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FREDERICK DOUGLASS ESQ.:
Dear Sir-The Ladies of the "Rochester Anti Slavery Sewing Society,"
desire me to return you their most sincere thanks for the eloquent and able
address delivered in Corinthian Hall, on the 5th of July. Anticipating its
speedy publication in Pamphlet form, they request that you will furnish them
with one hundred copies for distribution.
ORATION.
Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: HE who could address this audience without a quailing sensation, has stronger nerves than I have. I do not remember ever to have appeared as a speaker before any assembly more shrinkingly, nor with greater distrust of my ability, than I do this day. A feeling has crept over me, quite unfavorable to the exercise of my limited powers of speech. The task before me is one which requires much previous thought and study for its proper performance. I know that apologies of this sort are generally considered flat and unmeaning. I trust, however, that mine will not be so considered. Should I seem at ease, my appearance would much misrepresent me. The little experience I have had in addressing public meetings, in country school houses, avails me nothing on the present occasion.
The papers and placards say, that I am to deliver a 4th July oration. This certainly, sounds large, and out of the common way, for me. It is true that I have often had the privilege to speak in this beautiful Hall, and to address many who now honor me with their presence. But neither their familiar faces, nor the perfect gage I think I have of Corinthian Hall, seems to free me from embarrassment.
The fact is, ladies and gentlemen, the distance between this platform and the slave plantation, from
which I escaped, is considerable and the difficulties
This, for the purpose of this celebration, is the 4th
of July. It is the birthday of your National Independence, and of your political freedom. This, to you,
is what the Passover was to the emancipated people
of God. It carries your minds back to the day, and
to the act of your great deliverance; and to the signs,
and to the wonders, associated with that act,and that
day. This celebration also marks the beginning of
another year of your national life; and reminds you
that the Republic of America is now 76 years old.
I am glad, fellow-citizens, that your nation is so
young. Seventy-six years, though a good old age
for a man, is but a mere speck in the life of a nation.
Three score years and ten is the allotted time for individual men; but nations number their years by
thousands. According to this fact, you are, even now
only in the beginning of you national career, still lingering in the period of childhood. I repeat, I am glad
this is so. There is hope in the thought, and hope is
much needed, under the dark clouds which lower
above the horizon. The eye of the reformer is met
with angry flashes, portending disastrous times; but
Fellow-citizens, I shall not presume to dwell at
length on the associations that cluster about this day.
The simple story of it is, that, 76 years ago, the
people of this country were British subjects. The
style and title of your "sovereign people" (in which
you now glory) was not then born. You were under
the British Crown. Your fathers esteemed the Eng-
lish Government as the home government; and
England as the fatherland. This home government,
But, your fathers, who had not adopted the fashionable idea of this day, of the infallibility of government, and the absolute character of its acts, presumed
to differ from the home government in respect to the
wisdom and the justice of some of those burdens
and restraints. They went so far in their excitement
as to pronounce the measures of government unjust,
unreasonable, and oppressive, and altogether such as
ought not to be quietly submitted to. I scarcely
need say, fellow-citizens, that my opinion of those
measures fully accords with that of your fathers.
Such a declaration of agreement on my part, would
not be worth much to anybody. It would, certainly,
prove nothing, as to what part I might have taken,
had I lived during the great controversy of 1776.
To say now that America was right, and England
wrong, is exceedingly easy. Everybody can say it;
the dastard, not less than the noble brave, can flippantly discant on the tyranny of England towards
the American Colonies. It is fashionable to do so;
but there was a time when, to pronounce against
England, and in favor of the cause of the colonies,
tried men's souls. They who did so were accounted
in their day, plotters of mischief, agitators and rebels,
dangerous men. To side with the right, against the
wrong, with the weak against the strong, and with
the oppressed against the oppressor! here lies the
merit, and the one which, of all others, seems un-
Feeling themselves harshly and unjustly treated, by the home government, your fathers, like men of honesty, and men of spirit, earnestly sought redress. They petitioned and remonstrated; they did so in a decorous, respectful, and loyal manner, Their conduct was wholly unexceptionable. This, however, did not answer the purpose. They saw themselves treated with sovereign indifference, coldness and scorn. Yet they persevered. They were not the men to look back.
