in the world. Unexpected explosions may take place 
 at the South. Secret causes may be at work on the spirit 
 of the slave. Foreign invasion would be a death-blow to 
 the system. I mean only to say, that there is no danger 
 from the discussion of slavery at the North, or only that 
 indirect, distant danger, which we are always encoun- 
 tering, and which no man thinks of flying from, in human 
 affairs. The stormiest day of abolitionism has passed, and 
 yet not a symptom of insurrection has appeared at the 
 South. It is morally impossible, that there should be 
 danger in the calmer days which are to follow. 
 
 I now proceed to the second objection to the agitation 
 of slavery at the North. We are told, that the Union will 
 be thus endangered. "Danger to the Union " is so old 
 a cry, that it ceases to startle you or myself; and yet so 
 much sensitiveness to it remains, that the topic ought not 
 to be lightly dismissed. And I begin with saying, that 
 were the Union as weak as these clamors suppose, were 
 it capable of being dissolved by any of the hundred causes, 
 which are said to threaten it, then it would not be worth 
 the keeping. The bonds, which hold a nation together, 
 if not exceedingly strong, are of no use. They will snap 
 in the hour of need. But our Union is not so weak, as 
 our alarmists imagine. It has stood many storms, and will 
 
56 
 
 stand many more. It is not, as many think, a creature of 
 a day. Its foundations were laid at the first settlement 
 of these States, and their whole history was silently pre- 
 paring them to become one great people. There is not a 
 community on earth, which has so distinct a conviction of 
 the blessings of national union, and of the evils of separa- 
 tion, as this country ; and, in the present age of the world, 
 such a conviction may avail almost or quite as much as 
 the traditional prejudices and habits of other nations. 
 Then our Union does not rest only on the clear percep- 
 tion of the good it confers. It rests on sentiment as well 
 as interest, and on a higher sentiment than binds any 
 other people. We are charged, I know, with being given 
 to boasting ; but this reproach must not deter me from 
 speaking of the deep foundation of our Union in the claims 
 of our country on our love and reverence. No other peo- 
 ple can look back to such founders as we. No other peo- 
 ple has done as much in an equal time for civilization and 
 freedom. Two hundred years have hardly passed over us, 
 and we have redeemed from savage wildness a realm, com- 
 pared with which European kingdoms are dwarfed into 
 provinces ; and, through every period of our history, we 
 have been pressing forwards to an equality of rights and 
 a freedom of institutions, nowhere else known in past or 
 present times. The deliberate construction of a civil 
 polity, in which the idea of liberty is realized to a degree 
 not dreamed of in other countries, is one of the grandest 
 achievements of history. Other governments, the crea- 
 tures of chance, and obstructed by abuses of barbarous 
 times, bear no such testimony to the energy and elevation 
 of the public mind. Through this clear, bright, practical 
 developement of the principle of liberty, these United States, 
 an infant country, growing up in a distant wilderness, have 
 moved and quickened the civiHzed world. This country 
 has been called by Providence to a twofold work, to spread 
 
57 
 
 civilization over a new continent, and to give a new im- 
 pulse to the cause of human rights and freedom. A higher 
 destiny has been granted to no people ; and, with all our 
 imperfections, (exceedingly great I acknowledge,) we have 
 accomplished our task with a force of thought and will 
 unsurpassed in human history. Add to this,, that we have 
 produced what no other country can boast of, a spotless 
 revolutionary leader, a chief, who, in a season of storm and 
 civil strife, amidst unbounded popularity, amidst the tempta- 
 tions of severe hardship and of brilliant success, never, in a 
 single instance, grasped at power, forgot his duty to his 
 country, or wavered in his loyalty to freedom. In one 
 form of greatness, we feel ourselves unrivalled. The an- 
 nals of no people furnish a patriot and friend of liberty, so 
 pure, so disinterested as Washington. That a people hav- 
 ing such a history, should be bound by sentiment to the 
 national Union, is a necessary result of the laws of human 
 nature ; and accordingly, the people, as far as I know 
 them, are, on this point, of one heart and one mind. 
 
 But, besides this generous sentiment, we have character- 
 istic feelings, as a people, which bind us together. One 
 of our national passions is pride in a vast extent of territory. 
 From the circumstance of our history and location, we are 
 accustomed to think and talk of immense regions, and to 
 scour remote tracts of sea and land ; and we should ex- 
 perience a sense of confinement in the boundaries which 
 satisfy other states. An American has a passion for be- 
 longing to a great country. A witty foreigner observed 
 of the city of Washington, that it had one merit if no 
 other ; it was a city of " magnificent distances." For this 
 kind of magnificence our people have a decided taste. 
 We look with something like scorn on the kingdoms of the 
 old world ; and our mother country seems to us but a 
 speck on the ocean. We travel a distance equal to the 
 whole length of Great Britain in two days or less, and feel 
 
58 
 
 as if we had but begun our journey. Our great men desire 
 to connect their names with this vast country ; and humble 
 individuals, whether wisely or not, derive from it a feeling 
 of importance. The poor man, in voting, feels that he is 
 exercising, in part, the sovereignty of an immense realm. 
 There is more of the imagination, than of the heart, in the 
 sentiment now unfolded, but it is real, and it is no frail 
 bond of national union. 
 
 Another cause of Union may appear to foreigners less 
 serious than it really is. We hold together, because we 
 know not where to break off. Neighbouring States are 
 too much allied in feelings and interests and domestic bonds 
 for separation, and no State is willing to occupy the position 
 of a frontier. 
 
 Our union is every day gaining strength by the increased 
 facilities of intercourse, which place distant parts of the 
 country side by side, and are interweaving almost as 
 closely the interests and affections of remote States, as of 
 those which border on each other. The subtile steam, 
 made up of mutually repelling particles, and melting in 
 a moment into air, has become to this country a cord 
 stronger than adamant. Providence seems to intend to 
 give us the physical means of binding together a wider re- 
 gion, than was ever before blessed with one beneficent 
 sway. 
 
 It also deserves attention, that the cause, which has 
 hitherto chiefly disturbed our Union, is diminishing, if it 
 has not passed away. I refer to the disposition of the 
 national legislature to interfere with local interests, or to 
 extend itself beyond the bounds of strict necessity ; thus 
 awakening the jealousy of different sections, and giving 
 them the notion of separate interests. This disposition is 
 yielding, not only to the resistance of different States, but 
 to an impossibility of its exercise founded on the nature of 
 free institutions. Under these, government is a slowly 
 
69 
 
 moving machine. Its wheels seem to be clogged more and 
 more. Diversities of interests, collisions of passion, party- 
 spirit, and endless varieties of opinion, throw almost insu- 
 perable obstacles in the way of legislation. Congress, 
 after a long session, separates, having hardly passed laws 
 enough to keep the government in operation. All free 
 States, at home and abroad, feel this difficulty ; and, evil 
 as it seems, it has no small advantages. It abates that 
 worse nuisance, excess of legislation. By this cause, 
 Congress is compelled to keep itself within its bounds ; 
 for in these it finds more work than it can do. The gov- 
 ernment must be in reality, what it is in name. General, 
 and must be as simple as consists with public safety ; and, 
 thus qualified, why may it not hold together a mighty 
 realm ? 
 
 Foreigners expect disunion from the extent of our ter- 
 ritory, but in this we see safety, as well as danger ; for 
 it not only flatters, as we have seen, the national pride, 
 but multiplies the bonds of mutual interest, renders free 
 exchange of productions and friendly intercourse vastly 
 more profitable, and, at the same time, checks that des- 
 potic power of party leaders, those simultaneous excite- 
 ments, those passionate movements, that concentration of 
 all the energies and feelings of the people on a single point 
 of controversy, by which free States of narrower dimen- 
 sions are convulsed. 
 
 From these remarks it will be seen, that I partake little 
 of the nervous sensitiveness of a portion of the people, on 
 the subject of the Union. Undoubtedly, it is exposed to 
 perils, which may turn these hopes and prophecies into illu- 
 sions. The experience of life teaches us to be prepared for 
 the worst. Our present prosperity seems too unparalleled to 
 endure. But loose, vague fears, ought not to disturb us; nor 
 should they be propagated, because they often bcrve to fulfil 
 themselves. The truth is, that we are a people singularly 
 
60 
 
 given to alarm, and very much on the ground, on which the 
 rich fear most about property. The greatness of our 
 blessings makes us timid. As far as my knowledge of this 
 community extends, the Union is most dear. It may be 
 said of this, as of other social ties, that its strength cannot 
 be fully known, till we are seriously called to dissolve it. 
 
