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THE GOSPEL OF SLAVERY

A Primer of Freedom.

By Iron Gray

Proclaim liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.

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NEW YORK

1864


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|A Stands for _Adam_. Creation began

     By giving dominion of Nature to man.

          Men differ in color, and stature, and weight,

          Nor equal are all in their talent or state,

          But equal in rights are the great and the small

          In sight of the God and Creator of all.

          Then how comes dominion of brother by brother?

          Or how can the one be the lord of the other?

          Consider it well-for an answer I crave,

          That reaches the question of Master and Slave.



"We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created
equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness."--_Decl. of Ind_. It is nothing to affirm that the Negro, or
Indian, or Arab, is not equal to the white man--namely, in talent and
the like. No two _white_ men are equal in all respects--but if you deny
an equality of _rights_, specify the grounds of such denial.

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|B Stands for _Bloodhound_ On merciless fangs

          The Slaveholder feels that his "property" hangs,

          And the dog and the master are hot on the track,

          To torture or bring the black fugitive back.

          The weak has but fled from the hand of the strong,

          Asserting the right and resisting the wrong,

          While he who exults in a skin that is white,

          A Bloodhound employs in asserting his might.

          --O chivalry-layman and dogmatist-priest,

          Say, which is the monster--the man, or the beast?



How long is it since Southern papers advertised the offers of rival
hunters of fugitive Negroes, who claimed that they had the best
bloodhounds, &c.? Truly an honorable and manly vocation. Runaway Slaves
were advertised as having been torn by the dogs, thus and so, on former
occasions of flight, and large rewards were offered for the capture
of such ingrates, dead or alive! Shall not specimens of these
advertisements be some day included in the literary curiosities of
civilization?

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|C Stands for _Cotton_ Its beautiful bolls,

     And bales of rich value, the Master controls.

          Of "mud-sills" he prates, and would haughtily bring

          The world to acknowledge that "Cotton is King."

          But "_Democrat Coal_" and "_Republican Corn_,"

          The locks of the monarch have latterly shorn;

          And Slaveocrats, living by clamorous fraud,

          By Freemen shall yet into learning be awed,

          That the sceptre is _not_ in position nor gift,

          But only in honest, industrial thrift.



"What is the difficulty, and what the remedy? Not in the election of
Republican Presidents. No. Not in the non-execution of the Fugitive
bill. No. But it lies back of all these. It is found in the Atheistic
Red Republican doctrine of the Declaration of Independence. Until that
is trampled under feet, there can be no peace."--_Dr. Smyth_, a Rebel
leader in South Carolina. "Mud-sills" and "poor white trash" seem not to
his liking; but what if _they_ should trample _him_ under feet?

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|D Stands for _Driver_, His duty, I hear,

     Is mostly described as the Slave-Overseer.

          O tell me, I pray you, if any one can,

          If planters acknowledge the brute as a man!

          With whip and with pistols, the vagabond wields

          The law of the Master in hovels and fields,

          But scarcely removed, in a social degree,

          Above the rude gang that he governs is _he_,

          And, like the Slave _Trader_, his service is prized

          As treason is loved, and the traitor despised!



Some persons sneer at any distinction between hirelings of a month
or year and hirelings for life--the latter being their definition of
Southern Slavery! A taste of the wormwood and the gall might bring them
to exclaim with _Sterne_: "Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still Slavery,
still thou art a bitter draught; and though thousands in all ages have
been made to drink of thee, thou art no less bitter on that account."
Suppose the chalice were commended to the lips of Slaveholders?

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|E Stands for _Eagle_, In Liberty springs

     The strength of his beak and the pride of his wings.

          Though vultures still cloud the political sky,

          And "carrion, more carrion!" incessantly cry,

          Shall Slave-craft prevail, and the moralist nod

          O'er evils reserved in the judgment of God?

          --The Eagle has come to the rescue of right,

          And all institutions of fraudulent might,

          Shall perish and cease from the bountiful clime,

          Long cursed by the stench of a carrion-crime!



The Constitution grants neither right nor authority to interfere with
the domestic institutions of any State; but Congress, representing the
people and the States, has absolute control in the Territories. "More
Slavery!" has been the continual cry of the South. Rebellion provoked
the war-power of the President; and it is now probable that the
institution which claimed a continent, will be numbered with the
abominations that _were!_ Let all the people say Amen.

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|F Stands for _Fugitives_ hasting from wrath,

     And furies are hot on their dangerous path.