As the sheet anchor takes a firmer hold, when the ship is tossed by the storm, so did the cause of your fathers grow stronger, as it breasted the chilling blasts of kingly displeasure. The greatest and best of Brit ish statesmen admitted its justice, and the loftiest eloquence of the British Senate came to its support. But, with that blindness which seems to be the unvarying characteristic of tyrants, since Pharoah and his hosts were drowned in the Red sea, the British Government persisted in the exactions complained of.
The madness of this course, we believe, is admitted now, even by England; but we fear the lesson is wholly lost on our present rulers.
Oppression makes a wise man mad. Your fathers were wise men, and if they did not go mad, they became restive under this treatment. They felt themselves the victims of grievous wrongs, wholly incurable in their colonial capacity. With brave men there is always a remedy for oppression. Just here, the idea of a total separation of the colonies from the crown was born! It was a startling idea, much more
so, than we, at this distance of time, regard it. The timid and the prudent (as has been intimated) of that day, were, of course, shocked and alarmed by it. Such people lived then, had lived before, and will, probably, ever have a place on this planet; and their course, in respect to any great change, (no matter how great the good to be attained, or the wrong to be redressed by it,) may be calculated with as much precision as can be the course of the stars. They hate all changes, but silver, gold and copper change! Of this sort of change they are always strongly in favor.
These people were called tories in the days of your fathers; and the appellation, probably, conveyed the same idea that is meant by a more modern, though a somewhat less euphonious term, which we often find in our papers, applied to some of our old politicians.
Their opposition to the then dangerous thought was earnest and powerful; but, amid.all their terror and affrighted vociferations against it, the alarming and revolutionary idea moved on, and the country with it.
On the 2d of July, 1776, the old Continental. Congress, to the dismay of the lovers of ease, and the worshippers of property, clothed that dreadful idea with all the authority of national sanction. They did so in the form of a resolution; and as we seldom hit upon resolutions, drawn up in our day, whose transparency is at all equal to this, it may refresh your minds and help my story if I read it.
Resolved, That these united colonies are, and of right, ought to be free and Independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown; and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, dissolved.
Citizens, your fathers made good that resolution. They succeeded; and to-day you reap the fruits of their success. The freedom gained is yours; and you, therefore, may properly celebrate this anniversary. The 4th of July is the first great fact in your nation's history-the very ring-bolt in the chain of your yet undeveloped destiny.
Pride and patriotism, not less than gratitude, prompt you to celebrate and to hold it in perpetual remembrance. I have said that the Declaration of Independence is the RINGBOLT to the chain of your nation's destiny; so, indeed, I regard it. The principles contained in that instrument are saving princi- ples. Stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all, foes, and at whatever cost.
From the round top of your ship of state, dark
and threatening clouds may be seen. Heavy billows,
like mountains in the distance, disclose to the leeward
huge forms of flinty rocks! That bolt drawn, that
chain broken, and all is lost. Cling to this day-
cling to it, and to its principles, with the grasp of a
storm-tossed mariner to a spar at midnight.
The coming into being of a nation, in any circumstances, is an interesting event. But, besides general considerations, there were peculiar circumstances which make the advent of this republic an event of special attractiveness.
The whole scene, as I look back to it, was simple, dignified and sublime.
The population of the country, at the time, stood
at the insignificant number of three millions. The
country was poor in the munitions of war. The
Fellow Citizens, I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic. The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men. They were great men too-great enough to give fame to a great age. It does not often happen to a nation to. raise, at one time, such a number of truly great men. The point from which I am compelled to view them is not, certainly the most favorable; and yet I cannot contemplate their great deeds with less than admiration. They were statesmen, patriots and heroes, and for the good they did, and the principles they contended for, I will unite with you to honor their memory.
They loved their country better than their own private interests; and, though this is not the highest form of human excellence, all will concede that it is a rare virtue, and that when it is exhibited, it ought to command respect. He who will, intelligently, lay down his life for his country, is a man whom it is not in human nature to despise. Your fathers staked their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, on the cause of their country. In their admiration of liberty, they lost sight of all other interests.
They were peace men; but they preferred revolution to peaceful submission to bondage. They were
How circumspect, exact and proportionate were all their movements! How unlike the politicians of an hour! Their statesmanship looked beyond the pass- ing moment, and stretched away in strength into the distant future. They seized upon eternal principles, and set a glorious example in their defence. Mark them!
