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                               AUTOGRAPHS
                                  FOR
                                FREEDOM.




                     BY MRS. HARRIET BEECHER STOWE,

                                  AND

                   Thirty-five other Eminent Writers.


                                LONDON:
               SAMPSON LOW, SON & CO.; AND JOHN CASSELL,
                             LUDGATE HILL:

                          AND ALL BOOKSELLERS.

                                 1853.




                                PREFACE
                                 TO THE
                           American Edition.


There is, perhaps, little need of detaining the kind reader, even for
one moment, in this the vestibule of our Temple of Liberty, to state the
motives and reasons for the publication of this collection of
Anti-slavery testimonies.

The good cause to which the volume is devoted;—the influence which must
ever be exerted by persons of exalted character, and high mental
endowments;—the fact that society is slow to accept any cause that has
not the baptism of the acknowledged noble and good;—the happiness
arising from making any exertion to ameliorate the condition of the
injured race amongst us, will at once suggest reasons and motives for
sending forth this offering, which, while it shall prove acceptable as a
GIFT BOOK, may help to swell the tide of that sentiment that, by the
Divine blessing, will sweep away from this otherwise happy land the
great sin of SLAVERY.

Should this publication be instrumental in casting _one_ ray of hope on
the heart of one poor slave, or should it draw the attention of one
person, hitherto uninterested, to the deep wrongs of the bondman, or
cause one sincere and earnest effort to promote emancipation, we believe
that the kind contributors, who have generously responded to our call,
not less than the members of our Society, will feel themselves gratified
and compensated.

The proceeds of the sale of the “AUTOGRAPHS FOR FREEDOM” will be devoted
to the dissemination of light and truth on the subject of slavery
throughout the country.

On behalf of “_The Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society_,”

                                           JULIA GRIFFITHS, _Secretary_.




                    Preface to the English Edition.


Few better evidences of the deep interest which most of the leading
minds in America take in the question of slavery can be afforded than
are contained in this book. The ablest men and women of the country have
here set their hands to a solemn protest against its enormities. Mrs.
Stowe, who has achieved a reputation as widely extended as it is well
earned,—who has, both in this country and in the United States, aroused
thousands to a sense of the guilt and wrong of slavery who never spent a
thought upon it before,—has her name side by side with that of Horace
Mann, one of the most brilliant orators in the Union. Whittier, whose
sweet strains have delighted thousands wherever the English language is
spoken, finds himself in company with Frederick Douglass, who has
experienced all those horrors whose bare recital has made us shudder;
and with the Earl of Carlisle, who is setting an example full of promise
to the men of his order; and with the son of the immortal Wilberforce.
Widely differing as these do upon the majority of public questions,
there is not a shade of difference in their opinions as to the iniquity
of slavery.

Linked as we are with America by the ties of kindred, commerce,
language, literature, and political sympathies, upon nothing which
affects the destiny and progress of the Union can the English people
help looking with the deepest interest. There is not a man of intellect
or judgment on either side of the Atlantic who does not acknowledge the
fearful importance of the slavery question, even if it be considered in
a political point of view only, and laying aside all thoughts of its
guilt and immorality. It already threatens to cause the disruption of
the great American confederation, upon which we all look with so much
hope and pride; and there exists not a doubt, that, sooner or later, all
the wrongs it has caused will be atoned for by a terrible social
convulsion, if not remedied by the timely and peaceful concession of the
rights of the negro race. We can hardly wonder, then, that the whole
subject should possess such momentous importance in the eyes of all
earnest-thinking, patriotic men and women in America. Assuredly, if in
the face of the tremendous difficulties, deeply rooted prejudice,
self-interest, and a host of base passions, which beset them in arguing
the cause of the slave, they occasionally commit errors of judgment, or
make use of means which we, farther removed from the scene of action,
may deem inexpedient or ill-timed,—no Englishman should regard their
self-denying efforts with any other feeling than one of deep sympathy.
Nay, we should look upon their struggle with the greater admiration,
when we know that the church in America has abandoned its post, and is
unfaithful to its mission; that the clergy, who, of all others, should
be the last to recognise any inequality in men as men, have sought to
hide the abominations of slave-holding under the cloak of Divine
sanction. We all know the vast moral power which England possesses in
the United States, and we may readily conjecture how comforting it must
be for those who are battling for the rights of a down-trodden race, in
the face of a hostile senate, a hostile press, and a hostile aristocracy
of slave-holders, to hear a cheer of encouragement from those across the
water who feel that the position of the Anglo-Saxon race in the future
of the world, depends upon the respect it now shews for the sacred
rights, and the inherent nobility of humanity.




                               CONTENTS.


                                                                    PAGE

 Be up and doing                     _Hon. Wm. H. Seward_              9

 Caste and Christ                    _Mrs. H. E. B. Stowe_            11

 Letter from the Earl of Carlisle to Mrs. H. B. Stowe                 13

 Momma Charlotte                     _Mrs. C. M. Kirkland_            16

 A Name                              _Hon. Horace Mann_               19

 Letter from Joseph Sturge                                            20

 Slavery and Polygamy                _R. Hildreth_                    20

 The Way                             _John G. Whittier_               22

 The Slave and Slave-Owner           _Miss Sedgwick_                  23

 Letter from the Bishop of Oxford                                     25

 Hide the Outcasts                   _Rev. William Goodell_           25

 Can Slaves rightfully resist and    _Rev. Geo. W. Perkins_
   fight?                                                             28

 Death in Life                       _Ebenezer Button_                33

 True Reform                         _Mrs. C. W. H. Dall_             34

 How Long?                           _J. M. Whitfield_                35

 Letter from Wilson Armistead                                         42

 Impromptu Stanzas                   _J. M. Eells_                    44

 John Murray (of Glasgow)            _James M’Cune Smith_             46

 Power of American Example           _Lewis Tappan_                   50

 The Gospel as a Remedy for Slavery  „     „                          52

 Letter from Rev. C. G. Finney                                        54

 The Slave’s Prayer                  _Miss C. E. Beecher_             55

 The Struggle                        _Hon. Charles Sumner_            56

 Work and Wait                       _Horace Greeley_                 56

 The Great Emancipation              _Gerrit Smith_                   58

 Ode                                 _Rev. John Pierpont_             58

 Passages in the Life of a Slave     _Annie Parker_
   Woman                                                              61

 Story Telling                       „     „                          68

 The Man-Owner                       _Rev. E. Buckingham_             70

 Damascus in 1851                    _Rev. F. W. Holland_             73

 Religious, Moral, and Political     _Lindley Murray Moore_
   Duties                                                             80

 Why Slavery is in the Constitution  _James G. Birney_                81

 The Two Altars                      _Mrs. H. B. Stowe_               88

 Outline of a Man                    _Rev. R. R. Raymond_            103

 The Heroic Slave Woman              _Rev. S. J. May_                112

 Kossuth                             _John Thomas_                   115

 The Heroic Slave                    _Frederick Douglass_            120

 A Plea for Free Speech              _Prof. J. H. Raymond_           166

 Placido                             _Prof. W. G. Allen_             177

 To the Friends of Emancipation                                      183




                        AUTOGRAPHS FOR FREEDOM.




                            BE UP AND DOING.


Can nothing be done for Freedom? Yes, much can be done. Everything can
be done. Slavery can be confined within its present bounds. It can be
meliorated. It can be, and it must be abolished. The task is as simple
as its performance would be beneficent and as its rewards would be
glorious. It requires only that we follow this plain rule of conduct and
course of activity, namely, to do, everywhere, and on every occasion
what we can, and not to neglect nor refuse to do what we can at any
time, because at that precise time and on that particular occasion we
cannot do more. Circumstances define possibilities. When we have done
our best to shape them and to make them propitious, we may rest
satisfied that superior wisdom has, nevertheless, controlled them and
us, and that it will be satisfied with us if we do all the good that
shall then be found possible.

But we can, and we must begin deeper and lower than the composition and
combination of factions. Wherein do the security and strength of slavery
consist? You answer, in the constitution of the United States, and in
the constitutions and laws of the slave-holding States. Not at all. It
is in the erroneous sentiments of the American people. Constitutions and
laws can no more rise above the virtue of the people than the limpid
stream can climb above its native spring. Inculcate the love of freedom
and the sacredness of the rights of man under the paternal roof. See to
it, that they are taught in the schools and in the churches. Reform your
own codes and expurgate the vestiges of slavery. Reform your own manners
and customs and rise above the prejudices of caste. Receive the fugitive
who lays his weary limbs at your door, and defend him as you would your
household gods, for he, not they, has power to bring down blessings on
your hearth. Correct your error that slavery has any constitutional
guarantee that may not be released, and that ought not to be
relinquished. Say to slavery, when it shows its bond and demands its
pound of flesh, that if it draws one drop of blood its life shall pay
the forfeit. Inculcate that the free States can exercise the rights of
hospitality and humanity, that Congress knows no finality and can
debate, that Congress can at least mediate with the slave-holding
States, that at least future generations may be bought and given up to
freedom. Do all this, and inculcate all this, in the spirit of
moderation and benevolence, and not of retaliation and fanaticism, and
you will ultimately bring the parties of this country into a common
condemnation, and even the slave-holding States themselves into a
renunciation of slavery, which is not less necessary for them than for
the common security and welfare. Whenever the public mind shall be
prepared, and the public conscience shall demand the abolition of
slavery, the way to do it will open before us, and then mankind will be
surprised at the ease with which the greatest of social and political
evils can be removed.

[Signature: William H. Seward.]




                           CASTE AND CHRIST.

               “He is not ashamed to call them brethren.”


               Ho! thou dark and weary stranger
                From the tropic’s palmy strand,
               Bowed with toil, with mind benighted,
                What wouldst thou upon our land?

               Am I not, O man, thy brother?
                Spake the stranger, patiently,
               All that makes thee, man, immortal,
                Tell me, dwells it not in me?

               I, like thee, have joy, have sorrow;
                I, like thee, have love and fear;
               I, like thee, have hopes and longings
                Far beyond this earthly sphere.

               Thou art happy,—I am sorrowing;
                Thou art rich, and I am poor;
               In the name of our _one_ Father,
                Do not spurn me from your door.

               Thus the dark one spake, imploring,
                To each stranger passing nigh;
               But each child and man and woman,
                Priest and Levite passed him by.

               Spurned of men,—despised, rejected,
                Spurned from school and church and hall,
               Spurned from business and from pleasure,
                Sad he stood, apart from all.

               Then I saw a form all glorious,
                Spotless as the dazzling light,
               As He passed, men veiled their faces,
                And the earth, as heaven, grew bright.

               Spake he to the dusky stranger,
                Awe-struck there on bended knee,
               Rise! for _I_ have called thee _brother_,
                I am not ashamed of thee.

               When I wedded mortal nature
                To my Godhead and my throne,
               Then I made all mankind sacred,
                Sealed all human for mine own.

               By Myself, the Lord of ages,
                I have sworn to right the wrong;
               I have pledged my word, unbroken,
                For the weak against the strong.

               And upon my Gospel banner
                I have blazed in light the sign—
               He who scorns his lowliest brother,
                Never shall have hand of mine.

               Hear the word!—who fight for freedom!
                Shout it in the battle’s van!
               Hope! for bleeding human nature!
                Christ the _God_, is Christ the _man_!

[Signature: H. E. B. Stowe.]

  ANDOVER, JULY 22, 1852.




   LETTER FROM THE EARL OF CARLISLE TO THE SECRETARY OF THE SOCIETY.


                                                   LONDON, JULY 8, 1852.

MADAM,—I should be very sorry indeed to refuse any request addressed to
me from the “Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Association.”

At the same time I really should feel at a loss what to send, but as I
am on the point of sending off a letter to the authoress of Uncle Tom’s
Cabin, I venture to submit a copy of it to those who I feel sure must be
fond of such a countrywoman.

                      Your very faithful Servant,

[Signature: Carlisle.]

                  *       *       *       *       *

                                                   LONDON, JULY 8, 1852.

MADAM,—I have allowed some time to elapse before I thanked you for the
great honour and kindness you did me in sending to me, from yourself, a
copy of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. I thought it due to the subject of which I
perceived that it treated, not to send a mere acknowledgment, as I
confess from a motive of policy I am apt to do, upon the first arrival
of the book. I therefore determined to read, before I wrote.

Having thus read, it is not in the stiff and conventional form of
compliment, still less in the technical language of criticism, that I am
about to speak of your work. I return my deep and solemn thanks to
Almighty God, who has led and enabled you to write such a book.

I do feel, indeed, the most thorough assurance that in His good
providence such a book cannot have been written in vain. I have long
felt that slavery is by far the _topping_ question of the world and age
we live in, involving all that is most thrilling in heroism, and most
touching in distress,—in short, the real epic of the universe. The
self-interest of the parties most nearly concerned on the one hand, the
apathy and ignorance of unconcerned observers on the other, have left
these august pretensions to drop very much out of sight, and hence my
rejoicing that a writer has appeared who will be read, and must be felt,
and that happen what may to the transactions of slavery, they will no
longer be suppressed, “carent quia vate sacrâ.”

I trust that what I have just said was not required to show the entire
sympathy I entertain with respect to the main truth and leading scope of
your high argument, but we live in a world only too apt to regard the
accessories and accidents of a subject above its real and vital essence;
no one can know so well as you how much the external appearance of the
negro detracts from the romance and sentimentality which undoubtedly
might attach to his position and his wrongs, and on this account it does
seem to me proportionately important that you should have brought to
your portraiture great grace of style, great power of language, a play
of humour which relieves and brightens even the dark depth of the
back-ground which you were called upon to reveal, a force of pathos
which, to give it the highest praise, does not lay behind even all the
dread reality, and, above all, a variety, a discrimination, and a truth
in the delineation of character, which even to my own scanty and limited
experience of the society you describe accredits itself instantaneously
and irresistibly. Seldom, indeed, could I more forcibly apply the line
of a very favourite poet,—

           “And truths divine came mended from that tongue.”

I have been told, that in an English periodical the quality of genius
has been denied to your book. The motives which must have guided its
composition will probably have made you supremely indifferent to mere
criticism, especially to any which argues so much obfuscation both of
head and heart. Your work has genius of the highest order, and it is the
lowest of its merits.

There is one point which, in face of all that your book has aimed at and
achieved, I think of extremely slight importance, but which I will
nevertheless just mention, if only to show that I have not been bribed
into this fervour of admiration. I think, then, that whenever you speak
of England and her institutions, it is in a tone which fails to do them
fair justice. I do not know what distinct charges you think could be
established against our aristocracy and capitalists, but you generally
convey the impression that the same oppressions in degree, though not in
kind, might be brought home to them which are now laid to the charge of
Southern slave-holders. Exposed to the same ordeal, they might very
probably not stand the test better. All I contend for is, that the
circumstances in which they are placed, and the institutions by which
they are surrounded, make the parallel wholly inapplicable. I cannot but
suspect that your view has been in many respects derived from composers
of fiction and others among ourselves who, writing with distinguished
ability, have been more successful in delineating and dissecting the
morbid features of our modern society, than in detecting the principle
which is at fault, or suggesting the appropriate remedy. My own belief
is, liable, if you please, to national bias, that our capitalists are
very much the same sort of persons as your own in the Northern States,
with the same mixtures and inequalities of motive and action. With
respect to our aristocracy, I should really be tempted to say that,
tried by their conduct on the question of Free Trade, they do not
sustain an unfavourable comparison with your uppermost classes. Allow me
to add, that when in one place you refer to those who have already
emancipated their slaves, I think a case more directly in point than the
proceedings of the Hungarian nobles might have been selected: such, at
least, I feel sure would have been the case, if the passages in question
had been written by one who certainly was keenly alive to the faults of
England, but who did justice to her good qualities and deeds with a
heartiness exceeding that of most of her own sons,—your great and good
Dr. Channing.

I need not repeat how irrelevant, after all, I feel what I have said
upon this head to be to the main issues involved in your work; there is
little doubt, too, that as a nation we have our special failings, and
one of them probably is that we care too little about what other nations
think of them.

Nor can I wish my countrymen ever to forget that their own past history
should prevent them from being forward in casting accusations on their
transatlantic brethren on the subject of slavery. With great ignorance
of its actual miseries and horrors, there is also among us great
ignorance of the fearful perplexities and difficulties with which its
solution could not fail to be attended. I feel, however, that there is a
considerable difference between reluctant acquiescence in what you
inherit from the past, and voluntary fresh enlargements and
reinforcements of the system. For instance, I should not say that the
mode in which such an enactment as the Fugitive Slave Law has been
considered in this country has at all erred upon the side of overmuch
indignation.

I need not detain you longer; I began my letter with returning thanks to
Almighty God for the appearance of your work, and I offer my humble and
ardent prayer to the same Supreme Source that it may have a marked
agency in hastening the great consummation, which I should feel it a
practical atheism not to believe must be among the unfulfilled purposes
of the Divine power and love.

                              I have the honour to be, Madam,
                                 Your sincere admirer and well-wisher,
                                                               CARLISLE.

  MRS. BEECHER STOWE.




                            MOMMA CHARLOTTE.


“Slavery is merely an idea!” said Mr. S——; “the slaves are, in reality,
better off than we are, if they had sense enough to know it. They are
taken care of—(they must be, you know, because it is the master’s
interest to keep them in good condition, and a man will always do what
is for his interest). They get rid of all responsibility,—which is what
we are groaning under; and if they were only let alone, they would be
happy enough,—happier than their masters, I dare say.”

“You think it, then, anything but kindness to urge their emancipation?”

“To be sure I do! and I would have every one that teaches them to be
discontented hung up without judge or jury.”

“You seem particularly interested for the slave,—”

“Interested! I would have every one of them sent beyond the Rocky
Mountains, if I could,—or into ‘kingdom come,’ for that matter. They are
the curse of the country; but as long as they are _property_, I would
shoot any man that put bad ideas in their heads or that interfered with
my management of them, as I would shoot a dog that killed my sheep.”

“But do they never get what you call ‘bad ideas’ from any but white
people?”

“O, there is no knowing where they get them,—but they are full of ’em.
No matter how kind you are to them, they are never satisfied!”

“I can tell you where they get some of their ideas of slavery, if you
will allow me.”

“Certainly,—I am always glad of information.”

“Well,—I will take up your time with nothing but actual facts, for the
truth of which I will be answerable. In a Western tour, not many years
since, I saw one day a young lady, fair as a lily, and with a sweet
expression of countenance, walking in the street with a little black
girl whom she held by the hand. The little girl was about six years old,
neatly dressed and very clean; and on her neck she had a little gauze
shawl that somebody had given her, the border of which was composed of
the figure of the American Eagle many times repeated, each impression
accompanied by the word ‘LIBERTY,’ woven into the fabric.

“This curious decoration, together with the wistful look of the child’s
face, and the benevolent air of the young lady, with whom I was slightly
acquainted, led me to ask some questions, which were answered with an
air in which modesty and sensibility were blended. I learned that the
young lady had undertaken the trying task of accompanying the little
girl through the place—which was a considerable village—for the purpose
of collecting the sum of fifty dollars, with which to purchase the
freedom of the child.

“‘And how,’ said I, ‘did you become interested in the poor little
thing?’

“‘She belongs to a member of my family,’ said Miss C——, with a blush;
‘to my aunt, Mrs. Jones.’

“‘And how did she find her way to the north?’

“‘Her mother, who is the servant of my aunt, got leave to bring Violet
along with her, when her mistress came here for the summer.’

“‘But both mother and child are free by the mere circumstance of being
brought here,—’

“‘O, but Momma Charlotte promised her mistress that she would not leave
her, nor let Violet do so, if she might bring the child with her, and
beg money to buy her. She says she does not care for freedom for
herself.’

“I could not do less than go with the good girl for awhile, to assist a
little in her labour of love, which in the end, and with a good deal of
difficulty, was finally accomplished. It was not until after this that I
became acquainted with Momma Charlotte, the mother of Violet, and
learned a few of the particulars of a story which had made her ‘not care
for freedom.’

“Momma Charlotte was the mother of ten children,—six daughters and four
sons. Her husband had been a free black,—a carpenter, able to keep a
comfortable home for his family, hiring his wife of her master. At the
time of the Southampton insurrection, this man was among the suspected,
and, on suspicion, not proof, he was taken up, tried after the fashion
of that time, and hung, with several others, all between sunset and
sunrise of a single day.

“‘He was innocent,—he had had no hand in the matter, as God is my
judge!’ said poor Momma Charlotte.

“This was but the beginning of troubles. A sense of insecurity made the
sale of slaves more vigorous than ever. Charlotte’s children were sold,
one by one—no two together—the boys for the sugar country,—the girls for
‘the New Orleans market,’ whence they were dispersed, she never knew
where.

“‘All gone!’ she said; ‘where I could never see ’em nor hear from ’em. I
don’t even know where one of ’em is!’

“‘And Violet?’

“‘O yes,—I mean all but Violet. She’s all I’ve got in the world, and I
want to keep her. I begged Missus to let me keep jist one! and she said
if I could get any body to buy her for me, I might have her,—for you
know I couldn’t own her myself, ’cause I’m a slave.’

“‘But you are no longer a slave, Momma Charlotte; your mistress by
bringing you here voluntarily has freed you,—’

“‘Yes,—I know,—but I promised, you see! And I don’t care to be free. I’m
old, and my children’s gone, and my heart’s broke. I ha’n’t no more
courage. If I can keep Violet, it’s all I expect. My mistress is good
enough to me,—I live pretty easy.’

“Such was Momma Charlotte’s philosophy, but her face told through what
sufferings such philosophy had been acquired. A fixed grief sat on her
brow; since the judicial murder of her husband she had never been known
to laugh,—hardly to smile. Her eyes were habitually cast on the ground,
and her voice seemed always on the brink of tears. She was what you call
‘_dissatisfied_,’ I think, Mr. S——.”

“O, you have selected an extreme case! those things very seldom happen.”
(Seldom!) “After all, you see the poor old thing knew what was right;
she showed the right spirit,—”

“Yes,—she,—but her _owners_?”

Here Mr. S—— was sure he saw a friend at a distance to whom it was
necessary he should speak immediately; so he darted off, and I lost the
benefit of his defence of the peculiarities of the peculiar institution.

[Signature: Mrs. C. M. Kirkland]




                                A NAME,
                   ON BEING ASKED FOR HIS AUTOGRAPH.


         Why ask a Name? Small is the good it brings;
         Names are but breath; _deeds_, DEEDS alone are Things.

[Signature: Horace Mann.]

  WEST NEWTON, OCT. 23, 1852.




                    TO THE SECRETARY OF THE SOCIETY.


In compliance with the request that I would send a few lines for
insertion in “The Anti-Slavery Autograph,” I may say that I cannot
express too strongly my conviction that, if there be truth in
Revelation, it is the duty of every Christian to promote, by all
legitimate means, not only the universal and total, but the _immediate_
abolition of any system under which man can hold property in his fellow
man. Perhaps few of those who take this view of the subject are
sufficiently careful to avoid, as far as possible, any participation in,
or encouragement of slavery, by refusing to use the produce of the
unrequited toil of the slave. Yet until we do this, I think we have
little right to expect the Divine blessing upon our efforts to promote
the abolition of slavery and of the slave trade.

[Signature: Joseph Sturge]




        SLAVERY AND POLYGAMY: DOCTORS OF DIVINITY IN A DILEMMA.


An argument is derived from the Jewish Scriptures in favour of
slave-holding, very plausible and weighty with that large class of
persons so poorly gifted with hearts as to find it difficult to
discriminate between the letter that killeth and the spirit that maketh
alive. The Old Testament shows clearly enough, that slave-holding was
tolerated among the Jews; and it being assumed that the system of Jewish
society, or, at all events, that the Mosaic code, was framed after a
Divine model, it is alleged to be at least supererogatory, if not
actually impious, to denounce as inconsistent with Christianity that
which God permitted to his chosen and selected people. Are _we_ to
pretend to be better and wiser than Abraham and Moses, David and
Solomon?

A recent application of this same argument can hardly fail to operate
with many, as what the mathematicians call a _reductio ad absurdum_; a
proof, that is, of the falsity of a proposition assumed, by exhibiting
its operation in other cases.

The famous Mormon doctrine of the plurality of wives, now at length
openly avowed by the heads and apostles of that new sect, is upheld and
justified by this very same argument. It plainly appears from the Old
Testament, that polygamy, equally with slavery, was one of the social
institutions of the Jews, recognised and sanctioned by their laws. And
borrowing the tone, and indeed the very words of our pro-slavery
theologians,—“Do you pretend,” asks Orson Hyde, one of the Mormon
apostles, addressing himself to those who question this new privilege of
the saints,—“Do you pretend to set yourselves above the teaching of God,
and the example of his chosen people?”

Nor does the analogy between the two cases stop here. According to the
pro-slavery biblical argument, slave-holding is only to be justified in
Christian slave-holders, who, in holding slaves, have in view not only
selfish benefit or advantage, but the good of the slaves, (who are not
able to take care of themselves,) and the glory of God. According to the
Mormon biblical argument, polygamy is to be allowed only to the saints;
and that, not for any sensual gratification, but only for the benefit of
the women (who, according to the Mormon doctrine, cannot get to heaven
without some holy husband to introduce them), and for the raising up of
a righteous seed to God’s glory.

Their favourite biblical argument, urged with such a tone of triumph and
self-satisfaction in all the southern presbyteries and consociations,
and in some northern ones, being thus newly applied by the Mormons, our
pro-slavery friends are placed in a somewhat delicate dilemma. For they
must either abandon as invalid their dogma of slave-holding derived from
Jewish practices, or, if they still hold on to the argument, and
maintain its force, they must prepare to extend the right hand of
fellowship to Brigham Young and his five and forty wives. It is, indeed,
very natural, in fact inevitable, that slavery and polygamy, avowed or
disavowed, should go together; nor does any good reason appear why those
who find justification for the one in the Jewish Scriptures should
hesitate about accepting the other.

[Signature: R. Hildreth]




                                THE WAY.


            Believe me still, as I have ever been,
            The steadfast lover of my fellow men;
            My weakness,—love of holy Liberty!
            My crime,—the wish that all mankind were free!
            Free, not by blood; redeemed, but not by crime;
            Each fetter broken, but in God’s good time!

[Signature: John G. Whittier]

  AMESBURY, 10th MO. 16, 1852.




                       THE SLAVE AND SLAVE-OWNER.


“I would rather be anything than a slave,—except a slave-owner!” said a
wise and good man. The slave-owner inflicts wrongs,—the slave but
suffers it. He has friends and champions by thousands. Some men live
only to defend and save him. Many are willing to fight for him. Some
even to die for him.

The most effective romance of our times has been written for slaves. The
genius of more than one of our best poets has been consecrated to them.
They divide the hearts and councils of our great nation. They are daily
remembered in the prayers of the faithful. They are the most earnest
topic of the Christian world.

But the slave-owner! who weeps, who prays, who lives, who dies for him!
True, he is of the boasted Saxon race, or descended from the brilliant
Gaul, or gifted Celt. He is enriched by the transmitted civilisation of
all ages. He has been nurtured by Christian institutions. To him have
been opened the fountains of Divine truth. But from this elevation he is
to be dragged down by the mill-stone of slavery.

If he be a rural landlord, he looks around upon his ancestral
possessions, and sees the curse of slave-ownership upon them,—he knows
the time must come when “the field shall yield no meat, the flock shall
be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stall.” To
him the onward tendencies of the age are reversed. His movement is
steadily backward.

To the slave are held out the rewards of fortitude, of long suffering,
of meekness, of patience in tribulation. What and where are the promises
to the slave-owner?

Thousands among them are in a false position. They are the involuntary
maintainers of wrong, and transmitters of evil. Hundreds among them have
scrupulous consciences and tender feelings. They use power gently. They
feed their servants bountifully. They nurse the sick kindly,—and devote
weary days to their instruction. But alas! they live under the laws of
slave-owners. They are forbidden to teach the slave to read, write, or
cipher, to give them the means of independent progress and increasing
light. Their teaching is as bootless as the labour of Sisyphus! most
wearisome and disheartening.

The great eras of domestic life, bright to the thoughtless slave, are
dark with forecasting shadows to the slave-owner. The mother cannot
forget her sorrows, because a man-child is born. If she dare contemplate
his future, she sees that the activities of his nature must be
repressed, his faculties but half developed, his passions stimulated by
irresponsible power, inflamed by temptation, and solicited by convenient
opportunity. She knows that his path in life must be more and more
entangled as he goes onward,—darker and darker with the ever-deepening
misery of this cruel institution.

Is it a “_merry_ marriage-bell” that rings in the ear of a slave-owning
mother for the bridal of her daughter? Does not her soul recoil from the
possible (probable?) evils before her child; to be placed, perchance, on
an isolated plantation, environed by natural enemies; to see, it may be,
the brothers and sisters of her own children follow their slave-mother
to the field, or severed from her to be sold at the slave-market?

Compared with these miseries of the slave-owner, what are the toils and
stripes of the slave? what his labour without stimulus or requital? what
his degradation to a chattel? what the deprivation of security to the
ties of kindred, and the annulling of that relation which is their
source and chiefest blessing?

The slave looks forward with ever-growing hope to the struggle that must
come. He joyfully “smells the battle afar off.” The slave-owner folds
his arms, and shuts his eyes in paralysing despair. He hears the fearful
threatenings of the gathering storm. He knows it must come,—to him
fatally. It is only a question of time!

Who would not “rather be a slave than a slave-owner?”

[Signature: C. M. Sedgwick]




  LETTER FROM THE BISHOP OF OXFORD[1] TO THE SECRETARY OF THE SOCIETY.


                                         CUDDESDON PALACE, JULY 7, 1852.

MADAM,—I readily comply with your desire. England taught her descendants
in America to injure their African brethren. Every Englishman should aid
the American to get rid of this cleaving wrong and deep injury to his
race and nation.—I am ever yours,

[Signature: S Oxon.]




                          “HIDE THE OUTCASTS.”


               Hide the outcasts, and bewray not
                Him that wand’reth to be free;
               Haste!—deliver and delay not;—
                Let my outcasts dwell with thee.[2]

               Shelter thou shalt not refuse him,
                Lest, with him, his Lord ye slight;[3]
               When, at noon, the foe pursues him,
                Make thy shadow dark as night.

               With thee shall he dwell, protected,
                Near thee, cherished by thy side;
               Though degraded, scorned, neglected,—
                Thrust him not away, in pride.[4]

               As, in truth, ye would that others
                Unto you should succour lend,
               So, to them, as equal brothers,
                Equal love and help extend.[5]

               Thou shalt not the slave deliver
                To his master, when he flees:—
               Heritage, from GOD, the Giver,
                Yield them freely, where they please.[6]

               As thyself,[7]—thy babes,—their mother,—
                Thou wouldst shield from murd’rous arm,
               So the slave, thy equal brother,
                And his household, shield from harm.

               Hearken, ye that know and fear me,[8]
                Ye who in my law delight;
               Ye that seek me, and revere me,
                Hate the wrong and love the right.[9]

               Fear ye not, when men upbraid you,
                Worms shall all their strength devour;
               My salvation still shall aid you,
                Coming ages learn my power.

               Why forget the Lord thy Maker?
                Why th’ oppressor’s fury dread?
               Zion’s King shall ne’er forsake her;—
                Where’s th’ oppressor’s fury fled?[10]

               Scorn the mandates of transgressors;[11]
                Fear thy God, and fear none other;
               ’Gainst _thyself_ conspire oppressors,
                When they bid thee bind thy _brother_.

               Lo! the captive exile hasteth
                To be loosed from thrall, forever;[12]
               Lo! the power of tyrants wasteth,
                Perish soon,—recovered, never!

[Signature: Wm. Goodell]




                CAN SLAVES RIGHTFULLY RESIST AND FIGHT?


I do not answer this question. But the following facts are submitted as
containing the materials for an answer.

About seventy years ago, three millions of people in America thought
themselves wronged by the powers ordained of God. They resolved not to
endure the wrong. They published to the world a statement of grievances
which justified resistance to the powers ordained of God, and
deliberately revolted against the king, though explicitly commanded by
God to “honour the king.” In the process of revolt, about one hundred
thousand men, Europeans and Americans,—were slaughtered in battle, or
slowly butchered by the sickness, imprisonments, and hardships incident
to a state of war.

It was distinctly maintained in 1776, that men may rightfully fight for
liberty, and resist the powers ordained of God, if those powers
destroyed liberty. Christian men, ministers in their pulpits,
strenuously argued that it was men’s _duty_ to fight for liberty, and to
kill those who opposed them. Prayer was offered to God for success in
this process of resistance and blood; and good men implored and obtained
help from other nations, to complete the work of resistance to
oppression, and death to the oppressors.

I do not say that these positions were right, or that the men of 1776
acted right. But I do say, that _if_ they were right, we are necessarily
led to some startling conclusions. For there are now three millions of
people of America grievously wronged by the government they live under.
_If_ it was right in 1776 to resist, fight, and kill, to secure
liberty,—it is right to do the same in 1852. _If_ three millions of
whites might rightfully resist the powers ordained of God, then three
millions of blacks may rightfully do the same. _If_ France was justified
in aiding our band of revolutionists to fight for liberty, then a
foreign nation may lawfully aid men now to vindicate their rights. _If_,
as the men of 1776 declared, “when a long train of abuses evinces a
design to reduce them _under absolute despotism_, it is their right, it
is their _duty_, to throw off such government,”—then it is the duty of
three millions of men in 1852 to throw off the government which reduces
them to the frightful and absolute despotism of chattel slavery.

But what were the oppressions, which, in 1776, justified revolt, battle,
and one hundred thousand deaths? They are stated in the “Declaration of
Independence,” are familiar to all, and will therefore only be abridged
here. The powers ordained of God over the men of 1776,—“restrained their
trade,”—“refused assent to laws enacted by the local legislature,”—“kept
soldiers to overawe them,”—“did not punish soldiers for killing a few
colonists,”—“imposed taxes without their consent,”—“in some cases, did
not allow them trial by jury,”—“abolished good laws,”—“made war on them
in case of disobedience.”

These were the wrongs they complained of. But nearly all their rights
were untouched. They had schools and colleges, and could educate their
children; they could become intelligent and learned themselves; they
could acquire property, and large numbers of them had become rich; they
could emigrate without hindrance to any other country, when weary of the
oppressions of their own; they could elect their own town and state
officers; they could keep swords, muskets, powder and ball in their own
houses; they could not be lashed and sold like brutes; they were never
compelled to work without wages; they could appeal to courts of justice
for protection.

Let us now hear a statement of the wrongs inflicted on three millions of
Americans in 1852.

We have no rights left to us.

Laws forbid us to be taught even to read, and severe penalties are
inflicted on those who teach us.

The natural right of the parent over the child is wholly taken away; our
children are systematically kept in profound ignorance, and are worked
or sold like brutes, at the will of slave-holders.

We can acquire no property, and are kept in utter and perpetual
pauperism, dependent on the mere caprice or selfishness of other men for
subsistence.

If we attempt peaceably to emigrate from this land of oppression, we are
hunted by bull-dogs, or shot down like beasts,—dragged back to perpetual
slavery without trial by jury.

We are exposed to the most degrading and revolting punishments, without
judge or trial, at the passion, caprice, or cruelty of the basest
overseers.

When our wives and daughters are seduced or ravished, we are forbidden
to appeal to the courts of justice.

Whatever outrage may be perpetrated on ourselves or our families, we
have no redress.

We are compelled to work without wages; the fruits of our labour are
systematically extorted from us.

Many thousands of our people are annually collected by slave-traders,
and sold to distant States; by which means families are broken up, and
the most frightful debasement, anguish, and outrage is inflicted on us.

We have no access to courts of justice, no voice in the election of
rulers, no agency in making the laws,—not even the miserable remnant of
liberty, in choosing the despot who may have absolute power over us.

We are hopelessly consigned to that condition most revolting and
loathsome to one in whom the least vestige of manly or womanly feeling
is left,—that of absolute slavery.

The laws treat us not as human beings, but “as _chattels personal_, to
all intents, constructions, and purposes whatsoever.”

Great numbers of our people, in addition to all these enormities, endure
unutterable bodily sufferings, from the cruelty and torturing
punishments inflicted on us.

I do not assert that three millions of people, suffering such
intolerable wrongs and outrages, ought to throttle their oppressors, and
kill fifty thousand of them. I only say, that _if_ it was right to do so
in 1776, it is also right to do the same in 1852. _If_ the light
oppressions which the men of the last century endured justified war and
bloodshed, then oppressions ten thousand times worse would surely
justify revolt and blood. _If_ the colonists might rightfully refuse to
“remain in the calling wherein they were called,” as subjects of the
English government, then slaves may rightfully refuse to continue in the
calling wherein they were called. _If_ three millions of men might
lawfully disregard the text, “honour the king,” on the ground that the
king oppressed them, then three millions of men may lawfully disregard
the text, “servants obey your masters,” on the ground that those masters
grievously oppress them. _If_ the _prospect of success_ justified the
war of 1776, then as soon as three millions of slaves feel able and
determined to vindicate their rights, they may justly demand them at the
point of the sword; and any black Washington who shall lead his
countrymen to victory and liberty, even through carnage, will merit our
veneration. _If_ “liberty or death” was a noble and Christian war-cry in
1776 for the oppressed, then it would be noble and Christian-like for
the oppressed men of 1852 practically to adopt the same.

If these inferences appear startling and even horrible, why do they so
appear? Is there any reason except that inveterate prejudice, which
applies very different principles to the coloured man and the white man?
If three millions of white men were in slavery in Algiers now, should we
not urge them, as soon as there was hope of success, to imitate the men
of 1776, rise and fight for liberty? Therefore, until we are prepared to
condemn our ancestors as guilty rebels, and abhor their insurrection as
a wicked resistance to the ordinance of God, can we blame _any class_ of
people for successful revolt against an oppressive government?

Let this further question be pondered. Who were to blame for the
destruction of one hundred thousand lives in the war of 1776? The
oppressors or the oppressed? The men who fought for liberty or the men
who would not let them have it without fighting? Who then would be
responsible for the death of one hundred thousand men, if the oppressed
men of 1852 should kill so many, in fighting for liberty?

If the reader is shocked by such inquiries and inferences, and as
directly and intentionally designed to encourage servile insurrection
and civil war, he may be assured that my aim is entirely different. It
is my wish to secure timely precautions against danger. For we are to
remember, that our slave and coloured population is advancing with the
same gigantic rate of increase characteristic of our country. In
twenty-five years, we shall have six millions of slaves; in fifty years,
twelve millions; in seventy-five years, twenty-four millions. Can any
one dream of the possibility of retaining twenty-four millions, or
twelve millions, of human beings in slavery? Long before that number is
reached, will not vast multitudes of them learn the simple lessons of
liberty and right, which our books, orations, and politicians inculcate
day by day? Will there not arise among them men of courage, genius,
enthusiasm, who will, at all hazards, lead them on to that glorious
liberty which we have taught them is cheaply purchased at any peril, or
war, or bloodshed? When that day comes, as sure it must, will there not
be horrors such as civil war has never yet produced? Is it not wise,
then, to begin measures for averting so fearful a catastrophe? Is it not
madness to slumber over such a frightful future? Should not the talent
and energies of the country be directed to the momentous inquiry, How
can slavery _now_ be peacefully and rightfully removed? Does not every
attempt to hush agitation, and insist on the finality of anti-slavery
measures, make more sure the awful fact that slavery is to work out its
own emancipation in fighting and blood?