          Away from the cabins of slavery pomp,

          A refuge they seek in the hideous swamp;

          Or, haply eluding the hunters of blood,

          They struggle through thicket and perilous flood,

          Till, reaching the lines of the Union Host,

          The echo has died of the scandalous boast,

          "Hurra for the banner that Liberty waves,

          "With stars for the Masters and stripes for the Slaves!"



A history of this Liberty War would be very incomplete without
sample-sketches of the patient, shrewd efforts of individuals and
families of Slaves in getting away from the house of bondage into the
lines of the Union Army. Almost starved, hunted by dogs and men, shot
at, some of the party killed,--none but the good Lord knoweth the
miseries endured by thousands in escaping from the comfortable,
patriarchal, Gospel institution of the South!

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|G Stands for _Gospel_. How beautiful are

     The feet of the bearer of news from afar,

          When coming to touch a humanity-chord -

          And preach the acceptable year of the Lord!

          Set free the scourged bondman, now branded and sore,

          And write him a freeman, _a man_ evermore,

          Around whom a family closely may draw.

          --Or if the Good Gospel be Slavery Law,

          The clergy, for aught that to reason appears,

          Might honestly prosper as Slave Auctioneers!



Why not? Disrespect is intended for such clergymen _only_ as put
Southern Slavery on Bible grounds. They might sell books, shoes, horses,
by public outcry, and feel no shame of sin. If the Gospel endorses
colored people as property, _why_ should the clergy scruple to be
Slave-Auctioneers? Bishop Hopkins, of Vermont, might do a thriving
business in that line, down South. Doubtless he is popular in that
region, and would be largely patronized!

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|H Stands for _Harvest_. We reap as we sow:

     If thistles you plant, do you know what will grow?

          Enlarge your plantations, and multiply slaves,

          Till luxury gets what it wrongfully craves,--

          Yet woe be to _him_ who the inquiry scorns,

          Do grapes grow on brambles or figs upon thorns?

          Consider it well, ere the summer be past,

          And the harvest be ended, with gloom at the last.

          And ever this adage in memory keep,

          Who sows to the wind, of the whirlwind shall reap.



The evils of Slavery to the _white_ race, in a material sense, are
clearly shown by statistics; but no one can reckon the low estate of
education, religion, and morals, especially in the country-districts
of the South. The larger the plantations are, the wider is the space
between the white families; and an increase of the number of slaves, is
no increase of exalting social intercourse. The mansion cannot escape
the malaria of the hovels, nor can _any_ one escape the just judgment of
the Almighty.

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|I Stands for _Infidel_. Many contemn

     What you and I hold, as a riddle to _them_;

          And sceptics are made (it is mournfully true)

          By priests in the pulpit and saints in the pew,

          Who torture the Gospel to get at the proof

          That _one_ man is made for another's behoof!

          The Bible comes _not_ with its quickening light.

          Till conscience and reason interpret aright,

          And, vainly you moan o'er the infidel fruit

          While nourishing faith in the Slavery-root.



The creed should be better than the man; but what if the man be better
than the creed? Business relations with the South, or friends
residing there, or political clanship, may so blind men to the hideous
conjunction of the Gospel and Southern Slavery, that they may profess
to believe in both; but religionists grieve the Holy Spirit and chiefly
make Infidels, by fastening any inhuman institution or abominable theory
on the Word of God.

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|J Stands for _Justice_. Whoe'er a man is,

     Proclaim and defend what is rightfully his.

          Content yourself _not_ with his lawful demands,

          Nor harden the links of his slavery-bands;

          For all institutions are born of the dust '

          Which conscience declares to be wrong and unjust.

          --Will God in his majesty look to the hue

          In making award of the recompense due?

          Or will he in judgment be heedless or slack,

          For justice withheld from the ignorant black?



Your gold and silver is cankered, and the rust of them shall be a
witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire....
Behold, the hire of the laborers who have reaped down your fields, which
is of you kept back by fraud, crieth; and the cries of them which have
reaped, are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. Ye have lived
in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton: ye have nourished your hearts
as in a day of slaughter.'"--James v. 1--3.

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|K Stands for _Kidnapped_. Whoso receives.

     "What others have stolen, is leagu'd with the thieves.