Fully appreciating the hardships to be encountered, firmly believing in the right of their cause, honorably inviting the scrutiny of an on-looking world, reverently appealing to heaven to attest their sincerity, soundly comprehending the solemn responsibility they were about to assume, wisely measuring the terrible odds against them, your fathers, the fathers of this republic, did, most deliberately, under the inspiration of a glorious patriotism, and with a sub- lime faith in the great principles of justice and free- dom, lay deep, the corner-stone of the national super- estructure, which has risen and still rises in grandeur around you.
Of this fundamental work, this day is the anniversary. Our eyes are met with demonstrations of
Friends and citizens, I need not enter further into the causes which led to this anniversary. Many of you understand them better than I do. You could instruct me in regard to them. That is a branch of knowledge in which you feel, perhaps, a much deeper interest than your speaker. The causes which led to the separation of the colonies from the British crown have never lacked for a tongue. They have all been taught in your common schools, narrated at your firesides, unfolded from your pulpits, and thun- dered from your legislative halls, and are as familiar to you as household words. They form the staple of your national poetry and eloquence.
I remember, also, that, as a people, Americans are
remarkably familiar with all facts which make in
in their own favor. This is esteemed by some as a
national trait-perhaps a national weakness. It is a
fact, that whatever makes for the wealth or for the
reputation of Americans, and can be had cheap! will
be found by Americans. I shall not be charged with
slandering Americans, if I say I think the Ameri-
I leave, therefore, the great deeds of your fathers
to other gentlemen whose claim to have been regularly descended will be less likely to be disputed
than mine!
My business, if I have any here to-day, is with the
present. The accepted time with God and his cause
is the ever-living now.
We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and to the future. To all inspiring motives, to noble deeds which can be gained from the past, we are welcome. But now is the time, the important time. Your fathers have lived, died, and have done their work, and have done much of it well. You live and must die, and you must do your work. You have no right to enjoy a child's share in the labor of your fathers, unless your children are to be blest by your labors. You have no right to wear out and waste the hard-earned fame of your fathers to cover your indolence. Sydney Smith tells us that men seldom eulogize the wisdom and virtues of their fathers, but to excuse some folly or wickedness of their own. This truth is not a doubtful one. There are illustrations of it near and remote, ancient and modern. It was fashionable, hundreds of years ago,
for the children of Jacob to boast, we have "Abraham to our father," when they had long lost Abra-
ham's faith and spirit. That people contented them-
selves under the shadow of Abraham's great name,
while they repudiated the deeds which made his
name great. Need I remind you that a similar thing
is being done all over this country to-day? Need I
tell you that the Jews are not the only people who
built the tombs of the prophets, and garnished the
sepulchres of the righteous? Washington could not
die till he had broken the chains of his slaves. Yet
his monument is built up by the price of human
blood, and the traders in the bodies and souls of men,
shout "We have Washington to "our father."-
Alas! that it should be so; yet so it is.
Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here to-day? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political free- dom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us?, and am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us?
Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to these questions! Then would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful. For who is there so cold, that a nation's sympathy could not warm him?
Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude, that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? Who so stolid and selfish, that would not give his voice to swell the hallelujahs of a nation's jubilee, when the chains of servitude had been torn from his limbs? I am not that man. In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the "lame man leap as an hart."
But, such is not the state of the case. I say it with
a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not
included within the pale of this glorious anniversary!
Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which
you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common.
The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity
and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is
shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought
life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death
upon
This Fourth July is yours, not mine. You
may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters
into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call
him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean
citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day?
If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. And let me
warn you that it is dangerous to copy the example
of a nation whose crimes, towering up to hehvéd,
were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty,
burying that nation in irrecoverable ruin! I can to
day take up the plaintivé lament of a peeled and
woe-smitten people!
"By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. Yea! we wept when we remembered Zion.
