THE LAWS OF HUMAN PROGRESS AND MODERN REFORMS.
A LECTURE
DELIVERED BEFORE THE
MERCANTILE LIBRARY ASSOCIATION
OF THE
City of New York.
BY
REV. ORVILLE DEWEY.
NEW-YORK:
C. S. FRANCIS & COMPANY,- 2 52 BROADWAY.
BOSTON: CROSBY & NICHOLS.
M.DCCC.LII.


THE LAWS OF HUMAN PROGRESS AND MODERN REFORMS.
A LECTURE
DELIVERED BEFORE THE
MERCANTILE LIBRARY ASSOCIATION
OF THE
City of New-York.
BY
REV. ORVILLE DEWEY.
D .
NEW-YORK:
C. S. FRANCIS & COMPANY, 252 BROADWAY.
BOSTON: CROSBY & NICHOLS.
M.DCCC.LII.

нио
பா
JOHN F. Trow, PRINTER,
49 Ann-st., New York.
SET

LECTURE
ON THE LAWS OF HUMAN PROGRESS AND MODERN
REFORM.
A discourse was delivered and printed a year or two
since, by a distinguished citizen,“ on the Law of human
progress.” The principal object of that discourse, or
oration, was to show that progress is a law of hu-
manity. The history of this great idea, the certainty
of its realization, and the folly of any conservatism
that resists it, were the matters mainly treated of.
The Laws of human progress; the necessary condi-
tions on which it depends; the forces and the limi-
tations to which all progress, all reform, is subject-
this is a different theme; and it is the one to which I
propose to invite your attention this evening. I hardly
know what subject that I could name, deserves at the
present time more attention, or gains less. Or gains
less, I say. Declamation enough we have about pro-
gress,
little of the deeper thought that comes
from a profound acquaintance with human nature and
life and history. We want a philosophy of progress,
and among all our philosophies, do not seem to have
it. I do not now remember a book with this title,
the Philosophy of Progress, or the Philosophy of Re-
forms. If there be none, the want of it is somewhat
significant. But the subject equally deserves atten-
but
very

4
OVE
tion. For the one matter of controversy, that is now
rife and raging through the whole sphere of civiliza-
tion—from the farthest bounds of Europe, from the
Bosphorus and the Black Sea, across the whole world,
to the coasts of Oregon and California, is progress.
Restraint and freedom; legitimacy and liberty; Mon-
archy and Republic; aristocracy and radicalism; con-
servatism and ultraism-communism, socialism, reform,
penal code, private right—the people's rights, the
laborer's rights, women's rights, every body's rights,
and every body's wrongs—and how to carry on society
by some great stride to the righting of all wrongs—
these are subjects with which the whole world is em-
broiled. Indications of every sort, conflicts, controver-
sies, conventions, revolutions, battles, one or other,
attest every where the presence of this disturbing ele-
ment—the desire of progress, of change, of something
better, or of what is thought to be better. But it seems
to me quite remarkable how rare it is to meet with any
book, any pamphlet, any manifesto, any string of reso-
lutions, or any speech in Convention, that goes back
to original principles—that goes down to the very
grounds of the questions thus agitated, or in other
words, to the laws of reason and wisdom which are
entitled to settle them. I say the questions; for
always there is a question. Ought this to be, or not?
Ought nations to choose their own rulers, and ought
the suffrage to be universal ? Ought the present sys-
tem of property and the relations of capital and labor
to continue, or to be broken up, and society to be reor-
ganized and placed upon a new basis? Ought stand-
ing armies to be maintained, or ought they to be
disbanded, and nations, on no account nor occa-
sion, to contend with deadly weapons ? Ought we to

give up our old national policy, and resort to armed
intervention in foreign quarrels? Ought capital pun-
ishment to be abolished? Ought the slaves to be
immediately emancipated? Ought women to have
the same education, business, political franchises and
public offices, as men?
The common method of discussing these, and many
other questions of a like nature, is to espouse one side
or the other, and to see what can be said for it. Most
writers and speakers are found in the ranks of conser-
vatives or ultraists, and their arguments, while they
delight their own party, tend very little to convince
the other perhaps are not even read by the other.
Would it not be a better method of proceeding to inquire
for the principles by which all such questions are to be
decided? Might not such a method lead to the dis-
covery, that there is commonly something right on both
sides, and in some cases that there is a medium, which
is nearer to the truth than either?
I do not say that any principles can be laid down by
which the matters in question shall be immediately or
definitely settled. The interests and duties of a multi-
tude of human beings are involved; and such subjects
do not admit of any very prompt and clear decision.
But certainly the right principles will have some ten-
dency, and may yield some help, to lead us to the right
conclusion. Let us then see if we can ascertain what
are the Laws, or some of the Laws of Progress; and I
pray your attention to this brief discussion, if it shall
appear somewhat abstract; for we shall soon have
occasion to to apply it to matters that are practical
enough. Progress, let it be observed, is of two kinds-
inward and outward; of the mind and of institutions.
Most questions arise with regard to the latter; and I

6
might confine my view to this. But as they stand
closely related-related in fact as cause and effect; as
all outward comes from inward movement, and is, in
fact, its expression, its symbol, I shall consider them to-
gether--discriminating them only as I shall find occasion.
The laws of progress then, come under three gene-
ral heads: the nature of man; his condition, i. e., in
the material world; and his social, including his politi-
cal relations.
The first law of progress, therefore, is moral free-
dom. Call this man's birthright or not-say or deny
that all men are born to be free, —one thing is certain,
there cannot be one step in human progress without
this condition. And it is only from what is inevitably
left of freedom to the very serf and slave, that he
makes any progress. More in fact is left, than we
always consider, or than our current language always
admits. Free will, free thought, may be in many ways
injuriously checked; but it cannot be extinguished in
any human being; if it were, it would be, not slavery,
but death to him as a man. And as far as any institu-
tion, any authority, any religion, any government
crushes down this freedom, its stops the growth of men
and communities.
The second law of progress is individual responsi-
bility. The order of nature and providence is, that
every man shall answer for himself. The system of
the world is a system of rewards and punishments.
They are indispensable stimulants to action. Any
institution then, monastic, communist, or co-operative,
that relieves a man of self-care and personal responsi-
bility, will be fatal to human progress, or in other
words, so far as it goes that way, it will have that
effect.