 But, it is said, the South is passionate, and threatens to 
 secede, if we agitate this subject of slavery. Is this no 
 cause of alarm .'' To this argument I would offer two an- 
 swers. First, the South, passionate as it may be, is not 
 insane. Does not the South know, that, in abandoning us 
 on the ground of slavery, it would take the surest step 
 towards converting the free States to intense and over- 
 whelming abolitionism ? Would not slavery become from 
 that moment the grand distinctive idea of the Southern 
 Republic ? And would not its Northern rival, by instinct 
 and necessity, found itself on the antagonist principle ? In 
 such an event, there would be no need of anti-slavery 
 societies, of abolition agitations, to convert the North. 
 The blow that would sever the Union for this cause, would 
 produce an instantaneous explosion to shake the whole 
 land. The moral sentiment against slavery, now kept down 
 by the interests and duties which grow out of union, would 
 burst its fetters, and be reinforced by the whole strength of 
 the patriotic principle, as well as by all the prejudices and 
 local passions which would follow disunion. Does not the 
 South see that our exemption from the taint of slavery, 
 would, in this case, become our main boast .'* That we 
 should cast the reproach of this institution into her teeth, 
 in very different language from what is now used ? That 
 what is now tolerated in sister States, would be intensely 
 hated in separate, rival communities ? Let disunion on this 
 ground take place, and then the North may become truly 
 dangerous to the South. Then, real incendiaries, very 
 different from those who now bear the name, might spring 
 
61 
 
 up among us. Then, fanaticism would borrow force and 
 protection from national feeling. Then, in the unfriendly 
 relations between the two communities, which would soon 
 be created, and in the self-regarding policy which we 
 should adopt, we should take into account the weakness 
 which a servile population would bring on our adversaries. 
 We should feel, that we have an ally in our rival's bosom, 
 nor would that ally forget to look Northward for liberation. 
 I say the South is not insane. Nothing but a palpable 
 necessity could induce it to break off from the free States 
 on the ground of slavery. 
 
 This leads me to observe in the next place, that there is, 
 and can be, no kind of necessity or warrant for separation 
 furnished to the South, by the discussion of slavery at the 
 North. This topic will indeed be agitated, and more and 
 more freely ; but no discussion, no agitation of slavery, no 
 form of abolition, can produce such an excitement on the 
 subject in the free States, as will furnish the slave States 
 with any motive to encounter the terrible evils of separa- 
 tion. This subject deserves some consideration. Aboli- 
 tionism may be viewed in two lights ; first, as the organized 
 array of societies against slavery ; and next, as an individ- 
 ual sentiment, scattered through the whole population. In 
 neither view, can it drive the South to disunion, at least for 
 a long time to come. Regarded as an organized body, 
 Abolitionism will subsist and will influence opinion, but it 
 will never gain an ascendency in the free States. On this 
 point my mind has never wavered. It nowhere carries 
 with it the mass of the people, or the weight of opinion. 
 It has brought no religious or political body under its influ- 
 ence. Fashion, wealth, sectarian prejudice, and political 
 ambition, are, for the most part, opposed to it. That the 
 South should be driven by it to desperation, is impossible. 
 Many of the obstacles to the ascendency of this first form 
 of Abolitionism will naturally be presented in my views of 
 6 
 
62 
 
 the second. I will here only observe, that, with the intelli- 
 gence and state of feeling prevalent at the North, public 
 opinion cannot be determined by associations, especially by 
 one which takes Agitation for its motto. Agitation may be 
 useful, in producing a speedy movement in favor of an 
 object of clear utility, and about which opinions do not 
 greatly differ. For example, in the case of Temperance, 
 where men are generally of one mind, where opinion is 
 fixed, where excitement is the great object to be accom- 
 plished, where men are to be roused to resist habits which 
 they know to be wrong ; in such a case, an array of num- 
 bers, a system of pledges, and multiplied public meetings, 
 may do good. But, on a subject involving many practical 
 difficulties and solemn consequences, and coming, as many 
 think, into collision with great public interests, agitation 
 will not now avail. Men distrust it, fear it, and resent as a 
 wrong, the violence with which the opinions of zealous men 
 are forced on the community. Agitation may carry such a 
 country as Ireland, where the people, besides being igno- 
 rant, are all inflamed with one sense of wrong, and every 
 heart responds to the Agitator's cry. So it carried the 
 British act of Emancipation, for the nation was ripe for 
 action, and, for the most part, had no hostile prejudices to 
 surrender. But an intelligent people, divided in opinion 
 and feeling on a great subject, cannot be carried by storm, 
 or be swept away by a fervent association. The ardent ad- 
 vocates, even of a good cause, if marshalled into an army, 
 and joined in vehement onset on the prejudices of such a 
 community, cannot but awaken re-action and obstinate 
 repulsion ; and will, too often, put themselves in the wrong 
 by passionate movements, of which the foe is sure to profit. 
 I now speak of associated agitation. Let the individual 
 enthusiast, who acts from his own soul, agitate as much as 
 he will. I would not say a word to stifle the full, bursting 
 heart. But premeditated, organized agitation, is another 
 
63 
 
 thing. Besides the difficulty already stated, it is apt to 
 degenerate into noise and show, and to fall under suspicion 
 of pretence, and, on this account, is less fofgiven for what 
 is deemed excess. I see, therefore, very serious obstacles 
 to the triumphs of organized Abolitionism in a community 
 like ours. It has, indeed, done good. Under all its disad- 
 vantages, it has roused many minds, but it cannot carry 
 with it the people. 
 
 As to Abolitionism in its more general form, or regarded 
 as an individual principle of settled, earnest opposition to 
 slavery, this has taken deep root, and must grow and tri- 
 umph. It is in harmony with our institutions, and with all 
 the tendencies of modern civilization. It triumphs in 
 Europe, and will flow in upon us from abroad more and 
 more freely, in consequence of those improvements of in- 
 tercourse which place Europe almost at our door. Still, it 
 is far from being universal among us. There are obstacles 
 as well as aids to its progress, in consequence of which, it 
 is to make its way calmly, gradually, so that there is no 
 possibility of any violent action from the freest discussion 
 of slavery. There is no danger of an anti-slavery fever 
 here, which will justify the South to itself in encountering 
 the infinite hazards of disunion. 
 
 The prevalent state of feeling in the free States in regard 
 to slavery is, indifference ; an indifference strengthened by 
 the notion of great difficulties attending the subject. The 
 fact is painful, but the truth should be spoken. The majority 
 of the people, even yet, care little about the matter. A 
 painful proof of this insensibility was furnished about a year 
 and a half ago, when the Eno-lish West Indies were eman- 
 cipated. An event surpassing this in moral grandeur, is 
 not recorded in history. In one day, half a million, proba- 
 bly seven hundred thousand of human beings, were res- 
 cued from bondage, to full, unqualified freedom. The 
 consciousness of wrongs, in so many breasts, was ex- 
 
64 
 
 changed into rapturous, grateful joy. What shouts of 
 thanksgiving broke forth from those Uberated crowds ! 
 What new sanctity and strength were added to the domestic 
 ties ! What new hopes opened on future generations ! 
 The crowning glory of this day was the fact, that the work 
 of emancipation was wholly due to the principles of Chris- 
 tianity. The West Indies were freed, not by force, or 
 human policy, but by the reverence of a great people for 
 justice and humanity. The men, who began and carried 
 on this cause, were Christian philanthropists ; and they 
 prevailed by spreading their own spirit through, a nation. 
 In this respect, the emancipation of the West Indies was a 
 grander work than the redemption of the Israelites from 
 bondage. This was accomplished by force, by outward 
 miracles, by the violence of the elements. That was 
 achieved by love, by moral power, by God, working not in 
 the stormy seas, but in the depths of the human heart. 
 And how was this day of Emancipation, one of the most 
 blessed days which ever dawned on the earth, received in 
 this country ? Whilst in distant England a thrill of grati- 
 tude and joy pervaded thousands and millions, we, the 
 neighbours of the West Indies, and who boast of our love 
 of liberty, saw the sun of that day rise and set, with hardly 
 a thought of the scenes on which it was pouring its joyful 
 light. The greatest part of our newspapers did not refer to 
 the event. The great majority of the people had forgotten 
 it. Such was the testimony we gave to our concern for the 
 poor slave ; and is it from discussions of slavery among 
 such a people that the country is to be overturned ? 
 