We
Fellow citizens; above your national, tumultous
joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions! whose
chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, to-day,
rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that
reach them. If I do forget, if I do not faithfully remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day,
may my right hand forget her cunning, and may my
tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!" To forget.
them, to pass lightly over their wrongs, and to chime
in with the popular theme, would be treason most
scandalous and shocking, and would make me a re-
proach before God and the world. My subject, then,
fellow-citizens, is AMERICAN SLAVERY. I shall see, this
day, and its popular characteristics, from the slave's
point of view. Standing, there, identified with the
American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do
not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the
character and conduct of this nation never looked
blacker to me than on this 4th of July! Whether we
turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems
equally hideous and revolting. America is false to the
past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself
to be false to the future. Standing with God and the
crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in
But I fancy I hear some one of my audience say, it is
just in this circumstance that you and your brother abolitionists fail to make a favorable impression on the
public mind. Would you argue more, and denounce
less, would you persuade more, and rebuke less, your
cause would be much more likely to succeed. But, I
submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued.
What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have
me argue? On what branch of the subject do the
people of this country need light? Must I under-
take to prove that the slave is a man?
That point
is conceded already. Nobody doubts it. The slaveholders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment
of laws for their government. They acknowledge it
when they punish disobedience on the part of the
slave. There are seventy-two crimes in the State of
Virginia, which, if committed by a black man, (no
matter how ignorant he be,) subject him to the pun-
ishment of death; while only two of the same crimes
will subject a white man to the like punishment.-
What is this but the acknowledgement that the slave
For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the negro race. Is it not astonishing that, while we are ploughing, planting and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses, constructing bridges, building ships, working in metals of brass, iron, copper, silver and gold; that, while we are reading, writing and cyphering, acting as clerks, merchants and secretaries, having among us lawyers, doctors, ministers, poets, authors, editors, orators and teachers; that, while we are engaged in all manner of enterprises common to other men, digging gold in California, capturing the whale in the Pacific, feeding sheep and cattle on the hill-side, living, moving, acting, thinking, planning, living in families as husbands, wives and children, and, above all, confessing and worshipping the Christian's God, and look ing hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave, we are called upon to prove that we are men!
Would you have me argue that man is entitled to
liberty? that he is the rightful owner of his own
What, am I to argue that it is wrong to make men brutes, to rob them of their liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellow men, to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh with the lash, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters? Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood, and stained with pollution, is wrong? No I will not. I have better employment for my time and strength, than such arguments would imply.
What, then, remains to be argued? Is it that slavery is not divine;, that God did not establish it; that our doctors of divinity are mistaken? There is blasphemy in the thought. That which is inhuman, cannot be divine! Who can reason on such a proposition? They that can, may; I cannot. The time for such argument is past.
At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O! had I the ability, and could I reach the nation's ear, I would, to day, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.
What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy—a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour.
Go where you may, search where you will, roam
.through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old
world, travel through South America, search out ev-
Take the American slave-trade, which we are told
by the papers, is especially prosperous just now. Ex-
Senator Benton tells us that the price of men was
never higher than now. He mentions the fact to show
that slavery is in no danger. This trade is one of the
peculiarities of American institutions. It is carried
on in all the large towns and cities in one half of this
confederacy; and millions are pocketed every year, by
dealers in this horrid traffic. In several states, this
trade is a chief source of wealth. It is called (in contradistinction to the foreign slave-trade) "the internal
slave-trade." It is, probably, called so, too, in order
to divert from it the horror with which the foreign
slave-trade is contemplated. That trade has long since
been denounced by this government, as piracy. It
has been denounced with burning words, from the
high places of the nation, as an execrable traffic. To
arrest it, to put an end to it, this nation keeps a squadron, at immense cost, on the coast of Africa. Everywhere, in this country, it is safe to speak of this foreign slave-trade, as a most inhuman traffic, opposed