          But setting aside what this proverb reveals,

          The Slaveholder _breeds_ what the Kidnapper _steals?_

          Distinction there is, and a difference too--

          But _which_, if you chose, would be chosen by _you?_

          To buy, or to sell, involves profit or waste--

          To breed, or to steal, is a question of taste;

          And whoso does either, a business may claim

          That perfects in meanness the sin and the shame!



What odds to the buyer whether the chattel has been kidnapped or bought
by the Trader? In _one_ sense, there is something manly (because risk of
life is incurred) in taking prisoners in war and making slaves of them;
but kidnapping is unmitigated villainy. How then can we sufficiently
express abhorrence of the men who make a business of breeding slaves for
the market? Doubtless, they are all, _all_ honorable men, and, worthily
accounted the chivalry of the land!

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|L Stands for _Liberty_, Know you the bell

     That '76 sounded so nobly and well?

          Or know you that soon was developed a flaw,

          By Freedom's assertion of Slavery Law?

          "Created all equal."--"Excepting the black,"

          From States of the Union the answer came back.

          Then cracked the big bell. Vainly chipped to the core,

          No "compromise measures" its tone could restore,

          And the prophecy stands, though the bell, in its fall,

          Now silently hangs in Old Liberty Hall!



The bell referred to, cast in 1753, has on it the inscription, "Proclaim
liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants thereof."--Lev.
xxv. 10. Was this a prophecy? That bell announced the Declaration of
Independence in 1776. It was afterwards cracked--I know not the date.
Occasional use on national anniversaries increased the difficulty.
Chipping, so as to separate the vibrating edges, failed to remedy the
mischief. It now hangs in Independence Hall.

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|M, Stands for _Master_. When one would impart

     To others his knowledge of mystery-art,

          A Master is _he_ and Apprentices _they_,

          And what he commands it is theirs to obey.

          But if from the cradle till laid in the grave,

          You claim the relation of Master and Slave,

          And stretch your dominion, by heirship or gold,

          O'er men who as cattle are driven and sold,

          Consider, I pray you, the end of the strife,

          When called to account by the Master of Life.



Is the distinction without a difference? An Apprentice is indentured by
his own consent. The term of service is limited and specified. There is
a covenant that he shall be sent to school. He has legal redress in case
of maltreatment or neglect. He cannot be branded with a hot iron. If
he absconds, he cannot be hunted with dogs, nor advertised for, dead or
alive. He cannot be sold. At twenty-one he is a freeman. Are these the
marks of the condition of a Slave?

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|N Stands for _Negro_, To _be_ all he _can_,

     Without doing wrong, is the birth-right of man,

          And noblest humanity evermore lies

          In prompting and helping the lowly to rise.

          Are Slaves dull and ignorant? Multitudes are:

          Shall therefore the Master _improvement debar?_

          Yet if to instruct them you open your mouth,

          Beware of the penalty, down in the South!

          --Can _that_ be of God which for Slavery greed

          Forbids you to teach a poor Negro to read?



Whether the African race, now in bondage in the South, be or be not in
a better condition than their kindred in Africa, need not here be
discussed. Morality and religion inquire, simply, whether Southern
laws encourage an advancement? Do they not rather _hinder_, by severe
penalties, any efforts to educate the slave population? Public Schools
are the pride and glory of the North: What is the boast and shame of the
South?

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|O Stands for _Ox_, that necessity broke

     To work with an Ass in the Union Yoke.

          To walk in the furrow and take the short end,

          Seemed ever the fate of the Ox to attend,

          While the Ass, having learned a political trick,

          Knew wickedly well how to bray and to kick.

          But patience wears out, though it ever adorns,--

          The ears are now feeling the push of the horns,

          And wonders of justice are coming to pass:--

          The North is the Ox and the South is the Ass.



From 1789 to the outbreak of the Rebellion, Slaveholders occupied the
Presidential chair for 48 years, and Northern sympathizers with Slavery
for 12 years more--leaving only 12 years for Freedom-proclivities in the
President. Although greatly outnumbered by the North, the South almost
uniformly ruled in Congress. Not getting _all_ it demanded, the Tariff
was made a pretext for secession. "The next pretext," said Jackson,
"will be the Negro or Slavery question."

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|P Stands for _Principle_. Policy fain

     Would measure all deeds by the loss or the gain,

          While Principle never finds aught to consult.

          But conscience and duty, whate'er the result.

          In slaveholding policy, all that you win

          May fitly be reckoned the wages of sin,

          And what has been earned by the master or thrall,

          Is never withheld by the Ruler of All.