[Signature: Geo. W. Perkins]




                             DEATH IN LIFE.

  SUPPOSED INSCRIPTION UPON THE SEPULCHRE OF A NEGRO SLAVE, WHO, FOR
    SOME IMAGINED CRIME, HAD BEEN IMMURED HALF A CENTURY IN A DUNGEON.


         Ope, jealous portal! ope thy cavern womb,
          Thy pris’ner will not flee its close embrace;
         He lived and moved too long within a tomb,
          Beyond its narrow bounds to dream of space.

         To eat his crust and muse, unvarying lot!
          Thus, like his beard, his life slow length’ning grew;
         So long shut out, the world the wretch forgot,
          His cell his universe,—’twas all he knew.

         For Memory soon with loving pinions wheeled
          In circles narrowing each successive flight;
         Her sickly wings at length enfeebled yield,
          Too weak to scale the walls that bound his sight.

         But Hope sat with him once, and cheered his day;
          And raised his limbs, and kept his lamp alight;
         Scared by his groans, at length she fled away;
          And left him lone,—to spend one endless night.

         What change to him, then, is the vault below,
          From that where late the captive was confined?
         But this,—a worm _here_ eats his BODY now;
          Whilst _there_ it gnawed his slow decaying MIND.

[Signature: E. Button.]

  LONDON, 1852.




                              TRUE REFORM.


I have received your appeal, my friends, and am not sorry to find myself
remembered by you. Every moment of the ages is pregnant with the fate of
humanity, but we are inclined to imagine that in which we live to have a
peculiar significance. At this hour, it seems to us as if the great
balance of justice swayed to and fro, in most disheartening uncertainty;
but this moment, like all others, lies in the hollow of God’s hand, and
his infinite love will not fail to justify to men and angels its
terrible discipline.

I have departed on this occasion from the plan of action once laid down
to myself. I have not presented you in these pages with the revolting
facts of slavery; for to deal with the subject at this moment in a
fitting manner, demands a prudence and tact not likely to be possessed
by one absent from the scene of action, and ignorant of the passing
moment. I wish to convey to you the assurance of my deep sympathy in all
Christ-like opposition to sin; my deep sorrow for every loss of manly
self-control, and failure of faith in God, among reformers; my
conviction that the Constitution of the United States, in so far as it
is not in harmony with the law of God, can be no sure foundation for the
law of man; that until it gives place to a higher ground of union, or
until the nation consent to give it a higher interpretation, it will
depress the national industry, corrupt the national morals, and palsy
the national strength. It is my firm faith, that man owes his first
allegiance to God, and that it is the duty of every citizen who disobeys
the law of a land, to bear its penalties with a patience and firmness
which shall show him adequate to the hour, and neither unwilling nor
unfit to complete the sacrifice he has begun. Above all, O my friends! I
pray that God may fill the hearts of the reformers in this cause with
the deepest devotion to his absolute truth, the truest perception of the
humility of Christ; that He may show them how, as its exigencies press,
they must not only be men full of anti-slavery zeal, but filled with
Divine prudence, sincere desirers of that peace which is founded on
purity,—possessors of that temperance which is its own best pledge. In
the consciousness of the martyrdom of the affections, which his position
involves, the reformer feels oftentimes secure of his eternal
compensation. But I have wondered, of late, whether martyrdom may not be
as dangerous to his spiritual life as worldly renown, or pecuniary
prosperity.

Stretched upon the rack, I may still be puffed up with pride, or an
unhealthy spirit of self-dependence; and sacrificing my last copper on
the altar of a great truth, I may still refuse to offer there my
personal vanity, my wilful self-esteem, or my bitterness of temper.

Let us be willing, O my friends! to lay these also at the feet of
Christ.

[Signature: Caroline W. Healey Dall.]

TORONTO, CANADA, JULY 22, 1852.




                               HOW LONG?


             How long, O gracious God! how long,
              Shall power lord it over right?
             The feeble, trampled by the strong,
              Remain in slavery’s gloomy night?
             In every region of the earth,
              Oppression rules with iron power;
             And every man of sterling worth,
              Whose soul disdains to cringe or cower
             Beneath a haughty tyrant’s nod,
             And, supplicating, kiss the rod
             That, wielded by oppression’s might,
             Smites to the earth his dearest right,—
             The right to speak, and think, and feel,
              And spread his uttered thoughts abroad,
             To labour for the common weal,
              Responsible to none but God,—
             Is threatened with the dungeon’s gloom,
             The felon’s cell, the traitor’s doom,
             And treacherous politicians league
              With hireling priests, to crush and ban
             All who expose their vile intrigue,
              And vindicate the rights of man.
             How long shall Afric’ raise to thee
              Her fettered hand, O Lord! in vain,
             And plead in fearful agony
              For vengeance for her children slain?
             I see the Gambia’s swelling flood,
              And Niger’s darkly rolling wave,
             Bear on their bosoms, stained with blood,
              The bound and lacerated slave;
             While numerous tribes spread near and far,
             Fierce, devastating, barbarous war,
             Earth’s fairest scenes in ruin laid,
             To furnish victims for that trade,
             Which breeds on earth such deeds of shame,
             As fiends might blush to hear or name.
             I see where Danube’s waters roll,
              And where the Magyar vainly strove,
             With valiant arm and faithful soul,
              In battle for the land he loved,—
             A perjured tyrant’s legions tread
             The ground where Freedom’s heroes bled,
             And still the voice of those who feel
             Their country’s wrongs, with Austrian steel.
             I see the “Rugged Russian Bear,”
             Lead forth his slavish hordes, to war
             Upon the right of every State
             Its own affairs to regulate;
             To help each despot bind the chain
             Upon the people’s rights again,
             And crush beneath his ponderous paw
             All constitutions, rights, and law.
             I see in France,—O burning shame!—
             The shadow of a mighty name,
             Wielding the power her patriot bands
             Had boldly wrenched from kingly hands,
             With more despotic pride of sway
             Than ever monarch dared display.
             The fisher too whose world-wide nets
              Are spread to snare the souls of men,
             By foreign tyrants’ bayonets
              Established on his throne again,
             Blesses the swords still reeking red
              With the best blood his country bore,
             And prays for blessings on the head
              Of him who wades through Roman gore.
             The same unholy sacrifice
             Where’ere I turn bursts on mine eyes,
             Of princely pomp, and priestly pride,
              The people trampled in the dust,
             Their dearest, holiest rights denied,
              Their hopes destroyed, their spirit crushed:
             But when I turn the land to view,
              Which claims, par excellence, to be
             The refuge of the brave and true,
              The strongest bulwark of the free,
             The grand asylum for the poor
              And trodden down of every land,
             Where they may rest in peace, secure,
              Nor fear the oppressor’s iron hand,—
             Worse scenes of rapine, lust, and shame,
             Than e’er disgraced the Russian name,
             Worse than the Austrian ever saw,
             Are sanctioned here as righteous law.
             Here might the Austrian butcher[13] make
              Progress in shameful cruelty,
             Where women-whippers proudly take
              The meed and praise of chivalry.
             Here might the cunning Jesuit learn,
              Though skilled in subtle sophistry,
             And trained to persevere in stern
              Unsympathising cruelty,
             And call that good, which, right or wrong,
             Will tend to make his order strong:
             He here might learn from those who stand
              High in the gospel ministry,
             The very magnates of the land
              In evangelic piety,
             That conscience must not only bend
              To everything the church decrees,
             But it must also condescend,
              When drunken politicians please
             To place their own inhuman acts
              Above the “higher law” of God,
             And on the hunted victim’s tracks
              Cheer the malignant fiends of blood,
             To help the man-thief bind the chain
              Upon his Christian brother’s limb,
             And bear to slavery’s hell again
              The bound and suffering child of Him
             Who died upon the cross, to save
             Alike, the master and the slave.
             While all the oppressed from every land
             Are welcomed here with open hand,
             And fulsome praises rend the heaven
             For those who have the fetters riven
             Of European tyranny,
             And bravely struck for liberty;
             And while from thirty thousand fanes
              Mock prayers go up, and hymns are sung,
             Three million drag their clanking chains,
              “Unwept, unhonoured, and unsung;”
             Doomed to a state of slavery,
              Compared with which the darkest night
             Of European tyranny,
              Seems brilliant as the noonday light.
             While politicians void of shame,
              Cry this is law and liberty,
             The clergy lend the awful name
              And sanction of the Deity,
             To help sustain the monstrous wrong,
             And crush the weak beneath the strong.
             Lord, thou hast said the tyrant’s ear
              Shall not be always closed to thee,
             But that thou wilt in wrath appear,
              And set the trembling captive free.
             And even now dark omens rise
              To those who either see or hear,
             And gather o’er the darkening skies
              The threatening signs of fate and fear;
             Not like the plagues which Egypt saw,
              When rising in an evil hour,
             A rebel ’gainst the “higher law,”
              And glorying in her mighty power,—
             Saw blasting fire, and blighting hail,
             Sweep o’er her rich and fertile vale,
             And heard on every rising gale
             Ascend the bitter mourning wail;
             And blighted herd, and blasted plain,
             Through all the land the first-born slain,
             Her priests and magi made to cower
             In witness of a higher power,
             And darkness like a sable pall
              Shrouding the land in deepest gloom,
             Sent sadly through the minds of all,
              Forebodings of approaching doom.
             What though no real shower of fire
              Spreads o’er this land its withering blight,
             Denouncing wide Jehovah’s ire
              Like that which palsied Egypt’s might;
             And though no literal darkness spreads
              Upon the land its sable gloom,
             And seems to fling around our heads
              The awful terrors of the tomb;
             Yet to the eye of him who reads
              The fate of nations past and gone,
             And marks with care the wrongful deeds
              By which their power was overthrown,—
             Worse plagues than Egypt ever felt
              Are seen wide-spreading through the land,
             Announcing that the heinous guilt
              On which the nation proudly stands,
             Has risen to Jehovah’s throne,
              And kindled his Almighty ire,
             And broadcast through the land has sown
              The seeds of a devouring fire;
             Blasting with foul pestiferous breath,
              The fountain springs of moral life,
             And planting deep the seeds of death,
              And future germs of deadly strife;
             And moral darkness spreads its gloom
              Over the land in every part,
             And buries in a living tomb
              Each generous prompting of the heart.
             Vice in its darkest, deadliest stains,
              Here walks with brazen front abroad,
             And foul corruption proudly reigns
              Triumphant in the Church of God,
             And sinks so low the Christian name,
             In foul degrading vice and shame,
             That Moslem, Heathen, Atheist, Jew,
              And men of every faith and creed,
             To their professions far more true,
              More liberal both in word and deed,
             May well reject with loathing scorn
              The doctrines taught by those who sell
             Their brethren in the Saviour born,
              Down into slavery’s hateful hell;
             And with the price of Christian blood
             Build temples to the Christian’s God,
             And offer up as sacrifice,
              And incense to the God of heaven,
             The mourning wail, and bitter cries,
              Of mothers from their children riven;
             Of virgin purity profaned
              To sate some brutal ruffian’s lust,
             Millions of godlike minds ordained
              To grovel ever in the dust,
             Shut out by Christian power and might
             From every ray of Christian light.
             How long, O Lord! shall such vile deeds
              Be acted in thy holy name,
             And senseless bigots o’er their creeds
             Fill the whole world with war and flame?
             How long shall ruthless tyrants claim
              Thy sanction to their bloody laws,
             And throw the mantle of thy name
              Around their foul, unhallowed cause?
             How long shall all the people bow
              As vassals of the favoured few,
             And shame the pride of manhood’s brow,—
              Give what to God alone is due,
             Homage, to wealth, and rank, and power,
             Vain shadows of a passing hour?
             Oh for a pen of living fire,
              A tongue of flame, an arm of steel!
             To rouse the people’s slumbering ire,
              And teach the tyrants’ hearts to feel.
             O Lord! in vengeance now appear,
              And guide the battles for the right,
             The spirits of the fainting cheer,
              And nerve the patriot’s arm with might;
             Till slavery, banished from the world,
             And tyrants from their power hurled,
             And all mankind from bondage free,
             Exult in glorious liberty!

[Signature: J M Whitfield]




   LETTER FROM MR. WILSON ARMISTEAD TO THE SECRETARY OF THE SOCIETY.


                                                LEEDS, 7TH MO. 22, 1852.

MY DEAR FRIEND,—In responding to thy welcome communication, I may say
that I rejoice in the cause of the interruption of our correspondence,
so far as it concerns thyself; thy time and talents being so
increasingly occupied, in union with other of humanity’s advocates, in
assisting to overturn the monster iniquity of our age, that crowning
crime of Christendom,—_negro slavery_!

Go on in this good work! and may God’s blessing abundantly attend, till
the eternal overthrow be effected of a system so fraught with every
evil, so abhorrent to the rights of nature, and so contrary to the
spirit of the Gospel;—till the galling chain be broken off the necks of
America’s three million slaves; till its victims be raised from the
profoundest depths of ignorance and woe, to which they are now degraded.

’Tis a marvel to me, that a system like that of negro slavery, which
admits of such atrocities, can be tolerated for a single hour! Ought not
every one who has a spark of humanity, to say nothing of Christianity,
in his bosom,—ought not all the sound part of every community in which
slavery exists, to rise up _en masse_, and declare that this abomination
shall exist no longer?

Who gave to any man the right to enslave his fellow-man? Can any
enactment of human legislators so far sanction robbery, as lawfully to
make one man the property of another? Has God poured the tide of life
through the African’s breast, and animated it with a portion of his own
Divine spirit, and at the same time deprived him of all natural
affections, that _he_ alone is to be struck off the list of rational
beings, and placed on a level with the brute? Is his flesh marble, and
his sinews iron, or his immortal spirit of a class condemned, without
hope, to penal suffering, that he is called upon to endure incessant
toil, and to be subjected to degradation, bodily and mental, such as no
other portion of the family of Adam have ever been destined to endure,
without the vengeance of Heaven being signally displayed upon the
oppressors? Does the African mother feel less love to her offspring than
the white woman? or the African husband regard with less tenderness the
wife of his bosom? Is his heart dead to the ties of kindred,—his nature
so brutalized, that the sacred associations of home and country awaken
no emotions in his breast?

History unanswerably demonstrates that the negro does feel, keenly feel,
the wrongs inflicted upon him by his unrighteous enslavers, and that his
mind, barren as it has been rendered by hard usage, and desolated with
misery, is not unwatered by the pure and gentle streams of natural
affection. Yet the lordly oppressors remain unmoved by the sad condition
of the negro, contemplate with indifference his bodily and mental
sufferings, and still dare to postpone to an indefinite period the
termination of his oppression and of their own guilt.

But thanks be to God! there _is_ some counteracting influence to this
feeling, and that it is on the advance. The night has been long and
dark,—already the horizon brightens; the day of freedom dawns.

Go on, then, my friend; I say, go on! in the good cause thou hast
espoused. Labour, and faint not. “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do
it with all thy might.” My kind regards to Frederick Douglass; may he,
and all others also, be strengthened and encouraged to labour in the
great work of human freedom; that so, by gradual increase, like the
mighty surge, they may become strong enough to overpower and drown the
oppressor, and be enabled to devise and execute measures of mercy and
justice, which may avert the judgments of the Almighty from their guilty
land. For surely some signal display of Divine displeasure must await
America unless she repent, and undo the heavy burdens of her THREE
MILLION SLAVES.

Are not the signs of the times calculated to remind us forcibly of this
language of Isaiah, “Behold, the Lord cometh out of his place to punish
the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall
disclose her blood, and no more cover her slain.” Do we not hear
already—

                 “——the wheels of an avenging God,
                 Groan heavily along the distant road?”

Assuredly, he comes to judge the earth. “Who shall abide the day of his
coming; who shall stand when he appeareth?”

                                                 Thy Friend, very truly,

[Signature: Wilson Armistead]




                           IMPROMPTU STANZAS,
 SUGGESTED BY THE WORKING OF THE FUGITIVE SLAVE ACT, AS ILLUSTRATED IN
                  THE CASE OF REV. DOCTOR PENNINGTON.

                         BY THE WORKSHOP BARD.


         Bring out the handcuffs, clank the rusted gyves;
          Rain down your curses on the doomed race;
         Hang out a terror that shall haunt their lives,
                                        In every place.

         Unloose the blood-hounds from oppression’s den;
          Arm every brigand in the name of law,
         And triple shield of pulpit, press and pen,
                                        Around them draw.

         Ho! politicians, orators, divines!
          Ho! cotton-mongers of the North and South!
         Strike now for slavery, or our Union’s shrines
                                        Are gone forsooth!

         Down from their glory into chaos hurled,
          Your thirty States in shivered fragments go,
         Like the seared leaves by autumn tempests whirled
                                        To depths below.

         Closed be each ear, let every tongue be dumb;
          Nor one sad pitying tear o’er man be shed,
         Though fainting at your threshold he should come,
                                        And ask for bread.

         Though woman, fleeing from the cruel grip
          Of foul oppression, scarred and stained with blood,
         Where from the severed veins the driver’s whip
                                        Hath drank its flood.

         Though helpless childhood ask—O pitying Heaven!—
          The merest crumb which falls upon the floor,
         Tho’ faint and famished, bread must not be given,
                                        Bolt fast the door.

         And must it be, thou just and holy God!
          That in our midst thy peeled and stricken poor
         Shall kneel and plead amid their tears and blood,
                                        For evermore?

         Shall those whom thou hast sent baptised from heaven,
          To preach the Gospel the wide world around,
         To teach the erring they may be forgiven,
                                        Be seized and bound?

         Placed on the auction-block, with chattels sold,
          Driven like beasts of burden day by day,
         The flock be scattered from the shepherd’s fold,
                                        The spoiler’s prey?

         How long—thy people cry—O Lord, how long!
          Shall not thine arm “shake down the bolted fire!”
         Can deeds like these of God-defying wrongs,
                                        Escape His ire?

         Must judgments,—such as swept with fearful tread
          O’er Egypt when she made thy people slaves,
         Where thy hand strewed with their unburied dead
                                        The Red Sea waves?

         Must fire and hail from heaven upon us fall,
          Our first-born perish ’neath the Avenger’s brand,
         And sevenfold darkness, like a funeral pall
                                        O’erspread the land?

         We kneel before thy footstool, gracious God,
          Spare thou our nation, in thy mercy spare;
         We perish quickly ’neath thy lifted rod
                                        And arm made bare.

[Signature: J. M. Eells.]

  WEST TROY, MARCH, 1851.




                       JOHN MURRAY (OF GLASGOW).


About a year ago, the newspapers announced the death of Mr. John Murray,
for many years the secretary of the Glasgow Emancipation Society, and I
would do violence to truth and humanity whose servant and soldier he
was, should I neglect to pen a few recollections of that most earnest
and efficient man.

He was related to the ancient and honourable family of the Oswalds of
Sheildhall, and received that excellent educational and religious
training which is given to the children of the middle and higher classes
in Scotland. At the age of twenty-two or three, in consequence of an
attack of pulmonary hemorrhage, he sailed for the West Indies and found
employment at his trade, house-building, in St. Kitts. Very soon,
however, he found other matters to engage, and almost engross his
attention and labours; in conjunction with an uncle of George Stephen of
London, and a Dr. Hamilton, resident in St. Kitts, he did manly and
successful fight in behalf of the wronged and bleeding slave.

After a residence in that island of some years, during which he obtained
a thorough knowledge of the workings of slavery, he returned to Glasgow,
poor in pocket, but rich in abolitionism. Soon after his return, he was
united in marriage to Miss Anna ——, a lady whose perfect harmony in
sentiment, softened by feminine delicacy, made a happy anti-slavery home
for the zealous and ardent abolitionism of John Murray. It was a union
of hearts attached in early youth, and which had remained “leal” during
a long separation.

Shortly after marriage, he commenced business as a _spirit-dealer_, then
and now a most reputable calling in the opinion of the good citizens of
Glasgow. Temperate himself, his calling gradually became unpleasant to
him. At first he refused to sell spirits to any person partly
inebriated; then he reasoned himself into a total abandonment of the
death-dealing traffic. With no other business prospect before him,
prevented by his long difficulty from working at his trade, with a young
wife and child dependent on him, he suddenly locked up his spirit-cellar
and never more sold rum!

In 1828 or 1829, through the influence of his kinsman, James Oswald,
Esq., of Sheildhall, Mr. Murray was appointed surveyor on a part of the
Forth and Clyde canal, an office requiring much labour for little pay.
His prospects of promotion depended on Mr. Oswald and other members of
the Kirk of Scotland. Mr. Murray was a full member of the Tron Church,
Glasgow, when, according to law, a minister was appointed there
regardless of the choice, and contrary to the wishes of the great
majority of its members. In consequence of this appointment, and again
unmindful of personal advancement, John Murray shook the dust from his
sandals and quit at once and for ever the Tron Church and the Kirk of
Scotland.

About the same time the Glasgow Emancipation Society was formed or
re-organised, on the doctrine of immediate emancipation so splendidly
announced by a secession minister of Edinburgh. The secretaries of this
association were John Murray the surveyor, and William Smead, of the
Gallowgate, grocer; the last a Friend. These two were the head and
front, the thinking and the locomotive power of this well-known
association which did notable fight, if not the principal labour, in
effecting emancipation in the British West Indies, and in assaulting
American slavery.

And, twenty odd years ago, it was no trifling matter to do anti-slavery
work in Glasgow, the very names of whose stateliest streets proclaimed
that they were built by money wrung out of the blood and sweat of the
negroes of Jamaica, St. Vincent, &c. The whole of the retired wealth,
nearly all the active business influence, the weight of the Established
Church, the rank and fashion of Glasgow, and though last not least, the
keen wit of the poet Motherwell,[14] and the great statistical learning
and industry of M‘Queen were arrayed on the side of the slave-holder.
Sugar and cotton and rum were lords of the ascendant! Yet the poor
surveyor and the humble grocer fought on; nor did they fight alone; the
silvery voice and keen acumen of Ralph Wardlow, the earnest and powerful
Hugh Heugh, the inexorable logic and burning sarcasm of swarthy Wully
Anderson, and the princely munificence of James Johnston, combined to
awaken the people to the enormity of slavery. And the Voluntary Church
movement, and the fight for the Reform Bill aroused a varied eloquence
in the orators who pleaded for, and a kindling enthusiasm in the people
who were struggling on the liberal side of all these questions; for the
people, battling for their own rights, had heart room to hear the prayer
for the rights of others more deeply oppressed. Thus ever will liberty
be expansive and expanding in the direction of human brotherhood.

Then KNIBB came along with his fiery eloquence, which swept over and
warmed the hearts of the people with indignation at the dishonour done
religion in the martyrdom of the missionary Smith; and then the grand
scene in the British emancipation drama, the overthrow of Bothwick by
George Thompson, and the monster petitions and the reluctant assent of
the ministry and the passage of the bill.

Those were stirring times in Glasgow, and it did one’s heart good to see
John Murray in their midst. The arrangements for nearly all those
movements originated with, and were carried out by him; he never made a
speech of one minute long, yet he most effectively arranged all the
speaking, drew up all resolutions and reports and addresses; and most of
the movements in England, the pressure upon the ministry, and the
advocacy in Parliament were the result of his wide and laborious
correspondence. He used more than one ream of paper for manuscripts upon
the great cause which he seemed born to carry out successfully. In
addition to his other correspondence, nearly every issue of two of the
Glasgow tri-weekly papers contained able articles from his pen in reply
to the elaborate defence of slavery carried on in the _Glasgow Courier_
by Mr. M‘Queen. And yet this man, doing this mighty work, was so
entirely unobtrusive, so quiet in his labours, that few beyond the
committee knew him other than the silent secretary of the Glasgow
Emancipation Society. And I shall not soon forget the perfect
consternation with which he heard a vote of thanks tendered him by
resolution at an annual meeting of the society.

In 1835 or 1836, Mr. Murray was promoted to the office of collector at
Bowling Bay, for the company he had so long and faithfully served. And
many an anti-slavery wayfarer can testify to the warm welcome and genial
hospitality of the snug little stone building so beautifully packed on
the Clyde entrance of the Forth and Clyde canal. A charming family,
consisting of a devoted wife, two most promising boys, and a retiring,
sweet tempered girl, made happy the declining years of this great friend
of the slave, and earnest pioneer in many reforms. Freedom for Ireland,
the Peace Question, Radical Reform, a Free Church, and Total Abstinence,
were questions to all of which Mr. Murray devoted his pen and his purse.
His soul received and advocated whatever looked towards human progress.

In person, Mr. Murray was tall and gaunt, and would strongly remind one
of Henry Clay. About a mile from Bowling Bay, within the enclosure that
surrounds the Relief Church, in a sweet quiet spot, the green turf now
covers what remains of the once active frame of John Murray; and as,
with moistened cheek, I fling this pebble upon his cairn, I cannot help
thinking how much more has been done for the cause of human progress by
this faithful servant to his own convictions of the truth, than by the
nation-wept sage of Ashland.

[Signature: James M’Cune Smith]

NEW YORK, SEPT. 25, 1852.




                       POWER OF AMERICAN EXAMPLE.


At the last anniversary of the American Home Missionary Society, Rev.
John P. Gulliver made an eloquent address on the duty of bringing the
American people under the full influence of Christian principle, in an
argument drawn from the bearings of our national example on the people
of other lands. _Christianity_, he said, _alone can make the nations
free_. We fully believe in this sentiment. In answer to the question,
_How is Christianity to effect this result?_—Mr. Gulliver’s answer was:
AMERICA IS TO BE THE AGENT.

Other nations, he thought, might do much in working out this great
result; but the chief hopes of the friends of freedom, he suggested, are
centered upon this country. The world needs _an example_; and he pointed
to what the example of this nation has already done, imperfect as it is.
“It is doing, at this moment, more to change the political condition of
man than all the armies and navies,—than all the diplomacy and kingcraft
of the world.” If it be so, if as the speaker declared, “the battle of
the world’s freedom is to be fought on our own soil,” it would be
interesting to look at the obstacles in the way. The United States must
present a very different example from that exhibited the last
twenty-five years, and now exhibited, before this country will be the
agent of Christianity in evangelising the world. Think of three millions
of our countrymen in chains! Think of the large numbers held by
ministers of the Gospel and members of churches! Think of the
countenance given to slave-holders by our ecclesiastical assemblies, by
Northern preachers, by Christian lawyers, merchants, and mechanics!
Think of the platforms, adopted by the two leading political parties of
the country, composed partly of religious men! Think of the dumbness of
those that minister at the altar, in view of the great national
iniquity, and then consider the effects of _such an example_ upon other
nations, Christian and Heathen!

Dr. Hawes is stated to have said at the last annual meeting of the A. B.
C. F. M., that Dr. John H. Rice said, in his hearing, more than twenty
years ago: “I do not believe the Lord will suffer the existing type or
character of the Christian world to be impressed on the heathen.” We
also heard the remark, and believe that Dr. Rice, in alluding to the
state of religion in this country, said, “It was so far short of what
Christianity required, that sanguine as many were that the United States
was speedily to be the agent of the world’s conversion, he did not
believe, for one, that God would suffer the Christianity of this
country, as it then was, to be impressed upon the heathen world.” If the
character of our religion was thus twenty years ago, what is it now? As
a religious people we have been boastful. We have acted as if we thought
God could not convert the world without the instrumentality of this
country. It is far more probable that the converted heathen will send
missionaries to the United States to teach us the first rudiments of
Christianity, than that this country, at the present low ebb of
religion, will be the agent of converting heathen nations to God.

Dr. Hawes believed “that if the piety of the church were corrected and
raised to the standard of Paul, God would soon give to the Son the
heathen for his inheritance.” No doubt of it. Such piety would do away
with chattel slavery, with caste, with slavery platforms, with ungodly
rulers, with Indian oppression, with divorcing Christianity from the
ballot-box, with heathenism at home. Let us pray for such piety; and
that hundreds of such men as RICE and HAWES may lift up their voices
like a trumpet, and put forth corresponding action, until the nation
shall be regenerated and become fit to enlighten, and, through the grace
of God, save a dying world.




                 “THE GOSPEL AS A REMEDY FOR SLAVERY.”


In one of the leading Congregational papers, a writer, W. C. J., has
commenced a series of communications under the above heading. It is well
to discuss the subject. The writer says, “There are, it is true, many
among our three millions of slaves who are acquainted with the rudiments
of religious truth, and are leading lives of sincere piety.” Dr. Nelson,
a native of a slave State, stated, as the result of experience for many
years, that he had never known more than three or four slaves who he had
reason to believe were truly and intelligently pious. The Synod of South
Carolina and Georgia published to the world, some years since, that the
great mass of slaves were heathen, as much so as the heathen of any
portion of the globe. What authority W. C. J. has for saying there are,
among the three millions of American slaves, “many” who are “leading
lives of sincere piety,” I do not know. It is probably the mere
conjecture of an ardent mind. He qualifies the expression by asking,
“What is the type of the religion that too generally appears among the
slaves?” And then replies to his own question, “It is sickly and weak,
like a plant growing in a cellar, or a cave; a compound of sincere piety
with much of superstition and fanaticism.” What sort of piety is that?

A sagacious observer has remarked, that there never can be, in our day,
intelligent piety where men are not possessed of property, especially
where they are mere serfs or slaves. How many American slaves have the
piety of “Uncle Tom,” we are unable to say. Probably very few. And it
must fill the heart of every one who loves the souls of men, with
anguish to contemplate the spiritual destitution of the slaves in this
country; kept in bondage by the religious and political apathy or acts
of professing Christians, of different denominations, in their
individual or associated capacity. But to the question: _Is the Gospel a
remedy for slavery?_ We answer, unhesitatingly, not such a Gospel as is
preached to them; for while it does very little to enlighten either
slave or master, it enjoins upon the former passive obedience, and
inculcates upon the latter the right and duty of holding their
fellow-men in bondage. Nor have we much hesitation in avowing it as our
belief, that the Gospel, as generally preached in the free States, is
quite inadequate to put an end to slavery. It does not reach the
conscience of the tens of thousands who are, in various ways, connected
with slave-holding by relationship, business correspondence, or
political or ecclesiastical ties. As proof of this, we need only
contemplate the action of the Northern divisions of the political and
religious national parties. Slavery is countenanced, strengthened,
increased, and extended by their connivance or direct agency. The truth
is, Christianity, as promulgated by the great mass of the preachers and
professors at this day even in the free States, is not a remedy for
slavery. It is a lamentable truth, one that might justly occasion in the
heart of every true Christian the lamentation of the prophet Jeremiah:
“Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I
might weep, day and night, for the slain of the daughters of my people!”
And it is in view of this truth, that the friends of a pure and full
Gospel have great encouragement to persevere in their work of faith and
love. The missionaries connected with the American Missionary
Association, at home and abroad, inculcate, fearlessly and persistently,
a Gospel of freedom, and make no more apology or allowance for
slave-holding than for any other sin or crime. Such missionaries should
be sustained, their numbers augmented, and prayer ascend for them
continually.

[Signature: Lewis Tappan]




                LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE SOCIETY.


DEAR MADAM,—Your request to transmit my name, with a short article, for
insertion in your contemplated publication, is before me. I have neither
time nor words in which to express my unalterable abhorrence of slavery,
with all the odious apologies and blasphemous claims of divine sanction
for it, that have been attempted. I regard all attempts, by legislation
or otherwise, to give the abominable system “aid and comfort” as
involving treason against the government of God, and as insulting the
consciences and common sense of men.

                                                            Yours truly,

[Signature: C. G. Finney]

OBERLIN, 24 SEPT., 1852.




                          THE SLAVE’S PRAYER.


The _first effort_ of my early life in narrative writing, was in behalf
of those who, in even darker days than these, were preeminently those
who, on earth, “had no helper.”

From this tale is selected these few lines—a song introduced into the
story—not because it has any poetic merit, but because to me and perhaps
to others, it seems interesting from the above circumstance.

[Signature: Catharine E. Beecher.]


                            SONG OF PRAISE.

                   Though man neglects my sighing,
                    And mocks the bitter tear,
                   Yet does not God my crying
                    With kindest pity hear?

                   And when with fierce heat panting
                    His hand can be my shade,
                   And when with weakness fainting
                    Support my aching head.

                   And when I felt my cares
                    For those his love can save,
                   Will he not hear the prayers
                    Of the poor negro slave?

                   Yes, for the poor and needy
                    He promises to save,
                   And who is poor and needy
                    Like the poor negro slave?




                             THE STRUGGLE.


Ours is a noble cause; nobler even than that of our fathers, inasmuch as
it is more exalted to struggle for the freedom of _others_, than for our
_own_. The love of right, which is the animating impulse of our
movement, is higher even than the love of freedom. But right, freedom,
and humanity, all concur in demanding the abolition of slavery.

[Signature: Charles Sumner]

BOSTON, OCT. 16, 1852.




                             WORK AND WAIT.


My Friend,—I have found no moment till the present that I could devote
to a compliance with your request, and I am now probably too late.
However, let me hastily proffer a few suggestions to opponents of
slavery, which I trust may not be found unprofitable. I would say, then:

1. Do not choose to separate and isolate yourselves from the general
movement of humanity, save as you may be constrained to oppose certain
eddies of that movement. Had WILBERFORCE, CLARKSON, and their associate
pioneers in the cause of British abolition, seen fit to cut themselves
loose from all pre-existing sects and parties, and form a special
anti-slavery church and party, I think the triumph of their cause would
have been still unattained.

2. Do not refuse to do a little good because you would much prefer to do
a greater which is now unattainable. The earth revolves in her vast
orbit gradually; and he who has done whatever good he can, need not
reproach himself for his inability to do more.

3. Be foremost in every good work that the community around you _will_
appreciate,—not _because_ they will appreciate it, but because their
appreciation and sympathy will enable you to do good in other spheres,
and do it more effectually.

4. Be pre-eminent in your consideration and regard for the rights and
wrongs of labour in your own circle, even the rudest and humblest. An
abolitionist who hires his linen made up at the lowest market rate, and
pays his wash-woman in proportion, will do little good to the
anti-slavery or any other philanthropic cause. The man of liberal
culture and generous heart who unostentatiously tries to elevate the
most depressed to his own level, is doing a good work against slavery,
however unconsciously.

5. Have faith, with a divine patience; man is privileged to labour for a
good cause, but the glory of its success must redound to his Maker. Next
to a great defeat, the most fatal event for slavery would be a great
triumph. Doubtless, the bolts are now forging in some celestial armoury
destined to strike the shackles from the limbs of the bond-man, and
cleanse the land from the foulest and blackest iniquity ever organised
and legalised in the Christian world. The shout of deliverance may come
when it is least expected,—nay, the very means employed to render its
coming impossible, will probably secure and hasten it. For that and
every other needed reform, let the humane and hopeful strive, not
despairing in the densest midnight, and realising that the darkest hour
is often that preceding the dawn. Let them, squandering no opportunity,
and sacrificing no principle,

                    “Learn to labour, and to wait.”

[Signature: Horace Greeley]




                        THE GREAT EMANCIPATION.


Beautiful and happy will this world be, when slavery and every other
form of oppression shall have ceased. But this change can be produced
only by the religion of Jesus Christ. Reliance on any other power to
overthrow slavery, or restore to order and happiness this sin-crazed and
sin-ruined world, will be vain.

[Signature: Gerrit Smith]

PETERBORO’, SEPT. 22, 1852.




                                  ODE

  Sung at the celebration of the First Anniversary of the kidnapping,
  at Boston, of Thomas Sims, a fugitive slave:—the kidnapping done
  under the forms of law, and by its officers, 12 June, 1851. The deed
  _celebrated_ at the Melodeon, Boston, 12 June, 1852.

                         BY REV. JOHN PIERPONT.


                 Souls of the patriot dead,
                 On Bunker’s height who bled!
                    The pile, that stands
                 On your long-buried bones,—
                 Those monumental stones,—
                 Should not suppress the groans,
                    This day demands.

                 For Freedom there ye stood;
                 There gave the earth your blood;
                    There found your graves;
                 That men of every clime,
                 Faith, colour, tongue, and time,
                 Might, through your death sublime,
                    Never be slaves.

                 Over your bed, so low,
                 Heard ye not, long ago,
                    A voice of power[15]
                 Proclaim to earth and sea,
                 That where ye sleep, should be
                 A home for Liberty,
                    Till Time’s last hour?

                 Hear ye the chains of slaves,
                 Now clanking round your graves?
                    Hear ye the sound
                 Of that same voice, that calls
                 From out our Senate halls,[16]
                 “Hunt down those fleeing thralls,
                    With horse and hound!”

                 That voice your sons hath swayed!
                 ’Tis heard, and is obeyed!
                    This gloomy day
                 Tells you of ermine stained,
                 Of Justice’ name profaned,
                 Of a poor bondman, chained
                    And borne away!

                 Over Virginia’s Springs,
                 Her eagles spread their wings,
                    Her Blue Ridge towers:—
                 That voice,[17]—once heard with awe,—
                 Now asks,—“Who ever saw,
                 Up there, a higher law
                    Than this of ours?”

                 Must _we_ obey that voice?
                 When God, or man’s the choice,
                    Must we postpone
                 HIM, who from Sinai spoke?
                 Must we wear slavery’s yoke?
                 Bear of her lash the stroke,
                    And prop her throne?

                 Lashed with her hounds, must we
                 Run down the poor, who flee
                    From Slavery’s hell?
                 Great God! when we _do_ this,
                 Exclude us from thy bliss;
                 At us let angels hiss,
                    From heaven that fell!

[Signature: J. Pierpoint]




                 PASSAGES IN THE LIFE OF A SLAVE WOMAN.

                            BY ANNIE PARKER.


The slaves at Oak Grove did not mourn for poor Elsie when she died, said
Aunt Phillis, continuing her narrative. She was never a favourite, and
from the time her beauty attracted the notice of the young master, and
he began to pet her, she grew prouder and prouder, and treated the other
slaves as if she were their mistress, rather than their equal. They
hated her for her influence over the master, and she knew it, and that
made matters worse between them.

When she died in giving birth to her second child, her little boy and I
were the only ones who felt any sorrow. The master had grown tired of
her, though he had once been very fond of her. Besides, he was at this
time making arrangements for his marriage with a beautiful Northern
lady, so that whatever he might have felt, nobody knew anything about
it.

Elsie was my younger sister. I loved her dearly, and had been almost as
proud as she was of her remarkable beauty. Her little boy was very fond
of his mother, and she doated upon him. He mourned and mourned for her,
after her death, till I almost thought he would die too. He was a
beautiful boy, and at that time looked very much like his father, which
was probably the reason why the master sold him, before he brought his
bride to Oak Grove.

It was very hard for me to part with poor Elsie’s little boy. But the
master chose to sell him, and my tears availed nothing. Zilpha, Elsie’s
infant, was given me to take care of when her mother died, and with that
I was obliged to be content.

Marion Lee, the young mistress, was very beautiful, but as different
from poor Elsie as light from darkness. She had deep blue eyes, with
long silken lashes, and a profusion of soft brown hair. She always made
me think of a half-blown rosebud, she was so delicate and fair. She
proved a kind and gentle mistress. All the slaves loved her, as well
they might, for she did everything in her power to make them comfortable
and happy.

When she came to Oak Grove, she chose me to be her waiting-maid. Zilpha
and I occupied a large pleasant room next to her dressing-room.