7
bi A third law of progress is, that it is experimental;
wrought out in the mind and experience of men. The
truth is, men will not learn in any other way; perhaps
they cannot. What is verified in ourselves, is true;
all else is dogma, phraseology, not faith. You cannot
theorize, legislate, or organize men into an improved
condition; they must experiment themselves into it.
I do not mean by this, to object to theories, plans,
projects; but their proper office is to lead men to try
them, and nothing but trial can prove them to be true.
And if they go very far beyond the minds they pro-
pose to benefit—taking them out of the range of fair
experiment; if any State organizations or constitutions
do this, they must be pronounced visionary, unsafe,
and impracticable. With regard to political organiza-
tions, our South American States found it to be so;
republics could not flourish on their soil; and in the
extending popularity of this kind of government, their
example of failure is not likely to be the last. It is
just as if you should take savages from their rude and
filthy huts, and place them in a model village, laid out,
arranged, and furnished by all the arts of civilization;
they could neither use nor enjoy it, but would throw
all back into disorder, and disarray, and filth; they
would turn all the fine cottages and villas into huts
and cabins again, from which they must again build up
and work
up
their
own way anew.
And, therefore, I confidently lay down as a fourth
law of progress, that it must be gradual. Little by
little does man learn; slowly does he advance; and
there is no other way. I need not enlarge upon
this
point; the matter speaks plainly enough for itself: ex-
perimenting is, from the very nature of the case, slow:
the onward steps of men are by centuries. It is a law,

s
wisely ordained too; it makes progress thorough; it
engages in it the energy and fidelity of men; it makes
the advancing steps safe and sure.
It makes the result
cost something, and therefore makes it worth some-
thing. If you were carried to the top of a mountain,
by a foreign force, in a moment's flight, you would
not value the elevation as you do when you have your-
self toiled slowly up the ascent. You do not value
intuitions, nature's work in you, as you do conclusions,
of your own. They are worth as much, perhaps more;
but God makes his gifts more precious to us, by en-
gaging our powers to grasp and to realize them.
But a fifth law of progress is, that it is subject to
conditions imposed upon it, by material nature. We
hear much of the conquest of nature, of its subjection
to human use and convenience, to human progress
especially. But I suppose there is a limit somewhere.
I do not know whether men will yet fly or sail through
the air; but I suppose they will never fly or sail to
the moon.
No aeronaut expects to ascend to Saturn.
But to be quite serious; would you not say as you
look at the nobler part of man-and would you not
feel as if you were asserting a kind of self-evident
truth, when you say, that he has a right to the devel-
opment and culture of his mind—a right to be edu-
cated—a right to be taught-instructed—cultivated ?
I think we often hear something like this. And some
truth there is in the assertion; but it is not absolute,
in the way that it is commonly put; it is not one of
the self-evident, universal, unlimited propositions. It
is controlled to a certain extent by other considera-
tions—by obstacles, that is to say, in material nature.
The mass of mankind must labor; and must spend the
most of their lives in that way. Their right to mental

9
culture, at least in the ordinary sense of the phrase, is
subject to that condition. Perhaps they get a better
training than schoolmen would give them. I believe
they do. I devoutly believe in the lessons of the great
taskmaster. I believe, that oftentimes men who labor
in the field and the workshop—who turn their hands
to this and that—who address their faculties to a thou-
sand varying exigencies—who come into instant con-
tact with men and things, and learn patience, perseve-
rance, and self-denial, and in whose hand, and frame,
and mind, is the might and mystery of work, are wiser
than many who read books all the day long. Nay,
there are those, to whom the printed page is for ever a
sealed book, who yet are wiser, and better, and hap-
pier than the proudest philosopher that looks down
upon them. Certainly I do not disparage any good
learning. But it is well that we should understand-
we who, as a nation, are wont to value reading, writing,
and arithmethic, above all knowledge; that there is
another kind of training in the great school of life;
that it sets limits to book-learning, and is often better.
tad The last law of progress which I shall mention,
springs from the social relation; it is the community, or
rather the common dependency, of all social and politi-
cal interests; it is, what is often called of late from the
French writers, the solidarity of the human race; and
I think there was need of the word. It comes from
the Latin, sõlīdus, solid, and means that every man's
interest and culture are bound in with the solid mass
of all human welfare. We are all partners in a firm;
and such a firm that no man living can get out of it.
My comfort, my ease, facility, opportunity to cultivate
my own estate or mind, cannot stand apart and alone.
I may say,
“What to me are the poor, the beggars,

10
the drunken ?? But the next I know, the poor
tax me, the beggar robs me, the drunken mars my
plate, breaks my pitcher, or burns my house. And in
higher relations—the general state of literature and
science, the general state of religion-Shakspeare's
Drama, Sir Walter's Fiction, Cuvier's Physiology, Au-
gustine's, Pelagius' Creed—affect my mind, my learn-
ing, my progress. Alternately I am giver and receiver.
However humble I may be, yet not a thought of mine
lights upon the earth, even in casual talk, but it sinks
into its bosom and brings forth fruit, or rises and wan-
ders in the air; and like “bread cast upon the waters,
returns to me after many days." I live upon the com-
mon food of human thought. I breathe through the
pores of the world. I am a part of the world—bound
up with it in this all-comprehending solidarity of in-
terests.
The same thing is true in our political relations;
and it deserves to be thoughtfully considered; and es-
pecially in these days—yet more especially among our-
selves. A State implies a compact among its mem-
bers. They agree together to do certain things, and
to abstain from certain things. Deny, repudiate, nul-
lify this compact, and the State ceases to exist. The
compact, I
is restrictive as well as permissive.
The parties to it consent that their freedom, their free
action, their pursuit of any object, however they may
think it otherwise right or advantageous, shall be sub-
ject to this restriction. They agree to give up a por-
tion of their natural rights, in order to create a political
community. Thus, if a man lived alone upon an island
—and which was his if you please by right of discovery
-he might hunt, fish, plant, gather, turn the course of
waters, do any thing he pleased; and these would be
say,