 It will undoubtedly be said, that our uncertainty as to 
 the issues of West Indian Emancipation, prevented our 
 rejoicing in it. But does uncertainty so act, where the 
 heart is deeply moved ? Is it a part of human nature to 
 wait for assurance, before it exults at events, in which its 
 affections are involved ? Does the new-born child receive 
 
65 
 
 no welcome, because we are not sure of the prosperity of 
 his future years ? Does the lover of freedom give no salu- 
 tation, no benediction, to a people rising in defence of 
 rights, or establishing free institutions, because the experi- 
 ment of liberty may fail ? Undoubtedly there were evils to 
 be apprehended from West Indian emancipation ; for when 
 was a great social revolution ever accomplished, or a 
 great abuse ever removed, without them ? It was impossible 
 for the slave and the master to change their old relations, 
 to reorganize society, without continuing to feel more or 
 less the influences of the old system of oppression. Are 
 the wounds of ages to be healed in a moment ? Could a 
 perfect social order be expected to rise from the ruins of 
 slavery ? But must corrupt systems be made perpetual, 
 because of the chances of reform ? In the case of the West 
 India emancipation, we had more pledges of success than 
 are usually given. We knew that the trial of liberty had 
 been made in Antigua, without the occurrence of any of 
 the evils which had been dreaded. The great transition from 
 slavery to freedom had taken place in a day without dis- 
 order, without the slightest injury to property or life, with 
 no excitement but overwhelming gratitude. Yet, as a 
 people, we cared nothing for the liberation of the West 
 Indian slave. With the exception of a few voices, the 
 mighty chorus of praise to God, which ascended from the 
 Gulf of Mexico and from Great Britian, found no response 
 here. 
 
 This indifference to slavery has foundations among us, 
 which are not to be removed in a day. One cause is to be 
 found in the all-devouring passion for gain, accumulation, 
 which leaves little leisure for sympathy with any suffering 
 which does not meet our eye, and which will listen to no 
 innovations, by which the old channels of trade and profit 
 may be obstructed. Another cause is to be found in the 
 sympathies of what are called the higher and more refined 
 6* 
 
66 
 
 classes here, with the like classes at the South. The tide 
 of fashion, no unimportant influence even in a republic, 
 sets strongly against anti- slavery efforts. Another cause 
 is, our position in regard to the colored race. In Europe, 
 the negro is known chiefly by report, and is, therefore, 
 easily recognised as a man. His humanity is never ques- 
 tioned. Still more, he is an object for the imagination and 
 the heart. He is known only as a wronged, suffering man. 
 He is almost a picturesque being. Thousands and thou- 
 sands in England, at the mention of the African slave, 
 immediately recall to their minds the most affecting figure 
 of the negro, as Darwin portrayed him, touching the earth 
 with one knee, hfting up his chained hands, and exclaiming, 
 '' Am I not a man and a brother ? " To us, the negro is 
 no creature of imagination. We see him as he is. There 
 is nothing picturesque in his lot. On visiting the slave 
 States, we see him practically ranked with inferior crea- 
 tures, and taking the rank submissively. We hear from 
 him shouts of boisterous laughter, much oftener than sighs 
 or groans ; and this laughter repels compassion, whilst it 
 inspires something like contempt. We here have a hard 
 task to perform. We have to conquer old and deep prej- 
 udices, and to see a true man in one, with whom we have 
 associated ideas of degradation inconsistent with humanity. 
 These are painful truths ; but it is good to know the truth. 
 One thing is plain, that free discussion of slavery is not 
 likely to stir up in the free States, rash, careless assaults 
 on the institutions of the South, and so to endanger the 
 Union. We who are called incendiaries, because we dis- 
 cuss this subject, do not kindle our fires among dry woods, 
 but too often on fields of ice. A consuming conflagration 
 is not to be feared. 
 
 I have now considered the objections to the free discus- 
 sion of slavery at the North. This discussion is safe ; still 
 more, it is a duty, and must go on ; and, under this and 
 
67 
 
 other influences, the anti-slavery spirit must spread and 
 must prevail. Mr. Clay's speech will but aid the move- 
 ment. The anti-slavery spirit may triumph slowly, but 
 triumph it must and will. It may be thought, that, from 
 my own showing, the success of this cause is not so sure 
 as its friends are accustomed to boast. But, notwithstand- 
 ing all the obstacles which 1 have frankly stated, anti- 
 slavery principles have made great progress, have become 
 deep convictions in many souls, within a few years ; and 
 the impulse, far from being spent, continually gains 
 strength. There are those who hope that the present 
 movement is a temporary fanaticism. We are even told, 
 that a distinguished Senator from the South, on the close 
 of Mr. Clay's speech, repaid this effort for slavery with 
 unbounded applause, and declared, that " Abolitionism was 
 now down." But such men have not studied our times. 
 Strange, that in an age, when great principles are stirring 
 the human soul, and when the mass of men, who have 
 hitherto slept, are waking up to thought, it should be im- 
 agined, that an individual, a name, a breath, can arrest the 
 grand forward movements of society. When will states- 
 men learn, that there are higher powers than political 
 mo^ves, interests, and intrigues ? When will they learn 
 the might which dwells in truth ? When will they learn, 
 that the great moral and religious Ideas, which have now 
 seized on and are working in men's souls, are the most 
 efficient, durable forces, which are acting in the world ? 
 When will they learn, that the past and present are not the 
 future, but that the changes already wrought in society, are 
 only forerunners, signs, and springs of mightier revolutions. 
 Politicians, absorbed in near objects, are prophets only on 
 a small scale. They may foretell the issues of the next 
 election, though even here they are often baffled ; but the 
 breaking out of a deep moral conviction in the mass of 
 men, is a mystery which they have little skill to interpret. 
 
68 
 
 The future of this country is to take its shape, not from 
 the growing of cotton at the South, not from the struggles 
 of parties or leaders for power or station ; but from the 
 great principles which are unfolding themselves silently, in 
 men's breasts. There is here, and through the civilized 
 world, a steady current of thought and feeling in one 
 direction. The old notion of the subjection of the many, 
 for the comfort, ease, pleasure, and pride of the few, is fast 
 wearing away. A far higher, and more rational conception 
 of freedom, than entered into the loftiest speculations of 
 ancient times, is spreading itself, and is changing the face 
 of society. " Equality before the laws," has become the 
 watchword of all civilized states. The absolute worth of a 
 human being is better understood, that is, his worth as an 
 individual, or on his own account, and not merely as a useful 
 tool to others. Christianity is more and more seen to attach 
 a sacredness and unspeakable dignity to every man, because 
 each man is immortal. Such is the current of human thought. 
 Principles of a higher order are beginning to operate on so- 
 ciety, and the dawn of these primal, everlasting lights, is a 
 sure omen of a brighter day. This is the true sign of the 
 coming ages. Politicians, seizing on the narrow, selfish 
 principles of human nature, expect these to rule for ^er. 
 They hope, by their own machinery, to determine the move- 
 ments of the world. But if history teaches any lesson, it is 
 the impotence of statesmen ; and, happily, this impotence is 
 increasing every day, with the spread of lights and moral 
 force among the people. Would politicians study history 
 with more care, they might learn, even from the dark times 
 which are past, that interest is not, after all, the mightiest 
 agent in human affairs ; that the course of human events 
 has been more determined, on the whole, by great princi- 
 ples, by great emotions, by feeling, by enthusiasm, than by 
 selfish calculations, or by selfish men. In the great con- 
 flict between the Oriental and the Western World, which 
 
69 
 
 was decided at Thermopylae and Marathon; in the last great 
 conflict between Polytheism and Theism, begun by Jesus 
 Christ, and carried on by his followers ; in the Reformation 
 of Luther ; in the American Revolution ; in these grandest 
 epochs of history, what was it which won the victory ? 
 What were the mighty, all-prevailing powers ? Not politi- 
 cal management, not self-interest, not the lower principles 
 of human nature ; but the principles of freedom and reli- 
 gion, moral power, moral enthusiasm, the divine aspirations 
 of the human soul. Great thoughts and great emotions 
 have a place in human history, which no historian has hith- 
 erto given them, and the future is to be more determined 
 by these, than the past. The anti-slavery spirit is not then 
 to die under the breath of an orator. As easily might that 
 breath blow out the sun. 
 