She made a great pet of Zilpha. No one ever told her that she was her
husband’s child. No one would have dared to tell her, even if she had
not been too much beloved, for any one to be willing to grieve her, as
the knowledge of this fact must have done.

In due time she, too, had a little girl, beautiful like herself. Zilpha
was delighted with the baby. She never wearied of kissing its tiny
hands, and talking to it in her sweet coaxing tones. Mrs. Lee said
Zilpha should be Ida’s little maid. The children, accordingly, grew up
together, and when they were old enough to be taught from books,
everything that Ida learned Zilpha learned also.

When Zilpha was seventeen, she was more beautiful than her mother had
ever been, and she was as gentle and loving as Elsie had been passionate
and proud. There was a beautiful, pleading look in her large dark eyes,
when she lifted the long lashes so that you could see into their clear
depths. She was graceful as a young fawn, and playful as a kitten, and
she had read and studied so many books, that _I_ thought she knew almost
as much as the master himself.

Mr. Minturn lived at Lilybank, the estate joining Oak Grove. He was an
old friend of Mr. Lee, and the families were very intimate. About this
time a relative of Mrs. Minturn died at the far South, and left her a
large number of slaves. I don’t know how they were _all_ disposed of,
but one of the number, a very handsome young man, named Jerry, was
brought to Lilybank, and became Mr. Minturn’s coachman. He was
considered a great prize, for he had a large muscular frame, and was
capable of enduring a great amount of bodily fatigue. He was, also, for
a slave, very intelligent, and from being at first merely the coachman,
he soon became the confidential servant of his master.

Owing to the intimacy between the heads of the two families, the young
people of both were much together. Ida often spent whole days at
Lilybank, and as Zilpha always accompanied her, she had ample
opportunity to become acquainted with the new man Jerry.

It so happened that I, being more closely confined by my duties at home,
had never seen Jerry, when in the summer following his coming to
Lilybank, Mrs. Lee went to visit her friends at the North, and took me
with her. Ida and Zilpha remained at home. We were gone three months. A
few days after our return, Zilpha told me that she was soon to be
married to Jerry. The poor child was very happy. She had evidently given
him her whole heart. We talked long that day, for I wanted to know how
it had been brought about, and she told me all, with the simplicity and
artlessness of a child. They had felt great anxiety less their masters
should oppose the marriage. But the fear was removed. Mr. Lee had
himself proposed it, and Mr. Minturn gladly consented. I rejoiced to see
my darling so happy, and felt truly thankful to God that the warm love
of her heart had not been blighted.

That same evening Jerry came to see Zilpha. She called me immediately,
for I had never seen him, and she wished us to meet. The moment I looked
upon his face, I knew he was my poor Elsie’s son. I grew sick and faint,
and thought I should have fallen.

Zilpha made me sit down, and brought me a glass of water, wondering all
the time, poor thing, what had made me ill so suddenly. I soon recovered
sufficiently to remember that I must not betray the cause of my
agitation. I did not speak much, but watched Jerry’s face as closely as
I could, without arresting their attention. Every moment strengthened
the conviction that my suspicion was correct. There was the same proud
look that Elsie had, the same flashing eye, and slightly curled lip, and
when he carelessly brushed back the hair from his forehead, I saw a scar
upon it, which I knew was caused by a fall but a little while before his
mother died. O God! I thought, what will become of my darling child!

I soon left the room, on the pretence that my mistress wanted me, but
really that I might shut myself into my own room and think. I did not
close my eyes that night, and when the morning dawned, I was as far as
ever from knowing what I ought to do. At last I resolved to see the
master as early as I could, and tell him all.

After breakfast I went to the library to fetch a book for my mistress,
and found the master there. He was reading, but looked up as I entered,
and said kindly, “What do you wish for, Phillis?” I named the book my
mistress wanted. He told me where it was. I took it from the shelf, and
stood with it in my hand. The opportunity which I desired had come, but
I trembled from head to foot, and had no power to speak. I don’t know
how I ever found words to tell him that Jerry was his own child. I
tried, afterwards, to remember what I said, but I could not recall a
word. He turned deadly pale, and sat for some minutes silent. At length
in a low, husky voice, he said, “You will not be likely to speak of
this, and it is well, for it must not be known. I shall satisfy myself
if what you have told me is true. If I find that it is, I shall know
what to do. You may go.”

I took the book to my mistress, and was sent by her to find Zilpha. She
was in the garden with Ida, and when I called her, she came bounding
towards me with such a bright, happy face, that I could scarcely
restrain my tears. Zilpha was a beautiful reader. She often read aloud
to her mistress, by the hour together. I liked to take my sewing and sit
with them at such times, but that day I was glad to shut myself up alone
in my room.

The next day the master sent for me to the library. “It is true,
Phillis,” he said to me, “Jerry is without doubt poor Elsie’s child.” If
an arrow had pierced my heart at that moment, I could not have felt
worse, for though I had thought I was sure it was so, all the while a
hope was lingering in my heart that I was mistaken. I did not speak, and
the master seeing how I trembled, kindly told me to sit down, and went
on; “I did not see Jerry myself,” he said, “Mr. Minturn made all
necessary inquiries for me. Jerry remembers his mother, and describes
her in a way that admits of no mistake. He remembers, too, that a
gentleman used sometimes to visit his mother, who took a great deal of
notice of him, and would let him sit upon his lap and play with his
watch seals. His mother used to be very happy when this gentleman came,
and when he went away she would almost smother the little boy with
kisses, and talk to him of his papa. I offered to buy Jerry, but Mr.
Minturn would not part with him. If he would have consented, I might
easily have disposed of the whole matter.”

A horrible fear took possession of me at these words. Would he _dare_ to
sell my darling Zilpha? The thought almost maddened me. Scarce knowing
what I did, I threw myself on my knees before him, and begged him not to
think a second time of selling his own flesh and blood. He angrily bade
me rise, and not meddle with that in which I had no concern. That he had
a right, which he should exercise, to do what he would with his own. He
had thought it proper, he said, to tell me what I had just heard, but
charged me never again to name the subject to any living being, and not
to let any one suspect from my appearance that anything unusual had
occurred. With this he dismissed me.

What I suffered during that dreadful week, is known only to God. I could
neither eat nor sleep. It seemed to me I should lose my reason.

Jerry came once to Oak Grove, but I would not see him. Zilpha I avoided
as much as possible. I could not bear to look upon her innocent
happiness, knowing as I did that it would soon be changed into
unspeakable misery.

The first three days the master was away from home. On Thursday he
returned. When I chanced to meet him, he looked uneasy; and if he came
to his wife’s room and found me with her, he would make some excuse for
sending me away.

Saturday was a beautiful bright October day, and Ida proposed to Zilpha
that they should take their books and spend the forenoon in the woods.
They went off in high spirits. I thought I had never seen my Zilpha look
so lovely. Love and happiness had added a softer grace to her whole
being. I followed them to the door, and she kissed me twice before
leaving me; then looking back, when she had gone a little way, and
seeing me still standing there, she threw a kiss to me with her little
hand, and looked so bright and joyous, that my aching heart felt a new
pang of sorrow. What was it whispered to me then that I should never see
her again?

I went back to my work, and presently the master came and asked for Ida.
He wished her to ride with him. I told him where she was, and he went in
search of her. Zilpha did not come back with them. “We told her to stay
if she wished,” Ida said. But my heart misgave me. I should at once have
gone in search of her, but Mrs. Lee wanted me, and I could not go.

I cannot bear, even now, to recall the events of that day. My worst
fears were realized. During my master’s absence, he had sold my darling
to a Southern trader, who only waited a favorable opportunity to take
her away without the knowledge of the family. He had been that morning
with Mr. Lee, and was in the house when Mr. Lee returned with Ida from
the woods.

I don’t know how the master ever satisfied his wife and Ida about
Zilpha’s disappearance. There was a report that she had run away. But I
don’t think they believed it. Certainly _I_ never did.

I almost forgot my own sorrow when I saw how poor Jerry felt when he
knew what had happened. Of course he did not know what I did. He _never_
knew why Zilpha was sent away, but he knew she was sold, and that there
was little reason to hope he should ever see her again. He went about
his work as usual, but there was a look in his eye which made one
tremble.

Before many days he was missing, and though his master searched the
country, and took every possible means to find him, he could discover no
trace of the fugitive. I felt satisfied he had followed the North Star,
but I said nothing, and was glad the poor fellow had gone from what
would constantly remind him of Zilpha.

During the following winter, Mrs. Lee had a dangerous illness. I watched
over her night and day, and when she recovered, my master was so
grateful for what I had done, that he gave me my freedom, and money
enough to bring me to the North.

Of Zilpha’s fate I have been able to learn nothing. I can only leave her
with God, who, though his vengeance is long delayed, hears and treasures
up every sigh and tear of his poor slave-children.

I saw, a few days since, a man who knows Jerry. He is living not many
miles from me, and I shall try to see him before I die. But I shall
never tell him the whole extent of the wrongs he suffered in slavery.

[Signature: Annie Parker.]




                             STORY TELLING.

                            BY ANNIE PARKER.


 The winter wind blew cold, and the snow was falling fast,
 But within the cheerful parlour none listened to the blast;
 The fire was blazing brightly, and soft lamps their radiance shed
 On rare and costly pictures, and many a fair young head.

 The father in the easy chair, to his youngest nestling dove,
 Whispered a wondrous fairy tale, such as all children love;
 Brothers and sisters gathered round, and the eye might clearly trace
 A happiness too deep for words, on the mother’s lovely face.

 And when the fairy tale was done, the blue-eyed Ella said,
 “Mama, please tell a story, too, before we go to bed,
 And let it be a funny one, such as I like to hear,
 ‘Red Riding Hood,’ or ‘The Three Bears,’ or ‘Chicken Little-dear.’”

 A smile beamed on the mother’s face, as the little prattler spoke,
 And kissing her soft, rosy cheek, she thus the silence broke,
 “I will tell you my own darlings, a story that is true,
 Of a little Southern maiden, with a skin of sable hue.

 “Xariffe, her mother called her, a child of beauty rare,
 With soft gazelle-like eyes, and curls of dark and shining hair,
 A fairy form of perfect grace, and such artless winning ways
 That none who saw her, e’er could fail her loveliness to praise.

 “She sported mid the orange-groves in gleeful, careless play,
 And her mother, as she gazed on her, in agony would pray,
 ‘My Father, God! be merciful! my cherished darling save
 From the curse whose sum of bitterness is to be a female slave.’”

 “God heard her prayer, but often he in wisdom doth withhold
 The boon we crave, that we may be pure and refined like gold;
 And the mother saw Xariffe grow in loveliness and grace,
 Till the roses of five summers blushed in beauty on her face.

 “At length, one day, one sunny day, when earth and heaven were bright,
 The mother to her daily toil went forth at morning light;
 At evening, when her task was done—how can the tale be told?
 She came back to her empty hut, to find her darling sold.

 “Come nearer, my own precious ones, your soft white arms entwine
 Around my neck, and kiss me close, sweet Ella, daughter mine;
 Five years in beauty _thou_ hast bloomed, of my happy life a part,
 Oh, God! I guess the anguish of that lone slave-mother’s heart.

 “Now, darlings, go and kiss papa, and whisper your good night,
 Then hasten to your little beds, and sleep till morning light;
 But, oh! before you close your eyes, God’s care and blessing crave,
 On the saddest of His children, that poor heart-broken slave.”




                             THE MAN-OWNER.


A friend of mine, on the —— day of ——, 18—, (the dates it is unnecessary
to specify,) became the owner of a man. He had never owned one before;
and he has had so much trouble with him, that I doubt if he will ever
allow himself to become owner of one again. My friend is not a
Southerner; yet the circumstances by which so singular a dispensation
fell to him, it is unnecessary for me to recount. I will briefly
describe the master and the man, and show how they succeeded in their
relationship.

The master was wholly respectable in his life and character; endowed
with good sense; well enough off in the world, able to hire service, if
he needed, and to pay for it: his temper not bad, though sometimes
irritable;—he could be provoked as others can. He had strong passions,
and sometimes in the course of his life they had got the better of him,
and had led him to conduct which, in the coolness of his mind, he
bitterly repented. Circumstances might have made a bad man of him. The
instructions which he received in his childhood, the example of his
parents, the respectable neighbourhood in which he resided, the church
which he attended, all had a favourable influence upon him. So he became
a man of principle. He had not, indeed, the highest principles; he was
no hero; he was not disposed to make himself a martyr. His religion was
no other than the common religion of the church to which he was
attached, and it demanded no peculiar sacrifice of him. He was a member
of one of the leading political parties, and did his full duty in
maintaining its cause. He called himself a patriot, however, not a
partizan; and talked ever of his country, as the highest exemplification
of the great principles of liberty, and considered the success of our
institutions as the hope of humanity. Yet he loved his country,—not his
race. He was not without charity to the poor; and was not unwilling to
see them, individually, rising above destitution. Yet he did not like to
associate with men lower in the social scale than himself; but had an
ambition that impelled him to court the society of those whose station
and influence were superior to his own. Nor did he care for, or believe
in, any suggestions or plans, the object of which was the elevation of
the poor as a class, and the levelling upwards of the human race. He
thought that as a divine authority has declared to us, “ye have the poor
with you always,” it was ordained that we should always have them,—that
they were an exceedingly useful class, as a foundation in society, that
the prosperous men of the world could not do without them, and that it
was not best to give them too much hope of rising.

Perhaps you will say I have given you no very definite description of
him. You will think, perhaps, were I called to write of him again, I
might, at once, better make use of the words of the poet,—

                  The annals of the human race,
                   Their ruins, since the world began,
                  Of him afford no other trace,
                   Than this,—THERE LIVED A MAN!

I fear, however, that I shall be unable to be more particular in my
description of the servant. It is said, “like master, like man,” and,
indeed, leaving out the expressions above, which show the relationship
of the master to the community and the church, the description of
temper, and of general, moral, and religious principle, would answer to
be repeated now. Suffice it to say, the man was not bad; that is, not
thoroughly bad. He cherished no secret desire for liberty. His master
had no real fear of his attempting to escape. He loved his master; and
some thought, who did not wholly know him, that never slave loved a
master with more fondness and devotion. Yet I know that he was often
disobedient. Passages,—not of arms,—but of ill-temper, of reproach, and
of insolence, not unfrequently occurred between them. High words were
used, hard looks and moody oftener still, perhaps, yet the master never
struck his servant, nor did the servant ever offer violence towards his
master. But at times they would have been very glad to part company, if
the one could have easily escaped, or the other could have made out to
do without him. Much of the disobedience which gave serious offence to
the master, was the result of inadvertence. Lessons, the most frequently
enjoined, were forgotten; they were not always listened to with an
obedient mind. Years long the master required this or that service from
day to day, and yet the command was not once a year, I may say, attended
to. Always the master was saying,—“to-morrow I shall turn over a new
leaf with him;” but he had not energy enough to carry his purpose into
effect. He intended to give his servant at least some moral education,
to teach him self-control, to prevent his bursts of passion, not by the
infliction of punishment, but by a true moral discipline; yet the work
was always delayed, and never accomplished. You will say, the master had
himself some idle fancies that he ought not to have indulged, and that a
severer course would have been more successful. But he was one of those
who doubt the advantages and shrink from the application of severity,
and he would have been no more prompt and resolute and persevering with
his servant than with himself.

At the commencement, I seemed to promise a story. But all my narrative
is closed with a word more. The master was at the age of twenty-one,
when he came into possession of his man. The connection will never be
dissolved, except, at least, by death. Indeed, reader, if you have not
already seen it, master and man were but one and the same person.

And this is the moral of my little fiction. Who will believe that any
man ought to have the ownership of another, when it is so rare to find
one of us wholly competent to govern and to own himself? Nay, the better
a man is, and the more qualified to direct and to govern others with
absolute sway, the less is he willing to take the responsibility of the
disposal of them,—but seeing his own unfitness for the office of lord,
even of himself, he prays, not that he may be a master of others, but
himself a servant of God.

[Signature: E. Buckingham]

  CAMBRIDGE, MASS.,
   OCT., 1852.




                           DAMASCUS IN 1851.


No city has been more variously described than Damascus, because none
has more contrasted features. A spruce Yankee, hearing “Silk
Buckingham’s” description of his “Paradise,” and seeing merely narrow,
half-paved, mat-covered streets, and dirty, mud-walled buildings, would
prefer his native “Slabtown” to the “most refreshing scene in all our
travels.” And yet Damascus is one of the wonders of the world,
unrivalled in what is peculiarly its own, admitting no comparison with
any existing city, revelling in a beauty and a splendour belonging to
Islamism more than Christianity, characterising the age of the Caliphs
rather than of the Crystal Palace.

In antiquity it has no rival. Nineveh, Babylon, Palmyra, its
contemporaries, have wholly perished; while this oldest inhabited place
has lost none of its population, yielded none of its local pre-eminence,
abandoned but one of the arts for which it was so renowned, and taken
not a tinge of European thought, worship, life. It numbers not far from
one hundred and fifty thousand souls, of whom twenty thousand may be
Greek and Armenian Christians. It lies in an exquisite garden at the
foot of Anti-Lebanon, in a plain of inexhaustible fertility, watered by
innumerable brooklets from those ancient streams, “Abana and Pharphar,”
and shut in by vast groves of walnut and poplar, a “verdurous wall of
Paradise,” which are all that the traveller sees for hours as he draws
near the city of “Abraham’s steward.”

Originally the seat of a renowned kingdom, and once the capital of the
Saracen empire, it is now the centre of an Ottoman Pashalik, but
virtually the metropolis of Syria, as it was in the earliest time. Miss
Martineau and some others carelessly give it a length of seven miles;
but the real extent of the city walls in any one direction is not more
than two. The gardens and groves around, however, take the same name,
and are over twenty miles in circuit, of a studied, picturesque
wildness, shaded lanes, running side by side with merry brooks, the
whole overshadowed by the deepest forest, and forming delicious relief
from the sunburnt plains of Syria. Besides the walnut, so much prized
for its fruit all through the East, and the poplar, the main dependence
for building, the famous damson, or Damascene plum, abounds, the citron,
orange and pomegranate spread their fruit around, the vine is everywhere
seen, and only three miles off stands the forest of damask rose-trees
whence the most delicious attar is made. But a genuine American will
prefer the walnut-tree to all others, because of its freedom of growth,
massiveness of trunk, depth of shade, and impressive reminiscence of
home. These trees, together with the mulberry, do very much for the
commerce of the city. But, indeed, Damascus is the chief depôt of
manufactures for Syria. Silk goods cannot be bought to such advantage
elsewhere, nor of such antique patterns, nor of genuine “damask”
colours. The business has suffered somewhat of late, because Turkish
husbands discovering that English prints are so much cheaper, and their
wives fancying the flowing calicoes to be so much prettier than the
patterns which their grandmothers wore, foreign goods are supplanting
the domestic; and a macadamized road is contemplated from the city to
its seaport Beiroot, whose effect would be to make British and French
manufactures still more common, but, at the same time, to give free
circulation to the handicraft of Damascus. As at Constantinople, Cairo,
and elsewhere, each trade occupies its own quarter,—the jewellers,
pipe-makers, silk-dealers, grocers, saddlers, having each their
exclusive neighbourhood; none of the Bazaars are such noble edifices as
cluster around the mosque of St. Sophia; and in the rainy season (that
is, during their winter) the pavement is so wretched and slippery, and
such a mass of mud and water oozes down from the rotten awnings, that
one does no justice to the unequalled richness of some of the fabrics
and the grandeur of some of the khans. One traveller informs the public
that there is a grand “Bazaar for wholesale business” of variegated
black and white marble, “surmounted by an ample dome,” with a lively
fountain in the centre. There are _thirty-one_ such buildings, which
_we_ should call Exchanges, bearing each the name of the Sultan who
erected them. Those that I visited were contiguous to the only street
which wears a name in the East, and that name, familiar to us in the
book of Acts, “Strait,” Dritto, as your guide mumbles the word,—a long
avenue, containing the only hotel in the city.

An oriental peculiarity which makes the large towns exceedingly
interesting is, that every occupation is carried on out of doors, and
right under your eyes as you stroll along. Here the silk web is
stretched upon the outside wall of some extended building; here the
butcher is dressing the meat, perhaps for your dinner, right upon the
side-walk; and here a sort of extempore sausage is cooking, so that one
might almost eat it as he walks,—a capital idea for hasty eaters, and a
very nice article in its way. There is no other part of the world where
so much cooking is to be seen all the while, and such loads of
sweetmeats gladden the eyes of childhood, and such luscious compounds,
scented with attar, spread temptation before every sense. The business
of “El-Shans” might almost be headed by the five hundred public bakers,
though the silk is still the principal manufacture, and there are
reported to be seven hundred and forty-eight dealers in damask,
thirty-four silk-winders, one hundred silk dyers, and one hundred and
forty-three weavers of the same article.

The famous Damascus blades are nothing but an “antiquity” now; they are
uniformly called so by the people, were offered to our purchase in very
small quantities by persons who knew nothing of their manufacture, at
exorbitant prices, and in very uncouth forms. They appeared to be
curiosities to them, as they certainly were to us, and are said to be
sometimes manufactured in England. A mace, offered for sale among these
scimetars of wavy steel, smacked of the Crusaders’ time, and was richly
inlaid with gold; the fire-arms, or blunderbusses, were grotesque and
unwieldy, richly mounted, and gorgeously ornamented.

An attempt is making in certain quarters to persuade the civilised world
that Turkey has still some military power. Of this almost imperial city
the citadel is but a mass of ruins. Count Guyon, a confederate general
with Kossuth, and now a Turkish Pasha and drill-officer, assured us it
would be repaired and strengthened; but the city walls offer no defence
against a modern army; and the Turkish soldier, notwithstanding his
courage and endurance, cannot be bastinadoed into military science;
neither have educated Christian officers, like Guyon, any real
influence. I frequently saw the sentinels asleep while upon duty, and
recent experience has proved them incapable of standing before a far
smaller amount of really trained troops. Some of the barracks at
Damascus are rather the finest which the Sultan possesses, and among the
best in the world,—some, too, of the military exercises are pursued with
a creditable zeal,—but, on the whole, a more slatternly corps of men was
never seen, nor one less confident in themselves.

The Christian curiosities of this oldest of inhabited cities begin with
the mosque of peculiar sanctity, once the site of St. John’s Cathedral,
whose chamber of relics, containing a pretended head of the Baptist, is
inaccessible even to Mussulmen, the priesthood excepted. Six huge
Corinthian columns, once a part of its proud portico, are built into
houses and stores, so that you get but faint glimpses of their beauty
and size until you mount the flat mud roof of the modern buildings, and
look down into the vast area of the temple, six hundred and fifty feet
by one hundred and fifty; and there find towering above you these
massive, blackened remains of Christian architecture,—significant
emblems of the triumph of the Crescent over the Cross, and yet, by their
imperishableness, a promise of renewed glory in some brighter future.
That Islamism is hastening to decay, is shown impressively enough in the
grand dervish mosque and khan, once quite celebrated as the Syrian
enthronement of this advance guard of Mahommed; now nothing could seem
more deserted! one minaret is threatening to fall, the spacious garden
is all weed-grown, and few are left to mourn over the reverse. These
banner-men of the prophet, no longer warriors, students, and apostles,
do but beg their bread and drone their prayers, and exchange the
reputation of fanatics for that of hypocrites; they are, in fact, monks
of the mosque, like their brothers in celibacy, changing sadly enough
from enthusiasm to formality—from the fervour of first love to the
grave-like chillness of an exhausted ritual.

St. Paul is of course the great name at Damascus; and your dragoman is
very certain always as to the place where he was lowered down the city
wall; then he takes you to the tomb of the soldier who befriended him,
close at hand, and to the little underground chapel where the apostle’s
sight was restored. But, having passed in turn under the sceptre of
Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Jew, Roman, Arabian, Turk, every stone of
these buildings could tell a most interesting tale, and every timber of
the wall could answer with an experience corresponding to the out-door
revolution.

But the grand attractions in this “Flower of the Levant and Florence of
Turkey” are the coffee-houses and the palaces of the rich. The writer of
Eothen, I think it is, says, “there is one coffee-house at Damascus
capable of containing a hundred persons.” A Damascus friend, a resident
clergyman, carried me into one where he had himself seen three thousand
people on a gala-day, and several where hundreds of visitors would not
make a crowd. This great necessity of Turkish life,—this deliverance
from the loneliness of an oriental home,—this luxurious substitute for
the daily newspaper, is carried to perfection here. First of all comes
the lofty, dome-covered hall, surrounded by couches like beds, enlivened
on all festivals by the Arabian improvisator with his song and his tale;
back of this are a number of rude arbours, interlaced with noble
shade-trees, and watered profusely by nimble brooks, the whole lighted
every night by little pale lamps. These are the gossiping-places for the
Damascene gentlemen; where the fragrant tchébouque, the coal narghilch,
or water-pipe, the delicious coffee, the indolent game at dominoes (I
never saw chess played at the east), is relieved by such domestic
anecdotes as, according to my American friend, brand the domestic life
of the city with beastly sensuality.

One would fain hope that these are the prejudices of an earnest
missionary; but, until the residence of years had given familiarity with
the language, any opinions of a visitor would be erroneous, as well as
presuming. Nothing, however, can bring back so powerfully the Arabian
tales of enchantment as the interior of the wealthier Damascus houses.
The outside is always mean and forbidding. You have sometimes to stoop
under the rude, low gate; and the first court, surrounded only by
servants’ rooms, has nothing of interest. But the second and third
quadrangles become more and more spacious, and are always of variegated
marble, containing a perpetually playing fountain, overhung by the
orange, the citron, and the vine, whose fragrance floats dreamily on the
moist air, lulling the senses to repose. The grand saloon I found to be
always arranged pretty much the same. A lower part of the pavement near
the door is the place of deposit for slippers, shoes, and the pattens
which Damascus women use so much in the winter—articles, all of them,
never intended for ornament, and never fitted to the foot, but worn as
loose as possible, and never within the sitting-room, but simply as a
protection from out-door wet and soil. The lower portion of the room and
its rug-strewn floor are of variegated marbles; then comes
curiously-carved woods, then painted stucco, decorated with mirrors
rising to the distant, gay-coloured roof. The immense loftiness, the
moist coolness, the gorgeous hues, the emblazoned texts from the Koran,
the sweet murmur of the various fountains, the fragrance of the
orange-groves, succeed to the out-door dreariness like a dream of Haroun
Al Raschid to the wearied pilgrim on desert sands. The divan, or wide
sofa, on three sides of this hall, is far more agreeable in this
enervating climate than any European furniture; only in winter, as the
ground underneath is permeated by leaky clay tubes bearing the waters of
the Barrady, and there is no other heating apparatus save a brazer of
charcoal, one is sometimes very chilly, and is tempted to exchange this
tomb-like dampness for a cozy corner near some friendly stove or
familiar fire-place.

But the general impression which unintelligent strangers carry from
Damascus is, that the people have what they want, and have gone wisely
to work to realise their idea of earthly blessedness—an indolent,
sensual, dreamy one to you, but in their eyes no faint type of the
Mussulman’s heaven.

[Signature: F W Holland]

CAMBRIDGE, MASS.




                RELIGIOUS, MORAL, AND POLITICAL DUTIES.


What is morally wrong cannot be made practically right. The laws of
morality are taught in the Bible; they are unchangeable truths; no
sophistry, no expediency, no compromise can set them aside.

If politics are the science of government, and if civil government is a
divine institution, intended to protect the rights of all; if “an injury
done to the meanest subject is an injury done to the whole body;” and if
“rulers must be just, ruling in the fear of God,” all legislation should
be based on moral duty. Any enactments that have not this basis are, in
the Divine sight, null and void. If man is endowed by nature with
inalienable rights, no legislation can rightfully wrest them from him.
Any attempt to do it is an infraction of the moral law. Our religious,
moral, and political duties are identical and inseparable. It is the
duty of all Christian legislators so to act _now_, as they know all must
act when truth and righteousness shall have a universal prevalence on
the earth.

[Signature: Lindley Murray Moore]




                  WHY SLAVERY IS IN THE CONSTITUTION.


That the constitution of a country should guide its actions is a
_truism_ which none, perhaps, will be inclined to controvert. Indeed, so
thoroughly is this sentiment inwrought into us, that we generally expect
_practice_ will conform to the constitution. But does not this subject
States or nations to misapprehension by others? South Carolina, for
instance, abolishes the writ of _habeas corpus_ with regard to the
coloured people, and imprisons them, although citizens of the other
States, when they enter her borders in any way. Now these are direct
violations of the constitution of the United States, so direct that they
cannot be explained away. Nor do we think that South Carolina even
attempts it. She openly says, that it is owing to the existence of
slavery among them, that the _free_ coloured man, coming into contact
with the slaves, will taint them with notions of liberty which will make
them discontented—that therefore her own preservation, the first law of
nature, requires her to do everything she can to keep the disturbing
force out of her limits, even if she have to violate the constitution of
the United States. This she asserts, too, when, at the formation of the
constitution, she was one of the large slave-holding States—when she had
before her the example of every nation that had practised slavery, and
when now her senators and representatives in Congress are sworn to
support the Constitution of the Union. Thus we see that it would be
doing injustice to the constitution, were we to judge of it by the
practice of South Carolina.

But the inquirer will not be satisfied with the South Carolina reason.
He wants something more and better. He says, too, that these give good
occasion to those exercising the powers of the government to confirm all
law-abiding citizens in the belief that they are well protected by the
constitution, and to let the world see how much the United States prize
it. But supposing he were told that those who control the government
feel, in this matter with South Carolina,—that those who had the control
of the government had no power to coerce South Carolina to perform her
duty,—indeed, in a partizan view, that the person injured were _no_
party,—that, as a general thing, they could not even vote,—were
unimportant, nay, insignificant. If those reasons will not satisfy him,
he must be content with them, for it is not likely that he will get any
other. We further see that injustice would be done by considering the
_practice_ of a people as fairly representing their constitution.

A constitution—the organic law—in truth, all other law is, in some
degree, a restraint on men. It makes an umpire of right, of reason,
which, if not the same in degree in all of us, is the same in nature.
Yet it must be, to some extent, a restraint on the desires or selfish
passions of men. In fact, it is only carrying out the rule of doing to
others what they should do to us, and tends not only to preserve, but
advance society. If no constitution or law agreeing with it existed, men
would be left to the sway of their own passions—nearly always
selfish—and they being many, and very different in different persons,
sometimes, indeed, altogether opposite, and of various intensity—would,
by their indulgence, tend to confusion, to the deterioration of society,
and to its ultimate dissolution.

Now the people of the United States, without the least hesitation,
declare—and they fully believe it—that we are the freest nation on
earth. Other nations, doubtless, with equal sincerity, say of themselves
the same thing. In England where, as in other countries of the old
world, there is a crowded population, raising to a high price everything
eatable, the _operatives_, as they are called, find it difficult to
sustain life. They work all the time they can, and, even after doing
this, they sometimes perish for want of such food as a human being ought
to eat. No one will say that affairs are well ordered here. Having no
such state of things ourselves—for except in some of our large cities,
no one starves to death—we think that to suffer one to die in this way
is cruel and heartless. And we greatly upbraid them for it.

But here we have slavery—a vicious usage which European nations,
excepting one, have long since laid aside. This they have done not only
because it was productive of innumerable visible evils, but because it
greatly and injuriously affected the character of all concerned in it,
and in this way the character of the whole community—making one part of
it proud and imperious—another suppliant and servile. They upbraid us
with it, as being more inconsistent with the high principles we profess,
than any act tolerated among them is or can be with the principles they
profess. Then whilst we wonder that with so much wealth as England
unquestionably has, she should suffer her operatives to die for
something to eat, she wonders that slavery—the worst thing known among
men—should be permitted to raise its head, not only as high as the many
good things and exalted things we possess, but above them, making them,
when necessary, give way to it, and even contribute to its support.
Indeed, it appears to them like Satan appearing in company with the sons
of God, to accuse and try one of his children.

But all this is of no avail. It produces no satisfying results—in fact,
nothing but mutual ill-will and irritation. It is no difficult thing to
select from the _practices_ of many people such as are not what they
ought to be—still the theory, the foundation of the government may be
opposed to them, but may be unable to put them down. They may exist in
spite of it, and in entire opposition to its _main_ object. Indeed, it
appears to be much like reasoning in a circle. We come to no end—no
conclusion. To come to any satisfactory end, any useful conclusion, we
must take something permanent—something believed by both to be
unchangeably right and moral, and compare our governments with it.
Whichever comes nearest to the standard agreed on by both, must of
course be nearest right. But what shall this be? Now as it is utterly in
vain for one to be happy unless he conform to the laws of his being, so
it is in vain that governments are instituted, unless they aim to secure
the happiness and safety of the governed—the people. The peculiar
benefit or enrichment of those that administer the laws, has nothing to
do with good government. Then it ought, by all means, to resemble the
Divine government. We do not mean a _theocracy_ as it has been
administered, the worst, perhaps, of all governments—but it should be
remarkable for its sacred regard to justice and right.

But it is objected, this deals with persons as individuals, and not as
members of the body politic, and that all Christ’s exhortations were of
this kind. Well, be it so—what of that? There is not the least danger,
if one will acquit himself well in his various relations as an
individual—a MAN—but what he will make a good citizen.

Taking this as our standard, and recurring for a moment to the assertion
of our superior happiness as a people—an assertion sometimes regarded as
the boastful grandiloquence of our people—is it not true that our
government, _our constitution of government we mean_, more nearly
resembles the Divine government than any other does, and _therefore_,
that those under it _are_ more happy? Some, while they are inclined to
admit the fact of our superior happiness, yet seem rather to attribute
it to our great abundance of land than to the nature of the government.
We do not wish in any way to deny, or even to neutralize this statement
about the abundance of our land, but still it is one of the _facts_ of
the government—the government was made with this in view—it constitutes
a subject for its action, and it makes of it a strong auxiliary. This,
though undeniably a _great_ cause, is not, in our judgment, the _chief_
one. It is intellect—mind united to such feelings and desires that most
advance others to be like God in intelligence and worth—that makes the
chief cause. Where this _is_ not—or is not called forth and put into
activity, nothing to purpose can be done. Indeed it is the most powerful
agent for good anywhere to be found—for it is behind all others, and
sets all others to work.

We have among us here no form of religion, as they have in other
countries, to which one must conform before he can have any share in the
government—no religion that is made part of the government, and which
is, therefore, _national_ Religion—how we shall serve or worship a Being
or beings superior to ourselves, and who are thought to influence our
destiny for ever—is, certainly, the highest concern of man. As no church
or nation can answer for him at the judgment-seat, he ought to be left
free on this matter. On this point he is free in this country, he is
under no necessity to think in a particular channel. In his inquiries
after truth, he has nothing to fear from the government about the
changes through which his mind may pass, or the conclusions to which it
may be led; although he may draw on him the prejudice and hatred of the
sects from whom he feels compelled to differ.[18] We may truly say, that
in this country, however far we may go in imitating foreign forms, we
have nothing higher than the preacher of the truth.

We have no monarch _born_ to rule over us, whether we will or not; nor
are we obliged to support this costly leech according to _his_ dignity
by money wrung from the labour of the country, nor a host of relatives
according to _their_ dignity, as connected with the monarch.

Nor have we a class _born_ to be our legislators. We have no legislative
castes, nor social castes, but we may truly say, that any native-born
citizen of the United States may aspire to any position, be it
governmental or social.

Nor have we fought so long—though it must be confessed we are ready
pupils here—as most of the countries of the old world have; still we
begin to make fighting almost a part of the government, and a part of
the religion of the land. But all this does not answer the question that
many have asked, and that our intelligence and exemption from bias in
many things make more remarkable—why did we suffer slavery to find a
place in a constitution in which there are so many good things—why did
we make a garden of healthful fruits and enchanting flowers, and place
this serpent in it?

The answer to this question may be easily given by one that well knows
the condition of the country that soon followed on the treaty of 1783.
Till we were governed by the present constitution we were governed by
the Articles of Confederation. The United States, though nominally a
nation, had no power to enforce any stipulations she might make. For
instance, if she should promise by a treaty to pay interest on the debt
that we had contracted to secure our national independence, each State,
by its _own_ power and authority, were to raise its quota of the whole
amount. If a State failed to raise it, the _United States_ had no
redress. It had no authority to coerce any State, no matter what was the
cause of failure. This is given as only an instance, and did we not
think it made our position very plain, others might be given in manifold
abundance—all tending to show the unfaithfulness of the States to the
engagements of the United States, and the utter powerlessness of the
latter to keep her word. It was owing to this that the _main_ object of
the Convention was the more perfect union of the States, and that in
this way there might be conferred on the United States the same plenary
power to carry out her engagements that a State had to carry out hers.

The Convention did not meet to do away with slavery, but chiefly to form
such an union as would obviate the difficulty already mentioned, and so
keenly felt by some of the most earnest friends of the country. Although
slavery was pretty well understood then, and seemed to be opposed to all
the principles of freedom asserted, yet as it had been embraced by so
many, that if they should be united against the constitution its
adoption would be endangered, it was thought best not to insist on its
instant abolition. Men as yet had too much selfishness in them, and,
although reasonable beings, they have too much of the animal in them to
see that, in the long run, honesty is the best policy. Many of the
opponents of slavery, even from the slave States themselves, took this
opportunity of showing the baseness and turpitude of the whole
system—its advocates from the far South defending it as well as they
could. These advocates gave it as their opinion that, owing to the
Declaration of 1776, one which had already done wonders at the
North—owing to the influence of the principles of liberty inserted into
the constitution, and to the feeling of justice pervading all classes of
persons, and to the progress of refinement and true civilization,
slavery would ultimately disappear.[19]

At the time this opinion was expressed by the conventionists from the
South, although we cultivated cotton to a small extent, it could not be
regarded as staple. Soon after making the constitution it began to be
important. It could be produced only at the South. As it grew in value
the notion of abolishing slavery began to wane, till now some of the
leading men of that part of the country say it is not only a good thing,
but an indispensable one to the highest perfection of the social system.

[Signature: James G. Birney.]




                            THE TWO ALTARS;
                        OR, TWO PICTURES IN ONE.

                     BY MRS. HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.


                   I.—THE ALTAR OF LIBERTY, OR 1776.

The well-sweep of the old house on the hill was relieved, dark and
clear, against the reddening sky, as the early winter sun was going down
in the west. It was a brisk, clear, metallic evening; the long drifts of
snow blushed crimson red on their tops, and lay in shades of purple and
lilac in the hollows; and the old wintry wind brushed shrewdly along the
plain, tingling people’s noses, blowing open their cloaks, puffing in
the back of their necks, and showing other unmistakable indications that
he was getting up steam for a real roystering night.

“Hurra! how it blows!” said little Dick Ward, from the top of the mossy
wood-pile.

Now Dick had been sent to said wood-pile, in company with his little
sister Grace, to pick up chips, which everybody knows was in the olden
time considered a wholesome and gracious employment, and the peculiar
duty of the rising generation. But said Dick, being a boy, had mounted
the wood-pile, and erected there a flag-staff, on which he was busily
tying a little red pocket handkerchief, occasionally exhorting Gracie
“to be sure and pick up fast.” “O, yes, I will,” said Grace; “but you
see the chips have got ice on ’em, and make my hands so cold?”