alike to the laws of God and of man. The duty to extirpate and destroy it, is admitted even by our DOCTORS OF DIVINITY. In order to put an end to it, some
of these last have consented that their colored brethren (nominally free) should leave this country, and
Behold the practical operation of this internal
slave-trade, the American slave-trade, sustained by
American politics and American religion. Here you
will see men and women, reared like swine, for the
market. You know what is a swine-drover? I will
show you a man-drover. They inhabit all our Southern States. They perambulate the country, and
crowd the highways of the nation, with droves of
human stock. You will see one of these human flesh
jobbers, armed with pistol, whip and bowie-knife, driving a company of a hundred men, women, and children, from the Potomac to the slave market at New
Orleans. These wretched people are to be sold singly,
or in lots, to suit purchasers. They are food for the
cotton-field, and the deadly sugar-mill. Mark the sad
procession, as it moves wearily along, and the inhuman wretch who drives them. Hear his savage yells
and his blood-chilling oaths, as he hurries on his affrighted captives! There, see the old man, withlocks
thinned and gray. Cast one glance, if you please,
upon that young mother, whose shoulders are bare to
the scorching sun, her briny tears falling on the brow of the babe in her arms. See, too, that girl of thirteen, weeping, yes! weeping, as she thinks of the
mother from whom she has been torn! The drove
moves tardily. Heat and sorrow have nearly con-
sumed their strength; suddenly you hear a quick
I was born amid such sights and scenes. To me
the American slave-trade is a terrible reality. When
a child, my soul was often pierced with a sense of its
horrors. I lived on Philpot Street, Fell's Point, Baltimore, and have watched from the wharves, the slave
ships in the Basin, anchored from the shore, with
their cargoes of human flesh, waiting for favorable
winds to waft them down the Chesapeake. There
was, at that time, a grand slave mart kept at the
head of Pratt Street, by Austin Woldfolk. His agents
were sent into every town and county in Maryland
announcing their arrival, through the papers, and on
flaming "hand-bills," headed CASH FOR NEGROES. These
men were generally well dressed men, and very cap-
The flesh-mongers gather up their victims by dozens, and drive them, chained, to the general depot at Baltimore. When a sufficient number have been collected here, a ship is chartered, for the purpose of conveying the forlorn crew to Mobile, or to New Orleans. From the slave prison to the ship, they are usually driven in the darkness of night; for since the anti-slavery agitation, a certain caution is observed.
In the deep still darkness of midnight, I have been often aroused by the dead heavy footsteps, and the pitious cries of the chained gangs that passed our door. The anguish of my boyish heart was intense; and I was often consoled, when speaking to my mistress in the morning, to hear her say that the custom was very wicked; that she hated to hear the rattle of the chains, and the heart-rending cries. I was glad to find one who sympathised with me in my horror.
Fellow-citizens, this murderous traffic is, to-day, in
active operation in this boasted republic. In the solitude of my spirit, I see clouds of dust raised on the
highways of the South; I see the bleeding footsteps;
I hear the doleful wail of fettered humanity, on the way
to the slave-markets, where the victims are to be sold ·
like horses, sheep, and swine, knocked off to the highest bidder. There I see the tenderest ties ruthlessly
broken, to gratify the lust, caprice and rapacity of
But a still more inhuman, disgraceful, and scan- dalous state of things remains to be presented.
By an act of the American Congress, not yet two
years old, slavery has been nationalized in its most
horrible and revolting form. By that act, Mason &
Dixon's line has been obliterated; New York has beome as Virginia; and the power to hold, hunt, and
sell men, women and children, as slaves, remains no
longer a mere state institution, but is now an institution of the whole United States. The power is co-ex-
tensive with the star-spangled banner, and American
Christianity. Where these go, may also go the merciless slave-hunter. Where these are, man is not sacred.
He is a bird for the sportsman's gun. By that most
foul and fiendish of all human decrees, the liberty
and person of every man are put in peril. Your
broad republican domain is hunting ground for men.
Not for thieves and robbers, enemies of society, merely, but for men guilty of no crime. Your law-makers have commanded all good citizens to engage in
this hellish sport. Your President, your Secretary
of State, your lords, nobles, and ecclesiastics, enforce,
as a duty you owe to your free and glorious country,
and to your God, that you do this accursed thing.
Not fewer than forty Americans, have, within the
past two years, been hunted down, and, without a
moment's warning, hurried away in chains, and con-
In glaring violation of justice, in shameless disregard of the forms of administering law, in cunning.
arrangement to entrap the defenceless, and in diabol-
ical intent, this Fugitive Slave Law stands alone in
the annals of tyrannical legislation. I doubt if there
be another nation on the globe, having the brass and
the baseness to put such a law on the statute-book.
If any man in this assembly thinks differently from
I take this law to be one of the grossest infringe- ments of Christian Liberty, and, if the churches and ministers of our country were not stupidly blind, or most wickedly indifferent, they, too, would so re- gard it.