 Slavery must fall, because it stands in direct hostility to 
 all the grand movements, principles, and reforms of our 
 age, because it stands in the way of an advancing world. 
 One great idea stands out amidst the discoveries and 
 improvements of modern times. It is, that man is not 
 to exercise arbitrary, irresponsible power, over man. To 
 restrain power, to divide and balance it, to create responsi- 
 bility for its just use, to secure the individual against its 
 abuse, to substitute law for private will, to shield the weak 
 from the strong, to give to the injured the means of redress, 
 to set a fence round every man's property and rights, in a 
 word, to secure liberty, — such, under various expressions, 
 is the great object on which philosophers, patriots, philan- 
 thropists, have long fixed their thoughts and hopes. It is 
 remarkable, and one of the happy omens of the times, that 
 even absolute governments have reached, in a measure, this 
 grand Idea. They present themselves as the guardians of 
 liberty. They profess their desire and purpose to sustain 
 equal laws, under which all men, from the highest to the 
 lowest, shall find eflJectual protection for their rights. The 
 
70 
 
 distinguished Prussian historian, Raumer, in his letters on 
 England, maintains, that his own government, which for- 
 eigners call despotic, does not rest on private will, and that 
 it ensures, on the whole, greater freedom to the subject, than 
 the British people can boast. Thus despotism does hom- 
 age to the great ideas and spirit of our times ; and yet in 
 the midst of this progress, in the face of this universal rev- 
 erence for human rights, the slaveholder stands apart, and 
 sets up his claim to ownership of his fellow-creatures, and 
 insists on arbitrary, irresponsible rule, and makes his will 
 a law, and enforces it by degrading punishments. And 
 can this power stand ? Is it able to resist the moral power 
 of the world .'' Can it withstand a higher power, that of 
 Eternal Justice, before which all worlds bow, and to which 
 the highest orders of beings must give account ? 
 
 I have now finished my remarks on the topics sug- 
 gested by Mr. Clay's speech. I began them with stating, 
 that I should avoid, as much as possible, all personalities ; 
 and I have aimed throughout to look only at the system, 
 not at individuals. I am aware, however, that some of 
 my remarks must seem to have a very unfavorable bearing 
 on the slaveholder ; for how can the evils and crimes of 
 a system be held up, without implicating more or less those 
 who sustain it ? To prevent then all misapprehension, I 
 wish to say, that whilst I think slaveholders in general 
 highly culpable for upholding a system of wrong, which has 
 been so plainly exposed, I do not regard slaveholding as a 
 proof of the necessary absence of moral and religious prin- 
 ciple. Our nature is strangely inconsistent, and experience 
 continually teaches us, that faults and sins, on which the 
 eye of conscience has not been distinctly turned, may con- 
 sist with real virtue. A man, living in a community, all of 
 whose members join in passionate support of an evil insti- 
 tution, must have an energy of thought, a moral force, 
 a moral independence which few can boast, in order to see 
 
71 
 
 and resist and renounce the wrong. No moral trial on earth 
 is perhaps so overpowering. The light, which prevails in 
 other regions, enters most slowly this compact, dense mass 
 of moral error. I cannot forget this in judging the slave- 
 holder. I remember, too, that he is not merely a slave- 
 holder. He sustains the natural, innocent, purifying rela- 
 tions of domestic life, of private friendship, of country, and 
 of Christian worship, and in these he may be exemplary ; 
 in these, there are woman at the South eminently faithful. 
 I know it is said, that in these acknowledgments I weaken 
 my testimony against slavery ; but truth is dearer than poli- 
 cy. I cannot hold it back. Could I liberate all the slaves, 
 by misrepresenting the slaveholder, I would not do it. The 
 primary work of a man is, not to liberate slaves, but to be 
 just, to render to all their due, to do what is right, be the 
 cost what it may ; and all benevolent enterprises, which 
 have not their origin and rule in this sovereign principle of 
 duty, are "splendid sins." The slaveholders commit a 
 great wrong, many without consciousness of the wrong, 
 and many with entire indifference to the moral character of 
 slaveholding. And in all this they resemble other societies 
 of men here and abroad. There is much unconscious 
 wrong doing, and, still more, much conscious sacrifice of 
 right to interest, all the world over. This should not pre- 
 vent rebuke of other communities ; but should check in- 
 vidious comparison, and the spirit of self-exaltation. We 
 of the North have reason and are bound to condemn the 
 enormous wrongs practised at the South ; but have we a 
 right to boast of ourselves as better than our neighbours ? 
 Is not the selfish spirit of gain, which is blinding muUitudes 
 at the South to the injustice of slavery, very rife here ? 
 Were this institution rooted here, should we not cling as a 
 people to it, as obstinately as others ? Are none of us now 
 reconciled to it by the profits it aflfbrds them ? England 
 reproaches our slavery, and she cannot do it too solemnly. 
 
72 
 
 But has England a right to boast over the slaveholder ? 
 Who can fathom the depths of guilt and woe in that rich, 
 prosperous island ? Is there another spot on earth, in which 
 so many crimes and agonies are accumulated, as in I*on- 
 don ? Where else on earth is so shocking a contrast to be 
 seen of boundless luxury, and unutterable wretchedness ? 
 What a work has philanthropy to do for the ignorant, in- 
 temperate, half-famished crowds of Ireland and Great 
 Britain ! Her nobles and merchants, indeed, scatter their 
 thousands and ten thousands among the poor. But do they 
 retrench one indulgence or one ostentatious display, or 
 resolutely meet the great question, how the terrible evils 
 which weigh down and threaten society are to be substan- 
 tially redressed ? I say not these things in the spirit of 
 retaliation towards England. I ask from her just indignant 
 remonstrance against our wrong doing. But I would show, 
 that, in assailing slavery, I am not blind to all other evils, 
 that I mean not to set apart the slaveholder as alone de- 
 serving rebuke, and that I acknowledge the justice of 
 many of his reproofs of these free States and of Europe. 
 God alone knows the chief offender. The slaveholder in- 
 deed is chargeable with the peculiar guilt of ordaining, 
 and upholding with set purpose, a system of enormous 
 injustice Slavery is a creature of human will and choice, 
 and at the same time the greatest wrong and insult on hu- 
 man nature. I therefore cry aloud against it. Of the 
 individuals who defend and perpetuate the system, I am 
 sure, that the best are deeply injured by it ; but among 
 them, there are better than myself I do not fix their rank 
 in a world of transgressors. I desire to lift up the wronged 
 and oppressed. I leave to a higher Judge, the heart, the 
 sins, the virtues of the oppressor. 
 
 I have now concluded my remarks on the topics suggest- 
 ed by Mr. Clay's Speech ; and here you may expect me 
 to close this long communication. But believing, as I do, 
 
73 
 
 that my engagements and duties will not allow me to write 
 again on slavery, I am inclined to relieve my mind of all 
 its burdens on this subject. Allow me then to say a i^ew 
 words on a topic, which has given me many painful thoughts, 
 the more painful, because so few have seemed to share my 
 feelings. I refer to that gross outrage on rights and lib- 
 erty, the burning of the Hall of Freedom in Philadelphia. 
 I have felt this the more, because this Hall was erected for 
 free discussion, was dedicated to Liberty of Speech. Un- 
 doubtedly it was especially designed to give the Aboli- 
 tionists a chance of being heard ; but it was also intended 
 to give the same privilege to others, who, in consequence 
 of having adopted unpopular opinions, might be excluded 
 from the places commonly devoted to public meetings. 
 This building was associated with the dearest right of an 
 intelligent, spiritual being, that of communicating thought 
 and receiving such communication in return ; more inti- 
 mately associated with it than any other edifice in the 
 country. And this was stormed by a mob ; a peaceful as- 
 semblage was driven from its walls ; and afterwards it was 
 levelled to the earth by fire. 
 