11
natural rights. But suppose that a thousand adventu-
rers arrive at the island, and he agrees with them to
form a government, to divide the land, and to assign
to each one a portion, as property; then he gives up,
so far, his natural rights. And so it is with all his re-
lations to the State. He is bound in with it to certain
conditions. And if he assumes the right to violate
these conditions, that assumption is revolutionary, de-
structive, fatal. He may tell us of a progress of
thought in certain respects—of rights that override
the law—of the great rights of humanity (and it is a
solemn word, to which I am bound to listen-it may
be the word struggling in my own deepest heart and
I will more particularly consider it soon); neverthe-
less, it is certain that so far as any man listens to such
pleas for breaking the compact, he destroys the State.
For the State-unles it be a despotism of some Louis
Fourteenth, of which he is the sum and the substance
-lives, and has its being, only in a constitutional
compact.
I have thus attempted briefly to expound six laws
of human progress—to show that it implies moral
freedom and individual responsibility; that it must be
experimental and gradual; and that it is subject to con-
ditions imposed upon it by material nature and the
general state of society. To sum up the matter in
fewer words; nothing that fights against the laws of
human nature, of material nature, and of the common
dependency of man on man, can succeed.
It may be thought a great omission, that I have not
mentioned the greatest happiness of the greatest num-
ber as a law. But except in so far as this is involved
in the principle of solidarity, it is the end, and indeed
the very nature of progress, rather than the law. Mon-

12
I pro-
tesquieu, in the third book of the Spirit of Laws, makes
an acute distinction between the nature of a govern-
ment and the principle of a government: the former
being that by which it is what it is; the latter, that
upon which it acts. Now, the progress of humanity,
or of a people, is its growing wiser, better, happier.
Human rights, duties, and interests will of course be
more and more recognized in such a progress. These,
then, it was not my business to insist
upon;
for I
posed to point out the conditions or principles upon
which this progress is to be made.
Let us now attempt to bring these principles to
some application. It cannot always be very definite,
perhaps; but it may be some guide for us, in the ques-
tions that naturally arise. What it is just and right
to propose in regard to progress—what reasonable to
expect; what is fit to be undertaken—what possible to
be done; and how it is to be done—these certainly are
matters of great practical importance.
In regard, first and generally, to the inquiry, how
it is to be done—how progress is to be made—I confess
that I am constrained by my convictions to call in
question, I had almost said, the whole spirit of modern
reform; and indeed of every other, but the Christian
Reform. Let us consider it. Here is a progress to be
made. That is, there is to be reform. Better things
are to be, and to be done; and “better still in infinite
progression.” Every body admits it. Especially, at
the present day, every body admits it. The idea of
progress has taken fast hold of the modern ages, as it
never did of the ancient. And, moreover, this pro-
gress, while certain, must be gradual, experimental, and
blended in strict solidarity with a great mass of inter-
ests. Why then must reforms be taken up with vio-

13
lence? Why degenerate into partisan strifes? Why
do we not calmly engage in them as if they belonged
to the order of the world? It is said, I know, that all
revolutions, all great changes for the better, have been
violent, and probably must be so. I do not see the
necessity, even in political revolutions. The Reform
Bill, in England, was not a violent revolution; and
most constitutional changes in England, unlike those in
France, have been peaceful. But revolutions in opin-
ion, have their place exclusively in the mind. They
are to be carried on by writing books, not fighting
battles; by the agency of clear thoughts, not furious
passions. Nay, they are hindered by furious passions.
The object is to change the mind of a people, to bring
it over to another opinion. But violence inflames,
distorts, prejudices the public mind; sets it against
the proposed change. Violence is the atmosphere, not
of truth, but of error, of falsehood, of perverted seeing.
A quiet, deep-felt, earnest appeal, like the calm and
penetrating sunlight, would do more to strip off the
close-casing garments of old error, than all this wind
of excitement.
“Fine talk!” the reformer may say,—“ here is the
whole mass, the whole conservatism of the world
opposed to me." Is it so? I answer: that seems to
me an argument for modesty. Why, I say again,
therefore, this arrogance of reform-this outrageous
assurance—this browbeating confidence, like to which
there is nothing to be seen, arrayed on the side of the
whole world's opinion? A man who stands up before
the whole world, and says, “Give up your opinion to
me, and take mine," it seems to me should, at the least,
be modest. He may be zealous, he may be deeply in
earnest; nay, he may be right; but it appears to me

14
at the same time, that modesty becomes him, and can
do neither him nor his cause any harm.ro
Be this as it may—and it may be a matter of taste
if you please—but certainly nothing can justify the un-
charitableness, the abuse, the positive detraction that
mars, in so many cases, the reform movements of the
day. Evil speaking, false speaking, are bad things,
let the cause they espouse be ever so good. I speak
plainly. It is no business nor pretension of mine to
patronize reforms or reformers. But I certainly feel a
strong interest in many of the reforms of the day.
And there is not one of them, in which I do not see
some good ends. And Reformers are the last men
that I would have disappear from the world. But I
demand of them, and I entreat them too, as men
engaged in the noble cause of progress, that they act
nobly, and speak nobly—with calmness, modesty and
candor, howsoever it be with courage and earnestness.
It is a pity that the cause of progress, the cause of
reform in other words, which is the grand interest of
the collective race of mankind—which is the very des-
tiny of the world—should be brought under such heavy
misconstruction as now lies upon it, through the faults
of its most prominent advocates. Not, indeed, that
the whole army of progress is to be confounded with
the vanguard; but the vanguard naturally makes the
first and strongest impression.
The truth is, that public sentiment, in large and
influential quarters, is alienated from what is good in
the reform movements of the day, by the evil that is
in them. The repugnance for the most part is cold and
silent, and may be the less suspected. Mine might be
so, but I choose to speak out; because I take an inter-
est in these movements—in and for them. I say plain-