At the very moment that they are thanking God
for the enjoyment of civil and religious liberty, and
for the right to worship God according to the dictates
of their own consciences, they are utterly silent in
respect to a law which robs religion of its chief significance, and makes it utterly worthless to a world
lying in wickedness. Did this law concern the "mint,
anise and cummin"-abridge the right to sing psalms,
to partake of the sacrament, or to engage in any of
the ceremonies of religion, it would be smitten by the
thunder of a thousand pulpits. A general shout would
go up from the church, demanding repeal, repeal,
instant repeal!—And it would go hard with that
politician who presumed to solicit the votes of the
people without inscribing this motto on his banner.
Further, if this demand were not complied with,
another Scotland would be added to the history of
religious liberty, and the stern old covenanters would
be thrown into the shade. A John Knox would be
seen at every church door, and heard from every
pulpit, and Fillmore would have no more quarter than
was shown by Knox, to the beautiful, but threacherous
Queen Mary of Scotland.--The fact that the church
not a vital principle, requiring active
benevolence, justice, love and good will towards man.
It esteems sacrifice above mercy; psalm-singing above
right doing; solemn meetings above practical righteousness. A worship that can be conducted by
persons who refuse to give shelter to the houseless,
to give bread to the hungry, clothing to the naked,
and who enjoin obedience to a law forbidding these
acts of mercy, is a curse, not a blessing to mankind.
The Bible addresses all such persons as "scribes,
pharisees, hypocrites, who pay tithe of mint, anise,
and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters
of the law, judgment, mercy and faith."
But the church of this country is not only indifferent to the wrongs of the slave, it actually takes sides with the oppressors. It has made itself the bulwark of American slavery, and the shield of American slave-hunters. Many of its most eloquent Divines, who stand as the very lights of the church, have shamelessly given the sanction of religion, and the bible, to the whole slave system. They have taught that man may, properly, be a slave; that the relation of master and slave is ordained of God; that to send back an escaped bondman to his master is clearly the duty of all the followers of the Lord Jesus Christ; and this horrible blasphemy is palmed off upon the world for christianity.
For my part, I would say, welcome infidelity!
welcome atheism! welcome anything! in preference
to the gospel, as preached by those Divines! They
convert the very name of religion into an engine of
tyranny, and barbarous cruelty, and serve to confirm
more infidels, in this age, than all the infidel writings
of Thomas Paine, Voltaire, and Bolingbroke, put
together, have done? These ministers make religion
a cold and flinty-hearted thing, having neither prin-
ciples of right action, nor bowels of compassion. They
strip the love of God of its beauty, and leave the
throne of religion a huge, horrible, repulsive form.
It is a religion for oppressors, tyrants, man-stealers,
and thugs. It is not that "pure and undefiled religion" which is from above, and which is "first pure,
then peaceable, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and
good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy."
But a religion which favors the rich against the poor;
which exalts the proud above the humble; which
divides mankind into two classes, tyrants and slaves;
which says to the man in chains, stay there; and to
the oppressor, oppress on; it is a religion which may
be professed and enjoyed by all the robbers and
enslavers of mankind; it makes God a respecter of
persons, denies his fatherhood of the race, and tram-
ples in the dust the great truth of the brotherhood
of man.
All this we affirm to be true of the popular
church, and the popular worship of our land and
nation—a religion, a church and a worship which, on
the authority of inspired wisdom, we pronounce to be
an abomination in the sight of God. In the language
of Isaiah, the American church might be well addressed, "Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an
The American church is guilty, when viewed in connection with what it is doing to uphold slavery; but it is superlatively guilty when viewed in connection with its ability to abolish slavery.
The sin of which it is guilty is one of omission as 'well as of commission. Albert Barnes but uttered what the common sense of every man at all observant of the actual state of the case will receive as truth, when he declared that "There is no power out of the church that could sustain slavery an hour, if it were not sustained in it."
Let the religious press, the pulpit, the sunday school, the conference meeting, the great ecclesiastical, missionary, bible and tract associations of the land array their immense powers against slavery, and slave-holding; and the whole system of crime and blood would be scattered to the winds, and that they do not do this involves them in the most awful: responsibility of which the mind can conceive.
In prosecuting the anti-slavery enterprise, we have
been asked to spare the church, to spare the ministry;
but how, we ask, could such a thing be done? We are
that we ought to obey man's law before
the law of God."