          Perhaps you will learn, when the payment is due,

          That a deed which is wrong is impolitic too.



In 1786 Washington expressed his determination never to "possess
another slave by purchase." Avowed in 1794 that he held slaves "very
reluctantly to his own feelings." By will emancipated all he held,
making provision for the support of the aged and infirm, and for the
education of the young--and most solemnly enjoined his executors to
see that his instructions were religiously fulfilled. According to the
Slavery propagandists of this age of grace, all this was fundamentally
wrong!

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|Q Stands for _Query_. Inquisitive thought

     May lead to conclusions not anxiously sought.

          Suppose of Quadroon we a moment should think,

          With _one_ side of ancestry sable as ink,

          The other side claiming complexion as fair

          As fatherly planters most commonly wear:

          The child of her Master, a Slave-daughter still,

          Must bow to the law of his sensual will;

          And when he shall sell her, (perhaps very soon)

          The Query may follow the chattel Quadroon.



The cry of "amalgamation" as the result of the abolition of Slavery,
comes with a very ill grace from Southerners. How many nearly-white
children have been sent to the North for an education, or to hide their
negro-blood? How many such have been manumitted, to guard against their
continuance in bondage by any mishap? How many Quadroons have been sold
voluntarily or brought to the block by the pecuniary embarrassments of
their father-masters?

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|R Stands for _Rebel_. The Colonies rose

     Against the stern sway of tyrannical foes,

          But Washington, Jefferson, all were ignored,

          When Southerners lifted the sceptre and sword,

          And Slavery lust to Rebellion gave birth

          Against the best government known in the earth.

          Did Rebeldom look to the shame and the cost

          Of seeking by war the control they had lost?

          Or know they how ages will reckon the guilt

          Of a Temple of Freedom on Slavery built?



"The foundations of our new government are laid, its cornerstone rests
upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man....
This, our new government, is the first in the history of the world,
based upon this great physical, philosophical and moral truth.... This
stone which was rejected by the first builders, is become the chief
stone of the corner in our new edifice.... Our Confederacy is a God-sent
missionary to the nations."--_Alexander H. Stephens_.

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|S Stands for _Slavery_. Nations of old

     Made bondmen by warfare, or bought them with gold;

          And if to the Jews you incline to go back,

          No special enslavement you find of the black.

          But "might is not right," as in piracy scenes,

          Else why do you censure the stern Algerines?

          Or what if in Congo a thousand white men

          Were Slaves, wholly hopeless of freedom again,--

          Would bishops and priests of the Slavery line,

          Quote _Bible_ to prove it both right and divine?



"Slavery and the Slave Trade pervaded every nation of civilized
antiquity....The founder of the Jewish nation was a Slaveholder....
Greeks enslaved each other....The Slave-markets of Rome were filled with
men of every complexion and every clime....It is from about the year 990
that regular accounts of the _Negro_ Slave-trade exist."--_Bancroft's
United States_, i. 159. Any _Bible_ argument for Slavery must therefore
_except_ the black, if _any_ color is to be excepted!

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|T Stands for _Trader_. To call him a brute

     Would slander creation, beyond a dispute.

          The Planter will mingle and socially dine

          With dealers in cotton, and cattle, and swine,

          But Slave-driving Traders (with common accord)

          By Slave-holding gentry are shunned and abhorred!

          Does conscience, with scruples of right, intervene

          Concerning a business repugnantly mean?

          Yet whoso shall doubt, may the difference tell:

          What we rightfully buy, we may honestly sell.



The world moves, slowly it may be, but surely. Russia abolished Serfdom
by an imperial decree, and our Republic is cutting a tangled knot by
the edge of the sword. The loathing with which the Slave Trader has long
been regarded, even in the South, was the index-finger of the hand of
God. It is now a voice sounding in the darkness as a prophecy of coming
day. Will not angels join the chorus of welcome? May the good Lord
hasten the hour of deliverance.

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|U Stands for _Union_. The Federal law

     Into true common weal would the Colonies draw,

          And States, that might else into anarchy run,

          Were banded and leagued, indivisibly one--

          And a _Nation_ was born, with the rallying call,

          "The Stars-and-Stripes Banner that waves over all!"

          Secession may rage, and the kingdoms afar

          May shout the brief wrath of a fiery star,

          But _E Pluribus Unum_ shall evermore be

          The motto and law of the land of the free!



"I must declare here, as I have often done before, and which has been
repeated by the greatest and wisest of statesmen and patriots in this
and other lands, that it [the United States] is the best and freest
government, the most equal in its rights, the most just in its
decisions, the most lenient in its measures, and the most aspiring
in its principles to elevate the race of man, that the sun ever shone
upon."--_Alexander H. Stephens_, in Georgia Convention, Jan. 1, 1661.

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|V Stands for _Victory_. Villainy long,

     "The _sum of all_ villainies," prospered in wrong;

          But when it uplifted the bloody red hand,

          The verdict was sealed of its doom in the land.

          Poor _whites_, in the South by aristocrats bowed,

          And millions of bondmen are crying aloud;

          And Freedom's renown, and Humanity's need,

          Alike for a _Liberty-Victory_ plead;

          And triumph and peace shall thro' righteousness come,

          When Slavery dies and its pleaders are dumb.



Even when Fort Sumter was environed by threatening Rebel batteries,
there was a spirit of compromise in all the land; but the first gun
aimed at the Flag of Liberty was "the beginning of the end" of Slavery,
The Star Spangled Banner of our fathers, that had long floated in
honor and triumph, was trodden down and trailed in the dust by
miscreant-traitors; and it _must_ yet be vindicated and exalted in
righteousness, though it be through blood and fire.

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|W Stands for _Woman_. In Slavery-life,

     Full many are mothers, but no one is wife

          For decency's sake, form of wedding there is,

          But the parties are claimed by the master as his;

          And the children are sold, and the father is sold

          To this or that trader, "to have and to hold"

          And the woman is whipped, for the motherly moan

          And the cry of a heart that is left all alone.

          O master all monstrous! is conscience amiss

          In dooming the sham of a wedding like this!



Certain Southern ladies claimed, not long since, that they care as
tenderly for slave mothers as Northern ladies care for poor white
mothers. "Possibly that is true," was the reply, "but Northern ladies do
not afterwards sell the baby!"--Besides this, it is the _money-interest_
of Southerners to look well to the increase of their _property_, whereas
a true humanity, as a principle, underlies and quickens the charitable
attention of Northern ladies, above referred to.

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|X Stands for _Cross_. By the lusts of the flesh

     Men open the wounds of the Saviour afresh,

          And live for the gain that is nothing but loss,

          If leading away from the blood of the Cross.

          Yet many there are who deliverance mock,

          And corner-stone make of a Slave Trader's block.

          Ignoring the grace of the One who was priced,

          By daily oppression they crucify Christ,

          And turn a deaf ear to the spirit that cried,

          Shall the weak brother perish for whom the Lord died?



Setting aside all controversy as to the meaning or efficacy of the
sacrifice of Christ, it is clear that he died for all, tasted death for
every man, gave himself a ransom for all, without distinction of color,
character, station or creed. Whatever allowance the Lord may make for
sins of ignorance, can the great God look with complacency on any people
who by Slavery count the blood of the covenant an unholy thing, and do
despite unto the spirit of grace?--_Hebrews x. 26--31_.

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|Y Stands for _Yankee_. Trained up in the schools

     Of rugged New England, few ever are fools,

          And many have carried the virtues of home

          Abroad in the earth wheresoever they roam.

          But what shall we say of the renegade knaves

          Who down in the South become whippers of slaves?

          Into ownership, too, peradventure they fall,

          By wedding plantations, and "niggers" and all,

          And then, for the depths of all infamy fit,

          They find in Secession the bottomless pit.



A man born and reared in barbarism is with difficulty brought into the
proprieties and amenities of civilization: alas! how easy a thing it is
for a man born and reared in the midst of civilization to glide into
the depths of barbarism! It is said that the meanest men, and hottest
secessionists, and hardest slave-drivers in the South, are of Yankee
origin! Not angels at home, how is it that any of them become such
unscrupulous, incarnate devils abroad?

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|Z Stands for _Zenith_. Though hell from beneath

     Much struggle and suffering yet may bequeath,

          The fee of the earth we shall trustfully claim

          At Liberty's shrine, in Humanity's name.

          The spots of the leopard shall token no sin--

          No crime shall be charged to the Ethiop's skin--

          And, evermore radiant, the zenith shall glow,

          The light and the joy of creation below--

          For perished shall _then_ be the Slavery rod,

          And man stand erect in the image of God.



"Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway
for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill
shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough
places plain; and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all
flesh shall see it together; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken
it."--_Isaiah xl. 3-5_