15
go with
ly, then, physician, heal thyself; reformer, reform thy-
self; do not ask me to take your medicine unless it
works better with you; do not ask me to
you
till you make me better like your company. If the
Christian religion itself had been advocated as some of
your reforms are, I should hardly have been won to it,
and certainly not to its Apostles. See how nobly, can-
didly, charitably, tenderly, ay, and modestly, Paul
pleaded for that Reform, and how anxious he was to
keep the bond of its discipleship strong and unbroken.
And he did so. But what sort of spectacle do our
modern reformers present? quarrelling among them-
selves—splitting into parties, who assail one another as
bitterly as they ever did any body else.
There must be something wrong here; and it is
high time to ask if there cannot be something better,
a new ideal of the thing, a reform of reform effected.
It is not enough to say of any men, that they have done
some good to the cause they have espoused. The true
question is, have they done the most in their power,
and the least evil that the case admitted ? It is upon
this question that the severe and enlightened judg.
ment of after times will pronounce its verdict.
But let us proceed to consider some of the particu-
lar changes or reforms proposed. They invite our con-
sideration. They ask in fact for our co-operation. They
are really, many of them, matters of great interest.
And it is not unreasonable, as it seems to me, that one
should wish to say what he thinks of them, though his
opinion may be of no great importance. But it is the
aggregate of individual and mostly unimportant opin-
ions, that makes up the great mass of public opinion ;
and that is of no little importance. Whatever, there-
f

16
fore, one can do to clear up his own judgment, or to
help that of others, I suppose he may fitly do. MOTH
Most of those who take the trouble to address the
public on what are called Reform measures, com-
monly do so from a strong interest, either for or
against them. They are either conservatives or ultra-
ists—either against, altogether against any proposed
change, or for it to the utmost extent. Now I shall
frankly tell you that I belong to neither party. It is
a very unpopular profession, I know; but I ask no
body's pity, and I deprecate no man's displeasure. I
believe that I am here in the company of
liberal
minds, who will not construe me unjustly; and I shall
say nothing of the delicacy of my position—nothing of
being between two fires-nothing of the unlikelihood
of pleasing any body. I am not speaking, I frankly
say, to please any body, I am speaking—just to please
myself—to speak, at any rate, my own mind. Let me
have, for this evening, the liberty to do this; and call
it a very strange mind, if you will. I really think
there may be some advantage in it. I really think
that the grandest Reform Society that could be got up
in this country, would be a society of people to speak
their own mind, and please nobody. Our whirling
eccentricities want that balance wheel. I can tell the
moderatism-(if I may make the word)—the moder-
atism of this country, that it is asleep and dumb, just
where, of all countries in the world, its voice is most
needed to be heard. I say, then, for myself and for
to-night, that I belong to no party. With regard to
conservatism and ultraism, as the general division of
opinion, running through all other questions and rang-
ing men into parties—I am, in some views, a conserva-
tive. I profess to venerate the past. I value the re-
many

17
sults of past experience. I think they are to be parted
from with great caution. I think it is monstrous for
an individual man to stand up against the collected
experience of the world and say, “it is nought-it is
nonsense." I have a sort of reverence for what the
whole race of my fellows have come to think and feel,
after a trial and progress of six thousand years. I do
not believe that the stream which has flowed so far is
a miserable puddle, or black as Styx and Acheron.
And whoever says that—whoever says, “away with
the past ! let us have a new world to-day !"—whoever,
forgetting that all good changes must be gradual and
slowly wrought out, proposes to carry a people at once
from absolutism and ignorance into the largest liberty
and suffrage, or rashly to transfer woman from her ac-
customed sphere to seats in the Legislature and the
Cabinet, seems to me to have fallen into the madness
of reaction against old abuses. And yet, on the other
hand, the conservatism that desires to hold all fast
where it is—that is prejudiced and set against all
changes, all reforms—that for ever says, "let things
alone; they are very well”—why, it is a conservation
that would stop the progress, and quench the hope, and
challenge the very destiny of the world.
But let us go, as I proposed, to some of the special
reforms.
And, first, to that which is so called, and which is
advocated by some, though I believe not by many, of
the gentler sex, under the name of " Woman's Rights."
Now, I should not wonder if the very terms of this
statement should be partly displeasing to two sorts of
persons. Some women might not choose that theirs
should be called “the gentler sex,"—and certainly the
appellation is not very likely to be given to such re-
2

18
cusants—they say that their just claims are always
compromised by this apparent courtesy. And it may
offend some strong conservative men, that this subject
should be seriously mentioned at all—that it should,
so to speak, be tabled for discussion. But I stick to
my point. I am neither a conservative nor an ultraist.
I have always felt that woman has suffered great wrongs,
not only among Indians and profligates, but in what is
called our better modern civilization. It is not affec-
tion alone, not chivalry, not homage only, that woman
demands—things easy to pay—but justice; a just sense
of the true relations of mind to mind, of one human
being to another. The right that lies in might, the
right of the strong, is always a suspicious thing, dan-
gerous to exercise, liable in fact to unintentional and
unconscious abuse. I think that a man of just and del-
icate feeling will always watch himself on this point.
I believe that, from the ordinary construction of the
marriage tie, there is by coarse, uncultivated minds,
an immense deal of wrong inflicted-of injustice, hard-
ship, and cruelty endured ; and that, even by better
and more refined persons, woman is often deprived of
the independence of character, the freedom to think
and act for herself, to which she is entitled. Before
God these parties are equal souls, with equal rights,
though circumstances may make a difference; and I
would never insert, in the marriage service, the word
obey for woman; though, in ordinary cases of difference,
if it comes to that, it would be, I think, her duty and
her wisdom to yield her opinion. Yet I do not like
the word obey, and should never desire a woman to use
it to me; and, indeed, in the existing state of society,
I have thought it the dictate of a just moral policy, as
well as of true courtesy, to omit it. It was necessary,

19
I suppose, in the ruder age, in which the Apostle Paul
wrote, to lay down so definite a precept as “ wives obey
your husbands," but it does not appear to me neces-
sary or useful now.
of I said that circumstances make a difference; and I
mean a difference of pursuits between man and woman.
Thus, I think, that the prosecution of business natural-
ly belongs to the former—therefore the care of pro-
perty—therefore some superior control of it. But, it
does not follow that the ascendency should be so com-
plete and irresponsible as it is. The wife may be a
silent partner in the concern; but she ought to be
regarded as a partner more than she is, and there ought
to be more checks upon the power of an improvident
husband to waste the property she brings into the
partnership. And I protest altogether against the
power of a drunken husband to take his wife's earnings
to squander upon his vices; but yet I doubt whether,
in general, two equal property-holders in a family would
not breed more difficulty than it would relieve.
As to education—let every human being be edu-
cated—let every human mind be expanded as much as
possible. The theory of an essential difference of in-
tellectual powers in the sexes, of any other difference
than circumstances make, is, in my view, too absurd to
be considered.
So far I go; but here I must stop-and stop short.
When it is contended, that women should do business,
labor out of doors as men do—should vote, appear in
public life, hold office, be members of Congress, Cabi-
net Ministers, Presidents—and why not Captains and
Commodores, as well ?-I will not say what madness!
though that is my feeling; but, I say, the laws of pro-
gress, the nature of persons, the relations to the mate-

20
rial world, the relations to the social body, forbid. I
believe, indeed, that there is a constitutional difference
between the sexes, which destines the one to out-of-door
life, and the other to in-door life. If it be not so, I
should like to have some one tell me, why the one has
a beard and the other not. But if this be thought
to be trifling with the subject; or, if the idea of such
constitutional difference be said to be a matter of vague
sentiment, then I point to palpable facts. Who must
bear and nurse children? Who then must tend them?
Who then must stay beneath the domestic roof? And
which sex acquires, from these causes, a delicacy of
frame and fibre unknown to the other? Can women
go out to work—hunt, fish, fell trees, quarry stone,
build houses—as well as the men ? Can they leave
their little charge at home, and go into the courts, to
Congress, to the camp? Deliver us from a Congress
of men and women ! Our politics are vexed and per-
plexed enough already. What they would be with
that elenient of female fascination, impulse, and sensi-
tiveness flung into them, were hard to say or imagine;
but a burning house, with the most delicate and vola-
tile oil flung upon it, might give one an idea.
Turn, now, to another social question that be-
tween the family and the phalanstery. The great
argument for the latter is, that it would free the
world from much of its ignorance, pauperism, misery.
Men living in community, it is said, would relieve one
another's labor—enlighten, cheer, help one another.
Those dark pools of physical and moral degradation
opened, especially in our cities, into which the poor, the
indolent, the imbecile, the reckless, are falling year after
year--the horror and almost the despair of good men-
would be cleansed and cleared out. I must doubt it.

21
The most powerful preservative, perhaps, in the world,
from indolence, improvidence and degradation, is indi-
vidual responsibility. It seems to me an indispensa-
ble law of progress.
You take that away, or you
essentially weaken it, in the phalanstery. Every man,
then, is to be fed, and clothed, and housed, and made
tolerably comfortable, let him do as he will. Or, if
not; if you drive him away because he will not work,
you make him more poor and miserable than he was
before, and a desperate outcast and marauder into the
bargain ; and, moreover, you give up the phalanstery
principle.
For myself, I certainly should not like to live in
be
a phalanstery. I must say, I should very much rather
not; but I should yet more fear its influence, i. e.
upon the moral freedom of men. Epidemics there
would be bad enough; but I should dread, still more,
epidemics in the mind — the infection of example.
When, in the theological school, we heard a young
man declaim, we always knew what college he came
from. When I passed through Germany, I saw a
great many villages, every house in which was built
like every other; there was a ruling fashion in build-
ing, which, it seemed, nobody could depart from. I
should be afraid men's minds, in a phalanstery, would
be like those houses. I should distrust such a mecha-
nism. The disparity, the conflict of minds, is the very
nurture of truth and means of progress. These schools
of human device will never compete successfully with
that great school which God has opened, when “He
set the solitary” not in phalansteries, but “in fami-
lies.”
Let us now turn to forms of human violence, and
inquire wherein, and how far, and how fast, they can
72

22
be stayed? I would to God the time might come,
when not one drop of human blood shall stain the
earth, by the hand of executioner or soldier! But
there are some things that are fast fixed in human
nature-for that nature is one of our laws-fast fixed
in human nature, and are not easily or quickly to be
removed. A man stands before me—a good and inno-
cent man—and against him comes, in open day, or
steals upon him with stealthy step, a monster in hu-
man shape, and murders him before my eyes. My
feeling cries out-all human feeling, from the begin-
ning of the world, cries out—“Thy blood ought to
pay for that accursed act!” Now, I am not to be
reasoned out of this feeling by any theory of punish-
ment being inflicted solely as an example, or for the
good of society. That is one object of punishment, but
not its special significance. The murderer ought to
suffer adequately for what he has done ; and if he him-
self were immediately inspired with the right feeling,
he would say, "Take my life for his. I demand it."
This sense of justice, I say, is not to be ignored, or
scorned, or scandalized, as unchristian. And it is very
poor jesting to propose, that the man or the minister
of religion who takes this ground, should himself be-
come the hangman.
var Can justice, in this matter, yield to mercy? Can a
milder punishment be safely substituted ? I do not
know. I would to Heaven it might! But this I
know: that any reasoning - call it mild, merciful,
Christian-like, or what you will—that takes out the
element of righteous justice from the penalty, takes
out the very essence and heart of the law, and makes
it a mere trick to awe the world to virtue.
I look for better times. I hope the day will come

23
when some other punishment may be substituted for
that awful execution, that stops, at once and for ever,
the current of life. But I believe that the time will never
come, when he who sheddeth man's blood will not
deserve that by man his blood shall be shed. And if
he deserves that, does he not deserve the lesser pun-
ishment which mercy proposes to inflict? And is the
solemn sense of justice to be denied and cast out of the
penalty? If it were, mercy itself would have no
meaning
And so with regard to war. Who will not hope
that the horrible custom is to be done away? It
cannot stand for ever, if there is to be a progress in the
world. Barbarous trial of brute strength—for that is
what it is—brute strength brought in to settle the
claims of nations; a game of kings and rulers, where
the people are always losers; a waster of treasure and
life, slaying thousands and ten thousands; a payment
of blood and tears to buy desolation and misery;
--if there is common sense in the world, and civilization
is not a name, and progress a dream, this must come
to an end.
But it must come to an end because of the very
enormity of the thing. Not every fine-spun argument
against it, is sound and strong; not every proposition
made for its abolition, is rational and wise. To deny
us all right to defend ourselves against violence and
wrong, or to take life in any case, or to keep arms and
munitions for our protection—such dialectics, to my
mind, do not help the good cause. But let the hor-
ribleness of the thing be shown and be insisted on—be
portrayed in all its hatefulness and atrocity, till men
shall feel that they can bear it no longer.
And now let us come to the great and terrible

24
question of slavery. In the survey which I am taking
of certain questions, this, the greatest of all, cannot be
omitted ; and on this subject let me say, I still adhere
to my position. I am not an ultraist. I have, to a
certain extent, sympathies with both the parties to
this question; I respect the feelings and situation of
the people of the South; I share the sentiments of the
bulk of the people at the North. And as I have had
the fortune to be misconstrued on this subject, I am
still more desirous to use the privilege which I have
craved this evening, of speaking for myself. ew di
In a speech which I made in Pittsfield last winter,
and also in a lecture which I delivered in Boston, I did
not discuss the present fugitive slave law, though I was
immediately represented as a violent advocate for it,
but rather addressed myself to the question whether
we at the North could, in conscience, yield our assent
to any such bill—to any bill that should give the
Southern master the power to reclaim one of his slaves
that had fled to us for refuge. Should we make our
Northern cities “cities of refuge” to the fugitive; or
should we say to him,“ Under the circumstances, we do
not think it right to offer you an asylum and protec-
tion?" That was the question. Were we bound by
the highest obligations of conscience and humanity to
say to the master, “You shall not have your slave; we
will not hear of rendition; we will have no law about
it, any way ?" The abolitionists themselves might have
seen in that speech the painful struggle of a conscience
to decide, not whether this (to them so odious) law
could be obeyed, but whether any law of the kind
could be obeyed. After the publication of that speech,
I received a letter from a friend, saying, “Your speech
has been read among us with much satisfaction; even

25
the greatest of our abolitionists has nothing to say
against it, but that you ought to have denounced the
present bill." I replied, “ Tell my friend, that of the
two I am the greater abolitionist ; for I so detest all
fugitive slave bills, that I have hardly patience to go
into detail and discrimination—to say which is better
and which is worse."
bs But I did not denounce the bill for other reasons.
I felt hardly competent to do so. It had been framed
by the supreme legislature of the land; and whether
it was constitutional, whether it was the best law that
could be made, I was not prepared to say. Besides,
when the tide of public opinion was running so strong
against the law, as to threaten, in my opinion, to break
down the barriers of the Constitution and the Union,
I did not think it right to join the malcontents in de-
crying the law. Moreover, I wished to put the question
at once upon its ultimate merits. The main offence
does not lie in this law, but in any effective law. As
I said in my speech——" The abolitionists ought them-
selves to see that they will never be satisfied. I
myself feel that no bill can ever be framed that will
not be distasteful to me."
I am sensible that this language cannot be agree-
able to the people of the South. I am,
doubtless, a
very bad controversialist, being of no side, saying what
I think, without proposing to satisfy any party-
thinking, indeed, that in this fearful debate there is
something right on both sides. But this, at least, must
be plainly said: Nothing can make a fugitive slave
bill palatable to us at the North ; if we submit to any
such law, it is the most reluctant concession to a sense
of duty. All men, North and South, may easily under-
stand that. The people of the South should take no

26
offence at it; it is what they themselves would feel, in
a change of circumstances. If a fugitive Russian serf
or Algerine captive were seized in the streets of
Charleston, to be borne back to bondage, every humane
and high-minded man there would behold the spectacle
with pain and indignation. And if a man, albeit of a
different color and lineage from my own, yet a man,
and a man, too, perhaps, who had lived ten years here
by my side, and had done me kindly offices, if such
a man were caught before my door by the Southern
emissary, and manacled, to be remanded to slavery,
my tears would start and my blood would boil with
indignation and pity at the sight.
It is a spectacle wounding to humanity. As between
the master and the slave, it is the infliction of a great
wrong. It may be our duty not to interfere—we can-
not immediately right all wrongs in the world; and
this is one; but it is not our duty to suppress the feel-
ings of justice and humanity that arise in our bosoms.
The people of the South should understand this; and
it much concerns them to understand it. For they
have essentially hurt their position before the world,
by demanding this new law. They had better, in my
opinion, have left things as they were_left the law to
stand as an acknowledgment of their constitutional
right—but at the same time, let it fall into desuetude.
They recover a few slaves—a very few; but they out-
rage the sentiments of all mankind. They do not want
among them the men whom they recapture-certain
as these men are, when carried back, to spread disaf-
fection among their people—likely also to be persons
of a better class among their slaves, and more fit for
freedom. They had better let them go. As I have
known slaveholders to say, “If one of our slaves escapes,

27
we shall not pursue him; he has a natural right to be
free; if he makes that perilous struggle for freedom,
let him have it; the most of our people do not wish to
leave us; they are sensible that they are not qualified
to take care of themselves; let things remain in this
way; we must accept the good and evil of our condi-
tion, and make the best of it." horobo
at Still it would be wrong for us to interfere between
the master and slave, with any other force than that of
argument. We have promised that we would not do so.
It is a part of our national compact. Our Union was
founded, in part, upon that agreement. No Union can
stand without it. And if we break the compact in behalf
of fugitive slaves, why not as well in behalf of the rest ?
Yet the abolitionists themselves disclaim any intention,
by force or law, to touch the body of slaves in actual pos-
session of their masters. But why not? One man stands
on one side of a State line, and is a fugitive; another
stands ten feet or ten miles from him on the other side,
and is in the hands of his master. Can a few feet, or a few
miles, make any difference in the principle that justifies
interference? I press the question. Why do not the
abolitionists make a crusade upon the South to deliver
the slave? Is it because we have made a compact
with the Southern States to leave their slaves in their
possession ? But so have we made a compact not to
withhold, but to surrender the fugitive. I say again-
why do they not make a slave-delivering crusade? Is
it because of the evil, and mischief, and peril that it
would involve? Then I say that the same argument
should restrain them from interfering to rescue the
fugitive.
But here, it will be said, is the point where the
question of conscience presses : “ The fugitive has a right

28
כל
to be free; if you help the master to catch and
hold him, you violate his right; and it is a sin before
Heaven.” I answer, that the compact does not bind
me, and no bill formed in compliance with it ought to
bind me, to do any such thing. “What!" it may be
said, “ do not the constable, and the commissioner, and
the bystanders lend their aid—do they not catch, and
hold, and enslave the man ?" I answer, no. By the
laws of this government, the man is a slave before they
touch him; and no action can make him to be that
which he is. But suppose it were otherwise. Sup-
pose that South Carolina were a foreign State, and
that we had made a convention with her, in the very
words of our Constitution. What is that bond ? Not
to catch, hold, or enslave her people that flee from her,
but simply to " deliver them up”-simply not to with-
hold them. “What is the meaning, then," it will be
asked, “ of the legal process that precedes this delivery ?”
I understand it to be this. We will not let irresponsi-
ble persons come into our territory and seize whom
they will, and bear him off to bondage. If you
claim
any man as owing you service, you must prove that he
is the man you say he is, and not another. You must
prove this
, according to the forms of law. The legal
marshal shall take him--before the legal commissioner;
his case shall be legally examined ; and then, if he is
given up to his master, we simply promise you that
there shall be no rescue with the strong hand; civil
order and the course of the law shall be protected,
though the posse comitatus be called out for the pur-
pose. I repeat it; the bill does not make us slave-
catchers. The Southern master, or his agent, lays his
hand upon a colored man here at the North, and says,
" This is one of my people, and he must come with me."

29
I lay
Just
The bill says, “Stop; you must not take this man as
STOT
one of your people till you have proved that he is such.
my
hand on him to protect him, till you have
established this fact. If you make out your case, then
the Northern citizen is bound by the Constitution and
the law of the land not to interfere in the matter.
The master may take his slave—it is his own affair.
And if there shall be any attempt at rescue, the by-
standers are required, as they are in all cases of resist-
ance and violence, to sustain the law and the public
order."
The point here involved is, doubtless, most mate-
rial. I firmly deny that it was ever meant by the Con-
stitution that we should assist the master to catch or
carry back his slave. The language of the instrument
is, that he “shall be delivered up.” This phrase very
naturally expresses what would follow as the result of
the civil process, supposing the claim to be made out.
The fugitive is in the hands of the Court of the legal
authority appointed to decide upon his case. The
Court “delivers him up”-i. e., it simply says to the
claimant, "you may take him." The action of the
Court is not aid, nor assistance, nor approval, nor sym-
pathy with the claimant; but simple rendition. “De-
livering up” a slave, like " delivering up” a criminal or
a man charged with crime, is not constituting ourselves
judges of his case; but it is simply saying to a neigh-
boring sovereignty, “we leave him to you; we do not
interfere to protect the fugitive."
Indeed, the real offence in this matter seems to lie
in the re-enactment of this law at all, and not in the
terms of the present bill. There was no trial by jury
before, no writ of habeas corpus. The Court now con-
stituted is as respectable, the investigation as ample as

30
before. There is no serious danger, and no sincere ap-
prehension that free men—i. e., men by birth or pur-
chase free-will be remanded to slavery. There is no
reason to think that many persons will be reclaimed
any way. I do not believe that ten persons have been
recovered, or that twenty ever will be. The real of-
fence, I repeat, lies in the re-enactment of the law. I
believe it is felt by many, in this country and in Eng-
land, that it is a base subserviency to Southern threats,
or a sacrifice of principle to policy. I do not so regard
it. I believe it was right thus to re-assure the South-
ern States, since they required the re-assurance, that
we did not mean to interfere with their system, nor to
violate the compact of the Constitution. And if we
did not and do not mean to do this; if we do not mean
to open an asylum for Southern slaves in the North,
then it was not unmeet to make a declaration that
should prevent them from seeking it; and such I un-
derstand really to be the main purpose and effect of
this Fugitive Slave Bill. It will not be the means,
perhaps, of apprehending twenty slaves; but it will
probably prevent hundreds from coming here. And
if we do not mean to have them come here, nor to hold
out
any lure to them; if we do not think that this is
the way to avert from the nation a great and overshad-
owing peril, it is proper that we should say so.
In truth, as it seems to me, it only needs that a
man, instead of indulging in vague, and it may be, elo-
quent declamation, should take some decided ground
on this subject, to be brought to a right conclusion.
What do you say? I ask. Would you, as the member
of a national sovereignty, American or English, propose
rudely to violate one of the written bonds of your Con-
stitution? Do you, as an American citizen, mean to

31
say to the Southern States, “We will break our coven-
ant with you, come what may. We will not wait to
reason; we will not wait for any legal modification;
we will break the bond to-day." You do not, you
never did, say that. There has been a Fugitive Slave
Law in existence all along; you never took any such
ground with regard to it. Well, then, if you do not
propose to overthrow the Constitution and break up
the Union, you must acquiesce in some kind of Fugitive
Slave Law. And it is in vain to say that the present
law is so much worse than the former, as to justify a
resistance now,
which
you never thought of before. In
fact it is not worse, but better, for the slave than the
former.
The declamation on this subject may be eloquent;
I have received letters from gentlemen, both at home
and abroad, full of eloquent expostulation, full of beauti-
ful pleas for humanity. I sympathize with those pleas. I
would make the case of every man-American, English,
or African-my own. If there be wrongs, if there be
stripes, if there be sorrows in the world, I would feel
them as if they were inflicted upon myself. And I must
take simple leave to say, that I see nothing in the hu-
manity of Abolition writers and speakers that makes
me feel that I must humble myself in its presence.
Sorrows and wrongs enough there are in the very
structure of society, and we must struggle out of them
as well as we can. But when that fathomless abyss of
calamities and sorrows is opened to me, that would be
made by the sundering of our national bond, I must
pause, I must deliberate, I must consider with anxious
and painful care what is my duty; and that is what I
have endeavored to do.
I say I must consider. I must consider the great

32
bond of the Union, which we must not break; and I
must consider the rights of the fugitive too. Liberty
is his own proper right; and I believe that every
slave-master feels it-feels that he himself would es-
cape, if he could, in similar circumstances. It is the
very impulse of humanity to do so. I can conceive,
indeed, of a higher thing than this impulse. I may
be reminded of the case of Socrates bowing to the
majesty of the Athenian law, and refusing to escape;
and I admire the conduct of Socrates. And I only
say, show me the slave-man who, for the sake of the
public order and law, is disposed to do the same thing,
and I will admire him ; but for me to compel him to
do it, is quite another thing. I say I would admire him.
I said, in my speech, “I would consent that my own
brother”—for certainly I was never guilty of the vul-
gar irreverence of thus alluding to a more venerable
relative; and those who have frequently asserted it,
must settle the account with their truth and decency
as they can--this is what I said, both in my speech
and lecture: “I would consent”-for I said nothing
of sending any body—“I would consent that my own
brother, my own son, should go (i. e. into slavery)-
ten times rather would I go myself—than that this
Union should be sacrificed for me or for us;" and I
am ready to stand by this as a just and honorable
sentiment; and I can only wonder that any man
should think it extravagant or ridiculous. Indeed, I
suppose the only chance of making it appear so, was
to connect with it the falsehood to which I have just
referred.
And now let me add, that in all this I place my-
self on the ground of moral conviction, as truly so as
any abolitionist in the world. Conscience—conscience

33
I must I repeat it ?-conscience is the ground on
(which I stand. Continually is it said or implied by
the Abolitionists and their sympathizers, that they look
to conscience for their law, and we to the State, or to
State expediency. No; this rather, in my view, is the
difference. They take the bare instinct of conscience
for their guide—we profess to take the wisdom of con-
science for ours; they take one view of the matter-
we are obliged to take many. There is an important
distinction here, which it seems to me is constantly
overlooked. The principle of conscience is one thing
the application of the principle is another thing.
The former may be right-the latter entirely wrong.
What great moral mistake was there ever in the
world, that has not sheltered itself, and that honestly,
under the plea of conscience ! Religious intolerance,
political proscription, wild fanaticism,“ wrath, malice,
and all uncharitableness," have ever had that plea.
Conscience is no more exempt from aberration than
any other principle. Its very elevation may be an
exposure. It derives from Heaven, and will not hear
of earth-born question or doubt. It stands so high,
that it cannot see the plain paths of duty that lie
around it. It is self-confident in the same proportion.
It is blinded—by excess of light. It is made giddy-by
the pure air of abstractions. It sins the more-through
the assurance of being right. It is guilty of inhu-
manity, for the same reason that Paul was, because it
verily thinks that it is doing God service. How much
of the hard censure, cruel defamation, and moral ruf-
fianism, that we see today, has its origin in this in-
stinct of conscience ! Men were not made to be
governed by instincts, however holy, but by reason,
also—by reflection-by circumstances-by the right,

34
indeed, but also by the universal welfare, which is
ever coincident with the right.
Upon the ground of a reflective conscience, there.
fore, I endeavor to place myself; and these points are
very
clear to me.
Firstly: That the immediate emancipation of the
Southern slaves would not be right; they are not pre
pared for freedom, nor do they generally desire it.oy
Secondly: That till this event takes place, it would
be fatal to that order of things, fatal to our peace and
Union, for us to hold them free and irreclaimable, the
moment they touch our soil.
Thirdly: That, therefore, there must be some kind of
fugitive slave law.
And Fourthly: That the present law is not more
stringent than its predecessor; that it contains no new
features of intolerable tyranny, such that it must be
rejected on this account; that it is not rejected on this
account, but because any effective bill would be dis-
liked and resisted.
Alas! the tide is sweeping on like fate, bearing on
its bosom untold calamities and perils. In 40 years,
it is estimated that there will be nine millions of slaves
in the Southern States; the worn-out land will not be
able to bear them, nor their impoverished masters to
keep them. Horrible convulsions must ensue-civil
or servile wars. Something, then, must be done, and
soon done, to avert the catastrophe. The nation must
put forth its strength; North and South must put
brotherly shoulders to the work; especially does all
original motive power to help, lie with our brethren in
the South. And yet we spend all this dread interval
in mutual recrimination! instead of devising ways of
relief, we devise stumbling-blocks. It is the pleasure

35
of many at the South to represent us as ferocious and
selfish fanatics; and of many at the North to heap
opprobrium and indignity upon men as kind, and
generous, and honorable, and conscientious as ourselves.
One thing, at least, is perfectly plain to me: that no-
thing but moderation on all sides-nothing but a
calmness and brotherly kindness such as we have not
yet seen, can conduct us out of these perils--can solve
for our country this tremendous problem.
BHD
OUTE

Pam
1852
Dewey Orville
33952
Ford Pus. Inc.]