My spirit wearies of such blasphemy; and how
such men can be supported, as the "standing types and
representatives of Jesus Christ," is a mystery which I
leave others to penetrate. In speaking of the Amer-
ican church, however, let it be distinctly understood
that I mean the great mass of the religious organiza-
tions of our land. There are exceptions, and I thank
God that there are. Noble men may be found, scat-
tered all over these Northern States, of whom Henry
Ward Beecher, of Brooklyn, Samuel J. May, of
Syracuse, and my esteemed friend on the platform,
are shining examples; and let me say further, that,
upon these men lies the duty to inspire our ranks
* Rev. R. R. Raymond.
·
One is struck with the difference between the
attitude of the American church towards the anti-slavery movement, and that occupied by the churches
in England towards a similar movement in that
country. There, the church, true to its mission of
ameliorating, elevating, and improving the condition
of mankind, came forward promptly, bound up the
wounds of the West Indian slave, and restored him
to his liberty. There, the question of emancipation
was a high religious question. It was demanded, in
the name of humanity, and according to the law of
the living God. The Sharps, the Clarksons, the
Wilberforces, the Buxtons, the Burchells and the
Knibbs, were alike famous for their piety, and for
their philanthropy. The anti-slavery movement there,
was not an anti church movement, for the reason that
the church took its full share in prosecuting that
movement: and the anti-slavery movement in this
country will cease to be an anti-church movement,
when the church of this country shall assume a
favorable, instead of a hostile position towards that
movement.
Americans! your republican politics, not less than
your republican religion, are flagrantly inconsistent.
You boast of your love of liberty, your superior
civilization, and your pure christianity, while the
whole political power of the nation, (as embodied in
tools and body guards of the tyrants of Virginia
and Carolina. You invite to your shores fugitives of
oppression from abroad, honor them with banquets,
greet them with ovations, cheer them, toast them,
salute them, protect them, and pour out your money
to them like water; but the fugitives from your own
land, you advertise, hunt, arrest, shoot and kill. You
glory in your refinement, and your universal educa-
tion; yet you maintain a system as barbarous and
dreadful, as ever stained the character of a nation-
a system begun in avarice, supported in pride, and
perpetuated in cruelty. You shed tears over fallen
Hungary, and make the sad story of her wrongs
the
theme of your poets, statesmen and orators, till your
gallant sons are ready to fly to arms to vindicate her
cause against her oppressors; but, in regard to the
ten thousand wrongs of the American slave, you
would enforce the strictest silence, and would hail
him as an enemy of the nation who dares to make
those wrongs the subject of public discourse!
are all on fire at the mention of liberty for France or
for Ireland; but are as cold as an iceberg at the
thought of liberty for the enslaved of America.
You discourse eloquently on the dignity of labor;
yet, you sustain a system which, in its very essence,
casts a stigma upon labor. You can bare your bosom
to the storm of British artillery, to throw off a three-
hold these truths to be self evident, that all
men are created equal; and are endowed by their
Creator with certain inalienable rights; and that,
among these are, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and yet, you hold securely, in a bondage,
which according to your own Thomas Jefferson, “is
worse than ages of that which your fathers rose in
rebellion to oppose," a seventh part of the inhabitants
of your country.
Fellow-citizens! I will not enlarge further on your
national inconsistencies. The existence of slavery in
this country brands your republicanism as a sham,
your humanity as a base pretence, and your christianity as a lie. It destroys your moral power abroad
it corrupts your politicians at home. It saps the
foundation of religion; it makes your name a hissing, and a bye-word to a mocking earth. It is the
antagonistic force in your government, the only thing
that seriously disturbs and endangers your Union.
It fetters your progress; it is the enemy of improve-
ment, the deadly foe of education; it fosters pride;
it breeds insolence; it promotes vice; it shelters
crime; it is a curse to the earth that supports it;
and yet, you cling to it, as if it were the sheet an-
for the love of God, tear
away, and fling from you the hidious monster, and
let the weight of twenty millions, crush and destroy it
forever!
But it is answered in reply to all this, that pre- cisely what I have now denounced is, in fact, guaran- teed and sanctioned by the Constitution of the Uni- ted States; that, the right to hold, and to hunt slaves is a part of that Constitution framed by the illus- trious Fathers of this Republic.