 Various circumstances conspired to take this out of the 
 class of common crimes. It was not the act of the coarse, 
 passionate multitude. It was not done in a transport of 
 fury. The incendiaries proceeded leisurely in their work, 
 and distinctly understood, that they were executing the wish 
 and purpose of a great majority of the people. Passionate 
 outbreaks may be forgiven. An act performed by the reck- 
 less few does not alarm us, because we know that a moral 
 force subsists in the community to counteract it. But when 
 individuals, to whom we look for a restraining moral power, 
 undertake deliberately the work of the reckless and violent, 
 then the outrage on law and right wears a singularly dark 
 and menacing aspect. Such a community may well feel 
 the foundations of social order tottering beneath them. 
 7 
 
74 
 
 After the mob of Philadelphia, who wonders at the mob of 
 Harrisburg ? 
 
 Another aggravation of this act was, that the blameless 
 character of those who had erected and were occupying 
 the Hall of Freedom, was distinctly understood. The as- 
 semblage thronging this edifice, was not made up of profli- 
 gates, of the false, the lawless, the profane. On that oc- 
 casion were met together citizens of Philadelphia and 
 visiters from other cities and States, who were second to 
 none in purity of life; and they had convened in obedience 
 to what they believed, however erroneously, the will of 
 God, and to accomplish what seemed to them a great work 
 of justice and humanity. I doubt whether, at that hour, 
 there were collected in any other single spot of the land so 
 many good and upright men and women, so many sincere 
 friends of the race. In that crowd was John G. Whittier, 
 a man whose genius and virtues would do honor to any 
 city, whose poetry bursts from the soul with the fire and 
 indignant energy of an ancient prophet, and whose noble 
 simplicity of character is said to be the delight of all who 
 know him. In that crowd was Lucretia Mott, that beauti- 
 ful example of womanhood. Who that has heard the tones 
 of her voice, and looked on the mild radiance of her benign 
 and intelligent countenance, can endure the thought, that 
 such a woman was driven by a mob, from a spot to which 
 she had gone, as she religiously believed, on a mission of 
 Christian sympathy ? There were many others, worthy 
 associates of those whom I have named, religious men, 
 prepared to suffer in the cause of humanity, devoted wo- 
 men, whose hearts were burdened with the infinite indigni- 
 ties heaped on their sex by slavery. Such were the peo- 
 ple, who were denied the protection of the laws; denied the 
 privilege granted to the most profligate political party, and 
 even to a meeting of Atheists ; treated as outcasts, as the 
 refuse and ofTscouring of the world. In them was revived 
 
75 
 
 the experience of the first witnesses to the Christian faith. 
 Happily Christianity has not wholly failed to improve so- 
 ciety. At first, the disciple himself was destroyed ; now 
 only his edifice ; and this is certainly some progress of the 
 world. 
 
 And what was the mighty cause of this outrage ? A 
 general reply is, that the Abolitionists were fanatics. Be 
 it so. Is fanaticism a justification of this summary justice.'' 
 What more common than this fever in our churches ? How 
 does it infect whole sects ! What more common in our 
 political meetings .'' Must the walls within which fanatics 
 meet be purged by desolating fire .'' Will not then the 
 whole land be lighted by the flames ? Shall I be told, that 
 the fanaticism of the Abolitionists is of peculiar atrocity .? 
 that they are marked, set apart, by the monstrousness of 
 their doctrines ? These doctrines are, the brotherhood of 
 the human race, and the right of every human being to his 
 own person and to the protection of equal laws. Such are 
 the heresies, that must be burned out with fire, and buried 
 under the ruins of the temple where they are preached ! 
 Undoubtedly there may be crimes, so unnatural, so terri- 
 ble to a community, that a people may be forgiven, if, 
 deeming the usual forms of justice too slow, they assume 
 the perilous office of inflicting speedy punishment. But 
 that the processes of law, that the chartered rights of a 
 free people should be set aside, to punish men, who come 
 together to protest against the greatest wrong in the land, 
 and whose fanaticism consists in the excess of their zeal for 
 the oppressed ; this is a doctrine, which puts to shame the 
 dark ages, and which cannot long keep its ground in our 
 own. 
 
 But this general charge of fanaticism is not the main de- 
 fence of this hall-burning. The old cry of " danger to the 
 Union " is set up. Abolitionism was to be committed to 
 the flames, because it threatened to separate the States, I 
 
76 
 
 shall not of course repeat what I have already said on this 
 topic, but I will only ask, what will be the effect of burning 
 up every edifice, which gives shelter to the supposed ene- 
 mies of the Union ? At this very moment, one of these 
 twenty-six States has virtually assumed the right of war, 
 which the Constitution confers on the General Government, 
 and would inevitably drive us into hostilities with one of the 
 most powerful nations of Europe, if the insanity of the 
 contest did not make it next to impossible; and, in so doing, 
 it has given a precedent, more menacing to the Union than 
 any thing in our history, with the single exception of the 
 Nullification or States-Rights movement. And shall all, 
 who favor this usurpation, be forbidden to meet but at the 
 peril of mobs and flames ? In this case, might not some 
 halls of legislation meet the fate of the Hall of Freedom ? 
 I must protest against the disposition to make the crime 
 of endangering the Union a sufficient cause for house- 
 burning. The nerves of our people are particularly sensi- 
 tive on this point, and Incendiarism will become the fash- 
 ion, if this plea will suffice for it. Every householder 
 should lift up his voice against the dangerous doctrine. 
 
 But we have not yet touched the great cause of the con- 
 flagration of the Hall of Freedom. Something worse than 
 fanaticism or separation of the Union, was the impulse to this 
 violence. We are told, that white people and black people 
 sat together on the benches of the Hall, and were even seen 
 walking together in the streets ! This was the unheard of 
 atrocity which the virtues of the people of Philadelphia 
 could not endure. They might have borne the dissolution 
 of the national tie ; but this junction of black and white 
 was too much for human patience to sustain. And has it 
 indeed come to this ^ For such a cause, are mobs and fires 
 to be let loose on our persons and most costly buildings ? 
 What ! Has not an American citizen a right to sit and 
 walk with whom he will ? Is this common privilege of hu- 
 manity denied us ? Is society authorized to choose our 
 
77 
 
 associates ? Must our neighbour's tastes as to friendship 
 and companionship control our own ? Have the feudal 
 times come back to us, when to break the law of caste was 
 a greater crime than to violate the laws of God ? What 
 must Europe have thought, when the news crossed the 
 ocean of the burning of the Hall of Freedom, because 
 white and colored people walked together in the streets ? 
 Europe might well open its eyes in wonder. On that 
 continent, with all its aristocracy, the colored man mixes 
 freely with his fellow-creatures. He passes for a man. 
 He sometimes receives the countenance of the rich, and 
 has even found his way into the palaces of the great. In 
 Europe, the doctrine would be thought too absurd for refu- 
 tation, that a colored man, of pure morals and piety, of 
 cultivated intellect and refined manners, was not a fit com- 
 panion for the best in the land. What must Europe have 
 said, when brought to understand, that in a republic, found- 
 ed on the principles of human rights and equality, people 
 are placed beyond the protection of the laws, for treating 
 an African as a man. This Philadelphia doctrine deserves 
 no mercy. What an insult is thrown on human nature, in 
 making it a heinous crime to sit or walk with a human 
 being, whoever he may be ! 
 
 It just occurs to me, that I have forgotten the circum- 
 stance, which filled to overflowing the cup of Abolitionist 
 wickedness in Philadelphia. The great offence was this, 
 that certain young women of anti-slavery faith, were seen 
 to walk the streets with colored young men ! Of the truth 
 of this allegation, which has been denied, I am not able to 
 judge ; but allowing its correctness, I must think, that to 
 violate the majesty of the laws, and to convulse a whole 
 city, because a few young women thought fit to manifest in 
 this way their benevolence towards a despised race, 
 
 " Resembles ocean into tempest wrought 
 To waft a feather, or to drown a fly." 
 7* 
 
78 
 
 Offences against manners are wisely left to the scourge 
 of public opinion, which proves itself, in such cases, a more 
 effectual as well as more merciful discipline than burning 
 or the gallows. If ridicule and indignation will not put 
 down supposed misdemeanors of this class, what will 
 force avail ? — May I be here allowed to counsel my fair 
 abolitionist friends, (if they have really fallen into the 
 " unpardonable transgression " laid to their charge,) to 
 respect hereafter the usages of society in regard to their 
 communications with the other sex. If their anti-slavery 
 zeal compels them to bear testimony against the prejudice, 
 which excludes the colored people from the society of the 
 whites, let them choose for their associates the women of 
 the despised caste. With less defiance of opinion, they will 
 thus give equal expression to their interest in the wronged. 
 I believe, however, that the less conspicuous their zeal in 
 this and other public movements, the better. There are 
 none, for whom I feel a deeper and more affectionate solici- 
 tude, than for the young of the other sex; and when I think 
 of their inexperience, and of the strength of their sensibility, 
 and then consider how exposed they are, on occasions of 
 struggle and excitement, to unconscious imprudences, which 
 may throw a shade over their characters not soon to be dis- 
 pelled, and which, in their calmer hours, may visit them 
 with secret upbraidings, or with fears of having started from 
 the proper path, I cannot but desire, that, whilst they open 
 their hearts to all generous sympathies, they should post- 
 pone the public manifestation of their zeal to a riper age. 
 
 The violence, which was offered the Abolitionists for 
 their reception of the colored people to freer social inter- 
 course, was the more aggravated, because, if they erred in 
 the matter, their motive was a generous one, not got up for 
 the occasion, but proved to be sincere by their whole con- 
 duct. They say, that the colored race, ground as they 
 have been in the dust by long tyranny, and still suffering 
 
79 
 
 under prejudices which forbid their elevation, are entitled 
 to peculiar regard from the disciples of him who came to 
 raise the fallen, " to seek and save the lost." They look on 
 this people with peculiar sympathy, because subjected to pe- 
 culiar hardships. With this view, they are anxious to break 
 down the distinction, or at least, to diminish the distance, 
 between the black man and the white, believing that in this 
 way only the degrading influences of the injuries of years 
 can be overcome. Allow this to be an error ; is it not a 
 generous one ? Is there nothing holy in sympathy with 
 the wronged ? Are feelings of benevolent concern, for 
 whatever portion of our race., to be insulted, and to bring 
 down violence on our heads, because they transgress con- 
 ventional rules and the forms of '' good society" ? That 
 ignorant and coarse people should treat the motives of the 
 Abolitionists with scorn, cannot surprise us ; but that any, 
 who belong to what is called the respectable and refined 
 class, should join the fierce multitude in persecuting men 
 of worth and humanity, admits no excuse. Does it not 
 show, that the line of separation between the high and low 
 is not as broad as we sometimes imagine ; that much which 
 passes for refinement is mere gloss ; and that when the 
 passions are stirred up by the concurrence of numbers, 
 " the friends of order " can set laws at defiance as boldly 
 as the multitude ? 
 
 This outrage, if viewed in its political aspects, deserves 
 severe reprobation. Mob-law, in this country, ought al- 
 ways to be frowned down. It is an invasion of the funda- 
 mental principle of our institutions, of the sovereignty of 
 the people, and the more dangerous, because it seems to 
 the multitude to be an assertion of the principle which it 
 overthrows. The sovereignty of the people has here but 
 one mode of manifestation, and that is, the laws. It can 
 express itself in no other way ; and, consequently, a mob, 
 in forcibly suspending the laws, and in substituting its own 
 
80 
 
 will for that which the legitimate organs of the people have 
 proclaimed, usurps, for a time, the sovereignty of the state, 
 and is virtually in rebellion. In a despotism, the laws are of 
 less moment than in a free country, because in the former 
 there is a force above the laws, an irresistible will, which 
 has at its disposal a subservient soldiery and summary 
 punishments, to maintain something like order in the state. 
 But in a republic, there is nothing higher than the laws ; 
 and, in shaking the authority of these, the whole social 
 edifice is shaken. Reverence for the laws, is the essential 
 spirit, the guardian power, of a free state. Take this away, 
 and no physical force can take its place. The force is in 
 the excited multitude, and, in proportion as it is roused 
 against law, it prepares the way, and constitutes a demand 
 for a more regular, despotic power, which, bad as it is, is 
 better than the tyranny of crowds. There is, indeed, as I 
 have intimated, one case where popular commotion does, 
 comparatively, little harm. I mean, that which is excited 
 by some daring crime, which the laws sternly forbid, and 
 which sends an electric thrill of horror through a virtuous 
 community. In such a case, the public without law do the 
 work of law, and enforce those natural, eternal principles of 
 right, on which all legislation should rest. Even this vio- 
 lence, however, is dangerous. But, be it ever so blame- 
 less, who can bring under this head the outrage offered 
 to Abolitionists, men who had broken no law, and whose 
 distinction was, that they had planted themselves on the 
 grounds of natural and everlasting right ? 
 
 This outrage against the Abolitionists made little impres- 
 sion on the country at large. It was pronounced wrong, 
 of course ; but, then, we were told, that the Abolitionists 
 were so imprudent, so fierce, so given to denunciation, so 
 intolerant towards all who differ from them, that they had 
 no great claim to sympathy. Everywhere the excesses 
 of the Abolitionists are used to palliate the persecution 
 
81 
 
 which they suffer. But are they the only intolerant people 
 in the country ? Is there a single political party, which 
 does not deal as freely in denunciation ? Is there a reli- 
 gious sect, which has not its measure of bitterness ? I ask, 
 as before, if fierce denunciation is to be visited with 
 flames, where will the conflagration stop ? 
 
 In thus speaking, let me not be considered as blind to the 
 errors of the Abolitionists. My interest in their object 
 increases my pain at their defects. When I consider them 
 as having espoused a just and holy cause, I am peculiarly 
 grieved by the appearances of passionate severity, in their 
 writing, speeches, and movements. Such men ought to 
 find in the grandeur, purity, and benevolence of their end, 
 irresistible motives to self-control, to a spirit of equity and 
 mildness, to a calm, lofty trust in God. I grieve, that, in 
 an age, when the power of Gentleness and Meekness is 
 beginning to be understood, they have sought strength in 
 very different weapons. I do not deny their error ; but, 
 I say, let there be some proportion between the punishment 
 and the offence. Is nothing to be pardoned to men, who 
 have meditated on great wrongs, until their spirits are 
 deeply stirred ? Is vehemence, in such men, the unpar- 
 donable sin ? Must we rigidly insist, that they shall weigh 
 every word before they speak ? When all England was on 
 fire with the injuries of the slave, is it wonderful, that men 
 in this country, where the evil is most towering, should 
 echo in louder tones the cry which came to them over the 
 ocean ? Is it wonderful, that women, thinking of more 
 than a million of their own sex, at no great distance, ex- 
 posed to degradation and prostitution, should, in their grief 
 and indignation, repel every extenuating plea for the sup- 
 porters of these abominations ? Was it possible, that none 
 should speak on this subject, but the wise and prudent ? 
 Does not every great cause gather round itself vehement 
 spirits ? Must no evil be touched till we have assurance, 
 
82 
 
 that it shall be shaken and subverted by rule ? We bear 
 extravagance and vehemence elsewhere^ without burning 
 down men's houses. Why this singular sensitiveness to 
 anti-slavery vehemence, except it be, that slavery, which so 
 many call an evil with the lips, has never come as an evil to 
 their consciences and hearts ? 
 
 But, it is said, the Abolitionists injure a good cause. 
 Be it so. I think they have done it harm as well as 
 good. But is not this the common course of human 
 affairs? What good cause is not harmed, and sometimes 
 thrown back, by its best friends. In the present imperfect 
 state of our nature, men seldom take a strong hold on any 
 great object, without falling into excess. Enthusiasm, by 
 which I mean a disproportionate strength of feeling and 
 emotion, such as interferes more or less with the judgment, 
 seems almost inseparable from earnestness. The calm 
 reason, the single idea of Right, the principle of pure love, 
 such as it exists in God, serene and unimpassioned, — these 
 divine impulses seldom of themselves carry men through 
 great enterprises. Human passionateness mixes with high- 
 er influences. This is to be lamented, and much evil is 
 done ; but we must endure enthusiasm with its excesses, or 
 sink into a lifeless monotony. These excesses we ought to 
 rebuke and discourage ; but we must not hunt them down 
 as the greatest crimes. We must take heed, lest in our 
 war against rashness, we quench all the generous senti- 
 ments of human nature. It is natural to desire, that evils 
 should be removed gently, imperceptibly, without agitation; 
 and the more of this quiet process, the better. But it is 
 not ordinarily by such processes, that the mysterious provi" 
 dence of God purifies society. Religion and freedom 
 have made their way through struggles and storms. Estab- 
 lished evils naturally oppose an iron front to reform ; and 
 the spirit of reform, gathering new vehemence from opposi-* 
 tions, pours itself forth in passionate efforts. Man is not 
 
83 
 
 good enough yet to join invincible courage, zeal, and 
 struggle, with all-suffering meekness. But must conflict 
 with evil cease, because it will be marred with human im- 
 perfection ? Must the burning spirit lock up its sympathies 
 with suffering humanity, because not sure of being always 
 self-possessed ? Do we forgive nothing to the warm- 
 hearted ? Should we not labor to temper and guide aright 
 excessive zeal in a virtuous cause, instead of persecuting 
 it as the worst of crimes ? 
 
 The Abolitionists deserve rebuke ; but let it be propor- 
 tioned to the offence. They do wrong in their angry de- 
 nunciation of slaveholders. But is calling the slaveholder 
 hard names a crime of unparalleled aggravation .'' Is it 
 not, at least, as great a crime to spoil a man of his rights 
 and liberty, to make him a chattel, and trample him in the 
 dust .'' And why shall the latter offender escape with so 
 much gentler rebuke ? I know, as well as the slaveholder, 
 what it is to bear the burden of hard names. The South 
 has not been sparing of its invectives in return for my poor 
 efforts against slavery. I understand the evil of reproach; 
 and I am compelled to pronounce it a very slight one, and 
 not to be named, in comparison with bondage ; and why is 
 it, that he who inflicts the former should be called to drink 
 the cup of wrath to the very dregs, whilst he who inflicts 
 the latter receives hardly a mild rebuke ^ 
 
 I say these things not as a partisan of the Abolitionists, but 
 from a love of justice. They seem to me greatly wronged 
 by the unparalleled persecution to which they have been 
 exposed ; and the wronged should never want a defender. 
 But I am not of them. In the spirit of many of them I 
 see much to condemn. I utterly disapprove their sweeping 
 denunciations. I fear that their scorn of expediency may 
 degenerate into recklessness. I fear, that, as a natural if 
 not necessary consequence of their multiplied meetings 
 held chiefly for excitement, their zeal must often be forced. 
 
84 
 
 got up for effect, a product of calculation, not a swell of 
 the heart, I confide in them the less, the more they in- 
 crease. I fear, that their resort to political action will 
 impair their singleness of purpose and their moral power. 
 I distrust the system of association and agitation in a cause 
 like this. But, because I see among them somewhat to fear 
 and blame, must I shut my eyes on more which I ought to 
 commend ? Must not men of pure and lofty aims be hon- 
 ored, because, like every thing human, they are not free from 
 fault ? I respect the Abolitionists for maintaining great prin- 
 ciples with courage and fervor, amidst scorn and violence. 
 Can men have a higher claim to respect ? In their body, 
 amidst prejudiced, narrow-minded, conceited, self-seeking 
 members, such as are found in all associations, there is a 
 large proportion of uncompromising, singlehearted friends 
 of truth, right, and freedom ; and such men are securities 
 against the adoption of criminal ends or criminal means. 
 In their front rank, perhaps at their head, is Gerrit Smith ; 
 a man worthy of all honor for his overflowing munificence, 
 for his calm yet invincible moral courage, for his Christian 
 liberality embracing men of every sect and name, and for 
 his deep, active, inexhaustible sympathy with the sinful, 
 suffering, and oppressed. In their ranks may also be found 
 our common friend, Charles Follen, that genuine man, that 
 heroic spirit, whose love of freedom unites, in rare harmony, 
 the old Roman force with Christian love, in whom we see 
 the generous, rash enthusiasm of his youth, tempered by 
 time and trial into a most sweet and winning virtue. I 
 could name others, honored and dear. I do not, for the 
 sake of such, shut my eyes on the defects of the associa- 
 tion ; but that it should be selected for outrage and perse- 
 cution is a monstrous wrong, against which solemn testi- 
 mony ought to be borne. 
 
 There is one consolation attending persecution. It often 
 exalts the spirit of the sufferer, and oflen covers with honor 
 
85 
 
 those whom it had destined to shame. Who made Socrates 
 the most venerable name of antiquity ? The men who 
 mixed for him the cup of hemlock, and drove him as a 
 criminal from the world which he had enlightened. Provi- 
 dence teaches us the doctrine of retribution very touchingly 
 in the fact, that future ages guard with peculiar reverence 
 the memories of men, who, in their own times, were con- 
 temned, abhorred, hunted like wild beasts, and destroyed 
 by fire or sword, for their fidelity to truth. That the Aboli- 
 tionists have grown strong under outrage, we know ; and in 
 this I should rejoice, were their cause ever so bad ; be- 
 cause persecution must be worse, and its defeat must be a 
 good. I wish that persecution, if not checked by principle, 
 may be stayed, by seeing that it fights against itself, and 
 builds up those whom it toils to destroy. How long the 
 Abolitionists will be remembered, I know not ; but, as long 
 as they live in history, they will wear as a crown the suffer- 
 ings which they have so firmly borne. Posterity will be 
 just to them ; nor can I doubt, what doom posterity will 
 pronounce on the mobs or single men, who have labored 
 to silence them by brutal force. I should be glad to see 
 them exchanging their array of affiliated societies for less 
 conspicuous and artificial means of action. But let them 
 not do this from subserviency to opinion, or in opposition 
 to their sense of right. Let them yield nothing to fear. 
 Let them never be false to that great cause, which they 
 have fought for so manfully, Freedom of Speech. Let 
 them never give countenance to the doctrine, which all 
 tyrants hold, that material power, physical pain, is mightier 
 than the convictions of Reason, than the principle of Duty, 
 than the Love of God and mankind. Sooner may they pine 
 and perish in prisons, sooner bleed or be strangled by the 
 executioner, than surrender their deliberate principles to 
 lawless violence. 
 
 In the remarks now made on the recent outrage at 
 8 
 
86 
 
 Philadelphia, I have felt myself bound to use great plain- 
 ness of speech. Had I consulted my feelings, I should 
 have been silent. In that city I have old and dear friends, 
 and have received hospitalities, which I remember with 
 gratitude. But we are not allowed to "confer with flesh 
 and blood." I beg however to say, in order to prevent 
 misinterpretation, that I have not thought, for a moment, 
 of holding up Philadelphia as the worst of cities. I do not 
 infer from a single tumult, the character of a vast popula- 
 tion. How many thousands of that metropolis took no part 
 in the transaction under consideration. And of those who 
 gave it their active or passive sanction, how many thousands 
 were hurried on by imitation and sympathy, were swept 
 away by a common impulse, without comprehending the im- 
 port of the deed. In a popular ferment, individuals lay aside 
 themselves for a time, and do what they would shrink from, 
 if left to act on their separate responsibility. In all cities, 
 it is true of the vast majority of men, that their consciences 
 cannot stand alone. Their principles, as they call them, 
 are echoes of general sentiment. Their sense of duty, 
 unpropped by opinion, totters, and too often falls. One of 
 the saddest views of society is, the almost universal want 
 of self-determined, self-subsistent virtue. It is therefore 
 no sign of unparalleled depravity, that a community proves 
 false to great principles in seasons of excitement. All 
 great cities abound in ignorance, prejudice, passion, selfish 
 conformity to the world, and moral corruption in its 
 grosser and more refined forms ; and that these bitter 
 fountains should sometimes burst forth, is a matter of 
 course. I ascribe to no city precedence in virtue or crime. 
 I would only say, that Philadelphia has placed herself, more 
 conspicuously than other cities, on a bad eminence, and she 
 must hold it, until buildings devoted to Liberty of Speech 
 can stand unharmed on her soil. 
 
 I now finish this long letter. Your patience, my dear 
 
87 
 
 Sir, has not, I trust, been exhausted. Whether this commu- 
 nication will answer the public ends which I have proposed, 
 I know not ; but it will do one good of a personal nature. 
 It will be a memorial, however brief, of a friendship, which 
 began in our youth, and which has withstood the vicissi- 
 tudes of so many years, that we may expect it to go down 
 with us to oiir graves. It pleases me, that our names 
 should be associated in a work, which, though written in 
 haste, and for a temporary exigency, yet reflects something 
 of both our minds. It is fit, that the thoughts, unfolded in 
 this letter, should be addressed to one, with whom I have 
 conversed long and familiarly on the great interests of hu- 
 man nature. I owe you much for the light and strength 
 you have given me, and especially for the faith and hope, 
 which, under much personal suffering and depression, you 
 have cherished and expressed in regard to the destinies of 
 our race. We have given much of our sympathy to the 
 multitude. We have felt more for the many who are forgot- 
 ten, than for the few who shine ; and our great inquiry has 
 been, how the mass of men may be raised from ignorance 
 and sensuality, to a higher social, intellectual, moral, and 
 religious life. We have rejoiced together in the progress 
 already made by individuals and communities ; but a voice 
 has come to us from the depths of human suffering, from 
 the abuses of the social state, from the teachings of Jesus 
 Christ, urging the need of new struggle with giant evils, 
 and of new efforts for the diff*usion of comforts, refine- 
 ments, quickening truths, enlightened piety, and disinter- 
 ested virtue. A few years will bring us to our journey's 
 end. To the last, I trust, we shall speak words of blessing 
 to our race, and words of encouragement to all who toil 
 and suffer for its good. Through God's grace, we hope for 
 another life ; but that life, we believe, will, in some 
 respects, be one with this. Our deep sympathies with the 
 great human family, will, we believe, survive the grave. 
 
88 
 
 We shall then rejoice in the interpretation of the dark 
 mysteries of the present state, of the woes and oppres- 
 sions now so rife on earth. May it not be hoped, that, 
 instead of our present poor and broken labors, we shall then 
 render services to our brethren, worthy of that nobler life? 
 But the future will reveal its own secrets. It is enough to 
 know, that this human world, of which we form a portion, 
 lives, suffers, and is moving onward, under the eye and 
 care of the Infinite Father. Before His pure, omnipotent 
 goodness, all oppressions must fall ; and, under His reign, 
 our highest aspirations, prayers, and hopes for suffering 
 humanity, must, sooner or later, receive an accomplishment, 
 beyond the power of prophecy to utter, or of thought to 
 comprehend. 
 
 I. 
 
 0/(H 
 
NOTES. 
 
 Note A, page 17. 
 As the page here referred to was passing through the press, I 
 understood, that it was maintained by some, that the treatment, 
 which Abolition petitions had received from Congress, was not so 
 peculiar as I had supposed ; and I state this, that the reader may 
 inquire for himself. For one, I feel little disposition to inquire. 
 It is very possible, that, in this world of tyranny and usurpation, 
 scattered precedents may be found, which, if used for interpreting 
 and defining our rights, would reduce them all to insignificance. 
 A man, jealous of his rights, will not yield them to this, or any 
 other kind of logic. We have here the case of a great number of 
 petitions, from all parts of the free States, and from citizens of in- 
 telligence and blameless character, which, before being presented, 
 were denied, by a resolution of Congress, the usual notice and 
 consideration. It was not the case of a single petition, coming from 
 a half insane man, from an eccentric schemer, bearing on its face 
 the marks of mental aberration, or asking for something palpably 
 absurd and unconstitutional. The petitions of the Abolitionists 
 greatly exceeded in number all the other petitions to Congress 
 taken together. They represented large masses of citizens, who 
 prayed for what is pronounced constitutional by our wisest men. 
 And Congress resolved, before these petitions were offered, that, on 
 being presented, they should be laid on the table without debate, 
 and that no member should have the privilege of saying a word in 
 their behalf, or of calling them up for consideration or for any action 
 in relation to them at a future time. Has any thing like this ever 
 occurred before ? Or if it has, shall we go to such precedents for an 
 interpretation of the right of petition ? Is it not plain, that, after this 
 measure, party-spirit can never want pretexts for rejecting any and 
 all petitions, be they what they may ? To say, that because these 
 petitions passed through the form of being laid on the table, the 
 right was not touched, strikes me as one of those evasions, which 
 
90 
 
 will do for a court of law, but which it is an insult to present to a 
 great nation. Suppose that Congress, at the beginning of a ses- 
 sion, should ordain, that an aperture of certain dimensions should 
 be made on the clerk's table and be connected by a tube with the 
 cellar or common sewer; and should then ordain, that by far the 
 greater number of petitions, to be presented during the session, 
 should be committed to the part of the table occupied by the 
 opening, so as to sink immediately and be never heard of more. 
 What man of common sense, who knows the difference between 
 words and things, or what freeman, who cares a rush for his rights, 
 would not say, that the right of petition had been virtually annul- 
 led ? Why not openly reject the petitions, without this mockery? 
 Do we not know, that it is from side-blows that liberty has most to 
 fear ? It is very possible, that legal subtilty may find prece- 
 dents for the course pursued by Congress, just as it may find 
 authorities to prove that we have no right to our own persons, but 
 may be sold as chattels. But such reasonings to a freeman carry 
 their answer on their own front. Human rights are too sacred, 
 too substantial, to be refined and attenuated into shadows by 
 ingenious comparison of precedents and authorities. I take the 
 ground, that the right of petition is sofnething, and of course that 
 there is a fatal fallacy in the reasoning which would reduce it to 
 nothing. I would recommend to my readers a "Letter of the 
 Honorable Caleb Cushing to the people of Massachusetts," in 
 which this subject is discussed with great clearness and ability. 
 It should be circulated as a tract. The public are also much in- 
 debted to the Honorable J. Q,. Adams, for his unshrinking energy 
 in maintaining the right of petition. 
 
 I say this from no particular interest in the present case. I 
 doubt, whether the agitation of slavery in Congress is to do good 
 to the country or to the cause of Emancipation ; whether Abolition 
 petitions bring the subject before the people, either at the North 
 or South, in the manner most likely to produce conviction. I look 
 at the matter without reference to present parties. One of the 
 sacred rights of the people has been touched, and this should 
 never be done without expressions of jealousy and reprobation. 
 The strongest political influence in this country is party-spirit ; a 
 selfish, unrighteous, unscrupulous spirit, impatient of restraint, and 
 always ready to sacrifice the provisions of the Constitution to 
 
91 
 
 present purposes and immediate triumph. One of the most solemn 
 duties of patriotism is to guard our rights from the touch of this 
 harpy. No precedents of encroachment must be yielded to party- 
 spirit, for it will push them to extremes. No bulwarks, which our 
 fathers have erected round our liberties, must be surrendered. The 
 dangers of hberty are always great from human passions and self- 
 ishness ; great under the freest institutions, and sometimes greater 
 from what is called the popular party than from any other ; and for 
 this plain reason, that this party has formed the bad habit of calling 
 itself "the people," and easily deludes itself into the belief, that, 
 being " the people," it may take great freedoms with the Consti- 
 tution, and use its power with little restraint. This delusion is 
 what constitutes the danger to liberty from mobs ; mobs call them- 
 selves "the people." 
 
 Note to page 26. 
 I have allowed on this page, that slavery wears a milder aspect 
 at the South than in other countries. I ought to inform my 
 readers, that this is denied by some, who have inquired into the 
 matter. A pamphlet or larger volume is announced at New 
 York, in which the subject of the treatment of slaves at the 
 South is to be particularly considered. The work is said to be 
 the result of patient inquiries, and full proofs of its statements 
 are promised. Those at the North, who believe in the mildness 
 of Southern Slavery, will do well to examine the publication. 
 
JAMES MUNROE AND CO 
 
 ARE PUBLISHERS OF 
 
 THE FOLLOWING WORKS. 
 
 SLAVERY, by William E. Channing. Fourth Ed 
 tion. 
 
 LETTER of William E. Channing to James ( 
 
 BiRNEY. 
 
 LETTER to the Hon. Henry Clay on the Anne: 
 ation of Texas to the United States, by Wi] 
 LiAM E. Channing. 11th Edition. 
 
 SERMON ON WAR, by William E. Channing. 
 
 SELF-CULTURE, by William E. Channing. 2 
 Edition. 12mo. 
 
 A LETTER to the Hon. Harrison Gray Otis, Peli 
 Sprague, and Richard Fletcher, Esq. 
 
 ARCHY MOORE, or Memoirs of a Slave. 2 vol 
 in one. 2d Edition. 12mo. 
 
 -Ka.^ 
 
I