“O! don’t stop to suck your thumbs!—who cares for ice? Pick away, I say,
while I set up the flag of Liberty.”

So Grace picked away as fast as she could, nothing doubting but that her
cold thumbs were in some mysterious sense an offering on the shrine of
Liberty; while soon the red handkerchief, duly secured, fluttered and
snapped in the brisk evening wind.

“Now you must hurra, Gracie, and throw up your bonnet,” said Dicky, as
he descended from the pile.

“But won’t it lodge down in some place in the wood-pile?” suggested
Gracie, thoughtfully.

“O, never fear; give it to me, and just holler now, Gracie, ‘Hurra for
Liberty!’ and we’ll throw up your bonnet and my cap; and we’ll play, you
know, that we were a whole army, and I’m General Washington.”

So Gracie gave up her little red hood, and Dick swung his cap, and up
they both went into the air; and the children shouted, and the flag
snapped and fluttered, and altogether they had a merry time of it. But
then the wind—good-for-nothing, roguish fellow!—made an ungenerous
plunge at poor Gracie’s little hood, and snipped it up in a twinkling,
and whisked it off, off, off—fluttering and bobbing up and down, quite
across a wide, waste, snowy field, and finally lodged it on the top of a
tall strutting rail, that was leaning very independently, quite another
way from all the other rails of the fence.

“Now, see; do see!” said Gracie; “there goes my bonnet! What will Aunt
Hitty say?” and Gracie began to cry.

“Don’t you cry, Gracie; you offered it up to Liberty, you know; it’s
glorious to give up everything for Liberty.”

“O! but Aunt Hitty won’t think so.”

“Well, don’t cry, Gracie, you foolish girl! Do you think I can’t get it?
Now, only play that that great rail was a fort, and your bonnet was a
prisoner in it, and see how quick I’ll take the fort, and get it!” and
Dick shouldered a stick, and started off.


“What upon ’arth keeps those children so long? I should think they were
making chips!” said Aunt Mehetabel; “the fire’s just a-going out under
the tea-kettle.”

By this time Gracie had lugged her heavy basket to the door, and was
stamping the snow off her little feet, which were so numb that she
needed to stamp to be quite sure that they were yet there. Aunt
Mehetabel’s shrewd face was the first who greeted her as the door
opened.

“Gracie—what upon ’arth!—wipe your nose, child; your hands are frozen.
Where alive is Dick? and what’s kept you out all this time? and where is
your bonnet?”

Poor Gracie, stunned by this cataract of questions, neither wiped her
nose nor gave any answer; but sidled up into the warm corner, where
grandmamma was knitting, and began quietly rubbing and blowing her
fingers, while the tears silently rolled down her cheeks, as the fire
made their former ache intolerable.

“Poor little dear!” said grandmamma, taking her hands in hers; “Hitty
shan’t scold you. Grandma knows you’ve been a good girl; the wind blew
poor Gracie’s bonnet away;” and grandmamma wiped both eyes and nose, and
gave her, moreover, a stalk of dried fennel out of her pocket, whereat
Gracie took heart once more.

“Mother always makes fools of Roxy’s children,” said Mehetabel, puffing
zealously under the tea-kettle. “There’s a little maple sugar in that
saucer up there, mother, if you will keep giving it to her,” she said,
still vigorously puffing. “And now, Gracie,” she said, when, after a
while, the fire seemed in tolerable order, “will you answer my
question?—Where is Dick?”

“Gone over in the lot to get my bonnet.”

“How came your bonnet off?” said Aunt Mehetabel. “I tied it on firm
enough.”

“Dick wanted me to take it off for him to throw up for Liberty,” said
Grace.

“Throw up for fiddlestick! Just one of Dick’s cut-ups, and you were
silly enough to mind him!”

“Why, he put up a flag-staff on the wood-pile, and a flag to Liberty,
you know, that papa’s fighting for,” said Grace more confidently, as she
saw her quiet, blue-eyed mother, who had silently walked into the room
during the conversation.

Grace’s mother smiled, and said encouragingly, “And what then?”

“Why, he wanted me to throw up my bonnet and he his cap, and shout for
Liberty; and then the wind took it and carried it off, and he said I
ought not to be sorry if I did lose it; it was an offering to Liberty.”

“And so I did,” said Dick, who was standing as straight as a poplar
behind the group; “and I heard it in one of father’s letters to mother,
that we ought to offer up everything on the altar of Liberty! And so I
made an altar of the wood-pile.”

“Good boy!” said his mother; “always remember everything your father
writes. He has offered up everything on the altar of Liberty, true
enough; and I hope you, son, will live to do the same.”

“Only, if I have the hoods and caps to make,” said Aunt Hitty, “I hope
he won’t offer them up every week—that’s all!”

“O! well, Aunt Hitty, I’ve got the hood; let me alone for that. It blew
clear over into the Daddy-ward pasture-lot, and there stuck on the top
of the great rail; and I played that the rail was a fort, and besieged
it, and took it.”

“O! yes, you’re always up to taking forts, and anything else that nobody
wants done. I’ll warrant, now, you left Gracie to pick up every blessed
one of them chips!”

“Picking up chips is girl’s work,” said Dick; “and taking forts and
defending the country is men’s work.”

“And pray, Mister Pomp, how long have you been a man?” said Aunt Hitty.

“If I an’t a man, I soon shall be; my head is ’most up to my mother’s
shoulder, and I can fire off a gun too. I tried the other day, when I
was up to the store. Mother, I wish you’d let me clean and load the old
gun; so that, if the British should come!”—

“Well, if you are so big and grand, just lift me out that table, sir,”
said Aunt Hitty, “for it’s past supper-time.”

Dick sprung, and had the table out in a trice, with an abundant clatter,
and put up the leaves with quite an air. His mother, with the silent and
gliding motion characteristic of her, quietly took out the table-cloth
and spread it, and began to set the cups and saucers in order, and to
put on the plates and knives, while Aunt Hitty bustled about the tea.

“I’ll be glad when the war’s over, for one reason,” said she. “I’m
pretty much tired of drinking sage-tea, for one, I know.”

“Well, Aunt Hitty, how you scolded that pedlar, last week, that brought
along that real tea.”

“To be sure I did! S’pose I’d be taking any of his old tea, bought of
the British? Fling every teacup in his face first!”

“Well, mother,” said Dick, “I never exactly understood what it was about
the tea, and why the Boston folks threw it all overboard.”

“Because there was an unlawful tax laid upon it, that the Government had
no right to lay. It wasn’t much in itself; but it was a part of a whole
system of oppressive meanness, designed to take away our rights, and
make us slaves of a foreign power!”

“Slaves!” said Dicky, straightening himself proudly. “Father a slave!”

“But they would not be slaves! They saw clearly where it would all end,
and they would not begin to submit to it in ever so little,” said the
mother.

“I wouldn’t, if I was they,” said Dicky.

“Besides,” said his mother, drawing him towards her, “it wasn’t for
themselves alone they did it. This is a great country, and it will be
greater and greater; and it’s very important that it should have free
and equal laws, because it will by-and-by be so great. This country, if
it is a free one, will be a light of the world—a city set on a hill,
that cannot be hid; and all the oppressed and distressed from other
countries shall come here to enjoy equal rights and freedom. This, dear
boy, is why your father and uncles have gone to fight, and why they do
stay and fight, though God knows what they suffer, and” —and the large
blue eyes of the mother were full of tears; yet a strong, bright beam of
pride and exultation shone through those tears.

“Well, well, Roxy, you can alway talk, everybody knows,” said Aunt
Hitty, who had been not the least attentive listener of this little
patriotic harangue; “but, you see, the tea is getting cold, and yonder I
see the sleigh is at the door, and John’s come; so let’s set up our
chairs for supper.”

The chairs were soon set up, when John, the eldest son, a lad of about
fifteen, entered with a letter. There was one general exclamation, and
stretching out of hands towards it. John threw it into his mother’s lap;
the tea-table was forgotten, and the tea-kettle sang unnoticed by the
fire, as all hands piled themselves up by mother’s chair to hear the
news. It was from Captain Ward, then in the American army, at Valley
Forge. Mrs. Ward ran it over hastily, and then read it aloud. A few
words we may extract:—“There is still,” it said, “much suffering. I have
given away every pair of stockings you sent me, reserving to myself only
one; for I will not be one whit better off than the poorest soldier that
fights for his country. Poor fellows! it makes my heart ache sometimes
to go round among them, and see them with their worn clothes and torn
shoes, and often bleeding feet, yet cheerful and hopeful, and every one
willing to do his very best. Often the spirit of discouragement comes
over them, particularly at night, when, weary, cold, and hungry, they
turn into their comfortless huts on the snowy ground. Then sometimes
there is a thought of home and warm fires, and some speak of giving up;
but next morning out comes Washington’s general orders—little short
note; but it’s wonderful the good it does! and then they all resolve to
hold on, come what may. There are commissioners going all through the
country to pick up supplies. If they come to you, I need not tell you
what to do. I know all that will be in your hearts.”

“There, children, see what your father suffers,” said the mother, “and
what it costs these poor soldiers to gain our liberty.”

“Ephraim Scranton told me that the commissioners had come as far as the
Three-mile Tavern, and that he rather ’spected they’d be along here
to-night,” said John, as he was helping round the baked beans to the
silent company at the tea-table.

“To-night?—Do tell, now!” said Aunt Hitty. “Then it’s time we were awake
and stirring. Let’s see what can be got.”

“I’ll send my new over-coat, for one,” said John. “That old one an’t cut
up yet, is it, Aunt Hitty?”

“No,” said Aunt Hitty; “I was laying out to cut it over, next Wednesday,
when Desire Smith could be here to do the tailoring.”

“There’s the south room,” said Aunt Hitty, musing; “that bed has the two
old Aunt Ward blankets on it, and the great blue quilt, and two
comforters. Then mother’s and my room, two pair—four comforters—two
quilts—the best chamber has got——”

“O! Aunt Hitty, send all that’s in the best chamber. If any company
comes, we can make it up off from our beds!” said John. “I can send a
blanket or two off from my bed, I know;—can’t but just turn over in it,
so many clothes on, now.”

“Aunt Hitty, take a blanket off from our bed,” said Grace and Dicky at
once.

“Well, well, we’ll see,” said Aunt Hitty, bustling up.

Up rose grandmamma, with great earnestness, now, and going into the next
room, and opening a large cedar-wood chest, returned, bearing in her
arms two large snow-white blankets, which she deposited flat on the
table, just as Aunt Hitty was whisking off the table-cloth.

“Mortal! mother, what are you going to do?” said Aunt Hitty.

“There,” she said, “I spun those, every thread of ’em, when my name was
Mary Evans. Those were my wedding blankets, made of real nice wool, and
worked with roses in all the corners. I’ve got them to give!” and
grandmamma stroked and smoothed the blankets, and patted them down, with
great pride and tenderness. It was evident she was giving something that
lay very near her heart; but she never faltered.

“La! mother, there’s no need of that,” said Aunt Hitty. “Use them on
your own bed, and send the blankets off from that;—they are just as good
for the soldiers.”

“No, I shan’t!” said the old lady, waxing warm; “’t an’t a bit too good
for ’em. I’ll send the very best I’ve got, before they shall suffer.
Send ’em the _best_!” and the old lady gestured oratorically!

They were interrupted by a rap at the door, and two men entered, and
announced themselves as commissioned by Congress to search out supplies
for the army. Now the plot thickens. Aunt Hitty flew in every
direction,—through entry-passages, meal-room, milk-room, down cellar, up
chamber,—her cap-border on end with patriotic zeal; and followed by
John, Dick, and Gracie, who eagerly bore to the kitchen the supplies
that she turned out, while Mrs. Ward busied herself in quietly sorting,
bundling, and arranging in the best possible travelling order, the
various contributions that were precipitately launched on the kitchen
floor.

Aunt Hitty soon appeared in the kitchen with an armful of stockings,
which, kneeling on the floor, she began counting and laying out.

“There,” she said, laying down a large bundle on some blankets, “that
leaves just two pair apiece all round.”

“La!” said John, “what’s the use of saving two pair for me? I can do
with one pair, as well as father.”

“Sure enough,” said his mother; “besides, I can knit you another pair in
a day.”

“And I can do with one pair,” said Dickey.

“Yours will be too small, young master, I guess,” said one of the
commissioners.

“No,” said Dicky; “I’ve got a pretty good foot of my own, and Aunt Hitty
will always knit my stockings an inch too long, ’cause she says I grow
so. See here,—these will do;” and the boy shook his, triumphantly.

“And mine, too,” said Gracie, nothing doubting, having been busy all the
time in pulling off her little stockings.

“Here,” she said to the man who was packing the things into a
wide-mouthed sack; “here’s mine,” and her large blue eyes looked
earnestly through her tears.

Aunt Hitty flew at her.—“Good land! the child’s crazy. Don’t think the
men could wear your stockings,—take ’em away!”

Gracie looked around with an air of utter desolation, and began to cry,
“I wanted to give them something,” said she. “I’d rather go barefoot on
the snow all day, than not send ’em anything.”

“Give me the stocking’s, my child,” said the old soldier tenderly.
“There, I’ll take ’em, and show ’em to the soldiers, and tell them what
the little girl said that sent them. And it will do them as much good as
if they could wear them. They’ve got little girls at home, too.” Gracie
fell on her mother’s bosom, completely happy, and Aunt Hitty only
muttered, “Everybody does spile that child; and no wonder, neither!”

Soon the old sleigh drove off from the brown house, tightly packed and
heavily loaded. And Gracie and Dicky were creeping up to their little
beds.

“There’s been something put on the altar of Liberty to-night, hasn’t
there, Dick?”

“Yes, indeed,” said Dick; and, looking up to his mother, he said, “But,
mother, what did you give?”

“I?” said the mother, musingly.

“Yes, you, mother; what have you given to the country?”

“All that I have, dears,” said she, laying her hands gently on their
heads,—“my husband and my children!”


                     II.—THE ALTAR OF ——, OR 1850.

The setting sun of chill December lighted up the solitary front window
of a small tenement on —— street, which we now have occasion to visit.
As we push gently aside the open door, we gain sight of a small room,
clean as busy hands can make it, where a neat, cheerful young mulatto
woman is busy at an ironing-table. A basket full of glossy-bosomed
shirts, and faultless collars and wristbands, is beside her, into which
she is placing the last few items with evident pride and satisfaction. A
bright, black-eyed boy, just come in from school, with his satchel of
books over his shoulder, stands, cap in hand, relating to his mother how
he has been at the head of his class, and showing his school-tickets,
which his mother, with untiring admiration, deposits in the little real
china tea-pot, which, as being their most reliable article of gentility,
is made the deposit of all the money and most especial valuables of the
family.

“Now, Henry,” says the mother, “look out and see if father is coming
along the street;” and she begins filling the little black tea-kettle,
which is soon set singing on the stove.

From the inner room now daughter Mary, a well-grown girl of thirteen,
brings the baby, just roused from a nap, and very impatient to renew his
acquaintance with his mamma.

“Bless his bright eyes!—mother will take him,” ejaculates the busy
little woman, whose hands are by this time in a very floury condition,
in the incipient stages of wetting up biscuit, “in a minute;” and she
quickly frees herself from the flour and paste, and, deputing Mary to
roll out her biscuit, proceeds to the consolation and succour of young
master.

“Now, Henry,” says the mother, “you’ll have time, before supper, to take
that basket of clothes up to Mr. Sheldin’s;—put in that nice bill that
you made out last night. I shall give you a cent for every bill you
write out for me. What a comfort it is, now, for one’s children to be
gettin’ learnin’ so!”

Henry shouldered the basket, and passed out the door, just as a
neatly-dressed coloured man walked up, with his pail and white-wash
brushes.

“O, you’ve come, father, have you?— Mary, are the biscuits in? —you may
as well set the table, now. Well, George, what’s the news?”

“Nothing, only a pretty smart day’s work. I’ve brought home five
dollars, and shall have as much as I can do these two weeks!” and the
man, having washed his hands, proceeded to count out his change on the
ironing-table.

“Well, it takes you to bring in the money,” said the delighted wife;
“nobody but you could turn off that much in a day!”

“Well, they do say—those that’s had me once—that they never want any
other hand to take hold in their rooms. I s’pose its a kinder practice
I’ve got, and kinder natural!”

“Tell ye what,” said the little woman, taking down the family strong
box—to wit, the china tea-pot aforenamed—and pouring the contents on the
table, “we’re getting mighty rich now! We can afford to get Henry his
new Sunday cap, and Mary her muslin-de-laine dress;—take care, baby, you
rogue!” she hastily interposed, as young master made a dive at a dollar
bill, for his share in the proceeds.

“He wants something, too, I suppose,” said the father; “let him get his
hand in while he’s young.”

The baby gazed with round, astonished eyes, while mother with some
difficulty, rescued the bill from his grasp; but, before any one could
at all anticipate his purpose, he dashed in among the small change with
such zeal as to send it flying all over the table.

“Hurra!—Bob’s a smasher!” said the father, delighted; “he’ll make it
fly, he thinks;” and, taking the baby on his knee, he laughed merrily,
as Mary and her mother pursued the rolling coin all over the room.

“He knows now, as well as can be, that he’s been doing mischief,” said
the delighted mother, as the baby kicked and crowed uproariously;—“he’s
such a forward child, now, to be only six months old!—O, you’ve no idea,
father, how mischievous he grows;” and therewith the little woman began
to roll and tumble the little mischief-maker about, uttering divers
frightful threats, which appeared to contribute, in no small degree, to
the general hilarity.

“Come, come, Mary,” said the mother, at last, with a sudden burst of
recollection; “you mustn’t be always on your knees fooling with this
child!—Look in the oven at them biscuits.”

“They’re done exactly, mother,—just the brown!”—and, with the word, the
mother dumped baby on to his father’s knee, where he sat contentedly
munching a very ancient crust of bread, occasionally improving the
flavour thereof by rubbing it on his father’s coat-sleeve.

“What have you got in that blue dish, there?” said George, when the
whole little circle were seated around the table.

“Well, now, what _do_ you suppose?” said the little woman, delighted;—“a
quart of nice oysters,—just for a treat, you know. I wouldn’t tell you
till this minute,” said she, raising the cover.

“Well,” said George, “we both work hard for our money, and we don’t owe
anybody a cent; and why shouldn’t we have our treats, now and then, as
well as rich folks?”

And gaily passed the supper hour; the tea-kettle sung, the baby crowed,
and all chatted and laughed abundantly.

“I’ll tell you,” said George, wiping his mouth, “wife, these times are
quite another thing from what it used to be down in Georgia. I remember
then old Mas’r used to hire me out by the year; and one time, I
remember, I came and paid him in two hundred dollars,—every cent I’d
taken. He just looked it over, counted it, and put it in his
pocket-book, and said, ‘You are a good boy, George,’—and he gave me
_half-a-dollar_!”

“I want to know, now!” said his wife.

“Yes, he did, and that was every cent I ever got of it; and, I tell you,
I was mighty bad off for clothes, them times.”

“Well, well, the Lord be praised, they’re over, and you are in a free
country now!” said the wife, as she rose thoughtfully from the table,
and brought her husband the great Bible. The little circle were ranged
around the stove for evening prayers.

“Henry, my boy, you must read,—you are a better reader than your
father,—thank God, that let you learn early!”

The boy, with a cheerful readiness, read, “The Lord is my Shepherd,” and
the mother gently stilled the noisy baby, to listen to the holy words.
Then all kneeled, while the father, with simple earnestness, poured out
his soul to God.

They had but just risen,—the words of Christian hope and trust scarce
died on their lips,—when, lo! the door was burst open, and two men
entered; and one of them advancing, laid his hand on the father’s
shoulder. “This is the fellow,” said he.

“You are arrested in the name of the United States!” said the other.

“Gentlemen, what is this?” said the poor man, trembling.

“Are you not the property of _Mr. B._, of Georgia?” said the officer.

“Gentlemen, I’ve been a free, hard-working man, these ten years.”

“Yes, but you are arrested on suit of Mr. B., as his slave.”

Shall we describe the leave-taking?—the sorrowing wife, the dismayed
children, the tears, the anguish,—that simple, honest, kindly home, in a
moment so desolated! Ah, ye who defend this because it is law, think,
for one hour, what if this that happens to your poor brother should
happen to you!

                  *       *       *       *       *

It was a crowded court-room, and the man stood there to be tried—for
life?—no; but for the life of life—for liberty!

Lawyers hurried to and fro, buzzing, consulting, bringing
authorities,—all anxious, zealous, engaged,—for what?—to save a
fellow-man from bondage?—no; anxious and zealous lest he might
escape,—full of zeal to deliver him over to slavery. The poor man’s
anxious eyes follow vainly the busy course of affairs, from which he
dimly learns that he is to be sacrificed—on the altar of the Union; and
that his heart-break and anguish, and the tears of his wife, and the
desolation of his children, are, in the eyes of these well-informed men,
only the bleat of a sacrifice, bound to the horns of the glorious
American altar!

                  *       *       *       *       *

Again it is a bright day, and business walks brisk in this market.
Senator and statesman, the learned and patriotic, are out this day, to
give their countenance to an edifying and impressive, and truly American
spectacle,—the sale of a man! All the preliminaries of the scene are
there; dusky-browed mothers, looking with sad eyes while speculators are
turning round their children,—looking at their teeth, and feeling of
their arms; a poor, old, trembling woman, helpless, half-blind, whose
last child is to be sold, holds on to her bright boy with trembling
hands. Husbands and wives, sisters and friends, all soon to be scattered
like the chaff of the threshing-floor, look sadly on each other with
poor nature’s last tears; and among them walk briskly glib, oily
politicians, and thriving men of law, letters, and religion, exceedingly
sprightly and in good spirits,—for why?—it isn’t _they_ that are going
to be sold; it’s only somebody else. And so they are very comfortable,
and look on the whole thing as quite a matter-of-course affair; and, as
it is to be conducted to-day, a decidedly valuable, and judicious
exhibition.

And now, after so many hearts and souls have been knocked and thumped
this way and that way by the auctioneer’s hammer, comes the
_instructive_ part of the whole; and the husband and father, whom we saw
in his simple home, reading and praying with his children, and
rejoicing, in the joy of his poor ignorant heart, that he lived in a
free country, is now set up to be admonished of his mistake.

Now there is great excitement, and pressing to see, and exultation and
approbation; for it is important and interesting to see a man put down
that has tried to be a _free man_.

“That’s he, is it?—Couldn’t come it, could he?” says one.

“No, and he will never come it, that’s more,” says another,
triumphantly.

“I don’t generally take much interest in scenes of this nature,” says a
grave representative;—“but I came here to-day for the sake of the
_principle_!”

“Gentlemen,” says the auctioneer, “we’ve got a specimen here that some
of your Northern abolitionists would give any price for; but they shan’t
have him!—no! we’ve looked out for that. The man that buys him must give
bonds never to sell him to go North again!”

“Go it!” shout the crowd, “good!—good!—hurra!” “An impressive idea!”
says a senator; “a noble maintaining of principle!” and the man is bid
off, and the hammer falls with a last crash on his hearth, and hopes,
and manhood, and he lies a bleeding wreck on the altar of Liberty!

Such was the altar in 1776;—such is the altar in 1850.




                           OUTLINE OF A MAN.


In some of those castle building day-dreams, in which, like all youth of
an imaginative turn, I was wont, in my early days, to indulge; a
favourite image of my creation was an _Africo-American for the time_,—a
coloured man, who had known by experience the bitterness of slavery, and
now by some process free, so endowed with natural powers, and a certain
degree of attainments, all the more rare and effective for being
acquired under great disadvantages,—as to be a sort of Moses to his
oppressed and degraded tribe. He was to be gifted with a noble person,
of course, and refinement of manners, and some elegance of thought and
expression; by what unprecedented miracle such a paragon was to be
graduated through the educational appliances of American slavery,
imagination did not trouble herself to inquire. She was painting
fancy-pieces, not portraits.

Having thus irresponsibly struck out upon the canvas her central figure,
she would not be slow to complete the picture with many a rose-coloured
vision of brilliant successes and magic triumphs won by her hero, in his
great enterprise of the redemption of his people. A burning sense of
their wrongs fired his eloquence with an undying, passionate
earnestness, and as he alternately reproached the injustice, and
appealed to the generosity of his oppressors, all opposition gave way
before him; the masses, as one man, demanded the emancipation of his
long-degraded, deeply-injured race; and millions of regenerated men rose
up, upon their broken chains, and called him blessed.

Years rolled away, and these poetic fancies faded “into the light of
common day.” The cold, stern, pitiless reality remained. The dark
incubus of slavery yet rested down upon more than three millions of the
victims of democratic despotism. But the triumphant champion of the
devoted race had melted away, with the morning mists of my boyish
conjuring.

One morning in the summer of 1844, walking up Main-street in the city of
Hartford, I was attracted by the movements of a group of some
twenty-five or thirty men and women, in a small recess, or court, by the
side of the old Centre Church. They appeared to be organized into an
assembly, and a tall mulatto was addressing them. I drew near to listen.
The speaker was recounting the oft-enacted history of a flight from
slavery. With his eye upon the cold, but true north star, and his ear
ever and anon bent to the ground, listening for the “blood-hound’s
savage bay,” sure-footed and panting, the fugitive was before me! My
attention had been arrested; I was profoundly interested. The audience
was the American Anti-slavery Society, then just excluded from some of
the public halls of the city, and fain to content themselves, after an
apostolic sort, with the _next best_ accommodations. The orator was
FREDERICK DOUGLASS, the most remarkable man of this country, and of this
age; and—may I not dare to add—the almost complete fulfilment of my
early dream!

Since that day, through assiduous application, and a varied experience,
he has continued to develop in the same wonderful ratio of improvement,
which even then distinguished him as a prodigy in self-education.
Unusually favored in personal appearance and address, full of generous
impulse and delicate sensibility, exuberant in playful wit, or biting
sarcasm, or stern denunciation, ever commanding in his moral attitude,
earnest and impressive in manner, with a voice eminently sonorous and
flexible, and gesture full of dramatic vivacity, I have many times seen
large audiences swayed at his will; at one moment convulsed with
laughter, and the next bathed in tears; now lured with admiration of the
orator, and now with indignation at the oppressor, against whom he
hurled his invective. But in my boyhood’s quasi-prophetic fancy of such
a man and his inimitable success, I had not counted upon one antagonist,
whose reality and potency, the observation of every day now forces
painfully upon me. I mean the strange and unnatural _prejudice against
mere colour_, which is so all-prevalent in the American breast, as
almost to nullify the influence of _such_ a man, _so_ pleading; while
his dignity, his urbanity, his imperturbable serenity and good nature,
his genuine purity and worth all fail, at times, to secure him from the
grossest indignities, at the hands of the coarse and brutal. Nobody who
knows him will be inclined to question our estimate of his character,
but it still comports with the intelligence and refinement and piety of
a large proportion of American society to label him “nigger,” and the
name itself invites to safe contumely, and irresponsible violence.

I have spoken of Frederick Douglass as an interesting man—a wonderful
man. Look at him as he stands to-day before this nation, and then
contemplate his history.

Begin with him when, a little slave-child, he lay down on his rude
pallet, and that slave-mother, from a plantation twelve miles away,
availed herself of the privilege granted grudgingly, of travelling the
whole distance, after the day’s work, (on peril of the lash, unless back
again by sunrise to her task,) that she might lie there by his side, and
sing him with her low sweet song to sleep. “I do not recollect,” says
he, “of ever seeing my mother by the light of day. She was with me in
the night. She would lie down with me, and get me to sleep, but long
before I awaked she was gone.” How touching the love of that dark-browed
bondwoman for her boy! How precious must the memory of that dim but
sweet remembrance be to him, who though once a vassal, bound and
scourged, and still a Helot, proscribed and wronged, may not be robbed
of this dear token that he, too, _had once a mother_! Her low sad
lullaby yet warps his life’s dark woof—for she watches over his pathway
now with spirit-eyes, and still keeps singing on in his heart, and
nursing his courage and his patience.

Follow him through all the tempestuous experience of his bondage. His
lashings, his longings, his perseverance in possessing himself of the
key of knowledge, which, after all, only unlocked to him the fatal
secret that he was a slave, a thing to be bought and sold like oxen.
Imagine the tumult of his soul, as standing by the broad Chesapeake, he
watched the receding vessels, “while they flew on their white wings
before the breeze, and apostrophized them as animated by the living
spirit of freedom;”[20] or when reading in a stray copy of the old
“Columbian Orator,” (verily, all our school-books must be expurgated of
the incendiary ‘perilous stuff’ in which they abound,) the “Dialogue
between a Master and his Slave,” and Sheridan’s great speech on Catholic
Emancipation.[21] See to what heroic resistance his proud heart had
swollen, when he turned outright upon his tormentor—pious Mr. Corey, the
“nigger-breaker”—and inflicted condign retribution on his heartless
ribs; “after which,” says he, significantly, “I was never whipped again;
_I had several fights_, but was never whipped.” Attend him in his exodus
from our republican Egypt. Witness his struggles with poverty; his vain
attempts to find employment at his trade, as a coloured man, in the
_free_ North. Behold him at last emerging from his obscurity at the
Anti-slavery Convention in Nantucket. Somebody, who is aware of his
extraordinary natural intelligence, invites him to speak. Tremblingly he
consents. “As soon as he had taken his seat,” said Mr. Garrison, after
describing the tremendous effect of his remarks upon the audience,
“filled with hope and admiration, I rose and declared that Patrick
Henry, of revolutionary fame, never made a speech more eloquent in the
cause of liberty, than the one we had just listened to from the hunted
fugitive.”

That was just _eleven years_ ago,—and what is Frederick Douglass now? I
would fain avoid the language of exaggeration. It is ever a cruel
kindness which over-praises, exciting expectations, which cannot but be
disappointed. But when, in view of the fact that the subject of this
sketch was but thirteen years ago A SLAVE, in all the darkness and
disability of Southern bondage, I affirm that his present character,
attainments, and position constitute a phenomenon hitherto perhaps
unprecedented in the history of intellectual and moral achievement, none
who know and are competent to weigh the facts, will account the terms
extravagant. It is not to be expected but that his mental condition
should betray his early disadvantages. His information, though amazing,
under the circumstances, will not of course bear comparison, in fulness
and accuracy, with that of men who have been accumulating their
resources from childhood. In his writings, the deficiency of early
discipline is most manifest, rendering them diffuse and unequal, though
always interesting, and often exceedingly effective. He is properly an
_orator_. His addresses, like those of Whitfield, and many other popular
speakers, lose a large proportion of their effect in reading. They
require the living voice, and the magnetic presence of the orator. But
even in this respect, Douglass is not uniform in his performance, but is
quite dependent on his _surroundings_, and the inspiration of the
moment. But when, all these consenting, he becomes thoroughly possessed
of his theme, and his tall form—six feet high and straight as an
arrow,—his bearing dignified and graceful,—self-possessed, yet
modest,—his countenance flexible, and wonderful in power of expression,
and his voice, with its rich and varied modulation, are all summoned to
the work of enchantment, many a rapt assembly, insignificant in neither
numbers nor intelligence, can testify to the witchery of his eloquence.

And, after all, the _moral_ features of this interesting character
constitute its principal charm. The integrity and manliness of Frederick
Douglass, potent and acknowledged where he is at all known, have much to
do with his influence as a popular orator. It has been customary, with a
certain class of Shibboleth-pronouncers to class him with infidels, but
this is only the appropriate and characteristic retort of a certain sort
of “highly respectable” Christianity to his uncompromising denunciations
of its hollow and selfish character. _I_ think Frederick Douglass is a
Christian; he is a gentleman, I _know_. There are few white men of my
acquaintance, who could have borne so much adulation, without losing the
balance of their self-appreciation. Nobody ever knew Frederick Douglass
to over-rate himself, or to thrust himself anywhere where he did not
belong, or upon anybody who might by any possibility object to his
companionship,—unless, in the latter case, when he deemed necessary the
assertion of a simple right. Whence he got his retiring and graceful
modesty, and his nice sense of the minute proprieties,—unless it be
somehow in his _blood_,—is a mystery to me. Can it be possible that such
refinements are _scourged_ into men “down South?” An illustration of
this may be seen in his response to those gentlemen of Rochester, who,
by way of gratifying a grudge against the Anti-slavery faction of their
party, nominated Douglass for Congress in derision.

  “GENTLEMEN:—I have learned with some surprise, that in the Whig
  Convention held in this city on Saturday last, you signified, by
  your votes, a desire to make me your representative in the
  Legislature of this State. Never having, at any time that I
  recollect, thought, spoken, or acted, in any way, to commit myself
  to either the principles or the policy of the Whig party; but on the
  contrary, having always held, and publicly expressed opinions
  diametrically opposed to those held by that part of the Whig party
  which you are supposed to represent, your voting for me, I am bound
  in courtesy to suppose, is founded in a misapprehension of my
  political sentiments.

  “Lest you should, at any other time, commit a similar blunder, I beg
  to state, once for all, that I do not believe that the slavery
  question is settled, and settled for ever. I do not believe that
  slave-catching is either a Christian duty, or an innocent amusement.
  I do not believe that he who breaks the arm of a kidnapper, or
  wrests the trembling captive from his grasp, is ‘a traitor.’ I do
  not believe that Daniel Webster is the saviour of the Union, nor
  that the Union stands in need of such a saviour. I do not believe
  that human enactments are to be obeyed when they are point-blank
  against the law of the living God. And believing most fully, as I
  do, the reverse of all this, you will easily believe me to be a
  person wholly unfit to receive the suffrages of gentlemen holding
  the opinion and favouring the policy of that wing of the Whig party
  denominated ‘the _Silver Grays_.’

  “With all the respect which your derision permits me to entertain
  for you,

                                         “I am, gentlemen,
                                      “Your faithful fellow-citizen,
                                                 “FREDERICK DOUGLASS.”

The perpetrators of the wanton and gratuitous insult which elicited this
beautiful rebuke, would be sadly outraged were we to insist on
withholding the title of “gentlemen” from those who could, on any
pretence, trample on the feelings of such as they esteem their
inferiors. If they half begin to comprehend the meaning of the term,
much more to feel its power, their cheeks must have crimsoned with
shame, when they saw their own unprovoked assault, contrasted with, the
calm and self-respectful serenity of this reply.

Another instance of this dignity under circumstances of peculiar trial,
may be found in his own account—in the columns of “Frederick Douglass’
Paper”—of a rencontre with a hotel clerk in Cleveland. It is as
follows:—

“At the ringing of the morning bell for breakfast, I made my way to the
table, supposing myself included in the call; but I was scarcely seated,
when there stepped up to me a young man, apparently much agitated,
saying: ‘Sir, you must leave this table.’ ‘And why,’ said I, ‘must I
leave this table?’ ‘I want no controversy with you. You must leave this
table.’ I replied, ‘that I had regularly enrolled myself as a boarder in
that house; I expected to pay the same charges imposed upon others; and
I came to the table in obedience to the call of the bell; and if I left
the table I must know the reason.’ ‘We will serve you in your room. It
is against our rules.’ ‘You should have informed me of _your rules_
earlier. Where are your rules? Let me see them.’ ‘I don’t want any
altercation with you. You must leave this table.’ ‘But have I not
deported myself as a gentleman? What have I done? Is there any gentleman
who objects to my being seated here?’ (There was silence round the
table.) ‘Come, sir, come, sir, you must leave this table at once.’
‘Well, sir, I cannot leave it unless you will give me a better reason
than you have done for my removal.’ ‘Well, I’ll give you a reason if
you’ll leave the table and go to another room.’ ‘That, sir, I will not
do. You have invidiously selected me out of all this company, to be
dragged from this table, and have thereby reflected upon me as a man and
a gentleman; and the reason for this treatment shall be as public as the
insult you have offered.’ At these remarks, my carrot-headed assailant
left me, _as he said_, to get help to remove me from the table.
Meanwhile I called upon one of the servants (who appeared to wait upon
me with alacrity), to help me to a cup of coffee, and assisting myself
to some of the good things before me, I quietly and thankfully partook
of my morning meal without further annoyance.”

Whatever may have been the duty of Mr. Douglass, (and none who know him
can for a moment doubt what his inclination would have been,) in case
the proscriptive “rules of the house” had been previously made known to
him, the justice, as well as the gentlemanly self-possession of his
bearing, in relation to this public outrage, must, I think, be
sufficiently obvious.

                  *       *       *       *       *

[Signature: Rob R. Raymond]




                        THE HEROIC SLAVE-WOMAN.


It was my privilege to see much of Edward S. Abdy, Esq., of England,
during his visit to our country, in 1833 and 1834. The first time I met
him was at the house of Mr. James Forten, of Philadelphia, in company
with two other English gentlemen, who had come to the United States,
commissioned by the British Parliament to examine our systems of prison
and penitentiary discipline. Mr. Abdy was interested in whatsoever
affected the welfare of man. But he was more particularly devoted to the
investigation of slavery. He travelled extensively in our Southern
States, and contemplated with his own eyes the manifold abominations of
our American despotism. He was too much exasperated by our tyranny to be
enamoured of our democratic institutions; and on his return to England,
he published two very sensible volumes, that were so little
complimentary to our nation, that our booksellers thought it not worth
their while to republish them.

This warm-hearted philanthropist visited me several times at my home in
Connecticut. The last afternoon that he was there, we were sitting
together at my study window, when our attention was arrested by a very
handsome carriage driving up to the hotel opposite my house. A gentleman
and lady occupied the back seat; and on the front were two children,
tended by a black woman, who wore the turban that was then, more than
now, usually worn by _slave_ women.

We hastened over to the hotel, and soon entered into conversation with
the slave-holder. He was polite, but somewhat nonchalant, and defiant of
our sympathy with his victim. He readily acknowledged, as slave-holders
of that day generally did, that, abstractedly considered, the
enslavement of fellow men was a great wrong; but then he contended that
it had become a necessary evil, necessary to the enslaved, no less than
to the enslavers; the former being unable to do without masters, as much
as the latter were to do without servants. And he added, in a very
confident tone, “you are at liberty to persuade our servant-woman to
remain here, if you can.”

Thus challenged, we of course sought an interview with the slave; and
informed her that having been brought by her master into the free
States, she was, by the laws of the land, set at liberty. “No, I am not,
gentlemen,” was her prompt reply. We adduced cases, and quoted
authorities to establish our assertion that she was free. But she
significantly shook her head, and still insisted that the examples and
the legal decisions did not reach her case. “For,” said she, “_I
promised_ mistress that I would go back with her and the children.” Mr.
Abdy undertook to argue with her that such a promise was not binding. He
had been drilled in the moral philosophy of Dr. Paley, and in that
debate seemed to be possessed of its spirit. But he failed to make any
visible impression upon the woman. She had bound herself by a promise to
her mistress, that she would not leave her; and that promise had
fastened upon her conscience an obligation, from which she could not be
persuaded that even her natural right to liberty could exonerate her.
Mr. Abdy at last was impatient with her, and said, in his haste, “Is it
possible that you do not wish to be free?” She replied with solemn
earnestness, “Was there ever a slave that did not wish to be free? I
long for liberty. I will get out of slavery, if I can, the day after I
have returned, but go back I must, because I _promised_ that I would.”
At this, we desisted from our endeavour to induce her to take the boon
that was, apparently to us, within her reach. We could not but feel a
profound respect for that moral sensibility which would not allow her to
embrace even her freedom, at the expense of violating a promise.

The next morning, at an early hour, the slave-holder with his wife and
children drove off, leaving the slave-woman and their heaviest trunk to
be brought on after them in the stage-coach. We could not refrain from
again trying to persuade her to remain and be free. We told her that her
master had given us leave to persuade her if we could. She pointed to
the trunk, and to a very valuable gold watch and chain, which her
mistress had committed to her care, and insisted that fidelity to a
trust was of more consequence to her soul even than the attainment of
liberty. Mr. Abdy offered to take the trunk and watch into his charge,
follow her master, and deliver them into his hands. But she could not be
made to see that in this there would be no violation of her duty. And
then her own person, that, too, she had promised should be returned to
the home of her master; and much as she longed for liberty, she longed
for a clear conscience more.

Mr. Abdy was astonished, delighted at this instance of heroic virtue in
a poor, ignorant slave. He packed his trunk, gave me a hearty adieu,
and, when the coach drove up, he took his seat on the outside with the
trunk and the slave—chattels of a Mississippi slave-holder—that he might
study for a few hours more the morality of that strong-hearted woman,
who could not be bribed to violate her promise, even by the gift of
liberty.

It was the last time I saw Mr. Abdy,—and it was a sight to be
remembered,—he, an accomplished English gentleman, a fellow of Oxford or
Cambridge University, riding on the driver’s box of a stage-coach, side
by side with an American slave-woman, that he might learn more of her
history and character.

              “Full many a gem, of purest ray serene,
               The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear;
              Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
               And waste its sweetness on the desert air.”

                                                    Yours, respectfully,

[Signature: Samuel J. May]

  SYRACUSE, OCT. 9, 1852.




                                KOSSUTH.


You ask me what I think of Kossuth. The history of Kossuth is but partly
told. An opinion of him now, is, of course, founded on the past and
present. But so decisive have been the manifestations in regard to his
abilities and aims, that we may confidently say he is the great man of
the age. I don’t mean that there is no other man who is responsible for
as great or greater physical and intellectual endowments and education.
We measure men by what they _do_, not by what they are _able_ to do. He
is great because he has manifested great thoughts and corresponding
deeds. In this regard he has no superior.

When I speak of Kossuth as _great_, I mean that the divine elements of
power, wisdom, and goodness are so mixed in him, as to qualify him to
embrace the largest interests, and attract the agencies to secure those
interests. That his eye sees, and his heart feels, and his philanthropy
embraces a larger area, and is acknowledged by a larger portion of the
human family than any other living man. I do not say there are not men
living whose hearts are as large, whose abilities are as great, and
whose virtues are as exalted as Kossuth’s. Men, too, whose great
qualities under like contingencies would, and by future contingencies
may, brighten into a glory as large as his. Nor would I say it does not
often require as great, or even greater, talents and virtues to
accomplish deeds of humanity or patriotism, on a theatre vastly less
dazzling and imposing. It is not necessary to my argument to exclude
such conclusions. When God decrees great events, he brings upon the
stage and qualifies the human instrumentalities by which such events are
accomplished; and that, too, at the very time they are needed. We don’t
know the future; but if we are to measure the present and the past in
the life of Kossuth, leaving alone the shadows which coming events cast
in the path of our hopes, we must rank Kossuth with the greatest, and if
we couple his heart with his deeds, with the best of mankind.

I am aware that the opinion I here give of the great Magyar, is widely
different from the opinions of some others for whom I have very high
respect. Gerrit Smith honors Kossuth; but he honors him only as a
patriot, a Christian patriot. Professor Atler, of McGranville College,
in an oration that does him credit as a philosopher and orator, says,
that “he who thinks the largest thought is the ruler of the world,”—and
yet he dwarfs the character of Kossuth to the simple patriot of Hungary.
To my mind, these are strange conclusions. It is the greatest thought
illustrated by corresponding action that denotes the ruler of the world.
It is the external manifestation of the mighty spiritual that
demonstrates the right to rule mankind. Apply that rule to Kossuth, and
I maintain his right to the sceptre of the world.

The brotherhood of nations is an idea to which philanthropy only could
give birth. Its home is in the hearts of all good men, and yet, until
Kossuth came before the world, that idea had been esteemed so vast in
its circumference, so out of the reach of means, so far beyond the grasp
of present experience and possibility, that he would have been thought a
fanatic or a fool who attempted it. He, indeed, by power strictly
personal, not only seized upon it as a practical thought, and nobly
argued it, but has actually and bravely entered upon the experiment, and
forced it upon the conceptions of the world, and organized, not in our
country only, but in Europe, plans and parties for its realization. Here
is not only a great _thought_, but a great _deed_. To gather up the
philanthropic minds or the patriot minds of the world to embrace such an
enterprise as not only a dutiful but practicable scheme, is an
achievement that leaves out of sight any other achievement of eighteen
hundred years.

It is not the development of abstract principles in science, in
philosophy, or in religion, that establishes the highest claim to the
world’s gratitude and admiration. It is the successful application of
those principles to human life and conduct, the setting them to work to
restore the world to the shape and aspect which God gave it, that
demonstrates the God-like in man. It is the manifestation of a great
idea upon the external, as God’s great thoughts are manifested by the
landscape, the ocean, and the heavens, by which we arrive at the
spiritual power that conceived them. A patriot indeed! The great
Hungarian _did_ attempt to link America to his great purpose by appeals
to her patriotism. It was the only common sentiment between our country
and him. It is America’s loftiest thought. Her beau-ideal of public
virtue. I don’t mean that there was no Christianity or philanthropy in
the United States when Kossuth came amongst us: but I do mean that, as a
nation, we had none of them. He came on an errand of practical
philanthropy; to appeal to our national heart, and cause the only chord
of humanity in it that could be touched, to vibrate in unison with his
own in behalf of the down-trodden nations of the world. He wished to
engage its organic power in behalf of national law. Had Kossuth appealed
to any higher principle, he would have overshot his mark. Love of
country is common to the Christian and to the mere patriot. In the
latter it is only selfishness, in the former genuine philanthropy.
American patriotism was the only aperture through which he could reach
our nation’s heart, to raise it to the higher region of philanthropy,
and place it in his own bosom, and impregnate it with his own holy
sentiments, that their sympathies might circulate together for a common
brotherhood. He represented Hungary. He appeared at our door as an
outraged brother, to enlist us in behalf of a brother’s rights and
wrongs. He sought to excite in the nation’s bosom the activity of a
common principle, due at all times, and from nations no less than
individuals. It is the core of Christianity, described in these words,
“do unto others as you would have others do unto you.”

Our Washington had told us “to cultivate peace with all nations, and
form entangling alliances with none.” Our sensual and short-sighted
statesmen construed the sentiment as the rule of active power. Instead
of adopting it as Washington probably intended it, as a rule of
temporary policy, they inculcated the notion that we were to cut
ourselves clear from the family of nations, and live only for ourselves.
The large patriotism of Washington they had shrunken to the merest
selfishness. We may well thank God for the providence which sent Kossuth
among us, to relieve his fame from the suspicion of having begot, and
our country from the sin of cherishing, so weak and dishonouring a
delusion. Heaven-assisted man only could have dreamed of believing a
nation so securely blinded. Like the prophet of God, whose lips were
touched with celestial fire, he breathed upon the spell, and it
vanished. The nation’s eyes were opened. It saw, and all true men
admitted, that the sentiment was designed and adapted only to our
infancy, and, to use his own figure, no more fitting our manhood, than
the clothes of an infant are fitting the full grown man.

Now I admit we had philanthropists, wise men, orators, and some
statesmen, who asserted the doctrine of the human brotherhood, yet we
had no Kossuth to dissolve (if I may so speak) this Washingtonian
delusion. Kossuth touched it and it disappeared. The nation seemed to
have come to a new birth. Its heart, like the rock in the desert which
was touched by the staff of the prophet opened, and its imprisoned
waters poured over the world. We all felt as the bondman feels who is
set free by a strong man. From that moment we grew larger, saw farther,
and felt our hearts moving over an unlimited area of humanity. From that
moment we felt that a new day was dawning. From that moment the
principle of the human brotherhood struck its deep roots in our soil, as
immovable as our mountains, as irradicable as our religion. Nor was it
in America alone that this sentiment was then awakened. Touched by his
notes, it trembled in the bosom of Europe. The heart of humanity
throbbed with a common sympathy throughout the civilized world. Kossuth
and Mazzini, crushed from beneath, ascended above the despotisms of the
world in the clear upper sky, and, in sight of heaven and earth,
reflected God’s light and curse upon them; and called into being the
activities which we hope is to tumble them into a common ruin, as the
precursor of the holy compact which shall secure all human rights.

It is objected that Kossuth did not denounce our slavery. The same
objection has equal strength against the philanthropy of Paul and Jesus.
I shall not dwell on this point. He did denounce American slavery. The
presence of Kossuth was a killing rebuke, his words a consuming fire to
it. The former is still felt as an incurable wound, and the latter still
scorches to the very centre of its vitality. I have it from high
authority, when Kossuth first came upon the soil, and into the
atmosphere of American slavery, his soul was so shocked and disgusted by
its offensiveness, that he proposed to abandon his mission in those
States where it existed, and denounce it specifically; and was only
deterred from doing so, by his sense of the more comprehensive claims of
that mission, which embraced the utter destruction of all human
oppression. I drop this topic with the remark, that this objection, and
all objections to his philanthropy, within my knowledge, were made
antecedent to his inimitable speech in New York city, in behalf of his
mother and sisters, a short time before he took his departure for
Europe. If there is not Christianity, philanthropy, anti-slavery in that
speech, we may despair of finding it in earth, or even in the heavens. I
have never read anything so representative of heaven’s mercy, or angel’s
eloquence, as that. Oh! I wish the world knew it by heart. Methinks if
it did, all wrong and oppression would disappear from among men.

I was going to speak of the future, and of Mazzini, the twin apostle of
liberty, whose exile was wrung from the heart of poor Italy. But the
subject exceeds the brevity which must govern me. These rulers of the
world are linked with the mighty events which are fast becoming history.
From their hiding-places in London, they are moving and controlling the
passions which seem ready to break forth and obliterate every cruel code
under the sun, and hasten the time when all men shall feel as brethren,
and mingle their hearts in anthems of gratitude and love.

[Signature: John Thomas]

  SYRACUSE, NOV. 14, 1852.




                           THE HEROIC SLAVE.


                                PART I.

                 Oh! child of grief, why weepest thou?
                  Why droops thy sad and mournful brow?
                 Why is thy look so like despair?
                  What deep, sad sorrow lingers there?

The State of Virginia is famous in American annals for the multitudinous
array of her statesmen and heroes. She has been dignified by some the
mother of statesmen. History has not been sparing in recording their
names, or in blazoning their deeds. Her high position in this respect,
has given her an enviable distinction among her sister States. With
Virginia for his birth-place, even a man of ordinary parts, on account
of the general partiality for her sons, easily rises to eminent
stations. Men, not great enough to attract special attention in their
native States, have, like a certain distinguished citizen in the State
of New York, sighed and repined that they were not born in Virginia. Yet
not all the great ones of the Old Dominion have, by the fact of their
birth-place, escaped undeserved obscurity. By some strange neglect,
_one_ of the truest, manliest, and bravest of her children,—one who, in
after years, will, I think, command the pen of genius to set his merits
forth, holds now no higher place in the records of that grand old
Commonwealth than is held by a horse or an ox. Let those account for it
who can, but there stands the fact, that a man who loved liberty as well
as did Patrick Henry,—who deserved it as much as Thomas Jefferson,—and
who fought for it with a valour as high, an arm as strong, and against
odds as great, as he who led all the armies of the American colonies
through the great war for freedom and independence, lives now only in
the chattel records of his native State.

Glimpses of this great character are all that can now be presented. He
is brought to view only by a few transient incidents, and these afford
but partial satisfaction. Like a guiding star on a stormy night, he is
seen through the parted clouds and the howling tempests; or, like the
gray peak of a menacing rock on a perilous coast, he is seen by the
quivering flash of angry lightning, and he again disappears covered with
mystery.

Curiously, earnestly, anxiously we peer into the dark, and wish even for
the blinding flash, or the light of northern skies to reveal him. But,
alas! he is still enveloped in darkness, and we return from the pursuit
like a wearied and disheartened mother, (after a tedious and
unsuccessful search for a lost child,) who returns weighed down with
disappointment and sorrow. Speaking of marks, traces, possibles, and
probabilities, we come before our readers.

In the spring of 1835, on a Sabbath morning, within hearing of the
solemn peals of the church bells at a distant village, a northern
traveller through the State of Virginia drew up his horse to drink at a
sparkling brook, near the edge of a dark pine forest. While his weary
and thirsty steed drew in the grateful water, the rider caught the sound
of a human voice, apparently engaged in earnest conversation.

Following the direction of the sound, he descried, among the tall pines,
the man whose voice had arrested his attention. “To whom can he be
speaking?” thought the traveller. “He seems to be alone.” The
circumstance interested him much, and he became intensely curious to
know what thoughts and feelings, or, it might be, high aspirations,
guided those rich and mellow accents. Tying his horse at a short
distance from the brook, he stealthily drew near the solitary speaker,
and concealing himself by the side of a huge fallen tree, he distinctly
heard the following soliloquy:—

“What, then, is life to me? it is aimless and worthless, and worse than
worthless. Those birds, perched on yon swinging boughs, in friendly
conclave, sounding forth their merry notes in seeming worship of the
rising sun, though liable to the sportsman’s fowling-piece, are still my
superiors. They _live free_, though they may die slaves. They fly where
they list by day, and retire in freedom at night. But what is freedom to
me, or I to it? I am a _slave_,—born a slave, an abject slave,—even
before I made part of this breathing world, the scourge was platted for
my back; the fetters were forged for my limbs. How mean a thing am I.
That accursed and crawling snake, that miserable reptile, that has just
glided into its slimy home, is freer and better off than I. He escaped
my blow, and is safe. But here am I, a man,—yes, _a man!_—with thoughts
and wishes, with powers and faculties as far as angel’s flight above
that hated reptile,—yet he is my superior, and scorns to own me as his
master, or to stop to take my blows. When he saw my uplifted arm, he
darted beyond my reach, and turned to give me battle. I dare not do as
much as that. I neither run nor fight, but do meanly stand, answering
each heavy blow of a cruel master with doleful wails and piteous cries.
I am galled with irons; but even these are more tolerable than the
consciousness, the _galling_ consciousness of cowardice and indecision.
Can it be that I _dare_ not run away? _Perish the thought_, I _dare_ do
any thing which may be done by another. When that young man struggled
with the waves _for life_, and others stood back appalled in helpless
horror, did I not plunge in, forgetful of life, to save his? The raging
bull from whom all others fled, pale with fright, did I not keep at bay
with a single pitchfork? Could a coward do that? _No,—no_,—I wrong
myself,—I am no coward. _Liberty_ I will have, or die in the attempt to
gain it. This working that others may live in idleness! This cringing
submission to insolence and curses! This living under the constant dread
and apprehension of being sold and transferred, like a mere brute, is
_too_ much for me. I will stand it no longer. What others have done, I
will do. These trusty legs, or these sinewy arms shall place me among
the free. Tom escaped; so can I. The North Star will not be less kind to
me than to him. I will follow it. I will at least make the trial. I have
nothing to lose. If I am caught, I shall only be a slave. If I am shot,
I shall only lose a life which is a burden and a curse. If I get clear,
(as something tells me I shall,) liberty, the inalienable birth-right of
every man, precious and priceless, will be mine. My resolution is fixed.
_I shall be free._”

At these words the traveller raised his head cautiously and noiselessly,
and caught, from his hiding-place, a full view of the unsuspecting
speaker. Madison (for that was the name of our hero) was standing erect,
a smile of satisfaction rippled upon his expressive countenance, like
that which plays upon the face of one who has but just solved a
difficult problem, or vanquished a malignant foe; for at that moment he
was free, at least in spirit. The future gleamed brightly before him,
and his fetters lay broken at his feet. His air was triumphant.

Madison was of manly form. Tall, symmetrical, round, and strong. In his
movements he seemed to combine, with the strength of the lion, a lion’s
elasticity. His torn sleeves disclosed arms like polished iron. His face
was “black, but comely.” His eye, lit with emotion, kept guard under a
brow as dark and as glossy as the raven’s wing. His whole appearance
betokened Herculean strength; yet there was nothing savage or forbidding
in his aspect. A child might play in his arms, or dance on his
shoulders. A giant’s strength, but not a giant’s heart was in him. His
broad mouth and nose spoke only of good nature and kindness. But his
voice, that unfailing index of the soul, though full and melodious, had
that in it which could terrify as well as charm. He was just the man you
would choose when hardships were to be endured, or danger to be
encountered,—intelligent and brave. He had a head to conceive, and the
hand to execute. In a word, he was one to be sought as a friend, but to
be dreaded as an enemy.

As our traveller gazed upon him, he almost trembled at the thought of
his dangerous intrusion. Still he could not quit the place. He had long
desired to sound the mysterious depths of the thoughts and feelings of a
slave. He was not therefore, disposed to allow so providential an
opportunity to pass unimproved. He resolved to hear more; so he listened
again for those mellow and mournful accents which, he says made such an
impression upon him as can never be erased. He did not have to wait
long. There came another gush from the same full fountain; now bitter,
and now sweet. Scathing denunciations of the cruelty and injustice of
slavery; heart-touching narrations of his own personal suffering,
intermingled with prayers to the God of the oppressed for help and
deliverance, were followed by presentations of the dangers and
difficulties of escape, and formed the burden of his eloquent
utterances; but his high resolution clung to him,—for he ended each
speech by an emphatic declaration of his purpose to be free. It seemed
that the very repetition of this, imparted a glow to his countenance.
The hope of freedom seemed to sweeten, for a season, the bitter cup of
slavery, and to make it, for a time, tolerable; for when in the very
whirlwind of anguish,—when his heart’s cord seemed screwed up to
snapping tension, hope sprung up and soothed his troubled spirit.
Fitfully he would exclaim, “How can I leave her? Poor thing! what can
she do when I am gone? Oh! oh! ’tis impossible that I can leave poor
Susan!”

A brief pause intervened. Our traveller raised his head, and saw again
the sorrow-stricken slave. His eye was fixed upon the ground. The strong
man staggered under a heavy load. Recovering himself, he argued thus
aloud: “All is uncertain here. To-morrow’s sun may not rise before I am
sold, and separated from her I love. What, then, could I do for her? I
should be in more hopeless slavery, and she no nearer to
liberty,—whereas if I were free,—my arms my own, I might devise the
means to rescue her.”

This said, Madison cast around a searching glance, as if the thought of
being overheard had flashed across his mind. He said no more, but, with
measured steps, walked away, and was lost to the eye of our traveller
amidst the wildering woods.

Long after Madison had left the ground, Mr. Listwell (our traveller)
remained in motionless silence, meditating on the extraordinary
revelations to which he had listened. He seemed fastened to the spot,
and stood half hoping, half fearing the return of the sable preacher to
his solitary temple. The speech of Madison rung through the chambers of
his soul, and vibrated through his entire frame. “Here is indeed a man,”
thought he, “of rare endowments,—a child of God,—guilty of no crime but
the colour of his skin—hiding away from the face of humanity, and
pouring out his thoughts and feelings, his hopes and resolutions to the
lonely woods; to him those distant church bells have no grateful music.
He shuns the church, the altar, and the great congregation of the
Christian worshippers, and wanders away to the gloomy forest, to utter
in the vacant air complaints and griefs, which the religion of his times
and his country can neither console nor relieve. Goaded almost to
madness by the sense of the injustice done him, he resorts hither to
give vent to his pent-up feelings, and to debate with himself the
feasibility of plans, plans of his own invention, for his own
deliverance. From this hour I am an abolitionist. I have seen enough and
heard enough, and I shall go to my home in Ohio resolved to atone for my
past indifference to this ill-starred race, by making such exertions as
I shall be able to do, for the speedy emancipation of every slave in the
land.”


                                PART II.

        “The gaudy, blabbing and remorseful day
        Is crept into the bosom of the sea;
        And now loud-howling wolves arouse the jades
        That drag the tragic melancholy night;
        Who with their drowsy, slow, and flagging wings
        Clip dead men’s graves, and from their misty jaws
        Breathe foul contagions, darkness in the air.”

                                                   _Shakspeare._

Five years after the foregoing singular occurrence, in the winter of
1840, Mr. and Mrs. Listwell sat together by the fireside of their own
happy home, in the State of Ohio. The children were all gone to bed. A
single lamp burned brightly on the centre-table. All was still and
comfortable within; but the night was cold and dark; a heavy wind sighed
and moaned sorrowfully around the house and barn, occasionally bringing
against the clattering windows a stray leaf from the large oak trees
that embowered their dwelling. It was a night for strange noises and for
strange fancies. A whole wilderness of thought might pass through one’s
mind during such an evening. The smouldering embers, partaking of the
spirit of the restless night, became fruitful of varied and fantastic
pictures, and revived many bygone scenes and old impressions. The happy
pair seemed to sit in silent fascination, gazing on the fire. Suddenly
this _reverie_ was interrupted by a heavy growl. Ordinarily such an
occurrence would have scarcely provoked a single word, or excited the
least apprehension. But there are certain seasons when the slightest
sound sends a jar through all the subtle chambers of the mind; and such
a season was this. The happy pair started up, as if some sudden danger
had come upon them. The growl was from their trusty watch-dog.

“What can it mean? certainly no one can be out on such a night as this,”
said Mrs. Listwell.

“The wind has deceived the dog, my dear; he has mistaken the noise of
falling branches, brought down by the wind, for that of the footsteps of
persons coming to the house. I have several times to-night thought that
I heard the sound of footsteps. I am sure, however, that it was but the
wind. Friends would not be likely to come out at such an hour, or such a
night; and thieves are too lazy and self-indulgent to expose themselves
to this biting frost; but should there be any one about, our brave old
Monte, who is on the look-out, will not be slow in sounding the alarm.”

Saying this they quietly left the window, whither they had gone to learn
the cause of the menacing growl, and re-seated themselves by the fire,
as if reluctant to leave the slowly expiring embers, although the hour
was late. A few minutes only intervened after resuming their seats, when
again their sober meditations were disturbed. Their faithful dog now
growled and barked furiously, as if assailed by an advancing foe.
Simultaneously the good couple arose, and stood in mute expectation. The
contest without seemed fierce and violent. It was, however, soon
over,—the barking ceased, for, with true canine instinct, Monte soon
discovered that a friend, not an enemy of the family, was coming to the
house, and instead of rushing to repel the supposed intruder, he was now
at the door, whimpering and dancing for the admission of himself and his
newly-made friend.

Mr. Listwell knew by this movement that all was well; he advanced and
opened the door, and saw by the light that streamed out into the
darkness, a tall man advancing slowly towards the house, with a stick in
one hand, and a small bundle in the other. “It is a traveller,” thought
he, “who has missed his way, and is coming to inquire the road. I am
glad we did not go to bed earlier,—I have felt all the evening as if
somebody would be here to-night.”

The man had now halted a short distance from the door, and looked
prepared alike for flight or battle. “Come in, sir, don’t be alarmed,
you have probably lost your way.”

Slightly hesitating, the traveller walked in; not, however, without
regarding his host with a scrutinizing glance. “No, sir,” said he, “I
have come to ask you a greater favour.”

Instantly Mr. Listwell exclaimed, (as the recollection of the Virginia
forest scene flashed upon him,) “Oh, sir, I know not your name, but I
have seen your face, and heard your voice before. I am glad to see you.
_I know all._ You are flying for your liberty,—be seated,—be
seated,—banish all fear. You are safe under my roof.”

This recognition, so unexpected, rather disconcerted and disquieted the
noble fugitive. The timidity and suspicion of persons escaping from
slavery are easily awakened, and often what is intended to dispel the
one, and to allay the other, has precisely the opposite effect. It was
so in this case. Quickly observing the unhappy impression made by his
words and action, Mr. Listwell assumed a more quiet and inquiring
aspect, and finally succeeded in removing the apprehensions which his
very natural and generous salutation had aroused.

Thus assured, the stranger said, “Sir, you have rightly guessed, I am,
indeed, a fugitive from slavery. My name is Madison,—Madison Washington,
my mother used to call me. I am on my way to Canada, where I learn that
persons of my colour are protected in all the rights of men; and my
object in calling upon you was, to beg the privilege of resting my weary
limbs for the night in your barn. It was my purpose to have continued my
journey till morning; but the piercing cold, and the frowning darkness
compelled me to seek shelter; and, seeing a light through the lattice of
your window, I was encouraged to come here to beg the privilege named.
You will do me a great favour by affording me shelter for the night.”

“A resting-place, indeed, sir, you shall have; not, however, in my barn,
but in the best room of my house. Consider yourself, if you please,
under the roof of a friend; for such I am to you, and to all your deeply
injured race.”

While this introductory conversation was going on, the kind lady had
revived the fire, and was diligently preparing supper; for she, not less
than her husband, felt for the sorrows of the oppressed and hunted ones
of the earth, and was always glad of an opportunity to do them a
service. A bountiful repast was quickly prepared, and the hungry and
toil-worn bondman, was cordially invited to partake thereof. Gratefully
he acknowledged the favour of his benevolent benefactress: but appeared
scarcely to understand what such hospitality could mean. It was the
first time in his life that he had met so humane and friendly a greeting
at the hands of persons whose colour was unlike his own; yet it was
impossible for him to doubt the charitableness of his new friends, or
the genuineness of the welcome so freely given; and he therefore, with
many thanks, took his seat at the table with Mr. and Mrs. Listwell, who,
desirous to make him feel at home, took a cup of tea themselves, while
urging upon Madison the best that the house could afford.

Supper over, all doubts and apprehensions banished, the three drew
around the blazing fire, and a conversation commenced which lasted till
long after midnight.

“Now,” said Madison to Mr. Listwell, “I was a little surprised and
alarmed when I came in, by what you said; do tell me, sir, _why_ you
thought you had seen my face before, and by what you knew me to be a
fugitive from slavery; for I am sure that I never was before in this
neighbourhood, and I certainly sought to conceal what I supposed to be
the manner of a fugitive slave.”

Mr. Listwell at once frankly disclosed the secret; describing the place
where he first saw him; rehearsing the language which he (Madison) had
used; referring to the effect which his manner and speech had made upon
him; declaring the resolution he there formed to be an abolitionist;
telling how often he had spoken of the circumstance, and the deep
concern he had ever since felt to know what had become of him; and
whether he had carried out the purpose to make his escape, as in the
woods he declared he would do.

“Ever since that morning,” said Mr. Listwell, “you have seldom been
absent from my mind, and though now I did not dare to hope that I should
ever see you again, I have often wished that such might be my fortune;
for, from that hour, your face seemed to be daguerreotyped on my
memory.”

Madison looked quite astonished, and felt amazed at the narration to
which he had listened. After recovering himself he said, “I well
remember that morning, and the bitter anguish that wrung my heart; I
will state the occasion of it. I had, on the previous Saturday, suffered
a cruel lashing; had been tied up to the limb of a tree, with my feet
chained together, and a heavy iron bar placed between my ankles. Thus
suspended, I received on my naked back forty stripes, and was kept in
this distressing position three or four hours, and was then let down,
only to have my torture increased; for my bleeding back, gashed by the
cow-skin, was washed by the overseer with old brine, partly to augment
my suffering, and partly, as he said, to prevent inflammation. My crime
was that I stayed longer at the mill, the day previous, than it was
thought I ought to have done, which, I assured my master and the
overseer, was no fault of mine; but no excuses were allowed. ‘Hold your
tongue, you impudent rascal,’ met my every explanation. Slave-holders
are so imperious when their passions are excited, as to construe every
word of the slave into insolence. I could do nothing but submit to the
agonizing infliction. Smarting still from the wounds, as well as from
the consciousness of being whipt for no cause, I took advantage of the
absence of my master, who had gone to church, to spend the time in the
woods, and brood over my wretched lot. Oh, sir, I remember it well,—and
can never forget it.”

“But this was five years ago; where have you been since?”

“I will try to tell you,” said Madison. “Just four weeks after that
Sabbath morning, I gathered up the few rags of clothing I had, and
started, as I supposed, for the North and for freedom. I must not stop
to describe my feelings on taking this step. It seemed like taking a
leap into the dark. The thought of leaving my poor wife and two little
children caused me indescribable anguish; but consoling myself with the
reflection that once free, I could, possibly, devise ways and means to
gain their freedom also, I nerved myself up to make the attempt. I
started, but ill-luck attended me; for after being out a whole week,
strange to say, I still found myself on my master’s grounds; the third
night after being out, a season of clouds and rain set in, wholly
preventing me from seeing the North Star, which I had trusted as my
guide, not dreaming that clouds might intervene between us.

“This circumstance was fatal to my project, for in losing my star, I
lost my way; so when I supposed I was far towards the North, and had
almost gained my freedom, I discovered myself at the very point from
which I had started. It was a severe trial, for I arrived at home in
great destitution; my feet were sore, and in travelling in the dark, I
had dashed my foot against a stump, and started a nail, and lamed
myself. I was wet and cold; one week had exhausted all my stores; and
when I landed on my master’s plantation, with all my work to do over
again,—hungry, tired, lame, and bewildered,—I almost cursed the day that
I was born. In this extremity I approached the quarters. I did so
stealthily, although in my desperation I hardly cared whether I was
discovered or not. Peeping through the rents of the quarters, I saw my
fellow-slaves seated by a warm fire, merrily passing away the time, as
though their hearts knew no sorrow. Although I envied their seeming
contentment, all wretched as I was, I despised the cowardly acquiescence
in their own degradation which it implied, and felt a kind of pride and
glory in my own desperate lot. I dared not enter the quarters,—for where
there is seeming contentment with slavery, there is certain treachery to
freedom. I proceeded towards the great house, in the hope of catching a
glimpse of my poor wife, whom I knew might be trusted with my secrets
even on the scaffold. Just as I reached the fence which divided the
field from the garden, I saw a woman in the yard, who in the darkness I
took to be my wife; but a nearer approach told me it was not she. I was
about to speak; had I done so, I would not have been here this night;
for an alarm would have been sounded, and the hunters been put on my
track. Here were hunger, cold, thirst, disappointment, and chagrin,
confronted only by the dim hope of liberty. I tremble to think of that
dreadful hour. To face the deadly cannon’s mouth, in warm blood
unterrified, is, I think, a small achievement, compared with a conflict
like this with gaunt starvation. The gnawings of hunger conquers by
degrees, till all that a man has he would give in exchange for a single
crust of bread. Thank God, I was not quite reduced to this extremity.

“Happily for me, before the fatal moment of utter despair, my good wife
made her appearance in the yard. It was she; I knew her step. All was
well now. I was, however, afraid to speak, lest I should frighten her.
Yet speak I did; and, to my great joy, my voice was known. Our meeting
can be more easily imagined than described. For a time hunger, thirst,
weariness, and lameness were forgotten. But it was soon necessary for
her to return to the house. She being a house-servant, her absence from
the kitchen, if discovered, might have excited suspicion. Our parting
was like tearing the flesh from my bones; yet it was the part of wisdom
for her to go. She left me with the purpose of meeting me at midnight in
the very forest where you last saw me. She knew the place well, as one
of my melancholy resorts, and could easily find it, though the night was
dark.

“I hastened away, therefore, and concealed myself, to await the arrival
of my good angel. As I lay there among the leaves, I was strongly
tempted to return again to the house of my master and give myself up;
but remembering my solemn pledge on that memorable Sunday morning, I was
able to linger out the two long hours between ten and midnight. I may
well call them long hours. I have endured much hardship; I have
encountered many perils; but the anxiety of those two hours, was the
bitterest I ever experienced. True to her word, my wife came laden with
provisions, and we sat down on the side of a log, at that dark and
lonesome hour of the night. I cannot say we talked; our feelings were
too great for that; yet we came to an understanding that I should make
the woods my home, for if I gave myself up, I should be whipped and sold
away; and if I started for the North, I should leave a wife doubly dear
to me. We mutually determined, therefore, that I should remain in the
vicinity. In the dismal swamps I lived, sir, five long years,—a cave for
my home during the day. I wandered about at night with the wolf and the
bear,—sustained by the promise that my good Susan would meet me in the
pine woods at least once a week. This promise was redeemed, I assure
you, to the letter, greatly to my relief. I had partly become contented
with my mode of life, and had made up my mind to spend my days there;
but the wilderness that sheltered me thus long took fire, and refused
longer to be my hiding-place.

“I will not harrow up your feelings by portraying the terrific scene of
this awful conflagration. There is nothing to which I can liken it. It
was horribly and indescribably grand. The whole world seemed on fire,
and it appeared to me that the day of judgment had come; that the
burning bowels of the earth had burst forth, and that the end of all
things was at hand. Bears and wolves, scorched from their mysterious
hiding-places in the earth, and all the wild inhabitants of the
untrodden forest, filled with a common dismay, ran forth, yelling,
howling, bewildered amidst the smoke and flame. The very heavens seemed
to rain down fire through the towering trees; it was by the merest
chance that I escaped the devouring element. Running before it, and
stopping occasionally to take breath, I looked back to behold its
frightful ravages, and to drink in its savage magnificence. It was
awful, thrilling, solemn, beyond compare. When aided by the fitful wind,
the merciless tempest of fire swept on, sparkling, creaking, cracking,
curling, roaring, outdoing in its dreadful splendour a thousand
thunderstorms at once. From tree to tree it leaped, swallowing them up
in its lurid, baleful glare; and leaving them leafless, limbless,
charred, and lifeless behind. The scene was overwhelming,
stunning,—nothing was spared,—cattle, tame and wild, herds of swine and
of deer, wild beasts of every name and kind,—huge night-birds, bats, and
owls, that had retired to their homes in lofty tree-tops to rest,
perished in that fiery storm. The long-winged buzzard and croaking raven
mingled their dismal cries with those of the countless myriads of small
birds that rose up to the skies, and were lost to the sight in clouds of
smoke and flame. Oh, I shudder when I think of it! Many a poor wandering
fugitive who, like myself, had sought among wild beasts the mercy denied
by our fellow men, saw, in helpless consternation, his dwelling-place
and city of refuge reduced to ashes for ever. It was this grand
conflagration that drove me hither; I ran alike from fire and from
slavery.”

After a slight pause, (for both speaker and hearers were deeply moved by
the above recital,) Mr. Listwell, addressing Madison, said, “If it does
not weary you too much, do tell us something of your journeyings since
this disastrous burning,—we are deeply interested in everything which
can throw light on the hardships of persons escaping from slavery; we
could hear you talk all night; are there no incidents that you could
relate of your travels hither? or are they such that you do not like to
mention them?”

“For the most part, sir, my course has been uninterrupted; and,
considering the circumstances, at times even pleasant. I have suffered
little for want of food; but I need not tell you how I got it. Your
moral code may differ from mine, as your customs and usages are
different. The fact is, sir, during my flight, I felt myself robbed by
society of all my just rights; that I was in an enemy’s land, who sought
both my life and my liberty. They had transformed me into a brute; made
merchandise of my body, and, for all the purposes of my flight, turned
day into night,—and guided by my own necessities, and in contempt of
their conventionalities, I did not scruple to take bread where I could
get it.”

“And just there you were right,” said Mr. Listwell; “I once had doubts
on this point myself, but a conversation with Gerrit Smith, (a man, by
the way, that I wish you could see, for he is a devoted friend of your
race, and I know he would receive you gladly,) put an end to all my
doubts on this point. But do not let me interrupt you.”

“I had but one narrow escape during my whole journey,” said Madison.

“Do let us hear of it,” said Mr. Listwell.

“Two weeks ago,” continued Madison, “after travelling all night, I was
overtaken by daybreak, in what seemed to me an almost interminable wood.
I deemed it unsafe to go farther, and, as usual, I looked around for a
suitable tree in which to spend the day. I liked one with a bushy top,
and found one just to my mind. Up I climbed, and hiding myself as well
as I could, I, with this strap, (pulling one out of his old
coat-pocket,) lashed myself to a bough, and flattered myself that I
should get a _good night’s_ sleep that day; but in this I was soon
disappointed. I had scarcely got fastened to my natural hammock, when I
heard the voices of a number of persons, apparently approaching the part
of the woods where I was. Upon my word, sir, I dreaded more these human
voices than I should have done those of wild beasts. I was at a loss to
know what to do. If I descended, I should probably be discovered by the
men; and if they had dogs I should, doubtless, be ‘_treed_.’ It was an
anxious moment, but hardships and dangers have been the accompaniments
of my life; and have, perhaps, imparted to me a certain hardness of
character, which, to some extent, adapts me to them. In my present
predicament, I decided to hold my place in the tree-top, and abide the
consequences. But here I must disappoint you; for the men, who were all
coloured, halted at least a hundred yards from me, and began with their
axes, in right good earnest, to attack the trees. The sound of their
axes was like the report of as many well-charged pistols. By-and-by
there came down at least a dozen trees with a terrible crash. They
leaped upon the fallen trees with an air of victory. I could see no dog
with them, and felt comparatively safe, though I could not forget the
possibility that some freak or fancy might bring the axe a little nearer
my dwelling than comported with my safety.

“There was no sleep for me that day, and I wished for night. You may
imagine that the thought of having the tree attacked under me was far
from agreeable, and that it very easily kept me on the look-out. The day
was not without diversion. The men at work seemed to be a gay set; and
they would often make the woods resound with that uncontrolled laughter
for which we, as a race, are remarkable. I held my place in the tree
till sunset,—saw the men put on their jackets to be off. I observed that
all left the ground except one, whom I saw sitting on the side of a
stump, with his head bowed, and his eyes apparently fixed on the ground.
I became interested in him. After sitting in the position to which I
have alluded ten or fifteen minutes, he left the stump, walked directly
towards the tree in which I was secreted, and halted almost under the
same. He stood for a moment and looked around, deliberately and
reverently took off his hat, by which I saw that he was a man in the
evening of life, slightly bald and quite gray. After laying down his hat
carefully, he knelt and prayed aloud, and such a prayer, the most
fervent, earnest, and solemn, to which I think I ever listened. After
reverently addressing the Almighty, as the all-wise, all-good, and the
common Father of all mankind, he besought God for grace, for strength,
to bear up under, and to endure, as a good soldier, all the hardships
and trials which beset the journey of life, and to enable him to live in
a manner which accorded with the gospel of Christ. His soul now broke
out in humble supplication for deliverance from bondage. ‘O thou,’ said
he, ‘that hearest the raven’s cry, take pity on poor me! O deliver me! O
deliver me! in mercy, O God, deliver me from the chains and manifold
hardships of slavery! With thee, O Father, all things are possible. Thou
canst stand and measure the earth. Thou hast beheld and drove asunder
the nations,—all power is in thy hand,—thou didst say of old, “I have
seen the affliction of my people, and am come to deliver them,”—O look
down upon our afflictions, and have mercy upon us.’ But I cannot repeat
his prayer, nor can I give you an idea of its deep pathos. I had given
but little attention to religion, and had but little faith in it; yet,
as the old man prayed, I felt almost like coming down and kneel by his
side, and mingle my broken complaint with his.

“He had already gained my confidence; as how could it be otherwise? I
knew enough of religion to know that the man who prays in secret is far
more likely to be sincere than he who loves to pray standing in the
street, or in the great congregation. When he arose from his knees, like
another Zaccheus, I came down from the tree. He seemed a little alarmed
at first, but I told him my story, and the good man embraced me in his
arms, and assured me of his sympathy.

“I was now about out of provisions, and thought I might safely ask him
to help me replenish my store. He said he had no money; but if he had,
he would freely give it me. I told him I had _one dollar_; it was all
the money I had in the world. I gave it to him, and asked him to
purchase some crackers and cheese, and to kindly bring me the balance;
that I would remain in or near that place, and would come to him on his
return, if he would whistle. He was gone only about an hour. Meanwhile,
from some cause or other, I know not what (but as you shall see very
wisely), I changed my place. On his return I started to meet him; but it
seemed as if the shadow of approaching danger fell upon my spirit, and
checked my progress. In a very few minutes, closely on the heels of the
old man, I distinctly saw _fourteen men_, with something like guns in
their hands.”

“Oh! the old wretch!” exclaimed Mrs. Listwell, “he had betrayed you, had
he?”

“I think not,” said Madison, “I cannot believe that the old man was to
blame. He probably went into a store, asked for the articles for which I
sent, and presented the bill I gave him; and it is so unusual for slaves
in the country to have money, that fact, doubtless, excited suspicion,
and gave rise to inquiry. I can easily believe that the truthfulness of
the old man’s character compelled him to disclose the facts; and thus
were these blood-thirsty men put on my track. Of course I did not
present myself; but hugged my hiding-place securely. If discovered and
attacked, I resolved to sell my life as dearly as possible.

“After searching about the woods silently for a time, the whole company
gathered around the old man; one charged him with lying, and called him
an old villain; said he was a thief; charged him with stealing money;
said if he did not instantly tell where he got it, they would take the
shirt from his old back, and give him thirty-nine lashes.

“‘I did _not_ steal the money’, said the old man, ‘it was given me, as I
told you at the store; and if the man who gave it me is not here, it is
not my fault.’

“‘Hush! you lying old rascal; we’ll make you smart for it. You shall not
leave this spot until you have told where you got that money.’

“They now took hold of him, and began to strip him; while others went to
get sticks with which to beat him. I felt, at the moment, like rushing
out in the midst of them; but considering that the old man would be
whipped the more for having aided a fugitive slave, and that, perhaps,
in the _melee_ he might be killed outright, I disobeyed this impulse.
They tied him to a tree, and began to whip him. My own flesh crept at
every blow, and I seem to hear the old man’s piteous cries even now.
They laid thirty-nine lashes on his bare back, and were going to repeat
that number, when one of the company besought his comrades to desist.
‘You’ll kill the d—d old scoundrel! You’ve already whipt a dollar’s
worth out of him, even if he stole it!’ ‘O yes,’ said another, ‘let him
down. He’ll never tell us another lie, I’ll warrant ye!’ With this, one
of the company untied the old man, and bid him go about his business.”

The old man left, but the company remained as much as an hour, scouring
the woods. Round and round they went, turning up the underbrush, and
peering about like so many bloodhounds. Two or three times they came
within six feet of where I lay. I tell you I held my stick with a firmer
grasp than I did in coming up to your house to-night. I expected to
level one of them at least. Fortunately, however, I eluded their
pursuit, and they left me alone in the woods.

“My last dollar was now gone, and you may well suppose I felt the loss
of it; but the thought of being once again free to pursue my journey,
prevented that depression which a sense of destitution causes, so
swinging my little bundle on my back, I caught a glimpse of the _Great
Bear_ (which ever points the way to my beloved star), and I started
again on my journey. What I lost in money I made up at a hen-roost that
same night, upon which I fortunately came.”

“But you didn’t eat your food raw? How did you cook it?” said Mrs.
Listwell.

“O no, Madam,” said Madison, turning to his little bundle;—“I had the
means of cooking.” Here he took out of his bundle an old-fashioned
tinder-box, and taking up a piece of a file, which he brought with him,
he struck it with a heavy flint, and brought out at least a dozen sparks
at once. “I have had this old box,” said he, “more than five years. It
is the _only_ property saved from the fire in the dismal swamp. It has
done me good service. It has given me the means of broiling many a
chicken!”

It seemed quite a relief to Mrs. Listwell to know that Madison had, at
least, lived upon cooked food. Women have a perfect horror of eating
uncooked food.

By this time thoughts of what was best to be done about getting Madison
to Canada, began to trouble Mr. Listwell; for the laws of Ohio were very
stringent against any one who should aid, or who were found aiding a
slave to escape through that State. A citizen, for the simple act of
taking a fugitive slave in his carriage, had just been stripped of all
his property, and thrown penniless upon the world. Notwithstanding this,
Mr. Listwell was determined to see Madison safely on his way to Canada.
“Give yourself no uneasiness,” said he to Madison, “for if it cost my
farm, I shall see you safely out of the States, and on your way to a
land of liberty. Thank God that there is _such_ a land so near us! You
will spend to-morrow with us, and to-morrow night I will take you in my
carriage to the Lake. Once upon that, and you are safe.”

“Thank you! thank you,” said the fugitive; “I will commit myself to your
care.”

For the _first_ time during _five_ years, Madison enjoyed the luxury of
resting his limbs on a comfortable bed, and inside a human habitation.
Looking at the white sheets, he said to Mr. Listwell, “What, sir! you
don’t mean that I shall sleep in that bed?”

“Oh yes, oh yes.”

After Mr. Listwell left the room, Madison said he really hesitated
whether or not he should lie on the floor; for that was _far_ more
comfortable and inviting than any bed to which he had been used.


We pass over the thoughts and feelings, the hopes and fears, the plans
and purposes, that revolved in the mind of Madison during the day that
he was secreted at the house of Mr. Listwell. The reader will be content
to know that nothing occurred to endanger his liberty, or to excite
alarm. Many were the little attentions bestowed upon him in his quiet
retreat and hiding-place. In the evening, Mr. Listwell, after treating
Madison to a new suit of winter clothes, and replenishing his exhausted
purse with five dollars, all in silver, brought out his two-horse
waggon, well provided with buffaloes, and silently started off with him
to Cleveland. They arrived there without interruption a few minutes
before sunrise the next morning. Fortunately the steamer _Admiral_ lay
at the wharf, and was to start for Canada at nine o’clock. Here the last
anticipated danger was surmounted. It was feared that just at this point
the hunters of men might be on the look-out, and, possibly, pounce upon
their victim. Mr. Listwell saw the captain of the boat; cautiously
sounded him on the matter of carrying liberty-loving passengers, before
he introduced his precious charge. This done, Madison was conducted on
board. With usual generosity this true subject of the emancipating Queen
welcomed Madison, and assured him that he should be safely landed in
Canada, free of charge. Madison now felt himself no more a piece of
merchandise, but a passenger, and, like any other passenger, going about
his business, carrying with him what belonged to him, and nothing which
rightfully belonged to anybody else.

Wrapped in his new winter suit, snug and comfortable, a pocket full of
silver, safe from his pursuers, embarked for a free country, Madison
gave every sign of sincere gratitude, and bade his kind benefactor
farewell, with such a grip of the hand as bespoke a heart full of honest
manliness, and a soul that knew how to appreciate kindness. It need
scarcely be said that Mr. Listwell was deeply moved by the gratitude and
friendship he had excited in a nature so noble as that of the fugitive.
He went to his home that day with a joy and gratification which knew no
bounds. He had done something “to deliver the spoiled out of the hands
of the spoiler,” he had given bread to the hungry, and clothes to the
naked; he had befriended a man to whom the laws of his country forbade
all friendship,—and, in proportion to the odds against his righteous
deed, was the delightful satisfaction that gladdened his heart. On
reaching home, he exclaimed, “_He is safe,—he is safe,—he is safe_,”—and
the cup of his joy was shared by his excellent lady. The following
letter was received from Madison a few days after:—

                                 “WINDSOR, CANADA WEST, DEC. 16, 1840.

  My dear Friend,—for such you truly are:—

  Madison is out of the woods at last; I nestle in the mane of the
  British lion, protected by his mighty paw from the talons and the
  beak of the American eagle. I AM FREE, and breathe an atmosphere too
  pure for _slaves_, slave-hunters, or slave-holders. My heart is
  full. As many thanks to you, sir, and to your kind lady, as there
  are pebbles on the shores of Lake Erie; and may the blessing of God
  rest upon you both. You will never be forgotten by your profoundly
  grateful friend,

                                                  MADISON WASHINGTON.”


                               PART III.

               ——His head was with his heart,
               And that was far away!

                                        _Childe Harold._

Just upon the edge of the great road from Petersburg, Virginia, to
Richmond, and only about fifteen miles from the latter place, there
stands a somewhat ancient and famous public tavern, quite notorious in
its better days, as being the grand resort for most of the leading
gamblers, horse-racers, cock-fighters, and slave-traders from all the
country round about. This old rookery, the nucleus of all sorts of
birds, mostly those of ill omen, has, like everything else peculiar to
Virginia, lost much of its ancient consequence and splendour; yet it
keeps up some appearance of gaiety and high life, and is still
frequented, even by respectable travellers, who are unacquainted with
its past history and present condition. Its fine old portico looks well
at a distance, and gives the building an air of grandeur. A nearer view,
however, does little to sustain this pretension. The house is large, and
its style imposing, but time and dissipation, unfailing in their
results, have made ineffaceable marks upon it, and it must, in the
common course of events, soon be numbered with the things that were. The
gloomy mantle of ruin is, already outspread to envelop it, and its
remains, even but now remind one of a human skull, after the flesh has
mingled with the earth. Old hats and rags fill the places in the upper
windows once occupied by large panes of glass, and the moulding boards
along the roofing have dropped off from their places, leaving holes and
crevices in the rented wall for bats and swallows to build their nests
in. The platform of the portico which fronts the highway is a rickety
affair, its planks are loose, and in some places entirely gone, leaving
effective man-traps in their stead for nocturnal ramblers. The wooden
pillars, which once supported it, but which now hang as encumbrances,
are all rotten, and tremble with the touch. A part of the stable, a fine
old structure in its day, which has given comfortable shelter to
hundreds of the noblest steeds of “the Old Dominion” at once, was blown
down many years ago, and never has been, and probably never will be,
re-built. The doors of the barn are in wretched condition; they will
shut with a little human strength to help their worn-out hinges, but not
otherwise. The side of the great building seen from the road is much
discoloured in sundry places by slops poured from the upper windows,
rendering it unsightly and offensive in other respects. Three or four
great dogs, looking as dull and gloomy as the mansion itself, lie
stretched out along the door-sills under the portico; and double the
number of loafers, some of them completely rum-ripe, and others
ripening, dispose themselves like so many sentinels about the front of
the house. These latter understand the science of scraping acquaintance
to perfection. They know everybody, and almost everybody knows them. Of
course, as their title implies, they have no regular employment. They
are (to use an expressive phrase) _hangers on_, or still better, they
are what sailors would denominate _holders-on to the slack, in
everybody’s mess, and in nobody’s watch_. They are, however, as good as
the newspaper for the events of the day, and they sell their knowledge
almost as cheap. Money they seldom have; yet they always have capital
the most reliable. They make their way with a succeeding traveller by
intelligence gained from a preceding one. All the great names of
Virginia they know by heart, and have seen their owners often. The
history of the house is folded in their lips, and they rattle off
stories in connection with it, equal to the guides at Dryburgh Abbey. He
must be a shrewd man, and well skilled in the art of evasion, who gets
out of the hands of these fellows without being at the expence of a
treat.

It was at this old tavern, while on a second visit to the State of
Virginia, in 1841, that Mr. Listwell, unacquainted with the fame of the
place, turned aside, about sunset, to pass the night. Riding up to the
house, he had scarcely dismounted, when one of the half-dozen bar-room
fraternity met and addressed him in a manner exceedingly bland and
accommodating.

“Fine evening, sir.”

“Very fine,” said Mr. Listwell. “This is a tavern, I believe?”

“O yes, sir, yes; although you may think it looks a little the worse for
wear, it was once as good a house as any in Virginy. I make no doubt if
ye spend the night here, you’ll think it a good house yet; for there
ain’t a more accommodating man in the country than you’ll find the
landlord.”

_Listwell._ “The most I want is a good bed for myself, and a full manger
for my horse. If I get these, I shall be quite satisfied.”

_Loafer._ “Well, I alloys like to hear a gentleman talk for his horse;
and just because the horse can’t talk for itself. A man that don’t care
about his beast, and don’t look arter it when he’s travelling ain’t much
in my eye anyhow. Now, sir, I likes a horse, and I’ll guarantee your
horse will be taken good care on here. That old stable, for all you see
it looks so shabby now, once sheltered the great _Eclipse_, when he run
here agin _Batchelor_ and _Jumping Jemmy_. Them was fast horses, but he
beat ’em both.”

_Listwell._ “Indeed.”

_Loafer._ “Well, I rather reckon you’ve travelled a right smart distance
to-day, from the look of your horse?”

_Listwell._ “Forty miles only.”

_Loafer._ “Well! I’ll be darned if that aint a pretty good _only_.
Mister, that beast of yours is a singed cat, I warrant you. I never
see’d a creature like that that wasn’t good on the road. You’ve come
about forty miles, then?”

_Listwell._ “Yes, yes, and a pretty good pace at that.”

_Loafer._ “You’re somewhat in a hurry, then, I make no doubt? I reckon I
could guess if I would, what you’re going to Richmond for? It wouldn’t
be much of a guess either; for it’s rumoured hereabouts, that there’s to
be the greatest sale of niggers at Richmond to-morrow that has taken
place there in a long time; and I’ll be bound you’re a going there to
have a hand in it.”

_Listwell._ “Why, you must think, then, that there’s money to be made at
that business?”

_Loafer._ “Well, ’pon my honour, sir, I never made any that way myself;
but it stands to reason that it’s a moneymaking business; for almost all
other business in Virginia is dropped to engage in this. One thing is
sartain, I never see’d a nigger-buyer yet that hadn’t a plenty of money,
and he wasn’t as free with it as water. I has known one on ’em to treat
as high as twenty times in a night; and, ginerally speaking, they’s men
of edication, and knows all about the government. The fact is, sir, I
alloys like to hear ’em talk, becase I alloys can learn something from
them.”

_Listwell._ “What may I call your name, sir?”

_Loafer._ “Well, now, they calls me Wilkes. I’m known all around by the
gentlemen that comes here. They all knows old Wilkes.”

_Listwell._ “Well, Wilkes, you seem to be acquainted here, and I see you
have a strong liking for a horse. Be so good as to speak a kind word for
mine to the hostler to-night, and you’ll not lose any thing by it.”

_Loafer._ “Well, sir, I see you don’t say much, but you’ve got an
insight into things. It’s alloys wise to get the good will of them
that’s acquainted about a tavern; for a man don’t know when he goes into
a house what may happen, or how much he may need a friend.” Here the
loafer gave Mr. Listwell a significant grin, which expressed a sort of
triumphant pleasure at having, as he supposed, by his tact succeeded in
placing so fine appearing a gentleman under obligations to him.

The pleasure, however, was mutual; for there was something so
insinuating in the glance of this loquacious customer, that Mr. Listwell
was very glad to get quit of him, and to do so more successfully, he
ordered his supper to be brought to him in his private room, private to
the eye, but not to the ear. This room was directly over the bar, and
the plastering being off, nothing but pine boards and naked laths
separated him from the disagreeable company below,—he could easily hear
what was said in the bar-room, and was rather glad of the advantage it
afforded, for, as you shall see, it furnished him important hints as to
the manner and deportment he should assume during his stay at that
tavern.

Mr. Listwell says he had got into his room but a few moments, when he
heard the officious Wilkes below, in a tone of disappointment, exclaim,
“Whar’s that gentleman?” Wilkes was evidently expecting to meet with his
friend at the bar-room, on his return, and had no doubt of his doing the
handsome thing. “He has gone to his room,” answered the landlord, “and
has ordered his supper to be brought to him.”

Here some one shouted out, “Who is he, Wilkes? Where’s he going?”

“Well, now, I’ll be hanged if I know; but I’m willing to make any man a
bet of this old hat agin a five-dollar bill, that that gent is as full
of money as a dog is of fleas. He’s going down to Richmond to buy
niggers, I make no doubt. He’s no fool, I warrant ye.”

“Well, he acts d——d strange,” said another, “anyhow. I likes to see a
man, when he comes up to a tavern, to come straight into the bar-room,
and show that he’s a man among men. Nobody was going to bite him.”

“Now, I don’t blame him a bit for not coming in here. That man knows his
business, and means to take care on his money,” answered Wilkes.

“Wilkes, you’re a fool. You only say that, bekase you hope to get a few
coppers out on him.”

“You only measure my corn by your half-bushel, I won’t say that you’re
only mad becase I got the chance of speaking to him first.”

“O Wilkes! you’re known here. You’ll praise up any body that will give
you a copper; besides, ’tis my opinion that that fellow who took his
long slab-sides up stairs, for all the world just like a half-scared
woman, afraid to look honest men in the face, is a _Northerner_, and as
mean as dish-water.”

“Now what will you bet of that?” said Wilkes.

The speaker said, “I make no bets with you, ’kase you can get that
fellow up stairs there to say anything.”

“Well,” said Wilkes, “I am willing to bet any man in the company that
_that_ gentleman is a _nigger_-buyer. He didn’t tell me so right down,
but I reckon I knows enough about men to give a pretty clean guess as to
what they are arter.”

The dispute as to _who_ Mr. Listwell was, what his business, where he
was going, &c., was kept up with much animation for some time, and more
than once threatened a serious disturbance of the peace. Wilkes had his
friends as well as his opponents. After this sharp debate, the company
amused themselves by drinking whisky, and telling stories. The latter
consisting of quarrels, fights, _rencontres_, and duels, in which
distinguished persons of that neighbourhood, and frequenters of that
house, had been actors. Some of these stories were frightful enough, and
were told, too, with a relish which bespoke the pleasure of the parties
with the horrid scenes they portrayed. It would not be proper here to
give the reader any idea of the vulgarity and dark profanity which
rolled, as “sweet morsel,” under these corrupt tongues. A more brutal
set of creatures, perhaps, never congregated.

Disgusted, and a little alarmed withal, Mr. Listwell, who was not
accustomed to such entertainment, at length retired, but not to sleep.
He was _too_ much wrought upon by what he had heard to rest quietly, and
what snatches of sleep he got, were interrupted by dreams which were
anything than pleasant. At eleven o’clock, there seemed to be several
hundreds of persons crowding into the house. A loud and confused
clamour, cursing and cracking of whips, and the noise of chains startled
him from his bed; for a moment he would have given the half of his farm
in Ohio to have been at home. This uproar was kept up with undulating
course, till near morning. There was loud laughing,—loud singing,—loud
cursing,—and yet there seemed to be weeping and mourning in the midst of
all. Mr. Listwell said he had heard enough during the forepart of the
night to convince him that a buyer of men and women stood the best
chance of being respected. And he, therefore, thought it best to say
nothing which might undo the favourable opinion that had been formed of
him in the bar-room by at least one of the fraternity that swarmed about
it. While he would not avow himself a purchaser of slaves, he deemed it
not prudent to disavow it. He felt that he might, properly, refuse to
cast such a pearl before parties which, to him, were worse than swine.
To reveal himself, and to impart a knowledge of his real character and
sentiments would, to say the least, be imparting intelligence with the
certainty of seeing it and himself both abused. Mr. Listwell confesses,
that this reasoning did not altogether satisfy his conscience, for,
hating slavery as he did, and regarding it to be the immediate duty of
every man to cry out against it, “without compromise and without
concealment,” it was hard for him to admit to himself the possibility of
circumstances wherein a man might, properly, hold his tongue on the
subject. Having as little of the spirit of a martyr as Erasmus, he
concluded, like the latter, that it was wiser to trust the mercy of God
for his soul, than the humanity of slave-traders for his body. Bodily
fear, not conscientious scruples, prevailed.

In this spirit he rose early in the morning, manifesting no surprise at
what he had heard during the night. His quandam friend was soon at his
elbow, boring him with all sorts of questions. All, however, directed to
find out his character, business, residence, purposes, and destination.
With the most perfect appearance of goodnature and carelessness, Mr.
Listwell evaded these meddlesome inquiries, and turned conversation to
general topics, leaving himself and all that specially pertained to him
out of discussion. Disengaging himself from their troublesome
companionship, he made his way to an old bowling-alley, which was
connected with the house, and which, like all the rest, was in very bad
repair.

On reaching the alley Mr. Listwell saw, for the first time in his life,
a slave-gang on their way to market. A sad sight truly. Here were one
hundred and thirty human beings,—children of a common Creator—guilty of
no crime—men and women, with hearts, minds, and deathless spirits,
chained and fettered, and bound for the market, in a Christian
country,—in a country boasting of its liberty, independence, and high
civilization! Humanity converted into merchandise, and linked in iron
bands, with no regard to decency or humanity! All sizes, ages, and
sexes, mothers, fathers, daughters, brothers, sisters,—all huddled
together, on their way to market to be sold and separated from home, and
from each other _for ever_. And all to fill the pockets of men too lazy
to work for an honest living, and who gain their fortune by plundering
the helpless, and trafficking in the souls and sinews of men. As he
gazed upon this revolting and heartrending scene, our informant said he
almost doubted the existence of a God of justice! And he stood wondering
that the earth did not open and swallow up such wickedness.

In the midst of these reflections, and while running his eye up and down
the fettered ranks, he met the glance of one whose face he thought he
had seen before. To be resolved, he moved towards the spot. It was
MADISON WASHINGTON! Here was a scene for the pencil! Had Mr. Listwell
been confronted by one risen from the dead, he could not have been more
appalled. He was completely stunned. A thunderbolt could not have struck
him more dumb. He stood, for a few moments, as motionless as one
petrified; collecting himself, he at length exclaimed, “_Madison! is
that you?_”

The noble fugitive, but little less astonished than himself, answered
cheerily. “O yes, sir, they’ve got me again.”

Thoughtless of consequences for the moment, Mr. Listwell ran up to his
old friend, placing his hands upon his shoulders, and looked him in the
face. Speechless they stood gazing at each other as if to be doubly
resolved that there was no mistake about the matter, till Madison
motioned his friend away, intimating a fear lest the keepers should find
him there, and suspect him of tampering with the slaves.

“They will soon be out to look after us. You can come when they go to
breakfast, and I will tell you all.”

Pleased with this arrangement, Mr. Listwell passed out of the alley; but
only just in time to save himself, for, while near the door, he observed
three men making their way to the alley. The thought occurred to him to
await their arrival, as the best means of diverting the ever ready
suspicions of the guilty.

While the scene between Mr. Listwell and his friend Madison was going
on, the other slaves stood as mute spectators,—at a loss to know what
all this could mean. As he left, he heard the man chained to Madison
ask, “Who is that gentleman?”

“He is a friend of mine. I cannot tell you now. Suffice it to say he is
a friend. You shall hear more of him before long, but mark me! whatever
shall pass between that gentleman and me, in your hearing, I pray you
will say nothing about it. We are all chained here together,—ours is a
common lot; and that gentleman is not less _your_ friend than _mine_.”
At these words, all mysterious as they were, the unhappy company gave
signs of satisfaction and hope. It seems that Madison, by that mesmeric
power which is the invariable accompaniment of genius, had already won
the confidence of the gang, and was a sort of general-in-chief among
them.

By this time the keepers arrived. A horrid trio, well fitted for their
demoniacal work. Their uncombed hair came down over foreheads
“_villainously low_” and with eyes, mouths, and noses to match. “Hallo!
hallo!” they growled out as they entered. “Are you all there?”

“All here,” said Madison.

“Well, well, that’s right! your journey will soon be over. You’ll be in
Richmond by eleven to-day, and then you’ll have an easy time on it.”

“I say, gal, what in the devil are you crying about?” said one of them.
“I’ll give you something to cry about, if you don’t mind.” This was said
to a girl, apparently not more than twelve years old, who had been
weeping bitterly. She had, probably, left behind her a loving mother,
affectionate sisters, brothers, and friends, and her tears were but the
natural expression of her sorrow, and the only solace. But the dealers
in human flesh have _no_ respect for such sorrow. They look upon it as a
protest against their cruel injustice, and they are prompt to punish it.

This is a puzzle not easily solved. _How_ came he here? what can I do
for him? may I not even now be in some way compromised in this affair?
were thoughts that troubled Mr. Listwell, and made him eager for the
promised opportunity of speaking to Madison.

The bell now sounded for breakfast, and keepers and drivers, with
pistols and bowie-knives gleaming from their belts, hurried in, as if to
get the best places. Taking the chance now afforded, Mr. Listwell
hastened back to the bowling-alley. Reaching Madison, he said, “Now _do_
tell me all about the matter. Do you know me?”

“Oh, yes,” said Madison, “I know you well, and shall never forget you
nor that cold and dreary night you gave me shelter. I must be short,” he
continued, “for they’ll soon be out again. This, then, is the story in
brief. On reaching Canada, and getting over the excitement of making my
escape, sir, my thoughts turned to my poor wife, who had well deserved
my love by her virtuous fidelity and undying affection for me. I could
not bear the thought of leaving her in the cruel jaws of slavery,
without making an effort to rescue her. First, I tried to get money to
buy her; but, oh! the process was _too slow_. I despaired of
accomplishing it. She was in all my thoughts by day, and my dreams by
night. At times I could almost hear her voice, saying, ‘O Madison!
Madison! will you then leave me here? can you leave me here to die? No!
no! you will come! you will come!’ I was wretched. I lost my appetite. I
could neither work, eat, nor sleep, till I resolved to hazard my own
liberty, to gain that of my wife! But I must be short. Six weeks ago I
reached my old master’s place. I laid about the neighbourhood nearly a
week, watching my chance, and, finally, I ventured upon the desperate
attempt to reach my poor wife’s room by means of a ladder. I reached the
window, but the noise in raising it frightened my wife, and she screamed
and fainted. I took her in my arms, and was descending the ladder, when
the dogs began to bark furiously, and before I could get to the woods
the white folks were roused. The cool night air soon restored my wife,
and she readily recognized me. We made the best of our way to the woods,
but it was now _too_ late,—the dogs were after us as though they would
have torn us to pieces. It was all over with me now! My old master and
his two sons ran out with loaded rifles, and before we were out of
gunshot, our ears were assailed with ‘_Stop! stop! or be shot down._’
Nevertheless we ran on. Seeing that we gave no heed to their calls, they
fired, and my poor wife fell by my side dead, while I received but a
slight flesh wound. I now became desperate, and stood my ground, and
awaited their attack over her dead body. They rushed upon me, with their
rifles in hand. I parried their blows, and fought them till I was
knocked down and overpowered.”

“Oh! it was madness to have returned,” said Mr. Listwell.

“Sir, I could not be free with the galling thought that my poor wife was
still a slave. With her in slavery, my body, not my spirit, was free. I
was taken to the house,—chained to a ring-bolt,—my wounds dressed. I was
kept there three days. All the slaves, for miles around, were brought to
see me. Many slave-holders came with their slaves, using me as proof of
the completeness of their power, and of the impossibility of slaves
getting away. I was taunted, jeered at, and be-rated by them, in a
manner that pierced me to the soul. Thank God I was able to smother my
rage, and to bear it all with seeming composure. After my wounds were
nearly healed, I was taken to a tree and stripped, and I received sixty
lashes on my naked back. A few days after, I was sold to a slave-trader,
and placed in this gang for the New Orleans market.”

“Do you think your master would sell you to me?”

“O no, sir! I was sold on condition of my being taken South. Their
motive is revenge.”

“Then, then,” said Mr. Listwell, “I fear I can do nothing for you. Put
your trust in God, and bear your sad lot with the manly fortitude which
becomes a man. I shall see you at Richmond, but don’t recognize me.”
Saying this, Mr. Listwell handed Madison ten dollars; said a few words
to the other slaves; received their hearty “God bless you,” and made his
way to the house.

Fearful of exciting suspicion by too long delay, our friend went to the
breakfast table, with the air of one who half reproved the greediness of
those who rushed in at the sound of the bell. A cup of coffee was all
that he could manage. His feelings were too bitter and excited, and his
heart was too full with the fate of poor Madison (whom he loved as well
as admired) to relish his breakfast; and although he sat long after the
company had left the table, he really did little more than change the
position of his knife and fork. The strangeness of meeting again one
whom he had met on two several occasions before, under extraordinary
circumstances, was well calculated to suggest the idea that a
supernatural power, a wakeful providence, or an inexorable fate, had
linked their destiny together; and that no efforts of his could
disentangle him from the mysterious web of circumstances which enfolded
him.

On leaving the table, Mr. Listwell nerved himself up and walked firmly
into the bar-room. He was at once greeted again by that talkative
chatter-box, Mr. Wilkes.

“Them’s a likely set of niggers in the allay there,” said Wilkes.

“Yes, they’re fine looking fellows; one of them I should like to
purchase, and for him I would be willing to give a handsome sum.”

Turning to one of his comrades, and with a grin of victory, Wilkes said,
“Aha, Bill, did you hear that? I told you I know’d that gentleman wanted
to buy niggers, and would bid as high as any purchaser in the market.”

“Come, come,” said Listwell, “don’t be too loud in your praise, you are
old enough to know that prices rise when purchasers are plenty.”

“That’s a fact,” said Wilkes, “I see you knows the ropes—and there’s not
a man in old Virginy whom I’d rather help to make a good bargain than
you, sir.”

Mr. Listwell here threw a dollar at Wilkes, (which the latter caught
with a dexterous hand,) saying, “Take that for your kind good will.”
Wilkes held up the dollar to his right eye, with a grin of victory, and
turned to the morose grumbler in the corner who had questioned the
liberality of a man of whom he knew nothing.

Mr. Listwell now stood as well with the company as any other occupant of
the bar-room.

We pass over the hurry and bustle, the brutal vociferations of the
slave-drivers in getting their unhappy gang in motion for Richmond; and
we need not narrate every application of the lash to those who faltered
in the journey. Mr. Listwell followed the train at a long distance, with
a sad heart; and on reaching Richmond, left his horse at an hotel, and
made his way to the wharf, in the direction of which he saw the
slave-coffle driven. He was just in time to see the whole company embark
for New Orleans. The thought struck him that, while mixing with the
multitude, he might do his friend Madison one last service, and he
stepped into a hardware store and purchased three strong _files_. These
he took with him, and standing near the small boat, which lay in waiting
to bear the company by parcels to the side of the brig that lay in the
stream, he managed, as Madison passed him, to slip the files into his
pocket, and at once darted back among the crowd.

All the company now on board, the imperious voice of the captain
sounded, and instantly a dozen hardy seamen were in the rigging,
hurrying aloft to unfurl the broad canvas of our Baltimore built
American Slaver. The sailors hung about the ropes, like so many black
cats, now in the round-tops, now in the cross-trees, now on the
yard-arms; all was bluster and activity. Soon the broad topsail, the
royal and top gallant sail were spread to the breeze. Round went the
heavy windlass, clank, clank went the fall-bit,—the anchors
weighed,—jibs, mainsails, and topsails hauled to the wind, and the long,
low, black slaver, with her cargo of human flesh, careened, and moved
forward to the sea.

Mr. Listwell stood on the shore, and watched the slaver till the last
speck of her upper sails faded from sight, and announced the limit of
human vision. “Farewell! farewell! brave and true man! God grant that
brighter skies may smile upon your future than have yet looked down upon
your thorny pathway.”

Saying this to himself, our friend lost no time in completing his
business, and in making his way homewards, gladly shaking off from his
feet the dust of Old Virginia.


                                PART IV.

                  Oh, where’s the slave so lowly
                  Condemn’d to chains unholy,
                   Who could he burst
                   His bonds at first
                  Would pine beneath them slowly?

                                              _Moore._

                ——Know ye not
     Who would be free, _themselves_ must strike the blow.

                                                  _Childe Harold._

What a world of inconsistency; as well as of wickedness, is suggested by
the smooth and gliding phrase, AMERICAN SLAVE TRADE; and how strange and
perverse is that moral sentiment which loathes, execrates, and brands as
piracy and as deserving of death the carrying away into captivity men,
women, and children from the _African coast_; but which is neither
shocked nor disturbed by a similar traffic, carried on with the same
motives and purposes, and characterized by even _more_ odious
peculiarities on the coast of our MODEL REPUBLIC. We execrate and hang
the wretch guilty of this crime on the coast of Guinea, while we respect
and applaud the guilty participators in this murderous business on the
enlightened shores of the Chesapeake. The inconsistency is so flagrant
and glaring, that it would seem to cast a doubt on the doctrine of the
innate moral sense of mankind.

Just two months after the sailing of the Virginia slave brig, which the
reader has seen move off to sea so proudly with her human cargo for the
New Orleans market, there chanced to meet, in the Marine Coffee-house at
Richmond, a company of _ocean birds_, when the following conversation,
which throws some light on the subsequent history, not only of Madison
Washington, but of the hundred and thirty human beings with whom we last
saw him chained.

“I say, shipmate, you had rather rough weather on your late passage to
Orleans?” said Jack Williams, a regular old salt, tauntingly, to a trim,
compact, manly-looking person, who proved to be the first mate of the
slave brig in question.

“Foul play, as well as foul weather,” replied the firmly knit personage,
evidently but little inclined to enter upon a subject which terminated
so ingloriously to the captain and officers of the American slaver.

“Well, betwixt you and me,” said Williams, “that whole affair on board
of the Creole was miserably and disgracefully managed. Those black
rascals got the upper hand of ye altogether: and in my opinion, the
whole disaster was the result of ignorance of the real character of
_darkies_ in general. With half a dozen _resolute_ white men, (I say it
not boastingly,) I could have had the rascals in irons in ten minutes,
not because I’m so strong, but I know how to manage ’em. With my back
against the _caboose_, I could, myself, have flogged a dozen of them;
and had I been on board, by every monster of the deep, every black devil
of ’em all would have had his neck stretched from the yard-arm. Ye made
a mistake in yer manner of fighting ’em. All that is needed in dealing
with a set of _darkies_, is to show that yer not afraid of ’em. For my
own part, I would not honour a dozen niggers by pointing a gun at one of
’em,—a good stout whip, or a stiff rope’s end, is better than all the
guns at Old Point to quell a _nigger_ insurrection. Why, sir, to take a
gun to a _nigger_ is the best way you can select to tell him you are
afraid of him, and the best way of inviting his attack.”

This speech made quite a sensation among the company, and a part of them
intimated solicitude for the answer which might be made to it. Our first
mate replied, “Mr. Williams, all that you’ve now said sounds very well
_here_ on shore, where, perhaps, you have studied negro character. I do
not profess to understand the subject as well as yourself; but it
strikes me, you apply the same rule in dissimilar cases. It is quite
easy to talk of flogging niggers here on land, where you have the
sympathy of the community, and the whole physical force of the
government, state and national, at your command; and where, if a negro
shall lift his hand against a white man, the whole community, with one
accord, are ready to unite in shooting him down. I say, in such
circumstances, it’s easy to talk of flogging negroes and of negro
cowardice: but, sir, I deny that the negro is, naturally, a coward, or
that your theory of managing slaves will stand the test of _salt_ water.
It may do very well for an overseer, a contemptible hireling, to take
advantage of fears already in existence, and which his presence has no
power to inspire; to swagger about, whip in hand, and discourse on the
timidity and cowardice of negroes; for they have a smooth sea and a fair
wind. It is one thing to manage a company of slaves on a Virginia
plantation, and quite another thing to quell an insurrection on the
lonely billows of the Atlantic, where every breeze speaks of courage and
liberty. For the negro to act cowardly on shore, may be to act wisely;
and I’ve some doubts whether _you_, Mr. Williams, would find it very
convenient, were you a slave in Algiers, to raise your hand against the
bayonets of a whole government.”

“By George, shipmate,” said Williams, “you’re coming rather _too_ near.
Either I’ve fallen very low in your estimation, or your notions of negro
courage have got up a buttonhole too high. Now I more than ever wish I’d
been on board of that luckless craft. I’d have given ye practical
evidence of the truth of my theory. I don’t doubt there’s some
difference in being at sea. But a nigger’s a nigger, on sea or land; and
is a coward, find him where you will; a drop of blood from one on ’em
will skeer a hundred. A knock on the nose, or a kick on the shin, will
tame the wildest ‘_darkey_’ you can fetch me. I say again, and will
stand by it, I could, with half a dozen good men, put the whole nineteen
on ’em in irons, and have carried them safe to New Orleans too. Mind, I
don’t blame you; but I do say, and every gentleman here will bear me out
in it, that the fault was somewhere, or them niggers would never have
got off as they have done. For my part I feel ashamed to have the idea
go abroad, that a ship-load of slaves can’t be safely taken from
Richmond to New Orleans. I should like, merely to redeem the character
of Virginia sailors, to take charge of a ship-load on ’em to-morrow.”

Williams went on in this strain, occasionally casting an imploring
glance at the company for applause for his wit, and sympathy for his
contempt of negro courage. He had, evidently, however, waked up the
wrong passenger; for besides being in the right, his opponent carried
that in his eye which marked him a man not to be trifled with.

“Well, sir,” said the sturdy mate, “you can select your own method for
distinguishing yourself;—the path of ambition in this direction is quite
open to you in Virginia, and I’ve no doubt that you will be highly
appreciated and compensated for all your valiant achievements in that
line; but, for myself, while I do not profess to be a giant, I have
resolved never to set my foot on the deck of a slave ship, either as
officer, or common sailor again; I have got enough of it.”

“Indeed! indeed!” exclaimed Williams, derisively.

“Yes, _indeed_,” echoed the mate; “but don’t misunderstand me. It is not
the high value that I set upon my life that makes me say what I have
said; yet I’m resolved never to endanger my life again in a cause which
my conscience does not approve. I dare say _here_ what many men _feel_,
but _dare not speak_, that this whole slave-trading business is a
disgrace and scandal to Old Virginia.”

“Hold! hold on! shipmate,” said Williams, “I hardly thought you’d have
shown your colours so soon,—I’ll be hanged if you’re not as good an
abolitionist as Garrison himself.”

The mate now rose from his chair, manifesting some excitement. “What do
you mean, sir,” said he, in a commanding tone. “_That man does not live
who shall offer me an insult with impunity._”

The effect of these words was marked; and the company clustered around.
Williams, in an apologetic tone said, “Shipmate! keep your temper. I
meant no insult. We all know that Tom Grant is no coward, and what I
said about your being an abolitionist was simply this: you _might_ have
put down them black mutineers and murderers, but your conscience held
you back.”

“In that, too,” said Grant, “you were mistaken. I did all that any man
with equal strength and presence of mind could have done. The fact is,
Mr. Williams, you underrate the courage as well as the skill of these
negroes, and further, you do not seem to have been correctly informed
about the case in hand at all.”

“All I know about it is,” said Williams, “that on the ninth day after
you left Richmond, a dozen or two of the niggers ye had on board, came
on deck and took the ship from you;—had her steered into a British port,
where, by-the-bye, every woolly head of them went ashore and was free.
Now I take this to be a discreditable piece of business, and one
demanding explanation.”

“There are a great many discreditable things in the world,” said Grant.
“For a ship to go down under a calm sky is, upon the first flush of it,
disgraceful either to sailors or caulkers. But when we learn, that by
some mysterious disturbance in nature, the waters parted beneath, and
swallowed the ship up, we lose our indignation and disgust in
lamentation of the disaster, and in awe of the Power which controls the
elements.”

“Very true, very true,” said Williams, “I should be very glad to have an
explanation which would relieve the affair of its present discreditable
features. I have desired to see you ever since you got home, and to
learn from you a full statement of the facts in the case. To me the
whole thing seems unaccountable. I cannot see how a dozen or two of
ignorant negroes, not one of whom had ever been to sea before, and all
of whom were closely ironed between decks, should be able to get their
fetters off, rush out of the hatchway in open daylight, kill two white
men, the one the captain and the other their master, and then carry the
ship into a British port, where every ‘_darkey_’ of them was set free.
There must have been great carelessness, or cowardice somewhere!”

The company which had listened in silence during most of this
discussion, now became much excited. One said, I agree with Williams;
and several said the thing looks black enough. After the temporary
tumultuous exclamations had subsided,—

“I see,” said Grant, “how you regard this case, and how difficult it
will be for me to render our ship’s company blameless in your eyes.
Nevertheless, I will state the fact precisely as they came under my own
observation. Mr. Williams speaks of ‘ignorant negroes,’ and, as a
general rule, they are ignorant; but had he been on board the _Creole_,
as I was, he would have seen cause to admit that there are exceptions to
this general rule. The leader of the mutiny in question was just as
shrewd a fellow as ever I met in my life, and was as well fitted to lead
in a dangerous enterprise as any one white man in ten thousand. The name
of this man, strange to say, (ominous of greatness,) was MADISON
WASHINGTON. In the short time he had been on board, he had secured the
confidence of every officer. The negroes fairly worshipped him. His
manner and bearing were such, that no one could suspect him of a
murderous purpose. The only feeling with which we regarded him was, that
he was a powerful, good-disposed negro. He seldom spake to any one, and
when he did speak, it was with the utmost propriety. His words were well
chosen, and his pronunciation equal to any schoolmaster. It was a
mystery to us _where_ he got his knowledge of language; but as little
was said to him, none of us knew the extent of his intelligence and
ability till it was too late. It seems he brought three files with him
on board, and must have gone to work upon his fetters the first night
out; and he must have worked well at that; for on the day of the rising,
he got the irons _off eighteen_ besides himself.

“The attack began just about twilight in the evening. Apprehending a
squall, I had commanded the second mate to order all hands on deck, to
take in sail. A few minutes before this I had seen Madison’s head above
the hatchway, looking out upon the white-capped waves at the leeward. I
think I never saw him look more good-natured. I stood just about
midship, on the larboard side. The captain was pacing the quarter-deck
on the starboard side, in company with Mr. Jameson, the owner of most of
the slaves on board. Both were armed. I had just told the men to lay
aloft, and was looking to see my orders obeyed, when I heard the
discharge of a pistol on the starboard side; and turning suddenly
around, the very deck seemed covered with fiends from the pit. The
nineteen negroes were all on deck, with their broken fetters in their
hands, rushing in all directions. I put my hand quickly in my pocket to
draw out my jack-knife; But before I could draw it, I was knocked
senseless to the deck. When I came to myself, (which I did in a few
minutes, I suppose, for it was yet quite light,) there was not a white
man on deck. The sailors were all aloft in the rigging, and dared not
come down. Captain Clarke and Mr. Jameson lay stretched on the
quarter-deck,—both dying,—while Madison himself stood at the helm
unhurt.

“I was completely weakened by the loss of blood, and had not recovered
from the stunning blow which felled me to the deck; but it was a little
too much for me, even in my prostrate condition, to see our good brig
commanded by a _black murderer_. So I called out to the men to come down
and take the ship, or die in the attempt. Suiting the action to the
word, I started aft. You murderous villain, said I, to the imp at the
helm, and rushed upon him to deal him a blow, when he pushed me back
with his strong, black arm, as though I had been a boy of twelve. I
looked around for the men. They were still in the rigging. Not one had
come down. I started towards Madison again. The rascal now told me to
stand back. ‘Sir,’ said he, ‘your life is in my hands. I could have
killed you a dozen times over during this last half hour, and could kill
you now. You call me a _black murderer_. I am not a murderer. God is my
witness that LIBERTY, not _malice_, is the motive for this night’s work.
I have done no more to those dead men yonder, than they would have done
to me in like circumstances. We have struck for our freedom, and if a
true man’s heart be in you, you will honour us for the deed. We have
done that which you applaud your fathers for doing, and if we are
murderers, _so were they_.’

“I felt little disposition to reply to this impudent speech. By heaven,
it disarmed me. The fellow loomed up before me. I forgot his blackness
in the dignity of his manner, and the eloquence of his speech. It seemed
as if the souls of both the great dead (whose names he bore) had entered
him. To the sailors in the rigging he said: ‘Men! the battle is
over,—your captain is dead. I have complete command of this vessel. All
resistance to my authority will be in vain. My men have won their
liberty, with no other weapons but their own BROKEN FETTERS. We are
nineteen in number. We do not thirst for your blood, we demand only our
rightful freedom. Do not flatter yourselves that I am ignorant of chart
or compass. I know both. We are now only about sixty miles from Nassau.
Come down, and do your duty. Land us in Nassau, and not a hair of your
heads shall be hurt.’

“I shouted, _Stay where you are, men_,—when a sturdy black fellow ran at
me with a handspike, and would have split my head open, but for the
interference of Madison, who darted between me and the blow. ‘I know
what you are up to,’ said the latter to me. ‘You want to navigate this
brig into a slave port, where you would have us all hanged; but you’ll
miss it; before this brig shall touch a slave-cursed shore while I am on
board, I will myself put a match to the magazine, and blow her, and be
blown with her, into a thousand fragments. Now I have saved your life
twice within these last twenty minutes,—for, when you lay helpless on
deck, my men were about to kill you. I held them in check. And if you
now (seeing I am your friend and not your enemy) persist in your
resistance to my authority, I give you fair warning, YOU SHALL DIE.’

“Saying this to me, he cast a glance into the rigging, where the
terror-stricken sailors were clinging, like so many frightened monkeys,
and commanded them to come down, in a tone from which there was no
appeal; for four men stood by with muskets in hand, ready at the word of
command to shoot them down.

“I now became satisfied that resistance was out of the question; that my
best policy was to put the brig into Nassau, and secure the assistance
of the American consul at that port. I felt sure that the authorities
would enable us to secure the murderers, and bring them to trial.

“By this time the apprehended squall had burst upon us. The wind howled
furiously,—the ocean was white with foam, which, on account of the
darkness, we could see only by the quick flashes of lightning that
darted occasionally from the angry sky. All was alarm and confusion.
Hideous cries came up from the slave women. Above the roaring billows a
succession of heavy thunder rolled along, swelling the terrific din.
Owing to the great darkness, and a sudden shift of the wind, we found
ourselves in the trough of the sea. When shipping a heavy sea over the
starboard bow, the bodies of the captain and Mr. Jameson were washed
overboard. For awhile we had dearer interests to look after than slave
property. A more savage thunder-gust never swept the ocean. Our brig
rolled and creaked as if every bolt would be started, and every thread
of oakum would be pressed out of the seams. To the pumps! to the pumps!
I cried, but not a sailor would quit his grasp. Fortunately this squall
soon passed over, or we must have been food for sharks.

“During all the storm Madison stood firmly at the helm, his keen eye
fixed upon the binnacle. He was not indifferent to the dreadful
hurricane; yet he met it with the equanimity of an old sailor. He was
silent, but not agitated. The first words he uttered after the storm had
slightly subsided, were characteristic of the man. ‘Mr. mate, you cannot
write the bloody laws of slavery on those restless billows. The ocean,
if not the land, is free.’ I confess, gentlemen, I felt myself in the
presence of a superior man; one who, had he been a white man, I would
have followed willingly and gladly in any honourable enterprise. Our
difference of colour was the only ground for difference of action. It
was not that his principles were wrong in the abstract; for they are the
principles of 1776. But I could not bring myself to recognize their
application to one whom I deemed my inferior.

“But to my story. What happened now is soon told. Two hours after the
frightful tempest had spent itself, we were plump at the wharf in
Nassau. I sent two of our men immediately to our consul with a statement
of facts, requesting his interference on our behalf. What he did, or
whether he did anything, I don’t know; but, by order of the authorities,
a company of _black_ soldiers came on board, for the purpose, as they
said, of protecting the property. These impudent rascals, when I called
on them to assist me in keeping the slaves on board, sheltered
themselves adroitly under their instructions only to protect
property,—and said they did not recognize _persons_ as _property_. I
told them that, by the laws of Virginia and the laws of the United
States, the slaves on board were as much property as the barrels of
flour in the hold. At this the stupid blockheads showed their _ivory_,
rolled up their white eyes in horror, as if the idea of putting men on a
footing with merchandise were revolting to their humanity. When these
instructions were understood among the negroes, it was impossible for us
to keep them on board. They deliberately gathered up their baggage
before our eyes, and, against our remonstrances, poured through the
gangway,—formed themselves into a procession on the wharf,—bid farewell
to all on board, and, uttering the wildest shouts of exultation, they
marched, amidst the deafening cheers of a multitude of sympathising
spectators, under the triumphant leadership of their heroic chief and
deliverer, MADISON WASHINGTON.”

[Signature: Frederick Douglass.]




                        A PLEA FOR FREE SPEECH.

           Give me leave to speak my mind.

                                           _As You Like it._


The clamorous demand which certain patriotic gentlemen are just now
making for perfect silence on the slavery question, strikes a quiet
looker-on as something very odd. It might pass for a dull sort of joke,
were it not that the means taken to enforce it, by vexatious
prosecutions, political and social proscriptions, and newspaper assaults
on private reputation, are beginning, in certain quarters, to assume a
decidedly tragic aspect, and forcing upon all anti-slavery men the
alternative of peremptorily refusing compliance, or standing meanly by
to see others crushed for advocating _their_ opinions.

The question has been extensively, and I think very naturally raised,
why these anti-agitation gentlemen do not keep silent themselves. For,
strange as it may seem, this perilous topic is the very one which most
of all appears to occupy their thoughts too, and is ever uppermost when
they undertake to speak of the affairs of the country. They are in the
predicament of the poor man in the Eastern fable, who, being forbidden,
on pain of the genie’s wrath, to utter another cabalistic syllable,
found, to his horror, that he could never after open his lips without
their beginning perversely to frame the tabooed articulation. But not,
as in his case, does fear chain up their organs. They speak it boldly
out, proclaim it “the corner-stone” of their political creed, and do
their best in every way, by speeches and articles, Union-safety
pamphlets and National Convention platforms, to “keep it before the
people.” And the object always is, to keep the people quiet! Surely, if
the Union is _not_ strong enough to bear agitations, the special friends
of the Union have chosen a singular way to save it.

I would by no means infer, that they are _altogether_ insecure in their
professions of anxiety. The truth appears to be, however, that in so far
as these professions are not a sheer pretence, got up by political men
for political effect, our estimable fellow citizens have, all
unwittingly, been obeying a higher law than that which they would impose
on their neighbours,—a law, written in the very nature of the free soul.
On this, the subject of the age, they must think, and cannot refrain
from uttering their thoughts. “They believe, and _therefore_ have they
spoken.” And it is a sufficient reply to their unanswerable demand for
silence on the other side. “We _also_ believe, and therefore speak.”
Pray, why not?

A certain ardent conservative friend of mine, to whom I once proposed
this inquiry, made a short answer to it after this fashion:—“The
abolitionists are all fools and fanatics. Whenever the idea of
anti-slavery gets hold of a man, he takes leave of his common sense, and
is thenceforth as one possessed. I would put a padlock on every such
crazy fellow’s mouth.” My friend’s rule, it will be seen, is a very
broad one; stopping the mouths of all who speak foolishly. Who will
undertake to see it fairly applied? or who could feel quite free from
nervousness in view of its possible operation? Under an infallible
administration, I apprehend, many—some, perhaps, even of the most
strenuous advocates of the law—might find themselves uncomfortably
implicated, who at present hardly suspect the danger. “By’rlakin, a
parlous fear! my masters, you ought to consider with yourselves!” I am
constrained to confess, that in the very midst of my friend’s aforesaid
patriotic diatribe against folly and fanaticism, and his plea for a
summary fool-act, I could not keep out of my mind some wicked
recollections of Horace’s lines:

            _Communi sensu plane caret_, inquimus. Eheu!
            Quam temere in _nosmet_ legem sancimus iniquam!

It must in all candour be confessed, that there is something in the
subject of slavery which, when fairly looked at and realized, is a
little trying to one’s sanity. Even such intellects as John Wesley’s and
Thomas Jefferson’s seem to stagger a little under a view of the
appalling sum of iniquity and wretchedness which the word represents,
and vent their excitement in terms not particularly measured. What
wonder, then, if men of simpler minds should now and then be thrown
quite off the balance, and think and say some things that are really
unwise. I think, indeed, it will have to be confessed, that we have had
fools and fanatics on both sides of the slavery question; and it is
altogether among the probabilities, that such will continue to be the
case hereafter. Still, until we have some infallible criterion to
distinguish actual folly from that which foolish people merely think
such, I fancy we must forego the convenience of my friend’s summary
process, and, giving leave to every man to speak his mind, leave it to
Time—great sifter of men and opinions—to separate between the precious
and the vile.

It may be the kindness bred of a fellow feeling, but I must confess to a
warm side towards my brethren of the motley tribe. While on the one hand
I firmly hold with Elihu—who seems to have represented young Uz among
the friends of Job—that “great men are not always wise.” I rejoice on
the other hand in the concession of Polonius,—chief old Fogy of the
court of Denmark,—that there is “a happiness which madness often hits
on, that reason and sanity could not so prosperously be delivered of.”
Folly and craziness, quotha! Did it, then, never occur to you, O Worldly
Wiseman, that even your wisdom might be bettered by a dash of that which
you thus contemptuously brand? Or does the apostle seem to you as one
that driveleth, when he says, “If any man among you seemeth to be wise
in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise?”

I have often admired the sagacity of our mediæval forefathers, in the
treatment of their (so called) fools. They gave them a _special licence_
of the tongue; for they justly estimated the advantages which the truly
wise know how to draw from the untrammelled utterances of any honest
mind, especially of minds which, refusing to run tamely in the oiled
grooves of prescriptive and fashionable orthodoxy, are the more likely,
now and then, (where if only by accident,) to hit upon truths which
others missed. Hence they maintained an “Independent Order” of the
motley, whose only business it was freely to think and freely speak
their minds. “I must have liberty withal,” says Jaques, aspiring to this
dignity,

            —“as free a charter as the wind,
            To blow on whom I please: for _so fools have_.”

And he adds, in a strain of admonition which certain contemporaneous
events might almost lead one to consider prophetic—

               “They that are most galled with my folly,
           They most must laugh. And why, sir, must they so?
           The _why_ is as plain as way to parish church.
           He that a fool doth very wisely hit,
           Doth very foolishly, although he smart,
           Not to seem senseless of the bob. If not,
           The wise man’s folly is anatomised
           Even by the squandering glances of the fool.
             * * What then? Let me see wherein
           My speech hath wronged him. If it do him right,
           Then he hath wronged himself; if he be free,
           Why then, my taxing like a wild goose flies,
           Unclaimed of any man.”

Now if there be “fools in the nineteenth century,” as I devoutly hope
there be,—men possessed with the belief of a Higher Law, Inalienable
Rights, Supremacy of Conscience, and such like obsolete phantoms, and
passing strange judgments on the deeds of men, and nations in the light
thereof,—I beg to put in a similar plea for them. _Give them leave to
speak their minds._ Now and then, it may be worth the pondering, and,
heeded betimes, may, peradventure, save from calamity and ruin. If not,
an attempt to _enforce_ silence on fools—and is it not much the same
with freemen?—is likely to produce, not silence at all, but a greater
outcry. And as for our great and wise men, when hit, let them conceal
the smart, and profit by the lesson. But, for their own greatness’ sake,
and the honour of their wisdom, whether hit or not, let them never fall
into a passion at the freedom of men’s speech, and cry, _This must be
put down_. For it will not down at their bidding.

But the subject refuses to be treated lightly. The vast interest at
stake on both sides, and the immediate urgency of crisis, compel the
mind to sobriety and solicitude in the contemplation of it. No truly
wise man will look upon the anti-slavery doctrine as mere folly, or on
the promulgation of it as idle breath. It is the measureless power of
that sentiment, and all its power lies in its truth—that wakens this
alarm; and it is the consciousness of holding such a weapon in their
hands, that makes the anti-slavery masses at the North pause, lest, in
attempting to use it for good, they should, unwittingly, do harm. For
such a sentiment, who can fail to feel respect? Who would not despise
himself if his own bosom were destitute of it? But, by as much as I
respect it in others, and would cherish it in myself, by so much will I
resent all playing upon it by political men for party or personal ends,
and fear lest it betray me into pusillanimity and inertness where the
times demand action for humanity and God. It _is_ a serious question for
all honest anti-slavery men throughout the land, in what way they can
most wisely and hopefully quit them of their responsibility in relation
to this thing. Their actions as citizens should, unquestionably, be
restricted by the just limits of their civil responsibility; as men by
those of their moral responsibility. Even within those limits, they
should act with a wise moderation, and in a generous spirit of candour
and kindness. But one thing is abundantly certain, that by ignoring the
responsibility, they do not get rid of it; by turning their backs on the
obligation, they will not get it discharged. Still the terrible _fact_
remains. _Still the tears and blood of the enslaved are daily dropping
on our country’s soil._ Throw over it what veil of extenuation and
excuse you may, the essential crime and shame remains. Believe as kindly
as you can of the treatment which the slaves receive of humane and
Christian masters; it is only on condition that they first surrender
their every _right_ as men. Let them dare demur to that, and their tears
and blood must answer it. That is the terrible fact; and _our country_
is the abettor, the protector, and the agent of the iniquity. Must we be
indifferent? May we be indifferent? It is a question of tremendous
import to every freeman in the land, who honestly believes that the
rights he claims as a man are common to the race.

We used to be told, and are sometimes still, that this is a matter which
belongs to our Southern brethren exclusively, and that when we of the
Free States interfere with it, we meddle with that which is “none of our
business.” And there was a time, when this might be urged with a show of
consistency. It was when slavery claimed only to be a creature of State
legislation, and asked only of the national Government and the Free
States to be let alone. Even then, it had no right of exemption from the
rational scrutiny to which all human institutions are amenable, nor from
the rebuke and denouncement which all men may, in Heaven’s name, utter
against all iniquity done in the face of Heaven. But the _special_ right
of republican citizens to demand the correction of wrongs done by _their
own_ government, attached in the matter of slavery only to the citizens
of the slave States.

But a wonderful change has been passing before our eyes. The attitude of
slavery is entirely altered. It now claims to be nationalized. It
demands a distinct recognition and active protection from the general
government, and indirect, but most effectual support from every State in
the Union, and from every citizen thereof! The government has
acknowledged the validity of the claim; and our great political
leaders—some on whom we have been wont to rely as stalwart champions of
freedom—have turned short round in their tracks, and require us to
believe that we are _under constitutional obligations_ to help maintain
the accursed thing,—yea, through all future time, to do its most menial
work! Nor is the doctrine to be left in the dubious region of
speculation. It is already “a fixed fact,” terribly embodied in a penal
law. It enters the home of every Northern freeman, and announces in
thunder-tones this ancestral obligation, which had so strangely faded
from the recollections of men. It tolerates no dulness of apprehension,
no hesitancy of belief. It bids us all, on pain of imprisonments and
fines, to conquer our prejudices, to swallow our scruples, to be still
with our nonsensical humanities, and, “as good citizens,” to start out
at the whistle of a United States’ constable, to chase down miserable
negroes fleeing from the hell of bondage!

Slavery, then, has become _our_ business at last; and, as such, does it
not behove us to attend to it? I think, in the language of honest
Dogberry, that “that is proved already, and will go near to be thought
so shortly.” The thing lies in a nut-shell. Millard Fillmore is not our
master, but our servant. It is not his to prescribe duties, but ours;
and his to perform them. What he does, in his own person and by his
subordinate executive officers, he does for us, and on our
responsibility. What he does or they do, in other words, WE do; and we
must abide the reckoning. In this responsibility, the humblest citizen
bears his share, and cannot shirk it if he would. When, then, I see the
ministers of my country’s law consigning men with flesh and blood like
my own, with homes and business, with wives and children,

                As dear to them, as are the ruddy drops
                That visit their sad hearts,

men unaccused of crime, and eating the daily bread of honest
labour—consigning them, I say, and their posterity to hopeless
vassalage, and degrading chattelhood, by a process, too, which tramples
under foot the most ancient and sacred guarantees of my own and my
neighbour’s rights. When I see this great nation lay its terrible grasp
upon the throat of a feeble, unoffending man, and thrust him back to
worse than a felon’s fate for doing that which no casuistry can torture
into a crime, I am compelled to feel that _it is myself_ engaged in this
atrocious business; and no one but myself can rid me of the
responsibility. I can no longer be silent; I dare no longer be silent; I
will no longer be silent. I will remonstrate and cry, shame! I will
refuse to obey the law; I will demand to be released, and to have my
country released, from its odious requirements. I will vote, and
influence voters, and use every prerogative of freedom, to throw at
least from off my conscience a burden that it cannot bear. And who that
is worthy to be free himself, will blame me? To speak is no longer a
mere right; it has become a religious duty.

Let no man tell me, that this law is a mere dead letter. The old
Fugitive Law, had, indeed, become so; and so would any other be likely
to become, which, while grasping after the slave, should pay a decent
respect to the rights of the free. But slavery cannot subsist on any
such condition; and this law was framed to supply the deficiencies of
the old law, _and to accomplish the thing_. It is based on the
assumption that the government of the United States is bound to effect
the rendition of fugitives, if possible at all, _at whatever cost_. And,
if this law is insufficient, the assumption is equally good for still
more stringent measures. But I repeat it, let no man tell me it is _now_
a nullity. Have we not seen it executed in our streets, and at our very
doors? I chanced to be in the city of New York at the time when, I
think, its first victim, Henry Long, was torn from his family, and from
a reputable and profitable business, and sent back,—limbs, and brain,
and throbbing, loving heart—the husband, father, friend, the peaceful
and industrious member of society, all, to be the _property_ of a
fellow-mortal in a hostile land. Could I look upon this crimeless man,
thus in the grasp of the officers of my country’s laws, my own
representatives, and hurried unresisting to that dreadful doom; and ever
be able to believe the law innocuous, and myself guiltless while I
acquiesced in silence? The rabble followed him along the streets,
shouting in exultation at the negro’s fate. _Them_ I must acknowledge as
my fellows and brethren, but _him_—on him I must put my heel, with
theirs, to crush him out of manhood! And the morrow’s papers, edited by
professed Christians, heralded the occurrence, with not even a decent
pretence of pity and regret, but as a triumph of LAW, (O sacred name
profaned!) in which all good men should rejoice. That day I felt a
stifling sensation settling down upon me, of which my previous
experience had afforded no precedent, and with an oppressive weight
which no language can describe. _I felt that I no longer breathed the
air of liberty;_ that slavery was spreading her upas branches athwart
_my_ sky also. The convenient apology that the sin was not mine, but
another’s, no longer stood me in stead; and I have wondered ever since
to hear any honest Northern man employ it. There are Northern men, from
whom nothing could surprise me.

And what have we since witnessed? The inferior officers of the law
prowling throughout the North for victims on whom to enforce it. Their
superiors, even to the highest, labouring by speeches and proclamations
and journeyings to an fro in the land (is it too much to say?) to
_dragoon_ the people into its support. The national treasury thrown wide
open to meet its “extraordinary expenses.” Fanueil Hall hung in chains,
to ensure its execution. Presidential candidates vieing with each other
in expressions of attachment and fidelity to it. Able men, in Church and
State, spotted for proscription for no other sin than hating that law,
and daring to declare that hatred. And to crown the whole, the wisdom of
the nation, in Baltimore Conventions once and again assembled,
pronouncing the new doctrines of constitutional responsibility, with the
law that embodies it, not only a certainty, but—(hear it, O heavens!) a
_finality!_ A new word in the political vocabulary, and verily a new
thing in the earth! “Finality,” in the legislation of freemen! A
finality, that for ever precludes reconsideration, amendment, or repeal!
When such things are said, and gravely said, by men professing to be
American statesmen, I can almost imagine the fathers of my country
turning painfully in their graves. And can it be possible, that in the
same breath with which men assume to roll political responsibilities on
freemen, they dare require perpetual silence and unconsidering
submission thereto? Then, what is it to be free?

But let no one dream that these formidable pronouncements have any
enduring force. It is natural, that Southern statesmen should seek, by
every possible expedient, to keep out the flood of discussion from a
system which can so illy bear it. And it is not strange, that Northern
politicians should, for temporary purposes, assist them in the effort.
This is for a day; but the great tide of human thought flows on for
ever, and there is no spot from which it will be shut out. I remember
when the right of petition was denied by our Southern brethren, in
respect to this subject; and they found compliant tools enough from the
North to work with for a season. But was the right of petition
sacrificed? Of course not. And is the right of free discussion, the
right to make and (if we please) unmake our laws less precious? This
subject _will_ be agitated. This law will be reconsidered; and, if it is
not repealed, it will be for the same reasons that ensures the
continuance of other laws, namely, because it is able to sustain severe
and ever recurring scrutiny.

But what is to become of the Union meanwhile? One thing is very certain.
If it deliberately places itself in competition with those “blessings of
liberty,” which it was created to “secure,” it _ought_ to fall. Shall
the end be sacrificed to preserve the means, to which the end alone
gives value? And what are we to think of the statesmanship of those,
who, to effect that preservation, would force such an issue on a people
nursed at the breasts of freedom? I would rather die than live a traitor
to my country; but let me die _ten thousand_ deaths before I prove
treacherous to freedom and to God. “If this be treason, make the most of
it.”

But it is worse than idle to talk so. There is no such issue before the
nation. We are not compelled to choose between disunion and slavery; a
slavery, too, that would not only hold the black man in its remorseless
gripe, but put its fetters on the conscience of the white man, and its
gag into his mouth. Our Southern brethren themselves, even to save their
cherished institution, would not dare, would not desire to press such an
alternative. Were it so, who would not be ready to surrender the Union
as valueless to him, and to part company with Southrons as men unworthy
to be free? But it is not so. There are Hotspurs, doubtless, enough of
them at the South; and Jehus, too many, at the North. And there are
cunning politicians to stand between the two sections, and play upon the
prejudices of both, and into each other’s hands, for selfish ends. But
the great heart of the nation, North and South, on the whole and
according to the measure of its understanding, beats true alike to
freedom and the constitution,—true to that immortal sentiment which, as
long as this nation endures, shall encircle its author’s name with a
halo, in whose splendour some later words that have fallen from his lips
will be happily lost and forgotten: “Liberty _and_ Union, now and for
ever, one and inseparable.” Whatever differences there may be as to the
nature, conditions, and obligations of freedom, or as to the intent and
meaning of the constitution, no party among the people will refuse to
submit them to the ordeal of discussion, and the arbitrament of the
appointed tribunals.

While this is so, let him be deemed the traitor, who stands up before
the world, and belies his country by declaring it to be otherwise. And
let every man prepare to enter into those discussions which no human
power can now stave off, in a spirit of intelligent candour and
kindness, but, at the same time of inflexible fidelity to God and man.

[Signature: J. H. Raymond]




                                PLACIDO.


The true wealth and glory of a nation consist not in its gold dust, nor
in its commerce, nor in the grandeur of its palaces, nor yet in the
magnificence of its cities,—but in the intellectual and moral energy of
its people. Egypt is more glorious because of her carrying into Greece
the blessings of civilization, than because of her Pyramids, however
wondrous, her lakes and labyrinths, however stupendous, or her Thebes,
though every square marked a palace, or every alley a dome. Who hears of
the moneyed men of Athens, of Rome? And who does _not_ hear of Socrates,
of Plato, of Demosthenes, of Virgil, of Cicero? Are you in converse with
him of the “Sea-girt Isle,” and would touch the chord that vibrates most
readily in his heart?—then talk to him of Shakspeare, of Milton, of
Cowper, of Bacon, of Newton; of Burns, of Scott. To the intelligent son
of the “Emerald Isle,” talk of Curran, of Emmett, of O’Connell.

Great men are a nation’s vitality. Nations pass away,—great men, never.
Great men are not unfrequently buried in dungeons or in obscurity; but
they work out great thoughts for all time, nevertheless. Did not Bunyan
work out a great thought all-vital and vitalizing, when he lay twelve
years in Bedford jail, weaving his tagged lace, and writing his
Pilgrim’s Progress? The greatest man in all America is now in obscurity.
It is he who is “_the Lord of his own soul_,” on whose brow wisdom has
marked her supremacy, and who, in his sphere, moves

                “Stilly as a star, on his eternal way.”

A great writer hath said, “Nature is stingy of her great men.” I do not
believe it. God doeth all his work fitly and well; how, therefore, could
he give us great men, not plentifully, but stingily? The truth is, there
are great men, and they are plentiful,—plentiful for the times, I
mean,—but we do not see them, because we will not come into the
sun-light of truth and rectitude where, and where only, dwelleth
greatness.

Placido was a great man. He was a great poet besides. He was a patriot,
also,—how could he be otherwise? Are not all poets patriots?

“Adios Mundo,” cried he, as with tear-bedimmed eyes he looked up into
the blue heavens above him, and upon the green earth beneath him; and
upon the portals of the universe read wisdom, majesty, and power. Was
there no poetry in this outburst of a full heart, and in this looking
upward to heaven? “Adios Mundo,” cried he, as now beholding, for the
last time, the home of his love,—he bared his bosom to the death-shot of
the soldiers.

Great was Placido in life,—he was greater still in death. His was the
faith which fastens itself upon the EVERLASTING I AM.

Call you that greatness which Pizarro achieved when, seizing a sword and
drawing a line upon the sand from east to west, he himself facing the
south, he said to his band of pirates—“_Friends, comrades, on that side
are toil, hunger, nakedness, the drenching storm, desertion, and death;
on this side, ease and pleasure. There lies Peru with its richness; here
Panama with its poverty. Choose each man what best becomes a brave
Castillian. For my part I go to the south_;”—suiting the action to the
word? So do I,—but look ye, this is merely the greatness of overwhelming
energy and concentrated purpose, not illuminated by a single ray of
light from the Divine. See here, how Placido dwarfeth Pizarro when he
thus prayeth,

          “God of unbounded love, and power eternal!
            To Thee I turn in darkness and despair;
          Stretch forth Thine arm, and from the brow infernal
            Of calumny the veil of justice tear!

                 ·       ·       ·       ·       ·
          O, King of kings!—my father’s God!—who only
            Art strong to save, by whom is all controlled,—
          Who giv’st the sea its waves, the dark and lonely
            Abyss of heaven its light, the North its cold,
          The air its currents, the warm sun its beams,
            Life to the flowers, and motion to the streams:

          All things obey Thee; dying or reviving
            As Thou commandest; all apart from Thee,
          From Thee alone their life and power deriving,
            Sink and are lost in vast eternity!

                 ·       ·       ·       ·       ·

          O, merciful God! I cannot shun Thy presence,
            For through its veil of flesh, Thy piercing eye
          Looketh upon my spirit’s unsoiled essence,
            As through the pure transparence of the sky;
          Let not the oppressor clap his bloody hands,
          As o’er my prostrate innocence he stands.

                 ·       ·       ·       ·       ·

          But if, alas, it seemeth good to Thee
            That I should perish as the guilty dies,
          Still, fully in me, Thy will be done, O God!”

Placido had a symmetrically developed character. All great men have
this. His intellectual and moral nature blended harmoniously as

                      “Kindred elements into one.”

An ancient philosopher hath said that the passions and the soul are
placed in the same body, so that the passions might have ready
opportunity to persuade the soul to become subservient to their purpose.
A terrible conflict. And yet through it Placido passed triumphantly.

Placido was born a slave on the island of Cuba, on the plantation of Don
Terribio De Castro. The year of his birth I am unable to give, but it
must have been somewhere between the years 1790 and 1800. He was of
African origin. But little is known of his earliest days save that he
was of gentle demeanor, and wore an aspect which, though mild, indicated
the working of great thoughts within. He was allowed some little
advantage of education in his youth, and he evinced great poetic genius.
The prayer just quoted was composed by him while he lay in prison, and
repeated on his way from his dungeon to his place of execution.

The Heraldo, a leading journal of Havanna, thus spoke of him after his
arrest:—

“Placido is a celebrated poet,—a man of great genius, but too wild and
ambitious. His object was to subdue Cuba, and make himself the chief.”

The following lines, also, were found inscribed upon the walls of his
dungeon. They were written on the day previous to his execution.

          “O Liberty! I wait for thee,
            To break this chain, and dungeon bar;
          I hear thy voice calling me,
            Deep in the frozen North, afar,
        With voice like God’s, and vision like a star.

          Long cradled in the mountain wind,
            Thy mates, the eagle and the storm:
          Arise; and from thy brow unbind
            The wreath that gives its starry form,
        And smite the strength, that would thy strength deform.

          Yet Liberty; thy dawning light,
            Obscured by dungeon bars, shall cast
          A splendour on the breaking night,
            And tyrants, flying thick and fast,
        Shall tremble at thy gaze, and stand aghast.”

In poetic feeling, patriotic spirit, living faith, and withal in
literary beauty, these lines are not surpassed; and they cannot fail to
rank Placido not only with the great-hearted, but with the gifted men of
the earth. A tribute to his genius is recorded in the fact, that he was
ransomed from slavery by the contributions of slave-holders of Cuba.

Placido was executed on the 7th of July, 1844. On the first fire of the
soldiers, no ball entered his heart. He looked up, but with no spirit of
revenge, no aspect of defiance,—only sat upon his countenance the desire
to pass at once into the region where no death is.

“Pity me,” said he, “and fire here,”—putting his hand upon his heart.
Two balls then entered his body, and Placido fell.

As Wordsworth said of Touissant, so may it be said of Placido,—

                       “Thou hast left behind thee
           Powers that work for thee; air, earth, and skies.
           There’s not a breathing of the common wind
           That will forget thee; thou hast great allies,
           Thy friends are exultations, agonies,
           A love, and man’s unconquerable mind.”

The charge against Placido was, that he was at the head of a conspiracy
to overthrow slavery in his native island. Blessings on thee, Placido!
Nor didst thou fail of thy mission. Did the martyrs, stake-bound, fail
of theirs? As the Lord liveth, Cuba shall yet be free.

That Placido was at the head of this conspiracy there is not a doubt;
but what his plans in detail were, I know not; the means of acquiring
them are not within my reach. Nevertheless, from the treatment
throughout of the Cuban authorities towards Placido, we may safely
conclude that Placido’s plan in detail evinced no lack of ability to
originate and execute, nor of that sagacity which should mark a
revolutionary leader. Placido hated slavery with a hatred intensified by
the remembrance of wrongs which a loving and loved mother had borne. The
iron, too, had entered into his own soul; and he had been a daily
witness of scenes such as torment itself could scarcely equal, nor the
pit itself outdo. Call you this extravagance? You will not,—should you
but study a single chapter in the history of Cuban slavery.

Do you honour Kossuth?—then forget not him who is worthy to stand side
by side with Hungary’s illustrious son.

What may be the destiny of Cuba in the future near at hand, I will not
venture to predict. What may be her _ultimate_ destiny is written in the
fact that,—“God hath no attribute which, in a contest between the
oppressed and the oppressor, can take sides with the latter.”

This sketch, though hastily written, and meagre in detail as it must
necessarily be, will show, at least, by the quotations of poetry
introduced, that God hath not given to one race alone, all intellectual
and moral greatness.

[Signature: Wm G. Allen]




                 TO THE FRIENDS OF NEGRO EMANCIPATION.


The following powerful Appeal, reprinted from the “_Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Almanack_,” will not, it is hoped, be deemed an inappropriate
termination of this most interesting Volume:

  Many of the interpreters of prophecy consider that England is one of
  “the ten horns” of the beast, or Roman power, referred to by the
  Apostle John. It is also allowed that, in the highly figurative and
  varied language of Scripture, the monster of the Apocalypse is the
  same as the image of Daniel, whose feet were partly strong and
  partly fragile. In a being that has to stand, walk, fight, and run,
  very much depends upon the lower members. The physical man of Louis
  XVIII. was very kingly as far as his hips, but his extremities were
  feeble, and it was a poor affair when he attempted to walk. Now this
  is the very spirit of Daniel’s description of the Roman power. It
  had no good legs and feet to stand upon, for they were part of iron
  and part of clay, partly strong and partly fragile. As a limb of old
  Rome, we are at present in this very predicament. Thank God, we have
  a great deal of “_iron_” among us, both metallic, mental, and moral;
  but we have an enormous quantity of the old Pagan “_clay_,” and
  hence our strength and our weakness.

  Passing over a host of subjects which might illustrate what we have
  just stated, we now refer only to the _slavery question_. Here we
  are strong, and we are also feeble. The twenty millions we paid for
  the emancipation of our slaves in the West Indies was one of the
  most generous acts of the nation, especially if we consider the
  burden of taxation under which we were then groaning. Such a
  sacrifice at the shrine of cupidity, for the noble and glorious
  object of bursting the yoke of the captive, exhibited no small
  degree of moral principle and power. But some beheld in this
  munificent price the “clay” blended with the “iron.” Not a few of
  the anti-slavery labourers were growing tired of the agitation. The
  task had been an arduous one—had demanded considerable toil and
  incurred much odium. The philanthropists were stigmatised as “_the
  saints_,” as “_canting hypocrites_,” and by other terms equally
  expressive of the ire and malignity of their opponents; and while
  there were numbers among us who were willing to suffer any kind of
  martyrdom in this good cause, there was a still greater multitude
  who had been galvanised, rather than vitally quickened into
  activity, and longed, from the inert characters of their hearts and
  benevolence, to relapse again into their wonted apathy. The money
  therefore was paid down quite as much to release these worried
  philanthropists from travail, as to meet any supposed equitable
  claim of the slave-holder; and no sooner was the contract of
  emancipation sealed than these soldiers of humanity threw off their
  armour, and retired from the fray; and hence, though slavery has
  been abolished in our colonies, it has been allowed to vegetate and
  grow in the United States and elsewhere.

  Now all this showed that we were not sound at heart. Because the
  negroes perishing under the iron sceptre of the American Republican
  were just as much “our bone and our flesh” as the victims of West
  Indian bondage. It is true we had more control over the condition of
  the one than the other, because the one was our fellow-subject, and
  the other was not; but still this very fact, instead of being a
  reason for inactivity, ought to have furnished a motive for more
  energetic operations. Even the brutish horse puts forth extra
  strength when the burden increases, or when a hill is to be climbed;
  and we need scarcely add that generally among beasts and men the
  greater the foe the more vigorous the effort to overcome him; but,
  strange to say, in the anti-slavery cause, we reversed this common
  mode of proceeding, and, because the enemy was powerful, our
  exertions to vanquish him became proportionably feeble! We know that
  many will ask what could we have done? But then the very question
  betrays the state of their hearts. True philanthropy is never at a
  loss for expedients to accomplish her benevolent purpose, and
  therefore never retires because there is a lion or a mountain in the
  way. Its faith can stop the mouth of the one, or slay him
  altogether, and remove the other into the midst of the sea. Before
  we close this paper, we shall, perhaps, show that if we had not been
  weary in well doing, we might have brought an immense amount of
  influence against American slavery, which, long before this, would
  have produced the most happy results.

  There was one circumstance which especially contributed to paralyse
  our efforts for the emancipation of American slaves. Just about the
  time that we liberated our brethren in the British colonies, we
  heard a great deal about revivals of religion in the United States,
  and we were told that the Spirit from on high was poured out on
  transatlantic churches and congregations in almost Pentecostal
  abundance; and what was more astonishing, the slave-holders were
  said to be remarkably favoured with these supposed tokens of Divine
  favour. The writer remembers that in those days, when he was about
  to offer some remarks at an anti-slavery meeting, he was called
  aside by a minister of religion, and especially reminded of the
  great piety of many of the slave-owners, and therefore exhorted to
  be very tender in his animadversions! He was allowed to be as severe
  as he pleased on the poor ignorant, blind, dead, unconverted
  traffickers in human flesh! but the enlightened, pious, spiritual
  holders of slaves were, forsooth, to be treated with the utmost
  lenity!! Our Saviour’s rule was thus to be reversed; for he who knew
  his Lord’s will and did things worthy of stripes, was to be beaten
  with _few_ stripes! but he who knew _not_ his Lord’s will, was to be
  beaten with _many_ stripes!!

  That the people of England should have allowed themselves to be
  duped in this manner, is almost equal to an eighth wonder of the
  world. Why, there is as great probability that the Holy Spirit will
  be poured out upon Satan as upon men and women who for “paltry pelf”
  hold their brethren in bondage. Had such a phenomenon taken place,
  the very first fruit would have been the breaking “of every yoke.”
  Strange that people who read the New Testament should have supposed
  that the Holy Ghost could have been granted to the worst of tyrants
  without destroying their tyranny and rendering them abolitionists. A
  real Christian man never “confers with flesh and blood.” Poverty,
  dungeons, racks, losses, and tortures of every kind, are cheerfully
  endured in the cause of humanity, justice, liberty, and religion,
  and therefore a slave-holder endued with the special influences of
  the Holy Spirit would instantly have braved penury and death rather
  than have continued to retain in bondage his poor brethren and
  sisters.

  The sum and substance of all true religion is love to God and love
  to man, and when the Spirit is poured out on any individual or body
  of individuals, he sheds abroad the love of God in the heart; and
  this invariably exhibits itself in benevolence of life. The apostle
  John is plain even to what some would call bluntness on this matter.
  “If a man say ‘I love God,’ and hateth his brother, he is a _liar_:
  for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he
  love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from
  him, that he who loveth God, loves his brother also.” Now the negro
  is both “_neighbour_” and “_brother_” to his master, and unless his
  owner loves him as he loves himself, he has no real religion, and
  not one particle of evidence that the Spirit has been poured out
  upon him, or that the love of God has been shed abroad in his heart
  by the Holy Ghost. It was therefore the height of absurdity to talk
  of a revival of religion in the heart of any one so long as he held
  his brother in bondage; because he does not love him as he loves
  himself, and consequently is a stranger to the love of God and to
  vital Christianity. Love to our brother, prompting us to give him
  equal rights and blessings with ourselves, whatever may be his
  colour or country, is a perfect window to the soul, and renders the
  heart transparent. On the contrary, the plain language of John,
  which we have just quoted, assures us that every individual who
  professes to love God while he does not love his brother, is “a
  _liar_.” And it must be remembered that the love of which John
  speaks is not that sickly sort of charity which will bestow a few
  pence or privileges on a brother while we rob him of liberty and his
  natural rights, but it is that “perfect love” which loves every
  human being as we love ourselves, and will make any sacrifice for
  the purpose of developing this love.

  We may congratulate the real friends of emancipation on the progress
  of public opinion in this affair. Our churches refuse communion with
  slave-holders. We deny their Christianity. Their deeds show that
  they are strangers to the love of God. They have not learnt the A B
  C of the Gospel: they sacrifice everything to gain. Mammon is their
  god, and to enrich themselves and their families they traffic in
  human flesh and blood. They do violence to every natural affection
  which Jehovah has implanted in the human soul, and thus offer one of
  the greatest insults to the Majesty of Heaven. The great curse of
  the slave is that God has created him a human being. He suffers
  severely from the chain, the scourge, and other instruments of
  cruelty; but the greatest of all torments is his possession of a
  heart. Slaves, to be happy, ought to be created without any
  susceptibilities. Love is the cement of society, and the angel which
  blesses all the relations of life. A world of love would be a second
  paradise, and the bright reflection of heaven and of the Deity. “God
  is love.” No tongue can tell, no heart can conceive the unspeakable
  blessings and joys which spring from the tender affections of
  parents, children, husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, and friends.
  What would life be without these? God has so constituted us that
  there can be no real happiness without love; and yet this precious
  feeling, which comes to us fresh from the heart of the Deity,
  constitutes the Negro’s hell upon earth. Talk of racks, dungeons,
  thumb-screws, and other tortures of the Inquisition, slavery
  embodies them all. To tear relatives from relatives, and friends
  from friends; to sever the brother from the sister, the husband from
  the wife, and the child from its mother, inflicts far more suffering
  on the soul than any outward scourge can lay on the body.
  Consequently slavery is the monster of monsters, and the
  slave-holder is the head and chief of all tyrants who have ever
  cursed the world. He shall therefore no longer stand before us in
  the garb of Christianity, but shall be exhibited to the world as the
  lowest, worst, and basest of all criminals, and as such he shall be
  refused the right hand of fellowship, and expelled from the pale of
  the Christian Church.

  Nothing has ever augured better for the cause of emancipation than
  the popularity of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” The benevolent authoress has
  thrown so many bewitching charms into her narrative, that she has
  fascinated every one, and may justly be called the Enchantress of
  the age. She is read by all ranks and classes. We are amused
  everywhere by the sight of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” We meet the little
  British National Schoolboy going home and reading his “Uncle Tom,”
  as affording him greater amusement than his hoop, his top, or his
  marbles. And we find the grave divine and scholar, in the
  first-class railway carriage, with his more costly “Uncle Tom.” We
  see the lady in her chariot, who has gone out for a ride to enjoy
  the scenery, and taste the breeze of heaven, beguiled from
  surrounding objects by the touching pages of Mrs. Stowe. We have
  witnessed a whole family of children to turn from every other
  pursuit and amusement to enjoy this mental and moral treat. It has
  come with them to their meals, and yielded them such a repast that
  the luxuries of the table were almost unheeded. And then the
  servants also sought it at every interval, and read it with avidity
  by stealth. In a word, it is the favourite of the saint and the
  sinner, the sage and the frivolous, the believer and the unbeliever,
  the young and the old, the grave and the gay, the learned and the
  illiterate, the rude and the polished, the sad and the cheerful. And
  nothing could be more opportune for the cause of humanity. Mrs.
  Stowe must hereafter take her stand by the side of Clarkson,
  Wilberforce, and others, as one of the chief instruments raised up
  by Providence to burst the fetters of the slave, and let the
  oppressed go free.

  We trust, indeed we feel sure, that the slumbering embers of
  anti-slavery zeal will, by means of this volume, be kindled into
  active power. We have influence enough among us to move the world on
  this topic, and all that we require is cooperation and union. The
  pulpit, the press, and the platform must speak out once more, and by
  its thunders shake the whole world of slavery. Already the old theme
  is firing the British heart. Week after week the _Morning
  Advertiser_ appeals and instructs and arouses. Nor has it laboured
  in vain. Far and near the friends of the slave look to it as their
  tower of strength. In America we have a goodly number of
  abolitionists as our fellow-helpers, and “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” will
  increase them a thousandfold. The book speaks to the intellect, the
  reason, and the heart. Women are said to possess an innate power of
  arriving at truth, without employing the tedious metaphysics of men,
  and here we have a glorious example. In “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” we have
  logic stripped of its dryness, and clothed with all the charms of
  romance. We would as soon believe in the power of the planters to
  reverse the revolutions of the planets as to resist the influence of
  Mrs. Stowe. The voice of humanity is the voice of God, and is
  essentially omnipotent. As a punishment for not having listened to
  this divine oracle, the slave-holders must have the humiliation of
  being vanquished by a woman. And, after all, what more natural than
  that the woes of our race should owe their softest, sweetest, and
  consequently most powerful, utterances to the heart of the sex which
  was created to bless the world with its tenderest sympathies.

  We are thus placed on a vantage ground from which it would be base
  to retire, especially as we have been raised thus high by the talent
  and benevolence of a female. Christian chivalry has now open before
  it a race of glory, compared with which the tilts and tournaments of
  the olden time are the veriest trifles. The whole country is
  baptised with anti-slavery zeal, just ready to burst forth in every
  possible way to emancipate the slave. We must have public meetings
  everywhere.

  The “braying of Exeter Hall,” like the ass of Balaam, has, in ten
  thousand instances, rebuked the madness of our modern false
  prophets, who, from love of filthy lucre, have gone forth to curse
  God’s Israel, because they have left the house of bondage. It is
  only for the friends of humanity once more to gird themselves for
  their work, and in a few years there will be another and more
  extensive triumph over the foes of liberty and the negro.

  We can also expostulate. The life of William Allen shows how
  powerful the voice of an unofficial individual may be, when that
  voice is the voice of reason, justice, and philanthropy. He brought
  the tyrants of Europe on their knees before the Majesty of Heaven,
  and there constrained them to ameliorate the laws which oppressed
  their subjects. Why should not the diplomacy of England be
  christianised? If this had been done years ago, we might have
  converted Napoleon into a man of peace, and saved the nation a
  thousand millions of taxation. Humanity is the genius of economy.
  Christian diplomacy would long ago have burst the fetters of the
  continent, and could now effect wonders in every part of the globe.
  It is left with the electors to say, whether foreign ambassadors,
  consuls, &c., shall continue to be the mere minions of mammon, or
  become the missionaries of justice and philanthropy. But supposing
  we failed here, there is power beyond that of bureaucratic
  officials; the denunciations we utter against the rulers of the
  slave will be carried by the birds of the air to the ears of these
  tyrants, and make their hearts quiver and knees shake like those of
  Belshazzar. The words of justice require no patent from courts to
  render them authoritative. The stamp of Heaven is upon them, and
  though spoken by a Paul in chains, they pierce the hearts of despots
  and make them tremble. We mistake if we suppose that conscience is
  altogether dead in the souls of slave-holders. Heaven has decreed
  that the wretch who is deaf to the small still voice of duty and
  mercy, shall be horrified by the thunders of guilt, and feel a hell
  within. “Haley,” hoping to cheat the devil when he has made his
  fortune; and “Legree” trembling for fear of ghosts and hobgoblins,
  are no creatures of fiction, but the truthful delineations of the
  conscious degradation and forebodings of the trader in human blood.

  And further, cannot _consistency_ utter a plea? There is nothing,
  perhaps, at which men labour more earnestly than to appear
  consistent. But what fellowship can there be between liberty and
  slavery? Slavery is a foul blot on the escutcheon of the United
  States; and every patriotic American feels it to be so. Here, in the
  land of liberty, Freedom receives her deepest wound in the house of
  her vaunting friends. The enemies of tyranny over the world are
  taunted with the despotism of the American democrat. The infidel of
  our day draws his most potent arguments from the vices and faults of
  professing Christians; and the advocates of despotism act in the
  same manner, and procure their artillery from the barbarism of
  American slave-holders. We must then assail this inconsistency until
  the guilty parties blush and are ashamed. The continual dropping of
  water will wear away stones, and the persevering reiterations of
  truth shall eventually prevail, and make even slave-holders relent
  and listen to the voice of consistency and humanity.

  We have had among us glorious specimens of what the slave can be. To
  those who talk of his inferior powers and limited rights, we point
  to such men as Frederick Douglass, Wells Brown, Henson, Garnett, and
  Dr. Pennington. It was our privilege to enter the hall at
  Heidelberg, just as the academy conferred on Dr. Pennington his
  diploma. And is this the man that the slave-holder would sell as he
  would a horse or bullock? What is the reply of humanity to this
  question? I need not dwell on the mind, talents, and piety of Brown,
  Henson, or Garnett. The country has long since borne witness to
  these. Exeter-hall has often resounded with the loftiest strains of
  eloquence, but never has it listened to a more intellectual,
  eloquent, and soul-stirring tongue, than that of Frederick Douglass,
  and yet this is the man, on whose head the planters have set a
  price, because he obeyed the voice of nature and of God in running
  away from the horrors of slavery. But why advance these examples?
  There is not a field of slaves, a slave-market, or a negro cabin,
  but proclaims the equality of the African with the rest of the human
  family. The tears, cries, and broken hearts which every separation
  by the dealer occasions, proclaim that the sympathies of the slave
  are equal to those of the rest of mankind. Every argument used by
  these sons and daughters of bondage, every prayer they offer, every
  speech they make, and every sermon they preach, prove that all the
  essentials of soul belong to them in as much native richness as to
  us. ’Tis true everything has been done to degrade them. The
  cruelties practised by Simon the cobbler to deprave and demoralise
  the Dauphin of France, and which awakened the execration of the
  world, are every day being followed by the planters of America. What
  if any of us had had the sphere of our knowledge contracted to the
  smallest span, and our language confined to a few words of the most
  outlandish _patois_, is there one man among us that would surpass
  them in their present condition? Where would Milton, Shakspeare, or
  Newton have been under such training? Considering the debasing
  education to which they have been doomed, the slaves are our equals,
  if not our superiors; every part of their history shows the truth of
  the words of our poet—

                 “Fleecy locks and black complexion,
                   Cannot forfeit Nature’s claim;
                 Skins may differ, but affection
                   Dwells in black and white the same;

                 Deem our nation brutes no longer,
                   Till some reason ye shall find,
                 Worthier of regard and stronger
                   Than the colour of our kind.

                 Slaves of gold, whose sordid dealings
                   Tarnish all your boasted powers,
                 Prove that you have human feelings
                   Ere you proudly question ours.”

  The passing of “The Fugitive Slave Bill” adds strength to our cause.
  This measure has shocked every human heart; it has libelled
  humanity; it has sunk the Republican below most of the tyrants that
  have ever scourged society; it has insulted the world, and
  blasphemed the Eternal. It commands and compels free men to become
  informers and kidnappers, and thus degrades them below the meanest
  of our race. It is an attempt to render freedom the slave of
  slavery. A viler law has never degraded any statute book. However,
  its iniquity and its cruelty have aroused thousands to action who
  before were asleep; and when the history of the emancipation of
  American slaves shall be written, the narrator will triumphantly
  relate that the infamous “Fugitive Slave Bill” very greatly hastened
  this glorious consummation.

  We have also another material aid in the clerical teachings of
  pro-slavery priests and preachers. We shall hereafter have to thank
  Dr. Spring, of New York; Dr. Parker, of Philadelphia; Dr. Stuart, of
  Andover; Dr. Spencer, of Brooklyn; the Right Rev. Bishop Hopkins, of
  Vermont; and a host of other reverends; for their advocacy of the
  cause of slavery. This outrage on Christianity by its own ministers
  has shocked the whole Christian world. Even the planters despise
  these sycophants. To hear men in the sacred desk, and in the name of
  the Redeemer of the world, advocate a system which cherishes
  ignorance, vice, debauchery, dishonesty, and murder, out-Herods
  anything that was ever taught by the most depraved heathens and
  infidels. Even Pagans had their dark groves and other midnight
  recesses for their sensual orgies. No atheist or barbarian has yet
  taught that the infant should be torn from the breast of its mother,
  and sold like a swine to the murderous dealer in human flesh. It was
  left for the 19th century, and doctors of divinity in a Christian
  garb, to arrive at this decree of blasphemy, impiety, and
  immorality. Well, we thank them for their teachings, we congratulate
  them for their boldness in iniquity, and we will repeat their
  sayings until we make every ear in Christendom tingle with their
  presumption and inhumanity.

  We have thus briefly shown that the friends of the slave have every
  thing on their side, and may now make a noble stand in the cause of
  liberty. Providence is remarkably appearing on their behalf, and
  pointing out the path of duty and victory. “Is not the Lord gone up
  before us.” As far as England is concerned, the odium of an
  anti-slavery movement has passed away. “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” has
  rekindled the zeal of the lukewarm, and baptized with holy fire
  myriads who before cared nothing for the negro. Let us only do our
  duty, and this foul blot on humanity and daring insult to the Deity
  shall ere long become the history of a by-gone age; and a few years
  hence the system shall be deemed too monstrous to be believed but as
  a myth of some misanthrope who felt a malignant pleasure in
  libelling his species.


                     [ENTERED AT STATIONERS’ HALL.]


                      John Cassell, Ludgate-hill.

-----

Footnote 1:

  A son of that distinguished friend of humanity, WILLIAM WILBERFORCE.

Footnote 2:

  “Take counsel, execute judgment; make thy shadow as the night in the
  midst of the noon-day; hide the outcasts; bewray not him that
  wandereth. Let my outcasts dwell with thee, Moab; be thou a covert to
  them, from the face of the spoiler.”—Isaiah xvi. 3, 4.

Footnote 3:

  “Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not
  to me.”—_Jesus Christ._ Matt. xxv. 45.

Footnote 4:

  “Is it not that thou deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring
  the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked
  that thou cover him? and that thou hide not thyself from thine own
  flesh?” “If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the
  putting forth of the finger, and speaking of vanity,” &c.—Isaiah
  lviii. 6–9.

Footnote 5:

  “Therefore, all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you,
  do ye even so to them; for this is the law and the prophets.”—_Jesus
  Christ._ Matt. vii. 12.

Footnote 6:

  “Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant which is escaped
  from his master unto thee. He shall dwell with thee; even among you in
  that place which he shall choose, in one of thy gates, where it liketh
  him best; thou shalt not oppress him.”—Deut. xxiii. 15, 16.

Footnote 7:

  “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”—Lev. xix. 18; Matt. xix.
  19.

Footnote 8:

  “Hearken unto me, ye that know righteousness; the people in whose
  heart is my law: fear yet not the reproach of men, neither be ye
  afraid of their revilings. For the moth shall eat them up like a
  garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool; but my righteousness
  shall be for ever, and my salvation from generation to
  generation.”—Isaiah li. 7, 8.

Footnote 9:

  “Ye that love the Lord, hate evil.”—Ps. xcvii. 10. “The fear of the
  Lord is to hate evil.”—Prov. viii. 13.

Footnote 10:

  “Who art thou, that thou shouldst be afraid of a man? * * * And
  forgettest the Lord thy Maker, * * * and has feared continually every
  day, because of the fury of the oppressor, as if he were ready to
  destroy? And where is the fury of the oppressor?”—Isa. li. 12, 13, 14.

Footnote 11:

  “We ought to obey God rather than men.”—Acts v. 29.

Footnote 12:

  “The captive exile hasteth that he maybe loosed,” &c.—Isa. li. 15.

Footnote 13:

  Haynau.

Footnote 14:

  Editor of the _Glasgow Courier_. Poor Motherwell! I have it from a
  mutual friend that he sympathised _with_ the cause of Freedom, while
  paid to write against it.

Footnote 15:

  Daniel Webster’s oration, at the laying the corner-stone of Bunker
  Hill Monument, 17 June, 1825.

Footnote 16:

  Daniel Webster’s speech in the Senate of the U. S., 7 March, 1850.

Footnote 17:

  Daniel Webster’s speech at the Capron Springs, Virginia, 1851.

Footnote 18:

  It is vain to say that rich governments cannot, and do not, offer
  effective temptations to clever and eloquent men, whose religious
  views differ from the national form, to induce them to adopt the
  latter.

Footnote 19:

  Congress, the legislative department, and, of course, the judicial,
  its interpreter, were intended to be founded on such undoubted
  principles of liberty, that it would be difficult for them to use
  their everywhere acknowledged rights, and perform their everywhere
  expected duties, without first putting aside the strongest impediment
  to their exercise—slavery. In our judgment this has been done. There
  is no truth in public law more certain than that protection and
  allegiance are reciprocal. They must exist together or not at all. The
  power of the United States is adequate for the protection of all
  within her limits, and from all within them she expects allegiance. If
  she is informed, in any way to be relied on, that any person is
  restrained of his rights under the constitution of the United States,
  it is her duty to see him set at liberty, if he be confined, and see
  that he is redressed. It is in vain for Congress to excuse itself from
  acting, by saying that it is a State concern. Can a citizen of the
  United States, if he be a citizen, be tortured or tormented by a
  State, when there is no pretence that he has violated the law of
  either?

  The constitution of the United States authorises no man to hold
  another as a slave. The United States has no power to hold a slave. It
  matters not that it was _intended_ to allow some to hold others as
  their slaves. A very vile person may _intend_ to lock up in prison an
  innocent and just one, but through mistake he leaves the door
  unlocked; does this, in the eyes of any reasonable men, prevent his
  making his escape through the door? We are certain not. The only
  proper inquiry here is, which is supreme, the government of the Union,
  or the government of a particular State of it? It is not necessary to
  answer this. If the first deal with no one as a slave, the subordinate
  cannot by law. Persons may be held as slaves by fraud, by cunning, by
  taking advantage of the ignorance in which we hold them by force, or a
  successful combination of force, but not by LAW.

Footnote 20:

  “Our house stood within a few rods of the Chesapeake bay, whose broad
  bosom was ever white with sails from every quarter of the habitable
  globe. Those beautiful vessels, robed in purest white, so delightful
  to the eye of freemen, were to me so many shrouded ghosts to terrify
  and torment me with thoughts of my wretched condition. I have often,
  in the deep stillness of a summer’s Sabbath, stood all alone upon the
  lofty banks of that noble bay, and traced, with saddened heart and
  tearful eye, the countless number of sails moving off to the mighty
  ocean. The sight of these always affected me powerfully. My thoughts
  would compel utterance; and then, with no audience but the Almighty, I
  would pour out my soul’s complaint, in my rude way, with an apostrophe
  to the moving multitude of ships:—

  “You are loosed from your moorings, and are free; I am fast in my
  chains, and am a slave! You move merrily before the gentle gale, and I
  sadly before the bloody whip! You are freedom’s swift-winged angels
  that fly around the world; I am confined in bands of iron! O that I
  were free! O that I were on one of your gallant decks, and under your
  protecting wing! Alas! betwixt me and you the turbid waters roll. Go
  on, go on. O that I could also go! Could I but swim! If I could fly!
  O, why was I born a man, of whom to make a brute! The glad ship is
  gone; she hides in the dim distance. I am left in the hottest hell of
  unending slavery. O God, save me! God, deliver me! Let me be free! Is
  there any God? Why am I a slave? I will run away. * * * Only think of
  it; one hundred miles straight north, and I am free! Try it? Yes! God
  helping me, I will. It cannot be that I shall live and die a
  slave. * * *”—_Autobiography of Douglass_, pp. 64, 65.

Footnote 21:

  “There was no getting rid of it [the thought of his condition]. It was
  pressed upon me by every object within sight or hearing, animate or
  inanimate. The silver trump of freedom had roused my soul to eternal
  wakefulness. Freedom now appeared, to disappear no more for ever. It
  was heard in every sound, and seen in everything. It was ever present
  to torment me with a sense of my wretched condition. I saw nothing
  without seeing it, I heard nothing without hearing it, and felt
  nothing without feeling it. It looked from every star; it smiled in
  every calm, breathed in every wind, and moved in every
  storm.”—_Autobiography_, pp. 40, 41.

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                   THE ABOLITIONIST MEMENTO FOR 1853;

  With Splendid Illustrations by G. CRUIKSHANK, Esq.; J. GILBERT, Esq.;
    W. HARVEY, Esq.; H. K. BROWNE, Esq. (“Phiz”); and other eminent
    Artists.

_The most complete Work on the Question of Slavery that has hitherto
been published._

☞ Everybody who has read “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” should possess themselves
of a copy of this Book, which more than verifies all the statements in
Mrs. Stowe’s thrilling narrative.

This Almanack, while affording all the information common to Almanacks,
furnishes abundant demonstration of the truth of the statements made in
Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s popular Work, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” and
includes Narratives of the most striking Incidents in the Lives of Negro
Slaves, such as Frederick Douglass, Rev. J. Pennington, D.D., Lewis
Clarke, W. Wells Brown, Rev. J. Henson, M. Clarke, Gustavus Vassa,
Ignatius Sancho, Toussaint L’Ouverture, &c.; Important Phases in the
Working of the Slavery System and the Fugitive Slave Law; Statistics of
Slavery in the United States of America; Opinions of various Christian
Ministers in favour of Slavery and Slaveholding; Visits to the Fugitive
Slaves in Upper Canada; Comparative Results of Free and Slave Labour;
Prospects of the Abolitionists; Appeal against Slavery, &c. &c.

Among the Illustrations are the following, in the production of which no
expense has been spared:—Scene on the Coast of Africa—Rev. J. Henson,
when seven years old, separated from his Mother, and Sold at a Slave
Mart—Frederick Douglass, when a lad, whipped by Covey, the
Slave-breaker—Frederick Douglass, the Escaped Slave, on an English
platform, denouncing Slaveholders and their Religious Abettors—Slaves
proceeding to the South to be Sold; from the Life of Wm. Wells
Brown—Flight of Fugitives, guided by the North Star—The Fugitive Preston
carried off by the Slave-hunters—Landing of the Fugitives in Canada—Rev.
Dr. Pennington received by W. W. on his escape from Slavery—The Fugitive
Seized while Happy in the midst of his Family—The Fugitive Slave Flying
from the Slave-hunters and their Bloodhounds—Mrs. Banton’s Treatment of
her Young Slaves; an Incident in the Life of Lewis Clarke—Chase of a
Slaver at Sea—Interior of a Slave Ship, &c. &c.

⁂ Between 40,000 and 50,000 of this Almanack have already been sold, and
the demand still continues.


                  LONDON: JOHN CASSELL, LUDGATE HILL;
                          AND ALL BOOKSELLERS.




                            DOMESTIC WORSHIP.


 Now publishing, in Monthly Parts, each containing 64 Pages, demy quarto,
                           price ONE SHILLING,

                       THE ALTAR OF THE HOUSEHOLD:

                               A SERIES OF

 Services for Domestic Worship for every Morning and Evening in the Year;

                      SELECT PORTIONS OF HOLY WRIT,

                                   AND

           PRAYERS AND THANKSGIVINGS FOR PARTICULAR OCCASIONS;

                  With an Address to Heads of Families.

                   EDITED BY THE REV. JOHN HARRIS, D.D.

     _Principal of New College, St. John’s Wood; Author of “The Great
            Teacher;” “Mammon;” “Pre-Adamite Earth,” &c. &c._

                    ASSISTED BY EMINENT CONTRIBUTORS.


The desirableness of such a Publication is too obvious to need remark.
Even amongst those in whose hearts the spirit of devotion is pure and
ardent, a difficulty of expression, or a desire to avoid day after day
the repetition of the same phrases while referring to common
occurrences—acknowledging “every-day blessings,” or praying for their
daily renewal,—frequently produces considerable embarrassment; while
others—as, for instance, females, in the absence of the head of the
family—in consequence of nervousness or timidity, are prevented from
leading the devotions of the household. To such persons THE ALTAR OF THE
HOUSEHOLD will prove a valuable boon, whether used in the precise form
in which it appears, or as suggesting a suitable train of thoughts and
expressions. In these respects it may also greatly aid the private
devotions of the closet.

It will be seen that, in addition to the distinguished EDITOR, numerous
Ministers are engaged in the preparation of this Work. This may be
regarded as a guarantee for its Scriptural character, and its
acceptableness to all sections of the Christian Church—to “all who love
the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity.” At the same time, this provides for
a rich variety in the modes of expression, whether of adoration,
thanksgiving, or petition. Thus, languor and formality will be
prevented, while the moderate length of each service will be security
against “weariness of spirit” in any of the worshippers.

The following are among the Ministers engaged in the preparation of THE
ALTAR OF THE HOUSEHOLD:—

                    The Rev. J. SHERMAN,
                    The Rev. W. URWICK, D.D.,
                    The Rev. W. H. BUNTING, M.A.,
                    The Rev. R. FERGUSON, LL.D.,
                    The Rev. F. A. COX, D.D., LL.D.,
                    The Rev. Professor LORIMER,
                    The Rev. NEWMAN HALL, B.A.,
                    The Rev. B. S. HOLLIS,
                    The Rev. W. CHALMERS, A.M.,
                    The Rev. J. BEAUMONT, M.D.,
                    The Rev. SAMUEL MARTIN,
                    The Rev. WILLIAM BROCK,
                    The Rev. JOHN KENNEDY, A.M.
                    The Rev. WILLIAM LEASK,
                    The Rev. CHARLES WILLIAMS,
                    The Rev. W. W. EWBANK, A.M.,
                    The Rev. J. STOUGHTON,
                    The Rev. W. REID,
                    The Rev. GEORGE SMITH,
                                &c. &c.

The Publisher, therefore, confidently promises, as the result, a Work of
singular ability, adapted to every Family where such aid in Domestic
Worship is occasionally or regularly desirable.

The Work will be completed in Twelve Parts, one to appear on the First
day of each successive month; the whole forming One Handsome Volume;
with Frontispiece engraved on steel by a first-rate Artist.—Parts I. and
II. are now ready.




                    JOHN CASSELL’S LIBRARY COMPLETE.

  _This Series consists of Twenty-six Monthly Volumes, 7d. each, in
    paper covers; or the whole bound in cloth, forming the complete
    Library, 19s. 6d.; or arranged in a Library Box, 25s. The Works may
    be had separately, as follows:—Neatly bound, 1s. 6d. per Double
    Volume, or 2s. 3d. when Three Volumes in One, as in the History of
    France, and History of Ireland._


                           Historical Works.

THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND, by ROBERT FERGUSON, LL.D., in Four Volumes, 7d.
each, or in Two Double Volumes neatly bound in cloth, 1s. 6d. each; or
the whole bound together in One Thick Volume, 3s., or on fine paper,
with Portrait of the Author, 3s. 6d.; with gilt edges, 4s.

THE HISTORY OF SCOTLAND, by ROBERT FERGUSON, LL.D., in Two Volumes, 7d.
each, or One Double Volume, neatly bound in cloth, 1s. 6d.

THE HISTORY OF IRELAND, in Three Volumes, 7d. each, or the Three neatly
bound in One, 2s. 3d. This is pronounced, by competent judges, to be the
most impartial history of the sister kingdom ever published.

THE HISTORY AND SOURCES OF THE GREATNESS OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE. By
BENJAMIN PARSONS. In Two Volumes, price 7d. each, or neatly bound in
One, price 1s. 6d.

THE HISTORY OF FRANCE, from the Earliest Period to the Present Time;
with numerous Portraits. In Three Vols., 7d. each, or neatly bound in
One, 2s. 3d.


                             Biographical.

THE PEOPLE’S BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY. By J. R. BEARD, D.D. Two Double
Vols., 3s.


                           Scientific Works.

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MAN; OR, POPULAR CHAPTERS ON ETHNOGRAPHY. By JOHN
KENNEDY, A.M. In Two Volumes, 7d. each, or neatly bound in One, 1s. 6d.

THE WONDERS OF THE HEAVENS. By FREDERICK S. WILLIAMS. With Diagrams. In
One Volume, price 7d.

THE HISTORY OF THE STEAM-ENGINE, from the Second Century before the
Christian Era to the Time of the Great Exhibition, with many Engravings.
By Professor WALLACE. One Volume, price 7d.

           ☞ The last Two Vols. bound together, price 1s. 6d.


                          Voyages and Travels.

SAILINGS OVER THE GLOBE; or, the Progress of Maritime Discovery, East,
West, South, and North; including the Early Discoveries of the
Portuguese; the Voyages of Vasco de Gama, Mendez Pinto, and Magellan;
Eastern Enterprises of the English, and First Circumnavigation of the
Globe; the Four Voyages of Columbus; Cortez and the Conquest of Mexico;
Pizarro and the Discovery of Peru. In Two Volumes, 7d. each, or the Two
neatly bound in One, 1s. 6d.

FOOTPRINTS OF TRAVELLERS, in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America;
including Capel de Brooke’s Travels in Norway, Sweden, and Lapland;
Lyall’s Travels in the Crimea, the Caucasus, and Georgia; Inglis’s
Travels in the Tyrol; Travels among the Tartars, by the Ambassador of
the Pope, and also by Zivick and Schill; Heber’s Travels in India;
Burne’s Travels in Bokhara. In Two Volumes, 7d. each, or the Two neatly
bound in One, 1s. 6d.


        London: JOHN CASSELL, Ludgate Hill; and all Booksellers.


                       THE HALF-YEARLY SECTION OF

              THE HISTORY OF THE PAINTERS OF ALL NATIONS.

           Beautifully bound in cloth, price 14s., including—

                      Part 1.—MURILLO.
                      Part 2.—TENIERS THE YOUNGER.
                      Part 3.—REMBRANDT.
                      Part 4.—RUYSDAEL.
                      Part 5.—VALENTIN.
                      Part 6.—ALBERT DURER.

The “History of the Painters” is published in Monthly Parts, price 2s.,
each containing a Life, Portrait, and choice specimens of each Painter’s
Works, printed on separate Plate Paper.

 Elegantly bound in cloth, gilt, price 7s. 6d.; or handsomely bound in
                     extra cloth, gilt edges, 8s.,


                  THE ILLUSTRATED EXHIBITOR FOR 1851;
              A TRIBUTE TO THE WORLD’S INDUSTRIAL JUBILEE.

This really National Work will enable every Family to possess, at the
cheapest possible cost, a monumental record of one of the most
remarkable events in the world’s history. The Volume contains upwards of
600 Pages, and more than 1,000 Engravings, giving the most perfect and
compendious view of the Great Exhibition—its History, Construction of
the Building, and Historical and Moral Associations, besides comprising
Engravings of the most noticeable objects in Machinery, Manufactures,
Natural Produce, and Works of Art.


                         THE LADIES’ WORK BOOK;

Containing full Instructions for every kind of Ladies’ Work, in Point
Lace, Knitting, Embroidery, Crochet, &c., forming the most splendid Book
for the Work-table ever issued. This Work will contain an immense number
of the Newest Designs for Ladies’ Work, of every description, and will
be produced in a style perfectly unique. Price 2s. 6d.


                     THE LADIES’ DRAWING-ROOM BOOK;

In which will be introduced the choicest Engravings from the
“Illustrated Exhibitor and Magazine of Art,” and the “Ladies’ Work
Table;” the whole forming a beautiful Book for the Drawing-room. A more
handsome Book for a Christmas Present will not be published. The whole
Work will be printed on the finest Plate Paper, and got up in the first
style of art. Price 10s. 6d.


                   THE PATHWAY: A Religious Magazine.

Published on the First of each Month. Consisting of Thirty-two Pages
octavo, handsomely printed on good paper, enclosed in a neat Wrapper,
price Twopence per Number.

This is a Magazine of deep interest to Families, to Sabbath-school
Teachers, and to the Youth of England generally. Writers of known talent
furnish articles for the various departments, which include:—The Bible
and its Claims—Biblical Geography—History, Sacred and Profane—Christian
Philosophy—Biography—Miscellanies, and Select Poetry. Each article is
distinguished no less by its nervous and manly style than by the
directness and force of its truth.

Vols. I., II., and III., neatly bound in cloth, with Title-page and
Table of Contents, complete, price 2s. 3d. each. The Third Volume
contains interesting Papers on various Modes of Spending the Sabbath, by
Mrs. HARRIET BEECHER STOWE, authoress of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”


             J. CASSELL, LUDGATE HILL; AND ALL BOOKSELLERS.




               THIS DAY IS PUBLISHED, PRICE ONE SHILLING,

                   Enclosed in an Ornamental Wrapper,

                       THE FIRST MONTHLY PART OF

                    THE ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE OF ART,

                    BEING A MUCH-IMPROVED SERIES OF

              THE ILLUSTRATED EXHIBITOR & MAGAZINE OF ART.


For the information of those who have not seen previous announcements,
the character of the changes introduced may be thus stated:—

FIRST—as to the _Title_ of the Work. This will be, in future, THE
ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE OF ART. The title, “The Illustrated Exhibitor,”
&c., led many persons to suppose that it was a description of the
objects deposited at the Great Exhibition of 1851; whereas it is, as its
new title will more clearly explain, a rich repository of choice
Specimens of Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, Ornamental Design,
Natural History, Portraits, Machinery, Manufacturing Processes, &c. &c.

SECONDLY—as to the _character of the Contents_. The Articles will appear
in a more continuous and perfect form, with few or none of those breaks
and interruptions which gave the Series just concluded somewhat too much
of a fragmentary form. Due regard will be paid to an interesting
variety; and, where the entire subject cannot be disposed of in one
Part, it will be so arranged as that each portion shall be complete in
itself.

THIRDLY—as to the _Price_. Instead of the Monthly Parts varying in
price,—at sometimes 9d., and at other times 11d.,—the Parts will be
published at the uniform price of ONE SHILLING each. For this slight
advance in price the Purchasers will have a valuable equivalent. Besides
the profusion of Engravings throughout the Work, each Part will contain
at least Four principal Engravings, worked off separately upon superfine
Plate Paper. In order to compete the Half-yearly Volumes, the Parts for
_June_ and _December_ will contain _Thirty-two Pages_ extra of
illustrated matter, and Two separate first-class Engravings, worked on
Plate Paper. The price of these Parts will be 1s. 6d. each. As has been
already announced, the _Weekly Sections_ will consist of Sixteen Pages,
with a number of Engravings in the Text, and a first-class Engraving,
printed separately on fine Plate Paper; the whole stitched in a neat
Wrapper, price Threepence.

A feature of considerable interest will be introduced in the _Pictorial_
Department, namely, THE WORKS OF THE GREAT MASTERS. One entire Work will
be given in each Monthly Part, including a Memoir of the Master, with
his Portrait, and a Selection of Six of his principal Works, beautifully
engraved, and accompanied with appropriate descriptions.

The _Literary_ Department of the Work, also, will undergo considerable
improvement. Not the least interesting of the improvements will be a
course of Papers entitled, “The Men and Women of the Age,” not only of
this but of other countries, with exquisitely engraved Portraits, and
Original Biographical Sketches, obtained from the most authentic
sources. Nor will the taste for lighter Literature be overlooked. THE
ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE OF ART will contain a Series of Original Historical
and other Tales; including several by ANNA MARIA HOWITT, entitled, “The
School of Life;” and an Historical Novel, “The Dead Bridal,”
illustrative of one of the most interesting periods in the history of
the Venetian Republic, by “JONATHAN FRERE SLINGSBY,” of the _Dublin
University Magazine_, which will be commenced in the next Part; also
contributions from WILLIAM and MARY HOWITT, PERCY B. ST. JOHN, and other
distinguished Writers. In other respects, too, THE ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE
OF ART will be decidedly superior to its predecessor, upon which such
high eulogiums have been pronounced by all portions of the Public Press.


        London: JOHN CASSELL, Ludgate Hill; and all Booksellers.

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                          TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES


 1. Moved the initial book listings from before the Title Page to
      between the Colophon and the continuation of the lists.
 2. P. 172, changed “Millard Fillmore is not our master, but our master,
      but our servant” to “Millard Fillmore is not our master, but our
      servant”.
 3. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling.
 4. Archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as printed.
 5. Footnotes were re-indexed using numbers and collected together at
      the end of the last chapter.
 6. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.