Then, I dare to affirm, notwithstanding all I have
said before, your fathers stooped, basely stooped.
And instead of being the honest men I have be-
fore declared them to be, they were the veriest imposters that ever practised on mankind. This is the
inevitable conclusion, and from it there is no escape;
but I differ from those who charge this baseness on
the framers of the Constitution of the United States.
It is a slander upon their memory, at least, so I be
lieve. There is not time now to argue the constitu-
tional question at length; nor have I the ability to
discuss it as it ought to be discussed. The subject
has been handled with masterly power by Lysander
Spooner, Esq., by William Goodell, by Samuel E
Sewall, Esq., and last, though not least, by Gerritt
Smith, Esq. These gentlemen have, as I think, fully
Fellow-citizens! there is no matter in respect to
which, the people of the North have allowed them-
selves to be so ruinously imposed upon, as that of
the pro-slavery character of the Constitution. In
that instrument I hold there is neither warrant, license, nor sanction of the hateful thing; but inter-
preted, as it ought to be interpreted, the Constitution is a GLORIOUS LIBERTY DOCUMENT. Read its
preamble, consider its purposes. Is slavery among
them? Is it at the gateway? or is it in the temple?
it is neither. While I do not intend to argue this
question on the present occasion, let me ask, if it be
not somewhat, singular that, if the Constitution were
intended to be, by its framers and adopters, a slave-holding instrument, why neither slavery, slaveholding,
nor slave can anywhere be found in it. What would
be thought of an instrument, drawn up, legally drawn
up,
for the purpose of entitling the city of Rochester to a track of land, in which no mention of land
was made? Now, there are certain rules of interpretation, for the proper understanding of all legal
instruments. These rules are well established. They
are plain, common-sense rules, such as you and I,
and all of us, can understand and apply, without.
having passed years in the study of law. I scout the
idea that the question of the constitutionality, or unconstitutionality of slavery, is not a question for the
people. I hold that every American citizen has a
right to form an opinion of the constitution, and to
propagate that opinion, and to use all honorable
means to make his opinion the prevailing one. With-
Now, take the constitution according to its plain reading, and I defy the presentation of a single pro-slavery clause in it. On the other hand it will be found to contain principles and purposes, entirely hostile to the existence of slavery.
I have detained my audience entirely too long al- ready. At some future period I will gladly avail.myself of an opportunity to give this subject a full and fair discussion.
Allow me to say, in conclusion, notwithstanding-
the dark picture I have this day presented, of the
state of the nation, I do not despair of this country.
There are forces in operation, which must inevitably,
work the downfall of slavery. "The arm of the Lord
is not shortened," and the doom of slavery is certain.
hope."
While drawing encouragement from "the Declaration of Independence," the great principles it contains, and the genius of American Institutions, my
spirit is also cheered by the obvious tendencies of
the age. Nations do not now stand in the same
relation to each other that they did ages ago. No
nation can now shut itself up, from the surrounding
world, and trot round in the same old path of its fathers without interference. The time was when such
could be done. Long established customs of hurtful
character could formerly fence themselves in, and do
their evil work with social impunity. Knowledge
was then confined and enjoyed by the privileged
few, and the multitude walked on in mental darkness.
But a change has now come over the affairs of mankind. Walled cities and empires have become unfashionable. The arm of commerce has borne away
the gates of the strong city. Intelligence is penetrating the darkest corners of the globe. It makes its
pathway over and under the sea, as well as on the
earth. Wind, steam, and lightning are its chartered
agents. Oceans no longer divide, but link nations
together. From Boston to London is now a holiday
excursion. Space is comparatively annihilated.—
Thoughts expressed on one side of the Atlantic, are
distinctly heard on the other.
The far off and almost fabulous Pacific rolls in
grandeur at our feet. The Celestial Empire, the mystery of ages, is being solved. The fiat of the Almighty, "Let there be Light," has not yet spent its
force. No abuse, no outrage whether in taste, sport
or avarice, can now hide itself from the all-pervading
Afric must rise
and put on her yet unwoven garment.
"Ethiopia
shall stretch out her hand unto God." In the fervent
aspirations of William Lloyd Garrison, I say, and let
every heart join in saying it: